User talk:Remi/April '08 - June '08

Weblog -> Category:Blogs ?
Hi Remi, would it be good from your pov to add User:Remi/Weblog also to Category:Blogs ? Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 10:53, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not sure. I don't feel strongly on the matter. Do you think it would help Wikiversity? --Remi 17:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I can't read the future, so I can not give you a satisfying answer, but it make sit easier for people to find blogs. Let's just wait. Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 17:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. I added the category... : ) --Remi 17:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Re:Barnstar
Hello Remi, thanks. I appreciate the intention. Actually I see more optimization potential in the things I do. We will see how I evolve. I wonder when I - in some years - look at my contributions around here, how I will smile (or not). Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 17:03, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

barnstar
Thanks! I'm feeling very disconnected from Wikiversity so the star comes at a great time to boost my spirits. I hope to have some time this summer to devote to the wiki world. --JWSchmidt 23:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey - just saw this - that's really nice of you Remi, and nice to see this comment from John. :-) Cormaggio talk 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC) PS: On your aspiration to find a doctorate programme that would recognise your Wikiversity work - I fervently hope that this becomes a reality one day. I know the Open University of the Netherlands has a very progressive PhD programme, in which people do their research and publish four peer review articles, which constitutes the thesis/dissertation. (And it's free-as-in-beer.) I suppose my own PhD allows me to hang around on Wikiversity too - and I'm lucky enough to be funded by my university. I suppose it depends on your research interest though, and how your Wikiversity work aligns with that. Cormaggio talk 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

New portals
I see you've been busy! I transferred in the skeletons for the portals and put your work into the to-do boxes as a temporary measure. I'll add a few further notes. Thanks for keeping this moving ahead! --McCormack 20:36, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I left some notes at Category talk:University faculties a while back which explained my intentions when I created the links to these new portals. Might be helpful. --McCormack 20:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your message. I wasn't intending to do anything to them so soon! But when I saw you starting on them, I reckoned it would be a good idea to put in the box skeletons so that you can work more easily on links and categories. Don't worry - I've got to take a wiki-break until the morning, so you've got "all night" (as it were) to continue...! --McCormack 20:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * OK - I put some underconstruction templates on the pages. I'm off for now, so please feel welcome to continue the work. --McCormack 20:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Linux Compatibility Test
Remi, you posted a "Feature Request" comment to Linux page. There are numerous such programs readily and freely available on the 'net --- they are called LiveCDs and most of those are Linux. A Google search on "Linux LiveCD" will find hundreds of them. I recommand you start with Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com) since it's currently one of the best maintained and most usable Linux systems available. Normal Ubuntu discs are "Live" (can be booted and allow you to run a wide selection of Linux software without touching your hard drives). They also include a program which lets you install the software if you like. Thus the normal Ubuntu discs are a offering a risk free "try before you install" option. JimD 01:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Random topic
Did you like the random topic thing then? I forgot to check whose idea it originally was. --McCormack 21:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you think we should put it back? I think the topic namespace is a bit of a mess at the moment, and random page is probably sufficient. But if you prefer or have reason, my edit is easily reverted! --McCormack 07:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Remi! I had a look at the history (at last), and it seems that User:Darklama replaced random page with random topic last September, and you then put back the random page link above it in October. I can't find any discussion initiated or relating to Darklama's change, and I think you were quite right to put back the random page link. I tend to see Darklama quite a bit on IRC, so I can ask him about it. I suspect his random topic idea was just a whim, but I'll check with him. I've also put some ideas onto Mediawiki Talk:Sidebar for further reform - you might like to continue the discussion? --McCormack 04:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Remi. I've done some more work on this. I tried both the "random page" and the "random topic" options. I must admit that contrary to my initial expectations, "random topic" turned up results that were distinctly better than "random page". I don't find "random topic" ideal, but at the moment I would prefer the Darklama solution with just a random topic. When you put back the "random page" as an addition to "random topic", was there any discussion of this? Or any requests? A compromise, in order to avoid two randomised links in the sidebar, would be to use a parser function to alternate. --McCormack 17:17, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Or would you like the double random thing back again? --McCormack 08:19, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Creating new topics and schools
Hi Remi. Do you think that in the light of present discussion, when a new topic or school is created, it should have an explanatory box at the top explaining the purpose of the namespace? At the moment you are putting the stub box at the top of these, and my idea would be to replace this with something like Template:stub-topic and Template:stub-school which explain the proper use of the namespaces. What do you think? --McCormack 08:24, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar
Hi, Remi, and many thanks! Much appreciated. My wikiversity-reconstruction efforts are pretty radical at the moment and always carry the risk of going wrong or annoying someone, so don't hesitate to tell me if you think I've gone too far somewhere! (Otherwise I might just keep storming ahead). --McCormack 04:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Consensus can be difficult to gauge. It's funny how wikis work. But either way, good work. ;) --Remi 08:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Easier life for custodians
The short cut is now available for welcome and expand. --McCormack 06:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Main page category tree
Hi again, Remi. Just found your comment about the main page. Yes - it's easy to have them all closed by default, but for a number of reasons I deliberately opened the first one. One reason is because otherwise users may not realise that it's a tree where you can open/close things. Another reason is that the top item (educational level) is a relatively small but very important category of portals, and we really need to correct the historical misperception of Wikiversity as a tertiary-only institution. What do you think? Are my reasons good? --McCormack 06:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "Paths by user type" might be a good idea in the future, but currently it is a relatively undeveloped set of paths. The "resources by educational level" has had a lot more work done on it. --McCormack 08:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

email
I sent you an email... :) --JWSchmidt 23:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Good one
Good vandal zapping. I was about to do it, but you were faster! --McCormack 08:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Same for me :-) Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 08:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Quantum mechanics
Hmm...let me think. The quantum harmonic oscillator is useful for understanding practically anything that vibrates on a very small scale. Light is one example. Molecules are another. Atoms in a molecular bond vibrate, and it is very similar to having tiny balls attached to each other with springs. The quantum harmonic oscillator is sort of a toy model which you can systematically make more complicated to describe more and more physical systems. The ideas that come out of solving the the quantum harmonic oscillator are also essential to parts of quantum field theory, which is a cornerstone of modern physics. Does this help answer your questions ? --HappyCamper 09:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

A Short History of Nearly Everything
Hi Remi,

This book is very popular, so i think it is in many mainstream libraries around the world. If you live nearby a library and you are a member of it, than i think you can borrow the book there. It is possible to use other books as well on the topic of a general description of the knowledge of natural sciences. I live in a region with millions of people and several major libraries, so for me it is easy to get access to any kind of books for free.--Daanschr 11:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Psychology
Hi Remi. So far it looks to me as though most psychology Topic: and School: pages are really just stubs (i.e., pages with department boilerplates and not much else). For those pages, I've started gradually cleaning them up and shifting them into the mainspace. Topics and Schools could of course still evolve and the redirects be replaced. As far as I can tell there are really no active psychology pages or psychology learning resources which are ready for 'complete' or 'featured' status. To try to get my head around what psychology pages there are, I've tried to clean up the categories. Now, almost everything in Category:Psychology are subcategories which hopefully helps e.g., when going to Category:Positive psychology to found other related pages. The psychology school was also inactive (except for you and I) so I moved it into the main namespace, shifted some the generic learning content into subpages or into more specific psychology pages as appropriate, leaving currently the best meta-data I'm aware of about what's going on in relation to psychology. So, psychology is currently part portal, part topic, part school, part category, etc. in the mainspace. I understand the jury is still out on namespaces, so feel free to suggest other possibilities/directions. -- Jtneill - Talk 07:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Note I did this partly to prepare for developing Portal:Psychology which needs work. -- Jtneill - Talk 07:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Also note that Topic:Psychology needs some TLC. -- Jtneill - Talk 07:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * [ Copy of my post over on Jtneill's talk page ]  My own guess is that the "right" way to go about this is a "bottom up" rather than a "top down" approach. In other words, use the psychology areas as an experiment in trying to find out how namespaces are or are not useful for organising a field of knowledge. The experience gained could then feed back usefully into the current namespace reform discussions. --McCormack 07:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * FYI, after your shift of Topic:Psychology to School:Psychology, I've tweaked both those pages hopefully to accurately reflect what's meant to belong in each of those namespaces. IMHO, though, there's not enough quality psychology content to be meaningfully and usefully organised across the four namespaces (psychology, Portal, School, and Topic). Where I've identified any psychology content related to learning, I've tried to sift it into the main namespace. -- Jtneill - Talk 09:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * We could work through Category:Psychology adding Template:psych-stub as appropriate. -- Jtneill - Talk 12:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

naming conventions
What should be the propper name of the portal: "Engineering and technology" or "Engineering and Technology"? According to Naming conventions and WP naming conventions I think the first one... --Gbaor 06:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Random topics
Hi Remi, and thanks for your good thoughts and observations. Yes - the whole random thing is full of problems. What would be sensible is this: programme a Mediawiki extension which adds a new kind of special random page which doesn't return subpages or alternatively, returns a random member of a category. Theoretically it's easily programmed and done. In practice, the Wikimedia Foundation is incapable of organising itself to review and activate even the simplest of extensions at the moment. A less elegant but possible solution would be to make a list of topic pages, then put them into a switch parser function, and then direct the "random topic" page at that. It would have to be manually updated as new topics get added, but it would produce much better quality results. --McCormack 05:58, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi and thanks for your reply. On wikibooks: I tried it and got a javascript error (it doesn't work). This suggests that they were using a different idea from mine, because mine doesn't involve javascript (and would therefore work!). Mind you, I can't test what results the Wikibooks thing would produce if it did work, so it's difficult to compare. --McCormack 06:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Another problem for random topic is things like this: Topic:Astronomy/w/w/index.php. --McCormack 07:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Arabic topics
Perhaps I should ask first and delete second! Anyway, I just deleted a topic redirect which you created and which had an Arabic title. Was there anything in the existence of this page which would have justified keeping it? --McCormack 07:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I was less worried about the server load and more concerned about Random Topic making sense. But after looking through all the Topic pages, I reckon that the best solution is probably to create a selected list and use a switch statement on it. The topic namespace is pretty messy and rather large - too many under-developed pages. But you're doing a good job with adding bits and pieces to some of these under-developed pages. Keep it up! --McCormack 08:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Mail...
You have some :). As a rule, if I'm running a block like that and I mention "CU", it means there's probably a cross-project history of issues. I'm always happy to discuss details privately (though responses might take a few days this time of year), but in general I hope you would assume that I know what I'm doing ;-). --SB_Johnny | talk 18:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks Remi you rock. Very fast. =) cheers lucychili 23:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Checkuser?
You are by a long shot the best and most active RC patroller here... may I have your permission to nominate you for checkuser? I'd be more than happy to share with you what I know about how to use it, and it really is a handy tool to have when you're dealing with a vandal with contribs that seem suspiciously familiar. --SB_Johnny | talk 01:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, there are now 2 separate pages created (as was done in the last CU vote): Candidates for Custodianship, Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) PS: Tag a learning project with completion status !! 18:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Robelbox
Hi Remi; thanks, i've fixed by revertingd. Kinda weird because today's edit seemed to make earlier edits not work either. Hopefully McCormack can help sleuth... Interestingly, now, if you go back through the edit history http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Robelbox&action=history all the edits I did seem to work (i.e., not have a loop error). I'll copy this to McCormack's talk. -- Jtneill - Talk 02:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Subpage list
Hi Remi. If you look at the WV colloquium (very top thread), I've put a testing link to a page of one of my own wikis. No Wikimedia server yet runs the extension. --McCormack 09:35, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Project boxes and cleanup
Hi, Remi. I was thinking of redesigning some of Category:Cleanup templates as project boxes - see Help:Resources by quality for an explanation of sorts. What do you think? --McCormack 06:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Sort of on the same topic: I found your Template:Experimental and had a go at that. I liked the idea of an "experimental" tag. You are welcome to revert my changes and rescue your old version, though! I can use a different name for the redesigned version. --McCormack 18:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

New colour scheme for boxes
You'll need to update all three colour templates. Give me a shout if you can't get #15 to start working after that. --McCormack 10:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi again. I think the servers might be having some difficulties updating templates right now. I'm having some difficulty myself elsewhere. However I see the "lost" template fine on the page you asked about. --McCormack 10:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The job queue is currently at over 20,000 - might be both you and me combined. --McCormack 10:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Mind you, if you changed one of the robelbox colour templates, it might be "mostly you"!! ;-) --McCormack 10:53, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

IRC meeting
Hi Remi - just notifying you of a suggested time/date for an IRC meeting about 'Wikiversity learning'. Could you indicate if you would be available, or would prefer a different time/date? Cormaggio talk 14:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism
Hey Remi - I've undone your edit, removing "vandalism" from the "list of uses of Wikiversity". Ok, it's a very broad conception of the idea of "use" (perhaps it's better under the broader category of "activity" - I dunno), but I think it's interesting to stretch or at least question the idea of what the community is. I'm in favour of leaving it in at least as a provocative statement. On another tack, what's with the identity change? Is this an upshot of SUL, do you want to be renamed, or are you doing different types of edits with different accounts? Cormaggio talk 10:14, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Your Emesee comment at MS Wikipedia.
Bahasa Melayu is also known as Bahasa Malaysia. However, bahasa Melayu is also used in Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, South of Thailand and a few others and not only limited in Malaysia. The name change is to foster unity within Malaysia through language. Yosri 10:13, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Templates and topics
Hi Remi, and thanks for your message. I can't remember our earlier exchange very well. As regards transclusion, for me the template namespace is only obvious for this when either the template will be used multiple times or the template mainly contains programmatic/formatting material such as parser functions. However I'm sure that actual practice is in a self-contradictory state. Then there's the issue of securing agreement about what the topic namespace is for...! If you're thinking of the random topic link, then I think the idea we ended up with was manual selection of recommended pages/projects which then go through a parser function which randomly chooses one. As Featured now has rather a lot of material on it, we are now in a better position to create such a pseudo-random page redirect. --McCormack 05:34, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Random pages
Try the new Random. --McCormack 07:56, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I see you tried it. Did you like it? Where does one talk to you these days? --McCormack 08:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)