User talk:Ewen

Chemistry Bookshelf
The same is vaild for bookshelfs and there templates as well. You must first create the bookshelf (and it's template) and only then you may add it to the shelf. Sorry.

--Krischik T 17:52, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Krischik

Danke schon!

I'm having real trouble with bookshelves: There seems to be no help that describes how they function. How do they work?

PS it's is short for it is. It's a tricky bit of English and one of its most common mis-spellings.

Ewen 08:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

A-level Applied Science pages
Hi, Ewen, and thank you for contributing to this book. What do you intend to have on the pages: Some of these pages are not linked anywhere, so they will be lost. You can move them to follow the book's naming convention using the "move" tab at the top of each page or mark them for deletion by typing on each page. By the way, pages can be copied from Wikipedia, but the copier should use them as a base for a textbook or chapter instead of directly copying them. If you have any questions or would like some help, please say so on this page. Thanks, hagindaz 01:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * A-level Applied Science/Colour Chemistry,
 * A-level Applied Science/Colour Chemistry Fibres, and
 * A-level Applied Science/Colour Chemistry Cellulose Fibres?

A-level Applied Science/Colour Chemistry/Colour
This page is going to be deleted as it uses non-free (noncommercial) content. --Derbeth talk 09:32, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Ewen. It was deleted because of the licencing used by the original document, which restricts its use to non-commercial applications only. Wikibooks is under the GFDL, meaning that anything here can be used for any reason, including commercial uses. Since the copyright on that document restricts this, it is a violation of their copyright to put it here under the GFDL, which does allow commercial uses such as printing out and selling the book to which that chapter belongs.


 * Does that answer your question? (BTW, Derbeth was the one who marked it for deletion... I'm the one who deleted it). -- SB_Johnny | talk 13:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I asked around, but no dice. The only options are to rewrite from scratch not using that document, or to ask the original authors to relicence under GFDL. -- SB_Johnny | talk 14:58, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it answers the question, but begs a further one: Is two hours a reasonable time to allow between warning a user of an impending deletion and removing his work? It's not as if the copyright breach was flagrant and deliberate; I didn't realise that the GFDL was actually 'more' restrictive the the originators' license.


 * I have asked the originators of the material if they would be willing to waive the non-commercial clause of their copyright. Failing that, I can edit the article so it does not breach their copyright. Of course, this would be much easier if I had a copy of the page to edit, which I don't since it has been deleted.

Ewen 15:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I wish I could be more helpful there, but when I asked "the experts", they said no undeleting is allowed. The listing for delete was for "speedy delete" (which applies to any page that's obvious copyvio), which means it should be deleted by the next available admin.


 * If you are able to use irc, you might try asking on the commons channel on freenode (#wikimedia-commons), they're really the "experts" on this kind of thing. I might be able to "userify" it temporarily (i.e., put in User:Ewen/sandbox), but I'm not sure of the legal details on doing that (you might want to ask Derbeth about that option, too). -- SB_Johnny | talk 15:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

You could e-mail it to me at e.mclaughlin(at)swancoll.ac.uk

It would be a real pain to have to re-write the whole article: Most of it was my own work! Please can I have it back?

Was speedy deletion justified? The copyright breach was not 'obvious' to me or I would not have posted it. Perhaps my mistake was to credit them at all - if I hadn't been honest enough to post the acknowledgement then who would have spotted it? I checked their license and it seemed very generous; the technical issue about GFDL allowing commercial use and them excluding it was easily overlooked by a new, enthusiastic author (who today became a bit less new and a lot less enthusiastic).

Ewen 15:44, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I restored the article. Please rewrite it so that it won't be similar to work from . --Derbeth talk 16:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Job done.

I must say this would have been much simpler if you hadn't rushed into speedy deletion - I'd have found the problem this morning and corrected it hours ago.

Ewen 18:10, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I wasn't the one who deleted the page. --Derbeth talk 18:12, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I didn't say you did: But you marked the article for speedy deletion which resulted in it being deleted within 2 hours. A message to me outlining the problem would have had a much quicker effect. I made an honest mistake. I've now corrected it quickly.


 * I'm now regretting being honest about where I took the original material from: If I hadn't alerted you to the source you wouldn't have found it. If I'm honest enough to declare my sources, why not give me the benefit of the doubt and ask me to sort the problem out myself?

Ewen 18:23, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi again... glad you got it worked out (nice images, too). I'll re-delete it later, and restore the current version without it's history so we won't have this problem any more :). -- SB_Johnny | talk 22:53, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I've had a response from elecuter giving permission to use their text. Ewen 08:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Acetone Peroxide VFD
This page used to have a Danger template on it, but an anonymous user seems to have removed it. I have reincluded the template on that page, and I put a note is the history that the warning must remain on the page. If it is removed again, I will delete the page out of principle, and we can move the entire discussion over to WB:VFU.

I've posted my comments, and will likely have more to say as the discussion progresses. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I noticed youre moved the Acetone Peroxide synthesis from the org. chem book. Frankly, I was thinking it was out of place, at least in terms of the book's TOC. It just kind of stood out there as the lone synthesis in the book's TOC. And obviously, your concerns were well founded. This books should not be about how to blow yourself up. It should be about the fundamentals of organic chemistry. I hope to be doing a lot of work on this book over the next few months. I'm glad there's someone else out there who's looking at it as well. -- Pete 16:30, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

POV!
Granted & that's a better rewrite  -- Herby talk thyme 16:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, perhaps I got carried away there; but it irritated me how they were claiming that their narrow selection was representative of organic syntheses. Ewen 16:12, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
 * As I was "watching" on RC I felt I'd try and ensure the situation didn't get any worse! That said - my vote stands -- Herby  talk thyme 16:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Be civil (Votes_for_deletion)
This is your only warning. Please remove the personal attacks from that page. -- SB_Johnny | talk 18:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I have removed what I could. Swift discussed one of my comments so should I remove my comment (which would make his comment seem silly), or his comment too, or leave it to an admin (please edit what you see fit)? Ewen 19:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * No... it's OK now. I just wanted to head that off before things got worse. You're a great asset to wikibooks... I hope you understand my concerns :) -- SB_Johnny | talk 19:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * BTW, would you support striking the record on this? See the very bottom of the debate (that part will be striken too). I'd rather not see the debate archived (whatever the result) in it's current form. -- SB_Johnny | talk 19:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Fine by me. It's not even entertaining and certainly not relevant 8-) Ewen 19:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Cool, thanks :). -- SB_Johnny | talk 19:40, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Can we work together?
Ewen, I'm very unhappy with your attitude. I feel you've insulted me numerous times and think you have not done as much as you could to engage in a calm, rational debate on issues where we disagree. Whiteknight just commented on Talk:Chemical synthesis giving a few pointers but mainly put this in our hands. SB Johnny might still add something to this, but I suppose he'll agree with WK's suggesion to "either try to work together, or try to work far apart." I'm willing to do either, but if the former, I think some things have to change.

Let me know, --Swift 02:17, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Swift, I'm extremely concerned about your intentions. I think you have yet to answer, 'Why have you chosen these particular syntheses?' I find it very hard to assume good faith in the light of your choice of topics, and you have not reassured me.


 * I feel you've ignored the points I have made and seem unconcerned that you are publishing information and that either has been or can be used for acts of terrorism. I make no apology if the strength of my feelings pervade my comments. I have tried to keep it rational and my contempt is not for you, but for the material posted.


 * I shall be editing the syntheses to base them on laboratory grade chemicals instead of Wal-Mart grade. That would be a positive step, wouldn't it? Ewen 07:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * If you have any concerns, you should have approached me directly from the start instead of assuming that I had ill intent. You have treated me with disrespect and that has been detrimental to discussion. I don't feel we can continue unless you acknolege your part in this and change your ways. I'm open to critisism in how I behave, I hope you are too.
 * "I find it very hard to assume good faith in the light of your choice of topics. If you look at the work I've done on Wikibooks, you'll find that the CS book is but a tiny part of that. That said, you don't have a choice. You have to assume good faith. In this case it would have served you &mdash; not to mention this discussion &mdash; well.
 * "I feel you've ignored the points I have made". I'm sorry if you feel that way. I think I've addressed all your concerns and am willing to continue the discussion &mdash; but only if the debate rises to a slightly higher level.
 * "unconcerned that you are publishing information and that either has been or can be used for acts of terrorism." Here, you are right. I'm not conserned. Oddly, you should know why since you have already stated it yourself: this information is available elsewhere.
 * "I make no apology if the strength of my feelings pervade my comments." Then back off from Wikibooks. You are required to be civil. I don't think you have so far and your feelings don't justify insulting others.
 * "my contempt is not for you, but for the material posted." Actually,
 * "and an apparent desire on the part of the authors to list only syntheses of the most dangerous chemicals possible."
 * I think you are being less than honest.
 * "scope disengenuous" I wrote the scope. When you say you find it disengenuous, you say that I am disengenuous.


 * If I haven't answered why I chose those particular synthases, it is because I haven't been asked. In the prologus of Snorra Edda, the canonical source on nordic mythology, Snorri Sturluson proclaims his belief that "the Almighty God created in the beginning heaven and earth and all the things that them follow" because had he not, he would surely have been charged with heresy and killed. Luckily, we don't live in such times where one can be lynched on unfounded assumptions. There is a very good reason why we have WB:AGF &mdash; it is so that people don't let their prejudice hinder discussion which, if approached with an open mind, will reveal the true intentions of people. --Swift 13:24, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I ask you again: Why choose those syntheses? (I'll assume you mean to address this question at some point and simply missed it this time.)


 * I can assume good faith only until the assumption becomes ridiculous. I'm trying to hang onto the assumption but you still haven't explained your choice of topics for this book.


 * As I said, the desire to select dangerous syntheses is apparent. Perhaps this is a false impression; I'd like to think so but there has been no other explanation offered for the choice of syntheses.


 * I asked about whether you thought it was a good idea changing the syntheses to lab reagents. I'll assume you mean to address this question at some point and simply missed it this time. I'll ask it again: Do you think this change is a good idea or not?


 * There is a difference between posting a disengenuous comment and being habitually disengenuous. I'm not saying that your behaviour is generally disengenuous, or that your phrasing of the scope was deliberately so. Sorry if that is how you construed my remark. I prefer the current scope because it does not imply that the choice of topics is purely the result of picking a few topics at random from the wide range avaialable.


 * Ewen 14:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "I ask you again:" You never asked. OK, you implied the question and I deliberately avoided it to make a point. Your direct question now gets a direct answer.
 * "Why choose those syntheses?" I didn't choose them over anything else. These were those that I took from Wikipedia where they were deemed in breach of policy (barring recipes &mdash; they had been kept on censorship).
 * Now as you can see, there exists a completely ordinary reason and nothing ridiculous about the matter other than your prejudice. There is no desire to select dangerous syntheses over others and your impression was wrong.


 * "I asked about whether you thought it was a good idea changing the syntheses to lab reagents." Yes, I noticed it. I was pissed off at you for your attitude and allegations and wasn't sure if we could even co-operate on this issue. I'm still not sure about whether we can work together as still find you very hostile and unwilling to consider my complaints about your attitude.
 * For the sake of discourse and in the hope that it will help ease tensions I'll answer. Sure, but I don't see the mention of the household chemicals to be detrimental to the content of the page.


 * "I'm not saying that your behaviour is generally disengenuous". Actually, you have. Numerous times have you alluded that my intentions were dishonest and criminal. I don't agree with your understanding of the word disengenuous. "Accidentally disengenuous" statements would be "inaccurate". With the context of your allegations, I can't see how you meant anything else. If you feel this is a misunderstanding, please change the wording on the CS talk page. --Swift 15:12, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I've tried to clarify how I feel by writing this clear statement: I'm not saying that your behaviour is generally disengenuous. I think this carries more weight than the 'allusions' which were not intended as personal insults, but as observations about the choice of content of Chemical synthesis. Something which is 'accidentally disingenuous' could just be badly worded.


 * Your rationale for choosing the syntheses seems innocent. Fair enough. There were no other chemical recipes barred? I think you can understand why I am suspicious? Have you considered the rationale for posting the original recipes on wikipedia? What were the authors thinking? I feel that these are important questions.

Ewen 16:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't feel your statement weighs heavier than the red thread through our debate. As for your statements, you've said on this page: "you are publishing information and that either has been or can be used for acts of terrorism." and then on the CS talk page: "I'm not opposed to 'Explosives' as a category because it makes it easier to find recipes for explosives."
 * "seems innocent." Seems?
 * I'm done! I think I've bent over backwards while you've done nothing to approach me. --Swift 02:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Swift; please let it go and let's get on with working on the book. I don't want to rake over the ashes of our argument because I don't think it will do either of us much credit; but for an example of how I have done something to approach your position, you can look no further than my recent concession that you quoted above: 'I'm not opposed to 'Explosives' as a category because it makes it easier to find recipes for explosives.' although one of my original objections was that such publication would assist terrorism. Ewen 06:42, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I think if we keep confronting one another we will force each other into taking contrary positions with no hope for reconciliation without publicly climbing down. Let's just quietly drop it and who knows? After a while we may feel able to concede (without risking the other using the concession to 'score points' in the argument) that on occasions we were wrong but it doesn't matter now... Pax? Ewen 06:42, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Changes to Organic Chemistry textbook structure
Ewen,

Just a quick note. This morning I did a bit of reorganization of the Organic Chem textbook. The major change was renaming the Alkanes and Cycloalkanes section to simply be Alkanes. I am currently working on the Cycloalkanes section. There is still a subsection under alkanes called Cycloalkanes and it has some very basic information that I think is relevant to keep in that location as sort of a "preview" of cycloalkanes.

There were a great number of links to fix and other pages to change with respect to this move. I moved all the subsection pages accordingly and all their links. It's quite possible I missed something, though I tried to be thorough. If you see anything out of place, let me know. -- Pete 20:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I've not had time to have a look yet, Pete; but thanks for the work! If I spot anything trivial I'll sort it myself but I'll check anything major with you first. Ewen 20:26, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Of course, feel free to do whatever you want. I just offer because if I screwed it up, I'm happy to fix it... On another topic, and of course, this is totally optional, I've created a link to an author's To-Do list at the top of the outline page. I'm just using it to keep track of the things I'm working on that need to be done. As I come across sections that need work, but I may be in the middle of something else, I'll add those as well.  You're welcome to use it for yourself or not. If you want, you can just periodically check it to see what plans, if any, I have... I just think of stuff faster than I actually do it all, so instead of having to think it up again later, I'm just going to add it there and, as it gets longer (which it surely will), I'll probably start prioritizing my stuff. The idea, though, is just for each author to carve out a section of the page for their own stuff. -- Pete 22:38, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Nucleophilic Substitution and Elimination reactions
Ewen, I noticed you touched the elimination stuff in Haloalkanes. I've been trying to figure how to do this and here's my thought. I did a lot of work on the Nucleophilic Substitution and Elimination reaction stuff under Introduction to Reactions, and I'm thinking we ought to just merge it all into the Haloalkanes page. It seems like the right place to introduce them, even though the mechanisms are used in some non-haloalkane situations (dehydration of alcohols, for example). The existing substitution and elimination stuff in that chapter is pretty thin and it seems weird to have the substitution and elimination stuff in the back of the book. There's still some work to do on them, particularly for elimination, but it's much more thorough than what's on the Haloalkanes page. -- Pete 16:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Images in alcohols
While you were fixing the images in alcohols, I was posting a question in the help desk asking why my images weren't being resized properly. Then I went back to the page and they were fine and it took me a sec to figure out what happened. lol. Thanks for fixing them. I see what I was doing wrong now. -- Pete 20:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Did you see how many attempts it took me to get them right? 8-) Ewen 20:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * lol. I saw a long list of edits. I tried a few things in preview and couldn't get it to work. I had even found the help page in the mediawiki manual and was trying to duplicate it from stuff they had in there and couldn't figure it out, which is why I went and posted at the help desk. Funny that you stumbled across it right after I posted it. I need to do the alcohol syntheses via reduction as well and then I'll fill in the text with an actual description of each of the reactions. Really, one of the most time consuming parts of this book is doing all the damn drawings, but you really can't skimp on them in an organic chem text. We ought to resize some of those older images that are just huge. I mean, a molecule with 5 or 6 atoms taking up half the screen is just a little excessive. -- Pete 21:04, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * What do you use for images? I use GIMP for the final image. Chemsketch and Chime for molecules in 3D. Yup, it's time-consuming but then it's an image everyone can use; well everyone who wants to illustrate Grignard reagents reating with ketones... You search wikimedia commons, right? Some categorising work there would help us find things... Ewen 21:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I use ChemDraw for non-3D stuff and Chem3D for 3D renderings and then Photoshop to clean up. I haven't tried Chemsketch and haven't used Chime either. Chime is kinda like JMol, isn't it? One thing I like about both ChemDraw and Chem3D is the ability to create a molecule from its name or to draw the molecule and have it tell me the name. For big molecules, that comes in really handy.
 * I haven't been categorizing my uploads to commons. I've been planning on going back through all my uploads and categorizing them at some point. I generally go through and look for existing ones but I've had limited success finding things in a format that I want it. Like getting the bubble molecules instead of a ball and stick or getting ball and stick when I want Kekule. I'm sure eventually it'll have a great collection.
 * Part of the problem is, sometimes, I want to show several images together instead of having to have several images side by side. For example, most of the images on the cycloalkanes page. -- Pete 21:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Electrostatic potential maps
Ewen, do you have any software to calculate and draw electrostatic potential maps of molecules? I found gOpenMol which is supposed to be able to do it, but I can't figure out how. Frankly, I hate most XWindows based apps. The UIs are just too damn hard to navigate. It's ported to Windows, but it works like an XWindows app. Still looking around for other software to do it. But stuff that can produce plots like this would be fantastic. -- Pete 15:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, Chime kinda does the job. Its methods are dodgy but frankly, if it looks good who cares? What molecules are you after? Ewen 15:39, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Ewen, my bad. Turns out Chem3D does it. I was just didn't realize it... It's really slow, but it seems to work. -- Pete 16:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I can't quite figure out the electrostatic potential maps in Chem3D. It's producing red, white, and blue rendererings with red at the more electronegative areas and blue at the less electronegative areas and white where things are neutral. I know it can do the red, green, and blue that's more standard, but I'm just not sure how. Might have to ask around a bit. -- Pete 14:18, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Ewen, I've spent the past several hours futzing with MEPs for a few hours yesterday and a few hours today and I'm getting very frustrated. The ones in Chime appear to be very low resolution (very pixelated). The ones in Chem3D are red, white, and blue and that just seems kind of non-standard. gOpenMole crashes on me every time I try to display MEPs in it, after going through about 2 hours of creating all the stupid damn data files it needed for them, so I've given up with that. Why can't there just be a simple way to do this? People are doing them all over their books these days, and they look really nice. How are they doing it? -- Pete 18:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Ewen, man, I've just been struggling with all this, but here's where things are at the moment. SpartanModel came with one of my textbooks. It has a bunch of molecules with pre-calculated MEPs and they look nice, so that'll probably work for now. So far every semi-popular molecule I've come up with has been covered (my first query was for p-chloroaniline and it came right up). There might be one or two thousand of them in there. Anyway, that should be enough to get good samples for the text. -- Pete 21:15, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Organic Chemistry/Alkenes/Naming alkenes etc
Hi Ewen - I've found a few of these under orphaned pages. It looks as tho they may be speedy deletes so if you want to let me know I'll mark them or you can - cheers -- Herby talk thyme 12:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Sure. How do I mark them for speedy deletion? (I hadn't thought of doing that; thanks for reminding me) Ewen 14:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
 * No problem - use
 * which actually in general is used for vandalism type stuff but put in as the reason something like - "content moved to another page - editor's request" or similar. Top of the page is the usual spot. Let me know if I can help -- Herby  talk thyme 14:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
 * which actually in general is used for vandalism type stuff but put in as the reason something like - "content moved to another page - editor's request" or similar. Top of the page is the usual spot. Let me know if I can help -- Herby  talk thyme 14:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Speaking of naming alkenes, I think EZ nomenclature is covered in 2 other places, but I just wrote up an EZ naming section in the naming alkenes, from scratch (the one place where it really belongs and it wasn't even there...) Anyway, if you could, look it over and see if you find it easy to follow. This is how I was taught it and I find it very easy to understand and I think it's easier to understand than the other descriptions I've read in other places in this book, but if you don't think so, maybe we ought to discuss it. -- Pete 03:17, 25 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Ewen, on another topic, can you give me the list of all the alkene sub-pages you merged that aren't yet marked for speedy deletion? Since that page no longer has the links, I don't have a consolidated list, but they should all be together in your "my contributions page". I'll go through and fix all links to them and then mark them for speedy deletion. -- Pete 20:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)


 * /Naming alkenes /Alkene synthesis /Alkene reactions /Alkene properties /Stability of double bonds. These are still in the book outline and the print version but I haven't had time to fix the links there. /Cycloalkenes and /The pi bond still have content - they either need merging or linking. Ewen 09:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll try to do the links on the aromatics page too. Sorry, I've been overlooking this aspect of merging pages.Ewen 09:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't worry about it. I'm just as capable of doing this stuff and I haven't gotten around to it either... I just kind of jump in doing whatever I feel motivated to do at the moment. I think that works pretty well right now while there's just so much that needs doing. When I've left things partially done, I just add them to my to-do list and I go to it every once in a while and just try to knock things out of it. -- Pete 14:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The 'Alkenes' page is getting rather long. Should we create an 'alkene reactions' page and split the page into general notes and notes about reactions? Ewen 09:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Ewen, I'm not sure what the general strategy is in regards to page length on wikibooks. For print, obviously it doesn't matter. I just kind of assumed that if the page is long and there's a TOC at the top, then that's okay, but I just don't know what the standard is on Wikibooks. I don't care of the deeper linking of the old layout where everything is broken up into small subsections. -- Pete


 * A warning pops up when the page length exceeds (I think) 42 kB. Some browsers have problems with longer pages. I agree that the fragmented style is not the way to go, and I intend fixing some sections such as alkynes to put the whole content on one page. With Aromatics I found that the page length was unwieldy and made a separate Aromatic reactions page, which split the content nicely. Ewen 14:23, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, that seems reasonable to break off the reactions. Actually, I'll be surprised if the reactions alone, when I get done with them, take up less than 42kB. -- Pete 01:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

WB:LMOS Maybe we should decide on a limit? Ewen 13:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Ahah! Editing this talk page I had the warning "WARNING: This page is 35 kilobytes long; some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. Please consider breaking the page into smaller sections." I knew I'd seen it somewhere....

Acetone peroxide
Is it really necessary to remove the references to easily available chemicals. What purpose does it serve.Dolive35 12:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Now I look at chemical synthesis I see that you explained that on the comment page for thermite synthesis. Sorry to bother you. Good call.Dolive35 14:56, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Cheers! Ewen 15:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Not much I can do this week
Ewen, If you notice I'm not doing much this week, it's because I have 3 exams over the next 2 days. Once those are done, and I've had a day or two to regroup, I'll get back in the saddle. Just didn't want you thinking I was abandoning the book. I have a 4th exam in a couple weeks which is going to be a tough one, so I'll be busy before that one as well... Anyway, just an FYI... -- Pete 00:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I wondered why you'd gone quiet! Good luck with the exams! Ewen 06:14, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Deleted pages from Organic chemistry
Cross posted to User talk:Pdavis68 --Swift 02:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I just deleted a bunch of pages marked by you and User:Pdavis68 with delete. A few of these were linked to from Organic Chemistry/Book outline. I thought I'd give you the heads-up so you could update that to fit your new outline or delete it as well. Thanks for your hard work, --Swift 02:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Swift! We've been reorganising the book into a flatter structure and trying to remove some redundant sections (repeated in several places). Ewen 13:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Damn
As I was doing it I thought I ought to drop you a note Ewen so firstly sorry - other things happened!

You know how we all have "bees in our bonnet" about something. Mine (well one of them) is alpha catting. It irritates me (that is mild, all cookbook recipes were cat'ed under "C" for cookbook!). The helper I used is capable of doing large numbers of pages in a fairly short space of time (including typos and other cleanups) and I spotted your pages. If you would prefer it not to be then it will not require much effort for me to reverse the process (equally if you know of other pages you would like me to look at please let me know). I do have a request for "bot" status on an account in at WB:RFA but for now its on my own account.

Again sorry and if I can help you know where I am - regards -- Herby talk thyme 14:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


 * There's no need to apologise! Thanks for cleaning up the Applied Science pages and feel free to do whatever you feel will improve the book (including the many vandal reverts you've done: it's good to have you on lookout). I'm still not sure what it was that you achieved (removing the _ bits in addresses doesn't seem so profound to me). What's alpha catting? Forgive my ignorance! Ewen 19:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah well - if you click on the at the bottom of the pages that have the cat instead of everything being under "A" for A-level it is split alphabetically in (What I hope is) a more understandable way?  Regards -- Herby  talk thyme 19:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Gotcha! Thanks for that. clever stuff! never have figured it out for myself... Ewen 20:18, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


 * No worries - we all have our specialties - let me know if I can help -- Herby talk thyme 20:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

BTW
Nice to have someone else around when I am!! Us UK folk need to stick together - morning -- Herby talk thyme 08:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Morning! It's good to write a wiki piece without changing to color, sulfur, aluminum, etc Ewen 10:37, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Trouble is I now use FF2 which is great 'cos of the spell checker BUT it wants to Americanize (!) everthing! -- Herby talk thyme 12:46, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks Newsletter, Volume 1
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The Staff 04:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi!
Thanks for the message, Ewen. I have several (4!) competitive exams coming up in the next few months, and I'm busy preparing for them, but whenever I can, I'd love to help out. The pages have changed a lot since the last time I contributed anything, and I must say everyone here has done a fantastic job! Keep up the great work! Take care... Xcentaur 14:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Good luck with the exams! Thanks for the compliments! Ewen 15:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Chemistry Book
Ewen,

Thanks for the note regarding the discussion. Actually, I happened upon the discussion before I read your note... Over the holidays I was busy with family and then returned to school and things have just been insanely busy this semester. I'm working full-time (40-50hrs/week), taking 16 hours of classes and working 8+ hours in a lab. That hasn't left much time to work on the book, but I'm going to try to do a bit today and maybe I can find a little time on weekends to pitch in. My schedule should ease up a bit over the summer, but until then, I'm just not going to have a great deal of time to work on the book. I'm glad to know you've been keeping an eye on it and showing some presence there.

Pete

Hey there
Hi!

I'm not very active here, you'll find me far more involved on En Wikipedia, but I just dropped by today and I must say - fantastic work!

I had contributed a bit on Alkenes and other bits and pieces. From what the pages were and what they are now, I am amazed. I have real life commitments which eat at my time, but I'll be free from June. I'm looking forward to working with the all the editors here, its phenomenal how the pages are shaping up!

Keep at it, Xcentaur 10:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Page moves
G'day Ewen, thanks for fixing up the "barbeque" misspellings in Cookbook:. However, when performing page moves, please follow each one up with a check for double-redirects. WikiMedia software doesn't follow redirects recursively to prevent race conditions, so you need to ensure that each redirect is pointing at a real page, not another redirect. Webaware talk 01:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I didn't find any double redirects. I guess I mised one/some? Thanks for the heads-up! Ewen 05:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * No worries, thanks for fixing up the dodgy spelling. Webaware talk 06:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Bad Science
What are you up to?

I've only just started to add content to this new book and you're requesting its deletion. Please could you just hold on a minute? Or maybe write your explanations (Challenging NPOV? What on Earth for?) before you put your tags on?

Ewen (talk) 11:22, 13 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I did not tag Bad Science for deletion. If at all you desire to build a book, fine. You could expanded the page, create new ones and remove the query tag which I posted there. I feel that the page is more relevant for Wikipedia than Wikibooks. Well, it appears more like a advocacy of something and one-sided. It needs cleanup for sure. Cheers-Ravichandar My coffee shop 11:28, 13 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It's kind of sneaky to change your comments on my talk page like that, don't you think? Perhaps if you considered what you were saying before posting it...?


 * Anyway, as it happens I have Ben Goldacre's permission to copy this work of his onto a wikibook. He originally asked on his blog if anyone would be willing to do this and he confirmed by e-mail that I could go ahead.


 * Ewen (talk) 11:27, 13 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Please be calm. I did not place those messages which I removed. They were placed there automatically. Oh, very well. :-) In that case, I'll remove them. But please try to improve upon your work. We cannot allow that book to remain here for long in the present condition. Thanks-Ravichandar My coffee shop 11:44, 13 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't find it very 'calming' when you tag the page ten minutes after it was created. It's a bit of a 'Shoot first, ask questions later' policy isn't it? I will certainly 'try to improve' the work but it takes more time than you seem to be prepared to give it.


 * Ewen (talk) 13:25, 13 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I guess that's the end of it. I didn't tag the page for deletion. I only tagged it with the "query" tag thereby giving you an opportunity to explain things. As for the POV and cleanup tags, I've clearly explained them here as well as in the discussion page. I don't wish to continue this discussion any further lest it should turn into an argument. Thank you very much. It was nice knowing you-Ravichandar My coffee shop 14:47, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, Ewen.

I notice that you said you received an email from the copyright holder for this material? Would you please forward that to our OTRS team at permissions-en@wikimedia.org so they can verify & archive it? We do this to protect the copyright holder.

As a scientist, I'm quite interested in this issue, so I'll be very interested to see this work evolve. However, I think some of this is not particularly textbook-like. I can expand on what I mean by that if you like, but that is perhaps something to give some thought to as you continue working on this book.

Thanks &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 03:32, 25 November 2008 (UTC)