This is an archive of past discussions with User:RockMagnetist. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
This is the first time I have seen a request from someone asking whether their own edits make sense! I admire your intellectual honesty. I wish I had better news for you, but it doesn't make any sense. There is some generic spherical trigonometry related to a mysterious "point 1", and I have no idea what the "explorations" are. There is a lot of missing context, and in any case this probably isn't the place to get into a detailed account of the mathematics. I recommend deleting everything from "Milanković developed ..." to "... cannot be linear."
I can't see where the Deutsch reference supports the claim that the equations used in paleomagnetism are identical to those of Milankovitch.
My impression from a quick scan of the Deutsch paper is that Milankovitch's main contribution to the polar wander question was his calculation of the response of the Earth's rotation to movements of the continents, a quantitative theory that anticipated the more famous work of Gold (1955). Basically, he treats the crust as a spherical shell independent of the interior and calculates changes in moments of inertia as the continents move. It would take some effort, though, to write a clear exposition of the theory and its significance. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
These equations I have found in his work [2], the section "Secular wanderings of the rotational poles of the Earth" (p.206-282) on the page 276 (german). Also in this work confirm the connection Milanković method and palaeomagnetism [3]. Did Milanković first developed a mathematical method of polar wandering? I do not want to say that his the correct method, but I have a feeling that it represented the base for young scientists in 1950s! I just want to find a way to write a fair section in this article. Thanks!--Свифт (talk) 17:48, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't know the history that well, but I have never seen any reference in the paleomagnetic literature indicating that his calculations influenced paleomagnetists. However, the Deutsch paper says that his theory of polar wander was developed further by Walter Munk, a very distinguished geophysicist and oceanographer. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:51, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I research the impact and Milankovitch efforts in that field "Did Milanković pose a thin bridge between Wegener (1930) and 1950s" (Deutsch paper and others). He was one of the few scientists who is to the end of his life loyally promoted the Wegener's theory. Because of this I need assistance in this section. What do you suggest?--Свифт (talk) 19:44, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I only recently copied the link from somebody else's page, and have not actually tried it myself yet. Hope it is useful to you! – FayenaticLondon17:55, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
The contest page is up now for the Biophysical Society's contest starting at the Feb meeting: linked from the WikiProject Biophysics page or direct at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biophysics/Biophysics_wiki-edit_contest. It would be really great if you felt willing and able to help judge the entries (after the contest ends in July) - I've very much appreciated your contributions on various biophysics topics. If you are willing, please go there and add yourself to the list of judges. Also, let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement on how we have the contest set up. Dcrjsr (talk) 17:56, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind words, Dcrjsr. I will do what I can - I hope the judging doesn't all occur at the end because I may not be in town then. RockMagnetist (talk) 06:12, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for signing up! We'll make the timing work, one way or another -- I'm very likely to be hiking in the backcountry on July 15 myself. I think our judges should collectively keep some tabs on what the entrants are doing as they go along, and the results don't need to be announced immediately. Also, if you have the opportunity, try to drum up some more contest entrants, esp among students. For instance, I'm contacting biophysics individuals/organization in non-US countries (esp non English-speaking), to find people willing to improve coverage of their own notable local scientists and topics. Dcrjsr (talk) 14:18, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps we could set up a subpage of the contest to edit and keep track of who's submitting what, then send emails around to figure out what we think is good? Keilana|Parlez ici22:15, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
It does seem that we will need some private forum for discussing articles, but maybe it should be something more like a Google group or document so we can organize the evaluations. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:58, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree that some other form is probably better than email. Maybe we should relax for a week or two, then try to think up some gentle but motivating message to send out to entrants. I'll try to get at least one of our lab folks to proceed soon - altho maybe a message from Keilana would motivate them even better? When we get a bit of action, then we'll need to organize ourselves. Dcrjsr (talk) 03:01, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Hello. I was just looking at Effective medium approximations. I generally agree with a 2009 comment about dumbing down this article. However, as things go on Wikipedia, only the intro or first couple of sections need to be dumbed down. I mostly understand the intro, and I personally like the first sentence. However, I am inclined to think that the general reader is unable to understand the entire article. I am willing to take a crack at it and develop the first couple of sections, but it will probably be later on. I am hoping you can come behind me and copy edit. Or if you want you can try simplifying the first part of the article. I am guessing that you have more expertise than me. As an afterthought, I think this is a useful article because it has applications in a number of disciplines. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 23:05, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I can't claim any expertise on this subject - in fact, I have never heard of the effective medium approximation. It seems to me that this article mostly needs more context and better writing. For example, it took me a while to realize that you're suppose to solve equation 1 for σe. Also, I wonder if the article has copyright violations; there are statements like "The figure illustrates a two-component medium" in the absence of any figure. I'd be happy to look over any changes you make to the article. RockMagnetist (talk) 23:27, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Great - if you want to take a look. I just rewrote the introduction, and I added the original sentence at the end of my introduction. The first section after the current intro was in the original introduction. I might have problems with the equations so I will leave those alone. However, I can ask over at WikiProject Physics for someone to review the equations. Thanks for your response. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 23:43, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't think we ever interacted before, but I was going though User:Scottywong/Admin hopefuls for potential WP:RFA nominees whose name I am not familiar with, but could use the tools. I noticed your name on this list and decided to evaluate some of your contributions to see if you were a suitable candidate for this role. I was intrigued with your contributions and especially your expertise and I wondered if you ever considered having the extra tools. To learn a little bit about myself, and especially my philosophy here is that I am a college student that been editing on and off this project since 2005, reaching administrative status from 2006 to 2009, and just recently recovered my tools back though community consensus. My expertise in the project tends to be based on deletion debates, especially trying to policy consensus correctly though I have article writing experience as well. My userpage has more information about me. I hold a strong interest in editor retention, specifically retaining editors considered "experts" in their field of interest, such as yourself. I strongly believe that certain areas of the project should be handled by experts and not novices who jumps into the subject, not knowing anything about the subject, or the background of a dispute. For me, that is the top reason why retaining experts in this project is extremely difficult, because once they get involved into conflict, they really don't know how to deal with it, and those novices tend to clear them away. Of course once they get familiar with our main policies and guidelines, and learn how to deal with those rather disruptive editors correctly, contributing to the project tends to be a pleasant experience. Of course there is a limited number of "experts" who stay around, disregard our policies, bring a biased point of view to articles, and in several cases, they get administrative status and take advantage of these tools to silence opponent. But looking though your contributions, you are not one of those editors, but a dedicated editor who would handle the tools with care and having these extra tools would significantly improve the project in the long term. Are you willing to accept a RFA nomination? As I noticed many editors I know and trust in this talkpage are more familiar with your contributions, they can be the main nominator if you decide to run. Let me know though either my talk page, or by email. Thanks Secretaccount17:16, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I replied to some of your concerns in my talk page, that part of the criteria the "edits to admin areas" is particularly bull, as it gives an unfair disadvantage to many of our best content contributors and experts. Secretaccount21:24, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm going to move forward with the nomination, I do recommend to have your email account set up however before running. Secretaccount02:45, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm writing the RFA right now, I already had it done but my computer crashed. I would be emailing you shortly to guide you though this. Thanks Secretaccount18:12, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Teresa Maryańska
Dear RockMagnetist, Hi. I think you and RandyKitty might be mistaken about the h-index of 4 for Teresa Maryańska in your contribution to the Afd. I get WoS reporting a h-index of 12 which is, I think, quite a high level of citations such a low citation field! Could you have another look and let us know what you find (and modify, if you got it wrong, your contribution in the Afd about the index even if you leave your vote the same). Best wishes :) (Msrasnw (talk) 20:32, 7 March 2013 (UTC))
That's very puzzling. I just can't get more than 7 no matter what I try. Are you using Web of Knowledge to do the search? RockMagnetist (talk) 21:01, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Jolly sorry - yes my Web of Science links through to Web Of Knowledge via All databases - giving these...scores. This is my error! I will change my note of the Afd but have to go soon! (Msrasnw (talk) 21:17, 7 March 2013 (UTC))
Thank you, Secret! You have clearly put a lot of effort into this nomination. I'd vote for this guy - although I don't know whether to be amused or saddened that many of my talk page contributions are the last word on the subject.
I just realized that you invited me to edit it earlier. I made some small changes in the wording - I'm quite happy with the overall structure. RockMagnetist (talk) 06:10, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I believe that a biology footer is appropriate for this article. She is a paleontologist and paleontology is a subfield of evolutionary biology. Increasingly, paleontologists are investigating questions that are relevant to other areas of biology.--I am One of Many (talk) 07:06, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree with you that navigation boxes do not belong in every article and biography. On second thought, I think that there is a good case for not including it in Teresa Maryańska because there is little evidence that her research spans multiple disciplines in biology or has impacted multiple fields, even though paleontology increasingly spans a number of other disciplines in biology. However, I do think these decisions have to be made on a case-by-case basis. Based on the second point "For complex topics in science, technology, history, etc., a navigation box can provide a comprehensive introduction to a topic",navigation boxes can give the reader a more comprehensive introduction into the field of study of an academic and his/her impacts on it. This is especially true for academics whose work spans multiple disciplines or sub disciplines. Perhaps the most extreme example I have seen is Ludwig Wittgenstein, but he had and still has such a wide-ranging impact on philosophy that all of these navigation boxes appear justified by point 2.--I am One of Many (talk) 19:01, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Whoah! They have gone nuts with navboxes. For Wittgenstein alone, a sidebar, a footer, and an infobox with a lot of subject links! I notice that each of the subject footers specifically lists Wittgenstein; but the sidebar on philosophy doesn't, so it probably shouldn't be there.
I hadn't even noticed the side navigation boxes, I was only looking at the footers! But, philosophy is a strange field and even Western philosophy has its cults.--I am One of Many (talk) 19:26, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanx for your input
I appreciate your help with my first foray into adding/editing content on Wikipedia. I started ploughing thru the links you presented and I obviously need to bring myself up to speed on all the ins and outs..... I couldn't help but add to another that I see you have contributed too, "Geomagnetic reversal" even befor learning much about the (edit)process. I was actually researching another subject when I came upon the wiki articles and decided to "add" some of the things I had come across. I found the German study fascinating as it brought to mind the genetic "bottleneck" geneticists say the human race went through approx 40,000 years ago and the possible connection between the two.....
Yes, that was an interesting contribution; and even though I am a professional in this field, I heard it on Wikipedia first! As for any possible connection with the genetic "bottleneck", it's fun to speculate - but make sure you provide a citation if you add it to Wikipedia! RockMagnetist (talk) 18:43, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Genetic "bottleneck"
Thanx, I'm going to look now for anything which might corroborate my speculation......If I do find something what would you think about my adding it to the "Geomagnetic reversal" page?
Grant Hatch (talk) 18:54, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I think that a sentence or two would be in order. You don't want to write too much about it because the paleomagnetic link is not very widely accepted, so a long discussion would give it undue weight. RockMagnetist (talk) 20:12, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Early congratulations
You Rock!
Let me be the first to congratulate you on what I am sure will be closed as a successful RfA. Good luck with the tools! GoPhightins!17:08, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Congratulations as well, glad this went successful and was honored to be the nominator here. Of course if you need any administrative advise I'll be around. Secretaccount17:31, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Wow, "block" is right beside "contribs"! I'm going to have to keep a sharp eye on my mouse. Thank you all for your good wishes - and for not posting that picture of the mop and bucket! RockMagnetist (talk) 20:08, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Remember you must always follow the rules, except for when you ignore them. You will always pick the wrong one to do. (See #5)
Remember to assume good faith and not bite. Remember that when you are applying these principles most diligently, you are probably dealing with a troll.
Use the block ability sparingly. Enjoy the insults you receive when you do block.
Oh and Wikiproject Women Scientists is a great idea. That actually may be a place I can contribute to, since I do work on women scientists of the early Renaissance. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert(talk)05:16, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi RockMagnetist: You can use your brand-new delete button on the copyvios you've pointed out and we've confirmed at the AFDs. They're clear cases of G12 if I've ever seen them. Best, RayTalk03:23, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, RayAYang, but since I was involved in the discussion, I should leave the delete to someone else. Anyway, guessing right about the copyvio is more fun than clicking a button! RockMagnetist (talk) 05:01, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
I think you have moved some of the text from the former Convergent (continued fraction) article to the wrong destination. In this version the text in the section Convergents and convergence applies to a generalised continued fraction, where the denominator an terms are not necessarily 1. Therefore I believe this section belongs in the generalized continued fraction article, not in continued fraction. A regular continued fraction (which is the focus of the continued fraction article) will always converge to a limit that is in the interval between its first two convergents. Gandalf61 (talk) 17:06, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Biophysics for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 18:12, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free media (File:Kiyoo Wadati picture.jpeg)
Thanks for uploading File:Kiyoo Wadati picture.jpeg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Hazard-Bot (talk) 04:19, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
...And funnily enough, someone created Delta function (disambiguation) again. Unless you, or someone else, can explain why Delta function should redirect to Dirac delta function, Delta function (disambiguation) that page should be titled Delta function. In fact, I went ahead and requested that move on WP:RM/TR, as well as, for the time being, made Delta function redirect to Delta function (disambiguation). Seems like we are about to go back to square one. Any other moves or redirect changes at this point should be taken through the proper channels at either WP:RM or WP:RFD since we seem to have a bit of a controversy on our hands. Would you agree? Steel1943 (talk) 06:40, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Funny, I just saw this response ... after I ended up reverting some of David Eppstein's reverts to my reverts, thinking that he was either performing non-consensus reverts or vandalism. Yeah, knowing about that discussion on WikiProject Mathematics discussion ... definitely would have prevented that whole situation. I was laughing out of complete embarrassment after he told me what he was doing. Steel1943 (talk) 05:10, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Pardon my late response on this one, but the edit count tool is misleading when it shows my edits to my archived talk pages. I don't go back and make dozens of edits in my archives. Thus far I've archived my talk pages by moving, which I see was marked as "generally no longer used" shortly after I started archiving. If confirmed as an administrator, I expect to have a much more active talk page, so I'll switch over to automated archiving. (Insert joke about modernizing librarians here?) --BDD (talk) 15:52, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
Good to know - although, as you know, it didn't figure in my vote. I have used a different approach, just archiving my page in big chunks. RockMagnetist (talk) 02:20, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
On 22 May 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Alice Ball, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that Alice Ball developed an injectable medicine that was the most effective treatment of leprosy before the 1940s? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Alice Ball. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.
Hi RockMagnetist! 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) 21:32, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Can you please return to your GA review, and at least give a status report of where the article is, and what (if anything) is left to do? It has been a month and a half since your last comment, and a month since the nominator last posted. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:10, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
While you are reading or browsing Wikipedia articles, please...
...keep a lookout for outlines embedded in articles.
I've run across a number of these over the years. One example is the Outline of fencing, which used to be part of the fencing article.
If you know about or spot any structured general topics lists in articles, please let me know (on my talk page).
Another thing you might find are articles that are comprised mostly of lists (without "Outline of" or "List of" being in the article's title). If you come across any of these, please report them to me on my talk page. I'd sure like to take a look at them.
Please join the Chemical Heritage Foundation Edit-a-Thon, June 20, 2013. Build content relating to women in science, chemistry and the history of science. Use the hashtag #GlamCHF and write your favorite scientist or chemist into Wikipedian history!
Hi RockMagnetist, I was looking through this new article and came across reference to "degree two structure", which I understand to be a reference to spherical harmonics. What I don't understand is the implication that this has for the observation. I am hopeful that your knowledge in this area is good enough that you can explain it in a way that makes it easier for the reader understand why that matters. This is not an urgent request and I realise that you're busy right now, so only look at this when you get the chance. Cheers, Mikenorton (talk) 15:48, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
The review has now been open for three months and is stalled while awaiting your response to the latest article updates, which were completed three weeks ago in response to your comments. Please stop by as soon as possible. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 13:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Wiki-edit contest
The Biophysics wiki-edit contest was over yesterday, and I think we're in pretty good shape, even in geographical and subject-matter diversity. Of the 16 people who signed up, 7 have made very respectable entries, 2 did a trivial amount, and the rest did nothing at all. So our task now is to decide which 6 of the 7 should win, give all of them feedback on their articles, help them fix minor issues, and see if there are any that could be worked up to Good status, have a DYK, etc.
I'll send a short message to the 7 entrants in the running, who are:
pablo.gainza - Protein design
danielkeedy - Protein dynamics
Mgrosasco - Voltage sensitive phosphatase
Jkriege2 - Light sheet fluorescence microscopy
Jajava - Membrane fluidity (also edits to Membrane lipids, Physics of skiing)
Shanata - Single-molecule experiment; Model lipid bilayer
How about each of us pick a couple of entries we'd like to judge in detail, then correlate (hopefully in the next few days) to make sure all are covered by 1 or 2 judges? My preferred 2 would be Protein dynamics and Protein design. If it suits them, I'd suggest that Keilana and RockMagnetist do only one entry in detail, but go thru all the articles for style, format, policies, & possible upgrades. (Anyone else is of course also encouraged to make such comments.)
For confidentiality, I'd suggest that you send evaluative comments, and we work out the initial entry assignments, thru email - I'm at jsr@kinemage.biochem.duke.edu. We need to work out who's doing what as soon as feasible, so we can proceed asynchronously thru vacation schedules. (Thus a warning - if you don't reply with your preferences soon, you may get stuck with what others didn't want!) But we don't need to settle on the 6 winners until early Sept, so we can take into account how the entrants respond to our feedback, as well as correlating all our overall impressions. - Dcrjsr (talk) 17:27, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
Geothermal fluids
Hi RockMagnetist! I've seen your contribution to geophysics and biophysics topics. In the context of finding something about ion association with geochemical importance on Google search I was wondering if you came across such a topic in your activity.--188.26.22.131 (talk) 09:36, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
I don't think anyone considers those disciplines - although the American Geophysical Union had a geophysical chemistry section between 1920 and 1924. Geophysics overlaps so many other fields that it would be impossible to define its boundaries; so I think it is just taken for granted that the field is interdisciplinary. In the modern AGU, there is a section on Volcanology, Geochemistry, and Petrology, and many of the people presenting in such a section may think of themselves as primarily geochemists. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:33, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions with User:RockMagnetist. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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