Talk:Pan Am Flight 103/Archive 3

A suggested compromise (or two)

After consulting with both parties, I'd like to suggest a compromise.

First, this is a very dramatic event and deserves good, dramatic prose - this is what SlimVirgin has provided, with a fantastic article on a very important event. Thank goodness we have editors like her!

Second, I see the audience for this article primarily being both Americans and Britons. Americans use Imperial exclusively, but Britian uses a strange mix (I'm British, I should add). We use feet and inches, by and large, but pounds and ounces are a foreign language to people under 30 due to Imperial weights being illegal in retail. And Farenheit?! No one really uses that anymore, except for the odd summer-time news paper headline. So it would be good to have the appropiate metric equivalents in the article for a British audience, particular for younger people not old enough to know about Lockerbie first-hand, and are also more conversant with metric than Imperial.

I really am torn on this. On one hand, the metrics definitely don't help the flow of the prose. On the other, when I read the article I start wondering what 200,000lbs actually is, because we don't describe weights like that in Britain, and that interferes with the flow too!

We could add a short section at the foot of the article giving the metric equivalents (as suggested by Grace Note), with a brief note at the top of the article highlighting it's existence (eg For metric values, see foot of article. I don't think that would interfere with the article too much). I will happily write this.

The other alternative is just a few, well-chosen metric equivalents in the text to help the younger British audience - please see the edit history for where I tried that.

I don't think a full metrification (is that a word?!) is justified.

Thoughts? Please try to keep your responses *brief* and constructive. Dan100 (Talk) 18:17, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Lol, I had not noticed that SV had posted above :-) Dan100 (Talk) 18:18, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Response from Bobblewik.

Earlier, you (Dan100) asked what I wanted. My public reply on this talk page was:

• Issue 1. I would like it if metric units were permitted to stay in this article.
  • This entire article was effectively a metric 'no-go' zone. That is no longer the case and I am pleased.
  • You say that you don't think a 'full metrication' is justified. That sounds like parts of the article could still be a 'no-go' zone. . In Wikipedia, everything is allowed unless forbidden and metric units are not forbidden. If there are to be prohibitions of metric units in Wikipedia articles, then it is the Wikipedia community that needs to define the prohibitions. I do a lot of metrication and I do it quickly. If I am to apply constraints, I need to know what the constraints of the community are.
  • Having footnotes with conversions (°F <-> °C etc) in partnership with a metric prohibition is still a prohibition. Nice thought but I don't think it will make the problem for metric readers much better.

• Issue 2. I would like it if values taken from respectable sources were not replaced with values taken from sources of unknown quality.
  • This issue is still live.

So here is what I suggest.

• (a) All units that you (Dan100) touched can be touched by anyone else. That includes modifications to the value, the format, the unit, and the unit sequence.
• (b) Any value can be replaced if a better source of data is available.
• (c) Raw data values should be primary. Conversions should be secondary.

For how this might work in practice, see the example conversions that I did in the sections titled Container size, Wind, Debris, McKee, Fragment size, Temperature on this talk page. Please watch the history of this talk page. If the example conversions are deleted again, simply look at the version of the talk page when I wrote this.

• With repect to the units that you (Dan100) did not touch:
  • if they are also permitted to be touched, then I think that is the end of the matter.
  • If they are still not permitted to be touched, then I object on the basis that articles do not have 'editors in chief'. I also reject the idea that the talk page can be censored without consequences. However, if this is a fact of this article today, then I will not touch these units if a Wikipedia community debate on metric prohibitions takes place in an appropriate place (e.g. talk:Manual of style).

Thanks for your efforts Dan100. And thanks to SlimVirgin, Grace Note, Gene etc for your efforts too. Squabble or not, I still believe we all want accessible articles for readers. I hope that sounds reasonable, or if not, I hope it sounds clear anyway. Bobblewik  (talk) 22:25, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So you refuse to compromise, in other words? Grace Note 01:06, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

First, there is no "prohibition" on metric units. But the MoS is clear that there is no requirement to use them if imperial units are in use. You don't like that, Bobblewik, go fight over it there. You were offered two different methods to try to satisfy you. Neither seems to have met your full approval. Okay. I say we'll stick to not having metric units at all, in accordance with our policy.

Second, about the talkpage. It's not "censorship". This is a wiki. Any page can be edited. That includes talkpages. You have harassed another editor on this page, and part of that harassment was to list changes that you didn't like. This is entirely unacceptable. All the changes are viewable in the history. You did not list them in an attempt to improve the article but as part of your attack on another editor.

Third, all articles have an "editor in chief". It's a thing we call "consensus". There is a broad agreement here not to change the units. You oppose that, not because you want to improve the article at all (you do not even meet the argument that your changes deface the article, which is the main reason they are opposed) but because you are on a crusade to make Wikipedia metric. Now, so far as I'm concerned, the units cannot be touched, as you put it, because I'm planning to revert them if you do. You have not bothered to try to persuade others to your view, to get a consensus for it, whereas SlimVirgin did, and any changes you make will be against the will of most editors on this page, and without support. Grace Note 01:15, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Grace Note, "all the changes are viewable in history." What Bobblewik's nice little list shows is what changes have been in dispute and who made those changes, so that someone just coming into this talk page can easily see them and see what the dispute is about. Then it show people exactly where they can go in the history to find those particular changes. That's something you don't get by going to the "history" special page.

And please, no nonsense about SlimVirgin trying to get consensus. She declared, by her fiat, that there would be no metric units on this page. That was before there was any discussion at all about it here, or anywhere else, and after she had already reverted Bobblewik and all my editing (including many changes which you and Mel Etitis have since redone). She did that on my talk page, telling it to me in what I took here to start the discussion here. I'm pretty sure she did it on Bobblewik's talk page as well.

SlimVirgin's fiat was on this talk page, and apparently was taken out in part of the censorship you had she have been doing. Here it is in the history: [1]

Yes, any page can be edited, including talk pages. But Wikipedia etiquette requires that you not edit out comments which disagree with you. Gene Nygaard 11:23, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oppose this change, and more importantly

Strongly oppose Grace Note's implementation of what Dan100 has suggested. Gene Nygaard 11:42, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Note that I'd accept version 2 of your proposed compromise, the discussion of which has been removed from the talk page. Dan100 showed this version with two consecutive test edits, immediately reverted. I'd support the second version found at [2] Gene Nygaard 02:21, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My acceptance is conditional on adding the spaces between the numbers and the unit symbols, something Dan100 agreed to when I brought it up on his talk page. Gene Nygaard 02:24, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I'm sorry to see that both Gene and Bobblewick have not attempted to come to any compromise. Yes, this is a wiki and anyone can edit almost everything, but it also a community of people. You have to work with people - you will not succeed working against them. SV and I have mooted compromises that we will accept. You can either accept that, or there will be no changes to the article. Dan100 (Talk) 18:34, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm. That is odd. I intended my response to indicate acceptance on the basis that residual prohibition is discussed by the community. Did you not read it that way? Bobblewik  (talk) 19:00, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I guess I must have mis-understood you, sorry. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure what you mean above... Dan100 (Talk) 22:44, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Grace Note's test implementation of Dan100 suggestion

Grace Note added this to the article, giving us an idea of how she would implement Dan100's suggestion:

This article uses imperial units of measurement. Readers who use metric units are directed to the conversions at the end of the article

[body of article]

Conversion of imperial to metric units of measurement
Each metric value rounded to two decimal points

• Weights: 1 oz = 23.45 g; 1 lb = 453.59 g; 1 (short) ton = 907.18 kg
• Distances: 1 in = 2.54 cm; 1 ft = 30.48 cm; 1 mile = 1.61 km
• Speed: 1 knot = 1.85 km/h
• Temperature: –50°F = –45.56°C

Discussion of test implementation

Less useful than link to conversion of units

This is totally unacceptable. It is less useful than a link to Conversion of units. Gene Nygaard 11:56, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is also less useful than a link to the Google converter, or many other online converters (but many of the other ones are also pretty much garbage, so it would have to be a good one). Gene Nygaard 14:42, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Interrupting the flow of the reading

This suggestion shows how little concern some editors have for interrupting the flow of the reading, despite their claims to the contrary.

A big part of the reason for including conversions in the first place is to make it so that readers don't have to interrupt their reading to go do the calculations themselves.

But furthermore, let's assume that we instead changed it to give conversions of the actual measurements used in this article, something that would at least be more useful than a link to conversion of units. It still severely interrupts the flow of the reading for many people

Even having to scroll down several screens to find the particular conversion that you want, then having to go back and find you place where you were reading would severely interrupt the flow of the reading. Gene Nygaard 11:56, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Precision of the conversions

One of the biggest advantages of doing the actual conversions here is that the converted values can be made to correspond roughly in precision to the original values.

The one conversion which Grace Note did specifically illustrates that problem quite well. The temperature of −50 °F has nowhere near enough precision to get the value in degrees Celsius accurately to the nearest hundredth of a degree Celsius. The exact conversion from an exact temperature of −50 °F would give you −45 5/9 °C. However, that is only half of the conversion process; Grace Note has omitted the most important part, rounding it off appropriately. If −50 °F were an actual reading from a thermometer aboard the plane, it might be reasonable to assume accuracy to the nearest degree Fahrenheit (even though we probably don't quite have that in fact), and round it to −46 °C, and that is the most precision that would ever be possible in this case. But it is more likely that -50 °F is an even rougher figure than that, and the only precision we can really assume from the number as stated is that it is to the nearest 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Since −50±5 °F is −(−45 5/9)±(2 7/9) °C, that leaves us somewhere in the range of −42 7/9 °C to −48 1/3 °C. The most appropriate conversion would be to −45 °C.

Note also that "to two decimal places" is a very poor way to choose to express conversion factors like that, something fairly common among innumerate people. A better indicator of an appropriate size would be the number of significant digits in the conversion factors given here. Gene Nygaard 12:17, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What has this to do with anything? -45F is cold. That's the point. If you want to argue about the technicalities of after-casting and precision of digits, fine, take it to my talk page, otherwise please refrain from hurtling off-topic! Dan100 (Talk) 18:24, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Missing conversion factors

The list of conversion factors here does not include all the units used in the article. For one example of a missing conversion, see my discussion elsewhere on this talk page of Air Traffic Controller Alan Topp. Gene Nygaard 12:17, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Inappropriate identification of units as "imperial"

Grace Note originally used "Imperial", and then quickly changed it to "imperial". Either way it is contrary to SlimVirgin's claim that this article is written in American English (a change for which she has not received consensus, nor even attempted to, but that is de facto how the article is written at the present time, using American English).

In American English, the adjective "imperial" with respect to units is limited in use to the new gallon introduced in the Weights and Measures Act of 1824, and its multiples (including the bushel) and subdivisions (such as pints and fluid ounces). The only other time "imperial" is used in this context in American English is to refer to a particular artifact which served as a standard for the yard as the "Imperial Yard".

Note also that, as Imperial unit tells us, even in the British English the adjective "imperial" only applies to units used in Britain and its colonies which remained in use after that Weights and Measures Act of 1824. I know that this act outlawed all gallons other than the newly invented imperial gallon. I'm less certain of the fact that this was the act which threw out the short ton in British usage as well. But nobody in Britain today calls the short ton by the name "imperial ton", do they? Even though this unit has remained in use in some parts of the British Commonwealth, Google only has 22 hits for "imperial short ton" and 10 hits for "imperial short tons". Gene Nygaard 14:40, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The international nautical mile, by definition exactly 1852 meters, and the unit of speed derived from it, are also by no stretch of the imagination an "Imperial units". As a matter of fact, U.K. law still defines the nautical mile as the "Admiralty mile" of 6080 feet exactly. See [3]. Gene Nygaard 14:59, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

For ton definitions go to Ton. The phrase "Imperial" is a bit loose, better to use avoirdupois when meant or just "non-metric" or "customary". GraemeLeggett 15:48, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Again - this has nothing to do with the article. If you want to discuss the intracies of different systems of measurement, please feel free to raise it on my talk page. Please try and stay on topic here. Dan100 (Talk) 18:29, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Conversion tables and calculators don't disambiguate for you

No list of conversion factors or calculator is going to be much help in identifying ambiguous units so that you can apply the appropriate conversion factor, if those ambiguous units are not identified in the text.

Note that inclusion of actual conversions can often serve as that disambiguation, making it less necessarily to "interrupt the flow" by having to otherwise specifically identify the amgibuous units. Gene Nygaard 14:46, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Amount of Semtex sold to Libya

Gene, as a matter of interest, why don't you do some decent research, instead of just repeatedly reverting to metric tons, when you don't know it was metric tons? A mark of single-issue edit warriors is that all they do is revert. They add nothing of substance. I can assure you that I'd be very happy to find a source for a more precise figure than 1,000 tons, and in fact, I'm looking for one myself. But I'm also trying to add other content. If that single issue matters to you so much, you could probably hunt down a better source by visiting your local library. Anything that looks at Libya's alleged involvement in terrorism is likely to have a figure, as the Semtex issue became a major part of Libya's relationship with certain groups, like the IRA, because Gadaffi became a supplier of Semtex to groups he favored. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:43, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Now all you've done is found a source that spells it "tonnes," and you're assuming they knew how much was actually sent. You'd be better off looking for a specialist source on Gadaffi on terrorism (though that would involve some real work), as the correct figure is unlikely to be either 1,000 tons or metric tons. I'm not going to revert you again, but I'm noting here for the record that your behavior on this page is nothing you should be proud of. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:57, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Indeed it is nothing to be proud of; there are any number of news reports that refer to it as "tons", not "tonnes";: [4] [5]. Here's a source that carefully distinguishes between tons and metric tons: [6] Considering that some sources say 900 tons, there's no way they could be referring to 1000 metric tons, which is either 984 long tons (which is usually used for sea water or ships), or more likely over 1100 short tons. In any event relying on a dodgy Hansard transcript is extremely questionable. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:14, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Jayjg, "tons" is ambiguous, no matter who uses it; in the English language, there is only a slight ambiguity in "tonnes". Note also that Grace Note and a couple of others have already agreed that the number which Havel used was 1000, in whatever tons he used. After all, the Washington Post does present this as a direct quote from his London press conference, does it not? You can see it where I quoted it below. Had he used the number 900, it would be possible that some sources reported that as such and others converted an apparent 900 metric tons to 1000 short tons. Were the Washington Post and Grace Note and others wrong about the actual number Havel used? How reliable are those "900 tons" sources? Do any of them offer it as a direct quote?

Are you in cahoots with the author of that Globalvision News Network story dated 16 June 2005 (i.e., today), the one you cite as one "that carefully distinguishes between tons and metric tons"? Gene Nygaard 00:15, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gene, that's today's date at the top of the GNN article. It is dated 2001! Dan100 (Talk) 22:47, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

In going back and looking more closely at your cited Globalvision page, I see that they do not "carefully distinguish" between tons and metric tons. It identifies tons in one measurement as "metric tons" and it leaves tons in another, separate measurement ambiguously stated as "tons". Whenever any source disambiguates a unit in one instance and not in others, it is more reasonable for a first guess to assume that the first one was identified as being the typical usage, and the assumption is that all other uses of the word have the same meaning. Sometimes, of course, it will be identified because it is an exception, but less often than because it is typical, in these circumstances. Here, where it deals with two unrelated measurements, likely coming from different sources, there is also another possibility: the one which was known for sure was identified; the ones about which the author of this article remained uncertain were left ambiguous.

I also see that the source dated today which you cited appears to be unattributed plagiarism of http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLrus/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=28&NrSection=2&NrArticle=2585 dated 8 Nov 2001 by Brian Whitmore, a Prague-based correspondent for The Boston Globe. So I therefore retract any implication that this might be something which you had a hand in. Gene Nygaard 01:43, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My source is more reliable than your source, SlimVirgin. You have a timeline by some anonymous Washington Post web editor. My source gave that answer in the House of Commons, in direct response to:

• "Mr. Key : To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has about the cessation of exports of Semtex from Czechoslovakia."

My source is not in conflict with your source. Your source is ambiguous. Mine identifies them as "tonnes", a particlar kind of ton.

A page linked to in your source, the actual Washington Post article about it, quotes Vaclav Havel putting forth his answer to a math problem in a London press conference,

• "The past regime exported 1,000 tons to Libya," Havel said at a press conference during his first official visit here. "If you consider that 200 grams is enough to blow up an aircraft, this means world terrorism has enough Semtex to last 150 years."

If he's going to divide 1000 tons by 200 grams, just take a wild guess which tons a reasonable intelligent person would use. Can you figure that out?

How many airplanes a year does that amount to? 1,000,000,000 grams divided by 200 grams gives us 5,000,000 aircraft. Divide that by 150 years, and you get 33,000 aircraft to blow up each year for 150 years. Oh, well, there goes my theory that Vaclav Havel is a reasonably intelligent man.

My source is less ambiguous than your source. The word tonne is less ambiguous in English than it is in French, and much less ambiguous than the ton spelling in English. Gene Nygaard 00:15, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Your source is Hansard, a transcript of something that is said in Parliament. The speaker said "ton/tonne"; the transcription as "tonne" was entirely based on the internal biases of the transcriber, and is far more ambiguous than the other sources. Newspaper articles are fact-checked, statements in Parliament and their transcriptions are not. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:20, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So far I've been a casual observer of this debate -- fascinating, really, particularly given how much time and energy has been spent! Sorry to poke my nose in, but I wanted to just caution you that, as a reporter myself, I can tell you that most newspapers are not fact-checked. Typically newsmagazines are because their turnaround is much slower. The very largest newspapers are fact checked -- certainly the Washington Post and New York Times. Mine is, as well. But most -- even fairly large ones -- are not. Reporters are simply counted on to get it right the first time (no pressure!). · Katefan0^(scribble) 17:12, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

This was a quote from the Washington Post. In any event, assumptions made by Hansard transcribers about whether MPs were saying "ton" or "tonne" are certainly not fact checked. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:29, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Definitely agree in this situation (for what it's worth). Since you had stated it as a generality, just thought I'd make the observation. Best · Katefan0^(scribble) 05:50, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

It is a direct quote, more reliable than the indirect quote placed in quotation marks with a reference to a Washington Post page making that indirect quote, and every bit as reliable as the different Washington Post page with what they have presented as a direct quote from Havel, and it is not inconsistent with that latter Washington Post quote.

Whatever the MP did say, it was not incorrectly transcribed with the tonne spelling. And, if I need to state the obvious for some readers of this discussion, "ton" is not necessarily different from "tonne". In a statistical sense, useful for determining the most likely meaning in a particular context, "tonne" is less ambiguous in English, but the "ton" spelling is also used for all the meanings for which "tonne" is used.

In Canada (where French is also an official language), "tonne" is most often pronounced differently from "ton" in English speech. Is that also true in the U.K.? (In the United States, "tonne" is spoken so rarely as to make it impossible to draw any general conclusions.)

What are the odds of a Member of the British Parliament (a country where they have not used short tons for 180 yars), talking about a statement made in London by the Czech president (a country which never used English short tons) about a sale of explosives from a Czech factory which never uses short tons to Libya (a country which never used English short tons), meant the unidentified tons to be short tons in this case? Somewhere between slim and none. One in a million would be far too high a number to place on those odds.

There is no serious doubt whatsoever that what was being talked about were metric tons. Why are so many people insistent on claiming otherwise? Gene Nygaard 12:39, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I honestly cannot see why this matters. Which ton/tonne was used seems immaterial - the point was the sale of semtex. The difference of a few percent on approx 1,000t of the stuff is utterly irrelevant. Dan100 (Talk) 13:32, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Washington Post usage of ambiguous word "tons"

Here is a another specific example of "tons" used by the Washington Post which are not identified there, but which are clearly identified in other sources, with bold emphasis added by me. Gene Nygaard 23:30, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Washington Post: According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, opium production in Afghanistan in 2003 amounted to about 3,600 tons -- that is to say, three-quarters of world production -- over 200,000 acres of cultivated land.

BBC News: The 185 tonnes of opium produced that year - compared to the 3,600 tonnes in 2003 - mostly came from the small area of northern Afghanistan then held by the Northern Alliance that later helped US forces topple the Taleban.

The Guardian, U.N. Agency Warns Afghanistan Over Opium, October 29, 2003, by Susanna Loof, Associated Press Writer: This year's production of 3,600 tonnes represents a 6% year-on-year increase, while poppy cultivation, at almost 81,000 hectares (200,000 acres), was up 8%.

United Nations Information Service, press release 29 October 2003: Opium production has increased by six per cent, from 3,400 to 3,600 tonnes.

Baltimore Chronicle: Total opium production soared to 4,200 metric tons in 2004, surpassing the previous year's record-breaking 3,600 metric tons.

Perhaps, but the other links I've provided indicate that in this case it can't be tonnes, and we can't even assume it's 1000. Your edits are not faithfully representing what we actually know about the amount sold. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:40, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that information, Jay. I'm sorry you had to write it out twice. I made some other edits not realizing he had reverted again. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:17, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Could this mean the end of the Great Measurement Debate? El_C 00:23, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The answer, of course, is no. El_C 00:35, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In order to believe that, Jayjg, you'd have to believe that the leader of Czechoslovakia (where they do not use English tons of any sort), speaking in London (where the only English tons they use are 20 "hundredweight" of 112 lb each), about a purchase by Libya (where they do not use English tons of any sort), would for some reason choose to express this quantity in "short tons", a unit not used in any of those countries. Or you need to believe that the Washington Post, in the source relied on by SlimVirgin (well, technically, the "source" for the secondary timeline relied on by SV), fudged a direct quote. Which is it? Gene Nygaard 00:29, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How do you know what they use in Libya? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:41, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

That's easy. Pretty much everyone outside the United States is metric.

Furthermore, the British flag never flew over Libya. So they would have had no particular reason to use British units.

Libya was part of the Ottoman Empire for most of the 19th century, so they may have had some old Middle Eastern units. But from 1911 to 1951, Libya was a colony of Italy—a country which had adopted the metric system in the 1860s. Gene Nygaard 01:08, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

According to USMA, Libya went metric in the 1920s. Gene Nygaard 01:17, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't say that, and that website is written by ideologues like yourself. This page is for discussing the bombing of Pan Am 103. Please allow discussion to return to that subject, and take your metrification concerns to an appropriate page. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:32, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Just trying to be courteous and answer the question you posed, SlimVirgin.

Of course, it does say that, in the graph. Maybe you searched for "Libya" without finding it, because the word is part of the graphic, and not searchable text. Gene Nygaard 02:08, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Your inferences are not particularly relevant, given that the sources are pretty clear. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:21, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Direct quote from Havel

A direct quote from Havel's statement: "[T]he past regime exported 1,000 tons to Libya, and yet it takes only 200 grams to blow up a plane. This means that world terrorism has enough supplies of SEMTEX for at least l5O years." [7] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:27, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

That direct quote, with a book cited as the source, is in reasonable agreement with the direct quote in the Washington Post, considering that what is being quoted is spoken words. In any case, I see no discrepancy between the two quotes that would have any bearing on our discussion. Do you?

It's a direct quote. That's what makes a difference. You said before that the W/Post quote wasn't good enough for you, because you didn't know whether they were actually quoting Havel. Now you do know, and now you're saying it's irrelevant. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:39, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

The Washington Post statement on the timeline page, the one you cited as a reference, was not a direct quote. Therefore, it could well have been a conversion from metric tons to short tons; but if that were the case, the two numbers, the one that was not a direct quote and the one that was a direct quote on a different page that I hadn't found at the time, would have been different. They were not different. That is what is significant. That means that the Washington Post (the only place that "short" tons could ever have crept into this story) did not do any conversions. Gene Nygaard 04:30, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What appears on the Washington Post page you cited as a source is not a direct quote; the actual news article on a page linked to from that timeline page is a direct quote. The important thing is, as you can see from Jayjg's arguments, the number in that direct quote—the fact that this number is 1000, not 900. We now have direct quotes from two different sources confirming that number. Gene Nygaard 03:37, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I know. That's what I wrote. Your edits are opposed by Mel, Grace Note, El C, Felonius Monk, Jayjg, Dan, and me. Grace Note and Dan have both proposed compromises. Please go away and allow this page to resume functioning as a talk page, so that we can discuss those compromises. All you're doing is holding up that process. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:52, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Note also that in spoken words, "tonnes" is often pronounced indistinguishably from "tons", even by native English speakers. So we lose one more clue, especially since "tonne" is a foreign word to English journalists and authors, one rarely used in American English. Gene Nygaard 02:01, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How is placing a stamp of (such) accuracy on Havel's point can be seen as espcially pertinent to this article? Am I the only one here who fails to see why this extra measure of accuracy is that necessary? Considering that, in context, it is relatively trivial. Am I missing something pivotal here? And may I archive part of this talk page to reduce scrollynesses? So many questions. El_C 02:28, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to archive three times but Bobblewik keeps reverting. There's a madness to this. Absolutely nothing hangs on these units. It's good to have them, because it makes the article more informative, and it's good to have sources linked to, so readers can read further if they want to. But to have to know whether it was 1000 x tons or tonnes of Semtex told to Gadaffi is completely irrelevant. The sources say tons, so we say tons. They say miles, so we say miles; and so on. And you don't know, Gene, whether the speech was spoken or written, or both; or whether it was a prepared statement or spontaneous one, and in any event, these things are always written down. Or do we have to establish whether he first wrote it, or first said it; and in addition, whether he first wrote or said it in English? Gene, go do the research if you want to, but please stop using this talk page to discuss the myriad possibilities. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:39, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Well, *I* am going to archive it. It's fine if Gene wants to involve us so closely with his ongoing research, but can he limit it to a subpage, and not make corresponding modification to the article itself until he has something definitive? This isn't very critical to this topic and it's completely dominating the talk page. That isn't very metodologically rational. El_C 02:46, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I just did it. Doubtless it'll be undone. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:50, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Heh! Was my archiving insufficient, or are you just trying to steal my thunder? El_C 02:53, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Gene, please set up a subpage for discussing your measurements concern regarding this article, then return to the page when you have a compromise worked out. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:53, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Insolence, audacity, tenacity, belligerence, instransigence! El_C 02:57, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Jeezus. He said "a thousand tons". He used a round figure. He did not give an account. It wasn't a trial, just remarks on a state visit. It doesn't matter which kind of ton he meant -- he wasn't trying to be precise. The CS Monitor, Jay, has conflated two figures: the actual amount, which is estimated at about 960 tons and what Havel said, which was a thousand. Havel is not even mentioned in the Libya and Terrorism quote. Why are we sourcing what he said to that? You cite Hansard, in which William Waldegrave says: "We are in discussion with the Czechoslovak authorities about past exports of Semtex, and have noted President Havel's statement that about 1,000 tonnes had been exported to Libya." (Hansard uses metric measurements, I believe, although I'm not certain.) The Globalvision thing is quoting the Washington Post. I am removing the Israeli source and Globalvision, because one is a tertiary source and the other is a general piece of propaganda that does not mention Havel that I can see. Grace Note 02:42, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Where is this 960 ton/1000 ton conflation you are talking about, and who made this 960 "ton" estimate which you believe to be more accurate (and therefore must necessarily believe to be unambiguous). Gene Nygaard 04:02, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

BTW, if 960 metric tons is accurate, then 1000 metric tons is accurate, too—it's just stated to a different precision. That's one reason for including the original measurement, even if a conversion is included, and putting the original measurement first, because it gives us a better indication of the precision to which the measurement was stated. Gene Nygaard 04:25, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Talk page

Blank the talk page once more, Gene, and I'll report you for vandalism and disruption of Wikipedia. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:13, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Watch it, SlimVirgin. Stop making false claims. I did not blank anything. Everything was still there. I merely moved the discussion to the archives. Something you yourself have done, with active discussion, at least three separate times, actually I think it is a couple more than that but I'm not going to count it precisely. It can be seen in the history of the /archive1 and /archive2 pages.

Only difference, I wasn't censoring the page to remove arguments disagreeing with me from view. Gene Nygaard 03:52, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gene, we all have eyes. This is blanking. Dan100 (Talk) 23:03, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

You archived the entire page. Your behavior is extremely childish and you're disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. I repeat: your edits and arguments have been opposed by Mel, Grace Note, El C, Felonious Monk, Jayjg, Dan, and myself. Grace Note and Dan have suggested compromises. All you're succeeding in doing is holding up any discussion of that. In fact, you have managed to stop the discussion entirely. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:00, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

There is no point in talking about an unsupported compromise, without at least some indication of the arguments supposedly being compromised, many still unresolved issues including several not addressed at all in what remains on this talk page. But you have removed all of that.

One very telling point is that many of my edits have had to be redone by several of the various people you named, because some intransigent, unprofessional "owner" of this article with total disregard for Wikipedia rules reverted those edits.

Not only that, but many of my edits still stand. Others have been modified, but what I corrected no longer remains. Gene Nygaard 04:11, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The only person who doesn't support my compromises is you, Gene. Dan100 (Talk) 23:03, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Bobblewik appears to have conditionally supported it, based on conditions which have not been met. He has also offered what appears to be his attempts at clarification of what this compromise involves, though it is clear to neither you nor to me. But most importantly, you have not indicated whether or not you agree with those clarifications or not, and it is unclear whether they are part of the compromise we are discussing or not.

Grace Note never explicitly supported your proposal, but she implicitly did so by putting her understanding of what it is not here on the talk page, where it should have been put, but in the article itself. Nobody had discussed it here at the time. That is totally improper, wrong, and obviously rebuts my normal presumption of good faith.

Don't present yourself as the Great Compromiser, when you have not even had the decency to indicate whether or not Grace Note's interpretation of what you proposed as a compromise was reasonably accurate.

Don't present yourself as the Great Compromiser, when you do not have the common decency to address any of the many issues raised about all the many problems in that version presented by Grace Note.

Don't present yourself as the Great Compromiser, when you have not asked for any input from me about it, and when you do not take my views into consideration at all in making that proposal.

I don't see where you were ever given any proxy to speak for anybody else about this compromise, and wouldn't accept it if you had been. Gene Nygaard 09:38, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've asked Bobblewik to clarify his position on my suggested compromises. Grace note's implementation wasn't how I would have done it (I will demonstrate it if you like me to). Dan100 (Talk) 13:29, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

That's up to you, Dan100. It isn't my call.

Of course, it is simply imperative that you do so, if you are seriously offering a proposed "compromise" (which I'd call a misleading characterization of what you have offered). Otherwise, you are just trying to sell a pig in a poke.

Note also that with your admission here, you cannot yet even count Grace Note as a supporter of your proposal—only of her counterproposal. Furthermore, you have not indicated support for her counterproposal, either. Gene Nygaard 08:40, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Current discussions are never archived, only old discussions. Doing so violates Wikipedia norms, and is typically viewed as vandalism. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:23, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Any discussion that is less than about a week old and not obviously resolved, especially when it is part of an overall, broader discussion, is active.

According to the edit history of Archive2, ElC archived active discussions only an hour old. Well, an hour and five minutes, if I have correctly converted the times to UTC on the history page. But that's weird, because the stuff in Archive2 is what SlimVirgin put back on this talk page and left in the archive as well, as she admits below. I'm pretty sure she put it into the archive, too. So somebody must have tampered with the edit history of those archive pages.

Bobblewik at least twice reverted archiving by SlimVirgin when she archived active discussion.

Since some active discussion had already been archived by ElC and some active discussion had already been archived by SlimVirgin in the latest round of archiving, including all the really important stuff, I tried to make it a clean slate by putting the minor side issue they left on the talk page in the archives as well. Gene Nygaard 09:25, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Might Want to Create New Articles

SlimVirgin, you have doing a nice job on this article. You might want to create new articles and move some of the information from this article to there, so that the article size can be reduced. -- SNIyer12^(talk) 03:45, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks SN, I appreciate that feedback. What I was thinking of doing is finishing up with this article, and then once I've done that, looking to see whether material should be moved. I've already started a page on the accused at Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:55, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

I've also started a page on the second accused, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah. Perhaps the alternative theories section could be moved to its own page. We can see what the structure's like once the trial section's finished. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:37, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Take your time, don't rush. When you've finished the trial section, you can create a new article, titled, Pan Am Flight 103 Bombing Trial, and condense that section and move much of the information to the new article. This can at least reduce the article size. SNIyer12^(talk) 18:48, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, Can you please discuss with me what new articles you and I think should be created? I'm suggesting it because I would like to have the article size reduced. You can leave a message on my talk page. -- SNIyer12, 02:31, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking of creating a new article about the alternative theories, and perhaps also about the trial, though I wouldn't myself want to write that. I was going to wait to see how long it ends up being once I've finished outlining the evidence, and then I plan to go back through it and tighten a lot of it up, as there's some loose writing, so that will shorten it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:40, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, please let me know when you have finished the article. I would like to discuss what new articles should be created so that the size of this article can be reduced. You can leave a message on my talk page. Thanks. SNIyer12 15:09, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

My Archiving

I archived the talk page propperly. Now I see 17 June entries in the archive and 15 June ones in the main talk page. Any reason for this? El_C 05:25, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Eventually someone will have to clean up the mess Gene created. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:24, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That was me. I restored Dan's compromise suggestion by copying it back to here in case we still talk about it, but I didn't delete it from the archive. The reason I did that was so that, if discussion doesn't resume about Dan's idea, I could just delete it from here without having to re-archive. Feel free to delete again if you'd prefer. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:36, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the proper thing to do would be to remove it from the archive when you restore it to the active talk page.

The galling thing, of course, is that that is exactly what you did when I placed the remaining section in the archives, and you restored it to this page (a section which has had no significant discussion since you restored it, unlike the other things you unarchived). You did blank that Archive3 page. Once again, it appears that the rules which apply to everybody else do not apply to SlimVirgin. This repetitive theme is getting pretty tiresome. Gene Nygaard 12:44, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I still have a hope that I can end my head's current reciprocating action in connection with a brick wall, and Gene can actually learn to work with other people... hey, I'm a dreamer.... Dan100 (Talk) 23:05, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Dan, for the record, I'm grateful to you for responding to the RfC, and to you and Grace Note for suggesting workable compromises, which I hope we'll be able to implement in some form as soon as the problems with this talk page cease. And don't stop being a dreamer. Do stop hurting your head though: your conversion skills may yet be required. ;-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 10:23, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Cut the bullshit. When I told you what was wrong with your compromise proposal, or at least Grace Note's version of it, you made absolutely no attempt whatsoever to address any one of those issues. In other words, it is quite apparent that you never had any intent to try to reach a compromise in the first place. So who is it who doesn't know how to work with people? Gene Nygaard 10:51, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gene, your idea of a 'compromise' here seems to be you getting your way, 100%. That's not actually what a compromise is - it involves letting go of somethings you'd like to see, just as Slim has let go of always only having only one set of units in the article. Hopefully you and the other party can then agree on how to move foward, instead of being stuck in an unproductive deadlock (as we are now). Dan100 (Talk) 13:20, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Things learned by reading history

I just noticed that the measurements in this article were expressed in dual units for a time period of 2½ months, from May to June, with nary a peep of complaint about their presence or about any difficulty in reading the article because of them. During that time period, about 25 different editors actually edited this article, and I'd guess that its readers numbered in the hundreds or thousands.

Then, with no discussion on the talk page before or after (until Rl 10 days later complained about SlimVirgin's actions), and with a deceptive edit summary calling it "copyedit", SlimVirgin took it on herself to remove them. Gene Nygaard 13:46, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

1. Guesses about how many readers there were (and what they thought of the article) don't carry much weight.
2. There's nothing deceptive about that edit summary (what do you think that "copyedit" means?)
3. This is what editors on Wikipedia do — they "take it upon" themselves to edit articles.
4. That editors at one time were happy with a certain method of presentation has little bearing on what a later group of editors decide. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:03, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

suggestions for removal

I found this article very informative, but a little bit on the long side and at some points a little bit to much going into detail. My suggestions for details that could be removed:

• 'lucky ones': shorten last two paragraphs into one
• The pitch-roll-yaw picture. It is also found at the link, and Lockerbie is not really about flight dynamics.
• 'how the aircraft broke up'-section can be shortened, stuff like mach waves is too technical
• 'the explosion'-section: terms magnetic and calibrated airspeed are too technical
• too many links to other articles that are irrelevant to the main line of the story: promise, life, death, steel, screws, power, intense, priest, lamb, wool, (posted by User:82.210.116.233)

I strongly agree. I've told SlimVirgin that the user should consider doing extensive editing. SlimVirgin, do you agree with the suggestions, I would like to know. We'll be in touch. User talk:SNIyer12.

Hi SN and anon, thanks for your comments. I agree with some of them. I don't mind shortening the lucky ones paragraph, and I wondered about its position: whether it should be there or lower down. I agree about some of the measurements being too technical, and also agree about overwikifying.

I like the pitch-roll-yaw diagram, because it was these movements coming one after another that, in part, caused the plane to break up, and many people don't know what those words mean. The stuff about Mach waves is absolutely key to why the plane disintegrated. A bomb that size should not have caused the plane to break up: other aircraft have experienced similar explosions but have managed to land safely. It was an unfortunate combination of unusual events that caused PA 103 to break up: the violent shaking of the control cables by the explosion was one reason (because it caused the sudden pitch, roll, yaw movements) and the Mach stem shockwaves were the other. My guess is that people who are technically oriented will appreciate the paragraph explaining how the plane broke up, and people who aren't will just glide over it, and would do the same even if it were shorter. What do you think? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:55, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Hi 82.210.116.233, I've shortened the "lucky ones" section as you suggested. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:26, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

I must agree with SV on the pitch-roll-yaw part and especially the Mach waves - as said, it's key to why such a small bomb brought down such a large aircraft. I also agree that less technically-minded readers will probably skip it. We need to cater to both audiences :-). Dan100 (Talk) 10:50, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Reversal of onus

Gene, it seems rather bizarre to insist that someone hasn't gotten consensus for reverting changes. Typically one would have to get consensus for making changes in the first place. As well, this conversion to one style of spelling is rather suspicious, given the way you've worded it as "first significant editor's spelling"; how did you decide who the "first significant editor" was? Was there an earlier editor who spelled it another way? Jayjg ^(talk) 04:37, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gene is just trolling. He tried to cause disruption over the metric units, and failed, and so now he's moved onto spelling. He went back into the history and found, near the beginning, the word "criticised," spelled with an S, and so therefore he's trying to change it all to British English. I get the sense his goal is to goad people into making personal attacks on him, or on each other, to reduce the page to toxic chaos the way he did with the BCE/CE debate. You may as well give up now, Gene, because it won't work. What's interesting is why the sudden focus on this article, to which (to the best of my knowledge), he has added zero content, knows nothing about, and has never expressed an interest in. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:53, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

You and SlimVirgin are the ones trying to shift the burden, Jayjg.

The first significant editor rule for national variants of English in the Manual of Style applies to the article as a whole, not to individual words.

The first significant editor is the one who makes it so that it is no longer just a stub, and who uses something that is clearly American English or British English.

There's nothing whatsoever bizarre about it. As SlimVirgin has already agreed long ago, the first user rule applies. See Archive1, I think, wherever our archivers of active discussion hid it away.

The question of American English or British English is determined by the first significant editor; in this case, the one who added that "criticised" spelling.

What the first-user rule does is to put the burden on someone wanting to change it to get approval for that change. SlimVirgin is the one who needs to get approval of this change, and she has not attempted to do so.

Furthermore, what is really, truly bizarre is the term "cream-colored pyjamas":

1. That "cream-coloured" spelling is consistent with the usage established by the first significant editor.
2. That "cream-coloured" spelling is consistent with the spelling of "pyjamas" which it modified; the normal American English spelling of the noun it modifies is "pajamas". Note that I did not change the spelling to "pyjamas".
3. That "cream-coloured" spelling is consistent with the spelling of "woollen" in the same sentence. In normal American English, that would be "woolen" instead. Note that I did not change the spelling to "woollen".
4. That "cream-coloured" spelling is consistent with the spelling of the "bright orange-coloured recording device" discussed elsewhere in this article.

• Note that this is not something which I have ever edited. I didn't put that -oured spelling there.
• Note that since this was done by an editor other than the first significant editor, this also indicates that some other editor has followed the precedent set by the first significant user, and has used British English spelling here.
• Maybe you'd like to take a wild guess as to which editor changed "orange" to "orange-coloured"?

So what I was doing was making the spelling consistent. In doing so, I followed the first-editor rule, since SlimVirgin has never sought or received approval for changing the standard for this article to American English from the original British English. Gene Nygaard 05:10, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're trolling, and you're writing in a way that isn't entirely sane, if only you'd realize it. Now you want to write up an analysis of every possible way of looking at "cream-colored," just as you tried to do with "ton." I'd assumed when you started this that you were a teenager, and that that explained it, but I saw recently from your website that you're older than anyone else on this page.

For the fourth time, the way the article is currently written has the support on this page of Mel Etitis, El C, Grace Note, Felonious Monk, Jayjg, Dan (who has suggested adding some metric conversions) and myself. If you want to help with the article, add content. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:21, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Like I've told you before, many of my edits to this article have been reinstated by someone else, after your senseless reversions. Many of my edits to this article have never been reverted and still stand. Some of my edits which have been reverted have later been added back in by me, too. There are significant improvements because of me.

But don't blame me for chaos on BCE/CE debate. Were you involved in that, too? That might be a partial explanation of why it was indeed so chaotic, on top of a proponent who irritated everybody so much by his personal attacks and in several other ways that he was able to achieve the world-record more than 100 votes against his proposal by Wikipedia editors. Gene Nygaard 05:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, I wasn't involved, but I remember you calling Steve deceitful, and I posted on the talk page asking you not to say that. So perhaps this is payback time for me because I made that comment. I also recall you telling other editors they were "lying" and "stupid," and that other (reasonable) editors told you to stop "rambling," stop the "vitriolic invective," the "red herrings," and "straw men." It was also suggested that you stop being an "asshole." It's all sounding very familiar. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:32, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Now, unless those really aren't other editors, but just your sockpuppets, I don't understand how you are able to speak for anybody else approving a mix of "cream-colored" and "orange-coloured", and "cream-colored" with "pyjamas", etc. Especially since you have never bothered to ask for approval to change to from British English to American English. Gene Nygaard 05:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The other thing I find worrying is that almost all Gene's posts to Wikipedia, at least under this user name, since June 11, have been to this talk page or article, a subject he has no knowledge about, adds no content to, and has never shown a prior interest in. [8] It seems that currently your sole purpose on Wikipedia is to cause trouble, Gene. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:32, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Read carefully personal attack, which starts out:

• "Generally, a personal attack is committed when a person substitutes abusive remarks for evidence when examining another person's claims or comments. It is considered a personal attack when a person starts referencing a supposed flaw or weakness in an individual's personality, beliefs, lifestyle, convictions or principles, and use it as a debate tactic or as a means of avoiding discussion of the relevance or truthfulness of what the person said."

Then read the Wikipedia policy Wikipedia:No personal attacks. "Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor." Gene Nygaard 05:42, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gene, whatever point you are trying to advance, I fail to see its merit, and I am asking you to stop. El_C 05:47, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gene, read Wikipedia:No personal attacks yourself before asking anyone else to read it. You've made a habit on this page, and others, of writing to people in abusive or disrespectful ways. I repeat: if you want to be involved in editing this article, please stick with the consensus expressed on this page about style, stop being disruptive, and concentrate on content. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:58, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

By golly, whether you are a SlimVirgin sockpuppet or not, you did manage to cite a policy quite applicable here, when it tells us:

• "However, where spellings are mixed in the same article, a practical problem of readability is created, and so spelling is unified within the article."

Does SlimVirgin really speak for you? Do you approve of mixing "cream-colored" with "orange-coloured", with using "cream-colored" American English to modify "pyjamas" British English, with mixing "cream-colored pajamas" with "woollen cardigan", etc.?

The strange thing is that if SlimVirgin were to ask for a change, she probably would get at least some of the people she presumes to speak for to support her. Even I probably wouldn't oppose her, except it is getting more likely that I would all the time, just because of her attitude. Only thing is, she is too stubborn and too tied to the principle that the rules which apply to everyone else do not apply to her, to ever do that. Gene Nygaard 06:09, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Stop moving people's posts around. This was a theme you invoked with Steve, about people thinking the rules don't apply to them. You're repeating what you did there almost word for word. You need to be more imaginative. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:17, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

The strange thing is, Gene, that your grasp of reality is slipping, and you are disrupting Wikipedia. An advice from one 'sockpuppet,' who, like Slim, Jay and Mel, enjoys access to Wikipedia:Rollback — someone call the developers, quick! El_C 06:35, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've changed the only example of coloured to colored, so Gene now has consistency in that regard. Where I come from pyjama and pajama are both used, as are woollen and woolen, and I plumped for the former in each case for no particular reason. There's no style inconsistency with those: the English-speaking world consists of more than just the UK and the U.S. It would be nice if Gene would be equally concerned with the substantive content issues, because discussing this trivia is a waste of everyone's time and energy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:47, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

I want to apologize to Gene for some of my comments earlier, which were ad hominem, rather than on-topic. I'm finding the discussion somewhat frustrating, and I allowed my frustration to get the better of me. I'm sorry. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 10:59, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Seperately from SlimVirgin, I also arrived at the conclusion that Gene is a troll (and so will decline to feed him further). The matter of metric units is of some importance as some UK and European readers won't be able to understand some Imperial units, and I'll get round to putting a compromise back in soon.

But when it comes to Gene two things stand out - his inability to rationally discuss topics, to empathize with others, and to work towards a consensus (his 'acceptance' above refers to a version I did not propose as a compromise), and also his obession with trivial details like Brit/US spelling.

This is an article which chronicles how more than 200 people lost their lives in a single terrible event. How the words are spelt does not matter! Dan100 (Talk) 11:14, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Please stop the name-calling, or I'll sic the trolls of my ancestral homeland on you. BTW, I never have been able to figure out how metaphors got so mixed up that people use the word with the meaning you intended. Nobody calls the people who troll for fish by the name "trolls" so why would that noun be used when the figurative meaning of the verb derived from that usage is used? Gene Nygaard 12:29, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sure, after Bobblewik, SlimVirgin, and I have already interpreted what you did as a proposal for compromise, you claim that you did not propose what I accepted as a compromise. That's probably one reason you had so much difficulty understanding Bobblewik's response, but the most important factor here is the fact that SlimVirgin has already indicated her acceptance of the your other version as a compromise. You can see it on the archive page; I'll copy from it here:

SlimVirgin wrote in the earlier discussion:[9] "Dan100 has made a very helpful suggestion. He has edited the page doing all the metric conversions, and has edited it again with a version containing fewer conversions, but the ones that would be key for a young British readership. Both versions can be seen in the page history. Dan then reverted to the old version until we decide which we prefer. I'd be happy to accept Dan's version with the fewer conversions as a compromise, as it doesn't break up the text. So we could either go with this, or with Grace Note's suggestion of a footnote at the end containing all the conversions; or we could even have both. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:22, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)"

That's what we should be building on, if we are ever to get any agreement. Anything that is proposed as a compromise must necessarily accomplish some of the purpose of putting in unit conversions in the first place. This is not an article teaching conversion factors, and this is not a test page for people to try out their skills at doing those conversions (and if it were, we should have an answer page somewhere). Gene Nygaard 12:29, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How words are spelled does matter. I don't mind your using "spelt" on the talk page, even though I always think of the grain when I see that spelling, but if the rest of an article is written in American English, I'd change that spelling on the article page. It's all part of the Wikipedia editing process; don't trivialize the contributions of copyeditors. Gene Nygaard 12:29, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear, I just checked the whole page with SpellBound and standardised it to US English without realising there was any controversy. Feel free to revert my edit if need be; I don't want to stir up the waters. -- FP ^{<talk><edits>} 01:48, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

The timer fragment

Hi 217.42.233.47, I reverted your edit about the timer fragment because we have to write in a neutral way, so we can't call Thurman an "explosives expert" in scare quotes, because he is an explosives expert, even if you disagree with his conclusions. Secondly, this edit "(Since the PT/35(b) fragment turned out to be the prosecution's only hard piece of incriminatory evidence in the eventual Lockerbie Trial, it is a matter of continuing concern to those who do not accept that Libya was responsible for the crime that the FBI's Mr Thurman was not called to testify)": we can insert that claim so long as we attribute it to someone, but you'd have to provide a credible source, particularly for the claim that this was the only hard piece of evidence. If you want to write more about it (explaining who Thurman is, why he's important), and you have sources, it might fit well into the trial section. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:46, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, that's better, thanks, but you need a credible source if you want to call the fragment the "sole, hard piece of incriminatory evidence," and you'll need to say what you mean by "hard," or the source will. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:15, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

To the anon IP: please make sure your writing is neutral. We can't say things like conspiracy charges were inexplicably dropped, especially not in the intro. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:18, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

To the latest anon IP: please read Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:No original research, and Wikipedia:Cite sources. These say we have to write in a neutral way, can't advance our own arguments, and have to cite sources for any edit that might be challenged. By rewriting the motives section to include the possibility that the target of the bombing was an individual on the flight, you seem to be laying the groundwork for one of the conspiracy theories.

Also, two problems with your edit about Pik Botha. You wrote that Reuters reported it in 1994, but in fact it was reported in 1988-9 but wasn't confirmed. If it has since been confirmed, we need a citation. Second problem is that if we include everyone who cancelled a booking, it's going to be a very long section. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:03, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Did you mean to delete that insertion? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:45, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

About the South Africans? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:53, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Oh thanks, I thought I had. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:56, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)\

It's been reinserted, now with a proper citation, but it's way too long. There were lots of interesting people booked onto the plane who canceled their reservations: e.g. the U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, John McCarthy; Steven Greene, asst admin in the Office of Intelligence of the DEA; Chris Revell, son of Buck Revell, then head of the FBI. We could perhaps list them, but to devote several paragraphs to each of them (or any of them) isn't feasible. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:54, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

I've added the other names and reduced it to one paragraph. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 13:56, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Helsinki warning

The "Helsinki warning" section talks all about it, and ends the section with PA 103 investigators subsequently said the warning was a hoax and a chilling coincidence. What? Tempshill 7 July 2005 23:17 (UTC)

What's your question exactly? And did you see my note about the satellites? SlimVirgin ^(talk) July 8, 2005 01:57 (UTC)

If the article means to say that Helsinki warning document was a hoax and the whole piece of paper was faked, then can someone set it off in a separate paragraph for emphasis? Currently it's sort of an afterthought. (I hesitate to do this because I am not certain that's what's being said.) And, yeah, I wrote to you about the satellites. Thanks - Tempshill 23:18, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

What's meant is that the warning was a hoax, not the documents circulated about the warning. I'll take a look to make sure it's clear. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:11, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Removed satellite reading newspapers myth

In case anyone wonders why I removed the small section on spy satellites "capable of reading newspapers", it's because that is an urban legend. In practice, satellites are limited by diffraction and air turbulence distortion to no better than a resolution a few tens of centimeters. --Peter bertok 9 July 2005 03:03 (UTC)

Recent edits

Because this article has been linked to in the London bombing article, the page is getting a lot of attention from anon IPs who may not have edited before. It would be appreciated if you would read our policies before editing, particularly WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. Please write in an encyclopedic, disinterested style, and make sure anything you write has been published elsewhere already: don't add your own opinions, your own arguments, or your own analysis or synthesis of published material. And please don't make copy-editing changes unless you're sure you're improving the text, because a lot of grammatical errors are being introduced. Not that anyone will read this ... File:Meh.gif SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:11, July 10, 2005 (UTC)