User talk:Larry Sanger/Archive 6

Larry Sanger

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Jane Addams College of Social Work

Dr. Sanger,

I saw your note regarding the Jane Addams College of Social Work article. I wrote this article, and actually, posted it on both sites. According to the respective timestamps (and if they are both accurate), I uploaded it here two minutes after uploading it to Wikipedia. I had asked Matt Innis if I could post it both here and on Wikipedia, or if it was a conflict of interest. His reply is on my talk page. My understanding is that since I wrote the article myself, I did not need to check the box. I did not mean to do anything wrong, but, strictly speaking, this content is not from Wikipedia, it's from me.

Please let me know how to proceed in the future with this type of situation. As I said, I did ask an established editor what to do, and followed his advice to not mark the content as being from Wikipedia. To avoid conflict, I would simply create articles here and not mirror them on Wikipedia.

Thank you,

George Krieger 14:36, 29 May 2007 (CDT)

George, thanks for the note. If you've connected with Matt, I'm sure he's told you what you need to know. You are free to create articles for both Wikipedia and CZ, if that's what you want to do. If you're the sole author, you needn't check the "Content is from Wikipedia?" box. There's no conflict of interest if you're writing about a school you attended. Thanks for your contribution. --Larry Sanger 15:01, 30 May 2007 (CDT)

Good Work Larry

I've just joined CZ and am proud to say it is much more impressive than WP. Won't be any paleo-marxists or Stalinists here that's for sure. Paul Austin 01:40, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

There might be, if they can act within our neutrality policy. I certainly hope many ideologues (of all stripes) will not find CZ to be a congenial place to advance their views, anyway. But I am always delighted when someone I know to be a raving political hack--of whatever stripe--manages to put his or her politics aside in the interests of the project. Again, however, those who think it is completely impossible (for reasons never made perfectly clear) to write in a way that deserves the epithet "neutral" will rightly be put off, I hope. --Larry Sanger 02:38, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

Odd comment. I think of the infant Citizendium as being in a FAR earlier stage of development than Wikipedia, so it's far too early to contrast the two and say which is better, but I wonder how it could be more impressive when there's so little material here so far? Michael Hardy 18:30, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

Because he's evaluating the projects based not on the content, but on their editorial policies or the nature of their communities? --Larry Sanger 20:26, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

Yep. Paul Austin 10:24, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

Approval process

I've finished writing the revision flagging extension to MediaWiki. If you have a moment, I'd appreciate any input or suggestions you'd have yourself. A small test wiki is up here. Perhaps this project could use it as well?

It is to be used on at least German Wikipedia. I've been pushing for its use on English Wikipedia here.

Anyway, could it be adapted into the current review system here? Aaron Schulz 23:14, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

As a side note, I'd be interested in doing software work here if I'd be of any use. I noticed that "This is a minor edit" edit "Watch this page" buttons are oddly spaced :) Aaron Schulz 23:17, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

Sorry to butt in here, Aaron that is cool. We played with a similar idea. See this page, although CZ is currently using draft and approved versions. If you can clean up the oddly spaced buttons that would be great. Also in edit format the "This minor edit "and "watch this page" text would be better to the right of the radio button rather than below it. Chris Day (talk) 23:56, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

Chris, can you solicit opinions about this from other active approving people--particularly Nancy? --Larry Sanger 19:43, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

Red Dwarf

Can Red Dwarf and Red dwarf not be distinguished by capitalisation? John Stephenson 08:31, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

Not by most people, of course. Many people will look at a page with the former title expecting to find an article about a kind of star, not a TV series they've never heard of. --Larry Sanger 19:41, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

For now I've changed that to a disambiguation page, but I suppose that can be argued about. Michael Hardy 20:16, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

If you do a search for 'red dwarf' on Google, 26 of the first 30 in 2-million-plus hits are for the series rather than the star. It does have a following in North America and worldwide as well as in the UK. Also, now we have the disambiguation at the top of Red Dwarf (television series), there's no need for a separate disambiguation page. John Stephenson 02:57, 9 June 2007 (CDT)

Well, it seems improbable that anyone would name a TV series (or a novel, or a music CD, or a muscial ensemble....) Red Dwarf unless they intended it to allude to the type of star, and expected the allusion to be generally understood. That fact seems like an excellent reason to treat the type of star as the primary meaning of the term. Michael Hardy 20:31, 9 June 2007 (CDT)

Alabama

I wrote the "history" section of that article, but just want to make sure it conforms with neutrality. Is the mention of racial tension ok? Yi Zhe Wu 18:09, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

Yi, I'd place a note on the the article's talk page, and then perhaps point User:Richard Jensen to the note. Stephen Ewen 19:07, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

I agree with Steve's advice. --Larry Sanger 19:40, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

how to email you?

Larry, not to be a big dummy, but I looked around and I can't figure out how to email you. If you're able to get my account's email address first, please feel free to contact me. Obviously I don't want to post my email address on a talk page. Nathaniel Dektor 12:29, 9 June 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, I thought I had it handy somewhere. It's sanger at citizendium dot org. --Larry Sanger 13:04, 9 June 2007 (CDT)

OK, I emailed you as requested. Nathaniel Dektor 17:05, 9 June 2007 (CDT)

my talk page fiasco

Larry, not to be a big dummy yet again, but as you noted, I've worked myself into a weird situation attempting to archive my talk page. I posted a cry for help at the forums.[1] Nathaniel Dektor 12:32, 12 June 2007 (CDT)

I think I got it. If you move the page (rather than just create the archive 1 and then cut and paste) it creates a redirect that confused the archive template??? So I deleted the redirect and now you should be able to cut and paste the information you want to move. --Matt Innis (Talk) 12:49, 12 June 2007 (CDT)

bacteriophage material moved from wiki

Larry, some of the material I migrated from wiki was being deleted there. Since I wasn't sure what was and what wasn't being deleted, I hastily moved what I thought was valuable. I fully intend to go back and fix this material, albeit slowly as I have many demands on my time. I note there is a way to import with formatting so I will do that in the future. Thanks John J. Dennehy 18:48, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

John, if that is the case, and it is okay with Larry, I will help you go back and get the version that you need because I am sure James imported the current version. I bet James would even help. --Matt Innis (Talk) 18:51, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

John & Matt, that sounds great. The only thing missing is, on the talk page, an explanation of the provenance of the article so that this doesn't happen again. More than on Wikipedia, it is often necessary on CZ's talk pages to explain where articles originated. Such notices go at the top of the page, and shouldn't be archived. Also, checklists (see link to the left under "project pages") should also go on talk pages of new articles, please... --Larry Sanger 19:12, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

Manuals of style? Article titles?

CZ:Article Mechanics seems like a counterpart of Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Citizendium:Manual of Style also exists but has little content. The former has some material on section titles, but I didn't notice anything on article titles. I've just noticed the article mutations has a plural title. Is there some guideline on singular-versus-plural in article titles? There's not even a redirect page from the singular in this case (maybe I'll put one there, or maybe even just move the thing and undo it later if that's problem). Michael Hardy 19:43, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

The central location for all article policy will (eventually) be CZ:Policy Outline; it should have links to all the relevant policy pages on such matters. Re titles, see Naming Conventions. The article should live at mutation. --Larry Sanger 19:48, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

I've moved it. In so doing, I fixed lots of redlinks that pointed to the singular. Michael Hardy 19:56, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

I don't see anything in Naming Conventions that says the singular should be used. It may be useful to add also that when one creates an article titled (e.g.) mutation, one should also create mutations as a redirect page to the singular, and redirect pages from commonplace misspellings, misnomers, miscapitalizations, and synonyms. On a number of occasions on Wikipedia, I've created a dozen or more redirect pages preemptively. Michael Hardy 19:59, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

Gee, I thought there was a rule about that there, but you're right. So I added one. Even if the policy wasn't there on that page, I've been enforcing it.  ;-) --Larry Sanger 20:17, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

Moments ago, someone added this to talk:effect of sun angle on climate:

As for Citizendium policy, I haven't yet been able to locate a style guide on CZ, but will keep looking. Thanks. Raymond Arritt

Maybe these manuals could be better advertised somehow? Michael Hardy 20:21, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

I think that's a good idea. I really support the idea of one central, well known place where you can find all rules, policies, guidelines, etc. Perhaps part of the problem is that we have so many places to discuss things - talk pages, forums and a mailing list. What's agreed in one place may not be communicated to the others. Anton Sweeney 03:08, 24 June 2007 (CDT)

It needs improvement, but there is such a place: CZ:Project Home --Larry Sanger 08:30, 24 June 2007 (CDT)

Feedback backlog

The backlog in CZ:Feedback requests is increasingly horrendous, and needs to be cleaned up. Yi Zhe Wu 11:39, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

What do you suggest, Yi? --Larry Sanger 11:43, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Frankly, I'm sorry that I don't know, that's why I'm posting this. What would you suggest? Yi Zhe Wu 11:45, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Oh. Well, I have no solution and many higher priorities. Thanks for caring, though. You could go and give some feedback yourself, you know!  ;-) --Larry Sanger 11:46, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

How about a Feedback Workgroup! --Robert W King 11:44, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Beware this type of thinking: if you have a problem, assign a committee to solve it. Saying that only defers the solution-making to the people on the committee. If the suggestion is that people who are inclined to join the Feedback Workgroup will have more incentive to give feedback on their own, simply because they have signed onto a workgroup devoted to giving feedback, I have to express extreme skepticism. --Larry Sanger 11:52, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Well put. I didn't consider that.--Robert W King 11:51, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

I suspect part of the issue is it just needs to be re-advertised. Someone could add it to the Notice Board. Stephen Ewen 12:09, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

I'll add it. Stephen Ewen 14:30, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Editor approval

The Military History workgroup needs editors. I propose you appoing me and User:Charles Sandberg, the two most active people there. (I have coauthored several books recently on military history). Richard Jensen 14:43, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

There is also a deficiency of politics editors. The electoral college is waiting for approval. Yi Zhe Wu 18:29, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Richard, roger that--I'd be more comfortable fielding such requests by private e-mail. Richard, please feel free, as an Editorial Personnel Administrator, to recruit more people yourself, if you are comfortable doing that. --Larry Sanger 18:35, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

So me and Richard are editors now? --Charles Sandberg 21:13, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Please, let's discuss this via e-mail. --Larry Sanger 23:32, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

I have sent you an e-mail to [email protected]. --Charles Sandberg 10:36, 26 June 2007 (CDT)

Sample Title

Sample text

Test edit. --ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 19:22, 2 July 2007 (CDT)

Expert (curated) articles with bylines

I think this is the perfect solution for certain types of controversial articles, e.g., Intelligent Design, one pro, one con. I know of one eminent expert on it who I think would probably submit a pro side, if only asked. He's written such an article for two other encyclopedias on the matter, for pay. Actually, the licensing issue would probably need to be settle first (and one for non-commercial allowable, for this fellow, no surprise), but you get my point.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 02:32, 4 July 2007 (CDT)

Well, the idea was that we might have some such articles in addition to our collaborative, front-and-center article. But if we give people the option, it might not work out that way... Anyway, whatever license we release other people's work on doesn't prevent them from re-releasing it (for profit). They'll retain copyright over their own work. --Larry Sanger 07:53, 4 July 2007 (CDT)

Quick Question

How does one politely counter arguments by deletion rather than argument by refutation? Here's an exchange and I've copied from a discussion page regarding Oriental and I fear that I'm going to say/do something inappropriate. Will Nesbitt 07:56, 5 July 2007 (CDT)

A comment here was deleted by The Constabulary on grounds of making complaints about fellow Citizens. If you have a complaint about the behavior of another Citizen, e-mail [email protected]. It is contrary to Citizendium policy to air your complaints on the wiki. See also CZ:Professionalism.

Dear Will,

The wiki isn't the place to complain to or about other users. You can try e-mail (for complaints to) or the Constabulary (for complaints about): [email protected]. I am not going to rule on the question; I will leave it to the constables. If you think this is clearly an editorial and not a constable matter (i.e., strictly a matter of content, not bad behavior), then please couch your arguments in collegial, professional terms, and then I could have a look. I don't really want to adjudicate Constabulary matters, if possible.

As to your request for advice ("how does one politely counter arguments by deletion?"), I don't know how to answer because I'm not sure what you mean by "argument by deletion." If you feel that someone has violated CZ:Neutrality Policy by deleting an opinion, then the best way to address the issue, I think, is to explain why the opinion is important to include (e.g., that it's shared by a good number of people), and when you do so, say nothing about the motives or competence of the person who removed the text. If you're arguing with someone who is an editor of the article in question, it's up to him or her to make a decision. If you still feel there's a clear bias that's been introduced, you might ask me to look at the issue, but it's going to have to be very clear indeed for me to overrule an editor. --Larry Sanger 08:29, 5 July 2007 (CDT)

Famous tennis players table

Hi Larry, User:Chris Day has created a table very quickly on his discussion page and has asked me what I think should be done next. The problem is: I don't know! Could you give him some suggestions as to what you think this should look like? Many thanks! Hayford Peirce 13:33, 5 July 2007 (CDT)

Done --Larry Sanger 14:51, 5 July 2007 (CDT)

Check out this old discussion

Larry with respect to using the subpage template check out this discussion from a while back (User_talk:D._Matt_Innis/Archive_2#ApprovedGallery) when we were trying to get the following template to work: Template:ApprovedGallery. I don't think anything got changed since that discussion as the Approved Gallery template is still not functional. Chris Day (talk) 11:04, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

The important bit above is when Zach chimes in. That was in response to my quetion to him here: User_talk:ZachPruckowski#exams. Chris Day (talk) 11:07, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

I've just asked Jason to turn on subpages in the main namespace, so let's see. The whole issue of approval of subpages is a whole can of worms I haven't wanted to open up, but I'll have to soon... --Larry Sanger 11:08, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

Sorry i have not expressed an opinion on the forums but you presented a lot to digest. I think you can see where i was going with this a while back and I think this is a great way to organise all the extra data. One problem it solves, in my mind, is the excessivly long lists of related articles that can now be located on the links subpages. I noticed you were also playing with the collapsable sections, something I had tried for lists a while back too. Did you get that working? Chris Day (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

No, I don't think anyone knows exactly why they aren't working for us. We need someone who has worked with CSS & JS to solve this. --Larry Sanger 11:15, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

Once these article space subpages become operational there will less need for them. Chris Day (talk) 11:17, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

I just noticed that the template {{ApprovedGallery}} is now functional on my test page at Life/Gallery. Are we going to use this template? Or have you already made one? If not, you may want to add this to the Biology/Gallery subpage. The way it is used on life it currently catgorizes the page into Category:Approved Galleries and Category:Biology Approved Galleries Is this the route you are thinking of taking here? Chris Day (talk) 21:58, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

Basically, I think we ought to create a set of headers for each new subpage type, introducing what the page's function is--and sure, we can include some of the categories (and others perhaps) you have in that template. I'll go ahead and make a full complement of headers. --Larry Sanger 22:15, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

Draft vs approved

What are you thinking with respect to the subpages. I noticed you put one of the subpage navigation boxes on the biology draft page. Are you considering having approved and draft versions of all these pages too? If so, and this gets back to the original discussion I cited above on Matt's page, are we approving each page separately or are we going to approve each cluster? I would prefer to have one approval page for each cluster. For biology that would be Talk:Biology/Approval. Chris Day (talk) 12:11, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

That sounds right... --Larry Sanger 12:13, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

Colon

I'm a little lost about the rationale for the colon in the subpage names. I'm confused since the url address in the browser is still using a back slash. If I use the colon name of the page in the url the page does not exist. So what am I missing? Chris Day (talk) 22:24, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

The rationale for using the colon in subpage names is simply that it is a more familiar format to read "Biology: Bibliography" than "Biology/Bibliography" (for example). The name of the page and the URL for the page remain the same. It's just a difference in how the page name appears at the top of the page.

We could instead, if you like, use a hyphen, like this:

Biology - Bibliography

This would make subpages of other namespaces not look so weird. --Larry Sanger 23:21, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

The only thing that confused me was the fact that the name of the page was different to the url or internal link. So a hyphen would have confused me too. The colon is fine, if not better than a hyphen. Chris Day (talk) 23:25, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

When one places Biology: Biblography into the search box and clicks go, it does not go to the page. That seems the only drawback. Same thing happens with {{DISPLAYTITLE:xyz}} when it is enabled (see here and here)in Mediawiki. The change most definitely seems a plus, a nice touch, otherwise.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 23:34, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Wow, that's a definite problem. I'll alert Greg, see if he has any take on it. The problem seems to be that the search engine does not use '/' to parse titles into different searchable words, which is a big problem. --Larry Sanger 23:49, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

You might also think of using a longer dash than a stubby little hyphen. Michael Hardy 20:38, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

"citizen"?

In the course of attempting to see if I could sort out my thoughts on whether the name "Citizendium" is "POV", I noticed that there's no article titled citizen, and only four that link to it. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised: almost everything isn't here yet. But Larry, I wonder if you've thought about it, since you chose the name? Michael Hardy 20:38, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

Have I thought about whether Citizendium is biased ("POV" is not a word, of course)? No, because that sounds like a nonstarter, and I don't have time to think about nonstarters. Have I thought about the fact that there's no "citizen" article? No, but I agree that it would be particularly apt for us to have one... --Larry Sanger 06:16, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

OK, if you meant that such bias may not matter (e.g. "In God We Trust" on currency is clearly biased but with no real consequences), maybe in that sense it could appear to be a nonstarter. Michael Hardy 16:06, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

No, I simply fail to see any sense in which "Citizens' Compendium" could be thought to have any controversial implications at all. I have a feeling you're going to tell me, though, which it would have been nice if you had done two iterations ago.  :-) --Larry Sanger 22:22, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

Well, as I said, I haven't entirely collected my thoughts on this yet. But here's a first attempt, subject to revision: A citizen is a member of a political community---a state. Nearly all (but not quite all) persons are citizens of at least one state. The name seems to announce that this encyclopedia is for citizens. Now maybe nearly all people have bank accounts too. Should we therefore say this is for people with bank accounts? Well, even if everyone had a bank account, it's not (usually) for people in their role as bank customers, but in some broader role. If John Doe and I are discussing how best to revise an article here, do I care whether he's a citizen of Mexico or India or Australia or anywhere else or maybe nowhere? Usually not. (Maybe if the article were about citizenship laws, I might, but that's certainly an exception.) I am dealing with him in his role as a person, not as a citizen of some particular state. Some ideologies say we should be educated in order that we can be good citizens, thereby tacitly saying only our membership in a political community justifies our existence. Others disagree, some hoping that someday it will be possible to abolish such communities, after which our lives as persons would be better. These are debatable issues. Hence (pardon the Wikipediesque expression?) "POV". Michael Hardy 23:01, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

...and I think in some countries typical people are "subjects" and not "citizens" and lawyers may even attach some importance to the distinction. And then there's the fact that perhaps all citizens of a country are nationals of that country but in some countries many nationals may not be citizens. I think that may have been true of inhabitants of some British colonies back when there were lots of them. And Frederick Douglass, the 19th-century abolitionist writer, was for a time a national of the USA, with right of abode, and issued identity documents, thus enabling him to visit Britain, but as a free Negro he was not a citizen of the USA, and thus could not be issued a passport, and he was consequently denied the right to visit France. These terms have lots of legal and political meaning. Citizen is far from synonymous with person. Michael Hardy 23:14, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

Well, your worries all assume that "Citizens' Compendium" unpacks to "Compendium for Citizens of Some Country or Other," when in fact what it means is "Compendium Created by Citizens of an Online Community." --Larry Sanger 23:36, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

I think this will be widely misunderstood. Rhetoric to the effect that the reason to become educated is to be a good citizen is commonplace. The erroneous unpacking you refer to fits right in to that rhetoric, so it seems predictable that many people will misunderstand the term in the same way. Michael Hardy 14:38, 19 July 2007 (CDT)

I don't know. Maybe. I don't think people will think about it as hard as you have. If they're like me (?), they'll go, "Huh? What does that mean?" and proceed to be puzzled until they find out from the project. It's like the name "Assignment Zero." I still don't know why they called their project that--and people have complained about "Citizendium" and "Wikipedia" as bad names! Anyway, besides, people come up with all sorts of false stories about things, and as I've learned, you can't stop them. Fortunately, most people have the good sense to take these stories with a grain of salt, as rumors. --Larry Sanger 15:00, 19 July 2007 (CDT)

CZ software

I just noticed this difference between Citizendium's software and Wikipedia's: if I enter "User talk:Larry Sanger" into the search box here, I'm told there's no such article.

Is it intended to work that way? Michael Hardy 09:50, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

Michael, you might be interested in looking at this thread on the forum. --Aleksander Stos 10:35, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

This is only a recent development. I think it only started when the a tweak was made to the naming in subpages.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 16:59, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

More specifically, I get this:

There is no page titled "User talk:Larry Sanger". You can create this page.

And when I click on "create this page", then I see this page. Michael Hardy 22:12, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

Unless a bug is really, really important and requires my personal attention, the way to report them is to send something to [email protected], and you might cc me. --Larry Sanger 23:37, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

before I go too far

Larry, please make sure I am heading in the right direction (or set me in the right direction) here. --Matt Innis (Talk) 14:25, 18 July 2007 (CDT)

Looking good, thanks for testing out the process. One immediate reaction is that some of your definitions are not actually definitions but instead descriptions of the contents of the article. For example, you've got "An abbreviated discription of chiropractic's discovery, development and growth from the late 19th century to the mid 20th century." Instead, you should make the broadest interesting claim about the topic itself, Chiropractic History. For example, you might say, "Founded in 1885 by D. D. Palmer, the field grew through various controversies from a personal philosophy to a professionalized discipline." I'll be expandingCZ:Related Articles more today, so be on the lookout. --Larry Sanger 01:44, 19 July 2007 (CDT)

Excellent, exactly what I was wanting to know. I think this is going to be good. One thing I have been thinking about while working through this is that it will be a long process that will likely require authors and editors to add subjects randomly over time. It might not be a good idea to lock these pages for the average article, unless others are going to have Sysop rights. A good side effect is that it got me writing again! --Matt Innis (Talk) 07:35, 19 July 2007 (CDT)

Civil Society Subpages

Larry,

I thought your ideas on sub-pages made good sense when I first read them and your edits of my first efforts in that area really begin to bring the possibilities for this infoset into focus. Thanks!

I really don't like the term infoset, however. Sounds unnecessarily techno-geeky. Several of the other terms you mentioned would sound less precious and serve the same purpose.

Roger Lohmann

Thanks for the note, Roger. I am not excited about any of the terms. "Cluster" might work... --Larry Sanger 05:39, 20 July 2007 (CDT)

I agree Cluster would be better. With regard to item #18 above, I've added a Citizen definition page with a reference to Citizendium to the Civil Society cluster. It probably also needs some ties to some of the political/government/state pages as well. - -Roger Lohmann 06:09, 20 July 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, and welcome to the Citizendium!

I decided to put "cluster" on {{subpages}} for now--just try it out. None of this is set in stone yet. --Larry Sanger 06:16, 20 July 2007 (CDT)

The Seven Sisters. Great the astronomers are already onto this topic!

Personally, I prefer cluster to infoset. Infoset definitely sounds geeky. When I think of a cluster I have the image of the Pleiades (seven sisters) star cluster. That is a positive thing. Not to mention we have a cluster of buildings on our key logo. The term seems a lot more user friendly. Chris Day (talk) 10:32, 20 July 2007 (CDT)

I think both "Infoset" and "Cluster" are vague and while they make sense to us, I don't think that someone new to the site will grasp the concept. Is there an existing library science term we can use that already somewhat describes this functionality? --Robert W King 10:36, 20 July 2007 (CDT)

You could always go ask a librarian... ;-) --Larry Sanger 10:43, 20 July 2007 (CDT)

I stumbled upon a glossary of library terms and it lists a "set" as "two or more separate items which are treated as a single entity in a bibliographic description; for example, a multi-volume encyclopedia, or a textbook with an accompanying cd-rom.", so perhaps a variant on the word set would be more appropriate in the context of this encyclopedia. Maybe something can be made from "shelflist", "abstract", "syndetic structure"... --Robert W King 11:14, 20 July 2007 (CDT)

Mates of Celebrities

Let's see if I have this straight: You were moved to complain about Prince Philip but are okay with the treatment of, for example, Martha Washington, Martha Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and Dolley Madison? I must be suffering worse than I thought from that proverbial hobgoblin of small minds. On a different topic, should I have sent you something when I added to Innocence Project and its Talk page in response to your posting there? -- k kay 06:34, 21 July 2007 (CDT)

Why do you think I would have any different reaction to Martha Washington, e.g.? Again, not a subtopic of George Washington, but a closely related one.

Re: Innocence Project, probably, especially if it was from Friday through Tuesday, when I was travelling. --Larry Sanger 07:03, 21 July 2007 (CDT)

Arrow

Larry, the arrow is an improvement on the pipe for the subpage separator. Chris Day (talk) 11:32, 21 July 2007 (CDT)

I'm inclined to agree. --Larry Sanger 11:35, 21 July 2007 (CDT)

Thanks/Editorship

Thanks for the editorship, Dr. Sanger. I have been busy finishing a book project, but I will try to become more active here soon. --Mark Mirabello 15:48, 21 July 2007 (CDT)

You're welcome. If any of your book is usable, feel free to cut and paste. But then the publisher may not like that.  ;-) --Larry Sanger 21:54, 21 July 2007 (CDT)

addition to robots.txt

Hi Larry, since the History-pages (and logs?) of articles, images, discussions etc. also contain CZ user names, the following should be added to robots.txt for privacy reasons:

/wiki?title=

See also the discussion here. Cheers, —Arne Eickenberg 17:24, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

I didn't know...thanks... --Larry Sanger 23:31, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

Neopaganism

I have been studying these "subcultures" so long that I forget they are rather marginal.

In recent years, various neopagan groups have been created centering around the "pre-Christian" pantheons. Members are not "re-enactors--they are seriously devoted to the "old gods."

Here are two "wikis" devoted to the subject. I write for both and I am an administrator for the first. Indeed, I wrote the Egyptian neopagan article initially for the first site.

pagan wikia

paganwiki

--Mark Mirabello 20:18, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

Conflict Resolution

Larry, I agree 100% with your assessment about the debate at Oriental / Orientalism.

The problem is not the conflict. The problem is the system of conflict resolution. Over on the Bill Clinton talk page, things are ramping up again and I hate it.

I think the single hardest concept for some people to understand is the distinction between this resource reporting an opinion and this resource having an opinion. If one compares the Bill Clinton article to the George W. Bush article, there is an implied (and at times stated) opinion of the resource. This is where things get dangerous methinks.

I'd love to help out at the Forum, but I'm not sure where to begin because there is so much written there. I have some ideas I'm planning on posting on my user page when I have time. Will Nesbitt 15:23, 24 July 2007 (CDT)