User talk:Flying fish/Archive 1

Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
Thanks for answering the questions on the talk page ... could I encourage you to add appropriate wording to the article itself? Also, if you could create the article MSW effect, even if its just a few sentances long, that would be great! Last but not least, I think you might enjoy visiting WikiProject Physics and especially its talk page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics which is where the various physics types hang out and discuss. linas 16:50, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

greeting
here are some odds and ends that I find useful from time to time:


 * Policy Library
 * Utilities
 * Cite your sources
 * Verifiability
 * Wikiquette
 * Civility
 * Conflict resolution
 * Brilliant prose
 * Pages needing attention
 * Peer review
 * Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense
 * Village pump
 * Boilerplate text

Feel free to ask me anything the links and talk pages don't answer. You can most easily reach me by posting on my talk page.

Best of luck, and have fun!

ClockworkSoul 03:07, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Dreadful Harper
I agree that misuse wasn't the correct term, but I also think dreadful is a bit strong. Perhaps "serious misuse of funds," or maybe we expand that section and give a clearer description of the affair, rather than try an compress it into only a few words.- SimonP 21:14, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Re UPenn
First of i think you for your honesty in the matter of the posting. I was not aware of your writing on the subjects previous to your post, though i am aware of your contributions to the Penn article, of which i can not say anything in the negative. While i have no problems with a section that mentions criticisms of the institutions, i am in no way affiliated with Penn, i do have my reservations of critical aspects being entered int the articles. To often i believe that criticisms is entered into an article, even with writers best intentions, that is less then neutral or biased towards one point of view. Also writers are to quick to add criticisms, which can easily be applied to any article, in lue of the remainder of the content of articles, some of which have critical areas which are larger then rest of the content of the article combined, just my opinions though. I am leary to add critical sections, but i am not going to say no. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 06:54, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
 * well i am glad to see that we see eye to eye on many of these issues, as for the honesty comment, their are many here that hide behind the anon to make points or push an adjenda. Eitherway i was say go for it, i think they way that you have proposed to add the information seems like a good way to go, just a matter of seeing the finished product. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 23:21, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Curious if you would also be willing to help to clen up the article as well, from the addations of annons, the page has/had this distinctive rah-rah flow to it, akin to what one would see in a promotional guide of something. I have shook it up a bit, for now, and will progressively make other edits as i go along, but extra hands, becides that of the annons would be nice. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 08:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Well i went ahead and started some changes, also marked the article for cleanup (see if anyone else comes by to help). I did remove the list of majors, i agree and i don't see it necessary myself, though i would consider if for possible addition at a later time. As for the edits by the anon, i believe it to be be nothing more then a sock of the user Jawed (both accounts have the same mo). And while i agree that the ra-ra'ing of any institute in unneeded, the rational that Jawed uses is nothing more then flawed (he seems to mistake prestige for name reconigition "(FYI: this institution is almost 100% unknown outside of the US)"). Well edit when you get a chance, I'll try to see what i can do in the mean time. As for a standard to go by, i don't know as of yet, but you might want to look at Stanford University or Johns Hopkins University. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 07:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Wetaskiwin, Alberta coor
The coordinates you gave (52.91667°N, -113.4°W) ar quite a bit off, the ones in the infobox (52.96947°N, -113.37697°W) seem more to the point. Try using the type or scale attribute in the coor template too, it does help Here's a list of parameters. Cheers. Qyd (talk)07:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I didn't see it in the infobox, do you think it's kind of redundant in the page?Flying fish 19:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It became standard in the infobox; I would normally add  , so it shows up in the upper right corner of the page too (this is a rather new and controversed format). Qyd (talk)23:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: Neutrino oscillations
Re: your message on my talk page about my edits of Neutrino oscillations: don't worry, I won't be deleting any sections, just moving them around the page a little. I've changed my mind about moving the observations section down; it will be back up at the top of the page once I save the edit in progress.

I will make sure that any changes you've made to the page during my editing will be included in the final version, but you may want to hold off editing that page for a short time (max an hour) until I've finished.

Thanks. Mike Peel 20:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

super kamiokande edits
Hi, I strongly suggest that you edit the article in-place, rather than in a sandbox, especially when making large changes. It makes it somwhat easier to understand the changes. If you are worried about conflicts iwth other editros, you can place an tag in the article while you are working on it (however, you don't want to leave that tag in there for more tha a day). linas 00:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I did a very very quick skim of your draft. A few stylistic comments: the first few sentances of every WP article should resemble, for example, something like "In physics, the Kamiokande is a neutrino observatory....". The immediate impression is that you are writing in a rather informal style, as if this was a magazine article for a pop-science magazine. It is not, its an encyclopedia, a reference work, that will be read by both teenagers and neutrino pysicists. Don't baby-talk, don't talk down; being clear and to the point is what's needed (My apologies, I struck that out, after a second quick skim of the material). I'm not sure, you may be interested in writing an article titled history of neutrino physics or just plain neutrino physics to give an overview of the topic. Yes, after a second quick skim, a fair amount of the content might be more suitably moved to a generic article (viz. neutrino physics) linas 00:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm going to answer on your page, when I should technically answer on mine, and tell you to look there :). Anyway, thats fine, but do keep in mind that WP articles do not have to be perfect in the first draft. Many, nay, the vast, overwhelming majority are incomplete, lop-sided, and offer only the most abbreviated treatment about their subject matter. Physics articles in particular are in a horrid disarray. Thus .. don't panic! Taking what you have, cutting out the Kamiokande bits, and placing it into neutrino physics may indeed result in an incomplete and lop-sided article, but that would still be better than nothing at all. And the other thing to do is to trust in the magic of wikipedia: someday, next week, next month, next year, someone will come by, and expand it a bit, or expand it a lot, and fix the errors, fill in the missing pieces. Writing for WP is utterly unlike writing for a journal: there is no pressure to get it done, to finish it. When you get bored, you can put it down, unfinished. Writing can be utterly incremental, can can be enjoyed for its own sake, as a process, rather than obsession with the finished product. linas 04:34, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Astigmatism
How did you arrive at the classification of astigmatism as being of "top" importance within physics? While it's clearly important in optics, it isn't so important in the broader field of physics. For comparison, I note that focal length is only rated "high" in importance.--Srleffler 23:56, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I rated it based on "Subject is a must-have for a print encyclopaedia". I thought the goal was not to rate the relative importance within physics, but rather the relative importance within the wikipedia.  If I'm wrong about that please let me know.  As another example I would have rated asymptotic freedom as "high" if I was just thinking about physics, but since I was considering it in the context of a non-specialists encyclopedia I rated it "mid".  Flying fish 00:12, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I just looked back and saw "in physics" in italics. Sorry about that, although I do think that it's fairly weird to do it that way... Flying fish 00:14, 27 February 2007 (UTC)