User talk:Paul Lynch

Calculus Class
Hello,

I've taken up teaching the Calculus class, it's not incredibly serious, if you want to help, that would be nice, and I would tell you in what ways you could, I'm not credited, in fact, I'm a math undergrad at ISU; and, as of right now, there are no students. But I saw your name in the discussion board, so I thought I'd give you a ring.

Fephisto 03:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks Embassy and technical help
Thanks for helping with new embassy. I moved it to English Embassy and linked it from Wikimedia Embassy.

You asked me (User talk:Kernigh) if you would find potential ambassadors by posting in the Staff lounge or on their user talk pages. Maybe you should try both. However, before posting on a User talk page, check their "User contributions" to make sure that the user is active – so that you avoid messaging someone who has not edited English Wikibooks since March 2006 (or January 2006, or 2004 ...).

About Russian: I noticed that the Wikibook already has a template, Template:Russian. To put that template on a page, one writes. If you need more templates, just create some  page and write.

If you want to change Template:Russian into a box, you need to use a CSS "style" attribute with an HTML tag or MediaWiki table. For example, makes:

insert text here

The easy way is to copy and adapt someone's box, like Template:Guide to X11, Template:NetHack, Template:Java Programming. There is also a way to make a "Show/Hide" button, though I do not understand it well. --Kernigh 16:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Russian language
Hello, Paul. I am Ramir, de facto the manager of ru:. Among my long-term plans is to write a Russian language textbook for those who know the core of the Russian grammar and understand it well, but have difficulty expressing their thoughts precisely and choosing the right words. The more advanced part of the book will be targeted at native-level speakers of Russian who still need to be taught how to use their vocabulary more meticulously. So the textbook will combine an “Advanced Russian” grammar and a thorough “Style Guide” (that will both give rigid instructions and explain the reasoning behind them). You can help the process by giving me, or whomever else interested, the most general and/or common problems faced by students of Russian. You can do that on the page ru:Обсуждение:Русский язык (here is a direct editing link).

Now, about an embassy. Tell me exactly what you need it for. The Russian Wikibooks has a good, yet very small community of authors, and, at least in the beginning, I will be the only regular participant. But perhaps our activity will attract other people and we’ll be able to make a regular Russian-English language school on Wikibooks. Ramir 04:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * (having read your reply) I am ready to support your idea. Again I say: now there are very few (less than 10 regular) contributors to the Russian partition of Wikibooks, and even they are not the kind that would form a tight and permanent community. I am only prepared to advise about Russian language, communicate news and proposals to the community (also to ru.Wikipedians), and translate to and from English. There is no point in doing anything beyond our immediate interest until more people join: you and me alone can not do much. In the following week I will talk to people on other active Wikibooks about setting up "embassies" there, or (I like this idea more) making a common forum for all Wikibooks projects for discussing matters of interlingual significance. And regarding your study of Russian, please be welcome to ask questions: as I have said, they will be helpful later, in writing a Russian language Wikibook. Ramir 10:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * On verbs and prefixes: the general rule to remember is that in Russian (like in all Synthetic languages, for that matter) a prefix, or generally an affix, can have different meanings. The first and easy step to remember those meanings is to associate each Russian prefix with an English preposition or a Latin prefix. For instance, передавать literally means “to give over” — that is, “to transmit” (note the prefix trans-) or “to pass on”. Although there is no strict corresponcence between пере and over or trans-, you can always be sure that if a verb is prefixed with пере, it has something to do with over- someting, and just like in English, this “over” can take different meanings; compare: пережа́рить (to overroast), переде́лать (to do over, to redo), перейти́/переходи́ть (to have gone.../to go over, traverse). Of course, there are some пере-words that do not translate with over, but still imply it somehow: перевари́вать [пи́щу] means “to digest [food]”, but if you think of the word “digest” itself, it kinda implies a transformation, a passing of a critical point of being raw to being processed and worked through. The literal morpheme-by-morpheme translation of переваривать is “to cook/boil over”. Ramir 00:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

social sciences bookshelves
I have been watching the Economics bookshelf, and very little has been added to any of the books on this bookshelf. There is such little content, I would suggest many of the modules be deleted, and the rest be moved to the Social sciences bookshelf. It seems like the same story with the Business bookshelf and, to a lesser extent, the Law bookshelf. Here are some of the modules I think should be deleted.


 * Stock Market Technical Analysis delete- only one page, untouched since September 2005
 * Bioeconomics delete- only one page, no real content added since October 2005
 * Ecological Economics delete- no real content.
 * EconometricTheory unsure- there is some good content here, althoguh it hasn't been touched since August 2005.
 * A-level_Economics/OCR- some content, but has been untouched since November 2005, and not really in wiki format. I suggest this module deleted or moved elsewhere unless someone decides to do something with it soon.
 * Asset Allocation -there is some content, added in January of 2006, but it seems like it may be original research. I suggest contacting the author, User:Paul.Paquette.
 * New Zealand Economics delete- raw dump of essay material, untouched since September 2005

I also suggest that the wikibooks Macroeconomics, Principles of Economics, Introduction to Economics and Microeconomics be merged, as all the content seems to be of basic economics principles. Most universities have courses on Principles of Microeconomics, Principles of Macroeconomics, then upper division courses Microeconomic Theory and Macroeconomic Theory, although the first two and last two courses often use the same textbook.

DettoAltrimenti 22:59, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Alot of those books that you have listed do contain enough useful material that I suffest they be merged instead of deleted outright. I would suggest that perhaps we create 3 books total: "Macroeconomics", "Microeconomics", and "Advanced Economics". The advanced book would by necessity contain the information that is important to real-life and research (the stock market, bioeconomics, ecological economics, etc). Also, perhaps we should include a book on economic history, which could include all sorts of information about Smith, Keynes, and Marx.
 * If you contest that macroeconomics and microeconomics are related enough by basic principals that they should be merged together, then perhaps we could reduce our entire bookshelf to "Economics" (a combination of micro and macro), "Advanced economics" (topics above the basic level), and "historical economics" (to cover historical issues). If you would like, I am willing to help out in this project, although i confess that I know very little about economics. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:37, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I looked at that New Zealand book, and while i think that it should be deleted in general, it does have some good discussion of the subjects involved. you probably know the subject better then i do, so if you say it's trash, then i will delete it. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 02:53, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Wait a day before doing things unilaterally! Any of the sub-disciplines listed on Economics should be acceptable as book topics. Someone will eventually take over and work on them. If I recall correctly, Resource Economics had its chapters already fleshed out, and as such should have been kept as one book. Ecological Economics should be kept as its own book (if it had anything more than a one paragraph introduction). A-level Economics is a book for a specific course and should be left alone. I suppose New Zealand Economics can be deleted on the grounds of orginal research and NPOV (although I think cleanup tagging it is better), but not on the subject matter.


 * I think we should merge business and economics into a Business and economics bookshelf. The law bookshelf has enough content for its own bookshelf. --hagindaz 13:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

wikistudy and wikiprofessional
Jguk, why can't there just be a bookshelf for both of these? it seems kind of excessive to give them their own page, and put them on the sidebar. Is there a discussion about this somewhere? DettoAltrimenti 21:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your interest in what I am doing. This was an example of being bold, rather than discussing first - although I have mooted the idea around without actually proposing it a number of times. I feel that these areas are part of the core areas Wikibooks should be addressing, along with Wikijunior and Wikiversity, which already have special "sidebar" status. Of course, Wikibooks should have textbooks that don't fit within any of those four descriptions too, and these can all be found through the bookshelves. I think the Wikistudy area - essentially a place for textbooks addressed at specific syllabuses on core school subjects - is a particularly important one. It is here that we have the most (as yet untapped) outside interest. I hope to assist in getting that interest turned into useful school textbooks both here at Wikibooks and through my work with Wikimedia UK. It is also the Wikistudy area that could make a real difference, especially given the high cost of purchasing copyrighted texts. I hope the future of Wikibooks has the Wikistudy concept as an excellent core which then spans out to cover textbooks on other areas, Jguk 21:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Ancient History
Hi, Paul. I'm a middle school teacher who teaches ancient and medieval history, and some English literature. I know a lot about the subject, but a lot of what I know is not very in-depth. It seems to me that my major contribution here could be to make a basic text available to edit. In some ways, it's sad that everything I write here may eventually get covered over by the work of others... but maybe I can help get it started, anyway.

I'd also like to ask about whether or not it's acceptable to get my own students involved in contributing to the project. They have to write all sorts of things for me about the major topics; it would be nice to require their work not only typed, but dedicated to the service of Wikibooks. I'd have to work out some policies and procedures here at school so they could get credit for contributing, and maybe you could help me work those issues out between now and September. Ideally, I'd like them to contribute a well-written paragraph or two on specific cultures as we study them, but we'd have to drill them thoroughly on copyright and plagiarism. What do you think? Andrew Watt 01:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Merge Macroeconomics and Microeconomics?
Why merge these two books? It's better to have several developing books on subfields of science rather than one well-done Science book. --hagindaz 02:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Editing disputes policy
This policy needs a few more people to take a look at it and vote. Any help would be most useful. RobinH 14:29, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikicode.
Instead of using html tags for bold TEXT you should just use wikicode. For bold text use three apostrophes ( ''' ). For italics, use two ( '' ). Hope this helps. -- LV (Dark Mark) 03:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Alphabetical classification size
After changing two letters to bi, the size of the page has increased from 30KB to 40KB. Converting the entire page to bi is therefore not an option. With infoboxes, we would be able to change the page to an automatically updating category, and create an extended list page for broadband users. Do you think we should go this route, or do something else? --hagindaz 02:18, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Can you make all books that have an infobox appear in the category automatically, or would we have to add the category to each book's title page separately? Either way, it sounds like a good idea. I mainly wanted to change the books in the alphabetical list just to make sure every book is in a bookshelf, so everything will be a bit more organized. DettoAltrimenti 04:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

On a side note, I'd really like to make sure all the books are in some bookshelf, then get rid of really old stubs/merge them with current books. Then, if the bookshelves are sorted out, we could add links for needed textbooks (your idea), and really see what we have/what we need. I just really don't think we have over 1000 books, and would like to know how many we really have. DettoAltrimenti 04:33, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, a book is automatically added to the category if an infobox is on the title page of the book. At the present I'm looking through Special:Allpages. I only have A-D left, after which I'll look through Special:Lonelypages and Category:Not linked Wikibooks. Then I help you out on organizing and merging books. BTW, I'm done adding parameters to Infobox/Parameters, so unless you have ideas for any others, we can continue adding infoboxes to books. --hagindaz 22:38, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

asset allocation
You can erase it if you want, even thought it required a lot of work, it is simply ever changing and not many people seem to be interested in helping me with it. Paul.Paquette

Basic Economics
''Endless melee, I would suggest the book be titled Principles of Economics, if the audience is going to be undergraduate college students. Most basic level college courses are titled Principles of Microeconomics or Macroeconomics.? Of course, if this book is geared towards highschool or a "not for majors" college course, the name Basic Economics is fine. What do you think? DettoAltrimenti 20:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)''
 * ^--DettoAltrimenti (Mr. Lynch), I think you're definitely right about the generality of undergraduate econ textbook titles. However, this text is in fact designed to be more broadly applicable than to just economics majors and enthusiasts. The economics wikibooks as they currently stand are, in my opinion, haphazard and lack any sort of uniform direction. I, therefore, decided to start from the bottom up. This text is supposed to be for students with no background in economics as well as for those purely curious about the subject. It is my hope that it will be general and basic enough to adhere to the needs of many different types of students, and not limited to economics majors. So then the title 'Basic Economics' seems apt. However, I do think it would be best for a more in depth economics text, possibly adopting the 'Principles of...' prefix, to be constructed. The current Principles of Economics is incomplete and could definitely benefit from renovation. But that's not my current goal. For now I want to complete Basic Economics. Thanks for your feedback though! I'm glad somebody cared enough to notice. --Endless melee 15:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Hello again. In hindsight, following some grueling macroeconomics homework, I realized that perhaps it is better to have an 'principles; econ text rather than a 'basic' econ text for a few reasons:
 * A - There are already two texts (Principles of Economics and Introduction to Economics) that need to be merged and reorganized anyway
 * B - Economics is, arguably, applied mathematics. So it would be a great injustice to disillusion students with an approach to economics that is too soft on math.
 * With that in mind I think it's important to retain the 'principles' prefix as you recommended. This way I can get rid of the two "half"-finished texts as well as open up the ability to dive a little deeper into economic theory in this text. Thanks for your feedback! You've helped me re-think this project into a more concise and (hopefully) more useful one. --Endless melee 21:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

help requested
I have recently finished to write a book on m:b:en:Philosophy of Science in Russian wikibook Философия науки. I want to find somebody to translate it to English. Can you help me with this? P.S. I am interesting to write some books on math and computer science. On math I am currently working on m:b:ru:Знакомство с методом математической индукции and on computer science on Object oriented, m:b:en:Computer programming/Procedural programming and m:b:en:User:Alexsmail/Computer programming/How Objects should be correctly compared in Java (all this is on currently on hold). In my English texts I have a lot of grammar mistakes, so I need somebody to correct one. I want that all that I am writing will be on English. It can be translating of written on another language text or original text.

P.P.S. I have some material on math in Hebrew. Also hebrew wikibook has some material. It can be nice, while not mandatory, if you will know Hebrew too.

Я недавно закончил писать книгу в русском викиучебнике Философия науки. Я хотел бы найти кого-то ктобы перевёл бы его на английский m:b:en:Philosophy of Science. Не могли бы вы мне в этом помочь? P.S. Я хочу написать пару книг по математике и компьютерным наукам (программированию). По математике я начал работать над m:b:ru:Знакомство с методом математической индукции, а по компьютерным наукам над Object oriented, m:b:en:Computer programming/Procedural programming и m:b:en:User:Alexsmail/Computer programming/How Objects should be correctly compared in Java (пока я оставил это). Я пишу на английском со многими грамматическими ошибками, мне нужен кто-то, чтобы их исправлять. Я хочу, чтобы все мои книги были на английском. Это может быть как перевода с другого языка, так и оригинальный, изначально написанный на английском текст. P.P.S. По математике, у меня часть материала на иврите, да и в ивритском викиучебнике можно взять. Было бы прекрасно, если бы вы владели также ивритом. Но вовсе не обязательно. alexsmail 16:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)