User talk:Gareth Leng

Could you please add [[Category:CZ Live]] to any pages you edit (or have edited) that you wish to keep as live Citizendium pages as opposed to pages that were simply tests? I've tagged the few I've edited, but you've done the most editing to date. This way we can work out which pages we intend to keep on Citizendium, and which pages were merely pages that were edited for testing purposes? From the looks of it, you aim to keep all of those changes (and I'm impressed by the quality of some of the improvements), but I just wanted to make sure. Thanks :-) --ZachPruckowski 13:14, 27 October 2006 (CDT)

Hi Gareth, from a fellow editor interested in overlapping subjects

I was thrilled to see that you did some editing on Biology. I'm doing my best to add articles to the Live list, and do not do so without making contributions - but all of the articles need so much work. I have been contacted by some editors who have implied to me that it is expected that we have our own turf, imply I should stay away from articles they are writing or planning to write, and I am not comfortable with that. I love the interactions between interested and knowlegeable people on a wiki. So, please- if you see my name all over the history of an article, it's a particular invitation to join in (not of course, that you actually need one.) Nancy Sculerati MD 13:48, 2 November 2006 (CST)

reply from my talk page

Gareth, I'm a novice at the wiki format. I'm answering you here because I think this is the way to do it - if not, please instruct me. I'm happy to go over the article and play with the language until it sounds right to my ear. But that's how I do it, if I have to justify every word as opposed to its near synonym, or worry that if I change the language so that it all subjectively flows to my ear I must have objective evidence to support each change, I get stuck. I just write in an intuitive way and I get into it where I lose track of everything else but just the writing. Given this situation, how can I help the article? I ask that question sincerely. Nancy.

Thank you, Gareth.I'm going to take a break and then go back to Biology. I'm going to forget everything bu the writing when I do, and I don't promise it will be a better article - but I will try to make it the best Bio article I've read. Nancy Sculerati MD 11:12, 10 November 2006 (CST)

Gareth, I've done some preliminar work on Biology. I added some comments about the text and needed images right in the body of the text. Perhaps you would be kind enough to look at that, and change anything you like. Probably moving those comments would avoid offense, since they really belong in Discussion, but they seemed to make the point best in a draft form of the article. Will work more tonight and hope to finish tonight or tomorrow. Nancy Sculerati MD 14:39, 10 November 2006 (CST)

Slow progress in biology, but progress. Could you kindly read biology talk page (discussion) and respond? Thanks, Nancy

So good to see you hard at work

Well Hello! Now I see where you have been;) I did get to stop by the chiropractic article and looks like you did a fine job cleaning up. The WP version has changed a lot since this version as well, so I might be able to give some input there as well. I haven't figured out where I fit in here yet, but will keep reading. I've started at the author level so I can at least see whether this is something I can help with. So far it looks like everybody works well together. I'm not sure I'm qualified to work with this fine group of scholars, but look forward to throwing my hat into the ring. --D. Matt Innis 21:44, 27 November 2006 (CST)

Sea Urchin

Gareth, this picture of the sea urchin. I'm not sure about the copyright status on it. I did find this permissions section on their site, and have sent an email. I'll wait till I hear back. --D. Matt Innis 13:04, 1 December 2006 (CST)

Also, is the mitochondria picture okay now, or do we want it smaller? --D. Matt Innis 13:17, 1 December 2006 (CST)

Health Sciences Workgroup (Top)

Gareth, As I see, you are an editor of Health Sciences. I am only informing I tagged medicine's articles as Health Sciences Workgroup (Top). Cheers --Versuri 06:42, 4 December 2006 (CST)

Nancy gone?

These two edits ([1], [2]) make me wonder if she has left. She gutted her style from the article as well as her comments from the talk page. The one thing that I noted was adding prehistory into the firt section after the intro. This was something we had discussed and she did not like it at all. But also gone is religion and parkas in cold rooms, things I think she would have been reluctant to take out. Any idea what's up? Chris Day (Talk) 11:55, 4 December 2006 (CST)

Great to see you involved!

Great to see you involved Gareth! ScottYoung 19:29, 4 December 2006 (CST)

I haven't been able to get the protein templates to work at vasopressin or oxytocin and the people at the techinical help at the forum have been of no help. Do you think you could get them working? a lot. ScottYoung 12:49, 24 January 2007 (CST)

Someone took a look and fixed the "Template Machine." ScottYoung 17:02, 24 January 2007 (CST)

Journal of Neuroendocrinology

Gareth, I revised the article here and identically on Wikipedia. I suggest that I have left in the proper amount and type of detail. I'm seeing this as a prototype for the many hundreds ahead. What might do well in addition is titles of a few of the best representative articles--and if you pick open access ones, the links. I'd like your comments. DavidGoodman 21:54, 7 December 2006 (CST)

1. The practice in WP is that thumbnails of the cover are fair use, & I think the same would apply here.
2. we can add their status re Open access, but we would have to check every 6 months.
3. I'd suggest eliminating the "indexed in:" from all of them--concentration on that seems a little old-fashioned. Obviously all biomed journals are in PubMed, & chem in CAS, etc.
4. I'd suggest eliminating an historical list of all the editors,except the first and any famous ones thereafter.
5. I'd similarly suggest not including all the current editorial board.
6. WP doesn't do this but we can find the most cited articles with WebofScience, which won't be available to all our readers. Everything we do here in bio is likely to be a precedent. There's only 1 editor in the Media group so far, and only 3 in library science, so I am not sure how much help we'll get. I'm going to cc. this part to the relevant groups, and see what the other sciences people want to do. DavidGoodman 15:39, 10 December 2006 (CST)

Barbara McCLintock

This is the closest that I found to the 19XX sentence in Biology article. Scientist Barbara McClintock discovered the first TE's in maize in 1948, work that led to her winning the Nobel Prize in 1983 [3]. --D. Matt Innis 23:10, 9 December 2006 (CST)

Biology article approval

Gareth,could ypu please look at the biology talk page and make your comments. Thanks. Nancy Sculerati MD 13:22, 12 December 2006 (CST)

I'd like to do some major re-wording of the Chiropractic article now. warning about edit conflict! :) Nancy Sculerati MD 10:35, 14 December 2006 (CST)

Chiropractic

I see you are doing Chiropractic edits. As an aside, my cast is off and my follow-up head CT (with and withou contrast, the neuroradiologist was a doll and he gave me the grand tour of the final images) is perfect! Anyway, please split off a history article and later today, when the UK is fast asleep, I'll play with the text. Nancy Sculerati MD

Please look at the Forums- healing arts, biology article and the approval process somewhere near the top. Nancy Sculerati MD 09:50, 16 December 2006 (CST)

please look at Chiropractic talk page Nancy Sculerati MD 10:27, 16 December 2006 (CST)

Are you pretty much satisfied with the Chiropractic article? I've asked Nancy for one more look before I'm ready. --D. Matt Innis 14:09, 18 December 2006 (CST)

Check it one more time? --D. Matt Innis 10:19, 19 December 2006 (CST)

Can you add this to that first references. Spinal nerve chart --D. Matt Innis 10:59, 19 December 2006 (CST)

Okay, made some significant changes per Larry's suggestions. I don' think you'll haev any trouble with them, but do make sure to clean up my wording! Thanks! --Matt Innis (Talk) 15:35, 20 December 2006 (CST)

Hey Gareth. After sending Tom Kelly to the Chiropractic History, I realized that it was still the "shortened" version that you had worked so hard to make fit into the chiropractic article before it got axed. Any problem with me reverting to the WP version again since it has its own article? --Matt Innis (Talk) 12:04, 15 January 2007 (CST)

I knew you'd see it that way, I like the janitor job, no headaches and you sleep better at night:) --Matt Innis (Talk) 16:03, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Hi

Hi Gareth, Merry Christmas. I was in the process of editing the nculear chemistry page and I was having the thought that a discussion of the different processes by which new isotopes are formed is too detailed for the nuclear chemistry page and that it belonged somewhere else. Please could you tell me what your view on this point is and what do you think would be the best page for the reader (in terms of content, should we make it more detailed or less ?).Mark Rust

Hi, I saw with interest that you suggested that journal references should be checked as part of the process of apporving an article. I have used a large number of Elsevier journal references for writing the nuclear chemistry page, I do not know if you want to read each reference in full but if you want to look at the papers (or just the abstracts) then please go to [4]. I think that the idea of an editor who has had little to do with the writing making a judegment about the journal references is a good idea and should be a part of the peer review process which leads to the approval of a page.Mark Rust 05:39, 28 December 2006 (CST) (NB I have also put a copy of this message on the talk page for nuclear chemistry)

SIMFUEL is the name given to the simulated spent fuel which is made by mxing finely ground metal oxides, grinding as a slurry, spray drying it before heating in hydrogen/argon to 1700 oC. Journal of Nuclear Materials, 1991, vol 178, 48-60 gives a good synthesis for this solid.Mark Rust 10:43, 28 December 2006 (CST)

Snake Venom-Neuromuscular Junction, Coagulation Cascade etc.

Gareth, I see you are busy but I would so like your help that I ask for your attention. The article on snake venom from Wikipedia was a reprint of a no longer copyedited article from 1911. I have been rewriting it. There is that whole business of alpha and beta bungaro toxins, and the entire clotting protein cascade to consider, along with complement and the kinens and the general issue of tissue inflammation. As I have been going to hyoer links on these, they are mostly in poor shape. It's been years since I studied the physiology of the neuromuscular junction and the several other of the topics here. Now, of course, I'm learning a tremendous amount, but I had hoped that you might look over things and keep them accurate. I hope too that all this might be right up your alley and you might join in. Please look at the discussion page about the references. Happy Boxing Day! (or is that strictly English?)Nancy Sculerati MD

metabolism

Gareth, Pedro Silva has written a very nice article on metabolism that he has also supplied some original images for. I hope we can deal with the edit conflicts, but I have suggested that you, and Chris, and David, (so far) all take a look. I think this is going to be a wonderful article, but after our chiropractic approval- deapproval-approval process, I think many of us should look and polish. Please look as soon as you can. Nancy Sculerati MD 09:50, 29 December 2006 (CST)

I put the weight lifter picture in metabolism and wrote a caption. Please look at it. Remove or modify as suits. Nancy Sculerati MD 09:13, 31 December 2006 (CST)

Hi Gareth - Pedro has put a newer version for approval (down at the bottom of the talk page). If I have two more editors on board, I'd be happy to approve it this evening. -- Sarah Tuttle 14:49, 4 January 2007 (CST)

Wheat

Could you take a look at Wheat please Gareth and give an opinion at the discussion page there on whether it should be approved please?

David Tribe 00:48, 3 January 2007 (CST)

VS

Hey Gareth! When you get a minute can you stop by the Vertebral subluxation page? I've made an effort to clean up the first section and need your expertise. I'm starting to go blind;) --Matt Innis (Talk) 22:21, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Micrurus fulvius

Hi Gareth. I saw the changes you made to Micrurus fulvius. Although I'm okay with most of them, I'm not entirely happy with the two style changes. That's something that I've applied to over 100 articles and CZ and WP, particularly those in Category:True vipers. The minor style change is where you've added parentheses to the publication years of the references (all of mine are without), but the major one concerns the common names.
I parted company with the practice of using common names for the titles of these articles early on (there's a discussion about this in the forum). One of the criticisms people have of using scientific names instead of common names for articles titles is that it's no longer immediately evident what the common name is of the species. Because so many snake species have multiple common names, or even share the same ones, many of the snake articles at WP that have scientific name titles anyway, with the common names included in the introduction. However, that just isn't good enough for the critics.
As a result I felt I had to come up with something new, and so developed the style you see in articles like Vipera berus: some popular common names at the top, occupying in a single line, separated from the introduction by hard returns, and the rest of the common names in a separate section below the Description area (where local of foreign language common names are also included). This is the most effective method I can think of to make sure visitors will see those common names as soon as possible. It's also a good way to show that there is often more than one common name for a taxon and that one common name is no better than the next (I hate placing one common name above any others, which is why I don't use them in the taxobox). I put a lot of thought into this style and many people seem to think it's a good solution.
If you'd like to comment or think you have a better solution, I'd like to hear it (you can answer here, since I've got your talk page temporarily on my watchlist). --Jaap Winius 14:42, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Hi Jaap, Feel free to revert any or all of my edits. I guess I thought that they wouldn't be controversial which is why I didn't explain, but if you take a look and prefer different that's fine with me. Journal dates in parentheses is something we've done on the other approved articles, but there's no agreed rule, so long as there's consistncy within an article, but that's how they come out if you use the journal cite boxes. As for common names, I was just struck by the duplication and the short section, so it seemed natural to merge them. Maybe the answer is to propose a formal consistent style for these articles and put an explanatory box on the Talk pages to avoid others doing what I did here, which is coming in and making changes that seem right and consistent with other approved articles but which might not be appropriate for this subcategory of articles? Gareth Leng 03:56, 15 January 2007 (CST)

RNA interference

Ive been busy on Wheat and HGT I've just got round to reading your comments on RNAi. Interesting to see your take is quite different to Dereks!

Meanwhile WP entry on the topic has changed a lot and is a feature article on the month in a mol biol group, They've got some very nice images too. Ill work on a bit more David Tribe 06:23, 22 January 2007 (CST)

Physiology

Gareth, would you be so kind as to put just what you said in Physiology:talk in the "bank" in a suitable manner in the article. I looked at the Wikipedia Physiology and I did not find anything I thought was useable. Help us write what Physiology really is. Nancy Sculerati MD 18:53, 26 January 2007 (CST)

Thanks, Thomas Kelly and I (and hopefully others) will work on your excellent plan. Meanwhile, before you get that grant in- take a quick look at Jesus:Talk. thanks Nancy Sculerati MD 11:12, 27 January 2007 (CST)

Style for references floated

Gareth, I'd like to hear your comment on this in Biology/Draft talk David Tribe 06:36, 30 January 2007 (CST) [http://pilot.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Biology/Draft#A_Style_manual_for_citation_from_PloS_Biology_Slightly_modified_.3F ] I'm trying to develop a model for reference style based om PloS

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) 23:47, 31 January 2007 (CST)

Approval RNA interference

Ive put an approval template on RNAi , take our previous exchanges as amounting to your agreement. Lets try and get another one up. David Tribe 23:54, 6 February 2007 (CST)

Gareth read the CZ internal email or email me : Be wary of Chris Day David Tribe 04:19, 9 February 2007 (CST). (explanation to others- this was made at a time of vandalism, and does not refer to the real Chris Day David Tribe 23:07, 24 February 2007 (CST))

Advice on 'Life'

Taking the Life article in its current draft, what would you like to see further developed or modified. I have much more in mind for this article, especially work on the later sections, but would like to consider the practicality of getting out a draft that qualifies for consideration of approval. Would expect to work further on a Life/Draft. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 15:04, 13 February 2007 (CST)

Input needed on how to educate more people on category importance

http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,539.0.html -Tom Kelly (Talk) 19:42, 15 February 2007 (CST)

adding Bio Workgroup to your contributions which relate

Hello, could you go back through your contributions and add Category:Biology Workgroup to the appropriate articles? thanks! -Tom Kelly (Talk) 20:25, 15 February 2007 (CST)

Deleting articles

I admit I've been mostly out of the loop for much of this year, but I've noticed that very many articles are have been deleted, or are being slated for deletion. What's the criterion; are all WP articles now being deleted? If so, that seems like a major change in policy. However, I'd rather keep the Asp disambig page, if that's okay with you. I've shorted it now to include just two entries with no red wlinks. --Jaap Winius 11:31, 18 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 01:04, 20 February 2007 (CST)

Dates De-wikified

Hi there Gareth... Just noticed you have de-wikified the dates in the new article for the United States Constitution.... Just wondering if there is something I've missed regarding the wikification of dates in CZ....? I am used to wikifying dates in WP and my own wiki, so was surprised to see them go missing. Could you fill me in please? Paul James Cowie 13:38, 20 February 2007 (CST)

I notice that dates are still included in general information regarding how to edit CZ [5]. Anyway, as I have already requested, please fill me in.... I'm confused! Paul James Cowie 13:51, 20 February 2007 (CST)

Thanks for the welcome

Glad to be back! :-) Nancy Sculerati MD 14:26, 20 February 2007 (CST)

Elenchus

Can you look at the history of this deleted article as well as the Elenchus_on_wheels article? One of them probably has the content that Damien is looking for. re: User_talk:Chris_day#Elenchus_on_wheels Thanks Chris Day (Talk) 05:02, 21 February 2007 (CST)

It's all there now. Thanks you both. Damien Storey 07:31, 21 February 2007 (CST)

HGT thanks

thanks again for that effort with HGT. I think on challenging articles the effort to conquer the science and communication can overwhelm the copy-editing, and I value your judgmement and encouragement . In these cases version 1.1 is fairly important. Biology was also helped by the late edits. I'm glad I had Wheat to do as well. Your effort makes sure we add to our portfolio of decently finished articles. But also we cannot afford to keep on quibbling over minute details of good articles.David Tribe 23:06, 24 February 2007 (CST)

leads

Gareth, I think Christo is absolutely on to something about leads and I think this can be a major diff between WP and CZ that distignuishes us. Can you imagine the Chiropractic article if we could just start with the discussion of what it was and let it flow all the way to the end where it talked about what it wasn't? I would like to see the Healing arts workgroup use this format. Do you think it is feasible? --Matt Innis (Talk) 11:19, 26 February 2007 (CST)

Healing Arts

Gareth, when you get a chance can you look at this? -Matt Innis (Talk) 12:58, 26 February 2007 (CST)

Health Science

Gareth, I'm making a similar request. [[6]] Nancy Sculerati MD 09:25, 27 February 2007 (CST)

Jesus

If you agree, could you please do so? I don't knoe the wikiediting well enough to do it. I tried. Nancy Sculerati MD 06:15, 2 March 2007 (CST)

Chiropractic

Gareth, your help needed on chiropractic again!. -Matt Innis (Talk) 19:19, 4 March 2007 (CST)

thanks

for your contribs

Abstract vs "summary lead".

Referring to the problem you have with the time wasting arguments about what should or should not be in a lead, I wrote a little essay at Article mechanics about my opinion that summary lead structure should be replaced by a formal abstract. It may be too revolutionary for present thought on encyclopedia structure and style, but one has to remember that until late in the 20th century even the finest medical research articles had no abstract (cf Fleming on penicillin, or the first articles on TB and streptomycin). --Christo Muller (Talk) 06:49, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Abstracts seem right for some topics, but not for others. Where lead-ins appropriate starting point, authors should have freedom for creative lead-ins related to the TOC just following. Sometimes abstracts better when written after article written.--Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 18:20, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Added pgraph to 'Scientific method' article

Gareth: I added a paragraph in the Alternative Views section. If you don't think it fits, remove it:

Some scientists focus their activity on making precise and detailed observations of a phenomenon, gathering data, organizing it in sensible ways, making it accessible to other scientists. We do not disqualify those scientists as ‘scientists’ on the grounds they do not employ a scientific method. Other scientists might use their observational data to generate testable hypotheses to disconfirm or not, and other scientists might test those hypotheses by experiment, and others to try to reproduce the findings. That illustrates an instance of the scientific method in action realized by the combined effort of two or more scientists, not necessarily in the one generation. Regardless of the hopefully rational approach each scientist employs, however, none can leave their biases and passions outside their mind. The scientific method is the endeavor of humans, prone to error for many reasons, prone to creative insights by nature.

--Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 18:11, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Now reading as follows:

Some scientists focus their activity on making precise and detailed observations of a phenomenon, gathering data, organizing it in sensible ways, making it accessible to other scientists. We do not disqualify those scientists as ‘scientists’ on the grounds they do not employ a scientific method. Other scientists might use their observational data to generate testable hypotheses to disconfirm or not, and other scientists might test those hypotheses by experiment, and others try to reproduce the findings. That illustrates an instance of the scientific method in action realized by the combined effort of two or more scientists working with different methods, not necessarily in one generation. Regardless of the hopefully rational approach each scientist employs in her 'scientific method', however, none can leave their biases and passions outside their mind. Sometimes biases and passions contribute the advancement of science. The scientific method is the endeavor of humans, prone to error for many reasons, prone to creative insights by nature. But scientists agree on the need for verifiable knowledge, and they cannot suppress the emergence of novel perspectives and paradigms.

--Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 18:53, 6 March 2007 (CST)