User talk:IanOsgood

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Welcome!

Hello, IanOsgood, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Mak (talk) 02:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Reusing Wikipedia material on Esolang

Wikipedia has a short FAQ about reusing its material elsewhere: Wikipedia:Copyright_FAQ#Can_I_reuse_Wikipedia.27s_content_somewhere_else.3F, and a full policy: Wikipedia:Reusing_Wikipedia_content. However, the point is that all submissions to Wikipedia (this talk page message, for example) are licenced under the GNU Free Documentation Licence by default, which is a copyleft licence (meaning approximately that all derivative works must be licensed under the same licence). Esolang uses a public domain licence; this means that any contributions to Esolang can be used by anyone for any purpose (including for a purpose disallowed by the GFDL, such as inclusion into closed-source software). As such, GFDL-licenced text is not allowed on Esolang.

If you wish to use Wikipedia content on Esolang, you must get permission to multi-licence the work into the public domain from each author of the article (which can be checked in the page history). If you use an old version of the article, you only need permission from authors who edited that version and prior versions (so if you make an article yourself and then someone tags it for AfD, you can copy the last version you made if you have permission from yourself (likely, but you must make such permission clear to Esolang, for instance on a talk page)). You can give permission for all your contributions at once by placing {{userpd}} on your userpage, but I suggest you read that template first as releasing contributions to the public domain can't be revoked. --ais523 09:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification! The strategy I'm taking is to ask page originators to contribute original material to the Esolangs article. I'm concerned less with the article text than with the snippets of sample code. One question: if I determine that portions of these wikipedia articles come verbatim from some other copyrighted source, that it must be deleted from wikipedia or rewritten? --IanOsgood 14:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
If you discover that a Wikipedia article is a verbatim copy of an external source, check it for copyright notices; if there are no copyright notices, it must be removed. However, many esolang programmers are aware of copyright and will give some help in a copyright notice; on Wikipedia, public-domain text can be used without attribution, CC-by text can be used if attributed in the edit summary and edited at all (I think, but I'm not sure on this), and GFDL text can be used if you copy the edit history to the talk page. You have to be very careful about rewriting copyvio; it's best to remove it first and then rewrite it in your own words from memory, to make sure that there isn't any accidental copyright violation. If you could point me to an example, I'll be happy to check individual cases. --ais523 14:16, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Esoteric programming languages

Hello! I see from the world's biggest AfD you're another kind soul who wants to work on merging all the Esoteric programming languages articles down into either their parent language, or the List of esoteric programming languages. I'm looking to start work on this, mainly with respect to redesigning the List of esoteric programming languages article. Currently it is a rather raw list, with little additional information about the entries. Ironically, the table in the aforementioned AfD is in a better state! So I'm proposing that the esolang list be reformated to be in a similar style to that table, detailing the language name, languages it's based on, link to websites, references, and other notes (eg, author). You game with this? I'd better get learning how to do tables in mediawiki! LinaMishima 17:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I recommend linking out to the Esolangs wiki article for each language, and also note that new esolang articles should go there rather than on wikipedia. IMO, author, websites and refs can live on the Esolangs wiki. I'm not sure that leaves much of a table. (The Esolangs wiki has their own list.) --IanOsgood 18:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Following that line of reasoning, to be honest, there's no point in the list if it's only going to be links out to an external website. I see no compelling reason to require that an external website be visited for basic information on these languages (ie, enough for a brief overview of the concept, as a good stub requires), nor is it policy to require as such (especially since we cannot guarentee the contents of the website) Indeed, references have to be present within any such list, thanks to WP:VERIFY. Given that the esolang wiki seems to be fairly supported, however, it probably should be linked accross to and probably will have more information than we can provide. Authors themselves I would not personally include, except as additional notes for those with particularly notable authors. Most significant languages become a group development, anyhow. LinaMishima 21:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summary

When editing an article on Wikipedia there is a small field labeled "Edit summary" under the main edit-box. It looks like this:

Edit summary text box

The text written here will appear on the Recent changes page, in the page revision history, on the diff page, and in the watchlists of users who are watching that article. See m:Help:Edit summary for full information on this feature.

Filling in the edit summary field greatly helps your fellow contributors in understanding what you changed, so please always fill in the edit summary field, especially for big edits or when you are making subtle but important changes, like changing dates or numbers. Thank you. BlueValour 02:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect policy

Noting Wikipedia's redirect policy for future reference. I will no longer:

  • try to delete misspelled redirects
  • replace redirects with links to the direct article

--IanOsgood 16:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hey there

Hi Ian, nice to see you on here. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 00:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi! It has been more civilized here than on C2 recently. (BTW, it was me who added the trivia to the Nutty Buddy page.) --IanOsgood 00:17, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rcw86.jpg

Hi, nice picture of RCW 86. But I think it might be even better to use the version without the zoomed-in part on the side, because the zoom just looks confusing when the picture gets shrunk to 250 pixels. (The version without the zoom is linked from this page: More Images of RCW 86.) -- 128.227.82.149 04:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Monad (symbol)

Hi, I read your Monad (symbol) article, and I wondered, this is a symbol among whom? Corvus cornix 19:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Still in the process of filling it in, but it is one of the Pythagorean symbols. --IanOsgood 19:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Ah, ok, thanks. Corvus cornix 19:46, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bughouse chess

Excellent job writing the bughouse support for FICS :). I have nominated the article for A-class. Could you have a look at it and comment on Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Review? Best wishes, Voorlandt 08:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] KGS link

Hi, I noticed you undid my replacement of an external link to the KGS website with an internal link to the Wikipedia article on KGS. I would really urge you to reconsider. First, standard practice on Wikipedia is to favor internal links to the article about a site rather than the site itself. For example Web_portal links to MSN not to MSN. Second, the large number of links on that page to KGS raises potential SPAM issues. Anyway, I thought I would raise my concerns here first, rather than just blindly reverting. --Selket Talk 16:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

That isn't a link to KGS. It is a link to a page external to KGS about the computer tournaments which happen to take place on KGS. Replacing the link with an internal link would lose information. If you really find this confusing, perhaps rename the link instead, or change the link to a footnote. --IanOsgood 18:43, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dude you Rock

Thanks for merging the two Eco-marathon articles ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by LPFixIt (talk • contribs) 02:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --IanOsgood 01:53, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

Thanks for the pointers on UNIX, I didn't realize The Open Group was enforcing the copyright - in fact, I thought that when Bell Labs didn't defend the term and Berkeley created their flavor of UNIX, that later on a court decided that UNIX no longer had protection? I'll read up on the handy link you left. I just get irked seeing Unix because I have a first ed. Kernighan/Pike The UNIX Programming Environment book and they were clear from the get-go that it was UNIX, not Unix, and as we both know, UNIX is case-sensitive.  ;) So I'm surprised that The Open Group is claiming copyright, esp. since Novell did lose all the trademarks for UNIX and Linux even though they won all the "stolen code" cases.

So, Portlander too, huh? What's TOVA do? I'll try to look you up - I'm contracting short-term jobs right now but looking for a long-term job. Cool to see someone into esoteric languages, I used CLU and did my Masters thesis project in ML, which has no variables. Will check out those links too. I haven't programmed Forth since college but cool to see it's still alive, but I do also agree with you that almost all programming languages really are just college/grad school projects and/or vanity projects, not real languages meant to be used to solve real world problems. That's why I like Java and what I've read about (since I have used) C#. Cheers, Wink

P.S. Your Forth example dies because it's not one of the languages supported by the "source" tag, so you might want to switch to the "code" tag for it, because it just shows up on your talk page as an error.

WinkJunior 19:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OLPC split

You're welcome, and thank you for cleaning up after me. I wasn't sure whether "$100 dollar laptop" should go to the XO-1 or to the OLPC org. For now it makes sense to point them to the laptop. The other thing I was unsure about was the inter-language links. I removed all the language links that were titled "XO-1" or something to that effect, but some of them I couldn't tell which article they are equivalent to (they might even be equivalent to both) so I left most of them in. --TexasDex 23:13, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Barnard's Star

Hello,

would you mind precising what the copyright is on the picture and maybe remove the missing info tag. Thanks in advance. Poppy 06:10, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The Barnard's Star image is Public Domain by the author (confirmed by email and on source web page). I am waiting for User:Maxim to undelete the images so I can correct the copyrights. --IanOsgood 07:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aptera's not a microcar?

Could you provide justification for your assertion that the Aptera isn't really a microcar?

FTA:

A microcar is an extremely small automobile. Various definitions are used, including "less than 3 metres in length" and "less than 85 cubic feet/2400 litres interior volume". Typically, microcars seat only the driver and a single passenger, and many have only three wheels. Microcars are usually designed and produced for economic purposes when materials and heavy equipment are scarce or fuel is scarce and expensive.

Seems like Aptera applies, and defining it as a microcar certainly doesn't preclude it having three wheels. Additionally, three-wheeled doesn't really describe the class of the vehicle. How about settling on "Three wheeled Microcar"? EdgeOfEpsilon (talk) 17:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Blowing the Bassoon Bubo Blues

Hi. I restored the mention of the Neo Bubonic Bassoon Quartet to Bassoon, even if only because that unbelievable but true group name has many mentions. I don't know if you'd want to take issue with the statement "one of the more notable groups.", but then I wouldn't dare to guess how many notable bassoon quartet groups there are... Now if you'd added an edit summary that indicated why you deleted the mention, I'd know in what direction to go, uh, none barred.... :-) Shenme (talk) 04:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this deserves a mention for several reasons:
  1. No bassoon quartet gets enough publicity to be notable, and I doubt any particular one is substantially more popular than any other.
  2. That reference is a red link. Removing it improves the quality of the article.
  3. I have a direct counter-example from Google: 197 results for "Neo Bubonic" versus 5,630 results for "Caliban Quartet". And that is only the first bassoon quartet that sprung to mind.
Hope that is a better explanation. (My dad goes to double-reed conventions). --IanOsgood (talk) 05:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Definitely a good explanation, and I wouldn't know how to fit all that into a tiny comment, but maybe "not as notable as others" or some such. An edit comment relieves the anxious and reassures the critical? (I'm the anxious one :-) Shenme (talk) 03:13, 21 February 2008 (UTC)