User talk:DuncanHill/Archives/2010/November

Comments of the ref desk
If you see an irritating comment by an anon starting 92, I wouldn't bother replying unless they're upsetting someone. I'm pretty sure they're winding people up, as the alternative is too depressing. Either way, they're incorrigible and have only the most passing of acquaintance with logic and observation. Simply mentally replace all their words with "quack quack quack", and move on :) 86.164.145.242 (talk) 10:20, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Smoking on the Ref Desk
Your response on the "Wholesale cigarettes (UK)" has me intrigued. Do you have any more details on the Treasury paper? I'd be interested in making a FOIA request if it's not online, but would be possible to track down offline. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) &bull; 22:43, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Not a lot, alas. Was working in the Inland Revenue at the time (at a lowly grade, and in an unrelated area), but there was an unofficial précis doing the rounds. Sorry I can't help more. DuncanHill (talk) 22:47, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Pasty place of origin change!
Hi, I noticed someone has changed the place of origin on the Pasty article to the "United Kingdom" (Which seems to contradict, there WAS no United Kingdom when the pasty was invented). Also, "Place" is a highly generic term. My house is a place. Was this editor denying Cornwall is also a place? Should it be "Cornwall, United Kingdom" be added instead (Adding England is not appropriate mainly due to the Pasty being a Cornish cultural icon) to make it less dubious? Or should it just be Cornwall? Your thoughts if you please : ) --Τασουλα (Shalom!) (talk) 17:16, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

George Oliver
He ought to have an article but no-one has created it. His life overlaps confusingly with a Freemason but he was a RC priest and has an article in the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia which should be available from a google search of "george oliver new advent". He should really be on the Disambig page for George Oliver. Best wishes.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 08:16, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

November 2010
You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war&#32; according to the reverts you have made on Geevor Tin Mine. Users who edit disruptively or refuse to collaborate with others may be blocked if they continue. In particular the three-revert rule states that making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period is almost always grounds for an immediate block. If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the talk page to discuss controversial changes. Work towards wording and content that gains consensus among editors. If unsuccessful then do not edit war even if you believe you are right. Post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If edit warring continues, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. ''It appears to be a disputable change. I will also be warning the IP user(s) whom you have reverted well over 3 times.'' AndrewN  talk 23:07, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * IP user blocked for edit warring, 24 hours by Soap. AndrewN  talk 23:08, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And that is untrue - block was for vandalism after final warning and for refusing to listen to others. Other IPs were blocked for vandalism or for block evasion. DuncanHill (talk) 01:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)


 * An IP hopping editor persistently refusing to discuss his changes, and ignoring the guideline to which he was repeatedly referred - and you warn me? I was trying to get the IP to discuss, and trying to get him to observe editing guidelines. Kindly refrain from issuing warnings when you clearly haven't bothered to familiarise yourself with what is actually happening. Now go away. DuncanHill (talk) 23:12, 14 November 2010 (UTC)



naming conventions for rivers
Disambiguation tags for river names are, by convention, placed in parentheses after the name. This is different from settlements, which use a comma. For more details, please see WikiProject Rivers. Thus: Frenchmans Creek (California) not Frenchmans Creek, California. --Stepheng3 (talk) 20:46, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I used the format already used for Frenchmans Creek, New South Wales. I can't say I've noticed any particular style dominating. DuncanHill (talk) 20:52, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If the Wikiproject documents the convention, that means there was a consensus. Please rename the page accordingly. --Stepheng3 (talk) 20:59, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, policy is meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive. As I said, I followed the format that I saw when I discovered another Frenchmans Creek not previously mentioned on the dab page. I fixed all the incoming links from articles. I have no objection to you moving the pages if you feel that the bracketed disambiguator is preferable. DuncanHill (talk) 21:53, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Sir John Maclean
Hello again, Today I found that a stub article had been created for Sir John a few weeks ago. It is informative but there is room for improvement. (Whether the spelling MacLean should be used I am not sure, probably Maclean is more common.)--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 08:01, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Acts of Indemnity
Hi, I've reverted your dab on John Murray of Broughton. As long as the more precise article doesn't exist, it is better (and certainly more helpful to the reader) to link to the extant general article Act of Indemnity. The alternative, I suppose, would be to create the Act of Indemnity 1747 as redirects to the Act of Indemnity until someone actually creates them. Thanks.--Scott Mac 15:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A redirect would discourage both article creation and correct dabbing once the page is made. I don't agree that it is better to link to the dab page, but if you insist on having links to the dab page, they really must be labelled as needing disambiguation. DuncanHill (talk) 15:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * No. We don't disambiguate non-existent articles. Although, the text of the article ought to specify which act.--Scott Mac 15:47, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, we do - frequently with places. I can accept that you have a legitimate disagreement about this particular case, but we do need to mark the links as needing dabbing, not least becasue it may never have struck previous editors of the articles to actually check that the act to which they intend to link has an article - they may be inspired to write one! DuncanHill (talk) 15:56, 23 November 2010 (UTC)


 * And now you have created the redirects which make it less likely for the article to be created! Will you be undoing your undoings of my dabbing? Or are you intent on making as big a mess as possible? DuncanHill (talk) 15:59, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm simply ensuring the, until (and unless we ever) have an article on the 1747 Act, the reader is able to find what we do have. I didn't want to edit war with you on John Murray of Broughton‎, so I restored your more precise link, and redirected it for now. We generally redirect precise titles to a more general article that will provide some help for the reader.--Scott Mac 16:05, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Why did you waste my time by asking about creating the redirects, when you clearly intended to go on and do them whatever I said? I'm well used to arrogant editors, I don't need you to pretend that you are interested in my opinion. A bare link to the dab page, with the dn template, would get you your link to something, while still alerting both readers and editors to the link being less than ideal. DuncanHill (talk) 16:09, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Oaklands railway line move‎
Precisely- my stuffup Regards (Crusoe8181 (talk) 11:48, 27 November 2010 (UTC)).

User:80.189.151.45
Hi, I've seen the thread at WP:ANI about this block which you unblocked. I had reported the first false positive to Cluebot, so there seems to be a serious problem if Cluebot can issue 3 incorrect warnings in a row, despite the first one being reported as false positive, and an admin will then block the editor without looking at the edits or the user's talk page. Does Clue bot just assume that an editor with a poor initial track record will always vandalise? I left my messages on the talk page, and reported the bot, before 10am yesterday; the later two good edits were after 5pm, so in 7 hours the bot did not respond to my "false positive" message. PamD (talk) 08:58, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * It wasn't me who unblocked - I'm not an admin! Apparently, Clubot cannot see when messages have been struck through - you have to actually blank them from the page for it to ignore them. Also, it doesn't see if messages have been left on the talk page objecting, false positives have to be reported at User:ClueBot NG/FalsePositives (good luck with that - it's not exactly user-friendly!). I've also raised this problem with the operators of the bot at User talk:ClueBot Commons/Archives/2010/December. I do think it is poor that the blocking admin didn't seem to read the talk page of the IP or look into the history of edits before blocking. DuncanHill (talk) 10:19, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I didn't make myself clear: I did indeed use the false positive reporting page, yesterday morning. So it's worrying that Cluebot was still calling the same editor's work vandalism 7 hours later. I struck the warnings out to alert future human visitors to the talk page - didn't know the bot kept notice of its own warnings. PamD (talk) 12:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I can't see where you reported it in your contributions. The false positive reporting system is lousy. DuncanHill (talk) 12:29, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * My apologies - you did report it, unfortunately the false positive report page doesn't include the name of the editor reporting, and because it uses an off-wiki site there's no record in your contributions! DuncanHill (talk) 14:17, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Discussion about the reporting interface is on the ClueBot NG talk page. On the other issues - Cluebot-NG does not currently exclude warnings marked with strike-through.  The developer of the Wikipedia interface is working on implementing this, although it requires implementing at least a partial parser, which could be an involved process.  Cluebot-NG does not assume vandalism based solely on prior track record.  This is a factor, but is not enough alone.  It's used more as an "estimation of good faith".  You may also be interested to know that the false positive rate was recently decreased by over 50%, which should result in a marked reduction in number of false positives. Crispy1989 (talk) 20:29, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Go away, please. I do not wish to have anything to do with you anymore. DuncanHill (talk) 20:35, 30 November 2010 (UTC)