Suggested LifeWiki edits

[dvgrn]

I think further changes ( such as edits https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=152450, https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?titl ... did=155973, https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?titl ... did=153740 by User:Galoomba) need to stop immediately, until and unless there's some observable consensus regarding what "the ideal wording" should be.

Why?

At the moment galoomba is a LifeWiki editor in good standing, making good-faith efforts to improve the existing wording, carefully following your advice and my advice above (as far as I can see). In the absence of any apparent controversy, the "be bold" rule applies here.

If you have a specific reason why a specific edit is not an improvement, then please state that specific reason. Don't go around trying to order anyone to stop all edits on a topic, just on the grounds that you don't trust someone to do everything perfectly in line with your own opinions.

I've also sent you a PM about this, since it looks to me like you also just mis-used the post reporting system once again to make a duplicate complaint about this issue.

[confocaloid]

[...] Why? [...]

Because this exact question is currently under discussion.
The question of which wording should be used in "LCM oscillators" sections, and whether or not there should be some further changes across the wiki, etc.
There is already an active discussion, and it's counterproductive to ignore its existence and continue to make changes.

Specifically regarding the most recent edits, the new wording

The [[LCM oscillator]]s below are the smallest known ones of their period by population while satisfying the condition that at least one cell oscillates at the full period.

doesn't look to me like an improvement over the older wording

The [[LCM oscillator]]s below are listed due to being the smallest known ones by population, while also satisfying the condition that at least one cell oscillates at the full period.

The older version feels clearer and easier to read to me. Both the comma and the word "also" help to understand the meaning.
Additionally, in the new wording by User:Galoomba, "their period" is confusing, because there are multiple oscillators of several different periods.

Comparing between these two wordings, I would definitely prefer the older wording.

(My main objection isn't about this particular replacement, but rather about Galoomba continuing to make edits on an issue that's already under discussion.)

[galoomba]

(My main objection isn't about this particular replacement, but rather about Galoomba continuing to make edits on an issue that's already under discussion.)

How about letting me know then?

[Haycat2009]

Can we have more featured articles for well-written articles and notable patterns/OCA? There has been 4 years since the featured article list was edited.

[hotdogPi]

I added about 20 more snippets about a year ago, but the featured article algorithm is still limited to the number of weeks in the year, so they haven't been put in the rotation.

[dvgrn]

I added about 20 more snippets about a year ago, but the featured article algorithm is still limited to the number of weeks in the year, so they haven't been put in the rotation.

There are currently 68 snippets in the list of snippets. If we can get to 106 snippets pointing to good advertisable articles, I'd be happy to swap out the entire current list of weekly snippets with a completely new set, and let those run for a while.

Then maybe we can switch back and forth between lists every year -- and/or add another set of fifty-some articles into the rotation if people want to keep writing snippets.

... Of course, if people get really ambitious we could just replace CURRENTWEEK with CURRENTDAY, and have 366 snippets in all -- or start with an intermediate goal. With 73 snippets we could run each one five times per year. 92 snippets could run four times a year each, 146 snippets could run three times a year, or 183 snippets could run twice per year

[dbell]

> Of course, if people get really ambitious we could just replace CURRENTWEEK with CURRENTDAY, and have 366 snippets in all -- or start with an intermediate goal. With 73 snippets we could run each one five times per year. 92 snippets could run four times a year each, 146 snippets could run three times a year, or 183 snippets could run twice per year

Maybe this change could be made now, and the new snippets could then be added, and some old ones could simply be duplicated to fill out all the entries. Then later when a new one is to be added, one of the duplicates can be replaced.

BCNU,
-dbell

[hotdogPi]

Does MediaWiki support integer division? Day/5.

[dvgrn]

Does MediaWiki support integer division? Day/5.

Then you can't quite exactly say "this week's featured article", though.

Taking a modulus seems like a cleaner calculation. I just tried an experimental switchover to a mod-68 calculation (and we can bump up the "68" to bigger numbers when more snippets are added).

[confocaloid]

Does MediaWiki support integer division? Day/5.

Then you can't quite exactly say "this week's featured article", though.

Taking a modulus seems like a cleaner calculation. I just tried an experimental switchover to a mod-68 calculation (and we can bump up the "68" to bigger numbers when more snippets are added).

There are at least two problems with this change in Template:FeaturedArticle.

One problem is that {{CURRENTDAY}} returns day of the month AFAIK. (See Help:Magic_words.) That means you will never get all 68 remainders by doing this:

Code: Select all

{{Mod|{{CURRENTDAY}}|68}}

Another problem is that, if you want to have the displayed content change every day (as opposed to every few days), then you need to have some process (either manual or automated) to refresh the cache of Main_Page. AFAICT currently there is no automated process to refresh the cached versions of wiki pages every day.

I just did manual purge on my end ( https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Main_Page?action=purge ) which caused the displayed content to change from "A finite pattern is said to exhibit infinite growth..." to "A one cell thick pattern is a pattern that is only one cell thick ..."

[dvgrn]

...you will never get all 68 remainders by doing this:

Code: Select all

{{Mod|{{CURRENTDAY}}|68}}

True! Now trying {{#time:z}} instead. Seems to work -- by adding various integers I was able to get the expression to roll over from "speed tunnel" to "primer".

Another problem is that, if you want to have the displayed content change every day (as opposed to every few days), then you need to have some process (either manual or automated) to refresh the cache of Main_Page. AFAICT currently there is no automated process to refresh the cached versions of wiki pages every day.

I just did manual purge on my end ( https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Main_Page?action=purge ) which caused the displayed content to change from "A finite pattern is said to exhibit infinite growth..." to "A one cell thick pattern is a pattern that is only one cell thick ..."

I wasn't thinking that the goal was necessarily to have the displayed content change every day, perfectly reliably -- at least, not without something like a voluntary Ctrl+Shift+R refresh on a user's part.

The goal I was aiming for was just to make equal use of all 68 current snippets instead of only 52 or 53 of them -- and to make it trivial to make equal use of more snippets, if people decide to write more of them to help put the main-page spotlight on a larger number of Articles Worth Featuring.