User talk:Chris Day

The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.

——————————————— Chris' Talk Page ————————————— I am an editor in the biology workgroup | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Current talk page (85,857)

Notes to self

{{PAGESIZE:User talk:{{BASEPAGENAME}}}} gives 85,857

{{PAGESIZE:User talk:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|R}} gives 85857

{{#ifexpr: {{PAGESIZE:User talk:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|R}} > 3000 | large|lemma }} gives large

{{#ifexpr: {{PAGESIZE:User talk:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|R}} < 3000 | large|lemma }} gives lemma

See:

- /Notes to self

- /Previous discussions

movelink

{{{1}}}

• How should the r template deal with links to catalogs? Could use a separate 4th level definition but which related articles page should it link too?
• Apostrophe bug means that the tabs are not the correct color. Fix the code to account so the if statement compares the url code.
• Manual placement of {{dabdef|Fossilization}} needs the basepagename added manually too. If follow Noel's description will need a field in the metadata for any article that is the target of the basename redirect. No other way to figure out the basename for the {{dambigbox}} template otherwise. Alternative is do have a much more manually (for example, {{dambigbox|the process in [[palaeontology]]|Fossilization}} ) template but probably better to have it placed automatically. Drawa figure to make this more comprehensible.
• Need to write a summary document describing the uses of {{RD}}, {{R}}, {{Rpl}} and {{pl}}.
• For {{R}} should probably remove the {{Dabdef}} template and just write what is required. Could then have a specific template for the disambiguation request for a definition page if it is needed (I suspect no one would use it and instead just make the disambiguation page). One exception might be Daniel in combination with the RD template at CZ:List of words with multiple uses
• Subpages template misinterprets location on the talk approval talk page (not sure I can replicate this).
• Think over subpages format. Possibly need subpages style as third layer template with intermediary ones to define the magicword variables? Initiated this, see {{Parameters1}} and {{Parameters2}} in conjunction with {{Subpages test}} and {{Subpage style test}}.
• If no footer or header add specific category to note this fact, preferably no other categories too. See homeopathy/Trials example.
• must think about the status of these sub and subsub defintion pages. Note also that they exist as definition onlys rather than recognising the existance of the basepagename.
• Lemma articles mess up the related only category such that related articles can only exist if there is some metadata. Try and write around (is this true? not sure I can replicate this either).
• Finish userplan simplification and more focus on workgroup participation.
• Fix move cluster - partially done, still need to fix approval page bug (when article has no approval page or when there is already an approval page present)
• {{Lemma}} idea, see {{Test lemma}} too. Need to utlilise the pagesize magic word so we get a lemma when there is no, or very little text in an article.
• optional photo credit
• Article task and notification list
• Metadata edits always current so should tie speedydelete etc to that one page. This will get around the maintenance categories often being out of date.
• Think more about /Catalog/Masterlists See User_talk:Aleta_Curry#Masterlist for examples. Fix the same page blank code, At present there is a capital letter requirement bug as well as need to get second string if used. Also catalog masterlists and transclusion in general. No need to maintain information at multiple sites. Is substitution bot an option?
• Figure out utlity of transcluding refs with the r template redirects.
• Make error boxes more concise and smaller.
• Finish up the periodic table navigation, specifically whether element data shoul be in a switch page on on individual subpages

{{r|Nova (astronomy)#Supernova|Supernova}} gives:

• Supernova [r]: Please do not use this term in your topic list, because there is no single article for it. Please substitute a more precise term. See Nova (astronomy)#Supernova (disambiguation) for a list of available, more precise, topics. Please add a new usage if needed.

{{r|Supernova}} gives:

• Supernova [r]: An astronomical object exploding to a brightness similar to that of an entire galaxy. Caused by a catastrophic explosion of either a white dwarf system or an aged star about five times the size of the sun, which occurs when the star collapses; a neutron star or a black hole may be formed as a result, or the explosion results in no remaining compact object. ^[e]

Iteresting that the top version does not work as expected. Might need to fic the r template to asccomodate tis , if possible. 06:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

/Wanted

Need to figure out the disconnects between the rare earths elemental classes and the template:periodic. Did uranium, but others need fixing too. See Uranium/Elemental Class

Category:False Start Move

Category:Incomplete Move

Category:DeleteMove

Navigation Tool

Chris, the nav tool you asked about doesn't work for me either. David E. Volk 20:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

No, and it's a great pity, as the coloured-in version looks really good. Ro Thorpe 21:38, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

A bit better today: clicking on the line above the space usually gets it on the 1st or 2nd try. The look is the same as before. Ro Thorpe 15:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

And now it works perfectly. Congratulations! Ro Thorpe 22:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the look with the black space, etc. would be very nice. Just pleased that it works at the moment... Ro Thorpe 23:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It's still working - but what is the change? Ro Thorpe 14:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I see all that. Many thanks & congratulations. Ro Thorpe 17:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

To the subsection, definitely. And in the case of C, there is a lot of Wikipedia stuff before it begins. Thanks for thinking of that. Ro Thorpe 18:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
Use in English
Alphabetical word list
Retroalphabetical list
Common misspellings

---

- on my User page, good idea! I was thinking of making some changes there... Ro Thorpe 19:30, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

And we're wearing dark glasses

I wish I could come up with a reason to write an article entitled "The use of unnecessary force in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers," so that you could eventually complete the line from the movie in CZ:Approval Announcements. Bruce M.Tindall 01:24, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Catalogs - initial indexes

Chris, I have created this list and intend to have one page for each initial, would you please format the index to work properly directing the page I created to a "B" page and create a blank "B" page also on the proper place? I'll fill it up then. I can do the rest after having the first example to follow. I might figure this out but I am sure you will have a straight better solution at first glance. I have to leave now but will be back in a few hours to go on with this. Thanks a lot, Dalton Holland Baptista 16:25, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, I saw you working on the spelling lists. I guess you came up with exactly what we need. Yes, I was intending to make a list of botanists by surname too, this solution is great because we have everything placed together in one place. It will take a while to complete the lists though. Well, we'll get there. However, what about making tables that we can sort by date, abbreviation, country or surname, like the one of orchidologists? Do you think this is worthwhile? It is a lot of work. Dalton Holland Baptista 20:40, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

For finite lists your table is excellent, definitely worthwhile. For the more massive collection of information, like all botanists, then multiple subsubpages is pretty much the only option available if we don't want to have really slow page loads. Chris Day

Sure, you're right, I hadn't thought of it. It seems the way we started it the best one then. I will go on it it. Dalton Holland Baptista 21:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Other thing: I saw you created a lemma article to Leptotes bicolor. When I was writing on WP I used to create articles of all accepted species of each genera I wrote the articles, therefore, when I wrote the article about Dracula I also wrote 140 small articles like Dracula mopsus. This is easy, I just didn't do it here because I was not sure if this is something to do in CZ or whether it is better just have full articles. They are minimal but have a taxobox, publication, synonyms, distribution and sometimes a photo. Should I go on with those here too? I fear later someone may come and say "listen, this is not an orchid encyclopedia, we already have enough, can you please write about something else?!" Dalton Holland Baptista 20:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

The lemma article or short article is something that i have been discussing with Howard on and off for a while. I'm not sure whether we have really come to a solution in this regard. One very easy solution is to just redirect them to the definition page. Part of the issue is there can end up being a lot of red links on the related articles subpage that might never really develop into an article. By creating the page as a lemma or a redirect we can at least get rid of the red link (it actually then shows as a black link). See the example with the {{R}} template below:

• Leptotes bicolor [r]: Is a small species of orchid widespread along the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, the type species of its genus, known for its generous blooming and its purple and white showy flowers. ^[e]

But what if we want to add a picture, or a little more text? Not enough to justify it's own article but certainly more than a definition. This is where the short article concept comes in. Such articles would not have metadata. But then you have to ask the question, "how short is too short to have metadata?" or "why not just have good subpage content?". So in short, I don't really have a good solution. Although i do create them from time to time, sometimes getting your hands dirty is a better way to come up with an answer than using a more theoretical approach, if you see what i mean. Chris Day 21:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and it is also a matter of quantity X quality. As we have finite time we have to decide what to do first. On WP I generally made all the articles thinking that someone might just come and add a missing photo or develop the article a bit more (because it is surely easier to develop an existing article than to start creating if from the scratch, with metadata, taxoboxes, etc). On the other hand here it is completely different, people just do not come out of the blue adding stuff. You are right about the better subpages. Actually, Leptotes article has everything a small article like Dracula mopsus does (furthermore we have the galleries to add the photos). I might write a developed article on every Leptotes species but I guess other things are possibly more important now to CZ and I guess I should give them priority. Dalton Holland Baptista 21:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

To develop these ideas a bit more, I think there are two options for the Dracula mopsus-like articles. And I don't think that lemma is one of them, it has too much information in my opinion. One solution is to create a series of catalog subsubpages under the genus article for any of the interesting species (they could always be moved to their own article clusters as they develop. The other is for them to have their own stub articles from the start. A third option for the species with even less information is to have a table format to include many species together on one catalog page. All three of these could coexist for one genus, IMO, as long as we have a good way to navigate to all the content. The primary issue is always being able to find the content. Chris Day 21:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Thinking on the best way of saving time and room, possibly this third idea is good. I see something a little more complete information and with larger photos than this, what you think? Dalton Holland Baptista 21:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

That link to the lizards shows exactly what i had in mind. Chris Day 22:17, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Reftst

Hi Chris, I was playing around with {{Reftst}} again and got stuck when trying to transclude the contents of redirect pages into the edit window via the e link, as in {{Reftst|CZ:Ref:Shattuck 2009 Online resource for validation of brain segmentation methods‎}} which gives
Shattuck, David W.; Gautam Prasad & Mubeena Mirza et al. (2009), "Online resource for validation of brain segmentation methods", NeuroImage 45: 431-439, DOI:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.10.066 ^[e]

Describes the Segmentation Validation Engine that allows to benchmark brain segmentation techniques..

Can you give me a hint? Thanks, --Daniel Mietchen 10:07, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

If Reftst is not needed for that, even better! This is an important step to get the unique identifier system for references going for wiki-compatible DOIs, and I will add similar adaptations for ISBN etc. The next steps are still those described at CZ_Talk:Bibliography#Annotation_mechanics, and I would appreciate your thoughts (or code snippets) on this very much. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 16:39, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you see a possibility to make the page from which {{citation}} is called always editable this way? Specifically, if redirects are problematic, do we gain anything if we go with transclusions? For an example page that only contains transcluded references with wiki-compatible DOI, see Juggling/Bibliography. A transcluded example without a valid doi is CZ:Ref:PMID:14534258. Thanks, --Daniel Mietchen 16:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that anything that can be transcluded should have an editable link. With regard to PMID values, i made the following edit to the {{citation}} template, but I note that the template did not have a field for PMID. How do you normally add the PMID numbers, nt using the template, I presume? Possibly we need to rethink the whole citation template for our own needs? Chris Day 17:07, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

[undent]Forget the reply above. I just realised you are using the {{cite journal}} template in the context of the PMID number. With the following edit I allowed for a transclusion from either a DOI page or a PMID standard format page. What other permutations have you been using? Chris Day 17:16, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

There are several problems and a non-problem here: The non-problem is that I used whatever the reference wikificator gave me when I first entered the reference into CZ - this happened to be {{cite}} some months ago (and possibly something else on other occasions), while it currently is {{citation}}. I think it is best to stick to one of these, and there I'd take the one which fits our needs best (I'm available to fix the other ones, once a working system is in place). To the problems: As outlined at CZ_Talk:Bibliography#Annotation_mechanics, not all refs do have a DOI. Further, some DOIs are not wiki-compatible. I have a workaround that still creates unique CZ:Ref:DOI pages on the basis of such DOI, such that the redirects or transclusions work in all cases. Next, {{Reftst}} was started to reduce the redundancy when citing refs the classical wiki way, using <ref> commands (as opposed to CZ:Direct referencing). Furthermore, I think it would be good to have comments, quotes, reviews, supplementary materials and similar information for any given reference available in a standard fashion. That's what I meant with the subpages approach. {{Archive box}} seems to do this for anything formatted Archive N, and I think it would be useful to have something like this for Comment N, Quote N etc. The reason why I haven't gone forward in this direction is that I think the system is not going to be adopted if the individual (so far transcluded) entries are not easily editable (i.e. without manually going to the page that the content is transcluded from). This should work in a straightforward manner, as in {{R}}, and {{citation}} seems to me the right place to implement the editability. Any constraints this may bring about will then have to be taken into account for the reference subpages. I hope this is clearer now. If not, let me know. Cheers, --Daniel Mietchen 17:42, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

ALL of this is doable, we just have to figure out what are the naming standards so that the various subpages can always be identified by the templates. I've always liked the style of being able to comment on the significance of a paper and certainly a central location is important if we go that route. One thing that comes to mind is that what if comments need to be distinct for a specific article, i.e. a single paper might be notable for different reasons depending on the article that is using the reference? I think this is probably a minor issue but worth throwing out early.

Another issue is will the reference wikificator page keep changing? Or have the settled for the citation template as a standard? Chris Day 17:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Ad 1: Naming standards would be defined relative to the most unambiguous page name at CZ (i.e. DOI or similar, with a hierarchy if such things do not exist; I basically have this structure in my head, just need the right time and place to write it down): UNAMBIGOUSPAGENAME/OPTIONS N, where OPTIONS could be any of "Quote", "Comment" etc. - to be defined similar to the "allowable subpage types" in main space. Malhi & Lagopoulos, 2008 at Neuroimaging/Bibliography gives an idea on how different quotes or comments may be handled. I do not have a precise idea how to earmark a quote for use on a specific page or set of pages, but I think this is pretty similar a task to how categories are assigned here at CZ. Alternatively, at least for edits specific to single pages, one could do it by hand, as done on the same page with the Vallender 2008 reference.

Ad 2: WP does not seem to have settled definitely for any of the diverse citation templates in all cases, and the ref wikificator simply reflects this situation. However, it has become less reliable in other respects recently (often co-authors are dropped), and I was thinking of starting a CZ version once the CZ:Ref formatting has a chance of wider adoption here. --Daniel Mietchen 18:20, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree its best to have a CZ version otherwise we have to keep adapting as they change their standards. As tot he subpage idea, that sounds fine. The only important thing is that it is predictable. Chris Day 18:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Thoughts on presentation/formatting

Not that the topic isn't challenging enough, but I'm struggling to find a good way of presenting the complex interrogation rules mentioned at User: Howard_C._Berkowitz/IntUSGWB#Interrogation_techniques. Ever seen a classic Talmud? It has a point in the middle of a very large page, surrounded by comments, surrounded by comments on the comments...

As objectively as possible, I'm trying to correlate a stack of primary documents about authorized U.S. interrogation techniques in Guantanamo, general intelligence manuals, and Iraq. The same technique was approved and disapproved, at different times, by Rumsfeld.

Would you minimally look at the ever-growing table there and suggest any other ways to present the information? I'm walking a very careful line between original synthesis, presenting directly sourced material side-by-side with minimal commentary, and drawing conclusions on it. Howard C. Berkowitz 04:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

So is that table complete? And no, I have not seen a talmud, but it sounds sensible. Chris Day 04:31, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

It occurs to me that a Talmud was a 12th century attempt to be a hard copy hyperdocument.

The table, I think, needs about 12 more lines. To some extent, I'm being a bit Talmudic in trying to figure out if two different documents are referring to the same method, so I can combine them. Dietary manipulation vs "hot rations to MRE" is easy, but some are harder. No two authorizations have the same list; I know that prisoners not having consistent numbers seemed sinister to George Swan, but, to me, it's just bureaucratic fumbling.

Incidentally, in the two side-by-side columns above the main table, I'm still wondering if I'm being neutral — I'm really trying to be — but I think I've found something of a smoking gun. The Phifer language seems a more concise phrasing of the UN definition of torture — although I can think of some GWB Administration legal memos that suggest it's only torture if the fear of serious injury or death is real. Howard C. Berkowitz 04:52, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Evolution of cells

Is it ready for approval? You'd be a good person to oversee approval, I think. You didn't contribute, right? --Joe Quick 21:48, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Joe, I don't think it is ready. I'll start working on it though. Chris Day 03:06, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

subpages status image

I liked it a lot better with the dots. I think that was a lot more intuitive. The yellow boxes only really make sense when they are together in a group like on priority lists or user pages. (the other way also looked a lot nicer)--Joe Quick 17:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I took it back for the moment, keeping the mouseover. But I think we should devote some thoughts to why the status in the statusbar and {{pl}} is indicated with different symbols. --Daniel Mietchen 18:14, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, the {{pl}} symbols were never really meant to be permanent. I just needed something to use to figure out the mechanics of the template as I first developed it. It took off faster than I could think of something nicer. We should think of something that will look good in the subpages template and on priority lists. --Joe Quick 20:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm game to change both if we can get a good design that is visually informative and aesthetically pleasing. To have a common design that works well in both locations might be a challenge? So, while we are at it, we should consider wether we want to redesign the whole subpages header to be more compatible with any new images we decide to use. Chris Day 20:47, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The Water article needs an info box for its physical properties

As it stands now, the Water article does not include many of the important physical properties of water. It needs an Info box that lists at least the following data:

• Common name: water
• IUPAC name: oxidane
• CAS Number: 7732-18-5
• Molecular formula: H₂O
• Molar mass: 18.0153 g/mol
• Density: 0.998 g/ml for liquid at 20 °C, 1 atm
• Normal boiling point: 373.15 K (100 °C)
• Critical point: 647 K (374 °C), 22.1 MPa
• Melting point: 273.15 K (0 °C)
• Specific heat capacity: 4.184 J/(g·K) for liquid at 20 °C
• Heat of vaporization: 2257 J/g for liquid at 100 °C
• Heat of fusion: 333.55 J/kg for solid (ice) at 0 °C
• Viscosity: 0.001 Pa·s for liquid at 20 °C
• Refractive index: 1.333 for liquid at 20 °C
• Others as needed

Such an infobox, if made into a template, could also be useful for many other liquids as well. Milton Beychok 21:17, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Chris, see my Talk page for my response to your comment. Let's do all of our communicating on this subject there. Milton Beychok 22:43, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Heterotaxis

Chris, when you have time, would you please read Heterotaxis and tell me if there is anything that is not well explained or if anything else is lacking. As I wrote it at several times I fear it is more like a quilt. Feel free to correct it and change anything you think would be better placed somewhere else. Dalton Holland Baptista 11:47, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Taxobox code

Chris, the subtitles on taxoboxes are linked to articles therefore the subtitle Type species should be too, however, the article of type species is a redirect to Name-bearing type thus something has to be done so the taxobox title will redirect to it and appear as a blue link instead of a red one. I might do it if I knew how. Do you know how to solve this? I actually prefer the Type species title for the article but maybe do you use more the other in English, not sure. Dalton Holland Baptista 15:41, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

'Name-bearing type' is more general than 'Type species'. If i remember correctly i redirected it there to get rid of the red link. It actually needs it's own specific article. Chris Day 15:57, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Reports of my disappearance

Are somewhat exaggerated... but only slightly! I'm still very positive about CZ, I've just been very busy with a couple of other projects (the LISP project for the Internet, and a catalog raisonne for Yoshitoshi), and those along with stuff at home have left me no cycles for CZ. As the Yoshitoshi project gets more and more up, and as I get some stuff around here dealt with, I hope to have more time for CZ in the future. J. Noel Chiappa 16:47, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Segments

Chris, wherever I used the word segment on articles I meant sepals and petals. Should I go on using sepals and petals or tepals instead of segments? In Portuguese we generally use it meaning the tepals and not including the rest of structures, i.e the column. organs would mean particularly the sexual structures here. Dalton Holland Baptista 20:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Got it! Dalton Holland Baptista 20:36, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, I corrected my placement of organs to be more specific. I think i caught all examples. I think sepals and petals are probably the simplest nomenclature. Are they officially are the sepals officially called tepals in these orchids? So far the article has consistently used sepal. Chris Day 20:38, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Orchids have 6 tepals, three external (the sepals), and three internal (the 2 petals and the lip, which is a modified petal itself). Generally the publications treat the labellum as if it were not a petal, so when they mention petals on descriptions the lip is not included (moreover it is always described soon later). This is possibly because the repetition is extensive and frequent through all orchid texts and it would be sort of tiring to explain it over and over. Maybe it is better to avoid using tepals because it includes the labellum too, unless we intend to. Dalton Holland Baptista 20:53, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Apparently I'm good at finding discrepancies or something

Image:Level1.jpg says on the image description it's a draft and to not use it beyond the Anthropology workgroup - yet is all over the rest of Core Articles. Either it's not a draft, or a lot of people are using an image they're not supposed to be using. What gives? Elaine Wang 01:52, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

It's on my User:Hayford Peirce page, and when I click on it I'm transferred to the Hayford Peirce article. I certainly didn't put it on my page! It's on a lot of other User pages as well -- someone must have put it there for a reason at some point.... Hayford Peirce 02:06, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm the one who left that note. The original template I used in on caught on faster than I planned and I never removed the note. Feel free to remove the notice and use it wherever you'd like. --Joe Quick 02:17, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

It was a great idea, that's why. :) Chris Day 02:20, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The image just indicates that the Hayford Peirce article is a developed article. In fact we should be pushing it for approval we have our topic informant right here. But I digress, you can get that status of any article using the {{Pl}} template; the template reads the status from the metadata. For example, writing "{{Pl|Hayford Peirce}}" will give: "Hayford Peirce", in other words, the status and a hyperlink to the relevant article. Chris Day 02:19, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha. I think.... I'll remove Joe's notice. Hayford Peirce 02:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I removed the notice from *one* spot, but was unable to remove it from the Comment box just below.... Hayford Peirce 02:29, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

That box below is the equivalent of the page history - you shouldn't be able to remove it even if you could. Elaine Wang 02:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: stub-starter

It's not so much that it's something I want to do, it's more that I'm not particularly good at sourcing. So I work around my weaknesses by jumping into new projects while they're still writing basic content, before they start requiring five sources per statement. (Like I say in my public notes, I was half joking - but only half.) Elaine Wang 02:29, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there any way to recover some names?

Chris, when you recently created the Members pages for the Chemical Engineering Subgroup and the Environmental Engineering Subgroup, that effectively deleted the few user names in each of those Subgroup that were listed as Authors. Is there any way to recover those user names? Milton Beychok 07:36, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Milt, these ones, Category:Chemical_Engineering_Authors? Also, Category:Chemical_Engineering_Editors and Category:Environmental_Engineering_Authors and Category:Environmental_Engineering_Editors Chris Day 12:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Explanation of my redirect

Chris:

When I received a CZ email from Howard some days ago stating that it was time for EC members to state their positions on Resolution 0014, that email included a hyperlink to the page where members' positions were to be stated. Unfortunately, that hyperlink was truncated in the email that I received and I was led to an uncreated page where I stated my position. A few days later, when I discovered that the truncated hyperlink had misled me, I redirected that page to the correct page where I had already stated my member's position. I apologise if my redirect was not the correct thing to do, but it seemed to be the simplest way to correct the situation. Milton Beychok 18:34, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The redirect is good. I had the same broken link in the e-mail. Chris Day 19:00, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Templates and footers

Chris, I created 2 galleries with Bifrenaria photos and I know I messed up with the templates headers. They possibly will be used for any galleries 1 and 2 elsewhere thus I guess they should have that Template:1 thing, but I do not know how to do it, furthermore the text should be more general and not the one I placed there. I just realized after doing it, sorry. So its a mission to superman! lol. Another thing is these galleries ask for a footer template and I have no idea about what it is. Many thanks, Dalton Holland Baptista 00:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, already figured out the footers, but the headers problem remains there. Dalton Holland Baptista 00:29, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

More proposal reminders

Hello. The proposal record for "Disambiguation mechanics", for which you are listed as driver, says that the current step (to get further feedback) was due to be completed 15 March. The same goes for "Should we allow article specific subpages?". Could you please update the proposal records on CZ:Proposals/Editorial Council, changing your self-imposed deadline and perhaps the next step? If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me. -- The Proposals Manager, Jitse Niesen 11:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC

Hi Jitze, I need to work on the wording more for the disambiguation, I think there is still disagreement or confusion as to what the final strategy should be. We really need to get this to a consensus before going for a vote. The article specific subpage one is probably ready but I have not floated that in the forum again. I was thinking I should probably do them one at a time and the disambiguation might more more important right now. Chris Day 03:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Voting on Resolution 0014

Hi, Chris. I note that you have not yet voted. Now that you are heading up the EC, are you not allowed to vote? Regards, Milton Beychok 03:11, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking of abstaining due to my close involvement in it, let alone the chair issue. Chris Day 03:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Need help with a merger

Howard Berkowitz, the original creator of and main contributor to the Alkane article, has agreed that it can be merged into the much larger and more complete Hydrocarbons article as long as a redirect is created for Alkane to Hydrocarbons. I don't know how to merge a cluster into another cluster. It seem to me that the simplest thing is to delete the Alkane article and then create an redirect from Alkane to Hydrocarbons. Or is there some other way? Can you help me with this? Thanks, Milton Beychok 07:11, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean like merging the edit histories? Matt, might know more about that. Chris Day 14:27, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

punctuation marks in math

Hi Chris, mathematicians and most physicists put punctuation marks (commas and periods) in their equations, whereas chemists, chemical engineers, and (apparently) biologists do not. When I published in the J. Chem. Phys. (an APS journal) I used them and in J. Phys. Chem. (an ACS journal) I did not.--Paul Wormer 15:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

:) Certainly the first i have seen, so apparently biologist don't. Sorry to be presumptive and remove it, i thought it might have been overlooked. Chris Day 15:25, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

About the Water article

Chris, I need help again (so what else is new?) and I hope I'm not wearing out my welcome. Now that I've added a table of properties into the main artcle page of Water, the table in the "Properties" subpage is completely redundant ... but I cannot delete it. What I would like to do is:

1. Delete that automatic table from that subpage.
2. Replace it with an empty table of the same format as the one I put on the main article page. Other users can then easily add other properties into that empty table by using the subpage edit page. (Right now, there is no way to empty or add to the existing table since it doesn't appear in the edit page of the subpage).
3. Change the "Properties" tab of the subpage to read "Other Properties"

If you could make #1 and #3 happen, I will take care of #2.

Thanks, Milton Beychok 18:13, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I have another idea but no time to do it right now. Basically we need a home for the properties so they can be called from any page. Possibly the metadata page or a Template:Water/Properties template. The your template will call which ever of the properties it needs to from that remote location. For now I'll delete the properties page and you can set up the other properties page the way you would like it manually. After I see what you want i can then think a little more about where to store these constants. Chris Day 20:14, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I will wait. Meanwhile, take another brief look at the current Properties subpage in Water to see how I just revised it by eliminating the previous table and putting in a a blank new table. To do that, I had to remove the {{subpages}} template. Milton Beychok 20:22, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow! Superman looked at what I had done and made it into an "Other Properties" subpage while I was writing you about it! Thanks, Superman. Now how about getting me a Batmobile? Milton Beychok 20:33, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this a start on the BATmobile? Howard C. Berkowitz 22:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Copy edit

Great, Chris, there is no hurry. I'm pretty sure you will catch up. You,ll be able to copy edit them much faster than I can write. Now regarding the galleries, what exactly do you mean? Are you talking about that idea of having a sort of table with a photo and a short info note at its side?

I just though of another possibility. This may be pretty silly but what about having just one photo of each species on the genera galleries and writing a short draft about every species (almost definition) with all the photos of that species either on the main draft page or on the gallery of each species instead (that is actually the final place they will be one day). An example of what I mean is Dracula_chimaera. The text there says (quote):

"Dracula chimaera is an epiphyte orchid species of caespitific growth whose genus is related to Masdevallia, part of tribe Pleurothallidinae. This species is from West Colombia where it inhabits cloud montane forests. It is a highly variable species, closely related to Dracula wallisii from which it can be differentiated by their narrower sepals and mostly by the proportions of its labellum structures. Some authors consider both as variations of the same species."

Of course this text is very good to stuff the "gallery/table" we thought, furthermore part of it might be suppressed because it is the same to all species of a genus, although this does not solve the problem of multiple photos of a species. Again I am not sure here what is the best to do. For instance, of Paphiopedilum I have photos of about 70 of the 80 species. Do we want to crowd CZ with a lot of drafts? This is something I couldn't resolve so far... I have been writing only comprehensive articles, however a life time is not long enough to write comprehensive articles of all orchid species.

For me id does not really matter if I write a comprehensive article, a level 2 one or a draft. It it is just a matter of quantity/quality. The fun is the same. If we wanted I might write many orchid genera a day like this. What do you think is better for CZ at this point? Dalton Holland Baptista 13:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the exact solution is for the gallery. My initial thinking was I need to set up the subpages template so it can support gallery sub-subpages (it does not currently support them). As to tables or other formats, I have not thought too much about it but I like the ideas you are kicking around. Chris Day 14:57, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

As to what is better for CZ, I think I'd rephrase it to what is more enjoyable for you. I have a long term view here. We should do what we enjoy and in increments we will have something to be proud of. Hopefully others will see the big picture and join us. We cannot do this alone and to try is too daunting for anyone person. Far better to beaver away in our areas of interest so we stay sane. :) Chris Day 15:00, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Archiving needed, please

Hi Chris, are you online? Could you archive the March write a thon page for me? Thanks Aleta Curry 20:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Article-specific subpages

Chris, if voting still open, I vote decidedly YES. Not sure how to post vote. --Anthony.Sebastian 01:05, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Nether this or the disambiguation proposal have been up for a vote yet. Mainly as I need to solicite more feedback before putting these through to the EC. I'll try and wrap both up when I return from a current trip.Chris Day 23:56, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

made some subgroups

• CZ:Infectious Disease Subgroup
• CZ:Microbiology Subgroup
• CZ:Physiology Subgroup
• CZ:Biochemistry Subgroup
• CZ:Surgery Subgroup
• CZ:Anatomy Subgroup
• CZ:Cardiovascular Subgroup

However, when I tag an metadata sub1 with Anatomy (like mediastinum, it does not show up on the list of articles in that template. What step in the process am I missing? Tom Kelly 07:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

It's something about "tag" that I don't understand. Tom Kelly 07:19, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

An edit to the metadaa will change the categories but they will not register unless you make a minor edit to the page itself. Chris Day 23:54, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

category for member in subgroup

the cz:subgroup page says at the top to add [[Category:xxxx Member]] to the user page while the chem engineering subgroup page says to use {{ <no wiki></nowiki> }}. Which is right? Tom Kelly 18:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

• http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Subgroups#How_to_join_a_subgroup

I think it is supposed to be the [ and not the { so I changed it in one location on CZ:subgroups, could you change the data for the Members section instruction? Tom Kelly 18:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category:Microbiology_Members

FIXED IT! :-) http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Template%3ASubgroup&diff=100471543&oldid=100458755Tom Kelly 19:10, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Physiology is now approved by Biology and Health Sciences - how do I make the subgroup appear on the workgroup bio and health sciences page?

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category:Health_Sciences_Affiliated_Subgroups

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Physiology_Subgroup/Affiliation

Thanks for teaching meTom Kelly 18:43, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind, I think i figured this out to - just needed to edit the home page for the subgroup once. Tom Kelly 19:23, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

adding subgroup cat to metadata template on talk page

a nice line of workgroups is viewable on the talk page in the metadata template. Can we eventually have a line below it show subgroups? I just added CV subgroup to Talk:Advanced_cardiac_life_support Tom Kelly 16:18, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

changing the color behind the definition in the metapage talk page template so that it stands out more

I was thinking a pale yellow might be nice behind the definition to really have it stand out in comparison to the blue template. I've skipped over the definition in the template numerous times because I just don't see it. What do you think? Tom Kelly 19:04, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I just made a test edit. This might be a little too light, i.e. high contrast with the blue background. What do you or others think? Chris Day 20:28, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I just changed it from the light yellow to the same colour as used by the popups menu. That contrast on my screen seems a little better. Chris Day 19:44, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

i don't know how to test it against the blue. I can only see the yellow on the grey background. Tom Kelly 20:06, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure i understand, you should see it on all the talk pages now? Is the def not contrasted by the blue background? Chris Day 20:08, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think too much contrast. Something we can fiddle with. but definitely helps find the definition. Tom Kelly 20:18, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it looks good now. Whatever the end result turns out to be, I think it will be an improvement. Tom Kelly 20:20, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Editing related articles and definitions

Hi Chris! I am impressed with your contribution to the articles. In my opinion presenting information in a clear and concise fashion is always preferable. It is great that in CZ an article is created by a number of editors. (Marika Herskovic 17:04, 13 April 2009 (UTC))

But note that I have no idea what I'm talking about, so you had better check my edits make sense. Chris Day 17:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I realized the problem and I made some editing. Having my background I am aware of the fact that without a reference writing is only an opinion which can be misleading. I appreciate your involvement it is constructive. (Marika Herskovic 18:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC))

Metadata/approval

Chris, half an hour ago I fiddled with the Metadata page of Specific heat ratio in order to show that I approved the current version. I saw your comment on Hayford's talk page and I hope I didn't do anything stupid.--Paul Wormer 15:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

mixed messages

Just making sure you wanted this one deleted. D. Matt Innis 14:30, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Image license: CC-BY 2.5

Hi Chris, didn't know how to handle this for Image:Scholarly-journal-map-journal.pone.0004803.g005-scale-0.75.png. Please take a look. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 17:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Joe Quick might be a better person to ask. i could guess but that would presumably be no better than yourself? Chris Day 21:14, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll ask him. --Daniel Mietchen 13:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:Hidden?

Hello again, I think it would be good to hide such things away by a click and I thought {{hidden}} would do it but this is obviously empty. Do we have a CZ way to do that? Take a look at Research peer review/Bibliography‎ to see the result. Thanks, --Daniel Mietchen 17:57, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Daniel, I tried made an initial stab at the hidden template. How is that as a start? Obviously it can be improved. Chris Day 21:56, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to work with my skin (monobook) but with the default. Anyway, a good start. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 13:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Something wonky has happened to the small Level1, Level 2, Level 3, etc. images

Chris, take a look at my user page to see what I am talking about. All of those small images are not displaying correctly at all. Milton Beychok 00:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Now they are all okay again. All is well. Milton Beychok 00:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

In My Time of Dying

Chris, could you withdraw this nomination for now? I still have a lot of work to do on it. I thank you for it but a lot of the current content needs a rework/rewrite. I feel it's far from ready for anything atm :) Meg Ireland 01:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reason why Citizendium articles are ranking so low on Google? Some of the articles I originally wrote months ago ranked above 100, they now scrape near the bottom closer to 500, with Alexa. It seems to be getting worse not better with each passing month. Meg Ireland 03:14, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know too much about alexa so it is hard to comment on the values. What kind of people actually in the group that are tracked? As to finding the material here, my assumption is that someone would come directly to citizendium and find it that way. i doubt any people arrive from a general keyword search, especially given that wikipedia articles are almost always in the top five. I'm not sure how to solve the problem and I can only assume that a word of mouth is the key to success. Unfortunately word of mouth is often full of misconceptions when it comes to citizendium. Do you have any ideas on how to improve the word of mouth interest? Chris Day 04:04, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Which makes life difficult to Citizendium because I would assume most people searching for information would more than likely go to Google first before anything else. If I had the answers btw I wouldn't be posting here :) My only conclusion would be unless Google disappears off the face of the earth (not likely) or wikipedia closes (also unlikely), it's going to be some time before Citizendium actually receives the audience it really deserves. There was a time when citizendium started that I actually thought wikipedia was doomed. Maybe if people stopped donating to wikipedia and instead donated to citizendium it may have happened but it didnt. Meg Ireland 04:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

So Chris do you have any suggestions on what we can do in increasing Google rankings? Meg Ireland 07:19, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

No suggestions from my side, but Alexa provides a chart of the percentage of people that arrive at a site from search engines - CZ example here. --Daniel Mietchen 08:14, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

With the number of articles increasing we should be having a steady improvement in rankings with more content being searchable via Google, yet we've slipped in rankings compared with the same time last year. This does not look good. Maybe we need to change the way articles are indexed? Meg Ireland 09:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Preload templates for EZ

Hi Chris,

can you think of ways of putting the repetitive and error-prone (especially for newbies) creation of suitably formatted articles and metadata into some course-specific preload template? Too late for this course but I assume it won't be the last one. Thanks & Cheers, --Daniel Mietchen 08:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The best solution would be to have each students article listed in a template. For example, {{EZ-201|Article name}}. Then when the student click the read link the article would be started including the preload. A little late for John's course now but we should do that for future courses. Good idea. Chris Day 15:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I vote for {{EZ-201|Article name}} with preloads for main page, metadata, related articles and possibly the talk page and even the student that gets the assignment. Can you set up the basic structure? I'm sure at least Howard and I will chime in. --Daniel Mietchen 20:30, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes i can set it up. Chris Day 20:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Hewlett-Packard

Just note of thanks for cleaning up my HP articles, Chris. I'm not a very active contributor to CZ right now, and this was my top priority at the moment. I logged on today to roll up my sleeves, figure out the metadata for the HP main article, and figure out where the list of HP Twitter accounts belonged. Just as I saw to be the case with Ward's original wiki community, I planted a seed and returned later to see that it had blossomed. Thank you! -- Tim Chambers 16:59, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Image needs a credit line

Chris, I just uploaded [[Image:Strip coal mining.jpg]] from Commons and for some unknown reason the upload wizard did not give me the option of creating a credit line ... as it always has before. The credit line should read: (CC)Photo: Stephen Codrington

What happened and how can I get the credit line to appear? Milton Beychok 19:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I will keep the one called "Coal strip mining". The other one, "Strip coal mining", can be deleted. The reason I ended with two of them is that I tried it twice. As for the copy and paste of the coding, I did it as I have always done it. I don't think I would have missed copying part of it twice. Thanks for your help, Milton Beychok 19:51, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Strange, as I got the template header from the upload wizard when I did a dry run through of an upload from commons? So the correct template info is definitely there. Which option did you select from the upload page? Chris Day 19:56, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I am quite sure that I used the Commons wizard. In fact, it even included a note emphasizing that I needed to have the original creator's name. Milton Beychok 20:49, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I have never understood

What does <br/> do that <br> does not do? Milton Beychok 07:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I have never understood either. For the record, I always use <br>. I assume it is HTML and there is probably some wikimedia equivalent. Chris Day 08:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

<br/> is XHTML, see XHTML documentation. --Paul Wormer 11:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

As Paul says, <br/> is XHTML and <br> is HTML. Since CZ uses XHTML, it's best to use <br/> to avoid errors. Caesar Schinas 13:45, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

FormatDates Extension Proposal

Chris; I've added a proposal for the addition of the FormatDates MediaWiki Extension. I don't understand the proposals system at all, but I see a "driver" is needed for proposals... are you familiar with the proposals system, and would you be interested in being a driver for this proposal? Thanks, Caesar Schinas 13:39, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Approval process for animal

Mr. Day, I've finished up the draft for Animal, and I was wondering if you could read it over and see if you could initiate the approval process for it. I'm pretty proud of it, and I'd love to see it garner approved status. Sincerely, Joshua Choi 23:50, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for looking it over, Mr. Day! That you're a plant biologist is great, because I'll be working on Plant (organism) next. Joshua Choi 15:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Chris is fine, we're pretty informal here. As to plants, remember my subcellular disclaimer ;) , but I do know a bit more about plants, for sure. Chris Day 16:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

{{Subpages}} in userspace

Hi Chris, I think it would be good to add a disclaimer there, too, especially with all the redirects from the main space now pointing to user space. So I would suggest to replace

{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|User | <!--(User subpage) --><center> '''''The {{tl|subpages}} template is designed to be used within article clusters and their related pages. <br><font color="red">It will not function on {{NAMESPACE}} pages</font>.'''''</center>[[Category:Misplaced subpage]] <br>

by
{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|User | <!--(User subpage) --><center> '''''This is a draft in {{NAMESPACE}} space, not yet ready to go to Citizendium's main space, and not meant to be cited. The {{tl|subpages}} template is designed to be used within article clusters and their related pages. <br><font color="red">It will not function on {{NAMESPACE}} pages</font>.'''''</center>[[Category:Misplaced subpage]] <br>

or so. --Daniel Mietchen 09:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

A minor quibble; but CZ uses XHTML, so the br tag should be self-closing, and the center and font tags are both deprecated by the W3C. Please consider the following slightly more verbose code instead...

{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|User | <!--(User subpage) --><span style="text-align:center"> '''''This is a draft in {{NAMESPACE}} space, not yet ready to go to Citizendium's main space, and not meant to be cited. The {{tl|subpages}} template is designed to be used within article clusters and their related pages.<br /><span style="color:red">It will not function on {{NAMESPACE}} pages</span>.'''''</span>[[Category:Misplaced subpage]]<br />

Or better; since the span is there anyway,

{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|User | <!--(User subpage) --><span style="text-align:center; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic;">This is a draft in {{NAMESPACE}} space, not yet ready to go to Citizendium's main space, and not meant to be cited. The {{tl|subpages}} template is designed to be used within article clusters and their related pages.<br /><span style="color:red">It will not function on {{NAMESPACE}} pages</span>.</span>[[Category:Misplaced subpage]]<br />

Caesar Schinas 09:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Biochemistry

I moved the listed articles to the subcategory page, so the category is now redundant. Meg Ireland 06:02, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Just figured it out when I saw your other edits. Thanks for catching that. Chris Day 06:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to add anymore subgroups, some of them contain less than a dozen articles anyway. Microbiology was the largest one. Meg Ireland 06:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:Experimental

Hi Chris,
As you'll have noticed, I've taken it upon myself to go through CZ's templates and get rid of as many as possible. There are a lot of unwanted ones...
Anyway; I came across Template:Experimental, and wasn't sure what it was - it's not used anywhere, and so far as I can make out it's an old experiment - could you please you confirm that it can be deleted?
Thanks. Caesar Schinas 05:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

A near name clash

Spotted this accidentally while surfing the internet:

Citizendia http://www.citizendia.org/

It's a wikipedia mirror and judging by the date at the bottom of the page, only just started up (25 April 2009). No idea who runs it. Meg Ireland 07:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

working on upload wizard

Having downloaded the MediaWiki software and installed it on my own computer, I think I'm starting to figure out what needs to be done to get the upload wizard finished up. I'll need you to help me since I can't edit the system messages. If you want, I guess you could upgrade my user rights while I work on it and then take them away again later. Otherwise, I'll just bug you once in a while to make changes for me. :-)

There are some changes that I've already identified at User:Joe_Quick/Upload_wizard. I moved them over there from here to keep your talk page from getting too cluttered. If you make those changes, please delete them from that page so that I know they've been made.

Thanks much, Joe Quick 21:34, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:Preload-disambig-speedydelete

Hi Chris
A week or so ago I changed Template:Preload-disambig-speedydelete so that it itself didn't show up in Category:Speedy_Deletion_Requests, whilst its use as a preload would not be affected.
Hayford reverted the edit and locked the page. He said that you and Matt wanted the page to show up in the category, for some reason.
Of course, I'm not complaining. It doesn't affect me, as I'm not the one who has to remember not to delete it each time... I was just trying to be helpful :-).
But I can't think of any reason for the preload to show up in the category - would you mind explaining for me?
Thanks... Caesar Schinas 13:45, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

What you did is preferable. i did not know that could be done. Chris Day 15:32, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Right; I'll try telling Hayford that... ;-) Caesar Schinas 15:35, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I might well have misled Hayford, mainly due to my own ignorance. I'll drop him a note. Chris Day 15:36, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

coding question

I know you're not a programmer, but you did so much work on the subpages template, I thought you might know the answer: Is it possible to use a template or MediaWiki function to call up the latest page id of a particular page? This might help us compare approved and draft versions more easily. For example, this link shows the difference between the approved and draft version on the civil society article, but I had to create it manually by looking up the page id numbers. Thanks! --Joe (Approvals Manager) 14:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Joe, what you need is {{REVISIONID:pagename}} - but it is expensive unless used on the current page, and it's only available in MediaWiki 1.16 (CZ uses 1.13.2).

So, had we the right version of MediaWiki, I think a link to your example diff could be obtained using the code

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?diff={{REVISIONID:Civil society}}&oldid={{REVISIONID:Civil society/draft}}.

Or, if the links was being placed on the draft page, you could cut down on expensive variables by using

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?diff={{REVISIONID:Civil society}}&oldid={{REVISIONID}}.

Caesar Schinas 15:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Joe, did either of these work for you? I used to have a link on the page for what you are doing. However, with the update to the new processor, or possibly an even earlier update, it stopped working. I could never figure out how to get it working again so we lost that useful tool. Having said that, if the changes become too great the comparison algorithm does a fairly bad job of highlighting the changes. Chris Day 15:32, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't imagine they'll have worked, since we don't have the latest version of MediaWiki...! Caesar Schinas 16:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

They used to work (or something similar), so I'm not sure what got changed. I guess media wiki is evolving fast. Chris Day 16:17, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Odd... on MetaWiki it says that it's worked for the current page since 1.5, but only worked for other pages since 1.16, whilst CZ is on 1.13. I don't know of any other similar features, but I suppose there was one which was removed. Caesar Schinas 16:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

For your info this is the code that worked for comparing the draft page with the article.

On the approved article I used:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title={{PAGENAMEE}}/Draft&diff=current&oldid={{REVISIONID}}

On the draft article I used:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title={{BASEPAGENAMEE}}&diff=current&oldid={{REVISIONID}}

Chris Day 16:41, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting - because I tried that, but that format of URL for showing diffs doesn't seem to work now - see http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Civil%20society/Draft&diff=current&oldid=100216702, for example. I suppose that's what changed. Caesar Schinas 16:50, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it used to work well. I have no idea what was changed. I forget when I first noticed it no longer worked but I think it was before the new processor was added. I had assumed a newer version of mediawiki no longer supported it. I never did find an alternative strategy. Chris Day 16:53, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Odd. Well, there'll be an alternative when we upgrade to 1.16... Caesar Schinas 16:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

comparing current draft with current approved version

Since I happened to see this I use the opportunity to do (ask or propose) something I wanted to do, but did not know where: There should be an easy way to compare current draft and approved versions. It is not even easy to spot (in the revision history) the version used for approval. Peter Schmitt 09:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Checklist/Subpages

Chris, are the Checklist templates still needed, or has that system been fully replaced by the Subpages system? Caesar Schinas 09:10, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Some of those are children of the subpages system. I'll go through and delete the ones that are no longer required. Chris Day 15:27, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. There are hundreds of subpage templates, and I'm sure a vast number of them are old and unused, but I haven't a clue which.

See CZ:Templates/Subpages Templates...

Caesar Schinas 15:33, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll work through them. I think the whole subpages system could be significantly reduced now the new processor is being used. Part of the reason there is such as large hierarchy for the subpages template to work is that i was trying to reduce the pre-expand size. With the new processor anything not used is not counted. Previously I had to hide it using the {{X0}} template, some of this is explained a little at User_talk:Chris_Day/Archive_5#Cluster.2Fsub-page_hackery, but the full conversation is probably scattered in different locations so the context might not be there. Chris Day 15:56, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, great. I've been trying to steer clear of the subpage stuff, since it seems complex and I wasn't involved in its development, but if you can do some decluttering there, that would be brilliant. Caesar Schinas 16:00, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

A question about disambiguation

Hi, I saw that you moved "Cardinal" to "Cardinal (disambiguation)". Is it required that disambiguation pages are indicated in the title? Is the disambiguation template not sufficient? (One could spare one redirect.) Peter Schmitt 09:25, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

CZ Progress

There has not been a progress report from Larry Sanger for a long time and I have not been able to contact him. If he is not available, can you please say something reassure authors about the future of Citizendium? Nick Gardner 06:20, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Regarding 'marked as patrolled'

Chris, what does 'marked as patrolled' mean, how is it implemented, where can I read about it? Thanks? Anthony.Sebastian 19:35, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

orchid

Hi, Chris. Could you look over the orchid article? Daniel Mietchen has nominated it for approval but he has also contributed some writing to the article, so we need other editors. Thanks much. --Joe(Approvals Manager) 21:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Using colored text prepended to Rpl

On the Literature WG main page, the top priority articles are listed using the rpl template. I have indented the listings so as to make room for a New symbol for those articles for which significant changes have taken place recently (see the listings of American authors - Louisa May Alcott and Robert Frost). I would like to use colored text, say red. Is this possible? James F. Perry 03:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Citizendium charter drafting commitee nomination

Hi Chris, You've been nominated by a fellow Citizendium member to be a candidate for election to the Citizendium charter drafting committee.

If you haven't been following the discussion in the forums, we're getting ready to establish a charter for Citizendium that outlines the project's goals, ideals, and basic structure. To get the process moving, we put together a plan for electing a group of Citizens to compose a draft of the charter, which will then be submitted for community review. You can find more about the plan here.

You've been nominated by another Citizen to be a candidate for election to that committee. The next step is up to you: you may either accept or decline the nomination by going here and following the instructions at the top of the page.

If you have any questions, just let me know. --Joe Quick 15:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Charter drafting nomination

Hi Chris,
You were nominated by a fellow Citizendium member to be a candidate for a position on the Citizendium charter drafting committee, but you haven't indicated whether you want to accept or decline. To learn more about what the committee is all about, you can go to the page that describes the process. To indicate that you either accept or decline the nomination to participate in the process as a committee member, you should visit the subpage for nominations; there are instructions on what to do on that page.
Thanks much!
--Joe Quick 03:47, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Trials

Hi Chris, really good to see you back here. Not sure what to make of the trials tab, though, as that page does nothing to put these trials in perspective, which is not good for an approved article, in my opinion. Do you have any plans to add something like a "replicated by" column or other form of review of these papers? --Daniel Mietchen 08:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Welcome back

Chris, good to see you back. I know that I speak for many of us when I say that we really missed you! Milton Beychok 16:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely second that notion! D. Matt Innis 18:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Third! (Still looking forward to the foreign correspondent report on HMS Victory) Howard C. Berkowitz 18:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I have the pictures! I can conform the medical deck is no longer red. Maybe I imagined that. They had a really good display of the surgeons implements. More like a torture chamber than a surgery. Unfortunately, the lighting and crowding precluded a good picture. If you're ever in Portsmouth you must visit the ship. It far exceeded my memories. Chris Day 20:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Hey! Good to see you around here again. Russell D. Jones 03:05, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

School

Hi, what was wrong with the - now deleted - redirect from School to School (institution)? Peter Schmitt 23:15, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Nothing that I am aware of. It was in the to speedy delete category. I thought you might have had another plan for it and wanted the history wiped. Now I think about it, it was probably there due to an old speedy delete template and the category was slow to update? I'll restore it. Chris Day 23:50, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Now I understand: It is Talk:School that is to be deleted, and this is shown as "School" sorted under the letter "T". Peter Schmitt 00:03, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Right. It's all coming back to me. Chris Day 00:29, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

First two images in Photosynthesis

Chris, will you check the two figures for accuracy and clarity, as simplified overviews. More detailed figures coming. Anthony.Sebastian 03:50, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Pipelinking

Dunno what exactly you mean by this but if it means simple text replacements like {{r|Foo}} by {{r|Foo (agriculture)|Foo}} or so, a script would do it in seconds for all articles concerned or for all that were specified. --Daniel Mietchen 00:57, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Specifically I was thinking of what links to Viperinae/Catalogs via "List of viperine species and subspecies‎". Before deleting that redirect we should pipelink in the following manner {{r|Viperinae/Catalogs|List of viperine species and subspecies}} as well as [[Viperinae/Catalogs|List of viperine species and subspecies]]. If you can write a script that would be great. Chris Day 02:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Will do once we're done with the charter. --Daniel Mietchen 08:19, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Note to self. At some point need to get a bot to do this clean up to all older userplans. Chris Day 05:37, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

erythrocyte and red blood cell

We really should merge these, with redirects.

I'm having to review my hematology in the real world, trying to keep focused the complex anemia workup of a family member. Luckily, it's coming back.Howard C. Berkowitz 04:23, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Userplan

Thanks for fixing my userplan; it is MUCH less confusing now. Tell me, is there a standard protocol for replying to talk page comments on Citizendium? On Wikipedia it is user preference; is there a similar approach here? Thanks--Joseph Carpenter 05:12, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that is probably true (user preference). I must admit, sometimes I like to keep the comments together and others I split them. A lot depends on whether I have logged in recently or not. I'd say that unless someone complains do as you like. Chris Day 05:17, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

French cuisine catalog talk pages

Hi, Chris and Peter,

The two of you are deleted *something*, I don't know what, that ALSO deletes this page:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:French_cuisine/Catalogs

Please note this this page has *dialog* on it. I absolutely want to retain this dialog. But it keeps getting deleted and I keep restoring it.

• Why* is it being deleted? I don't mean because you two *want* to delete it necessarily, but what is happening with the templates and the mediawiki and what-not that it *is* deleted.

Please don't delete it again, or mark it for deletion until we have this figured out.

Thanks! Hayford Peirce 23:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Chris, this is driving me INSANE! If you go to French Cuisine, and then to Catalogs, and then to Talk, there is NO FLIPPIN' talk dialog such as Ro and I are now engaged in. WHERE IS IT? Hayford Peirce 00:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

"Talk" on the subpages template always leads to the talk page of the main page. For talk pages of subpages you have to go to "discussion". Peter Schmitt 01:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. In theory all the talk for a cluster should occur on the article talk page. To me, at least a central location for discussion makes more sense. BUT for some subpages authors have created subpage specific talk pages too. If you want we could move it to the French cuisine talk page? Chris Day 01:08, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it makes sense (for some subpages) to have separate talk pages instead of mixing discussions (something that also may lead to confusion). In cases like this, when a Catalog (or some other page) was moved then the Talk has to be moved with it (to preserve it). But, of course, discussion could be continued on the (main) Talk. Peter Schmitt 01:12, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I created a French cuisine/Catalog/Talk page with the dialogue that I want to see. Take a look. Hayford Peirce 01:21, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Certainly the subpages header does all for it to exist as a separate entity so there is no foul. I do agree that some subpages will need to have their own active talk pages. 01:35, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Why Constables shoot themselves on bad days

Now I see: there is a discussion on both the @#$%^&* Talk page and the @#$%^&* discussion page!!!! Who on earth set up this @#$%^&* mess?! He/she should be shot, only that would be too painless. Maybe licked to death by cocker spaniels.... Hayford Peirce 01:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I love cocker spaniels :) Chris Day 01:33, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

speedydelete - faster than light

Hi, thanks for cleaning up so quickly. However, it is quite puzzling when a page vanishes before one can mark it for deletion ... I even put the template on the wrong metadata before I noticed that. Peter Schmitt 16:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

O0ps sorry to confuse you. I was updating the links and wondering what to do about catlogs that are referenced in the related articles subpages by the R template. We have a few of those now. i didn't notice that you were still actively in the process of moving it all. Chris Day 16:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

No problem, only a riddle to solver: Where are these Metadata that (I have seen and) should not be left over? There is no need to worry about the r templates, I think: Most (if not all) are bot generated, misplaced, and - if not - a correction - either to the main page or to a link to the subpage - is obvious (and can be left for later). Peter Schmitt 20:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Extension of the tag principle

I have not come up with an easy way to render Category:Bot-created Related Articles subpages in a workgroup-specific manner. Of course, some extensions provide category intersection but since installing extensions is a rather rare event, I am wondering whether we can do without them. I could imagine to simply add a tag or something like botcreated=true into the Bot-suggested topics section (once we have a solution, fixing this for the existing entries is no problem, there are scripts for simple text replacements). Do you have any idea? --Daniel Mietchen 13:27, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Daniel, see if this change from a category to a template works for you. You can see the code for the template here. Chris Day 21:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to do the trick. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 22:46, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Have requested permission to run the above script. Next related request: Can you turn such edits into something like this with a template similar to {{CategoryTOC}}? --Daniel Mietchen 23:14, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

It depends on how systematic we have been with naming our categories. But the following {{CategoryTOC_extended}} should work for Category:Developed Articles. The PAGENAME is "Developed Articles" so [[:Category:Biology {{PAGENAME}}]] will give Category:Biology Developed Articles.

A problem with 'need def' is that the capitalisation is not consistent across the names so that will cause a problem. For example, Category:Biology need def would have to be Category:Biology Need def for {{CategoryTOC_extended}} to work correctly on Category:Need def. Chris Day 05:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks good. For capitalization, lcfirst may be useful. Haven't tested it yet, though. --Daniel Mietchen 09:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Was it you...

...I need to thank for fixing hte archives to the write-a-thon page? Big hug and kiss! Oh, wait, maybe I should check the history page first! Aleta Curry 21:41, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Too many pop-up alert messages when starting a new article

Chris, two things that have niggled me for quite some while:

• Whenever I create a new article in my Sandbox and then use the "Start Article" link in the left-hand navigation panel:

As soon as I cut and paste the article from my sandbox into the new article (including the subpages template) and save it, three or so large popup alerts are displayed on the main article page (ahead of the article text) telling me why they have appeared and alerting me to do certain things (like filling out the Metadata template). They must be overwhelmingly confusing to a new user writing his first article. The various pop-ups are separated by a heck of a lot of white space ... so that one must scroll down quite far to even see the main article text that I just cut and pasted from my sandbox.

Can those pop-ups be made smaller, with less excessive white space between them? Or can they be combined into one pop-up and made less wordy?

• After I've created the Definition subpage and the Talk subpage:

The Talk page has more pop-ups telling me to create the Related Articles, Bibliography and External Links subpages. Again, one must scroll down to below those pop-ups before adding a post or reading any existing posts.

Once the Main Article, Metadata template and Talk page have been created, why not autiomatically create the Definition, the Related Articles, the Bibliography and the External Links pages complete with the subpages template included in each of them? Then, instead of all those pop-ups on the Talk page, all that would be required is one sentence stating that the Definition, the Related Articles, the Bibliography and External Links subpage need to be populated as soon as possible.

I think the above suggestions would greatly simplify the task of starting a new article. What do you think? Milton Beychok 07:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The messages (including the whitespace) for starting an article could easily be changed in Template:Orphan subpage.

Concerning the talk page messages I have already filed a wish in CZ:Wishlist "Obtrusive requests to edit subpages". Again, they could easily be made smaller without having to create them at once. (I do not think that it is useful to create empty pages.)

However, both messages are as they are on purpose. Thus the pro-and-contra should be discussed, at least briefly.

(I agree with you, Milton) --Peter Schmitt 11:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)