Talk:Treasure trove/Archive 2

Confusion about definition of treasure

I think that there is some confusion in this article about the definition of what constituted treasure under the old Treasure Trove law. I believe the distinction was not between lost and deliberately deposited objects but hinged on whether there was an intent to recover (ie votive offerings or grave goods were deposited with no intention of recovery but hoards buried for safekeeping would have been intended for recovery). I do not have any reference to hand to confirm this but perhaps someone else could follow up and edit accordingly. 81.157.14.74 19:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

 Done. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 02:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

English translation of Latin terms

Hi, can someone help translate the Latin phrases "vetus depositio pecuniae" and "jus commune et quasi gentium" that appears in the article? Thanks very much. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 03:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

ius commune et quasi gentium = "Common law, and, as if the people's".

vetus depositio pecuniae = "old deposit of money".

--Ioscius ^(talk) 03:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The legal meaning of "ius commune" is "common law" and "ius gentium" is "international law", so that the phrase can be construed as equivocating between the two. I would try to translate as "common law and/or quasi-international law". Such types of "law", despite the name law in english, are not actually laws in the sense of acts of legislation but the result of court tradition and common recognition of what is right in a particular case by the people. See also the english wiki article Roman Law--Rafaelgarcia (talk) 04:10, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

That's very helpful. I've updated the article accordingly. Once again, thanks! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 05:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Now that I see the context from the article, I should also note that the primary meaning of the latin word "ius" is in fact "right" in the sense of "property rights". While I think it is fine how you phrased the translation in the paragraph taking the terms in a legal contex, an equally good rendering that is closer to classical latin, and perhaps closer to the intended meaning, would be "...his right to the treasure trove became jus commune et quasi gentium (a common and quasi-international right)."--Rafaelgarcia (talk) 05:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Certainly Rafael is right. I confess I translated out of context, just from what was pasted in the Taberna. For the record, I think translating vetus as "ancient" is a bit excessive... They certainly had words for ancient: priscus, antiquus, etc., but they usually knew what they meant when they said it (a fact I have learned painfully, time and time again in school examinations).--Ioscius ^(talk) 05:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, have tweaked the wording. I used "ancient" because that was the phraseology used by Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, but if you think "old" is a better translation of vetus let's go with that. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 13:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Nice article!

Hi i just have to say nice article!! -anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.96.0.236 (talk) 03:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Lead image size

There is a minor disagreement about image sizing. I had specifically set the size of the lead image to 200px to be the same width as the infobox, to give consistency of format. Both logged in users, and those without wiki accounts would see the same thing - i.e. everyone.

Jacklee has repeatedly reverted this because it's not what he wants to see. Apparently setting the image to 200px makes it smaller for him - presumably because his preferences are set to display unspecified size thumbnail images as larger than 200px. This will make the image display at 180px for people who don't change their preferences, and for everyone who isn't logged in - the vast majority of wiki users.

I believe the default thumbnail size is in the process of changing to 220px, which will also be inconsistent with the infobox in this article.

I don't think it is sensible to format the lead image according to his specific account preferences. Rather, it should be consistent with the page layout at the beginning of the article for everyone viewing it. Also, the image doesn't really need to be particularly large, considering its subject. Hohum (talk) 14:38, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I did not revert your change to the image size because that is "what [I] want to see". You changed the width of the lead image to try and match the width of the infobox. Unfortunately, this will not work because readers view Wikipedia through different screens at different resolutions. The change that you made does not necessarily mean that other readers will see the image and infobox in the same way. In my case – and no doubt for other readers as well – whether before or after the change, the image width is wider than that of the infobox. All your change does is to make the image even smaller. Therefore, this is not a good reason for departing from the basic rule of thumb that the image size should not be forced. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:43, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

One of us is confused about how things are displayed on wikipedia, and I'm pretty sure it isn't me. I have just checked the page on three different browsers (FF, IE, Chrome), at multiple resolutions, and even on different monitors, and they 'all show the image as being almost exactly the size of the infobox when I manually set the thumbnail size to 200px, whether I am logged in or not. However, the way you have reverted code on the page, the image size varies depending on what I have my preferences set to when logged in, and smaller than the infobox when not logged in (because the non-logged in default for anyone is currently set at 180px). I'll remind you again that the bulk of wikipedia users don't log in, they just look at information.

Go look in your preferences and see what you have your default thumbnail size set to.

Hohum (talk) 00:19, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit: It's possible to get additional formatting discrepancies by using broweser options to grow or shrink text from the default, but it's impossible to cater to that here. Hohum (talk) 00:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thanks, I think you've identified the issue. I do view web pages with a slightly zoomed text size as I find this makes for more comfortable reading. That explains why I always see the width of the image as narrower than the infobox. However, why is it "impossible" to cater for the possibility that some readers will view Wikipedia in this way, or indeed for users who have set a particular image size in their preferences? Put another way, why is it so vital that the image width should match that of the infobox? I understand it may be necessary to force the size of an image when some details are too small to be seen comfortably, but in the majority of cases the default size caters to the needs of different readers. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

What I mean is, it's impossible to predict what zoom level people will set on their browsers, and wikipedia can't detect it and adjust other things to conform. Typically, wikipedia pages are formatted so that the widest audience sees them in a consistent way - which is what I was trying to do. If individuals want to alter their preferences or browser settings, that's up to them. If their settings are such that an image normally visible to a typical user seems too small, they can always click on the image itself.

It's not exactly vital either way, in this article, as I said at the start, it's only a minor disagreement. Hohum (talk) 19:48, 14 December 2009 (UTC)