Talk:Quinti-Snark

please tell me if the name is alright. Or do you want to call it a penta-snark. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Entity Valkyrie (talk • contribs) 10:05, 17 November 2018‎ (UTC)

Neither, please. It may have been an accident, but there's actually been some consistency for a change about using Latin prefixes rather than Greek ones for the Snarks. There have been dozens of uses of "quinti-Snark" on the forums by this time, and no sign whatsoever of any "penta-boojum"s until this article showed up.

Also, please work on remembering to add four tildes (~) to this kind of thing. Why write "please tell me" without telling anyone who "me" is? It's so incredibly easy that I usually even manage to remember to do it myself. Dvgrn (talk) 15:20, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Migrated to quinti-Snark. Calcyman (talk) 18:35, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Periodic quinti-snarks?

The non-p5 quinti-snarks seem unnecessary. They are larger (except p4) and less versatile. I don't see when we would ever use them.

Edit: to clarify, the supposed uses listed in the article seem to be speculative. I don't think anyone has ever used a quinti-snark for these purposes. I imagine it would be enough to mention that other domino sparkers can be used without having a different page for every variant.
~Sokwe 23:42, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Now the p3 may be not used, but it is just an extra reflector. If this is not notable, then how come the p9 bumper is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Entity Valkyrie (talk • contribs)

By "extra reflector", do you mean "extra oscillator"? The p3 domino sparker is huge and awkward, and could only possibly come in handy if you were for some strange reason removing four signals out of five from an intermittent period 3N glider stream. If you had an example or three of completed patterns that included this particular subpattern -- made by someone other than you, and not immediately followed by other posts that say "use such-and-such smaller option instead"! -- then it might well make sense to create an article like this.

But it's a pretty safe rule of thumb that if you, or I, or any J. Random Wiki User, recently put some pieces together for the very first time that have never been seen or used anywhere in a larger pattern, then it's definitely not necessary, and also probably not a good idea, to make a new article right away. Post it on the forums instead. Wait a year. If someone else uses the mechanism for something, then think about making an article.

Until that point, having an article on p3 quinti-Snarks seems more likely to seriously confuse people than to help them. In other words, it's a little worse than just non-notable, it's slightly dangerous: it makes it look like there might be a common use for these huge ungainly things -- maybe a p3 quinti-Snark for p3N glider streams, a p7 quinti-Snark for p7N glider streams, and so on. But the point that we really ought to try to be getting across is that for the 99% of the time when we're dealing with regular glider streams, the p5 quinti-Snark is a better choice -- no matter what the period of the stream is.

On the quinti-Snark vs. quinti-boojum distinction, of course you're welcome to call a quinti-Snark whatever you want to -- and you have a perfectly good point that "quinti-boojum" would probably be a more consistent term. However, the inventor of the quinti-Snark calls it a "quinti-Snark", and so does everyone else who has mentioned it. Traditionally the inventor gets to name the pattern, so there's really no hope of pre-emptively changing the name to "quinti-boojum".

A polite post on the forums asking everyone to start referring to the thing as a "penta-boojum" would be a possible step in the right direction, but it would most likely just get ignored. That's not rudeness on everyone's part, just a refusal to worry about something that doesn't actually matter very much. Ultimately there's just plain no requirement that people have to choose the most consistent term.

(People often don't capitalize "Snark" properly either. Lewis Carroll always capitalized it, and I think Mike Playle did too. But if I take enough deep breaths, I find I can live with this terrible inconsistency.)

... Once again, please start paying attention to signing your comments properly. Type four tildes at the end of future comments, just before you hit "Save page". Your continuing unsigned comments are annoying enough that people are very likely to keep right on annoying you in return, just like this. Dvgrn (talk) 23:20, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Name

I seem to like to call it quinti- (which is your sugestion), but quinti-boojum instead because it is a 180 degree reflector not a 90 degree one. I generaly call 180 degree reflectors "boojums" instead of "snarks". Sory for my mispeling on purpose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Entity Valkyrie (talk • contribs)

It’s may be impractical. It’s just for extra reflectors and uneven glider streams (like those unevenly inserted by an edge shooter) (which might still be impractical). Entity Valkyrie (talk) 11:17, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

OH I SEE! THE SPARKER ONLY HITS EVERY 5 GLIDERS! Entity Valkyrie (talk) 13:21, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

WHAT IS UTC? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Entity Valkyrie (talk • contribs)

First of all, there's really no need to shout. UTC stands for Coordinated Universal Time, which is the universal timezone from which every other timezone is defined relative to. It is useful because it increases at a constant rate (i.e. does not change due to daylight savings) and is the same for everybody.

Also, you really just need the four tildes at the end of your message (~~~~) to post a signature. The wiki will automatically convert it to a properly formatted signature for you. By copying the text within the editor itself and then changing it to EST on top of that, you're just creating more unnecessary work both for yourself and for other editors. Ian07 (talk) 22:25, 25 November 2018 (UTC)