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:::::: First of all, what does consensus mean? Second, Doesn't it seem like everyone is in favor to put the word in and only one person disfavors it due to a poor connection or some other conclusion nobody agrees with? -Zedek
:::::: First of all, what does consensus mean? Second, Doesn't it seem like everyone is in favor to put the word in and only one person disfavors it due to a poor connection or some other conclusion nobody agrees with? -Zedek
::::::: It's not that Diberri is the only one opposed. It's that he's the only one patient enough to keep explaining why adding a 189,819 letter non-word to a Wikipedia page is highly inappropriate. --[[User:Arcadian|Arcadian]] ([[User talk:Arcadian|talk]]) 18:26, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Revision as of 18:26, 22 August 2008

Template:Wikiproject MCB

Welcome to your talk page

Hello. This page is a talk page. It is used to discuss the article. Good ways to use it include asking why some editor made changes to what you did (instead of just reverting it back and forth), trying to reach a compromise, making plans for suggested additions to the article, and so forth. You should definitely use this as the first step to trying to reach an agreement. Please use it. Thank you. DreamGuy 05:17, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Long word

I observe that the text "The full chemical name, containing 189,819 letters, can be viewed at Wikisource:Methionylthreonylthreonyl...isoleucine." which was once in the article was then moved to external links and finally to a wikilink box. This is all very well, but it isn't clear why this was done, no comments in the log to say. I think it is much less likely that a person reading this article will now leave it with this information in their head: external links are not a substitute for mentioning interesting stuff...so I propose some form of words be reinstated into the article. Justification: (1) this is an interesting fact for some (2) this is a general encyclopedia not a pure scientific text, so things outside the scope of the actual science may have a place. Notinasnaid 16:08, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Full name

Got this from Wikisource. It was listed for deletion so I figured I'd put it here before it was lost forever (imagine having to type the whole thing out by hand!) It took 2 minutes just to scroll down in the edit box. Get ready.

Are you ready?

({{titin}} transclusion removed. --David Iberri (talk) 22:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC))[reply]

And just think, it's so small you can't even see it. Jeez.

User:Flameviper12/sig 14:55, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I hope people will notice my comment all the way down here. I fully agree with Flameviper12, as I came upon this page from Longest Word in English. While I see it's importance in Biology, it seems like it is also known biologically for being the biggest protein. As such, I am going to add the full word to the bottom of the article, below the external links. I know that I came to this page with the express purpose of seeing what appears to be the single longest word in any language, so why should I have to dig for it? And regarding size: I feel that if one article should be this long, this should be it. After all, I'd guess that more people come to this page from the Longest Word than from some other place. Auricfuzz 18:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I observe that you were immediately reverted, which is disappointing as you had asked for a discussion. I'm not sure about the full word, but I do think it is important to mention the word, and its length. This is not a biochemistry textbook, it is a general encyclopedia. Notinasnaid 13:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Come on, the most prominent thing surrounding this whole article is the word and its length, let's be serious and move the word back onto the page where people can find it. That's what I came looking for, that's what all these people on the discussion page came looking for, and it's why people will return to this page in the future. THIS WORD IS THE REASON WE'RE HERE, DON'T HIDE IT.


Hi I'm somebody else. Yeah, I agree with flameviper, i came looking for the full name and i couldn't find it. It took me a while to decide to turn to the discussion page, and Blip! There it was right in front of my face. Someone's got to copy the whole thing and stick it on the main page. no one's ever going to find it over here.

I came to see it too. I hate that you don't have it here!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.13.221.253 (talk) 05:16, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto -Deltajuliet

As the vast majority of people here want it (and with good, logical reason) on the main page, I put it there a while ago. Thanks to the guy who circumnavigated the system and deleted it to just be a jerk, not even commenting. Anyhoo, I will post it again, and if anybody deletes it without talking, I will be very, very angry, and I will write you a letter telling you how angry I am. Just kidding. But seriously, don't just delete it without talking (and, for heaven's sake, just don't delete it at all). -Deltajuliet

Removing the full word

It's pretty obnoxious putting the full word in an encyclopedia article. Let's just describe it (189k+ characters, etc.) and if people want to see the word in all its glory, they can link over to Wikisource, where the full word rightly belongs. But placing it in the article clutters an otherwise useful page about the structure and function of titin, which is IMNSHO much more important than an obscenely long string of amino acid names. --David Iberri (talk) 05:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC) P.S. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of time it takes to preview this page since it's got the full word on it. Grr...[reply]

The only reason anybody ever comes here is to see the word. ~ Flameviper 22:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see no reason that it should be deleted. It has a factual basis and because it's appended to the bottom, people can still read the page normally without unnecessary scrolling. I don't think David's criticisms are valid given that the word isn't there at the expense of good information. And as Flameviper put it, the word is the only reason people come here! Cyril Washbrook 12:25, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cyril, I believe Dave's comment was made on the previous includion of the name (not the current Java box), and thus is no longer correct. ~ Flameviper 17:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Java?

I just had a stroke of genius that would solve all the problems.

How about including a Java hide/show box that had the full name in it?

And also, if it's that big of a deal, I could even make the Java box its own template and transclude it onto this page. I'm going to be bold and do it. Tell me if you disagree with my actions. ~ Flameviper 22:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Flame Viper, good call. That should make everyone happy, hopefully. Anyhow, no offense, Iberri, but I think 99% of people on this page couldn't care less about "titin," they're here for the word. -Deltajuliet

Thanks. ~ Flameviper 16:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly suspect you underestimate the number of folks interested in muscle physiology, but I'm not interested in arguing about it right now. --David Iberri (talk) 03:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Still, the Java is the best of both worlds; it allows folks to see the unmigitated bulk of the name while still allowing people to hide it, AND it doesn't show up huge in the edit box. ~ Flameviper 15:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, just a bit of an issue here with terminology. JavaScript is not Java. Using Java would be a bad idea, as it's an exernal dependency, which Wikipedia generally frowns dependence upon. JavaScript is however widely available and reasonable to use (especially considering a lot o Wikipedia uses it itself.)

As for this page only being referenced by people looking for the Longest known Organic Compound Name, yes, there will be a large number of people flocking to this page for that purpose, but don't offset that it's a biologically significant compound, and the page should not be targetted directly for the name. --Puellanivis 00:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, this page is probably targeted quite often just for the name. It's unfortunate that people are fascinated by an unholy number of amino acid names strung together. And why stop there? What's to stop someone from using IUPAC rules to get the full chemical name (which would be considerably longer than the current name)? Of course I'm being facetious: no one calls it anything but titin. Folks need to get over it. --David Iberri (talk) 01:11, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why is it unfortunate? They might leave learning a little more about amino acids (and if they don't, the article needs to be fixed). This also seems to imply a point of view that biochemistry is "more important" than linguistics...! Notinasnaid 01:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well clearly it is more important, otherwise I'm in the wrong career path. ;-) By "unfortunate", I just mean that it's mildly depressing that some people get giddy over an obscenely long word that has no real meaning to them. And why should it? If someone read me all the amino acids for hemoglobin, it'd have no meaning to me either, and I've studied the damn thing for years. I don't see how this is a matter of linguistics. And how is a series of amino acid names supposed to convey any useful information about amino acids to the reader? The only bit of information it could possibly impart is how oligopeptides are often named, but that is best learned from a page on amino acid nomenclature or similar. --David Iberri (talk) 02:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
David, I don't think titin is an oligopeptide! ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 17:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My point exactly. The convention is to use the amino acid name for oligopeptides in general, not for peptides of great size. --David Iberri (talk) 18:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, they won't learn jack about the amino acids. The only thing they learn is how to spell their names if they try to write the whole name as a part of their home work. As said it in the comment about my edit. The full text of the titin's sequence presented with the name of the full amino acid residues has no place here whatsoever. There is no scientist in their right mind that will ever use it that way. It has no encyclopedia value either. I would only agree to let it stay if the sequence is presented in a single letter code and provides information (color coded) about the different domains, the amino acid residues that are post-translationally modified, where the protein is affected by speccific mutations, etc. untill then this information is just an article polutant. Speaking of long words, there are words that are unimaginable longer than this one - the longest one that comes to mind represents the human Chromosome 1 (245 milion letters). And lastly the whole category with the articles about the longest words has been deleted. -- Boris 14:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The name has been removed from the article again despite no obvious consensus being reached. I made this clear when reverting, but I seem to have been reverted again. Let's try and discuss this properly. A category may have been deleted but Longest word in English still links here. Sucessive edits have now removed all places that the curious can go to find the word. The body of this article may not be the best place for this information, but it should be somewhere. I don't think claims that "biochemistry is more important" than other fields of knowledge have any place in Wikipedia, however. Notinasnaid 14:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A 189,819 character "word" does not belong in any article. --Arcadian 16:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are two perspectives to any argument over inclusion, lawfulness, and anything that can be disallowed. Those two perspectives are "Why" and "Why Not". And therein lies the division between inclusionism and deletionism. I personally favor the Why Not perspective, being an Inclusionist myself. And so we apply it to this debate.
Why include the full chemical name? It's cumbersome and nobody needs to see it.
Why not include the full chemical name? It's easily hidden and there is no dire need to have it unseen.
The Why argument states that there is no need to include it. But the Why Not argument states that there is no need to remove it. As I have stated before, I favor the "why not" argument myself.
Because if we are to truly call ourselves a great encyclopedia, we must not reject good data. We must not refute cited articles and claims, for they add to our greatness.
And with that final thought I close my argument. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 17:31, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why not? It clutters an otherwise readable page. It is information that doesn't help to the understanding of titin or its function and interferes with readers trying to access this information (eg, the page takes quite a bit longer to download). The amino acid "name" by itself is meaningless to *everyone* because, per BorisTM's comment, it's given entirely out of context. --David Iberri (talk) 17:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That presupposes the user has come here to find out about biochemistry, and could be argued to show bias. Comments above from more than one user indicate some people come here just to gawk at the long word. Are they not to be considered in this great general enyclopedia? Notinasnaid 18:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And therein lies the disappointment I mentioned above. A word that carries no meaning is not encyclopedic; it satisfies only those looking for novelty and is a major distraction to everyone else coming to this page for a legitimate reason. In case I'm being too subtle: we should not cater to people coming here merely to gawk at a long word. The word is of no encyclopedic value, so at the most, we should link to another non-WP page containing the full word. Another problem is that putting the full word here perpetuates the apparent misconception people have that proteins are called by their amino acid names. --David Iberri (talk) 18:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It appears we have a conflict of interest here, but your argument is very narrow-minded and caters to only one of the two interests of visitors to this page. Let's compromise and say that half the people who come here want to know about muscle physiology and half want to see the longest word ever. Now wouldn't it be a tad selfish to deprive those people of knowledge for no good reason? And in reply to the accusation of it being "unreadable", the infobox is at the bottom. THE BOTTOM. By the time it gets to downloading the full name, everything else has already loaded. So even if you had dial-up, you could still read the page and even leave it, you don't have to wait for it to completely load. And in a final response, what is unencyclopedic about the name? It is a correct scientific amino acid name, included in its own article. It may be cumbersome, granted, but it's incredibly selfish to pretend that your interests are the only ones that exist and that "nobody" wants to see the name. If it were true that nobody wanted to see it, we wouldn't be having this discussion, would we? Now I must be attending to business. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 20:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Out-denting to keep the discussion readable)
I never said that nobody wants to see the name. On the contrary, you said that the only reason people ever come here is for the word. I simply pointed out that you're probably grossly underestimating the fraction of readers interested titin's molecular biology and role in muscle contraction. I'm not catering to anyone; I've only said that we should not cater this page to those readers interested only in viewing the term. My hope is that the suggestion I made (ie, adding a link to the full term in the external links section) will satisfy both camps. --David Iberri (talk) 02:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Continuation

I've removed the {{titin}} template from the article again pending a decision here. Independently of whether it ought to be included from an encyclopedic perspective, the template at it stands is badly formatted: first, it defaults to "show"; second, it contains unnecessary hyphenation (obviously copies wholesale from some other site (apparently now-deleted material from Wikisource) making the claim that this is the 'longest word'); third, including the additional text in the template still forces the reader to download it all even if the default were set to 'hide'. In the section title above, you presumably mean JavaScript, which not all browsers or users have enabled; there's no good reason to drop 180k characters on someone just for having JS turned off. The obvious solution here is to provide a link to an external source of this text, if a suitable one can be found.
Also, Flameviper, this edit summary was entirely inappropriate; you don't get to call edits you disagree with "vandalism", especially when you are in a long-term dispute over the issue. Opabinia regalis 07:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You make several good points. I would like to counter that with a question. Is it possible to make a java box default to hide? ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 13:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Probably, but that still forces everyone to download the whole term regardless of whether they want to see it. With your default-hide solution, interested readers would have to click a link to show the box, right? Then why not just forgo the JavaScript altogether and instead link to an external site containing the full term? Seems to be the best solution to me. --David Iberri (talk) 14:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
THEY DON'T.
BY THE TIME THE INFOBOX STARTS DOWNLODING, THE REST OF THE PAGE HAS ALREADY BEEN COMPLETELY FINISHED. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO WAIT FOR THE INFOBOX TO DOWNLOAD, YOU CAN CLICK ON A LINK TO LEAVE. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 20:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First off, please don't scream. Second, I don't think you understand my point. By adding the term, you're 1) chewing up unnecessary bandwidth (which irks some like myself), and 2) forcing some (admittedly dumb) browsers to download the entire page (term included) before they can start reading the article. Also, you haven't responded to my second point, which is that your solution to leave the term hidden by default adds an extra click for users who wish to view the term in full. So your proposed solution is no different than simply linking to the full term on an external site, which is something I'd happily support. Cheers, David Iberri (talk) 23:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, default-hiding a transcluded template is possibly the worst option, since those who want to see it still have to click, but those who don't still have to download the whole thing. An external link resolves the latter problem and still allows those who want to see it to do so. Opabinia regalis 01:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
An external link is a good solution. -- Boris 10:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
External links are, for the most part, unreliable. You don't know when some webmaster is going to decide that the page in question is unnecessary, move his website, or forget to mail his payment and have his site shut down. There was actually a link to a Wikisource page, but the page was since deleted. The only viable option in that direction would be a userspace link, or else the creation of an entire page especially for the word. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 16:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To resolve this issue, I'd support having a page on Wikisource for the full name. --David Iberri (talk) 16:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Flameviper just created Full chemical name of titin, but that's not the consensus solution we're trying to establish. The idea is to have an external link (ie, outside Wikipedia). A Wikisource page would be fine, IMO. I've created one at Wikisource:Chemical name of titin. --David Iberri (talk) 16:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It sounds like one user wants the long word in the article and everyone else does not. (Deltajuliet did not apparently sign his/her last post and has not been active since September or October 2006.) Keesiewonder talk 23:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Are you insinuating that Deltajuliet is my sockpuppet? It isn't, you can do a CheckUser if you don't believe me. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 16:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, no the thought had not crossed my mind. I noticed that up above, there is a post from Deltajuliet who appears to have an IP address of 24.179.217.145. The post does not have a link to the user account or a time/date stamp but appears to have been from October 20, 2006. Since the post is not recent, and we're talking about this now, I chose to not include his/her implied support of having the long word on this page in my rough tally of the state of affairs. Please assume good faith, yourself, of other users. Keesiewonder talk 23:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Tally: Everyone to Flameviper. Flameviper just gave up. End. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 18:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's done

Okay, David. You did it. Consensus has now been reached. Now can we unwatch this article and go home? ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 20:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad we reached consensus, but I think I'll keep this page on my watchlist for now. Cheers, David Iberri (talk) 20:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]


---

[previous comment erased after rethinking what I had to say]

Alright. I have only this to say. I'm disgusted by the way people were carrying on about the entire thing. First off, it's a word and Flameviper is right. The majority of the people who actually came to the page just wanted to see the word itself (I did as well).

To remove the word is catering to yourself and your narrowminded interest because it doesn't fit the utopia image that you have for wikipedia. The whole purpose of wikipedia is to EDUCATE visitors of things that they would like to know about. It may be something to do with piercing, first swing of golf on the moon, or even the longest word. To remove the longest word removes the knowledge from people and slowly edge its way into a facist control by the, pardon the expression, wikisnobs.

With love from the duck. QUACK

Feb 26, 2007
  • 07:54, 25 February 2007 Gogo Dodo (Talk | contribs) (Rm, dead link)
No, the consensus is now invalid due to the "amendment" that you proposed earlier in the past. The external link to wikisource became invalid and now ignores the majority of the people (btw, they are more interested by curiosity.) who actually make use of wikipedia.
You have to keep in mind that Wikipedia is regarded by post secondary institution as an unreliable source of information and should not be use for research purposes (Surprise, surprise!). For you guys to keep pushing that it is and trying to make it a personal "utopia."
If we were to try to figure out a percentage of people who actually come to the Titin page to do research in comparison to the people who go there to see the longest word. Let me help you with an general idea: 2% for research and 98% for curiosity. Please keep in mind that I'm actually being very generous for the research percentage.
Until you can actually make an amendment to appease to both sides of the argument (and it has to be reliable), the longest word will continue to remain on the page.
If you keep editing the page without discussing it, I will continue to edit the page to restore it to the rightful manner it deserves to be in.
Love,
The Duck 64.180.240.190 09:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
a) Don't threaten to edit-war. The article is temporarily semiprotected in its readable state to avoid back-and-forthing. b) The onus is on the person who wants to include information to provide a source. c) Don't talk about yourself in the third person, no matter how many socks you have. Opabinia regalis 06:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I did not threaten to edit-war. The editor took it upon himself to not discuss it here and I was stating that I will continue to put back the original word until they can provide a reliable external link that will not go dead (as what just happened). Secondly, what the hell do you mean by talking in third person? Thirdly, the article cannot be semiprotected due to the following condition.
When not to use semi-protection
Semi-protection should not be used
  • As a response to regular content disputes, since it may restrict some editors and not others.
Thus, the restriction is not permitted.
As for the word itself, I will be looking for the source. I also have some doubts to the length of the word itself (it might be reaching the 200k). Until then, ta ta.
With love from moi. 64.180.240.190 08:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, completely forgot about this. Who would imagine that someone would turn up to carry on a banned user's edit war at the same time that said banned user creates a bunch of socks to appeal his ban? No, that would never happen.
None of the last several months of intermittent dispute have been about 'content'. Kindly read the rest of this page to understand the damning technical flaws inherent in the template. In fact, since it is not the type of content that we host on Wikipedia, I'm going to nominate it for deletion; see below for an invitation to comment there. Opabinia regalis 03:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Okay, first off. I'm not a sockpuppet. Please look at my IP address and his IP address. I came across this page through people on IRC where we were discussing about what is the longest word possible. A friend commented that she remember seeing the longest word but can't spell it even if her life depends on it (obviously we know why). She managed to find it by going through the history since a "reliable" source was deleted and the link was not kept like it should have been in the first place.
The dispute was as to whether to keep the word on the page or not. Quite frankly, I was disgusted at how you people seem to give the impression that Wikipedia is a "reliable source of information" when all reputable post secondary educations ARGUES that Wikipedia should not be using Wikipedia for research resources.
When I was wondering why the hell the word didn't stay on the page like it should be (since it's a contribution to the page and longest word page), I found the discussion and was suprised by the amount of (pardon the expression) wikifaggotry that went on revolving around the word itself.
Also, if you actually went through the text itself, the consensus was reached on the basis that an external/wikisource link would be provided for the template (and the infobox could have been automatically set to "HIDE" instead of the default "SHOW"). But of course, I'm preaching to a chorus of deaf wikisnobs (btw, ironic since I'm deaf myself).
The onus should not have been on me to PROVE the existence of the word but the onus should have been on ALL OF YOU to DISPROVE the word. You have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the word is not what it is as well.
With that said, you should learn to read.
With love from the duck, 64.180.240.190 09:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That you are disgusted by our attempt to create a reliable source of information in Wikipedia is irrelevant. Of course it should not be generally be used as a primary source for research; no encyclopedia is intended for this purpose. And your labeling of our contributions to this discussion as "wikifaggotry" is bigoted and reprehensible. The consensus reached was that an external link would be added, not that the infobox would be set to "hide" by default. Opibinia noted that the latter solution was actually less favorable and therefore should be avoided. The reason no external link exists is that it was deleted from Wikisource for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. (I'm not familiar with inclusion criteria for Wikisource.) Also, no one has asked you to prove the existence of the 189k term. The onus is on you and other interested parties to provide a rational explanation for why it should be included in an encyclopedia article about a protein. Personally, I think it's laughable to consider the term the longest "word" when it's never written down and never spoken--even by the community of scientists that deals with titin on a regular basis. That is why I feel this argument is a bit silly. Nevertheless, if you can find a reliable, verifiable, respectable reference that says titin's expanded amino acid name is the longest word in the English language, then I suppose I'd have to reevaluate my position. If you think that's wikisnobbery, then you should spend some more time on Wikipedia. :-) Cheers, David Iberri (talk) 02:22, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to point out, for the less computer-savvy ones out there, that the word in full would logically be about 189KB, the size of a 2,000x2,000 .jpg file. Is it just me, or does wikipedia host a lot of images? Plus, even on a 56k connection (which is steadily growing less common) it would take 30 seconds to load. An acceptable speed, considering that most people coming to this page are here for the word anyway. Isn't that enough reason enough to create a wikisource page? I have the full text (with a little help from the internet) so I would be willing to provide. 67.188.89.50 00:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC) Serge[reply]

TfD nomination of Template:Titin

Template:Titin has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --Opabinia regalis 03:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • From the "deletion" page -
Additional comment, I did some research. What happened was that a string of letters representing amino acids was posted by a wikipedia adminstrator (brian0918 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian0918) according to a quote from science.slashdot.org forum
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=144207&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=12085345
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=144207&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=12087069#12088788
Along came FlameViper who took the string of letters representing amino acids and TRANSLATE it into the names themselves, creating the "official" name. Therefore, I would strongly suggest that you talk to both members before you even delete the template itself. I find it mindboggling and confounding that a Wikipedia adminstrator was involved in this somehow (reminds me of a government pointing fingers at "terrorists" for using firearms provided by said government in the past). If anything, the name should be kept and find a reasonable solution that can benefit everyone in whole (including the users). I strongly suggest putting the template itself on protection (to avoid undetectable vandalism) and setting the template to (HIDE) instead of (SHOW).
64.180.240.190 11:13, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
edit- also, I believe that brian0918 and FlameViper should be included in the discussion as they are the ones who are directly responsible for the name itself.

Actually, I converted the string of letters into the name, and posted it on Wikisource. Flameviper just copied that text into the template. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-05 14:46Z

What is the word?

I can't find it !

No reference to the word in full ... :(

Okay, great, so now there's no reference to the word itself.

I'm probably a Wikipedia inclussionist, but I agree that having all 160 000 letters in the article might be a bit if an issue - that's why I want to see them in full - but none of the repositories have it - the one on wikisource has been removed.
I tried looking at the article history and both diffs were not accurate - the one has the word cut off, the other has the word with ... 's everywhere (which the real word would never have). I'm hoping for a compromise of having the ... (elipsis) after every 256 characters.
Can somebody please add the word to wikisource! Or show me where I can find the word and I'll do it myself!
Rfwoolf 15:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have the word (among others) stored on my computer. It came from the original Wikisource article and I think that it is accurate (it has the correct number of letters last I checked). I would put it here, but it would be deleted. --76.188.148.173 00:49, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The term just plain isn't encyclopedic, so I don't think it'll ever make it into the 'pedia. My suggestion would be to make your case over at Wikisource and see what happens. --David Iberri (talk) 03:02, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Told you the people just want to see the word. They never cared about the articles. Also, this is DuckBlurQuackster if you were wondering. 70.69.73.49 08:41, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I just put up the word on an external site off of what had been deleted in the article, and linked to it. I hope this is a solution everyone is fine with. Email me at titin @at OTHYR DaWT com if there are any issues with it. --71.112.43.223 18:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)Othyr[reply]
I'm personally fine with it. I might prefer if the word were hosted on Wikisource, but apparently folks over there disagree (I don't have too much experience with Wikisource so I can't tell whether titin's full chemical name is appropriate there). Thanks for offering this, Othyr. --David Iberri (talk) 19:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is separated by huge spaces and is hard to read. I wish there was another place! you're not colorblind, it's colored this way. Or maybe you are. Misteryoshi 23:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

THE WORD

For every one who wants to see it... Sorry, but everyone comes here to see it!! Who cares about "Titin" I want the whole word and tons will see it...

I removed the word because article talk pages are for discussing changes to the article. Your argument that no one wants to read about titin the protein is common among laypeople, but very far from the truth. Among students of science, including biologists, physiologists, and physicians, titin's properties as a protein are very interesting. Please read the above discussion. If you want to challenge the consensus that the full chemical name should not be included on the article (or this talk page), I and others would love to hear your opinion. But do not post the word here. --David Iberri (talk) 20:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's pretty ridiculous myself, as mostly laymen will read this. Shouldn't the people you mentionned have they're own adequate sources?--Vatic7 (talk) 02:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's no way for us to quantitatively say how many laypeople vs. scientists read this article, so your first point is moot. As for your second, yes, there are many alternative avenues for researching proteins and other scientific topics that are covered on Wikipedia. But are you seriously arguing that Wikipedia science articles should ignore material that isn't readily known and understood by laypeople? --David Iberri (talk) 11:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No I am arguing the exact opposite. Laymen on Wikipedia will probably be the only ones wanting to know the full name. A professional in the domain of biology would surely have access to the full name, so why go on WIkipedia (which isn't a recognized source anyway). We cannot say that quantitatively, but we can say qualitatively, using logic. I only used a qualitative term, not a quantitative one.--Vatic7 (talk) 22:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Biologists only have access to the name insofar as they're aware of freely available protein databases and can query them for the primary structure of titin. But when a protein (eg, titin) is more than a few amino acids long, the "methionylaspartylglutamyl..."-style nomenclature is replaced with a concise form where each amino acid is represented as a single character, as in "MDEFQTS..." That's because both styles convey the exact same information, but the former is much more cumbersome. No legitimate biologist would consider the full name of titin even remotely useful.
That said, let's imagine that laypeople comprise 100% of the titin article's readership. Let's say that all of them are here because they've heard that the full name of titin is the longest word in English. Does that mean this article should contain the word? That's the crux of the issue here, and until we answer that question, we're just spinning our wheels, arguing around the real point.
Not surprisingly, my stance is that even given this hypothetical scenario, we still shouldn't provide the word here. Instead, we should provide a section in the article that discusses the misguided notion that chemical names should be contenders for the longest word in a language. Exactly how to explain this might be difficult, but I imagine that an analogy to the common childhood question "what's the biggest number?" would be especially illustrative. --David Iberri (talk) 18:56, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"let's imagine that laypeople comprise 100% of the titin article's readership. Let's say that all of them are here because they've heard that the full name of titin is the longest word in English. Does that mean this article should contain the word?" Frankly: Yes, and you appear to be the only one arguing against it. If you want to write a section or article why the IUPAC name shouldn't count as a word, find sources and write it. User:Dorftrottel 01:30, January 13, 2008
Diberri's not the only one arguing against it. Adding a 189,819 letter word to any page, under any circumstance, is vandalism, and is a blockable offense. If you don't understand why, or if you disagree, the place to discuss it is at Wikipedia talk:Vandalism, not here. --Arcadian (talk) 02:19, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please reread WP:VAND. Vandalism is defined by a deliberate effort to compromise Wikipedia. Very nice of you to threaten to abuse your tools through an admitted lack of familarity with such a very important policy. I added it once, didn't revert and have no intention to do so. The award I get for asking why is blocking threats. Good thing Wikipedia isn't compromised by the stupidity of some of its admins, that would be a real bummer, no? User:Dorftrottel 14:28, January 13, 2008
Another thing: Looking at Special:Longpages, I have to admit I don't really get it. There are quite a few bigger articles still. Adding it, as I did, not as plain text but within a <div style="overflow:auto"> layer doesn't impair the appearance of the page in the least and at 192,691 bytes the page will still load quicker than
I freely admit (or "claim", depending on your individual understanding of WP:VAND...) that I did not notice the hidden text message that reads
<!--
DO NOT ADD THE FULL CHEMICAL NAME OF TITIN TO THIS ARTICLE
This has been discussed extensively on this article's talk page and the consensus is to *not* provide the full chemical name of titin here. Please see the talk page for details.
-->
However, I won't revert to the version with the full name and I never intended to. Now, I would greatly appreciate if you could please reply to those arguments without resorting to your complete and utter misunderstanding of what vandalism is according to WP:VAND and/or please assume sufficient good faith not to jump to the conclusion that my intention is to deliberately compromise Wikipedia by adding the full name. Please address the arguments I made with regard to several considerably longer existing articles, and to add the name not as plain text but within a scrollable overflow layer (as I did). And: Looking through this page, I doubt consensus is to not include the name. Please consider that consensus is not achieved by admins assuming bad faith and threating to block based on that assumption of bad faith. Please address the arguments. User:Dorftrottel 14:47, January 13, 2008

(un-indent)
In all of this hub-ub, it seems like my attempt to refocus our arguments has gotten off track before it even left the station. First off, I disagree that adding the name constitutes vandalism, especially if it's added by someone unfamiliar with the discussion that's been going on here. I also don't see much sense in the argument that excessive page length should dictate that we not add the chemical name.

That said, the name should not be added for the fundamental reason that it is not relevant to the page, and therefore unencyclopedic. Biologists have no need for the term, as alluded to above. Laypeople have no need for the term either. The latter is what I want to bring people's attention to. And the rationale is that laypeople interested in seeing the whole term have been misguided, somehow believing that chemical names can be contenders for the longest word in a language. As I pointed out above, subscribing to this belief is no different than a child's curiosity about numbers. When a child asks the question "what is the biggest number?", we adults see an opportunity to educate. When laypeople look to titin's chemical name as the longest word in the English language, Wikipedians should do the same. --David Iberri (talk) 16:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The name is not relevant to the page? - Excuse me, but that's your opinion. Please at least explain how you arrive at that conclusion. People turn to Wikipedia looking for that information, and Wikipedia should provide that information. It won't get much more encyclopedic than that. Mind you, I'm usually rather strictly opposed to the unprofessional, adolescent nightmare that is Trivia sections in pop culture articles. But here, I see a clear demand for a specific information. Why not at least keep the weblink (asking since you removed it as well)? Saying that it is not the longest term is not mutually exclusive with including the full name. Just include all relevant info, citing reliable sources. The fact that the earth is not flat doesn't mean that we get to censor that information [clarification: the information=the verifiable fact that people have in the past been and some keep claiming that Earth is flat] from Wikipedia. We may (and should always) set all info into perspective, using reliable sources, to avoid undue weight for fringe science and original research etcpp. The fact is, the name has been notably cited as the longest English word, and even though we both share the opinion that generic IUPAC names are not proper words of the English language, it doesn't mean we can simply censor it out of Wikipedia.
I agree with education entirely. I would go even further and say that as Wikipedians, we have the duty to educate each other. But: We must educate our readers only (!) by citing reliable sources and explaining, in neutral language, that and why exactly the name should not be considered an English word. Beyond that, we do not have the right to keep information away from the people. Set in into proper perspective: Absolutely, yes. Censor it: No. User:Dorftrottel 21:24, January 13, 2008 [Clarification: In my humble opinion, one can only educate others if s/he himself is open to be educated in turn.]
Ignore the above. I have now included a reference from the Oxford University Press, where the essential notion that generic names of chemical compounds are not regarded as English words is explicitly mentioned. Also, I did a bit of Googling, and did not find any half-way reliable source where the claim of Titin to be an English word, or the longest penis word for that matter, is mentioned. Seems to be more of an internet meme. The Oxford text, though short, is really interesting though. User:Dorftrottel 15:10, January 14, 2008
Thank you, Dorftrottel. Very nicely done. --David Iberri (talk) 18:01, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

David Iberri, that is good point I must agree with. But ( I don't know if this was suggested previously) but would WikiSource accept?--Vatic7 (talk) 02:29, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So far, no. The term was placed on WikiSource some time last year I believe, and was relatively promptly removed by staff, citing WikiSource policies with which I am not familiar. --David Iberri (talk) 00:52, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image

I have a suggestion: maybe place an image in a show/hide box? The image could be shrunk down to thumbnail size and then expanded like any other. I know it is the same as placing a link, but at least we can guarantee it will stay here. | Falk Flyer | My Page | My Talk | 12:32, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What image? Are you by chance talking about a show/hide box for the full chemical name of titin? That option has already been tried and we reached a consensus that it was suboptimal. --David Iberri (talk) 23:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Full name

user:TheNamer attempted to include the full chemical name. One very good reason for excluding it is that a "word" more than 180 kbytes long without any hyphenation is likely to break any browser in one way or another. Anyone prepared to risk it, may follow this link. They may or may not actually see the word. -- RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 08:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I think that the word should be put in and some jerk deleted it just above. I believe that it should be put in, it would not make the article the longest in wiki, there are articles with more info, and this is an encyclopedia, and the idea of this website is to get all the info that we can, so lets add it!!!Ericschulz (talk) 22:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please familiarize yourself with the quite extensive discussion above, in which we achieved consensus that the full term should not be displayed on Wikipedia, before making personal attacks. As it stands, if the term is added to this page, it will be removed without warning. --David Iberri (talk) 00:50, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Longest IUPAC Name?

Wikipedia consistently refers to this as the longest IUPAC name (or incorrectly as the longest word in the English language), but wouldn't DNA chromosomes actually have the longest names, as they are far, far longer than titin? I mean, if you wrote out the full chemical name of, say, the first chromosome of some random skin cell on my hand, is should be billions of letters long, shouldn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eebster the Great (talk • contribs) 18:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. The concept of a longest IUPAC or other systematic chemical name is grossly misguided, as I'd hoped to illustrate with the largest number analogy above. --David Iberri (talk) 23:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The full name

What is Wikipedia Here for? Education. Okay, I think that is proof enough that we should put the word on here. People that want the word will be educated of what it is. Any one with me? If so post below! Syntheticalconnections (talk) 19:55, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please familiarize yourself with the extensive discussion on this talk page concerning the inclusion of titin's full chemical name. Several strong arguments have been offered from both sides, including the one you mention, and the consensus decision has been to exclude the name here. --David Iberri (talk) 23:44, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think that more people are in your favour that against you? Perhaps _you_ should read the talk page to see all the people who disagree with you. Looks like consensus to me. -93.96.212.203 (talk) 14:04, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus does not necessarily mean majority wins. I'm well aware that there are many people that disagree with the opinion I and many others have expressed. Unfortunately, they have not supplied reasonable arguments for including the full term. --David Iberri (talk) 00:29, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The only consenus David is you being overly outspoken about not wanting the word on here. If you fail to see why "because it is the longest formulaic 'word' in the English language" is a reason in and of itself then well I don't know what to tell you. -Not A Sock Puppet 66.171.71.135 (talk) 04:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to continue the discussion about inclusion/exclusion of the term, but I don't see the point in rehashing arguments that have already been thoughtfully considered and discussed on this talk page. The bottom line is that the concept of "longest formulaic word in a language" is flawed from the beginning. To include the term here would appear to lend merit to this misguided notion. This is the basis of my "overly outspoken" nature here. --David Iberri (talk) 20:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, what does consensus mean? Second, Doesn't it seem like everyone is in favor to put the word in and only one person disfavors it due to a poor connection or some other conclusion nobody agrees with? -Zedek
It's not that Diberri is the only one opposed. It's that he's the only one patient enough to keep explaining why adding a 189,819 letter non-word to a Wikipedia page is highly inappropriate. --Arcadian (talk) 18:26, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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