JWB

Deleting material

I don't understand why you are deleting material without any reason or sources being provided for the removal. It seems that the text should stay in until someone shows a reason to remove it. Where am I wrong ? Parmaestro 23:34, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See Talk:Europe for discussion of the several problems with the material. Please participate there if you still have any questions afterwards.--JWB 23:45, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the decision to remove the text but what I disagree with is the procedure used to remove it. Parmaestro 09:04, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sinosphere debates

I'm getting all of your messages just fine, User:JWB. Just look in User:Bathrobe talk page, my comments are there. Thanks. User:Le Anh-Huy.

By the way, are you a apeaker of Japanese?; I'm not, but I noticed that only some Japanese speakers are familiar with the exact term "Etsunan", the Japanese Kanji for Vietnam. These are the ones that are most aware of the span of unity- or lack thereof- of the various cultures influenced by China. The majority, though, only know the Katakana term, "Bettonamu"; increased usage of this bastardized term, I think, sadly increases popular Japanese ignorance of Vietnam's culture. I am of Vietnamese descent, but I most often get mistaken for a Japanese, so I would blend into Japanese society only superficially. But many Japanese people seem to assume that my own people and their country, Vietnam, is just some other "exotic land" in Southeast Asia, sadly ignorant of the fact that Vietnam actually fits into the Sinosphere more than their country ever did. User:Le Anh-Huy.

I'm not a native speaker of Japanese. I would guess older Japanese or those who have studied history would be more familiar with the kanji term. Use of katakana transliteration of foreign words (mostly English) has continued to grow in Japanese until it forms a large fraction of current Japanese texts, often replacing native or Sino-Japanese words. Katakana words are seen as fresh and modern compared to the older Sino-Japanese terminology.

I believe only the names of China and both Koreas are written in kanji now. In the '30s or so the phonetic loan from European languages "Shina" for China was even current, although it could also be written in kanji. The Chinese strongly disliked this term and asked that China be referred to as "Chuugoku".

Japanese attitudes have often been that as a developed country they are different from the rest of Asia, although this is abating with the rise of other Asian economies, and has also always coexisted with the attitude that Japan will save the other Asian countries. Japanese attitudes to contemporary Chinese are probably no better than attitudes to Vietnamese. However, South Asian and Iranian guest workers are viewed as more racially alien than East and Southeast Asians.--JWB 08:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Pitiful threats from particularly clueless vandal

I'm getting tired of editing your false statements you are putting in the caucasian article. I really don't want to report you but your basically making up stuff and providing no evidence of it. Please change this in the future.

Jmac800, I notice you have blanked your own talk page and the multiple vandalism accusations against you, before making an unjustified vandalism accusation on my talk page. I've reported the blanking at Wikipedia:Vandalism_in_progress.--JWB 08:09, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Welcome (to FrankWSweet)

You wrote: Hi, good to see you here. I have also cited you in the references in Human skin color. You may want to say more about your views in the main body of the article.--JWB 14:25, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I am still figuring out how to participate. For instance, I do not know if I was supposed to put this message into my "user talk" page or yours. Regarding my contributions, for now I am simply trying to correct a few errors noticed by A.D. Powell, who is the author of Passing for Who You Really Are, a book that my company published. FrankWSweet 16:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Either works. I think when I edited your talk page, it was placed on my watchlist, so next time I look at My Watchlist, I would see the change. But putting it on my talk page gives even faster notification.--JWB 16:36, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Racism in Russia

Hello again, JWB! Concerning your questions about racism towards minorities in Russia, in particular the Chukchi, check out the wikipage on Russian humour, and look up ethnic jokes: Russian humour and Russian joke. - User:Le Anh-Huy

Thanks! Someone pointed me there at the time of the discussion.--JWB 00:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Capoid

Nice revision to the article "Capoid." I've been thinking it was in real need of some cleanup and professionalization for a little while now, and you've provided it. Thanks. --Craigkbryant 17:38, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment! --JWB 13:45, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

About Template:RaceHist2000USCensus

The template originally distinguished between historical definitions of race and 2000 US Census race definitions. User Lukobe advised me to remove the 2000 US Census race definitions because they were US-centric. The template should probably be renamed template:historical_race_definitions. -- Dark Tichondrias 03:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

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Turkic peoples#Physical appearance

Hi JWB,

When you have the time, could you check out the "Physical appearance" section of the Turkic peoples article? It's unreferenced and might be original research. Perhaps you could let me know what you think of it, thanks. —Khoikhoi 05:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi Khoikhoi - I don't agree with the assumption that there is a "Turkic people" in a racial sense (do English-speakers form a race?) and would prefer the section and article not start from this assumption. However, the section does at least discuss the ways in which this is not true, and most of the individual statements do not seem to be blatantly wrong. I'll try to make some edits. --JWB 17:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I see what you mean. If you could provide references for the section that would be great. Ciao. —Khoikhoi 18:03, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I probably don't have references handy for most. Are there some statements you find particularly improbable? --JWB 18:45, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

No, it was just because there was an anon who kept blanking it, and a few months before there was a user who wanted to delete it with the excuse that it was unreferenced. —Khoikhoi 20:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Caucasico and Indo-Aryans

I linked to Caucasico in the Spanish Wiki from Indo Aryans in the English Wiki because Indo Aryans was discused as a section on Caucasico's page.--Dark Tichondrias

I see... wouldn't it make more sense to link to es:indoaria then? Or you could link to es:Caucásico#Indoarias. --JWB 06:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, those examples make more sense.--Dark Tichondrias

User notice: temporary 3RR block

Regarding reversions[1] made on June 21 2006 (UTC) to Turkic peoples

You have been temporarily blocked for violation of the three-revert rule. Please feel free to return after the block expires, but also please make an effort to discuss your changes further in the future.

The duration of the block is 12 hours. William M. Connolley 09:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I would like clarification of how 3RR applies here. As far as I can see, for any of the text in question, Eiorgiomugini removed it for a 4th time before I re-added it for a 4th time. Can fixing a 3RR violation actually be a 3RR violation itself? Thanks! --JWB 17:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Obviously. Read the rules. See any exception there? William M. Connolley 22:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I had read WP:3RR and WP:Revert. In answer to your question, both of those two pages listed these two exceptions:

• reverting simple vandalism, which was defined by linking to Wikipedia:Vandalism#Types_of_vandalism, which listed blanking significant parts of articles as one kind of vandalism, but did not mention the phrase "simple vandalism" except once in relation to dispute tags. (not clear to me whether "simple vandalism" might apply in this case; would appear to depend on whether the passage in question is considered "significant")
• removing posts made by a banned or blocked user (you did in fact block this user for his reverts, though my removal of his reverts anticipated your block)

I am not requesting a change in your determination in this case, but just want to help continue to clarify the policies for the future. In any case, thank you for your original action on the matter. --JWB 23:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Image:South Africa Provinces.jpg

The image was non-free because (according to what you listed on the page) it was licensed "for non-commercial or educational use only". Apparently this is not free enough for Wikipedia - see Jimbo's official policy on this at [2]. I should point out that I had nothing to do with the tagging of your image for deletion (somebody else must have noticed it), or the fact that it was subsequently deleted. I noticed it because that page (Provinces of South Africa) is on my watchlist, so when I saw the map was non-free and about to be deleted, I removed it from the article. I hope this answers your question. - htonl 18:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks. The unacceptability of these licenses was not clear from the upload page or the license dropdown box on the page. I notice that one free license listed is "Work of a US Government agency". I wonder if the SA government has a similar blanket policy. --JWB 20:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

RFC

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Arabic)#poll for standard transliteration. I noticed that you previously contributed to the discussions on Arabic. thanks. Cuñado - Talk

Talk:East Oakland, Oakland, California

Hello, do you wish to continue your request to not merge several neighborhoods into East Oakland, Oakland, California? Jeepday (talk) 15:35, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I do not see justification for such an indiscriminate merge, as already explained. If you call for any votes, please make sure to inform editors interested in those pages and related ones, especially Oakland, California. --JWB 23:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Khoisan

Hello JWB.

Great edit to that article today. It is also my belief that the high genetic diversity of the (remaining) Khoisan peoples could simply have been due to a high level of mixing with other people, not necessarily because their mitochondria developed numerous mutations over a very very long period. Additionally, the so-called pygmie peoples (who live in forests and speak Bantu languages) are also included in this Khoisan "race" when doing genetic tests.

My problem however is whether the belief that the group is ancient is scientific consensus or a popular misinterpretation of a small number of studies? The only sources I've seen cited for this extraordinary claim have been newspapers.

What do you think?

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 08:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi Tebello,

It depends on what "ancient" means. I think the "oldest human group" label is somewhat of a misinterpretation or at least open to interpretation. That's why I tried to make the article more specific about the genetic studies and what they may mean.

Scientific consensus agrees that some genetic patterns are ancient.

--JWB 09:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Edit to Asia

Probably it needs a source, but I think the item you removed was referring to GDP, not income or real estate values. --Cheers, Komdori 18:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You're right, I misread it as compared to world, not Asia. I've put it back. --JWB 19:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I meant Area A, B, and C

Robin Hood 1212 01:29, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense. Thanks for making the article (Governorates of the Palestinian National Authority) explain it a bit more.

Actually, there are not good articles and maps on Areas A, B, and C, even though there are very detailed maps on other sites. We should have some. --JWB 02:28, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

writing systems worldwide

Hey JWB you seem to be the main editor with the writing system alphabet stuffs so I want to make a change proposal to the graph - making Korean alphabet a separate category. I just can't help being suspicious when there are Cyrillic, Greek, etc. but not Korean. I need consensus, don't I? So could you go and participate in that image talk? Thanks.

Image talk:Writing systems worldwide.png Wikimachine 21:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I've answered your query at the image's talk page on the same page. In response to your additional question here, Korean does have a separate category on the map. Cyrillic and Greek do not have separate categories, but are both members of the alphabet category. --JWB 15:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

List of American institutions of higher education

I noticed that you changed the map for western US in List of American institutions of higher education and am wondering if there are equivalent looking maps for the rest of the US (to help maintain a uniform look to the article)? If so, could you please change the other maps too? Thanks! panda 20:27, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I got it from Category:United States maps. The Midwest map was missing from the category, but on checking, it does exist under the expected name Image:Map of USA highlighting Midwest.png, so I have added it to the category. Now there are a set of 4 region maps, but they assign Delaware to the Northeast instead of the South, unlike this article and the Census Bureau. Not sure what you want to do about this. --JWB 23:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm ... that's interesting. Do you know why Delaware was moved from the South to the Northeast? Also, was there any special reason for replacing the image other than it had overlapping states with another region? panda 00:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the main reason was all the shaded states, especially marking the Pacific states as not necessarily part of the West.

Looks like someone changed Delaware on the NE and S maps in Feb 07. In my experience both DE and MD are considered Northeast, but in the Census Bureau division they are South and your article follows that.

Delaware is small enough to not be very visible, so I think I will change the rest of the maps in your article as requested and worry about Delaware later. --JWB 07:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Or the article could just have the single image Image:Census Regions and Divisions.PNG. --JWB 07:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The article looks fine the way it is right now. As you said, Delaware is really small so I'd be surprised if anyone notices that it's in the NE instead of the S map. Thanks for making the changes! panda 19:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Uranium v Plutonium - Need Reference?

You wrote at: Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel "However, estimates based on plutonium production do not place a limit on the number of devices using highly enriched uranium instead of plutonium." I assume this means that therefore they could have produced even MORE nuclear weapons than the estimates? Maybe you should say so more explicitly so quick skimmers and non-techies will get it more easily. ALso, A reference wouldn't hurt, unless you think it's really implicit in what comes earlier. Thanks. Carol Moore 16:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc

I think it's implicit - the two processes are independent. But I've now found a reference with discussion from Nuclear Weapon Archive and have added that. --JWB 20:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

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Central Asians & Asian Americans

Hello. I noticed you edited the article to state that people with ancestry from the Central Asian republics are counted as Asian by the U.S Census, and used the reference I gave as a basis for the claim. Unfortunately, on page 681 of the pdf link, it clearly shows that former Soviet Central Asian states as listed as being under "Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union". In other words, the census does not count Central Asians as "Asian American". That, coupled with the fact that the U.S Courts view the Central Asian "stans" in the same regard, means that any notion of inclusion within the protected class of "Asian American" is simply not factual. The U.S Government would have listed "Central Asian" under the title of "Asian American", if such a title was warranted. As of now, just like Middle Easterners, they are not assigned to a legal protected class, and as such are defaulted as "white". Atari400 19:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

You are referring to Asian American#Terminology.

• I did not state that Central Asian ancestry response and no race response was counted as Asian race, but that we have not yet found proof this combination is counted as white race, Asian race, or neither.

You may not be familiar with legal definitions of race in the U.S, and how such notions are utilized in the public sphere. As such, the U.S Census Bureau's definitions largely reflect and run parallel to definitions used by EEOC. In other words, being from "Asia" is irrelevant to being "Asian" in most regards. What is defined as being racially Asian in the U.S, and as Asian American, exists under what is known as a protected class. Thus, what is listed as being racially Asian accounts for what is considered a member of that protected class. Since nowhere are people from the Central Asian Republics listed as being "Asian" by the EEOC, as such they are not a member of that protected class. A person from countries such as Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Iran can all claim to be "Asian", and many did on the 2000 U.S Census form. After all, they are all from Asia proper. Unfortunately, non can claim racial discrimination for being Asian in a U.S court of law. Atari400 08:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, you are shifting from debating the Census, to saying the Census is irrelevant and stating something about the EEOC. Whatever it is, please show your references. Looking at EEOC's site myself, [3] they appear to be 1) saying that self-identification is primary 2) not mentioning Central Asia at all in the list of places under either "White" or "Asian". --JWB (talk) 08:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not "shifting the debate" from anything, but only trying to find a conclusive answer to the question of Central Asians in the U.S. Since the U.S Census is closely tied the the definitions of the OMB, and the EEOC uses that information to enforce regulation, the utter lack of mention of anything Central Asian is rather telling. In fact, the one thing that is obvious, is that individuals from these nations are not seen as "Asian", or else they would have been identified as such for various purposes. Atari400 08:59, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Absence of any mention argues equally well that individuals from these nations are not seen as "White". (You were the one insisting on a statement that the Census designates Central Asians as "White". I have never tried to insert the opposite statement that the Census designates Central Asians as Asian.) Now that you realize you have no positive evidence, you want to not mention the topic at all in the article. I guess that's progress.

Hey, relax. You are one of the more civil editors I've come across, and you made me stick to facts. Please keep up the good work. As far as evidence, this subject is a real "slippery slope". For instance, An Uzbek in the U.S cannot get the benefits of affirmative action, or the ability to sue for racial discrimination in a U.S Court outside of San Francisco, literally. The fact that they are not listed means they are not a noted minority, referred to as a "protected class", i.e Asian. As a result, someone from Afghanistan or Tajikistan is lumped in as "white", regardless of how others see that individual. Unfortunately, the nature of this subject makes it rather hard to work into an encyclopedia. After all, how many examples of an Uzbek suing for employment discrimination that was rejected by a U.S federal judge, can you find with relevant ease and make public with permission? Its a tough one. Atari400 10:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Legally prohibited discrimination includes race, national origin, religion, and sex, so there is not much incentive for the disadvantaged Uzbek to show he or she is of a minority race, when being Uzbek, Muslim, or simply an immigrant, are sufficient grounds. And discrimination in the US against Muslims and some nationalities, or foreigners in general, is surely more serious and credible than discrimination against Asian-Americans in general these days. For affirmative action in education, etc., claiming you are Asian usually does not bring any benefit, since Asians are already well-represented. --JWB (talk) 10:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

You raise some very good points, and I believe accurate ones at that. Though this is perhaps off topic, I would argue that a OMB classification/clarification of Central Asian, and perhaps even Middle Eastern ancestry, in addition to "protected class" status would be useful in my line of work(not to divulge my profession), for statical reasons. Granted, I do not disagree with your assertion that national origin by itself is a very convincing legal avenue to take.

I might add that you seem very knowledgeable about the topic, and I have very much appreciated this discourse, regardless of our differing arguments. Atari400 12:02, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, I agree this has wound up being a productive and stimulating discussion! I'm glad to be able to talk with someone with a professional interest in the topic.

I read recently that inclusion of South Asians in the original formulation of the Census's Asian/Pacific category in the early '70s was at least partially due to lobbying by some Indian-Americans. Government classifications of race are political, to state the obvious. My guess is that a decision on Central Asians will come only if there is some incentive for the government (or individual agencies) to do so; otherwise, why should they bother doing additional work and exposing themselves to criticism? It's also possible that some actors feel that fixing the race of Central Asians either way is problematic and would weigh in with opinions against it. And criticisms of Census racial classification in recent years seem to focus on people not wanting the government to dictate or restrict their choices; the recent changes have been putting more emphasis on self-identification, and not forbidding people from declaring more than one race. (as well as splitting of the Asian/Pacific category) Given this, the government is likely wary of making any more declarations that group X is in race Y unless an uncontroversial consensus has already been established.

South Asians did suffer at least some discrimination earlier in US history (immigration and property restrictions) which is presumably a reason for being a protected class now (though I haven't seen this codified so far) and Central Asians would have difficulty claiming this. But should "not victims of historic government discrimination in the US" be equivalent to "White"?

"Middle Eastern" and/or North African could certainly be made a separate race category, or "Muslim" could be added as a non-race but transnational category similar to "Hispanic/Latino". But given the existing national origin and religious protections that already cover these populations, there is less incentive for these actions too.

Outside of government, it sounds like at least some Asian-American scholars and activists see some commonality with and would be happy to work with people from the remainder of Asia and include them within the Asian American scope; I've added a couple of references to the end of the introductory section of Asian American. Besides pursuing such a dialogue for its own sake, if one were interested in expansion or clarification of the government definition, this would certainly be a good place to start.--JWB (talk) 15:42, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

You sum up the situation very accurately and in great detail. I agree with the sentiments in the last paragraph as well. Wikipedia is a very good place for clarification of said government definitions, as it is also one of the top results in a google search on the topic. Atari400 09:08, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The most likely explanations for the lack of mention are 1) Central Asians have not been considered much because of their small numbers in the US 2) If US government agencies have thought about Central Asians, they realize that it would be difficult to make a conclusive statement that they should be considered "White" or considered "Asian" without controversy, so decision makers have avoided making such a statement, since there is little need for one so far anyway. --JWB (talk) 09:36, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are not very many Central Asians in the U.S, and nobody has ever considered me "white". (Native American and Central American are the most often "guesses" for me). I guess that makes you right on two counts. Atari400 10:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

One Central Asian I met in the US looked exactly like Americans of half-East Asian, half-European descent. --JWB (talk) 10:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, that pretty much describes my family, with maybe more of a "half-Middle Eastern" than a "half-European" look(???), for whatever that means. Good observation on your part, though.

At any rate, I hope my removal of the sentence from the article Asian Americans satisfactorily remedied the whole issue. Atari400 12:02, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

• The headings in the Ancestry Code List starting at p. 678 of [4] do not correspond to race as you are assuming.
  • 200-299 includes Spaniard (white) and Latin American (various races)
  • 500-599 is mostly black but includes Afrikaner (white)
  • 800-899 includes Australian, Australian Aborigine, and various Pacific Islander.
  • 900-994 includes African American, various American Indian, "White", Pennsylvania German, and ancestries named after various locations in the US.
• As I noted in the edit comment, on pp. 783-4, country codes for Central Asian Republics are in the Asia section.
• You have not referenced any US court rulings on the race of people of Central Asian ancestry.

That is because they do not exist. There is no federal U.S court ruling on the "race" of people from Central Asia, and there probably never will be. For the sake of the article, the burden is not on me to prove that Central Asians are counted as "white", but for you to prove that they are legally counted and defined as "Asian". Pending such proof, it would be considered OR for either of us to merely suggest that people from the former Soviet Republics of Central Asian are identified as racially Asian in the U.S. If they were, then it would be rather easy to find a civil labor complaint made to the EEOC showing that a person from a Central Asian state was counted as a member of the protected class of "Asian". As of yet, I have not found one. Atari400 08:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

• The Census records a large minority of people in the US who were born in 4 of 5 Central Asian republics (no data is given on Turkmenistan) as Asian or "Two or more races"; [5][6][7][8] these people must either have self-identified as Asian or mixed race, or have not reported a race and then presumed Asian or mixed based on reported ancestry. Many or most emigrants from the Central Asian republics are from people of Russian and other European ancestry living there, who would probably self-identify their race as white on the US census, and I have not found separate figures for people having Central Asian nationality in their original country. --JWB (talk) 20:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, those are rather interesting documents, and I complement you on looking them up. Certainly, many of those immigrants from the Central Asian Republics are not ethnically indigenous to the nations they come from, and many are in fact ethnic Russians. This is especially true in the cases of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as they both had and have a very large Russian population. The documents though, still do not answer the question of how the U.S Government would categorize a person from a nation such as Uzbekistan. The best place to look for that information, is at the Office of Management and Budget. Atari400 08:55, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Natural americium still present on Earth??

I wrote: "Americium is the lowest transuranium element in the order of the periodic table discovered artificially. Since plutonium and neptunium occur naturally on Earth and all of the elements with higher atomic numbers, without exception, are also artificial."

You deleted by: "Not true - it can occur just like plutonium, though at smaller probability."

Quotation of the article trace radioisotope: "Isotopes with half-lives greater than about 80 million years also remain in trace amounts from the formation of the Earth."
That's the case by ²⁴⁴Pu with its half-life of 8.08×10⁷ y.

Since you are the great specialist, not me, I ignore, if perhaps an isolated atom of americum may have a natural occurrence by cosmic rays? (Is it so?)  But even if this would be true, there is a great difference between elements remaining from time of formation of Earth and a highly improbably and very accidentally isolated formation.

This difference justifies imho the notice of the fact that americium opens the artificial transuranic elements.  -- Gluck 123 (talk) 11:49, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

PS. I'm especially interested in americium by a calendar poetry ;-)  The current length of the tropical year requires an exceptional common year all 128 years exactly one. (Not 3 in a 400 year cycle. This was astronomically true 6000 years ago.)  Since northern summer currently lasts about 93.65 days, a so-called "americium day" may occur in some years, cf. here.  Remark, that this poetry is not related to any superstition, but an universal civil proposal.

Transuranic elements can be created from U-238 by successive neutron capture. Neutrons can come from spontaneous fission of U-238 and other actinides, from natural nuclear reactors like at Oklo, and perhaps from cosmic rays. Am-241 in particular would require 3 neutron captures without fission. Only the second neutron capture (on Pu-239) has a significant chance of fission, about 75% with thermal neutrons.

For primordial Pu-244, at least 50 halflives have passed since the formation of the Earth and probably more since the creation of the isotope by the r-process in a supernova. 10 halflives give about a factor of 1000 decrease; 50 halflives are about a 10¹⁵ decrease; 60 halflives are about a 10¹⁸ decrease, meaning that from one mole (unit), about 600000 atoms would survive, or about 2.5 atoms per milligram. The original primordial abundance of Pu-244 is also unclear and there are several reasons why it may be low; it can only be produced by the r-process, but it and predecessors may be susceptible to fission in an environment with fast neutrons.

It is not immediately clear that primordial Pu-244 is more abundant than other transuranics produced by neutron capture in nature.

You also implied that Np is natural, since you said Am is the first artificial actinide. No primordial Np would have survived. For that matter, no primordial Pa or any of the elements between lead and thorium would have survived; they occur naturally only as a result of decay. --JWB (talk) 21:37, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks JWB for your explanations.

You are right, of course, primordial Np can't survive. However, the fact that Plutonium is the highest element remaining in traces from supernova r-processes is interesting.
But perhaps, this mention rather belongs into the article Plutonium.

I was also in error to assert that an "americium day" may occur in the quoted calendar. By retaining the definition: Is "hydrogene day", the day within the phenomenon solstice/equinoxe takes place, at the most,
maximum eight hours in the early morning may be considered as the "americium part" of the "hydrogene day" of the second equinox. Thus the last element occuring in this calendar stays definitively Plutonium.

However, for me your assertion concerning the chances of naturally produced transuranics by neutron capture in nature stays unclear. Excuse me.

• by cosmic rays, that's only perhaps, by all means in insignificant quantities.
• all natural nuclear reactors are extinct for about 1.5 x 10⁹ years, too many halflives for all the istopes of americium.
• stays the neutron capture on Pu-239, itself a isotope with a halflife of only 24 ky. Currently its quasi-entirety should be man-made.

So, I can understand, that nowadays the chances of producing other transuranics by neutron capture on Pu-239 are higher. Thus the abundance of primordial Pu may not be higher.

However, before, the only natural way was: U-238 hidden by a neutron, becoming U-239, decaying itself to Np-239, decaying into Pu-239, before eventually transformed to higher actinides like Americium...  This abundance may be nevertheless inferior to primordial Pu-244 abundance. Isn't it?  -- Gluck 123 (talk) 07:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is less than primordial Pu-244 abundance. You could start with the spontaneous fission rates of U-238 (0.0136 neutron per gram per second) and other actinides in uranium ore, then estimate the chance of a U-238 nucleus capturing 3 spontaneous fission neutrons without undergoing alpha decay or fission, i.e. in times comparable to the halflives of Pu-239 and Pu-240. --JWB (talk) 08:04, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. With your proposed approach, I'll continue to try to find out more precisions on the topic.

However, wrt. my concern, i.e. the civil calendar proposed by my friend Michael Florencetime, I retain: The tropical year divided by four gives ca. 91.31 days.
This means, if seasons would be shared equally, only uranium may appear in a such calendar. Uranium is the highest and very last element with a substantial abondance on Earth.
But since seasons are shared unequally, currently Neptunium occurs regulary, often also Plutonium. Plutonium, in traces, is also the last primordial element on Earth.

Of the current occurrence of transuranic actinides perhaps 99.9% should be artificial, man-made during the last decades. This means that this calendar poetry is legitime, however, days in seasons and elements are admittedly without any cause and effect. But this poetry gives the opportunity to learn, forth a year, all the existing elements up to the last primordial one.

The quasi-exclusively artificial, transuranic actinides are an own and a very special chapter. Thanks to you JWB, for our exchange. Gluck 123 (talk) 09:01, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Image:Westbankjan06-jerusalem-etzion.jpg

Image:Westbankjan06-jerusalem-etzion.jpg

Hello. Where is this image taken from? --Timeshifter (talk) 01:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

It says on the image page. It's a subset of another image, which is a subset of another, which is attributed to the UN. --JWB (talk) 03:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I find that "United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs" is listed as the source. Do you happen to know the exact URL for the source map there? --Timeshifter (talk) 05:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't have any knowledge of it as I am not the editor who uploaded that map; please ask them. Also, doing a quick Google, it looks like [9] is a good place to start looking. --JWB (talk) 05:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I added the link to the source map page (commons:Image:Westbankjan06.jpg) at the commons along with the UN license tag: {{UN map}}

I wish the original uploader had made and uploaded a PNG or GIF copy of the source map. Same for the subsets. PNG and GIF are free, lossless, uncompressed, sharper formats. The JPG copies and subsets get progressively more and more blurry since JPG is always compressed. Even at the highest quality levels. Please see: [10]

I use the freeware IrfanView. It is great for pasting in full or cropped sections of PDF maps, and then converting to GIF or PNG. One can continue to crop further subsets without loss of clarity. For more info:

User:Timeshifter#Copying_maps_and_charts_from_PDF_files --Timeshifter (talk) 21:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the IrfanView pointer. Isn't SVG even more preferred at Wikipedia now? If the original PDF was a vector image, this might be a good fit. It looks like there are also free PDF to SVG tools though I haven't tried any yet. --JWB 23:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I know how to easily convert PDF to GIF or PNG. I don't know much about SVG, though. Can you point me to the free PDF to SVG tools? --Timeshifter (talk) 04:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I just googled "free pdf to svg" and FreeSVG was the first result. I tried it for one of the large UN atlases and the result was quite large and slow to display. I'm not sure what the best solution is and may continue to try as I have time. If you find anything good please let me know also. --JWB 06:01, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I have been compiling some SVG map info here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Maps#SVG, but I don't really understand it since I haven't tried anything yet with SVG. A GIF map can sometimes use a lot fewer kilobytes than the same map in the PNG or SVG format. The PNG map may have more colors, but the difference from the GIF image is not usually detectable. --Timeshifter (talk) 06:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Root systems

Hello, have you seen this edit by an anonymous user: [11], is it ok? Also, I have made an svg version of the png Dynkin diagrams image: Image:ConnectedDynkinDiagrams2.svg, but I'm not sure if it looks better. Arthena^(talk) 22:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't sure what to make of that edit, partly because the original sentence was not clear. If "base" means "basis" I think the edit makes the sentence wrong. "Base" might have another meaning, but on checking, the word is used nowhere else in the article. The edit should be reverted, but rewriting the whole sentence might be even better.

Your SVG version gets rid of the graininess of the original. I think the displacement of E6 to the right makes no sense though and need not be copied from the original. --JWB (talk) 07:05, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Fission Products table

The Long-lived FP table Template appears in several places. It's a handy summary, but had me checking my Table of Isotopes when I first saw it because of apparent errors in beta decay energies. Turns out to be OK once I found and read all the fine print around the table. I suggest the following to improve clarity - Relabel the decay energy column as "E(keV)", and put beside each entry either "beta" or "beta gamma", as appropriate. I also propose use of Ma rather than my for million years, per the distinction between million and milli. Finally, can you put some white space border around the table? Seems to get crowded with the text where it is inserted. PJG 22:39, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I've implemented most of your suggestions, except whitespace - I'm not sure how to do it, it may be something that can be done in pages including the template, and I think it looks ok in Fission product - the template's text lines are not vertically aligned with the article's, which makes it easier to distinguish them. Also, Decay energy lists Q as the symbol. --JWB (talk) 02:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC

I haven't figure out how to add whitespace either. But the following line added to the header of your template produces a box just around the table itself, which helps visually offset it from the surrounding text... style="border: 1px solid #CCCCCC;"PJG 02:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I have added this border. --JWB (talk) 08:24, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I see that you have created a new Wiki article on long-lived FPs. First, I don't understand why it is needed. We seem to already have a plethora of assorted articles on fission products. I think we should be able to adequately cover the subject through the high-level article on FPs and then the specific articles on the individual radioisotopes. Second, these are not the only long-lived FPs. There are others, although with lower yields (Nd144, Rb87, Sm146, Sm147...).PJG 02:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

1. LLFP is a term that is actually used, and as people will be looking it up, it should appear either as an actual article or a redirect to a section of the FPs article. They are treated as a group for discussion of long-term disposal or transmutation. I think the content I added is a worthwhile summary. It could also become a section in the FPs article instead of an independent article. I don't have a strong opinion on this, other than to note Fission product is already 28 KB long, and will eventually hit the recommended article size limit if it keeps expanding, and at that point or before, it should hive off subarticles, leaving summaries in the main article. Much of the FP article could also use rewriting; but it's rambling enough that this would be hard to do at one go.
2. I'd appreciate more info on those shadowed low-yield fission products. However, 3 of the 4 you list have halflives a good deal longer than the age of the earth. They are not a significant radiation hazard, and for this purpose can be treated as stable. More stable isotopes have and will continue to be found to have these very slow decay modes, so the list will have to continue to change anyway. ¹⁴⁶Sm is not primordial and does get a mention in references like [12][13]. Do you have information on its yield? So far it still sounds like it is not a significant waste disposal concern. --JWB (talk) 08:24, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I do agree that the FP article is pretty rambling as-is. And I keep finding all these other FP-related articles and think there must be some better way to present the info to minimize duplication. So I'll continue to work at it and in due course the best way to present these points may become obvious. With respect to the other long-lived FPs, a few points. (1) I agree that your list is the important ones for waste disposal, I only disagree in stating or implying in an encyclopedia that these are the *only* long-lived ones. I would rather have the clarifying remarks you note above included somewhere. (2) Pulling out the FP data from some ORIGEN results I have for used fuel, I can quote the following half-life in years and yields in mol/kgU for a particular burnup cycle: I-129 1.5e7 5E-4. Nd144 2E15 3E-3. Rb87 5E10 8E-4. Sm146 1E8 3E-9. Sm147 1E11 8E-4. Tc98 4.2E6 1.5E-9. PJG 02:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Giersp (talk • contribs)

1. Great, I agree existence of nearly-stable nuclides should be noted. I think they are better viewed, at least for this purpose, as a special case of stable fission products, rather than a special case of radioactive fission products.
2. So that would give ratios of ¹⁴⁶Sm 6ppm ¹²⁹I, ⁹⁸Tc 3ppm ¹²⁹I. When you say "cycle", that suggests that neutron activation and other reactions might be included as sources (or destroyers), rather than simple fission yield after short-term beta decay. [14] also has a couple of data sets with similar ratios on the order of a million. --JWB (talk) 04:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello!

I've been tinkering on the breeder reactor article and noticed your nuclear-related images, specifically, the transmutation flow diagram between Pu238 and Cm244, and of course this one concerning radioactive waste. I just wanted to thank you for these contributions: These are truly excellent resources and you should receive recognition for them.

76.100.248.41 (talk) 18:50, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Availability for Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anthropology/Collaboration_of_the_month

The probable sorry state of 'core anthropology' articles on Wikipedia has been recently identified here

As a self-nominated Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anthropology member, I thought I'd check on your interest and willingness to see anthropology better represented on Wikipedia? Bruceanthro (talk) 14:33, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if you mean the Anthropology article specifically, or the subject in general? Certainly I'm interested. --JWB (talk) 04:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanx for your offer to give some assistance! At present the kinship article has been suggested, nominated and supported (see link in heading above) as a recommended first 'core' articles needing attention.. to be worked on over the mid_Jan to mid_Feb 2008 month?!

Perhaps you have ready access to some good material, or you have diagrams and Wikipedia skills that may be useful in upgrading this article (perhaps illustraiting kinship types etc)?!

If you'd be interested in assisting with this first core concept article , please freely (and boldly!) contribute ..otherwise, keep an eye on upcoming monthly collaborations for other articles you may be able to help and assist with!!

Again, thanx!! Bruceanthro (talk) 14:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Southern California

I tried to revert the edits by User:128.135.96.184 in Southern California but it did not seem to work right. Reverting my change made it worse. I notice that you have done some more work on the article. Maybe you could fix the problem I created. It would be greatly appreciated. Dbiel ^(Talk) 03:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually your first revert worked; maybe a refresh problem prevented you from seeing it. Your second revert did drop some of my recent edits, which i've now fixed; thanks for the heads-up. --JWB (talk) 04:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing my mess. By the way, I tried editing it three more times but those edit just kept disappearing. Strange! Thanks again for the help. Dbiel ^(Talk) 04:29, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:ThermalFissionYield.svg

Image Copyright problem

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Voting on isotope table merger

What are you aiming for? Is the question Merg vs. Not merge? Or is it Merge vs. Revert “complete” to what it was a month ago and keep “divided” like it is? Greg L (my talk) 22:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're asking. You proposed a merge, there was disagreement, we're voting on the merge. Not merging would mean that the the unitary table remains in one article and the divided table in the other. When there is disagreement, you are not supposed to go ahead with it before consensus. This is not that complicated and I've tried to explain it a couple of times already. --JWB (talk) 23:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Dimond District, Oakland, California

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World Atlas of Language Structures

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of World Atlas of Language Structures, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://emeld.org/workshop/2005/abstracts/bibiko-abstract.html. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 15:44, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Main URL is wals.info and content is stated to be under a Creative Commons Licence. --JWB (talk) 15:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Image:USA 9 Divisions.svg

There is an error in the image. South of the label Midwest and north of North Dakota and Minnesota, there is a fat black line. Just letting you know. — ComputerGuy890100^{Talk to me}_{What I've done to help Wikipedia} 18:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Weird, I can't tell where this is coming from. It doesn't appear when viewing the file in a browser; something must be different about Wikipedia's renderer. --JWB (talk) 03:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Selenium-79

I agree with the changes you made on the page of Selenium-79. What a promt and appropriate reaction after my modifications (less than 1h30 !). You looked immediately to the good reference and at the appropriate pages in the Safir-2 report. Congratulation. :-) Shinkolobwe (talk) 15:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!!! --JWB (talk) 02:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Drip lines

JWB: Thank you for intercepting my question directed to Quilbert and responding so quickly. So… Do I understand this correctly? All nuclides with atomic masses of greater than about 20 amu are “within” the drip line (do not “leak”)? Also, regarding those nuclides that are perpendicular to the diagonal of stable nuclides, if they are 1) less than about 19 amu and 2) are sufficiently far at the edges of the chart, are these “beyond” the drip lines? Examples would be B-5, Ne-16, Li-12, He-4. Greg L (talk) 22:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Southeastern United States

I noticed your recent work on the table of examples of the definition. I am questioning the examples from Atlantic Coast Conference, I-85 Corridor, and BellSouth and maybe others. None seem to define the Southeast instead of just being in the Southeast. I was almost bold and removed them with this rational but wanted to bounce the idea off of someone. What do you think? You can reply here, I will watch your page for awhile. Thanks. Dimitrii (talk) 19:19, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You might be right about Atlantic Coast Conference, since there is also a Southeastern Conference; both of them together are approximately the Southeast. The local operating subsidiary BellSouth Telecommunications is actually changing its name to AT&T Southeast and is a good representative. I-85 Corridor is synonymous with the Southeast or Piedmont "megapolitan area" (or other equivalent term) centered on Atlanta. The Florida megalopolis is usually referred to simply as Florida, so "Southeast" tends to connote the Atlanta-centered area.

Since there is no official definition of the Southeast, it's good to have information on the actual use of the word; otherwise everyone thinks their own definition is the right one, leading to edit warring as happened in the past on this page. If you think the phrase "definition of the Southeast" sounds too universal, we can weaken it to something that clarifies it means individual organizations' regions. --JWB (talk) 22:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I have been pondering this for awhile. I missed that BST is operating as ATT SE. Pretty bad since I worked there for a decade and still have their service. With all of the contention I saw on the talk page I don't think my concerns are important enough to stir that pot again. It wouldn't improve Wikipedia as a whole. I will let it drop without any contact on the page. Glad I could bounce it off of you. Take care, Dimitrii (talk) 04:14, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Toyota Prius article

Hi JWB, I have added discussion to the Talk:Toyota Prius page at "Fact tag removal by User:JWB", which you may wish to respond to. -- de Facto (talk). 17:12, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Image without license

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WikiProject Geographical coordinates

Hi! I see you recently joined WikiProject Geographical coordinates. Although this is an unofficial greeting, feel free to leave a comment on my page is you have any questions about the project. Happy editing, Spencer^T♦C 17:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of JWB/Isotope color chart

A tag has been placed on JWB/Isotope color chart requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. Mblumber (talk) 02:45, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Poll on Toyota Prius talk page

I saw that you were involved in some of the edit discussions involving the CNW study on the Prius page, so thought I would let you know that we're doing a poll to try to community consensus. Your input would be appreciated. Sacxpert (talk) 05:26, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Gadsden Purchase GA review

I'm not sure if you keep Gadsden Purchase watchlisted, but I should let you know (as you appear to be the biggest contributor to that article) that I have reviewed this article and placed it on hold pending some minor improvements. Protonk (talk) 04:42, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear power by country

The featured list Nuclear power by country, in which you contribute regularly, has been nominated for removal. You can comment at Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/Nuclear power by country. Regards, Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 21:46, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Superfamily (molecular biology)

A tag has been placed on Superfamily (molecular biology) requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, "See also" section, book reference, category tag, template tag, interwiki link, rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. Ipatrol (talk) 18:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Superfamily

I have userfied the content to User:JWB/Superfamily. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 22:38, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Call for opinion on a neutrality accusation in a human genetics related article

As a fellow member of the WikiProject HGH may I ask for opinions on this accusation?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:01, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

"Disputed" tag and three articles

Note: I am copying the following paragraph from a post I made to User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#"Disputed" tag and three articles to this talk page because I agree with your comment at the deletion discussion for SanSan.

I have been watching the article BosWash for two years. It and the associated articles ChiPitts and SanSan concern the concept of a theoretical entity known as a Megalopolis. The talk page discussion Talk:BosWash#Isn't this kind of melodramatic? sums up the disputes I and another editor have with the form and content the article has taken on. My major problem with all three articles is that although the subject and title do exist as part of a theory published by Jean Gottmann in 1961, the articles themselves treat the three terms, BosWash, ChiPitts and SanSan as actual physical locations with real boundaries and constituent geographical members. Not only is this not true, it is unencyclopedic and supported only by original research that masquerades as fact within each article. I would like to place a {{Disputed}} tag on each article. The documentation for the tag directs that a new section called "Disputed" be added to the article's talk page. I have two questions about how to proceed: in your opinion, is my proposed placement of the tag for these three articles warranted? and if so what is the best way to include the statements already made on the BosWash talk page within a new "Disputed" section, can they simply be copied into the section, and how can the discussion of all three pages be centralized?

In my opinion, these three articles should suffer a "merge and redirect" fate if kept in their current form. The use of the terms is possibly gaining traction do to the proliferation of the BosWash article on Wikipedia mirror sites, but the articles themselves are bold-faced WP:OR masquerading as fact; I don't see any books or census documents which support the existence of these entities, they are made up and promulgated by editors who plainly don't know what they are talking about. I don't believe Wikipedia should be responsible for pushing a rarely used neologism found in a largely singular source as fact. The SanSan open currently states "Gottmann's coinage of BosWash (the first and largest of the megalopolises) has, in fact, gained considerable currency." It is unfortunately through Wikipedia and mirror sites that this unsupported statement has even a chance of being considered accurate. I would value your input here on what you think should be done. Sswonk (talk) 16:04, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

IFR breeding

There is an IFR discussion list on google. Basically, even the biggest IFR advocates realize that fissile material availability is a big problem for IFR rollout. Here's a recent posting for example:

A better number for doubling time is about 15 years (from George Stanford). This is no great shakes either, and I agree that fissile supply for start charges in a high growth-rate situation is likely to be a problem -- the IAEA study done under their GAINS program came to the same conclusion, as did my little paper on the subject of transition from thermal to fast reactors (posted at <inea.org.br/>).

The best available answer: build lots of high-conversion thermal reactors in the immediate future, and bring in IFRs as quickly as you can. Start some of them on enriched uranium or U233 (produced in thermal reactors). If you must, produce more fissile using other methods. Stk (talk) 18:51, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

What about existing stocks of surplus weapons plutonium and reprocessed commercial reactor plutonium, as well as the even larger amount of plutonium available by reprocessing existing spent fuel? --JWB (talk) 20:12, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

thermal fission yield

We'd like to add the image File:ThermalFissionYield.svg to the German wikipedia. However a reliable source is mandatory for this kind of information. Can you give the source the image is based on? Thanks.-----<(kaimartin)>--- (talk) 01:40, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

It was based on the Knolls chart available from [15].

Another good source with data on even more nuclides is Chain Fission Yields which is referenced in Fission product yield. --JWB (talk) 19:54, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

More world maps

Reply added on Talk Page about the world maps.   Set Sail For The Seven Seas  304° 15' 00" NET   20:17, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

{{talkback}}   Set Sail For The Seven Seas  349° 30' 00" NET   23:18, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

"Israeli"

Regarding the section "Comparison between Classical and Modern Hebrew" in the status constructus article, I'm uncomfortable with the use of "Israeli" as a term for Modern Hebrew in the phrases "...is not productive in "Israeli" (his term for Modern Hebrew)" and "Modern Israeli Hebrew grammar makes extensive use...". My understanding is that the claims the Modern Hebrew should be regarded as something other than a descendant of classical Hebrew (which the term "Israeli" invariably suggests) is fairly unpopular, and also clashes with popular usage of the term "Hebrew". I don't think it makes sense to introduce this debate into this article, where it is essentially irrelevant. Mo-Al (talk) 18:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The first instance is only describing Zuckerman's usage, not saying it is general usage. If we are covering Zuckerman's ideas it doesn't make sense to suppress all mention of his terminology.

The second is using the established phrase "Israeli Hebrew", not Zuckerman's innovation of using "Israeli" in isolation as a language name.

Interestingly American language, Brazilian language, and Israeli language are currently all valid redirects or disambiguation pages. --JWB (talk) 18:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The first usage doesn't seem necessary to me, as the author's view on how to classify the language doesn't have bearing on whether the construct state is productive. The second I suppose is fine as long as it isn't construed as supporting his point of view. Mo-Al (talk) 01:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

re territorial evolution

Two things: 1) I don't think we should include troop movements and unofficial "claims", these soldiers had no authority to annex land on the part of the United States. What if Mexico had reconquered California? Would we note each part of the region that changed hands? And 2) Same deal with the Mormons; they weren't official actors of the United States. By that logic, we would be noting when the first white Texians settled. --Golbez (talk) 20:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe the U.S. forces in New Mexico and California did have orders to claim land for the United States and govern it for the United States. U.S. government control started with these events, which was not the case with Texas independence. Of course Mexican claims to California and New Mexico did not cease until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, but this is just as true of Texas! If we can list only the date when Mexico dropped claims, we must also remove the Texas Annexation.

The biggest point I would like to make is that New Mexico was never divided at the Rio Grande by the unenforced Texan claim, as maps usually suggest. New Mexico was captured as a whole by Kearny, and Mexican claims were relinquished as a whole by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. --JWB (talk) 20:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, Territorial evolution of the United States shows unilateral seizure of West Florida before this was acknowledged by Spain. This is similar. --JWB (talk) 21:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Self-published book

I'm working on compiling a book containing information about almost all Non-indigenous ethnic groups living or working in Pakistan. The population of a particular ethnic group would be obtain respectively from their diplomatic missions in Pakistan including regions with significant populations, languages spoken and religious affiliations. I'm not very good with writing so it would be great, if you would like to collaborate with me.--116.71.53.25 (talk) 06:18, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Afro-Asiatic Diagram

Dear JWB, I noticed that you have provided a diagram on Afro-Asiatic groupings which you have placed on the Afroasiatic languages page. Thanks for going through the trouble of working on such a diagram. I have tried hard to understand what this diagram is supposed to display, but you have left no explanations, neither in the article, nor on the media page. The diagram, however, is by no means self-explanatory, since the written part seems to be a mix of language groups and scholar's names. Can you add some more infomation to make this diagram more helpful for other users? I would be extremely grateful. Landroving Linguist (talk) 14:17, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

It's equivalent to the explanation and listing of trees given in the Subgrouping section. The contours correspond to the nodes or subgroups proposed by each of the named linguists. --JWB (talk) 16:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Completely agree about the alpha syllabary section

i completely agree with you that the term "abugida" is not established at all. it was made by peter daniels ages ago and since then many better terms have been used. please see my new discussions at the discussion page. could you let other users know as well since i feel the best and most neutral term would be alpha syllabary. LanguageExpert (talk) 13:59, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Stability of isotopes FL merge

Hello JWB! During routine maintenance of tagged featured lists, I saw you posted a merge suggestion here around a month ago, but I don't seem to be able to locate any on-going discussions or moves to complete the merge. I know virtually nothing about unstable isotopes and was wondering if you intended to pursue this merge? If so, would you be good enough to start up a discussion at either of the article talk pages, or for a wider audience, at Wikipedia:Proposed mergers? Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Northern United States

An article that you have been involved in editing, Northern United States, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Northern United States. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Hoppingalong (talk) 19:13, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Place names in China

In case you can write Chinese, maybe you can help to fill the table at Place names in China? TrueColour (talk) 01:27, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Move request with number support at Talk:Mount Wuzhi. Anna seems to live there. TrueColour (talk) 01:24, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Confirmation of identity

Hi, JWB, Before I discuss the recent edits to the article Joseph Greenberg, I wanted to make sure it was really you who had made them, and not somewhat borrowing your username. Please confirm. Thanks, VikSol (talk) 21:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It was me, let's discuss.

Cantonese

You will soon find it extremely frustrating for users who are committed to one point of view and will not budge no matter how much reason is introduced into the discussion. Intolerance of opposing views is endemic on that discussion page, as are cheap personal swipes and hostile remarks. Imagine we all sat in a meeting room and read that Cantonese discussion as though it was done in person, and you will see just how rude some of those comments are. Some users have now taken it on as a battle of egos. Plus when one of them is an administrator and can revert and move pages on a whim, it makes the process that much more difficult. Sad, but true. Colipon+(Talk) 11:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Nuclide

I have not changed back anything after you rejected my corrections, but please consider the following comments.

• I changed T_½ to T_½ not because I like better the way it looks, but because it is the symbol of a physical quantity (halflife) and therefore it is supposed to be written in italic style.

• I don't mind that you eliminated “radioelement”, although it is used in the literature. It is also OK that you tried to solve the elimination by changing “francium” to “isotopes of francium”. But the whole sentence should be “Some of these nuclides are very short lived, such as isotopes of francium” rather than “Some of these isotopes are very short lived, such as isotopes of francium” because the word “these” refers to (the isotopes of) different elements. It is very good that the introduction tells the reader that the term isotope is often used in a loose sense. But it is not a good practice and it should not be followed in the rest of the article. (Please, check the rest of the article for the correct use of isotope/nuclide, because I will stop working on this article leaving the responsibility to you and to others who want to edit it.)

• I changed the sentence “the isotope ²³⁸U (T_½ = 4.5×10⁹ a) of uranium occurs in nature, but the shorter-lived isotope, ²³⁵U (T_½ = 0.7 ×10⁹ a), is 138 times rarer”, because having read the first part of the sentence, the reader would anticipate that the shorter-lived isotope does not occur in nature. You may say that anybody who is able to interpret a multiple sentence must come to the conclusion (after some consideration) that ²³⁵U must also occur in nature. It is true. But the reader is either puzzled by the sentence and starts thinking about it (as I did), or skips the consideration part and fails to draw the correct conclusion. With my version (which may not be perfect) I tried to produce a sentence which does not need much considering. So I ask you to rephrase the sentence more carefully.--TheBFG (talk) 07:43, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

My main points were "radioelement" which is attested but not that commonly used and the first "s". I don't object to the three points you make above; please feel free to redo them. If italics for physical quantities is a dominant scientific convention, you might also want to bring that up for inclusion in Wikipedia:Manual of Style or a subarticle. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics) mentions italics for variables but I don't see a section specifically addressing physics. --JWB (talk) 19:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of John D. Hawks

The article John D. Hawks has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Non-notable associate professor. Does not meet WP:PROF

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. BaronLarf 09:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of John D. Hawks

An article that you have been involved in editing, John D. Hawks, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John D. Hawks. Thank you.

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Cantonese Ausbausprache

Hi JWB, there's currently a discussion on Template talk:Chinese language#Second_Cantonese_link on the status of Cantonese as an ausbausprache and whether it should be listed as such on the template. Seeing that you were heavily involved in the discussions on the scope of the Cantonese article, I thought you might want to give your opinion here. Thanks! —Umofomia (talk) 18:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics

Hello, I am trying to bring WP:WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics back to semi-active status. Toward that end, I have moved all members who have not posted to the project page in the past six months to a section, "Inactive members." If you wish to be active in the project, I hope you will move your name back to the section, "Members." You may also remove your name if you are no longer interested in the project. Thanks, and happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 17:50, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

<Cough>

I don't want to start an edit war... But you might want to look at that one again. ϢereSpielChequers 09:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, confused the undo with the original vandalism. --JWB (talk) 09:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

No worries, we all slip up occasionally. While I'm here I notice you speak Japanese, and chance you could help us at Wikipedia:Database reports/Living people on EN wiki who are dead on other wikis? We have several BLPs listed there which are linked to Japanese articles on dead people, but while I can figure out German and French sufficiently to spot an incorrect Interwiki link or use the reference to someone's obituary, I'm totally lost with Japanese. ϢereSpielChequers 12:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

AfD

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maps of American ancestries. It's an interesting article, but IMO not suitable for an encyclopedia. Feel free to disagree, or agree. Thanks. Jaque Hammer (talk) 00:31, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi

I've noticed that you have intelligent and moderate comments on some paleoanthropology talk pages. I'd be interested in your opinions on my merger proposal at Talk:Archaic_Homo_sapiens_admixture_with_modern_humans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Warren Dew (talk • contribs) 22:59, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Skewed Nuclide charts

Just checking up to see if you have received any significant comments about your skewed nuclide charts, and particularly the one I discussed with you.WFPM (talk) 19:02, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

negative verb and West-Flemish

If I am correct you are the one who added West Flemish as an example of a language with a negative verb. What is the source for that? I couldn't find anything about West Flemish and negative verbs that didn't quote Wikipedia.--Merijn2 (talk) 12:28, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't remember adding that and don't have any knowledge of that language. --JWB (talk) 16:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

May 2011

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. Before saving your changes to an article, please provide an edit summary, which you forgot to do before saving your recent edit to Nuclear-weapon-free zone. Doing so helps everyone understand the intention of your edit (and prevents legitimate edits from being mistaken for vandalism). It is also helpful to users reading the edit history of the page. Thank you. Oneiros (talk) 20:55, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Candidate to be copied to Wikimedia Common

Could you please move some of your pictures, at least this picture to wikimedia commons? I would love to use them, like every other wikimania. --Segelboot (talk) 15:03, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

In re the fission products on fast nuclear reactors

You are right academically as to the presence of radioactive elements, but wrong about radiotoxicity, which governs practical waste management. Elements with very long half-lives are less radioactive, some almost undetectable, and thus far less radiotoxic (they can, of course be chemically toxic, but heavy metals are a different issue). Caesium 137 is the most radiotoxic of the common fission products, because it is salt loving (i.e. dissolves in water and is biologically absorbed), and has a half life short enough to be very radioactive. Strontium 90 is also important. In practice Caesium 137 usually governs the storage times of waste consisting primarily of fission products, that is, the waste from fast nuclear reactors. Usually the period is 10 half-lives, resulting in storage times of about 270 years. As for the reference, ([16]), see middle of page 86, "waste storage times are governed by..." So, the facts are there. Please feel free to improve the text. Ray Van De Walker 00:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

For other readers, the discussion is at User_talk:Ray_Van_De_Walker#fission_products_have_a_maximum_half_life_of_27_years. Ray, you can't even manage to use the standard signature with a link to your page but am making me fill it in. --JWB (talk) 00:43, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

JWB, the text is already corrected... and this is a standard, recommended signature: Ray Van De Walker 00:45, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

You still have the halflife of Cs-137 wrong... is it that hard to click the link that was right there in the template (the number 137 - I couldn't find a way to make the element abbreviation Cs part of the link) and go to the isotope's article and look up the halflife? While simple in itself, this is a typical example of how you ignore pre-existing content, get facts wrong, and don't coordinate with other editors.

A standard signature is generated by typing four tildes in a row and has links to your user and talk pages. Also pretty basic and something that editors usually learn immediately. --JWB (talk) 01:14, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the Cs-137 correction! Actually, that -is- how I make my signature. 4 tildes, and it comes out: Ray Van De Walker 21:19, 16 November 2011 (UTC) Do you have any idea why mine is different?

Ta-181 and K-40 (for JWB)

To JWB: your edit today includes a note to Ref.7 reading: "Tantalum-181 has a typo and Potassium-40 is omitted". Questions: (1) could you explain what the typo is exactly for Ta-181 and what it should say? (2) You have cited this reference from a section on Odd mass number so why mention K-40? From what set is K-40 omitted? Is this supposed to be a list of ALL magnetic nuclei (it seems too short to me)? Please clarify. Dirac66 (talk) 18:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The list in Citizendium isn't just for odd mass number, although it is fascinatingly close to it, for reasons discussed. Note that it includes H-2, Li-6, B-10, N-14 (all stable) plu V-50, and Lu-176 (the last two being very long-lived odd-odd radioisotopes that occur primordially). Primordial even-mass nuclei with spin aren't common, since they must be odd-odd, stable or long-lived (the p and n spins could cancel, but that seems never to happen for any odd-odd, as none are spin-0) As this article points out, there are only 9 primordial odd-odds (4 stable, 5 radioactive), all with net spin, and this Citizendium table has only five of them. I think the table intends to be a list of magnetic nuclides that are naturally-occuring (though it's not perfect as I see Am-243 and H-3 are there, which makes no sense at all). K-40 (spin-4) should indeed presumably be there, as a naturally-occuring primordial K isotope, albeit radioactive, the same as V-50 and Lu-176. The Citizendium table ALSO leaves out the primordial odd-odd Lu-138 (mentioned in this article as a radioactive odd-odd with spin, but not in Citizendium), and Ta-180m, which is odd-odd (spin 9) and of course primordial, so that's THREE primoridal magnetics that it leaves out (K-40, Ta-180m, and Lu-138). I can think of no reason why K-40, Lu-138, or Ta-180m are omitted if H-3 (tritium) is included! I cannot find a typo in the "tantalum-181" entry. This is the major nuclide of tantalum and would be included on its own, and the correct spin is given (7/2). I don't think the Citizendium table intended tantalium-181 to be tantalum-180m. Ta-180 (no m) has a half-life of only hours, and in any case, is not listed. In summary, the table in Citizendium has left out THREE primordial nuclides. SBHarris 04:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I got this doing a Unix command prompt search for lines with no slash:

$ grep -v / spin
Deuterium	2H or D	1	1.44 e-6
Lithium-6	6Li	1	0.000628
Boron-10	10B	3	0.00386
Nitrogen-14	14N	1	0.000998
Vanadium-50	50V	6	0.00013
Antimony-123	123.019474
Lutetium-176	176Lu	7	0.000902
Tantalum-181	181Ta	703579

It seems there is some special-character problem with the lines for Antimony-123 and Tantalum-181, that is not apparent when you just read the lines visually. I think you are correct that the table misses none of the 4 stable, low-mass odd-odds but misses 3 of the 5 primordial theoretically decaying odd-odds; I looked up their spins individually in the Isotopes of X articles. If you want to check the odd-N, half-spin numbers for errors, I'd be grateful. --JWB (talk) 04:48, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Neutron capture

Your change coolant water additive in PWRs. my one before used for trimming. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kay Uwe Böhm (talk • contribs) 17:28, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Not sure I understand - could you explain more? --JWB (talk) 18:07, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Garrett Lisi

I would like to mention that I'm trying to get a reasonable and NPOV version of Antony Garrett Lisi's page, that currently has been under censorship from User SherryNugil that does not want to include the current status of the Lisi's theory and that wants to keep all the articles and interviews and tv appearances and blog entries and forum discussions about Lisi. Not even for Nobel Prize Laureates there is such a complete list. I am also reporting that user for several reasons and it would be good if you could participate to the discussion giving your opinion, given that in the past you contributed to that page. Look at the discussion page for the last happenings. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 16:18, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

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Proposal to shut down WP Geographic Coordinates & ban coordinates on wikipedia articles

This means you. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:03, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

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Image of writing system distribution

I posted this at Talk:Writing system as well, and I thought I would post here as well since you're the original author. Is there any chance you could change the image so that the Latin alphabet is not represented by gray? It would increase interpretability, as gray on these kinds of images usually means "not applicable" or "no information available." Arc de Ciel (talk) 22:52, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

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I-129

I notice on the Iodine-129 page that there are three values for fission yield provided in the section of Formation and Decay, and none of them agree. I think you are the author of the two tables, so thought I'd discuss with you before making changes. More specifically, the Template:Chain yield table for thermal fission of U-235 quotes 0.706%, the text quotes 0.6576% for U-235 fission yield, and the LLFP table gives 0.841% without identifying the fissile nuclide, but for which thermal U-235 would be a reasonable default assumption. Only one of these values is traceable to a reference, the Chain Yield per Fission value, which links to an IAEA database which is a pretty good source. However even so there is still ambiguity. What is Chain Yield? It is not explained here, nor is it easy to find on the IAEA reference page (it is in the Safeguards PDF). In fact, IAEA provides Individual Yield, Chain Yield and Cumulative Yield. The latter is the sum of the prior two and is what I think should be considered as the fission yield reported in Wikipedia. For U-235 and thermal fission, this gives an I-129 yield of 0.706%. So unless I am missing something, I propose that we standardize the I-129 fission yield values to the IAEA reference Cum Fission Yield value. Your LLFP table would need to be updated for I-129, or some text added somewhere to reference the 0.841% value. Gierszep (talk) 00:46, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

It looks like Cumulative Yield is probably what we want and the Chain Yield figures and template should be replaced with Cumulative Yield across Wikipedia. However the I-129 independent yield from U-235 is zero [17] so should not be causing the discrepancy for I-129.

The figure in LLFP might be a weighted average of IAEA U-235 and Pu-239 thermal chain yield from the data for File:ThermalFissionYield.svg (you can see data by viewing the SVG file as text) but I have to run now so will let you look. I think the weighted average is a good idea, though if I did it over I'd include some fast fission of U-238 since I've found thermal reactors actually are designed for a significant proportion of this, something on the order of 10% I think.

The figure in the article text is probably from material that has since been deleted in Fission product or Fission products (by element). The source may be buried back there, but I think it only gave figures for some major fission products and a complete resource like IAEA would be better. --JWB (talk) 02:06, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I also have not yet checked the LLFP figure basis in detail. My guess is the 0.8451% value may be a practical yield in a real fuel element from all the pathways. E.g. it may hold for a PWR fuel of a given burnup. And maybe it should then not be reported to 4 digits of precision? Gierszep (talk) 04:18, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

The figure is in fact for the 65% U-235 35% Pu-239 shown in ThermalFissionYield.svg. [18] --JWB (talk) 21:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, I see these details in the HTML behind the template. But that's a little deep into the mechanics. I think it should be made more visible, perhaps through added discussion in the LLFP Wikipedia article. Also, since it is a somewhat arbitrary mix (I think it strictly only applies to a particular fuel and burnup), I suggest it (and other yields listed in this table) not be presented to 3-4 significant digits. I also propose that this table not be part of the I-129 article as it needs a lot of explanation and has lots of non-relevant info, and is appropriately accessed through the LLFP link. I'm going to start to modify the I-129 article based on this discussion, but will take a few days to complete it. You can see what you think of the revisions. Gierszep (talk) 05:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

This actually requires updating your Chain Yield template, and affects a few other wiki articles. But I checked and they also should be Cum Yield and not just Chain Yield. In the case of I-129 at least, I checked all the entries and no numbers need to change, just table heading and reference. Also there is something odd with the IAEA database for Pu239 and Pu240 Cum Yields for Thermal neutrons. Looks like data is shifted into the wrong columns. I have emailed them to check.Gierszep (talk) 05:38, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Not sure which table you are referring to now. I think the templates are good if adequate explanation is linked.

I kept the Chain Yield Template but added explanation note in it and referenced it to the Cum Yield portion of the IAEA database. I also checked the yield values for all the wiki pages that referenced this table. Seems that they all were the Cum Yield values anyway. Except that yields for Sn126 and Zr93 are not in the IAEA online dataset, so I will look around to find a better ref for those. Gierszep (talk) 03:36, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I have updated all the other data now to ENDF/B.VII.1 with reference.Gierszep (talk) 01:58, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

One of them references ENDF but still has a link to IAEA? I don't completely understand. If ENDF is a better and more complete source overall, we should switch to that or an even better source. Or if there are conflicts of expert opinion on which is best, I'd like to know. Originally I envisioned the data as coming from a single good source, to allow consistent comparison. --JWB (talk) 23:54, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I can see why you want to present more approximate figures given that there are a range of fuels - however presenting a range would itself be making a judgement about the range of fuels. Unless we have good data on the fuels, burnups etc. it seems that presenting figures based on some stated conditions would represent less guesswork. --JWB (talk) 08:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I was not thinking of a range, but rather just presenting the yield value to fewer digits. For example, rather than quoting I-129 as 0.8410%/fission, it could be listed in the table as 0.84%/fission or 0.8%/fission. Indicates that this is a nominal value. I also think it reasonable to provide explanatory note, but I am presently unsure how to make that info readily visible to a reader. Table footnote?

Long-lived fission products

Nuclide	t1⁄2	Yield	Q	βγ
	(Ma)	(%)	(keV)
99Tc	0.211	6.1385	294	β
126Sn	0.230	0.1084	4050	βγ
79Se	0.327	0.0447	151	β
135Cs	1.33	6.9110	269	β
93Zr	1.53	5.4575	91	βγ
107Pd	6.5	1.2499	33	β
129I	15.7	0.8410	194	βγ

Just checking - have you seen the popup documentation, e.g. when you hover over the % column header in the LLFP template? --JWB (talk) 04:15, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, good point - I had not seen the popup. I agree that meets the basic need for documentation, although I suspect many users may not guess there is reason to hover over a % column heading. Gierszep (talk) 01:58, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm a bit surprised that someone who has paid close attention to the articles and data missed this, so I think the templates (or each place where they're used) should add text prompting the reader to hover on underlined links for more data. (I've added it now.)

I think the LLFP and MLFP table templates provide interesting and relevant data allowing the reader to compare and get an idea of relative importance, while not taking up much space, and that provide visual reference points on the page. I don't support removal of the templates which you've done in a couple of places. --JWB (talk) 23:54, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Template is indeed clearer now - thanks. Regarding whether the template is useful in the individual nuclide articles, my rationale is not to include it since (a) There is a specific article on Long lived fission products, where this template is logically included and which is sensibly linked to by the nuclide article; and (b) the I-129 specific info in the template is now available within the article itself in more detail(eg. yield table). Still if you feel strongly on this then I recommend that we move the discussion into the article Talk page to get more opinions. I started this thread on your talk page because I was specifically interested in some data and template in which you were author, but continued article content discussion should get moved. Gierszep (talk) 17:27, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Merger/move proposal

I have proposed a "merger/move request" between List of U.S. state partition proposals and List of proposed states of the United States, because I feel there is considerable overlap. If you are interested participating in the discussion, please feel free to do so here. Thank you. Green Giant (talk) 22:22, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

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Love history & culture? Get involved in WikiProject World Digital Library!

World Digital Library Wikipedia Partnership - We need you!

Hi JWB! I'm the Wikipedian In Residence at the World Digital Library, a project of the Library of Congress and UNESCO. I'm recruiting Wikipedians who are passionate about history & culture to participate in improving Wikipedia using the WDL's vast free online resources. Participants can earn our awesome WDL barnstar and help to disseminate free knowledge from over 100 libraries in 7 different languages. Multilingual editors are welcome! (But being multilingual is not a requirement.) Please sign up to participate here. Thanks for editing Wikipedia and I look forward to working with you! SarahStierch (talk) 22:21, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Operation Crossroads promoted to Featured Article status

It looks like it's been a while since you made a contribution to this article, but you may be interested in this news, posted on my talk page:

Congratulations! Operation Crossroads has passed FAC. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:57, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll drink to that. Thanks. HowardMorland (talk) 16:47, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

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You might be interested in this Locked Article...

...and pro-RAO vandalism as noted on Talk page: Talk:Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans (removal of {cn} request tags, etc...as I noted removing tags was a vandalism problem also in the Multiregional origin of modern humans article) as well as possible POV reasons why it's not being updated to reflect sources showing Chris Stringer now doubting RAO more ...plus tonight I added that the SAME anthropologists' book, who were used in the lede because they USED TO BE saying that RAO is the "mainstream" hypothesis, is a book that now withdrew that claim and says multiregional gained "support" over the formerly-dominant RAO hypothesis.

As it's a locked article, I can't edit it (I guess there's a waiting-period or I'd need to edit 10, 20, 50, or ??? articles before I get permission as a New User to edit a Locked Article?). Thanks. 209.97.203.60 (talk) 05:11, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

File:Writing systems worldwide clipped.png listed for deletion

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Language-population update project

Hi. The 18th edition of Ethnologue just came out, and if we divide up our language articles among us, it won't take long to update them. I would appreciate it if you could help out, even if it's just a few articles (5,000 articles is a lot for just me), but I won't be insulted if you delete this request.

A largely complete list of articles to be updated is at Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 17. The priority articles are in Category:Language articles with old Ethnologue 17 speaker data. These are the 10% that have population figures at least 25 years old.

Probably 90% of the time, Ethnologue has not changed their figures between the 17th and 18th editions, so all we need to do is change "e17" to "e18" in the reference (ref) field of the language info box. That will change the citation for the artcle to the current edition. Please put the data in the proper fields, or the info box will flag it as needing editorial review. The other relevant fields are "speakers" (the number of native speakers in all countries), "date" (the date of the reference or census that Ethnologue uses, not the date of Ethnologue!), and sometimes "speakers2". Our convention has been to enter e.g. "1990 census" when a census is used, as other data can be much older than the publication date. Sometimes a citation elsewhere in the article depends on the e17 entry, in which case you will need to change "name=e17" to "name=e18" in the reference tag (assuming the 18th edition still supports the cited claim).

Remember, we want the *total* number of native speakers, which is often not the first figure given by Ethnologue. Sometimes the data is too incompatible to add together (e.g. a figure from the 1950s for one country, and a figure from 2006 for another), in which case it should be presented that way. That's one use for the "speakers2" field. If you're not sure, just ask, or skip that article.

Data should not be displayed with more than two, or at most three, significant figures. Sometimes it should be rounded off to just one significant figure, e.g. when some of the component data used by Ethnologue has been approximated with one figure (200,000, 3 million, etc.) and the other data has greater precision. For example, a figure of 200,000 for one country and 4,230 for another is really just 200,000 in total, as the 4,230 is within the margin of rounding off in the 200,000. If you want to retain the spurious precision of the number in Ethnologue, you might want to use the {{sigfig}} template. (First parameter in this template is for the data, second is for the number of figures to round it off to.)

Dates will often need to be a range of all the country data in the Ethnologue article. When entering the date range, I often ignore dates from countries that have only a few percent of the population, as often 10% or so of the population isn't even separately listed by Ethnologue and so is undated anyway.

If Ethnologue does not provide a date for the bulk of the population, just enter "no date" in the date field. But if the population figure is undated, and hasn't changed between the 17th & 18th editions of Ethnologue, please leave the ref field set to "e17", and maybe add a comment to keep it so that other editors don't change it. In cases like this, the edition of Ethnologue that the data first appeared in may be our only indication of how old it is. We still cite the 14th edition in a couple dozen articles, so our readers can see that the data is getting old.

The articles in the categories linked above are over 90% of the job. There are probably also articles that do not currently cite Ethnologue, but which we might want to update with the 18th edition. I'll need to generate another category to capture those, probably after most of the Ethnologue 17 citations are taken care of.

Jump in at the WP:LANG talk page if you have any comments or concerns. Thanks for any help you can give!

— kwami (talk) 02:41, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

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Discussion on Talk:Theresa May#Pronunciation

As the above-mentioned discussion could use some more input, I'm inviting all the active members of the phonetics project to participate. Ardalazzagal (talk) 14:31, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

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Invitation to take a look at our first article

Hi!

We are students writing an article on COPREDAL ("Preparatory Commission for the Denuclearization of Latin America") as part of our class Academic Discourse and Writing at Tec de Monterrey. Since you are an experienced Wikipedian and have an interest in these kind of topics, we would like to know if you could take a few minutes to take a look at the article and give us feedback. Thank you for your time.--Victoria De La Parra (talk) 21:17, 23 March 2017 (UTC

Looks good so far, just add the links and list formatting! --JWB (talk) 21:36, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

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United Nations Office of Information Communications Technology moved to draftspace

An article you recently created, United Nations Office of Information Communications Technology, is not suitable as written to remain published. It needs more in-depth coverage about the subject itself, with citations from reliable, independent sources in order to show it meets WP:GNG. It should have at least three, to be safe. And please remember that interviews, as primary sources, do not count towards GNG.(?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of "Draft:" before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 10:23, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

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Your draft article, Draft:United Nations Office of Information Communications Technology

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In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. When you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:22, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

UTF-8 charset table

Hi JWB,

If you are still here, I would be very interested in talking to you about some of your old contributions to UTF-8.
(Sadly Wikipedia's Deletionista has massacred required templates, but the Wayback Machine remembers what it used to look like.)
Is there any way you're contactable, even if you or I leave?

—ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 17:26, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm here but don't want to post my email publicly. Interested to hear what you are thinking. JWB (talk) 20:00, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you so much for replying. I was hesitant to give Wikipedia an email address myself, but now I'll figure something out. I imagine I could also just reply here. It's not super-secret stuff, it's just that "Chatham House rules" have their advantages too. I'll think about it and will get back to you one way or another. In the meantime, merry Christmas, happy new year, season's greetings, all the good stuff! :) —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 21:35, 24 December 2023 (UTC)