User talk:Macdonald-ross/Archive 12

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Rolling and wheels in the natural world

While I disagree with your deleting a major section of the article, I disagree much more strongly with the way you went about it. You made no effort to get comment on such a major content removal first. Now, I'm new to Simple, having mostly worked on the regular English Wikipedia, but this is not how things are done there.

Now, as to why I disagree with the change: As the many academic citations in that section attest, the questions of efficiency, traction, and obstacle avoidance have been major points of academic discussion when it comes to animal locomotion with wheels. Even if you fully accept the argument of the preceding section (that wheels can't evolve), a proper article cannot ignore the second major area of discussion on the topic. For some academics, the evolutionary and developmental arguments may not be convincing, but the biomechanical ones may be.

As to the complexity of the prose, I'll happily continue to work on simplifying it, and I hope others do so as well. Swpb (talk) 16:59, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Quality Transformer and Electronics

We are working to remove aspects of our page on Quality Transformer and Electronics that make it seem like an advertising piece. This was not our intention, but this is also our first endeavor at creating a Wikipedia page.

On the comments you left, you also mentioned that the article may be in copyright violation. As it was written by me without the use of outside resources, this is not true. We did use several photos that were stock and not copyrighted to the best of my knowledge. All product photos used to show examples what the different types of products look like were taken by myself or other staff at our company and belong to us.

We plan to put the changed page up again and I would appreciate any feedback or guidance you can give that would help us to create a viable historical page about this company. Although transformer manufacturing is of vital importance to virtually every electronic item and system in existence, it is almost ignored as an educational opportunity at most universities and there is little detailed information about the variety of transformers and their uses on Wikipedia. We want to contribute to the knowledge that is available on this site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.47.25.14 (talk • contribs) 11:17, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Here are some comments from me about this article.

• Be sure to show that the company is notable according to the Wikipedia definition of notability.
• There were too many pictures in the article. There should not be sections of the articles that have only pictures. You can put a few pictures in a gallery. If your pictures are in Wikimedia Commons, they can be in a category there and you can link to that category with the {{Commons category}} template.
• The fact that you use terms like "We plan" and "our page" indicate that you are associated with the company. Wikipedia discourages editors from writing about companies they are associated with because it can violate the neutral point of view policy. If you continue with this article, take extra care to keep a neutral point of view. If your main interest is in transformer manufacturing, you might want to write an article about that instead of about this specific company.

By the way, please sign posts on talk pages by putting four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your post. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:29, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Deleting pages

When you delete a page, check to see if it has associated pages that need to be deleted with it. It could be a talk page, a template doc page, or various kinds of subpages. I deleted the talk page for the Quality Transformer and Electronics article. Dont feel bad, though, I often forget to delete the talk pages! --Auntof6 (talk) 21:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Humerus

Humerus should include stuff about humerus fractures and the humerus in other creature, should it not? Just saying.

Tjanaka (talk) 22:52, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Sfinksen

Uh, it was created just once from one IP, AFAICS. Maybe an indef-sysop create protection is too much overkill. --Glaisher [talk] 09:52, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

On reflection, I agree. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:41, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

NSW Dept. of Ed. vandalism

Hi there Macdonald-ross, some poor teacher had a difficult class this afternoon. There was considerable vandalism from a range of IPs linked to the NSW D of E. From the look of it it seemed to be a group thing, probably computers in the same classroom, with each going look at the silly changes I have made etc. It is now passed the school finishing time, so blocking action won't be effective. I think if we see any more from that range in the next few days however, I think we should block them all for a week. The joy of being an admin. Good work on repairing and rewriting weasel.--Peterdownunder (talk) 06:41, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Quick deletion

Thanks for the suggestion. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 16:35, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Quick deletion

Thanks for the suggestion. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 16:35, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

PP

This article needs protection; I have undid two unconstructive edits by IP. From the history it is clear that the article is vulnerable to vandalism. Thanks. Jim Cartar (talk) 11:52, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Generally, that's not enough to protect on this wiki. I'll keep an eye on it because the topic is somewhat controversial. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:45, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Hmm. I understand. Can you please review this request. I'm frustrated by so many unconstructive edits and to revert them using undo. Thanks. Jim Cartar (talk) 13:58, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Can someone undelete Eli Lilly and Company page

I'd like to rework whatever complex terms are in this page, please. Whatever work this page needs, I'll rework it. Angela Maureen (talk) 15:04, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

IP blocks

I noticed that you did 1 month blocks on several IPs used by an LTA. As this LTA has been switching IPs very frequently, it's useless to do one month blocks. Moreover these IPs are dynamic IPs; if they are used by one person in one moment, it is very likely that the same IP will be used by another user the next moment. This time period varies sometimes hours, sometimes weeks. So just a 1 day block, if it is on a single IP, is usually enough to prevent abuse. I changed the blocks to 3 hour blocks. Hope you don't mind. I have also setup an abusefilter to prevent it. It has been working well so far. [1] Take a look at that, for instance, to see how frequent he switches IPs. --Glaisher [talk] 12:21, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I had vaguely heard of "dynamic IPs", but without any real appreciation of how they might affect us. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:38, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Please don't do indef blocks on IPs - Special:Contribs/92.29.199.14. --Glaisher [talk] 11:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I must remember that. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:00, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Request for Rollback

Hi there.

I have the rollback and reviewer flag down on the English Wikipedia. I have started to revert vandalism and have reverted about 20+ instances already. I am experienced in vandal fighting and would love to work with the Simple English Wikipedia with my skills. Thanks you for your consideration. A² 16:21, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Akifumi, the correct place to request permissions is at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions. When I turned you down there, I suggested that you come back in a month or so. It has been less than two weeks. You've done some good work, but there's no reason to be in a hurry for rollback. It shows bad faith that you try to bypass the system by asking individual admins to approve you. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:41, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Naming nebulae

I noticed that you are dropping the second capital in writing the names of nebulae, e.g. Crab nebula. What is your reasoning for this? (I am sorry if this has been discussed and I have missed it.) This practice goes against the IAU recommendation. --Thrasymedes (talk) 07:26, 26 June 2014

That is an internal IAU matter for their own publications. In general our titles should start with an upper case letter, and continue with lower case except for proper names. English wiki has been very chaotic, but in many areas is moving in the direction of lower case (though not yet in astronomy). In any case, we are not bound by English wiki. The one big exception is the use of upper case initials for titles of films, books, music &c.

The main reason for preferring lower case is legibility. experimental tests on reading speed and comprehension showed clearly that lower case text was more legible than upper case. Also, it is long-standing English tradition to limit upper case to unequivocally proper name, narrowly defined.

Moving on, I'm sure you know that I am one of the contributors who make full use of redirects on my new articles. In this way, no reader is disadvantaged by typing a title some other way. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:01, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

No, it is a formal recommendation in the "IAU For The Public" section.

The IAU formally recommends that the initial letters of the names of individual astronomical objects should be printed as capitals (see the IAU Style Manual, Trans. Int. Astron. Union, volume 20B, 1989; Chapter 8, page S30 – PDF file); e.g., Earth, Sun, Moon, etc. "The Earth's equator" and "Earth is a planet in the Solar System" are examples of correct spelling according to these rules.

We are not constrained by enWP or the IAU, but I think we need a clear reason if we are to deviate from their policies. There may be truth in lower case being slightly more legible—what papers have you read?—but I don't think this is a good enough reason to ditch the normal proper name capitalization in English. Solar System, Aston Martin, South Africa, Mount Everest, Abbey Road and Mile End are all capitalized. Just as "Road" is as much a part of the name as "Abbey", I see "Nebula" as as much a part of the name as "Crab". Not to capitalize "Nebula" is therefore not consistent with all the other proper names. If we are to uncapitalize "nebula", why not all the rest?

I think consistency is important and do not support this change of policy. --Thrasymedes (talk) 16:36, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Over Wikipedia as a whole we do not have a consistency, and so it is not a change in policy. But in astronomy English wiki does seem to be consistent, and it may be that the IAU style manual is one of the reasons. In biology there is no standard at all for common names of species. Linnaeus used Latin specifically to avoid the problems caused by common names in different languages. There is only a standard for the style for genus and species, and higher categories if written in Latin. There are international committees on nomenclature, of course.

Of your examples, some are legally and etymologically proper names: Aston Martin and South Africa. Mile End, Mount Everest and Abbey Road are established by universal usage.

I think the problem with legibility comes with long multi-word terms which are just the kind of thing which puts off the general reader. I'm thinking of the titles like Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, which I rendered as Sag DEG because I thought it would be more palatable for readers. Science does have a problem in being so formal that it is daunting for the uninitiated to approach. Witness, for instance, our infoboxes for astronomy, which are almost insanely complicated for the needs of this wiki. If we believe in Simple, we should try and carry the idea through, limited only by the need to represent the subject-matter in a broadly accurate way.

Most discussion on capitalisation in prose reflects almost accidental national habits. The extremes are German, where all nouns are written with initial upper case, and French, which uses almost no upper case in titles. We have a Natural History Museum (own chosen title and spelling); they call it Le musée d’histoire naturelle de Londres! Of course, they are right to think London is the only proper noun in the title. Their Solar System is Système solaire.

Anyway, after reading all this, if you feel like putting all the astronomy titles in IAU form, then go ahead. It is at least a basis for deciding between us. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:40, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Protecting user talk pages?

Hey, Mac, I don't think we want to be protecting user talk pages, even semi-protecting them. That prevents communication, which is not a good thing to do. If a user talk page is being vandalized, it's better to block the users doing the vandalizing. If it's a blocked user abusing their own talk page, the block can be changed to prevent the user from editing their own talk page. I undid the user talk page blocks you did, and changed the one user's block so he/she can't change their talk page. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:15, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

List of characters in Maya the Bee

Why you deleted this article?--Toma646 (talk) 08:16, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I deleted the "‎‎List of characters in Maya the Bee". Sorry I didn't give the reason. It was this: the article on Maya the Bee seems notable, but that does not mean the list of characters is notable. Notability, as shown by reliable sources, is a criterion for an article. The list of characters did not show notability.

It's just a suggestion, but if you think the character list is important, you could add it to the article. It really only needs the main characters. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:26, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I added links and sources.--Toma646 (talk) 08:56, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

It is a question of whether the sources establish the notability of the characters sufficiently to justify a separate page for the character list. Incidentally, any user who feels an injustice has been done may ask another administrator to review the decision. It would be quite all right if you wished to do this. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:05, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I have put the revised page up for general discussion under WP:RfD. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:15, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Reporting of Pages that were Vandalized

Hi: I do not know if there is a common place to put titles that are (or appear to be in need of a rollback. I attempted to do just that as being an (ordinary) user. Hmm. Auto Robot cried some error about adding e-mail addresses. (used Decimal Dotted Ips in the comment field). Anyway, thanks for rolling back the article 'Linux', but how or where is the "Pages that need to be rolled back due to Vandalism" List reside? I have not found one yet. Thanks in advance. PS A user admonished me for adding the same request to the "Rollback Request Page". Im Stumped Richard416282 (talk) 07:57, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Rollback is for editors to ask for admins to give him/her the capacity to rollback. There is no page dedicated to asking for a page to be rolled back. Administrators watch for changes made by unregistered users because that is where most vandalism comes from. However, some do slip by unnoticed. You can always ask an individual admin to look at a page that needs rollback: the list of admins is at WP:Administrators. For urgent and serious vandalism there is WP:Vandalism in progress. Cheers, Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:16, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/header Can this header / info page be revised to reflect that it is only for requests for permision to rollback, and the page be updated to point to the WP:Vandalisim in progress page, so that others, who are newer than I do not make the same error. Appreciate the Detailed help. -R (sound of cold bottle of carbonated soda opening).. Richard416282 (talk) 08:44, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Aaqib's ban appeal

Hey, Mac, I took your comments about this ban appeal off of the Admins noticeboard. The discussion is a community matter, not an admin decision, and the place for comments is on Aaqib's talk page. --Auntof6 (talk) 12:21, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Stockbridge, Massachusetts

MacDonald-ross, the last I checked I reverted unneeded info from the article. The article was fine. Why was it deleted? --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 08:15, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

(replied on his talk) Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:28, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Monkey selfie

I'm somewhat surprised you reverted without any motivation. I'm genuinely interesting in hearing what the justification is. Care to drop by the article talkpage?

Peter Isotalo (talk) 21:27, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Readability

What do you think of put a readability score (e.g., Flesch-Kincaid or an average, as calculated by https://readability-score.com/) on the SE Wikipedia talk pages for all regular (i.e., not lists etc.) pages? It might be a prompt for simplifying certain pages. Kdammers (talk) 07:32, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

You won't get agreement on this, I can tell you! But they can sometines be useful. In Bischhausen I notice a longish sentence "Almost all the working people who live in the village are farmers or work in the city of Göttingen, which is not far away". Most of the skill lies in saying that more simply, and by that I am not referring to Ogden's Simple English, which is another story. Anyway, how about:

"Most workers are farmers or work in Göttingen".

The sentence in English wiki was: "It consists almost entirely of residences - primarily those of farmer families and of commuters to Göttingen".

This has a slightly different emphasis from our pages. It refers to the inhabitants in general rather than just the wage-earners. This often happens in simplifying pages: it is a matter of judgement whether or not the change can be accepted.

Most pages on English wiki are badly written. What they say can be said more simply, and then it is easier to read. How simple depends on the subject-matter. Technical subjects do have a framework of technical terms. The terms raise the reading difficulty, but some may be essential. We do what we can. Even with general topics the nuances (oops!) are hard to capture. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:33, 16 August 2014 (UTC)