User talk:Old Moonraker/Archive 11

Your edit to Yard

I call upon you to selfrevert this edit because

• it is incompatible with the {{American English}} template on the article talk page
• the article is strongly associated with the United States because that is the only country where the yard is still a lawful general purpose unit of measure (with the possible exception of Myanmar and Liberia, but no one seems to be able to find any current sources about what is going on in those countries with weights and measures). ---Jc3s5h (talk) 21:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

My point is that you are disregarding the outcome of your AN3 report. Your request was dismissed on a technicality, but the expanded result, given on your talk page, clearly states: "...please don't change articles from one version of English to the other, even if you don't normally use the version the article is written in. Respect other people's versions of English." It's an issue of seeming disrespect for community processes and values, not of the validity or otherwise of the edit. Having said that, your argument that the use of "yard" as a statutory measure in the USA should dictate the international spelling of "metre" seems a bit thin. I won't be self-reverting here. --Old Moonraker (talk) 07:03, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The editor who wrote that was in error. It was first the IP editor, and then NJA, and most recently you, who have changed the variety of English against the consensus shown on the talk page of the article. Furthermore, the actual advise in WP:MOS is "If an article has evolved using predominantly one variety, the whole article should conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic." Since the only English-speaking country where the yard is a lawful general-purpose unit is the U.S., it follows there is justification to change the spelling to "meter" even if "metre" had been established as the spelling in error (or before the MOS took on its present form).

By the way, SI does not specify that all countries should spell the full names of units the same way; only the symbols are expected to be the same in all countries. --Jc3s5h (talk) 13:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Still missing the point of my my revert but, since you mention it, how the article "evolved" could be relevant. When I first edited this page in 2008 it was "metre". It seems to have been thus, as the page "evolved", since 2002. One editor adding a template to a talk page doesn't amount to a consensus for change.--Old Moonraker (talk) 14:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

If you really believe there is a consensus to use British English you should try to change the template on the talk page. I hope you can understand my confusion on the matter, since the first several versions of the article used "meter" and did not include any other words that would vary between British and American English. --Jc3s5h (talk) 14:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Mass Deletions

A new editor is deleting mass amounts of material from the Authorship page. Would you mind taking a look? Thanks. Smatprt (talk) 00:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• User:Smatprt is disrespectfully misrepresenting my attempt to keep the Shakespeare authorship article balanced. It has too much Oxfordian bias and far from being destructive I have suggested neutral citations that could be used. I notice that because he is on the edge of the 3R rule he is trying to use someone else to revert it. WellStanley (talk) 00:20, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The two main contributors on the page are knowledgeable and well versed in the subject, but cannot agree on even the most basic of principles of content, although both are committed to achieving balance. New editors bringing new insights, provided they are acting in good faith within the guidelines regarding sourcing, consensus and, above all, NPOV, would be most welcome. --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:55, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree - particularly "provided they are acting in good faith within the guidelines regarding sourcing, consensus and, above all, NPOV". Unfortunately, it looks like Barry and his socks are back. Smatprt (talk) 17:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The timing of these two new editors starting work could give rise to some suspicion. --Old Moonraker (talk) 17:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Image replacement

Nice job on that graphic - and damn that was quick! Also, thank you for showing everyone how to propose an image replacement.

It looks much improved, but I'm wondering if the third signature could be shrunk more in proportion to the others? The quality is so much better! Sooner or later we'll get this figured out! (Is a png file better than jpg?) Tom Reedy (talk) 13:17, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I haven't scaled any of the images—they are all as uploaded as I didn't want to depart from your originals—but now I can look to change them if necessary.

The best format is .svg as it's "infinitely scalable", but sometimes it chokes the wikimedia software. .png is the next-best default in my drawing program (Inkscape, a free download on all platforms, if you'd like to experiment), but pictures in this format are likely to attract the attention of an officious patrolling bot telling you to use only .svg. This should be ignored. .jpg is good for photographs (as in your six separate files). --Old Moonraker (talk) 13:56, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. --Old Moonraker (talk) 14:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

re: George Bernard Shaw

I can understand your concern about the article, but what we had was a major NPOV article. I think that it is far better to remove substantial issues such as that and permit the originating editor to resolve the issue with wikipedia standards. Trilemma (talk) 20:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The question of "serious or satire" hasn't yet been resolved completely in the section, but that doesn't make it NPOV. Deleting important issues isn't the answer. This is the same response as I gave on the article talk page: it's a call to improve the section, not delete it. --Old Moonraker (talk) 20:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Afterthought: working down my watchlist I have just noticed your re-wording. That seems perfectly acceptable for now.--Old Moonraker (talk) 20:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Shakespeare

Sigh! Thanks for the credit. I see that yet another reversion has now taken place and I've left a message for KeithD (who has issued a warning but hasn't yet taken the case to WP:3RR). Best. --GuillaumeTell 00:44, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Ha! The user blocked by KeithD for a short while.--Old Moonraker (talk) 06:36, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Esme Church

On January 30, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Esme Church, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 06:00, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

William Froude

Hello. I inserted the {{Unreferenced}} template because WP:REF#General reference says that any material challenged or likely to be challenged requires an inline citation. The use of general references is only really suitable for undeveloped articles and I fear there are other assertions in the text that may be challenged. Anyway, I've clarified the point about Froude's work on skew bridges, cited another reference as to their location, and included a photograph of one of them. MegaPedant (talk) 18:29, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. In turn my I explain my possibly over-hasty edit? It's perhaps from being too sensitive to tagging without talk page explanation. I couldn't see any contentious material. Anyhow, the result is an improved article, so all's well. --Old Moonraker (talk) 18:37, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Nofollow tags

Hi, I noticed you used a template mention that includes "Because Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings." I made a comment on that template talk page that this is not completely true (at least it wasn't when I was a webmaster a few years ago). It's the sort of thing a sophisticated user would be expected to know, and ignore the warning. If you have any insight, or comment, I'd be interested. Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 20:42, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, "sophisticated" is way beyond my level of expertise. Try Wikipedia talk:Twinkle. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Laurence Olivier

Are you the editor who keeps removing the information on Olivier's acting? If you believe this content to be inexact or unworthy of the article, then you are sadly misinformed and would do better to retire from your post. The sources are Kenneth Tynan, John Cottrell and myself - a formidable trio against which you, dear boy, simply do not make the weight. 86.193.59.110 (talk) 15:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

No. --Old Moonraker (talk) 15:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Classics

Hi! I let you know that, unfortunately, in this article the wiki-link to the italian Wikipedia it's still not the right one: this time it's a link to an article that talks about a literary production of the 1400 (XV century). I tried a little research in the italian Wikipedia, but I arrived to the conclusion that in the italian Wikipedia ther's not the equivalent article of the english Classics. Perhaps, we should eliminate the uncorrect wiki-link to it.wikipedia, am I right? (Sorry for the bad english, I'm italian) (To my page in it.wikipedia: Revares) --Revares (talk) 16:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Your English is fine. XV century is definitely wrong, so please remove the link as you suggest. All the best. --Old Moonraker (talk) 16:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Shakespeare's Sonnets

I've just reverted you and then undone it. Sorry! The screen was lagging and I clicked on the wrong place :)  Roger Davies ^talk 19:08, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

That's ok. Thanks for letting me know. --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Kálmán Kandó

Go to electric locomotive discussion page!

Only some rapid transit system operate with DC system. The so-called "Locomotives" are not metropolitan transit systems. The first AC locomotive was built by Kálmán Kandó in 1894. Why didn't somebody built AC locomotives before Kandó? Because it was not constructable. It contained more than 18 new patents and inventions which didn't exist before Kandó. The serials of this inventions made it possible to build AC locomotives. Ganz company was the master of AC electricty in XIX and early XX. century. Ganz company invented also the first real transformer ! Ganz invented also AC power distribution system and first AC electricity meter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.0.143.220 (talk) 15:42, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Your suggestion that in 1894 Kando's AC locomotives used AC power from the public networks seems difficult to sustain, hence the {{cn}} tag. What AC public networks were available in Hungary in 1894, please? --Old Moonraker (talk) 16:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Again, have you ever read the Ganz article? Budapest was the first capital city which have AC public lightening in its complete inner districts in 1878. London or Paris hadn't electric public lighting in 1878. The first Ganz made asynchronous rail vehicles (altogether 2 pieces) were supplied in 1898 to Evian-les-Bain (Switzerland) with a 37 HP asynchronous traction system. He designed AC powerstations in Valtellina (Italy). The Ganz tramcars in Hungary operated exclusively 50HZ AC public networks from the very beginning (similar to Budapest metro (1896) the second oldest underground in the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.0.143.220 (talk) 19:06, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be ignoring the work of Gisbert Kapp, Werner von Siemens (who supplied the machinery for the "yellow line" metro in Budapest) and many others. More to the point, why are you conducting this conversation here? Please take any further comments to Electric locomotive, where all editors can see them. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Gisbert Kapp is a less known unsuccessful inventor, his inventions didn't effect the future. (blind alley inventions). Siemens constructed DC trains before he bought patents of AC-hauling system of GANZ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.75.5 (talk) 07:51, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

On the article talk page, please.--Old Moonraker (talk) 10:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Beowulf

Well, there's an old argument, whether "Handscioh" at line 2076 refers to a companion of the hero, or is an alternate term for a "glov" at 2085. Most translators take the former view. DavidOaks (talk) 19:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Continued on article talk page. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:15, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Puppets

Yeah - we must have filed our reports within a few minutes of each other. It's Barry all right. Thanks for jumping in. Smatprt (talk) 23:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering whom you had upset recently, but I see now that this is a long-standing grudge! --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:19, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Long standing with a capital "L"! It's Barry of course, who created similar puppets on the Shakespeare page, actually arguing with himself. "Memories..." Smatprt (talk) 15:45, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Your revisions to "The God Delusion" and "Richard Dawkins"

I am Falk55 and obviously Falk Quest. I read WP:SOAP a few minutes ago for the first time and am probably not aware about most of Wikipedia rules but will do my best to warm up. Your comments raise a couple of principle questions (which perhaps have been discussed before, so excuse my ignorance). What you call self-published books are books of divergent quality, as are books which went through ordinary proofreading, i.e. low quality is not prevented by publishers proofreader. Nobel price winners have published their PhD-theses in the form of 'self published books'. I wonder if that can be a threshold imposed on linking book titles in Wikipedia or not. The german version of "The Ratio Illusion" has been sold many times and seems to be, by all feedback I got, a thought provoking book. Second, is any author disabled to inject viable information from his/her book to Wikipedia ? This would be a pity. I see the 'conflict of interest' problem,but this has been solved (more or less) in academia by candidly disclosing affiliations rather than suppressing what may turn out as valuable information. Falk55 91.44.172.88 (talk) 17:20, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply here. However, as the matter has already received some public discussion—at The Ratio Illusion on the talk page of Richard Dawkins—I think it would be better to keep new discussions in public as well. That way, my interpretation of WP:SOAP will be open to scrutiny from other editors: either to endorse or disapprove it. The reversion of your link on the Richard Dawkins page was from another editor, by the way: I was only responsible for The God Delusion--Old Moonraker (talk) 21:34, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Wembley Stadium railway station

Thank you for undoing my sloppy mistake, I've now made the revision I was trying to make. Grim²³★ 17:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

No problem, happens to us all. --Old Moonraker (talk) 17:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

To force

Hi,

As regards you edit summary query "To force", according to dictionary.com (which is using the Random House dictionary), to force one's way is the only sense in which force can be intransitive. I don't have a better grammar book to hand, but the sentence makes sense now anyway. What do you think of the article overall? Best, --Ktlynch (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I was using the New Oxford American Dictionary 2nd ed, 2005, but in response to this I've just checked the big one as well: your usage is there, although "now rare". Looks like a case of WP:IDONTKNOWIT—sorry. RV my change if you like.

As regards the state of the article, I can only offer users' thanks for the patient copy-editing you have been conducting: a notable improvement. --Old Moonraker (talk) 19:06, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Flat Earth

Sorry, but I just read their forum and I felt like they were making the world a more ignorant place. Surely due to the amount of evidence against their 'theory' I could re-edit (with less coarse language) cite numerous factual articles and any edit on your part would be incorrect/at the very least hypocritical? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.173.25.33 (talk) 17:42, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you, but the point of the article is to report their theory, not to judge or disprove it. WP:NPOV explains further. --Old Moonraker (talk) 17:49, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Stagyar Zil Doggo In Regard To Stonehenge

Whatever you say - three is my limit. Or two - whichever. At any rate, thanks for not wholly reverting my edit. Incidentally, you might nip over to User talk:DerbyCountyinNZ‎ to to hear my bit, so to speak. I'd like to have your opinion in greater detail, if you wouldn't mind giving it. Stagyar Zil Doggo (talk) 18:17, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. To me nothing in your changes represented a serious problem: a few—"center", "four-hundred", "poplular" and the already discussed "purposeful"—were wrong, but could be fixed. "The success of the plan" you inserted may depend on a lot of things, not just the funding; the meaning was changed away from that given in the cited source, a cardinal "no-no" on Wikipedia. Other than that it's a bit subjective and open to argument: the text (which doesn't always flow too well as it is) seemed to be getting a little denser than it needed, although the "1977" part was a definite improvement. --Old Moonraker (talk) 20:31, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, okay. The rules regarding the writing-out of numbers aren't totally clear to me; I'm not familiar with British English (heh heh), which didn't occur to my mind; and I'll buy a connotative difference between "purposely" and "purposefully." But surely, as regards the sourced material, if the success of a plan hinges on funding, even in addition to other things, it's no less correct to say "the success of the plan will depend on the availability of funding," than it is to say "this is dependent on funding." I mean, if the source indicates that there's more to it, then that ought to be included, right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stagyar Zil Doggo (talk • contribs) 23:03, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

"No less correct"? Well actually it is less correct: That the building work is subject to funding isn't the same as saying the success or otherwise is subject to funding. For example, it may prove unsuccessful because it's too far away (2.5km) and cut off by trail bikers (reference [19] at the time of writing) too ugly or the roof may fly off [1]. The quibbles about the edit are all small issues in themselves but, taken together, the effect was detrimental to the article. However, to clarify the state of affairs in May 2009 I have added a quote to the ref: "The announcement is still subject to a detailed business case, planning permission and funding". --Old Moonraker (talk) 07:04, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The success of any venture is dependent on funding. But that's neither here nor there. The project is the construction work - that's the whole project. Unforeseen difficulties might derail any plan, money or no. If there are important contingencies referenced in the source material, they ought to be included. Otherwise it all comes to the same thing. Stagyar Zil Doggo (talk) 17:15, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

God Delusion Change

Yes, there was a spelling mistake. Richard Dawkins stating there is a 'slight' possibility of a deistic God was spelled 'silght'. I also read the original source and it did not seem like Dawkins was putting the possibility of a deistic God as merely being slight, he was just arguing that if God is deistic, then it's still more compatible with atheism than Christian God. Hence my removal of the word - but my apologies if I didn't clarify that in the sentence. - (1tephania (talk) 21:20, 20 March 2010 (UTC))

Here's the diff. Anybody interested can follow the link and see for themselves. --Old Moonraker (talk) 14:07, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Bellmaking

Hello, I'm just sending a quick note to inform you that I have carried out the long overdue split on Bellmaking. Feel free to read my full explanation at the talk page. I plan to expand the new articles over the next few weeks. Hopefully everything is to your liking. Have a lovely day, -France3470 (talk) 14:24, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Long overdue indeed—I can't imagine how anyone could have thought it would be a good idea to combine bell-founding and trombones into a single article. I feel a bit bad about neglecting this after my rash "Somebody Else's Problem" comment, so grateful thanks.--Old Moonraker (talk) 16:10, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Make article

Please take a look at the talk page of the make article. 91.182.203.233 (talk) 11:44, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Replying there. Thanks for the "heads up". --Old Moonraker (talk) 12:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of "invisible note" system

We could quibble over 12am or 12pm: the expression is often used but avoiding it cuts out ambiguity, particularly lack of context in written work (you can tell whether someone talking to you is referring to midday or midnight by whether it's dark or not)! So, no real problem with avoiding its use in articles. Thanks for the agreement on the one that mattered: I feel we will have some people using "invisible notes" as a substitute for discussion on the talk page, a thing some people already do with edit summaries. Britmax (talk) 14:40, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

No, the problem was that you had missed a bit! Only the front half, with the <!-- front mark-up and some text, was removed. However, for me using "12 am" and "12 pm" can be ambiguous, so it's always "noon" or "midnight". I admit I'm a bit oversensitive to this one: I can't easily overcome the years of ingrained usage of official circles in Britain insisting that "nothing ever happens at midnight—it's always 23:59 or 00:01", but this is to avoid date ambiguity. --Old Moonraker (talk) 14:58, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing that. I know what you mean, as for some time we here in Bournemouth had a train that left for Waterloo, not at midnight but at 0001. I am also puzzled by people who think that 12pm is noon, even though as we count from 0 to 12 12pm must be midnight and 12am midday (give it some thought). Anyway thanks for the catch and see you around. Britmax (talk) 15:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help

Thanks for your intervention on my talk page—I appreciate it.--Old Moonraker (talk) 21:38, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Glad i could help. :) Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 21:41, 31 March 2010 (UTC)