Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:39, 24 April 2004

Welcome

Hello Ww, welcome to Misplaced Pages. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian. You can learn more on the how to edit page. The naming conventions and manual of style pages are also useful. Feel free to experiment at the Misplaced Pages:Sandbox. If you have any questions about the project then check out Misplaced Pages:Help or add a question to the Village pump. Angela

Enimga <> stream cypher??_stream_cypher??">

Hi, Ww, why are you claiming Enigma isn't a stream cipher? It encrypts one symbol at a time in a way which depends on the machine's internal state, which is exactly what a stream cipher is. If you are concerned that it acts on whole letters rather than bits, don't be; that distinction is practically obsolete. In fact of the 12 examples given beneath the stream cipher article, only 3 are bit-oriented. Securiger 09:06, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

JNC on PH

Hi, not sure I completely understand what you mean by "I have a sense of the other shoe not yet hitting the floor about it" - I apologize for not responding before, there are just so many things to do on Misplaced Pages, I was busy elsewhere. In other words, don't read anything into my failure to reply!

I just posted a reply on the PH talk page; I read your reply and agree we need to cover the theories in some detail, but I still think it ought to be a separate page. Since only Daniel disagreed (of those who have said anything), if you're OK with it, I think we should do it. Noel 14:07, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

logical fallacy good & Constitutional Debate of Canada

Congratulations on your rephrasing of key paragraphs in the Logical fallacy article! I wanted to clarify it as well, but it is very difficult to construct accurate sentences in a foreign language. Can I ask what is your nationality? I am looking for a non-Canadian to help out in making Constitutional debate of Canada neutral and clear for outsiders. Right now, we (well, it is mostly me) are in the process or restructuring the article (see the talk page) which used to be parts of Politics of Canada so that all visitors can make sense of it even if they are new to the subject. At this point, we just need to know if the proposed structure is understandable and neutral or if it looks obscure and/or biased. Mathieugp 20:16, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A stranger to the debate is what we need. Ideally, more than one person would be even better. Reading French is sure helpful to dig into this contentious subject. A lot of books were written in that language by Quebecers and they were not necessarily translated to English. Nevertheless, if you would just watch the page as it evolves and point out things that seem non-neutral, vague, out of place, fallacious etc, you would be very helpful. All of us who know of the debate are biased and we know it. Mathieugp 21:43, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Your edits were fine, but the article is going to be rewritten completely. Currently, it looks like and accelerated history course and the headings are not very logical. There are also numerous errors. I have a proposed structure for the article here: Talk:Constitutional_debate_of_Canada. Since I conceived it and nobody showed up to participate to my discussion, I am actively seeking people to tell me if they see any bias in it. I will not start writing before that. Mathieugp 15:44, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

CRYPTREC

Hi ww, great start at CRYPTREC. I can't make head or tails of their website; is the project ended / ongoing? Anyway, good stuff. — Matt 17:23, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

CryptoDerk's plans

Thanks for the info about crypto, I'll definitely be editing more pages in the near future, as soon as a finish off my thesis (which, of course, is about crypto). My specific area of expertise is the DLP and related stuff like ECC and HECC, so I'll likely be sticking to that. Block ciphers are not my cup of tea at all, so it'll be rare for me to edit anything like that. I'll definitely be sure to add some more books. CryptoDerk 16:11, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

Main Page design ans from Eloquence

Getting back to you regarding your comments on the new Main Page:

1) Structure. There are different opinions about what the Main Page is supposed to accomplish. Some feel it should give every visitor all the knowledge they need to become a contributor. Some feel it should showcase examples of our work. Others think that it should be a directory of articles. My design is based on two assumptions:

a) We want to point users to articles that they likely want to read,

b) We want to provide an incentive for people to regularly view the Main Page.

Let me elaborate on these assumptions.

a) The old design provided merely a catalog of links with no information as to what is behind these links. In the case of the topics directory, this approach may work, because people have a general idea as to what these topics refer to. In the case of news items, new articles, featured articles etc. this was ill-conceived, as there is little motivation for me to follow a link if the only way to get a basic idea of what is behind it is to do so.

b) I only viewed the old Main Page to access other pages, hardly ever to actually read the content. I did not view it regularly. I view the new Main Page every day and follow most of its sections. Why is this difference important? If we can hook our users on our Main Page, then that is a good way to get them interested in the rest of the site. If the reader will, however, be turned away by the Main Page after following a link from somewhere else, we may lose them forever. So it is very important that our Main Page includes "hooks" to catch people, and to create a bond with the site. The information is also much more accessible this way - rather than following dozens of pages, if you want to get a digest of what's interesting on Misplaced Pages, you can just follow the Main Page.

The old topics index is still there. In my opinion, it is mostly useless, because it gives the false impression that it is a directory, when in reality it is just a list of articles, many of which do not provide a good overview of the general topic. Furthermore, thanks to our ubiquitous redirects, just entering a search term and pressing "Go" often gets you exactly where you want. When the fulltext search is back, that will be the primary way people access Misplaced Pages articles. I have almost never used the topics index.

The Community Portal is now, in my opinion, much more useful even though there's still a lot of room for improvement. We have space on it to collect all the important Misplaced Pages: pages, and we can use it to inform our readers about general events of note to the community rather than just readers. Once people become interested in editing, this should be the place where they can learn everything they need to know.

2) Design. Yes, there are always trends in design and we should certainly not follow the latest trend just for the hell of it. I have studied Digital Media for four years, and I was often wildly opposed to the types of designs that were favored there. I was the only one in a room of 40 willing to stand up and say: "This design is crap. The user can't find anything there." So while I understand where you're coming from, I resent the claim that the new Main Page is somehow an expression of fashion, conscious or unconscious. I sat down and designed it (on paper at first) based on ideas that were previously thrown around in the community. If you wanted "the latest fad", the Main Page would consist of a Flash intro, after which you would get a JavaScript based button navigation with the function of the buttons only visible when you move your mouse over them. It would all look very nice but be completely useless.

I added images not because images are fancy, but because they transport emotions. And I think therein lies one cause of the problem. Many people are opposed to any design that works with emotions. However, I believe this to be necessary if the information that we transport is actually to be memorized and usefully processed. This is how memory works - by connecting information with emotional encoding. Intellectuals can generate these encodings from the smallest bits of information, but most people require a trigger, typically of a visual nature. As an encyclopedia we can choose to write strictly for ourselves or for our readers. The new Main Page is designed to accomplish the latter.—Eloquence 04:52, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)

use stubs

Hi. Thanks for all the stuff you're adding on cryptography, but could you make a little more attempt at formatting on the stubs you create? It won't really add much work for you and it'll save others from having to clean up after you. Especially, don't leave messages in the article itself about what needs to be added. Put that on the talk page. Isomorphic 17:58, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm pretty sure the official position is that you should use the talk page for such things. If you really don't want to use the talk pages, there is one other option that's still much better than inserting a message directly into the article. The Misplaced Pages markup language allows comments to be made in the code without appearing in the article. The format for this is <!-- comment here -->. I've inserted a comment into this page's code as an example. Isomorphic 19:54, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Jorge Stolfi in re snake oil

Thank you! Jorge Stolfi 18:22, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Being an admin

Regarding being an admin, how much of an advantage it is depends on what sort of work you do here. I was nominated for admin because someone saw me doing "maintainance" work - fighting vandalism and nominating nonsense pages for speedy deletion. Since I was doing that sort of work anyway, it was convenient for me to get the tools to do it easilly (rollback and deletion.) There are other powers (running direct SQL queries, viewing deleted pages, undeleting, protecting and unprotecting pages, editing protected pages, and a few other things) but I don't ever use them myself. There isn't actually much authority involved since usage of most of the powers is strictly controlled by policy. You can read all about it at Misplaced Pages:Administrators.

As far as the community aspects of the position, admin is a position of trust and service. Admins aren't required to do any particular jobs but they tend to be the ones taking care of a lot of the boring maintainance tasks. People also tend to expect admins to act as examples by their behavior (staying cool in disputes, being civil and helpful, etc.) There's also some prestige in being an admin, although not a huge amount of it. Some admins don't like the thought that there's any extra status, but in practice it's a position of trust so there's bound to be some respect attached.

Basically, if you aren't doing maintainance stuff there isn't a lot of reason to be an admin. Of course, there's also not a lot of reason not to be one. If you want I'll take a look through your contributions and consider nominating you. Isomorphic 21:24, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security

Have you come across this: Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security? It's apparently to be published by Kluwer sometime this year (2004) and has some top cryptographers contributing. They seem to be aiming at around 500 articles (we have some three hundred odd). It would probably be profitable to compare their coverage to Misplaced Pages's. — Matt 20:31, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

--'s on list of cryptography topics

ww — thanks for adding articles to list of cryptography topics. One detail though: could you make sure to add a separating "--" to the end of the entry, as this seems to be the style we've inherited for the list. Cheers! — Matt 23:40, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Admin nomination

Hi, I took a look through your contributions and liked what I saw, so I nominated you at Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship. You'll want to wander by there and accept if you want the position. From your edit log it doesn't look like you've been in any disputes or controversies, or made any enemies, and your contrubutions have been valuable. The nomination should sail through easilly. Isomorphic 01:49, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

ISBN

Thanks. I didn't think ISBN was retrospective, but since someone was complaining about my lack of providing an ISBN for a 1940s book, I thought he might know something I didn't. Sounds like I knew something he didn't. -- Jmabel 17:46, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

{{msg:inuse}}

ww -- can I recommend {{msg:inuse}} for large reedits of a page? it's really useful for avoiding edit conflicts, and looks like this:

This user talk page is actively undergoing a major edit for a little while. To help avoid edit conflicts, please do not edit this page while this message is displayed. This page was last edited at 18:39, 24 April 2004 (UTC) (20 years ago) – this estimate is cached, update. Please remove this template if this page hasn't been edited for a significant time. If you are the editor who added this template, please be sure to remove it or replace it with {{Under construction}} between editing sessions.

— Matt 19:15, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

crypto

You're welcome! I've noticed your work because I frequently scan Special:Newpages for possible additions to MediaWiki:Dyk and I've recently come across many quality additions to Misplaced Pages in the cryptography field--most with your name on 'em. I'm so bewildered by math that I'm pretty sure I'm not a particularly good choice to look over your shoulder, but if i ever see anything that could be improved from a fuzzy's point of view, I'll be sure to chime in. :) Cheers! jengod 21:14, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Tonkinese cat

Ww,

Glad you got the nomination. It looks like smooth sailing for you. I think you might be the first admin nomination I voted for (or maybe the second). I saw the nomination go up almost immediately and said to myself "Ww, sounds familiar. Oh yeah, the Tonkinese editor." It took me five minutes or so to figure out how to properly edit the first "Support" vote, but I got it in pretty quickly. Actually, I think after your first edit on the Tonk article, you left some things hanging, but the second and following edits fixed things and then really made it a nice article.

Actually, the reason I started the Tonk article is that I looked at the List of cat breeds article for those cats that didn't have breed articles. I did the Egyptian Mau cat article first. My wife and I showed Egyptian Mau cats regularly for a number of years, although we didn't run a cattery (rare folks who show, but aren't breeders). Then I started on what I considered the nicest breeds that didn't yet have articles. I put the American Keuda cat in the breed list, and wrote a short article about them. It's a very rare breed in early development, so few people know much about them. Then I think that the Havana Brown cat was next, probably followed by the Tonks. I really didn't know much about them, but remember liking them from the shows, so I put out a rather anemic article about them, and pleaded in the Summary for some nice Tonk fan to show up and make it a good article. And you did. I was pleased, since this sort of appeal usually doesn't work. Now we've got a good Tonk article.

I'm pleased to support you. Thanks for all of your good works. Brian Rock 00:24, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

danny

Thanks for your comments. Although I had never noticed your edits before you were nominated, I checked them out and found that they really were excellent. I am pleased to be able to support you as an admin. My talk page was protected because someone had been vandalizing it over the past few days. Danny 01:09, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

My mind isn't working well (jwr)

And I don't know what you mean by KBO, unless it's Kuiper Belt Objects. :-) I'm glad my Washingtonian stuff is welcome -- I imagine you're referring to Seafair? It's probably the best of what little I've yet offered. I'm still mulling over how to approach Northwest Folklife and Bumbershoot. And I'm happy to look over cryptography articles if you'll tell me which ones need special focus. I should admit, however, a casual interest in cryptography -- I read Simon Singh's The Code Book and enjoyed it, and so read a couple of other very popular-style approaches to cryptography....about 2-3 years ago now, but if it disqualifies me as a pair of eyes, well, just let me know. :-) Congrats on your adminship (pending? Or are you in by now?), and I'm happy to have helped. I do remember the Curse fiasco now (goodness, a tempest in a teapot), and am sorry your edits got lost, but that discussion went in weird directions before resolving. Let me know what I can do to help out, and thanks for your note, Jwrosenzweig 18:32, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

A general impression with a few ideas is at Talk:Enigma machine. :-) I'll try to get to others as I have time over the next couple of weeks. And my request is a fairly simple one: I've been begging a long time for people to look at Medieval literature, which is almost entirely written by me. People have been content to object to it generally on a few occasions, without offering any specific ideas for improvement. Any thoughts about where it can be expanded, what is unclear, how it can be better structured, etc., are very welcome. If you do that and feel a little more literary interest, I've done a lot of overhauling on the still woefully incomplete History of literature, and would love some ideas on that one too. Thanks! :-) Jwrosenzweig 20:43, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Heh, thanks for the amusement on my talk page. Don't freak out -- I'm not looking for sophisticated literary analysis....just general thoughts. I think actually the character of my remarks regarding Enigma (which really didn't rely on my limited technical knowledge of cryptography much at all) is what I'm asking for, and I've every confidence you can handle it. :-) I'm afraid I don't drink beer (see teetotaller for more info ;-), but perhaps a burger and a Coke will suffice if literature proves beyond your abilities! Anyhow, thanks for the marvelous conversation, and let me know if there's anything else I can do beyond a shot at a few cryptography articles. I promise, on at least one of them, I'll say "Perfect! Change nothing!" ;-) Jwrosenzweig 21:23, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Happy to help (cecropia)

Hi Ww, Sure, I'll be happy to look over your cryptography article and anything else you suggest, and make suggestions. I've just looked at the first paragraph or two, and the material is (from the layman's POV) much better written than most, actually. The one thing I know I'll suggest is trying to sum up the issue (i.e., the "dictionary definition" opening, in the first sentence, with the etymology at the end. I'll be more specific when I've looked at it a little more.

I'm in the point now in my work where, as far as tech knowledge is concerned, I learn what interests me, but only work to have a thorough knowledge of what I need to know, if you know what I mean. Many technical issues have a short layman's explanation, enough to tell the non-techie what s/he needs to know, and I especially want to write new openings for articles like Domain Name System. If I can help with that kind of rewrite of articles of interest to you, that's my special focus. Cheers! Cecropia 19:34, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ah, I get it! I'll read over the article with your comments in mind. Cecropia 20:11, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

meelar

I'd certainly be willing to look over the cryptography articles, and I appreciate your offer of return help. I've actually been looking for someone to do this sort of thing; mainly on articles about U.S. political topics, since that's my area of expertise. Part of that would be for NPOV, as well as too much of an "insider" approach (i.e. unfamiliar terminology etc.). I'd really appreciate looks at southern strategy, campaign finance reform, and realigning election. Any particular articles you'd care to have me examine, or should I just look at your contributions and user page? Yours, Meelar 21:06, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Brian (catbar)

I'm willing to help, too. I'm no expert in cryptography, but I have a pretty good knowledge of computing and mathematics in general. I may be helpful to you, and I may not. Perhaps my biggest handicap in that area is a lack of strong interest, but that may be of use to you - making sure the article appeals to as wide an audience as possible.

I'll watch your work and get back to you as I can. Feel free to make specific requests, too. Brian Rock 00:07, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)

...it's crypto generally.

• Ouch. Sorry for the misinterpretation. I'll start to look around the crypto pages as time allows. Spring has started in my neck of the woods (more like summer, actually). I was out taking what I hope will be wikipictures today. But the cold and rainy days will be back - it is April in NE Ohio, after all. Talk to you later. Brian Rock 20:47, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

message form Simpson'sFan

Hi how you doing? Simpson'sFan 15:56, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

New pages!

ww - hey, good work on the new pages that you've added in the last couple of days (5-6 isn't it?). I add them to List of cryptography topics when I notice them, but I'm not sure that I catch them all; I don't suppose you could add them to the list on creation? — Matt 20:29, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thoughts

Your thoughts are more than welcome! History of lit is less pressing for me because, as yet, no one seems to want to write the half of the article that is still missing, and I have considerably less knowledge in much of it -- still, I'd be interested in your thoughts concerning what's there presently. The subject is far too big. And I may not have as much WP time in the next few weeks, but what I have, I'll devote a chunk of to cryptography pages. Thanks for your help. :-) Jwrosenzweig 16:48, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sysop

Congratulations! You are now an administrator after getting 100% support on WP:RFA. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. Good luck. Angela. 02:49, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

Congrats from me as well. You're right, a lot don't go that smoothly, but you haven't been in any fights and your contributions are good. So no problems :-) Isomorphic 17:25, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Congrats! Arvindn 18:27, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Congratulations, Ww! Cribcage 20:30, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Info: Page access counts

ww - you might be interested in perusing User:Matt Crypto/Crypto hits March-2004, which gives some popularity data for the crypto articles from last March. Moreover, congratulations on becoming an admin! — Matt 02:58, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

A Wikiproject Cryptography?

Do you think we would benefit from a Wikiproject Cryptography? I have hacked together a proposal for Wikiproject Cryptography. It might be a reasonable place for collecting together useful information, identifying needs, and hosting more general discussions. I guess we don't (at the moment) have a huge number of editors working on this, but it still might prove useful. What do you think? — Matt 17:38, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Your suggestions

Hi, sorry it took so long to get back to you--I just got finished writing a long paper that kind of swallowed my weekend. Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts on realigning elections, but I have a few bones to pick as well.

I'm not so sure that TR marks a polarizing point--I would say that liberal-to-moderate Republicanism survived well after this (for example, you could make a case for Dwight Eisenhower, as well as Rockefeller et al). A good couple of resources for this are "Grand Old Party", by Lewis Gould, a history of the GOP. Also, Gould wrote "1968: The Election that Changed America", and Kevin Phillips' "The Emerging Republican Majority" are quality reads about Nixon, Goldwater, Rockefeller, and the final collapse of moderation.

Of course, that's only if you're interested in this sort of thing; as my girlfriend would attest, sometimes I assume that everybody is. I'm not sure I agree with your comments entirely, but you're right, FDR didn't just spring up ex nihilo. What would you suggest?

Yours, Meelar 01:01, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Treecats

Awesome work you did, I dont think I can add anything more to it now. I will work on some other honor-related links. One think that could be done is to add graphics from my page, but I am not sure how Wiki policy applies to it (see Honor Harrington discussion page for my questions regarding this).

--Piotrus 18:39, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)