User talk:Francis Schonken/Archive 01

Communications in Dutch: please see User talk:Francis Schonken/Dutch

Overleg in het nederlands: op User talk:Francis Schonken/Dutch a.u.b.

Victionarium -> User talk:Francis Schonken/Latinus

Welcome
Hi Francis :) Allow me to greet you properly! I hope you like the place and choose to stay.

Some links that may be of use:
 * Welcome, newcomers
 * How to edit a page
 * Village pump - ask questions you may have here, or leave a message on my talk page

Check out the New user log, or here's some stuff you can do, if you want:

Have fun, and keep contributing Dysprosia 11:18, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Edit summary
Please provide an edit summary, thanks. Hyacinth 20:25, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by interal messages. I left you a message on your User talk page, just as you did on mine. Either way wikipedia alerts you if you are logged in. See: Talk_pages. Hyacinth 07:08, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ballet
Hello! I noticed you creating a category regarding the Ballet Russes productions. If you are interested in working further with the dance section on Wikipedia, may I suggust stopping by WikiProject_Dance. We're attempting to work on all the dance articles, categorize them correctly, and expand the coverage. Lyellin 01:14, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)
 * Francis... your efforts are more than welcome! :) Doesn't matter your angle or knowledge of the subject. I suspect my knowledge is just as weak, if not weaker than yours. My angle? I have a ballerina friend, so I checked out the article here, and realized how bad the section was, so I decided to fix it up some, and then got invovled. ANY contributions you can make to any of these, well, will do wikipedia good. Dance is a very weak subject on the 'pedia. If you want to join in on the project, feel free- it'd be great to have more minds, even if all someone can do is copyedit an article they don't know anything about. OR well, I hope you add more information regarding Ballet Russes stuff as well. Regardless, happy editing! Lyellin 01:56, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)

Categories for deletion/unresolved
-Erolos 00:26, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

LGBT-related categories
I noticed you added the notice to all the LGBT-related categories that they are "inherently subjective, and/or can be experienced as unrightfully labeling persons". I would suggest that, for example, Category:Queer theory does not incorrectly categorize the people therein - they are all queer theorists. It is a field of study, and all the people in the category (should, at least) participate in that field of study. It is just a categorization by profession. That this profession deals with homosexuality doesn't make it any less valid. -Seth Mahoney 04:37, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)


 * I made significant changes to the notice, which I think make it read and function more like similar notices for articles. -Seth Mahoney 05:08, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

Orlando
66.167.139.240 04:07, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC): See Talk:Orlando re: Orlando, Orlando (character), Orlando, Florida

Category:Atheists
This category was already disposed of on Categories for Deletion&mdash;the more focused Category:Atheist thinkers and activists is the logical replacement, tailored for relevance to the subject rather than just anyone who might check "atheist" on a religion survey. Postdlf 20:51, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Your way of adding posts in discussions
Content of remark under this heading moved to User Talk:Aris Katsaris.

Interwiki redirects
Please avoid using them, especially if it's to redirect back to Wikipedia (e.g. #REDIRECT w:category:Belgian political parties-Flanders). -- User:Docu

Rotterdam symposium
you are most welcome! hope you can make it to come. groet, oscar 10:54, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * See User:Francis Schonken and User:Francis Schonken/Dutch

Public address test, etc.
I've kind of dropped out of the Category:Priests discussion for the time being because, first, I think we've gotten close to an agreement - we're just approaching it from different angles; and second, I'm taking a break of sorts from Wikipedia as I get ready for the new school year. I'll stop in from time to time and see how stuff I've been working on has gotten along without me, and probably start contributing again in a couple weeks or so, though. Cheers! -Seth Mahoney 20:26, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * 1)  Looks perfectly fine to me, and you wrote probably more eloquently than I, as a native speaker, could have.  I'm totally behind you on this one, for the record.
 * 2)  I'm very glad that, rather than posting immediately to CfD, people are working in groups on this.  This, I think, is what category talk pages should be used for.  I'd like to see some sort of group form around this, maybe Wikipedia:Categories for discussion or something, where we can list the hot topics of the moment.

Categories: dramatists versus playwrights - Writers of plays again
Communications with User:Bishonen on these topics moved to Category talk:dramatists.

Wikipedia:MO
Can you please explain what MO means, and why it should redirect to Neutral point of view? Thank you. RickK 06:29, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)
 * Explanation posted on User talk:RickK, but I see my explanation has been deleted there. Please see NPOV article: at the bottom of that page there is a section "But POV is bad, isn't it?", that's where you'll find the explanation about "MO" and some other abbreviations.

Satie
"Avant-garde composers" is not currently a category, and would almost surely be a subcategory of Category:Classical composers if it was created. You seem to want to change the definition of "classical" currently in use (or at least, this makes more sense to me than arguing that Satie is not classical under the current definition), but I would not agree with you until given reasons for and specifics about what you intend "classical" to mean. Hyacinth 21:56, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * But, in practice, "Composer" = "Classical composer". Hyacinth 00:30, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Classical music
Talk with Opus33 (Oct 2004) moved to: Talk:Classical music

Categorisatie Rotterdam symposium
(topic moved to/verhuisd naar User talk:Francis Schonken/Dutch)

Bureaucratship
Thanks for your support for Bureaucratship, but I'm not really interested, plus I doubt I would get consensus vote for it. RickK 18:47, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

Constitutional Monarch
Hi Jimbo, and all who happen to read this,

Both parts of the discussion ("Benevolent Dictator" from Jimbo's user talk page and "Constitutional Monarch" from this page, including my most recent reply), are now on meta (m:talk:benevolent dictator). Figured that was sort of where this discussion belonged, for anyone to take part in.

--Francis Schonken 22:00, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Since the talk did not come to a conclusion yet, neither still drawing much contributors any more, I added "Constitutional Monarch" as an option to m:benevolent dictator, and tried to draw attention to m:talk:benevolent dictator from that page. --Francis Schonken 11:46, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

emptying Muijz's talkpage
When in conversation with Muijz on IRC yesterday he mentioned you placing this text on his talkpage. Since he was still banned he asked me to remove it and block his talkpage from further editting. As a user he can request this and he is in his rights. It is better to let it rest for now, as it is quiet currently. Please do not unnecassarily provoke this situation any further, I am trying to get peace and quiet to return to the Dutch wikipedia so we can all hold our debates in a normal tone. One thing that I am trying to implement is: "Stop dragging old cows from the ditch" leave them there to decompose please. With kind regards, Waerth 17:07, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing
Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:
 * Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
 * Multi-Licensing Guide
 * Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the " " template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:


 * Option 1
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR
 * Option 2
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions to any U.S. state, county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace " " with "  ". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)


 * You've raised some concerns about multi-licensing that I can hopefully answer. First, I am not trying to change Wikipedia to a different license, only make its content available to others who don't use the GFDL.  Secondly, Jimbo is striving hard to get the FSF to release an improved GFDL 2.0 that better matches with Wikipedia.  Having talked to him personally this weekend at the WikiMeetup, he has expressed support for the CC-by-sa effort.  I am not trying to subvert Wikipedia's licensing, only supplement our reach.    – Ram-Man (comment) (talk)   21:16, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * I've added a comment on Jimbo's talk page in response to your comment (for your consumption).   – Ram-Man (comment) (talk)   04:27, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Image licencing
Hi, i was hoping that you could tag Image:Vexations-MIDI.zip with the appropriate image copyright tag, see here for more details Image copyright tags. Thanks --nixie 08:41, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC) – double of this message deleted --Francis Schonken 11:46, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Categorization of people
Hi, Francis, thanks for the update. I've taken the page off the RFC list. Also thanks for the info on the terror category. Interest in policy development seems to have died out, but that's OK. Maurreen 22:33, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi, Francis. I'm glad I made you laugh. But about policy development, I was only referring to "terrorists". I'd take you up on your suggestion to see the Dutch Wikipedia, but unfortunately, I'm monolingual. Maurreen 15:59, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Gates
I added some material and a picture to an article (The Gates) which I believe that you had been working on. There was a request posted somewhere for someone who lives nearby to add to the article, which I did.

I've never put a picture in an article before, so I have no idea if I did that correctly. Let me know if you have any questions of suggestions. Morris 04:11, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)


 * The picture looks much better after your change. How do you make it over on the right?  Does wikipedia do that by itself when the picture is smaller?  Best regards, Morris 16:28, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

195.101
Just to say I got your message and that I'll detail the reasons for my butchering as soon as I find the time.

Having trouble
I am having trouble with a simonP. I edit Arete (virtue) and he immediately reverts the edits. Him and his friends have deleted [Classical definition of republic] and after the many facts and the quoting of material they will not acknowledge they won't even let an external link and the talk is ongoing at Talk:Republic. This man doesn't know what he is doing. I ask that someone step in and stop this please. This man has no expertise in the classical field. He is an anonymous user. WHEELER 16:59, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

List of Roman Emperors
I hated to remove all of your work on this page, but List of Roman Emperors is a list of people, not a discussion of the office, so your additions were off-topic. You should make your changes to Roman Emperor. -- llywrch 21:38, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cormac Lawler study
Hello Francis, I feel vey guilty that I haven't got back to you about my study that you have been so helpful with. I have uploaded the essay to Wikisource however, and i felt you should be among the first to see it, assuming you are among the first to read this ;) Here's the link http://wikisource.org/wiki/A_small_scale_study_of_Wikipedia. I'll hopefully be writing up my dissertation on Wikisource so i can get feedback as it is being written. Thanks for all your help and advice. Cormac aka Cormaggio


 * Thanks for your speedy feedback. I wouldn't mind people editing errors - in fact i sent a word.doc version to another participant and he was dying to make some corrections, of which there were a few. As to the content, it would be better to keep it as I handed in, as you say, and leave feedback to the talk page as well as my various research pages, which as you have seen, aren't exactly the most participated-in fora! But as to no original research on wikisource, the current version of quarto mentions and links to an essay written by an Italian undergraduate (I think), which more-or-less prompted me to upload mine. It being in Quarto indicates to me that it was okay. I'll leave it for now, but will ask around on wikisource about the points you have raised. Cormaggio 17:04, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Source request
Hi Francis, I've put in a request for sourcing that you might be able to help with on the discussion page for Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

Thanks, Opus33 16:26, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Untagged images
There is on Commons:Commons:Untagged images a list of 12 images you uploaded and forgot to tag. Cheers —FoeNyx 12:14, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

UVO
Hello, I saw on the history page that you were the creator of the UVO redirection to Neutral point of view. Would you be so kind as to answer the question last posted here : Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view by User:Uvo? Neither http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=uvo nor Glossary give the answer.--Theo F 14:55, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

SimonP on the Republican page (again!)
Simon P is at it again on the Republican page (yawn!). I can't do another revert without breaking the three reverts rule. Your participation would be welcomed. Fear ÉIREANN 01:51, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Undeletion request
The history is as follows:
 * 2005-04-30 10:37:50 (UTC): Created by . Content:
 * Pmanderson is obviously someone interested in for example Gnosticism, the Illuminati and Augustin Barruél.
 * 2005-05-05 21:02:48 (UTC): Blanked by

– ABCD 16:01, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Plato's works naming convention
I don't understand why you have created this convention which seems to me both unnecessary and contrary to the conventions already in use. Works should be named by their title when there appears to be no other usage of the name (eg Phaedo), and by standard naming convention otherwise [eg Laws (book) or Laws (Plato book) only in the case that Laws (book) already refers to another work which has higher priority]. That being said, I would imagine most any work named as "Title (book)" would likely have the name priority, being a Platonic work. But this "Title (Plato)" convention in my opinion smacks of bad form and largely unnecessary disambiguation. I respect your work in the Philosophy section, but I beg you to reconsider on this matter. Thank you. --Girolamo Savonarola 23:25, 2005 May 8 (UTC)

As an active participant in the discussions on Category_talk:Dialogues_of_Plato, I wanted to draw your attention to my survey proposal. This would likely bring in a number of outside and (presumably/hopefully) objective views - at the least, a fair enough number to make a consensus at the conclusion. Surveys need to be discussed by the involved parties ahead of time in order to come to an agreement as to their content, and thus make them valid. If you have the time, I'd appreciate if you got involved. Thanks! --Girolamo Savonarola 23:18, 2005 May 23 (UTC)

Bayreuth Festival
Read your comments on the User page and found your discussion of non-NPOV very interesting (I think I agree). During WWII the Bayreuth Festival was not closed (at Hitler's insistance) though only Die Meistersinger was performed. Villa Wahnfried sustained bomb damage from British bombers. All this is easily documented. Most recently Daphne Wagner's book The Wagner's (published circa 1996) has a good discussion of Bayreuth during that period. Thanks. Nobs 15:03, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Kandidatuur
Ben jij dit op meta: ? Waerth 11:36, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My user pages
Hi Francis! Here are my user pages: meta:User:BjarteSorensen. Good luck with future involvement in all things Wikimedia-related. BjarteSorensen 21:51, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

YOU ARE NICE.
Ｉ will vote you. from japanese that can speak English little.

Election question
(from user:Francis Schonken:)

(Is this the right place for these questions?) Do you have any potential conflicts of interest? For example, any ties to Yahoo, Google, Microsoft or other potential competitors or donors? Lunkwill 29 June 2005 08:04 (UTC)
 * I should have mentioned my user talk page on meta - I'll change that.
 * No conflict of interest, no ties with any of the companies you mention, nor any other for that matter.
 * --Francis Schonken 29 June 2005 21:07 (UTC)

Republic definition
Why move the bizarre rant rather than delete it? I don't see anything salvageable there. Morwen - Talk 08:46, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. I wouldn't let fear of 3RR stop you from editing/removing bizarre stuff first time - if they revert then its worth considering stopping. I've hacked away at it so make it NPOV (it no longer makes bizarre and paranoid prescriptivist claims) but its still totally stupid. Morwen - Talk 08:56, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Template
Yes the template looks good. Thank you very much for your interest. Miskin 21:29, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikimania?
Hi Francis, I assume you're coming to Wikimania? I'd really like to get the opportunity to thank you in person for all the help you gave me during the year with my research, which is still ongoing. I'm giving a presentation there on "Wikipedia as a learning community" if you're interested. By the way, well done for putting yourself forward for the board elections - it shows courage. Unfortunately I didn't vote for you - I would have done, but I still didn't have the required number of edits! (That will change.) All the best. Cormaggio 12:26, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * That's a shame, Francis. Looks like an interesting programme. And yes, I'd seen that survey - we're trying to work on another one for the m:Wikimedia_Research_Network if you'd like to chip in.. Cormaggio 14:27, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

No original research
Francis, could you discuss your changes on the talk page before making them please? This is a policy page and we have to be careful that changes don't contradict the official policy. Many thanks, SlimVirgin (talk) 22:39, July 31, 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, no. My edit removed some odd editing, and SR's clarified what was already there. Also, we were both part of the group of editors who reviewed this policy in draft form for months before it went on the page, so we're not likely to add any contradictions. You want to add something new, and the English isn't quite right, so it's not clear what you mean. For both these reasons, it would be appreciated if you would use the talk page first. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:55, July 31, 2005 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't mean to sound snippy. It's just that this is such an important policy. It keeps a lot of nonsense out of WP, so we don't want to see it watered down or have any loopholes inadvertently introduced. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:59, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Erik Satie
Hello, Francis! I'm sorry if you took the cleanup template on the Satie page as an offence. I read through the article and I thought it was not written in a very encyclopedic style, so I thought that adding that template would only draw attention of other editors so that they could improve it. I would love to improve it myself, but I'm not an English native speaker. If you feel that the article is fine the way it is now, remove it, it's no problem :) Looking forward to future collaborations, --Missmarple 18:19, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Plato naming scheme
Hello again, Francis. Hope you are keeping well!

Just wanted to once again request your comments on Category talk:Dialogues of Plato, as I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts (and hopefully support) for some final work that needs to be done to complete a full standardization of the article names of the dialogues. There are still three articles that have the (Plato) ending but cannot be changed manually and thus require a formal request. This is the last major task that remains at the moment.

Thanks! --Girolamo Savonarola 01:36, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I have a suggestion: why don't the two of us put together a survey on the matter? It would likely add some fresh perspective to the matter and hopefully break a deadlock and establish a consensus towards one side or the other. It would also be a good point to archive the old discussion and simplify the choices - I fear that the current talk page occludes the matter significantly for an outsider. It's no surprise to me that people are more reticent to join in given that what we're talking about now is vastly different from what the page discussion starts with and huge amount of text needed to be read to get to the latest matters. Let's streamline things into two or three overall naming scheme proposals for a survey, as well as a few other polls within the survey on options for particulars like Republic and Apology where there is more uncertainty. --Girolamo Savonarola 07:29, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Writing is difficult ..holding just a little...
Hello Mr./Ms. Francis Schonken. I'm 220.209.92.64(IP). Thank you for pointing out NPOV. It agrees. It describes by the machine translation, and I want to apologize for no too good it sentences previously. It is very joyous to change along the style of Wikipedia. It holds out so that I may also write a good article. Thank you.

Login is waited for a little more :) --220.209.92.64 14:49, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The description above is mistaken and it has written in UserPage. I'm sorry it is shameful... --220.209.92.64 17:29, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Questions that went by unnoticed
Over a month ago you posed me some questions, which for some unknown reasons I never noticed until only a few minutes ago. Better late than ever as they say, I'll try to answer you to the best of my knowledge.


 * Was Katharevousa in the 19th century (or beyond) important for uniformising the way Greek was written, I mean the common way to write Greek alphabet and/or which sounds were represented by which letters and/or accents & diacriticals?

People tend to think of Katharevousa as an artificially created dialect which aimed to replace the popular language of Greece, but this is not totally correct. Katharevousa (=purified) is an semi-artificial language, a purified version of the language of the Eastern Orthodox Church,which had its roots on the patriarchy of Constantinople. It had not impact in phonology nor the spelling of popular Modern Greek, it only added a significant amount of archaisms in grammar and vocabulary. Despite what people say, it was intelligible with the popular speech. To answer your question - no, it had not any importance on the way Greek was written, it was promoted for purely political reasons in order to strengthen the cultural links between the modern Greek Kingdom and ancient Greece in the eyes of the Western supporters of the Greek revolution against the Ottoman Empire.


 * Is it true that the "old" way of diacriticals (with spiritus asper/lenis and accents in various shape and direction) was only fixed in 19th century, to be abandoned in 1976 with the most recent spelling reform?

I take it that you're referring to the polytonic system being replaced by monotonic. That accenting system (polytonic) was not introduced in the 19th century. It was introduced with Koine Greek and it had been part of the Greek writing ever since. It had always been pretty much useless, as it was used to reflect Classical accents that had already fallen out of use at ancient times. It was dropped in 1981 by means of a new law, which had nothing to do with Katharevousa. As I said earlier, spelling was never affected. In my opinion Katharevousa is not much different from Dante's standardised Italian, which was chosen as the official language of the polylinguial Italian nation. The only difference between the two is that in Greece a common popular language had already existed, this is why it didn't work.


 * Is there difference between "new Greek" and "Modern Greek" (Dutch wikipedia made that difference before I came involved), "kini neo-elliniki glossa" = "common neo-Greek language" (the "official" Greek from after the last reform) being identified with "Modern Greek"?

In Greek the term that's being used is "Nεοελληνική", which I assume translated to Modern Greek (although it literally means Neo-Hellenic). Strictly speaking (amongst linguists), Νεοελληνική (or Νέα Ελληνικά), is a family of dialects and is not restricted to the common form of popular speech, which is called "Κοινή Νεοελληνική" (Common Neo-Hellenic). In English the word "modern" is used instead of the Greek "new", but I don't see why in any language someone would use both words. You should find the commonest way that translates "Modern Greek" in Dutch (either with Neo or Modern) and then use it to describe the dialect family of Modern Greek. Then in order to describe the standardised form of Modern Greek, which the anglophone wikipedia calls 'Koine Modern Greek', you can use terms such as standard or even Koine in front of it. Unless Dutch scholars explicitly differentiate (which I doubt) between "New Greek" and "Modern Greek", you should just use the common term of Dutch and ditch the other.


 * Or is all this just invention of one of my predecessors?

In my opinion one of your predecessors was confused because although the direct translation from Greek is Neo-Hellenic, in English it's known as Modern Greek.

I hope I could be of some help. Don't hesitate to message me regarding any other clarifications. Miskin 13:06, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

William of Orange
I think the 2 options as expresses in the WP:RM vote are better. Another page just leads to confusion. Philip Baird Shearer 13:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I do not think that a "simplified version of the William of Orange disambiguation page" is desirable or necessary. The debate is simply should the page "William of Orange" be a page which points to William III of England with a line at the top of that page:For other men named William of Orange, see William of Orange (disambiguation) to cover those instances where links to the William of Orange page should go to another. Or whether an reference to William of Orange should go directly to the disambiguation. I think the former due to common English language usage, others think diffrently. But this is debated at length on the William of Orange talk page. Philip Baird Shearer 15:34, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Please follow the page. I believe it should be redirected to William of Orange (disambiguation) at least until a consensus is reached whether to move/change it. I could use help in watching it (and defending the mantioned principle). Arrigo 20:50, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Primary Author
The expression "Primary Author" is a common shorthand for "If all else fails, consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor (that is, not a stub) to the article" Taken from Manual of Style now while this is not strictly a dispute about a spelling style it is close approximation. As the vote is now >60% in favour of a page move my position will become irrelevant shortly. Philip Baird Shearer 07:59, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Tacitean Studies
I'm sorry you disagreed with my disambiguation. Since Claudius died in 54, and Pliny the Younger was born in 63, it seemed like a reasonable assumption that the quotation referred to Pliny the Elder. However, as you probably know more about this subject than I do, I'll defer to your judgment. --Russ Blau (talk) 22:16, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Hi there!
I saw your post regarding the potentially disruptive editing behaviour. Seems very much a boarderline case and I don't think the edits are sufficient for a block. It's too bad those pages are sprinkled with intensifiers. Hopefully things will subside in a little bit. You've done a lot of work on Wikipedia - I hope the editing environment will get better for you soon. --HappyCamper 13:49, 28 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Hey, got your message. I'm glad you feel better! :) Sure, I'll look into it - but no promises! These things take a while to do because not everyone has access to this information, and you sort of have to make a "case" to justify getting this information. However, because it can potentially resolve many issues, I'll spend some time to look into it. I think it is very sneaky for an IP to do that - it's misleading for one thing. I'll get back to you in a bit! --HappyCamper 14:23, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Your redirect of Philip IV of France is well begun...
Since you have taken upon yourself the job of redirecting the article, you have completed the first step. "What links here" will give the list of articles with redirects to be changed. Thank you for your attention is completing your redirect. --Wetman 08:53, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, please
Francis, I am not abusing anything. You are moving pages (and then editing the redirects, which prevents moves by anyone but sysops...) where there is clearly no consensus to move, and due to an interpretation of the naming policy which is quite clearly supported by only a small minority, as demonstrated by the response on the pages where, for whatever reason, you decided to do a requested move instead of just moving them. I am merely undoing damage done by you, and I'm not going to apologize. john k 01:05, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

If you would like to begin an RfC on me, go ahead. I am confident that my actions will be vindicated. john k 01:07, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

You are the one who is moving pages when the convention is in dispute. And from the voting at Talk:William I of England and so forth it is quite clear that your interpretation of the rule is a minority one. As I noted before, while the rule itself is not well-worded, it has, throughout its history, been interpreted in a particular way - specifically "cognomens in article titles only in very limited cases." You can't simply say "well, that's not what it says exactly, so I'm going to move articles willynilly, even though nobody apparently agrees with me." The only article I have moved in this whole mess is William I of Orange to William I, Prince of Orange, which has nothing to do with the cognomen issue, and which was clearly appropriate under the naming standards. You have moved a number of long-standing articles to other locations. To make matters more confusing, on some pages you have simply moved articles, and on others you have started RM's. The RM's have been uniformly against your position, except on John the Fearless. The basic fact is that you knew your moves were controversial (I had no idea that my move of William the Silent would be controversial), and yet you made them anyway. And now you are accusing me of misbehaving. I'm calling bullshit. john k 02:00, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Naming conventions
I just want to say that I support what you are trying to do with naming conventions. I'm a litte hestitent about commenting yet until I understand the debate because what I say might be counter productive. My main gripe is the way we have things like Ptolemy I of Egypt rather than Ptolemy Soter.Dejvid 22:50, 31 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, our current naming convention only covers modern monarchs. I would most definitely support moving all the Ptolemies to Ptolemy I Soter, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and so forth.  (The ordinals, though, I think should stay, since these monarchs are usually referred to with them). john k 23:42, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Interesting links
I am wondering if something more severe is required. It seems that your request was apprently completed already a while ago, although I cannot definitively confirm this. I did some searching around; you might be interested in this link here and here. In particular, the last sentence may be of interest to you. Also, consider the context of these links here and here. Let me know what you think, and if I can help you out any further. Cheers! --HappyCamper 03:18, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Talk with User:Arrigo = User:217.140.193.123

 * continued at User talk:Francis Schonken/Arrigo disruption --Francis Schonken 12:07, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, but I would prefer that there not be a war between you and Arrigo - especially since you are both on the side of simplicity and usage, most of the time. If there is going to be one anyway, I prefer to be neutral, and I have told him so. (if it seems warranted, I will go to the point of starting a poll on the move, silly though that is.) Septentrionalis 12:30, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism vs. Content disputes
Please see Vandalism. Vandalism is a bad-faith contribution, not POV-pushing or content disputes. Please stop listing content disputes at pages designated for dealing with vandalism.--Scimitar parley 16:54, 2 September 2005 (UTC) Also, if you're uncertain about correct procedure for handling disputes, please refer to Resolving disputes.--Scimitar parley 17:53, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Hello
I just got a chance to read your message today. I've taken a look at the edit history of the pages you have given me. From my perspective, the pages are so convoluted I cannot follow what is going on. They are also quite saturated with attacks left, right and center. I don't know what is best for you to do.

I do have one idea though...Have you considered helping out with answering questions on the Reference Desk? That might be fun for a while. Check out WP:RD. These are monitored very closely, and are a very good source of positive feedback. At least, these are my two cents :-) --HappyCamper 00:24, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Imperatrix (import from user page)
In Republican Rome, the term imperatrix was used to reference the wife of an imperator. I'm at college so all my Latin books are unavailable, but I believe that, for one, Suetonius uses it in his Lives of the Ceasars. And also, since the feminine ending of '-or' words in Latin is '-rix', imperatrix would be the feminine form of imperator no matter when it was used. Kuralyov 20:55, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Arrigo
Dear Francis, as I'm sure you are aware, I share your concern about this user's activities, particularly his careless page moves and disruption of votes. Incidentally, he has used several other IP addresses to access wikipedia, for example 62.78.104.14, but as far as I know he is currently only using the two "identities". This in itself I consider to be worthy of an RfC. However, this note is just to tell you that, much as I would like to support the RfC you are considering, my opinion would surely be disregarded because of the disputes I have already had with him (I'm pretty sure it's a "he", partly because of the misogynistic streak he occasionally displays.) If I do ever contribute to an RfC on the subject of this user, it will have to be one I raise myself -- at the moment I'm not quite ready to do that, as I feel he could still make a worthwhile contribution to the project if he would only abandon his arrogance. Deb 18:30, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Useful links
Hi Francis - I will be in the process of archiving my talk page soon, and it may be a good idea to change some of the links you have made to my user page. Here is a listing of the important threads which may be of relevance to you:

, , , , , , , , 

It might be a good idea to go through them once more. --HappyCamper 00:30, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Arrigo's user page
From Sock puppet:


 * If an account has been shown to be a sock puppet used for policy violations, then it should be identified as such, by adding Template:SockpuppetProven to the user page of the sock puppet account. (italics mine)


 * Multiple accounts have legitimate uses.

If you have evidence that Arrigo is using his IP address to circumvent Wikipedia policy, please send it to me and I will restore the sockpuppet tag. Otherwise it is inappropriate. Please keep in mind that IP addresses' votes should not be counted in contentious votes, so an IP address should have little to no impact on voting. Furthermore, if the user lacks civility on all his accounts, he isn't using his IP address to circumvent Wikiquette, he's just using it interchangably.

Please note: This is not a reflection on the overall exchange between you and Arrigo, but just one instance.

I await your evidence.--Scimitar parley 13:21, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Francis, I'm really not sure what to make of Arrigo/217. About half the time, his comments seem constructive. Then the other half the time he seems to be being absurdly argumentative to no good purpose. And the constant use of the sockpuppet is highly confusing. But I'm not sure what is to be done. What policies have been violated? WP:POINT? That's terribly difficult to prove, and if he's been doing that, he's been doing it pretty subtly. One can argue, I think, that he has not used the sockpuppet in an illegal way - he nominates for deletion on the anon account, and votes with the signed-in account. While that technically violates the rules, it's arguable that he didn't realize that a nomination counts as a vote. It's also my understanding that non-signed-in users' votes don't count, anyway. So, while he is troublesome, and often annoying, I'm not sure what can be done. john k 16:22, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry
Hey again, thanks for the quick response. Looks like you're correct here- he is using his IP address in a disingenuous way. The votes for deletion are particularly interesting, and I'd say you easily have enough evidence for an RfC, which is the route I would go. Given his track record, it's a longshot, and it'll probably wind up in arbitration, but I'd pursue it. All the best, and if you decide to go that route, let me know.--Scimitar parley 16:54, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I copy-edited you
That was not me in my finest hour. Instead, it was me at my most cynical, which is a side of me that I have generally tried not to express on the Wikipedia. Still, I don't mind you quoting me, but I changed the link from a reference to the original quote to just a link to my User page. I would rather that my comment not look like an aspersion on any one individual in the naming and style disputes on the Wikipedia when it was really directed at all the partisans involved in the lengthy disputes and edit wars over Titles and Styles.

I hope that you don't mind, but I also did some minor copy-editing and spell-checking. Blank Verse  &empty;  15:35, 7 September 2005 (UTC)


 * For spell-checking, do what I do and use the Mozilla Firefox internet browser with the Spell-Bound spell-checker. You can even do your spell-checking in British English, American English, or Australian English (plus a half-dozen other English dialects, as well as maybe a dozen other languages).


 * For the type of editing that I would rather be known for, see the kigo article where quite a bit of text is stuff that I wrote. Blank Verse   &empty;  16:06, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Big hello
It has been a while! I'd be happy to offer some input on your current project. I'm not sure if you've been following it, but there's another group of people who are discussing the merits and flaws of categorizing by gender, sexuality, and race specifically. You can probably find a link to that if you check out my recent contributions (I don't have time at the moment to dig it up). Anyway, glad to see you're still around and doing important stuff, and, you know, I hope things are going well for you! -Seth Mahoney 16:33, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Sonneries de la Rose + Croix
The character you use (⁺, Unicode U+207A SUPERSCRIPT PLUS SIGN) is problematic for a number of reasons. First of all, as far as I can tell, it's incorrect: based on Google searches, the actual title does seem to be "Sonneries de la Rose + Croix", with a "+" sign, and not "Sonneries de la Rose + Croix". See for instance this image:

Second, this character (superscript plus sign) is not available in most fonts. Under Windows, for instance, this character is not available even in Unicode fonts. In general, there is a strong aversion to using undisplayable characters in article titles.

Unfortunately, due to technical limitation, the "+" sign cannot be used in Wikipedia article titles. The usual Wikipedia convention is to use "plus" in the name of the title and add a template within the article text. There are a number of examples of this: for instance, C_plus_plus instead of C++. See also Canal Plus, 2 Plus 2 = 5, and many other examples.

For this reason, I'm moving the article to Sonneries de la Rose plus Croix with a "wrongtitle" template notice. This matches standard Wikipedia practice. I'll also create redirects from Sonneries de la Rose et Croix, Sonneries de la Rose-Croix, Sonneries de la Rose Croix, since these also occur (though much more rarely) in Google search.

-- Curps 00:05, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

There aren't really any up-to-date guidelines, since the transition to Unicode was quite recent... in the English Wikipedia it wasn't possible to use non-Latin-1 (ASCII and western European) characters in article titles until the end of June, only a couple of months ago (other Wikipedias converted to Unicode much earlier).

In general though, there is still lingering controversy over even having letters with diacritics for article titles, ie Slobodan Milošević rather than Slobodan Milosevic. See for instance the discussion and voting at, although in practice most such names have already been converted to use diacritics. So the mood might be somewhat conservative.

In terms of unusual article titles, we do have I ♥ Huckabees. But the heart symbol is printable in default font on Windows (perhaps on non-Windows machines too). But for other characters that aren't printable in default font, it would probably be reasonable to exclude them from titles (though they could exist as redirects).

Of course, one problem is discovering what's printable in default font on various platforms (Windows, Apple, etc). See Naming conventions (Unicode) (draft) for some Unicode charts... I am now splitting these out into separate templates, as:
 * Template:Unicode chart Latin Extended-A, default font
 * Template:Unicode chart Latin Extended-B, default font
 * Template:Unicode chart Latin Extended Additional, default font
 * etc.

If we can get a good idea of what's default-printable on major platforms, we can try drafting some guidelines.

Unicode has U+2629 CROSS OF JERUSALEM (see http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2600.pdf ) which may be what you're looking for, but it isn't printable in default fonts on Windows (you can try the page at http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/miscellaneous_symbols.html to see if it's printable on your platform).

Also, there's definitely no technical means to use different colors (red) in an article title, although it can be done within the article's text.

If there's a scholarly reference to a cross being intended, we could mention that within the article itself. But this would need to be researched and references cited... your intuition may be good based on your experience and knowledge of the topic, but it doesn't constitute verifiable evidence.

Regarding spaces before and after the "+", I typed this into the google search box: "Sonneries de la Rose" "Croix" in other words, the phrase "Sonneries de la Rose" AND "Croix" together on the same page. Most of the google hits had "+", and I think all of the ones that had "+" had space before and after. You can try the search yourself

-- Curps 10:31, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

The "unicode font" is determined by the contents (and sequential ordering of the contents) of Template:Unicode fonts. I didn't write that particular template, it may be that it doesn't include fonts used by Firefox and needs to be refined.

Regarding whether there's a space before and after the "+", well, I'm only going by Google and if you have some original scholarly references, that's probably more reliable.

Regarding the title, the usual Wikipedia practice is to substitute "_plus" for a "+", so the question is, is it worth it to break this convention? In the case of Rizla, our article says that people commonly call it "Rizla" (presumably when talking to shopkeepers, etc). I guess the question is, when music experts and fans talk to one another about this particular piece, how do they pronounce it? I really don't know, perhaps you do? I would guess that, given that it's a French phrase, "Sonneries de la Rose et Croix" might be appropriate; on the other hand, "+" is spelled and pronounced "plus" in French too. Is it really too distateful to include the "plus"?

In any case, I think I'll defer to you as to the choice of the title, since your level of knowledge and scholarship about the man and his work is much greater than mine. Originally, my main concern was simply to avoid having a non-printable character in the article title, so if we can avoid that everything else should be OK. We can just pick one option for the article title and make any other plausible possibility a redirect to it. So go ahead with whatever you consider the best option. -- Curps 07:18, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

'Ennery the Eighth and WP:ANI
Hi, Francis! Yeah, I do remember my non-native speakers remark — the whole incident represented pretty much the only heroic effort I've made to get my head round a category problem, so it made an impression. I had to click on your link to remember what the problem was, but I've always remembered being impressed by your gordian-knot solution of it. I think your people-naming page is very clear and logical, except for one thing, which is probably me: I have trouble grasping the Henry VIII example, in relation to what I thought was current practice — such as Charles II of England, now there's an article name I've typed maybe 50 times in my own editing — and what you say on the talk page about it. Could you explicate? Not that that's the main thing holding me up, it's scrabbling for a grip on the *present* policy pages, and trying to see how yours would include them in a three-layer system (is that it?). I do agree with you about the need to be quite detailed, so that we don't get all these naming disputes and adhockery on talk pages, and I have a lot of confidence in your work in this area. If you'll enlighten me about the kings, I'll try to come up with some rousing comment to post. A coincidence: I'd just been thinking about a post on WP:ANI about you, when I saw you on my talk page, in fact I was thinking about removing this entry as a mere slur. Compare the page policy posted at the top (I wrote the relevant bit of it myself, but nobody ever objected). I don't know whether you were aware of the post or not. What do you think, shall I remove it, or would you like to reply on the page? Bishonen | talk 00:10, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Naming conventions (yet again)
Hey Francis, I wonder if you might take a look at Adraeus's nonsense at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles). While you and I have disagreed in the past about whether monarchs who are known both by ordinals and by cognomens should go under the ordinal or the cognomen, I'm sure you will agree with me that monarchs known almost solely by the cognomen, and in instances where what the proper ordinal even is are confused at best, the article should go under the cognomen. This has always been how exception #2, of such constant recent discussion, has been interpreted, and I strongly feel that this is the correct way to interpret it. Adraeus (and, apparently, Arrigo, although he initially opposed it) seems to want to move all of the articles on the Carolingians to arbitrarily determined ordinals. Anyway, if you'd be interested in commenting, any support would be appreciated. john k 03:43, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I perfectly understand the lack of interest, but thanks for replying. I've not read the essay you speak of, although I have read the wikipedia article about it. I'm not sure I quite understand how it relates to the matter of naming conventions - this seems rather far afield from the subject of the essay. Even just the "Britannica/Encarta is a cathedral, Wikipedia is a bazaar" analogy seems potentially problematic to me. john k 17:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Long time no see
Okay, I know I've put it off for way too long, so I'll take a look now. For what its worth, though, I think that people do put "I'm a man"/"I'm a woman" on business cards. Its packed into "Mr."/"Mrs.", and, often, into people's names. So maybe that one could survive the business card criteria. Often, also, similar goes for sexuality - a person may have a pink or rainbow-colored triangle in a corner of their card, or an address in a neighborhood known to be gay friendly, or even work at a business known to be gay friendly. So that information is often there.

I don't know if I agree with what you say regarding supercategories, but its definitely something I'm going to think about a little more in-depth. I've been in favor of them (provided some future version of the wiki software allows searching for articles by category, so I could, say, cross-reference Category:Women and Category:Chefs) because it avoids the "ghettoization effect" that some people have complained about with regards to specific categories (like Category:LGBT philosophers). But yeah, I'm going to think a little more on that one now. -Seth Mahoney 18:45, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

WP:AIV
Hello, Francis Schonken! I just wanted to let you know that reports of WP:3RR violations go to WP:AN/3RR, not WP:AIV, which is for vandalism only. If you wish to report a 3RR violation, please do it there, and I will take a look a it. Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 20:53, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Mediation
Hello, Francis Schonken. Since you and Arrigo seem to be in a dispute, would you be willing for me to mediate between you two? I hope that if both of you agree, we can begin some productive discussion, and that some issues will be cleared up. If you are willing to give mediation a try, please let me know. Just a note: In the interest of full disclosure, I am not an official mediator yet, but I'd be willing to help you two out if both of you agree. Thanks a lot for your understanding. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 00:07, 18 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I would be happy to mediate. However, Arrigo has some concerns that anything said during mediation would be used in a negative fashion. Thus, I plan to create a separate page for this mediation, and ask both of you to promise that nothing written during mediation will be used against the other party, or used as evidence in any future processes. This way, both of you can express your thoughts freely. Would you agree to this? Thanks for your understanding. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 00:57, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Francis. Thanks for your message, but I wasn't "teasing" -- I really did mean it. Deb 19:53, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

"Victoria" pages
Can you tell me why swapping the "Victoria" disambig pages is an "absurdistic" suggestion? It strikes me that you and Arrigo are in dispute about two things: which title the disambig page should be at;  and which page history that page should have. I've already stated my general agreement with you on the first point. The second, while I feel it's largely immaterial, would be taken care of by the move/swap. (In the hopes that Arrigo's objections might be partly mollified thereby.) What's the problem? Alai 02:59, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Hello again. Let me try once more: I'm proposing a swap of the two pages, in such a way as to leave the page histories both intact. If you're skeptical that can be done, please see Help:Renaming_(moving)_a_page. Looking at the history of the older page, then indeed, I don't see what the big deal is for Arrigo. But equally, what's the big deal for you? Nothing you've said would seem to justify removing, defacing, or 'withdrawing' another user's validly filed move request. Or indeed, negatively commenting on it on the WP:RM page, which isn't the correct page for such. Surely better to try and get some outside input on the question, one way or another, than continuing the bunfight as at present. Alai 15:53, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

At all costs? What costs are at stake, exactly? A page-move is performed (or not); a redirect is recreated;  life goes on. I'm not aware of what policies requesting a move can be possibly be against, especially as it's made in the spirit of attempting to comply with the naming conventions. I also don't know how you determine what the "odds" are of it being made, though I take it from that, along with your removal, striking through, and in-line commenting on it, that you're declaring your opposition to it. I completely agree that the page history shouldn't be an issue, except for the fact that Arrigo is making it one. So if it's made, he no longer has that argument (as weak as that is) against the current redirect, and if he's being at all consistent, would hopefully then accede to that. Isn't that what you want?

So far as I can tell, we're in agreement on substance: that what matters is title of disambig;  what that disambig title should be;  and that those being agreed, fixing up edit histories, by one method or the other, is then a technicality (if it's even necessary at all). So I find it a little disconcerting that I find myself in danger of being in a meta-space edit dispute with you, in trying to resolve this in a manner that's completely consistent with that. Alai 05:25, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Reply
Hello, Francis Schonken. If Arrigo agreed to mediation, would you agree that anything said during mediation cannot be used for any other purposes? If you agree to this, I will see whether Arrigo is interested in mediation. Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 23:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your understanding. I will contact Arrigo and see if he is interested in mediation; if he is not, I would recommend filing an RfC. However, I am hopeful that some productive talks can be done. Thanks again. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 00:08, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Empress Frederick page
I'm not sure what the issue is. The changes look mostly fine to me - a style is added at one point where an official style is being described, and there's a bit more explanation at the beginning. A style for her husband is actually removed (as it should be). It certainly doesn't look like vandalism to me. john k 16:24, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

AfD and CfD pages
Hi! I'm sure your policy-making plate is pretty full at the moment, but have you considered the possibility of directing your skills toward radically changing the Articles for Deletion and Categories for Deletion policies? It occurs to me that we have policies like:


 * Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy. Its primary method of finding consensus is discussion, not voting. In difficult cases, straw polls may be conducted to help determine consensus, but are to be used with caution and not to be treated as binding votes. (What Wikipedia is not)

and yet, when it comes down to what gets said and what doesn't, that's exactly what Wikipedia is. Seems like a better system could be worked out. Anyhow, if you're interested at all, let me know and maybe we can throw a couple possibilities together. -Seth Mahoney 21:39, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Edit: I just found the AfD reform page. Looks like some other users have been having similar issues. :D -Seth Mahoney 22:55, 22 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Har! You're right, voting is the playground of the inexperienced Wikipedian.  Unfortunately, its also the playground of the savvy Wikipedian who knows that in order to push their POV it only takes enough keystrokes to type keep or delete.  The AfD reform page I found is, for the time being, Deletion_reform/Brainstorming.  -Seth Mahoney 00:35, 23 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Hey, thanks for the link to the pure deletion whatnot and whatever (my brain is pretty quickly turning to mush). I saw something similar on the brainstorming page mess, and I totally agree with you - its about the opposite of what I was thinking, but it could easily work (there would be more edit wars, probably, but there are always edit wars).  -Seth Mahoney 01:26, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Minister-Presidents
thanks for your help Francis Schonken, you're a good guy. i'm in touch with the ministries of the Länder, Nordrhein-Westfalen has already confirmed to me the use of "Minister-Presidents", i'm still waiting for the other responses. thanks again for your help. if you need any assistance with dealing with notorious trolls (you know who i mean :-) let me know, glad to help back... regards Gryffindor  18:43, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Hilda Toledano and Maria Pia of Saxe Coburg Braganza
Now in this page we want write about this woman as a pretender of the Royal House of Braganza and no as a writer of novels. She is known with the name Hilda Toledano only for her novels and instead when one person talk or search informations about her as a pretender use the name Maria Pia of Saxe Cobug Braganza (you can see this also in google). So I suggest to write in the page of Hilda Toledano about her work and her novels but no about her dinastic claims and in the page of Maria Pia of Saxe Coburg Braganza write about her dinastic claims and connect this page with Hilda Toledano page. I think that this is the more truthful solution. RegardsManuel 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Can we kiss (or you know whatever) and make up?
Hi Francis. We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot. I apologise if you think I'm being tiresome. I assure you I am not doing it on purpose. Seemingly from the moment you started conversing with me you seemed short. Everything I had to say seemed to make you annoyed. You seemed like you just wanted (want?) me to just leave the discussion. Had I already offended you in some way? Is there some history behind this that I don't know about? I suspect there is some sort of misunderstanding going on but I don't know what. What is this really about? Perhaps if you were more frank about what problems you are having with me that would help?

You have said twice, I think, that I was "pretending" about something. I want to assure you I am not. Can you say what it is that made you say that?

You also called my edit "vandalism". Vandalism, defines vandalism to be ''any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. … Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism.'' Do you really think that that is what I did? I can assure that my edit was a good faith effort to improve the encyclopedia.

I support a lot of what you are trying to do. I think I could be a useful ally, and help you to achieve some of your goals. I tried to offer my help but you seemingly turned a cold shoulder. Perhaps you should give me a second chance (several of our fellow editors actually think I'm an ok guy Can we make amends?

If you want to conduct a conversation more privately feel free to email me.

Regards. Paul August &#9742; 19:24, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Republics
Thank you for your very polite and constructive note on Republic, I think your suggestions that we factor the article into parts is a good one, and there could be considerable improvement on the page. Let me get back to you later, as I am writing under deadline. Stirling Newberry - 18:27, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Princess Margaret(e) of Prussia
As a contibutor can you look at these two articles and help decide where they should go? Rich Farmbrough 23:20, 6 October 2005 (UTC) I've since read some of the talk pages referring to royalty movement, and can see what's been going on. I'm not too worried about these pages now. Rich Farmbrough 12:20, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Block warning
Now you have a block warning. If you continue to remove NPOV's from articles you will be blocked. Also simply becasue someone has tried to intimidate me by threatening an unjustified block, doesn't mean anything. You repeating of the threat just makes you as big a bully as they are.--Son of Paddy's Ego 13:17, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Has been tried before; usually I'm cleverer --Francis Schonken 13:23, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Administrator's noticeboard
I've left a note at the bottom of Category talk:Terrorists. I'll be putting that page on my watchlist, so please direct all further discussions related to the matter there. --HappyCamper 14:58, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Goodness
I saw your nice note on the user talk page of Grazon. Thanks for being good and nice. Personally, I'm beginning to wonder about this particular editor. I hope that there's a way of helping this editor to follow community standards. Cheers, -Willmcw 08:14, 12 October 2005 (UTC)


 * You can tell good editors by their good edits.
 * Regarding the List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people (LGLBP), it is considerably more extensive than List of gay, lesbian or bisexual composers which has only a few sources. Due to the nature of LGLBP, miscellaneous editors frequently add spurious material to it. As a principal maintainer of the list, I greatly appreciate the simple criteria of biography inclusion. More importantly, I think that that criteria is the best NPOV system for properly evaluating such claims. If we went to having footnotes for each entry then the maintainers of the list would have to evaluate each reference about subjects who may be totally unknown. It is much better for the editors of respective biographies to evaluate the assertions as they know the subjects and sources best. However, if there is an external reference of high respectability then it might be used as an additional source. There have been some cases where editors of the biographies have resisted mention of a subject's orientation despite evidence where a fallback reference would be appropriate for establishing at least a "debated" orientation.
 * Yes, categories should reflect content of the article. That instance may reflect sloppy categorisation.
 * Thanks for your contributions, -Willmcw 09:06, 12 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't understand what you're talking about regarding Categories, lists, and series boxes and what you want me to do. Could you be more explicit? Thanks, -Willmcw 15:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the "heads up" regarding the Village Pump policy page, I normally check it only sporadically. As for sourcing lists, I am strongly in favor of requiring some sourcing or clear criteria for inclusion on a list. However I don't know that we need to be dogmatic across the board about which kind of source (internal or external) is used. In the case of the LGLBP, relying on internal sourcing has proven very effective. That choice was the result of a long and thorough discussion. You're certainly welcome to refer to the criteria used there. Cheers, -Willmcw 21:17, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Republic
Sounds good. Once again, my apologies. Stirling Newberry 20:43, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Random Appreciation
Just a note to let you know some people *do* appreciate your calm civility even when you're dealing with the...less than civil. Keep up the good work :) Sherurcij 00:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)