User talk:B.A. Toole

Welcome!
Hello, B.A. Toole, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful: Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome!
 * Getting Started
 * Introduction to Wikipedia
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article
 * Simplified Manual of Style

Nov 4th, Contradictory lede?
Last night I added the correct copyrighted notations for my books. Most of the references and bibliography do not site original sources but rather derivative ones. There also are some major misinformation in this article.

Here are the citations I added. If you do not recognize my authority about this material you might ask James Gleick who quoted my books, properly acknowledging them over 45 times, I guees writing for Scientific America, does not count?

Toole, Betty Alexandra, Biography of Ada Lovelace, 1996 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37253 Toole, Betty Alexandra, Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: Prophet of the Computer Age, Strawberry Press, 1998, 2011, ISBN 0-978-912647-18-3 (http://www.adatheenchantress.com)

Toole, Betty Alexandra, Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: Poetical Science, Critical Connection, 2011 ISBN 978-0615-398167, e-book (http://www.adatheenchantress.com)

Toole, Betty Alexandra, Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: Poetical Science, Audio book. Narrated by Rosalind Ashford, British Accent, 2013, Audible (whttp://www.adatheenchantress.com)

Please put these citations back as soon as possible so that your readers will know where the originals sources of the material about Ada Lovelace come from. Then they can make their own decisions as to her proper place in history. Dr Betty Alexandra Toole B.A. Toole (talk) 16:48, 4 November 2013 (UTC) B.A. Toole (talk) 22:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Nov 5th
I still do not see the correct citations for my books listed. You had two of them attributed to Lovelace when they were my copyright I fixed that and added another two as well as the Elwin and the Morre citations. One person questioned who i was and that I was promoting myself when Wooley had over 20 citations. I have writteen researched and written more about Ada Lovelace than any one else. Please put back the citations. ((Betty))

Nov 11th
Hello Dr. Toole. I have gone through the article and added numerous citations to your work. I also elaborated a bit on Lovelace's philosophy of "poetical science". I did not include all of your work in the bibliography, since Wikipedia bibliographies are supposed to reflect the actual sources used to build the article, not function as an exhaustive list of related media. I also had to remove the lengthy quotation from the lead of the article since quotations are supposed to appear in the body, not the lead. On Wikipedia, the lead section of an article is required to act as a summary of the article itself. Thus, any detailed information should be presented in the article body. I also corrected the citations to your work that improperly listed Lovelace as the author.

While it is true that Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit", all contributions are expected to conform to Wikipedia guidelines and style conventions. You may find it helpful to look over Manual of Style and Manual of Style/Lead section. It is also recommended for any editors with a potential conflict of interest to suggest article changes on the talk page rather than editing the article directly. I suspect you will find your suggestions more readily accepted by that method. Cheers! Kaldari (talk) 00:45, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for you reply and taking your time. There are still issues..

Could you please add the link to my book, like Woolley did to his, by including www.adatheenchantress.com? Personally I would prefer Lovelace be listed as the author of the book of Letters even though I have the copyright to the original book. I would like to also cite the e-book separately as my copyright, with the appropriate link, www.adatheenchantress.com and we can forget all the other articles and books I have written about Ada Lovelace.

Also since in the article I quoted Poetical Science (5) and several other quotes shouldn't that be in the bibliography? It can be correctly cited, instead of the Byron Journal, as you point, as the e-book. Toole, Betty Alexandra, Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: Poetical Science, Critical Connection, 2011 ISBN 978-0615-398167, e-book (http://www.adatheenchantress.com). And that will solve that issue.

Your edit: Why did you remove the following line under education. it is the last sentence after functional equations: At first glance it appears that Ada does not understand functional equations; however, a closer analysis reveals that she went straight to the heart of the matter. In this era of quantum physics we know the difficulty of measuring a point and a wave at the same time. It is fascinating that the collapse Ada feels in her verbal metaphor of tangibility is suggestive of a problem for the mathematical metaphors of modern physics.

Your edit gives an entirely different interpretation. Can you put correct quote back in?

This sentence was a result of my editor,  Sir Drummond Bone, now Master of Balliol College Oxford and for me it is pivoal in understanding how Ada thought.

Could you also, ask Mr Woolley or do you want me do it, to cite the original resources in his many references in the article to his books. i did read the Wikipedia guidelines. That information he cites comes from many books from Elwin, to Moore, to Marchand and to my work. I did read the Wikipedia guidelines and it appears that Woolley has not adhered to footnoting properly.

Cheers, though I do not feel very cheerful because of this.

Please do make those corrections. I think it is little to ask.

Sincerely,

Betty

Nov 11th, duplicate, plus reply
Thank you for you reply and taking your time. There are still issues.. Could you please add the link to my book, like Woolley did to his, by including www.adatheenchantress.com? Personally I would prefer Lovelace be listed as the author of the book of Letters even though I have the copyright to the original book. I would like to also cite the e-book separately as my copyright, with the appropriate link, www.adatheenchantress.com and we can forget all the other articles and books I have written about Ada Lovelace. Also since in the article I quoted Poetical Science (5) and several other quotes shouldn't that be in the bibliography? It can be correctly cited, instead of the Byron Journal, as you point, as the e-book. Toole, Betty Alexandra, Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: Poetical Science, Critical Connection, 2011 ISBN 978-0615-398167, e-book (http://www.adatheenchantress.com). And that will solve that issue.

Your edit: Why did you remove the following line under education. it is the last sentence after functional equations: At first glance it appears that Ada does not understand functional equations; however, a closer analysis reveals that she went straight to the heart of the matter. In this era of quantum physics we know the difficulty of measuring a point and a wave at the same time. It is fascinating that the collapse Ada feels in her verbal metaphor of tangibility is suggestive of a problem for the mathematical metaphors of modern physics. Your edit gives an entirely different interpretation. Can you put correct quote back in? This sentence was a result of my editor, Sir Drummond Bone, now Master of Balliol College Oxford and for me it is pivoal in understanding how Ada thought. Could you also, ask Mr Woolley or do you want me do it, to cite the original resources in his many references in the article to his books. i did read the Wikipedia guidelines. That information he cites comes from many books from Elwin, to Moore, to Marchand and to my work. I did read the Wikipedia guidelines and it appears that Woolley has not adhered to footnoting properly. Cheers, though I do not feel very cheerful because of this. Please do make those corrections. I think it is little to ask. Sincerely, Betty


 * I did not remove the section you mention. That was removed by Xxanthippe. I did, however, replace the will-o-the-whisps quote with a different quotation from Lovelace. While I was rereading your book this afternoon I was struck by Lovelace's quote comparing function transformations with the mercurialness of sprites and fairies. It seems like a perfect example of Lovelace's "poetical science". It is also more flattering to Lovelace, as it doesn't emphasize her difficulty in understanding the mathematics in question. Also, I have to admit that I somewhat agree with Xxanthippe's characterization of the quantum physics claim as "speculation". It seems a bit of a stretch to suggest that Lovelace's will-o-the-whisps quote has anything to do with the uncertainty principle (which wasn't proposed until 1927). At face value, it seems to be a simple admission that she had difficultly fully understanding functional equations. Regardless, I hope you'll agree that the new quotation is a more fitting example. If not, perhaps we can discuss the options on the talk page.
 * Regarding Mr. Woolley, I'm not sure why you believe he had anything to do with the writing of the article. The main contributor to the article is Xxanthippe, followed by myself, although over 1000 users have contributed at least 1 edit to the article. Mr. Woolley wrote a popular biography of Ada Lovelace, so I don't think it is abnormal that his book is frequently cited in the article.
 * Regarding Poetical Science, I'll look into whether that is a better source to cite than the Byron Journal article. Frankly, though, I have to admit that your insistence on citing and linking to your own works appears to be a bit self-promotional. I'll gladly link your books to their entries at Google Books, as Mr. Woolley's book is, but linking to a promotional site, such as adatheenchantress.com, is not allowed by our citation and external linking policies. As I'm sure you can imagine, we have to balance the openness of Wikipedia with discouraging commercial exploitation. Kaldari (talk) 05:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Nov 11th, Revision as of 17:30, 11 November 2013
Dear Kaldari,

I have written articles on Ada Lovelace for Scientific American, Annals of the History of Computing, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and the Byron Journal. It was a dream to work with the editors, but working with Wikipedia for the last 8 days has been a nightmare.

Your edit of the third paragraph is unacceptable because it clouds Ada’s contribution.

Here is a revised text that should meet your guidelines, please reinsert.

Ada’s mind-set was not only unusual for the 19th century but the 21st century as well. In analyzing her contribution to mankind she wrote Charles Babbage that she would be far more than a poet than her father, but rather an “Analyst and Metaphysician” for she explained they go together indissolubly.(5) When she was not quite thirty her mother pressured her to write more scientific treatises, but Ada replied in frustration can you “give me poetical science?”   Ada did not see the world, or Babbage’s engine, as a comparison between man and the machine, but instead she asked questions about the critical connections between man and the machine, the machine and society, highlighting both the use and abuse of the machine. These are still pivotal questions that we are asking today. (6)

(5)Toole, Betty Alexandra, Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: Prophet of the Computer Age, Strawberry Press, 1998, 2011, ISBN 0-978-912647-18-3 (http://www.adatheenchantress.com) p. 157 (6) Toole, Betty Alexandra, Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: Poetical Science, Critical Connection, 2011 ISBN 978-0615-398167, e-book (http://www.adatheenchantress.com) Preface

Please reinsert the line you deleted in the sentence about functional equations. As I wrote you yesterday the footnote for that can be (5) but page 126

You say the protocal before I put the edit in was to gingerly suggest it in talk. That is not my understanding since the software gives you how to do it in sandbox. Nevertheless it was easy to see that this biography is heavily slanted and inaccurate and I suspected I would have trouble.

This article may be added under links; Ada Lovelace, 1996 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37253

Both Fuegi, an excellent film maker, and Woolley a brilliant writer and journalist have problems citing original sources. Whereas in film and journalism it is the last take that counts, in writing for an encyclopedia original sources count and raise copyright issues.

Another issue here is the editor, you, that I am dealing with who is anonymous. Like computers, anonymous people have no responsibility and this may be the fatal flaw in Wikipedia. I have no idea whether you are Stein, Fuegi, Woolley or just person who has volunteered their time but I do hope you will take responsibility. I am sure you want this biography to be the best it can be.

References 11 and 12, the original sources come from Marchand and Moore, not Woolley and Stein.

Reference 53 is from the preface, not the acknowledgments.

You might want to change the Lovelace to Toole. The reason this screw up came about is though the copyright was properly filed in the US they changed it in the UK.

When can I expect these changes, inserts, and bibliography? I will be checking everyday from now on and hopefully this will be the end of the discussion.

I know you are a volunteer, and I can see Woolley wrote this and I thank both of you for taking the time for this difficult task, but it is critical for copyright protection, and also for a clear understanding Ada’s contribution that readers have access to my books which contain original sources.

Nov 11th, Revision as of 18:16, 11 November 2013. Updated as of 23:53.
Dear Kaldari,

I just received your latest note. Thank you for your thoughtful reply which clears up some issues. I disagree about the quantum physics  quote. I think it is perfect as I wrote it. So does Sir Drummond Bone and indeed my friend Mel Schwartz who won the Noble Prize in 1988. In 1987 when Mel read that paragraph he said it was write on target so I certainly do not agree that it is far out.

Your corrections to that paragraph or O>K> but not on target.

I still want the insert about Ada's mind-set, that is the third paragraph.

So Woolley did not write this. I cannot quite understand why you have based your information for this biographical entry for an "encyclopedia" on a popular book and not original sources. This is suppose to be an encyclopedia.

Linking my books to Google is just fine. I am not into self-promotion but absolutely committed that people read the original sources and come to their own conclusions eg. There are major problems with this article you wrote eg: The Medora issue is a distraction and full of...

Ada's affair with Crosse could not have happened for as you might see in the e-book, Ada was totally incapable of sexual intercourse before she met Crosse. Stein cites Ada left him a portrait. Strange that portrait is on the second floor of the Benaki Museum in Athens. As for the gambling the source it is Ada's son Ralph who was 8 years old at the time. I checked the bank books, sat at the Bodleian for 3 years, and there is absolutely no evidence of addicted gambling in the files. As Woronzow Greig wrote after she died "why don't Lovelace and Lady Byron say the truth that these blackguards are just that, and there is no evidence that Ada owed them money."

Because you have relied on Woolley's book there are still many copyright issues. Mr Woolley has a journalist mind-set and did not cite properly.

Despite all of this I do thank you both for taking the time for a probably thank-less task, but I do want you to reassert the mind-set paragraph and the quantum physics. I guess I feel like Ada wrote to Babbage" don't mess with my words." If Wikipedia allows people to edit, that is what they herald, then I hope my edits stand.

I want Ada to be the inspiration to people to think creatively and critically and that is my primary goal.

Thanks you, Betty

Nov 12th, Revision as of 18:14, 12 November 2013
Could this be on the web site list?

Ada Lovelace, 1996 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37253

Dear Kaldari,

The nightmare is over and I want to thank you for making the changes, and I certainly see from those changes that you have tried very hard. Unfortunately I still feel that you have missed the boat, as does the web site, which consistently misses the heart of the matter. It is structured to debate the world through old eyes, did she or didn’t she write the Notes, the tables etc. I do not want to get into altercation about that as it is truly senseless, but let’s look at the facts that Collier etc have quoted: facts, those pervious tables. In my hardback I include a facsimile of the letter where Babbage calls Ada.. The Enchantress. Look at the handwriting. If you have a copy of the visuals in the Scientific American article you will see those tables are the backdrop. I made a mistake, which I did not discover until after the article went to press by attributing the tables to Babbage. Those tables are not in Babbage’s handwriting, nor is the style Babbage’s and after receiving a grant from ACM I did a data check at the British library tracing where Babbage was. He was not in London on any of those days. I doubt he took a scribe on his trips. The levels of the tables were suitable for a 10 year. Ada’s tables was done by her as evidenced in the correspondence.

Though Woolley did not write the Wikipedia entry it looks, to a stranger, with over 20 references that it was used to promote him. I consider him a journalist who writes very well. The information on the separation, not divorce, should come from Marchand, and early childhood from Elwin and Moore.

I have failed, to expand your vision, I have a broad vision, Ada did as well, but I understand that you just cannot see what I am saying. I am so sorry about that because I think you are missing out on some joy and inspiration. Perhaps in the e-book where I get the Introduction down to 2 pages and include puzzles and games after each chapter that might expand horizons and might help. Douglas Hofstadter like the new Intro, my neighbors did not, so in the audio book it is down to a half page. The audio is by far my favorite; Rosalind Ashford does a great job narrating the book.

I still feel that this insert:

Ada’s mind-set was not only unusual for the 19th century but the 21st century as well. In analyzing her contribution to mankind she wrote Charles Babbage that she would be far more than a poet than her father, but rather an “Analyst and Metaphysician” for she explained they go together indissolubly.(5) When she was not quite thirty her mother pressured her to write more scientific treatises, but Ada replied in frustration can you “give me poetical science?”   Ada did not see the world, or Babbage’s engine, as a comparison between man and the machine, but instead she asked questions about the critical connections between man and the machine, the machine and society, highlighting both the use and abuse of the machine. These are still pivotal questions that we are asking today. (6)

And this insert:

When Ada had difficulty understanding functional equations, she wrote De Morgan; "functional Equations are complete Will-o-the-wisps to me. The moment I fancy I have really at last got hold of something tangible and substantial, it all recedes further and further and vanishes again in thin air". The difficulty in observation is termed "the collapse of the wave-function". It is fascinating that the collapse Ada feels in her verbal metaphor of tangibility is suggestive of a problem for the mathematical metaphors of modern physics.

Both inserts go to the heart of the matter.

You replied that the reference to modern physics was a stretch but when Sir Drummond Bone and furthermore Mel Schwartz who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988 called what I wrote straight on target I can not help but wonder what your expertise is in physics. When I was writing this article, through Mel, I met three other Nobel recipients in Physics and we discussed this idea and they all agreed with my perception.

I thank you very much for the links, I like Amazon’s better, especially since Google has a hard time paying, but no matter.

Once again thank you for your time and effort. I do not like the idea that you, doing this hard work do not receive money or proper credit.

With best wishes,

Betty

Nov 19th, Revision as of 19:03, 19 November 2013
Dear Kaldari, What got erased is that I have reread the article and think you have done an excellent and outstanding job, though you will see I still have some issues.

I have reread your article and believe you have done an excellent job, and here are just a few comments and possible changes.

Once again though you have artfully edited what I wrote about functional equations I do believe my statement goes to the heart of why Ada's was so prescient, here it is again:

When Ada had difficulty understanding functional equations, she wrote De Morgan; "functional Equations are complete Will-o-the-wisps to me. The moment I fancy I have really at last got hold of something tangible and substantial, it all recedes further and further and vanishes again in thin air". The difficulty in observation is termed "the collapse of the wave-function". It is fascinating that the collapse Ada feels in her verbal metaphor of tangibility is suggestive of a problem for the mathematical metaphors of modern physics.

I believe as written  it does go to the heart of the matter .You replied that the reference to modern physics was a stretch but when Sir Drummond Bone and furthermore Mel Schwartz who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988 called what I wrote straight on target I can not help but wonder what your expertise is in physics  is. When I was writing this article, through Mel, I met three other Nobel recipients in Physics and we discussed this idea and they all agreed with my perception.

Next issue: a minor, but very important correction. Divorce is not accurate, it was separation.

Now as to copyright infringement and that is easy to fix. This is an encyclopedia and people are relying on you for accurate information, which means citing always as close to the original source ( that was Babbage's motivation for developing the engine) and also ends up to be not promoting one author over another. I did submit three authors that need to be credited Elwin, Marchand and Moore's, instead of so many Woolley citations.

And the last issue is Collier's outrageous analysis of Ada's mental health. Those few lines, outside not being true are offensive and "Ada bashing" and really are not appropriate for a technologist of Colliers authority.

What if I put on Turing's biography, he was gay, depressed and committed suicide, instead of "because Turing was homosexual he was the victim of harassment which led to his death by suicide".

Fixing those Woolley references I know is time consuming but it will raise the level of this biography.

I thank you for doing the work you are doing. I think my third book, the e-book is the most important because it includes puzzles and games to broaden people's vision from a categorical thinker to an integrative one. Of course I would like you to list it. Unfortunately or fortunately I have done 4 books, perhaps 30 articles, even helped Google with the Google Doodle and once again this is not for self promotion, or even promoting Ada as the "statute of liberty' of computing, but rather hopefully to use Ada's skills to help us "Brain Gain'' in this computer age,

Thank you, Betty Alexandra Toole

howdy
Hello Betty, you can call me 74. Noticed your messages over at Kaldari's talkpage, and figured perhaps you could use a hand. :-)

I would be delighted to be of some assistance to you. I love Ada, so that would also make it my pleasure, since I would metaphorically be helping her, eh? But there is one thing that you and myself need to get straightened out. The reason that you found it so dreamy to work with the paid professional editors at Scientific American, is because they were getting paid to sell magazines, and were using your article to sell their magazines, so they had a financial interest in making your experience working with them dreamy.

Your few weeks working with wikipedia editors have not been so dreamy. That is because of a confusion about terminology. You expect "them" to act like paid professionals, and to be perfectly happy to do as you ask. But the reason that wikipedians are called 'editors' is not because they bear any resemblance to the folks in the green eye-shades. The term 'editor' actually refers to the tools used, the text editor with which you post changes on this page, and Kaldari posts changes to the article on Ada, and so on. Nothing more, and nothing less, than clicking 'edit' and typing something and clicking 'save'.

Does this make sense? You are complaining that Kaldari has failed to do as you wish. But it ain't like that. You, when you first clicked 'edit' and then after that clicked 'save' became &mdash; in that very moment! &mdash; an editor of wikipedia, just like Kaldari. Anyhoo, now that you are one of us, welcome to wikipedia. I'll be glad to show you the ropes around here, explain how you can overcome difficulties, and help you find your way around the maze. But I'm not a paid tour guide, here to serve you because you bought a ticket. I'm here because I care about wikipedia, one of the top-ten websites in the universe now. Great place for folks to learn about Ada. Great place for folks to contribute information about Ada, too! The encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

But as Kaldari has been trying to gently point out, while we value your authoritative and expansive knowledge, unlike a general-interest publication with paying customers (Scientific American) and especially paying advertisers, wikipedia is a very strange place indeed. There is nothing else like it. I believe I can give you the lay of the land around here, if you'll let me. Looking forward to making your acquaintance, and wishing you a happy t-day. Thanks for improving wikipedia, it is appreciated. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 21:55, 30 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Hello 74,
 * Now I am a bit more confused since Kaldari is trying to help. Thank you for your note on Thanksgiving weekend.  Kaldari did start making changes but since it is a holiday weekend he will consider my requests this week.,eg editing the Collier comment about Ada's mental health, really abusive, and other items.
 * So let us see what happens this week. I do appreciate your comments and your loyalty to Wikipedia but when people are anonymous, like computers, there is no responsibility built in to the system. I wish there was some way to pay you, honor you etc.
 * So let us see how the edits come across.
 * Thanks again,
 * Betty
 * So let us see how the edits come across.
 * Thanks again,
 * Betty
 * Betty


 * Absolutely, I definitely expect that Kaldari will keep helping, and editing Ada, and so on. You are still free to chat with them, any time you like.  Sorry about the confusion.  As you probably realize by now, wikipedia is a bit of a confusing place!  :-)     Personally, I probably won't be editing the Ada article, because it is hard for me to stay neutral about the topic, I'm too enamoured of it.  What I would like to help with, though, is to see if you have any questions about wikipedia in general, and try and help you with talkpage colons, and little things like that.  For instance, I've moved your reply to me, and put some colons in front.  They are invisible when you are reading, but once you click 'edit' and start modifying-or-replying, you can see the colons.  These are a poor-fellow's-indentation system.
 * As for the anonymity, or more properly, the pseudonymity, it definitely does seem strange at first. But one advantage to computers is they make it easy to see what another person has done.  With somebody like Kaldari, for instance, you can see what they are working on, by clicking on their username, and then clicking on the 'user contributions' hyperlink over in the lefthand sidebar.  There is also a shortcut that takes you directly there, Special:Contributions/Kaldari.  You can see the same for yourself, Special:Contributions/B.A._Toole, as well as for me Special:Contributions/74.192.84.101 even though I just use a number rather than a username.  In your case, you have chosen a username that is also your legal name, and some folks do that, such as User:Jimbo_Wales.  But well over 90% of the folks you are likely to run into here are using pseudonyms of the numeric or the alphanumeric sort.  There are some advantages, of course:  people are judged  based on their work, rather than based on their appearance, the prestige of their surname, or anything like that.
 * The main disadvantage is that real-world merit and experience does not translate into wikipedia merit, very cleanly. Experts in their field, often have difficulty mastering the strange traditions around here, which were almost entirely invented from scratch since 2001 when wikipedia was founded.  For instance, there is a history teacher named Mike, who does work on the various royal families of the UK, and surrounding countries, mostly in the 1200s and 1300s from what I have seen.  They work from a computing device that makes punctuation very difficult, so it is hard for them to format the references, and sign their messages, and so on.  But they are learning quickly, and have found several helpers along the way.  Currently they were working with a User:GoingBatty on formatting-tricks.  Is that their real name?  Probably not, I would have to guess.  :-)    But easy to remember, certainly!  Once you run into a Kaldari, or a GoingBatty, you tend to recognize them the next time you bump into them.  Numbers like 74 and 121, which are myself and Mike respectively, are a bit harder to latch onto mentally, but not all that bad, kind of like jersey numbers.
 * As for your wish to pay and honor your fellow wikipedians, well, that's easy. Just type $$$$$$$ into your next comment, and I will feel much better.  If I only help a little bit, you can instead type $$$, and of course if I really make you delighted then a large tip such as $$$$$$$$$$$ is always welcome.  :-)    Okay, just kidding.  But seriously, most of us are happy to here a thank you now and then, like any humanoid.  If you want to pay us back more tangibly, the best way to impress most of us is by doing work to improve the articles.  There are about 4 million articles, and only about half of them are any good, sad to say.  Wikipedia is a gigantic project, and there is still so much to do.  But just like building a pyramid of giza, or a great wall of china, the best way is to concentrate on one brick at a time.  If you are interested, I can point you in the direction of some articles I'm currently working on, that need a *lot* of help.  They are not yet visible to the readers, but are in a place called AfC, which stands for Articles for Creation.  Plenty of grammar & clarity problems, not enough references usually, often use the wrong tone of voice, and so on.  But there is a special rule around here, WP:REQUIRED, which says that you, nor I, nor Kaldari, nor any other editor for that matter -- even Jimbo_Wales -- is required to do anything.  Wikipedia is organized as a place where you have liberty to do as you wish; very little is mandatory.  (On the flip side, most of us are not paid in cash, but only with intangibles.)  So, if you really only want to make sure that Ada is becomes as highly polished as she deserves to be, that is fine with me, quite seriously.  A very good goal.
 * Anyways, while we await the coming week of changes by Kaldari et al, if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. You can leave me a message over on *my* talkpage for the quickest response, but it is pretty cluttered, so the best way is to click 'talk' next to my number, and then click 'new section' at the top of the page, type your note, and click 'save'.  Sorry about how long this message has become; let me know if you prefer terse answers to verbose ones please, and next time I'll try to keep it a bit more brief.  Thanks, and talk to you soon.  p.s.  Somebody named 31 had put a change into the Ada page, saying that her place-of-death was Marylebone in London.  Do you know if that is factual?  And if so, do you think it is relevant to put into the article?  Sometimes articles include that information, such as the Walter_Payton biography about the athlete, but usually it is often only included for people like Einstein who was born in one country but later emigrated to another.  &mdash; 74.192.84.101 (talk) 10:17, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break, 2nd Dec 2013

 * Hi 74, Thank you for your last post.  I want to think about an addition after the Collins quote which I find totally untrue and offensive.  That will take a few days. As for the total Ada Lovelace Wikipedia a stranger, not knowing about her, would be far more taken by sex, gambling then her remarkable able to be prescient. Unfortunately Collier as a categorical thinker could not handle her not be a "computer" behaving in a predictable way.  Oh well, I will get back to you on Wednesday.  best wishes, betty  ((Betty, 21:49, 2 December 2013))


 * Hi B.A. Toole! I've made some minor formatting changes to Ada Lovelace.  Please let me know if you would like any other assistance.  GoingBatty (talk) 05:32, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks Going Batty, not quite sure what changes you made. ((Betty, 17:19, 3 December 2013‎))
 * Betty, meet Batty. :-)     Oh my, this is getting confusing.  All we need now is for User:Calamari to make an appearance, and everybody will be perfectly bewildered.  Seriously, though, to answer your question Betty, you can find out what GoingBatty has done by clicking on them.  You can see above, in their message to you, that there is a blue (talk) hyperlink between their name and the date.  If you rightclick that, and open it in a new tab, you will see their userpage, and on the lefthand side, there will be a  User contributions link, which I've copied here for teaching-purposes.  That list will should you every change, to every article, that GoingBatty has ever made here on the English-language wikipedia, with that particular pen-name at least.  Actually, truth be told, it only shows the most recent 50 changes, but you can click 'older 50' to see earlier ones.
 * However, rather than looking through *all* of the changes that GoingBatty has made to *all* articles on enWiki, you probably just want to see the changes to the Ada Lovelace article, right? That is also possible, and has a very similar list, but the information is accessed in a different way.  I will put that in a new section, by itself.  Please leave me a note on my talkpage, if you need anything, plus please let us know when you have made up your mind about a sentence (as always preferably backed up by a published source) that ought to be used to  balance the Collins quotation.  Hope you are doing well, talk to you later.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:52, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

To see recent changes to some particular wikipedia article, open the article in a new tab, and then rightclick on the 'view history' button at the top of the article-page, and open that in a new tab as well. Here is the article,, and here is the view-history-page for that article, for easy access. Currently, when looking at that article-view-history-page, I can see the following information at the top, in reverse chronological order:

(cur | prev) (o)05:31, 03 Dec 2013‎ GoingBatty    (talk | contribs)‎. . (48,430 bytes) ( -5)‎. . (→‎Conceptual leap:         fixed reference) (cur | prev)(o) 05:30, 03 Dec 2013‎ GoingBatty    (talk | contribs)‎. . (48,435 bytes) ( -5)‎. . (→‎First computer program:  fixed reference) (cur | prev) O  05:28, 03 Dec 2013‎ GoingBatty    (talk | contribs)‎ m. . (48,440 bytes) (+13)‎. . (                          date formats per WP:MOSNUM by script) (cur | prev) O  05:25, 03 Dec 2013‎ GoingBatty    (talk | contribs)‎. . (48,427 bytes) ( +6)‎. . (→‎Commemoration:           fixed reference) (cur | prev) O  05:24, 03 Dec 2013‎ GoingBatty    (talk | contribs)‎. . (48,421 bytes) ( +5)‎. . (                          fixed reference) (cur | prev) O  05:23, 03 Dec 2013‎ GoingBatty    (talk | contribs)‎ m. . (48,416 bytes) ( -8)‎. . (→‎External links:          revmoed extra full stops) (cur | prev) O  05:22, 03 Dec 2013‎ GoingBatty    (talk | contribs)‎ m. . (48,424 bytes) ( +1)‎. . (→‎External links:          fixed date format) (cur | prev) O  14:57, 28 Nov 2013‎ Gandalf61     (talk | contribs)‎. . (48,423 bytes) (+10)‎. . (Undid 213.48.79.188       rvv) (cur | prev) O  14:50, 28 Nov 2013‎ 213.48.79.188 (talk)‎. . (48,413 bytes) (-10)‎. . (→‎Childhood                ) (cur | prev) O  22:56, 27 Nov 2013‎ Kaldari       (talk | contribs)‎. . (48,423 bytes) ( +3)‎. . (→‎Childhood:               changing divorce to separation)

Starting at the bottom, on Nov 27th, we see Kaldari making a useful change, with the edit-summary "changing divorce to separation" that was specifically to the "Childhood" section of Ada Lovelace, which made a net difference of +3 letters, because they deleted seven-letter-divorce then added in ten-letter-separation. Make sense? Okay. If you wanted to *see* what Kaldari did, you would click on the 'prev' hyperlink on the lefthand side, to see the diff. Here it is, for your convenience.

The next day, we see 213 making a change which is also in the Childhood section, but without saying what they did... the edit-summary is blank. Plus, seven minutes later, User:Gandalf61 deleted the work of 213, with the wikiCop jargon rvv as their terse edit-summary... translated into proper English, that is shorthand for "reverting visgoth" and is a VERY SERIOUS ACCUSATION, that should only be used in cases where you are positively certain that what you are reverting *is* actually no-doubt-about-it piggish horrid crude vandalism, no possibility of good faith whatsoever. We can check up on Gandalf's work, and see whether it really was obvious vandalism, by clicking the 'prev' button next to 213's edit, which I've copied here. And yes, it turns out the Gandalf's instincts as a wikicop were dead on the money. I will remember to leave them a thank-you note.

Finally, we see seven edits in a row on Dec 3rd, by the one and only GoingBatty, between the times of 5:22 and 5:31, some of them with wiki-tools (see 5:28 for instance that was done with an automated or semi-automated computer script), and some of them probably by hand. Now, we can look at all seven of these, one at a time... but the better way is to look at all seven at once! To do that, we have to learn a new trick, there is no special button for view-all-seven-at-once. Here are the steps.


 * 1)  * (cur | prev) O   14:57, 28 Nov  ...  Next to Gandalf's recent edit, at first we see something like what I've written on the left.
 * 2)  * (cur | prev)(o)  14:57, 28 Nov  ...  Leftclick the little grey circle, to make it filled in with orange
 * 3)  Finally, click the grey [Compare selected revisions] button, which is at the top of the list, just under the 'newest | oldest | View newer ....' stuff near the top of the body.

Betty, if you managed to accomplish the steps in order (and if nobody changed anything in the meantime!), you should see something like this. The khaki-orange highlights on the lefthand side indicate deletion, and the cyan-blue highlights on the righthand side indicate insertion. For instance, we can see that GoingBatty changed "Citation | date = 2012 Dec 10" into the more specific and more standardized "Cite news | date = 10 December 2012" because that particular reference was to The Guardian. Later there was a change from "February, 1828," to the more-readable "February 1828," prose which omits the comma from the middle. In one of their edit-summaries, GoingBatty mentioned the general policy, which is always a good idea, but here is the specific policy methinks: MOS:DATEUNIFY for the reformatting, and WP:MONTH for the comma-deletion. This sort of copy-editing is known as WikiGnome stuff, colloquially. :-)   GoingBatty also does other sorts of work, of course, but they are definitely a lean mean wikiGnome, when they want to be.

Anyways, does all this make a little sense? You can always see what has changed recently in an article, by clicking on 'view history' at the top of that article. Similarly, you can always see what a person has been doing lately, by clicking on their talkpage, and then clicking on 'user contributions' over on the lefthand side of their talkpage. Then, you can leave them a note on their talkpage, if you had a question about one of their edits. Articles also have talkpages, of course, and the best place to compose suggested additions to the article -- such as your sentence to balance the Collins quote -- is on those talkpages, especially if the subject in question is touchy, controversial, or otherwise might be perceived as stepping on somebody else's toes. Hope this helps, and thanks for improving wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:52, 7 December 2013 (UTC) As you know, clicking the edit button at the very top of the page works. However, to avoid confusion, there are some unwritten rules about using talkpages.  Whoa, how did that one get in there? Nevermind.

First, your replies should be added below the person that you are replying to. Example:

Hello, Betty, nice to see you again. --74, Monday
 * Hello, 74, you look younger every day. --Betty, Tuesday   ( Attentive readers please note -- Betty does not actually know what I look like!  Awful polite of her to say, however. :-)
 * Are you reading any good books about Ada these days? --74, Wednesday
 * Yes, I suggest you try insert book title here. --Betty, Thursday
 * It was great, thanks much! --74, Saturday

Second, as you can see above, each message should be indented from the previous message. This is done using colons, click the blue 'edit' button on this talkpage section (right next to the "how do i answer talkpage messages" title in bold a few lines upwards from here) and you will be able to see the colons. Let me know if this makes sense -- you can reply immediately below, and use colons too, if you like. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:52, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so much!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:9:2B80:509:223:DFFF:FE9F:7C02 (talk) 16:50, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Status as of 2013-12-20
Hello Betty, here is a summary of what has happened during the past couple of weeks. There were also some capitalization adjustments and other crucial-yet-tiny things, click here for all the details.


 * 1)  CHANGED by 75 (no relation :-) in collaboration with  Galdalf:  Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be processed  carried out by a machine.  ...These notes contain what is considered by some  many consider to be the first computer program—that is, an algorithm encoded for processing  designed to be carried out by a machine.
 * 2)  REMOVED by Kaldari methinks:  To me, correspondence between Ada and Babbage seems to make obvious once again that Ada was as mad as a hatter, and contributed little more to the 'Notes' than trouble.
 * 3)  ADDED by  176 in collaboration with with  Galdalf and  myself:  In Tom Stoppard's 1993 play Arcadia, the precocious teenage genius Thomasina Coverly (a character "apparently based"[64][83] on Ada Lovelace—the play also involves Lord Byron) comes to understand chaos theory, and theorises the second law of thermodynamics, before either is officially recognised.

Do these things look like improvements? Speaking of overall coverage of Ada in wikipedia, is there any other work than needs doing, that you could suggest? Thanks much. Hope you are doing well, talk to you later. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 20:07, 21 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the changes. I was off in Mexico and appreciate your doing the work!  &mdash; Betty 01:24, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Status as of 2014-01-12
 * No problem, glad to help. There were some small changes over the holidays, but not too many.  Happy 2014.  :-)  The main language-change was inserting a word for grammatical-clarity.


 * 1)  CHANGED by User:NickBell: ...While studying differential calculus, she wrote to De Morgan: "I may remark...
 * Beyond that, there was also some robot-assisted work on punctuation and hyperlinks, see here if you wish. Hope you enjoyed Mexico, leave me a note on my user-talkpage if you need anything, thanks.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:54, 13 January 2014 (UTC)