User:B.d.mills

I am an occasional wikipedia contributor living in Australia.

A recent project of mine that I have published on the Web is my variant on the Darian calendar for Mars. The Martian Business Calendar (http://members.ozemail.com.au/~starmouse/calendar/MarsCalendar.htm) refines the Darian calendar by replacing the leap day with a leap week, removing the need to skip days of the week by adjusting the lengths of the months, replacing the intercalation algorithm, and suggesting alternative nomenclature for days of the week and months.

I was going to create a brief Wikipedia article on this calendar but because it would not be notable enough I have chosen not to do so. Later I may alter the Timekeeping on Mars page to mention it - but only as an item on a bulleted list with as many other Martian calendars as I can find.

If you need to contact me, please use my talk page. --  B.d.mills  (Talk) 07:37, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Contents

1 Constellation cleanup 1.1 Layout 1.2 Other tasks 2 Northern hemisphere bias 2.1 Quotations that illustrate northern hemisphere bias

Constellation cleanup

The entries on the 88 constellations need some work, so I think I will have a go at making them more consistent in layout and content. It's a shame that some popular constellations are fully fledged entries with copious illustrations, and other entries are little more than stubs (particularly constellations in the southern sky).

If you are reading this and would like to help out with that project please contact me on my talk page.

I am using Dorado as a prototype article.

Layout

The general layout for the constellations shall be:

1. Brief description and notable features. This section won't have a heading. Disambiguation links must be on the first line.
2. Notable stars. Others have provided good copy here already, so all that is needed is merging and cleanup.
3. Notable deep sky objects. I shall use my trusty 1973 edition of Norton's Star Atlas here because this allows me to provide a consistent base for all 88 constellations.
4. History - A history of who created the constellation and when. Because the modern constellations are derived from a European perspective, this section will have a European slant.
5. Mythology - What the constellation represents.
   1. Western mythology
   2. Other mythologies
6. See also - Various links to the other constellations.
7. References - This must be completed.
8. External links - Links to other information about this constellation.

Other tasks

• Complete the constellation template for all 88 constellations.
• Replace any seasonal references encountered with references to specific months.
• Correct the {{ConstellationsByBayer}} template with more precise information about the creators. See Dorado for an example. Completed 2005 June 21
• Add {{astro-stub}} to the end of the first section of all constellation articles that have one or more blank sections other than References and External Links.
• Add Preoria link to External links section for all 88 constellations.

Northern hemisphere bias

I have recently begun a low-key campaign to raise awareness of northern hemisphere bias as a specific case of systemic bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias). I plan to post a few choice quotations here that illustrate the problem. These quotes won't necessarily be from Wikipedia.

Quotations that illustrate northern hemisphere bias

"Just to think that it's springtime back on Earth!" — Attributed to an unnamed science fiction story, where astronauts voyaging to a distant star were getting homesick. Perhaps they had mastered the control of Earth's weather so that spring started in September all over the Earth?

"From the frozen wastes to the north and the hellish jungles of the south come brave, even reckless warriors." — Dungeons and Dragons Player's [sic] Handbook (third edition), in the introduction to the Barbarian class. Evidently the northern hemisphere in D&D games worlds have a monopoly on barbarians. I guess the southern hemisphere in D&D is the origin of all civilising influences.