User talk:Pbsouthwood/Archive 3

Atmospheric diving suits
Peter, I have added a quote in the comments after the statement you User_talk:Vmenkov. Granted, Tonyt Loftas is not representative of all "science historians" who may have thought about the issue, but he does seem to be a knowledgeable science writer at least. You are welcome to reword the paragraph to better match the reference! (Incidentally, it would be cool to find a source more recent than the New Scientist article that I found yesterday... there ought to be some real historians of science interested in these suits!) -- Vmenkov (talk) 14:10, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Nudibranchs of South Africa - Wikiproject gastropods
I'm interested in getting in touch with you regarding South African species which are currently known by names originally from the NE Atlantic. Most of these identifications are likely to be erroneous.

BernardP (talk) 20:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Please feel free to contact me either through this talk page or via e-mail (see link in left margin).
 * We do have occasional contact with Terry Gosliner who updates us on local nudibranch taxonomy, but your information is likely to be useful and is welcome.
 * Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 04:40, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

TfDs of likely interest
Please see WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 October 22 (and the related WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 October 20), as the outcome will strongly affect WP:WikiProject Glossaries and MOS:GLOSSARIES. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:09, 22 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, noted. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 20:44, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia study- Thank you
Hello Pbsputhwood, I hope you remember speaking to me in the summer of 2012 about your motivations for contributing to the health-related pages on Wikipedia. The great news is that the study got published this Wednesday in JMIR (Journal of Medical Internet Research). You can read it here: http://www.jmir.org/2014/12/e260 This would not have been possible without your contributions so once again, I would like to thank you for taking the time and sharing your experiences with me. I also wrote an entry about my own experience with the study, about additional observations and how I plan to further extend my research - published in the WMF blog today: https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2014/12/who-writes-wikipedias-health-and-medical-pages-and-why/If you have any comments or questions please get in touch.Perhaps see you at the next Wikimania conference in Mexico! Best Wishes Hydra Rain (talk) 21:06, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I remember, albeit somewhat vaguely. Thanks for the update, I will take a look some time. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 21:33, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I have read the article, but the blog link is empty. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:49, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello from Vermont! I have a strange, snail-related question...
Greetings and salutations!

My name is Karin "Spike" Robinson, and I found your name from a list of biologists who might be able to answer my question on the genetics of snails.

About a decade ago, I had a tank of tadpoles, and found that I had six snails that had somehow got into the tank as well: five brown snails with thin eye-stalks, and one goldish color snail with triangular flaps on its head, with its eyes placed on the actual head. The snails all reproduced - including the lone gold snail, but after a few generations (I kept the tank even after the tadpoles turned to frogs), the brown snails died out and the offspring of the golden snail survived.

Since that time, there have been two major "die-offs" in the tank, one where only two individuals survived, and another one, about seven months ago, where only one survived.

1. My tank currently has about 100+ happy and healthy-looking snails, and I have some questions.

2. The water these snails were originally taken from was a mere puddle behind a dumpster at my workplace, so I assume that they were meant to live in the nearby grass or perhaps on the edge of shallow water but these snails are now completely aquatic, only venturing out of the water occasionally. Was I wrong about their original habitat, or have they adapted to the environment?

3. I recently learned that terrestrial snails, although hermaphroditic, cannot self-procreate. Is this true for my aquatic gastropod friends?

4. It seems to me that, even if the original ancestor had entered the tadpole tank already "in the family way," the genetic drift is still perilously narrow. Would it be, as I suspect, genetically irresponsible to release these fellows into the wild? Have I created a tank of monsters?

5. Is there anything particular I can do to keep my friends as happy and healthy as possible? They seem to love the leaves of a sweet potato plant most of all.

I thank you in advance for answering my slightly off-beat questions.

Cheers,

Spike

P.S. Here is a link to a gallery of pictures of my snails if that helps: https://www.facebook.com/spike.robinson.1/media_set?set=a.149006698491070.33681.100001452219456&type=3

thumbnail — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.169.132.60 (talk) 03:17, 15 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi Spike, I don't think I will be able to help with this - I am not an expert on snails, particularly not fresh-water and terrestrial snails, and know almost nothing about north American snails, or keeping snails in captivity.
 * It is unlikely that extensive adaptation to the environment would occur in ten years. More likely that the snails already had latent adaptation allowing survival in that environment.
 * I also doubt that genetic drift over this period is significant, however with two die-offs and ten years of isolation, the genetic diversity in your population must be relatively low. This in itself should not constitute an ecological hazard.
 * I would also be interested to know what "list of biologists" you found my name on. You might have the wrong Peter Southwood. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:42, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

DCS
Hi Peter, I think I understand what you mean by "ascent at ambient pressure" - that's whenever you're not in a pressurised vessel, I guess. But it reads in a very confusing manner if the text says:

""DCS most commonly refers to problems arising from underwater diving decompression (i.e., during ascent at ambient pressure, or from a saturation system), but may be experienced in other depressurisation events such as working in a caisson, flying in unpressurised aircraft, and extra-vehicular activity from spacecraft.""

I can see that you want to include the chance of DCS following an ascent in a pressurised vehicle, but is it common enough to fit in a sentence that is intended to give the reader a general idea of when it's most likely? I know that it's followed by some less common cases from different fields, but I don't think we do the general reader any favours by trying to include every possible way in which DCS can occur in the first paragraph of the lead. By all means expand the body of the article, but I really think the lead should remain a generalised summary of that. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 19:45, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi RexxS, I had no problem with the original, but someone else clearly thought it necessary to explain that decompressing meant ascent, which is strictly only partly true, so I expanded to include chambers. If you have reverted I wont argue, but it seems there are some who might. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 04:29, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Peter. The possibility of DCS following a scheduled decompression in a pressurised chamber as may happen in commercial diving, for example, is certainly something that could be discussed in the Causes section, but I don't know of a source that expands on that possibility - if you do, then it would be a good addition there. My point was mainly that the lead needs to be a summary of the rest of the article and should serve as a general introduction; we shouldn't be trying to present exhaustive information (hence the "DCS most commonly refers to ..." wording used). Cheers --RexxS (talk) 15:48, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There are protocols for dealing with decompression sickness symptoms during decompression from saturation, so it can and does occur, but is generally treated immediately by recompressing in the same chamber. I will try to find something useful. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:14, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 1
Hi! Thank you for subscribing to the WikiProject X Newsletter. For our first issue...

'''Has WikiProject X changed the world yet? No.'''

We opened up shop last month and announced our existence to the world. Our first phase is the "research" phase, consisting mostly of reading and listening. We set up our landing page and started collecting stories. So far, 28 stories have been shared about WikiProjects, describing a variety of experiences across numerous WikiProjects. A recurring story involves a WikiProject that starts off strong but has trouble continuing to stay active. Most people describe using WikiProjects as a way to get feedback from other editors. Some quotes:
 * "Working on requested articles, utilising the reliable sources section, and having an active WikiProject to ask questions in really helped me learn how to edit Wikipedia and looking back I don't know how long I would have stayed editing without that project." – Sam Walton on WikiProject Video Games
 * "I believe that the main problem of the Wikiprojects is that they are complicated to use. There should be a a much simpler way to check what do do, what needs to be improved etc." – Tetra quark
 * "In the late 2000s, WikiProject Film tried to emulate WP:MILHIST in having coordinators and elections. Unfortunately, this was not sustainable and ultimately fell apart." – Erik

Of course, these are just anecdotes. While they demonstrate what is possible, they do not necessarily explain what is typical. We will be using this information in conjunction with a quantitative analysis of WikiProjects, as documented on Meta. Particularly, we are interested in the measurement of WikiProject activity as it relates to overall editing in that WikiProject's subject area.

We also have 50 people and projects signed up for pilot testing, which is an excellent start! (An important caveat: one person volunteering a WikiProject does not mean the WikiProject as a whole is interested; just that there is at least one person, which is a start.)

While carrying out our research, we are documenting the problems with WikiProjects and our ideas for making WikiProjects better. Some ideas include better integration of existing tools into WikiProjects, recommendations of WikiProjects for people to join, and improved coordination with Articles for Creation. These are just ideas that may or may not make it to the design phase; we will see. We are also working with WikiProject Council to improve the directory of WikiProjects, with the goal of a reliable, self-updating WikiProject directory. Stay tuned! If you have any ideas, you are welcome to leave a note on our talk page.

That's all for now. Thank you for subscribing!

– Harej 17:21, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 2
For this month's issue...

Making sense of a lot of data.

Work on our prototype will begin imminently. In the meantime, we have to understand what exactly we're working with. To this end, we generated a list of 71 WikiProjects, based on those brought up on our Stories page and those who had signed up for pilot testing. For those projects where people told stories, we coded statements within those stories to figure out what trends there were in these stories. This approach allowed us to figure out what Wikipedians thought of WikiProjects in a very organic way, with very little by way of a structure. (Compare this to a structured interview, where specific questions are asked and answered.) This analysis was done on 29 stories. Codes were generally classified as "benefits" (positive contributions made by a WikiProject to the editing experience) and "obstacles" (issues posed by WikiProjects, broadly speaking). Codes were generated as I went along, ensuring that codes were as close to the original data as possible. Duplicate appearances of a code for a given WikiProject were removed.

We found 52 "benefit" statements encoded and 34 "obstacle" statements. The most common benefit statement referring to the project's active discussion and participation, followed by statements referring to a project's capacity to guide editor activity, while the most common obstacles made reference to low participation and significant burdens on the part of the project maintainers and leaders. This gives us a sense of WikiProjects' big strength: they bring people together, and can be frustrating to editors when they fail to do so. Meanwhile, it is indeed very difficult to bring editors together on a common interest; in the absence of a highly motivated core of organizers, the technical infrastructure simply isn't there.

We wanted to pair this qualitative study with quantitative analysis of a WikiProject and its "universe" of pages, discussions, templates, and categories. To this end I wrote a script called ProjAnalysis which will, for a given WikiProject page (e.g. WikiProject Star Trek) and WikiProject talk-page tag (e.g. Template:WikiProject Star Trek), will give you a list of usernames of people who edited within the WikiProject's space (the project page itself, its talk page, and subpages), and within the WikiProject's scope (the pages tagged by that WikiProject, excluding the WikiProject space pages). The output is an exhaustive list of usernames. We ran the script to analyze our test batch of WikiProjects for edits between March 1, 2014 and February 28, 2015, and we subjected them to further analysis to only include those who made 10+ edits to pages in the projects' scope, those who made 4+ edits to the projects' space, and those who made 10+ edits to pages in scope but not 4+ edits to pages in the projects' space. This latter metric gives us an idea of who is active in a certain subject area of Wikipedia, yet who isn't actively engaging on the WikiProject's pages. This information will help us prioritize WikiProjects for pilot testing, and the ProjAnalysis script in general may have future life as an application that can be used by Wikipedians to learn about who is in their community.

Complementing the above two studies are a design analysis, which summarizes the structure of the different WikiProject spaces in our test batch, and the comprehensive census of bots and tools used to maintain WikiProjects, which will be finished soon. With all of this information, we will have a game plan in place! We hope to begin working with specific WikiProjects soon.

As a couple of asides...


 * Database Reports has existed for several years on Wikipedia to the satisfaction of many, but many of the reports stopped running when the Toolserver was shut off in 2014. However, there is good news: the weekly New WikiProjects and WikiProjects by Changes reports are back, with potential future reports in the future.
 * WikiProject X has an outpost on Wikidata! Check it out. It's not widely publicized, but we are interested in using Wikidata as a potential repository for metadata about WikiProjects, especially for WikiProjects that exist on multiple Wikimedia projects and language editions.

That's all for now. Thank you for subscribing! If you have any questions or comments, please share them with us.

Harej (talk) 01:43, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 3
Greetings! For this month's issue...

We have demos!

After a lengthy research and design process, we decided for WikiProject X to focus on two things:
 * A WikiProject workflow that focuses on action items: discussions you can participate in and tasks you can perform to improve the encyclopedia; and
 * An automatically updating WikiProject directory that gives you lists of users participating in the WikiProject and editing in that subject area.

We have a live demonstration of the new WikiProject workflow at WikiProject Women in Technology, a brand new WikiProject that was set up as an adjunct to a related edit-a-thon in Washington, DC. The goal is to surface action items for editors, and we intend on doing that through automatically updated working lists. We are looking into using SuggestBot to generate lists of outstanding tasks, and we are looking into additional options for automatic worklist generation. This takes the burden off of WikiProject editors to generate these worklists, though there is also a "requests" section for Wikipedians to make individual requests. (As of writing, these automated lists are not yet live, so you will see a blank space under "edit articles" on the demo WikiProject. Sorry about that!) I invite you to check out the WikiProject and leave feedback on WikiProject X's talk page.

Once the demo is sufficiently developed, we will be working on a limited deployment on our pilot WikiProjects. We have selected five for the first round of testing based on the highest potential for impact and will scale up from there.

While a re-designed WikiProject experience is much needed, that alone isn't enough. A WikiProject isn't any good if people have no way of discovering it. This is why we are also developing an automatically updated WikiProject directory. This directory will surface project-related metrics, including a count of active WikiProject participants and of active editors in that project's subject area. The purpose of these metrics is to highlight how active the WikiProject is at the given point of time, but also to highlight that project's potential for success. The directory is not yet live but there is a demonstration featuring a sampling of WikiProjects.

Each directory entry will link to a WikiProject description page which automatically list the active WikiProject participants and subject-area article editors. This allows Wikipedians to find each other based on the areas they are interested in, and this information can be used to revive a WikiProject, start a new one, or even for some other purpose. These description pages are not online yet, but they will use this template, if you want to get a feel of what they will look like.

We need volunteers!

WikiProject X is a huge undertaking, and we need volunteers to support our efforts, including testers and coders. Check out our volunteer portal and see what you can do to help us!

As an aside...

Wouldn't it be cool if lists of requested articles could not only be integrated directly with WikiProjects, but also shared between WikiProjects? Well, we got the crazy idea of having experimental software feature Flow deployed (on a totally experimental basis) on the new Article Request Workshop, which seeks to be a place where editors can "workshop" article ideas before they get created. It uses Flow because Flow allows, essentially, section-level categorization, and in the future will allow "sections" (known as "topics" within Flow) to be included across different pages. What this means is that you have a recommendation for a new article tagged by multiple WikiProjects, allowing for the recommendation to appear on lists for each WikiProject. This will facilitate inter-WikiProject collaboration and will help to reduce duplicated work. The Article Request Workshop is not entirely ready yet due to some bugs with Flow, but we hope to integrate it into our pilot WikiProjects at some point.

Harej (talk) 00:57, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 4
Newsletter • May/June 2015

Hello friends! We have been hard at work these past two months. For this report:

The directory is live!

For the first time, we are happy to bring you an exhaustive, comprehensive WikiProject Directory. This directory endeavors to list every single WikiProject on the English Wikipedia, including those that don't participate in article assessment. In constructing the broadest possible definition, we have come up with a list of approximately 2,600 WikiProjects. The directory tracks activity statistics on the WikiProject's pages, and, for where it's available, statistics on the number of articles tracked by the WikiProject and the number of editors active on those articles. Complementing the directory are description pages for each project, listing usernames of people active on the WikiProject pages and the articles in the WikiProject's scope. This will help Wikipedians interested in a subject find each other, whether to seek feedback on an article or to revive an old project. (There is an opt-out option.) We have also come up with listings of related WikiProjects, listing the ten most relevant WikiProjects based on what articles they have in common. We would like to promote WikiProjects as interconnected systems, rather than isolated silos.

A tremendous amount of work went into preparing this directory. WikiProjects do not consistently categorize their pages, meaning we had to develop our own index to match WikiProjects with the articles in their scope. We also had to make some adjustments to how WikiProjects were categorized; indeed, I personally have racked up a few hundred edits re-categorizing WikiProjects. There remains more work to be done to make the WikiProject directory truly useful. In the meantime, take a look and feel free to leave feedback at the WikiProject X talk page.

Stuff in the works!

What have we been working on?


 * A new design template—This has been in the works for a while, of course. But our goal is to design something that is useful and cleanly presented on all browsers and at all screen resolutions while working within the confines of what MediaWiki has to offer. Additionally, we are working on designs for the sub-components featured on the main project page.
 * A new WikiProject talk page banner in Lua—Work has begun on implementing the WikiProject banner in Lua. The goal is to create a banner template that can be usable by any WikiProject in lieu of having its own template. Work has slowed down for now to focus on higher priority items, but we are interested in your thoughts on how we could go about creating a more useful project banner. We have a draft module on Test Wikipedia, with a demonstration.
 * New discussion reports—We have over 4.8 million articles on the English Wikipedia, and almost as many talk pages as well. But what happens when someone posts on a talk page? What if no one is watching that talk page? We are currently testing out a system for an automatically-updating new discussions list, like RFC for WikiProjects. We currently have five test pages up for the WikiProjects on cannabis, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and Ghana.
 * SuggestBot for WikiProjects—We have asked the maintainer of SuggestBot to make some minor adjustments to SuggestBot that will allow it to post regular reports to those WikiProjects that ask for them. Stay tuned!
 * Semi-automated article assessment—Using the new revision scoring service and another system currently under development, WikiProjects will be getting a new tool to facilitate the article assessment process by providing article quality/importance predictions for articles yet to be assessed. Aside from helping WikiProjects get through their backlogs, the goal is to help WikiProjects with collecting metrics and triaging their work. Semi-automation of this process will help achieve consistent results and keep the process running smoothly, as automation does on other parts of Wikipedia.

Want us to work on any other tools? Interested in volunteering? Leave a note on our talk page.

The WikiProject watchers report is back!

The database report which lists WikiProjects according to the number of watchers (i.e., people that have the project on their watchlist), is back! The report stopped being updated a year ago, following the deactivation of the Toolserver, but a replacement report has been generated.

Until next time, Harej (talk) 22:20, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

citizen science
Hi Peter, Thank you for keeping the Citizen Science Projects page up to date. It's not entirely clear to me why you keep editing SciStarter off the page, though. Can you help me understand or suggest another way we might add this important resource to the page? It's the largest source of citizen science projects so it seems fitting to include it on this page. Thanks for your insights. Darlene — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darlenecavalier (talk • contribs) 18:56, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Darlene, The correct procedure for discussing whether content is appropriate in an article is to open a discussion on the article's talk page, so I will copy your enquiry there, so other interested parties can contribute. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 19:21, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Test edit
Testing. 105.226.170.106 (talk) 12:13, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

ANI about User:Tortle
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Disruptive editing by User:Tortle. Thank you. sovereign°sentinel (contribs) 12:11, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Missed message
FYI, I received a notification that "Pbsouthwood mentioned you on the [Unknown probably deleted page] talk page in "Accessibility"." since this page was deleted, I didn't get the message :) Frietjes (talk) 14:21, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh well, if it has been deleted, your advice would not be needed. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:58, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Welcome!
Hello Pbsouthwood, and welcome to WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health! Glad to have you aboard. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. James Hare (NIOSH) (talk) 04:07, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi James, If you have any resources you think would be useful for articles on professional diving, you could leave me links, or if there is referenced content you would like to suggest for diving articles, leave it on their talk pages. I watch most of them. My experience is outside of the US, so don't have much idea of what you may have available, but as there are not many people working on diving articles, and, as far as I know, nobody from the US industry, there is probably quite a bit which could be useful. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:53, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Sonofaseacook replying wrt j-valves
Pb- Forgive me but this "chat" mode in the Wiki is new to me and a bit baffling. The remarks I made about J-valves come from speaking to USDivers on the telephone and email. They say bluntly that they no longer sell parts or valves to civilians, but only through their military/government dealers, because the military still requires them. I've had that information confirmed by divers and dealers who are first-hand members and suppliers to NOAA and the USN, but I can't give you any URLs to go cite for that. This is old fashioned first-hand knowledge, recently and extensively confirmed the old fashioned way. Perhaps you could simply add "Needs citation" to the remarks, until someone slogs through all the information that must be SOMEwhere on the web. Otherwise, forgive me but I don't want to start corresponding with the USN, NOAA, and OSHA in order to find citations on this. If you absolutely must have them, feel free to delete my edit, but PLEASE most strongly consider deleting the "obsoleted" remark, which similarly has NO CITATIONS to justify it. The valves are only obsolete to PADI shops and a few other civilian groups, who think they know more about diving safety than the USN and NOAA do. Not to mention OSHA, who of course have their own separate "third" agenda.

Whatever works for you. Just please try to consider, the original "obsolete" remark was totally unjustified and should not be allowed to stand unchallenged. The PADI shops may consider a J-Valve unsafe, but their alternative is to recommend the purchase of way more expensive, complex, and less reliable equipment. Which curiously enough benefits their bottom lines.

The USN and NOAA? Don't care about selling equipment, they care about proven dive safety. 98.211.159.75 (talk) 00:13, 25 September 2015 (UTC)09/24/2015

PS: On second thought, a simple web search will show the "XS Scuba" brand of equipment still making and selling J-valves, finished in matte black, which happens to be a finish only applied when the military specifies it. Also at an appalling price, which XS Scuba says is because they only make a small quantity--for those markets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.211.159.75 (talk) 00:16, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi, Talk page editing can be a bit of a learning curve for new editors. The software is not user-friendly. Firstly thanks for responding here and explaining where you are coming from. I will try to source your information because if I can it adds value to the article. Unfortunately your statements about where you got the information are unverifiable, and do not constitute a reliable source according to the standards of the encyclopedia. They are what is known as original research, and as such are disallowed (regardless of truth) because since we allow anonymous and pseudonymous editing, we cannot also assume that the editors are reliable. I have already added tags to indicate that the information needs to be sourced. What you have added to the article challenges the "obsoleted" remark, and unless I (or someone else) find a source for it, I will not replace it, and if it goes back it should be attributed to whoever made the claim, and put in context. I will search the US Navy diving Manual. If the USN requires them, it should be written somewhere in their official manual. Similarly for NOAA. I don't have personal knowledge of OSHA requirements, but do know of some public safety diver discussion groups where I can probably find someone to help. This will all take time and effort, and I was hoping you would be able to save me some of it, but it is not a train smash and I will look into it.
 * Some hints for talk page editing:
 * Don't start a line with a blank space. It applies a specific formatting which appears as a greyed block for that paragraph.
 * When you have finished your message type four tildes (~) to sign your username.
 * If you reply to a thread you can indent by starting your paragraphs with one more colon than the previous contributor, and you can go back and fix formatting of your own messages, but should not edit another person's message except in a very few circumstances (so I have not corrected your formatting).
 * To make a bulleted list put an asterisk as the first character (after the indent colons). Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 01:03, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Funny thing that, Same happens to me when I find you have been chipping in. Not that this is unique, but it doesn't happen that often with people I have known quite so long. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:24, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Such a cute photo !


Just wanted to stop by to say this is such a cute photo !

Thank you for your Quality improvement efforts to Wikipedia within the field of WP:MED, specifically decompression theory.

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 04:04, 14 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Her name was Amiga. Thank you for noticing. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:40, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'm sorry for your loss. :( &mdash; Cirt (talk) 11:23, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * No problem, she lived long, and well, and died peacefully, which is as much as anyone can ask for. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 13:44, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 5
Newsletter • October 2015

Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:

We did it!

In July, we launched five pilot WikiProjects: WikiProjects Cannabis, Evolutionary Biology, Ghana, Hampshire, and Women's Health. We also use the new design, named "WPX UI," on WikiProject Women in Technology, Women in Red, WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health. We are currently looking for projects for the next round of testing. If you are interested, please sign up on the Pilots page.

Shortly after our launch we presented at Wikimania 2015. Our slides are on Wikimedia Commons.

Then after all that work, we went through the process of figuring out whether we accomplished our goal. We reached out to participants on the redesigned WikiProjects, and we asked them to complete a survey. (If you filled out your survey—thank you!) While there are still some issues with the WikiProject tools and the new design, there appears to be general satisfaction (at least among those who responded). The results of the survey and more are documented in our grant report filed with the Wikimedia Foundation.

The work continues!

There is more work that needs to be done, so we have applied for a renewal of our grant. Comments on the proposal are welcome. We would like to improve what we have already started on the English Wikipedia and to also expand to Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. Why those? Because they are multilingual projects and because there needs to be better coordination across Wikimedia projects. More details are available in the renewal proposal.

How can the Wikimedia Foundation support WikiProjects?

The Wikimedia Developer Summit will be held in San Francisco in January 2016. The recently established Community Tech team at the Wikimedia Foundation is interested in investigating what technical support they can provide for WikiProjects, i.e., support beyond just templates and bots. I have plenty of opinions myself, but I want to hear what you think. The session is being planned on Phabricator, the Wikimedia bug tracker. If you are not familiar with Phabricator, you can log in with your Wikipedia username and password through the "Login or Register: MediaWiki" button on the login page. Your feedback can help make editing Wikipedia a better experience.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 09:03, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:05, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Decompression theory
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Decompression theory you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Spinningspark -- Spinningspark (talk) 16:01, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Reference errors on 26 November
Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. as follows: Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=User:A930913/RBpreload&editintro=User:A930913/RBeditintro&minor=&title=User_talk:A930913&preloadtitle=ReferenceBot%20–%20&section=new report it to my operator]. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:18, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * On the Decompression theory page, [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=692518536 your edit] caused a broken reference name (help) . ([ Fix] | [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Help_desk&action=edit&section=new&preload=User:ReferenceBot/helpform&preloadtitle=Referencing%20errors%20on%20%5B%5BSpecial%3ADiff%2F692518536%7CDecompression theory%5D%5D Ask for help])

Happy Holidays!


Ozzie10aaaa (talk) has given you a Christmas tree! Christmas trees promote WikiLove and are a great way to spread holiday cheer. Merry Christmas!

Spread the WikiLove by adding to any editor's talk page with a friendly message.

--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:21, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Diving cylinder
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Diving cylinder you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Pyrotec -- Pyrotec (talk) 21:20, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 6
Newsletter • January 2016

Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:

What comes next

Some good news: the Wikimedia Foundation has renewed WikiProject X. This means we can continue focusing on making WikiProjects better.

During our first round of work, we created a prototype WikiProject based on two ideas: (1) WikiProjects should clearly present things for people to do, and (2) The content of WikiProjects should be automated as much as possible. We launched pilots, and for the most part it works. But this approach will not work for the long term. While it makes certain aspects of running a WikiProject easier, it makes the maintenance aspects harder.

We are working on a major overhaul that will address these issues. New features will include:
 * Creating WikiProjects by simply filling out a form, choosing which reports you want to generate for your project. This will work with existing bots in addition to the Reports Bot reports. (Of course, you can also have sections curated by humans.)
 * One-click button to join a WikiProject, with optional notifications.
 * Be able to define your WikiProject's scope within the WikiProject itself by listing relevant pages and categories, eliminating the need to tag every talk page with a banner. (You will still be allowed to do that, of course. It just won't be required.)

The end goal is a collaboration tool that can be used by WikiProjects but also by any edit-a-thon or group of people that want to coordinate on improving articles. Though implemented as an extension, the underlying content will be wikitext, meaning that you can continue to use categories, templates, and other features as you normally would.

This will take a lot of work, and we are just getting started. What would you like to see? I invite you to discuss on our talk page.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

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

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:29, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

comparing metal density
I understand what you're trying to say but a kilogram is a kilogram. It would be better to compare density and volume:
 * 1 kg of lead equals ... cm3
 * 1 kg of bismuth equals ... cm3
 * 1 kg of tungsten equals ... cm3
 * 1 kg of stainless steel equals ... cm3

I don't have time to look this up right now.. -- DMahalko (talk) 12:26, 22 February 2016 (UTC)


 * , Why would it be better to compare density and volume? If I understand you are referring to the requirement for more mass of dive weights when the density of the material is lower, If not I don't get your point at all. My point is that for a lower density material the apparent weight in water is less per kg, so you need more of it, making the mass greater for the same effect. A kilogram is indeed a kilogram, and is a measure of mass. Dive weights are there not to provide mass, but to provide weight, and in particular, apparent weight under water, or negative buoyancy if you prefer. The buoyancy of the dive weights due to their volume is important as it is not providing a useful function, rather an extra burden on the diver out of the water.
 * The calculation is simple - it is the inverse of the specific gravity, which is given in the article. Stainless steel is close enough to iron to not be worth worrying about the difference.
 * Lead: SG=11.34, 1kg=1/11.34=0.088dm3 (88cm3)
 * Bismuth: SG=9.78, 1kg=1/9.78=0.102dm3
 * Tungsten: SG=19.25, 1kg=1/19.25=0,0523
 * Iron: SG=7.87, 1kg=1/7.87=0.127dm3
 * but that only gives the volume per kg, you then have to work out the buoyancy difference compared to lead, then adjust the mass to get the same negative bouyancy force, which I have done directly in the article, unless you claim my maths is wrong (which is possible).
 * Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:42, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Just checked my maths, it is wrong - I left out half the formula, so will check again and correct. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:09, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Density = mass/volume, so m = ρ × V

Buoyancy in water: B = (ρ - ρwater) × V × g

where g = (gravitational acceleration at earth' surface)

For two objects of different densities but the same buoyancy in water: (ρ1 - ρwater) × V1 × g = (ρ2 - ρwater) × V2 × g (g can be dropped from both sides)

V1 = V2 × (ρ2 - ρwater) ÷ (ρ1 - ρwater)

Also, for the same two objects in air (ignoring the buoyancy of the air): m1 = ρ1 × V1 and m2 = ρ2 × V2

by substitution: m1 ÷ m2 = (ρ1 ÷ ρ2) × ((ρ2 - ρwater) ÷ (ρ1 - ρwater))

so: m1 = (ρ1 ÷ ρ2) × ((ρ2 - ρwater) ÷ (ρ1 - ρwater)) × m2

And the same works with SG in place of density: m1 = (SG1 ÷ SG2) × ((SG2 - SGwater) ÷ (SG1 - SGwater)) × m2

And since SGwater = 1: m1 = (SG1 ÷ SG2) × ((SG2 - 1) ÷ (SG1 - 1)) × m2

Substituting values for 1 kg lead, iron gives: 1 × (7.87/11.34) × ((11.34-1)/(7.87-1)) = 1.044kg

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 7
Newsletter • February 2016

This month:

One database for Wikipedia requests

Development of the extension for setting up WikiProjects, as described in the last issue of this newsletter, is currently underway. No terribly exciting news on this front.

In the meantime, we are working on a prototype for a new service we hope to announce soon. The problem: there are requests scattered all across Wikipedia, including requests for new articles and requests for improvements to existing articles. We Wikipedians are very good at coming up with lists of things to do. But once we write these lists, where do they end up? How can we make them useful for all editors—even those who do not browse the missing articles lists, or the particular WikiProjects that have lists?

Introducing Wikipedia Requests, a new tool to centralize the various lists of requests around Wikipedia. Requests will be tagged by category and WikiProject, making it easier to find requests based on what your interests are. Accompanying this service will be a bot that will let you generate reports from this database on any wiki page, including WikiProjects. This means that once a request is filed centrally, it can syndicated all throughout Wikipedia, and once it is fulfilled, it will be marked as "complete" throughout Wikipedia. The idea for this service came about when I saw that it was easy to put together to-do lists based on database queries, but it was harder to do this for human-generated requests when those requests are scattered throughout the wiki, siloed throughout several pages. This should especially be useful for WikiProjects that have overlapping interests.

The newsletter this month is fairly brief; not a lot of news, just checking in to say that we are hard at work and hope to have more for you soon.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 01:43, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Decompression (diving)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Decompression (diving) you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Tomandjerry211 (alt) -- Tomandjerry211 (alt) (talk) 16:01, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Decompression practice
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Decompression practice you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Tomandjerry211 (alt) -- Tomandjerry211 (alt) (talk) 16:02, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of History of decompression research and development
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article History of decompression research and development you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of MPJ-DK -- MPJ-DK (talk) 13:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of History of decompression research and development
The article History of decompression research and development you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold. The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:History of decompression research and development for things which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of MPJ-DK -- MPJ-DK (talk) 11:21, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

GA Nomination of History of decompression research and development
Congratulations I have passed History of decompression research and development to GA status and done the updates to start the process it should soon be reflected in the article. I must say I was really impressed with the amount of work you put into this and the due diligence showing during the process, it was a pleasure working with you and the GA is well deserved. MPJ  -US 12:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you, this is a win-win situation, as the article is significantly improved. I would be happy to work with you again if the opportunity comes up. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:10, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of History of decompression research and development
The article History of decompression research and development you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:History of decompression research and development for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of MPJ-DK -- MPJ-DK (talk) 12:21, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, good to know. Thanks for your input. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 13:18, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Decompression (diving)
The article Decompression (diving) you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Decompression (diving) for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Tomandjerry211 (alt) -- Tomandjerry211 (alt) (talk) 22:21, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for you input, Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:46, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Decompression practice
The article Decompression practice you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Decompression practice for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Tomandjerry211 (alt) -- Tomandjerry211 (alt) (talk) 23:02, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your input. Cheers,&bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:49, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Pyle stop (Decompression theory has been accepted
 Pyle stop (Decompression theory, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created. The article has been assessed as Start-Class, which is recorded on the article's talk page. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article. You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. . Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia!  333-blue  01:04, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
 * If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the  [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Help_desk&action=edit&section=new&nosummary=1&preload=Template:AfC_talk/HD_preload&preloadparams%5B%5D=Pyle_stop_(Decompression_theory help desk] .
 * If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider.

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 8
Newsletter • March / April 2016

This month:

Transclude article requests anywhere on Wikipedia

In the last issue of the WikiProject X Newsletter, I discussed the upcoming Wikipedia Requests system: a central database for outstanding work on Wikipedia. I am pleased to announce Wikipedia Requests is live! Its purpose is to supplement automatically generated lists, such as those from SuggestBot, Reports bot, or Wikidata. It is currently being demonstrated on WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health (which I work on as part of my NIOSH duties) and WikiProject Women scientists.

Adding a request is as simple as filling out a form. Just go to the Add form to add your request. Adding sources will help ensure that your request is fulfilled more quickly. And when a request is fulfilled, simply click "mark as complete" and it will be removed from all the lists it's on. All at the click of a button! (If anyone is concerned, all actions are logged.)

With this new service is a template to transclude these requests: Wikipedia Requests. It's simple to use: add the template to a page, specifying,  , or  , and the list will be transcluded. For example, for requests having to do with all living people, just do. Use these lists on WikiProjects but also for edit-a-thons where you want a convenient list of things to do on hand. Give it a shot!

Help us build our list!

The value of Wikipedia Requests comes from being a centralized database. The long work to migrating individual lists into this combined list is slowly underway. As of writing, we have 883 open tasks logged in Wikipedia Requests. We need your help building this list.

If you know of a list of missing articles, or of outstanding tasks for existing articles, that you would like to migrate to this new system, head on over to Wikipedia Requests and help out. Doing this will help put your list in front of more eyes—more than just your own WikiProject.

An open database means new tools

WikiProject X maintains a database that associates article talk pages (and draft talk pages) with WikiProjects. This database powers many of the reports that Reports bot generates. However, until very recently, this database was not made available to others who might find its data useful. It's only common sense to open up the database and let others build tools with it.

And indeed: Citation Hunt, the game to add citations to Wikipedia, now lets you filter by WikiProject, using the data from our database.

Are you a tool developer interested in using this? Here are some details: the database resides on Tool Labs with the name. The table that associates WikiProjects with articles and drafts is called. Pages are stored by talk page title but in the future this should change. Have fun!

On the horizon


 * The work on the CollaborationKit extension continues. The extension will initially focus on reducing template and Lua bloat on WikiProjects (especially our WPX UI demonstration projects), and will from there create custom interfaces for creating and maintaining WikiProjects.
 * The WikiCite meeting will be in Berlin in May. The goal of the meeting is to figure out how to build a bibliographic database for use on the Wikimedia projects. This fits in quite nicely with WikiProject X's work: we want to make it easier for people to find things to work on, and with a powerful, open bibliographic database, we can build recommendations for sources. This feature was requested by the Wikipedia Library back in September, and this meeting is a major next step. We look forward to seeing what comes out of this meeting.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 01:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

LeMessurier and Hills pdf
Hi, I can send you a full text pdf of:


 * LeMessurier and Hills. (1965) Decompression Sickness. A thermodynamic approach arising from a study on Torres Strait diving techniques. Hvalradets Skrifter, Nr. 48, 54–84.

to fulfill your request at WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request. Please use Special:EmailUser to email me so that I can reply with the pdf as an attachment. Regards, Worldbruce (talk) 20:04, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Brian Andrew Hills (physiologist)
Okay I saw that you made Brian Andrew Hills (physiologist), which there is no page for Brian Andrew Hills, normally I would move this since its a unneeded DAB, but since it says in construction I have not, wanted to point this out to you. Wgolf (talk) 17:23, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * , Go ahead and move if you think it desirable. I will not be editing the article for a hour or so. Cheers,&bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:51, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Done! Probably should change the pages that he links to also (so the original can just be speedied for obvious reasons as a uneeded DAB). Wgolf (talk) 18:00, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Lian innovative
Dear Pbsouthwood, Hi. Thanks for your massage. I'm the owner on Lianinno.com.

Regards, Hadi — Preceding unsigned comment added by H fiyouz (talk • contribs) 19:58, 7 May 2016 (UTC)