User talk:Bleakcomb

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D. Lion West 07:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Hectares

I don't think it's the MoS so much as its supposedly SI practice. I remember some other editor saying as much somewhere a long time ago. However, this link suggests otherwise.

Yes, what you found and shared pretty much supports my opinion (well, it's not an opinion anymore, is it?) that it's better to use hectares for land parcels >1 km². I'm pretty sure it was Bobblewik ... that was his thing ("A request" on his talk page seems to have been what precipitated his departure. His listing at WP:MW suggests as much). He actually inspired me to do a lot of drive-by metric additions. But he could be very dogmatic about this, and I guess he didn't care to do anything else and was forced to back down. Didn't realize it was so long ago (and it doesn't surprise me, either). Daniel Case (talk) 03:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Less than, as my edits should make clear. Daniel Case (talk) 03:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You'd think, here in the US, that square miles would be used above a certain amount of acres for land parcels, but no, they aren't. The Adirondack Park's area here in New York State is given as six million acres, and the state uses that in its promotional material. Square miles seem to be preferred only for the areas of political entities. Also, I can't remember what the number of acres per square mile is ... OK, working it out with a calculator it comes to about 640. I can see going to km² after a hundred hectares as very rational; I can't say the same about the 640 cutoff point. Daniel Case (talk) 04:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, that >1 km² thing was a personal compromise I came up with as a way of accomodating Bobblewik and his incessant insistence on getting rid of hectares everywhere. I would cede him anything above a whole number, but point out that land-area figures like "0.02 km²" are really difficult to envision and counterproductive, and much better to say "2 ha". The funny thing is it actually fits with doing acreages as 1 km²=250 acres, a much easier figure to work with than 1 square mile=640 acres.

I think the rationale for not using hectares was that (this may have been according to Bobblewik again) really strict scientific SI goes in increments of a thousandfold ... you are supposed to use either cm or km for length (I recall learning, in high school, to use the exponential value for c as 3.0 X 10¹⁴ cm in scientific notation for use in equations) but not good old meters. Likewise, area jumps from m² to km², again with nothing in between (like hectares) supposedly permitted. You are offering more persuasive evidence for the use of hectares across the board (something I really had no argument with, that I thought was standard practice under the metric system until Bobblewik got us all convinced we should use square km). I mean, I don't have a problem giving the area of the Slide Mountain Wilderness Area, one of my favorite nearby hiking and backpacking spots, as 47,500 acres. So 19,000 ha wouldn't be a problem either.

We should probably try to get something formally about this in the MoS and end this confusion.

BTW, the only place where I gave the area of a non-political unit in square miles was Hudson River Historic District, also here in New York and the largest National Historic Landmark District in the U.S. Since it sprawls through several communities and two counties, I thought square miles made the point better than acres. I think Butte-Anaconda Historic District in Montana, the next largest NHLD, did the same thing. Daniel Case (talk) 03:44, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

List of pipeline trails

For the time being, there aren't enough examples of trails following pipeline easements to warrant a separate article, so they a few examples are included in List of rail trails. Eventually there may be a List of pipeline trails. Also a List of canal trails. Also a List of converted fishing piers.

Today I came across by chance Syndal Heatherdale Pipe Reserve Trail, and so that I don't lose track of it I have added it the List of rail trails. The McKinley Bridge also be crossreferenced there.

What do you think? Tabletop (talk) 23:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Drummoyne

hey, sorry about that I made about 150 edits to articles linking to gaelic, these went to Gaels,Irish language,Gaelic Ireland,Gaelic culture & Scottish Gaelic. I was bound to make at least one mistake. It being in Australia, I didn't see the Scottish link. Bogger (talk) 12:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Northern Suburbs Sydney

Hi J Bar, you said on Tourombah's talk that you would like to get this right and get more input from WP Sydney. I wouldn't mind having two cents worth in a wider forum. I support your reversions of Tourombah's AGF edits until some consistency and notability have been established. I might also draw your attention to Tourombah's edits of Lower North Shore (Sydney). In general there might be two needs to be met. One is a popular, colloquial, ill-defined notion of regions (eg Lower North Shore) and the other being regions defined on ABS statistical regions of Sydney which could form the basis of many good (perhaps even featured) articles of the demographics of Sydney based on easily verifiable data from the ABS, not a mish-mash. Again we should get this right, because it has been mucked up so far. Many thanks. Bleakcomb (talk) 22:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. You make some good points. The Lower North Shore articles certainly needs some work, especially since it drifts between describing the region Lower North Shore or Lower Northern Sydney. I'll address this when I get a chance. With some of these regions, often these terms are general and not finite, so it's really hard to define them in these articles. We have had quite a few discussions about these regions overthe last couple of years and the Northern regions seem to cause the biuggest problems. For example, people have argued that there is no such region as Upper North Shore or where Upper and Lower begin and end or which suburbs should be included in the Hills District and which belong in the Greater Western Sydney. Anyway, we also have to deal with the fact that some suburbs can belong in two regions or that some regions can encompass other smaller regions. For example, the St George district is also part of Southern Sydney along with Sutherland Shire. Many of the South-eastern suburbs of Sydney are also part of the Eastern Suburbs although people who live there might argue for their exclusion. Anyway, if people can provide references of these regional terms being used, then the region names can be included as separate articles. That's how Upper North Shore was included. There were businesses who described themselves as located in the Upper North Shore, the local newspaper had many references and the local councils also used the term on their website. So we should scrutinise any other 'new' regions in the same way. Cheers. J Bar (talk) 06:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at the comments on Tourombah's talk page by JRG [1] and also what has already been discussed by many others on the subject od Sydney regions over the past two years.[2] Cheers. J Bar (talk) 07:14, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Lane Cove National Park, Parks, Infoboxes, Hectares

Replying to User talk:Bleakcomb#Lane Cove National Park, Parks, Infoboxes, Hectares

Projects giving love and attention to Australian esp. NSW National Parks, I'm not sure but you might try some of these.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Sydney/Parks and gardens
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Melbourne/Parks and gardens
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia
• Wikipedia:WikiProject New South Wales

No I hadn't seen {{Geobox/type/nature}} but what you've got in your sandpit looks good. I don't mind if you replace the infobox with the geobox. I don't believe that there is any Wikiconvention you'd be breaking, in fact I get the feeling that the geoboxes are meant to be replacing the infoboxes (... I s'pose geoboxes are infoboxes but you know what I mean). I could be mistaken best to check the templates' talk pages.

There is no mention of any depreciation hectares on the Manual of Style ... no mention of hectares at all. Nor does the MoS depreciate non-SI metric units in general nor should it since that would leave us with cubic decimetres instead of litres. Bobblewik did vanish abruptly. He's a good bloke, well-intentioned, but the crusade against hectares lacked the weight of consensus then and still does now (as I read it, anyhow). In fact, if it is the case, as you mention, that "most park administrators (NSWPWS, Victoria, SA, etc) list hectares and would be used as source for many articles", then their inclusion in the article would be the norm. This proposal might be of interest.

You'll notice that I included a few parameters not mentioned in the documentation of {{Infobox park}}. These are new parameters which I added to the template this morning they let you automatically convert between square metres & square feet, hectares & acres, and square kilometres & square miles. The parameters are {{{size_m2}}}, {{{size_ha}}}, {{{size_km2}}}, {{{size_sqft}}}, {{{size_acre}}} and {{{size_sqmi}}}). I really have to get around to updating the doc page. But it looks as if the geobox does autoconversions too. JЇѦρ 07:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Accuracy of conversions

I've changed the accuracy of the conversions on New Mill, Cross in Hand back to two decimal places. As the imperial measurements are given to a inch, using 1 decimal place in not appropriate as that gives an accuracy of about 4 inches. Another reason is that the Dutch Molendatabase uses 2 decimal places for measurements quoted (see example) which will enable a direct comparison to be made between mills. Mjroots (talk) 04:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Kings Canyon National Park

Don't you think the "History" section should be before "Geography" section in this article? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 10:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I have checked the other articles. Most of them mention the history first, so I have made the change. Cheers. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 11:06, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Re: Tidying convert template parameters

Hi Bleakcomb, yes the Pennsylvania state park acres are known at least to the ones place (single digit) in almost all cases. I had noticed the sig fig error on areas that were even hundreds or thousands, but had not caught it for even tens - thanks for catching my mistake. In most (but not all) cases the areas are given in the official park website (bottom of the Geobox, which also uses hectares). For those where the area is not given, we have print sources for the area. Thanks again, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your work on Pennsylvania State Parks and their units - I still need to work on the parks between R. B. Winter State Park and Upper Pine Bottom State Park (removing square kilometers, etc.). Would you rather do them yourself or should I work on them and you can catch my slipups? ;-) Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Dincher did most of the work on the 120 Pennsylvania State Park articles. I helped and have just switched Upper Pine Bottom over. I will work backwards from there as I am able. I am not sure I knew the exact size of a Gigaliter before, but it works for me ;-) thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:37, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The Palace Hotel On 1st St and Cook Ave. in New Mexico

Hi,Im new to this so please bear with me. I've seen your name on the discussion list and was wondering if you care to assist me in any way.Please understand that I take no offense if this is not possible.

I am looking for information on the Palace Hotel located in the Historical District in Raton. It is listed as number 23 and is located on the corner of 1st street and Cook ave. Between 1975-77. I was a teenager and live and worked there. I am now researching the building's history and appreciate anything you can provide.

Thank you in advance.

--Susanjxp (talk) 23:38, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

Wow! If only I knew that {{Census 2006 AUS}} existed! You have just made my life a whole lot easier. Thanks, И i m b u s a n i a talk 05:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

EDIT: Do you want me to go back a change all the articles I edited before? И i m b u s a n i a talk 05:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Convert template

There is no problem with the conversion template. The lower height limit for overflying Lasham Airfield is defined in UK AIP as 3,000ft above ground level. The metric height is not relevant to British pilots who all fly with altimeters calibrated in feet. I therefore put the metric height in parentheses, though it is debatable whether it should be there at all. JMcC (talk) 19:00, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I did not look at your edits thoroughly. For some reason I thought you were blindly replacing feet with metres. I could have sworn that is what you did, but looking back at the history, I can now see you didn't. Sorry about the confusion. JMcC (talk) 09:23, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

"Redundant" unit conversion

I understand your concern with regard to "redundant" unit conversion, being that square miles are an imperial unit, as are acres. But it would appear to me that using a larger unit is easier to understand (example: 1,000,000 acres is 1562 sq mi; billions of miles translate better into AU). Is it not possible to have square miles AND hectares in the article? However, it also appears that editors far more knowledgeable and important than myself have decided otherwise. Moreover, I am obviously late to the discussion and will surrender at this point. My only suggestion is that perhaps there should be a User Preference for units -- though I'm sure that would take an act of God -- because I do not use metric units. Acres are almost meaningless to me and hectares are completely meaningless. Thanks.  :) Globe199 (talk) 15:47, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

LGAs

Yep, I'm planning to do all of them - there is sort of a plan in place, I started them in March last year but for all sorts of reasons it stalled, and I recently brought it out of the deep freeze. No real point in starting a Wikiproject on it as I spent so much time collecting data for it back in 2008 that I have all the stuff here (historic populations, genealogies etc). As for the "Council" thing - in Queensland at least, one cannot live in a "council", one lives in a "shire", a "region", a "city" or a "town" (although no towns are presently identified due to the recent amalgamation of Dalby, Roma and Goondiwindi, but the Act leaves it open for a future LGA to be declared such). This is identified by section 18(2) of the Act and, once the 1993 Act lapses, section 8(4)(e) (note section 33 (1993) which I think you are referencing names the council itself and explicitly states this is *not* the name of the LGA). The Council purely relates to the elected body, and it's a common enough misconception (and sadly one that has rather pervaded Wiki's coverage of the topic). Careful inspection of all manner of formal documents reveals every last one of the Queensland ones is defined in such terms - although what is confusing is some are referred to as ___ Shire/City while all of the rest are referred to as Shire of/City of ____. During a trip to the archives in Victoria I discovered Redland City, Logan City and Gold Coast City had been gazetted that way, and of course all the regions have been (there are no "Region of...").

Same situation exists for Victorian LGAs where Surf Coast and a few others are ___ Shire whilst the rest are Shire of ___. New South Wales is a particularly odd case as their Act *specifically* allows the use of "Council" for amalgamated or new entities since 1993, but left existing ones that had already been gazetted alone. Tasmania I think may be in the same boat, although I haven't read their LG Act. South Australia specifically has "District Council of" as an area, and both the ABS and other formal literature make this entirely clear. Western Australia has possibly the cleanest and clearest nomenclature in Australia in terms of what the Act specifies and allows for, and it's been rigidly adhered to since 1961 there. Orderinchaos 13:14, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

From DGER

Thanks for the advice. The double dash instead of an en dash is a curious thing. When I first started editing my software automatically coverted the two dashs to an en dash. I started noticing (with my poor eyesight) that it is no longer happening. I will try to fix these up in the future.

Good eyes spotting the Black Bear error. I fixed it. 2 kg doesn't seem very big for a bear but 200 g is the correct conversion. I don't like the {convert} function because it doesn't always spell the units correctly. Usually I don't make a mistake with the conversions.

I am quite familar with the SI system, especially as practized in Canada. The correct abbreviation for mass is m not M. M is moment of force. Is that what you were referring to? M is only used for mass when doing "dimensional analysis".

Cheers DGERobertson (talk) 04:29, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding abbreviations for quantities, such as m for mass, P for power, p for linear momentum etc., these are part of the "metric" system although they may not be included in the BIPM. They are part of "metric practice". I found many of them in the "Canadian Metric Practice Guide". They are generally accepted internationally. Notice that these "quantity symbols" are supposed to be in italics, whereas the unit symbols are to be in "normal" font.

With regards the {convert} function, yes it is the American spellings that annoy. This is one reason I try to use abbreviations, that way the spellings are the same in the USA and the rest of the world. In the USA they spell centimetres, centimeters, and litres, liters.

I found an excellent reference for the symbols for quantities. It looks like I got angular (L) and linear momentum p) reversed. DGERobertson (talk) 18:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

http://www.iupac.org/publications/books/gbook/green_book_2ed.pdf

Re: Convert

That may be your opinion, but it may not be that of others. Do not delete comments of others unless it is blatant vandalism. If you have a problem with something that is said, leave a note on that editor's talk page expressing your concerns. I see another admin has reverted you again, so this should tell you something. — Huntster (t @ c) 00:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

First thing first, don't ever apologise for being bold. That's a whole part of Wikipedia. You thought you were doing the right thing, so nothing wrong there. To be perfectly honest, I've never seen WP:TPG before, which on one hand is surprising since I've been here since 2004, though on the other I'm not surprised given the vast number of guidelines and essays that are floating around out there. Nor have I before encountered the {{inappropriate comment}} template, which is not surprising considering it's used on less than 50 pages. In the future, I would suggest moving the comments to the person's talk page along with a note explaining why you did so, though I would suggest not doing it in this case given that two folks have disagreed with the removal, and no one else has even commented about it. Seem reasonable? — Huntster (t @ c) 02:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

South West Tas

Hi there - http://trove.nla.gov.au/result?q=south+west+tasmania - not sure where you are looking there is a huge literature on the subject of the south west wilderness - and I remain very 50 50 on merging the articles - there are issues that could expand both articles considerably if the work is done. Also the definition of the area is very specific - see http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=391 SatuSuro 07:07, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I just get the feeling that there are approximately 2 subjects and 3 articles at the moment. There is Southwest National Park, South West Wilderness and South West Tasmania. There is a lot of overlap of the content between Southwest National Park and South West Wilderness. I have concerns about articles on regions where the boundaries are poorly defined. They often are just tourism promotion synonyms for previously defined regions. The second link you give above is for the Tasmanian Wilderness at the Tas National Parks website, not the South West Wilderness. There may be a good definition of South West Wilderness, but it is not in the article as it stands.

Notability should be established in the lede. Currently it contains ephemeral peacockery and mention of tourism promotion for its notability. Not inspiring. My thought was it might be easier for the South West Tasmania article to talk about the wilderness qualities of the area, perhaps? Bleakcomb (talk) 05:00, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

After leaving that comment I have thought about it quite a bit - it could really end up in one article really if it was done well - this wasnt tourism - this was what the tasmanian wilderness society was based on before it current embroglilios - to make sure the south west got preserved - I would have no problem in any modification - there would be at least 10 to 15 articles as yet unwritten to do with the vast literature and issues that relate to the area- its features, and what and how all the process of reserving and getting the world heritage status - but as you point out the language and the lack of th refs sticks out horribly - the tasmanian project is horribly under numbered and I suspect that any improvement by you would be much appreciated SatuSuro 05:06, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Road distances

Hi Bleakcomb,

Did you have any reaction from Orderinchaos about your comment on using crow distances instead of road distances?

Greetings,

Rob