LifeWiki:Tiki bar
Welcome, one and all, to the Tiki bar! This page is used to discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of the LifeWiki. Or just sit down, relax, and enjoy a cocktail.
Welcome to the Tiki bar
Wikipedia has the Village pump, Wiktionary has the Beer parlour, but the LifeWiki's lacked a central page for discussion so far other than User talk:Nathaniel. So I took the liberty to create the Tiki bar to facilitate discussion in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Welcome! Apple Bottom (talk) 11:09, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
Archived discussions
- Note: active discussions are never archived while still active.
- See LifeWiki:Tiki bar/Archive/2016 for Tiki bar discussions started in 2016.
- See LifeWiki:Tiki bar/Archive/2017 for Tiki bar discussions started in 2017.
- See LifeWiki:Tiki bar/Archive/2018 for Tiki bar discussions started in 2018.
- See LifeWiki:Tiki bar/Archive/2019 for Tiki bar discussions started in 2019.
- See LifeWiki:Tiki bar/Archive/2020 for Tiki bar discussions started in 2020.
- See LifeWiki:Tiki bar/Archive/2021 for Tiki bar discussions started in 2021.
Proposal for niemiecsynth infobox parameter
Are there any objections to me adding a parameter to the pattern infobox which would link to a given object in Mark Niemiec's synthesis database. Despite its outdatedness, I've personally still found the database extremely useful due to the number of alternative syntheses it has, and I imagine many other people would as well. This would be far easier than manually uploading synthesis files to the pattern collection.
Note that this is distinct from niemiecid, which does not necessarily determine where a synthesis is found. For example, boat does not actually have a niemiecid as far as I can tell it, and its synthesis file is actually located at 0/5bt.rle. Non-still-life patterns also appear to not have IDs under the #.# system. Ian07 (talk) 03:43, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
- Linking to Niemiec synthesis database is nice, but not necessarily shown in infobox in my opinion. An alternative method is to use {{LinkNiemiec}} in the External links section. There have been a bunch of pages doing that; previously I edited some for 12-cell still lives (e.g. this one) so that the link goes to the particular synthesis RLE directly instead of the general "The <count> <pop>-bit still lives" panel. I have not done this to other smaller still lives, though. GUYTU6J (talk) 04:24, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
Do LCMs need their own pages?
- 134P39.1: Keep. It's historical, and we don't know of any non-p3/p13 p39s anyway.
- 22P4.3 on 56P27: Merge to 56P27.
- 258P3 on Achim's p11: Unsure. I might say it's not needed at all.
- 44P7 on Beluchenko's p13: Redirect to Beluchenko's p13, mention on both pages.
- 48P9 on rattlesnake: Redirect to rattlesnake, mention on both pages.
- 65P48: Keep; this is a rephaser where large oscillator doesn't have its own page.
- 69P48: Keep for the same reasons as 65P48.
- 72P68: Merge to honey thieves.
- 74P85: Merge to honey thieves.
- 77P77: Redirect to rattlesnake, mention on both pages (rattlesnake and 41P7.2).
- 87P26: Either keep or merge with 53P13.
- 90P51: Merge to honey thieves.
- Blonker on Rich's p16: Delete (there's already a delete tag).
- Boring p24: Keep; it's natural.
- Caterer on 28P7.3: Merge to 28P7.3.
- Caterer on 42P7.1: Merge to 44P7.2 (42P7.1 is a smaller but lower-clearance variant of 44P7.2).
- Caterer on 44P7.2: Redirect to 44P7.2; no need to show.
- Caterer on 68P32: Delete, no longer smallest.
- Caterer on Beluchenko's p13: Merge to Beluchenko's p13.
- Caterer on figure eight: Redirect to figure eight, mention on both pages.
- Caterer on Jason's p22: Merge to Jason's p22.
- Caterer on Merzenich's p31: Merge to Merzenich's p31.
- Caterer on rattlesnake: Merge to rattlesnake.
- Figure eight on 22P36: Merge to 22P36.
- Figure eight on Beluchenko's p13: Merge to Beluchenko's p13.
- Figure eight on centinal: Redirect to centinal; no need to show since it's p200.
- Figure eight on Jason's p22: Delete, not the smallest.
- Figure eight on pentadecathlon: Keep, natural.
- Figure eight on rattlesnake: Merge to rattlesnake.
- Fumarole on 34P14 shuttle: Merge to 34P14 shuttle.
- Fumarole on Achim's p11: Delete, by far not the smallest.
- Fumarole on Beluchenko's p13: Merge to Beluchenko's p13.
- Fumarole on p18 bi-block hassler: Merge to p18 bi-block hassler.
- Fumarole on Rich's p16: Delete; overtaken by Rob's p16.
- Fumarole on Rob's p16: Merge to Rob's p16.
- Mold on 34P14 shuttle: Merge to 34P14 shuttle.
- Mold on 41P7.2: Merge to 41P7.2.
- Mold on fumarole: Merge to fumarole, mention on both pages.
- Mold on Jason's p22: Delete, not smallest.
- Mold on Jason's p33: Merge to Jason's p33.
- Mold on Merzenich's p31: Merge to Merzenich's p31.
- Mold on pentadecathlon: Merge to pentadecathlon.
- Mold on rattlesnake: Merge to rattlesnake.
- P6 thumb on Beluchenko's p13: Merge to Beluchenko's p13.
- Pentadecathlon on 37P7.1: Merge to 37P7.1.
- Pentadecathlon on 56P27: Merge to 56P27.
- Pentadecathlon on snacker: Delete, not smallest.
- Pentadecathlon on thumb 1: Merge to thumb 1
- Pseudo-barberpole on Jason's p22: Merge to Jason's p22.
- Pseudo-barberpole on rattlesnake: Merge to rattlesnake.
- Snacker on 38P7.2: Redirect to 38P7.2, mention on both pages.
- T-nosed p4 on Merzenich's p31: Delete, not smallest.
- Thumb 1 on queen bee shuttle: Merge to thumb 1 (queen bee shuttle has a lot of other uses, and this would add clutter).
- Tumbler on Rich's p16: Merge to tumbler; tumbler was chosen over Rich's p16 as people wouldn't expect tumbler to have sparks.
- Twin bees shuttle on 22P4.3: Delete. We don't have a page for 22P4.3, and it ties the non-LCM record anyway.
- Uninteresting p24: Keep, natural.
- Unix on 34P14 shuttle: Merge to 34P14 shuttle.
- Unix on 41P7.2: Delete, not smallest.
- Unix on Rich's p16: Merge to Rich's p16.
HotdogPi (talk) 14:15, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
- Well the first entry on this list certainly didn't age perfectly.
- I agree with most of these proposals, although I'd prefer it if the cases marked for deletion were instead made into redirects to the current smallest, with their existence as the smallest at one point in time given a passing mention. - AwesoMan3000 (talk) 14:10, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
- I also agree with most of these proposals, but there are a few I would do differently:
- 258P3 on Achim's p11: Keep or merge to Achim's p11; it's historical.
- 134P39.1: Merge to cheater 2.
- 72P68: Merge to cheater 2.
- 74P85: Merge to cheater 2.
- 90P51: Merge to cheater 2.
- 87P26: Move 53P13 to 50P13 and merge with 50P13.
- Caterer on 42P7.1: Delete; no longer the smallest.
- Caterer on 44P7.2: Delete; not the smallest.
- Pentadecathlon on thumb 1: Move thumb 1 to p9 thumb and merge to p9 thumb
- Thumb 1 on queen bee shuttle: Move thumb 1 to p9 thumb and merge to p9 thumb
- Twin bees shuttle on 22P4.3: Already redirected to a smaller LCM p92.
- ~Sokwe 22:00, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
OCA RLE
Two hours ago our site admin User:Nathaniel added a collection of other cellular automata patterns to the main page under the name of oca.zip, and I noticed something that is worth discussing.
Firstly, click on "Expand" to the right to view the list of the filenames (currently there are 75).
1308p7.rle 2c5ladders.rle 2x210cellstilllifes.rle 2x22cellstilllifes.rle 2x23cellstilllifes.rle 2x24cellstilllifes.rle 2x25cellstilllifes.rle 2x26cellstilllifes.rle 2x27cellstilllifes.rle 2x28cellstilllifes.rle 2x29cellstilllifes.rle 2x2blockoscillators.rle 2x2glider.rle 2x2linepuffer.rle 2x2oscillators.rle 2x2period2oscillators.rle 2x2stills.rle 4c13ladders.rle 4c9ladders.rle b3578s238replicator.rle bomberpredecessor.rle briansbrainp3.rle c3ladder.rle c3ladders.rle candlefrobraitself.rle croaker.rle dayandnightfireball.rle flutter.rle griddle.rle highlife10cellstilllifes.rle highlife11cellstilllifes.rle highlife12cellstilllifes.rle highlife13cellstilllifes.rle highlife4cellstilllifes.rle highlife5cellstilllifes.rle highlife6cellstilllifes.rle highlife7cellstilllifes.rle highlife8cellstilllifes.rle highlife9cellstilllifes.rle highlifereplicatorxp96.rle honeyfarmgenerator.rle jasonsbow.rle jellyfish.rle lifehistoryexample.rle lifewithoutdeathquadraticgrowth.rle longlivedsparks.rle maze2cellstilllifes.rle maze3cellstilllifes.rle maze4cellstilllifes.rle maze5cellstilllifes.rle maze6cellstilllifes.rle maze7cellstilllifes.rle maze8cellstilllifes.rle maze9cellstilllifes.rle mazeperiod2.rle mazestilllifes.rle mazewickstretcher.rle moon.rle movepuffer.rle movestilllifes.rle nontnosedp15.rle nontnosedp8.rle pedestrianlifeobliquespaceship.rle pedestrianlifep106gun.rle pedestrianlife_obliquespaceship.rle pedestrianlife_p106gun.rle pole2rotor.rle pole3rotor.rle pole4rotor.rle replicator.rle replicatorpredecessor.rle semitnosedp16.rle semitnosedp8.rle ttetrominotlife.rle uniquefatherproblemsolved.rle
Then, the issues.
- RLE:1308p7 is included even though it is a Game of Life pattern, presumably due to the nonstandard "rule = Life" specification. Can we avoid this in future updates of the collection?
- The pattern b3578s238replicator.rle seems to be unused anywhere over the wiki (there is even no relevant RLE page!), and its info indicates that it was uploaded by someone named "heyitsguay" from an external forums that I cannot access. I am skeptical whether this was the original discovery, and curious about why this happened. Is there a data sanitization process for the patterns and their comments?
- There are several LifeHistory patterns, namely RLE:honeyfarmgenerator, RLE:lifehistoryexample, RLE:longlivedsparks, RLE:nontnosedp15, RLE:nontnosedp8, RLE:semitnosedp16, RLE:semitnosedp8, RLE:uniquefatherproblemsolved. Should they count as OCA RLEs? (On a side note, personally I would like RLE:honeyfarmgenerator to be replaced with a plain-Life pattern, so it would be consistent with RLE:trafficlightevolutions2 and RLE:rheptominoequivalents.)
- Compared with the list in previous discussion, LifeWiki:Tiki_bar/Archive/2020#LifeViewer_and_RLE_on_OCA_subpages, a lot of old OCA RLEs are not included in the oca.zip collection above, nor does recent examples like this one. Is it because they are not embedded in a LifeViewer in some Main/OCA namespace article?
Finally, the former suggestion of creating an independent OCARLE namespace looks reasonable to me. Would this be implemented?
(Meanwhile, happy Pi day!) -GUYTU6J (talk) 03:54, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for this. I have fixed the script so that patterns with "rule = Life" and "rule = LifeHistory" are now placed in all.zip instead of oca.zip. The script runs on the server once every 24 hours, so these changes will take up to a day to appear. Nathaniel (talk) 12:32, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
- Good, how about the remaining questions? For consistency, I went ahead and fixed the nonstandard "rule = Life" in the RLE above as well as in RLE:46p4h1v0 synth, both of which were produced by User:Dvgrn. Related to the second issue, RLE:Quetzal54 appears to be generated by User:Book's personal website and the link is broken; can you rewrite the comment so as to match LifeWiki standards? -GUYTU6J (talk) 12:56, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Redirects from misspelling
I fail to see why redirects from misspellings are prohibited. Atavoidirc (talk) 21:40, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
- I think there are too many possible ways to misspell something (just multiply the number of letters in the title by (number of letters in the alphabet - 1) and on top of that add misspellings that add/remove/exchange letters), so that it becomes unreasonable to make redirects for them. For another example, should jrake be redirected to rake, or to krake (note that letters j and k are adjacent on a common keyboard layout), or maybe to a disambiguation page created specifically for the purpose of distinguishing possible misspellings? Some redirects for really common misspellings may be acceptable - but I think it is necessary to show explicitly that these misspellings are indeed common, and there are few such cases.
- In any case, I do not think it is helpful to quickly make dozens of redirects for misspellings - it clutters the logs of recent changes for editors, and it does not seem a noticeable improvement for readers. Confocal (talk) 07:06, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
- (Added later) Although the following does not necessarily imply anything specific (I think the wiki should not promote an incorrect spelling, even if it becomes common), here are results of a quick forum search: "candelfobra" - 0 matches, "candlefobra" - 0 matches, "candelfrobra" - 16 matches, "candlefrobra" - 36 matches. Confocal (talk) 12:06, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
- Personally i think redirects from misspellings that are not just typos (e.g. Candelfobra) should be allowed. I've made this specific misspelling several times before, so i know at least one person who would benefit from it. Atavoidirc (talk) 11:25, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
- My vote would definitely be to not add misspelling-redirects, and to remove any that have been added. We've already got lots of spelling and punctuation variants showing up in the All Pages lists, and those lists will get extremely cluttered if we also add every possible misspelling of every article name -- or even every reasonable misspelling.
- Of course there's a checkbox to hide redirects, but the problem I see is that current policy is fairly consistent about having redirects be valid variant spellings -- terms that people have actually used or might actually use.
- So if we add things like "Suprise", we're kind of implying that "suprise" is a valid name that someone has used for something. People might click on it thinking, "what's that, a pun on 'sup' so it's some kind of eater?" and then mysteriously find no explanation of why "suprise" is listed. I'd much rather avoid that unlikely potential confusion, than avoid the unlikely potential confusion that someone can't find the Surprise article because they typed "suprise".
- In other words, given that the lexicon of Life terms includes all kinds of things like "Catagolue" that look like misspellings but are actually completely purposeful and have meaning... there's useful information in the current collection of redirects, and it's not an improvement to add a random scattering of misspellings that are really just misspellings. People can perfectly well figure out how to spell "surprise" right, in the incredibly rare cases when they accidentally mistype it and don't get a LifeWiki article match. Dvgrn (talk) 14:59, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
Category:Polyominos
I propose that recently created Category:Polyominos should be renamed to Category:Polyominoes, to follow S. W. Golomb. See also polyomino. The actual renaming will involve editing every page in the category - otherwise I probably would just do it myself. Confocal (talk) 07:15, 28 June 2022 (UTC)