User talk:R8R/Archive 8

Regarding firing pings
Unfortunately, I did not get this ping either, and only saw you had commented because it showed up in my watchlist. I think what you need to do to fix it is at Help:Fixing failed pings (although I admit it wasn't that intuitive for me for a while). Double sharp (talk) 17:32, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I read it but I didn't figure out, however, what was wrong in that case. I added a ping and I replaced an old timestamp with a new ~ . Thanks for letting me know, however, I'll know to fire pings differently in the future.--R8R (talk) 06:19, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

You have been added as a party to the Elements case request
You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Arbitration/Requests/Case and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. As threaded discussion is not permitted on most arbitration pages, please ensure that you make all comments in your own section only. Additionally, the guide to arbitration and the Arbitration Committee's procedures may be of use.

Thanks, Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 18:22, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
 * You have been added as a party to the case request on the decision of an arbitrator. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 18:22, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Arbitration case request declined
The Elements case request, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. For the Arbitration Committee, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 00:39, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Nomination of Introduction to superheavy elements for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Introduction to superheavy elements is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Introduction to superheavy elements until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 22:22, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Regarding how element articles should be written
Psssst, if either of us manage to have time next after Al, then not counting restoring the GA stickers for some transition metals, it strikes me that the halogens are not far from being a good topic. That is one group that actually shows a typical straight trend and is therefore guaranteed to result in usual English textbooks being not so wrong. At least until we reach At and Ts when I keep seeing something isomorphic to a belief in mystic runes of power enspelling the column to ward against all metallic tendencies, but obscurity means the main group article can do the G&E thing and mostly avoid talking about what is experimentally unsure to not pedantically clutter an overview. In other words, mostly talk about F, Cl, Br, I, and At when it matches only. The beauty is that since I is the usual carrier for At, then when At doesn't match I it is typically not as well understood, so the cheat matches well. ;)

F, At, Ts are already FA's thanks to you, I spam wrote Cl, Br, I GA's back in 2016, mostly from G&E, don't know if they fulfil my dream now of what an element article should look like though. And no one can deny they are important elements, and presumably their chemistry will not catch most sources in contradictions. Just a passing thought for now. Part of me is being a pessimistic sod maybe. ;)

Or if you don't like that, FA iron could be done first, no problem. The advantage is that it is the stereotypical TM.Double sharp (talk) 16:39, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I've had this thought in my mind for a few years now, yes. The problem is, out of those three FAs, only fluorine is a serious element. Chlorine and iodine definitely deserve to get bronze starts if fluorine has one. My style around here is to write complete articles, and in terms of Wiki quality grades, this almost inevitably means featured articles (I tend to think of anything below that as of incomplete work when it comes to my own writing), and three of them is a monumental task, not to mention that the main halogen article would also need a bronze star. So while I'd love to see halogens become a featured topic, this is a very heavy task that (given my limited activity) I'm not likely to achieve, at least not on my own, and I'd need to find a collaborator for that. This is roughly where my thinking stops since I've seen the metal triad as more important for a while, and I haven't got that much done with it yet, and no real opportunity has presented so far to shift my focus to halogens. You say you'll be busy, too, after all.--R8R (talk) 17:09, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, good to hear we had the same thought. Just a thought for now of course, I agree pretty much with all you said. Cl, Br, and I deserve to be FA's one day, but not now. ;)
 * I do still think there is some merit to the idea I used to have of GA-ing the whole table. I was trying to do it for a while; now looking back, we didn't quite do it, but we got darned close. Reason being that GA or close to it is something like the lowest level where you actually have a coherent article written by a few people, rather than drive-by additions, that is additionally well-stocked with references leading the reader to somewhere. In other words, anything less than that doesn't feel like a real encyclopaedia article. Now of course it's not complete at GA but at least it's something I wouldn't be too disappointed to find in a real paper encyclopaedia back when those were a normal thing to see. So I think, it was a good strategy when I had lots of time for WP. When I don't have lots of time for WP, then FAs only makes more sense, to make the most out of what you do have to spare.
 * Also, LOL but true at the distinction of serious elements. I think this is also behind where the thing I joked about wrt At and Ts came from. Nobody cares about non-serious elements except to gift questions about extrapolation. Or depending on taste questions about destroying the world. I also kind of wonder if any elements can really be called serious to the average person or even the average chemist today apart from the primordial ones (stable ones, plus thorium and uranium). Even plutonium (probably but unconfirmed primordial) is a bit like the mystical sealed secret power only accessible to the acolytes, LOL. But then again I think radon might be an exception? The combination of radioactivity, being an inert gas, and being a daughter of primordial radioactives, makes it oddly disproportionate in general interest to its half-life and it might very well be serious. I sometimes did wonder what the world would look like if the strong force was just a bit stronger and we actually had 118 stable elements all the way to oganesson. Might be interesting. Chemistry and technology might well be better off. But that is idle chit-chat as is most of this post. XD Double sharp (talk) 07:43, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Use of sources at WP:ELEM
Your input would be appreciated at. Thank you. YBG (talk) 21:28, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

WP:ELEMENTS in discussion at WP:ANI
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Current topic is open here DePiep (talk) 20:56, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for letting me know. I have added my comments there.--R8R (talk) 11:01, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Help request
Dear R8R, I obviously need help if, in my best endeavours, I'm facing the prospect of a topic ban. Not help in a mental sense; help in how to meet WP expectations sense. I'm obviously missing something.

Is my goose cooked?

Appreciate any help or support either could provide.

thank you, --- Sandbh (talk) 09:42, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

PS: I've asked EdChem, and DePiep for help, too.

I won't be online again until tomorrow morning my time; about 10 to 12 hours time.


 * Hello. I have a response in mind, and in fact, I have drafted one. Unfortunately, I'm leaving the city for the New Year celebration, and I lack the time to read it once again, see if I missed something, check the grammar, etc., and I can't post it right now. If the ANI still hasn't been resolved by the time I come back---which is likely January the second---I'll post it here.--R8R (talk) 10:50, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Things aren't looking great when it comes to my spare time. I can't reply now (it is, in fact, already January the third in my time zone) and I don't know when I will be able to do that... sorry to keep you waiting. I assume I'll be able to respond and you'll be able to reply even if the ANI ends before I publish my response.--R8R (talk) 21:19, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The ANI ended the way it did. I wouldn't have been able to display any consequential support, I'm sorry for that, but I can offer some help.
 * What can I say that EdChem hasn't said already? I think if there's a place to look back at, it would be EdChem's proposal to collaboratively improve periodic table, why it failed, and why Double sharp gave up (it was that, giving up). I'll be honest and say that when Double sharp resigned from editing and you responded by saying thanks, I initially read that as a smirk rather than a genuine response ("thank you for getting out of my way, good riddance"). I realized later that it was not what you meant, but I'm not sure everyone can be expected to make the same conclusion, and there have also been other instances of statements prone to misinterpretation. It would've been the best if EdChem's proposal had worked---so the question to ponder is, why it didn't.
 * I'll also note that I've made my proposal to take over the article when it became apparent to me that EdChem's proposal, as good as it was, was not going to work, and this was the next best thing---in fact, I thought it was the only thing that had a reasonable chance of working at that point, even if it, too, was far from guaranteed, I did signal that my intrusion was an emergency---it would stop the hot phase of the conflict at least, and maybe a new way forward could be agreed upon when the heads cooled, even if this didn't exclude the possibility that, say, Double sharp would lose the interest anyway in favor of RL issues. Neither plan worked, and you were blocked, and it remains yet to be seen whether there will be much improvement in the next few months.
 * My estimate, which you can also think about, is that you didn't single-handedly squeeze Double sharp and YBG out of ELEM and Wiki, but you played a significant part in that. My conjecture (which is, of course, as good as any other) is that Double sharp left because of a) his RL commitments, and b) the conflict in which he was a part of. You can't be blamed for the former, and it must have significantly influenced DS's decision, but you undoubtedly played the most important part in the latter (remember the giving up part). As for YBG, my conjecture is that he left because of all of those conflicts, which had a cumulative effect, and I'd say everybody, that is, you, Double sharp, DePiep, and I, has played their part in that, but again, you were the last editor, and YBG identified you as the person who broke a guideline in a way it hadn't been broken before. I have no opinion about that, but you probably don't need my opinion anyway: after all, YBG is a very respectable person, and while it could be he's wrong---he, in fact, suggested that himself---I wouldn't readily assume that.
 * While I'm at the topic of past that could've gone differently, recall the second ANI filed by Double sharp against you. I did want to come out to support you, but I didn't, not least because you made it difficult to make a position to defend you: a couple of times an editor threw you a lifeline, and I thought this would be it, but you rejected it, and I lost the ground for what may have been a case in your support. (Unfortunately, given that, this tban you got hardly comes as a surprise.) I'm mentioning this because this, too, represents something to reflect on in order to meet others' expectations.
 * If that's any consolation, I am very nonplussed by how things went last year, too, and my perception of my Wiki time changed a lot.
 * At this point, I can only suggest to review why things ended up the way they did and what could have been done differently to achieve a different outcome for Double sharp, YBG, and of course, yourself. I may not have all the answers myself, but since you were asking for help, it seems to me that it's for the best that I give you some pointers and leave the rest to you.--R8R (talk) 12:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps this little consideration can help digest what I just said: if you're the problem, then it's in your power to solve the problem, and if it's somebody else's fault, there's nothing you can do. It doesn't necessarily mean you should see yourself as a problem in every case, but if this one is important to you---and I'd say it is---then this approach is advisable. (I hardly told you something you didn't know already, but a reminder seems in order.)--R8R (talk) 12:34, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I meant to ping you, but as it often happens, I forgot.--R8R (talk) 12:36, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for January 8
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited History of the periodic table, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Nauka.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:35, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

PT colors development
This is to inform you of recent actions in the category-coloring development. No urgent action or advocacy is needed.


 * TL;DR
 * I am building taskforce ELEM/Periodic table graphics (WP:PTG). Technical base first. Basic set "2020" and your "R8R-2017" set are up. Proposals will go through WT:ELEM. Design process is complicated & interesting. No urgent action needed, but one could follow some pages and talks.

Hi, I am building the framework for a WP:ELEM TaskForce, called "Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements/periodic table graphics" (shortcut: WP:PTG). It should serve the many technical and design issues involved, like contrast checks. Also it should support the design processes, especially when that process is shared between editors. Already up are systematic color-set definitions and contrast-checks. Todo is the tough CB color-blindness checks base. So, that's technical support not steering ;-). The frame building has been speed up since got involved ;-).

Basic color set is the live "2020" set of course, a good reference point. From our 2016/2017 efforts, I have added your "R8R-2017" version, as one of the color sets to be looked at.

For now, I don't think any action by you is needed (no need to make perfect or update your 2017 set, for example). Discussing proposals & options is not at hand (e.g., needs CB check route first). Actual launch of the taskforce and proposals go through WT:ELEM of course. However. This design process, with many requirements and good-design aims, is a true human, interacting, creative thinking process. To get familiar with this is a mental growing thing not just bare facts & arguments (I am experiencing myself). For this thought development, one could follow it somehow (glance at the talks?).

If you want to follow this more than just by WT:ELEM, you could follow WP:PTG, "2020", "2018" and "R8R-2017" of course. Or ask me.

Have a nice edit. -DePiep (talk) 19:56, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi. Thanks for the notification.
 * I think, however, that it's a few days too early to do that right now. The reason for that is that there is a chance that we won't need a massive recoloring because we will no longer have ten categories. See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Elements for details.
 * Maybe we'll end up with having only four colors. I would, in fact, prefer that we only have four. This has nothing to do with the multitude of colors, but rather with the chemical meaning behind them; see the link in the previous paragraph for more details.--R8R (talk) 20:06, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If the chem/phys arguments go that way, or any way, color has to follow. For now, it is fun too. -DePiep (talk) 20:11, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If you want to have fun with picking colors, there's nothing wrong with that, of course. I wanted to point out, however, that whatever combination of ten colors (or however many we currently have) is produced on that page may not find its place in the article space. Once you know that, proceed as you like.
 * Two small notes: 1) the color set in my sandbox comes from 2018 (i.e., it's not the color set you didn't quite like in 2017), and 2) it's outdated anyway because we presently have one more category.--R8R (talk) 20:19, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I am actually & constructively respecting your input, then and obviously now. When you say ...you didn't quite like that is a gross misrepresentation, because you have cut out the context & arguments. Whatever diffs & context you produce for this statement, I know there are my arguments in there, not dis-likes.
 * I note that my content-only post here is deviated by you into invoking some personal issue. Not needed, not helpful. -DePiep (talk) 20:34, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * There was no ill intent behind my words. I didn't say anything that incriminated you of anything in any way I can think of. I merely meant to make a brief mention of that and there's that; I wasn't actively implying anything, either. Saying that you didn't quite like it doesn't imply you had no reasons for that other than your personal preference; it's absolutely possible to not like something and have a good reason for it.
 * Let's leave it at that: there was no ill intent behind my words, and I honestly can't find it even now.--R8R (talk) 20:51, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, Let's leave it at that (and enjoy WP:PTG, the "G" is wide ;-) ) -DePiep (talk) 21:21, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's WP:TPG of course, not "TP..." -DePiep (talk) 21:33, 8 January 2021 (UTC)