User talk:Anthony.Sebastian: Difference between revisions

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'''Creating my User Talk Page.'''  --Anthony.Sebastian<br>  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] [[User talk:Anthony Sebastian|(Talk)]] 13:48, 19 December 2006 (CST)
'''Creating my User Talk Page.'''  --Anthony.Sebastian<br>  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] [[User talk:Anthony Sebastian|(Talk)]] 13:48, 19 December 2006 (CST)
==Intro==
Current UTC Time: -8 hours <br>
Current UTC Time: {{Template:Utc|-7}}<br>
{|style="color:green;background-color:#ffffcc;" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" border="2" align="center"
|[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category:Articles_to_Approve To Approve articles]
|[http://diberri.dyndns.org/cgi-bin/templatefiller/?type=&id= Diberri citation maker]
|[http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting#HTML Help Wikiformatting]
|[http://test.citizendium.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Citizendium Citizendium Test Wiki]
|[[CZ:How to use Bugzilla]]
|-
|}
----
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{{archive box|auto=long}}
{{archive box|auto=long}}


== Dog/Draft ==


Hi Anthony.  I am continuing to work on the [[Dog/Draft]], but I would like to see the current draft become Approved Version No. 2 notwithstanding.  It is expanded, it corrects some factual errors and tightens the slightly-too-informal writing in some paragraphs.
{{TOC|left}}
{{-}}


I believe David Tribe was the original approving editor, and I have dropped a note onto his page.  I'm writing to you because I don't know how active David is at the mo and whether or not he will see the note timely, so I wanted to make someone else in Bio aware of it.  Thanks.  [[User:Aleta Curry|Aleta Curry]] 15:17, 18 February 2008 (CST)
== Please review [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] for spelling, grammar, and whatever  ==
:Okay, I can't place an exact date on the cave paintings, but I tightened up the section a bit.
:That's a nice dog site you mentioned.  Got some gaps in breeds, but it's pretty good.  The problem with the proliferation of all these dog sites is the diffusion of talent.  There's just too much information for any one person or even two or three to make a comprehensive site quickly.
:[[User:Aleta Curry|Aleta Curry]] 18:09, 19 February 2008 (CST)
::Just FYI, I've been doing some work as you suggested.  Do have a look if/when you have a spare moment.
::Re the fictional dogs you mentioned, yes, they all belong in related articles/lists/catalogues/whatever. I don't remember where we were in terms of developing articles for fictional dogs--oh, dear--one more thing for my 'to do' list, but at least that's a fun one!
:: [[User:Aleta Curry|Aleta Curry]] 18:07, 25 February 2008 (CST)


Aleta, hard to beat [http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/names/dognames.htm Dogs From Fiction]. Includes movie, TV, cartoon, literature dogs.  --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 18:47, 4 April 2008 (CDT)
Anthony, I would very much appreciate it if you would review [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] for spelling, grammar, and whatever else you think may be needed. Let me have your comments on the article's Talk page. Thanks, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 20:33, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
:Not bad, but not the top either.  There are more comprehensive lists at Wikipedia, thanks to many dedicated dog lovers.  (I should know.)
==Hi Anthony==
:Of course, for the BEST ever, I'd have to nominate Citizen Lunchbox dot com.  Outrageous.
Back after a holiday - I take it I'm not still needed for Alcmeion?[[User:Gareth Leng|Gareth Leng]] 08:39, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
:[[User:Aleta Curry|Aleta Curry]] 00:10, 5 April 2008 (CDT)


== Wiki conversion ==
:Thanks, Gareth.  [[Alcmaeon]] (a.k.a., Alkmaion): Approved.  Hope you enjoyed your vacation, though you may have meant 'vacation from CZ'.  OMBs need such.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 22:31, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


I'm proficient with LaTeX and have MSWord running on my PC. I'm willing to convert math and physics equations from Word to Wiki LaTeX. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 07:42, 21 February 2008 (CST)
== Asking for your help again ==


== Volunteer to convert articles emailed in ==
Anthony, the [[Project Apollo]] article needs a critical review by a History author like yourself. See [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Project_Apollo here] the documentation of my recent extensive edits to that article.


Anthony:
Anything you can do to make it more readable, more interesting, etc. would be appreciated. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


I would like to volunteer to convert and upload Chemical Engineering articles that are sent in via email by contributors. Is this the right place for that? If not, can you tell me where to volunteer? I will watch for your response here on your Talk page. Thanks, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 12:03, 21 February 2008 (CST)
:Milton, I have a few deadlines related to academic year ending. I took a look at [[Project Apollo]] and will plan to work on it starting sometime in July, though the start of the academic year also puts demands on me.


:Milton, thank you for volunteering to convert word processor articles to MediaWiki mark-upI hope you will feel comfortable acepting articles with a broad definition of chemical engineering.
:Thanks for steering me in the article's direction. The Apollo missions were incredible achievements[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 14:39, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
:Milton, you need next to subscribe to the mailing list where authors will submit their articles as email attachments: http://mail.citizendium.org/mailman/listinfo/cz-wikiformat.


:I have added your name to the page where we will keep track of which volunteers have accepted which articles for conversion: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Wiki-converting. Review that page for information.
::Anthony, thanks for your added references and edits as well as for picking up my goof in defining "billion". [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 21:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


:Also, review the page we developed for submitters, which will indicate what to expect: [[CZ:Email us an article in word processor format]].
== Redirect of Biological mathematics ==


:Again, welcome aboard. As a subscriber to cz-wikiformat mailing list, you can communicate with the other wiki-converter volunteers, and you can use the discussion (talk) page for communication: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Wiki-converting.
Hi Anthony:
I've moved the article [[Biological mathematics]] to [[Biological computation]], which seems to me to fit the content of this article pretty well. Please excuse my doing this before your have had a chance to comment upon it. I don't think it is a very controversial change, but it may be a bit startling to find what has happened in your absence. If so, my apologies. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 18:51, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


--[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 14:48, 21 February 2008 (CST)
== Electric charge ==


== [[Dog]] Approval ==
Anthony: If you take a look at [[Talk:Electric_charge#Definition_of_electric_charge]] you will see that while technically you are right that the article [[Electric charge]] should begin with a definition of ''electric'' charge, that approach is awkward, and the simple change you have made in the lead sentence of this article does not solve the problem.


Hi Anthony,  
There seems to me to be two possibilities: the one you object to that begins by defining charge and then defines electric charge and how it is distinct from magnetic charge. Alternatively, one can make a new article [[Charge]], describing ''a fundamental property of [[matter]] that causes matter having that property to generate and react to a [[force]] of attraction or repulsion to spatially separate matter that likewise manifests the property of charge.''


Thanks for your request on the [[CZ:Approval Process]] page.  I think Noel has addressed some major problems there.  You were very close on the ToApprove section of [[Template:Dog/Metadata]].  I made these [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Template%3ADog%2FMetadata&diff=100275830&oldid=100273459 changes].  Basically, you don't need to use the four tildes when placing the 'ToA editor=' and you need the current version of the 'Draft' page rather than the 'metadata' page. Otherwise, you did well. [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 20:00, 25 February 2008 (CST)
Then one can refer to this article in the article [[Electric charge]] as ''one of the two known types of charge, ''magnetic'' and ''electric'', with the distinguishing property that electric charges can be isolated, while while an isolated magnetic charge or [[magnetic monopole]] never has been observed.''


:Anthony, when they added the boxes to the left, they gave us a better way to find the 'article url'. Would you do me a favor and see if [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Approval_Process#Instructions_for_finding_the_current_version_number I explained it] adequately?  Thanks, [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 21:11, 25 February 2008 (CST)
In any event, I find the present arrangement unsatisfactory. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 04:09, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


::Excellent, that was just what it needed. Now all we have to do is wait until the next editor comes along!  Thanks, [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 21:54, 25 February 2008 (CST)
Apparently the matter is complicated further by the concept of [http://books.google.com/books?id=3AJdTYu3m5sC&pg=PA190&dq=%22magnetic+charge%22+elementary+particle+%22color+charge%22&hl=en&ei=Bp1GTu69GrLYiALzxIzBAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22magnetic%20charge%22%20elementary%20particle%20%22color%20charge%22&f=false "color charge"]. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 15:51, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


== Archiving ==
:Also complicated by [[mass]]: "In physics, mass is an extensive physical property of a system and is most frequently measured in the SI unit of kilograms. Mass is the "charge" of the gravitational force, and the resistance an object has to force."  From CZ article.


Anthony, I think all you have to do is put this template at the top of that page - <nowiki>{{archive box|auto=long}}</nowiki>.  I'll watch and see what happens when you do it in case it blows up ;-) --[[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 19:31, 26 February 2008 (CST)
:I like the idea of dealing with 'charge' in a separate article, [[Charge]].  I too was thinking of that, but I did not feel qualified to do it justice.  I suppose we could start it as a stub, with the lede sentence you suggested.  I give it a try, unless you really want to do it yourself.  I'm away Sunday, could do it Monday.


:Well, at least it didn't blow up! Your sandbox-2 solution looks just as good. Chris Day might have a solution for the archive box for when using the /sandbox. I'll keep looking, too. [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 20:29, 26 February 2008 (CST)
:At any rate, in [[Electric charge]], I had wanted the reader to know a bit more about electric charge before introducing magnetic charge, or charge in general. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 04:31, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
::A [[User:John R. Brews/Sample|start]] at an article. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 05:44, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
::The treatment of color charge and its connection to nuclear forces needs work. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 14:01, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
::I set up a talk page to consider how this article should be written at [[User:John R. Brews/Sample/Talk]]. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:23, 15 August 2011 (UTC)


::Thanks, Matt. Perhaps archiving only available for Talk pages?? --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 20:31, 26 February 2008 (CST)
:Anthony: Perhaps a god approach to [[Charge]] is to make it a disambiguation page. There are so many different "charges" even within science that it seems they are almost unconnected. For example, [[Charge (electromagnetic)]] could include both electric and magnetic charge, replacing the present [[Electric charge]]. [[Charge (chromodynamic)]] could discuss color charge. Then we are left with [[Charge (baryonic)]], [[Charge (leptonic)]], which appear to be different in that they are not related to forces at all, but to symmetry classifications. Maybe you have some more?


:::Yes, Anthony, I think you're correct [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Template:Archive_box#Usage].  So if you put your sandbox under [[User Talk:Anthony.Sebastian/Sandbox]] it should work.  Then your archive page would be [[User Talk:Anthony.Sebastian/Sandbox/Archive 1]] and Archive 2, etc.. --[[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 20:59, 26 February 2008 (CST)
:Although mass is related to the force of gravity by the same potential theory as electromagnetism ''via'' [[Coulomb's_law#Poisson_equation|Poisson's equation]], it is not referred to as a "charge" in physics texts (a Google books search does not turn up this terminology, despite its use in the CZ article [[Mass]]), and is ultimately related to the curvature of space time, a form of "fictitious" force depending upon the observer like centrifugal force.  


::::Nope, the box worked, but the Archive 1 went to your other archive page, so it only works on talk pages and there cannot be any /pagename attached to it. [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 21:07, 26 February 2008 (CST)
:The disambiguation page would have to include non-science versions too, of course, like [[Charge (military)]], [[Charge (explosive)]]. Maybe you have some more? [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 14:15, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


:::::Interesting idea. Sad it did not work. I admire your perseverance. --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 21:37, 26 February 2008 (CST)
::John, it appears we already have [[Charge]] as a disambiguation page, automatically redirected from [[Charge]].  It currently has three entries:


== That's Life! ==
{{r|Charge (electricity)}} (that is just a lemma)
Anthony, I justed wanted to take a moment to thank you for incorporating many of my suggestions in the Life/Draft article.  It is a real pleasure to work with someone who takes constructive criticism as it is meant, as an aid.  Cheers.  [[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 08:55, 29 February 2008 (CST)
{{r|Charge (management)}}
{{r|Charge (retail)}}


:Thank ''you'', David, for the thorough reading and thoughtful, constructive criticisms.  I greatly appreciate the feedback and suggestions.  I have not finished working on all your comments, and will look forward to your thoughts as I continue editing.  --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 14:40, 29 February 2008 (CST)
::I would prefer separate articles on [[Charge (science)]], [[Electric charge]], [[Magnetic charge]] plus the ones you suggested:  [[Charge (chromodynamic)]] [[Charge (baryonic)]], [[Charge (leptonic)]], [[Charge (military)]], [[Charge (explosive)]], [[Charge business]], [[Chargés d'affaires]], etc.


== [[Dog]] is Approved! ==
::By [[Charge (science)]], I refer to the Sample article you started.


Anthony, congratulations on another approval/re-approval! --[[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 19:22, 29 February 2008 (CST)
::I do not ignore your [[Charge (electrodynamic)]], but in the interests of the readers, separate articles on electric and magnetic charges would seem better, as each deserves it own treatment in order to do it justice and teach the unique aspects of each. &mdash;[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 21:28, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


== [[Life]] ver 1.2 Approved! ==
== Your introductory charge article ==


Good work once again Anthony! Persistence pays off ;-)  --[[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 22:15, 10 March 2008 (CDT)
Hi Anthony:


:Thanks, Matt. I call it perseverance, and learned it from my mentor, Curtis Morris, who never gives up.
As you know, there are several ways to introduce a subject. One is to present the current understanding from a logical standpoint supported by today's experimental data. That method depends upon an abstract turn of mind that enjoys an axiomatic approach, related by experiments to reality. These concepts and data are not necessarily naively intuitive.  


:You have been most helpful throughout. CZ is lucky to have your talents. --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 23:29, 10 March 2008 (CDT)
Another approach is historical. That method begins in the past and works to the present. Its goal is not to be historically accurate in explaining all the false steps and all the confusions of the historical record. Rather, the goal is to adopt the naive view of each epoch and show how that sharpened and evolved with advances in argument and experimental data. This method is helpful to beginners, because the early work has the same naivete as the readers themselves, and so they can advance in understandable steps toward the less intuitive, more involved, present view.


== idea for food chains / food webs / subpages / etc ==
I'd recommend the last approach to you. There is no point in trying to present a simplified approach based strictly upon concepts from an early time that are now outmoded. Instead, any overly simple concepts are presented as the tentative approach peculiar to a certain epoch, expected to be transcended, and are not presented as a logical structure still considered appropriate. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


Hello,
In particular, the concept of "matter" is treacherous, and has evolved considerably over time. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:27, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


I wondered if you could give any input or insight on this idea.  I started a forum post in the chat section: http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,1643.0.html
To elaborate a bit: the Greek idea of ''atoms'' became the indestructible ''atoms'' of the 19th century, then were replaced by indivisible electrons, protons and neutrons, then replaced by the indivisible quarks and leptons and the bosons they exchange (or maybe only the gluons, as photons aren't included; the contributions to matter are a bit fuzzy). At each stage, matter took on a new definition, allowing a wider and wider range of forms of matter, for example, the [http://books.google.com/books?id=1WPV0NSenZ4C&pg=PA2&dq=transition+from+states+of+strongly+interacting+matter&hl=en&ei=wDFVToCuDYXPiALbrN3wDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=transition%20from%20states%20of%20strongly%20interacting%20matter&f=false quark-gluon plasma], which can't even be defined from the view of matter as an assembly of atoms. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:45, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


I really like your pictures in your life article, and wondered if you had any insight to the feasibility of mapping food chains in figures. Thanks in advance! [[User:Tom Kelly|Tom Kelly]] 17:42, 22 March 2008 (CDT)
:John, thanks for your advice on how to approach a 'student level' treatment of [[electric charge]].  I think both approaches you described have their pedagogical merits.  I'd like to find a coherent way to include both approaches.


==Hominid to hominin==
:I'd wanted to develop a complete draft of the 'student level' subpage before presenting it, not wanting to waste your time. But your helpful comments show your interest, so I'm inclined to seek your comments as I develop the draft.  My earliest notes you can read at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Anthony.Sebastian/Sbox01.  They are quite embryonic.
Thanks, I was trying to figure out why the warning message did not pop up and you had already been in and corrected the metadata pagename. :) [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 22:43, 31 March 2008 (CDT)
:Just trying to help student, as you are. --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 22:46, 31 March 2008 (CDT)


== Olympics ==
:My thought is to start somewhat oversimplified, then introduce the complexities later. First an introduction based on the basics of our modern understanding, then, in a separate section, an historical account along the lines you mentioned above.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 23:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
::Anthony: The outline at [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Anthony.Sebastian/Sbox01 your sandbox] is at a pretty early stage. At the moment it seems to aim at some ideas that lead to Coulomb's law, expressed in words. It is not necessary to base matters upon atoms, electrons and protons to do that, and historically that was not the path. As you know, electricity began with charged objects like rubbed amber, and the inverse square law was established by Cavendish and Coulomb without reference to atoms. Atomic concepts have their own subtle history in chemistry and are themselves much more complex concepts than the notion of electric charge. Possibly, after charge is established as a notion, it can be applied to atoms, if that seems desirable. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 14:21, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


Hi Anthony,
:::John, here's how I see my starting aim: to explain electric charge in today's science, at a level of explanation accessible to an educated general audience, assuming that their knowledge includes no more than a secondary-school level of knowledge of science, including that matter consists of atoms and that atoms consist of protons, neutrons, and electrons in the solar system (Bohr) model. In between textbook and popscibook, closer to textbook.


Just want to double-check about the issues you raised at [[CZ:monthly write-a-thon#Future Theme Schedule]]. Are you strenously objecting to The Olympics being a theme, or just raising issues to keep us honest? [[User:Aleta Curry|Aleta Curry]] 17:05, 4 April 2008 (CDT)
:::I agree that knowing the history of the development of the concept of electric charge importantly enriches one's grasp of the concept, but as the starter for a student-level treatment of electric charge, I personally find it better first to help the student acquire/enhance some grasp of the basic concept. Anyway, that's how it works for me as I try to increase my knowledge of physics and chemistry&mdash;and without having to know/learn advanced mathematics, I might add (no pun intended).


Aleta,
:::Ideally, I would hope to integrate the two approaches into a single woven narrative.  I see the project taking months  to accomplish, given the time I can devote.  In the end, I'd like to see positive responses from secondary-school students taking an academic curriculum.


I do have serious objections about supporting the Olympic games in China, but no "strenuous" objections to the theme for a CZ WrytathonDepending on how the theme begins to develop -- the sentiments of the participants -- I may choose to pass on the party. --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 13:43, 5 April 2008 (CDT)
:::I can't express how satisfying it is for me to have your input helping me organize consciously my thinking.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 22:35, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
:Hi again, Anthony.  I respect that.  More at: [[user talk:Aleta Curry#Olympic objections]]
:[[User:Aleta Curry|Aleta Curry]] 20:08, 7 April 2008 (CDT)


== Breast Cancer Fund report ==
== Boxed comments in your articles ==
I guess I should  have said the following earlier: yes.


I wrote a letter to the editor; I believe that she will like your idea. Sorry for the delay.
Hi Anthony:
[[User:Pierre-Alain Gouanvic|Pierre-Alain Gouanvic]] 23:38, 17 April 2008 (CDT)
: Janet Gray contacted me yesterday. She had good news, which are unfortunately not as good for CZ: the report will be published in a non-open access international journal, the ''International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health'' (this large document will be split two halves, two issues, if you wonder how this can be possible). It will be impossible for her and the BCF to "share" the rights for this work, now that this contract has been sealed.
: Pr Gray will stay in touch in case she has some content to share in CZ, and she also forwarded my invitation to Nancy Evans, a ''breast cancer fund hero'' and an exceptional advocate for environmental health research in the field of breast cancer.
: I learned several things while translating this work, and it will be possible for me to do my part, if I manage my time wisely; also see other message below.
: [[User:Pierre-Alain Gouanvic|Pierre-Alain Gouanvic]] 10:38, 29 April 2008 (CDT)


==Userplan==
Your recently amended contribution [[Herophilus]] contains some very long boxed instructions for the novice reader of CZ (or any other wiki for that matter). In the article [[Vesalius]] I trimmed this boxed content without encountering objections from you (thank you), but your article [[Herophilus]] possibly has extended this text beyond even what was originally in [[Vesalius]]. Here is what I refer to:
i think I'm the wrong person to ask here.  i have not got mine up and running so have no experience setting it upFor that reason when I look at yours I'm not sure where to start trouble shooting.  Sorry not much help.  [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 16:54, 22 April 2008 (CDT)
{|cellpadding=10 align=center style="width:80%; border: solid 1px #4682b4; background:lightblue"
|
''Most citations to articles listed here include links &mdash; in font-color <font color="blue"> blue</font> &mdash; to full-text.  Accessing full-text may require personal or institutional subscriptionNevertheless, many with do offer full-text, and if not, usually offer text or links that show the abstracts of the articles, free without subscription.  Links to books variously may open to full-text, or to the publishers' description of the book with or without downloadable selected chapters, reviews, and table of contentsBooks with links to Google Books often offer extensive previews of the books' text.
|}
and here is my trimmed version:
{|cellpadding=10 align=center style="width:80%; font-size: 85%; border: solid 1px #4682b4; background:papayawhip;"
|
<font face="Gill Sans MT">Many citations here include <font color="darkblue"> blue links</font> that open variously to full-text or to a publisher's description of the work. Links to [[Google#Google_books|Google books]] often offer an extensive preview of the text.</font>
|}
Of course, I am not a novice reader of CZ or WP, and what is said in these boxes is of no interest to me at all. Hence, I might be expected to find this boxed information a distraction.


== A new colleague for you ==
Although I cannot put myself in the frame of mind of someone reading [[Herophilus]] as my first ever encounter with a wiki article, my best imagining of this situation is that it is overkill even for such a novice. More than that, thinking of the average reader, I suspect very few will encounter [[Herophilus]] as their very first article.


Professor Sebastian:
Probably (IMO of course) general observations of this kind are better placed in some kind of "Advice to the Novice" article along the lines of Google's [http://www.google.com/help/features.html tips for effective search]. You will notice that Google does not include this kind of instruction on its primary search page. If it were thought helpful, a link to the "Aid to Novices" instruction article could replace the boxed instructions you are wont to include in every article.
Hitting the recent changes button, I witnessed the birth of a new article that should interest you: [[Salt and health]]. David Cooper, another intellectual refugee from Wikipedia (like myself), started it when he arrived to CZ. I think it's great news.
[[User:Pierre-Alain Gouanvic|Pierre-Alain Gouanvic]] 09:01, 5 May 2008 (CDT)


:Just Anthony, Pierre-Alain.  Thanks for calling my attention to David Cooper's nice article.  I will put my two cents in when time has a stop.  --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 17:52, 5 May 2008 (CDT)
Maybe you would reconsider your approach to boxed guidance to the uninitiated? [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:19, 18 September 2011 (UTC)


== History of Medicine articles ==
:John, I agree that the boxed information note not necessary for most readers.  I removed it from [[Herophilus]], and will eliminate it from other articles as they turn up.


Hey Anthony-- In addition to the articles we've been discussing on early Greek medicine, it might be nice to have a few broad articles on the history of medicine before we get to Harvey-- something along the lines of [[medicine in the medieval West]] and [[medicine in the Renaissance]] or [[European medicine in the Early Modern period]]. Now that I think of it, titling all of them 'European medicine...' makes sense, because then it would be possible to have companion articles on 'Islamic medicine in the Middle Ages', or something similar. We still need to get to [[Galen]] at some point, of course. I'll give a shout when I start working on the medieval medicine article. [[User:Brian P. Long|Brian P. Long]] 05:22, 6 May 2008 (CDT)
:I appreciate your interest in the articles I'm working on, and grateful for what I'm learning from you. Sometimes I'm a little overzealous in spoon-feeding readers. I like your idea re link to [[Advice for New Readers]] article. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:52, 19 September 2011 (UTC)


== "Putative contributors to the secular increase in obesity: exploring the roads less traveled" ==
::Anthony: I'd say you're eminently qualified to write an [[Advice for New Readers]] page. It could include the content of your text box, and a few more things too, like finding the [[CZ: xxx]] pages identified at [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Home CZ:Home] and what's in the left-column links. This new article should be linked among these left-column links and made a CZ: xxx page. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 14:58, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi Anthony, I found this text quite refreshing. You can read my attempt to summarize it on the [[Obesity]] page, etiology section. I even found a full text link! Yey! It's interesting that one of those 10 factors are endocrine disruptors (cf my work (still just a plan...) on Breast Cancer page will require much work about EDs). I even found somewhere else (nb: in a major jounal) that the association between diabetes and obesity was only relevant if certain fat-soluble contaminants were present. So many things to do, so little time. I wish my  [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Proposals/Internationalisation_sandbox Internationalisation proposal] (initial proposer: Aleta) could work and help bring new contributors!


Anyways, when you have the time, please have a visit! I plan to stay on this page there for a while.  
:::Thanks for the compliment, John. First, I've got find where my clone disappeared. Or, I've got to get my time-stopping machine working. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:28, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
[[User:Pierre-Alain Gouanvic|Pierre-Alain Gouanvic]] 02:31, 15 May 2008 (CDT)
: A quick message just to avoid a misunderstanding: the only section I wrote was the part in the etiology section that follows the discuss on genes, hunger and the arcuate nucleus (which was written by Gareth Leng). My contribution is based on IJO review article. I think that the detailed work in the Treatment section is by Robert Badgett.


:I'll now get back to your message and to your work on the topic in the evolutionary medicine page.
== Change of figure ==


:[[User:Pierre-Alain Gouanvic|Pierre-Alain Gouanvic]] 19:34, 15 May 2008 (CDT)
Anthony: I replaced this figure of yours:
{{Image|Vesalius-harvey-malpighi-timeline.jpg|center|5000px}}
with this one:
{{Image|Vesalius-Harvey-Malpighi.png|center|400px}}
which compresses the horizontal scale allowing a narrower display on a laptop screen. It also uses the same years at each tick in each panel, and an interval of 20 years in all the panels, which makes it easier to read the lifetimes from the scales, and lines up the scales in each panel so the same years are vertically above one another.


== Hippocrates ==
I hope these changes find favor. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:44, 4 October 2011 (UTC)


Dr. Sebastian,
:Nicely done, John.  I was never too happy with my original, and had it on my list to redo, plus add a caption describing the anatomy-to-physiology-to-microscopic anatomy sequence represented by those three fellows in the history of medicine. Also you remind me, unintentionally, to get back to the Harvey and Malpighi articles.


May I have the original Greek text of the aphorism? All I can find is the Adams and a French translation. You may call on me for whatever need arises in my area of expertise. [[User:Erik M. Baker|Erik M. Baker]] 20:40, 29 May 2008 (CDT)
:BTW, what program did you use to make the image? [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 02:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


== Biology's next microscope ==
::Anthony: Glad you liked this. It was made using Microsoft Excel 2010 and saving the result with Microsoft Paint. Excel 2007 was OK for this too, but the earlier Excel versions are more restricted in their choices of colors and shadings. You might be able to do the same using Word instead of Excel. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 05:12, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


Hi Tony, I am delighted to see [[Biology's next microscope: Mathematics|this article]] transplanted here, since I have myself exchanged microscopes for algorithms recently, and I had enjoyed the paper very much when it came out. I definitely plan to join working on it, though there are a few points to consider (detailed [[Talk:Biology's next microscope: Mathematics|here]]) on which I would like to invite your feedback. -- [[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 04:53, 5 June 2008 (CDT)
== Timeline image ==
{{Image|Time line.JPG|right|250px|New timeline for Vesalius.}}
{{Image|Classical mechanics timeline.PNG|right|250px|Key scientists in classical mechanics.}}
Anthony, I thought your new figure looked very nice, so I tried something like that myself. See below, right.


==Non-technical intros==
The issue comes up that some people don't live long enough to allow a box containing their names. I tried one "solution", color inside the name box. Do you have some other ideas?
I think I like what you did to [[Epilepsy]]'s introduction.  I was hoping nobody would not hammer me too much for starting health articles with a technical perspective for a technical audience. I very much like your anchoring your definition to an existing canonical description such as MedlinePlus. Now the article reaches both audiences (or at least its introduction does).


:Thanks, Bob. It always seems best for me at least to try to reach a broad audience (without dumbing down) in the first paragraph, then start advancing from that foundation.
Nice job. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 22:10, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


Questions:
:John, thanks. I just wanted to do a test, not to supplant your fine figure in [[Vesalius]], rather thinking of future articles.
:1. Do you think a medlineplus introduction followed by MeSH introduction is a good pattern to continue with? I am thinking through whether the MeSH definition contributes now. I still find that MeSH helps me much in naming articles (and will be essential when the day arrives that web resources map to each other).


::Yes, if the MeSH definition doesn't get so technical the reader will get little out of it.  [[Epilepsy]] might be a case in point.  We can always 'officialize' after giving nthe reader enoug background for it to make sense.
:Re the short-lived notables:


:2. Is it ok to insert a section head labeled "History" prior to "The ancient Greeks recognized epilepsy..."? This would avoid the contents menu being pushed down so far.
:*adjust width of timeline to accommodate non-fitters
:*reduce font-size as needed; shouldn't jar too much
:*color in box, but leave off box border; might need caption note


::Good idea. I went ahead an made the change as you suggested.
:All I can think of.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:31, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


--[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 12:34, 23 June 2008 (CDT)
::Hi Anthony: I tried out your suggestions and settled upon the last one: image here is updated.
::Thank you. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 11:12, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


Bob - [[User:Robert Badgett|Robert Badgett]] 12:01, 23 June 2008 (CDT)
:::Looks great, John. Go for it.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 18:59, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


== If you have a few moments ==
== [[Chemical elements]] ==


Anthony, if you have a few moments, please take a look at [[Ammonia production]] and let me have any comments you may have on that article's Talk page. Thanks, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 12:15, 23 July 2008 (CDT)
See my note at [[Talk:Periodic_table_of_elements#Official_names]]. [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] 10:49, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


:Thanks for your comments on the introduction and I have responded on the article's Talk page. - [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:38, 23 July 2008 (CDT)
== Language Evolution ==


== About [[CZ:Email us an article in word processor format#Nota Bene]] ==
Hi Anthony, there is a discussion over at [[Talk:Language Evolution (book synopsis)|this page]] about a potential move for this article. Could you take a look? [[User:David Finn|David Finn]] 12:32, 19 November 2011 (UTC)


The above article section tells newcomers that non-existent articles are in a red font ... which is no longer the case and will lead to confusion. Since you were a major contributor to that article, I thought I would make you aware that it needs to be revised. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 14:59, 30 July 2008 (CDT)
:Hi Anthony, there are more comments over at this article, but before you look may I make a suggestion.


:The color I am currently seeing for blank links is what I would call "light bluish gray" or "light grayish blue". What would you call it? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 20:25, 31 July 2008 (CDT)
:Since this article is the only one on Citizendium with "synopsis" in the title, how about I move the article to Language Evolution (book) and attempt to write a short introduction about the book, followed by all the text that is currently there. I think that may solve any issues. What do you think? [[User:David Finn|David Finn]] 12:14, 21 November 2011 (UTC)


== About changing the default color for blank articles ==
::Yes. I regretted 'synopsis' almost from the beginning, but was somewhat intimidated by the 'move' procedure, though I've done it now a few times.  Thanks for your help and comments.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 14:24, 21 November 2011 (UTC)


Anthony, I believe that you have to contact either Larry Sanger or [[User:Greg Sabino Mullane‎|Greg Sabino Mullane‎]] who is one of the technical staff. When I asked Greg to alphabetize the watchlist edit page, he did so very promptly. However, for the changing the default color of the blank links, he may have to get approval from Larry. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 18:51, 3 August 2008 (CDT)
== Query about Vesalius ==


== Endorsement Letter ==
Anthony: I do not have access to the book you use as source for the idea that Vesalius succeeded where Galen did not because of the more liberal access to cadavers in Vesalius time. See my [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Vesalius#Official_OK_for_dissection inquiry about this matter]. It appears likely that there was a reduced restriction in Vesalius' time. One might consider that Galen might have succeeded too in Vesalius' place, but the way this is stated suggests that it was a piece of cake for Vesalius because of the reduced restrictions.


Hey--
There is also a lot of literature including some of very recent date that take the view that censorship was a problem for Vesalius. I have found it hard to determine whether what we have here is simply the repeating of tales heard at a mother's knee, or something more accurate.


I just read over the academic Endorsement Letter. It looks good!
Can you help? [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 19:02, 19 November 2011 (UTC)


Do you need help putting together a list of biologists to mail the letter to? What's the procedure for mailing these out? (for the academic letter, as well as my letter to bloggers) Should we be mailing these from our personal email addresses, or are we going to send these from some official Citizendium address?
:Will review this matter, John.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 05:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


I think we should try to get these letters out as soon as possible. Let me know if there's any way I can help.
== Randomized control trial ==


Thanks, [[User:Brian P. Long|Brian P. Long]] 18:53, 12 September 2008 (CDT)
Anthony, you have supported the re-approval of [[Randomized controlled trial]]. According to the new approval process you should do so with a (short) referee's report on the [[Randomized controlled trial/Approval|approval page]]. Then the Approval Manager (Joe) can accept and certify the approval. --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 12:09, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


::Thanks for your offer to help. I'll ask Supten and Daniel to respond, as they know more than I do. --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 19:00, 12 September 2008 (CDT)
:Done. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 20:38, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


:::Thanks, Brian. What we need with respect to the letter is getting [[CZ:Biology_Workgroup/Biology_Week/Academic_recruitment]] off the ground (it's currently Cornell only) by scanning the web for publicly available email addresses of biologists. The best way perhaps is to do so via listings of editorial boards of major biology journals. For PLoS Biology, the list is [http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/edboard.php here], for PLoS ONE [http://www.plosone.org/edboard.xls here (xls sheet)]. The email addresses can then be found via a quick search in [http://www.google.com Google], [http://scholar.google.com Google Scholar] or [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed PubMed]. As for the sender of the emails, I would prefer to use a Citizendium address but we will have to inquire with Larry about that. -- [[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 03:26, 13 September 2008 (CDT)
== Leibniz alert ==
Greetings Anthony. Just alerting you that being an admirer of Leibniz I will most certainly add substantial content to the Leibniz page. My contribution would most likely be limited to philosophical topics in Leibniz since his writings are so far-flung and given that I am no mathematician and could not do justice to those areas of his thought. :]


:::Small addendum: The editorial board of Biology Direct is [http://www.biology-direct.com/edboard/ here]. -- [[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 03:45, 13 September 2008 (CDT)
:Maria, Leibniz can use all the help he gets. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:52, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


== user plan ==
== Move ==


[[User:Anthony.Sebastian/Userplan]]  What is wrong with it?  It looks fine to my eyes. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 15:02, 14 September 2008 (CDT)
Hello, Anthony, I've just noticed your request to Matt, who hasn't been around recently. To Move an article, just click on the Move tab at the top of the page and follow the instructions. HTH. [[User:Ro Thorpe|Ro Thorpe]] 01:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


:You should probably update [[CZ:Biology_Workgroup/Status|this one]] for biology week. :)  [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 10:29, 22 September 2008 (CDT)
: Ro, you did not notice that it is an approved article that is protected against edits -- and moves. --[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 02:25, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


== Right note, wrong person? ==
:::Ah, no, I didn't go to the page. Anyway, all's well... [[User:Ro Thorpe|Ro Thorpe]] 13:29, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


Please see [[User_talk:Aleta_Curry#cz-wikiformat]] - I don't think this was meant for me[[User:Aleta Curry|Aleta Curry]] 23:02, 26 September 2008 (CDT)
::I'm here! I moved all of your pages (I hope).  The 'move all subpages' feature did not work this time, so I had to move them by hand and delete the redirectsDouble check me, especially making sure that I moved all the subpages, and let me know if I missed anything (I don't do it often enough to remember it myself!)


== ATP pools ==
::I am always around, especially if you leave a message on my talk page, because it emails me (which I check most often throughout the day). [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 03:54, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


[[Image:Chloromito.jpg|Image|right|300px]]
:::Thanks, Matt. I checked; everything copacetic. Sorry you had to do everything in separate steps. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 14:33, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi Tony, the recent picture you uploaded is not that accurate. There is no common pool of ATP. A more accurate drawing would look like the following diagram (excuse the rough draft).  All the chloroplast ATP is used to fix carbon dioxide using the Calvin cycle (it also uses the NADPH from photosynthesis too). The ATP for plant cellular function is indirectly generated via the export of the carbohydrate from the chloroplasts, via TCA cycle (orange; and all the NADH from here too), via the electron transport chain. Carbohydrate is made in excess and then exported to non photosynthetic cells. Was your figure from a book?  I'm not sure we want to give the false impression of a common pool of ATP. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 16:38, 2 October 2008 (CDT)


:Hi Chris. Thanks for keeping an eye on me as I try to understand photosynthesis by writing about it.
== Thanks for the Lactation article edits ==
:I see from your discussion that the figure I drew gives the impression of a common cellular pool of ATP, and therefore misleads. Your figure much better, and could replace mine and with a clearer caption.
Anthony thanks so much for the lactation article edits. Sure do appreciate the help and collaboration. Been a long time since my biology classes so I hope I remembered everything right. What got me to thinking about this subject as there was a recent "nurse in" after a woman was asked to nurse in a fitting room. At least that's what the news report state. At Amazon there's been a heated discussion about nursing in public which lead to me thinking which lead to this article. Thanks again! [[User:Mary Ash|Mary Ash]] 05:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
:Would you mind if I worked with your figure, make some emendations, let you review before uploading? If okay, will you send me the jpeg, at Anthony_Sebastian@msn.com.
:Thanks again for helping with this. --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 17:11, 2 October 2008 (CDT)
::Sure you can work with that if you like although it is a very rough draft that only took ten minutes to pile together. I'm not sure how you do your original, which is beautiful, but I thought you might be able to use the concepts in mine to modify your own. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 17:33, 2 October 2008 (CDT)


:::After I made my drawing, I regretted not making it more schematic, rather than trying to represent the leaf, the chloroplast and the mitochondrion semi-realistically. I had resolved to draw subsequent figures more cartoony, like yours. I like your figure and would like to elaborate on it somewhat, and let it set the theme for the figures to come in the article. I could start over, but I really like yours. --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 18:27, 2 October 2008 (CDT)
:Mary, a good article for CZ. Many aspects of interest, both from the social and natural sciences. Thanks for getting it started.


Are you still thinking of drawing a schematic diagram along these lines? I could draw a better version if you'd like something like this.  Let me know if there are other additions you'd like to add. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 03:27, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
:My interest gravitates toward the metabolism/physiology aspects, an evolutionary perspective.


== images ==
:Regarding breastfeeding in public, I remember Milton Berl's joke about a woman walking down the street unaware she had one breast exposed.  When Berl called her attention to it, she responded shocked and horrified, "Oh my God. I left my baby on the bus."


I'm not sure I have a solution to your request. The best is one of two options.
:[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 17:51, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


You can search by key word:
== ASIMO approval ==
:http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Special:NewImages


Or browse by images that indivduals have uploaded:
Hello. Do you think it would be okay to ask [[User:Daniel M. Lofaro]] who helped with [[HUBO]]'s approval to see if everything is all right with the article, and then have an engineering editor approve the article? I think Daniel is fit to be an editor in robotics. ([[User:Chunbum Park|Chunbum Park]] 06:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC))
:Example here for [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?limit=50&title=Special%3AContributions&contribs=user&target=Paul+Wormer&namespace=6&year=&month=-1 Paul Wormer] for last 50. Or even the [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&contribs=user&target=Paul+Wormer&namespace=6&year=&month= last 500]. This latter one might be MORE useful since you can then do a key word search on that search page.


Hope one of these is useful. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 21:19, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
:Hello. I was wondering why ASIMO article has not been approved yet despite the notice which says it will be approved on March 1. I think the article is eady for approval now. ([[User:Chunbum Park|Chunbum Park]] 11:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC))


:Anthony, my user page at [[User:Milton Beychok]] has links to my "Image Gallery1" and "Image Gallery2" which have about 116 image that I've uploaded. I don't know if any of them are what you seek ... but you are welcome to use any of them. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 00:38, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
== Re-approval of [[Boiling point/Draft]] ==


== Quotations ==
Tony, please see the last section that I just posted on the Talk page of the subject article. It is in regard to how long this is taking and the lack of any truly expert comments. Best regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 19:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


None of your proposed code results in right indentation as viewed on my platform and browsers (both of which are CSS compliant browsers).
:Milton, I tried to nominate it for approval yesterday, but had problems with getting the ToApprove notice up.  I asked Peter Schmitt for help, as I am not completely familiar with the approval mechanics yet.  Awaiting his reply.


The reason is because you are adding styling to the P tag within the blockquote tag. The blockquote tag produces a box (which is not right indented on my platform/browser combination) and when a paragraph is placed inside the blockquote box, it fills up the outer box. If the outer box is not indented, the inner box (by itself) won't be. There is no reason to use the P tag anyway. The mediawiki software automatically creates new paragraphs.
:The changes made since I first commented on the article satisfy my concerns. &mdash;[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 20:16, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


We shouldn't even be talking about the code. Any proposal should be made in descriptive terms only ("indented 5 to 10 percent on both right and left", for example).
::Thanks, Tony. I will wait. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 21:02, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


Actual coding should take place at the global style sheet level. In-line styling should be completely avoided so as to not lock ourselves into a particular style. The only thing the authors would add is:  
:::I have added an image of a boiling point diagram into the last section of [[Boiling point/Draft]] for approval, where such a diagram is mentioned. Milton Beychok approves of this addition to the article as evidenced on my Talk page [[User talk:Henry A. Padleckas]] at the current bottom of the page. Can you please approve with the added diagram?  Thank you.  [[User:Henry A. Padleckas|Henry A. Padleckas]] 08:59, 7 March 2012 (UTC)


<PRE>
::::Tony, I am perfectly okay with Henry's diagram. Last night, I said that I was in agreement with including it in the current re-approval (see the "Approval mechanics" section of Talk:Boiling point/Draft) and I urged him to contact you as soon as he could, which he did. Milton Beychok 03:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
<BLOCKQUOTE> . . . insert text here . . . </BLOCKQUOTE>
</PRE>


Nothing could be simpler than to add the unadorned HTML tag (except to use the ":" of course). Do you understand why this should be handled at the global style sheet level? This is not a trivial point. It gets to the whole purpose of style sheets (and wikis, by the way).
== Regarding the article about Canadian vs. American copyright law and its author Patrick Nikulak. ==


Jim Perry
Tony, when I was an Editorial Personnel Administrator, I saw this happen a number of times. Someone would join CZ and write an article (or sometimes 2-3 articles) and then disappear completely ... making it obvious that he/she had joined us with an agenda to write about some pet subject.


:I agree with you, Jim.  On the forum, I stressed that I wanted to experiment with different 'appearances' of a blockquote. I think we cannot provide the descriptive terms for that appearance without looking at examples, which necessarily require local coding.  Once we reach consensus on an 'appearance', the coders can implement it on the global style sheet.
According to Patrick's "User Contributions", on March 13th he wrote his article about Canadian copyright law and then he disappeared completely for the next two weeks. I doubt that we will ever hear from him again.


:I'll trying taking out the 'p' tag.
'''I strongly suggest that the Approval process for his article be completely abandoned and removed from the green banner we all see at the top of our watchlists'''. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 15:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC)


:I get left-and-right indents on IE7, FF3, Opera, Safari, and ChromeOS: Vista Ultimate.  
:Milton, I agree.  Completely.  Thanks for keeping surveillance[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 23:40, 28 March 2012 (UTC)


:Try [[Theoretical biology]] --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 01:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
==About [[Air Resources Laboratory]]==


== Thanks ==
Hi, Tony: Based on your comments on my Talk page about the [[Air Resources Laboratory]] (ARL) article, I have now:
*fixed all of the references and updated them,
*added a new section entitled "Organization" along with a diagram of the organizational structure,
* and added a "Gallery" subpage with 7 images (photos and a diagram) of the types of equipment used by NOAA and the ARL.


Anthony, thanks for fleshing out the History section of the [[Meteorology]] article. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 00:19, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
I just wanted to let you know that your comments prodded me into improving the article somewhat ... although I still don't believe it is worthy of Approval. Thanks, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 05:17, 5 April 2012 (UTC)


:Milton, happy to contribute in a minor wayDidn't want my Italian countrymen (Torricelli, Galileo) to miss their credit &mdash; my family name originally 'Sebastiano', and I'm FBI (full-blooded Italian) &mdash; and felt John Dalton's pioneering work also creditableAdmire your work and good-humored forum posts.  --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 01:30, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
:Hi, Milton.  I shall prod again, then, until you improve it to Approval eligibility, unless you tell me that to accomplish that would take enormous amount of work.  It only has to be accurate, informative, heuristic, remember, not exhaustive or even comprehensive (both of which will always fall short of their ideal).


== Hippocrates and Paracelsus ==
:CZ needs more Approved articles.


Hi Anthony, could I bother you to take a look at [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Homeopathy#Hippocrates.2FParacelsus.3F this discussion] on the [[Homeopathy]] article.  Your guidance would be greatly appreciated.  The article is close to approval (in the next two day hopefully), but this needs some attention. Thanks in advance. [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 23:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
:Though, I would not be surprised to learn I am CZ's biggest sinner of not finishing articles started. I absolve myself with the thought that when the experts come flooding in they'll get working on them, and the thought that I've let my curiosity-birthright, a type of attention-deficit phenomenon, though more mature than my toddler days, predominate over my peak capacity to focus and concentrate my efforts. Of course I did plenty of that focusing bit for 50 years.


==Signed Article==
:I find it difficult to put articles I contributed into Approval consideration because I realize I can improve it if I work on it more. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 20:20, 5 April 2012 (UTC)


I just moved the addendum.  As for the table, your idea works well. I did it the long hand way. I wonder if there is a converter for HTML to wiki out there somewhere.  I'd be surprised if some young gun at wikipedia has not attacked that problem already. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 22:13, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
== [[Economics]] ==
:With regard to preventing further edits beyond formatting there is currently no mechanism in place other than courtesy to the original author.  I would hope that would be enough but if necessary we could protect all signed articles. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 15:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


::Good thinking.  Doesn't it just seem reasonable that if someone signs an article, it needs to stay in the version that he/she signed it? [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 16:56, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
A day late but I got it done! [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 00:58, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


:::I agree with you and Matt, to protect all signed articles from editingHowever, if I, or another editor, sees a need for formating changes, how does one open a protected article temporarily? Ask a constable? And who would see to it that no content changes crept in?  And how re-protect after fixing formats?
:Thanks, Matt, againIt does not need same-day processing. I'm sure you have many things to do on your list. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:27, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


:::Can anyone protect or unprotect an article? 
== Op-Ed in the ''NY Times'' ==


:::Do signed articles has Talk pages, so that users can discuss as aspects of it? --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 18:30, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi Anthony:


== Life wordle... ==
You may recall our efforts with [[Reality]] and Hawking's and Mlodinow's  book. The Sunday ''NY Times'' has an op-ed piece by Jim Holt in his column ''Gray Matter'' called [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/opinion/sunday/what-physics-learns-from-philosophy.html "Physicists, stop the churlishness"] that covers some of this topic. He mentions attitudes by Penrose, Feynman, and a recent battle between David Albert and Lawrence Krauss (the mystery of the universe's existence).


...I just caught a typo, "Inteactions"...thought you'd want to know. --[[User:Larry Sanger|Larry Sanger]] 19:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Maybe there is something here that could improve [[Reality]]? [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 15:49, 11 June 2012 (UTC)


::Well, if Anthony wrote it, it probably is a real word, or it is now! [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 19:45, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
== Draft decision on Approval process ==


==Just to let you know-==
Hi Anthony: I am presently unclear about where things stand regarding [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Managing_Editor/2012/004_-_Approval_of_Editor-authored_articles_when_no_appropriate_nominating_Editors_available the approval draft decision]. Has it been shelved? Is a replacement under consideration? What is your present understanding of the process and its value? [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 19:41, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I finally got around to [[Allan Ramsay (1686–1758)]]....


Sorry I'm an erratic correspondent, life is about splicing time.[[User:Gareth Leng|Gareth Leng]] 13:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


:Terrific. Your productivity astounds.  Keep on splicing. --[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 22:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
:John: It has not been shelved. I am preparing a note to Peter Schmitt with my understanding of the Approval Process. If a replacement emerges it will emerge from that, and Peter's responses.


== Approval process for Animal ==
:As to the value of having Approved Articles, that's a separate issue, which I will discuss separately.


Mr. Sebastian, I've been working on the [[Animal]] article, and I've just finished up its draft. Could read it over and see if you could initiate the approval process for it? I'm pretty proud of it, and I'd love to see it garner approved status. Sincerely, [[User:Joshua Choi|Joshua Choi]] 02:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
:As for your many fine draft articles, we need to consider them and see we can do to give them a chance to be approved. I have been musing over that already. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 20:29, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


== Re paper submitted by Stanne-ken C.F.M. Buckens via [[CZ:Wiki-converting]] ==
== Free will ==


The paper submitted by Stanne-ken about "Human nitric oxide synthesaase" is not in my field of expertise at all. However, I did scan it and it appears to be a very well-written article. It has a problem which will be very difficult to overcome. It has numerous drawings that are an integral part of the paper and are needed to understand the article ... all of which were taken from various published papers by various other people.  According to our current rules about images, we are limited in uploading images to those where we contact the original authors and get their written (or emailed) permission to use them. It is going to be very hard and time-consuming to do that ... and the article really needs them.
Anthony:
I think you might have some interest in the article [[Free will]]. I have made a number of changes there, but it remains unsatisfactory. Perhaps you could assist? [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 15:24, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


It might be a good idea if somehow there were a way to make prospective submitters to [[CZ:Wiki-converting]] aware that we need either original self-made drawings/photos or they must furnish permission to use drawings/photos copied from sources published by other people. I just wanted to alert you to this problem. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 02:22, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
:John: Thanks for the invitation.  Too tempting to resist, both the topic and the opportunity to colloquy with you.


== an approval ==
:What you've done has much improved the discussion of the issues involved, including some astute explication (e.g., how randomness doesn't help the cause of the "free willists"). We presumably have no control over when and how the atoms 'swerve'.


Milton Beychok has nominated the article about [[drugs banned from the Olympics]] for approval. He's a chemistry editor, but the article is also in the Sports and Biology Workgroups.  The limit for the number of workgroups an article can be listed in is three, but I think Health Sciences would also be appropriate for that article.  If you're comfortable with the article, I'd like to ask you to be a co-approver as an editor in the Biology Workgroup who just happens to be an editor in Health Sciences as well. What do you think? --Joe ([[User:Approvals Manager|Approvals Manager]]) 02:11, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
:Perhaps as Dennett says, we have some elbow room, that there are varieties of free will worth having. And from a sophisticated evolutionary perspective, what follows? Free will, or not, aren't we dealing with biology, and is it not true that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution", though the light needed may be outside the visible band of the spectrum.


== Approval nomination of [[Drugs banned from the Olympics]] ==
:The role of speech?


Hi, Anthony. Please let me know if you are satisfied with David Volk's revisions of the article in response to your comments/questions so that I may then change the version to be approved (in the MetaData template). Thanks, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 19:53, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
:I'll review my key books before digging in. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 21:49, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


:Now that you've decided to co-approve: All you have to do is go to the article's Metadata template, scroll down to where you see my name at "TA editor = Milton Beychok" and just beneath that enter your name at "ToA editor 2 = ". That's all that is needed. I will change the Metadata page so that the latest version becomes the version to be approved. Thanks and regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 00:26, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
::Anthony:
::I look forward to your contributions. After my experience with this article, I am inclined to understand the human as a form of intelligent robot, and understand consciousness as command center that focuses on narrow slices of observed data to illuminate particular issues as they arise, and directs action based upon optimization routines it has learned during its evolution and fleshes out during its lifetime. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 15:06, 31 July 2012 (UTC)


:Thanks for your help, Anthony! --Joe ([[User:Approvals Manager|Approvals Manager]]) 02:14, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
:::John:


:::I, too, view humans as "intelligent robots", but I conceive the "command center" residing in the unconscious, where some 98% of human thinking occurs, continually sending instructions to the conscious mind, which interprets them as its own conscious rational decisions. Keith Stanovich has written many books/articles about that.  My favorite:


== steroid ==
::::[http://books.google.com/books?id=gib3SwqcH8AC&dq=stanovich&source=gbs_navlinks_s The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin].
Anthony, I would appreciate any comments about [[steroid]]. I think is it very close to approvable, but it may need more medical use coverage.  [[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 19:09, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
::::Keith E. Stanovich


:: I have been using a freeware program '''WinDrawChem''' to draw chemical structures since I no longer have ChemDraw.  It crashes sometimes, but I don't want to fork over good money for chemdraw since I rarely need it at work. [[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]] 14:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
::::University of Chicago Press, Oct 15, 2005 - Philosophy - 374 pages


== We need feedback ==
::::"The idea that we might be robots is no longer the stuff of science fiction; decades of research in evolutionary biology and cognitive science have led many esteemed thinkers and scientists to the conclusion that, following the precepts of universal Darwinism, humans are merely the hosts for two replicators (genes and memes) that have no interest in us except as conduits for replication. Accepting and now forcefully responding to this disturbing idea that precludes the possibilities of morality or free will, among other things, Keith Stanovich here provides the tools for the "robot's rebellion," a program of cognitive reform necessary to advance human interests over the limited interest of the replicators. He shows how concepts of rational thinking from cognitive science interact with the logic of evolution to create opportunities for humans to structure their behavior to serve their own ends. These evaluative activities of the brain, he argues, fulfill the need that we have to ascribe significance to human life. Only by recognizing ourselves as robots, argues Stanovich, can we begin to construct a concept of self based on what is truly singular about humans: that they gain control of their lives in a way unique among life forms on Earth—through rational self-determination."


Anthony, please look at [http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2730.0.html This thread in the forums]. We need some feedback in that thread. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:41, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
::::Daniel Hahneman speaks to that also, in [[Thinking, fast and slow]].


== Scientific method ==
::::Other books: "Incognito", "Who's in Charge?" [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 16:02, 1 August 2012 (UTC)


We need three editors there anyway, so please sign up if you feel it's ready, and check back shortly before approval to see whether you can OK any of the changes made till then. I will do so too. --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 11:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Hi Anthony: I'll have to look into these books which are unfamiliar to me. It seems clear that the unconscious mind does a lot of processing, maybe analogous to the eye which also does a lot of processing the conscious mind is not aware of, including narrow-band filtering and statistical analysis, apparently providing a subset of information determined useful by evolutionary events and sufficiently concise that the conscious mind can handle. So what is the role of consciousness then? Is there some need for oversight, to weight various alternative long-time responses and select the best? The weighting mechanism itself is subject to development and evolution, but perhaps with the aid of society and reflection it can guide its program of development to a degree? Maybe I'll glean some answers from the reading you have suggested. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:20, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
:Anthony: I've added a number of links to the [[Free_will/External_Links#Links_to_The_Stanford_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy_:|The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]. The article contains references to robot intelligence and to complementarity that are missing from most discussions, so its got something to add to the subject. Animal behavior and Darwinism also should be discussed more. As one might anticipate for a topic that has survived for millenia, [[Free will]] is complex and the present article still is a shambles. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)


:Will do. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 19:05, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
::John, I haven't had time yet to join in, but I have started re-reading Gazzaniga's ''Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain'', at bedtime, on my Kindle. Very impressive. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:03, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
:::Anthony: I am happy that you are still planning to attack this topic. I have not read Gazzaniga except for excerpts. I also read [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=free-will-and-the-brain-michael-gazzaniga-interview&page=1 this interview] which introduces the "emergent mind" concept. I am left feeling that there is a confusion here between microscopic description (like on a quantum scale) and a more macroscopic description that is given some mystical precedence.  The description of chemistry on the basis of the [[Standard model]] is perhaps possible in principle, but no-one would attempt it, with some chemistry described using atomic models and some using even larger objects (like DNA). What is happening is easier to grasp using one model than another, but that is an expression of the mind's limitations, not that the underlying phenomena have found a deeper explanation with the higher level models. So the problem of free will remains murky, although it's clear that it isn't completely free. If we can show that consciousness is a hardware related function of complex networks that is coincident with feelings of being able to make a decision, I think we still will have the issue of deciding whether ant hills are forever to be subject to chance encounters with anteaters unless accidental discovery programs a solution, or can the hill actually make decisions that evolve defenses? Can education improve society, or is that another delusion? Is all we do is to repeat the past until some monkey types Shakespeare whereupon we can progress?
:::I am reminded that scientists are thought of by the general public as odd balls (which they are) and their discoveries are looked upon as the serendipitous results of crazy people that actually come up with something once and a while, largely as a the result of their odd natures leading them into crevices where normal people don't look. Scientists don't decide to become scientists; they are born that way, and sometimes actually find a niche in which to do science. These niches may be created by society, but niche creation is programmed into society in the same way as the birth of the scientists themselves is programmed?  [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 04:56, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


::Please check back again to approve the latest changes (mainly formatting). Thanks! --[[User:Daniel Mietchen|Daniel Mietchen]] 08:56, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
::::John, should we move this section to [[Free will|Free will's]] Talk page? That might attract other interested parties. I don't feel committed to that, however.


== Chemical elements ==
::::I think it will take a society more informed than we are today before our conscious thinking&mdash;<5% of our total thinking&mdash;recognizes deeply the illusion of free will. I have not received a memo from my non-conscious thinking committee with anything enlightening. If I once had free will, my wife preempted it 48 years ago. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 19:32, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


Anthony, as far as I'm concerned you can put your sandbox version into main space. --[[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]] 12:20, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
I also hope that much will be learned if we survive long enough. What I'd like to understand is how one can function like the Stoics, sure in the belief that all is preordained, and yet simultaneously find value in a moral imperative to think through one's decisions.  


:Thanks, Paul. I hope as time permits, you will continue to collaborate on the article. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 19:36, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to draw your attention to the [http://www.charlierose.com/view/collection/10702 Charlie Rose brain series Part II].


:: Sorry, Anthony, that I did not answer at once - I have been away and offline. The introduction looks quite good to me. (I have not yet read all of the article.) Of course, you do not need my permission to put it on the main article - I have just joined the discussion (and I am no chemist). (And I also think that Milton did not "prohibit" changes of the article -- he was just angry that frequent changes made following the discussion difficult.)
Let's defer using the [[Talk:Free will|Talk page]] until we can discuss the article content. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 21:58, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
:: If you allow me, I want to write down a few minor remarks on the new version:
::: I may be wrong, but I think that it is too strong to have one sense against a second sense (I already said this) because these two senses are closely related. If "narrow" and "wide" is not a good choice, maybe there is another way to express this.


::::Peter, I used the word 'sense' in its strict lexicographic meaning, viz., "one of the meanings of a word or phrase" (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed.). The phrase 'chemical element' has two meanings, as stated by the IUPAC, i.e., two 'senses'. So I believe the explication of one 'sense' in the first paragraph and that of the second 'sense' in the second paragraph in keeping with strict linguistic standards. Actually the two senses refer to two different ways of 'conceptualizing' chemical element, the first as a species of atoms, the second as a substance composed solely of a single species of atoms.  Related, certainly, but conceptually different. Indeed, we ought to use 'elementary substance' instead of 'chemical element' in a second sense, but chemists usually go with 'chemical element'. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 02:46, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
====Emergence====
I've run across a discussion of ''emergence'' [http://unisi.academia.edu/NicolaSimonetti/Papers/1606372/NEUROSCIENCE_AND_PHILOSOPHY_OF_MIND here], a concept that apparently originates with Kim ([http://books.google.com/books?id=WBirsKOsf20C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Mind+in+a+Physical+World&source=bl&ots=SJg5xduj-g&sig=xOVnR-9UT_RMn0Ue4OKdOFbmXkc&hl=en&src=bmrr&sa=X&ei=R785UMHHOKHwiwL-3oHwBA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Mind%20in%20a%20Physical%20World&f=false ''Mind in a Physical World'' 1998] and [http://books.google.com/books?id=RNOxMSiUmUkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Physicalism,+or+Something+near+enough&source=bl&ots=oL7EPAzY1w&sig=gfutbUmpY-yDmVnd7u3KSD48bWo&hl=en&src=bmrr&sa=X&ei=FL85UL25D4zQigKAzoCQCQ&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Physicalism%2C%20or%20Something%20near%20enough&f=false ''Physicalism, or something near enough''] 2005). The argument is, for example, "a neural assembly consisting of many thousands of neurons will have properties whose causal powers go beyond the causal powers of the properties of its constituents neurons, or subassemblies, and human beings have causal powers that none of our individual organs have". This may be a game involving the definition of "cause". The idea seems to me to be like this: a hot gas can burn you, but the idea of "hot" doesn't apply to an individual atom, but only to an assembly of atoms, so the gas has causal powers not shared by its constituents. I think this is mistaken thinking, as the process of burning me could be analyzed at a microscopic level in terms of individual atoms without introducing the ideas of heat or temperature that apply to ensembles of atoms. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 06:19, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


::: I am not a native speaker, but to me "conceptualized" sounds a little artificial in this sentence.
I was mistaken above in suggesting Kim originated the idea of emergence: he only has discussed it. My example of burning myself resembles a [http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/properties-emergent/#EpiEme claim by Popper]:  
::: "always appear in nature bound most commonly to oxygen atoms" Would "in nature always are bound to other elements, most commonly to oxygen atoms." be better?


::::I'll rewrite the sentence along those lines. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 02:46, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
:"Any change in the higher level (temperature) will thus influence the lower level (the movement of the individual atoms). The one-sided dominance [of higher on lower levels of matter] is due … to the random character of the heat motions of the atoms…. For it seems that were the universe per impossible a perfect determinist clockwork, there would be no layers and therefore no such dominating influence would occur."


::: In the section title on history, quotes around "chemical element" would be natural for me.
Although it is rash of me to attack this position by a respected thinker, IMO Popper's remarks reflect a complete misunderstanding of the role of statistics in describing events. Statistical averages like temperature may characterize ensembles, but they do not cause anything. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:01, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
::: is "definitional consensus" a good formulation?


::::I'll go back and re-look at both. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 02:46, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Here is a clear (but IMO, completely crazy) statement of emergence:
:"Emergent laws are fundamental; they are irreducible to laws characterizing properties at lower levels of complexity, even given ideal information as to boundary conditions." [http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/properties-emergent/#OntEme Stanford Encyclopedia].


::: "one cannot know whether future technology will provide a chemical method to further simplify a presumed 'pure' substance" Is this really a possibility? I am not sure, but - as I said - I am not a chemist.
I bring all this up because it seems pertinent to your reading of ''The Robot's Rebellion''. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:09, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


::::Who knows what the future will bring in that regard? [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 02:46, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
After reading through a few of the dozens of articles on the Stanford Encyclopedia, I am left feeling that a lot of hair-splitting has been done by many philosophers to no end. The answers to this question are more likely to arise from AI and neuroscience than from abstract arguments over hypotheticals that never actually arise. From the stance of an evolutionary robot, programmed goals are sought by an algorithm modifiable by experience. The status of the algorithm may be perceptible by the robot, and the processing of information leading to reprogramming may involve activities that appear to it as conscious deliberation. It is much like a programmer watching his algorithm process some inputs, and in this case he can change the program to better achieve his goals. The ways the program can be changed depend upon some limitations of the programming language and some options may not be pursued because the programmer is so versed in Fortran that he can't think in other languages. So some changes can be made, constituting free will, but others cannot.  


:: But all this should not stop you from moving the page to the article. [[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 23:33, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Care to help me out here, Anthony? [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:43, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


::::Thanks for your challenging thoughts. I hope you will keep them coming. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 02:46, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
After writing this I ran into a [http://books.google.com/books?id=jri3xSc9gX0C&pg=PA260 programming analogy]. "...view it as a set of capabilities and features that interconnect to form Consciousness. ...One can think of each of them as an "object" that has a specific set of capabilities and features. These objects have a "mini-program" inside them that specifies their behavior and how they hook up....The hooks are variable and dynamic.  The time evolution of the Consciousness from state to state is a result of execution of these "mini-programs' in a dynamic ever-changing way. There is no overall program but instead there is an ever changing dynamic unfolding of states of Consciousness in response to external inputs and based on the previous state of Consciousness plus random effects within Consciousness..." and so on.


== Archived [[Talk:Chemical elements]] ==
Some of this may not stand up to close analysis of the definitions of the terms used. Later a connection with Object-Oriented Programming is suggested.


Since Caesar had not yet done it, I did the archiving. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 17:56, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Mentioned to show that something like this kind of explanation is [http://leonid-perlovsky.com/IEEE%20CI%20Culture%20-%2002mci03-perlovsky.qxd.pdf in the air]. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 19:09, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


== Archiving [[Talk:Chemical elements]] ==
::John, I emailed you the excerpt on 'emergence' in Gazzaniga's book.  I'd love to help out, but ME duties keeping me business right now. Have you looked at [[Emergence (biology)]] for my 'first draft' thoughts on 'emergence'?  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 22:23, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


* Use search box in left-hand panel to search for: <font color=green>Talk:Chemical elements/Archive X</font>
:::Anthony: I've considerably rewritten [[Emergence (biology)]] at this juncture, and it departs significantly from its original form in introducing several ''types'' of emergence, of which ''strong emergence'' was the point of view previously, and ''weak emergence'' was not given attention.  
* That takes you to a page that says: '''There is no page titled "Talk:chemical elements/Archive X"'''. You can <font color=purple>create this page</font>.
:::There are some "dangling chads" in the article even so. Even if one has a reductionist stance, that everything can be taken back to individual subsystem behavior ''in principle'', it seems that much of system control and numerical mathematical algorithms make use of the cooperative description of multiple levels and their interconnections and feedback to each other to obtain an efficient modeling of complex systems. So it may be moot that one could (in principle) calculate the properties of DNA based upon quarks using the [[Standard Model]], because one would never imagine that was a sensible undertaking, nor would one be able to understand the results of the calculation beyond the data spewed out as the solution to an individual problem on a case-by-case basis. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 21:50, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
**Click on <font color=purple>create this page</font>
* That takes you to the edit page of the new archive page entitled: <font color=green>Talk:Chemical elements/Archive X</font>
**At the very top of that edit page, enter this template: <nowiki>{{Archive box|auto=long}}</nowiki>
** Then save this page ('''but remember the name!''').
* Go to the edit page of: <font color=blue>Talk:Chemical elements</font>
** Select and copy all of the contents that you want to archive
* Go back to the new archive page: <font color=green>Talk:Chemical elements/Archive X</font>
** Paste in the contents that you copied from <font color=blue>Talk:Chemical elements</font> and then save the new archive page
* Go back to edit page of: <font color=blue>Talk:Chemical elements</font>
** Delete all of the contents that you copied to the new archive page
** At the very top of the edit page, enter this template: <nowiki>{{Archive box|auto=long}}</nowiki> and save the page. '''Your are now finished'''.


The X in the first line above can be 1, 2, 3, ..... etc.
==Dangling Chads==
←Hi John:
You have greatly improved [[Emergence (biology)]], in depth and scope.


To archive your own user talk page, start by searching for: User talk:Anthony.Sebastian/Archive X
I cannot discredit the use of the word, emergence, to describe properties (or qualities, functions, behaviors) of a dynamic complicated system of interacting describably distinct components when someone applies the word to behavior of the system they consider unexpected and surprising and when they had not predicted it from what they knew about the organization of the interacting components.


I hope this is clear. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 20:23, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
If no one can provide a satisfactory explanation for that here-to-fore unexpected behavior, that does not mean the future holds none. We do not know how long that future will extend for us.  It seems, then, that we must reject propositions of systems emergent behavior as unpredictable in principle.


:Milton, thank you for taking your time to explain the archiving process. Your algorithm seems quite clear to me. I will let you know the results of my trying it out.  I would have never figured out the procedure on my own, and I could not find help in the usual places to look. Much obliged. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 21:30, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
In practice, from the organization of the system and that of the environment embedding it, one might generate a correct prediction of the system’s behavior as one among countless incorrect predictions, but we would not consider that a satisfactory solution.


::The first time I did it, it took me about 2 hours before I finally figured it out. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 21:43, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
How would one have predicted the aromatic quality of benzene from the organization of its constituent atoms, whose properties differ in their organizational state than in their elementary state, and alter as we probe them?


== RE: Reference 1 of [[Chemical elements]] ==
Does that re-express some of your points?  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:46, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


Anthony, since you just corrected reference 2, would you also take a look a look at reference 1? As it now stands, the IUPAC link in reference 1 sends us to an IUPAC home page that has nothing about the definition of chemical elements ... nor does it have any pointers or links on where to find such information. I can only assume that at one time it was a pertinent reference ... perhaps the IUPAC website has been re-arranged since then ... but, as of now, reference 1 is not a pertinent reference. Thanks in advance, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 05:32, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
:The question of predicting the aromatic nature of benzene may be a toughie, but as you say, once the issue is raised, it may well be that it will become a predictable item as our models of the molecule and the nose improve. Even so, the concepts involved in fashioning an aromatic compound and in describing its interpretation  in the brain as aromatic are probably higher level or macro concepts that will illuminate the matter much better for our limited brains than looking at thousands of pages of computer print-out detailing the interaction between massive atomic systems.


:Milton, thanks for keeping me honest. Will fix.
:The power of effective concepts is the real value of emergence, which I see more as the emergence of vocabulary that efficiently describes things and aids our limited capacity for intuition.  


:BTW: Okay to include not excessively long annotations to the citations, for convenience and/or edification of reader, even though you believe the references speak for themselves?  You can always tell me which ones to delete/amend, so you won't have to do the work. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 22:33, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
:There is a variety of emergent properties, and the way they relate to micro-systems vary as as well: some can be stand-alone, and some supplement micro-theories and make them more effective. We seem to agree that there is no need to emphasize the success or failure of reducing emergent properties to lower level behaviors. The reducibility issue is one aspect of the topic of [[free will]] and whether aspects of consciousness are actually under our control, or are reducible to sub-system behavior. I've not figured out how to handle that one.   [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 15:39, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


:: I think that annotations of no more than about 2-3 lines of text would usually be sufficient ... but I don't think we should set a hard and fast limit. If I see one that I think needs to be shortened, I will let it be known. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 00:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
:Anthony, the article has now been written from several perspectives and it lacks a smooth development. I think it would benefit greatly from an overhaul by yourself that might organize the various topics logically in an evolving narrative. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 16:42, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


::: Thanks. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 00:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
::John, I agree the article needs a coherent, graceful narrative flow. I'd probably need to set aside at least a week to draft that for your review. I'll do my best to find that week.
::: Removed ref #1 & modified ref #2 to accommodate. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 00:54, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


== Approval, R.E.M. page ==
::You say it well: "''The power of effective concepts is the real value of emergence, which I see more as the emergence of vocabulary that efficiently describes things and aids our limited capacity for intuition.''"


Hi, Anthony,
::I've tried to handle the consciousness issue by avoiding the nominalization, focusing instead on the activity of conscious experiencing, then trying to explain the activity of experiencing consciously at the physiological level of narrative explanation. That provides a different starting point for a study of the neuronal correlates. I have the beginning of a draft essay elaborating the approach which I'll send you when I finish. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 20:50, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
I saw a note from May that you were working on the R.E.M. entry I created in the Summer 0f '08. I'd like to check in on the progress of this--I'd love to see it marked as "approved" as soon as possible. Thanks
Jeff


== Re [[Talk:Photosynthesis]] ==
== Lagrangian mechanics ==


Hi, Anthony:
Hi Anthony:
As you may be aware the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of mechanics are based upon variational principles: the evolution of a system is found by requiring some global quantity be minimized subject to certain constraints. That is the basis even of the [[Standard model]]. The minimization can be expressed in terms of the equations of motion of the system, which could turn out to be Schrodinger's equation, for example, or the equations of fluid mechanics, for another example. The Lagrangian function depends upon microscopic variables, the generalized coordinates, and interactions between the coordinates are introduced as additional terms.


Please see my responses to your comments on the subject Talk page. Also, it would be most useful if you read the discussion about excessive annotations on the forums [http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2994.0.html here]. It would appear that there is a consensus about excessive annotations. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:03, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
It strikes me that the philosophy here is reminiscent of the ideas of emergence in that the system is forced to evolve subject to global constraints. Depending upon the system, the evolution may take on a bland uniform pattern, or a complicated one.


== Photosynthesis image ==
In effect this approach assumes the system has "goals" like minimizing its energy or maximizing its entropy or whatever. I wonder whether and how this connection might be incorporated in the article? [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 14:07, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


Anthony, that image you just added to the [[Photosynthesis]] article is excellent! And it would be even better if the white space around the image were reduced ... especially the white space around on the left-hand  side. If you wish, I could easily do that for you. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 05:52, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
:Anthony: I have continued to add to [[Free will]], and presently the view of the article is that ''free will'' is partially an empirical matter regarding just how complex systems work, and partially a semantic issue about finding useful concepts to describe the situation. Although the broad outline of the issues goes back to the early Greeks, there is much detail that needs to be worked out even today.


:Milton, thanks for calling the 'whitespace' issue to my attention in the [[Photosynthesis]] image, and thanks for offering to fix.  I needed to learn for myself how to fix, plus I wanted to make a few minor changes to the image itself, so I decided to give it a try myself.  See what you think. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 00:10, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
:Your help in fashioning this article remains most desirable. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 17:17, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


::Anthony, filling in the white space at the top with color adds a nice touch. However, when I suggested reducing the white space, I meant removing it (rather than simply coloring it) so as to reduce the overall size of the drawing. If you will look [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Image:Test.jpg here] on my Sandbox page, I have uploaded a test revised version of your drawing that is exactly the same as yours except that I reduced the size of the uploaded file from your 960x720 to 689x573. That permits the image in the article itself to be reduced from a width of 550px to 450px and still be quite legible.
::John, you are too gracious. Believe me, nothing excites my mind more than working on challenging writing projects, especially in collaboration with you. But somehow I've got myself doing two administrative jobs for Citizendium that, at least for the near future, preclude me from doing much in the way of content work.


::If you like the test revised version, let me know. I will then speedy delete the one in my sandbox and simply use it to upload a new version of your image retaining your name and your credit line as the originator. It would only take me a few minutes to do that.
::I do like the idea of a ‘quality’ emerging from mathematical fundamentals.


::Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 03:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
::You might find this article and its references of interest: http://ttic.uchicago.edu/~smale/papers/math-of-emergence.pdf.


:::Milton, I do like your test revised version, but if I let you do the edit for me, I will not learn how to fix it for the next illustration. Still, I appreciate your effort to help, and you are helping. So  I tried another version, this time cropping to eliminate ALL the colored-whitespace in the original, using my image editor.  See for yourself [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Image:Overview_ps_06.jpg here].  I resisted resizing the image to ensure good readability.  Neverthless, when inserting the image in the text, a narrow rim of whitespace appears in the final. It seems CZ puts it there.  I tried it with your test.jpg, same thing, a narrow rim of whitespaceCheck it out [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Photosynthesis#Overview here], let me know what you think. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]]
::I will eventually jump into [[Free will]], after much more study of your article and references.  [[Emergence (biology)]], too. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 22:30, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


::::Anthony, what really helped me to reduce the image width from 960px down to 689px was that I shortened the line of text ending in "glyceraldehyde" by moving the word "glyceraldehyde" to the beginning of the next line of text.  That then allowed me to move the 4 colored tabs at the top closer together and reduce the width considerably. Take another look at my test image and perhaps you might consider doing the same thing yourself. Meanwhile, I will wait awhile before speedy deleting my test image ... just in case you night want to try emulating it. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)


:::::Milton, good idea, playing with the line length. I'll try it as soon as I can get back to work. Thanks for your your patient guidance. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 05:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
==[[Viking longship]]s==
Thanks for adding that image, the article really needed one. There's a photo of the [[Sea Stallion]], but I was hoping for an image of an actual longship rather than a replica. Thanks again, [[User:Richard Nevell|Richard Nevell]] 11:11, 22 September 2012 (UTC)


Tony, I just checked the two images and i have two minor points. In the Image [[:Image:Enhanced_overview_ps_01.jpg|Enhanced_overview_ps_01.jpg]] you call the dark reactions ''light non-dependent''. It's usually referred to as ''light independent''.  In the image [[:Image:Overview_ps_09.jpg|Overview_ps_09.jpg]] I think I would say that "'''''excess''' oxygen is released to the atmosphere''".  Remember that the oxygen is also used for respiration, hence the carbon and light [http://www.tomatosphere.org/teacher-resources/teachers-guide/grades-8-10/plants-and-light.cfm compensation points] where the transition from oxygen consumption to oxygen release is observed. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 04:30, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
== Please see my talk page ==


== photosynthesis ==
Hi, Anthony.  Milton needs an reapproval.  Can you take a look at [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=User_talk:D._Matt_Innis&redirect=no#Re-approval_of_Air_pollution_dispersion_terminology.2FDraft.E2.80.8E my talk page] and see what needs to happen. I'm thinking that the approval manager needs to work this through. [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 16:26, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


I hope you have found my edits useful. Glad to see you're still plugging away at getting this article going. I assume your major goal here is a review of photosynthesis in all organisms. Are you planning to compare and contrast? [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 03:23, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
:Done. Will Certify tomorrow, 26th, to allow for Citizen add'l copyedits, per EC rules. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 19:13, 25 September 2012 (UTC)


:Chris, very useful, as was Peter's retake on the lede. All types of photosynthesis will need covering, and organism-specific mechanisms, too -- as soon as I fill my knowledge base. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:35, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
::Anthony, the [[Air pollution dispersion terminology]] article was to be re-approved on the September 26th. Just a reminder. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 14:48, 27 September 2012 (UTC)


== Wot?  Wat! ==
== Image question ==


Sending a quick ‘hello’ out to all of you who wanted a weekend write-a-thon.  Also, a nudge, push, and a shove to all those who haven’t made it out in a while.  This Sunday, 10th January, is your [[CZ:Monthly Write-a-Thon|Big Chance]]. Party theme is ‘stubs’.  Now, what could be easier?  Write about anything you want!  (At least come on over and say ‘hi’—we’ve all been much too quiet lately and I rather miss everybody.) [[User:Aleta Curry|Aleta Curry]] 21:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Hi, I've uploaded an image with can't be used commercially but still has a creative commons licence, File:Pantheon, 2009.jpg. I just wanted to check this is ok as there appears to be a warning box at the bottom of the photo's description (ie: "Notice of CC-by-sa incompatibility"). Thanks, [[User:Richard Nevell|Richard Nevell]] 20:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


== Good catch, Anthony ==
:Please excuse me for intruding here. That notice of incompatibility appears on dozens of images being used in CZ ... and I have never really understood: (1) what it is saying and (2) why it is needed at all.


Good catch of the freezing point discussion in the main text of the [[Water]] article ... after all of the fuss about including it in the properties table. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 02:39, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
:I also noted that the credit line for the Pantheon image had not been created ... so I went ahead and created the credit line. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 22:36, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


:Thanks. And your note good about unmeaureability of water's freezing point. A section on 'supercooled water' would be cool. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:39, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
::Thanks for creating the credit line, the incompatibility notice stopped me in my tracks as I was doing it; I thought if I'd made a mistake by uploading the image there was no point doing the credit line. The notice still has me a little confused but if we can use it it's a nice busy photo. [[User:Richard Nevell|Richard Nevell]] 18:32, 30 September 2012 (UTC)


::As indicated on the Talk page, Daniel Mietchen is an expert on that subject. Why not approach him about writing a section on supercooled water? [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 04:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
== Requesting a Move/Rename? ==


:::Will do. Thanks. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 04:21, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Anthony, How do I get a page renamed?  The [[South Vietnamese Buddhist crisis and coup of 1963]] is actually two articles and I've started splitting them.  One was easy enough.  I created the [[South Vietnamese Coup (1963)]] and moved content there. The [[South Vietnamese Buddhist crisis and coup of 1963]] should now be either moved or renamed to [[South Vietnamese Buddhist crisis (1963)]] (to differentiate it from the [[Buddhist crisis of 1966]]--which should also probably be renamed, but that's a different story).  Thanks. [[User:Russell D. Jones|Russell D. Jones]] 22:21, 19 October 2012 (UTC)


==Thanks for starting [[Oxidation]]==
:Russell, that requires a 'Move' maneuver, which I am not skilled at. Suggest contacting [[User: D. Matt Innis|Matt Innis]].  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 23:02, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


Anthony, thanks and see my response to you on my Talk page. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 00:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
== Scientific method ==


== About the first two references in [[Oxidation]] ==
I see that you have made a number of changes to [[Scientific method]] which, because it is an "approved" article, can only be done on [[Scientific method/Draft]]. I've got a couple of questions for you:
#Why is there no discussion of these changes on a Talk page?
#What is your notion of whether these changes will become a new version of the approved article?


Anthony, from  what I can see, reference 2 is simply an English translation of a later edition of reference 1. In essence they are both the same book, one in French and one in English. Please consider combining them both in one reference or choosing the English version only. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 03:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
An unrelated matter is the content of this article.  


:Yes. I'll do that. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:41, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
IMO, which could be supported in part by some recent books (''Big science, little science'', ''The trouble with physics'', ''Not even wrong: the failure of string theory..'')  some science (maybe string theory, maybe multiverses) is approaching the situation where there is reason to question whether the theory used to build observational apparatus and interpret results begs the question of whether a real test has been performed. Also, tests of a theory become so expensive and so arcane they require multinational commitments to construct an observational apparatus (a hadron collider or a Hubble telescope). That being so, the enterprise is threatened by (i) competition for funding by other needs of society, and (ii) observations so remote from everyday experience that one might ask whether such theories have real implications, or are merely pursuits of expensive clubs built for people with odd ideas of how they should spend their lives.


Is that pertinent to this article?


[[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 21:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)


== Biological production of Ammonia ==
== Site notice ==


Hi, Anthony:
Hi Anthony, I noticed that a small circle has appeared on the top left of every Citizendium page (in the lighter grey part). Is this intentional? If it isn't, I think it's because a character was added to the start of [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]] [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=MediaWiki:Sitenotice&diff=prev&oldid=100811768]. [[User:Richard Nevell|Richard Nevell]] 10:45, 8 December 2012 (UTC)


I was not aware that there were any methods for the large-scale biological production of ammonia. If you decide to write [[Ammonia production (biology)]], I would be interested in reviewing it. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 23:41, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
:Right on, Richard. I found it precisely where you predicted, and I gleefully exterminated it. Thanks.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:03, 9 December 2012 (UTC)


== Just curious about the [[Life]] article ==
== Thank you ==
 
Thanks for your kind words, which I have followed up.  As for the Forums thing, I would pay more attention if other people seemed to use them more often.  As it is, there seem to be long temporal gaps after many of the last contributions.  (I suppose that non-use on those grounds is self-perpetuating.)  Also, it took me a while to realise I had to have a separate sign-in, and I am not clear how to start a new thread. 
Anthony, why is it that the [[Life]] article has no mention of the role played by <s>respiration</s> inhaling of air, in humans and all other animals, to obtain the oxygen needed to sustain animal life? I should think the article would benefit by discussion of that. Regards, [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 06:15, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 
----


Good pick-up, Milton. The reason I did not mention oxygen uptake relates to the primary goal of the article, namely to describe those characteristics of living things that all living things possess in commonFrom lede:
One other niggle: The CZ notice on the Welcome page is kept up to date (more or less), but whenever one goes to a subject page, the CZ notice on that is the one for the time it was last updated. Surely it is better not to have a notice there than to have one that is out of date, possibly by years--[[User:Martin Wyatt|Martin Wyatt]] 18:20, 9 June 2013 (UTC)


<blockquote>
:Hi Martin. Odd, I don't have that 'site-notice page-discrepancy' with the usual popular browsers (IE10, FFx, Chrome) with my Win7 desktop. I'll keep checking. Sometimes I'm late updating, but there should not be a discrepancy between the Welcome page and other pages. Hmm... [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 22:21, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
We take as our theme the definition of life given by Nobel prizewinning cellular/molecular biologist, Christian De Duve: "Life is what is common to all living beings".
</blockquote>


More on that in the lede.
== [[Pompeii]] ==


The point about excluding oxygen uptake relates to the existence of living things, microorganisms specifically, that do not require oxygen to sustain their living, with some species unable to tolerate oxygen and die of oxygen poisoning. The latter biologists refer to as obligate anaerobes.
Hello Anthony, is there any chance we can finish with [[Pompeii]]?  Thanks. [[User:Russell D. Jones|Russell D. Jones]] 21:56, 11 July 2013 (UTC)


Anaerobes still generate energy from energy-rich substrates in a stepwise process  through electron transfers along a 'respiratory' chain, but the final electron-acceptor is not oxygen, but some other oxidant, such as sulfate.
:Hi Russell. Will check, let you know. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)


Nevertheless, others may raise the same question you did, so [[Life]] should anticipate it.  I'll work on that.
== Editable 'Main Articles' and Approved-Locked 'Citable Articles'. ==


Thanks for calling the issue to my attention.  You may noticed that the draft version of [[Life]] has developed the article much beyond the approved version. After a little more exposition and some clean-up work, I'd lke to see it replace the current approved version.
Hi Anthony:


Yours collegially, Anthony. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 16:25, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
There are a couple of observations I'd like to make about [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Anthony.Sebastian/r01 this draft resolution] of yours.  


== EXpansion of the [[Nitrogen cycle]] article ==
First, it appears to suggest "all articles to open as editable Main Articles". I assume this to mean editable by CZ members and not the public at large?


Anthony, I just want to acknowledge the good work by Thomas Sulcer and you in expanding the [[Nitrogen cycle]] article.[[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 05:42, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
The main suggestion, as I understand it, is to change the present policy of locked approved versions to instead a policy of locked citable versions and editable versions that are the default first access to an article.


==Please join with me in urging Hayford not to resign==
I think that is a good idea, because it will encourage changes to articles that presently are nearly impossible for 'approved' articles because of red tape, unavailability of original authors whose approval is needed, and general reluctance by originating authors to see their work altered in any way. If I have understood the proposal, I support it. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 13:36, 22 July 2013 (UTC)


Anthony, see my plea to Hayford not to resign as Constable (on his Talk page). Please join me! [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 20:16, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
:Yes, John, you understand the referendum. The red tape will still be there for the 'Citable Version', but readers won't see that automatically. If the Main Article is editable, it may induce more readers to join Citizendium so they can edit it. As you say, it will "encourage changes" plus encourage joining. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 18:05, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
.


== sans comic sans ==
== What to be done about this? ==


The new style of the quoted text in the intro to [[Life]] looks better.
What should be done about [[What happened to Citizendium?|this]], which is a rewritten version of [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Wikipedia/Activity&oldid=100819811 this]? [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] 21:50, 11 November 2013 (UTC)


:I agree. Thanks for the prod. &mdash;[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:45, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
:John,  the article on what happened to Citizendium  does not seem to me to be  an encyclopedia- type entry. I would move it  to  CZ namespace. Also, I do not find it very informative. The author has not been  an active contributor and in particular  has made no encyclopedia  article edits or starts, so I don't think  he is truly into what's happening  at Citizendium.  We might want to consider removing the article entirely. What do you think? [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 05:03, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
::It could be deleted or, with some effort, a de-snarked and corrected version could be placed under Citizendium/Activity, just as the original appears at [[Wikipedia/Activity]]. [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] 09:55, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
:::Your second option sounds good to me. We just need to find a de-snarker and corrector to do the job. It would be great is Aleksander Stos would do that. Shall we bring him into the discussion? [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 22:11, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
::::I've moved it to [[Citizendium/Activity]] and will let him know. [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] 15:37, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
::: I've looked at this. Well, de-snarking would mean simply replacing it with a more informative/objective analysis. More precisely, I think it is hopeless to incrementally edit the present text, the overall tone is quite unencyclopedic (more like a polemic essay) and I would feel compelled to change almost every sentence.
::: That said, its language is indeed modeled on the Wikipedia/Activity article. One has impression that the Author [Linden] didn't like the Wikipedia/Activity article and produced an obviously unacceptable analogue to make a point. While I strongly disagree with such a method (BTW explicitly forbidden in Wikipedia), I do think the original Wikipedia/Activity article, while way more informative, factual, and rooted in the real scientific research, has a quite apparent bias against Wikipedia.
::: In my opinion, a proper action would be to deal with the Wikipedia/Activity first. Then, I'd remark that the activity of Citizendium is not as notable subject as that of Wikipedia (e.g. little to no external scientific references). Accordingly, I would be tempted to replace the present CZ/Activity essay by a relatively short summary of our activity (not necessarily that different in some points). Putting it on my todo, not sure however how fast this could be done (I permanently lack the time). But, after all, this is a wiki. Cheers, [[User:Aleksander Stos|Aleksander Stos]] 12:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
::::Having looked at it more closely, it appears unsalvageable. The main problems, apart from the snarkiness, are that it states that the reasons for the decline are unknown (i.e. it is uninformative) and that it bases the discussion on general links to CZ forums and RationalWiki's article on CZ (which can change and is written anonymously), rather than specific data points, and so does not precisely back up any claims (as Aleksander says, there is little rigorous study of CZ's performance out there). There is also the specific error that CZ Editors "own" articles. May as well move it to user space. [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] 18:18, 3 December 2013 (UTC)


Did you mean to have the three quotes ([[Life/Draft#The_thermodynamics_of_.27living.27|Morowitz to Sagan]]) all indented to the right by 60%?  [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 02:33, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
:::::I'm in favor of the move to userspace. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 21:32, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
::::::OK, [[User:Linden Killam/Citizendium|done]] and move-locked. A sysop can move back a revised version. [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] 21:46, 3 December 2013 (UTC)


:I intended the three "quotes" to appear as epigraphs. I thought to indent all epigraphs indented to right 60%; see other sections. Short epigraph texts will not hit right margin.  Need better system for epigraphs. &mdash;[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:45, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
==Signed Articles==
Anthony, where are you with the "Signed Article" change? It appears that, if authors are willing to receive and respond to comments, there can be a kind of peer-review process. The key would be knowing the qualifications of the people making the comment ... kind of a novel idea to have peer review visible to the public and that remains part of the article's history. [[User:Thomas Butler|Thomas Butler]] 00:33, 21 January 2014 (UTC)


::Possibly we could have them in a box so that the text would wrap around, thus avoiding the extensive white space?  Would that work for you, or is the white space what you had intended? [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 05:09, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
== You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2014 election ==


:::[[Gordon_Brown#Prime_Minister__2007-2010|Another approach]], I just noticed this on the Gordon Brown page. I think Nik Gardner designed it. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 06:29, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
You've been nominated as a candidate in the [[User:ElectionJune2014|June 2014 election]]. Please visit [[User:ElectionJune2014/Nominations|this page]] to accept or decline each position. No action will also be treated as declining. If you accept, you may choose to write an election statement for each position - see the election page for further details. Alternatively, contact me via my Talk page or privately via e-mail. Regards, [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] 13:42, 29 May 2014 (UTC)


::::Tried, looks good, but my selected font, Gill Sans MT, disappears after the first quote. Can you fix code so font stays for all three quotes?  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 16:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
==Homeostasis==
Anthony, I added to the subsection [[Homeostasis (biology)#Scope of homeostasis]]. You might take a look and see if it is what you had in mind. [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]] 15:03, 30 May 2014 (UTC)


:::::I'll try. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 16:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
== Author Representative Comments on Forum Communications ==
On Sunday, August 17, 2014, I knowingly and intentionally deleted my Forum account. Constabulary promptly notified me that this would prevent me from having access to some areas of the Forum reserved for Council business. Appreciating that this action could be misconstrued, I want to make it clear that I wish to fulfill my duties as Author Representative, but I will not do so in the Forum. I am unaware of any reason why participating in the Forum should be required for performing the duties of Author Representative. So, it seems prudent to bring this to your attention for consideration in the event the Council wishes to include me in a vote.


:::::OK, I just played around with it and i see that the font style only kicks in for the text that is indented. I added the appropriate colons to get it to work but that then has the disadvantage of being indented a little too far. I assume there is something other than a colon that can be used that precludes the need to indent. I'll look/ask around and see if anything better comes up. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 16:42, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Why have I taken this action? My experience has been that Forum deliberations are dominated by a very small group of persons. This almost certainly serves as a disincentive for participation by others. (It has this effect for me.) I have also come to appreciate that I am not comfortable using ''private channels'' for Council activities which other "citizens" cannot monitor. To this end, I have created a [[User_talk:Christine_Bush#Council_Communications|Council Communications section]] on my talk page where my votes or thoughts can be transparently recorded and easily found should they be requested. If they are not, that will say something too. [[User:Christine Bush|Christine Bush]] 18:32, 19 August 2014 (UTC)


:::::Me again! I tried adding three cells, one for each quote and that works better. [[User:Chris Day|Chris Day]] 16:45, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
: Hi Anthony, I just wanted to share with Council colleagues (and I have communicated with Gareth, Peter also) [[User_talk:Christine_Bush#Some_background_for_visitors|some additional thoughts about my recent decision to delete my Forum account]].


::::::Day-genius at work!  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 04:13, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
== Motion Regarding Special Pages ==
Anthony, I would like to suggest that Council request modifications to articles being developed in the User: space, or "sandbox" pages, not be listed on the [[Special:RecentChanges]] because it defeats the purpose of providing authors with an area where we can develop ideas ''prior'' to creating or modifying an article. These are functionally only potential changes. As I have not been provided with any instructions on how to initiate a motion, I'm posting it here. [[User:Christine Bush|Christine Bush]] 20:40, 8 September 2014 (UTC)


== Illustrations wanted? ==
:Christine, on the Recent Changes page, in 'Namespace' box, select 'Main', then 'GO' at right. See if that gives you what you want.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 21:41, 8 September 2014 (UTC)


Hello! I noticed that you [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Welcome_to_Citizendium&curid=13173&diff=100677185&oldid=100673721 changed] the main page to call for illustrators. I am eager to start illustrating for Citzendium, but I find it hard to know where to begin. Is there a central place for illustrations, such as a 'requested' list which you could refer me to? [[User:Johan A. Förberg|Johan A. Förberg]] 22:32, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Anthony, thanks for pointing out this feature. To be clear, I am proposing a change in functionality that will affect all wiki visitors and users---not just me. I am suggesting that both the User: and User_talk: namespaces should be removed altogether from the Recent Changes page o''ptions and results''. The functional effect is that any and all pages in the User: or User_talk: namespaces will no longer display or be found via the Recent Changes page. (It should be fairly trivial to implement if Council approved the idea. A casual code inspection of the page source suggests only two options with values of 2 and 3 could be removed from the form select element with name "namespace." The default query that runs when the page first loads would also need to be updated.) [[User:Christine Bush|Christine Bush]] 03:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
:You can put your proposal before the Council [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Special:EmailUser/Citizendium_Council here]. I'll copy it to the appropriate Council Board on the Citizendium Forums. BTW: I do work on my word processor if I don't want it revealed until completed. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


:Good question, Johan.  I'll start a forum topic for suggestions how to implement the whole process.  For now, you could send out announcement on the mailing list indicating your interest: citizendium-l@lists.purdue.edu.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 03:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
::Would people still be able to put such pages on their watchlists? [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] 09:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


== Some creative formatting? ==
:::Hi Peter. Yes, one should absolutely still be able to add them to a watchlist and otherwise do all the things one has been able to do or would expect. This proposal is a small change to the functionality of the Recent Changes page only, not to any pages in the User: or User_talk: namespaces or their existing functionality.


I've generally been hesitant to get outside standard markup, but, in [[Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain]], at least the "Passing of the Armies" quote seems to cry for it, and possibly his decision at Little Round Top. Would you care to take a crack at it? [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 22:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
:::My primary rationale for this suggestion are: 1) to assure the items displayed on Recent Changes are representative of contributions being made to article content, which I believe is what one expects to see when visiting this page; 2) to indirectly encourage participation by eliminating entries on the Recent Changes page which may have the effect of inflating activity; 3) to better encourage participation by way of providing more privacy, both for work on article content and for discussions which might otherwise happen off-wiki; 4) make it more difficult for those without the best interest of CZ in mind to monitor contributor activities not directly related to content, i.e. our business. You and others may well be able to think of more effects. [[User:Christine Bush|Christine Bush]] 17:12, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


:Surely, Howard, I'll redo all the blockquotes for your review.  May nto get to till Fri., as wife's dragging me to cultural events in S.F. that I cannot escape.  If energy permits, might get to it tonight.  Interesting article.  &mdash;[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 15:09, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
=== Word Processing vs. Wiki Processing ===
::Hi Anthony, thank you for this procedural assistance. I applaud the practice of working on a word processor, and totally encourage contributors to spell check, grammar check, and backup their work.  


::As to the article, Chamberlain, I think, is among the least known great Americans, truly a Renaissance man.  
::I suspect that you also appreciate that there are also many good reasons for working in the sandbox. Some which come to mind are: ease of formatting content for wiki syntax and layout; practice using wiki syntax; the ability to post drafts for sharing and comment from multiple users (without the overhead of version control) prior to inclusion under "Main article"; production of content that is non-proprietary, easy to exchange/interchange, and ready to use on a wiki; ease of editing content ported to CZ from other wikis; the ability to work on an article from multiple locations or different computers without having to carry your draft with you (although, [[word processing]] in the [[cloud]] via [[Google Docs]], [[Evernote]], etc. seems to be becoming more commonplace and makes this last reason a bit more ephemeral---all the more reason to reinforce CZ as friendly, convenient cloud destination for working and thinking); work in the sandboxes is presumably being backed up regularly and becomes part of the project's knowledgebase even in incomplete/draft form.  


::As to time, I understand -- I'm only going in here as a respite. While [[herding cats]] is a classic metaphor, there should be one for herding veterinarians, as I juggle tertiary and secondary care specialists, labs, compounding pharmacies, and drug manufacturers in providing home palliative and, frankly, critical care -- which seems to be effective. Unfortunately, I assume your fluid balance expertise begins once the fluids are in the patient; shall we say a 5 ml tid po dose is more likely to drown? 
::In other words, word processing is not wiki processing. This goes to my election statement in which I said that I thought CZ needs to better come to terms with its "core identity". CZ should be what it is: a wiki. [[User:Christine Bush|Christine Bush]] 17:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
:Christine, Yes, I appreciate the value of sandboxes; I have numerous sandboxes that I use for different purposes.


::I'd trade Cape Cod for SF anytime. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 16:34, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
: But since you can eliminate their appearance on the Recent Changes Page by selecting the Main namespace, I see no reason to eliminate the functionality of their appearance when selecting the All namespaces choice on the Recent Changes Page. Indeed, there are many good reasons to allow recent changes to show user talk pages and sandbox activity, which I will not go into here.


:::Yes, Cape Cod, a Mecca of cultural activity. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 18:29, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
:The only reason I suggested using a word processor for preliminary work was because I suspected that you wanted to keep your sandbox work secret. I do that sometimes. But mostly I use one of my sandboxes for preliminary work. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 21:41, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


:It's actually not that terrible for culture, but the closest medical library is Boston. Anytime you need a free volunteer that gets at least database access...[[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 06:45, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
== Re: EAP status ==
Anthony, [http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,4551.msg46670.html#msg46670 I resigned as EAP]. If my temporary appointment to that role was worthy of listing on the [[CZ:Council|CZ:Council page]] it seems like my resignation from it should be, too. [[User:Christine Bush|Christine Bush]] 20:40, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
:Done. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 21:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


::::Howard, I finished reformatting the blockquotes in [[Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain]] this morning.  See if they meet with your approval.  If you want a slightly larger font-size, let me know.
== Council members' votes on proposal to move forums to the CZ wiki ==


::::The code I use for blockquotes:
[http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,4568.0.html proposal]


:::::<nowiki><blockquote>
Council members:
<p style="margin-left: 2.0%; margin-right: 6%; font-size: 0.99em; font-family: Gill Sans MT, Trebuchet MS;">quote<ref name=…/></p>
</blockquote></nowiki> The nowiki's in the editor, not part of the code.


::::::Thanks. It looks better; I want to mull it a bit and get some other opinions.
Enter your vote (yes/no) below with your four tilde signature. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 00:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC)


== Nephrology subgroup ==
* yes [[User:Christine Bush|Christine Bush]] 00:26, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
* yes [[User:Gareth Leng|Gareth Leng]] 07:41, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
:Two yes votes constitutes a majority, therefore the motion passes.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 18:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)


Being bold, I've been creating a number of subgroups, including veterinary medicine, the subspecialties of internal medicine, assorted computing topics, etc.  By and large, I see each of them as something that could be used to recruit in a focused mailing list, professional group, blog, etc.  Feel absolutely free to take [[CZ: Nephrology subgroup]] and perhaps put some text on its home page; I'm much more comfortable, say, in  pharmacology, ID or cardiology, and, unfortunately, in veterinary oncology. As I tell people, I'm not a doctor, but I play one on clinical computers.
== Referendum 3 ==


My sense is that the recruiting pitches should take place once the Charter is approved and we at least have the EC/MC elections starting, making a clear differentiation from WP. Nevertheless, I hope that happens soon. I've also not been certain how much the subgroups should be clinical in orientation.
Thanks for your support and for picking up the error; I've switched it to 14 days. Unfortunately, I see this as a significant change, so have to ask you to sign again at [[User:ElectionJune2015/Referenda]]. Thanks. [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] ([[User talk:John Stephenson|talk]]) 11:15, 3 June 2015 (UTC)


Incidentally, if one were to approach nephrologists, what is the collective noun for groups of them? Flow? Capsule? Tubule? Osmotic balance? [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 06:52, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
== You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2016 election ==


:Good idea, Howard. Groups of nephrologists: jokingly, 'nephrons', as in, "Perhaps one of the nephrons in the audience would like to comment." 'Nephrologists' for all, 'dialyzers', 'nephroedocrinologists', etc.
You've been nominated as a candidate for the post of [[CZ:Managing Editor|Managing Editor]] in the [[User:ElectionJune2016|June 2016 election]]. Please visit [[User:ElectionJune2016/Nominations|this page]] to accept or decline. No action will also be treated as declining. If you accept, you may choose to write an election statement - see the election page for further details. Alternatively, contact me via my Talk page or privately via e-mail. Regards, [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] ([[User talk:John Stephenson|talk]]) 00:27, 15 May 2016 (UTC)


::Well, I have been known to ask if any orthopedists were in the audience. If anyone so identified, I promised to speak slowly.
== You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2016 election ==


:BTW: How do you create subgroups?  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 02:17, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
You've been nominated as a candidate for the [[CZ:Council|Citizendium Council]] in the [[User:ElectionJune2016|June 2016 election]]. Please visit [[User:ElectionJune2016/Nominations|this page]] to accept or decline. No action will also be treated as declining. If you accept, you may choose to write an election statement - see the election page for further details. Alternatively, contact me via my Talk page or privately via e-mail. Regards, [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] ([[User talk:John Stephenson|talk]]) 19:14, 27 May 2016 (UTC)


::(don't look at this in edit mode)
== Cowdray House ==


::Read [[CZ: Subgroups]]
Hello Anthony, in case you missed it I left a comment you might want to respond to at [[Forum Talk:Non-member Comments and Suggestions on Approvals#Cowdray House]]. [[User:Richard Nevell|Richard Nevell]] ([[User talk:Richard Nevell|talk]]) 20:52, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
::*Create Template: XXX Subgroup, with the only contents <nowiki>{{subgroup|subgroup name|[up to four workgroups separated by |]}}</nowiki>
:Hi, would you be open to discussing the Cowdray House article? [[User:Richard Nevell|Richard Nevell]] ([[User talk:Richard Nevell|talk]]) 18:11, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
::*Create CZ: XXX subgroup, with <nowiki>{{XXX subgroup}}</nowiki> the only thing in the file. On saving, you'll have a banner. Most are filled automatically, but when you first open "All Articles", for example, you need to put <nowiki>{{XXX subgroup}}</nowiki> in it. The "main article" has to match the name (e.g., [[nephrology]] for [[CZ: Nephrology subgroup]].
:HEllo, it's the dim and distant past now but would you be able to comment at the above forum? [[User:Richard Nevell|Richard Nevell]] ([[User talk:Richard Nevell|talk]]) 18:43, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
::*For articles you want in up to 3 subgroups, put the subgroup name under sub1=, etc.
::*Jog the main article. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 02:57, 12 June 2010 (UTC)


== The [[:Image:Water molecule 3D.svg]] ==
== Anthony ==


Anthony, I know that the subject image was obtained from Wikimedia Commons back in 2007 ... probably before Stephen Ewen created the the upload templates, wizards and the requirement that images from Wikimedia Commons and Flickr needed to have: (1) the real name of the original author, (2) to be licensed with same license as in the Commons or Flickr, and a credit line to be created. All of those requirements are lacking in the subject image ... and it may get CZ into trouble some day. Please take a look at the file for the subject image and see if you can somehow find the information needed to satisfy those three requirements. I suspect that (2) and (3) will be easy to do, but (1) may require writing an email to the user name of the author and asking him for his real name. His user name is Dbc334 and he appears to be from Slovenia. He can be emailed by going to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dbc334 and scrolling downward in the left-hand navigation column. [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] 08:00, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
With sadness I must notify the community that our friend and colleague Anthony passed away last year. He served this project with distinction, first as an expert Editor and then as its managerial lead. He was a great help and support to me personally and I'm sure to many of you. Some links [https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sfgate/obituary.aspx?n=anthony-sebastian&pid=190490872 here] and [https://www.forevermissed.com/anthony-sebastian/#about here].


:Thanks, Milton. I'll remove the image from the article, temporally, replace after meeting requirements for its use. Perhaps I'll try drawing an original for us.  [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 21:55, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Goodbye, Anthony, and thank you. [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] ([[User talk:John Stephenson|talk]]) 20:18, 24 January 2019 (UTC)


::Milton, I found a public domain drawing showing the 3-D water molecule, a drawing that provides more information. See [[Water]].
:I see he was still contributing here just 9 days before his death. [[User:Peter Jackson|Peter Jackson]] ([[User talk:Peter Jackson|talk]]) 10:15, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
See [[:Image:Water molecules lg nsf gov.jpg]].  Better image. [[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] 01:53, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 04:15, 26 January 2019

Hourglass drawing.svg Where Anthony lives it is approximately: 15:47

Creating my User Talk Page. --Anthony.Sebastian
Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 13:48, 19 December 2006 (CST)

Intro

Current UTC Time: -8 hours
Current UTC Time: 15:47


To Approve articles Diberri citation maker Help Wikiformatting Citizendium Test Wiki CZ:How to use Bugzilla



Please review Los Alamos National Laboratory for spelling, grammar, and whatever

Anthony, I would very much appreciate it if you would review Los Alamos National Laboratory for spelling, grammar, and whatever else you think may be needed. Let me have your comments on the article's Talk page. Thanks, Milton Beychok 20:33, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Anthony

Back after a holiday - I take it I'm not still needed for Alcmeion?Gareth Leng 08:39, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Gareth. Alcmaeon (a.k.a., Alkmaion): Approved. Hope you enjoyed your vacation, though you may have meant 'vacation from CZ'. OMBs need such. Anthony.Sebastian 22:31, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Asking for your help again

Anthony, the Project Apollo article needs a critical review by a History author like yourself. See here the documentation of my recent extensive edits to that article.

Anything you can do to make it more readable, more interesting, etc. would be appreciated. Milton Beychok 04:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Milton, I have a few deadlines related to academic year ending. I took a look at Project Apollo and will plan to work on it starting sometime in July, though the start of the academic year also puts demands on me.
Thanks for steering me in the article's direction. The Apollo missions were incredible achievements. Anthony.Sebastian 14:39, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Anthony, thanks for your added references and edits as well as for picking up my goof in defining "billion". Milton Beychok 21:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Redirect of Biological mathematics

Hi Anthony: I've moved the article Biological mathematics to Biological computation, which seems to me to fit the content of this article pretty well. Please excuse my doing this before your have had a chance to comment upon it. I don't think it is a very controversial change, but it may be a bit startling to find what has happened in your absence. If so, my apologies. John R. Brews 18:51, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Electric charge

Anthony: If you take a look at Talk:Electric_charge#Definition_of_electric_charge you will see that while technically you are right that the article Electric charge should begin with a definition of electric charge, that approach is awkward, and the simple change you have made in the lead sentence of this article does not solve the problem.

There seems to me to be two possibilities: the one you object to that begins by defining charge and then defines electric charge and how it is distinct from magnetic charge. Alternatively, one can make a new article Charge, describing a fundamental property of matter that causes matter having that property to generate and react to a force of attraction or repulsion to spatially separate matter that likewise manifests the property of charge.

Then one can refer to this article in the article Electric charge as one of the two known types of charge, magnetic and electric, with the distinguishing property that electric charges can be isolated, while while an isolated magnetic charge or magnetic monopole never has been observed.

In any event, I find the present arrangement unsatisfactory. John R. Brews 04:09, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Apparently the matter is complicated further by the concept of "color charge". John R. Brews 15:51, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Also complicated by mass: "In physics, mass is an extensive physical property of a system and is most frequently measured in the SI unit of kilograms. Mass is the "charge" of the gravitational force, and the resistance an object has to force." From CZ article.
I like the idea of dealing with 'charge' in a separate article, Charge. I too was thinking of that, but I did not feel qualified to do it justice. I suppose we could start it as a stub, with the lede sentence you suggested. I give it a try, unless you really want to do it yourself. I'm away Sunday, could do it Monday.
At any rate, in Electric charge, I had wanted the reader to know a bit more about electric charge before introducing magnetic charge, or charge in general. Anthony.Sebastian 04:31, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
A start at an article. John R. Brews 05:44, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
The treatment of color charge and its connection to nuclear forces needs work. John R. Brews 14:01, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
I set up a talk page to consider how this article should be written at User:John R. Brews/Sample/Talk. John R. Brews 16:23, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Anthony: Perhaps a god approach to Charge is to make it a disambiguation page. There are so many different "charges" even within science that it seems they are almost unconnected. For example, Charge (electromagnetic) could include both electric and magnetic charge, replacing the present Electric charge. Charge (chromodynamic) could discuss color charge. Then we are left with Charge (baryonic), Charge (leptonic), which appear to be different in that they are not related to forces at all, but to symmetry classifications. Maybe you have some more?
Although mass is related to the force of gravity by the same potential theory as electromagnetism via Poisson's equation, it is not referred to as a "charge" in physics texts (a Google books search does not turn up this terminology, despite its use in the CZ article Mass), and is ultimately related to the curvature of space time, a form of "fictitious" force depending upon the observer like centrifugal force.
The disambiguation page would have to include non-science versions too, of course, like Charge (military), Charge (explosive). Maybe you have some more? John R. Brews 14:15, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
John, it appears we already have Charge as a disambiguation page, automatically redirected from Charge. It currently has three entries:
I would prefer separate articles on Charge (science), Electric charge, Magnetic charge plus the ones you suggested: Charge (chromodynamic) Charge (baryonic), Charge (leptonic), Charge (military), Charge (explosive), Charge business, Chargés d'affaires, etc.
By Charge (science), I refer to the Sample article you started.
I do not ignore your Charge (electrodynamic), but in the interests of the readers, separate articles on electric and magnetic charges would seem better, as each deserves it own treatment in order to do it justice and teach the unique aspects of each. —Anthony.Sebastian 21:28, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Your introductory charge article

Hi Anthony:

As you know, there are several ways to introduce a subject. One is to present the current understanding from a logical standpoint supported by today's experimental data. That method depends upon an abstract turn of mind that enjoys an axiomatic approach, related by experiments to reality. These concepts and data are not necessarily naively intuitive.

Another approach is historical. That method begins in the past and works to the present. Its goal is not to be historically accurate in explaining all the false steps and all the confusions of the historical record. Rather, the goal is to adopt the naive view of each epoch and show how that sharpened and evolved with advances in argument and experimental data. This method is helpful to beginners, because the early work has the same naivete as the readers themselves, and so they can advance in understandable steps toward the less intuitive, more involved, present view.

I'd recommend the last approach to you. There is no point in trying to present a simplified approach based strictly upon concepts from an early time that are now outmoded. Instead, any overly simple concepts are presented as the tentative approach peculiar to a certain epoch, expected to be transcended, and are not presented as a logical structure still considered appropriate. John R. Brews 16:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

In particular, the concept of "matter" is treacherous, and has evolved considerably over time. John R. Brews 16:27, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

To elaborate a bit: the Greek idea of atoms became the indestructible atoms of the 19th century, then were replaced by indivisible electrons, protons and neutrons, then replaced by the indivisible quarks and leptons and the bosons they exchange (or maybe only the gluons, as photons aren't included; the contributions to matter are a bit fuzzy). At each stage, matter took on a new definition, allowing a wider and wider range of forms of matter, for example, the quark-gluon plasma, which can't even be defined from the view of matter as an assembly of atoms. John R. Brews 16:45, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

John, thanks for your advice on how to approach a 'student level' treatment of electric charge. I think both approaches you described have their pedagogical merits. I'd like to find a coherent way to include both approaches.
I'd wanted to develop a complete draft of the 'student level' subpage before presenting it, not wanting to waste your time. But your helpful comments show your interest, so I'm inclined to seek your comments as I develop the draft. My earliest notes you can read at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Anthony.Sebastian/Sbox01. They are quite embryonic.
My thought is to start somewhat oversimplified, then introduce the complexities later. First an introduction based on the basics of our modern understanding, then, in a separate section, an historical account along the lines you mentioned above. Anthony.Sebastian 23:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Anthony: The outline at your sandbox is at a pretty early stage. At the moment it seems to aim at some ideas that lead to Coulomb's law, expressed in words. It is not necessary to base matters upon atoms, electrons and protons to do that, and historically that was not the path. As you know, electricity began with charged objects like rubbed amber, and the inverse square law was established by Cavendish and Coulomb without reference to atoms. Atomic concepts have their own subtle history in chemistry and are themselves much more complex concepts than the notion of electric charge. Possibly, after charge is established as a notion, it can be applied to atoms, if that seems desirable. John R. Brews 14:21, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
John, here's how I see my starting aim: to explain electric charge in today's science, at a level of explanation accessible to an educated general audience, assuming that their knowledge includes no more than a secondary-school level of knowledge of science, including that matter consists of atoms and that atoms consist of protons, neutrons, and electrons in the solar system (Bohr) model. In between textbook and popscibook, closer to textbook.
I agree that knowing the history of the development of the concept of electric charge importantly enriches one's grasp of the concept, but as the starter for a student-level treatment of electric charge, I personally find it better first to help the student acquire/enhance some grasp of the basic concept. Anyway, that's how it works for me as I try to increase my knowledge of physics and chemistry—and without having to know/learn advanced mathematics, I might add (no pun intended).
Ideally, I would hope to integrate the two approaches into a single woven narrative. I see the project taking months to accomplish, given the time I can devote. In the end, I'd like to see positive responses from secondary-school students taking an academic curriculum.
I can't express how satisfying it is for me to have your input helping me organize consciously my thinking. Anthony.Sebastian 22:35, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Boxed comments in your articles

Hi Anthony:

Your recently amended contribution Herophilus contains some very long boxed instructions for the novice reader of CZ (or any other wiki for that matter). In the article Vesalius I trimmed this boxed content without encountering objections from you (thank you), but your article Herophilus possibly has extended this text beyond even what was originally in Vesalius. Here is what I refer to:

Most citations to articles listed here include links — in font-color blue — to full-text. Accessing full-text may require personal or institutional subscription. Nevertheless, many with do offer full-text, and if not, usually offer text or links that show the abstracts of the articles, free without subscription. Links to books variously may open to full-text, or to the publishers' description of the book with or without downloadable selected chapters, reviews, and table of contents. Books with links to Google Books often offer extensive previews of the books' text.

and here is my trimmed version:

Many citations here include blue links that open variously to full-text or to a publisher's description of the work. Links to Google books often offer an extensive preview of the text.

Of course, I am not a novice reader of CZ or WP, and what is said in these boxes is of no interest to me at all. Hence, I might be expected to find this boxed information a distraction.

Although I cannot put myself in the frame of mind of someone reading Herophilus as my first ever encounter with a wiki article, my best imagining of this situation is that it is overkill even for such a novice. More than that, thinking of the average reader, I suspect very few will encounter Herophilus as their very first article.

Probably (IMO of course) general observations of this kind are better placed in some kind of "Advice to the Novice" article along the lines of Google's tips for effective search. You will notice that Google does not include this kind of instruction on its primary search page. If it were thought helpful, a link to the "Aid to Novices" instruction article could replace the boxed instructions you are wont to include in every article.

Maybe you would reconsider your approach to boxed guidance to the uninitiated? John R. Brews 16:19, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

John, I agree that the boxed information note not necessary for most readers. I removed it from Herophilus, and will eliminate it from other articles as they turn up.
I appreciate your interest in the articles I'm working on, and grateful for what I'm learning from you. Sometimes I'm a little overzealous in spoon-feeding readers. I like your idea re link to Advice for New Readers article. Anthony.Sebastian 03:52, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Anthony: I'd say you're eminently qualified to write an Advice for New Readers page. It could include the content of your text box, and a few more things too, like finding the CZ: xxx pages identified at CZ:Home and what's in the left-column links. This new article should be linked among these left-column links and made a CZ: xxx page. John R. Brews 14:58, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the compliment, John. First, I've got find where my clone disappeared. Or, I've got to get my time-stopping machine working. Anthony.Sebastian 03:28, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Change of figure

Anthony: I replaced this figure of yours:

(CC) Image: Anthony Sebastian (adapted from data from Wolfram Alpha)

with this one:

(PD) Image: John R. Brews

which compresses the horizontal scale allowing a narrower display on a laptop screen. It also uses the same years at each tick in each panel, and an interval of 20 years in all the panels, which makes it easier to read the lifetimes from the scales, and lines up the scales in each panel so the same years are vertically above one another.

I hope these changes find favor. John R. Brews 16:44, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Nicely done, John. I was never too happy with my original, and had it on my list to redo, plus add a caption describing the anatomy-to-physiology-to-microscopic anatomy sequence represented by those three fellows in the history of medicine. Also you remind me, unintentionally, to get back to the Harvey and Malpighi articles.
BTW, what program did you use to make the image? Anthony.Sebastian 02:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Anthony: Glad you liked this. It was made using Microsoft Excel 2010 and saving the result with Microsoft Paint. Excel 2007 was OK for this too, but the earlier Excel versions are more restricted in their choices of colors and shadings. You might be able to do the same using Word instead of Excel. John R. Brews 05:12, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Timeline image

(CC) Diagram: Anthony Sebastian
New timeline for Vesalius.
(PD) Image: John R. Brews
Key scientists in classical mechanics.

Anthony, I thought your new figure looked very nice, so I tried something like that myself. See below, right.

The issue comes up that some people don't live long enough to allow a box containing their names. I tried one "solution", color inside the name box. Do you have some other ideas?

Nice job. John R. Brews 22:10, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

John, thanks. I just wanted to do a test, not to supplant your fine figure in Vesalius, rather thinking of future articles.
Re the short-lived notables:
  • adjust width of timeline to accommodate non-fitters
  • reduce font-size as needed; shouldn't jar too much
  • color in box, but leave off box border; might need caption note
All I can think of. Anthony.Sebastian 03:31, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi Anthony: I tried out your suggestions and settled upon the last one: image here is updated.
Thank you. John R. Brews 11:12, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
Looks great, John. Go for it. Anthony.Sebastian 18:59, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Chemical elements

See my note at Talk:Periodic_table_of_elements#Official_names. Peter Jackson 10:49, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Language Evolution

Hi Anthony, there is a discussion over at this page about a potential move for this article. Could you take a look? David Finn 12:32, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Anthony, there are more comments over at this article, but before you look may I make a suggestion.
Since this article is the only one on Citizendium with "synopsis" in the title, how about I move the article to Language Evolution (book) and attempt to write a short introduction about the book, followed by all the text that is currently there. I think that may solve any issues. What do you think? David Finn 12:14, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes. I regretted 'synopsis' almost from the beginning, but was somewhat intimidated by the 'move' procedure, though I've done it now a few times. Thanks for your help and comments. Anthony.Sebastian 14:24, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Query about Vesalius

Anthony: I do not have access to the book you use as source for the idea that Vesalius succeeded where Galen did not because of the more liberal access to cadavers in Vesalius time. See my inquiry about this matter. It appears likely that there was a reduced restriction in Vesalius' time. One might consider that Galen might have succeeded too in Vesalius' place, but the way this is stated suggests that it was a piece of cake for Vesalius because of the reduced restrictions.

There is also a lot of literature including some of very recent date that take the view that censorship was a problem for Vesalius. I have found it hard to determine whether what we have here is simply the repeating of tales heard at a mother's knee, or something more accurate.

Can you help? John R. Brews 19:02, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Will review this matter, John. Anthony.Sebastian 05:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Randomized control trial

Anthony, you have supported the re-approval of Randomized controlled trial. According to the new approval process you should do so with a (short) referee's report on the approval page. Then the Approval Manager (Joe) can accept and certify the approval. --Peter Schmitt 12:09, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Done. Anthony.Sebastian 20:38, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Leibniz alert

Greetings Anthony. Just alerting you that being an admirer of Leibniz I will most certainly add substantial content to the Leibniz page. My contribution would most likely be limited to philosophical topics in Leibniz since his writings are so far-flung and given that I am no mathematician and could not do justice to those areas of his thought. :]

Maria, Leibniz can use all the help he gets. Anthony.Sebastian 03:52, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Move

Hello, Anthony, I've just noticed your request to Matt, who hasn't been around recently. To Move an article, just click on the Move tab at the top of the page and follow the instructions. HTH. Ro Thorpe 01:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Ro, you did not notice that it is an approved article that is protected against edits -- and moves. --Peter Schmitt 02:25, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Ah, no, I didn't go to the page. Anyway, all's well... Ro Thorpe 13:29, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm here! I moved all of your pages (I hope). The 'move all subpages' feature did not work this time, so I had to move them by hand and delete the redirects. Double check me, especially making sure that I moved all the subpages, and let me know if I missed anything (I don't do it often enough to remember it myself!).
I am always around, especially if you leave a message on my talk page, because it emails me (which I check most often throughout the day). D. Matt Innis 03:54, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, Matt. I checked; everything copacetic. Sorry you had to do everything in separate steps. Anthony.Sebastian 14:33, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the Lactation article edits

Anthony thanks so much for the lactation article edits. Sure do appreciate the help and collaboration. Been a long time since my biology classes so I hope I remembered everything right. What got me to thinking about this subject as there was a recent "nurse in" after a woman was asked to nurse in a fitting room. At least that's what the news report state. At Amazon there's been a heated discussion about nursing in public which lead to me thinking which lead to this article. Thanks again! Mary Ash 05:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Mary, a good article for CZ. Many aspects of interest, both from the social and natural sciences. Thanks for getting it started.
My interest gravitates toward the metabolism/physiology aspects, an evolutionary perspective.
Regarding breastfeeding in public, I remember Milton Berl's joke about a woman walking down the street unaware she had one breast exposed. When Berl called her attention to it, she responded shocked and horrified, "Oh my God. I left my baby on the bus."
Anthony.Sebastian 17:51, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

ASIMO approval

Hello. Do you think it would be okay to ask User:Daniel M. Lofaro who helped with HUBO's approval to see if everything is all right with the article, and then have an engineering editor approve the article? I think Daniel is fit to be an editor in robotics. (Chunbum Park 06:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC))

Hello. I was wondering why ASIMO article has not been approved yet despite the notice which says it will be approved on March 1. I think the article is eady for approval now. (Chunbum Park 11:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC))

Re-approval of Boiling point/Draft

Tony, please see the last section that I just posted on the Talk page of the subject article. It is in regard to how long this is taking and the lack of any truly expert comments. Best regards, Milton Beychok 19:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Milton, I tried to nominate it for approval yesterday, but had problems with getting the ToApprove notice up. I asked Peter Schmitt for help, as I am not completely familiar with the approval mechanics yet. Awaiting his reply.
The changes made since I first commented on the article satisfy my concerns. —Anthony.Sebastian 20:16, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Tony. I will wait. Milton Beychok 21:02, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I have added an image of a boiling point diagram into the last section of Boiling point/Draft for approval, where such a diagram is mentioned. Milton Beychok approves of this addition to the article as evidenced on my Talk page User talk:Henry A. Padleckas at the current bottom of the page. Can you please approve with the added diagram? Thank you. Henry A. Padleckas 08:59, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Tony, I am perfectly okay with Henry's diagram. Last night, I said that I was in agreement with including it in the current re-approval (see the "Approval mechanics" section of Talk:Boiling point/Draft) and I urged him to contact you as soon as he could, which he did. Milton Beychok 03:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the article about Canadian vs. American copyright law and its author Patrick Nikulak.

Tony, when I was an Editorial Personnel Administrator, I saw this happen a number of times. Someone would join CZ and write an article (or sometimes 2-3 articles) and then disappear completely ... making it obvious that he/she had joined us with an agenda to write about some pet subject.

According to Patrick's "User Contributions", on March 13th he wrote his article about Canadian copyright law and then he disappeared completely for the next two weeks. I doubt that we will ever hear from him again.

I strongly suggest that the Approval process for his article be completely abandoned and removed from the green banner we all see at the top of our watchlists. Milton Beychok 15:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Milton, I agree. Completely. Thanks for keeping surveillance. Anthony.Sebastian 23:40, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

About Air Resources Laboratory

Hi, Tony: Based on your comments on my Talk page about the Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) article, I have now:

  • fixed all of the references and updated them,
  • added a new section entitled "Organization" along with a diagram of the organizational structure,
  • and added a "Gallery" subpage with 7 images (photos and a diagram) of the types of equipment used by NOAA and the ARL.

I just wanted to let you know that your comments prodded me into improving the article somewhat ... although I still don't believe it is worthy of Approval. Thanks, Milton Beychok 05:17, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Milton. I shall prod again, then, until you improve it to Approval eligibility, unless you tell me that to accomplish that would take enormous amount of work. It only has to be accurate, informative, heuristic, remember, not exhaustive or even comprehensive (both of which will always fall short of their ideal).
CZ needs more Approved articles.
Though, I would not be surprised to learn I am CZ's biggest sinner of not finishing articles started. I absolve myself with the thought that when the experts come flooding in they'll get working on them, and the thought that I've let my curiosity-birthright, a type of attention-deficit phenomenon, though more mature than my toddler days, predominate over my peak capacity to focus and concentrate my efforts. Of course I did plenty of that focusing bit for 50 years.
I find it difficult to put articles I contributed into Approval consideration because I realize I can improve it if I work on it more. Anthony.Sebastian 20:20, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Economics

A day late but I got it done! D. Matt Innis 00:58, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Matt, again. It does not need same-day processing. I'm sure you have many things to do on your list. Anthony.Sebastian 03:27, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Op-Ed in the NY Times

Hi Anthony:

You may recall our efforts with Reality and Hawking's and Mlodinow's book. The Sunday NY Times has an op-ed piece by Jim Holt in his column Gray Matter called "Physicists, stop the churlishness" that covers some of this topic. He mentions attitudes by Penrose, Feynman, and a recent battle between David Albert and Lawrence Krauss (the mystery of the universe's existence).

Maybe there is something here that could improve Reality? John R. Brews 15:49, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Draft decision on Approval process

Hi Anthony: I am presently unclear about where things stand regarding the approval draft decision. Has it been shelved? Is a replacement under consideration? What is your present understanding of the process and its value? John R. Brews 19:41, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


John: It has not been shelved. I am preparing a note to Peter Schmitt with my understanding of the Approval Process. If a replacement emerges it will emerge from that, and Peter's responses.
As to the value of having Approved Articles, that's a separate issue, which I will discuss separately.
As for your many fine draft articles, we need to consider them and see we can do to give them a chance to be approved. I have been musing over that already. Anthony.Sebastian 20:29, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Free will

Anthony: I think you might have some interest in the article Free will. I have made a number of changes there, but it remains unsatisfactory. Perhaps you could assist? John R. Brews 15:24, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

John: Thanks for the invitation. Too tempting to resist, both the topic and the opportunity to colloquy with you.
What you've done has much improved the discussion of the issues involved, including some astute explication (e.g., how randomness doesn't help the cause of the "free willists"). We presumably have no control over when and how the atoms 'swerve'.
Perhaps as Dennett says, we have some elbow room, that there are varieties of free will worth having. And from a sophisticated evolutionary perspective, what follows? Free will, or not, aren't we dealing with biology, and is it not true that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution", though the light needed may be outside the visible band of the spectrum.
The role of speech?
I'll review my key books before digging in. —Anthony.Sebastian 21:49, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Anthony:
I look forward to your contributions. After my experience with this article, I am inclined to understand the human as a form of intelligent robot, and understand consciousness as command center that focuses on narrow slices of observed data to illuminate particular issues as they arise, and directs action based upon optimization routines it has learned during its evolution and fleshes out during its lifetime. John R. Brews 15:06, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
John:
I, too, view humans as "intelligent robots", but I conceive the "command center" residing in the unconscious, where some 98% of human thinking occurs, continually sending instructions to the conscious mind, which interprets them as its own conscious rational decisions. Keith Stanovich has written many books/articles about that. My favorite:
The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin.
Keith E. Stanovich
University of Chicago Press, Oct 15, 2005 - Philosophy - 374 pages
"The idea that we might be robots is no longer the stuff of science fiction; decades of research in evolutionary biology and cognitive science have led many esteemed thinkers and scientists to the conclusion that, following the precepts of universal Darwinism, humans are merely the hosts for two replicators (genes and memes) that have no interest in us except as conduits for replication. Accepting and now forcefully responding to this disturbing idea that precludes the possibilities of morality or free will, among other things, Keith Stanovich here provides the tools for the "robot's rebellion," a program of cognitive reform necessary to advance human interests over the limited interest of the replicators. He shows how concepts of rational thinking from cognitive science interact with the logic of evolution to create opportunities for humans to structure their behavior to serve their own ends. These evaluative activities of the brain, he argues, fulfill the need that we have to ascribe significance to human life. Only by recognizing ourselves as robots, argues Stanovich, can we begin to construct a concept of self based on what is truly singular about humans: that they gain control of their lives in a way unique among life forms on Earth—through rational self-determination."
Daniel Hahneman speaks to that also, in Thinking, fast and slow.
Other books: "Incognito", "Who's in Charge?" Anthony.Sebastian 16:02, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Anthony: I'll have to look into these books which are unfamiliar to me. It seems clear that the unconscious mind does a lot of processing, maybe analogous to the eye which also does a lot of processing the conscious mind is not aware of, including narrow-band filtering and statistical analysis, apparently providing a subset of information determined useful by evolutionary events and sufficiently concise that the conscious mind can handle. So what is the role of consciousness then? Is there some need for oversight, to weight various alternative long-time responses and select the best? The weighting mechanism itself is subject to development and evolution, but perhaps with the aid of society and reflection it can guide its program of development to a degree? Maybe I'll glean some answers from the reading you have suggested. John R. Brews 16:20, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Anthony: I've added a number of links to the The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The article contains references to robot intelligence and to complementarity that are missing from most discussions, so its got something to add to the subject. Animal behavior and Darwinism also should be discussed more. As one might anticipate for a topic that has survived for millenia, Free will is complex and the present article still is a shambles. John R. Brews 16:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
John, I haven't had time yet to join in, but I have started re-reading Gazzaniga's Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain, at bedtime, on my Kindle. Very impressive. Anthony.Sebastian 03:03, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
Anthony: I am happy that you are still planning to attack this topic. I have not read Gazzaniga except for excerpts. I also read this interview which introduces the "emergent mind" concept. I am left feeling that there is a confusion here between microscopic description (like on a quantum scale) and a more macroscopic description that is given some mystical precedence. The description of chemistry on the basis of the Standard model is perhaps possible in principle, but no-one would attempt it, with some chemistry described using atomic models and some using even larger objects (like DNA). What is happening is easier to grasp using one model than another, but that is an expression of the mind's limitations, not that the underlying phenomena have found a deeper explanation with the higher level models. So the problem of free will remains murky, although it's clear that it isn't completely free. If we can show that consciousness is a hardware related function of complex networks that is coincident with feelings of being able to make a decision, I think we still will have the issue of deciding whether ant hills are forever to be subject to chance encounters with anteaters unless accidental discovery programs a solution, or can the hill actually make decisions that evolve defenses? Can education improve society, or is that another delusion? Is all we do is to repeat the past until some monkey types Shakespeare whereupon we can progress?
I am reminded that scientists are thought of by the general public as odd balls (which they are) and their discoveries are looked upon as the serendipitous results of crazy people that actually come up with something once and a while, largely as a the result of their odd natures leading them into crevices where normal people don't look. Scientists don't decide to become scientists; they are born that way, and sometimes actually find a niche in which to do science. These niches may be created by society, but niche creation is programmed into society in the same way as the birth of the scientists themselves is programmed? John R. Brews 04:56, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
John, should we move this section to Free will's Talk page? That might attract other interested parties. I don't feel committed to that, however.
I think it will take a society more informed than we are today before our conscious thinking—<5% of our total thinking—recognizes deeply the illusion of free will. I have not received a memo from my non-conscious thinking committee with anything enlightening. If I once had free will, my wife preempted it 48 years ago. Anthony.Sebastian 19:32, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I also hope that much will be learned if we survive long enough. What I'd like to understand is how one can function like the Stoics, sure in the belief that all is preordained, and yet simultaneously find value in a moral imperative to think through one's decisions.

I'd like to draw your attention to the Charlie Rose brain series Part II.

Let's defer using the Talk page until we can discuss the article content. John R. Brews 21:58, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Emergence

I've run across a discussion of emergence here, a concept that apparently originates with Kim (Mind in a Physical World 1998 and Physicalism, or something near enough 2005). The argument is, for example, "a neural assembly consisting of many thousands of neurons will have properties whose causal powers go beyond the causal powers of the properties of its constituents neurons, or subassemblies, and human beings have causal powers that none of our individual organs have". This may be a game involving the definition of "cause". The idea seems to me to be like this: a hot gas can burn you, but the idea of "hot" doesn't apply to an individual atom, but only to an assembly of atoms, so the gas has causal powers not shared by its constituents. I think this is mistaken thinking, as the process of burning me could be analyzed at a microscopic level in terms of individual atoms without introducing the ideas of heat or temperature that apply to ensembles of atoms. John R. Brews 06:19, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I was mistaken above in suggesting Kim originated the idea of emergence: he only has discussed it. My example of burning myself resembles a claim by Popper:

"Any change in the higher level (temperature) will thus influence the lower level (the movement of the individual atoms). The one-sided dominance [of higher on lower levels of matter] is due … to the random character of the heat motions of the atoms…. For it seems that were the universe per impossible a perfect determinist clockwork, there would be no layers and therefore no such dominating influence would occur."

Although it is rash of me to attack this position by a respected thinker, IMO Popper's remarks reflect a complete misunderstanding of the role of statistics in describing events. Statistical averages like temperature may characterize ensembles, but they do not cause anything. John R. Brews 16:01, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Here is a clear (but IMO, completely crazy) statement of emergence:

"Emergent laws are fundamental; they are irreducible to laws characterizing properties at lower levels of complexity, even given ideal information as to boundary conditions." Stanford Encyclopedia.

I bring all this up because it seems pertinent to your reading of The Robot's Rebellion. John R. Brews 16:09, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

After reading through a few of the dozens of articles on the Stanford Encyclopedia, I am left feeling that a lot of hair-splitting has been done by many philosophers to no end. The answers to this question are more likely to arise from AI and neuroscience than from abstract arguments over hypotheticals that never actually arise. From the stance of an evolutionary robot, programmed goals are sought by an algorithm modifiable by experience. The status of the algorithm may be perceptible by the robot, and the processing of information leading to reprogramming may involve activities that appear to it as conscious deliberation. It is much like a programmer watching his algorithm process some inputs, and in this case he can change the program to better achieve his goals. The ways the program can be changed depend upon some limitations of the programming language and some options may not be pursued because the programmer is so versed in Fortran that he can't think in other languages. So some changes can be made, constituting free will, but others cannot.

Care to help me out here, Anthony? John R. Brews 16:43, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

After writing this I ran into a programming analogy. "...view it as a set of capabilities and features that interconnect to form Consciousness. ...One can think of each of them as an "object" that has a specific set of capabilities and features. These objects have a "mini-program" inside them that specifies their behavior and how they hook up....The hooks are variable and dynamic. The time evolution of the Consciousness from state to state is a result of execution of these "mini-programs' in a dynamic ever-changing way. There is no overall program but instead there is an ever changing dynamic unfolding of states of Consciousness in response to external inputs and based on the previous state of Consciousness plus random effects within Consciousness..." and so on.

Some of this may not stand up to close analysis of the definitions of the terms used. Later a connection with Object-Oriented Programming is suggested.

Mentioned to show that something like this kind of explanation is in the air. John R. Brews 19:09, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

John, I emailed you the excerpt on 'emergence' in Gazzaniga's book. I'd love to help out, but ME duties keeping me business right now. Have you looked at Emergence (biology) for my 'first draft' thoughts on 'emergence'? Anthony.Sebastian 22:23, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
Anthony: I've considerably rewritten Emergence (biology) at this juncture, and it departs significantly from its original form in introducing several types of emergence, of which strong emergence was the point of view previously, and weak emergence was not given attention.
There are some "dangling chads" in the article even so. Even if one has a reductionist stance, that everything can be taken back to individual subsystem behavior in principle, it seems that much of system control and numerical mathematical algorithms make use of the cooperative description of multiple levels and their interconnections and feedback to each other to obtain an efficient modeling of complex systems. So it may be moot that one could (in principle) calculate the properties of DNA based upon quarks using the Standard Model, because one would never imagine that was a sensible undertaking, nor would one be able to understand the results of the calculation beyond the data spewed out as the solution to an individual problem on a case-by-case basis. John R. Brews 21:50, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Dangling Chads

←Hi John: You have greatly improved Emergence (biology), in depth and scope.

I cannot discredit the use of the word, emergence, to describe properties (or qualities, functions, behaviors) of a dynamic complicated system of interacting describably distinct components when someone applies the word to behavior of the system they consider unexpected and surprising and when they had not predicted it from what they knew about the organization of the interacting components.

If no one can provide a satisfactory explanation for that here-to-fore unexpected behavior, that does not mean the future holds none. We do not know how long that future will extend for us. It seems, then, that we must reject propositions of systems emergent behavior as unpredictable in principle.

In practice, from the organization of the system and that of the environment embedding it, one might generate a correct prediction of the system’s behavior as one among countless incorrect predictions, but we would not consider that a satisfactory solution.

How would one have predicted the aromatic quality of benzene from the organization of its constituent atoms, whose properties differ in their organizational state than in their elementary state, and alter as we probe them?

Does that re-express some of your points? Anthony.Sebastian 03:46, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The question of predicting the aromatic nature of benzene may be a toughie, but as you say, once the issue is raised, it may well be that it will become a predictable item as our models of the molecule and the nose improve. Even so, the concepts involved in fashioning an aromatic compound and in describing its interpretation in the brain as aromatic are probably higher level or macro concepts that will illuminate the matter much better for our limited brains than looking at thousands of pages of computer print-out detailing the interaction between massive atomic systems.
The power of effective concepts is the real value of emergence, which I see more as the emergence of vocabulary that efficiently describes things and aids our limited capacity for intuition.
There is a variety of emergent properties, and the way they relate to micro-systems vary as as well: some can be stand-alone, and some supplement micro-theories and make them more effective. We seem to agree that there is no need to emphasize the success or failure of reducing emergent properties to lower level behaviors. The reducibility issue is one aspect of the topic of free will and whether aspects of consciousness are actually under our control, or are reducible to sub-system behavior. I've not figured out how to handle that one. John R. Brews 15:39, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Anthony, the article has now been written from several perspectives and it lacks a smooth development. I think it would benefit greatly from an overhaul by yourself that might organize the various topics logically in an evolving narrative. John R. Brews 16:42, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
John, I agree the article needs a coherent, graceful narrative flow. I'd probably need to set aside at least a week to draft that for your review. I'll do my best to find that week.
You say it well: "The power of effective concepts is the real value of emergence, which I see more as the emergence of vocabulary that efficiently describes things and aids our limited capacity for intuition."
I've tried to handle the consciousness issue by avoiding the nominalization, focusing instead on the activity of conscious experiencing, then trying to explain the activity of experiencing consciously at the physiological level of narrative explanation. That provides a different starting point for a study of the neuronal correlates. I have the beginning of a draft essay elaborating the approach which I'll send you when I finish. Anthony.Sebastian 20:50, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Lagrangian mechanics

Hi Anthony: As you may be aware the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of mechanics are based upon variational principles: the evolution of a system is found by requiring some global quantity be minimized subject to certain constraints. That is the basis even of the Standard model. The minimization can be expressed in terms of the equations of motion of the system, which could turn out to be Schrodinger's equation, for example, or the equations of fluid mechanics, for another example. The Lagrangian function depends upon microscopic variables, the generalized coordinates, and interactions between the coordinates are introduced as additional terms.

It strikes me that the philosophy here is reminiscent of the ideas of emergence in that the system is forced to evolve subject to global constraints. Depending upon the system, the evolution may take on a bland uniform pattern, or a complicated one.

In effect this approach assumes the system has "goals" like minimizing its energy or maximizing its entropy or whatever. I wonder whether and how this connection might be incorporated in the article? John R. Brews 14:07, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Anthony: I have continued to add to Free will, and presently the view of the article is that free will is partially an empirical matter regarding just how complex systems work, and partially a semantic issue about finding useful concepts to describe the situation. Although the broad outline of the issues goes back to the early Greeks, there is much detail that needs to be worked out even today.
Your help in fashioning this article remains most desirable. John R. Brews 17:17, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
John, you are too gracious. Believe me, nothing excites my mind more than working on challenging writing projects, especially in collaboration with you. But somehow I've got myself doing two administrative jobs for Citizendium that, at least for the near future, preclude me from doing much in the way of content work.
I do like the idea of a ‘quality’ emerging from mathematical fundamentals.
You might find this article and its references of interest: http://ttic.uchicago.edu/~smale/papers/math-of-emergence.pdf.
I will eventually jump into Free will, after much more study of your article and references. Emergence (biology), too. Anthony.Sebastian 22:30, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


Viking longships

Thanks for adding that image, the article really needed one. There's a photo of the Sea Stallion, but I was hoping for an image of an actual longship rather than a replica. Thanks again, Richard Nevell 11:11, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Please see my talk page

Hi, Anthony. Milton needs an reapproval. Can you take a look at my talk page and see what needs to happen. I'm thinking that the approval manager needs to work this through. D. Matt Innis 16:26, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Done. Will Certify tomorrow, 26th, to allow for Citizen add'l copyedits, per EC rules. Anthony.Sebastian 19:13, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Anthony, the Air pollution dispersion terminology article was to be re-approved on the September 26th. Just a reminder. Milton Beychok 14:48, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Image question

Hi, I've uploaded an image with can't be used commercially but still has a creative commons licence, File:Pantheon, 2009.jpg. I just wanted to check this is ok as there appears to be a warning box at the bottom of the photo's description (ie: "Notice of CC-by-sa incompatibility"). Thanks, Richard Nevell 20:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Please excuse me for intruding here. That notice of incompatibility appears on dozens of images being used in CZ ... and I have never really understood: (1) what it is saying and (2) why it is needed at all.
I also noted that the credit line for the Pantheon image had not been created ... so I went ahead and created the credit line. Regards, Milton Beychok 22:36, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for creating the credit line, the incompatibility notice stopped me in my tracks as I was doing it; I thought if I'd made a mistake by uploading the image there was no point doing the credit line. The notice still has me a little confused but if we can use it it's a nice busy photo. Richard Nevell 18:32, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Requesting a Move/Rename?

Anthony, How do I get a page renamed? The South Vietnamese Buddhist crisis and coup of 1963 is actually two articles and I've started splitting them. One was easy enough. I created the South Vietnamese Coup (1963) and moved content there. The South Vietnamese Buddhist crisis and coup of 1963 should now be either moved or renamed to South Vietnamese Buddhist crisis (1963) (to differentiate it from the Buddhist crisis of 1966--which should also probably be renamed, but that's a different story). Thanks. Russell D. Jones 22:21, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Russell, that requires a 'Move' maneuver, which I am not skilled at. Suggest contacting Matt Innis. Anthony.Sebastian 23:02, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Scientific method

I see that you have made a number of changes to Scientific method which, because it is an "approved" article, can only be done on Scientific method/Draft. I've got a couple of questions for you:

  1. Why is there no discussion of these changes on a Talk page?
  2. What is your notion of whether these changes will become a new version of the approved article?

An unrelated matter is the content of this article.

IMO, which could be supported in part by some recent books (Big science, little science, The trouble with physics, Not even wrong: the failure of string theory..) some science (maybe string theory, maybe multiverses) is approaching the situation where there is reason to question whether the theory used to build observational apparatus and interpret results begs the question of whether a real test has been performed. Also, tests of a theory become so expensive and so arcane they require multinational commitments to construct an observational apparatus (a hadron collider or a Hubble telescope). That being so, the enterprise is threatened by (i) competition for funding by other needs of society, and (ii) observations so remote from everyday experience that one might ask whether such theories have real implications, or are merely pursuits of expensive clubs built for people with odd ideas of how they should spend their lives.

Is that pertinent to this article?

John R. Brews 21:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Site notice

Hi Anthony, I noticed that a small circle has appeared on the top left of every Citizendium page (in the lighter grey part). Is this intentional? If it isn't, I think it's because a character was added to the start of MediaWiki:Sitenotice [1]. Richard Nevell 10:45, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Right on, Richard. I found it precisely where you predicted, and I gleefully exterminated it. Thanks. Anthony.Sebastian 03:03, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for your kind words, which I have followed up. As for the Forums thing, I would pay more attention if other people seemed to use them more often. As it is, there seem to be long temporal gaps after many of the last contributions. (I suppose that non-use on those grounds is self-perpetuating.) Also, it took me a while to realise I had to have a separate sign-in, and I am not clear how to start a new thread.

One other niggle: The CZ notice on the Welcome page is kept up to date (more or less), but whenever one goes to a subject page, the CZ notice on that is the one for the time it was last updated. Surely it is better not to have a notice there than to have one that is out of date, possibly by years. --Martin Wyatt 18:20, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Martin. Odd, I don't have that 'site-notice page-discrepancy' with the usual popular browsers (IE10, FFx, Chrome) with my Win7 desktop. I'll keep checking. Sometimes I'm late updating, but there should not be a discrepancy between the Welcome page and other pages. Hmm... Anthony.Sebastian 22:21, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Pompeii

Hello Anthony, is there any chance we can finish with Pompeii? Thanks. Russell D. Jones 21:56, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Russell. Will check, let you know. Anthony.Sebastian 03:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Editable 'Main Articles' and Approved-Locked 'Citable Articles'.

Hi Anthony:

There are a couple of observations I'd like to make about this draft resolution of yours.

First, it appears to suggest "all articles to open as editable Main Articles". I assume this to mean editable by CZ members and not the public at large?

The main suggestion, as I understand it, is to change the present policy of locked approved versions to instead a policy of locked citable versions and editable versions that are the default first access to an article.

I think that is a good idea, because it will encourage changes to articles that presently are nearly impossible for 'approved' articles because of red tape, unavailability of original authors whose approval is needed, and general reluctance by originating authors to see their work altered in any way. If I have understood the proposal, I support it. John R. Brews 13:36, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, John, you understand the referendum. The red tape will still be there for the 'Citable Version', but readers won't see that automatically. If the Main Article is editable, it may induce more readers to join Citizendium so they can edit it. As you say, it will "encourage changes" plus encourage joining. Anthony.Sebastian 18:05, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

.

What to be done about this?

What should be done about this, which is a rewritten version of this? John Stephenson 21:50, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

John, the article on what happened to Citizendium does not seem to me to be an encyclopedia- type entry. I would move it to CZ namespace. Also, I do not find it very informative. The author has not been an active contributor and in particular has made no encyclopedia article edits or starts, so I don't think he is truly into what's happening at Citizendium. We might want to consider removing the article entirely. What do you think? Anthony.Sebastian 05:03, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
It could be deleted or, with some effort, a de-snarked and corrected version could be placed under Citizendium/Activity, just as the original appears at Wikipedia/Activity. John Stephenson 09:55, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
Your second option sounds good to me. We just need to find a de-snarker and corrector to do the job. It would be great is Aleksander Stos would do that. Shall we bring him into the discussion? Anthony.Sebastian 22:11, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
I've moved it to Citizendium/Activity and will let him know. John Stephenson 15:37, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
I've looked at this. Well, de-snarking would mean simply replacing it with a more informative/objective analysis. More precisely, I think it is hopeless to incrementally edit the present text, the overall tone is quite unencyclopedic (more like a polemic essay) and I would feel compelled to change almost every sentence.
That said, its language is indeed modeled on the Wikipedia/Activity article. One has impression that the Author [Linden] didn't like the Wikipedia/Activity article and produced an obviously unacceptable analogue to make a point. While I strongly disagree with such a method (BTW explicitly forbidden in Wikipedia), I do think the original Wikipedia/Activity article, while way more informative, factual, and rooted in the real scientific research, has a quite apparent bias against Wikipedia.
In my opinion, a proper action would be to deal with the Wikipedia/Activity first. Then, I'd remark that the activity of Citizendium is not as notable subject as that of Wikipedia (e.g. little to no external scientific references). Accordingly, I would be tempted to replace the present CZ/Activity essay by a relatively short summary of our activity (not necessarily that different in some points). Putting it on my todo, not sure however how fast this could be done (I permanently lack the time). But, after all, this is a wiki. Cheers, Aleksander Stos 12:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Having looked at it more closely, it appears unsalvageable. The main problems, apart from the snarkiness, are that it states that the reasons for the decline are unknown (i.e. it is uninformative) and that it bases the discussion on general links to CZ forums and RationalWiki's article on CZ (which can change and is written anonymously), rather than specific data points, and so does not precisely back up any claims (as Aleksander says, there is little rigorous study of CZ's performance out there). There is also the specific error that CZ Editors "own" articles. May as well move it to user space. John Stephenson 18:18, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm in favor of the move to userspace. Anthony.Sebastian 21:32, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
OK, done and move-locked. A sysop can move back a revised version. John Stephenson 21:46, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Signed Articles

Anthony, where are you with the "Signed Article" change? It appears that, if authors are willing to receive and respond to comments, there can be a kind of peer-review process. The key would be knowing the qualifications of the people making the comment ... kind of a novel idea to have peer review visible to the public and that remains part of the article's history. Thomas Butler 00:33, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2014 election

You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2014 election. Please visit this page to accept or decline each position. No action will also be treated as declining. If you accept, you may choose to write an election statement for each position - see the election page for further details. Alternatively, contact me via my Talk page or privately via e-mail. Regards, John Stephenson 13:42, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Homeostasis

Anthony, I added to the subsection Homeostasis (biology)#Scope of homeostasis. You might take a look and see if it is what you had in mind. John R. Brews 15:03, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Author Representative Comments on Forum Communications

On Sunday, August 17, 2014, I knowingly and intentionally deleted my Forum account. Constabulary promptly notified me that this would prevent me from having access to some areas of the Forum reserved for Council business. Appreciating that this action could be misconstrued, I want to make it clear that I wish to fulfill my duties as Author Representative, but I will not do so in the Forum. I am unaware of any reason why participating in the Forum should be required for performing the duties of Author Representative. So, it seems prudent to bring this to your attention for consideration in the event the Council wishes to include me in a vote.

Why have I taken this action? My experience has been that Forum deliberations are dominated by a very small group of persons. This almost certainly serves as a disincentive for participation by others. (It has this effect for me.) I have also come to appreciate that I am not comfortable using private channels for Council activities which other "citizens" cannot monitor. To this end, I have created a Council Communications section on my talk page where my votes or thoughts can be transparently recorded and easily found should they be requested. If they are not, that will say something too. Christine Bush 18:32, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Anthony, I just wanted to share with Council colleagues (and I have communicated with Gareth, Peter also) some additional thoughts about my recent decision to delete my Forum account.

Motion Regarding Special Pages

Anthony, I would like to suggest that Council request modifications to articles being developed in the User: space, or "sandbox" pages, not be listed on the Special:RecentChanges because it defeats the purpose of providing authors with an area where we can develop ideas prior to creating or modifying an article. These are functionally only potential changes. As I have not been provided with any instructions on how to initiate a motion, I'm posting it here. Christine Bush 20:40, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Christine, on the Recent Changes page, in 'Namespace' box, select 'Main', then 'GO' at right. See if that gives you what you want. Anthony.Sebastian 21:41, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Anthony, thanks for pointing out this feature. To be clear, I am proposing a change in functionality that will affect all wiki visitors and users---not just me. I am suggesting that both the User: and User_talk: namespaces should be removed altogether from the Recent Changes page options and results. The functional effect is that any and all pages in the User: or User_talk: namespaces will no longer display or be found via the Recent Changes page. (It should be fairly trivial to implement if Council approved the idea. A casual code inspection of the page source suggests only two options with values of 2 and 3 could be removed from the form select element with name "namespace." The default query that runs when the page first loads would also need to be updated.) Christine Bush 03:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You can put your proposal before the Council here. I'll copy it to the appropriate Council Board on the Citizendium Forums. BTW: I do work on my word processor if I don't want it revealed until completed. Anthony.Sebastian 03:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Would people still be able to put such pages on their watchlists? Peter Jackson 09:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Hi Peter. Yes, one should absolutely still be able to add them to a watchlist and otherwise do all the things one has been able to do or would expect. This proposal is a small change to the functionality of the Recent Changes page only, not to any pages in the User: or User_talk: namespaces or their existing functionality.
My primary rationale for this suggestion are: 1) to assure the items displayed on Recent Changes are representative of contributions being made to article content, which I believe is what one expects to see when visiting this page; 2) to indirectly encourage participation by eliminating entries on the Recent Changes page which may have the effect of inflating activity; 3) to better encourage participation by way of providing more privacy, both for work on article content and for discussions which might otherwise happen off-wiki; 4) make it more difficult for those without the best interest of CZ in mind to monitor contributor activities not directly related to content, i.e. our business. You and others may well be able to think of more effects. Christine Bush 17:12, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Word Processing vs. Wiki Processing

Hi Anthony, thank you for this procedural assistance. I applaud the practice of working on a word processor, and totally encourage contributors to spell check, grammar check, and backup their work.
I suspect that you also appreciate that there are also many good reasons for working in the sandbox. Some which come to mind are: ease of formatting content for wiki syntax and layout; practice using wiki syntax; the ability to post drafts for sharing and comment from multiple users (without the overhead of version control) prior to inclusion under "Main article"; production of content that is non-proprietary, easy to exchange/interchange, and ready to use on a wiki; ease of editing content ported to CZ from other wikis; the ability to work on an article from multiple locations or different computers without having to carry your draft with you (although, word processing in the cloud via Google Docs, Evernote, etc. seems to be becoming more commonplace and makes this last reason a bit more ephemeral---all the more reason to reinforce CZ as friendly, convenient cloud destination for working and thinking); work in the sandboxes is presumably being backed up regularly and becomes part of the project's knowledgebase even in incomplete/draft form.
In other words, word processing is not wiki processing. This goes to my election statement in which I said that I thought CZ needs to better come to terms with its "core identity". CZ should be what it is: a wiki. Christine Bush 17:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Christine, Yes, I appreciate the value of sandboxes; I have numerous sandboxes that I use for different purposes.
But since you can eliminate their appearance on the Recent Changes Page by selecting the Main namespace, I see no reason to eliminate the functionality of their appearance when selecting the All namespaces choice on the Recent Changes Page. Indeed, there are many good reasons to allow recent changes to show user talk pages and sandbox activity, which I will not go into here.
The only reason I suggested using a word processor for preliminary work was because I suspected that you wanted to keep your sandbox work secret. I do that sometimes. But mostly I use one of my sandboxes for preliminary work. Anthony.Sebastian 21:41, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Re: EAP status

Anthony, I resigned as EAP. If my temporary appointment to that role was worthy of listing on the CZ:Council page it seems like my resignation from it should be, too. Christine Bush 20:40, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Done. Anthony.Sebastian 21:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Council members' votes on proposal to move forums to the CZ wiki

proposal

Council members:

Enter your vote (yes/no) below with your four tilde signature. Anthony.Sebastian 00:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Two yes votes constitutes a majority, therefore the motion passes. Anthony.Sebastian 18:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Referendum 3

Thanks for your support and for picking up the error; I've switched it to 14 days. Unfortunately, I see this as a significant change, so have to ask you to sign again at User:ElectionJune2015/Referenda. Thanks. John Stephenson (talk) 11:15, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2016 election

You've been nominated as a candidate for the post of Managing Editor in the June 2016 election. Please visit this page to accept or decline. No action will also be treated as declining. If you accept, you may choose to write an election statement - see the election page for further details. Alternatively, contact me via my Talk page or privately via e-mail. Regards, John Stephenson (talk) 00:27, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2016 election

You've been nominated as a candidate for the Citizendium Council in the June 2016 election. Please visit this page to accept or decline. No action will also be treated as declining. If you accept, you may choose to write an election statement - see the election page for further details. Alternatively, contact me via my Talk page or privately via e-mail. Regards, John Stephenson (talk) 19:14, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Cowdray House

Hello Anthony, in case you missed it I left a comment you might want to respond to at Forum Talk:Non-member Comments and Suggestions on Approvals#Cowdray House. Richard Nevell (talk) 20:52, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi, would you be open to discussing the Cowdray House article? Richard Nevell (talk) 18:11, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
HEllo, it's the dim and distant past now but would you be able to comment at the above forum? Richard Nevell (talk) 18:43, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Anthony

With sadness I must notify the community that our friend and colleague Anthony passed away last year. He served this project with distinction, first as an expert Editor and then as its managerial lead. He was a great help and support to me personally and I'm sure to many of you. Some links here and here.

Goodbye, Anthony, and thank you. John Stephenson (talk) 20:18, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

I see he was still contributing here just 9 days before his death. Peter Jackson (talk) 10:15, 26 January 2019 (UTC)