User talk:Plumbago/Archive 3

Barnstar templates

Work continues on further templates. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 03:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

r/K

Yeah, I considered both your a&b points, and didn't dismiss either of them out of hand (reasoning on article talk page) I think. I think, if the application of r/K were not against my POV --and still as widely discussed as JPR's work is-- that I'd think it was notable enough to be mentioned here. b) well, I donno, I thought David Suzuki was wrong to not debate JPR on the merits of his work. I think it's better discredited than ignored, but that's just my belief, and I can see how sane & reasonable people might disagree. I can e-mail you a pdf of the review if you like. Pete.Hurd 14:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I agree about the application of r/K - specific examples of its application would be good for the article. Just perhaps not this one.  ;) Regarding debating JPR, I can certainly see an argument for this, and the article on him contains some (but not all that much) criticism. It might be worth updating it with the review you mentioned previously and anything else comes to hand. In the meantime, I guess the reference to him in the r/K article stays, but as he's pretty clearly labelled as dubious there, I'm not too upset really. I might try to clarify the article on him if I've the time - I've now had a read of the review you mentioned and it suggests some edits. Thanks again, --Plumbago 17:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Image:A Yool DevilsTower 04Sep03.jpg|A Yool DevilsTower 04Sep03.jpg

Silly question - is this a real photo? Just wondering if you computer rendered it. It doesn't really matter, I'm just curious. Stevage 19:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

It's completely legit. I might have cropped it somewhat from the original, but it's real. I've a couple others taken at the same time if you're interested. Cheers, --Plumbago 22:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

HL2 Aftermath

Hi, I'm the same user you left message here [1]. Glad we got that cleared. But there's this Mistress Selina Kyle who thinks she knows a thing or two about Taiwan but is utterly clueless and quick to label people. She's likely to revert the change again in the future. BlueShirts 23:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Conchology

You're probably not the person to ask this, but I found you in the Biologist Wikipedians Category. I've totally revamped the page, basing it structurally on Entomology, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind taking a look and maybe cleaning it up/ giving feedback/correcting typos/whatever neccesary. I would appreciate it. Thanx! СПУТНИК^{ССС Р} 04:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi there. Thanks for your note. I probably amn't the best person to comment on conchology, but I'll have a look. I do actually have a passing interest in molluscs, but more the unshelled, cephalopod end of them. Having had a quick look at your edits, I'm very impressed. It looks like you've radically improved the page from what was a really rather modest stub. Anyway, as regards getting better feedback on your edits, I'd suggest checking up on who's been editing the mollusc entry of late and contacting them. Categories such as "biologist" can be rather broad, and I know that many people don't bother adding themselves to them (or even don't know about them). Cheers, --Plumbago 09:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Spelling mistake on my userpage

Hi, thanks so much for pointing it out! I do not mind when others edit my userpage & have now added a comment saying so. Have a great day... Mikkerpikker ... 11:34, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

85.12.99.227

You recently warned 85.12.99.227 twice regarding vandalism to Meaning of life. I've reviewed the edits, and while they are indeed strongly non-NPOV, they do not seem to be simple vandalism. As the user's edit history seem to be showing clear improvement over the past few days, I've taked the drastic step of blanking the warnings on their talk page and replacing them with {{welcomenpov}}. Rest assured, however, that I'm watching their talk page, and will block them if they start vandalizing again. If you see any more vandalism or other questionable edits from this IP, please do add the appropriate warnings to the page. But I do feel that this user deserves at least a chance for a new start. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No worries. I didn't think to check their contributions - rather lazily, I've sort-of assumed that Admin would do that come block time. My bad. I'll bear this in mind in the future. I should add that the two warnings I added were, I think, for two quite different bouts of "vandalism". The first was rather straightforward, but the second introduced strong POV. So it might well have been two people. Cheers, --Plumbago 18:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Image Tagging Image:Egge and Aksnes 1992 plot.gif

This media may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:Egge and Aksnes 1992 plot.gif. I notice the 'image' page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is therefore unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the media on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then you should also specify where you found it, i.e., in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then you can use {{GFDL-self}} to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media qualifies as fair use, please read fair use, and then use a tag such as {{Non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other media, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Stan 04:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Stan. Thanks for spotting this. I've fixed it up. It's a graph I drew myself but I obviously forgot to fix the source info when I uploaded it. Apologies. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:24, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Baltic sea

Heya Plumbago :)

I put in that North Sea link in the Baltic Sea article, without logging in (I sometimes fix up links or typos without bothering to log in)... I had a look for another link in the paragraph, but I must have missed it.

cheers - Rohan

Bird of paradox 09:38, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

No worries. I've done exactly the same thing many times. Sometimes the text is so dense (and I'm too lazy to read it) that I've missed clangers right in front of me. Anyway, I just gave you the heads-up because of the IP address. I've got my Firefox set up such that logging into the WP's just a simple click. Cheers, --Plumbago 09:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Scientific peer review

I wasn't sure if you were aware of this, but it might be of interest to you. Guettarda 19:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Tu Quoque

The quoque section should stay in Starlight Problem. Its a stupid, ridiculous argument that highlights a lot of whats wrong with creationist attitudes, but they do use the argument. JoshuaZ 05:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Erm, OK. You're probably right. But there needs to be some sort of balancing remark, or a link to something illustrating the logical weakness of tu quoque as a strategy. Rhetorically, it's a pretty good strategy (hence its wide use in politics), so it needs to be countered somehow. I'm not au fait with all of the creationist pages, and there might be the sort of link I'm suggesting already out there. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:50, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Your images have been updated

Hi. Just dropping by to let you know the following image have been updated, if you don't mind:

• Image:Xen halflife 11 AYool.jpg
• Image:Test chamber AYool.jpg
• Image:Xen halflife 12 AYool.jpg
• Image:Xen halflife 13 AYool.jpg

Thanks in advance. ╫ ２５ ^{◀RingADing▶} 19:54, 26 April 2006 (UTC) ╫

No problem. I should really have run mine at higher resolution in the first place. Old machine though. Anyway, thanks. --Plumbago 21:28, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment

I made a comment to your vote at Talk:Creation according to Genesis#Proposing split. ems (not to be confused with the nonexistant pre-dating account by the same name) 11:37, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Anoxic-Hypoxic

It would be nice if a knowledgeable person could straighten out, separate or combine the topics of Anoxic basins, Anoxic sea water, Hypoxic sea water and Dead zone (ecology). I have made this suggestion to you and to User:Piyrwq. Bejnar 22:47, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Bejnar. Anoxia isn't a specialty of mine, but I know a bit about it, so I'll try to have a look at improving the pages. It does look like the three pages are repetitive and could be merged into a single article (ocean anoxia?). Each does come at it from a different angle, but an uber-article could subsume all three and reduce the overlap. Thanks for pointing this out. I'll let you know when I get round to making changes. Cheers, --Plumbago 09:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

diatom

thanks for your constructive and accurate comment. i have amended the text to take into account your correct assertion that the inorganic material is the important part for biota records. feel free to edit this passage further as you see fit. you may want to check out an article i created today called bay mud which speaks to diatoms and other issues of certaine estuarine environments. maybe you can add some more UK or worldwide perspective which it sorely lacks/ i could only find a small amount about Bristol Bay (not a proper wiki link for the UK bay). cheers Covalent 12:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Sea(-)water => Seawater

Good work on the conversion, that must have been a lot of work. Enough work to scare me off anyways! Piyrwq 00:47, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

However, Ginkgo100 pointed me towards this page which discusses when and when not to replace redirecting links to the redirecting target. On the whole I don't think I've really violated this, but I did come across a few pages where it was obvious that I shouldn't redirect (but probably came across, then edited, several where it was less obvious to me!). Anyway, I'll wait for now. But I'll probably periodically swap some more. In the future I guess people will link to seawater directly when they write new text. Cheers, --Plumbago 14:52, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Subst

When using template tags on talk pages, don't forget to substitute with text by adding subst: to the template tag. For example, use {{subst:test}} instead of {{test}}. This reduces server load and prevents accidental blanking of the template. --Cyde↔Weys 17:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Xen barnstar

Please accept this barnstar in recognition of your fine work and collaboration on the Xen entry -Jackel 16:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Mammals quote

Now that you mention it, it does sound somewhat dubious, and I have no idea where I originally read it. I might scrap it.—Pengo 11:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

No worries. I think it might be correct in biomass terms, but I can't think off the top of my head where to check. Certainly, there are ~3 × 10⁸ metric tons of people on Earth! If you do find a source, I'd like to hear about it. Cheers, --Plumbago 13:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Category:Fringe physics

Re our discussion there, you might drop by Bernard Haisch-Journal of Scientific Exploration-Stochastic electrodynamics and B. Roy Frieden-Extreme physical information to see some context. In trying to mollify someone like Haisch, it might be useful to move all the specific theories in Category:Pseudoscience and Category:Protoscience to Category:Fringe science. Or if not, I could sure use some help persauding someone like Haisch that whether he likes it or not, simply because so many knowledgeable observers consider his stuff to be non-mainstream is reason enough for WP to note this fact.---CH 05:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I'm probably not capable of evaluating most of the specific theories (seeing as they're from physics, and I'm a biologist). I understand what you're suggesting re: moving them to fringe physics from pseudophysics though. My guide for separating them would be : 1) are they watertight hypotheses (i.e. unfalsifiable), 2) if not, are they falsified by extant data, 3) if falsified, have they been adapted or extended to accommodate said data. Hypotheses failing the first question are a bit of a no-no for science (often creationist pseudoscience falls at this point). The second question's a simple reality check - do they work? However, many an accepted theory fell in earlier drafts, so the third question is really asking if there's an established research presence for them. It does sound like several of the theories fail this latter point, but it's not a strong one I suppose, and maybe someday someone will pick up and tweak these discarded hypotheses into something useful. Anyway, I've just argued myself round in a circle into accepting just about anything short of the unfalsifiable. So I'm probably not much use to you! --Plumbago 08:29, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Waterline

Your recent edit [2] to this article seems incorrect. Rather than revert (I could be wrong!) I thought that you could explain to me why you think that warm water is more buoyant than cold and that fresh water is more buoyant than salt water. My reason for thinking the opposite is that warm water is less dense than cold and fresh water is less dense than salty thus making them less buoyant. Am I/we having a semantic problem? --hydnjo talk 14:05, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a semantic problem. Buoyancy (at least as I understand it, and as it's defined in the WP), is an upward force. I read this as implying that objects that float are more buoyant than those that sink (and this could be my mistake). Hence, lower density water (warm and fresh) is more buoyant than higher density water (cold and salty). How's that sound? Cheers, --Plumbago 14:30, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Umm, if you are referring to the buoyancy of the object called water then a bottle of warm water is more "buoyant" than a bottle of cold water. However in the context of this article, the object is a boat and in that context it's the effect of the water, not the water itself that is being described. Thus as warm water is less dense (about which we are in agreement) the boat will sink lower and so warm water is considered less buoyant (for the boat). How's that sound? And cheers back to you, --hydnjo talk 15:50, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah-ha. I see exactly what you're getting at. I read the sentence as referring to warm and cold water, but the context is a boat relative to the water its sitting in. In which case, given the same boat, warm water is less buoyant since more of it is displaced (because it's less dense), with the result that the boat sits lower in the water. Got you. So my edit is back to front, but I think the text is still confusing to an idiot like me, so could perhaps be rewritten a bit. Now I've got my head screwed on, I'll perhaps try. Thanks for clearing this up. And well done for hauling me up on it. Cheers, --Plumbago 16:07, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Since you were confused by the wording I'll leave it to you to rewrite with more clarity. Thanks, --hydnjo talk 16:33, 23 June 2006 (UTC) addendum: I've changed the more/less back to where it was, please edit for clarity if needed. --hydnjo talk 18:32, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I've thought of a way to clarify, take a look and let me know. --hydnjo talk 03:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Yup. I'd go with that. That's clearer - at least to me! The only thing I would say is that the connection between temperature and salinity, i.e. density, isn't made clear (but it wasn't before either). Anyway, thanks for making the change. Cheers, --Plumbago 17:19, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

OK then, I've edited again to link buoyancy with density. Does that make it better? --hydnjo talk 02:14, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Ace. Thanks for doing the donkeywork! --Plumbago 11:54, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

NP :-) --hydnjo talk 00:08, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Right

Right, "libertarian socialist" may be more appropriate in that specific concept. However, there have been certain parties who have been insisting on using "anarcho-socialist" to refer to all anarchism which isn't anarcho-capitalism (ie. about 99% of anarchism). That usage is a neologism, and I was trying to correct that. Apologies for any inconvenience caused. -- infinity0 11:34, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Anarcho-socialism is a very seldom-used phrase (around 17,600 hits on google compared to millions for anarchism). That is what I meant by neologism - it's simply not the proper, common term for it. -- infinity0 11:35, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Cool. I do agree about the term's relative lack of popularity, "libertarian socialism" is probably the more accurate way to go here (though I've certainly seen the Culture described as anarcho-socialist on websites). Thanks for responding so quickly. Cheers, --Plumbago 11:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Andy Warhol

Check out the edits of rexthestrange. I rv once, don't believe that this discussion belongs on the namespace article and I believe that we had arrived at a good balance. Doc 15:54, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I rv one more time, I believe that he may have broken the 3RR with anonymous edits before using rexthestrange. Doc 16:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi there. Yeah, I tried to warn him/her on their talk page, but they went ahead and did it anyway. Still, they subsequently semi-repented (my mention of the 3RR probably brought this on), so reporting them for 3RR may not be necessary just yet, but I reckon we'll have to watch them. As far as I can tell, this is a new user who's not au fait with the way WP works. However, as you'll see from their talk page, I'm a little concerned about some of the views they articulated (on top of the POV issues). Anyway, thanks for reverting them, I was a little worried I'd be hitting the 3RR!

On a more general note, what's with this denial around Warhol's personal life? I don't get it, especially since it seemed to me a matter of record. I can only assume that our friend here's seemingly homophobic yet admiring views are the key - wanting to "claim" Warhol for the straight community or something. Anyway, it's pretty odd, not least because Warhol's hardly an establishment figure in the first place.

Thanks again for your efforts today. Cheers, --Plumbago 21:59, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. After my 2nd rv if he had tried again, that's why I wanted you to be alert. I agree that he's new, but also a possible problem. I added the header to the talk page with 'how to sign' a post, but he still didn't pick up on it. I'll be watching too. If anything, some of his art and even his homeless work may well have in part had a 'pick up' side to it, but that's gossip and not what the article should be about. On the other hand I really don't see how anyone can question him being gay regardless of an occasional moustache. Doc 02:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Ararat

Just out of curiosity; is it only christians that are interested in the anomaly or are there others? To my knowledge, the story of Noah's Ark is present in other religions too. DeliDumrul 15:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that it's primarily Christians that we hear about in the West, but you're right, it's a story that appears in the holy books of other faiths too (perhaps unsurprisingly since they borrow from one another), so one might expect interest in it elsewhere. The fervour to find Noah's Ark may be a peculiarly Western Christian thing however. It appears to me to be borne out of an attempt by certain believers to "validate" a particularly literal reading of the Bible. In countries where this strand of faith is rare or, conversely, in countries where a literal reading is nearly universally assumed, interest may be reduced. Anyway, I'd imagine that Islamic literalists may have a similar reading of the Qur'an, but I've never heard anyone articulate this. It's a good point you raise though, so perhaps I should change my reference on the Mt. Ararat from Biblical literalists to something more encompassing of other faiths. Cheers, --Plumbago 15:36, 30 June 2006 (UTC)