User talk:Coppertwig

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Welcome to my talk page. This is a message from myself to myself. Feel free to post a real message to me. Coppertwig 19:03, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Hellenistic Art translation

Hello Coppertwig! Thanks for your response. I actually am thinking of doing a translation of the French article on determinants [1] which is FA in the French Wikipedia. So I'm interested to see how you managed the Hellenistic Art translation. Do you still have active collaborators, or are they no longer available? And is it still legal to create a ../Translation_sandbox as you did under an article in the main space? I thought I might have to do it in my User Talk space. EdJohnston 22:44, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Adding a redirect to one's watch list?

Hi! I noted you were involved in discussion about whether "Physical punishment" should be a separate article from "Corporal punishment", or a redirect as it is now. A technical question: How can I add "Physical Punishment" to my watchlist, so that if anybody changes the redirect back into a full article again I'll notice it? (And if I want to change it back to a redirect, how do I do that?) Thanks! --Coppertwig 19:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC) Note: I have looked at the watchlist instructions and it says you can watch a nonexistent page, but I don't see how to follow those instructions. Searching for the page or using a URL just sends me to the CP page, which is already being watched. --Coppertwig 20:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Another unrelated question: suppose a "diff" says there was a change on "line 330". Is there any easy way to find this line in the displayed article other than reading the entire article? And another question, is there a better place for questions like this than on the talk page of someone such as yourself? Thanks again! --Coppertwig 20:23, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Coppertwig! These are some of the techniques I use, although somebody else may have better ideas

  • In priciple it is pretty easy to add a redirect to your watchlist. If A redirects to B and you want to watchlist A, just go to A (it will redirect to B), and then go back to A via the "(Redirected from A)" link. Then add it to your watchlist in the normal way via the "watch" tab.
  • A nonexistent page (i.e. nothing, not even a redirect, links here are red) you proceed as if you were about to create a page there, leaving you with a blank editing field. There should still be a "watch" tab at the top though which will watchlist the nonexistent page.
  • For finding a particular line, using your browswer's "search" or "find" function is quite effective. Just type in the first few words of the diff into the search field, and you should quickly find the lines you are looking for. The "find" function is usually in the "edit" menu of your browser (that is not the "edit this page" tab on Wikipedia), although some browswers have the shortcut Ctrl+F.

Hope that helps! Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Careful about cut-and-paste moves!

Hi Coppertwig! There is a tradition to avoid 'cut-and-paste moves' because they lose the page history. The history is needed for copyright reasons (who were the contributors). If you approve, I'll re-do the move in the proper way, but I'll need to vary the resulting name slightly. Let me know. EdJohnston 15:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The other snag is that your proposed destination page is only the 'Talk' version of the original Translation_sandbox. It is abnormal for a 'Talk' page to exist without its corresponding article, so the original Translation_sandbox could not easily be deleted. How about User_talk:Coppertwig/HA_translation_sandbox? Don't create it, just tell me it's OK, then I'll do the move. (The move does the creation automatically. But if the target already exists the move may fail). Any logged-in user can do a move, if the move satisfies all the constraints. EdJohnston 16:28, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sandbox moved OK but redirect should be undone

Hi Coppertwig. It looks like the page move is correct, and all the history was preserved, but you might consider undoing the redirect from Hellenistic Art/Translation sandbox to the new location. The problem is that the page will still look like it's in the main space! EdJohnston 20:02, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Great work! I really don't know how to thank you; that translation didn't seemed to be ill-fated, with all the translators leaving wiki for good before ending the translation; but you can say that you've broken the spell . I see you've only recently taken interest in wikipedia, if you have some doubts or questions I've been around here quite a long time.
Regarding the question you posed, it's easy: simply cancel the previous content at Hellenistic Art and then copy-and-paste your translation. And don't worry about the history: it'll remain anyway. Ciao, --Aldux 23:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Looks good! Regarding how to do the merge, I agree with Aldux that you should copy and paste the new content over the existing content in Hellenistic Art. An additional suggestion is that you should replace the content of your sandbox page with a redirect to Hellenistic Art. Then the edit history of both the old and the new pages will stay around indefinitely. (You'd just have to avoid deleting the sandbox afterward). I'm not sure this is all 100% necessary but some people (perhaps not everyone) seem to think it's good practice. Those who are less subtle I think just go ahead and do their translations IN PLACE in the currently existing pages. This does leave a slightly confusing article for a period, but it's one way to do it. EdJohnston 00:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Hope you find it ok, at the end I opted for a move instead of a copy-and-paste, and did it myself since only an admin can do these sort of moves. As for Wikipedia:French Collaboration Project, yes, nobody seems to really care much about it, judging from the activity around there, but deleting wikispace is not so simple, it has too pass for a WP:VfD.--Aldux 00:46, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Your procedure seems fine to me. I didn't realize until now how hard it was to never delete edit history. It may not always be worth the trouble. EdJohnston 01:50, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks again! :-) I had requested Derveni krater, since I saw the link in the french version of Hellenistic Art. I've never seen a translation request awnsered so fast! Ciao, Aldux 20:57, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation procedures in the French Wikipedia

Hi Coppertwig! You were thinking of creating new instructions for translators. If so it is worth looking at fr:Projet:Traduction. They appear to be super-organized. There are templates you are supposed to add to the article, to track the progress. To see one that's currently going on, look at fr:Histoire de la Grèce antique which is now being translated from English. The talk page at fr:Discuter:Histoire_de_la_Grèce_antique has interesting critique of how the corresponding English article is organized. There is some talk of using sub-pages but I couldn't tell if they're actually being used in this case. EdJohnston 04:10, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slightly late welcome

Hello Coppertwig! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking Image:Wikisigbutton.png or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! —The Great Llama talk 20:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
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No problem! —The Great Llama talk 22:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Human rights in Iran

Sorry about that, I thought I had put it back up for translation...don't have time to finish the whole thing right now. Cheers Claveau 22:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation

First, remember one thing: we're not really deleting the material in question, but simply storing it in the verions conserved in the history pages. As for your other idea, "shortening the mention of each completed article down from a whole template with Status etc. to just a single line with a link to the article", I fully agree; simply reduce every single completed translation to a single line, like with the section titled "list of other recently completed translations", removing the "other", and leaving French original article link, english link, author of the translation. As for removing some of the older completed articles, personally I'd keep them all, so that we can have a full and immediate view of all the project's translations.--Aldux 17:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism or not?

Hi Coppertwig, I had been looking into the edits of user:BruceDLimber and it seemed to me like that there was rather large proportion of plain nonsense that had to be reverted, like [2], here and here. But in the last case I obviously did an erronous revert myself, and I completely misunderstood what he wanted to say in "Biohazard". Maybe I misjudged him alltogether. -- 790 10:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NO - Student's t-distribution

The line I deleted was unreferenced and should not have been added in the first place. Please do NOT add that material again, or I will revert it again. My policy is that whenever unreferenced material is questionable, it can and should be deleted regardless of what other's think. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a cite for original research. – Chris53516 (Talk) 14:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] db-owner

Actually, I was referring to tagging User:Coppertwig/Hellenistic Art translation sandbox, the remaining redirect from your userspace to the article. Since the page was moved properly, all history attribution is in the article itself, right? -- nae'blis 17:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Similar problems

Hi Coppertwig, I've been looking at the t-test page and it seems like we've been having similar problems :) My question would have been "why would a Student's t-test be used when you have unevenly distributed intervals?". Well done on continuing to contribute to the wiki and providing users your valued information. Grant 14:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi again Coppertwig. Yes, it was I who left the above. When I signed-up to Wikipedia I stupidly used my sirname as my logon and have since learned to use a nickname (Grant) instead. Anyway, keep up the good work. Best, Grant 01:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Domestic discipline

Removed those links. Femto 20:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah. First, you have to split this into proper References and External links sections. Forums, wikis, blogs, and other self-published stuff, aren't references. General sites that didn't provide specific facts in the writing of the article, aren't references. Blogs, forums, and other social sites, or loose collections on the topic, aren't external links. Neither are links which provide no immediate content but only are entry pages to sites on the general topic. It's easy, just don't assume that adding a link could improve an article, or that removing a link would hurt it. Femto 21:18, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fatty acids in food chemistry

Thanks for putting Essential fatty acids in the Branches of Food chemistry template. My only concern is that you can consider fatty acids as part of lipids. Think about that. Chris 14:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

As a follow-up to your response on my talk page, I reverted the template back to its original form. What I also did was put the Essential fatty acid as part of the lipid section in the food chemistry article. Hopefully this compromise will be suitable to you. I look forward to working with you on any food and nutrition articles in the future. Chris 14:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with what you have proposed. Let's do it! Chris 14:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
After reviewing what you are going to do, please take a look at what is already out there on the issues we were discussing. You have good ideas, but I don't want you to run the risk of reinventing the wheel. We need to build up and adjust these articles, not reinvent them. Chris 15:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notation

Why do you find it necessary to write

T=\frac{\overline{X}_n-\mu}{\left(S_n/\sqrt{n}\right)}

instead of the following?

T=\frac{\overline{X}_n-\mu}{S_n/\sqrt{n}}

I don't see any ambiguity in the latter form, so the parentheses seem like clutter. Michael Hardy 19:55, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It may not look ambiguous to you, but it looks ambiguous to me. The latter one looks to me like a formula that had an extra slash added by accident, or maybe I don't even notice the slash, or the slash looks like one of the rarer mathematical symbols. At best it looks as if somebody hasn't gotten around to putting their formula into standard form. I find the first formula much clearer. The parentheses make it clear that an operation is actually happening, and that it's actually intended to be there, not just an extra symbol that got in there by accident. Since it's a nonstandard form (not simplified as algebraic expressions usually are), without the parentheses the slash looks like part of the square root sign if you don't look closely. I hope this answers your question. --Coppertwig 02:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Domestic violence

Dear Coppertwig, - Thanks for your efforts to protect the Domestic violence entry from vandalization.

With regards to Andrew_c's recent edits to that entry, I would like you to view my response to him on his talk page.

Kind regards,


My Wikidness 06:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Apologies for writing wrongly the first time!!!'

[edit] at best vs at least

My reversion was solely a linguistic one. At best implies that little can be expected, while at least implies that more can be expected. In the case of some purely fraudulent material, nothing (at least) can be expected, though perhaps the placebo effect might contribute to some benefit (at best). Perhaps an entire revision of the relevant sentence could satisfy all?

But on the underlying subject, there are some points I'd make, though I've not included them in any of my edits as explaning them neutrally to WP standards would not be easy. In the case of snake oil with some rationale for a mechanism of action, the situation is more confused. EPA is itself not an established therapeutic agent, and when contined in commercially prepared snake oil (ie, not quantitatively controlled to USP or equivalent standard), may or may not have a beneficial effect as intended (at best again). In particular, the agent will usually be present in varying quantitites, availabilities, purity, and contamination with other materials.

In general, there are many things for which a plausible mechanism of action has been proposed, and for many of them there are papers alleging some evidence of this action. However, a poorly done research project really does little to establish that this or that does anything in particular. Unfortunately, this criterion is all but opaque to the public, a fact which is exploited by snake oil salesmen of all kinds in promoting their wares. Modern science is not easily conveyed to the lay public, greatly assisting quacks of all types. ww 10:04, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. If I understand you right, you're concerned about the connotations (nuances) of the phrases "at best" versus "at least". However, I'm looking at the plain ordinary meaning of these words, and to me, the sentence with "at best" is just plain false. Perhaps the phrase "at best" is interpreted differently by you and me. To me, it is a claim that it is impossible to get anything more than the placebo effect from the substances mentioned. This is a strong claim which would require citations to back it up; it may be unprovable even if it's true. Also, it's not very clear which substances this claim is being made about. Apparently, to you, "at best" has some other meaning which I don't understand, because you say "may or may not have a beneficial effect as intended (at best again)"; to me, "at best" certainly does not mean "may or may not have a beneficial effect as intended"; to me it means "definitely does not have a beneficial effect as intended (except for the placebo effect)".
I think if you take a large number of substances, even if they were sold with fraudulent intent, it would be surprising if not a single one of them happened to have some beneficial effect. There might be more that cause harm than that cause good, and even mroe that have no effect, but the use of the phrase "at best" in that context is claiming that not a single one of them had any beneficial effect other than the placebo effect, which I believe is not true, and in any case is not supported by research -- it would be extremely difficult to study every single one of those substances enough to show that none had a beneficial effect. I doubt anybody's even managed to list them all.
In any case, I've changed it again to another different wording using "although". Please have a look and see if you think it's OK. --Coppertwig 12:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it seems clear we're infering different things from 'at best'. There being such a muddle, we should probably avoid it in the interests of the Average Reader, our audience. I agree with your point about unknowability of result (modulo placebo effect) in mixtures of ingested substances, but that being so, what should a responsible regulator / prescriber do? What should a rational patient do?
Utter freedom to choose (in a Univ of Chicago sense) might be fine in some Platonic world, but in a world in which those with some toxic oils are looking for a disposal method, and find mixing it with edible oil and selling in S Europe at an attractive price, more must be done. Actually happened, and poisoned/killed a great many. And then there were the Chinese herbal pills in the glassine envelopes which were supposed to support your metabolism with the ancient wisdom of the Chinese sages. Soem of them were found to contain soem non-ancient non-natural non-Chinese compounds, some of the sulfonylureas (used to treat early stage type 2 diabetes). Quite dangerous those, for the non-diabetic.
It's a quandry. ww 20:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi! re Simple Wiktionary

Hi! :D Thank you for telling me about all your suggestions, but I'm a bit overwhelmed with all of them! I think it's better for you to ask the Simple English Wiktionary community at large; discussion like this usually takes place at simple:wikt:Wiktionary:Simple talk. Hope to see you around! (P.S. I've replied to some of your messages on simple:wikt:Wiktionary talk:Basic English alphabetical wordlist) Cheers, Tangotango 13:55, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Considering bugzilla request for "Complete list" feature

Hi. Thanks again for your involvement in putting "Complete list" at the bottom of the interwikis on the English Main Page. I'm considering putting in a bugzilla request for a feature to allow something like that to be easily done on any page. See meta:Meta:Babel "# 19 Suggestion re handling long interwiki (interlanguage) lists". What do you think? --Coppertwig 13:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

As I commented previously, I believe that the ability to add custom sidebar links (at least on certain pages) should be added to MediaWiki, thereby eliminating the need for an imperfect hack.
Your idea to create a central database of interwiki links is worth pursuing, but it should be addressed separately. —David Levy 17:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Russian links from Parenting page

Would someone who speaks Russian please check the link to Russian from Parenting. Note that the Parenting page is about the details of how parents raise their children, and that many of the interwiki (interlanguage) links are wrong -- they're linking to pages about ancestry or sociology or something. The Russian link was recently changed by someone to: ru:Родительская любовь Previously, it was: ru:Родственные отношения Please check which of these is a more appropriate link for "Parenting" (or whether neither of them is). You can put a note here on my talk page in reply if you like. Thanks. --Coppertwig 03:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, someone has checked this. The newer link seems better. Thanks. --Coppertwig 14:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pain - what a BIG topic

Hi, Coppertwig (Pain is pain. Not all agree with jazzy definition. If wording needs to be changed, edit the article.) I have no issue with everthing being itself. What is the "jazzy definition" you refer to? The deleted paragraph acknowledges and warns of self contradiction present in the article. Whats your view? SmithBlue 16:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC) OK with you if I change "Re deleted paragraph" to "Definitions, common usage; pain & nociception" ? SmithBlue 01:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

OK --Coppertwig 02:01, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

What I'd really like to see is a big section on the subjective experience of pain - which would form the core of the article and then sections on how psychological pain occurs and how the sensation of physical pain is caused. But info on the "how" of subjectivity is pretty thin. At present the article is a bit like one on cars that just focuses on metalurgy. SmithBlue 05:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it would probably be good to have a section like that (if any facts can be found about it!! and if it's not too big -- hard to say how big is too big, maybe you're right that that is the main thing the article should be talking about.) be bold. --Coppertwig 13:36, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Health Wiki Research A colleague and I are conducting a study on health wikis. We are looking at how wikis co-construct health information and create communities. We noticed that you are a frequent contributor to Wikipedia on health topics. Please consider taking our survey here. This research will help wikipedia and other wikis understand how health information is co-created and used. We are from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The project was approved by our university research committee and members of the Wikipedia Foundation.Thanks,--Sharlene Thompson 17:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Coppertwig, I'm hoping you are coming back to Pain soon. If you are interested we could use your remaining questions about the topic (after reading the intro) to come up with something understandable and clear. I've reordered the introduction and (to me) its a lot clearer. What do you think? (I took the liberty of dedoublespacing Sharlene's request immed above. Hope OK with you) SmithBlue 13:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

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