User talk:Andy Dingley/Archive 2012 January

Constant Speed Drive

I actually do very little reverting but when I find a red cat that appears to duplicate other cats I tend to remove it to avoid an explosion in the number of cats. I've just found another one Category:Gas turbine engines. I think this duplicates Category:Gas turbines. What do you think? Biscuittin (talk) 08:51, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I think that should have been Gas turbine technology. I was trying to set this up, after re-working constant-speed drive. There's some related topics already existing under jet engines, but then most of this is about turbines, not jets

Might as well just delete the lot though - there's too much resistance to doing it and I can't be bothered any more. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:04, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, I have put Category:Jet engine technology in Category:Gas turbine technology. Biscuittin (talk) 12:05, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

fluoropolymer tubing or O-rings

Was looking at your peristaltic pump pictures. do you know if any of the tubing was fluoropolymer based?

If not, can you snap a picture of some fluoropolymer tubing, electrical insulation or Viton O-ring?

Am working on our fluorine chemistry articles.

TCO (Reviews needed) 19:05, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think it's silicone. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:09, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you.TCO (Reviews needed) 16:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

W

As you can see from W's talk page he has over 900 old merges that were done wrong and need to be fixed. I volunteered to help; it's something that really does need to be fixed and helping W out just might make him willing to be more collaborative in the future. You might want to consider volunteering to help knock down a few of them for the same reason. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:40, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no way I'm going near him, or his crappy one-sided edits. I would probably have been against most of these merges, so I'm hardly going to work to support him or them. If I post to his talk:, he reverts it anyway with an insulting message. This is an editor who, despite recent events, his response to a {{cn}} tag is to revert it on sight. As for this: Talk:Canadian_Parliamentary_Motion_on_Alexander_Graham_Bell! Andy Dingley (talk) 23:44, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Perfectly understandable. I have a tendency to be unreasonably optimistic about leopards and spots, despite getting kicked in the teeth again and again... --Guy Macon (talk) 04:46, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Moot point; he deleted my offer to help along with your request that he be civil instead of sarcastic. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Unconstructive metrication on Alan Keef Article

Andy, you undid my revision 468980995 on the Alan Keef article stating that my edit was an unconstructive metrication. Can you please clarify your motivation and point me to any WP guidelines concerning imperial and metric units? I assumed I resolved some inconsistencies in the gauge column instead of doing anything unconstructive. Aaron-Tripel (talk) 13:27, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

My first reaction was to consider opening a sockpuppet investigation on your account, on the grounds that you might be Tobias Conradi (talk · contribs) (aka, TrackConversion, TrackConnect, TellSI, Krontach and many others) returned yet again. This is a very contentious issue, and has been addressed several times in the past - see Talk:Track_gauge and the railway wikiproject. Fifteen inch gauge and two foot gauge railways exist because they are a convenient round number in Imperial units. Their metric equivalents of 381mm and 610mm are contrived and although used for description and comparability, they are never used by name in an ordinal manner, certainly not in English language media. Similarly 600mm gauge is a Decauville concept and it would be equally ludicrous to rename that content to "1 ft 11 5⁄8 in gauge", even if we offer the conversion for comparison purposes.

I don't know how Belgian footplate crew refer to their import two foot gauge locomotives, whether as two foot or as 610mm. However their English maker always described them as two foot. Certainly the French use the term "fifteen inch". I'd even go so far as to want citation to check that they're even still gauged to 610mm. It's common that second-hand British locomotives heading to the continent were re-gauged to 600mm.

I have my doubts over HTML2011 (talk · contribs) and Minimum gauge railway too, although that's more than I can fix quickly in one edit. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:42, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Your reply suggests that discussions about this metric/imperial have taken place many times before, to the extent that adressing this issue instantly makes me a suspicious person. If you have reasons thinking I might be a sockpuppet, feel free to investigate my account and associated IP's, and until you have drawn your conclusions and have proof of this, I request you not to address any allegations to me. (WP:AGF, assume good faith)

I was already aware of imperial vs metrical issues concerning track gauge, but, correct me if I am wrong, these issues were about gauge templates and category names, NOT the actual article content itself. See: User_talk:HTML2011#Your_recent_edits. Also, the discussion on User_talk:TrackConversion#Track_gauge_dispute is only about categories and gauge templates. The same applies for Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains/Archive:_2011,_1#Track_gauge_issues

Moreover, analyzing various UK specific narrow gauge pages show that most of the articles content is metrified (British narrow gauge railways, Decauville), and are in line with Wikipedia:UNIT#Which_units_to_use, as the assumption my addition to the Alan Keef article was (although I just learnt the original unit should always be mentioned first, the second between brackets).

Concerning the templates and categories, your arguments and those from the discussions mentioned above are sound, and I will fully comply with that.

The Minimum gauge railway's definition would dismiss the Ffestiniog Railway from being a two foot gauge category railway. Should be redefined. Aaron-Tripel (talk) 20:26, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I gave the impression I thought you were a sock puppet. This was only a fleeting suspicion, as we've seen so much trouble previously.

Unit conversion is very simple on WP - both imperial and metric units are given, in almost every case, so as to improve accessibility for readers from their more familiar system. However this is when applied to description values, not when it comes to ordinal naming. A metre is a metre, and "metre gauge" is only ever "metre gauge", "3 ft 3 3⁄8 in" being a pointless affectation. Where a gauge has its origins firmly in one system, the naming should keep following that system. A conversion should be given, but like wikilinking other terms, this should be done once and early, not on every occurrence. There is more reason to convert imperial to metric to facilitate sorting than there is to do it the other way. Re-ordering and re-labelling UK standard gauge as 1435 mm (4 ft 8 1/2 in) is confusing to every one.

The Minimum gauge railway article is a nonsense, as it now covers gauges from 7¼" to over 2' and has itself created an uncited definition for what it covers. The sourceable definition is of course from Heywood, which favours the 15 inch gauge but regards 10¼" to 18" as the workable limit. The experience of the Welsh slate railways shows how much more difficult even 2' is, when laid on an ash (or broken slate) ballast - those re-railing jacks were carried for a reason! Decauville only manage because of the steel sleepers.

Images

Would you be willing to assist in reviewing these back to the start of December 2011? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 14:39, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm a bit busy beating my wife. I'm not prepared to let you explain this as "I'm doing nothing wrong, and if anyone complains it's their problem to clear up afterwards". If your error rate is excessive, then you just shouldn't be doing it. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:00, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia files with NFUR blocks but free license

Would appreciate a second viewpoint :) Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:13, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

It's a bad idea to have this category and it should be deleted forthwith.

IMHO, this category indicates a set of files that are defined and recognisable, but not a group that is useful to recognise. It's never necessary to combine these two factors (free content doesn't need a FUR), but nor is it an error to have these two in combination. Editors are all amateurs, so bad input data is going to happen. We shouldnm't over-react to this when we don't need to.

The risk from seeing this group as something to be "fixed" is that it's not just a simple group, with a simple cause and resolution.

• Suppose a valid non-free fair-use item is correctly FURed
• The item then gains an incorrect free licence (by innocent mistake, malice or whatever).
• It is categorized into this category.
• It's removed from this category by trivially converting the FUR to an Information.

• Later on, the free licence is corrected to a fair-use claim. As there is no FUR though, we've now got an invalid file state, which is now prone to deletion. Yet there is no historical reason why we ever needed to do this. We used to have a FUR, and there was no good reason why we needed to remove it.

A better fix for this situation is to isolate Information, licence and FUR. If one of them is invalid, we work on that component, and that component alone. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:38, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of the category is a simple redirect of the template concerned to {{wrong license}} Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:55, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Now done.. If anyone moans, I'll point them to the above :) Sfan00 IMG (talk) 16:02, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

File:Robert_Raymond.JPG

I'd like a second opinion , I've been tagging a lot of these Sfan00 IMG (talk) 18:07, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

No idea. This is very obviously one of those "copywrong" cases (many other names for it too, "copyfraud", "copytheft" are some of the more polite) where an item that should be PD, usually by age, has a further copyright claimed upon it by some current agency. The question is a complex legal one: should this claim (Which needs to be explicitly stated, because there's no other reason we'd expect it to exist.) be entertained at all, or do we just have the legal cojones to totally ignore it? I can claim that you owe me "keyboard rental" for making me write this, but that's no reason you ought to believe me.

A similar issue exists for some Flickr images, where the infamously litigious Getty Images has offered itself to the photographer as a licensing agent. Images that were (or still are) offered under a free licence later sprout a link to Getty and an offer to sell licences for their re-use.

This is just not something you or I have any position within WMF to make a judgement upon. It needs to go upstairs, if it hasn't already done so.

Tagging it for "Don't make things worse by moving it to Commons too" is a good start though. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:15, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Can you bring this up in an appropriate forum? I don't feel I have the standing/competence to do so, given your critique on my talk page. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 18:20, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Art images (again)

User_talk:Coemgenus#Art_images - :( , Can't blame me for trying :( Sfan00 IMG (talk) 18:22, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Answered there. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:35, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

TINI

'sokay, I'll take your word for it. I'm mainly keeping an eye on an editor who seemed to be doing promo-ish edits for Maxim. If you could take a look at TINI (integrated solutions) and tell me if you think I'm in the wrong, that'd be good. --Nat Gertler (talk) 01:32, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I've just supported your prod for the bare trademark. I'd be amazed if it could demonstrate any notability already and although it could well do it in time (Nike swoosh? Coke bottles?), it'll need independent sourcing before we even think about it. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not saying articles for trademarks are impossible... and to tell the truth, I don't think he was trying to do an article on the trademark but on the product. He just worded it that way. But you're certainly right that there are trademarks which are sufficiently notable that they have been written up by themselves and thus meet notability standards, just that, say, finding a lot of people talking about Coke doesn't mean the trademark is notable, merely the product. --Nat Gertler (talk) 02:08, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Category:Calicut

I am planning to delete Category:Calicut because it duplicates Category:Kozhikode. Do you have any objection? Biscuittin (talk) 11:55, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

No objections here - I don't think I've had any significant contact with it. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:56, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Change of plan. I've found several articles with Calicut in the title, so I've decided to keep it. Biscuittin (talk) 12:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

hi,Andy Dingley: I saw "External links" listed some companies, we are fluorine plastics pump factory,can we list it in this page?how can we list? shold we pay?my email:ms123ms@gmail.com can you tell me how can we list in it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.94.211.196 (talk) 03:00, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

list

hi,Andy Dingley: I saw "External links" listed some companies, we are fluorine plastics pump factory,can we list it in this page?how can we list? shold we pay?my email:ms123ms@gmail.com can you tell me how can we list in it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.94.211.196 (talk) 03:03, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

No.

This is not a trade directory.

Wikipedia policy on external links is described here WP:EL and WP:ELNO Andy Dingley (talk) 10:51, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Yogo sources

I never said I couldn't afford a loupe, you missed my point on that, but eh. I can post here or email you some Yogo sources I totally trust if you like. As the article mentions they tend to be more expensive that other sapphires. The ones under .5 carat aren't too bad but when you hit the 1 ct size, a really nice finished gem probably can't be had for less that $10,000 or so. I have to leave now, but let me know how and if you want me to send you some Yogo sources. You seem to be a fellow who'd only want really nice specimens. Ask for the classic cornflower blue (like the pear in the article). The purple ones are nice to have too since they're so rare. Some dealers charge extra for them, some don't. PumpkinSky talk 11:02, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, although I certainly don't have the budget (or indeed the need) for a large stone, the prices for the smaller ones seem reasonable and they should show the colour just as well. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:09, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Andrew! Since this is all publicly available info, I'll just post here.

• On ebay I've used user: jackelyn, and found her to be 100% reliable. She's from Spokane, WA and specializes in Yogos.
• By phone and email I've used Montana Gem in Columbus, MT. The couple Randy and Katie Gneiting are very nice and I totally trust them too. They have a respectable set of rare purple Yogos, considering they are so rare.

Two places you may want to check out (disclaimer: I've not bought from them) are: Adair Jewelers in Missoula, MT and Gem Gallery in Bozeman, MT.

Best wishes, PSKy PumpkinSky talk 23:38, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Andy Dingley (talk) 23:44, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Did you get the email? Since you've kindly offered to make some free Yogo photos, (not trying to rush or anything) do you when they might be available? Cas has agreed to sheperd me through FAC. I'd prefer not to nom it without better pics. I'll try to take better ones too but I doubt I can take a really good one, even with your tips. I'm not good at artsy stuff. PumpkinSky talk 22:37, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't wait on my photos. I have no time for Wikipedia for some weeks. I might get some Yogos ordered, but they're a very low priority, then it takes ages for things to appear from the US postal system. If I buy anything expensive (which isn't going to happen initially, until I've seen these famous colours for myself), there's also the issue of shipping method, and which is cheapest (20% import duties on some routes).

Once I have them, then I need to find time to photograph them. I'll do them quickly with a camera and close-up lens. When I have more time, I'll try them in the new Leitz microscope. However this microscope is a biological microscope (phase contrast and UV fluorescence) so I still need to arrange better top illumination for this sort of work. It might work as-is, it might need some fiddling with. I don't have any sort of camera adapter on it yet, but I can borrow one, or else use a friend's microscope. At least the low-power objective I have is good enough that even though it's a microscope objective, it has usable depth of field.

What I'd seriously suggest is what I suggested before - re-shoot with the camera you have, but get better lighting on there and try using a loupe as a supplementary close-up lens. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:15, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually I just did that and was about to upload them to see what people thought. Back in a few. PumpkinSky talk 23:03, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

First eBay sale has fallen through - they won't ship outside the USA. 8-( Andy Dingley (talk) 23:13, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Your attention is requested here: Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Reshoot_of_Yogo_sapphires. PumpkinSky talk 23:23, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Clack

BR Standard Class 9F. Note the polished copper pipework to the injectors, mounted low below the footplate

Andy, thanks for finding the support material. If I understand properly, there are two elements, Clack Valve and Injector(s). Obviously they would be in close proximity to minimise high pressure lines outside of the boiler. I had a huge problem with the way the text was originally written and how it had wormed its way into articles where I doubt it is correct (e.g. domestic water systems). Also I note you refer to maritime boilers which are very different i.e. water is within tubes rather than on the outside of normal locomotive fire tubes. Also maritime boilers have systems to recycle condensed steam and should not suffer so quickly from limescale. I also read that American practice was to keep boilers fired for much longer than a week and am curious to their solution? Rjstott (talk) 10:19, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Clack valves are actually a long way from the injectors. Injectors don't work when they're hot, so they're placed away from the boiler. Often they're placed low-down, which allows cold feedwater to be run through them under gravity to cool them down, if they do over heat. Clack valves though are always placed directly onto the boiler shell - whether they're side feed, rear feed and top feed. I presume this is, as you say, to reduce the volume and number of components that are under full boiler pressure.

Maritime boilers are a world apart. They also vary radically between 1850 and 1950, compared to locomotive boilers that changed only in gradual details.

Locomotive boilers are relatively careless as to their feedwater, using what's available locally. Treatment plants (except in France, who took such things far more seriously) aren't often used and if any feedwater treatment is used, it tends to be of the simplest "throw a shovel of magic powder in the tanks from time to time" form. Scale thus depends a lot on location - where British railways pre-1923 covered small regions, often with distinctive water quality for each, we even find that the design of boilers was done on a regional and per-railway basis. Compare the careless use of steel firebox stays on the GWR (good soft water, water treatment plants used where it wasn't) to the L&YR's hard pennine water and Hoy's abortive experiments with Hoy's own alloy and a cylindrical furnace like a Lentz boiler

Maritime boilers (outside Windermere and Finland) generally use salt water as their supply, and since the 1860s (or so) this hasn't been used directly in the boilers. Instead a separate evaporator is used, as an on-board water treatment plant. The scale is thus deposited (and removed) in the evaporators, not the boiler, and citric acid is further used to control scale in the boilers.

Scale is removed in one of two ways: either by washout or by blowdown. Locomotives are used in fleets, for short journeys, so they're cleaned by periodic washout. Once a week the boiler is out of service, drained, and is cleaned by washing through. This works best if the scale deposited is in terms of mud (soft, unattached, collects in the lower parts of the boiler such as the firebox foundation ring) rather than scale (hard, firmly attached, builds up on the hottest surfaces of the firebox, where it also causes most risk. Although traction engines, and especially portable engines, often had a manhole in the boiler drum, locomotive boilers don't. Even if there's a steam dome, this is usually filled with the regulator and so isn't easy to use for man access into the boiler. Scale removal thus needs to be done with scraper rods through the mud holes (4" - 6" across) rather than getting inside and closely inspecting. There's at least one referenceable boiler explosion that was put down as a contributing factor to the inspection practice for the firebox crown as having been a rather inadequate flaming paraffin-soaked rag on a stick, where today we'd use a battery flashlight, if not a camera on a stick.

Marine boilers use washout too, but relative rarely. As large ships have multiple boilers it's possible (especially for warships, which have a huge unused reserve boiler capacity) it's possible to take individual boilers out of service. They also have access manholes into each drum. In general service though, continuous blowdown is used instead. This began with the saltwater feed of pre-condenser engines, but the separated circulation system of water-tube boilers still encourage it today. Mud collects preferentially in a low-set mud drum, and this can be blow down through a blowdown valve. There was sometimes a scum valve, a blowdown valve mounted on the waterline to remove oily deposits - in the piston engine era at least, less important with turbines. As blowdown reduces the rate of unremovable scale buildup, such boilers can be kept in service for far longer before needing washout. Water-tube boilers deposit their scale on the inside of their tubes, so this is removed by wire brushes, either on sticks or blown through pneumatically. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:30, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

removing uncivil material from talk pages "free energy/cold fusion/gravity motor/tinfoil-hat-required"

You want to keep the vulgar language?

Andy is just trolling, let me demonstrate, This is what his edit history looks like:

17:06, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Robert Deitch ‎ (→External Links: removed peswiki.com link- unreliable) (top)
17:05, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Clostridium acetobutylicum ‎ (→References: removed peswiki.com ref - unreliable source, linked to copyvio?) (top)
17:03, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Talk:SU Carburetter ‎ (→peswiki.com as a source: new section)
16:59, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Steven E. Jones ‎ (→External links: removed peswiki.com - unreliable) (top)
16:58, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Six-stroke engine ‎ (→Velozeta six-stroke engine: removed peswiki.com ref - unreliable) (top)
16:41, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Stirling engine ‎ (Bibliography: removed pesn.com - unreliable source) (top)
16:38, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Lightning ‎ (deleted references sourced from pesn.com - unreliable source) (top)
16:36, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Applications of the Stirling engine ‎ (deleted reference sourced from pesn.com - unreliable source) (top)
16:35, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Upper-atmospheric lightning ‎ (deleted reference sourced from pesn.com - unreliable source) (top)
16:33, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Luminescence ‎ (deleted link to pesn.com - unreliable source) (top)
16:32, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Sprite (lightning) ‎ (deleted reference to pesn.com - unreliable source) (top)
16:30, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) James Bay ‎ (→External links: deleted link to pesn.com - unreliable source) (top)
16:29, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Pneumatic motor ‎ (→Application: deleted reference sourced from pesn.com - unreliable source) (top)
16:27, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Pneumatic motor ‎ (→Linear: deleted reference sourced from pesn.com - unreliable source)
16:23, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Free energy suppression ‎ (removed pesn.com ref - unreliable source) (top)
16:21, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Eugene Mallove ‎ (removed pesn.com ref - unreliable source) (top)
16:20, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Ungava Bay ‎ (→External links: removed pesn.com - unreliable source) (top)
16:18, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Solar thermal energy ‎ (removed two references to pesn.com - totally unreliable source) (top)
16:16, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Josef Papp ‎ (removed pesn.com from external links - totally unreliable (2nd link)) (top)
16:15, 9 January 2012 (diff | hist) Josef Papp ‎ (removed pesn.com from external inks - totally unreliable) 

But after removing all those peswiki links he all of a sudden needs to ask now?

The peswiki.com source is about as unreliable as one could find - a wiki (obviously) linked to a conspiracy-theory pushing 'free energy/cold fusion/gravity motor/tinfoil-hat-required' blog. Can I ask that someone finds an alternative source for this article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Are you a conspiracy-theory pushing 'free energy/cold fusion/gravity motor/tinfoil-hat-required' kind of person Andy Dingley?

Is it ok if I call you a conspiracy pusher?

WP:DONTBEADICK

84.106.26.81 (talk) 17:16, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

See reply already at Talk:SU_Carburetter#peswiki.com_as_a_source

I don't give a damn what either of you get up to on other pages, but Talk:SU_Carburetter is the talk page for one article at SU_Carburetter, not broader grievances. Take those to where they belong. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:21, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

"I don't give a damn" This is your excuse?

You sound like quite the conspiracy-theory pushing 'free energy/cold fusion/gravity motor/tinfoil-hat-required' editor here:[1]

This is how you think we should address people on Wikipedia?

If so, you got entirely the wrong idea.

84.106.26.81 (talk) 17:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Yogo reshoot 2

Pls see Talk:Yogo_sapphire#Round_2_of_reshoot for new ones. These are much better if I can say so myself. Input appreciated. PumpkinSky talk 01:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Wearable technology

Hi Andy, a quick comment to the article in question. The current selection (section: history) seems random at best (i.e. calculator watch + Ilya Fridman). Could be remedied by adding text about other key developments in the field of wearables - from Steve Mann's project of sousveillance [2] to Leah Buechley's LilyPad Arduino and the related emerging DIY culture, research and business in fashion tech wearables (e.g. FashioningTech.com, Instructables.com, 3lectromode.com etc.). Other perspectives to include could be the use of wearables within pervasive healthcare (e.g. sensors embedded in clothing), sports (e.g. Nike's running shoes) or popular culture (i.e. The Black Eyed Peas' use of responsive wearables in their Super Bowl performance http://www.v2.nl/lab/blog/from-lab-to-showbiz). These are, however, just suggestions - it is my first Wikipedia-edit and I would very much like to make sure that my edits from here on comply with the guidelines.

Hyperbole01 (talk) 07:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Please read WP:EL (and WP:ELNO), as external links are usually misunderstood. Good articles shouldn't have links, ideally. Links aren't regarded as enhancements or valuable additions to an encyclopedia article and almost all articles should avoid turning into link directories. An EL is there as an excuse - some (hopefully temporary) issue where content exists on the web, but can't currently be added to the WP article itself. These are supposed to be articles in a self-contained encyclopedia, not merely nodes in an overall web. There are two exceptions to this: "Sources" which exist to WP:Verify statements already made in the article (you can use these to check an article, but you don't need to read them to understand the whole article); secondly there are obvious exceptions for articles whose topic is itself web-related, or where a business runs its own website.

There were two issues that caused me to revert the link. First of all, does it meet WP:EL? Does the inclusion of this link add something to the article that can't be done otherwise? Now worthy projects exist where they deserve their web coverage, but they never deserve WP coverage in the same way (unless they're actually the subject). It's the purpose of WP to write good articles explaining "wearable technology", not to showcase every wearable project out there.

Secondly, you have two wiki edits, both of which added the same EL. That just screams spam. On average, given the vast spam onslaught WP is under, a new account that already knows how to handle EL syntax and adds multiple posts of the same link as their only edit is always going to be seen as suspicious. This is "unfair" and I don't care. For every potentially good link that I remove incorrectly, I've also had fifty where it's simple gross spam.

>>> I've removed all links, all edits, so at to come across in the strongest possible way with the following: The current "article" in question is not just "missing an awful lot", but - in its current form - more likely to be in violation with the WP:EL. I'll made suggestions on how to remedy that on the talk-tab. Unfortunately I don't have to time to rewrite, so my proposal for a "quick fix" will be to remove and not add.

The real reason though comes back to WP:EL. Does this EL add to the article, because what the article might add to the EL just isn't relevant. Your site here is indeed about wearable technology. However I can't see it adding anything new to the article. It's a site that's low on content (at least to my brief look at it) and the project itself doesn't seem to be doing anything interesting with wearable technology. "Lights on bags" doesn't cut it as ground-breaking. I'm organising a Steampunk festival at the moment (Waltz on the Wye, Chepstow, South Wales, May 2012) and we'll have people there wearing things like a "North-pointing waistcoat" (Embedded glow string that's controlled by a compass) or even garments that use short-range wireless networks to identify similar garments and react to them.

The current article is probably missing an awful lot that could be added, and I'd welcome you to add more, even ELs.

>>> see the above: The article probably needs to be rewritten from the ground up, not to have more stuff added.

Please bear in mind though the core of WP:EL. This content, and its links, need to be there to improve the article by adding content to it. Promotion of the external site just shouldn't be a goal. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:32, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I suggest moving all of this to the article talk page, as the best shared forum. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:54, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thanks for the photo for three point hitch. Both existing photos had problems to some extent. Aflafla1 (talk) 02:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Latest pear and purple Yogo sapphire photos

See Talk:Yogo_sapphire#Latest_pear_and_purple_photos. Hope you think they're better, and just in time for the Great Wiki Blackout of jan 2012! PumpkinSky talk 01:05, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Computer hardware versus mere electronic hardware (your revert of my Intel 8086 edit)

Ha! This issue came up as a side effect of my efforts to replace many of the hardware links in Wikipedia with more specific computer hardware links. Another editor took issue with one of my edits: see User talk:Wbm1058#Computer hardware. I've moved the discussion to Talk:Computer#Definitions of computer vs. computer (disambiguation), and general-purpose computer vs. special-purpose computer, please do contribute your thoughts there. Thanks for pointing out the electronic hardware article, which is definitely more specific than electronic circuit hardware—somehow I missed that one! Wbm1058 (talk) 15:47, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

3 reverts

Does not apply to removal of unsourced material - it's Wikipedia policy that ALL material must be sourced. It does apply to reverting it without sources. WP:BURDEN places the responsibility of providing citations on anyone who adds the material back. Repeated adding back without sources is edit waring. 109.153.242.10 (talk) 14:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

You might like to read WP:POINT

I prefer the admin notification direct to myself that ANY EDITOR can delete ANY unsourced material, and that 3RR does not apply to such a deletion as it is Wikipedia policy. 109.153.242.10 (talk) 15:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Then both you, and your invisible friend with the mop, need to read WP:NOT3RR

Warning templates

Hello Andy :)

I am just reminding you to use warning templates when reverting vandalism. Thank you. 17:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I have intention whatsoever of using them, when it's better to not do so. WP:DENY is one case, but Laserpenhallschool (talk · contribs) is a very new editor, two of those pages were reasonable edits within AGF, and I think they'd be much better served with a welcome and some pointers, rather than a direct warning. My apologies for our edit conflict, but Twinkle isn't great for this. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:21, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Wax Thermostat thingy

Good, some references are appearing. But the article still lack the one vital reference that it needs. That the thermostat's raison d'être is to regulate the coolant temperature. I can't find one and apparently you can't becauase that is not what it does. It merely obstructs the flow of coolant until the engine reaches a predetermined temperature. It plays no part after that (until the engine cools down). 109.153.242.10 (talk) 15:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

In fact you can prove it for yourself. Start your engine and observe the temperature guage (SAFETY WARNING: Don't attempt this while driving). As the temperature creeps up, you will notice it fall back slightly. This is the point at which the thermostat opens and the fall back is due to the cooler coolant entering the engine from the radiator. This point is way below the temperature to which the temperature guage ultimately settles (i.e. way above the opening point). 109.153.242.10 (talk) 15:32, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I live in a fairly moderate climate. Although I have a two-speed thermostatically controlled radiator fan, it just doesn't run for most of the year - only in stationary traffic, or at the height of summer. I also have several older cars where there is no thermostatic control of the fan speed - it's just engine driven.

Most single loop thermostats have fairly crude temperature control. However Italian cars of the '70s (the Fiat Twin Cam being one engine, especially when fitted into the cramped transverse Lancia FWD mounting) needed a more precise control. They achieved this with what I think was the first widespread mass-production use of a bypass thermostat system (the thermostat is in an external Y pipe). These have deliberately sophisticated temperature control, all done by the thermostat, and before any real sophistication of the fan speed control. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I have been trying to find a cite for the thermostat function, but there doesn’t appear to be much that isn’t a direct crib from Wikipedia (always a bad idea), or is worded too vaguely to impart much information.

However, I did discover a section in an old car maintenance manual (the official manufacturer’s manual not the abridged ‘Haynes’ type manual). In the section on the cooling system in volume 3 it describes the thermostat’s function as , ”The function of the thermostat is to allow the engine to heat up rapidly, only allowing coolant in when the temperature gets hot enough”. [Surely it’s the engine that heats up not the temperature.] This is somewhat vague to use as a citation. The beginning of the section gives a few parameters, and in particular, ”Normal operating temperature: 78-88 °C” [rather wide for something regulated in my view].

Further on in the section is a method of testing the thermostat.

”When the thermostat is at normal workshop temperature, it should be fully closed. If the thermostat is even partially open it should be replaced. Place the thermostat with a thermometer that covers the range up to 90 °C in a suitable pan, fill with water to fully cover the thermostat and place on an electric or gas stove. [There is a helpful illustration of the method for the hard of thinking.] Gently heat the water, observing both the thermostat and the thermometer. The thermostat should be fully open when the thermometer reads 73 °C. The thermostat should be replaced if this is not the case.” [The thermostat illustrated has ‘165’ stamped on the bottom which corresponds to 73 °C in Farenheight].

With the best will in the world, a thermostat that is fully open at 73 °C is not going to regulate the temperature of an engine that normally operates at 78-88 °C. Problem is that this is citation by implication.

In my subsequent searching, I found something rather interesting. It would seem that there are markets where the emissions from the engine have to be very tightly controlled (I believe the US is such a market). For the emission to be controlled tightly enough to meet the stringent regulations, the engine temperature also has to be tightly controlled. In these markets, it would seem that the thermostat has to regulate the temperature within much tighter limits than suggested above and in order to assist it in this function, the normal operating temperature (and thermostat operating temperature is elevated to around 90 °C). So it would seem that both versions of the raison d’être are correct depending on location. All it now needs are suitable sources and the article being amended accordingly. 86.151.114.13 (talk) 17:23, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The behavior observed by IP 190... is almost surely due to the measurement not being at the same place as the thermostat, or having the same thermal time constant. Another line of reasoning shows the thermostat normally controls the temperature. If the thermostat does nothing in normal operation, then engine temperature should vary directly as the outside temperature. (if there is no temperature controlled fan). In fact I had an old Jensen-Healey that did exactly this. IIRC, if the temperature was below about 60 degrees F, the temp stabilized about 180F. Above that, the temp was about 180 + (T-60), getting dangerously hot on very hot days. However, most modern cars are much more like my Honda and Toyota, with a rock-solid temperature that depends not at all (that I can see) on the outside temperature, from -10 F to 110F. The only way this can be is if the thermostat controls the flow. This also to be expected since strict emission controls rely on very stable engine temperatures. LouScheffer (talk) 22:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Reversion

Hi, Andy Dingley. I am interested in learning your reasoning for this reversion. It's certainly possible that I've misinterpreted of WP:D3, WP:DABNOT and MOS:DABRL. However, the deletion was not carelessness on my part, but rather made with intent to guidelines. What am I missing here? Regards. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 23:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

You removed two entries. Do what you like about the Lexx ones, but Squish (piston engine) is a notable topic that already has multiple inbound links. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:23, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Whoops. Okay. I definitely missed the links on those pages. Thanks for pointing that out. In the future, though, it would be helpful if you restored only that portion which you determined to be a mistake. Cheers. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 23:44, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Your AfD comments

Hi, you may want to reconsider your recent AfD comment after looking at my list of recent article creations, which include numerous articles about fictional works, including this one or that one. However, according to our current inclusion criteria, all entries must meet the notability criteria on their own, which means that it is not a good idea to cover individual plot elements at great length in separate articles, unless these plot elements have themselves been the subject of third party coverage. I wish the people who spend their time typing up these huge plot summaries would focus on covering this fiction more professionally, as described in WP:WAF. Regards,  Sandstein  22:17, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

So you think that because you'rve created a bunch of articles on whatever your particular interest, that excuses a demolition run across another topic? Edit count does not equate to a bigger voice. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:21, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I was merely trying to hint that your suggestion that I do not "get over it" that Wikipedia covers fiction may be less than entirely grounded in fact. Certainly my edit count does not matter; but may I suggest that your arguments will be better received if they focus on the application of the inclusion guidelines at issue rather than on the perceived personal failings of the editors you disagree with? We may have a few words of advice about that somewhere... Regards,  Sandstein  22:27, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you think of something more useful to spend your time on than seeking to delete all coverage of a well-regarded fictional series, on no other grounds than that you're unfamiliar with it, and that it hasn't been turned into a Hollywood film? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:30, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Aren't you again imputing strange motives to me? These are certainly not the grounds on which I nominated these articles for deletion. I did so because I believe that our coverage of fiction, as of all other topics, should be of high quality, which means that it should be balanced and professional in tone and approach. Among other things, this means, as described in WP:WAF, that "Articles about fiction, like all Wikipedia articles, should adhere to the real world as their primary frame of reference. The approach is to describe the subject matter from the perspective of the real world, in which the work of fiction and its publication are embedded." I also agree with our policy, WP:PLOT, that we are not dedicated to providing summary-only descriptions of works, that is: "Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner, discussing the reception and significance of notable works in addition to a concise summary." This means that having dozens of pages that do nothing more than summarize the plot of a novel from an "in-universe" point of view (that is, written in such a way as if we were describing real events) is detrimental to the quality of the encyclopedia as a whole, because it is material that is beyond the scope that we have set for ourselves.  Sandstein  22:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and I see that despite you being an admin, you've forgotten to threaten to block me. After all, admins always deserve their respect and they get so stroppy when the untermensch forget to grovel. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Er, are you all right? Is there something that stresses you? Or have I previously offended you in some way of which I am not aware?  Sandstein  22:42, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Might I make a suggestion for Sandstein? If your theory is correct, then it would certainly apply to Hogwarts, Narnia, Springfield, and The Emerald City. None of them have significant third party coverage outside of coverage of the fictional works that they are elements of. I believe that attempting to delete those pages would provide a useful education about notability, plot elements and third-party coverage specific to the plot element. I would also note that many of the Wikipedia policies and guidelines that you reference (WP:WAF, WP:PLOT) are about the content of articles, not about whether the articles should exist. You appear to be using the argument "if it is low quality, delete it" instead of the basic Wikipedia policy of "if it is low quality, improve it" --Guy Macon (talk) 23:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Taking that as an honest suggestion, I rather think a more likely outcome would be a torrent of abuse directed at the nominator for being a deletionist out to ruin people's lives, which is what usually happens when someone attempts to apply Wikipedia's general guidelines on content, tone and point of view to the domain of popular Western fiction on Wikipedia. This is why it's fortunate that there are thick-skinned editors willing to work on this difficult and thankless task from time to time. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:31, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

So you're claiming that popularity trumps policy? The reason why the little-known (outside the UK) Mortal Engines (and Redwall) series can be deleted is that they're not of interest to US teens, whilst Digimon is? I don't much care whether WP covers fiction or not, that's a huge issue of overall project scope, but actions here like Sandstein's are wholly inconsistent with the project's behaviour for other titles in much the same genre, just because of their relative popularity. Take a look at Reaver (Firefly) - yet who's going to touch that? Now either delete them all or keep them all. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

"Popularity" is, in fact, a key factor here, because it indirectly affects the amount of coverage a given subject will get from secondary sources. I don't have a particular opinion on the Mortal Engines-related AfD linked to above, but it's certainly not a binary "either we cover fiction or we don't": some fictional subjects is more notable than others, and they need to be assessed individually. Odd that you picked Digimon as your example of a sacred cow that survives solely based on popularity, when its close cousin is probably the most high-profile case of the community cracking down on excessive fancruft. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:17, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

What is "popularity", what is "notability" and which influences the retention of an article?

Notability has a stated definition via WP:N and this series is well past it.

Popularity is a grey scale. Mortal Engines meets it to most standards (this is after all a very widely known series - it has been taught in UK schools for some years), but not to the simplistic WP standard of "Has Hollywood made a film of it?" (I believe it has been optioned thus far, but nothing produced). Sandstein doesn't appear to have heard of it.

The question is about the bar for in-universe coverage and sourcing. If a topic reaches the "Hollywood film" level of popularity, it is allowed unreferenced purely in-universe articles (and Pokemon is still an offender here). Even though Harry Potter is flooded by secondary sources in general, minor spells and characters still depend on in-universe sources. There is a basic inconsistency at AfD in terms of the sourcing demanded, depending solely on their popularity amongst US teenagers. This is particularly evident for well structured coverage across multiple articles. Mortal Engines has plentiful secondary coverage and no-one is credibly going to delete the main article. Its main plot device is the Traction City and again, no-one would remove coverage of that from the main article. However, simply because coverage is extensive and well-structured, this now exposes the topic to deletion as a separate article - as indeed has happened here. So is this really any useful way to judge content? Trivial in-universe crap goes unchallenged while it's under the radar in a bigger article, populist guff is left unchallenged because it annoys the many fanboys to remove it, but well-written content on a fairly major book series from a big-name author is instead held to a separate and higher standard against in-universe sourcing, just because of the article structure, not the content itself. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that we are wildly inconsistent in our application of standards, and that when it comes to AfDs on fiction the result is that "keep because I saw this on Saturday morning TV" tends to end up trumping "I can firmly establish the level of secondary coverage this subject has received". However, none of that really has any bearing here. If our articles on less broadly popular subjects are easier to police, content-wise, than our articles on the most popular content, then we should endeavour to do so and thus at least ensure that some part of our fiction coverage looks like our treatment of more important topics. If instead we wax on about how nobody ever goes destroying the hard work of those editors whose main contributions here are biographies on guest villains from Buffy the Vampire Slayer then all we do is drag all of our fiction content to the lowest common denominator. It's only by having a foothold in some of the easier topics to monitor that any pressure to improve can be put on the really huge, crufty stuff. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: "I rather think a more likely outcome would be a torrent of abuse directed at the nominator for being a deletionist out to ruin people's lives, which is what usually happens when someone attempts to apply Wikipedia's general guidelines", in my opinion you are only half right. Yes, you would be criticized for being a deletionist, but IMO something else would happen. You would be informed in no uncertain terms by a bunch of experienced editors and administrators that you are very much mistaken in your views about Wikipedia's general guidelines and how they apply to plot elements. If you are right and I am wrong, your deletion of Hogwarts would stand no matter how unpopular it is. But I don't think I am wrong. I think that the only reason you haven't had your misunderstanding about notability corrected is because you have only applied it to articles with limited visibility. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

That's a straw man argument. The notability of random fictional elements on Wikipedia is not solely predicated on whether the article for Hogwarts (which is, if I'm not mistaken, the primary setting for the most popular fictional series written in the UK for several decades) would survive an AfD or not. "Limited visibility" and "limited notability" are linked, if not directly correlated, and when fictional subjects have their articles deleted it is not solely because they had "limited visibility". I'm sure there must have been some successful AfDs for excessively trivial aspects of the Harry Potter universe by now as well anyway. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:17, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Tripcode

Thanks for that re-write! Now at least the rest of us can understand what the #$^@# is being talked about in that article. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome - they're actually quite an interesting and important topic, where a very obscure bit of crypto theory has made it out into the mainstream, and in a manner we're they're not hidden 'under the hood'. The bit about the vanity license plates is interesting too. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:10, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Merge tag

Regarding this edit summary: the merge tag was placed four minutes before you removed it. Did you really mean "stale" there? As for the article itself, seeing as it's completely unreferenced (save for one broken link to what was presumably a product website), a merge here seems truly uncontroversial. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:42, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see it added. I assumed that it was as stale as the years-old discussion of just the same merge on the talk page. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:59, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem. I do intend on merging these, at least in the short term, until we've got at least one article with pretences of being a reasonably comprehensive treatment on the subject. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:15, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

That would be a bad merge. Three wheelers is a big topic and could quite easily be two topics, depending on orientation. Tilting three wheelers are further distinct from this, especially for those with two front wheels, like the MP3. Per WP:IMPERFECT, we ought to move towards the right structure for articles, not go backwards because we aren't there yet. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:18, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

IMPERFECT does not, and never has, discouraged merging. The best way to move forward is often a short-term merge which allows for key points to be concentrated into one place to be identified, isolated, improved and then spun out again as and when length or scope requires it. It really doesn't matter where we cover things, what with the power of redirects and other hyperlinks, but in my experience articles get improved much faster if there's an obvious potential; it is daunting for irregular editors to improve very low-quality articles in-place. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Sigh. Are you helping in any way with this edit? Would you care to suggest which hoop I jump through to continue with sorely-needed cleanup work in this domain, or should I simply abandon it? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

We work by consensus, not by egotistical admins. Well, at least we're supposed to.

You have made no attempt to achieve this. No discussion, and ignoring a direct oppose from one person who did see the merge in action.

This is a bad merge. Tilting three wheelers is one of the many and significant topics for coverage within broad coverage of the enormous topic of three wheelers. We've already got a category for three wheelers with eighty articles in it. What value is conveyed by merging the very narrow aspect of tilting three wheelers into the top article?

I would agree that these are both very poor articles. However you can't add content just by re-arranging the deckchairs. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:49, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not "rearranging the deckchairs". Step one is consolidation. Step two is the cutting room. Step three is identification of the real key concepts. Step four is expanding those concepts to lend them weight appropriate to their importance. I was under the impression that high school English teachers worldwide taught this sort of stuff. As for discussion, I left you (the only editor to express dissent on the subject) a message on your talk page, and after receiving no reply for four days proceded with the work. If you do not regard my leaving you a personal message regarding this work as an "attempt to achieve [consensus]" then as I say, please point me at whichever forum you have decreed suitable for such a purpose. As for the "egotistical admins" comment, get over yourself. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

No, step one is to understand the material (and see the mess at WP:IEP for more of the same). You evidently do not. You have no past work in this area, you have expressed no past interest in the concepts. Yet your insufferable arrogance (after all, You're An Admin) knows no barrier there. We have two poor articles. You seem to think that a single poor article with an even worse structure is an improvement. I expect that what you'd really prefer to do is to delete tilting three-wheeler altogether. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:12, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

So before it was "no attempt at discussion", and now it's "no expertise on the subject". At least that one is merely irrelevant rather than demonstrably false, but this obviously isn't going anywhere. As for the invective, I suppose I echo Sandstein's general bafflement at your belief that this is productive. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:32, 31 January 2012 (UTC)