User talk:ScottDavis/Archive 6

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This conversation was copied to talk:Solar updraft tower. --Scott Davis Talk 23:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Solar updraft tower

Honestly, I do not understand why you took out that sentence about conversion efficiency. All I am doing is take the numbers which are provided in that paper by Schlaich et al. That is not original research, it is just presenting data which is publicly available. I will refer to that paper right there to avoid any further misunderstanding JdH 02:28, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The article as it stands is still disjointed and not particularly neutral. I tagged several sentences as requiring references if they were to be kept. You removed the request for a reference with the comment No citation needed; the numbers are right here. I had requested a citation for those numbers, so I removed the sentence as original research, which is prohibited by Wikipedia policies. You have now added a reference, but that reference still does not contain either the 0.5% efficiency or 1 kW/h numbers. Sentences that start with phrases like "From those numbers it appears..." look more like OR or POV than citing a source. --Scott Davis Talk 05:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
It is not good to obfuscate information that you dislike, not for Wikipedia nor for society at large. I have clarified the discussion on gross conversion efficiencies, and all of this is backed by information from the original sources, and in particular the Schaich paper that contains the most relevant data that is out there. I feel that the article is well balanced as is, and well documented. Still a lot of cleaning up to do. The references to journal articles now follow convention (I think), but web citations are still a mess. JdH 23:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
I replied in the mean time to your remark on the Talk:Solar updraft tower
But the reason I come down here is in your quality as administrator. What I have tried to do over the past few weeks is: trim the article by taking out all proprietary stuff, and get it focussed on the technology instead. In the process I have strenghtened the description of the technology. I was not done yet; I wanted to trim it even more, get it even more focussed on technology.
To my dismay I noticed that an anonymous editor from Australia made major changes in the article, essentially converting is into a EnviroMission pamphlet, even discussing EnviroMissions problems in financing the project, and bringing in a report from an investment firm who was probably hired by EnviroMission in the first place. I short, he has undone everything I have tried to achieve over the past few weeks, and worse. I do not want to get into a revert war about this, so I will leave it alone for a while, but I would like your suggestions of how to go about this. JdH 11:07, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I came to the article as a reader, not an editor. My motivation is to improve the editorial quality of the article with a higher standard of citation etc, rather than pushing any POV. I was looking for more information on the Australian tower, and found the article at the time to be of rather poor and muddled quality, with lots of unsourced claims. I have not really worked out the positions of all the editors, as I don't fully watch the article, but I think you seem to be slightly biased against the concept (perhaps due to the fact nobody has actually built a commercial one). I will seek to improve the quality of references, and general use of English as best I can. I voted to keep separate articles about science, technology and implementation, but the consensus was to merge all into a single bigger article, leading to the recent mess. Info about EnviroMission as a company belongs in that article, not in solar updraft tower. The best advice is to refer to Wikipedia policies in your edit summaries, and copy "contentious" bits to the talk page if you can't fix them and they aren't referenced. --Scott Davis Talk 13:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I like your suggestion of putting company related info in a separate EnviroMission article; thank you for generating a stub :-) Maybe it would be best to suggest to the anonymous Australian editor to put his stuff there.
What about possible bias? The nice thing about solar dishes and troughs is that they scale linearly with scale: If you know how one performs you pretty much know how 10,000 of them are going to do. But that is not the case with the Solar Tower (original design); the only thing there is are Schlaich's model calculations. The problem is that we don't have a full scale plant, so we really don't know how it is going to perform once one is up and going. Also, I find them very naieve about issues like conversion efficiency and maintenance. To maintain those 38 km² of greenhouse is going to present a major problem to them. The Schlaich paper actually mentions that the Manzanares pilot plant had problems with its canopy; the plastic it was made of became brittle and started to disintegrate. Apart from the queston what would happen if severe weather passes through the area.
About economic efficiency: That is closely tied to questions related to conversion efficiency and maintenance. The DOE has websites that address that (I actually stuck in a reference to one of those). Basically what it boils down to is that none of the alternative sources of electricity are economically competitive as yet with a coal fired plant. According to the DOE the one which comes closes to the break even point is the wind farm; close second are the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Plants, and there are high hopes about the Concentrating Photovoltaic (CPV) systems as well. The Solar Tower is only mentioned in passing, essentially they dismiss it on the basis of its low conversion factor.
As I said before, I think we need to be honest about it; the article was very biased towards the EnviroMission POV to begin with, and I have been trying to bring some sense to it. But as said, I want to focus this thing on the technology, which btw includes conversion efficiency. But things like how to finance one and how to run one once it is built, as well as economic returns, those issues should only be mentioned in passing. JdH 14:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I think we have similar goals for the article :-) Be careful to cite articles that contain the conclusions you wish to express, not just raw data for your own conclusions. I deleted the comparison to Hazelwood power station, as that seemed to be an arbitrary choice to demonstrate a point lacking objective references. EnviroMission appear to have consistently failed to achieve their stated targets, but the solar tower concept interests me as it should have very low ongoing costs once constructed. I don't think I've seen the version of the article you started from, the first version I saw was just very confused and in need of consolidation, clarification and referencing. Over the last week, I've been on Wikipedia much less than usual, and involved more closely in several other editing projects. I'll try to keep coming back to this every few days though. --Scott Davis Talk 15:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The version I started with was the Revision as of 06:04, 24 June 2006; I thought I had come a long way in removing superfluous stuff and other overhead, and at the same strenghten the description of the technology and put in references. But I am going to leave it alone for a while; at least until the present editing storm has faded. First comes World Cup Soccer :-) JdH 15:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

If I delete something you've added that you think is important, please let me know. If I claim to have checked a section and did not delete what you think I should have, let me know about that, too :-) So far, I've just been trying to combine multiple sections with the same info into single sections, fix headings, grammar and reference styles, and verify that at least some of the claims are supported by the provided references. There are an impressive amount of references on the page, but perhaps they are not all required. I haven't worked out what the point of some sections is yet. --Scott Davis Talk 01:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, I had almost figured out how I wanted to section it up.
I was working towards the following scheme:
1. History
2. Description of the technology
2.1 Quantitative modeling/predictions
2.2 Conversion efficiencies solar tower vs solar thermal
3. The Australian project (very terse)
4. comparison with existing solar power plants around the world and Australia
5. Other stuff, like the Energy Tower
I wanted to tighten the paragraphs on greenhouse gases (perhaps find a suitable wiki link to refer to since that is something generic to alternative energy, not specific for the updraft tower) and also the land use paragraph; reduce it to merely saying that it uses 5x more land than some of the other solar thermal and solar voltaic systems
And yes, the Betz Limit, strengthen that a bit. But to be perfectly honest: I'd rather revert to what I had a few days ago and continue from there than try and clean up the present mess. JdH 01:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
1. History seems stable
2. Todays "Features" sections could be condensed, but contains useful descriptive info for a new reader. Possibly before History under a heading of Description with no subheadings.
3. Technology. Summarise the source documentation, and be careful not to introduce our own conclusions, especially economic assumptions that might vary such as the relative value of land - there's a reason that proposed sites are not presently under intensive agriculture - or availablility of coal or natural gas.
4. Don't trim the Australian project too short - you voted to merge it here rather than keep it separate - and while the timelines keep slipping, the company has not gone bankrupt.
5. Comparisons. Don't introduce our own conclusions. Identify the differences, and cite reputable journals that draw conclusions.
We need to trim the See also list. If the other articles are relevant put it in a sentence, if not, just drop them. It's disappointing that Betz limit is not a separate article to refer to.
I won't be editing it again until at least tonight. --Scott Davis Talk 02:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I have a suggestion to get out of the present mess: Let's copy the present version wholesale to Solar Tower Buronga, and restore Solar updraft tower to my version of 23:11, 7 July 2006]. I'll take it from there. JdH 11:40, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I very strongly disagree ... the only reason i ever started editting wiki was because i went to this page to try to find info about this updraft tower idea ... all i found was discussion of other different projects ... those ideas need and deserve exposure ... but those projects and ideas have other pages to be discussed on.--Flexme 14:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd rather we go forward from here, not back, perhaps I'm biased by having put effort into formatting the references since then. Also, the current version is not really about the Buronga tower. Detailed info about that seems to be migrating into the EnviroMission article, which seems fair - there's nothing else to say about that company. --Scott Davis Talk 14:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Betz law is discussed in depth in wind turbines. "velocity of the air passing through the rotor plane to have a smaller velocity than the free stream velocity". , and is probably not relevant to confined flows ...nevertheless the tower does suffer a massive loss of conversion ... an important factor is probably reflection off the glass surface, and heat loss back out through the glass surface . .--Flexme 05:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

i would like to completely remove the betz law bit - i am almost certain it is irrelevant. some loss will be at the turbine stage but not related to betz limit. "performance of an updraft tower may be degraded by factors such as atmospheric winds" seems totally ridiculous to me, the suction from the venturi effect should dramatically INCREASE the power generated by the plant. the reference for "drag induced by bracings used for supporting the chimney" seems to be useless, this does not surprise me, i do not see this as a relevant factor and i would like to remove it. i would like to add the following to the discussion of conversion loss, but thought it most diplomatic to mention it here first. I would like to know what are the MOST significant factors of the 99.5% loss of energy, perhaps this could bring some more relevant issues to light.  :

When light moves from one medium to another medium with a different refractive index, from the air into the glass or plastic canopy, some of the light will be reflected back; this reflection of energy is one contributing factor to the low conversion rate for the solar updraft tower.

Another factor is transparency of the canopy. The energy in the light which is not reflected will still not be fully transmitted throught the canopy.--Flexme 14:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Betz limit is relevant, as it talks about the maximum possible conversion factor of wind kinetic energy to electricity, irrespective of what created the wind. I would have thought the issues related to heating something under glass would be fairly well solved by rooftop hot water services. I haven't seen any estimates of what effect the transparency or otherwise of the canopy might have, or how to manage the edge of the canopy on windy days to ensure the wind doesn't blow the hot air out the other side, or discussion of how maintenance can be done to either the canopy or the turbines in that hot and windy environment. I have seen that most of the canopy is not suitable for agriculture as the physical requirements for agriculture (irrigation, moderate temperature and moderate wind) are incompatible with the requirements of the tower. --Scott Davis Talk 14:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you both happy if this conversation is moved en masse to talk:Solar updraft tower off my talk page so other people can see it? --Scott Davis Talk 14:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

i am! i had not seen the "discussion" link at the top of the page ... sorry for clutterring up your talk page ... thank you for your help in getting me started ... and pray that i do not become too embroiled - i need to go and earn a living away from my computer!--Flexme 15:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

rv war

The problem for me is that those "countless other languages" were/are each spoken by *much* less than ten percent of the population, wheras German was once spoken by "ten percent" of the population, this is why I disagree with Michael (talk • contribs) about whether it deseaves primacy (whatever 'primacy' is). Myrtone

Conversation spilled from and returned to talk:South Australia.

west coast tas

Hi I've been updating refs and finding stub and category together - once a cat is up, surely its worth removing the stub, yes? SatuSuro 15:28, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

All articles should have a category. Short ones should also be marked with a stub tag. The guideline is that if it's shorter than 3-10 sentences and doesn't contain an overview of the entire subject, it's still a stub.--Scott Davis Talk 15:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
it's just that youve put a tas geog cat on some arts and there are still tas geo stubs thereokely dokely. thanks for the guideline!SatuSuro 15:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Stub cats don't follow the usual rule of not using both a category and its parent. Stub tags are for editors, categories are for readers. --Scott Davis Talk 15:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
ThanksSatuSuro 15:39, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Gawks i've just found WP Australia and have started placing it on arts that I think really need some work... including some of the tas arts...

also noticed that you've got Saint Alouarn islands in your suggest list - I had decided to put them under that title rather than include them in the Cape Leeuwin entry - but the problem it is a list, rather than an art - and I did not have to hand something like Nigel Brothers' 2001 Tasmania's Offshore Islands: ISBN 072464816X for WA, a pity... for extra bits SatuSuro 12:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

With a challenge like that, I've just spent a few minutes cleaning up that article :-) Feel free to extend it further, but I decided it was sufficient to lose the stub tag. --Scott Davis Talk 15:47, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks once again, I'll have to find something else again :) SatuSuro 15:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Response to your request at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Word (bookstore)

Hi - in this discussion, you left a note "Can you cite a reliable source that A&R is bigger (as a retailer)? It would help to settle this if we could find such." I have found a cite that it has 170 shops (as opposed to Word's 16). It also has only 18% of the market share despite all those shops. I had thought the chains dominated the market but there must be an awful lot of independents. Regards--A Y Arktos\talk 00:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Thanks to the useful link you left in the discussion, I now know more about retailing of books. In 2003/04, booksellers accounted for 67% of books. I think the 18% market share probably refers to the 100% encompassed by the ABS data. Thus A&R probably has (18/67)% of the booksellers' market share - ie 27% which seems to fit better with my observations/ gut feel. Regards--A Y Arktos\talk 00:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
I think you're probably right in interpreting the statistics that way for A&R. One difference between the 170 and 16 is that many of the 170 A&R stores are franchises, and the 16 Word stores are owned by the company - there are many other "agents" and resellers who are in addition to that number (but are all tiny by comparison). Unfortunately there seems to be a dearth of public third-party information on the bookselling market in Australia for us to cite in either improving the Word and Koorong articles, or determining they are really NN. I feel I have demonstrated my point that there is little more information available on A&R (retail) than there is on Word, despite A&R clearly having a larger footprint in retail Australia. Word and Koorong are both significant names in Christian book retailing in Australia, but proving it is quite difficult. --Scott Davis Talk 00:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I am not normally a deletionist. My problem is that there is seemingly not enough information associated with reliable sources to develop the Word and Koorong articles from anything other than stubs that could be misconstrued as advertising links. I am working on the A and R article. There is a fair bit of 3rd party info out there, I just haven't got to it yet. As I said at one stage in the deletion discussion, for me the "what links here" is significant. There are a lot of links to A and R (a publisher of course too). Nothing else links to Word or Koorong.--A Y Arktos\talk 00:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
A&R shops tend to be in shopping centres that can link to the A&R article from the list of tenants in the centre. As the Word stores tend to be standalone, they don't get these incoming links. It would also be a silly way to boost the link count to go through articles like The Purpose Driven Life, Australian Hymn Book and Stone's Been Rolled Away saying they are available from Word and other places (I have no idea if I can get them from A&R - probably not the CD). If the article were deleted, would you delete the entry, remove the link but keep the line, or keep a red link from List of bookstore chains#Australia? --Scott Davis Talk 02:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't keep a red link since it is my contention that an encyclopaedia article cannot be written from the information publicly available at present, or information that is likely to become available.
I am well aware you are experienced and don't mean to preach to the converted! - looking at WP:Not#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information - and taking a similar type of article, there is an analogy with Wikipedia articles should not exist only to describe the nature, appearance or services a website offers, but should describe the site in an encyclopedic manner, offering detail on a website's achievements, impact or historical significance, which can be significantly more up-to-date than most reference sources since we can incorporate new developments and facts as they are made known.. In the case of businesses, WP:Not offers Wikipedia is not the yellow pages.
If we can't write an article - and there is no renovation rescue in the offing, should it be kept? (I would not support deletion if article "rescued"). It isn't so much a comment about market penetration - though I think that comes into it, because a bigger businesss would attract commentary, but what value are we adding? A&R claims that at one stage it was the biggest bookstore in the world - I have found no collaboration of that claim :-). It was also a major publisher - published The Australian Encyclopaedia and The WWI Official history as well as promoting Australian literature with Lawson, Patterson, etc.
Word has been around for a long time, hasn't it had an impact on publishing of Australian Christian related materials? It would of course be competing with the Churches themselves I assume. Who publishes the Australian Hymn Book?Who publishes the Orders of Service etc for the Anglicans and Roman Catholics and guides to confirmation etc? Same market segment? Perhaps a bigger share? That a shop sells a book is not an encyclopaedic fact usually, publishing might be.
Just as a matter of interest who does Word cater for? Mainstream Christians as in Anglicans and Catholics or more Hillsong type of churches - I am not trying to be rude, they aren't in Canberra and I can't tell - certainly not from reading Wikipedia :-). I assume since a shop opening was mentioned in the Sydney Anglican news they are reasonably mainstream.--A Y Arktos\talk 03:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
AHB is published by HarperCollins Religious. [1] Word would be seen as more conservative/traditional than Koorong, I think, although both would tend to stock a wide range. The Open Book (Lutheran) and Scripture Union would be much more traditionalist I think and now far smaller. Like you, I would normally not be a deletionist. In this case, I consider that the company is significant in it's market, and so should be kept, even though I'm struggling to find suitable references to build a long article, and am disinclined to write a monologue unsupported by references. My inclination is to keep the stub, and that one day someone might come along who has access to a source I haven't found and be able to write a better article. There is some information now to provide a small amount of information to a reader with no previous knowledge. The hurdle to recreate an article voted for deletion is far higher than finding a stub and expanding it. Part of the impact of the growth of Word and Koorong has been (hard to cite) that The Open Book is now little more than a mailorder company, Epworth Books (Uniting Church) closed or shrunk to no more than providing the few items specifically produced by the UCA, and probably the same for other denominations. Now a local church bookshop is a selection of books from Word or Koorong, not from that denomination's bookshop. Thankyou for a challenging conversation. --Scott Davis Talk 04:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

queenie 84 moonscape photo

Was there just two weekends ago, the rather poor pickie needs to go. The veg is coming back with a vengeance ( I lived there 77-78) and the moonscape stuff is fast becoming passe, didnt take any jpeg shots, I really think as an eg in mining in australia - that Big Bell or the Superpit in Kal a really more blots on the landscape than poor old queenie! If the queenie example stays, either the photo needs to go and the google earth image of queenie from the air is a 1,000,000 times more evocative than a cruddy holiday pick. just my ideas for a slow friday  :) SatuSuro 09:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC) I think I was thinking of oscar wilde and the wall paper if you know that one! SatuSuro 04:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Gawks, guardian angel! thanks for fixing up hamelin bay mess! SatuSuro 04:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I assure you I don't just follow you round copyediting your articles :-) --Scott Davis Talk 04:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
The assumption wasnt there, when I see on my watch list another one of my messes fixed up, I usually like to compliment the editor who cleans up my mess! Maybe I shouldnt? :-| --SatuSuro 06:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Do you spend a lot of time complimenting people who fix your messes? Perhaps you should practice not making a mess to need cleaning up. I find I do a lot of copyediting and the same kinds of changes to lots of articles, especially Australian geography. You're the only one who says thankyou. --Scott Davis Talk 07:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, a bit of thanks is always due. I could go through my first 6 months arts on wiki and probably do a lot of cleaning up, so its not a promise, but I might save you some time :) soon.

I may well strike terror in the hearts of some editors ( who knows?) - as I have a thing that all many geography arts lack state/region qualifiers in their titles (OK so in the case of rivers - they are state boundaries, and do wander around boundaries as well, but thats rivers) - as I used to (no longer) do random article and found too many usa admin names with no qualifiying part of the title (do you know how many springfields there are in the us?) - so now in the shadow of the tagging of talk page of arts with the new evaluation thingy, I have slowly questioned stand alone names (the best so far - Alfreds Kitchen) that lack adequate qualifiers. Anyways, less mess from me and more work once again!SatuSuro 07:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: User template

I didn't think it would be such a big deal, I chose your namespace becuase somehow I though it was the most suitable. Myrtone

"It would have been polite to ask first. You should have changed the ones you use, such as Template:User VIC res before trying to impose your opinion on the rest of us. You should have changed all the pages that include the template before breaking the redirect."

I though wikipedia was about being bold and being free, WP:GUS tells one the "just go ahead and do it" and that is what I did, the reason I didn't do it with {{User VIC res}} is becuase I thought it would be viable to do it first with {{User AU res}} becuase I had a dispute over which image to use and {{User South Australia}} because GUS came from the German language edition of wikipedia (hence the name), so I though it would be more appiciable on SA templates, in terms of changing the references, I have often noticed that the inclusions on userpages do not always get modified and I do not edit other userpages except for vandalism reversions. I thought that other users would change the incusion if it felt neccasessary. Myrtone

ScottDavis,
  • I did not assume that *all* South Australians speak German as a first language and English second, most don't but because it is associatecd with South Australia and vice versa, I thought that GUS would be applied here, and possibly to userboxes for elsewhere in AU *later on*, it is a cultural idea.
  • "It is noted that WP:GUS is not a policy." Okay, I'll remember that for next time, but I didn't realise that it made a difference like that. "It seems rude for you to push it onto other userboxes, but not the ones you use." But I was thinking of doing it to the one I use *later on*.

Myrtone

Frenchmans Cap NP

G'day - Mt Read was -4° yesterday or so -bet there's snow somewhere over there! Would you agree with incorping info about the np within the art, rather than creating a new one? SatuSuro 13:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

It probably better belongs in Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park which subsumed the earlier Frenchmans Cap National Park. Unless the former NP has a lot of info, it could be combined in either, I guess. Try to avoid putting the same info in both articles. --Scott Davis Talk 13:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks - I just brought back from Hobart the atrocious walking map (the map that is, very bad colouring) which has brilliant unattributed notes on the other side - will probably try to keep to your advice, might take a while though. Thanks again SatuSuro 13:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like you had a good holiday. Don't forget to add photos in proportion to the size of the articles as you go. --Scott Davis Talk 13:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Most were Strahan, Lake Margaret Power Station, and very artistic (ie not very useful) from the east of Lake Burbury of Mount Owen, Mount Lyell and Mount Sedgwick. Also very problematic sources on Linda, Gormanston, 1912 North Mount Lyell Disaster, queenstown - oh well, more material, not enough time! SatuSuro 13:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I need to go back over a few things like the L Pedder art (being a foundation tws person), very curious if you would be interested in joining in a re-write?SatuSuro 00:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Not especially. Try Chuq. I'd still like to expand Mining in Australia further, I seem to have gotten involved in the mess at solar updraft tower, and both Adelaide and South Australia need work. Sorry. --Scott Davis Talk 01:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Hey thanks for your honesty! never apologise, hey we're all internees in this goldfishbowl, we have our loads to carry! SatuSuro 02:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Assessment

We can keep it if we want too, just that I didnt know about the Australia assessment. It will be better if we keep it it's just that I thought that no-one was interested in it from the Adelaide project. I only removed 2 articles so you can keep going if you wish.

Cheers, Jasrocks Talk 10:48, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Unacceptable

I find your solution unacceptable. I have never heard of your Dick Johnson and he seems not to be known out side of Australia. I have replaced your violation of WP:NPOV with your Australian bias with something more neutral. Hello Wisconsin 20:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Please do not make cut-and-paste moves. I have restored Dick Johnson again, as you still did not attempt to resolve the incoming links, most of which refer to the racing driver. --Scott Davis Talk 23:41, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Mungerannie

Hi there, thanks for spell checking the Birdsville track page, unfortunately according to the NRMA it's not Mungeranie, it's mungerannie with 2 n's.

As can be seen on that lovely picture: http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~charliemann/deserttrek_files/Birdsv0007.jpg

D'oh!

Saebhiar 15:36, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I haven't been there (yet), but Geoscience Australia is an usually an authority on spelling of placenames. I'd choose them over NRMA, but have to concede the picture is fairly convincing. Google favours one 'N' 854:529, with 55 hits for both words! I guess redirects from all words, but I don't know which should be the actual title. The article should contain the confusion, too. My Explore Australia has two 'n's as well, but South Australia: What's in a name? has one. --Scott Davis Talk 15:54, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for the explanation Scott. I hope you get a chance to go there one day, the Birdsville track is great (especially by Motorbike). Saebhiar 08:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Are you happy with how Birdsville Track and Mungeranie, South Australia look at the moment? If you want to change them, I won't revert now that I've discovered the confusion. I do intend to go that way sometime. It's not a long way for me considering where you come from, but I've only been as far as Arkaroola and Leigh Creek in that direction. --Scott Davis Talk 11:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm happy with that. It should be clear enough. My next bike trip in Oz is for next year, I'll do the top end this time: Cape York, Kakadu and Kimberley. Should be fun. Saebhiar 12:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Zeehan, Tasmania

Thanks, I think you told me a very long time ago about making the coor thingies - is there a link/spot that I can learn more, I need reminding. Aging brain and all :) SatuSuro 14:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates. Pleased to hear I'm not the only person here who hasn't been to Uni this century :-) --Scott Davis Talk 14:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Sophie Delezio

I see you have put a link to the driver's alleged medical condition. Are you sure it was this type of seizure? Albatross2147 00:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't. I've never even looked at the article. Sorry. --Scott Davis Talk 00:17, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Kramden4700

I am very concerned over the behavior of User:Kramden4700. edits He has taken the links that I provided from Talk:Philadelphia and changed the redirects of articles mentioned there, as well as the redirection notices above the US cities. I don't know what's the deal with this guy, but he doesn't seem to know the rules regarding redirection, disambiguation and naming conventions, or lets his POV drive him. And BTW, I support what you said on the Philadelphia talk page. Tinlinkin 06:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Philadelphia

Thank you for making your blatant violation of WP:NPOV with the page Philadelphia on Wikipedia. Your lack of neutrality has been noticed, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the neutral point of view page if you would like to learn more about being neutral when contributing to our encyclopedia. Kramden4700 10:32, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Preceisely what aspect of WP:NPOV have I violated? Certainly not consensus. --Scott Davis Talk 10:40, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
The Liberty Star
I award this Liberty Star for your work on Philadelphia related articles. - Evrik

--evrik 14:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Houston, etc.

Dear Sir or Madam: The most neutral point of view is not to assume that the user is searching for a specfic thing based on your geographic bias, whether it be American, Australian, British, or other. I think tht this sums it up. Now try and not be short sighted with your obvious biases! Kramden4700 10:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Please see:

Please see WP:NPOV#Bias. Kramden4700 11:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Cleve Area School

In 2005 Cleve Area School received 4 out of the 5 20's awarded in Yr 12 Agricultural subjects in South Australia (Eyre Peninsula Tribune & SSABSA) - it is indeed the premiere agricltural specialist school in South Australia. We have international visitors and exchanges and students coming to the school from across the state because of the excellence in curriculum and dry land practices. Please re-instate the edit!

Linden Masters Agriculture Education and Innovations Manager

Reply will be on talk:Cleve, South Australia. --Scott Davis Talk 12:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

My apologies

Hello Scott. I'm very sorry if I caused you any inconvenience over the antics of a user you know who I'm talking about. And I appreciate your boldness in reverting his edits. I hope I have done nothing wrong, and I don't intend any harm. I was just trying to defend Wikipedia's spirit of openness and discussion, and trying to revert any major changes that came without consensus. Again, I repeat, I don't believe I did anything wrong, and I hope you'll agree with me.

I have opened an inquiry on Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets, and I'm inviting you to comment on them, if you please.

I can try to pipe Philadelphia (and other similar) links if you like me to, but that would be when I have time, and I'm stressed out now. Thanks so much for reading this message, and please reply on my talk page. Tinlinkin 06:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

No worries. I responded politely to the first change I saw on Philadelphia, as I made a similar mistake when I was new to either Lake Albert or Lake Victoria (don't recall which). By the time I discovered the extent of the activity and reluctance to discuss, I wished I'd come later so I could just block and clean up. I have no idea whether it would be "better" to have Philadelphia redirect to the disambig page, but I'm certain it's worse to make the change without disambiguating all the links into it first (and there are over 4000). If a discussion arose and decided to change the status quo, there are bots around who can do the manual labour, or AWB to facilitate a person doing it if there are many that should not point to Pennsylvania. At the moment, I have not seen any significant push by experienced editors to alter the status quo. If you happen to be editing an article with a link to Philadelphia (or any of the other redirect city names), fix the link to Philadelphia (piped link) if you can, but at this stage there is no reason to go and do it for articles you are not otherwise editing. If the change is made to point to the disambig page, then someone needs to clear out the links every now and then (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links). Thanks. --Scott Davis Talk 08:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
In my practice, I pipe links when I write, and have even done some disambiguation work. (My favorite is disambiguating "MacArthur Park" (song) from MacArthur Park.) I'm going to investigate automated procedures soon. Thanks again for the tip! Tinlinkin 10:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

V8 Supercars parameter now working

I've added support for the V8 Supercars WikiProject to the WikiProject Australia template. Both v8 and V8 will work. Thanks for letting me know of my oversight. Cheers. -- Longhair 03:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Help request

Hi Scott, Not about Supercars, but I'm having trouble with my Wikipaedia account, and saw on another page that you had unblocked someone's account, so am hoping you may be able to help me. the page D.Tzumli is my User talk page. I want to get in and edit something but cannot remember my password. Anyway, requested the email me a new password, but I still have not received it yet. If I recall correctly I did not in fact put in an email address at the time I created the identity. At this stage I do not want to create a new identity. (it will be the third time, and I'm sure Wikipaedia does not need that type of needless clutter.) What is there that you can do to help? What are my options? My email address is last name (no capitals) at (symbol) bigpond.net.au. Thankyou Denise Tzumli

I don't think I an able to help with this. Wikipedia:Contact us/login problems gives the relevant info. I suggest that if you create another account, you enter your email address this time, if you are prone to forgetting passwords. Sorry. --Scott Davis Talk 04:59, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

stations

The two arts need to be expanded - thanks for the edits - I'm curious do you have any clues where the might be summaries of sizes of large one in different states and the territory? SatuSuro 06:41, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a note at the top of this page requesting each conversation links to the articles it refers to. This refers to Sheep station and cattle station
No. Maybe Lands Titles Offices in each state and territory. I don't know if that's public info. --Scott Davis Talk 06:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh and another query :) - in the jumping around and lurking on early explorers on the west coast (ie wa) noticed that Nuyts archipelago seems to be a red link. au fait as I am with Tassie west coast and south west wa I am a mere baby when it comes to the great sa !  :) are you or have you ever or will you ever be doing "it" seeing its a south oz iconic first european contact issue ? You dont have to incriminate yourself  :) It's just if I start it as a stub, to clean a red link, I wouldnt be happy if I didnt warrn you first :) SatuSuro 10:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Zed is dead

Yes, of course, I would support speedy. In fact the only reason I used z was that the associated principal article (List of Australian organizations with royal patronage, which you've now changed I see) was spelt with a z (which somewhat surprised me) and I think we should follow national language conventions, so not knowing different I assumed z was best. (There is far too much "zedification" on Wikipedia: I even found a rather obvious mis-placed "z" on the United Kingdom article yesterday!) Zed is dead. --Mais oui! 08:26, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Airport destinations

Hi there, i've semi-reverted your recent edit to Darwin International Airport. Standard practice in airport articles is not to link destinations, please see WP:AIRPORTS. Thanks/wangi 13:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Ooops, blasted away the category addition too - sorry about that. L//wangi 14:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining. Is there an explanation somewhere of why destinations should not be linked? I'm pretty sure I've done it at other airports, too. --Scott Davis Talk 14:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Possible compromise for Solar updraft tower

There was proposed a version of article, which appears to be clean of particular bias. I suggest that everyone involved in the mediation reviews it, and writes in the case page what exactly sections he would like to insert or what to remove, with supporting arguments.

That version is at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-07-12 Solar Updraft Tower/Version1. CP/M comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 22:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Glenbrook

Hi Scot,

I am talking to you in relation of the Glenbrook, Cork page. The painting was deleted, not be me, beacuse it was too big. I uploaded it and it was huge and i don't know how to resize it and I was hoping somebody would resize it for me if I just left it like that. Guess they just deleted it, whish is a pity beacuse the turkish bath houses are quite a secret even to the local people and if you can see it from the painting, doubt it, not the greatest resoultion (picture of a painting) but if you can you can see it was a pretty neat building. I also think it would be worth blending the two articles don't you????

Thanks, Loughlin —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Loughlin (talk • contribs) 5 August 2006.

I've merged the two, and put the painting back. You can set your preferred size for thumbnails in your preferences if they don't have a "<num>px" parameter where the image is included. --Scott Davis Talk 07:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

If you're online, would you mind dealing with a legal threat made against me by User:Bialikcollege? Thanks, michael talk 13:00, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

What can I do? You've already pointed out the legal threat policy, and I don't think I can block him as punishment for the threat. --Scott Davis Talk 13:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I was under the impression that legal threats constitute an immediate permablock when made in such a manner. Don't worry at this point, I think I've got this under control now. michael talk 13:17, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
The legal threat policy seems to say "don't make threats - if you can't work it out in a civil manner, stop editing Wikipedia, and actually take the legal action". --Scott Davis Talk 13:31, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
WP:SOCK. Bialikcollege, 59.167.94.29. michael talk 13:58, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

bialik college page

The content that I have removed is totally incorrect.

When I put information about the college, it is considered marketing / advertising...

I cant win.

Do you have an email address I can contact you on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bialikcollege (talk • contribs)

Yes - there's a link to "E-mail this user" on the left side of this page. Be warned - I almost never reveal my email address by replying by email - I will reply on your talk page, or by editing as required. The article has a big "content disputed" banner and a range of {{citaion needed}} notes in the disputed section. I suggest you explain what the correct info is (eg "Biliak College has never received grants from the Victorian government") on the talk page - most editors accept reasoned arguments, but blanking looks like vandalism. --Scott Davis Talk 14:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


thanks for your help with this problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bialikcollege (talk • contribs)

No worries. You were very lucky that 59.167.94.29 was not blocked under the 3RR rule and as a sockpuppet (see Michael's links above). For some reason I don't really understand, the word "Jewish" invokes strong reactions for some people on both sides. In tonight's editing, people were acting on the blanking and advertising issues, and I see no evidence of any anti-Jewish edits. However the paragraph you objected to (starting with "Kennett Government") looked quite suspicious anyway. All private schools get government funding to some degree, and it should have been up to whoever added that statement to show that it was an unusual amount. I encourage you to broaden your experience of Wikipedia by looking at other articles, and highlight any other problems on the talk page of your school's article. The WP:VAIN guideline often (but I know of exceptions) makes it difficult for people to edit articles about themselves or their employer without introducing their own bias. It's a pity the school's own website doesn't even contain a great deal of general information about itself either. --Scott Davis Talk 14:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Geuss I should have clicked on the link - the template states talk page. The template message page didn't really state that. I am going back and fixing the mistakes.--Oldwildbill 10:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes there seems to be a debate on the unreference tag. I perfer to put it up at the top of the article page since readers who come to the article via an search engine are given some warning that this info isn't validated yet. I also put that tag only on articles that have been assessed by WP Military History as Start to help the editors to improve the article (Stubs are stubs and know what are lacking but to get article to GA status or higher a lot of citations are needed). There has been a debate taking place about increasing the write-up on why we are assessing an article at a particular level (So I have started today adding more info about my assessment). It just so happens that I have been hitting on some Australian article (mostly naval since I have that cheat sheet worked up) at the moment. Any other WikiProjects tags from Autralia you think I should be aware of let me know. I usually add tags to article to help in getting more wikipedians to assist.--Oldwildbill 11:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Ceduna

Dear Scott

I'm impressed by your work. I'm hoping you're employed by wikipedia as your work is enormous. Thanks for the clear thinking on my contributions on Ceduna, SA. I'm hoping that some of our Middle School kids might contribute some knowledge about the area.

Thanks

Leigh Newton —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leighnewton (talk • contribs) 20:09, 9 August 2006

Answered at user talk:Leighnewton. --Scott Davis Talk 14:20, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

G'd evening

Thanks for your cleanup of my Linda etc - hey could you look at my west coast range climate addition of this evening - do you think its ok/legit? :) SatuSuro 14:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC) Sorry - West Coast Range, Tasmania the climate section. Also I've got diverted from my dutch french explorer project once again! SatuSuro 14:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Jervis Bay

Hi Scott. I notice Felix Portier has not answered any of the requests for sources, and would like to get some of these Jervis Bay articles cleeaned up. I am considering sticking a {{disputed}} tag on Sussex Inlet, etc. Would you be happy with this, or should I just use {{unsourced}}? JPD (talk) 10:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Disputed sounds accurate to me. He can't have missed all the messages on his talk page! --Scott Davis Talk 10:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok. I have added the tag to 5 articles. He seems to have taken on board the messages about naming conventions, but still hasn't responded to anything. JPD (talk) 11:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I think he's had long enough to provide some sources. Would you move Sussex Inlet, Jervis Bay Territory to Sussex Inlet, New South Wales please? JPD (talk) 17:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Meetup on 24th August 2006

Apologies if you're already aware of this, but the Inaugural Adelaide Meetup will take place on Thursday 24th of August at Brougham Place Uniting Church, thanks to Alex Sims. Please indicate if you will attend or not.

This message left by May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| ŗ 3 $ |-| ţ |-|) on behalf of [ælfəks], 10:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

good idea to individually notify the likely participants. Unfortunately I have previously advised I will be unable to attend. I hope it goes well enough to have a second one that I can attend. --Scott Davis Talk 10:36, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions (city names) -> settlements

I moved Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names), William Allen Simpson reverted without talk. Maybe you can add your point of view to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names) Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Steve Bracks page

In trying to fix a comma, I accidentally restored an earlier version of the page. I have reverted to your deletion of the Brackswatch page. Apologies, there was no malicious intent. --schgooda 13:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

No worries. I hadn't even realised it was an issue worthy of discussion when I deleted it. Thanks. --Scott Davis Talk 14:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it was you who put it back, anyway. --Scott Davis Talk 14:32, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Dates

Well, knowing that I won't change it back again. However, im still averse to such linking. michael talk 15:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! :) michael talk 15:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

History Portal

Your comment has been replied on User_talk:Aranherunar#Re:_History_Portal. Thanks a lot for the clarification. Aranherunar 03:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Your comment has been replied on User_talk:Aranherunar#Re:_History_Portal. Thanks. Aranherunar 05:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

fiji

User_talk:Tobias_Conradi#Fiji Tobias Conradi (Talk) 14:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

ArtByUs

Thank you for cleaning up my artbyus article. Peter

Census in Australia

Hi

I saw you left a note for User:Dark Tichondrias about Oceanian and ABS racial clasifications. I am uncomfortable about her recent additions to the Census in Australia article, namely including Template:Australian Census Broad Groups. I disagree that such a template is appropriate. She suggests the template shows how the Australian Census Bureau classifies people and thus it improves the content of the article and demographic data related to Australia. As per my comments at Talk:Census in Australia, I think the ABS would report to the 3rd level always under the Oceanian grouping. I have never heard the term Oceanian used in connection with "official racial/ethnic classifications used in Australia." I also find such classifications inappropriate before the results are out and without reference to other tabulations. It will be of more interest to people what the population count was, how old people were, where they lived, ahead of any questions of ethnicity. I suspect ethnicity is misunderstood outside of Australia too - I recall the incident with Prince Charles and an Australian of a few years ago[2]. What would appear on his census record? Surely "1101 Australian". I would really appreciate a second view at Talk:Census in Australia. Regards --Arktos talk 22:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I've seen it used once, and it looked out-of-place there. I agree the template is useless in its present state, and likely to become misleading if cleaned up to be useful. I have commented at Talk:Census in Australia. --Scott Davis Talk 23:03, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks - will remove and propose for deletion.--Arktos talk 23:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

gang

...to bad that I am not part of it. But if this gang really exists I wanna tell that I support the goal of avoiding wrong links in WP and providing a coherent, tidy WP. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I think all the participants in the conversations at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names) want that. We just have different ideas of what "coherent" and "tidy" mean for Wikipedia. One of the issues is the maintenance of links and ease of use for readers and editors to achieve the goal of avoiding wrong links. --Scott Davis Talk 23:10, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Australian wine

Hi Scott. Yes, I did live in Geelong. That's old news now :) I'm now living amongst the vineyards of Sunraysia, so I'll be sure to help out with expanding Australian wine anyway I can :) -- Longhair 22:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

On a similar note, I'm noticing more and more some old ACOTF articles with templates still intact. As the {{WP Australia}} template supports the ACOTF using categories, would you like some assistance with cleaning up the old unused articles and hopefully aim for a system that's a little more low maintenance? -- Longhair 23:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Farm or Turkey-Nest dams

Hi I have looked around here a bit but it seems that there is a gap between rainwater tank and reservoir for possibly Farm dams, which would include a section turkey-nest descriping turkey-nest dams as used for on-farm storage of water.

The type of dam I am talking about is often built "in the middle of nowhere", commonly in Australia they are not particularly built on creeks or other water courses - often there are legal restrictions to doing so but if you build it off the creek and divert the water you're OK. They are built for stock water and for on-farm storage of water collected during floods to be used later for irrigation. In Queensland particularly some of them are hundreds of megalitres in capacity and the prevalence of them has reduced the volume of floodwaters moving down the Darling anabranches.

What do you think about this type of article or have I been looking in the wrong place? I would refer it back to a series of agriculture / farming related articles. Garrie 03:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

You could be right - I don't recall seeing a relevant article either. --Scott Davis Talk 03:26, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
There's a small amount of info and a picture at Dam#Embankment_dams, but I think that's just another place to put a link to the article you propose. --Scott Davis Talk 04:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The lead paragraph of that article says
A dam is a barrier across flowing water that obstructs, directs or retards the flow, often creating a reservoir, lake or impoundment
which excludes the sort of dam I am talking about. The photo next to Earth dams would fit right in thought. 04:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Advice

I reverted some advertising in the Jakarta Post talk page - am not sure when its so obvious whether there is a policy/protocol for that stuff? Thought I'd ask. I tried Longhair but looks like you're on at the moment, hope you dont mind the dumb question SatuSuro 03:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Apologies, Longhair has got it!SatuSuro 03:44, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Another apology - I got the Saint Alloarn spelling wrong. Could you please fix it? SatuSuro 04:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd try if I could work out what article to look at. --Scott Davis Talk 11:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
While I am at it, you might have better ammunition for the latest vandalism of Franklin River, thanks SatuSuro 04:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Looks like an isolated test. By the way, I try not to do anything that takes much time during work hours. --Scott Davis Talk 11:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Perth Conv Centre

I think it needs an admin - just in case I find you on SatuSuro 05:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It looks like Perth Convention Exhibition Centre settled down before I got to it. If you want me to look at something, please follow the request at the top of the page and put a link in the request. --Scott Davis Talk 11:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)