User talk:Duncan.france

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Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~. Four tildes (~~~~) produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome!

P.S. in answer to your question, your user page is there so you can tell everyone a little about yourself if you want. Your user talk page is the place where people can contact you - like I'm doing here. Please see Wikipedia:User page for a more comprehensive explanation; happy editing! Rhobite 06:06, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Archive -- Start a new discussion

[edit] Talk/User-Pages

On your userpage, you get to write about yourself. It is your face to the world. Your talkpage is where people leave you messages and you respond to them. You drop other people notes on their talkpages.

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— Ŭalabio 06:32, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)

Please advise how to type exponents eg 10 the power 2 (instead of 100)

10 < s u p > ² < / s u p > = 10²
¿Why do not you write about your self here? Contact people on their talkpages and they will contact you on your talk page. This conversation should take place on your talkpage.

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— Ŭalabio 06:44, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)

[edit] ¡You got this user/talk-page–thing down now!

¡You got this user/talk-page–thing down now! Oh, by the way, some of your links do not work because of case:

Some programmers believe that it is cool to have "Dog" and "dog" be different, in case they ever need the distinction, which they never do. They made WikiPedia casesensitive; "Scientific notation" and "Scientific Notation" are different. If I did it, I would make it casepreseving, but caseinsensitive:

Some things have a proper case like "pH". Casepreserving would mean thet the article would be called "pH". Caseinsensitive means that searches and links could be either "ph" or "Ph" or "pH" or "PH" and still work.

Unfortunately, WikiPedia is currently is casesensitive, so you have to be careful with the links. Most of the red links on your userpage just in the wrong case. Hopefully, the programmers will make WikiPedia caseinsensitive, but in the meantime, WikiPedia is casesensitive.

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— Ŭalabio 02:44, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)

[edit] Plate tectonics

Create your article first and then we can see if it warrants a link from Plate tectonics. A paragraph that simply links to an empty "red" link is not warranted.

You'd probably prefer to work on it at first in your own user space, like User:Duncan.france/Article name because articles created in the general article area (ie, anything that doesn't begin with "User:") can be subject to a vote for deletion, so it might make sense to polish your critique page before trying to move it to the general article area.

Some articles that describe non-mainstream theories are present in Wikipedia, such as Non-standard cosmology and Apollo moon landing hoax accusations. But Wikipedia has an official policy of No Original Research, so your article would be unlikely to survive if it was just your personal theory... you'd probably have to demonstrate that this alternative theory is notable in some sense and cite outside references that mention it.

-- Curps 05:14, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)


I have just completed an article: "Vesicular texture". In it I cross-referenced to "Vesicle: a small cavity in an aphanitic or glassy igneous rock, formed by the expansion of a bubble of gas or steam during the solidification of the rock."

As you will see, clicking on vesicle takes one to the biological defintion. What is needed is a disambiguation page. How does one create such a page?

PS. I note that this new question is attached to 'Plate Tectonics'. How does one create a separate question? Though on second thoughts, does one need to?

I edited your article User:Duncan.france/PT EA slightly... you can create subsections that appear in the table of contents by using
==
===
====
headers for various levels.

I'm not sure what you can do about figure captions for non-existent images.

My original advice still stands, though. You should read:

Your work reads like an article that would be submitted to a scholary journal... but Wikipedia aims to be an encyclopedia, not a scholarly journal. It's a secondary source, not a primary source of information. Information in Wikipedia should be verifiable from a wide variety of sources. Yes, this means that Wikipedia content largely follows mainstream or majority consensus views.

My personal belief is that, despite the work you have put into it, if you moved your article into the main article namespace it would be nominated under Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, under the "No original research" policy... in fact, nothing personal, but I myself might do so. Also, once it was in the main article namespace, anyone would be free to edit it, completely changing your text... there is no individual ownership of articles on Wikipedia.

Since most Wikipedia users and contributors do believe that plate tectonics is a valid theory, the result might not be to your liking. For example, your very first sentence ("There are major facts that refute the theory of plate tectonics in the forms accepted by its supporters") would run afoul of the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy.

If you still wish to move the article into the public arena (main article namespace), you can do so by

  1. going to the User:Duncan.france/PT EA page
  2. clicking on the "move" tab at the top of your screen, and pick a new name of your own liking that is not prefixed by "User:Duncan.france/".

PS, When leaving a message for someone, you can sign it by entering ~~~~ (four tildes). The software automatically converts this to your username and a timestamp.

[edit] Single origin

Hi Duncan -- Image:Human mtDNA migration.png is simply based on http://mitomap.org/ (direct link: [1]). The letters are based on single mitochondrial markers, I just copied them, but you are of course welcome to collect more information. The double arrow is there on the original map. I suppose it corresponds to bidirectional gene flow over the Arctic these past few millennia (Eskimos), but I don't know, I'm really just giving the mitomap data. regards, dab (ᛏ) 07:31, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry! I just realized the bidirectional arrow is not on the map at all! my mistake, I will correct that, thanks for pointing it out. dab (ᛏ) 13:43, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Co-operation on the Conversion of units article?

Hi Duncan,

I noticed you think it would be a good idea to convert the lists on conversion of units to alphabetical order and it is obviously an arduous task.... but not for a computer! And you are in luck for I am a computer programmer. In fact, I bet I can reorder all those charts in just an hour or two a few minutes once I have the code written. What I can't really do is finish it off. This is where the co-operation comes in. If I made each of those tables alphabetical would you put the finishing touches on them? Notice how meter is at the top of the length chart? This is common among the charts but some do it differently. If I simply alphabatize them that won't be the cast case. I'm hopping you would be willing to fill in the gaps? Let me know what you think. Triddle 05:25, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi Triddle,

By all means, I would like to 'co-operate' on this, but I am not sure how I would 'fill the gaps'. Feel free to let me know, and I will almost certainly say 'Yes'!! Duncan.france 23:15, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand

Hello, Duncan. I noticed you adding an external link to an iwi map that I've linked to on mi: (and used as one of the bases of my table of iwi there). Out of interest I skimmed your last few hundred contributions. Productive 7 months, eh? Dipping into all sorts of things, as I do when I have a "spare" hour; but strong hint of NZ, so you may be interested in Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board.

Kia ora! Robin Patterson 01:22:02, 2005-08-24 (UTC)

[edit] Infinity

Dear Dr. France,

please do not restore your claim that "infinity is not a number". Discuss on the talk page. --Trovatore 19:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I have explained the revert at Talk:Infinity#explanation of revert; you can discuss the matter there. --Trovatore 19:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] World Population Clock

Tagged for speedy deletion as consisting only of external links, and having no context. Hard to disagree really! Please feel free to include this topic in the US Census Bureau article, or work up something a bit longer. Just zis Guy you know? 12:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Current Events

At first I was going to simply warn you about putting nonsense on current events, but Im going to assume good faith. I hope that you simply misread the news article, but further edits like this[2] will not be tolerated. KI 22:32, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright issue with Quantum Nondemolition

Hello. Concerning your contribution, Quantum Nondemolition, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from either web sites or printed material. This article or image appears to be a direct copy from http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/sciencephysicslight. As a copyright violation, Quantum Nondemolition appears to qualify for speedy deletion under the speedy deletion criteria. Quantum Nondemolition has been tagged for deletion, and may have been deleted by the time you see this message. For text material, please consider rewriting the content and citing the source, provided that it is credible.

If you believe that the article or image is not a copyright violation, or if you have permission from the copyright holder to release the content freely under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) then you should do one of the following:

  • If you have permission from the author leave a message explaining the details at Talk:Quantum Nondemolition and send an email with the message to "permissions-en (at) wikimedia (dot) org". See Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission for instructions.
  • If a note on the original website states that re-use is permitted under the GFDL or released into the public domain leave a note at Talk:Quantum Nondemolition with a link to where we can find that note.
  • If you own the copyright to the material: send an e-mail from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en(at)wikimedia(dot)org or a postal message to the Wikimedia Foundation permitting re-use under the GFDL, and note that you have done so on Talk:Quantum Nondemolition.

However, for text content, you may want to consider rewriting the content in your own words. Thank you, and please feel free to continue contributing to Wikipedia. Madlobster 22:05, 17 March 2007 (UTC)