User talk:Bduke/archive3

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Archive from June 1st - September 30th

thanks

thanks for the heads up, I didn't realise that. Sorry for any inconvenience if I caused it. (Added by User:Codingmasters June 1, 2006, Bduke 22:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC))

TfD nomination of Template:Physics Series

Template:Physics Series has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Srleffler 17:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Scouts

Yes I agree with you although I do not intend to write detailed articles for every county/area. However I feel if a basic page with the structure of the areas is there then local people involved can edit it themselves. Lists are better than nothing. (Added by User:EnglishScout in response to my comment on User talk:EnglishScout. June 7, 2006.Bduke 22:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC))

Baden-Powell Scouts

Hi Bduke. Type in BPSA in the search box and see what happens. :) (Although I should have been more clear in the edit summary. Sorry for the confusion.) Cheers.--Bookandcoffee 09:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Chinese periodic table AfD

That is a fantastic idea, replacing the symbols with images. Viridae 03:20, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Stole your House Rules message box - thanks - didnt know how to do that myself. Viridae 03:26, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
No worries. I see you are also in Melbourne. --Bduke 03:30, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Yep, La Trobe uni. Viridae 05:37, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Organization/Organisation

I thought you might be interested to know that, historically, the British spelling is actually 'organization' (and is preferred by the OED, if I remember correctly). In any case, both are acceptable in the UK. I won't change it back on the Oxford article, as it's really not worth getting into an edit war about :-) Nomist 23:38, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You could be right. I only have access right now to two Australian dictionaries. One has 'organisation' and one has 'organization'. However, as an Oxford man, I think the consensus there is to use 'organisation' and that was in the article. I thought it should not be chnaged without debate. --Bduke 00:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

RfA offer

Hello Brian. I think you are definitely capable and ready to become an admin. I would be happy to write a nomination for you. Are you interested? Regards, Blnguyen | rant-line 06:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC).

I am going to be travelling overseas for the second half of the next 3 months, so I going to postpone thinking about this until I return in October. --Bduke 09:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia awards committee

Check out my comments here, Wikipedia awards committee. Thanks! --evrik 17:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

regarding your comments on the Philosopy Publications Discussion page...

Your point about our behavior being out of line was well taken (the edit war). I take no joy in conflict of that sort. I'm very new to Wikipedia and one of the things that does give me joy is see what an extraordinary structure is emerging from the cooperation of complete strangers. I'm a psychologist but have long enjoyed epistemology. Unlike your field of expertise, both philosopy and psychology have yet to find a common ground and remain divided into different schools of thought. Most of the time its not a problem. But sometimes people get irrational in their passions for or against a point of view. There are proponents of Objectivism that behave in a cult-like fashion and there are individuals who feel compelled to attack anything associated with Ayn Rand. All that I did was include her work on epistemology in the epistemology category. After a few 'reverts' I might have given up, but I kept thinking that it is so wrong for people to do that. Honest disagreements are different. They are healthy for the culture and for Wikipedia because each side makes their points, everyone can read both sides and be that much more informed. The alternative is to let those whose edits are born of a dislike for an idea or a person carry out what is really a kind of censorship. Sorry about this lengthy diatribe. But there ought to be a way to stop that kind of thing. Otherwise all of the areas susceptible to any controversy will be vulnerable and Wikipedia will fall short of what it could have been. You obviously care about Wikipedia, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. SteveWolfer 08:06, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Steve, thank you for your considered views. I watch the lists of publications in X because I appear to have become the organiser of the chemistry one. There we subject each new entry such as yours to a 10 day debate on the talk page. I organise that at the moment. After 10 days I leave the new entry or I delete it, depending on the debate. All recent ones have been kept, although when we started the process back in January we did debate most of the then present entries and deleted some. The problem is that it is very easy for these articles to just become a selection of different people's POV views on what books are important. Philosophy is sort of a hobby with me, but really only philosophy of science, although my wife has a MA in philosophy and a BA in Philosophy/English. We discuss philosophy quite a bit, although her interests have moved elsewhere. On Rand I have no real opinion. I tend to think she is not mainstream enough, but I could be wrong. I'm not going to get into your debate. I think you should allow it to be deleted, argue your case carefully on the talk page, go to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy talk page and argue your case there, asking for people to go and comment on the debate on the list of pubs talk page. Then you may have to accept that there is no consensus to include it or you may be successfull. But you will have followed the Wikipedia way. You win some and you lose some. --Bduke 11:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Brian, I will follow your advice. But, sadly, I predict that remedy will be inadequate for the underlying problem. Some people place their personal likes and dislikes above the guiding purpose of Wikipedia. By itself that's not a problem if they are open, honest and transparent in their actions. The problem is that some people believe a degree of deception is acceptable if it is in pursuit of their values. I predict that under current policies and practices a vocal and slightly deceptive minority will effectively censor views in all areas of controvery. Those people who attempted to represent opposing views, honestly, will lose and leave the community. Over time Wikipedia will become know as a valuable resource, but only in non-controversial areas - in those areas it will be seen as biased and less than honest.

Ayn Rand is not main stream in the sense of being accepted by most of philosophy's academic crowd. She had a very sharp tongue, disagreed with main stream academics' approach and was very vocal in her disagreements. If academic philosophy sets the standards for inclusion, then her work will be marginalized. And that would be a shame because all serious thoughts and serious thinkers need to be represented inorder to build a stronger knowledge base in the future. Thank you for time and the suggestions. SteveWolfer 17:22, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I know there are difficulties but I not accept that the mainstream of wikipedia is suppressing the "truth". The reality is that there are a lot of single issue POV pushers with an agenda to include complete nonsense into Wikipedia. I am not including you in their number. Where people disagree we have difficulty reaching the correct consensus or indeed know what is correct.

If Rand is not main stream then I do not think her book should be listed in the list of publications in philosophy. These articles in the Science pearls project are intended for books that are really non-controversal and have an importance throughout the field. However, there should be NPOV articles on Rand and there should be proper NPOV references to her work in many articles on philosophy. I have no idea whether there are. As I said it is not my area. --Bduke 23:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The mainstream of Wikipedia isn't suppressing the truth. A small number of editors are stating that Rand isn't mainstream and therfore shouldn't be included. Rand is mainstream in the sense that she is philosopher whose views are in contention in many different areas of philosophy and is recognized as such (take a look at my addition to the discussion page - List of Philosophy Publications).
But there is no mainstream for philosophy in the same sense as Chemistry or math where being outside of the mainstream would have serious impact. There are too many issues in philosophy that are still in contention - including the most basic of principles. For example, "Is there a reality apart from consciousness or not?" Some of the philosophy academics have emotional reactions to her, others see her as another major philosopher even if they don't agree with her.
All that I was trying to do was have a link from the epistemology section to her book on epistemology. Her book is not controversial (apart from her name on it) - you'll find some language and some approaches to Universals almost identical to Bertrand Russell's. She has contributed refinements and advances within a framework started by Aristotle.
I followed your advise but there is no consensus forming or even comments (apart from yours). I provided the fellow who kept deleting the link with a lengthy set of cites but he just blew them off. I've put out appeals on the List of Publications discussion page and in the Wikipedia Philosophy discussion page to start a dialog on better methods for handling controversy (I have some ideas). But no response. My choices and everyone elses that experiences something like this: play that stupid edit-war or withdraw and leave the articles to those who are happy to use edit-wars to support their POV. SteveWolfer 21:45, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

HELP! The 'Entropy' article and I need you!

For two weeks now, I have arduously worked to make the introduction (at least) of the WK 'Entropy'
(1) reflect that thermo entropy has something to do with chemistry (!),
(2) that 'disorder' is indeed dead in modern US general chemistry texts (and in most physical chemistry texts back to at least 2002, now that Oxonian Atkins has come over to my side) PLEASE just glance at the December 2005 list of changed texts in http://www.entropysite.com/#whatsnew,
(3) that information 'entropy' is clearly distinguished from thermodynamic entropy (I think I have almost won that old old argument. (My essence: http://www.entropysite.com/calpoly_talk.html)
(4) to write the first page(s) of Entropy in a beginner or layperson accessible language rather than tossing elegantly concise thermo summaries at the innocent reader immediately.
My latest struggles are at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Entropy of course. Some 25 pages of earlier back and forth are at the end of Archive 2 of that Talk/Entropy site.

I desperately wish that you, with your skill, experience and background, plus 5 or 6 from the Chemistry ?Group? or some interested chemists would curb the control of these 2 or 3 information 'entropy' guys! Is there no editorial supervision? (Guess that's a dumb question...!) No authority who can evaluate...? Thermodynamic entropy is FAR more a topic of intense concern to beginning chemistry students -- whether or not they go on in chem -- than it is to physics majors. Why aren't chemists participating in restraining those who so insistently focus on 'disorder'.?!!

I know that you are terribly busy, but is there any more central concept to chem than entropy??!!

THANKS for any aid!! I'm exhausted after 60 or more hours just on this...:-) My email is flambert@att.net . My CV is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ FrankLambert 21:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

"P.S."

I discovered the Chemistry group and also saw your 9 July message re phys chem and the entropy article. You're ahead of me :-)

I left a long message there for chemists about the sad state of affairs on Entropy -- no word of chemistry at the outset and little thereafter, but plenty of 'disorder' and information "entropy"!

Hope that they will bestir themselves just a bit -- at least to express their discontent, unhappiness about their youthful introduction to entroy via such an unscientific term as 'disorder'. This strangely simple request (that a number of chemists, and not just I, SAY 'disorder' did not help them -- or maybe confused them) may well be news to the info guys running the Entropy article. They are absolutely fixed and adamant about saying how essential it is not to discredit 'disorder', (After all the confusion it has caused in the past 100 years among hundreds of thousands of chemists and millions of students!!)

Hope I am not diverting people from your goals! Frank FrankLambert 21:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Sir Alan Budd

Sir Alan - provost of my old college, Queen's, Oxford - is a Knight Bachelor, not a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. As such, he is correctly styled simply "Sir Alan (Peter) Budd" with no post-nominal letters. Although senior civil servants are commonly given KCBs, Sir Alan's position as one of the "seven wise men" was semi-official and for this reason he got an ordinary knighthood (also, the number of KCBs are limited, so they restrict recipients).

With your agreement, can we delete the KCB ? Added by User:Dcrossle.

My old College also (57 - 63). It seems you are correct. I did find a non-WP reference that called him KCB but a reference to the Oxford Gazzette does not, so I am convinced. If you had explained this in an edit summary, all would have been well. Also I noticed that you had not taken him out of the KCB category so I was suspicious of the removal. I have removed the cat and the reference. Sorry, I made a mistake and mentioned Baronet in my edit summary. Do you know when he was made a Knight Bachelor? Could you add that to the article? --Bduke 23:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Sir Alan Budd

I see you have/someone has found the year of his knighthood. I had asked my friend who is still at Queen's to find out - he pointed out that he has in fact met you. His name is Chris Ballinger. Just thought I'd mention it - hope you don't mind.

RfA thanks

Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:24, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Spectroscopy, etc.

I started this project quite possibly too hastly. However, I also feel that I will continue to be involved in many levels with this technology for many years. On a different note, I am interested in educating myself more in computational chemistry. So if you would like to talk off wiki, my email is thomas.robison@gmail. --Tjr9898 03:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Chemical bond/Temp

I would welcome any input/comments/criticisms you could make on this article, especially as it was mostly writeen from memory without being checked against secondary sources! Best wishes, Physchim62 (talk) 14:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Scouting in Ontario

There was a merge tag on this and the vote was 2:1, to do the merge. Ardenn closed it and removed the merge tag claiming "no consensus" and Chris wants to still merge it. That's what the debate is about. My guess is Ardenn was in this group or at least supports their cause. Rlevse 16:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

RAOU

Birds to RAOU or RAOU to Birds? SatuSuro 03:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The latter as is suggested with the merge tags. RAOU should be a redirect, in part because it is linked from German and Spanish WP articles on RAOU. --Bduke 04:57, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

One problems seems to be a lack of historical importance of the RAOU in its day if it gets absorbed, headings and other things should not let the current identity swamp the earlier stages of the organisation IMHO :) SatuSuro 07:03, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand your concerns but think they can be addressed in the way the introduction is written and then perhaps by a paragraph about the RAOU days. Are there any Australians birders who might have an opinion? Would it help if we copy this to the talk page the merge tags point ot and continue the discussion there? It might draw more people in. --Bduke 08:44, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Please do so SatuSuro 09:26, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Scouting Australia

Glad to see all that work has been done on the Australia articles, that you're keeping an eye on it, and updated the Todo page. YIS, Randy Rlevse 16:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Gaudy Night

I replied on my talk page and posted an explanation on Talk:University of Oxford#Oxford in literature and other media where I also raised a more general question which I would be pleased to have a discussion on. Is the book good? I have only read Five Red Herrings in the series and that was a long time ago. Stefán Ingi 00:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

14th Dublin

I've rewritten the articles 13th Dublin, 14th Dublin and Scouting in Rathfarnham in a way that (I hope) all of us can live with.Jorgenpfhartogs 06:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

You have done a good job, but I have doubts that all are viable. The 13th has a good history and may be viable. The 14th is no different from 100s of Troops and I doubt it is viable. There are very few individual Troop/Group articles from the whole world. Rathfarnham has, as far as I can see, a rather odd scope. It is between a Group and a County, but I do understand that parts of it are in different counties. I'd prefer to see this deleted and articles for the whole of the two Counties written, but I'm happy to be guided by Irish Scouting Wikipedians. --Bduke 07:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Islamic Wikiproject Award

Would you be so kind as to go to the discussion about the Islamic Wikiproject Award? This has been a proposal that has lingered for donkey's yonks. I think the image is acceptable as a WP:PUA, but don't think the image is in line with most of the images at Wikipedia:Wikiproject awards. The design is not well supported, and right before I was going to archive the debate for lack of support, someone else moved it to the Wikiproject awards page.

The current discussion is going on here: Wikipedia:Barnstar_and_award_proposals/New_Proposals#Another_image. Your input is appreciated. --evrik 03:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi

Hi. Thanks for the note. I am the guy who wrote the article on pi-electron theory, When you get back you can drop me a line at charlesmartin14@hotmail.com or here. I am kind-of new to this... Charles.

Above was by anon User:24.6.185.169.

Hi, Charles. I have not actually gone yet, but the planning is largely keeping me off WP so I thought I would put the wikibreak tags up. I have cleaned up you comments. Please add ~~~~ at the end to sign your comments. I never did get around to doing anything about your additions to Semi-empirical quantum chemistry methods. They are valuable additions. My concern was that this article is fairly general and your comments are rather specific. I would prefer your discussion on PPP to be in the Pariser-Parr-Pople method (PPP) article and your comments on ZINDO to be in the ZINDO article. I think that is where they belong. What do you think? --Bduke 23:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Deville's RfA

Hello, Bduke, and thank you for the support on my recent RfA. The final tally was 72/1/0, and I have now been entrusted with the mop. I'll be tentative with the new buttons for a while, and certainly welcome any and all feedback on how I might be able to use them to help the project. All the best, and thanks again! — Deville (Talk) 03:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

FYI

Would you please comment?

--evrik 15:16, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Brian

Hey Brian, thank you for supporting my recent RfA. It passed with an amazing final tally of 160/4/1. It was fantastic having the support of so many awesome Aussie editors. I hope you have a safe and enjoyable holiday. Cheers, Sarah Ewart (Talk) 04:56, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Mass-to-charge ratio

Hi, just wanted to stop by and invite you to contribute to the Mass-to-charge ratio page that you previously showed interest in now that Kehrli has been banned from the article.--Nick Y. 00:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)