User talk:Billlion/archive

Welcome from Finlay McWalter

Hi there. Wow, it already looks like you've been really productive in your first couple of days at wikipedia, and I do hope you stay with us. I'm particularly glad you decided to write Kagyu Samyé Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre, something I've been meaning to start myself. Thanks! Here's the usual "welcome blurb", although you seem to be doing pretty well without it:

You might find these links helpful in editing pages or creating new ones: How to edit a page, Tutorial, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should probably read our policies at some point too.

But don't feel you have to read every policy document before you do anything. Dive in, be bold in editing, and if you do anything wrong, someone will be quick to correct it and let you know (hopefully, politely!)

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

You may have already noticed that you can sign your name using three tildes, like this: ~~~. If you use four, you can add a datestamp too, as I've done below. This is mostly useful, and is considered good wikiquette, on talk pages. But be aware that the actual wikipedia articles should never be signed - they belong to the community, rather than the individual who created them.

Again, welcome! -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:00, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

UK railway stations - W

Hello Billion. Kudos for your many edits & images over the past few days. I hope you won't mind, but I've reverted your edit on the UK railway stations - W page. Links in the first column of the table are (so far) all to articles about the specified railway station, not the town to which it is attached. I'd encourage you to write even the stubbiest article about the railway station, and, perchance, take a photo of it sometime? best wishes --Tagishsimon

Oh. And you might find some pages which are crying out for a Whaley Bridge link, from Districts of England. --⁹

Thanks Tagishsimon that's fine. I'll take my camera down, maybe in one of the brief intervals between it being painted and vandalised. Unfortunately the station is one of the town's rather neglected features although it could be quite pretty. Billlion 09:59, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Value of a billion

Because of your user name, here's a question for you.

What power of 10 did you originally learn the word billion as meaning?? I was taught 10^9, but I have to live with the fact that many people think it is 10^12. 66.245.17.10 02:09, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi 66.245.17.10. Well I have 3 lll's (Bill+Lion). (Reminds me of joke about one L Lamas two LL Llamas and three L ....). The British usage is 10¹², a million million which has a certain logic (bi+million). This is how I was taught at school in England in the 1960s.

That is now referred to a a British Billion. The American billion in a thousand million, 10⁹, what we used to call a milliard. To make matters confusing, the American useage is now used when talking about amounts of money in the UK, eg in newspapers and on the radio. Perhaps becuase 10⁹ pounds or dollars is a more useful unit. Not all explained in Billion (want to fix it?). Best practice is to stick to the convention of 10⁹ for money, and in scientific discusions use either scientific notation or use Giga for 10⁹ and Tera for 10¹². Actually I like the sound of Giga pounds. Billlion 09:59, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Much more comprehensive discussion on billion now Billlion 20:26, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Section headings

It might have just been a mistake, but I noticed you placed a section heading on Talk:Applied mathematics in single-equal signs (=X=). By convention, the top-most heading on any page is a second-level heading (using double-equals: ==X==) since the page title itself acts as the first-level heading. Doing it with single-equals also messes up the Table of Contents feature. See Wikipedia:Section. Anyway, I fixed your heading and followed up on your comment. - dcljr 20:26, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Dcljr just a mistake. Billlion

Devil's Coach-horse Beetle

Devil's coach-horse beetle I've done some editing and brought the taxobox in its proper order. The name of this beetle is in Dutch "stinkende kortschildkever", in French 'staphylin odorant', in German 'Kurzflügler' and in Danish 'Rovbillen' JoJan 15:32, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Too many capitals in some of your articles

Hello. Please note that as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style, we don't capitalized an initial letter just because it's in a section heading. Thus "External links" and "See also", not "External Links" and "See Also". (Newbies often do this.) Also, the fact that a letter is the first letter of a link is not a reason to capitalize it. The first letter, unlike the subsequent ones, is case-insensitive. And usually a plural is not appropriate as an article title; you can write [[dog]]s or [[Australia]]n or [[apocrypha]]l, etc. Michael Hardy 17:04, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Michael, those were very early ones and I didn't remember to go back and fix them as I learned more. By the way I appreciated you writing an article on an_infinitely_differentiable_function_that_is_not_analytic. Would be nice to have a graph, when you see it it really is incredibly flat! 18:07, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Also thanks for teh TeXing on Tikhonov regularization.Billlion 18:56, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In reply to you question on that article: both Tex displays appear rendered in the same way on my browser. I suspect it has to do with the way you have your Wikipedia preferences set (especially if you've never knowingly set them). Probably the ones your seeing differently from the way they would appear if they were just html are the ones that cannot be done with just html. Michael Hardy 20:43, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You are right, it depends on settings. Thanks. Billlion 20:48, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Cat:Math

I'm trying to keep Cat:Math relatively clear of articles, and putting articles in one of its subcategories. If Cat:Mathematical logic was inappropriate for Inverse problem, could you please categorize it in one of the Cat:Math subcategories as appropriate? Thanks Dysprosia 22:07, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Will do. Billlion 06:48, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I saw you figured it out. Sorry for the latish reply. Dysprosia 00:21, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Toads and categories

Thanks for consulting on this. I haven't really though through categories yet, but my instinct is that "frogs" and "toads" are (a) too fine-grained and (b) too fuzzily defined to be useful categories - "amphibians" seems much more likely to be useful. If you haven't looked for discussions on WikiProject Tree of Life and the corresponding talk pages yet, it would be worth seeking guidance (or at least others' ideas) there. seglea 20:47, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Pictures from other language wikipedias?

I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your question. I'd be interested to find out as there are some bird pictures I'd like to copy. Mwng 09:07, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

---

Hello Billlion

Thanks for asking if you could use my picture of a hare :-) I have found the original and tried to improve the picture a bit, I hope thats ok. I uploaded it as "running_hare.jpg" and has translated the caption. If you would correct my english that would be fine :-)

Please feel free to use any of my pictures (Gallery) if you think they fit to one of your articles, my only request is that my name follow the picture. It would be great too if you could put a link on the danish picture page, that way I can se where its being used. Malene 20:11, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Rn

Dear Billlion,

I now realize that I have been rather brusque in changing $\mathbb {R} ^{n}$ to Rⁿ in Simon Donaldson. Sorry for that, and feel free to revert my change. I hope you are not detered from further expanding the article when you have time. I had a look at The geometry of four-manifold a couple of years ago, but I couldn't make much of it. Apparently you fared better; at least you know there is an intriguing connection between his work and instantons. Just out of curiosity, is there any connection between inverse problems and four-manifolds?

Best wishes, Jitse Niesen 11:37, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words. I might wait until mathml rendering looks a bit better (at least on my browsers) before reverting the edit. I had the good fortune to attend Donaldson's graduate lecture course some years ago in Oxford, and I did understand quite a lot of it at the time! I haven't directly used exotic 4-space in any in any inverse problems, but I have used geometric ideas, for example anisotropic Electrical impedance tomography is equivalent to an inverse boundary value problem for a (three dimensional) Riemannian manifold. Ideas of Gauge transformations are important here. Simon Donaldson helped me learn some of the necessary differential geometry, he is very kind and patient but operates on a completely different level of understanding of geometry from ordinary mortals such as myself. Billlion 12:35, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Conflict

This might sound a little strange, but I am purposefully avoiding editing the Karmapa page right now. I'll take another look at it next year January. - Nat Krause 07:02, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been following the work you've been doing on it. Good work. - Nat Krause 08:14, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Although, check it out now. It never stops. - Nat Krause 15:11, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ableian law.

It was of course the first Abel, his father plucked the abelian grapes from the tree of knowledge. Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel made a small group of four, or as the Germans say "ein klein vier gruppe". Rich Farmbrough 14:56, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Slug

Hi Billion, Slug is a well-written article, even if it overlaps somewhat with Gastropod As to the taxonomy, you can find it under Gastropod, down to the level of superfamily. I wouldn't go down any further in this rather general article, because there are just too many families and genera. Maybe I'll tackle that problem somewhere in a far future. But at the moment I'm just too busy writing articles (or improving stubs) in the botany section. Lately I have been writing on the orchid family Orchidaceae and there is still a lot a work to be done. JoJan 14:37, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

TeXnical questions

Can you explain why in Tikhonov regularization#Generalized Tikhonov regularization there are two formulas in LaTex form between math containers, but one gets typeset as

$\|Ax-b\|_{P}^{2}+\alpha ^{2}\|x-x_{0}\|_{Q}^{2}$

while the other is rendered in HTML?

$x_{0}+(A^{T}PA+Q)^{-1}A^{T}P(b-Ax_{0}).$

is it just due to their complexity?

I finally figured out what you meant by this question. On the browser I'm using, both appear typeset in the way that TeX usually does things. Apparently it's partly browser-dependent. And it may also depend on how your wikipedia preferences are set. OK, tell me if the following looks any different to you from what appears above:

$\|Ax-b\|_{P}^{2}+\alpha ^{2}\|x-x_{0}\|_{Q}^{2}\,$

$x_{0}+(A^{T}PA+Q)^{-1}A^{T}P(b-Ax_{0}).\,$

On my browser, no changed appears, but if one does on yours, look at the difference in the TeX code. Michael Hardy 23:27, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes they are different on my browser (I am using Konqueror). I see the slash comma makes all the difference, forcing TeXing. Thanks. Billlion 07:06, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Peveril of the Peak

You're right. Peveril of the Peak was apparently an illegit son of Cromwell! (All those years in Derby spent cherishing the wrong association, of the hotel in Dovedale with the Castleton Castle.) Thanks for picking it up.

Grass Snake vs Ringed Snake vs Water Snake

I have explained my grounds on the article talk page. -Hapsiainen 00:43, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

The Humungous Image Tagging Project

Hi. You've helped with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Syntax, so I thought it worth alerting you to the latest and greatest of Wikipedia fixing project, User:Yann/Untagged Images, which is seeking to put copyright tags on all of the untagged images. There are probably, oh, thirty thousand or so to do (he said, reaching into the air for a large figure). But hey: they're images ... you'll get to see lots of random pretty pictures. That must be better than looking for at at and the the, non? You know you'll love it. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

• Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
• Multi-Licensing Guide
• Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Unverified image

Thanks for uploading the image

• Image:Centre for world peace on holy isle with flags.jpg

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GFDL, or {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know where you got the image and I'll tag it for you. Thanks, Kbh3rd 06:28, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It already has a {{gfdl}} tag. Did you man some other image? Billlion 07:17, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Requested move

I reverted your edits on requested moves and I wanted to explain why. The huge image made the page difficult to load and display. And that page is not for image moves--see the instructions. You should be able to rename the image yourself. Best of luck. Jonathunder 23:40, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)

If you are having trouble moving the image, try seeing if someone on the Village Pump can do it for you. Or try the main room IRC chan if you have access to that. There are always helpful people hanging out there. Jonathunder 00:17, 2005 Mar 29 (UTC)

Zeeman

Good point. He's now colisted as Danish and British. If it had explicitly said he'd taken UK citizenship - or even just given details of the knighthood - I'd have spotted it, but the "Sir" passed me by. The "by nationality" category isn't all that rigid, but certainly there's got to be a substantial link (just getting born in Denmark while your parents are passing through doesn't make you Danish by nationality, for example). Citizenship obviously cuts it, and apparently Zeeman has been (at some point) a Danish citizen and later a British one, so I listed him as both. Sometimes ethnicity will suffice - if he'd been an ethnic Dane from North Germany, especially before the bureaucratic side of citizenship developed, then almost certainly he'd be listed as both Danish and German. It's probably better to be inclusive in categorisation, and maybe risk a little "horizontal redundancy" between "by nationality" subcategories. At any rate, that was a good spot of yours! VED

Wylie Transliteration

Dear Billion, Is the word Kagyu really so well known? In all academic publications it is spelled Bka'-brgyud. Perhaps Kagyu is better known than Bka'-brgyud among buddhism enthusiasts, that is unfortunate, the latter does have the advantage of being right. It isn't an English word after all. How about this for a solution-- The first time an article uses a word give the wrong but common spelling in parentheses, and the continue with the correct spelling. e.g.

Bka'-brgyud The Bka'-brgyud (often mistakenly spelled Kagyu in the popular press) school of Tibetan Buddhism was founded by Sgam-po-pa, a doctor born in Dwags-po. etc. etc. The major tenents of the Bka'-brgyud school include... etc. etc.

Well one fairly naive test often applied in wikipedia is the Google test. Kagyu gets 126,000 hits where as Bka'-brgyud 2,730. There are many branches of the Kagyu lineage outside Tibet, and all refer to the to it in that way, even many in non English speaking countries (eg France). So Kagyu is used by the kagyu lamas outside outside Tibet, their followers and students, and everyone who has come to know about the lineage through their activities and publications (buddhism enthusiasts is a bit of a derogatory term for teachers and practitioners of the Buddha Dharma. Perhaps it is scholars who do not practice who are the enthusiasts). Whereas Bka'-brgyud is used by scholars. Now that may be wrong, but it is not up to wikipedia to change language and it is not a suitable forum to launch a crusade for tibetan spelling reform! It will of course be very difficult to judge to what extent a common spelling has taken root outside Tibet. Certainly words like Kagyu, and Milarepa have, but there are many cases where this is not the case.Billlion 15:08, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What shall we do in those cases where an English version has not taken root, to repeat my example Gyamtsho, Jamtso, Gyatso, etc? I also want to point out that in a very real sense Tibetans all spell the word Bka'-brgyud when they write Tibetan, because that is how it is spelled in Tibetan.

I apologize about Budhist Enthusists I feared that if I said 'Buddhists' I might exclude people who have not actually taken refuge, but who are also interested parties. Perhaps the antipathy you expressed toward scholarship was not earnest, I hope not. Personally I think it a pity that many of those who find Vajrayana a path to salvation do not bother to learn the language of their teachers, or read their own holy scriptures. In my own opinion if Buddhism is ever to truly take root in the West it must be treated with the same level of care and respect as the west has treated Christianity, and that means lots of scholarship, lots of professors of Tibetan studies, etc. etc. Finally, your post has a strong implication that I am not a beleiving or practicing Buddhist which you of course have no way of knowing. --Nathan hill 10:34, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sorry if I casued offence, and I am sure you didnt intend to either. Should vajrayana practitioners learn tibetan? I am not sure but I have heard both views expressed by Kagyu teachers, and also different advice to different people, perhaps depending on their ability to learn the language. For some learning the language could be a distraction from learning to meditate perhaps. That said, as far as I know it is fairly typical for lamas in the vajraya tradition of western origin and trained in the west to read and speak tibetan. Christianity is also an interesting comparision. I know nothing of aramaic but should Jesus be changed to Yeshua (or something like that) in wikipedia? And while there is certainly merit in your argument for respect towards the tibetan language, Wikipedia is not a soapbox as they say! Billlion 17:55, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Talk:Tibet

Billlion,

Please let me know what you think and if you agree on my comment on Talk:Tibet. If you do, would you be able to help me in changing User:Nathan Hill's edits so that it has both methods of spelling with Wylie not as the default? ---User:Hottentot

Urgyen versus Orgyen

Unfortunately even in the Tibetan script these both exist, U rgyan and O rgyan. It is a transliteration of an Indian place name and Tibetans are never sure how to spell those. I think it is Udiyana, but I am not sure how to spell that either. --Nathan hill 15:18, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Apropos of articles I have changed

In general when I have edited other peoples work I have not just changed spellings, but also changed factual content, therefore it is with some dismay that I notice that some of my pages such as Dge-lugs pa, have been reverted. If you or someone else wants to move the Wylie into parenthesis, but to simply zap my work takes little account for the value of my time. --Nathan hill 15:36, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well its still there in the edit history. It was just rather hard to pick out just the spellings as you did those first. I had intended to come back and pick out the other bits, and reinstate them, and not yet got around to it. Billlion 16:48, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Testacella haliotidea

I gave you an answer on my user page. BTW, I am up for election for adminship - please express your opinion (for or against) at - Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/JoJan JoJan 21:16, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. JoJan 17:36, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Renaming images

Hi Billlion. To get Image:IMG 0346.JPG renamed, you should simply download the image and reupload it with a new title. Then write {{isd|New image title}} at the old image description page. dbenbenn | talk 22:12, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

New Kadampa Tradition

Hi Billion. I put back the aspect of the "800" centers. My point of view you can read at the discussion side. Please convince me if you do not agree. But 800 centers is just advertisement of their own. --Kt66 18:12, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Request

Hi Billion I cherish also nowadays your basic neutral style. Could you please check New Kadampa Tradition wikisite / and Discussion board and check if there is anything to improve or should be pointed out? thanks a lot --Kt66 10:29, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi Billion I would like to ask you to offer advice and help regarding the NKT article. I have put almost all of the suggestion into practice. It seems nobody really contributes now anymore, maybe all feel a little bit tired with it. If you have some time and see it as worthwhile maybe you can go through the text and make it more NPOV where needed, remove what you feel inappropriate and also remove grammar, language and spelling errors? Thank you very much, --Kt66 11:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Dorje Shugden

Nowadays only members and supporters of the rich, western, but minor sect that calls itself New Kadampa Tradition (which split from Gelug in the 1990s after their leader was expelled) worship Shugden. The New Kadampa Tradition see this spirit as a Dharma Protector and regard him as an emanation of the Wisdom Buddha, Manjushri.

This was removed for being POV - would you like to explain just which part is POV? (20040302 08:22, 25 July 2005 (UTC))

Replied see Talk:Dorje Shugden

Hi Billion I cherish your basic neutral style. Could you please check NKT wikisite and look if it is in wikipedia sytle and tell me what you think on it? thanks --Kt66 12:56, 14 August 2005 (UTC) and also Kelsang_Gyatso site.

Yes, I hope to get around to editing the NKT article soon if some one else doesn't fix it. Billlion 11:29, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Terry Leahy

Hi, I'd say the evidence strongly points to him being of Irish descent, he was born in Liverpool, both his names are Irish and he went to a Catholic school. The category is no longer called Irish British which may have indicated a closeness which was not intended. Regards Arniep 11:17, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I suggest that that is evidnece that he had some Irish ancestors, for some number of generations back. I have not seen any evidence of an Irish grand parent (as your definition requires) or that he identifies himself as Irish British. Perhaps you could ask Tesco's press office? Billlion 10:43, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi the category is no longer called Irish British it's called Category:People of Irish descent in Great Britain so there is no longer a problem with it being perceived as label. It requires just 1/4 descent as is the same with xxx-American categories, i.e. one grandparent or two great grandparents. I might send a note as suggested. Thanks Arniep 20:34, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Here you go: [1]. Regards, Arniep 20:44, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Well found! Billlion 06:41, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Image Tagging Image:LamaYesheLosal and OmMani stones.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:LamaYesheLosal and OmMani stones.jpg. I notice the image page currently doesn't specify who created the image, so the copyright status is therefore unclear. If you have not created the image yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the image on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the image yourself then you should also specify where you found it, i.e., in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the image also doesn't have a copyright tag then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture then you can use {{GFDL}} to release it under the GFDL. If you can claim fair use use {{Non-free fair use in|article name}} or {{fairuse}}. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other images, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find a list of image pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thanks so much. --SCEhardT 00:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Frog won!

Dijxtra 21:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject

Greetings! If interested, please join WikiProject Tibetan Buddhism. I hope that it will assist us in ensuring articles are of high quality. Sylvain1972 17:11, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

NKT

Hi Billion, User:Nat Krause made some changes to condence the article on NKT. Normally we did now agree on it. Now a NKT member wishes to extend once more a setion and I do feel there are no really reasons/need for it. Could you please be so kind to check if Patrick K's changes will improve the article and leave your opinion at the discussionpage? Thank you very much, Kt66 19:31, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I had a quick look, hope my comments were helpful. It looks to me like you are having a constructive discussion of the changes over there, considering it is quite a controversial topic.Billlion 20:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Dear Billlion, Amerique is acting on my behalf regarding NKT. Excellentone 23:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Billion, maybe you can leave your comment at the NKT talk page. Although it may not be easy to make a "clean up", I think the way user:Excellentone now took, making substential changes without discussing it, I can not agree with. What do you suggest? (Please see history.) I would suggest to ask for a mediation on this "clean up" process or a "neutral editor" to do this. If we follow mediation I think we should go step by step through the article and its passages. I felt user:Robertect is quite willing to do this and I agree to the "clean up" porcess as well. Thank you, Regards, --Kt66 14:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

short request

Hi Billion, I'd like to hear your opinion about the benefit/use of the Bluck quote at the end of the NKT article. I found it very useful because, from my POV, it balances the article, stating and suggestioning different views on how NKT can be looked at and these views are present and even fight each other when it comes to picture the NKT. From my POV it helps the article and reader to understand that there exist different angles on NKT and how NKT is described depends upon the angle one chooses. By this I found it strongly beneficial as a mean to balance and light the complete article. I could not really follow why u:excellentone regulary deleted it and I did not understand her reasoning why she did it. (she talked about the differences of quotes and citations), see the last entries on the NPOV discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:New_Kadampa_Tradition#NPOV Also I ask myself if the quotefarm-template is right there anymore, it was put there by an anonyomous editor. What do you think? Thanks a lot. Here the Bluck citation for the case it is deleted once more:

Different views on NKT

Bluck offered different angles on how NKT can be viewed at. He suggested:

• The NKT could be viewed from outside as a movement aiming at what Titmus (1999: 91) called ‘conversion and empire-building’, with a dogmatic and superior viewpoint, ‘narrow-minded claims to historical significance’, intolerance of other traditions and ‘strong identification with the leader or a book’.
• A more scholarly external view might emphasize instead the enthusiasm, firm beliefs, urgent message and ‘charismatic leadership’ which Barker (1999: 20) saw as characteristic of many NRMs.
• An alternative picture from inside the movement would include a wish to bring inner peace to more people, based on a pure lineage of teaching and practice, with faith and confidence in an authentic spiritual guide.

About the possibly ways how to picture the NKT he said: "Our choice of interpretation may depend on how we engage with the other viewpoint, as well as the evidence itself, and until recently the NKT’s supporters and critics have largely ignored each other.”

Thank you, --Kt66 22:51, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Bernhard Neumann

Thanks for starting the article and saving me the trouble! I've expanded it a bit. - Newport 14:19, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Unspecified source for Image:Samye ling temple.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Samye ling temple.jpg. I notice the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this file yourself, then there needs to be a justification explaining why we have the right to use it on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you did not create the file yourself, then you need to specify where it was found, i.e., in most cases link to the website where it was taken from, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the file also doesn't have a copyright tag, then one should be added. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Fair use, use a tag such as {{Non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. User:Angr 11:56, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I uploaded the photo and I added the GFDL template. Billlion 19:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Template Discussion

Please check out [2].bunix 22:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Abingdon, Oxfordshire

Hello! Just to let you know that Dean Whitehead, as a former Premiership and current Championship footballer for Sunderland A.F.C., should, in my humble opinion, count as a notable Abingdonian. I don't think it was self-promotion on this occasion! John Mason 12:09, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello! Just back tracking. I would not agree with the removal of the follwing three links from the Abingdon Page: www.abingdon.org.uk - Abingdon School (formally the Roysse) www.aaahs.org.uk - Abingdon and Area Archaelogical Society (although it has been re-added since) www.abingdon2006.blogspot.com - A blog of life in Abingdon during 2006.

See reply on Talk:Abingdon, OxfordshireBilllion 10:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Inverse problems and resistivity tomography

Thank you for your contribution to the article geophysical survey. I originally wrote that article to replace a rather poor article under the same title dealing with archaeologial geophysics. I was not happy with the title, however, because the narrow [archaeological] scope of the article poorly served the more general title. I have since moved the article to the title Archaeological geophysics to better reflect the scope. That label is not universally used within the discipline, but it is more desriptive and will certainly be understood. In an archaeological context, the term "geophysical survey (or prospection)" generally refers to archaeological applications.

That said, your references to inverse problems and resistivity tomography touch on subjects that are rather exotic to archaeological geophysics. Although there is certainly research in these areas and limited practical applications, references to them might be confusing in this brief non-technical overview.

Moving the article has left a void begging for a more general article on geophysical survey. I would suggest that these topics might form a part of this article, or perhaps an article on frontiers in archaeogical geophysics. In either case, I think that these are topics that deserve to be better developed. --- Tapatio 08:22, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

While I have worked on ERT and inverse problems since 1985 I regret that I have not taken much interest in archeological applications. However I did see the technique used on Time Team once, so I assumed it was pretty much standard and well known. Billlion 17:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

ERT is certainly known, but it doesn't find a lot of application; unlike geological applications, res surveys in archaeology are usually concerned with horizontal patterning. I suspect this is largely because structures on the scale of most archaeological features really are not detectable at any great depth with resistivity methods, thus the deeper portions of tomographic imaging tend to lack adequate resolution to detect features of interest. There is some very interesting experimental work going on with inverse modeling, but established practical applications that I am aware of are mainly in GPR signal processing. This is likely to change in the near future, however. --Tapatio 19:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Red Deer

I'm glad you've joined back in the discussion for I feared I had driven others away such as yourself. Let's continue to figure out a solution to the issues on the talk page there. I am inclined to split the articles at this point for the very reasons you have mentioned. I could revert the Red Deer article to a past state, but I like the new referencing. Anyway, an article split may be the way to go...I have also invited another editor who lives in Scotland to help us determine the best course of action.--MONGO 07:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Infobox Fields

Thank you for casting your vote on the Einstein infobox. Please now go to [3] to give your opinion on how you want the individual fields modified. SuperGirl 08:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

I set up the AfD per an AMA request by user:Excellentone. Please check the discussion on Excellentone's talk page. I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted this is what he wanted to do, over mediation or RFC. I had no expectations this enterprise would be successful, but he has a right to present his case where he wants.--Amerique ^dialectics 20:52, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

JBurton

You can warn him using the appropriate template from Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace. If you think he needs to be drawn to the attention of the adminstrators, Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism is the place to do it. -FisherQueen 15:59, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

No, Your all right thanks. JFBurton 17:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Applied Mathematics

Hi, Bill!

I put a new section into Applied mathematics three days ago, and haven't received any negative feedback. So I took the "cleanup" tag off of that article. If you haven't taken a look yet you might want to sneak a peek, to be sure it's OK. DavidCBryant 23:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Nice work David. Justifies removal of cleanup tag. Billlion 14:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Image:Williams and Kilburn plaque manchester by Nick Higham.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Williams and Kilburn plaque manchester by Nick Higham.jpg. I notice the 'image' page specifies that the image is being used under fair use, but its use in Wikipedia articles fails our first fair use criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed image could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this image is not replaceable, please:

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Winberry

I have added a "{{prod}}" template to the article Winberry, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but I don't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and I've explained why in the deletion notice (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia, or, if you disagree with the notice, discuss the issues at its talk page. Removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, but the article may still be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached, or if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria. Also, since the author of the article is gone, you are now responsible. I recommend adding sources for Winberry. Thank You. ~~Magistrand~~ 17:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Your user page

Hi, I reverted some questionable looking edits by two related IP addresses to your userpage. If this was you, my apologies! Feezo (Talk) 16:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello, your page seems to be being targeted with minor offences recently. I have just reverted some more edits. They seem to be coming from many different IP's and Users. I am wondering if they are linked. LeanneMillington 16:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I think mainly from Sock Puppets of teh same user.Billlion 22:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

My account has been hacked previously. I checked your user page history and the vandalism has been from different IPs. LeanneMillington 10:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Bill

Hello Bill, havent spoken to you for a long time. How are you doing? JFBurton 20:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

University of Manchester

Hi there. Category:Schools of Informatics seems to have been created and populated by User:Michael Fourman, but placing University of Manchester looks like good categorisation to me. The category page explains that it's for Universities which contain a school of informatics. And UoM is a member of Category:Nursing schools in the United Kingdom too. Would you reconsider uncat'ing it? (Ignore me if Manchester doesn't have such a department at all!) — mholland 15:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Replied on Talk:University of ManchesterBilllion 15:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

Thanks for that Bill. I have suffered quite a bit recently. I reverted some off yours yesterday. There was something on there about a V8 Supercar and so on, I didnt revert that bit because I wasnt sure if it was vandalism or not. I had some pretty extreme vandalism on my page a few days ago (dont know whether you saw it, you will if you look on history), but I did notice that it was from the same IP that vandalised your page. JFBurton 13:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Did you know you can (both) request that your user pages be semi-protected? I did that yesterday after numerous incidents when anonymous users kept on replacing my user page with one million digits of pi and other such rubbish. Youneed to go to WP:RFPP and folloow the instructions (you need to add something like {{lu|Put-your-id-here-without-square-brackets}}. It was done quite quickly, and all I had to do was point out the problem in order to get it agreed. It may be worth a go for you both (I've duplicated this message on JFBurton's talk page aswell. Protecting one's talk page from vandalism is a bit more difficult and causes a few more problems.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:29, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It says on your user page that you bought a V8 Landrover. Is this true or is it just vandalism you havent noticed? JFBurton 18:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

NeSSI

Just to let you know, further to your comments on the talk page for this article I have added a {{nocontext}} tag to the article. I was going to this sooner but it has only just been kept at Afd today and I actually thought it was going to get deleted as the only people saying keep were members of the NeSSI initiative with a clear conflict of interest, Regards RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 21:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Image:Christopher Zeeman from Warwick Magazine.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Christopher Zeeman from Warwick Magazine.jpg. I notice the 'image' page specifies that the image is being used under fair use, but its use in Wikipedia articles fails our first fair use criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed image could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this image is not replaceable, please:

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Your contributions to Tikhonov regularization

Hi and thanks for your contributions to the section Tikhonov regularization#Determination of the Tikhonov factor. Unfortunately I found your edit a bit unclear. What do you mean by "The Bayesian interpretation is describes above but approaches include the Discrepancy principle, Cross validation,..."? The sentence does not make sense. Thanks for clearing this up! --Zvika 10:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Unspecified source for Image:Marpa painting Holy isle.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Marpa painting Holy isle.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, then you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, then their copyright should also be acknowledged.

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Still no source.--Vaya 20:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Unspecified source for Image:Milarepa statue.jpg

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Still no source.--Vaya 20:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean mean. They both specified the source before you tagged them.Billlion 07:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

You say 'I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, ', but it does. And it came from our camera, not a website so your idea of referring to a source is irrelevant. Do you think that photographers need to post a copy on another website before thy can upload to wikipedia? Billlion 10:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

So you are saying that you are the author of these images. But how can one understand that it is so? Your user page doesn't say that you are Sarah Lionheart, nor the image page. So if you are really the author of these images please tag them {{self|cc-by-2.5}}.--Vaya 12:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your cooperation.--Vaya 18:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Fine. Now go and do some useful contributions to wikipedia, like starting and improving articles, instead of wasting people's time!Billlion 07:38, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Peter Maxwell Davies

I see. I am sorry if I broke any rule by changing the article´s name without requesting the move first. Best wishes, Ralphloren171 23:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

du Val

Glad to hear your appreciation. I didn't know much about du Val beforehand, besides having heard for some reason of du Val singularities, which is what caught my eye when I saw the article you started. But it was fun to discover more about the man, and his life. I put in as much as I could find by poking around, but if needed, I probably can find out more, when I get a chance. By the way, do you have some other biographies of (British) mathematicians in mind? Two that I worked on at some point were J. H. C. Whitehead and Peter Hilton. One thing that I would like to add are some pics, but it's hard to find ones that would pass muster.... Turgidson 13:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I started filling in some gaps of mathematicians with some connection to Manchester, and others I take an interest in. Obituaries are usually good sources and increasingly can be found online if you belong to a university with a subscription. As for photos that is really hard. Sometimes I ask the university's press office, but too often they do not understand copyright issues. Billlion 13:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

"Link Spam" in the Abingdon article?

In regard to your edit on the Abingdon page, I'd like to question why you think a prominent website documenting events, news and places in Abingdon is somehow link spam.

This is not some opinionated view of mine. Coming to the conclusion that there is a massive lack of neutral content and news on the web about Abingdon is about as easy as using Google.

Knowing about the lack of decent sources of information, I thought it justified to ignore the "Links normally to be avoided" section of the WP:External Links guideline.

Considering its a neutral news source that just happens to use blogging software, its arguably within the guideline of "other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability" anyway.

I've decided to revert the removal of the link as I think its inclusion is justified for content reasons on this occasion and that it conforms with the External Links guidelines main points, even if it doesn't agree with a small element of the details. Agent Blightsoot 21:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Possibly unfree Image:Manchester Museum by Nick Higham.jpg

An image that you uploaded or altered, Image:Manchester Museum by Nick Higham.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images because its copyright status is disputed. If the image's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. Please go to its page for more information if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Possibly unfree Image:Wayfarer-dinghy-W1720.jpg

An image that you uploaded or altered, Image:Wayfarer-dinghy-W1720.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images because its copyright status is disputed. If the image's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. Please go to its page for more information if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:25, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Math project participants

When you listed yourself at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Participants, you put yourself in the "inactive" section. CMummert · talk 15:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Tom Abott contact / Sir Christopher Zeeman image?

Hi Billlion - I've been making a few edits (principally infobox) to the Christopher Zeeman article and saw a discussion you had been involved in regarding obtaining an image. There was a suggestion on the talk page that Tom Abbot may be able to assist.

I'd be grateful, if you are willing, if you could let me know his wikipedia user name so I could contact him to see whether there are any images he could upload under an appropriate license.

I also saw an old discussion between VED and yourself from 2005 about Christopher having been born in Denmark. The current article and reference links on the page all state a Japanese birth. Grateful if you could let me know if this is incorrect.

Thanks for any assistance you are able to provide, --- Asperal 19:34, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

As I remember Tom Abott is a UoW press officer, who at my request uploaded a picture for which the university owned the copyright, but he did not understand fully about how to license the image so it was deleted. I will see if I have an email address for him, but also he did have a wikipedia account.Billlion 21:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

User page spam

Why did you tag User:Jon.baldwin for speedy deletion? Was it just a mistake? How can a user page be blatant advertising?

Simple, it falls under speedy deletion criteria G11 -- and that's "G" as in "General", as in ALL pages -- and general common sense. Besides, spam disguised as user pages is deleted all the time. This batch here is selected from the last few months. --Calton | Talk 12:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea why you have provided a long list of User: pages that are not related to my query. You put up for speedy deleteion User:Jon.baldwin. You have not provided any justification or evidence as to why you proposed this speedy deletion. Please explain. Billlion 21:15, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You have not provided any justification or evidence as to why you proposed this speedy deletion. Raise your eyes slightly. If that's too much trouble, I'll repeat what I wrote and which you apparently overlooked: "Simple, it falls under speedy deletion criteria G11 -- and that's "G" as in "General", as in ALL pages -- and general common sense." Was the word "spam" unclear?

I repeat. No evidence there at all.You have just listed a bunch of User pages that you have put up for deletion, from which I can deduce nothing except that you have an enthusiasm for deleting user pages..Billlion 07:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that a not-very active user has had his page spammed, perhaps by someone with the same name. Do you have the slightest scintilla of a breath of a shred of evidence for this proposition, or is it merely a story you made up that sounds good to you? Equally important, what possible difference does it make whether it's first-person or third-person spam, since it's, you know, spam? --Calton | Talk 23:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes of course I have. Please assume good faith. I can't reveal something I know about a user that they have not put on their user page. It would help to check the edit history but that would take and admin.Billlion 07:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

And speaking of odd behavior, what, exactly, is the point of adding a {{hangon}} tag to a page which has already been deleted, and twice at that? --Calton | Talk 23:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

What is the point of deleting a blank page? Deletion is for pages about which there should not be an article, not preventing legitimate users from editing their own. Reversion would have done the job nicely.Billlion 07:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikinews article on Alan Turing Building

Hi, I consulted with a few other editors. The concensus was that we need to know how you can be sure of the date the building opened. I know you said that academics and PhD students like the new building, but how do you know they said that? Further that doesn't establish the date. In lieu of this information, I guess we could rewrite the article as "University of Manchester gets new building named for Alan Turing" and leave out all references to whether it is open or not. --SVTCobra 02:20, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

See wikinews pageBilllion 06:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Re: Jodrell Bank

Thanks for your message, and I'm glad you liked the article. One of the things that's been driving me round the bend whilst writing it is the rich oral history of the place - the majority of which isn't written down anywhere! (or at least, not that I can find.) I've had to content myself with recording some of these on my website [4], rather than being able to put them on Wikipedia.

The astronomy group/Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics will be moving into the new building in a couple of weeks (my desk moves there on the 28th, I believe), so we may indeed run into each other there. I've been reading your article on the building with interest; it sounds like you mathematicians have approached the new building in a much better way (getting involved with its design, etc.) than the astronomy group, who basically stuck their head in the sand and hoped that the plans for the building would just go away. Have you been encountering many problems with the building? I see from your home page that your telephone isn't working yet...? Mike Peel 07:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Alan Turing Building, 4th floor

I noticed that you removed the mention of the Alan Turing Building's 4th floor, saying that there is no 4th floor. There is actually a 4th floor in the middle finger of the building, used mainly for technical development labs, but also for storing some of the JBCfA computer servers, and it also holds the power system for the solar panels, amongst other technical things. I think there is also a bit of a fourth floor in one of the other fingers, but that's for technical stuff related to the building. Mike Peel 11:58, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought it was just for ventilation and building services stuff, I stand corrected! Billlion 22:23, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Lama_Yeshe_Losal_2004.jpg

Thanks for uploading or contributing to Image:Lama_Yeshe_Losal_2004.jpg. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use. Suggestions on how to do so can be found here.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on those pages too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free media lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Secretlondon 21:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Done Billlion 14:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Nanny vs Doe and Billy vs Buck

Please see my post at Talk:Domestic goat. Thanks.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 23:04, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

See my nearly simultaneous Bill-buck and nanny-doe edits on Talk:goatBilllion (talk) 23:11, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Mark Pollicott

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Mark Pollicott, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/~mpollic. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences.

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Manchester Statistical Society

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Manchester Statistical Society, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://www.manstatsoc.org/history.html. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 18:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Image:Alan Turing building atrium July 2007.jpg

Just noticed this image on the school of maths web page. Now that the building's in use, perhaps it would be nice to replace the picture with a newer showing the cafe instead of plastic carpets on the floor? I would do it myself but I don't have a digital camera. Regards, Marmelad (talk) 21:25, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, but we will have to wait until a nice sunny day.Billlion (talk) 22:29, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Leslie Fox Prize for Numerical Analysis winners

Category:Leslie Fox Prize for Numerical Analysis winners, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. – -- Award-winners should almost always be included in the article for the award, or if necessary in a separate split article, rather than in a separate category. Categories make it hard to see when the award was given, note any issues with the award, etc., while articles & lists can be referenced. See WP:OCAT#Award winners for more info. --Lquilter (talk) 20:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

categories vs. lists

Hi Billlion -- You said in one of your first comments on the 1/15 CFD that categories are easier to "maintain" than lists. I'd like to explore this a little further, if you don't mind explaining your thoughts to me. I have always found that categories are easy to create and populate, but really hard to "maintain", and hard to think through (in light of various categorization policies). But you have a different take, so I'd really like to understand it. --Lquilter (talk) 17:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking my concerns seriously, and sorry if I came across as aggressive in my defence of this Cat, I was quite upset by it. One thought I had is that there have been cases where I have seen the proposed deletion of lists in favour of categories in some cases but I cant off the top of my head remember which list (I thought it was Category:People from Manchester vs List of people from Manchester but I can't see the discussion there). So my thinking is that for example in the Leslie Fox Prize, if I notice that one of the Prize winners becomes notable and I feel like starting an article on them (eg Christopher Budd) I just have to add him to categories in the at the end of article, in fact I have a draft I use for famous UK mathematicians which already has several categories (commented out) read to use. We did not using categories for their various awards and things like FRS I would have to go and add them to lists if they were not there. And for some of these categories there is not a list somewhere on to web to consult, so the list is generated as examples come to light. Now I notice that as soon as I make a start on an article and add it to any of the mathematician categories someone comes and tidies it up. Not always the same person. And its not that they are watching all my contributions as they do not do so if I edit goat! I am pretty sure it is the addition to carefully policed categories like sub cats of Mathematician by Country that means that other maths-interested editors find the article. Maybe they do use one of the automated methods I mentioned to watch these cats?

Another point is that cats update with the article name or whatever is in default sort. Quite often articles about people are renamed with some different combination of initials and names, or different romanization of a Russian name, from the one in which they were started. Cats automatically update all the instances in their categories, where as Lists stay as they were. Assuming the renaming is justified this is a good thing as otherwise would have to be done by hand.

This next point about categories may seem esoteric at the moment but I believe it will become more important. Wikipedia is a database Wikipedia:Database download. With a downloaded copy of the database you can do more sophisticated searches, for example suppose I wanted to find all the articles on Fellows of the Royal Society who are numerical analysts and won the Leslie Fox Prize (I can think of two but that is just because I know them!) I could search on the intersection of their categories. Much more powerful than simply searching for pages that contained those keywords as an editor has specifically categorized them. I could have searched for mathematicians with an Erdos number less than three who were associated with the University of Manchester, except the non mathematicians formed a concensus for deleting the Erdos category information from mathematician biographies, so the investment put in by people looking up their Erdos number is lost. Categories form a powerful indexing tool for wikipedia and as such have a function much more important than simply lists that are automatically updated and sorted.

Now I take your point that some categories probably get polluted be spurious entries, I suspect this is more likely in things like popular culture that tend to attract more vandalism, but if non-notable mathematicians get added to these cats, or people are mis-classified it gets fixed pretty quickly. And if the non-notable mathematician bio gets deleted the automatically disappear from cats. Imagine if these were all lists and a NN self publicist had added themselves.

I just thought of a list example nightmare. I used to keep an eye on a List of Niazi people (see also the mess at Niazi). Somewhere in Pakistan (I fondly imagine someone in one of those little internet places in a remote village) someone decides to add a red link member of that tribe whose claim to fame is that they are managing director of some non-notable small company. In this remote corner of Wikipedia no one really notices. They will never deserve an bio stub, and if one popped up it would be speedily deleted. But this kind of list can act as a cruft magnet. Categories however do not offer the same temptation as you have to make an article and then add it to a category.

I wonder if Wikipedia actually has List factions and Category factions? It certainly seems so. In my opinion our approach to making new lists should be much more cautious than categories, but both should be done with care. In the case of categories the future use by database search (with AND OR and NOT) should be born in mind when designing hierachies of categories. Also it is a manageable task to add articles to categories as they are created, but rather daunting to look up all the relevant articles and add then to the category (unless this gets automated with a bot).Billlion (talk) 22:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#Category:Leslie_Fox_Prize_for_Numerical_Analysis_winners_nominated_for_deletion and the section before that on the Abel prize for other people's comments.Billlion (talk) 01:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

A few quick responses.

1. I think that sometimes people feel protective of categories because of analogy to AFDs, where notability is challenged. That's absolutely not the case -- AFDs are frequently about notability, but CFDs that nominate deletion are only rarely about notability or similar concepts. Instead, they're usually about how whether something works well as a category -- a navigational aid. Particularly when editors don't usually work with CFDs, a CFD can be perceived as an attack on the notability of the concept. So I understand why folks can get defensive about them.
2. Lists get way too short shrift as navigational aids, in my view, because a lot of people create crap lists filled with original research or non-notable information. But their real value, in my view, is just that -- as a navigational aid.
3. I don't believe there is a very strong sense, WP-wide, of what categories, lists, and series-boxes are good for, and when to use one versus the other. There's more of a sense at CFD, but it's still developing, I think. Lots of people also are used to "tagging" from social networking sites, and think categories work like tags -- they very definitely do not, and that is nowhere well-explained. Speaking as a librarian, categories are not tags and they're not subject-headings; they're a flexible tree-like system of tag-like objects, but you just can't push that system too far. Usability of categories on an individual article are significantly undermined by having more than half a dozen or so, and I believe there is general agreement among most regular CFD participants that that's the case. Maintenance of any single category is much, much harder than maintenance of lists, and I think anyone who watches categories regularly will understand that. I'm not sure how maintenance of the category "tree" itself is going to fare over time -- it's too early to tell, of course, but I wonder a little bit about scalability of the system.
4. Wikipedia content is stored in a database, of course, but the information is presented to people in solid chunks -- each article is the contents of one field. People keep trying to make WP more database-like, with infoboxes, biographical metatagging, and the like, but it doesn't work -- there's no at Wikipedia indexing on these individual chunks of information. For better or worse, Wikipedia is a collection of prose-articles.
5. Your point about the difficulty of adding cruft to categories, as opposed to lists, is well-taken. However, I see that as just part of the general problem of policing article content. It's difficult to add BS articles of non-notable people to categories, true, but it's completely easy to add inappropriate notable people to categories. Biographical articles can easily be added to categories that are inappropriate, and it can escape notice for a long time -- even by people who watch the bio article, because lots of people don't really pay attention to the categories. For instance I see people added to various religion categories completely inappropriately. If we didn't delete categories for trivial things, biographical articles would have a category for every place that someone lived, how many times they were married, and so on. Now, that's not award-winners, of course. Award-winners (at least when there's a single level of "winning") are easy and discrete. The logic on award-winners has often been that people who are win various awards have typically won many many awards; just look at the list of awards on some scientists. So awards should be "defining", which in practice we treat as a sort of super-notability.

Gotta run; hope to hear more from you.

--Lquilter (talk) 01:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

• Hi Billlion -- I would really encourage you to join in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization on award-winners. I aggregated all previous CFD discussions about award-winner categories, so if you want to look them over and discuss your assessment of consensus, or opinions, or better wording, etc., it would be good. Especially since there's been dis-harmony between Project Math & CFD in the wake of Erdos numbers and award-winners cats, I think it would be good to have some more talking together to achieve more robust consensus. Cheers, Lquilter (talk) 17:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

List of Niazi people

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article List of Niazi people, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add {{db-author}} to the top of List of Niazi people. SMS ^Talk 19:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Elasticity

Hey, FYI, I agree with you about the elasticity article, so I've added a proposal to merge it into its economics sibling. Regards—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 06:10, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

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AfD nomination of Karmapa controversy

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Orphaned non-free media (Image:University of Manchester Est1824 logo.gif)

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Stockport Viaduct

Feel free to add information to it, the more people adding, the quicker we can remove the under construction and stub status from the page :) Aaron Allen (talk) 12:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Saint-Venant

There is little doubt that Saint-Venant published some similar ideas to those of Hermann Grassmann. However, I think the article needs to be more concrete than it was about the details of this contribution. Determinants and minors certainly were known of prior to Grassmann's work. However, none of the historical sources I have looked at have mentioned Saint-Venant as significant (including Bourbaki — hardly a francophobic source). That could be an omission on the part of the sources I have read. but I would like to see a few very solid references, and an unequivocal assertion of just what the priority dispute was, if any. I think the statement can be brought up to standards for re-inclusion if this is done. silly rabbit (talk) 11:45, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Ahh... I see there are many sources for this. I'm sorry. I have self-reverted. silly rabbit (talk) 12:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

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