User talk:John Chamberlain

Fair use rationale for File:Alfred Otto Carl Nier.png
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Warrant (of Payment)
John, Thank you for creating the article on Warrents. Until last week warrents seemed to be little different than paper checks and of interest only to specialists like me. Before I retired from a county government (not in California) I was responsible for processing warrants issued by the county treasurer's dept and by taxing districts like school districts. When I computerized their old manual "Warrants Register" (printed on large sheets of thick paper), I learned how warrants are issued, redeemed, voided, canceled, or stopped. Every morning a courier from the collecting bank (now Bank of America) would bring to the county treasurer's dept a long tray of warrants that had been redeemed the previous night, plus a mag tape containing the computer data on those warrants, and a computer listing of those transactions. The disbursements officer in the treasurer's dept would cut a check drawn on the county's checking account at the bank. The courier then took the check to the bank to pay the bank for the redeemed warrants. I was told that sometimes the payment would be delayed and the bank would collect interest on the amount due. Now suddenly banks in California say they will not redeem state warrants and warrants are headline news.

I added some of these facts to the article you created. Because your description of warrants is quite different from my experience, I am assuming that what you described is how the British define it and that you got that definition from the 1971 OED. I am not acquainted with how the British use the word, but from your description it sounds like what we call drafts. Unfortunately I could not find an accessible OED online. Am I correct in my assumption that your words came from the 1971 OED (2 volumes)? Greensburger (talk) 07:16, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

> It's very simple: a financial warrant is an order to a particular person to deliver money to someone else at a particular time and it doesn't matter whether its in England or America... too specific to the version of warrants being given out by California. [John]

John, the definition you cited is consistent with California usage in which the Controller orders the disbursement officer to pay money to the warrant holder in due course on or after the maturity date. This is also consistent with usage in the Washington state county where I used to work. I emailed the disbursement officer I worked with and he confirmed that my description was also correct for Washington state, including the distinction between "regular warrants" and "registered warrants". Sometimes the Feds also issue warrants and one Wiki contributor said the U.S. military pays in warrants. The references I cited are from California, but similar procedures are probably practiced in other states and in the UK. Governments copy procedures and laws from each other. You may be able to find similar references for other states and countries and maybe for the Feds. Greensburger (talk) 21:29, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

> ... the real meaning is more general.

I agree and have changed the lead to be in accord with the OED you cited. I modified it to clarify that there are three parties involved - the person who issues the warrant, the person who is ordered to pay, and the payee.

Thank you for your historical knowledge that warrants were used to move money around in war situations. In response to your suggestion, I added a historical section and found a reference to George Washington's warrant books.

Regarding whether modern warrants are debt instruments, please check the accounting glossary definition of Warrant that says warrants are debt instruments. Clearly not the kind of warrant orders to pay that you mentioned, so I described both.

As to whether modern warrants look like checks and clear through the banks, the regular warrants issued by the county where I worked looked exactly like checks and had MICR numbers and were called warrants. And that was in Washington state, not California. California warrants also look like checks and also have MICR numbers. Somebody put an image of one in this Warrants article, but it was speedy deleted because of a copyright problem. Greensburger (talk) 03:56, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Citation mania/tagging plague
Hi John -- it's encouraging to learn that I am not the only one who perceives this to be a problem. Indeed, I think it is one of the two or three largest currently undiscussed problems on Wikipedia; as you correctly point out, readers far outnumber editors, and meta-tags are for editors. I think all this stuff belongs on the talk page (or ideally in a third space, for specific article markup invisible to readers -- but this would require a major software upgrade). If you are feeling ornery about this (as I often am) please see this Wikiproject, which exists only to add tags. I complained on the talk page, received a lot of backup from other people, but the project organisers are blithely going ahead with their taggus pestis distribution. I don't know what to do but am open to ideas. (Have a look at what we wrote on that talk page.) Posting on VPP was probably a good idea. All the best, Antandrus (talk) 00:15, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Warrants and Debt Instruments, the difference
The distinction you are making bears on the question of whether a warrant is negotiable or not. Some warrants are negotiable and some are not. If they are negotiable, then they are debt instruments with an obligation to pay any holder in due course such as the bank that presents them for redemption at the treasurer's office. Registered Warrants are debt instruments and negotiable. But if regular warrants are drawn against "available funds" or "to be paid out of fund 0027" that has insufficient money, then they are not debt instruments. I changed the Warrants article to make this clear. The county warrants in Washington State that I processed said "pay from available funds" which made them conditional on available funds and hence not negotiable and therefore not strictly county debt. But that was a distinction without a difference, because the collecting bank accepted them, and the county always paid. If warrants were issued by a water district that had insufficient funds, one of the other county funds would lend the water district just enough money to cover the warrants and the lending fund charged interest on the loan to the water fund. I wrote the program that calculated the interest and generated DR and CR transactions to pay the interest.

The Registered Warrants issued by California say "The treasurer of the state will pay out of the fund 0027 Tax Relief & Refund Acc", which suggests that they may not be negotiable. But the warrants also say "Payable in such coin or currency of the U.S.A. as at the time of payment is legal tender for payment of public & private debts." So are they debt instruments or not? That was settled by the Securities & Exchange Commission which said they are municipal debt. Greensburger (talk) 21:20, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the SEC press release, First National Bank, and Raton Waterworks citations. I added them to the article as you suggested. Could you supply web addresses for 174 US 360 and First National? Raton must have been a Municipality and not a state or federal government. Do you know of a similar citation that would apply municipal case law to a state?

In the First National case, what was the municipality? There is no Cook County in Nebraska. Or does "Neb." not mean Nebraska?

I don't understand: "...case law regarding holder's remedy is State of Minnesota v Clark, 116 Minn 500. A writ of mandamus is necessary..." There is no Clark County in Minnesota. Was Clark an official who ordered the warrants issued or a disbursements officer or what? What was the court's judgment and for whom? Are you saying that a writ of mandamus would have been necessary, but the court did not grant one? Greensburger (talk) 21:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

September 2010
Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, but when you add or change content, as you did to the article Gondor, please cite a reliable source for the content of your edit. This helps maintain our policy of verifiability. Take a look at Citing sources for information about how to cite sources and the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Carl Sixsmith (talk) 15:27, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Gondor/Gondar
Hi -- I edited Gondor to remove the statement speculating that Gondor may have derived from Gondar, because the page cited in the reference does not discuss that at all. I could not find "Gondar" anywhere in HME. Could you perhaps re-check your source? -- Elphion (talk) 04:07, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Found what you may have been thinking of: Letters, Number 324, p. 409.  But the gist of that letter seems to be that any such influence is unlikely. -- Elphion (talk) 04:26, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

License tagging for File:Piston ring illustrated.png
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License tagging for File:Horizontal steam engine.png
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License tagging for File:Helocentrism origin.jpg
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Possibly unfree File:Helocentrism origin.jpg
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Speedy deletion nomination of File:Eusebius Chronicon example.png


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Signature
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Thank you. --David Biddulph (talk) 09:54, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Doc James
Hello,

Doc James is not unidentified and is not British. He is James Heilman, he is from Saskatchewan, and he is an emergency room physician in Vancouver. He is probably the most experienced and respected Wikipedia editor working on medical topics. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  22:21, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

November 2023
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