User:Onofre Bouvila/Archive 1

Welcome
Discuss here

Re: Combatants list and stuff
Hi. Thank you for raising the issue of "Combatants" style on my talk page. Unfortunately, you are mistaken on several points. My explanations are set out below.

First, your talk of unilateralism is a bit misguided considering that my edits have been scrupulously in line with guidelines and practices defined by consensus, namely at WikiProject Military history. I'm more than willing to discuss the salient points with you, but be aware that you, not me, have been the one behaving unilaterally and at odds with the community. When you attempt to reverse established procedures used consistently in thousands of articles, I think the onus falls on you to discuss your changes before making them.

About the Spanish Civil War, I actually agreed with your push to simplify the bloated list of combatants, and I'm glad you forced the community's hand on this issue. My changes from your version were very minor; I introduced bulleted entries for the Soviet Union, Germany, and Italy, which generally denotes "supporting," or "subordinate to"; and I changed "Nazi Germany" and "Fascist Italy" to "Germany" and "Italy." The latter decision was arrived at, again, through discussion, which I urged you to read carefully. The main point can be summarized here:

The official name of the country during WWII was Deutschland (Germany), or Deutsches Reich (German Reich). "Nazi Germany" is tautology. The Nazi Party came to power in Germany legitimately (whatever our opinion of it may be), so it was the German government of the day. We don't usually refer to countries with the name of the party in power. I wouldn't refer to "Democratic USA" or "National Government UK" in battle boxes. I can understand a wish to distance modern Germany from the past, but the flag does that.

Secondly, it's important for you to acknowledge the purpose of the Battlebox and how incredibly unhelpful terms like "Austracists" and "Philippists" are to your average English reader. The Warbox was never conceived as an instrument to list every single combatant exhaustively. Its purpose is only to summarize the key points about the conflict. For instance, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Hungarian rebels both fielded far more troops than your Spanish "Austracists," but neither appear under "Combatants" because it would be terribly inexpedient to list every minor faction or statelet (as you yourself seemed to argue in the Spanish Civil War page). The fact that many Spaniards other than Catalans were at one time loyal to Charles of Habsburg is not something we can easily convey in the battlebox, nor should we even try.

Moreover, it's highly problematic to speak of "Austracists" and "Philippists" as two organized, well-drawn factions defined by contrasting ideologies. In reality, the loyalties of most Spaniards followed the fortunes of war and so were bound to change when the tide of victory turned. Almost all high officials and military personnel in the Spanish Netherlands mysteriously abandoned Philip and discovered an innate allegiance to Archduke Charles in the aftermath of Ramillies, for instance. And strangely, after Blenheim and Malplaquet, many had a change of heart and returned to the Bourbons. Quite a useful distinction we're making, isn't it? Also, whatever the problems there may be with the Catalan flag, the Crown of Aragon was the de jure governing institution in Catalonia until Philip V abolished it when he won the war. Therefore, in a list of combatants during the war, I see no reason not to use it.

Finally, combatants are typically listed in order of their contributions to the conflict, numerical or otherwise. Alphabetical listings are expedients usually reserved for long lists where such judgments would be complex and liable to lead to controversy. For example, the few main allies, like Austria and Britain, may be presented alphabetically, but France should always appear before Bavaria.

I do not think I am the bringer of all knowledge; I am merely an editor who tries his best to follow the style guides that have been discussed and agreed upon. And on this point it appears I've been a bit more diligent than you.

Cheers,

Albrecht 16:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, well, in the case of the Spanish Civil War it's pointless that you put "Germany" and "Italy" as combatants, because these names link to the modern day countries. Maybe they didn't call their country "Nazi Germany" or "Fascist Italy" by those times, but everyone knows these countries in that period with these names, and actually there are articles named Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy that show what these countries were by those times, and they were a different thing than what they are today. And putting this in the combatants list is much more clarifying than putting the modern day countries, because it wasn't the Federal Republic of Germany who fought the war, it was the Nazi Germany, and the same with Italy. Or take the example of Russia: you don't put Russia in the article because it wasn't just Russia who fought the war but the whole Soviet Union. So what I did wasn't wrong, and you can't disagree with terms like "Nazi Germany" or "Fascist Italy" because they are vox populi and a proof of this is that, as I said, they have their own articles.

Then you put Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union as "subordinated forces" of the Second Spanish Republic // the Spanish Nationalists. Well, they were not a branch of the spaniard factions, they were allied powers, and I think it's much more clarifying if you put in the combatants list "Second Spanish Republic" vs. "Spanish Nationalists" and then "With the support of:". With the way you did it, putting them as "subordinated forces" it seems that they were sub-factions of the main combatants. Anyway it was much more wrong before I changed the combatants list some weeks ago: someone had put the trade unions and the international brigades and more stuff that was totally wrong. And by the way, linking the "Spanish Nationalists" to "Spanish State", or directly putting "Spanish State" in the combatants list is not very appropiate because the Spanish State came after the Republic was defeated, and if you directly put it in the combatants list you are legitimating and giving official recognition to a bunch of rebels who did a coup d'état. The real Spanish State of those times was the Second Spanish Republic.

Then you say that we should remove "Austriacists" and "Philippists". I don't think so, because putting that not only shows which were the factions of the war and helps to clarify the conflict but it is also a way to include all those supporters of one or the other faction that fought because they believed on the cause, but were not flagged under any combatant state. And they were hundreds of thousands just in Spain. In addition, this is the name that has been always given to the factions of the war, here in Spain, but I can understand your ignorance about this as you seem to be an anglo. It's almost offensive not to mention the austriacists and philippists (or borbonics, or however you wanna call them) who fought the civil war in the Spanish territory, because it was a civil war, and sometimes it seems that this war was just fought by the british. And about putting the Crown of Aragon maybe it's okay, I had consulted wrong sources. But if you don't put "Austriacists" and "Philippists" you are removing from the history all those individuals who fought for one side or for the other.

Onofre Bouvila 01:51, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your reply. However, I don't see much of substance in it that would justify the position you've taken. Rather than carry our problems to their solutions, you seem to be trying to fortify yourself behind a decision you reached earlier.


 * Regarding the Spanish Civil War, the only thing pointless is your apparent desire to condense the entire article into the Warbox. Again, this template was designed as a summary of data&mdash;such as which countries actually fought&mdash;and not a description of foreign policies or political systems. The whole world in those days called these countries "Germany" and "Italy"; "Nazi Germany" and "Fascist Italy" are terms invented later by propagandists and historians, and are of little use to someone looking at a glance to clarify which countries fought on which side. (Moreover, the little, Swastika-ridden flag should make it abundantly clear to anyone that this wasn't the Federal Republic of Germany.) Your article on "Italian Fascism" describes the evolution of a social and political movement in Italy and defines its ideology. These distinctions are for the body of the article; the Warbox only needs to tell you that it's that country in the Mediterranean shaped like a boot. And your Soviet Union example falls apart when you realize that Russia was only one constituent republic in a union of many states. Your method would be analogous to calling the Soviet Union, "Communist Soviet Union," after the party in power, or linking it to "Marxism-Leninism," "Bolshevism," or something equally off topic.


 * I'm afraid your argument about the bulleted lists is neither here nor there. "Subordinate" is obviously meant in terms of the scale of the forces, so you can drop your semantic objections. Beyond this, you are wrong in supposing that Franco set up his state only after he won the war. The Spanish State was in fact established in 1936 and could boast a national economy, a film industry, overseas credit and subsidies, and foreign relations by 1937. Whatever your political sympathies, this is a fact of history. And like you said, I'm only an anglo (actually a Québecois, but no matter), so why would I care to legitimize or give recognition to a bunch of long-dead Spanish rebels?


 * When you say that "Austracists" and "Philippists" help to clarify the conflict, I would ask, "to whom?" Surely, no one, without reading the article, would know what those terms mean. (And those who already know surely don't need a reminder). You should also realize that mixing flags and coats of arms in the Warbox scores us no points for presentation. Your talk of ignorance, also, is unappreciated and extremely ill-put, considering that to this point I've proven to be a lot more informed than you. I've read enough about the Spanish theatre to know that hundreds of thousands of combatants on either side far exceeded the actual size of operations. And in any case, the Bourbon supporters fall under the combatant "Kingdom of Spain." (Next to which you'll find the Bourbon flag.) The Catalan Habsburg supporters fall under "Crown of Aragon." What little remained was not much more than a collection of political opportunists who tended to change sides rather frequently. So none of this explains why you continue to speak of "Austracists" and "Philippists" as immutable factions. Albrecht 15:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * About the problem with the combatants of the Spanish Civil War, there are two ways to do it:


 * 1) You put Germany linked to Nazi Germany and Italy linkted to Fascist Italy.


 * 2) You directly put Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, linking to the articles with the same names.


 * Both options are correct. Maybe using the words Nazi and Fascist is redundant like you said, but it is redundant only when you are already linking the countries to these terms through the articles that make reference to the situation of Germany under the nazism and Italy under the fascism. It is not redundant but completely necessary when you are linking Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy to the Italian Republic: because that is what you did, and it is wrong; what do you say to that? You don't regonise your own mistakes. In addition, it emphasizes on the strong political character of the war (freedom against tirany, reason against dogmatism, a free republic against a totalitarist and fascist state).


 * So we can argue what is better: if Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy or Germany (linking to Nazi Germany) and Italy (linking to Fascist Italy), which is clearly the same (instead the terms Nazi and Fascist may be redundant in the first case). But we cannot argue if Germany and Italy, which are linking to Federal Republic of Germany and to Italian Republic, are more appropiate than what I did, because these terms are wrong. And that's what you did.


 * I didn't make any historical mistake when I put Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, but you did when you put Germany (linking to Federal Republic of Germany) and Italy (linking to Italian Republic).


 * That was the first point.


 * Then you say that the case of the Soviet Union is different. Well, it is not, because it is right that while Soviet Union was the official name of country by those times, Germany and Italy were not called Nazi and Fascist oficially. But when you are calling them with these names, you are capturing the characteristics of these countries during the 30s. The territories that Germany and Italy had during that period were much different than the territories they occupy today. For example, if you just say "Germany", you don't show that Königsberg was a part of Germany. They were the same countries, but much different. And to show this difference it's much more clarifying to put Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in the combatants list than Federal Republic of Germany and Italian Republic, which is what you did. And don't come with stuff like that saying "Nazi Germany" is the same than saying "Marxism-Lenninist Russia" or something like that... it's obvious that Nazi Germany is vox populi and defines the state of Germany during those times, while "Marxism-Lenninism" defines a political theory that may be applied to multiple situations... so what you are saying is pointless.


 * Then you say that "Subordinate is obviously meant in terms of the scale of the forces". Well, subordination is what it is; in the Second World War article, the US had x10 the forces of UK and UK is not in a sublist under the US. Anyway it's much more clarifying if you put "With the support of", because you show that the two real combatants were the Second Spanish Republic against the Rebels, while the other forces were unidirectionally helping the two mentioned factions. Putting all the combatants at the same level means that all the combatants of the first faction fought against all the combatants of the second one, and it is not so. And using the sub-bulleted list shows subordination. And as I don't think there is any "special symbol" to show "unidirectional support" (like the bulleted list showing subordination) I think the best that can be done is to write "With the support of", which is what I did.


 * And about the "Spanish State", it is wrong to say that the combatants of the war were the "Spanish State" against the "Second Spanish Republic": "Spanish State" not only refers to the state that Franco created, but it is also a way to define the structure in which the country is organised; and this structure, in 1936, was a Republic. Putting them at the same level creates a conflict of legitimacy: you are generating two legitimate states for Spain: (1) a Republic and (2) a totalitarist state (which was then named "Estado Español" and to which you are  awarding official recognition, a thing that did not have in the bulk of the international community). If they had not won the war, you would never say that "the Spanish State fought against the Republic", because the only state that everyone would recognise when talking about that period would be the Republic. Moreover, no one says that the Spanish State fought against the Republic; a bunch of rebels, did a coup d'état and after overthrowing the legitimate government they created their own state. Finally, when you are generating two states for Spain in the combatants list you are confusing the reader, and it must be clear that Spain had a legitimate state (the Republic) that was overthrew by the rebels that then created what they called El Estado Español.


 * And finally, about the War of Spanish Succession it's okay that the catalan austriacists fall under the Crown of Aragon but as I said there were austriacists and philippists (or borbonics) both in Castile and the old Crown of Aragon, and if you don't use the term Philippists you are missing the hundreds of thousands of individuals who supported the Bourbons, and if you don't use the term Austriacists you are missing the hundreds of thousands of Austriacists that were outside of the Crown of Aragon. Furthermore, when you are linking these terms to the articles of the aspirants for the crown, it's totally clear what do they mean. And it's not pointless to mix flags with coats of arms, because the factions of the war were about two kings, and each one had his own coat of arms, and the people supported the individual more than a nation or a state. It was a civil war, and the civil wars are not so simple. When you, from your personal point of view, disdain these issues, and call the people who fought the war in Spain "a bunch of opportunists" and reject to mention them in the combatants list you are not only being historically unaccurate but also showing a lack of respect for what happened here. And the fact that you had never heard about terms like "Philippists", "Austriacists" or "Borbonic" shows that you are not as well informed as you think.


 * All in all, I agree that the stuff of the combatants list must be simplified, but it cannot be done from a distant, partial, simple and simplifying point of view like yours. You rudely disdain important issues that must be considered.


 * Statements like "the Warbox only needs to tell you that (Italy) it's that country in the Mediterranean shaped like a boot show your high level of reasoning.


 * Onofre Bouvila 00:18, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Let me clue you in on something, chief: Franco won. And even if his side had lost, it would still be more proper for us to use the name they called themselves than to come up with post-facto demonising labels. We're not in a position to judge whether a combatant is an "extremist insurgent" or a "hero of national liberation." Were the Fenians who invaded Canada "terrorist dupes" or "Erin's noble crusaders"? Who can say? That's why we don't rely on the consistency or veracity of any group's description. So you can continue to smother my talk page with talk of "freedom against tirany, reason against dogmatism, a free republic against a totalitarist and fascist state," but when you pollute the articles with your biases, we have a problem.


 * Judging from your comments above, there's obviously nothing to be heard from you on this point besides the rote tirades of an outraged nationalist. Unfortunately, I'm more concerned with arranging these articles in conformity with the guidelines of WP:MILHILST than with debating the legitimacy of the Franco regime. So, what I would suggest is this: Go convince the editors of "American Civil War" to change "Confederate States of America" to "southern rebels and traitors," and then I'll be happy to hear your case. Get going, and good luck.


 * Your point about linking to Nazi Germany is understood. But in your zeal to specify regimes with minute historical precision, you've closed your eyes to some pretty severe restrictions and limitations to your approach: sometimes, articles on the former country do not exist. "Fascist Italy" does not link to a former country, but to a political and social ideology. In these cases, it's universal practice to link the combatant to its current successor state. And it's patent sophistry to claim that the word "Fascist," by itself, gives any indication of how Italian foreign policy affected the course of the war. It doesn't. No reader will infer the political programmes of Hispano-German relations from the word "Nazi," nor is it the purpose of the Infobox to describe them. Likewise, your argument on the basis of territorial differences doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny: Canada is today the same constitutional state as it was a hundred years ago&mdash;notice anything different? Now, if you'd consider adding substance to the article instead of just screwing around with the Warbox, you might be able to touch on the subject.


 * It's strange, I've done a lot of reading on the War of the Spanish Succession, (maybe not as much as our friend Raymond Palmer, but enough), but I must have skipped the part where hundreds of thousands of Spaniards fought on either side (Spanish generals had trouble scraping together armies of 10,000-20,000). Perhaps you could point me in the right direction, amigo? In brief:


 * You can go ahead and claim that I'd never heard of these terms. Or you can listen to what I actually said, which is that they mean nothing to the average Anglophone reader. Like it or not, this is an article on a major European war in an English-language encyclopedia, not a treatise on Spanish dynastic history.
 * Even if one were to recognize these factions as coherent political entities (which, as explained above, is extremely problematic&mdash;they were morphous monarchical loyalties and nothing more), they would be far fewer in strength than many other states that are not represented, i.e. Prussia, Hungary.
 * Throwing coats of arms in with flags looks ridiculous.
 * "Kingdom of Spain," with a Bourbon flag, represents 90+% of Bourbon supporters, while "Crown of Aragon" represents 70+% of Peninsular Habsburg loyalists.


 * Albrecht 20:50, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Let me clue you in on something, chief: Franco won. And even if his side had lost, it would still be more proper for us to use the name they called themselves than to come up with post-facto demonising labels. We're not in a position to judge whether a combatant is an "extremist insurgent" or a "hero of national liberation." Were the Fenians who invaded Canada "terrorist dupes" or "Erin's noble crusaders"? Who can say? That's why we don't rely on the consistency or veracity of any group's description. So you can continue to smother my talk page with talk of "freedom against tirany, reason against dogmatism, a free republic against a totalitarist and fascist state," but when you pollute the articles with your biases, we have a problem.


 * Judging from your comments above, there's obviously nothing to be heard from you on this point besides the rote tirades of an outraged nationalist. Unfortunately, I'm more concerned with arranging these articles in conformity with the guidelines of WP:MILHILST than with debating the legitimacy of the Franco regime. So, what I would suggest is this: Go convince the editors of "American Civil War" to change "Confederate States of America" to "southern rebels and traitors," and then I'll be happy to hear your case. Get going, and good luck.


 * Ok, I've already discussed with you about this and you seem not to understand it. Calling the fascist combatants of the Spanish Civil War article "Spanish State" is simply stupid, because what they called "Spanish State" was something they created when they had overthrown the Republic. But when you are talking about the war, you can't say that it was the "State" against the Republic because the Second Spanish Republic was itself the state. I have already told you this, and it's quite obvious; are you kidding me?


 * Here you have the constitution of the Second Spanish Republic. You can see that the words "Spanish State" appear 9 times in the text. How can you say that the "Spanish Republic" was fighting against the "Spanish State", if the Republic itself was called "Spanish State"?


 * And this is not the same case as in the American Civil War: the Confederated States of America were a group of confederated states in opposition to the United States of America, which were another ones. The confederates didn't say they were the American state: they took their part of the country and they segregated from the whole.


 * By the way you also mention the WP:MILHILST policy. If you go to WP:MILHILST/MCI, you can read "combatant1/combatant2/combatant3 – optional – the parties participating in the conflict. This is most commonly (not always) the countries whose forces took part in the conflict; however, larger groups (such as alliances or international organizations) or smaller ones (such as particular units, formations, or groups) may be indicated if doing so improves reader understanding".


 * So all this is totally pointless. You are not right. You are wrong. What can I say if you don't even assume such simple things?


 * Your point about linking to Nazi Germany is understood. But in your zeal to specify regimes with minute historical precision, you've closed your eyes to some pretty severe restrictions and limitations to your approach: sometimes, articles on the former country do not exist. "Fascist Italy" does not link to a former country, but to a political and social ideology.


 * Fascist Italy links to this:


 * "Italian fascism (in Italian, fascismo) was the authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini".


 * Italy links to this:


 * "Italy (Italian: Italia, IPA: [i'taːlja]; officially the Italian Republic; Italian: Repubblica Italiana, IPA: [ɾe ˌpubblika ita 'ljaːna]) is a country located in Southern Europe, that comprises the Po River valley, the Italian Peninsula and the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia".


 * You must be blind if you don't understand the first one is the correct one.


 * In these cases, it's universal practice to link the combatant to its current successor state.


 * Huh? Where is that stated?


 * And it's patent sophistry to claim that the word "Fascist," by itself, gives any indication of how Italian foreign policy affected the course of the war. It doesn't. No reader will infer the political programmes of Hispano-German relations from the word "Nazi," nor is it the purpose of the Infobox to describe them.


 * Not only it gives an indication of how the Italian foreign policy affected the course of the war but also links to the absolutely clear sentence that I mentioned above: "Italian fascism (in Italian, fascismo) was the authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini".


 * Likewise, your argument on the basis of territorial differences doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny: Canada is today the same constitutional state as it was a hundred years ago&mdash;notice anything different? Now, if you'd consider adding substance to the article instead of just screwing around with the Warbox, you might be able to touch on the subject.


 * Ok, you seem to be kidding me again. So you are comparing the extense of an Empire with the different reforms that Canada has performed on its internal provinces?


 * It's strange, I've done a lot of reading on the War of the Spanish Succession, (maybe not as much as our friend Raymond Palmer, but enough), but I must have skipped the part where hundreds of thousands of Spaniards fought on either side (Spanish generals had trouble scraping together armies of 10,000-20,000). Perhaps you could point me in the right direction, amigo? In brief:


 * First of all two things: I don't know who is Raymond Palmer and I'm not your amigo. After this:


 * 1. You can go ahead and claim that I'd never heard of these terms. Or you can listen to what I actually said, which is that they mean nothing to the average Anglophone reader. Like it or not, this is an article on a major European war in an English-language encyclopedia, not a treatise on Spanish dynastic history.


 * Your lack of information about the article is not my problem. I have listened to "what you actually said", and your statement "they mean nothing to the average Anglophone reader" strongly violates the WP:NPV. In addition, remember that you are not an anglo, you are québécois.


 * 2. Even if one were to recognize these factions as coherent political entities (which, as explained above, is extremely problematic&mdash;they were morphous monarchical loyalties and nothing more), they would be far fewer in strength than many other states that are not represented, i.e. Prussia, Hungary.


 * WP:MILHILST/MCI: "combatant1/combatant2/combatant3 – optional – the parties participating in the conflict. This is most commonly (not always) the countries whose forces took part in the conflict; however, larger groups (such as alliances or international organizations) or smaller ones (such as particular units, formations, or groups) may be indicated if doing so improves reader understanding."


 * 3. Throwing coats of arms in with flags looks ridiculous.


 * OH RLY?


 * WP:MILHILST/MCI: "smaller groups (such as particular units, formations, or groups) may be indicated if doing so improves reader understanding": if these groups do not have a flag, because they don't belong to a country or a nation, but they are fighting for an individual (such as a king), what's wrong with adding the coat of arms of this individual?


 * Anyway WP:MILHILST just mentions the word "flag" once, and says that "in general, the use of flag icons is not recommended", while WP:MILHILST/MCI doesn't even mention the word "flag".


 * So as you can see, WP:MILHILST gives a lot of freedom in all these matters and it is not so strict as you want to make it look like.


 * 4."Kingdom of Spain," with a Bourbon flag, represents 90+% of Bourbon supporters, while "Crown of Aragon" represents 70+% of Peninsular Habsburg loyalists.


 * Again, OH RLY?


 * As I and my good friend WP:MILHILST said, "smaller groups (such as particular units, formations, or groups) may be indicated if doing so improves reader understanding".


 * Anyway, to conclude: it's totally pointless to discuss with you. My edits in all these matters are correct, when I edit the articles I always create a topic in the talk page and if you have any problem with it I also come to your talk page and I justify my position. The fact you don't want to accept all this is not my problem. We've been discussing about these issues for too long, and I'm tired of it. In the conversations we've had I always replied the problems you raised, and you still not understand it. I just upgrade the articles, adding additional information and explaining and clarifying lots of issues, and all what you do is to revert my changes in these matters taking WP:MILHILST like a preacher takes a Bible, with the difference that while the Bible probably supports what the preacher is saying, while WP:MILHILST does not support you. So you can keep trying to revert my edits, but you won't get anything because like a cucumber, I will keep my WP:SC attitude, and will keep changing the articles again and discussing about it in the talk pages.


 * And here ends this discussion, because since right now, I will definately ignore your complaints and keep doing my own way.


 * Onofre Bouvila 01:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair use images
They are not on Commons. No fair use images can be uploaded to Commons since they must have a free license. The covers are under fair use and cannot be displayed on user pages per WP:FAIR, section 9.Thunderbrand 19:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok well, you hadn't specified the section. Onofre Bouvila 01:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for removing them. I appreciate it. Thunderbrand 04:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Ripoll (river)
Thanks for creating the article Riu Ripoll, but I'm not sure that that is the best title for it. We tend to translate the word for "river" into English unless we really have to leave it in the original language, so River Ripoll, Ripoll river etc would be better (or the version which I chose, given in the section title).

No, no sóc català! (però vivo en Capellades tres mesos per any)... Physchim62 (talk) 16:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Sento haver fet canvis de categoria sense discutir-ho. Però en general és criteri de WP no duplicar innecessàriament les categories. Si el Ripoll és a la cat Rivers of Catalonia no cal que sigui a les demés. El que hem de procurar és que aquesta categoria es pugui trobar on toca (que no sempre és fàcil). Jo diria que el titol hauria de ser Ripoll River, per no confondre'l amb la ciutat. Salut! --Joan sense nick 00:43, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Què vols que et digui... a mi em mola com està. Lo de les categories és un lio, perquè n'hi ha milers, potser desenes de milers, i és impossible saber si una està dins d'una altra, o com va tot (bé, impossible no és, pero vamos... és un cacao). Per això opto per fer el següent: si tenim un arbre de categories del tipus:


 * Categoria 1 - Categoria 1.2 - Categoria 1.2.5 - Categoria 1.2.5.3 - Categoria 1.2.5.3.12 - etc


 * Aleshores opto per posar les categories més significatives:


 * Categoria 1 - Categoria 1.2 - Categoria 1.2.5 - Categoria 1.2.5.3 - Categoria 1.2.5.3.12 - etc ---> Per exemple...


 * El criteri de la Wikipèdia no me l'ha explicat ningú (bé, tu i uns quants més, pero vamos...), però el que és clar és que lo de les categories és extremadament confús. Per això poso les més importants i ja està. Si les categories anessin bé, no hi hauria N pàgines amb llistes dels rius més importants, etc.


 * En resum, que penso que així ja està bé, ressaltant les categories més significatives i ja està. De fet si t'hi pares a pensar, tal i com ho dius tu, dins la categoria Rivers of Europe, per exemple, no hauria d'haver-hi cap riu, perquè tots fittegerien dins de subcategories més específiques, però llavors és que tampoc té cap gràcia... Onofre Bouvila 00:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Fes un cop d'ull a això: Wikipedia:Categorization. És una mica embolicat, però això és una enciclopèdia, i hi ha unes certes estructures, fruit de llargs i treballosos consensos, que no es poden ignorar així com així. Més fàcil és mirar-te com estàn indexats la resta de rius del mon (o la majoria), començant per la categoria Category:Rivers i anar fent. Salut. --Joan sense nick 01:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok weno, treuré algunes categories, però xq vegis lo que et dic, mira't l'article del Thames, fins i tot articles tant rellevants com aquest presenten aquest tipus de categorització que jo et deia: està al mateix temps dins la categoria directament de Rivers of England i a 4 o 5 subcategories de rius de regions d'Anglaterra, que es troben incloses dins la categoria de Rivers of England. L'article Amazon river, tres quarts del mateix: es troba dins d'una categoria anomenada Amazon que al mateix temps conté una altra anomenada Amazon Basin, on també s'hi troba l'article Amazon River, etc, etc, etc. Sé que és una enciclopèdia però el que vaig fer tampoc és res de l'altre món, és força comú. Onofre Bouvila 14:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Com vulguis, no voldria ser tan plasta... Només t'ho vaig comentar perquè em sembla que ets força nou aquí, però molt actiu, i perquè quedava una mica freak que l'únic riu amb article a la categoria Category:Rivers of Europe fos el Ripoll. Fixa't que el Thames surt a rius anglesos, que és la referència, i a categories menors, però no a cats. superiors.
 * Pel que fa a la Guerra de Sucessió, no acabo d'entendre exactament quina és la teva posició: el que defenses és que els 2 bàndols tinguin un nom identificable? No sé prou història per refutar les opinions del debat obert...
 * salut i bona feina! --Joan sense nick 23:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Ancient Iberian Tribes
Hello Onofre Bouvila! It was me, in fact, who created a lot of the stubs on the ancient peoples of Iberia (I'm Portuguese, by the way), hoping they will be expanded some day (some have already been: see the Celtici] or the [[Conii] articles). Regarding your proposal... Well, there is some merit to it, but I must tell you that I already think there is a lot of confusion with Categories and such. Instead I'm creating a page/article called [[Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, wich consists of an organized list of all the peoples of Iberia before the Romans. Can you help? Thanks! The Ogre 18:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Cool! I'll check it.
 * Onofre Bouvila 16:36, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Harrods photograph
I am the person who labeled your photograph an "amateur photo". When I first saw it, two things occurred to me. First, I thought ... what is this? It's out-of-focus, and the flash is reflected in the shiny coverings of the photographs in the memorial. I don't mean to insult you, but it's a very poor photograph. It may belong in your personal photo album or posted on your MySpace page, but it the second poorest I have ever seen in Wikipedia. (The worst was a completely over-exposed and out-of-focus picture of kite-surfing that needed a caption for a person to have any idea what it was.) My second impression was that the caption was written by a thirteen-year-old girl with a "Lady Di" obsession. The context of Wikipedia demands more formality than a graffito. After all, to call Diana, Princess of Wales (formerly Lady Diana Spenser), "Lady Di" is too familiar and disrespectful for an encyclopedia article. Do you think it would be right to call King Juan Carlos something like "Johnny C."?

At first, I thought I should simply delete the whole thing. Then I thought a better (and gentler) solution would be to simply change the caption to identify the photo as an "amateur photo". I also improved the caption so that an English-speaking reader wouldn't laugh at it. (By the way, in English, we say "a statue", not "an statue". A word beginning with a vowel demands "an"; a word beginning with a consonant demands "a".  This must have been mentioned at least once in your study of the language.)

I ask, with respect, that you please remove your own mistakes. Be a man. Do the right thing. To leave this as it is, is an embarrassment. PeterHuntington 00:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The picture is not out-of-focus, and the fact the flash is reflected in the shiny coverings of the photographs is because there wasn't light in the room so the usage of the flash was needed, and thus I couldn't avoid that. It's better to put that, than to put nothing. You were the only person who systematically removed the picture. By the way I didn't write "Lady Di", I wrote "Diana, Princess of Wales" or something liek that, but then when I had to readd the picture for second time after you removed it, well, maybe I wrote Lady Di, I don't remember, anyway it's an accepted nickname and it links to the article, so there is no problem. Oh, and by the way, the misspelling of "an statue" is just a typing mistake. So that's all. Now I could ask you to learn some respect, or some sense of layout because honestly, the way you placed the pictures in the article sucks, but I'll just ask you, with respect, to STFU. Onofre Bouvila 14:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * For your information, I never removed your shoddy photo. I respected you enough to leave the photo in place (against my better judgment); someone else really hates it, I guess, and he or she removed it.  All I did was give an excuse for its poor quality.  (By the way, a competent photographer would bounce his flash off an umbrella reflector to avoid reflections from the subject.  I guess your little cell phone camera didn't have this feature.)  By the way, what does STFU mean?  Something low-class, I imagine.  PeterHuntington 15:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep your insults at home, thanks. And STFU means Southern Tenant Farmers Union, niño. And BTW, you did remove my contribution: 1, 2. "21:55, 11 March 2007 PeterHuntington (Talk | contribs) (←Undid revision 114338960 by Onofre Bouvila (talk)rv to get rid of gaping white spaces, will re-add cult photo)". That's what really annoyed me: "undid version by...". Who are you to undo the versions of the other people? You can change them, upgrade them, but "undo a version", with which authority? I know that then you re-added the picture again, but totally undoing a version is quite offensive. Onofre Bouvila


 * I undid the revision to eliminate all of the white space in the layout caused by your actions. It was the easiest way to undo the damage.  Within a few minutes, I added back your tourist snap.  That is fair and respectful.
 * Who am I to edit your work? As head of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (whatever that is), I am authorized to do so. Seriously, being able to see poor quality and have the resources (language skills and good taste) to correct it ... that's all it takes.  Maybe someday, you too ...  PeterHuntington 16:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Whatever. Onofre Bouvila 16:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The article Hispanic
I think we should discuss this not to create an "edits war". Well, tell me what's your problem with the sections I created to clarify the term "Hispanic", and we can try to find a solution.

For my part, I'll tell you what I do not like from your edits: mainly it is the fact that you add lots of nonesense "made in" the other side of the Atlantic, such as "latino", "chicano", "hispanic (as understood in the USA)", etc.


 * You can't call facts nonsense especially when they're verifiable and generally-accepted. There are many words in many languages that don't mean what they originally meant, that is the evolution of language.danedouard00 01:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I think all this stuff must be placed in its correct section: "Hispanics in the United States", which has a main article called Hispanics in the U.S., but it cannot be added, in any case, in the header of the article, because it responds to a bad usage of the term.


 * The information I moved did not go into the main header. The article as I left it had two main sections under "The term Hispanic" all of the stuff I had under that section was appropriate for that section. In the United States for the last 40 years the word Hispanic has meant all of the things listed under the section "Usage in the United States". If you feel that the section "Usage in Spanish-Speaking countries" needs to go first, then please change the order. I don't think the order matters, but the content is definitely in the right place.danedouard00 01:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I also disagree with all these subsections that you create of "related terms", which include "latino", "chicano", etc.


 * The problem with related words is that editors feel they have to explain each one in all the articles they appear in. By having a summary section pointing to a main article, you avoid unnecessary details in an article that is about something else. How many times have I seen what "Latin" means in many articles that aren't about "Latin"? There is no need to explain every detail of all those words in an article about Hispanics--a summary is enough for each.danedouard00 01:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

In fact, when you reverted my edits, I was going to take these sections you made, and I was going to put them in a section below, that I had already created, called "Hispanics outside of Spain". Becuase that is its correct section.


 * Those sections are about Hispanic people. Not about the word "Hispanic".danedouard00 01:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

You cannot put all the sophistry generated around the term "hispanic" in the United States, in the header of the article, as I said below.


 * It's not the header. It's a section called "The term Hispanic".danedouard00 01:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

If you put as "related terms to Hispanic", latino, chicano, and all these, I could also put "catalan", "galician", "asturian", etc, but I didn't do this: why I didn't do this? Because I created its specific section: "Hispanics of Spain". And that's what you must do too: place your stuff in its correct place.


 * If the word Hispanic has related terms in other places, 'please' list them under the section "The term Hispanic". That is the correct place. Not when you talk about the people.danedouard00 01:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Now let's discuss this please. By the way si hablas castellano nos entenderemos mejor. Onofre Bouvila 00:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Si entiendo español pero soy mas proficiente en inglés.danedouard00 01:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * By the way, the section on historic mistake does NOT belong in an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia cannot refer to something as a historic mistake unless those words are generally accepted to describe the issue. The Great Depression is an example of something that is legitimate because it is a well accepted term to describe the economic recession of the 1930s.danedouard00 01:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Coup de soleil
Hi, that expression is French, not Haitian. Meaning sun burn.

--74.57.28.183 01:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello,

i've just seen your question and i found it means "to be in love". I did'nt know this one before your question

Do not hesitate taking part of Kreyol Ayisyen project, we have many to do to promote that root of caribean history.

Cordially,MasterChes

Hi man, I don't speak creole haitien sorry, I just wanted to ask you something as you are from Haiti.

I would like to know what does "coup de soleil" means in haiti: it means:

To be crazy. To be in love. To be drunk. Please if you know the answer tell me it in talk page of the English wikipedia.

Thanks.

---

Natural History Museum changes
Well I've been talking about this (both your pictures and the expansion and new layout) on the NHM talk page, but you didn't reply there. I think that would have been a much better course of action than reverting your pictures and entirely changing the layout.

There's not much point saying "But please, do not remove the two pictures I added" when you've already re-added them. As I've said, I've nothing against the pictures themselves, its just that the number of pictures that fit into the space available is clearly relative to the amount of text in the article. I've tripled that, which took two days of hard work, and which leaves some more room, but still its extremely important to the article that the pictures chosen represent the most important aspects of the museum, and within the limited space available, yours clearly don't. I can give a full justification for every single picture that I left there. Again, that's not a reflection on their quality, just on their importance within the context of the museum. There are thousands of good photo opportunities at the museum, and very many already available on Wikipedia. I have around 80 myself. The only important thing here is to get the best and most important into the article. As I've said in the talk page (I'm not sure you've seen it at all), I'm happy to have a picture gallery on the page. As I've also said and already changed, the captions need re-writing - there's no need to say the NHM contains "objects" - surely every museum does?! - and certainly no need to link to objects, and we need an actual description of what that "object" is - particularly if it is claimed to be as important as the other pictures...

Adding them back in has made the article ugly on any reasonably wide screen resolution (I suspect you've only checked it on a narrow resolution or you'd have noticed the huge white-spaces it leaves in the article!).

As to "It's just esthetically horrible to add pictures at the left, the center and the right of the article, without any kind of critterion." - well, that's just nonsense. There's no centred pictures. All are right-aligned, apart from one left-aligned in the header section (which makes the panorama wider and more effectively uses space in all resolutions, unlike your layout which shrinks the picture without saving any space at all). I've no strong feelings either way on this though, so happy to leave as is. Again though, such changes should be discussed on the discussion page. That's why it's called the discussion page.

As for your pictures, they clearly can't stay where they are as they completely ruin the article's layout. I'll create a gallery as I suggested, and move them there as soon as I can.

Anyway, as I say I'd already opened discussions on the talk page on all these issues, and its rather more in keeping with Wiki spirit to discuss these things there. Loxlie 00:25, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Well again, no. There was obviously no centred picture - the panorama was left-aligned against the table of contents and all the others were right-aligned, and just saying this "ruined" the layout is entirely unfounded (such a layout is used in many other articles).

As to your pictures, as a Wikipedia editor I'm under no obligation to keep any content at all. I put in the extra work of creating a gallery just to be polite to you. My comments on the 'monkey head' caption still stand - it should describe what it is (other than the obvious - that its a metallic head of a primate - though quite obviously an ape rather than a monkey - and if you link object you may as well link every word in the article). What gallery of the museum is it in? Why is it significant? Who made it and when? What does it represent? But as you say, "whatever".

Loxlie 01:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Coup de soleil (in Kreyol Ayisyen)
Hello,

i've just seen your question and i found it means "to be in love". I did'nt know this one before your question

Do not hesitate taking part of Kreyol Ayisyen project, we have many to do to promote that root of caribean history.

Cordially,MasterChes

Hi man, I don't speak creole haitien sorry, I just wanted to ask you something as you are from Haiti.

I would like to know what does "coup de soleil" means in haiti: it means:

To be crazy. To be in love. To be drunk. Please if you know the answer tell me it in talk page of the English wikipedia.

Thanks. -


 * Hey! Thanks for your help :) Onofre Bouvila 23:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Hispanic
Hello Onofre Bouvila, great work on the Hispanic article. Sorry I wasn't of much help. I did some tweaks though. Carry on! The Ogre 13:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hey! Thanks np, someone had to do it xD
 * Now let's keep it updated. Onofre Bouvila 20:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Carlism in the Spanish Civil War
Carlism is important but not a cause of the war in the immediate sense. I removed the section on Carlism because it was out of place and not in context. If you want to do something that makes sense, insert a section about the replacement of the monarchy and the Primo de Rivera regime by the Republic in 1931. Nothing exists in the article on that subject at this time. The immdediate actions of the Republic had much to do with the cause and start of the war, much more than Carlism in Navarre and its other strongholds.

GenghisTheHun 12:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)GenghisTheHun

Spanish Civil War
The article was a mess and still is to a great extent. What I did was to put it in some rational order. I think that adding headings makes the article much easier to comprehend--in English, at least, and that is the language of the article.

As to pacifism in Spain, it sticks out like a sore thumb. It has no sources cited and I have never read any historian, in English at least, who makes any note of the pacificists in the Spanish Civil War.

I think the overall article is much better now that I have re-organized it. I'll deal with the pacificism later, if you feel so strongly about it. It is irrelevant, but much irrelevancy exists on this site. There is nothing to add to the pacifism article as there is little if any authority.

GenghisTheHun 23:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)GebghisTheHun

Languages of Ibero-America
Hi, I see you added a note to Ibero-America regarding the Catalan-speaking population of Spain. This is of course correct, but I think that it is going to be problematic to try to classify the countries by language because several countries (including, but not limited to Spain) are multi-lingual. There's also Guarani, English, Nahuatl, Euskera, Gallego, etc... So I suggest getting rid of the language classification altogether (or at least try show the languages in a more general way that doesn't give the impression that there is only one language per country). What do you think? --Itub 15:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I did so because there are three sections in the article Ibero-America, as you can see: Portuguese-speaking, Spanish-speaking and Catalan-speaking. I thought it was good to add the note next to the Catalan-speaking one to say that the Catalan is also spoken in Spain. Other languages such as Guaraní would not fit in what I did, because we don't have a section called Guaraní-speaking. We neither have a section called Basque-speaking, in which "New Basqueland" and "The Independent Basque Country" are listed. If we had this situation, we could add a note that said: "hey, in Spain the basque is also spoken". But since the basque-speaking peoples do not have an independent state, they do not appear as an independent section in the Ibero-America article, so we don't mention them. But as we already have a section for the catalan-speaking countries (Andorra), it's good to add the note I added. I'm not sure if you understand what I mean xD Onofre Bouvila 17:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * My point is not that it was wrong to mention the Catalan-speakers of Spain, but that the existing classification was wrong to begin with because it oversimplifies the situation. --Itub 18:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Reported me?
Thats nice of you...:-) --Burgas00 18:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Here you have the link: WP:ANI

I wrote this:

"Hi,

User:Burgas00 has been repeatedly removing entire sections from the article Hispanic. He is mainly obsessed with the section Hispanic. Here you have some of his actions:

1.- He deleted a whole section that had been there for months and where tens of users have contributed. It was full of references and it had been discussed for long in the talk page. He did not obtain any consensus to remove it:
 * 1 → "Racial diversity - I think this section is useless. It is quite evident from the rest of the article that Hispanics are an ethnicity not a race. This section contributes nothing to the article"

2.- The section he deleted was re-added. Now, he deletes a half of it. Someone re-added this piece of content that he had deleted, some time later:
 * 2 → "Racial diversity - This bit is random, irrelevant and very lame. I think the whole section should go, but if not, at the very least this bit should dissapear"

3.- He deletes the whole history section where lots of users contributed, and all the small sections that talk about the Hispanics from Spain, again with sarcastic comments:
 * 3 → "Cutting down stuff which is not relevant to the article on hispanics. Whats all this stuff about "The historical mistake"?????"

4.- He deletes, again, the section of the racial diversity:
 * 4 → "Racial diversity - I'm erasing this section which is just garbage.Someone please rewrite a short coherent section rather than this rambling collection of users' personal issues"

5.- Again, he deletes the section of Racial Diversity:
 * 5: → "Racial diversity - This section is shady racial politics. It is not acceptable..."

6.- And finally his last edit, copy pasting an entire section from the Spanish People while removing already existing pharagraphs in the Racial Diversity section:
 * 6 → "Racial diversity - Copy pasting from Spanish people article... I still think this section is not necessary"

I think that some admin should say something to him, since me and other users have already told him not to do so in the Talk:Hispanic (check this part of the discussion, for example). Thanks."

I was tired of trying to tell it to you with good words in the edit summaries and in the Hispanic article's talk page to, please, stop removing entire sections.

Just check the links of your edits, and reflect if that's the right behaviour for a normal user, or it is the kind of things that a vandal does.

I do not know if you do not have the capacity to write articles yourself, or what's the problem. Maybe you cannot write things for yourself so from your impotence, seeing that you could not contribute to the article but you neither agreed with what was written there, you massively erased entire sections. Honestly, I don't know. But that's not the way. And being tired of reverting your edits, I had to report you. But you can't say I didn't ask you, please, to stop it, before I reported you. Onofre Bouvila 19:31, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I wonder why did you remove the pharagraph I added in the History of the Jews in the United States
In the section History_of_the_Jews_in_the_United_States, I added this pharagraph: "In September, 1654, shortly before the Jewish New Year, twenty-three Jews of Portuguese ancestry from Recife, Brazil, arrived in New York, which at the time was under Dutch rule and known as New Amsterdam. This arrival was the beginning of Jewish-American history. Sephardic Portuguese Jews were also the early settlers of Newport (where the country's first synagogue was founded), Charleston, Philadelphia and Baltimore" You removed it stating "unsourced material". I wonder why are you so arrogant. Okey, my pharagraph did not have any reference; now I have added two (I could have added a thousand more). But, what I do not understand is why do you say that it is unsourced material. The same pharagraph has got various links such as to the Touro Synagogue, and there you can read "The Jeshuat Israel congregation itself dates back to 1658, when fifteen Spanish and Portuguese Jewish families arrived". So the same pharagraph contains links to other articles where you can verify the information that the same pharagraph is saying. In addition, you just have to search google to realize that is truth. In fact, every book talking about the history of the Jews in the United States mentions this date, 1658, as the date of arrival. So please, don't be so arrogant removing the contributions of the other people, because since there was not any reference to the pharagraph, it was easily verifiable through the links appearing in the same pharagraph, and if you wanted a reference, you could have searched google and added it yourself. Onofre Bouvila 17:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hey, as long as you provide sources, go for it. Not trying to be arrogant, just trying to remove material that is not sourced. Also, Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source, go figure, so links to other articles are not considered the best references. Cheers!--Tom 12:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Latin cultures
Hello Onofre Bouvila! You may want to go to Latin cultures an participate in the article and discussion. There are a lot of disputed statements... The Ogre 12:26, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Mistake
You are mistaken.(I wikified it because a lot of words were bold) I didn't vandalized it. I've edited it and thoses are the results. Then, I wanted to edit again, but after that my internet was very slow and I needed to go somewhere quick. I had to shut down my computer as fast i can. So, I forgot all about it. Sorry. Mr roces 02:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

History of BC
Sorry about the edit conflicts. I was so delighted with your additions, I jumped in, not realizing that you were still editing. Yes, I will remove all the date links. The groundrule is: If a date is directly relevant to the article, it should be linked (e.g., if a particular event in the article is mentioned in the narrative under that year). As to the unreferenced tag: Your addition of references is much appreciated. There are many more references needed. In any case, keep up the good work! Sunray 00:15, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, Thanks. Onofre Bouvila 00:16, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm going to try and find citations from books I have in my collection in the next few days. I just wanted to give you a heads up that I'll probably replace the Spanish ones you added with English ones, provided I can find them. It doesn't seem like you added anything obscure though, and I believe George Woodcock's book has a fair bit on the Spanish presence in the area. bobanny 05:15, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Ambiguous link
Hello. Thank you for your recent edit to Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre. Your edit included links to the pages English, German, and Spanish, which are disambiguation pages. This type of page is intended to direct users to more specific topics. Ordinarily we try to avoid creating links to disambiguation pages, since it is preferable to link directly to the specific topic relevant to the context. You can help Wikipedia by revising the links you added to Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre to refer directly to the most relevant topic. (This message was generated by an automatic process; if you believe it to be in error, please accept our apologies and report the error to help us improve this feature.) --Russ (talk) 21:28, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Uncanny coincidence
WOW! That is a pretty big coincidence. I was somewhat surpised that nobody had yet written about this song on the English version of Wikipedia. However, I did have a strange intuition that someone, somewhere in the world was busy working on it, at that very same moment! - and lo and behold! - it was you! I was trying to get it done quick so you wouldn't created the page before me If you think about the world, and the vastness of time it often makes you feel less important than a grain of sand, but when you experience coincidences like this it might suggest that the world is not so indifferent to us

Luke Gervais, London —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lucasgervas (talk • contribs) 22:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

Re: Domingo Elizondo
Hey I don't really understand this talk page so I'll write here ok?

What's the point about adding the "Speedy deletion" box in the article I created about Domingo Elizondo one second after I created the article? What are you? a bot? Are you a bot? hello? I didn't even have time to add the reference of the book he wrote, which by the way includes its ISBN number! Calm down please. Onofre Bouvila 01:42, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * No, I am not a bot; all bots have the _Bot attached (Such as User:Werdnabot and User:Tangobot), and the fact that you did not know that doesn't help your case. Anyways, whether or not someone wrote a book means little. The notability of that author and that book are what counts when adding to an encyclopedia, and it seemed to me that that person was non-notable. I will remove the speedy deletion template but I am going to list it a WP:AfD to see what the community thinks. And about my talk page-click the "+" to the right of "Edit this Page" to add comments on user talk pages. -_ tennis man    sign here!  01:47, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * But really, how did you do to add that thing one second after I created the article? You must be very bored, and you gotta be fast too. By the way, there are lots of trash articles in Wikipedia. I created this one, about a guy that is proven that existed, he wrote a book, and he had a life, he was an explorer, etc, but I don't have much time now to expand the article. I created it, I proved he existed, and he wrote a book, and in the following days I will try to expand the article. I don't understand your aims to harrass me and my article by, first adding the Speedy deletion thing, and then proposing the community to delete the article. Seriously, I don't really understand it. That doesn't help. Maybe now the article does not have much information, but what's wrong with that? Articles are written step by step, you don't need to harrass people like that, you're don't have to be any Wikipedian Freedom Fighter nor anything so. Onofre Bouvila 01:51, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * There is a thing called New Page Patrolling. You go to Special:Newpages and check on articles there for their notability. I refreshed the page and voila, there was your article. And look, I am not trying to harass you, but trying to be realistic. If the people believe that your article passes WP:N, then it will be kept. I don't want to fight over this; I was simpl doing what I spend a lot of time doing on the wiki: Reporting bad pages that should be deleted so deletion may occur. Whether or not your article is bad or not remains to be seen. I would, if I were you, make the case for the article at its WP:AfD listing and go from there. Oh, and how I reported it so fast: WP:TW. -- tennis man    sign here!  01:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Well then, I'd just like to apologize for my haste in thinking that this was such a problem. I did not realize how you were going about the creation of these pages, and in light of that I am going to remove the   template from the article. If there is anything else I can do don't hesitate to ask, and I am sorry for the lack of seriousness that I felt in attempting to have the article speedy deleted. -- tennis man    sign here!  02:14, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It's no problem about the layout; I can edit it without any problem. And thanks for understanding my understanding; and since I am signing off (10:24 PM at my location) have a good day/night, and I hope to see you around the wiki! -` tennis man    sign here!  02:24, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Domingo Elizondo
I have added a "" template to the article Domingo Elizondo, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but I don't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and I've explained why in the deletion notice (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the  notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. tennis man    sign here!  01:48, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Non-free images in user space
I request your assistance in a matter. The Wikipedia administrators are enforcing the use of rationales for non-free images and are deleting images improperly used. In your Hispanic article, you include the image for the Univision television network. Wikipedia policy prohibits use of non-free images in the user space (see WP:NFCC criterion #9) and the image you're using, Univisionlogo.gif, is already under review for possible deletion. Please remove all non-free images from your article; when you're ready to move it into the main article space, you can add the images at that time. When you do, however, please be sure to provide a fair use rationale on each image page, as all uses of a non-free image must include a fair use rationale for each use of the image. I could just be bold and remove it myself, but would rather not touch articles other people's user spaces. Thank you in advance for your help. dhett (talk • contribs) 23:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I am sorry I can't help you, but the article Hispanic is not "mine". I only wrote some sections, and I did not write the section where that image is located. In fact, I did not add any image to the article. You can remove it if you want, it's just a logo, I don't think it's an important part of the article anyway. Onofre Bouvila 23:09, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * There is a copy of the article in your user space. If you follow the link I left, you'll see it. Nevertheless, I will remove the logo; thank you for your permission. dhett (talk • contribs) 23:27, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Ahhhhhhhhh ok!!! I didn't know you were talking about the Hispanic subpage that is hosted in my user page... ok!! I had forgot that I had that page... I don't modify it since long time ago. Anyway you have removed it now, no problem. Onofre Bouvila 00:01, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

New pages patrol - FYI
Hello ... I came here to your Talk page regarding your recent encounter with and the Domingo Elizondo snafu (see messages above this one) ... as a frequent participant in new pages patrol and Counter Vandalism Unit activities, I see this kind of thing all the time ... Some Other Editor even got the Senior Partners to block me from editing for a week because I had tagged two of their articles for speedy deletion within 48 hours of each other (the block was rescinded within an hour once my audit-trail was examined.)

To avoid this kind of Serious Bad Karma in the future, I have created a couple of sandbox essays to help bring WikiNewbies up to speed on how things work around here ... the first one was a "greeting" that infuriated the other editor, and they accused me of violating WP:CIVIL ... the revised version is Here about a speedy delete? and is designed to defuse the "I didn't frag it, I just tagged it!" problem (they also accused me of using an anon-IP account to "avoid taking responsibility" for my part in the speedy deletion of their articles.)

The Silver Lining of my block was that I wrote this sandbox with three related essays:
 * 1) What to do after your speedy delete has been restored
 * 2) What to do when a speedy delete tag is removed
 * 3) It's not YOUR article

The Jewel in the Crown is the second one, which contains the first written version of the protocol I created and try Very Hard to follow, which is based on the paradigm of "Flag it, then tag it, then frag it!" ... I found that I would tag an article, then go to leave the recommended boilerplate warning on the author's Talk page, only to find that the article had already been deleted before I could finish posting the warning ... I'd do a "Show preview," and the article was already a redlink!

Here about a speedy delete? makes mention of my tagging a dozen articles for speedy deletion in a single hour, so I wrote The Dirty Dozen to elaborate on how easy it is to decide that an article doesn't belong (as first submitted, anyway), and to tag it and give the author a courtesy warning in less than 5 minutes ... please read it.

So, if I came across a stub like this during a NPP or CVU scan, I would follow the protocol in Warn-bio ... it's designed to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n the speedy deletion by guaranteeing that there is documentation about the tagging editor's concerns before the article is tagged, and provides a place where the WP:Administrators can leave comments about why they agree that we should "kill it before it grows," and thus publicly share their responsibility in the speedy deletion, taking some of the heat off the poor shlubs like and me, who are simply the instigators, not the executioners.

I'm the first one to admit that sometimes we are Too Hasty in our judgments, as are some of the admins who do not sufficiently research our recommendations ... using the protocols should provide some timing buffers and minimize ruffling feathers all around ... please see my list of protocols that are Under Construction ... if it is called "Warn-ABCD", then enter "WP:ABCD" in the search box to the left of the screen to see what it's about, e.g., WP:BAND, WP:BIO, and WP:CORP are the WP:Notability criteria specific to "music," "people," and "organizations and companies."

While you're at it, try WP:DBTN (Don't Bite The Newbies), WP:DNFT (Do Not Feed the Troll), and WP:NFT (Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day) ... the point is that there are beau coup shortcuts for aspects of the Dark Side of Wikipedia that most users and editors never see, and unfortunately, you were collateral damage in the war against WP:VAND and WP:VSCA (to name a few).

I point these things out in case you should decide to take a hand in "the war against things made up in school one day," or to "actively seek out and confront the Forces of Evil" (as I like to call the missions of WP:NPP and WP:CVU), then you'll keep these new protocols in mind and follow them ... with enough feedback and consensus, maybe the Senior Partners will elevate these protocols to Official Guideline status. :-)

Happy Editing! &mdash; 01:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Pere d'Alberní i Teixidor
i replaced the image request for Pere d'Alberní i Teixidor, and unless you can guarantee that there is never been graphical representation of any kind ever made or now in existence....well it should remain. also, Acting Governor of California is incorrect because, 1) it wasn't called California, and 2) acting governor is not a proper noun, and therefore should not be capitalised. --emerson7 | Talk 16:35, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * dude...i'm not interested in playing a game of one-ups-manship...just trying to make a good article. i trust that too is your aim.--emerson7 | Talk 20:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

since i'm not a teacher, and don't particularly enjoy being pedantic, i'll only do this once.

1) lists are always alphabetised and sentence case in infoboxes.  | profession = Explorer, soldier, correct

2) titles, unless used with proper nouns are not capitalised e.g.: 'Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger'  correct  'the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger' incorrect  just because it's wrong on another wikipage page, doesn't make it correct.

3) words that do not exist, or that are not in the the english language, probably should not be used. 'commandement', 'originary', 'caracter', et. al. Also, please refrain from indiscriminate, retaliatory, vindictive reverts, unless you are sure of what you are doing. cheers! --emerson7 | Talk 14:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Latino Muslims
Hello. I am going to continue to remove your paragraph due to lack of an cited sources in regards to your historical claims, and the fact that it appears rather POV and not needed. The fact that there are Muslims who are from Latin America is the purpose of the article, as opposed to a platform to apparently discredit them. Padishah5000 18:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I almost forgot. There are Latino Muslims of Middle Eastern and North Africa descent from Latin America. I will go ahead and add that into the article, with citation. Padishah5000 18:48, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * In response to your comment in my talk page:
 * If I added that pharagraph to explain this, it is because previously, there was absolutely silly sentence in the article:
 * "Latino Muslims are Latinos whose religion is Islam. Latino Muslims are also known as Hispanic Muslims. Latino Muslims have a long history in Spain[1]. Islam was first introduced to Latinos by the Moors."
 * And if this was not enough, there was a super reference to justify this claim, which was the following:
 * "'http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6133579 "Latinas Choosing Islam over Catholicism" by Rachel Martin''"
 * So an article talking from "Latinas choosing Islam over Catholicism" is the justification for the statement that "Latino Muslims have a long history in Spain. Islam was first introduced to Latinos by the Moors"?
 * Seriously, not only that sentence is absolutely false, but also the reference is completely senseless, basically, because it says nothing to justify the previous statement.
 * Really, that is the kind of references you think the article must have?
 * Thus, having seen this huge amount of ignorance introduced into the article, I thought that it would be good to puntualize that "Latino" is a very inopportune contraction of "Latin American", and that therefore, there were no "Latinos" in Spain to whom the Islam could have been introduced by the Moors 1300 years ago.
 * About the reference that you ask for the pharagraph that I added, explaining that "despite the claims of some Latinos trying to trace their Islamic roots back to the Moors, they have no relation with them", what do you want it to say?
 * You want me to add a reference to justify that there are some "Latinos" trying to trace their Islamic roots back to the Moors? Having seen the sentence that the article contained, and that I have explained you above, I think that it is more than proved that some "Islamic Latinos", including those who are editing this Wikipedia, are trying to trace their Islamic roots back to the Moors.
 * You want me to add a reference to justify that there were no Latinos in Spain 1300 years ago, and that therefore the Islam could have never been able to be introduced to these "Latinos" by the Moors? I thought that was vox populi, but if you want, I can add a thousand references about the fact that America was discovered 500 years ago, and therefore no "Latin Americans" could be in Spain 1300 years ago.
 * Or maybe you want me to add a reference talking about "Latinas Choosing Islam over Catholicism"? (lol)
 * Onofre Bouvila 20:36, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Biographies
I see you do a lot of work on Biographies here on Wikipedia - which is fantastic! I was curious if you would be willing in helping out with the Wiki Biography Project and help give an assessment rating to any articles you create or help out on - this just helps get the ball rolling on developing those articles so they do not sit in the quagmire of Unassessed articles. --Ozgod 14:05, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't have much time to join the project, but I guess I will keep creating new biography articles, or at least... stubs. Thanks anyway Onofre Bouvila 13:53, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Latino Muslims

 * I removed your reference because you cited to another Wikipedia article, and not a source. To fix this problem, simply reference to an actual source, as opposed to another Wikipedia article, and this will not longer be any issue. Padishah5000 16:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, please use English language sources, as this is the English language version of the Wikipedia Project. Padishah5000 16:37, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Please consult WP:CITE, as the preferences for references is in the language of the project. Padishah5000 05:52, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia. However, adding content without citing a reliable source is not consistent with our policy of verifiability. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia.


 * The rest of this conversation is here. Onofre Bouvila 16:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

 You have been blocked for violating the three-revert rule at Latino Muslims. To contest this block, please reply here on your talk page by adding the text along with the reason you believe the block is unjustified, or email the blocking administrator or any administrator from this list. --  tariq abjotu  15:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

If edit warring is edit warring, go and prove that my edits responded to an edit war. You're ridiculous.

You're not reviewing this case. You're just confirming a wrong action and being arrogant.

First of all, this user's reason to remove the reference were not the language, because he did several removals saying that the reference was "false". Since the reference was sourced, I added it again, like anyone else would do.

The citation was made according to WP:Cite: "However, do give references in other languages where appropriate". And it was the proper justification for the claim "The rest of Hispanic American countries and Spain use the term according to its original and real meaning". That dictionary is the official one in Spain and the Hispanic American countries.

Anyway, mine, was not an attitude of systematically removing other people's contributions. I just tryed to keep a reference that was being removed.

All what happened is that, when the citation was removed, I added it again, like other users did, as you can check in the history page of Latino Muslims article.

And the stronger reason of all, is that I did not do a fourth revert within 24 hours, so the 3RR policy should not be applied to me. Check the history page


 * 13:25, 27 May 2007
 * 23:39, 27 May 2007
 * 13:11, 28 May 2007
 * 19:50, 28 May 2007

As you can see, I only did 4 edits, the fourth one was made 30 hours after the first one. As the Three-revert rule says:


 * "An editor must not perform more than three reverts, in whole or in part, on a single page within a 24-hour period. A revert means undoing the actions of another editor, whether involving the same or different material each time.".

I did not made more than three reverts. Only three (and as I said I do not think that they were "reverts", just adding information

Also, no one reported me. My block didn't follow any of the normal procedures.

And finally, as this page says:
 * "diff of 3RR warning issued _before_ the last reported reversion". And no one posted a warning in my talk page.

Simply, I was blocked for violating the 3RR rule, but as you can check in my edits, apart from all the other stuff I said, I did not infringe it. Onofre Bouvila 16:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * From WP:3RR: The rule does not convey an entitlement to revert three times each day, nor does it endorse reverting as an editing technique; rather, the rule is an "electric fence". Were it not for your continued edit-warring, Padishah would not have been able to violate the three-revert rule. The piece about warning violators is there to verify that violators are aware of the three-revert rule. You obviously are aware of the three-revert rule. --  tariq abjotu  16:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Following the normal WP:3RR critteria, I did not violate the rule. And anyway, as you can see in my edits, my edits were not vandalism nor anything like that, and I was not reverting three times each day. In all, I just "reverted" that stuff four times or so, and all these times were to add information that had been removed. Other users also added the reference after it was removed by Padishah.
 * You blocked me, not even looking how many "reverts" I did, and not warning me before. And the administrator that has just "reviewed" my block, did not even count how many "reverts" I did. You are looking all this as an edit war and applying the 3RR rule, when it is not an edit war, nor it is eligible for the 3RR rule.
 * Just normally apply the 3RR, and you will see that this process is full of irregularities, and the basic point is that I did not even do more than 3 edits within 24 hours. Onofre Bouvila 16:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)