User talk:Roger Davies/Archive 2007

Having your own page deleted

If you create a page, and before anyone else edits it you decide to have it deleted, like what seems to have happened with Category:Art schools in Europe (Overview), please put a {{db-self}} at the top of the page, in stead of blanking it. This will attract an administrator to it to have it deleted. I've marked this one for you - since you blanked it, that's enough. Od Mishehu 09:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I didn't know that. Roger 09:45, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

License tagging for Image:Fredcopeman.jpg

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Article names

Hey Roger, I've been looking at some of the interesting articles you've created (good job), and I just wanted to note that no (song) or (film) tag is needed if the title is unique. Have a look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions to see whether you could move some of them to new names. All the best, Hestemand 16:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll do that (your counsel is always appreciated) Roger 12:15, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Valley of Jarama (song)

A tag has been placed on Valley of Jarama (song), requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done for the following reason:

Patent Nonsense. Only one word that appears to give little information about the thing being described

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not meet very basic Wikipedia criteria may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as an appropriate article, and if you can indicate why the subject of this article is appropriate, you may contest the tagging. To do this, add {{hangon}} on the top of the page and leave a note on the article's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would confirm its subject's notability under the guidelines.

For guidelines on specific types of articles, you may want to check out our criteria for biographies, for web sites, for bands, or for companies. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Captain panda 21:39, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

George Nathan

Am I missing something here? The page listed on your use page links to George Jean Nathan, who doesn't seem like anyone involved in the Spanish Civil War or the Irish War of Independence? Thanks. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 11:28, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the alert. I'm actually changing the redirect that caused that now. Roger 11:43, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Poland and SCW

A related question: I read some time ago that Poland supplied the Republicans not only with volunteers, but Polish government sold Spain some military equipment. Is it desribed on Wiki? -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  07:25, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

1. Poland didn't really supply volunteers as such. The volunteers were communists and socialists who happened to be Poles or of Polish extraction. The bulk of them were exiles from Poland's nationalist-leaning military regime. (Beevor, Battle for Spain, p158) and (Eby

2. I don't know about materiél. If they did, it was exceedingly hush-hush. After Anschluss, Poland and Hungary "were petrified of giving any cause of annoyance to Hitler or Mussolini" (Hugh Thomas, Spanish Civil War, p557). Poland voted AGAINST providing support on 13 May 1938 at the Non-Invention Committee meeting.

Roger 08:21, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

1. That I didn't know - but now I've found a good source for that (added to my D. article). By all means do expand with your refs where appopriate.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  01:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

1. Very interesting, thanks. I was thinking about doing working in something on Poles in Northern France (still loads there, still socialists, many active in the Resistance during WWII) somewhere. Could be the subject of a short piece of its own, too. I'll see what's on French Wiki. Roger 10:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest by starting a Polish minority in France article. See Polonia#France.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  15:58, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

2. Hmmm, look at that (second largest equipment supplier). This indicates that FT-17 tanks were sold (and yes, it was partialy secret, and yes FT-17 are not far from junk by that time (WWI relic...)). This mentions mor equipement, stresses obsolete. I also think they sold some better quality artillery pieces, but can't find sources for that...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  01:08, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

2. Thanks. I didn't know that.Roger 10:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Categories

Hey, you really don't want to blank categories (like you did with Category:World War I books). If you think the category simply needs a more descriptive name, you want to nominate it for renaming here. At any rate, you do need to nominate empty categories (that have been superceded) for deletion in the same place. If the deletion isn't likely to be controversial, it may qualify for a speedy deletion.

Also, while the category system is somewhat incomplete and chaotic, there are a handful of "rules" (preferences, really) for naming. Case in point: Category:Ottoman Empire and World War I should really be something like Category:Military history of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.

Just a couple of "heads up"; you're doing a lot of good work, and I just want to keep you aware of all the wikirules... Carom 04:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Par 1. Thanks :)) (Now I've got to try to remember what I've blanked [gulp]) Roger 04:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Par 2. Hmmm. I hate all those "Military history etc" it's sooo longwinded and excludes so much (like, for instance, all the political stuff). I prefer to see something really broad at the top of the tree (France and World War I fr'instance) with Military history, battles, kit, people etc under it. So much easier to find things. Where would be the place to discuss this? Roger 04:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Par 1. Don't worry about it too much - I think we can probably finagle something through CfD without making a whole lot of work for anyone - I'll ask User:Kirill Lokshin (a thoroughly good chap) and see what he thinks.

Par 2. Here would be your best option, I think (you might also like to comment on the ongoing discussion on categorising military personnel, while you're at it). Carom 05:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Par 1. Coool. Ta. Roger 05:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Par 2. Will do. But it'll be later this ack emma. Thanks for the help. Roger 05:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

More category stuff...

Good work trying to make some sense out of the category system for World War I, etc. Things seem to be rolling along smoothly so far. As you may have noticed, empty categories will often get deleted (case in point, Category:World War I books), so you may not want to empty anything until you're absolutely sure that it's redundant. I wonder also, if another layer of categorization might not be useful - something like "Military of Foo in (during? World War I" - as a child of "Foo and World War I" and a parent of all the smaller, more specific military cats? Carom 20:08, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I hope you're not too frustrated by the gaps you're encountering - in some ways, it's a demonstration of how young the 'pedia still is, as we're nowhere near getting remotely complete coverage of a number of important areas. Articles are frequently undercategorized, as well.

And you're right, of course - total replication of the category scheme for each country and conflict is impossible. Just stick to what works. Carom 21:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Welsh dragon CfD

Hi Roger. I have nominated Category:Welsh dragon for deletion. I have been organising a number of welsh culture related articles, and came across this fairly randomly. I think it would be better as a single article Y Ddraig Goch, with the images embedded in it. I have no strong views on this, except that a category with 1 article and 2 nearly identical images looks a bit redundant. Bards 12:19, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks (for the reply on my talk page). Can you leave a comment at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_May_17, saying you are the creator? Bards 12:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

License tagging for Image:Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial.jpg

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WWI Cat

Good idea.(I was actualyy worried bu t had to do something else. c'mon, we've fished a good one.Kfc1864Cuba Libre!My name is Maximus Caesar Zabidus 12:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

thanks for the barnstar

Roger,

Thanks for the "Special Barnstar"! It's my first wiki-award, and it is greatly appreciated. Thank-you. Cam 00:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC) User:Climie.ca

Oh yes, and mine too. Thanks very much! Carom 01:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Fricourt German war cemetery

Looks better with the pic in the box - thanks for that. I think the page looks pretty good now! --hydeblake 11:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Bypassing redirects

Please read WP:R#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken and save your strength for the important work. Happy editing! Chris the speller 18:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

If you fix the double redirects after a move, you will be in the first rank of editors, but you don't get any extra credit for "fixing" single redirects. Good luck! Chris the speller 20:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

WWI divisions

Obviously, a category is needed for the US divisions that participated in World War I - do you have a preference for Category:United States divisions of World War I, Category:Divisions of the United States in World War I, or something else entirely? Carom 01:11, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, as you can see, I have created the category and begun moving the articles. Thanks for the input. Carom 16:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Teen Slang

Hey, is there any way you could undo the deletion of that article on Teen Slang? I had planned to expand it but it got deleted before I got a chance. I don't agree that the page deserved to be deleted, there are a lot of teenagers in this world and their way of speaking has a distinct influence on popular culture. I also think I put a not into the talk page stating my intention to expand the article. --Eamonnca1 17:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Vietnam War - Military Superiority

I think we are both one side (maybe?) that comparing civilian and combantant deaths is useless for determining 'military superiority'. The paragraph in question is all referenced, and on their own I have no problem with the individual statements, but I think that it really just leads to a non-sequitor in regards to who was more militarily advanced. Do you think the case is strong enough to reword that paragraph? 24.68.249.197 22:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks... I would change the paragraph myself, but as I am not a registered user, I am not allowed to. I think that if the article wishes to compare casualties, a less misleading way to do so would be to include all South Vietnamese casualties, along with their 'allies' (ie: American, Aussie, Kiwi, etc) against the North Vietnamese (plus Chinese) total. Perhaps Military/Technological Superiority should be a section on it's own, as tecnologically, IMO, there is no arguing The States advantage. However, in terms of actualy Military Superiority, the North Vietnamese utilised many strategies much better than the American's could counter. 24.68.249.197 22:35, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Great job, changing that paragraph. No longer misleading, and better finish to the war summary. Kudos! 24.68.249.197 20:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

German P.o.W, murder

Roger; following your message, I have re-read the articles which I deleted in April. It may indeed be true, as you say, that there is more data available on the case, but it does not appear in the articles, which are identical one-liners. I note that you have re-created one as a redirect.

If you wish to expand the deleted articles up to notable status, I will happily restore them to enable you to do so. If this is not your wish, then I would suggest that jusr re-creating as a redirect is an adequate alternative. Let me know at your convenience. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 10:10, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Canon Lummis

You have done a great job on the article. I met him just before he died and thought the WP article would be a good way of celebrating his scholarship. I also see from you that some of what I wrote as 'fact' was actually wrong. Jack1956 11:43, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I have put picture on. Jack1956 17:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank You

Not sure that Wiki will inform you of the note I left for you on my own talk page, so I hopped over here to do so myself; go see! :) -- Lisasmall 19:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

British spellings

Hi, Roger, I replied to your question at my editor review regarding my mistaken "corrections" on a couple words at Edith Cavell. I just wanted to thank you again for bringing this to my attention, and I greatly appreciate your question and interest.  :) María (críticame) 12:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Town categories

Hi there. I noticed this edit you made, changing ones of the categories for La Ferté-sous-Jouarre from Category:World War I to Category:Military memorials and cemeteries. The La Ferté-sous-Jouarre memorial has its own article, and it is that that should go in Category:Military memorials and cemeteries (actually Category:World War I memorials and cemeteries), rather than the article about the town. The section in the article is part of the history of World War I, so I've changed the category again to Category:France and World War I. Carcharoth 09:39, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

No grumbles with any of that! Thanks for informing me. ROGER ^TALK 10:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Arras map

A map would be quite useful. I'm going to try and run this up to FA (probably sometime later this month) and that would be a good addition. Carom 17:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

No rush - as I said to Awadewit, I don't plan on an FA nomination quite yet. Carom 00:29, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

No worries. As soon as you have something ready, we can look it over and discuss options. Carom 17:30, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

That looks very nice - I don't know if there's much that can be done to significantly improve it. The only question is, where to place it in the article. My vote would be for early ont (arounf the planning stage) and retaining the other, lower-quality map later in the article (as it shows the gains made by the British, etc). Nice work on the map. Carom 16:20, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've moved some of the images around to accomodate the new map. If you have time to work up an edited version that shows the gains, that would be great, but it's certainly not imperative. I'm going to take a deep breath and create a FAC for this article, any help you can provide in addressing comments raised there would be great. Excellent work so far, just a little more to go! Carom 16:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The FAC is here - fingers crossed, I suppose! Carom 16:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Yep - we'll see how it goes. At any rate, you've been a really big help, and have done a lot of really good work on this article (and elsewhere). Thanks, congrats, and do keep it up! Carom 17:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Nope, didn't mean to leave that uncaptioned. Carom 17:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Vietnam

Your contributions were quite useful. Keep an eye on them.--Hughstew 02:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Military

Hi Roger. Do you have any idea about how to expand the "Depictions of the military" section? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 14:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Wonderful job Roger. Much appreciated. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 12:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

FYI --> Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Military. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

RE: Vimy

In response to your question,

• I spent 7.5 days in France (as well as 1.5 days in Belgium, and 2 days on an aircraft), 2 of which were in Arras. Yes, I did tour the tunnels under Arras, and yes, I did go to Lorrette Cemetery, which was completely overwhelming (40,000 graves puts it into real perspective). The problem at Vimy was that the weather decided to hate us, so it poured the entire time. I still managed to get some half decent pictures though. I also went to Normandy, Le Monte St. Michel, Ypres Salient, the Somme, Dieppe, Le Havre and the surrounding area, St. Malo, and Bayeux. It was fun.

• Oh, and I noticed on your userpage that you're planning to do a page about executions under the army act from. To let you know, there was approx. 300 executions during the war by the British Military, of which about a dozen are questionable (found this all out on the trip, I can't remember if it was 300 in the Ypres Salient or 300 overall, hopefully I'll remember). I happened to go to the place in the Ypres Salient where they were executed, so I'll upload the pics of that if you like.

Thanks for asking!!!

Cam 23:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I might have the town hall, I don't know. Yes, they've re-opened the Museum at Vimy, and the monument looks really nice all refurbished. I didn't get to go to the museum at Notre Dame de Lorrette, as I wasn't there for particularely long. I did see the Moroccan Memorial (I saw a couple, which one?). Unfortunately, I didn't get to go to McCrae's grave, as I didn't have time. As for Arras, I stayed at the IBIS, which is just off one of the Plazas. I'll upload the pics later, and put them on my Gallery (which is a work in progress).

Cam 16:17, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Aaron Bock

Totally wrong template, sorry. Will discuss on talk page for article. MrPrada 07:23, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

re:Aaron Bock

• Understandable. However, being from Yorktown, I have to say that the information is very verifiable. The scandal from '95 is still an issue to this day, there has not been another Democratic Supervisor in over a decade because of it. I cannot force the times to make the article available for free. Not sure why you're having problems with the Buffalo article, try using Google Archive. In any case, Bach's closing the theater, the million dollar mistake, and the Superintendent fleeing to Arizona, are all facts, I in no way meant to disparage him or make personal attacks(I'm not even sure if he's still alive), I am simply trying to add all of the Town Supervisors in Yorktown History. MrPrada 07:27, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't doubt it for a minute. Thanks very much for taking the time to explain and good luck with your project. ROGER ^TALK 07:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Will Pope

The Will Pope page was created for people to expand on it. Unsigned comment by user:Cwk14724 17:58, 13 July 2007

I have extended the article so the deletion dtub needs to be removed Unsigned comment by user:69.248.97.182 00:44, 14 July 2007

Portal :Military history of the Christian West

Hello. Please see my comments at Portal talk:Military history of the Christian West and let me know if you're ok with what I propose. Thanks. Pascal.Tesson 16:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Replied there. Thanks for keeping me informed. ROGER ^TALK 16:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

MfD now in progress. Please do add your input there (note that I was a bit lazy in my rationale and I hope you'll add some more convincing words so that this portal disappears as soon as possible. Pascal.Tesson 16:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I will. ROGER ^TALK 17:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

deletion of murder christy page.

Hi Roger. Got a message saying the page i created was up for speedy deletion due to spam/advertisment of business etc. Went to start altering it and it was deleted while i was trying to change it. That's all good, but i just want to know whereas the murder christy page was seen as spam or advertising, why isn't the Emily Strange/Emily The Strange page seen as advertising also. The murder christy brand has been compared to the Emily The Strange Brand, so just wanted clarification on that so in future a murder christy page won't get deleted. cheers! Murder christy fan 08:44, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't comment on Emily Strange/Emily The Strange but Wikipedia articles have to be about (a) noteworthy things (b) written from a neutral point of view, and attributable to independent and reliable sources. I hope this helps. --ROGER ^TALK 08:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, if you think the Emily Strange articles breach the guidelines, you can always tag them yourself. Foer moere information on this, see criteria for speedy deletion. --ROGER ^TALK 08:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Please don't delete the new Tranche entry. It is a real tool.

Tranche is a real resource for sharing scientific data. It is more than a year old, and has had massive adoption. Some say that it is the only horse in the race for properly sharing and citing scientific data sets. Certainly it is one of the first few serious efforts to use P2P to successfully share scientific data. Please see http://tranche.proteomecommons.org. Be sure to launch the Tranche tool and you'll see that it is far from "in development".

If there is any other information that I can provide, please let me know. Jayson Andrew Falkner 19:47, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Arras FAC

Ta. I'll drop in a few myself, if I have a chance. Carom 17:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Goud

I have been monitoring the article Goud for some time. and its found that its growing like anything.And important conent like abt the cast , occupation remains almost same. people r adding list of people to the famous goud section day-by-day.This is like the any caste based article like Nair, List Famous of Nairs and Ezhava and List of famous ezhavas etc And in that cases new article have been created.........we cant stop aading to list and is expected grow like anything .In near future we wont be able to maintain it...

Daya anjali 10:03, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Problem is that the Famous Gouds article doesn't comply with WP:NOT#DIR as it is nothing more than a list of people with the same surname, who are not necessarily notable in their own right. --ROGER ^TALK 05:29, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Black Opium (energy drink)

You deleted the Black Opium page and then recreated the Dark Scorpion page. Was there some reason that one was acceptable and not the other? Alberrosidus 05:09, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't recreate the Dark Scorpion page. I tagged both it and Black Opium for speedy delete. My note was to show the reviewing admin that it was a recreated article. I'm sorry if it was ambiguous. --ROGER ^TALK 05:22, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

D.L. Dykes, Jr.

There is no deletion tag on the D.L. Dykes, Jr. article. I had no idea that this would not qualify. He was the first TV minister in Shreveport, pastor of one of the largest churches there for thirty years, argued for racial moderation during the civil rights movement, wrote one book, started a cable TV network, started a program at a college. Seems to be most "notable" Billy Hathorn 12:40, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Nope, it's been removed. Perhaps you could also tie in his foundation, for which references abound. --ROGER ^TALK 12:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I can add more on the Dykes Foundation. Should that be a separate article?

Billy Hathorn 13:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Up to you entirely. if it was me, I'd probably (just probably) include it in this one, unless it got really long. --ROGER ^TALK 13:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: "db-nn" -v- "db-corp"

Thanks for your pointer in the Tranche (software) discussion. It seems from reading the guidelines (WP:WEB and WP:CORP) that a software product is covered by "db-nn" if its only available online and by "db-corp" (whether it's free or not) if it's available in bricks and mortar outlets. Nightmare, huh? Anyway, it has clarified something for me: that schools are covered by db-corp and not db-nn. Thanks for that. --ROGER ^TALK 15:34, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Not exactly; "db-corp" only covers articles about companies, not their product. The product of non-notable companies would, naturally, also be non-notable, but--alas--cannot be speedy deleted under the existing CSD:A7. Please note that WP:WEB and WP:CORP are not part of CSD; the CSD criteria were deliberately written more stringently to prevent deletion in all but the most obvious cases. Owen× ☎ 15:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

So we could have a situation where the company is non-notable and is speedily deleted on those grounds whilst their products individually work their way through the AfD process? --ROGER ^TALK 15:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I know, it is ridiculous. There has been plenty of discussion about adding lack of notability as a speedy criterion for any subject. The consensus in all cases was against doing so, although CSD:A7 has evolved over the years to be more and more sweeping. Let's work on improving the policy rather than working around it. Owen× ☎ 16:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll post something later unless you'd like to dive straight in now. --ROGER ^TALK 16:19, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Done it. It's here. --ROGER ^TALK 16:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Noorzai

Look, do what you want with the stub, but it's not acceptable to me that you remove a sourced stub and place a no content rephrasing of the article title there. Mark it {{db-a3}} and move on, if that's all you've got. -- nae'blis 17:41, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Teen Slang

Hey, is there any way you could undo the deletion of that article on Teen Slang? I had planned to expand it but it got deleted before I got a chance. I don't agree that the page deserved to be deleted, there are a lot of teenagers in this world and their way of speaking has a distinct influence on popular culture. I also think I put a not into the talk page stating my intention to expand the article. --Eamonnca1 17:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Welsh Swagman

Greetings, Roger. Maybe it's my inexperience, but I have a quandary about this one, for which I created the stub only today. The real subject is Joseph Jenkins whose importance as a diarist is established by the authority of the State Library of Victoria and, I might add, by the National Library of Wales which holds the manuscripts of his Welsh diaries. It's obvious to me that the Wiki entry should be listed under his actual name. Yet he is equally well known (as a Google search will demonstrate) as "the Welsh Swagman". If there is an alternative way of cross-referencing the two, I would have no objection to speedy deletion of the article. I intend to make further contributions and citations to the Joseph Jenkins article. The summary version of his writings published in 1975 by (ed.) William Evans (cardiologist) quickly became prescribed reading for the Victorian High Schools Compulsory Examination because of its unique primary historical documentation. It was rated by historian Prof. Geoffrey Blainey as one of his top ten preferred Australian books. Maybe I could add this sort of info to the stub, but I don't wish to stop it's being deleted if there's a better way of cross-referencing. Cheers --Aeronian 10:32, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The Welsh Swagman article has already gone. Best now is to contact the admin who deleted the Welsh Swagman stub and ask him to blank the page and turn it into a redirect to Joseph Jenkins. You probably also need to address some of the notability issues with the Joseph Jenkins article, with references from reliable sources. It wouldn't hurt to mention some of the material you've alluded to here. I hope this helps. --ROGER ^TALK 10:41, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I'm already addressing the citations. It's really not up to me to worry about potential cross-reference issues, I guess. Cheers --Aeronian 10:53, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
And thanks again, Roger, for putting this on a sound footing for me. -Aeronian 20:31, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

"Wahhabi Controvrsy" article

Hello Mr. Davis, first and foremost I hope that the weekend is going alright for you. I just wanted to thank you for your help in attempting to bring some clarity to this issue; my response to User:Chubeat8's last remarks may be seen here. In addition, for some background info it may help to review Talk:Abd-al-Aziz ibn Abd-Allah ibn Baaz and Talk:Muhammad Naasiruddeen al-Albaanee and see our exchanges there.
Anyway, you're probably thinking to yourself, "who is this strange person and why is he showing me all this stuff?" Heh, I have that effect on people. The reason I am asking for you to brush up on this stuff is because I think it might help to have you mediate the issue of the creation of the Wahabi Controversial Fatwas article. You're a third party, removed from the dispute and seem fairly reasonable so I figure this would be the first step to sorting this mess out. Any help you could give us would be much appreciated. MezzoMezzo 02:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for thinking of me but I'm only intermittently around this week before disappearing off to Provence for a month on Wednesday week. At currently presented, the stuff doesn't seem to be comply with attribution and neutral point of view rules. I don't see much point in you getting involved in discussion of the subject matter. If you assert your position, properly referenced, they can do likewise, to more or less equal weight. If they are abused this, take it to the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. In essence, I think Wikipedia policies are your best friend here. Best of luck --ROGER ^TALK 11:23, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey man, it's me again. Same issue...sucks, I know. I had a small favor to ask. Recently, User:Chubeat8 has made a number of erratic and suspicious edits to the articles on Abd-al-Aziz ibn Abd-Allah ibn Baaz and Muhammad Naasiruddeen al-Albaanee. He has done so with both the above account and also the following IP addresses: one, two, three, four, and five. I know these were his as some of his comments on the respective talk pages were left by these addresses as well but signed off as "chubeat8"; sometimes he logs in to respond, sometimes he uses one of these various addresses. You can review Talk:Muhammad Naasiruddeen al-Albaanee and ESPECIALLY Talk:Abd-al-Aziz ibn Abd-Allah ibn Baaz for some background on the issue; the talk page for Bin Baz specifically is where I call him out for posting intentional misinformation. I also believe that he is guilty of both "Excessive lengthening" and "Sneaky vandalism" per the official Wikipedia:Vandalism policy.
I'm not necessarily asking for any direct involvement (thought that would be welcome), just that you could brush up on what's going on and monitor the articles and talk pages so there's no more funny business. This guy has been warned repeatedly by both me and others and doesn't seem to be giving up. Any help you could give would be much appreciated. MezzoMezzo 20:40, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't really help on this. It seems to me that you and he have a difference of opinion, and can both provide sources to support your position. I don't think he's doing anything wrong; he's perfectly entitled to add material and he's doing it concisely and properly referenced. You could ask for advice on the WikiProject Islam talk page. --ROGER ^TALK 20:52, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Well one of my issues is that the references he put didn't confirm his additions to the article (Bin Baz). I'll make sure to check that page though, thanks for the advice dude. MezzoMezzo 01:11, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

List Of Nairs

Salut. Did you just nominate the List of Nairs for deletion? May I know your arguments for wanting this list deleted? If it is just because it is a category, do other similiar categories not exist in Wikipedia? I myself am ambivalent about this list now after having participated in previous AFD and am open minded about this AFD. BTW I see you do translations from the French to English. I am on holiday now but on my return to Paris I may sign up officially for this task. The Nairs seem to have some enemies. I recently removed a passage in Malayalam calling the Nairs "pimps" and other insults. A bientôt Ivygohnair 09:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Salut: I'm certainly not an enemy of the Nairs and I don't have strong feelings about the article either. It didn't though strike me as very encyclopedic and it seemed very similar to the list of Famous Gouds that I nominated at the same time. Thanks for the enquiry. --ROGER ^TALK 10:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Merci. The first time I heard of the Gouds was when you mentioned them. The list has few notable names (ie blue links) whereas in the List of Nairs the majority are notable and some clean-up is still neccesary à mon avis. The Nairs also have a Wikipedia article on them. Cheers.Ivygohnair 11:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Many of the Gouds are probably notable too. Their notability just hasn't been asserted. Now I think of it, there's no List of Davies anywhere on Wikipedia and we can trace our ancestry back eleven hundred years to the native Princes of Wales (which, by European standards, is a very long time indeed). --ROGER ^TALK 11:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your speedy reply. I have made a comment on the AFD page itself. A+Ivygohnair 22:34, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

i think list of Nairs got deleted . now it looks like turn of List of Famous ezhavas. i think there is no problem in listing the famous people from particular section of the society if the wiki has an article on that celebrity..

Daya Anjali (talk / contribs) 14:11, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Tagging of Recon (haircut)

I recently removed a speedy delete tag that you had placed on Recon (haircut). I do not think that Recon (haircut) fits any of the speedy deletion criteria because there is plenty of context. That means that a person reading the article has no trouble understanding what it is about, and where or in what kinds of places to look for more information if desired. The statemetns that it is a style of haircut favored by people in the US militsry are sufficient context. I request that you consider not re-tagging Recon (haircut) for speedy deletion without discussing the matter on the appropriate talk page. DES ^(talk) 15:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Responded on my talk page. DES ^(talk) 22:07, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. --ROGER ^TALK 17:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

"Incongruous combinations"

I can't tell you how many attempts it took to spell "incongruous" correctly. Thankfully Firefox has a built-in spell checker. Thanks for the barnstar! Glad it got a laugh from someone. Realkyhick 18:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it did! Keep it too. This AfD stuff can get way too intense sometimes. --ROGER ^TALK 18:23, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The "rock band" is a minor ripoff of a favorite line from Dave Barry. Hey, I'm not always original. Realkyhick 18:30, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Memorial Middle School for Girls - Harrisburg

Please explain why you regard this as "blatent advertising", what changes need to be made to avoid deletion. PaBlade PaBlade 14:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. My reactions?

1. It reads like a prospectus
2. It needs re-writing from a neutral point of view, in the third person.
3. It need to be attributed to a reliable source and to establish notability.
4. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and the content needs to be encyclopedic in tone and content.

All the best, --ROGER ^TALK 15:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Well thanks for the advise, but despite putting the "hangon" notice on the site someone, (JimfBleak ?) has already deleted it before I can attempt to change it, - how do I get it back? - This is very disappointing, originally i put a few notes on here whilst I went ahead and built a web-site, but before I can study the Style guide and how other School pages are put together and put together a coherent entry, it is shot at for all sorts of reasons. No help, no advise just out and out critism. What hurts is this "lack of notability". Yes its a new school, its been in the planning for over a year, and its current notability resides in the reputation of my wife. She co-founded the boys Nativity school in 2001, the formula that is being replicated for this girls school. Locally she is a respected professional in education, she got invited to speak before the State Senate. How do I put that across without including a Staff resume section? Regards, PaBlade 209.244.30.245 16:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

As regards the school, by remembering that this is an encyclopedia not a news site ... You are trying to write up something that hasn't happened yet. That is the big problem. As regards your wife, you're discouraged from writing about her yourself by our conflict of interest policy. She would have to satisfy Wikipedia's notability requirements, which broadly mean significant in-depth coverage by independent news sources. --ROGER ^TALK 18:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Ping

See my talk page. DES ^(talk) 01:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Help

Well Can You Explain How The Whole"Wikipedia"Thing Works?Please Im New I Know Nothing.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by NarutoFangOver (talk • contribs) 04:31, 27 July 2007

Something for you...

		The Epic Barnstar
		For your excellent work on Battle of Arras (1917), now a featured article, I award you this barnstar. Carom 05:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Collaboration

It might be fun to tackle another WWI article together. If so, one that's related somehow to Arras would mean that we wouldn't have to start from entirely from scratch with references and background. Obvious candidates are: Nivelle Offensive, Battle of Vimy Ridge or Second Battle of the Aisne though I'd be glad to hear of your suggestions if you think it's a good idea. For your information, an excellent new book has come out on Vimy Ridge (Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment, Hayes et all. 2007 Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 978-0889205086) which would provide sound and impeccably researched underpinning. As I think I mentioned, I'm away for a month from next Wednesday but I'll have plenty of time for reading. Your thoughts would be welcome. --ROGER ^TALK 06:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I think Battle of Vimy Ridge would be a nice choice - I have some material around, and will look up the new publication you mentioned. I'll do some back ground reading over the next month (I'll have plenty of time as well; I've left my job in order to go back to school this fall, so I have very little else to do until the end of August!). At any rate, I say let's do Vimy Ridge, and see where we get to. Looking forward to working with you again! Carom 06:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Good! I think it's not a bad choice. Additionally, as you know, Colonel Nicholson's very excellent and very considered Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1919 is available online. I've actually booked to stay in Arras on my way home (on 1st Sept) so I get some photographs/materials at Vimy if needs be. I doubt if I'll log on here much during August but you will be able to contact me via email if you need to (though don't expect quick replies). --ROGER ^TALK 06:38, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Further thoughts... At the moment, the article takes a rather simplistic view of the battle. I think it needs some explanation of the topography as this was key to German failure. As you know, the west-facing slope is long and gentle. The east-side falls away much more sharply to the plain. This meant that the elastic defence couldn't be used as there was no ground to fall back to. Thus the Germans pinned all their hopes on the defences, which were extremely formidable. These, of course, fell under the unprecedentedly huge artillery onslaught. Anyhow I'd see background sections going something like:

• ==Race for the Sea== (ie how the Germans got there in the first place);
• ==Topography== (explaining the lie of the land, and deliberated picked to for defensive potential. The Germans were fighting on two fronts and needed to conserve troops)
• ==Bitterly-contested ground== (the previous battles, in some depth, the Moroccan Division, as you know, took the ridge but weren't reinforced in time. The Foreign Legion lost heavily too);
• ==Prince Rupprecht's fortifications== (I've seen a description somewhere of what he built. It's awesome)

Anyhow, that's a few initial thoughts... --ROGER ^TALK 10:02, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

That all seems reasonable. We should probably also give some background (as in the Arras article) on some of the tactics employed by the Canadian Corps, although that will probably come a little later in the article. Carom 16:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Sure thing - anything in particular that you want watching? Carom 18:23, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Coordinator elections

The sign-up page should be ready in the next day or two, so you'll have a chance to put your name down then; does that work? Kirill 15:54, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully yes:) My deadline is midnight on Tuesday. I'm off first thing Wednesday, you see. --ROGER ^TALK 15:58, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Ping. Kirill 20:22, 29 July 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.

Anthony W. Ochoa Middle School

All that stuff in the article I wrote about Anthony W.Ochoa Middle School doesn't exactly have to be in there because it is only a junior high but the name should be spelled correctly. I personally didn't go there but I was affected by it's existence in my youth cause of border changes and old friends. I just think at least it should be spelled correctly. Thanks for your time have a good day.--SuaveGemini 08:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I've moved the article to Anthony W. Ochoa Middle School as requested. This doesn't affect the proposed deletion. --ROGER ^TALK 09:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch!!--SuaveGemini 09:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

		My RFA
		User:TenPoundHammer and his romp of Wikipedia-editing otters thank you for participating in Hammer's failed request for adminship, and for the helpful tips given to Hammer for his and his otters' next run at gaining the key. Also, Hammer has talked to the otters, and from now on they promise not to leave fish guts and clamshells on the Articles for Deletion pages anymore. Ten Pound Hammer • (((Broken clamshells • Otter chirps))) 16:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

King's Affair page

Thanks very much for support of King's Affair page - want to make it into a proper article with history etc, but probably should have written a bit more before creating it as a page. Wikipedia has a steep learning curve! As578 00:07, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Steep? Annapurnian! Good luck with the article. --ROGER ^TALK 00:09, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for the help on the redirect. It doesn't look like some I saw though. Some just have a link and an arrow thing. Do you know English and grammar well? (I think you do. I just checked your user page. Most very impressive!) Could you make my article a little better? Link Thanks! Bmedley Sutler 09:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

What did you do to my CIA Torture Manual page? It is there for a reason. it is a 'redirect;. It is one of the most popular Google searches for this information. Lots of articles have 'redirects' using several popular names. Some other editor keeps renaming it to something no one would ever search Google using. Is there some policy on making several names? Thank you. Bmedley Sutler 09:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion omniperor

Speedy deletion sounds good to me. Since he's contesting, it wouldn't work as PROD anyway. I expect it may well be gone by the time I finish typing this. :) Moonriddengirl 16:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Contribution

Hello. I am currently trying to contribute to a battle in respect to giving a reason why a Viking force had to withdraw from a native attack, which I think was instrumental to the article itself and since the person in question received her place in history for that act. Its my understanding that Wikipedia is meant for contributions, but the people at that region see fit to leave the situation vague. They have told me that I cannot simply copy and past from references and, in short order, I re-wrote the small addition in my own words. I don't see what the problem here is, however, they simply revert my edits and give me vague conclusion to why they have done so. The site is intended to be used for non-commercial reproduction so we have no problems in copyright infringement. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. InternetHero 23:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Coordinator election

Congratulations! You have been elected to serve as a coordinator of the Military history WikiProject. When you get a chance, please stop by the coordinators' work area and take a look at the various open tasks and ongoing discussions there. Kirill 00:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Congrats!

Assistant Cooridinator of the Military History Wikiproject, August 2007 — February 2008

Congrats on your election as an assistant coordinator. In honor of your achievement, I present you with these stars. I wish you luck in the coming term. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:00, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

• Congrats to you on your election as an asst coordinator! I look forward to working with you in the future. LordAmeth 13:46, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

• No thanks neccessary. Out of the list of candidates, I simply voted for those I felt would best serve the project. Hopefully I will never have to ask of you for assistance (other then just general questions on the projectpage), but if I ever do, it's nice knowing that the elected 'council' appears to be a well-balanced and unbiased group. Best of luck! wbfergus ^Talk 16:42, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• Gl. Thx for thxing. Like I said to the few others who got elected, we need you guys b/c "we" are too lazy to do it ourselves. (Wikimachine 01:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC))

Welcome to WikiProject France

Welcome Roger Davies, to WikiProject France! Please direct any questions about the project to its talk page. If you create new articles on France-related topics, please list them at our announcement page and tag their talk page with our project template, {{WikiProject France}}. A few features that you might find helpful: The project's Navigation box points to most of the pages in the project that might be of use to you. Most of the important discussions related to the project take place on the project's main talk page; you may find it useful to watchlist it. We've developed a number of guidelines for names, titles, and other things to standardize our articles and make interlinking easier that you may find useful. Wikipedia:France-related tasks You can help! Vous pouvez aider ! Here are some France related tasks you can do: Requests: Gérard Garouste – Émile Peynot – more... Translation from French:See TRANSWIKI/French for details. fr:Formation territoriale de la France métropolitaine to Territorial formation of France – Loi constitutionnelle du 23 juillet 2008 to French constitutional law of 23 July 2008 – fr:Arbel Fauvet Rail to Arbel Fauvet Rail – fr:Merir to Merir – more... Stubs: Category:France stubs Category sorting: Category:French writers – Category:History of France Verify or Factual Accuracy: Gui de Ceriz – Rennes-le-Château – Simone Weil Update: Bischwiller NPOV : Foreign relations of France (Middle East section) – Torture during the Algerian War – François Mitterrand – Jean-Marie_Le_Pen – John Calvin – Marie Antoinette Wikify: Dida Diafat – French architecture Citations: Vichy France (section) – Falaise pocket – Charles de Gaulle – Vaux-le-Vicomte – Economy of France – Louisiana Purchase Merge: – Bourbon Family Compact Copyedit, Style or Cleanup: Antoine de la Sale – Albert Camus – Breton language – Claude Debussy – French Revolution – French language – Jean-Paul Sartre – Napoleon III of France – Nicolas Sarkozy – Picardy – Rennes – Sarah Bernhardt – Toulouse – Girondist – Louis XIV Expand: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen – Vaux-le-Vicomte – Basque language – Being and Nothingness France-related Wikiprojects: Wikipedia:WikiProject France view • edit • discuss • history • watch If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me or any of the more experienced members of the project, and we'll be very happy to help you. Again, welcome, and thank you for joining this project!

--STTW (talk) 18:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your review!

Thank you for reviewing the article. Your comments are certainly appreciated. One comment that I didn't understand is the following:

• "Rather too densely written at the moment. Needs to drip-feed information so that it's easier to assimilate."

Can you explain what you mean by that?Bless sins 19:58, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you are introducing too much new information in single sentences without explanation. For example, you say "These injunctions were honored by Umar during the early expansion of Islam", without explaining who Umar was, why he was important, what he did or when the expansion took place. If you assume that your reader knows little or nothing about the subject, and take everything step by step, it will be much easier to follow. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 06:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: Vimy Ridge

I'm absolutely interested in this project. I had an opportunity to do some background reading over the summer, but I'm now fairly busy (graduate school and all that), so I maybe a little slow responding , etc. Carom 00:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou

Thankyou for the chevrons and don't worry about the typo!! It is always good to have that nice orange bar at the top of the page. Also, i was happy to support you in the elections. Your work on the assessment drive already seems to have vindicated my decision! :) Good luck with it all and thanks again. Woodym555 09:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Georgia Tech

Hey, not that I'm complaining, but why did you tag the Wikipedia:WikiProject Georgia Tech/Articles page under the scope of WikiProject Military history? We can use all the help we can get (heck, we welcome it), but aside from some strong military ties in our early history which might put just a handful of our pages under you scope, I don't see a connection to our whole project. But again, who am I to argue with some extra help? :) LaMenta3 13:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Whoops! I tagged this by mistake and can provide no rational explanation, though I suspect brain rot exacerbated by loss of concentration (the phone kept ringing while I was working through a huge list of potential candidates). Sorry, and good luck with your project! --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 06:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry if that came off as WP:OWNish, but the only military ties I know of are our ROTC program, and in some parts of Georgia Tech's history. I didn't mean to turn down any support that you or anyone else in WP:MILHIST would like to contribute :) —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 17:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. It was a balls up on my part, for which I apologise. I was trying to do too many things at once and tagged it in error. I can't meaningfully contribute to the Georgia Tech project, I'm afraid, but if you'd like to help with our assessment drive we only have around 153,000 articles left to include or exclude. :-))) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 06:35, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Austrian generals

My French is not brilliant; would you be able to check and correct the one I've done - Frederick Bianchi, Duke of Casalanza? The relevant sections in French are still embedded in the article. If you can do that I'll fix up the other cleanup things afterwards. Thanks Buckshot06 17:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

No worries, I'll do the cleanups, though my real period is elsewhere as well (things like Russian Ground Forces). Sitting in your coordinator's seat, do you have any thoughts or advice for making the Rus & Sov TF part of the Russian wikiproject as well? Cheers Buckshot06 17:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I asked Kirill as promised. Here's the exchange:

On a related note, User:Buckshot06 asked me earlier how best to integrate the Rus & Sov TF with the Russian wikiproject. Thoughts? --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 19:09, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Would be easy enough to do; but the reason we haven't done so in the past is because we weren't sure which project (i.e. Russia, SU, or Russian history) to work with. If we could get a clear answer on how those projects interact, we could go ahead and make the task force joint with whichever one was best. Kirill 16:39, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

the best way forward now is probably to raise it on the Milhist noticebaord, answering Kirill's questions. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 11:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Jackie Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher

I have put the following message on User talk:Proteus

Please desist from reverting the edit made by User:Roger Davies at 12:39, 15 September 2007. What Roger has done is to put in a useful footnote and a few minor corrections. If you know of a good reason for the article to not have these, please explain your point on the talk page, instead of reverting.

--Toddy1 20:48, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I have added this article to my watchlist and added copious references to the talk page. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 09:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Roger - you have been doing good work on the article today. Fisher did a lot of important jobs; a man who had done any one of them would merit a good-size biographical article in Wikipedia. Do the sources you have at hand provide enough information to write a few paragraphs on what he did as Controller? And if so, do they mention the Leander's refit?--Toddy1 12:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Good idea! I was thinking it might be fun to get this up to FA. I've long been interested in Fisher and there's no shortage of material. User:Carom is interested in the Royal Navy and he could be roped in too. (We did the Battle of Arras (1917) together and are currently working on another project.} --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 12:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I would be happy to participate in this.--Toddy1 12:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Roger, I've had a quick look and all the books I have checked use Jacky rather than Jackie. I did wonder if this was a UK / USA spelling difference but I don't think so. MacKay 'Fisher of Kilverstone' uses Jacky (US Author);), Hough which I have under 'Admiral of the Fleet' the US title - it was published here (UK) as 'First Sea Lord' - Jacky. Roskill's Beatty which I am reading at the moment. He quotes from various letters that Beatty wrote. Beatty spelt it 'Jacky'. I expect Chalmers volume of Beatty would confirm this. Marder (US author) in the preface to Vol 1 of From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow - Jacky. So there are quite a number to support Jacky as the correct spelling. I had a quick look at The Fisher Papers (Navy Records Society) but can't see any refs to either Jacky or Jackie in there. They may be in there but couldn't see anything obvious. As I say Roskill is quoting from Beatty's orginal papers anyway. Incidentially I checked the London Gazette re the of Kilverstone thing and from 1909 to 1920 all the references to him seemed to include 'of Kilverstone.' SirLancelot 19:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

MacKay, I see, in quoted correspondence, has Jackie as well. Morris' Fisher Face uses Jacky. Perhaps you could transfer the info to Toddy1's useful table? --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 10:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

No it is not a UK/US thing. Virtually all the books I have use neither Jacky nor Jackie. However one that did is "The Jellicoe Papers" Volume I, edited by A Temple Patterson, pub Naval Records Society 1966. This uses 'Jacky' - however I only found 'Jacky' in parts written by A Temple Patterson. I admit that I have not checked every single reference.

Most books I have prefer to call him Sir John Fisher. Though "Naval Tactics", the pamphlet he published for private circulation in 1871, calls him J. Fisher.

Incidentally, every person I have met who calls themselves 'Jackie' is a girl.--Toddy1 22:04, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. the table, by the way, was very helpful. I'll start filling it in later. Perhaps you could do likewise with your refs.--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 10:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Waterloo edits

Thanks for your tidy up of my edits. There are two things which I propose to change. 2 Juncture - Replace "at the juncture between the area where Wellington's allied army was cantoned to his north-west, and Blücher's Prussian army that was dispersed to the north-east" with "at the road junction between Wellington's allied army to his north-west and Blücher's Prussian army to his north-east".

I did not mean the road junction I meant the juncture OED "The place at which, or structure by which, two things are joined; a joint, jointing, junction." There was no specific road or junction there were several different methods by which members of the two armies could reach other -- which is why the word point was not IMHO the best word to describe the seam between the armies that Napoleon wished to pick apart.

But Napoleon didn't pile into the middle of two joined armies, he pushed his men between them to prevent them joining up. For road junction, I was relying on Naylor: "The Emperor's order had been categoric on the need to capture the intersection of the roads" ... "leaving the road junction in the hands of the allies created totally unnecessary difficulties for the French" ("Waterloo" (1960), p65.) In any event, my prime objective was to simplify the complexity of the sentence. It seemed a bit clunky. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 14:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

To imply that there was one road between then and one road junction leads to the implication that both armies were concentrated which they were not. Therefor there was more than one route between the dispersed armies. --Philip Baird Shearer 15:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I imply nothing of the sort. A road junction is always an intersection of more than one road. There were two main roads and Napoleon took the road junction at the intersection of them. But this is a side-issue: the real problem is the tangled complexity of the sentence. One way round it is to refer simply to "between the dispersed armies of Wellington to his north-west and Blütcher to his north-east". The article has already explained the composition of them.

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 16:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think we will have to agree to differ on this one. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:47, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I've had a look at the sources and will probably expand this section a bit in the light of that. I shall try to avoid contentious words :)) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 10:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

2 Cannon - Replace "Napoleon had 80 of his cannons drawn up in the centre to form a grande batterie. These opened fire between noon and 13:30" with "Napoleon formed a "grande batterie" of 80 cannon in the centre, opening fire between noon and 13:30". Comments? --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 11:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Drawn up is a technical term for artillery think of "horse-drawn artillery" I do not see why you wish to replace it with words like massed or formed (although the OED suggests that it should be drawn-up). --Philip Baird Shearer 13:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The OED and the more up-to-date SOED equally suggest "mass", which to my mind conveys the idea of the "grande batterie" more vividly - that's just my take on it. :)

Please understand that there is no element of squaring up in this. I made the changes in absolute good faith. If you don't like them, feel free to change them back. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 14:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I've just seen your edit note. I'm sorry that you're taking this personally. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 14:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think drawn-up is a better word because it is a more accurate description of what happens with field artillery of that era. "Massed" does convey size, but it also has connotations of disorder. Of the examples given by the OED only "Thirty massed regimental orchestras" does not in my opinion have that connotation. --Philip Baird Shearer 15:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

You're looking in the wrong place: that's "massed" adjective/participle not "mass" verb. OED, "mass", verb (2), will give you:

• 1861 Musgrave By-roads 305 Instead of dispersing their force in brigades.. they massed them in phalanx form.
• 1878 R. B. Smith Carthage 116 His infantry he masses much more closely together and in much deeper formations than was common among the Romans.
• 1885 Manch. Examiner 10 Nov. 4/6 Austria is massing troops in Herzegovina.
• 1974 Times 8 Mar. 9/4 (caption) Syrian troops are massing opposite Israel positions on the Golan Heights.
• 1990 Vanity Fair (N.Y.) Nov. 156/2 Saddam had massed first 30,000, then 100,000 troops on their frontier.

The grande batterie link which you removed also uses the verb "mass" for cannon.

Consolidating the two sentences also gets rid the concordance problem. The first sentence talks of one grand battery (singular) and the second sentence talks about a plural (referring to the guns not the battery). My ", opening fire at ..." sidesteps this.

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 16:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think we will have to agree to differ on this one as well because I read the example you have given the same way as the others and I still think that drawn-up is better than massed because that is what was done to the guns. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:47, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. The world would be a dull place if we all agreed. I think it will benefit the reader, though, if this is clarified and I will do so, suitably referenced, later. Plus, I have an exceedingly cunning plan that will keep us both happy choice-of-words-wise. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 10:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Causes of World War I

You recently downgraded the military history rating of the article "Causes of World War I". Was this because of some changes to the article, or simply the result of inadequate prior review? If you have some specific guidance to improve the article please pass it on. The topic is quite wide and controversial and therefore many have contributed making it hard to maintain high standards. I personally try to stay focused on the July Crisis. I am unclear why this is a military history article; its not intended to be of that character.

Werchovsky 17:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It has all the makings of an excellent piece but it was rather generously assessed before. Adequate citations are a requirement for B-class. The article is at best sparsely referenced and at worst not referenced at all. On your other point, most people regard the political background to a war as part of its military history. Fighting is generally the physical expression of political activity and wars are usually fought with political objectives in mind. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 21:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

HMS Donegal

Precognition is just another one of my amazing powers. Good work with the Fisher article. If it doesn't get FA status then there's no justice! Benea 13:52, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I had half a mind to do so. Give me a bit and I'll knock something up, no problem. Thanks, I was pretty taken with his story and thought it worthy of commemoration. pip pip, Benea 15:25, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

HMS Donegal (1858) as requested. Benea 19:01, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Ta very much for the barnstar! HMS Valorous (1851) written up. I also changed HMS Northampton into a disambiguation page since that ship already existed at HMS Northampton (1876). I made a few tweaks to HMS Valorous but nothing much, though I did add another ship. I also fixed the links at Jackie Fisher's page, and fixed the style a bit. Hope this is all ok? ttfn, Benea 14:28, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Not a problem, happy to help! Benea 15:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

It's nice to know that someone appreciates that drudgery. Thanks :) Maralia 14:14, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

As an occasional drudgee myself, I feel your pain :) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 16:00, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Fisher

Yes, i was about to leave a note here asking what name you think the template should use. Given the ongoing discussion on the Fisher talk page i was pondering whether to change it. In the end i did and i tried to maintain consistency with the other names by using the "Knight" title. What i see now is that it should really be called Baron Fisher of Kilverstone in line with Cunningham. I think the highest title in the Order of Precedence should be used. Thoughts? Woodym555 16:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Your call entirely but (I think) we have consensus on the talk page, that though doesn't make it bullet-proof :) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK

Gone with the old Baron Fisher of Kilverstone. All the others use the highest order of precedence although MPs seem to be noted over the top of hereditary titles. Amend as you see fit, looking at it, it might need "The" to be consistent with the other names. Woodym555 17:20, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Seems sensible. I'll leave it all to you, you've clearly got a better grip on the historical First Sea Lords than I have. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 17:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

		My RFA
		Thanks for your support in my request for adminship, which ended with 58 supports, 1 opposes, and 1 neutral. I hope your confidence in me proves to be justified. Addhoc 18:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Issy Smith

Apologies for my unresponsiveness last weekend. I've essentially been on a break within a break, interrupted only by a single comment at MILHIST. Your additions have been smoothly integrated into the article's admittedly rigid structure; however, the gold watch passage appears awkwardly placed in parenthesis. Perhaps it could be incorporated into note6? As said, your edits have enhanced the quality of the article and its comprehensiveness. Indeed, the final paragraph of the WWI section contrasts glaringly with his initial post-war difficulties. Oh, I noticed that you nominated Issy Smith as a candidate for FA status. I'm genuinely honoured that you believe it merits elevation and really appreciate your decision to act "unilaterally" (that's almost tantamount to WP:OWN ;-). Regards and happily continue your editing. SoLando (Talk) 15:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The gold watch does not sit well there (and was even worse without the brackets). I've moved it so it fits in better chronologically. Okay?

That's not ownership :) All the best articles have parents to love and care for them during at least part of their lives.

Let's see how it gets on in FAC

All the best, --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 18:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey Roger, thanks for fixing my little mistake with the article history banner. I wonder where i copied and pasted that from? ;) (You didnt actually fix it correctly, so i have done it now. Thanks for being observant and clearing up after me!!!) Woodym555 15:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Poo! Did the id need updating too? (The link worked when I tested it.) [Wanders off muttering: "damn fiddly all this technical stuff. Best left to the boffins."] --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 15:06, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

You changed it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Issy Smith, it should have been Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Issy Smith! as it was the A-Class review. I had done all the hard stuff like the oldids etc but neglegted to change the blindingly obvious mistake of Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope!! Oh well, fixed now and it should pass FAC soon. It was a very well written article by SoLando. Woodym555 18:08, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey there, again! Thanks to both of you for your invaluable assistance and support. I still feel obliged to cross my fingers. This form of editorial collaboration epitomises the redeeming spirit of Wikipedia that represents an unflicnhing rebuke to the.... destructive and disruptive elements that contribute to the project :-). Apologies for that quasi rant ;-). Oh, great work on initiating a stub that concisely details the Aliens Act. I'm quite tempted to expand, but I've neglected the still incomplete King's Regiment (Liverpool) and unwritten British West Indies Regiment for far, far too long. Not to mention Ian St. John. SoLando (Talk) 21:54, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Worship of Hitler

Deleted with extreme prejudice per WP:CSD#A7 and WP:CSD#G3. Sorry it took so long. If it gets recreated give me the heads up and I'll salt it. Thanks for your help. Pedro :  Chat  14:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Presumably "with extreme prejudice" means hitting the keys very hard while you're doing it? :)))) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 15:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

:) Yes, bash the delete button with a mallet. And also because I could have crammed it into at least 3 CSD categories as non-notable, nonsense, vandalism and the favourite one that apparently admins aren't allowed to use ........ WP:IDONTLIKEIT Pedro :  Chat  15:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

[Chuckle] --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 15:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Operation Battleaxe feedback

Much appreciated on the feedback for the Operation Battleaxe article. I'll try to get your suggestions in as soon as I can. Thanks! Oberiko 20:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

capitalisation

Roger—thanks for your note. My brain turns to jelly when it comes to this. I was hoping others would work through the issues. Tony (talk) 03:43, 28 September 2007 (UTC) PS Like your signature.

Thanks for coming back to me on this. I've proposed a fix to the text. One man's meat is another man's jelly, huh? I read your comments in MOS with interest, always pertinant and well-informed. Good stuff! --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 08:39, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

James and Joe

Please read WP:COI and don't misinform new editors about this policy.[1] WP:COI does not say that "it is unacceptable to create articles about yourself." It says, "editors are strongly advised not to edit articles" about themselves. (Emphasis mine in both quotes.) That the article must come from reliable third party references is WP:NOR. That it's often a rather awful article when people have a COI, and especially when autobigraphical, is just one of the issues that comes around where "anyone can edit." KP Botany 17:13, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. You make an interesting point. To me, unacceptable doesn't mean "prohibited" it means not welcome, "not accepted". Perhaps, I'm gilding the lily a tad but in no sense is creating articles about your own business on Wikipedia "acceptable".--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 17:33, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Here are links to AfD reasons for deletion, and to Speedy criteria for deletion. COI is not a reason for deletion. Again, in this sense, it is acceptable to create an article about yourself. If you disagree you can always attempt to change the policy, but you should not misinform news users of the policy just because you disagree with it--changing it, or attempting to, is the way to deal with your disagreement.

Also, it might be nicer just to advice people that if they're notable enough someone else will want to write and edit their article. KP Botany 17:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

PS, love the pin on my user page to alert me of your response. I've never seen it done that way before. KP Botany 17:47, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. I never said COI was grounds for deletion. It was tagged for notability. I agree with suggesting that if you're notable enough someone neutral will get round to writing about you soon but I didn't have the time to explain all that succinctly and clearly enough. I may do so. Then we can get it turned into a template. Good idea?

I'm glad you like the ping! (I forget who I nicked it from:))))

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 18:14, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually a template gently explaining that if you're notable enough someone else will write your biography and maintain it for you might be a good idea. I shouldn't be the one writing the template because my tendency is to say, "Good grief, how can you possibly be notable or a success when you wrote such a piece of crap about yourself?" Which is not conducive to welcoming someone to Wikipedia. KP Botany 18:26, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Killer Mailbox

I just found your comments about what I was about to post on my talk page which is below.

I have also reinstated the updated Killer Mailbox in the Postmaster talk page, and perhaps a redirection from a new KILLER MAILBOX article to or from that full text might be appropriate, I leave this to oour good understanding., in any event an explanation of the puspose of the new article appears below.

Thanks for your attention.

Claude Kagan I am far from adept at working with WIKIPEDIA, I will honestly concede that the guidance and instructions are very comprehensive and very detailed, which due to my vision problem, makes it very difficult for me to either comply and or react appropriately to the comments and guidances offered by the "robots" and only when a human intervention takes palce I am able to seek and get valuable help. I listened to all of the material dealing with the deletion process and am more confused than ever. I am sure it is thus to protect the original author as well as Wikipdeia. I can make and send an audio recording of that process and you will understand what I mean.

Currently I am in the throes of a topic which I call "Killer mailbox,"and suffering with the ownership of such a mailbox I have tried to document the situation and not quite understanding some of the details of self identification managed to post a well composed version in the "Postmaster" talk page. I tried to replace it by enhancing the article and posting into a new article "Killer Mailbox" and apparently ran afoul of a variety of rules which were evidenced with the deletion of the new article twice before I understood why I could not find it after posting. The explanation was "nonsense". I hope that this was a robot talking because I would hardly wish to have my writing characterized by a human member in Wikipedia with such a comment.

The issue is not "nonsense" it is a real life situation which occurs when a minor official of the U.S. postal service assumes the responsibility of insisting that a mailbox be left where it can cause real physical harm to its owner. These risks did not exist fifty years ago and only come into being through modernization of roads, and vehicles, and emergency services. I am hoping that I can do what is necessary, with help of human wikipedia people and add a really Encyclopedic article which meets the criterai and standards of this publication.

Claude A. R. Kagan 14:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I read after I added something under the bottom of your talk page so I will not repeat this again here. I did head my addendum with the four tildes. Claude A. R. Kagan Sorry for not reading the stuff at the top of your page eefor charging full speed ahead. Claude

Hi Claude,

Yes, understanding the "rules" here does take time. However, there are a few things to bear in mind in relation to your proposed article. Firstly, Wikipedia is not a soapbox so here is not an appropriate place to bring campaigning issues. Secondly, the neutral point of view means articles must balance both sides of an argument: in this instance, perhaps balancing the hazards with the practical issues (public convenience, ease of mail collection etc). Thirdly, the article needs to be based on verifiable independent sources and be properly attributed. If you can achieve these in your article, it will find a place on Wikipedia. All the best, --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 14:41, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Re:6,000+ edits

Thank you very much for the barnstar, Roger. Kyriakos 12:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

You thoroughly deserve it. Your considerable efforts require recognition. :))) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 12:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, :) Kyriakos 12:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Marion Harding Entry

Dear Roger

I am not sure why the page was deleted or what to do about it. I can only think that I missed Marion's cousin Peter M. Libas's middle initial out or that somehow I need to sign the entry and/or have sent supporting documentation to yourselves. Both can be arranged but I cannot even find the article now.

Sincerely

Ruan Joshua Harding

UserId: Ernstblumberg email:yeshuaruah@yahoo.ca —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ernstblumberg (talk • contribs) 17:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I nominated the article for deletion because it did not "assert the notability" of the subject. In English, this means it didn't explain why Marion Harding was important enough to warrant an article in an encyclopedia. The actual decision to delete was made by an administrator, Redvers. Many administrators will often restore a deleted article to your talk page so that you work on it to get up to matching Wikipedia's requirements. See Wikipedia:Five pillars for more information. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 17:47, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Gavin Drake

You have nominated my first article, Gavin Drake for speedy deletion. Can you tell me why this meets the criteria for speedy deletion? I have quoted multiple verifiable sources, including BBC News. I had intended to do a rewrite of the Walsall F. C. article and thought I'd try a couple of my own before I attempt to edit others. This one was easy to research because there's quite a bit about him in the press around here. Fooey-fooey-flop-chops 17:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Simply put because it didn't assert his notability (i.e. explain why he was sufficiently notable to warrant his own article) and the references seemed to be generic rather than providing biographical material on him. In other words, you need to find biographies of him from good sources that you can base your article on. Wikipedia has specific requirements about verification and attribution and it's important to meet these from the start. I've removed the tags. If you'd like some help, just shout! --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 17:58, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I've given the article a quick copy edit and re-written the intro slightly to emphasise his claims to notability. I've also taken the liberty of removing most of the section heads: the white space they were creating tended to make the article look insubstantial. The main problem here is establishing why he is notable. While he's clearly effective, this is not necessarily a claim to encyclopedic fame. You need better sources. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 18:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

PROMI (PROfile analysis by Mutual Information)

Hello, I am one of the scientists that developed PROMI and would like to know why you marked the article about PROMI for deletion! You stated it would be an article about a company but it is not. I would like to hear a thorough explanation. nimini 20:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I nominated it because Wikipedia has basic entry-level requirements and the article didn't assert the required notability; attributing statements and citing reliable independent sources is the best way of doing this. Wikipedia also strongly discourages articles from editors with a conflict of interest because they are rarely able to detach themselves sufficiently to present a neutral point of view. I hope this helps, --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 21:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Belarus

I think I got everything you wishes, especially on "why the area is called White Russia." User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:54, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Mary Wollstonecraft

Is it really necessary to reignite this very tedious spelling debate in the middle of the FA nomination? I think it would be more pertinent for us to concentrate on the content issues right now. Kaldari 19:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Islamic military jurisprudence

I have edited the article since our last discussion regarding it (User_talk:Roger_Davies#Thanks_for_your_review.21). It seems, to me atleast, easy to follow. When you have time, I'd appreciate if you took another look at it, and tell whether its still difficult to follow or not.Bless sins 16:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Military

I came across a minor error you made in Military, stating that the Soixante-Quinze was first fielded in the 1970s (diff here). I'm not sure what date you had intended, so I just modified to "late 1800s." Feel free to put a more precise date in.

--KNHaw ^(talk) 22:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Sonnet 117

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Sonnet 117, and it appears to be a substantial copy of http://www.larrygleason.com/sonnets/sonnet_117.html. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot 05:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Sonnet 121

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Sonnet 121, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://shakespeare.about.com/library/blsonnet121.htm?p=1. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot 06:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Busted for ripping off Shakespeare! You dog!! :-) -Agyle 09:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thou callest me a dog before thou hast cause. But since I am a dog, beware my fangs. :))) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 09:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC) (Merchant of Venice)

LOLeth! (You better watch it, or your Talk page will be removed for plagiarism too!) -Agyle 09:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, the shame of it! That had better be Our Little Secret then. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 10:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Sonnet 122

I see you deleted this a day or two back. I'm proposing recreating it, along with Sonnet 117 and Sonnet 121 to complete the set. I'm just laying down the structure now, and will add commentary later (honest!). Any problems with me recreating it? All the best, --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 06:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, it's back. You can go ahead and make it purdy like the rest of them. By the way, I only deleted that because it was tagged as a speedy by somebody else. I didn't realize we had a whole collection. I was thinking maybe it would be better posted at Wikisource, but I'm no expect in that area, and that's nothing we have to resolve today. Happy editing!! -- But|seriously|folks  06:33, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, dude :))) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 06:38, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Question on UK newspaper reliability

Hi, you made some comments in the talk page of MOS regarding some British newspapers. I live in the U.S. and have little feel for which of those are considered reliable on questionable facts or biographical information, and which are considered kind of suspect about detailed fact-checking. I was wondering if you could give me your rough opinion of the Guardian, Telegraph, and Independent, as I encounter their web-published articles pretty regularly in Google news searches. (I don't care about their political biases for my purposes.) Best regards, -Agyle 05:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. The "quality" press - The Independent/Independent on Sunday, The Guardian/The Observer, The Times/The Sunday Times, The Telegraph/The Sunday Telegraph, and the Financial Times - all are reliable sources. The formal news/reporting sections are impartial and factually accurate; the informal/editorial/letters sections are partial but factually accurate. Each has its own strengths. It's in the nature of publishing that errors creep from time to time. UK Press Code requires that factual errors are corrected swiftly. (As an aside, The Guardian was famous in the 1960s for its silly typos, earning it the nickname The Grauniad! This has long been resolved.) As you are aware, the accuracy of British tabloids (the "red tops") is questionable; the facts are buried in sensationalising or editorialising. You didn't ask about it, but many regional UK papers - especially the long-established ones- are very reliable and good sources for background facts. Here's a useful link. All the best, --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 08:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Your info and the link were very helpful. I was unfamiliar with the term "red tops," but it's immediately understandable from my passing familiarity with the genre. :-) (Who can resist an occasional click to a salacious Sun article?!) I'm not sure that U.S. media are regulated so closely, though abusive inaccuracies about people can be remedied through civil lawsuits. Some of the accuracy issues I come across are the precision with which something is phrased. An example came up the other day as I was working on an article on "George Duboeuf". A Telegraph article said Duboeuf personally was found guilty and fined by a court, while other sources said his company, also commonly referred to as George Duboeuf, was found guilty and fined. I evaded the issue by saying the court found fraud had been committed, as I wouldn't want to make a mistake on that sort of a point. If it were the New York Post, I'd probably disregard what they said as unreliable, and if it were the New York Times, I'd probably accept it as reliable in spite of some differing, less-reliable sources, but with the Guardian, I wasn't not sure how to weigh their reporting. It sounds like I shouldn't disregard it out of hand. Thanks for the info! -Agyle 09:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. I think the Telegraph is inaccurate accurate. I looked for confirmation from a French source. Most of the news sites' free access has expired (30 days) but I did find a press release/newsletter here. Here's the text:

La société Georges Duboeuf

La société Georges Duboeuf a été condamnée à une amende de 30 000 € pour “tromperie et tentative de tromperie sur l’origine et la qualité des vins” par le tribunal de Villefranche-sur-Saône. Sylvain Dory, l’ancien directeur du site de vinification, a également été condamné à trois mois de prison avec sursis et 3 000 € d’amende. Des peines bien moindres que celles requises par le Parquet contre le négociant et son employé, accusés d’avoir mélangé des raisins issus de plusieurs parcelles, en violation de la législation sur les AOC. Sylvain Dory avait reconnu des erreurs à mettre sur le compte de la fatigue et non d’une volonté délibérée de tricher et Georges Duboeuf avait rappelé que ces vins n’avaient pas été commercialisés. (FH) Wines, Spirits & Drinks Press Agency

That's clear enough. It says that the company was fined 30,000€ and a former manager/director, Sylvain Dory, received a three-month suspended prison sentence and a 3,000€ fine. Nothing about Duboeuf in his personal capacity. It adds that the fines were to be paid personally by the wine merchant and his former employer.

PS: If you think the Sun is salacious, you should see the Daily Star. :)

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 09:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Hm, I didn't read it that way, but my French comprehension isn't that great; I thought "la négociant" was ambiguous as to whether it meant him or his company, and even if it did mean him, that kind of contradicts the first sentence that said the company was fined. In any case, the Telegraph said Duboeuf personally was found guilty of attempting to defraud, while this article says the company was fined for fraud and attempted fraud. I also just noticed that the Telegraph article said the fine was £20,000, an imprecise approximation of 30,000€...that seems like sloppy journalism. A BBC article stated it as "30,000 euros (£21,000)", which while not a precise conversion, is clear from context that it's an approximation. The BBC article, by the way, seems to stick with the company being fined for fraud and attempted fraud, without mentioning anything about Duboeuf personally. An SFGate article says "30,000 euros ($38,370)", in addition to other fines, and seems to mean the company exclusively. Anyway, no big deal; with contradictory sources, and none really explicitly clarifying possible misunderstandings, it's just one of those things WP shouldn't take a position on - either mention neither, or mention both. I just mentioned it as an example of the sort of confusion I have weighing the input from sources like the Telegraph. :-) -Agyle 12:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC

The bit about paying personally isn't in that press release. Here's a translation: Georges DuBoeuf [Inc] have been fined 30,000€ for deception and attempted deception over the origin and quality of wines by a court in Villefranche-surSaone. Also, Sylvain Dory, former manager/director of [their] wine-making plant, was given a three-month suspended prison sentence and a 3,000€ fine. The fines are the lowest demanded by the public prosecutor against the wholesaler and its employee, accused of having mixed grapes from various sources, in violation of AOC regulations. Sylvain Dory said the errors were down to tiredness and not deliberate; the company stated these wines were not sold. Now where did I read it? (This is bothering me now.) Yes, I agree about the Telegraph piece. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 13:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I've had a look round and can't find it (I wish I'd linked it). The piece basically said that that both Duboeuf and Dory additionally had to pay a symbolique one euro to the AOC control body, and contribute to the costs of the prosecution. It was practically the same text as the VSB piece. While the Telegraph might be sloppy about the figures, I'm not sure they're wrong about Georges Duboeuf paying. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 14:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Which I have now found it. According to my cousin (French attorney), French criminal law regards companies as without physical entity for trial purposes. Therefore the company head is tried/indicted as the physical manifestation of the company. If guilty, the individual is also convicted on behalf of the company. Thanks for raising this, I have learned something :))) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 15:53, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the added research. :-) I had surmised that the French corporate/legal system must be pretty different from what I'm familiar with in the U.S., but that's even more radically different than I thought...so foreign! I didn't see this article explicitly saying Duboeuf the person had to pay anything, but it would apparently be implied to French readers by saying he represented his company; it's so obvious that it wouldn't warrant explicit mention. ("Les deux condamnés" seems like it could still mean the Duboeuf company and Sylvan Dory, since it earlier said the company was condemned.) I assume you're right that he had to pay the fines, as that's consistent with differing press accounts as to whether he or the company was fined - saying either would be correct. I've learned too...particularly not to open a controversial business in France. :-) -Agyle 20:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Florida Atlantic University FAC

Thanks for the suggestions. I fixed the first two issues and for the third moved a sentence down a little to fix the flow of the paragraph. What do you think?

Thanks, KnightLago 17:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Fixes it. Changed to support. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 17:33, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! KnightLago 17:40, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Something for you

For your outstanding work in organizing the 2007 Military history WikiProject tagging and assessment drive, I hereby award you the WikiChevrons. Kirill 14:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again for the second award.

Reading and assessing all those articles starts getting tiresome. Every so often I find one that is really nifty and it perks me back up. The feedback really fires me up. --Colputt 22:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Would you like your awards as you earn them? If so, just put an ampersand in front of your name of the participants List and I'll sort it. Glad it's not getting you down. By the way, you might want to think about adding task forces into the tags. It's entirely optional but I find it makes it a bit more interesting. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 23:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Assessment

Thanks for the invite [2]. As a current member of WikiProject Military history, I always tag and assess articles for both {{WikiProject Ships}} and {{WPMILHIST}}. However I fully admit that the assessment backlog for Military history is ... dauntingly large. While my primary focus has been wrapping up the Ships assessment drive (we only have a few hundred left in the "Unassessed" category), I would be delighted to help pitch in with the Milhist assessment drive once we finish the Ships one. --Kralizec! (talk) 23:58, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I look forward to having you on board :))) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 06:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately I appear to be having issues getting back on the assessment wagon. If my Excel spreadsheet data array is correct, then I have assessed 1696 articles for SHIPS and/or MILHIST since June 7, with 1325 of those assessments taking place within the past 52 days. --Kralizec! (talk) 13:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Good grief! In your own time, whenever you feel you're ready. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 13:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot 07:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Tag & Assess

Just a reminder that we're deleting article listings for military history files. (As you know, tne non-milhist ones are struck through.) This makes it easier for others to which see worklist articles have been processed and which need doing. All the best, --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 04:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Am i doing it right? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 04:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Not quite :) You're leaving the milhist file listings in the worklist. They should be removed, leaving only struck through files. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 04:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

i understand you are talking about the "via ROOT to Military to Military history to Military history...". Right? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 04:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I'm talking about removing the milhist listings completely from the worklist, thus:

Before

1. Hugh_VIII_of_Lusignan (talk) via ROOT to Military to Military_history to Warfare_by_era to Warfare_of_the_Medieval_era to Crusades to Crusade_people_(Christians)
2. A-_(plane) (talk) via ROOT to Military to Military_organization to Types_of_military_forces to Military_aviation to Military_aircraft to Military_aircraft_by_type to Attack_aircraft to U.S._attack_aircraft
3. .41_Rimfire_Cartridge (talk) via ROOT to Military to Military_equipment to Military_equipment_by_type to Weapons to Ammunition to Pistol_and_rifle_cartridges
4. Imperial_Remnant (talk) via ROOT to Military to Military_organization to Fictional_military_organizations

After (listings 2 & 3 above are removed from the worklist because they're milhist)

1. Hugh_VIII_of_Lusignan (talk) via ROOT to Military to Military_history to Warfare_by_era to Warfare_of_the_Medieval_era to Crusades to Crusade_people_(Christians)
2. Imperial_Remnant (talk) via ROOT to Military to Military_organization to Fictional_military_organizations

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 05:03, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Now it makes sense. Because i was wondering about the reason why i had to keep them there. Thanks for your help Roger. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) You might like to think about adding your total (in the participants list). It's getting impressive and is a good incentive for others :) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 16:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Too late. You've done it! :))) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 16:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Hahahha. I am going for 10,000. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Good luck! Though at the rate you've been going, you'll easily do it by the end of next week :) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 16:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

My fingers hurt Roger ;) -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Mine did too. I now have all the task forces in a notepad file and cut and paste them in. Now it's just my mouse finger that hurts:) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 17:00, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Re:Your Message

Yeah, well; I thought I might just sit back and watch the fun, but then I decided that I really should get involved since coordinators are supposed to do the logistical stuff. (Ok, I admit it, I want the awards too :-) It will slow going for me though becuase I still have school stuff, but as they say every bit counts... TomStar81 (Talk) 06:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[Chuckle] Good luck with the school stuff and thanks again! --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 07:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Re:WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves

Thank you Roger, I feel honored. Tony the Marine 22:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

DELETION, HOW TO AVOID IT

I TRIED TO MAKE A PAGE FOR AN UP AND COMING LOCAL BAND

BU TTHE PAGE KEEPS GETTING DELETED, THE PAGE IS FINE AND MEETS THE GUIDLINES, I DNT GET IT :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rob eoh (talk • contribs) 22:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I nominated the article for deletion because it did not "assert the notability" of the subject. In English, this means it didn't explain why Endurance of Hate was important enough to warrant an article in an encyclopedia. The actual decision to delete was made by an administrator, user:Tone. Many administrators will often restore a deleted article to your talk page so that you work on it to get up to matching Wikipedia's requirements. See Wikipedia:Five pillars for more information. You need to find material from good sources to base your article on. Wikipedia has specific requirements about verification and attribution and it's important to meet these from the start. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 23:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Second Ostend Raid

Thankyou both for your helpful comments at the above successful FAC and for the Barnstar which followed it. Both were much appreciated.--Jackyd101 18:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Spelling question?

Hi Roger,

This just reflects my parochial reading, but I've never seen the spelling of "concensus" for "consensus". Is it common in Britain? I was a little surprised and confused, because in Latin concensus would seem to mean "general criticism" (think "con-censure") deriving from con (together) and censeo (I criticize). By contrast, "consensus" derives from con and sensus (sense or understanding). If you have a little time and could shed light on that for me, I'd be much obliged. Anyway, I was just curious, and glad to learn something new, Willow 19:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

It's a typo, I normally type it correctly. In this case, the notion of with+consent (consensual) probably didn't intrude heavily enough. I regularly make typos (missing letters or tripled lettters generally), largely because (professionally) I've always had editors picking these up and it's a long route from draft to print. So, in short, I'm rubbish at proofreading my own stuff but strangely good at other people's stuff. (Oh, I slept through Latin but love Romance languages. Funny, huh?) [LATER COMMENT: concensus is in the OED as a variant, by the way. But that's just coincidence.]

By the way, I've been meaning to contact you about Harold Pinter. That lot needs to be in BrEng. Unfortunately, I imagine that when I mention it I'll hear the shriek of rage all the way here from New York. :)

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 20:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I feel a little silly. :p I should've realized that it was a typo; sorry! I just had that BrE/AmE thing on my mind, and leapt to the conclusion, "Cool — a new British spelling that I've never seen before!"

Umm, regarding Harold Pinter, you can do as you like, but I would really advise you not to set foot on that hallowed ground. ;)

More generally, can I offer some friendly advice? I don't think the whole WP:ENGVAR thing works for you as a person. When I was little, I remember watching the salmon struggling to get upstream, wriggling on the rocks, and this situation kind of reminds me of that. Sure, it's proper and the law and the Thing To Do, but you see how much difficult it is to make progress, and it just doesn't seem worth it for anyone. FWIW, I would advise you to find some sunny, quiet nook of knowledge and devote yourself to writing articles about that. Life is so sweet and full of riches, that it were a shame to fritter our brief time away on unhappy pursuits. Hoping that you see me as a sincere friend, MMMPMMA ;) Willow 03:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

• Without wishing to be in any way contradictory, I think WP:ENGVAR works very well for me. I have for instance written and been published in both major variants, and written TEFL material on the differences. I devote little Wiki time to WP:ENGVAR. When I do get involved, it's generally to de-hybridise here, for example; most people don't see this as controversial. The situation is very different with the LitCrit stuff. What we have here is a small group of editors who work closely together, and who serially and deliberately ignore WP:ENGVAR. They support each other in discussions and this creates a very distorted picture: this, I think, is the picture you've been seeing.
• This leads me to ask you a question. Might it not be more in the spirit of Wikipedia were you to ask gently at an early stage when you first encounter these articles why they are not in the appropriate national variant? Sooner or later, the message will get across :))
• Of Pinter. You really have no idea how absurdly parochial it makes Wikipedia look when you have the heading Honors in an article about a British playwright wikilinking to British honours. And, as I've mentioned before, the lower down the educational scale you go, the likelier the person is to reject content as inaccurate if it comes with "spelling errors".

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 13:04, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi again, sorry if my replies are spotty; I'm visiting my sister and can't always get away to a computer. I'm really relieved to hear that the whole WP:ENGVAR thing hasn't spoiled your mood and isn't cutting into your time for making new articles or adding to old ones. I'll confess that I'm rather an agnostic on AmE/BrE, which is probably evident. I spent months of work on Encyclopædia Britannica, and someone took the time to change it over to BrE and my reaction was "Oh, OK, whatever", just as if they had changed from New Century Schoolbook (my fave!) to Arial font. Personally, I suspect that if Famous Academics were to judge the quality of our articles, they would care much more about the factual content, organization, referencing and writing, than they would about the articles' spelling avatar, even were they to contain a mixture of both BrE and AmE. So I think I understand where you're coming from and respect those feelings, but I'm a little mystified by them as well; maybe you can understand? For example, I have this friend who's crazy for sports — he reads three newpapers every day to keep fully informed — I can be happy for him and appreciate his enthusiasm, but I confess that I just don't get it?

Let me to suggest to you that maybe the LitCrit battle need not be fought, at least not right now. Many other articles might be turned to BrE with better advantage and less effort, no? I sincerely fear that a long, pitched battle over Wiki-policies (which I foresee will eventually involve meta-editing the policies themselves) will divert well-meaning people (on both sides) from well-meaning purposes and ultimately diminish the encyclopedia, rather than improving it. Maybe I'm overly fretful over the fragility of Wikipedia, but I sense that to demand conformity to a particular style is to invite disaster, by turning off contributors who by nature would prefer to edit in a different style. Can you maybe empathize with what I'm feeling? In the seven rich years, we should set aside provisions for the seven lean years; so too now we should conserve and shelter good editors, and be flexible (like a willow branch, my namesake) on the rules. Oops, gotta run, everyone else is waking up, Willow 11:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

We may be talking at cross-purposes. Given how distantly we really know each other and how impersonal the form of communication ("typing makes the warmest words seem cold" DYLAN THOMAS) that is entirely understandable. I'll try to clear up two possible misconceptions.

Firstly, I too am fairly agnostic (as you put it) about national varieties myself so, to continue the metaphor, I'm not on a crusade. If further clarification is needed, I do not seek out articles for conversion and cannot conceive a more tedious endeavour. Broadly, I'm an Average Joe and my contributions will vouch for this.

Secondly, I have nothing but respect for the work that the LitCrit people are doing; I take issue with the way they are going about it. I know it's convenient and familiar to work in AmEng and that I entirely understand but it's simply not appropriate in a multi-national encyclopedia to be hawkish about keeping articles on blatantly not-American-topics remaining permanently in AmEng. Nor is it appropriate to take over BrEng articles and lock them into AmEng in perpetuity.

You and I are common ground about the encyclopedia. Apart from a current hugely time-sinking tagging drive (I organized it so I am dutybound to lead from the front), my Wiki activities are almost entirely FAC and article-writing. If you follow FAC, you'll see my contributions are varied and far-ranging. (This is how I stumbled across the Wollstonecraft series.) However, I regard Wikipedia as precious, certainly too precious to have whole subject areas monopolized by people with agendas about spelling variants. Yes, we have got to conserve good editors but this does not mean that the tail should wag the dog.

I wasn't trying to be controversial when I asked you to think about mentioning national variants at an early stage; I meant it sincerely. Wikipedia recognises spelling diversity and wider recognition of this will go a long way to eradicate both systemic bias and disputes. The person to ask about respecting national variants is probably not The Famous Academic but Rosa Parks.

Your comment about Famous Academics provoked another thought. In my experience, most FAs will produce material in whatever format (within reason) you ask them to; tailoring it to suit the audience and to comply with house rules. The spelling variant issue is not important as higher educational levels, it's at the lower educational ones where it matters. There is much evidence to show that younger readers reject the content if the spelling is unfamiliar. The logic goes: "if they can't get the spelling right, the facts will be wrong too". Obviously, older or more sophisiticated readers take variants much more in their stride. This is one reason why it is so important for the appropriate national variant for national icons; kids will be referencing the article for homework purposes and we don't want them to reject what we say out of hand, do we?

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 15:17, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi ROGER!

Thanks for your very nice and thought-provoking reply! :) Dylan Thomas is one of my favourite poets. I hope you'll forgive me for thinking that you were working on converting AmE-articles to BrE; it's just that I had seen only that aspect of your editing and didn't think further. I confess, a systematic conversion did seem a difficult task (I’ll not say tedious) and perhaps not so pressing, given all the major gaps in coverage that remain in Wikipedia; but I'm the last person to criticize anyone's enthusiasms, being so odd in my own. ;) You also needn't appeal to the evidence of your edit history; I take your word at face value. My friends complain that I’m a Credulosaur and a Gullibilodon, but I’m mystically serene about assuming good faith. :)

I agree that it's hard to two people to understand one another, even in real life, to say nothing of Wikipedia, which seems sometimes akin to people whispering to each other in a darkened cathedral and, at other times, to two blind people whacking each other with sticks. ;) I promise to make a good-faith effort to understand you, and I hope you like me enough to do the converse.

Based on your latest reply, it seems like you’re concerned about two main issues. First, you’re concerned that schoolchildren will distrust a Wikipedia article if it’s written in an unfamiliar spelling. For me, that doesn’t seem too worrisome, at least based on my own experience. Once a child is old enough to watch for incorrect spellings and to distrust their schoolbooks (maybe 10 years old or so?), they’ll generally have already been exposed to both AmE and BrE spellings and will make allowances. My impression is that the concept that there’s only one right way to spell a word isn’t natural, it has to be instructed; young children accept variant spellings the way we accept variant fonts. I say that even as a former spelling queen-bee and as a girl who would read dictionaries before the rest of her family woke up. Also, if this is the argument, then the preferred spelling variant should be that which has the greatest number of schoolchildren, no?

Before moving on to the second concern, I’m conscious of being about to reveal my own ignorances and muddy thinking, so I hope that you’ll forgive me them in advance, before they’re revealed in all their details. Thanks ever so much! :)

OK, your second concern seems to be that the spelling avatar is "inappropriate" given the nationality of the subject of the article; is that correct? Thus, Mary Wollstonecraft being a British citizen by birth, her article should be written in BrE, etc. At first I found this hard for me to understand since, in my own mind, I group people by temperament and accomplishment; nationality usually seems irrelevant for the people I think about, so there's no question of "appropriateness". For example, two irrascible old misers from London and New York would likely have more in common with each other, don’t you agree, than with young idealistic humanitarian-aid workers from their own city? As a specific example, Albert Einstein seems to me principally a physicist; the details of his nationality paperwork — whether he was labeled as German, Swiss, American or Rwandan — seem as irrelevant to his work as whether he was left-handed or right-handed. So I agree, for example, that Mary Wollstonecraft seems more British than American, but I’m not sure why it matters and why it would help to re-word her article in BrE or why it would hurt to keep it in AmE. I’m sure that I’m showing my ignorance, but I really don’t get it, any more than I understand why I should cheer for this-or-that cricket team over another.

I hope you will help me understand your feelings and perspective better, as you have been doing; thank you! You may laugh, but I’ve been trying to empathize by imagining a world in which Botswana and Iceland each spoke Icelandic but with different spellings and few stylistic differences. If the Wikipedia article about the Laxdœla saga were written in a Botswana style, I guess it might seem strange to students in Iceland. Surely, the medieval saga has closer ties to I. than to B., but both modern societies are alien to the medieval one and such small differences still seem secondary to the task of producing a good article. So if someone were to ask me, I would be at a loss to explain why we should spend time debating or making a switch. My benighted apathy works both ways; I haven’t thought it through, but I don’t see any compelling reason to keep MW in AmE or BrE, beyond the personal consideration that its chief author wants to keep it so. I don't believe that it would take much effort to switch, at least judging from my experience with Encyclopædia Britannica.

Although I doubt it, you might be thinking that WP:ENGVAR should be adhered to, regardless of any reasoning. Yet I think it does not carry the force of community consensus that, say, WP:NOR does, and by itself, seems inadequate to carry the day. So please let me suggest that it might help more to reason with and persuade the others, such as Awadewit, Scartol and NYScholar, of the advantages of switching an AmE article to BrE. If it would help, once you’ve all argued through the issues, I’d be glad to act as an impartial executor for the consensus decision. I hope to be friends with you all, and sometimes a bitter pill is easier to swallow if administered by a friend. Willow 17:29, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I hope I won't be considered rude for jumping in here, but I'd like to say that I agree with Willow that "the concept that there’s only one right way to spell a word isn’t natural" – and I say this as an English teacher. Indeed, the English language has evolved so much over time (read Chaucer) that today's spelling rules seem almost laughably arbitrary to me.

I would also add that context is extremely important when applying any rule, here on Wikipedia or anywhere else. This is why we have cross-examinations and jury trials, yes? I'd love to talk about my take on … oh, I don't know … Chinua Achebe, for example, but I have to go eat lunch and work with students. – Scartol · Talk 17:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Thich Quang Duc

Hello Roger. Thanks for the comments. I think that I have fized up the red links and reworded the hermit sentence so that it is more understandable. Thanks. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:36, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Anaerobic digestion

Hi Roger, thank you for your constructive comments on the anaerobic digestion article. I have withdrawn the article from fac at this stage and will be working on it further following Jeff's suggestion. Hopefully I would like to have the article renominated when it has matured further.

Kind regards--Alex 09:05, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: box

I got the user box from here, but then I used subst: just in case it ever got caught up in one of those mass userbox deletions. Sorry about the whole ENGVAR thing, I didn't realize it was part of a broader campaign. See, I really do think the whole purpose of ENGVAR is to avoid the very discussions you keep starting. In keeping with my belief, I'm just going to go back to writing an encyclopedia. Happy writing to you too! --JayHenry 01:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Ay Carmela.jpg

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If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it will be deleted within a couple of days according to our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 07:25, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Chinua Achebe

Sorry for not responding to the discussion on Talk:Chinua Achebe. I've been busy with school and other things lately.

As for the FAC, I will repeat here what I wrote there: Your words here are: "it seems churlish to withhold support on WP:ENGVAR grounds for what remains an extremely well-written article." I do not understand why you chose in the case of Chinua Achebe to oppose (not comment, but oppose) the FAC on the exact same grounds. – Scartol · Talk 14:19, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm genuinely sorry if I hurt your feelings as that was not my intention. In a nutshell, {{MoSElement}} on the Chinua Achebe was a line in the sand. Without that, I'd have approached this very differently. That said, though, there is a massive difference between Chinua Achebe and A Vindication of the Rights of Men so they do not bear direct comparison. Mary Wollstonecraft and her works is of much more specialist interest and will not have anything like the same audience. Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian national icon and the article will be accessed many thousands more times. It will be quoted in essays and articles. With flagship articles like this, it is important that the English variety is appropriate, not least for the Nigerian schoolkids will want to read about him with familiarly spelled words and not least because it demonstrates that Wikipedia welcomes diversity. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 14:46, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

As I've raised this on the FAC talk page, I'll copy these across there. 14:46, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

PS As this AmEng thing is clearly important to you, why not leave it as it is for the FAC and the featured article slot and then change the very few words that need tweaking in the New Year? --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 15:01, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

It's actually not very important to me at all – if you were to go through and change the items in the article, I probably wouldn't care at all. What is important to me is to be treated with respect, and I feel that a vote of oppose followed by "this is not optional" was a very harsh way of communicating your view. (Especially in light of the quote from VRM above.)

I'm sorry the MoSElement item was a line in the sand; that was never my intention. When writing the article, I included that template for one reason: consistency. I didn't want someone changing it from the style I was using. (Consistency is the only reason I even bothered making that template in the first place.)

I have been leaving this discussion as it is; that's why I haven't been responding either at the FAC page or the article's talk page. I'll be happy to discuss it with you further when I have some more time. Alas, this must be it for now. Thanks again for your attention to detail. – Scartol · Talk 15:10, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you kindly for the olive branch; I do believe you're operating in good faith, and I appreciate your work to make Wikipedia better. Once my work at school has calmed down a little (should be a week or so), I'll comment on the BrEng thing at T:CA. Cheers. – Scartol · Talk 12:20, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your thanks :) I also assumed good faith about your indifference to the national variety (hence the barnstar). While I will also assume good faith for the time being about things being busy for you (and will look after your legion of recent adoptees in the meantime if you like) is there actually that much left to discuss? And why is it likely to take up so much time? --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 15:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for thanking me for your thanks. I do believe there's a discussion to be had, and I'd like to give it my full attention once I've finished with some of the things of which I am in the middle. (I perhaps was hasty in taking on three adoptees; curse my instinct for teaching!) – Scartol · Talk 15:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

That should have ended my thanks, I think :) It's funny what you say about teaching ... as the son of two teachers, I can spot them a mile off. Something about the way you framed your messages left a clue :) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 15:35, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

(undent) As I said above, I do believe there is still a discussion to be had. I apologize if I gave the impression that I was going to make the changes you proposed. I was under the impression that you decided you didn't want to stand in the way of the FAC because of (as you put it on User talk:Raul654) "what is essentially a trivial matter". It would appear that we were both misunderstood, and I apologize again for my role in that. – Scartol · Talk 18:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, for an editor's point of view the physical changes are trivial. For a reader's point of view, they are very significant. This article is about Nigeria's greatest living writer. It will be accessed many thousands of times more than say A Vindication of the Rights of Men.For a flagship article, it important that the appropriate spelling variety is used, not least because Nigerian schoolkids who will want to see familiarly spelled words and not least because it demonstrates that Wikipedia welcomes diversity.--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 19:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Secondly, I changed from oppose to support because I believed we have resolved this on the basis of this diff. I gave you a barnstar on the basis of that (and as a way of saying that I was sorry I wasn't more diplomatic). You now say that this is not a resolution and we should discuss this after the FAC.--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 19:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I tried to be clear, but perhaps I wasn't. My point is this: If you want to go through and change it, I would be okay with that (given that I don't WP:OWN the article and it isn't very important to me – whereas clearly it is important to you). However, I disagree that such a change is necessary for it to be a Featured Article (or at all, really). I'm willing to go into more depth about my reasons, but – again – it will have to happen some other time. If you'd like to rescind your support vote, that is of course your right. I apologize again if I inadvertantly gave any erroneous impressions. – Scartol · Talk 19:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

The discussion over whether to respect WP:ENGVAR at all is a much bigger one (with all sorts of POV implications), so let's not go there :) What I will do is copyedit the article back to Commonwealth English spelling (lowest impact possible) in a few days.

Spelling variants (particularly in articles about national literary figures) are important because Wikipedia is multi-national. It is also reader-facing not editor-facing (see my discussion with WillowW above for clarification).--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 19:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Fine. – Scartol · Talk 19:57, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I see you've made the changes, and done some copyediting to boot – cheers for that. I wonder, however, about one instance where the spelling inside a quotation was changed: Achebe described this later as being ordered to "put away their different mother tongues and communicate in the language of their colonisers." WP:ENGVAR says that an exception to consistency is to be made for: "quotations (the original variety is retained);" Doesn't this mean the quote above should be left as "colonizers"? – Scartol · Talk 14:14, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Now fixed :) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 15:00, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you think – now that you've made the changes – it's worthwhile to notify Raul654? The discussion we had on his talk page ended in a truncated fashion; I don't want him to get the wrong idea about the status of the article. (I wish that process were a little more transparent, but on the other hand it's an incredibly demanding job; I don't know how he does it.) – Scartol · Talk 19:39, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry. Just see what happens over the weekend. :) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 19:51, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you indeed for the heads-up. Yay! Now I can send him a letter. Cheers. – Scartol · Talk 08:06, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I urge you not to contact Achebe. He may not be impressed. He's scathing if he dislikes something and if he thinks there's a patronising-black-writer-finds-his-roots sub-text (or whatever) all hell will break loose. He may also think that his essentially ironic remarks about using the language of the colonisers are being taken out of context.--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 09:55, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

PS. About the Italian typo: I will choose to ignore what you've told me, since it means that my entire project is wrong on every page. Besides, it was a translating website that gave me that spelling. Don't blame me – a robot told me to do it. =) – Scartol · Talk 08:08, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

In that case you have a couple of options. If anyone else picks it up, you can either agree that it's incorrect but insist that it is the normal usage in the idiolect of the village of "Senza Grammatica" where you undertook ricerca di campo (field research) or you can allude mysteriously to an hommage to Piero dell'Erudito, a contemporary of Dante Alighieri. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 09:55, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Re: Contacting Achebe – I don't really understand what he might object to. How do you know he's scathing and might cause "all hell to break loose" if he suspects there's a subtext he doesn't like? I don't seek to impress anyone, and I can't imagine a person of his stature reacting harshly to an article about himself, using sources to which he personally contributed. – Scartol · Talk 22:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Le Gris

I'm going to stop commenting now, in case it seems like I'm picking on that article. The trouble is that my particular specialist period at university was 1360–1460 (my thesis was on trade relations between England and Burgundy under Henry V; I nominated the article Jogaila at FA, though I don't usually write articles on my specialist period). This means that I can sense the problem a mile off here. I don't intend to deflate Jacky (though I know that is possible and it makes me nervous). What I really hope is that he/she will take the point and go on to write articles from only the best sources in future. If one does that, even a non-specialist cannot go too far wrong. You mention Wiglaf: now there's a case. Mike is not a specialist, and he makes that clear himself. Yet he knows exactly what good sources are, and by sticking to those (and attending carefully to comments at FAC), he writes superb articles. qp10qp 13:49, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Jacky is conscientious, works hard to produce worthy articles and is, I think, resilient. From reviews I read yesterday the book is faction (I'll be interested to see how it actually describes itself). I was puzzled by the inappropriate vocabulary and, like you, surprised by the detail. By comparison, only three scanty eye-witness accounts survive of Agincourt though, in contrast, much survives about Joan of Arc. Incidentally, is there a link between Jogaila and Anglo-Burgundian trade, other than them being contemporaneous? --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK

No, no link. I was referring to my larger specialism of 1360–1460. The only link I can think of is that both Burgundy and England often sent "crusaders" to fight against the Lithuanians. Henry V's father, Henry Bolingbroke, took part in one of the sieges of Vilnius. I don't usually edit in this period, because I want to extend my range of knowledge; however, I ventured into Poland and Lithuania because I never really looked further east than Bohemia when I was at university (I might check out late medieval Russia/Muscovy, too, some day).qp10qp 17:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, okay. I usually avoid writing about my, um, specialist areas (such as they are) to avoid Wikipedia becoming a busman's holiday, which amounts to be pretty much the same thing I suppose. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 15:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you've said everything (and very well), and I don't want to pile in. After all, this is just a hobby that we do for fun. Wikipedia's a tough learning curve, though. For example, I spent my first few months here adding accurate and sourced material WITHOUT CITING. A total waste of time, in retrospect. But I've gradually caught on. qp10qp 13:58, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Prince's Palace of Monaco

Thanks for commenting on the above. I have attempted to address you comments on the FAC page. Perhaps you would like to take a look. Giano 17:12, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks [3] my brain just won't see them. Giano 11:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I've had a go at tightening it up and will do more later. Scream if you think it's too extreme :) I don't normally !vote in FAcs I've had a hand in so I'll just leave it as Comment. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 13:45, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for all your help. Giano 08:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

My pleasure; it's been very interesting. I've spent loads of time in the area (near Grasse) and have always been interested in the military side of things. Thank you for researching and writing this fascinating piece.--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 08:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Some thankyou spam, glorious spam

Hey Roger, the milhist project has another admin. My rfa was successful closed with 58 supports. If i am honest i am rather humbled by the unanimous support and i hope to live up to everyones expectations! As always if you ever need any help, don't hesitate to ask. Thanks again. Woodym555 15:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Article Help

Roger, as a matter of fact, I could use some help in getting started. I haven't been able to figure out how to create a new article. I see some templates available but can figure out how to use them. I could use a tutor. Thanks.--The Founders Intent 17:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

No problems. This place is a nightmare at first :))

Anyhow, there are two ways to create a page (article). These example will create two sandbox pages for you to experiment with in your user space.

The first way is to search on exactly the article name you want, in this case "The Founders Intent/Sandbox 1". You'll get a message back saying that that article can't be found but asking if you want to create it. Then just click on the red text and an edit window will appear. You type into that and save. You have now created your first article page.

The second way is to create a link to a future article by typing [[The Founders Intent/Sandbox 2]] on your user page or wherever. When you press the show preview button, the article name will appear in the preview window in red. Click on it and you'll get an edit window. Type text into it and save. You now have a second sandbox page.

You apply exactly the same principles for creating articles in main space (ie the encyclopedia itself).

You can arrange to delete these sandbox pages at any time by typing {{db-author}} into them and saving. these will alert the administrators that you'd like them deleted.

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 19:20, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I missed the obvious as usual.  ;)--The Founders Intent 19:26, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

And so did I! I see you've already created Sandbox pages (blush) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 19:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Category:Land, sea and air operations of World War I

Would you happen to remember why we put the category at this name rather than at the typical Category:Military operations of World War I. (I was thinking of suggesting a rename to the standard form; but I vaguely remember that the naming had come up before, and so didn't want to reopen a can of worms if there's some big issue I'm forgetting about.) Kirill 07:33, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, to unambiguously embrace all arms and all operations. (Even US usage distinguishes between military and naval operations.) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 07:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The current structure is something of a mess, in that case, since none of the other categories make that distinction. (And if we try to stretch it further up the tree, we'll run into various non-combat operations and such that need an even broader name.) It's probably best to leave this alone for the time being, but it's something to keep in mind if we ever get to seriously moving forward with all of this "military" to "armed forces", etc. category renaming/restructing that keeps coming up. Kirill 08:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Which is why (I think) we left it alone last time :) I suggest we revisit this along with the armed forces discussion after Tag & Assess? (That's going well, by the way. Nearly 20,000 articles tagged.) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 08:14, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Yep, that seems like a good approach. It may be a good idea to draft up something coherent among the coordinators that we can then propose as a starting point for discussion, rather than doing the usual "does anyone have ideas for how to rename things?" bit (which doesn't seem to have led anywhere useful so far). Kirill 17:12, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Hamlet

Excellent work at Hamlet, but just to suggest that you don't concentrate too much on the "Dating" section, yet, because I'm about to propose some changes. AndyJones 14:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Andy. Thanks for the message. In that case, I'll plough through the reminder of the untouched stuff this afternoon and leave you a clear path! I was going to give it a second pass but that can wait til other editors have put right any snafus I've introduced. :)))) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 14:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Just to let you know:

• I think "Date" is resloved: at least for me. See Talk:Hamlet#Date
• See also the talk page section I've started: Talk:Hamlet#Roger Davies' Comments —Preceding unsigned comment added by AndyJones (talk • contribs) 11:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Haha, don't worry. After all, it's just "words, words, words" anyway, right? :) -- Wrad (talk) 17:05, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Lacan

No, sorry: I've looked into it, but unlike most Wikipedians I'm nowhere near a University so I'm stuck with the sources I have available to me here. The only one I have is Lynn Enterline's Psycholanlytic Criticisms, and frankly she doesn't say anything I can understand.

I think it was Wrad who wrote the phsychoanalytic section of the page, so may be the better person to ask. AndyJones (talk) 17:39, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Ard3 cites Marjorie Garber Shakespeare's Ghost Writers: Literature as Uncanny Causality (1987) on the subject. AndyJones (talk) 19:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Hamlet Cites

Can you have a look at the way I've done those first few cites and let me know if that's the right way to lay it out, in your opinion? If no, feel free to adjust and I'll use your alternative. I'm off Wikipedia for a few hours, from now. AndyJones (talk) 13:09, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Copied to the peer review, with comments about other citation possibilities mentioned :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

uncle/father etc.

I don't have a copy with me here, I'm afraid: but don't look too early: I think it's in the scene where Claudius confronts him after he murders Polonius. AndyJones (talk) 13:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

• PS I'll try to remember to look it up, this evening. AndyJones (talk) 13:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • No, I was wrong: I've found it. It's in Hamlet's exchange with R&G at 2.2.312-313: "But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived." AndyJones (talk) 18:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Andy. Very much appreciated. Would you have time to cast an eye over the newly-created Minor characters in Hamlet and flesh it out a bit please? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:07, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Wales national rugby union team

Hi. I have addressed all your comments as best I can (see here), but you obviously want a copy-edit from someone that hasn't been involved in writing the article. I always have heaps of trouble getting people to copy-edit articles, and the League of Copyeditors are always so bogged down I don't like to add to their problems unless absolutely necessary. So was wondering you you be able to copy-edit the article? Hopefully it's not too much work, and you clearly have the skills needed? Just let me know, thanks. - Shudde ^talk 19:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Dros urddas Cymru :) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 21:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

My googling skills tells me that means "for the honour of Wales"? Correct me if I'm way off! Thanks for the help, really appreciate it. - Shudde ^talk 21:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. Though my Welsh nationalism (such as it is) is entirely limited to supporting whichever team happens to be playing England. I'll do the copy edit tomorrow morning. Incidentally, this article already has my support. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 22:12, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Done (and incorporated a couple of points arising in the FAC, though some still need your attention). Feel free to revert anything you object to. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 14:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the copyedit. I have made a couple of changes, the main one being the notable players section renamed back again. I've also replied to Buc's comments where necessary. Thanks again. - Shudde ^talk 09:37, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Pleasure. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 19:59, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Could you take a look at the article Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and determine if it falls into the military history category? The basis for including the "Causes of World War I" as military history may also apply to it. I think you will find this article much better footnoted. Werchovsky 19:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Done. Not quite B-class. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 19:53, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

As I read the summary, the only reasons not to meet "B" class is that 1)Coverage and accuracy were not checked, 2)Grammar was not checked, 3) Supporting materials were not checked. How do we go about getting these checked? A copy of the supporting material for almost every footnote is in my computer as either a scanned image or as a word file (usually with the original language and english) if that will help....one of the books is not in the Library of Congress although it is quoted from by other authors such as Albertini. Frankly, I have authored and checked every footnote and gone as far as checking the footnotes to footnotes in the source material and discovered errors in "Documents Diplomatiques Francais III Serie 1911-14" and "The Road to Sarajevo" and made sure those errors stayed out of the article. Werchovsky 22:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I've corrected the items you brought up that I understand. There are some corrections you are requesting that I do not understand though and I responded in the discussion section to what you wrote. Werchovsky (talk) 07:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edit to this article was titled: "Recast to reduce iterations of terrorist. Characterized as "youths" - they were picked because youths would avoid capital charges". The word "terrorist(s)" was actually expunged from the article by the edit (although terror and terrorism are used once each quoting Cubrilovic's and Princip's testimony respectively). Was this your intention? Please pass on a reliable page citation regarding selection of the assassins on the basis of their being underage by Austro-Hungarian law; this runs counter to what I have read about the cyanide and Mehmedbasic.Werchovsky (talk) 19:01, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

There are numerous issues with using "terrorist" to characterise the three youths: (1) copyright problems with quoting the testimony (which is of dubious revelance to the article as a whole anyway); (2) doubts about accuracy of translation; (3) issues with significant shifts in meaning; and, most importantly, (4) Wikipedia neutrality questions. You acknowledge much of this on the talk page. You characterised them as "youths", incidentally: I simply used the word you had already extensively used in the article. The word "terrorist" is inappropriate: modern-day connations are completely different. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 19:20, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

• PS I entirely accept the edit summary was clumsy. It was done in haste and severely truncated to fit the available space. The intended thrust was: "They were recruited from youth groups and as youths would avoid capital charges." My apologies. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk

• PPS I've just checked and see I didn't take terror, terrorist or terrorism out of the direct quotations. Terror and terrorism are still there. You should also reinsert in the line you removed about funding and terrorism: it seemed entirely appropriate there. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 20:45, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

"Terrorist(s)": I take it the short answer to my questino is "Yes."? With regards to the reasons you gave to completely expunge the word "terrorist(s)" in reference to Princip, Grabez and Cabrinovic 1)Copyright problems can be addressed as you had previously suggested by paraphrasing and then just directly quoting key or controversial passages. 2)While one person did question the accuracy of translation of "terrorist", he produced no substantiation and indeed he made a series of false assumptions. Veljko Cubrilović's testimony showed he had a pretty good idea of what the word "terror" meant: politically, ethnically and religion inspired attrocities, destroying people's houses, murdering people's families, terroristic organizations, bombs, fear. Owings and Albertini are credible sources and hardly pro-Austrian. Any accusations of poor translation accuracy with respects to the word terror and its derivatives should be backed up or dropped. 3) If today we had people who intended to throw six bombs at a parade (and actually did throw one) for a political cause, an attack that they planned to commit suicide after (and indeed tried to do so) and were backed by a terroristic organization like the "Black Hand", and terrorized others by threatening to blow up houses, or kill all the males or everyone in people's families and they admitting to being adherents of terror or wanting to carry out terroristic acts to inspire an ethnic group to rise up against their government, they would fall into the modern usage of terrorist. If all that had happened was Princip shooting Franz-Ferdinand I would say the term "assassins" should be used to the exclusion of the word "terrorists" but there is a huge stack of additional acts and statements that define them at least in part as terrorists. 4) With so much evidence that they were "terrorists", to expunge the word "terrorist" represents non-NPOV or political correctness; a history of the victors. I only used the word "youths" twice referring to the three from Belgrade before we started editing together. These references were to events before they started on their journey to Sarajevo. I use "terrorists'" referring to their training and then when they were on their journey. I think unconsciously I made this break point as it has a rough correspondence to the law for when the crime of attempted terrorism would begin, but of course this line is ill-defined in the law and I think imperfectly done by me. The phrase "...modern day connotations are completely different." is an overstatement and as an overstatement it undermines the assertion it was intended to support.

Thanks for the apology. There are still some problems with the alternate edit title. Grabez, Princip and Cabrinovic approached Milan Ciganovic and through him Major Tankosic and put themselves forward to commit an outrage. While it would favor the Austrian position if we could say they were recruited, it is not quite the case. They don't seem to have been formal members of any youth organizations. Avoiding capital charges had nothing to do with the text of the edit. Perhaps you were aiming at the reason they are called youths is because they were not adults under Austro-Hungarian law, the land of their citizenship?Werchovsky (talk) 22:23, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Red Cliffs

Hi Roger — a MILHIST article, Battle of Red Cliffs is currently languishing with little comment at FAC.. If you have some spare time, I would be sincerely grateful if you could take a look and comment at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Red Cliffs... Feel free to Oppose if you want to; I'm not canvassing for votes. Thanks! --Ling.Nut (talk) 11:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I cannot tell a lie

Rupert Clayton did all of the work so far on Boydell Shakespeare Gallery. I was expanding John Boydell yesterday in preparation for doing more on the Gallery today, so I just moved that material to a different page. I will try to rewrite both articles in BE today to actually earn the barnstar you have so graciously given me. (I did change "Thames River" to "River Thames".) Awadewit | talk 20:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

• Whoops:) Well-spotted on the river though (the Thames river is in Australia, no?). I'll give young Clayton some sort of gong to make amends and look forward to reading your Shakespeare pieces. (Talking of which, I must tackle Lacan and Hamlet today, I keep putting it off. It doesn't help when the source I'm following opens by describing him as "impenetrably obscure" and continues by declaring that it's "almost impossible to summarize his work".)--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

• Don't bother reading Lacan himself - for the purposes of this little section of wikipedia, the pain is not worth it. Just read what literary critics say Lacan said. Trust me - it is good enough. No one will agree on what Lacan says anyway! Oh joy. Awadewit | talk 09:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
• Thanks, Roger, for the Invisible Barnstar, which I think I may already have misplaced. Despite my being guilty of the English spellings in Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, the bulk of the John Boydell material was definitely down to Awadewit, so she definitely deserves her gong. Rupert Clayton (talk) 22:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

• All of this apologizing back and forth is really amusing, especially in an encyclopedia that is not supposed to have authors! :) Perhaps the author is not yet dead. Awadewit | talk 01:55, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Simmaren and I are preparing to take our Jane Austen timeline live in the next few days. Do you have a few spare moments to check it over for BE? I changed two "governors" to "governours", but I couldn't really see anything else. My eyes must have started to glaze. Awadewit | talk 08:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

• Done and made a few trivial changes for aded BrEnglishness. Nice work and I loved the watercolour. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

• So funny. Governours isn't right! Thanks. It'll be up in a few days. Thanks - I like the watercolour, too. The other portrait we have of JA is kind of, um, unflattering. :) Awadewit | talk 09:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Naming convention proposal

Hi Roger. I think it would be alright if you placed your naming conventions propsal for spouses in the MOS, as it is supported by four users (you and I included) and opposed by none. Plus, I could really use it as something to cite my edits to Pat Nixon with. If it's too soon, that's okay, but it's a great amendment. Thanks, Happyme22 (talk) 01:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. Happyme22 (talk) 01:51, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

EngVar DIY conversion kit

(copied from my talk, which I'm gonna change to a redirect)..

I know you're busy but I've done a sortable list of common words requiring transmogrification into other English spelling variants. It covers all (plusa some) of the variants I've encountered on Wkipedia so far. It's here. Could you please take a look and add, delete or comment? The idea is to de-mystify EngVar conversion, as I'm sure fear of the unknown is the root cause of many disputes. Many thanks,--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Most of the ones you've listed are of the -or -our variety. Lists of conversion rules of thumb are all over the Internet & can be googled easily.. e.g. this one. But it is worthwhile to say something on the topic. Later! Ling.Nut (talk) 14:06, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Assessment help

Hi Roger,

Thanks a ton for all the help on the MILHIST assessment. I finished up one list of assessments. There is a small problem.. there are about 10 pages which I'm unable to decide whether they make the cut wrt MILHIST. I've put the list below and the reasons I couldn't decide on them. Tell me what you think of them, and I'll do accordingly. Thanks a ton

Cheers Sniperz11^talk|edits 14:46, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

List: from worklist #23

• Azimullah ^talk - Do we include all Gitmo detainees or would they be better served under Wikiproject:Terrorism?

• MH (US=yes)

• William H. Dana ^talk - Test pilot, served in USAF, but most work he has done is with NASA's experimental aircraft, rather than military testing. However, Richard F. Gordon, Jr. is under MILHIST.

• Not MH

• Comfort items - Again, I dont know if this should be in MILHIST.

• MH (US=yes)

• Kamp Schoorl ^talk -

• Not very informative, is it? Not obviously MH

• CIA drug trafficking ^talk

• MH (US=yes)

• Lü Bu ^talk - Too much like a chinese opera character. Didn't have many notable military achievements.

• MH (Chinese=yes) (He's a general, notable.)

• Haile Selassie ^talk - Had a big part in the defense of Ethiopia against the Italians, but he is not well known only for this.

• Agreed. Not obviously MH

• Gustav Schwarzenegger ^talk - Arnie's dad. Was a policeman and Nazi member, and served in the Army, but as an MP. I think we shouldn't include

• Agreed. Not obviously MH

• White Eyes ^talk - Was never a military leader, more of a negotiator and tribal leader

• Agreed. Not obviously MH

• Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi ^talk - Same as above- was never a military leader, only an inspiration. Much like Gandhi I guess.

• MH (Biography-yes|South-American=yes)

• Gerber Legendary Blades ^{[[Talk:|talk]]} - Use as a weapon has not been mentioned, nor as used by any Armed forces. Can we consider as a weapon?

• Agreed. Not obviously MH

Thanks.

Pleasure, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a ton mate. Sniperz11^talk|edits 17:13, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Assessment Help Redux

Hiya mate,

Part 2 of the help for assessment.. sorry for the trouble. Thanks in advance.

1. RAP4_(Real_Action_Paintball_Marker) - A Paintball marker designed primarily for law enforcement and military training. (My thought - Add)

Agree.

2. John_Jones_Maesygarnedd - brother-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. (My thought - Add)

Agree.

3. Sensitive but unclassified - Info Designation for Homeland use. Not directly military related. (My thought - Dont Add)

Agree.

4. John da Cunha - (My thought - Dont Add)

Disagree. WWII War Crimes & Diplock Court Judge {Biography=yes)

5. Colditz_Castle/Suggested_reading - Sub page of Colditz_Castle, which is eligible for MILHIST. What about this one?

Agree. {German=yes|British=yes|WWII=yes|Fortifications=yes} if nothing else

6. Silco incident - May not be under MILHIST... more suited to Terrorism(My thought - Dont Add)

Disagree. It could be {Terrorism} as well.

7. Peter_von_Danzig_(ship) - More of Piracy related. No military action in wars (My thought - Don't Add)

I've added it and tagged it WPSHIPS & WPMILHIST so you just need to delete it :)

8. Amphion (1778 ship) - Command ship of Swedish King in Russo-Swedish war. (My thought - Add)

Agree

9. United_Nations_Observer_Mission_in_Georgia - Also asked on the Assessment Drive Talk page (My thought - Add)

Agree

10. Massad Ayoob - Asked on Drive Talk page Is a civilian and Police instructor. Should not be MILHIST (My thought - Don't Add)

Agree

11. Benelli Nova - Civilian Firearm (My thought - Dont Add)

Agree

12. U.S._Reaction_to_the_Haitian_Revolution - More political, not really MILHIST. (My thought - Dont Add)

Agree

13. Tharcisse Renzaho - Not sure about it.

Agree. He's more of a politician.

14. FN PS90 - Civilian Variant of the PS90. Have asked on Talk page(My thought - Dont Add)

Agree

15. 506th Fighter Group - has been flagged for copyvio. (My thought - Dont Add)

Agree

16. Roger Q. Mills - Took part in Civil War. Cant decide whether to add or not.

Probably not. seems like a tangential issue

17. Fires on the Plain (film)- Does it qualify for MILHIST? Very similar to Letters from Iwo Jima, which is in MILHIST

I don't think so.

18. James Bernard, 4th Earl of Bandon - (My thought - Dont Add)

I don't think so either.

19. Marinus van der Lubbe - (My thought - Dont Add)

Agree.

Its a long list. Sorry for that. Thanks in advance. Sniperz11^talk|edits 12:35, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

No worries. My pleasure. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 14:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

But I'm a Cheerleader FAC

Hi, I was wondering if you could revisit the But I'm a Cheerleader article and see if you can see any other issues that need addressing. I have made a request for a copyedit at the League of Copyeditors, currently as a Good Article. If you think that a copyedit is the only thing needed for it to be promoted, then I could relist the request as a Featured Article Candidate. If you think there are other issues, it would be great if you could let me know. By the way, I have added some reviews from the gay press, which was another of your concerns. Thanks, --BelovedFreak 19:48, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. The bulk of my comments have been addressed and you've worked hard on this so I'll happily support. One of my objections to the text was the slightly clunky second paragraph of the intro. Perhaps something like this might work better?

Natasha Lyonne stars as Megan Bloomfield, an apparently happily heterosexual high school cheerleader. The problem is that her friends and family are convinced she's gay and arrange an intervention, sending her to a reparative therapy camp to cure her lesbianism. At camp, Megan soon realizes that she is indeed a lesbian and, despite the therapy, gradually comes to embrace this fact. The supporting cast features Clea DuVall, Cathy Moriarty, RuPaul, Mink Stole and Bud Cort.

Changing this is not a condition for support, by the way, and I'll be editing my FAC comments shortly. All the best,--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 20:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I think that your version reads better and have changed it accordingly. Thanks for your support. --BelovedFreak 20:35, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your original comments & support with this FAC. --BelovedFreak 19:13, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Adminship

Why is it that you are not an admin? If you want, I can nom you. Just a thought, respond here or my talk, I don't care as to which. <DREAMAFTER>^<TALK> 21:26, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks! And thanks for your contributions to Nancy, as well as the MOS amendment. It really helped us out. Best, Happyme22 (talk) 15:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the extra effort...

I was hoping to save you trouble as per this

To reduce administration in this situation, unless you request otherwise, only the Three Stripes plus the Tireless Contributor Barnstar will be awarded.

but thanks anyways for the whole set. --BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 16:31, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Whoops! I'd actually forgotten about that :) I've got them set up now as a simple cut and paste so it's no real work. You can always give your spare ones to charity :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk

So now it's actually more work for you to delete content vs. copy & paste.  ;) BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 16:40, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I suppose so, yes. I hadn't looked at it like that :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the resized presentation.  :) BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 16:58, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a ton

Thanks a lot for all the help with the Tag and assess. I'll not be able to assess any more articles for the next month or so, but once I return, I'll be happily bothering you with more assessment questions. ;-).

Anyway, heres a well deserved barnstar for your help and work in improving wikipedia.

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		In recognition of your tireless and most enthusiastic work in improving the sum total of all military knowledge, and in organizing the MILHIST Tag and Assessment Drive, and most of all, even in all this hectic work, both offline and online, you found the time to assess articles, as well as answer all our doubts. For that yeoman service, you deserve this Barnstar of Diligence. But that isn't enough. Hence, I, Sniperz11, by the power vested in me by no authority in particular, award you the Param Vir Chakra. Good Going, and keep up the great work. Sniperz11talk|edits 20:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC) File:PVC Medal.jpg

Thanks

I always try and be somewhat humurous, especially in a debate that is far more tense than it should be/needs to be. My mind is a scary place. Narson (talk) 13:23, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, seems just plain daft to me, though having posted I noted the debate was now 14 days old and the article appears to be at First World War/Second World War. Narson (talk) 14:08, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

To battle once more

Only fair to tell you the battle has broken out again at A Vindication of the Rights of Men. Let the games begin. :) Awadewit | talk 16:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 08:21, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

If you have a moment, perhaps you could BE-ise Jane Austen. We've decided to post the article early and enter the Core Contest (mostly because I need money). I would appreciate it if you could check back every once in a while and make sure no AE has crept back in. Awadewit | talk 13:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Done. No problems. Good luck with the contest! --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 15:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll let you know when we've added the "Style" and "Themes" sections. Awadewit | talk 15:10, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate

Hey Roger, long time no speak. Your comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive seems misplaced. Should it not be on WT:MILHIST? Woodym555 (talk) 11:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

YES! And that's where I thought I'd posted it (duh). Thanks for that, mate. Enjoying the mop? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

It has its benefits and its downsides. It means I can do most things unhindered now like page moves etc. Thanks for the Chevrons by the way, I feel honoured and want to thank all the coordinators! I am steadily plowing through all the VC recipients lists trying to create a few master pages. Taking a while though! Hope all is well. Woodym555 15:36, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Award

		The Literary Barnstar
		For your painstaking efforts to improve both the content and the prose of The Tragicall Hifstorie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, I award you this barnstar. Few would have ventured into such "brave new worlds" as Lacan and Co. simply for the sake of a section. Awadewit | talk 16:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXI (November 2007)

The November 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot 02:37, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Donation in a good cause?

Maria and I were wondering if you would be willing to donate $5 or $10 towards a Cervantes pot. We recently discovered that the Spanish wikipedia has FAs on a number of British and American writers and texts, but we have none on any Spanish-language writers or texts. So, we thought maybe a push at the reward board would do the trick. See our discussion here. Awadewit | talk 20:10, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

BE

Aren't you happy you volunteered for this? Reception history of Jane Austen has now gone live. If you could so kindly check it over for BE, Simmaren and I would be very grateful. Awadewit | talk 10:51, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

:) It's actually a pleasure.... --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Volunteer editor

I see you volunteer on many subjects. While it is outside your expertise (which in this case may be an advantage) I would appreciate your input on the article post-abortion syndrome in which the contoversy and opinions are so strong there has been open discussion (and implementation) of purging peer reviewed material that goes against the POV of many editors who object to the very idea that abortion may cause mental health problems for women. They have eliminated dicussion of over 22 sources. Many of the edits are totally without merit, and we need more editors involved to keep it reasonable.Strider12 (talk) 17:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for thinking of me. I'll think it over for a few days before deciding but it doesn't seem to me that too much is broken in the article. It's just got a bit strange in the intro. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 18:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look at it. While I agree the intro is slanted and awkward, in part I'm also asking you to weigh in on the discussion page. Strider12 (talk) 21:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Having thought it over, it's thanks but no thanks. I've got way too much on my plate to provide the intensive involvement that this will probably require and I'm not particularly interested in the subject matter. If it was a quick in and out, I'd do it but the augurs suggest a less auspicious outcome. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 17:23, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Re:Tagging

Thanks.. Well scho.l finsihed so I have plenty of time now so I'll try get few a huindred articles a dayy hopefully. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kyriakos (talk • contribs) 20:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: Something for you

Thank you very much! :-) Kirill 12:24, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Hindu-German Conspiracy FAC

Hello Roger, thank you very much for your comment on the FAC for the Hindu-German Conspiracy. Could you suggest an uninvolved editor who may be help with the MoS and language issue? Any other comment will be very helpful also.Rueben lys (talk) 16:23, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Pleasure! The usual route is the League of Copy Editors though they're generally stacked out. You could try approaching one of the people here. If you get really stuck, I can look at it but not for a couple of weeks, at least, I'm afraid. Good luck, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 18:37, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

You'll be pleased to learn that Maralia has agreed to copy-edit the article. She's very good but it'll be a day or so before she can start as she has another FAC article to finish first. In the meantime, you will need to provide some citations for the WW2 section of the article as there's an objection raised about this. (See the FAC discussion.) I suggest you ask the editor to tag {{cn}} the specific things he'd like referenced if you are unclear. Good luck, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 01:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou very much for the help.Rueben lys (talk) 10:13, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Re T in the Raj

I'll try and get that sorted, cheers :)Rueben lys (talk) 12:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Muzzy

Hi Roger, in the War of the Spanish Succession, the illustration regarding the Battle of the Vigo Bay reads something like "xxxx pounds were recovered", same thing in the Battle of the Vigo Bay proper article.

Does not recover imply that it was theirs before? that's what I thought this word means, but I am unaware if it has a different sense for the above particular usage. If the usual meaning is actually the only one (for this purpose), then "recover" would be wrong, as those goods had never been theirs. I'd say, then, either "plunder" or "loot" would be a more proper word, but I may be terribly wrong, so any other you think more proper (if not "recovered" itself) would be fine with me.

What do you think? • Mountolive ^{J'espère que tu t'es lavé les mains avant de me toucher} 18:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I think they're using "recover" in the sense of "get, obtain, collect" (shamelessly nicked from the Shorter Oxford) and it's fine. You'll start seeing this particular everywhere now :) Ciao, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 18:41, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I still think it's tricky vocabulary, but I guess looting or plundering sounds too harsh to be an option. If any came to mind, please edit. Otherwise, I'll assume "clean hands" then ;) Thanks, Roger. • Mountolive ^{J'espère que tu t'es lavé les mains avant de me toucher} 22:17, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

"Salvaged"? Nice and neutral. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 01:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: Youngstown Ohio Works

I recently requested a peer review for Youngstown Ohio Works, an article concerning an early 20th-century minor league baseball club. The article was rated B-class, but some reviewers suggested it's close to GA quality. Youngstown Ohio Works has been through one peer review, which yielded largely positive comments. At least one reviewer, however, raised concerns about the "Dissolution" section, indicating it was top-heavy with quotes. The article has been revised since then, but I know it would benefit from the feedback of a seasoned editor. I would greatly appreciate your recommendations. Sincerely, -- twelsht (talk) 19:46, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Roger, Thank you for your encouraging and helpful feedback. It shouldn't be difficult to beef up this article with additional material on the Ohio-Pennsylvania League. The old Spalding guides suggest that the O-P League was plagued by difficulties including uneven ticket sales and unreliable team sponsorship. The historical importance of the league is also worth mentioning. The Youngstown club produced a few players and officials who went on to the major leagues, but the O-P League as a whole produced many. I recently came across a newspaper article indicating that in 1906, the Youngstown club's players earned the highest salaries in the league--a detail that sheds light on the 1907 spat between the team's manager and its sponsors. All of this material should add up to at least 400 words. With luck, I should be able to revise and expand the article over the next couple of weeks. If you're in a position to give it a second look at that time, I'd certainly appreciate it. Thanks, again. -- twelsht (talk) 03:10, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Roger, Thank you for your last message! Your recommendations were EXTREMELY helpful, and I've acted on most of them. Over the past couple of days, I came across more information on the O-P League. I described the league's composition, and how it changed after the first season. Another item of interest was a league controversy involving player salaries. As you suggested, I filled out the article with references to other Ohio Works players (besides Castleton) and threw in a bit of local color, e.g., a riot that broke out during a game in nearby Niles, Ohio. Overall, the piece has grown by several hundred words. The most significant changes are in the "Dissolution" section, which was partially rewritten. One reviewer commented that an earlier version of this article devoted too much space to the Ohio Works' successors in Youngstown, while neglecting to track the team's progress in Zanesville. I dug up what I could about Zanesville, and the evidence suggests that the team's performance was mediocre. The manager's subsequent career, on the other hand, was rather interesting. He went on to sign future major league pitchers Stan Covaleski and "Sad Sam" Jones to their first professional contracts. As you can see, I was able to turn this piece around more quickly than I anticipated. I recognize that you may not be able to look at it immediately. When you have a chance, any recommendations to improve this article would be much appreciated. Thank you, again, for your help so far! Sincerely, -- twelsht (talk) 15:59, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Roger, No rush! In the interim, I'll add at least two paragraphs to the lead. Best, -- twelsht (talk) 17:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Roger, This is just a quick note to inform you that the peer review for Youngstown Ohio Works closed, and another member of the Youngstown Wiki Project nominated it for FA status. Earlier today, I acted on your recommendation to expand the lead into three paragraphs that summarize the article. Thank you, again, for the valuable feedback! Best, -- twelsht (talk) 22:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you very much for the news and the barnstar. I'm tickled pink. Impertinant I know but may I trouble you to write a citation for it referring to baseball that I can proudly display it in honour of my maiden contribution to the sport? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 00:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Award

		The Baseball Barnstar
		This Baseball Barnstar is a token of my appreciation for your help on Youngstown Ohio Works, a sports-related article that greatly benefited from your incisive comments. All the best, twelsht (talk) 01:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, also, for rescuing me from a life of awarding disembodied barnstars! Cheers, -- twelsht (talk) 01:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[Chuckle] and thanks again for the barnstar. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 01:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's a more fitting one! Thanks, again! -- twelsht (talk) 01:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Fabulous! Thanks, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:58, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

CSD Gerald Oram

Placed a speedy delete tag on Gerald Oram. Did not assert notability of subject. Feel free to drop me a line about it. Chromancer (talk) 00:30, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Award

In recognition of your diligent contributions towards the various reviews of military history articles, I am delighted to award you the Content Review Medal. Kirill 16:56, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Le Paradis massacre

I took your advice and nominated it for PR, thanks. Mattyness (talk) 18:34, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Arras (1917)

The sources backed up the old status so I moved it back. Woody (talk) 19:24, 13 December 2007 (UTC) 007 (UTC)

Thanks, again, for your support

I just wanted to thank you, again, for supporting the FA nomination of Youngstown Ohio Works. Earlier today, I learned that the article had been promoted. Please know that your recommendations played a decisive role in bringing this article up to FA standards. With appreciation, -- twelsht (talk) 02:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Hindu-German Conspiracy comments

Hello Roger. First of all, a lot of thanks for your comments in the Hindu-German Conspiracy FAC which unfortunately did not work out. However, I worked through article quite a lot today, taking into account Sandy's comments, and think I have done a (half-)decent job editing it. Do you reckon you will have time to look at some time and give me some comments on where it might fall short. I gathered language was the main (if not only) problem that stopped it from getting promoted. I plan to renominate it sometime soon. RegardsRueben lys (talk) 00:41, 16 December 2

Sure. Though it would be better if I waited until Maralia has finished copyediting it. Let me know when that's done and I'll gladly take a look. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that will be wise. Cheers.rueben_lys (talk) 17:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request Jimmy McAleer

Roger, I recently requested a peer review for Jimmy McAleer, a B-class sports biography that appears to be close to GA quality. This is yet another baseball-related article, though the subject matter is less obscure. Any recommendations to improve this article would be greatly appreciated! Sincerely, -- twelsht (talk) 06:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Good piece with little to fault on the writing side (though I have made a couple of changes, mostly for flow, creating a split infinitive) but McAleer comes over as slightly two-dimensional. You talk about him being colorful without fleshing this out with sufficient anecdote to bring him to life. Also, his personal life is curiously neglected. Did he marry? Have kids? What became of them? What happened to his money? Did he get up to anything memorable (bond drives etc) during WWI? Did he turn to drink? To fat? Is the McAleer home a Youngstown shrine? Is the house still standing? If so, photo? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 08:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! These are sound observations. I may have unconsciously modeled this piece on sports biographies that detail the subject's professional achievements while providing little or no data on his/her personal life. Unfortunately, it appears that McAleer's private life was rather bland. He was married twice and never had children. Moreover, his second marriage occurred toward the end of his life, well after the death of his first wife. (No scandal here.) His retirement was apparently just that. I can find no evidence that he played a significant role in Youngstown's civic life, a development that might have been expected, given his visibility. Still, the omission of such personal data was a mistake. I'll work it into the article. Sadly, you won't find a McAleer "shrine" in Youngstown, and his house is probably long gone. Youngstown is not a community with a strong sense of its own history, and the impulse toward preservation found in many other American cities is only starting to catch on here. Here are a couple dispiriting examples of what I'm talking about: The mansion of David Tod, the legendary Civil War governor of Ohio, was torn down in the 1950s, to make way for the local university's expansion. A similar fate befell the childhood home of movie mogul Jack Warner, which happened to be in the path of another university building project.

I'll get on this ASAP! Thanks, as always! -- twelsht (talk) 13:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

As you suggested, I included material on McAleer's personal life. I think the article sheds a bit more light on his personality. After reviewing the revised version, I sensed that McAleer was a more complicated figure than I first imagined. On the one hand, he conformed in many ways to the era's stereotype of a ballplayer--a brawler who didn't hesitate to make a point with his fists, or a bat, if one were handy. On the other, he was exceptionally well educated for someone of his generation. Nineteenth-century American high schools were the equivalent of early 20th-century universities, in terms of the percentage of the population enrolled. Some communities refused to fund them, dismissing them as elitist insitutions. McAleer not only attended high school; he also graduated. Further, he showed an early (and more than casual) interest in theater and later won the friendship of some fairly sophisticated people. Even his initial blunder with the Red Sox--the deliberate loss of a game with the Giants to bring the Series to Boston--was a rather clever ploy. His error resided in his failure to consider the feelings of his players. I think the piece is much improved, but please don't hesitate to make further recommendations! Thanks, as always, -- twelsht (talk) 20:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Hamlet Synopsis.

I agree. I've moved it over to the Hamlet page itself, with a link to my sandbox in the edit summary. All yours. AndyJones (talk) 13:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

MHA07

Am I supposed to keep the original #ing or does it matter? Plz respond on my page User_talk:Fleetflame. Thanx! Fleetflame (talk) 18:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Message from Indra

Roger, you made some comments referencing an article about me posted by someone called Athenaera. Why? I can't imagine that you were being deliberately spiteful, but that is what it sounds like. Explain? My email from Simon if you don't already have it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.50.79.157 (talk) 23:28, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[Chuckle] Hullo Indra :) They'd already zapped your edits as unsourced (see WP:BLP) and you're not supposed to edit articles about yourself (see WP:COI). I emailed you (indra at indrasinha dot com) back then to clarify this. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 12:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Talk:List of aircraft of the RCN

A tag has been placed on Talk:List of aircraft of the RCN, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G4 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be a repost of material that was previously deleted following a deletion debate, such as at articles for deletion. Under the specified criteria, where an article has substantially identical content to that of an article deleted after debate, and any changes in the content do not address the reasons for which the material was previously deleted, it may be deleted at any time.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the article (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on [[Talk:Talk:List of aircraft of the RCN|the article's talk page]] explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Somethings for you

		Military history service award
		For tagging and assessing 1000 articles in Tag & Assess 2007, by order of the coordinators I hereby present you with this Military history WikiProject Service Award. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For your fine work on 2000 articles in Tag & Assess 2007, by order of the coordinators I hereby present you with this Tireless Contributor's barnstar. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

As always, keep up the good work :-) TomStar81 (Talk) 18:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Pi Kappa Phi

Hi. I am looking for a peer review for Pi Kappa Phi It was suggested by Miranda and I was hoping you could help out with some general revisions to the article.

Thanks Storkpkp (talk) 20:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Slipknot (band)

Over the past week I have dedicated a lot of my free time to restructuring and bettering the article Slipknot (band) which is one of my favourite bands. I requested peer reviews and of which I have kindly received some. I found you on the peer review volunteers page and if you have the free time I was wondering if you could give the article a review/copy-edit as I am not the best writer, as you will probably see. Thanks in advance for any help you might contribute, happy holidays. Rezter (talk) 20:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh and could you kindly leave any comments about the article on the peer review page: Wikipedia:Peer review/Slipknot (band)/archive4. Rezter (talk) 20:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help

It's going much better now. Thanks very much! Fleetflame (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 04:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the barnstar! My first one :) Cheers from Poland, Ouro (blah blah) 20:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Francis Harvey

Thankyou for your support and contribution towards the FAC for the above article, it has now passed. Your attention here was gratefully recieved. Regards.--Jackyd101 (talk) 11:13, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Duck Soup peer review

I've now submitted Duck Soup for peer review in order to find out some better ways to improve the article's (and other Marx Brothers articles) quality. If you're interested in leaving feedback, you can go to the article's talk page and follow the link. Your comments are appreciated. Thanks. — Cinemaniac (talk • contribs) 03:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Done. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 14:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

WSC

I was wondering if I could ask you a large favour... screaming and running feet, general sound of terror, moaning and wailing. Well I would really like to make Winston Churchill an FA and I was wondering if you could give me a few pointers as to the way that I should go about it. Thanks! Harland1 (^t/_c) 13:16, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Good heavens! It's huge :) Firstly, you need to cut it down to about 9,000 words (it's currently running at about 14,000!) You can do this two ways: one is to hive sections off into sub-articles; the other is by condensing and removing redundancy. I'd recommend the later approach as it's not particularly economically written. Secondly, you need to work on the prose. Some problems come from flow, it's very choppy in places, the result of a succession of short sentences that don't quite follow smoothly from each other. In other words, it needs a vigorous copy-edit. I can work on both these with you, if you like, but as you've already got most of the raw materials in place it shouldn't be too painful (though you might be amazed at how long it will take).--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:52, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer of help, I don't want to take up your time to much, but if just now and then you could make a few suggestions and give me a few pointers that would be much appreciated, as you may have guessed I am fairly new around here and this would be my first attempt at any featured or good content. Thanks Harland1 (^t/_c) 18:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, no problems at all :) Good luck, and Happy New Year, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 19:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)