Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Measurement/Archive 3

Newton Metre (or meter as per US) and Meter inverse vs Second inverse
N-m is for Torque as well as Energy too. Should not that too be added in the table? second inverse is there in table of "Named units derived from SI base units" and

metre inverse is names in table of "Some SI derived units" Why so? both of them should be in a same table, isn't it? And then also "Angular Frequency" is also missing in the table (second inverse) thanks! ~" aGastya "  &#9993; let’s talk about it  :) 14:54, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * What article are you referring to? Jc3s5h (talk) 16:13, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I think User:Acagastya is referring to the second table in SI derived units. Nm is not used for energy, for that we have the dimensionally equivalent unit joule which can be found in the table of named units. Hz or inverse second is in the named units table because it has its own name contrary to inverse meter. Angular velocity, the vector equivalent of angular frequency, with the same unit rad/s is in the table. Ulflund (talk) 17:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

at least those (s inverse quantities) should be in the table of "examples of derived quantities and units" as they don't have derived names! isn't it @User:Ulflund? Because i meant to say that meter inverse is there in 2nd table; secont inverse should also be there ~" aGastya "  &#9993; let’s talk about it  :) 06:10, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * 1/s shouldn't be in the table since it is the same as Hz which is in the table above. rad/s is already in the table, but maybe it could link to angular frequency as well as angular velocity. Ulflund (talk) 06:47, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

energy and torque both have same dimensional formula but still you said they are different, and angular velocity isn't expressed in Hz (or is it i have never heard :no offence) @User:Ulflund ~" aGastya "  &#9993; let’s talk about it  :) 08:18, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Look in the table. Angular velocity is there. Its unit is rad/s. Ulflund (talk) 16:52, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

either of two things
1. would not dalton qualify in the Named units derived from SI base units table? 2. if not, it is there in other accepted units at the bottom, so thomson should also be there isn't it? ~" aGastya "  &#9993; let’s talk about it  :) 16:35, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Answer to all these questions: The tables are about SI units, so if you cannot find it in the SI Brochure, it probably doesn't belong. Ulflund (talk) 05:52, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

"Task" as a defined measurement of land area
I am working on a British Library Endangered Archives project in Montserrat, West Indies. There are references in old wills to "tasks of land" being left to beneficiaries. I have been unable to find a definition of this measurement of area (there must be one if a will is to be validly executed), in fact few online references at all - all in the English-speaking Caribbean. Elderly local retired farm-workers I have spoken to remember the term as a unit of measurement for agricultural piece-work (which seems logical given the word), measured by a succession of rod placements, but disagree about the length of the rod and the area defined. A local lawyer remembers his father (also a lawyer) drawing up wills using the term but does not know its definition. Can anyone help with this, please? I can post/send scans of the documents containing the references to "task of land". (Not sure how to do it here)

Neilhow (talk) 15:32, 27 February 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) 01:58, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Size
I have created an article on Size. This would seem to be relevant to this WikiProject. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:45, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Main SI image notes
About the SI-units image, used all around, see Talk:International_System_of_Units. -DePiep (talk) 11:52, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Errors and residuals in statistics listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Errors and residuals in statistics to be moved to Errors and residuals. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 22:46, 28 May 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)

"Grain"
The usage of is under discussion, see talk:food grain -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 05:50, 17 September 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)

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)

Comments on the article “Natural Units”
When we measure a value of a quantity with an object O  we describe an objective property of that object that does not depend on our choice of unit. So, for instance, the mass of by body is the same in London, where an old fashioned system of units is used, and in Paris, where masses are expressed with the help of the unit kg. It is an objective property of my body.

Generally, values of quantities are elements of linear spaces, and as such, they can be written as linear combinations of basis elements. When we change the basis, the coefficients of the linear combination that describes a value will change contravariantly so as to keep the value invariant. In the special case of a one-dimensional quantity, the basis has only one element and this is called a unit. Our equations that describe physical laws relate invariant values of several quantities. Consequently these equations are also invariant. No change of unit will change the aspect of the equations and especially no constants will disappear with a special use of units.

So if we use the mass value mp of a proton as the mass unit, the mass value of a proton will be 1 mass unit and not the number 1, as is stated in the article. The symbol mp   will not disappear from the equations. What eliminates constant values from the equations is not a special choice of units but a change or a redefinition of quantities. So if mO   is the mass value of an object  O, we can define a new quantity with numeric values such that the value attributed to the object  O  is m*O=mO/mp. This is a new quantity that describes a property of a pair of objects; . But as long as we keep the second object fixed, this quantity can also be considered as a new definition of the mass. With this new definition of mass, the symbol mp   will disappear from the equations. Coincidently, the reference object “proton”, which was used in order to define the new mass quantity, could also have been the object that defined the unit of the old mass quantity. But a redefinition of a quantity and a choice of unit are different things. Not always the redefinition of a quantity that eliminates constants needs a reference object. The redefinitions of quantities that make the symbols c  (invariant speed) and   hbar  (Planck constant) disappear are not induced by a choice of reference objects. I shall discus the case c=1 as an example, because this case is an especially interesting one. Here I shall restrict my arguments to a space-time region where gravitational effects can be neglected and special relativity is sufficient to describe space-time geometry (the general case is discussed in Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 47, (2014) 107-116; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsb.2014.06.002).

Let A  and  B  be two fixed points in the space of a given inertial reference frame. Imagine we install two identical atomic clocks CA   and  CB   in these points and these clocks remain stationary at the respective points. We need two more atomic clocks of the same type, but these clocks will move in space with the kind of motion that is characteristic of free particles. The first of these traveling clocks passes through the point A  and later through the point  B. This clock will measure a certain traveling time τ    between the events of reaching the points  A and B. After the arrival of the traveling clock 1 at point  B  we send the second traveling clock in such a way that it passes through point  B  and  afterwards through point  A. The traveling speed of this second traveling clock shell be adjusted such that this clock will also show the same traveling time  τ   as the first one. Let tA1   be the time shown by clock  CA   when the first traveling clock passes point  A. Let  tB1   be the time shown by clock  CB   when the first traveling clock passes point  B. And correspondingly, let  tA2   and  tB2  be the times shown by the respective stationary clocks at the respective passages of traveling clock 2. Then one can verify experimentally that:

(1) The value ((tA2-tA1-tB2+tB1)2-τ2)1/2  depends only on the points  A  and  B. It does not depend on the traveling speed of the traveling clocks! If one measures this quantity for many pairs of points one may determine a function:

D(A,B) = ((tA2-tA1-tB2+tB1)2-τ2)1/2

(2) The function D   defines a Euclidean metric in the space of the inertial frame.

(3) The ordinary distance d, which is defined with the usual measurement procedures using compasses, is proportional to  D, that means the quotient  d(A,B)/D(A,B)   does not depend on  A  and  B.

These observations allow us to substitute the ordinary distance d  by the new function  D. If one does that, other quantities such as the speed also get replaced. The new speed quantity will have values in the set of real numbers and the invariant speed c  will have the value 1. In this construction of new quantities no reference object has been used. Also the equality c=1 has absolutely no relation to a special choice of units. You may even use your old units second and meter. Ask the director of the museum in Paris for permission to measure the distance of the scratch marks on the meter bar with the atomic clock method. Probably you will get a value with considerable experimental uncertainty and the value will be something like 3.3×10-9s. Then you may call this a meter. But you may also define a meter to be 1m=1s/299792458. You may do with the units whatever you want; the relation c=1 does not depend on it.

So we see that “use of natural units” is an inadequate term for the procedure to eliminate certain constants from the physical equations. The article gives the impression that scientists are cheating. The “setting a unite equal to one in parenthesis” without any explanation of the exact meaning gives this impression. We cannot simply set something equal to 1. The symbol “=” has a very definite meaning. One more comment concerning the fine structure constant: Let me first recall what the fine constant is: this constant is 2π times the electrostatic energy of two electrons separated by a macroscopic distance  d, divided by the energy of a photon of wavelength  d. This gives a measurable number and with electrons in our galaxy one finds 7.29735289(53)×10-3. The fact that 1=7.29735289(53)×10-3 is not a valid formula has absolutely nothing to do with the question which other constants one would like to set equal to one! 200.17.69.109 (talk) 18:59, 12 February 2016 (UTC) (Signature moved; Imaginatorium (talk) 03:48, 13 February 2016 (UTC))

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) 01:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

”Natural units” is a misnomer for the process to remove constants from the equations.
When we measure a value of a quantity with an object O  we describe an objective property of that object that does not depend on our choice of unit. So, for instance, the mass of by body is the same in London, where an old fashioned system of units is used, and in Paris, where masses are expressed with the help of the unit kg. It is an objective property of my body.

Generally, values of quantities are elements of linear spaces, and as such, they can be written as linear combinations of basis elements. When we change the basis, the coefficients of the linear combination that describes a value will change contravariantly so as to keep the value invariant. In the special case of a one-dimensional quantity, the basis has only one element and this is called a unit. Our equations that describe physical laws relate invariant values of several quantities. Consequently these equations are also invariant. No change of unit will change the aspect of the equations and especially no constants will disappear with a special use of units.

So if we use the mass value mP of a proton as the mass unit, the mass value of a proton will be 1 mass unit and not the number 1, as is stated in the article. The symbol mP will not disappear from the equations. What eliminates constant values from the equations is not a special choice of units but a change or a redefinition of quantities. So if mO is the mass value of an object O  we can define a new quantity with numeric values such that the value attributed to the object  O  is m*O =  mO/mP. This is a new quantity that describes a property of a pair of objects; . But as long as we keep the second object fixed, this quantity can also be considered as a new definition of the mass. With this new definition of mass, the symbol mP will disappear from the equations. Coincidently, the reference object “proton”, which was used in order to define the new mass quantity, could also have been the object that defined the unit of the old mass quantity. But a redefinition of a quantity and a choice of unit are different things. Not always the redefinition of a quantity that eliminates constants needs a reference object. The redefinitions of quantities that make the symbols c  (invariant speed) and "hbar" (Planck constant) disappear are not induced by a choice of reference objects.

I shall discus the case c = 1 as an example, because this case is an especially interesting one. Here I shall restrict my arguments to a space-time region where gravitational effects can be neglected and special relativity is sufficient to describe space-time geometry (the general case is discussed in Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 47, (2014) 107-116; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsb.2014.06.002).

Let A  and  B  be two fixed points in the space of a given inertial reference frame. Imagine we install two identical atomic clocks CA and CB in these points and these clocks remain stationary at the respective points. We need two more atomic clocks of the same type, but these clocks will move in space with the kind of motion that is characteristic of free particles. The first of these traveling clocks passes through the point A  and later through the point  B. This clock will measure a certain traveling time τ    between the events of reaching the points  A and B. After the arrival of the traveling clock 1 at point  B  we send the second traveling clock in such a way that it passes through point  B  and  afterwards through point  A. The traveling speed of this second traveling clock shell be adjusted such that this clock will also show the same traveling time τ as the first one. Let tA1     be the time shown by clock CA when the first traveling clock passes point  A. Let tB1 be the time shown by clock  CB when the first traveling clock passes point  B. And correspondingly, let tA2 and tB2 be the times shown by the respective stationary clocks at the respective passages of traveling clock 2. Then one can verify experimentally that:

(1) The value [(tA2 - tA1 - tB2 + tB1)2/4 - τ2]1/2 depends only on the points  A  and  B. It does not depend on the traveling speed of the traveling clocks! If one measures this quantity for many pairs of points one may determine a function:

D(A,B) = [(tA2 - tA1 - tB2 + tB1)2/4 - τ2]1/2

(2) The function D defines a Euclidean metric in the space of the inertial frame.

(3) The ordinary distance d, which is defined with the usual measurement procedures using compasses, is proportional to  D, that means the quotient  d(A,B)/D(A,B) does not depend on  A  and  B.

These observations allow us to substitute the ordinary distance d  by the new function  D. If one does that, other quantities such as the speed also get replaced. The new speed quantity will have values in the set of real numbers and the invariant speed c  will have the value 1.

In this construction of new quantities no reference object has been used. Also the equality c = 1 has absolutely no relation to a special choice of units. You may even use your old units "second" and "meter". Ask the director of the museum in Paris for permission to measure the distance of the scratch marks on the meter bar with the atomic clock method. Probably you will get a value with considerable experimental uncertainty and the value will be something like 3.3×10-9s. Then you may call this a meter. But you may also define a meter to be 1m = 1s / 299792458. You may do with the units whatever you want; the relation c = 1  does not depend on it. So we see that “use of natural units” is an inadequate term for the procedure to eliminate certain constants from the physical equations.

The article gives the impression that scientists are cheating. The “setting a unite equal to one in parenthesis” without any explanation of the exact meaning gives this impression. We cannot simply set something equal to 1. The symbol “=” has a very definite meaning.

The term “Natural Units” is widely used in literature and even top scientists use this expression. Therefore it makes sense to have an article called “Natural Units” in Wikipedia. But the article should explain that this term is really a misnomer.

Lesche~enwiki (talk) 11:56, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

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)

Move angular mil to milliradian
I hereby propose to move the page Angular mil to the page milliradian. Sauer202 (talk) 12:55, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 9
Newsletter • May / June 2016

Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, featuring the first screenshot of our new CollaborationKit software!

Harej (talk) 00:23, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Wedgewood scale has some math wrong
The article on Wedgewood scale mentions "240 steps of 54°C" but the values given for 27°W, 28°W, and 32°W would indicate steps of ~72.2216 °C. (I found this because I implemented a wedgewood to celsius converter as something of a joke.) So I'm not sure what the source is on that 54 but given that the other celsius numbers are consistent I suspect those are more accurate.

Apologies, I've never commented on Wikipedia before and don't know if this is the right way to go about making such a comment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.134.139.78 (talk) 17:33, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 10
Issue 10 of the WikiProject X newsletter is here!

This month, we discuss the new CollaborationKit extension. Here's an image as a teaser:



23:59, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages report
We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, will post at /Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of. We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:
 * The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
 * The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
 * The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to for his original, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding the reach of, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at m:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:15, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Unit symbols discussion
There is a discussion about the definition of unit symbols at Template talk:Infobox unit that some of those interested in this topic might be interested in. -- DeFacto (talk). 06:29, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge
There is a proposal to merge Vertical metre into Metres above sea level. Please feel free to join in the discussion at Talk:Metres above sea level. --Bermicourt (talk) 13:42, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 11
Newsletter • February 2018

Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, with plans to renew work with a followup grant proposal to support finalising the deployment of CollaborationKit!

-— Isarra ༆ 21:26, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Discussion on 'SI units' vs 'Metric units'
A proposal has been made to make a number of changes to the article on SI units, including a suggestion to merge all individual SI unit articles into a single all-encompassing article covering all SI units. Please comment on the SI Units talk page. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 21:56, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 12
Newsletter • August 2018

This month: WikiProject X: The resumption

Work has resumed on WikiProject X and CollaborationKit, backed by a successfully funded Project Grant. For more information on the current status and planned work, please see this month's issue of the newsletter!

-— Isarra ༆ 22:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

On "Orders of Magnitude (volumetric flow rate)"
Just have to ask, why does the article "Orders of magnitude (volumetric flow rates)" top out with the Amazon River? Sure, it's the biggest river, but more than rivers flow.

First off, what about the flow rates of ocean currents? Surely there's SOME estimates out there for the major gyres.

Secondly, wouldn't this term also apply to NON-WATER flow rates? Aren't there any estimates on semi-regular atmospheric flows like the jet stream, the westerlies, and polar vortex? There's also extremes of volcanic flows, or possible estimates of mantle currents.

And Earth doesn't have the only items that flow that we should have semi-decent rates for. At the least there's the Solar wind, if not lesser items based of Saturn's rings, other gas giants, and even the jets from the galactic core.

KhyranLeander 19:10, 2 October 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Khyranleander (talk • contribs)

Recent AfDs on Orders of magnitude articles
I don't have much time right now to get involved in so many AfDs, so I just wanted to put my initial impressions here.

A large number of "Orders of magnitude (x)" articles were put up for deletion. The articles up for deletion are: • angle

• angular velocity

• capacitance

• density

• energy flow density

• luminous flux

• mass flow rate

• molar concentration

• momentum

• inductance

• probability

• resistance

• specific energy

• viscosity

• voltage

• volume

• volumetric flow rate

I suspect that it'll be easier to meet WP:LISTN for units that are particularly fundamental (i.e. not a derived unit) or particularly relevant to everyday life, because then more independent sources will talk about them. Here are my initial impressions (I'm putting this here instead of !voting because I don't have time to do more in-depth research):

— Ahiijny (talk) 07:58, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Volume: Strong Keep. Food/drink containers, gas tanks, swimming pools, lakes, land masses, planets, stars. Check elementary physics textbooks?
 * Probability: Strong Keep. This is a thing in poker, sports, car accidents, asteroid impact scenarios, etc., so it should be easy to find WP:LISTN coverage for this.
 * Density: Strong Keep. This is a thing in chemistry, shipping (payloads / balancing), and astronomy (white dwarf / neutron star / black hole). Should be possible to find WP:LISTN comparisons of different densities.
 * Voltage, resistance, capacitance, and to a lesser extent, inductance: Keep. Common concepts in electrical engineering and circuits. Check electricity textbooks?
 * Angular velocity: Keep. This is a thing in driving (engine rpm), astronomy (rotation/revolution speed), etc. Check physics/engineering textbooks or automobile articles?
 * Viscosity: Keep. This is commonly known because of things like ketchup and peanut butter, so it should be possible to find some popsci articles out there comparing various viscosities. Also, perhaps articles related to the pitch drop experiment.
 * Specific energy: Weak keep. A thing when comparing fuel/battery efficiency. Might be harder to meet WP:LISTN though, because this is more obscure. Check sources discussing rocket fuels?
 * Luminous flux: Weak keep. This is a thing in light bulbs and astronomy, and possibly photography. Might be harder to meet WP:LISTN though, because this is more obscure.
 * Momentum: Meh. This is like a weird fusion between velocity and mass. Not really a common way to think about things. No strong opinions on this one.
 * Molar concentration: Meh. Check chemistry sources?
 * Volumetric flow rate: Meh.
 * Mass flow rate: Meh.
 * Angle: Delete/Merge. Really weird. Angular diameter is cool, though.
 * Energy flow density: Delete/Merge.

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 13
Newsletter • December 2018

This month: A general update.

The current status of the project is as follows:
 * Progress of the project has been generally delayed since September due to development issues (more bitrot than expected, some of the code just being genuinely confusing, etc) and personal injury (I suffered a concussion in October and was out of commission for almost two months as a result).
 * I currently expect to be putting out a proper call for CollaborationKit pilots in January/February, with estimated deployment in February/March if things don't go horribly wrong (they will, though, don't worry). As a part of that, I will properly update the page and send out announcement and reach out to all projects already signed up as pilots for WikiProject X in general, at which point those (still) interested can volunteer specifically to test the CollaborationKit extension.
 * WikiProject X/Pilots was originally created for the first WikiProject X prototype, and given this is where the project has since gone, it's only logical to continue to use it. While I haven't yet updated the page to properly reflect this:
 * If you want to add your project to this page now, feel free. Just bear in mind that more information what to actually expect will be added later/included in the announcement, because by then I will have a much better idea myself.
 * Until then, you can find me in my corner working on making the CollaborationKit code do what we want and not just what we told it, per the workboard.

Until next time,

-— Isarra ༆ 22:44, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Templates for tables of physical constants nominated for deletion
If interested, please opine at. —Quondum 02:38, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!
A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.
 * – Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Unified Code for Units of Measure (CFD)
The article Unified Code for Units of Measure could use some attention from editors interested in metrology.

Also, I have proposed deleting some associated categories. Discussion is at CFD.--Srleffler (talk) 04:27, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Time for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Time is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Time until a consensus is reached, and anyone 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 page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 11:57, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

A possible Science/STEM User Group
There's a discussion about a possible User Group for STEM over at Meta:Talk:STEM_Wiki_User_Group. The idea would be to help coordinate, collaborate and network cross-subject, cross-wiki and cross-language to share experience and resources that may be valuable to the relevant wikiprojects. Current discussion includes preferred scope and structure. T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 02:55, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Infobox unit
Infobox unit and its documentation have been recently edited. I don't consider the edits helpful, but perhaps there is some reason why they might be. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:24, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 14
Newsletter • June 2019

Updates: I've been focusing largely on the development side of things, so we are a lot closer now to being ready to actually start discussing deploying it and testing it out here.

There's just a few things left that need to be resolved:
 * A bunch of language support issues in particular, plus some other release blockers, such as the fact that currently there's no good way to find any hubs people do create.
 * We also probably need some proper documentation and examples up to even reference if we want a meaningful discussion. We have the extension documentation and some test projects, but we probably need a bit more. Also I need to be able to even find the test projects! How can I possibly write reports about this stuff if I can't find any of it?!

Some other stuff that's happened in the meantime:
 * Midpoint report is out for this round of the project, if you want to read in too much detail about all the problems I've been running into.
 * WikiProject Molecular Biology have successfully set up using the old module system that CollaborationKit is intended to replace (eventually), and it even seems to work, so go them. Based on the issues they ran into, it looks like the members signup thing on that system has some of the same problems as we've been unable to resolve in CK, though, which is... interesting. (Need to change the content model to the right thing for the formwizard config to take. Ugh, content models.)

Until next time,

-— Isarra ༆ 21:43, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject Technical standards
A new WikiProject has been proposed where your knowledge and competence could be very useful. You are invited to join the discussion about this proposal: WikiProject Council/Proposals/Technical standards. Thanks. --Daniele Pugliesi (talk) 01:11, 12 August 2019 (UTC)