User talk:Nereo Preto

Welcome, Nereo! --Larry Sanger 02:35, 1 November 2006 (CST)

he fungii

There's actually an explanation--I had deleted the html code in the line above, and when I found the page didn't work without it, I apparently reinserted it wrong. :)DavidGoodman 16:57, 27 November 2006 (CST)

Well, typos always escape to the author. I just cannot believe my eyes when I see my proofs sometimes... and I am statistically sure there is something incredibly wrong in the articles I posted in CZ, too.

BTW, do you need some pictures of mushrooms for that article? I have my own collection, and I can upload it under any kind of licence. Just need to take the time of getting good scans from slides.

Nereo Preto 04:27, 28 November 2006 (CST)

Thanks for the superscript fix for my isotopes page. Now I see how to do it. --David E. Volk 04:05, 22 April 2007 (CDT)

Big Speedy Delete

In the process of tagging articles for the BSD, it can happen that we mistakenly tag an article for deletiøn. The check on that proceedure is if it is on somebody's watch list and they are still interested in it. If this happens to an article of yours, don't take it personally. Just go to the article and remove the BSD tag. James F. Perry 10:07, 18 February 2007 (CST)

Yes, it's only I just realized of this BSD business, thanks. --Nereo Preto 10:10, 18 February 2007 (CST)

Nereo, I'm sorry for any inconvenience--we don't want to cause people to have to go through the work (again) of grabbing an article from Wikipedia. However, you must admit that this isn't much work. Moreover, if one hasn't worked on an article here in CZ very much, and we are simply mirroring the Wikipedia version, then this creates two problems: (1) the CZ database is diluted with WP articles, allowing people to correctly accuse us of being "just another mirror of Wikipedia"; and (2) people who might be inclined to work on an article on a topic are discouraged from doing so because they don't really want to edit an amateurish WP article.

I would ask you to upload an article from WP only when you are ready to really change it significantly here on CZ, and not before that.

Thanks --Larry Sanger 11:15, 18 February 2007 (CST)

Never mind, I'm not getting mad about this! I was offline for several hours because of... well, a flu, so I missed that the BSD project was launched. I just did not understand was going on for some minutes...

About those two articles (Stage (geology) and Chronostratigraphy), I don't follow you. Stage (geology) simply does not exist in WP; Chronostratigraphy was substantially wrote from scratch (compare CZ and WP). Not that I believe it is much of a work, but it's no doubts something done into CZ... I didn't contribute further because I hope other authors will complete it - I'm not here to rewrite geology, I'm rather interested in the collaborative aspects. Besides, I'll probably be the editor in charge for those articles, I does not make much sense if I eventually approve an article to which I was the only substantial contributor.

Anyways, again, never mind: I cancelled the template and everything is settled now. :)

--Nereo Preto 01:40, 19 February 2007 (CST)

Offline Mediawiki

Hi Nereo, that offline wiki editor I saw requires scripts to transfer the html to a browser, so it is technically quite challenging. I've been working through some of the other offline wiki installations, and there is one combination that one can install in about 15-30 mins, fully working (I've tried it). You'd need some space on a hard drive, 30+ megs, but if you wish I can walk through the setup with you and we can write it up as an article for a Citizendium help page. I am sure there will be many persons who would find it valuable, for different reasons, e.g. dial-up connection, expensive lines, mobile computer. If you are not comfortable with servers and php and all, then the working through step by step is the only way to go, and we are in similar time zones, so it should not be too disturbing (using a chat client). Let me know how you feel. --Christo Muller (Talk) 17:00, 18 February 2007 (CST)

Thanks a lot. I can't do it right now (trying to getting out of a flu, and I have very little time to stay connected), but I'll appear on your talk page as soon as I'll be back. Ciao. --Nereo Preto 07:48, 21 February 2007 (CST)

Here I am. I have now a internet connection at home, before I was mostly connecting from workplace, so I can spend much more time here (time which is needed: the connection is quite slow...). Let's do it: how can we do it technically? I'm not an expert of computers, but I suppose if you start with a written explanation I can at least try to install myself? Leave some hints here please... and thanks in advance! --Nereo Preto 12:32, 6 March 2007 (CST)

7 March 2007. OK. I've been out of town for a while for disability cases, but should be here home for a few weeks now. I'm assuming you work on a Windows machine. What you are going to do is install a Mediawiki which runs on an Apache webserver installation on your own machine. This is identical to what happens with Citizendium, except that the server and the browser talk directly through your machine, not via the internet. You have a choice of installing the server and the wiki on your hard drive, or you can put it on a USB drive and plug it in at any Windows machine where you happen to be (so you could carry all your work to and from work on the usb drive, and leave nothing on the machines themselves). The Swiss program is called Wiki-On-a-Stick (WOS). The website gives you the opportunity of selecting a collection of self-installing components which it compiles for you to download, and you unzip the download to install the software, make one change to a configuration file if you want to enable "uploads" of pictures, and it works just like that. What you need is

1. the WOS program,
2. the Apache server program,
3. the ImageMagick program to be able to manipulate image sizes
4. the database program (MySql server, different from Citizendium's PostgreSQL, but the same as Wikipedia's - you will not notice the difference),
5. the PHP program, and
6. the Mediawiki program.

Your main problem will be the download size - if you choose the full programs, the download is approx 27MB, if you choose the "SE" (special edition, I presume) versions, it comes to about 11MB. So go to http://www.chsoftware.net/en/useware/wosmixer/wosmixer.htm ; select the choice "I do not have a WOS Portable II Package and want to obtain a new package", and you will be taken to page 2, which gives you the options of what you wish to include in your download. You must have: Apache2 - ImageMagick - MySQL5 - PHP5 - MediaWiki. You can choose the full or SE versions. I have not had problems with the SEs, but have done only some basic tests. The full programs would work for anything you may wish to add later, but download times increase a lot.

What about the other choices? Well, some programs don't work well with PHP5, so then you may need PHP4 later on, but it is easy to add (download and click on php4.wos, the WOS program finds it and installs it). Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, Moodle, and OS_Commerce are website writing (Content management software) systems. PHPMyAdmin is used to organise or administrate your database, if you need to. TYPO3 and Wordpress are website blogging programs.

So select the components you want - I'd suggest the SE versions to begin with - and then click on "Download now" at the bottom. Once you have the download, unzip it to the directory which you want to run the program from (hard drive or USB drive), then click on wos.exe in that directory and it will install itself. After install, if you want to be able to "upload" pictures for articles, you will have to change one line in the file wos/www/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php ("$wgEnableUploads=" from "false" to "true"). Then click on wos.exe to start the server, using your own browser. The rest is like any internet browsing.

Let me know if something is too vague, or you get stuck somewhere. There are a lot of settings which one can change, but one leaves well alone to start with :-) --Christo Muller (Talk) 13:47, 7 March 2007 (CST)

I just downloaded and installed the WOS package. It seems to work fine at a first glance! I'll do some writing in the next days and let you know how well it goes on the long run. Then, if you want, we can lay down an article on it. I believe it might be useful to many users out there. But for now, MANY MANY THANKS!!! Ciao, --Nereo Preto 13:51, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Hi Nereo. Citizendium has the following extensions intalled: CategoryTree, CharInsert, Cite, EasyTimeline, Inputbox, ParserFunctions, and WikiHiero. Of these you can install CategoryTree, CharInsert, Cite, Inputbox, ParserFunctions, and WikiHeiro without much trouble. The extension you are looking for is “Cite”. To install, do the following, while WOS is not running:

1. Go to the directory: <DriveOrDirectoryWhereYouInstalledWOS>\www\mediawiki\extensions
2. Make a new directory called “cite”, so you have: <DriveOrDirectoryWhereYouInstalledWOS>\www\mediawiki\extensions\cite\
3. Now RIGHT-click on the following link (you must be online) http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/Cite/Cite.php?view=co and select “save link as” (or “save file as”), and browse to the <DriveOrDirectoryWhereYouInstalledWOS>\www\mediawiki\extensions\cite\ directory you created in (2). Save the file “cite.php” there.
4. Do exactly the same RIGHT-click save with the file called “cite.i18n.php”, found at http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/Cite/Cite.i18n.php?view=co saving it in the same \www\extensions\cite\ directory as “cite.i18n.php”
5. Now go to the directory <DriveOrDirectoryWhereYouInstalledWOS>\www\mediawiki\ and open the file “LocalSettings.php” in a text editor (it should be a Unicode UTF-8 capable editor, but for this specific file it does not matter, you can use Notepad – I use Context text editor).
6. At the bottom of the file, BUT BEFORE THE “?>” LAST LINE, insert the following text in a new blank line:

require_once( "$IP/extensions/Cite/Cite.php" );

Save the LocalSettins.php file where you found it, and restart the server.

These instructions can be found at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php If you find you need others, let me know. Good luck! --Christo Muller (Talk) 16:21, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

Thanks Christo, I did it and now citations work fine. I'll work on some articles in this days as a test - I'll be back after posting. Ciao, --Nereo Preto 06:52, 16 March 2007 (CDT)

Age restored

Age (geology--sorry for the delete. No doubt I assumed it was sourced from Wikipedia. --Larry Sanger 08:08, 21 February 2007 (CST)

Thanks Larry! --Nereo Preto 12:27, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Recently uploaded image(s)

Hi. Thanks for contributing to CZ! I hate to have to tell you this but one or more images you recently uploaded are lacking clear copyright data. Please carefully review the image(s) you uploaded while referencing Images Help—Copyrights. Please fix the problem rapidly, as the image(s) will otherwise have to be deleted. Thanks! — Stephen Ewen 19:32, 15 April 2007 (CDT)

Done, thanks. --Nereo Preto 02:05, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

Earth vs. earth

Capitalization of earth depends on the context. Astronomical objects are generally capitalized, thus Venus, Earth, Mars, when they occur together, but in a non-astronomical context "earth," "moon" and "sun" are generally not capitalized. Bernard Haisch 17:23, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, --Nereo Preto 03:37, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

Southern Alps

See Minami arupsu (Southern Alps) or Akaishi sanmyaku (red-stone mountain-range. They are in Japan. - Thomas Simmons 17:05, 21 April, 2007 (EPT)

Hi Thomas. The most known (to me) Southern Alps are the mountain chain of New Zealand's Southern Island (e.g., Southern Alps in Wikipedia). Southern Alps is also the name of a "structural domain" of the (European) Alps, that is, one of the parts of the Alps delimited by major faults. Most of my research I did in the (Eu) Southern Alps, by the way: beautiful mountains, the Dolomites are part of it. I didn't know of a mountain chain with the same name in Japan - could you provide me a link? I wonder how many other "Southern Alps" exist around...

Thanks for this note.

--Nereo Preto 03:36, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

Map here. I lived in the City of Kofu in Yamanashi Prefecture for about a year back in the late 80s. If you head east to the right you'll be in Yokohama. There are a lot of images on the internet under southern alps and use 'Japan' for advanced search - Thomas Simmons 20:51, 21 April, 2007 (EPT)

Global warming

Hi, Nereo. I am not a scientist but a computer programmer with minimal teaching experience. I've been at Wikipedia since November 2001 and got to know Larry Sanger quite well in Wikipedia's early days. He and I see eye to eye on NPOV and professional courtesy, for example.

I may have made a mistake by starting an article on a controversial topic, before having even one approved article. But I was "being bold", and I hope you will take a look at it. My view is that the science is almost settled, i.e., that warming and cooling is due to natural factors. But I have trouble with all the big words in journal articles, so I have to rely on popular accounts. --Ed Poor 11:15, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

This article is STRONGLY NEEDED, but yes, it's going to be very controversial. We need a climatologist here sooner or later, I can spot major technical problems, however. Anyway, I don't believe you did a mistake.

Try this blog for good science on the topic: they are getting very technical in the discussions, but initial threads are great and often easy to understand. Those guys are the N°1 in climate science, and they are totally for anthropogenic global warming (perhaps the two things are related? But make up your own mind, of course).

During geologic time, warming and cooling was of course natural. The big discussion is about the last ca. 100 years, and the great majority of scientists are for anthropogenic causes. I espect a big discussion to start in the talk page about this.

Thanks for your contribution, I'll work on it soon.

--Nereo Preto 11:28, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

Ciao. Parlo io un po di lingua italiana.

I was in Lodi, near Milano for four months a year ago. David Tribe 21:22, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

Lodi... I never been there, but I know the cheeses. Got Gorgonzola? --Nereo Preto 11:15, 27 May 2007 (CDT)

More on global warming

The article Global warming got erroneously moved to the title "global warming controversy" and many of its contents are deleted by an author which I don't want to name here. The new title is misleading, since it makes people wonder whether global warming exists, while its existence is undeniable and solid. I would move it back but I'm not an expert. I've also informed editor Nancy in her talk page. Regards. Yi Zhe Wu 21:41, 26 May 2007 (CDT)

Thanks Yi Zhe Wu, I did some drastical changes I felt were needed. I also reverted to your last version. I think everyone is welcome to contribute, but adding a piece each time instead of doing a mess with complicate edits makes revision more straightforward. See you at the article!

--Nereo Preto 11:16, 27 May 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the help. However, I don't know if my last version was good enough for you to revert back to as I'm not an expert :-) That editor has raised some good points that are not unwarranted, but I just felt the move was unjustified. But we will see how it goes, as multiple editors are paying attention now. Regards. Yi Zhe Wu 11:19, 27 May 2007 (CDT)