User talk:Tracer

What is going on? World Blogs Clogs Elections The Bar (talk) (talk) (talk) (talk) (hic) Welcome to RationalWiki, Tracer! Check out our guide for newcomers and our community standards! Tell us how you found RationalWiki here! If you are interested in contributing: Read what our articles are intended to be Check out the to-do list See our help page and Wikipedia's formatting cheatsheet If writing a new article, consider writing up a draft And most importantly: Pull up a goat and have some fun!

Welcome to RationalWiki, Tracer. Dark Matter Glaucopis 21:12, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

Fractions and π

Your argument that fractions could not be written in the Bible are not based in historical fact. Fractions were in use in Egypt and Babylon going back to around 2000 BCE. I'm not well versed in ancient Hebrew writing, but many systems were widely available at the time that the Biblical book of I Kings was written to express fractions. What's more, π and its association with circumferences had been known for well over a thousand years before the book was written (then, it was approximated to 256/81 in the Middle East at the time of the book's writing). I don't see any evidence that π would be unable to have been expressed properly in the Bible. --Irrational Atheist (talk) 20:14, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Red dwarfs

According to a Scientific American article, flares might not be a problem: [1]. Thunderkatz^Ho! 01:03, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

renaming articles

Hope i didn't step on your toes! In cause you don't know, you rename an article by going to the black "down" arrow, next to vaporize, and select "relocate". And if you do know, sorry for assuming. :-) --Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 21:07, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I didn't know you weren't a sysop. sorry bout the longer block. it's changed now. my bad. you're sysoped. don't abuse it, as you're my very first demotion to sysop on this page! i think i'm supposed to direct you to sysop duties. but mostly it's just the right to unblock yourself. :-) RationalWiki:Sysop guide-Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 21:42, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Boosboodle

I have actually read your spawn of Fashan reveiw before! Nobody^{don't bother} 02:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Private Eye

The "lookalike" names are intentionally reversed - as they are in lookalikes in P.E. Confusing, innit? Scream!! (talk) 20:25, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

D'oh! The irony was too subtle for me to pick up on, I guess. Tracer (talk) 21:37, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

And I guess you missed the comment above the images that they are deliberately mislabelled. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 22:02, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Huh? {looks at page source} Oh ... that kind of comment! --Tracer (talk) 22:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

nu symbol in photon

I played around with it, and couldn't get it to come out any better. There's a letter in the Hebrew category that kind of looks like a nu, and has a bit more curviness to it, so it looks less like a v. Maybe that would work better. Take a look and see what you think. Mcnamara12 (talk) 21:59, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Why not just use f for frequency? Nerd (talk) 01:39, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Hey - You're a nuke geek, maybe you can help me.

Sometime in the mid-1990s, I watched, probably on the Discovery Channel, a documentary on how nuclear weapons work. What made this one special is that it used a framework of a millisecond by millisecond breakdown of what happens when a nuke goes off, basically stretching down that crucial few seconds out to an hour. I've looked in vain for years, even wrote an unreplied-to e-mail to the network. does this ring any belles for you? I'd love to see it again. Did he doubt/Or did he try? 19:35, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Sadly, it doesn't sound familiar to me. Since that was the pre-TiVo days, I'm betting I missed a hell of a lot of Discovery Channel documentaries from that time. Pity, since that was back when the network seemed to value accuracy over flashines. --Tracer (talk) 19:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks anyways.... Did he doubt/Or did he try? 21:23, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

See what I did there?

Instead of linking to some other obscure wiki for a citation, take the extra minute and get the primary source. If I knew the way/I would take you home. 02:08, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Added a wikipedia link for National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius

Please see here. Thanks. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?. 21:16, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

That particular FAQ answer does say "If you must, use {{ wpl | whatever article you're linking to }}", which I did. -- Tracer (talk) 21:22, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I would argue that you didn't "must" insert the link. A sentence explaining why the case was relevant would have made for a better, more self-contained and complete article. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?. 00:08, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Stylistic disagreement

I've noticed that in many articles you contribute to, you add in a lot of scientific details and terminology. Personally, I feel that this makes articles difficult to read and understand, and undermines the wiki's function of helping people to debunk pseudoscience.

Instead of entering an edit war with you, I've come to ask whether you'd consider doing things my way.

Let's take a look at the article on trans fat. A significant portion of it is dedicated to the chemical bonds behind it, and its chemical properties (I believe that you added that in, forgive me if I'm mistaken). As far as I know, this is factual and informative, and I value science education. However, I still take issue with it. Not only do I consider this off-mission, but you're adding what is relatively esoteric information that many may find difficult to understand (dare I say it, I certainly do). With that large part of the article, I fear you risk driving away readers, who are unwilling to read through it all to reach what I consider the most important parts of the article: the pseudoscientific and sensationalistic claims surrounding trans fat. At this point, I should note that other editors here may consider the entire trans fat article to be off mission, but that's not especially relevant to the discussion we're having.

There is also a paradox inherent in including the scientific information in articles. A reader who can readily understand the terminology and process the facts presented is likely to already know the facts about trans fat. A reader who doesn't know the facts about trans fat is less likely to be receptive to the information in question.

Now, maybe I'm just stupid. I'm open to the idea that I'm stupid. Despite that, I still think it would be best to simply not include that information, so that readers needing to know the simpler facts about trans fat can do so more easily. If they wish to know about its chemical properties, they can go to Wikipedia.

I hope you consider my position--"Shut up, Brx." 17:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Indeed; I've had boring, encyclopedic stuff I'd written for the Hypothyroidism article edited out, too. The main reason I like to include scientific details is that a deeper understanding of the subject makes it easier to spot what's wrong with a woo-meister's arguments. (Plus, I personally think it's kind of neat to know what the trans actually means in trans fatty acid.)

I re-edited the Hypothyroidism article to add back a little of the boring, encyclopedic stuff, because I felt these particular details were essential to understanding the controversies. You're right that a lot of the chemistry details in the Trans fat article aren't necessary for understanding the controversy, and the first section could probably be rewritten to be far less intimidating. If it could be rewritten to be less intimidating while retaining a good chunk of the chemistry information, that would be optimal, but I realize it might not be possible. --Tracer (talk) 19:16, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I like the more sciencey stuff, but yeah, it can bury the anti-pseudoscience material. I do skip over a fair amount of the more technical parts, but I appreciate it being there. On the trans fat article, the chemical bond graphic is pretty nifty and aesthetically pleasing even if I don't attend to it. It just makes me feel smarter. The hypothyroid article is better yet. Maybe a re-ordering would help with the article gradually getting more technical like sensitivity and specificity. Balance between both of your views is great, but I'll vote for science-laden every time, maybe even too often. MarmotHead (talk) 20:14, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Iodine ...

... ain't added to milk in the UK. Milk is usually the beverage of choice for anyone who’s worried about a calcium or Vitamin D deficiency. But milk also contains several other nutrients, including the essential mineral iodine. One cup of milk contains an impressive 56 micrograms of the mineral, or about 37% of what the average person must consume each day. Scream!! (talk) 18:59, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

RFC in topic page

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Forum:Need_irc_club

Congratulations!

You found a way to missionally insert a headline titled "poop" into a mainspace article. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:26, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I aims ta please. --Tracer (talk) 16:33, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi, if you're still alive and are reading this...

Someone wanted to let you know that they think Hadron, a page you created, should be deleted, arguing that "Purely scientific content; a hopelessly tiny stub that doesn't seem missional, as it does not address any crankery surrounding hadrons, of which I highly doubt there are any worth covering." Please discuss this assassination attempt on this article's entry on Hadron's Articles for deletion page if you wish to defend your creation.

--Goatspeed. _{Fossil evidence of my evolution}CircularRasoning^{Steal my ideas} 03:58, 27 December 2020 (UTC)