User talk:Shreevatsa/Archive 4

(2011–2012)

Scientific notation
Try searching for "scientific notation" "college algebra" on google books. It does become less common for mathematicians who never work with numbers, certainly, but it's a standard topic in college algebra courses. I didn't write anything in that article, by the way, I just saw it on my watchlist because I had edited the talk page. For sentences in the lede, I think it's usually better to just rewrite substandard phrasing; the point of the lede is just to summarize the topic, not to make strong claims. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi... I know it's taught in courses (though I observe that many of the books I searched for according to your suggestion mention "calculator" nearby), but I don't seem to find many actual examples of scientists (especially mathematicians) using it in their work (i.e., not textbooks). I searched on Google Scholar for "scientific notation", but this (obviously) wouldn't turn up examples of usage but only of mention. I suspect that "scientific notation" is one of those things (like terminology about "mixed fractions" and "improper fractions") that are taught to students but aren't actually used by real mathematicians, but maybe I have seen instances of use and just don't recall them. Anyway, if it is really commonly used, it ought to be easy to find a reference that says so (though my attempts have not been good enough); hence the request for citation. Shreevatsa (talk) 14:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * What if we just remove the word "commonly"? Or, we could say that it's commonly taught in mathematics, science, and engineering. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:05, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, the latter seems very true. :-) Besides being commonly taught in mathematics, science, and engineering, it's also commonly used in calculators; that seems more a frequent usage than people writing numbers down in scientific notation. Anyway, it's probably not worth quibbling over this, so I've removed the "citation needed" tag from the article. Shreevatsa (talk) 20:47, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

2007 edit on Linguistic relativity

 * Moved back to User talk:PiCo

Ramayana
, really? &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  15:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Forget it, I got my answer at Indian epic poetry. cheers. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  16:04, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it's not history, but the Ramayana etc. are called "itihasa". The fault lies with the modern-day translation of "history" as "itihasa" rather than with anything else. :-) I don't think it's necessary to mention in the lead, though. Shreevatsa (talk) 16:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yup, figured that after reading the other article. But even otherwise, it should just be "itihasa" and not "Indian itihasa", right? The latter tends to give a "history" meaning as opposed to the former being more amenable to the "epic poetry" meaning. cheers. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  16:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

RFC req
I have seen you make edits to related articles and participate in mediation cabals. Would you be interested to share your views here : Talk:Ramakrishna Of course, ignore this request if it no longer interests you. Thanks. --TheMandarin (talk) 06:43, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Have you? I try to avoid controversial pages; that must have been when I was still a child, or in one of my unwise moments. :-) I've replied there, anyway. Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 09:43, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * LOL...But I remember you make to-the-point and neutral comments at the Hinduism mediation cabal. Thanks. --TheMandarin (talk) 15:07, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

 * Moved to User_talk:Ujjwol.    Shreevatsa (talk) 17:29, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Iyengar
I saw that you've edited the article before, can you look at the current edit war now? Normally we have one caste group fighting with another on these pages, but here it's the subsects fighting with each other about who's good and who's bad. And of course the standard genetics stuff from primary sources has found its way in too. cheers. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  06:34, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Ugh. Wouldn't want to to touch that with a ten-mile bargepole. :-)
 * How does one possibly handle these caste-related articles? The sensible thing to me seems to be to remove all the "good"/"bad"/genetics/criticism/praise stuff from the article, and protect it! Shreevatsa (talk) 17:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, you can't fully protect an article forever...most of these are autoconfirmed users, including the Vadakalai POVer who happens to ahve been here for longer than I have and the Tenkalai chaps are new, but will still slide by protection. And some of the sourcing is very dubious -- not necessarily the sources but the way the statements are interpreted. Honestly, I don't think we can do much about it until and unless the community at en.wiki realizes that the emphasis in "an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit" is on encyclopaedia and not anyone can edit which in my opinion is quite unlikely. At present, if you look at the caste articles in Tamil Nadu, every single one of them claims descent from one of Chola, Pandya, Pallava and to a lesser extent Chera. Statements from reliable sources saying that "the community claims descent from xxx" are used here to say "the community is a great warrior descendant of xxx". Therefore, the best content we'll find around here (especially as related to India) is on topics that don't interest the average internet revisionist. Enough for a rant now, I've just spilled yoghurt on my macbook and praying I don't have to get a new one -- the keys give odd outputs and I'm hoping it gets cured with some drying up! Else, I have to use this antique that I have until I can get myself to part with a grand! &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  18:49, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

K. V. Sarma
very nice article Decora (talk) 01:41, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks; scraped together whatever I could find on the net! :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 04:34, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Legends at Lodhi Rajputs
Greeting, I agree that legends are important; I did not delete them from Lodhi Rajputs due to any dispute of importance, but because they were entirely unreferenced. You've added a footnote to the first phrase, so I can't quite tell if the footnote is supposed to prove the whole paragraph or no.

I just have major concerns that Lodhi Rajputs is a self-serving article of pseudo-history, claiming Rajput Kshatryia origins for an agriculturalist caste whom outside sources describe as recently claiming, but not actually having, Kshatriya/Rajput ties. I don't have any personal stance, I just think it's very important to source such claims lest people come here to add unreferenced material to glorify or degrade one group or another. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:45, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Feel free to delete the part that's unsourced. Caste articles are not my area of interest (I edited this one because I'm interested in stories :p). (I suspect that what was written in the article originally was an existing legend, or at least one variation of it, is but unfortunately there hasn't been enough work in India collecting stories like these, so sources may not exist.) As you observed, most caste articles on Wikipedia tend to be used mainly either to glorify or degrade some group, which is why I find them so unpleasant to deal with. :-) You are right in your assessment that there's a serious problem. Shreevatsa (talk) 16:44, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Pavanar
Another fringe theorist, but a notable fringe theorist. We deleted a couple of stuff through AfD before, but this garden is another hotbed for POV pushing. WP:FTN may be a good place to get some attention. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  06:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

File:Date format by country.svg
Please correct this map. In this map Nepal is shown with Yellow which is completely wrong, color must be Cyan..Thanks  undefinedBill william compton  Talk   15:16, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I can help you edit the map, but I need the OK/confirmation from you to proceed. Hytar (talk) 21:03, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

To both the above: I am not the author of the map — I just noticed a mistake and fixed it. And I'm not the only one to edit it like this either. This is a wiki; feel free to edit the image, I guess. Shreevatsa (talk) 01:17, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Need help
Wotcher,

The articles related (esp. Chera dynasty) are being destroyed by a user, please help me to make it as before. (Rameez pp (talk) 11:53, 26 April 2011 (UTC)).

DYK review for Dhammapada (Easwaran translation)?
Hi, I remember you made good suggestions back in December for the "Did You Know" (DYK) submission of Kristubhagavatam. If you're around and get a chance, perhaps you'd want to spend 5-10 mins to review a DYK submission for Dhammapada (Easwaran translation)? I'm hoping it can run on Buddha's birthday, which is Tue May 17, but it's been listed at DYK for 4 days, and no-one's yet reviewed it, so time is getting shorter. If interested, you could see if it's still listed at Template_talk:Did_you_know. Thanks! -- Health Researcher (talk) 04:50, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * PS Don't worry, looks like it got taken care of (thanks to User:TheMandarin). Many thanks anyway. Hope you are well. Health Researcher (talk) 13:30, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Gita-Sargeant.pdf
 Thanks for uploading File:Gita-Sargeant.pdf. 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.  S ven M anguard  Wha?  14:38, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

File:Gita-Sargeant.pdf listed for deletion
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Gita-Sargeant.pdf, has been listed at Files for deletion. Please see the to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you.  S ven M anguard  Wha?  11:54, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Answer
— SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 01:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

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