User talk:Modest Genius/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Colwidth

I just realized you changed the recommended colwidth from "30em" to "25em" on {{Reflist}}. I'm asking because I've added {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}} to a couple of hundred if not thousand articles over the past months, assuming that this recommendation would not change over night. Whose decision was this? Has there been a poll I wasn't aware of? --bender235 (talk) 01:07, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

(Sorry for the slow reply, I've been away) That was entirely unilateral on my part. I did have a search for any discussion as to the best value for the default, but was unable to find any. Having played around with the sizes on various different browsers and window sizes, 25em seemed to provide much better layout on non-maximised browsers over a variety of different articles; I've changed a decent number of individual articles to 25em myself. Personally, I think it's better for the number to be tailored to the individual article, rather than a single value adopted across the project. If there's any more substantive discussion anywhere, please point me in its direction! Modest Genius ^talk 16:37, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I could not find any discussion about this, either. That's why I was stunned by the fact that it changed over night. Personally, I think we should leave 30em as recommended, since it has been implemented on so many articles by now. That doesn't mean that you can't use 25em where ever you want to. Cheers. --bender235 (talk) 20:29, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that a certain number should be recommended merely because it is commonly used. Perhaps the best option would be to get the Usability people to look at it. Modest Genius ^talk 22:29, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay. I've started a discussion there. --bender235 (talk) 15:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Userbox Question

So why are you waiting for someone to delete your userbox? -Vcelloho (talk) 00:18, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Some years ago there was a some controversy over userboxes, with mass deletions, copies springing up in user space etc. That was my tongue-in-cheek attempt at a bit of humour at the time. Now it just gets vandalised on occasion. Modest Genius ^talk 17:59, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that was pretty soon after I'd joined Wikipedia. I actually have the best story from that time, too. First look at this: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/User:Disavian/Userboxes/No Evil Boxes. Then look at what he wanted to delete from my userspace. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 01:36, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok that makes sense. At first I was thinking that this was some non delete-able user-box so I copied your user page to my sandbox to see if I could delete it. After figuring out that it wasn't impossible to delete I was a bit confused. I had forgot that happened with user-boxes. -Vcelloho (talk) 23:17, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

That would be some impressive coding, to create some wikitext that was impossible to delete! Pretty sure it would be impossible without modifying some site-wide code. Modest Genius ^talk 00:31, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Some wikis are configured to have special tags where you can protect certain text by using <protected> and </protected> quasi-html tags. Or something along those lines. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 05:44, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

James E. Boyd (scientist)

Whenever you get some time, mind looking at James E. Boyd (scientist) again, by the way? I've made a lot of changes, and I think I've accomplished everything but I'm always up for suggestions. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 01:47, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, RL intervened, taking a look now Modest Genius ^talk 00:30, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

No problem! RL happens :) And thank you so much for making improvements to the article, some reviewers *cough*FAC*cough* list a thousand tiny nitpicks and expect the nominators to read their minds and/or fix all of them, and that's really hard! *high five* —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 05:41, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

ITN for 2010 Monaco Grand Prix

Cheers - Dumelow (talk) 18:32, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

ITN for 2010 ICC World Twenty20

--HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:45, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Specific impulse in km/s

Hi! I reverted an edit of yours. Just thought you should know in case you object. --Doradus (talk) 15:27, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I switched it back: although the two quantities tell you the same thing in two different ways, they have different units. Specific impulse has the dimensions of impulse, which are T, measured in seconds under SI. Effective exhaust velocity has the dimensions of velocity, which are L/T, measured in metres per second under SI. The two are related by $v_{\rm {e}}=g_{0}I_{\rm {sp}}\,$ ie. a factor of the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface. To quote from Specific_impulse#Units (emphasis added): 'By far the most common units used for specific impulse today is the second [...] The effective exhaust velocity of m/s is also in reasonably common usage' Modest Genius ^talk 15:33, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough. Works for me. --Doradus (talk) 16:38, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Taking another look, the specific impulse article could probably do with improving to make this clearer. Modest Genius ^talk 16:45, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Lords of the Treasury

Where did you get the idea that the Parliamentary, Chief, Financial, Economic, and Exchequer Secretaries to the Treasury are junior Lords of the Treasury? The first has long been the Chief Whip, and the others have long been ministers at the Treasury. As far as I'm aware, none of those positions has ever been part of the Commission. -Rrius (talk) 18:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

From the Great Officers of State article, which states: 'Some offices are put into "commission"; that is, multiple commissioners are appointed to collectively exercise the office. The office of Lord High Treasurer has been in commission since 1714: the First Lord of the Treasury is the Prime Minister, the Second Lord is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the remaining Lords Commissioners are Government Whips.', in combination with Lord of the Treasury which states 'In the United Kingdom, there are at least six Lords of the Treasury who serve concurrently' but only lists 2 of them (the usual four treasury secretaries would make the numbers up to six, with the current extra secretary making seven). They may well be in error, or I might have misunderstood - due actual 'third lord' 'fourth lord' etc positions exist? If so, Great Officers of State also carries a list that will need updating. Modest Genius ^talk 19:01, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The others aren't listed because they haven't been appointed yet. Other than the PM and Chancellor, the five junior lords (five because the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975 says only five can be paid) are whips. At this point, the new government has only announced its Chief Whip and two Deputy Chief Whip. In addition to the five junior Lords Commissioners, they still need to add a Vice-Chamberlain of the Household and seven Assistant Whips (perhaps more, if unpaid). Also, they need to add five Lords-in-Waiting (House of Lords Whips). Once the government finishes appointing whips, we'll be able to fill in Lord of the Treasury and some other related articles. -Rrius (talk) 19:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

CampbellSinnett

You can't put up a box that says I dare someone to delete this, and then get upset when someone deletes it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CampbellSinnett (talk • contribs) 01:27, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I don't mind once, but repeatedly gets a bit annoying. Modest Genius ^talk 02:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Just wondering...

Have you ever considered requesting adminship? Your name came up in a thread at WT:RFA and another admin around the Main Page would certainly not be a bad thing... HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:24, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I had considered it, actually, and it's nice to see my name being mentioned. However, real life means I don't have time to devote to an RFA right now, and I'd like to get my rewrite of William Herschel Telescope finished first. Maybe I'll give it a shot in a month or two. Modest Genius ^talk 12:52, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. Glad to hear it's not a flat "no". :) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:03, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Any reason that you know of why you shouldn't at least have rollback in the meantime? I see someone's just given you "reviewer", after all. Bencherlite^Talk 13:27, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'd probably never use it, but otherwise no! Reviewer has been handed out willy-nilly to just about anyone in an attempt not to generate a massive backlog when the trial is started tonight. I never knew anything about it until I was given the flag. Modest Genius ^talk 13:54, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Done. WP:ROLLBACK for guidance, incidentally, but you're sensible enough not to start rollbacking people because you disagree with their content changes, I'm sure! Bencherlite^Talk 14:04, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. I gave you reviewer on the off chance you might find it useful. Rollback's useful for reverting yourself, too, because of course, no admin would be stupid enough to bugger up ITN! ;) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:26, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

ITN for Dutch general election, 2010

--I'll stick the PM up when it's confirmed. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:17, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

ITN for Bloody Sunday (1972)

--HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:05, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Uh, hardly, I just copy-pasted prose & refs from the other article! Modest Genius ^talk 22:32, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Dynasty (sports)

You recently added {{Globalise/US}} to this article. It would be helpful if you would explain on the talk page what steps you feel could resolve the issue. Thanks! cmadler (talk) 12:22, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

ITN for Solar eclipse of July 11, 2010

--Given any more thought to an RfA? I'm not badgering, but ITN could use another admin. :) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:06, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Probably as good a time as any for it I guess. I'll run if you nominate :p Modest Genius ^talk 15:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Just a question.

Genius, I often notice you on WP:ITN as a regular there and you seem to spend a lot of time during the day on Wikipedia in general. You often make diligent and influential posts so I read through your bio; you're a post-doctoral researcher. How do you do it? That's a job description I would think would be fairly demanding, and yet you spend an awful lot of time here daily. Given you're status in the real world, how do you find the free time to do what you do on WP? Honestly, I'm going to become a doctoral student myself shortly but I love this project as well and I can't seem to find enough time consistently. What's your secret? Cwill151 (talk) 18:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I pop on for 5-10 minutes at lunch or tea break, it doesn't take long to glance at my watchlist and take a look at WP:ITN/C. It's probably not good for my productivity, but no worse than checking facebook every now and again. Besides, I think you're under some misapprehension over my real-life status - I'm very junior! Modest Genius ^talk 19:57, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

DYK for William Herschel Telescope

The DYK project (nominate) 12:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)