User talk:Gerry Ashton/Archive 4

Wikinews interviews

You may be interested in commenting at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Wikinews redux. Cool Hand Luke 21:56, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

165.139.182.252

Hi. You were the last one to leave a warning for the referenced IP. They have vandalised The Bahamas. How can I get them blocked?Gary Joseph (talk) 02:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Since this address is almost certainly used by many different people. and since more than a month has passed since the last vandalism warning, it is probable that a different person is committing the vandalism. I generally start the cycle of 4 warnings over if a significant peroid has passed with no vandalism.

You may have already figured this out, but start a new heading on the talk page, something like this (without the nowiki tags):

== December 2007 ==

{{subst:uw-vandalism1|The Bahamas}} --~~~~

The subst: part causes the template to be expanded on the talk page, which saves computer processing time every time the page is displayed. Increase the digit after "vandalism" by 1 each time a warning is given. If it is aready at 4 and another vandalism occurs, make a report at WP:AIV.

Blocks are applied by administrators. I am not an administrator. If you think someone should be an administrator, you may nominate them at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/nominate. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 02:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Silanis Technology

Hi Gerry I am the Marketing Director for Silanis Technology. IP Address 66.46.217.132

It has just come to my attention that Silanis has been blacklisted from editing Wikipedia as a result of our contributions being deemed SPAM.

I want to first apologize for not addressing this earlier. I was not ignoring earlier messages from you or others, I was simply unaware that messages were being posted to my account. If you see recent repeated attempts to replace text that was deleted, it was because I was trying to figure out who was removing it (I assumed it was being done maliciously).

While I do appreciate the importance of Wikipedia NOT being used as a marketing vehicle, I have 2 concerns with being blacklisted.

Firstly, while you have applied this policy strictly to Silanis, our competitors remain on these pages. ARX, Yozons, PGP and others. If you are going to enforce this rule, it should be done uniformly.

Secondly, we ourselves have a very strict policy about not taking a commercial approach to our articles and resources. We were the first in the industry to create a resource center with the goal of educating the marketplace to increase adoption of the technology in general. As such, our articles are extremely educational. It is a shame that readers seeking useful information on this topic would not have access to white papers from experts simply because there is a presumption of bias.

I would greatly appreciate a response to this message. Please advise what can be done to resolve either of my concerns.

Thanks, Andrea Masterton

My first suggestion is to create a Wikipedia account, so that two-way communication can be facilitated, and to avoid confusion about the source of information if any of Silanis' IP addresses change.

My second suggestion is to review Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. In a nutshell, it is improper for an employee of a corporation to add a link that promotes the interests of the corporation. Even if a corporate web page mostly contains neutral information, there are likely to be links to make it easy for readers to find relevant products sold by the corporation, and the information is likely to be tailored to cast the corporation's products in a favorable light.

If you feel the information value of a Silanis web page outweighs any commercial information it contains, mention it on the talk (a.k.a. discussion) page of the article; a disinterested editor may decide to add it to the page.

As for blacklisting, there is a page that gives an overview of how it works: Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. "When requesting that a URL be delisted, you should give compelling evidence as to why it should be delisted." I do not have the authority to list or delist pages on the blacklist. I can't say for sure what those who do have the authority would consider "compelling evidence". I'll mention a few of my ideas, which might or might not have the desired effect:

1. How is it that the links to Silanis web pages came to be posted in the first place?
2. Mention that the warnings to the IP address talk page were not seen.
3. What steps have been taken to educate Silanis employees about proper ways to contribute to non-commercial websites like Wikipedia? Perhaps provide a link to any bulletins to employees, or similar.
4. What are some Silanis web pages that provide good, neutral, information, that is not available on the sites of not-for-profit organizations? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Silanis Technology

Thank you so much Gerry for the guidance. As you can tell, this is somewhat new to me. I have created a user account for myself, <Andi Masterton> and I went to the COIN messageboard however I was not able to edit the discussion as you recommended. I understand all the points you made. I am not contesting that Silanis added these links rather that the links provide valuable, non-commercial information and MOST IMPORTANTLY that our competitors are still listed. I will submit the request that our blacklist be removed and see what happens. In the meantime, can I ask you to you add the www.esignrecords.org link I had tried to add recently? It is an independant association and is EXTREMELY relevant and valuable for anyone looking at e-signatures. Thanks again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andi masterton (talk • contribs) 17:55, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I looked at www.esignrecords.org. It claims it aims to be an education resource for its members and the public, and perhaps someday it will be. So far, though, it doesn't seem very important in terms of what it offers readers. Maybe its meetings are spectacular, I don't know, but in terms of being useful to Internet readers, it's nothing special. --Gerry Ashton 22:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

CE

Gary, there is some support ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/CE and likely more) for saying CE is used as an abbreviation for "Christian Era" - even though AD also "means" that (tho' I still will not agree it is clearly an abbreviation for that). There is also plenty of support in the first 3 footnotes for including "Christian Era" as one of the bold items in the first sentence. I do not see any way to avoid including this in the article without repeated confrontations. Furthermore, it offends nobody to have Xns think "Christian Era" to themselves when they see "CE" - it would, I think, even be a way to decrease animosity & have CE become better accepted --JimWae (talk) 23:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster is a sufficently reputable dictionary publisher that I wouldn't try to contradict their claim that CE can be an abbreviation for Christian Era. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:38, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

NOR Request for arbitration

Because of your participation in discussions relating to the "PSTS" model in the No original research article, I am notifying you that a request for arbitration has been opened here. I invite you to provide a statement encouraging the Arbcom to review this matter, so that we can settle it once and for all. COGDEN 00:01, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Your welcoming message

Gerry, thank you very much for your welcoming message about my article on the Gregorian Calendar Notation under User 74.61.133.50. I will work through your sugestions and find out how to move the article to Anno Domini. (Any tips that I could use right away would certainly be appreciated.) I now have a regular user name which is below. As for a reference I am in a bit of a quandry. Not to parade my qualifications, but I am a chemical engineer with 27 years experience in process development, (MIT '44) and have a Masters in mathematics education from the University of Delaware in 1972. Retired now, I have an interest in numbers and language as well. The thoughts are my own, and as far as I know, not published elsewhere. I suppose I could cite Stephen Jay Gould's book, "Millenium" I think, but his idea of having a year "zero" to get the calendar to behave like a watch or an odometer is a highly unmathematical, to say the least, use of a term signifying an emptyness to apply to a finite period of time.

Tem12189 (talk) 13:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

---

Just to refresh our memories, here is the section in question:

Notation

The standard notation for years was the source of the confusion surrounding when the new millennium occurred in the 2000th year of the gregorian calendar. The notation for years in progress should properly be made in ordinal, not cardinal notation. That is, any year is one of a series, having a beginning and an end, extending over a span of time. The same is true of a calendar date in a month. January 1, 2008 should more properly be written January 1st, 2008th. If this notation had been followed, it would have been apparent to anyone that the millenium, a full 1000 years, was not complete, until midnight, December 31st, 2000th. A curious phenomenonis, and further source of confusion, is that one's age, like the number on an odometer, changes only when a year of one's life (or a mile)is complete, while the calendar year and day of month change at the beginning of those time periods. Such completed numbers as ages should indeed be in cardinal notation since they refer to whole, completed periods of time. A related phenomenon is how we denote the time of day, say 9:45 a.m. This means that nine whole hours and 45 whole minutes have occurred since the beginning of the day, and thus the notation is properly in cardinal form. But calendar dates, at least when in progress, should be written in ordinal form

I notice that if we change from astronomical year numbering (with a year 0 and negative years) to standard year numbering (no year 0 and BC), we change the epoch one would infer just from looking at the notation. Just looking at the standard numbers, one would think the epoch of the system is the instant between 31 Dec. 1 BC and 1 Jan. AD 1. If one uses astronomical numbering, one would think the epoch is a year earlier, between 31 Dec -1 and 1 Jan 0.

So when is the actual epoch? Most informed people already know that most scholars think Jesus was born earlier than either of these epochs (of course, one can find scholars that don't think Jesus had any historical reality at all). I know of no major religion that makes any official statements about when Jesus was born. So obviously we are dealing with a conventional epoch, which is (more or less) set on a particular date for the sake of convenience. So who set this conventional epoch? Dionysius Exiguus. What event did he intend to commemorate? Not the birth of Jesus, as many think. He numbered from the Incarnation of Jesus. Today Roman Catholics celebrate the Incarnation 9 months earlier than the Nativity, but both dates are conventional dates and no one knows what time of year these events happened (if they happened at all).

Now the question boils down to when did Dionysius Exiguus think the Incarnation occurred? Unfortunately, his surviving documents are sparse, and it is thought that the surviving copy (copies?) contain additions by scribes. I don't read Latin, but I've read translations of the relevant documents by Dionysius, as well as some modern commentary on them. There are many complications in trying to figure out what Dionysius was thinking. For one thing, in his time, there were several beginnings of the year, for different purposes: Easter for religious purposes, or January 1 for many civil purposes. Astronomers and people who calculated Easter tables in Alexandria used August 29, when Diocletian became emperor, even though he had been dead a long time in Dionysius' time. By taking various combinations of new year dates, one can come up with arguments for 2 BC, 1 BC, or 1 AD as the year of the Incarnation.

I don't think it is wise to put statements in the Anno Domini article about whether we are using cardinal or ordinal year numbering, because I don't think we know the epoch, and thus we don't know if we are using cardinal or ordinal numbering. Deciding which we are using by looking at the characteristics of our numbering system is putting the cart before the horse. I prefer to say that we don't know, and await the unearthing of some ancient document to settle the matter. -Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:N

Gerry, have you had a bad experience with WP:N being applied to remove an article? That's what got me involved in monitoring the guideline pages and trying to uncomplicate these. I think that we are making progress. I'm not a fan of the nutshells, but they are popular and a point which I'm willing to concede. I think that what we need more than guidelines is better training of the people who are determining the outcomes of our AfD debates. Let's talk as time permits, to see if we can make some improvements along the lines of your concerns. --Kevin Murray (talk) 19:12, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I've seen articles introduced about crackpot ideas. One rational for removing them is they are not notable. But because the notability guideline is flawed, it does not logically apply to ideas at all, so can't be used. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:21, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Format number

I hope I have a solution to formatting numbers you approve of. Please see this update, as well as the post immediately preceding that one. Greg L (my talk) 01:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Anno domini year zero question

Thanks. I don't know anything at all about the subject but it struck me as odd that this would diverge from what I was reading in Year zero and Common era.Trilobitealive (talk) 01:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I didn't see anything as a divergence. I think all the articles agree, before and after my change, that astronomers use a year zero and just about everyone else does not. But I was happy to provide a reference. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

your comment in "Position of AD"

Hi there. I couldn't help but comment on your post in "Position of AD" about the purpose of the manual, and choosing between acceptable usages. I thought it was a good post—something I'd been trying to say in discussion pages for ages (before I became inactive). Never seen in cast in that light before though, I like the way you put it. (No response necessary, but if you do, I'd prefer it if you'd post at User talk:Neonumbers.) Neonumbers (talk) 11:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello

You said

"I have undone the changes you made to "Electric charge" because you failed to fill in the box near the bottom of the edit screen labled "Edit summary". Since your changes were minor, I couldn't figure out what you changed, so I couldn't decide if it was a good change or a bad change."

What I did was remove some excess spacebars for example there are 2 space bars between A and B, A B, there between C and D, C D, that is what I did and you can see it if you look closely in the edit history JerrySteal (talk) 18:25, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the explaination. Unfortunately, there are vandals who like to create subtle changes in the hope that the damage won't be noticed. Thus, it is important to explain changes in the edit summary so other editors can verifiy that the change is appropriate. It's a pretty good guess that the majority of unexplained changes are harmful. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

mile

• this edit

"statute mile" is a well-understood (better understood than "international mile") term for the international mile; I don't think it's used much to refer to the survey mile specifically. The term "statute mile" is in common usage in the US to refer to the international mile, and the term "international mile" isn't likely to be understood as well by US readers. (I don't know about the UK; which is the other major jurisdiction to use miles)—Random832 21:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

In colloquial speech, statute mile is often used when the international mile is meant. Unfortunately, as documented in NIST Handbook 44 page C-13, footnote 11, "U. S. statute mile is based on the survey foot (1200/3937 meter)" (emphasis added). This handbook has been adopted as law by most of the states in the U.S. (see http://ts.nist.gov/WeightsAndMeasures/upload/stlaw.pdf). All the incorrect usage in the world does not change the law.

It is possible that some non-U.S. jurisdiction has passed a law making "statute mile" a synonym for "international mile". Nevertheless, "international mile" conveys the correct meaning, and the U.S. is clearly the largest country that sill uses miles (other than the nautical mile).--Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

An obscure law doesn't dictate usage on wikipedia; the common meaning of "statute mile" is simply 5280 perfectly ordinary feet. The term "international mile" is unfamiliar to most. —Random832 16:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

If people are unfamiliar with "international mile" it is because they don't understand the mile. Shall Wikipedia perpetuate a usage that encourages ignorance? Shall we conceal from readers the fact that for most purposes, most of the English-speaking world have agreed on the same definition of the mile since 1959?

Also, people in English-speaking countries generally reject governmental Linguistic prescription, but do not reject linguistic prescription in particular fields that are important to health, safety, and commerce, such as medicine labels, placards on trucks carrying hazardous materials, and the measurement of goods in commerce. Of course, since Wikipedia does not sell any physical goods, it is not subject to government regulations on measurements. But our readers are, and we should not perpetuate usage that would violate the law if used to label goods sold in commerce. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

An additional thought: since most use of the mile will be for measurements made after 1959 in fields other than surveying, the term "statute mile" is just plain wrong (although the error is very small). If our manual of style says that Wikipedia editors should write incorrectly, the implication is that our readers are so stupid that they can't handle the correct usage, so editors should pander to the stupid readers. No such insult to our readers should be present in our manual of style. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Your note

Thanks, I fixed it. What happened was I had made an edit, went to save, and got an edit conflict. I therefore saved what I had written with a text editor, then made the edit again, so as not to overwrite the other editor's post. It must have been the pasting into the text editor that changed the symbols. I'm on a Mac and the text editor is Apple's TextEdit, version 1.4. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Style

I tend to use what I recall is MLA. So for a book, it would be: Smith, John. Writing a Book. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 15. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 02:01, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussion at MoS

I strongly support your take on things. Keep it up. If I had discovered WP two years ago, I would be giving you (and a few others) all the support I possibly could. I'm so involved with robotics now that I don't have the time to get into every conversation I want to, but please call on me for support at any time. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Gerry Ashton's edit to Conversion of units

The definition of the radian states, "Thus 2π radians is equal to 360 degrees, meaning that one radian is equal to 180/π degrees." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radian> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.125.192.174 (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Now that the degree symbol has been included, I can live with the entry. Certainly a radian is equal to 180°/π. Whether that should be considered the definition or the definition is the much longer statement in Radian#Definition is a matter of opinion. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Changing reference lists

Oops... I didn't spot the actual note in that section. It's just something that I change when I make other edits to the page; I thought that I had moved the Popular culture and trivia section above the notes section, which was the main edit to that page. SkeletorUK (talk) 22:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I know there's no consensus for using either of them, but reflist just allows for more complex additions to the page, such as multiple columns. I also just prefer the look of having a smaller font for references and footnotes; It just seems natural to me to have them separated from the content, in a sense. SkeletorUK (talk) 23:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

RE: Anno Domini

Hmm... in that case, you're right, it is pushing the borders of disruption, though it may still be just an edit war and not blatant vandalism. There isn't enough activity to warrant protecting the page, however, and I blocking the user in question is too preemptive because they haven't edited since being warned. I'll place a warning there and keep an eye on the page. Cheers, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP!☺} 03:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

"Christian era" redirect.

From the "common era" article:

"Common Era, also known as Christian Era and Current Era,[1][2][3] abbreviated CE,[4] is a designation for the period of time beginning with year 1 of the Gregorian calendar."

The 3 terms Common era, Christian era and Current era are given as equivalent terms. If this is not the case, this article needs to be changed. Also, since "current era" redirects to "common era", logically, so should "Christian era".--Editor2020 (talk) 23:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Survey feet

Gerry, in your edit to Foot (length) you noted in the comment that not all surveys are in survey feet. That makes sense to me. (In fact, as I argued in the discussion page, most if not all surveys aren't accurate enough to tell the difference.) But it occurred to me that it would be worthwhile if you could make that text more specific -- when would one vs. the other be used? What references say so? Thanks... Paul Koning (talk) 20:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

unexplained changes policy question

Greetings.

You said:

It's a pretty good guess that the majority of unexplained changes are harmful.

Is there an official Wikipedia policy on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.214.112.163 (talk) 15:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Not that I know of. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Meters vs. metres

Hi !

I would like to remind you that a meter is (initially) a European measurement. And, opposed to the message you wrote me, it is NOT a Brittish measurement. Britain usually uses yards.

Writing Metre instead of meter is typically a signal of French influense. Since the article was NOT written in French, I saw nothing wrong in correcting the article.

Metre is a very old, outdated spelling that is probably not used anywhere in the world today, except perhaps in french speaking countries. And, since I don't speak french, I wouldn't consider editing french pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.251.240.75 (talk) 18:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You are a troll. Go away. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Total Station

Gerry,

Only top of the line model total station EDM's have an error less than 2mm. 3mm is probably more "typical". 0.1mm is unheard of. Also, .1mm ≠ 1/1000-foot likewise 1mm ≠ 1/100-foot.

Tom —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.84.102.144 (talk) 13:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

If you have a published source that says that, please revise the article accordingly and include a citation to the source. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:41, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Ira, VT

Just wanted to let you know that I renamed the headers in line with the guidelines. Please be more careful of accusing people of messing up things when they're seeking to conform articles to standards. Nyttend (talk) 16:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd say we both missed something; I missed that there were endnotes in the infobox (in a way that is impossible to see in the editor), and you missed that there were Harvard references to the Virtual Vermont website, so those were references, not further reading. I never meant to imply that you were not trying to improve the article. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:07, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Talk:MOSNUM: {{delimitnum}} template

I just wanted to make you aware that I made a post here on Talk:MOSNUM regarding the new {{delimitnum}} template. See you there. Greg L (my talk) 22:15, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: Conversion of units

All units I added to the article conversion of units were all made-up, so I can't add references for these. BlueEarth (talk) 19:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I have reverted the addition of the made-up units. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Oops, my fault

Gerry, please see my answer on Talk:MOSNUM. Sorry. Greg L (my talk) 03:29, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

• Gerry, voting is now available regarding the “GiB” policy here. We’ll see now where everyone sits on this one. See you there… Greg L (my talk) 06:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Drift of Easter

You're right--the Western system for calculating Easter is not as accurate as 1 day per 10000 years. This is because of the slowing of the earth's rotation. I thought of that later and was going to change it, but you deleted the whole paragraph before I got to it. By the way, it's not totally random, as I have now written. There is a gradual lengthening of the day which causes an error quadratic in elapsed time, and then there is a random error on top of this, which when integrated over time must grow as time to the 3/2 power or to the 1/2 power. In any case, the quadratic term dominates. I haven't bothered to source my figure of about an hour per millennium squared for the coefficient. I learned that from an article in Nature many years ago concerning the so-called crucifixion eclipse. In fact, now that I look there, I see the reference: Humphreys, C. J., & W. G. Waddington, W. G. (1983, December 22). Dating the crucifixion. Nature, 306(5945), 743-746.

As for the Julian system, I have changed my number from 4 to 3 days per millennium. Yesterday I used an incorrect method to calculate it. I do think it's an important point, that this Metonic method is inaccurate and results in the Easterners celebrating Easter long after the full moon!

Eric Kvaalen (talk) 09:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Pressure conversion

Proof supplied as requested. Mjroots (talk) 19:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Drift of Easter

You're right--the Western system for calculating Easter is not as accurate as 1 day per 10000 years. This is because of the slowing of the earth's rotation. I thought of that later and was going to change it, but you deleted the whole paragraph before I got to it. By the way, it's not totally random, as I have now written. There is a gradual lengthening of the day which causes an error quadratic in elapsed time, and then there is a random error on top of this, which when integrated over time must grow as time to the 3/2 power or to the 1/2 power. In any case, the quadratic term dominates. I haven't bothered to source my figure of about an hour per millennium squared for the coefficient. I learned that from an article in Nature many years ago concerning the so-called crucifixion eclipse. In fact, now that I look there, I see the reference: Humphreys, C. J., & W. G. Waddington, W. G. (1983, December 22). Dating the crucifixion. Nature, 306(5945), 743-746.

As for the Julian system, I have changed my number from 4 to 3 days per millennium. Yesterday I used an incorrect method to calculate it. I do think it's an important point, that this Metonic method is inaccurate and results in the Easterners celebrating Easter long after the full moon!

Eric Kvaalen (talk) 09:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Pressure conversion

Proof supplied as requested. Mjroots (talk) 19:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Notability discussion

I responded to your answer with a request for further info in this discussion. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 18:04, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for Watts edits

Thanks for your edits on the watt article! Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

thank you for the references

Thank you for the CSEF references. I moved them. --68.0.124.33 (talk) 21:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a witch hunt

I assure you I know neither User:Classicaio nor User:Wittiams. I have nothing to do with them. I, User:NotSarenne, was blocked under the false assumption of being a sockpuppet of User:Sarenne. I only picked the account name after repeatedly being accused of sockpuppetry by User:Fnagaton when I was making anonymous edits. I never used Tor. I never used multiple accounts. I don't know User:Sarenne at all. Since then I've noticed quite a few accounts getting blocked as "sockpuppet of User:NotSarenne". The truth is, a few of these were accounts that I created one after another - after getting blocked again to be precise. I wouldn't have created any other accounts but blocking the complete sub-network of my ISP leaves me with only a few options. Many of the blocked so-called sockpuppets, like the two above mentioned accounts, have nothing to do with me. I don't know who they are. Many of them were blocked for very little, things which clearly didn't justify indefinite blocks. Several other involved accounts behave exactly the same, if not worse, but they are not even admonished. The point isn't that it's unfair. The point is, this behaviour of the involved admins doesn't make any sense whatsoever. See also [[1]]. --202.120.139.211 (talk) 23:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Greenbox

There's been a Complete rewrite of section 4 (greenbox) of the MOSNUM in the last few days. Could you give feedback and vote?

While your at it, check out the bluebox and purplebox proposals.

Thanks. Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 02:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I've decided not to vote on the colored boxes. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:12, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Fine with me, but is there a particular reason? Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 20:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

This disagreement is impossible to settle, short of an edict from the foundation. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Headbomb has put a huge amount of effort into reaching a compromise solution that is agreed by nearly all editors involved in the discussion. It would be a shame if that compromise did not represent true consensus because knowledgeable editors like yourself were staying away. Please reconsider. Thunderbird2 (talk) 12:23, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Watt

Those billions are tricky devils. Sometimes I think links to dab pages ought to render in a different colour. --AndrewHowse (talk) 19:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

the "Common Era" article

Gerry, About the "Common Era" article: The Gregorian Calendar was initiated in 1582 and it specified that the new calendar would not take effect until after Thursday, October 4, 1582. The Gregorian Calendar recognizes dates before Friday, October 15, 1582 (the 5th through 14th were omitted) in accordance with the rules of the Julian Calendar. Thus if a date is given before 1582, one can be sure that it is Julian. 1582 and after there is some confusion as many countries adopted the Gregorian Calendar in different years. During these years (roughly ending in 1900) dates are often specified OS or NS (meaning Old Style or New Style). To speak of the year 1AD of the Gregorian Calendar is very non standard as the first year of that calendar is 1582. One might refer to the Proleptic Gregorian calendar if this meaning is truly intended, but I have never seen that need arise and this meaning is certainly not to be assumed. Sean.barton (talk) 21:11, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

The Julian calender originally was about the number of days in each month and timing of leap years. A number of year numbering and naming schemes were used, such as the names of the consuls who served during the year, the year of the emporor's reign, or the Indiction. Also, some other eras were used that used a different event in the life of Jesus as the epoch, such as some group's estimate of the first Easter. Thus it is not true to say that "if a date is given before 1582, one can be sure that it is Julian." Perhaps the article should refer to the proleptic Gregorian calendar as you suggest. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect date change in Gregorian calendar

Sorry about that. I spent so much time agonizing over whether to leave both "Anno Domini" wikilinks that I forgot to check the context of the date. (btw I did leave both links as they were piped from different words) Plasticup ^T/C 22:25, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: Cite book suggestion

Hi, for the 1970 thing, Unix time has all the info you need :) Gary King (talk) 05:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a little different from what you're thinking. The 1970 in the code is just there to validate something. Basically, what's happening in the code is it checks to see if the date entered is in the format of YYYY-MM-DD, and if it is, then to wikilink it so that it appears as a formatted date (2008-01-01). However, because the code used to convert simple text like 2008-01-01 to a "time format" only works back to 1970-01-01, then any date before that that is converted to a time format will show 1970-01-01 even though that might not be correct (1900-01-01 will convert to 1970-01-01, for instance). This is just a check, though, so as long as the date returned is 1970-01-01 then the code knows that the date entered is YYYY-MM-DD; what the date actually is is of no concern to the template. It will wikilink it even if it is before 1970-01-01 but as long as it's in YYYY-MM-DD format. Here's how [[1900-01-01]] would appear: 1900-01-01. Sorry if I'm babbling on about this, though; let me know if it's not clear :) Gary King (talk) 18:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Official spelling of metre/meter

Thank you for fixing the sentence. I did not know it was official in the USA. My reference (Reysnick and Holliday - Physics 1) was not up to date. Paolo.dL (talk) 21:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

thanks

I've just noticed this edit. Thanks for your support. Thunderbird2 (talk) 18:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Vote on unit symbols for liter

We had earlier been trying to settle on wording to use for a guideline governing the unit symbol to use for the liter. There is now a vote, here at Straw poll on unit symbol usage for the liter to settle on just what it is we hope to accomplish with any guideline’s wording. I hope to see you there. Greg L (talk) 22:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry re: eSilicon entry

Hi Gerry -- I'm very new to Wikipedia and want to be a good citizen, I'm truly sorry for the spam-like insertion and would really like to ask for your assistance in helping me build awareness for my company, as I strongly feel we have a lot to offer Wikipedia readers and the engineering community as a whole. Can I please ask you to contact me so we can further discuss? [email protected]

Thanks so much and again my apologies.

Dmitry (Djlipkin23 (talk) 21:27, 8 August 2008 (UTC))

Thanks for your quick response Gerry. Again, I want you to know that by no means was my insertion about eSilicon a deliberate attempt to SPAM. Like I said, it was my first experience on this site and clearly I did not know the rules. My next question is, if I wanted to create a new definition about a new market segment/category that we are competing in, and frankly have pioneered and invented, how do I go about creating this definition? Also, I notice d a couple of companies in the ASIC section that do not have links like ChipX or cPackets....why do they exist on this site? Thanks again for all of your help. (Djlipkin23 (talk) 22:03, 8 August 2008 (UTC))

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Djlipkin23" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Djlipkin23 (talk • contribs) 22:06, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

The Application-specific integrated circuit article contains a list of manufacturers (foundries). It is not a "See also" section which one often finds at the end of articles, so it isn't necessary that there be an article about them. However, the names should have been put on the list by people unaffiliated with the company, and I don't think fabless ASIC companies would qualify as foundries. I don't know if companies you mentioned have their own fabs or not.

As for an article about a new definition or market segment, I would find one or more articles about it in a neutral, reliable publication and base an article on those neutral reliable sources. It would probably be inappropriate for you to write such an article if your company is the only company in that market segment. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:17, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Metre

Thank you again for fixing the reference list and notes. Paolo.dL (talk) 19:49, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice to specify that, in USA, the use of "meter" is mandatory (not just an option) in business, while scholars (I mean scientists, researchers) are free to choose "meter" or "metre" or even "inch-foot-yard-mile" (and as far as I know they typically choose the first). Also, there are for sure many scientists in the world (i.e. not only in USA) who adopt American English in their international scientific publications. Actually, I am one of them! But I can't find an elegant and short enough sentence to say this. For instance, this is correct, but incomplete, long and not very elegant (due to the change of subject, hibghlighted in boldface):

"... However, in USA, the spelling "meter" is preferred by most scholars, and its use is mandatory for manufacturers and traders."

Can you find a better wording, somehow? Thank you. Paolo.dL (talk) 12:09, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It's one thing for the US to have a combination of laws and official notices saying that "meter" is the official spelling; it is a different matter to enforce that spelling. I think it is very unlikely that the spelling would ever be enforced. I would compare it to US Code Title 4, Ch. 1, Sec. 7, which specfies how to display the US flag, but there is no penalty for not following it. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 15:42, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I see. Thank you. Paolo.dL (talk) 15:48, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Journal citations

It is standard scholarly practice to specify the pages for articles from any periodical. Sometimes articles are available on the web, and a URL can go direct to the relevant article, but generally URLs are fleeting. By providing the page numbers, the relevant article can be found in the paper version of the periodical long after the web pages stop working. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:48, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course, but the pages are not given in the text of your article, where only a reference number, or the name+year notation are used. Here, we refer to the whole article by Turner. This article is only two pages long. The pages, together with all the information needed to find the paper version, are given in the reference list. We have used this method throughout the article. Paolo.dL (talk) 20:58, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

On further examination, it turns out the pages were not necessary at the exact spot where you deleted them (since they were in the reference list), so that was an acceptable change. Your edit summaries were confusing, however, because you wrote as if putting author and date in parenthesis was a practice unique to that artice, and you were following a special rule just for that article. In fact, putting author and date in parenthesis after a statement based on the author's work is a widespread custom, and it is also widespread custom to add the page number whenever it useful to point out a particular part of the work. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:58, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusing edit summary, and thanks for your help. Paolo.dL (talk) 21:05, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Inadvertence

One of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Template:Cite news/doc, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 13:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I do not understand what happened. I just intended to insert an interwiki link to the french template inside the list of other links (which I have done again by the way). Some sort of error has occurred, that I may be responsible of, as well as I may not. Sorry for the trouble. -- Mister BV (talk) 10:37, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

AN/I

FYI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#WP:MOSNUM. (sdsds - talk) 10:42, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Incredible

Looking at your edit here, you give an edit summary of "Remove edit with non-credible edit summary".

If you look back over the page history, you will see that here, PMAnderson adds some personal comments and a signature to the text he disagrees with. Tony removed them a short while later, inadvertently taking the text with them, as this diff shows. He gave the edit summary, "removing personal comments and signature." I think it is clear that he didn't mean to remove the text along with PMAnderson's comments.

I looked into this and restored the text here. I had thought that anybody following the issue would check back and see what had happened, but it looks like I was wrong on this.

Could I ask you (and anybody else reading this) not to modify this section until we find consensus on the talk page? --Pete (talk) 17:51, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, sure, change it to read like you want it, and then ask everyone to leave it alone. I reject both the explaination and the request. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Puzzled. The text is the same as it was:

• a month ago [2]
• two months ago [3]
• three months ago [4]
• four months ago [5]
• five months ago [6]
• six months ago [7]

In fact the text has been stable since December 2007, when Tony provided the current wording.[8].

Disbelieve unsupported statements if you like, but the facts are easily checked. I've asked Tony for confirmation,[9] and while I await his response, I am quite sure that the situation is as I have reported. --Pete (talk) 18:20, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Tony edited immediately after my slip of the keyboard. He knows where the revert button is as well as Skyring does. He chose to take out the paragraph instead. This is merely another of the many things Skyring is sure of. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:18, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Tony is pretty good on his edit summaries, and I find it hard to believe he mentioned taking out the personal comments and the sig, but not the long-standing wording. Regardless of whether you both made a mistake or not, making a controversial change without consensus, when discussion is ongoing and unresolved, is disruptive and unhelpful. --Pete (talk) 00:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

If you acknowledge that making a controversial change without discussion is unhelpful, please stop doing it. More to the point, please stop reverting; you have now made three exact reversions in 10 hours. We frown upon that; see here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Your translation skills needed

Can you read what PMAnderson said at: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3 and see if you can clarify things for me. He appears to be suggesting that the autoformatting pre-1582 issue also applies to solitary years. Since you know about this Julian/Gregorian thing, can you clarify whether his suggestion that it applies to solitary years is correct? Lightmouse (talk) 22:44, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your contribution at the bot request. I couldn't parse PMAnderson's questions and my replies were apparently not helping him either. I hope that your reply and mine will answer his underlying questions. Lightmouse (talk) 00:03, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Giga-

Gerry,

You've reverted the addition of IPA on the grounds that

1. hardly anyone understands it and
2. the source didn't use it.

I'd say that

1. that IPA that I did use wasn't hard, was liked & was followed in brackets by that "hard g"/"soft g" stuff and
2. sources can use what they will we don't have to follow them nor do they have WP:PRON to adhere to.

I propose reinstating the IPA as is used throughout WP.

JIMp _talk·cont 18:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Reversion

Sure That makes sense, but reverting the entire edit doesn't; you reinserted a dropped parenthesis, which was the original purpose I had in editing it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:26, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you fixed the parenthesis. Your edit summary said "Dashes". If you expect someone to notice a single parenthesis in amongst all the other changes, I think you need to adjust your expectations. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:33, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Date question

Well I know no more than anyone else about dates, probably less, but I see that WP:dates deprecates the use of the 2008-09-09 format (ISO 8601):

ISO 8601 style dates (1976-05-31) are uncommon in English prose, and are generally not used in Wikipedia. However, they may be useful in long lists and tables for conciseness and ease of comparison.

I think this is sensible, especially as the meaning is often not entirely unambiguous in view of the different conventions about dates around the world. I think long lists, as mentioned in the above quotation, should probably have a heading which includes "yyyy-mm-dd", or something similar, for clarity. Of course, where the date appears like that in a quotation it has to remain (but possibly with footnote or something).

I personally use yyyymmdd (no hyphens) and other unwieldy formats for work purposes, and grow quite fond of them, but wouldn't use them in prose!

What are your two possibilities? Rachel Pearce (talk) 20:18, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

solid core transformer

I disagree. Do you have engineering background? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ericg33 (talk • contribs) 20:52, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Beginning with your last question, I do have an engineering background. I have would a few radio frequency transformers, but I do not have a strong background in magnetic materials. I think your disagreement is about whether "solid core" transformers are efficient. That all depends on what you mean by "solid core". If you mean any solid material, as opposed to an air-core transformer, then solid cores can be quite efficient. If you mean a homogeneous piece of iron with no laminations, and no other technique to reduce electrical conductivity (as in powdered iron cores) then that would be inefficient. But no one makes that cores that way, so I think you would have to say more than just "solid core" to get people to understand what you mean. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:10, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I meant the iron solid core. Yes, they are inefficient. thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ericg33 (talk • contribs) 21:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

you didnt really answer the question

Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Proposal_to_Stop_Mass_Unlinking_dates_for_30_days_and_no_other_changes you are talking about ripping out DA which is fine, but that's not what I was proposing. I was suggesting just stopping the mass unlinking for 30 days. DA or no DA, I was just suggesting a hiatus. dm (talk) 01:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

My answer is it should have been ripped out 5 years ago and there is no cause to wait another 30 days. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Your rv at MOSNUM

Gerry, your edit summary indicates a consensus was reached. Could you please furnish the diff or (in the alternative) hold off on the reversions until one is? There's no point going down the 3RR rabbit-hole.LeadSongDog (talk) 17:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

My reading of the entire debate is that just about everyone except Skyring agrees that foreign language conventions don't influence the writing of English language articles. The most nearly plausible counter-argument I saw from Skyring was quotation of the guideline from 2005 which said to use the date style from the variety of English closest (geographically) to the country being written about. But that is a matter of geography, not the conventions used in the foreign language. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest that a direct assertion on the talk page to the effect that you consider that to be the consensus might be worth making. That way it will either be directly challenged in talk or, if ignored, you will have a clear statement to link to in the article edit summary. Of course the geographic rule was based on a mistaken premise: think of Hong Kong, which is far closer to the US than to the UK. But in this day and age some flavo(u)rs of English are used in almost every place on earth.LeadSongDog (talk) 18:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

date type of template

Hi - I'm interesting in your comments on User:Dmadeo/DA which I've been noodling with. Take a look if you're interested, please leave brief, civil and constructive feedback if you'd like. I think it addresses all the concerns I've seen brought up (including your CE points), but I could use some other opinions before I point it out to a larger audience at MOSNUM Thanks dm (talk) 05:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback I replied on that page dm (talk) 22:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Cite census

It is on my watchlist. I apologize for not responding to you more quickly -- work is kind of hectic this week. I will answer soon. Coemgenus 15:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Please sign your comments

G.A., thanks for your valuable input regarding unit capitalisation over here. Please remember, though, to sign all your comments on talk pages. Thanks! —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 22:10, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

ISO 8061 and YYYY MMMM DD are not the same

ISO 8061 and YYYY MMMM DD are not the same. ISO 8061 is YYYY-MM-DD (all numeric), and, as you probably know, changes 2 BC to -0001. There is no reason why dates before 1583 would be incorrectly formatted if presented as YYYY MMMM DD. Btw, there is also a YYYY-MM-DD(J) format in use for Julian dates (though I am not advocating it be used in source code). --JimWae (talk) 00:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

My view is that there is no standard concerning YYYY MMMM DD, so if that is encountered, the meaning must be found from context. When the format YYYY-MM-DD is encountered, it is not clear if it is governed by ISO 8601 or not. Readers who have never heard of ISO 8601 will probably infer the meaning from context, and then go on to use it themselves without ever having read ISO 8601. However, readers who have had occasion to read ISO 8601 might think it applies, and interpret such dates as Gregorian. Readers who try to look it up in reference sources are apt to find it discussed as if ISO 8601 applies.

As for YYYY-MM-DD(J), I believe that format was created by Peter Meyer. He, like anyone, is free to make up whatever notation he wants to, but I have not seen any indication that his invention is being widely adopted. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Why are you singling out dates before 1583 for delinking? Because the month is spelled out, there is no reason to think that YYYY MMMM DD could be mistaken for ISO 8601, and delinking those dates seems to be aimed particularly at those who have chosen YYYY MMMM DD as their date preference. Date preferences are still working & there is no consensus to single any one out for elimination. --JimWae (talk) 00:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand why you are commenting about YYYY MMMM DD. My view is that so long as ISO 8601 is a possible output of the date autoformatting software, no input should be presented to that software that is outside the valid range for ISO 8601 dates. The valid year range for ISO 8601 dates, without prior agreement of the information exchange partners (editors and readers) is 1583 though 9999. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:23, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

No date format preference is actually identified as 8601. Those who choose YYYY MMMM DD or YYYY-MM-DD as a preference should be free to deal with any compications on their own. It bothers me that the direction of wikipedia seems to be away from allowing people to have dates presented to them in what is both the most logical and the closest to deserving being called International format --JimWae (talk) 03:38, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

YYYY-MM-DD would have been a nice format if the ISO had not ruined it up by failing to consider the Julian calendar. Maybe they will take up Peter Meyer's idea the next time they revise it. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 15:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Dionysius Exiguus

Sorry for the damage. I'm trying to be careful. --Elliskev 00:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Sandboxes

G.A. Thanks for sandboxes tip.--Gporter1974 (talk) 05:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

GPS satellite dates

Hello, what exactly did I do wrong on the date audit? Although I used the edit summary generated from the script, I actually fixed all the dates by hand. Dabomb87 (talk) 12:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The date 1978-02-22 is February 22, not February 2. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:30, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Notice of ANI

• An Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents report has been filed against you here. Greg L (talk) 20:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Complaint to Rlevse regarding your disruptive actions

A complaint about your conduct on Wikipedia has been filed with a super-editor (known as a “bureaucrat”): user Rlevse. That complaint, is here. Greg L (talk) 20:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Amplifier Definition

Gerry - I think the definition of an amplifier needs to be changed, and I saw that you also once argued for a definition stating the amplifier increases the power of a signal. I agree with your thinking. I remember thinking that once before, and recently my electronics professor pointed to the current definition as evidence of why Wikipedia wasn't reliable. I would appreciate your help in creating a new definition. Thanks, stemperm 00:39, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

IEC prefixes

You may wish to comment on this discussion at MOSNUM. Thunderbird2 (talk) 18:17, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

User talk:207.165.136.253

Hi Gerry. Thanks for reporting that IP, which I've blocked. Just a note, but generally we don't advise vandals that they've been reported to WP:AIV as they may then either remove the report or start vandalising that board. It's not a "secret" board as such, but if you're reporting them there there isn't much point in telling them about it if you see what I mean. Again, many thanks for your efforts - much appreciated. Pedro :  Chat  16:42, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I noticed that some other editors continued to put lower-level warnings after the final warning. I hoped that if they were watching the page, they would discover what their recourse is when vandalism continues after a final warning. Perhaps it would have been more effective to put something on their talk pages. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:46, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. If you see other editors still warning users when they should just take it to AIV, pop them a note in case they're not aware of the board. Pedro :  Chat  20:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

MOSNUM

Simple. I was adding the {{pp-dispute}} tag to the page to make it clear that the reason it was protected was because of a content dispute. Did you actually look at what my edit consisted of before you left your question? _Gb^T/c 20:23, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I understand now. When I first saw it, it seemed the tag was disputing whether the merge that is described immediately below your edit should occur or not. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Mile

Just seen your edit summary and wanted to say the we in the UK use the mile too! Mjroots (talk) 13:35, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I understand that it is used informally, and is lawful for certain selected purposes. The USA is unique (with the possible exception of Burma and Liberia) in that the mile is a lawful unit of measure for almost all purposes (I'm sure there are a few laws or regulations that dictate some other unit of measure for long distances in some very specific situation, though I can't name one). --Gerry Ashton (talk) 14:53, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

RFC at WP:NOR-notice

A concern was raised that the clause, "a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge" conflicts with WP:NPOV by placing a higher duty of care with primary sourced claims than secondary or tertiary sourced claims. An RFC has been initiated to stimulate wider input on the issue. Professor marginalia (talk) 18:57, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

About "experimenting with page Transformer"

I don't know why you say the information I added was incorrect. The formula was a simplification of the one previously being on the page, and the one still being there (apparently). I still don't understand why the formula is formatted the way it is; having a $2$ in the numerator, and ${\sqrt {2}}$ in the denominator, just makes no sense to me. I think the information is verifiable, and if you need me to cite my sources, the information comes completely from me. --79.136.62.214 (talk) 13:49, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately there are vandals who like to change numbers and formulas so they are incorrect. Since the people cleaning up after vandals don't always understand the numbers or formulas that have been changed, it is very helpful if there is a citation to a reliable source so that those repairing damage can easily see which verision is correct.

In the case of your change, I see that the new version is indeed a correct simplification. I happen to believe that the earlier version is better, because those familiar with electromagnetism will instantly recognize 2πf as the angular frequency, and that recognition will make the formula easier to understand. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:13, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, then it makes more sense to me. And thank you for your answer. What I wanted to say was just that I didn't think I was experimenting with the page, just trying to help, and didn't deserve the response i received. But I will take more caution in the future. And I highly respect that all wikipedia articles have to be looked after. --79.136.62.214 (talk) 15:50, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Date delinking arbitration

I've started a request at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Date delinking which you may wish to comment on. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Before you delete the Notary additions, you should of did some research

You should of researched notaries before deleting what I wrote. You are trying to tell me this is not true? "Some notaries in states where they are banned from drafting wills continue to carry on the tradition by selling attorney prepared legal document forms then notarizing the signature." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.35.93.17 (talk) 16:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

It is not my job to research claims; it is the job of the person adding the claim to research it and provide citations to the reliable documents that show it is true.

It may very well be true that some notaries may sell blank will forms, but who is to say if the blank forms were prepared by an attorney? Even if it was, is it fair to say they are "attorney prepared legal document forms" when the important parts are blank?

Also, it is difficult to say whether the notary is selling the forms; the notary might just work in a store, like a UPS store or stationery dealer, that sells blank legal forms and also has a notary working there. It's really the store that's selling the form, not the notary. Without some kind of published survey, who is to say which situations are commonplace and which are rare? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:58, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry, but you are speaking to what you know little about. Besides, almost all the facts on the entry are not cited.

Most certainly notaries in all states could draft wills before the introduction of unauthorized practice of law statutes in the 1930s. See *http://baradmissions.com

As far as who says the forms with blanks must be done by an attorney, it is the government. Below is from a state government notary page:

"Now, exactly what services can you provide without engaging in the unlicensed practice of law? Generally speaking, a nonlawyer may only sell legal forms and then type those forms which have been completed in writing by the customer. As an example, you could sell a will form to an individual. The customer would have to fill in the blanks" *[10]

I assume you are acting in good faith. I do not want an edit war, but I believe the UPL statutes are an important event in notary history—Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.35.93.17 (talk) 16:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:No original research. I will be happy to discuss this further after you have read that. Anyone is free to delete any information that is not properly cited, whether the editor doing the deletion is well-versed in the subject or not. As it happens, I am a notary, and would never consider selling blank will forms, because doing so would encourage the purchaser to screw up a document that cannot be corrected, because by the time the need for correction is discovered, the purchaser will be dead. But that's beside the point; the issue is whether or not notaries outside Louisiana, Florida, and Puerto Rico actually sell blank wills. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:22, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The whole section on Iran is not cited, why did you make a decision not to delete that? And what about Maryland? Should I delete the 90% of the entry that is not cited?

Above I have a quote, with a link from the State of Florida notary website saying notaries can sell legal forms with blanks that they fill in, then notarize.

What is the difference what you do? The Florida Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that notaries can sell legal forms with blanks, the customer fills it in, then it may be notarized. Here is a *link to a Florida notary that sells legal forms. A simple web search will bring up a multitude. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.35.93.17 (talk) 02:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, so we now have sources that tell us that at least in Florida it is legal for notaries to sell legal forms (just like every other person in the State of Florida can). It is also legal for Florida notaries to use a typewriter to fill in the blanks in those forms, following the directions of their customers. We have an example of one Florida notary who offers to do so. Of course, any typist could offer the same service, except for the notarization. Since the sale and typing of blank legal forms is independent of being a notary, should it be mentioned in the article? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 03:19, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

The reason that it is important to mention that notaries are selling legal forms then notarizing them because it is the return of the notaries to their traditional role that was disrupted by the UPL laws of the 1930s. The UPL laws was the greatest single event impacting notaries in its history, that is the reason it should be mentioned in the history. For over 2000 years wills were done by notaries, then the UPL laws of the 1930s was an attempt to suppress their traditional role.

As far as sources of notaries selling forms then notarizing them, a quick search will find thousands of notaries doing this all over the US. The Florida government website writes much about this, mostly saying what notaries can and cannot do with the forms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.35.93.17 (talk) 04:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

The source for laws restricting the practice of law in the 1930s in most states comes from what appears to be a one-man publishing house that offers one book. This would not ordinarily be considered a reliable source. However, if he cites good sources within his on-line book, you could cite them too.

This could be an interesting story; did state legislatures protect people from incompetent legal advice, or were they improperly influenced to restrain trade in favor of lawyers? In the present day, do the laws protect those who need to complete legal forms from poor advice, or do they make people spend more than necessary to get the forms completed. It is a complicated issue, which would require many good sources to properly adress, and the Notary article might not be the right place to write about it. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:45, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I came to the conclusion you are being a "brick" and are provoking an edit war. There is no cite in the Iran notary section but you did not delete that, for 90% in the of the facts in the notary article there are no cites. I will make the changes at my leisure with cites, when you delete, I will simply readd.

Your last post makes apparent much of this is new to you, which tells me you have little knowledge of the subject. Why am I even talking to you??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.35.93.17 (talk) 18:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Are you kidding me?

"no source provided to show that the Southern Baptist Convention is either American or conservative."

FYI, that's the most hilarious sentence I've read in quite some time. TAway (talk) 00:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

TRANSFORMER HISTORY

Transformers didn't exist before 1885. There were only colis. In 1885, the ZBD was first structure what was called as tranformer. The basic priciple of tranformers (the second point of the transformer article) regards and works only for closed core coils. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Celebration1981 (talk • contribs) 18:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggest the person who wrote the preceding comment lacks sufficient mastery of the English language to be editing technical Wikipedia articles. I just don't understand the point of the comment. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

verifying microformats

You were the person asking about hot to verify the microformats, correct? Did you get Operator working ok? -J JMesserly (talk) 00:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I didn't see the comment about Operator; what is it? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:07, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

It is a toolbar for Firefox that will display icons if microformat data is available. If you don't have firefox, it is free and works fine. Add Firefox's free Operator toolbar, then visit an article like Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC) and click on find with google maps. -J JMesserly (talk) 17:05, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Do you know of a roman republican calendar converter? It's obvious to me that I messed up on the gregorian version of the death date for Augustus. -J JMesserly (talk)

To illustrate the problems with the Roman Republican calendar, let me quote some passages from Blackburn & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press, (1999, reprinted with corrections 2003), pp.669–670.

...yeilding a regular year of 355 days; .... Every so often a board of priests known as pontifices (who were active politicians, and often behaved accordingly) would curtail February at the 23rd or 24th and insert an extra month ... of 27days to give a year of 377 or 378 days.

... The discrepancy between the calendar and the solar year might have been made up with 11 intercalations in every 24 years, but regularity was sacrificed to political convenience and superstition. In particular, the supposed ill luck attaching to intercalation (as in many other cultures) apparently caused it to be suppressed during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), when Rome was fighting for her life; at all events, in 190 BC the solar eclipse that according to modern astronomers fell on 14 March was recorded on a.d. III Non. Sept., or 3 September ...

In short, there is no hope of converting Roman Republican calendar dates with a bot; only dates that fall near a recorded astronomical phenomenon, or are also dated in a better preserved calendar, can be accurately converted.

As for the Julian calendar, the rules set up by Julius Caesar were not properly followed between 45 BC and 8 BC; the general idea is that leap years were observed every three years rather than every 4 years because of the Roman's habit of describing what we would call a three year period as 4 years (for example, the period 2005–2008 would be counted by a roman as 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, or 4 years). The records about which years were or were not leap years are contradictory, so even Julian calendar dates are uncertain by a few days from 45 BC through 8 BC.

Maybe the best thing to do is just not process any date before January 1, 9 BC. Of course, it still remains essentially impossible for a bot to tell if a date is intended to be Gregorian or Julian. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I am also of the school of not second guessing contributors. Let's evaluate the cost benefit of sometimes bad gueses vs. doing no guesses. Note that all of this guess work only impacts the microformat data emitted, and there are currently no historical apps that can use this data anyway. The text in wikipedia text shows a Roman civic calendar date (expressed in the second parameter). For the first parameter, the bot made a calculation and rounded up to a month as we discussed before with Augustus birthday but the date was on a boundary, and the estimate winds up in the wrong month, so the wrong value is placed in the first parameter. Ok, now in 2015, the first history sites with animated historical sites start showing up leveraging all the historical data that wikipedia is exposing. Joe Roman History buff clicks on a wikipedia article button to go to see that time in history at the google time machine site and is plunked in the wrong month. Fine, he goes back to wikipedia and fixes it himself. So the bad data is fixable, and now we have people motivated in making the refinements. Sure we can limit the scope of bot runs. We will anyway because some wikiprojects are going to flat out ban them when they are proposed on general principle. That's ok. So I don't really see much harm in not doing dates before 9BC, but not even trying to make best guesses on Julian means we won't be emitting a huge number of dates, because realistically, we are back at the chicken egg problem and no users are going to go to the trouble of using a microformats template unless they can see the benefit. -J JMesserly (talk) 22:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

More recent history has a greater number of dates (as opposed to vague indications of when something happened). There will be a substantial number of dates between the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in Rome in 1583 and its adoption elsewhere, which I believe stretched out to about 1920. Since this is the English Wikipedia, I would expect an emphasis in articles about English-speaking people and countries; the British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. A great many errors would be introduced by processing articles about affairs in English-speaking countries between 1583 and 1752. I think a better attitude would be, lets let the history buffs of 2015 get motivated by the annoying gap in microformat dates between 1583 and 1752, rahter than motivating them by telling lots of lies and geting them so furious with us that they run around fixing dates. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:32, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

That's a reasonable position. Another fact in support of what you say is that we have far higher volumes of multimedia material for the more recent period. I can go along with your POV on this. -J JMesserly (talk) 23:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, are you ok with using {{start-date}} or something comparable for non gregorian dates (eg the example in the docs for a julian date? Or do you oppose any microformat emission of Julian dates- on the general principle of the objection that the dates are in ISO8601 format which is gregorian calendar? If so, then what if the gregorian converted form is hand entered and supported by citations?- -J JMesserly (talk)

Emitting a microformat Julian date in the ISO 8601 format is a falsehood. Those who persist in doing so after having been warned are liars. If a template allows separate entry of the date to be displayed in the article, and the date to be emitted as a microformat, it would be acceptable to display the Julian date in the article and emit the Gregorian microformat. For dates after 8 BC, the conversion is sufficiently straightforward that no citation is required. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:06, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

On the face of it, it looks like {{Start-date}} meets your requirements. I will contact you when there are further developments on this matter. Thanks, and Regards -J JMesserly (talk) 08:52, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Spell check

By the way (and this is unrelated to our original conversation), you might want to take a look at the Firefox web browser. It has built-in spell check, which would help you avoid making spelling mistakes like "dicipline" when writing articles. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 05:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I've tried Firefox, and decided against the extra overhead on my computer. When writing articles, I usually spell-check with EMACS, but usually don't bother for talk pages. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 05:48, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay. I'm curious though: what extra overhead did you run into? What browser are you currently using, and what version? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 06:00, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I use Internet Explorer 7. I don't claim it is the best, but I have to have it around for the sites that won't play nice with anything else. I have a bunch of applications that constantly want to be updated, and since I normally run with a limited user account, that means I have to log on as administrator and manually ask for the update. The last time I updated Firefox, it installed some kind of daemon (service, in Billy-speak) at system bootup, and I'm trying to pare the number of daemons to a minimum, so I just ditched the whole Firefox browser. Message to developers: DON'T YOU DARE INSTALL A DAEMON ON MY SYSTEM WITHOUT ASKING ME! --Gerry Ashton (talk) 06:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

That's very odd. I looked through the list of services on my computer, and didn't see anything Firefox-related. Do you remember the daemon's name? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 06:22, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't remember. It was a while ago; maybe I'm confusing it with some other behavior I disapprove of. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:41, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I see. How long ago was that? What sites did you run into that wouldn't work with Firefox? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 16:54, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

It was around 6 months ago, and no non-working site comes to mind at the moment. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:10, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

So why are you giving up Firefox's advantages, if it didn't install a daemon and it's compatible with all the web sites you visit? Even if you did run into a site that did not support Firefox, you would still have Internet Explorer to fall back on. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 17:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Although I didn't write down the precise behavior of Firefox that I didn't approve of, I recall that it did something I'm not going to accept. I also recall that sites exist that are a problem with Firefox, though I don't recall which ones. Finally, if it was installed, it would be one more program that would require constant updates. Finally, I didn't notice any advantages that impressed me. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Better performance, better security, and spell check are the main advantages that I see. I should also point out that millions of people use Firefox with minimal site compatibility problems. However, it is your choice what to use and if you really think it's easier to copy and paste your edits into emacs to spell check them, more power to you. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 17:37, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Extra! Extra! Read all bout it!

Even Rubin and Cole say Tennis expert has lost it. Ohconfucius (talk) 16:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

DST

Response to your query at Template_talk:Start-date#Daylight_saving_time -J JMesserly (talk) 00:06, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Oops. I jumped the gun. Let me cover my tracks before you tell me what a dunce I am... -J JMesserly (talk) 00:09, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the miscue. I think it is ready for comments now. -J JMesserly (talk) 00:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

A cookie for you!

Thank you for fixing that citation on Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron! I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. You deserve this cookie!

Vantine84 (talk) 05:27, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

any further thoughts?

Hello, Gerry Ashton. You have new messages at Template_talk:Start-date#Daylight_saving_time.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I proposed our usage of no Z on an ISO date safely within the Julian range should be interpreted as Julian. Do you agree, an if so, what is the safe range? -J JMesserly (talk) 04:46, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

A date in ISO 8601 format must be Gregorian. The Z indicates Coordinated Universal Time; a reasonable defiance of ISO 8601 would be to treat Z as Universal Time before 1 January 1961, the earliest UTC listed at http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/. When neither Z nor a time zone offset is present, the time is local time, but it is still Gregorian calendar. Since there is a need to differentiate between local time and Universal Time no matter whether the date is Julian or Gregorian, the Z can't be used to indicate the calendar, even if we didn't care about defying ISO. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 14:47, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, overloading the meaning of missing Z was my intention, and you reject it since ISO8601 was intended to be Gregorian. Ok. So your proposal as I understand it is to tell everyone that if they use a microformat, they must be responsible for the conversion into gregorian. We document that regardless whether it may be contrary to ISO8601, we are using Z to indicate UT even though it is prior to 1/1961. This was the original meaning I took from you, and I will proceed along that trajectory. If there is anything wrong with that let me know. -J JMesserly (talk) 16:51, 20 February 2009 (UTC)