User talk:DAGwyn

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Contents 1 Welcome! 2 Respectfully disagree - See main text 3 "Blather" and article introductions 4 Ayn Rand Lead 5 cryptology

[edit] Welcome!

If you need to communicate with DAGwyn, please append a comment (with new section heading if appropriate) and he'll try to respond (if necessary) as soon as he can.

[edit] Respectfully disagree - See main text

May I disagree with your change and summary "there's no value in putting "see main text" in info box"? I believe it does have value, and complimented Bletchley on their change. Please look at my comments to them, which mentioned my worry that it might not do what it should - motivate the reader/questioner to read the background behind the issue.

I see three benefits to their change. First, it explicitly says 'read' the article, don't just put in what you suppose is correct. Which is the second benefit - it puts something 'there', to occupy the space/position that too too many people keep thinking must be filled in with what they suppose is correct. Too many people just can't resist 'adding' that missing 'fact'. And the third benefit is being able to say, but didn't you read the prior text - it said read the background - you couldn't have read the whole text and then inserted 'Animist'.

I don't know if this solution is so non-standard as to be impossible, but I very much appreciated the attempt at preventing the eternal cycle of adding, reverting, adding, ... Would you be opposed to me restoring that edit? Shenme (talk) 03:00, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I prefer not to put "see main text" in there, but you make a reasonable case for doing so, so I won't oppose putting it back in. Thanks for the note. — DAGwyn (talk) 21:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Blather" and article introductions

Hi,

I've left a note here regarding the introduction to the C article. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ayn Rand Lead

"Enthusiastic admiration and scathing denunciation" frankly does not sound encyclopedic at all. Saying her ideas have attracted considerable controversy is equivalent to saying that some people like them and some people do not. Regardless, the "enthusiastic" and "scathing" need to go. TallNapoleon (talk) 06:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] cryptology

WP's readers are ill-served by confusing terminology. That seems to have been the main reason for choosing one or another of the terms as the organizing rubric many years back.

You are correct that a change in names has nothing to do with the underlying subject matter, but it can confuse those amongst our readers who are not already au fait. Henc the changes. ww (talk) 18:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a real, if non-momentous, conflict between your use of the term cryptology and common uses of the word cryptography. In English, they are often used as synonyms. In other languages, the ...ology cognate seems to be used as you would have chosen. For WP purposes, this was settled years ago amongst the crypto corner editors and has been discussed in assorted talk pages several times since (see cryptography talk archives, for instance). In that context, your position is one which has, on WP, been OBE.

The choice is, like many linguistic ones, arbitrary, but must nevertheless respect actual usage among the fluent population (this is Sassure's parole). Since there are two versions of question, and since only one side (sort of) hears the meanings as synonymous, it's not quite so arbitrary in this case. For WP, it's been settled (also arbitrarily) and so editors should not cause confusion amongst Gentle (non-cryptiac) Readers by confusing the issue. Perhaps a note at Friedman, along the line so the note in the introduction to Cryptography? ww (talk) 18:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)