User talk:J. Noel Chiappa

J. Noel Chiappa

Current talk page

Archive 1, Archive 2

So, Noel, as long as you're checking out dawgs and stuff...

...could you have a read through of Miniature Fox Terrier? Thanks! Aleta Curry 03:07, 13 April 2008 (CDT)

checklist term; keep or reinvent?

OK, I'm in two minds about this. Since we are talking about a subset of the metadata functionality (the other being management of approval status) maybe we should keep this term? One change that would make sense would be to have the pagename and variant included in the checklist. The only reason they were kept separate is that they were not part of the original checklist. I added those two later and did not want to confuse people who were already familiar with the old checklist. I also want to have the pagename as a distinct entity since it was critical it got filled in. Now we have the automatic error checks and better instructions (not to mention preloaded text for a new metadata page) I think they can all be lumped together.

Back to the name. Possibly we could call it Checklist metadata vs Approval metadata rather than Metadata content? Chris Day 21:48, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

I'll check the forum re: by field. I agree lets mull over the metdata format and nomenclature. If we're going to make changes we might as well make a lot all at once. We can use out recent experience to tighten it up and possibly make it more user friendly. While you're at it, let's think about any major improvements we can make. Your perspective is very different to mine since you are seeing it with fresh eyes. Any other things you can think of while you are at it, besides the by field? Chris Day 22:04, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

your advice please...

I have some notes stored on Guantanamo medical care. You and I discussed it a bit within the last week or so. I have come across some new developments. And I would like your advice.

I am still trying to adapt to the different standards here. Articles here may require a higher level of scholarship. That is a good thing. But it may also require a greater level of interpretation. I am having a bit of trouble with this aspect. In my online comments prior to working on that other big wiki I didn't shy away from intellectually honest interpretation. But, on the other big wiki, I got out of the habit of doing so, trying to let the facts speak for themselves, to avoid challenges over POV.

Some of the feedback I am getting here seems to be telling me I should include a measure of interpretation, to provide context, and improve readability.

I think this recent article erodes the assertions that Guantanamo captives have received good health care.

• Joby Warrick. Detainees Allege Being Drugged, Questioned: U.S. Denies Using Injections for Coercion, Washington Post, Tuesday, April 22, 2008, p. A01. Retrieved on 2008-03-01. “Nusairi, now free in Saudi Arabia, was unable to learn what drugs were injected before his interrogations. He is not alone in wondering: At least two dozen other former and current detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere say they were given drugs against their will or witnessed other inmates being drugged, based on interviews and court documents.”

So, do you think I have that right? Should I try to allow a limited measure of interpretation into an article about medical care at Guantanamo?

Thanks! George Swan 18:49, 22 April 2008 (CDT)

Strings

Stephen says:

"Email tools@citizendium.org Stephen Ewen 14:01, 4 May 2008 (CDT)"

FYI---David Yamakuchi 00:33, 5 May 2008 (CDT)

More on definitions

I thought about this, and I think someone else thought about it also, but what is your opinion on using Template:H:title? --Robert W King 13:47, 25 May 2008 (CDT)

I just had to tell you I laughed out loud

... at AstronomerAmateur. Although it's completely tongue-in-cheek, it frames the problems with Wikipedia with razor-sharp precision. I'm glad you jumped ship and came here! -Eric M Gearhart 17:47, 25 May 2008 (CDT)

Template documentation

Are you going to incorporate Robert Kings template into the preload of Doc? I have to admit I have not used his template for any of the documentation pages I have written. Mine usually evolve with time as I write notes to myself. Chris Day 11:08, 2 June 2008 (CDT)

TlDoc

Hopefully you have a short answer for this problem. note the tag at the bottom and the fact that the first title does not format correctly (the header you see in that example, that looks like an intro between = marks, i added as a way to force the TOC look correct). I assume I have to have each title in the /doc without the header markup (==Title== etc.), but can i still use a TOC after removing the headers? Chris Day 13:42, 3 June 2008 (CDT)

Needles in a haystack

After seeing this disaster it reminded me that having that template is a horrible but unavoidable idea. But at the time I did not really think about using the format Template:Metadata/Basename. Possibly there was a reason for not doing that, but it's not obvious to me right now. Should we consider such a move, I know, what a job, but if we don't do it now finding templates will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. With a Template:Metadata prefix at least the others will not be interspersed within the metadata ones. Any thoughts? I assume you have already experienced this problem when looking for templates to add to the template page. Chris Day 22:27, 3 June 2008 (CDT)

Any thoughts on this Noel? I think you may have overlooked it (possibly on purpose :P ) Chris Day 12:42, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

No, I hadn't forgotten it - just too busy recently to do anything with it! J. Noel Chiappa 14:01, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

extreme dizziness

My head is reeling from so many instructions, but I will do my best to carry them out, Herr Leftnant! (clicking of heels) Hayford Peirce 12:20, 4 June 2008 (CDT)

Godel and stuff

Hiya Noel,

Is anyone going to tackle Godel's IT in the future ? I came across (what seems to me) a powerful pedagogy for rendering GIT. This was proposed by a 'crackpot' on WP who was shot down in a hail of flames (and banned, i think.) But I think it's legit, very powerful, and does occur (tho rather obscurely) in the literature.

The idea is to sketch a proof of GIT from the modern perspective of computation. This does great violence to the historical development of GIT, and it also takes for granted some ideas that originated with Godel ... but it is a powerful way to first see GIT from a modern perspective. Let me try to sketch : --- We proof Halting first. Start with a computer language, say Lisp.

• Quining : A computer program P exists which 'prints out its own source code' (or evaluates to a string which is its own source code.) This is a common brain-teaser among beginning programmers, and within the reach of many students to figure out.

• Introspection : From above, a program can access its own source code and place it in a variable. For example, if we have a program CountCharacters(P) which reads a program P and outputs the number of characters in its source code, we can always trivially modify CountCharacters to make CountMyCharacters() which processes its own source code. In other words, a program can always say "myself".

• Halting : Suppose a Halting-Detector exists, H(P). Use the Introspection property to turn H against itself :

Create Spite such that : If H(Spite) = "halt", hang in a loop. Else, terminate.

We have a contradiction, thus H cannot exist.

Finally we go from Halting to GIT : Statements about computation map to theorems in number theory, etc.

The formalist justifiably screams bloody murder; but the ability to convince the reader of an otherwise obscure and baroque subject is, perhaps, compelling. Christopher J. Reiss 12:56, 4 June 2008 (CDT)

New Templates

Hi Noel, I'm glad you rang :-)

Speaking of new templates, I was having some trouble passing some data into one. I wonder if you might know why the wiki does this...

I have this scheme that seems to work ok for Lithium when the actual data is stored in templates, but not for Unobtanium (my favorite new element) where the data is stored in "sub-sub"-pages if you will.

All I'm basically doing is passing a list of things into the template. The list itself is stored in the location ../List (or ../list), and the data are delimited in the page with pipes. When I pass the list of Isotope numbers in, they show up in the template as

{{{1|}}}, {{{2|}}}, {{{3|}}},...etc...etc.

, in the order that they are in the ../List page. When I try and pass a list of alpha properties names, the template seems to see them all as

{{{1|}}}

and basically does not parse them.

I'm using {{Isotopes}} and {{Props}} to wrap a table around the data and passing the list into {{IsoData}} and {{Properties}}, the "parser" templates. I'm stumped...why do the behaviors differ?

Thanks for any guidance you could offer...--David Yamakuchi 14:54, 4 June 2008 (CDT)

Ok, so I cut out most of the non-essential stuff from {{Props}}. Still no luck. You're right of course, it was getting a little difficult to read. It's better now. But the thing I'm trying to do is straightforward. I could cut out the same stuff from {{Isotopes}}, but that one works (plus those are all the bells and whistles I stole from Chris' {{subpages}} :-)--David Yamakuchi 15:59, 4 June 2008 (CDT)

Oh and yes, I guess two pipes seem to work fine in {{!!}}. Dunno why I didn't do that from the start. If you want to know how it ended up the way it was check out the notes on the history...;-)--David Yamakuchi 15:59, 4 June 2008 (CDT)

Another one

Going to need an editor for this one, too Talk:Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

Did you miss this one? D. Matt Innis 07:25, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

Where's that sense of humor I was looking for? Have you been working too hard?D. Matt Innis 13:22, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

why not subpage

Just out of curiosity is there any reason why the disambiguation page is not a subpage of the basename? If it were we would have the advantage of just adding the subpages template at the top like every other page (KISS principle). Likewise, we can then use the BASEPAGENAME magic words to identify the disambiguated term, for example, {{dabhdr|Poseidon}} would not be required, the subpages template would place the {{dabhdr}} template and use the magic word to specify the header. Chris Day 12:15, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

Sounds fine to me too, and more elegant. -- Daniel Mietchen 02:42, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

Now I'm wondering if the Template:Dambigbox is even required? I can see how such a template would be useful in wikipedia where they have the dominant usage as an article, but wouldn't your proposal for having all disambiguated terms redirect to the disambiguation page mean this is not required? Chris Day 10:23, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

IsoData and Properties differences

Ok, so I'm not nuts...well, as far as this one goes anyway. :-) Just for the record, I'm ok with "oh yeah, it does that" as an explanation, then we can just move on to something that works. The problem here is that it doesn't always do that, so...what gives?

FYI:The closing curly braces on the {{Properties}} call in {{props}} was omitted intentionally because they kept showing up at the end of the last bit of data. That was one wierdness that was easy enough to eliminate...by deletion. I've now put them back so they can be seen. Perhaps it's a clue as to what's really going on...or maybe it's just more buggery and confusion...I don't know.

BTW: Thanks again for taking the time to wade thru the curly brace funhouse that has become these templates...your help _is_ appreciated.--David Yamakuchi 12:38, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

Disambiguation of "Anaximander"

I just started a page on Anaximander, the ancient Greek philosopher. Then I discover that it needs to be disambiguated. With what, I don't know except maybe a Lunar crater. Anyway, the article title shows up in a funny tan/gold color in the Related Articles page of Pythagoras.

How do I find out about these disambiguations before I create the article? Should I first define the word, then, when creating the page, click to it from some Related Article page? And if I find out it needs disambiguation, what then? Also, without knowing what it needs to be disambiguated from, is it always the case that the primary name should go to a disambig page?

James F. Perry 18:22, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

Applying templates on special pages

Hi Noel, looking at Special:Wantedpages, I was wondering whether templates like {{r}} could be applied there somehow, too - this would probably lower the hesitation threshold for starting such a wanted article. Besides, I have always wished to put such special pages on my watchlist - is there a way to achieve that? Thanks. -- Daniel Mietchen 03:53, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

Dealing with duplicates

Noel, I noticed that you've been clearing up a lot of dupicate-article situations recently. What is the protocol (and the technical how-to) for doing this? For example, there's been an article titled "Copyrighting" for some time, and today there's a new article titled "Copyright" (which seems to me to be the better title). Each article, so far, has only one author, as far as I can tell. Should the person noticing this situation just point it out to the two authors and let them discuss it, or will the Law Workgroup deal with it, or what? Thanks. Bruce M.Tindall 10:19, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

Bible books

Fine with me (to call them "Genesis (Bible book)" by way of disambiguation). But I just did a minor edit; it's Tom Morris who created the Genesis article (and therefore presumably will be creating more of 'em). I'll pass the suggestion on to him. Also -- I am ignorant of the mechanics of deleting or renaming articles. Could you please point me to a primer on that? Bruce M.Tindall 11:20, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

disambigbox

I found a solution but don't ask me to explain it. The problem is that the magic word does not kick in with the following format: {{disambigbox||Foo}}. I then tried the magic word for the second term ({{{2|{{PAGENAME}}}}}) and I see the same problem with respect to {{disambigbox|Foo, Bar|}}. But in the form of {{disambigbox|Foo, Bar}} the second term does become the {{PAGENAME}}. Consequently, i think your best bet is to switch the order of the first and second parameters in the template. Thus, {{disambiguation|Foo|Foo, Bar}} and {{disambiguation|Foo}} will work the way you want. Is this not better anyway, rather than having {{disambiguation||Foo}}? Chris Day 12:34, 6 June 2008 (CDT)