User talk:Charlesdrakew/Archives/2015/July

New adopter or other
Hello Charles, I have been writing quite a few Iris articles for wiki (and on other subjects that took my fancy!). But was recently encouraged by Biosthmors to get one of my articles up to Good Article status. I was wondering if you good give me a little bit of advise about how I go about doing this. I am currently regularly on the web and wiki, researching my articles and checking my watchlist. DavidAnstiss (talk) 15:46, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello David. I have seen your name around, doing good work. I am probably not the best person to ask as I have not developed any good articles. I tend to clean up really crufty ones, so they are not an embarrassment, rather than preening half decent articles. There are plenty of editors better at that. I can only point you to Article development if you have not already found it.Charles (talk) 21:03, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Coventry page external link
I removed an external link to 'Historic Coventry' on the Coventry page. It has been replaced by IPs without explanation. Please could you look at it to see if you think it should be included or not? It is described on its welcome page as 'my website' though there seem also to be contributions by family members. So it would seem to come under No 11 (personal web pages) in WP:LINKSTOAVOID as well as No1 'Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article.' It is formatted to give the appearance of an official site. I think I am right in calling it linkspam, part of the function of the website is selling photos, but less certain of my ground there. Yours SovalValtos (talk) 11:06, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Undoubtedly linkspam. Being self-published alone rules it out as a suitable external link.Charles (talk) 21:07, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. The same site has been cited as a source in other articles. SovalValtos (talk) 07:00, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Re: Siege of Malta edit
Hi Charlesdrakew. On the article about the Great Siege of Malta (1565), the last section mentions that Malta withstood a siege, and then makes the claim that the majority of the Maltese were Muslim during this period. This is incorrect, given the fact that Malta had been thoroughly Christianized by this time period, and that Arab rule had ended in 1090, and that, by 1249, Islam was no longer practiced by the free inhabitants of the island (see citation at the bottom). As such, the claim made earlier in the article talking about how 9,000 defenders, some Christian but most Muslim, is incorrect. The Maltese, for the vast majority of their history, as well as during this part of their history, were extremely Catholic. The only Muslims on the receiving end of the Ottoman siege were slaves captured by the knights. Below is the citation regarding the general extinction of natively practiced Islam on Malta.

https://vassallohistory.wordpress.com/vassallo/the-origin-of-the-maltese-surnames/. "Ibn Khaldun puts the expulsion of Islam from the Maltese Islands to the year 1249. It is not clear what actually happened then, except that the Maltese language, derived from Arabic, certainly survived. Either the number of Christians was far larger than Giliberto had indicated, and they themselves already spoke Maltese, or a large proportion of the Muslims themselves accepted baptism and stayed behind. Henri Bresc has written that there are indications of further Muslim political activity on Malta during the last Suabian years. [2] Anyhow there is no doubt that by the beginning of Angevin times no professed Muslim Maltese remained either as free persons or even as serfs on the island." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.123.6.112 (talk) 22:48, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You need to put this on the article talk page rather than here.Charles (talk) 22:53, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Religion in infoboxes of nations
There is an RfC that you may be interested in at Template talk:Infobox country. Please join us and help us to determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:40, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

2015 Sousse attacks
May i ask you why did you revert my edits on 2015 Sousse attacks ? The presentation is much better with the edits. the countries are clear that way and it is common to do so in other articles. Jallouljalloul (talk) 22:59, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * What is in other articles is not relevant. I see you do not have a lot of editing experience so you may not be familiar with policy on use of flag icons. If you read the manual of style you will see that flags should only be used where they add information that is not already in the text. In particular read the section Do not emphasize nationality without good reason. Charles (talk) 08:56, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

London Buses
Hey Charles. Nice try on the London buses list. There's definitely a cartel advocating this topic. Are they bus obsessives, London partisans, or both? Do you know? If that article gets axed, I'll be very surprised. Good effort on your part, though. Thanx. Tapered (talk) 18:37, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Bus obsessives mainly, but with London being so large there are a lot of them. Every other similar list for the UK has been deleted and the dire List of school bus routes in London went, but then it gets sticky. If only these people would write some encyclopedic content about the history, or social or environmental implications, of bus travel instead of just compiling lists of trivia from primary sources. Thank you for your support.Charles (talk) 21:10, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Returning from a weekend away I see most of these accounts have been struck out as sockpuppets.Charles (talk) 13:29, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I find hidden London a very reliable source for population stats that Wikipedia DOES NOT have. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.12.159.25 (talk) 16:12, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * How do you know it is reliable? Why not use the official census data?Charles (talk) 16:34, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

I always use census data and hidden London gives info based on 2011 census data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.181.130 (talk) 10:46, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * So cite the census instead of refspamming for Hidden London.Charles (talk) 11:01, 10 July 2015 (UTC)