User talk:Jrockley

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Welcome!

Hello, Jrockley, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  JFW | T@lk 01:50, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

useful stuff	advert rant
WP:FAC WP:PUMP WP:POST WP:CITE WP:TM/CLEAN WP:VANDAL WP:CHEMBOX WP:SIDEBAR
{{fusion power}} {{wikipedialang}} {{extreme motion}}
Alexia traffic
commons userpage

Contents 1 Adminship and such 2 Plague 3 Espo 4 Vista 5 Determining IP address 6 Copyrights 7 Image copyright problem with Image:Binding_energy.jpg 8 Some of your ITER edits are redundant 9 Image copyright problem with Image:Brody.JPG 10 Future evolution of humans 11 Picture 12 Templates 13 Magnetic confinement fusion 14 Image:Vinyl.jpg 15 Image Tagging for Image:Brody_Dalle.JPG 16 RISUG → STDs 17 Organic Reaction 18 Fullerite & ultrahard fullerite article merge 19 III-V compounds 20 Sig 21 New Messages 22 (More...) 23 Water 24 PACER diagram 25 Template ChemicalSources 26 Van der Waals bonding and Van der Waals force merger 27 Thanks 28 Image tagging for Image:Google personalised front page.png 29 Featured Picture 30 TVT 31 Images 32 Steve Irwin 33 Superglue 34 Featured Picture 35 Sidebar redesign final vote! 36 Neutrality of the Scientology page 37 L-alanine picture 38 Hydrogen 39 Lindane 40 Image 41 Fractional diagram 42 VSS Enterprise 43 Whaling in the Faroe Islands 44 Featured Picture 45 Scotland To Do 46 signature 47 Fair use rationale for Image:Windows Vista Capable.png 48 Featured Pictures 49 Template:Wikipedialang 50 User rights 51 Image:IPod Models Timeline.svg 52 fixing refs 53 Chembox new 54 Vitamin C 54.1 Neutrality and notability 55 Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot 56 DYK 57 Vit C and birthday 58 Scottish topics 59 Re: Vitamin C article 60 BTW 61 Proposal modification 62 Edit count

[edit] Adminship and such

Glad you don't have meningitis. I couldn't email you benzylpenicillin and even then you may have had difficulty administering it to yourself.

People become administrators after having spent a few months (3-4 usually) contributing, and having made typically about 3000 edits. These are coarse indicators, but typify a user who gets voted admin in an election procedure. An administrator can protect and delete pages, and has an added functionality that helps revert articles in case of vandalism; Wikipedia:Administrators lists more work.

I would recommend you seek out an area of your own interest and expertise (e.g. your work or hobbies, other interests) and start contributing there. I'd avoid controversial articles; the pitch can become quite deafening there and there are casualties (i.e. people leaving Wikipedia because they're upset) on those pages. JFW | T@lk 01:50, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Plague

In response to your question:

Wasn't there a third outbreak of plague, just before the great fire of london in 1666? I don't know whether it was bubonic or pnemonic though. Perhaps someone should look it up and verify, then add to the article? - Jack (talk) 01:36, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

The episode of plague in London, see Great Plague, was one of the last outbreaks associated with the Black Death pandemic. There were several "last gasps" of the disease in Europe during that later period. The disease spottily reappeared in the 18th century as part of the international contagion known as the Third Pandemic. What kind of information about this particular outbreak would you like to see in the Pandemic article? And, welcome to Wikipedia. Look forward to working with you. WBardwin 22:03, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Espo

Hi, I noticed your message on Kwamikagami's page. I'd say it's probably worth learning too; there is the problem of actually having to seek someone out to use it as opposed to other languages where the chance of stumbling onto someone who speaks it is higher, but on the other hand there's the free travel and whatnot and as a first second language it could help prepare you for another one. Plus they started the tv channel last month.

BTW, as for national languages I find Swedish / Norwegian / Danish to be the easiest. Verbs conjugate all in one way which is really nice at the beginning. Mithridates 15:36, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vista

Paul says that the way it is now is correct. Who says you are required by law to get the N edition? It is not that different from the original edition. I think the only thing the law requires is that those editions are available. I don't know why you wouldn't but the regular edition instead of the N version. Just buy the "Home Premium". — Alex 04:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Determining IP address

Depends what you run. You could just type in ipconfig /all via a Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows NT 4 system's command prompt. On a Windows 98 or Windows Me system type in winipcfg, then select your interface. On a Linux system, type in ifconfig. I think BSD systems use some sort of netstat command - I suggest you check the man page if that's what you are using (though if you need to, then you maybe should consider something other than BSD...). HTH.

There are other techniques, like doing a traceroute and see what the initial IP address is on the first hop. Give me buzz if you need to. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyrights

Using the HowStuffWorks site as a source is perfectly reasonable as long as you list it as a source. Otherwise writing an encyclopedia would be a real nightmare. Still, HSW must itself rely on primary sources. I tend to make attempts at identifying those sources, but then again these may be very technical even for the initiated reader.

Which image did you "borrow"? If you took it from their site and uploaded it here it will qualify as a copyright violation. If you drew it yourself the problems are much smaller. JFW | T@lk 19:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

There must be a way to contact the author of the material you're referring to. JFW | T@lk 19:04, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Binding_energy.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Binding_energy.jpg. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images on Wikipedia is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. You can get help on image copyright tagging from Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags. --OrphanBot 09:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some of your ITER edits are redundant

Hello,

You have made some competent additions to the ITER article, which is always welcome, but i also think that some of the information added is redundant, as it is not specific the reactor itself, e.g. "Fusion requires temperatures about 100,000,000 Kelvin.". This is a statement of how fusion works in GENERAL, which becomes 'assumed knowledge' once a reader reads beyond the "fusion power" link.

I hope you understand my criticism. If you don't, please discuss with me. I plan to delete the information that is not SPECIFIC or UNIQUE to ITER in a few days time.

i see your point, infomation repeated form other articles is somewhat redundant. however, i never intended to preach the complex workings of a fusion reactor. i feel what i added is a brief summary of that, aimed at users without an in-depth technical understanding of fusion power. please edit away; it is far from perfect, but please dont remove most of what i put.

the reason i added what i did is because before i began, almost all of the article concerned the political impact of the experiment, and very little of what it actually is supposed to do, and how it does it. it is an experiment in physics, not politics.

on another note, i am a bit rubbish with copyrights. could you please help me verify that i have not broken the law in uploading this picture from this site.

thanks, - Jack (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess we *could* start a flame war over it... but you know what they say about arguing on the internet...So I hope we can leave it at this:

Basically the issue is; A: does one add information for convenience of *some* readers who will read the whole article, saving said readers from a click to a linked article OR B: Keep information absolutely specific (i.e. not general information) so as to keep the article as lean as possible so as not to overwhelm readers with excess, meandering and diverging information because someone thought it would be a "good idea" to add context to the article?

Just to ram the message home, here is an example: If i were to read the article about how planet earth formed in the solar system, do I also need to read about the formation of the universe in the same article? Of course not, because a link to that information is far more appropriate, because those who *want* to read about that can follow the link. Those who dont shouldn't have to hunt for the information they want in a bloated article, or even worse, decide not to read at all because the article looks too long and too technical (although it is quite acceptable to have techical data *specific* to ITER in the article). If someone wants that technical information on the basic operation principles of nuclear tokomak fusion they can follow the relavant link, otherwise, lets not give them nightmares of math an physics classes.

Now, I hope we can move forward in making this article as accesible to everyone as it can be.

--distantbody 02:52, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Brody.JPG

Thanks for uploading Image:Brody.JPG. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images on Wikipedia is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. You can get help on image copyright tagging from Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags. --OrphanBot 07:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Future evolution of humans

Hi. Thanks for the note on my Talk. While I'd be interested in reading your paper, I agree with your own evaluation that it's very speculative. I think what would be most useful would be quotes from your references.

Anyway, the page has been nominated for deletion, so it's probably best to hold off for a bit and see how that turns out. Be sure to visit the deletion discussion page and cast your vote/voice your opinion! RJCraig 01:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

Image:Hydrogen fuel cycle.PNG can't be in the public domain because the Image:2000 Ford Taurus.jpg image is fairuse and Image:Hoover dam.jpg is GFDL. Could you recreate the graphic using only PD pictures (or license the whole thing into the GFDL and just get rid of the fairuse picture)? The copyright information right now is incorrect, which is a shame because it is a good diagram. Broken S 19:07, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Templates

No permission is required to create templates. Simply start Template:Fusion power and copy the contents of Template:Phase of matter there, after which you can replace the links with your preferred ones. More elaborate designs exist, such as in {{Blood}}.

When done, you can simply transclude the template by using {{fusion power}} at the bottom of the relevant pages. JFW | T@lk 05:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Magnetic confinement fusion

So I've been seeing this: "Magnetic confinement further compresses the plasma, increasing the energy of nuclear collisions". I'm guessing you got this idea from HowStuffWorks. Their statement is misleading, and I sent them a correction. First off, a typical fusion plasma has 10^20 ions per cubic meter. That's one millionth the density of air; I wouldn't consider that to be compression. What you really need for fusion is kinetic energy, and if you've studied the Boltzmann distribution, you know that there's a 'T' in that expression.

The magnetic field's purpose is to "bottle" the plasma, though its actual effectiveness has been described as "wrapping jello in string". Which is probably why the weaker term 'confinement' is used, but that's real life. I hope my explanation was understandable; feel free to ask me any questions you've got on this subject, and I'll answer them as best I can. - mako 22:13, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Vinyl.jpg

Hello Jrockley, how are you? First of all, sorry for my English, it's not as good as I want, but I hope it will improve with time. I'm a spanish wikipedist and I want to ask you if you could upload this image into commons. I've tried to do it by myself, noticing you as the creator of the work, but I don't know how exactly I have to license it, since you are the author. The correct one, as far as Im concerned, would be Own work, all rights released (Public domain), wouldn't it? But, Im not the author. On the other hand it is not license as a GNU-License (or is it?) and the other options (I mean the public domain ones) don't fit the correct license (at least that's what I think ... xD). So, again, could you upload this image into commons so all the community will be able to use it in articles, or at least, do you know what's the correct license for your creation? (so I could upload it). Thanks in advance :) Lasneyx'nid Iliah :- Open North -:

[edit] Image Tagging for Image:Brody_Dalle.JPG

Thanks for uploading Image:Brody_Dalle.JPG. The image has been identified as not specifying the source and creator of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the source and creator of the image on the image's description page, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days.

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This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see User talk:Carnildo/images. 11:12, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RISUG → STDs

Your addition to RISUG is just speculation as it's currently written. Can you provide a reference of someone who says that? — Omegatron 00:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

yes, i suppose it is just speculation, so i can't provide a source. although it may be just speculation; i feel it is a logical assumption. what with me being a male, and a lot of my friends being male, i know that if an easy, convenient method was avaidable that only needed thinking about once a decade, i would not find myself to be the biggest condom-fan the world has ever seen. the prospect of a reliable method such as this that does not "interrupt the thowes of passion" would be a much more convincing argument at the time than "condoms protect against diseases". it may be my opinion, but i know i am not alone in thinking it. on the other hand if your quarrel is just with the wording, feel free to edit away! - Jack (talk) 13:32, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Organic Reaction

Although I cannot physically perform this reaction, a grignard reaction with oxalyl chloride should be fast, although you'd need 2 eq. bromobenzene. Sidar 02:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fullerite & ultrahard fullerite article merge

Thanks for the Heads up on that, As long as there are accurate articles about fullerenes and fullerites on Wikipedia in as many languages as possible, I'm happy.

[edit] III-V compounds

I know that the names of GaAs, InAs, InSb etc. are formally Gallium(III) arsenide etc. However they are almost always known unambiguously as Gallium arsenside, indium antimonide etc. Therefore, your correct renaming of the articles is not useful. Less useful still is misnaming to Gallium(II) arsenide. Sorry to have to complain at this - but can you please check your recent edits. Jaraalbe 07:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Chemboxes are useful! Thanks. Jaraalbe 07:06, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the kudos, but it wasn't me who renamed the article, I've just been putting the template {{subst:chembox simple inorganic}} in a bunch of them. Maybe you confused my edits with those of another. - Jack (talk) 13:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sig

Go to your preferences and set "raw signature" to yes, then add whatever HTML markup you want.

Alternatively, you can create a subpage with all the HTML for your sig and set your prefences (with "raw sig" on again) to have your signature as {{User:Jrockley/sig}}. Hope that helps.Voice-of-All 20:56, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Testing - Jack (talk) 21:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Awesome - Jack (talk) 21:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Messages

Please do not add a fake new messages bar to the article practical joke --GeorgeMoney ^{(talk) (Help Me Improve!)} 23:01, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] (More...)

The word (More...) links to Deconstructivism. Shouldn't it go to Right whale? --Cam 00:34, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

You're right it does in IE. However, slightly bigger worry that in the Firefox browser the whole featured article section refers to deconstructivism, with no mention of todays actual featured article at all! Something is very wrong here - Jack (talk) 01:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

That's not true. You may have to press ctrl + f5 or ctrl + shift + r to override your browser's cache. joturner 02:03, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Water

I notice you've made a lot of changes to the article on Water, including adding the chemical infobox. Now, I'm not saying these edits are bad... but you do realize, don't you, that there is a seperate article on the chemical properties of water? And that that other article Water (molecule) has the infobox you added? And that the infobox in Water (molecule) is more complete then the one you added to Water? ONUnicorn 18:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing. Yeah, my edits may look bad at the moment, but I'm halfway through. The article when I found it was in a terrible state, it didn't flow at all. Just trying to put some order here. And about the chembox, its only a mini one (see Wikipedia:Chemical_infobox) and it had been requested on the talk page - - Jack (talk) 18:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PACER diagram

Hey, you seem to be the expert at this, I've seen some of your diagrams and I'm very impressed. Could you create a diagram for the PACER article. Its all about using nuclear fusion as an energy source by detonating fusion bombs under ground. It doesn't work, sadly, but seems your sort of thing. You up for it? - Jack (talk) 20:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been trying to piece over exactly what the PACER system would look like. I'm having a hard time figuring it out from the description though. Is the idea just that you use a nuclear weapon to heat up some sort of intermediary fluid (i.e. molten salt), which you then use to boil steam and run a turbine? --Fastfission 14:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I must confess, I don't really know. I kinda hoped you would, so I could understand it better. Even a google image search won't help! - Jack (talk) 14:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Haha, ok. I looked at the Garwin book and it didn't really help much, but I'll try checking out the Teller book which first proposes this and see what he says. Piecing together bits and pieces of things, I have somewhat of an idea of what it might look like, but I'm not very confident in my assessment as it is. --Fastfission 22:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template ChemicalSources

Hi Jack,

Thanks for working on Iron(II) hydroxide, I hope the rest of the chembox will be filled in in time. But I have reverted a part of your edit, the subst of the template:ChemicalSources. I'd like to keep the template on the page, so not being subst'ed. It is for now a temporarily template (and the wording may change). In time I hope that it can be removed from the pages (when and if things like CAS get a function like the Special:Booksources-page). Hope to see you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Van der Waals bonding and Van der Waals force merger

The guideline on merger that you cited says, "Cut/paste the non-redundant content from the source page into the destination page." After examining both pages, it was quite apparent that there is essentially nothing in the "bonding" article that is not already covered in the "force" article. If you think you can do a better job of merger, by all means feel free. But having the two redundant articles out there is not helpful to Wikipedia. If you don't want to take this up, perhaps the best solution is an AfD for the bonding article, which covers the same ground, but is not as well written, and completely fails to cite its sources --MCB 05:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Great editing job on the Doubt article. The reorganisation into subsections looks great! Drakonicon 22:26, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image tagging for Image:Google personalised front page.png

Thanks for uploading Image:Google personalised front page.png. The image has been identified as not specifying the source and creator of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the source and creator of the image on the image's description page, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided source information for them as well.

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This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 17:06, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Picture

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, Image:Poi circles.jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates.

Congratulations, and thanks for nominating it. Raven4x4x 07:45, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

This is to let you know the Featured Picture you uploaded and/or nominated Image:Poi circles.jpg is scheduled to be Picture of the day on September 28, 2006, when it will be featured on the Main Page. Congratulations! howcheng {chat} 17:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TVT

hello Jack ! saw your presence in that TVT article today. and i just added a picture of myself on my private page, after seeing your picture. i am a old Herr however... my question: as my english is not the best, can you check edits of mine for errors, if you have time ? last longer edit was Günther Enderlein needing a check. if you want stuff from german de-wp, dont hesitate to contact me. i understand english, but speaking/writing is something else. regards, michael Redecke 16:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

Fair use images should not be reproduction quality, that's why I reverted to the small versions.--Peta 05:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Steve Irwin

If you would like to pay tribute to Steve Irwin, who tragically died on September 4th 2006, just feel free to sign your name on Mil Falcon's userpage under tributes. 49Untouchable 18:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Superglue

Could you please check out the article on superglue? As a chemist, you can probably critque it for errors. I am specifically concerned with the recent claim in N.American press that superglue does not function as a glue in an environment that is devoid of water. The claim goes like this: it is fruitless to try to glue ceramic pieces together with superglue unless there is sufficient water present, whether as a small drop or in the air itself. Is this all sensible to you? Thanks. DocEss 17:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Picture

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, Image:Giant planes comparison.svg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates.

Congratulations, and thanks for nominating it. Raven4x4x 09:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

This is to let you know the Featured Picture you uploaded and/or nominated Image:Giant planes comparison.svg is scheduled to be Picture of the day on November 6, 2006, when it will be featured on the Main Page. Congratulations! howcheng {chat} 16:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sidebar redesign final vote!

It's that special, special time! No, grandma's not coming over. No, not time to clean out the fridge. It's sidebar redesign voting time! Yes, the community has narrowed it down to 3 different options, and a vote for the same old original sidebar is a choice one could vote for as well. Voting for multiple options is allowed, and discussion on the whole shebang is right there on the vote page itself.

You're probably getting this message because the sidebar fairy (JoeSmack for now) noticed you commented on the project at some time over on at Wikipedia talk:Village pump (proposals)/Sidebar redesign. Lovely. JoeSmack ^Talk 06:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality of the Scientology page

Hi. Per Wikipedia:NPOV dispute, if you want to dispute the neutrality of part of the Church of Scientology page you are supposed to describe your objection on the talk page. And in fact what you should probably do first is attempt to edit the article to make it neutral. If you don't want to do that then just list your objection and perhaps another editor will do it for you. You really don't need to tag the section without trying to resolve your issue first. --Justanother 22:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] L-alanine picture

Hi, I've listed your image Image:NMR implementation alanine.png for deletion as it's been replaced by an SVG version, Image:L-alanine.svg. Hope this is OK. Happy editings, –Mysid^(t) 05:36, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I've looked it over, and I'm not absolutely sure that what you have created is L-alanine. I think what you have there is D-alanine. I'm no expert, but until it can be said for definite, I wouldn't want anything to be deleted - Jack (talk) 17:31, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

You may well be right – I just mimicked the original. I've always had difficulties in differentiating between dextro- and levorotatory molecules, so I don't know either... –Mysid^(t) 18:48, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hydrogen

Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English. ~ PseudoSudo 03:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lindane

I noticed that you put a copyvio tag on lindane. But the website you refer to is a US FDA website that, if I undertand correctly, as an official government publication is not subject to copyright restrictions. There is no copyright claim on the webpage. Or am I missing something? Just curious. Deli nk 14:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image

Hello Jrockley! This is a bit of a belated request, but I haven't been on for the last couple of days. Thank you for uploading a new version of Image:Edit Summary-2.png with a cleartype enabled screenshot. However, I am concerned that this image is a little too wide to fit on pages such as Help:Edit summary, and (at least on my browser) shrinking the image makes the text small, fuzzy, and difficult to read. Would you mind editing the image to make the horizontal bar not quite as long in the horizontal direction? I would do it myself but it would not be cleartype. Thank you in advance for your help with this, Dar-Ape 18:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

No probs. How's this do it for ya? - Jack (talk) 06:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Very well, thank you! Have a Nautical star. Dar-Ape 19:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fractional diagram

Yeah, those look like they would be pretty straightforward to convert to SVG. I'll probably do it today. --Fastfission 15:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VSS Enterprise

You put a considered for deletion tag on the public domain Image:VSS Enterprise.jpg, but did not list it on Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. You then swapped it for Image:SpaceShipTwo.png (a non-free image) on VSS Enterprise & Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo.

1. Why do you feel Image:VSS Enterprise.jpg should be deleted? And why didn’t you list it properly?
2. To use Image:SpaceShipTwo.png, you need to explain your fair-use rationale.

It's not that I don’t myself prefer the image you uploaded, but recent changes to Wikipedia policy state that a fair-use image cannot be used if a free-use image is available. —MJBurrage • TALK • 18:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Whaling in the Faroe Islands

FYI. Regards, — BillC ^talk 19:29, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Picture

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, Image:Whaling in the Faroe Islands.jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Raven4x4x 07:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations, and thanks for nominating (and editing) it for us. Raven4x4x 07:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scotland To Do

With all due respect I will be removing your addition. I am very supportive of attempts to involve others in Scotland related articles, but this is intended as a 'To do' list for the Scotland article, not for Scottish wikipedians and for those interested in Scotland. In addition to WP:SCOWNB you might want to use Talk:Scotland as an alternative. Good luck with the vote. Ben MacDui (Talk) 14:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] signature

You can look at User:CMummert/Sandbox for example code. You should keep the same timestamp format as the current automatic one, because various bots look for that format when deciding whether and when your posts were signed. You have to use three tildes to sign, as you probably figured out. Also, I like the small bullet · instead of the large one; you can copy and paste it once you have one of them on your screen. CMummert · talk 13:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Windows Vista Capable.png

This file may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:Windows Vista Capable.png. I notice the 'image' page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. When you use a generic fair use tag such as {{fair use}} or {{fair use in|article name}}, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on those pages 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 fair use images lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Yamla 15:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! Thanks for putting up with my annoying pestering and for fixing up that image appropriately. Your efforts are much appreciated. --Yamla 17:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

 :) No problem. I'll try to add the info in without having to be told to in the future - Jack · talk · 17:14, Wednesday, 7 February 2007

[edit] Featured Pictures

Your Featured picture candidates have been promoted Your nominations for featured picture status, Image:Moons of solar system v7.jpg and Image:Alcatraz03182006.jpg, gained a consensus of support and have been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Raven4x4x 02:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations, and thanks for nominating them. Raven4x4x 02:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Wikipedialang

Thanks for making your changes, although I still think my layout is better. You don't think it's easier to read this way? I like the repletion of the numbers, seems (almost) like a geometric progression, and while this new cut-off point only currently excludes 3 Wikipedias, that'll be set to change, and we need to keep bumping it up or the list will continue to grow and bloat. I think it just seems unfair that Nynorsk and Norsk are in the same category, when the latter is 5 times the size of the former. Could we perhaps gain more of a consensus? Thanks, Jack · talk · 05:15, Friday, 16 February 2007

Absolutely. I suggest that you post your proposal (or a summary thereof) at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) and encourage people to reply at Template talk:Wikipedialang.

Your version seems fine to me, but I also have no problem with the section's increasing length (given the fact that it's at the bottom of the main page). If we adopt a four-tiered format, I'd prefer that we retain the "20,000" designation (thereby preserving the ascending quantities).

Please refrain from adding the {{editprotected}} tag until consensus has been established. Thanks! —David Levy 05:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

There don't seem to be any objections :) would you do the honours? Jack · talk · 12:13, Friday, 16 February 2007

Main page design changes are taken very seriously by the community (most of which is unable to perform them). Please wait a bit longer to give more people a chance to respond. If there's consensus for your change (or even if no one else seems to care), I (or someone else) will gladly implement it.  :-) —David Levy 12:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, its been a few days now and no-one has come up with any major objection (IMO). Now can you introduce my changes? They always could be reverted, and the implementation seems the best way to notify any strongly opinionated editors who missed the discussion - Jack · talk · 15:33, Sunday, 18 February 2007

I agree that sufficient time has elapsed to proceed with a tentative implementation of consensus. What concerns me is that only one supporter has explicitly referenced the proposed "25,000" cut-off point. Of the other two supporters, one only mentioned the "layout," and the other expressed agreement with the first. Of the two opponents, one criticised the layout (but not the "25,000" cut-off point), but the other criticised the "25,000" cut-off point (but not the layout).

I'm inclined to say that there is rough consensus (subject to change) for the new layout, but not for the new cut-off point. Keep in mind that while I believe that the above is a fair assessment of the situation, I am not entirely impartial on this matter; I have no strong feelings either way, but I would prefer to retain the "20,000" cut-off point for the time being. I agree that we need to occasionally adjust these numbers (and raise the inclusion threshold) to prevent the section from becoming too large or unbalanced, but I believe that it looks a bit strange to have fewer languages listed in any tier than in the tier directly above it (because the higher number of articles is supposed to be a more notable distinction). If we switch to your four-tier layout (but retain the "20,000" designation), the numbers in each of the tiers (from top to bottom) would be 6, 6, 11 and 13. With the "25,000" cut-off point, the numbers would be 6, 6, 11 and 10 (which almost makes the last tier seem more special than the one above it).

Please note, however, that the Arabic Wikipedia is only 252 articles away from reaching the 25,000-article threshold (and changing the criteria to barely exclude it could be mistaken for a political maneuver). I suggest that we implement the four-tier layout now, and we can change the lowest tier to "25,000" when the Arabic Wikipedia reaches that level (most likely resulting in a breakdown of 6, 6, 11 and 11). How does that sound? —David Levy 17:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay then. I've performed the change. Now we can sit back and see what happens. (Don't be surprised if someone—perhaps Raul654—reverts.) Either way, we'll draw more attention to the matter (and hopefully receive additional feedback).

Yes, the Arabic issue does seem somewhat comical, but I've lost count of the number of times that people have complained about ethnic or nationalistic bias on the main page. The Hebrew Wikipedia's inclusion wouldn't help matters.  :-) —David Levy 18:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Heh, you're good at this. I just noticed the size of the Arabic, and was about to inform you, but you beat me to it! *Only* by three days... :P thanks for all your help! Jack · talk · 11:42, Sunday, 25 February 2007

You're welcome!  :-) —David Levy 13:38, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User rights

I reverted your last change to the user rights page; user rights correspond to specific system abilities, and having one right doesn't give the abilities associated with another. For example, you can be granted bureaucrat rights without being a sysop (the fact that this is rarely done is a social, rather than a technical, construct); if you have a bureacrat flag but not a sysop flag, you cannot take sysop actions without first granting yourself a sysop flag. Likewise, certain permissions can be granted to a given class of users and denied to others, even ones that are "higher" in the usual way of thinking; one could grant edit permissions to unregistered users, but deny it to registered users and sysops, even though registered users and sysops are generally considered "higher" than unregistered users. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask on my talk page. Essjay (Talk) 11:57, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, ok. Like I said, I doubted I was right. Is the table correct now? I know I went too far, but things like the edit permission, I'm not entirely sure that the only ones who can edit pages are unregistered users... and the read permission as well... I don't want to fill in too many boxes, but it seems a lot are missing - Jack · talk · 13:22, Saturday, 17 February 2007

Yeah, those are available to everyone; I think when the page was created it said "all users" instead of "unregistered", making the duplication unnecessary. If "unregistered" is going to be the title for that particular column, then there will be need for duplicating it over to the "registered" column. Essjay (Talk) 13:25, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I changed it to that, I felt it represented a hierarchy more. Since admins (as so on) have the right to edit, should that box be filled in too? Jack · talk · 13:30, Saturday, 17 February 2007

I think the problem may be in the way we tend to think about user groups. We tend to think that once someone joins a given group, they cease to be in another, when that really isn't the case. For example, we tend to think of IPs as one group, users as another group, and sysops as still another group; when you become a user, you cease to be an IP, when you become a sysop, you cease to be a user, etc. That isn't really the case, however; MediaWiki sees user groups as being cumulative, so abilities are assigned to one particular group and don't have to be repeated.

At the risk of getting too techie, user groups are set in a MediaWiki file called LocalSettings.php. The user group section looks something like this:

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['read']              = true; 
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit']              = false;

$wgGroupPermissions['user']['edit']           = true;

$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['block']         = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['delete']        = true;

$wgGroupPermissions['bot']['bot']             = true;

MediaWiki recognizes these groups in this way:

* = Everybody, with or without an account (hence "all users" in the original chart)
user = Accounts without any other flags
sysop = A user with a sysop flag
Etc.

If an ability is assigned to *, it doesn't need to be assigned to any other group, because everybody is a *. Likewise, if you assign a right to user, you don't need to assign it to sysop, because sysops are users by default.

At this point, you are probably thinking: "Well, then I was right, abilities are inherited." And that is true in appearance: Sysops do appear to inherit the rights of users and *. However, it's only an appearance, and here's why:

When we look at Special:Listusers we only see the extra rights assigned to users, i.e.:

Essjay ‎(boardvote, Bureaucrat, checkuser, oversight, Administrator)

This causes us to think "Essjay is a sysop" (Administrator = sysop in the code), rather than "Essjay is a user who is also a sysop." What the chart is actually relaying, however, is the user groups the MediaWiki code sees; if you actually look in the HTML of a userpage, you find the actual code MediaWiki is using to determine abilities. For me, this looks like:

var wgUserGroups = ["boardvote", "bureaucrat", "checkuser", "oversight", "sysop", "*", "user", "autoconfirmed", "emailconfirmed"];

So, in the short version, I can edit because I'm in the * group, not because I'm a sysop; I can create new pages because I'm in the user group, can move pages because I'm in the autoconfirmed group, can delete pages because I'm in the sysop group, and can do all kinds of other things because I'm in the cabal. ;)

Hopefully, that explains it a bit better; what the chart is actually trying to show is the abilities assigned to each user-group in LocalSettings.php. On the other hand, I may have rambled on for 400KB and made no sense whatsoever. ;) Essjay (Talk) 14:10, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

And sorry to keep bothering you, but could 3 new headers labelled oversight, checkuser, and bot be added, showing their powers? Just to make it that little bit more comprehensive. Thanks, Jack · talk · 13:36, Saturday, 17 February 2007

Yes those should be in there somewhere; I was thinking that they already were. :S Essjay (Talk) 14:10, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, looking back on it, they are there, they're in the list of various abilities. This is a different issue, actually: There are two kinds of user groups we tend to think of. Some, like sysop or bureaucrat, are compilations of individual permissions: block, delete, protect, makesysop, renameuser, etc. Others, like checkuser and oversight, aren't really user groups, they are individually assigned permissions that have been transformed into usergroups in the common thinking. The usergroups that are listed on the chart are the ones that are actually compilations of individual permissions; the other "groups" are just individually assigned permissions, and that's why they are included in the list of abilities and noted as "individually assigned". Essjay (Talk) 14:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's a definitive answer! You're very good at this, and I think I'm in over my head slightly. I'll change "unregistered" back, I can see the wording of that is integral to the system. I'll also try and word some of that in, since the page seems aimed too aimed at those who already have your level of background knowledge (my edits may still need a knowledgeable glance over...) Thanks for the help! Jack · talk · 14:41, Saturday, 17 February 2007

Thank you. :) I have a couple advantages in knowing these kinds of things 1) I've been around a long time, and used to hang around the developer's IRC channel and mailing list, 2) I've got my own installation of MediaWiki at www.countervandalism.org, so I get to peek behind the scenes a bit and see how things work, 3) I work for Wikia, where part of my job is to be an intermediary between Wikia users and the Wikia tech team, so I kinda get paid to explain stuff like this. (Paid by Wikia, that is, not Wikimedia; I do it here for free, like everybody else ;)) I'll take a glace at it and see what it looks like. Essjay (Talk) 05:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Right, this'll probably be the last set of questions. I've edited as best I can what you said into the article. I have come across some issues, however. Does "developer" need to be included? "import" is empty, so should that be included? Should a "ability to view page history" be included? Is 'Create article' the correct title of that permission? Also, I don't understand "patrol", and "siteadmin" might be wrong. Jack · talk · 02:31, Sunday, 18 February 2007

developer is an old permission, it isn't assigned any longer, but it was just a different name for "siteadmin" since we call sysops "admins." import should be included because it is a valid permission here, it just hasn't been assigned to anyone individually. Import appears to be assigned to sysops, per the error message on Special:Import for non-sysops ("The action you have requested is limited to users in one of the groups Administrators, import."). I don't believe its actually useful, though, because I get a cryptic message from Special:Import as a sysop ("No transwiki import sources have been defined and direct history uploads are disabled."). From looking at DefaultSettings.php, I think page history viewing is covered under the read ability, but could be wrong; viewing deleted pages is covered under the deletedhistory ability, restricted to sysops. createpage and createtalk are the names of the two page creation-based permissions. patrol is a permission that allows users to mark an edit in recent changes as patrolled; it isn't used here (though, if a system for assigning it were established, it could be) but it is in the code and could be activated as it is on most other Wikimedia wikis. siteadmin is the ability assigned to the user-group developer; siteadmin lets you access two special pages (by default): Special:Lockdb and Special:Unlockdb, allowing you to lock and unlock the site's database. On Wikimedia wikis, database locking is done by the developers with direct server access, so there is no need to assign the permission. As for the chart, I'll take a look at it all in the morning and see how it looks. :) Essjay (Talk) 05:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:IPod Models Timeline.svg

You said: "I'm not sure about the chosen colours... Is there anyway you could re-upload it, with a more flattering colour scheme? Like primary colours, green blue and red? You could use the web colors article for ideas. I think this would make the iPod article look much better :)"

I'll see what I can do. Do you want the colours paler or brighter? Any suggestions? --IE 19:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

What I was thinking was start off (or finish with) with a dark primary colour and use increasingly lighter shades into the rest.

80GB 60GB 40GB 30GB 20GB 10GB 80GB 60GB 40GB 30GB 20GB 10GB 80GB 60GB 40GB 30GB 20GB 10GB

Somethin' like that... Jack · talk · 19:41, Monday, 19 February 2007

[edit] fixing refs

Wow, you're frigging ace! Not that I'm stalking you (more stalking Vitamin C), can I ask how did you do this? Did you use a tool? Cos I must have this tool, I've wasted hours fixing references when you made that look so effortless... Looking forward to your response! *not a stalker* Jack · talk · 05:07, Wednesday, 21 February 2007

Hi Jack. Yup, the ref fixer is found here: User:Gimmetrow/fixRefs.js. Look at my page User:Outriggr/monobook.js to see how to add it. At the bottom, see the three sections that look similar? Copy the first two into your own User:Jrockley/monobook.js, do a complete browser reload, and when you edit a page you'll see a new item in the "toolbox" called .... "fix reference marks" or something. Let me know if you need more detailed directions. :) –Outriggr § 05:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Erm, I have something that looks like this: {{DEFAULTSORT:}} now under wikimarkup, though I'm not sure if it wasn't there before... Did I put the code in right? How do I work it? Jack · talk · 06:04, Wednesday, 21 February 2007

Your monobook.js page looks fine. You might want to close and reopen your browser. That will force a download of the .js files. The toolbox I'm referring to is the white one on the left of the screen (unless you're into Hebrew). On any Edit screen you'll see "Fix reference marks" as the last entry in the toolbox. If that doesn't help, I'll come help if you buy me a ticket to the UK. –Outriggr § 06:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Aha! Yes it is there, thankyou very much, this'll help a load :) have a cookie - Jack · talk · 06:38, Wednesday, 21 February 2007

[edit] Chembox new

Hi, thanks for adding chemboxes to articles, but may I ask you to have a look at {{chembox new}}, it offers some advanced properties, and gives cleaner and smaller documents (less table-gibberish). Some of us have started to use the new one, or replace old boxes. See you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm well aware of the {{chembox new}}, but I don't like to use it as I feel it's inferior to the other forms, like {{chembox}}. If you check, I wrote quite a lot of code for both the simple chemboxes to make them easier and clearer to use. Besides, the main reason I uses the 'obsolete' versions is because they're way more versatile. You can literally put any info you find in them, but you're limited to predesignated fields with the new version - Jack · talk · 11:00, Thursday, 22 February 2007

I still think that the whole table in the top of the document is a big list of gibberish, which may scare people to fill in other data. Also, fields are easily added to the {{chembox new}}, and can then be used in other chemboxes as well, without any trouble. In that case it is only once that you have to do the addition. One of the big advantages of the chembox new, IMHO, is that the chemboxes are similar all through, so that people know what to find where in the chembox, and they do not find chemboxes of different types in different pages. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vitamin C

Hi Jack

The Martini reference actually is not a web resource, thus cite web may not be the best. It is actually a paper from a journal, Vesalius (never heard of it myself), and is not published by pubmed though they index it. Also, maybe you can consider using PMIDs instead of dumping the entire link from your browser. You can take a look at what I did from here: [1]. Hope it helps. --Rifleman 82 16:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for editing the Vitamin C article. Note my comment at Talk:Vitamin C#racemic mixture?. Apparently you added a claim about most commercial supplements being racemic mixtures. I don't think that's true. Do you have a citation to support that? (If it's in the source linked from the footnote, could you tell me where exactly in that article it says that?)

Also, please use more informative edit summaries. A summary such as "cleanup" should not be used when adding claims such as this one about the racemic mixture. Even just "did some editing" would be more informative. "Cleanup" sounds as if you're not changing anything important, or you're just deleting stuff. A better edit summary for this edit would have been "Edits re enantiomers etc.; added/edited info re scurvy etc." See Wikipedia:Edit summary. --Coppertwig 13:22, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality and notability

Hi, thanks for your edits to the article vitamin C, and welcome to Wikipedia! Glancing over your edits, would I be right to assume you're a megadoser? If so, You may want to glance over our policy on maintaining a neutral point of view. Look forward to working with you! — Jack · talk · 16:11, Friday, 9 March 2007

Hi, I understand that you strive to keep a neutral point of view. I don't see however how your guessing that I would be a megadoser would have an impact on the facts I brought in the lead section on Vitamin C. I don't understand that you suppress the fact that all primates have in common that they have Vitamin C as a... vitamin while others don't, and that humans is the only subspecies amongts primates to eat 10 to 20 times less vitamin C (than other primates). This deserves to be in the main section: tell me why it shouldn't;

• primates are exceptional in that they don't produce vitamin C;
• humans are exceptional in that they don't consume as much Vitamin C as other primates;

• where do you see any lack of neutrality in stating the obvious?

You have put back the earlier misunderstandings about vitamin C synthesis in the 3. Macronutrient section: Nobody, and I mean, nobody at all, ever said that humans or their primate ancestors once produced those amounts. This is not the point that Stone and Pauling (and Bourne and Milton) make. These researchers just watched what happens in nature. This fiction that you help to propagate makes great disservice to these researchers and to... well I won't go further on that. If you do read the references (I took care to provide FULL TEXT articles), you'll find that they confirm that those gram amounts are grams of ascorbic acid consumed, not biosynthecized. I expect you to read the references you found fit to keep (you suppressed the comments I made on those references, which I did read) and decide whether or not these references, support what I brought (and that you suppressed under the name of neutrality). There's no basis to what you're bringing back, it hurts me to see such falsehoods, but I wish you'd understand before the evidence comes back in this article. Oh, BTW, I do think that vitamin C is quite helful. But your remark that I would be a megadoser is ad hominem. Not relevant. Stick to the facts.Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 04:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, first and foremost, I apologise for upsetting you, I know how much it sucks to be reverted. I've been there too. However; in your response you used a lot of words there that you probably shouldn't've. Cool it, dude. By asking your position on a matter of debate, I was trying to figure the chance of a conflict of interest. I did just glanced over your edits, I'll look them over properly when I'm more wide awake. Until then, I'll answer your queries:

• in the intro — primates and our relationship to them may be exceptional in a genetic context, but not in the vast world in which we live. The biology gets a mention, but you also have to mention the chemical, political, dietary and medical sides of the subject. It's supposed to be a summary
• in the megadose section — I saw that you'd wrote things like "Humans carry", replacing "Hickey believes that humans carry"; "Which begs the question" - sounds too much like an essay; and "This implies that vitamin C was misnamed as a vitamin", rather that "If true, this means that...". I apologise that the rest of what you wrote got lost in that.

Generally, you perhaps need to learn a bit more about the scientific method. Yes these researchers observed and noted the things you mention. But that doesn't mean the whole scientific community will go all up in arms and say "How can we have been so foolish?! Clearly they speak the immaculate truth." No. A new scientific theory takes a hefty beating (think of poor Darwin) before it is grudgingly accepted into the canon. Falsificationism, is a great idea - it tells us to only accept an idea if it cannot be proved wrong and can be proved right. S'what got us out the dark ages. Otherwise we'd be saying "Meh, god did it." Rambling now. I guess my point is, if your gonna say "stick to the facts", know what a fact is before you stick — Jack · talk · 04:51, Saturday, 10 March 2007

(technical question) Please le me know if, when I reply on my own talk page (here), you automatically receive a notice of it (just take a few seconds, please.. thanks ;-). (Other things: ) Concerning the scientific method: you describe resistance to facts, which is certainly something that happens in science. This phenomenon is also covered by the "author" of falsificationism. It is not always a problem that is scientific in nature: it is a matter... yeah you're guessing it... of paradigm. For instance, the "vitamin C"-as-a-vitamin is a paradigm that is contradicted by facts. But leaving the comfort zone (the consensus, the peer... pressure), for most, is not easy; it is not, however, a matter of scientific method. Now I have to go, but I wish we could go further on this paradigm concept, in relationship to vitamin C. I'll read again my earlier response to formulate due apologies or explanations if necessary. Last thing. I agree that my "this begs the question, blah, blah" was not appropriate. I'll provide the reference to support "Humans carry". Since OMIM ascertains it, I felt it was not a priority (i.e. easily referencable). The "Hickey says" and the rest (the vitamin c biosynthesis thing) appeared as groudless falsehoods (just plain misunderstandings) that had to be taken care of manu militari! OMIM even quotes Stone, so it will be quite helful. I'll be back soon, but til then, I take your apologies (about the unwanted edits) and tell you that I am reassured now that you formulated them. Your colleague,Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 14:19, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

No, the only person to receive a notice of a change to a usertalk page is the user who owns it. Unless that user made a change to it themself, or someone else adds it to their watchlist.

With regards to the article, anything you wish to add/change/delete can be helpful. However, its can easily be deemed unhelpful, and my be reverted. Best not to take offense. As the edit box says "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it." I've recently edited back in the point you made about consumption (here). To be honest, I've never really understood the idea of a paradigm, could you help me on that? — Jack · talk · 01:57, Sunday, 11 March 2007

First, thanks for editing back. It is rather moving to see one's own words come back, like that! Then, you might tell me that WP editing requires a thick skin. I don't have that!

I think your mention of the WP editing policy might help to resolve a disagreement. In WP, there is excess deletion, excess editing and all kinds of bad actions (with vandalism and even worse at the far end of the spectrum) that are condemned by WP. On the other hand, there is this "merciless editing". I think that it all comes down to editing vs. deleting. Let me give you a real life example. You know WP, but bear with me. I work as a medical translator. My trainer believes that her way of understanding the source text (Technical, medical, English) is better and that her way to write in French is also better. With this paradigm in mind (just joking), she feels totally justified to use the red pen "mercilessly" (for deleting) but not the blue pen (for editing; to enhance my own translation). However, others who are more experienced confess they can be merciless (but they will explain why they know their option is better); they also know it takes about 5 years to train a translator, so they try to put themselves in the novice's shoes. And, often, they discover new ways of seeing problems or problems they had never seen. This is how I undestand "merciless editing". Subjectivity should not bias editing. You won't let something in an article just because editing it might hurt someone's feelings. But one shouldn't be reckless (you know, be bold, but not reckless[2]), and WP is about cooperation.

This brings me to the bold idea of putting a notice on ascorbate biosynthesis deficiency right in the first sentences and to the notion of paradigm. I read the paradigm page again (well, of course, some parts require much more thinking but and I come up with these 4 aspects of a paradigm:

* a. what is to be observed and scrutinized,

• b. the kind of questions that are supposed to be asked and probed for answers in relation to this subject,
• c. how these questions are to be structured,
• d. how the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted.

I would say paradigm is a very, very powerful word describing "mental determinism"; being determined by one's culture, society, etc... ; how can we see from inside the box (cf the paradigm article) what it looks like from outside ...? Do we even know we are in a box? Personally, I understand paradigm shifts by living them, at my own scale, by peeking outside the box, but I can't necessarily understand the whole paradigm we're in, and I believe that philosophy of science's work (and sociology's) is to understand all basic aspects of current paradigms, as opposed to scientists (like us!) who want data, good data. So I can only give an example, and another, and another, but thinking about the whole knowledge-producing machine is a nightmare sometimes. I'm working very hard on that, and I might come up with something in about a year.

Think of the basic questions a five year old would ask, like: why does my guinea pig needs different food from my hamster's? (no Vitamin C synthesis) Are there other animals who are like my hamster? (yes, us, and large apes) How much do they eat of this vitamin? (From 2000 to 8000 mg a day) And how much do we eat (If you eat all your fruits and veggies, my boy, you'll get a huge 200 mg) Its quite small when you compare. Why????? (It is called a vitamin, my boy, so you don't need so much) Why is it called a vitamin? (Because!) Dad, why are you angry? (Because when I was young they told me that vitamin deficiencies were rare in developped countries and vitamin C is a vitamin and we are in a developped country, and apes are not, that's why! Now shut up and eat your fruits.)

Ok, this is not yet the perfect ad campaign for a supplement company, but we're getting there.

So we don't ask why we are or should be so different from others of our descent with regards to Vit C. (i.e. item b.) Actually, most of us forget or don't know that we primates are exceptions in nature (GULO deficiency) (i.e. a.) We rely on RCTs of vit. C which use dosages that are lower than normal amounts (for other primates) and end up with reviews of trials showing rather weak effects (generally, but not always), and brush aside the minority of research on non-primate animal dosages (higher than what primates consume) (i.e. c.) and d)). There are other examples, but it is precisely my purpose, in contributing to Wikipedia, to show neglected facts. You can check my contribution to zinc (zinc deficiency as a cause of zinc deficiency; potentially a paradigm breaker (the paradigm of one-size fits all nutritional requirements, RDAs). Funny, isn't it? Not so actually, I know, when one thinks of it... I am actually involved with such a case around me (but i don't I have a conflict of interest. I swear... ;-)

So, yes, to conclude, putting those infos on gulo deficiency and how those affected cope (primates, humans, guinea pigs, FRUIT-eating bats) in the beginning is fundamental; it is the founding problem: what does "vitamin" means? Saying that the term "vitamin C" might, and I say might, not be accurate because vitamins are different things/amounts is fundamental. Of course, the opening sentence should be properly edited: "Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid is an essential nutrient required in small amounts in order to allow a range of essential metabolic reactions in animals and plants." Small like what? Like other vitamins? Sorry, this is not neutral at all! A literary reference, to finish: it's like in Orwell's novel (careful, just an analogy): the ministry of propaganda was called the ministry of truth (and ministry of birth control becomes "ministry of love", ministry of war becomes ministry of peace, and so forth). I hope I didn't waste your time. Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 05:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

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[edit] DYK

On 2 March 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Vitamin C megadosage, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--howcheng {chat} 07:18, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vit C and birthday

Dear Jack! I'm not an expert (as only a medical student), but I, of course, take a deeper look at it. And thank you for the kind words, but my birthday is on the 26th of November. :) NCurse _work 20:58, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scottish topics

The Scottish topics template is only for key Scotland-related Wikipedia content. Only a tiny fraction of our Scotland-related material is listed there (probably less than 1/10,000 th). Our comprehensive thematic list, which you'll find here:

• List of Scotland-related topics

But again, that is only for cornerstone articles. We do not list absolutely everything: that is what categories are for. -- Mais oui! 17:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Vitamin C article

Hi, thanks for the note. I've checked the peer review and To-do lists, and I agree that formatting the inline citations using templates is necessary for the article to pass the FA. You are welcome to tell me if any of my edits does not agree with the consensus. Thank you. --BorgQueen 22:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry for the "fact" tags. Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 02:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Lol, no problem. I was only joking, as it was {{fact}}s that nearly deprived the article of GA status, since they look really bad. They're fixed now and its better off than before. If you see anything else dubious you'd like a citation for, don't hesitate to slap on a tag to alert me. 'cause if the FA reviewers spot a dodgy fact they may not be so lenient. Every little helps! — Jack · talk · 02:59, Saturday, 17 March 2007

Obviously, two editors of the vitamin C article don't live in the same time zone... (UK vs Qc, CAN) I have tried to detail and describe my interventions. I hope you (and other peers) find your/their way in these 20+ editings! Don't hesitate to contact me if there's a problem that can't be resolved through the discussion page.Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 07:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BTW

In your user page pic, which one is Alice? :-P Just kidding. --BorgQueen 11:42, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Heh, I can't possibly imagine what you're insinuating. I've replaced it now, it was old (and I never got Albob's permission). — Jack · talk · 05:15, Sunday, 18 March 2007

[edit] Proposal modification

You are making it look like I've proposed something I have not, and you are making it look like the users who have "voted" so far have done so on something they have not. Changing the proposed menu is disruptive.

If you have another design, please present that separately.

The Transhumanist 06:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I apologise, and from now on, I will do. The proposal page gets pretty high traffic, and I got myself in the midst of an edit conflict. My proposals are the ones that took a month of bother; at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Sidebar redesign. While this will need a new box and developer interest; until then I will try to be as faithful as possible to the consensus of the community — Jack · talk · 06:50, Thursday, 22 March 2007

Hey, I'm not mad at you or anything. And I see what you are trying to accomplish. It's just that the people who voted "Support" were responding to my proposal. If there are more than one version up there, then how can we tell which one they were referring to when they said "support"? The appropriate place to place more alternative versions would be at the end, or in the "An alternative" section. If you need help, let me know. The Transhumanist 07:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I never thought you were annoyed, you don't need to worry. However, you did remove my proposal, which I ain't so happy with, but I've fixed that now. Fair enough, I can see you wanting your original simplified proposal to have precedence over the rest, but it does seem like the "alternative" section is the "maybe, but not likely" one. If you're going to propose something, don't you think all proposals should be treated fairly? i.e. listed together? — Jack · talk · 07:50, Thursday, 22 March 2007

Yes, of course, but that's not the point I was trying to make. You've got to be careful not to change the context of what others have posted. Besides, someone has already changed the side bar. Look to the left! The Transhumanist 07:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

To see the changes directly, the page is MediaWiki:Sidebar. User:Eloquence made the changes. An interesting development. Doesn't look half bad, actually. Close enough for me! The Transhumanist 08:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Woah!! That's amazing!! Lol, I thought we were just dragging a dead donkey! Wow, we got the site settings changed... This is even better that getting the main page template {{Wikipedialang}} changed! Woop! Although, I don't remember suggested "about" — Jack · talk · 08:04, Thursday, 22 March 2007

[edit] Edit count

I've replied to your query on my talk page. The Transhumanist 08:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)