User talk:Walkerma/Archive13

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This is the September 2006 archive of Martin Walker's talk page.

A quick question about Wikipedia:WikiProject Meteorology

I may be mistaken, but you seem to be familiar with the bot which updates the lists of assessed articles for wikiprojects. If I wanted to start assessing articles which fall under Wikipedia:WikiProject Meteorology , how could I get Mathbot to start making tables and all that fancy stuff that happens to the other projects? We already have a Template:Meteorology for assessing (which I just modified to accept importance rankings), what else needs to be done? -Runningonbrains 01:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Bupropion

Martin, could you have a look at my edits at bupropion (I have tried to revert some POV sentences of User talk:62.56.69.184 & User talk:62.56.55.227, and removed some links/e-mail addresses to external sources), and the reversions of that by 62.56.55.227 (which already are reverted again, since the section was a duplicate). I think that in the first series of edits from me I gave the person the possibility to create an own page for the Zyban Action Group, but I feel that was not appreciated. (The order of the page may still be a bit too difficult, hopping from subject to subject). Thank you! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks OK to me, I think you did the right thing. Often the flow of articles gets spoilt by this sort of thing, and duplication creeps in. Before we plastered it with notices and removed lots of inappropriate links, the alcohol page was always getting paragraphs added (in random places) on the effects of drinking too much, which rightly belonged on ethanol, alcoholic beverage, effect of alcohol on the body or alcoholism. Walkerma 06:16, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Next release version

Martin, thanks for your note. I saw your recent posts on the team's main talk page. Sorry we misunderstood each other earlier. Maurreen 17:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

0.5 next steps

And thanks for your note! Would you mind if I move the discussion about next steps for 0.5 to the 0.5 page? I think that would be more organized and help keep pages from getting too long. Maurreen 17:23, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to wait a few days, at least, in case anyone want to comment, and then move it if necessary. I posted it on the main page for two reasons:

• We may need to set up a team for pre-publication work in general - not needed so far, but they could handle that part of the project for EVERY release. Do you think it's a good idea? The skills and knowledge are very different from what's gone before.
• The pre-publication work needed will hopefully bring in people who have not been much involved up to this point. Most 1.0 people tend to either focus on articles/assessment/review (as we do) or on the end-product stuff (offline viewer, scripts for cleanup, etc.) - the latter folks need to be woken up after many years asleep! I plan to post a few messages on user talk pages soon.
• This stuff has wider implications beyond 0.5 on what we do next, for people who may not have followed 0.5 much so far.

Walkerma 17:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Chat help?

Martin, I am trying out IRC, but I can't find the 1.0 channel from freenode. Do you have any advice? Maurreen 20:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. I think I was looking in the wrong place. I think I found it. Maurreen 20:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the note, especially for the time clarification. Maurreen 20:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes .. but

OK, I was now looking through the pages, say I sign up for Core-topics. Then I get to a list of pages. What then, I pick one, say Sleep, I read it, and .. ?? Sorry .. it is a bit strange to get a start here. Could you help me out on that? Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:25, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I had a look at sleep, IMO that looks quite OK, some cleanup would be nice. I have added the template, marked it on the list. So that is all OK. But do I do anything with 'remarks' that I have after the review? Things to get it into a 'publishable version' or so. Or are we getting another round, where a version is locked for further addition, but can only be cosmetically altered by a group of people that do nothing but style-cleanups? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

A question

I am now involved in at least 2 controversies (Aspartame and Venlafaxine). For both I seem to find some 'resistance' against my decision to split the controversy out of the main article. I know the comparison is not completely fair, but I'd like to hear an opinion: water (molecule) is a page about the chemical compound water, such a page should give an introduction, some properties, tell about history, what its good sides are, and what its bad sides are. One of the bad sides is that people drown in it. So in that line of thinking, should there be a huge section about drowning in water? Or is there something completely flawed in my comparison? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:31, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll try and help, but time is getting limited for me now. I should be able to post a few comments, and yes- I agree with your approach to solving the problem! We often find that controversial or popular sections balloon out to dominate the article out of all proportion (take a look at the Dow Chemical article before a couple of us worked on it in June!). I must confess, I try to keep my head down as much as possible with these things...! Walkerma 21:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm just trying to get my mind straight on these things. In a way I like the discussions behind this, a good training for logical reasoning. But sometimes I need someone to have a look at my reasoning, just to see it is not flawed. I'll manage it, when there are too many people disagreeing, I will call it a loss, bring things back to the previous level, and keep an eye on too obvious vandalism. The main trouble is that sometimes you 'fight' against people that are emotional about the subject, or who do not see my approach, and stick to their own. But glad to hear you keep an eye on it! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

0.5 reviews

Martin, thanks for your note. I'm working on the articles, but there is no way I can make the commitment you ask for. Besides trying to develop my real life, I prefer quality over speed for this project. Maurreen 21:51, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Chat

Your agenda item is now up. Maurreen 22:13, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I missed this, I was with my family - I didn't think they'd get to it today! Thanks for the prompt, Walkerma 03:10, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Soil article update

You nominated the soil article for Version 0.5 and, not coincidently, it has since been improved. It is now listed as done with WikiProject Science, a Class-A article with WikiProject Soil, and submitted as an FAC. Thanks for the prod motivation. -- Paleorthid 21:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Completing Version 0.5 reviews

Thanks everything! You are the motor or the whole project. I just help wherever I can. Today, or tomorrow I'll have a deep look at that to-do page and review my set nonmination of genetic disorders. And try to complete the Wikiproject Council's first scientific lists. Good work! :) NCurse _work 09:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Laboratory glassware

Hi Martin

I saw the changes you made to the section on cleaning glassware, which you have commented as "modern practice in the UK and US." Respectfully, I feel that what is described now on the page is more of what "should be done" than what actually is done, even in the UK/US, Worldwide View notwithstanding.

In reality, depending on the chemistry you are doing, stuff like hydrogen peroxide and aqua regia are simply necessary, rather than mere hang-ons to a glorious antiquated age. For example, I can't think ofhow else to remove palladium black from sintered frits than aqua regia. Also, it is hard to scrub an NMR tube with a nylon brush - the sulfuric acid/hydrogen peroxide mixture is one of the better ways.

Hope you can look at the article again. Thank you! --Rifleman 82 12:45, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your compliments, though I may have hardly the experience you do.

I do see your point about the difference in writing for the lay-reader and writing the knowledgeable worker. I am surprised, though, that you have seen the use of chromic acid but not hydrogen peroxide. It is my understanding that hydrogen peroxide/sulfuric acid is supposed to be a safer alternative to chromic acid!

As an aside, it irritates me that due to the other drying agent, and possible messy wikipedia disambiguating work, I have taken to calling what we chemists usually call drying agents as desiccants. Any comments? --Rifleman 82 19:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikicat mention

Martin-

Thanks for the heads-up. I didn't subscribe to wikipedia-l before because of the volume but I guess I should start :) I should point out that Wikicite/Wikicat is not completely coded yet, but the functionality is coming along and will not take too much time to finish off. The main stumbling blocks right now are organizational, though, particularly how to integrate with other projects like WikiAuthors and how to conform to underlying infrastructure like Wikidata. I have already had discussions with Erik Moeller, GerardM, and Lars, though, so we are not totally in the dark about what the other is doing :) I will try responding on the list if there remains anything useful for me to add.

On a different note, I noticed that you unfortunately dropped out of the Special Projects meeting this weekend just as the topic of static content was being discussed. I brought up the issue of validation/"1.0", but unfortunately not too much was discussed in this vein.

Jleybov 22:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Philbin review

Thanks for your comments and a fresh perspective with Regis Philbin. I agree with most of them, but the problem is I didn't write most of the sections that you questioned. I did not want to be "in charge" of the article and "own" it, so I made those edits stand. But I will look over the article as you suggested, especially the References section. (I'm still familiarizing myself with the {{cite web}} template.) Besides, if it doesn't pass GA review the first time, I can learn a lot from the feedback. So I'm taking my time for nomination (if I end up nominating the article). Tinlinkin 05:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Something like this?

Hi Martin, I have been playing a little with templates. For now I called it {{Todo for V1.0}} (but feel free to move it around to {{Todo for V0.77}} or something. But what about:

{{Todo for V1.0}}

I just splashed in some text, it does need a lot of tweaking, but feel free to play around with the parameters, and see what effect it gives (the only problem for now is when people set the 'LangUse' to senseless values, maybe there is a way of doing something about that .. have to look that up). And of course, if you think it is a good plan, feel free to adjust the wording

Only language has been programmed now, I guess other options (and this one as well) would need some discussion, but some issues from the manual of style could be addressed here, and maybe people will actually do that, without us having to take care of it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

wikipedia 0.5/1.0

hey, lookin over the 1.0 page. i like what i see. keep up the good work. i'm still trying to untangle everything to see how i can help (it seems like a really confusing process that isn't all quite setup), but rest assured i want to help make this happen. thanks for being so persistent. :) JoeSmack ^Talk 16:35, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

you know, im still having trouble grokking the 0.5/1.0 project pages. can you make like a flowchart or project tree? i think others have the same comprehension problem, and it would really help clear things up. JoeSmack ^Talk 18:28, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

have any time towards this as of late? JoeSmack ^Talk 22:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Image in Lithium Aluminium Hydride

Howdy! Another editor has brought up a concern about the accuracy of an image that you added the Lithium Aluminium Hydride article on a discussion about that article's GA status. The image in question is Image:LAH rxns.png
If you could clarify things for us on the GA review talk page, we would greatly appreciate your time. Thanks! Agne 16:51, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. Appreciate it. :) Agne 15:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikisort software

The wikisort bot is _finished_. However, the perl script has a strange error, and I don't know if it will work. I also can't run the bot on my computer, so someone else in the wikisort project (or another editorial team member) will have to run it. The bot requires pywikipedia, and the source code is here.

My RFA

Thank you, Walkerma, for voting on my RFA, which passed 95 to 1. Now that I have the mop, I hope I can live up to the standard, and be a good administrator. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. —this is messedrocker (talk) 21:52, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Chemical Sources

Hi Martin. I have posted a post on bugzilla, try to get the Wikipedia:Chemical sources up and running. I tried to make a beginning by running a wikipedia on my computer, and start typing some php myself (well, copying the booksources page). The entry and my attempt can be found at 7364. Now hope that I get some help with that. Thought I let you know. See you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:56, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that. It'd be great if you can get something more sophisticated. Walkerma 01:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Some days ago I posted a patch (yes .. I have it running locally, works like a charm!!! I am now using it myself on a regular basis) to get this functionality started. For now one can search on: CAS, name, formula, EINECS, CHEBI, PubChem, SMILES, InChI, ATC-code, DrugBank, KEGG and RTECS. My question now is: do I miss some here (otherwise I can re-upload a new version of the patch). Unfortunately the patch is not yet applied, I'd like to see that soon (no clue how long it takes .. I have the feeling they are not really keen on it, since it is not 'for the general public' ..). We'll have to wait, I think.

I may be on low gear for some time, I am moving house this weekend, and I don't know if I will have access to internet from home then, so I might only edit while in the lab. See you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

WP 1.0

Sorry, I'm already spread too thin. I wish the project the best of luck, I keep an eye on the project page, but that's about it. - Jmabel | Talk 22:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

TLC

Hello! I wonder if you would like to chime in here? --HappyCamper 20:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Need your expertise :-)

We're having a debate with scientists over at Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_candidates#Discussion_on_criteria_changes on our new requirement for inline citations for GA articles. They are asking if things that are common knowledge to physicists should be cited? I don't feel I know enough to answer and would love your opinion since you're a scientist :-) --plange 03:05, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

....

Hi. I just saw that you posted a message on ....'s talk page. Don't expect him to reply until after November 14th, as he has university-entrance-important exams starting next week. He should have gone on wikibreak, but I don't think he knows how... Goiter McWilliostein, P. I. ^{You can't control me!} _{I'm a P. I.!} Save Stargate SG-1! 03:54, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'd wondered what had happened. Hopefully someone from the Star Wars project can follow through. Walkerma 15:10, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello. I created a baby stub for the article benzethonium chloride.

Free free to jump into the contributions with this benzethonium chloride stub. Good Luck. BenzethoniumChloride 06:47, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

WPCD2

It may possibly turn into the 2007 Wikipedia CD selection but I've got the articles ready for the top of the funnel at User:BozMo/wpcd2. Thoughts? I will try a script and have a look --BozMo talk 18:47, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

GA Questions

Could you answer the questions at Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_candidates/List_of_reviewers? Thanks. Rlevse 18:55, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure I can! Walkerma 02:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The article on parabens is all one sided repeated, continuos POV pushing.

Hello,

There are two different editors which are both erasing entire sections of this article. Please oversee the history page and article.

I am a new user that does not know what to do in this situation. I think removing large sections of the parabens article may be vandalism at worst and POV pushing at best. This article needs serious arbitration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Parabens&diff=78477710&oldid=78447944 Thank You. --63.17.97.231 20:11, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

WPCD2

Is this a list of all the version 0.5 articles to date?

Yes, plus all the WPCD ones and GA/FA ones. I hope nearly 5000 but haven't checked for duplicates yet

Once we have that list finalised, I'd be delighted if you could put it through your script!

If the script works straight off thats easy. However I don't know if someone has meddled with format of WP since so could be easy or hard. Hard is bad news as not time to work on it.

I have a few questions:

What kind of "dump" do you use. People keep asking me that sort of thing about your CD, and I really have no clue....! I barely know what a dump is, I'm afraid!

Script just produces HTML pages in folders which get read by PC browser.

Can we include lots of redirects easily? Thinks like Atlanta → Atlanta, Georgia.

Not yet but it is worth getting a list

What tags etc are removed by your scripts and what are left in?

got a list but most go out

How do you handle images? Do you have a script to check for copyrights in images?

At present we only take thumbnails and have no automated check for image copyrights. We try to do manually

Can we set up a basic set of categories to search by? (I noticed Brasilia appears in General knowledge on WPCD, where other capitals appear under places- we'll have to be careful!)

Brussels is under veg too. The categorisation at present is done by volunteers I am afraid

Is there any way of attaching basic metadata to articles? Even if not for this version, could it be done in the future? I'm thinking of things like assessments, GA/FA tags.

Yes, not hard. Why would you want to?

We'll probably have to chat on the phone again sometime soon, I want to hear about SOS release #2.