User talk:JohnBlackburne

Rockall, a small, isolated rocky islet in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Precious

images of Chester

Thank you for quality article articles such as St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street and Blueberry Girl, adding good illustrations, also making diagrams, for welcoming users and warning, for improving images, - mathematician, you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

That RM

FYI, the nom has proposed instead Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown) In ictu oculi (talk) 18:08, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

User: Verdy p

Hello John, For your information, I have started a discussion on the above user on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding their actions on the Rockall article and Talk:Rockall pages; with reference to this user's WP:CIVIL, WP:Assume good faith and WP:EDITWAR "contributions". In haste, David J Johnson (talk) 18:40, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

HK portal

Hey, I wonder in which way you consider Hong Kong as a country? HK is currently a SAR of China, which is a country. I suppose we can only call Hong Kong a territory rather than a country.--INDICATOR2018 (talk) 05:45, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

It’s a special administrative region yes, so is not a sovereign state. But it is considered a country for many purposes. E.g. for international travel, for customs and immigration it is considered separate. It has it’s own Country code, its own country calling code, considered a separate country for country of origin rules, and so on. This means it is considered a country and a city, and it makes sense to include it in both categories in case someone is looking for it from there.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:06, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Got it, thanks for your explanation. --INDICATOR2018 (talk) 10:03, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Another Daily Mail RfC

There is an RfC at Talk:Daily Mail#Request for comment: Other criticisms section. Your input would be most helpful. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:07, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

10,000

Sorry - I somehow reverted your reversion of the vandalism at 10,000 - not sure how/why but your reversion did not appear - apologies again - Arjayay (talk) 18:07, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

no worries. I’ve done that before myself. If you realise and self-revert then there is absolutely no problem. Just use good edit summaries to make it clear what happened, no need to message me.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:40, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Chinese Numerals

Well, I do not understand your point pertaining to me not being neutral. I understand wikipedia rules of neutrality. Please do your research. Also, you may ask an expert mathematics historian about the Arabic Numerals. Even wikipedia has mentioned the full description of the Arabic Numerals - which is Hindu - Arabic Numerals in full. If you have dispute then I will upload supporting link to justify my edit. Please respond within 24 hours. If not, I will go ahead and do my edit with required supporting links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karan Sharma82 (talk • contribs) 09:04, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Karan Sharma82, the article is at Arabic numerals as that is the common name for them. and as such it is the normal name to use for them in other articles too. If you disagree and think they should instead be called Hindu - Arabic Numerals then you should bring it up on that article’s talk page, Talk:Arabic numerals. But before you do so I recommend you read that article and its talk page, as you will see both address this issue.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 09:36, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

ref

greetings... You and the other editor are merely asserting "not reliable" source, for that ref, but not offering just how. Also, that source was already discussed and agreed upon, with consensus, and established some time ago. It seems more that you just don't like the ref cuz it doesn't seem to meet up to something like "Britannica" or something...but Wikipedia does not stipulate that it necessarily has to be so well-known to be "reliable". Learning.com is simply a teaching and student and academic website. And the statement is unsourced. So what's the big issue here? I always kneel to consensus (even if provably wrong), but let's not let "I don't like" be the real motivation to remove this thing. And forgetting that this is a WIKI...and no one editor "owns" any article...and respect other people's contributions. Regardless of personal tastes or likes. (And do me a favor. Refrain from putting "you will be blocked for edit-warring" tags on my page unless I violate 3RR or something. Which I haven't. And which I never do. Not cool. Don't do it again, unless and until I actually truly unambiguously "edit war". Thanks.) Regards. 71.246.98.233 (talk) 17:10, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Answered at User talk:Wcherowi ‎. Meters (talk) 05:19, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Arabic Numerals

Removing baised and politically motivated information which is not present in the sources (the first two). Discuss at talk page if you have any issues.Lptx (talk) 22:33, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Edit war and sock puppetry

Your recent editing history at Arabic numerals shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. Lptx (talk) 22:49, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Arabic numerals

Can you please have a word on the TP. I'm about too blow a gasket. Thanks. Kleuske (talk) 22:49, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Kleuske, the POV edit-warrior is blocked for 31 hours. Hopefully that will deter them from further disruption in the article or on the talk page.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 08:10, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I hope the 31 hrs are enlightening, but I don't think we've seen the last of it. Kleuske (talk) 11:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Why the revert on Republican China?

For clarifications sake. LampGenie01 (talk) 01:16, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Check the history of the page. It was a long standing redirect, converted to a disambiguation page. As a duplicate of an existing page it was not needed, but it should not be deleted but restored to its former state, as a redirect page. If anyone objects to it being a redirect then there are various things they can do, but it should not be speedily deleted.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 01:20, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Why the revert on wrong value of pi?

As justification for your revert, you wrote: "Unsourced OR and unclear what it is saying."
I clearly specified the source (Washington Park MAX station (Portland, Oregon)) and said that there is the wrong value of pi engraved.
I'm confused as to what is unsourced "OR and" unclear here. Please explain.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Williampfeifer (talk • contribs) 06:16, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Williampfeifer, I would note that other editors have added and removed it since my removal. As other editors are involved in this the best place to discuss this is the talk page of the article, Talk:Pi.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:31, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Do not help close a valid discussion

The closer closed my discussion based on his own POV. And you helped him do it and asserted that his behavior was valid. You did it based on your own POV, too. You need to understand that what you have done is unreasonable. --Matt Smith (talk) 13:03, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I see you have raised it at the the closing admins talk page, as I suggested in my edit summary. If I have anything to add I will reply there rather than splitting the discussion.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:58, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Einstein's thought experiments

You might want to consider withdrawing your nom of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Einstein's thought experiments at this point and requesting an early close. SpinningSpark 10:21, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually, my article has benefited a lot from John's nomination. He forced me to segregate primary and secondary sources in the reference list to demonstrate that I know the difference, and I've been gradually "defloridating" the text. I probably wouldn't have gotten a round tuit except for the nomination.

There is one florid word that I refuse to remove, however. That is where I refer to the EPR paper as being a "profound" contribution to the literature on quantum mechanics. I think that would be a the opinion of the great majority of physicists working in the field.

Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 00:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Forking Module:Zh for Mongolian

Hi John!

Template:lang-mn template is much less powerful than Template:lang-zh. The situation of Mongolian is similar to that of Chinese, where multiple writing systems exist. I wonder if it is possible to fork Module:Zh for Mongolian? -Mys_721tx (talk) 02:25, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Mys_721tx, it’s certainly possible, but I am not sure what need there is. Chinese is fairly unique in having not just multiple writing systems but multiple languages, or at least multiple dialects, that are considered Chinese. Also Template:lang-zh exists in part for legacy reasons, it would probably not be written the same way today.

Can you give some examples, of articles that might benefit from such a template. I can perhaps give you a better answer then, but right now I am unsure what the need is.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 12:17, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

For example, Mongolian language uses four different templates.

(in [[Mongolian script]]:  {{MongolUnicode|ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ<br>ᠬᠡᠯᠡ}} ''{{lang|mvf-Latn|Moŋɣol kele}}''; in [[Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet|Mongolian Cyrillic]]: {{lang|khk-Cyrl|монгол хэл}}, ''{{lang|khk-Latn| mongol khel}}'')

If a template like {{zh}} exists, a single template can be used for the script of all writing systems like the following:

({{mn|mn=ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ<br>ᠬᠡᠯᠡ|mt=Moŋɣol kele|cy=монгол хэл|ct=mongol khel}})

-Mys_721tx (talk) 14:14, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

An article other than that one. The Mongolian language article is on the language, so you would expect it to have far more detail on different ways of saying and writing the language than any other. As such it can be handled by multiple Lang or other templates.

But in an article about e.g. a person or place, I would think you only need the way its written in Mongolian and one way of Romanising it, which lang-mn already does. Chinese is exceptional as it’s common to have both Mandarin and another variety such as Cantonese, each with their own Romanisation, as well as both simplified and traditional Chinese characters as both are still in use. In some cases even more is needed, such as additional historic Romanisations. So it is more complex, with far more options, though norrmally only 2-4 are used at once.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:45, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Locations in the Inner Mongolia (Hohhot, Baotou) have a similar problem: China uses the Mongolian script in additional to Chinese and Mongolia uses the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet. Both have slightly different transliteration. -Mys_721tx (talk) 02:48, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Those are in China, so my first choice would be Template:lang-zh. Then add any other language before or after, separated by a semi-colon.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:31, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Republic of China (1912–1949)

Hello,JohnBlackburne I know you that you put the common names again on the links that show information of the states that suceeded the Republic of China, but instead of creating clarity on they are cereating inaccuracy,beacause for example the name Mongolia is the common name of two states:the People's Republic of Mongolia and the actual state that oficially is simply called Mongolia. And the states that suceeded the Republic of China are the People's Rebublic of Mongolia,the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China that installated on the island of Taiwan. --72.50.33.182 (talk) 15:39, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

The successor states, i.e. countries, are the countries China, Taiwan and Mongolia. Those are the common names of the countries, and the names of their articles. There is no need to use the full, formal name, such as People's Republic of China, which will just confuse some people not familiar with the name and unnecessarily clutter a small space in the infobox. China is clear, unambiguous and most likely to e recognised. The same is the case for Taiwan and Mongolia.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:51, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Ok. But isn't the same case of Mongolia, beacause Mongolia suceeded the Republic of China as People's Republic of Mongolia a communist coutry that it was extinct in 1992,and suceeded by the actual Mongolia. So the complete name is necessary to distinguish the actual non-communist Mongolia from the communist People's Republic of Mongolia that was one of the states succeeded the Republic of China -67.224.128.244 (talk) 18:11, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

The common name of the country then as now is Mongolia. There was not a different country there before 1992, which overnight vanished and another took its place. It’s the same country, just with a different government, a different political system. Just as China is the People’s Republic now, was the Republic of China before that, before which the Qing Dynasty was in charge. But throughout all this everyone called it "China".--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:21, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Ok. But when a new system of goverment is in charge of a territory (a state), as far as I see in Wikipedia articles, there's an individual article talking about that govmerment that controled the territory, and in the articles of former goverments that controled a territory, the links that conduce to the article goverment that suceeds and controls the territory they are writted with the country's full name. No matter if the past or present country and government were called commonly by the same name. See for example this article of a former country so yout can see what I saying: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Bulgaria -72.50.33.183 (talk) 14:15, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

I have the same question proposed above. The sucessors of "Republic of China" controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949 should be "People's Republic of China", "Republic of China" and "Mongolian People's Republic". I explained the reason to use the official names of these sucessors when I edited the article "Republic of China (1912–1949)" by notes (please see the edit records of the article "Republic of China (1912–1949)" by user "MouseCatDog"). In Wikipedia, the predecessors and sucessors of a regime are usually used their offical names, like the article "People's Republic of Bulgaria" mentioned above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MouseCatDog (talk • contribs) 05:00, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

MouseCatDog, the countries are called China, Taiwan and Mongolia. Those are the common names by which they are overwhelmingly known, and the titles of the articles. It is a principal of Wikipedia that links should match what they say – see WP:EASTEREGG. It makes sense here for two other reasons. First in a infobox conciseness is valuable, and the short names are much shorter. Second the names "Republic of China" and "People’s Republic of China" are likely to be confused with the article’s title. There is no space for a proper explanation, and it makes no sense to explain it in a hidden comment which readers cannot see.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:45, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I have a different opinion. After "Chinese Civil War" between 1946 and 1950, "Republic of China" which only de facto controls "Taiwan area" since 1949, and "People's Republic of China" succeeded "Republic of China" which controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949 by government, and belong to China by sovereignty. If use their common names, like China and Taiwan, it seems that there are two different countries named China and Taiwan succeeded "Republic of China" controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949, which is likely to support "Taiwan independence movement" and becomes so misleading. In addition, "Outer Mongolia" was a part of China until 5 January 1946, when "Republic of China", which controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949, officially recongnized its independence. Thus, "Mongolian People's Republic", which de facto controlled "Outer Mongolia" at that time, became a sovereign state and one of the successors of "Republic of China" which controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949. "Mongolia", which succeeded "Mongolian People's Republic" in 1992 by revising "Constitution of Mongolia", is irrelevant to "Republic of China" which controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949, so it is also misleading to use the common name "Mongolia" to represent one of the successors of "Republic of China" which controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949. In conclusion, it is a good idea to use the official names to show the successors of "Republic of China" which controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MouseCatDog (talk • contribs) 10:42, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

You write

If use their common names, like China and Taiwan, it seems that there are two different countries named China and Taiwan succeeded "Republic of China" controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949, which is likely to support "Taiwan independence movement" and becomes so misleading.

There are two different counties China and Taiwan. That does not imply Taiwan is independent; it most clearly is not by many criteria. such as international recognition by other countries, or having a seat on international bodies from the UN down. But it is a country. Such details over its precise status are properly covered in other articles. They are not important for Republic of China (1912–1949). So we only need to give the names of the countries as they are known today, China, Taiwan and Mongolia. More detail can be given in the article, while irrelevant details such as Taiwan’s modern status can be covered in other articles.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:19, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think so. China is a country and Taiwan is an area belong to China. Before 1895, Taiwan was a part of China. Taiwan was a colony of Japan from 1895, when China (China was represented by Qing dynasty at that time) ceded Taiwan to Japan by Treaty of Shimonoseki, to 1945, when Japan handovered Taiwan to China (China was represented by Republic of China at that time). Taiwan is a part of China since 1945. "Republic of China", which only de facto controls "Taiwan area" since 1949, and "People's Republic of China", which only de facto controls "Chinese mainland" since 1949, are Chinese regimes, and their de jure territories consist of the whole China. Thus, it is misleading to regard the regime "People's Republic of China" as the country "China" and regard the regime "Republic of China" as its de facto controls area "Taiwan" at the same time. If we show the two regimes in this article, please use their official names. Otherwise, it is likely to support "Taiwan independence movement" and bocomes misleading. In addition, "Mongolian People's Republic" succeeded part sovereignty of "Republic of China" in 1946, and "Mongolia" succeeded "Mongolian People's Republic" by government in 1992. Thus, "Mongolian People's Republic", instead of "Mongolia", is the successor of "Republic of China" controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MouseCatDog (talk • contribs) 10:30, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

None of that contradicts what I wrote. China, Taiwan and Mongolia are countries, or states. This does not imply all are sovereign states. Taiwan in particular has very limited recognition.

In this case it does not matter what they are. It matters what they are called. Their names are China, Taiwan and Mongolia. Those are the names they are overwhelmingly known by, the names of the articles. So those names should go in the infobox linked to those articles. Anything else is likely to confuse readers. Put the more detailed explanations in the article, but keep the infobox simple anc clear.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:20, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

You don't understand what I mean carefully. There is sole China as a country in the world and Taiwan is an area belong to China by sovereignty. The regime "People's Republic of China" and "Republic of China" belong to China by sovereignty. China is the name of country which consists of Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, Taiwan is the name of area which de facto controlled by the regime "Republic of China" only since 1949. After Chinese Civil War between 1946 and 1950, there is only a new regime named "People's Republic of China" was established, and the regime "Republic of China" still exists. There isn't any new country named "China" or "Taiwan" established in the territory of China. If you want to show the relationship between the country China and the area Taiwan, it should be that:

China

• Taiwan

However, It should show the successors of "Republic of China" controlled Chinese mainland here. The two regimes named "People's Republic of China" and "Republic of China" exist at the same time in the territory of China, so it is better that use the official names of the two regimes. If you use the country's name "China" and the area's name "Taiwan" to call the two regimes respectively, it is likely to support "Taiwan independence movement" and becomes misleading. In conclusion, the area "Taiwan" belong to the country "China" by sovereignty, but the regime "People's Republic of China" and "Republic of China" exist respectively in the territory of the country named China.

In addition, "Mongolian People's Republic" succeeded part sovereignty of "Republic of China" in 1946, and "Mongolia" succeeded "Mongolian People's Republic" by government in 1992. Thus, "Mongolian People's Republic", instead of "Mongolia", is the successor of "Republic of China" controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949.

It should use the rigorous words in the Wikipedia article. In my opinion, it is rigorous to use the official names to show the successors of "Republic of China" controlled "Chinese mainland" between 1912 and 1949. The officical names of the three successors are clear, because the official names give the historic details by themselves. In addition, the officical names of the three successors aren't too long. If you use the so-called common names, it will ignore the historic details and become misleading.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MouseCatDog (talk • contribs) 3:33, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Math Portal intro

In light of this edit, please comment at Portal talk:Mathematics#Change of intro. - dcljr (talk) 20:46, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

China

Hello, I am undoing your change removing "population growth or" I added it to make it clearer for people to understand. Removing it makes it less easy for people to understand. Please let me know if you have other suggestions. Krishna Pagadala (talk) 18:31, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

I have answered on the article talk page. Better to discuss this there than split the discussion.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:36, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Tiananmen West Station

I've stuck the proposed move into the extant move request at Talk:Xizhimen Station, which is supposed to apply to all articles about Beijing Subway stations. I hope this is fine (the rest of the Beijing Subway articles should be tagged, though). Jc86035 (talk) 12:12, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Hello, JohnBlackburne. You have new messages at Talk:President of China#Redirect or disambiguation.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--Bejnar (talk) 17:05, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Table formatting

The original version of the table I reformatted on Maxwell's equations is too wide for my computer screen and almost twice as long as my version of the table. It wastes large amounts of space, and the text in the narrow "meaning" column is hard to read. Please consider undoing your reversion of my edits or provide some kind of explanation for your comment that my version is "far worse" than the original. —Coder Dan (talk) 03:29, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Frankly your layout was incomprehensible. E.g. it put Name, Meaning then the actual names and meanings in the middle, separated by the equations. This made it impossible to tell from the table that they were two separate things, or which was which, unless you were already familiar with the equations and their meanings. And without understanding the names the equations don’t make sense.

I don’t see any problems with its width. I normally have a quite narrow browser window, and it all fits, though the descriptions are a bit cramped. I removed some unnecessary bolding which should help a little, and removed the duplicate descriptions which helps a lot. Hard to do much more though without losing content.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 03:42, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

The headers are obviously a template for the content below them. Thank you for edit warring.—Coder Dan (talk) 13:27, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

I’ve removed the text from the first table (having done so for the second table already). This makes it far more compact and reasonable I think. Each line starts with the name linked to its article, so anyone unfamiliar with an equation who wants to know what it means can visit its article, where they should find a much more comprehensive description than can fit in the cell of a table.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 00:04, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Thx for fixing my bad

Thx for fixing the error I introduced on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_World_Cup_disciplinary_record

Did you take the time to read the talk page?

The reason I introduced the error was because I was trying to make a change that reflect that the current way of counting cards does not include second yellows. I think that not including this information gives the readers the wrong idea of the amount of cards in the tournament. It certainly makes it hard to compare data from this football tournament with other football tournaments that has a different way of counting.

Are you by able to fix (or show me) how to make such a change?

Tryingtohelpalittle (talk) 10:23, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi Tryingtohelpalittle, that part of the article is generated by a template, {{International football competition statistics}}, and only has fields for 'yellow cards' and 'red cards'. It does not to me specify how yellow cards counting towards a red card are treated. See Template:International football competition statistics#"Discipline" template. As this is a template used on many articles any changes or clarifications would need to be made there and you should raise the issue at the template’s talk page: Template talk:International football competition statistics, or at the football project (linked from that page) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 10:32, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Sharada Peeth

PoK (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) is widely considered to be the proper designation for that part of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir which has been occupied by Pakistan in 1947-48 timeframe. Azad Kashmir (which means freed kashmir) is non-constructive term and historically inaccurate. I will revert your edits. Thanks for understanding.--Telugujoshi (talk) 20:51, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Telugujoshi, unfortunately there is no article PoK, or Pak occupied Kashmir. The article and so most appropriate target is Azad Kashmir. If you think its name is misleading you should first raise it at that article’s talk page, Talk:Azad Kashmir. But it is a bad idea to change working links so they point to non-existent articles, it just makes it harder for editors and readers to use Wikipedia.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 04:03, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne, thanks. I am in the process of creating an article Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and redirect PoK to that page. I will try to make the changes such that both Indian and Pakistani points of view are represented. This is not an isolated problem since the page Azad Kashmir was created first without nary a reference to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. It is a sensitive issue on which Wikipedia should not take sides, in my humble opinion. Thanks once again for your explanation.--Telugujoshi (talk) 22:37, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Reversion of edit on octonions

The link was to a Cambridge University video. Does that not qualify ? Robma (talk) 16:36, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Using youtube videos as sources is bad for a number of reasons. They require special software to view, and bandwidth. They are less accessible to non-native speakers of English, who can take a printed source at their own pace, using a dictionary or translation service. They are not stable as they can be removed at any time, while a paper source with a publisher, DOI etc. is far more reliable, a web source can be found in an archive even after being removed. So printed/online text sources are far better, and should be used instead if available. As the article already contains a number of quality sources it does not need a video adding which probably adds no new information.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 16:47, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Reason for removing paras from article on Flow-Based Programming

Hi John, a colleague recently informed me that a couple of his updates to the article on Flow-Based Programming (FBP) had been removed (in March 2017), so he has given up updating this article. This is unfortunate, as it makes the article appear increasingly irrelevant to today's application development disciplines, whereas in fact FBP has kept up to date, and is in fact on the cutting edge! The FBP Google group has 781 members as of today! The two paras he added refer to software systems that are also quite well-known in the "Data Flow" software field (NoFlo and Fractalide), so it would be appropriate to include them. I did not know about his additions, or their removal, as I no longer spend much time on WP... There are now many other "data flow" systems that have been developed over the last few years, so this article badly needs updating...

When I checked to see who had removed his most recent additions, and why, your name came up, with the reason, "two dubious and unsourced/improperly sourced paragraphs". Could you clarify? My colleague's additions cite two web sites, so I get the feeling that there is a problem using web sites as citations, or is the problem specific to these two software systems? A few years ago, someone told me that citations had to cite a paper article - is this still the case? Or perhaps s/he meant that citations had to refer to articles in official software publications issued by a publishing house (whether soft or hard copy)...? We would appreciate it very much if you could give us some pointers on how to keep this article and similar ones up to date, while adhering to current Wikipedia (or Wikimedia?) standards... TIA Jpaulm (talk) 18:53, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Jpaulm, you mean this edit I think. The standard for references is they should be to reliable secondary sources. Reliable means published in something like a journal, book or newspaper with some degree of editorial control. Secondary means independent of the subject. The sources used were neither reliable nor secondary, being just to the web sites of the implementations.

More generally it is not normally worth including individual implementations, in e.g. different programming languages. It’s the nature of programming that pretty much any algorithm can be written in pretty much any programming language. And on the internet it’s inevitable someone will have tried doing so, in all sorts of languages. Wikipedia is not a directory, not a source code listing service. Unless they are especially notable or remarkable, as described in appropriate sources, we should not include any of them.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:25, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt answer! That's quite a bit clearer! I'm hoping you will stay patient with my questions for just a while longer... It's hard for us lay people to keep up with the various WP rules - e.g. I had never heard of NOTDIR before! There is also a degree of subjectivity in the phrase "some degree of editorial control". Re NoFlo, there is so much material out there (I'm less familiar with Fractalide, so I'm not commenting on that)... for instance, would https://www.sitepoint.com/flow-based-programming-noflo/ on the Site point web site be acceptable (it also mentions FBP)? Or https://www.infoq.com/news/2013/08/noflow-kickstarter ? Or https://dzone.com/articles/noflo-two-years-flow-based ... Just a few of the first examples from the Google search for NoFlo... In spite of NOTDIR, I note that IBM's Node-RED is in WP, and almost certainly inspired by NoFlo, or at a conceptual level by my work. In its text, it uses the term "flow-based", although it's "FBP-inspired" like NoFlo, rather than implementing classical FBP (described in my article)...

Or would it be better for NoFlo to have its own WP article, and cross-reference FBP? But then Henri Bergius (its author) would be banned from authoring the article... Apologies, but I am genuinely confused - as they say, the devil is in the details! Could you indicate a way we could document FBP's evolution over the last 40+ years...? If we don't do this, then non-WP experts will think WP wants (in Henri's phrase) to keep FBP merely as a "historical programming technique without relevance to [the] modern world". TIA Jpaulm (talk) 18:17, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

None of those look like good souces to me. They look too promotional, not independent of the subject. It is normally easy to recognise good sources. Research results are published in reputable journals, established topics are covered in books from established publishers, current events are reported in mainstream newspapers. Blogs and websites can be acceptable sources but only ones with a good reputation for reliability. On computing that might be a site like Wired or Ars Technica. If it’s not a good topic for inclusion in another article it is even less likely to deserve its own article. Doubly so if it written by someone closely involved in it, which is strongly discouraged – see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:02, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

That's great, John! Thanks for clarifying this issue - I think I understand it a lot better! I will share this with Henri, and do some investigation myself... Jpaulm (talk) 02:31, 30 July 2018 (UTC)