User talk:Darrien

Archive 1

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Inorganic chemical substances

Hi,

I'm quite new to Wikipedia, but I'm trying to get a group of people together who are interested in working on the Chemicals Wikiproject. I notice that you have done quite a few edits on chemical compounds, and wondered if you might be willing to help out?

Also, one thing I am trying to do is to get everyone to use IUPAC naming for compounds (unless they deserve to be under a common name like water).

I have been championing the same cause for as long as I can remember being here. Just a word of caution, you will experience heavy resistance from British nationalists sooner or later (see my talk page archive and bot request). Point them to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style where it says "In articles about chemicals and chemistry, use the style of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) for chemical names wherever possible, except in article titles, where the common name should be used if different, followed by mention of the IUPAC name..." and try to stay calm.

I notice that you are using a format like copper (I) oxide, rather than the IUPAC form of copper(I) oxide. Do you mind if I switch these to the IUPAC name?

Please do so. My original source for IUPAC nomenclature was obviously flawed.

I think it would be best if all the names are consistent. I put some details on naming up at http://www2.potsdam.edu/walkerma/inorg_naming.pdf to clarify things. Section 2.252 deals with the Stock notation and parentheses.

I hope you can join us, we need as many knowledgable people as possible!

Walkerma 20:51, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You may want to consider joining Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry as well. I'm a member and always try to fix things when I see them, though when I have free time I will actively search for things that need fixing.

I have also requested permission to run a bot to aid in repetitive changes here: Wikipedia_talk:Bots#Darbot_registration, but have not had the time to run it through the tests necessary for it to reach formal approval.

Darrien 08:56, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, I will join Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry. I am a Brit myself, by the way, but I take your point! Since I have been doing chemistry in the US for 12 years now, I have grown used to writing sulfate instead of sulphate. But in my experience Americans can be just as nationalistic- why use meters and liters when the rest of the world is using metres and litres, and anyway most Americans don't know what a litre is? I will take your advice regarding the Manual of Style, and I certainly agree with you. I'm glad to find another chemist who cares about such details!

Thanks, Walkerma 16:05, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

• Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
• Multi-Licensing Guide
• Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

OTT Linux References

Comparison of operating systems has 5 Linux distros when every other OS is done by OS, not distro. You might want to clean that up as well :-) Kiand 12:58, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Incineration

I noticed you changed some spelling it might be worth looking over the whole article and changing it to American English as I put some of it to British English to try and fix some of the worst of the spelling, apart from removing all the u's im not sure what else to do :D --Davelane 13:23, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Policy dictates that the spelling used by the first major contributor should be used. This edit appears to be the first major contribution. It used American spelling, so the current article should use it as well.

Darrien 17:35, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)

cool, thanks for looking that over --Davelane 20:02, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Better suggestion needed for my RedHatism

This one put in by me because I couldn't think of a better one. X Window System - the diagram of a server and clients. I even asked on the talk page and got no better ideas for a remote client than up2date.

The key factor I'm looking for here is an application that is routinely run as a remote X session. Can you think of any that aren't quite so specific?

(And we'll never mind that the graphical nature of up2date is incredibly stupid. I disliked Linux before administering it for a living, now I despise it.)

If you can, please suggest it on Talk:X Window System and I'll redo the image, or I can send you the SVG (I did it in Inkscape) and you can go wild with it :-) - David Gerard 15:51, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Why put anything specific at all? The local applications are generic, why shouldn't the remote one be so as well? I would put "CAD/CAM application" or somesuch, though if you wanted to name a program, anything computationally expensive would work.

Darrien 02:47, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)

I was thinking concrete examples would be better for getting a handle on the concept - I've seen the X reversal of "client" and "server" explode heads when I've tried to explain it. (Though that may just be my explanations.) If anyone comes up with a good real life example, I'll be happily doing a new diagram - David Gerard 18:13, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OpenBSD

As per what I said before, Darrien, do you mind if I reformat your comment on the Talk:OpenBSD page? I'll simply move the sig up and add the '--', bring it into line w/everything else. -- Maru Dubshinki

Go ahead.

Darrien 05:14, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

Sulphate

I noticed you changed "sulphate" to "sulfate" on the climate change page. Personally I don't care how it is spelled, but "sulphate" is technically not archaic, since it is still the preferred spelling in the UK and many english speaking countries outside the US and the one used by the IPCC (the source of the statement you edited); IUPAC be damned.

If the statement had been properly quoted, I wouldn't have changed it.

This has been discussed before on Talk:Global warming/OldTalk5#Standards & Chemical names, with the conclusion basically being reached that since sulfate/sulphate is clear under either spelling, and both are common, it was best to leave it as is and not fight over it.

As I recall, William was unwilling to accept the IUPAC spelling on the grounds that global warming wasn't a chemistry topic and no one was willing to pursue it further. Either way, that discussion was about global warming, my edit was on climate change.

As I said, I don't really care, so I am not going to fight over it, but if you continue playing with "sulfates" I am sure that there are those that will.

I've already dealt with many Brits who were unwilling to accept the IUPAC spelling (see my talk page archive), but thanks for the warning anyway.

Dragons flight 19:48, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

Darrien 20:24, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

As an aside, wasn't sulphate/sulfate replaced by sulphateVI /sulfate VI, or was that change reversed? Guettarda

Please stop mass-deleting external links =

Please stop mass-deleting external links, claiming they are "biased".

No.

First, that is no reason to delete any links,

Bias is every reason to delete links.

and second, most of these links are just explaining the current scientific knowledge.

And I have left those intact.

I will revert all your edits related to this. Cacycle 22:42, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Threats will get you nowhere with me.

Darrien 22:54, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

I have read this page about greenfacts.org: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=GreenFacts_Foundation. However, even if it seems to be a lobbyists group that does not warrant to remove the links. Their pages are didactically great overviews over scientific knowledge that has been evaluated in governmental studies. Show us where they lie or where their bias in these overviews is and I'll help you remove that specific link. Cacycle 23:02, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Their dioxin page actually seems somewhat OK. Their mercury page however, is totally inaccurate. Seeing that page first, the fact the links were added in a massive flood [1], and the link description passing it off as scientfic fact, along with several other factors led me to believe that all information on their site was false.

At this point I'm more concerned with the link being labeled as "fact" when it should have a more neutral description. Would:

• Assessment of the health risk of dioxins (PDF), a scientific consensus report published by the IPCS and the WHO.
• Summary and commentary of "Assessment of the health risk of dioxins"

in place of the existing link be acceptable to you?

I'm also wondering why you have also removed the links to the governmental studies. Cacycle 23:05, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Look at the link as it is rendered by Wikipedia. The study is in the description of the link.

Darrien 23:29, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

Yes, separating those links is definitely better. It would also be ok to label them as a lobbyists group.

Since these deletions are a bit controversial, I'd suggest that you leave a specific reason on the talk pages of the articles. That way it would be possible to understand your actions better and it would become possible to argue about it. (E.g. what made you think their mercury page is totally inaccurate). Cacycle 00:01, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

BTW, the user 194.183.227.97 has the same address in Brussels as GreenFacts... Cacycle 00:11, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have compiled an new article about the GreenFacts Foundation. Cacycle 14:07, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

summaries of UNEP "Global Mercury Assessment"

GreenFacts presents a summary of the "Global Mercury Assessment" of UNEP (2002) at: http://www.greenfacts.org/mercury It does not comment or add information to the UNEP report, but simply aims to make its content more accessible and understandable for the public (structured as questions and answers in 3 levels of increasing detail).

UNEP itself acknowledged this summary and linked to it at the top of its website, see: http://www.chem.unep.ch/mercury/Report/Final%20Assessment%20report.htm

I would like to know why a link to the summary posted on GreenFacts is not considered appropriate for Wikipedia's article on mercury (element)?

The link as it was titled was not appropriate for wikipedia.

Do you consider the UNEP report biased?

While I have yet to read it in it's entirety, I see no appreciable bias in what I have read so far.

Do you consider the summaries biased?

Yes.

If so in what way?

Many ways. Your "context" box says "Mercury is a heavy metal which is known to be highly toxic". Without any qualifications, that statement is false. The toxicity of elemental mercury is extremely slight. Only its salts, specifically its mercury(II) salts, and organic compounds pose any appreciable danger.

In section 2.1: your summary states "Mercury and its compounds are highly toxic substances for humans" yet the source you reference says "The toxicity of mercury depends on its chemical form".

Also in section 2.1: "Methylmercury and elemental mercury are of the highest concern". The problem I have with this statement is again a lack of qualifications. Methylmercury is extremely toxic, moves up the food chain, and causes numerous health affects. Elemental mercury might as well be considered inert when compared to methylmercury, but it does tend to slowly form methylmercury in living organisms. The only way elemental mercury could be of any major concern is if large amounts of it are being discharged into rivers and oceans. However, with the huge public outcry and massive governmental fines that any corporation would face after doing such; I highly doubt that any of them would allow such a thing to happen. As such, your statement needs to explain why elemental mercury is such a high concern. Especially seeing as I could not find a similar statement in the source you reference.

In section 2.2: you state "The main source of elemental mercury vapour is dental amalgam" and again in section 2.4 you state "Whilst ... amalgam fillings in teeth are ... the main sources of ... mercury vapour exposure for most people". This is somewhat of a half truth. Once an amalgam filling has set, little or no mercury is released. Any danger comes from the mixing and first few minutes after application. Modern dentists mix amalgam fillings by placing a sealed capsule of mercury and powdered metal in a machine that mixes it together. This is in sharp contrast to the days of yore when dentists used a mortar and pestle to mix amalgams. The first few minutes after application are not really of great concern, but a dentist could keep a suction tube near the filling while it sets to reduce, if not eliminate any exposure while it sets.

Stephanie Mantell, GreenFacts Publication Manager StephanieM

I have to say I am somewhat surprised you contacted me personally. I hope we can work together to correct any oversights in your publications.

Darrien 02:44, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)

Darrien, it looks as if you will end in their Panel of Experts collection... But I'm sure they pay good money... :-P Cacycle 09:58, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think this discussion should be moved to the mercury talk page. Cacycle 10:13, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for all your very detailed comments, which we will consider carefully.

An adjustement to the context box is relatively easy. Changes to the texts of level 1 and 2 summaries would be more difficult at this stage as they have already undergone a thorough peer review by experts in that field. When changes are made to such texts they require a renewed peer review and approval by our Scientific Board... We will make another check. StephanieM 09:42, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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I have reinstated all deleted GreenFacts links together with links to the original studies, a clear statement that GreenFacts is an industry lobbying group, and with a link to the GreenFacts article that has details on the GreenFacts strategy. Cacycle 17:30, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Please note that GreenFacts is not a lobbying group. See GreenFacts talk page StephanieM 09:42, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Computer and video games infobox

Hello, you commented several weeks ago that the font size in the computer and video games infobox was too small to read. We're currently revising the infobox and as a test, could you take a look at Template:Infobox Videogame or X-COM: UFO Defense. Please post a comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer and video games on whether the text in this infobox is legible or not. Thank you! --Mrwojo 16:48, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction from the phosphorus talk page. The eutrophication page explained to me what I needed to know. By the way, eutrophication is a very good article, so I nominated it as a featured article candidate. Since you seem to know about this subject, maybe you could vote on this article's candidacy. ike9898 16:36, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Phosphorous

Darrien,

I notice that you have switched the redirect of phosphorous to phosphite. I wanted to explain why I switched it back. The problem is that you are thinking like a chemist! A chemist is pretty unlikely to enter phosphorous as a search term when looking for phosphite. However a non-chemist (or a chemist with bad spelling) is EXTREMELY likely to type phosphorous when they mean phosphorus! This is such a spelling problem that when my old adviser gave an exam on organophosphorus chemistry, he stated that anyone spelling phosphorus in this way would lose two points for each mis-spelling! If you doubt me, take a look at the 693,000 Google hits for phosphorous- even though one would expect badly spelled pages to score lower on Google, I had to scroll down to #14 before I found the correct use of the word in the title. Maybe once we have more phosphorus compounds on Wikipedia such as H3PO3 (I recently wrote pages on all four P trihalides) we can make this a disambiguation page? BTW, thanks on your cleanup of Cu2O, long needed, I will work on a table for that page soon. Cheers, Walkerma 18:30, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. Though your professor sounds like he was too generous. If I was a professor, I would treat every misspelling the same way I would treat "oxygen" if the answer was "benzene". Different compounds are different compounds, regardless of whether or not their spelling differs by only one letter. It may sound harsh, but I doubt many professors would be as tolerant of an -ane -ene -yne mixup.

Darrien 20:26, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC)

(from Ecosystem ecology) Interesting - I tried one spelling, it redirected to the other (I generally use the preview page as a spell check as well as a link check), and I assumed it was an AE/BE thing. Guettarda 04:26, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yet more Linux-pushing...

A user first moving, then twice removing the references to Linux Washing Powder off the Linux page, refering to it as 'disgusting', and eventually leaving a comment ordering people not to re-add it.... thought you might find that 'interesting'. --Kiand 11:34, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It seems like a compromise has been reached for the moment, so I'm going to leave it alone. However, I'll keep a closer eye on it nonetheless.

Darrien 23:31, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)

Bryce Harrington

Hi -- Since you've worked on the Inkscape article, I thought you might be interested in the fact that the Bryce Harrington article is up for deletion.--Bcrowell 03:40, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Help requested

Any criticism (or editing) you can offer on Drug abuse and/or Substance abuse would be greatly appreciated. And, if you can briefly comment on the proposed outline over at Talk:Drug abuse that would be helpful as well. Thanks in advance. --Viriditas | Talk 09:31, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

RMS

Some days, something comes along that just strenghtens my resolve to use proprietary software. That message was one of them. Thanks for the warning, I think I'll get back to my IRIX box... --Kiand 12:21, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Microsoft vs. Linux

You might want to check the edit history. I re-wrote the paragraph in question that User:131.174.122.171 and myself were complaining about. Previously it didn't mention ACLs or use the phrase "finer-grained". AlistairMcMillan 07:43, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I saw it, it's a great improvement. I just wrote my message on the talk page before I checked the article.

Darrien 07:53, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Star Trek survey

Hello. Please see my Wikipedia:Non-canon Star Trek survey. Thanks. — JIP | Talk 13:53, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

retroflex

Hi Darrien,

Please fix the retroflex table.

Believe me, I've tried.

Or ask someone who's worked on the table to fix it. Meanwhile I'm reinserting it.

Please don't, the page becomes almost unreadable at large font sizes with it present.

Better a table broken at large font sizes than no table at all. kwami 20:17, 2005 August 15 (UTC)

It's better to have everyone be able to read the article than to exclude the poor sighted from reading it. The table adds little information that can't be found elsewhere.

Darrien 20:26, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Dental amalgam controversy

I have nominated Dental amalgam controversy, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dental amalgam controversy. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. ScienceApologist (talk) 03:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)