User talk:Lunokhod

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[edit] welcome

I'm still a relative newcomer here myself but I was happy to see your email on the Lunar listserve this afternoon. I too have been dismayed at the state of the Lunar information here. I hope your call for help brings a few more lunatics out of the woodwork to help clean this stuff up. IntrplnetSarah 20:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC) (aka Sarah Noble)

[edit] a bit too enthusiast?

"Lunokhod": who are you to assign quality and importance ratings to articles? You assign "start-class" to many articles that have been developed for a long time and are stable and mature; also I did not see any references to a proper review or the criteria that led you to such a verdict: so I find it hard to take these classifications seriously. I believe essentially these are just your own personal, and not informed consensus, opinions. Nonetheless you boldly do put such official-looking assessments on the pages, possibly confusing or misleading readers. Tom Peters 12:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tom - I was just tagging all of the articles that fall under the newly created domain of WikiProject Moon, and some of these could be in error. If you join the project, feel free to change these assessments. Before doing so though, have a look at the list of assessed articles, as the grading is indeed relative. As for the "importance", it is important to realize that this is only a relative internal scale within the WikiProject. A low importance under "Moon" could be a high importance under "space exploration." Also, for the class, stability was not a criteria in assigning preliminary values. When looking at the page I asked myself "Is the length and detail of discussion of the article appropriate for the topic?" and "How much work needs to bring this to being a relatively complete page that would appear in a printed version of an encyclopedia." Sorry if I offended anyone here. Please sign up with the Moon WikiProject! Lunokhod 12:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
One more thing, without going through the good article nomination process, the highest class that can be assigned in "B". Lunokhod 13:08, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
TP: OK, understood: but then I like to remark that you shouldn't assess the article - even if only for your project - without writing down what's good and bad about it. Also on the "printed encyclopedia" criterium: one thing that strikes me seeing Wikipedia develop is, that compared to a printed encyclopedia it has much more generous size restraints. So all kinds of digressions are possible, and sub-topics are spawning all the time (and sometimes merging); because of the hyperlinks the cross-references work much easier than in a printed version. Also I've found Wikipedia a convenient place to collect and store information that is hard to find in decent quality elsewhere online. e.g. Computus, New moon, Full moon cycle.
After some reflection, I think I will not join your project:
  • I don't have that much free time to keep up with the activity that you have been displaying
  • Your focus seems to be on selenophysics; mine is on ephemerides, history, and calendrics.
One more comment: if I read your project page well, you say you want to make the articles useful even to post-graduate specialists. That is a very tiny group, and not the audience for a general encyclopedia. For example, I did get complaints that my writings are too technical, and personally I find most mathematics articles too high-level. I find it OK for specialists to use Wikipedia to explain their arcane science to a wider audience (see e.g. Full moon cycle). Tom Peters 14:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
In any case, feel free to leave comments on the project banner regarding the class and importance criteria. These are collected automatically by a bot every day. The importance class is something that Wikipedia definitely needs to explain better before they go to print with version 1.0. Perhaps there is a project related to celestial mechanics, or perhaps astronomy itself that might be useful for improving orbital mechanics related topics. I'll be checking back on these pages in a week or so and will try to leave more detailed comments. Lunokhod 15:59, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MoonStructure.jpg

Can you send me the source of this picture? PSD or whatever.

I'd like to:

  • create GIF or PNG instead of JPEG
  • translate into Russian.

my mail is: eip at mail dot ru.

You can download it from wikipedia, either on Moon or at wikicommons! If you want an .eps file, I'll send it too you. There is no simple "source" for generating this. Lunokhod 09:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Exceptional Newcomer Award

The Exceptional Newcomer Award
I hereby present to you the Exceptional Newcomer Award. Lunokhod, you have shown exceptional enthusiasm, skill, and boldness, with your edits to the Moon-related articles, and setting up the Moon WikiProject. Well done! Mlm42 11:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article nomination of Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations

You recently nominated for Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations as a Good Article. I have looked at the article and don't feel that it meets the criteria for a good article at this time. I have explained my reasoning on the article's talk page. Thank you for your efforts and feel free to submit it again once the concerns have been addressed. Neil916 (Talk) 06:19, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mistaken talk page

Hi, any particular reason why you re-created Talk talk:Lunar phase after I had deleted Talk talk:lunar phase? Those pages shouldn't be there, the software thinks they are supposed to be articles if they don't start with the exact letter sequence "Talk:" I'd moved the comments on that first page to the proper Talk:Lunar phase, where they supposedly belong. -- Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

My mistake, I mistakenly put the merge banners on the talk page, and then a few minutes later the page I was editing disappeared. Its all in order now.Lunokhod 23:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can you please explain why you deleted the line and reference for the double planet section of "Definition of Planet"?

That was a perfectly good scholarly reference. Also, the newly revamped Double Planet article you linked to makes the same claim (only in more abstract terms) but is not referenced. I would appreciate a response on this; I plan to revert the change if no explanation is forthcoming.This article makes it perfectly clear that the Moon has a convex orbit around the Sun; it isn't simply a matter of relative gravitational pull. Serendipodous 13:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see the discussion at Orbit of the Moon and double planet for further discussion of this point. My main objections are the following
  1. If you were to instantly transfer the Earth-Moon system to the outer edges of the solar system, then the Moon's orbit would no longer be like that of the Earth, but would loop back upon itself like the Galilean satelites do (in a Sun centered non-rotating coordinate system, of course). Therefore this definition is not consistent. Two Earth-Moon systems at different radii from the Sun would be called two different things.
  2. If you were to "turn off" the gravity of the Sun (obviously you can't), then the Moon would continue to orbit the Earth with the same sidereal period. Asimov's "tug-of-war" analogy does not adequately describe the physics of the situation.
  3. "The journal of theoretics" (in my very humble opinion as a scientists who reads the literature concerning orbital dynamics and geophysics) is very "gray", and the article itself is not scholarly. There are more citations in a typical wikipedia entry than in this article.
  4. From reading the double planet page, it is clearly stated that Asimov's attempt at a definition is very poor, and that the scientific community does not use it because of its inherent flaws. I don't understand why you state otherwise.
I am not denying that the orbit of the Moon is everywhere convex; my objection is that this is a very poor way of defining what a double-planet system is. You are welcome to revert the changes, but then you will have to defend your changes on the talk page! Lunokhod 14:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Which you did not do :-/ Regardless, I still do not fully understand your point. Obviously, if the Earth-Moon system were to shift to the farthest reaches of the Solar system, the pull of the Sun's gravity would be weaker, and the Moon would fall under the gravitational influence of the Earth, but that isn't the case. The Earth-Moon system is where it is, and for this reason the Moon has a convex orbit around the Sun. You could just as easily say that if the Moon were shifted between Earth and Venus, it would become a planet. Serendipodous 14:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
"if the Earth-Moon system were to shift to the farthest reaches of the Solar system, the pull of the Sun's gravity would be weaker, and the Moon would fall under the gravitational influence of the Earth" This is not true. The whole point is that the sidereal period of the Moon (i.e., its orbital period with respect to the "fixed" stars") does NOT depend on the Earth-Sun distance! Technically, this is because the Moon lies within the Earth's gravitational sphere of infuence (the Hill sphere); its orbit around the Earth has nothing to do with the Sun (ok, I'm neglecting some second order interactions). For the Earth-Moon system, convexity only depends on the Earth-Sun distance. Thus, (in my opinion) it would not be a good idea to use the "convexity" criterion for distinguishing between double-planet and primary-satelite systems.
The problem with the convexity argument is the following. Consider an Earth-Moon system identical to ours, but placed in the Kuiper belt. The moon around this twin Earth would make one orbit about its primary in exactly 27.2 days, just like our Moon does. However, when viewed from a non-rotating coordinate system centered at the Sun, this twin moon would sometimes appear to go backwards, or even make loops. Now, why should the Earth-Moon system be called a double planet system and not this one? They are exactly the same, with the exception that one system goes around the Sun faster than the other. To me, it is like saying "This is an orange because it is on the ground 1 meter from an orange tree, but another object that looks exactly like an orange at 2 meters distance from the tree is not." Lunokhod 15:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Titan has active volcanoes, a substantial atmosphere, weathering, even standing liquids on its surface. It is, for all intents and purposes, a terrestrial planet; indeed, from a purely physical standpoint, it probably has more claim to the title than Venus or Mercury. But we don't call it that; we call it a satellite because it happens to be in orbit around Saturn. It is classified by a fluke of its position, just as the Moon would be if it were called a double planet. Even the word "planet", by decree of the IAU, has an arbitrary element based on location. If we took any of the eight official planets out of their orbits and threw them into interstellar space, they wouldn't be planets anymore. The convexity argument has, if anything, more validity than the IAU's planet definition. Serendipodous 15:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I kind of agree with you, but this is completely unrelated to a definition based on orbital mechanics. Personally, I work with the Moon on a day to day basis, and I often refer to it as a planet based on it complex geologic history. As for the convexity argument (again) consider the following: If we were to replace the Moon of Earth with a body the size of Phobos, its orbit would be everywhere convex as well. Would you call this Earth-Phobos system a double planet? To be absurd, you could replace Phobos with a peanut: It would still have the exact same orbital period as our Moon, and the peanut's orbit would be convex, when viewed from a non-rotating reference system centered at the Sun. There is good reason that the scientific community does not to use Asimov's definition, even though many planetary scientists are fans of his work. Lunokhod 15:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Neither a peanut nor Phobos would be a planet, because, according to the official definition, a planet has to possess hydrostatic equilibrium. The Moon possesses hydrostatic equilibrium, orbits the Sun and, if we count the Earth-Moon system as a double planet, is gravitationally dominant in its neighborhood. It therefore meets all the criteria for planethood set out by the IAU. Serendipodous 17:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
You haven't responded to my questions. I would appreciate an answer within the next 24 hours, otherwise I will revert your deletion. Thank you. Serendipodous 23:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
As you tacitly acknowledged, if the Moon were the size of a peanut, and if the IAU did not define a planet as being in hyrdrostatic equilibrium, you would call the Earth-peanut system a double planet. This is a totally ad-hoc definition, because if I made the peanut out of mercury (a metal that is molten at the average temperature of the Moon) it would then meet your definition of a double planet. You are free to add what you want to the text. I am also free to add an explanation as to why your definition makes no sense. You should realize that a wikipedia encylopedia article should reflect the consensus and divergences within the scientific community, and your definition has (as far as I know) never been advocated by a scientist that is knowledgable in this domain. Lunokhod 01:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Your objection has more to do with the IAU's definition of planet than with any of the issues at stake here. If you wish to discuss that issue, it is raised (at least as regards rock vs. ice) in the "Hydrostatic equilibrium" section as one of the problems with the definition as it stands. I cannot find anything on Google Scholar other than that citation you deleted that directly references the issue, although there are many scholarly papers that refer to the Earth-Moon system as a double planet. On that basis I will have to concede the argument, unless I can locate a source that you will accept. However, I don't know why the Moon's orbit around the Sun cannot be mentioned at all, even if it is only to refute the argument. I would accept a refutation of the argument if it meant at least discussing the Moon's solar orbit. Serendipodous 01:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fumocy page proposed for deletion

The page on the Full moon cycle has been proposed for deletion. You recently added it to your WikiProject Moon, so you may wish to express an opinion whether it should stay or not. Tom Peters 15:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA nominee comment

I took a look at Venus and Mercury. Confirmed my main point that criteria 1a and 1b are where the Moon article needs work: The featured articles have compelling prose, jargon explained, readily accessible to a non-specialist audience. The Venus article in particular has very nice writing, it just flows effortlessly, it doesn't put you to sleep or make your eyes cross. The introduction is particularly excellent, providing a nice basic overview. While still not super accessible to the third grader (!), at least the average parent can figure it out without needing a degree in physics! If we figure Wikipedia is more Britannica than World Book (which actually writes different articles to different reading levels based on what grades usually study a given subject, BTW), it works. In short, the biggest difference between Moon and the featured articles is in style and readability, though of the sections in Moon still need rearranging to flow more logically, even if you keep the "fun" stuff at the end the way the other articles do...hope this helps. Good luck! Montanabw 04:32, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

<> Don't sweat it, I'll hang in there for a couple of weeks. Will change the tag to bump the date forward some. Montanabw 19:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No Original Research at the Village Pump

Lunokhod: regarding our controversy on the NOR policy: I submitted my case at the Village Pump. You probably want to respond. Tom Peters 14:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

You're disputing in good company. At least he has the class to give you a heads-up. Here's a quicklink. I'm interested in hearing your take on this given the logic I'd applied before seeing your claim to a PHD.

   I'd also suggested that out of respect for the holiday season, Tom Peters take his time in re-generating his derivations and tacking them into the talk or a subpage for inspection. They've been in place for a long while, so there is no hurry, as if it were new content under fire.

   I'd prefer you both work on the English around the math in the iterim. It needs dumbed down so a 7th-8th grader can at least get the gist. Kudos on jumping in with both feet on the Moon Project, that's ballsy, given the learning curve and your newish status. If you have a question on generalities, etc., I'm on the WP:Wc, and glad to lend an assist. Best regards, // FrankB 01:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a courtesy heads up. Don't think this is going anywhere by itself. I added some thoughts on furthering the debate on the issue. // FrankB 16:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I have just given my reply here :) Count Iblis 23:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reply: better reference for lunar ephemerides

Lunokhod: thanx for the reference suggestion on my talk page. I do have all Meeus's Morsels books: they provide various curiosa in celestial dynamics, but little on exactly how they were computed; in any case no new parameters or formulae. I asked Meeus but he replied that at his age (he is in his 70's) he does not consider updating his "Astronomical Algorithms". On our controversy on Original Research: I remain skeptical that any of this could be published in a common journal, especially since much of the stuff has been available in Wikipedia for some time. However, maybe the Academia Wikia is a proper place for digests of newer literature. I started a broad journal here. Would you spend time to referee such publications? Tom Peters 01:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Eclipse cycle

That eclipse cycle page is bizarre. People simply do not seem to understand that jargon makes articles inpenetrable. Have you considered asking for help from mediators? Dr. Submillimeter 20:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that I am just going to try to edit the pages for clarity in a week or two after I do a little reading on this subject. My first priority is to clean up Saros cycle, as this is the cylcle that most poeple know about. Eclipse cycle is so esotric that I doubt anyone ever looks at it. I was hoping that I could get the main author interested in improving these pages, but as you noted, he seems to think that they are already cystal clear. If every edit I make is contested, then more drastic measures might be needed. Lunokhod 11:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moon and solar system footers

Hi. Would it be possible to make these footers collapse to a single line, as opposed to two lines? Also, is there a way to set the default as to whether the footer is initially open or collapsed? For the Moon footer, under most situations, think that it would be best to have this by default open.Lunokhod 00:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The initial state of collapsing (when using class="collapsible") is controlled by an additional class (autocollapse & collapsed) if no additional classes are given the navbox remains open. Possibly the bet overview on the entire collapsing is the bottom table at {{Navigational templates}}. To address you first point, I hope to fix the line break/resizing of the header when [hide] in the near future, for now I've provided a fix for most of the solar system template I've touched. --Dispenser 04:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for taking care of the navigation footers. One small comment: it might be more aesthetically pleasing if the "hide" link were a smaller font size. Thanks again... Lunokhod 19:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
We cannot change this as the [hide] link is added in via JavaScript. Although, NavFrames current have their font-size style set as smaller. --Dispenser 22:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] proposed merge

well, my edit summary says it all really. Do you tend to agree or disagree? If you disagree, you can just remove the template, I don't feel strongly about it. If you agree, we can just, like, do it :) dab (𒁳) 13:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lunar crater stubs

Yes, I think I should be able to take care of that: specifically, I can run through the Cat:moon stubs and find everything tagged with both {{moon-stub}} and {{crater-stub}} and replace it with {{moon-crater-stub}}. I don't know how many that'll get though: there's probably many tagged with one or the other, that ought to have had both, biut didn't. Alai 23:40, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Basin Groups AfD

I have found two reputable authorities for the Basin Groups Stage as a subdivision of the Pre-Nectarian. Take a look at the GeoWhen database and Harland, Walter Brian , et al. (1989) A Geologic Time Scale 1989 Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, Fig. 1.7 on page 10, available via Google books, which shows both Basin Groups and Cryptic. Unfortunately the textual discussion is not available as part of the Google offering. I do realize that at present these subdivisions remain more theoretical than real, as many lunar deposits are still just lumped together as Pre-Imbrian age materials, which may account for the absence of mention of Basin Groups in Wilhelms' book and Martel's article. --Bejnar 01:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Subdivision of the Hadean

I did not graft lunar timescale onto the Earth. I am only reporting what has happened in the literature. We do not do original research here. If you don't like the fact that some people in the field of geology have decided that the early histories of the Moon and the Earth are close enough to each other that the same time scale is appropriate, take it up with them in the appropriate forum, which is not Wikipedia. The fact that the Devonian was first established in England, did not stop geologists from using it in the New World. As editors we don't dictate what goes into science, we report what scientists say, in their publications. Please do not remove properly cited reliable information just because "This is really bizarre." and you think that it isn't the way things should be done. Do try to get a hold of a copy of Harland, Walter Brian , et al. (1989) A Geologic Time Scale 1989 and read what he has to say in the text portion. It is not selenologists who are using these subdivisions, it is geologists, probably mostly cosmologists, so it is not surprising that these subdivisions are not mentioned in Wilhelms' book and Martel's article about the Moon. --Bejnar 18:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Actually by "cosmologist" I was thinking more about people running the gamut from

George Gamov to Immanuel Velikovsky. Nothing against geochemists, especially John P. Marble.(c.1900-1955). "were at least trained in terrestrial geology before specializing in planetary geology. (The converse is generally not true.)" I agree, Armstrong had not even landed on the moon when I took most of my geology and mineralogy coursework. I did take Strat. & Sed. afterwards. --Bejnar 23:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

I just started using popups, for my reverts or edits using them, should i add in that i used them, or does it happen automatically?DUBJAY04 23:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your GA nomination of Transient lunar phenomenon

The article Transient lunar phenomenon you nominated as a good article has passed , see Talk:Transient lunar phenomenon for eventual comments about the article. Good luck in future nominations.--JEF 03:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Allais effect

Hi, I noticed your recent interest in this article. If you have a chance to look it over more carefully, please see my comments in Talk:Allais effect. In short, the article is misleading in its present state and needs rewriting. More than that, unfortunately, it seems to need constant watching to prevent it from being repeatedly skewed by pseudoscience fans. —Steven G. Johnson 01:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Acting in good faith?

I'd like to ask you to honor your agreement to "withdraw your AfD nomination" on presnetation of "reputable references showing that this topic meets wikipedia's notability criteria". I've done my part, let's see whether you are acting in good faith. Gravitor 20:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, I am asking you to honor your word. This may seem a strange concept to you, but for many of us, when we agree to something, we feel an obligation to do it. Since you confess to being a US govt shill on this subject, I suppose I should not have expected this level of honest dealing. Gravitor 17:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conflict of interest

I believe you are in violation of Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guidelines in your crusade against factual information about the US government Moon program. You are, by your own admission, an employee of the US govt Moon program. Please respond with the steps you are willing to voluntarily take to rectify this, including following through with your previous assurances, or I will be forced to make a formal complaint. In particular, these guidelines call on users to

1. avoid editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with,
2. avoid participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors; Gravitor 17:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hi

Hi Mr/ Miss Lunokhod,

I am aware that you are an expert in planetary science, recommended by Dr. Submillimeter. As a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Abandoned Articles, i was wondering if you would possibly be interested in the article: Caves of Mars Project. This article is currently tagged as Articles which need to be adopted. This is a collaborative effort to improve visitation to abandoned articles. Thanks! Luffy487 12:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gravitor/Carfiend

I share your concerns that they might still be the same guy even though the admin concluded that they weren't. The fact is that their approach to this subject makes them nearly indistinguishable from each other. But if he/they get too belligerent (again, like last summer) we can "take them to court", as it were. I have pretty much shyed away from the "independent evidence" page, because (as I stated there, and which Gravitor seemed not even to notice), I don't trust that character's motives. So I'm waiting to see what he comes up with. Then we'll see if Carfiend comes in and says, "See, there's no real evidence", as I suspect Gravitor's agenda is. What a hassle. Just imagine what the Theory of Evolution page must be like. Wahkeenah 13:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I'll tell you what I told User:Numskll: That I think we should "boycott" the page for awhile, not engage those guys in discussion, let them do what they want with the page, and see if they either go away or if they try to accelerate the engagement. Much as that runs counter to our instincts, it's what these Siamese-twin users are counting on, and it enables them to play their game. It's just like it was last summer with these guys - endless arguments over the obvious. There was an RFC on Carfiend, who was the more aggressive of the two at that time, but it died because they both disappeared in mid-September, maybe waiting for the heat to cool off. Typically they become fixated on one issue. Their current game is to pretend this Independent Evidence page has nothing to do with the hoax - a justifiable argument, if we didn't already know (1) where it originated, on the hoax page and (2) what their point of view on the subject is. Wahkeenah 10:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
    • A new RFC might be worth pursuing. I wonder if it's against the rules to specify two users in the same RFC? Or to re-open the old one about Carfiend at the same time as pursuing a new one against Gravitor? The concern I have is that I'm not yet certain he's taken it to last summer's level, although he's approaching it. I wonder if it would be worthwhile to just take the page off our watch lists for about a month and then come back see if (1) he's done any more work on it and (2) whether the result is usable or if it's just a cynical ploy. Wahkeenah 11:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
      • I see, an RFC on content rather than a user. That would be a good step. I'm thinking it's actually called a request for mediation, but I'm not totally sure, as I don't do much of that kind of activity. I think that User:Numskll had done the RFC on Carfiend last summer, and that User:Bubba73 had done a request for mediation on the ridiculous question of what the word "rendezvous" means. The former died due to the (temporary) exit of Carfiend as an editor, and the latter died when Bubba73 found positive proof that the Russians had willfully deceived the public in the way they used that term. Come to think of it, that's when Carfiend left, and Gravitor soon followed. Carfiend had been shown up, and the game wasn't fun any more. Anyway, you could talk to those guys for advice about how to do this, or you could find an admin, if the process is unclear from the documentation. Wahkeenah 11:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3RR warning on Independent evidence for Apollo Moon landings

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Independent evidence for Apollo Moon landings. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please read WP:3RR and use the talk page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gravitor (talk • contribs)

This is from User:Gravitor. If you count you will see that there are only two reverts. Lunokhod 17:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
He's copycatting, as usual. He got a similar warning, so he's spreading the joy. Wahkeenah 18:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] query to query

Would there be any reason for an "independent evidence" article if hoax accusations didn't exist? It seems to be that one is the answer to the other, and I see no need for two articles about such silly accusations when one would do. - Nunh-huh 20:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Luna

Hi Lunokhod! Of course the name of the Moon is Luna. Like we live on Tellus. We live on Earth most of us also, but some live on water. Rursus 20:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unrelated?

with the greatest respect Khabibullo Ismailovich Abdusamatov, however wrong and idiotic, is now notable and really should be linked, if only to avoid edit warring with hordes of MGW advocates. By the way, great username, kind regards sbandrews 19:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

ok, i didn't know that - I will bear it in mind for future edits - I am going to put Khabibullo Ismailovich Abdusamatov back for now until someone writes about him in the article(I dont want to!). sbandrews 20:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Orbits

Thanks for your additions to to orbits template. — Swpb talk contribs 00:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Personal attacks

Gravitor, you have been making a series of personal attacks (WP:NPA) and uncivil comments (WP:Civility) that are in violation of wikipedia policy. I am going to ask kindly, once again, that you refrain from doing so.

Look, your insistence on double standards makes strains my politeness sometimes. I'm sorry if you find me rude sometimes, but let me explain:
As examples,
  1. Saying that my "dishonesty is tiresome", as you did me on the "indedependent eveidence" page, is not only uncivil and a personal attack, but also is a violation of assuming good faith (WP:AGF).
You dishonesty is tiresome. Unfortunately, you have shown yourself not to be trustworthy.
  1. Calling me "untrustworthy" violates WP:AGF.
I assume good faith where there is any doubt at all. You do not follow through on what you say.
  1. Telling me that I am on a POV crusade or Jihad is not only attack, but culturally insulting.
You have made it clear that if you don't get your way, you will try again to delete the page. To me that is a religiously driven, destructive campaign. Suggest a better word if you want.
  1. Telling numskll to "Eat your own dog food" is a personal attack and unbecoming of an editor of an encyclopedia article.
I was quoting his comment to me.
  1. Telling numskll to "Please explain you justification for the mess you are making" is in the least, not very diplomatic, and at worst uncivil and a personal attack.
I wanted him to explain the mess he was making, rather than just revert war. I was actually being pretty restrained.
  1. Accusing others of being sock-puppet is against wikipedia's civility policy, among others.
I hope you will make the same comments to the users who regularly accuse me of being a sock puppet. Oh, wait. Of course you won't.
  1. Accusing my edits of being "a slurry of rubbish" is a personal attack.
It's not. The edits were nonsense.
  1. Your comment "Your continued attempts to sabotage this page are not appreciated" is a personal attack, especially after I have explained to you why I am not trying to "sabotage" the article, but am trying to help.
You admit you are trying to remove it.
  1. Calling a well-intentioned newcomer to the debate as spouting "nonsense" is uncivil.
  2. Accusing someone of "You admit to having an agenda to destroy this article based on your personal differences with some editors." is uncivil, especially when they claim does not appear to be true.
It's not uncivil if they admit to having an agenda to destroy the article, and admit that it is based on personal differences with other editors.
  1. Your statement "So butt out then If you're not interested in helping to build the encyclopedia, stop sowing disinformation and let others get on with it." is not civil.
It's perfectly civil. The user had just explained that they had no interest in researching on that page. Gravitor 16:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  1. Telling Wahkeenah "you can't constantly spout rubbish that everyone knows is not true and expect people to believe you" is a personal attack and not civil.
It's a statement of fact.
  1. Telling Wahkeenah "It looks like Wikipedia doesn't work the way you're used to at NASA - you can't just have someone 'disappeared' because they don't agree with your POV here." is uncivil, and potentially libelous.
No, it's not.

Your editing behavior is also very disruptive (WP:DE).

  1. Unilateral reverts to a non-consensus (or non-majority) version of the "Independent evidence" article is disruptive. You are reverting not only a single edit, but multiple edits at once. This hinders the rest of the community trying to improve this artile.
  2. Reverting with edit summaries such as "see talk page", when you refuse to discuss your edits on the talk page is disruptive. I have been asking you for specific examples of why my edits are "rubish", and you have yet to respond (excluding personal attacks, uncivil responses, and vague untrue statements).
  3. Renaming the page two times while the topic was being considered for a merge is disruptive.
  4. Your 3RR violations are disruptive.
  5. Placing a 3RR violation banner on my talk page (when I have reverted the article twice, both of which were explained on the talk page) certaintly violates some policy, and is an attempt to stymie my contributions to this article.

I think you get the point. I understand that this debate has become a bit heated, and that other users could perhaps be accused of making a personal attack from time to time, but you are displaying the worst behaviour of anyone that I have interacted with on Wikipedia since joining the community. I really would prefer not to take administrative action because (1) it is a waste of my time, and (2) should not be necessary considering that we are both adults (I am assuming that if you actually played the game gravitor, that you are far from being an adolescent teen). I am asking once again that you please try to remain calm when participating in debates and attempt to be civil. Lunokhod 17:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

He's pretty much gone wild and stoped using the talk page for anything but WP:POINT and WP:NPA violations. Here he goes again: consider working to improve the encyclopedia, rather than just trolling others who are trying to write factual articles. Numskll 13:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Look, I'm not going to go any further with responding to this abuse. Please iuse the article talk page to discuss this. Gravitor 16:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Even with his block still going, Gravitor can still edit his user talk page, which he did, as you saw, deleting the complaints about personal attacks and calling it "trolling"... which is exactly the same behavior and wording that Carfiend used last summer when he got complaints on his talk page. Wahkeenah 20:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please stop trolling my talk page.

Gravitor 09:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I have simply left a complaint on your talk page, which you have deleted and failed to respond to. Lunokhod 09:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] space wikiprojects

thanks for your note on my talk page; this is an issue i have been hoping to address for some time.. your work is much appreciated! :) Mlm42 10:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your note

Hi Lunokhod, I am going to be fairly busy IRL in the next couple of days, and will not be able to invest the needed time to do a good job on the merge closing. Thanks for your understanding, Crum375 14:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, and thanks very much for the note you left on my talk page. I'm honored. I took a look at the discussion concerning "Proposed merge of Independent evidence for Apollo Moon landings into Apollo Moon Landing Hoax Accusations" and, woah man, that's quite a discussion! It'll take a little while to sift through before I could make an intelligent comment. But, thanks again! Petersoncello 15:43, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging of the quake article

All of the articles on quakes, besides of course earthquake were stubs. I've merged them to the main quake articles, where they can grow and then when they get long enough, they can be separate articles. Voortle 13:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re: This discussion my talk

Sorry for the yelling. Please, next time inform me on my talk page if you have a comment on my behavior. I think that we would both agree that would be a more appropriate strategy. Lunokhod 19:55, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but that's unnecessary to me. I was pushing civility to make all of you take stock and perspective. I just thought a blunt word might be helpful given the overall dynamics. I'd put in the time to read much of that, so figured it might help.
I'd considered that (your talk only), but the others needed to hear that too. Wasn't really meaning to come down on you in particular 'too hard' so much as to make the points generally, and you do seem embroiled in controversies every time I run across you -- mostly with a fairly rigid stance behind those positions... so relax a little, and live and let live. That's probably an unfair perception, but while I'm indeed guarded on that, as I teach my teens, "Perceptions are other people's reality, and all they have to go bye when making judgment calls." At the very least, forgive it if offensive, as my intentions were good. By all means, use the Fact tagging.
As someone who does their bit to spread oil on troubled waters, this sort of thing is endemic in Wikipedia when people have strong beliefs or take the guidelines too rigidly... which ignores the disclaimer each and everyone of the tags carries that editorial latitude is also part of the processes and society. Be well, sincere best wishes. Just remember your personal bottom line matters a whole lot more than whatever happens in this environment where everything is subject to change--being edited unmercifully is the bottom line after all. Until that changes, things will always be a little contentious if you let them drift that way. Just take your best shot, and hope some of what you do sticks. Best regards // FrankB 20:22, 3 March 2007 (UTC) P.S. Edit conflict on your Part II. Bide a minute while I catch up.
Also, could you let me know what behavior your found to be confrontational? I will agree that if you read in isolation the section that you posted to, that I could be considered to be a potential jerk. But if you were to read the rest of the talk page, I don't see any examples of personal attacks, tendentious editing, trolling, and so on. As for wikilayering, you should realize that there is a merge proposal being considered, and the supermajority believe that this topic is in violation of wikipedia policy; the minority is wikilayering the meaning of "consensus", and I know of no other way to deal with this than by citing wikipedia policy. Thanks again for the heads up. Just to let you know, I am in charge of the WikiMoon project and have been editing over 200 diffferent articles. It is somewhat unsettling to have to deal with single purpose accounts, such as Gravitor's. Lunokhod 20:18, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't care to go into particulars, as I should be outside taking advantage of the warm spell for a carpentry project... I've got 50 2X4's awaiting me in my van, and am trying to finish a couple of VPP posts of my own. Suffice it to say that the comments were as much directed at the others there as yourself, and I know you to be pretty meticulous over content and references from that VPP discussion on WP:OR and moon cycles, and what-not back in December. But do bear in mind the power of the fact tags... and the weakness of always resorting to external authority to make your points. "A man convinced against his will is unconvinced still", as Franklin says. So legalisms are a weak reed in my way of thinking. Better to appeal to common sense, and if there is dispute over fact and fancy, the fact tags should be hung for a time (A good month-- patience is very necessary in this society!) and when you edit out any not backed up, the grain remains, and the chaff goes in the midden, just as it's always been in mankinds affairs. Set up a sub-page of to do's or desk, and just cycle back through things rather than pushing for quick and easy resolutions when things get into oppositional situtations. I may counter argue something once if necessary to clarify a matter, and rarely do so more than that. Maybe one time out of a hundred, a second rejoiner/rebuttal. Both second and third posts, if any, I try to present a compromise or two I can accept, and what I most oppose, and let the crowd decide on that. Then just live with the outcome. The existence of any article here has legitimacy in my view, as WP:NOTE is the newest and weakest patch in a mess of many patches, and I frankly disagree with much of it. The motivation is a band-aid on a self-inflicted stabbing--the wikipedia open editing policy, and failure to lock articles when they are sufficiently matured. Until we stop sticking the knife in ourselves, things will continue to slide into a so-so article quality. What's really needed is a sit down strike by the long experience and most mature admins to get the foundation board members still with idealistic stars in their eyes crowd to revise policy. But that's my opinion, hardly holy writ! Cheers! // FrankB 20:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conversion templates

Hi, Lunokhod! Thank you kindly for your feedback. On documentation (mi|num vs. milnum), adding spaces on both sides of the pipe character should probably minimize the confusion→{{km to mi | num=...}}. I'll go through the documentation and fix it.

I also have no problem with creating additional templates (such as km to AU, kps to mph, etc.). Just let me know which are the priority and which ones exactly you need. I figured that units of length, area, and temperature were a no-brainer, so I made those first, but I have no clue as to what else people might want and/or use regularly.

Finally, regarding people pre-formatting the numbers, I am afraid this is not something that can be addressed. You see, the set of functions available for template creation is extremely limited; it is certainly not even close to what's available in a full-fledged programming language. We can only hope that when someone passes a pre-formatted number as a template parameter, s/he would double-check the result, see that it generates an error, make the corrections accordingly (and never pass pre-formatted numbers to a template parameter again :)). In any case, it is probably a point worth including into documentation, so I will do that as well.

Let me know if you have any further concerns and/or suggestions, please. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry, I was sort of away

Hi, sorry I didn't respond to your message. I was on something of an informal wikibreak, as I had started back at uni for the year. I'm not sure I really want to wade into the debate, since it could take an afternoon of reading to get to the bottom of it. And now the article is protected. Evil Monkey - Hello 03:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lunarpedia

Greetings, you might be interested in Lunarpedia a public resource of the Moon society. Charles 01:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:MoonStructure.jpg

Just to let you know, the image you uploaded, Image:MoonStructure.jpg, has been submitted to the Graphic Lab for conversion to SVG. This request has been processed, and if you would like to comment on the new version, or offer feedback, the request can be seen here. -YK Times 18:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help report

Please add comments: Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Carfiend. I think that the evidence is pretty strong: they act in tandem, tag team, and have very similar editorial styles. --ScienceApologist 01:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I'm guessing we're on the same wavelength

Hi, I notice your desire to put imperial units of measurement in the Moon article, but yet you state you dislike them. I notice you state you have a Ph.D (in science presumably) and I myself am doing a Masters in astrophysics studying pulsars. Like you, I also like improving scientific wikipedia articles so the general public can get a grasp on some of the complex things we study.

We could argue forever the percentage of the population that use imperial units (be that native english speaking population vs world population vs english speaking or whatever) but I think that's not addressing the issue. My main issue is readability. When an article has lots of conversions in brackets it looks and reads just awful! And scientific articles tend to have lots of numbers. Also though I ask the question does it convey any useful information? For example (and this was actually done until I removed it) the sun's density was quoted as "1.409 x 103 kg/m3 (1.88 x 102 lb/US gallon)". This was just bizarre and totally useless. Endless sets of scientific numbers with miles, pounds, short-tons and fahrenheit sitting in brackets makes an awful mess. Is that what you think is really needed?

As I stated in Moon:Talk previously saying something like "the nearest star is 4.3 light years (4.07 x 1013 km) away" is so much better than "the nearest star is 4.3 light years (4.07 x 1013 km, 2.52 x 1013 miles) away". In fact I'd be supportive of leaving off the conversion to km as well - provided that light-year had been properly defined.

I'm asking to consider your goal of presenting scientific information in a way the user can understand. I'm really really sure that the percentage of the world's population that has no knowledge of a km and simply *must* have it in miles otherwise they'll leave the article would be insignificantly small. They would certainly be in the US only (and Burma and Liberia) and wikipedia is a worldwide tool. Not just a US tool.

We are scientists, we do everything in SI, have done for decades and life is so much easier for it.

My thoughts anyway.

Regards, Jim77742 03:48, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. The policy is that for scientific articles SI only is recommended. With consensus, imperial units can be removed. Keeping all astronomical bodies similar, consensus has been reached by many others to keep imperial units out of astronomical articles. As a major moon contributor you are part of that consensus. I would urge you to consider the usefulness of adding earth-moon distance in miles. I agree one or two conversions doesn't add too much clutter but that may open the floodgates for adding conversions everywhere. Why do you consider it important to have the earth-moon distance in miles? I'm trying, but I struggle to see its usefulness. (I'd much rather see a conversion to astronomical units in parenthesis than miles.)

Regards, Jim77742 23:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree that article should not be addressed to scientists - but what I don't understand is why you don't consider SI as suitable for the masses? As you know they are so much easier to use. Regards, Jim77742 22:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)