User talk:Gomm

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Child labor 2 Forestry articles 3 Napoleon's invasion of Russia 4 FRW & Napoleonic campaignboxes 5 Staarbucks entry 6 RE: Napoleonics Updates 7 Clearcutting 8 Seattle 9 French History 10 Battle of Leipzig 11 Battle of the Falklands 12 Starbucks 13 AFD comments 14 iPhone 15 Siege of Danzig 16 Eliminating years in Ron Paul campaign 17 October 2007 18 A question 19 Carbon dioxide sink 20 3% is massive 21 Reaganomics merge

[edit] Child labor

Hi Gomm. I don't believe "Child labor or labour is when children are allowed to do economically productive work." is grammatically correct. Could you tell me what is subjective about the previous definition?--Bookandcoffee 00:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I'll think about your note. In the mean time, what do you think about the new sentences that I put up. Do they do a better job?--Bookandcoffee 03:46, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Forestry articles

Hi, I see you have done a lot of good edits to forest and logging articles. I don't understand the distinction of all these forestry articles. For example Sustained Yield Forestry and Sustainable forest management. My view is that it is all forest management, with different goals. The forest can be managed for maximum wood production, max income or to produce nice hiking trails or good bird hunting. To a certain extent it is up to the owner. Does each goal have a differant name? It seem confusing to me. What is you view?KAM 16:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Cut and run. I wrote that but Is it a common term? I replaced it with the thing about developed vs developing. I don't think it is very good as is. Give it a shot. KAM 12:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with KAM, why are all of the forestry articles so disjointed? Is there a way to clean up this mess? It would be dandy if we could get all of this organized and cited, or maybe just coherent. I am a new editor, I don't know how to take this on, and I only practice in California and Nevada, so I have very limited knowledge of world forestry issues. SierraSkier 05:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Napoleon's invasion of Russia

I specifically object against the image: it is poor artistically, low resolution, and the caption is messy. The graph that you attempted to put into the lead previously is even worse, however. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 18:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FRW & Napoleonic campaignboxes

So, looking at how messy the list of campaignboxes is becoming, I had an idea: what if we were to get rid of the First & Second Coalition campaignboxes entirely, in favor of splitting everything from 1792 to 1801 by theater (as you had proposed for the First Coalition)? We'd then wind up with something fairly straightforward:

• French Revolutionary Wars
  • Pyrenees
  • Italy
  • Egypt
  • Syria
  • Naval
  • ...
• Napoleonic Wars
  • Third Coalition
  • Fourth Coalition
  • ...

thus resolving the current bizarre situation of having multiple sets of overlapping campaignboxes for each war. Kirill Lokshin 03:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

What I would like to end up with is something like the nested campaignboxes in the Eastern Front in WW2, in which a neat hierarchical approach moves from the front, to the groups to the individual battles. I see no reason why this can't go: revolutionary wars -> coalitions -> front/campaign/war. The current mess you see is just my attempt to keep up with the mass of battles that get dumped into the COALITION boxes, with not clear structure (other than pure chronology). Along the way, we are going to need basic pages (like an overview of the Anglo-Spanish war, or rebellions against the revolution) which will serve as focal point for each campaignbox (like the eastern front structure). Do you think this is workable? Gomm 03:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, ok; that makes sense. I think this will be quite workable (but time-consuming to create, at first). Kirill Lokshin 03:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Good morning -- I'm not sure how this web-site works yet, but I just thought I'd comment that the description of the Battle of Rivoli does not bear too much relation to description given in the reference which is quoted as being its main source. I've taken the liberty of editing the articles on Lodi and Arcole, as they both seemed misleading to me, though the latter article is really much too brief to do justice to such a complex engagement. I hope this is acceptable. Some of the biographies I've looked at seem to be using rather doubtful sources, and could do with warnings. I've also taken the liberty of inserting a couple into the entries on Massena and Augereau. Best of luck. MBB.

[edit] Staarbucks entry

Your addition of scare quotes around "protection" (as in Trademark "protection") is extremely POV, and your characterization of their actions as "oppressing free speech" is contrary to the findings of the court. The court ruled in the case mentioned that the subject of the lawsuit was unjustly enriching himself through the misuse of Starbuck's trademarks, and while he was entitled to create parody items for artistic vaalue (free speech) he was not entitled to sell them (commercial use of someone else's trademarks), which was what starbucks sued about. Starbucks has not objected to his creation of parody works if he is not selling the items. Caper13 18:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The most NPOV term would be "litigation", but you already deleted that. Litigation does not imply the validity or motive of the action. 'Protection' implies that the ownership of the thing is well established, and that they are not just using it as a pretense. This all requires assessment of their motives, which we really should not speculate on. If we wish to stick to what was verifiable, all we can say (roughly) is that 1) he was making and selling items that were a parody, 2) Starbucks sued him on grounds of trademark infringement, 3) he argued that he was just expressing his free speech rights, 4) the court ruled that could contine making them, but that he could not profit from their sale.

What we can not verify (and should not speculate about) is what were starbuck's motives? Were they to prevent the massive losses that he was costing them? Or were they just using litigation to to shut down an annoying and embarrassing parody under the pretense of trademark protection? If the the later, than it would be disingenuous to use the word 'protection' for what would more accurately be termed 'bullying'. So which was the true motive for the litigation? If the former, then 'protection' would be correct. If the latter than 'bullying' would be correct. Do you know what their motives were? Do you know what was in their heart-of-hearts? If not, then do not imply that you do by choosing a loaded word like 'protection'. Stick with a simple statement of what can be observed: they litigated.

The word 'Litigation' does not imply a motive. It only says what is verifiable. Let's avoid mind-reading, and stick with what can be verfied. -Gomm 23:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, this change was NOT a minor edit. Please do not mark edits like this as minor. Caper13 18:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems fairly minor to me. In fact, except for fixing a spelling error, I can think of few more minor edits. Now, adding or deleting content, that would not be minor. I was only clarifying the meaning. It was minor. -Gomm 23:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RE: Napoleonics Updates

Hello Gomm,
Thanks for the heads-up regarding warboxes. I just tried to make it a little more uniform with other war/battle articles I read, like the wars of antiquity, which all had commas for lists. But by all means I consider myself a very new, inexperienced user still, so I would certainly accept your expertise on the matter. Indeed, I think it is a good idea to send messages before we make changes from each other's edits. That will make it less time-consuming and more efficient.
Again, I appreciate the advice.--Arsenous Commodore 15:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Arvand, Was that a Yes or a No on commas in list formats? -Gomm 16:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for clearing that up for me Gomm. And especially the tutorial to the Warbox page, that certainly helps me for future edits. And I'll be honest, I probably wouldn't have found that page by myself, LOL. Seeing as how vast the Napoleonic Wars are, I can help you out putting in the commas again.--Arsenous Commodore 15:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clearcutting

Gomm- land conversion is not an issue for foresters, but for developers. I am pretty sure that developers don't call it clearcutting when they deforest an area in order to change it. I don't think I can find a citation for the idea that a developer would not call clearing land clearcutting, it's easy to find citations for what things are: penguins occur naturally in the south pole region, but hard to find citations for what they are not, like documentation that there are no wild penguins in Colorado. Also, while much of the clearcutting article is written like a criticism of all forestry (reduces diversity, removes trees etcetera) clearcutting is the removal of all trees with the purpose of exposing bare mineral soil. That is very different than the occasional skid mark in a selection cut. That fact may be unclear in the article, in fact, a lot of it is sort of a mess. But what we could accidentally end up doing is leaving it with its "clearcutting bad, clearcutting good" structure with lots of sprinkled caveats, which is altogether less informative. I'm thinking maybe a textbook definition should be the majority of the article and the opinions and controversy section should be small and at the end until it can be fully attributed to published experts. 128.101.70.98 15:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear 128.101.70.98 - You are absolutely right. Around here, when developers want to cut down all the trees to convert it to another use, they hire real loggers, and they call it clearcutting, not clearfelling. But do we really want to get into word games? This is a page for general readership, and I don't think that information transfer is really benefitted by saying that when loggers are brought in to cut down all the trees on a piece of land, that this is not clearcutting because after burning and replanting the site will be subdivided into residential lots and most of the little trees will be buldozed for roads and housed. Common sense says that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is, and saying that it is not a clearcut because the trees we replant are not intented for timber production, is probably the sort of thing that seems to annoy people about forestry.

The comment about clearcutting is the removal of all trees with the purpose of exposing bare mineral soil is perhaps the most mystifying I have ever read in Wikipedia. Of all the purposes identified for clearcutting, I don't ever remember anybody saying 'I want to clearcut so I can expose some mineral soil. Exposing mineral soil might sometimes benefit regeneration (although much of the world has started manually planting seedlings), or might be viewed as a necessary evil (from the logging operations), but not even the most radical 'tree hugger' would suggest that the purpose of logging is to expose mineral soils (and cause massive erosion into streams). They might say that greedy timber companies don't care that they are exposing mineral soils to erosion, but that would be attributed to greed, rather than pure evil. -Gomm 03:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Let me clarify: from the standpoint of a silviculturalist, clearcutting is a technique for regenerating forests for trees that require exposed bare mineral soil. Therefore responsible clearcutting is enacted with the expressed purpose of exposing bare mineral soil, or "soil scarification." I know that this is acknowleged by the Society of American Foresters and certain Indian reservation forestry operations. I can find textbook citations on this, and I understand that it is a common misconception that exposure of bare mineral soil is a side effect of clearcutting, not the foresters intention as a neccessity to regeneration of the desired species. Manually planting seedlings is also often prohibitively expensive.128.101.70.98 18:50, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Seattle

Yo--you a local? Considered joining the Seattle WikiProject? --Lukobe 18:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. -Gomm 20:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] French History

Gomm - you should be aware that the structure of all of the History of France articles -- France in the nineteenth century, France in the twentieth century, Early Modern France and France in the Middle Ages -- have the same structures. If you are going to change the outline structure in one, you should probably do it in all. -- NYArtsnWords 22:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I see. You are right. -Gomm 22:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Leipzig

I am waiting on sources and I would prefer you didn't start taking structure down at this point. Thank you Tirronan 23:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

That's good to hear. You might want to post some invisible <! --comments--> in those specific sections for all the other editors. -Gomm 23:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

My appologies if I sounded out of sorts, I have been reverting vandals all day and I guess it got the better of me. When I started on Battle of Leipzig it was 1 paragraph believe it or not LOL! Tirronan 23:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of the Falklands

If there was ever an article that needed to be cleaned up this one is it. Could I have you take a rather ruthless look at it? I am inclined to remove another full section and would prefer another take a look at it 1st. As a Naval guy it makes me a bit nuts. Tirronan 23:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

My perferred approach would be more gradual, segregating out the discussion from the description, posting the unattributed speculations as such, and getting on with the fixing of the descriptive parts. Who knows? maybe the these speculations can lead to a well documented discussion in how things have been though about. Stranger things have happened. (Although I would put my money on them never getting attributed, and eventually just getting deleted.) I might even refloat the Coriolis stuff and give folks the chance to back it up. -Gomm 00:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I admit I was intregued by the coriolis effect on naval gunnery but after checking a manual on fire control and understanding there were no sub moa naval guns of that period it wasn't possible. I never did get a reply either. Tirronan 00:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Starbucks

I've removed the {{moveto|Starbucks Corporation}} tag from Starbucks, mostly because it doesn't go in the article itself. Instead, it needs to be on the talk page, and it needs to be listed at the appropriate place. For the record, I don't think the page needs to be moved anyway, but you're certainly welcome to make that case on the talk page. Esrever 17:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AFD comments

hi Gomm, I noticed that you added comments to the talk pages of some articles that are being considered for deletion. You probably want to add your comments to Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Landscape_of_archaeology which is the discussion that is used to determine whether there is consensus to delete an article, or in this case several articles. You can also get to deletion discussion pages by clicking on the link that says this article's entry on articles with the deletion template. happy editing -- Diletante 21:05, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] iPhone

Howdy! I removed your edit regarding GPS missing because it was already called out in that section. In the future, consider doing a search before adding something like that, it's a pretty basic bit of functionality that's been hashed out in the article quite a bit. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 15:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, If you read what I did, you will see that you only deleted where I moved it to (and thanks for that). The main point of the move was to get it out of the internet section, which it should not be a part of. But thanks anyway for the suggestion. Gomm 15:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Siege of Danzig

Hi, I've tweaked your recent edits, hope you don't mind. One thing that intrigued me was you state that this was the first time that France and Russia had met as opponents on the battlefield. Is this the first time in history, or the first time in the war? --Benea 19:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not my statement actually. It was originally hidden among all the jumble of statements. I just pulled it out into its own section. I have no idea if it can be supported. -Gomm 21:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gomm (talk • contribs).

I've found where the comment seems to be sourced from, and it does seem to imply this was historically the first clash between France and Russia. It's no clearer on what Potocki and his 50,000 were doing, but there is reference to that number of Polish guerillas operating around Danzig at the time, so that is probably what this means. I'll have a go at making this a little clearer. --Benea 22:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Eliminating years in Ron Paul campaign

Eliminating years in Ron Paul campaign article

I appreciate your desire to save time writing 2007 each time. However, it's a 2-year campaign, covering 2007 and 2008. So it's going to get more confusing, especially after Dec. 31, 2007. Better to prevent the confusion now before it gets worse. Remember, people cut and paste, so they will cut out a bit without the year on it. So I want to prevent that, too. So now I'm going to do the laborious work of putting the years back in. Please don't delete them without first getting a mob saying I'm wrong and telling me. Korky Day 19:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

You don't think that it might not be better to wait until it becomes a problem, before fixing it? After all, my timeline formatting (the one currently in use) is but one of many, and may be reformatted at least once prior to January. -Gomm 21:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] October 2007

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to make constructive contributions to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Napoleonic Wars, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Jauerback 22:00, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

How very weird! I went in to remove an annoying 'poop' edit, but it seems to have already been removed, and my revision only seemed to add it back in. I would like to have that one explained! -Gomm 22:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• What's to discuss? Editing from open proxies is not allowed. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

That's what I was wondering about. Thanks, --Gomm 19:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A question

Hi. Sorry to bother you with this, but given your focus on organizing material properly, I thought it worth a shot. I posted a question about disambiguation on my talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Derekcslater Thank you - Derekcslater (talk) 02:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Carbon dioxide sink

Hi Gomm, I saw your edit on carbon dioxide sink. I am not sure this was really an error you fixed there. I got the impression that it was supposed to mean that planting new forrests emits CO2 because a young growing forrest surely is taking up more CO2 than it emits. What do you think? Splette :) ^{How's my driving?} 22:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Splette, What I mean is that carbon in the soil will be released (by decomposition) whether or not new trees are planted. Hence it is not the act of planting or the subsequent seedling growth that causes the carbon release. To say that a young forest might be releasing more carbon than it is sequestering is not to say that planting caused it. -Gomm 22:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I understand now what you mean. However, the statement a new forest may initially release more carbon from the soil into the atmosphere than it is sequestering. is wrong. It is especially the young, growing forrests that sequester CO2. In contrast, older forrests have no net growth, therefore there is little CO2 sequestering there. But CO2 is still released into the atmosphere from soil. Hmm, maybe we should more this discussion to the Talk page of carbon dioxide sink Splette :) ^{How's my driving?} 23:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Generally correct, except for the VERY young forests, in which the seedlings are too small to overcome soil organic decomposition, which is at its highest just after disturbance (e.g. harvest, fire, etc). All in all however, I think that this period is too brief and the effect to small for inclusion in an overall discussion, so I would recommend deleting the whole sentence. -Gomm 23:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Yes, in those cases of extremely young forrest you might be right. But we don't know how the land was used prior reforestation. Will you do the edit? Splette :) ^{How's my driving?} 23:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 3% is massive

Just responding to your edit comment at Reaganomics. The 3% figure you were reacting to was not 3% less revenue, but 3% of the total gross domestic product less. I don't know if the word "massive" is supported. Probably not. But the knee-jerk response to remove it because of the misapprehension that 3% referred to a percentage of revenue is perhaps also inappropriate. Is there any acceptable way to emphasize the size of the revenue loss more starkly? Three percent of GDP is quite a significant chunk of change, even for the US government. Silly rabbit (talk) 23:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you have already answered your question. Any RELATIVE change is a comparison to the pre-change value. Given the size of federal revenues however, I am not sure that this will even produce a double digit change in revenues. On a broader level however, isn't everything the federal government does 'massive', just because of the size of the federal government? Isn't its expenditure on toilet paper also 'massive'? Is there anything that a 'massive' organization does that is not itself 'massive'? -Gomm 23:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, 3% of GDP will produce a double digit percentage change in the total tax revenue. See List of countries by tax revenue as percentage of GDP. The US collects 26% of GDP in tax, so assuming 3% is exact and that the 26% figure has not changed much since the Reagan era, the total relative change in the tax revenue is -11%. Silly rabbit (talk) 00:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

11% certainly seems more significant than 3%, so maybe you should use that stat. But is a 11% change in revenue really 'massive'? (see above comment) Would it be particularly detectable within the random noise of economic and political fluctuations? -Gomm 18:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reaganomics merge

Hi there Gomm, I just wanted to let you know, as you seem to have been involved in the Reaganomics article, that I have merged the article into the Domestic policy of the Reagan administration article. Please see my reasoning at the link above, and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Thank you, Happyme22 (talk) 19:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Happyme22,

Thanks for the heads-up on this. However, the Domestic policy of the Reagan administration page is really rather empty, with the only content being military rather than domestic oriented. Are you working on fixing this? -Gomm 19:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, actually, I have reversed the merge; please see the talk page for my reasoning. Thanks, Happyme22 (talk) 20:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Any idea why Domestic Policy and Economic Policy are two separate pages, and why they contain discussion of Military spending? -Gomm 20:18, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I just recently created the Domestic policy article to try and encompass all of those ideas, but hit a problem. The Reaganomics article (reffered to as Economic policy in the {{Ronald Reagan}} template) contains a lot of information, as well as links to foreign language Wiki's with the same title. And then I got to thinking about all the other Reagan administration programs, such as the Strategic Defense Initiative, that cannot possibly be merged into the domestic or foreign policy articles. So why merge only one when there are others can cannot be merged?

Of course, then I just thought about the convenience of readers, as well as editors; Reaganomics is covered already in the Ronald Reagan and Presidency of Ronald Reagan articles, and now will be covered futher in the domestic policy article, which seems like too much redirecting from place to place. And because Reagan's domestic policy was largely focused around Reaganomics, it is difficult to write on the subject and choose what can and cannot be included, without copying from the other page.

So I've hit a dead-end. Should I merge it, or not? If I do, it will combine it with all the other Reagan admin aspects (military buildup, judiciary, social programs, etc.) and probably make reading and finding the article easier, as well as serve as a central idea of the article. But then I see many other articles focusing on specific aspects of governments, such as Thatcherism, that have their own articles. I will expand the domestic article in the next few days, but what do you think should be done? Best, Happyme22 (talk) 20:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest against merging, but only because Reaganomics is such a specific set of policies. In general however, I don't think you should be shy about copying from other pages. This page should have more detailed content about the subject, and the Presidency and Reagan pages should have more general summarized content with links to this more specified pages. Keep up the good effort. -Gomm 20:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your input, and I will do just that. Happyme22 (talk) 20:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)