User talk:Gene Nygaard/2006May-2006Jul

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[edit] Flow through nozzles

Gene, thanks for getting rid of the extraneous round bracket in the exhaust gas velocity equation in Flow through nozzles. However, your changing of the numerical value of R (gas law constant) from 8314.5 to 8.3145 is incorrect and introduces an error that is equal to the square root of 1000. The very reason that the article includes an example calculation was to provide a "sanity check" for anyone trying to alter the equation. Try your value of 8.3145 and the final answer will be 100.6 m/s instead of the correct 3181 m/s.

Now let's discuss the units of R. Yes, R = 8.3145 J/mol·K, but there are literally dozens of other equivalent values of R in various other units. For example, look at the many tabulated values of R in Gas constant, or in the "Handbook of Chemistry and Physics", 56th edition, CRC Press, page 232, or in "Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook", 6th edition, McGraw Hill, page 1-18.

Please note that since 1 J = 1 N·m, there is no difference between my using N·m and your using J as part of the units of R. And also note that 1 J = 1 N·m = 1 kg·m² / s² and that brings in m² / s² under the square root sign which is what is needed to obtain the desired exhaust velocity in meter per second. But, more importantly, the kg unit requires the use of of the kgmol unit (or kmol, if you prefer that) rather than the mol unit (which is a gram mol (i.e., gmol) ... which introduces a factor of 1000. And incorporating that factor leads to 8314.5 rather than 8.3145 as the numeric value of R for these specific units.

Sorry to be so long winded in explaining why that factor of 1000 is needed. In any event, as a compromise, I have made some changes to make the units a bit more "classical" rather than what is in very "common usage" by many, many engineers:

  1. I have retained your J unit rather than my equivalent N·m units.
  2. I have change my kgmol unit to a kmol unit.
  3. I have changed the molar mass units from my original kg/kgmol to the equivalent kg/kmol which is required to have consistent units. Note that the numeric value is the same 22 whether we use kg/kmol or g/mol ... but the kg/kmol is better here because it brings in that required factor of 1000.

Now please don't take offense when I say that changing style or deleting an extraneous round bracket or changing "miles" to "mi" or italicizing parameters are quite acceptable and I thank you for doing so. But when you change a numerical value within an equation from 8314.5 to 8.3145, you really should be more careful and make a sanity check to see if you have done the right thing. If I had not happened by to see the change you made, other readers using the formula would come up with very incorrect answers. I don't want to sound as if I own this article because I know that once it is written I no longer own it. However, in your place, I would have made an attempt to discuss a numerical change of that magnitude with the original author before I made the change. Regards, - mbeychok 20:00, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

P.S. My reason for spelling out miles was that readers in metric countries might not know that "mi" is an abbreviation for mile. Do you not think that might be true?

No, the use of kilograms doesn't require the use of kilogram moles. In fact, the keepers of SI chose the gram mole as the SI base unit for amount of substance, not the kilogram mole.
My number wouldn't change the results, since 8.3145 J/(mol·K) = 8314.5 J/(kmol·K).
Yes, you might need to do dimensional analysis and make sure your units work with the formula. If you take the square root of something in units of joules per gram, the resulting velocity will be in units of 10√10 m/s, rather clumsy units to use.
So you do have a point, in that your method makes it less likely that someone will make a calculating error.
The formula doesn't really depend on the units used. I will grant that your way of doing it makes it easier for users to end up with J/kg = m²/s² before taking the root, but my figures weren't incorrect.
The formula would also work for temperature in degrees Rankine, M in pounds per pound mole, and R = 49720.1 ft·pdl/(lbmol·°R). Since the pound moles cancel out just like any other moves do, that gives you ft·pdl/lb as the units before you take the square root—I think you can figure out the resulting units of Ve in this case, can't you? (A poundal is 1 lb·ft/s².) Note that since they involve ratios, the units of specific heat and of pressure don't matter, as long as the same units for each quantity are used all the time.
There are various other ways to select consistent units giving a valid result in this formula. Gene Nygaard 21:37, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Re the miles. My objection is to the mixture of spelled out words and symbols in one unit; it should be either miles per hour or mi/h (general Wikipedia usage also accepts mph for this unit, but not kph for km/h). In many context, using the symbol "mi" is in fact much less ambiguous than using "miles", because nobody intentionally uses "mi" to stand for nautical miles, but many people do use "miles" as nautical miles without identifying them as such, in contexts where nautical miles are common. Gene Nygaard 21:46, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
"My number wouldn't change the results, since 8.3145 J/(mol·K) = 8314.5 J/(kmol·K)."
Gene, I agree that 8.3145 J/(mol·K) and 8314.5 J/(kmol·K) are equivalent and, as I said before, there are a great many equivalent values. But there simply is no denying that, if your 8.3145 J/(mol·K) were left as the definition of the parameter R, 95% or more of the people reading the article and going on to use the equation would use 8.3145 and arrive at a very incorrect answer. The other 5% or less would be experienced rocket scientists who would know to do some dimensional analysis and change to 8314.5 J/(mol·K). That is precisely why most engineers do the dimensional analysis ahead of time and specify an equivalent value of R consistent with the units of the other parameters ... so as to prevent errors by subsequent users. That is also why there are so many published tables of equivalent R values and so many published explanations of how to convert from one R value to another R value. Take a look at the two publications mentioned in my earlier remarks above.
I also agree that the keepers of SI chose the gram mole as the SI base unit for the amount of substance. But nowhere is it written in stone that we cannot use other completely equivalent values. A kmol is simply 1000 gram moles, and kg/kgmol is numerically equivalent to g/mol, and a molecular weight of 22 can be expressed as 22 g/mol or 22 kg/kgmol or 22 kg/kmol. Again, nowhere is it written in stone that we must all use the same "cookie mold" and always use gram moles whether or not other equivalent values are more useful in many contexts.
I believe that part of our difference is that I am 83 years old and spent about 50 years as a chemical engineer ... and chemical engineers the world-over routinely use kgmols and US chemical engineers also routinely use lbmols (pound moles). There are quite literally many dozens of undergrad and postgrad level chemical engineering textbooks wherein you will find those units being used. Now perhaps the younger generation engineers and even some newer textbooks may be using gram moles more often, but I see little if any evidence of that in the engineering literature. On the other hand, chemists and many physicists have always favored the use of gram moles. Wikipedia is a multi-discipline community and as such it ought to tolerate multi-discipline usage of equivalent parameter definitions and equivalent units of measurement (although I agree that lbmols are archaic and must pass out of use). - mbeychok 23:37, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Gene, one further comment. I know that many authors of textbooks and technical journal articles prefer to present equations without specifying the units of any of the parameters in their equations ... leaving that open for the readers to do. In my opinion, that is a recipe for disaster! I once worked for Fluor Engineering and Construction (one of the world's leading E and C companies) designing and building refineries and petrochemical plants that each cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Making a mistake in units when designing plants of that cost magnitude would be extremely costly, and would constitute an extreme safety hazard for the personnel working in those plants. For that reason, I always specify the units of each parameter in any equations that I publish anywhere no matter how expert the intended readership may be. mbeychok 06:32, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date formatting & overlinking

Regarding the note you left on editing the Jimi Hendrix article, is it true that linking the year is necessary in order for date display preferences to work correctly? That's not my understanding at all: I'm no Wiki-expert, but it seems to me that all the preference formatting does, really, is present a month-day date as either "February 12" or "12 February". The year links you put in the article are separate from the month/day links (as in [[February 12]], [[1969]]); how could they possibly interact with the other parts of the date? ==ILike2BeAnonymous 07:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. You can see it by looking at the Jimi Hendrix article with your preferences set as they are, before and after my changes. Then change your preferences, and look at both versions again. It's a matter of the presence or absense of a comma. I don't like to see 12 February, 1969. It is also necessary for the 1969 February 12 or the 1969-02-12 format to work at all, for those who have selected one of those options.
Of course, the people who do like to see "12 February, 1969" or "February 12 1969" are out of luck; those aren't options on the current preferences list. Using ordinal numbers with a "th" (or a dot like the Germans do) also keeps preferences from working (either 12th February 1969 or February 12th, 1969). So does using a "year in xxx" (1969 in aviation, 1943 in music) link for the year.Gene Nygaard 11:48, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My use of AWB

The tone of your comment on my talk page seemed a little off. I was simply using AWB to tidy up some articles last night. If you look around line 55 on the Speed of light article you can see some slight changes were made. I don't quite see what your problem is. What is this 'invisible spaces' you're on about? --Wisden17 16:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how you find "line 55". Why don't you just tell me exactly what those changes are?
There are twenty-one paragraphs plus one header that show up as being changed on the differences page. Yet I can't see a single difference. I don't like my watchlist being cluttered up with nonsense like this, when you cannot even find any significant change being made--but still have to wade through those 21 paragraphs to determine that this is useless time-frittering. Gene Nygaard 16:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
You really seem to have quite an attitude against me. Let me point out two things, one I'm new to using AWB, and secondly I was using it to try and clean-up and help Wikipedia. I don't see why you need to have such a bad attitude towards me. I got in contact with User:Bluemoose as I wasn't 100% sure what AWB had done in this instance. I accept now that all it did was white space removal, and I'm sorry for 'cluttering up your watchlist'. However, I think you really ought to read Wikipedia:Assume good faith as it was a genuine mistake, and I don't see how being aggresive helps a situation. --Wisden17 19:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
All I did was to ask you to "cease and desist"; don't read too much into that. I've probably been more abrupt with others who should be more expecte to know better, who are doing the same thing. If you are making some other changes that people can see, by all means go ahead and deal with the invisible spaces, too. But if that's all it is doing, you are better off canceling the edit. Gene Nygaard 19:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi, yeah sorry it's just that first thing going onto Wikipedia after I've just tried out AWB for the first time and having telling me to cease and desist just seemed a little harsh. What I'm still not quite sure of is: what are these invisible spaces that I deleted, how are they caused? --Wisden17 19:48, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes it is two spaces rather than one at the end of a sentence. Or even between words in the middle of a sentence, for that matter. This doesn't make any difference in what we see; it shows up as one space anyway, in Wikipedia or in html in general.
Sometimes it is spaces before and after the == in headers; once again, it doesn't affect what we see.
Sometimes it is spacing between paragraphs. Using more than one blank line can affect what we see. I still wouldn't bother changing that as the only change. An additional problem is that people have sometimes used this as a workaround to keep images from bumping into each other or to move text below an image; there are better ways to do that, however, but making just taking the lines out without doing something else may affect the display negatively. Gene Nygaard 19:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kalina of Bulgaria

I noticed you moved Kalina from Bulgaria to Spain. I realize that she was born in Spain, but as a member of the royal family of Bulgaria is she not Bulgarian?--SVTCobra 02:45, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tortuga

Hey Gene, See my comment on moving Tortuga talk:tortuga. I don't agree with you or with the other guy who agreed with you. But your argument has made me realize that it should definitely be Tortoise Island rather than La Tortue. I provide an exhaustive defense of this on the discussion page. Thanks anyway, for your interest. Fowler Pierre 04:53, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Gene,
As you probably noticed, I switched my main support from Tortoise to Tortue after Macrakis explained the rules/lack thereof to me.
Do you think the opponents of moving Tortuga will allow the debate to stay on the talk page for now? I don't have time right now to go find supporters of a move to comment/vote (though I'm certain they're out there and would have strong opinions). But I think it would be a travesty for debate to be closed down while Tortue has a plurality of the citations.
If more cites for Tortuga were to be added, I wouldn't feel as strongly about it. I just don't want to be in a position of having to tell Haitians that Tortuga supporters set up a criterion (common usage) and after that criterion was met, they continued to "oppose" any move. Suffice to say that will not do wonders for their view of the English project's neutrality.
As a footnote, I learned the other day from an external web site [[1]] that there actually was an English colony on the island in the 17th Century, with a governor to make everything official. And the colony was named Tortuga! Didn't know that. All else being equal, that would cause me to drop my bid altogether. But it appears that the colony never controlled the whole island, and the rest of the island was a French colony at the same time. There was apparently full English control from 1655-59 (acquired by "some Englishmen who sailed from Jamaica"), but there is no reference to the crown in this period, so it may be that it was just privateers. In any event, this web site suggests that French were the first recorded people on the island (1625), and it would appear that the island was the first place in Haiti to actually be French. Admittedly this has little relevance to the name debate, but it's makes a fascinating background to that debate.
Thanks again for your interest in the article. Fowler Pierre 13:47, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Concerning Icelandic articles

You've been editing a lot of Icelandic articles, changing categorisation to sort by the patronymic: This should never be done -- the patronymic is just "Son of Someone" You don't sort people by whose son they are -- certainly not in either Icelandic or Russian. The English convention of sorting by surname does not apply. Also, you are changing spelling so that articles use 'd' instead of 'ð' etc. vide Guðmundur Arason et. al. As far as I know, the use of 'd' instead of 'ð' is just an English bastardisation, and is not the case in serious scholarship concerning these men. . I believe these changes are fundamentally mistaken, and I would like to have this issue clarified by an admin before you hack away at more articles. -- Palthrow 17:29, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not a bastardization; it's an English spelling, using an English letter. This is the English Wikipedia. The Gudmund and Gudmundr spellings are very common for this person. This is an encyclopedia; we are trying to spread information? So why on God's green earth would you want to hide this information from people searching with a search engine?
In fact, this should probably be brought to requested moves to change the article name to the most common English name, in accordance with the naming conventions on Wikipedia.
You do indeed sort by patronymics; especially in English and many other languages. Furthermore, it is done even in Icelandic when the indexing is not by first name, not that it matters much here because this isn't the Icelandic Wikipedia.
Furthermore, why in the world did you reindex so that "Guðmundur" would continue to appear after anybody named "Gunnar"? That's is wrong in English indexing (it doesn't really matter much that it is also wrong in Icelandic indexing, but it is). Gene Nygaard 17:36, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
BTW, is that -ur ending an anachronism? Gene Nygaard 17:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Even though this is the English Wikipedia, it doesn't change the fact that names should be spelled with the characters they contain in their native tongue. Would you drop the hat on e's in French accents? Would you omit 'é' characters in Hungarian names? No....in the same way, Icelandic names should be spelled with their Icelandic characters, hence "Guðmundur" or "Guðmundr", not Gudmund. The phonetics for 'd' and 'ð' are completely different. I might add that 'ð' and 'þ' (eth and thorn) are Old English characters -- adopted by the first Icelandic grammarian -- and thus are not Icelandic-specific i.e. this is not like using Chinese characters, say.
Concerning patronymics, the relatively large number of Icelanders working on Wikipedia seem to more or less abide by the Icelandic naming conventions in terms of indexing -- i.e. no sorting by patronymic. This I regard as a sensible policy. Patronyms are not surnames, not family names, they are *additional information* -- they tell of a person's origin. Would you file Joan of Arc as "Of Arc, Joan"? Seems pretty daft to me.
Finally, Icelanders themselves never sort by patronyms, for precisely the reason outlined above.
For clarification, the -ur ending is the ending of many Icelandic names in the nominative case, e.g. for Arnaldur, Þorvaldur, Kristmundur, etc.. The declensions for Guðmundur are: Nom: Guðmundur Dat: Guðmund Acc: Guðmundi Poss: Guðmundar. All Icelandic names are "by default" in the nominative case, unless they occur in certain parts of a sentence. Also, since all nouns in English have only one case, the nominative, it seems reasonable to employ the nominative when listing an Icelandic word or name -- Hence "Guðmundur" or "Guðmundr", not "Guðmund". Cheers, -- Palthrow 18:06, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Sure--in 19th century or 20th century rules. Nobody used -ur in this Gudmundr's time.
But first of all, why do you want to hide information? Gene Nygaard 18:10, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
You couldn't be more wrong. There were more declensive cases in Guðmundur's time than there is in Modern Icelandic, and -ur ending was pronounced and used. However, the writers of the manuscripts were pressed for space since they wrote on calf skins, and omitted vowels when writing the endings of cases -- thus you have the word maður (which means "man") spelled maðr, Guðmundur spelled Guðmundr or Guðmndr, depending on manuscripts. Written Icelandic is fairly new -- dates back to the early 12th century -- the Nordic settlers only had runes. If you look at the research done by Icelandic scholars, incl. Sigurður Nordal, there is evidence to indicate that the -ur ending was pronounce in fashion similar to today's, and, indeed, it is impossible to pronounce the 'dr' ending without interjecting a short vowel sound between the d and the r.
Concerning your accusation that I want to hide information, I quite frankly have no idea what you're talking about. I have no interest in hiding any information -- I merely want to see the articles which I (and others) have written categorised in the correct fashion. This does not hide the article from people using search engines, since almost all search engines (incl. the mother of them all, Google) do not distinguish between 'ð' and 'd'. A Google search for "Gudmundur godi" and "Guðmundur góði" bring identical results. -- Palthrow 18:21, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
So, enter "Gudmundur" in the search box right here on your Wikipedia page, then hit "Search" (or "Go", it doesn't matter). Then show me exactly where your pet article shows up. Gene Nygaard 18:35, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, try comparing this and this -- identical results, mate. At any rate, the amount of "Gudmundur" spellings is in all likelihood due to those unfamiliar with Old English characters mistaking the 'ð' character for 'd' (or even being unable to produce them on their keyboards). There is a number of Gudmundurs on Wikipedia, but there is also a number of "Guðmundurs", see these results --Palthrow 18:48, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
It does hide information from some searches, doesn't it? Or didn't you even try the Wikipedia built-in search engine?
It isn't necessarily any "mistaking". It is a matter of using the letters of our own alphabet.
Would you also characterize is:Sverrir Magnús Noregsprins as a "bastardization". Or is it a "mistaking" of an "e" for an "ir" and "u" for a "ú"?
Furthermore, the rules of Google (and it differs on the various other search engines as well) aren't that simple. Consider, for example, the following: Gene Nygaard 19:00, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Google hits
Guðmundur -Gudmundur 1,420,000
Gudmundur -Guðmundur 314,000
Guðmund -Gudmund 98,900
Gudmund -Guðmund 661,000

Those darned Icelanders also mistake a "d" or a "ð" in is:Ingiríður Alexandra Noregsprinsessa. Can you believe that anybody would do that?

If an Icelander writes a dissertation or an article that is accepted in a professional journal, how is that author listed in the list of authors? How is that author indexed in English in the indexes of these papers? Answer--like this one, of course, even if she is now listed under the B in Category:Icelandic people:

http://www.is4ie.org/dynamic/search.php

Back to Dissertation Subject Listings
Search results for 'davidsdottir' in author_last
Davidsdottir, Brynhildur . 2002. A VINTAGE ANALYSIS OF REGIONAL ENERGY AND FIBER USE, TECHNOLOGY CHANGE AND GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS BY THE US PAPER INDUSTRY. Boston University.

That's standard. It has nothing to do with whether or not the surname is a "family name". Gene Nygaard 01:42, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


Remember your bragging about "identical results" on Google up above? Now suppose you try this: Þorvaldur [2], Torvaldur [3], and Thorvaldur [4]. Guess what? Not identical results, of course. Gene Nygaard 01:42, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

is:Sverrir Magnús Noregsprins I would unquestionably call a bastardization, yes. There is a strange convention in Icelandic of moulding the names of royalty and famous historical figures to suit the Icelandic version of the names -- hence "Karl bretaprins" for "Prince Charles", "Atli húnakonungur" for Attila the Hun etc. Similar conventions exist in English for Roman and Greek figures -- e.g. Plato instead of "Platon", Livy instead of Livius etc. No established convention exist for names like Guðmundur in English, hence I think we should go with the originals in order to circumvent confusion. When I create new articles with Icelandic names, I generally create redirects for all the common bastardizations of the name. However, I think the article should rest and be indexed under the actual name of the person in question. Also, the fact patronymic systems are hard to acommodate into some indexing systems (e.g. your scholarly example) has no bearing on the matter. Wikipedia can accomodate the patronymic system. Looking up patronymically named people based on their patronym is a bloody nightmare because of the uniformity: so many people are Jónsson, Sigurðsson, etc. At any rate, the most important thing is that there be consistency -- which is sadly lacking. -- Palthrow 02:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh, good grief! Wake up and smell the coffee.
Go do your Google search[5] for Slobodan Milosevich, for example. How many of the English newspaper stories covering his death do you find with any sorts of squiggles in his name? There certainly is an "established convention exist for names like Guðmundur in English"; it isn't any "bastardization".
Does Brynhildur Davidsdottir spell her own name the same way in Icelandic as she does in English I don't know, do you?
Looking up patronymically named people based on their given names is a bloody nightmare because of the uniformity: so many people are Jón, Guðmundur, etc.
Another thing you still haven't explained is why in the world you changed the categories that were still indexed by first name back so that it would put "Guðmundur" after "Gunnar" rather than before it? Gene Nygaard 02:28, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Take it easy, mate. There's no point in getting all worked up. The article on Milosevic is a case in point: It is stored under Slobodan Milošević with redirects for English spellings, while the article refers to him as Milošević throughout. Seems reasonable, just as I argue that Guðmundur Arason should be referred to as Guðmundur in the article, although you inserted the Gudmund version. As for the alleged edit, I'm not sure which one you're talking about.
I would like to suggest that some kind of guidelines be drafted on how to resolve situations like these. The current situation is preposterous, when you end up with categories like Category:Icelandic_people where well intentioned people consistently damage the ordering of the names with their indexing. Perhaps you know whom to talk to? -- Palthrow 03:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Sure, the article "refers to him as Milošević throughout". Except, of course, for the forty-eight times it refers to him as "Milosevic".
As far as the indexing goes, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out. How many times have you changed the indexing in categories such as Icelandic people? I'm talking about this edit. Why did you change it so that "Guðmundur" would come after "Gunnar" rather than before it? Gene Nygaard 03:28, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
In the Icelandic person articles I've created, I've always listed them in the format Category:CatName|GivenName Patronymic, which is exactly what I did with the Guðmundur Arason entry. What's your point? 'ð' is alphabetically prior to 'n' in the alphabet, it comes right after 'd' and should be sorted as such. I know that the most active wikipedians working on Iceland-related articles have made it their practice to categorise in the fashion outlined above, and, indeed, that is where I adopted it. --Palthrow 03:37, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Just like I figured, you are totally oblivious to what is going on around you. Didn't you ever wonder why the things you indexed didn't get put where you thought they'd be?
No, whether 'ð' is alphabetically prior to 'n' in some particular alphabet doesn't matter in the least. The order of letters does also, of course, differ in different alphabets. (And it would be in the English alphabet on English wikipedia in any case; the order in the Icelandic alphabet is irrelevant).
All the sorting goes by is the order in which they appear in the Unicode character set—not the order they appear in any particular alphabet.
That 'ð' is indexed as character number F0 hexadecimal, U+00F0 (240 decimal, you can get it using ð ð) That's way after 'n' which is character number U+006E (you can even get it using n n or Alt-110 on the numeric keypad in Windows). It's way after 'z', which is decimal 122, and it's even way after Ð which is decimal 208). That ð would be indexed in between an uppercase Þ and a lowercase þ; the n would be way before both of them. Get the idea? Gene Nygaard 03:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

A few loose ends:

1. I thought there was something on Category:Icelandic people or Category talk:Icelandic people about it and its subcategories being sorted by first name. I don't see it now. I think I'll stop doing so.

2. Your "Russian patronymic" example isn't applicable, because for most or all of the Russian names we have a family name as well as the patronymic.

3. I suppose you might actually cut the "bloody nightmare" in half by indexing by first names, since matronymics are so rare. But it will still never compare to looking for a "Williams" or "Smith" or "Lopez" or "Hernandez".

4. When you hinge your objection on a silly notion that the reason for indexing certain people by first name is that their particular some of these patronymics are not family names, you would end up with the illogical situation of some Icelanders being indexed by first name and some being indexed by family name (some of which are also of the patronymic form, of course), both within the Icelandic people and subcategories and in other categories as well. That is not conducive to finding anybody. You shouldn't have to know whether or not that last name is a family name or merely an active patronymic in order to know which letter of the alphabet to look under.

5. There are also many non-Icelanders who are listed on Wikipedia whose names are active patronymics, based on their father's first name. The articles don't tell us if these are, for example, but I'd bet that several (likely most) of them are: Erik Jørgensen, Erik Eriksen (explorer), Gunnar Knudsen, Hans Christian Petersen, Otto Bahr Halvorsen, Olaf Gulbransson, Theodor Kittelsen, Sigval Bergesen. My point is that it really doesn't matter if the article tells us or not, whether these names come from one the father's given names or one of (most likely had toponymic last names as well) the father's last names doesn't matter, that last name is still the proper name to index them under in most people categories, the obvious exceptions being those categories dealing with a particular family which are usually indexed by first name. Gene Nygaard 12:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC) clarification made with strikeout and underline 13:14, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's one where I know that to be the case, though the information isn't in the article: Cleng Peerson was the son of Peder Larson Hesthammer. Gene Nygaard 12:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I didn't know about these limitations in the wiki code concerning ordering -- I imagine it deals in an equally unsatisfying way with ô ö, ê è etc? Do you systematically change these to o, oe, e, and e respectively, just to circumvent the indexing problem? How do they deal with this in the French and Icelandic Wikipedias? Is there a way to control the sorting?
Regarding your Scandinavian examples, none of the Nordic countries use patronyms any more, and former patronyms have changed into family names. Icelanders still do -- and there will *never* be a situation where you are supposed to address an Icelander by his patronymic -- all Icelanders address each other, and prefer to be addressed, by first name only, for reasons I have outlined previously. While there do exist Icelanders with family names (generally of foreign origin), this family name will never be used in any kind of public discourse, irrespective of rank or status. E.g. I would address the president of Iceland as Ólafur, and the prime minister as Halldór, and foreign minister Geir Haarde (who has a Norwegian family name) merely as Geir, never as Haarde.
Regardless, I see your point and I understand why you're doing it, so I'll go with the same rules. It strikes me as a question of technical limitations. Perhaps you would like to point out other Icelandic-people contributors this position? -- Palthrow 16:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Sure, the Norwegians have now switched to family names; but some of the male-line descendants of a Gunnar Knudsen of that time frame may now be Gunnarsen, some may now be Larsen, some may now be Haugen or Kjøs or whatever. My great-grandfather Nygaard and his brothers ended up using three different family names, and the one who went by Gunder Jacobson had one child—American-born at that—named Jacob Gunderson, whose children were Gundersons as well.
Here is what Wikipedia:Categorization says about the sorting:
  • Diacritics are omitted: e.g. Étretat: [[Category:Communes of Seine-Maritime|Etretat]], or: Ål: [[Category:Municipalities of Norway|Al]]
  • Ligatures are separated: e.g. Æsir: [[Category:Norse mythology|Aesir]]
Of course, there are letters like Ö which are ligatures in some languages and an O with diacritics in other languages. So it's often a tossup which way to go with some of those letters; but either choice is likely to get you closer to what most anybody would expect in English indexing than leaving it to be sorted by Unicode number.
Initial letters, of course, are the biggest problem. Many of the large categories have a navigation tool bar at the top, listing the alphabet. The 26 letter English alphabet, of course, with no indication that some characters may be misindexed following the Z. Furthermore, we usually don't sort the small letters separately after the capital letters, so if what you want to index by starts with a small letter, change it to a capital letter (e.g., to sort category Icelandic folk music in Category:Icelandic music under F, you would use Category:Icelandic music|Folk music, not with "folk" with lowercase f after the vertical bar as it was before I fixed it. Gene Nygaard 10:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
And I thought the Tortuga/Tortue debate was getting obsessive... Fowler Pierre 14:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethiopian name sorting

Howdy, earlier I noticed your edit to Girma Wolde-Giorgis. Among Ethiopian names, generally speaking one's "last name" is actually his or her father's name (or, grandfather's name when three names are shown), and the person's first name is used for reference. Hence one would say "the Mengistu regime" instead of "the Hailemariam regime" (as the latter refers to Mengistu's father), "Meles is prime minister" instead of "Zenawi is prime minister," etc. When I come across these I sort them by first name. This being the English Wikipedia, perhaps there's a consensus to follow the Western-style name indexing (and FWIW, when an Ethiopian immigrates to the US, these names all become first name, last name, middle name), but in this case it isn't accurate. But it appears that Arabic names are sorted by second names, which (from my understanding) isn't accurate either...? -- Gyrofrog (talk) 04:04, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Not a whole lot different from Johnson or Anderson or O'Malley or MacDonald, is it? What about the reversed order, as in "Open letter to Mr. Woldegiorgis Girma, President of the Republic of Ethiopia" at [6]? How common is that? Gene Nygaard 04:15, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kelvins

As I told you before, a search of the astronomical literature reveals that the singular form is used 90% of the time. What makes you think you know better than everyone else? Stop changing it, please. Worldtraveller 19:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll dispute your figures. For one thing, you aren't factoring in the adjective form; when we talk about a 2.7 kelvin background radiation, there is no "s" at the end of the adjective.
Furthermore, a large number of the same astronomers still write it Kelvin with a capital K—in fact, that is something I've also had to change in almost all of them where I added the proper plural form, as well as many others that either already had the s or weren't supposed to have an s either because they were adjectives or because they were singular. Both are manifestations of the very same problem, a failure to understand the significance of the 1967 change in the rules by the International General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM), the keepers of the world's standards. Gene Nygaard 02:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and by the way, you'd never made that specific claim before, but furthermore--
Why did those working papers for some obscure little IEEE standard on a minor topic falsely claim something that was not supported in any way by either of the authorities they cited in support of their statement? Why haven't you addressed that on Talk:Pleiades (star cluster) Gene Nygaard 02:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
This is so stupid it's unbelievable. I am an astronomer, I'm telling you what the usage is, major journals like Science, Nature, ApJ, MNRAS etc etc follow this usage, and because you can find some style guide that recommends the singular you're now edit warring to apply your personal preference to articles. You really believe that all astronomers are suffering from a 'failure to understand' a 40 year old document? You, I believe, are not a scientist, so you really should not touch science articles to change things you don't understand. Worldtraveller 16:45, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
From Nature:[7]
  • "body size, Mi, and absolute temperature, T in kelvins"
  • plotted against the reciprocal of the temperature in kelvins
  • should reach several Kelvins at
  • only several kelvins below the HX line
  • The vertical axis is in kelvins
  • think in terms of millikelvins rather than, like metallurgists, in thousands of kelvins,
  • temperatures of the order of 100 milli-kelvins
  • T and Tm are given in kelvins.
  • effective temperature parameter, Te in Kelvins
  • was measured in kelvins.
  • central temperatures of a few hundred million kelvins
  • central temperatures of a few tens of Kelvins for 10-km radius icy comets.
  • record of 50 nano-Kelvins
  • where Tis in Kelvins.
  • BTU with ergs and joules; and Kelvins with degrees Centigrade and even Faren-heit
Gene Nygaard 19:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)


BTW, in the journals you cited, in how many of them can you find people still using "degrees Kelvin"? Gene Nygaard 19:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I presume you also searched Nature for the singular form? I presume you would have noticed that that returns 728 results, compared to just 15 for 'kelvins'? I'm sorry, but your edits to impose your own preference on astronomical articles are verging on vandalistic now. If you keep on doing this I'll have to file a request for comment, and if that doesn't work, then a request for arbitration. Worldtraveller 17:20, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
You made your claim as if these journals do not use kelvins. They obviously do.
So what in the world does your 728 results mean? There's a lot of nonsense unrelated to the issue at hand, including
  • "additions to the list are James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, the Rayleighs," [there has only been one Lord Kelvin, William Thomson]
  • "a 300-degrees Kelvin tissue" [obviously people so out of touch with the world around them aren't going to be using "degrees Kelvins"]
  • "(between 30 and 70 millionths of a kelvin" [singular because its absolute value is greater than zero and less than or equal to one. Had they used millikelvins microkelvins, it should be plural, of course—but when they use kelvins without a prefix, it is singular.
  • "Xu L , Kelvin D , Ye G , Taub DD ," [some other author whose last name is Kelvin]
  • "I thank Kelvin Davies, PhD," [some other person whose first name is Kelvin]
  • "results square with Kelvin's original estimate of cooling" [possessive related to William Thomson]
  • "a recent observation of Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) vortices " [adjective related to William Thomson, Lord Kelvin]
  • "a light box (Kelvin rating approximately 6200°)" [used as an adjective, but then also improper degrees Kelvin without identifying the scale]
21:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
It could be you were being deliberately obtuse, or maybe you're actually not understanding this - not all the 728 are examples of the usage I'm talking about, but far far more than 15 are - the search results, as you must realise, show clearly that the singular form is by far the most common. I haven't seen you editing to impose your own style preference recently, so if you've stopped then thanks for finally listening. Worldtraveller 20:33, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not the one who writes the rules. I'll get around to fixing any I missed eventually. And I doubt that it is much more than 15, expecially if you through out those using "degrees Kelvin" which are probably more common. Quite clearly, some of those journals do use the proper plural form—maybe not always, but a significant portion of the time. Gene Nygaard 22:27, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Looks like you'd rather believe what you want to believe than actually to check what scientists use. If I see you change any more articles to impose your own preference, I'll treat that as vandalism, as it appears you're just being deliberately awkward about this. Worldtraveller 16:22, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
You can treat it as whatever you want, but that won't make it so.
What you have managed to show so far is that there are a considerable number of astronomers among those who do follow the rules.
Sure, there are also some dinosaurs still living in the days of degrees Kelvin, but so what? Gene Nygaard 12:56, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

B.S. Chandrasekhar puts in quite well in a letter to APS News, March 2002.

"More on Plurals
"Arne Reitan (November 2001 issue) says that the plural of kelvin is kelvin, not kelvins. He mistakenly thinks that the international system of units implies an international language with its own grammar. Physics is international, but the words in which it is expressed belong to a language, English, Norwegian, Hindustani, or whatever, and must follow the grammar and usage of that language. Agreed, papers in PR and PRL do not always do so, say some purists. Anyway, in English I write one kelvin or 273 kelvins, but in German I write ein Kelvin or 273 Kelvin. Note incidentally the capitalizing of nouns in German! In English, it is 230 volts, 10 amperes, 55 kilometres, 28 teslas, ...need I go on?"
B.S.Chandrasekhar
Groebenzell, Germany

Gene Nygaard 17:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Look! Scientists do not follow your 'rules', OK?! I've shown you that time and again. Yes, some people do it your way, but no, they are not the majority. All I can think is that you're unable to understand that, or you're just being disruptive. Either way, I'm absolutely fed up with your incessant revert warring over something so stupid, when you have added no real content to any of the articles you're revert warring over. Just stop! And I can't help noticing, from seeing various threads on your talk page, that you fail to be civil in almost every conversation you have. I'll start a request for comment, I think, to get wider community input on what I see as your disruptive attitude and wilful ignorance. Worldtraveller 13:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
You are the one being disruptive. You've shown nothing of the sort, nor have you countered what I have shown. You are the one arguing strictly from personal opinion. I have no idea what your redlink is about. What's with all the personal attacks? Facts aren't on your side, so you attack the person instead rather than discussing the issue. "Comment on content, not on the contributor.". Gene Nygaard 14:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
The red link is now blue. I haven't made any personal attacks, I've tried very hard to get you to understand that your edits are not helpful but you've been completely uncooperative. Having wasted so much of my time bashing against this particular brick wall, I'm asking for wider community input. You are invited to comment. Worldtraveller 15:05, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ruler and compass constructions?

Can you pop by the above linked discussion and see if John Reid's explanation in his vote satisfies your concern (or just mention it here since I have it watched). Its a keep the way it sits now. --Syrthiss 13:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Apologies

Hello Gene. I saw you were indexing some Scottish & Irish history articles with diacritics in the names. I created some of them, and have edited many others, and I have to confess that I never even thought of the indexing side of things. Apologies & thanks for fixing this, and I'll try to make sure you don't need to do it all over again in a few months. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:23, 15 April 2006 (UTC) P.S. Do ligatures need the same treatment ?

I think I copied the part about diacritics and ligatures from Wikipedia:Categorization somewhere, but you can just go there and look for "sorting". I'd index æ as ae and Æ as Ae; is that what you mean? Same for œ, but I don't see that often, and ß as ss. Others aren't always so easy German ä, ö, and ü can be ae, oe, and ue as in Müller|Mueller, but those characters in some other languages should be a, o, and u, and I often do that with the German letters too. Sometimes, if an English spelling is given in the article, I use that form in the indexing; some diacritics with c indexed as ch, etc, but without that I just use the letter unaccented. I guess I'd find a couple of options acceptable in many cases, and if someone has a strong preference for one or the other in a particular article, I'd probably leave it.
Of course, I sometimes index Å as "aa" rather than the A in the example on the categorization page.
In sparsely populated categories it is often unnoticeable. The ones I've changed have usually resulted because they were listed out of order in some category. It's not that I have any qualms about changing them when I don't know, if I'm editing the article for some other reason, but I don't bother looking for hte ones that don't show up out of place somewhere. Of course, as more articles are added to a category, more of them will show up out of place.
P.S. There were some of those with a sort key with things like "|Family", something which didn't show up in the article's name and which wouldn't be helpful in the indexing. I don't remember which ones they were; most of them were in one or two categories, but I didn't go to those categories. Maybe I can figure it out and post it here. Gene Nygaard 01:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
One of them was Déisi Tuisceart which was indexed as Category:Ancient history|Peoples, and while if done consistently that would get all peoples under the "P", there wouldn't generally be any indication on the category page (unless someone added it in text at the top) showing why all those peoples are listed under "P". Look at Category:Ancient history, especially under "P". Gene Nygaard 01:23, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, it all makes perfect sense. I can't think of any reason to index the things under "P" or "F", so I'll have a look at that. I'm fairly sure ancient peoples is the wrong category anyway. "Æ" and "Œ" were what I had in mind for ligatures, used for some Anglo-Saxon history articles, and indexed as Ae or Oe in topic-specific reliable sources, just as you said. Thanks again for the explanations. I feel confident now about adding the indexing myself if I find anything that needs it. Bye for now ! Angus McLellan (Talk) 07:53, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry about this revert - I should've been more careful, point taken. In my defence I can only say that the feature is not exactly obvious, and the edit looked too much like one of those in the spelling wars (with/without diacritics) I've kept my eye upon recently. I would suggest that you link to Wikipedia:Categorization#Category sorting in descriptions of your edits to prevent similar confusion in other cases. Once again, my apologies. -- int19h 15:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] weight and mass

I tried responding to some assertions about weight and mass at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft#ParserFunctions Please feel free to join in. bobblewik 21:51, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Douglas-Bisbee and Douglas Airports

Hi,

Douglas Municipal Airport and Douglas-Bisbee International Airport are not the same airport. Douglas Municipal is two miles east of the town of Douglas and Douglas-Bisbee is about ten miles north. I believe the Int'l Airport used to be affiliated with the military.

There is also a Bisbee Municipal Airport. SportingFlyer 06:50, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for editing Accidental release source terms

Gene, thanks for Wikifying Accidental release source terms. - mbeychok 20:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reply to Washington, D.C.

Thanks for reverting my edit and pointing this out to me; I can't believe I missed that! (Somehow I misread Use standard abbreviations when using symbols) To let you know, I have changed it back to my previous edit, except fixing this issue, since the majority of my edit (I hope!) did not contradict with WP:MOS. Thanks, AndyZ t 00:56, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for help!

Hallo Gene, thanks a lot for correcting my contribution in Kastellorizo. I am Italian and - altough I try to do my best - there is still a long way before my English become sufficient... alex2006 10:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was pretty good; I only adjusted it in a couple of places. Gene Nygaard 10:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reliable sources club

Oh yes- Jayjg. And when FeloniousMonk said in 3RR "SV was trying to archive a talk page that contained nothing more than fruitless and disruptive agitation from a chronic malcontent", I thought he was referring to you. Perhaps it was me! Ragout seems to have reverted back the to the "longstanding" version again. I think this might be rather a pity because SlimVirgin's bold version is easier to criticise.

And, of course, it will be no trouble if you quibble about details in what I've put. Although I re-read your (archived!) comments and saw and agreed with the problem you'd raised, my "solution" is coming from a rather different direction.

I actually think source contents should be able to be rejected as being "wrong" other than on grounds of internal inconsistency. Even SV allows the most authoritative sources (plural) to be used and so I don't ultimately think she would expect people to use a single clearly most authoritative source if it happened to be "wrong" in the particulars being used, as judged by a load of other reputable sources (or, dare I say it, if it was simply "wrong"!).

I'd allow more "sun rises in the east" (and minor investigatatory) unsourced statements than some people would but I'm more interested in technical articles whereas SV, working marvellously, in my view, on articles in dreadfully fraught areas such as terrorism and the Middle East, has far worse problems to deal with both in terms of who she has to edit "against" and that any "facts" are extremely contentious. Thincat 09:04, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg has reverted already citing the authority of "longstanding editors" rather than a longstanding version! But, and I'm sorry to be a let-down, I'm not going to join in on reverting him. Amazingly, I am technically a longer-standing editor than SlimVirgin (and you) but Jayjg trumps me. My edit count is way, way down on you lot, though. If I reverted more often I'd bump up my count!!! Thincat 16:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to delete a Category

How can I delete or rename a Category ? I created a new category and made spelling mistake. Now I cannot rename or delete it. Can you please also add this info in Wikipedia:Categorization where I added a section to help others for deleteing a category. Thanks. Siddiqui 16:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Edits of Useful conversions and formulas for air dispersion modeling

Gene, thanks for taking the time to make those "Wikifying" edits of the subject article. I have gone a step further and changed all of the original HTML equations to TeX equations, which I think is an improvement from the viewpoint of Wikifying. Once again, thanks. - mbeychok 18:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The problem with the html equations was often a failure to italicize the variables.
Your TeX equations suffer from the opposite problem; improperly italicized unit symbols. Gene Nygaard
Quoting from your summary of your latest edits: "now I have to clean up the TeX formulas ...". Gene, you have such a nice, decent way of expressing yourself! If you find editing so hard or distastful, perhaps you should consider giving it up.
We don't all have your "20,000+" edits under our belts or your wonderful grasp of all the minutia involved in Wikifying. I thought that being civil was an official Wikipedia policy and that being rude or insensitive was frowned upon by that policy. Or does that not apply to administrators?
Just once in while, why don't you try behaving like a mentor rather than being uncivil? - mbeychok 06:45, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Cat got your tongue? At a loss for words? Or what? - mbeychok 06:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Had I known that you claim to be the author of a couple of engineering textbooks, I would never have been so restrained and reserved, simply going to work and correcting a failure to italicize variables, the improper italicizing of unit symbols, and the failure to distinguish units of measure from the quantities measured with them. After your 50+ years as an engineer and textbook author, why would you need mentoring on such basic things? Gene Nygaard 13:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Gene, being an engineer and being obsessive about Wikipedia's unique "style" of presentation are two different things. I might also say that that any technical content in Wikipedia, a book or a technical journal has two basic components: (1) "substance" and (2) "style" of presentation. It strikes me that your primary administrative role should be to mentor Wikipedia newcomers on the minutia of Wiki "style" without being rude, insulting and uncivil as you have just been again. After all neither you nor I were born knowing the minutia of Wikipedia style. As for the substance of my contributions here or in my pre-Wikipedia publications, they speak for themselves despite your uncivil aspersions.
Take a look above on this page to where I have twice thanked you for your help with "Wikifying" an article ... and then you came right back with a sarcastic remark about "now I have to clean up (your) TeX formulas...". Don't you even understand how sarcastic and insulting that is? And that is only one small sample of your rude and uncivil choice of words when dealing with me and others as well. If you spent half the time and care on your choice of words that you do on your attention to the Wiki "style" minutia, you would not anger people as you do.
By the way, I don't "claim" to have authored two engineering books ... it is a verifiable "fact" that I authored them. I might add that the first one was published by John Wiley and Sons in 1967 when you were probably still a teenager or younger. Just another example of your insulting choice of words. Do you behave this way with your friends or your family? I doubt that you do, so why do it here? - mbeychok 22:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
It isn't a matter of "Wikipedia" style. It is a matter of good communications, no matter what the medium. Maybe you'd need some help in getting the proper formatting in Wikipedia editing, but recognizing that that formatting and proper use of symbols for units and variables is needed is not something specific to Wikipedia. Gene Nygaard 17:11, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Furthermore, it doesn't matter in the least whether I was a teenaged college student in 1967, or if even my parents weren't born yet then (as is the case for some Wikipedia editors). That has no bearing whatsoever on what you should know, based on your experiences. Gene Nygaard 17:45, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
First, let me congratulate you for finally managing two paragraphs without being sarcastic or uncivil. John Wiley sold about 10,000 copies of my first book and I have sold 3,500 copies of my second book (which I self-published). For engineering texts, I call that darn good communicating. Being obsessive about the minutia of Wiki style has nothing to do with communicating. Every book publisher has their own style requirements as does almost every scientific and technical journal as well as Wikipedia. No one can be reasonably expected to be intimately knowledgeable of all those different styles. Writing "substance and content" is the job of authors and editing for "style" is the job of editors such as yourself. As my final parting word in this dialogue, editors should perform their job as civil mentors or tutors and avoid comments that are uncivil or can be perceived as being uncivil. - mbeychok 18:29, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Gene, you really are incredibly obnoxious. This kind of snotty reaction to someone who actually started off by thanking you for something is rude and uncalled for. Do you understand what is meant by the civility policy? Worldtraveller 18:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kelvins vs Kelvin

Please use correct grammar in scientific articles. In the heat article you changed the title of an article from "heat at 2 billion degrees kelvin" to "hgeat at 2 gigakelvins". One, kelvin is not plural, two hgeat is not a word, tree the word gigakelvins is not used in the article. I am going to assume that your native language is not English. Please be more careful.--Sadi Carnot 08:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Tree is a word, but not likely the one you intended, just as I didn't intend any change to the word heat. The plural of kelvin is kelvins;[8] it takes SI prefixes just like any other SI unit. Billion is an ambiguous word; the prefix giga- is clear and unambiguous. Degrees Kelvin were thrown out back in 1967. Gene Nygaard 03:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Furthermore, what appeared in that link was merely a description of the contents; it wasn't the title of the article. Just because Fox News is using long-out-of-date degrees Kelvin doesn't mean we should do so. Gene Nygaard 03:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
G.N. I have two engineering degrees and am working towards a third degree in particle physics; plus I personal own over 50 books on thermal physics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, etc.; and based on the your previous discussion on the same topic (as above) I am going to assume that you are mentally incapacitated in some form or another. I apologize for this disrespect, but I don’t know how else to put this to you? Go ahead and do whatever your merry heart desires. Adios.--Sadi Carnot 13:30, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Gee, you have some books, and some degrees. What's the relevance to good English grammar? I provide a link to the rule. I, too, have lots of books using "degrees Kelvin", with a capital letter in the proper adjective Kelvin (just as the proper adjective is capitalized in degrees Celsius or degrees Fahrenheit), and with the "s" added to the noun. That was the proper usage when my books were published. But the rules were changed in 1967, when the CGPM resolution changed the name of the unit from "degree Kelvin" with symbol "°K" to "kelvin" with symbol "K". Now "kelvin" is no longer an adjective, but the noun, and like other units such as watts and newtons and volts, it is lowercase, and forms the plural by adding the "s" to the noun, which is now kelvin rather than "degree" which used to take the s. Gene Nygaard 15:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate use of references

I am sure you'd agree that if someone sees a footnote at the end of a sentence about the temperature of the Sun's corona, they would expect the footnote to lead to a reference about the temperature of the Sun's corona. Adding a link to a style guide in such a place is inappropriate and disruptive. Worldtraveller 12:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

That's the purpose of the quoted portion in the reference. It is appropriate, because the edit was disputed. What is inappropriate is removal of references to reliable sources. Gene Nygaard 12:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
It is a bit like citing a US dictionary to support a US spelling over a UK one. A citation that is about the style of a sentence and not about its substance is totally misleading, its repeated addition is purely disruptive, and again I find myself wondering if you're really not capable of understanding these things. Worldtraveller 14:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unit formats

Hi Gene,

We both edit unit formats. If you copy User:Bobblewik/monobook.js to User:Gene Nygaard/monobook.js, you will get a 'units' tab in edit mode. You might find it useful. If you know unit format defects that it doesn't cover, you can configure it. bobblewik 09:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Did you see this comment? bobblewik 18:52, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] jarmann reverts

hi there - shall we try to reach a compromise over the jarmann rifle reverts? Tyhopho 14:31, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

What do you have in mind? We can discuss it on the Talk:Jarmann M1884, since you started out by reverting someone else who reverted your deletion. Gene Nygaard 14:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Philippe Liegeois

Hi Gene, you assisted in the article on Philippe Liégeois by removing the diacritical mark from the categorizations, with an edit summary of 'indexing'. Would you mind explaining why? Do these mark interfere with proper indexing or so? I just want to learn, no criticism intended. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:52, 29 May 2006 (UTC).

In English (and most other languages, for that matter), é should sort with e. But the default sorting is merely by Unicode number, not by English or any other alphabet. That means the order is A-Z, a-z, then followed by various letters with diacritical marks on the basis of their Unicode numbers. That means É is after z (and there are several other letters between É and é).
I noticed this one because Philippe Liégeois should come before Rakel Liekki, not after Lizmark, Jr.. In other words, in a huge category such as Category:Living people, there were more than 500 people between where he was and where he should have been; that's three pages out of place.
Note that spaces and punctuation marks are also indexed, and as I pointed out, they are also case-sensitive with all the uppercase letters come before the corresponding lowercase letters with other letters in between. Gene Nygaard 03:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Categorization#Category sorting. Note that unlike the piping in other links, the sort key following the vertical bar is not displayed. Gene Nygaard 03:09, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Very elucidating. Highly appreciated. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC).

[edit] rounding distances

Hi, on the Canadian airport articles, why are you rounding some distances in km to one decimal place, and some to no decimal place? Why not just leave them all at two decimal places? heqs 16:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Because far too many of the nautical miles figures end in zero for it to be random. They don't have that precision; if anything, I should be rounding off more than I have been. (At least some of them may well have been whole numbers in statute miles originally, others are only to the nearest half a nautical mile which would be roughly the same as the nearest kilometer). Gene Nygaard 03:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Furthermore, there's no real need for, nor benefit from, anything more than the nearest mile of either sort, or the nearest kilometer. Furthermore, how is it defined--in this case, probably not from the city center, but rather from the nearest city limits, and in some cities, the fringes may be essentially rural yet, and in others the built-up part will extend beyond the actual city limit, so it really isn't all that helpful. Gene Nygaard 03:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Soil

You have edited some soil articles in the past - hopefully this means more soils editing in your future? Cheers! -- Paleorthid 06:53, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Myron Tribus Possibly living people

Gene,

Myron is 85 and living in Pensacola, Florida. I visited him at his home this week. Leaders100 12:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Honinbo is also a family name

Hi, Honinbo currently is the title of a go tournament. But it was also a special family name, which had been granted to the head of Honinbo go house before Honinbo became a Go competition in 1940. So it is more proper that Honinbo Jowa is listed as "Honinbo, Jowa", rather than "Jowa, Honinbo" in categories. Thank you. --Neo-Jay 17:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Top 1000 scientists

Hi As you had created the above mentioned article,I thought you may be interested to know that it has been listed for deletion.I have voted against it though.(Vr 05:14, 15 June 2006 (UTC))

Thanks. I wasn't the one who created Top 1000 Scientists: From the Beginning of Time to 2000 AD, but I have edited it. Gene Nygaard 13:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Towns in Poland

Hello, I see you've reverted me on the Towns in Poland articles. Let me point out that in Polish, L and Ł, for example, are two different letters. Just because Ł looks like "an L with a line through it" does not mean that the Ł articles belong with the L articles, and it's jarring to see them mixed together. I've created Template:CategoryTOCPolish to deal with the quirk of categorization that places letters with diacritics at the end of the category. Appleseed (Talk) 16:59, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't matter in the least if they are two different letters in some other language. They are indexed together in the English alphabet, and only one of them is part of the English alphabet. And they certainly aren't indexed by Unicode character numbers, not in any alphabet, but no other alphabet than the English alphabet matters in indexing things in the English Wikipedia.
Your template may be of some value on http://pl.wikipedia.org — but that navigation tool is useless as tits on a boar in getting the actual items listed to appear in the same order as the they do on the navigation tool. About all it is really good for here is demonstrating that it finally dawned on you that the way you were indexing things, with Ł following Z, and ę following not only F and Z but even after Ź as well, was really a bad way to do things. Gene Nygaard 03:32, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I created the template by way of compromise, but it seems I shouldn't have bothered. Appleseed (Talk) 12:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
No harm in trying, but it wouldn't be helpful. These are articles written in English in the English Wikipedia. To help people find them, they should be indexed in the English alphabet. It would be rather silly to have 150 different indexing schemes in different categories, with people having to know the order in which letters are used in 100 different languages, wouldn't it? Even worse would be the situation in which some articles in one category are entered with Polish alphabetization, some in the same category with German alphabetization, etc. Gene Nygaard 12:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Admin

Would you be open to the idea of being nominated by me for Adminship? You seem rather level headed and we need more level headed admins. TruthCrusader 10:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mole (unit)

I agree with your analysis in the talk page, and have added a comment there explaining why. --Grouse 15:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Caron

Another proposal to move Caron is currently underway. Since you participated in a past discussion, you may be interested. Jonathunder 17:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Halloo. Vær so godt - Nygaard??

My Norwegian's awful....Gee, saw your surname in the history of the Skudeneshavn article. If your family's from Karmøy, we're probably related (via the Hoines family); but then I think everyone on Karmøy is related, aren't they? I'm from Vancouver, BC but I spent some time there; my grandmother was a Hoines (Margit) and we have the family tree-book and there's lots of Nygaards in it. I just did a Wiki article on her husband, my granddad, Endre Johannes Cleven; stretching the boundaries of vanity-wiki dictums but he was notable in Norwegian Canadian history but otherwise overlooked; I think for sure he had "duality" with the US and did a lot of his work (immigration official and also composer/conductor/musician) in Minneapolis, so I'm not sure if I should also put the Norwegian-American tag. Stopped by the Skudeneshavn page to see if there's a "list of notable Skudeneshavners" but no one's gotten that far yet; maybe in Norwegian Wiki. Best regards, and if your family is from Karmøy let's compare notes on which leg bone is connected to which knee bone....Skookum1 17:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Skookum1
Yes, we'd be distantly related--the families of both my grandfathers came from Karmøy. Send me an email from the link at the left. Gene Nygaard 04:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ramūnas Šiškauskas

Hi, why did you move it? I am unable to decipher your move summary... I reverted it back, since Ramūnas Šiškauskas is the correct name/spelling. Renata 00:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Ramunas Siskauskas is a correct spelling in the English alphabet--and after all, this IS the English Wikipedia. So there should at least have been a redirect from that spelling, and there was not.
Note that not having it means that people who entered "Ramunas Siskauskas" in the box on the Wikipedia page and clicked "Go" wouldn't find the article, even though one existed.
Furthermore, it meant that there were redlinks in other articles which should not have been red, since the article existed. (Check "What links here" on that page)
I've figured out that the best way for me to fix this is to use the move function. That calls attention to the problem to the people writing or renaming these articles. Furthermore, even if someone like you does move it back, at least now we do have the redirect which should have been there from the beginning.
We are trying to publish information, not hide it. Note also that including the unaccented spelling within the visible text of the article will also increase the chances that people will find it when using a search engine search; I didn't do anything about that in this article, but you might considering adding that if it doesn't already exist.
Note also that if you are involved in other cases of renaming articles such as this by adding diacritics and the like to the article name, then it is also incumbent upon you to fix the indexing by including a sort key which does not include the diacritics. I also fixed that in a separate edit of this particular article. Gene Nygaard 15:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Yea, that all is very fine and good, but wasn't it simplier & easier just to make a simple redirect without moving the page? You know, open up non-existing Ramunas Siskauskas article, type in #redirect[[Ramūnas Šiškauskas]], hit save. I hear your arguments, but I find your solution to the problem quite... umg... strange. That's all. Renata 16:18, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

If there is no redirect, then create one. There is a template for categorizing such redirects, so that incoming links can be corrected by bot. See Template:R from title without diacritics. Please stop moving pages to typographically incorrect titles. —freak(talk) 16:15, Jul. 29, 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, I did create one. And what I created is indeed typographically correct. If you want to add some template and just hope that it might be fixed at some future time, go get ahead of me in doing so. But that template is more difficult than just creating a redirect page yourself--something I might do if my method weren't more attention-getting so that people don't continue to create articles without them having these redirects right from the beginning, which would save us a lot of time. Gene Nygaard 16:24, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
HUH??? I completely don't understand you. Moving pages from the form with diacritics to the one without is BAD. If you want to create a redirect, just create one without any pages moves. Read here how to do it. Moving pages just to educate other editors that they need to create redirects is WP:POINT. Renata 16:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
No, it's not "bad". There is one slot available for the article name. What that should be is debatable; what is bad is not having the redirects.
It isn't disruptive. It is necessary, because simply adding a redirect from a new article name is something which will never show up on the watch lists of the people watching the article. Gene Nygaard 16:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
How come it is not distruptive when the article is under a wrong name? Yes, it is English Wikipedia, but it is widely accepted to use diacritics. If you really want to warn the editors, leave them a talk page note. Renata 11:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not a "wrong" name. It is a different spelling in a different alphabet. Spelling it in the foreign alphabet will still get you to the article if I have moved it--and, even if it is moved back, entering the unaccented English spelling will still get you to the article now, unlike the unacceptable situation before when it would not. Diacritics are accepted by some in some situations, not required by all in all situations. And certain diacritics are more accepted in English than others are--there are only a few of them that are fairly regularly used in English spelling. There are many names of people and places and other words which are much more often spelled in English without the diacritics than with them. Not using them is very common--and it is especially important for searching, because English speakers generally do not know all the hundreds of different squiggles that are added to letters in hundreds of other languages, and how to make each and every one of them on their computers even if they were able to distinguish one from another, and in many cases they have never even seen the squiggles but only the normal English name or word because that was what was used somewhere else. You can go ahead and add an explanation to the talk pages if you'd like--but I notice that you haven't done that so far, and if you do it for a couple of dozen of related articles you might realize how cumbersome it can be and how less effective it is. Gene Nygaard 12:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Please note that, in many languages, the accented letter and the unaccented letter represent significantly different phonemes; as well, this can affect meaning. Redirecting (accented) to (unaccented) is incorrect; typographically, it would be far simpler and more accurate to make the unaccented version a redirect to the accented version. DS 17:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

No, it isn't incorrect, and it isn't any different from redirecting unaccented to accented. Which is the better choice depends on English usage.
When no choice has yet been made, I'll go with my choice.
My way is also simpler, and less likely to result in typos in entering the name, and as I pointed out above, there is nothing about creating a new redirect which would ever call attention to this class of problems to the article creators and others who might have it on their watch list. Gene Nygaard 16:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Just to let you know, I have reported your behavior on admin notice board. I do not have time or will to argue with you here while you keep moving pages around. Renata 17:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi! Just noticed the thread at AN/I. The question of whether article titles should be diacriticalised is going on in several pages across Wikipedia, most notably at WP:NAME and WP:RM - see here here and here. The policy is not entirely clear, and can be interpreted in both ways with certian merits in each. Could you hold off the moves just for the time being, until there is a consensus formed from these debates? It's normal procedure toravoid making changes whilst discussion is ongoing, and it will help a consistent widespread renaming after this has all been sorted out. Many thanks, Aquilina 17:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Those discussions only deal with where it ends up in the one slot available for the article name. That doesn't change the fact that it is essential to include at least a redirect or a disambiguation page link from the unaccented form, and not just an article with accented letters without those English alphabet links. That only peripheral to any ongoing discussions as far as I can see. A choice hasn't been made in the cases I'm dealing with. Gene Nygaard 03:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
So far, I haven't been doing anything to articles with diacritics in the article name, as long as they have either a redirect from the form without diacritics, or a link from a disambiguation page without diacritics.
But I think I may follow up on your suggestion to leave things at the status quo ante, if it appears that there is serious discussion going on. So when I come across any article which has been moved from an unaccented form to a form with accents, I'll probably start moving them back to where they were before. Gene Nygaard 04:04, 3 August 2006 (UTC)