User:CaptainEek/sandbox

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Tunica treasure

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Ottoman Public Debt Administration & Ottoman public debt

User:CaptainEek/Sandbox 2: Electric Boogaloo

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Wise words from Guy Macon's old page

"If Wikipedia had been available around the fourth century B.C., it would have reported the view that the Earth is flat as a fact and without qualification. And it would have reported the views of Eratosthenes (who correctly determined the earth's circumference in 240BC) either as controversial, or a fringe view. Similarly if available in Galileo's time, it would have reported the view that the sun goes round the earth as a fact, and Galileo's view would have been rejected as 'original research'. Of course, if there is a popularly held or notable view that the earth is flat, Wikipedia reports this view. But it does not report it as true. It reports only on what its adherents believe, the history of the view, and its notable or prominent adherents. Wikipedia is inherently a non-innovative reference work: it stifles creativity and free-thought. Which is a Good Thing." --WP:FLAT

AFCHD pastables

Be careful about comparing your article to existing ones. Many of the articles on Wikipedia were created before we began the rigorous Article for Creation process. That means a lot of ...honestly junk articles were created, and many of them have slipped through the cracks. We are in the process of finding those and fixing them. Just because another article is bad does not mean yours can be bad. You can read more about the logical fallacies involved in article comparison at WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.

If you have been compensated in any way for your edits, you must disclose that by following the steps at WP:PAID. If you know this person, or are this person, you must disclose a conflict of interest.

If you have been compensated in any way for your edits, are an employee of the company, have a stake in the company, or any other financial relationship with the subject, you must disclose that by following the steps at WP:PAID. Failing to do so is a violation of the Terms of Service.

Howdy hello! We're glad you're editing, and thanks for asking. Most folks don't ask for advice before starting an article, much to their disservice.

For any article, the subject must first be notable, i.e. have significant coverage in multiple reliable and independent sources (think newspapers, books, magazines, quality websites). Once you have found enough sources (at least five is a good starting point), then you can start to write the article. It needs to read neutrally and like an encyclopedia article. If you know the person, you should probably not write the article, as that is a conflict of interest. If you've been paid in any way to write an article, you must disclose that by following the steps at WP:PAID

A quick guide to writing new articles can be found here. A longer guide to general editing can be found here.

WP:BOSS

NFOOTY and other sport notability criteria

Seeking suggestions on how to revise NFOOTY

WP:NFOOTY has often stuck out as a sore thumb in the world of notability and AfD. Contributors have long questioned why we automatically make most sports players notable, but then require GNG for most other biographies. We have individual notability standards for various areas that are meant to help folks understand what meets WP:GNG. But it seems that NFOOTY has not worked as planned: it assumes players who have been in a single Tier 1 match meet GNG, and thus automatically grants them articles, even when they have not received significant coverage, or the coverage was simply "they played in this match". NFOOTY is not alone either. See also WP:NGRIDIRON, WP:NBASKETBALL, and WP:NCRICKET that all use the one game standard. Compare that to other sports notability criteria that either require: winning, winning a medal, being inducted into a hall of fame, and so on. Wikipedia is not a sports directory. We do not exist to catalogue every single player of notable teams.

Possible solutions I'd considered include: raise the standard to "multiple games" (i.e. 3 or more), simply get rid of many specific sports notability criteria, require that they meet GNG, note that playing a single game is indicative but not positive, and so on. I do not claim to know the solution to this problem however, which is why I am asking for community feedback, with the eventual intent of creating an RfC to change the actual guidelines. What do folks think can help NFOOTY work better?

NFOOTY is perhaps the most maligned extant guideline; almost everyone agrees that its a problem, but how to fix it? At the core of the issue: NFOOTY seems to add to our proliferation of sports bios that are of dubious nature. Folks see it as allowing almost any upper level footballer to have an article, in seeming contravention of our notability philosophy.

Vami's very voluminous list of birds

Featured on DE, but not EN.

• Common ostrich Very high traffic (DE article not very long)
• Tree pipit
• Syrian woodpecker
• Common eider
• Eleonora's falcon
• Common pheasant High traffic, wide distribution
• Bat hawk
• Gyrfalcon High traffic, largest falcon
• European serin
• Mariana crow
• Bonelli's eagle
• Black-billed magpie Western NA distribution, high traffic
• Iberian grey shrike
• Cassowary Very high traffic
• Lesser spotted woodpecker
• Common crane
• Poicephalus
• Grebe
• Common swift
• Middle spotted woodpecker
• Black harrier
• Red-backed shrike
• Great grey shrike
• Horned grebe
• Rough-legged buzzard
• Réunion harrier
• Lesser kestrel
• Red-footed falcon
• Red kite High traffic
• Rook (bird) High traffic, GA by Cwmhiraeth
• Gaviiformes
• Swift High traffic, family article
• Pomarine jaeger
• Eurasian pygmy owl
• Little owl Medium traffic, GA by Cwmhiraeth
• Swamp harrier
• Common moorhen
• Common kestrel High traffic
• Long-eared owl
• Rufous treepie
• Phalarope
• White-headed duck
• Eurasian wryneck
• European honey buzzard
• Western gull
• Red-breasted flycatcher

Thoughts on the WMF/Community relationship

From [1]. The WMF keeps the lights on, the Community writes the content. The WMF has a formal duty to ensure Wikipedia exists and thrives. Its decisions are taken by experienced professionals whose very job is to understand how the internet works. The WMF is dedicated to Wikipedia, even if it doesn't always feel like it from an editors perspective; the issue is that our priorities and their priorities are inherently different because our jobs are inherently different. Frankly, the WMF defers to the Community more than I think any other non-profit organization. This is a co-equal partnership, but this is not to say that each side has absolute veto power over the other. If the WMF was to declare that we had to take a certain content stance, we would understandably be pissed. So when the Community tries to declare that the WMF must do a certain technical thing, it is understandable that the WMF might be less than willing. We are not the WMF's masters, and they are not our masters. We're in this together.

We've written letters to the WMF before, and we talk to them every month, and are in regular email contact. We've had several conversations with them in recent months about high level issues like donations and the V22 rollout. The community *is* being heard on issues like donations and V22, and the WMF has made major concessions and learned considerable lessons. ArbCom can't just veto the WMF's technical actions, just as the WMF can't veto our content.

For better or worse, we the Community and the WMF are tied to the same mast. Forking is a fools errand. We have long passed the point where we could fork EnWP. Such a fork would either fail, or destroy both EnWP and the fork, which would be a calamitous disaster. We can no longer envision forking as our "nuclear option" that we can use to force the WMF's hand. Nor should we. It would be deeply irresponsible of us; forking is mutually assured destruction.

The moral of these ramblings is that the solution is not simple. Opening a case won't solve this issue, just as forking won't. It requires hard work. The relationship that ArbCom has been building with the WMF since WP:FRAM is that hard work. It has paid dividends. It will continue to. That relationship is the best thing ArbCom can do to help this issue, to continue to make the community's voice heard.

So you've been put up for RECALL/are in front of ArbCom

Fear not: you can get through this. But you're going to need your wits, resolve, and humility.

Wits

The best way to survive RECALL/ArbCom is to not be put up for RECALL/ArbCom in the first place. But since you're reading this essay, you've probably not been able to take that advice. Whether entirely your fault or not, you've entered a trying time in your life. Its happened to others, now its happened to you. The first step is to not panic. Take a breather. Hopefully, you've already taken a breather by the time you're reading this. If not, do that now. Once you've come back, don't be hasty. Every word you say will be picked over like scratch in a chicken coop. Taking a day or two to see how commentary evolves, and to contemplate your answer, can help. But by that same token, don't say nothing. If you say nothing, you're sunk for sure.

Resolve

This is going to be a stressful time. You'll need to look after your own health and wellbeing if you want to stay calm, cool, and collected (which will greatly help with a positive outcome). Words said in anger or haste cannot be taken back.

Humility

Unless you're a shining beacon of purity (which seems unlikely given that you're both elected and a janitor; two notably dirty positions), you're going to have to eat some crow. You will need to plainly, clearly, and with some humility and understanding, explain exactly how you fucked up. You'll need to explain, in some detail, how and why it won't happen again, and why the community can still trust you. You must also do this without having a direct right of reply on the RECALL page.

Now, there is a world in which you really didn't fuck up, and you did everything right. But if a non-trivial number of people are saying you did something wrong...you might be wrong.

There's no shame in bowing out, but by that same token, don't let the bastards grind you down.

The Grand Unified Theory of Editor Time

An idea I have sometimes subscribed to is that editor time is strictly transferrable; i.e. each editor hour is fungible and could be used to do any task on Wikipedia. Given ten hours of editor time, it could be used to remove vandalism, or write policies, or create articles. But I admit that this theory of editor time is an incomplete one, much as Isaac Newton's theorems were useful as a starting point and at certain scales, but don't capture the granular reality of the world. Indeed, I think we can realize that editor time is not strictly transferrable. If I had ten hours of Wikipedia time, I alone will be choosing how to use them. I'll probably put most of them into doing backend business, and the remainder on writing about birds or history. For argument's sake, lets say I'm spending ten hours a month on birds, and ten hours a month on history. But lets say we decide that birds are no longer worth Wikipedia's time, and ban writing about birds. I now have ten spare hours that I used to use on birds. But it is unlikely that I will suddenly turn all ten of those hours into history writing time, or backend time. Indeed, many of those ten hours might instead be converted to non-Wikipedia time. Perhaps I put two more hours into history, but I lose the other eight. The amount of hours being spent on non-bird topics goes up, but the overall number of hours being put into Wikipedia goes down!

This phenomena is worth examining because I think that it underlies a lot of our decision making, and I think a lot of people implicitly or explicitly believe in this theory. We assume that if we remove a certain area of the 'pedia that folks will migrate to other areas. But this isn't strictly true. Now, I admit that I don't yet have a quantum theory of editor time which would more precisely determine the consequences of every action we took ;) But its obvious that there is some loss in transferring editor attention. Depending on who you ask, that might be a good thing. We've deprecated all sorts of ideas and projects and parts of Wikipedia over the years because we felt that it wasn't worth the time and hassle. I myself have called for deprecating various parts of Wikipedia, and have succeeded at some of those calls. I have worried about the time and energy we put into the maintenance and organization of Wikipedia. We eventually receive diminishing rewards, and must consider the opportunity cost of such work. But I sometimes think I've been too quick to assume that editor time is strictly transferrable.

I'm reminded of the spherical cow problem in physics. Many physics problems simplify various aspects in order to make the underlying calculation easier. For example, one might imagine that a cow is spherical, as it is much easier to calculate how a sphere reacts in a physics problem than a rather complicatedly shaped cow. Indeed, a physics problem might say that air resistance or friction are negligible on the cow, to ease calculation. But after enough of that, you're not really calculating how a cow interacts with the world, you're doing a theoretical physics problem with no real world application. Are we doing the same thing when it comes to RfC's that are really referendums on editor time? Just as a physics problem might tell us to assume friction is negligible, do our RfC's implicitly assume that editor time loss is negligible? Are we running RfC's on spherical cows?

If we run an RfC with the assumption that editor time is fungible, it might come to a very different conclusion than if we recognized the time loss that the RfC might bring. Again, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'll use the featured portal process as an example. We deprecated it in 2017; implicit in that decision was the idea that portals were not strictly the way forward and that featured portals were too great a drain on editor time. But its not like that was the last word, as the contentious ArbCom Portals case shows. In trying to save editor time, did the community ultimately spend more editor time?

Game theory posits that no war could every be justified, as any rational decision maker would realize that a war would ultimately cost more than it was ever worth. But human history is full of wars, because humans aren't rational decision makers, and game theorists have failed to account for the fact that wars are about more than just money. I hesitate to describe RfC's as wars, since I think us Wikipedians are a pretty nice bunch, but they sometimes take on dimensions of great struggle. I disdain this; at one point I believe I've noted that Wikipedia isn't some cosmic battle of good and evil, to be won at any and all costs. Yet we approach RfC's as if they are battles for our future. And sure, sometimes they are. But I wonder if our incomplete working theories on editor time don't help contribute to that belief in cases where it really isn't. We're so worried about shrinking editor time that we feel we must apply it just the right places or else the whole endeavor fails. But that assumes editor time is fungible. If we're viewing an RfC as a fight for editor time, based on incorrect assumptions, might we too make irrational decisions?

I don't imagine to have the answer to this problem. After all, just as there is no Grand Unified Theory of physics, there is no Grand Unified Theory of Wikipedia. But clearly editor time isn't 100% fungible, and it isn't zero percent fungible. The issue is that we don't have a way to precisely calculate just how fungible it is (we're more of an art than a science anyway). But just because we can't calculate it doesn't mean we can assume it is close enough to 100% to be negligible. Time loss is real and must be considered. At the end of the day, we must remember that our editors are human beings, not editing machines. If they don't like what we're doing, they'll just leave. We're only volunteers after all.

Radiation

This guide is intended to provide some useful background, as well as some copy and pasteables, about radiation doses. Someday it might find a home at Wikipedia:RADIATION.

One of my pet peeves: radiation is so poorly described on Wikipedia, and the doses are almost never broken down into an understandable number. There are more than a dozen different ways to describe radiation, but only a few are actually useful to the average reader. The rem and sievert are effectively interchangeable: 1 Sv = 100 rem. They are useful for a wide range of radiation types, and are useful even for very small doses.

For comparison, the average background radiation in the United States is 310 (.003 Sv) millirem a year. Chronic doses above 20 rem (.2 Sv) increase the risk of cancer. Acute doses of 500 rem (5 Sv) kill half of those affected without medical treatment. Doses up to 900 rem may be survivable with prompt and intensive treatment. Doses received only to one part of the body are more survivable than doses absorbed to the whole body. For example, a whole body dose of 2,000 rem is always deadly and kills within 2 weeks. But doses of above 8,000 rem may be used in radiation therapy to target a tumor. The tumor absorbs the dose and dies, but the rest of the body is relatively unharmed. Chronic doses (received over a longer period of time) are less damaging than acute doses.

The Gray (unit) is useful mostly for acute doses that are fairly large. At small doses, it is better to use Sv or rem. The Gray is best suited for radiation accidents and deaths. The chart at Acute_radiation_syndrome#Dose_effects does a good job of showing acute radiation injury at high levels. This chart should not be used for chronic exposures. Unfortunately, the research regarding chronic exposure is much poorer than that of acute exposure, usually because the latencies of symptoms can be years or decades, and oftentimes the only effect is a slightly elevated cancer risk, which itself is disputed and hard to measure.

The Gray (Gy) describes deterministic effects, which conveniently become noticeable at about 1 Gy. See this chart for a breakdown of the health effects of radiation doses above 1 Gy.

External radiation exposure is different than internal exposure. Alpha radiation is effectively harmless outside the body since a thin sheet of paper, clothes, or skin blocks it. But inside the body, there is nothing to protect organs from its very damaging particles. Thus ingested or inhaled particles of alpha emitters (like plutonium) are much more dangerous.

What are the kinds of radiation

Radiation is measured in a few key ways: activity, exposure, and dose.

Outdated units and how to convert them

Many simple conversions may be done using this lovely calculator http://www.radprocalculator.com/RadProDownloads.aspx (they also have a web-only version).

To convert to rem or Sv, a few assumptions are needed, and the results will only be somewhat accurate, but this is passable enough for most Wikipedia purposes. First, you'll need the weighting factor (W_R). For alpha particles, this factor is 20. For neutron radiation, it is 5–20. Beta radiation, X-ray, and gamma radiation all have a factor of 1. (see a pdf here [2]). This means that Alpha radiation does 20 times more damage than beta radiation. This isn't exactly true though. Alpha particles are stopped by skin or even a thin sheet of paper, and don't go more than about 10 cm in air. So for most practical purposes, the radiation that is actually doing harm is the other kinds which can travel further through air. Alpha radiation is usually only a problem if consumed or otherwise enters the body (such as through a wound), then the injury can be catastrophic.

The Roentgen (unit) is an exposure unit whose derivation is silly because its not an SI unit. The Roentgen is only useful for electromagnetic ionizing energy (think X-Rays and Gamma). It will not work with particles (Alpha, Beta, Neutron). If an old source used it to describe a particle radiation, toss it and find something better. 1 Roentgen = .00877 Sieverts = 0.877 rem. Different texts give slightly different values for this. So what about the weighting factor? Luckily, it is always 1 for X-ray or Gammas, which means the answer is multiplied by 1, making no difference.

Note that Geiger counters most often provide an exposure, not an absorbed, dose value. If a Geiger counter is providing a value in rem or Sv, it is probably making some assumptions.

Weighting factors

The modern dose equivalents use weighting factors to calculate radiation.

Ionizing radiation related quantities

Quantity	Unit	Symbol	Derivation	Year	SI equivalent
Activity (A)	becquerel	Bq	s−1	1974	SI unit
	curie	Ci	3.7×1010 s−1	1953	3.7×1010 Bq
	rutherford	Rd	106 s−1	1946	1000000 Bq
Exposure (X)	coulomb per kilogram	C/kg	C⋅kg−1 of air	1974	SI unit
	röntgen	R	esu / 0.001293 g of air	1928	2.58×10−4 C/kg
Absorbed dose (D)	gray	Gy	J⋅kg−1	1974	SI unit
	erg per gram	erg/g	erg⋅g−1	1950	1.0×10−4 Gy
	rad	rad	100 erg⋅g−1	1953	0.010 Gy
Equivalent dose (H)	sievert	Sv	J⋅kg−1 × WR	1977	SI unit
	röntgen equivalent man	rem	100 erg⋅g−1 × WR	1971	0.010 Sv
Effective dose (E)	sievert	Sv	J⋅kg−1 × WR × WT	1977	SI unit
	röntgen equivalent man	rem	100 erg⋅g−1 × WR × WT	1971	0.010 Sv

Best practices on writing about radiation

So a source has provided a measurement of radiation. How should you best include that in an article?

• Ensure correctness: Make sure the measurement is appropriate in context. Many lay authors do not understand the difference between kinds of radiation unit, and may thus confuse exposure with dose. More rarely, authors may conflate dose or exposure with activity. If the author has used the wrong kind of dose, look for a better source, or at least make sure to use a source which explains the underlying radiation science, thereby pointing out the erroneous aspects.
• Provide a comparison: the average reader has no clue what a 20 mSv dose of radiation is. The uninitiated might assume this to be a rather scary amount of radiation. But it is in fact the amount of radiation absorbed from a typical chest CT scan. Conversely, the average reader might assume a 20 Sv dose to be relatively safe. But such a dose, absorbed by the whole body, is an inescapable death sentence. The reader needs something to understand what these rarely encountered numbers mean.
  • Incorrect: Johnson received a 20 mSv dose of radiation.
  • Correct: John received a 20 milliSievert (mSv) dose of radiation. This is roughly equivalent to the amount of radiation absorbed from a chest CT scan.
  • Incorrect: Johnson received a 20 Sv dose of radiation.
  • Correct: John received a 20 Sievert (Sv) dose of radiation. Such a dose, absorbed over the whole body, is almost invariably fatal. For comparison, acute radiation syndrome begins at doses of approximately 1 Sv, and doses above 6 Sv are 95% lethal even with medical intervention.
• Do the math: Simple math is one of the few aspects of Wikipedia which does not require citation. Therefore, you can convert units where necessary, so long as you provide a citation both to the original number, and a citation to the conversion numbers you have used. This can also be used to provide mathematical context. A classic good comparison number is 50 mSv a year, the United States yearly exposure limit for radiation workers in non-emergency situations. If you are comparing a 1.23 mSv dose, you could state this as about 2.5% of the yearly exposure limit for American radiation workers. Percentages are a handy friend when dealing with radiation.
• Standardize units: This is not always possible, but standardizing units across an article is ideal. If your reader is constantly having to juggle Sieverts and rem, they're going to lose the plot somewhere. Some simplification to this end can be useful. For example, 1 Gray is roughly equal to 1 Sievert, assuming that Sievert is fully absorbed across the whole body. Thus, unless there is some extenuating circumstance, it can be more effective to go with one unit or the other (so long as an appropriate explanatory note is added).
• Beware: While the different kinds of dose are somewhat interchangeable, dose cannot be conflated with activity. Dose may be calculated from exposure, given enough information and some assumptions. But while converting activity to exposure or dose is not technically impossible, it is so beyond the scope of the Wikipedia writer that it should not be attempted. (See this source for a discussion of just how hard it is to calculate a dose from activity).