User talk:DMacks

Electrolytic reduction

Hello! I'm very sorry it's been such a delay in responding to your post about the electrolytic reduction article or section of Captain Kidd's Cannon. Wikimania prep and other events got in the way of being prompt with other side projects. I've now gathered up some basic resources on the Cannon's talk page. It'd be incredibly helpful if you'd like to create a new heading on that page, especially now that we have a QRpedia code up directing visitors to that article. (We're also working on possibly releasing to Commons an animation of the cannon undergoing electrolytic reduction; but just have to push it through the final approvals.) Please let me know if you think you could help & if you need any additional resources. I can do my best. LoriLee (talk) 18:52, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

No worries on the delay. I responded on the talk-page. In addition to animation, might be good to have a simple schematic diagram of the apparatus (what's submerged in what, what's wired to what, etc.). Those sorts of things are especially useful when paired with the actual chemical equations that are happening (similar to parts of the Chloralkali process article). I'll be a bit sporadic for the next few days with start-of-semester chaos (but this might make a good "useful in the real world" application of redox beyond the usual industrial cases!). DMacks (talk) 19:27, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Great, thanks so much! I replied as well. I'll definitely pass along your diagram suggestion. That's a good point. Once again, I appreciate it! LoriLee (talk) 19:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! I appreciate you adding the redirect. I know that you're busy with classes starting up. We're about to add our video of the cannon to Commons, but for now it's still here. LoriLee (talk) 15:55, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Kodiesvaran

Hi, this Tamil language film was produced in 1996/97 and was shelved. Since it was incompleted and has no indications of theatrical release, is it necessary to have an article for the film. --Commander _{(Ping Me)} 22:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

WP:GNG is the standard. I just checked the links, hoping to find some extended commentary on the problem or prospects or larger situation or relevance to the involved individuals. Most don't even mention this film at all! Sounds like a perfect candidate for deletion per WP:NFF. I'll be happy to second a PROD or support an AFD if you start one. DMacks (talk) 17:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done --Commander _{(Ping Me)} 18:35, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Kodiesvaran for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Kodiesvaran is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kodiesvaran until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Best regards, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:40, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Chembox

DMarcks, A while back, you responded to an issue I raised on the Talk:Bleomycin page about the chembox being really large. You said "InChI is not allowed to have breaks" and that it was a machine readable blob. None of the InChI data appears to be links of any kind, so near as I can tell no machine is reading this (none as a web link ). No , I didn't change the box back, but I'm curious as I see nothing that would cause this to be read. SO, what's reading that string ? @-Kosh► Talk to the Vorlons►Markab-@ 16:23, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

If it were a matter of the field linking out to a database or other site, it could be piped so a cleaner displayed string could cover an ugly link. But the goal is to have the page as seen be web-crawlable, so web-crawlers google or special-purpose chemistry sites can find it. "Structure -> InChI" is supposed to be a purely mechanical process (doesn't depend on how it's drawn, language, etc), so I can then google for that string and find the aricle (if there is one) regardless of whether I draw it in a weird way and without having to know any of its chemical names (which could be many and/or I might not know them, and the ones I might know might not be mentioned in the article). DMacks (talk) 21:53, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Amanda Bynes cite error.

Thank you for reverting that. --Kobak322 (talk) 14:49, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. DMacks (talk) 14:49, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Mike Altman

It appears that Mike Altman is currently a technical director at Pixar. If this is the same Mike Altman, then he does deserve his own article and it should be updated with his works. If not, then I agree "Mike Altman" should be merged into "Suicide is Painless".108.23.147.17 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:26, 12 September 2011 (UTC).

I don't know what "a technical director" is to be able to judge its notability (titles often have specific meanings in certain industries that either oversell or conversely underrepresent their importance). But if there's verification that it's the same person (the name "Mike Altman" itself does not seem uncommon; IMDb supports the link but is not considered a reliable source for major biographical info), that would certainly help establish the link for notability. DMacks (talk) 15:14, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'll try emailing him. If I get a response, I'll post it here.108.23.147.17 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:23, 12 September 2011 (UTC).

Good idea! But better to follow-up to the article talk-page (linked from the merge box on the pages) so that others later can find them...my talk-page quickly becomes a mess sometimes. DMacks (talk) 21:35, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Re: Negative numbers

ASCII character 45 is the minus sign. It's been that way since the earliest days of computing. Using any other dash-like character yields nonsense when the resulting information is read by a computer. As an exercise, try cutting and pasting the string −40 (−40) into a spreadsheet program, such as Excel or OpenOffice.org Calc, and compare the results with the string -40. −40 is interpreted as a string, not a number. — Quicksilver^{T @} 14:37, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

MOS:NUM is pretty clear that we're writing text not computer data though. I didn't like it at first either, but there's widespread support for using typographically correct (vs ASCII-only) symbols here. DMacks (talk) 14:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Just because it's currently in the Wikipedia Manual of Style (MOS) doesn't mean that it's right. The MOS is largely written by the blind leading the blind, people who have no understanding of how computers and computer programs work. The MOS has changed over time; I've long ago stopped arguing with the people who immerse themselves in it and just rely what I've known for the last 40+ years that works or doesn't work. — Quicksilver^{T @} 14:46, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Indeed it's a mess. But all editors usually wind up getting for their efforts to make article-level changes against it is a block, not a thanks or a start of a discussion that leads somewhere useful:( Getting something like {{convert}} sane would be a huge first step that would have wide-spread results. The folks who work on it have somehow kept their world just separate enough from the MOS that discussions are actually feasible rather than endless drama. Fiddling with infobox data is a poor first step because their formats and uses (and perhaps parsing and connections to off-wiki sites) are often known only to the folks who work on the infobox itself. For example, there's consensus that hyphen isn't "right" for temperature values in chemboxes (I assume consensus typography is based on ACS published styleguide more than wikipedia's goofiness). But hyphen is used for calculated temperature fields (but solely due to inertia). Again the chem folks seem to be able to keep their style-guide discussions more sane than general MOS. DMacks (talk) 14:59, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Water fueled Vehicle Redaction

The information you insist on adding isn't "unflattering" it is irrelevant and unnecessary to the topic. The topic is about the vehicle not about how its not plausible. Additionally the information regarding false claims is NOT pertinent. The article is not about what a water fueled vehicle is not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krisrsu (talk • contribs) 16:09, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The article is about the vehicle and the claims that it works and the dispute/contradictory claims that it doesn't/couldn't. You'll definitely want to discuss removal of it on the talk-page, rather than getting yourself blocked for edit-warring against the existing consensus there that this sort of material is proper. DMacks (talk) 16:12, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for threatening me with being blocked because I have a view other than yours. I didn't know one persons opinion constituted a "consensus". All of the information I edited isn't based on my "opinion" at all, but rather by fact. Interesting you highlighted the importance of being neutral while editing, yet you allow this article to be excessively negative toward the proven concept thats being discussed. Count the number of arguments against the idea in the article and you well see that it is obviously negative toward the concept of the water fuel. Many examples of how its not plausible are included and nearly none that are pro-water fuel. Thats not a neutral article. I'll submit the article for a neutrality review.