User talk:The Mad Genius

Edit reverts[edit]

I am reverting two types of edits:

I am reverting the category edits because these articles belong in both a general category and a subcategory. See the "second categorization rule" at WP:SUBCAT. General galaxy shapes (spiral, irregular, elliptical, or lenticular) is directly related to very many of the galaxies' basic properties (such as mass, the general dynamics of the stars, the ages of the stellar populations, star formation activity, AGN activity, ISM composition, location, and interaction history). The presence or absence of bars only influences a couple of smaller factors (the specific location of the ISM, some small dynamics issues, and possibly nuclear star formation and AGN activity). Therefore, galaxies should be classified in both "X galaxies" and "Barred X galaxies" categories. This is a convention that is used in professional astronomy, and a convention that should be used here.

As for the reference edits, I am reverting those simply because a link to the general NED page and a note indicating the search term seems to be sufficient. This type of reference seems sufficient. Moreover, it makes NED accessible to new users who may want to search for other objects.

These are the conventions that we have been using for galaxy articles for a few months now. If you seriously think that they need to be changed, then I may suggest further discussion in a forum elsewhere. Dr. Submillimeter 07:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The category issue is debatable. Inclusion in a subcategory implies inclusion in the super category, but I guess I'll defer for the moment to current convention.

I disagree strongly with your reasoning on the link. A reference link should take someone directly to the reference material whenever possible, not to an intermediate page. The specific page has backlinks to the home page should someone want to explore further. Also, this doesn't explain why you also reverted my addition of the missing search term. The Mad Genius 07:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can debate the categorization issue very strongly. As a professional astronomer, I work with comparing galaxy morphology to other galaxy properties frequently. I can point to numerous references that validate this type of approach to galaxy categorization. To begin with, read Kennicutt (1998) (star formation versus morphology) or Roberts & Haynes (1994) (multiple intrinsic galaxy properties versus morphology). I can produce many more references if needed.

As for the references, I feel less strongly about referencing the specific NED entry versus the main NED page (as revealed by the smaller amount of text that I have written on the topic). I think your case for changing the links is stronger. I will leave those edits alone at this point. (Also, see the last fix I made to NGC 5408.)

To help me understand you, could you please tell me what your background is in astronomy? I am currently a post-doc with the astrophysics group at Imperial College London. I can provide more information if necessary. Dr. Submillimeter 07:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify: I am going to revert most of your category edits, but I am also going to leave the edits to the NED links alone. Also, to let you know, I will automatically destroy any references to the SEDS.org website (which is generally a very poor reference).

It is too bad that we had to get off to a bad start this way. I hope things get smoother in the near future. Dr. Submillimeter 08:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I said I would defer on the category issue. My issue there has to do only with the fact that the subcategories are readily accessible under the higher-level categories—I'm not disagreeing with the value in multiple categories for the galaxies, only that there is no case where inclusion in the subcategory does not imply inclusion in the parent category, so it is simpyl redundant. But enough on that subject—as I said, I'll go with the current convention.

However, in reverting my changes, you have carelessly reverted a number of other minor improvements I made to the various pages. This is most unhelpful. I too hope future exchanges are more collaborative than this first one. The Mad Genius 08:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, one more fairly relevant issue on the links is that a lookup using the search term sometimes return many results. I've linked the pages to the primary result that was used as the reference. By linking only to the home page you leave it to the reader to try and determine the relevant entry. (And I haven't added, nor did I intend to add, any references to SEDS.) The Mad Genius 08:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to avoid reverting most other edits (such as wikilinks). One thing that I did revert were the addition of "& nbsp ;" characters, which generally are not needed.

Again, may I ask, what is your educational/professional background in astronomy? Also, are you a former user returning under a different username? You seem to have a lot of knowledge about Wikipedia for a newcomer. Dr. Submillimeter 08:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've edited some previously on anonymous IPs and lurked quite a bit, but this is my first account. I'm also a pretty quick study to figure out how online systems operate...what the conventions are, the jargon, shortcuts, etc. So I probably seem like I've been editing here longer than I have I guess. My background is perhaps not so different from yours, although this is not my primary professional field anymore. The Mad Genius 08:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and the   keeps linebreak from separating the units from the numerical value. I think I read somewhere in one of the style guides that it is recommended. The Mad Genius 08:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why be vague about your professional background? It's useful to understand who I am talking with. What is your background, and who are you working for now? Do you have a reason to not share this information? At the very least, can I correctly assume that you are not an extragalactic astronomer? Dr. Submillimeter 08:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I found it. Look at WP:UNITS, about halfway down the list it says:

Put a space between the value and the unit symbol, for example "25 kg" not "25kg". Preferably, use   for the space (25 kg) so that the two parts do not become separated by line wrapping.

As to my background, I have reasons why I want to preserve my anonymity and being vague about my credentials seems prudent in that regard. You can assume whatever you want about my background, but I will confirm that I am not an extragalactic astronomer. My background is more astrophysics than astronomy, but even that isn't complete. The Mad Genius 08:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Black hole protection[edit]

The article was actually semi-protected, meaning that unregistered users and very new users weren't allowed to edit it (most likely due to vandalism or page blanking). Only full protection disallows non-admin users from editing articles. Hope that helps! :) – riana_dzasta 03:50, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it does. Thank you for explaining. The Mad Genius 04:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Odd revert[edit]

Please fix the line feed error you introduced with footnote #1 under Supernova#References. I attempted to address this but for some reason you chose to revert. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 20:34, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, you didn't explain in your summary comment why you changed it—I didn't see that it was messing up the first reference. I've "fixed" it now. The Mad Genius 21:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. It's an odd problem that I hadn't seen before, perhaps related to the way the references tag works. — RJH (talk) 21:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]