User talk:Salisbury-99

Welcome!

Hello, Salisbury-99, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 20:22, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * Tutorial
 * How to edit a page
 * How to write a great article
 * Manual of Style

Board game
Please look at User talk:81.156.248.136 for a reply to the message you (I think) left me. Also, let me know if you need any help in putting articles on your watchlist (or go to Help:Watching pages). Again, happy editing and I hope you like it here. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 20:29, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Questions
That was a lot of questions, so I'll try to take them one at a time.

First, the links I've directed you to in the above post are very helpful. You can also try WP:HELP for more information.

I have taken the liberty of creating a userfied version of your work on R. C. Bell at User:Salisbury-99/Robert Charles Bell. This way you can work on the article until it's ready to present to the Wikipedia community and simply change the name to make it a page in article space.

You are definitely allowed to create the article. Any editor can create any article. However sometimes they get deleted. There are editors who monitor new changes and nominate for deletion anything that they don't think passes muster. This is why it's best to get the article in shape in your WP:Sandbox (where it is now) first. You will want your article to survive its first deletion debate. Once an article is deleted, it becomes more difficult to get it to survive another one.

The standard for inclusion at Wikipedia is notability. There are different guidelines for different types of articles. I'm fairly sure that the relevant guidelines for an article on RC Bell can be found at WP:BIO or, possibly WP:PROF.


 * If I am allowed to create this article how do I ensure that the many references to RCBell are linked?

I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you talking about creating external links or footnotes or linking from other articles that mention Bell to the new article?

Regarding categories, I'm really not much of an expert. I believe that articles are not supposed to be in both a category and a sub-category of that category.

Regarding redirects, they're meant to help a user who types something into a search box find what he's looking for. This includes misspellings, different pluralizations, related terms for which there is no article, etc. If you think one can be useful, create it. They're seldom deleted, but if one is, so what?

Be careful how you mention categories in the text of a talk page the way to do it is with an initial colon: Category: Board games, not. Doing it the second way anywhere on the page will cause the page to be listed in the category instead of appearing in the text. Definitely a mistake on a talk page. Look here (scroll all the way down to the text as it originally appeared on my page and the categories at the bottom) to see the result.

Capitalization rules: The rule for both article titles and section headings is to capitalize only the first word of the title and proper nouns. In other words treat the title as if it were the beginning of a sentence and capitalize accordingly.

This should be enough to get you started. I'm going to create those redirects and make a few edits to the RC Bell article. I realize I didn't answer all your questions but this should get you started. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 17:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, one more thing. I saw the question you asked at User talk:Rindis. (He replied at his own talk page.) Take a look at WP:OWN. No editor owns any article on Wikipedia, and it's blatantly against policy for any editor to behave in a way that purports to be ownership of an article. Any editor is welcome to edit any article, and doing so is not considered improper rude or unauthorized. Of course, this will apply to the articles you create, as well. Now also look at WP:BRD (Bold, Revert, Discuss). This describes the process by which many changes take place on Wikipedia. It works like this:
 * First an editor makes a bold edit. (See WP:BOLD). If no one alters it, it becomes part of the article. Alternatively another editor may
 * Revert the edit. This lets the first editor know that he disagrees with the edit. The first editor will either abandon the edit or go to the talk page and
 * Discuss the edit, eventually a consensus is reached.

This is all part of the normal way we function here. A revert is usually not meant as a personal attack and is no reason to believe that what was reverted was out of process or inappropriate. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 18:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

sub-atomic particles - a brief summary
This is a simple and possibly over-simplified summary; those who wish to delve further should read more detailed articles.

The molecule is the smallest unit which possesses specific physical properties; it is made from atoms.

The atom is the smallest unit which can be obtained by chemical reaction; it is made of nucleons (both neutrons and protons) forming a nucleus with shells of orbiting electrons. Each of the 116+ elements and each of their isotopes has a particular and specific combination of neutrons, protons and electrons.

There is no complete theory of physics which defines and fits all the 100+ known and expected sub-atomic particles and the 4 forces into a single unified theory as at September 2008.

The well-known particles, Neutron, Proton and Electron, are currently calculated to make some 60% of the mass of the known universe. Therefore there are a lot of the other particles. The existence and behaviour of every identified particle and their relevant forces must be explained in order for a theory to be viable.

- - - - - - -

The 'lowest level' of sub-atomic particles has two groups: the Fermion (which has spin of 1/2) and the Boson (which has spin of 1).

The group of Fermions is made of 6 quarks (which have the Strong interaction), 6 anti-quarks and 6 leptons (which do not have the Strong interaction) and 6 anti-leptons.

The 6 quarks, 6 leptons and 4 identified Bosons are shown in this diagram.



The 6 quarks, (Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top and Bottom) combine to form the two Nucleons; these are part of the Baryon group which with the Mesons makes the family of Hadrons. Baryons are typically formed by a triplet of quarks. Many mesons are formed by the combination of a quark and an anti-quark.

The Lepton best known to the general public is the Electron.

The Boson which has come to public attention with the Cern experiments is the Higgs Boson. There is still uncertainty as to when or if the new experiments will detect this particle. If new and different particles are detected then new theories will be required.

Salisbury-99 (talk) 06:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Robert Charles Bell
Thanks for the message. If you really want to delete the article you can replace the text with Db-g7. However, I would give it a while and see if other editors can find anything to support his notability. Do you know if he taught any courses at a University? A bio page from a school might help.  Gtstricky Talk or C 18:23, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Board Games


A board game is a game in which counters or pieces are placed on, removed from, or moved across a "board" (a premarked surface usually specific to that game). A board game is a type of tabletop game which is a game and an entertainment. Board games involve two or more players, of which one or more may be a computer. A board game such as Peg solitaire is more correctly a puzzle.

Categories
There are a number of different categories that board games can be broken up into. The following is a list of some of the most common:


 * Race games like parchisi or backgammon
 * Abstract strategy games like chess, checkers, Arimaa, irensei or go. There are sub-categories such as mancala.
 * Wargames, ranging from Risk to Advanced Squad Leader
 * German-style board games, or Eurogames, like The Settlers of Catan or Puerto Rico
 * Word games, like Scrabble; many other word games do not require a board.

notes on Categories
The Race game category includes many games which have the requisite race-track but have other complicating factors.


 * Roll-and-move games, like Monopoly or Life although these have race game characteristics there are 'enough' extra factors which separate these from ordinary race games.
 * Trivia games, like Trivial Pursuit although this example can be categorised as a form of race game.


 * Other authors, primarily Murray and Bell, divide Board games into Race games, Position or Alignment Games, War or Hunt games and Mancala games. Bell also describes some Tabletop categories such as Dice and Domino as well as some Dexterity Games.

Go is clearly a Position game while Chess and Chequers are Wargames. The aggregation of these descriptive categories as Abstract Strategy is an oversimplification.


 * Wargames can also include miniature wargames and role-playing games. The lack of a fixed-format board can move them away from being board games to being tabletop games or the computer can be used.

''Interestingly, the majority of games ranked in the top 50 by BoardGameGeek as at late 2008 are of this nature. Go is the highest-ranked old-style non-trademarked board game in this list.''
 * German-style board games frequently involve city- or civilization-building, trade, economy, politics as well as collaboration, alliances and newer factors.

Alternative methods of categorizing
Number of Players

The huge majority of board games are for two players. There are some games for three players and many for four players. There are some games for more than four players and some games for which the number of players may be varied. As noted before, it can be possible for the computer to take the place of one or more such players. In the film Wargames the computer takes both sides of a series of two-player games.

Luck v Skill

Some games are based solely on random factors or luck, others require skill and strategy; the majority involve some combination of both factors. Most children's games are strongly luck oriented, for example Sorry!, Candy Land and Chutes and ladders. Backgammon, Risk or Monopoly have the luck factor via dice and cards but have the player able to make choices. A player may be hampered by a few poor rolls of the dice in, but over many games a player with a superior strategy will win more often. While some purists consider luck to not be a desirable component of a game, others counter that elements of luck can make for far more diverse and multi-faceted strategies as concepts such as expected value and risk management must be considered.

Luck is introduced to a game by a number of methods. The most popular is using dice, generally six-sided. These can determine everything from how many steps a player moves their token, as in Monopoly, to how their forces fare in battle, such as in Risk, or which resources a player gains, such as in Settlers of Catan. Other games such as Sorry! use a deck of special cards that, when shuffled, create randomness. Scrabble does something similar with randomly picked letters. Other games use spinners, timers of random length, or other sources of randomness. Trivia games have a great deal of randomness based on the questions a person gets. German-style board games are notable for often having rather less of a luck factor than many North American board games - ?!.

Knowledge v Guesswork

A further way to differentiate board games is to distinguish regarding the amount of knowledge available to the players is a factor. In Chess, all participants can see the location of every piece. In Stratego, it is the essence of the game that the opponent does not have that knowledge. This can change in apparently similar versions of a game. Jungle, for example, can be found in both arrangements with pieces open or pieces hidden.

Competition v Co-operation and Diplomacy

Only rarely are games non-competitive. But there are examples of an extra variation in game-playing, diplomacy, where players can make deals with each other. A game of solitaire, for obvious reasons, has no player interaction. Two-player games usually do not allow for diplomacy, with Lord of the Rings being a notable exception where players compete against an automatic opponent (see cooperative games). Thus, diplomacy generally applies only to games played with three or more people. An important facet of Settlers of Catan, for example, is convincing people to trade with you rather than with other players. In Risk, one example of diplomacy's effectiveness is when two or more players team up against others. Easy diplomacy consists of convincing other players that someone else is winning and should therefore be teamed up against. Difficult diplomacy (such as in the aptly named game Diplomacy) consists of making elaborate plans together, with possibility of betrayal.

Theme & Period v Abstract

There are many different types and styles of board games, including those, at the most-basic level, that that have no inherent theme—such as Checkers—as well as more-complicated games with definite subjects, or even narratives, like Clue.

The 'theme' can often be the period in which the game is set. This is a particularly significant factor in wargames. As the clock moves through the Pre-Roman, Roman, Dark Ages, Medieval, Early-Gunpowder, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, First World War, Second World War, Late 20th Century, 'modern', Space, Fantasy etc so the pieces, rules and options will vary enormously.

See also the section on Game Theory.

Common terms
Although many board games have a jargon all their own, there is a generalized terminology to describe concepts applicable to basic game mechanics and attributes common to nearly all board games.
 * Game board (or board)&mdash;the (usually quadrilateral) surface on which one plays a board game; the namesake of the board game, gameboards are a necessary and sufficient condition of the genre.
 * Game piece (or counter or token (or bit))&mdash;a player's representative on the game board. Each player may control one or more game pieces. In some games that involve commanding multiple game pieces, such as chess, certain pieces have unique designations and capabilities within the parameters of the game; in others, such as Go, all pieces controlled by a player have the same essential capabilities. In some games, pieces may not represent or belong to a particular player.

The main factors attached to a piece are its method of movement and its method of capture, although not every game or piece has movement and not every game or piece has capturing. (See also: Game mechanic: Movement) (See also: Game mechanic: capture)
 * Move &mdash;to be placed or to move to a square on the board.
 * Capture&mdash; to remove or alter the opponent's piece as the result of a valid move.


 * Space (or square) or hex &mdash;a physical unit of progress on a gameboard delimited by a distinct border. The hex reference applies to hexagon-based board games and so is common in Strategy & Tactics games and other related wargames.


 * Turn&mdash; the sequence by which players operate their pieces. Some games especially involving computers do allow for simultaneous moves.

History
Board games have been played in most cultures and societies throughout history; some even pre-date literacy skill development in the earliest civilizations. A number of important historical sites, artifacts and documents exist which shed light on early board games. Based on the evidence found prior to 1500BC, the consensus is that the majority of these games were race games akin to backgammon. Taking the riskier view, based on less complicated societies still extant, games such as Mancala and Morris may be very old. Some of these include:



H.J.R. Murray's 'History of Board Games other than Chess' [1952] pages 12 - 36 is a thorough summary of ancient games. In the intervening years some additional artefacts and ancient documents have been found. These include the game found at Burnt City which has some similarities with Nard and thence Backgammon, although it has only 20 points and there were 60 pieces found.


 * The Jiroft civilization (Egyptian) game boards [see picture].
 * Senet has been found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt, c. 3500 BC and 3100 BC respectively. Senet is the oldest board game known to have existed, and was pictured in a fresco found in Merknera's tomb (3300-2700 BC).
 * Mehen is another ancient board game from Predynastic Egypt.
 * Go is an ancient strategic board game originating in China
 * Patolli is a board game originating in Mesoamerica, and was played by the ancient Mayans.
 * The Royal Tombs of Ur contained, among others, the Royal Game of Ur. They were excavated by Leonard Woolley, but his books document little on the games found and do not speculate on possible rules or methods of play. Most of the games he excavated are now housed in the British Museum in London.
 * The Buddha games list is the earliest known list of games.

Timeline
new article required see also Years of Games

Recent Changes
The biggest change is the chip. This can be in a video-box, in a pinball machine or used to help with board games in a computer. The computer can act as a player, as a messenger to another player or as a scorekeeper. The production of any board games for the computer requires massive analysis of many games from which new results can be obtained. For example, the winningness of a game can be determined. Tic-Tac-Toe is easily shown to be a forced draw. 3-Mans-Morris is also a draw. It is another use of the computer that it can check with more diligence.

The computer allows the development of other games especially the 'shoot-em-up', the role-playing game and the wargame which go beyond the scope of board game.

It is unclear whether the computer has led to the relative decline of board games. Looking at the lists of new games published each year, there is no decline there although the actual number of sales of boxes may have declined <? where to check?>. Since the 1930s there have been few crazes akin to Mahjong or Canasta sweeping across the western world; but it is unclear whether this is due, let alone solely due, to the computer.

Some board games make use of components in addition to— or instead of— a board and playing pieces. Some games use CDs, video cassettes, and, more recently, DVDs in accompaniment to the game.

Psychology
While there has been a fair amount of scientific research on the psychology of older board games (e.g., chess, Go, mancala), less has been done on contemporary board games such as Monopoly, Scrabble, and Risk. . Much research has been carried out on chess, in part because many tournament players are publicly ranked in national and international lists, which makes it possible precisely to compare their levels of expertise. The works of Adriaan de Groot, William Chase, and Herbert Simon have established that knowledge, more than the ability to anticipate moves, plays an essential role in chess-playing. This seems to be the case in other traditional games such as Go and Oware (a type of mancala game), but data are lacking with regard to contemporary board games.

This comes across as fuzzy and incomplete.

Laverstock
Laverstock is a small village on the edge of the city of Salisbury in Wiltshire. It is on the Bourne river, one of the five rivers of Salisbury. It comprises the four settlements of Laverstock, Ford, Hampton Park and Old Sarum. The latter refers to the area around the Old Sarum airfield not the ancient monument.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, it was a small village of some 150 houses spread along the river. It is mentioned in Domesday twice and over the centuries has had a close relationship with the Clarendon Palace a mile or so away on the direct road from Salisbury to Winchester.

It is in a flat-bottomed chalk-stream valley. There are thought to be two derivations for the name. One being that it is 'the Stockade of Larks' from Anglo-Saxon 'laferce stoc'; the other being that it is on the 'River with the Reeds and Irises' Old English 'lavere stoc'.

As with many of the older villages in South Wiltshire, Laverstock predates Salisbury which was built only after 1200 when the town was moved from the site of Old Sarum. Surprisingly, Old Sarum camp was left outside the city bounds and put into the Parish of Laverstock until the 1960s when the expansion of the city claimed it. There are pre-historic and neolithic remains, Roman remains, Anglo-Saxon burials and Medieval pottery kilns. In the British Museum is a brooch of King Aethelred found in 18xx.

Old Sarum airfield is one of only two grass airfields extant from the First World War with a significant number of the relevant buildings extant. The airfield and immediate surround became a Conservation Area in 2002.

Asylum
Laverstock was the site of the famed Laverstock Asylum from the 1750s until 1953. This was

Clarendon Palace
see Clarendon Palace

No 3-D Mandelbrots
Hi! I saw your edit at Mandelbrot set that was quickly reverted. We exchanged some e-mails about this. I don't see what are "3-D enhancements" that you want to call invalid(?). That seems to be like shadow boxing that hardly belongs here but the situation changes if you can provide relevant and reliable sources for something notable. As a creator of the Multibrot set article I say that it is too simplistic to call varying the exponent "introducing a 3rd dimension" to the Mandelbrot. There is not a single solid 3-D model because at exponent values that are not integers there are multiple sets in the 2-D plane. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:28, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I must have misunderstood my workings. Altering the exponent value at all values that I have assessed does not cause multiple sets in the 2D plane. Each such variation can be seen as a 2D 'slice' and "stacking" the slices creates a 3D form. Look at the behaviour of the M-shape with p=1.999 =2.000 =2.001 =2.002 etc. Slide-shows are available which show the continuous movement of the shape.  All I am doing is stacking the slideshow.  How would you describe the resultant 'object'.


 * You may be seeing my description and my efforts to differentiate as a quibble but unfortunately many of the Mandelbrot artists call their designs "3D" when all that they have done is to add an effect such that one version of the coloring gives a shadow or hills-valleys effect. The actual 2D Mandelbrot shape is unchanged if not invariant under such coloring transformations. Salisbury-99 (talk) 14:20, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

James Thurber
I am somewhat at a loss to have 'Wonderful O' rejected when there are valid articles for Thirteen Clocks and other works. What is incorrect, unsuitable or otherwise wrong or inapt with the reference to a published title?? Salisbury-99 (talk) 09:18, 23 September 2010 (UTC)Salisbury-99

Sub Atomic Particles
In physics or chemistry, subatomic particles are the smaller particles composing nucleons and atoms by adding electrons. There are two types of subatomic particles: elementary particles, which are not made of other particles, and composite particles. Particle physics and nuclear physics study these particles and how they interact.

''Any brief overview using words is likely to contain simplifications of the incomplete Standard Theory. There is no complete theory of physics which defines and fits all the 100+ known and expected sub-atomic particles and the 4 forces into a single unified theory as at December 31st 2011.''

The elementary particles of the Standard Model include
 * Six "flavors" of quarks: up, down, bottom, top, strange, and charm
 * Six types of leptons: electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tau, tau neutrino
 * Thirteen gauge bosons (force carriers): the graviton of gravity, the photon of electromagnetism, the three W and Z bosons of the weak force, and the eight gluons of the strong force.

These add up to 25 particles (6+ 6+ 13) but there are also anti-particles for the quarks and leptons.

Composite subatomic particles (such as protons or atomic nuclei) are bound states of two or more elementary particles. For example, a proton is made of two up quarks and one down quark, while the atomic nucleus of helium-4 is composed of two protons and two neutrons. Composite particles include all hadrons, a group composed of baryons (e.g., protons and neutrons) and mesons (e.g., pions and kaons).

The molecule is the smallest unit which possesses specific physical properties; it is made from atoms.

The atom is the smallest unit which can be obtained by chemical reaction; it is made of nucleons (both neutrons and protons) forming a nucleus with shells of orbiting electrons. Each of the 116+ elements (92 natural and 24 others) and each of their isotopes has a particular and specific combination of neutrons, protons and electrons.

The well-known particles, Neutron, Proton and Electron, are currently calculated to make some 4% of the mass of the known universe (see Dark matter) therefore there are a lot of the other components making up the identified universe. The existence and behaviour of every identified particle and their relevant forces must be explained in order for a theory to be viable.

- - - - - - -

The 'lowest level' of sub-atomic particles has two groups: the Fermions (which have spin of 1/2) and the Bosons (which have spin of 1).

The group of Fermions is made of 6 quarks (which have the Strong interaction), 6 anti-quarks and 6 leptons (which do not have the Strong interaction) and 6 anti-leptons. The Lepton best known to the general public is the Electron. Each of the 24 fermion particles have -i- Electric charge -ii- Weak isospin -iii- Weak hypercharge  -iv- Color charge  and -v- Mass as part of their description. The 24 consist of 4 forms and 4 antiforms across three generations.

The 6 quarks, 6 leptons and 4 identified Bosons are shown in this diagram. The anti-particles are implicit.



The 6 quarks, (Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top and Bottom) combine to form the two Nucleons; these are part of the Baryon group which with the Mesons makes the family of Hadrons. Baryons are typically formed by a triplet of quarks. Many mesons are formed by the combination of a quark and an anti-quark. The detailed wikipedia schedule of Baryons lists nearly 80 and the Meson equivalent has nearly 100 more. Lists as such are not necessarily useful or meaningful. If each 'excited state' is treated as a different particle then the number can easily be increased 10-fold.

The Boson which has come to public attention with the Cern experiments is the Higgs Boson. There is still uncertainty as to when or if the new experiments will detect this particle. If new and different particles are detected then new theories will be required.

BLOCKED
Salisbury-99 (talk) 17:19, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You should be clear now, or so they say at WP:VPT. Peridon (talk) 18:32, 6 November 2013 (UTC)