Misplaced Pages

Here's one where I know that to be the case, though the information isn't in the article: Cleng Peerson was the son of Peder Larson Hesthammer. Gene Nygaard 12:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't know about these limitations in the wiki code concerning ordering -- I imagine it deals in an equally unsatisfying way with ô ö, ê è etc? Do you systematically change these to o, oe, e, and e respectively, just to circumvent the indexing problem? How do they deal with this in the French and Icelandic Wikipedias? Is there a way to control the sorting?

Regarding your Scandinavian examples, none of the Nordic countries use patronyms any more, and former patronyms have changed into family names. Icelanders still do -- and there will *never* be a situation where you are supposed to address an Icelander by his patronymic -- all Icelanders address each other, and prefer to be addressed, by first name only, for reasons I have outlined previously. While there do exist Icelanders with family names (generally of foreign origin), this family name will never be used in any kind of public discourse, irrespective of rank or status. E.g. I would address the president of Iceland as Ólafur, and the prime minister as Halldór, and foreign minister Geir Haarde (who has a Norwegian family name) merely as Geir, never as Haarde.

Regardless, I see your point and I understand why you're doing it, so I'll go with the same rules. It strikes me as a question of technical limitations. Perhaps you would like to point out other Icelandic-people contributors this position? -- Palthrow 16:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure, the Norwegians have now switched to family names; but some of the male-line descendants of a Gunnar Knudsen of that time frame may now be Gunnarsen, some may now be Larsen, some may now be Haugen or Kjøs or whatever. My great-grandfather Nygaard and his brothers ended up using three different family names, and the one who went by Gunder Jacobson had one child—American-born at that—named Jacob Gunderson, whose children were Gundersons as well.

Here is what Misplaced Pages:Categorization says about the sorting:

• Diacritics are omitted: e.g. Étretat: ], or: Ål: ]
• Ligatures are separated: e.g. Æsir: ]

Of course, there are letters like Ö which are ligatures in some languages and an O with diacritics in other languages. So it's often a tossup which way to go with some of those letters; but either choice is likely to get you closer to what most anybody would expect in English indexing than leaving it to be sorted by Unicode number.

Initial letters, of course, are the biggest problem. Many of the large categories have a navigation tool bar at the top, listing the alphabet. The 26 letter English alphabet, of course, with no indication that some characters may be misindexed following the Z. Furthermore, we usually don't sort the small letters separately after the capital letters, so if what you want to index by starts with a small letter, change it to a capital letter (e.g., to sort category Icelandic folk music in Category:Icelandic music under F, you would use Category:Icelandic music|Folk music, not with "folk" with lowercase f after the vertical bar as it was before I fixed it. Gene Nygaard 10:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

And I thought the Tortuga/Tortue debate was getting obsessive... Fowler Pierre 14:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Ethiopian name sorting

Howdy, earlier I noticed your edit to Girma Wolde-Giorgis. Among Ethiopian names, generally speaking one's "last name" is actually his or her father's name (or, grandfather's name when three names are shown), and the person's first name is used for reference. Hence one would say "the Mengistu regime" instead of "the Hailemariam regime" (as the latter refers to Mengistu's father), "Meles is prime minister" instead of "Zenawi is prime minister," etc. When I come across these I sort them by first name. This being the English Misplaced Pages, perhaps there's a consensus to follow the Western-style name indexing (and FWIW, when an Ethiopian immigrates to the US, these names all become first name, last name, middle name), but in this case it isn't accurate. But it appears that Arabic names are sorted by second names, which (from my understanding) isn't accurate either...? -- Gyrofrog (talk) 04:04, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Not a whole lot different from Johnson or Anderson or O'Malley or MacDonald, is it? What about the reversed order, as in "Open letter to Mr. Woldegiorgis Girma, President of the Republic of Ethiopia" at ? How common is that? Gene Nygaard 04:15, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Kelvins

As I told you before, a search of the astronomical literature reveals that the singular form is used 90% of the time. What makes you think you know better than everyone else? Stop changing it, please. Worldtraveller 19:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll dispute your figures. For one thing, you aren't factoring in the adjective form; when we talk about a 2.7 kelvin background radiation, there is no "s" at the end of the adjective.

Furthermore, a large number of the same astronomers still write it Kelvin with a capital K—in fact, that is something I've also had to change in almost all of them where I added the proper plural form, as well as many others that either already had the s or weren't supposed to have an s either because they were adjectives or because they were singular. Both are manifestations of the very same problem, a failure to understand the significance of the 1967 change in the rules by the International General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM), the keepers of the world's standards. Gene Nygaard 02:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, you'd never made that specific claim before, but furthermore--

Why did those working papers for some obscure little IEEE standard on a minor topic falsely claim something that was not supported in any way by either of the authorities they cited in support of their statement? Why haven't you addressed that on Talk:Pleiades (star cluster) Gene Nygaard 02:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

This is so stupid it's unbelievable. I am an astronomer, I'm telling you what the usage is, major journals like Science, Nature, ApJ, MNRAS etc etc follow this usage, and because you can find some style guide that recommends the singular you're now edit warring to apply your personal preference to articles. You really believe that all astronomers are suffering from a 'failure to understand' a 40 year old document? You, I believe, are not a scientist, so you really should not touch science articles to change things you don't understand. Worldtraveller 16:45, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

From Nature:

• "body size, Mi, and absolute temperature, T in kelvins"
• plotted against the reciprocal of the temperature in kelvins
• should reach several Kelvins at
• only several kelvins below the HX line
• The vertical axis is in kelvins
• think in terms of millikelvins rather than, like metallurgists, in thousands of kelvins,
• temperatures of the order of 100 milli-kelvins
• T and Tm are given in kelvins.
• effective temperature parameter, Te in Kelvins
• was measured in kelvins.
• central temperatures of a few hundred million kelvins
• central temperatures of a few tens of Kelvins for 10-km radius icy comets.
• record of 50 nano-Kelvins
• where Tis in Kelvins.
• BTU with ergs and joules; and Kelvins with degrees Centigrade and even Faren-heit

Gene Nygaard 19:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

BTW, in the journals you cited, in how many of them can you find people still using "degrees Kelvin"? Gene Nygaard 19:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I presume you also searched Nature for the singular form? I presume you would have noticed that that returns 728 results, compared to just 15 for 'kelvins'? I'm sorry, but your edits to impose your own preference on astronomical articles are verging on vandalistic now. If you keep on doing this I'll have to file a request for comment, and if that doesn't work, then a request for arbitration. Worldtraveller 17:20, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

You made your claim as if these journals do not use kelvins. They obviously do.

So what in the world does your 728 results mean? There's a lot of nonsense unrelated to the issue at hand, including

• "additions to the list are James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, the Rayleighs,"
• "a 300-degrees Kelvin tissue"
• "(between 30 and 70 millionths of a kelvin" [singular because its absolute value is greater than zero and less than or equal to one. Had they used millikelvins microkelvins, it should be plural, of course—but when they use kelvins without a prefix, it is singular.
• "Xu L , Kelvin D , Ye G , Taub DD ,"
• "I thank Kelvin Davies, PhD,"
• "results square with Kelvin's original estimate of cooling"
• "a recent observation of Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) vortices "
• "a light box (Kelvin rating approximately 6200°)"

21:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

It could be you were being deliberately obtuse, or maybe you're actually not understanding this - not all the 728 are examples of the usage I'm talking about, but far far more than 15 are - the search results, as you must realise, show clearly that the singular form is by far the most common. I haven't seen you editing to impose your own style preference recently, so if you've stopped then thanks for finally listening. Worldtraveller 20:33, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not the one who writes the rules. I'll get around to fixing any I missed eventually. And I doubt that it is much more than 15, expecially if you through out those using "degrees Kelvin" which are probably more common. Quite clearly, some of those journals do use the proper plural form—maybe not always, but a significant portion of the time. Gene Nygaard 22:27, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks like you'd rather believe what you want to believe than actually to check what scientists use. If I see you change any more articles to impose your own preference, I'll treat that as vandalism, as it appears you're just being deliberately awkward about this. Worldtraveller 16:22, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

You can treat it as whatever you want, but that won't make it so.

What you have managed to show so far is that there are a considerable number of astronomers among those who do follow the rules.

Sure, there are also some dinosaurs still living in the days of degrees Kelvin, but so what? Gene Nygaard 12:56, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

B.S. Chandrasekhar puts in quite well in a letter to APS News, March 2002.

"More on Plurals

"Arne Reitan (November 2001 issue) says that the plural of kelvin is kelvin, not kelvins. He mistakenly thinks that the international system of units implies an international language with its own grammar. Physics is international, but the words in which it is expressed belong to a language, English, Norwegian, Hindustani, or whatever, and must follow the grammar and usage of that language. Agreed, papers in PR and PRL do not always do so, say some purists. Anyway, in English I write one kelvin or 273 kelvins, but in German I write ein Kelvin or 273 Kelvin. Note incidentally the capitalizing of nouns in German! In English, it is 230 volts, 10 amperes, 55 kilometres, 28 teslas, ...need I go on?"

B.S.Chandrasekhar

Groebenzell, Germany

Gene Nygaard 17:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Look! Scientists do not follow your 'rules', OK?! I've shown you that time and again. Yes, some people do it your way, but no, they are not the majority. All I can think is that you're unable to understand that, or you're just being disruptive. Either way, I'm absolutely fed up with your incessant revert warring over something so stupid, when you have added no real content to any of the articles you're revert warring over. Just stop! And I can't help noticing, from seeing various threads on your talk page, that you fail to be civil in almost every conversation you have. I'll start a request for comment, I think, to get wider community input on what I see as your disruptive attitude and wilful ignorance. Worldtraveller 13:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

You are the one being disruptive. You've shown nothing of the sort, nor have you countered what I have shown. You are the one arguing strictly from personal opinion. I have no idea what your redlink is about. What's with all the personal attacks? Facts aren't on your side, so you attack the person instead rather than discussing the issue. "Comment on content, not on the contributor.". Gene Nygaard 14:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

The red link is now blue. I haven't made any personal attacks, I've tried very hard to get you to understand that your edits are not helpful but you've been completely uncooperative. Having wasted so much of my time bashing against this particular brick wall, I'm asking for wider community input. You are invited to comment. Worldtraveller 15:05, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Ruler and compass constructions?

Can you pop by the above linked discussion and see if John Reid's explanation in his vote satisfies your concern (or just mention it here since I have it watched). Its a keep the way it sits now. --Syrthiss 13:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Apologies

Hello Gene. I saw you were indexing some Scottish & Irish history articles with diacritics in the names. I created some of them, and have edited many others, and I have to confess that I never even thought of the indexing side of things. Apologies & thanks for fixing this, and I'll try to make sure you don't need to do it all over again in a few months. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:23, 15 April 2006 (UTC) P.S. Do ligatures need the same treatment ?

I think I copied the part about diacritics and ligatures from Misplaced Pages:Categorization somewhere, but you can just go there and look for "sorting". I'd index æ as ae and Æ as Ae; is that what you mean? Same for œ, but I don't see that often, and ß as ss. Others aren't always so easy German ä, ö, and ü can be ae, oe, and ue as in Müller|Mueller, but those characters in some other languages should be a, o, and u, and I often do that with the German letters too. Sometimes, if an English spelling is given in the article, I use that form in the indexing; some diacritics with c indexed as ch, etc, but without that I just use the letter unaccented. I guess I'd find a couple of options acceptable in many cases, and if someone has a strong preference for one or the other in a particular article, I'd probably leave it.

Of course, I sometimes index Å as "aa" rather than the A in the example on the categorization page.

In sparsely populated categories it is often unnoticeable. The ones I've changed have usually resulted because they were listed out of order in some category. It's not that I have any qualms about changing them when I don't know, if I'm editing the article for some other reason, but I don't bother looking for hte ones that don't show up out of place somewhere. Of course, as more articles are added to a category, more of them will show up out of place.

P.S. There were some of those with a sort key with things like "|Family", something which didn't show up in the article's name and which wouldn't be helpful in the indexing. I don't remember which ones they were; most of them were in one or two categories, but I didn't go to those categories. Maybe I can figure it out and post it here. Gene Nygaard 01:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

One of them was Déisi Tuisceart which was indexed as Category:Ancient history|Peoples, and while if done consistently that would get all peoples under the "P", there wouldn't generally be any indication on the category page (unless someone added it in text at the top) showing why all those peoples are listed under "P". Look at Category:Ancient history, especially under "P". Gene Nygaard 01:23, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, it all makes perfect sense. I can't think of any reason to index the things under "P" or "F", so I'll have a look at that. I'm fairly sure ancient peoples is the wrong category anyway. "Æ" and "Œ" were what I had in mind for ligatures, used for some Anglo-Saxon history articles, and indexed as Ae or Oe in topic-specific reliable sources, just as you said. Thanks again for the explanations. I feel confident now about adding the indexing myself if I find anything that needs it. Bye for now ! Angus McLellan (Talk) 07:53, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

weight and mass

I tried responding to some assertions about weight and mass at: http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft#ParserFunctions Please feel free to join in. bobblewik 21:51, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Douglas-Bisbee and Douglas Airports

Hi,

Douglas Municipal Airport and Douglas-Bisbee International Airport are not the same airport. Douglas Municipal is two miles east of the town of Douglas and Douglas-Bisbee is about ten miles north. I believe the Int'l Airport used to be affiliated with the military.

There is also a Bisbee Municipal Airport. SportingFlyer 06:50, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for editing Accidental release source terms

Gene, thanks for Wikifying Accidental release source terms. - mbeychok 20:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Reply to Washington, D.C.

Thanks for reverting my edit and pointing this out to me; I can't believe I missed that! (Somehow I misread Use standard abbreviations when using symbols) To let you know, I have changed it back to my previous edit, except fixing this issue, since the majority of my edit (I hope!) did not contradict with WP:MOS. Thanks, AndyZ _t 00:56, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for help!

Hallo Gene, thanks a lot for correcting my contribution in Kastellorizo. I am Italian and - altough I try to do my best - there is still a long way before my English become sufficient... alex2006 10:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was pretty good; I only adjusted it in a couple of places. Gene Nygaard 10:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Reliable sources club

Oh yes- Jayjg. And when FeloniousMonk said in 3RR "SV was trying to archive a talk page that contained nothing more than fruitless and disruptive agitation from a chronic malcontent", I thought he was referring to you. Perhaps it was me! Ragout seems to have reverted back the to the "longstanding" version again. I think this might be rather a pity because SlimVirgin's bold version is easier to criticise.

And, of course, it will be no trouble if you quibble about details in what I've put. Although I re-read your (archived!) comments and saw and agreed with the problem you'd raised, my "solution" is coming from a rather different direction.

I actually think source contents should be able to be rejected as being "wrong" other than on grounds of internal inconsistency. Even SV allows the most authoritative sources (plural) to be used and so I don't ultimately think she would expect people to use a single clearly most authoritative source if it happened to be "wrong" in the particulars being used, as judged by a load of other reputable sources (or, dare I say it, if it was simply "wrong"!).

I'd allow more "sun rises in the east" (and minor investigatatory) unsourced statements than some people would but I'm more interested in technical articles whereas SV, working marvellously, in my view, on articles in dreadfully fraught areas such as terrorism and the Middle East, has far worse problems to deal with both in terms of who she has to edit "against" and that any "facts" are extremely contentious. Thincat 09:04, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg has reverted already citing the authority of "longstanding editors" rather than a longstanding version! But, and I'm sorry to be a let-down, I'm not going to join in on reverting him. Amazingly, I am technically a longer-standing editor than SlimVirgin (and you) but Jayjg trumps me. My edit count is way, way down on you lot, though. If I reverted more often I'd bump up my count!!! Thincat 16:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

How to delete a Category

How can I delete or rename a Category ? I created a new category and made spelling mistake. Now I cannot rename or delete it. Can you please also add this info in Misplaced Pages:Categorization where I added a section to help others for deleteing a category. Thanks. Siddiqui 16:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Edits of Useful conversions and formulas for air dispersion modeling

Gene, thanks for taking the time to make those "Wikifying" edits of the subject article. I have gone a step further and changed all of the original HTML equations to TeX equations, which I think is an improvement from the viewpoint of Wikifying. Once again, thanks. - mbeychok 18:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The problem with the html equations was often a failure to italicize the variables.

Your TeX equations suffer from the opposite problem; improperly italicized unit symbols. Gene Nygaard

Quoting from your summary of your latest edits: "now I have to clean up the TeX formulas ...". Gene, you have such a nice, decent way of expressing yourself! If you find editing so hard or distastful, perhaps you should consider giving it up.

We don't all have your "20,000+" edits under our belts or your wonderful grasp of all the minutia involved in Wikifying. I thought that being civil was an official Misplaced Pages policy and that being rude or insensitive was frowned upon by that policy. Or does that not apply to administrators?

Just once in while, why don't you try behaving like a mentor rather than being uncivil? - mbeychok 06:45, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Cat got your tongue? At a loss for words? Or what? - mbeychok 06:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Had I known that you claim to be the author of a couple of engineering textbooks, I would never have been so restrained and reserved, simply going to work and correcting a failure to italicize variables, the improper italicizing of unit symbols, and the failure to distinguish units of measure from the quantities measured with them. After your 50+ years as an engineer and textbook author, why would you need mentoring on such basic things? Gene Nygaard 13:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Gene, being an engineer and being obsessive about Misplaced Pages's unique "style" of presentation are two different things. I might also say that that any technical content in Misplaced Pages, a book or a technical journal has two basic components: (1) "substance" and (2) "style" of presentation. It strikes me that your primary administrative role should be to mentor Misplaced Pages newcomers on the minutia of Wiki "style" without being rude, insulting and uncivil as you have just been again. After all neither you nor I were born knowing the minutia of Misplaced Pages style. As for the substance of my contributions here or in my pre-Misplaced Pages publications, they speak for themselves despite your uncivil aspersions.

Take a look above on this page to where I have twice thanked you for your help with "Wikifying" an article ... and then you came right back with a sarcastic remark about "now I have to clean up (your) TeX formulas...". Don't you even understand how sarcastic and insulting that is? And that is only one small sample of your rude and uncivil choice of words when dealing with me and others as well. If you spent half the time and care on your choice of words that you do on your attention to the Wiki "style" minutia, you would not anger people as you do.

By the way, I don't "claim" to have authored two engineering books ... it is a verifiable "fact" that I authored them. I might add that the first one was published by John Wiley and Sons in 1967 when you were probably still a teenager or younger. Just another example of your insulting choice of words. Do you behave this way with your friends or your family? I doubt that you do, so why do it here? - mbeychok 22:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

It isn't a matter of "Misplaced Pages" style. It is a matter of good communications, no matter what the medium. Maybe you'd need some help in getting the proper formatting in Misplaced Pages editing, but recognizing that that formatting and proper use of symbols for units and variables is needed is not something specific to Misplaced Pages. Gene Nygaard 17:11, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, it doesn't matter in the least whether I was a teenaged college student in 1967, or if even my parents weren't born yet then (as is the case for some Misplaced Pages editors). That has no bearing whatsoever on what you should know, based on your experiences. Gene Nygaard 17:45, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

First, let me congratulate you for finally managing two paragraphs without being sarcastic or uncivil. John Wiley sold about 10,000 copies of my first book and I have sold 3,500 copies of my second book (which I self-published). For engineering texts, I call that darn good communicating. Being obsessive about the minutia of Wiki style has nothing to do with communicating. Every book publisher has their own style requirements as does almost every scientific and technical journal as well as Misplaced Pages. No one can be reasonably expected to be intimately knowledgeable of all those different styles. Writing "substance and content" is the job of authors and editing for "style" is the job of editors such as yourself. As my final parting word in this dialogue, editors should perform their job as civil mentors or tutors and avoid comments that are uncivil or can be perceived as being uncivil. - mbeychok 18:29, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Gene, you really are incredibly obnoxious. This kind of snotty reaction to someone who actually started off by thanking you for something is rude and uncalled for. Do you understand what is meant by the civility policy? Worldtraveller 18:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Kelvins vs Kelvin

Please use correct grammar in scientific articles. In the heat article you changed the title of an article from "heat at 2 billion degrees kelvin" to "hgeat at 2 gigakelvins". One, kelvin is not plural, two hgeat is not a word, tree the word gigakelvins is not used in the article. I am going to assume that your native language is not English. Please be more careful.--Sadi Carnot 08:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Tree is a word, but not likely the one you intended, just as I didn't intend any change to the word heat. The plural of kelvin is kelvins; it takes SI prefixes just like any other SI unit. Billion is an ambiguous word; the prefix giga- is clear and unambiguous. Degrees Kelvin were thrown out back in 1967. Gene Nygaard 03:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, what appeared in that link was merely a description of the contents; it wasn't the title of the article. Just because Fox News is using long-out-of-date degrees Kelvin doesn't mean we should do so. Gene Nygaard 03:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

G.N. I have two engineering degrees and am working towards a third degree in particle physics; plus I personal own over 50 books on thermal physics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, etc.; and based on the your previous discussion on the same topic (as above) I am going to assume that you are mentally incapacitated in some form or another. I apologize for this disrespect, but I don’t know how else to put this to you? Go ahead and do whatever your merry heart desires. Adios.--Sadi Carnot 13:30, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Gee, you have some books, and some degrees. What's the relevance to good English grammar? I provide a link to the rule. I, too, have lots of books using "degrees Kelvin", with a capital letter in the proper adjective Kelvin (just as the proper adjective is capitalized in degrees Celsius or degrees Fahrenheit), and with the "s" added to the noun. That was the proper usage when my books were published. But the rules were changed in 1967, when the CGPM resolution changed the name of the unit from "degree Kelvin" with symbol "°K" to "kelvin" with symbol "K". Now "kelvin" is no longer an adjective, but the noun, and like other units such as watts and newtons and volts, it is lowercase, and forms the plural by adding the "s" to the noun, which is now kelvin rather than "degree" which used to take the s. Gene Nygaard 15:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate use of references

I am sure you'd agree that if someone sees a footnote at the end of a sentence about the temperature of the Sun's corona, they would expect the footnote to lead to a reference about the temperature of the Sun's corona. Adding a link to a style guide in such a place is inappropriate and disruptive. Worldtraveller 12:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

That's the purpose of the quoted portion in the reference. It is appropriate, because the edit was disputed. What is inappropriate is removal of references to reliable sources. Gene Nygaard 12:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

It is a bit like citing a US dictionary to support a US spelling over a UK one. A citation that is about the style of a sentence and not about its substance is totally misleading, its repeated addition is purely disruptive, and again I find myself wondering if you're really not capable of understanding these things. Worldtraveller 14:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Unit formats

Hi Gene,

We both edit unit formats. If you copy User:Bobblewik/monobook.js to User:Gene Nygaard/monobook.js, you will get a 'units' tab in edit mode. You might find it useful. If you know unit format defects that it doesn't cover, you can configure it. bobblewik 09:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Did you see this comment? bobblewik 18:52, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

jarmann reverts

hi there - shall we try to reach a compromise over the jarmann rifle reverts? Tyhopho 14:31, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

What do you have in mind? We can discuss it on the Talk:Jarmann M1884, since you started out by reverting someone else who reverted your deletion. Gene Nygaard 14:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Philippe Liegeois

Hi Gene, you assisted in the article on Philippe Liégeois by removing the diacritical mark from the categorizations, with an edit summary of 'indexing'. Would you mind explaining why? Do these mark interfere with proper indexing or so? I just want to learn, no criticism intended. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:52, 29 May 2006 (UTC).

In English (and most other languages, for that matter), é should sort with e. But the default sorting is merely by Unicode number, not by English or any other alphabet. That means the order is A-Z, a-z, then followed by various letters with diacritical marks on the basis of their Unicode numbers. That means É is after z (and there are several other letters between É and é).

I noticed this one because Philippe Liégeois should come before Rakel Liekki, not after Lizmark, Jr.. In other words, in a huge category such as Category:Living people, there were more than 500 people between where he was and where he should have been; that's three pages out of place.

Note that spaces and punctuation marks are also indexed, and as I pointed out, they are also case-sensitive with all the uppercase letters come before the corresponding lowercase letters with other letters in between. Gene Nygaard 03:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Categorization#Category sorting. Note that unlike the piping in other links, the sort key following the vertical bar is not displayed. Gene Nygaard 03:09, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Very elucidating. Highly appreciated. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC).

rounding distances

Hi, on the Canadian airport articles, why are you rounding some distances in km to one decimal place, and some to no decimal place? Why not just leave them all at two decimal places? heqs 16:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Because far too many of the nautical miles figures end in zero for it to be random. They don't have that precision; if anything, I should be rounding off more than I have been. (At least some of them may well have been whole numbers in statute miles originally, others are only to the nearest half a nautical mile which would be roughly the same as the nearest kilometer). Gene Nygaard 03:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, there's no real need for, nor benefit from, anything more than the nearest mile of either sort, or the nearest kilometer. Furthermore, how is it defined--in this case, probably not from the city center, but rather from the nearest city limits, and in some cities, the fringes may be essentially rural yet, and in others the built-up part will extend beyond the actual city limit, so it really isn't all that helpful. Gene Nygaard 03:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Soil

You have edited some soil articles in the past - hopefully this means more soils editing in your future? Cheers! -- Paleorthid 06:53, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Myron Tribus Possibly living people

Gene,

Myron is 85 and living in Pensacola, Florida. I visited him at his home this week. Leaders100 12:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Honinbo is also a family name

Hi, Honinbo currently is the title of a go tournament. But it was also a special family name, which had been granted to the head of Honinbo go house before Honinbo became a Go competition in 1940. So it is more proper that Honinbo Jowa is listed as "Honinbo, Jowa", rather than "Jowa, Honinbo" in categories. Thank you. --Neo-Jay 17:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Top 1000 scientists

Hi As you had created the above mentioned article,I thought you may be interested to know that it has been listed for deletion.I have voted against it though.(Vr 05:14, 15 June 2006 (UTC))

Thanks. I wasn't the one who created Top 1000 Scientists: From the Beginning of Time to 2000 AD, but I have edited it. Gene Nygaard 13:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Towns in Poland

Hello, I see you've reverted me on the Towns in Poland articles. Let me point out that in Polish, L and Ł, for example, are two different letters. Just because Ł looks like "an L with a line through it" does not mean that the Ł articles belong with the L articles, and it's jarring to see them mixed together. I've created Template:CategoryTOCPolish to deal with the quirk of categorization that places letters with diacritics at the end of the category. Appleseed (Talk) 16:59, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't matter in the least if they are two different letters in some other language. They are indexed together in the English alphabet, and only one of them is part of the English alphabet. And they certainly aren't indexed by Unicode character numbers, not in any alphabet, but no other alphabet than the English alphabet matters in indexing things in the English Misplaced Pages.

Your template may be of some value on http://pl.wikipedia.org — but that navigation tool is useless as tits on a boar in getting the actual items listed to appear in the same order as the they do on the navigation tool. About all it is really good for here is demonstrating that it finally dawned on you that the way you were indexing things, with Ł following Z, and ę following not only F and Z but even after Ź as well, was really a bad way to do things. Gene Nygaard 03:32, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I created the template by way of compromise, but it seems I shouldn't have bothered. Appleseed (Talk) 12:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

No harm in trying, but it wouldn't be helpful. These are articles written in English in the English Misplaced Pages. To help people find them, they should be indexed in the English alphabet. It would be rather silly to have 150 different indexing schemes in different categories, with people having to know the order in which letters are used in 100 different languages, wouldn't it? Even worse would be the situation in which some articles in one category are entered with Polish alphabetization, some in the same category with German alphabetization, etc. Gene Nygaard 12:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Admin

Would you be open to the idea of being nominated by me for Adminship? You seem rather level headed and we need more level headed admins. TruthCrusader 10:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Mole (unit)

I agree with your analysis in the talk page, and have added a comment there explaining why. --Grouse 15:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Caron

Another proposal to move Caron is currently underway. Since you participated in a past discussion, you may be interested. Jonathunder 17:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Halloo. Vær so godt - Nygaard??

My Norwegian's awful....Gee, saw your surname in the history of the Skudeneshavn article. If your family's from Karmøy, we're probably related (via the Hoines family); but then I think everyone on Karmøy is related, aren't they? I'm from Vancouver, BC but I spent some time there; my grandmother was a Hoines (Margit) and we have the family tree-book and there's lots of Nygaards in it. I just did a Wiki article on her husband, my granddad, Endre Johannes Cleven; stretching the boundaries of vanity-wiki dictums but he was notable in Norwegian Canadian history but otherwise overlooked; I think for sure he had "duality" with the US and did a lot of his work (immigration official and also composer/conductor/musician) in Minneapolis, so I'm not sure if I should also put the Norwegian-American tag. Stopped by the Skudeneshavn page to see if there's a "list of notable Skudeneshavners" but no one's gotten that far yet; maybe in Norwegian Wiki. Best regards, and if your family is from Karmøy let's compare notes on which leg bone is connected to which knee bone....Skookum1 17:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Skookum1

Yes, we'd be distantly related--the families of both my grandfathers came from Karmøy. Send me an email from the link at the left. Gene Nygaard 04:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Ramūnas Šiškauskas

Hi, why did you move it? I am unable to decipher your move summary... I reverted it back, since Ramūnas Šiškauskas is the correct name/spelling. Renata 00:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Ramunas Siskauskas is a correct spelling in the English alphabet--and after all, this IS the English Misplaced Pages. So there should at least have been a redirect from that spelling, and there was not.

Note that not having it means that people who entered "Ramunas Siskauskas" in the box on the Misplaced Pages page and clicked "Go" wouldn't find the article, even though one existed.

Furthermore, it meant that there were redlinks in other articles which should not have been red, since the article existed. (Check "What links here" on that page)

I've figured out that the best way for me to fix this is to use the move function. That calls attention to the problem to the people writing or renaming these articles. Furthermore, even if someone like you does move it back, at least now we do have the redirect which should have been there from the beginning.

We are trying to publish information, not hide it. Note also that including the unaccented spelling within the visible text of the article will also increase the chances that people will find it when using a search engine search; I didn't do anything about that in this article, but you might considering adding that if it doesn't already exist.

Note also that if you are involved in other cases of renaming articles such as this by adding diacritics and the like to the article name, then it is also incumbent upon you to fix the indexing by including a sort key which does not include the diacritics. I also fixed that in a separate edit of this particular article. Gene Nygaard 15:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Yea, that all is very fine and good, but wasn't it simplier & easier just to make a simple redirect without moving the page? You know, open up non-existing Ramunas Siskauskas article, type in #redirect], hit save. I hear your arguments, but I find your solution to the problem quite... umg... strange. That's all. Renata 16:18, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

If there is no redirect, then create one. There is a template for categorizing such redirects, so that incoming links can be corrected by bot. See Template:R from title without diacritics. Please stop moving pages to typographically incorrect titles. —freak(talk) 16:15, Jul. 29, 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, I did create one. And what I created is indeed typographically correct. If you want to add some template and just hope that it might be fixed at some future time, go get ahead of me in doing so. But that template is more difficult than just creating a redirect page yourself--something I might do if my method weren't more attention-getting so that people don't continue to create articles without them having these redirects right from the beginning, which would save us a lot of time. Gene Nygaard 16:24, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

HUH??? I completely don't understand you. Moving pages from the form with diacritics to the one without is BAD. If you want to create a redirect, just create one without any pages moves. Read here how to do it. Moving pages just to educate other editors that they need to create redirects is WP:POINT. Renata 16:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not "bad". There is one slot available for the article name. What that should be is debatable; what is bad is not having the redirects.

It isn't disruptive. It is necessary, because simply adding a redirect from a new article name is something which will never show up on the watch lists of the people watching the article. Gene Nygaard 16:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

How come it is not distruptive when the article is under a wrong name? Yes, it is English Misplaced Pages, but it is widely accepted to use diacritics. If you really want to warn the editors, leave them a talk page note. Renata 11:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not a "wrong" name. It is a different spelling in a different alphabet. Spelling it in the foreign alphabet will still get you to the article if I have moved it--and, even if it is moved back, entering the unaccented English spelling will still get you to the article now, unlike the unacceptable situation before when it would not. Diacritics are accepted by some in some situations, not required by all in all situations. And certain diacritics are more accepted in English than others are--there are only a few of them that are fairly regularly used in English spelling. There are many names of people and places and other words which are much more often spelled in English without the diacritics than with them. Not using them is very common--and it is especially important for searching, because English speakers generally do not know all the hundreds of different squiggles that are added to letters in hundreds of other languages, and how to make each and every one of them on their computers even if they were able to distinguish one from another, and in many cases they have never even seen the squiggles but only the normal English name or word because that was what was used somewhere else. You can go ahead and add an explanation to the talk pages if you'd like--but I notice that you haven't done that so far, and if you do it for a couple of dozen of related articles you might realize how cumbersome it can be and how less effective it is. Gene Nygaard 12:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Please note that, in many languages, the accented letter and the unaccented letter represent significantly different phonemes; as well, this can affect meaning. Redirecting (accented) to (unaccented) is incorrect; typographically, it would be far simpler and more accurate to make the unaccented version a redirect to the accented version. DS 17:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

No, it isn't incorrect, and it isn't any different from redirecting unaccented to accented. Which is the better choice depends on English usage.

When no choice has yet been made, I'll go with my choice.

My way is also simpler, and less likely to result in typos in entering the name, and as I pointed out above, there is nothing about creating a new redirect which would ever call attention to this class of problems to the article creators and others who might have it on their watch list. Gene Nygaard 16:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Just to let you know, I have reported your behavior on admin notice board. I do not have time or will to argue with you here while you keep moving pages around. Renata 17:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi! Just noticed the thread at AN/I. The question of whether article titles should be diacriticalised is going on in several pages across Misplaced Pages, most notably at WP:NAME and WP:RM - see here here and here. The policy is not entirely clear, and can be interpreted in both ways with certian merits in each. Could you hold off the moves just for the time being, until there is a consensus formed from these debates? It's normal procedure toravoid making changes whilst discussion is ongoing, and it will help a consistent widespread renaming after this has all been sorted out. Many thanks, Aquilina 17:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Those discussions only deal with where it ends up in the one slot available for the article name. That doesn't change the fact that it is essential to include at least a redirect or a disambiguation page link from the unaccented form, and not just an article with accented letters without those English alphabet links. That only peripheral to any ongoing discussions as far as I can see. A choice hasn't been made in the cases I'm dealing with. Gene Nygaard 03:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

So far, I haven't been doing anything to articles with diacritics in the article name, as long as they have either a redirect from the form without diacritics, or a link from a disambiguation page without diacritics.

But I think I may follow up on your suggestion to leave things at the status quo ante, if it appears that there is serious discussion going on. So when I come across any article which has been moved from an unaccented form to a form with accents, I'll probably start moving them back to where they were before. Gene Nygaard 04:04, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Needing Gene Nygaard's Help

Hello Gene! Sorry to bother you. Can you help Anglicize the article Oltarz Wita Stwosza?Thanks. Dr. Dan 17:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks pretty good to me. I changed the decimal point to the English standard dot used in Misplaced Pages, and lowercased the currency. Will look again when I have more time. Gene Nygaard 17:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

When you find the time, do you think the title is appropriate in the English Misplaced Pages? Dr. Dan 04:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Meaning of Symbol

In Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Symbol v. abbreviation you gave a very cogent explaination of the difference between a symbol and an abbreviation. It's too bad none of the authors at NIST never bothered to put that in their publications. Do you have a source for this explaination? --Gerry Ashton 18:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Moves

You moved those articles from the actual names of the subjects to Anglicized versions, saying for each there "wasn't any redirect". If you're having trouble figuring out how to create redirects, please let me know and I'll be glad to show you how. It's not that hard, and soon you'll be able to do it on your own. --Calton | Talk 13:40, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

See Aquilina's discussion above that there is no consensus on which of the choices is the proper one for the name of the Misplaced Pages article. What is clear is that there should be at least a redirect from all the variant spellings.

In most of the moves I have been making, no such choice has yet been made--the proper English alphabet spelling hasn't yet been considered, so I am making my choice, as well as insuring that at the very least a redirect remains. Like I said on your talk page, it really isn't that hard for you to get out and do something to improve Misplaced Pages yourself. Doing so will make it less likely that I will bother moving it. Have you looked at the articles in that category and done anything about them yet? Gene Nygaard 13:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Gee, Gene, like I said, making redirects isn't all that hard. If you were too proud to ask, you could have asked discreetly. See, all you have to do is first copy the name you're aiming for, create the redirect page, paste in the correct article name, select the name, and then click the rightmost tab at the top of your edit screen. It's that easy!

If you want a more detailed step-by-step, just let me know! That way you can do things properly yourself, without requiring someone to clean up after you. That way, the encyclopedia is actually improved for everyone! --Calton | Talk 14:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I've likely created more redirects than you ever have. I'm perfectly capable of doing so when it is called for; something else is called for in these cases. Gene Nygaard 12:28, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion: Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, Plasma Rifle, and other articles

Hey,

I've seen that you've been editing some of the Halo weapons pages. I would like to inform you that they are being nominated for deletion.

If you want to partake in the discussions, just go to their respective pages, and hit "this article's deletion entry" link.

I'll be on vacation, and will be unable to contribute to these discussions.

Cheers,

RelentlessRouge 12:57, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Rivers of Serbia

Hello. Thanks for the corrections on the subject. Just one thing, Đetinja should redirect to Djetinja as that would be correct English spelling, not Detinja. It is totally different letter (and sound). Đ or Dj sounds like softer G in Gene and not like D (in David, for example). If in the 1990s English didn't switch to South-Slavic Latin it would be something like Dyetinya I gues :o) PajaBG 19:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Accents

Could I ask why you are changing articles with Spanish accents on lettering? Is this a policy?--Zleitzen 01:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with Spanish, per se. The sort keys need to strip the accent marks from any non-English letters, so that they are properly indexed according to English rules, since this is the English Misplaced Pages. Note that without doing so, they are also not properly sorted according to any other languages rules; rather they are just sorted in accordance with the Unicode numbers of the letters. See Misplaced Pages:Categorization.

Note that the sort key in categorization, though it looks similar, doesn't work the same way as piping in ordinary links.

To keep the information from being hidden away, you also need to have either the article itself named without the accents, or a redirect or disambiguation page linking to the article. If I find articles without these, obviously no choice has yet been made as to the best name for the article, so I generally make this fix in the easiest way, and make my choice of the name. Gene Nygaard 05:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh I see, thanks for your help. --Zleitzen 09:00, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Page moves

Hi! Just to add to what I said above; if there is no diacriticless redirect to a diacriticalised title, please could you consider creating the appropriate redirect, rather than moving the article? This improves consistency (i.e. Víkar became pretty much the only Faroese placename not to lie at the diacritic title after your move), and in the case of Faroese at least this move has major semantic implications; vík means bay, whereas vika means week, completely changing the name of the place. If double redirects need fixing, it's better for future editing just to bite the bullet and do that, rather than move the article to a less accurate title.

Many thanks for all the work on the indexing though - it's a very useful stop-gap until the software becomes sophisticated to handle multilingual indexing. See you around, Aquilina 22:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

You seem confused. Just because a word can be written with diacritics, that is not determinative of whether or not it should be written with diacritics in an English Misplaced Pages article page name.

Obviously, if the unadorned version has not been created as a redirect or linked from a disambiguation page, the issue of the better article name hasn't even been addressed yet.

Just creating redirects does nothing to call the attention of the people who could avoid it in the first place in future articles, by creating the necessary redirects from the get-go.

Etymology of place names is a dicey issue at best in most cases, and you likely don't even have anything like Oluf Rygh's Norske Gaardnavne to start with here. Gene Nygaard 16:30, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

1. I'm not confused in the slightest. I know there has been no authoritative decision on what to do with a diacritisable title - but surely you can see that in areas where all the articles have been named with diacritics, it is far more consistent and encyclopaedic just to create the redirect than make that article a random odd-one-out? If one article is to be transliterated differently to the rest, it should be for a more encyclopaedic reason than "well, someone forget the redirect for that one".
2. There are better ways of calling attention to this than moving the odd page. It's better to do the awareness-raising on the talk-pages and policy-making pages than the odd isolated page move that lowers naming consistency.
3. Etymology is not the main argument towards using diacritics, but it is something to bear in mind. In the case I used above, bays is definitely the correct stem for the name - just see the article. But there are more pressing arguments on both sides. Aquilina 18:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

You have now been asked to stop by myself, User:Freakofnurture, User:Renata3, User:Palthrow, User:DragonflySixtyseven, User:Calton and other edits of this type you have made have been reverted by User:Juro and User:Sjorford.

If eight editors raise concerns about your actions, there is probably a case to answer - it seems there is a consensus against your actions. Please stop moving these articles, and just create the redirects. I know you are trying to raise awareness, but there are better ways to do that - and these moves are creating unnecessary work and disrupting normal editing. Aquilina 22:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

If you ever start doing anything to fix these problems, any suggestions you have might carry more weight.

Only a couple have raised any concerns. You read too much into a simple revert--and it is quite important to note that in this case, a revert doesn't put things back to the status quo ante. The situation is quite improved--at least now, someone who runs across a name or other word in an English-language newspaper has a chance to find the Misplaced Pages article when one exists.

Just creating redirects only addresses one article, not the overall problem. It doesn't alert anyone to the opportunity to determine what is really the best article name in each case. Just because a word can be written with diacritics, that most certainly does not mean that the English Misplaced Pages article name should include diacritics, rather than being written in the English alphabet. Gene Nygaard 14:32, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

All the editors mentioned want to get to the same situation; but to get to the same state with your method, you need other editors to check all your edits, clean up your mess and sort out requested moves if there is an existing talk page involved - and any pages that don't get caught by the other editors are named inconsistently. You are creating unnecessary work to make a point.

As you have continued your actions, despite a firm consensus against them, I have brought the matter back up at AN/I. Aquilina 16:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Your page moves are disruptive and violate WP:POINT. Please stop. If you continue, you may be blocked for disruption. JoshuaZ 17:17, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

This is not the best way

Gene: while I believe you have the best of intentions, I don't believe this is the best way to go about things. You know full well that this is a controversial action; your decision to go ahead, damn-the-torpedoes, makes it an aggressive action. Be bold, sure - until someone complains, or you know that your actions do not have consensus. THEN, you should talk, negotiate, attempt to build a plurality.

Since you state that you could just create the missing redirects but choose not to do that, since it will not teach other editors a lesson - this implies to me that you're violating the spirit of "Don't disrupt Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point" quite well. Your editorial actions should not be done to teach other editors a lesson. That is against the spirit of good faith and reasonable behaviour. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 17:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)