User talk:Larry Sanger/Archive 4

Larry Sanger

Current talk page

Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3, Archive 4, Archive 5, Archive 6, Archive 7, Archive 8, Archive 9, Archive 10, Archive 11

Best Practices

Hi Larry - got your note about the list of languages deletion. I started a couple of articles from red links right after I signed up. The ones without sufficient content have been flagged for removal or inclusion elsewhere. Just curious if this is the best place to respond to notes such as the one you left for me (the user talk page).

I'm assuming a page like Robotics is more what we're looking for? --Will Bickford 08:30, 13 March 2007

Where to reply--my user talk page or yours, I don't care. Robotics is obviously a better start! --Larry Sanger 09:06, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

can't see edits

Larry, I know we have had some cache problems with some edits taht don't show up for awhile, but on [[1]] nothing has shown up past nancy's first edit this morning. Any suggestions? -Matt Innis (Talk) 13:25, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

I mailed [email protected] about it. Bizarre, particularly because other pages do update (evidently). --Larry Sanger 14:51, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

I've bungled a template

Larry: My apologies if you're the wrong one to ask this question to. Please direct me to the right person or process to follow.

My question:

I was trying to create a biography for:

Alfred J. Eggers

I've fouled up the template and the article is a mess. How do I fix this? Thanks! Terence Quilpie 01:09, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

My advice is to remove the template.  :-) Work on it on the talk page. --Larry Sanger 09:00, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

Concerning transcription of information from Wikipedia

Larry: Before I dive in. What's the proper protocol for responding to comments made on my "User talk"? Should I respond on my user talk or your user talk? For this case I'm responding on your user talk.

You said the following:

"Dr. Quilpie, if I may--I have no doubt that there are some really excellent articles on Wikipedia, and that you are right that it would be pointless to regenerate them here. Our experience is that the Wikipedia versions of most of the articles we've been working on have been very poor"

My reply:

I completely agree. I realized too late that there is no point contributing to Wikipedia because eventually any contribution will dissolve into noise. However I have observed an interesting phenomena about Wikipedia that while the popular articles almost instantly dissolve away the more specialized articles tend to dissolve more slowly. My favorite example is the George W. Bush article which is being vandalized about every five minutes. The much more obscure articles like mine tend to be vandalized about once every three months.

You said:

"There is another set of articles someone imported from Wikipedia here, about adders, and his idea is that he would like to maintain them here. What I've told him is that we don't simply want to mirror Wikipedia, and that, while I wouldn't delete the articles he's uploaded as long as he's committed to "watching over" them here on the Citizendium, I would actually prefer that he improve them in some way so that there is a significant difference between the CZ articles and the WP articles."

My reply:

It is my intent to import the high quality aerospace articles and take "ownership" of them as I have with my own article on "atmospheric reentry". I would remove errors-of-fact where I can see them, smooth out problems in the article's style and make enhancement where I can find them. My contributed articles would definitely not remain static. However many of the aerospace articles on Wikipedia are very good so improving them would take lower priority (bigger fish to fry). There are a bunch of things that I wanted to do with my "atmospheric reentry" article on Wikipedia but I couldn't because people were coming in behind me and micro-editing. One guy dumped this big hunk of excrement right in the middle of the article (it had almost nothing to do with spacecraft reentry). I had to leave it there because I knew that deleting it would trigger an endless revision war and flaming match (I don't have time for this!). In summary it was clear that I had gone as far as I could go with Wikipedia.

You said:

"If you simply put the question, "Would you feel comfortable if we were to import a few hundred Wikipedia aerospace articles?" my answer would be "Yes, if you feel that you can maintain them and improve them here." Eventually, we will have many more engineers on board--we already have quite a few. We can probably "wake them up" by an effort such as this."

My reply:

We are on the same wavelength! Here is my proposal. Citizendium needs a critical mass of high quality aerospace articles to make it interesting to aerospace engineers. I intend to import those articles from Wikipedia and spice them up with information from "Encyclopedia Astronautica", refer to http://www.astronautix.com/ . "Encyclopedia Astronautica" and NOT Wikipedia is considered by many aerospace engineers to be the better source for aerospace information on the Internet. However "Encyclopedia Astronautica" is under copyright to Mark Wade so it can not be freely copied like Wikipedia. I also have full access to NASA's database (much of this is under userid/password protection). Despite being protected, almost all of that information is in the public domain (there are ITAR and dual use issues involved). One of the most important spacecraft in my specific line of work was Fire-II. Mark Wade's commentary on Fire-II is very limited, see http://www.astronautix.com/craft/fire.htm . From the NASA database, I can download lots of cool pictures and information about Fire-II thus providing an important addition to Citizendium (Fire-II is just the tip of the iceberg). However we're not going to hook aerospace engineers into Citizendium with cool pictures of Fire-II (that's what keeps them here). To hook them in we'd need excellent articles about the Apollo program, the SR-71, the XB-70 Valkyrie, the Soviet N-1 rocket, etc. That's why it is vital to bring those articles into Citizendium as soon as possible so we can get new engineers on board.

You said:

"If there were some way to automatically import WP articles to CZ--if someone were to write a script to do that--it would be great. Unfortunately, no one has done so yet. As to why we decided to "unfork," the original discussion was long..."

My reply:

I might(?) be able to write that software but it would take too long. For my specific task it would take less time to manually bring the information in than write the software. However you should eventually task someone to do this, i.e. designate an article and the software downloads the text and images then strips off the obvious dross. I respect your decision to unfork Citizendium from Wikipedia. The copyright issue on Wikipedia is a ticking time bomb. Probably the only reason why Wikipeida hasn't been shutdown is because Wikipedia has no assets worth litigating for (there's a lesson there). You might consider setting up a password protected read-only image of Wikipedia with the markup software still running (set it up so only editors can access it). Wikipedia could disappear suddenly if someone decides to play hardball and begin litigation.

---

There is no established protocol, as far as I'm aware. If someone writes to me, I reply on my talk page, simply because it's easier to follow the discussion.

Well, I would like to encourage you to do exactly what you propose here, then. You might also write to Citizendium-tools (and/or the forums section about our technology) offering to help steward a programming effort for importing WP articles. If you were to do that, it would be extremely useful as you can imagine. --Larry Sanger 16:45, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

I am glad this has worked out for you, Terrance. Stephen Ewen 20:00, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

Very good. I'll follow through on this course of action as soon as possible. Thanks for your input. Terence Quilpie 12:05, 19 March 2007 (CDT)

Server Assistance

I noticed on your user page that there's been a delay in getting new servers up and running. Is there anything I could do to assist with that? --Will Bickford 16:26 March 15, 2007

Well, in general, you can go to http://forge.citizendium.org/ and poke around, and send a mail to [email protected] and tell those guys that you'd like to help. But as far as the new servers are concerned, the problem is that Steadfast Networks (our provider) hasn't received them from their vendor, so we're dead in the water for now. --Larry Sanger 16:40, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

B as Big clean up

Thank you Larry, sometimes I am over optimistic on my capacity to accept a work load ! But if I can do more B's, I'll give it a try. JeromeDelacroix March 17, 10pm, Paris

Congrats Larry

first the servers then the really BIG launch. Robert Tito |  [[Talk]]  23:20, 19 March 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, Rob--well, just wait. We constables are going to have a lot of work, I suspect, with new applications. --Larry Sanger 23:25, 19 March 2007 (CDT)

He-e-e-e-re we go! Stephen Ewen 00:54, 20 March 2007 (CDT)

God

Sorry — I'm working more or less continously on the article at the moment, and I hit an edit conflict which wiped out your intermediate edit. I'll go back and fix it — but I'm not sure that your claim is true; there are many millions of English-speakers in India, for example, whose usage of "god" would be primarily the gods of Hinduism.

My reason for the way I had it originally was that I started with the lowest notion (human beings claiming ot be divine) to the most advanced (the transcendent god of monotheism). --Peter J. King  Talk  10:01, 20 March 2007 (CDT)

I'm just about to write about something closely related to the latter on CZ:Article mechanics.

It should be obvious that native English speakers almost always mean the Christian God when they use the word "God." --Larry Sanger 10:05, 20 March 2007 (CDT)

I've left a comment and longer explanation at the Talk page too (and I've raised the general question at CZ Talk:Article Mechanics). Indian English-speakers are mostly native speakers, surely (unless many/most U.S. English-speakers aren't...). I've looked at the Wikipedia article, and I'm a little dubious; no source is given for the claim that English is spoken as a second language (though, I suppose, it's a second language for many Welsh people, in that they speak Welsh at home and don't learn English 'til primary school), and there's no reference to the fact that English is one of the official languages of the country. --Peter J. King  Talk  10:11, 20 March 2007 (CDT)

The question at issue here is really what the constituency of the English CZ is. I maintain that it is the residents of countries whose first language is English. A future article about god in a Hindi CZ might not emphasize the Christian God as a prime example, but instead use Hindu gods, just as a future article about god in the Arabic CZ would understandably use Allah as the first example. In none of these cases would I say that the articles were biased, since in none of them would the existence or worshipability (etc.) of the god in question be asserted.

More generally, it is not neutral to write as if the majority of one's users are not what they are, and instead to use a cosmopolitanism most of them do not share. Cosmopolitanism is itself a view, and the best "starting position" for the most neutral possible resource, which will make it possible for the most diverse group of people to participate, is the view of the majority of a topic's "constituents." Just bear in mind that this is merely a starting position and the article, and not in any sense its conclusion or recommended view. --Larry Sanger 10:50, 20 March 2007 (CDT)

CZ Live

Another bug? Can't figure out why this one won't lose the CZ Live cat. No problems with any others yet. Also note that Dog is noted as external article but pretty sure Nancy has worked on it quite a lot, is it not CZ Live? --Matt Innis (Talk) 09:19, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

Fixed - whoever made the metabolism template mistakenly forgot to put the CZ Live tag in a "noinclude" section. This made the template add all articles it was used in to that category. Oh, and you'll have to ask Nancy about Dog. Any article that has copied material from WP and still includes any of that material needs to be listed as external, no matter how much work we've done on it. -- ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 09:36, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

As to dog, I left a message on the talk page of the person who added the checklist. It has been changed enough to be internal.

Category:CZ Live should not be included on any general template, but applied only to individual articles. I'll investigate. --Larry Sanger 09:39, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

It was intended to designate that the template was of CZ origin, not the articles. Most templates are of Wikimedia origin, so there is a benefit to keeping track. -- ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 09:45, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

OK, understandable, but that's not what "CZ Live" means. "CZ Live" means articles that have been changed significantly in at least three different places. If you want to keep track of WP-sourced templates, make a special category, don't use "CZ Live" please. --Larry Sanger 11:46, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

I also noticed that there are viper articles on the CZ Live list or External list. For those that were on both lists, I removed all from the CZ Live list only. --Matt Innis (Talk) 10:00, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

Great--thanks, Matt. I actually think we should probably just do The Big Cleanup for the viper collection and at the same time remove Category:CZ Live. Hint hint...but that looks like a lot of work, so I wouldn't expect anybody to do it simply because I asked. :-) --Larry Sanger 11:46, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

I knew I should have kept my mouth shut:-) --Matt Innis (Talk) 12:54, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

:-) --Larry Sanger 13:49, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

Rather than the somewhat vague "three substantial changes", I'd propose "three edits (other than copyediting, cleanup,or removal of templates)" -- that way, if a CZ editor or author is actively editing, even if the changes so far might not meet everyone's definition of "substantial", it would be a clear call whether to delete or not (and perhaps a spur to whoever is working on the entry to make *more* changes and improvements!) Russell Potter 18:41, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

Status=4

Larry, I didn't understand what you meant by "All and only CZ Live articles are status = 4". Is it not the opposite? -Versuri 09:22, 23 March 2007 (CDT)

Oops, did I say that? I should have said "are not status = 4" or (to be clearer) "are status = 0-3". --Larry Sanger 09:31, 23 March 2007 (CDT)

deletion

Hi, is there a specific procedure to request deletion of some articles? I'm going through Math category and I see some articles that, apparently, were forgotten during BigSpeedyDelete: 100% WP-sourced and never edited with a possible exception for interwiki or adding math WG category etc. I saw you recently deleted some articles with such a rationale. Sometimes I use speedydelete template but I ask myself whether it is appropriate or too 'aggressive'. I saw there is 'delete' template. How we use it? --AlekStos 15:35, 24 March 2007 (CDT)

Yes, please see CZ:Article Deletion Policy. Authors can use "speedydelete", and constables are then responsible for understanding the rules (stated on that page) under which they can actually go ahead and delete an article marked "speedydelete". We haven't yet established procedures for non-speedy deletion, although the rules say that "workgroup instruction" is required. --Larry Sanger 15:54, 24 March 2007 (CDT)

need your input

Larry, I was working through the speedydeletes and came across Holocaust. It has been imported from wikipedia last month and significant changes were made before the week was out. I don't think this is one that I am able to delete on my own, is it? --Matt Innis (Talk) 18:58, 24 March 2007 (CDT)

Nothing significant there, Matt. It was an old import. A lot of text was deleted and then restored making it look like someone may have typed it. I deleted the page. Stephen Ewen 22:27, 24 March 2007 (CDT)

Looks like my work here is done. --Larry Sanger 13:37, 25 March 2007 (CDT)

something happened

Larry, please check the top of the Talk:Chiropractic/Draft page. I tried to add the new ToApprove tag, but it errored when I tried to save stating the page was too long. I then decided to just edit the "lead" section and add it above that, but used the wrong date(oops). I added the right date, but now I can't delete teh upper one because the page is too long (I think). Any ideas? --Matt Innis (Talk) 19:39, 24 March 2007 (CDT)

Why don't we try archiving everything before the new year? And I'll tell Greg that that limit needs to be higher still -- ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 20:22, 24 March 2007 (CDT)

Created archive. What happened is that the webserver has some sort of limit as to how much stuff you can send in one chunk, and unfortunately, since we moved we appear to be hitting that ceiling on larger pages that don't have archiving. I've dropped Greg and Jason a line in IRC. I'm going out, and I'll bug them again in the morning. -- ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 20:31, 24 March 2007 (CDT)

Okay, this was 238 Kb which was big. I should have archived earlier. Two lessons in one day. --Matt Innis (Talk) 22:04, 24 March 2007 (CDT)

Wow, that's a big one. :-) --Larry Sanger 08:47, 25 March 2007 (CDT)

External links

Thanks for the explanation, now I understand. But I have a question.

Initailly I started doing my articles this way; they became full of "red ink". This is not only aesthetically very unpleasent but does not help readers to get any knowledge at all.

I wonder if, ONLY DURING THIS START-UP PERIOD you could agree to "tolerate" external links which, of course, will be gradually substituted by links to CZ articles as soon as they became avaliable. For example, "Paul Samuelson" initially was externally linked; as soon as a "Paul Samuelson" article had been started, the link was pointed to the CZ article.

Some of those links in my articles are essential for the comprehension of common readers. If the point to a "blank" article, comprehensibility will be reduced, so will the "quality of information".

I understand that CZ is not supposed to become a collection of linked articles. But I ask you if some flexibility could not be "tolerated" while the artciles to be linked to are being prepared.

If you agree I assume the responsibility to check all external links in my articles weekly and replace them for CZ links as soon as new articles come about.

Give it some thought.

Guru2001 07:28, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

P.S: External links

I wish to stress out that when I refer to external links I mean those which are "non-commercial". Links in my articles are to Universities, bona fide learning sites, online (freely readable) full texts versions of the books mentioned. Only to those I am advocating some "tolerance".

Guru2001 07:43, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

There's no question that having external links is more useful to the end-user now. But if we make a habit of substituting external content for (placeholders for) internal content, we discourage the creation of new articles. One of the strongest incentives that people have for writing new articles, and even for getting involved, are the red links which say, "Nobody has written about this yet--for shame!" CZ could become more quickly useful in many ways that would undermine its own long-term development. We could, for example, use the entire body of Wikipedia content, as we did in the beginning of the pilot project.

Still, I hope you will include these useful links in the "external links" section. That's also extremely useful to people. --Larry Sanger 08:28, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

I understand your point. Hope you understand mine. I'll begin the transposition, slowly. I still cannot overcome my aversion for a page "full of red ink". Some red ink might be a challenge, too much of it might indicate to the reader that perhaps he/she should move away from this 'pedia. But I'll leave a couple of them, for example, four, on each page for "challenge". As soon as one "bait" is "eaten", I'll move another. Is that OK with you  ?

Guru2001 13:16, 27 March 2007 (CDT)

We're very probably going to make it a rule not include external links in the body of articles. I don't see the point in breaking such a rule partially. I'm sorry I don't have time to argue at greater length, because I would like to--today is crazy-busy. --Larry Sanger 14:02, 27 March 2007 (CDT)

P.S. please use your own name, or some version of your real name, in your signature. Thanks. --Larry Sanger 14:02, 27 March 2007 (CDT)

Signature done. As to external links, if it becomes a rule, there will be nothing to discuss.JPRC 00:00, 28 March 2007 (CDT)

P.S. 2 New articles conform to the newly proposed rule. As for the existing articles the transition is being done as time permits, taking care not to just erase the very useful links.JPRC 12:56, 28 March 2007 (CDT)

Thanks--I appreciate it. --Larry Sanger 12:58, 28 March 2007 (CDT)

Sports and Classics

Larry, there were two red links and I created: Category:Sports Underlinked and Category:Sports Underlinked Articles. The same happens to Classics. See a red link here (Category:Classics Underlinked) but not here (See Category:Classics Underlinked Articles). -Versuri 14:25, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

Great--thank you! --Larry Sanger 14:30, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

Do you delete one of them or I make a redirect? -Versuri 14:34, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

Oh, I see--I'll delete. Fixed. --Larry Sanger 14:37, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

Discussion forums

The discussion-forums link now leads to a broken version of the Citizendium front page. Unfortunately I don't have it separately bookmarked; could you point me in the right direction please? --Peter J. King  Talk  03:44, 27 March 2007 (CDT)

http://forum.citizendium.org/ is working fine for me. Stephen Ewen 04:29, 27 March 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, yes — it's back. --Peter J. King  Talk  04:43, 27 March 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the help

Hi Larry;

Thanks for pointing out the need for the bolding and the categories at the bottom of the MySQL article I wrote. I was re-reading the getting started page and noticed that after I had made the original article.

Michael

You're welcome of course --Larry Sanger 09:39, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

RE: New categories

Hi! Thank you for the welcome message and I do appologize for the creation of the categories. I do understand the type of work that Citizendium is trying to create and I would like to help it as best as I can. I will no longer create anymore new categories until given permission to do so. Thank you again for the notification of the minor mishap. Do have a good day. --Maurice Ornelas (Talk) 09:45, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Sorry, I did not know that it was frowned upon. I was trying to upstart articles about U.S. states and state capitals, as a way of adding some information about these topics on Citizendium. Also, to make it more convenient for other contributors to find and add additional information to it. It is not my intention to undermine the goals of Citizendium and I do appologize for it. I will stop and review my actions to immediately improve efficiency in my articles. Thank you again for the notification. --Maurice Ornelas (Talk) 10:30, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Well, thanks--obviously I didn't think you were trying to undermine the goals of CZ.  :-) --Larry Sanger 09:38, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

On external links...

Please have a look at Economic heterodox tradition /2.1.1 Rosseau/ 2.1.2 Sismodi and see if it the links are now to your liking.JPRC 11:01, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

I can't deny (well, not without looking at the links ;-) ) that the links are useful. Surely it's a great thing to link to On Social Contract if we lack an article about the book. However, it occurs to me that you are using links where others might (and quite usefully) use either a "Further reading" section or footnotes, or both. It is possible that you misunderstand the usefulness of a red link. Articles that have them are unquestionably uglier, and not just because of a different color, but because red means nothing's available to view. However, this ugly state of unavailability is an itch that project members work to scratch; it is also an invitation to new contributors to come and "turn the red links blue." If we were simply to use links to external articles, there would be rather less incentive--perhaps much less incentive--to work on our own articles.

So, please do remove the external links to an external links section, a further reading section, and/or footnotes. See CZ:Article mechanics for a few notes about endmatter.

--Larry Sanger 11:14, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

On WP credits

Hi. Concerning credits to Wikipedia, how do we qualify texts that are identical and made by the same author (by his declaration)? On one hand, in such a case CZ article does not use WP but the author's knowledge (and his copyright, BTW); on the other hand, generally, it is often difficult to claim in such a situation that "any identical sentences" come from "my" (someone's) hand and, anyway, they originally appeared on WP. Actually, I have no strong preference, just would like to have some hints for a standard. This is likely to be useful in future. Could you take a look at this diff containing some related links (we are discussing it with James, BTW). --AlekStos 14:51, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

Here's another situation. The Trial of Joan of Arc article was begun on CZ some time back. Then, a few days ago, I copied it to WP under the same title and will be updating it on both CZ and WP as I continue to work on it. No credit was given to CZ for the WP article (except on the discussion page). In my opinion, none is needed, just as in the reverse case where a WP article, written by myself, is copied to CZ. An author's declaration of authorship can theoretically be verified by checking the edit histories, though this could be cumbersome. James F. Perry 14:58, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

I've been updating policy pages about this, this morning. Basically, there's no problem whatsoever with an author taking whatever strings of words and symbols are his or her own sole composition, and uploading them here without giving Wikipedia credit. However, people both here and at Wikipedia may not realize that the content in question was owned by a single individual. That means, then, that we have to clue them in by putting a not-to-be-moved notice at the top of the talk page. Example here: Talk:Gaspee Affair. --Larry Sanger 12:09, 30 March 2007 (CDT)

Thanks. I thought about it. So what about having a nice template for this? This could standardize the way the authors declare authorship and help bot-assisted checking. --AlekStos 14:16, 30 March 2007 (CDT)

Yes, I agree entirely! --Larry Sanger 14:27, 30 March 2007 (CDT)

So here is {{WPauthor}} template. See e.g. Talk:Gaspee Affair --AlekStos 07:24, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

FYI. I've just released pre-alpha version of my funny perl script that compares an article on CZ and WP, see forum for more details. --AlekStos 11:38, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

Ooh, that sounds great... --Larry Sanger 11:46, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

Couple of points, help please-from Nancy

1) answered you on talk cat page. There is an entire discussion on forums under naming conventions for biology, I'd like to nominate Chris Day and Jaap Winnius to be in a workgroup to actually make a "white paper" of how we should name plants and animals, that white paper could then be submitted to the Biology workgroup who could come up with our conventions. Meanwhile, perhaps you could move Cat to the title I have suggested in response to your query. 2) There is a good-faith import of Wikipedia templates by new authors who should be welcomed, of course, rather than discouraged here. But as we just went through the big clean-up- can you think of some way to stop this? Unless I misunderstand and we will be using these templates. Thanks, Nance Nancy Sculerati 11:17, 30 March 2007 (CDT)

Hi Nancy,

As to (1), sounds great.

As to (2), I think we should revisit the templates just as carefully as we revisit the articles. Many templates on an article is simply too busy and distracting really to be maximally useful to people. I'm still in favor of moving unused templates to talk pages. We can always move templates back from the talk page to the article page once the templates have been uploaded. --Larry Sanger 11:52, 30 March 2007 (CDT)

[edit conflict]I'll add that I'll be happy to work with Jaap on getting a proposal together. I'd suggest we then get input from the community and then pass the recommendation on to the editorial board. I think there are clear examples of where a common name should be used and clear examples where a scientific name is preferred. The real problem is the murky area in the middle. By the way we will have the same problem with gene names too, except it is even worse there since each model organism has preferred but different nomenclature.

Which templates are being imported Nancy? Some are good, like the navigation one at the foot of the biology article but I agree that many are fluff. Chris Day (Talk) 12:02, 30 March 2007 (CDT)

On italicizing...

"quotations are not standardly italicized in either American or British English"; (10:51, 31 March 2007 (CDT))

Please elaborate, they are italicized. Aren't they ?

"and the article is simply getting too long".

Agree... I was thinking in breaking it up into two or three main sections, interlinked. Suggestions are welcome...

J. R. Campos 14:59, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

No, quotations are very rarely italicized in any of the English language books I own. And I've read quite a few!  :-) If you look at, for example, the Chicago Manual of Style, which is the manual I would consult on questions of italicization, you will find that there is no mention whatsoever of italicizing entire quotations as proper style. In English, quotations are indicated either by quotation marks or by indentation, not by italics. The use of italics is not unheard-of, but it is very idiosyncratic and nonstandard.

As to shortening the article I'd suggest--well, this is one idea, anyway--breaking it into sections: histories of different eras or schools of economic thought. Then start over with Economics and write something that is more introductory!  :-) --Larry Sanger 16:23, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

I've wondered about this usage, which seems common on the Internet and in undergraduate essays, but nowhere else; where does it come from, do you think? It's like the use of "pg" to abbreviate "page", or the placing of footnote numbers inside quotation marks... There must be somewhere they're getting it from, but where? --Peter J. King  Talk  11:44, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

I really have no idea. Perhaps it's by extension from the pithy quotes that people place at the front of essays and books, which are more often italicized. But I'll bet it originally came from another language--I just don't know which. --Larry Sanger 15:36, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

As to shortening the article I'd suggest--well, this is one idea, anyway--breaking it into sections: histories of different eras or schools of economic thought. Then start over with Economics and write something that is more introductory!  :-) --Larry Sanger 16:23, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

I was thinking of moving the "Ancients" to another title, perhaps "Origins of Economics", leaving the main "Economics" article to begin just in the "Neo-classical Period" (1871-today); which is present day mainstream Economics. Comments welcome.

As to italicization, sorry for being "idiosyncratic", I will fix them to Chicago standards as I go through them again.

I am not the best chosen person to write a "secondary school primer on Economics". Unfortunately for you I was taugh by Asimakopulos; he gave three times more classes explaining the assumptions that go behind the economic equations and graphs than teaching the graphs themselves. On the (perhaps) futile hope of preventing his pupils from spending their lives calculating, to the 10th decimal case, the results of an equation of which they do not understand the rational limitations. There are thousands of "elementary economics" articles avaliable in the Internet showing "supply and demand" curves; the best ones are already linked to the CZ article.

If someone else wants to reproduce one of those here, be very welcome. Maybe just by copying Wikipedias' article this objective might be attained. Will that add to the "General Advancement of Learning" ? --J. R. Campos

I'm not sure of the advisability of copying the Wikipedia article, and we don't want a secondary school primer on economics, but a university-level introduction to the field. This could take the form of a history, just not as long of a history as you've given, and (I think) ought to work in some of the basic concepts of the field, supply and demand, money supply, and all that, in any case. For a very creative way of introducing many of the leading concepts of a field via a history of the subject, see Biology. --Larry Sanger 19:25, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

On article initiation

Feedback taken on board about Ethics, Applied Ethics etc, will have a think about more appropriate contributions. Thanks for keeping me on the straight and narrow! --User:Pip Bennett 23:06, 31 March (GMT)

Thanks for the note! --Larry Sanger 17:09, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

my definition exactly

I think I have taken the thought of developing an encyclopedic article to be a portal a bit too far. No, I do not intend to strip the Mumbai piece to the "bare minimum", but only introduce only the salient features of its history, geography, culture, commerce etc. in the article, and leave the details (including relatively unimportant subtopics (such as, Geology of Salsette and Mumbai island under Geography of Mumbai to the Main articles.

Partho Choudhury 10:35, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

Naming Coventions

Did you see Brian's comment here. There might be some value, but it's probably a decision you need to comment on before any other steps get taken. --Matt Innis (Talk) 21:45, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

Replied on the page. Why does anything officially need to be decided on this? If people want to use this as a useful shortcut, why not let them? --Larry Sanger 22:20, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

I was considering whether some people would use it and others would not. Right now [our CZLive Category List reads in firstname lastname. His template creates lastname,firstname. I was remembering when we had to go back on the CZ Authors list and change everyone to last name, first name. Wasn't sure if you had a preference. --Matt Innis (Talk) 22:35, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

Well, the names in Category:CZ Authors (better example) all appear firstname lastname, but are alphabetized by lastname firstname. This is achieved by the "pipe" syntax: [[Category:CZ Author|Doe, John]]. But, unless I'm misunderstanding, Brian was suggesting that using the DEFAULTSORT template would remove the necessity of using the pipe syntax; it would not make the names be listed lastname firstname. Maybe I am misunderstanding, though. --Larry Sanger 23:23, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

Vandals

Larry, there's just been a flurry of vandalism -- wanted to let you know ASAP Russell Potter

Thanks--I was taking a break.

This was obviously an account created during the self-registration period that was never deleted. Chances are, the vandal has a few more such accounts created, which means we've got to get busy and clear out the faux account cruft. --Larry Sanger 19:34, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

Speedy deletion

Oh, sorry, I thought all copied stuff should be deleted. Thanks for the link, I was absent :) --BV^{talk to me} 06:16, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

RE: CZ Live

Sorry about placing the CZ Live on the Latin article. I had realized that I made an error by placing the CZ Live category on it but I had not reversed it. Thank you for reversing it. --Maurice Ornelas 17:24, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

No problem. I believe there's several others that you tagged with a similar problem--please check. --Larry Sanger 16:30, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

RE: Whoa Maurice!

Good idea. Although, I was thinking that perhaps I'll re-start those articles but with a lot more content. --Maurice Ornelas 18:08, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

When you do restart them, please do think about matters of style: see Article Mechanics. --Larry Sanger 17:14, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

RE: Massachusetts places

Sorry, my mistake, it just makes it so convenient to search for these related articles but I will stop. --Maurice Ornelas 12:08, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Not nearly as convenient as a special page that organizes the places in special subcategories. --Larry Sanger 11:12, 4 April 2007 (CDT)

Sig

No problem, and I see your proposal to remove the nickname option; I think that it's important (to add talk page link, and other), just notify the user, like you made with me. --Stefen 08:34, 5 April 2007 (CDT)

References

What's actually the proper way of doing the references? This is done through the code recommended on the Help:Editing page, but this isn't what it's meant to look like, is it? Marcus Richert 11:28, 6 April 2007 (CDT) Oh, never mind, I realised what I was doing wrong. Marcus Richert 11:30, 6 April 2007 (CDT)

You need to add the following too <references/> in the location you wish the references to appear.Chris Day (Talk) 11:37, 6 April 2007 (CDT)