User talk:Ferdinand Pienaar

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Angela. 05:35, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)

Edit summary
Hello. Please provide an edit summary. Thanks and happy edits. Hyacinth 21:41, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hillary Clinton
Hi there. Thanks for helping with the Future Bid paragraph. It was a tough one, and it definitely needed some extra eyeballs. It's a great improvement over the original, however. Wouldn't mind if you'd take a look at my copy anytime. Best regards, allie 22:12, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Help?? I have no idea what went wrong with the formatting...it could probably use your input as well, when you have some time. Many thanks allie 18:47, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

History of South Africa
Hello, I saw that you recently edited History of South Africa. I'm attempting to completely rewrite the article to deal with the fairly shaky organisation of the current version. I would appreciate all assistance you can offer with edits to my interim version before I post it on the History of South Africa article. The version I am working on can be accessed here. Thank you so much! Páll 09:26, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pretoria Meetup
Hello. Since you're not far from Pretoria, I wanted to make sure you know about the meetup there next week. Hope you can make it. :) Angela. 03:13, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

UNYAZI 2005
Hi,

I see you live in Johannesburg and have written about Louis Moholo. Did you know that he (and George Lewis, Halim El-Dabh, Pauline Oliveros, and others) will be there September 1-4 for the UNYAZI Festival of Electronic Music? Here's the website: http://www.newmusicsa.org.za/unyazi2005.html

Pops Mohamed (whom you probably also know) will be there as well, playing with Halim El-Dabh (I am El-Dabh's assistant at Kent State University in Ohio). They will do a duo for African traditional instruments and electronics.

Did you get to this? I heard all about it. Badagnani 07:55, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

The two John Adamses
Really sorry about that. I added the disambiguation because while doing new page patrol (I am definitely not tempermentally well suited to that, but I wanted to spot check my current crude "model of WP") I managed to confuse two composers with very similar names. I think I and others have removed all the works by the other Adams which I incorrectly added until I (independently) recognized my goof. Hopefully now that the disambig is there, this won't happen again. ---CH 22:55, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

China
I was in Beijing (in China for the first time) in October, with the same composer (Halim El-Dabh). It was a symposium at the Central Conservatory of Music; a dialogue between Asia and Africa. I got to see some Chinese jazz, underground rock, Buddhist chant, Uighur music, music of Yunnan ethnic groups, etc. A wonderful experience! Would like to know more about your trip, which was much longer than mine (I was just there 9 days). Was it music related? I have studied Chinese instruments since 1990. You can see me here (I'm the second one down): http://www.melodyofchina.com/01artists/nonchn.html  Badagnani 08:38, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Please vote
Hi, if you have not yet done so, we could sure use your input on Requests for adminship/Dewet. Thanks! Elf-friend 10:26, 19 May 2006

I'd like to, but can no longer make edits. My IP address is 168.209.98.35 (at least as seen at Wikipedia), and this has been blocked by User:Hall Monitor for being a suspected open proxy. My ISP is MWEB, and when I contacted them they were pretty unhelpful, telling me that a DNS lookup shows the address in question doesn't belong to them. I don't know too much about proxies: how do I know for sure I'm using one? How come I'm using one? Can I tell MWEB that they're providing me with inferior service for "making" me use one? So for the time being I'm taking an extended break from editing. By the way, if you know anything about proxies, I would eventually like to solve this problem and become an active contributor again.Ferdinand Pienaar 08:22, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Incorporated your comments on Virtual Inheritance
Ferdinand,

I updated the article on Virtual Inheritance (object-oriented programming).

I am starting the process of removing the dispute status from the article. I think I covered everything in the dispute. Still have to put in a better code example and some good (concise) references.

Could you look over the article prior to review the semantics?

Thanks much is advance.

Shawn wiki 15:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Possessives
I notice that you have been systematically changing "Borges'" to "Borges's". I don't have any particular issue either way, but I notice that you are citing The Economist's Style Guide and Strunk & White. We are not writing for The Economist; Strunk & White, while generally excellent, is also rather specifically American, whereas Wikipedia attempts to be international. Wikipedia's own manual of style is quite specific in saying that we do not have a style preference in this particular matter:

"Possessives of singular nouns ending in s may be formed with or without an additional s. Either form is generally acceptable within Wikipedia. However, if either form is much more common for a particular word or phrase, follow that form, such as with 'Achilles' heel' and 'Jesus' tears'. (Manual of style)"

Again, I don't have any particular issue either way with the actual edit, but I would suggest that if you want to take the time to make corrections like this, you might look for ones that actually violate our own style, not someone else's. - Jmabel | Talk 04:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Tabla Taskforce
Hi Ferdinand Pienaar. I've proposed a Wiki Tabla taskforce to help clean up the tabla related pages and construct those that are missing. Your participation would be much appreciated. You can see the proposal at this link. Simon Ives (talk 00:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Apostrophes and Minor Edits
Hi Ferdinand,

In your recent edits to the article on popcorn, thanks for bringing me up-to-speed on the more current style of omitting the apostrophe after pluralized numerals, and specifically with reference to decades. I was unaware that usage had changed in that respect since I learned the rules in grammar school.

On the other hand, you marked your changes as a minor edit. It's true that only a few words were changed, but according to Wikipedia guidelines: "A check to the minor edit box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the current and previous version: typo corrections, formatting and presentational changes, rearranging of text without modifying content, et cetera... any change that affects the meaning of an article is not minor, even if the edit is a single word."

To me, toning down the health warning about the potential for very high saturated fat content in popcorn is much more than superficial. I suppose that whether I count as "rich and overfed" would depend upon whom you ask, but what's for sure is that I have high cholesterol. Foods high in saturated fat can put me at risk for all kinds of potentially fatal diseases. I think a strong health warning in the lead of the section on nutritional information is much more than a matter of cultural perspective.

I've made an attempt to rewrite the section in a way that incorporates both our concerns, and would be privileged to continue working with you on it. Thank you, Rnickel (talk) 17:40, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't repeat yourself
Making fun of the writing in article space doesn't really help fixing the turdy writing. Pcap ping  16:57, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

DRR algorithm update
Dear Ferdinand,

thank you for taking time to improve the article Deficit_round_robin. Nevertheless, I do not agree with you last modification. I have opened a devoted section in the talk page Talk:Deficit_round_robin. Best regards, MarcBoyerONERA (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:54, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:14, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Nomination of Marcus Gilmore for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Marcus Gilmore is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Marcus Gilmore until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. AyaanLamar (talk) 09:20, 21 February 2018 (UTC)