Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:27, 29 January 2007

I'm fairly busy in the Real World at the moment. Expect delays here... or not. But it's my excuse anyway...

You are welcome to leave messages here. I will reply here (rather than on, say, your user page). Conversely, if I've left a message on your talk page, I'm watching it, so please reply there.

If your messages are rude, wandering or repetitive I will likely edit them. If you want to leave such a message, put it on your talk page and leave me a note here & I'll go take a look. In general, I prefer to conduct my discussions in public. If you have a question for me, put it here (or on the article talk, or...) rather than via email. If I've blocked you for 3RR this applies particularly strongly: your arguments for unblock, unless for some odd reason particularly sensitive, should be made in public, on your talk page. See-also WMC:3RR.

In the dim and distant past were... /The archives. As of about 2006/06, I don't archive, just remove. Thats cos I realised I never looked in the archives.

Atmospheric circulation pic

Thanks for the pic you added to this article. It's very interesting, and I am intrigued by some of the anomalies it shows. Denni☯ 01:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi Denni. Thanks! All part of my very very slow atmospheric dynamics project... more to come... slowly... William M. Connolley 22:09, 24 October 2005 (UTC).

RRS John Biscoe

I've justed created a stub for this article and found you'd already done the same for her successor, the James Clark Ross. Great!  Do you have (access to) a Commons/Wikipedia-compliant photo of the Biscoe that could be used? Apologies in advance if my search failed to turn one up.
Best wishes, David Kernow 15:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't; I'll ask around a bit William M. Connolley 17:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. If no joy, or too much hassle, I'm hopeful one or other of the Antarctica websites with photos might give permission or adopt a Commons/Wikipedia-friendly licence. David Kernow 22:20, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Trend Estimation with Auto-Correlated Data

William: This article you started is a great topic! I am just wondering if you have detailed information to add to the section about auto-correlated data. I am facing this problem now, and am trying to get information from papers and textbooks. --Roland 21:46, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah well, IMHO what to do with auto-correlated data is an ongoing research topic. Top tip: divide the ndof by something like (1+ac1) (or is it ac1^2...) if the autocorr isn't too extreme. There is some formula like (1+ac1^2+ac2^2+...) if its strongly auto-correlated... but... its a bit of a mess, I think. Err, thats why I never expanded that bit. The von Zstorch and Zwiers book covers it, somewhat. William M. Connolley 22:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I added a link to autoregressive moving average models JQ 23:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Linda Hall editor

User:204.56.7.1 has been blocked four times in the last month for 3RR (once by you). He is now performing wholsale reversions without comment (see at Radio ) This user as you probably know, has a long history of refusing to collaborate. He ignored my talk page request. Any suggestions? --Blainster 20:33, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

My feeling is that 204. is Reddi. Reddi is limited to 1R per week. Establishing the connection past doubt is difficult; but the edit patterns are very similar. You could post a WP:RFCU. Or you could just list 204. on the 3RR page together with the note of Reddis arbcomm parole and see if that does any good. Or maybe I'll just block it... shall I? Oh go on, yes I will... William M. Connolley 21:37, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

My Reddimeter displays 8.5 on a scale from 0 to 10: Selection of topics. likes patents, likes templates. Only the tireless lamenting on article talk pages is missing. --Pjacobi 21:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Reddi apparently back

... with another sockpuppet KarlBunker 19:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Is there no stopping him? I've blocked that one; if he persists, will semi it William M. Connolley 19:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

And to think

..I knew you when. Why didn't you mention this?

• KNOW IT ALL - Can Misplaced Pages conquer expertise? KillerChihuahua 16:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh dear. I did my best with them :-( William M. Connolley 17:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:AN3

• The few times that I've dabbled in WP:ANI/3RR, I've tried to be fair, but I universally get hit with a barrage of malcontents on my talk page and others that send me threatening e-mails. I don't know why you continue to take care of this for us, but thank you for doing so, as I know that I wouldn't be able to last more than a day at it. Many thanks -- Samir धर्म 14:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you :-) William M. Connolley 16:36, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The Templeton Foundation

The Templeton Foundation used to provide grants for ID conferences and courses. According to The New York Times, Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, later asked ID proponents to submit proposals for actual research. "They never came in," said Harper, and that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned. "From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said. The Templeton Foundation has since rejected the Discovery Institute's entreaties for more funding, Harper states. "They're political - that for us is problematic," and that while Discovery has "always claimed to be focused on the science," "what I see is much more focused on public policy, on public persuasion, on educational advocacy and so forth."

I'd think that while individual members/beneficiaries of the Foundation's largess may embrace ID, the the Foundation itself is trying to distance itself from the ID movement, but keeping in mind that the Discovery Institute, the hub of the ID movement, actively tries to cultivate ambiguity around its own motives, actions and members with the aim of portraying ID as more substantial and more widely accepted than it actually is, as the Dover Trial ruling shows (it's worth reading). FeloniousMonk 21:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Thats interesting and useful William M. Connolley 21:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Improving the models

I find this to be a fascinating example of the improvement of weather models over time. Do you happen to know of any comparable quantitative metrics by which climate models can be seen to have improved over time? Dragons flight 07:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Nice pic. The one I'm more used to seeing is the length-of-useful-forecast graph, which shows similar improvement. However... no I don't know comparable pics from climate models. The obvious problem would be that you can't do it year-on-year, climate models being far less frequent: the hadley center has arguably only had 3 model incarnations. They do have a "model index" which finds that hadgem1 is better than hadcm3, but I don't know if that was ever applied back to hadcm2, much less to other centres William M. Connolley 13:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

when you say 3 models, does that include or exclude improvements in spatial resolution as computing power has improved? Dragons flight 16:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I meant hadcm2, hadcm3 and hadgem1. There are others, but it could get complex. Do you want to include atmos-only models? Those are the "official" releases, sort of. There are various experiments with different spatial res, but its not clear if those were meant to be improvements... William M. Connolley 17:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well at the moment I am just sort of curious about what is being labeled a "model". I could see the term being used to refer to either a set of coupled differential equations (which might then be implemented on a variety of different grid sizes), or to a specific implementation on a specific grid size. Do you ever take your differential systems, and leaving them as is, try to increase the number of grid elements through the use of more powerful computers? Dragons flight 17:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes and no. "GCM" means the full set of code, on the whole. Ie, big set of PDEs and params on top. But also, in general, it means a specific config and setup. "hadcm3" means a given code version, plus given ancils (e.g. land sea mask), plus a given resolution. You *can* run it at, say, higher rez; but there is no guarantee that its better. But yes, I know there were various projects with higher rez versions... the problem is that because of the about grid^3-4 dependency, you can't run much higher rez, if the model is anywhere close to state-of-the-art William M. Connolley 22:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Would you consider the edit below to be vandalism, exempt from 3RR?

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Landmark_Education&curid=113183&diff=91946832&oldid=91916187 Sm1969 07:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Only marginally so, better dealt with by consensus of editors. Definitely not encyclopeadic, of course William M. Connolley 13:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

SPM

Can we give Summary for policymakers a decent burial? Or even an indecent one? Is there a protocol to follow, or can I just move the (very small amount of) useful information in the article somewhere else? It's been tagged for merger several months now. Raymond Arritt 04:23, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget what links to it...

Gack. Is there no automagic way of taking care of such things? Raymond Arritt 22:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Well if you replaced it with a redirect to IPCC it would be transparent. I quite like the existence of a separate SPM page, myself William M. Connolley 22:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I made a comment on Mel Etitis' block

Doo dee doo

Hope that helps, William. Syrthiss 22:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - yes that helps. I should probably have put the comment up earlier, its good ot have 2nd and 3rd opinions in difficult cases William M. Connolley 22:52, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I know I've given you one before, but...

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		For doing a task that makes me grind my teeth just thinking about it, this star is for you! Syrthiss 22:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah well, thanks even more :-) William M. Connolley 09:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

)

Regarding my block due to violation of 3RR

Hey there. While I understand that I may have been in violation of 3RR, when there is a dispute over a page and socks are coming into play, doesn't 3RR become moot if sock edits are occurring?

No William M. Connolley 14:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I simply ask this because it just concerns me because it may vindicate this particular person. I can see that the individual did receive a block, but at the same time, I had no warnings against myself to discontinue and was reverting in more or less for motives that were not ill regard.

People get warnings if they might not know about 3RR. Clearly you did William M. Connolley 14:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The three hour block was minor and had no bearing on my editing (as I was asleep during the whole time), but I still cannot help but feel that it might have been unwarranted. Any comment? Thanks. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 13:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes: don't break 3RR and consider WP:1RR where possible William M. Connolley 14:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

And removing blocks/warnings so quickly from your talk page is Bad Form William M. Connolley 14:28, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the block notice is on archive and the page was moved, so there is a record of somebody giving me the 3RR notice. I also thought that it was determined that if someone acknowledges the warning and message that it is deemed acceptable? Look, I am not here to argue per se, but I just wanted some clarification, as I spend more time removing vandal edits than anything else. I consider myself to be highly benign, so that is why I am feeling a bit sore over this. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 14:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a trail to your block; but its not one anyone will find unless looking for it. You should leave block messages, or reasonable warnings, up for a fair length of time - a few weeks at least. I appreciate that you don't think you merited a block, but you have one anyway William M. Connolley 15:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

WMC, I agree with this (leaving warnings) but is it in a guideline anywhere? Someone asked me recently and I couldn't find it written. Thanks --BozMo talk 16:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I suspect it is, but I dont know where. *Everyone* knows it... William M. Connolley 16:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

If there is a clear guideline on this somewhere, I'll gladly return the notice to the page. I can assure you that it would be a very long time before another block would come my way if ever. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 16:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Baibars Revert war

Could you take a look at this, or give me some guidance on 3RR? It appears to be a pretty nasty and unfruitful revert war regarding "Christian massacre of Muslims" & vice versa, with several editors on both sides possibly violating 3RR just today. I'm not involved in the argument; I'm just not sure how to write this one up. Thanks for your assistance.-Robotam 19:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Since at least one anon had shifting IP it seemed best to semi it. Using the new expiry feature, wow William M. Connolley 19:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Great. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. Thnx-Robotam 20:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Block of User:Vlad_fedorov

Hi, William.

I was monitoring the edit war between User:Biophys and User:Vlad fedorov on Boris Stomakhin. I agree that both editors are quite tendentious and do not want to compromise, but honestly I do not see [[WP:BLP}} violations there. Boris Stomakhin was sentenced to 5 years of prison sentence for "hate speech" and "inciting violence". It is outrageous that such a sentence was given for Internet blogging and printing free leaflets but to be fair we need to mention that he did said crazy things.

All the Stomakin's citations are sourced both to the official court proceedings (WP:RS) and to Stomakhin's own website (WP:RS then they are about the author himself). Some citations are also sourced to the opinion piece by Maxim Sokolov in Izvestia: a respectful, reasonably neutral large Russian newspaper. Thus, the citations are referenced to 2 and some to 3 independent reliable sources. I cannot see WP:BLP violations there.

Unless I miss something I would recommend to unblock Vlad or block both him and biophys for the editwarring Alex Bakharev 12:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I was relying on JKelly's determination and I think you need to take the issue up with him. Vf has been saying, in effect, how can you tell if I'm right given that my sources are in Russian and you don't speak Russian. This seems rather problematic. Perhaps we need an approved translation of the appropriate refs. For example, the "death to all russians" quote is sourced to this . Is it reliable? Who is it run by? What, even, does it say, and who is sayin it? Maybe this should be clarified at BLP William M. Connolley 12:53, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Wot_about_foreign_language_subjects_and_sources.3F William M. Connolley 12:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I think that this was a good block. Let's take a look at some of the things being inserted into the article:

• "He also criticized Russian government in defamatory and obscene statements" -- entirely unsourced; is this Misplaced Pages's opinion?

  "No one human rights organization or non-governmental organization had supported Stomakhin at the trial, and no one organization sued the Russian Federation government for alleged by them abuses of Stomakhin, trial abuses or Stomakhin contention abuses." -- unsourced, almost certainly OR

  " also described statements by Boris Stomakhin as 'non-violent'. No one Jewish NGO in Russian Federation supported 's view though. Some of the facts in Statement of Union of Councils for Soviet Jews turned out to be false." -- unsourced, probably OR, who exactly are we calling liars here; I don't know, but we shouldn't be doing it.

That's without getting into the question of interpreting original court documents as the basis for an article, which would be dodgy anywhere.

I suggest that the best way forward, given the length of this edit war and the fact of block evasion, would be to radically stub the article and rebuild it using reliable secondary sources only. Jkelly 18:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for that. I only came onto this via 3RR; I think someone who knows at least something about this would be more useful William M. Connolley 18:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

3RR Ruling

Hi, I was blocked for 8 hours for violating 3rr. While I was unaware of the rule regarding 3rr, I did in fact violate it. While I was reading the helpful links (thanks for providing those, btw) about 3rr, I read that in the instances of a first violation, a warning is sent before an actual block takes place, Is there a reason why my block occurred without warning? Again, i am not saying that I am blameless in this matter; I am in fact not, and have learned more than a bit about it, I cannot respond to unreasonable users by cowboying up. Perhaps using the structures in place for essentailly the same effect is a better and more lasting method of fixing a prolem (editing or otherwise). Again, thanks for making the block fairly painless.Arcayne 14:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

A warning is usual but not obligatory. I can't remember your exact circumstances William M. Connolley 15:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Just for amusement

AfDing articles on people can be quite interesting. This one for example: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Jules Siegel has written far more in the AfD debate than he ever did in the article he wrote about himself... He may well be notable but... --BozMo talk 20:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm well. I don't think I'll vote William M. Connolley 20:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

No. But smile perhaps. He probably deserves to stay but the indignation is disproportionate to the point of entertaining--BozMo talk 21:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I learnt my lesson at William Connolley a long time ago and now stay away William M. Connolley 21:42, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, yes. BTW I have some nice (low res) pics of the family of baby stoats which live in my garden which I might send you for your blog. They are very playful. --BozMo talk 21:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Delightful! I'm very jealous. Do send the pic. In return, I could start a stub about an ex-oilman turned charity exec. Err, or I could *not* start it in exchange... William M. Connolley 21:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Not. Okay, I will find some pics/small vid clips) on the other PC and email them, probably tomorrow. As for the threat... I have enough scientific publications to pass WP:BIO and not enough appetite for it to knit a baby gnat's sock "like I want a wart in the middle of my forehead" I think is the expression. We also boast some baby owls, bats in our attic, three varieties of deer, hares, rabbit and badgers in the garden but no pics yet. Glorious Suffolk. --BozMo talk 22:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I find it suspicious ...

... that you would have protected Middle East Media Research Institute just five minutes after Isarig made a reversion following almost 3 and a half hours of no change. Can you explain how events came to transpire in this way, without collusion between yourself and Isarig? Thanks. Beelzebarn 22:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

If I hadn't protected it you'd now find yourself with a 24h block, so be grateful William M. Connolley 22:27, 29 January 2007 (UTC)