User talk:TimVickers: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 11:09, 19 January 2008 editWittylama (talk \| contribs)Autopatrolled, Event coordinators, Extended confirmed users, IP block exemptions, New page reviewers, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers12,064 edits →wikipedia weekly interview: see you soon.← Previous edit		Revision as of 23:10, 19 January 2008 edit undoජපස (talk \| contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers60,451 edits →Article on Dr. Samuel Wood needs help.: replyNext edit →
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	If you have expertise, ] needs help. ] (]) 19:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)		If you have expertise, ] needs help. ] (]) 19:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

			==Deleting homeopathy from mainstream articles==

			There is a principle of one-way linking for fringe topics that prevents soapboxing. The idea is that if an idea is notable, we can discuss it in its relevant article. So if a homeopathic remedy is notable, it should be discussed in an article about the homeopathic remedy. However, homeopathy is rarely relevant outside the world of homeopathic medicine: most mainstream sources ignore it when describing plants or chemicals. Therefore, we should not be in the business of advertising homeopathy at those mainstream articles. Undue weight sometimes means no weight at all. ] (]) 23:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Revision as of 23:10, 19 January 2008

Welcome to Tim Vickers's talk page.

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Congratulations on NAD+

Well done on the NAD+ article. There's an FA for you now! Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I know I never got to commenting at FAC... sorry, I owe you a review :) Well done, Dr. FA Machine! Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

YAY! --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC) Sorry for not noticing this sooner.

Introduction to evolution

I'm hoping that you will be able to help out at Introduction to evolution. I know that you worked with Willow and others on Evolution. I believe that these introductory pages are extremely important for Misplaced Pages as the main pages can sometimes be dense for the lay reader (Introduction to general relativity was a lifesaver for me!). I've been working with the editors at IE over the past few months in an on-again, off-again way in a sort of review capacity, but I mostly provide a prose and organization check. I was wondering if you would be willing to provide an outside scientific accuracy check. Awadewit | talk 20:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please do, Tim! I just gave it a cursory review, but I doubt my expertise and wonder whether I was too demanding for an introductory article aimed at high-school students. It's clear that the authors have lavished a lot of care and thought to the article, and made clear strategic choices on the writing and referencing. I think you would bring a better, more balanced and broader perspective than I can. Happy New Year, and hoping your travels went well, Willow (talk) 19:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Best wishes

Dear Tim, I will be working at the hospital over the New Year's celebrations, so may I wish you now all the very best for 2008 and thank you for all your kindness and support. Graham. --GrahamColm 23:17, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Request

Hi Tim, how are you? I hope your holidays have gone well. I just wanted to know if you could take a look at Domestic sheep for me, I've been doing a lot of work on it lately. this section in particular is pretty slim. Many thanks and best wishes, VanTucky 21:10, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Tim, hope your holiday is going well. Also note, I now GA nom'd it. I'd very much welcome your reviewing expertise as well! VanTucky 22:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Happy New Year

Hadn't seen you around my Watchlist in a while; I hope you enjoyed the holiday season. Here's hoping 2008 will bring many more FAs :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Tim!

Just seen the reference by Alun to me from last November; I am interested mainly in the Francis Crick article and helping John Schmidt to improve on it (it's already pretty good) and same for Maurice Wilkins one of these days! Incidentally I am the pround father of a Cambridge son Year 4 doing a Masters NatSci and a Bristolian daughter studying Animal Behaviour and Welfare. You might like to try Seweryn Chomet at KCL for a non-copyright image of REF by the way. Martin P. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.108.7.114 (talk) 20:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

A request for your consideration regarding CAT:AOTR

Hello fellow Misplaced Pages administrators open to recall category member!
I am leaving you this message because recent events have given me concern. When Aaron Brenneman and I, and others, first developed this category well over a year ago, we visualized it as a simple idea. A low hassle, low bureaucracy process. We also visualized it as a process that people would come to trust, in fact as a way of increasing trust in those admins who chose to subscribe to the notion of recall. The very informal approach to who is qualified to recall, what happens during it, and the process in general were all part of that approach. But recent events have suggested that this low structure approach may not be entirely effective. More than one of the recent recalls we have seen have been marred by controversy around what was going to happen, and when. Worse, they were marred by some folk having the perception, rightly or wrongly, that the admin being recalled was trying to change the rules, avoid the process, or in other ways somehow go back on their word. This is bad. It's bad for you the admin, bad for the trust in the process, and bad for the community as a whole. I think a way to address this issue is to increase the predictability of the process in advance. I have tried to do that for myself. In my User:Lar/Accountability page, I have given pretty concrete definitions of the criteria for recall, and of the choices I can make, and of the process for the petition, and of the process for other choices I might make (the modified RfC or the RfAr). I think it would be very helpful if other admins who have voluntarily made themselves subject to recall went to similar detail. It is not necessary to adopt the exact same conditions, steps, criteria, etc. It's just helpful to have SOME. Those are mine, fashion yours as you see fit, I would not be so presumptuous as to say mine are right for you. In fact I urge you not to just adopt mine, as I do change them from time to time without notice, but instead develop your own. You are very welcome to start with mine if you so wish, though. But do something. If you have not already, I urge you to make your process more concrete, now, while there is no pressure and you can think clearly about what you want. Do it now rather than later, during a recall when folk may not react well to perceived changes in process or commitment. Further, I suggest that after you document your process, that you give a reference to it for the benefit of other admins who may want to see what others have done. List it in this table as a resource for the benefit of all. If you use someone else's by reference rather than copy, I suggest you might want to do as Cacharoth did, and give a link to a specific version. Do you have to do these things? Not at all. These are suggestions from me, and me alone, and are entirely up to you to embrace or ignore. I just think that doing this now, thinking now, documenting now, will save you trouble later, if you should for whatever reason happen to be recalled. I apologise if this message seems impersonal, but with over 130 members in the category, leaving a personal message for each of you might not have been feasible, and I feel this is important enough to violate social norms a bit. I hope that's OK. Thanks for your time and consideration, and best wishes. Larry Pieniazek NOTE: You are receiving this message because you are listed in the Misplaced Pages administrators open to recall category. This is a voluntary category, and you should not be in it if you do not want to be. If you did not list yourself, you may want to review the change records to determine who added you, and ask them why they added you.

Hello fellow Misplaced Pages administrators open to recall category member!

I am leaving you this message because recent events have given me concern. When Aaron Brenneman and I, and others, first developed this category well over a year ago, we visualized it as a simple idea. A low hassle, low bureaucracy process. We also visualized it as a process that people would come to trust, in fact as a way of increasing trust in those admins who chose to subscribe to the notion of recall. The very informal approach to who is qualified to recall, what happens during it, and the process in general were all part of that approach.

But recent events have suggested that this low structure approach may not be entirely effective. More than one of the recent recalls we have seen have been marred by controversy around what was going to happen, and when. Worse, they were marred by some folk having the perception, rightly or wrongly, that the admin being recalled was trying to change the rules, avoid the process, or in other ways somehow go back on their word. This is bad. It's bad for you the admin, bad for the trust in the process, and bad for the community as a whole.

I think a way to address this issue is to increase the predictability of the process in advance. I have tried to do that for myself. In my User:Lar/Accountability page, I have given pretty concrete definitions of the criteria for recall, and of the choices I can make, and of the process for the petition, and of the process for other choices I might make (the modified RfC or the RfAr). I think it would be very helpful if other admins who have voluntarily made themselves subject to recall went to similar detail. It is not necessary to adopt the exact same conditions, steps, criteria, etc. It's just helpful to have SOME. Those are mine, fashion yours as you see fit, I would not be so presumptuous as to say mine are right for you. In fact I urge you not to just adopt mine, as I do change them from time to time without notice, but instead develop your own. You are very welcome to start with mine if you so wish, though.

But do something. If you have not already, I urge you to make your process more concrete, now, while there is no pressure and you can think clearly about what you want. Do it now rather than later, during a recall when folk may not react well to perceived changes in process or commitment.

Further, I suggest that after you document your process, that you give a reference to it for the benefit of other admins who may want to see what others have done. List it in this table as a resource for the benefit of all. If you use someone else's by reference rather than copy, I suggest you might want to do as Cacharoth did, and give a link to a specific version.

Do you have to do these things? Not at all. These are suggestions from me, and me alone, and are entirely up to you to embrace or ignore. I just think that doing this now, thinking now, documenting now, will save you trouble later, if you should for whatever reason happen to be recalled.

I apologise if this message seems impersonal, but with over 130 members in the category, leaving a personal message for each of you might not have been feasible, and I feel this is important enough to violate social norms a bit. I hope that's OK. Thanks for your time and consideration, and best wishes.

Larry Pieniazek

NOTE: You are receiving this message because you are listed in the Misplaced Pages administrators open to recall category. This is a voluntary category, and you should not be in it if you do not want to be. If you did not list yourself, you may want to review the change records to determine who added you, and ask them why they added you.

...My guinea pigs and the "A"s through "S"s having felt this message was OK to go forward with (or at least not complained bitterly to me about it :) ), today it's the turn of the "T"s through "Z"s (and beyond, apparently)! I'm hoping that more of you chaps/chapettes will point to their own criteria instead of mine :)... it's flattering but a bit scary! :) Also, you may want to check back to the table periodically, someone later than you in the alphabet may have come up with a nifty new idea. ++Lar: t/c 20:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Orthomolecular psychiatry

Hi Tim,

I was wondering if we could get your friendly admin's eye over on Orthomolecular psychiatry. There's an ongoing disagreement on whether the Current research section is WP:OR/WP:SYNTH or not, and there's a basic disagreement that isn't changing. It's extensively documented on the talk page (now VERY long!); there was a RFC that didn't work (not sure why, could have been my fault and given the quick pace of editing I didn't think it worth re-filing) and lots of typing, but no real movement forward.

Please let me know if you'd like more details, or just pop a new section in on Talk:Orthomolecular psychiatry. We're expecting your comment (in the sense that we've agreed to ask you for an opinion as an admin and long-term editor, not that we rudely insist upon it - think of it more as a 'please come help', but said with these eyes) though we also agree that yours is not necessarily the final word, just one way of trying to work this out.

Discussion has been admirably civil, but lengthy. I suggested you as a potential candidate to ask due to your edits to pyroluria a while back - you would have encountered Alterrabe (sp) on that page as well.

Thanks,

WLU (talk) 16:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Tim,

I inadvertently undid the changes you made to the section on celiac disease and schizophrenia. I don't understand the rational for minimizing the flaws with the studies that found no link, but would be happy to hear your thinking.

And thank you for your additions to the copper discussion.--Alterrabe (talk) 20:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

How would "these rare patients" strike you? "Unusual patients" can sound cruel in the given context.--Alterrabe (talk) 20:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

wikipedia weekly interview

Hi there Tim, I was wondering if you would be interested in coming on Misplaced Pages Weekly podcast to do an interview? I was tipped off by user:WillowW that you might be a really interesting person to talk to. I try to mix up the experiences and backgrounds of interviewees (to show the diversity of people involved in WP) so to have someone from a science background (and from scotland too) would be great.

Some things we could potentially discuss are:

The FA process for science articles ] and ] especially.
ProteinBoxBot and the Rfam database.
the Molecular and Cellular Biology WikiProject and its publicity in the American Chemical Society Chemical Biology.

If you are interested, we record via Skype so you would need that and a headset microphone. Thursday-Sunday are good days for me, as I am in Australia we would have to coordinate timezones...

Please leave me a message on my talkpage. Best, Witty Lama 09:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Great, Well, my username is wittylama on skype. add me there. give me some times that are good for you over the next week and I'll see what matches up. I generally prefer thursday or friday as I don't work then. Best,

Witty Lama 07:38, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Sunday morning (my time) is good. I'm not entirely sure what the time difference between wherever you are and Sydney is - and i'm too tired now to do the backwards-counting - but I would have a preference for midday Sunday. That would put it at 7-8pm Saturday going on your calculations? Is that ok? Please add me on Skype to get this show on the road :-) Witty Lama 12:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't see any Skype invite from you... I searched for "tim vickers" in Skype and found about 6 people with that name. What's your Skypename? Witty Lama 03:07, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I've now added you with a request too. Hopefully you see that... I'll see you in about 14 hours. Witty Lama 11:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Metabolism

Hi there! I was checking the metabolism category and noticed that your sandbox is listed there. Guess you forgot to remove the category tag from the article you pasted there. Just letting you know. Cheers! RIP-Acer (talk) 17:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Homeopathy

Have you been following the homeopathy article recently? I was wondering because I think it's time to start getting it to FA status and ending the disputes. Wikidudeman 19:43, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

WDM, the Homeopathy article is starting to stabilize. But just a thought, will an FAC cause it blow up again? OrangeMarlin 19:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

It's only natural that it will stabilize after a long time being protected. Editors generally get bored with it when they can't make edits. It should be unprotected and if after a few weeks there are no edit wars, then we can say it's stable. I think that if it's unprotected, within a few hours it will be edit warred over. Wikidudeman 19:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

You can't up a protected article up for FA, if you want to experiment request unprotection and see what happens. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

What I mean is that we should work on resolving disputes and then go from there, before we nominate FA. The article itself needs to be unprotected for at least a few weeks and without edit warring before it's really stable anyway. Wikidudeman 01:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I would be concerned that FAC will cause a holy war there. OrangeMarlin 01:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I am as well. I didn't know it was protected. I have proposed several times that we let the pro-homeopathy editors create their own version of a NPOV article and then compare them after they have had a few months to work on it, and then if it is not really NPOV, try to help them understand why. --Filll (talk) 01:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

details of microscope cutaway picture?

Hi Tim!

I was going to surprise you today with a microscope model, but it proved to be surprisingly hard to find a good model at Google Images. Either they show me the outside, or the optical train separated from the microscope, but never the twain seem to meet. :( Should I be looking somewhere else for a good model picture?

Also, I wasn't sure whether you wanted a reflected-light or transmitted-light scope, and whether a normal or inverted set-up. Any clues to your wishes for the article, whether ravenous ("I want ALL of them!"), sympathetic ("Choose the one you find prettiest") or practical ("A normal transmitted-light microscope would help the reader most"), would be most welcome. :) Cheery cheerio, off to dinner and knitting, Willow (talk) 22:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Thanks, you are right that a normal upright transmitted-light microscope would help the reader most, since this is probably what they will come across in school and university. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Evo article

I too am at a loss. I was really clueless with the anthropomorphisms comment??? His comment to you was stranger "no the mechanism is spontaneous mutation. natural selection is the result". Slrubenstein rightly pointed out the error in some of his posits but then agreed with others which I still don't quite get. Further communication will hopefully make things clearer. GetAgrippa (talk) 01:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge question

I'm a novice when it comes to microbiology, but I'm thinking that (at least) a merge of Flora (microbiology) and Gut flora needs to be done. Gut flora seems to be the colloquial term for digestive flora. Correct? Hope you're well, VanTucky 03:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Article on Dr. Samuel Wood needs help.

If you have expertise, Samuel H. Wood needs help. CM (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Deleting homeopathy from mainstream articles

There is a principle of one-way linking for fringe topics that prevents soapboxing. The idea is that if an idea is notable, we can discuss it in its relevant article. So if a homeopathic remedy is notable, it should be discussed in an article about the homeopathic remedy. However, homeopathy is rarely relevant outside the world of homeopathic medicine: most mainstream sources ignore it when describing plants or chemicals. Therefore, we should not be in the business of advertising homeopathy at those mainstream articles. Undue weight sometimes means no weight at all. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)