User talk:Charles01/Archive 22

Gilbern Invader
Hi Charles Would it be possible to use your photo of a Gilbern Invader (Colour: Green, License: WVX1F) as a reference for an illustration? Ultimately, I am hoping that my picture will be used in a children's book I am currently working on. If you have no objections, please could you let me know how you would like to be credited? Many thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing from you in due course :) MrsMcthin (talk) 09:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course.  I'm glad the picture I took caught your eye.   It's not a very wonderful picture, but nor, I think, is it a very awful one.   I'm flattered you like it though sad there should be so few suitable pictures around.


 * Usage is governed by the wikipedia copyright license which, if your interest is commercial, you should probably take the effort to understand more carefully than I ever had the patience to do. (And if you have a publisher, (1) congratulations and (2) that's his/her job.)    It is because I was too lazy to master it that I throw in the line on my own account "I took this picture myself and hereby release it into the public domain to the full extent possible in relevant jurisdictions." which means everything and nothing, like so much in the legal world.  But yes, I am happy (flattered) for you to use the picture and I do not think wikipedia does anything to restrict that.


 * In terms of a credit, how about "with acknowledgements to wikipedia contributor Charles01 who provided this image under the terms of the appropriate wikipedia mandated license".  However, this is not prescriptive.   I have flu and my mind is full of fluff.   Feel free to substitute a more appropriate wording if it works better for you.


 * I wish you success with your project.  A few years ago I would have been at the head of the queue for a childrens' book involving cars, but now, with the eldest son at university in Swansea (He takes much inspiration from the "Manic Street Preachers") I think it may be a little too late for us


 * Regards Charles01 (talk) 10:05, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I suppose I should thank you for asking.  Not everyone does.   Which I suppose is unsurprising in the circumstances...

A barnstar for you

 * Thank you, unidentified provider of encouragement. Regards Charles01 (talk) 16:30, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Daimler Majestic Major
The photo you have added is a DR450 limousine, not a DQ450 saloon. RGCorris (talk) 20:38, 9 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you.  Two questions come out of this for me:
 * 1 is the longer wheelbase version correctly described as a Daimler Majestic Major?  Or not?
 * 2 lurking in one of the subdirectories at "[Category:Daimler Motor Company vehicles]" is there an image of a short wheel base Daimler Majestic Major?
 * (I'm afraid I do find Daimlers from the middle decades of the twentieth century a tad confusing.)


 * I should add that you're obviously much more up to speed on this car than I am.  And on the entry.   Please feel free to remove (or reposition) the image that I uploaded if you think it should not be there.   I'm recovering from flu and I've just driven across to the Netherlands and back to England today to bring the family home from the Easter break, so just now I'm really not up to too much analytical thinking about limousine idenfication.


 * Regards Charles01 (talk) 18:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

An award for you

 * Um ... thank you. Regards  Charles01 (talk) 08:00, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

EcoJag
Hi Charles01. I hope you have beaten the flu. Here is something (I have never seen before) to cheer you up. Best regards, Eddaido (talk) 02:45, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

And here the Pope thought the back end of the car was badly drafted and so he banned it. Eddaido (talk) 03:22, 14 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you.  Whatever happened to respect?    The wannabe Jaguar is based on a Nissan Micra, I think.    As for Marcello Dudovich, I'd never heard of him, but he looks like someone who made the world a better looking place.    Flu has gone in most of its manifestations, though I suddenly lost my voice a couple of days ago which presumably is part of it.   Would be most inconvenient of permanent....   Best wishes  Charles01 (talk) 08:00, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Uploading modified versions of your Commons images?
Hi there,

I made a few adjustments to some of your images at Commons a few years back (mainly some minor colour balance tweaks and spot removal- you can see them here). I noticed I still have quite a few with similar tweaks that I never uploaded, as well as a few more recent ones I was experimenting with.

Would it be okay with you for me to upload some, so that you can check that you're okay with them (i.e. artistically and in terms of authenticity), and revert any if necessary?

Thank you,

CarbonCaribou (talk) 20:17, 16 April 2012 (UTC)


 * No problem.   A lot of the pictures I uploaded in 2007 / 2008 were from colour slides (Dias) dating back 30 years or more.   The slides were not in good condition.   Removing dust spots and improving colouor balance where original colours have mutated (unless it was just lousy film and the colour balance was wring even at the start:  impossible for me to remember "original" colours) are welcome enhancements.   I've done a few myself, now I am more confident that I won't ruin a picture.   But if you will have time to work on a few more of these, yes please and thank you.   And thank you for the ones you already did.   To my eye (and it must always be a personal judgement) the ones on which you worked are all much better, but they still look natural.


 * Of the ones you did before, I particularly like the Peugeot 205 shot which must have been difficult.  It still looks quite natural, but at the same time very clear.   Great.   (The original was taken in haste with a cheap camera AND cheap film.   It wasn't ever a good picture in terms of those technical basics even when I took it.   But the angle and background, and the style of the car -  before the manufacturer's marketing department started adding unnecessary body-stripes and fancy wheels - I always DID like))


 * Thank you again.  Success.   Charles01 (talk) 05:46, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Another thing.  IF you like a challenge and have about a week to spare.   This picture of a Porsche I spent a long time "correcting"   But it was difficult and I don't think I did a good job.   And then someone else uploaded another improved version which I think was worse.   But mine was bad too and one does not like to waste time arguing, especially where one's own contribution is not good.   BUT now some time has passed.   IF you have a long time and endless patience, I still think this image is on the casualty list.   BUT I do not want to tell you where to find your inspiration.    And I do not want to interfere with your day job.   And this one may be past recovery.


 * Regards Charles01 (talk) 05:55, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi there,


 * I've uploaded some stuff- you can see which images I've tweaked via my uploads history.


 * Can you let me know what you think of them when you have time? I'm not sure about "Renault 19 Utrecht with cones.jpg" and "2012 Toyota Tercel Utrecht.jpg" in particular.


 * I had a shot at that Porsche image you mentioned (though I'm afraid I didn't have a week to spend on it!!) On closer inspection, it appears that the other person simply reverted to *your* older version because they thought it was better, so it wasn't really his at all. At any rate, you can check my version to see if it's what you had in mind.


 * (Annoyingly, I've noticed that sometimes the old thumbnail or the old image itself is shown in place of what should be the current version. I assume this is due to caching issues- at any rate, clearing your browser cache and explicitly reloading the page seems to work if you're wondering why the "modified" version looks identical to the old one! :-) ).


 * Hope this helps, CarbonCaribou (talk) 21:45, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Noted.   Thank you.   I like what you've done overall.   Individually I have some more considered comments.   I'm VERY glad I pointed you towards the Porsche 928 because (1) it was in need and (2) essentially it's quite a good picture (I think) and (3) your remedial work has worked.   Other thoughts mostly positive.   One or two of the colours are a bit "surprising", however, especially with a couple of the more shrilly coloured cars.   It's very hard to know, when a colour looks inappropriate, whether that is because my eye's memory has changed for the colour at the same speed as the paint on the cars themselves has faded as the cars have grown older (or, in most cases, disappeared).   Or whether I have correctly remembered how it looked forty years ago.


 * It's important for me that you know what I think (though you do not need to agree with all my detailed thoughts) in case you may have time to improve more images.  But first I have some family related duties to attend to this morning.   Regards Charles01 (talk) 05:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I share here my thoughts on the good work you have done on some of “my” pictures. You have done quite a lot at once. That is not a criticism. But it means I have quite a lot of thoughts to share. The important preliminary is that these are only my opinions. I am not a scientist, but I understand from scientists that what we see it directed more by what our brain does with the picture than by some objective reality. You and I look at the same picture and we each see something different. So there are no right answers here. And no wrong answers. We can discuss whether what I see is closer to what “most people” see than what you see, or whether what you see is closer to what “most people” see than what I see. But that discussion is unlikely to go anywhere useful!

As an aside, I share your issue with old images turning up where I expected new ones, but “F5” (ie screen refresh) often gives the solution.

My biggest (initial) surprise came with this one, the Passat Variant in Wien (I think on the east side of the river). It is nice and clear. I like the shape of the car and the angle of the image. My first reaction was that you have made it “too pink”. Then I looked at another wiki picture of a Passat a few years newer but (I think) the same colour, and I think they are the same colour. So maybe I misremembered. Then I think the “other” Passat has been loved and polished – maybe also resprayed – to within an inch of its life. I am still not sure that’s the colour they were when it was new. But I may misremember. I think “truth” is (1) yes, not an objective reality in matters of colour perception and (2) maybe somewhere between where the Passat Variant was and where it is. But I am not sure what I think. Maybe it’s better now. It’s certainly NOT less good. But I need to get used to the colour.



This is the other one that took my breath a little bit. It was taken in central Rome near the Pza Venezia where the sun is brighter than further north in Europe (where I live - maybe you do too). And in the late afternoon the sun does turn the light a shade of pink (eg the Alfa Arna picture). But when I photographed the Corsa I think it was cloudy and was almost raining. I really think it therefore is too pink. I have less doubt here, now I think more closely, than with the Passat (above). I think the Corsa should be closer in colour to the English badged version (on which you have also worked) that I photographed outside the Freemasons’ building in Cambridge.

This one really needed a miracle. The sun was in completely the wrong place. Anyhow, you’ve done the miracle. Thank you.

I crouched down a bit too low for this picture, but that’s my issue: not yours. As a small picture the colour looks wrong, but when I enlarge it the colour looks ok. I think essentially there was not enough colour in the sky when I took the picture. Utrecht weather can be very grey. So I am not an enthusiast for this picture, but I think you have improved it.

I like what you did on this a lot. And I do not think it was easy.

Looks good to me.

I have forgotten taking this one. Lot’s of rain. I have no idea what shade of red it would have been originally! The flash gun shows the painted inside of the wheel arch so the car must have been very new indeed. Presumably that is why I took this picture despite the rain. To be honest, I do not know why I uploaded this picture. But that’s my issue: not yours. There are several indifferent pictures of the Seat Malaga on wikipedia (in my opinion) but they include a white one that I took which, though not wonderful, I think is a lot better than this one. (Though it has a more interesting Israeli built Autocar in the background which I should have photographed but didn’t.  Maybe I was scared of getting run over.   The place didn’t feel too safe even then.)

I digress. I think you have improved the red Malaga picture. Thank you.

Yes, that day the sun was in the wrong place again. I agree it’s difficult, and it will never be a perfect picture, but I think you have left it better than you found it. Thank you.

You’ve improved it. I think the red is now on the pink side of how I remember reality, but only a little bit. I wonder why the owner put a stupid luggage label in the back window. And I wonder – now I have more self confidence about GIMP than I did – if I will try and remove the distracting Mercedes rear wing. Nothing I can do about the angle at which the car is photographed. I guess there were too many cars in the way for me to get a better angle.

I like what you did. Thank you.

I like what you did with the Escort. This picture has worried me for a long time, but it’s an unusual car these days and thanks to your improvements now really quite respectable. I originally held the camera at a silly angle and while rotating the image back to something more sensible I’ve lost some corners. Front right I might be tempted to insert more pavement, but top left I do not think I know how to create an Opel Kadett (if that’s what it was). On the colour, this is a fantastically difficult colour to get “right”. Audi had a (slightly less yellowy) version of the same green at the time and it turns up in many permutations on wikipedia now – not just from me. I do not think this colour likes my film from the 1970s/80s. I do not know the answer. But I think the rendering of it on Ford’s Escort here is ok!

I like what you’ve done. Thank you. I was a student at this time and felt more than usually short of money. I think I may have been excessively using cheap shop brand film (Photo-Porst BRD / Boots GB) which did bad things with the colours even then, and seems to be more prone to fade than Agfa/Fuji/Kodak 30/40 years later.

I like what you’ve done. I do not know (do not remember) if the colour is “truer”, but the colour bias on the slide by the time I uploaded it was clearly wrong before and you’ve made it better. Car is still a slightly strange shape, but I think the angle I chose suits it!

I like what you’ve done. Thank you. I THINK the colour may now contain too little mustard, but it’s hard to remember these “trendy” 1970s “safety” colours forty years later. It should be the same colour as the “saloon/berline/sedan” I took a picture of in Canterbury, but that was on a rainy day and the colour rendition on this example is not good. And I can’t find any other examples of the colour in wikipedia, so maybe outside England and France customers did not like the colour much even then.

The car (in the picture you adjusted) was actually parked on a steep slope and the more I look at the result on the building in the background of having tried to level it a bit, the more I feel sea sick. But that’s not your issue.

Your treatment works very well here. I didn’t think there was a problem with the colour before, but now you’ve corrected it …. Much much better. Thank you.

It looks better now. Thank you.

I’m not totally comfortable with this picture. I should have stood a bit further back, maybe. The lens was a cheap one and the distortion this close is excessive. But these are my issues, and standing in the middle of the road is not always a good idea. On the colour, I’m not sure the Austin 1300 and the VW Beetle were that close in colour when red. But on both cars, there were several different shades of simple red over the years, so it’s almost impossible to remember, forty years later, which was “right” for this picture.

Thank you again for working on all these pictures. I’ve enjoyed surfacing my reactions, but please don’t take my thoughts too seriously. Where your thoughts are different, they are just as valid as mine. There is no such thing as a “correct” memory of how a colour was experienced several decades ago.

Of course, also, I’m flattered that you think it worthwhile to take time working through some of the pictures I uploaded from my Dias collection.

Best wishes Charles01 (talk) 10:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi there,

Thanks for the compliments, but most of the your images were quite decent in the first place. If I remember correctly, I chose most of them because they only required some minor colour balance tweaking to look more neutral, and they could all be worked on in the same way. (A significant proportion of the car photos on Wikipedia must be yours...!)

My aim was really to create optimal (tweaked) but faithful versions of the originals and *not* "Photoshopped" or explicitly modified or "enhanced"(!) versions. (I don't object to that, it's just that I hadn't set out to do that here).

So I deliberately avoided "touching up" the colours of the cars specifically- which I felt was interfering with the original- and made almost all colour changes using the "grey point" tool to alter the *overall* balance, along with other colour balance tools and some minor shadow/highlight enhancement and noise reduction. To be honest, this doesn't take as long as you might think. (I just make it sound longwinded! :-


 * Opel Corsa:- I've reverted this to the original version, as I'd rather not risk getting it wrong.
 * Out of curiosity though, how are you viewing this file? The reason I'm asking is that I noticed the colour was noticably different in Internet Explorer 8 compared to Internet Explorer 9 (and Firefox and Photoshop). The car really *does* look more brown in IE8 (IE8 is on the right and IE9 is on the left of this linked image).
 * My guess is that this is because your image uses the less-common "Adobe RGB" colour space, and since IE8 doesn't support colour spaces, its colour rendition is slightly wonky. (This is IE8's fault, *not* your fault and not your picture's fault!)
 * Colour space issues are a pain in the... neck. :-(


 * Interesting.   If it's our screens as well as our brains that are showing us the colours differently ... help.   I hate IE - something to to with (1) what it does and (2) never having forgiven Micro-Soft for taking good ideas from my 1990s Appril Mac, putting them on the front of a cluinky DOS operating system, generally queering the pitch and using marketing power to push Apple out of the way so I stopped being able to get software for it.   Well, that's all ancient history now.   But I'm using Firefox 12.0.   Any insights into what that might do to the colour?   On the Corsa colour, at least the way it shows on my screen, I think it is now closer to the way I remember it.   I think it's still at the pink edge of the way I remember it, but too close to worry over.   On Mr Choppers comment, I think I remember the dark red he has in mind and I think it was a different colour.   Might be wrong, but that's what I think.   (My mother had one of these cars, too.   Hers was bright red, but it does mean I was more aware of Corsa/Novas when I saw them than I would have been of, f'rinstance, Fiestas.)   Vauxhall/Opel's new Corsa brown colour was quite unusual at the time, and when the model was new one did a bit of a "double take" for the brown ones.   (I agree that the eggshell blue of the Fiat Panda in front looks right, but I think that's maybe an easier colour for the film people.)


 * Passat Variant:- Reference 1 Reference 2 Hard for me to judge this, though I should be clear that this was a "grey point" correction only with some shadow and highlight retrieval. Maybe the choice of grey point wasn't the best and the colour balance is too warm? I don't know :-/


 * ''Of the two references you've put in, I think it was closer to "2" than to "1".  Now I look again at it, I'm not quite so shocked as I was, and I think maybe I had gotten used to my faded colour slide (Dias) which may itself not have been the best possible match with the way the car looked.   These slightly unusual colours (orange, mustard...) do seem to cause the old folm (or is it my perceptions) more trouble than the calmer colours.

''


 * Ford Taunus 1974 Vorarlberg .jpg:- The only changes I made were setting the grey point (via the tarmac) and a *tiny* increase in saturation which- having checked- appeared to have made no difference anyway! (I was going to have another go at this, choosing a different grey point, but I notice you'd made some changes so I didn't want to lose them). Whether that means the end result is correct is something you're probably more qualified to say though. :-)


 * ''My "important" latest changes involved removing a Mercedes, but yes, I do seem to have tweaked the colour again.  I think the colour is ok now.

''


 * Austin Princess:- I'm guessing it's okay going by this image, the original was slightly light, but still had plenty of highlight detail waiting to be retrieved. :-)


 * I cannot remember with too much certainty how this looked originally. I think Simon G's image to which you have linked was a different colour - a sort of metallic dark bronzeish shade.   Simon's car is several years newer than the one in "my" picture.   I also think his is not desperately true to the car's oiginal colour.   The one I took, shortly after the launch of the car as the Austin 1800 (sometimes Austin 18-22) is a NON-metallic colour.   A slightly orangey red.   Matallic paint was quite new at this stage.   BLMC (Austin, Morris) were not at the forefront of technolgy and I don't think that when this car came out you could buy it with metallic paint.   (Ford UK HAD started using metallic paint for popular cars - Cortinas, Escorts...and it quite often peeled off after five years.)   Which is a lot to write when I am unsure about the precise original colour of the earlier Austin 1800.


 * Incidentally, I see that you call this an Austin Princess.  No.   British Leyland was in a state of headless mental muddle throughout its life and by the 1970s the muddle was becoming terminal.   They had too many (by mnow hopelessly devalued) brands, and thought it would help matters if they kept rebranding their cars.   Taking my dates from Wikipedia, when this one was launched in March 1975 it was the Austin 1800.   If it had a six cylinder engine it was an Austin 2200.   There was also a Morris 1800 and a Morris 2200.  Same body except for a curious extra ridge on the nose for the Morris.   It wasn't till near the end of that year - Wikipedia says September 1975 - that they started to call it Princess.   But my obsession then was to photograph new models, and when I photographed this one during the summer term/semester 1975, it was an Austin (or a Morris).

''
 * Austin 1300 with Beetle in background:- Again, I can't really judge this myself. All I can say is that this was basically a straightforward adjustment of overall colour balance via grey point on tarmac. (The tweak to the shadow details had no effect on the colour of the cars). There may have been a difference in the colour of the two cars that was lost on film, at the scanning stage or at the colour balance adjustement stage... all I can say is that this wasn't an explicit choice on my part- they both came out that shade of red. Granted, the colour balance could be adjusted to get a different shade of red, but both cars would still be the same colour, whatever that was :-) I'm happy for you to revert this if you like, it really wasn't a significant job.


 * Nothing to add.  Most of my more significant issues with this picture concern where I stood to take it.


 * Datsun_Cherry_First_iteration_Kent.jpg Datsun_Cherry_Estate_1975.jpg
 * Datsun Cherry- Reference 1 Reference 2
 * It's an improvement, whether it's good enough, I don't know. The technique I used to get the "mustard" colour without adding a cast was a slight cheat though :-/


 * MUCH MUCH truer.  The "sedan" version was in the rain.   This one was shortly after dawn, but on a sunny day albeit in the shade, so one would expect the colours to end up looking different.   But you've put back the mustard and I like that.   I was very keen on "Schnell Imbiss" sausage stands on my rare visits to West Germany back then.   Mustard was an important colour even if I thought (and think) it looked (and looks) a bit odd on a car.


 * Seat_Malaga_Cambridge.jpg Seat Malaga:- Also, what do you think of this version? I looked at the previous one (that I'd done years ago but not uploaded) and realised that the "grey" point chosen had left the greys looking bluish. This one has more neutral greys/blacks, but maybe it's too warm now? Feel free to revert to the previous version if you like.


 * Still not sure what to make of this.  I hardly saw any others this colour in my entire life, and I think that now Wikipedia has (at least one)/a better image of the car.   But I think I like it more the way it is.   Neither of us can entirely remove the input from the Wettergott.


 * CarbonCaribou (talk) 23:28, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I've put some heckles in.  I don't know how to change text colour so I put them in itallics so they stand out better.  I don't think I've come up with any newly earth shattering thoughts, but one way and another I think the brown Corse in Rome is closer to how I remember it.   On with Friday.   Regards Charles01 (talk) 06:14, 20 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback and commentary.


 * Sorry for the "Adobe RGB" techie waffle BTW! I only mentioned that because I thought it *might* explain why the Corsa appeared more brown to you. Firefox has half-decent colour profile support, and IE9 actually has the best support of all (ironic given that IE8 had none).


 * Even on a newer browser, the colours of Commons' thumbnail previews might come out wrong because
 * "[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Image_guidelines#Technical_details Currently images in other color spaces will not render correctly except at full resolution, because their color profile information is stripped in the thumbnail. This is Wikimedia bug #19960, and will be fixed"
 * ...implying that it's Commons' fault for removing the information that the browser would need to render the colours accurately.


 * I wouldn't worry about this to be honest anyway. My only advice is to make sure you're looking at the full-scale (not thumbnail) image in Firefox or IE9.


 * I uploaded some other stuff (preview thumbnails still appear to be out of date...) I'd meant to upload earlier and/or worked on in the past day or so, but that's pretty much all your stuff I'm going to mess about with for the immediate future. :-)


 * I probably would have uploaded some of that stuff earlier and/or using one of my other accounts, but I wasn't comfortable with mass-uploading new versions of someone else's images without notifying them (I did this before with a few of your pics then realised I probably should have spoken to you first). So I'd left them for later upload, and ended up with quite a few. :-/


 * Again, please feel free to revert any if you're not happy. I uploaded the Marina as a new file as it had been "messed about" rather than just tweaked like the others. I hope the colour's accurate. (I used a few refs to check, but this is the only one I can find right now).


 * All the best, CarbonCaribou (talk) 18:38, 21 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm happy or very happy with three of the four (of mine - I'm not planning to comment on pictures I don't recall ever having seen before!).  I have some doubts on the colour of the fourth.   I'll try and come up with slightly more detailed reaction later.   But for now, thank you.   Regards     Charles01 (talk) 15:56, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok, here goes:

I had only recently acquired a 35 mm camera, and I wasn't used to the winter light in Vienna (very colourless) so my memory may play strange tricks. But I really think that this car had more mustard in the colouring. I also don't think the wall behind it had that pink tint. It's not a wall colour I associate with Vienna in 1974. Though I think the whole city may have become a bit more colourful since then. Either that, or people photographing Vienna tend not to release pictures of "Jännerisch Wien" for public consumption....).

I could not find any other "references" on wikipedia for the more mustardy colour I think it was. The colour quickly went out of fashion about that time, and I don't think British Leyland held on to the paint for very long. But I am sure the car was NOT the same colour as the Marina 1300 I photographed at about the same time, but on a sunnier day, and which I think maybe the same colour as the reference shot to which you direct me. (Though the reference shot is indoors under artificial light and without the salty dust that covered most cars in Viena in January/February 1974.)  Anyhow, you've left the mustard coloured car under a different name. I do NOT say it was ever a brilliant picture. But I do think the earlier one is closer to the car's original colour.

I like this one - and what you've done to it - a lot. Thank you.

This one just gets better and better. Thank you.

Yes. The thumbnail still looks very sad, but I linked a copy to an article on the car that for some (lucky for me) reason didn't already have a Prisma picture, and it looks good there. And much improved by you. And reassurance that just occasionally one can photograph a car in rain and get a clear picture. I think this one was soon after I got my Olympus OM2 of which I became very fond. Not sure where it is now, which is a pity.

Thank you for working on all these. And have a good week. Regards Charles01 (talk) 15:56, 22 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi,


 * Without getting into the boring details, the Marina image was much more heavily "messed about" with than the others (hence why that version was uploaded under a new name). The wall colour probably isn't 100% accurate, but if the car colour is inaccurate (IMHO) that's more serious.


 * I've arranged for the modified Marina image (but *not* your original version) to be removed from Commons, as I don't want to risk it being misleading. (For reference purposes, there's a copy here).


 * I'm glad you like the others. Hope you have a good week too. All the best, CarbonCaribou (talk) 17:55, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Opel Corsa in brown?
Hello Charles, I saw the changes to the Opel Corsa here. While it is indeed possible that it was brown, my parents had an '84 Corsa in almost exactly the color ("dark red", it was called) as achieved by CarbonCaribou in his second to last update. Also, the robin's egg blue of the Panda in front seems correct. Cheers,  ⊂&#124; Mr.choppers &#124;⊃   (talk) 23:35, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Hello, Mr C.  I think this may be the colour you have in mind and I think it is not the same colour.   But I reserve the right top be wrong!  Regards  Charles01 (talk) 08:39, 20 April 2012 (UTC)


 * It's possible, although their car was older than the top photo, and colors may have changed during the Corsa's production - not much else changed, so... But obviously I cannot say for sure what the color of a Corsa in Rome 25 years ago might have been.  ⊂&#124; Mr.choppers &#124;⊃   (talk) 15:02, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Austin-Morris merger
Hi Charles01, I've found through Google Books one of their 'snippets' of an article in The Economist about this merger which I thought might throw up some interesting sidelights. I don't expect you will have the issue of December 3 1951 (Vol161 page 1347) readily to hand but do you, by any chance, have free access through a library to The Economist Historical Archive which is one of the Gale databases? Regards and happy Anzac Day, Eddaido (talk) 07:51, 25 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't know.  I do have a subscription to The Economist, but till now I have always resisted their blandishments in terms of accessing their stuff on-line.   But I'll take a look.   If it's easy, I'll be back on this quite soon.   If it's not...    Well, watch this space either way.   It would certainly be interesting to see if, back in 1951, they already exhibited their unbreakable optimism.   Probably in 1951 they did.   The war was so recent that, by definition, any adult was still alive in Europe had good reason to "feel lucky", even if many also felt cold and hungry!  Regards Charles01 (talk) 09:28, 25 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, I have a reply in time for the weekend.  Unfortunately it's the wrong reply but I'll paste relevant bits including the link anyway.   This is not an invitation to spend money.   If you pay people for this type of thing it simply encourages them to charge more next time.   But you may be nicer - if only to whoever it is at The Economist who thinks the archive can reinvent itself as an online profit centre -  than I am and it didn't seem fair to deprive you of the opportunity.   Regards   Charles01 (talk) 18:45, 27 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for contacting The Economist.  Please be advised that your digital access entitles you to access print editions online dating back to 2000.  Should you require access to older editions then you will need The Economist Historical Archive, for further information and to purchase access please visit the following link [sic the punctuation]:


 * http://www.store.economist.com/Product-The_Economist_historical_archive-EHG(2)-8AHQ(618).aspx


 * If we can be of any further assistance ..... (standard valedictory)


 * Thanks for that, worth a try and useful to know subscribers can go back that far. I guess before 2000 they have sold off some rights to Gale who do provide the archive to most institutes of higher learning but not to our local public library. All their records say they have the actual issue concerned but they want me to pay for them to get it in on interloan from another nearby for a small fee. I have a beautiful bright blue satchel by me right now containing another interloan re British Leyland post mortem which I had better deal with as it is due back tomorrow. I am wondering why I have done this. Thanks and Best wishes, Eddaido (talk) 12:34, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

WikiThanks
You are among the top 5% of most active Wikipedians this past month! 66.87.0.212 (talk) 20:00, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Bentley Mark VI
Spot on
 * from page 4 of here
 * (Bentley Mk. VI)
 * (approx delivery dates)Jun 52 to Aug 52 Series P Chassis number B1PU to B301PU
 * (Bentley 'R' Type saloon)
 * (approx delivery dates) Jun 52 to Apr 53 Series R Chassis number B2RT to B120RT

You're not only a genius but kind with it. Thanks, Eddaido (talk) 02:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Kind comments always welcome, though the burden of your message is more enigmatic than ever, given that nothing downloads (except a blank page) when I click on that link.  I do live in England, and the internet connections are commensurate with other key aspects of the UK infrastructure.   (...third world rail system at first world + prices, lousy road network at least by European standards.   We do have a fine literature and, in many cases, an excellent and necessary sense of humour, though...)   Are you able to provide a sentence on what I would have learned if that link had worked for me, please?   Happy day.  Charles01 (talk) 06:08, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * And there was I thinking you lived in "the world's finest theme park". You recently amended the note about the name of the Bentley R Type which came from the chassis number. The link is to the site of the RR Owners' club of Australia and its list of chassis numbers. I found it by putting bentley chassis-numbers into Google and it was the first (real) result. That's really strange if you still can't see it. Cold and wet here - you have a good day too. Eddaido (talk) 08:20, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Ford Escort XR3 image
The image of the Mk 3 XR3 you added appears to show a non-standard Escort XR3. Given that the purpose of the images is to show differences between the models, showing a non-standard one defeats the purpose and I have removed the photo. Halsteadk (talk) 10:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
 * You have not bothered to spell out what aspects of the car your regard as non-standard, and I am unfortunately not knowledgable enough to have worked it out for myself.  If your judgement is correct then I agree that it supports your action.   In any case, this entire subject is one that can quickly become hedged about with subjective judgements, and I have no strong opinion to offer on what you say (write) you have done.
 * Nevertheless, if you have the time to provide information on what aspects of the car you regard as non-standard, (1) it would be a conventional courtesy and (2) I might learn something which should (3) make both of us happy.
 * Happy day.  And Regards   Charles01 (talk) 11:04, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

C3 Picasso
Hi and thanks for the contribution in the "Prices" bebacle. Just wanted advice on how i would compare the prices since i have fine detail of the trims for the C3 Picasso and so the problem i have with comparing with the major competitors is: Hope you can be of use on this. Thanks Charles  J e n o v a  20 08:33, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * UK and Europe prices needed for the 3 main rivals, so 6 citations.
 * Knowledge of the most basic trim and price of each rival.
 * A suitable way to compare without being in breach of WP:ADVERTISING.


 * I'm afraid my own sources here at home tend to involve earlier decades and in many cases non-UK cars, since (or at least partly because) those are the areas where, as far as UK is concrned, I think I am more useful.


 * Thinking about it a little, I think you should probably start with a Parkers' Price guide (or similar rival publication) from whichever year it is that interests you.  According to your user page you live in UK, so if you don't know what a Parker's Price Guide is, then any averagely knowledgable newspaper shop owner should be able to tell you, so you can look at a current copy and see if it tells you the sort of things that might be wiki useful.   You may need to look for a couple of minutes:  please don't jump in with an instant reaction.   It's quite small print, some of it....


 * If you live near a place with second hand book shops, you should be able to pick up a two or ten year old Parkers' Price Guide in a second hand bookshop.  If you ever attend classic car show events, there is often a tent/stall selling old car brochures and magazines and etc.   If you don't, www.abe.com is a wonderful website, though for the easily tempted there is a risk of spending more than you've got on stuff you didn't realise you were looking for.   It's called, at its best, serendipity.


 * All this breaks my first rule of wikipedia contributing which is that one shouldn't spend money on it.  Well, I break my own rules all the time, but if this rule is important for you, the UK still has a public library service.


 * Incidentally, and if you're feeling easily annoyed please read no further...  But I like what you've done with this article.   It's interesting and informative and well written.   Well, I think it's well written.   Would I have done some bits differently?   Well yes, but that's not the point, and in any case the car is not one that appeals to me because (1) I think they stopped making Citroens interesting about thirty years ago and (2) I find this one particularly ugly.   But (ah yes, the "but") please remember that wikipedia is by it's nature a collaborative venture.   If you take ten minutes out to understand Jimmy Wales, the project front man / icon, I think you will undestand that he is the first to provide reassurance that rules are there to be applied intelligently and to be broken where it makes sense to do so.   And on the subject of interpreting often muddled and contradictory wiki-rules and guide-lines, other folks will inevitably have different ideas to you.   Or should that be "from you"?  Not better, and not worse, but just different.   Some of your reactions along the lines that people need to see things your way and haven't read the bits of the entry that they ought to have read look a bit shrill and do risk making wikipedia a less constructive and ultimately less informative place than it can be and should be.


 * I'm afraid I've not read WP:ADVERTISING.  Maybe I will, but I'm not really a rules wonk.   Meantime, I reckon that if I see what looks like advertising copy I can sufficiently recognise it.


 * Must get on with Thursday.  Regards   Charles01 (talk) 09:26, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Very welcome advice Charles. Can you delve a little deeper into what you would have done differently with the article as we may be able to use it to improve the article further?
 * Also yes, i agree with all your points although i am a stickler for hypocricy when someone applies a rule incorrectly or breaks 1 rule trying to enforce another on me and that is why i was defensive on the talk page. The irony of someone trying to improve an article when they haven't even read it is amusing to me but at least there's some salvageable info there to use for the good of the article.
 * The car is indeed not a looker, but not as bad as the Fiat Multipla =P Thanks  J e n o v a  20 09:50, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, if you put me on the spot, then it is impossible for me to figure out how I'd approach the entry if someone hadn't already done it.  Because now someone has.   However, I could easily - in theory - spend the rest of today thinking about this and answering it, but for my own rather obvious reasons I don't intend to do that.    But off the top of my head, maybe the engines could have their own para / section.   I know they link to little entries on the engines, but those entries themselves are pretty short of beef.   Why were the engines chosen and what was good / bad about them in this application?   Do they start in the mornings?   Maybe a separate "commercial" section on how the car did in the market place.   Did it live up to the marketing department's expectations?   Was it (at least till now - and the first years are usually the best ones with car sales levels) an abject failure in terms of sales volumes?   Left to my own devices, I'd probably go for a less anglo-centric angle.  I know we live, now in England, but English is the world's favourite second language, and lots of people consultung wikipedia in English have never been in England, and probably never will.   If you ask someone, even in a country with a good education system such as Germany or Swizerland, about the difference between England, and Great Britain (never mind the United Kingdom) they'll very likely go blank on you.   Was the C3-Picasso designed in-house in France? Or by some famus Italian or English styling guru?   How did it sell in France?   After all, it is (at least badged as) a Citroen.  I suppose Spain too, since the previous Picasso - at least where Europe is concerned - was built in the Vigo plant on the Spanish coast (much to the vocal displeasure of many in France).   I'm intrigued by the Croatian angle.   Are Peugeot-Citroen using it to spearhead a push into Croatia, or into all the Balkan countries where, as far as I remember, you didn't traditionally tend to see too many French cars.   Or were they simply seduced into Croatia by government subsidies and cheap labour?   It would be interesting to know more about the plant.   For some  plants yuo can link to little basic (or not so basic) entries on the plants but on this Croatian plant I find nothing.   Did PSA's Croatian plant used to belong to someone else?   Or is it a new (?joint-venture) plant on a greenfield site of the kind that elsewhere in middle Europe Peugeot thought they'd better call in a Japansese expert on how to make small cars profitably.
 * These are really intended as thought triggers rather than as anything more prescriptive.  And I'll stop now because I want to spend a couple of hours in 1950 before the evening meal.  But if you want to pick up on any of these thought triggers, good.   If not ... your call.   Regards     Charles01 (talk) 16:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok...wow! I'm pretty gobsmacked you have so much... I'd better start researching.
 * If you fancy being WP:BOLD then i won't complain, just be careful not to lose the GA badge. Thanks so so much!  J e n o v a  20 16:21, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Daimler Coventry
Hi Charles01. Have you noticed the Daimler article is suffering a near 50% increase in hit rate? Someone must have made a major link to it in mid April 2012 and it seems to be continuing. Maybe they all come looking for Daimler Trucks. My interest in the cars and article was because the article looked as if it attributed the Coventry business to Daimler-Benz and I wanted to sort that out. Much-loved Daimlers. After months of thought I'm now confident that the only Daimler I've ever ridden in was a V8 250 a friend inherited from an aunt and kept for a while for fun. Otherwise I will admit to being seriously affected (by its sheer size) by a youthful encounter with one of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zZZe981kJqg#! these] bearing a VIP. That certainly made a long-lasting impression and its why I want to go on and cover (or see covered) at least the big Daimlers - some day. I suspect some feel the Daimler categorization in Commons could be improved. Any thoughts? Best always, Eddaido (talk) 00:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think I've ever driven a Daimler, though I may have been a passenger in one at the odd funeral.  Daimlers were always quite rare in England when I was growing up here.   But in any case, I'm all in favour of people improving articles on much loved Daimlers or much loved anything elses, especially if they come with four wheels and an engine.   And the user stats do indeed look to have shot up about a year ago and come back to settle usefully above the earlier base line:  the surge in April 2012 is also noteworthy.   Is that someone linking to it, or simply someone inadvertently (or even knowingly) adding a word or phrase combination that Google likes?   Anyway, the more important point is that it's interesting and intelligently structured.   Sometimes that is easier to achieve with articles that don't get so many visitors.   In the sense that where lots of people have conflicting ideas about how an entry should look, even where 90% of the ideas, taken in isolation, would count as good ideas, when they all get squashed together into a single entry, the result can be serious incoherence.   And in that sense the Daimler entry benefits greatly from one person having taken the time to form it into a coherent whole with a certin unifying thread running through it.    On with Saturday.   Best regards  Charles01 (talk) 07:51, 19 May 2012 (UTC)


 * You're a very generously-minded man Charles01, if I'd taken a totally free rein it would look different and I'm sure should be reduced or divided somehow. Anyway it stands to reason it can't last as it is for much longer now. Wet Sunday afternoon and I was fiddling with Standard in Commons and tried to categorize another excellent photo from your fine camera and I find that its a standard version of the period when it had been only recently said "if you can't afford a Ford then dodge a Dodge. Standard (2 nations divided by 1 . . . ) might account for the painted radiator and no bumpers (and prob no chrome on those headlights) and I think you will find it is a 1927 Dodge Brothers tourer with (cheaper?) artillery wheels. The clue being DB (not Deutsch-Bonnet or David Brown) on the hubcaps. Look at this pic. I can claim no credit for intelligence except that when I was young there were plenty of exactly these cars still about and the bars out the side of the plinth of the temp gauge meant something to me and when I put DB tourer into Google Dodge Bros came up immediately so put it down to local knowledge and I really do think your images are Great. Eddaido (talk) 02:36, 20 May 2012 (UTC)