Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 September 6

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September 6

Who is Thomas Wrench?

A Thomas wrench is a Victorian surgical instrument invented by Hugh Owen Thomas, and I was planning on creating the obvious redirect. However, Thomas Wrench currently redirects, without explanation, to Godwin's Law. Can our combined resources track down this Thomas Wrench and add the appropriate information to the article? I'm sure they can. Tevildo (talk) 10:11, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Mr Wrench seems to be notable only for being a redirect on a Wikipedia page. I think you can change the redirect with a clear conscience. Alansplodge (talk) 15:24, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

There will be no conflict because the second words differ in case. μηδείς (talk) 16:47, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

See WP:DIFFCAPS and take it up with the MOS people. I've put Thomas Wrench up at RFD, and we can sort out the surgical implement when that's closed. Tevildo (talk) 18:18, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

What Medeis is probably pointing out here (though she couldn't resist the opportunity to let the misunderstanding stand, rather than lose a good joke) is that the existence of the redirect does not prevent you from creating an article called "Thomas wrench", after which you can simply edit the redirect by following this link, and retarget it to your new article. No RfD is required. --Trovatore (talk) 19:52, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, I would consider that Thomas Wrench, with the capital W, should lead to an article about a notable Mr Wrench, not to the implement, other than by means of a hatnote. We therefore should redlink Thomas Wrench until such an article exists. Others may have a different view, in which case they can take whatever action they consider most appropriate. Tevildo (talk) 21:32, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, who is this Mr. Wrench the article name implies? As for Sr. Trovatore's comment above, it's utterly inscrutable unless one notes that he places his ctiticism of my joke about Tevildo's comment above it. I suppose this is an attempt at photobombing gone horribly, horribly, even hitlerly wrong. μηδείς (talk) 18:40, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

If there were a notable Thomas Wrench, I would agree (unless the medical device were clearly the primary meaning). Since no one has come forward with one, I don't see what's wrong with that search term linking to the implement. It just seems like a waste of time and an overuse of process to start an RfD for something you can easily adjust on your own without admin assistance. But then again here I am wasting time arguing about it, so I suppose I'm not in a position to talk. --Trovatore (talk) 21:37, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

(As for the capitalization, note that in older capitalization styles, the device may well have been referred to as the Thomas Wrench, and it's not at all unlikely that someone would search for it under that exact name.) --Trovatore (talk) 21:38, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Your wikinaziesque behavior here, Tevildo, is second only to Hitler's. μηδείς (talk) 19:36, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't give up the day job. Tevildo (talk) 21:32, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Agile coach

For example the Wikimedia Foundation employs four agile coaches. What do they do in general? (Although I can approximate the answer myself, I'd still prefer to have it in writing.) --Pxos (talk) 13:24, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

This tells me it has to do with some IT/software thing called "Agile". Enlightenment as to what that is, comes with our own article Agile software development, although it makes no mention of an "agile coach". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:30, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

An Agile "coach" would be someone with sufficient experience with that development approach to be able to lead a team. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs) 02:28, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm somewhat confused what you mean by "I'd still prefer to have it in writing". If you want a good written explaination so you can be sure you're right, that's fine. But if you want a written explaination you can use for some purpose, bear in mind there are no regulars here who can speak for the WMF, and in any case, you should approach them directly if you want an explaination. In the absence of any previous explaination for them which may very well not exist, we can't provide any refs on their view of what an agile coach is or does. Nil Einne (talk) 15:04, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Basically what I meant was: I can imagine lots of things in my mind, but they may be fantasy. I always prefer to read a good authoritative explanation to stuff and well-written manuals (although I can probably appreciate a well-written manual while never reading it). --Pxos (talk) 11:43, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

"Agile" is a common technique for managing teams of software engineers though a process called "Scrum". It's often the case that you have a technical leader for each small team, and to keep that person free for the technical stuff, you also have someone who handles the tracking of project progress and such like. That person is sometimes called the "Coach" - hence "Agile coach", but I think it's more common to call those people "Scrum Masters". I wrote an approachable informal guide to all of this weird stuff here: http://sjbaker.org/wiki/index.php?title=An_Engineer%27s_guide_to_Scrum - which describes the role of Scrum Master. As I note there, the role of Scrum Master may be given to an engineer on the team - but in some companies, it's a specific job title. One scrum master may work for multiple teams...and having four such people at Wikimedia Foundation seems quite reasonable. SteveBaker (talk) 19:09, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

That way they can develop their useless projects much more quickly. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:04, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Please state which Wikimedia Foundation software projects you consider to be "useless". --Viennese Waltz 08:36, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

There are several that they tried to foist upon us, which were ultimately trashed. They're detailed at Wikipediocracy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:26, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for all the answers. The reference to scrum masters and the linked "short story" was helpful. I was just kind of wondering whether these agile coaches or scrum masters are kind of a luxury, only affordable to major organizations. When an organization such as the WMF grows, it can hire more people to do the work that did not exist when the organization was smaller. --Pxos (talk) 11:43, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

They aren't a luxury in a setting where there are a reasonable number of engineers in each scrum team. If you don't have dedicated scrum masters, then the work devolves to the engineers themselves. That makes the engineers spend time doing things other than engineering - which makes them less efficient. Since engineers are generally on a higher pay scale than scrum masters, that's a waste of resources. SteveBaker (talk) 13:24, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Looking for complete weather statistics for a U.S. city

So I would like to improve Utica, New York to FA status over the next year, but I need accurate climate data to do this. In months past what I did was used the Weather Underground and Weatherbase websites for Utica, and also using statistics for the neighboring city of Rome, New York, which has an Air Force base. As you can see, this is very complicated and lacks any streamlining.

What I need to do is use data from the National Climactic Data Center to get extremes and averages for Utica, which is not easy because I need to look up certain datasets that I don't understand. The National Weather Service website also would have been helpful, but the nearest station is in Binghamton, New York.

What resource do I use to get complete weather data including extremes and averages? At one point in time, an edit on the page displayed uncited record highs and lows, which leads me to believe the data exists. Buffaboy ^talk 18:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

@Buffaboy:, you might find Daymet [1] meets your needs. It gives daily meteorological data for 1 km grid cells across the USA. Single pixel extraction here [2]. With a little wrangling in Excel or similar, you can get highs and lows of several variables of interest for the published range, but the range currently only goes back to 1980. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:30, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

This seems interesting, I will do some tinkering with it and see what I can do. I also wonder if local news stations/newspapers would have an idea of the records. Buffaboy ^talk 16:54, 7 September 2015 (UTC)