User talk:Bob K31416/Archive 2009

RFC at WP:NOR-notice

A concern was raised that the clause, "a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge" conflicts with WP:NPOV by placing a higher duty of care with primary sourced claims than secondary or tertiary sourced claims. An RFC has been initiated to stimulate wider input on the issue. Professor marginalia (talk) 06:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

"Relatively" harmless missile on the roof

I have problems with the article in general, but I appreciate your adjustment to conform with sources. RomaC (talk) 15:22, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd be interested in hearing from you about some of the problems that you have with the article in general, if you care to mention them. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:NORDR

Hi, I thought you might want to know that I put up WP:NORDR as a Wikipedia essay. It has changed quite a bit since you saw it. Hope to hear from you soon. Cheers, Phenylalanine (talk) 19:50, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I haven't read it yet but I can still congratulate you on creating it!

There is one thing that I'm a little uncomfortable with. I appreciate the acknowledgement you gave me in the edit summary, and I'm sure you had the best of intentions, but it implies that I approve of what the essay contains. That's a bit premature and may not even turn out to be correct after I study it. Anyhow, congratulations. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:21, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I hope I clarified that here. Thanks!--Phenylalanine (talk) 21:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. : ) --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:28, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

NOR talk page

I saw your recent post to WT:NOR, which seemed a little cynical. Don't get too discouraged by the slow pace there. One issue is that people often have very different situations in mind when discussing the same part of the policy, and so it can be hard to figure out what the actual concerns of the other people are. The conversation itself can also be very stressful. But it's important to avoid edit warring for changes you favor, because it will essentially never improve things.

Sometimes I just take a break and find other things that are more enjoyable. In the end, the changes being discussed are always very minor, and they probably have no effect at all on actual editing practice. It would be nice if the policy were more clear about some things, but there are limitations to what can be achieved with something written by an open-membership committee that has little incentive to come to agreement. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:35, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for visiting my Talk page, but I don't agree with your assessment of the situation. Jayjg and SlimVirgin don't have the same restrictions as you or I because they edit war. An example of what they are capable of is when they edit warred to originally get the Synth example into WP:NOR.[1] Others may be aware of their capabilities in this regard and may be reluctant to oppose them since it would be a time consuming effort that would eventually be fruitless because of Jayjg's and SlimVirgin's edit warring. I hope you can do better than my expectations of what will happen in your effort. Good luck.

I should add that you have to convince either Jayjg or SlimVirgin. I say this from previous experience. I had a good consensus for the replacement of the example,[2] but I couldn't get it done because SlimVirgin and Jayjg blocked it.

BTW, just convincing Blueboar isn't going to give you a consensus. Keeping in mind my effort at getting a consensus with the example, how do you plan to get a consensus for graphs? I'm curious. --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:45, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that I have to convince anyone. I am not trying to change the policy page, I'm just pointing out what it already says. I don't care about the change to the page itself as long as the general point is established. However, I am becoming more willing to speak up when I see edit warring on the page. (By the way, please don't use talkback templates on my page, I will respond here if I have time and energy). — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Courtesy note

[3]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:13, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Atrial fibrillation

Hi Bob: I like the recent changes to the a-fib article. I still wish we could get a better tracing. That doesn't look like a-fib to me, at least not a typical a-fib. My wife is working as a monitor tech, maybe she can get a good tracing I can scan or I can look through some charts here at work to see if I can find a good one. Dan D. Ric (talk) 17:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Dan. Good to hear from you. The figure at the beginning of the article is a normal ECG and does seem inappropriate. But on the other hand, if we write about missing p waves in the beginning of the article, we would need to see what is missing. I've got no good solution to this editing puzzle, mainly because I'm not set up for making custom figures, or modifying existing figures, like the one at the beginning of the article.

However, there is an afib tracing in the Electrocardiogram section of the article. Were you thinking of getting something different than this tracing, or perhaps you didn't notice it? Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:17, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

That second one is the tracing to which I am refering. I'm not convinced it is a-fib at all, the r-r is too regular. At best it might be a flutter but I'd call it sinus rhythm with some missed QRS complexes. Hard to tell for sure in just one lead. I'm still looking for a better example. I have a nice twelve lead but I'm not sure how well it will scan. Dan D. Ric (talk) 22:08, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

thanks

Thanks for your comment on my talk about my essay. Some time in the next day or 2 I'll see if I need to tweak the wording a bit in light of your comments. Thanks! Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 15:51, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Demcaps

Thanks for you kind and helpful involvement under this same heading on my talk page.
--Jerzy•t 02:49, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. : ) --Bob K31416 (talk) 03:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:Citing_IMDb

Hi Bob K31416, there have been no objections to Wikipedia_talk:Citing_IMDb#Reviving_the_proposal, only Support and one who has remained skeptical but not directly opposing it yet you chose to close it as a failed proposal? Please comment at Wikipedia_talk:Citing_IMDb. Thanks!--Termer (talk) 03:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Rorschach

To get a thorough idea you would need to look at all of the archives. Some of the evidence is indirect because of the limitations in research that have been discussed (we can't intentionally place a research subject in a situation that would cause harm). You might start with Talk:Rorschach test/Archive 5#Other pages with controversial images. Somewhere I have posted sourced information on the talk page (now in the archives) that prior exposure to the test could invalidate the results, and I have posted sourced evidence that the Rorschach can successfully detect suicidality (not with 100% accuracy of course, but more than any other single test). It doesn't take a great leap in logic to make a connection between those two concepts and potential harm from prior exposure to the image. That's just the worst case scenario. Misdiagnosis itself can be harmful, and invalid test results can damage diagnosis. But you'll never find a study that clearly shows a cause-and-effect conclusion that says Patient X saw a Rorschach image, was administered the Rorschach, and produced invalid test results causing a missed detection of suicide, then comitted suicide; if patient X had not had invalid results, the suicide detection from the Rorschach would have occurred, and the suicide could have been prevented. That kind of research is impossible for a lot of reasons. Ward3001 (talk) 23:19, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

A source about prior exposure and some others about suicide detection are in the "Arbitrary break" subsection of the archive I linked above. There's more out there on the effectiveness of the Rorschach Suicide Constellation; I just posted some representative articles. Ward3001 (talk) 23:34, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see it there, do you Bob? I looked, but the only sources I saw quoted in that section were by Doc, and I see one reference by Ward that says "that the Rorschach can detect suicidality", but I don't see anything about the harm of showing the images. I really am looking. I know it would be simpler to just ask Ward, but he seems strangely unwilling to point it out to me. Chillum 02:19, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's the source: Sciara, A.D., & Ritzler, B. (2006) The little book on administration for the Rorschach Comprehensive System. Asheville, NC: Rorschach Training Programs.[4] The relevant excerpt from the source would be useful. --Bob K31416 (talk) 10:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I also would like to see the relevant passage from this source as it is not directly available to me today. Chillum 12:49, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Rorschach

I am off on holidays and will be away for a bit. I sure that this will continue no matter what the outcome. The APA blanket statement that all test material should be prevented from being seen by anyone other than psychologists is a little strange. I as a physician who takes care of psychiatric patient wish to know about the methods used by psychologist. When I look up this test for example I wish to see the images and the a discussion of the accuracy and weather there is evidence that it is better than cold reading for example. That the APA wishes to keep what they do secretive causes me concerns.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Just a point to clarify something. James' comments might suggest that the APA is acting as some sort of secret society, hiding information because they're ashamed of it or because it might get them into trouble. The facts are the opposite. The APA argues for test security for one overarching reason: to protect the public. Just as teachers don't release their tests before students take them because they know that the results would be quite skewed, so psychologists are told not to release test materials so results will not be invalidated, rendering the test results useless at best and harmful at worst. Test publishers also place restrictions on psychologist who purchase their tests, partly for the same reason (they are obligated to follow the ethics code), but also for the self-serving reason that it costs them millions of dollar to create a good test and widespread release would effectively ruin the test. I would also point out that most physicians have tremendous access to information about tests in university and hospital libraries, much of it online. Ward3001 (talk) 01:21, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

But still many physicians and medical students use Wikipedia extensively. The passwords and other protective layers make the use of University portals a bit of a pain.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:27, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Med students should have immediate access to a university or hospital library. I have taught third and fourth year med students, as well as psychiatric residents, and I have assigned journal material on a variety of topics. None have complained that the information is inaccessible. I know a dozen or so psychiatrists quite well. They regularly access psychological journals without any difficulties. Ward3001 (talk) 01:31, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for the research you are doing at the Rorschach test article. Chillum 03:18, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. --Bob K31416 (talk) 04:04, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

FD statistics

Hi, why have you deleted my edits, to the FD statistics page? Its not original, but I heard it in our Statistical Physics course... The derivation was so elegant, that I thought i should share it on wikipedia.. The other derivations I saw here on wikipedia are not so elegant and beautiful as you see... There is no published source, since the teacher gave the lecture from his personal notes, so i dont know how those will be referenced.. So please try to read it and im sure you will understand it, since its simple.., and after that you can verify that its a correct derivation.

regards

Kisfox —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kisfox (talk • contribs) 14:27, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for visiting. It didn't look very good to me. And since you mentioned that it isn't supported by a reliable source that we can cite, and thus not verifiable, then it definitely can't be included in the Wikipedia. Sorry. (See WP:V.) --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

If we are so much after references then, could you please specify the part which is not good in the derivation? I mean, you just say its not good, but dont say why....

What more reliable source can be than your own brain.., if you say that its not good then i dont know what you are doing taking care of this physics article.. maybe you should go back to uni and study some more...(i didnt mean to be harsh, just its frustrating when you make an opinion about something you havent read properly..) And also i dont see a reliable source for the other derivation with lagrange multipliers.. no matter how good it looks, so that has to be removed too if we are on this track.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.135.148.21 (talk) 20:02, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I copied the subject derivation over here and added equation numbers. If you like, I can discuss the derivation with you for our mutual interest in physics, although it can't be included in the wiki because it is unpublished. Would you like to discuss it anyhow? If so, I'll start.

derivation

Suppose we have   $N$ identical fermions, subject to the constraints elaborated in the beginning of the article. Let $\epsilon _{i}$ be the energy of the i-th level, $E_{l}(N)$ be the energy of the l-th state and $n_{i}$ be the number of fermions occupying $\epsilon _{i}$. We know that this can take on only two values, namely $n_{i}=0,1$. The idea for the derivation is to define the following quantity. Let $p_{i}(N)$ be the probability that $n_{i}=1$ in the i-th state, i.e. the i-th energy level is occupied. We can see then, that the probability of the i-th state not being occupied, is simply $1-p_{i}(N)$.   This means the expected value of of   $n_{i}$   is:

        ${\bar {n}}_{i}=1\cdot p_{i}(N)+0\cdot (1-p_{i}(N))=p_{i}(N)$                 (1)

Hence our only job is to calculate  $p_{i}(N)$ . Lets define the following sets:

        ${\mathcal {A}}(N)=\{{\text{The set of states for which}}\;\;\;n_{i}=1\}$                   (2)

        ${\mathcal {B}}(N)=\{{\text{The set of states for which}}\;\;\;n_{i}=0\}$                  (3)

We have then for the probability:

       $p_{i}(N)=\sum _{l\in {\mathcal {A}}(N)}{\frac {1}{Z_{N}}}e^{-\beta E_{l}(N)}=1-\sum _{l\in {\mathcal {B}}(N)}{\frac {1}{Z_{N}}}e^{-\beta E_{l}(N)}$                  (4)

Now consider the two sets   ${\mathcal {A}}(N+1)$ and ${\mathcal {B}}(N)$. The first set describes a system of $N+1$ particles with $n_{i}=1$ on the i-th level, whereas the second set a system of $N$ particles with $n_{i}=0$ on the i-th level. This means that we have N particles left in both of the systems, which need to be placed on some energy level other than the i-th one. Hence we can make bijective map between the two systems i.e. we can relate the different states unambiguously to each other.   We can wrtie then accordingly:

        $p_{i}(N)=1-\sum _{l\in {\mathcal {B}}(N)}{\frac {1}{Z_{N}}}e^{-\beta E_{l}(N)}=1-\sum _{l\in {\mathcal {A}}(N+1)}{\frac {1}{Z_{N}}}e^{-\beta [E_{l}(N+1)-\epsilon _{i}]}=$                  (5)

       $=1-{\frac {Z_{N+1}}{Z_{N}}}\left(\sum _{l\in {\mathcal {A}}(N+1)}{\frac {1}{Z_{N+1}}}e^{-\beta E_{l}(N+1)}\right)\cdot e^{\beta \epsilon _{i}}=1-{\frac {Z_{N+1}}{Z_{N}}}p_{i}(N+1)e^{\beta \epsilon _{i}}$                  (6)

The Helmholtz free energy of the system of N particles:  $F_{N}=-kT\ln(Z_{N})=-\ln(Z_{N})/\beta$. With this the ratio of the partition functions:

       ${\frac {Z_{N+1}}{Z_{N}}}=e^{-\beta (F_{N+1}-F_{N})}$                   (7)

Lets assume that the number N of fermions is so great, that adding another one, doesnt make a difference in the system. This means that &nbsp$p_{(}N)\approx p_{i}(N+1)$ and:

       $F_{N+1}-F_{N}\approx {\frac {\partial F}{\partial N}}(N+1-N)={\frac {\partial F}{\partial N}}=\mu$                  (8)

Plugging this into the previous equation:

       $p_{i}(N)=1-e^{-\beta \mu }p_{i}(N)e^{\beta \epsilon _{i}}=1-p_{i}(N)e^{\beta (\epsilon _{i}-\mu )}$                  (9)

Rearranging the above equation we get the probability which as we saw is equal to the expected value of  $n_{i}$ :

       $p_{i}(N)={\bar {n}}_{i}={\frac {1}{e^{\beta (\epsilon _{i}-\mu )}+1}}$                  (10)

--Bob K31416 (talk) 00:32, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Please note that I am waiting for your response to my previous question before I start discussing it with you. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:54, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

NOR examples

Please assume good faith... The fact that someone expresses an opinion that seems to contradict what they said earlier is not evidence of "party" action... It is not at all uncommon for people to change their mind after reading a comment by someone else. If you look at the record, I too expressed guarded approval of your example when you first proposed it... however, after reading the comments of SV and others, I have taken a half step back and am now of the opinion that it is not as good as the current one. I am still of the opinion that what we need is three examples ... to present a range of synt issues... starting with a very simple one that demonstrates a very basic form of Synt (with the conclusion stated) so that new editors get the basic idea (and I don't think your proposed example is simple enough for this)... then one that is a bit more complex (with the conclusion implied) that shows that Synt isn't always simple (and I think the Laurent/SV example is perfect for this)... and one that is very complex (such as the old Smith and Jones plagerism example) to show how complex the issue can get. However, I seem to be in the minority on that, so I have stopped pushing for it.

As for my filing an RFC or raising the issue at the Village Pump ... I have no problem with keeping the current example, so I have have no real motivation for doing so. You are the one with objections, so the effort to obtain a broader number of opinions should be on your part. I was mearly suggesting a way to break out of a discussion where we were endlessly repeating ourselves and move the debate forward. Blueboar (talk) 13:23, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Re "I am still of the opinion that what we need is three examples ... to present a range of synt issues... starting with a very simple one that demonstrates a very basic form of Synt (with the conclusion stated)." - I agree that there should be a simple example. I tried recently and many months before, without success. Perhaps now you should try. Good luck. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:54, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Electrothermal instability

Hi Tokamac, Where did you get the article Electrothermal instability from? Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Bob, sorry for the late answer. I wrote this article as a popularization of various scientific papers published in academic journals about this specific plasma instability (see some of the references in the wikipeda article) and direct useful advice from a retired plasma physicist specialized in nonequilibrium magnetohydrodynamics. Tokamac (talk) 13:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen a wiki start out in such a mature form, so congratulations on your work. Well done. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:46, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Help

{{adminhelp}}

My rfc announcement for this section got garbled on the announcement page, perhaps because there was a wikilink in the section title. I think only an administrator can fix this because the RFC bot will undo any of my edits on the announcement page. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Fixed; was just a malformed link.  Chzz  ►  01:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! : ) --Bob K31416 (talk) 03:52, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Blood pressure

(Below is a continuation of a previous discussion at Template talk:Citation/core #Sources with multiple authors .)

Nice to see that my suggestions worked... there's one small matter of style, that is entirely up to you. It does not affect the mechanism for the citation linking.

As I read it, the journal article in question has ten authors; however, the {{cite journal}} template allows for no more than nine authors (whether specified as |authorn=, as pairs of |firstn=/|lastn= or a mixture. I suggested four, being the minimum required for {{harv}} to behave properly and still show "et al" in the Footnotes section; but it might be better to show as many as possible under "References" (give credit where credit is due) - unfortunately there is no official method to show more than eight distinct authors, but I think that we can fiddle the system to get the last two into the page source (even though they won't actually display), by cramming them into |author9=, as below.

Basically, I have found that if you provide nine authors to {{cite journal}} it will automatically do an "et al" after a certain point; by default, this is after the eighth author, but other positions may be set (see later). So, instead of this:

|author5=et al

try this:

|first5=J |last5=Graves |first6=MN |last6=Hill |first7=DW |last7=Jones |first8=T |last8=Kurtz |author9=Sheps, SG; Roccella, EJ

which will give something like this (I shortened the title here, and removed the URL, DOI etc. purely for demonstration purposes):

Pickering, TG; Hall, JE; Appel, LJ; Falkner, BE; Graves, J; Hill, MN; Jones, DW; Kurtz, T; Sheps, SG; Roccella, EJ (2005). "Recommendations for blood pressure measurement ...". Hypertension. 45 (5): 142–61.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

You might feel that fewer than eight distinct authors would be better. I'm not sure just how many authors are best to show; and I don't really know where to look for guidance; but let's say that you felt that six was best. You would do it using |display-authors= like this:

|first5=J |last5=Graves |first6=MN |last6=Hill |first7=DW |last7=Jones |first8=T |last8=Kurtz |author9=Sheps, SG; Roccella, EJ |display-authors=6

will give something like this:

Pickering, TG; Hall, JE; Appel, LJ; Falkner, BE; Graves, J; Hill, MN; et al. (2005). "Recommendations for blood pressure measurement ...". Hypertension. 45 (5): 142–61.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Really though, it's entirely up to you whether you want to specify further authors in {{cite journal}} - but as I mentioned before, leave {{harv}} alone, because that won't handle more than four. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:01, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Click on show to view the contents of this section

I had thought that Wikipedia style had 3 authors and then et al, but I was unable to find that recommendation anywhere when I looked for it after reading your message. I just now posed the question at the Help Desk. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:53, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

To which I have added a supplementary, which covers my earlier observation about the nine-author restriction. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:08, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

That's a good addition to the good discussion there. After reading yours and other discussion, my current feeling is: 1. all authors should be displayed in the references or footnotes sections except in additional mentioning of a reference, e.g. when something like {{harv}} is used. 2. the undocumented "display-authors=" should be documented. 3. the number of authors in {{cite journal}} and similar templates should be increased beyond 9, as one of the respondents at the Help Desk suggested. If that's not feasible, your workaround for increasing the number should be documented, and lastly 4. guidance for the use of "et al" should be given in the guidelines. I'll wait a little while to see what else comes up in the discussion before mentioning these points at the Help Desk discussion. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:03, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I found where I got the idea that et al. should be used after 3 authors, sort of. (I was editing a medical article at the time.):[5]

AMA citation guidelines suggest that if there are more than six authors, include only the first three, followed by et al.

But the sentence that came after it said something different:

The Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (URM) citation guidelines list up to six authors, followed by et al if there are more than six.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 01:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I modified the article to follow the AMA guideline for Pickering 2005. Also modified 6 {{harv}} inline citations that were affected by the Pickering 2005 modification.[6] --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Have just looked at that edit. I guess it works; but to meet the same guideline, you could have left all the {{harv}} alone, and also left {{cite journal}} as it was with the exception of simply adding |display-authors=3 to it. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:08, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I recognized that but I felt that it might give an editor the false impression that there were only 4 authors.

BTW, I was curious how you came across or discovered the very useful "display-authors=".

Just for fun, I looked to see if there was a Wikipedia article on "et al." and I was redirected to et al. Here's an excerpt from it.

APA style uses et al. if the work cited was written by more than six authors; MLA style uses et al. for more than three authors.

Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

If you look at {{cite journal}}, |display-authors= is not shown in the five different sets of blank parameters; but later on, under Legend:

author: Author. Use to specify a single author of the paper, or alternately, to specify all the authors of the paper in whatever format desired. If you use author to specify all the authors, do not specify the following author-related parameters. last works with first to produce last, first;. These parameters produce the maximum metadata and should be used if possible. author2, last2, first2 and subsequent should be used for co-authors (up to 9 will be displayed before truncation with "et al". authorlink works either with author or with last & first to link to the appropriate article (InterWikimedia links) coauthors: Full name of additional author or authors. Please use 'author2', 'author3', etc instead. author-separator: over-ride the default semi-colon that separates authors' names. mode: Sets element separator, default terminal punctuation, and certain capitalization according to the value provided. For |mode=cs1, element separator and terminal punctuation is a period (.); where appropriate, initial letters of certain words are capitalized ('Retrieved...'). For |mode=cs2, element separator is a comma (,); terminal punctuation is omitted; where appropriate, initial letters of certain words are not capitalized ('retrieved...'). These styles correspond to Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2 respectively. To override default terminal punctuation use postscript. author-mask: contributor-mask: editor-mask: interviewer-mask: subject-mask: translator-mask: Replaces the name of the (first) author with em dashes or text. Set <name>-mask to a numeric value n to set the dash n em spaces wide; set <name>-mask to a text value to display the text without a trailing author separator; for example, "with". The numeric value 0 is a special case to be used in conjunction with <name>-link—in this case, the value of <name>-link will be used as (linked) text. In either case, you must still include the values for all names for metadata purposes. Primarily intended for use with bibliographies or bibliography styles where multiple works by a single author are listed sequentially such as shortened footnotes. Do not use in a list generated by {{reflist}}, <references /> or similar as there is no control of the order in which references are displayed. Mask parameters can take an enumerator in the name of the parameter (e.g. |authorn-mask=) to apply the mask to a specific name. display-authors: display-contributors: display-editors: display-interviewers: display-subjects: display-translators: Controls the number of author (or other kind of contributor) names that are displayed. By default, all authors are displayed. To change the displayed number of names, set the parameter to the desired number. For example, |display-authors=2 will display only the first two authors in a citation (and not affect the display of the other kinds of contributors). |display-authors=0 is a special case suppressing the display of all authors including the et al. |display-authors=etal displays all authors in the list followed by et al. Aliases: none. postscript: Controls the closing punctuation for a citation; defaults to a period (.); for no terminating punctuation, specify |postscript=none – leaving |postscript= empty is the same as omitting it, but is ambiguous. Additional text, or templates that render more than a single terminating punctuation character, will generate a maintenance message. |postscript= is ignored if quote is defined. author-name-separator: over-ride the default comma that separates authors' names. display-authors: Truncate the list of authors at an arbitrary point with "et al". Still include the first 9 authors to allow metadata to be generated.

The main thing that makes me want to fit in as many authors as poss (even if only three are actually displayed) is this business about "metadata". It's principally to do with COinS, see also Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats/COinS. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:20, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a very good point re COinS. I haven't looked into COinS before but it looks like all the authors should be put in the metadata for this reason that you mentioned. It seems that your workaround for adding more authors than 9 would work with COinS too. I plan to make that change in Pickering 2005 if it works with {{harv}}. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:20, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I just made the change.[7] --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:01, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, since the COinS metadata is generated by the {{cite journal}}, and not by {{harv}}, you only need four authors in {{harv}} and it will et al. automatically. I would suggest "Falkner" for the fourth, rather than that long string that you have used. For {{cite journal}}, fit in as many as possible. Having reviewed the mechanism by which it works, I'd say that the following may give the best result:

|first1=TG |last1=Pickering |first2=JE |last2=Hall |first3=LJ |last3=Appel |first4=BE |last4=Falkner |first5=J |last5=Graves |first6=MN |last6=Hill |first7=DW |last7=Jones |first8=T |last8=Kurtz |author9=Sheps, SG; Roccella, EJ |display-authors=3

--Redrose64 (talk) 17:16, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

That's true, but I was trying to make the situation clearer for other editors who would encounter the {{harv}}s on the edit page and may not know that there are other authors. Perhaps I should use what you suggested and clarify for editors using hidden comments. How does that sound?--Bob K31416 (talk) 17:39, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Hidden comment, yes; this could contain a list of the fifth and subsequent authors - or an instruction such as "fifth and subsequent authors omitted, see documentation for Template:Harv" --Redrose64 (talk) 17:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again and for all your help. --Bob K31416 (talk) 03:26, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

The Great Escape - Tom, Dick, and Harry

Hi Bob. The Tom, Dick & Harry reference you've deleted is not actually spam. It refers to both the movie and the very popular ad agency. I just noted both. It's been written about in the CHicago Tribune and other publications. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephenpara (talk • contribs) 06:44, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Stephen, Thanks for your message. First off, I liked your advertisement, even though I don't think it's appropriate for The Great Escape (film) article. The usual procedure when you feel your edit of an article has been incorrectly reverted (removed in this case) is to open up discussion on the article's talk page, rather than to put it back into the article. I created a section there for us and others to continue the discussion.

Welcome to Wikipedia, --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:06, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

stevertigo

please take your questions to steve's talk or the appropriate article talkpage and let that an/i page die. thanks. untwirl(talk) 16:06, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice but I intend to use my own judgement if Stevertigo responds to my brief request for his comment. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Syllogisms

Thanks for your help with WP:NOR. Brews ohare (talk) 20:11, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:36, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

SOL imperial units source

Bob, there's not reason to belabor this point beyond what's in the source that was found to support it. The source was actually, pretty careful, pointing out that the US/British inch in exactly 2.54 cm; that's not the case in all countries, and your citing of a US document did nothing to clarify. Dicklyon (talk) 20:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, it was Price who did half of what I'm objecting to there. Dicklyon (talk) 20:30, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dick. I'm not sure what the problem is. I thought that I had essentially what you had before, with a more full citation for the Savard source. Could you clarify what you mean? --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:38, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Go back to before Price's change and tell me what you would do there. It's not clear what your intent was. Dicklyon (talk) 20:55, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Here's what was before Michael's edit.

As shown by John Savard, the speed of light can also be expressed exactly in US/British imperial units, based on an inch of exactly 2.54 cm, as 186,282 miles, 698 yards, 2 feet, and 5+21⁄127 inches per second.

I would have just changed from a link to Savard, to a full citation of Savard, with archived version. Or I may have done nothing.

Here's what it looked like before you reverted.

The speed of light can also be expressed exactly in imperial units and US units, based on an inch of exactly 2.54 cm, as 186,282 miles, 698 yards, 2 feet, and 5+21⁄127 inches per second. Savard, John. "From Gold Coins to Cadmium Light". John Savard's Home Page. Retrieved 2009-11-14. {{cite web}}: External link in |work= (help) Archived version 2009-11-14

Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:14, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, sorry, I got confused by Michael's changes; a full citation would be fine. Dicklyon (talk) 21:18, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Honest mistake. I reverted back to my last version. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:30, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Avatar

"average rating" → "rating average" = brilliant! :) Erik (talk) 18:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. An interesting problem. In the context on the RT website it's meaning is clear, but in the context of the article the meaning isn't as clear. --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:07, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Avatar

Hi, Bob. In response to your earlier query, my source was: Maria Wilhelm and Dirk Mathison: Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora: New York: HarperCollins: 2009: ISBN 0007342446. As an official movie tie-in, it's a canonical source, I suspect.

Sorry that I didn't pop in the reference originally on the page, but I was experiencing a last minute Xmas shopping rush and was forced to leave off editing it. As you can see from the page now, the source has been added. Calibanu (talk) 23:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)User Calibanu