User talk:Grant65/Archive Oct07-Nov07

Chris Mainwaring
Hi Grant I noticed you had occasion to re-include the theory about CM cause of death, while it's just a theory the age references only says its a possibility with the reasoning that another person had been to his house that day. As the paper is say xx was here so yy would happened its suggesting xx supplied the drug, thats just sensationalist media gossip to which WP:BLP says ''Editors should avoid repeating gossip. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to an encyclopedia article about the subject.'' the last part if true would be relevant but until proven we should be careful about inclusion especially as source implies it as fact. Also the Eastern States media has this thing about drug use and WCE rolling it out at every opportunity during since the Ben thing earlier this year, even when its false. Gnangarra 01:07, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

British Designations of AFC Squadrons
Basically I think we are probably both right! So far as I can determine, the AFC squadrons (with the possible exception of No. 1 in the early stages when it was far from an "all-Australian" unit) were never called by their RFC numbers by the Australians - and, at least until near the end of the war, the AFC numbers had no official recognition from the British. The whole story of the recognition of Australian land, sea, and air units in British service in 1914-18 (and even later!) is actually quite a vexed one - for instance the RAN battlecruiser "Australia" was considered (by the British) to be a unit of the British fleet to the extent that it was scrapped as a result of the Washington Treaty!!!

I worded the original notes as I did in the context of the subject of the article concerned - Squadrons of the RAF. The AFC squadrons were "originally 67, 68 etc." in this context - although the qualification (Australian) was often added. This was how they were known in the RFC/RAF. On the other hand you are of course perfectly correct in suggesting that these numbers were never used by the units themselves (except perhaps in communicating with (British) higher command).

I am fairly happy with your version - even if mine was (in context) technically (even) more correct. I will nonetheless suggest an alternative - feel free to correct (or even revert) this if you are still unhappy with it! Soundofmusicals 00:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I had seen the pikky of the 80 wing scoreboard! I think actually that was where I got the idea that the AFC numbers had been more or less accepted by the end of the war. Have you had a look at my latest edit of the list in question? As I said - I am not adamant that this not be changed back if you think yours was better. Soundofmusicals 07:20, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry to quibble on about this one - but I have done some more research - and apparently the AFC designations officially replaced the RFC ones in Feb. 1918 - hence the squadrons concerned were never (even from the British point of view) part of the RAF, which was not formed until April. I have further modified the wording to reflect this. Soundofmusicals 23:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Indonesian oceans
Gawd - we get the experts telling us the indian and and pacific oceans go inside indonesian waters - and lap against beaches that never would have been considered by the local inhabitants to be on their shores - but common and local names is a humdinger - worth at least an afternoon of the liquid amber and at least 10 dictionaries/atlases/history books to hand - :|   SatuSuro 16:51, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * yeahbut - project wide we have to battle with a range of attempts to get us accepting outsider versions of things - and then to ascertain local usages - ahh - the southern ocean and its existence or not showed what can happen - I cannot wait for someone to start an australia/east timor ocean boundary article - that will test us all i think :|  SatuSuro 17:09, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Pacific War subs?
Change it to "U.S. along with Brit &c"? That's what it said, til somebody offened by "U.S. centric" changed it... Trekphiler 03:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm too biased re MacArthur to be an objective judge what to in/out on his page, really, especially if it's critical of him/his ego. Where subs are concerned, my problem was the overweight attached to non-US boats in PTO; it was mainly a USN Sub Force theatre. I don't mean to exclude the Brits & Dutch entire, but their contribution was relatively trivial. If you mean to say something about MacArthur's "guerrillas", don't forget, Carpender's boats were diverted to supply them & away from sinking marus, which lengthened the war... Or did I miss your point? Trekphiler 03:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Bali Sea
Nah, it's just inconsistent way of names in Wikipedia. Should we always stick to what Google's saying or do we have some naming guidelines? &mdash; Indon ( reply ) &mdash; 00:54, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe you're totally wrong to say that "Bali Sea" is an anglicisation from the Dutch "Balizee". I speak both three languages and I know for certain that that they are just a simple word-by-word translation issue. Look at the oddities at Category:Seas of Indonesia. &mdash; Indon ( reply ) &mdash; 01:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I did the search, Grant. And please tell me whether "Bali Sea" search with 32,700 hits is an uncommon name for the sea than "Laut Bali" search with 528 hits? I'm trying to find the logic behind it to say that "Laut Bali" is the appropriate article name per Wikipedia policy. &mdash; Indon ( reply ) &mdash; 01:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * And oh, I love this one nl:Afbeelding:IndoZee.png from the Dutch page of nl:Categorie:Zee in Indonesië. Maybe you can learn better for the Dutch sea names from that map to compare with other sea names. Do you still stick with anglicisation reason? &mdash; Indon ( reply ) &mdash; 02:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Please try both words in one phrase in quotes while searching in Google to avoid getting hits from separate words. For instance, I tried again with keyword "laut bali" then I got 506, but if I searched with laut bali then I got > 800,000 hits. Don't you see from the search result of 'laut bali' you got a lot of Indonesian travel agencies, restaurants and villas? Not to mention blogs and other Indonesian personal notes? The thing is you're wrong to say Laut Bali is common name in English per WP:POLICY than Bali Sea. &mdash; Indon ( reply ) &mdash; 07:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XIX (September 2007)
The September 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

Delivered by grafikbot 09:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Semi-colons, citations and Buffalo(e)s
Copyedit from my page: "Interesting, because I was taught the opposite, in both cases. Obvious I'm telling my students the "wrong" thing too ;-) And while we are on the subject, "Buffalos", "Buffalo" and "Buffaloes" are all acceptable plurals, but we should certainly be consistent. Grant | Talk 06:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)"

Hi Grant, thanks for writing. I have become, over the past while, immersed in the minutiae of editing as I am now an editor of a trade magazine, as well I have also been a line editor for two manuscripts from different publishing houses. As for colons and semi-colons, I am going to quote from Lynnne Truss' landmark work: Eats, Shoots & Leaves. She succinctly says: "So where do you use a semicolon? As we learned in the comma chapter (Ed: yes there is a chapter just devoted to the lowly comma... note her spelling of semicolon), the main place for putting a semicolon if you are not John Updike is between two related sentences where there is no conjunction such as "and" or "but", and where a comma would be ungrammatical."

That is not to say that I have seen semi-colons used in a variety of ways as replacements for commas and dashes and for emphasis. However, that usage is considered nonstandard. As for lists, they are generally considered the purview of the comma and although there is still a considerable disagreement about the last comma (the so-called Harvard comma) that is sometimes inserted after the "and" in the UK, but is generally out of favour elsewhere (favor, favour is dependent on the part of the world you inhabit, us "Canajans" have a strange lingo that is a combination of both Americanisms and Brit-speak). Now as to citations, that is where my years as a cataloging librarian come into play. In using a cataloging protocol, you have a variety of choices, but the main two guides are the Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Psychological Association (APA) style guides although there are many others: Columbia, Chicago, ad infinitum. I personally have stuck with MLA as the world's most commonly used style guide intended as MLA describes "Widely used by writers in literature, language studies, and other fields in the humanities" while the APA style is mostly used in scientific research (however, for some reason, the first Wikipedia templates used an APA style). Many university professors insist on APA citations because as one professor told me, it's "easier to use and the students make less mistakes using APA." However, each guide establishes a similar notation protocol for long passages in that the reference point is at the conclusion rather than beginning of the passage.

As for "Buffalo, New York," "Brewster Buffalos" or "buffaloes rampaging," it's all in the context. FWIW Bzuk 14:19, 8 October 2007 (UTC).

Another
This has been spotted by some Indonesian project (Sigh I hear you say) cohorts - thought you might have some insight on it- SatuSuro 10:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Additions to History of American Football
Hey, you made some great additions to the article History of American football, but many of the statements you added are unreferenced. For example, the following sections lack ANY reference whatsoever. Please add these soon, or the section will be have to pared down to what IS verifiable per WP:V. These sections need references: Thanks again for your help in improving this article, and please try to provide those references soon, so we can continue to maintin this article at the featured article status it has earned. --Jayron32| talk | contribs 03:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The Mexico section lacks any reference. Please provide one using inline citations formatted like the rest of the article.
 * In the Japan section, this statement "In Japan, high school teams also began to appear. In the 1970s, the movement of players between Japan and the U.S. increased dramatically, along with greater exposure on Japanese television." needs attribution.
 * The Europe section is unreferenced entirely.
 * Also the references you DID add are not done in a way consistent with the rest of the article. Per WP:CITE, while several options are availible for formatting references, references should be consistantly formatted and new additions to an article following the established format with the article.  If you need help formatting the references, let me know and I will see what I can do.  However, I do not have access to the references you used to add the new information, so you will need to add those to the article yourself; I can help you format those too if you need help.
 * Thanks for being so friendly and helpful... --Jayron32| talk | contribs 06:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Sidney Cotton
Grant, I have just made two edits, to Clive Caldwell and a much more extensive revision to Sidney Cotton. Since both are Aussies, can you look them over for errors, omissions and other corrections. FWIW Bzuk 21:44, 14 October 2007 (UTC).

User:125.60.243.104
Is at it again. Check out their edits to Battle of Manila (1945). --Nick Dowling 07:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry to bug you about this again, but the block has expired and this person is back at it:  (plus a lot of what might be productive inter-wikilinks to the Philipino Wikipedia). --Nick Dowling 09:35, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Shrine of Remembrance
Hi there Grant. Seeing as you are interested in ADF stuff, would you be interested in reffing this FA from the old days? atm, it seems like easy meat for FAR.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 01:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Grunge
I don't think it's all that unclear. The section says "The word grunge originated as a slang term for "dirt" or "filth". Mark Arm, the vocalist for the Seattle band Green River—and later Mudhoney—is generally credited as being the first to use the term grunge to describe the movement." At most we can simply rephrase it to say "The word grunge is a slang term for "dirt" or "filth". Mark Arm, the vocalist for the Seattle band Green River—and later Mudhoney—is generally credited as being the first to use "grunge" to describe a style of music." Dictionary definitions should be avoided. WesleyDodds 04:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

WW2 casualties
I made some changes to the Australian data. If you get a chance could you please check my posting to see that it is correct. Thanks--Woogie10w 16:55, 25 October 2007 (UTC) Two years ago I sent an E Mail to the Australian War Memorial on the issue of civilian losses and they never responded. My hunch is that the figure of 735 includes your Merchant Navy losses of 440 listed by the CWGC.--Woogie10w 10:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC) My inclination is to post the data from the Australian War Memorial website. There is a problem with the CWGC data for civilians, for example they list 386 civilian dead for the UK in WW1. I checked the names of the people, they were civilians attached to the military, correspondants and Red Cross workers. The civilian dead in the 1915-18 air raids and UK sinkings were not included. They did not respond to my my E-mail inquiries. I wish we had a better handel on commomwealth civilian casualties in both World Wars.--Woogie10w 17:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

RAAF unit crests
Grant, don't know if you're aware but a whole stack of crests illustrating RAAF unit articles (e.g. Air Command, 78 Wing, 36 Squadron) have been removed without warning on the relevant talk pages. I only found this out when a bot came round removing the file names from the articles in question. In my experience you normally get a warning on the talk page that an image has no fair use rationale and will be deleted unless one is added. This hasn't occurred in this case. I think these images should be restored and a few days grace permitted for FURs to be added (which I've speedily done for the few that hadn't been removed, such as 77 Squadron). Let me know if you can help... Cheers, Ian Rose 09:33, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Classical Marxism
Hallo, please either put in the name of Friedrich Engels as a main theorist in the first senctence of Classical Marxism again, or provide sources for your claim that E.'s role is controversial. If you want to dispute that Mehring's biography of Marx is authoritative about this point, this would need the support of a reliable source, too. Please note that so far, I had provided a source on your request, while on my request, you have not given a source but asked if I was not aware of the truth of your claim. For the article, it is not relevant what I'm aware of, but what can be supported by a reliable source. Greetings, --Schwalker 17:27, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi, just wanted to let you know that in the interest of resolving this discussion I have taken the liberty of transferring your reasoning from the various edit summaries and put them into a discussion on the talk page so that others may also contribute to this debate. Cheers, JenLouise 13:42, 2 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hallo JenLouise and Grant65, I've removed edit summaries from the article's talk page again, and answered on User talk:JenLouise.
 * Cheers, --Schwalker 20:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Malayan Emergency
Hi Grant, I reverted your revert. Yes, I know it is a minor thing, but the term used during the conflict was "CT" for communist terrorist. You mentioned NPOV term? It certainly was non-neutral - they were communists, they were terrorists, and some would have said they were freedom fighters (but they were not, as you know from your military background) - the issue is really: was this term used for those individuals? And it was. So I have reverted. BTW I see you have recently been made admin - I was thinking of applying too, but am looking for a coach. Do you know of anyone for that? No bites to my requests as yet. docboat 10:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see - the compromise removing "Chinese" from the CT term - yes, quite right. Agreed entirely. docboat 11:17, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XX (October 2007)
The October 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

Delivered by grafikbot 14:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Mr / Mr.
Good catch on CAC Wirraway, as the article uses Commonwealth English. However, just a friendly reminder that "Mr." is not archaic in the USA, as the "period" is still used in "Mr." here. I'm not assuming you're ignorant on this, but just wanted to be sure it's clear, as you do edit US aritcles also. I don't know where Canada stands on this tho, tho I'm pretty sure Bzuk would know. - BillCJ 19:35, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Your WACA image

 * Makhaya Ntini bowls at the WACA Ground, Perth on 16/12/05, the first day of the First Test, Australia v South Africa. Can't remember who was facing, Andrew Symonds is the non-striking batter.

Symonds only batted with Hodge and Gilchrist that day, and only one of them is left-handed. Hesperian 00:35, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, Gilchrist got out before Symonds, So Symonds must have batted with Warne too. But the conclusion remains the same. Hesperian 10:35, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

In Remembrance...
--nat Alo! Salut! Sunt eu, un haiduc?!?! 22:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

RE: Dominion
The editions you reverted (at least regarding rendition) were already discussed: do not remove cited material again. Quizimodo 14:32, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you understand the notion of citing sources? If you can find another germane one (from a Canadian/British source, for instance) which specifically deals with capitalisation of the term, be my guest.  Until then, it stays. Quizimodo 21:41, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of material from articles
The correct course of action if you feel that a reference is needed is to put &mdash; which will as appear as  on the page  &mdash; after the sentence in question and/or to raise the matter on the talk page. Any edits which are known to be controversial should also be discussed on the talk page. Grant |  Talk  12:13, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:CITE "If a particular claim in an article lacks citation and is doubtful, consider placing after the sentence or removing it." Have you thought that I tried to find to find a source and could not? No I don't think so. So do not add it again. DPCU (talk) 19:40, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That policy does not authorise you to delete anything that you can't find a source for. As I said the correct procedure is to add the  . You may then delete after a fair period of time has passed. You will learn these things if you hang around here for a length of time. Anyway, the source is stated there as the Macquarie Dictionary; which I happen to have here. If you want a page number, I will endeavour to find one. In any case, I can't see how anyone would regard the statement in question as controversial; surely most people in Australia use "-ise".  Grant  |  Talk  01:45, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I do also have a copy of the Macquarie Dictionary and it does not say that in there. DPCU (talk) 11:34, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

G. E. M. de Ste. Croix
Hello Grant. I've put a message on the talk page for de Ste Croix. It looks like you were responsible for the edit that first included the claim that he had a law degree. I wondered where you found this information. As far as I can tell he did not have a degree in any subject until he went to UCL to read ancient history aged about 40.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 21:13, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Reply from Jim
Grant said: "I just noticed that you have deleted massive amounts of referenced material from the article. That is a flagrant and gross breach of Wikipedia policy. If you persist I will block you from editing. You have provided me with grounds for so doing."

Dearest Grant,

I beg to differ with your assessment of the situation. I have removed biased opinions, personal opinions with references, weasel words and blatant pushing POV.

I would be more than happy to negotiate a “meeting of the minds” should you be so kind as to present some formal documentation on the subject matter. Quotes, mentions and references used in non-accredited novels do not count as formal documentation. Anybody can pay to have a book published.

Respectfully yours, Jim

Jim (talk) 02:24, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Grant said: "You have removed respectable scholarly/academic references and you don't seem to know the difference between them and self financed authors. You have removed details regarding the Seagraves' documentary sources. You have removed other material for no apparent reason whatsoever. What exactly is your interest in this subject and your source of expect knowledge?"


 * As explained, I bunched (moved) all of the Seagraves references to one area. The entire article is not about the Seagraves’ books. Although I am sure the Seagraves are fine investigative journalist, their publications are not classified as scholarly history books. Simply put, they are not used in schools as history books (at least not in the USA), and the subject matter not taught in schools.


 * They are respectable scholarly/academic references to you, perhaps. However, they are fictional novels to others.


 * You are trying to push your point of view on others and now bully those who do not agree with your point of view. Try using some references other than the Seagraves’ publications in the article, such as I have. You are wanting to delete my edits that include quotes from history Professors and the U.S. Department of Justice.


 * Why are you so dead-set on using only one means of reference. Someone other than me comes along and makes an edit, and you remove that one as well! Jim (talk) 02:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

This editor posted this on 18 November 2007: "including this information in the lede is clear POV pushing by selective emphasis. the decision was overturned on the basis of insufficient evidence. mention it in the body."

Evidently, they believe there is POV pushing going on as well. Jim (talk) 03:08, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Grant said: You or the other editor have also removed:

While it is acceptable to add templates questioning material or request citations, what you are doing is unilateral, controversial and inflammatory.
 * 1) references: Ikehata Setsuho & Ricardo Trota Jose (editors), 2000, The Philippines under Japan: Occupation Policy and Reaction (Ateneo de Manila University Press/University of Hawaii Press, 2000) and Richard Hoyt, 2002, Old Soldiers Sometimes Lie: What Happened to Hirohito's Gold (St Martin's Press)
 * 2) mention of the Seagraves' CD-ROMs with Gold Warriors containing 900 megabytes of documents
 * 3) deleted the sentence "Many of those who knew the locations of the loot were killed during the war, or later tried by the Allies for war crimes and executed or incarcerated. Yamashita himself was executed for war crimes on February 23, 1946."
 * 4) deleted the sentence "The Seagraves and other historians have claimed that United States military intelligence operatives located much of the loot; colluded with Hirohito and other senior Japanese figures to conceal its existence, and; used it to finance US covert intelligence operations around the world during the Cold War." You claim, incorrectly, that "See, for example, Johnson, Ibid is an unacceptable reference.
 * 5) added an unreferenced statement by Ocampo. (Or is the reference the one in the following sentence? If so it belongs with the previous sentence.)

The nature of your edits also constitute POV-pushing as it deletes some evidence while adding contrary evidence. I will now add a further formal warnings

Grant, once again, with all due respect...

The Yamashita’s gold article was lopsidded and biased beyond belief. Whoever created, or last edited used the Seagraves’ novel(s) quotes and references in almost every paragraph. I am still stricken back as to how hard you are trying to use their novel(s) as the single source of reference.

That said, below is my response to your concerns above.


 * 1) the references where only mentioned in the Notes, and nowhere else in the article. They were referencing…nothing
 * 2) the Seagraves’ CD-ROM is not readily avalible to verify. It cannot be a reference source
 * 3) non-varified quote from Seagraves’ novel
 * 4) non-varified quote from Seagraves’ novel
 * 5) the statement is referenced in Note 6 and placed after Ocampo’s quotes

Hope this helps. Jim (talk) 12:55, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Yamashita's gold
Can you do me a favour and take a look at Talk:Yamashita's gold? Thanks. Grant |  Talk  08:12, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know anything about the subject but it looks like you're correct in your position on the article's content. I'll help you out if you need it. Cla68 (talk) 08:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

G.E.M. de Ste Croix and his law degree
It's certainly possible to practise as a solicitor or a barrister in England and Wales without a law degree, or indeed any university degree. As an alternative to a qualifying law degree one takes the Common Professional Examination/Graduate Diploma in Law, which can in fact be taken by non-graduates, followed by the Legal Practice Course or Bar Vocational Course and then a further period of training in employment. Back in de Ste Croix's day I think it was probably much more common than it is today for lawyers to be non-graduates. They took articles. This is confirmed by his obituary in The Independent (11 February 2000), which says that he left Clifton aged 15 and was later articled as a solicitor. Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, Baroness Butler-Sloss, formerly one of the highest ranking judges in England and Wales, does not have a university degree (excluding honorary ones). I shall amend the de Ste Croix article accordingly. I didn't do so because I assumed that you had read somewhere that he had taken a law degree.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 00:53, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

First word in biographies
You might like to take a look atWikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)