User talk:B.d.mills

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Contents 1 WikiProject Melbourne 2 Melbourne articles 3 Sig experiments 4 Jeffrey W. Parker 5 Vienam war 6 Willie Morris Bioff 7 Hemispheric Ignorance In SF 8 Indus 9 Experiments 9.1 Progress Indicator 9.2 Another Progress Indicator 10 Wikipedia:WikiProject Constellations 11 Northern bias

[edit] WikiProject Melbourne

Hi B.D.; I've noticed that you've taken an interest in the WikiProject Melbourne. If you want, add yourself to the members list, we'd love the extra help. You might have noticed that a lot of the things we plan to cover simply haven't begun yet, like the parks and gardens, Mayors and Lord Mayors, landmarks, etc. If you're interested in Melbourne's suburbs though, check out the suburbs subpage and its talk page

Here are some open WikiProject Melbourne tasks:
Suburbs:	West Footscray, St Kilda, Broadmeadows, Sunshine, Caulfield North
Landmarks:	Rippon Lea Estate, Como Mansion, Queen Victoria Market, Rosie's Van
Events:	Fashion Festival, Film Festival, Writer's Festival 2006 Commonwealth Games
Railways:	Healesville line, Rosstown Railway, Whittlesea line, St Kilda line, Port Melbourne line
Stations:	Dandenong , Footscray, Watergardens, Epping, Ormond
Tramways:	24, 27, 30, 31, City Circle, 42, 48, 55, 57, 59, 67, 86, 108
Streets:	Lonsdale Street, Toorak Road, King Street
People:	Charles Grimes, Alfred Felton, Charles Hotham, Reg Ansett
Institutions:	Melbourne Maritime Museum, Scienceworks Museum, Royal Melbourne Show
Organisations:	Melbourne City Council, Save Our Suburbs, Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board
Edit or discuss this list.

TPK 12:29, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC) (Talk)

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Glad to have you on board! TPK 08:54, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

What he said. If there's anything I can help with, just yell. Ambivalenthysteria 09:42, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Thanks guys, good to hear from you.

Regarding closed rail lines, two good sources of information would be rail enthusiast shops (such as the one near Spencer St Station) and the State Library of Victoria. I just added the East Kew line to the list from my personal recollection.

There are also a few closed tram and cable tram lines as well. We need a standard format for articles on these. B.d.mills 00:52, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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You were pretty close there. It's the Kew line, not the East Kew line (East Kew was on the Outer Circle, and closed much earlier). I've fixed that, anyway.

The State Library is a very good resource. Another place that's been suggested to me is the Prahan Mechanics Institute, which apparently has a good selection of rail books, including several by the ARHS. I did go to that shop near Spencer St, Railfan, once, but found the people to be profoundly unhelpful and uninterested in anything but the trains themselves. Ambivalenthysteria 05:00, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As for tram lines, there is a list of discontinued routes at List of Melbourne tram routes, but these are mainly fairly recent. Maybe there needs to be a List of closed Melbourne tram routes? TPK 05:03, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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I recently visited the State Library and found a good book on the history of the Outer Circle Railway.

Title: "The Outer Circle - A History of the Oakleigh to Fairfield Railway"

Authors: David V Beardsell and Bruce H Herbert

ISBN: 0 85849 024 2

Call No: LT 385.099451 B 38 0 (State Library) - it may be found in the domed reading room

Publisher: Australian Railway Historical Society (Victorian Division), 1979

The address for the Australian Railway Historical Society as of 1979 was GPO Box 5177AA, Melbourne Victoria 3001.

From this book, I found additional information on the Alamein line which I will include.

B.d.mills 03:41, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Websites Australian Railway Historical Society (Victorian Division).

[edit] Melbourne articles

Hey there, I don't know if you've checked up on the WikiProject Melbourne recently, but a few of us have decided to adopt an article or two. The idea is to pick a lacking article and "be in charge" of it - do the research, writing, maybe even picture-taking. We're trying to build up the number of qualiy articles, instead of thinly-spread stubs. Don't feel you have to do anything :), but if you want, pick an article and add yourself to the list. TPK 20:48, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC) Talk

[edit] Sig experiments

My new sig, as I join the fashion for obnoxious sigs....

--  B.d.mills  (Talk) 07:38, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Obnoxious?!!! (angry face)!!! j/k -- BDAbramson ^thimk 03:10, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

LOL ... I like your sig too. ;) --  B.d.mills  (Talk) 03:15, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks - I just added yours to my tribute collection. -- BDAbramson ^thimk 03:35, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

This one works better. It's about 30% smaller because I combined the border properties into a single CSS tag. --  B.D.Mills  (Talk)

Here's the current sig. Need to add a contributions link. --  B.d.mills  (Talk)

Aha. So *that's* how to do the contributions link. Maybe the classic red border will also work so it's not too washed out. --  B.d.mills  (T, C)

How about a flag? --  B.D.Mills  (☎T, ✍C)

[edit] Jeffrey W. Parker

I have added more info to the Jeff Parker article, in case you want to reconsider your VFD based on notability. Thanks, 205.217.105.2 18:21, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vienam war

Just mark articles like that one with {{speedy}}, no need to go through vfd. Thue | talk 13:39, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I will remember that. It's my first time doing vfd's and I will take the time to read up about speedy deletes. --  B.d.mills  (Talk) 13:43, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Willie Morris Bioff

Hi. I've done a fairly beefy expansion of this article. -- BDAbramson ^thimk 19:35, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

Thanks, I was going to do that as well but you beat me to it. You've also put a lot more information than I would have had time to do. Good work. Now I can work on my planned expansion of Dorado. --  B.d.mills  (Talk) 00:43, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

No offense, but weren't you a little too quick on the trigger with Willie Morris Bioff. Substubs usually take longer than 30 minutes to become real articles! ---Isaac R 05:26, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Hey, relax. Perhaps I was a little quick off the mark on that one, but at the time I raised the vfd, the full text of the article was "A mafia extortionist". IMO that's not good enough even for a placeholder; I believe that new articles should either be created with complete sentences or the articles are created at another time when more time is available to word the articles properly. The poor sentence structure pushed me to vfd. If the sentence had a verb and proper subject-verb-object sentence structure, it would have got the benefit of the doubt. The system works though; it got discussed, expanded, people changed the vote from "delete" (poor quality) to "keep" (good quality) and all's cool. I've only been doing vfd's for a few days, and I'm still learning the needed techniques.

Another note: I was working at a time when there were a couple of people creating articles that needed speedy deletes and I was trying to squash them. --  B.d.mills  (Talk) 13:42, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hemispheric Ignorance In SF

No strictly relevent to your bias quotes, but I can't resist quoting the standard example of sloppy SF: "He climbed to the top of the ruined Empire State building and gazed sadly at the sky, where Alpha Centauri shone, the nearest outpost of human civilization". New York, I'm told, is too far north to see Alpha Centauri. ---Isaac R 16:30, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

That was very funny, I must admit I laughed when I read that one. Yes, it's true that Alpha Centauri is too far north to see Alpha Centauri. Where did you get it from? --  B.d.mills  (Talk) 01:32, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

To butt in here for a moment - it might be too far north now, but with precession it may be possible one day...? Every month I receive an email science fiction newsletter which lists bits of sloppy SF research and mangled writing under the heading "Thog's masterclass". Recent beauties have included :... she could see nothing but the old moon with a lost star drifting between its horns. (Patricia A. McKillip, _Heir of Sea and Fire_, 1980), and "The laboratory covers a dozen floors," the general said, "and in it we have every kind of equipment known. We can produce temperatures of minus 900 degrees Kelvin..." (Silas Water, _The Man with Absolute Motion_, 1955) Grutness...wha? 02:51, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

The correct answer to your question depends strongly on the time period when the story was set. The description included "the ruined Empire State building". The lifespan of the Empire State building would likely be measured in centuries, whereas precession and proper motion are effects that occur over longer timescales. My best guess is that by the time precession or proper motion allow Alpha Centauri to be visible from the skies of New York, the Empire State Building would long have passed into memory.

I have made the low-temperature mistake once in fiction myself. I was only eight or nine years old; I didn't know enough science at the time to know any better. --  B.d.mills  (Talk) 03:19, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure where I saw this first, but I believe the quote is generally attributed to John W. Campbell, who must have read a lot of bad SF during his many years as an editor. Operating out of New York, of course! ----Isaac R 03:28, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Indus

ah, I didn't really have a permanent layout in mind for Indus. I just wanted to tidy up a little to see that it didn't get too out of hand. Fell free to undo everything I did to it. I didin't know that I was actually taking it out of order. I do have one sugesstion--put the huge 88 constellation table at the very bottom of the headings. Jaberwocky6669 15:37, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

• oh yes and you are right about that stub notice. You gave me an idea. When an article reaches the point where a stub notice will get lost then should we consider the aricle to be a stub? I wonder what standard exists that determines whteher or not an article is a stub? Jaberwocky6669 15:39, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is a stub standard as such. I feel that the stub is needed on those articles with blank sections. When a constellation has good information already, like Orion (constellation), then the stub is not needed. Where a constellation article lacks information about deep sky objects then the stub is definitely needed.

I'm not sure what you mean by the location of the large constellation table. Can you demonstrate by editing the Indus (constellation) article? --  B.d.mills  (T, C) 03:03, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I thought you hade edited the article? Jaberwocky6669 05:18, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I've edited the article recently, but you made the most recent edits. I think the article already conforms to your idea of putting the constellation tables at the bottom. I think they do look better placed right at the bottom just above the category section. —  B.d.mills  (T, C) 06:12, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think that when most people come to a huge table in the article they may assume that they are at the end of the article and go elsewhere. I will move the stub notice to its previous location... Jaberwocky6669 06:18, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Experiments

Editing experiments go here.

[edit] Progress Indicator

87/88

Almost done

[edit] Another Progress Indicator

6/88

A lot of work is needed here

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Constellations

For the good people in this project whom I have just contacted, you may reply in this section or on your user page. I am watching both locations. --  B.d.mills  (T, C)

I've noticed your contact notice about it. BTW we still didn't started similar project on Slovene WP, basically because of the lack of images in local language. I've seen that pl:WP has nice images, like this one for Dorado. --xJaM 11:29, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Northern bias

Hi BD, I note your interest in boreocentric bias, boreal chauvinism or hemispheric ignorance, whatever you want to call it. One area it is rife is the field of interhemispheric bird migration, where birds (notably migratory waders) which breed in high northern latitudes and migrate to Australia, South America and Africa are said to move between their breeding grounds and their 'wintering' grounds, or are said to 'winter' in the southern hemisphere. I have already edited a couple of Wikipedia articles to mitigate this, but I am sure that there are plenty of other examples around. Maias 01:43, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

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Thanks for that, I found it very interesting. I was editing the talk page for systemic bias when you dropped me a line, so your message was unusually well timed. Maybe a quotation illustrating the problem for migrating birds should be added to the list (go and have a look). --B.d.mills 01:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, a typical example is the following, taken from the article Red-necked Stint:

The Red-necked Stint, Calidris or Erolia ruficollis, is a small wader. This stint's breeding habitat is tundra in arctic north east Siberia. It nests on the ground. The Red-necked Stint is strongly migratory, wintering in south east Asia and Australasia as far south as Tasmania.

I would tend to replace 'wintering' with 'spending the non-breeding season', but it would be nice to find a less clunky term for it. Maias 03:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)