User talk:Heron/2006H2

Mouth ulcer / aphthous ulcer Merger
Perhaps this article should be more appropriately titled "aphthous ulcer." I'm proposing that this page should be moved, since "mouth ulcer" is too generic a term for this condition. Andrew73 12:39, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
 * What other kinds of mouth ulcer are lacking from this article? I came here looking for 'canker sore', to be honest, not "mouth ulcer" and definitely not "aphthous ulcer", but if you can list other mouth ulcers that should be in the article, I might agree. User:BalthCat 2006.03.12
 * Perhaps we need both titles. 'Mouth ulcer' (UK) / 'canker sore' (US) could be an overview, with links to more specific conditions such as 'aphthous ulcer'. Most people who have an aphthous ulcer, or aphthous stomatitis, don't know that that's what it's called. --Heron 11:08, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It's been a while since you placed that comment, but I have made some heavy modifications to these pages could you please input your reaction to the changes to these two pages on preferably the Mouth ulcer page or secondly the Aphthous ulcer page :) thanks. I have pretty followed your suggestion, what do you think? I have had one user who thinks the changes could be contraversial. Thanks again (Bouncingmolar 07:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC))
 * OK, thanks for your work. My first impression is that the new structure seems to be an improvement, but there is still some duplication.  I'll have a closer look soon. --Heron 10:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Chevy Big block engine page change
Could you please explain what is meant by your recent addition to the Chevrolet_Big-Block_engine page, where you added: GM did, however, build a 396 2V, but only in 1969. There was no 396 version of the W-series, so it must be referring to the 2nd generation BB. This is further confirmed by the 1969 reference, except that the 396 was availiable for a number of years (as already outlined in the article). Lastly, I've never heard an engine referred to as a "396 2V" - I assume the 2V refers to two valves per cylinder... but that is no different than the W-series either, so I'm at a loss as to why that would be important. Thank you. Mrand 19:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi. I took that information from this comment on the Science Reference Desk: Reference_desk_archive/Science/2006_July_18. I did some checks to make sure that the contributor was making sense, but I couldn't check the accuracy of his claim. If, after reading that Ref Desk comment, you still think my edit was wrong, please tell me and I will remove it. All the best, --Heron 20:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I've read the comment and I'm afraid it did not make any more sense. So for the reasons I outlined above, yes, I believe that it is inaccurate. Regards. Mrand 01:28, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * OK. It's gone. --Heron 09:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Edison page
I don't see why you got rid of those criticisms from the Thomas Edison page. It doesn't matter if some of the stuff is the same as in another article. Articles are bound to overlap now and again and it doesn't matter if the information is repeated. Why would you bother rewriting a paragraph when there is a paragraph available which says exactly what needs to be said? The purpose of an encyclopaedia is to be a source of information and this purpose isn't averted by reusing information. Also, only one paragraph was the same, so by deleting both new paragraphs, you deleted a paragraph which would be in your eyes valid. You should stop whinging about repetition and deleting useful information. Owen214 05:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Owen. The stuff I deleted was not only repeated in another article. It was also repeated in the Thomas Edison article, above where you inserted your version. See the 'War of Currents' section (admittedly slightly shorter than your version, but most of the information is there, including the elephant), and the 'Work Relations' section, which has the same information about the Tesla incident as the paragraph you added. As for your 'Why would you bother rewriting?' complaint, that's exactly what we're here for. --Heron 09:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Theta Beta Potata
This article was first started by me and was deleted back in May '06. I was reading the punk house article and saw that the link for the TBP article was no longer red so I clicked on it and there was an article back up, started by another user. I dont know who started it because, it was deleted soon after I saw it. The decision made in the "Article for Deletion" debate should be reconsidered. The article is about a punk house not a fratenal organization. It seems that the debate, run by User:ChrisB and results were reported by User:Mailer Diablo. I will post this on their talk pages. This is the first time I have requested a deletion review so please let me know what else I need to do. If there is anything. I am on wikipedia frequently and I want to learn. Thanks. Xsxex 16:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd like to help, Xsxex, but I'm not USian and I know nothing about 'frats'. You would be better off contacting an admin who understands the issues. If you are really stuck, come back to me and I'll see what I can do. Anyway, it seems that there is at least a section on TBP in punk house, if not a complete article, so perhaps you could be satisfied with that. --Heron 20:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Rocket Stove page easier to find
The Rocket stove page which you started is now a bit easier to find. I stumbled upon it by chance using ALT-X, and have added a number of useful cross references. Wiki is very good at collating cross references so long as someone is bothered to put them it.

Tabletop 12:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Tabletop. Cross-references make Wikipedia better. --Heron 16:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Very late, but thanks
For fixing the typos it looks like I made on the Maarten 't Hart page, quite some time ago. Not sure why it took me so long to realise I should thank you for fixing my stupid errors. I often type faster than I can spell. Thanks! Edward Wakelin 00:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It's kind of you to say so. All the best, --Heron 11:26, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Technical communicator vocation?
I noticed your edit on Wikipedians/Technical Communicators. I'm curious what your vocation is and/or how you would define "technical communicator." I would love to have a full-time job editing sites like Wikipedia; do you know of any avenues that would make this a possibility for me? I'm watching this page, so you can reply here. --J. J. 00:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi JJ. Thanks for your interest. My job description is 'Technical Author', which is similar to the title 'Technical Writer' used in the U.S. 'Technical Communicator' is a wider term that includes technical writing - writing technical manuals, help files, magazine articles, publicity material - as well as technical illustration, web authoring, producing CD-ROMs, copyediting, indexing and so on. I work in a small electronics company, which also has a full-time webmaster. Other technical authors work for software companies, are self-employed or work for technical writing agencies.


 * As far as I know, there are two ways to become a Technical Author. The direct way is to take a college or university course in technical writing, and then look around for a publisher to employ you or set up your own business. The second way is to enter an engineering or scientific profession, build up the necessary technical knowledge, do some writing in your spare time, and then find a job as a technical writer. I started off as an engineer, so I naturally took the second way. Our webmaster did this too.


 * None of this may be what you want if your primary interest is editing: to do that, you would need to become a copyeditor. These people tend to begin by working full-time for a publisher in a general editorial role and then specialize later.


 * As you're in the U.S, you could try contacting the Society for Technical Communication, who might be able to give you careers advice. Best of luck, --Heron 10:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I really appreciate the thoughtful reply. I'll let you know how things pan out! --J. J. 14:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Postcodes
HI isn't it best that you list all the entries under List of postal codes in the United Kingdom rather than starting all these mega-sub stubs. Unless you are going to expand them?Ernst Stavro Blofeld 21:04, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, Ernst. I'm not sure. List of postal areas in the United Kingdom currently has wikilinks to some of the area codes (e.g. WD postal area) but not others, so I thought it would be nice if they all had links. I hoped that it might provide a framework for me or other people to fill in. I also wanted the Category:Postal areas of the United Kingdom page to be complete. If what I'm doing is harmful or pointless, then I'll gladly stop. Otherwise, I might just complete it for the sake of completeness. Regards, --Heron 21:22, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm certainly annoyed at seeing "aha, someone has made an article about Dudley postal area" and then seeing they hadn't. contentless stubs are bad, mmm-kay : if it had one sentence of actual information that wasn't obvious from the name this might be another thing.  Morwen - Talk 08:17, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Re:Postal areas
Hello. It wasn't until after I had marked the 2nd article that I noticed you had created a whole bunch of them. I'm not an admin, so I don't have the ability to actually delete anything. Do you plan on expanding them? If so, I will gladly remove the two tags I placed. --cholmes75 (chit chat) 21:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, Morwen and Cholmes75. I thought I might get around to expanding some of the stubs I created, but I underestimated the size of the task. I'm now going to delete them all. --Heron 15:57, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, hang on. I see that Morwen has started to add to the stubs, so they aren't linkless and contentless any more. I shall back off from deleting anything for the time being. It seems that the magic of Wikipedia - create a stub and somebody will expand it - is beginning to work. Thanks, Morwen! --Heron 16:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Image:Vir.png listed for deletion
An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Vir.png, has been listed at. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Fritz S. (Talk) 16:24, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
 * No objection. --Heron 17:24, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Image:Uk-devon.png listed for deletion
An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Uk-devon.png, has been listed at. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in its not being deleted. Thank you. —Fritz S. (Talk) 17:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

The Etymology of -logy
This is posted here because I think User:Heron is the primary contributor to the -logy article. As well, I have put this question on the Talk:-logy page.

Before coming to Wikipedia, I thought I had the correct etymology for -logy, based on my reading of an Analytical Greek Lexicon. It seems generally accepted that Biology, Anthropology, Theology and the like derive from the Greek, λογια (logia). But... does λογια, in turn, truly derive from λεγειν (legein), as the article suggests? My lexicon categorically states that λογια is the accusative plural of λογιον (logion), which means "oracle" or "revelation."

Both λεγειν (legein) and λογιον (logion) derive from λεγω (lego), which is the Greek for "I speak," or "I say," or "I utter" - so whatever the meaning is of the -logy disciplines, it still has very much to do with words. But... if my take is correct, the connection with the word for oracle or revelation intensifies that meaning ever so slightly: instead of "Biology = 'speaking about life forms,'" it would be "Biology='attempting to access the ultimate meaning about life forms,'" (or even "...oracles and revelations about life forms!").

Ancient people were fairly comfortable with what modern philosophers sometimes call "Platonic absolutes," and they thought all knowledge was merely accessing some form of ultimate reality. Hence, those who coined the -logy words might have intentionally meant to say that such disciplines were trying to learn about the ultimate, eternal meanings of the topic of study.

Would you care to comment?

Tony Harwood-Jones 21:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * λογια may well be the accusative plural of λόγιον, but the element under discussion here is the ending -λογία, not the word λογια. They are related, of course, but not identical.


 * According to the OED, the ending -λογία is derived from λόγος (word) in some cases and from λεγειν (to speak) in others. The OED does not mention the word λογια (oracle) in its -logy article. Partridge's Origins gives a similar story, and does not mention the word λογια either. The etymologies given by Partridge and the OED are comprehensive, and so there is no need to bring in the additional concept of oracles. I'm assuming that you have access to these works; if not, I'll try to summarise the relevant bits for you. --Heron 21:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the helpful clarification! In true amateur fashion, I didn't think of going to an English dictionary for a Greek word-source, but having turned to the OED, I recognize that -λογία was a suffix in Greek long before its migration into Latin and beyond.  Hence it is entirely reasonable to suppose that as a Greek suffix it never did convey the meaning of the whole word, λóγίον.  Indeed the OED reminded me that λόγιον itself migrated into English quite separately, becoming a word meaning "fragment of a religious text."  Wikipedia itself has a logion stub.   --Tony Harwood-Jones 04:24, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Anyway, it was an interesting idea. Thank you for asking. --Heron 18:22, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Anode / Cathode input requested
Discussion on talk page about changing definition, you have spent some effort on those articles your input would be appreciated.Jonathan888 (talk) 18:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Heron, what really rises in the anode has just been revealed below your last input to the electrode talk page ;) MichelJullian 16:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Very interesting. I had no idea about Faraday's reasoning, so thank you for pointing it out to me. I'll have another look at the articles, in case there are any statements that contradict what Faraday said. I just hope that nobody starts crufting up the definitions with references to the Sun! --Heron 18:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Tweaked anode def and etymology a bit cf history and electrode talk MichelJullian 16:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I did more tweaks there, cf talk page. Regards, MichelJullian 03:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Article in need of cleanup - please assist if you can

 * OK. I fixed a few things. --Heron 17:30, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Floods in Saint Petersburg
Thank you for copywriting of Floods in Saint Petersburg article! Geevee (talk|contribs) 16:48, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * You are welcome. Please carry on writing! --Heron 17:32, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Wind turbine
Sorry my writing was a bit long, thanks for helping me with it, I tend to write a lot. I look foward to seeing you. [comment left by User:rocketman116 --Heron 14:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC) ]


 * No problem. If you would like to create better articles, here are some things you can do:
 * Always list your references, either in the body of the article or at the end.
 * Always fill in the 'Edit summary' box, so that other editors will be able to track the changes you have made.
 * If you can, create wikilinks to important topics. This helps to make Wikipedia easier to browse.
 * --Heron 14:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC)