Suggested LifeWiki edits

[yujh]

The newly changed part in https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?titl ... did=145352 is still incorrect. Notice that the p9 part is never phase shifted by the p7 part.

EDIT by dvgrn: See also this post in the "can we substantiate this claim?" thread.

[b-engine]

Octagon 2 actually can serves as weak p5 sparker, allowing constructions of LCMs as well as some SKOPs. It's weak sparks may also have some other uses besides of LCMs.

[Haycat2009]

Octagon 2 actually can serves as weak p5 sparker, allowing constructions of LCMs as well as some SKOPs. It's weak sparks may also have some other uses besides of LCMs.

Yes - several p5 conduits use it. It is in that category already.

[confocaloid]

Despite the edit summary, the edit https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=145486 restored an awkward wording:

Pulsar quadrant is used in the smallest known oscillator of period 228, with the other part being the [[p76 pi-heptomino shuttle]].

The intended meaning of "with the other part" is unnecessarily hard to understand, since the linked edit removed an explicit clarification that the p228 oscillator is a LCM oscillator (so it has at least two interacting parts).

I think the previous revision by TYCF should be restored:

== LCM oscillators ==
Pulsar quadrant is used in the smallest known oscillator of period 228, a [[LCM oscillator]] with the other part being the [[p76 pi-heptomino shuttle]].

That revision explicitly clarifies in plain text that "the other part" means a part of the p228 oscillator (as opposed to a part of pulsar quadrant or something else).
That revision also successfully avoids links in section headings (which lead to accessibility problems and lack of overall consistency).

[dvgrn]

I think the previous revision by TYCF should be restored...

Hmm, well, I wouldn't want to restore it exactly. A minor part of the awkwardness was that it said "a LCM oscillator" instead of "an LCM oscillator", and we can probably improve it a little bit in other ways. It didn't seem really clear what "the other part" meant in TYCF's version either, because no "first part" is mentioned. We could try

"Pulsar quadrant is part of the smallest known oscillator of period 228, with the other part being the [[p76 pi-heptomino shuttle]]."

or rework it a bit more:

"The smallest known oscillator of period 228 is an [[LCM oscillator]] comprised of a pulsar quadrant and a [[p76 pi-heptomino shuttle]]."

Also, TYCF's version completely removed the link to the list of common oscillators. That's not the same thing as moving a link "from section headings into section content". Let's not be in a big hurry to throw stuff away before we understand why it's there.

That revision also successfully avoids links in section headings (which lead to accessibility problems and lack of overall consistency).

The "lack of overall consistency" part isn't going to be addressed one way or another with this edit. That would take a decision by the community, and a significant editing campaign -- because there are a lot of section-heading links, and they're not just the "Commonness" ones.

It seems like a good idea to pause for a moment and make sure there's some kind of general agreement that those section-heading links really need to be removed, before anybody starts removing them.

Looks like there are 85 articles that have a "Commonness" header with a link to "List of common still lifes", "List of common oscillators", or "List of common spaceships" (though that last is a redirect to "List of natural spaceships"):

Code: Select all

Aries betwixt two blocks
Beehive on cap
Beehive on dock
Beehive on griddle
Bent key and skewed pole
Bipole tie snake
Blinkers bit pole
Boat tie bipole
Boat tie quadpole
Boat tie spark coil
Boat tie tripole
Boat with long tail
Bookend bridge bun
Bookend bridge house
Bun bridge bun
Cap and dock
Cap and table
Carrier tie bipole
Cis-beehive on candlefrobra
Cis-bipole on table
Cis-boat down on candlefrobra
Cis-boat on dock
Cis-boat up on candlefrobra
Cis-bun and wing
Cis-mirrored bun
Cis-mirrored dove
Cis-mirrored elf-shoe
Cis-mirrored long bookend
Cis-mirrored wing
Cis-rotated bookend
Cis-shillelagh
Cis-very long hook with tail
Eater plug
Fox
HWSS on HWSS 1
House bridge house
LWSS on HWSS 1
LWSS on MWSS 1
LWSS on MWSS 2
LWSS on MWSS 3
Loaf back tie loaf
Long claw at long claw
Long⁴ boat
MWSS on MWSS 4
Meta-bookend and bun
Meta-bookend and house
Meta-bun and house
Meta-dove and house
Mirrored cap
Muttering moat 1
Ortho-bookend and house
Ortho-bun and house
Para-bookend and bun
Para-bookend and house
Pulsar quadrant
Sesquihat
Shift-bookend and bun
Super mango
Symmetric scorpion
Table and dock
Trans-barge with tail
Trans-bipole on table
Trans-boat down on long bookend
Trans-boat on cap
Trans-boat on dock
Trans-bookend and bun
Trans-bun and dove
Trans-bun and wing
Trans-loaf on table
Trans-mirrored bookend
Trans-mirrored bun
Trans-mirrored wing
Trans-rotated bun
Trans-very long hook with tail
Tripole tie ship
Tub with very long tail
Very long barge
Very long canoe
Very long ship
Xs19 69bo7pic
Tripole
Why not
Achim's p8
Figure eight on pentadecathlon
Unix

That represents a lot of work, on the part of more than one person. Ian07 added the link for loaf siamese loaf in April 2020, but other spot-checks like the trans-rotated bun article have that link being added as far back as 2016. Quite a few seem to have gotten added in December 2021. The intention seems to have been to set up a clear consistent link location in all of these similarly-formatted articles, for the list of most-common objects of the relevant type.

-- Not that the LifeWiki is self-consistent as a whole, or anything like that! There are also 97 more articles that share a "Commonness" heading, but without a link:

Code: Select all

25P3H1V0.1
Aircraft carrier
Almosymmetric
Anvil
BTS
Barge
Bee hat
Beehive
Beehive at beehive
Beehive on table
Beehive with hooked tail
Beehive with nine
Beehive with tail
Bi-block
Bi-pentadecathlon 1
Bipole tie ship
Blinker
Block on cap
Block on cover
Block on table
Blocker
Boat
Boat tie eater head
Boat tie eater tail
Boat tie long boat
Boat tie ship
Boring p24
By flops
Carrier tie ship
Caterer
Century eater
Cis-bi-boat
Cis-block on long bookend
Cis-boat on table
Cis-bookend and bun
Claw at claw
Claw with nine
Coe ship
Crab
Dead spark coil
Double claw
Eater eating pentadecathlon
Eleven loop
Fore and back
Fourteener
Glider
Glider-producing switch engine
Great on-off
Half-bakery
Hook with tail
Integral sign
Iwona active region
Jam
Lei
Loaf
Loaf siamese loaf
Long barge
Long bun
Long canoe
Long hook with nine
Long integral
Long shillelagh
Long ship
Mango with block on dock
Odd test tube baby
Phoenix 1
Prodigal
R-turner
Rotated house
Schick engine
Shillelagh
Ship
Ship-tie
Short key and skewed pole
Sidecar
Silver's p5
Skewed quad
Smiley
Snake dance
Snorkel loop
Spark coil
Toaster
Trans-block on candlefrobra
Trans-block on long bookend
Trans-boat with tail
Trans-bun bridge loaf
Trans-mango with tail
Tub
Tub with long tail
Tub with tail
Twin bees shuttle
U-turner
Uninteresting p24
Very long boat
Very long integral
Why bother
Wings

I'm not sure if these have been getting gradually converted over time according to a deliberate plan. Does anybody reading this happen to know?

It looks like a lot of these same articles also have a link to "Glider synthesis" from the heading with that name. Those seem safe to remove, because the template provides a link to the same location, and duplicated links certainly aren't needed.

I haven't tried writing a scraper to build a full list of headings-with-links -- can certainly do that, if the consensus seems to be that they aren't a good idea.

[confocaloid]

[...] Also, TYCF's version completely removed the link to the list of common oscillators. [...]

That's not true. TYCF's version moved the link into the section. The same page is now linked from the linked word "commonness":
https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?titl ... did=145486
https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?oldid=145487

I believe that's a cleaner approach, compared to cluttering section headings with markup. In all cases I have seen, it is not hard to avoid markup in section headings. That reduces distraction from the actual content (a reader often pauses on a link to think whether they want to follow it) and improves overall consistency.

It won't obviously solve all existing problems with consistency, but it would solve one of such issues. The choice to keep headings "unformatted plain-text" can be applied consistently, and it is not really hard to do so.
On the other hand, many articles contain sections which are very unlikely to contain links in their headings, because it doesn't make sense to link to anything from that place. (For example, "See also" sections are present in many articles, and it doesn't make sense to put any links into those section headings.) That means one cannot be consistent with formatted/linked headings.

[dvgrn]

[...] Also, TYCF's version completely removed the link to the list of common oscillators. [...]

That's not true. TYCF's version moved the link into the section. The same page is now linked from the linked word "commonness":
https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?titl ... did=145486
https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?oldid=145487

Ah, I see. The actual text of TYCF's version no longer had any links --

== Commonness ==
{{Needs occurrence info|type=oscillator}}

-- but for the specific case where the header is followed by that "Needs occurrence info" template, the template then provides the correct "commonness" link (and it had been doing that all along, duplicating the link in the header, not related to TYCF's edit).

It seems like this will need some attention going forward, since "Needs occurrence info" is presumably intended to be temporary. Two more spot-checks at random: in para-bookend and bun the text includes the word "common", so if we wanted to we could easily move the link from the header to that word. But in tub with very long tail, the current wording doesn't include "common" or "commonness" anywhere, so there'd be a little bit of custom rework to be done there -- if it's important to keep the link at all.

I don't have a strong opinion one way or another about links added to headings -- except that we do have a good common-sense rule in the LifeWiki style guide about avoiding duplicate links, so that seems like a safe justification to use for doing this kind of cleanup.

So ... here's an edit that takes out the "Commonness" heading link in the pulsar-quadrant article, and also moves the "LCM oscillator" link back out of the heading and into the section text, along the lines of TYCF's edit.

Next Steps
I'd like to suggest waiting a while now, to see if anyone else has an opinion on this topic -- especially people who have been systematically adding links to headings in the past.

• I'm happy if heading links in LifeWiki articles all get removed over time -- if there's a consensus that that should be done;
• I'm happy if the current heading links are kept, and over time the "Commonness" header becomes the standard place to link to those lists of frequencies for the three different object types -- if there's a consensus that that should be done;
• I'm happy if things mostly stay the way they are for now -- until and unless there's some evidence of general community agreement to do something different.

I won't be so happy if edit wars get started on this heading-links / no-heading-links question, where links start getting added or subtracted by people with opposite opinions. Let's please just take the time to get the question sorted out before anyone starts making more edits in either direction. This pulsar quadrant article seems like a good test case.

[confocaloid]

[...] -- but for the specific case where the header is followed by that "Needs occurrence info" template, the template then provides the correct "commonness" link (and it had been doing that all along, duplicating the link in the header, not related to TYCF's edit). [...]

Actually, the template did not previously provide any links at all. I think adding the links to the template is an improvement.

[...]
It seems like this will need some attention going forward, since "Needs occurrence info" is presumably intended to be temporary. Two more spot-checks at random: in para-bookend and bun the text includes the word "common", so if we wanted to we could easily move the link from the header to that word. But in tub with very long tail, the current wording doesn't include "common" or "commonness" anywhere, so there'd be a little bit of custom rework to be done there -- if it's important to keep the link at all. [...]

An example of an explicit linking to related pages can be seen in Elevener#Occurrence. The links are added immediately below the heading, using template:related. That makes it immediately visible which pages are actually linked:

Code: Select all

== Occurrence ==
{{related|List of common still lifes|List of still lifes with 11 cells}}
Elevener is [...]

[dvgrn]

Actually, the template did not previously provide any links at all. I think adding the links to the template is an improvement.

Hmm... it's not an improvement quite yet, but it will be soon. That change always links to "List of common oscillators" no matter what the type is, so it's serving up irrelevant links in a lot of articles like where the type is "still life" now -- see, e.g., "century eater". EDIT: Correction, there are just a couple of articles of that type -- I didn't scan to the end of the search list.

Should be easy to fix, since the type parameter is already being passed in -- I'll give it a try now. EDIT: Looks like it worked to add a switch statement.

The other potential problem with changing the template like that is that it has now created a lot of duplicate links. For example, the century eater article has the "see also" link method already implemented, which (once the template is fixed) will make the "commonness" link into exactly the kind of unwanted distraction that the no-duplicate-links rule is trying to prevent.

Maybe we'll end up putting a "template:related" type link, chosen according to the passed-in type, into the template instead?

[confocaloid]

The page "Flying wing" displays "Cite error" in the references section, apparently after the most recent edit with edit summary "Copy editing" copied a viewer from 3c/7 orthogonal (with a modified viewer caption), without copying the footnote. Comparison between pages: https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=145507

EDIT by dvgrn: added link to replace the copied embedded pattern

[TYCF]

Delete pages in Category:Speedy deletion and Category:Pending deletion?

[C28]

Delete pages in Category:Speedy deletion and Category:Pending deletion?

yes! raze the pages!

[confocaloid]

https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=144504
Incorrect change in spelling of periods (e.g. it should be "p32 honey farm hassler", not "P32 honey farm hassler" and so on). Should be changed back to follow the convention.

https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=119237
Undiscussed change to the template; likely to create future problems with consistency. I think should be reverted, until (whatever the bigger idea behind that change is) is discussed here on the forums and until/unless there's some observable consensus on that.

[TYCF]

https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=144504
Incorrect change in spelling of periods (e.g. it should be "p32 honey farm hassler", not "P32 honey farm hassler" and so on). Should be changed back to follow the convention.

Sorry. (HotdogPi has reverted it.)

[confocaloid]

https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?titl ... did=145602
Multiple issues, including:

• Too many animated viewers on a page. When there are many viewers on a single page, they should not generally be animated, to avoid browser lag.
• Links / markup should be removed from section headings (markup in headings creates problems with accessibility and visual clutter)
• "22 outer-totalistic rules" does not clarify that the rules are all two-state rules on the square grid with range-1 Moore neighbourhood. There are also hexagonal rules; there are rules with higher-range neighbourhoods; there are three-dimensional rules; there are multistate rules; all such rules also can be outer-totalistic. However, neither of those rulespaces is covered by the list.
  Should be changed to "22 Life-like rules", which excludes rulespaces that were not intended to be covered by the list.
• Inline external links should be moved from the main part of the page to the end, in the footnotes section and/or "External links" section (keeping only internal links to other wiki pages in the main part of the page).

It has been proven that B23 rules without S0 cannot support spaceships,[citation needed] however examples are known in the ten rules B2367(8)/S2467(8), B235(78)/S14678, and B2357(8)/S3678 (where transitions in brackets are optional). All known are photons.

Both statements cannot be true.

Previous unresolved issues:

https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=119237
Undiscussed change to the template; likely to create future problems with consistency. I think should be reverted, until (whatever the bigger idea behind that change is) is discussed here on the forums and until/unless there's some observable consensus on that.

[DroneBetter]

https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=119237
Undiscussed change to the template; likely to create future problems with consistency. I think should be reverted, until (whatever the bigger idea behind that change is) is discussed here on the forums and until/unless there's some observable consensus on that.

I thought the change harmless enough when making it that I didn't deem it to require discussion, there isn't anything else that a 'name' parameter could mean and the "rulename" seems extraneous when the template is already entitled LinkCatagolueRule. The LinkForumThread template's parameter is only "name," not "postname," and you didn't complain when I changed LinkCatagolue (the object-linking template) to match in August. (I did, however, later change it to be even more permissive and allow it to be given as an unnamed parameter following the rule, which you reverted with sound reasoning, I was too hasty then, sorry.)

[confocaloid]

IIRC neither of these changes were discussed previously. I think those are likely to lead to further inconsistencies across the wiki.

https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=119237
Undiscussed change to the template; likely to create future problems with consistency. I think should be reverted, until (whatever the bigger idea behind that change is) is discussed here on the forums and until/unless there's some observable consensus on that.

I thought the change harmless enough when making it that I didn't deem it to require discussion, there isn't anything else that a 'name' parameter could mean and the "rulename" seems extraneous when the template is already entitled LinkCatagolueRule. The LinkForumThread template's parameter is only "name," not "postname," and you didn't complain when I changed LinkCatagolue (the object-linking template) to match in August. (I did, however, later change it to be even more permissive and allow it to be given as an unnamed parameter following the rule, which you reverted with sound reasoning, I was too hasty then, sorry.)

Just because I (or anyone else) didn't complain about some change, doesn't mean that change was/is a good idea.

[DroneBetter]

https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?titl ... did=145602
Multiple issues, including:

• Too many animated viewers on a page. When there are many viewers on a single page, they should not generally be animated, to avoid browser lag.

There is no lag for me.

• Links / markup should be removed from section headings (markup in headings creates problems with accessibility and visual clutter)

What accessibility reader doesn't allow links in headers to be clicked? And surely including only one utterance of the rule name that appears in the table-of-contents entry (and including the link in it) reduces the total clutter?

• "22 outer-totalistic rules" does not clarify that the rules are all two-state rules on the square grid with range-1 Moore neighbourhood. There are also hexagonal rules; there are rules with higher-range neighbourhoods; there are three-dimensional rules; there are multistate rules; all such rules also can be outer-totalistic. However, neither of those rulespaces is covered by the list.
  Should be changed to "22 Life-like rules", which excludes rulespaces that were not intended to be covered by the list.

I think it is unambiguous insofar as the wiki is concerned, since Outer-totalistic cellular automaton redirects to Life-like cellular automaton.

• Inline external links should be moved from the main part of the page to the end, in the footnotes section and/or "External links" section (keeping only internal links to other wiki pages in the main part of the page).

The only case of that is the excerpt

One of the few rules known to support replicators.

which contains the link as part of the quotation.

It has been proven that B23 rules without S0 cannot support spaceships,[citation needed] however examples are known in the ten rules B2367(8)/S2467(8), B235(78)/S14678, and B2357(8)/S3678 (where transitions in brackets are optional). All known are photons.

Both statements cannot be true.

Oh, nice catch, it is in fact because I was referencing my File:OT map (Gray, speed colouring) (annotated).png image when making it and apparently got the left side's S0 the wrong way around in the left (B0less) half of the Gray code, I will reply to hotdogPi directly also.

[confocaloid]

Either the style/formatting is consistent, or not. Such inconsistencies may become hard to notice when you're a wiki editor (because of getting used to inconsistencies). They are more noticeable and distracting (sometimes irritating) when you're a reader.

There is no lag for me.

Well, there *is* lag for me. Besides that, multiple animations on a page are fairly distracting (and those spaceships don't really need to be animated).

And surely including only one utterance of the rule name that appears in the table-of-contents entry (and including the link in it) reduces the total clutter?

That may be a reason to think about reorganizing the whole page. There are many short sections, which don't really need to be sections. Another possibility (imo better) would be to present them as a bulleted list, with separate sections left only when the content does not fit in a list item (more than a paragraph with a few links).

I think it is unambiguous insofar as the wiki is concerned, since Outer-totalistic cellular automaton redirects to Life-like cellular automaton.

Actually that should be a separate page, rather than a redirect. The redirect is imprecise.
I still think the wording should be changed to "Life-like rules". Life-like cellular automata are (outer-totalistic) two-state rules on square grid with range-1 Moore neighbourhood. But there are multiple other rulespaces (different grid/neighbourhood/number of states), which also can be outer-totalistic. I believe the list was not intended to go beyond Life-like rules (and didn't).

• Inline external links should be moved from the main part of the page to the end, in the footnotes section and/or "External links" section (keeping only internal links to other wiki pages in the main part of the page).

The only case of that is the excerpt

One of the few rules known to support replicators.

which contains the link as part of the quotation.

There are also (at least) Catagolue links scattered across the page. I think it would be better to collect external links in footnotes/external links sections, and reorganize the page to convert short sections into list items.

[DroneBetter]

Well, there *is* lag for me. Besides that, multiple animations on a page are fairly distracting (and those spaceships don't really need to be animated).

Actually, coming to think of it, upon closer inspection it seems it does have drops in framerate during webpage scrolling, I suppose I have gotten used to it. (My laptop is usually hot when I'm using it due to conducting searches of one kind or another, and has occasional momentary freezes at the best of times (and crashes at the worst, which are usually accompanied by playing very loud square waves into my headphones), so I suppose I have gotten used to such things.)

That may be a reason to think about reorganizing the whole page. There are many short sections, which don't really need to be sections. Another possibility (imo better) would be to present them as a bulleted list, with separate sections left only when the content does not fit in a list item (more than a paragraph with a few links).

I intended for this page to have every entry expanded with progress reports and partial results and notes of existence of other things like wickstretchers (which I doubtlessly missed), this is only the preliminary version, ideally they all ought to be longer than lit items.

Actually that should be a separate page, rather than a redirect. The redirect is imprecise.
I still think the wording should be changed to "Life-like rules". Life-like cellular automata are (outer-totalistic) two-state rules on square grid with range-1 Moore neighbourhood. But there are multiple other rulespaces (different grid/neighbourhood/number of states), which also can be outer-totalistic. I believe the list was not intended to go beyond Life-like rules (and didn't).

I would like more description of discoveries in other neighbourhoods as well. (There are 64 nonequivalent INT von Neumann rules (though no spaceships, since B1 is necessary to escape the bounding box) and 8192 nonequivalent OT hexagonal ones, maybe May13's and the various others' results could be put into something like glider.db.) However, at present the LifeWiki is mostly Moore-exclusive, and it is accepted as the default (and omittable) in the page-titling scheme.

There are also (at least) Catagolue links scattered across the page. I think it would be better to collect external links in footnotes/external links sections, and reorganize the page to convert short sections into list items.

You always seem to like needlessly putting Catagolue links into footnotes or "(Catagolue: here)"s following the string describing them instead of hyperlinking the string directly (which, as demonstrated by the quarter-century-old page regarding which we are discussing, has been the convention for a long time), and conversely decrease pages' readability in doing so. I have spoken with galoomba, who agrees with me on this.

[confocaloid]

I also often have searches of some kind running. But even when I don't, presence of multiple animations on a single page remains distracting. I think it should be normally a reader's active choice to pick and view some specific pattern animated (unless there's just one or two patterns on a page, small enough to animate them in a reasonable way).

That may be a reason to think about reorganizing the whole page. There are many short sections, which don't really need to be sections. Another possibility (imo better) would be to present them as a bulleted list, with separate sections left only when the content does not fit in a list item (more than a paragraph with a few links).

I intended for this page to have every entry expanded with progress reports and partial results and notes of existence of other things like wickstretchers (which I doubtlessly missed), this is only the preliminary version, ideally they all ought to be longer than lit items.

I suggested reorganizing since some sections are likely to remain short, and are likely to work better as brief list items.
On the other hand, if/when an entry becomes long enough to warrant a separate section, then there's already enough content to be able to link to other wiki pages there, instead of cluttering the section heading with markup/links.
There can be still a list item regardless of whether or not there's a separate section. If there is a section, it can be linked from the list.

There are also (at least) Catagolue links scattered across the page. I think it would be better to collect external links in footnotes/external links sections, and reorganize the page to convert short sections into list items.

You always seem to like needlessly putting Catagolue links into footnotes or "(Catagolue: here)"s following the string describing them instead of hyperlinking the string directly (which, as demonstrated by the quarter-century-old page regarding which we are discussing, has been the convention for a long time), and conversely decrease pages' readability in doing so.

For wiki pages, the convention that I know is that external links shouldn't go in the body of the article. In almost all cases, the main part of the article should contain only links to other wiki pages.

External links normally should not be placed in the body of an article.
[...]
With rare exceptions, external links should not be used in the body of an article. Instead, include appropriate external links in an "External links" section at the end of the article, and in the appropriate location within an infobox, if applicable.

[b-engine]

The heavyweight volcano in the infobox isn't a heavyweight volcano at all; it doesn't emit side spark in the fashion of HWSS. I think the infobox pattern should be changed.

[dvgrn]

The heavyweight volcano in the infobox isn't a heavyweight volcano at all; it doesn't emit side spark in the fashion of HWSS. I think the infobox pattern should be changed.

What are you suggesting that it should be changed to? The pattern is p5 and emits a domino spark (i.e., it's a volcano).

Heavyweight spaceships emit domino sparks. That's the main criterion. Notice the first three patterns in the gallery, including Dean Hickerson's original variant, also don't produce the extra dot spark in the same place that an HWSS produces it -- that's an optional extra, you might say.

[b-engine]

What are you suggesting that it should be changed to? The pattern is p5 and emits a domino spark (i.e., it's a volcano).

Heavyweight spaceships emit domino sparks. That's the main criterion. Notice the first three patterns in the gallery, including Dean Hickerson's original variant, also don't produce the extra dot spark in the same place that an HWSS produces it -- that's an optional extra, you might say.

I suggest to change it to 56P5, 148P5 or something similar, even though the side sparks of 56P5 are weak.

I know that the first three sparkers in the gallery aren't producing the exactly same side sparks as in HWSS, but if the side sparks isn't as accessible as the one produced by HWSS, then it should be called a domino sparker instead.

[confocaloid]

I think the infobox in Heavyweight volcano should show and describe the original form from 1995. Otherwise the discovery info does not match the shown pattern, which is confusing.