User talk:ClemRutter

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Reclining-Declining Sundials

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Dear ClemRutter,

Sorry for the many edits and re-edits to the Reclining-Declining Sundials paragraph.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundial#Reclining-declining_dials

But I think that I've now got the right formulas now for the gnomon angles at last. Where do I get them ? I derived them - not by any fancy means like rotation matrices or quaternions; but rather through good old-fashioned 3-D Euclidean geometry. By this I mean that I constructed physical models of the reclining-declining dial geometry using cardboard sheets for planes and strips of wire for optical paths and pertinent geometry lines/angles. I chose to do it this way as :

1) The results are far more concrete and convincing when this method is employed. This is particularly true in the reclining-declining dial case as there are many different formulas published for its hour angle and its gnomon angles.

2) The people who build these dials will generally come from a trades background. This means that they would generally have begun apprenticeships at 16 - 17 and their math level will be up to UK GCSE/O-level or French Brevet standard -- i.e. Euclidean geometry, basic trigonometry and basic algebra. My method is followable by people at this standard.

In due course I plan to submit a paper on this method - as well as the relevant diagrams (using Google SketchUp) for the vital geometrical relationships - to the North American Sundial Society.

The orientation switch integer for generalizing the hour angle formula over all dial declinations is the only 'novelty' added to the existing nomenclature. I find it handy when programming.

If you have any points to make on the actual formulas presented in Wiki by me or want to offer alternatives for discussion, please feel free.

Tamjk (talk) 10:52, 10 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am enjoying the links personally but having difficulty in seeing how all this can be justified under WP:NOR. I would be inclined to keep the published sources (right or wrong) and include the improvements (unpublished corrections wrapped in a {{efn}} template that links to the {{notelist}} footnote. Rest assured I accept your maths as being superior.
What I was about to do was to change all the notation which I got from Waugh, Mayall & Mayall to the agreed symbols used by and recommended by the BSS- but that is also on hold while I sort out a useable python library.
It is interesting that fr:Cadran incliné-déclinant doesnt exist but all other types fr:Cadran déclinant have separate page- I haven't analysed which notation convention they are using- but I suspect that even there they are excluded most readers by using Greek letters which are not taught at brévet/ GCSE level.
Many thoughts - much to do -- Clem Rutter (talk) 11:34, 10 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's no original research here. Simply the same results via a more traditional and more workmanlike method. The hour angle formula is the same (bar using reclination angle instead of inclination) as those presented by Snyder and others :

http://dls-website.com/documents/SundialDesignConsiderations.pdf

The gnomon angle formulas are the same as those presented in the BSS Formulae webpage, at least the dial-plate angle (the "style height" in BSS parlance) once you allow for their defining inclination w.r.t. the rear horizontal rather than the front (i.e. sun side) horizontal.

http://www.sundialsoc.org.uk/Glossary/equations/equations-new.php

Unfortunately they have the substyle-noon angle wrong - but so did all of us originally.

Tamjk (talk) 16:10, 10 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I've now completed changing the Greek nomenclature to Roman. Tamjk (talk) 14:05, 18 April 2014 (UTC)mmm[reply]

Hi Mr Rutter. It seems that I owe you an apology for having given you so much grief by way of other posters rejecting my hour-angle formulae ! But I shall make no apology at all for the hour-angle formulae themselves. I am confident that they are correct since I derived them two ways - and moreover since they square with those of Snyder [ref. above], allowing for his nomenclature definition. The gnomon-plate and the substyle-noon angles are also consistent with those quoted in some other sources. LIkewise with the critical angle expression for the reclined-declined dial. I'd intended putting out a paper detailing my derivations but other obligations intervened. Hopefully this summer.

May God give you strength in your thankless task here.

Tamjk (talk) 18:27, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To December 2015

City of Adelaide (1864)

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As you are a previous editor of City of Adelaide (1864), you may be interested in the Style Proposal on Talk:City of Adelaide (1864)
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:11, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 9

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The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 9, November-December 2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • New donations, including real-paper-and-everything books, e-books, science journal databases, and more
  • New TWL coordinators, conference news, a new open-access journal database, summary of library-related WMF grants, and more
  • Spotlight: "Global Impact: The Wikipedia Library and Persian Wikipedia" - a Persian Wikipedia editor talks about their experiences with database access in Iran, writing on the Persian project and the JSTOR partnership

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Corliss steam engine

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Hello ClemRutter, please look at the Discussion page of Corliss steam engine ... Maybe we can find a solution to the images. --Metilsteiner (talk) 19:24, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Well met

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It was good to meet you at the London meetup today. The article I mentioned, which uses one of your photos, is wrap reel. I am generally interested in textile topics so will look out for you in this area now. Andrew D. (talk) 22:19, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Watts Charities

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Clem. I've corrected a minor typo (which was nothing to do with the work you're doing). I have also changed the nested sfn to an efn for the note with an sfn for the citation. I think it makes more sense, but if you disagree you know where the revert mechanism is. I'm guessing you're still working on this, so I'll leave the cite error alone for a while. Thanks and regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 23:26, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I was just doing some of the donkey work then going to message you to ask your opinion- I stop now and let you have a go with the hard ones. I was on the page due to a comment at the London Meetup that there were no articles on Workhouses.(not true but nearly so). All Saints Hospital was the former Chatham Workhouse and in chasing Strood Workhouse on Gun Lane- I found Richard Watts Charities. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 23:42, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not a problem, I just didn't want to interfere unduly with your constructive work. The article is one I worked on quite a time ago, 2013 was only when it split from Richard Watts. That was only a stub back in 2011 when I started on it, but I inherited the citations. I agree they could do with a refresh - this seems like a discussion & consensus so with your help I'll be WP:BOLD! :-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:44, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Martin of Sheffield (talk) 23:06, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Mass-produced museums

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Hallo Clem, I've found a batch of your museum stubs filing under "X" in Category:Stubs - don't forget to fix the DEFAULTSORT, rather than leave it at the default XXXXX of your pattern. All the best, PamD 23:54, 22 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

yes, I just do it to get noticed. Oops you are not supposed to use humour! Nice to hear from you. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 00:06, 23 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Manchester Grammar School

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I am new to Wikipedia editing and seek assistance from someone more experienced to help guide me in improving the article about Manchester Grammar School. You have kindly made a large number of superb edits on the Manchester Grammar School article I wondered if you might be able to help me. As Head of Computing at this school I have a vast amount of 'original research' knowledge and wish to learn how to translate this into 'allowed content' bearing in mind the strict NOR and COI guidelines. In particular there are many sections in the article that require citations, and some existing citations that no longer work as the main school website has been changed recently and now has much reduced content. Also there is little currently published online about the school that relates to much of the existing content. The main school website at www.mgs.org is not something under my control, but I am the webmaster of the official school Virtual Learning Environment at www.mgscentral.org and therefore could place accurate content about the school on that site that could be cited on Wikipedia. I believe that under existing Wikipedia COI rules this may be deemed OK, but it is an area about which I have failed to find clear guidance on Wikipedia. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.Serendipityrules (talk) 12:26, 27 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'll reply on your talk page.-- Clem Rutter (talk) 00:14, 28 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Just wanted to say thank you so much for your swift, considered and detailed response to my request. Outstanding.Serendipityrules (talk) 12:34, 28 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The tone of that article is all wrong, it is too long and reads like a prospectus. There is much dead wood to chop out, I cut off a little bit. J3Mrs (talk) 17:58, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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WikiProject assessment tags for talk pages

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Thank you for your recent articles, including Tyskie brewing museum, which I read with interest. When you create a new article, can you add the WikiProject assessment templates to the talk of that article? See the talk page of the article I mentioned for an example of what I mean. Usually it is very simple, you just add something like {{WikiProject Keyword}} to the article's talk, with keyword replaced by the associated WikiProject (ex. if it's a biography article, you would use WikiProject Biography; if it's a United States article, you would use WikiProject United States, and so on). You do not have to rate the article if you do not want to, others will do it eventually. Those templates are very useful, as they bring the articles to a WikiProject attention, and allow them to start tracking the articles through Wikipedia:Article alerts and other tools. For example, WikiProject Poland relies on such templates to generate listings such as Article Alerts, Popular Pages, Quality and Importance Matrix and the Cleanup Listing. Thanks to them, WikiProject members are more easily able to defend your work from deletion, or simply help try to improve it further. Feel free to ask me any questions if you'd like more information about using those talk page templates. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 17:26, 2 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor News 2015—#1

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Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins.

Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.

Recent improvements

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The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action:

  • starts a new task, like opening the ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽ dialog:  blue ,
  • takes a constructive action, like inserting a citation:  green ,
  • might remove or lose your work, like removing a link:  red , or
  • is neutral, like opening a link in a new browser window:  gray.

The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design (T67815) based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor (T73746). This change fixed a couple of existing bugs (T73077 and T73078) and improved usability.

Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once (T78234).

Editors at the Hebrew and Russian Wikipedias requested the ability to use VisualEditor in the "Article Incubator" or drafts namespace (T86688, T87027). If your community would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace on your wiki, then you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.

Looking ahead

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The Editing team will soon add auto-fill features for citations. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to contribute to the Citoid service's definitions for each website, to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections.

We will need editors to help test the new design of the special character inserter, especially if you speak Welsh, Breton, or another language that uses diacritics or special characters extensively. The new version should be available for testing next week. Please contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF) if you would like to be notified when the new version is available. After the special character tool is completed, VisualEditor will be deployed to all users at Phase 5 Wikipedias. This will affect about 50 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. The date for this change has not been determined.

Let's work together

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Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Translations are available through Meta. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Private schools

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Thanks for your reply re. this topic. I think the point we must never forget about British private schools is that although they are charities (nominally at least - but that's another matter!), they are also businesses. Therefore, they go out of their way to promote themselves. Usually they do this in several ways - not all of which are suitable for Wikipedia.

I haven't tagged all the private school articles I've looked at recently as I think some of them are alright. But it is notable that many of the state school articles (although too thin), show a completely different emphasis in their content.

I have no problem with the schools being on Wikipedia:

  • As historical institutions. Many of them are old, and so of interest for that reason alone. I suppose architecture is a related subject.
  • As far as alumni go, most of these schools are interested in churning out high earners in the professions. This gets reflected in many of those listed as former pupils. (A quick scout around often reveals that School X has interesting alumni who are notable in other fields, esp. the arts, but who aren't useful for advertising.)
  • Some schools such as Stowe have features (grounds, buildings) which predate the school; others such as Dulwich have art collections, sculptures etc - all of these are non-academic points of interest more modern state schools tend to lack.

However, not sure what to do about the pushing of exam pass rates. As far as I'm concerned, private education uses a number of tricks to help raise these figures - scholarships being the most obvious. Third party references are better, but even then I'm sceptical.

Other traits I see in these articles, which come up again and again, are computing/science facilities (good, but how do they compare to elsewhere?), foreign pupils (Asians etc have been coming to British private schools since 19th century. Nothing new, or interesting), CCF (child soldier-y, again I think of limited interest to outsiders) and so on.-MacRùsgail (talk) 15:18, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't agree more and said something similar up the page, they are often too long and read like a school prospectus. What's encyclopedic about after school clubs, etc? J3Mrs (talk) 19:21, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is exactly it. We're not here to provide the schools with potential paying pupils, we're here to talk about points of interest about the school, which concern readers who want to research history etc.-MacRùsgail (talk) 14:58, 6 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In agreement too. There are many sections that are toxic- but unfortunately informative. Can we roll back to the Talk:Manchester Grammar School page, where we have a new editor User talk:Serendipityrules willing to take on the task of adding verifiable facts- but wanted advice on what WP policy was on conflict of interest. After fighting the spaghetti on the CofI pages I passed on advice on the way staff members should announce them selves, which he has followed. Coming from a local government background I am familiar with the declarations of substantive/non substantive- financial/nonfinancial that councillors make. WP is far slacker.

The second interesting question is what makes a satisfactory secondary source. The line I take is that anything published in a pupils day book is a secondary source, while anything published in the staff handbook maybe. In the staff handbook, the bullying policy will be signed and dated as a text agreed and published in the governors minutes of xx-blah-blah. In a state school that is a public primary source- but I can say whether academies or private schools keep these as private document. Clarification needed- I suspect it case by case.But since I used these documents- everything has gone on line, and I haven't been able to work out whether open pages on the school intranet( different from its fundraising website) have the same status as the pupils day book. Or further what we do about the closed pages which are password protected. These pages are now just about the only thing visible about a school- save the sponsored press release.

Take for example: the ficticious Blagdon Messenger- owned by Lord Retarded, who prints good articles about Blagdon Independent School, take a look at the Governors, and see three generations of Retardeds have been chair- and the currrent Head once shared a cell with Lord Retarded half-brother when they were at Eton or Broadmoor.

School histories by a sychophantic old boy?

See WP:WPSCHOOLS/AG it does suggest what should be included but does not address the question of social class bias. Indeed I haven't ever read through it completely - I get so annoyed at the class bias in the analysis. That is another story- but is it the elephant in the room.

I go back to some useless sections- because of the nature of British Society- the chair of all major sports federations will be one of the the Eton elite. Look at the Olympic Sports-- you sure as hell are not going to succeed unless you have been coached in these after school clubs at one of these bastions of privilege. WP seems to go overboard on sporting achievement-- and music and drama, all disproportionately represented by the elite.

We need to have clear GAs for guidance- I suggested we look at Norwich School (independent school) and User:Kudpung suggested looking at Hanley Castle Grammar School (no longer independent) and Malvern College.

While I will help, as I have in the past, I am not dedicating my WPself to the cause. I do keep my offWP life separate. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 23:42, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On my watchlist The King's School, Chester- where does one start?
AFAICS there's nothing much wrong with The King's School, Chester. Articles about schools that provide mainstream education to Grade 12 or 6th form are all perfectly acceptable whatever state they are in, but they should of course be cleaned up for neutrality (in this case schools on the Indian sub continent are the worst offenders, but that is more of an issue of the traditional use of flowery English in that region, as Western native English speakers who has lived and worked there will know). At least British schools articles do talk about what they teach - the vast majority of US school articls do nothing other than promote their sports results. As coordinator of for many years of WP:WPSCH, I beg users to turn their talents to improving really poor articles about schools rather than looking for reasons to poke holes in articles that are actually quite good, but just happen to be fee paying schools. Many school articles are a mess because they are written in good faith by the pupils, which does not necessarily mean thet they are conciously abusing our COI guidelines. One UK independent school that does need a constant watchful eye is Nottingham High School. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:59, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Be positive! Good faith IP school pupils (KS4/KS5) or in exceptional circumstance (KS3) are our bread and butter editors in 2025-30. Catch them young, have them contributing while they are writing obscure dissertations as undergrads. Have them patrolling our references- it will do their Uni marks a world of good. I would love to have one correcting my spelling and grammar.
The expectations we have for UK schools is far higher than the puff pieces we expect from over the Atlantic. Working to those higher standards, the evidence shows:
  1. State schools are underrepresented- and they are the most important ones to get right.
  2. There are a plethora of school types that have been created as the 1944 compromise has been unravelled
  3. Private school articles, by their emphasis on flashy facilitys are playing a game with us- there is no reliable information.
  4. Need to get the infobox right- for the sake of wikidata.
  5. We have two new editors willing to help.
I address the problem of what our readers may want (well its a starting point). If you are a head teacher (chair of governors), you need to see how other schools are coping- the classic example is IGCSE and BTec no longer counting in the Ofsted League Tables. If you are a WP writing/reading parent you need to know what languages are taught at KS5- as this affects your choice at eleven and the feeder primary school you select at four- and ultimately where you buy a house. If you are councillor you need feedback on how you have applied the Cameron's savage cuts. Wikipedia is the Portal to all knowledge.
How do we handle this better? Do we write a series of essays on how to write an article:
  • How to write the perfect Wikipedia article on a fee-paying public school:plaudits and pitfalls- a guide for governors, teachers students and interested Wikipedians.
  • How to write the perfect Wikipedia article on a fee-paying private school:plaudits and pitfalls- a guide for governors, teachers students and interested Wikipedians.
  • How to write the perfect Wikipedia article on a fee-paying former HMC school:plaudits and pitfalls- a guide for governors, teachers students and interested Wikipedians.
  • How to write the perfect Wikipedia article on a state comprehensive school under local authority support:plaudits and pitfalls- a guide for governors, teachers students and interested Wikipedians.
  • How to write the perfect Wikipedia article on a state comprehensive school with Academy status:plaudits and pitfalls- a guide for governors, teachers students and interested Wikipedians.
  • How to write the perfect Wikipedia article on a selective state school with Academy status:plaudits and pitfalls- a guide for governors, teachers, students and interested Wikipedians.
  • How to write the perfect Wikipedia article on a Cameron freeschool:plaudits and pitfalls- a guide for governors, teachers, students and interested Wikipedians.
These essays must be task focused and have all the relevant details transcluded onto one page- wikilinking does not work if the document is going to be printed off to be discussed at a committee. I see this as a possible.
We have a backlog of embarrassing articles- but they are all over the place. When I am in a grizzly mood I don't mind pulling an article back together, if I could select one from a convenient list. A monthly mailing of all schools/ or schools for concern listed under subheadings as Public/Private/HMC/State/Academy/CameronFree/ with a link to the relevant essay- may be a possible idea.
Now for fantasy land- as a former chair of governors (three weeks) I would be mortified to find my schools WP was not perfect. Email a RfC to each known Chair of Governors (via the LEA). Attach an essay on -How to write the perfect Wikipedia article, and ask them to agenda it. We need to have enough resources to cope with the avalanche of requests for training and Wikipedians in Residence- and the number of new editors. Be positive - and delegate. Put together the tools- a easy CoI I template, a I would expect to see template for the talkpage...
On the problems on the subcontinent we can take the same approach- when we have a working model for the UK (or vice versa).
On the tricky problem of School intranets v school websites- do you have any thoughts?-- Clem Rutter (talk) 10:43, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The one thing with a lot of state schools is that they tend to be newer, so less history, and the buildings are invariably less interesting. However, I do notice that unlike the private school articles, state school articles are pretty poor about listing alumni. I've tried to rectify this in some cases, but the simple fact is that there are so many state schools!
Regarding private school alumni, I get bored of seeing long lists of undistinguished judges and diplomats. They probably belong on either dedicated alumni lists (which I support in most cases) or in the categories. Digging around, you find out that many of these people are doing what their parents did... not much of an achievement. I'm more interested in ground-breaking novelists and painters, but they obviously don't sell a school so well! (They're often poor earners, and had colourful lives. Which interests me, but not someone trying to flog school places.)
As you've probably noticed, there's a lot of work to be done on this score. I think this needs a page of its own. -MacRùsgail (talk) 14:58, 6 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your demonstration Bifilar sundial for lat 51.5

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First, let me answer what you asked about the meridian:

Yes, the French article, if it said that string F1 lines on the meridian, must have meant "meridian-plane". String F1 lies on the meridian-plane. Of course it would be clearer just to say that string F1 lies north-south.

I checked the meridian article, and it looked ok.

No doubt you already have this information, but let me send it anyway:

For a Bifilar sundial, for latitude 51.5, with the north-south string 10 centimeters above the dial-face, the east-west string should be 7.826 centimeters above the dial-face.

Point C, where the hour-lines meet, and about which the hour-lines are drawn, at 15-degree intervals, should be 6.275 centimeters behind (north of) where the two strings intersect.

I'm assuming that south is positive for y, in the co-ordinate system.

Michael Ossipoff — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.8.169.50 (talk) 22:10, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll make one Wednesday-- and test it when the sun returns!. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 22:24, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Point C is _south_ of point O. ...by h2/tan(lat). I'd mistakenly told you it was north.

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Clem--

I've just realized that I got the directions backwards:

Point C is h2/tan(lat) _south_ of point O.

The reason why I initially told it to you backwards was because I was confusing the direction of the sun with the direction of the shadow.

Today or tonight, I'll go the Cadran Bifilaire wikipedia page, and change the places where I said the direction wrong.

I clarified the language at Cadran Bifilaire (English) a bit, wording things as they're said in English, fixing a few ambiguities.

That page didn't say the direction for positive X and Y, but it can be determined by the fact that, if C were North of O, that would mean that sometimes the intersection's shadow would be going around C in the wrong direction, anti-clockwise (counter-clockwise, as we say here). So point C must be south of point O.

Sorry about telling it backwards.

Ordinarily I write at the same topic-heading that I already started, but this time it seemed important enough to start a new topic heading, to maximize the chance of this message being noticed.

Michael Ossipoff — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.8.169.50 (talk) 21:31, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The hour-usability disadvantage of the Bifilar Dial (with specifics for lat 51.5, winter solstice)

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Clem--

Of course the Bifilar isn't usable all day. It has that disadvantage in common with the standard flat vertical dial, the polar dial, and the nodus dial, when those dials only use one flat face.

In particular, for latitude 51.5, and with the north-south wire 10 cm above the dial-face:

At the winter solstice, in order to be usable till half an hour before sunset, a Bifilar dial would have to extend nearly 5 feet out from where the wires intersect. Obviously that dial-size isn't feasible.

So the Bifilar (like the abovementioned other dials) has an hours-usability disadvantage.

Michael Ossipoff — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.8.169.50 (talk) 17:43, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Thanks

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Talk:Sundial#Reply_to_Clem.2C_regarding_citations.2C_glossary_violations.2C_construction-manual.2C_etc.; Thanks, a lot of thought and a lot of work! Edmund Patrick confer 10:59, 15 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Co-op: Presentation at Wikimania 2015

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Hey ClemRutter. I've put in a submission for a presentation at Wikimania 2015 called Is Two the Magic Number?: The Co-op and New Editor Engagement through Mentorship. I'll be talking about the state of finding help spaces on en.wiki and how our new mentorship space, The Co-op, factors into that picture. Reviewing will begin soon and I'll need your help to be able to present our work. Please review our proposal and give us feedback. If you would be interested in seeing this presentation, whether you are attending or not, please add your name to the signup at the bottom of the proposal (you do not need to attend Wikimania to express interest in presentations). I, JethroBT drop me a line on behalf of Wikipedia:Co-op.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was send by Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:19, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Co-op: Mentor profiles and final pilot prep

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Hey mentors, two announcements:

  1. You can now make your profile at The Co-op! Please set up your mentor profile here as soon as you are able, as the pilot begins on March 4th. It isn't very involved and should only take a minute. If you need more info about what the different skills mean (e.g. writing, communication), please refer to these descriptions.
  2. Profile creation, invitations, and automated matching of editors, profile creation, that will be coordinated through HostBot and a few gadgets may not be ready for our pilot, and will have to be done manually until they are ready. In preparation for the pilot, please read over these instructions on how we will be manually performing these tasks until the automated components are ready. I, JethroBT drop me a line on behalf of Wikipedia:Co-op.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was send by Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:41, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 10

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The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 10, January-February 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - ProjectMUSE, Dynamed, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and Women Writers Online
  • New TWL coordinator, conference news, and a new guide and template for archivists
  • TWL moves into the new Community Engagement department at the WMF, quarterly review

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:40, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Kent, you added links pointing to the disambiguation pages Metropolitan cathedral and M2 motorway (United Kingdom). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Thanks and a typo

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Thank you for your cross-sectional map of the Wealden Dome. It's a great image; I've spent minutes trying to explain what it instantly shows.
May I point out a minor typo? "Palaeozoic" is miswritten "Palaeolzoic".
Typo fixed. Thanks.-- Clem Rutter (talk) 23:11, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

London 91

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Hi, we met at London 91 yesterday - I've added you to my list of Wikipedians I have met. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:33, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Weaving Industry Videos

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Hi Clem,

I hope you are well. I stumbled across a couple of Burnley area weaving videos that might interest you:

Oh and this Handloom Weaver 1947-48 --Trappedinburnley (talk) 12:23, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have not seen any of them before- yes fascinating- I can think of several articles that will will host them under external links. Crude as they are, they are very complete. My latest effort has been Ellen Hooton, and this has led me to looking for illustrations of a gaited throstle frame and more particularly the Radcliffe Dandy Loom and Dandy loom sheds I can only find 4 images online so I am going to have to resort to paper! But apart from that- I am waiting to be introduced to my second grandchild- he is on his way and has an approximate eta of the 31st of March.-- Clem Rutter (talk) 22:47, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation

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A gummi bear holding a sign that says "Thank you"
Thank you for using VisualEditor and sharing your ideas with the developers.

Hello, ClemRutter,

The Editing team is asking for your help with VisualEditor. I am contacting you because you posted to a feedback page for VisualEditor. Please tell them what they need to change to make VisualEditor work well for you. The team has a list of top-priority problems, but they also want to hear about small problems. These problems may make editing less fun, take too much of your time, or be as annoying as a paper cut. The Editing team wants to hear about and try to fix these small things, too.

You can share your thoughts by clicking this link. You may respond to this quick, simple, anonymous survey in your own language. If you take the survey, then you agree your responses may be used in accordance with these terms. This survey is powered by Qualtrics and their use of your information is governed by their privacy policy.

More information (including a translateable list of the questions) is posted on wiki at mw:VisualEditor/Survey 2015. If you have questions, or prefer to respond on-wiki, then please leave a message on the survey's talk page.

Thank you, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Next meetups in North England

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Hello. Would you be interested in attending one of the next wikimeets in the north of England? They will take place in:

If you can make them, please sign up on the relevant wikimeet page!

If you want to receive future notifications about these wikimeets, then please add your name to the notification list (or remove it if you're already on the list and you don't want to receive future notifications!)

Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:29, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Reclining-Declining section of the Sundial Article

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Clem--

I've added some comments to your comments under the Reclining-Declining heading at the Sundial Talk page.

Briefly, I agree that the forumulas given in that section are unintelligible to the general reader, and amount to a cookbook-recipe construction-instruction, whose justifiction is unknown to the reader, and which therefore isn't helpful to the reader. I also discussed the section's claim that agreement on the rigt way to make a reclining-declining dial was reached only during the last decade.

Should I have, instead, started my own new heading at the bottom, instead of adding to the one that you started?

By adding my comments to your discussion heading, in the middle of the talk-page, have I buried my comments where they won't be found? Are new comments only noticed if they're under a new heading at the bottom of the talk-page?

By the way, is this the best way to communicate, or does the Wikipedia system have a messaging-system that I should be using instead?

--MichaelOssipoff (talk) 16:31, 2 April 2015 (UTC)MichaelOssipoff[reply]

Another question:

Do you have Mayall & Mayall's sundial book? If so, would you post, here (or to the Sundial article's talk page)Mayall & Mayall's Reclining-Declining formulas?

Or, if you prefer, you could post them to _my_ talk-page. But your talk-page, here, is the main place where I'll be looking, because it's probably more convenient for you to post here.

--MichaelOssipoff (talk) 19:47, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Michael Ossipoff[reply]

I am on the road- away from my books for the next two weeks. But to answer the question- yes i had one once- and I think it is on the shelf next to my two copies of Waugh. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 20:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply, and thanks for taking the time to reply when you're traveling on vacation.

No hurry, whenever you have the time, after you return.

The reason why I ask: Specifically, as you probably know, the wikipedia Sundial article (under the Reclining-Declining heading) says that Mayall & Mayall, and Rohr as well, published incorrect Reclining-Declining formulas, and that, in fact, it's only during the last decade that there was agreement on the right way to make a Reclining-Declining sundial.

Those statements should be checked, and deleted if incorrect. (Of course, merely being unsupported is enough reason to not allow them at wikipedi, given that they contradict everything previously published. Notability?!).

I like sundials, and I don't like to be contentious about a subject that like. The Internet has too much contentiousness. But incorrect (or even unsupported) statements that contradict everything previously written have no place at wikipedia.

--MichaelOssipoff (talk) 13:44, 4 April 2015 (UTC)MichaelOssipoff[reply]

VisualEditor News #2—2015

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Did you know?

With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:


Screenshot of Citoid's first dialog


Citoid looks up the source for you and returns the citation results. Click the green "Insert" button to accept its results and add them to the article:


Screenshot of Citoid's initial results


After inserting the citation, you can change it. Select the reference, and click the "Edit" button in the context menu to make changes.


The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.

Recent improvements

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VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.

The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.

Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh.

Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.

The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.

You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance ​on the page.

The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.

Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.

Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead (T90734).

Looking ahead

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The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.

The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon.

Let's work together

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  • Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
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  • File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.

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-Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 17:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Hi there, any chance of cleaning this article up so it can be in WP:OTD on 17 April? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 13:24, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

sundial

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Hi Clem:

You may want to look at the butchery that Michael Ossipoff (?sp) has just done to the Sundial article.

I feel like taking out a contract on that moron.

DOwenWilliams (talk) 22:15, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dave:I did a lot of correspondence on Michaels talk page see this version and I will do, what I said I would do somewhere around [1] which was to have a look at the issue when I am reunited with my books.

I am now back from doing a Wikipedia tutorial session 280 miles from here in Lancaster and doing quite a bit of photography. I have been logging in, and seen the help you have been offering Michael, but it was pointless for me to join in before I have a clear few hours to spend even to read the comments. I will come back some time tomorrow with a few ideas.

It would be great to organise a meet up sometime. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 23:51, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are you 200 miles from Lancaster, in England? I should have been born in Liverpool. but the Germans had put a time-bomb on the roof of the hospital, so my mother did a quick dash to a nursing home in West Kirby, so I was born there. But that was long ago. For the past 40+ years, I've lived here in Canada, so a meet-up would be difficult. Sorry!
I'm going to be busy for the next few days, so I won't be doing much on Wikipedia. I hope, without much confidence, that I will find it wondrously improved when I get back.
Thanks for the thanks.
DOwenWilliams (talk) 02:50, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
About the same time- my father, who had spent 6 years in the peace time RAF, was transferred to Windsor, Ontario to be trained to operate radios, navigation equiptment and fly advanced aircraft- each time being moved on to something more urgent. He missed out on rationing, austerity, bombs and things.
I have two weeks, before I must visit the Lancashire again. At worst, the article will be identical to your last edit- at best it will similar but far less verbose. Keep you posted. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 07:46, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Poor guy!
My father was in the RAF, too. He had just qualified as a doctor when war broke out. He volunteered on the first day, and was assigned as a medic on an air station. He spent the whole war on air stations around the UK, and left the RAF with the rank of Flight Lieutenant. The whole time, he never once flew in a plane. They gave him a gun, because some of his patients were German airmen who had been shot down, but they never gave him any bullets to put in it.
I see Michael has done more damage this morning.
DOwenWilliams (talk) 14:40, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Responses from MichaelOssipoff moved to User talk:MichaelOssipoff to keep the conversation in one place.

Hi Clem: I see you and Michael seem to have reached some sort of truce over the declining-reclining sundial. That's good. What else is new? DOwenWilliams (talk) 18:55, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
On the wikifront I have been over on Commons taking, tagging and uploading 300+ photos bbof the scenery around Lancaster University where I was helping at a Editathon with members of the London Mathematics Society. I think the entry requirement is 2 PhDs- which contrasts with teaching sums to 11 to 16 year olds- and Computer Science to bright but over-confident 17yr olds, who have an unshakeable belief that their POV is the only POV. We have a little lull on the Sundial page- I bought the NASS CD of previous articles and I am awaiting its arrival- it should be fun to read- and we'll never be short of a reference again.
A spin off from Lancaster were these two pages- Help:Referencing for beginners/sandbox and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics/temp You might like to have a look at them- eventually I'd like to replace the current offerings. Then Real-life continues... -- Clem Rutter (talk) 21:19, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Formal mediation has been requested

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The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Article: Sundial. Topic Section: Reclining-Decllining.". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 3 May 2015. 

Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you.
Message delivered by MediationBot (talk) on behalf of the Mediation Committee. 03:55, 26 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have declined:

  1. Disagree. WP:RFM/G#PRIOR Can I point you to the long conversation I have had with Michael on his talk page where I am attempting to keep the discussion contained. Have a look also at the conversations with User:DOwenWilliams on my talk page, and the conversation he has had with Michael in the Talk:Sundial#« Cadran bifilaire », Why ? and much that follows. None of this suggests that every other method has been explored, which is a precondition for this procedure- it does suggest a degree of impatience, and a request from Michael for two editors to enter into a considerable amount of WP:OR. If the Mediation Committee does wish to get involved so early in the process I am sure that DOwenWilliams and myself will be willing to assist in every way- but in my case after the UK General Election when I will be less occupied in RL.-- Clem Rutter (talk) 10:49, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

it is not helpful to split the conversation onto another page. The OR is coming on nicely, the CD has arrived, the address handwritten by Fred Sawyer himself. There are twenty years plus of of copies of Compendium- each one will take a month to read!-- Clem Rutter (talk) 10:49, 26 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

although I am just about aware of the level of work this will generate I agree with you not at this moment accepting mediation. I have only had one contact with this editor ([2].) if I can assist in anyway I will try Edmund Patrick confer 19:02, 26 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very very much sir for respond for this I am highly obliged of you and please always keep leading as your pupil. Sturdyankit (talk) 02:10, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Transfered to editor's talk page

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Now on Michaels talk page. Text --108.132.238.27 (talk) 11:41, 26 April 2015 (UTC)MichaelOssipoff[reply]

Keeping it all in one place Transfered comments by 108.132.238.27 to (MichaelOssipoff's talk page (UTC)MichaelOssipoff

Thank you very much sir, Let's suppose admin decides No consensus then what happen with my article, Also here are some of Students who won scholarship from Bihar State Shia Wakf Board they are Samsha Khatun and Sadam Hussain having serial no 116378 and 116379 according to http://www.technixindia.com/wakfboard/report-phase2-1011-result.php?page=24 in 2010-11 (2nd phase) Can I add this along with my article's content? Sturdyankit (talk) 12:32, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Request for mediation rejected

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The request for formal mediation concerning Article: Sundial. Topic Section: Reclining-Decllining., to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:34, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(Delivered by MediationBot, on behalf of the Mediation Committee.)

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Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Halton-with-Aughton, you added links pointing to the disambiguation pages Coke, Caton and Forges. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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