Welcome!

Hello, IanOsgood, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Mak (talk) 02:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi... I browsed the List of programming languages and sadly have seen SNUSP was proposed (eons ago) for deletion, and now it is not here (deleted). I stopped thinking about contributing wikipedia since my perception of what a knowledge place should be is far distant from what I can understand reading discussions here and there (and looking at which pages get deleted and which aren't). But in that list of programming languages there are a lot of languages which have nothing more than SNUSP, so why kill SNUSP and not those?! More over, many persons take wikipedia as source, and they won't find wikis like esolangs; i would like SNUSP page back!... RC is clearer about purposes... see you there! --Ittakezou0 (talk) 15:44, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia has a short FAQ about reusing its material elsewhere: Wikipedia:Copyright_FAQ#Can_I_reuse_Wikipedia.27s_content_somewhere_else.3F, and a full policy: Wikipedia:Reusing_Wikipedia_content. However, the point is that all submissions to Wikipedia (this talk page message, for example) are licenced under the GNU Free Documentation Licence by default, which is a copyleft licence (meaning approximately that all derivative works must be licensed under the same licence). Esolang uses a public domain licence; this means that any contributions to Esolang can be used by anyone for any purpose (including for a purpose disallowed by the GFDL, such as inclusion into closed-source software). As such, GFDL-licenced text is not allowed on Esolang.

If you wish to use Wikipedia content on Esolang, you must get permission to multi-licence the work into the public domain from each author of the article (which can be checked in the page history). If you use an old version of the article, you only need permission from authors who edited that version and prior versions (so if you make an article yourself and then someone tags it for AfD, you can copy the last version you made if you have permission from yourself (likely, but you must make such permission clear to Esolang, for instance on a talk page)). You can give permission for all your contributions at once by placing {{userpd}} on your userpage, but I suggest you read that template first as releasing contributions to the public domain can't be revoked. --ais523 09:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification! The strategy I'm taking is to ask page originators to contribute original material to the Esolangs article. I'm concerned less with the article text than with the snippets of sample code. One question: if I determine that portions of these wikipedia articles come verbatim from some other copyrighted source, that it must be deleted from wikipedia or rewritten? --IanOsgood 14:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you discover that a Wikipedia article is a verbatim copy of an external source, check it for copyright notices; if there are no copyright notices, it must be removed. However, many esolang programmers are aware of copyright and will give some help in a copyright notice; on Wikipedia, public-domain text can be used without attribution, CC-by text can be used if attributed in the edit summary and edited at all (I think, but I'm not sure on this), and GFDL text can be used if you copy the edit history to the talk page. You have to be very careful about rewriting copyvio; it's best to remove it first and then rewrite it in your own words from memory, to make sure that there isn't any accidental copyright violation. If you could point me to an example, I'll be happy to check individual cases. --ais523 14:16, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello! I see from the world's biggest AfD you're another kind soul who wants to work on merging all the Esoteric programming languages articles down into either their parent language, or the List of esoteric programming languages. I'm looking to start work on this, mainly with respect to redesigning the List of esoteric programming languages article. Currently it is a rather raw list, with little additional information about the entries. Ironically, the table in the aforementioned AfD is in a better state! So I'm proposing that the esolang list be reformated to be in a similar style to that table, detailing the language name, languages it's based on, link to websites, references, and other notes (eg, author). You game with this? I'd better get learning how to do tables in mediawiki! LinaMishima 17:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I recommend linking out to the Esolangs wiki article for each language, and also note that new esolang articles should go there rather than on wikipedia. IMO, author, websites and refs can live on the Esolangs wiki. I'm not sure that leaves much of a table. (The Esolangs wiki has their own list.) --IanOsgood 18:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Following that line of reasoning, to be honest, there's no point in the list if it's only going to be links out to an external website. I see no compelling reason to require that an external website be visited for basic information on these languages (ie, enough for a brief overview of the concept, as a good stub requires), nor is it policy to require as such (especially since we cannot guarentee the contents of the website) Indeed, references have to be present within any such list, thanks to WP:VERIFY. Given that the esolang wiki seems to be fairly supported, however, it probably should be linked accross to and probably will have more information than we can provide. Authors themselves I would not personally include, except as additional notes for those with particularly notable authors. Most significant languages become a group development, anyhow. LinaMishima 21:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When editing an article on Wikipedia there is a small field labeled "Edit summary" under the main edit-box. It looks like this:

The text written here will appear on the Recent changes page, in the page revision history, on the diff page, and in the watchlists of users who are watching that article. See m:Help:Edit summary for full information on this feature.

Filling in the edit summary field greatly helps your fellow contributors in understanding what you changed, so please always fill in the edit summary field, especially for big edits or when you are making subtle but important changes, like changing dates or numbers. Thank you. BlueValour 02:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Noting Wikipedia's redirect policy for future reference. I will no longer:

• try to delete misspelled redirects
• replace redirects with links to the direct article

--IanOsgood 16:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for writing that down, and for the link. I've done the last point many times. I will not do that again either. Johan G (talk) 20:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ian, nice to see you on here. — Hex (❝?!❞) 00:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! It has been more civilized here than on C2 recently. (BTW, it was me who added the trivia to the Nutty Buddy page.) --IanOsgood 00:17, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, nice picture of RCW 86. But I think it might be even better to use the version without the zoomed-in part on the side, because the zoom just looks confusing when the picture gets shrunk to 250 pixels. (The version without the zoom is linked from this page: More Images of RCW 86.) -- 128.227.82.149 04:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I read your Monad (symbol) article, and I wondered, this is a symbol among whom? Corvus cornix 19:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Still in the process of filling it in, but it is one of the Pythagorean symbols. --IanOsgood 19:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, ok, thanks. Corvus cornix 19:46, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent job writing the bughouse support for FICS :). I have nominated the article for A-class. Could you have a look at it and comment on Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Review? Best wishes, Voorlandt 08:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I noticed you undid my replacement of an external link to the KGS website with an internal link to the Wikipedia article on KGS. I would really urge you to reconsider. First, standard practice on Wikipedia is to favor internal links to the article about a site rather than the site itself. For example Web_portal links to MSN not to MSN. Second, the large number of links on that page to KGS raises potential SPAM issues. Anyway, I thought I would raise my concerns here first, rather than just blindly reverting. --Selket ^Talk 16:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That isn't a link to KGS. It is a link to a page external to KGS about the computer tournaments which happen to take place on KGS. Replacing the link with an internal link would lose information. If you really find this confusing, perhaps rename the link instead, or change the link to a footnote. --IanOsgood 18:43, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for merging the two Eco-marathon articles ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by LPFixIt (talk • contribs) 02:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! --IanOsgood 01:53, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the pointers on UNIX, I didn't realize The Open Group was enforcing the copyright - in fact, I thought that when Bell Labs didn't defend the term and Berkeley created their flavor of UNIX, that later on a court decided that UNIX no longer had protection? I'll read up on the handy link you left. I just get irked seeing Unix because I have a first ed. Kernighan/Pike The UNIX Programming Environment book and they were clear from the get-go that it was UNIX, not Unix, and as we both know, UNIX is case-sensitive.  ;) So I'm surprised that The Open Group is claiming copyright, esp. since Novell did lose all the trademarks for UNIX and Linux even though they won all the "stolen code" cases.

So, Portlander too, huh? What's TOVA do? I'll try to look you up - I'm contracting short-term jobs right now but looking for a long-term job. Cool to see someone into esoteric languages, I used CLU and did my Masters thesis project in ML, which has no variables. Will check out those links too. I haven't programmed Forth since college but cool to see it's still alive, but I do also agree with you that almost all programming languages really are just college/grad school projects and/or vanity projects, not real languages meant to be used to solve real world problems. That's why I like Java and what I've read about (since I have used) C#. Cheers, Wink

P.S. Your Forth example dies because it's not one of the languages supported by the "source" tag, so you might want to switch to the "code" tag for it, because it just shows up on your talk page as an error.

WinkJunior 19:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome, and thank you for cleaning up after me. I wasn't sure whether "$100 dollar laptop" should go to the XO-1 or to the OLPC org. For now it makes sense to point them to the laptop. The other thing I was unsure about was the inter-language links. I removed all the language links that were titled "XO-1" or something to that effect, but some of them I couldn't tell which article they are equivalent to (they might even be equivalent to both) so I left most of them in. --TexasDex 23:13, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

would you mind precising what the copyright is on the picture and maybe remove the missing info tag. Thanks in advance. Poppy 06:10, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Barnard's Star image is Public Domain by the author (confirmed by email and on source web page). I am waiting for User:Maxim to undelete the images so I can correct the copyrights. --IanOsgood 07:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could you provide justification for your assertion that the Aptera isn't really a microcar?

FTA:

A microcar is an extremely small automobile. Various definitions are used, including "less than 3 metres in length" and "less than 85 cubic feet/2400 litres interior volume". Typically, microcars seat only the driver and a single passenger, and many have only three wheels. Microcars are usually designed and produced for economic purposes when materials and heavy equipment are scarce or fuel is scarce and expensive.

Seems like Aptera applies, and defining it as a microcar certainly doesn't preclude it having three wheels. Additionally, three-wheeled doesn't really describe the class of the vehicle. How about settling on "Three wheeled Microcar"? EdgeOfEpsilon (talk) 17:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I restored the mention of the Neo Bubonic Bassoon Quartet to Bassoon, even if only because that unbelievable but true group name has many mentions. I don't know if you'd want to take issue with the statement "one of the more notable groups.", but then I wouldn't dare to guess how many notable bassoon quartet groups there are... Now if you'd added an edit summary that indicated why you deleted the mention, I'd know in what direction to go, uh, none barred.... :-) Shenme (talk) 04:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this deserves a mention for several reasons:

1. No bassoon quartet gets enough publicity to be notable, and I doubt any particular one is substantially more popular than any other.
2. That reference is a red link. Removing it improves the quality of the article.
3. I have a direct counter-example from Google: 197 results for "Neo Bubonic" versus 5,630 results for "Caliban Quartet". And that is only the first bassoon quartet that sprung to mind.

Hope that is a better explanation. (My dad goes to double-reed conventions). --IanOsgood (talk) 05:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely a good explanation, and I wouldn't know how to fit all that into a tiny comment, but maybe "not as notable as others" or some such. An edit comment relieves the anxious and reassures the critical? (I'm the anxious one :-) Shenme (talk) 03:13, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for fixing the technical information area on Loremo. I've been putting some effort into shaping that article up. I noticed that you're up to speed on astronomy topics. I saw a taped presentation by Andrea Ghez from UCLA. She's been looking at Saggitarius A closely for some time and the details are astounding. So, just saying thanks. E_dog95' ^{Hi '} 07:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

With respect to processor names, I have made further comments on my talk page including a link to a proposal to handle redirects. I think you may be interested. Lightmouse (talk) 13:56, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that you have added information about v4641 Sgr being the closest Black hole candidate to several articles. You cite the original press coverage of 1999 as a source. You might however be interested to know that to original estimates were of by an order of magnitude. Later estimates for example [1] put the object at about 10 kpc that is much further than for example Cygnus X-1. I have removed the information from the black hole page. I don't know where else you have posted this, but could you help clean it up? Thanks. (TimothyRias (talk) 16:06, 8 December 2008 (UTC))[reply]

I really am sympathetic to your <moan>; one of wikipedia's endemic problems is the gradual degeneration of the best articles unless they're watched over. That's compounded in the case of GAs listed before August 2007 not being assessed against the present GA criteria, hence the effort to check all of the older GAs, to see if they really do meet the criteria. Or indeed were ever even reviewed at all.

It's a PITA for everyone, but it's got to be done if GA is to be a credible achievement. I hope you understand. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since this flight does not reach the Kármán line, it is not classified as a spaceflight and therefore does not meet the standards for inclusion on this list per well-established consensus as well as the hidden note at the top of the listing and the discussion on the talk page. Please do not add it again without prior discussion. -MBK₀₀₄ 21:36, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not replace Wikipedia pages with blank content, as you did to Sh2-271. Blank pages are harmful to Wikipedia because they have a tendency to confuse readers. If it is a duplicate article, please redirect it to an appropriate existing page. If the page has been vandalised, please revert it to the last legitimate version. If you feel that the content of a page is inappropriate, please edit the page and replace it with appropriate content. If you believe there is no hope for the page, please see the deletion policy for how to proceed. --Allen3 ^talk 18:59, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You've added <ref>An image of the [http://www.kensalgreen.co.uk/documents/KG_restoration.html new headstone] is at the bottom of the page.</ref> as a basic URL. Please upgrade it as a full cite. You may find refTools (in my User:Philcha#Tools) an easy way to do it, and it also shows all the information required by a citation for a Web page. --Philcha (talk) 18:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I am currently taking the advice of an editor who deleted my article because I have a conflict of interest with the Company I think is notable. It is Client Services Collections - please let me know if you are willing to do a writeup on them. Thank you

Hi! Thanks for the update about Blue Origin's spacecraft... I want to get information updated about the CCDEV craft (especially the Blue Origin New Shepard and whatever else Blue Origin is making - the info is terribly out of date) and the Lockheed Martin Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle ... can you please help? (I also want to get information updated about the commercial space stations, as well as Russia, India, China, Japan, Europe and Iran's space programs). Radical Mallard (talk) 13:21, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Aptera 2 Series is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aptera 2 Series until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:54, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I noticed you added some details about the Soviet plasma thrusters on Zond-2. Where did you read that they used argon and helium? Thanks. DonPMitchell (talk) 02:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was a procedural merge from a duplicate article, which also didn't have a source. (Feel free to move this question to Talk:Pulsed_plasma_thruster.) --IanOsgood (talk) 04:25, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello IanOsgood,

I'm part of a team that is researching ways to help Wikipedia editors find interesting content to contribute to Wikipedia. More specifically, we are investigating whether content from news sources can be used to enhance Wikipedia editing. We have created a tool, called wikiFeed, that allows you to specify Twitter and/or RSS feeds from news sources that are interesting to you. wikiFeed then helps you make connections between those feeds and Wikipedia articles. We believe that using this tool may be a lot of fun, and may help you come up with some ideas on how to contribute to Wikipedia in ways that interest you. Please participate! To do so, complete this survey and follow this link to our website. Once you're there, click the "create an account" link to get started.

For more information about wikiFeed, visit our project page. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask via my talk page, or by email at wikifeedcc@gmail.com. We appreciate your time and hope you enjoy playing with wikiFeed!

Thanks! WorldsApart (talk) 21:12, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you - I'm glad you appreciated the entertainment! Best wishes, Bencherlite^Talk 23:35, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Following the completion of a previous BRD on Talk:Lynx (spacecraft) (link to previous discussion here), where User:Skyring (aka "Pete") was unable to gain a consensus on changing the lede sentence descriptive noun in the Lynx (spacecraft) article from "spaceplane" to "concept" (originally changed by Skyring/Pete on 12 Oct), Skyring/Pete has again made a Bold edit and changed the descriptive noun in the lede sentence, this time from "spaceplane" to "program."

I have opened a WP:BRD discussion on this second change. Would appreciate it if you would consider weighing in. The Link to the BRD discussion is here. Thanks for your consideration. N2e (talk) 01:45, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(full disclosure: I'm placing this notice on each user's Talk page who has been active on Talk:Lynx (spacecraft) in the past six months)

Thank you very much Ian for your helpful involvement in the recent disruption over at Lynx (spacecraft). I have just closed the third of three BRDs on that Talk page (the more complicated one, in which a number of primary sources had been deleted). On each one of those three BRDs, no consensus emerged to support the original edits. Your part in the wikidiscussion is very much appreciated.

Since the comments on the use of primary sources were spread all over that Talk page, I have endeavored to summarize the consensus that emerged in a section on that Talk page: Talk:Lynx_(spacecraft)#Use_of_Primary_sources. If you might be willing to review that summary, and comment on whether it got the consensus right, I would very much appreciate it. I will of course quite look forward to fixing it if I got anything wrong. Cheers. N2e (talk) 12:46, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi IanOsgood,

I found your page User:IanOsgood/List_of_astronomical_objects_by_angular_size fascinating.

I regularly contribute illustrations to Wikimedia and thought of creating a log-log plot of distance from Earth to assorted astronomical objects vs their largest diameter as seen from Earth, with diagonal lines showing their angular diameter.

As I'm in the process of picking representative astronomical objects that may be of interest to students and laypeople, I wondered if you'd be interested to suggest a few? Some I have in mind are

• The Moon
• The Sun
• The planets
• Andromeda Galaxy
• Large and Small Magellanic Clouds
• A few stars of exceptionally angular size
• A few clusters (undecided)
• A few nebulae (undecided)
• and the ISS for comparison

Please let me know if you've any thoughts on this. Thanks! cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 20:28, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:04, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Hello, IanOsgood. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Tova. Since you had some involvement with the Tova redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Geolodus (talk) 06:35, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:07, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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