User talk:Geometry guy

Welcome to my talk page: please leave any comments, questions, complaints, or just general chat below. I may not reply, but if I do I will reply here: if I take a while I will drop a note on your talk page. Please provide links to any issues you raise, and please forgive my rather minimalist approach to a user/user talk page. I like to help out and I'm quite experienced with templates, but my wikitime is rather limited.

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Problem of Apollonius

Willow has been off the Wiki for five days now, but someone put up a long list at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Problem of Apollonius. I can wait a few more days, but I sure would hate to archive it when someone should be able to address that list :-(( SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:29, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That looks like a job for someone who has "geometry" in their actual username. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 22:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My main concern is that Willow is okay. I hope so. I can look at the list, but I am not familiar with the sources and will have very little time until next weekend. I do hope we will hear from Willow before that. This may be a case to relax whatever rules you have for archiving FACs that fall silent with outstanding issues. Geometry guy 23:30, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Case in point re those clamoring for time limits. This FAC is not i archivable condition ... unless something is really wrong ... and I have many similar IARs that come up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:33, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I e-mailed WillowW days ago and haven't heard back ... I'm afraid I'll have to close it soon. Worried and concerned. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Me too. Hope she's okay. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:24, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell (please let me know if I missed something), there are five items left on Randomblue's list, which includes the two citation needed tags. With the level of support the article has, and only one oppose, I'll let it go through the weekend so you have a chance to see if you can resolve the remaining items. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sandy. I have some sources to hand now and will do what I can. Indeed I was just resolving one issue (for me) when the gold banner lit up. Geometry guy 21:17, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

G guy, typically when someone takes over shepharding a FAC when the nominator goes AWOL, I add the new editor as a co-nom; there are several precedents where I've done this. Unless you object, I will add you. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:01, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is only appropriate to add me if you also think it appropriate to add Ben Tillman. I don't think it is. I would like this article featured as a tribute to Willow: the rest of us are just realizing her vision. I'm not interested in any personal stake. If my support vote matters for anything, you are welcome to discount it. Geometry guy 21:17, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I add co-noms, I would add both; the criterion that I've used in past similar situations was "would I have had to archive the nom if these people hadn't stepped in to take over"? I can't recall the other noms where this happened; one was a railraod or train, and one involved Malleus, where he declined the co-nom. However, your wish is my command :-) If you strongly insist on not being added, I won't; otherwise, the precedent is that I do add you both, as you took over resolving issues raised and the nom could not have continued without that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:22, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I understand. I would prefer that the nom remains as purely Willow. If Ben feels any differently, please let me know and I will reconsider. Geometry guy 21:29, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since you're number two on contribs, I'll leave it at that to respect your wishes. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:32, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sandy. My edits, for all their number, have been relatively minor. Or, as an editor I greatly admire once said "I'm a famously inefficient editor". Geometry guy 21:47, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Famously. Check out my edit count at Samuel Johnson, where I'm responsible for only three paragraphs (well, and almost three years of cleanup and vandal reverts :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:58, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

:-) Not important, but what tool do you use for these counts? Geometry guy 22:23, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's in the userbox on my userpage: Articlestats. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:33, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! At 74 vs. 559, I feel comfortable with my preference not to be a co-nom :-) Geometry guy 22:40, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think Sandy must be wrong. I'm always looking for any way to climb up that WP:WBFAN ladder that I can, so I'm sure if I'd been offered a co-nomination for whichever article it was (I can't remember either) I'd have snapped her hand off. ;-) But far more importantly, I hope that Willow's absence is only for good reasons. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:06, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uncomfortable Moments in the English Classroom

Hi G-Guy. Perhaps you can help me and my poor innocent and bewildered Chinese-speaking freshmen with an English question. It has to do with the logic of sets. ;-)

Assume that I cannot speak Tagalog. Further assume that I cannot speak Vietnamese.

In the Chinese language, this assertion could correctly be stated: "I cannot speak Tagalog and Chinese."
In English, though, we must use "or" (disjunction) to express the same idea.
I tried in vain for half an hour to explain to the wide-eyed young things that the statement in #1 above could have 2 or even 3 interpretations. I gave up, ~~gave them your email address and told them to email you~~ and said I'd try to explain it again next week, but for this week just memorize it, dammit! ;-)

Is there an article that can make sense of this? Or can you?
Tks Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 06:51, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably the negative "I cannot" that's causing the problem. Humans don't think in mathematical sets, and negative statements can often be confusing. A simple Venn diagram would be enough to demonstrate that the sets of "I cannot speak Tagalog" and "I cannot speak Chinese" are disjoint. As to how to explain that the statement "I cannot speak Tagalog and I cannot speak Chinese" does not have the same object as "I cannot speak Tagalog and Chinese" and would be better said as "I can speak [avoiding the negative] neither Tagalog nor Chinese" I leave as an exercise for the reader. Failing that, what some elementary lessons in Boolean algebra? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Malleus has hit the nail on the head here (although I would say "distinct" rather than "disjoint"). Not(A and B) means (Not A) or (Not B). Geometry guy 20:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Transparency

In the interest of being transparent and getting feedback if I'm doing something wrong, I'm thinking about telling robotics people that, if they'll pick the sources and write from the sources, I will be happy to copyedit their articles up to the GA level, and if the articles sit in the GAN queue for two or three weeks with no takers (which seems likely, reviewers have been very slow to pick up engineering articles in general ... we might have no takers for robotics), then I'll probably review them myself (and I'll post a note somewhere ... WT:GAN perhaps? ... asking for someone to look over my shoulder, since WP:ROBO is one of my wikiprojects and I want to avoid the perception of bias). I've studied some AI but I wouldn't call myself a roboticist and I haven't collaborated on any of User:Jiuguang Wang's great articles, including a bunch of DYK articles. All the people who are writing great articles in robotics and robotics-relevant AI speak English as a second language and aren't up on GA criteria and style guidelines, so a little encouragement is probably in order. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Hm. Now that I think about it, this might work in the short term but won't work long-term. The guys who don't do much writing and don't know the style guidelines are probably going to ask me to do more and more of the writing, and at the point where my contributions are significant, I can't do the review. Hm. Well, we'll muddle through. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 13:55, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking much the same. If the first language of these editors isn't English you might well find youself doing a bit more than a bit of pre-GAN tweaking. If lack of willing reviewers does turn out to be a serious problem for the project, I'd be happy to chip in. I haven't kept up with advances in AI, so it might be a good opportunity to update myself anyway. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 14:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yay! - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 02:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (U.S. game show)

Could you restart that as a community GAR for me please, like you suggested? Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 19:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We could have just deleted and started over, but to save time, I've moved your individual reassessment to a community one. It's linked from the talk page banner and will be listed at GAR within an hour. Geometry guy 23:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Final Fantasy GA delist

Thanks for closing that for me. I started the GA review because I wasn't going to get any motivation to fix the references without it. I was hoping to avoid involving GA, but what can you do? At least the article is a little better, even if it's still not up to GA standards. In any event, just wanted to let you know that you're not stepping on any toes. Pagrashtak 21:29, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for stopping by: I appreciate you taking the trouble to comment here. I think Anomie will be a little unhappy about the delisting, but I hope further improvement will be encouraged. Geometry guy 21:35, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]