User talk:Nigelj

Please comment

Could use your input on Talk:Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Consensus_on_median_in_summary. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:47, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. I've just read through about 100K of debate at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/13 November 2011/Usage share of operating systems and Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/13 November 2011/Usage share of operating systems. I didn't know that was going on, so thanks for the heads-up. I don't have a strong opinion on the median questions, and, at the moment, I don't feel that I have any insights or perspectives to offer that may help settle, clarify or defuse the disagreements. I'll keep following the debate and thinking about it; if I think of anything that may help, I'll drop it in. --Nigelj (talk) 21:55, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

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Thanks Mr Bot. Fixed. --Nigelj (talk) 17:57, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Response at Talk:DOM

Hi Nigelj! Just wanted to check if you had any comment on the revisions I proposed to the draft at Talk:Document Object Model#Explaining what the DOM is without being vague? Thanks again for the feedback.

--Qwerty0 (talk) 13:06, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi again. I've added some thoughts there. Sorry I'm not being more help. --Nigelj (talk) 17:51, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Scientific opinion on climate change

Hi. Thank you for your reasoned response to my sincere but perhaps overly forceful question on the talk page. I really don't want to clutter that page so I'll clutter yours. :-) If I understand you correctly, you believe attaching the word "anthropogenic" to present-day CC or GW is redundant because that is the only kind that is occurring. If we limit the article to anthropogenic, we leave open the possibility that there is also non-anthropogenic (natural) CC or GW. Since NASA and NOAA and the IPCC, et al, don't believe there is any significant natural warming now, we don't want to open that possibility. (From p. 5 of the report: "During the past 50 years, the sum of solar and volcanic forcings would likely have produced cooling. Observed patterns of warming and their changes are simulated only by models that include anthropogenic forcings.") You're saying there's only one kind of change going on right now, and to specify that it is human-induced suggests a contrast to natural CC, which the experts say isn't happening now even though it has in the past. (NASA: "It's reasonable to assume that changes in the sun's energy output would cause the climate to change, since the sun is the fundamental source of energy that drives our climate system. Indeed, studies show that solar variability has played a role in past climate changes. For example, a decrease in solar activity is thought to have triggered the Little Ice Age between approximately 1650 and 1850, when Greenland was largely cut off by ice from 1410 to the 1720s and glaciers advanced in the Alps. But several lines of evidence show that current global warming cannot be explained by changes in energy from the sun.")

There, I said it twice. Did I get it? Yopienso (talk) 11:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. William's insertion of the graph supplied the timeline I was clamoring for, so my question about the word "anthropogenic" is more for my own understanding than to modify or improve the article. Yopienso (talk) 11:53, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, yes, I think you have got exactly the point I was making. And found RS cites to back it up! (Thanks for that :-) It's not a hugely important viewpoint in my mind. BozMo wrote something much better the other day in a different discussion: The net effect we are seeing is the tiny result left from a massive addition/subtraction sum. Some of the huge components in that sum are natural, and others are anthropogenic. The result is for warming, and wouldn't be (at the moment) if it weren't for the human-contributed bits. There's yet another way of looking at this, that I haven't used here yet, which is to say that the current climate is out of equilibrium with all the influences that affect it. This view takes account of the massive time-delays involved and emphasises that even if we removed all the man-made components from BozMo's big sum today, the climate would continue to warm before cooling again. Because of positive feedbacks like water vapour in the big sum, this could be quite marked and lengthy. Blah, blah. Don't start me off :-) Thanks for the chat. --Nigelj (talk) 15:01, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Self references on World Wide Web

Hi! Technically, WP:SELF (as I read it) is designed to prevent people reading an article on an other website to feel lost (broken links, "this website", ...). I don't think using our domain as a little self promotion for the project hurts :). -- Luk ^talk 11:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there were a couple of self-refs that I felt really had to go - "consider the Wikipedia page for this article..." and "(this Wikipedia article is full of hyperlinks)". While I was at it, I introduced the recommended 'example.org' and removed the rest so that it wasn't a potentially confusing mixture. I suppose you could argue that the others are only examples and not strictly covered by WP:SELF, but the best place to do that would be on the article talk page rather than here, so that other editors can comment too. Please feel free to copy this thread there if you like, to start the discussion if you want to pursue it. --Nigelj (talk) 13:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Singular they and Wikipedia

A comment on your reversion of my edit to the Internet page, which was based on the concept that the "singular they" is acceptable English usage. In teaching writing, I try to impress upon my students that we have singular and plural pronouns for a reason. I like to see that even if the rules are broken often in colloquial speech, my students know them, and use them when they do formal writing. I'm a little saddened, if what you did represents any kind of official policy, that Wikipedia is going to be working against us on that front. I understand that the words I changed are acceptable in everyday speech, but I'm chagrined that you would revert my changes, as if there were something wrong with what I did. This contributes to students' getting the impression that correct grammar doesn't really matter, "See? Wikipedia said you were *wrong* and removed your silly edits." --Capouch (talk) 20:52 29 January 2012 (UTC)

If you want a deep and meaningful discussion with me personally about this, I'm afraid you have the wrong person. Maybe some of the contributors to this two-year-old discussion would be more interested. If however, you want to discuss the best wording of that precise passage, I think that starting a new thread at Talk:Internet would be more fruitful. --Nigelj (talk) 21:21, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

That was a simple typo, Dave--s/he missed the "n": In teaching. . . Use of the indicative rather than subjunctive mood in "as if there was something wrong" is the grammatical error, if we're going to be pedantic. :-) I don't really care for that singular they/their myself, but the feminists don't let us use the neuter he/him/his anymore. :-( Yopienso (talk) 23:39, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Whoops--edit conflict there, it's gone, like this will be in a few minutes.

Awww, if I'd known you were all coming round, I'd have got some beer and crisps ready. No, I think I'll leave it alone now - it all makes little sense to the casual reader, but I think that's how it should be. --Nigelj (talk) 23:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Thanks, Nigel; here's looking at you! Yopienso (talk) 00:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Masturbation

I understand your concern :-) No worries! --Addihockey10 ^e-mail 20:22, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks :-) --Nigelj (talk) 21:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Nigel, please find a new home for content you deleted in March 2011

Hello Nigel,

I see from you profile that you're a very experienced editor, way more than I.

I'm referring to the "bold deletion" on http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=JSON&diff=418834420&oldid=418815901

I can see where the discussion of other formats was getting a bit long and a bit off topic, but it WAS useful information. But it could have been moved to another page, perhaps the comparison of data serialization formations, or split off into a page like "other json-like formats".

When somebody is about to wholesale delete the work of many other people, I think the burden falls on the deleter to look for a new home for it, rather than just removing it.

My proof? It existed for quite a long time without causing problems. Many others added to it, including myself. I was useful, I discovered the deletion today when I wanted to review the info and went looking for it. It wasn't clearly wrong or profane. The only "violation" was your (seasoned) opinion that it was off topic for that particular page.

On a larger issue, I'm less likely to edit wikipedia these days due to the aggressive deleting of a few individuals. I've tried to follow guidelines better, and my stuff isn't normally deleted, but still there's the doubt in my mind "how much time am I wasting?" I also have a friend who's stopped editing all together.

I understand the need to delete things sometimes. And people should learn the guidelines. And I'm sure being a volunteer editor that deletes things opens you up to rants, which I'm not trying to do here. And in a case like this, where content was generally accepted and expanded for quite some time, shouldn't that burden of finding a new home fall to the person doing the deleting?

Would you please address this?

Thanks, Mark

Ttennebkram (talk) 21:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)