User talk:Cpl Syx/July-August-2009

Recoiless Rifle

That was not an "unproductive edit" I made to the recoiless rifle article...obviously the projectiles a recoiless rifle fires are much heavier than those for a conventional recoiling gun...which would make them "impractical" to fire from one...try reading the article next time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.165.4.172 (talk) 08:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Quote: "allows the firing of a heavier projectile than would be impractical to fire from a recoiling weapon" does not make sense. "Practical" is the correct word in this context. --Cpl Syx (talk) 09:55, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Lazy daisy

The lazy daisy mentioned at table manners deals around a movable dish for placement food bowls. Its no joke Revert please

There is no article for Lazy Daisy on Wikipedia, therefore I deem this to be unconstructive. --Cpl Syx (talk) 12:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

August 2009

Wow, I'm impressed how quickly you find and remove vandalism.

Keep it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.178.56 (talk) 10:45, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you :) --Cpl Syx (talk) 10:48, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Test?

I wasn't testing on research, but correcting an erroneous link! 82.170.161.67 (talk) 11:18, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Please be more careful in future. Your edit [1] overwrote a section of formatting for that section of the page. Please make use of the preview button to save any future errors from being reverted! :) --Cpl Syx (talk) 11:20, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

As you have repeated the edit and made the same mistake, I have simply performed your intended edit for you. PLEASE be more aware of the effects of your edits! --Cpl Syx (talk) 11:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but please realize that it is not easy to notice formatting errors. I accept the warning, but hope that you do the same with your reverts (don't revert corrections togehter with the errors...). 82.170.161.67 (talk) 11:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

followup

FYI, this one was blocked for his attack against you. Shouldn't bother you for awhile. Cheers,
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 11:58, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. --Cpl Syx (talk) 12:00, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

RVV: User talk:Morphh

Whatever. You people are censoring information THAT YOU DON'T LIKE. Not because it is inappropriate or wrong.

Political/religious ideology has no place here and your "editor" is a joke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.41.193.2 (talk) 13:19, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of any ideologies, personal attacks have no place here on Wikipedia. --Cpl Syx (talk) 13:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

RE:Thanks for reverting the vandalism. . .

You're absolutely welcome. Chevy Impala 2009 15:50, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Lima

I'm at a loss -- you were the last of many to revert it. I don't know what to do with this... what's that IP trying to do? Seb az86556 (talk) 06:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I wish I knew. Looking through the edits it just appears to be vandalism for the sake of vandalism! Either that, or a dislike for Lima perhaps? In any case, I'll continue to make reverts until s/he violates 3RR, as the unexplained and repeated removal of content is unacceptable. --Cpl Syx (talk) 06:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

3RR is long overdue Seb az86556 (talk) 06:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Indeed so - all we need now are the full level of warnings before reporting to WP:AIAV! --Cpl Syx (talk) 06:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I gave 2x vandalism + 1x 3RR to no avail (see User talk:200.121.164.249) Seb az86556 (talk) 06:25, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I've issued a final warning. If there's any further vandalism to that (or any other) article by this IP user, then the next step is reporting to WP:AIAV. --Cpl Syx (talk) 06:35, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thought you might be pleased to see this --Cpl Syx (talk) 06:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Seen it. I keep this like that on my watchlist until resolved. thanks. By the way, that Formulae-user below doesn't seem to have realized that each of those articles has a boldprint-hidden-source-note about the issue. S/He had gone 'round doing that to all articles of that type... reverted all of 'em. Seb az86556 (talk) 07:01, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Saw your changes to Area - thanks for that. As the notice refers to altering "formulæ" to "formula", perhaps s/he thought it didn't apply. *sigh* --Cpl Syx (talk) 07:17, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

"Formulae" vs "Formulas" (Formula)

You're a rude person. I fixed formulae, which is formulas. look, nobody i know uses this form of formulas. Are you trying to be pretensious. i dont know why wiki doesnt care about this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.139.60 (talk) 06:43, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The term "formulae" is a valid plural form of "formula" (See here: "Formulae" at Dictionary.com). Wikipedia does not encourage the changing of articles for no apparent reason, and the fact that you don't know anyone that uses the term is not sufficient to alter the article from its original form. I know many people who use both terms - some even interchangeably! As such I have reverted the edit, and stand by that decision. I'm not sure why that qualifies me as "rude", I've just pointed you towards a few helpful articles on editing Wikipedia. --Cpl Syx (talk) 06:52, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I apologize for calling you rude. But i think my point remains, if a word or a specific form of a word is rarely used it becomes "obscure" or "archaic". Believe it or not, language is defined by the majority of speakers who live in the present day. "Formulae" is a particular variant of "formulas" that has fallen out of favor, or common usage. Now since Wikipedia is a "current" encyclopedia, I don't understand why you feel the necessity to use language from the 1800s. How do I put this delicately... nobody uses this word anymore. Why dont you start an 1800s encyclopedia, and you can use all the various archaic English words. I would like to appeal this decision if that is possible. Thankyou —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.139.60 (talk) 19:28, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I would request that you firstly provide supporting evidence to your claim that "nobody uses this word anymore", and also for ""Formulae" is a particular variant of "formulas" that has fallen out of favor, or common usage". My concern is that you are classifying it as "rare", when in fact it is still widely used in the areas of science and mathematics.

If you manage to do so, please feel free to change every instance of "formulae" to "formulas" across Wikipedia, as articles should be consistent in their terminology. You failed to do so even in that one article - so be prepared for a considerable challenge. --Cpl Syx (talk) 07:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi again. You asked me to provide evidence that formulae is not in common usage. Well after viewing many dictionary sites with the word formulae, I notice that formulae is not used as the main entry. As I suspected, "formulas" is always the main entry. Formulae is a "variant" of formulas, just as I suspected. I did not even know how to pronounce formulae until reading the dictionaries, apparently it ends with a vowel ee sound. By the way, in all my years in college (Masters in Applied Mathematics) , more than 7 years, i have never heard the term formulee ever used instead of formulas by any mathematician. Why are you making wikipedia the encyclopedia of rarely used terms. Can YOU provide evidence of anyone who has used the term formulae. Can we at least agree, that "formulas" is more commonly used than formulae. What is the purpose of using formulae? Are you trying to showboat your knowledge of archaic terms. I dont think wikipedia is the right venue for this. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia used by the "majority" of people, not a few academic lone stars. I still would like to know how to appeal this decision. Please give me an email of your boss —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.139.60 (talk) 01:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, I dislike the accusational tone that you are taking, most notably by the comment "Are you trying to showboat your knowledge of archaic terms. I dont think wikipedia is the right venue for this." - this is completely unnecessary. It is not something I am taking upon myself to broadcast across Wikipedia; my original revert was performed to keep the article consistent. It would appear that you are taking my view on this to be a personal concern, when it is clear that you are unaware of Wikipedia's stance. Unsurprisingly this discussion has arisen in the past, and as such there exists a policy regarding it. Please take a look at the Manual of Style for mathematics, taking note of the line "If an article is consistent, then editors should not change the article from one style to another" in reference to formulae vs formulas.

Secondly, I'm not sure that you even understand how Wikipedia works - you seem to make statements that imply knowledge, but then ask me for the email of my boss... If you were not aware before then allow me to enlighten you: The many volunteers who devote their time to this project do not work for Wikipedia, and as such I do not have a boss, nor do I have anyone who I report to or work for, and I do not get paid for my contributions. I give my time freely to improving and maintaining Wikipedia.

Now to tackle the main point of your post. I did in fact ask you to provide supporting evidence for your claim that "nobody uses this word anymore". I am still yet to see anything other than unsourced claims or original views by yourself. Whilst you may have spent 7 years at university not using the term, I spent 5 years studying Physics and then Computer Science making very good use of it - nevertheless both points are irrelevant. Please provide sources of information that I can verify, that are not your own views. After looking at several online dictionaries myself, I am yet to find one that specifies "formulae" as being a variant of "formulas" - can you please support this claim also?

You request that I provide evidence of people using the term formulae, and so I shall. Google provides results that support my view, and I have used sources that are recent so as to counter your claim of it being an "archaic" term. Please look at the following academic papers: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. I could go on, but there would be little benefit! As you can see, the term "formulae" is still used, therefore you cannot possibly claim that "nobody uses this word anymore". --Cpl Syx (talk) 08:08, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Like 24.218.139.60 I too have a degree in applied math and I can vouch for the fact that "formulae" is still alive and kicking. Though it seems almost superfluous to add to Cpl Syx's impressive compilation of references, I did come across these lecture notes from MIT. Looks like the next generation will also be acquainted with this plural form of formula. Favonian (talk) 09:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I read your comment. My point still stands, the word formulas is more common than formulae. In fact, as I write this in the sandbox, the word formulae is underlined in red. Which means the spell check for Wikipedia does not recognize the word. Shouldn't that ring a bell. The word formulae is not as commonly used as the word formulas. (Need I repeat this a thousand times?) Your response was, to reiterate, there exists some mathematics articles which use formulae. That's fine. There are some math articles that are written in Latin, so using your logic we should only use Latin in math articles. The point is, most people do not speak Latin. Are you suggesting we use the word deux instead of deuce (wait is that french)... Wikipedia is an encyclopedia for the majority of people, which means common usage dictates which term gets used. I could not find one online dictionary where formulae is used as the main entry. I repeat, it is not the first entry. Sometimes formulae is not even in the dictionary (I couldn't find it in my Webster's dictionary at home). Please do me a favor, and type in "formulae" in the search box for wikipedia. I think you will be in for a surprise. Oh, and I apologize if I am being mean spirited. Sometimes i get carried away. I do want the email of your boss, if that's possible. This process should be transparent, and I feel like you are stonewalling me. You can write long supplications why we should use formulae. Its irrelevant because it's not in common usage. There are many words that fall out of favor , and we can write a book about abandoned words. Sounds like a great wiki project. My point is simple, formulae is rarely used. In fact, i bet that in all of wikipedia articles, the term "formulas" is used much more often than "formulae". Are you going to edit every article with the word "formulas", and substitute the less commonly used term "formulae"? Why don't you cast a vote to wikipedia readers. Should we entitle a main paragraph in wikipedia with "formulae" instead of formulas. I was reading your profile. You like FPS games. Thats cool, i enjoy COD 5. But I find that wherever you spawn there's someone aiming at you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.139.60 (talk) 07:01, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Let me start out by saying that I am not trying to dispute your claim of the word "formulas" being more common than "formulae". It's probably due to the usage of the former across the pond that has resulted in it being a more popular term than the latter. Nevertheless, formulae is still an English word, and even though most people do not speak Latin, most people using "en" Wikipedia read English and so I see no reason to stop using a valid term. You still make claims like "common usage", and "rarely", but I'm yet to see any evidence to support these. You asked me to provide sources to support my claim that the term is still being used, and I have, yet you appear to have ignored these. I'd also like to see some supporting evidence for your earlier claim of "nobody uses this word anymore", unless you have accepted that is, in fact, false. As a side point, the terms "deux" and "deuce" are not interchangable, so I'm not entirely sure of what you're getting at there.

That your copy of the Webster's dictionary does not contain the term is most likely due to an omission due to space constraints, as it is included in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary [8]. Most dictionaries omit words in their printed versions, as the complete versions are generally rather large.

At your request I entered "formulae" into the Wikipedia search box [9], but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be surprised by - would you care to elaborate?

You are correct in saying that there are many words that fall out of favour, it is just a fact of the natural progression of language. However when the word "formulae" is still being used (supported by my list of sources), I cannot see how it can fall into this category, and it certainly does not qualify as an "abandoned" word.

If the term "formulas" is more commonly used across Wikipedia than "formulae", I have no problem with that. My personal preference is that as the term "formula" is derived from Latin then the correct plural is "formulæ", but that's irrelevant! The fact remains that according to the Manual of Style for Mathematics:

The plural of formula is either formulae or formulas. Both are acceptable, but articles should be consistent with themselves. If an article is consistent, then editors should not change the article from one style to another.

This was the reason for your original reversion, I cannot explain it any more clearly. I am not planning to change articles from "formulas" to "formulae", as I am just following the Wikipedia guidelines. Are you planning to do the opposite? If so then I would suggest you prepare for other editors, also following the guidelines, who will be reverting your changes.

I have to repeat myself here, so please excuse the emphasis used: I do not have a boss here at Wikipedia. I do not work for Wikipedia, I am not employed by Wikipedia and I am not paid for my contributions. I do not report to anyone, nor does anyone check on me - if I turned my back on Wikipedia tomorrow and never signed in again, no-one would be calling me to ask where I was. Please do not think I am stonewalling you. There is nothing to prevent you from editing articles as you see fit, so long as those changes are within the guidelines set out by Wikipedia - the ones I linked you to when I made the reversion to your change would be a good start.

I'm not really sure what else to say on this, as you seem to be debating a point that is completely irrelevant to the reason for your reversion. --Cpl Syx (talk) 07:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

A bit late in the day, but I stumbled across this conversation via the Alexander Graham Bell page. Looking at the British National Corpus, formulae is used between three and four times as much (445 appearances versus 139), whereas the Corpus of Contemporary American English shows formulas used seven times more than formulae (1549 vs. 220). So it's something of a British vs. American English thing, although formulae certainly isn't obscure even in American English.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 07:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the research and input, VsevolodKrolikov. Your findings confirm something that I suspected! Hopefully we can put this whole thing to rest and just follow the guidelines where either term is acceptable. --Cpl Syx (talk) 09:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

No problem. I was ploughing through a couple of corpora (or corpuses for your friend here) at work at the time.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 09:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

This is useless. and who is that guy who made fun of me by writing "corpuses for this guy here". Thankyou for your condescension big smart academic nerd.

Forget it, you can use any word that you want, british or american or whatever. Hey its about time that english and american stopped spelling color and colour differently. we can save typing energy by dropping the "u". But grey versus gray, we have to settle for one or the other. Like the SI standards, we should drop british units, and use metric (like they do in England, just so you dont think i have anything against the Brits. The british have the right idea by adopting the SI units. Or we should invent a base ten measurement system that is very similiar to foot pounds inch, like calibrate an SI system which is easy to convert using multiples of ten and moving decimal places).

while im at it. i was wondering, since you wont give me the email of your boss, i will just assume that youre the boss (i hope you dont turn out to be like wikipedia's janitor who doesnt get any respect in the company. like that movie goodwill hunting, which is now a culturally important movie).

Here it goes...My question...wikipedia is a huge encyclopedia. Is there anyway to discern the cultural importance of an article or entry? Either a way to figure out how many hits get an article. Which might give an idea of its cultural importance. Like youtube where people check the number of views. Or you can make a scale , from 1 to 10, and give each website a number. Number 1 being very culturally important, like the declaration of independence. etc, and say a website about an obscure specie animal that gets very few views. Like only a doctor would read a wikipedia article about a specialized surgery on the tiber femur, but most people would read about the history of the United states. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.139.60 (talk) 08:40, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

(took the liberty and explained "Page view statistics" to user Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 10:10, 6 September 2009 (UTC))

I'm going to make this my last reply on this topic because it seems you don't even bother to read them.

Firstly, personal attacks are not acceptable, so please be careful how you address people who are adding their views on this topic.

You're right though, I can use any spelling I choose to; as long as articles are consistent. That's what Wikipedia says (see the links above to the MoS) - and I shall be continuing to abide by those guidelines.

I don't quite get what you're saying by referring to SI units - are you trying to imply that we should adopt a common language? I really cannot see that happening any time soon, even if it would make things simpler. I do like the fact that you point out to me the units we use here, Weather.com always entertains me with its selection between "English" and "Metric" units... when techincally they are the same thing!

Once more, (*sigh*) I don't have a boss. That's not how Wikipedia works - it seems, however, you are unable to grasp that concept. I'm also not the boss, that would probably be User:Jimbo Wales. You can email him if you like - although I doubt it will result in very much actually happening so do be prepared for that.

Seb az86556 has already pointed you towards Page View Statistics, so I don't need to repeat that. However don't think that only people already in a certain field will read related articles - I myself have read many articles that are outside my main interests, as I am sure many other Wikipedia users have done!

Finally, I am sorry that you have failed to understand my viewpoint on this subject, however I hope that it does not tarnish your view of Wikipedia or discourage you from editing. All the best. --Cpl Syx (talk) 07:44, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the history of the padlock

I'll thankyou for not changing back the correction I made to the padlock article. The padlock was invented by 17th century Udhav Goenka (1601-1654), I was trying to remove the vandalism that had sprung up recently on the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.181.128.206 (talk) 07:47, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at the actions of the user Abc1234pussy, just for reference. Favonian (talk) 07:53, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

124.181.128.206, I'll thank you not to clearly vandalise articles. "and his partner in crime"?! Don't be ridiculous.

Favonian, thanks for the information. The previous edit by Retro00064 led me to believe that it was a one-off edit, when I should have been more vigilant! I have no excuse for not looking back further through the history before reverting. :( Your conclusion regarding user Abc1234Pussy is clearly correct - well spotted. --Cpl Syx (talk) 08:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

No problem! By the way, if the Latin-hater in the preceding section causes further problems, I'll be happy to chip in. As a (lapsed) mathematician I can vouch for the continued use of "formulae" (hm, even though my spelling corrector doesn't like it). Since I'm the happy user of a Danish keyboard, I would even be willing to write "formulæ", but that would be pretentious :) Cheers, Favonian (talk) 08:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Have a look

....please [10] [11] thx Seb az86556 (talk) 08:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

You're absolutely right in saying that the author is not allowed to remove the deletion tag. Regarding the removal of the notification/warnings on the user page, I'm not sure what the stance is on removing these - but I doubt it's permitted before a certain time period. What does your "personal attack" refer to? If it's the statement directly above, I'd just disregard it as nonsense! Keep an eye on the article for further removal of the speedy deletion tag, and escalate the warnings as required - whether previous ones have been removed or not. --Cpl Syx (talk) 09:07, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

User just filed an edit-war report about me. User:Verbal is doing an ANI. Seb az86556 (talk) 09:19, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I saw the initial report after noting Verbal's comment on your user talk page. I'll be keeping an eye on it as it progresses. --Cpl Syx (talk) 09:40, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

On Diode

be careful about confusing Shockley and Schottky. Dicklyon (talk) 02:08, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I was unsure if "Shockley" was in fact correct usage, so did a quick Google which resulted in "Shottky diode equation" returning far more results. Having never come across the "Shockley diode equation", I determined this to be incorrect - however it would appear that I was wrong! Thanks for the notice. --Cpl Syx (talk) 06:37, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Google shows me more than twice as many for "Shockley diode equation" as for "Schottky diode equation" (maybe you searched without the quotation marks?). Most of the latter are probably errors; there are Schottky diodes, but not equations there that I know of. Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely correct, I did not search with quotation marks - resulting in the incorrect count. Unfortunately whilst checking through items from the recent changes list, I overlooked that small factor, and corrected an edit that was actually a mistake in the first place! In fact on reviewing the article it was pretty clear from the rest of that section that it was an attempt at vandalising the article; thankfully there are folk such as yourself who are clearly on the ball with such double-errors. Once again I offer my gratitude for your vigilance. --Cpl Syx (talk) 06:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Help with disruptive edits

Hi, we are having some trouble at Caster Semenya with some disruptive and unconstructive editors. Two in particular are on their final warnings for this behaviour: User:Doggins25 and User:Tookie140.

I am not sure where to go from here, and as you have warned Tookie140 in the past I figured you might be able to help.

Thank you. Acb314 (talk) 14:55, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I notice that the article has now been semi-protected, which should help with the situation at hand.

With regards to Tookie140, as this user has been blocked recently I would issue a single warning, such as {{uw-longterm}}, and if the vandalism continues then report the user to Administrator intervention against vandalism. If a user is already on their final warning, as is the case with Doggins25, then go ahead and report that user to AIAV as soon as the user vandalises again.

Usually warnings are issued in sequence, with the next step after warnings being to report them. However if a user is continuing to vandalise after returning from a block period, it is acceptable to issue a final warning immediately. Reporting that user will then involve an administrator, who will take action against the disruptive user. A user must always be warned appropriately before being reported, as they must be given a reasonable opportunity to stop before being blocked from editing.

I hope that helps, if you have any more questions don't hesistate to ask. --Cpl Syx (talk) 07:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the advice, I'll be able to deal with vandalism next time I come across it. Cheers! Acb314 (talk) 16:39, 27 August 2009 (UTC)