User talk:David E. Volk

[User bio is in User:Your Name]

Welcome

Tasks: start a new article • add basic, wanted or requested articles • add definitions • add metadata • edit new pages

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, our help system and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via Twitter. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any administrator for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun!

You can find some more information about our collaboration groups if you follow this link CZ:Workgroups.You can always ask me on my talk page or others about how to proceed or any other question you might have.

Kind Regards, Robert Tito |  Talk  15:12, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

Welcome, new editor! We're very glad you've joined us. Here are pointers for a quick start. Also, when you get a chance, please read The Editor Role. You can look at Getting Started and our help system for other introductory pages. It is also important, for project-wide matters, to join the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list. Announcements are also available via Twitter. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any administrator for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and thank you! We appreciate your willingness to share your expertise, and we hope to see your edits on Recent changes soon. --Larry Sanger 20:58, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

bots

loved your "thought experiment" on the forums. Nancy Sculerati 06:03, 22 April 2007 (CDT)

Image(s)

Hi. We appreciate very much your contributions to the Citizendium. I was hoping you could help clear up a matter about the images you recently uploaded. They are lacking clear copyright and source data and need to have it as soon as practicable to avoid deletion. To fix the problem, please review the images you uploaded (click on "my contributions" at the upper-right to re-trace your steps or see the links I added) in light of Images Help—Copyrights. If you need additional help, just ask a constable or leave a message on my talk page and I'll be more than glad to assist. —Stephen Ewen 20:43, 22 April 2007 (CDT)

Hi David. Just copy this text

;Description
Image of a '''Heat Map''', used as a methematical tool in [[bioinformatics]] to 
visually display which variables, such as genes, proteins or metabolites, are 
up- or down-regulated within each group.

;Licensing
By [[User:David E. Volk|David E. Volk]], released into the public domain.

Uploaded by ~~~~

and paste it in HERE and click Save page.

Stephen Ewen 00:25, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

OK

OK David, I will look at your ideal gas law. I must add that I'm very glad that there is another scientist active in CZ. I was afraid I was the only one (outside biology, that is).

I see that you worked at Duke. I spent a year there. Long time ago in the Chemistry department (with Donald Chesnut). I have very good memories of that year, I really liked living and working in the US. --Paul Wormer 03:15, 4 October 2007 (CDT)

ToApprove

Hi David, i made the following edit on your behalf to kick off the ToApprove process on the Van_der_Waals_equation article. I hope that is OK Chris Day (talk) 15:02, 4 October 2007 (CDT)

David, I was getting ready to do the approval on Van der Waals equation when I noticed ther ehave been several more edits since your approval date. As it is, I can only approve the date that is in the green box, so I will wait till later tonight to approve. If you want to include these edits, just change the date and version in the box. If not, you don't have to do anything and I will approve the version that you have marked. Thanks.. Matt Innis (Talk) 18:30, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

Congratulations on your first Approval! I did change the date for you and approved the extra edits as you stated on my talk page. When you want to find the latest version, follow these steps: 1)click on the history tab, 2)click on 'compare selected version...' button, 3)click on the 'Revision as of [date]' above the previous diff, 4)click on 'newer revision' under the article title, 5)copy the address from the address bar.. and you got it! It is a long way around. If you ever find a better way, do let me know! Matt Innis (Talk) 18:57, 9 October 2007 (CDT)

NMR article?

Hi David, I read on your bio that NMR seems to be a topic which you are familiar with. So, I was wondering if perhaps you may have plans on writing an article on Nuclear magnetic resonance in the future. Anyway, I guess the reason I'm asking is that an article I started on open loop control links to that :-) Just a thought. Thanks. Hendra I. Nurdin 16:28, 6 October 2007 (CDT)

Hi David, I saw your message on my talkpage and totally understand what you're saying. There are also plenty of articles I would like to write, but unfortunately I am unable to find the time to do the research and retrieve the necessary books and papers. So far, I've mostly written about things which I know quite well or have often used in my work and thus can be called off the top of my head or from notes I've made. CZ has yet to reach critical mass :-) Hendra I. Nurdin 16:06, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

Virus template

I think there already is a model for this that has been made; for proteins I think. We should be able to copy that and just change the verbage. --Robert W King 16:44, 16 October 2007 (CDT)

Wait, do you want an infobox? --Robert W King 16:45, 16 October 2007 (CDT)

Ok, I'm caught up. You want an infobox. I can make this easily *but* I must know what criteria you want to be displayed. I had no input with the chemistry infobox I made and thus it is severely lacking in detail. --Robert W King 16:46, 16 October 2007 (CDT)

Oxygen

Hi David, thank you for correcting my English. I corrected yours too: "efficiently" ;-). Also I added that distillation is widely used in industry, somehow you lost that fact in cleaning up.--Paul Wormer 11:12, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

Isotopes

Can do easily. How do you want it formatted? --Robert W King 12:51, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

English

Hi David, are you sure the following is correct?

A volume of earth atmosphere consists of 21% of the oxygen molecule O₂.

and has the meaning: 21% (in volume) of the atmosphere is oxygen?--Paul Wormer 09:35, 19 October 2007 (CDT)

small addition to NMR

see if you like this addition - else delete it. Robert Tito |  Talk 

Negative nuclear spin explained

Hi David, your explanation is perfect. I was thinking of negative gyromagnetic ratio, but I didn't know that it existed. I hope you come up with a good "oxygen in air" sentence. Yours,--Paul Wormer 01:50, 20 October 2007 (CDT)

In the meantime I saw the new "oxygen in air" sentence: is it mass or volume percentage? (Difference is small, of course, oxygen and nitrogen being almost ideal gases with almost equal molecular masses, but still).--Paul Wormer 02:34, 20 October 2007 (CDT)

Antiparallel magnetic moment

Hi David, as wrote you before I am very much used to parallel spin and magnetic moment (positive g-factor). Now I learned from you that it is not always the case. (I could have known it, the very first table in my old Carrington-McLachlan textbook shows it). My question is: is this phenomenon due to the fact that a neutron has a negative spin g-factor? Or should I ask a nuclear physicist?--Paul Wormer 11:04, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

Universe

Hi, David - I've been trying to find someone from the Physics Workgroup active at the moment. I'd just like to make you aware of the Universe article. A note has been left on the Talk page arguing that this is not a neutral article because it doesn't mention Creationism. Here's hoping it doesn't turn into a battlefield... John Stephenson 00:46, 26 October 2007 (CDT)

Structure

Great job on the protein article. i have not read in detail but a quick skimming indicates it is in great shape. You did that from scratch? Chris Day (talk) 16:26, 26 October 2007 (CDT)

ElementColor

I set no standards for the template; I am assuming some kind of de facto standard will come out of the process. I would say choose what color you feel is appropriate ;) --Robert W King 12:55, 6 December 2007 (CST)

See my reply on the Chemistry workgroup page. --Robert W King 13:25, 6 December 2007 (CST)

Re:Phosphorus, you put "Developing" as opposed to an actual number; that particular metadata field wants a numerical input (1-5) as opposed to text. --Robert W King 17:00, 6 December 2007 (CST)

Template is now Elem_Infobox. What would you like to see in a Chem Infobox? --Robert W King 17:18, 6 December 2007 (CST)

Deletions/Image deletions

David, at any time to request a deletion, you can simply add {{speedydelete|Insert some reason here}} to the article/image space. --Robert W King 17:34, 7 December 2007 (CST)

You deserve to be credited...

Well, I see you were working away on party day, which makes you one of the shy boys. I’ll have to come and drag you in next month! Aleta Curry 23:44, 9 December 2007 (CST)

Approval

Hi David, I'm not so much in a hurry to have articles approved. As User:Pieter Kuiper pointed out to me, approval hides the real authors. However, I'm more than happy to approve some of your articles.--Paul Wormer 10:53, 20 December 2007 (CST)

Phosphate?

David you write that Phosphate is ready, do you mean Phosphorus? If so, I'll read it tomorrow (here it is 7 pm and I quit).--Paul Wormer 11:52, 20 December 2007 (CST)

• David, I read Phosphorus, and as it stands it is OK. I would like to extend it a little, though. I consulted Larry Sanger and he doesn't seem to care much about approval. What do you think? If you write the addition I can approve without problems. But I'm willing to add a few paragraphs myself (see talk:phosphorus for what I have in mind), which then has the drawback that it interferes with the approval. (Or maybe nobody cares and I can approve it anyway, even if I were to write some [minor] additions?)--Paul Wormer 10:15, 21 December 2007 (CST)

Subpagination thanks

Thanks for your work subpaginating articles, David! --Larry Sanger 18:38, 23 December 2007 (CST)

Alcohol

Hi David, I was hoping you could take a look at alcohol and see if the chemical formulas are correct (I have no chemistry knowledge to speak of, so I hope I didn't make an error.). I started the article because I wanted to write about the behavioral effects of ethanol, and I figured there should be an alcohol page first. Thanks. Richard Pettitt 16:15, 24 December 2007 (CST)

Years as pages...

Yes, we are. As the articles flesh out, so will the year-based pages. --Michael J. Formica 19:36, 27 December 2007 (CST)

redirects

It's easy. Say you have an article called "Big Easy" and you want a redirect from "The Big Easy". Just go to the Search box at the top left of the screen. Type in "The Big Easy". You'll get a message saying that it doesn't exist and asking if you want to create it. Click to create a new article. You'll now have a blank edit page. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen to Special Characters. Click on the link that says #REDIRECX [[]]. That should put it up on the edit page. Then type "Big Easy" in between the bracket. Save. That will make the redirect.

allotrope

Hi David, we both wrote something about allotrope/allotropy. Maybe it is better that we merge the two articles and put a redirect?--Paul Wormer 08:19, 29 December 2007 (CST)

Steroid

See query at Steroid. - Robert Badgett 23:49, 31 December 2007 (CST)

vector product

I know that it is the same as cross product: the last sentence of the article was:

The term "vector product" is a synonym of cross product.

I thought of a disambig, but decided that an article adds to the article count and gives more info. In the meantime I added a more explicit reference.--Paul Wormer 01:48, 4 January 2008 (CST)

David, I extended vector product with the text of cross product (and took the opportunity of a little rewrite plus small extension). I changed cross product into a redirect, but don't know what to do about the discussion page of the latter. Further I don't feel comfortable with this {{subpages}} business, could you take care of it? And finally, shouldn't we do something about allotrope and allotropy as well?--Paul Wormer 04:11, 5 January 2008 (CST)

River names

David, thanks for your remark about river names. Please give me a note when you have more information regarding naming of river articles. --Igor Grešovnik 12:39, 4 January 2008 (CST)

Lavigueur family

Hi David. I'd like to know more about why the bibliography was removed. :-) -- Hugo Voisard 13:25, 4 January 2008 (CST)

It probably wasn't removed; just moved to an appropriate "subpage", the Bibliography subpage located at Lavigueur_family/Bibliography. --Robert W King 13:30, 4 January 2008 (CST)

Robert is correct, and I replied on Hugo's talk page regarding this. David E. Volk 13:34, 4 January 2008 (CST)

Thank you for the information. :-) -- Hugo Voisard 23:53, 4 January 2008 (CST)

FYI

Just to let you know, when you upload images and see {{subst:3~ }} in the area where it says CZ_username =, just leave it as is. It automatically signs your username (it was a dirty hack). So for me, {{subst:3~ }} produces Stephen Ewen as soon as I save a page. Stephen Ewen 18:12, 4 January 2008 (CST)

Ah, the above is obsolete because I just figured out how to use ASCII to cause ~~~ to automatically enter the edit window. Stephen Ewen 21:49, 4 January 2008 (CST)

viruses template

Did you ever get help with this? Stephen Ewen 02:55, 12 January 2008 (CST)

New NMR guy

Hi David, I'm also glad that we have a new (physical) chemist on board. The content of his NMR article is OK, but the format needs fixing up. How will we proceed, we simply go ahead and fix it (and explain in the talk page why), or will we ask him to adapt it himself? He signed the article and I'm afraid that if we take his signature away he will misunderstand that. --Paul Wormer 09:51, 12 January 2008 (CST)

Reply to welcome

Thank you for the welcome.

I have never used a wiki before and I am just learning how to use this system.

I am not sure if this is the page to reply, so please forgive if this is the wrong place.

I just added an article on NMR spectrosocpy; however, unlike your page and that of most others it does not have a STATUS tab (approved/ draft etc.) attached to it. Your comments are welcome.

Thanking you.

Sincerely yours. Talluri Sekhar

test

 David E. Volk   talk

Spelling variants

There is a problem with all of these pages you created involving the name "sulphur/sulfur". Can you put the variant spellings in the lead of each article, and also redirects to each article? Otherwise, searches will not give the pages for what is internationally an equally common spelling to the American one, and it is also not good for CZ to be American-focused. Many thanks. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 13:44, 16 January 2008 (CST)

NMR spectroscopy : an attempt to get it approved

--Sekhar Talluri 16:39, 16 January 2008 (CST)

I edited the metadata page for my article on NMR spectroscopy in an attempt to send it for approval by you and P. Wormer as editors. However, it appears that somehow I have approved it myself:-) Please feel free to undo/do/fix whatever is necessary , but do consider it for approval. Sincerely

Catalogs

David: Kindly do not remove the Psychology Catalogs category from the bottom of psych pages. It is there to provide a structural guideline.

Secondly, (re: Tao Te Ching) it is fprmatting convention to bold only the topic of an article, not variations on spelling, etc.

Thanks... --Michael J. Formica 18:36, 21 January 2008 (CST)

Drug pages

See lovastatin and simvastatin for what I did:

• Made brand list into three columns
• Automated link to FDA information

Look at second green box on http://medinformatics.uthscsa.edu/wiki/ for details.

See also template:DailyMed - Robert Badgett 13:41, 24 January 2008 (CST)

Thanks for adding image into Hydrodesulfurization

David, thanks for adding your chemical reaction image into the hydrodenitrogenation section of the Hydrodesulfurization article. It really dresses up that section. Regards, Milton Beychok 12:22, 4 February 2008 (CST)

Request

Hi David, I was wondering if you could add an image to the methylphenidate article. Thanks! --Richard Pettitt 17:57, 4 February 2008 (CST)

Thanks very much! --Richard Pettitt 10:02, 6 February 2008 (CST)

template mess

Hi David, I'm intending to write some about Ampere. As a start I moved the existing article Ampere to Ampere (unit). But this somehow screwed up the metadata template. Could you have a look please? Thank you. --Paul Wormer 09:07, 11 February 2008 (CST)

Thanks!--Paul Wormer 10:36, 11 February 2008 (CST)

Thanks

Thanks David. I'm still learning how to upload images properly. There's more processes to do than a wikipedia upload. Not sure if I've done it correctly so I'm waiting back for Stephens advice. Meg Ireland 17:41, 16 February 2008 (CST)

Pleasure

Learning to tell LA from L.A.! - Ro Thorpe 09:02, 19 February 2008 (CST)

Score 2?

Hi David, why did you change the score of country? --> [1] -- Alexander Wiebel 12:50, 21 February 2008 (CST)

:-) -- Alexander Wiebel 12:54, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Chem info box

"A box used to contain MW, formula, KEGG, CAS, etc is still under development."

What kind of information do you think should be contained in the box, and how should it be formatted? One thing that bothers me about WPs infoboxes (and I don't know if you feel the same, but please respond) is that they go entirely overboard on numerical inclusions. How can the information in an infobox be used to relay a fundamental principal about a particular chemical, given x amount of properities? --Robert W King 12:02, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Robert, here are my thoughts on Chem_infobox:

First, I think the structures should not be in the box, because large chemicals need big drawing to be readable. Also, the IUPAC names of some compounds are 2-3 sentences long, so I would keep those out also. In my opinion, I would like to keep the box simple and contain the following:

• Name of Chemical
• Molecular Formula
• Molecular Mass
• Hazards
• CAS #
• (optional) Link to an MSDS form, plenty of sites to choose from (this might instead be on the external links page)

BTW, I have programmed in several languages and would like learn how to make templates someday. Could you email me a copy of some code to that? David E. Volk 13:37, 22 February 2008 (CST)

What should the representation of the molecular formula be like? Should it exist in text form, or by some graphic? Is the mass a single number or derived from a forumla? What kinds of hazards should be displayed? What is CAS? Besides the link from MSDS, is there any information from the MSDS that should be included?

Also, what is the overall theme that should be described: how to utilize a chemical compound, or how to safeguard against it, or the dangers of it?

Designing a template is pretty easy as long as you know how to create tables in HTML. The wiki-code uses certain markup which represents the same as table data, rows, columns, and their syntaxes. Basically, almost any html can be employed when creating a template (including DIVs and stylesheets to an extent). However, there are some ways to script your results, including variables and quantification statements such as "if" "exist" and others. I'll dig up the mediawiki help page for you... it's not complicated. --Robert W King 13:52, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Details:

• Chemical formulas will look like this C₆H₁₂O₂

• Molecular Mass, a single number derived from the formula, will look like this: 236.23 g/mol

• CAS # is the Chemical Abstract Service reference number for a chemical

• Hazards can just be a text box saying things like: "Explosive, Corrosive, Liver Toxin, known Carcinogen, Radioactive".

• MSDS = "Material Safety Data Sheet" that must be shipped whenever a chemical is purchased. It contains a full gruesome detail of all hazards, melting points, molecular mass, and other details for the reader who wants to know everything. There is not a single MSDS for each chemical. That is, for a given chemical, you can usually find many different versions, like one from Aldrich, one from DuPont, etc.

• Theme The theme of chemistry articles, like all CZ, should be about the uses of the chemical first, ie why is it important. Note that I added the "Common Uses" to the list above, just before hazards. I had forgotten this on the list. WP uses the 4-diamonds in a diamond type of drawing for hazards, but only experienced chemists know what this means. For the general audience I think simple text is the way to go with hazards. However, hazards should be after common uses IMHO. David E. Volk 14:07, 22 February 2008 (CST)

RSAs

Yeah, they're New Hampshire state law, I wanted to write a compendium of them in order to memorize them all. However, due to alot of other distractions, I got a little lazy and started copying and pasting rather than helping digest the RSAs.

I'd have no problem with deleting what's in there now and starting from scratch with the collaboration of the project you mentioned. Andrew Sylvia 12:32, 24 February 2008 (CST)

Thanks, it'll still be daunting considering there are over 600 of them, and most of those 600+ are subdivided into sometimes more than dozens of parts, but it's a better idea.

P.S - I apologize if i'm sounding like a know it all here, but RSA in regards to the New Hampshire RSAs stands for "Revised Statues Annotated". Please feel free to send over chemistry facts though in return :-) Andrew Sylvia 13:01, 24 February 2008 (CST)

Azole

Congratulations on approval! D. Matt Innis 11:08, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Approval of Phosphorus

David, I have scanned the article and made a few cosmetic copy edits. Much of the subject matter is way above my knowledge of chemistry, but I am very impressed with the depth of detail that you and Paul Wormer have provided.

The only serious criticism I have is that the article has only one reference. In my opinion, an article of that length and detail should have at least 8-12 references. I think that providing the needed references should be relatively easy for you and Paul.

Once the references have been provided, I would be pleased to start the approval process. I think that what I must do in the "required for ToApprove template" section of the MetaData template is:

• article url= Provide the article url
• now= Provide the time (CST) and date
• ToA editor= Provide my name
• date= Provide the date that is 6 days after the now=date

Is that correct? If not, please let me know. Regards, - Milton Beychok 12:17, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Quin

David, I found (the extract of) a book by Louis Quin on organic phosphorus compounds [2]. It also has a chapter on ³¹P NMR. In my time (as TA and RA) at Duke, Quin was chairman of the chemistry dept. Do you know him? I see in your CV that you were in the medical school of Duke. --Paul Wormer 06:21, 27 February 2008 (CST)