User talk:Anthony.Sebastian

Creating my User Talk Page. --Anthony.Sebastian
Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 13:48, 19 December 2006 (CST)

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test

Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 16:08, 14 February 2007 (CST)

That looks good. You got that from four tildes? if so you're in business. :) Chris Day (Talk) 16:19, 14 February 2007 (CST)

Topic sig:

Anthony Sebastian | Talk

water

Anthony Sebastian

Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 23:24, 28 January 2007 (CST)

Anthony.Sebastian (Talk)

doi:10.1016/S0968-0004(00)88952-5

http://base.google.com/base/a/1525701/D4341995594414253957

Horizontal gene transfer

Anthony, please look at HGT

and give an opinion on its approval worthiness please in the talk page David Tribe 07:15, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Copyright data?

Hi Dr. Sebastian, may I ask you please to add some copyright information (is this your image?) here: http://pilot.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Image:Sysbiolpubsyear.jpg&action=edit

Thanks!

--Larry Sanger 12:30, 22 January 2007 (CST)

Larry--

• I created the file from a public database. See Talk page for Image:sysbiolpubsyear3.jpg for details.

dead link and question about your forum comment on recruiting

Hello, your systems biology link is a dead link on your user page. It might need a redirect. Also, I remember a while ago on the forums, you suggested a recruitment email template for recruiting professors - has anything come of this? Disregard if I have mistaken you for someone else with this suggestion. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 20:29, 28 January 2007 (CST)

Re consciousness.

I'm very amateurish on this and only read Steve Pinker and a few others as a pastime. But i think its an important content opportunity and you should lead the way.Thanks for the note. It seems us biologists have quite catholick private reading lives David Tribe 22:26, 29 January 2007 (CST)

montage

Hey, Anthony, is this the sort of thing you had in mind? Chris Day (Talk) 01:23, 31 January 2007 (CST)

• Chris, yes. Cool. Very nice. Do you make the montage's in PhotoShop?
• I know we can upload jpegs. Can we download uploaded ones for editing? Not that I want to edit your neat one, but for future reference.

--Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 10:30, 31 January 2007 (CST)

recruitment letter

could you help me with this? http://pilot.citizendium.org/wiki/Citizendium_Pilot:Recruitment_Letter#Version_2_for_Biological_.2F_Health_Sciences -Tom Kelly (Talk) 23:45, 31 January 2007 (CST)

Life

I will be glad to check in . Good to see progress there David Tribe 15:56, 13 February 2007 (CST)

Users with Same name, without the dot Anthony(.)Sebastain

Noted another user and assume this is a stolen identity or mistake or similar. I will delete the files for security Constable David Tribe 15:56, 13 February 2007 (CST)

There still some user name confusions around user name Sebastian. We need to work more to finish this , Probably involving me moveing this page back to an initial location account. Continue discussion on this at my talk page as that hasn't been moved around like yours Ill repeat this note at your second talk page Constable David Tribe 17:30, 13 February 2007 (CST)

Perhaps mre accurately there are no other users active but ther is another Talk user page active

This is where your (Talk button) on your 4 ~ signature leads http://pilot.citizendium.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthony_Sebastian [1]David Tribe 17:55, 13 February 2007 (CST)

BUT Not here http://pilot.citizendium.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthony.Sebastian

[2] David Tribe 17:56, 13 February 2007 (CST)

To reiterate, there is no hurry to fix this but we should try an d remove the glitch David Tribe 18:00, 13 February 2007 (CST)

Anthony, did you get your signature fixed? It should be simople to solve by going to preferences and cut n' paste the following into your Nickname box and remember to check the raw signatures box:

[[User:Anthony.Sebastian|Anthony.Sebastian]] [[User talk:Anthony.Sebastian|(Talk)]]

that should look like the following after signing with ~~~~

Anthony.Sebastian (Talk)

I think this will work. My guess is that there is currently a typo in there. Chris Day (Talk) 15:32, 14 February 2007 (CST)

Biology/Draft

There are some recent changes suggested at Biology/Draft about Anatomy versus Morphology (favouring Morphology). As far as I'm concerned its a minor issue either way, but the proponent is insistent, and I don't see why they cannot be included, unless they make confusion elsewhere. Have you any advice before another Approved version of Biology goes through? The is extensive discussion at the non-draft talk page. David Tribe 01:03, 20 February 2007 (CST)

Life

The opening works much better I think, now. cheers d David Tribe 17:36, 1 March 2007 (CST)

Scientific Method

Many thanks Anthony. Indeed last night I was thinking that the human genome project and systems biology have not been accomodated as afar as I know into any revision of philosophical accounts of the scientific method. Thanks for expressing that so eruditely.Gareth Leng 03:08, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Gareth, I should have said how much I admired your way of putting the Scientific method article together. Scholarly, and written with coherence, grace and style. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 21:49, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Many thanks Anthony. Thanks for explaining so carefully your style preferences, and I will do my best to respect them when I edit on your articles. Obviously some of my own preferences are different _ like you I prefer generally to avoid the passive voice, but sometimes I think it is more natural to use that than constructions that seem (to my ears) contrived to avoid it - so I avoid using "one" as a subject for example. However, I think it is valuable for articles each to have its own distinctive literary style, and please never hesitate to revert any stylistic (or other) changes that I make, please treat my edits simply as suggestions to be considered and discarded and don't feel you need to explain that to me; I will take it for granted that you have treated my suggestions with all due respect. Warmest regardsGareth Leng 04:50, 10 March 2007 (CST)

Gareth: Collaboration, a many wondrous thing. In saying that, I speak of two separate experiences, the experience of 'collaborating'--with you, a fruitful and enjoyable one--and the experience of 'wondrousness'. When I say 'collaboration is a many wondrous thing' I feel as if I speak not for myself but simply repeat what a reality says. That may make no sense to you, but technically the two locutions distinguish two major language groups, the apodictic languages and the dispositional languages. Indo-European and certain Asian languages. With the dispositional approach I feel I speak for myself, the author.

Thank you for the generous editorial license, which I intend to avail myself of 'with all due respect'. As I said in my earlier comments to you, I eschew the purist's fanaticism.

I agree with you about the passive voice having its place. In fact, if the reader doesn't definitely need to know who/what does the action of the verb, if the passive moves the reader more smoothly from the previous sentence, and if it gives the reader a more consistent point of view (e.g., the scientist's vs. the biological system's)--then I'd go for the passive. No law against it. But those provisos all requirement judgment, and for that two heads often do better than one.

I too find that, in trying to avoid use of the passive as a non-reflective automatic, the results sometime seem contrived. I take that as a challenge, to exploit the power of the active voice without rendering it seemingly contrived. I consider myself in the 'practice' stage, with dictionary online at hand, hunting for those arresting active verbs.

And warmest regards in return --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 15:22, 10 March 2007 (CST)

biobooks6.jpg

see Talk:Life, I just added that picture there. What is the problem, I may help. Robert Tito |  Talk  23:03, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

restore LIFE

Mr. Sebastian, restoration would be simple, however due to the content I would prefer Gareth doing it. I can however go back to the last saved page before Mr. Quick did editting. Let me know what it is you need. Robert Tito |  Talk  17:10, 23 March 2007 (CDT)

Robert: Thanks. I may ask you to do that but will wait to see if Gareth agrees that Joe Quick's first entry into the Life project was not appropriate or article-improving. BTW: Everyone on CZ calls me Anthony. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 19:05, 23 March 2007 (CDT)

And I go by the name Rob :) Robert Tito |  Talk 

Little boxes

left edge use align="left" can also use center or right. light blue change to background-color:lightblue selected width can use either percent (with respect to screen width) or pixels. Either width="80%" (as this example, note it adjusts size as browser window changes) or width=600 for fixed size of 600 pixels in all broswers (regardless of the window size). Anthony, There are many other parameters too but these few are a good place to start. Chris Day (Talk) 14:41, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

Approval

As an editor in biology, I'd support an approval tag with a 1 to 2 week deadline.

My major suggestion is that the synthesis of perspectives should be introduced very early (with a different title), not at the end. My argument is that this is journalism, not a scientific manuscript. Readers need to find their take home message, simple version, quickly, IMHO. Your diagrams are wonderful, and the whole article is well done, I think. David Tribe 18:20, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

David: I have taken your suggestion to rearrange. I think you are right, and it seems to work well. Please take look, and critique. If you think it okay, I'd appreciate your discussing with the group about the approval tag. I will continue to work on the 'images' issue (see article Talk page). --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 22:48, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

I think it works too, and Ive not got a criticism. I tried a slightly different heading too (avoiding linguistics). Change it again of course. Let me know when you found a good image outcome, and I think I'm then allowed to put an approval tag on it (as Ive done so little here). (But Ill have to re-read the rulebook to be sure. These approval decisesion are pretty tricky legal conundrums! David Tribe 23:11, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

David, I'm okay with your heading change. I'd like to stick with the current image on top until something better comes along. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 23:14, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

Sage advice on writing CZ articles

Hi Anthony. I thought you might like to know: CZ:Sage advice on writing CZ articles. :-) -- Stephen Ewen 01:09, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

Stephen, Thanks. I'd originally posted the quotes to myself at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Anthony.Sebastian/Advice_on_writing_CZ_articles

I will add the additional quote. And will use CZ:Sage advice on writing CZ articles Assume you created page.

I hope I did not miss any subtle message. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 12:55, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

The only message was this: thanks for creating that, and feel proud it will now serve the whole community! Stephen Ewen 16:57, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

Thanks. I share my of collection of favorite quotes on my blog, but nobody reads it so I've lost enthusiasm. CZ get more. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 19:54, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

Congrats and thanks

Three editors are supporting approval the Life article that you put so much into AS. Thanks so much for the great start and your huge patience with the process. Warm regards David Tribe 06:17, 5 April 2007 (CDT)

David, thank you so much for that feedback, for all your collaborative efforts on the article, and for teaching me many things. I do see the article as a start, and have high hopes for its evolution. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 13:01, 5 April 2007 (CDT)

Exactly right

Just saw your new figure Image:DNA_to_living_system.jpg and it is exactly what i was thinking of and much better resolution wise. Chris Day (Talk) 22:34, 5 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, Chris. Lucky find while not looking. Used 'medium' resolution after converting to jpeg and saving in PhotoShop. Should I increase resolution? --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 22:40, 5 April 2007 (CDT)

My philosophy is always go with the highest available (within reason of course). In general the size shouldn't be a limiting factor and a higher resolution makes it more usable for future editors and readers. Chris Day (Talk) 22:48, 5 April 2007 (CDT)

I browsed through your resource at DOE and found a much better version of the DNA with the books and sperm. I upgraded your picture at Image:Spermeggdnabooks.jpg, I hope this is OK with you. Chris Day (Talk) 01:46, 6 April 2007 (CDT)

Looks great, Chris. How did you remix it? --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 20:23, 7 April 2007 (CDT)

Photoshop. It is an attempt to connect the egg with the books in light of the legend. Chris Day (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Life

Anthony, I saw some changes you made in Life and must condlude they do not reflect the actuality, see for the changes I will make - they are minor but chemical relevant. One is a funny typo by you (I guess) I stated physical chemistry shows carbon to have a certain chemical behavior. You turned it into allow. Chemistry only tries to describe and explain behavior it is not the reason for behavior of atoms :). There are a few more so I will use the dust comb a little. Hear your comments after I am done, cheers Robert Tito |  Talk  20:18, 7 April 2007 (CDT)

Rob, thanks for keeping things straight. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 20:21, 7 April 2007 (CDT)

Anthony, could you please return to life (what a thing to say on Easter Sunday!). The section that , I believe you wrote, on Information is good- but it was written when the concept of informatio was being introduced there de novo, and now the concept of information has been introduced in "The stuff of Life", could I ask you to leave the stuff of life alone- David Tribe will tweak it tonight- but read what it says about information there, and modify the beginning of the information section appropriately? see talk page Life. Nancy Sculerati 14:28, 8 April 2007 (CDT)

Nancy, did it. Will re-review and re-edit as needed to keep the flow. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 16:08, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Poetry month

You managed

                     Anyway

Nancy Sculerati 21:26, 7 April 2007 (CDT)

Darwin

Dear Anthony, Thats neat. Did you see that I started chopping into Organism. It that needs a lot of work to give it life.

BTW I never did get to express my personal appreciation for your effort in Life. It was a tough task, and very ambitious of you (and us all), and my view always, was that it had to be done really well. And it was I think, even though there are still minor blemishes. I saw my role as to try and mediate a completion - as a go-between almost - that had multiple-editor support. I realise now that there is value in having at least one editor not feeling strong ownership/authoriship and to be well, an editor. It was wonderful to see different inputs, like Gareth and Chris, beavering away in different capacities. I think it worked because all the participants mutually respected the different other participants and their different strengths and good intentions, all useful. That's what I think.

Cheers David

David: I can't tll you how grateful I feel for your comments. I emphasize as I have done before that my contibution to the Life article found its strongest motivation in a desire to learn as much as I could in a reasonable period of time about the nature of living systems — basically a selfish aim. But, as I have no doubt you too have discovered, sharing what one thinks one has learned serves the learning aim because of the inevitable feedback one gets in critiques, offerings of facts and views, and questions. So one has to try at least to teach in order to learn. I cannot remember a time when I did not intensely wonder how my body worked, or for that matter how the world works. So the rewarding aspects of the experience of collaborating on the subject with the biology workgroup far outweighed ego-related frustrations such as having one's darling sentences and paragraphs rephrased in someone's style.

I agree with your thought about articles having at least one editor taking a pragmatic stance, in part arbitrator, in part pacemaker. That understates your contribution. I also agree that courtesy derived from mutual respect, especially for the qualities of different strengths and good intentions you mentioned. No one had horns on for more than the time it took to give the bruise a rub.

Though very pleased with article, and proud of our accomplishment, personally I feel the article still needs development if we want shoot for the goal of the best among the articles on the subject, meaning we achieved an explanatory excellence that suggests we learned what we set out learn, achieving our selfish goal. The spirit of the wiki can make that level of article excellence happen. I'd like to see the reader of Life feel as if they've eaten a gourmet meal with fine wine, and now realize what fine 'living' means, but also have them see a path, through citations and other directed readings, to pursue their own learning goals in any area of biology. Surely all areas of biology weave into explaining life. I see Life as a hub, one that must excel in order to give coherence to the sum of CZ's articles in biology, and to serve them by centering them, reminding them about the meaning and value of orchestrating. In my semi-delirious moods, I see a biology book, perhaps multi-volumed, coming out of the groups' articles — a printed book that might survive nuclear winter or global warming, when the net shuts down.

I will check out Oganism. Speaking of 'organism', I appreciated your solomonic decision in Life to move most of the molecules into its own header, and your well-chosen title "Organic chemistry as informatics". I also appreciated the reference to Carl Woese's PNAS article in Evolution of cells. Loved it. As Thomas Huxley said when he read Darwin's natural selection mechanism, so simple I feel stupid not to have thought of it. Figure I'll begin to understand after a few dozen more readings. But I appreciate the importance of horizontal gene transfer as a main player in evolution from cells to organisms to species. I sent Gareth an article interpreting evidence as indicating horizontal gene transfers in the hominine and pongine lineages, bipeds mating with arboreal knuckle walkers.

Cheers to you.

Anthony

Great to hear that your attitude to bruises is similar to mine. One extra addendum. In reading for evolution of cells I found some really interesting papers of co-evolution of RNA and protein (after being annoyed by lack of citations). Yes I suspect the RNA world is a name that a disservice to clear thinking. The Protein world is worth developing in the articles. I've dumped my lit search in the talk page (of evolution of cells or Origin of life, cant remember which). Came across papers you'd been citing too. I havn't read the Arthur Koch and Simon Silver paper. Just the abstract, but I have the paper copy at work. They are both real microbe pros, and Ive met Simon years back. Your idea for a book is interesting as a carrot. Don't worry about climate chance. Extinction is natural and healthy for a young planet. Oxygen was actually good for us. Kills Clostridia too. Cheers again David

Life V 1.1.

I have put Life/Draft V 1.1 up for approval. Your views on that are welcome, cheers D David Tribe 19:35, 15 April 2007 (CDT)

I have to look back at the sentences, but variety, or varieties had just been used. I'll look, I was reading through- if you click through history you'll see, and just trying to make it sound good, without changing meaning. Nancy Sculerati 20:04, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

Great. Thanks. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 22:20, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

Systems Bio

Formally, I found only 1 identical sentence (for what it is worth..), " In 1960, Denis Noble developed the first computer model of a beating heart.". Still, I set the WP flag since the paragraph around seemed similar to a WP passage (well, now I realize that there's not that much similarity). Clearly, I should have pointed that out when marking Wp content (and usually I do when there is not too much identical text). Sorry for that and thanks for asking.--AlekStos 01:37, 19 April 2007 (CDT)

I will fix, so you can decide whether to remove WP tag. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 13:50, 19 April 2007 (CDT)

Life

Dear Fellow Biology Editor. The article Life is in danger of being left with out significant bug fixes for another indefinite interval if we continue as we are doing. All the scientific issues and punctuation issues are resolved but the constable is still not assured of editor support for the bug fix. Would you kindly make no more addition except copyedits and place a note indicating your support near the approval template so we can move on. In the event that Life V 1.1 is approved ignore this request. David Tribe 00:12, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks Anthony for your note. Whats causing the delay is that the constable is unable to make decisions because if they make a mistake, they are seen to be breaking rules. On the other hand the editors all don't seem to realise that it would be much quicker to finalise the batch of valid edits, and even miss one fine points. If necessary we can approve version 1.2 24 hours later. We have to get organised and have a place to record 3 editor signatures against it that's all. At least then we make progress with a ratchet. But for the constable to act, appearance of discord has to be resolved. All I'm trying to do make sure the constable can see where there is consensus. I'm going to propose an informal Last supported good draft pointer, to point to the last version with three editor support. David Tribe 17:14, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

call in two hours?

see my talk page for reply- thanks, Nancy Sculerati 17:02, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

Walter van den Broek

Anthony, I didnot give Walter editor status, as I am 'just' a constable, however due to his profile I invited him to apply asap as editor - and enforced it by the ewelcome :). Walter is a scientist/clinical psychiatrist in Holland and I know of their work. So being editor myself I merely wanted to stimulate him to become one as well. For that reason he (still) has author-ship as category. Thanks for making his editorship final. cheers, Robert Tito |  Talk 

Rob, thanks for the explanation. Glad you gave it English, not Dutch. I will email Dr. Broek his editorship approved. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 15:09, 28 April 2007 (CDT),

Anthony, if needed I can translate it for you in Dutch :) (or german) :)) Rob

Tribe replied at his talk page David Tribe 16:36, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Yes I largely agree. I think Catherine could well explain how her proposal fits with Woese's arguments. Ill perhaps not say Woese argues that HGT stopped, but decreased by orders of magnitude.David Tribe 19:55, 29 April 2007 (CDT) By the Way Woese's is so far away from standard frames of refrence, that is a tough topic to discuss dont you think? David Tribe 19:57, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

Ill try and read Morovitz this aftenoon. (100 pm now my time). d David Tribe 22:04, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

It good to contrast this with Kurland Kurland CG et al. (2006) Genomics and the irreducible nature of eukaryote cells. Science 312(5776):1011-4 PMID 16709776

Yup. Agrree with your last comment. And I still havnt read Morovitz!!!! (BTW diD you read Morowitzs little books?)

plants re: organismal vs cell theory

I don't agree with that statement that recent data overturns cell theory (the Barlow quote in life). A slight modification perhaps, but that quote seems to be hyperbole from my perspective as a plant developmental biologist. We can discuss it in more detail if you wish. But for starters I'll throw out the fact that there are GAP junctions in animals, cell syncytials in dropsophila and plenty of evidence that cell theory holds in plants too, just not all the time. Chris Day (talk) 13:02, 30 April 2007 (CDT)

Chris, I would have to do a lot of literature study to support/dispute the Baluska argument. But his pictures do show a 'common' cytoplasm, and implies that the plant organism in general has that. I defer to your experience and knowledge. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 13:31, 30 April 2007 (CDT)

But does he mention that there is not random diffusion through plamodesmata? It is a gated system and controlled by the cells so that there are domain of cells that are in communication. My only point is that this does not disprove cell theory, it's just a modification. Chris Day (talk) 13:36, 30 April 2007 (CDT)

Chris, I will re-read carefully, follow up his references, bone up on my plant physiology — then try to say something intelligent. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 15:04, 30 April 2007 (CDT)

And to be fair, i should read the review you cited ;) Chris Day (talk) 15:20, 30 April 2007 (CDT)

Contraception

I have been the primary author of an article on the medical methods of contraception - Contraception (medical methods). It has just been nominated for approval by Gareth Leng. Could you kindly read it? As a physician, I encourage you to edit as needed. put your comments on the talk page, if you support the nomination-please add your name to the template. If you believe that the article should not be approved, please remove the template for nomination. Obviously I hope that you support it, but I want to make it clear that you do have that option. Thanks, Nancy Sculerati 06:05, 17 May 2007 (CDT)

Thanks so much, I'll gert the book (on good authority).Nancy Sculerati 19:01, 18 May 2007 (CDT)

Homeostasis notes

Aleksander Stos noted on the forums that you created a page with the title "Http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Anthony.Sebastian/Homeostasis/Sebastian_Notes". This cannot be reached normally, but you can reach it by using the URL http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Anthony.Sebastian/Homeostasis/Sebastian_Notes . It's pretty confusing, so you may want to do something about it. -- Jitse Niesen 04:24, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

The content has been moved to User:Anthony.Sebastian/Homeostasis/Sebastian Notes so I went ahead and deleted the malformed pagename. Stephen Ewen 11:58, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

I HAVE NOW CONVERTED IT TO A CZ LIVE ARTICLE: [[Homeostasis (Biology) --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 12:07, 5 October 2007 (CDT)

Image:Roadmap_large.jpg

Hi Anthony. Just to let you know we have to use images released under a real name. I sent the person at Flickr the following email:

Hello. We are trying to use an image of yours 
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Image:Roadmap_large.jpg 
in http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Systems_biology but 
cannot because it needs to be attributed to a real-named 
person per the Creative Commons license. Would you kindly 
let me know your name so we may use this photo and not 
have to remove it?  Thanks!

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Stephen_Ewen

Stephen Ewen 17:17, 17 June 2007 (CDT)

This image is all set now. You can visit the image page to see. Stephen Ewen 22:59, 22 June 2007 (CDT)

Causes

As always what you write is thought provoking. I'm no philosopher and I suspect that this issue is beyond the scope of the article on Aristotle. However it seems to me that it could be the seed of something different - an article on Causality in Biology. ?

It does seem to me that the essence of Systems Biology implies that the causal narratives that we tend to want to use to describe biological systems are, well, often just narratives really.

Gareth Leng 12:59, 13 August 2007 (CDT)

Gareth, thanks for giving my little narrative some thought and for your suggestions. "Causality in Biology", hmmm...beyond my reach I think, though would challenge.

Regarding your comment on causal narratives to describe biological systems: I agree, they give explanation only on the narrative level. Yet, narrative consists of patterns of words, sentences, paragraphs, et al., yielding patterns of ideas/concepts, and mathematics in essence describes/depicts patterns, and understanding means patterns in the brain. It may take using the language of mathematics to read the book of nature, but translating what you read into the language of narrative becomes a necessity for bulk of humanity who can speak mathematics very well.

Feynman believed in narrative, and lectured on topics steeped in advanced mathematics to freshman in narrative. I have much respect for good translators.

Regarding my piece on the relation of Aristotle's four 'causes' and the 'explanation' of living things, I think I might submit it for Workgroup consideration as a 'signed article' subpage for Life. Or as a separate article, and let whoever have at it. A separate article might do better for CZ's stats. What do you think? --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 14:19, 13 August 2007 (CDT)

need leadin paragraph

Tonly I need a leadin paragraph for the systems biology section. I have (hidden in the edit text) a copy from the website ==Need help with systems biology lead in==

I requested permission to reprint it but did not receive a reply. I have it hidden in the edit copy. Can you come up with a leadin for the systems biology section? What they write sounds good, except for the subsystem is a childsystem stuff. Let me know what you think? Thomas Mandel 23:59, 26 August 2007 (CDT)

Images

See here.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 00:05, 28 August 2007 (CDT)

Volunteering Sebastian request to insert Signed Article in Life/draft

Hi, Anthony, I think your main problem here is you are not creating a new article. In fact, it is a subpage of the Life article. I have created your signed article and you can see it at Life/Signed_Articles/John_Whitfield. Since this was the first signed article for Life I also created the following page Life/Signed_Articles Chris Day (talk) 08:12, 6 September 2007 (CDT) Just a question--even though of course we have the rightto reprint it, have you asked him whether he is willing for us to do so? I would not be happy inserting someone else's essay without telling him and at last giving him a chance to object -- just as a matter of courtesy. DavidGoodman 18:58, 20 September 2007 (CDT)

Agree. I will call his atention to what we've done, link to it, ask him if he has any changes he'd like to make, or further comments. Thanks for courtesy tip. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 14:31, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

Delete talk page?

Hi Anthony, is there a reason to keep the Talk page on Aristotlian causes of living things? No problem if there is, I always forget the talk page. --Matt Innis (Talk) 19:04, 20 September 2007 (CDT)

No reason to keep it. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 14:27, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

Supplementary text --> Addendum?

Anthony, Chris and I are concerned that "Supplementary Text" is just too long for the tabs. That (template) real estate is very valuable. How would "Addendum" do for a name? --Larry Sanger 19:36, 20 September 2007 (CDT)

Hi Anthony, I set up a test run for you to check out. See Life/Addendum. Chris Day (talk) 19:54, 20 September 2007 (CDT)

Thanks. Like it very much. Would it task greatly to change to "Addenda", or do you think not necessary? Thinking we might have distinctly different topics covered there as separate sections in a TOC. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 20:11, 20 September 2007 (CDT)

Even with mutliple sections doesn't it still represent an addendum for the life article? Can you have more than one addendum for an article, as opposed to an appendix where you could have several. Chris Day (talk) 20:23, 20 September 2007 (CDT)

I agree, Addendum better. I already made the link Life/Addendum in Life/Draft, so readers will have two places to find the addendum to the article.--Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 20:33, 20 September 2007 (CDT)

List of Evolutionary biologists

I noted that you are adding to the list of evolutionary biologists - many thanks - what do you think about splitting them into "living" and "dead" persons?

Lee R. Berger 04:14, 28 September 2007 (CDT)

Lee, a good idea to indicate whether living today. But 'today' ephemeral. How about adding in parentheses birth-year and death-year (or "- blank") for each, then filling in the blanks later as deaths occur? --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 21:35, 29 September 2007 (CDT)

That would be a great ide - if you have the research handy then we could put that in and adopt it for all of the "lists". As we are going to be an authoratative reference, we might go so far as to put a citation for each series of dates? Something to put to the editors at large. Keep up the good work!

Lee R. Berger 01:55, 30 September 2007 (CDT)

Simpson looks good - fire away!

Lee R. Berger 14:02, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

Italo Calvino

Thanks for the adds. Cool! Please add other stuff if you know the argument. I read almost everything of him in the original language, but I'm more the scientist kind of guy, not a professional of literature... --Nereo Preto 05:07, 4 October 2007 (CDT)

help with checklist

I just posted a reply to your questions. Let me know now you get on. Chris Day (talk) 21:56, 4 October 2007 (CDT)

Volunteer "wikiconverters"

In follow up to the post at http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/10/12/wiki-markup-language-what-you-see-is-messy/#comments

Add your name here if you wish to be a volunteer:

• Stephen Ewen (Talk) -- Assistant to Chief Constable
• Reuven Lazarus (talk) -- Author: computers, mathematics, physics
• ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) -- CZ Technical staff, Executive Committee
• Chris Day (talk) -- Biology editor, problem-solver extraordinaire
• Aleksander Stos -- Constable, math author
• Michael Underwood (talk) -- Math and physics author
• JeromeDelacroix -- Editor: computers, business
• Anton Sweeney -- constable, author (things Irish)
• Joshua M. Jensen (I might be willing to help with linguistics articles.) -- Author: linguistics, religion
• Supten Sarbadhikari --Editor: biology, health sciences and engineering - may be able to spare some time on and off
• Utkarshraj Atmaram (editor: Computers, can help with non-Computer-related articles too)
• Louise Valmoria (Talk) -- Mailing List Manager, Author: biology, history, literature, law (except I'm much better at helping out with admin than writing!)
• William Porquet -- Computers author, willing to convert and tweak two per month.
• Robert King -- I can make templates and infoboxes, kinda (as long as I have specifications on what should or should not be in there!) Also, I take, find, and edit pictures. --Robert W King 22:22, 7 November 2007 (CST)

Comments re human 'wikiconverter' project

Comments:

Fantastic idea, thanks for taking the bull by the horns, Anthony! --Larry Sanger 20:37, 16 October 2007 (CDT)

The easiest way to do this is to take the Word Document, save it as HTML (you can do this directly from MS Word, as I understand it), then run the HTML source through something like this. --ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 20:53, 16 October 2007 (CDT)

That's a great tip. Chris Day (talk) 21:02, 16 October 2007 (CDT)

I was planning to use another method but Zach's is even easier. Stephen Ewen 19:40, 17 October 2007 (CDT)

It's definitely a good starting point although it looks as if there's likely to be a fair bit of manual formatting to be done afterwards (depending on how much there is to begin with of course). It might be just as easy to copy and paste the content into the new page. I had figured that it would be worth seeing what the documents to be converted look like before deciding how I would go about the conversion since different authors will provide potentially very different formats and it might not be possible to anticipate them all in advance to automate the process (hence the need for human wikiconverters...). Michael Underwood 19:43, 17 October 2007 (CDT)

I agree with all the above comments. The question is how we provide access to our services. That is, 1) where and how we advertise it and, well, 2) how we receive the "input". For (1) I guess it'd be somewhere on "getting started" pages, for (2) - perhaps by mail or http (I mean someone may wish to upload it somewhere). I'm not sure whether it'll become very popular (time will tell anyway and if there is no demand there is no cost either). As an additional service we could offer human assistance on wikiformatting. I guess it's implicit attitude of virtually every CZ member, but we could just declare it explicitly to make people more comfortable with asking for help. Something like "we are willing to help with *any* technical/formatting issues, regardless how simple the problem to deal with could seem. Just don't hesitate to ask". Aleksander Stos 14:04, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

A.S.: Aleksander, good questions. Probably multiple places for advertising, especially in the active/targeted recruiting process. I think we should wait until you all feel comfortable with time, effort and quality of the conversion process before advertising, as we may receive a big load of work. That also raises the question: how many volunteers should we have before offering the service. The more the better, I should think. Anybody have referrals?

A.S: Re formats: Could most be done with ".rtf" files? --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 18:35, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

One thing to beware of - converting tables saved as HTML from Word into wikiformat is a thankless task (though I haven't looked at the automated tool above to see if it handles it. Anton Sweeney 06:54, 19 October 2007 (CDT)

The tool Zach pointed to is very poor at this point, see CZ Talk:Wiki-converting. I'll try to run tests with various tools to find the best. Stephen Ewen 13:48, 29 December 2007 (CST)

Steven: OpenOffice 2.3 claims its ‘writer’ component can save to MediaWiki format. See: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/New_Features_2.3#Chart

Anthony.Sebastian --Anthony.Sebastian 17:13, 29 December 2007 (CST)

--- A.S.: Email from William Porquet on 11.05.2007:

A little FYI, I use this MS Word macro at work to convert older Word documents to our internal MediaWiki documentation server...

• Word2MediaWikiPlus version 1.0.0 (Feb. 27, 2007)
• Word2MediaWikiPlus is a set of Visual Basic macros that converts Microsoft Word document contents to MediaWiki markup.
• Usage requires a running copy of Microsoft Word that supports Visual Basic macros (Word 2000 to 2003).
• Information about this tool is here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Word2MediaWikiPlus
• The project site and download center is here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/word2mediawikip

Hope this helps! Cheers, Wills

---

Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 17:56, 5 November 2007 (CST)

Good to see that we have a solid volunteer group happening. A couple of comments on organising our workload when we get started. Some of us are more confident with wikiformatting articles in their speciality, others can offer general assistance as we grow more comfortable with wikiformatting, etc.

A suggestion: I can set up a mailing list, so there can be one central email address for people to send formatting requests and document files to convert. Then may need some sort of wiki page somewhere, in which we can list all requests sent through and who has volunteered to convert this file so that there is no unnecessary duplication of workload. Thoughts? --Louise Valmoria (Talk)10:41, 18 November 2007 (CST)

Louise: A great suggestion. I had started an email distribution list comprising the email addresses of the dozen or so volunteers, thinking I would have the formatting requests sent to my email address and I would send it out to my email distribution list and ask for volunteers, keeping track. But I think your idea much better, more automated.

One central mailing list, advertized on the main page (and other pages that would catch the attention of would-be authors, e.g., the 'start article' page). Ask all the volunteers to subscrible to the list, choose from among the requests. Seems we'd definitely need a wiki page for tracking. We could list the volunteer MediaWiki formatters names there, and have them enter which article they chose to work on. Have the volunteers check the page to see if someone has already volunteered for a given article.

Need to give thought to name of mailing list. Creating the tracking page should not present a problem.

Let's do it. How would you proceed? I would not know how to create the central input mailing list. I could encourage the volunteers to subscribe to the list. I could help edit the format of the tracking page.

Perhaps the volunteer group would have feedback. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 16:56, 18 November 2007 (CST)

Re: Mailing list, I can set that up easily and organise for you and I to moderate it. We just need a name for it - for example the Approvals List is called cz-approvals, so the name of the mailing list should follow that convention. Suggestions for names: cz-wikiformat, perhaps?

Does the rest of the volunteer group have any further thoughts?

--Louise Valmoria 17:55, 3 December 2007 (CST)--Louise Valmoria (Talk)

Hi Anthony, I have set up the mailing list here: http://mail.citizendium.org/mailman/listinfo/cz-wikiformat . Once we have the volunteers signed up to the list, I can organise for the cz-wikiformat address to be open for submissions from non-subscribers so people do not have to sign up to the list to request formatting help.

Regarding submissions and the wiki page, once we have volunteers signed up to the list and receiving submissions, whoever is available can update the wiki page with new submissions and notify if they are dealing with any particular articles. I think we're all in a wide spread of timezones, so should the list get a lot of traffic we can share the admin workload and stay reasonably on top of things. --Louise Valmoria 13:59, 4 December 2007 (CST)(Talk)

Hi Anthony, thanks for the nudge on the Citizendium-L list to get remaining volunteers to sign up to the list. I have just checked through the membership list and there are 15 mailing list members, not all of them on the volunteer list, but hopefully they will contribute as well. The project should be ready to advertise whenever you see it fit.

There are a couple of issues with spam on some of the other CZ mailing lists at the moment, so for initial launch we'll need to notify that non-member postings will be held for approval before sent through to the list, but all legitimate postings will get sent through fairly quickly. Many thanks for organising this, Anthony! Louise Valmoria 13:48, 1 January 2008 (CST)

Anthony, posted a detailed response on my talk page; have also emailed you with some admin login details for the wikiconverter mailing list so you can easily track subscribed members. Regards, Louise Valmoria 18:57, 1 January 2008 (CST)

Energy article

Thank you for the interest in my article on energy. I'm still working on it, next I will add a section on energy in thermodynamics. I was very reluctant to start this article, because I could see that it would be a very tough task. But since it was high on the list of most wanted articles already for quite some time, and since nobody else seemed to dare tackle it, I decided to be bold and to start on it. This also means that I appreciate any input form other "citizens", so thank you again for your comments. In answer to them, I added two paragraphs to the end of the article describing the fate of the particle when it hits the ground. I hope they will be clear. Another thing: I'm not a native speaker of English, and I realize that my language may be somewhat quaint at times. Please feel free to correct me.--Paul Wormer 04:29, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Potassium article

I can see that my contribution to the potassium page was appreciated, since it was improved and made more readable, but not profoundly changed. I hope to contribute more in the future. You have provided a definition of the metabolic syndrome that I'll use to make the metabolic syndrome article, which I'm working on, more "user-friendly". I am wondering if you agree with the article content, as it is right now. Many thanks in advance. Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 20:20, 17 November 2007 (CST)

Fixed data formatting

I fixed the data formatting on User:Anthony.Sebastian/Userplan. It doesn't take bullet points...it's one point per line, each line findable by looking for "=". Sorry it's not clearer how it works... --Larry Sanger 22:29, 19 January 2008 (CST)

Party! You're invited!

Hi Anthony: Yes, it’s a new month, and here’s your friendly reminder that the FEBRUARY PARTY is on, and we’d love to see you there! It’s a very long day, so you have many hours yet to join in the madness. Aleta Curry 22:05, 5 February 2008 (CST)

New CZ page

Give me just a sec and I'll get that page set up for you just right. Subpages won't work on pages that begin with CZ: . Stephen Ewen 18:40, 8 February 2008 (CST)

The page seems fine: CZ:How to submit articles in word processor format‎. It's just that subpages do not work on pages that begin with the CZ extension. Were you trying to do something else, too? Stephen Ewen 18:59, 8 February 2008 (CST)

See User_talk:Stephen_Ewen#Problem_with_signature. Stephen Ewen