User talk:Double sharp/Archive 14

Oxygen TFA?
I hoped to rerun this on September 5 as WP:TFA, and I worked quite hard adding references where possible (several more today) and removing unreferenced text. This is worth doing anyway, given that the article appears not to have been maintained, to help keep it at FA standard.

I notice that you restored the unreferenced biomolecules section with no references, but with the edit note this is bleeding obvious; just look at the chemical formulae and notice the O in it. Unfortunately, "obvious" cuts no ice as a citation, and there aren't any formulae except the phosphate ion. The bottom line is that I can't run it as an unsourced section, however obvious it may be, and I'm not going to edit war on this. I'll list it provisionally for Sept 5 for now, but it either needs that section referencing or removing, otherwise I'll have to pull it from the list fairly soon. You may wish to consult other members of the elements project for comments or help with sourcing. Pinging, for their info Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  14:37, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The problem with this is that it is so bleeding obvious from the formulae (many of which would have been linked in any case) that I doubt you can find any source stating it specifically, because any source which covers this would no doubt have already covered (or assumed knowledge of) how to read chemical formulae, and would not feel the need to spell it out again. At the most we might be able to grab a citation saying that O is one of the core elements in biomolecules, but good luck finding the list of examples. I have in any case temporarily removed the section, leaving just the first line. Double sharp (talk) 14:59, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks for that. The other solution that occurred to me was that it could be temporarily commented out, but either way once we get to September 9 (when it drops off the mainpage "recently featured"), it can be restored again. I'm not without sympathy here; I sometimes find myself struggling to reference the "bleeding obvious" in my own FAs, often more difficult than supporting an obscure fact, but it's a fact that an unsourced paragraph is a non-starter at FA. In a different world we might get away with only sourcing key facts or those that might be challenged, but, unfortunately, it ain't this one ): Jimfbleak - talk to me?  15:15, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * If you need any more really old FAs to rerun in the future, I have been waiting since 2012 for the time when periodic table can adorn our main page again! Since it got its status back then, having been de-featured in the meantime, I would think IIRC that it lacks the citation problems of H and He. (Like O, they are good articles, but have a distressing lack of citations in some places.) Double sharp (talk) 03:24, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion. I wouldn't normally have looked at that since the headline is that it ran as TFA in 2004, too far back to meet current standards, but, as you indicate, it was re-promoted in 2012 and there are no dead links. I'm next scheduling in January, so I could run it then if it's not picked up before. It would be good if you could could remove refs from lead, since it's a summary of the text, and generally check if any copyediting is needed. I'm pinging  and  since they have been looking at old FAs. If it isn't picked up before, contact me in early December, and I'll run it in January. Cheers Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  05:43, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping, I don't see any problems with running this. - Dank (push to talk) 13:48, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Periodic table
So I think I've been brought here to discuss whether Periodic table is OK for Main page, is that right? A first glance suggests it looks reasonably well referenced. Someone ought to check the links. I have two problems I'd like to raise.

One is that the citations often break MOS because they don't follow punctuation. That's not a big deal, but it does need some fiddly fixing.

The other is that this article has been indef protected against editing since 2010 by an OFFICE action. I could be out of step with fashion, but there was a time when we tried very hard not to protect material on Main page because it undermines our raison d'etre in our own shop window. Seven years is a very long time and I don't even know how we'd go about overturning an OFFICE protection, but I think we should. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 08:21, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It can hardly be a sin to be out of step with the current fashion, given your signature! ^_-☆ But as far as I know (and WP:PP appears to indicate likewise) nothing has changed about protecting TFA. I must confess though that I don't quite see how the protection was an office action: the logs seem to indicate nothing more than protection against perennial vandalism. Am I missing something? Double sharp (talk) 10:32, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I misread a header, not spotting an "if"!. was the admin that indef protected it and as you're still around, DMacks, would you mind if we tried unprotecting? Our bots for spotting and often reverting vandalism are a lot better these days. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:34, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I reduced it to PC1, so everyone can edit but anon/new-editor edits aren't automatically visible to readers. That'll give us a chance to see how much vandalism happens vs what good edits these editors contribute. If I recall, at the time of the protection, PC1 was only in a beta trial at most. DMacks (talk) 12:47, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm watching this as well now, so between us we should be able to smite the ungodly Jimfbleak - talk to me?  12:55, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Oxygen scheduled for TFA
This is to let you know that the oxygen article has been scheduled as today's featured article for September 5, 2017. Please check the article needs no amendments. If you're interested in editing the main page text, you're welcome to do so at Today's featured article/September 5, 2017, but note that a coordinator will trim the lead to around 1100 characters anyway, so you aren't obliged to do so. Thanks! Jimfbleak - talk to me?  08:05, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks double sharp
Thank you for your help Aibalsebastian13 (talk) 15:36, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Aibalsebastian13 (talk) 15:36, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! Double sharp (talk) 23:35, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2017 September newsletter
Round 4 of the WikiCup has ended and we move forward into the final round. In round 4, a total of 12 FAs, 3 FLs, 44 GAs, 3 FLs, 79 DYKs, 1 ITN and 42 GARs was achieved, with no FPs or FTs this time. Congratulations to Peacemaker67 on the Royal Yugoslav Navy Good Topic of 36 items, and the 12 featured articles achieved by Cas Liber (5), Vanamonde93 (3), Peacemaker67 (2), Adityavagarwal (1) and 12george1 (1). With a FA scoring 200 points, and bonus points available on top of this, FAs are likely to feature heavily in the final round. Meanwhile Yellow Evan, a typhoon specialist, was contributing 12 DYKs and 10 GAs, while Adityavagarwal and Freikorp topped the GAR list with 8 reviews each. As we enter the final round, we are down to eight contestants, and we would like to thank those of you who have been eliminated for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. The lowest score needed to reach round 5 was 305, and I think we can expect a highly competitive final round.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews Needed. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck, and let the best man (or woman) win! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 06:26, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Autoblocked again
I have added the global IP block exempt right to your account so that you are now able to edit everywhere. R adi X ∞  14:21, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much, RadiX! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 14:40, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

well shucks
chemistry doesn't make sense anymore. thanks for correcting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.128.229.254 (talk) 17:34, 5 September 2017‎ (UTC)
 * Don't worry, it's not all that bad. La is by no means the only element where the observed configuration doesn't match what you would expect from simply applying the Madelung rule. The pattern is still there in the average, despite some exceptions (especially for La and Ac). Double sharp (talk) 23:36, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

A new paper about the volatility of nihonium
 5.18.236.148 (talk) 15:25, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you!!! Double sharp (talk) 15:31, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've added a brief summary of the results to the Nihonium article. Double sharp (talk) 23:26, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Roentigium
I'm sorry, I really don't see how you are helping here. Please stop making reverts. 89.107.5.192 (talk) 05:58, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Your recent editing history shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing&mdash;especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring&mdash;even if you don't violate the three-revert rule&mdash;should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.107.5.192 (talk) 06:01, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I see you've taken note of this, but are still reverting things without first providing absolute justification that what you're doing is better. Can you explain this. 89.107.5.192 (talk) 06:09, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * You can't then? 89.107.5.192 (talk) 06:12, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Compound modifier
89.107.5.192 (talk) 06:33, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Thorium
It's a pity I haven't been around lately and I probably still won't be for some time. Maybe that's one week, maybe a couple of months, depending on how lucky I am IRL. I just wanted to make sure you're still there with thorium; so far, I've made up to ref 14 in History. Hope you'll try to catch me from the other end of the ref list soon. The FAC is nearly there; it could've been completed a couple of months ago if it wasn't for you and me going so slowly. While I can hardly go faster in the coming days, I sincerely hope you can. Can you?--R8R (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I hope I can too, but likewise I am not sure. (Currently most of my editing on weekdays is through my smartphone, on which it is a massive pain to do most things involving references and actual content additions.) I can try to get some of it done today, though. Double sharp (talk) 02:25, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * That would be great. Actually, I think that pinging you once in a while could be good for the goal to avoid the "haven't done that in a while so another day won't hurt" sitaution.
 * Speaking of which, I wouldn't mind you pinging me. A couple of times I sort of pinged myself and got some of those refs done :)--R8R (talk) 09:19, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry for not starting yet, though; I have been running to stay ahead of a few deadlines IRL, but that crisis has now been averted, so you should see me start with the references in a few hours. I remember that you had a guide to it somewhere on Talk:Lead that seems to have disappeared now, so I also took a bit of time to look for it (it's this, isn't it?) Also, do you want to ask Sandbh for comments again as usual before the final scaling of Mount FAC? ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 10:00, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * (...and then my computer broke down...sigh...) Double sharp (talk) 23:24, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Minor note: I am not sure if I have applied a consistent notation system for page ranges and access dates. To be checked separately.
 * Hope your laptop will run as intended soon! :)
 * I am not sure if I want to contact Sandbh prior to the FAC. His comments are always great and welcome, but maybe it would be a good thing to relieve him from having to care about my articles so early. I don't want to distract him from what he wants to do: to develop a new color scheme for us, to rewrite nonmetal, he also has his RL things. I haven't made up my mind on that, but that's my thinking at the moment. (And what is said here is not a polite disguise for anything else; I have nothing against his participation and will rather adore it later, I just don't want to bother him myself right now.) Anyway, I'll gladly accept any comments from him, positive or critical, during the FAC.--R8R (talk) 14:27, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've been getting it sorted out, so I think I can get back to it in a few days. In the meantime I have been trying to add stuff on my phone; my attempt to add a new paper to oganesson there is I guess a proof of concept that it can be done, but it's not something I'd like to try again. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 14:53, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that link, it is an interesting essay. I do some editing on my tablet, and like, find that I prefer the desktop view, not only for editing but also for reading WP. YBG (talk) 23:40, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I've just finished going through the reference list. I've removed a couple of pics; replacements are not easily available, so we've got a couple of picless spots. Sorry to have it this way but not too sorry. At this point, we're ready to go for a copyedit and (maybe immediately, maybe after we complete the copyedit) for a FAC. So please give the article a read and think if there's anything you don't like or want improved; now's a good time for that.--R8R (talk) 21:25, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I was about to say that I got my computer troubles fixed and was ready to get on the references again, but you've already done it. ^_^ Thank you so much!
 * I'm giving it a read today; in the meantime, we appear to have gotten the honour of getting an Azerbaijani translation. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 03:03, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * No problem. Great to know your computer is up again!
 * While reading the article, please think if there are pictures we could add. It wouldn't hurt not to but it will be better if we do.
 * Ooh, interesting. I wonder how did you even find out about that?--R8R (talk) 11:03, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I noticed that you removed File:Thorium reactions.svg (which is fine with me; it works better on the spin-off article Compounds of thorium), and I saw that user subpage in the links. ^_^
 * BTW, on just giving it a look, I suspect that there are significant differences between how the desktop view looks on an actual desktop and how it looks on a mobile; I guess the decay chain image was moved to the left side of the text because it crashes into the infobox on mobile, but it doesn't on desktop. I'm not sure how best to deal with that, or whether it needs to be dealt with at all. Double sharp (talk) 12:24, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've moved the decay chain graph to the left because the previous side thing (the infobox) is on the right; that is all.
 * As for mobile vs. desktop sizes, I did what the guidelines suggest to do, introducing the  parameter.
 * Actually, I've discovered something else to be done; since your computer is up again, you could help me here. We need to check for dead links in references (see tool for help; no need to fill the missing accessdates, though, because all refs marked as lacking them actually have ISBNs) and add alt text to pictures (see tool for help). This should be it from the technical perspective.--R8R (talk) 15:13, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've done the readings on my part. Maybe I could go picky for prose but I'm not feeling like it right now and don't want that to be the reason for another delay. Essentially, I'm now waiting for you to read the article, tackle the problems highlighted by the tools, and then I'll eagerly go ask John (or someone else if he won't be available) for a copyedit. Maybe we'll start the FAC at the same time (depending on what response we get from the copyeditor). We're driving just before the finish line on this race on FAC preparations and we're about to cross it. When do you think you could get to it?--R8R (talk) 18:11, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * This weekend should be manageable, I think. Double sharp (talk) 23:25, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * That would be fine.--R8R (talk) 08:07, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Why is it that the moment I have enough time to do it you've finished it already?!? ^_^ Seriously, this is making me feel vaguely guilty about not exactly having done much of anything to the article recently, unlike you who have been running ahead of me...but at least we can look forward to the finish line, I guess. I promise you a co-nom! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 13:24, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Hey, that's alright. Give it a good read though, your satisfaction with the article and its condition is still required :) Then we can go ask for a copyedit and then follows the FAC.--R8R (talk) 13:29, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm still fairly busy, so I haven't given it a good read through yet. But I have given it a slightly less good read through and I haven't found anything about the article and its condition that I'm not satisfied with, so that's something, isn't it? ^_-☆ Double sharp (talk) 15:47, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know how "slightly" we are talking about. But generally, it's up to you. I think the article is alright and good to go, I just want you to think the same. If you do, off we go. If you don't, I'll have to wait.--R8R (talk) 16:14, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I think everything that needs to be there is there, and everything that doesn't need to be there isn't there, so yes, I think we can go straight to the copyedit now. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 04:23, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Good. Soon enough we're starting the FAC. If you have a spare minute, though, could you take a look at dubnium? I've had enough time not seeing this article to give it a good fresh look...man, the prose was terrible in some parts of it. Oh well. Must be better now. Still, I'd love you to take a look. Not just on prose but in general.--R8R (talk) 15:18, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I haven't had much time today, but I'll have time for this tomorrow. Double sharp (talk) 15:19, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you; tomorrow will be great.--R8R (talk) 15:28, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I gave it a look through, and apart from a few brush-ups I did to the prose, I think we're essentially there. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 16:14, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Sweet; thank you very much! I guess that'll be my next FAC after we start the thorium review then.--R8R (talk) 19:51, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Wonderful! When do you want to start the Th FAC? I promise you'll get your co-nom this time now that I actually have a clue how to write them. ^_-☆ Double sharp (talk) 23:22, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I am still waiting for response from John. He's finished with his first round on the article, says he only expects now to make some pickings rather than big prose changes. When he has completed the copyedit, we may begin. In response to your original question, I think, soon enough. Don't think we'll have to wait for too long.--R8R (talk) 23:27, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I just opened John's talk page; he said (to someone else) that he was very busy. He told me that beforehand, so I expected this; I'm still fine with this but I cannot know if you are. As I said, I am fine with waiting (the bronze star won't get away) but I am genuinely afraid that you might be dying to start the FAC already and are displeased with having to wait. If waiting is good with you, then we'll just wait; I'm sure we'll get a good copyedit if we do. If it's not, however, then please write to him. John seems to be a reasonable man; I'm sure he'll be fine with it.--R8R (talk) 22:12, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Don't worry, waiting is fine with me. I have been getting this one up pretty much since September 2014 (not far from π years ago, amusingly); what's another few months? ^_-☆ Double sharp (talk) 23:44, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you; it's good to be sure you're fine.
 * I;m considering nominating dubnium in case the copyedit will take long. Would you be fine with that?--R8R (talk) 00:19, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure, please do go ahead! Double sharp (talk) 02:43, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I just checked, however, and it turns out (I genuinely forgot about that) that the main copyedit was done three weeks ago. I just wrote to John to check what his plans were. While I find that improbable, I can't ignore the possibility that the work is done or is one step away from being done; really wouldn't want to make you wait for another month in that case.--R8R (talk) 11:37, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Please share your opinion on the recent merge of the Nuclear section into the Nuclear subsection of History. John thinks this was a good move; I think otherwise. You can follow the relevant discussion here.--R8R (talk) 08:11, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Seen and responded. Thank you! Double sharp (talk) 10:24, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi! Can I assume you're back?
 * If that is the case, could you finalize the discussion at Talk:Thorium? I entrust you with the power to resolve it in whatever way you find most appropriate. Both John's and my positions are there. Once you've done that, that must be the end of the copyedit or at least close to it. Once it is over for good, we can proceed to the FAC.--R8R (talk) 17:27, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm back. I'll consider both your positions and should have come up with something by tomorrow. Double sharp (talk) 23:51, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ I've considered the issue and I think your version is better, so I've edited it accordingly. (And as usual it has taken a few days longer than what I intended it to, but it's done now.) Double sharp (talk) 12:29, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Great. I'd say we can go forth now. Please feel free to start the FAC whenever you see fit.--R8R (talk) 19:27, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
 * We launched! Double sharp (talk) 14:59, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm going to be extremely busy during the following week. Is there any chance you'll be able to fix the problems raised at the FAC?--R8R (talk) 14:09, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Should be able to do it tomorrow or the day after, I think. Double sharp (talk) 15:53, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Marian Dora
Hi. You helped me with many film-related articles in the past. Hoping all is well. Recently, I translated an article from the German Wikipedia about a filmmaker called Marian Dora. Here is the only known front photo of him. Do you believe it can be used at his article with regards to the non-free content policy? Thanks.--79.183.203.120 (talk) 14:10, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, because the first criterion at WP:NFCC is that "no free equivalent is available, or could be created" – and one could certainly be created (though perhaps not easily). Previously I've managed to make the argument for a few contentious ones that while a free equivalent could be created, it could not be done so legally (e.g. File:Polonium.jpg), but I don't think this will make the cut. Double sharp (talk) 14:38, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * OK. Thanks for the commentary.--79.183.203.120 (talk) 14:44, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks!
Hi, thank you for your comments at my RfA. Your support is much appreciated! ansh 666 21:41, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Double sharp (talk) 03:19, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Pre-calcium elements
What I meant with "pre-calcium" elements is that Group 13 is considered as Group 3 (such as boron and aluminium) in high school chemistry, when the simplified "up to 8 valence electrons" idea is used. And in doing so, elements calcium and before are the only elements to be mentioned with valence shells, since in reality post-calcium elements have a completely different valence structure. While Wikipedia is meant to be targetted at an expert level, we get a few high school readers too, and they may potentially think why the real Group 13 is not mentioned in an article named "Group 3 element". Qwertyxp2000 (talk &#124; contribs) 06:38, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I understood what you were getting at, but I also think it would be better to do it with terms that people actually use; currently the hatnote reads "For the other group formerly named Group III (boron group), see Group 13 element.", which I think is clarifies what is going on a little better. (Also, is it really "group 3" and not "group III"? In high school it was always Roman numerals, at least for me – and we certainly did cover the first row of transition metals from Sc to Cu.)
 * P.S. You won't actually go very far wrong thinking of the valence electrons of transition metals as just being ns and (n−1)d, in about the same way you would think of those of main-group elements as ns and np. Double sharp (talk) 06:53, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * That time, I didn't know how to hatnote Group 3 to ask about if looking for Group 13, because of my limited chemistry knowledge. Qwertyxp2000 (talk &#124; contribs) 06:00, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:MM-8 The Key to the Universe.bmp
Thanks for uploading File:MM-8 The Key to the Universe.bmp. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Ron h jones (Talk) 11:43, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of File:MM-8 The Key to the Universe.png


The file File:MM-8 The Key to the Universe.png has been proposed for deletion&#32;because of the following concern: "There are two book cover images used in the article. One book cover is used in the infobox and this book cover is used in the Titles section of the article. This book cover fails WP:NFCC in that the other book cover already is used in the article for means of identification and fails WP:NFCC because there is no commentary about the cover thereby doing nothing to increase the reader's understanding of the film and its exclusion is not detrimental to the understanding of the film."

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the file's talk page.

Please consider addressing the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and files for discussion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Aspects (talk) 00:11, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually, I very much agree with you here: I uploaded this way back in 2010 when I was fairly new and was not so clear about the policy here. I would support deletion. Double sharp (talk) 05:24, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * In that case I will expedite the deletion of the bmp and png images as "User Request" when I get home tonight. (I don't use Admin password on shared PCs)  Ron h jones  (Talk) 15:08, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much! I would have tagged them under G7 myself, but wasn't sure if I could do that with a prod ongoing (and the fact that my username isn't on the png upload). Double sharp (talk) 15:11, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No Problem. All sorted out Ron h jones (Talk) 18:42, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

AICSI listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect AICSI. Since you had some involvement with the AICSI redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. -  C HAMPION  (talk) (contributions) (logs) 00:16, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Precious four years!
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:24, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Double sharp (talk) 08:30, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2017 November newsletter: Final results
The final round of the 2017 WikiCup is over. Congratulations to the 2017 WikiCup top three finalists:
 * First Place -
 * Second Place -
 * Third Place -

In addition to recognizing the achievements of the top finishers and everyone who worked hard to make it to the final round, we also want to recognize those participants who were most productive in each of the WikiCup scoring categories:
 * Featured Article – Cas Liber (actually a two-way tie with themselves for an astonishing five FAs in R2 and R4).
 * Good Article – Adityavagarwal had 14 GAs promoted in R5.
 * Featured List – and  both produced 2 FLs in R2
 * Featured Pictures – improved an image to FP status in R5, the only FP this year.
 * Featured Topic – has the only FT of the Cup in R3.
 * Good Topic – Four different editors created a GT in R2, R3 and R4.
 * Did You Know – Adityavagarwal had 22 DYKs on the main page in R5.
 * In The News – had 14 ITN on the main page in R2.
 * Good Article Review – completed 31 GARs in R1.

Over the course of the 2017 WikiCup the following content was added or improved on Wikipedia: 51 Featured Articles, 292 Good Articles, 18 Featured Lists, 1 Featured Picture, 1 Featured Topics, 4 Good Topics, around 400 Did You Knows, 75 In The News, and 442 Good Article Reviews. Thank you to all the competitors for your hard work and what you have done to improve Wikipedia.

Regarding the prize vouchers - please send  an email from the email address to which you would like your Amazon voucher sent. Please include your preference of global Amazon marketplace as well. We hope to have the electronic gift cards processed and sent within a week.

We will open up a discussion for comments on process and scoring in a few days. The 2018 WikiCup is just around the corner! Many thanks from all the judges. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. ,, and MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Binary
For your completely irrelevant message of the day: those binary examples that you reverted were ASCII codes, and I was bored, so I ran them through a converter and got: --Deacon Vorbis (talk) 17:39, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
 * AC was here 11/2/2017
 * Hello there!
 * 5 x 5 = 25
 * This is Binary
 * 00111010 01011110 00101001 (which itself converts as )
 * Amusing indeed, though quite irrelevant as you say! Sorry for not getting to this earlier, but I was quite lost for the words at the pointless incipient creativity of this particular vandal. Perhaps he might find something better to do to develop it. ^_-☆ Double sharp (talk) 06:04, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Please check your email
Sandbh (talk) 03:41, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Will do! Double sharp (talk) 06:02, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2018
So the 2017 WikiCup has come to an end. Congratulations to the winner, to the other finalists and to all those who took part. 177 contestants signed up, more than usual, but not all of them submitted entries in the first round. Were editors attracted by the cash prizes offered for the first time this year, or were these irrelevant? Do the rules and scoring need changing for the 2018 WikiCup? If you have a view on these or other matters, why not join in the WikiCup discussion about next year's contest? , and. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:59, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Singular they and GNL
One would surely recast the sentence: ""Was it your father or your mother who could hold his breath for four minutes?" as ""Was it your father or your mother who could hold their breath for four minutes?" Sandbh (talk) 01:11, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
 * And this one: FRANCIS: "Yeah. I think Judith's point of view is very valid, Reg, provided the Movement never forgets that it is the inalienable right of every man–" would render better as, FRANCIS: "Yeah. I think Judith's point of view is very valid, Reg, provided the Movement never forgets that it is the inalienable right of every person–"? Sandbh (talk) 01:14, 3 November 2017 (UTC) Sorry for the shotgunning. I need to slow down and digest your words slowly. Sandbh (talk) 01:14, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I've moved this to my talk page; strangely I don't get notified when you edit my userpage! I was moved to write that by the linked Language Log article once again suggesting that everyone would find that sentence absurd, asserting that singular they has become part of everyone's natural speech, and giving lots of literary examples. The trouble is that it is not yet part of everyone's natural speech, because the level of penetration of singular they varies a whole lot with dialect, and so your proposed rewrite of the first sentence, I'm sorry to say, ends up making me confused about number agreement. The second example is pretty much how all of it makes me, and no doubt others who don't have this in their natural usage yet, feel: the gender issue keeps getting forced into one's mind by this usage, even though it's irrelevant, because my mental parser expects "they" to be plural and accepts the use of "he" or "she" alone as gender-neutral. I hope that helps explain it. Double sharp (talk) 09:31, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

 * Voted (reminder to myself). Double sharp (talk) 23:51, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Felix Mendelssohn
I've now sent this up for consideration for FA - many thanks for your contributions at peer review. Best, --Smerus (talk) 19:14, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
 * So glad you approved of Calm Sea and Preposterous Voyage. Can I now interest you in JSB's Tomato and Fugue in D minor? Good wishes,  Tim riley  talk    18:52, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Absolutely! Double sharp (talk) 04:17, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

es topic
Does this editsummary pertain to my new data & format setup, or can I ignore it? -DePiep (talk) 13:19, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Some of it is about the endless profusion of pronunciation variants; I suspect your setup might well need a fix one day when a fourth pronunciation comes up for something. Nevertheless, yes, I do have some comments about your setup: the general idea is OK and very helpful indeed, but I think we should expand the documentation for it, as well as delete those old rows in the infobox giving pronunciations when they are not read from there anymore. Otherwise it really does get frustratingly confusing trying to figure out how to add things. I apologise for writing the edit summaries under this frustration, making them rather too tetchy and elliptical, but I would reiterate that some better documentation is needed here, and perhaps suggest that too much of this centralisation seems to make individual infoboxes superfluous (because then you could simply load a central template with data from a central source, something like and ). Which I don't think is a bad idea, but right now we have an awkward halfway house between the two solutions, and it's not clear which parameters follow which style.
 * For example, I would very much appreciate having some better documentation about what some of those switches do: it took me a while to figure out that I had to do this (hence the edit summary, which in hindsight was rather too tetchy, though I was certainly adding to the obfuscation ^_^). Perhaps some directions for the likely confused outsider who just wants to add a pronunciation, and is confused by why changing things in the infobox template does nothing (because it's read from your data setup instead), would be a good addition. Double sharp (talk) 13:22, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
 * All fine, the es also transported a frustration which is relevant info and such is part of this webcare job ;-).
 * Will continue later at Template_talk:Infobox_element, there is more already. -DePiep (talk) 14:17, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Glad to hear that everything's all right, that my concerns are shared by others, and that we're discussing improvements. I'll talk more about this issue over there. Double sharp (talk) 14:19, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Christmas
Your comment on WT:ELEM made me want to share something I imagine you'd be interested to learn. You might want to know that apart from those deeply inchurched, the main celebration in winter in Russia is the New Year. The reason for that is that the communists abolished celebration of the Christmas (the state was officially atheist) and wanted to abolish the winter celebration at all, but many people were already so much angered with that the Christmas was abolished (as you may imagine, not everyone in thee country immediately followed the state in going atheist, especially those in the rural areas) and the idea of no celebration in winter at all didn't go well, so a celebration of the New Year was established. Maybe this was also a good time to check the progress on the current five-year plan and encourage the population to keep up their work. The plans were actually a lot more ambitious at some point, and a new calendar was considered, just like you may remember from the French revolution. Very ambitious indeed: public transportation was in Bolshevik-held Petrograd was free even under the heaviest conditions, after years and years of a great international and then a civil war, with roads broken and the city starving (you can't grow much food around Petrograd and food is tricky to deliver when a civil war is on and the outside powers are hostile to the Bolsheviks). Even the whole institution of families was considered outdated; communes were to take place. Remember the whole communism idea, which in great part rejected what had been built in the society before. (I have once been told that one could ask a girl to sleep with them all of a sudden in the late 1920s (not sure why late 20s, though. I'd say early 20s seem more plausible) and she could not refuse (if she was a part of the Komsomol movement which everyone wanted to be a part of anyway) because there was no longer any privacy and communism was on. I don't know if that's true, but I'm hands-down ready to believe that: communism was a really really revolutionary concept. I'm not sure if anyone saying they're communist thinks of such revolutions of everything today.) It is also true that such great changes of the society did not go well with everyone and twenty years later, many still silently refused the new order.

Anyways, I was talking about the New Year. I'm going to be away for a few days to celebrate it with my friends, so I won't be able to address the remaining FAC comments. I thought I'd have more time for that, but it was only yesterday when a passed my last test this December. Sorry to leave you at the time; I will be back in a few days.--R8R (talk) 13:39, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
 * You're right, this was very interesting to learn! Have a wonderful celebration and hopefully you will have more time in 2018! Since the New Year is the real celebration, I'm still early! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 14:06, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I also find this interesting. My wife grew up on the other side of the equator and much closer to it. She finds Christmas lighting displays a bright spot in the midst of the otherwise dreary darkness of the northern winter. Much of your country is in even higher latitudes, and so I can well understand that the idea of no celebration in winter at all didn't go well. But the USSR did adopt a new calendar, albeit not with the French 10-day week, and not quite so revolutionary, as their adoption was a few hundred years behind much of the rest of the world. But even the British, whose calendar reform is commemorated in Unix, were 170 years later than Italy. But Russia was still ahead of Greece and Turkey. Enjoy your well-earned break! YBG (talk) 14:57, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
 * This O.S. and N.S. business was extremely irritating when I was writing up the composition summary with dates that is the first section of our article on Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina – I haven't seen anything like a consensus among musicologists whether to use Julian or Gregorian dates, and irritatingly which is being used is not always stated up-front. I've even encountered a book on Mussorgsky that uses exclusively New Style dates, even editing direct quotes, which to me seems perfectly ridiculous given that he died in 1881 and never left Russia, and would thus never have used the Gregorian calendar. Meanwhile our article on Tchaikovsky (which I guess should be better romanised without that T, but this is traditional) has a note saying "Dates are expressed here in the same style as the source from which they come", which seems to me even more ridiculous. Oh well, what can we do about that? Happy New Year! Double sharp (talk) 15:25, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
 * That's not quite what I meant: the switch to the Gregorian calendar occurred years before the Soviet republics finally formed the Union. A far more revolutionary calendar was planned and even at some point used. It was particularly notable for its five-days-long week, with each category of workers having their own day free of work, all planned for maximum efficiency of production; and, of course, he who does not work, neither shall he eat. From what I recall, it did not last too long because the existing families (which the communists initially sought to abolish) often had their free days mismatch because their professions were different.
 * I see the argument about shorter daytime in the winter. It does not immediately pop up to my mind, but I clearly see why it could be relevant, especially in the countryside.
 * Thank you! I guess it's too late to say, "you too," but have a nice year nonetheless!--R8R (talk) 08:37, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * So does timeanddate.com have the Russian adoption of N.S. incorrect? They list it as Feb 1918, and I think the revolution was the year before, right? YBG (talk) 08:48, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * That is correct. To be precise, the Bolshevik historiography distinguished two revolutions, the February Revolution, which ended the monarchy in Russia, and the October Revolution, which put the Bolsheviks in charge in Petrograd, creating the Russian Soviet Republic. I am rather referring to the fact that the existing Soviet republics only formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in late 1922.--R8R (talk) 09:03, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, so both Feb 1917 and Oct 1917 Russian revolutions are before Feb 1918 calendar change, but Feb 1918 is in turn before the late 1922 formation of the USSR. Thankfully, our calendar change here occurred well before all of our significant events - the US Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Association, the Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution. But it did lead to the anomaly that our first President was born on Feb 11th (OS), but his birthday was celebrated for many years on Feb 22 (NS), until it was replaced by the third Monday in February, which is more utilitarian though a bit less romantic and more to the point, eliminates an opportunity to discuss the OS/NS distinction. YBG (talk) 09:20, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for this information – so it's even more interesting than I'd thought! I just searched Wikipedia for something like this and I found a page for the Soviet calendar; is this what you were talking about? (I feel a bit of déjà vu when reading that article; I think I'd heard of the 5-day week thing previously several years ago but forgot about it, and I certainly wasn't aware of just how revolutionary communism was then. ^_-☆) Double sharp (talk) 10:19, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, the timing was tense. If any parallels at all are to be drawn, then October 25, 1917 (this day would later be celebrated in the Soviet Union, on November 7, of course, and only declared a working day in Russia in 2004 or 2005) for Bolsheviks was something like July 4, 1776 for the Americans but so many exceptions apply. Many Russians supported the Bolsheviks (who had such great slogans: "factories to the workers, land to the peasants, peace to the world." Generally, the story goes that the working class was oppressed by the capitalists, who the Bolsheviks called the bourgeoisie, with such long working days and low payoffs that many workers sought to support a pro-worker force. Many peasants were equally in favor of this) and many supported the White Movement, closely associated with the monarchy and establishing succession from the pre-February Imperial Russia (also, as it is so often the case with monarchies, the Tsar was deemed to the position by the God; naturally, they endorsed religion, which was very important for many Russians back then. Also, in general, the Whites opposed the Reds, who were seemingly trying to build an utopia), with the political divide often separating family members. In addition to that, the country had been well mismanaged by the Provisional Government and plunged into chaos, so elites in many borderlands tried to get hold on control (among many, I could name Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia; Ukraine was a particular mess, with several leaders having power at once; the Baltic states and Poland broke away, a process greatly aided by German occupation of the territory (World War I was still on) and so did Finland; the Cossacks contributed to the general mess; et cetera). Some of these tried to go democratic (if this causes particular sympathy in you, have in mind that democracy is extremely fragile and easy to corrupt when created in some conditions: for instance, Poland degraded from a parliamentary democracy to an autocracy during the 20 years of its interwar existence, and you know well to what degraded the unstable German democracy of the time; even Russia itself became very democratic after the February Revolution and basically went back from there even before the October Revolution occurred), some went autocratic; eventually, local communists won in all the breakaway regions except Finland, the Baltic states, and Poland and then they united as it was planned from the beginning. So if it hadn't been for all of this, everything would've fit before the calendar change.
 * I cannot help but feel great respect for Washington. I've read some information on his biography before typing this and I cannot help but respect that he not only built his country, but he also did not ruin it when he had the chance and rather kept on building it. (By the way, speaking of the early United States: when I was writing an essay on the topic "Are two-stage presidential elections democratic?", I found this article, which you may be interested to read. As for the question, my answer was, "no, but it is not by design, and the Electoral College was a check on democracy, since the U.S. state building was all about checks and balances and the Founding Fathers had no real reasons to rely solely on democracy anyway as there were no successful examples of a democratic state at the time." I also found that this is the only constitutional norm that the Americans consider not the best option possible, and a majority would've rather picked direct voting instead and that there is already a law already that, when ratified by states having a majority in the Electoral College, will oblige electors from those states to vote for the most popular candidate nation-wide, effectively installing direct voting.)
 * Yes, that's quite it. I completely forgot about the six-days-week, but of course it was there. Since the article on the calendar reminded me of the Paris Commune, perhaps I should add that among the first things the Bolsheviks did was the establishing of the metric system and the initial anthem was the Marseillaise. In its inception, communism was very internationalistic. Lenin, who was a great proponent of a world revolution, accepted Finland's departure in 1917 believing that the world would eventually follow them anyway (it was theorized that communism was the stage of development of a society following capitalism just as capitalism followed feudalism). The idea of "socialism in one country" would only appear years later.--R8R (talk) 11:47, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * (I haven't had time to write a proper reply to discuss this further, but in the meantime I want to say that this has been one of the most interesting conversations I've had in a while that isn't about the sciences. ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 02:15, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

(pinging against my usual procedure since this is such an old section): Now I'm curious what you think of Replies to common objections! Double sharp (talk) 03:47, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
 * 0. I don't think that communism is a bad idea per se. I believe it is an utopia but we must be honest and admit that it is not necessarily something negative (unlike, say, Nazism).
 * 1. To say that Wikipedia resembles communism, you need to oversimplify the ideas of both Wikipedia and communism. Saying that Wikipedia resembles communism is like to say that public transport resembles communism and thus everyone should use private cars.
 * 2. Many of those criticisms seem to argue that you see, in some way, Wikipedia is actually a bit like capitalism, too, so never mind that. This seems like defense against the accusation that Wikipedia has something in common with something bad, which, as I said, I believe communism per se is not. (So I like the last line of defense: who cares, really?) Also, this sort of defense is actually as weak as is the original accusation (see 1.)
 * 3. Communism is a very complicated concept, as all real life concepts are if you look into them. Actual Wikipedia is also not as plainly simple as it may sound from the "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" moniker. And these are actually very different things, as you would expect from a social and political regime on one side and an Internet-based encyclopedia and the community around it on the other (like, say, we don't trade, we have no legally binding mutual obligations, and so on). Again, see 1. POV 10 is great, too.--R8R (talk) 21:59, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I share your thoughts, which I might pithily summarise as "It's not accurate, it's not important, and it's not even a criticism". ^_^ I'll give a serious response to your above sharing when I feel I know enough to. Double sharp (talk) 08:46, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is a great way to put it.
 * Sure, I'll be waiting.--R8R (talk) 13:20, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, I spent a lot of the year reading up to fill up the previously considerable gaps in my knowledge of history. (I have no doubt that they are still considerable, just a bit less so. ^_^) All I can say is: wow, I knew the history of Eastern Europe was chaotic and bloody, but I didn't know it was this chaotic and bloody. Not only that, I feel like I understand the revolutionary maximalism you find in music as WWI approached a lot better. Certainly, as you say, I doubt very much that anyone self-identifying as a communist today really thinks of revolution on a scale that the Bolsheviks imagined. Oh, to be teleported back a hundred years again, with such ideas in our minds! With hindsight these were probably all going to turn in – shall we say, less ideal directions (assuming they weren't that already as some were), but of what use is a world map which doesn't have utopia on it? Double sharp (talk) 15:40, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
 * You're certainly right about the revolutionary maximalism in arts. Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with the history of music, so I could only reproduce what I had once been told, but if you ever learn Russian, I highly recommend reading some works of the famous (really really famous, even to the common people) revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (or try this translation of a poem for starters; notice his trademark "staircase" line structure). Mayakovsky was an active proponent of the revolution from the very beginning and he was never at a loss for words. He caused much controversy in his time---so much so he couldn't handle it and shot himself. Ten years after his death, his birth town was renamed after him (the name lasted until the collapse of the USSR). Of course, there were some more subtle hints about the upcoming change, but this one is the most illustrative if you ask me.
 * But it's great that you do realize you have tons to learn, isn't it? I feel disheartened when I see people who think they know enough and don't bother to learn more. I, too, think that my gaps in knowledge of history are considerable. I do want to learn more, though. Just a few days ago, I bought a very interesting book that interviewed many leaders of the former Soviet republics on the break-up of the Union and while I can hardly get myself to read it, I'm still excited to know it's that close to me, in my bag. (I read some parts of it already and that excited me even more.)
 * A world without a utopia is a gray one, I know that. Whereas today, the world doesn't seem as prone to utopias as it was a century ago, it seems to me that there is a substitute for that in the West today with the general desire to make a world more fair for everyone, make it greener, etc. In the present-day Russia, there is nothing. Ten years ago, it seemed like Russia was developing as a democratic nation (well, that could be questioned, but such was the general feeling) that would eventually become allies with the West or at least Europe (now that I recall it, by then, Putin, who originally sought friendship with the United States, had been disappointed by the Americans by then and rather tried to distance Europe from America and tried to become their main ally instead. I'm mentioning him entirely because back then: he had a lot of power; was very popular, like really really popular; the most influential of the media, television, was effectively monopolized by the state, which multiplied his power and popularity--R8R) ; soon enough, Obama's presidency would start and he would propose a reset of the relationship with Russia, which was taken very positively because Russia would never get its mind off the United States. The Russian economy was rapidly developing (well, ten years ago, there was a crisis, but people knew it was a worldwide thing and generally blamed America) and people felt that their lives improved significantly during the 2000s and the feeling was that Russia could fairly soon become a developed rich nation (granted, all of these expectations were not universal---but they never are). There is no salvation, either: while many people associate themselves with a religion, few are actually influenced enough to make it a factor in their everyday decisions (my personal favorite fact is that there are more people in this country who call themselves Orthodox Christian than there are people believing in God). Science was considered very prestigious in the Soviet Union and many people sought to be engaged into it, but it lost its luster since then and few are active proponents of that, either. Today, people have no clear ideals to follow (in politics or elsewhere), no friends in the international politics (we are alone to stand against them all), no trust to the politicians anyone, the economic growth after the recent decline is very moderate,---and there is seemingly no one who has a better alternative. (This probably sounds very politicized but I don't recall issues such as the environment ever being important; relationships with non-European peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia were and are strained to say the least; the people never actively demanded more equality in my lifetime; there is seemingly not much to say except politics. Granted, I'm oversimplifying the matters a little in order not to make the story too long because I'm not sure you'd find that interesting; this paragraph is already longer than the others.) --R8R (talk) 14:06, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I have looked up some Mayakovsky in translation, and I can definitely see what you mean. And I can also see how things were so different just a decade later, just like they were in music too, although there weren't any suicides among the main avant-garde composers. Shostakovich's turn was pretty much forced indeed, but the turn away from maximalistic modernism was also done by those who weren't forced like Schoenberg and his school, Richard Strauss, and Stravinsky (though I think most listeners would consider Schoenberg's to be a rather small turn).
 * I don't think we can really win completely with utopias. On the one hand human nature seems to demand us to have something to look towards and on the other hand it seems to stop us from ever getting there, warning us with all sorts of awfulness when we try hard to do it. Maybe if I am being pessimistic I might quip that the reason why it feels like "there is seemingly not much to say except politics" is that the moment there is much to say, it becomes politics. I think the lustre of science might be the best bet at having one because it is at least trying to describe something independent of humans even if the description itself cannot be so, and since its uses are unquestionable, you can still eat regardless of which utopia we are striving for at the moment. But maybe I'm biased. ^_-☆ Double sharp (talk) 05:54, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I've been thinking about what to respond and I think I should make sure you didn't miss the point I've been trying to make and that may have been lost in my attempts to illustrate it---there must be something to look forward to. An utopia gives you a future to look forward to. And come think of it, a perfectly green world is an utopia (unless you define the world as perfectly green already, as all emissions that we produce come indeed from actual biological creatures---humans). A world of perfectly equal rights for everyone is an utopia (you don't expect a person with, say, the Down syndrome to have the right to become enlisted into the army as a soldier, do you?). Even a world of a perfect democracy is an utopia (because people would never agree on what exactly "perfect democracy" even is). But many people, primarily in the West (maybe elsewhere too, but I'm just less familiar with non-Western non-European cultures), seem to want to shoot for that. They at least see a general direction to go.
 * Ten years ago, we had at least something. The people may not have had the nicest ideals (as I said, the Russian society is indeed very politicized; why that came to be is a different story I will stay away from during this discussion), but they had some ideals. Better economical situation meant they thought the country in general could secure a better future for its children. They had something in common to look forward to. And now everyone is primarily concerned with themselves. The society doesn't see a future ahead of it---and that's scary if you think about it. And that was precisely the point that I was trying to make: people need something to look forward to. Even if to an utopia.
 * (By the way, talking about politics: politics is concerned with getting the society somewhere. An utopia, even a simple wish for a future is not politics. Martin Luther's ideas of improving the contemporary practices of Christianity were not politics. On the other hand, nailing his theses to a church in Wittenberg was aimed at changing the society---and that was politics. But the primary focus even here is still on religion, rather than politics. Say, the Kyoto protocol was signed by politicians and that was a political document, but the primary focus is still on ecology. I hope you see the pattern here. When I say that our society is politicized, I mean it was primarily concerned with things that are usually thought of as politics in itself, like ideologies and international relations between states. I think we'll eventually move from that---and the events of doing so will still be political events.)
 * As for what is best to look forward to, that's hard to say. But what I do know is that it must be something all people could look forward to and that it should help build bridges rather than underline a right way to go. Notably, nowadays, scientists and artists/writers/etc. nowadays have little in common: they think differently, they refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the other side's viewpoint, and they even know little about the other cultural environment in general. If you're interested about the details of this, I would like to point you to The Two Cultures by Charles Percy Snow.
 * Also, I'd like to reiterate my point I made at WT:ELEM: science today is not seen as knowledge independent from humans. We humans create that knowledge. It could be different if someone else created it. (Not that the gravity would be inversely proportional to the cube of distance between any two bodies that attract each other rather than the square, but we would describe that knowledge differently and this would alter our understanding of it. After all, we the humanity don't create knowledge to amuse an external observer---we create it for ourselves to influence how we think. Think of the particle--wave dichotomy as an example of what I mean by "describing": both terms are something we made up. Light is still light. It is just more convenient to describe it as a wave in some cases and as a stream of photons in others. The light doesn't actually change just because we describe it differently.) Consider once more that Heisenberg's quote I brought up, "We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." (I see you understand that already, but it just seemed right to reiterate that.) But it is even more important to understand that we don't create abstract knowledge about the reality; it is directly influenced by those towards who it is oriented. By the way, do you recall I mentioned back at WT:ELEM that I had written and then deleted a story because it came out too long and I couldn't any more find any proof? Well, the story was that last year, some mathematicians suggested that there was some mathematical proof that in a society, differences between the sexes lead to some other differences between the sexes, and since they had some statistical data about some existing difference, they were able to conclude from that... something. I actually don't remember what. What I do remember, though, is that after the article was published on a website of a mathematical journal, other scientists, both men and women, saw that something as unfavorable towards women, so much so that many called the article incredibly sexist, called to take the article down from the website and even threatened to stop sending their articles to that journal if that article stayed there. (Nobody pointed to any mathematical flaws.) The owners of the journal tried to argue that they were not making a sociopolitical statement and that it was just mathematics, but this didn't help and three days after the article was published, they had to take it down and no signs of that were to be found ever since. (I promised it would be quite a lengthy story, didn't I.) Unfortunately, I can't even find the article about this conflict. The clues that I had---I remember is that it was published in a very liberal media called Meduza, that I read it outside when coming home from somewhere, and that it was still warm enough so I didn't need any warm clothes back then (August or September maybe)---didn't help me. Now, it looks very doubtful. But that's not the point. Even if we have to transfer that story from the "reported stories" category to "thought experiments," doesn't this story show how science, the collection of human knowledge, is affected by those towards who it is oriented?
 * I hope this lengthy paragraph serves as a good prelude to what I've been meaning to say. We normally don't create science to describe something we see as independent from humans. Even if what scientists have been trying to describe is independent from human perception, the description will never be. These human-based descriptions are great, they are very important to us but they are not the whole story of the human existence. If we only had that and maybe technology and industry, we could have a well-designed world of technology, but that alone allows little freedom in emotions and to a great extent even actions; would you want live in that? (Especially you with your passion for music.) We also have culture, politics, trade, all essential to the human world we live in. (I decided not to include religion, because many people seem to break away from it, but then again, it appears that the belief in the supernatural in general is here to stay as well.) Long story short, if I magically had a chance to change the world for the better, I'd have all of those flourish as long as that's possible. I couldn't pick one. World without any of those would be incomplete. The only worthy bet is to have them all; all other bets are not worth consideration.--R8R (talk) 18:41, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Reading this, I do believe I missed your point originally. ^_^ When I mentioned the lustre of science, I meant only that it seemed the best out of the utopias we had been explicitly mentioning (I mean, it seems less likely to end in a complete disaster than the more overtly political ones ^_^), but I absolutely agree that we can't have only it. And I agree with you totally when you refer to Snow on the two cultures that really don't seem to understand each other much even almost sixty years after he gave that talk. Actually I agree with everything you said here and would rather nod and sit in contemplation than reply when I feel I can't possibly better it.
 * P.S. Is it this (one two) that you're referring to? Your description rang enough bells for me to find some possibly relevant pages. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 14:52, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm happy that you enjoyed this wall of text of mine :) I must admit that I like how it came out very much as well.
 * By the way, thank you very much for finding these links. The second one really is something, I'm moved. When I tried to find anything about that memory of mine back in January, I obviously did not just try the site I remember seeing it on and rather tried looking for some information in English, but I was still unable to find it. The text I had read was about information being set into oblivion and entirely erased from existence and then I was unable to find it or anything about its subject myself, as if it actually disappeared entirely. For a while I wondered if I had made the story up. Then I thought that I could link too many details to that and I must have indeed read it. Was information really erased from existence entirely? I tried to remember various details, I tried to look for them, and I could still find nothing, no matter what I tried. To me, it really did disappear. Maybe Meduza made it up? They didn't seem that bad of a media outlet to me. Maybe their readers made them take it down; this is a liberal media, after all, and this story portrays fighters for equality between sexes very negatively? I remember that in a similar situation they stood up for their work despite a great pressure from their readers, so this is hardly it. Maybe they found the story was not true and that's why they took it down? Seems unlikely, since they're quite proud of their journalism, including fact-checking and all, but what else could it be? Yeah, this is probably it... must be it.
 * And now, you found it for me. Thank you very much, I couldn't be more grateful. The story is even scarier than what I remembered. Having your work in a journal and then seeing that the issue is the same, but your article has been replaced---this really did feel like Nineteen Eighty-Four to me. I saw your message yesterday and I began to write a response yesterday, but I was so mesmerized by this story and I wanted to get a better grasp of it before saying anything. In the end of the day, it seems like there could have even been some defensible points for this whole retraction thing---but how it was carried out really leaves me thinking intentions were beyond pure. Now, what a story. Quite an illustration for my original point: science is made by people for people, and those towards whom it is oriented affect it significantly.
 * (Now I tried anew and I found it: turns out I'm just not as good at googling as I thought I was, which is certainly a better explanation for mу inability to find the story rather than a world conspiracy. In retrospect, I was probably more rigorous with my attempt to find that on the site I first saw this story on but I did try to search in English, I recall that. Regardless, thank you once more, I was really captured by this shenanigan.)--R8R (talk) 14:52, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Hexamethylbenzene GA
Hi Double sharp, and thanks again for the GA review of hexamethylbenzene. I note that you commented:
 * I have read through the prose, and I find that if one reads it paying a reasonable amount of attention, it is actually very clear, with helpful links provided for the not so chemistry-savvy.

I very much appreciate that you find it clear and even an "extremely enjoyable read," that is gratifying to hear. I like to think my writing is clear (though overly technical at times), but with my background and knowledge base I recognise that what is clear to me may not be to a less scientifically knowledgeable reader. I wonder if you have any comments / suggestions on how to improve the clarity for so that it requires less attention be paid by a reader? I also wonder what you think about the article relative to the FA standards. I haven't been involved with FA for a while and know the topic is quite narrow. Many Thanks, EdChem (talk) 22:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I'll take a look at this and hopefully get back to you within a few days, time permitting. ^_^ I have an ongoing chemistry FAC myself (though Th is certainly a much more general subject than C6Me6 – incidentally, I would greatly appreciate a review from someone with the chemistry expertise of yourself ^_-☆), so I think I can be helpful at making suggestions based on the FA criteria. Double sharp (talk) 00:40, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'll have a look at the thorium FAC. I've already had a quick read and it is looking good, though there are a few tweaks that are needed.  :)  EdChem (talk) 22:19, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * (Reminder to myself to get back to this now that EdChem is back! ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 03:51, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Since you ask ...

 * Everyday speech does use the phrase "in a vacuum" quite commonly, but since WP:TONE says "Articles, and other encyclopedic content, should be written in a formal tone", we aim for a more formal language construction (and which more accurately reflects the semantics).  The article Speed of light refers to "speed of light in vacuum", not "speed of light in a vacuum", and this usage is typical in literature on the subject.  You may be interested in discussions such as Talk:Speed_of_light/Archive 16.  —Quondum 17:55, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I see; thanks for the clarification. Maybe we ought to put a hidden comment beside it to explain this briefly to others who might seek to change it, though; I've done this several times for facts that often inspire "corrections" (e.g. caesium being more reactive than francium), and it seems rather effective. Double sharp (talk) 23:43, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, I've redone your edit and added an explanatory hidden comment beside "vacuum". Again, thank you for the clarification! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 23:46, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * – Yes, this is a particularly tricky one due to common usage, but is at least easily understood and already has a history. In some cases it can be difficult to agree on what the appropriate register/tone is.  Some articles in WP appear to target very different levels of reader.  The edit comment is a good idea.  —Quondum 00:22, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Discussion on image at Talk:Earth
Hi Double sharp, would you consider adding your thoughts at a discussion about the inclusion of a phylogenetic tree image at Talk:Earth Cheers, User:HopsonRoad 13:50, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I've responded there. Double sharp (talk) 14:17, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Dubnium
I've got some concerns re your recent edit. To begin with, why is it good to put nucleosynthesis information into the section dedicated to chemical experiments? If this information is to be added at all, I'd rather go with the section on nucleosynthesis (because the information is on nucleosynthesis), adding a note like, "these isotopes are good for chemical experiments; see below."

And even then, if we are looking to describe (which I don't think we should be doing at all; for one, I don't see how this could fit into the text) how the longest-lived (i.e., practically useful) isotopes could be produced, I really don't see the reason to include the impractical way (tennessine) to do so.--R8R (talk) 08:38, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I put it specifically because the reference listed a reason to consider using the heavy isotopes (to probe reaction kinetics for Db), which is rather chemical. I'm not opposed to moving things around; these edits were mostly just to throw in new information that I thought merited a place. ^_^ I'd think that this might be best placed after the studies mentioned with Db isotopes made as a daughter of element 115 (now Mc), since these are the same 267Db and 268Db; as you say, we could easily remove mention of 270Db. So we'd say that these isotopes may also be considered for future experiments probing reaction kinetics for Db thanks to their long half-lives, and putting it that way (I think) makes it feel more relevant for this section instead of the nucleosynthesis one. What do you think? Double sharp (talk) 08:55, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, I've moved it to the end of the penultimate paragraph (the one on identifying Mc through a chemical identification of Db as its descendant), saying "Because of their long half-lives, the isotopes 267Db and 268Db open the possibility of future experimentation on the kinetics of reactions involving dubnium.[33]" What do you think of this version, which I've tried to make focused on chemical experimentation over nucleosynthesis? Double sharp (talk) 09:01, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * That's better but sounds so vague right now. "open the possibility"? could it be more specific?--R8R (talk) 10:31, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I haven't yet found anyone actually proposing to take some beam time to do this, but I'll look again. If it's not in any lab's immediate plans I'd probably go for the simple "...the isotopes 267Db and 268Db are ideal for future experimentation on the kinetics of reactions involving dubnium"; how's that? Double sharp (talk) 10:45, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * My immediate thought would be, "it's not in plans for a reason?" Again, we are writing an encyclopedia; as such, we should use facts, not labels. If there's a person/lab/etc. credible enough who said so, we could refer to the fact that they did it. Otherwise, it's not too big a fact to strive to squeeze in anyway.--R8R (talk) 11:59, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * There are ideas to probe reaction kinetics for the 6d transition metals (well, Julia Even said so at the Nobel Symposium for superheavy elements back in 2016) – "Controlling the amount of carbon monoxide in the buffer gas will open the door for kinetic studies of the carbonyl complex formation of even the transition metals of the 7th period of the periodic table." (And since there are group 5 carbonyls, e.g. vanadium hexacarbonyl, I don't see why Db should be excluded; Walter Loveland specifically noted that this should work to experiment on Rf through Mt.) I don't see why the fact that none of the labs have put it on their plans yet would make it not worthy of inclusion, if the idea has been said to be possible by an expert in the field. I mean, no one's done the hassocene experiment either, and it looks like no one's going to in the near future anymore: still, isn't it interesting? It's not like there is much chemical knowledge about these transfermium elements, so I think this sort of planned stuff has a place. If it's different some more decades down the line, well, we can worry about it then. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 13:41, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * That's somewhat exaggerated logic. Dubnium should be concentrated on information directly related to dubnium. I don't at all say this is absolutely irrelevant as is, but not main-article-worthy, either. We most certainly shouldn't drop our standard for inclusion too low just because there's nothing to write otherwise; not only is this theoretical without any plans yet (again, the section is called Experimental chemistry), look, it doesn't even say the word "dubnium"!--R8R (talk) 12:44, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * All right, I'm convinced and have removed the sentence. Still, I guess it's good to have done a BRD on this (albeit more of a BDR in this case): that way, when someone does do the reaction kinetics experiments, we can bring it back out. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 13:20, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

When you've got a spare minute, please come check prose quality of dubnium. John opposes the article's FA status based on prose quality. There was probably something in his words. I looked at prose quality critically after his comments and found some room for improvement. Especially the last section will probably require quite some effort to get it well done. I'd love to hear your opinion, though. Just remember some small things that put you in a trap sometimes: if you can say something with fewer words and convey all the same factual information, you should do so and don't get too absorbed with small details. (By the way, consider this friendly criticism if you wish. Personally, I love it when people express friendly criticism and it helps you get better. Are you okay with this? Some people (maybe?) aren't, so I won't ever do it again if you ask me not to. But again, I think it's great help, so feel free to do it to me, even if you're not okay with it yourself.)--R8R (talk) 08:59, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Why, I'm absolutely OK with it; I find I often have to stop myself and think if something has just gotten disproportionate exposure. I will try to comment on Db tomorrow or Saturday. Double sharp (talk) 09:59, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Would you look at Edwininlondon's comment re missing reference? I think you were the one to add that fact so maybe you know where it came from.--R8R (talk) 09:21, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I've added a ref. Double sharp (talk) 11:52, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much!--R8R (talk) 13:32, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Congratulations
We made it! Great job on your part. Sorry if I haven't been as active during the FAC as I'd have loved to.

Speaking of which, I must be able to provide more comments for nihonium in a few days (as well as the response for ). If you want to start the PR right away, feel free. Sorry that I happened to have miscalculated the amount of time I'd be able to invest in Wiki (speaking broadly) last week. FYI, I plan to submit dubnium to FAC in mid- to late February (because not sure I'll be able to consistently have enough time to respond to FAC comments throughout a month).--R8R (talk) 22:43, 19 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I've started the Nh PR (linked on your talk page). In the meantime, I hope you don't mind that I moved this from the "Thorium" section into a subsection, because I'd like to archive some of this stuff now. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 07:17, 20 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the "unsung natural radioactive metal (uranium gets all the press)"! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:19, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! Double sharp (talk) 09:40, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Names of mineral species
" this is not the place to go into a long discussion on mineral notation, and #2 I think you'll find that most chemical references don't care one bit about it being -(Fe) or whatever else dominant, since the structure's the same)"
 * Please remember, that you write about discussion with the International Mineralogical Association, which was constituted many years ago exactly to set te correct names of mineral species. IMA does not recognize "tantalite", "columbite" or "polycrase" (IMA list of minerals can easily be reached in their webpage). The reverse action (as in the case of "barite") ultimately convinces me that - exactly, as you wrote - there is no place for (scientific) discussion in Wikipedia, and thus my time spent on these "changes" (actually error corrections) is simply wasted. I am a mineralogist/geochemist, but this (and this is not new to me) does not seem to be relevant.Eudialytos (talk) 13:09, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I would be quite happy to use the names with the suffixes if these were mineralogical articles. However, they are primarily chemistry articles, with minerals mentioned peripherally are sources under "occurrence". And you will find that in chemistry articles these suffixes are paid pretty much no attention: here are two from the 2000s concerning themselves primarily with chemistry that simply ignore these extra suffixes. And even here, in a 2008 article in Chemical Geology, because the context does not necessitate going into detail on the distinction between the rare earths, the authors have no problem at all simply ignoring those suffixes. So it seems to me that what Wikipedia is doing here is perfectly normal in the literature: to ignore those suffixes when the distinction is irrelevant. It is of course regrettable if you feel that Wikipedia has no place for scientific discussion, but surely we must consider that the proper place for a detailed explanation of all these extra suffixes is certainly not the article on tantalum (for which all those varieties can serve just as well as sources for recovering Ta), but the article on those minerals. Going into detail on every topic tangentially related would give a long, rambling, and hardly on-topic article. Double sharp (talk) 14:51, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Mineralogy is also a science, but there is also geochemistry that is brought to life for a reason. Its quite thriving.Eudialytos (talk) 23:12, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You wanted the paper - here it goes: http://elementsmagazine.org/archives/e4_2/e4_2_dep_mineralmatters.pdf There is such a science known as mineralogy. And it is very underestimated. And this is the reason of numerous mistakes (compared to sections like Chemistry, in general).Eudialytos (talk) 20:10, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

On gender essay
I'm not even sure on Wikipedia which editors are male or female unless their username makes it pretty obvious Most people's gender can be found out as they have selected How do you prefer to be described? in preferences. Tools/Navigation popups is convenient as it shows that when hovering over someone's name. Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:33, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the tip! I've edited my essay briefly about it: I should take a look at it again later. (I haven't read it for a while since I wrote it back in 2016.) Double sharp (talk) 15:34, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Sixfold
Hi Double sharp, mathematics is an exact science, and there's no ambiguity about the use of "sixfold", e.g. see sixfold and sextuple in Wiktionary. The only potential for ambiguity is when increases are given as percentage increases - see Percentage - "Due to inconsistent usage, it is not always clear from the context what a percentage is relative to". Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 03:20, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * See Talk:Copper, where I have responded. The possible confusion is exactly the same: do we mean that the final cost is six times the original, or if the increase is six times the original? Mathematics is surely an exact science, but language is not an exact medium for expressing it naturally. Double sharp (talk) 04:19, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * There's no confusion at all re the usage of "sixfold", it means six times the original, and it's a term used elsewhere in science, e.g. as in crystallography, the hexagonal crystal system is characterised by a sixfold axis of rotation. Bahudhara (talk) 04:49, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed it means six times the original, but what is six times the original? The increase or the final value? That is the confusion; not the definition of the term, but what it is describing, particularly in conjunction with increased. I'm sure we can make very logical arguments on both sides for what "increased sixfold" should mean but I do not think we need to leave this wording in and let the reader stumble. In any case this is rather moot, since I removed the comparison (after all, it doesn't tell you much that the range of numbers doesn't already). Double sharp (talk) 05:36, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Copper
Please, see this article talk page. Vikom (talk) 03:51, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Seen and responded. Double sharp (talk) 04:20, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. By the way, you are a polyglot, and a native speaker of two very different languages, plus FR-4, DE-2, PL-2... I'm impressed :-) Vikom (talk) 08:18, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the compliments, and you're very welcome! Double sharp (talk) 10:13, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Nihonium
I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks, so I may not respond to your comments or do so only briefly. Think you better hear that in advance. Probably I'll be back before the PR is over. No promises, though. (And I remember I have only briefly looked at what you wrote to me recently and still have to answer that. I'm sorry, I'll definitely look at it when I've got the time.)

Also, as a general rule of thumb, if you happen to use an acronym in both the lead and the body, I suggest you introduce it both times separately. It is true that many readers don't read the article past the lead as they only want to know what a particular word or concept means; I wouldn't be surprised to learn they form an actual majority of readers. However, there are also readers who skip the lead and go straight to the body because the want to read the body and the lead is only a brief summary anyway; their share is notably smaller but not infinitesimal.--R8R (talk) 19:30, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, no problem. I agree with what you say and will make the changes accordingly. Double sharp (talk) 23:40, 30 January 2018 (UTC)


 * By the way, I'd love you to get back on this. The reason for that is that the peer review may shut down any minute now and I'd rather want you to avoid any long pauses and to finish it off on the original page so that the project doesn't seem to be okay with delays over and over when you complete everything on your first try and don't hold anything up. I think that having completed others' recommendations, after you complete mine, you should be good for a FAC in every aspect possibly save for prose quality and referencing issues. (This is a friendly reminder rather than anything else.)--R8R (talk) 13:34, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * That should be ready in a bit! ^_^ Nh seems to have the richest chemistry among the 7p elements and I needed some time to understand what was going on (also developed in the conversations on WT:ELEM). Double sharp (talk) 13:37, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Oh, that's great, I'd love to see your response. By the way, you guys have such long discussions there; do you mind me asking you sometime later to brief me about what you were actually discussing and what that discussion has to offer for an observer? I am somewhat afraid to delve into that myself given its length and how actively it is updated.--R8R (talk) 13:57, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, ask whenever you wish. ^_^ We started out discussing group 3 (again), but we have also been discussing some other things such as superheavies, rare oxidation states, and the metal–nonmetal border on the side. Some highlights (there are many) include results from some of Droog Andrey's own calculations on the superheavy elements, my own descriptive chemistry of elements 109 through 120, and myself almost being convinced by him to put Lu under Y (not quite yet, though). Next episode: a bit of devil's advocacy from me about putting helium over beryllium. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 14:15, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Great, thanks! I'll take some time to prepare myself for that, though :)
 * By the way, I recall you argued that La should go over Y because in a periodic table, macroscopic properties should go over microscopic properties (I was somewhat doubtful that macroscopic properties lead to assignment of La's position above Y, but that was what you argued). Doesn't putting He above Be rather reflect microscopic, rather than macroscopic, properties?--R8R (talk) 14:50, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's why it's devil's advocacy: I don't really support it, but think the arguments are worth raising to see why our first reaction to He over Be is "that's not a good idea". ^_^ You can make several microscopic-style arguments for putting He over Be, and even a few vaguely macroscopic ones based on reactivity. First you have the argument that He is 1s2 and Be is 1s22s2 (just like H being 1s1 and Li being 1s12s1). Then you can look at the electronegativities, and then you see that putting He over Ne results in a trend like H over F (where the first element is not the most electronegative, as it is everywhere else in groups 13 through 18), but putting He over Be keeps the decreasing trend just like H over Li: in the metastable species (HeO)(LiF)2, the He–O covalent bond is polarised with the partial positive charge on the helium (ref, also discussing the placement of helium), and the structure of this species is more like that of the analogous Be species than the analogous Ne species. Additionally, He is expected to be less inert than Ne, breaking the trend, because of the greater valence electron density for Ne than for He (a product of the presence of a 2p orbital for Ne) leading to greater Pauli repulsion. Furthermore, putting He over Be creates a consistent set of first-row anomalies that tally with the important roles of radial nodes in the periodic system: in such a periodic table, not only is the first element in each group always the one experiencing the effects of a valence orbital without radial nodes, but it also results in a consistency where the magnitude of the first-row anomaly tallies with the screening ability of the subshell (1s >> 2p > 3d > 4f), as discussed here. Lastly one can argue that the visual shortening of period 1 clarifies the difference between the region of the duet rule (H−, He, Li+, Be2+) and that of the octet rule, and extrapolating from the ionic radius of Be2+ gives a near-zero value for He2+ just as would have been expected. (Much of this paragraph is owed to the above-linked SciScoop guest post by Henry Bent, creator of Bent's rule, and this recent paper by Wojciech Grochala.)
 * Now I do agree that He over Ne is far better: both are rather inert, and comparing helium chemistry to beryllium chemistry based on one metastable He species is kind of like focusing on the 0.001% while ignoring the 99.999%. I think the strongest argument here, if anything, is the similarity of the He–Ne–Ar trend to the H–F–Cl trend and that of the He–Be–Mg trend to the H–Li–Na trend, and even that seems to be swamped by the sheer strangeness of calling He–Be–Mg a "trend". But it does raise interesting questions like: (1) how much stronger are the arguments for hydrogen over lithium? and (2) if we are willing to break blocks for the sake of helium chemistry, can we stomach doing the same for element 172? oganesson? actinium? Where do we draw the line as to when things have gone too far? Double sharp (talk) 15:42, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see. My first impression was a small desire to dismiss it as useless but a minute later, it occurred to me that there is some certain sense in these unobviously useful discussions, so I do hope you'll get some better understanding of the elements from it! After all, isn't that the goal of your lengthy discussion in the first place ^_^ --R8R (talk) 16:43, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

It just occurred to me how close we are to this FAC, just addressing a few comments away. The FAC should be a success. Then will follow the FAC of history of aluminium. Well, given this and the two article promotions earlier, this year certainly started fine for our project, didn't it?

Actually what I wanted to say was a request to write something about alloys once you get to working on aluminium. This has been omitted in most our articles for no good reason I can think of. I remembered about it because since your PR is nearly over (please let's finish it asap), I've got something else to look forward into, and as I was thinking about it, this came up.--R8R (talk) 09:46, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll put those in too. This year has started very well indeed! I think we ought to be able to finish the nihonium PR in a few days. Double sharp (talk) 10:41, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry if I'm being annoying, I'm just a little disappointed by how we're close to the target we're aining for and then just standing there without making the move for it. By any chance, are you struggling with spare time? This may explain your inactivity towards nihonium, as I sort of see that you may want to go for the star once you have enough spare time. If that is indeed the case, then first of all, let me reassure you there's no need to be waiting for spare time, as an FAC can easily be a background task of yours. So if you are having exams or about to meeting a deadline at work, know that the FAC won't require too much of your resources, especially given the relative obscurity of the topic at hand, plus I'll have your back and possibly so will someone else from the project. But if that's still not good enough and you really want to dive into the FAC (which, again, you don't really need to), then (and only then) may I go forward with history of aluminium? I'd still love the train of the Bronze Star Express to keep going while it can and if you actualy do happen to have to wait before you can fully come back, I'd love to see what I can do in the meantime. (Of course, I'd love you to go first more and if we are only to wait a few days before you can get things sorted out, then I'd love to wait for you to do so.)--R8R (talk) 18:33, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually I wanted to wait until the Graphics Lab illustration request for the graph was acted on, but since this doesn't appear to be something that's going to happen soon, I will start the FAC now. I indeed have a spare time problem now, but like you say, it shouldn't deter us from starting. So onwards it is! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 03:23, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * And we launch! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 03:41, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * That's great! To be entirely honest with you, I did foresee that you would launch the FAC if I asked you to let myself go first because you were so close and apparently needed one final push to get there, and the message above was one for you just as I expected. I hope you're okay with that because the FAC is on now, one way or another! And I'm very sorry if you're not. I'll read the article one last time soon (possibly even today) and if I find anything that has not been covered by the peer review, I'll post it on the FAC page, otherwise I'll just support the nomination.--R8R (talk) 09:53, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi! I'm just here to remind you to ask for a source review for the FAC as you've been suggested by an FAC coordinator. Alternatively, you could tell me to do it for you, and I gladly will, I just didn't think it was right without you agreeing first.--R8R (talk) 18:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reminder, and I'd be very grateful if you'd do it! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 09:50, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, it seems like I've unintentionally made my suggestion too promising. I'll be leaving my home for a couple of weeks tomorrow so I probably won't be able to make the source review. I've asked for one at WT:FAC though, as I originally intended.--R8R (talk) 16:41, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Second opinion needed
Hi! I've recently been introduced to this question and I have not come up with a definite answer yet, so I'd love to know what you think. In element articles, specifically in Chemistry sections, we commonly tell the reader a short story of the element's compounds. Would it not be reasonable to tell a short story of the element's alloys (presuming that the element is a metal) in the Physical properties section? I don't want to make this question Project-wide yet, just want to know what you think on this. Thanks--R8R (talk) 17:32, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi R8R! I think the whole point of chemical properties, even of the element, is that the element reacts, and then you don't have the pure element anymore; whereas you can talk about physical properties without that happening. I'd tend to want to consider intermetallic compounds under compounds; so why not alloys? Double sharp (talk) 13:06, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, I remember that I used this organisation just last year at Silver, putting Ag alloys and intermetallic compounds under the Compounds section. Double sharp (talk) 10:27, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * This seems an interesting suggestion; your example with silver is worth investigating into. Thank you. I'll give it some more thought.--R8R (talk) 10:39, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Good to hear! And after your success with Pb I'm inclined to believe that Ag is not too far from FA either. But of course, I'll finish addressing the last comments on Nh first and then ask for a copyedit of it. Double sharp (talk) 10:58, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Group 3 again
I may post something here or e-mail you about this, soon(ish). It goes back to our old friend, the Madelung Rule. Sandbh (talk) 07:10, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Looking forward to it! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 07:13, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, what do you know; looking at the current lively discussion going on at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements, it seems like the moment one of us steps back into the arena, the rest of us (along with possible newcomers) follow! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 15:10, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Thallium Toxicity - Alopecia
You're spreading false information by implying that both acute and chronic thallium toxicity always presents with alopecia. This is not correct and should be changed back to the edited version or reconstructed so as not to confuse anyone looking for this vital piece of information concerning toxicity. It could actually save a life one day. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.130.162.56 (talk) 14:14, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Firstly, I am not the one who reverted your edit; that was Materialscientist. Secondly, alopecia is certainly one of the most characteristic symptoms of Tl toxicity, being in fact pathognomonic for it, although it has a delayed onset; when it does not develop, this tends to be because such a large dose of thallium was given that it did not have time to, as noted at the main article thallium poisoning. So I have changed this to "Thallium poisoning usually results in hair loss, although larger doses kill before the onset of this characteristic symptom." Double sharp (talk) 14:44, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't know why your name came up, but that is why I responded to your talk page. Thank you for editing the page. The fact remains, that is one case report. There are literally hundreds on this topic alone and many of them do not show alopecia as a symptom of thallium toxicity, even late in some acute cases. Yes, it is common. As with any foreign substance, not all bodies will respond the same way to heavy metal toxicity. This is why thallium toxicity is often misdiagnosed. This is even noted in several toxicology references on the subject of thallium toxicity. It is important to remember that, as I said before, it can save a life when the person experiencing toxicity symptoms dismisses thallium toxicity simply because they don't have alopecia. Thanks again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.130.162.56 (talk) 15:03, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! Please do continue to improve the article further. Double sharp (talk) 07:21, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I have allowed for more possibilities by rewording this further to "Thallium poisoning usually results in hair loss, although this characteristic symptom does not always surface." I think that gets the point that alopecia is common and characteristic but not present in all cases of Tl poisoning across. Double sharp (talk) 08:14, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

If it were up to you which one would you pick: a C0-to-C9 109-key grand piano or a C0-to-B8 108-key grand piano?
These guys are gonna produce a C0-to-B8 108-key grand piano in the coming months. From a purely visual point of view there's something to be said for a keyboard ending with either a C or an F key on the left and either a B or an E key on the right. But then again, there's something to be said, esthetically, for completing the octave ("from C to shining C"). Which way would you go? (Leaving technical issues aside) Basemetal  11:07, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'd go for completing the octave with a last top C9, of course! Where's the fun of the biggest scale run ever if you can't end on the high tonic? ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 12:16, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree. Current normal keyboards and even their 102-key keyboard already end with those two slightly awkward looking white keys on the right. I told them but they won't listen. They'll have a few people asking: Why didn't you add a C9? There's this where they say that at C9 the string is at 90% (to keep enough length so that the hammer doesn't get stuck) and that's not enough margin. It's been only a few years that strings with the required tensile properties have become available. Maybe they should have waited a few more years. Basemetal  15:58, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm intrigued by their idea of making a new standard of F0–F8 as the piano range. That would cover most of the "impossible" notes demanded or implied by the standard repertoire (e.g. Bartók piano sonata F0, Scriabin sixth piano sonata D8, a couple of G0's and G♯0's implied in Ravel; whether or not it includes all of them depends on whether you're including Busoni's transcriptions). Still, unless the notes are actually demanded or are obviously implied, I would be rather against adding the new notes willy-nilly to pieces that were not written with the expectation that they would become available; these things should be done on a case-by-case basis. Double sharp (talk) 03:16, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand what you're saying: Are pieces written with no expectation that they would one day be playable? And who is adding notes to pieces, except their composers? Not Stuart and Sons surely. They are only adding notes to piano keyboards. Basemetal  05:59, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No, of course just about all composers expect their pieces to be played, and provide makeshift solutions in the meantime (like A♮0 and A♯0 standing in for what should obviously be F0 and G♯0 in some octave-doubling in Ravel's Scarbo). What I mean is a sort of analogical addition: for example, if I had a piano going down to F0, I would absolutely play the F0 and G♯0 there even though they are not in the score, because it is obvious that Ravel would've written them if he could count on them being there.
 * There are a great deal of passages in early and middle Beethoven that imply this sort of analogy, as the piano range expanded from F1–F6 to C1–F7 over his lifetime. I'll give two examples: in op. 10 no. 1, there is a right-hand melody in octaves whose upper octave vanishes for one note when it would have to be the G♭6 he did not yet have, and in op. 90 there is a bass line in octaves that frustratingly cannot start from the low tonic because it would be the E1 he did not yet have. (I apologise for not providing music examples since that is difficult on my phone; I will put them up when I get home in some hours.) I would have no problem adding those notes, and since Beethoven rewrote his Third Piano Concerto to include the high notes up to C7 and planned to do so for his other early works, I think he would have agreed. But there are many cases where Beethoven has turned the limits of his keyboard into an advantage, either by expressively reshaping the line to avoid out-of-range notes (op. 31 no. 2), deliberately exploiting the frustrating disappearance and reappearance of doubling octaves to create an accent (op. 54), or by deliberately writing climaxes to reach the lowest or highest note on the keyboard (op. 106; I will provide the musical examples later). Since Beethoven deliberately avoided the E1 in op. 109/ii (despite having written a D♯1 in op. 109/i), I think he would also have agreed. The difficulty is deciding whether the music is more effective with or without the extra notes.
 * I suppose a slightly different thing would be if those unplayable notes were actually written into the score, presumably on the grounds of wishful thinking that they would soon not be unplayable. This has happened before: Schubert was evidently unsatisfied with the limit of F7 and wrote a G♯7 into the Piano Sonata D 625 of 1818, even though he did not have the note. (A decade later he was more prudent, writing a B♭6 into the Piano Sonata D 960 to instead of B♭7 implied by parallel passages.) The D8 in Scriabin's Sixth Sonata is the same sort of thing (the composer played C8 instead.) And then there are the works for 108-key piano listed in the pdf you link to, when the notes F♯8 through B8 (I still want a C9!) are not yet on anybody's piano (though they will soon come). But that is not so different; when the additions become standard, there is no need for all the guesswork I alluded to earlier, at the expense of forcing the performers to find their own makeshift solutions before that happens. Double sharp (talk) 08:35, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * P.S. When you said "they won't listen", I'm curious: did they not reply to you, did they give technical justifications that C9 is too difficult to include, or did they give more personal justifications like how C0–B8 gives nine copies of each pitch class (as stated in the pdf)? Double sharp (talk) 08:41, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * P.P.S. I'm still not terribly convinced by some of the extensions, because the highest notes like C8 already sound rather unconvincing to me (almost more percussive than anything else). Given that I can easily imagine a more convincing-sounding C8, I suspect that part of this is because these notes are too near to the edge, as noted in that pdf, but my inner ear has a terrible time imagining notes above about F8 as sounding musically useful for anything other than reinforcing the notes an octave below them, as indeed I feel for notes below about F0 (substitute "above" for "below"). But I think that at least the low F0 ought to be standard, and I wouldn't mind the high F8 either. Since I'd prefer that everything can be practiced on any piano (even if it doesn't sound as good), I must say I can't agree with the idea that pianos should gain more keys as they get higher-class, and would prefer to support a strict 8-octave range across all instruments as the standard of the future (since you can hardly put a C0 or a B8 on an average upright). I do admit though that "from F to shining F" doesn't work at all. ^_-☆ Double sharp (talk) 08:55, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid "I told them but they won't listen" was just a joke. Something like: "I tried to tell Obama not to send in the SEALS but he didn't even return my call". I can only speculate but I would guess that the real reason they went for B8 rather than C9 was primarily technical. They might have tried to justify it a posteriori with that idiosyncratic "every note exactly nine times, wow" which is both anti-musical and anti-pianistic but I hope that's not the primary reason, because that would be sad. I think Stuart and Corbin are not pianists, but Paulello is. (Like, hello? You didn't know the piano was biased towards C major? Ever noticed all those white keys?) Btw, what do you think of Paulello's "parallel strung and bar-less concert grand", at least as an idea?  Basemetal  13:42, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * PS: Regarding that test with that Omega 6 frame I was slightly puzzled by two things. The first thing was, why exactly did they have to test all of those 6 x 3 strings? Wasn't it enough to just test one string at the maximum tension they wanted to reach? (Besides Omega ⅓ is not a fatty acid, that's an added bonus. Or is it?) They were clearly testing the string not the frame, so... Or, if the reason was they wanted to test a range of values and gain some experience with how things go in practice (which would have been useful in case say B8 and Bb8 failed, contrary to prediction, but not A8, so they would know they could at least go to A8) it sounds even more useful to also test to a few values above B8, I don't know, F#8 to E9 for example (or whatever sounds reasonable, and avoids a fatty acid's name), in order to gain practical experience with the behavior above the theoretically predicted tolerance. It doesn't seem like it would have made the test a lot more difficult or expensive. (And is Omega 11 a fatty acid?) And the second thing is, how come their testing set-up didn't include the action of the hammer? Or is the wear and tear due to the hammer hitting the string negligible in comparison with the string staying constantly under tension? Basemetal  14:23, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I'm much more well-versed in piano playing than piano making (i.e. I know next to nothing about the latter), so all I can say is that the result sounds very good! ^_^ One idea I know enough about to certainly get behind is the nickel-plating of the piano wire; it's high time piano manufacturers adapted to string piano technique! The piano's bias towards C major is certainly obvious, and it makes modulation present to the pianist not only through the brain and ears but also through the fingers, as Charles Rosen has remarked in Piano Notes (not to mention making all those atonal works harder to play). The ω nomenclature only makes sense for positive integers after the ω, and properly refers to classes of fatty acids rather than single acids. I'll likewise have to bow out in the face of your questions and only nod and murmur in assent. Double sharp (talk) 14:37, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

In the meantime, here are the first two Beethoven examples I mentioned (where adding the missing notes is what I'd like to think every reasonable pianist would do). First Op. 10 No. 1 (missing high G-flat): and Op. 90 (missing low E): Double sharp (talk) 14:58, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

And now for some examples when adding the extra range is not advisable, or at least should not be done without thinking in the case of Op. 54. First from the finale of Op. 31 No. 2, where Beethoven reshapes the line expressively, repeating the high D6 for its pathetic effect: (the above from the exposition) (the above from the recapitulation). Double sharp (talk) 15:05, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

(Incidentally Henle Blog covers this issue, as does of course Rosen's excellent monograph Beethoven's Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion, who also uses the same examples of Opp. 31/2, 54, and 106.) And now the finale of Op. 54: should the octave marks really stop at the F1 (lending a weight to their return on the upbeat), or should we keep supplying them to the low D1? (I'm personally of the opinion that it's OK to continue adding them, but here the answer is not so simple): Double sharp (talk) 15:11, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

And from the fugue of the Hammerklavier Op. 106 (where I agree with Rosen that adding the low B♭0 is a mistake, because it spoils the climax on the dominant ninth on C soon afterwards): Double sharp (talk) 15:17, 27 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Whew! Captain at it again! But there's something I don't get. You don't have to use all the keys your keyboard has just because it has them. What do you mean by saying that those last cases are ones, not where it is not advisable to use the keys in the extra range, but where having the extra range at all is not advisable?  Basemetal  17:30, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'm speaking imprecisely. There's no problem having the extra range on your keyboard; just don't add those notes to the scores without thinking. There is admittedly a little bit of effect that is lost when it's no longer clear that a note was then the highest or lowest on the keyboard, but increasingly in the later Beethoven these limits are implied by the music itself (hence that passage in op. 106 written to climax on the low C1, making the absence of the B♭0 not only necessary but also desirable; that is why in op. 109/ii the music clearly warns against using the low notes that actually were already on his keyboard). Sometimes difficulties do arise, though, as in the ending of Debussy's L'isle joyeuse, which may lose a bit of effect when that final A0 isn't the end of the keyboard; I presume this is the reason for those removable key covers. Double sharp (talk) 23:42, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * P.S. From Henle Blog again, here is the companion piece on Beethoven's extensions of range in the treble (the link I gave you first focuses mostly on the bass). Double sharp (talk) 05:21, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks to your information I have now added F♯8 through B8 to the list of Piano key frequencies on Wikipedia! Double sharp (talk) 12:03, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

A short postscript
What is really funny, incidentally, is that Beethoven does write the high F♯6 in an octave F♯5/F♯6 in Op. 14 No. 1, when he did not have it yet. The phrase in question is really hard to rewrite to avoid the high note, like the one in Op. 10 No. 1. But then he simply wrote a single G♭5 in a string of octaves, probably expecting that the sympathetic listener would mentally supply the missing G♭6. Perhaps he got a little bit more frustrated between 1798 and 1799. ^_-☆ Double sharp (talk) 10:20, 3 April 2019 (UTC)


 * P.S. There is also a similar compass-break (high F♯6) in Mozart's KV 284/iii, Var. XI, b. 30 (first edition only, as part of a trill on the high E6; the autograph is missing this trill sign). Double sharp (talk) 13:53, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you
I've thanked Droog Andrey for reopening the discussion and now I can't help but feel I should say the same to you for not abandoning it. These efforts of yours are exactly the thing that keep the project go on. Thank you very much and please keep it up.--R8R (talk) 17:47, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! I certainly don't intend to stop. ^_-☆ Double sharp (talk) 23:54, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Hello,your writing style is too good to read easily. I've a question related to wikipedia. Sonia magsi (talk) 11:32, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if that's a good thing! Please do go ahead and ask me your question. I'll try to either answer or point you to somewhere you can get an answer. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 12:14, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Languages
Since you have two native languages and know many foreign ones I can't help but wonder: do you not have such awkward moments when you want to say something but you've only come up with how to say it using a word or a phrase of another language and keep that embarrassing silence trying to figure out what that would be in the language you're currently speaking? I've recently noticed I run into this problem in my life: when talking in Russian, I come up with a good phrase to say but that phrase is in English and then I suffer for a few seconds trying to find a Russian equivalent or something close enough, fail to do so, and then just try to explain what I wanted to say. I guess my English is influencing my Russian in a bad way, after all. Speaking of which, what do you think: does my Russian negatively influence my English? Do I make mistakes in general often; if so, which kind? I know I'm not the one to judge on this, so a second party's opinion would be very welcome.--R8R (talk) 18:00, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Page stalker here. We'll let Captain sleep for now (he'll no doubt have things to say when he wakes up) and in the meantime I'll throw in my two cents worth. I hope that's ok with you. I'm barging in uninvited, even though you didn't ask me anything, so if it's not, apologies, and you are hereby invited to delete this whole post of mine. From what I've seen on this page I find your English very good. I've looked just now at your user page, and I can find almost no mistake. Here are the few things I would change:
 * "note for self" change to "note to self",
 * "have a calm chat to reach consensus rather than edit wars" change to "have a calm chat to reach consensus rather than engage in edit wars",
 * "a post [...] I wrote to Wikimedia" change to "a post [...] I wrote for Wikimedia".
 * As to the title of that post for Wikimedia, unless "periodically" was an intentional pun on the "periodic table", instead of: "Why I periodically write on the elements on Wikipedia" I would have written (too late now): "Why I regularly write about elements on Wikipedia". "On elements" rather than "on the elements" because it seems your contributions are more often to various articles each having as a subject an individual element rather than to articles dealing with the concept of chemical element, or the perodic table, say. Basemetal  19:55, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, indeed, you are correct. As for the title, it is indeed a pun on the periodic table but it also reflects how there often periods when I cannot very actively edit articles, like in 2014, 2016, or right now. I think the post must make it clear enough. Actually, it is the only thing in that post the authorship of which I cannot claim, so this one is not on me!
 * Thank you very much for willing to help and offer an opinion. It is very considerate of you to do so. I indeed do make such small mistakes sometimes, sometimes when I am suddenly puzzled how to write a phrase I would normally have no difficulty to write and sometimes when I just don't pay enough attention to my own writing.--R8R (talk) 15:48, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, if there were long periods when you didn't contribute and then you came back, and that happened with a certain regularity, then "periodically" is definitely the better adverb. I hadn't considered that possibility. My mistake.
 * I believe the best strategy for improving one's English (or any language) is to let it flow naturally and just say and write what comes to one's mind, and then rely on others to offer corrections, because if you constantly monitor yourself and check and recheck your writing, then that tension itself can stand in the way. Making mistakes is the way to learn, and while you're engaged in the act of writing or speaking is no longer the time for training. You just go. It's like the player of a musical instrument. You do your scales and exercises, and work on your technique, and on the pieces and their technical difficulties at home. When you perform you just have to think about the performance and not worry about technique, mistakes, and so on. So don't check and recheck you English. Just write and speak. Just ask people to correct your mistakes as they occur. That assumes of course you're surrounded with people who are willing to do that, which is not always the case, and it's not always easy to convince people to start doing it, if they don't do it of themselves. Also that doesn't mean you stop learning and "working on your technique": you should continue listening, reading, learning grammar and vocabulary, doing exercises, etc. But that should be kept separate from the actual "performance", i.e. using English in real life. When you speak or write forget about all those. The only goal now should be to express what you want to say, to "perform", and to hell with grammar, correction, and the like. At least that's how I see language learning. Basemetal  12:06, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I absolutely agree. I've been through that period of being not confident in my English and at some point I realized this naturally. Learning German was easier in part because I had already learned that by the time when I picked it. And anyway, I am confident that my English now must be good enough not to embarrass myself even though my literary skills could probably use some improvement. I described my thought process quite sincerely: I noticed how I sometimes come up with good phrases in English when speaking Russian, decided to check if other people had this problem, too, wrote this question (unfortunately enough, most my friends don't even know English as well as I do, not to mention any second foreign languages; by the way, this also has helped me build confidence in my own English basically throughout my entire life, since I was three, I guess), and while I was at it, I also asked about my skills in general, it never hurts to know that. I appreciate you giving this advice though: it was really valuable to realize this so if it had only come just now from you, you'd have helped me a whole lot. So thank you very much for that.--R8R (talk) 12:46, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, I absolutely do have that problem sometimes, especially if I haven't been using a language enough recently. I find your English very good in general, though I tend to find mistakes on article usage more often than the others. I'll write a more detailed reply when I have time to look through dubnium (which realistically is going to be Friday or the weekend at least, along with more fixes to nihonium), which should give me a large chunk of your writing to examine. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 23:58, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * This sort of mistakes seems quite natural when we're talking about foreign languages so I hope you don't mind me making sure: does this happen with your native languages as well?
 * Thank you! But I hope you don't mind me clarifying that: is it actually the case or is it the politeness the English language itself is almost obliging you to express? If the latter is the case and there is something more to it, I'd rather love to hear that. If you need some more time to give it a good thought, please take it.--R8R (talk) 15:48, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
 * No, it really is the case. What you described does sometimes happen with my native languages, but definitely not as often as with foreign languages; it happens more often for Chinese than for English, because I don't use it as much. Double sharp (talk) 12:16, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much, it's great to know. Eagerly awaiting your responses in the nihonium PR and dubnium FAC!--R8R (talk) 12:46, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That can happen even with native speakers who are fluent at the highest level in their language. Especially when the various languages, be they ever so fluent, have a kind of division of labor, where one is used to use one in one domain and another in another domain. There's an anecdote about Blaise Pascal who was not only a native French speaker but truly one of the masters of French prose (Lettres provinciales, etc.) In a letter he was writing to Fermat who had asked him about a problem of probability theory he starts the letter in French and then after a short while switches to Latin writing (in French) "car le français n'y vaut rien" ("French is worthless for this", namely mathematics). When it came to mathematics Pascal apparently was only comfortable and at home thinking and writing in Latin, trying to express his mathematical ideas in French felt just too artificial and laborious, no matter how good he was with French otherwise.  Basemetal  16:02, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry for not responding earlier. I've given your comment some thought and I absolutely see that. Discussing politics, for example, in Russian and in English would result in two different talks at all. Come to think of that, this has probably to do with the fact that Russian politics never (maybe that's an exaggeration. Very rarely, however, it was) was really defined by some elements so very common to the English language like liberalism or personal freedoms (or at least that's how people are used to think about it). Even talking about the same thing in these languages would probably feel different. Same probably goes with many things: not only does the language itself affect the talks, but so does the cultural context around it. And that's talking about two languages that, despite their differences, generally share most concepts or at least have similar ones when exact replacements are not available. By the way, have you read Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four? The higher government in that book, Ingsoc, which controlled every aspect of their population---even thoughts---sought to reduce the original English language to a crudely simplified version of it, the so-called Newspeak, which would even have no concepts and no words at all for what the government did not want to even appear in people's thoughts, like revolutions or desire for more personal freedom, for example. This book really touched me when I first read it; I was sixteen or seventeen at that moment. Its very genre implies things are overly exaggerated but that aspect of it seemed plausible and for me, it still does.--R8R (talk) 16:33, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I've read through some of it (and really ought to get around to finishing it at some point), and I agree with what you say: it's no doubt quite heavy-handed, but has a great deal of force and really touches the reader. In the spirit of WP:WHAAOE, I'll link to linguistic relativity. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 03:28, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I am surprised to hear the book hasn't immediately gotten you to get it through yourself in its entirety! But yes, the book is absolutely worth it. By the way, while this book is indeed "heavy-handed," as you put it, if it gets you, you may want to try Huxley's Brave New World. It seems not nearly as "heavy" as Nineteen Eighty-Four, but very thrilling nonetheless and hitting you hard by the end. These two books belong to world classics and you may guess that is for a reason (even given the ambiguity of that claim). I actually know very few other books of that genre.--R8R (talk) 21:36, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * (Writing that to you actually prompted me to acquire another copy of Brave New World and begin to re-read it. I couldn't help but wonder where the sequence of events would actually lead me, even though I generally remembered the plot.--R8R (talk) 12:41, 24 March 2018 (UTC))

Your GA nomination of Silicon
Seems like Legobot did not update you about the nom, and I'm here to tell you that I've took up the review and have left some comments on the review page. The article is currently on hold, and i hope that you would be able to respond to these issues. Regards, 1.02 editor (talk) 08:08, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Working on it – although I am currently rather low on time, so I'd like to request that the review remain on hold for two weeks instead of the usual one (unless I somehow manage to get everything done early). Thanks for taking this. Double sharp (talk) 13:36, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

WikiCup 2018 March newsletter
And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. With 53 contestants qualifying, the groups for round 2 are slightly smaller than usual, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining users.

Our top scorers in round 1 were:


 * 🇺🇸 Aoba47 led the field with a featured article, 8 good articles and 42 GARs, giving a total of 666 points.
 * 🇩🇪 FrB.TG, a WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points, gained from a featured article and masses of bonus points.
 * 🇮🇳 Ssven2, another WikiCup newcomer, was in third place with 403 points, garnered from a featured article, a featured list, a good article and twelve GARs.
 * 🇺🇸 Ceranthor, 🇮🇳 Numerounovedant, Carbrera, 🇳🇱 Farang Rak Tham and 🇷🇴 Cartoon network freak all had over 200 points, but like all the other contestants, now have to start again from scratch. A good achievement was the 193 GARs performed by WikiCup contestants, comparing very favourably with the 54 GAs they achieved.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) and Vanamonde (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

To practice your French and have a laugh
If you want to practice your French and be entertained at the same time here's a lecture at the Collège de France you may enjoy (especially if you're a fan of the Second Viennese School). Basemetal 18:39, 7 March 2018 (UTC) PS: "The mistakes I will inevitably perpetuate"? Do you mean "perpetrate"? Basemetal 18:39, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it should be "perpetrate". This sort of thing happens when two words are fairly similar and I type one more often than the other: I'd never mess this up while talking, but I certainly would while typing. I'll check your link out! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 23:43, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I was kind of confused. I thought, hmm, "perpetuate" may mean what the captain was saying was some of the mistakes he makes in German or Polish have been with English speakers, or Chinese speakers, or his family, or whatever, for generations. But then again I thought, lighting my pipe: "Hmm, what mistakes could those be"? So then I decided it was a lot more likely it was a typo, especially as I noticed there was only one letter difference, those two letters were on the same row of a Qwerty keyboard, and are produced with the same finger of the right and left hand respectively, and the captain is possibly left-handed or ambidextrous. But just to make entirely sure, and especially to make sure I won't miss a possibly extremely interesting account of "inherited" mistakes in German and/or Polish among a group of Homo Sapiens speaking English or Chinese or both, I decided to ask the captain. Basemetal  07:19, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
 * A round of applause for your deductions! I regret to say that I am not left-handed (must...not...link...TV...Tropes) but right-handed, and although I find left-hand alone typing easier than right-hand alone typing that is probably because (1) my mouse would be in my right hand, leaving my left hand free more often and (2) most of the common letters are on the left side of the keyboard. The latter sort of reason (a layout giving a natural advantage for the left hand) is also why there are more pieces for piano left hand alone than piano right hand alone, because the stronger fingers of the left hand are playing the higher notes where the melody usually is. I also regret to have revealed your suggested interesting account to be only a beautiful dream; this almost made me want to reinstate the typo. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 08:14, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Did you finally check out the lecture? Basemetal  15:31, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * No, but I should have time to over this weekend. ^_^ Thanks for reminding me about this! Double sharp (talk) 23:39, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You write on your user page: "I do not think my understanding of Webern's Variations improved that significantly after finding out what the tone row it used actually was". How did you find out? Basemetal  00:17, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not actually sure, since I first encountered that piece quite early (I think it might have been my first exposure to Webern). Either I looked it up or I was shown it when that work was used as an example for analysing a 12-tone piece; I certainly didn't analyse it myself to find out what it was. Double sharp (talk) 03:26, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Let us say two competent musicians familiar with the technique (let us assume they are themselves practitioners of that technique) analyze the same 12-tone piece, do they always come up with the same answer as to the tone row it is based on, or can there be (legitimate) differences of opinion? Basemetal  03:47, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think you could have legitimate differences of opinion on the row itself; I suspect you might be able to argue about which form is the prime form, though there wouldn't be much point in doing that. Double sharp (talk) 03:55, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * And is that analysis something that can be done by someone who just listens to the piece, on the fly? Basemetal  03:59, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I doubt it. But then again, I also don't think it has to be done if you just want to perform it effectively. When a competent composer wants analytical concerns to be an important part of the discourse for the listener (and not only for the analyst seeking to understand how it was done), he makes them audible. Double sharp (talk) 04:05, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I've started listening to the lecture (I'm a bit short of complete hours so I may have to split it over a few days). This is the same one discussed at fr:Jérome Ducrôs fr:Jérôme Ducros, isn't it? I think I can manage to be unbiased here: after all, I have written both tonal and atonal pieces, sometimes as part of the same work. ^_^ (Yes, I try to be as contradictory as Schoenberg!) Double sharp (talk) 13:51, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

All right, he's gotten ten minutes in (with his demonstration) and I already disagree. Here is, once again, the fallacy of assuming that pitch is the primary element of atonal music. It simply isn't. There are instead many elements working together, where pitch is only one of them of equal importance with texture and rhythm, which work together to recreate consonance and dissonance. So here are some relevant quotes from Charles Rosen's monograph on Schoenberg to illustrate this, because I can hardly do better (pp. 49–50):

"...It is clear that wrong notes matter less in Schoenberg and in many of his contemporaries such as Richard Strauss [whose music, I should note, is for the most part categorisable as "tonal"] than they do in Mozart or Wagner: they are even in fact less noticeable. This does not mean that the music of Schoenberg does not sound a good deal better when it is played with the right notes and proper intonation, just as Mozart sounds best when played with the proper dynamics and a great sensitivity to tone color.

From time to time there appear malicious stories of eminent conductors who have not realized that, in a piece of Webern or Schoenberg, the clarinettist, for example, picked up an A instead of a B-flat clarinet and played his part a semitone off. These recurrent tales, often true, do not have the significance given them by those critics who believe that music should have stopped before Debussy, as each individual line in Schoenberg's music and even in Webern's later pointillist style defines a harmonic sense that, even when transposed, can fit into the general harmony of the work as a whole. (Here we must remember that harmony is conveyed as powerfully along a musical line as it is by a simultaneous chord.)"

As a result, I will proudly say that I did not notice anything wrong, and applaud his performance of Schoenberg's op. 23 no. 5, which captured the charm of the Viennese waltz that it is wonderfully. Of course, I think it might sound even better if the notes had been right, but it is no more of an issue to me than the question of whether a phrase was played forte or piano in Mozart – which, I will note, Mozart seems not always to have been terribly sure about, looking at the differences between the autographs and the first editions of some of his works. (Incidentally, I think that he should have taken the Allegretto of Beethoven's op. 31 no. 2 slower, as Rosen suggests following what Allegretto meant for Beethoven, so that the tenor A is actually audible as a syncopated bass: but this is not obviously wrong, it just sounds better if you do it at the right tempo. That would have been a much better comparison with what wrong notes mean for Schoenberg – or Debussy, who I suspect many of those people who dislike atonality like.) Double sharp (talk) 14:15, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Listening further, we come to Ducrôs' contention that in tonality we can distinguish possibilities from impossibilities, but in atonality anything is possible. It so happens that Rosen addresses this too (pp. 19–22):

"...A musical system such as tonality provides a semblance of stability, a way of distinguishing musical sense from nonsense, while allowing that free play of meaning which makes the composer's work possible.

The so-called "breakdown of tonality" at the end of the end of the nineteenth century revealed to what extent this exterior stability was an illusion; more precisely, it was a construction that depended substantially on the individual works on of music much more than a linguistic system depends on individual acts of speech. ...

... the conditions for understanding [musical language] must—at least partially—be made evident in the work itself. The process of establishing the conditions for the intelligibility is as important in Mozart as in Schoenberg. But it is less visible in Mozart, whose work seems to refer to a stable outside system. Each composer, too, both establishes the structure of that system and, in many cases, transcends it by an extraordinarily free play with the elements of music. This free play is easily to be found in Schoenberg, but the explicit reference to an exterior and relatively stable system of meanings has almost vanished. ...

Between Mozart and Schoenberg, what disappeared was the possibility of using large blocks of prefabricated material in music. The meaning of an element of form in Mozart was given essentially by the structure of each work, but that element was sometimes a large cadential formula lasting many measures. ... The common language in music was, in essence, the acceptance of such very large units at certain strategic points—in general, the ends of sections, or cadences.

By the end of the nineteenth century, these blocks of prefabricated material were no longer acceptable to composers with styles as widely variant as Debussy, Schoenberg, and Skryabin. To employ these blocks of material resulted immediately in pastiche: giving them up, however, led to a kind of panic. It seemed as if music now had to be written note by note ... The renunciation of the symmetrical use of blocks of elements in working out musical proportions placed the weight on the smallest units, single intervals, short motifs.

The expressive values of these tiny elements therefore took on an inordinate significance; they replaced syntax. These expressive values were, however, derived directly from tonal music. And since they took a preponderant role in composition it was obvious that a composer would chose elements with the most powerful, even the most violent, values, as these small elements now had to do the work of much larger groups. ... In his sometimes obsessive and almost despairing reliance on the traditional expressive values to create works of music during this great period, Schoenberg was paradoxically more dependent on an exterior system, on a hidden assumption of a "common language," than Mozart, whose music does not refer to but conveys a traditional system of meaning while it creates a new one."


 * (I tried to cut down the quotes to the bare minimum to get the point across.)
 * And it does not matter so much if the listener cannot guess what is coming next, if the logic of what is going on is carried through so strongly, especially with the violence and power behind the expressive possibilities of these small elements that have replaced syntax, that the listener cannot help being moved along with it. Certainly this is most obvious in works with nonmusical impulses: Erwartung, Moses und Aron, the Music for a Film Sequence, or even the String Trio. But musical impulses can provide this needed force as well, as in Webern's absolute symmetry and Schoenberg's and Berg's long melodies imitating those of tonality. And it is certainly possible to distinguish between Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. If it is harder to distinguish many of the not-so-good composers writing in this style – well, Schoenberg himself wrote in Style and Idea: "Composition with twelve tones has no other aim than comprehensibility. ... But, though it seems to increase the listener's difficulties, it compensates for this deficiency by penalizing the composer. For composing thus does not become easier, but rather ten times more difficult. Only the better-prepared composer can compose for the better-prepared music lover." Certainly, there are many mediocre atonal compositions. There are also many mediocre tonal compositions – and, increasingly, we hear mostly mediocre neotonal compositions which pretend to be tonal and yet have no ability to give meaning to harmonic relations. But if this is so, it is not the fault of atonality; it is just that writing good music, that some amateurs will insist on hearing, requires a musical language that is capable of more than creating signature catchphrases. (And here I'll again recommend Rosen's monograph on Schoenberg with the highest praise: all of its 105 pages are of the quality of what you see quoted above, and I do not know of any better introduction to that master.) Double sharp (talk) 15:02, 22 April 2018 (UTC)


 * LOL. I knew that you'd have a blast with this. I must insist that I have absolutely not even the tiniest pooch in this fight, it's just that enjoy watching pro wrestling, especially intellectual pro wrestling. Keep watching at your own leisurely pace ten minutes a day (I do that all the time, especially with Indian movies ) and I'm eagerly waiting for more of your thoughtful and eloquent arguments. In any case your arguments (and Rosen's) so far are much better than some I've heard in France that sometimes were just grabbing at straws ("he on purpose chose tonal excerpts that were longer than his atonal ones") or were nothing but ad hominem attacks ("Ducros's and Beffa's music's mediocre anyway"). Well, ok, that's more the spirit than literal quotes, so don't hold me to them. By the way you misplaced your accent circonflexe: it's on "Jerôme" not "Ducros". I corrected what I thought were three typos. I hope they were and that it was ok. Thanks for the link to the French Wikipedia article, I hadn't even realized Ducros had a Wikipedia page, let alone that there was there a whole section about "la polémique..." Basemetal  17:15, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, and sorry for accidentally misplacing the circumflex! Yes, those were typos and it's completely fine with me that you fixed them. I'll try my best to live up to your high expectations when I next write! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 15:34, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Apparently I confused myself here; I wrote "ten minutes in" for my first point, but then moved on to talk about what he said after the first ten minutes. Since these points IIRC were part of the backbone of his arguments I think I've addressed the main things already, which should give me a good excuse to finally start archiving my talk page (including this) regularly again unless you object. ^_-☆ Double sharp (talk) 08:09, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

An idea for you to think about
I am very curious if we can put it to work.

I am very proud of how I wrote lead. I'd want to make more stuff like that, and you know I've already chosen the articles I want to go for: aluminium, iron, and gold. This probably won't be happening in a few months at least, but I want to go there eventually. While working on lead, it occurred to me that as well as it went down, I think I could use a little more creativity on the "natural science" sections, namely Physical properties and Compounds and I think that's you should fit in so perfectly. Besides, a second pair of eyes on anything else shouldn't do any harm. Likewise, I'd want to watch out for you, too, because you sometimes seem to get overly excited over something and write on and on about it :) I guess I'd also want a say on structures of sections and the like; of course, you'll get that as well.

So I'd like to suggest we write those three together (or maybe let's start with one and see how it goes from there), with you responsible over those two "natural science" sections (and probably something else if you want) and myself responsible on "human importance" sections like History and Production (I feel you'll to keep an eye on this one as well; that's okay). As I said, this won't be happening for a few months at least, realistically not until June at the earliest, so for now, as you've seen in the title of this section, it's an idea to think about. But I feel that if you agree, that should be great!--R8R (talk) 17:06, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Why, I absolutely do like this idea, especially after thorium. ^_^ Since you've already started on Al, I'd probably start with that one soon. Fe is already a GA, so it's more a matter of improving what's already there (from what I remember I think I covered those sections reasonably well in 2016, although of course I could have overlooked something). I also like the idea of doing it for Au and finishing off the transition metals topic, which would give me a great motivation to actually go back and look through all of them: I keep forgetting about some of the early d-block metals like Y, Zr, and Nb. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 23:35, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm feel great about how you're into the idea. But as I said, I won't be able to really start for a few months at least and I'd hate to see this idea taking your attention from your current projects. I'd certainly want you to get nihonium featured before we begin, for instance, as this is an earlier project which you certainly should finish first (and it's a cool one, I think you wouldn't want to abandon it anyway, right?). In April/May/(June), I'd want to focus on a seemingly small task of getting history of aluminium featured and I've got another thing to do (more on that sometime later as I'd hate to talk about it without getting it done). To summarize it, I'm very glad you like the idea but I also want you to get your current tasks done first (which is totally fine since I won't be available for the task for a while anyway).
 * When we do begin, though, I'd indeed want to start off with aluminium exactly because I'd already started to work on it myself some time ago.--R8R (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Of course, Nh will be first, but it's close to FAC-ready and I don't think there's much resistance left in its path there. ^_^ I was speaking of the time after that one gets done (and if I have some spare time I'd still want to clean out the rest of our C-class articles like I started doing in late 2016). Double sharp (talk) 08:12, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry for misunderstanding. If there are no more active tasks of yours other than nihonium, then you're more than welcome to begin to work on aluminium after you have submitted nihonium to FAC! If you do, I'll try my best to hurry and catch up to you.--R8R (talk) 20:06, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

I have some drafted rewrites of these sections at User:Double sharp/Aluminium. ^_^ It's still very much in progress (and nihonium comes first), so there is not actually a lot there, although I have some idea in my head on how the finished product ought to look. Double sharp (talk) 13:21, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I see what direction you're trying to go; this reminds me of what I've done with lead. Probably this is indeed the best direction to go. Also, feel free to use my scribbles I wrote in the first section in the main article (I'm not asking you to do so, though, as I am not very pleased with it).--R8R (talk) 13:33, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, I've been considering your scribbles. ^_^ I do want to ask one thing about them, though: are we sure we want to cover electron configuration under Physical characteristics? This and the ionic radius to me seem to segue more naturally into talking about chemistry as I've started doing (the main point it leads to for me is that the Al3+ cation is hard because it has a true noble gas core that shields the valence electrons well, but is also strongly polarising because it is small). Double sharp (talk) 15:24, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems natural to me to go do so. I was actually having in mind the structure of fluorine as I wrote that. It also came out nicely, even if differently, don't you think? The structure seems good for a light element to me. And come to think of it, it sort of is a physical property as it is governed by the laws of physics rather than chemistry. However, as I said, you're in charge now :) If you think Chemistry will work better, you're more than welcome to give it a try. If it won't come out as well as you have wanted, we have backup options with the structures of fluorine and lead. And you may remember I have always preferred telling a story and then choosing headers for parts of that story to fixing some headers and then forcing a story to those headers.--R8R (talk) 15:36, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Pythagorean scale and theory of intervals
What I call the common theory of intervals within Western theory is: interval designations (unison, 2nd, 3rd, and so on ad infinitum) along with modifiers (perfect, major, minor, augmented, diminished, twice augmented, twice diminished, thrice augmented, thrice diminished, and so on ad infinitum), where they fit on the circle of 5ths (of how many 5ths they are composed), the relation between simple and compound intervals, note designations (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) along with modifiers (natural, sharp, flat, double sharp, double flat, triple sharp, triple flat, and so on ad infinitum), and their intervalic relationships in terms described above. All this requires nothing but 2 and 3 and is in one-to-one relation with the Pythagorean scale and no other. I think what you say about the concept of enharmony requiring 12TET and concepts of consonance requiring just intonation and overtones (up to a point at least for the "natural" part of the justification and how far "natural" explanations go is a matter of debate) is true. They're just not part of the theory of intervals I'd say. Also "exotic" intervals such as major and minor tones, etc. are not really part of the common theory of intervals I'd say. Basemetal 08:33, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that interval names assume Pythagorean tuning. To my mind all they assume is some kind of 5-limit temperament where the syntonic comma 81:80 is set to zero. You could use our interval names just as well for quarter-comma meantone without running into any inconsistencies. Yes, in Pythagorean intonation C♯ is higher than D♭, while in quarter-comma meantone C♯ is lower than D♭, but there is nothing in the theory of intervals that passes sentence on this. So you have a continuum of possible tunings of the perfect fifth as given in syntonic temperament and all of them are consistent with our note names. Along the way you have some points where the fifth is an exact fraction of the octave and you get some equal division of the octave with exotic enharmonic equivalences, like 17 or 19 equal temperament: the limits are when the diatonic and chromatic semitones are set to zero and we get 5 or 7 equal temperament respectively. In particular 12 equal temperament is the singular point where the diesis is set to zero and C♯ equals D♭: I agree with you in considering the setting of the diesis to zero to be something that is true in 12-TET but is a further addition over the intervallic names, which are syntonic temperament. There are other ways to consider 12-TET (it tempers out a lot of commas), but considering it as a form of meantone is indeed theoretically privileged, and this is I think because this way makes things as simple as possible, but not simpler. If you were shopping for syntonic temperaments, you'd want one that lets you actually modulate (so not 5-TET or 7-TET), but also doesn't force you to make distinctions because harmony favours a positive diesis and melody favours a negative one (so not 17-TET, 19-TET, or anything beyond), and 12-TET is the only one falling in the Goldilocks zone. Likewise, meantone is the easiest way to write 12-TET while retaining perfect triads as a basis (try writing it as a schismatic temperament to see what I mean). This is of course not the historical reasoning for 12-TET, but everything in music is necessarily overdetermined, after all. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 07:14, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * P.S. Although I wonder if the lack of use of some interval names is precisely because 12-TET is used in practice, even if the theoretical basis is syntonic temperament. Do you ever hear about diminished seconds (dieses)? We hear about enharmonic equivalence indeed; we hear about both augmented seconds and minor thirds; but we don't hear very much about the diesis because you can hardly hear it as either a harmonic or a melodic interval in 12-TET. I wonder if it is really possible to imply in 12-TET a harmonic or melodic interval that is at least as far up the stack of fifths as the augmented seventh or diminished second; I think you might even be able to explain away the augmented third and diminished sixth. So all those doubly-augmented and doubly-diminished intervals are a theoretical conceit for 12-TET at best IMHO. Double sharp (talk) 07:24, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If I understand you correctly, you do accept that in Western theory: (1) every interval has a given 5th content (i.e. can be placed on the circle of 5ths), and (2) there's no identification of any of those intervals (i.e. aug 4th is distinct from dim 5th, aug unison is distinct from min 2nd, etc.), but you're saying that nothing assumes that 5th is 3/2? Is that correct? And because of (2) that 5th would have to be such that it never folds into the 8ve. Correct? Basemetal  11:44, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I accept (1); for (2) I'm saying that the identification of the A4 with the d5 and all those other enharmonic equivalences are not part of how we name intervals, but that doesn't mean they're not part of Western theory, which is certainly more than just intervals. ^_^ To be clear I'll stick to the common theory of intervals and not go further than that for the rest of this posting. Now, I don't mean that A4 cannot equal d5; I just mean that it does not have to equal d5. There is no assumption that A4 = d5 and so on, but there is also no probihition on it being so. Nothing assumes that the 5th is 3/2, but nothing assumes that it isn't either. Nothing assumes that the 5th can fold into the 8ve, but nothing assumes that it isn't either. Things are perfectly consistent if A4 = d5, perfectly consistent if A4 < d5, and perfectly consistent if A4 > d5. To my mind, questions like "how large is the 5th really" and "where does the stack of fifths loop back on itself" are simply unanswerable in the interval-naming system, and require the postulation of enharmonic equivalence to answer; adding that postulate gives us the bedrock of full Western music theory. The relationship between the system implied by how we name intervals and 12-TET is thus kind of like that between absolute geometry and Euclidean geometry. Double sharp (talk) 14:26, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Describing enharmonic modulations w/o mentioning enharmony
There must be a way to describe what goes on in an enharmonic modulation w/o using the fact that when you write it down in the common notation system you need to respell certain notes. After all you can hear an enharmonic modulation. Your hearing doesn't depend on whether the work is written as a score in common notation, or in 12 tone notation, or as a piano roll. How would you do it? Basemetal 08:37, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually I don't think it's possible or desirable to do that. First of all, I need to clarify that there are two sorts of enharmonic modulations. The first sort is when the harmony can be explained without invoking enharmonic equivalence, but doing so would take us into inconveniently double-sharped or double-flatted keys. What 12-TET does there is identify enharmonic notes so that the submediant of A-flat minor is not only F-flat major but also E major, which becomes the same thing. Now, if you exit this theoretical-key region by the same way you came in, there is no problem and you can simply analyse the section as F-flat major spelt as E major for convenience. But if you keep going that way round the circle of fifths and return to the tonic key, as in the first movement of the Appassionata, then you are forced to admit that E and F-flat mean the same as tonics, as the alternative is to admit that the principle of unity of key is overthrown and that we start in F minor and end in A-quadruple-flat minor, which is absurd. If you like, E-natural and F-flat have a different meaning if we are in a D-flat major context; the first is a form of the supertonic while the second is a form of the mediant. But there is no difference between an E major context and an F-flat major context.
 * The second sort is when explaining the harmony requires a single note to play the role of both enharmonic versions. Modulating via the augmented sixth chord is as good an example as any: C–G7–F♯7–B takes you from C major to B major, and in the second chord the seventh is approached as F♮ and quitted as E♯. But this is simply the same principle as the first, only on a smaller scale. Sure, there is a difference in meaning between E-natural and F-flat, as stated above. But the important thing is that they are realised as the same frequency, and therefore it is possible to use that frequency in such a way that it could have either meaning. This is really no more mysterious than using a single note so that it could imply multiple triadic harmonisations. It's the same thing as I said about 12-TET being aware of its Pythagorean heritage: the distinction between enharmonic notes never exists in terms of pure frequencies (at least ideally), but whether it exists in the notes' meanings depends on context. Writing a note as E-natural or F-flat is simply a way of writing down which meaning it has within the context of diatonic scales, and the different appearances are simply forced on us if the system is to remain constant no matter which note you are starting from at the moment. Double sharp (talk) 14:22, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Your first kind of enharmonic modulation I don't consider to be really an enharmonic modulation at all. Every modulation in the chain could be a plain vanilla neighboring key diatonic modulation with a pivot chord such as to the key of the dominant. During no modulation in the chain would you hear the sound of a real enharmonic modulation. In such cases the enharmonic respelling is just a matter of convenience. You can avoid if, as you say, you're ready to go with cumbersome notations involving remote accidentals. For example you could rewrite going around the circle of 5ths from C to C as a modulation from C to B♯. You'll see that is not true of the second (true) kind of enharmonic modulation.
 * The point you make for the second kind of modulation is well known. Except I don't understand your actual example? Where is the German 6th? You wrote two dominant 7th chords. What you wrote looks to me like a chromatic modulation. Could you make the voice leading explicit? (Incidentally I'd always thought in the case of enharmonic modulation you only need one chord, not two). In any case, to make my point about the fact that in a true enharmonic modulation there's always gonna be some respelling (which explains why enharmonic modulations sound the way they do), here is an example. Take this modulation from C major to F♯ major (I'm giving the voice leading, in 4 parts; of course it's in only one chord, a German 6th in F♯. I'm just making explicit the respelling from the dominant 7th of C major):


 * E - F = E♯ - F♯
 * G - B = B           - A♯
 * E - D = D           - C♯
 * C - G = G           - F♯


 * Now watch what happens when I rewrite this as a modulation from C major to G♭ major:


 * E - F = F           - G♭
 * G - B = C♭ - B♭
 * E - D = E𝄫 - D♭
 * C - G = A𝄫 - G♭


 * The F no longer needs to be respelled, but now it is the B that must be respelled as a C♭. I think that is the mark of a true enharmonic modulation: the note that is respelled will be different when you rewrite it, but there will be some note you need to respell. Those modulations have a characteristic sound.
 * Incidentally your use of the word "quit" in "the seventh is approached as F♮ and quitted as E♯" sounds French to me ("la septième est approchée en tant que fa bécarre et quittée en tant que mi dièse"). I might be wrong, and of course "quit" does have the meaning "leave" in English too, but I've never seen it used like this in English. Have you been hanging out with French speakers or French treatises lately?
 * But to get back to my question, you say it is neither possible or desirable to do what I asked. But which is it? Not desirable or not possible? If it's not possible the matter of desirability becomes moot.
 * Basemetal 06:25, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The voice leading between the dominant sevenths (the first one being reinterpreted in hindsight as a German sixth) goes down in parallel semitones. (Yes, yes, I know it creates parallel fifths, but hey, if Mozart uses them, they must be OK, and you have them in your example as well! ^_^) When you hear the G7 the top note is obviously F♮; but after the F♯7 and B you're forced to mentally reinterpret it as having been E♯ all along. "Quit" can certainly be used this way in English; Ebenezer Prout did it, after all.
 * I think the only thing that distinguishes enharmonic modulations is indeed that you need to assume 12-TET enharmonic equivalence for them, which is why I said that the basic scale of Western music is a 12-TET that is very much in touch with its Pythagorean heritage. All modulations force a reinterpretation somewhere along the line. Because it takes time to confirm the new key as more than a passing chromaticism, you do not hear modulations except in hindsight. Then what distinguishes enharmonic modulations is that you can reduce them down to the rewriting of one note: instead of saying "vii°7/V of F minor became vii°$6 5$/V of D minor", you can just say "A♭ became G♯", whereas you'd be hard-pressed to do something like that for an absolutely simple modulation to the dominant (something like "I of D major became IV of A major" does not actually involve any respellings, even in 5-limit just intonation). But this is possible because our notation is overdetermined for chromatic notes. How do we know that a note is a G♯ and not an A♭? To the extent that this question makes sense at all (it is obviously nonsense for an atonal work), it is because even though they are realised as the same frequency, writing the note as G♯ implies a different function for it than writing it as A♭. And we know that it has a different function because of where it goes: if I were to play a B♭ and a G♯ simultaneously in isolation (nothing before or after it), you would have no way of knowing that I meant it as an augmented sixth instead of a minor seventh. But every temperament entails this kind of thing: if in quarter-comma meantone I were to play a C and an A simultaneously in isolation, you would have no way of knowing if I meant 27:16 or 5:3 in the underlying just-intonation structure, and indeed if I were to play a I–vi–ii–V–I progression in C major that A would have to be approached as 5:3 and quitted as 27:16. And how do we know that a note is 5:3 and not 27:16? It seems to me that we know that through their different functions: the former is a minor third below the tonic while the latter is three perfect fifths above it. It seems to me that this means that mediant relationships in meantone or Pythagorean tuning (which is aware of its 5-limit just-intonation heritage) are completely analogous to enharmonic modulations in 12-TET (which is aware of its meantone or Pythagorean heritage). Mediant relationships force us to temper 5 to accommodate 3 (tempering out the syntonic comma 81:80); enharmonic relationships force us to temper 3 to accommodate 2 (tempering out the Pythagorean comma 531441:524288). And indeed, while we don't mark mediant relationships out explicitly, you can hear a mediant shift as something different from a simple and straightforward modulation to the dominant or the subdominant. But all these 5-limit just intonation or Pythagorean theoretical structures are not what you actually hear; you hear their 12-TET realisation, where all these commas that are slight differences of pitch simply become taken over by difference in function (which is just as well, since expressive vibrato will make anything smaller than about a quarter tone inaudible if it wasn't already). In other words, a difference in function is no longer achieved through a direct change of pitch, but by manipulating the context to force you to reinterpret something you have heard. In other words, while 12-TET is quite clearly based on Pythagorean intonation (though perhaps meantone is a better candidate for this slot), which is quite clearly based on 5-limit just intonation, it also quite clearly deforms these bases for its own purposes, so that you are not forced to make all the distinctions those larger systems force you to make. Certainly we may conjure up these ghosts of distinctions and make them seem real if the context emphasises it: take for example this modulation from Schubert's Rosamunde Quartet:


 * I won't deny that you hear something special going on here even if the strings all play exactly according to 12-TET, because Schubert has sat on that diminished seventh chord for so long that he emphasises that something extraordinary has happened, and the difference between G♯ and A♭ in the cello is conjured up even if there is no acoustic reality behind it. But take a passage like this, from Chopin's Third Piano Sonata:


 * (We've just exited from E major, so that first chord should be thought of as vii°$4 2$. Incidentally I think that the G in the turn at the end of the trill in the fifth bar of this extract should really be a G on the basis of parallel passages, and that's how I play it; since so far the most remote accidental from good old C that I know of is a C, it's nice to see this even as a missed opportunity!) How do you analyse that modulation? With all those enharmonic changes through fleetingly tonicised keys I don't really hear most of these changes as anything terribly special in context; indeed to me it's now the perfectly diatonic (except for that G♮) last bar of the first line that sounds emphasised, when (the tonic) B major is finally clear. I think that this is simply a case of pure 12-TET harmony that isn't shackled to what can be done in Pythagorean intonation. That's the great thing about 12-TET: it lets you choose whether or not you want to respect Pythagorean limits or not, and gives you degrees on how far you rebel against them. So I think there is nothing special going on with the enharmonic modulations here and that it's therefore not possible to draw attention to it, let alone desirable. When the enharmonic modulation is something to be heard as special, then the composer must have made it special himself. Double sharp (talk) 14:47, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Regarding your example I still don't get it: there's no E♯ in B major or in F♯7. Sorry, I may be a peasant, but in my village F♯7 is F♯ - A♯ - C♯ - E♮. There is no E♯ involved. Could you clarify? Basemetal  15:09, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It's in the G7, where it's written as F♮. When you hear it it is interpreted as G-B-D-F; after you hear where it resolves (E♯ going to E♮ and then D♯), it is reinterpreted as G-B-D-E♯. Double sharp (talk) 15:11, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Really? Why? At the end of it all we're in B major. Basemetal  15:24, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Here it is in score:
 * (Unfortunately enharmonic ties don't seem to be automatically supported by LilyPond.) Double sharp (talk) 15:20, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok. If you say so. I still see this example as a chromatic modulation ("par glissement chromatique" as the LQELQV site would say) not as an enharmonic modulation. I guess it must just be a matter of terminology. At least you must concede that your example is a bit different from mine. Basemetal  15:24, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I guess you could consider it both ways. You can think of it as simply a chromatic modulation, or you can analyse the G7 as a pivot chord that acts as both V of C major and V of V (as a German augmented sixth) of B major. If you prefer I can add a $6 4$ chord:
 * Now it gets harder to say that we are going par glissement chromatique, and from the fact that V, V7, and V$8−7 6−5$ have the same function I think that our examples are not so different. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 15:28, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh I see. What can I say, you've got a very sophisticated sense of hearing. I noticed you've got a friend called "Droog Andrey". Do you think he's Russian (like many of your other friends), or a fan of nadsat, or a Russian fan of nadsat? Basemetal  19:41, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I happen to know his real name (it's not that hard to find; he has a website with a lot of his stuff with his real name on it) and that he's a chemist from Minsk, Belarus. Presumably the last option is the most probable then. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 23:41, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh I see. What can I say, you've got a very sophisticated sense of hearing. I noticed you've got a friend called "Droog Andrey". Do you think he's Russian (like many of your other friends), or a fan of nadsat, or a Russian fan of nadsat? Basemetal  19:41, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I happen to know his real name (it's not that hard to find; he has a website with a lot of his stuff with his real name on it) and that he's a chemist from Minsk, Belarus. Presumably the last option is the most probable then. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 23:41, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

I still think the two sorts of enharmonic modulations I described above are quite similar and both truly enharmonic, because a key is just the expansion of a chord. So in the second sort, you can arrive at an F-sharp and leave it as a G-flat, and in the first sort, you can arrive at F-sharp major and leave it as G-flat major (and by both of which I mean that the same note or chord is heard with a different function coming and going). Since either way you have to respell some notes to be coherent (unless you want to start the first movement of the Appassionata sonata in F minor and end it in A-quadruple-flat minor, which is absurd), I claim that they are both true enharmonic modulations. Double sharp (talk) 23:44, 2 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I see. Basemetal  01:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Og
Really, three abbreviations/institutes in the lede? About the naming? - DePiep (talk) 23:50, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes. All were involved and simplifying it to IUPAC alone is not accurate. The discovery of new elements today is more physics than chemistry. Double sharp (talk) 23:52, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Of course they were involved. But why in the lede? - DePiep (talk) 00:17, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Because reducing it to only IUPAC is inaccurate. I am all for keeping it simple but not so simple that it stops being true. Both IUPAC and IUPAP were involved and I do not think that that is so complicated that one of them should be removed for the lede. Double sharp (talk) 01:39, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

A weird convention? Or crass ignorance?
I've seen someone use the following convention when they transcribe Indian (Hindustani) music into Western notation: to them this means an F♯ followed by an F♮. (E.g. https://ibb.co/dM4ehH and https://ibb.co/bVzqpx: the Indian notation below the Western staff notation makes it clear they intend the F without a sharp to mean F♮ even when it immediately follows an F with a sharp) Are you aware of any genre/field of music/musicology where Western notation is used, where such a convention would apply? I'm very skeptical. My first thought was: "What a moron!". But since I don't know everything I thought I'd ask you (who do ). I could imagine there could be people who do not rely on the usual convention and always write the second accidental explicitly: that is, they always write either this or this But I can't imagine that anyone (except an idiot) would rely on a convention that directly contradicts the usual one. What do you think? Are you familiar with enough genres and fields to be positive about this? Basemetal 17:25, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I certainly don't claim to know everything, but I think I can point in the direction of an answer. ^_^ In J. S. Bach's time accidentals only lasted for one note, unless that note was immediately repeated. So if you had an F♯, and then after some intervening passagework you wanted another F♯ in the same bar, you had to write the accidental again; if you wanted F♮, then you didn't need to write anything. However, the exception for repeated notes means that this doesn't allow your example (which would still be read as two F♯'s), and of course Bach was sometimes inconsistent about his own usage. This suggests to me that not repeating the accidental on repeated notes is a rather obvious thing to do, since that bit of our modern convention existed before the other bits; perhaps one might find examples of the usage you mention before Bach, though I personally doubt it. Double sharp (talk) 23:46, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually I was not thinking historical obsolete usage but about some current usage in some obscure out of the way genre of music or field of musicology. (But, like I said I was highly skeptical) So, do you believe you have enough familiarity with enough domains to be able to state categorically the guy is not following some obscure usage but is just a run-of-the-mill cretin? Basemetal  05:39, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Definitely not; the domain of my familiarity pretty much starts with J. S. Bach and doesn't expand much past the Western classical canon. ^_^ With the standardisation that tends to occur across history I would be quite sceptical indeed that any subdiscipline could maintain a notation that is not compatible with the standard, but I still don't really dare to say it categorically. Double sharp (talk) 06:49, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok. Thanks. I'll ask Jerome Kohl too. Between you and him, if neither is aware of such a usage anywhere then I think I've got my answer. This is how concerned I am to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and not diss people for no reason  Basemetal  11:32, 12 April 2018 (UTC)