User talk:Maralia/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

→

Archive 5

Welcome

Hello Maralia, and Welcome to Wikipedia! Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Also, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. I noticed you'd been busy and thought you ought to be welcomed properly. BTW, I loved the correction (and edit summary) for the LoCE main page :D Embarrassing or what... It looks like you've settled in quickly, but any questions, leave me a note on my talk page and I'll try to help out ;) Happy editing! EyeSereneTALK 13:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC) Getting started Introduction The five pillars of Wikipedia How to edit a page Finding your way around Table of contents Department directory Editing articles How to develop an article Manual of Style Getting help Frequently asked questions Cheatsheet Where to ask a question Help pages New contributors' help page How you can help Contributing to Wikipedia Community Portal Follow Wikipedia etiquette Practice civility

USS Kensington

Thanks for the disambiguation link. I didn't know. Do you have any info on other Stone Fleet ships?Pustelnik 19:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I left myself a note earlier to come back to Stone Fleet and try to disambig other links. I might get to it tonight. Thanks for the note; it's nice to have someone notice I'm trying to improve pages with disambig fixes. Maralia 04:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I found a few more to disambiguate. I've also added some info to Peri and reworked Stephen Young a bit, but it's late and I'm getting sloppy. Will look around more tomorrow. Maralia 06:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

SHIPS, Disambiguation

In RE: Also a quick note - some articles you've created (and others that you have been working on) could use renaming to follow wiki conventions. Examples are Coffin (whaling family), Phoenix (ships with this name), Sydney Packet (1826-1837). I understand the issue of disambiguation on all these, so I can see why you've done what you have, but more standard names would be Coffin family (whaling), Phoenix (ships), and Sydney Packet (1826). You can find the naming conventions specific to ship articles here. I'd be happy to answer any questions or help in any way I can. Maralia 14:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Coffin whaling family page isn't mine. I don't know how to change the titles on the other pages you mentioned. Feel free to change them and let me know that you did, or direct me to instructions on how to do so. When I started the first page on the Phoenix, I had no idea how many ships of the wooden saling ship era bore that name. Maybe it is a Masonic thing, or they were all built after fires? There are several ships named "Sydney Packet" as well. The only one I am interested in was built in Australia, and involved in discoveries in the Pacific. The whole Stone Fleet was a side effect of trying to sort out ships named Phoenix. I'm interested in the one captained by Perry Winslow. I understand that there is a book in progress about the wreck of this Phoenix, written by a relative of one of its captains. I finally joined the ships group. Pustelnik 17:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The "Sydney Packet" was a civilian ship. I'm not sure why "Sydney Packet (1826)" is preferrable to "Sydney Packet (1826-1838)" even after reading the naming convention page. For many of the whaling era ships, I have no idea when they were built or lost, but do have some data on when and where they were active, or who their captains were. I suspect that these ships careers were overlaping, rather than being sequential, like military ships. I may be wrong about that. It might help if someone expands the "naming convention for civilian ships" category. Most of the article does not apply to civilian wooden sailing vessels, which is my particular interest. I understand the need for conventions, I'm just unsure what they are, even after reading the article.Pustelnik 00:02, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply that the 'more standard names' I listed were definitely THE right names for those cases. I haven't looked into those specific issues enough to say with any certainty; I was merely trying to point you in the right direction as far as conventions go. My suggestion regarding the Sydney Packet was based on my mistaken assumption that it was a ship in a series of packet traders on the same line, only named such when it took over the service after the previous ship was retired, etc. Anyway, I do see the naming issue you're running up against, especially at Phoenix (ships with this name), and you're right that our current conventions don't explicitly describe how to handle it, probably because this is a pretty unusual case; there just aren't a lot of non-military ships that are notable enough to merit an article, so it's rare to have such extreme overlap on names. My only concern is to distinguish them in logical ways - right now, the Phoenix ships seem to be disambiguated by ship type, location, and even captain's name. I'll read through them in more detail and see if I can come up with any better ideas. Maralia 01:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I see what you mean. I doubt that the various "Sydney Packets" were actually packet boats by this definition. One ended up wrecked in Canada! I suspect that they were attempting to imply that they were fast, but that is only a guess.Pustelnik 02:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Cheers

Lol - that's one very good argument for actually checking wikilinks go where they're supposed to when editing! EyeSerene^TALK 21:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Sheerness FAC

Hi. I'm sorry to bother you, but as a LoCE member, I just wondered if you would be willing to have a look through the Sheerness article. It is currently a Featured Article Candidate and needs a copy-edit for grammar by someone who hasn't yet seen it. Any other ways to improve the article would also be welcome. Thank you very much, if you can. Epbr123 12:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

No problems

If you ever need any help just leave me a message, and with the vandalism report you did fine. Always make sure they receive a recent final warning (within last day prefereably sooner) and a block will almost always be issued. All the best and happy editing. ^Khukri 17:35, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

DC Meetup notice

Greetings. There is going to be a Washington DC Wikipedia meetup on next Saturday, July 21st at 5pm in DC. Since you are listed in Category:Wikipedians_in_Virginia, I thought I'd invite you to come. I'm sorry about the short notice for the meeting. Hopefully we'll do somewhat better in that regard next time. If you can't come but want to make sure that you are informed of future meetings be sure to list yourself under "but let me know about future events", and if you don't want to get any future direct notices \(like this one\), you can list yourself under "I'm not interested in attending any others either" on the DC meetup page.--Gmaxwell 22:10, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello

You said about Vialuxe that "This page does not describe the subject in a neutral and encylopedic manner". You are quite right, it appears to have been an advertisement, and as such has been deleted. As you may have heard, Wikipedia is on guard against people or websites who try to use the encyclopedia for self-promotion; if you spot any, if you want, you can use the template {{db-advert}} to request their deletion. Happy editing! >Radiant< 14:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: your feedback on an editing error of mine

Hi Maralia. Sorry if I screwed up with the addition of the sentence re: murders of persons listed in sex offender registries. But I _did_ put """http://www.rutherford.org/Oldspeak/Articles/Law/oldspeak-sexregistries.asp Sex-Offender Registries: Public Safety or Public Hazard? """ in the External Links which I thought would be sufficient. Should I instead have put that link in the Reference section? Thank you for your attention.81.184.59.20 06:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Deserved

		The Chain Barnstar of Recognition
		For making a difference! This Barnstar isn't free, this is a chain barnstar, as payment please give this star to at least 3-5 others with 500+ edits but no barnstar. So that everyone who deserves one will get one Pseudoanonymous 19:16, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

League of Copyeditors

I'm very sorry I haven't had a chance to welcome you earlier, I have been incredibly busy lately. We are glad to have your help. Currently, we have really cut down the backlog of articles in need of copyedit. Therefore, a major goal at this moment is to identify new articles that are in need of work. When you run across them, be sure to tag them for copyediting.

If you have any questions at all, do not hesitate to drop me a line. Trusilver 16:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Joseph Browne

Hello Maralia!

I see you deleted the Joseph Browne article. In the form that you found it, it was indeed full of rubbish. If you'd checked through the edit history, however, you would have found that the rubbish was actually vandalism; the article itself (which I wrote) was of a highly respected public figure in Fiji.

Before deleting articles, it is good to check the edit history. It often happens that an article that appears to be rubbish is actually a good article that has been vandalized. The solution is to go though the edit history, find the last "good" version of the article and restore it. You can then delete all of the vandalized edits.

I have restored the article, minus the vandalism.

Please don't take this as a criticism - I've made similar mistakes more often than I'd like to admit. Anyway, welcome to wikipedia! David Cannon 10:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh sorry! Now it's my turn - I sent this message to the wrong user:-( Anyway, thank you for your kind reply. I'll send a copy of the original message to User:User:Dsmdgold. Cheers! David Cannon 23:54, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT

Hey Maralia! I noticed that you're adding categories to various ship articles, and I was wondering if you know about DEFAULTSORT. It lets you specify a sort key on one line so it doesn't have to be mentioned in each category. For example, in this diff, it's unnecessary to include |Archer-Fish (SS-311) on each category, because the {{DEFAULTSORT:Archer-Fish (SS-311)}} takes care of that for you. TomTheHand 15:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, and thanks for the note. I coincidentally noticed defaultsort in the very last article I edited before your message popped up. Fortunately, I've been doing this work mainly to ADD categories to appropriate articles, not just to fix sorts, or I'd feel like a bigger dummy than I already do :) Anyway, thanks for the heads up! I see you do a lot of work for WP:Ships and you make your AIM screen name available - I may pester you a bit about guidelines as I wade through WikiProject Shipwrecks, if you don't mind. Maralia 15:28, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind at all. I'm not available on AIM until evenings on weekdays, but feel free to catch me then. TomTheHand 15:30, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

When you do a DEFAULTSORT for a a ship, include at least the type and number, not just the name. And I think WP:SHIPS wants the USS in there after a comma, so {{DEFAULTSORT:Enterprise (CVN-65), USS}} would be the format to use. --J Clear 01:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh bother. I am of the opinion that if ship articles are properly categorized, two ships of the same alphabetical name (but differing hull numbers) should rarely appear in the same category list, so it's a point I chose to not particularly care about in my zillion categorization + defaultsort edits of late. Now that you had to go and call me out on it, I'll shape up :)

For what it's worth, I just reread Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Categorization#Category sorting and the ship prefix is specifically excluded.

Thanks also for the fixes on Koka just now. Maralia 02:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Smile

Connell66 has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Brown Shipbuilding review

I saw your request over on User talk:TomTheHand for a review of Brown Shipbuilding, you can use these diff links to see what another editor and I thought needed doing. Also you can usually be pretty liberal in adding project banners, and I agreed with your suggestions, so added those. --J Clear 15:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the cleanup! Thanks also for the nostalgia - reading your user page brought back fond memories of summer days sailing at Marblehead and Weekapaug, back when my only job was being a teenager. Maralia 21:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Your NPWatcher application

Dear Maralia,

Thank you for applying for NPWatcher! You've been approved to use it. Before you run the program, please check the changelog on the application page to see if there is a newer release (or just add the main page (here) to your watchlist). Report any bugs or feature suggestion here. If you need help, feel free to contact me or join NPWatcher.

Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:15, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

M/T Independenta

Hi. Please see [Independenta]. Thanks.CeeGee 19:20, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:CVU status

The Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit project is under consideration to be moved to {{inactive}} and/or {{historical}} status. Another proposal is to delete or redirect the project. You have been identified as a project member and your input as to this matter would be welcomed at WT:CVU#Inactive.3F and at the deletion debate. Thank you! Delivered on behalf of xaosflux 17:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Katharine Graham

I said that the speculation continues about Mr. Graham's death, but never stated that his wife murdered him. Please, keep in mind that Wikipedia is not Conservapedia. To avoid discussion and argument, go somewhere else. Dukered

Katharine Graham

You weren't very civil deleting and deleting the entry. I'm aware that this is a controversial topic, and that Katharine Graham was a woman with many detractos and many lovers. But here on Wikipedia facts or details are not buried just like that, unless they are completely unsourced. Moreover, there was something else about Philip Graham's death (which I did not write and you did delete like the user before you) totally neutral. This raises my suspicions. But I'll do my homework because the truth won't be buried, you can be sure of that. Sincerely, Dukered 23:45, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Re: WP:Ships Welcome Message

Thanks for the welcome and the advice. I've fixed the flag thing on the Buckley class Captains class frigate articles. Thefrood 05:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Part 2: As to the reason "for starting the infoboxes after the intro to the article?", It seems the sensible thing to from an accessibility point of view, the user of a voice reader gets enough info to hopefully know that they have reached the page they want (or not reached as the case may be) before having to deal with the horrors that is a layout table. This is (IMHO) in accordance with the the Wikipedia Accessibility guidelines, of course the big question is how good is my humble opinion :|

Question, is there no way of implementing this sort of thing using CSS on Wikipedia? Thefrood 05:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Hm, I just read that article, and I see:

Infoboxes are a summary of the article, and therefore should be put before any text.

I agree it seems rather nonsensical, but there it is. As far as your CSS question, I don't think we have any alternatives other than creating templates like we use for the infobox itself :/ Maralia 06:19, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Once again thanks, as to the infobox, as you say "nonsensical" so I'll leave mine as is (but won't scream too loudly if anybody else changes it). Now I don't suppose you can point me in the right direction for the place I should point out this nonsensical policy and ask/campaign for a change? Thefrood 06:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I would start at the Accessibility talk page. I'm not sure how relevant the issue is in general, though, since in my experience the majority of wiki pages have neither a useful infobox nor a lead section that actually summarizes the article, much less both. In an ideal world, though ;) Maralia 15:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I've already looked there, A debate seems to be raging(?) about this which seems to be summarised as... if the infobox a data table then it is OK but it is not OK if the infobox is a layout table, guess I should go and throw my tuppence worth in to the debate.

Quick question: HMS Saker

Would the Royal Navy shore based establishment HMS Saker come under the subject area covered by WikiProject Ships? Thefrood 19:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't quite understand the article. From the external link I gather that it's not a ship, but rather more like an emplacement designation, for Royal Navy folks in the US? A pseudo assignment that is named as though it's a ship? Maralia 19:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Royal Navy shore based establishments traditionally are given a ship name, HMS Saker is a bit unusual as in in this case it encompasses a whole nation (the USA). Although I've asked this in relation to HMS Saker I suppose the answer to the question I'm asking could be applied Naval shore based establishments in general. They are not ships (even as in the Royal Navies case they are named as ships) but they are related to the subject.Thefrood 20:07, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I would add it to WP:MILHIST then, since it's more 'navy' than 'ship'. Maralia 20:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Will do, ta Thefrood 20:07, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I notice that you've been cleaning up after me

(Charles Keck and the USS Maine) and this is a good thing, but it is not why I am here. Rather, it's your propensity towards shipwrecks. What do you know, or perhaps, should there be an article about the crash of the SS Vesta and the SS Arctic, which I read somewhere was the first such collision between steamships on the open sea. There are books about it, which perhaps you have? Of interest to me - besides the huge amount of human drama that surrounded this accident (the owner of the SS Arctic lost his family, for example) was that Frederick Catherwood went down at that point and darn near disappeared from history too. Just a thought. Carptrash 14:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You know, I had come across a reference to that wreck the other day, and made a mental note to look into it. I forgot entirely - a couple hours of children's television a day will do that to you - so, thanks for inadvertently jogging my memory. I don't happen to already have any books about the collision, so I just visited my dear friend Google and came up with this for a starting point:User:Maralia/Arctic-Vesta Sources. Maralia 16:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

If you collect this sort of book you might look at this [1] If it were about sculpture, or the memorials created about shipwrecks, I'd get it in a flash. hmmmmmm. Perhaps we need to do something about memorials. I did the Titanic once and there are quite a few around. Carptrash 02:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh you're a memorials guy eh? You might like to see the memorial for members of the Brown family. James Brown was a partner in the Collins Line, which owned & operated Arctic; his two daughters, son, daughter in law, and two grandchildren all died on the Arctic. It's a cemetery monument; dunno if that's quite your thing, but the pictures are fascinating - the sinking ship is represented on the memorial, even. Thanks for the book link, I'll check it out. Maralia 03:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I see that you are interested in old ships

I noticed that on your user page, so I tought that I would share this with you. My friend Rear Admiral Jay A. DeLoach has participated in the search of the USS Alligator that went down in a storm off the coast of North Carolina in 1863. The USS Alligator was the first submarine built during the Civil War by the Union Navy. I'm thinking about joining them in the hunt this coming year. Just thought you would enjoy this. Tony the Marine 05:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

How exciting! I do hope you'll let me know if you go. I would love to hear all about it. Maralia 14:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Captain Class Frigate:Review

"I noticed that you added Captain class frigate to the Review page", not me (not checked but I suspect Emoscopes} - however I was planning to do this once I finshed updating the refs in the operations section to a more formal style and Emoscopes had done the same for his Lenton, H T. British and Empire Warships of the Second World War Greenhill Books.

That said, thanks for the input. I'll get to work on the position of the citations and the capitalisation issues. As to your comment "there are 3 builders listed in the infobox, yet 4 are mentioned in the article" (actually 5) yes that is correct, no error; Captain class frigates were built by Boston Navy Yard, Mare Island Navy Yard and Bethlehem-Hingham however orders for Captain class frigates were placed with Boston Navy Yard, Mare Island Navy Yard, Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Puget Sound Navy Yard (initial order) and later Bethlehem-Hingham. All the ordered ships from Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Puget Sound Navy Yard were taken over by the US Navy (as were all but one of the ships ordered from Mare Island Navy Yard). --Thefrood 03:21, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Unless the review request is the one that got the article upgraded from Start to B in which case it was me (and should be removed). Thanks for your kind words about going for an FA rating, I was just hoping to get it up to a GA rating - FA would be awesome! As to when you can copyedit I do not foresee any major changes to the text (unless you really do think a change needs to made regarding the order/build thing) the main thrust of what I'm now doing is formalising the refs (not looking forward to doing the tables in the Operations section :-/) so feel free. --Thefrood 04:11, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

One final note before you copyedit, I have used British English spellings throughout (colour not color, "s" not "z", aeroplane not air plane, etc). --Thefrood 05:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The first paragraph looks great. As to the end of war stuff, it does look a bit missed place where it is, as a temporary measure I'll copy a paste it into a separate a paragraph at the end of the History section - as to its final disposition I am quite happy to leave that in your hands. --Thefrood^Talk 08:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Ticonderoga fixit

I supplied the reference you asked for for the A-4 which fell overboard with a B43 nuclear bomb on board. It was the CV-14 Ticonderoga; the VA-56 was the aircraft squadron, not the ship. I also added a subsection about the incident to the Tico (CV-14) article... Georgewilliamherbert 06:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Judy aircraft massive fix

Thanks for the excellent and extensive rewrite of the Judy. Epic! Binksternet 13:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

My contributions were modest; User:Dawkeye put in a huge edit today, which is responsible for much of the improvement. In fact, I had just thanked him when your message popped up - do drop him a note, if you would. Maralia 13:44, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

re:May I?

Go right ahead. He used to be Labyrinth13 (talk · contribs), who was indef blocked for gross incivility and vandalism. Although, I don't know if it'll do much good; he's used dozens and dozens of different IPs, and I don't think he's ever used the same one twice, so I don't know what good blocking will do. It's probably best to keep reverting and ignore him otherwise, until he loses motivation and leaves. Parsecboy 12:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

USS Seneca

Hi, Maralia You seem to be an expert on US ships. I am not an expert and came across USS Yankton via the sources for a biography article Charles Armstrong (MD), where I also found USS Seneca. On this website I found another ship Seneca, which obviously is not on the list USS Seneca in Wipipedia. Google has a Seneca (2004) here, which is also not in the wiki list. Do you know more? Have a nice day --Hans555 07:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello. The USS ship prefix is Navy; you are looking for a ship of the Coast Guard, which most typically uses the prefix USCGC (US Coast Guard Cutter). We do not have an article on the ship in your first link, which is certainly the ship Armstrong served upon. When it is created, it would be named USCGC Seneca (1908), so you should link to that name now, in Armstrong's article. The 2004 link you listed is a reference to the ship USCGC Seneca (WMEC-906) which is still in service. Hope this helps! Maralia 14:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

USS Libra (AKA-12)

Nice work on updating it. Nice to know that somebody besides me is interested in these old WWII AKA's! Lou Sander 10:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice to know somebody is noticing my cleanup! Thanks. Maralia 14:25, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Invite

Thanks for the invitation! I was afraid that once I quit lurking and actually started posting I might get discovered. As there are a few items in other areas I'd like to get to, I'm not sure how much time I could spend on the project. Therefore I have not yet decided whether to join. You folks seem to have it well in hand anyway-- keep up the great work! Kablammo 17:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		I'd like to thank you for coming to my defense, and explaining the situation in that vandalism/3RR mess on Linkin Park. :) Parsecboy 16:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey, no problem. I may not know you from Adam, but it peeves me to see anyone subjected to the ridiculous amount of vandalism and harassment I saw popping up on my watchlist. Some jerks just don't have anything better to do in life, I guess. Maralia 16:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Battleship/Ship of the line

Hi Maralia, I noticed your post to User:Toddy1's talk page about proposed renames for Bulwark Class Battleship (1859) and Duncan class (1859). I agree they could do with retitling, but per the discussions we've had at the project, those ships would really be classed as ships of the line rather than battleships. It's a hazy area the whole terminology, and the standard term is debatable, but rather than trying to reopen that debate again, would you have any objection to 'Bulwark class ship of the line (1859)' and 'Duncan class ship of the line (1859)'? Benea 21:06, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I am in complete ignorance as to the subject ships; I was merely looking to correct improper syntax of the class names. Whatever the two of you hash out is fine with me, just let me know :) Maralia 21:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Evil twin

Wow, those are some pretty impressive coincidences! I might have been the evil twin, however after nearly eight years of facial hair, I shaved my goatee off on Monday. Not having been exposed to the air since the twentieth century, my face has felt funny all week long. Did you happen to start growing a goatee on Monday by any chance ... ? If so, perhaps you are taking a turn as the evil twin! Kralizec! (talk) 18:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Ooops, sorry about that. I guess saying "you should have seen the mustache on my great grandmother!" would only make my hole deeper, aye? Kralizec! (talk) 02:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: Assessment

Coincidentally, we're doing the same thing.  ;-)

Please feel free to carry over any assessments below A-Class to the MILHIST banner; we have piles of articles to go through, so we'd definitely appreciate getting some that have already been assessed. Thanks! Kirill 02:40, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

re:Defaultsort

Thanks for pointing that out. I'd come across it several times, but wasn't sure exactly what its purpose was. I'll update the articles I've created/edit with that template now. Thanks again. Parsecboy 00:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

ROFLMAO

Ha! Now that is funny!! --Kralizec! (talk) 03:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Admiral Fisher

Thanks for your input on the article. I'm going to try to get this up to either A-class or FA over the next couple of weeks so I'd appreciate it if you continued monitoring it. I will modify one change you made (from "do" to "complete" basic training): it has changed the meaning so I'll find a formula that gets rid of the clumsy "do" whilst preserving the original meaning. Anyhow, much appreciated! --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 19:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

No problem. That was a pretty cursory review; I'll give it a more thorough one, and keep an eye on it as you work. Sorry about that 'complete' - thought I had removed it before saving. I'll see if I can get stubs written on some of the ships in the article so there aren't so many redlinks. One thing that could use clarification is his rank progression: he seems to go from Midshipman to commander (but not explicitly Commander), to captain (but not Captain), and then the various military offices are mentioned (Director of Ordnance, Third Sea Lord, Second, and First), and then Admiral of the Fleet. I don't know if he was unconventionally promoted, or if the data just isn't available, but it was odd to be reading for military rank (as opposed to office) interwiki links and find Midshipman and nothing further till Admiral of the Fleet. Maralia 20:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to take so long to get back to you. You're absolutely right, his progression through the ranks is completely omitted. I've done some work on that today and will add accordingly when complete. I was rather sidetracked by rumours of an affair with the Duchess of Hamilton, his passion for dancing and fireworks, and gossip about his racy conversations with the king! Thank you again for your support. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 16:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds fascinating! A couple further requests: would be nice to see more about the feud with Beresford, and in the phrase "his ashes...were placed in the grave of his wife, underneath a chestnut tree, overlooking the figurehead of his first command" I'm curious to know to what 'the figurehead of his first command' refers. Hope I can find some of those books next time I'm at the library. Maralia 17:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Noted! --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 17:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with the Fisher sub-articles. I did notice and it's much appreciated. (I did a HMS Donegal disambig page earlier: perhaps - if you have time - you could take a look at it?)

As you may have seen, I'm working through the material to create a reliable CV for him (this can always go into a separate article if it gets too long overall) as the existing details contain errors. I've ordered a couple more books on him too.

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 13:25, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I just knew whom to ask :) Maralia 14:11, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed! --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 14:19, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Tirpitz

Hi, thanks very much for noticing that! It certainly was a lot of fun to research and write. I came across his story quite by chance whilst writing up HMS Glasgow (1909) and couldn't resist writing an article about him, especially since I even found a photograph of him. It's quite a heart warming tale, up until the bit where he gets auctioned off and eaten! I've even found that some of the sources go up to the point where he's on Whale Island, and then leave it at that, with no mention of his ultimate fate. I guess it's a bit distressing for some. Kind regards, Benea 13:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The juxtaposition of a common barnyard animal amid staid old warships just kills me. I have to admit that, to me, it was extra funny coming from you, since your ships' articles are some of the most formulaic and formally written out there (those are actually compliments; forgive me, I'm still on my first cup of coffee). I am apparently extremely juvenile lately, as I had to follow to the Category:Military animals, and DIED laughing over exploding rat, even though I had just recently read coal torpedo. Oh damn, I've just found War pigs (ancient military weapon) and while it's terribly cruel, the phrase "Obviously, a burning pig is difficult to command" has pushed me over the edge again. Maralia 13:54, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It's true, i tend to have a style all my own. I like to have a standardised format and go from there in building an article. Trust me, I took it as a compliment! I've seen too many three line, no infobox stubs out there. I went the same way when working out what to catagorise it as. Have you seen Nils Olav by the way. One of my favourite articles on wikipedia, particularly the line "On 18 August 2005, he was promoted to Colonel-in-Chief. He is the first penguin to hold this rank in the Norwegian army." As though all the other penguins in the Norwegian army tend to be sergeants or lower! As to the war pigs article, one of my favourites is "the defenders of Edessa using a pig suspended from the walls to frighten away Khosrau's siege elephants." The mind boggles! And I think someone should write the Incendiary monkeys article. To fill in a red link of course. No other reason. Hmmm I think I'd better get another cup of tea and then plough on with the rest of the war animal articles! pip pip! Benea 14:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The [choke] penguin [gasp] inspecting the Royal Guard . . . priceless. If you visit the BBC link on the page, there's a photo of him wearing some sort of rank insignia on his flipper! Maralia 14:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

RN ships

Not a problem, the least I could do for bringing Tirpitz to the project's attention! Shouldn't be difficult to work up some basic stubs, I'll ping you when I've done it. Beware the curse of Tirpitz! One of the reviews of the exhibition notes that "his head smiles down on the exhibition with a surprisingly benevolent expression." But those war pigs, that's a different story, they're battle hardened elephant killers! I just love the idea of herds of pigs routing fully armed war elephants! Not pigs to mess with, that's for sure! Perhaps you'd better ask Tirpitz for forgiveness before a herd of war pigs comes knocking! I think I'm going to go into hiding before the incediary monkeys get me! ta ta for now, Benea 04:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

As requested; HMS Furious (1850), HMS Highflyer (1851) and the mammoth HMS Vernon (shore establishment)! Be warned, it's a bit of a headache trying to work out what ships were part of it and when, especially since they keep getting renamed. Nearly drove me mad but I think I've got the details right. As for the other two, there's more on Furious than Highflyer since the latter doesn't seem to appear in the main source for that period, but I've done the best with what I had. I'll let you fill in the Jackie Fisher connections, since that's your field. Kind regards, Benea 11:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Something for you

		The WikiChevrons
		In recognition of your hard work assessing warships for the project, I hereby award you the Military history WikiProject WikiChevrons. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 13:28, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Tirpitz takes over the world!

Tirpitz is now front page material! Is nowhere safe? ttfn, Benea 15:06, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm so proud! I think he belongs at Wikipedia:Unusual articles, too. Maralia 15:20, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Boden Fortress

Would you have the time and inclination to take on a copy-edit of this article? The primary editor is a Swede, and concerned because English is not his mother tongue. He would also like feedback on what the general reader might perceive as gaps. "I know just the person I thought to myself ...." --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 15:49, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure - been away from home a few days, but should have time tomorrow. Maralia 18:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Very much appreciated. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 19:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I've done a cursory scan of the article and found at least a couple places where I'm not confident I understand something well enough to reword it properly. No biggie, but it means I'll need to talk to the editor directly - from the edit history I would guess that User:Johan Elisson is the one? Maralia 21:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, he is. I haven't mentioned you to him, by the way. Good luck! --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 22:26, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hi, and welcome to the Military history WikiProject! As you may have guessed, we're a group of editors working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to military history.

A few features that you might find helpful:

• Our navigation box points to most of the useful pages within the project.
• The announcement and open task box is updated very frequently. You can watchlist it if you're interested; or, you can add it directly to your user page by including {{WPMILHIST Announcements}} there.
• Most important discussions take place on the project's main discussion page; it is highly recommended that you watchlist it.
• The project has several departments, which handle article quality assessment, detailed article and content review, offline publication, article improvement contests, and other tasks.
• We have a number of task forces that focus on specific topics, nations, periods, and conflicts.
• We've developed a variety of guidelines for article structure and content, template use, categorization, and other issues that you may find useful.
• The project has a stress hotline available for your use.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask one of the project coordinators, or any experienced member of the project, and we'll be happy to help you. Again, welcome! We look forward to seeing you around! Kirill 17:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)