User talk:Hayford Peirce/Archive 9

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CZ:Article mechanics

The guidelines for Definitions have been changed to "no more than 30 words/150 characters". This is not in conformity with CZ:Definitions as claimed: It gives 100 characters, just as is in the info text shown when a new definition is edited. (Personally, I think it is better to request the lower limit and be tolerant if it is slightly exceeded.) Peter Schmitt 23:51, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that the change had been made but I didn't bother to verify whether it was correct or not. Are you saying that his rewriting was wrong and that it should be reverted to the earlier version? Hayford Peirce 23:57, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Right or wrong -- that is not clear. There is certainly an inconsistency: If you start to create a definition you are asked for at most 100 characters. The same limit is given on CZ:Definitions#Format of the definition itself. However, I saw just now, that in CZ:Definitions#What are definitions in the Citizendium? 150 characters are given, also changed by James to 150, but a year ago, because of the number of words stated there. It seems to me that the original purpose was 100 characters, but of course one might think that this is oo trestrictive. Peter Schmitt 00:19, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Tell you what -- would you and James get together on this and come up with a version that is mutually satisfactory? And bring in Joe Quick or Ro or anyone else that might be interested. This is much more an Editor's sort of decision than a Constable's -- I'll be happy to do what you agree on, but I'd like to see some consensus about it. Thanks! Hayford Peirce 01:40, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't want be a contrarian, but I think that 30 words of 5 characters each (or 150 characters) is too restrictive. Personally, I think that we should settle on 200 characters (which is equivalent to 25 words of 8 characters each) without mention of any number of words .... just 200 characters. Milton Beychok 01:54, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I second Milt in that we need to limit the number of characters, not words. The exact number does not matter too much, but it should be used consistently across the site. --Daniel Mietchen 02:08, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

(unindent)Originally the definition article stated "no more than 30 word/100 character". There seemed to clearly be something wrong with this as the average word is not just over 3 characters. Five characters is considered to be one word as I recall from my typing classes during my school days, so I changed it to read "30 words, 150 characters", taking the word limit to be normative. I had forgotten that I was the one who originally changed the wording in CZ:Definitions. I hope no one thinks I was trying to pull a fast one, as they say. Anyway, the limit needs to be clarified and I favor the longer version. James F. Perry 04:24, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

(addendum) I just now noticed that the CZ:Definition article refers to "100 characters" further down in the article without mention of the number of words. The passage which I amended a year ago mentioned both (30 words and 100 characters). James F. Perry 04:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, when all of you eagle-eyed Citizens come to an agreement on this, we'll fix both the "Article mechanics" page AND all of the others that are inconsistent. I'll count on you people to get this done.... Hayford Peirce 04:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

(unindent)I just examined a sampling of definitions (total = 50), using the "random page" button as a selector. Here are the results:

less than 100 characters - 8 total (16%); 101-125 characters - 8 total; 126-150 characters - 10 total; 151-175 characters - 5 total; 176-200 characters - 7 total; 201-225 characters - 3 total; 226-250 characters - 2 total; 251-275 characters - 0 total; 276-300 characters - 1 total; 301 and over - 6 total

No attempt was made to correct for formatting characters which, in any case, were few by comparison to the total number of characters in the definition.

The median number appears to be about 150. That is, half of the definitions were less than 150 characters, and half more than that. Only about 1 in 6 came in below the 100 character "limit".

For the record, among the 50 definitions which I checked, the extremes were: 54 (Mnemonic) at the low end and 449 at the high end (article title withheld to protect the identity of the culprit).

(Now I suppose someone is going to tell me that there is a bot which can handle this type of sampling). ;-)

James F. Perry 17:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You probably had some lemma articles in your sample. But even without these exceptions, I also noticed that the length of definitions often exceeds the limit suggested. Since it may be expected that any limit will not be strictly honoured, I tend to set a lower limit, hoping that it will not be exceeded too much, something like: "The definition should have at most 100 characters (if at all possible). In exceptional cases it may have up to 150 characters." I also think that no word count should be given. Peter Schmitt 22:58, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent)Suggest we adopt an upper limit on characters and not specify limit on number of words. An upper limit of 200 characters seems more reasonable than 100 characters, else risk making definition too simplistic. Add exhortation to make definition as concise as practical. Specify that spaces and punctuation do not count as characters, as well as formatting symbols (list many examples of latter). Anthony.Sebastian 00:25, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The guidelines should not be bureaucratic, but brief and suggestive. So we need not worry about spaces, punctuation. "Number of characters in the displayed definition" takes care of markup (of which only links really are significant). Peter Schmitt 00:37, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Peter, I don't think I had any lemma articles in the sample. I was looking for such and would have removed them from the sample had I noticed. I called up the article from the "random page" button, then went to the "talk" page from where I got the definition, so I saw the article as well as the definition. They all had subpages, though I realize that lemma articles can have subpages also.

One problem I see with a deliberately low limit (100 characters) is that if it is too low, people will simply ignore it altogether, whereas if the limit is at least reasonable, they might make more of an effort to conform to it. If it is too high, then you might see a gradual drift upwards in the length of the definitions with too little effort made in the direction of succinctness.

Bottom line is: 1) I favor a limit of between 150 and 200 characters (expressed in characters only, not words, but not counting formatting characters), and; 2) the limit should be considered hortatory, but rather firmly so, and not a strict limit.

James F. Perry 02:29, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

A bigger problem with my sampling is that the number of characters reported on the "history" page of the definition apparently includes the "noinclude - subpages - noinclude " stuff that precedes the actual definition. That is an extra 36 charcters added to the numbers reported on the "history" page (and above in my sample reports). That being the case, I would tend to favor the lower, 150 character limit (still hortatory, of course). Terribly sorry for the confusion. James F. Perry 02:53, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems that "150 characters" (and suggesting to use less) could be the basis for consensus? Peter Schmitt 23:02, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Final re-approval of Amine gas treating/Draft is due today

Hayford, would you do the honors? Or should I ask Matt? Milton Beychok 19:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

This is a *re-approval*, right? If so, you better ask Matt. I can't figure out how to do them. Matt says it's simple, but it doesn't look simple to me, and every time I've tried it I've messed things up. Sorry. Hayford Peirce 19:36, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

If it looks like there are going to be *lots* of reapprovals (and I know that some of you technical people want them for your articles) you might want to collaborate with Matt on a PRECISE instruction sheet on how to do reapprovals, one that even I could understand. I'd be happy to do them -- but not if I'm simply going to spend hours first messing them up and then trying, fruitlessly, to unmess them. Hayford Peirce 19:38, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll check it out :) D. Matt Innis 20:16, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Did you get all that? The new subpage stuff did cause a bleep in the {{Approval}} template, so make sure not to COPY the "noinclude"subpages"noinclude" stuff from the bottom of the metadata page. How long did it take me? D. Matt Innis 20:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Okie, I'll take a look at all the Recent Changes in reverse order and see if I can follow what you did. Hayford Peirce 20:45, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

notice on recent changes page

I just noticed that the notice at the top of the recent changes page still links to the "Workgroup Weeks" page. I don't think that's really appropriate anymore. The actual message exists at MediaWiki:Recentchangestext, so it takes special privileges to edit it. Could you remove that part of the message? Thanks, Joe Quick 13:31, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I got it. Good catch Joe, I'm not sure I ever read that thing ;-) D. Matt Innis 03:21, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Bernard Bujold

Looks like we allowed M. Bujold 14 months' free advertising... John Stephenson 04:42, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Geez. Well, Roger, Larry, and Stephen all took care of that and welcomed him. Not me. But I can sure kick his derriere out of here! Hayford Peirce 05:10, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I am surprised he was listed as an (now inactive) editor in 8 workgroups — shouldn't this alone ring some bells? --Daniel Mietchen 08:15, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I would enjoy being party to some of the editorship decisions on this wiki. John Stephenson 09:38, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

John, what do you think of this suggestion then? --Daniel Mietchen 10:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Hayford, what do you think about restoring his account but replacing his ad text with a brief explanation of why he was banned? The benefit of this would be that everyone could have a look at the history to learn how this could happen and, more importantly, how it could be prevented in the future. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 15:05, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I like this suggestion because history should be preserved as much as possible. Banned authors, and authors leaving have left traces, and one should be able to follow these traces. Unless there are legal reasons, blanking and protecting, or moving to cold storage, should be sufficient. Peter Schmitt 15:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I've thought about this in the past in similar cases, with the same considerations in mind as both of you have, and then said the hell with it -- too much work. It's easier to simply vanish 'em. However this is simply *my* opinion: why don't you post the same messages to Matt Innis -- maybe he'll agree with you and restore things as you suggest. Hayford Peirce 17:38, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

PS -- it's not as if this character were a Prof. Jensen who had left a *mountain* of work behind him -- this character didn't contribute anything at all as far as I know, so why do we need a record of him? I think that when I went to Harvard they said that they never kicked a student out, they just asked him to take a leave for a year or so. BUT when they *did* kick someone out, they *really* did it -- they called it "expunged": they cleared the records of his existence. Supposedly. Anyway, in my opinion, the egregious Bernard falls into this category.... Hayford Peirce 17:42, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

approvals

Email system and natural gas are scheduled for approval today. Scarborough Castle is scheduled for tomorrow. All three should be set to go. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 13:37, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Everyone is signed off and the versions scheduled to be OKed are the same ones as they *say* they are?Hayford Peirce 16:33, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of those. I work really long days on the weekend, so I can't keep track of things as closely when they happen between Friday night and Monday morning. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 18:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The Forgotten Soldier Info Box

Hi Hayford,

I've managed to dig up some more information on The Forgotten Soldier including original publishing information, translations, ISBN's, etc, more than enough to fill up the Infobox, would it be alright to reintroduce it to the article? --Mehar Gill 00:40, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure, as long as it *looks* good -- when I saw it, all the categories on the left were blanked out. Hayford Peirce 01:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good, I've re-added the InfoBox and filled all of the applicable information. --Mehar Gill 01:40, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

As Hayford mentioned above, the entire left side is black. This is a problem with the template itself, and is no fault of yours. I'll take a look at the template and see why that happens. Drew R. Smith 01:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Drew R. Smith 02:00, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Eventology

How about this one for the Fringe Workgroup? Ro Thorpe 23:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Ta, myte. That one had slipped me by. I just queried it in the Forum at http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2919.75.html Hayford Peirce 23:59, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Daniel should be able to handle it. D. Matt Innis 01:06, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

For all I know it's a world-famous theory on the level of Dr. Freud's stuff. On the other hand.... Hayford Peirce 01:27, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

... I'll say it... it could be more moon hoax nonsense :) D. Matt Innis 03:00, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

That's what it sounds like to me, off-hand, on the other hand Tom Morris did an edit on it, and he's our resident grouchy hardhead -- I would have expected him to scream like an eagle. But we'll see.... Hayford Peirce 04:13, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Hehe, I thought you were the grouchy hardhead! :D D. Matt Innis 04:20, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

True, but his language is frequently somewhat more extreme than mine. Hayford Peirce 04:33, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I had a quick look and to me it seems a spoof, see [1]. I looked a bit further and found List of staff of SFU, the author is not on it. But he could have retired. Going deeper I discovered a few publications of the author (in Russian) about eventology, so although it sounds like a spoof it is apparently genuine. --Paul Wormer 06:25, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I have commented on Talk:Eventology#Comment. Peter Schmitt 12:04, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Reading/Definition

My adding a speedydelete template to this page led to the mess on the Speedy Deletion Requests list: most of them are not for deletion. Deleting Reading/Definition will probably clear it up. John Stephenson 09:28, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I have "hidden" the template, so the mess should be gone. Peter Schmitt 10:37, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

There are still about 6 "reading" files in the Speedy Delete -- should they be deleted? Hayford Peirce 18:58, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I see only five. They all are redirects and should be deleted. The "wrong" entries were Related Articles subpages which have Reading on them. Peter Schmitt 19:48, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Is the Editor's Mail List locked? Why?

Hayforth, the link I have to the Editor's Mail List on my user page now has a lock icon next to it. Is the Editor's Mail List now locked? if so, why? Milton Beychok 21:40, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

So I see. But I don't have a clue as to why. Has it just shown up? Have you used it before? In any case, I don't know what to do about it. Better ask Matt. Hayford Peirce 21:48, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a lock, but it does not mean this list is locked. If you follow the link you get https: a page (instead of http:), i.e., the traffic is encrypted. Peter Schmitt 22:33, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I recently began using the Firefox browser. The lock shows when using Firefox but does not show when I use my IE6 browser. I think the problem is that I must log in to the Editors Mail List while I am using Firefox ... but the mail list has no option or method for a simple log in ... it keeps telling me that I am already subscribed, but the lock doesn't go away. Does Daniel Mietchen, Drew Smith or anyone else have an answer?

The reason I suspect that I must log in, is that all of the other forums I belong to required me to sign in again when I began using Firefox. Milton Beychok 23:14, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Peter, you were right. I changed the link from https to http and the lock icon disappeared, although the link still takes me to https. I guess Firefox distinguishes http and https but that lock icon and IE6 does not. All is now well, and thanks Peter. Milton Beychok 23:21, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Homeopathy - spelling of German title in reference

Hayford, yesterday when browsing parts of Homeopathy I noticed an incorrect spelling ("Selbsteverlag") in reference 33. After checking the (online) original I also corrected the title. Unfortunately this did not get into the approved version. (Only "referrring"). Peter Schmitt 20:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome

I also appreciate the nice email. Lots to do here! I plan to look around a bit before participating. Andrea James 23:07, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I am not clear on how the subpage template works. I tried to add it to University of Chicago, but it does not show up. Is there somewhere with detailed information on how to add all the bells and whistles? Thanks! Andrea James 05:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a look at it tomorrow -- I suppose there's a page somewhere with detailed info, but it keeps evolving. Mostly, it's just follow the instructions (not always clear) on the pages as you go along. Mostly it's Start a new article, type in xxsubpagesxx at the top of the blank page (substituting { brackets for the x), then click save, and scroll down and *try* to follow what it tells you to do here and there. After starting the article, the next thing to do, generally, is the Metadata. Then the Definition. Then the Talk page (nothing to do here except add the xxsubpagexx template at the top. Hayford Peirce 05:37, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Led Zeppelin

Go ahead and do the mechanics on it. The nominated version received support from three music editors and noone has expressed any dissent, as far I know. It's been long enough that the normal approval process would have come and gone already anyway. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 15:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

What is with this article?

Email_User_Programs --Paul Wormer 09:43, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

This problem is solved: There are Main page and Definition for both "Email user programs" and "Email User programs". (David did not move the article but started it again.) This situation somehow triggered the "cluster move in progress" template. Peter Schmitt 10:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Hayford, I have to confess a (small) mistake. I discovered why I thought that I already put the delete request on Email User Programs: I had put it on the page that should stay, Email user programs, instead. (Probably, I did not notice that the redirect had carried me to the other file.) I do not think that much harm was done because it was only one sentence and David already replaced it. But you also deleted the Talk page, and this should probably be restored. Sorry, once more. Peter Schmitt 00:15, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Test

this is a test Hayford Peirce 18:46, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

French cuisine

I cannot recreate where you were lost. Possibly you were being redirected to a page without realising it? Anyway there is no problem deleting those two pages that were tagged. They were redirects left over from a move in 2007 after the content pages and edit history were moved to their new homes at French cuisine/Catalogs and Talk:French cuisine/Catalogs respectively. Chris Day 00:36, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Kelvin conundrum

I figured out what was going on with this. If you recall the talk pages get indexed under T for talk, in the category, but the link in the category takes you to the main page. So I clicked the link to Kelvin and then clicked the discussion link at the top of the page which took me to the Talk:Kelvin page. The speedydelete template was on Talk:Kelvin. I also deleted the other talk pages, three, I think, that also had speedydelete templates. Hope that all makes sense. Chris Day 00:44, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, that *does* make sense. But I *thought* that I had done the same thing, while I was looking all over the place. Evidently I didn't, though. Thanks! Hayford Peirce 00:50, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

There is an additional confusion that might have made matters worse for you. Note that when you click on the Kelvin link, as it's a redirect, you actually arrive at Kelvin (disambiguation). But look at the top of the page and you will notice a specific message that tell you that you have been redirected to that page. It looks like the following, (Redirected from Kelvin), and the link takes you back to the page you really do want to delete. It's the stuff of nightmares! ;) Chris Day 01:03, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's why I stopped Speedy Deleting for a while and begged Peter to sloooooow down with slapping them all over the place until we really understood what was going on. I *think* I've fixed the French business, simply by copying and pasting some stuff, but maybe not. Hayford Peirce 01:06, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I haven't looked at the specifics, but I don't think copy and paste sounds like a good solution just because we will lose the history won't we? D. Matt Innis 02:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, now it seems as if I have copied it from the @#$%^&* discussion at the top of the page and pasted it into the @#$%^&* talk, which is a separate @#$%^&* page! So riddle me that! I am going to get rid of the stuff on the Discussion page and put a yellow thingee there telling people to go look at the Catalog/Talk page for discussions anent the Catalog list. Which is where the discussion *should* be!

Hehe, it sounds like one of those times that, if you're in a hole, quit diggin', lol... So I guess it wasn't the martinis :) D. Matt Innis 03:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm through diggin', digger, 'cause I got it straightened out. Hayford Peirce 03:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Technically, that makes you the digger digger, so you're a technically bigger digger than me. D. Matt Innis 03:22, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

If I weren't on a diet and forgoin' booze fer the moment, I would go mix a couple of martinis and try to figure *that* one out. For want of a martini, I think I'll go to bed and read the NYT.... Hayford Peirce 03:48, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Haha, try to say it 5 times fast.. no, don't, I don't want to drive you to drink :) D. Matt Innis 04:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Swap

Did you see my talk page? - dunno whether I should put answers there. Anyway I put this in the Spellings - now to put in BrE/AmE... Ro Thorpe 00:16, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I saw it but couldn't count down to the 5th paragraph, and in any case couldn't understand anything in that general vicinity -- I forgot to query you about it.... Hayford Peirce 00:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Dubya

George Walker Bush

43, Bush II, Bush Jr.^[1] to differentiate him from his father George H.W. Bush.
Dubya,^[2] a self-chosen name based on a Texas pronunciation of "W".

That's how I remembered it and as my friends at Wikipedia have confirmed. He provided a good stick to beat him with, typical of the generosity of the man, hand him another alcohol-free scotch. Feliz Natal - tonite is pre-natal, tomorrow is natal, and then it's post-natal all the way. However, this being continental Yurp, the main turkey meal has already taken place. Yummy! Ro Thorpe 20:41, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I suppose if I were an idiot, I could call myself Idjit to distinguish myself from my father and then ask my friends to call me that too.... (Remember the great Mark Twain zinger?: "Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And now suppose that you were a Congressman. But I repeat myself.") As for dining, yes, I learned to pick up the Xmas eve habit in Tahiti. For years I thought it was weird, then got used to it. The kids' father would come get them Xmas eve for an enormous family dinner and festivities elsewhere; Douchka and I would have a terrific little dinner of foie gras, oysters, caviar, etc by ourselves; and then the next day the kids would come back and we'd have *our* Christmas presents and another big dinner. Too bad we didn't celebrate Boxing Day also, hehe.... Cheers! Hayford Peirce 21:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Art_Fraud_at_Tamara_Bane_Gallery

Your colleague copper is lenient toward this article: Art Fraud at Tamara Bane Gallery, see its talk page. Aren't you the bad cop and Matt the good cop? Have a look. Good Xmas meal tonite, don't overeat. --Paul Wormer 16:40, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Paul, thanks for the warning! I had a *tiny* piece of foie gras, a smallish piece of roast beef cooked on a spit, and 5 smallish popovers instead of yorkshire pudding, cooked in a 100-year-old cast-iron popover pan that I just bought -- it works a lot better than the modern teflon ones! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popover). Two glasses of red wine and then a martini after dinner to chase it all down. So no real extravagance. As for the Art Gallery stuff, I'm gonna let Matt handle that one. I've written a bunch of messages from the Constabulary home to Jon about this (getting the article started, actually) and that's all I feel like doing for the moment. I'm sure that Matt will be able to hammer something out.... All the best for the St. Sylveste, or whatever the hell they call New Year's Eve! Hayford Peirce 16:54, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Please read my comment at Talk:Art Fraud at Tamara Bane Gallery

Hayford, please read my comment on the subject Talk page and respond on that Talk page. Thanks. Milton Beychok 19:02, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Jake the Explainer, again

I did not object against deleting "Jake" because there is Morris the Explainer. But on second thought I think that the page and the talk page should be undeleted and put into Talk archives of "Morris". Most of the content is there, but these pages carry the history. (Wasn't a speedy delete without discussion too suddenly? It was deliberateley put into Cold Storage and not deleted.) Peter Schmitt 01:09, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Jake was clearly a non-CZ article right from the start, although Larry gave it a long lease on life for inexplicable reasons. And I'm 99% sure that when I deleted the history and talk pages that Arne had put a note at the bottom (at least of the Talk page) saying that he had duplicated it at the new article. Frankly, I don't see why we could keep substandard articles archived within the Talk archives. If Arne, who wrote 99% of it, wanted to archive it on his *own* page, that would be different. Personally, I'm *still* not convinced that this isn't a case of Original Research that doesn't meet our standards. Someday an Editor in the field will take a look at it, I hope.... Hayford Peirce 02:14, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I was curious and looked around, and there are (very few) references which, however, seem not to depend on the CZ article. Well, it is nothing I intend to fight about :-) Peter Schmitt 02:58, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

History of UK

Hayford, I think I may have mistakenly tagged Template:History of England/Metadata for deletion. In any case, you just deleted it. Can you restore it? Russell D. Jones 18:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Yup, I *thought* there was at least one that shouldn't have been deleted, but what do *I* know? This whole "Speedy Delete" business when it involves Moves is a can of worms. I'll see if I can Restore it. Hayford Peirce 18:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Hayford, all is right with the world again. Well, mostly. Russell D. Jones 18:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Anytime that George W. Bush is off at his ranch in Texas clearing shrubs, everything is *relatively* right with the world. Happy 2010! Hayford Peirce 18:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Hayford ol'-buddy-ol'-pal....

Sending a quick ‘hello’ out to all of you who wanted a weekend write-a-thon. Also, a nudge, push, and a shove to all those who haven’t made it out in a while. This Sunday, 10th January, is your Big Chance. Party theme is ‘stubs’. Now, what could be easier? Write about anything you want! (At least come on over and say ‘hi’—we’ve all been much too quiet lately and I rather miss everybody.) Aleta Curry 20:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Crime fiction catalog

Hayford, I am sorry, but I have to correct you. Moving Crime fiction/Catalogs to Crime fiction/Catalog of prominent writers is not how it is supposed to be. The catalog should either be on Crime fiction/Catalogs or on Crime fiction/Catalogs/Prominent writers, but the use of a subsubpage (as in the latter case) is not needed as long as there is only one catalog. (The subpage system needs the /Catalogs subpage.) See CZ:Catalogs for the details. Of course, a title telling "how it supposed to be called" can be added on top of the page :-) --Peter Schmitt 22:28, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that this is unnecessarily complex. But I will study your comments after I cool down.... Hayford Peirce 22:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The system was neither invented nor introduced by me ... but, usually, every system that has advantages also brings some disadvantages, :-( --Peter Schmitt 23:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

You can do it, of course. You did it, didn't you? But it does not fit into the cluster system as it is devised at the moment. If you look closely at the page Crime fiction/Catalog of prominent writers you will notice that the subpages template does not work correctly. --Peter Schmitt 23:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

My head hurts and it ain't because of the martinis I drank last night to celebrate my umpty-umpt birthday. Okay, suppose we have Crime fiction/Catalogs. Then can we have Crime fiction/Catalogs/Prominent writers, and Crime fiction/Catalogs/Prominent characters, and Crime fiction/Catalogs/Prominent books? Would that work? Hayford Peirce 17:19, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations and best wishes (I would prefer a good red wine to the martinis, though ;-)

Yes, exactly that is how it is planned (and the /Catalogs subpage should have (at least) the links to these subsubpages). --Peter Schmitt 23:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Another year nearer the grave, I guess.... (Had a good red wine *between* martinis -- only American barbarians drink martinis with their meals. Although I *did* take a v. sophis. German lady to dinner once who drank *three* martinis with her dinner. Yikes!) I don't really understand what you mean by the links etc., but I'll set up these three Catalogs and let you take a look at them. Hayford Peirce 00:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

With "links" I meant just what you did: Linking from the subpage to the individual catalogs. There is an open question: How best to arrange the entries? Probably this should be settled before extending them. --Peter Schmitt 09:49, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Purse

Hayford, how do you pronounce your last name, as "purse"? I'm writing a typical-Paul-Wormer-article about Benjamin Pierce, and about every article I read starts with saying that you're supposed to say "purse". Is that so special? --Paul Wormer 17:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Coincidentally, I was just looking at him in Wikipedia, but he does not seem to be one of your (Hayford's) ancestors - a different branch, perhaps. The spelling is also Peirce, but I think you would have said if you were a purse, Hayford. Ro Thorpe 17:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Paul and Ro. Yes, that *is* special. Only people around "Bahston" pronounce it that way, and not *all* of them do it. Wasn't his father (or son) Charles Peirce? *Most* people pronounce Pierce (or Peirce) the same way they pronounce: "He gave him a piercing look after he had been pierced by the arrow." A few people insist on "Purse", but almost *always* for the "Peirce" spelling, not the "Pierce" spelling. And not very many of them, either. I, and all my family, are of the "piercing" variety. When I was a kid, there was a fancy chain of food stores in Boston called "S. S. Pierce", sort of the Fauchon of New England. People would argue as to whether it was "pierce" or "purse". Otherwise, "Pierces" are generally "pierces." Hope this is clear. (PS, my dotty aunt was a genealogist and, as far as I can tell, Charles and Benjamin were NOT related in any way, although one would think they might have been, all of us being New Englanders. Ralph Waldo Emerson, was, however. (Cf., Waldo Peirce).) Hayford Peirce 17:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

So what were you trying to do at the English spellings/Catalogs/P page? (Delighted to see you there, it's quite lonely.) Ro Thorpe 18:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Just putting in a null, so that I could type "hehe" in the Summary box. But I kept doing it to an *earlier* version, before you'd done your last, largest one. Finally I got it figured out. Yes, working at CZ is 1% genius, 99% loneliness, as I believe Old Tom Edison once observed.... Hayford Peirce 19:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what happened, I wrote by mistake Benjamin Pierce and then a minute later changed it to Benjamin Peirce (the correct form) and now I see Pierce again in my text. PS. Benjamin was the father of Charles.--Paul Wormer 06:24, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed it was 'Pierce' before I started typing. Maybe you saved your correction at the same time as I was saving my comment, so it didn't 'take'. It's supposed to say 'edit conflict' when that happens, but I think the timing has to be exactly right/wrong for it to appear. Ro Thorpe 13:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

[hijack alert] Aleta stopped by because she thought this conversation might be about handbags. [Gilda Radnor voice] Never mind! Aleta Curry 04:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Gary hugh day

Hayford, is lowercase on purpose, or just a typo? --Peter Schmitt 20:18, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not on purpose by *me*. That's the way his application read and the way he himself typed it. I think there was a discussion a few months ago about this sort of thing and it was generally agreed that unless the user put in things like Sir, Dr., Mr., etc. that we would leave things as he/she submitted them. If he *did* make a mistake and wants it corrected, I now have the Ultimate Powers to do so, hehe.... Hayford Peirce 20:33, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Matt Helm

Hi Hayford, just noticed your Matt Helm/Signed Articles/Hayford Peirce and was wondering whether you have any plans to add wikilinks to it. --Daniel Mietchen 21:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Daniel, hadn't planned on it. But what precisely do you mean? Hayford Peirce 21:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Such links. --Daniel Mietchen 22:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Gotcha. I'll put some in -- I've never been a links addict like the imbeciles at WP.... Hayford Peirce 23:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The art is to find the right balance, as always in life. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 01:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Venezeula/Venezuela

Officer, we have an article Venezeula and an article Venezuela. One is enough.--Paul Wormer 16:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Template testing

Hayford, edit conflicts on talk pages are no problem. But when changing templates it does not work and leads to unpredictable results if two changes are mixed :-) I tried to remove the empty cells left of "National #1". It worked, but I "lost" the background. If you like the empty cells you can go back to Daniel's version. If you prefer not to have them then I'd try to insert the background, as well. --Peter Schmitt 22:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Kia ora, e hoa!

Hi, Hayford. Thanks for your mihi on my Talk page. I would love to learn more about Tahitian. I once heard it spoken on a Māori news programme, and found I could follow some of it. When Captain Cook came here in the 18th century, he brought a Tahitian who was able to translate for him.

I discovered Citizendium only yesterday (in fact quite likely still today in your time as I write this). It is what is needed, I think. I am hoping that academics and educators who have problems with their students' use of Wikipedia will be encouraged to contribute to Citizendium out of sheer self-defence.

I admit I'm not sold on the name "Citizendium".

Mā te Atua koe e manaaki!

Neil Copeland 03:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Intervention (may be) needed

Hayford, would you take a look at the comments in The partiers section at CZ:Monthly Write-a-Thon for me? Meg seems to be rather worked up, and it must be more than just the write a thon. If there's something going on on the charter or elsewhere, I would really insist that the discussion be moved. I would cut and paste it myself, but do not feel I have the authority.

I have no problem with Meg or anyone else sounding off on my talk page, either, but not at the write-a-thon space.

This is supposed to be a fun, friendly gig, and I feel that the current tone is off putting.

Do you concur?

Hi, Aleta, I just made a comment on that page *before* I read the above message. Am just on my way to bed -- lemme look at it tomorrow and see what I think of it all then -- I certainly agree in principle that the WAT talk page shouldn't be an arena for controversy! Hayford Peirce 05:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Two thons don't make a write! Ro Thorpe 20:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Two writes do make a first flight. Chris Day 20:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

007 deleted

Hayford, you — or was it me? — caused collateral damage: Bond and Bond (disambiguation) did not carry the speedydelete template. --Peter Schmitt 20:19, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

With 007 in mind, he was shooting anything that moved. I just revived those two. Chris Day 20:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I only deleted stuff that I found on the Speedy Delete Page -- and that had an actual Speedy Delete Template on the page in question. Maybe you put it by mistake on a Redirect page or somewhere. Your name was on all the Templates.... Hayford Peirce 20:26, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I would not mind to confess a mistake, but you can look at the history of the pages that there never was a template. It's obviously (again) this silly property of the "To delete"-page that it lists Talk pages sorted under "T", but without the Talk prefix and links to main page. I wonder if there really is no workaround avoiding that "due to the vagaries of the internal workings of the categorization system" this irritating thing happens. --Peter Schmitt 20:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right about the cause of the problem. MY problem is that if I don't track down get rid of ALL the pages with a Template on them, then these items stay on the list forever. And I really can't take the time to personally query every single Speedy Delete article that's marked.... Hayford Peirce 20:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Naming Conventions for Names

Hayford, as you seem to know a lot about style, I thought I'd ask you. I'm constructing articles on Canadian railways. Many of these lines were built, managed, etc. by knighted Canadians. Both my American and historical sensibilities want to ignore the rank as these individuals were not yet knighted at the time of which I am writing. So, should it be "Wilfred Laurie was the Prime Minister of Canada" or "Sir Wilfred Laurie was the Prime Minister of Canada" even though he was not "Sir Laurie" at the time? Russell D. Jones 18:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but I'd say dump the title. Chris Day 18:27, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

A good question, but I think the answer is clear: No one writes a sentence such as "Sir Winston Churchill took the reins of government from Nevil Chamberlain in 1940." Or if they do, they shouldn't. So I think it's pretty clearcut that you should go with the actual names they had at the time of whatever it was they were doing. Hayford Peirce 18:31, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

A trickier question would involve something like: "Mr. Standfast was written by John Buchan (later Lord Tweedsmuir and Governor-General of Canada) in 1918." But how often does that arise? Hayford Peirce 18:34, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Funny, I was just going to suggest that we use Churchill as a precedent. And then you preempt my next question, how about Lords? I am often surprised to see how often Sebastion Coe is referred to as Lord Coe by the popular press. Chris Day 18:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I think a lot depends on whether it's the Brit press, the U.S. press, or the Canadian press. And even there, each paper probably has its own style manual. For instance, I just used the NYT search site and found 830 hits for "Sebastian Coe" and zero for "Lord Coe". So at least the Times is ignoring his nobility. And certainly, even after he had been knighted, the Times never called him Sir Alec Guinness in any articles about him. Nor "Sir Arthur Clarke," except, I suppose, in his obit.... Hayford Peirce 19:14, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

What about "Sir Paul?"

Well, yes, Hayford, as obvious as it may seem it is nonetheless opaque. The book I'm reading always introduces knighted individuals as "Sir This" and "Sir That." Had it been less British, I wouldn't have questioned it. Russell D. Jones 20:01, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Possibly a quirk of the writer? Someone who has an over reverent sense of the peerage system? Chris Day 20:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Chris -- it's just a writer's quirk. (I think I glanced through an adoring book about Noel Coward once and he was Sir Noel throughout and everyone else was Lady This and Lady That.) I used to argue *vehemently* with some of my copyeditors about whether we should call San Francisco "The City", "the City", or "the city" and other vital matters. Generally speaking, if you argue enough about it, most publishers will do it your own way, just as long as you're consistent throughout the book. Ie, if you write, and they let you get away with, "The President walked into the room," three pages later you can't have "The butler gave a cup of coffee to the president." Unless it's the president of the local garden club, I suppose. And books style manuals can be somewhat different from what newspapers are using. Hayford Peirce 20:24, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

subpages and properties

Hi Hayford,

Just thought I'd post this:

http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,3054.0.html

here for you in case you wanted in on the fun:)...--David Yamakuchi 02:06, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

What was wrong this time?

Hayford, could you help me to understand your thinking on this latest deletion? It seemed like I was clearly in CZ territory here:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_two_watchmakers
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/The_Prodigal_Son
--David Yamakuchi 22:51, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and just FYI, if it really needs to stay gone...for whatever reason...you should delete the metadata page too...

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Template:The_Rabbi%27s_Gift/Metadata David Yamakuchi 22:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you seriously trying to tell me that you can't see the difference between the two articles you cited and the one I deleted? The other two make an attempt, albeit relatively modest, to tie the parables in question to something larger, ie, *context*, for writing about them. I might, for instance, start an article called, oh, "Charity", and within it have a section about the parable of the Good Samaritan. But to create an article that is *nothing* more than a "parable" or joke, or whatever you want to call it, with no other text at all, is simply not following our ideas of what an article is supposed to be. Suppose I wrote an article that started, "A lawyer, a doctor, and a priest were on an airplane carrying a hundred children, when...." and then went on to the punch line -- and that's the end of the article. If you disagree with me about this, please bring the matter up with, oh, a Religion Workgroup editor. Or the Chief Constable. Or Larry Sanger. Maybe one of them will agree with you and ask me to restore the article. Or order me to. Hayford Peirce 00:43, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

As for deleting the Metadata page, that's one of the CZ bugs, I would say -- there's no way to delete it, because it wasn't created in the first place. Maybe a tech specialist could figure out how to do it. Hayford Peirce 00:45, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Hayford, regarding your concerns about "The Rabbi's Gift", I actually thought the context was obvious even to the casual observer. Besides, the context was summarized in the parable itself. Why the need to keep restating things?

I suppose I might make an attempt to reconstruct the article in the guise of "respect" or some such, but really now. No person you mention above seems to have been inclined to contribute to CZ for well over a month. Appealing to any of _them_ as you suggest would appear to not be very productive. Moreover, rather than waiting for one of them to return, only to "drag them into the cauldron" as someone recently put it, the sensible thing seems to be to leave CZ without it...I'm sorry it didn't work out.--David Yamakuchi 07:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, it seems to me that you still don't have a feeling of what a CZ article is and isn't. All I can suggest is that you look at 10 articles at random and see how they're constructed and what the formating mechanics of them are. If you find some articles that don't appear to be articles to you, please let me know -- maybe they aren't and have been sneaked in here. You have to realize that Kops are not reading all, of even most, of the new articles. I don't even know about them until someone brings them to my attention.

As for the parable, here's one way it could be handled. Write an article called Parable or Parables. Make it somewhat like the article at WP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable) -- then start a Catalog called, "Famous parables". Then, within this catalog, of which you put a TAB at the top of the Parable article with a link to the Famous parables, you begin a list of parables, expanding them as you like. There are other ways to do it, I'm sure. But look, for instance, at the WP article about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Prodigal_Son -- it's not simply a *copy* of the parable's words, it's an article *about* the parable, its context, its history, its meaning. You could do the same thing with your own parable. But unless you make an article *about* the parable, you can never have an article that simple restates the parable itself. Except, maybe, at Parable\Catalog\Famous parables, or something like that. This whole Catalog business is something that is *supposed* to be very important here at CZ but hasn't really yet been greatly implemented because not everyone really understands how it's supposed to be used. Including me at times -- it's still a work in progress.... Hayford Peirce 17:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

A meta-article about parables makes sense. Indeed, I'd like to see a good definition of a "parable" versus a "good story with a message" -- if there is one. In a catalog, I would think that each entry would have related articles, not in the sense of an RA page, but, for example, some text about the Two Watchmakers relating to complexity theory and other areas; the Golden Rule to ethics and cross-cultural communication, etc. --Howard C. Berkowitz 17:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

(reset indent)
Hayford (and Howard),

(long breath, count to 10,000) Thank you for your suggestions, they are appreciated. But I don't think we understand each other here. The article as it stood (obviously) can be removed, but the real question, at least for me is: why was that appropriate? Moving to user space; a talk page; even just a *note* to my talk page asking _me_ to remove it for improvement: any number of ways this could have been resolved without removal of what I had considered to be a helpful contribution.

Again, the concern here is not what an article should be or contain, but rather how it's handled when content perhaps does not meet the criterion. I *do* appreciate your efforts to improve CZ, but I'm concerned that removal in this fashion discourages further contributions...and contributors. And this is not the first time this has happened at CZ:
Talk:Lao_Tse#Calls_for_citations...
[2]
I have typically let these removals stand, but it is quite discouraging! I've read the guidelines on "edit wars" and I'm going to note that I do not contribute to that sort of thing.

There was no inappropriate content, no "vandalism", no malice, no reason to delete. If I see content that does not appear to be up to CZ standards, I'd like to think the right solution is to try and improve upon it, and not just call for removal. I see *that* as being constructive.

In fact, now that I look back on this lengthy discussion, I'd like to ask: Do you suppose in hindsight it was easier to delete, or would it have been much simpler for everyone to just ask a particular someone to improve?

Finally, if memory serves, somewhere it says that CZ (and @WP!) policy is for *public* discussion to occur before or at least coincident with deletion/removal of content, and then specific guidelines are suggested. I thought I'd understood that policy completely. I'm sorry if this has caused any misunderstanding, and I see that this has somehow caused some folks additional work...and for that I *am* sorry. David Yamakuchi 23:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

David, in hindsight, I have to disagree with Hayford's deletion. At the same time, I think I can understand it; it struck me as a deliberate extension of the Forum arguments, and as provocative. Moving to userspace might have been better. That might have happened had the Forum argument not been ongoing, but I have to say that at the time, I found the page not to be presented as an article and probably was more annoyed than I should have been.

Hayford has risen to many situations, far more egregious than this, which still might best have been handled by Editors. Might I suggest that perhaps rather than arguing for software features, after people using them found them hard to use, that effort is better expended in mainspace giving people feedback on articles? Giving a personal experience, I tried, when writing (as I remember) nuclear weapon, to create uranium. Eventually, I gave up, admittedly without huge effort, in trying to figure out how to use the elemental templates — and as opposed to people like Milt, I have quite a few years of software development experience. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If I recall, I removed the parable "article" for precisely the reasons brought up by Howard above -- it seemed to me like a provocative extension of other discussions. It would, I imagine, be simple for me to Restore the article in question -- and then Move it to David's userspace or some other personal place of his where it is clearly his own text and not a CZ article. Give me a heads-up on this and I'll do it. And I have also just added a comment to the discussion back in January on the Lao-Tse Talk page, since apparently this is still a topic that festers.... Hayford Peirce 00:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You're Cool

Tahiti. Ellery Queen. Exeter. Definitely cool! My sister went to Exeter ('76) I went to Andover ('74). Why did you leave Tahiti?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Thomas, glad you think so! I just try to stumble along from day to day... Geez, wish girls had been at Exeter in my day, although that would probably have led to another set of issues to deal with! She must have been about the first of the girls to enter, I would say. I was very much against the idea at the time, but now I imagine that is/was probably a Good Thing. Haven't heard of many split Exie/Andover families -- geez! As for leaving Tahiti, it was a combination of Island Fever; not having enough money to maintain places both there and San Francisco as prices spiraled out of control; seeing the last of the Old Tahiti fade away; seeing a lot of our earlier friends fade away also and not being able to replace them; and mounting evidence that Tahiti in general was well on its way to becoming a Banana Republic. Went back for the summer of '95 and haven't set foot there since. I'd go back in an instant and live the rest of my life there if 1961 could be magically restored and stay that way forever.... Hayford Peirce 18:18, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Hayford, yes, the addition of girls changed things. You're right that my sister was probably in one of the first co-ed classes (not sure exactly) but I think Exeter went co-ed before Andover (1974 = first co-ed year). I, too, had been opposed to it at the time, but now I see it's inevitable. My father flew on the plane next to a NY Times reporter en route to the Andover-Exeter game in 1974, so my sister and I were both in the NY Times; I got kidded about it by my English teacher. Did you have Harkness tables? My vision of Tahiti is that it's a garden paradise, but I know how politics can corrupt things; but it must have been expensive getting goods imported. And wondering whether Internet connections are good to Tahiti. Parlez-vous francais aussi? (Je parle un peu). My wife and I are thinking of moving to New Zealand.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 18:44, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Salut, Thomas, oui, je me debrouille en francais, ayant lived in Tahiti for 25 years, been married to French-speaking spouses for 31 years, and studied it (with difficulty) in various institutions, including 3 years at PEA. It isn't perfect, but it's very fluent. That's amusing about your father -- I'll do a NYT search in a while and find the article. Yes, we did indeed have the Harkness tables in *all* the classes -- that was supposed to be an important part of the PEA "experience", and I suppose that it actually was. Aside from science classes (which I never took, and know nothing about) no class was ever bigger than, I think, 12 students. Fourteen? Tahiti was certainly a garden paradise, but too many people have over-run it (population growth). When I first went there $500 a month let you live like a king. Today that would, I guess, buy you about one day's activities at a *modest* hotel. Geez. As for NZ, for many years people in Tahiti used to *marvel* at how cheap NZ was. Now, I hear, that they long ago ceased being relatively socialist and are now resolutely capitalist, the cost of living there is as high as in the States. Progress, I suppose.... Hayford Peirce 17:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Small class sizes. I miss those days at school. If I had to do it over, I'd focus more on people than books. But the memory of those times is still sweet. Ma maîtrise de la langue française est misérable, mais je triche en utilisant iGoogle, quelquefois. J'ai du mal à se souvenir des mots.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 01:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposed history article

Hi Hayford do you have any interest in citizenship history? I've ported over "History of U.S. Citizenship" (which I wrote on Wikipedia a few months ago) to a sandbox page here: User talk:Thomas Wright Sulcer/sandbox2. If interested wondering your opinion, or do you know who else here on CZ might be interested in giving it a look-over before approving it for going online? The gist of the article is this: citizenship transformed from a mostly political relationship (ie participation in town hall meetings circa 1640s) to an economic relationship (consumers, workers, investors uninterested in politics). So the article tries to show how this political -> economic transformation happened. It's based on civics and history books, some academics, political philosophers (eg Tocqueville), contemporary writers (Wolf, Kaplan etc), but basically it's trying to be like a high school civics text. But instead of writing about a country or a person it's the history of a relationship -- citizenship. I hope it's not too boring so I tried to include lots of pictures. One of my biases is that I think citizenship is important but I realize most Americans don't even bother to think much about it. I tried to include contrasting points of view -- writers like Ginsberg feel that citizenship decline (ie political participation) is not good, while writers like Kaplan think it's no big woof as long as there are jobs and money. Wondering what you think or what I might do next.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 05:05, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

This relates to something we've needed about U.S. immigration policy as a political issue. As far as reviewers from a different perspective, Martin Baldwin-Jones is a specialist in population migration; I've been meaning to ask him to suggest internationalized terminology. --Howard C. Berkowitz 16:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Does Martin Baldwin-Jones have a CZ presence? I tried finding him but I couldn't locate anybody with that name.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

oops. User: Martin Baldwin-Edwards.

Deletions

Thank you for the deletions, Hayford. The remaining three are empty (main) pages but with discussion/talk pages that are marked. I would have to create the pages to put templates on them. --Peter Schmitt 00:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you know where Matt is?

Hayford, do you know where Matt Innis is? He seems to have been gone for last 8 days or so. Milton Beychok 03:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, just checked my own email and haven't heard from him in about 10 days. A case for Sir Henry Merrivale, I would say, or even Sherlock Holmes.... Hayford Peirce 04:04, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Not figuring out how to get the signature right

Hayford I'm not all that technically astute and I tried several times to put the signature in my forum profile page. But only the "Thomas" part lights up in blue. If you don't mind are the forums that important for me to visit? I like contributing, and I see the forums as somewhat of a distraction, like it's a separate site or something. And if people need to give me feedback they can write on my talk pages.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 21:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Are you going to the box in the Profile/Modify Profile/Forum Profile Information area where you would type in something like:

My CZ user page: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Thomas_Wright_Sulcer

with the underlines under the spaces between your names? If you're doing that, I certainly don't understand why your name isn't showing up correctly. As to whether the Forums are important, that's up to you. Some members do nothing but read them, and never contribute anything. Others make *very* many contributions. You're correct -- the Forums *are* separate. BUT they're the area where most people check out what's going on. If you're only talking about *small* topics, of limited interest, sure, the Talk pages of individual articles are fine. It's entirely up to you. But don't expect to pose a sweeping question on an individual Talk page and expect to get much feedback. Hayford Peirce 22:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

One other thing. Are you a constable? If so do you get data about how many people are requesting CZ accounts? I was talking with Howard Berkowitz and wondering whether there might be any measures to get some kind of idea about whether more people are reading CZ, and lacking an article traffic statistics tool like WP has, the next best thing was -- application counts per day. Do you have any data about that which you'd like to share? Because I'm wondering whether these ports I'm doing regarding "hot" WP articles in terms of popularity are having any measureable impact in bringing more people here, or is it a waste of time?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 21:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, I'm a hard-working Kop. Yes, I go to a page called Account Requests several times a day, http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Special:ConfirmAccounts and then I can access a page called http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Special:Log/newusers I don't know whether you can access them or not. Give it a try. In any case, I can always tell you how many people per month request accounts (probably about 30 to 40), and how many are accepted (about 20 [the others don't give enough info]), and how many become contributing Citizens -- about 0.5 per month, I'd say, that is, about 1 per two months. Whether it's a waste of time or not with the "hot" articles, I dunno -- I do know that's there's no apparent uptick in applications. But it's certainly original thinking on your part! Hayford Peirce 22:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Thomas just paste the following into the signature box

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Thomas_Wright_Sulcer

If you'd like something a little neater with access to your user page as well as your talk page, you could paste in the following, or a variant of the following.

My citizendium [url=http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Thomas_Wright_Sulcer]user page[/url] and [url=http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User_talk:Thomas_Wright_Sulcer]talk page[/url].

Chris Day 21:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I think I got it. Thanks! Problem was: lack of underscore characters between Thomas and Wright, and between Wright and Sulcer -- who'd da thunk. This kind of stuff baffles me.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It's baffling, yes, but my impression is that back in the days when I imported hundreds of images into WP that the underscore *always* had to used between words at certain stages of the process. In any case, I've now rewritten the instructions for the Forum to emphasize the necessity of using the underscore. Hayford Peirce 23:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The explanation is simple: Wikilinks [[...]] do not need underscores. They are inserted automatically. External links [http://....] need the underscores, just as it is needed when you link to a page from outside CZ. The signature in the forum is a not a wiki link -- it is a link from outside. --Peter Schmitt 09:53, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Copy edit of the approved Gasoline article

Hayford, I just added a photo to the lede section of Gasoline/Draft. Could you please add that same photo to the approved Gasoline article as a copy edit. Thank you. Milton Beychok 02:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Milton, I *reluctantly* feel that a large photograph, particularly one that has evidently been played around with, and doubly particularly because it's in the lede paragraph, is definitely more than just a "copy edit", which I myself take to mean as fixing spellings, typos, etc. Matt seems to have vanished at the moment, but you might try contacting some of the other Constables to see if they disagree with me on this particular matter. Best, Hayford Peirce 03:49, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks anyhow, Hayford. I simply thought that since I had not changed any text or any content (by adding an image), there would be no problem with adding that same image to the Approved version. I couldn't think any other appropriate word for that, so I called it a copy edit. There was no intent on my part to deceive you. As for the image itself, if you will look at the image file, you will see that I openly stated that I had superimposed one photo on top of another. Regards, Milton Beychok 05:20, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

No, no, I never meant to suggest that you were in any way trying to deceive. Since you used the phrase, I used it in return. But no matter *what* it's called, I think inserting an image without going through the entire Editor/Approval process is inappropriate. If we had three or four active Kops around, we could call a Kuoram and discuss it, but as it is I don't think I want to risk setting a precedent in something of this nature. Best, Hayford Peirce 05:36, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Subgroups

Hello again, Hayford. I've finished all that I wanted to do with sporting subgroups now so I'll be happy to see what is decided when the new charter is completed. Moving forward, I'll be adding content and building articles. Best wishes. --John Leach 17:50, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Great! I saw that you had been working on the subgroups and took a look at the Baseball end of it. Now we'll just wait and see what happens. You might take a look at the comment I wrote 30 seconds ago at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User_talk:Thomas_Wright_Sulcer#Update_on_Famous_Tennis_Players -- all the best, and thanks for the fantastic amount of work you've put into this! Hayford Peirce 17:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Question

Wondering if I might ask your advice. An extremely hot article on WP is "2012" -- Alexa says it's a traffic driver. On WP, readership is on the order of 10K to 20K per day with spikes even higher. Can I write an article "2012" here on CZ or is there some policy against articles based on a year?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 13:34, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Without looking at the WP article, I don't know what you mean - 2012 isn't here yet. Unless I went to sleep for a couple of years last night. As I recall, there was discussion, involving Larry, a couple of years ago about this whole YEAR business that WP used to make such a fetish about. As I recall, Larry felt that *memorable* years (1941, the world at war) might be written up, or linked to, but that others were more problematic. I dunno. Ask Howard and the others -- this is really the sort of question that should be in the Forums, along with most of the other discussions on your talk page. I dunno why you don't use the Forums instead.... Hayford Peirce 15:04, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Nostradarmus like predictions of the end of the world, I presume. So it would be more of a history article than a futurist article. 16:19, 12 March 2010 (UTC) -- Chris Day

Oh, that vaguely rings a bell. Isn't 2012 the name of a recent end-of-the-world sort of movie? I could look it up, I guess, but why waste my time? Hayford Peirce 16:22, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I guess I should use the forums more, but I'm still trying to figure out which ones to use. There seem like so many, and what happens is that I get lost in there. I guess my question is more like: IF I write an article like 2012, will it get deleted summarily? It's a "hot" article and I think it might bring traffic here.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:49, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Start a new topic in any Forum that looks even *vaguely* connected to your subject. People will find it. And no, no one will summarily remove any article you write unless it's *really* for cause. You must have been badly burned at WP! I've been a Cop for 15 months now and have only deleted 4 or 5 articles that were clearly spam, personal memoirs, slanderous, completely unformatted, illiterate, or incredibly defective. Or upon clear, unequivocal orders of a competent Editor in the field. If you're a complete imbecile (which, of course, you're not) and write an imbecilic article about an imbecilic movie, it won't be deleted -- other Citizens will advise you how to *fix* the article, plus they'll probably help do so themselves. In the future, just go ahead and do the articles -- you'll get plenty of feedback on them. Hayford Peirce 18:22, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, I was badly burned on WP, appreciate your wise counsel.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 18:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

↑ Elizabeth Drew [Bush Family Values], The Nation, posted February 12, 2004 (March 1, 2004 issue). Accessed 16 October 2006.
↑ Dubya's nickname could be worse

[1] Elizabeth Drew [Bush Family Values], The Nation, posted February 12, 2004 (March 1, 2004 issue). Accessed 16 October 2006.

[2] Dubya's nickname could be worse

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