User talk:Grutness/archive25

This file is an archive - please do not add new discussion here - add it to my Talk page

Ancient-Thrace-bio-stub
The first book at hand I consulted, Thracians by Alexander Fol and Valeria Fol, ISBN: 978-9549717181 has fifty-odd persons mentioned, not just kings and other nobles but also priests, poets, singers, artists etc. that could possibly need such a bio stub. In any case, if this template were deleted I trust there would be no objection to inserting in the relevant present articles a footnote to the same effect with no template used? I have no problems with having the template renamed 'Ancient-Thrace-stub'. Apcbg 08:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I see your points. Apparently there is a rule on stubs requiring 60 stubs, there are possibly less than that Thrace-related stubs at present, hence no Thrace-stub template.  My topics of contribution to Wikipedia are not so much in the stub field, or Thracian history for that matter.  I just saw several articles on ancient Thracian persons (the latter having Antarctic geographical features named for them, which had been my original starting point) using the 'Ancient-Greece-bio-stub' template which did not seem correct as those people definitely were not Greeks, ancient Thrace being a distinct civilization even if neighbouring.  (It's like an Irish biographical article using the 'England-bio-stub' template on account of having an insufficient number of Irish stubs ...) So how would you suggest to avoid such misleading labelling, just revert them or what? Apcbg 10:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)


 * That would be a satisfactory solution I believe. Just one suggestion: Could we please illustrate the new Ancient-Euro-bio-stub with the picture used in Ancient-Thrace-bio-stub?  It's the golden mask of a Thracian king, and arguably the Thracians upheld the reputedly earliest cultural tradition in Europe; as you possibly know the world's oldest gold (dated 46th century BC) was found near Varna. Apcbg 11:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Mauritius-geo-stub
Hi there Grutness,

How come Mauritius-geo-stub should be included in Southern Africa grouping? It is not listed anywhere on and is only "reckoned" to be included in Southern Africa.--Thomas.macmillan 01:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, that is a good reason to get frustrated. I apologize. I think I moved it when I was categorizing politician templates. Anyway, I have another issue that you might be able to help out with. was created earlier (it has reached 60 and i took the liberty of creating it) but it hasn't been populated yet. Please take a look and see if I did something wrong or if it is just the server being strange.--Thomas.macmillan 02:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Somaliland-stub
Hi Grutness

After the fuzz about Western Sahara, I took a peek at the similar templates and realized that the Somaliland one used a flag of a secessionist administration. I've removed the flag, and if the creator of the template objects, I'll take the matter up on WP:WSS. Just wanted to keep you posted. Regards. Valentinian T / C 19:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * OK thanks for that - Somaliland-stub probably needs dealing with one way or the other, but removing the flag is definitely a good start. Grutness...wha?  06:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Re:
There are many articles about schools in Malaysia which are stubs. Not much proper information are provided in these articles. So I figure a new stub category would be really helpful to improve these articles.Horacenew 10:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi G. It looks like this material differs between proper nouns and adjectives ( vs. ) and we even have a . Would you mind taking a look? Valentinian T / C 11:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Using the adjectival forms would be my first choice as well. In any case, we need to do something about the Japanese mess. Valentinian T / C 11:14, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Kurdish-stub
I think you jumped the gun there a bit by speedy deleting it. I'd managed to have a confab with Bohater on his talk page about it, and when I had last checked he was applying the stub in a reasonable fashion rather than on everything remotely related to Kurdishness. Assuming that it can be applied in a responsible fashion, I see no reason why Kurdish-stub should be speedy deleted when we have other ethnic stubs such as Roma-stub and Jewish-hist-stub. Caerwine Caer’s whines 03:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * He may have been applying it reasonably, but others weren't. Of the 25 or so articles marked with it, several were Iran or Iraq geo-stubs, Iranian politicians of Kurdish descent, and the like. Only about 10-12 of of the articles marked with it were actually directly Kurdish-specific, of which one wasn't a stub and in one case it was one of seven stub templates on the article. Perhaps if it can be given strict parameters that don't mess with other stubs, like the roma-stub, then it would be worthwhile, and I'm open to any proposal that does suggest such a scheme - but unfortunately, that isn't how it was being used. Grutness...wha?  05:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Grutness. Would you mind taking a look at the related thred on my talk page? It is just a thought, but it would make a bit more sense permcat-wise. Valentinian T / C 15:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * My reply to Caerwine above applies here, too. Iff a properly delineated stub could be created that doesn't cause problems re Iran, Iraq and Turkey's stubs, then I've no objection. The question is whether such a scheme can be implemented and maintained without being bent out of shape by editors with other agenda. Grutness...wha?  05:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't have any problem with such templates provided that we can avoid a wildfire of editwarring over them. Iff we make something like Roma-stub for - respectively - the Kurds and Assyrians, it would make sense to write something very clear in the template's text and lock it down afterwards. E.g. "this article relating to the history and culture of the Kurdic people ..." or "this article relating to the Kurdic people ..." but I'm not sure such a system can be implemented. And names like "Assyria-" and "Kurdistan-" should be avoided. Valentinian T / C 15:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think Jewish-hist-stub should be renamed to Judaism-hist-stub -- Cat chi? 15:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Any particular reason why you are telling me this rather than simply nominating it? Grutness...wha? 

I'm a bit confused as to what's happened here: it looks like you intended to "speedy and salt", but AFAICS you neither deleted nor protected it. Since then there's been a minor db/hangon skirmish there, and a somewhat confused talk page conversation. Can you clarify what you did/intended to do? Does this still need "ordinary" closure? Alai 14:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I am also confused. I thought it was deleted as Grutness said it was. I did not check page history when applying the db template initially. -- Cat chi? 15:04, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I am also very confused... or at least, I was until I checked the edit history. Seems that when I deleted and salted what I actually ended up doing was unprotecting a page that had already been protected. So the deletedpage didn't stay in place. Grutness...wha?  00:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Many a slip 'tween brain and click. So, are you going to do-over/re-speedy (in spirit, if not actual velocity), or do you want to leave it for someone else to close?  Alai 02:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Leave it for someone else, I think. If I re-speedied it might look like I had a bit of a vendetta against it. Also conversation on the topic moved on considerably after the first speedying. It's all a bit of a mess, really, which I didn't exactly help to clean up much :/ Grutness...wha?  02:27, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Country flagstub
Hi - a stub template or category which you created has been nominated for deletion or renaming at Stub types for deletion. The stub type, which was not proposed at WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals, does not meet the standard requirements for a stub type, either through being incorrectly named, ambiguously scoped, or through failure to meet standards relating to the current stub hierarchy or likely size, as explained at Stub. Please feel free to make any comments at WP:SFD regarding this stub type, and in future, please consider proposing new stub types first! Grutness...wha?  02:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you have a specific issue with this stub type, or do you just enjoy deleting other people's work? Aliasd 02:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Bleh, calmed down a bit now, but man! would have been nice to get a bit of a dialogue happening with you before you nominated this template for deletion, and when you did notify me, your boilerplate talk message didn't really help to shed light on what your real issue was. Aliasd

Okay - yes, it is a boilerplate template, that is true, and that is the reason why little specific information was included. Firstly, the two templates (this and {[tlprovstub}} were never proposed as stub types - if they had been, then you'd have got plenty of information from a large number of people. In the case of provstub, it may not even be a stub types, by the looks of it, in which case it at the very least needs renaming to something which doesn't end in stub (SFD covers renaming as well as deletion). In the case of Country flagstub, it too is misnamed by stub naming guidelines, but more importantly it is a metatemplate of a type which has been rejected frequently in the past at WP:WSS as being too difficult to maintain, causing far more work than it is intended to save. Also, there may be concerns as far as server load is concerned, since if implemented it would be incredibly high use (see Transclusion costs and benefits for some of the reasons, and consider too that provstub requires double transclusion since it has nested templates). In any case, it assumes that all countries are treated equally as stub types with identically patterned stubs. While this is desirable it is simply not possible. There was, for example, a massive editwar on Cyprus-stub over the use of the Cyprus flag, which is not recognised by the Turkish north. Similarly, the wording of Palestine-stub has been amended on several occasions. The stub system as currently employed works remarkably well, considering its apparent limitations; implementation of parameterised and similar stubs types has been found in the past to make the system far less effective overall. Grutness...wha?  03:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thankyou for your concise reply. I did not intend this template to be a solve all fix for every country with country data, but I must admit I did design the backend so it might one day be used for more than it was being currently used for. These stub types are designed for the Provinces of Papua New Guinea. I have compiled all the flags in question as well as all but one of the countrydata templates. This template is not complete, as it currently doesnt work for places without flags, but I was going to add that functionality. I can guarantee that there is no issue with the flags being used or countrydata being used in the stub template, as the only territory in dispute actually uses the same flag that the government uses for the resistance movement :). I will support a rename of this template, as it might not be obviously named, but something to this effect is needed for stub sorting the numerous articles related to provincial PNG. Would you support the backend being renamed from Country_flagstub to mabye PNG-provstub2 and the frontend being renamed to PNG-provstub? Aliasd 04:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Excessive stub creation by bot
I recently blanked a nonsense page in the (obsolete) assumption that that would lead to its eventual deletion. To my surprise, it now got tagged by with the  tag, which, as you know, states "You can help Wikipedia by expanding [this article]". While I understand that it's a good thing if bots tag uncategorized pages, I am concerned about the wholesale creation of pages that say "You can help Wikipedia by expanding it" - without any human ever having looked at it to see if it would really help Wikipedia. I don't know why the bot can't just say it as it is: "This case was uncategorized and may be a stub.". I can imagine that it would be much easier for stub sorting if you didn't have to deal with an indiscriminate mixture of deliberately marked stubs and stubs that merely fit some slightly related criteria. I may be wrong; I leave it up to you if you feel something should be done about it. &mdash; Sebastian 07:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the note, replied. Alai 15:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Stubs
The article in which i placed a random stub tag was a mistake. I couldn't find where I put it. (Thanks for reverting it) Taking the stub tag off of middle finger was bad Judgement on my part, sorry. The tag was not meant to be a stub type. Sorry for any confusion, I have no intention to vandalise wikipedia in any way. If you have any questions message me. Thanks, Thedjatclubrock :) (talk) 13:17, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay... sorry I sounded grumpy about this - I had assumed you were an experienced editor due to your talk page archives (most people don't archive their pages until they have at least 30-40 messages, and certainly wouldn't have three archives until they'd been around quite a long while). The reason for the problems with placeholder... hm - long explanation coming up:


 * There are loads of cleanup templates of different sorts used on Wikipedia. They are all for the benefit of later editors to know exactly what is wrong with an article and (in the case of stub templates) what topic the article is on (that way, an editor with expert knowledge in, say Ancient Egypt, can go straight to a category of Ancient Egypt stubs). In every case, though, the template tells the editor something of the problem with the article - whether it needs an image, whether the grammar needs tidying up, whether it's biased, whether it needs to be linked to other articles, etc etc etc. All these templates help the editor to know what skills are needed to tidy the article up.


 * Placeholder doesn't do any of those things. All it does is tell an editor why the article was created in the first place - something the editor doesn't need to know. And if an article was written as a placeholder, it will almost always be a stub, since it's very unlikely that a placeholder article will be long and detailed. because of that, placeholder simply becomes another form of stub. As such, if it's used alongside stub as a second template on an article, it's not telling an editor anything at all - it just adds a bit more "clutter" to the bottom of the article. And if it's used in place of stub it removes the article from, and means it won't be sorted into a topic-specific stub type to help editors search for specific articles (there are several hundred thousand stubs on Wikipedia, so it's really important that they get sorted by topic!).


 * So basically that's the reason I nominated it for deletion. It is a template that would only be used on stubs, and doesn't help editors if it's used either as a complement or as a replacement for a stub template.


 * I hope that expains things a bit more clearly. Sorry for any offence caused. Grutness...wha?  00:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It's ok, I like a clean talk page and I'm sorry the archives confused you. I have no problem with 's deletion. If you have any questions feel free to message me.

Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion
Will you kindly withdraw your unwarranted accusation that I have voted twice? --Redaktor 06:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, my apologies. Somehow I confused two different editors names - I've no idea how that happened. Grutness...wha?  10:18, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Dunedin (+/- SS)
I bow to your greater knowledge - but note the source book which called her SS repeatedly, (though not some named contemporaries) and was written in part by people with shipping - albeit modern shipping - it couldn't be "SS" due to the fact she had a steam engine on board? (doubt it myself as the steam engine was used to drive the compressor, not the ship). Winstonwolfe 00:40, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Cheers - having noted the 'SS' tag was widespread in several sources and not me making it up out of nowhere, I'll leave it to the experts :-). Winstonwolfe 01:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Blank maps
Hi Grutness, say, you created all those maps gracing the various NZ articles, didn't you? Like the backgrounds of North Island, South Island etc... do you keep them somewhere where others editors can use them? I'd need a blank South Island map for Transport in Milford Sound. Cheers, MadMaxDog 00:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I've uploaded Image:NZ plain map.png, Image:NZ-NI plain map.png, and Image:NZ-SI plain map.png for anyone who needs them. Have fun! Grutness...wha? 


 * Thanks. BTW, nice idea of calling your cats (well, those cats that own you) Nut and Bolt. I am aiming to call mine Italics and Bold! Bold is obviously going to be the more timid of the two. MadMaxDog 01:36, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion of English language placenames in infoboxes on the Wikipedia Māori
Hello - please see mi:Wikipedia:Kōrero - I'd like us to have a vote to write into the conventions of the Māori Wikipedia a protocol for using the two official spoken languages of NZ in geographical infoboxes, similar to and complimentary with the convention recently agreed on the English language Wikipedia at New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board, where it was agreed to include the Māori language name of towns in infoboxes. This has now been provisionally included in Naming conventions (New Zealand) and it would be nice to reciprocate and to confirm and regularise a practice we have already been following, if a little inconsistently. Feel free to ask me on my talk page if you have any questions - Cheers Kahuroa 08:42, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: Be bold
Hi - Though I can understand the reasons you downgraded the comments on templates and categories on be bold, I feel that it is still necessary to highlight the fact that be bold should rarely if ever apply to them, and have altered the article back accordingly. The principle of being bold is a good one in general, and works very well with articles. It works far less well in other namespaces, however, and that is why the "Be bold" page has evolved over the years to reflect that fact. As someone who spends a lot of time clearing up damage caused by people being bold at TFD, SFD, and CFD, I can tell you clearly that being bold has little if any place in category or template space. It causes nothing but considerable amounts of cleanup work for others.that is the reason why the "Be bold" page has evolved over the years to specifically call attention to the fact that they need special care. Suddenly undoing the gradual changes which have taken this page from a rough guideline to something actually workable is a Bad Thing, and one which is likely to cause far more harm than good to Wikipedia. Grutness...wha?  00:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * People who break things are typically not being bold, but being reckless. Sure, we should make it clear that editing certain types of pages can have more significant consequences, and thus it's important to take extra care not to be reckless, but discouraging people from editing is too excessive. --bainer (talk) 02:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Discouraging people from being bold in making changes to templates and categories before finding some form of consensus for the changes is not discouraging editing, it is exercising common sense. Discouraging people from editing other people's comments on talk pages and from editing other people's user pages is also exercising common sense. I've no objection to people being bold in correcting and adding to articles - that is what this page has been about all along. I'm just trying to reduce the work on clean-up, which is largely caused by people who don't find consensus before editing items that clearly need a consen. Grutness...wha?  04:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Edits to talk pages are a red herring since that is covered in other policies and guidelines, so the issue is templates and other such pages. In that respect, I think you're still conflating boldness with recklessness. Yes, reckless actions are easier to make there, but your paragraph is moving in the direction of suggesting that it's not possible to make bold improvements to templates.
 * And how does one define "items that clearly need a consen"? Surely that can apply as much to articles too. What's so sacrosanct about templates? --bainer (talk) 05:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

NZ South Island Party
Grutness,

I'm originally from Nelson, but living in Oz at the moment. Tell me more about the NZ South Island Party. What were their policies? Do you think that public support for South Island Independence has increased over the last few years?

Cheers New Munsterian


 * To be honest, I don't know that much about their policies. I think they advocated some sort of partial return to the old provincial governments, like in the 19th century, making NZ into a federation a bit like Australia. As for support for independence, I don't think so. This is entirely a personal opinion, but I'd say you tend to find more calls for southern independence when there's a National government than a Labour one - Dunedin and Christchurch are the two staunchest labour strongholds in NZ, and because they usually both end up with several cabinet ministers during Labour governments they have a little more say in the running of the country. Certainly here in Dunedin the city tends to go through a major revival whenever there's a Labour government. Grutness...wha? 

France national rugby union team FAC
As of time of posting there have been no comments at the France national rugby union team's FAC even though it's been an FAC for over a week. So i'm asking for some comments from some people that have commented on Rugby union FAC's before. Please comment here. A support or oppose (with reasons) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. - Shudda   talk  00:29, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the copy-edit. I looked over it and cannot see any major problems. I have only one query, in other articles we have used Test not test. It was bought up at another FAC, and I think we decided it wasn't too important as long as it was the same throughout the article. I'll convert to Euro's (it there a standard way to do this, the ref I red quoted the values in pounds, hence why i used that). Thanks. - Shudda   talk  04:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hey, I think I have addressed all of your concerns. Please comment at the FAC page. Thanks. - Shudda   talk  04:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, it's been quite a while. Is there anything else that needs to be changed to get your support? Please do let me know. - Shudda   talk  06:47, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of Ring shout
Can you fill me in on the deletion of the article Ring shout, now on the request list at WikiProject African diaspora? I have a scholarly source for this topic and would like to start an article (eventually), but first want to know the issues that led to its prior deletion. Was it a speedy? The deletion log has your name on it but no further info (e.g. no link to an AfD discussion). No hurry on this, but I'm most grateful for any help you can give. -- Rob C (Alarob) 02:18, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks! There is a good history of the topic in a book by Sylviane Diouf that I'll consult. I appreciate the quick response. -- Rob C (Alarob) 02:53, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Smile


has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing! Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
 * No it is not:) My first name is James, my second name is Paul, and I added Sir to the front to make it sound a little more formal:) Cheers!--†Sir James Paul† 09:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Unspecified source for Image:NZflag proposal-dignan.gif
Thanks for uploading Image:NZflag proposal-dignan.gif. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, then you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, then their copyright should also be acknowledged.

As well as adding the source, please add a proper copyright licensing tag if the file doesn't have one already. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the GFDL-self tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Fair use, use a tag such as or one of the other tags listed at Image copyright tags. See Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following [ this link]. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 02:14, 29 June 2007 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. (P.S. I really want to know, as I intend to upload it to Commons. D.S.) Himasaram 02:14, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The image does have GFDL-self attached, which it should. I am James Dignan, the creator of that image and the designer of that flag. Please be more careful in reading image files before tagging them! Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  10:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, sorry about that. So would you mind me uploading it to Commons, or will you do it yourself? --Himasaram 09:13, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Image has been successfully uploaded to Commons at commons:Image:NZflag proposal-dignan.gif. Have a nice day! --Himasaram 09:46, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Warning Level - article ORSYP S.A.
Hi there Grutness,

I got your message about the speedy deletion of my stub ORSYP - which I didn't intend to submit, I was trying to edit it to make it into a final, well referenced article, and I accidentally submitted it. Of course, I don't have admin privileges so I had to wait for someone else to delete it. Thank you.

I finally did write a sourced article according to wikipedia guidelines with the aide of your constructive and cheerful fellow editors, who guided me to the creation of a proper article. For that I thank them.

I guess it wasn't evident by the erroneous stub tag, but the submission to which you refer really was a mistake. I would ask you to please reduce the level of my warning - I think it's clear that I've not joined the wikipedia community in bad faith, it just took me a minute to figure out how to write a good article. ~

At any rate, I'd appreciate a response for the sake of dialogue.

Please don't bite the newcomers.

Carimarie 07:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Replied. As to biting the newbies, given that there were already a couple of warnings in place for essentially identical articles, the next level of warning was appropriate. However, your explanation makes it clear that the edits were in good faith, so I've rescinded that warning. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  10:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your very informative reply on my page, and I know that you are just doing your best to protect Wikipedia! You can be sure I'll put the info you gave me to good use!

Carimarie 11:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Lauge Koch Nature Reserve
Hi Grutness

Would you mind taking a look at this article again? It looks to me like you're referring to the Northeast Greenland National Park but I've not heard it referred to as named after Lauge Koch. The most recent Danish atlas I have simply names the entire region "Nationalparken i Nord- og Østgrønland" (the national park in North and East Greenland). Could you've been thinking about Lauge Koch Vig (= Lauge Koch Bay) which is located within the park? Best. Valentinian T / C 19:14, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi G. I think a simple deletion would be most appropriate. Come to think of it, I do have one theory about how the mix-up could have happened: The Danish noun "vig" (bay or possibly better: cove) is pronounced identically to the old noun "vi" which indeed means a sanctuary (Odense = Odins Vi = Odin's sanctuary). Only problem with this explanation is that the noun "vi" hasn't been in regular use for God knows how many centuries. But the mix-up is possible if an English-speaker had worked solely using a dictionary and his hearing, as few non-Danes would expect that "G" can be a silent letter. :) Not too sure about how notable the bay is either.Valentinian T / C 15:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)