User talk:Macdonald-ross/Archive 3

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Saturn (planet)

TRM has now finished his suggestions for Saturn and is supporting its promotion to VGA. It would be good to see your support there as well. Thanks, --Peterdownunder (talk) 06:34, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Getty Center

I have added a footnote supporting the $1.3 billion cost. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 09:21, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Roald Hoffmann

Thank you for your comments about Roald Hoffmann. Would it be possible for you to create the biography? I would appreciate the help. Many thanks, Racepacket (talk) 17:31, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate advice, and I asked "simple talk" for feedback on my first article, before starting another. The only thing that I have to guide me regarding "our standards" is what is written. As I understand it, it is very important that the lead paragraph be very, very simple. Because the articles that I started are highly technical (with some involving diagrams that convey ideas better than words) I allow specialized vocabulary to take over particularly after the lead. While I have complete control over the sentence structure, and word choice for verbs, the subjects and objects seem to be unavoidable technical terms. I have tried adding parallel sentences like "In other words, stress is the force from an object pushing back while the object is being squished." I downloaded the VOA word list and am trying to stick to it except for technical terms. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 12:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The general problem

At the present, you are not even in the right ballpark. Here's a sample from one or your recent articles:

"In general, pericyclic reactions are considered to be equilibrium processes, although it is possible to push the reaction in one direction by designing a reaction by which the product is at a significantly lower energy level; this is due to a unimolecular interpretation of Le Chatelier's principle. Pericyclic reactions often have related stepwise radical processes associated with them. Chemists argue about whether some reactions are pericyclic reactions. For example, the [2+2] cycloaddition has a mechanism is not definitively known to be concerted (or may depend on the reactive system). Pericyclic reactions also often have metal-catalyzed analogs, although usually these are also not technically pericyclic, since they proceed via metal-stabilized intermediates, and therefore are not concerted".

Analysed by the automatic readability counter, this gives a Flesch Reading Ease Score of about 11. This is almost completely incomprehensible to our readers. We aim for an RES of about 60, certainly not less than 50. It will not do to keep putting up pages of this kind. Please try and say something simple our readers can understand! Many of these topics are very advanced. Most of our readers do not look to us for such technical detail; if they wanted that, they'ld go to English Wikipedia. You could start by choosing simpler topics. I would guess your articles are getting close to a discussion on the Articles for Deletion page, on the grounds that they violate our main purpose. This is, to provide articles for readers whose command of English is limited. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I understand your concern. However, the lead is very simple, and then the sentence structure further down is simplier than en:Wikipedia. For example, in en:Wikipedia,

Pericyclic reactions often have related stepwise radical processes associated with them. Some pericyclic reactions, such as the [2+2] cycloaddition, are 'controversial' because their mechanism is not definitively known to be concerted (or may depend on the reactive system).

which I rewrote as:

Pericyclic reactions often have related stepwise radical processes associated with them. Chemists argue about whether some reactions are pericyclic reactions. For example, the [2+2] cycloaddition mechanism is not definitively known to be concerted (or may depend on the reactive system).

I believe a chemist with English as a second language would find my wording easier to understand. As I read the instructions, I am supposed to get the major ideas into the Simple English article, and to keep the jargon defined every step of the way, while cutting out the circumlocutions of academic writing.

I went with science because it was the current collaboration theme, but I will try some less-technical subjects. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 20:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Great Wall

I know we aren't en-wiki, but over there Great Wall redirects to the Great Wall of China. Should we maybe do the same, or is it not really necessary? Also, on the article you created, shouldn't the first sentence be The Great Wall, sometimes referred to as the CfA2 Great Wall, is a huge group of galaxies about 200 million light-years away. and then have It is one of the largest known super-structures in the Universe. afterwards? I think the first sentence should describe what it really is, and you shouldn't have to read any further before finding this out. Anyway, just a couple of suggestions! Yottie ^=talk= 12:13, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

And you imagine I put up a page without thinking of such things? No, indeed, we are not on the same wiki, and that makes a difference. In the first place, it makes no sense for Simple to start a title with symbols strange to the reader. Nor should we simply copy enWP: we are a separate wiki with different objectives. (There's always room for a Great Wall disambig in due course). As to the intro, enWP first sentences are often far, far too long because they try to cram too much in. Following Simple guidelines I simplify the English. In this case I made a decision to put the notability first, and the details second. Since all the main facts are in the first two sentences I see no particular problems in this case. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:28, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, (although I disagree) it doesn't really matter anyway... Yottie ^=talk= 16:55, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Fourier

Joseph Fourier would probably be the proper title to move it to. Also, I find it funny that you found about eighteen different things wrong with it, including some major ones, and you still voted "DYK-Almost" Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 19:52, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

could you please tell me why my contributions are considered as vandalism?

Common or scientific name

Should articles here go by common or scientific name (i.e should Australian Giant Cuttlefish be Sepia apama? Albacore (talk · changes) 13:39, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

This has a long history, and enWP has never been able to resolve it. On the one hand, common names are friendlier to our audience. But common names differ one country to another, sometimes in different parts of the same country. That is why Linnaeus went for Latin names, to overcome the confusion of common names. In this particular case, it seems the common name is better, for the animal really is Australian, and not more widespread. It is really necessary to link the scientific name, because some will search for it that way. Regards, Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:22, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK Comment

Hi Mac, just a couple of quick notes on DYK - don't take these the wrong way as I'm sure it's just a small oversight on you're part! Sadly, as good as it would be, nominators or people involved with suggesting hooks and fixing articles generally as a rule are not allowed to then also 'approve' the hooks to be moved through to the queues due to the potential COI that exists, so-to-speak - this is similar to how the nominator cannot promote their own (V)GA, for example. I can see a couple of such instances in your latest round of comments, namely on Ecstasy and Rotavirus. I know that it slows down the system somewhat but it's done just to keep the process transparent etc, hope you understand. My second point links to a comment you made on Ecstasy just now, which appears to have been made higher up the comment 'tree' when it would in fact be more appropriate, imo, at the bottom due to the fact it's an (albeit disallowed, as above) 'yes'. Maybe I've just missed something in this instance. Hope this helps, and sorry to bother you. Goblin 13:47, 14 August 2011 (UTC) I ♥ The Rambling Man!

Redirect

Hi! I don't know much about taxonomy, etc, but doesn't Pectinoidea supersede Pectinidae? If it does, maybe we shouldn't redirect it to something which is more specific; I could create the article if it helps. Just a thought. Regards, Yottie ^=talk= 15:06, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Don't bother. I made the redirect because the one page says all that anyone needs to know short of a professional specialist. The big steps in taxonomy are: Phylum; Class; Order; Family; Genus and species. Only if there is good reason should we have more fine-grained pages. We've only this year managed to cover all the phyla! (List of animal phyla) Many classes do not have a page. If we get too fine-grained, we only get one or two hits a month on the pages. I've checked.

Well, if you want to do something more in this field, do the Order Ostreoida. That's mostly oysters and scallops. It's worth doing. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:28, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer :) Yottie ^=talk= 15:34, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

S/2011 P 1

Hello Macdonald-ross, you have new messages at the talk page of S/2011 P 1. --DJDunsie ^{(talk · changes)} 15:55, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

For...

your work in helping with DYKs and fixing the articles. I know this work makes people hungry.

Barras has given you some cookies! Now enjoy them!

-Barras (talk) 13:24, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Saturn (again) and being ignored

It's all very well deleting my hard-written concerns and explaining it away as being moved to the article talk page, but you didn't actually move them to the talk page, did you? Nor did you respond on either IP talk page. You just plain deleted them.

Besides, my questions for you were not about the article as such, but rather about the way you simply dismissed my contribution out of hand, much the way you have done, again, with my questions regarding your behaviour. They were questions, specifically for you, about what, if anything, might be salvagable and improved upon such that it could be useful. Given that my questions were directed at you specifically, I felt that your talk page would be the more appropriate location; also, a comment on Saturn's talk page along the lines of Macdonald-ross has reverted my edit in its entirety, despite the corrections and potential improvements therein, without a usefully explanatory reason. Can someone help explain why this editor has done this? is kind of an awful, passive-aggressive way to deal with it, wouldn't you say?

I'm sure you'd much rather have a talk page littered with awards and thanks than criticism - however legitimate - but please don't just delete this again. Instead, as I initially asked, please could you explain your specific concerns and why you felt wholesale reversion was the appropriate action? 86.180.234.186 (talk) 17:31, 8 September 2011 (UTC) (86.150.56.202)

Articles.

Hey Macdonald-ross. I was just wondering if you have any plans for the Collective animal behaviour and Hubble pages? They probably shouldn't be sitting around for much longer. Thanks!--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 19:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Hubble is now a redirect to Edwin Hubble, and I had wanted to move the Collective animal behavior page to 'Collective animal behaviour' so the title matched my usual spelling. But it requires moving over a redirect. Macdonald-ross (talk) 20:57, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I've made that move for you. Thanks!--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 02:44, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Lobe-finned fish

Hey, thanks for creating this category! I would have done it myself when I came across one of them earlier, but I didn't know what other fish to put in it. --Auntof6 08:43, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

They're an important group, and I should expand them a bit. Macdonald-ross 08:51, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Rollback

Hi, are you a Rollbacker? And if so, how many vandalism reverts did you have when you got it? I'm asking because I'm sick of Twinkle Rollback, it constantly doesn't work, and it's driving me nuts. Orashmatash (t • c) 17:22, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

There are several disruptions following the recent system update. Previous experience shows it takes a couple of weeks for the teckies to sort out the bugs. Meanwhile, rollback is simply not working as it should. You can do a simple restore and once it works hit the vandal with a flag!

When rollback works, it rolls back all the edits by the last user. Macdonald-ross (talk) 20:55, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Chimpanzee

Hi, I'm grateful for your edits to the article, and I did a check and it is all correct. However, is there any way that can be simplified? Also, the part of the article you changed was nominated for DYK (not by me) and was placed there for entirely that reason. Therefore the DYK has run into some issues and I'm asking if you could join the discussion on the article's talk page? Thanks, Orashmatash (t • c) 16:34, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Disregard. Orashmatash (t • c) 16:37, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Another point of view

In May 2010, you may have forgotten that you edied Epistemology? I found your name in the edit history.

Please consider looking over the stub article about Epistemic community. What could I have done differently? --Tenmei (talk) 20:37, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't have much to say; it's a perfectly reasonable stub. Three points are worth thinking about:

1. Whereas epistemology is a very central and important concept, epistemic community is not a frequent term, and may not be worth spending too much time on.
2. Epistemology is basic philosophy, but epistemic community looks like some kind of sociology or social psychology. I don't know much about those disciplines, and (from the talk page comments) I rather think their editors don't either!
3. The enWP page is thought by them to be not much good. Beware of bringing weak pages over to simple, because it may not give you an adequate basis for editing (unless you yourself know a good deal about the subject).
4. The concept used to be talked about as the "invisible college". You might like to Google that term and see what comes up. Invisible college could be a redirect.

I'd be inclined to move on soon to another topic. You've done a reasonable job; no-one can ask for more than that. Regards, Macdonald-ross (talk) 22:35, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Macdonald-ross. You have new messages at Auntof6's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--Auntof6 (talk) 10:03, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Senkaku Islands

This subject is very controversial.

If you please, I hope you will review my sentences here.

Please note that inline notes contain hidden text excerpts which make the citation support more specific. --Tenmei (talk) 18:09, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Patroller

Hi, since you posted your topic on AN, I have been granted patroller. I have started patrolling the backlogged pages, and if you take a look at the new pages, I'm sure you will be pleasantly surprised at the size of the backlog. (There are now only less than 100 unpatrolled pages, and I am working on it.). --Orashmatash 19:24, 10 October 2011 (UTC) I like... Wikipedia!

NewPages

Hi Mac! Great news... The backlog has been wiped off the face of the earth. Yep, it's gone. Good work! Orashmatash (talk) 19:32, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

I agree that it was not a good idea for my conversation with Gotanda to be conducted in two deletion discussions. However, he insisted that it be moved there and would not discuss our differences on his talk page. I did not want to be "unseemly." Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 14:00, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Invitation

Hi Macdonald-ross, come and join in this weekend's activity of trying to write a short biography. There is a choice of over 200 people to write about. I know you have a varied set of interests, and there's a few scientists and artists on the list. See the details on Wikipedia:Simple talk#This weekend's editing challenge - come and help, Peterdownunder (talk) 02:20, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Teamwork Barnstar

		The Teamwork Barnstar
		For Macdonald-ross, who took part in the big biography weekend in October 21-26, 2011. With help from 15 other editors, 48 new biography articles were created. Thanks for being part of the team. Peterdownunder (talk) 22:55, 26 October 2011 (UTC)