User talk:Double sharp/Archive 17

Proposed deletion of File:Darmstadtium official naming ceremony.jpg


The file File:Darmstadtium official naming ceremony.jpg has been proposed for deletion&#32;because of the following concern: "Decorative non-free use in Darmstadtium which fails WP:NFCC. The fact that there was a ceremony to celebrate the naming/discovery of Darmstadtium is something that doesn't require any non-free image, let alone this non-free image, be seen by the reader to be understood. The text content and sources cited are more than sufficiently serve that encyclopedic purpose per WP:FREER. Unless this particular photo, (not the ceremony where it was taken but the actual photo) was for some reason the subject of sourced critical commentary in its own right, the context for non-free use required by NFCC#8 is not being provide which means the photo shouldn't be kept. Trying to argue that the photo itself is historic only makes works with respect to non-free use only really works when the photo, not the event it depicts, is referred to as such by reliable sources as explained in WP:ITSHISTORIC."

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. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying the policy: I guess the image will have to be deleted, then.
 * It strikes me that this would also disqualify File:Bohrium hassium meitnerium ceremony.jpg, which is going to appear at Hassium (which is still an FAC plan); should we try to get a donation? Double sharp (talk) 16:26, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * IIRC I was also concerned with this question at some point and I looked around the internet for a replacement; I once found a page that said this photo was in public domain or something like that and I left it at that. I'll try to see where I saw that.--R8R (talk) 17:40, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If that is indeed public domain, great. Otherwise, I'm not sure it's entirely necessary – the deletion rationale raises several important points. I might also comment that its depiction of "neilsbohrium" could also be misleading to some (as that name is no longer in use) and questioned at the FAC, so if a better image is found (or donated, but what of the licensing requirements?), I won't really be sad to see this one go. ComplexRational (talk) 17:57, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * While I am unable to find that page again (maybe we will have to either seek a donation from GSI or find a replacement), here's an interesting book I found: 10.1007/978-3-319-75813-8. Here's an interesting quote from there, for instance: "Ghiorso and Seaborg (1993) plainly charged that the TWG panel was incompetent and their report “riddled with errors of omission and commission.”" Perhaps you'll find it interesting as well, though if you have The Transuraium People, I get it my chances are limited here.--R8R (talk) 18:13, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know that already: that quote is from their actual response to the TWG group. ^_^ But thanks for telling me! Double sharp (talk) 03:18, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Happy New Year!


Double sharp, Have a great 2020 and thanks for your continued contributions to Wikipedia.

– 2020 is a leap year   – news article. – Background color is Classic Blue (#0F4C81), Pantone's 2020 Color of the year Send New Year cheer by adding     to user talk pages.

– Utopes (talk) 04:31, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Double sharp (talk) 09:32, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2020 WikiCup!
Happy New Year, Happy New Decade and Happy New WikiCup! The competition begins today and all article creators, expanders and improvers are welcome to take part. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. We are relaxing the rule that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2020 will count; now to be eligible for points in the competition, you must have completed significant work on the content at some time! Any questions on the rules or on anything else connected to the Cup should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are, , and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Missing data
Could you, by any chance, access doi:10.1002/0470845015.cra007? It is said to non-relativistic data for hassium's orbitals. I already have the relativistic data and I would like to combine them to make a chart for hassium.

The data I already have: -0.3616634, 7s(r); -0.3841907, 6d3/2(r); -0.3201635, 6d5/2(r). From Desclaux, J. P. (1973) Data Nucl. Data Tables, 12, 311–406.--R8R (talk) 05:39, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Generally, I think the bulk of the pre-FAC2 work is done. Now what remains is the auxiliary stuff, namely sourcing (do you happen to have anything) and prose quality check. The article looks now quite different with the new additions, so I'd like to know how this all is with you.

I'm afraid I may not be able to spend much time for Wiki the next two weeks (hardly a surprise given the time of the year) but I'll see what I can do after then.--R8R (talk) 19:49, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I like the new additions, with the pictures that help put things in context for the reader who's less experienced. I also won't have that much time for WP (WP:NOTWIKI ^_^) over the next few weeks, but I can tell you first regarding the graph that there is an updated density prediction for Cn of 14.0 g/cm3 (see its article). ^_^ As for the book, I haven't found a way to access it, unfortunately... Double sharp (talk) 03:16, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, great! As for densities, thanks for letting me know. I'm not sure this should be reflected in the hassium graph just yet, because it would be very out of place to have an updated value for one element but not all. We also have revised-since values for Os and Ir, and it even has an Ir slightly denser than Os.
 * I know well about NOTWIKI, but I deliberately refuse to play along. For instance, when we say, "the White House," we are full aware that there are many white houses all over the world, but there's a specific one which people usually mean, or how there's "the Kremlin" even though there are many kremlins (there are two within the borders of Moscow, for instance), etc. So even if there are many wiki projects, there's always the one.--R8R (talk) 22:35, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I finally got it! The values are: 0.3842 (6d3/2r), 0.3202 (6d5/2r), 0.3617(7sr), 0.5054 (6dnr), 0.2200 (7snr) (negative signs omitted).

For comparison, those of osmium from the same source: 0.4465, 0.4078, 0.2891, 0.5342, 0.2388. Page 2488.--R8R (talk) 13:42, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll have graphed it by the end of the week. So, we are nearing the end of preparations for the second FAC. It is absolutely essential that you read the article, check readability, and see if there are any spots needing more citations, as well as generally accustom yourself with the text as it currently is; there can be no nomination without that. Do you think you could do it any time soon?--R8R (talk) 13:57, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Wonderful! Yes, I should be able to read it this week. Today I'm still busy but I should be able to do it sometime tomorrow or Friday. Double sharp (talk) 14:04, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Sounds great. Please let me know when you've read it.--R8R (talk) 14:11, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Just as a starting comment (having got through just the introduction so far); I am really impressed by how readable it is. You all have really done some great work on the article. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 19:52, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * OTOH, I am kind of worried that the intro is general; I mean, you could pretty much write the exact same section for just about every superheavy element, which makes me think that maybe it should really go into Superheavy element rather than here. Double sharp (talk) 22:37, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * We indeed could, and I've wondered for some time whether this section should be copied to the rest of the superheavy elements as well after the FAC has successfully concluded (leaning yes). I don't see anything bad about this sort of general information because it helps the reader gets through our difficult material (we do what we can to make it easier to grasp without sacrificing the information itself). There is a difference between Wikipedia and, say, paperback Encyclopedia Britannica in that we are not as constrained with a tight character limit, and we thus can allow to help people understand what we write better. You saw that question at Talk:Tennessine in January, right? If the info even was written elsewhere, that person wouldn't know about that and would've still wondered what was really known about the properties of tennessine. I also think that if we take a step back (which, as you could probably have noticed by now, is a thing I try to do, and am now used to doing) and think why people look for Wikipedia in the first place, I think that it's not really the deeper education, so to speak, but rather they seek to learn about something particular here and now, which is something that's becoming more and more characteristic of the Internet and even generally of the contemporary epoch. So here they have the information, here and now. Repetition is fine: otherwise why write new schoolbooks if the laws of, say, mechanics aren't going to change? Another important consideration is also that we have enough room for a proper introduction since there's not all that much to write about a particular superheavy element.
 * So to summarize, this being here enhances readability, so I believe it should stay.--R8R (talk) 13:09, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, but it's still kind of not really specific to Hs, is it? I could copy and paste that section for Rf, for Mt, for Og, and it would be exactly as useful. I think we need to step a little bit back: if you remember some of the more entertaining Article Feedback that we used to have, I strongly suspect the average reader is not reading past the lede in the first place. I don't think we can or should try to explain everything from the start. We are not Britannica, yes, but one other way we are not Britannica is that we can use hypertext and instantly point the reader to where to look. And this is certainly more accessible than the amount of prerequisites you need to read a mathematics article like Lie algebra...if someone just wants a soundbite here and now, then I think he or she is very likely to be disappointed simply because of how much there is needed to understand, and so I'm more tempted to say "well, here is a link pointing to the general information, here we consider specifics". Not to say that this is creating some duplication (we are mentioning compound nuclei evaporating neutrons twice over, for example).
 * I confess, I'm not sure if we can really do much about questions like that one on the Ts page. For most of these elements we already have a strong separation of "predicted properties" and "experimental chemistry", so it should kind of be obvious that one section contains what is known and one contains what isn't, right? For Ts and Og we don't, but that's because literally no experimental chemistry seems to be even thought of (like at least for Mt-Rg, Mc-Lv). The headings even say it outright. Sure, an extra sentence saying "actually, Hs is very very unstable and so we know almost nothing about it" might improve matters a tiny bit, but we've already done almost what is needed. If a reader doesn't understand what "expected to" vs. "known to" means, then I'm not sure what can be done that isn't pointing to a dictionary. Double sharp (talk) 15:19, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I'll think it over and respond in a few hours.--R8R (talk) 15:42, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

As promised, I have thought it over.

You're right about that most people don't get past the lead section, I just simply don't take that too much in account (we need to have a good lead anyway), I think about those who do get past the lead. I do think that there are not only those who are already good enough with the material; recall yourself however many years ago you need :) And I know I would have really appreciated this, and many more people would. I also think that this being simple is an exaggeration; I tried my best to explain it simply, and I like the result, but I didn't know much of this prior to writing this section. (Also, I didn't even find Lie algebra all that difficult as a concept when I learned it in the uni, so can't agree with you there, but maybe that's just me :) ) I'm not not saying that the section is explaining everything; I deliberately did not expand the part on detectors, and there are many more prerequisite things you could find that are not explained here, like how to run chemical experiments with these elements or what how the theories about such heavy elements emerged or what quantum tunneling is, etc.

I do, however, take it that you may have a point thinking this information is related to too many pages to just keep here, or a copy everywhere; it should be in a dedicated place. Having thought that over, I agree. However, the point on readability is still big on me---I really do think this much will help readers understand things better and if not that, get involved (and eventually understand things better). (I do, as you know, think story writing is also important in Wikipedia, something I wouldn't say of paperback EB.) I'd hate to be elitist and expect everyone to immediately understand what lies where in our categorization and that there's a good explanation out there somewhere to begin with; I know I might be perplexed by some topics I don't understand well. The best solution so far seems that we could write it somewhere, and then transclude that text to individual SHE articles. What do you think of that?--R8R (talk) 20:47, 29 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I also agree with you that specification that few properties are truly known was superfluous for many superheavy elements, I overreacted there. However, it’s fine for those elements that have no experimental chemistry, as then it might seem that there is possibly something to be said on the topic that isn’t said in the article. So I agree that it wasn’t very necessary for Hs even if I don’t currently agree about its usefulness for Ts.—R8R (talk) 10:06, 1 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I'd hate to be annoying but I must ask: how long do you think it will take you to read hassium and see if its prose quality is good and if there are enough citations? This is really the only thing that's left between today and the second FAC. Not to mention that I'd love to hear from you on that Introduction point that's bugging you.--R8R (talk) 20:29, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have some stuff I need to finish over the weekend before I can get to reading it closely, but I will try to get something out if I can wrap it up early. If not, there is Monday...
 * P.S. Giving a partial answer to your comment: I agree the definition of a Lie algebra is not really hard, but think about what it must look like to someone who got there after fangirling about something else (quite likely regular polytopes, especially the 24-cell, given the Dynkin diagrams; or maybe fangirling about the Cayley-Dickson ladder) and finds him- or herself completely at sea. ;) The problem is I think that in general, the average reader can't get that much out of an article that is more than about two rungs up the ladder from what s/he already knows. If you know basic high-school chemistry and you know enough about how science works, I think it is not so hard to understand what is predicted and what is not. If you still need to ask the basic questions, then it will certainly be hard, but there's little we can do then.
 * I honestly think it'd be better to have somewhere under superheavy element where we could explain all the interesting stuff in one place that pertains to all of them (i.e. how you make them, the spin-orbit stuff that we used to not understand, etc.) in such a way that someone who understood high-school chemistry could get it. Not only would that make it a great article, it would also mean that we did not have to say the same thing at least 21 times (elements 104 through 122, 124, 126 so far). I think someone looking up an SHE article would most of all just need a general idea of how the superheavies are made that is relevant to that one and its history. Would we need to explain cold fusion for an article on Mc? I kind of doubt it, because I'm not sure anyone actually considered it for the discovery reaction. A similar thing that would be useful for a superheavy article would be the general "lay of the land" of predicted chemistry from the 6d elements onwards, and I think you wouldn't need to say the whole story again and again, just the bits of it that happen to be relevant (for Hs it'd be 6d-7s gap, for Nh it'd be being stuffed between two shell closures in something that is truly unprecedented outside group 1). So...why should this be any different? Double sharp (talk) 20:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Aha, I seem to get you. You've made a good point there. At the same, I am feeling rather bad enduring the idea that people will come to this article having to read something they don't know about; there needs to be a good way of leading them to that place. What if I copy that section into superheavy element and leave in hassium a shorter summary of that section and a link to that new superheavy element section in a hatnote? It seems this would answer your bother and mine. How does that sound?--R8R (talk) 21:07, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's more or less something that would work for both of us.
 * There will always be people reading articles about stuff they don't know about. The important thing is to at least direct them to somewhere on WP they can read so that they go away knowing something they didn't already know! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 21:17, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Great! But then you will also have to re-read my contraction to verify it's been done well enough :) --R8R (talk) 21:22, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Of course. ;) Double sharp (talk) 21:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've made some cuts that I found relatively easy to make and it looks good to me now. This was too easy, so I want a second opinion from you on this: do we need any more cuts? Right now, the section looks brief, more or less complete, an engaging to me all at the same time.--R8R (talk) 22:56, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I hope the reading's going fine :) But actually, I'd like to ask you a question that's been on my mind. I used the phrase "pet fancy" in a note there; do you understand it? I saw it precisely one time in my life, and that time was when I was checking the translation of the original Russian term in a dictionary for this article. I've been feeling the need to have a confirmation from a native speaker that this is an actually understandable phrase.--R8R (talk) 18:41, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm actually curious about the "pet fancy" thing, I would indeed love to hear about it from you :) but that aside, I'm growing anxious about the FAC not beginning. The big thing about it is that I'm going to have less spare time soon (with my graduation coming up) and I'd want to get on with the big thing of the present time (which, for me, is hassium) now that I still can. I've thought about it for a while and I figured you might feel that it's something you may need to dive into, like take a running dive, and that's what keeps you from getting on with it. I'm understand that rather well, that's one reason why I haven't invested myself in the 2020 group 3 debate as extensively as I could have. I can't suggest anything rather than just doing it in steps as big as you can afford, even if those are going to be not very long in the end. But the road that I'm asking you to walk is not going to be very long, either, so we can manage that relatively quickly. So let's get on with it! From the bottom of my heart, I feel that the FAC will be a success, and I believe the bronze award in sight has grown ripe. So let's get on with it!--R8R (talk) 21:54, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I am honestly not sure what "pet fancy" should mean out of context...in context I can guess. I suppose I would want to say that it was a favoured identification method, if that's right?
 * Are you suggesting that we start the FAC already? ;) I think the current cut is much better. Though regarding that note h: I feel we ought to say exactly why the LBL felt SF was insufficient. You might like to see their own assessment of the E104 and E105 claims, BTW: I mean, it goes without saying that they would have some bias (at least, unconsciously), but they did have some good reasons for believing so. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 12:38, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * As for "pet fancy": hmm. You see, the original phrase was "любимый конек"; the dictionary I use has two translations: pet fancy and hobbyhorse. I have never seen or heard either in the running text or speech. The point is, SF is what they at JINR liked to do and did particularly well; the closest English thing to that that I can think of is "specialty." I found the original phrase rather cool and wanted to quote it, but if nothing resembling an idiom can be used as a translation, I think we can go with that.
 * "Hobbyhorse" is much more understandable for me! Double sharp (talk) 14:35, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Great! I'll use it then.--R8R (talk) 14:50, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * As for FAC: I think we're good to go whenever you say we are. There's nothing more that I want to do with the article and I don't think there is anything to be done at all, so I only need you to read the article through, see if you like the article in its current state (I'm eager to read your comments), learn it to an extent when it does not feel foreign to you in any sense (when you don't really know what's in a section because you've never read it closely enough), and then we're good to go.
 * That "foreign" bit is an important thing because sometimes you look at a text and it's really difficult to lay down in your head, and you have read it, but you still don't know what is there really and you don't want to read it again... it still feel foreign. In fact, my writing style is greatly influenced by a strong desire to write texts that are easy to get acquainted with fairly easily.
 * Thank you for the Berkeley assessment; could you give me more specific pointers, though? I would myself like to write about why Berkeley did not like SF. If you're interested, here's a quote from the (shamelessly biased) Soviet source from which the phrase "pet fancy" came from (machine translation ahead):
 * As with the opening of the 104th 105th element, Berkeley opponents expressed doubt that the new element was indeed open. Once again, the old and shaky argument was repeated that "nothing can be determined by the spontaneous division". However, the same strict and not entirely objective critics noted that Dubna's new work is very interesting, that the Dubna group is "a pioneer in the use of such heavy ions, which no one has ever accelerated or used in nuclear reactions. Moreover, American physicists have indicated in their publications that they intend to use the new method in their future works.
 * I also read why the bit from the TWG report which explains why they did not recognize the 1974 Oganessian's first cold fusion experiment as the discovery of element 106; basically, they said not enough information was obtained in that experiment and I take it this information is difficult to gather. I'd like to add a sentence or two on this but that Berkeley report you've linked seems to take some time to digest.--R8R (talk) 14:30, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have extracted the main point: they thought SF had not been studied enough to make a perfect case for a claim a new element had been produced. I think I handled this; thanks for sharing the report. I'll be waiting for any more comments you might have.--R8R (talk) 21:50, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, one other bit of information (though I'm not sure if it pertains to the discovery of hassium specifically): I read in that SF also has the problem of the parent nuclide being harder to unambiguously identify because of the wide range of decay energy, unclear patter unlike alpha cascades, and harder-to-exclude possibilities of fission from transfer products (e.g. actinides, fission isomers). Maybe this is also why the first "discovery" wasn't so, as they could not conclusively identify the source of fission as hassium isotopes—not to mention that SF certainly was studied less in the 1980s than it was in 2014. ComplexRational (talk) 00:12, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!
 Happy First Edit Day! Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 06:49, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you. ^_^ It was only "first" for the account I was editing with at that time, though, so I prefer celebrating August 7 now for this one. (I don't really remember what my First Edit Day was as an IP: it was February the something, that's all I know.) Double sharp (talk) 06:58, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


 * could you please e-mail me at Andrey_601 at tut point by? :) Droog Andrey (talk) 16:52, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Sent you an email. ^_^
 * BTW, I think we have both set emails in our WP preferences (as your "Email this user" link seems to work too), so that should also work. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 18:46, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

That’s the last straw
A stroke of utter genius. Thank you. Instead of the usual "basket of over-ready Brexit kittens", I thought you might enjoy this other piece of genius, from the very talented Philippe Sly with Adam Cicchillitti. Kind regards. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:14, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I did indeed! Thank you very much, and you're welcome! Double sharp (talk) 12:07, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think that rendition is just wonderful. A lesson to tenors (or indeed bass-baritones) everywhere that you don't have to be stood up in a stiff white collar and dress coat (or even next to a piano), to be able to sing Winterreise with passion and depth. Stunning tone. Martinevans123 (talk)

Your revert of my edit on the Oganesson page
You wrote: "... it requires us to introduce the name "unbinilium" for E120 and then its symbol, which is veering more off-topic than it has to be". But unbinilium is already mentioned right above that in the same sentence.... Isn't that simpler to use the symbol of this (hypothetical) element since its already mentioned? Dhrm77 (talk) 16:30, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not: in the previous sentence, it is called "element 120", which is the name you will see used pretty much everywhere for that element by people in the field. (Except, I guess, for the ones thinking chemically and calling it "eka-radium".) The IUPAC systematic names are not really used that much there. Writing "299120" is a standard convention to use the atomic number as a pseudo-symbol: indeed, we use it in our articles to avoid anachronism in history sections (e.g. nobelium, where we swap between "102" and "No" depending on whether we are talking about what happened at the time, or a retrospective analysis). I think its meaning is obvious enough to not need explanation, whereas mentioning "unbinilium" and writing "299Ubn" would require us to talk about the naming of that hypothetical element. Which is not the subject of the article on Og. Double sharp (talk) 19:15, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Hiawatha Designs an Experiment
Since you mentioned the null hypothesis at WT:ELEM and now there's even a subsection in that discussion titled that, I remembered a poem about statistics which you might enjoy if you haven't read it so far :) --R8R (talk) 08:41, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Very nice, thank you! Double sharp (talk) 11:44, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Can't retire
Template:Can't retire has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:18, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 March newsletter
And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2, with 57 contestants qualifying. We have abolished the groups this year, so to qualify for Round 3 you will need to finish Round 2 among the top thirty-two contestants.

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:


 * Epicgenius, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with a featured article, five good articles and an assortment of other submissions, specialising on buildings and locations in New York, for a total of 895 points.
 * Royal standard of England (1406–1603).svg Gog the Mild came next with 464 points, from a featured article, two good articles and a number of reviews, the main theme being naval warfare.
 * 🇺🇸 Raymie was in third place with 419 points, garnered from one good article and an impressive 34 DYKs on radio and TV stations in the United States.
 * Harrias came next at 414, with a featured article and three good articles, an English civil war battle specialist.
 * Pirate Flag.svg CaptainEek was in fifth place with 405 points, mostly garnered from bringing Cactus wren to featured article status.
 * The top ten contestants at the end of Round 1 all scored over 200 points; they also included 🇺🇸 L293D, 🇻🇪 Kingsif, 🇦🇶 Enwebb, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Lee Vilenski and 🇳🇵 CAPTAIN MEDUSA. Seven of the top ten contestants in Round 1 are new to the WikiCup.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. In Round 1 there were four featured articles, one featured list and two featured pictures, as well as around two hundred DYKs and twenty-seven ITNs. Between them, contestants completed 127 good article reviews, nearly a hundred more than the 43 good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Contestants also claimed for 40 featured article / featured list reviews, and most even remembered to mention their WikiCup participation in their reviews (a requirement).

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Some contestants made claims before the new submissions pages were set up, and they will need to resubmit them. 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 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), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for bothering you, but...

 * New Page Patrol needs experienced volunteers
 * New Page Patrol is currently struggling to keep up with the influx of new articles. We could use a few extra hands on deck if you think you can help.
 * Reviewing/patrolling a page doesn't take much time but it requires a good understanding of Wikipedia policies and guidelines ; Wikipedia needs experienced users to perform this task and there are precious few with the appropriate skills. Even a couple reviews a day can make a huge difference.
 * If you would like to join the project and help out, please see the granting conditions and review our instructions page. You can apply for the user-right HERE. —  Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) (click me!)    22:36, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup newsletter correction
There was an error in the WikiCup 2020 March newsletter; 🇺🇸 L293D should not have been included in the list of top ten scorers in Round 1 (they led the list last year), instead, 🇺🇸 Dunkleosteus77 should have been included, having garnered 334 points from five good articles on animals, living or extinct, and various reviews. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:30, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

"Thenium" listed at Redirects for discussion
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Manga
''Elemental fever seems to have cooled off in the United States, but it continues to simmer elsewhere. Japan discovered its first element, nihonium, No. 113, in 2004, and Chapman reports that Japanese children read mangas dramatizing the work of the country’s top nuclear physicist, Kosuke Morita.'' -- here.

Could you by any chance find any of this manga (does manga have a plural)?--R8R (talk) 13:46, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * How did I forget that this apparently exists? I'll look for it for sure. ;) I don't think "manga" would need to change for the plural, BTW. Double sharp (talk) 13:53, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it's this: https://www.riken.jp/pr/news/2017/170315_1/ Double sharp (talk) 14:47, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah, well, isn't it something :) (pdf for future reference) I wish I understood Japanese to actually read it.
 * Maybe we could ask them for a submission for Wiki; I doubt they would not want us to distribute it further. Could you please read the text at the end of the pdf? Maybe it already says that the manga is in public domain?--R8R (talk) 15:01, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, how rude of me. Thank you for finding this manga!--R8R (talk) 16:46, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Praseodymium vs. Neodymium pronunciation
The two are inconsistent over how they handle the unstressed /oʊ/ phoneme. How should it be written?  ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich  Talk  23:49, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, following the OED, both schwa and /oʊ/ are OK for UK English, but it looks like only the latter are OK for US English. Double sharp (talk) 20:20, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Interesting. In my own idiolect I say something like /ˌprɛɪziə(ʊ)ˈdɪmiəm/ and /ˌniə(ʊ)ˈdɪmiəm/. Then again, I have a heavily RP-influenced pronunciation style.  ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich  Talk  15:37, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Tears don't fall
I just encountered this phrase: "But tears don't fall, do they?" What does it mean? I tried to find an answer in the internet, but all it has is references to a metal song, and its lyrics aren't helpful, either (or I'm being dense).--R8R (talk) 15:11, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I admit, I also have no idea what it might mean. Maybe that something is not enough to elicit tears? Perhaps it makes more sense in context. Double sharp (talk) 15:16, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Hm. The general context was a melodramatic story, where a young man was mourning over his prematurely deceased loved one. I don't think it was a reference to anything in the story itself. This probably doesn't help you either, does it? Even if not, thank you anyway.--R8R (talk) 16:08, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

"Neo filling"?
You've written a section on filling on some articles on uniform star polyhedra. Your section states: "There is some controversy on how to colour the faces of this polyhedron. Although the common way to fill in a polygon is to just colour its whole interior, this can result in some filled regions hanging as membranes over empty space. Hence, the 'neo filling' is sometimes used instead as a more accurate filling. In the neo filling, orientable polyhedra are filled traditionally, but non-orientable polyhedra have their faces filled with the modulo-2 method (only odd-density regions are filled in)" Just three things. I propose removing this section altogether, and staying just with the pictures. We can then state that they use two different filling rules, and leave it at that. – (talk) 23:42, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Is there really any controversy? You cited only a quite nested paragraph on the website of an amateur mathematician.
 * The term "neo" never appears on the website. Bowers actually calls your "neo" filling a "true" filling.
 * Do we even need this section? We might as well be talking about art styles.
 * It seems to have resolved itself within that circle of amateurs in favour of the "true" filling (he used to call it a "neo filling", hence I used that name way back in the early 2010s when I added this), and never have existed among professionals. It is something that makes sense (simple example: pentagrammic cuploid), but given that much of the stuff discovered by that circle has been sitting on the "going to be published eventually" shelf since 1996 with Norman Johnson's book, I think we may as well indeed just remove the sections and stay with pictures. Double sharp (talk) 03:51, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I replaced this section on the Great disnub dirhombidodecahedron article. Any suggested improvements before I do the same on all other analogous sections? – OfficialURL (talk) 15:13, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, it looks all right to me. (Besides uniform polyhedra, there are also some for the uniform polyhedra compounds: 5 octahemioctahedra, 5 cubohemioctahedra, 5 great rhombihexahedra.) Double sharp (talk) 16:04, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Forgot to ping you, sorry. Double sharp (talk) 14:36, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll be changing these sections in the following days, then. – OfficialURL (talk) 14:11, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Science
You know, there was a thing that's been on my mind for a while now and seeing how the group 3 debate progresses made me think if it's applicable. See, what is "science," precisely? The word "science" means something like "knowledge"; it implies something that you go over and over, examine things by trial and error, classify this knowledge, etc. What's really curious about this is the Russian equivalent of that word is not really an equivalent; the word "наука" means something like "teaching." There is some noticeable difference between the two words: for instance, when a Chechen friend of mine (who, as it is customary for the Chechens, is a Muslim) was telling me something about Islam (which I was very curious to listen to to broaden my horizons), he used the word "ученый," which normally means "scientist," to mean "theologian." This had my eyebrows raised for a second before I figured that the word "ученый" comes the word "учение," which is not something like but exactly "teaching"; in this case, the teaching being referred to, obviously, was the teaching of God.

This little idea caught me by surprise and I tried to figure what the difference between the Russian "наука" and the English "science" was, exactly. As I said, there is visibly a greater emphasis on trial and error and classification with the English word and a greater emphasis of being the total truth with the Russian word. For example, mathematics is considered a branch of science in Russian and I was really surprised at first to see that it was not in English; it wasn't before this idea that I finally put it together and understood why. On the other hand, there are things like "political science" in English for which it is hard to find an equivalent in Russian. And you can see why, given the different emphases. (Did you know that "bullshit" is a scientific term in English? I kid you not, it is; it comes from political science and is a part of discussion of misinfomation, alongside straight-out lies and fake news. I'm bringing this up to show how classification in English develops rapidly and also to once again point out my amusement by how you English speakers sure swear a lot xD)


 * Later interjection: it occurred to me some time ago that same is correct for the word "research": the Russian word "исследование" is rather monumental, something you do to really reach out for those hidden truths that are to be authoritatively taught (recall the spirit of the Russian word for "science"), whereas the English word also suits for something you'd do for a school project. A more general observation that I have made is that English words (compared to their Russian counterparts) often have less meaning (now that I think about it, it may sound like I'm being judgmental; I'm not. You can think of it as "more flexible" if you like). One particular example is the phrase "How do you do?", which is semantically a question, but everybody knows that nobody really cares how you actually do, so much so, that a response is not only not given, but also not even expected! In general, politeness in English is cheap: compare the English phrases "pass the salt" and "could you pass the salt, please?": they effectively mean the same (again, nobody cares to listen to the answer, although here, at least one is implied) but the later one is way more polite. The addition is "could you ... please," which is three syllables; in comparison, the Russian word for "please" (пожалуйста) is four syllables long, which I believe explains why this politeness is not usually expressed in Russian, but you sometimes compensate that with intonation to at least match a perfunctory "could you please."
 * In general, this real insight into a different culture is something that has really fascinated me because looking at how things could be different helps me understand how things around me are better. That English words have less meaning and that Russian words have more has interesting implications: for instance, this very well correlates with how the British and the Americans tend to take themselves a bit less seriously in some ways at least, which I regard as a positive characteristic; except of course, some people overdo it and some people take advantage of those who do that. (When I wrote this, I continued this line of thought in my head with such a rant; I'll spare you from having to read it and myself from writing it but I'll merely say that there seem to be far deeper implications from this and I find it enjoyable to make all of these considerations. This helps me understand other people better, which also has plenty of application in my everyday life.) I hope that you as an avid language learner will find this little observation of mine entertaining enough.--R8R (talk) 17:21, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

What does all of this have to do with the current group 3 debate? Well, a lot. I'm trying to see why there is a thing that I consider an obvious error and Sandbh seems to sincerely disagree. To understand why, I needed to see that difference of how different basic concepts affect your outcome. This debate is not what I would even normally consider particularly scientific (more like science-related) in Russian, but most certainly scientific in English. Your philosophy and that of Sandbh seem to be somewhat different in this debate; hence the different outcomes. I'm still thinking this through myself but it appears that yours is more formal and his is more experimental-like, if these words make sense to you (maybe not exactly, but I hope you see the point nonetheless). I think it is more interesting to see where the disagreement comes from since this is not a debate oriented at a public, but rather one for seeking the truth (or at least something like it).

maybe this will give you some food for thoughts as well.

By the way, the Arabic word "Allah" means "God"; there is no particular reason to use the Arabic word all the time. Many Muslims do it nonetheless, because they cherish the words of God as he said them, and he sent them to the people in Arabic (particularly, what is now known as Classical Arabic) because that's the language that was perfect for reflecting His words. It is generally seen in Islam that people corrupted the words of the previous prophets he had sent to the Earth; take Jesus for instance: how come Jesus is God, too, when he did not say such thing himself? (Jesus once said he was a son of God, but the argument goes that he meant a son of God in the same sense as you or me.) Jesus's words were corrupted by things he had not said. By the way, Jesus spoke Aramaic; who knows what that even is today? However, the words of God sent to the world via a prophecy to Jesus were translated and the original meaning was lost, so no wonder these misinterpretations happened. This is why the Muslims say that there is no god but God and Muhammad is His messenger (the point is, just a messenger), that's the basic content of the shahada. Portraits of Muhammad are explicitly prohibited so that people don't worship him instead of the one and only God, like it happened with Jesus. Maybe you knew this already, but I once did not, so maybe you'll find that interesting.--R8R (talk) 11:58, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is interesting even if I knew some of it already. ^_^ Well, for me the PT is not an experimental result, it is a means of reflecting experimental results consistently based on simple axiomatic principles. So in some sense maybe my approach is formalist, but I have a reason for that: if you start with only the experimental results you will never be able to decide the hard cases. Well, should Be and Mg go over Ca or Zn? You cannot decide without starting to talk about aufbau (which is why Sandbh appeals to electron-based periodic tables for why Be-Mg-Ca is settled), same as whether La or Lu is in group 3. One can multiply 1001 chemical arguments for Sc-Y-La that will be right, and one can multiply 1001 for Sc-Y-Lu that will also be right. And since group 3 really is intermediate between group 2 (which we assume we already know has a straight trend) and group 4 (which we assume we already know has a kink at period 6) there is no way to decide between the two. That's why I prefer building the periodic table on what can consistently and simply explain all the experimental results: the chemically active valence subshells. We already knew those were involved somehow, after all (by now that is pretty much experimentally known, isn't it?), and it is a great bonus that they display the exact Madelung regularity. That isn't a prejudice against secondary periodicities like Sc-Y-La or Be-Mg-Zn, just an acknowledgement that trying to put them on an equal footing with the rest either leads to inconsistency or a horrible mess worse than Rayner-Canham's table (which only portrays part of the situation). In some sense the debate is one step removed from science because it is about classifying the sweet fruits of science rather than foraging for them, agreed. But in themselves classifications can be ranked based on their internal consistency and lack thereof, and you're not going to find arguments for Sc-Y-La that don't consistently also raise questions about the rest of the table. I'm willing to swallow He-Be-Mg to avoid that. ^_^
 * P.S. I presume you have read On Bullshit, then? ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 12:31, 22 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Great! I was actually once greatly impressed by a footage from Iran; people were gathered in a huge crowd and they beat themselves up with scourges or chains; you could see skin cut open. And they were crying and kept on with that self-torment. I had the general impression that this was something incredibly barbaric, and it didn't sit very well in my head with that the great achievements of the Islamic culture of the times when Christian Europe was going through the Middle Ages. The Chechen friend explained to me, however, that this was merely a Shi'a thing, and that Muhammad had said self-harm was a sin in Islam, and that the Shiites were apostates (you may figure he was a Sunnite). Before speaking to him, I didn't even know that Muslims worshipped the same God as Christians do. There is always room for self-improvement.
 * I believe you are referring to Tatbir? Even most Shiite clerics are against it now, according to our article. Double sharp (talk) 01:11, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That must be it. Unfortunately, I didn't know the exact views of the Islamic clergymen on the issue, and I merely had that footage as my impression. I saw it in the "No comment" segment of the TV channel Euronews, so it only makes sense I had no context.--R8R (talk) 18:10, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I did not read On Bullshit, though I am well aware of its existence. I actually learned that from reading the American media. I began to read in it in spring 2016, and you may figure that the big thing in the United States back then was the upcoming presidential election, and boy, that election was one to remember! The country was originally seemingly headed for a competition between two competent candidates who generally represented their respective parties rather well, but both were depressing, and many Americans were not eager for a Bush vs. Clinton matchup when there had already been a President Clinton and not one but two Presidents Bushes. You will recall the was a man who turned the table of that game: he did not speak like a competent leader but rather spoke to evoke the emotions of many common people. The local media did not like him one bit and they seemingly did their best to show him in the worst possible light. Trump was, of course, a colorful character (it did not seem like that when the phrase first appeared in my head, but I realized later that this may seem like a punchline of Trump's skin color. However, that is far from my point and I will try not to bring it up at all), and to give it to him, he seemingly tried to live up to and even forestall the worst expectations. And you know, when I first saw the media say of his platform that it was bullshit, I thought that the media did not have any decency left and would say just anything to trash him; but over time that phrase appeared more and more often, and so I eventually learned that this was a scientific term. (Generally speaking, learning English from popular usage may be confusing at times! Surely you know the phrase "one size fits all"? Well, I first heard it from this, uhm, musical masterpiece. Needless to say, I found the next few times I found the phrase rather confusing before I figured that that overtone was far from unconditional xD)
 * As for group 3, well, depends really on what you want to say. You know, I've generally thought this is not what how it is but rather what you want to emphasize. If we were looking for how it was, I'd say that stability of Eu(II) and Tb(IV) is a huge hint, as well as, to a certain extent, Yb(II) and No(II); but we're not looking for that. I do not, for that reason, believe that either is you is right or wrong and I don't think that either is you is going to say they were wrong, because even if it doesn't feel like it, there's no way to be wrong here at all. However, my impression has been that there is a strong undertone that both of you want to protect in this debate your result more than just reach a conclusion, though it may be hard not to arrive at it when the discussions goes in circles over and over again. I recall reading some Sandbh arguments that did not make sense to me first, but as I tried to take a step and think out of the box, there it was, the logic that I originally did not see. I sometimes cannot help but think that you both sometimes lack this "take a step back and see where the other man is coming from rather than how he is wrong" bit. I do agree and disagree with some emphases both of you make, but I'd be more interested to see a good discussion than supporting an outcome; I honestly think you both could do better though I'm not saying that I would do better (of course, I'd try my best). By the way, I think that a RfC is premature not only because the concepts you raise for it may be novel to many editors and they simply didn't have the time to sink in (and those who immediately follow are likely to be seen as less experienced in the field and thus less important) but also because there's a IUPAC decision coming up... this decade, I hope? Soon enough anyway, and it will turn the tables.
 * P.S. Seemingly against all odds, Trump won that election. While much of the rest of the world was processing that this was actually for real, there was one brave country in the Atlantic that was smart to quickly realize the situation and to fit in the new conditions. They made him a video about their homeland, and you can see how the country of orange tried to appeal to the orange president (damn it) here: "America first, The Netherlands second". This video made far more views than any other video from that channel but, which is more notable, other countries realized the Dutch were going to get all the attention ツ, and you can find videos like "America first, France second", "...Germany second", "...Israel second", etc.
 * The reason that I even want to mention this to begin with is that I find these things there overseas so fascinating and so enlightening. Even if I'm being jokingly, I generally can't help but feel gratitude for that they've shown me so much and that I was able to learn so much from them. I could actually talk about this for hours (and in a serious tone). I'm sure this will be something to remember even a few decades later. In fact, all of what I've learned was indeed the reason I wanted to broaden my horizons even more; I've seen them handle some challenges well and some not, and I really want to know now how other countries do that (that's a huge part of where my desire to learn more about China come from, for instance, although my reading backlog has still not been cleared :( At least, I'm staying home the next week with no work or uni, and I'll try to progress through that). And you know, I happen to talk about my own country from time to time, so that everyone can learn from that, too. You (and everybody else) can even have me do that more often, just ask away :)--R8R (talk) 20:08, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I'll respond regarding group 3 first, since this is the biggest current flame war. ^_^

I must say, I don't feel this undertone strongly about the discussion, and part of the reason for this is that I have not so long ago been on the other side of this debate. You may remember that in 2016 I was arguing profusely for Sc-Y-La, which based on the chemical knowledge I then had was a logical consequence. The only problem is that now with our current knowledge it is not. The fact that I am now vociferously arguing on the other side at least shows that I am not trying to protect my result first of all. In fact, I am perfectly willing to say that I was wrong then.

I see part of where Sandbh is coming from, because I used to use those arguments too. Well, one of the main arguments we were pushing then was that group 3 (all of the possible members) more strongly skewed towards s-block behaviour than d-block behaviour, so it should follow the s-block trend. And I agree that this would still be a good argument for La if the premise was true. The only problem is that, as Droog Andrey explained to us back in 2018 and now, it is not:


 * In fact, this s-block-ish behaviour is totally normal for many early transition metals: just look at Zr, Hf, and Rf (which even form +4 aqueous cations, what more could you ask for?), and to a slightly smaller extent Nb, Ta, and Db. They all much prefer the group oxidation state. It's not special to group 3.
 * In fact, group 3 equally often shows behaviour similar to group 4. Just look at the contribution of the d electrons to its physical properties, and the poor coordination power of both groups. Or the trend in oxidation states (the first member has the biggest lower oxidation state chemistry of all four).

And the delayed collapse of 4f and 5f would be a good argument if it mattered for the chemistry, as I thought it did then. But, as Droog Andrey explained to us back in 2018 and now, it is not:


 * Lanthanum has no problem displaying 4f involvement in chemistry. Many examples have already been brought out for the discussion;
 * The exact same thing is true for thorium. You cannot consistently say that the delayed collapse is relevant for La and Ac but not for Th. If the chemistry of Th was categorically different by the presence of 5f involvement from that of Ac, that would be one thing, but that is false.
 * In general, ground-state electron configuration anomalies have about zero effect on real chemistry.

And the analogy of Zn to Lu and concomitant double periodicity would be a good argument, except for the fact that as Droog Andrey explained to us back in 2018 and now, it is not:


 * Zn 3d is chemically active, and the activity of the d subshell increases down the Zn group. Lu 4f is totally chemically inactive, and the activity of the f subshell decreases down the Lu group.
 * In fact, the real similarity is Eu to Mn and Yb to Zn, as we expect that across the series 4f collapses into the core similarly to 3d. The favouring of +2 done by the late actinides, contra Lr +3 off the trend, is exactly like the favouring of +2 done by Fe through Zn, contra Ga +3 off the trend.

It's the fact that despite all these refutations of the premises of the La arguments, Sandbh keeps trotting the same ones out over and over (e.g. predominant ionicity or covalency, and differentiating electrons, neither of which are well-defined), that makes me frustrated about the whole thing. I started out from the same arguments as he did that formed the backbone of the IUPAC submission, which was mostly based on the prongs:


 * Group 3 is more similar to the groups to the left than those to the right;
 * Delayed collapses are important for chemistry;
 * Double periodicity is better with a Ce-Lu f block.

The La arguments would all be valid if these premises were true! But all three, I have now learned, are false. Therefore the conclusion cannot stand, and I changed my mind.

Not to mention the following Lu arguments that have instead been substantiated:


 * Lu cannot be an f element because it totally lacks f involvement.
 * La on the other hand does have distinct valence f involvement similar to Th.
 * Trends are superior, having better analogies across the table, with the Lu table.

And that's why I think it is still correct to start an RFC. Real science consists of admitting our mistakes. Double sharp (talk) 06:45, 29 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I love your sincere enthusiasm! It is really great to have that kind of passion towards something, so I totally sympathize with that. However, that you have realized this does not mean everyone has; after all, you will recall how periodic table says that most chemists are not aware there is any controversy. This reminded me of a short piece from Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku:
 * Nowadays, the leading (and only) candidate for the role of the theory of everything is the string theory. Naturally, backlash emerged. Opponents claim that nowadays, to get an academic tenure, you have to necessarily work on the string theory. If you have not devoted yourself to this theory, you'll stay unemployed. It's the endemic of the present day, and physics, naturally, is afflicted by that.
 * I only smile when I hear such statements, because physics, like any other human occupation, is prone to enamourment and fashion. Fates of great theories, especially those born at the edge of human perception, can experience sudden and even random ebbs and flows. Actually, the situation changed not all that long ago; historically, it was the string theory that was an outcast, an apostate theory and a victim of the mainstream.
 * (Unfortunately, I can't blame this one on machine translation: my copy of the book is paperback and in Russian.)
 * So you see, it's not about right or wrong that I'm advising against an RfC now: it's about whether the desired result is feasible or not, especially given that a) you'll have a hard time convincing people; b) an IUPAC regulation is expected to come up, and it will turn the tables here; and c) it can be well argued that we should follow the present sources first and foremost. Naturally, following sources does not beat having right over wrong, but this question, as I said before, is not about right or wrong.
 * You know, the university course of philosophy of science had a big influence on me because it taught me this precious idea: science is not the absolute truth; it is our way of finding it, and we may make mistakes on the way. And we don't immediately learn from them, either: it is not even the example of Giordano Bruno that comes to mind, but rather that of John Wallis. He was the first to invent a beautiful idea to make sense of a strange concept in mathematics, the mysterious square root of minus one. His idea was to use not a single axis for numbers, as it was common back in the day, but rather two perpendicular axes, and a number would be a point on the resulting plane. It was brilliant; the contemporary mathematicians ignored it. And if we had been writing Wikipedia in Wallis's times, we would have also had to ignore it, even though the idea was fine and emerged victorious in the end.
 * And now as for Sandbh's ideas. Sure, I don't agree with some of them; that is fine. But in the end of the day, I am certain that Sandbh is sincerely trying his best to categorize the elements (after all, you can only do so much in science), just as you are. Is he missing something? Well, it could be the case, as it could be with any of us, but I have argued that it's a matter of how you look at things. (You may recall me saying that I couldn't see the consistency in his thinking, but that I saw it later.) Lu lacks f involvement? Well, is there much p involvement in Ne? where do we put that element, in the p-block merely out of desperation? "group 3 is more like group 2 than 4 (or not)" is hard to quantify, so again, if you allow yourself to consider that there is ambiguity of where there is a result one way or another or not, you'll probably see one can think that and at least not be clearly wrong. If a characteristic oxidation state should not influence positioning of blocks, why should anyone care about Eu(II) or Tb(IV) with respect to this problem, given that their notability is based on the characteristic +3 state across the lanthanide series? The list of potential questions goes on and on. And these are fair questions and there is no unambiguous answer to them (unless, of course, you want there to be one). The real challenge of this discussion and its arguments is that there is no natural way to move from continuous numeric data to discrete data; the difficulty is the ambiguity of how you do it, what counts as a hit for, say, a good diagonal relationship and what does not; what an ionic bond is and what is not, and whether a distinction should be made at all; et cetera. If you consider this, I hope you'll see why it could be fair and not unscientific to see why different people see this differently.
 * I'd like to conclude with a question. What came first: chicken or the egg? As you'll probably guess, from the evolutionary perspective there were once not-chickens that gradually mutated to become chickens. At what point though? Should we say when the egg was laid? or did the natural mutation of the organism during its lifetime could allow for a walk across the fine line from non-chickens to chickens? Imagine that we had agreed on what organism was the first chicken and that we could reconstruct the changes it had undergone. There would still be room for scientific discussion whether it should be counted as a chicken since the moment of its inception or when it first became a grown organism. The final answer would be a convention, not a certain "truth."
 * P.S. I really hope that you see my point there. It's not that I'm missing yours, I totally get it; but as I often do, I propose to take a step back and I hope you'll follow.--R8R (talk) 17:49, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, most chemists do not realise there is one. But it's also true that most of the ones who do realise there is a problem and start critical analysis of it plump for the Lu table, which is basically my argument for why it is not against policy to change to that option: it is the majority among the relevant sources that analyse the issue, not the ones that just copy the ancient mistake and don't talk about it. (And which usually end up being inconsistent with Sc-Y-*-** and Sc-Y-La-Ac tables, too.) The fact that scientifically speaking I am convinced that the Sc-Y-Lu option is right is a decidedly secondary consideration. ;)
 * Now for the comments on the group 3 issue:
 * Neon 2p is not a problem, just look at correlation of 2p electrons in liquid Ne from van der Waals forces. And the electronic reason for why you don't see neutral Ne compounds is because of those 2p electrons entering antibonding orbitals and making the bond order close to zero, so indeed it is the 2s and 2p electrons that are controlling the extraordinary inertness of Ne (the more so because 2s will act as another lone pair, and interelectronic repulsion destabilises the bonding too for such a small and electronegative atom). It's the same idea of looking at significant bonding/antibonding molecular orbitals controlling bond strength across the table.
 * The fact that it's hard to quantify closeness of group 3 to 2 or 4 is exactly why I think it is clearly wrong to think it is closer one way or the other. One can multiply lots of properties where it is closer one way and can also multiply lots of properties where it is closer the other way. You can't get better proof that in general it is intermediate, same as every other group in the periodic table, since you cannot find a statistically significant differences. Trends are almost always continuous unless they just passed through a noble gas to the next period. Same with diagonal relationships and ionicity: I've been insisting all this while throughout the long discussion that you cannot consider them as general things to impact PT placement because they are continuums (there is no such thing as a totally ionic bond) and you cannot apply them all the time. Well, sometimes a diagonal relationship is stronger (Li-Mg), sometimes a knight's move is stronger (Ag-Tl), sometimes going straight down is stronger (Y-Lu, Zr-Hf, Nb-Ta – and if you think group 3 contains Y-La and not Y-Lu, that actually reinforces my point, because Y-Lu is then the strongest relationship going down of similarity and it's not even anywhere close to a diagonal in a Sc-Y-La table). There is no consistency, as totally expected because these are not basic trends but linear combinations of them. It depends how fast the vertical and horizontal trends are changing. And ionicity is clearly a continuum and impacted by electronegativity differences, which are themselves impacted by oxidation state: just compare the uranium (III) through (VI) fluorides. There's clearly no such thing as predominantly ionic chemistry as Sandbh points to: it has to be averaged out over so many elements that we're bonding our chosen one to that it becomes pointless. You can't average out bonds ranging from Cs-Cs to Cs-F, it washes away the important trend that ionic character increases with electronegativity difference. (As well, most elements are going to become predominantly metallic bonding anyway because there are so many metals.) I cannot support arguments that can equally well be used to argue for B-Al-Sc in group 3 or Be-Mg-Zn in group 12. If you say these arguments conclusively point to Sc-Y-La (which they don't, since group 3 often skews both ways), you often end up also supporting one of those two versions. You can't get away from that without a double standard. So yes, I do understand that moving from a continuum to discrete data is a challenge. But that is in fact one of the reasons why I think Sc-Y-La should be abandoned: the arguments for it usually take one side of a continuum, or split it in an arbitrarily chosen place, whereas Sc-Y-Lu emphasises the continuity. As is expected since Sc-Y-La is a table characterised by its breaking of the continuity of the d-block. Graphically the Sc-Y-La form creates an impression, especially if the footnote is expanded out, of a tremendous sea change from group 3 to group 4 that does not exist.
 * If a characteristic oxidation state doesn't matter for the positioning of blocks (which seems obvious to me, because otherwise there's no p block anymore), then it doesn't matter that Eu(II) and Tb(IV) are exceptions from typical Ln(III), because typical Ln(III) also does not matter. The main argument is simply that La and Ac have the f involvement which Lu and Lr completely lack even in the sense of p involvement in Ne or s involvement in He. The oxidation states, if we must refer to them as a secondary consequence, actually even reveal a regularity in the table that only exists with Sc-Y-Lu, but that is only if you stop looking at a block's single typical oxidation state (which don't exist outside 4f and are hence hopelessly local) and look at the trends in oxidation states (which do exist everywhere and hence may be admitted). You start every block but the s block with the s electrons still active, so you start at +3, one step above the only truly universal baseline +2. Then collapses happen for one subshell and it becomes less and less easy to get so many electrons out. 1s, 2p, 3d, and 4f have a lower maximum oxidation state than the later blocks, that's totally expected since the subshells are smaller. The fitting of Lr, which is always +3, into a trend containing nothing but an increased reluctance to dig into the 5f orbital to get +3 in the late actinides is purely nonsensical, as much as it is to fit Ga into the trend of the late 3d elements. So actually comparing Eu2+ and Tb4+ to the baseline +3 is wrong-headed: you cannot do it anywhere else in the table. The better analogue of Eu2+ is Mn2+. Double sharp (talk) 07:38, 31 March 2020 (UTC)


 * It's not that I'm unsympathetic with your thinking here. What I'm saying is, you can't have the arguments that you think are right and expect everyone else to share that thought upon hearing. If you want to get it done, then consider what is the most likely to get you there; and my point is, an RfC now (or in July) is not likely to help you, and given that the game will change soon enough, even if we don't know how, we can expect people to want to wait until the change, especially if failing now can reinforce the running "we've been there before, and the consensus is there" argument. This is not the place where the tides should turn anyway; it should only reflect such a turn that has happened before.
 * One reason I wanted to write another reply to this thread is that I think I didn't say one thing right. Science is a human enterprise; as such, it is dependent on humans and all of our flows. When I thought of science as of this authoritative final truth, I had no reason to doubt that science is always right. Turns out it's not, and this is something to bear in mind. Science probably knows better than you do, especially if there is an objective criterion of being right or something close to that (like determining what gets people healthy and what does not if they are sick), but the more interpretations are involved, the more room there is for making mistakes. In my humble opinion, some cases of that can be found in some Western takes on social sciences. But it's not just that; recall the Kaku quote from above, for instance, or I could bring you one certain example.
 * Some fashion and lack of acceptance to what is outside of the mainstream can also be found in ecology and the related mathematics. We are said to face a serious climate change! understanding of what is the reason of that and what could be done, however, is lacking. There are some rather vague ideas, like carbon capture, and nobody is seriously ready to consider the alternatives; that's what I've been told in my university course by a lecturer who is involved in computations related to these problems. The thing about carbon capture is that it's not a very long-term solution; what if things get worse because of it in a century, and all that carbon captured and buried in the mountains causes risks of earthquakes later? we don't know, but people feel something needs to be done now or else, and this does not look like a flawless way of thinking, does it? It's gonna do the trick for now, and the problems of later will come later if at all. That's where judgment came in. This is not a perfect thinking for a theorist, but reasonable or not, that's how it is; real science is filled with this judgment. And even theorists do just that! Again, recall the Kaku quote even if it takes reading my broken English again (translating is harder than thinking of phrases from scratch, though).
 * If I may suggest a book you might be interested to read, then I would highly recommend the novel titled Flowers for Algernon. It is about a mentally challenged man who from the bottom of his heart wants to improve himself and get smarter and who tirelessly did his best to do so, but he was unable to do it. Then he entered an experimentation that gradually made him smarter and smarter, and he eventually overcame all scientists in intellect, and this helped him see that they, too, are humans with their flows, fixated on their ideas and limited to their modes of thinking. The book does have a Wikipedia article, but I don't want to link it because I'd hate to spoil it for you too much. It is a very worthwhile read. When I had a temperature of (at some point) over forty degrees last year, it was seriously difficult to get anything done, and even trivial tasks like taking food out of the fridge and microwaving it required concentration to get them done. I then remembered that book and I re-read it when I got a bit better. I enjoyed it the first time and I really enjoyed re-reading it.
 * Really, please consider this idea seriously: science can be wrong. If you think that you are right and the thinking here is flawed (or subject to updates, or anything), please consider that if some waiting can help get your idea implemented rather than investing yourself with less regard for possible effectiveness, but more for thinking good about yourself for trying to do what feels like the right thing, it could be right to wait. And maybe, just maybe, this realization can help you feel better about the whole debate as it appears to me you've been really captivated by it.
 * P.S. Please take what I wrote here at the face value. Upon re-reading, I noticed that you could read from it things that I had not at all intended to say if you read hard enough.--R8R (talk) 23:23, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Group 3 element
Have you ever considered developing that article to the FA status? I've always found it a shame that despite such lengthy discussions at WT:ELEM the reader is not going to benefit from it at all :( there's a reasonable place for the arguments from both sides, however, and it's there.

(Super caught up by the current pressing things atm; will write a response in the section above hopefully soon enough)--R8R (talk) 09:03, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have considered it a couple of times. The only problem is staying neutral: depending on how much I knew at the time I was considering it, one side or the other always seems obviously wrong... ^_^ But I have done a few edits on Periodic table (the sections on the period 1 and group 3 disputes), where I've tried to at least neutrally present what has been raised. Double sharp (talk) 09:58, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, if that's the only problem, I could help you out with that. I've been rather uneasy about my past take on the article and I'd want to see the article discuss the problem more profoundly.--R8R (talk) 21:39, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * We now have something like an attempt to be neutral at Periodic table, so if you would like to, you could gently scold me if you think I have not been neutral enough before we start considering what to do about the group 3 article. ^_^
 * P.S. Historically speaking, I would be interested in lutetium FA, now that you mention group 3. It really was interesting with how the priority dispute got entangled into that for hafnium and periodicity, with (IIRC) even Niels Bohr getting on the campaign to reinstate cassiopeium as a name! Double sharp (talk) 04:15, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the presentation has by any measure grown too big for that article. I think there are actually too many things that I'd like to point out to do so relatively shortly. Generally, the thing now reads as if it said, "there are two major kinds of arguments: those in favor of -La-Ac and those in favor of -Lu-Lr. A case for -Lu-Lr has been made; if only anyone listened to it. The first argument for -La-Ac is this (but it's wrong) and the second is this (also wrong). And here's how the whole idea is bad. Now, -Lu-Lr, on the other hand, once had this argument against it, but it's not a refutation at all, and it's good by this and that standard." I'm afraid to be repetitive, but I'd recommend reverting to the shorter brief description (this is not a place to advance any argument anyway, there is room only for a brief overview) and move analysis of arguments to group 3 element.
 * Lutetium certainly seems interesting; that's another thing in the back of my head after the well-established program of mine (Al, Fe, and Au) has been completed.--R8R (talk) 16:16, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, to some extent it had the problem beforehand already, just attacking the other side instead in the notes (by explaining why the dissimilarity of La to Y was not a refutation of Sc-Y-La). I kept that note, at least! ;) It's true that most authors who actually analyse the situation plump for Lu. Maybe it should be cut down to just stating what the arguments generally are like... Double sharp (talk) 16:29, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes! For the purpose of that article, that’s precisely what should be done, regardless whether you feel one way on the issue or another; there is room only for a brief overview.—R8R (talk) 16:38, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

By the way
Reproduction of earlier post:

By the way, the Arabic word "Allah" means "God"; there is no particular reason to use the Arabic word all the time. Many Muslims do it nonetheless, because they cherish the words of God as he said them, and he sent them to the people in Arabic (particularly, what is now known as Classical Arabic) because that's the language that was perfect for reflecting His words. It is generally seen in Islam that people corrupted the words of the previous prophets he had sent to the Earth; take Jesus for instance: how come Jesus is God, too, when he did not say such thing himself? (Jesus once said he was a son of God, but the argument goes that he meant a son of God in the same sense as you or me.) Jesus's words were corrupted by things he had not said. By the way, Jesus spoke Aramaic; who knows what that even is today? However, the words of God sent to the world via a prophecy to Jesus were translated and the original meaning was lost, so no wonder these misinterpretations happened. This is why the Muslims say that there is no god but God and Muhammad is His messenger (the point is, just a messenger), that's the basic content of the shahada. Portraits of Muhammad are explicitly prohibited so that people don't worship him instead of the one and only God, like it happened with Jesus. Maybe you knew this already, but I once did not, so maybe you'll find that interesting.--R8R (talk) 11:58, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, much wisdom here re corruption of the words of the previous "prophets", and Jesus is God, not. The Muslims are onto something with their prohibition of portraits. While YMMV vary I adhere to the notion of God being within, rather than some kind of Judeo-Christian deity. There are a lot of mentions of this idea in the Bible, although most don't read past the literal words. There is also much wisdom in the Bible and many of the world's other religio-spirital texts. Sandbh (talk) 02:46, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for sharing. This is indeed something that I've been thinking a lot about. My current view on the issue is closely intertwined with what I said about the importance of the course of philosophy of science. You see, I was in a rather miserable state of not believing in God (or any god, for that matter), not having a sense of community, there was no objective truth, not anything; was adrift in the open, and it was far from easy. I think I was beginning to long for something, but how could I believe in what I knew not to be true? But there was one truth at least, and that truth was science and those mysteries it uncovers (for more context, you may want to revisit the beginning of the section "Science" to see the difference between the language that we are currently speaking and my mother tongue when it comes to science). And uni told me that there was no truth in science, that science was only our way to describe what we saw around us, not the way; it inevitably depends on us, it is what we can see, not what is there, though we try to approximate that as closely as we can. And this really turned something in me, because even if there is no absolute truth even in science, we have still come so far! This gave me a good sense of empowerment and profoundness, even I still didn't have god, or truth, or what else, I could still build what moral constructs I was missing for myself. And soon enough, I (in a really interesting coincidence) found online a good professor who told me to stand straight with my shoulders back and stuff like that, and I've made it through that misery. On the way, he also gave me this interesting idea that a century ago, people gathered in churches every week and sat there for however long straight (how long does a Sunday service last? an hour?) and did nothing but thought about their existence. We don't do this today, and for shame if you ask me. I still consider myself an atheist, and I find that bit of myself an important bit of me, but I became much more receptive to those who are religious. I'm, however, talking about that Judeo-Christian deity type of God and not what you mention; I cherish what you call "God in self" but I just don't call that God; to me, it's an integral part of humans as we are and that's what makes me so affectionate towards people in general :)
 * That there is wisdom in Bible and other books is undeniable; they wold not have had their impact (which is hard to overstate) on development of the civilization in general otherwise. I would really love to read the Bible with commentary myself but I will once again mention the present reading log of mine. Will definitely do it some day, though, hopefully sooner rather than later. As I was a small child, I had a Children's Bible (in fact, I still have it), but I found it boring back in that age, so it did not have the desired effect on me.--R8R (talk) 05:17, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * That there is wisdom in Bible and other books is undeniable; they wold not have had their impact (which is hard to overstate) on development of the civilization in general otherwise. I would really love to read the Bible with commentary myself but I will once again mention the present reading log of mine. Will definitely do it some day, though, hopefully sooner rather than later. As I was a small child, I had a Children's Bible (in fact, I still have it), but I found it boring back in that age, so it did not have the desired effect on me.--R8R (talk) 05:17, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I lost that sense of community when I stopped working.

Among other causes I ended up becoming clinically depressed, which I’ve since recovered from with the help of my doctor, a psychologist, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, family, and friends.

Stand straight with shoulders back and stuff like that is powerful. So is deciding whether you act below or above the line.

I was raised by church-going parents and it mean nothing to me, and later my parents stopped going.

Some people take to it naturally (genetics, biology); others like me have to develop a need for it.

I’ve been agnostic for most of my life.

When I was depressed I was contemplating killing myself, so I started going to church, just for the community feel, and the opportunity to sing. It was hard early on since the Bible is full of violence and death and I became dismayed whenever those things were mentioned. But the singing of the old hymns was good, as I wondered what lyrics like "god of gods" meant.

I also started visiting the local and non-denominational Unitarian Universalist Church and that was very good. They are much more humanist in their outlook and draw on whatever traditions offer wisdom.

Here’s a remarkable extract from the book Why is Uranus upside down?, on science and religion: "There are some aspects of astronomy that clearly challenge certain religious doctrines, particularly the more fundamentalist ones. We know with all the certainty we can muster, for example, that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old, rather than a few thousand years old. This comes from observation and reasoned argument, as opposed to the writings of early mystics who were trying to make sense of the world around them in whatever way they could. Hard-line atheists such as Richard Dawkins might have us throw away all these dusty books, but that would be to deny humankind an important part of its cultural heritage. While only fanatics would argue that we should accept those ancient writings lock, stock and barrel, they still rank among the world's literary gems. And what would this world be like without Strasbourg Cathedral, Bach's 'St Matthew Passion', or the Blue Mosque in Istanbul? Religion has inspired humankind to some of its most sublime creations.

One of my colleagues is a committed Christian and, at the same time, one of the world's leading cosmologists. I was interested to know how he reconciled those worldviews, and intrigued by his answer. He believes there are profound absolute truths, to which our understanding only approximates at any one time. Some of the understanding comes from science, some from the humanities and some from religious faith. He sees his faith as valuable because it takes on board the teachings of a few special people who seem to have had profound insights into fundamental ethical values that might themselves be hard-wired into the fabric of the Universe. On the other hand, he would never push his beliefs on another individual."

This prompted to read about the history of the Church, and God, and that was an astonishing eye-opener.

I don’t agree with all the teachings of the Church I attend, and interpret what they say in terms of my own understanding of spirituality and the history of religion. The pastors at the church, when I talk to them, know all this stuff too, but they don’t talk to the laity so much about it since they (the laity) expect the traditional liturgy. I particularly disagree with the idea of a Holy Trinity.

When I was travelling in the UK and Europe I visited quite a few churches, and standing in them you appreciate why they were so relevant in historical times. Sandbh (talk) 07:12, 2 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your response. Thoughts bloomed in my head; I enjoy it very much when something makes me think and I feel grateful whenever somebody prompts that in me. I do want to write a reply, and want that very much (at the very least, I feel entitled to return the favor, but it's more than that), but I'm not exactly sure when I'll able to do that. I anticipated even having some time for reading books during this quarantine, but sadly, I haven't had the chance to read. I will reply soon enough, I hope.--R8R (talk) 20:24, 6 April 2020 (UTC)


 * So I promised to write a reply. You see, I am very grateful to you for writing this because it gives me opportunity to take a step back and reconsider my own life and where it might lead me. On top of that, being relatively young in age, I still have my natural curiosity and thinking about things and learning new considerations and even concepts has been very inspiring to me. I am afraid to think I will run out of this curiosity when I am older, and I think I see how that could happen, which was something I began to realize that some of my beliefs were getting a solid ground in my thinking. It is not impossible to have that curiosity in your life but takes a lot to do so, and I see most people not do that as they age. I try to think, however, of remarkable people and see if I could be anywhere like that when I get older. I'd be terrified to arrive one day to a conclusion I had given up thinking because it was comfortable not to.
 * Thank you for sharing the "above or below the line" bit. I've heard the expression a few times, but the general idea was not too hard to discern, and I always left it at that. Knowing there is an actual line and how you can locate yourself respective to it is a great compass. The line itself is a good dissector.
 * I think we all need to believe in something because it helps us view the world in some way and not have you view constantly change because of that; these internal leaps back and forth could drive you insane. I realize that I, in the end of the day, choose to believe there is no God. There is some room for facts to overcome my beliefs, but it's practically negligible. I also think that people want to choose to have something in common with other people, and the idea of being together suits the principle very well. I think it's no coincidence that atheism is becoming a big thing first and foremost in the Western societies, given how the emphasis is repeatedly put on individuals, and since you've clearly had more time to make such observations than I have (I'll say I've had four years so far), you may have noticed how the world of more and more people in the English-speaking countries revolves around themselves lately, hence the decline in religion. I recall reading this piece last year about protests in Hong Kong:
 * The myths of the obedient Hong Kong child, of the disciplined dronelike worker, of the person who puts money above everything else, are shattered for ever. But can Hong Kong people triumph over the Communist Party? Surely not and they know it. What, then, is the point of their fighting on? Dignity and self-respect. Bystanders are responsible for what they don’t do—in this case push back on a growing tyranny. Years from now, historians will recall that at a time when the West had descended into identity solipsism, there was a place on earth where people cared more for liberty and their city than their lives. They will marvel at what an unsated people can and will do.
 * Much to my shame, I did not know what solipsism was, and I had to look that up. (Here's a link in case you need to, too.) As I read the definition, the first thought that popped up in my mind was, "Well, I can't speak for the entire West; people in Malmö and Naples must be very different. But I can speak for one country that I know, the United States, and this fits them so well." As I realized the thought, I was absolutely blown away by it. I don't remember what the rest of the article was about. But such a clear formulation of what I saw happening over there has been a big realization for me, contemplating it made me realize a lot about human nature. It's one of the things that makes me grateful to their perspective. I can't formulate to whom I am grateful, but this understand I got came from the outside, and I feel grateful to the outside. To the entire country, perhaps. It only makes sense that it makes me want to learn more different perspectives. I assume other people can have this sort of revelations in different ways; for some of them, these revelations must be religious in origin, hence the religiousness. Perhaps it is indeed because life is so fast these days that there is no time to stop and think that and have these revelations, whatever the origin.
 * I'm glad you go to church. As I said (didn't say that explicitly but clearly meant it), I do think it's a good idea for people to do that. Another thing that does not fit into the ever-quickening pace of life is this going to church.
 * I agree Dawkins is not a great model for the general society. His name pops first in my head when people say that smart does not equal wise. Many intellectuals implicitly suggest that the rest of the people can do fine and be good if only external barriers mounting their oppression were removed: Dawkins speaks about religion, Marx spoke about capitalists, and I'm sure you can name a few modes of perceivable oppression yourself. I have no basic presupposition to conclude that, but I'm rather eager to suggest that a happy life of mine is in my hands and nobody can oppress me unless I let them.
 * I live in a country that has some relatively far-stretching historical heritage (even if one that does a poor job of honoring its heritage once it does not come over something you can put on a flag to rally around). Unfortunately, it's only been relatively not too long since I had my epiphany about religion, and Moscow is not filled with very old great buildings (for instance, the city was burned when Napoleon attacked Russia). I'd want to visit some old places even around me (like the Golden Ring) now to see if I can get a similar appreciation for them.
 * P.S. You know, some people like to define Russia as Eurasian because it's not like Europe and not like Asia; the thing, however, is that nobody really says that Russia is Asian, that makes little sense given at the very least how little there is in the concept of Asia (given that it stretches from Turkey to Japan and Indonesia), and this is effectively a way to oppose our country to Europe. This was the core of the popular 19th-century idea of Slavophilia. In the 1920s, Soviet propaganda said that the West was decadent, and that idea soon got a solid reaffirmation when the Great Depression stroke and the Soviet Union was successfully going through its first five-year plan. At some point, I asked myself whether one could make an effective case for something like that today. In case you're interested, the professor I mentioned in the last post was Jordan Peterson. I am grateful to him very much, too; of course, I am. I generally think that one could look up to what he says; it does not, of course, have to be exactly him, but he taught me to stand tall and we people generally sometimes need some encouragement to go on, so he seems like a good person to listen to if you're feeling deep down. He does help many people become happier and he stood generally for what he held dear in the society. Among other things, he speaks a lot about greater meaning in your life and he particularly detests those who refute the idea of that; he brushes them as post-modernists. And those people naturally responded by attacking back; they often brush him as a hard-line ultra-right-wing conservative, and I find that couldn't be further from truth. After three years of this battle, his mental health collapsed, and he is undergoing serious recovery. The said solipsism I mentioned that he was fighting, that is the thing that makes me think about how one could call the West decadent, and that's a very recent thing, at least to the present scale, so of course I wish you all the best in overcoming it. (Then again, I'm not entirely convinced the United States and Canada are Western countries anymore, and it could possibly be that this extrapolates to the rest of the English-speaking world. This might seem preposterous at first, but I think I know a thing or two about Germany and to some small extent, other big Western European countries, and I caught myself thinking a few times that the United States was increasingly more and more different from continental Western Europe. Much to my surprise, I got some reaffirmation from the U.S. president, who himself suggested the West based on common values may not survive years to come. Some people, of course, like to brush off whatever he says, but I do sincerely think he has a point to contemplate there.)
 * P.P.S. To all Americans reading this: I did mean it when I said I learned a lot from your country, and I mean it in the best possible way. I do think there are some challenges your country doesn't handle very well, but (as Double sharp, on whose page I am writing this, will surely reaffirm you) I also think that my own country doesn't handle many of its challenges well. Much to my surprise, I found surprisingly many similarities between the two countries, even if they arrive to them differently. That feeling of what I perceive as your problems often hits very close to home and if anything, this has made me much more sympathetic to your country. I could also readily name a few things I think people in your country generally do significantly better than people over here. Stay true to yourselves and God bless America if you happen to believe in Him <3 --R8R (talk) 22:13, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * P.P.S. To all Americans reading this: I did mean it when I said I learned a lot from your country, and I mean it in the best possible way. I do think there are some challenges your country doesn't handle very well, but (as Double sharp, on whose page I am writing this, will surely reaffirm you) I also think that my own country doesn't handle many of its challenges well. Much to my surprise, I found surprisingly many similarities between the two countries, even if they arrive to them differently. That feeling of what I perceive as your problems often hits very close to home and if anything, this has made me much more sympathetic to your country. I could also readily name a few things I think people in your country generally do significantly better than people over here. Stay true to yourselves and God bless America if you happen to believe in Him <3 --R8R (talk) 22:13, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

"Biquadratic function" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Biquadratic function. Since you had some involvement with the Biquadratic function redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. SpinningSpark 18:40, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

You've got mail!
Please check your mailbox.--R8R (talk) 17:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

"Do we propose to plaster that refuted theory all over Wikipedia?"
This is a very recent quote of yours. There was a certain thing that I've wanted to write to you, and now, in response to these words, it seems like the right time. I'll tell you a few words about a specific question (and I hope you'll find that interesting in itself as I did) and then draw parallels with the group 3 issue.

So, as you've probably read from me already (did I write about it? I may have), I saw a sterk line of willingness on the part of the Russians to put blame for everything on the Americans in 2014 (and before that, too, but those feelings bloomed that year). I found it very unfortunate but understandable: after all, it is easier to blame somebody for your problems rather than ask yourself what you could've done differently. I really thought back then (and I keep thinking this way up to this day) that this was akin to behavior of lesser people, and now I can explain that by saying that somebody else is the cause of your problems removes responsibility from you, which is not very unfortunate. I was absolutely amused, however, by how two years later, the Americans were having a presidential election, and if you read their media that year, you may know that it depicted a possible presidency of Trump as something in the likes of an apocalypse. It could not, of course, be that there was a certain desire within the country to have that kind of a leader, so it was only natural to assume this menace came from the outside. And that was when we first heard of a possible collusion with Russia. This was absolutely astonishing to me because it made at least some sense when this sort of stuff was said in Russia: after all, Russia is smaller than the United States in terms of economy, diplomacy, military power, you name it, but now the Americans were willing to act as the lesser people (not all of them, to their credit)!

And this really made me wonder: how did things lead up to this? Nobody was happy, neither the people in Russia nor the people in the United States; could this have been avoided? There was seemingly a time which could put the relationship on a different track, specifically those years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Why did we not get to a better place then? That was the question I asked myself, and I began to learn about those years to find an answer. Naturally, this little research of mine included some study about the end of the Cold War, and that's what the specific question I mentioned in the first paragraph is about. When did the Cold War end? Please answer that question and then proceed with an answer in mind.

Many people like to think it ended in December 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. On February 1, 1992, a joint Russian-U.S. declaration formally ended the Cold War. A few days before then, on January 28, President Bush delivered a speech that included these words:

"But the biggest thing that has happened in the world in my life, in our lives, is this: By the grace of God, America won the Cold War."

From this quote you may arrive to two conclusions: first, that America won the Cold War, and second, that Bush's presidency had something to do with it. I'm going to argue neither is correct. (By the way, Bush said this in an attempt to secure his reelection in November that year, and he, despite having had a splendid little war of his, had delivered the American voters a huge sense of insecurity about their lip-reading skills. That insecurity cost him the reelection, with his opponent, young Bill Clinton, winning on a campaign whose main slogan was, "It's the economy, stupid.")

The problem with that assumption is that there was no sense of anything vaguely reminiscent of something deserving to be called a war. The Soviet Union was collapsing in 1991, and everyone knew that. The most important republic in that mess was the Ukraine, because its participation in a new union treaty would have meant that there would be a new union, and its abstention would have put an end to the Soviet state. So if the Cold War was still on, naturally you'd expect Bush to try to remove the Ukraine from that union. Well, he did the opposite. In his famous Chicken Kiev speech in Kiev on August 1, he advised against Ukrainian independence and warned the Verkhovna Rada: "Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred."

We may shift further back in time, to spring 1990. That was when, two events occurred, one rather well known and one almost not known to the general audience at all. The first one is the negotiation over the German reunification. This was when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker asked Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev: "Would you prefer to see a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position?" In a later memoir, Baker wrote he expected Gorbachev to flat-out reject the American terms, but he did not. Why did he not? Because that was a time by when the long-standing confrontation had ended, and the respective sides in those negotiations discussed a future of Europe united and whole, what Gorbachev himself termed a "common European home" (and later that year, French president François Mitterrand proposed a concept somewhat alike to Gorbachev's, which he termed "the confederacy," as in "confederacy between Western and Eastern Europe.") And the lesser-known event I was talking about is the Lithuanian declaration of independence. Consider once more the idea that the Cold War was on. Lithuania became a part of the Soviet Union after annexation in 1940, an event that the United States never formally recognized; they even kept embassies for governments-in-exile of the three Baltic states, even though the governments they represented had no power at all. So since Lithuania declared its independence, surely the United States would welcome such a development? It did not. You can partly tell by how little-known that event is. The American response was something in the likes of, "Yeah, about that. Cool and all, but now's really not the time." (I can find you an exact quote if you're interested.) Some Cold War it was!

Now, some people will rather tell you that the Cold War ended in November 1989, when the Germans symbolically tore down most of the Berlin Wall. Sounds great but that's not it, either. You will, of course, remember that when protests emerged across Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union came to crush them: in East Germany in 1953, in Hungary in 1956, or in Czechoslovakia in 1968. The big question is, why did the Soviet Union not try to do the same now? There are two main reasons. One is that Gorbachev was busy home. To oversimplify a bit, indeed, he came to be the First Secretary as a young ambitious reformer of an overly bureaucratized state, and this clashed with interests of much of the high-ranking nomenklatura, who sought to oppose Gorbachev's reforms when they harmed them, and then remove him from office. Under fire, Gorbachev allowed non-party members to take part in elections. This was done because he knew the said nomenklatura had lost touch with the common people and could not get reelected, and this was the only way for him to survive as a head of the Soviet state. This wasn't something he was very keen on, to be clear, but he figured he had to to survive politically and give the Soviet Union chance not to grow decadent and impotent any more than it already was. The second reason, however, is closer to the topic at hand. There was no real chance then to have the communist ideas spread any further west than they already had, and so a big part of the thinking of Soviet strategists was to maintain a layer of buffer states from the West: those very Czechoslovakia, Poland, and others. This defensive tactic sits very well with the deeply rooted Russian sense of insecurity (which should not be a surprise given the Russian history and past invasions of it, particularly that of 1941, the memory of which was still fresh; you may recall I mentioned it some time before). However, this was the time when there was no enemy waiting to conquer the Soviet Union, because the Cold War had already ended, hence no need for a layer of buffer states. (Naturally, many military strategists disagreed, but Gorbachev figured otherwise.) He said in I think April that he would not interfere in a Eastern European revolt should one occur, which means he was already not threatened by the West by then.

The question is, when did the Cold War end? It's important to understand that upon becoming the First Secretary in 1985, Gorbachev wanted to end the confrontation with the United States, not least because it was so costly and because the United States already had a technological advantage which the Soviet Union stood no chance of covering. A big turning point in Soviet-American relations was the Reykjavík Summit in October 1986. There was some personal chemistry between First Secretary Gorbachev and President Reagan achieved during that meeting: while prior to the meeting, Reagan told he read spy novels as a part of preparations of his first encounter with the new Soviet leader, saying he had no trust of the Soviet policy, he left the meeting saying, "I am very sorry to leave like this." Gorbachev later said a lot was reached during that meeting, even if nothing was signed. The big change happened in December 1987, when the two leaders signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty based on what was discussed in Reykjavík. This really was the turning point and this was when the American leadership believed that Gorbachev's words about partnership were a real deal. On June 1, 1988, President Reagan, that very same President Reagan that had called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" and even (privately) joked about bombing the country, said that the Soviet Union was not an evil empire anymore. And that's, if you ask me, when we can say the Cold War truly ended.

Also, who won that Cold War? Well, naturally it depends on what you mean by that. Some people are going to say that the United States is the only country that made it to the year 2000, so it naturally won. The most interesting answer to this question I've heard so far is, "the Soviet Union clearly lost the Cold War, the United States merely didn't lose it, and the true winner was China, who saw the example of the Soviet liberalization, learned from Soviet experience how reforms should not be made, and removed their own grand reformer Zhao Ziyang from power" (can't find where I read that but here's a book that has a similar idea on p. 517 of the pdf, or p. 500 in internal numeration). But of course, in the sense of the story I've told you, the answer is nobody: there were no winners or losers, and Gorbachev and Reagan ended the war on good terms. Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Bessmertnykh said that the Cold War had ended some time before the Malta Summit in December 1989; Baker said that to his mind it ended in August 1990. Both claimed that there were no winners in that war. Reagan, too, wanted to end the war, not win it. But that's not the history we know today: we look into the past to emphasize what we find important, and different people look for different things, so interpretations differ. Today, we have a world where people in the United States think their country won the Cold War, and people in Russia think theirs lost. I would argue both countries are rather unhappy with this conclusion, and it is a big part of the answer to the question I described in the beginning of the section. But I am afraid I am already overstaying my welcome by making you read such long texts. I promise we're almost at the end of it.

However, let's read our article Cold War. You can see that its infobox in the very beginning says, "Cold War (1947–1991)." I think I've made a pretty good case that it had ended before January 1, 1991. Should I rush to correct it? No. Why? Whatever the events, people think that the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. That's why most American sources will tell you: it ended in December 1991 with an American victory. As long as sources say so, whatever the actual events, that's the version that Wikipedia will have, and that's how it's meant to be because duration of such arbitrarily defined event as the Cold War is inevitably subject to judgment. So, coming to our group 3 issue (at last!), do I think that Wikipedia is the right place to start the group 3 change? No, and I hope that this story of mine tells you why not. So I advise you not to do it now, nor in July, unless there are developments from Scerri and his team. I promise that this is the last time I will ever say that. Please consider my words.

I hope this story of mine was worth your while.--R8R (talk) 19:36, 27 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I'll think about what you said about the Cold War later. But, just responding to the part about group 3: to my mind the situation is different. Here the Sc-Y-Lu interpretation has been around since almost the beginning, and most reliable sources focusing on the group 3 issue have come out for it. And, you know, it is not terribly difficult to find (WebElements...) My point was basically that textbooks are well-known to be slow adopters of new concepts: the better electron-deficient explanation of hypervalence has been around since the 1920s; has had MO theory behind it since the 1940s; and has had sophisticated calculations behind it since the 1980s and 1990s . Yet you will still find the wrong d-orbital explanation in textbooks everywhere. That's what I meant by "that refuted theory": yes, you can find many sources for it, but the most reliable ones are surely the ones who focused on this issue, and for which you can discount the issue of lying to children. And they all unanimously agree that the d-orbital explanation of hypervalence is completely wrong. Should we plaster such a thing over Wikipedia? I think not.
 * So, I think the group 3 issue is the same thing. The textbooks are not what matters most here, when they are even often just plain internally inconsistent. What matters is what has been found in serious journal articles whose research focuses on the issue. And such things not only date back from the 1920s, they also skew towards favouring Lu under Y. Double sharp (talk) 12:27, 29 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I do hope you read it. My argument generally goes like this: "I have a thing I have a strong feeling about, too, but it doesn't mean I feel I should correct Wikipedia per my views however strongly I feel." The lengthiness of my text is partly to show I do have a strong opinion, too, so I understand you in having yours. And as I said, I hope you'll find it interesting.
 * I have read your original message carefully enough, especially since I have quoted it thereafter. I agree that an oversimplification is not great to have in Wikipedia if it's at the expense of actual correctness. It is correct to say that the participation of the d orbitals should be explained properly if at all. (I recall learning some relatively understandable explanation of SO coupling for hassium. I even added it only to learn later this is a wrong oversimplification that is outdated but, however, is taught because it's close enough and easier to understand. I removed it when I learned that. It appears a proper explanation is not easily available or not intelligible to me. Probably both. But this is generally what you do in science: you find a useful description of what you see that encompasses as much knowledge as possible. Newtonian mechanics did not become entirely outdated last century! It's still a useful approximation for most cases.)
 * However, I understood it then and I understand it now that you mean that the -La/-Lu question is of the same caliber, with a way of saying what is right and what is wrong. However, it is not; it is an abstract question to which a final answer depends on judgment. Having a periodic table in Wikipedia that has La under Y is not a claim that La is the better candidate for the spot; it's a claim that La is usually put there, rightly or wrongly (just as it is with the Cold War, because there was no treaty that formally ended it, or, to be exact, there were a few candidates for that role but few people take them seriously, unlike it is with regular wars, which typically end with a specific decisive peace treaty). It appears to me that the difference between your understanding and mine is that I think that -Lu-Lr is a better reflection of the reality and you deep down inside think that it's the reflection. To make my point better, I may suggest revisiting the "Science" section once more.--R8R (talk) 17:34, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

OK, first off, regarding the Cold War: no, I was actually not terribly aware of how America felt about it, and thank you for enlightening me on that. (I suppose some of it may have been concerns about the balance of power, combined with how a more violent Soviet collapse could possibly have been a great disaster...)

As you know, I have read Timothy Snyder's The Reconstruction of Nations, so here is a tidbit you may find interesting. The Poles in exile were, of course, naturally interested in the future breakup of the USSR, Juliusz Mieroszewski even correctly predicted that it would happen along the SSR lines. (And that was a prediction from the early 1970s, when any such ideas must have seemed very strange...) But, strangely enough, Mieroszewski's idea was apparently not to be against Russia, but to render the Poland-Russia rivalry moot(!):

In the early 1970s, this seemed rather romantic. The Soviet Union was a nuclear superpower which appeared to be winning the Cold War. Poland was a Soviet satellite, its most recent upheavals of 1968 and 1970 easily quelled by its communist regime. Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine were constituent republics of the Soviet Union, whose dissidents were a harried few. Hugely formidable Soviet conventional military forces were concentrated in precisely the region in question. Yet, as the eventual fate of the Soviet Union makes clear enough, the real in international relations includes not only the state of affairs at a moment in time, but the direction of its change as time proceeds, the apprehension that multiple directions of change are possible, and the realization that individuals use states to force events onto one course rather than another on the basis of ideals. Realism as a mode of analysis must be pragmatic, but it must also (if it is to avoid paradox) include an awareness of the goals which call for pragmatism, the end toward which pragmatic measures are the means. These ends are not themselves realistic, they cannot be derived from the world as it is, but must arise from individuals’ sense of how the world ought to be. Interests are incoherent without ideals.

It follows that what appears idealistic may be realistic. Mieroszewski was right about the fate of the Soviet Union, and about the need for an anticipatory Polish eastern policy. His own consideration of future Polish interests, precisely because it was clear about ends and means, escaped the confines of the old Polish dilemma of realism and idealism. He treated Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine not by reference to their traditional connection with the Polish nation, but in the context of the security of a future Polish state. Imagining the geopolitical position of such a Polish state, Mieroszewski anticipated threats from (1) an independent Russia and (2) imperialist Polish nationalism. Mieroszewski feared that conflict with Russia over Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania would entrench harmful versions of both Russian and Polish nationalism. Mieroszewski’s program was not an expression of sympathy toward the Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian peoples, but a plan to prevent conflict over territory and deflect Russian and Polish nationalism. Mieroszewski noticed that the creation of Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republics within the Soviet Union had created an intellectual opening for such a strategy. Because Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine could be seen as political units, he thought it possible to convince Poles that these Soviet republics were but a step away from national statehood. The analogy between a satellite Poland and Soviet republics was strained, but it was made possible by the structure of the Soviet Union. Because the borders of the Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian SSRs with each other, the Russian SFSR, and Poland were already visible on maps, it was possible to advocate the preservation of existing borders in a future order of nation-states.

From his recognition of the centrality of Russia and his understanding of the organization of the Soviet Union followed the conclusion that the countries Mieroszewski called “ULB” were key to the security of a future sovereign Poland. If independent Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Lithuanian states could sustain themselves, they would moot the old Polish-Russian competition. It was thus in the Polish interest to make the survival of such states more likely. Hence Mieroszewski also argued that territorial adjustments by Poland in the east could not be in the Polish interest; and that advocacy thereof would alienate another generation of Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Belarusian national elites. Beginning immediately, he argued in the early 1970s, Poles should not only renounce revanchism in the east, but support the aspirations of the Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian nations to independent statehood. Although this conclusion flowed from realistic considerations, Mieroszewski understood that it could provide Polish foreign policy with a moral dimension. As a realist, he could see that this moral dimension might inspire Poles to act.

This strategy, which he and Jerzy Giedroyć expounded in their periodical Kultura, was controversial among the exiled Poles for obvious reasons. By and large almost all of them thought the question of Poland's eastern borders should be reopened. And some intellectuals instead thought that Poland should deal with Russia over the heads of the countries in between. But, crucially, according to Snyder even in communist Poland there was very influential organised opposition in the 1970s and 1980s. And this strategy triumphed and was put into practice as soon as Poland was in a position to do so. Indeed, when Poland regained sovereignty, it seems the Poles were more afraid of German reunification than of the Soviet response! And it seems to be still the strategy now, although I am not sure if its intention is to "moot the old Polish-Russian competition" anymore. And I think you have a point about how this happened: to quote Snyder again, "in 1990 [Polish] Prime Minister Mazowiecki made clear that he had no wish to see Soviet forces leave Poland until Poland’s border with Germany was codified. Poland even proposed that Soviet troops remain in the eastern part of a future unified Germany." From the perspective of today this seems very (!!!). And while Poland was indeed engaging directly with Soviet republics, they also held off on recognition:

Lithuania was a special case. Lithuania was not regarded as having been de jure incorporated by the Soviet Union; it formally declared independence well before the end of the Soviet Union (in March 1990); and its independence demands triggered revanchist claims from the sizable Polish diaspora in Lithuania. Poland formally recognized Lithuanian independence in August 1991, as the second state (after Iceland) to do so. During the prior two years, Skubiszewski [the Polish foreign minister] said that Lithuania’s aspirations should be fulfilled in accordance with international law. Between 1989 and 1991, representatives of the Polish minority within Lithuania seriously compromised the Polish state’s efforts by demanding territorial autonomy. The Polish state distanced itself from such claims. Kostrzewa-Zorbas’s October 1989 memorandum contended that the only partner for the Polish state was the Lithuanian opposition group Sąjūdis, and that Poland should do nothing to justify Lithuanian fears of Polish revanchism. Kostrzewa-Zorbas believed that Lithuanian fears of Poland were more justified than Polish fears of Germany—and put this judgment on paper a year before Poland and Germany signed a border treaty. Skubiszewski consistently declared that Poland had no territorial claims upon Lithuania or any other eastern neighbor, and told advocates of border revisions that their preferred course would bring about bloody war and provoke German demands in the west.

And this is in itself also weird in a certain way, looking at what happened in Yugoslavia. For, as Snyder notes on the next page, "Half of the Poles in the Soviet Union lived within two hundred miles of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. One could draw a rather large zone around and including the Lithuanian capital in which a plurality of the population would be self-identifying Poles. Poland, unlike Hungary and Yugoslavia, privileged neighboring states over such national diasporas. In 1990 and 1991 Poland was dealt with a Lithuanian nation-state which did not yet legally exist in preference to a Polish minority which was making clear demands. This is evidence of a grand strategy that apprehended the world as constituted of nation-states."

But there is even more fractal complexity there, and it seems that later in the early 1990s hedging against possible future Russian imperialism was part of it too. You should read the book: even here, the period of the late 1980s was pretty distinct from what you would expect from today! Double sharp (talk) 05:48, 16 May 2020 (UTC)


 * In this story of mine, I tried to tell what happened, not what America thought had happened. To answer question of what America thought, I'll say that as it is often the case, people saw there what they wanted to see: that America had won.
 * In the 1980s, Gorbachev wanted to make peace with the United States and was ready to make some concessions along the way of doing that. He expected that this would be reciprocated, but it was not. And when Gorbachev, whom the Americans liked, was getting into increasingly big trouble, the United States was not eager to help. The reason why is best explained by American diplomat Thomas W. Simons Jr.:

I would argue, however, that the main reason why the question of “helping Gorbachev” went unanswered was because it was never asked, and that it was never asked because there was no room for it in the U.S. policy approach that had achieved a consensus satisfactory to all major Washington stakeholders and to U.S. political opinion, after years of struggle, by the end of Reagan’s first term. It was not controversial during the 1984 election campaign, the acid test in U.S. politics. It U.S. Soviet Policy in the Cold War’s Last Years 17 was based on the Shultzian concept that the two superpowers should define their key interests to each other, and continue to confront each other where those interests clashed, but continue to negotiate, based on those interests, when they did not. It kept us at the negotiating table(s) despite setbacks in one or another area. But it gave us no reason to adjust positions depending on the vagaries of a Soviet political system which we would always understand only imperfectly, “as through a glass, darkly.” All we needed to know about “where the Soviets were” we would learn at the negotiating table; we were merely curious about the rest. It had taken time for the concept to permeate U.S. policymaking toward the Soviet Union. But by the time Gorbachev was entering his vale of tears in the late 1980s, it had; and none of us involved in the process saw any reason to change in order to reward him for moves he obviously judged to be in the Soviet interest, or he would not have made them. That is the story I have tried to tell.


 * The end of hostility came from the Soviet side, so the Americans did not immediately recognize it en masse. From the American perspective, the Cold War ended a bit later than from the Soviet one, though still before 1991; for instance, an old website of the U.S. Department of State begins the chronology of the post-Cold War relations with Russia in January 1990. And as the United States was gaining advantage in these talks in what they thought was the end of it combined and the Berlin Wall fell, no wonder the American establishment thought it won. And this thought was further translated to the common American people, who were going through difficult economic times (it's not that Bush wanted to introduce that tax, it's that he thought he had to) and they were eager to listen to that. Moreover, generally, the American people carried more of the burden of the Cold War than the Soviet people: Soviet children never learned to duck and cover, for instance, and there was no hostility to the notion of America back in the day. It was unthinkable that a Soviet leader could declare the United States an empire of evil. So had they not been told that America won, they would probably still have arrived to that conclusion. And those words from Bush only sealed it. And it could be that Bush actually believed in them, though I don't know for sure. It was Baker, who was in the actual middle of the events occurring that would endlessly insist that nobody had lost and nobody had won and that the war was ended in an agreement to stop it, rather than a victory of one side over the other. That view in America, however, is extremely rare. That's how America came to think it had won.


 * Gorbachev even asked for direct financial help in 1990, something the United States did not provide until it was too late and even then in amounts far below needed to the collapsing Soviet economy. The new Russia agreed to accept the Soviet debt in exchange for the transfer of the Soviet UN Security Council seat to it, even though that was the period when it needed money the most but it only got so much. There were reasons for that (most importantly, Russia had a bad "credit history" so to speak back then after all those hostilities), but nonetheless, this is what happened. Many people became much poorer, and there was a big chance of communist leader Gennady Zyuganov winning the 1996 presidential election, a thought that the Western leaders were very afraid of. That election was practically rigged in favor of Yeltsin, to which the Western countries were eager to turn a blind eye. Also importantly, neither the West nor Russia ever found a place for the latter in what Gorbachev had called the “Common European Home.” (This is worded so well that I'll give a direct quote.) And so the Russian people made their own conclusion: the West was glad to see the Soviet Union fall, didn't help later, made friends with Yeltsin under whom Russia was weaker with the day, so it must have been that they were eager to see Russia weak. Remember I mentioned those concessions Gorbachev made? Well, that is because he was weak and a traitor to the Soviet/Russian case, and the same goes for Yeltsin and whatever developments he had to face (as if he could actually do anything).


 * Gorbachev himself said in a 2019 interview,

"The end of the Cold War was our common victory, but Western politicians, and above all the United States, declared themselves winners. It was trumpeted everywhere," Gorbachev said. "At the same time they didn't think: how it would be perceived in Russia by the Russians, who have done so much to end the Cold War and the arms race. And how it will affect politics and relations between Russia and the West - they did not think about it either," he stated. According to him, the West began to behave as if it is allowed everything - "to use force without the sanction of the UN Security Council, to violate international treaties, to impose its terms ... "In Europe, instead of creating a new architecture of common security, we have followed the path of NATO expansion and declared this alliance a guarantor of security on our continent and beyond," said the former president of the USSR. - In general, we have to state that Western politicians have not stood the test of the new era. This is the root and the root cause of the current problems.


 * Also notably, Yeltsin's successor Vladimir Putin, initially very pro-Western (something that's hard to believe nowadays if you don't know it), said this: "The biggest mistake our country made was that we put too much trust in you; and your mistake was that you saw this trust as a lack of power and you abused it." It may be hard to believe, but Gorbachev, too, supported the annexation of Crimea in 2014 for that very reason. This very much sums up how Russia came to think it had lost and explains why it is unhappy and explains the contemporary revisionism. (The story of why America is unhappy about thinking how it won is a bit more indirect and ambiguous and is a story for another time.) Upon learning more about this conflict, I found out that it wouldn't be right to put all the blame on the West, however; most importantly, there was the lack of a consensus within Russia (both the common people and the political elites) to integrate into a united Europe, something that greatly contrasts it from, say, Poland, or how Russia did not really attempt to show its neighbors from the former communist bloc that a Russian revanchism wouldn't emerge a few years later so that there was no need to rush under the umbrella of Western military protection (though arguably that's not the main reason why some of them did it), or how Russia didn't build a true market economy, and I could name a few more things that make the West not solely guilty for the modern hostilities and puts some blame on Russia, too. To answer the question in the beginning of this section, that's how we got where we did.


 * I was really interested in how we got where we did, and so I actively tried to both look at it both ways. As I said, there is this widespread feeling in Russia that the Americans are guilty for whatever misfortunes we're experiencing now. I generally don't like this view because it's such a convenient way to say that somebody else is to blame! So I actively tried to find some ways in which we have our own share of responsibility. I think people can make different choices and I've learned to not be quick to cast a judgment: it could be argued that the choices you do are the best choices that could be made, but I dislike it when people mean to say "I had no choice": if there was no choice, then whatever was made doesn't make you bear any responsibility for your actions. More interestingly, I have tried to imagine myself in the shoes of the American decision makers in this episode to grasp the complexity of the choices they had to face. The United States itself was not too sure how to proceed in this new world where it was the only superpower left, especially given that it had no desire to invest that much money into it because it was needed home (recall that Clinton's slogan). There were different opinions on whether the United States should be a world leader or a world hegemon. Clinton and Yeltsin proceeded as well as both of them perhaps thought they could, especially given domestic challenges. There was that a sense of friendship between the two; however, the United States is not limited to its president only and the same holds for Russia. Very broadly speaking, Clinton emphasized leadership, although hegemony was also at times reflected in American foreign policy (one notable event occurred in 1995, when United States' Western European allies were unable to handle a European matter in Bosnia by themselves and America came to save the day, and that was a small turning point of sorts, too, because it had been getting increasingly unclear to some European countries, particularly France, why they should keep an American hegemony over themselves when the Cold War was over, and here they could see why, and importantly, the American leadership also saw how and why they could do it) and his successor George W. Bush emphasized hegemony; it is that hegemony that is reflected in Putin's quote from the last para. I think Gorbachev is right that the West lacked strategic vision, but it's very important to understand that that's really a lot to ask for in any circumstance, and, again, it's not that Russia went through the 1990s much better itself.


 * As I said, I wanted to understand how things were (people often seek to validate their existing beliefs instead) and why they led where they did, and all of these considerations took me quite a while to process before I could understand it and my understanding wouldn't be one-sided. I don't generally don't appreciate it when people try to distance themselves from responsibility for their actions. Yes, there were people in the American elites who were willing to see Russia as the loser in the Cold War adrift and withhold the lifebuoy, but this a) wasn't the predominant view, and b) doesn't remove responsibility from Russia for its actions anyway. And 2016 showed me America wasn't immune to that desire to blame the their problems on somebody else so that you're relieved from having to face the problem, either, and this made me realize a lot.


 * Now, as for your comment on rendering the rivalry moot: this doesn't come as a surprise. You only pick a battle if you stand a chance of winning, and Poland (also a country of chronic insecurity about inviolability of its borders) must have realized that Russia was much stronger now. That is why the Poles rushed into NATO as fast as they could. There was also a particular episode in 2018 when the Poles tried to entrancingly shamelessly lure U.S. President Donald Trump into expanding military protection of their country by naming a defensive complex "Fort Trump"; it doesn't take much imagination whom they wanted military protection against, does it? :) it doesn't take much imagination to understand where these feelings came from, either. But you may be interested in this episode from 1993 that tells you the same:

Lech Wałęsa, the President of Poland, was not a patient person. When President Yeltsin arrived in Warsaw on a hot August day in 1993, Wałęsa invited him to a late private dinner. After midnight Yeltsin woke me up. He could hardly utter an apology for the late call and handed me a piece of paper with ragged handwriting and his signature. It was a last-minute insertion for the joint Russian-Polish declaration that had been prepared for a signature ceremony next morning. The paper endorsed Poland’s aspiration to join NATO—right now.dd


 * That episode did actually give a great momentum to the eastern expansion of NATO. Good for Wałęsa's cause. For the future of the European continent as a whole, I'm not sure.


 * I didn't know, however, that Poland was more afraid of Germany than of Russia. I recall hearing that the codification of the German–Polish border in 1990 was a big deal, but I didn't understand why. Thanks for sharing! (I did know, however, that the common Germans only accepted the loss of Koenigsberg en masse in the late 1960s).


 * I'm strongly considering following your recommendation after hearing some interesting lectures from Snyder on YouTube and your recommendation. These quotes are also very interesting. My knowledge on Belarus in particular is very narrow, and I'd love to learn more about the emergence of the Belorussian identity (one thing I particularly like about reading American sources on Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe is that they seem like a look from the distance, which both helps me contain my own bias towards or against what I read and allows to see the author's bias more clearly; I don't mean it in a bad way, everyone has a bias of their own). The book is easily available online, as I can see. But as I mentioned before, my current reading queue is still not done with (including your previous recommendation).--R8R (talk) 20:06, 18 May 2020 (UTC)


 * I just found a video that made me recall this discussion and what I wrote here. This video shares the story of the Cold War told from a Soviet perspective. And that's quite a delight because if you're only familiar with the Western/American story, it definitely gives you something to consider, but for me (I know both the American and the Soviet narrative, although the latter obviously a bit better) it's a good way to look at the perspective common here from the outside. The video at some points overly stresses some points to some comedic effect and, more importantly, to make sure the viewer doesn't miss the Soviet perspective here at the expense of some stress looking obviously forced. It does expose some American malefaction, and if you're only familiar with the other way to tell the story, it might be enlightening. Of course, it's important to remember that this cuts both ways, and you'll note that, say, the 1956 events in Hungary were not mentioned, and if you're curious what the common response to that here is, it's either "it was a tough standoff, everybody did bad things" or "we are insecure about our defense and couldn't keep a possibility of a hostile power at our borders." Neither response really captures why it is any more justifiable than what the Americans did in Cuba (if the problem is put like this, then of course there's a difference but without going into detail, that's a long slippery way, too). I could name a few more things like that, and the thinking could be extended well into the present, when people in both countries think they are doing the right thing and the other party is not in what is frankly very similar, often without being able to realize that. I by all means endorse the conclusion the author makes at the end of the video.
 * By the way, you may recall me saying that the Americans as a society carried a heavier part of the burden of the Cold War. I think the reason for that is that the Soviet Union was very secretive and thus it was difficult for the outsiders to distinguish between the Soviet state and the country it ruled upon. As opposed to that, the Soviet official story was that the American common people were suffering from the burden of rich capitalists who exploited them, too, so there was even some sympathy with the common American people. Nowadays, the Americans continue to struggle to differentiate because they still don't have a reason to do so but now in Russia there is no reason to differentiate, either, and given the poor relations at the time, the two countries presently don't think highly of one another. And things did change for a while when the narrative changed, and presumably it will happen in the future, too. I am particularly interested to consider what people think to see some perspectives I don't see myself. After all, even though they make many mistakes, it's important to remember that I make my own mistakes, too. You could learn a lot by trying to follow their way of telling a story rather than trying to prove yours is the right one. This observation is related not only to international politics, but also other topics, such as even the group 3 debate that prompted me to write this section to begin with :)--R8R (talk) 06:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 May newsletter
The second round of the 2020 WikiCup has now finished. It was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 75 points to advance to round 3. There were some very impressive efforts in round 2, with the top ten contestants all scoring more than 500 points. A large number of the points came from the 12 featured articles and the 186 good articles achieved in total by contestants, and the 355 good article reviews they performed; the GAN backlog drive and the stay-at-home imperative during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been partially responsible for these impressive figures.

Our top scorers in round 2 were:


 * Epicgenius, with 2333 points from one featured article, forty-five good articles, fourteen DYKs and plenty of bonus points
 * Royal standard of England (1406–1603).svg Gog the Mild, with 1784 points from three featured articles, eight good articles, a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews and lots of bonus points
 * 🇧🇼 The Rambling Man, with 1262 points from two featured articles, eight good articles and a hundred good article reviews
 * Harrias, with 1141 points from two featured articles, three featured lists, ten good articles, nine DYKs and a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Lee Vilenski with 869 points, Blason Gondor.svg Hog Farm with 801, 🇻🇪 Kingsif with 719, SounderBruce with 710, 🇺🇸 Dunkleosteus77 with 608 and 🇲🇽 MX with 515.

The rules for featured article reviews have been adjusted; reviews may cover three aspects of the article, content, images and sources, and contestants may receive points for each of these three types of review. Please also remember the requirement to mention the WikiCup when undertaking an FAR for which you intend to claim points. Remember also that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in round 2 cannot! Remember too, that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). 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 your name from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth. - MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Aluminium
I generally like the section on chemistry the way it is right now. So I just want you to write the lead section, and then we can go for a GAN.--R8R (talk) 12:22, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * (Now thinking about it. Should have something ready soon. ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 15:38, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I have indeed seen that there are more comments now; it's just that I can't respond quickly and my short-term priority is to complete a FAC review I committed to providing in exchange for a review of hassium. Once that's been dealt with, I'll turn my attention to your comments.--R8R (talk) 14:39, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Re border between Europe and Asia
I do think that Russia is European in every way except, perhaps, geographical. The general problem is indeed that nobody knows what to make of Europe if the concept is to be superimposed on political borders between countries. If this were just a cultural thing, then the borders used by the United Nations geoscheme, with the exception of Cyprus, would be very reasonable to me. From what little I know about Turkey, the general desire there to get closer to Europe was to enjoy the power of European progress in fields such as economics or technology, and some people liked Western European ideals too, and this was the opinion held by many in the Turkish elites. However, it appears that was never the predominant view among the Turkish people. For one, Islam remained a hugely important part of being a Turk. I was rather surprised to learn that many Turks today consider Ataturk a tyrant who recklessly violated the Turkish ways. Notably, even in modern geopolitics this shows, too: as I've read, during the creation of NATO as of a European alliance after WWII, those involved realized that adding Turkey into a European alliance was quite a stretch of the idea of Europe; what's even more interesting, Turkey, at least for now, has effectively parted ways with Europe, and their current leader Erdogan promotes the idea of opposition to the local ways to the Turks living in Western Europe. That would be compensated if Turkey were innately (culturally) European, but it's safe to say that is not the case.

I have never seen any particular ways of how the Transcaucasian countries wanted to think of themselves as a part of Europe, with the possible exception of viewing it as a beacon of progress, as in Turkey. The only exception I can think of is contemporary Georgia, and that is easily justified by the general insecurity of the Georgian people about their neighbors in addition to that beacon of progress thing. I don't think of any of the three as of innately European. Then again, my knowledge of Transcaucasia is even worse than that of Turkey.

And Kazakhstan never wanted to be European or thought of itself as such in the first place.

However, Turkey and the Transcaucasian countries are a part of the Council of Europe. This is not least because the thinking in Western Europe is that it's better to have neighbors who resemble them.--R8R (talk) 12:50, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I kind of used these as just examples: depending on your definition of "Europe" as geographical borders, they may be included. Some inclusions seem reasonable, some may be argued about, and some are just absurd even if they get in via literalism (that's why I mentioned Kazakhstan; it has a bit of territory to the west of the Ural River, but including it is plainly silly for the reasons you mention). Double sharp (talk) 05:27, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
 * My point is, geographical borders don't have all that much to do with the way people think of Europe. Cyprus is a prominent example, always being a part of the picture even despite not being geographically European. Geographical borders define a place, and, to quote French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, "Europe is not a place but an idea." (Unfortunately, I don't know the context to say if the quote suits what I'm saying but it definitely could be made suit it.) Geographical borders define a place, and, it's usually not about geography. Some people think it's about the European values, although you could reasonably ask whether the broad claim about these values being universally European is accurate. Or is it not? Depends on what you think of the very concept of the European values and its scope. In any case, this doesn't have much to do with geographical borders. The discussion wouldn't be too different if the eastern border of Europe was, like in the olden days, following the Don River. People would still be attracted or repealed by such a notable neighbor in the same manner. Any other factors (centuries-old cultural proximity, languages, etc.) would also stay the same.
 * By the way, check out the map of parts of Europe in Dutch Wiki. Not only does that definition include a part of Kazakhstan, but also a part of Iran! If that was the definition we used, would Iran try to be European a little bit or would Western Europe try to get closer to it? They would not, just as in the case with Kazakhstan today.
 * Maybe only for football. After all, it seems that Kazakhstan's interest in Europe AFAIK seems to be limited to joining UEFA. XD Double sharp (talk) 05:52, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * When I was writing that post, I considered mentioning that. Ultimately decided against it as it would run contrary to my point. But to that I would've said that Kazakhstan does not participate in the apex of the European civilization---the Eurovision Song Contest.
 * Eurovision was once a great contest (it was how Swedish group ABBA gained prominence, for example), but it's becoming increasingly silly in the last decades. I was looking forward to this year's contest, however, because Russia was going to be represented by something appropriately silly (here's the band's best-known song). Oh well.--R8R (talk) 17:50, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah, but Australia does, and it's even farther from Europe. XD Double sharp (talk) 03:26, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Geography doesn't matter all that much, but I brought it up in that discussion as an example of a scientific convention because scientists (in this case, geographers) couldn't leave it without a scientific definition. Frankly, our group 3 debate is not all that important, either (not to say it's not important at all), and it's still looking we're not going to leave group 3 without a proper way of making a definition, either. (You could say it is important, but for similar reasons you could also say that, say, defining Europe as a subcontinent of Eurasia, like India, is also important, so the example seems a good parallel to me. And if by any chance you disagree, then can you see the sincerity of me to try to stressing similarities that I find important in a question that doesn't have a crystal-cut answer anyway and if so, does it help to understand that Sandbh is trying to do the same, even if you may disagree with that?)--R8R (talk) 14:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you
I thank you for your contributions, and your prompt and courteous response. Sandbh (talk) 06:17, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. Double sharp (talk) 06:20, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
 * P.S. In order to avoid a certain duplication that I have noticed going on here (e.g. the arguments about the ground-state gas-phase electron configuration of La), I suggest organising the section by argument type instead of whether they favour La or Lu. That is, instead of talking about electron configurations under both places, have all the electron configuration arguments into one section. Double sharp (talk) 06:21, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

CVA
Thanks for adding these. There is really so much good stuff that is still 'in the wings'. I've taken up piano practice again during lockdown and have been enjoying 'Le Grillon' (Op. 60bis) which is both cute and witty and remains virtually unknown.--Smerus (talk) 11:05, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I like those nocturnes too. ^_^ I have likewise been reading through some of his music at home. It strikes me that even though Op. 39 is by now at least not too unfamiliar ground, the Overture from it is strangely underplayed... Double sharp (talk) 13:09, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 July newsletter
The third round of the 2020 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it into the fourth round each had at least 353 points (compared to 68 in 2019). It was a highly competitive round, and a number of contestants were eliminated who would have moved on in earlier years. Our top scorers in round 3 were:


 * Epicgenius, with one featured article, 28 good articles and 17 DYKs, amassing 1836 points
 * 🇧🇼 The Rambling Man, with 1672 points gained from four featured articles and seventeen good articles, plus reviews of a large number of FACs and GAs
 * Royal standard of England (1406–1603).svg Gog the Mild, a first time contestant, with 1540 points, a tally built largely on 4 featured articles and related bonus points.

Between them, contestants managed 14 featured articles, 9 featured lists, 3 featured pictures, 152 good articles, 136 DYK entries, 55 ITN entries, 65 featured article candidate reviews and 221 good article reviews. Additionally, 🇩🇰 MPJ-DK added 3 items to featured topics and 44 to good topics. Over the course of the competition, contestants have completed 710 good article reviews, in comparison to 387 good articles submitted for review and promoted. These large numbers are probably linked to a GAN backlog drive in April and May, and the changed patterns of editing during the COVID-19 pandemic. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). 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 your name from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:33, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Oganesson
Hi Double sharp. I was translating oganesson article to the Turkish Wikipedia and I have just realized that you made this edit on the infobox of the article. I reviewed the two sources that you have added. This one says "Therefore, one may spec-ulate that in the bulk Og becomes semiconducting or evenmetallic" and [ this one] (that you added with this edit) says "...Og should be metals..." in the abstract (I don't have a full access to the article, I would like to know if you have that, and read the related part to improve the Turkish article). So I couldn't see the part where it says iy may be a "metalloid" or "post-transition metal". Besides, the article seems a little bit outdated, I would be glad if you can update the article too with the new information had been provided. Cheers :)--Nanahuatl (talk) 21:39, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * It is not really said, but this is basically using the definition of the terms. "Post-transition metal" is pretty clear: if Og is a metal, it is one that comes after the transition metals. As for "metalloid": again, it's definition, as generally something that is only semiconducting isn't quite regarded as a true metal (viz. silicon, germanium, which Og should have similarities to). Double sharp (talk) 03:21, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explaination :) Btw, are you planning to update the article a little bit? Also, I have noticed that the "discovery reports" section is not really chronological. I don't really want to involve to the article in here, but just wanted to share my opinion. Also I think it's possible to give some details of the 2005 experiment, at least the main differences than the 2002 experiment. But it's up to you of course :) Cheers.--Nanahuatl (talk) 05:45, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, I see it still lists 2017–8 under future plans. ^_^ I do not have much more recent information about this, but I suspect they either did not happen or were unsuccessful (or else we would probably have heard about it). It seems that in 2005 the beam energy and target thickness was different (10.1103/PhysRevC.74.044602), which I have added. Double sharp (talk) 06:11, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Since I am not a chemist not it's my area, I would actually like if you share some recent sources with me, it you can't expand the article. Despite here it says "Going above Z=118 will require new beams (such as 50Ti or 51V) or new actinide targets heavier than Cf (such as Es)", I couldn't find any information about the experiment. I think we can remove that content if we can't find that it actually happened. And what about the experiment in JINR between 2017–2020? Do we have sources for that?--Nanahuatl (talk) 06:25, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Btw, the graphic on the first page of this article can be useful I believe, I will request a friend to draw it in SVG format so we can upload it to the Commons (it is public domain obviously).--Nanahuatl (talk) 06:30, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * It was planned: see ref 79, slide 18. As for the 2017-2020 experiment, they planned to repeat it in 2017-2018, but I cannot find anything about whether they eventually did or not. So I have removed the statements about the plans since they seem outdated. Double sharp (talk) 15:11, 3 July 2020 (UTC)


 * By any chance, do you have access to these articles?--Nanahuatl (talk) 05:32, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do. Double sharp (talk) 05:49, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Any chance that you share them with me, or related parts (can be via e-mail)? Only to expand the article in Turkish.--Nanahuatl (talk) 06:41, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Of course. Could you send me an email via WP? The form on WP doesn't give me the option to attach files. Double sharp (talk) 08:55, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Sent! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 09:00, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Super thanks :D--Nanahuatl (talk) 09:04, 4 July 2020 (UTC)


 * There is one more thing... Shouldn't the last paragraf of the "discovery reports" section (starting with "In a quantum-tunneling model...") be in the "calculated atomic and physical properties"? It looks like the paragraf is more about the properties of the element than the discovery reports.--Nanahuatl (talk) 09:13, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I've moved it to "Nuclear stability and isotopes", since this is about the nuclear properties.
 * (BTW, it's spelled "paragraph" in English. ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 09:18, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks like it's time to sleep :D Thanks for the helps.--Nanahuatl (talk) 09:25, 4 July 2020 (UTC)


 * A Wikimedian from Turkey had created this chart and he is working on another one, the one for oganesson, too. I wanted to let you know since I think that can be useful in the article. If there are another charts that you think can be useful in the article, please let me know :)--Nanahuatl (talk) 08:52, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Primordial hassium
Hi, I'd like to ask you to google something in French. So I found this book that says this:


 * Belli (2015) noted that searches by others for superheavy elements in Os, Pt and PbF2 established limit <10-14 g/g (25). A search for eka-Os (Hs, Z=108) was carried out in the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (France) 4800 m underground to suppress background from neutrons created by cosmic ray muons. It was expected that either the initial Hs nucleus or its daughter created in a chain of alpha decays will finally decay through fission. The average number of neutrons per fission is equal to 6 for hassium, very different from that for possible background of ≈2 from spontaneous fission of 238U. A 550 g Os sample was measured for three years. Few events with neutron multiplicity of >3 were observed corresponding to a hassium limit concentration of < 10-14 g Hs/g Os with the standard assumption that the lifetime of eka-Os is ≈109 yr.

Can you by any chance find the original report? I cannot find it in English; maybe you can or maybe it's in French?--R8R (talk) 17:39, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe this (pp. 35ff, English)? Double sharp (talk) 09:06, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * That's the right experiment, it's just that as of the time of writing of that paper, the experiment hadn't yet started. I am rather about its official results after the experiment has concluded. Surely something has been released if the book mentioned what it did, even if we claim otherwise in hassium?--R8R (talk) 12:46, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I have for the time being found this. I have yet to read it closely.--R8R (talk) 11:20, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Repaying Hurricanehink
Hi. I think that either of us (or both) should repay Hurricanehink for their effort to drop by at our FAC. I was wondering if you could do it? I want to do it myself, it's just that I'm not sure I'll be able to (though I'll most certainly try).--R8R (talk) 08:15, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

You did the right thing
My sincere congratulations on that. I've done a lot of stupid things in my life and it has taught me to at least try to keep my head cool even when I want all hell to break loose. Seeing you getting a better grip of yourself is a pleasant sight because I know full well what emotions that involves and that it is a better thing in the end. Glad for you.

I don't want to be clingy, but it genuinely seems to me that a good way to help yourself get over it would be improving Wikipedia. We could write an article together and I hope that would be something you could really enjoy right now :) in fact, if you feel like it, I'd not only like to to write the lead section of aluminium but also see if you have any other comments because I personally feel we're not that far from an FAC with it. So maybe you could either confirm my feeling or help me disperse it for the time being.--R8R (talk) 10:16, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think that is a good idea. Staying far away from the f block and group 3 for at least some time would probably help me get over it, and aluminium seems plenty far enough. So I will get back to writing the lede. Double sharp (talk) 11:31, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Navigation aid for Elements
Hi ^-^. Thanks for accepting my proposal on the new. Had there not been useful agreement this morning I was going to point out that the "blank under Y" idea is the worst of all possible worlds, as it brushes under the carpet one of the remaining discussions that need to be had. Also, common sense would say that a white (blank) cell there must logically mean "nothing to see here" (as it does in the upper part of the table) when nothing could be further from the truth!

As it is, my third suggestion is, I think, much superior. Your comment that we could have a footnote saying "The elements of group 3 below scandium and yttrium are disputed. Some tables put lanthanum (La) and actinium (Ac) in these positions, while others put lutetium (Lu) and lawrencium (Lr) there. Hence we show a compromise form with all lanthanides and actinides placed under yttrium, as does the current IUPAC periodic table." is of course the whole point of my choosing to make the Wikilink on the contentious cells jump to the discussion about Group 3 in the main article. It must be possible to modify the template so that the whole footnote, or a similar one, would come up if a reader hovered-over on the appropriate cell. If you know how to do that, please alter the current version 3 (no need to add 4-tildes and copy everything, just edit my existing draft). Likewise, if you know how to add a blank row between the main body and the Lanthanide strip, please do that, too, and redact my sentence saying I can't.

On a related topic, I took a look at German-language Neon and French Neon for their take on the same template: like us, they appear both in the element's infobox and at the foot of the article page. Interestingly, one is a Y-La and the other a Y-Lu (guess which!) and both versions have enormous hover-overs including pictures; that proves that what I'm thinking of as your footnote-as-hoverover must be do-able.

Final thought: it would be easy to fill in the template with eek-Hydrogen and eek-Helium in their less-favoured group 17 and group 2 locations, with no visible element name or wikilink but a hover-over that said (for hydrogen) "most organic chemists would put hydrogen here, as it behaves much more like a halogen in its organic chemistry than it does an alkali metal: think methane and carbon tetrachloride and good luck making carbon tetra-lithium." The only reason I didn't do that today is that I worried many would not realise this was a ;-) Michael D. Turnbull (talk) 11:29, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi! I've done what you asked to version 3; there's already a template for this kind of thing. Although I still have some feeling that it's not really my place to redact your comments. ^_^
 * Are those enormous hover-overs perchance Page Previews? Those show up for me only when I'm logged out (must be something to do with preferences, then).
 * Given your ;-) I have decided not to put the extra hydrogen and helium. So I will just answer you about carbon tetra-lithium: there are some papers from the 1970s suggesting that perlithiated organics are a thing, see 10.1016/S0065-3055(08)60126-4 and 10.1016/S0020-1693(00)89630-9. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 11:52, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the template changes! And yes, eek-H and eek-He are probably a step too far for now but worth bearing in mind. As you say, the page previews thing is odd. I currently don't see them when I'm logged in to English Wikipedia (as now), just getting the page titles, but when I look on foreign Wikis they appear - presumably because I'm not logged in there and it's something to do with default preferences. Thanks, also, for the inorganic chemistry lesson. I still won't be trying to put any CLi4 in a bottle! Michael D. Turnbull (talk) 12:02, 22 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Hey! I thought "don't be a dick" was one of your guiding principles. We don't need a re-run of the Group 3 debate in the discussion about a new navigation aid. I already know that you think the box below Y should say "Lu". The only issue is whether you will compromise with it saying "La or Lu", plus an explanatory hover-over as to why it does so and a click to an article (already written) about the issue. Michael D. Turnbull (talk) 15:16, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You're right. Sorry. I've removed the text. Double sharp (talk) 15:22, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Please, see your talk page. I answered there. Double sharp (talk) 16:07, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Actinium sesquioxide.jpg
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"Semihemidemisemihemidemisemihemidemisemiquaver" listed at Redirects for discussion
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Hassium
Hi. Can I ask you for your opinion on those first two issues Naypta raised at Featured article candidates/Hassium/archive2? I'll take any opinion you can produce, I just really need a third one.--R8R (talk) 19:06, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

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"8192th note" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect 8192th note. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 5 until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Regards, SONIC  678  16:26, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Removal request
At WP:DRN you wrote that I have:


 * "…repeatedly been misrepresenting the sources involved and engaging in original research in order to discredit any form but La, as detailed at the previous discussions."

Would you please remove this statement. WP:ANI is the place to address such alleged conduct, not WP:DRN.

On raising the dead at WP:ANI via the Flying Jazz controversy, an unpleasant historical matter which went nowhere and which was not subject to external consideration by e.g. WP:ANI or WP:DRN, a quick search of WP:ANI revealed your own record of misconduct.

Another way of saying this is that a referral to WP:ANI is one thing. When you refer me to WP:ANI, and you dredge up nonsense like that, in light of your own record of conduct, that is quite another (hurtful) thing. In future, if you would you like to raise a matter at WP:ANI I would prefer that you deal with the allegations at hand, not matters from several years ago. Sandbh (talk) 08:03, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * That 3RR record of mine seems to me to be irrelevant to the current situation, in which there is no edit war. Yours however seems relevant to me as it is the same problem of misrepresentation of sources in both years: 2014 and 2020. Therefore, in the interest of getting an outsider's opinion, I would prefer to have admins' opinion on whether the past issues are relevant or not by bringing them up in both cases: yours and mine.
 * I have struck the statement at DRN, making it clear however that I have done so out of considerations of venue rather than because I disagree with the statement I made. I have asked User:Beyond My Ken, who closed the ANI discussion, for advice on where to bring the issue regarding what I see as you misrepresenting sources. It has already been to ANI, where I was directed to DRN. Double sharp (talk) 08:10, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

 * Thank you! Hard to believe it's been eleven years already. Double sharp (talk) 06:22, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

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WikiCup 2020 September newsletter
The fourth round of the competition has finished, with 865 points being required to qualify for the final round, nearly twice as many points as last year. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants with 598 and 605 points being eliminated, and all but two of the contestants who reached the final round having achieved an FA during the round. The highest scorers were


 * Free Hong Kong flag.svg Bloom6132, with 1478 points gained mainly from 5 featured lists, 12 DYKs and 63 in the news items;
 * 🇮🇩HaEr48 with 1318 points gained mainly from 2 featured articles, 5 good articles and 8 DYKs;
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Lee Vilenski with 1201 points mainly gained from 2 featured articles and 10 good articles.

Between them, contestants achieved 14 featured articles, 14 featured lists, 2 featured pictures, 87 good articles, 90 DYK entries, 75 ITN entries, 95 featured article candidate reviews and 81 good article reviews. Congratulations to all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.

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. 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 keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. 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), Vanamonde (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:52, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Hassium scheduled for TFA
This is to let you know that the Hassium article has been scheduled as today's featured article for October 9, 2020. 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/October 9, 2020, but note that a coordinator will trim the lead to around 1000 characters anyway, so you aren't obliged to do so.

For Featured Articles promoted recently, there will be an existing blurb linked from the FAC talk page, which is likely to be transferred to the TFA page by a coordinator at some point.

We suggest that you watchlist Main Page/Errors from the day before this appears on Main Page. Thanks! Jimfbleak - talk to me?  12:40, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Descriptionism vs organisationism
Your essay reminds me of the contrast between descriptive and prescriptive linguistics. It also recalls the contrast between the originalist and living schools of US constitutional interpretation. In these situations also, there is a strong tendency for proponents of different views to talk past each other. YBG (talk) 07:24, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for reading it! It would be interesting to know which philosophy you have more sympathy to personally, BTW.
 * You may be amused by the fact that while I am most definitely an organisationist when it comes to science (at least currently), I don't feel strongly about descriptivism vs prescriptivism in linguistics. I mean, my general attitude is "prescriptivism is necessary because you have to phrase your thoughts according to certain rules to be taken seriously, but descriptivism is also necessary to study the language as it is being used". That's maybe amusing because an organisationist is likely to have prescriptivist tendencies and say "this is the one correct classification", whereas a descriptionist is likely to have more descriptivist tendencies and say "well, there are many that could be possible, but ultimately there's no reason to change something that works well enough". So naturally, to descriptionists organisationists are likely to sound like extremists who don't get that there are nuances in the world, and to organisationists descriptionists sound like they lack rigour. Talking past each other again, because they're judging each other by their own standards.
 * I think you will get this kind of "talking past each other" problem whenever people are starting from very different philosophies, don't know it, and think their interpretation is the only reasonable one. But look at me, generalising again like a true-blue organisationist. ^_^
 * P.S. Another amusement that didn't make it into my essay: the case of helium over beryllium. To descriptionists I suppose this looks like utter nonsense for a chemical periodic table, although it'd look all right for an electronic periodic table. The chemical arguments that organisationists who like it come up in favour of it, though, must surely have a distinct tendency to look like "He over Be is right because it is wrong" to descriptionists, because they are mostly about justifying helium over beryllium as the most extreme example of the first element in every column being the most different in properties. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 08:00, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Valence electron
Hi I see that you have made the table way more complicated in valence electron. Could we just link them to transition metals, lanthanides and actinides please. Now from the table one would not be able to see how each of them correspond to p-block, d-block and f-block. I'm going to change that to p-block, d-block and f-block I truly think the current table is too messy for me to complain here on your talk page. While I am a fellow lutetium-lawrencium group 3 guy I don't agree with your edits.--Officer781 (talk) 10:16, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * But that's exactly the problem. Talking about "lanthanides" and "actinides" is inaccurate because Lu and Lr do not have their f electrons as valence electrons (sources as given), but are respectively a lanthanide and actinide. That's a problem regardless of whether Lu-Lr or La-Ac is shown. Same issue with "transition metals" as long as WP chooses to colour group 12 as not a part of them. And same issue with the blocks, because the correspondence to the blocks is only there if the table is shown as Lu-Lr, because a La-Ac table claims that La and Ac are d elements. Unfortunately we wouldn't get consensus to show that as long as it's not the most common form, therefore creating this sort of awkward necessity if you want to count valence electrons. Anyway, I have removed the table entirely as I think it is clear enough if we just say that for transition and inner transition elements d and f electrons can be involved (without actually saying which ones those elements are). Double sharp (talk) 10:18, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Please stop. I have not changed my position and still feel Lu-Lr belong to group 3 but this is getting obsessive and somewhat disruptive. Now every page and every thing that has even the remotest link to Group 3 has to bend at the knee. We can't even have a proper table on valence electrons just because of our dispute on Group 3? Please. Give me a break. We really cannot go on like this.--Officer781 (talk) 10:25, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, if it causes this much drama even if I never mentioned anything about the composition of group 3 on the article, then I think it is not worth arguing about. So I've rolled back to the version before my edits + your edited tables and won't edit the page further. Hopefully this is fine with you. Double sharp (talk) 10:29, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry if I was too harsh. That page is a general introduction page for people new to the periodic table and valence. Therefore people who read that page ought not to realize there is even a dispute in the first place. Interested people should go to the respective pages if they want to know more and to read about which side is better. It's just not the right page and I don't think people who read that page even think about group 3.--Officer781 (talk) 10:45, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * That's what I tried to do by not saying what elements are in group 3, not mentioning blocks (because those are dependent on which elements are in group 3), and just listing elements. Still, if you think my version makes the dispute too obvious despite my attempts, I'll defer to your opinion. Double sharp (talk) 10:46, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Your version obscures the link between the blocks and the valence electrons. That's the fundamental problem. I did not even see the issue. I feel that only you saw it to be honest.--Officer781 (talk) 10:48, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, if you feel it's not important, I'll defer to your opinion. So I think we can agree on your original version, then. Double sharp (talk) 10:50, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure. Thanks! I nonetheless incorporated in the block in the two tables as I feel this is best. It brings out the correspondence even more. You pointed me to this so I have to thank you as well.--Officer781 (talk) 10:54, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, you're welcome. Maybe I'm trying too hard to not say anything about group 3 and making it too obvious by going too far the other way. So I'll leave you to these articles since you're evidently better at treading the line. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 10:58, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Nono, please edit the articles. I'm sorry if I have a wrong impression. Just that I felt annoyed that the Group 3 is eating into articles which are relatively unrelated. I don't WP:OWN these articles. I just got annoyed the dispute was intruding into unrelated articles.--Officer781 (talk) 11:01, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * No, I think it's better if I don't for now. I took a break from it for a month precisely to try to not have the dispute eat into articles, but I'm apparently still too sensitive to it, so I think it'll be better if I don't. Best not to edit articles when one has a strong opinion, because even when one tries to hide that opinion it becomes obvious like a photographic negative. ^_^ Anyway I have other interests outside WP and other articles on other subjects I can edit without this kind of thing happening. Glad we could resolve it this well anyway. Feel free to drop by for metaphorical talk-page tea anytime though! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 11:04, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Sure thing.--Officer781 (talk) 11:06, 18 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I see some terminological confusion on the valence electron page. Fluorine, for example, effectively has zero “valence” electrons (or one in a fluorine molecule). That said, it has seven outer sub-shell electrons. Chlorine OTOH has up to seven valence electrons as seen in Cl2O7.

The d-block runs from group 3 to group 12 but that is not necessarily the same as the transition metals, which we take to run from groups 3 to 12, as do about 50% of authors. Sandbh (talk) 11:50, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry to bother you, but could I request you discuss this perhaps on Talk:Valence electron or on Officer781's talk page? I've decided to leave the article alone and would rather not get new-message banners for it. Hopefully that's all right with you. You are of course welcome on my talk page anytime if it's about something I did or you want to talk to me. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 11:54, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

TFA
Thank you today for Hassium, saying "We return once again to bring you another superheavy element, after dubnium and nihonium back in 2018, and tennessine (then ununseptium) back in 2015. After the first FAC, we did some more work on the article (chronicled on the talk page), and I think we're ready to try again now. Hopefully this is a pleasant enough read for the subject matter while we sit back and wait for element 119 to reveal itself!"! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:40, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Double sharp (talk) 08:58, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Some apples left for you, with thanks for all the double sharp music. See my talk today for an expressive image. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:29, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh! Thank you so much for this! Now I feel bad that I haven't done anywhere near as much for music as I have for chemistry on WP...but I still love seeing your DYKs on the main page anyway! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 17:06, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Please don't feel bad ;) - this round of apples went to people recognizing the merits of Jerome Kohl, DYK? So music felt closer. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:03, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
 * And now I feel bad for not thinking of that immediately. ^_^ Thank you! Double sharp (talk) 19:19, 31 October 2020 (UTC)


 * now feel good --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:02, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks! ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 09:02, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * welcome ;) - birthday of two friends who play string instruments (bass and cello), pictured on my talk --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:16, 2 November 2020 (UTC)