User talk:Pi zero/Archive 2

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Template:Subjects
Do you have any future plans for the subjects family of templates? I may try to convert it to Lua which should make it more manageable and help make books load a bit faster when edited. I recently updated to use Lua as a way to familiarize myself with the process. --dark lama  14:52, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what to make of this question. I'd always expected it would be possible to upgrade that code.  I actually did make a tweak to something a few weeks ago I think, based on feedback from a user.  I'd always figured it might make sense, if one could figure out a way of doing so gracefully, to upgrade the subjects template itself so that it would provide an actual list of links to subject pages at the bottom of the book's main page, instead of the current kludge of a list of subject-category pages.  What else one might want to do, who knows?


 * For what it's worth, here's how I see migration to Lua: Converting stuff into yet another auxiliary language means moving further away from the concept of an open wiki toward something that only a high priesthood is able to modify.  I've actually just spent the past year (more than a year, actually) learning javascript in-depth so that I could write some tools on Wikinews &mdash; where the purpose of the tools I'm building is to make it possible to use wiki markup for a wider range of highly flexible operations.  In other words, I'm using javascript, but only in order to obviate the need to resort to javascript for things.  In my opinion, contributing to a wiki should not require knowing a whole bunch of different programming languages.  (I have the same attitude toward bots:  if there's a way to further minimize their use, I want to do so.)  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:15, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * In fact, btw, I would probably look into using Lua instead of javascript for what I'm doing on Wikinews, except all that would really accomplish would be to prevent me from ever getting anything done, as I would spend all my time scrapping things I'd already poured time into in order to switch to the latest platform. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:22, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I wanted to share with you what I am thinking about doing, so we are working together and not stepping on each other's toes, since you have been maintaining those templates lately and might have had further changes in mind. I agree with the sentiment and desire to keep things open to anyone to be able to modify. I think the mediawiki developers could probably have found ways to improve processing speed and add more functionality to the current template system, which seems to be the issues they decided to address by adding Lua support instead. I get the impression from reading Wikipedia that they intend to migrate all templates to Lua eventually, after that who knows what might happened to the current template system. Hopefully not a chicken little / falling sky situation. When jquery support was added, I thought support for other things was going to be dropped quickly leaving projects like Wikibooks with broken scripts, but support still hasn't been dropped yet. --dark lama  15:52, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * It occurs to me, by the by, that the actual time impact for the subjects family of templates may be pretty low. They're mainly used on pages that don't get edited much (the subject and allbooks pages are practically never edited, and main book pages are presumably edited less often than book subpages); and it's always been my understanding of template expansion that it isn't done over again on each view, only on edit or purge.  So I wouldn't think the templates would actually slow things down much &mdash; although my navlist templates are another matter; I've never actually noticed a problem with them either, though.


 * From the last time I conversed with bawolff (a few days ago), they really do mean to not break older stuff as they upgrade. Though he admitted that's intent.


 * If they mean to move toward Lua, I'd better learn about Lua when I get a chance. Since the tools I've spent the past year developing are designed to integrate cleanly with templates... sigh.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:04, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Just taken a quick preliminary look at w:WP:Lua. My initial impression is that it significantly increases ambient chaos without doing anything really important.  I've no idea why they'd make it available at all, other than a preference for adding more cruft rather than improving what one already has.


 * I'll be interested to hear what bawolff has to say about Lua next time I see him. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:30, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I was thinking to use Lua mainly for complex templates and protected templates because only some people can improve those already. I was thinking to focus mostly on utility functions that can reduce the complexity of templates without needing to know Lua to use them, much like you don't need to know PHP to use and do things with #if, #ifeq, or #expr. I have seen people claim that Lua is 6 to 8 times faster than an equivalent non-Lua template on average when template parsing is done. A page is allocated 60 seconds to expand all templates when template expansion is needed. Lua is allocated 10 seconds to run on a page. Page load may have been bad/unclear example for me to use. Improvement may be seen in server responsiveness by people because the servers can spend less time doing work behind the scenes. --dark lama  17:43, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I was thinking to add a repeat utility function as one example, which in the case of the subjects template might be used to remove the need for the leaf and numbered templates. --dark lama  17:47, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Although your description of when to use Lua sounds quite plausible, I do worry about security exploits. Providing too much power of one kind or another could become a huge problem; avoiding this has been a major design theme for my tools, requiring a vast amount of intellectual labor.  Wiki derives great safety from what users can't do with it, notably including what can't be done with templates.


 * If they haven't been careful enough about restricting the power of the Lua extension, it'll create a problem that we may never be rid of: accidental security holes would be a perpetual danger, while things get so dependent on Lua that it becomes politically impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.


 * The idea of a "repeat" utility worries me for this reason. The very limited number of iterations supported by subjects is an important safety measure in it: if somebody were to set up subjects A and B so that each is a parent of the other, the template would only follow subject ancestry to a depth of about six.


 * By the way, the expense of templates as I understand it is in page accesses &mdash; and what the Subjects template does inherently requires access to a whole bunch of pages. The allbooks categories and subject pages are themselves transcluded as templates, and I don't think you can get away from that.  That will be a limiting factor on how much time you can save.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 20:13, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

subjects can do more than 6 iterations by adding more templates because no restriction is built into it. The template assumes good faith, and depends more on the template system being safe than on the possibility there might be security exploits to worry about. Lua is more restricted in what it can do than JavaScript. Lua does not support AJAX, cookies, strings executed as a script, or XSS. I think Lua can be trusted more than JavaScript. Why should Lua be trusted less than the template system? Have mediawiki developers allowed security exploits to remain before?

My understanding is template expense is calculated using many factors, including page access. I think page access can be reduced to subject and category pages, and possibly the Lua module if that counts as page access. All the subtemplates that subjects depends on counts as page access too, which is what I am thinking could be reduced with Lua.

One thing that occurred to me just now is the subject and category templates are already passed values for their ancestors. Those values could be used to transclude their ancestor pages directly when not viewing from the template, subject, or category pages, and include their current subject categor(y|ies) when not viewed from the template, subject, or category pages, which would result in all the categories being included without the need for a bunch of subjects subtemplates. I think I may have also just reduced any motivation to use Lua for subjects, if that works. --dark lama  14:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * On that last bit, right off hand I'm not sure whether I follow it. I'd have to study everything in detail to remind myself how it all works.  But, some off-the-cuff thoughts:
 * As best I recall, the whole shape of the hierarchy is determined by the parent parameter(s) specified in the subject pages, and extracting that information is the purpose of transcluding the subject pages: to determine their parentage.  I'd guess the purpose of transcluding the allbooks categories might be to verify that those categories have been set up correctly, which does matter because you don't want to add any book to an allbooks category unless the category is correctly hidden.
 * If one were going to try to build the adding-to-allbooks functionality directly into some of these things, imho one would build it into the allbooks categories themselves, rather than building it into the subject pages, because imho it doesn't belong in the subject pages; they have more than enough logic in them already without throwing in allbooks-inclusion logic as well. Could it be done via allbooks-category transclusion?  Perhaps.  I'd have to give it some thought (in my copious free time).


 * I would expect accessing the Lua file to count as a page access.


 * I wouldn't say the template exactly depends on good faith, although I did go to bed last night thinking about its lack of perfect security. Someone who really wanted to could create the next template in the sequence (unless we fully protect the next in the sequence against creation by non-admins), but there isn't all that much they could do, probably not enough to make it worth their trouble.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 18:55, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Having to study everything in detail when everything is spread out is/was the main motivation to use Lua. My non-Lua thought goes something like:

subject page:

subjects:

Yes this could be done with the category template instead, as you say the subject one is already doing a lot. --dark lama  20:01, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * You've reminded me of something important.


 * My version also does something else. At every step of the way, it checks for problems, and if it finds one, it doesn't just fail, it gives a detailed diagnostic message explaining what the problem is, suggests possible solutions, and provides a button to easily act on each possible solution.  I considered that crucial to the whole system &mdash; otherwise one would guarantee that maintainers in the future would be baffled and unable to maintain it.  Seems to me that would still be true even if it were implemented using Lua.  ("It doesn't work."  "Why doesn't it work?"  "No idea; there's no hope of figuring it out, so let's just abandon it.")  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 20:52, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Clarification: When I say maintainers in the future would be unable to maintain it, I include myself in that.  Even if I were always 100% up on exactly how everything works (not practical), it could be direly difficult to figure out why some part stopped working unless one had those diagnostic messages explaining exactly what to do.  I've already made extensive use of the diagnostics; mostly it's been things that didn't work on the book pages, but there's been at least one occasion when something went wrong on a subject page and the diagnostics told me just what was wrong and how to fix it.


 * The diagnostics are part of my vision for how to create software tools that make expert tasks easier instead of harder. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 21:00, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * My example was by no means meant to be complete, just the basic gust of how to get all categories without the need for all the subtemplates. I didn't even check over my examples for correctness. I appreciate diagnostic messages. --dark lama  21:39, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * A direct approach also has the advantage that the problem of unbounded iteration takes care of itself, through the template system's refusal to recurse. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 00:11, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

The next step in this is probably to do a careful complexity analysis of just how many page accesses actually are performed when subjects adds a book to a subject, and how many page accesses would be saved by various means. I hope to tackle that when I get a chance. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:46, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * How many tests need to be done for diagnostic purposes will be the determining factor in how many page accesses per page. Testing page existence with #ifexist is an expensive operation, and should be considered page access too. If you want to ping the page, that adds one more page access. If you want to check the format is correct that can add one or more page accesses depending how many checks are needed to determine the correct format is used. Finally one more page access to actually do what it is intended to do. Lua can at least cache results reducing the number of page accesses that are required. With Lua I think it should be possibly to access each page just once, by operating only on what returns. --dark  lama  14:38, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I've had testing in mind as a major cause of page accesses, yes. Pinging is a conscious alternative to using #ifexists, because as far as I could see it doesn't actually "count" more than #ifexist, it actually provides more intel than #ifexist, and it counts in a different column than #ifexist (a template call rather than an expensive magic word).  The existing code, iirc, does a neat trick in that regard by transcluding a subject page just once, which should (if the subject page is set up correctly) return a parsable list of all parents &mdash; so one doesn't have to make multiple page accesses for that.  A known inefficiency of the existing code is that, rather than build a baffling mess of code to test for parsability, it uses template parsable, which is of course another page access.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:28, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

 * Subjects accesses Subjects/leaf 10 times at most. By passing all 10 values as 10 arguments to leaf that could be reduced to 1 time. Leaf would still need to access Subject:0 through Subject:6 at most 10 times, which is 60 page accesses. The 10 arguments could be passed to Subject:0 through Subject:6 as well to reduce it to 6 page accesses. Next up, Subjects/allbooks and parsable may be accessed up to 60 times, subjects/name next may be accessed up to 120 times, and subject pages accessed up to 300 times (each subject page is accessed 5 times in any Subject:# template, and there may be up to 6 ancestors for each which is (5*6), and there may be 10 subjects passed by parameter, which is 5*6*10). The 10 arguments could be passed to allbooks, which would reduce to 6 page accesses. All other templates and page access counts would have to remain the same, unless a lot of reworking is done, because of how they are used. As is I count 10+60+60+120+300 page accesses which is 550 page accesses. I count 1+6+6+60+120+300 page accesses with the reductions I mentioned, which is 493 page accesses. Neither page access figures count any further page accessed required by any templates used by name next or allbooks or parsable, so the number of page accesses is much higher. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  18:22, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I see no reason to quibble with those numbers; even if there were some minor technical slip-up somewhere it'd still come out to hundreds of accidental (as opposed to essential) page accesses. That's in the existing structure.  Presumably, Lua would involve one page access for the Lua page itself, plus all essential page accesses required by the operation.  The next questions are, how many essential page accesses are there, and how many more than that (if any) would be entailed by an optimized non-Lua approach.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 23:30, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Essential page accesses: Assuming we've got ten subjects, and every one goes to full depth, I see 60 subject pages and 60 allbooks category pages.  I'm unsure whether one can make do with a single access to each allbooks category, so that would be either 120 or 180.  Error situations are of no interest to me in this analysis:  if an error is detected, I don't particularly care about a few extra page accesses &mdash; it would probably cut short the normal page accesses anyway.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 23:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with your assessment. 120 to 180 page accesses, or less when an error occurs. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  00:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * What next?


 * --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:00, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * What I'd like to see happen is that I overhaul the purely template-based approach to minimize the number of page accesses in the non-error case, and then we consider whether or not to shift to Lua. Granted, once I made up my mind to write the allbooks system it took significant time for me to get to it &mdash; and at that time Wikinews was making less time-demand on me that it is now.  So it would likely take me some time to get to this.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 14:46, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Edit review settings
Hi, Pi zero. I'd appreciate if you set the page review settings for my pages in WJ:Programming for Kids. I'd also appreciate your comments on it (yes, I've learnt JS!) Thanks. Kayau (talk · contribs) 14:59, 24 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Looks like QU beat me to configuring them. :-)


 * I'll try to take a look, if I can scrape up a bit of time. Teaching programming at the WJ level seems an interesting, not to mention challenging, idea.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:21, 24 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks Pi zero. :) I was 'inspired' by a news article a while ago that encourages kids to go to Codeacademy and learn how to code, but IMHO it teaches only the 'cold hard facts' without telling kids how programming is usually done (top-down approach vs bottom-up approach, dry runs and trace tables, choosing test data, etc.) That's how I decided to write such a book. It will be rich in visual elements, of course, with colourful diagrams and a unified colour scheme for flowcharts. :) Kayau (talk · contribs) 00:01, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


 * My favorite remark on top-down programming is from a series of columns PJ Plauger wrote years ago (in the 1980s I think) about different ways to structure programs. He covered top-down, bottom-up, outside-in, inside-out, and a passel of others.  I'd have to look it up to get the wording just right, but &mdash; He suggested, as I recall, that nobody writes a large program top-down the first time, but "Top-down is a great way to redesign a program you already know how to write."  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 00:47, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Implementing Easier and More Efficient Metadata Tags on Wikibooks
Hi Pi zero, I wanted to give you an update on the previously discussed implementation of LRMI metatags on Wikibooks. There is no longer the need to use the html tag extension as was discussed in the previous proposal, because it is now supported by core mediawiki. In addition, these changes sanction all mediawiki installations by default and increase the assurance of LRMI as a long-term standard. If you're not familiar with Schema.org, it is a shared collection of standard schemas that was developed by Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex to allow webmasters to markup their pages in ways recognized by major search providers. This page demonstrates these features in the context of wikisource and can demonstrate the optimization within a Google search engine here. With this said, let me know if you think it would be worthwhile to implement these metatags now that it will be done via Schema.org, or if you have further questions. Maximilian.Klein.LRMI (discuss • contribs) 05:11, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Usurpation
Please review my request here for SUL! Faizan2 (discuss • contribs) 13:00, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not a bureaucrat on Wikibooks. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:24, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Centimetre vs. Inch
Most of the world uses the metric system as opposed to the U.S. customary system. Even the U.S. sometimes uses the metric system in science. My question: When I edited something along the lines of this 36 in (91 cm) to this 91 cm (36 in), you put it back the way it was. My arguments against this: 1. Even the U.S. in science, should be using the metric system. 2. Most people know the length of a centimetre better than an inch(in every country except the U.S. and a few others). Wikipedia was originally the online Encyclopedia Americana, but now it is the international encyclopaedia. Thus, it should be aimed at the used internationally, and there are more Unamerican English-speakers who own a computer w/ internet than American English-speakers who own a computer w/ internet. Воображение


 * The size of a big telescope lens (or mirror) is a matter of the specifications to which it was made. Those things are one-off, their making is a big deal.  Supposing en.wp is correct on the history (which it probably is, in this case), this is a big refractor (largest in the world when installed) made for a US observatory in the 1880s.  No way is that not specified in inches.  And it always will be a 36-inch refactor, even if the US finally embraces metric.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:41, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * So what you are saying is that you are going by the measurements used in 1880s California to measure the telescope? This may sound all right in this instance, and it may be, but there has to be a line for this. More people will say that the Great Wall of China is 21,196 km, rather than 10,000 li(里) (Other than China or Japan, as in Chinese, the wall literally means the wall of 10000 li, so exclude the Chinese and the Japanese, and whatever other ethnic groups apply). However, in 700 B.C., I am sure that everyone in the dynasty knew pretty well how much of a distance was a li. Nowadays, nobody will use li over the metric or customary system, even in the far east. Most people can understand inches, but since the metric system is the primary in the world today, I believe that everything in all the wikis should be measured primarily in the metric system (unless you are talking about something that pertains only to America, such as an American civil war musket, and even that should have parenthesis with the metric measurement), since that is the modern world's current primary measurement system. Sorry if I typed something wrong; my native language is not English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Воображение (discuss • contribs) 16:00, 16 June 2013


 * Whether one should use the original specification depends on the nature of the thing being measured. The size of a custom-made lens, or mirror, blank is a big deal.  The creation of such a thing &mdash; I won't say "manufacture" because that's far too impersonal for such an operation &mdash; is done one-off, with (to wax poetic) a lot of love put into it, and additionally, on the technical side, the specific size to which it is made is part of the purpose of making it.  The size is intrinsic to the unique individual character of the thing.  My sister used to belong to our local amateur telescope makers club, and she made a 6-inch reflector; there's no question it's a 6-inch, as she ground the mirror herself from a 6-inch blank.  The length of the Great Wall isn't inherent in its creation in the same way; even so, one might give the 'wall of 10000 li' translation, with some explanation, but one wouldn't give it for the purpose of telling readers the length of the wall, even if one really expected the reader to know what a li is.  As best I can tell the '10000 li' is just a poetic description.  The size of one of those big custom-made telescope lenses/mirrors is both a measurement and humanly significant; its significance doesn't necessarily generalize to the sizes of other artifacts.  There are probably other things that want specifying in the original units, but one really has to consider such cases one at a time.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:35, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * So in a nutshell, you say that the Great Wall A.K.A. Long Wall of 10,000 Li is a poetic description. I believe that is not quite correct, but that is irrelevant now. Imagine I create a ruler, with 50 increments of my own measurement system, each increment called an AB. A day later, I create a car-making factory. A day later, I put that car-making factory into function, each car being 8 AB long. Does that mean that it is 8 AB long since I used a 50 AB ruler? Yes. But does that mean that the primary measurement for it has to be AB? No, you can assume that it will not be. Just because a measurement exists does not mean that everyone knows it well. That is why I am supporting the metric system; most people know it as their primary measurement system.


 * Also, you reverted one of my edits on how some Greek deities' names are written in Ancient Greek. Kids who are 8-12 years old like doing art projects, or making books, or somehow making themselves feel productive. What if they wanted to write a book in Ancient Greek (They probably would make most of it it look something like ΤΉΊζ) about the Greek deities? Now, I do know that this is a textbook, and a textbook's primary purpose is to educate. But I would like to associate something good and cool with this book. Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree, though, so what are your thoughts? Воображение


 * I realize my point about the telescope is not coming across; I can tell from your responses. I'm unsure quite what I should be saying differently, but I'll try again.  I note that your car example isn't qualitatively the same, just as the Great Wall isn't; neither of those situations has the character of traditional telescope-making.  I don't actually know of anything that has quite the same character to traditional telescope-making.  Calling the Lick Observatory telescope a 36-inch refractor is a description of the specifications to which it was built and a description of its "brand" (like distinguishing between a Ford and a Toyota).  Describing your hypothetical car as an 8-AB car might be imaginable under some circumstances, but it's mostly a matter of branding with a small side order of specifications; it's unlikely that aspect of the brand would matter enough to justify it as a primary description, especially since there's probably an actual brand and model name associated with it, and it's also unlikely either the actual length of the car or it specified manufacture length would matter enough to be the primary description of it.  Describing the Great Wall as the wall of 10,000 li would be done as a matter of "branding" (I am using that term loosely enough that it would cover this case); I'd be quite surprised if it's in the technical specs of the wall that it be 10,000 li, though weirder things have happened.


 * I'm concerned with the reading level of the books. It is Wikijunior, after all, Simple sentences, using small, simple, common words.  I recall rephrasing one passage to avoid the phrase "naturally occurring phenomenon", which is three words each of at least three syllables; stuff like that.  Parentheses to be avoided when feasible, and when they can't be avoided, placed so as to keep the sentence structure as simple as can be afforded.  Things like Ancient Greek spellings... well, it seems it could be getting kind of elaborate as content, and could greatly complicate the structure of things, but I don't know whether that's what I had in mind (if it was me who undid it) since I don't recall exactly where it was.  Without seeing the specific passage, and edit, I wouldn't know which of these factors might or might not apply, nor whether there might or might not be an alternative approach to convey the same content.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 22:12, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I will try to follow your tips regarding reading level, however, it is safe to assume that our audience is a smart audience since they are taking the time to read an advanced solar system book, in which that book's contents include the some moons of every planet that has them. I think I would understand naturally occurring phenomenon if I was 10, and if I was 8, maybe I could look up the last word.


 * About the telescopes. You are correct; I do not understand the symbolism of traditional telescope making, but here is a simple counterargument. Imagine the 19th century, and my factory making telescopes that are each 2 AB in length. Would they put it as "2 AB(35 cm)" or "35 cm"?


 * About Ancient Greek spellings, I could not see how it could complicate anything. You asked for an example, so I'll show one.


 * Zeus and Io --My edit--> Zeus(Ancient Greek:Ζεύς) and Io(Ancient Greek:Ἰώ) --Your reversion--> Zeus and Io
 * Воображение


 * Re the 2 AB telescope, the trouble with hypotheticals is that they necessarily leave out all other factors in the universe, effectively assuming that all things not mentioned don't matter to the situation &mdash; and often people are making different implicit assumptions about those things that actually do matter to how they view the situation. But yes, under the right subtle conditions (including suspension of disbelief about various social factors relating to the unit) I can imagine someone building a telescope working with a unit call an AB, such that the telescope would be properly characterized as a "2 AB (35 cm) refractor" (or reflector).  (Btw: don't omit the space before the left-parenthesis.)


 * It's not an advanced textbook. It's a Wikijunior textbook.  It should not be difficult reading.  I speak as someone who was a "little professor", one of those young children with an excessively large vocabulary, who has spent decades learning to curb my enthusiasm for ornate verbiage &mdash; and that's just when communicating with adults.  (My mother has a story about a neighbor whose son came home one day from kindergarten and told her, "&lt;pi zero's real-world name&gt; uses bigger words than you do".)  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 14:56, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Btw, to get the proper context for the greek names thing, I'd want to look at the edit history of the page; what page was it? --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 14:57, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

The intended audience and scope of books should be considered when deciding what to include or exclude. The manufacturer's specification and measurements might be important for the audience and scope of one book and not another. Same for proper Greek names. The significants of "36 in" should probably be explained to readers since Pi zero considers that an important fact. Some readers may want to understand the significants of knowing the Greek names as well. The Wikipedia practice of including information in parenthesis may not be enough as books should teach people rather than simply inform people. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  16:53, 17 June 2013 (UTC)


 * To Darklama:
 * I do not think our audience will understand the reason for inches over centimetres, as even I do not understand (and I consider my self above-average intelligence, but maybe that is just my narcissism with my inaccuracy of the IQ test combined), while all this time Pi zero has been trying to explain to me why. And the Greek names are mainly just for amusement, as I aforementioned.


 * To Pi zero
 * I know the feeling; when I was that age I was all about saying photons instead of light, yet nobody understood me. But to the subject, you say that you could imagine someone building an 2 AB telescope. That is a wrong way of thinking; nobody but the creator of the AB increments (hypothetically, me) would know how much that telescope's length is. So, go 133 years after the creation of my telescope. Someone decides to write a Wikipedia article about my telescope. What you are saying is that they should write the length statistic like this: Length: 2 AB (25 cm). I think that the Wikiprojects' goal is to help the majority more than the minority. The majority knows centimetres better than inches. I will try to your way of thinking: You want to listen to the Chinese independence song in Chinese. You should want to listen to the Chinese independence while someone tells you the translations. On different notes, sorry for the advanced terminology, and I believe it was on Jupiter in which you reverted my first edit of the Latin way of writing Jupiter. Воображение


 * I was remarking on what can go wrong with hypotheticals. Under the right subtle conditions I could see it happening.  I would expect those subtle conditions to include it having been billed, widely, as a 2 AB telescope at the time, and people at the time having understood what that meant.  If those conditions weren't met, it would be outside the parameters of the analogy.  This is simply the way telescopes are described; describing a 6-inch reflector as a 15.24cm reflector would be just wrong.  There's probably a beautiful analogy to some more common thing out there that would clearly illustrate how to think about it, which I'm just not thinking of.  (Where's Richard Feynman when you need him?)  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs)


 * Okay, most people know about how much an inch is (although they know centimetres better, except in the U.S. probably). That does not mean that we should follow what the blueprints say and say that it is an inch, as more people understand the centimetre better. Your argument is basically "The traditional art of telescope-making...we should follow the original blueprints." I have been trying to counterargument that unproven statement but now you explain; Why should we follow the original blueprints? --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 23:39, 17 June 2013 (UTC)


 * No. That is not what I'm saying.  You're ignoring the most important factor, and then arguing that what's left isn't important enough to justify my position.  I'm talking about branding; that's the closest word I can think of.  There's also an element of... I'm at a loss for the right word again, but let's try the word cluefulness.  When I said, above, that calling a 6-inch telescope a 15.24-cm telescope is "just wrong", I was being euphemistic.  Calling a 6-inch telescope a 15.24-cm telescope is a tell that the person describing it doesn't know the subject they're talking about.  As if (I'm only trying this as an illustration of the level of clue) someone were describing the capacity of a hard disk in trillions of bits, in a social context where anyone who knows the subject would be talking about hundreds of gigabytes.  (That's perhaps not a strong enough example, because the branding and the clue interact with each other, but it's a start.)  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 00:41, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I could not imagine explaining all this to children, as <font color="midnightblue">dark lama  suggested. But, you win in the primary argument. Felicitations. However, you still did not answer my questions about the Latin and Ancient Greek spellings of the deities. --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 01:18, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Another revert
You reverted one of my edits merging 2 short sections of Amalthea. I know that separate sections are desirable, but both of the sections were quite short (2-3 sentences), and I could not imagine what else to put on them, so I merged them into a mediocre-sized topic. Both of the sections are directly relevant to each other, and they repeat the same statistic. --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 01:51, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd have to check the edit history, but I didn't think I'd reverted those, rather modified them. I could be thinking of different edits.


 * Speaking of which, the last I recall on the Ancient Greek names subthread, I had said "Btw, to get the proper context for the greek names thing, I'd want to look at the edit history of the page; what page was it?" The two situations have in common with each other that a careful examination of the edit history is needed to understand them well enough for me to remark intelligently.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 01:57, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The first original name addition I did was on Jupiter, in which I did the Latin spelling of Luppiter or something of the sort. Maybe Latin could be excluded (since it uses the Latin alphabet, but I think we should at least include the Greek names of deities. Anyhow, I think I included the Greek name of Io. And on Amalthea, that was where you reverted an edit of mine for "Desirability to include specialised sections" or something along the lines of that. --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 13:58, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I think Pi zero wants revision links to understand what you are talking about, like removal of Jove. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  15:23, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Forgive me for my noviceness. But Pi Zero, one of the alternative names for Jupiter is Jove (outdated, but still). It is where we get the expression: "By Jove!", actually meaning "By Jupiter!". The modern-day descendant of "By Jove!" is "By god!". Jove is also the base word for Jovian, which is the only word to describe anything related to Jupiter. Look it up on Wikitionary if you are not convinced. And about Jupiter's Latin, or here is a Greek one. --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 16:57, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm familiar with Jove as an alternative name of the god (and with the etymological connection to Jovian). I've never heard of the planet being called that, even historically.  (I've this theory that "gadzooks" is a corruption of "God Zeus", but it's just a guess.)


 * The Latin spelling is, I believe, "Iuppiter" with an upper-case i, rather than "luppiter" with a lower-case L. Which really is the modern spelling except for the double-p, as the fork of letter j from i followed from the Carolingian minuscule script developed by Charlemagne's team of experts to optimize rapid and accurate copying by scribes.  The whole thing about i and j struck me as quite a lot to get involved in explaining for the sake of a small point of curiosity, and surely too much to go into note embedded into a larger sentence.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 18:59, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * You win, I misread a section in a dictionary about Jove. Also, gadzooks is a contraction of God's hooks, in reference with the crucifixation of Jesus. However, that was an interesting theory you had. Yes, well, as I was saying earlier, we need not go into details about the Latin pronunciation. I am expecting that they would make a book of sorts with the title of "Iuppiter", along with some stylish calligraphy in all the letters. Maybe they would make a painting of Iuppiter, again the title in elaborate calligraphy. I do not think that any project (or any project that they would think of) would involve the pronunciation of Iuppiter, so I am sure it is fine. Jupiter was a bad example though, as I got multiple things wrong. What are your thoughts on the Greek lettering though? --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 03:03, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I do wonder how well documented some of these slang etymologies are. I remember reading a column, years ago, about the history of etymologies for OK, of which there are quite a few, all proposed successively by the same person, who just kept digging until he eventually found an explanation of its origin that was completely compelling.  What were we saying?  Oh yes, Greek lettering.  Tbh, I think the Greek lettering is too involved for the target audience of the book.  We barely go that far even in WJ:Languages, where it's closer to the topic of the book, and where there's a stated lower bound on the target audience age (whereas WJ:Solar System has no such explicit lower bound afaics).  Writing for children is... different.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 04:27, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, I read an entire book about the 100 English words that shaped the English language and their etymologies, if it was known. OK is a derivation of All Correct. I think that that children would use the authentic spellings more than adults, so for children, it is even better. Į was thinking that it could be something like this: Ἰώ: Ά Δέςκριτίσπ. This is just a pipe dream, but in the future, there could be some Wikijunior book about how to write in different languages. Forgive me for my noviceness on Wikibooks, but you never did tell me what all these abbreviations mean (tbh, imo, imho, et cetera). --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 14:22, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, that was the truly compelling origin for OK &mdash; compelling when you see a Boston newspaper article from the period, virtually unreadable for all the bizarre initialisms in it. And speaking of bizarre initialisms...


 * I'm sure I've lost track of any number of questions along the way; this has been quite a complex conversation.


 * tbh, imo, imho are abbreviations from the email world (not to be confused with the ones that have cropped up much more recently from texting, which to my knowledge have not caught on much outside the texting environment). I didn't bother to use any for years, but then found that imho = in my humble opinion was quite handy to have a single word for, and have gradually added others as they become convenient.  imo = in my opinion, tbh = to be honest, afaik = as far as I know, afaics = as far as I can see, iirc = if I recall correctly, lol = laughing out loud (variants rofl = rolling on floor laughing, lmao = laughing my ass off), irl = in real life, pita = pain in the ass (very handy because the initialism is more genteel than its expansion), pos = piece of shit (again, more genteel), and occasionally I've seen, though I don't think I've ever used, ianal = I am not a lawyer.  Occasionally people make up more such intialisms as a sort of competitive sport, implicitly challenging others to figure them out or daring them to ask.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 14:53, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * A new Wikijunior book should be planned out carefully. Although I've never created a Wikijunior book from scratch, I did undertake a fairly significant merge-and-revamping on Wikijunior, once.  There were two books on religions, neither of which had ever been built up much.  I studied them for some time to understand what had gone wrong before I acted.  The biggest problem was that the set of standard questions had been poorly chosen, so that with no bad intentions at all it made it difficult to fit any non-Christian religion into the mold (ooops).  One book had been created by the active Wikijunior community, in the waning months of the heyday of Wikijunior when there still was a coherent community there, while the other had been created by an individual who was really excited about the idea of promoting tolerance and mutual understanding, but apparently didn't realize they needed to list the book at the wikijunior list of all books so others would know it was there.  That user's last edit, I think, was a note on the book's talk page &mdash; "I need help I thought it would be a cool book idea but I need some more contributors".  I think that's one of the loneliest pleas I've ever read.  I came along years later, and the book is better now and can be expanded (though that happens only occasionally), but the original contributor will never know since they'd long since disappeared from all the wikimedia sisters.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:19, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * That was a melancholy tip, but thanks anyway. Anyhow, it is only a pipe dream; if I do create that book, it will probably be a few years from now. But are you OK on me adding in the Latin and the ancient Greek now? --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 17:04, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * A funny anecdote: I watched Men in Black 1, and in one scene a guy says, "Unlimited technology from the world and we're driving a Ford POS." I looked really hard to find that car, typing in Ford POS in google. POS is not a real model type. --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 13:02, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Lol.
 * In one of the RoboCop movies (quite possibly the first), iirc, there was an ad for a deluxe automobile called the Ford SUX. Similar principle, less internet culture-savvy.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:37, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

So, Γρεεκ and Latin lettering and any other special letterings that pop up OK (sometimes they use Japanese mythology to name mountains on planets)? --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 14:11, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Do we have an example of what you're proposing to do? --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 14:26, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * This. This might not be the place to ask, but how do you make a signature such as Darklama's? There is the manual way of typing everything out, which I know how to do, but is there anyway to do it with the "- - ~ ~ ~ ~" sign? --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 14:58, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I tweaked the format, a bit. (I'd have written more of an explanation, but don't like parentheticals anyway and try to keep them short and simple if they occur at all, so they don't disrupt the flow of the text any more than they have to.)  What do you think?


 * Signature customization should be about the third thing in the "User profile" tab of Special:Preferences. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:08, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I looked there, but it does not actually compile the code, but just writes out the whole thing, <span style/Воображение...etc.
 * Tbh, I did not see any change; still shows that what I have there is the latest draft, not the latest reviewed. --Воображение (discuss • contribs) 15:17, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * As I recall, the custom signature puts out precisely whatever text you put in with no template expansion or magic words, making it laborious, but possible, to use. I have for example a declared alternate account User:Pi one whose signature is customized (at least, on my home wiki) to
 * <tt> Pi zero (alt acct) (alt talk) </tt>
 * producing
 * Pi zero (alt acct) (alt talk)
 * so if I sign something from my alternate account it's clear who's signing.


 * My tweak to the Latin parenthetical was small, I admit. Changed "(Latin:Mercurius)" to "(Latin Mercurius)".  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:46, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, I will remove the colon and italicise the foreign language. However, I do not get how you did that. When I enter it into the signature, and use the - - ~ ~ ~ ~, it shows this a complicated and incoherent word, involving many symbols. If I enter the finished result, it does this: --Pi zero (alt acct) (alt talk) (discuss • contribs) 16:07, 20 June 2013 (UTC). How exactly would you enter that into the custom signature to make it as such? BTW, I hope I would trick you into checking Mercury with the Latin I added there; but it failed. Malice is unreliable. Oh, and a BTW2, I am just copying and pasting this signature for now.  В о о б р а ж е н и е


 * I see there's a checkbox at the signature customization, "Treat signature as wikitext (without an automatic link)". Might be worth experimenting with that to see how it varies the behavior?  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 21:11, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the tip. However, it detects that I am trying to spam, as the code for my rainbow name is too long. В о о б р а ж е н и е


 * Oh. Now that I look at the markup, I can see why it would trip some alarm.  I imagine it's the switching between font families that really pumps up the markup length.  Font families can be unreliable between platforms anyway; perhaps you should use default font and settle for shifting colors?  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 22:43, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, for the long reply. But even rainbowing 11 letters is too much for it to handle, so I will stick with copy-paste. В о о б р а ж е н и е

Visual Editor
What do you think of visual editor? I am presuming that since you are an administrator, they may have told you more. Will it be on Wikibooks after some point of development? And, also, in the advertisement they have in Wikipedia about it, they say it discourages users because nobody knows how to do "all this coding". As a firsthand account, joining a month ago and having very little prior knowledge of programming, this stuff is easy! It is mildly complicated at the first edits, but they exaggerate it. I believe the advertisement draws too much for inferences. Does Wikimedia have some sort of tracking devices to see what page you are on; and to see whether you click the edit button and then go back? I do not believe so. В о о б р а ж е н и е


 * From my understanding of internet history, wiki technology was a runaway success because it's so easy to use. That sits oddly with claims that the difficulty of wiki markup discourages people from getting involved.


 * I believe English Wikipedia has two major problems that endanger its future.
 * One is an often-toxic social atmosphere, which I believe is largely the cumulative effect of many years of AGF (Assume Good Faith). I've got a list of three top reasons AGF is a truly Bad Idea.
 * The other is that the wikimedia sisters &mdash;all of them, including Wikipedia&mdash; need a better way to manage expertise. The tasks performed on the non-wikipedian sisters tend to be more specialized, therefore requiring more expertise, than those on Wikipedia, but even Wikiepdia has this need.  One needs to identify experts, capture what they know (to the extent that's possible), help guide newcomers through the expert tasks and also help them learn the expert knowledge themselves, and help experts apply the knowledge more easily.  All those things.  Wiki software, so far, is good for just one thing: writing documents.  And that's not a good way to capture expertise, not a good way to guide people through applying it, and not even a particularly good way to help people learn it.  I do have in mind some tools that might eventually help with expertise management, but there's a very long way to go, and I'm trying to design and write all the code myself &mdash; in my copious free time (I spend most of my donated wikimedia time reviewing articles for English Wikinews... a task requiring a great deal of expertise, that could be made greatly easier by the sort of tools I'm having trouble finding time to develop).
 * Frankly, I think English Wikipedia is in denial about these problems. They don't see the expertise problem, and they've (many of them) got this profound emotional commitment to AGF that keeps them from seeing that it's destroying them.  So instead they pour effort into the quintessentially superficial visual editor.  That's how it seems to me, anyway.  I haven't looked into visual editor very deeply; perhaps if I did I'd be impressed by how ergonomic it is, though I don't see how it could be all that much easier to use since the wiki interface is already just not that difficult.  But more to the point, I don't think it's addressing the biggest problems that the wikimedia sisters are facing.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 02:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I think you are making exaggeration here. Being told you did something severely wrong (I doubt which happens very often), may discourage you, or it will motivate you do try again. AGF sometimes discourages people from editing/contributing, but I do not think that it is a "truly Bad Idea". I would like to see these three reasons. As for expertise, Wikipedia has handled that excellently, using wikiProjects. Maybe something of the sort could be implemented into the siblings, but I am not sure I am grasping what you are saying. What tools are you talking about? What would they do? I see no problems with Wikimedia siblings, and Visualeditor is an, albeit nearly uselss, tool, and any help is welcomed help. В оображени е


 * AGF is a startlingly deep subject; it's taken me years to learn its dynamics. My thinking on the subject has matured through a series of stages, which I'll take a stab at describing, below; key points are that AGF means something different than the naive interpretation of what it says, and that in practice what AGF does is different from what it's meant to do.
 * Stage one: naive idealism.
 * When I first registered on Wikipedia (in 2006), I was soon given a welcome message on my user talk page there, and quickly discovered AGF. I thought something like, "Wow.  That's completely unworkable; obviously a completely open forum is going to be rife with people who don't mean well, and expecting such a project to function successfully by pretending otherwise is insane.  It's pie-in-the-sky idealism.  Cool!  Count me in!"  This is an important thing to understand about projects run by volunteer labor:  they thrive on idealism.  Only idealism can stir the passions of volunteers to donate the quality and quantity of labor needed.
 * Stage two: Behavior rather than belief.
 * I'd been on Wikipedia for about a year before I encountered the essay The Zen of Wikpedia, with its advice to Assume good faith, even when you don't. By that time I dimly grasped that, as implied by the advice, "assume good faith" shouldn't be taken too literally. It took me another year or so before I felt I understood reasonably well what it does mean.  It has to do with how one conducts oneself, and perhaps just a bit with reminding oneself not to assume bad faith, but oughtn't be construed to imply one should be making unreasonable assumptions.
 * Stage three: Relativism.
 * For a while, I was so deeply indoctrinated in AGF that when I first arrived at Wikinews, where they explicitly rejected AGF on the grounds that a news reporter shouldn't be in the habit of assuming anything, I thought, "Yes, I can see that a news site would have to discourage assuming anything, but how can a wiki project possibly function without AGF?" It's kind of amazing that I thought that, since a few years earlier when I arrived at Wikipedia I'd wondered how a wiki project could possibly function with AGF.  But I found that Wikinews functioned despite the absence of AGF, just as I'd found that Wikipedia functioned despite the presence of AGF.  And for several years I tried really hard to satisfy everyone at once, by believing that AGF is appropriate for Wikipedia even though it obviously isn't appropriate for Wikinews.


 * In fact Wikinews, for a while there, did have intermittent problems with an unstable social climate &mdash; but the problem wasn't the absence of AGF, rather it was the absence of clear guidelines on how to operate without AGF. It took Wikinews quite a lot of political bother to finally formulate essay Never assume, because I wasn't the only one who'd drunk the AGF Kool-Aid.


 * Two out of my top three objections to AGF are already apparent at this stage: First, if taken literally, AGF tells contributors to assume something, and information providers should not assume things &mdash; just as information consumers shouldn't either.  Second, if understood as a behavioral guideline that doesn't mean literally what it says, AGF encourages contributors by example to say something different than what they mean.  Information providers should be in the habit of saying what they mean.
 * Stage four: disillusionment.
 * What happens on Wikipedia is this: nasty users learn to use AGF as a shield.  They can be extremely vicious without provably violating behavioral guidelines, and then when one of their victims is goaded into reacting to their viciousness, the victim gets a slap on the wrist, either for bad behavior as such or for failing to assume good faith.  Over many years, this has caused a gradual, steady rise in the proportion of nasty users on Wikipedia, and while there are still many great people there, overall the social atmosphere of the project has gotten more and more poisonous.  As the atmosphere grows worse, better users are discouraged from staying or discouraged from joining, and the problem makes itself worse.  This is the other one of my top three objections to AGF: that it shields troublesome users.


 * It took me a long time on Wikinews before I was able to see clearly this problem with AGF. In part, I had to recover from the AGF indoctrination I'd received at Wikipedia, but there was more to it than that.  I'd originally fallen in love with Wikipedia partly because of the idealism of AGF, and my emotional investment lingered, so I was reluctant to admit to an intrinsic flaw in AGF.  Indeed, many Wikipedians are apparently too emotionally committed to the idealism of AGF to entertain any doubt in it.
 * --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:27, 6 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, your biography of wikimedia usage was interesting. But to counter your points,
 * Firstly, I think you mean the wrong meaning of assume. In the wikitionary article of "Assume", the third definition says this: "To adopt an idea or cause.", while you may have mixed it up with the most common definition, "To authenticate by means of belief; to surmise; to suppose to be true, especially without proof.". Assuming in the first definition is not OK, assuming in the third definition is acceptable (in my opinion). You can assume any religion, but as long as you remain unbiased, Wikimedia would have no problems with your religions.
 * Secondly, I think that you misinterpreted it. It seems like you are comparing AGF to a situation like this: "Would you like to come over to dinner?" You are obliged to say "Yes", and/or lie(No, I will be busy), in order to be polite. AGF is not supposed to be that degree. Rather, it is just saying as a rule, that you should not be vulgar or try to be mean whilst stating your true statement.
 * Thirdly, I have not edited much on Wikipedia, but I could not imagine any of this. And if were abolished on Wikipedia, would not it be just a rowdy place like YouTube comments in which everybody is insulting each other and having arguments about religion, gender, etc? I think this may be unpreventable, and is just the lesser of the two evils.
 * And BTW instead of using Poisonous Atmosphere, just use the word Miasma. You seem to like saying toxic atmosphere and poisonous atmosphere a lot. В оображени е


 * Overall, it sounds &mdash;puzzlingly&mdash; as if you've somehow badly misunderstood what "assume good faith" means. I'm not certain you've misunderstood.  I'm not sure what would cause such a misunderstanding, which makes it harder for me to believe such a misunderstanding has occurred.  What I can say unequivocally:  There isn't any doubt about what AGF means; there has never been any doubt about what AGF means.  When dealing with another user, you are to assume (i.e., believe without proof) that the other user is acting in good faith.


 * AGF is separate from various other principles that &mdash;unlike AGF&mdash; concern themselves with whether one is, oneself, mean. Like, "Be civil", and "Don't bite the newcomers".  Many of the users (not all, but many) who are most vocal in insisting on AGF are downright vicious.


 * As I mentioned, Wikinews had some problem a while back, not because it didn't have AGF, but because it didn't have a sufficiently clearly delineated alternative to AGF either. The alternative to one way of doing things is some other way of doing things; the alternative to AGF is not automatically some particular dystopia.


 * Btw, miasma is not in this case a viable substitute for poisonous atmosphere (even setting aside subtleties of degree). This is because atmosphere is being used in the sense of social environment, a common usage for atmosphere that anchors the phrase to its intended meaning in a way that miasma does not.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The Wikpedia page about it actually says to use assume in both the first and third ways, Unless there is clear evidence to the contrary, assume that people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it. is what you are thinking about. However, what I am talking about it is If criticism is needed, discuss editors' actions, but avoid accusing others of harmful motives without clear evidence.. You may have a very good point in abolishing the first definition, but I think that the other definition should remain. Also, could you give me the crash course on how to contribute pages on wikiNews? I want to translate the Never Assume document.  В оображени е

I don't see how the second passage would bear on a different sense of assume than the first. Re "crash course on how to contribute pages on wikiNews", I'm happy to help but am unsure what you're asking for. (It's Wikinews rather than wikiNews, btw. :-) --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:51, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Unless there is clear evidence to the contrary, assume that people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it. &mdash; talks about believing that people mean well.
 * If criticism is needed, discuss editors' actions, but avoid accusing others of harmful motives without clear evidence. &mdash; doesn't actually use the word "assume", but in relation to the meaning of "assume" it apparently implies you should pretend to assume that people mean well, until the pretense becomes unsustainable. A related point is also made in n:WN:Never assume, with some differences of shading &mdash; most of the second paragraph, which doesn't place a high standard of evidence, and also addresses the recipient of criticism.


 * For the second one, I think you are misinterpreting it. Otherwise, it would be repetitive of the first statement. It tells you to more take up good faith rather than to "authenticate without belief" that others are using good faith. The first statement could have easily caused all of your reasons as for why AGF is a bad reason. You can break any facade that evils are building just by using my favourite rule which is something along the lines of Ignore all other rules. And how can anyone act while AGF maliciously? If they use any kind of insults, it will be obvious that they are not assuming good faith. You can not assume that there is not a computer in front of me when you see that there is a computer in front of me. I am not the person you should be arguing about Assume Good Faith, the person you should see is Morwen, who created AGF. But only if you win this argument.


 * About Wikinews, I think it is apparent what I want to do; translate the Never Assume document into French.


 * Oh, and remember a while back I asked you about division of expertise? You still have not answered that question. В оображени е

Venus Abridgement
You abridged one of my edits on Venus in Wikijunior. I forgot how to link pages here, and too lazy to look. I believe that most everywhere, people buy frozen pizza to cook. I, myself, baked my first successful pizza solo when I was 9. I would understand discrepancies as the reason to simplify it, however, I am associating it with something most children would say "Yummy". And I doubt that our intended audiences are Italian pizza aficianados. Plus, I added the temperature my oven goes to when I bake pizza for answering the question that will probably pop up like this: Reader reads: "As hot as an oven when baking pizza." Reader wonders: I wonder how hot that oven is actually. В оображени е
 * Hm. There's pizza you get at a pizzeria (cheap or expensive), which is baked at very high temperatures.  Home-made pizza, baked at temperatures less than at a pizzeria but possibly still hotter than the surface of Venus.  Store-bought pizza baked in an oven, that temperature is I believe rather lower.  And store-bought pizza heated in a microwave oven, which is a different thing entirely.  Which of these things kids are, or aren't, likely to be familiar with depends on what part of the world they're in.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 20:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, most everybody who has a computer with internet is rich enough to buy pizza once in a while. And I put the temperature in, to quench curiosity, and to clarify what the official oven temperature (in this document) is for baking pizza. В оображени е
 * There is in fact more than one "temperature at which pizza is baked", corresponding to different modes of baking it, differing over a very wide range from below Venus's surface temperature to... above it I think, though I'd have to double check that. And cultural differences may determine whether any given one of these modes is prevalent where a given child lives; it's not merely a matter of how rich the child is (though I do note initiatives to make laptops available for education of children all over the world, including in some direly underdeveloped areas).  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 14:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I think I see what you mean here. Is it that it would be pointless to say that 470K is lower than 490K? I think I understand now. В оображени е

reply to your thoughts in edit summary of article on Punjabi language, mentioned at my talk page
Hi!I also mean no offence; Writing scripts are given in article itself as Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi. and i support that. Punjabi has two recognised scripts .Now my question to you, why you support word devnagri in title of file when placed against thumb and check this revision as ok ?I made image more representative to its writing scripts in bold. You as administrator shoud change back to old title of image",Punjabi in Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi scripts". and should retain image changed by me which is more representative and check my revision okay. I hope I have replied your queries,please clearly ask about my changes done, any thing ,and now revert back, to my changes as well as change done on image "alias name" as described above.--Guglani1 (discuss • contribs) 10:23, 22 July 2013 (UTC) Guglani1 (discuss • contribs) 08:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * remind you please for needful action as suggested by me.

Help -- I am being bullied by Dan Polansky
Hello, I saw on IRC that you made a recent edit. I am being bullied by an admin who doesn't think I have done productive work on the Python programming book. Can you help me? You can see the exchange on my talk page. I am stepping out to get a curry, but will be back in about 30 minutes. Hackbinary (discuss • contribs) 18:52, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Dan Polansky is not an administrator. There is a previous report by myself that the user practices of interaction and his understanding of how we function (how he goes about implementing his view of things) are problematic. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 20:34, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
 * User:Panic2k4 has a good reason to hold grudge against me, as I have helped to halt some of this malpractices at C++ Programming, especially his mistreatment of Talk:C++ Programming, and I have pointed out Arbitration/Panic2k4_vs._SBJohnny. Thanks also to the work of User:Adrignola, Talk:C++ Programming and its archives are in sound order now. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 21:29, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Dan, I don't know (yet) what the **** is going on over at Python Programming, but from what I've seen, including your above comment, your rhetoric on this matter seems pretty uniformly negative. You seem to be looking for excuses to dismiss other's contributions; that's really how it comes across.  I even see you ridiculing another editor for making many small edits instead of one big edit &mdash; seriously?  I routinely make large edits in small increments, so it will be possible to use diffs to see clearly just what I've done &mdash; but casting factual doubt on whether large edits are preferable to small edits isn't the point.  It's more disturbing that the whole argument comes across as (saying it again) an excuse to dismiss someone else's contributions.  Your basic position sure sounds like "I can prove I've made more contributions here than you have proven you've made, therefore I own this book", which is appallingly antisocial.  If the C++ Programming affair teaches anything, I'd think it's that things become an unholy mess, and the project as a whole suffers, when editors stop trying to cooperate.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:50, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. There are other projects that I can work on, however this is the one that I would like to work on the most, and where I think I can offer the most useful content, so I thought I should register the issue.  From my point of view as a new editor, it is a pretty appalling welcome from a veteran Editor, Dan.  From my view on Python programming, I was in the first instance trying to tidy-up the navigation between the chapters, and make the content follow in a more coherent manner.


 * I do not see how one can make (write), or amend chapters if you are unsure of what the order is. Eg the 'decorators' chapter comes before the 'classes' chapter, and for the most part I have only ever seen decorators used with classes anyway.  There are other examples of poorly placed chapters, inconsistent capitalisation, repetitive content over several chapters, and (extremely?) poorly named chapters such as 'Extracting info from web pages' which lands on 'Web Page Harvesting.'


 * I would say that 'Web Page Harvesting' actually sends the wrong message of copying web content irrespective of copyright. Harvesting implies someone copying web content without the permission of the content owner, and it also is a rather narrow application of the use of http client libraries, eg I use http client libraries at work to automate the configuration and monitor printers and NAS boxes. Despite how we may feel about IP, wikibooks should not be in the business of encouraging illegal activity.  The navigation between chapters is broken, and inconsistent.


 * After reviewing a fair number of chapters on Python programming I came to the conclusion that the book was mostly derelict and unmaintained, so I decided to crack on with reorganising it, and fixing the navigation between chapters. That is work that I completed, which Dan reverted. He reverted many of the articles that I fixed the navbars on.  I also archived out the ancient content from the Discussion page (I personally think that it is counter-productive to keep old content that is no longer relevant on the Talk pages; I think it is distracting and confusing, and should be archived in a sensible manner, and that only current discussion should be on the page, which again Dan reverted.


 * So after reorganising the contents page, and fixing the navigation I started on refactoring and writing content beginning here: Python_Programming/Editing_and_Running_Python_Code. Then Dan left 2 rather nasty messages on my talk page: User_talk:Hackbinary, and at first I tried really hard to press the reset button and foster a cooperative rapport, but he persisted in belittling, slighting and just being an obstinate jerk.  I wanted the contents page to be reorganised, so I would know the rough plan of the book so I could write against that, and Dan agreed that chapters were poorly ordered, but when it became clear that he was not agreeable to reorganising the contents page, I became frustrated, so I let it devolve a bit before calling it a day.


 * Finally, I find it quite odd that Dan did not mention Python programming on his User Page, nor did he even appear once on the Discussion pages on any of the chapters that had them before I suggested that he should speak up on them, so I do think that my view of Python programming being unmaintained is a reasonable conclusion. Hackbinary (discuss • contribs) 19:55, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Development Stages
Hi,

Would it be possible to update with the new and more logical images:     ? I have discussed about that with QuiteUnusual but they seem to be busy. Ftiercel (discuss • contribs) 20:09, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you here? Ftiercel (discuss • contribs) 05:05, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I've even been active on Wikibooks in the interim.  I just... had something else to do at the moment I first read your note, and then lost track of it... sorry about that.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 00:27, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Good grief. I see why QU would hesitate on that one; the code for that template is well-nigh indecipherable, assembling the file name by splicing the percentage into it.  I'm gonna have to study that carefully, to be absolutely sure I understand exactly how it works, before touching it.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 00:34, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I have written the code for you here but I couldn't test it. It just changes "%" by " percents". I think the best way to verify the code is to use the "Preview page with this template" section and to test with the different types of pages that use it. Ftiercel (discuss • contribs) 19:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that seems to do it. Deployed.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 21:09, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Yes it seems to work. Ftiercel (discuss • contribs) 07:08, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Help us with our M.Sc. thesis?
Hi Pi Zero,

We are two students doing our M.Sc. thesis about motivational factors to contribute to Open Eductational Factors and we need people to interview. We were wondering if you would help us with that? The interview won't take long and we can do it over Skype. e-mail me at ottve507@student.liu.se if you are interested or message me back here.

Thank you for your understanding

Regards Otto —Preceding comment added by OXp1845 (discuss • contribs) 08:00, 14 April 2014

Thank you
Thanks for the welcome message back in March! (I just noticed it.) -- 24.114.83.79 (discuss) 21:36, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks!
Just a thanks for noticing the bump here. I clarified the solution needed I think. If not, I'll be able to check back in 3-6 hrs and we can have a go at being better at communicating the need!

Since you claim some technical expertise, I've had virtually no luck getting notelist to work for me--including an attempt to use whatever that nfn template does instead of using the old school &lt;ref group="notes" name="something"&gt; syntax, but perhaps for that... I think I saw one notes section on one page last evening that was possibly working --but on examination just now, it's not either, see for example by edit here. That notes syntax is definitely not manifesting at page bottom, and the others look to be references (citations). What I'd like is a bit more clarity in the templates usage /doc page. Is it using notes or note or what group, etc. Just time tight, and way too many pages to make edits on to have chased these sorts of petty issues down yet. I'm probably using the wrong group name for example. It's something syntactically minor, I'm sure. But computers and GIGO go hand in hand! If you could give me just one syntax example that notelist respects and reports correctly it will be a big help to me. Even the original way like the tags I exampled here (which is what I recall from Wikipedia 5-6 years back!), or some other syntax, I'll have to cross this bridge sooner or later. Think reorganizing a whole book will be worth it, but last night special pages active editors shows just how busy I've been--more than the next twenty editors combined, I suspect! Yikes! So a nudge on this to a reference or a method would be really helpful. Thanks // Fra nkB 19:40, 15 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Before I go haring off in the wrong direction:
 * I understand notelist to be for creating something rather like a reflist, only different, using efn for the particular references to be listed.
 * Its native habitat appears to be Wikipedia, where it is part of an extensive network of templates many of which do not currently exist on Wikibooks, as witness the documentation page here for efn which has redlinks scattered across it.
 * None of this has anything to do with the hide/unhide problem you were asking about at the reading room. (Well, except perhaps that the documentation page for notelist has an item on it that can be expanded on demand.)
 * Does that sound about right? --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 23:13, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The notelist or the ability to have a notes section with some elaboration is an entirely different issue I thought I'd ask if you know or knew about. Notes are generally a short paragraph, as opposed to a formal cite, explanatory versus a reference to authority. The notelist and efn template were imported from WP by me, if you see their history, (and the redlinks were left as was). I'd never used efn on the Wikipedia to make a note, which I did, oh, several dozen times over the years. I (used to) edit history pages often before I undertook this work on the Wikibook, and they are handy for giving a bigger picture when you can't bog down, say a lede section with an interesting point, or want to explain the deeper backstory, so to speak. They are also handy in tech articles, which is another group of articles I sometimes edit as an engineer. The older way ('direct way')  notelist worked fine with the long hand ref tags, group= syntax, but the real question is what is that syntax. Maybe my brain was fried that night already, but the efn help made no sense to me either. Wading through several dozen pages of Wiki howto help to find the one fact you need is often difficult with my schedule... I have to set priorities and most nights barely manage 4-5 hrs sleep.  OTOH, it's a bit unfair to expect you to do such wading too, unless you get a personal benefit from adding to your personal tools. Either way, don't spend a lot of time on it. I probably just need to look at notelist again and do some experimenting with alternative ref tag forms to recollect something which works. I try not to bother folks, we all only have so much discretionary time we have to volunteer the projects after all. // Fra nkB 01:11, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Taking a peek under the hood of efn, I see it defaults to Lower_alpha as group, which argues notelist needs a similar group arguement. Then thinking I'd morph the template into a simpler version I found Template:Note which mentions using the same group name is or will create invalid HTML... Which is pretty much How I recall using notes. They came out as a list of 1-5 in stuff I wrote, and the a, b, c... of that usage was auto-generated as I recollect. Right now, I'm going to grab some dinner and revisit these issues at another time. If you have any insights on the invalid HTML aspect in particular, please let me know! Thanks again! // Fra nkB 01:24, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Found this following the link on the note template usage to cite.php -- mediawiki Cite extensions -- which has the base syntax I recall. The note template also looks like it will work, okay as well, though I would prefer a simple default! Best regards, // Fra nkB 02:40, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Inappropriate featured books advertisement
As per Reading room/General and Reading room/General, I request that the inappropriate featured books advertisement is removed. I further request that no similar advertisement is placed to the top of Wikibooks pages, and that the top remains empty for most of the time. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 09:13, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Dan Polansky: I seem to recall you indicated you can't get rid of the notice. I'm very interested in understanding why this would be.  To start with, are you unablet o dismiss it, or does it get dismissed for the moment and then show up again later?  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:35, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I am unable to dismiss the notice. No cross appears to dismiss the notice. Thus, the notice stays all the time; it does not become hidden even for a second. The setup where this appears is Windows 7, Chrome. Nonetheless, let me register my annoyance that you turn this into a technical issue. It is not. This is about the arrogance of whoever acts as if he owned the prime advertising space, while not having provided the content that makes the advertising space worthy. Unless there is a clear consensus of Wikibooks editor that this should be the use of the advertising space, this thing should be removed immediately. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:21, 19 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Dan Polansky, thanks for the information. Honestly, I'm not "turning this into a technical issue" &mdash; there are two issues here, that cannot be entirely separated from each other, and the really major issue is technical.  The sitenotice facility of the wiki software is a key feature for project-wide notices, and if that's broken, which it apparently is, it needs to be fixed.  And if it weren't broken, frankly I doubt you'd have been motivated to ask to have the particular notice taken down.  Likewise, we won't have put it up with a discussion by (iirc) just a few people if we hadn't "known" that any sitenotice is trivially easy to dismiss.  (For example, English Wikinews has a permanent rotating sitenotice of messages encouraging community participation.)


 * Dan, when did this become a problem for you? I mean, was the sitenotice always something you couldn't dismiss when there was a sitenotice, or did this start to be a problem sometime during the summer (for example)?  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:16, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
 * In Wikibooks, the site notice became a problem with the featured books site notice. I don't remember when; it was this year. I don't recall problems with site notices before.
 * Can you please point me to the discussion that lead to putting featured books to the site notice? --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 17:00, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * It was a pretty casual thing, as I recall; as I say, it wasn't perceived as a big deal at the time. I can maybe poke around and see if I can find it in my copious free time :-).  The place to start will be the date of the sitenotice change, of course... [ page history]...  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:42, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * All right, then. Thank you for removing the notice; I appreciate it. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 18:17, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The one thing I found, on a brief search, was even lighter than I'd remembered. I'm guessing I saw it at the time and decided no comment from me was required.  Reading room/Administrative Assistance/Archives/2014/May.
 * There might, or might not, have been some followup somewhere, but I'll have to think about how one would go about looking for it. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 02:56, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * FYI (just noticing this conversation now) it was me who adding the advertisement for the Featured books nominations. I fail to see the big deal here and you haven't explained your reasons for such a strong dislike (other than the technical issue).  I can't see how it required a discussion about doing it.  I just did it.  Although I remember mentioning in one of the reading rooms (can't remember which, we have too many of them) and mentioned that if anyone wishes to remove it then they can.  It seemed like a good idea and one which could easily be dismissed for logged in users (the vast majority although not you).  It was also inspired from Wikivoyage and Wikinews.  That said, it had zero effect - I don't think there was a single vote in the whole 3-4 months it was there!--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_the_Isle_of_Mann.svg|15px]]talk 23:56, 9 December 2014 (UTC)