User talk:Bobblewik/miscellany
Metrics in US State template
[edit]Please see this discussion. Would you be willing to tackle the process of adding standard measurements. It seems unintuitive to me that US states have their areas (etc) listed in km rather than miles. I would prefer both. Apparently, it would be just switching 48 states. I'd be willing to split the task with you -- 24 each doesn't seem too bad, 48 seems collossal. What do you think? Avriette 02:23, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Hi, thanks for your request. My priority is ensuring that metric units are included. This is a huge task already. I do not want to increase the scope to ensuring that non-metric units are included. So I am sorry I don't want to take this on, but thanks for asking. Regards Bobblewik (talk) 15:04, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Templates
[edit]Hi. What is with all these text templates for planes? Most of the information is included in the infobox. Plus, an empty template is not needed, I think. There may be some use if it contains the data, but if it is only an placeholder, then I think we can wait until someone actually fills out the data. If there was some previous discussion of the template, please let me know. I have reverted Rumpler Taube for now. Thanks -- Chris 73 Talk 23:37, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)
- Hi Chris. The template is from [[1]] and issues about aircraft articles are discussed on [[2]]. There has been a lot of discussion of the format of aircraft articles. Converting to the format involves adding the template and migrating the data from within the article. Some of us have been doing that. However, it is easier to add the template to multiple articles first, so that is what I did. To be honest, I don't agree with all aspects of the template (for example the use of bold and the inclusion of rows that are merely the division of two other rows) but that template is the current one.
- I would be more than happy if you raised this subject over there. I sympathise with you that 'work in progress' artefacts are not usually a good thing. In this case, I plead guilty to thinking that it is a good thing, but if you are willing to discuss it in the project page, I am open to debate. I look forward to seeing you there. Thanks for raising the topic. Bobblewik (talk) 10:14, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
WikiProject Aircraft specification sections
[edit]Hi again Bobblewik. Could you please stop removing lines from the data sections of articles that reflect the current standard, as you did at Vickers F.B.5 and AD Scout. At the same time, if you're going to the time and trouble of replacing the obsolete blue tables with a text-based data section as you did at Supermarine Attacker, it's just as easy to use the standard one.
Actually, I'd really appreciate any help you can offer with the latter task - I made a stab at it a couple of months ago (working backwards through the List of aircraft), but have been bogged down since then with providing specifications for and standardising new entries. Thanks --Rlandmann 13:04, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- OK. I will keep to the standard table as you suggest. I was going through the aircraft by date. I will try to do more conversions from tables to text sections. Bobblewik (talk) 19:47, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Pan Am 103
[edit]Hi Bobblewik, I must have mis-understood your comments on my suggested compromises. Could you clear something up for me - would you be happy with one of them? If we just used it and let it stand for now? Dan100 (Talk) 22:54, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
- Happy, no. Tolerate, conditional yes. The condition is that the issue is mentioned in talk:Manual of Style so that we can document the metric guidelines for this or any other article. There are plenty of people that edit units who need to know the constraints. There is currently nothing documented to stop the same removal war happening again here or in any other article. Bobblewik (talk) 11:48, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Monty Hall problem
[edit]Hi - I agree referring to the host as "the game host" avoids identifying the host's gender, but in this case don't you think using the actual host's name (and gender) makes the article more readable? I don't mind so much making the player anonymous (although I'm reasonably certain "Jane" was used specifically so that "she" would unambiguously refer to the player and "he" would unambiguously refer to the host), but I don't really see the point in using "the host" rather than "Monty". -- Rick Block (talk) 00:38, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
- I passed by this article a while back. I had never heard of the American game show and did not really understand why there was an article explaining a game show. It was readable but I didn't understand the message. Just now, I noticed some of the references to sex that were nothing to do with the 'Jane' example and decided to de-sex it all.
- Then when I got into it, I started to notice that it was not really about how an obscure game show worked. Once I read the article as an interesting statistical paradox, mentally replacing 'Monty' with <term for player that knows where the prize is>, I started to get it.