Talk:PlanetPhysics

Does this exist?
Seems to have disappeared from the internet GangofOne (discuss • contribs) 04:17, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, it did exist, there is an article still, PlanetPhysics. The domain name for the owner, planetphysics.org is up for sale, $477, Unknown if the seller is the original owner, it could have been grabbed by someone when the registration expired. Registration was updated 2015-04-22.


 * So is planetphysics.us for sale.


 * This happens. Ambitious projects, no backbone, no backup structure, no active support network, owner loses interest, domain goes down, registration goes down.


 * Looking for efforts to keep it alive, This page on the P2P Foundation wiki covers the content, which is supposedly found at planetphysics.info, Which now redirects to a porn site. Last edits to the P2P wiki coverage: December 2012.


 * So what's with the P2P Foundation? Still live. Blog with recent entries, open wiki, it appears, I didn't try to register.


 * What happened to PlanetPhysics? There was apparently a *huge* amount of content. Some may be available on the internet archive, but wikitext may be lost. So a lot of people, probably, did a lot of work, and it may be lost because nobody looked at overall structure and designed it to survive the vagaries of life.


 * Planetmath.org is still up. Written in LaTeXML. Not a lot of activity, but some last month, AFAIK. Domain owned by Aaron Krowne, who is shown as one of the founders of PlanetPhysics on enwiki. He may have owned the PlanetPhysics domain at one time. LinkedIn at "President of PlanetMath.org"


 * This article by Krowne and Raymond Puzio, who is also listed as a founder of PlanetPhysics, is from 2006: The fog of copyleft. I think it's an interesting article, but I haven't read it all. It associates both Krowne and Puzio with PlanetMath. PlanetPhysics is only mentioned once, as running the same software, Noosphere, as PlanetMath, "and our other planned knowledge planets."


 * This is the other founder, Ben Loftin. https://myspace.com/planetphysics shows Ben Loftin. No posts that I could see. I found a fuller name, and where he worked in 2005.


 * I looked for a lot of combinations of names and PlanetPhysics. I could find no discussion anywhere that PlanetPhysics was in trouble. And this is what happens: There is a small number of people who start a project. They lose interest. These projects did attract many users, but they don't engage the users in governance. While they are active, they hold on. And when they disappear, it all goes south. Mailing lists are famous for doing this, the list owner disappears and ... did not designate an alternate moderator, or, even better, an alternate owner.


 * Why is this relevant here? Because there was probably a lot of content there that we could have used. It was licensed so we could use it. We had no project to bring this content here. Would such a project have attracted participation? I don't know. But PlanetMath is still up, and it's not impossible that someone has a PlanetPhysics backup. I have other fish to fry, so this is as far as I take this today. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 22:12, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I have a backup, as of 2011-09-01. It never seemed as popular as PlanetMath. I hadn't looked at it lately, until just very lately. I would like to give the thing I have a nice home. GangofOne (discuss • contribs) 03:47, 13 May 2015 (UTC) That is, I have backup of the wiki itself, not all the articles collected from other sources. GangofOne (discuss • contribs) 04:21, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That's great!!! In what format is the backup? --Abd (discuss • contribs) 04:27, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a tar.gz of a recursive wget of the website. It's actually read-to-roll for read only access. Topic directories include the source latex files, the html from latex2html and the pngs for the equations. 14megabytes. Where should I upload it? GangofOne (discuss • contribs) 04:19, 15 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I would be willing to try to write a script that could read the archive and generate the content pages here at Wikiversity. Can the archive be placed on a shared cloud resource (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc.)?
 * I will upload directly to wikiuniversity, unless you can think of a reason not to.GangofOne (discuss • contribs) 01:52, 17 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I was thinking the file size was too large, but it's not. Apparently we can go as large as 1 GB.  But there is a different problem.  Archives are not accepted file types.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:39, 17 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I'd think it could be renamed, then, the file format being explained in the upload, and you could then download it and rename it and handle it. In any case, I'd suggest that all the pages be created as subpages of PlanetPhysics. Then we can review the pages and move them as appropriate. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 12:46, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Tactic didn't work, the MIME type didn't match file ending; defeated by software once again, even though I checked "Ignore errors". Drop box etc, not anonymous, ftp I guess. You have an IP I can ftp to? GangofOne (discuss • contribs) 09:48, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah. I read the Mediawiki documentation. A developer would need to modify localsettings.php, and perhaps a file blacklist as well, wiki admin has no access to this, not going to happen for security reasons. I used to have an FTP that could be used, but it has been so long.... If I can get to it.... Dave ought to be able to handle this, I expect. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 21:13, 18 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I can get an FTP server set up for this, but it may take a few days. I have added this to my to-do list, and will email you (GoO) through the wiki interface with IP and login instructions when it is ready.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 03:04, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok GangofOne (discuss • contribs) 07:55, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * FTP access information sent by Wiki email. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 12:53, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Uploaded sucessfully! GangofOne (discuss • contribs) 23:21, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Received. I'll try to take a look at it this weekend and see what it will take to generate the content pages here.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:33, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I've looked at the PlanetPhysics archive. It is in HTML format and also LaTeX format. The HTML has extensive use of images, and would not import well. The LaTex would need to be converted to WikiText. In the process of searching for how to do that, I came across http://p2pfoundation.net/PlanetPhysics. This appears to be PlanetPhysics converted into MediaWiki format, and I also found one of the primary contributors to PlanetPhysics with an account on that wiki. So, before we invest any more effort here, I recommend contacting the P2P Foundation and / or whoever is maintaining the PlanetPhysics wiki on their site for more information. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:35, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * All the links go to defunct site, or porno, it seems. But if you can contact somebody, maybe there is hope. GangofOne (discuss • contribs) 22:10, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Bot projects
Here's two small things that a bot might be better at:
 * 1) For example, in the resource "PlanetPhysics/FresnelIntegrals" there are often "<"math">", then after expressions that should be between these two there are again "<"math">" at the end of the expression. Would it be easy for a bot to look for "<"math">" expression "<"math">" and convert it to "<"math">" expression "", without the quotes of course?
 * 2) For example, the resource "PlanetPhysics/FresnelIntegrals" may be more Wikiversity as "PlanetPhysics/Fresnel integrals". I have already performed this move for "PlanetPhysics/FresnelIntegrals". Many of the subpage titles have more than one word in the title. Each word begins with a cap like "Integrals". Would this be something easy for a bot to perform? Or, do we want to leave the titles in the form such as "FresnelIntegrals"? I can perform each of these as I go through each resource, but I thought I'd ask. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 23:24, 26 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I'll see if I can write some code to identify pages with an even number of empty math tags for confirmation. Yes, it should be relatively easy to code.
 * Moving / renaming pages is easy. I already have code for that.  Parsing by capital letters is easy.  I would recommend retaining the capital letters for this project, at least initially.  Otherwise we end up with Albert einstein, etc.  Or, I can generate a list of name / rename pairs, and you can clean it up and capitalize any that need it.  Then I'll run the moves.
 * Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:21, 27 June 2015 (UTC)


 * See /Rename/. Either correct or delete any you don't want renamed.  I'll take the list and rename any on the left to whatever is displayed on the right.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 04:14, 27 June 2015 (UTC)


 * All of them look great! Some appear to have weird names because the original file has a weird name. I'll check each of these out as I go along. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:27, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I deleted PlanetPhysics/Fresnel Integrals as it is already moved. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:32, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

If I may ask, could I see the software for an example bot? I'd like to learn how to use the software that works here. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 00:09, 27 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The most common way to write wiki bots is using Pywikibot. At the time I wrote mine, I needed practice coding PowerShell, and was having trouble getting Pywikibot to work.  The code base I use is at MediaWiki API/PowerShell.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:21, 27 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm going to try to create a bot or two for fixing some of the following although it may take a while. Here are a few more possible bot projects:


 * 1) So far each resource subpage in PlanetPhysics has begun with a list of varying length of what appear to be page format commands that begin with "\documentclass[12pt]{article}". While they are trivial to delete when going over each page, 845 of them may better be removed by a bot if possible.
 * 2) Like a wiki PlanetPhysics often uses its pages to explain concepts as [:http://planetphysics.us/encyclopedia/Velocity.html velocity]. A bot may be able to look for this and replace e.g. "http://planetphysics.us/encyclopedia/Velocity.html" with "PlanetPhysics/Velocity". --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 03:42, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

The math/math cleanup is done. Please check and verify. Regarding /Rename/, please check the full list. Some are pretty silly, such as the all capital letters that come out L I K E T H I S. Cleaning up the page format commands is possible, but I need to see if I can clean up everything prior to the start of document text or if I need to do individual commands. The encyclopedia linking is a problem, because there doesn't seem to be consistency between the text in the link and the page name it links to. I'll have to look back at the archive and see if I can build a cross-reference list. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 03:50, 28 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The math/math cleanup looks great. Resource PlanetPhysics/Work was perfect!


 * Perhaps the renaming needs a proviso of a lower cap after each cap. PlanetPhysics/CCG is a resource about a function abbreviated CCG and may best be left this way.


 * The naming is a pain because some like "Velocity.html" are followed by "velocity" and others are way off. There would probably have to be a pair match-up before execution. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 05:30, 28 June 2015 (UTC)


 * There may be a simpler answer: replace "http://planetphysics.us/encyclopedia/Velocity.html" with "PlanetPhysics/Velocity" if something like "http://planetphysics.us/encyclopedia/*.html" to "PlanetPhysics/*" is possible. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 14:29, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

External encyclopedia links are now replaced with internal links. I've updated the /Rename/ page. Take one more look at it and see if you see any other corrections you'd like to make. Otherwise, I'll process the list as written later today. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:02, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * All the titles appear exactly separated, even the "of the" type lower case phrases. Outstanding! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 15:35, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Done. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:16, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Here's a couple more perhaps for the bots.
 * 1) \htmladdnormallink{classification {http://planetphysics.us/encyclopedia/TrivialGroupoid.html} as a dynamic Analogy}. This \htmladdnormallink followed by the second part in {}s may contain a variety of PlanetPhysics resources like Trivial Groupoid which I have subsequently created since it seems to be missing from our version of PlanetPhysics.
 * 2) Each resource could be put into Category:Physics, if not already so.
 * 3) Example: "PlanetPhysics/Similarity and Analogous Systems Dynamic Adjointness and Topologica" should have been "PlanetPhysics/Similarity and Analogous Systems Dynamic Adjointness and Topological Equivalence". Sorry! I didn't catch this in the rename list. Was it too many characters for the bot? I liked the "Quivalence" redirect! What were these physicists thinking! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 23:50, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * According to our search engine, there are 145 \htmladdnormallink calls for various purposes such as {classification. Ugh! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 23:59, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I've already processed all of the htmladdnormallink entries that match the standard pattern. The ones that are left are non-standard.  I tried editing a few of them manually.  There isn't a good pattern in what's left that I can address cleanly.  They're going to need to be edited manually.
 * The 'too many characters' issue came from how I displayed the content locally. it's in a terminal window that wraps, and I don't always catch the cutoff.  You can rename any I missed manually at this point.
 * I can add a category by bot. My preference would be to add the CourseCat template as the category, and then add PlanetPhysics to the Physics category, if it isn't already.  Let me know which way you want to go on this.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 00:46, 1 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The CourseCat template is a good idea! With a few added quizzes, it would be a whopper of a course! I can add the Physics category as I go. Some of these resources may be better in Category:Mathematics or something more precise like Category:Group theory. Thank you for all your help with these resources. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:15, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Mysterious templates in red
On several pages that I have cleaned up I see quite a variety of templates such as My guess is these are template calls that occur in the article either from math or something else. I checked a couple without the "/rm" and none made it to Wikiversity. Perhaps these are no longer needed here? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 05:13, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Template:\rm Mon
 * 2) Template:\rm Hom
 * 3) Template:\rm Ker
 * 4) Template:\rm Ind
 * 5) Template:\rm Im
 * 6) Template:\rm Is
 * 7) Template:\rm id
 * 8) Template:\rm GL
 * 9) Template:\rm Iso
 * 10) Template:\rm O
 * 11) Template:\longrightarrow.


 * It seems like the PlanetPhysics editors were quite creative in defining their own templates and TeX code. Perhaps after you look at the pages for awhile, a pattern will become clear and we'll be able to either create templates or update the pages to address the missing content.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:21, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

All Sources
Because of the way the references were entered in the original text, the conversion used named references. In Wikitext, a named reference that is never mentioned appears as a missing citation. To address this, I've set the bot to go through and add an All Sources section just above the References and include each of the references by name so that they aren't missing. It's a bit unusual, but a simple way to solve the problem without deleting unused references. See PlanetPhysics/2DFT Imaging for an example. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 20:12, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I think this is a good solution! What I was seeing in a couple of resources was something like

<:references> <:ref name='Broxon'> Broxon, James W. "Mechanics", Appleton-Century-Crofts, INC., New York, 1956.

after the References section. These were causing lexing errors. A more programming/bot laborious effort would be to

Search text for e.g. 'Broxon' and put <:ref name='Broxon'> Broxon, James W. "Mechanics", Appleton-Century-Crofts, INC., New York, 1956. after the period in the sentence containing 'Broxon'. But that seems like a lot of programming work. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 23:30, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Original text
It's great having the original text, but I am not sure about having it on the talk page. I have moved the material on Albert Einstein to a sub page. Leutha (discuss • contribs) 00:49, 2 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The advantage of having it on the Talk page was that it doesn't show up in the Subpages list. I suppose if I had been really smart, I would have created the pages with the original text, and then added the converted text as an edit on top of the same page.  I wasn't that smart.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:08, 2 July 2015 (UTC)


 * There may be a second advantage at least for now to having the original text on the talk page. I've left a message up at MediaWiki for help enhancing LaTex here so that figures or equations such as "\begin{equation} \label{squ} \D := \vcenter{\xymatrix @=3pc {S \ar @ [r] ^{s^1} \ar @<-1ex> [r] _{t^1} \ar @ [d]^{\, t_2} \ar @<-1ex> [d]_{s_2} & H \ar[l] \ar @ [d]^{\,t} \ar @<-1ex> [d]_s \\ V \ar [u] \ar @ [r] ^s \ar @<-1ex> [r] _t & M \ar [l] \ar[u]}}, \end{equation}" when put between <:math> work. That is assuming someone up there knows how to do it and is willing to say. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 01:29, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the original text is copied to the Talk page, or anywhere else. It is accessible on the mainspace page in history, and could simply be linked, say from the Talk page. Duplicating it on Talk could confusion in later discussion. For the Einstein page, here is the original text as imported. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 01:48, 2 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, only the TeX content as imported to the Talk pages shows original content. What you see as the first entry on the resource page was already altered, removing license and removing original author information which needs to be preserved.  The conversion process was also not entirely clean, so content may have been lost as well.  I'd recommend leaving the TeX content on the Talk page for now as a reference for page cleanup.  When pages are cleaned up, the talk page can be blanked, perhaps with a comment to view history for original content and authorship.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:07, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, that is a reason for having that content there, and you already acknowledged as superior what I'd suggest, you merely didn't do it that way! I see that Leutha was concerned about having it on the Talk page. The solution to that is just to blank it leaving a reference to it in history. That reference could be on the main page. I see no need for a separate subpage, it may create temptation to fork. Whatever we do, it should probably be discussed before it is done en masse! If anyone wants to work with the original TeX, it's there, they can work with it if they want to. We *could* merge the pages, so it is there in the resource as the first revision, if it was written first.
 * By the way, thanks for all this work! --Abd (discuss • contribs) 03:55, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Original subpage list
The original listing of all subpages is pasted here in case anybody wants to go back to it.

Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 14:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * All
 * 1
 * 2
 * A
 * B
 * C
 * D
 * E
 * F
 * G
 * H
 * I
 * J
 * K
 * L
 * M
 * N
 * O
 * P
 * Q
 * R
 * S
 * T
 * U
 * V
 * W
 * X
 * Y
 * Z