User talk:Kahastok/Archive 4

Solveig Gunbjørg Jacobsen
Dear Pfainuk, you might be interested to know that Solveig's article has been proposed for deletion. In my opinion that's an ill-founded idea, same like the suggested merging as several other articles have links to Solveig's one. Best, Apcbg (talk) 10:14, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

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Country list
Hi i have been following your comments on the Country list page and agree with your attempts to maintain the standard of the list by preventing the inclusion of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland to the main list. They are not countries today and the people of those regions in the United Kingdom have never voted to have them described as such. I was wondering, as they do not appear on the "country" list, should they really be called "countries" on their wiki pages? In the past, England, Wales, Scotland and NI were described as Constituent Countries, but this has been changed to just country. I really think there shouldnt be such variations between use of the word country on Wiki. There needs to be a more balanced look at those other pages to ensure they are not misleading and innaccurate as the list would become if they were labelled countries there. If you get a chance, please take a look BritishWatcher (talk) 21:41, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The word "country" is pretty vague. It is clearly commonly used in reference to England, Scotland and Wales at least, and I think that the articles England and Wales have it about right.  I can't think of a better way of describing Northern Ireland - there isn't really any other good word for it.  I don't like the way it's been done on Scotland, but I'm not very bothered about it.


 * My issue on the list of countries isn't that I reject these as countries. I don't see that my own personal point of view comes into it.  I wrote out my reasoning pretty well in this edit (the green bit on the right) - I'm not sure I can put it better than that.  I accept that these are countries, but I don't think they belong in that list. Pfainuk talk 22:19, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I alluded to this, Pfainuk - this account was opened today during the discusion, and it's what happens when a vacuum is created like the List of Countries article. Why was it not just ISO? If not it simply cannot ignore the UK - as much as anything for the mayhem it causes Wikipedia. This needn't have happened at all, and you have no idea how many decent honest people this subject has stressed out in the past year. If you think I'm a tough editor to work with you should see the less honest people who are drawn to this subject! I urge you to take The United Kingdom at the List of Countries article as seriously as you possibly can. I am prepared to work with you, but things won't be comfortable at all when these kind of accounts get involved. They may not all fight your way, either.--Matt Lewis (talk) 22:45, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know why the original decision was taken not just to use the ISO list - except that appears to have been taken by the original author in 2005, and that the list has always included several states (Abkhazia, Somaliland and suchlike) with no ISO codes. While the criteria have been pretty stable since the article was first written, the list does attract SPA's and POV pushers from just about everywhere asking why x or y country is included or not, mostly on the basis of the word "country" in the title.  A month or two ago there was a bit of a barney with a Moroccan demanding that Western Sahara be removed, for example.


 * The article at "list of countries" would, IMO, probably be best served with the move - or at least a move. Not as a deliberate attempt to shut out the countries of the UK, but rather as a wider clarification of what this particular list is intended to be.  Orange Tuesday is right, I think: we're coming at this from two completely different angles, and the two aren't working together.  The word "country" is very vague - it depends on exactly who's using it - and if we take the word "country" out of the equation,  then we remove an ambiguous term while hopefully also removing most of the "but Abkhazia/Kosovo/Nagorno-Karabakh/Palestine/Taiwan isn't a country" arguments that come up periodically.  We can then create a glorified disambiguation article per Orange Tuesday's suggestion or redirect it to the ISO list or the list of sovereign states.


 * On the SPA, well, yes, he's an SPA and I have no intention of dealing with him particularly. I don't find him credible.  My view is that I will not oppose him for the sake of opposing him, nor support him for the sake of supporting him, nor generally take his views into account.  I suggest the bottom section of that talk page be removed as irrelevant to improving the article per WP:TALK. Pfainuk talk 00:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry 'bout starting that ENG/SCOT/NI/WAL discussion at List of countries. Perhaps Matt Lewis & Snowded are correct. I'm basically a troublemaker. GoodDay (talk) 20:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)


 * There were issues with that article that were going to have to be gone over anyway. Someone had to kick it off, it might as well have been you, eh?  Among the group of us we probably could and should have handled the thing better, but I'm hoping peace is breaking out at this point, and we can get on to other things (like trying to sort out the currency of Gibraltar). Pfainuk talk 20:45, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Gib
Hi there. Sorry - I meant let's get the article updated and close the matter. :-) We all know that Gibnews cannot be reasoned with like the Terminator) in discussions like this, and we seem to have consensus that it needs to be updated, so I suggest we do it. However, if I do it, he'll just revert me as he and I do not get along very well. This is why I have refrained from changing it myself, to avoid antagonising him. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 14:41, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, will do. I have added a bit on what the notes say on them - I don't think it hurts, and it is sourced. Pfainuk talk 17:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Re:List of countries
IMO, a better redirect is to List of sovereign states, but that's up to local consensus. In any case, the list needs to go through FLRC, if only to place more eyes on the proposed merge. See Featured list removal candidates/List of members of the Commonwealth of Nations for a previous example of this. FLC is a community process, so local consensus technically can't override it without going through FLRC. List of sovereign states looks pretty close to FL status also, so this might all be a moot point in a month or so. As such, I'd suggest you undo the merge for the duration of the FLRC, and if the FLRC is in favor of removal (which it probably will be), then you're free to merge after the star is gone. Cheers, — sephiroth bcr  ( converse ) 19:54, 23 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It seems to have been removed from the FL list, but still has a star on the main page. Do you know what's happening with this? I can't find the page on it. --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:48, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It is on the list of former featured lists, and the FLRC appears in the log as "delisted". So, as I understand it, the FLRC has been completed and archived and the article delisted.  User:GimmeBot will do its stuff (which, according to the bot user page, includes removing the star) in approximately two minutes' time (during the bot's run, scheduled for midnight UTC). Pfainuk talk 23:58, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXIII (November 2008)
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Barnstar
Thanks :) Pfainuk talk 13:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Article For Deletion- Minor University Sports Teams.
I saw you tried to delete some university sports team pages recently. I'm sorry I didn't see it at the time or I would have helped out.

I tried to delete the page on Surrey Stingers, my university's American Football team. American Football fans from America lept in to defend it despite it being in flagrent disregard of several of wiki's rules and their only defences were things that are explicitly stated in wiki's rules as not being valid arguments to defend pages being deleted. In the end they found an admin to get me in trouble and forced me out of the debate. It was a farce and it made me so angry I stopped editing wiki soon after.

About six months ago I found someone else was trying to delete a small American Football team page at his british university and he had the same trouble (Even arguing with the same people as I did) and his deletion discussion ended in 'keep' too.

I've started to see Surrey Stingers as a personal vendetta now, it's really annoyed me that it persists on wikipedia despite the page and the deletion discussion being in breech of several rules (Notability, Third-Party references, NOT-Database of facts, NOT-free webhost).

I agree that the pages should not exist individually but it's unlikely that we'd be able to delete them. However, merging them into an article such as "List of small American Football teams at british universities" and "List of small Ice Hockey teams at british universities" is much more feasible.

Would you be interested in working towards that end? Investigating the various catagories of sports teams (And the long list of ones you tried to delete in a group) to see which ones are minor and can be grouped together. Then sandbox a page before posting the official Merge recommendation?

Thanks for your time. Simondrake (talk) 15:57, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXIV (December 2008)
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List of sovereign states
If you put List of sovereign states up as a candidate for featured list I'll support the candidature --PBS (talk) 17:45, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it's probably ready for that, yeah. I'll file probably on the weekend when I have a bit more spare time to answer early questions (feels like the sort of thing you shouldn't file just before bed!). Pfainuk talk 21:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

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Eddystone Rock, Falkland Islands
Re

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddystone_Rock,_Falkland_Islands

Spanish 'Remolinos' does not mean 'sea lion', it means 'eddies', 'whirls', or 'whirlpools' Dab14763 (talk) 03:07, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've changed it. Pfainuk talk 10:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Would "maelstrom" not be a better translation? Justin talk 15:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not really sure - but go for it if you want. I've not seen the rock, and I don't know whether the name refers to literal eddies or whirlpools or whether it's merely named after the Cornwall Eddystone Rocks.  And from what Dab and the online dictionaries say, it seems quite plausible to me to suggest that the Spanish name could just be a translation of the English one - Eddies-rock and Eddy-stone are very similar after all. Pfainuk talk 17:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, you're could be right a translation would make better sense. In the context of the sea, maelstrom might be a better translation of Remolino but I don't think so in this case.  Justin talk 18:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

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About highlighting the name "Islas Malvinas" along the English name "Falkland Islands". What is so wrong about that?
As part of being objective the Spanish name Islas Malvinas has to be highlighted along the English name Falkland Islands. Why is it objectionable to that? What am I doing wrong? A thorough explanation will be appreciated. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saguamundi (talk • contribs) 15:02, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * (Note: responded at User talk:Saguamundi) Pfainuk talk 17:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

C-Class
It is great to have someone else who shares my same belief (that we don't need the C-Class), but It seems as if the C-Class issue is about even at the moment. This should all turn out right (but it is always good when it turns out the way you want it :) At the end one side will be forced to bow to the consensus of the WikiProject while the other side shall watch over. (Hopefully it shall be us watching over :) Have A Great Day! Lord R. T. Oliver  The Olive Branch 16:27, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: Thanks
You're entirely welcome! - Vianello (talk) 20:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Table of country-related information
From my talk page:

Hi,

Thought you might be interested, User:Buaidh has once again recreated his list of countries, this time at Table of country-related information. I thought I'd see what you thought rather than reverting straight off at this stage because he's now using a title that implies that the article's purpose is navigational - but almost all of my issues with the previous list remain. Pfainuk talk 18:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I have have redirected the page to Lists of countries, and true to my warning I have blocked User:Buaidh for 24 hours. Let me know if there are further transgressions. Lets hope that in future there will be some discussion before yet another page is created. --PBS (talk) 19:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks - will do. I agree, I'd much rather have the discussion than see him blocked, but if he's just going to recreate the article somewhere else instead of talking, there doesn't seem much option. Pfainuk talk 19:40, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I confess and apologize. I'm sorry if any of my activities disrupted anyone's tranquility.  I honestly see no way that any of my hyperlink tables infringe upon the List of sovereign states or any other article of which I am aware.


 * I don't understand why this issue of countries/nations/states/stateless nations/sovereign states/dependent states/self-governing states/non-self-governing states has not been discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries rather than among a small clique of editors. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.  I had a pretty good idea of what a country was at age five, but it seems that many people can debate this question for a lifetime.  Your aye, Buaidh (talk) 21:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Just previewed this - please excuse the length...


 * Let me start by saying that I have no issue at all with your keeping this list in your own userspace. For your project that's probably a good idea.  I also do not have any on-principle objection to integrating appropriate links to navigational articles into our existing lists - indeed that's probably not a bad idea either.  On the list of sovereign states, for example, links to relevant outlines and portals could easily go below the sovereign states' names, and dependent territories could be linked from the tops of the sovereign state's outline, and from something that said, say (outline, portal) just after the listing in the right-hand column.


 * My issues are with the notion of a parallel structure that duplicates the lists already in place (because of WP:CFORK) and with the notion of a list that implies that it is a definitive list of countries because I do not believe that such a thing can be made.


 * You say you knew what a "country" was at age five. Most people, I would imagine, would say something similar - this is one of the awkward things about this debate.  Each person understands what a country is, and has done since childhood.  But when you look at what exactly these understandings are, they can differ wildly from person to person - and particularly from country to country - depending on the political and cultural background that the person comes from.


 * To some, it is obvious that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are as much countries as France, Germany, the United States and Canada. To others, it's equally obvious that they are not.  To some, a country is defined by its practical power - I've seen it argued that the EU is more of a country than the Vatican City - whereas to others it is defined by its theoretical powers, and to still others it is defined as a cultural unit regardless of what powers it has.  To some, it is clear that dependent territories belong on lists of countries.  To others, the notion of a non-sovereign country is clearly a contradiction in terms.  In your list, you include several entities that haven't existed for decades.  Most, I would suggest, would not feel that they belong in a list of countries.


 * This complete lack of consensus as to what a "country" actually is means that a definitive list of countries is impossible to create. The word "country" is simply impossible to define without giving rise to such issues.  A list that purports to be a definitive list of countries tries to create such a definition and is doomed to failure.  This is why we don't have such a list at the moment.  Instead we have lists such as the list of sovereign states and the list at dependent territory); ISO 3166-1 and the list of United Nations member states; the list of IOC country codes and the list of FIFA country codes.


 * The page WT:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries was put there to try and get everyone interested in the topic to discuss how to make our coverage better - to come up with a reasonably uniform set of standards, particularly for ranked lists, and potentially to move the lists away from the list of countries moniker. At the time, I spammed the link to about 250 different talk pages, so it wasn't particularly badly signposted.  The issue itself has been discussed on hundreds of talk pages almost continually for years. Pfainuk talk 00:21, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * My primary concern is that we have let the debate over the definition of countries-and-their-ilk damage the utility of Wikipedia for school children and less sophisticated users. Devolution in the UK need not take the rest of the world hostage.  I love the List of sovereign states, but I feel that it may be a bit too pedantic for the casual user.  --Buaidh (talk) 13:22, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This is not a problem with UK devolution. Aside the fact that there is no devolved government of England, the countries of the UK were just as much countries before 1999 as they are now.  And even if we ignore the UK and its territories - which is not something that will be easy given the previous debates on the subject - there are plenty of cases where disputes have arisen because different people have different definitions of the word "country".  Recent discussions include the Palestinian Territories, Western Sahara, Taiwan, the European Union, the French DOM-TOM, Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.  If you use a more precise wording, it is far easier to draw the line between inclusion and exclusion in borderline cases.  And if the list does not imply that it is a definitive list of countries, people are less likely to take issue with the word country.


 * Per WP:CFORK, we do not make multiple separate articles treating the same subject. A new list of countries would break that guideline.  Aside the difficulties inevitable in any list that purports to be a definitive list of countries, a new list is not necessary.  There is no informational use in creating it.  If you feel that the existing lists are too technical, it would be better to work towards explaining things more clearly than to start creating other lists in violation of guidelines.  In my view, the list of sovereign states, given the hatnotes and redirects, is not too technical - it gives a precise definition, sure, but that definition is not too hard to understand and makes it very clear what belongs and what does not.  I am, nonetheless, quite willing to listen to any suggestion you might have - though I suggest that any such discussion belongs at Talk:List of sovereign states.


 * If you still wish to go forward with this list, I would suggest that it would be better if it was discussed at a more neutral forum - either at Talk:List of sovereign states or Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries. Pfainuk talk 18:54, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Request for redirect deletion in anticipation of page move.
Hi Pfainuk.

Could you please take a look at the discussion at Talk: Shaka and then delete the redirect if you're satisfied that a consensus has been reached?

Thank you. Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 08:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I'm not actually an admin, but I have passed your message on. Pfainuk talk 10:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

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British Overseas Territories
Hello,

Just to let you know, no British Overseas Territory has the words "British Overseas Territory" in its official name - it's equivalent to saying that the official name of the USA is the Federal Republic of the United States of America. Similarly the Crown Dependencies do not have the words "Crown Dependency" in their official names and the SBAs do not include the word "British" in their official name. Pfainuk talk 22:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The Foreign and Commonwealth Office prefers the nomenclature Cayman Islands (British Overseas Territory) to the British Overseas Territory of the Cayman Islands. See the FCO.  --Buaidh (talk) 13:46, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I am aware of the page you are referring to, but your link didn't work for me. The correct version now appears to be at.


 * If so, then that page says pretty clearly, "Full Name: Cayman Islands". Far from implying the Cayman Islands' official name is "Cayman Islands (British Overseas Territory)", they actually state outright that it is "Cayman Islands". Pfainuk talk 14:41, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You may wish to review the British Overseas Territories Act 2002. --Buaidh (talk) 15:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Done. FWIW it affirms my position, so far as I can tell, by way of Schedule 6 of the British Nationality Act 1981, referenced in the 2002 act as being the list of territories to which the term "British Overseas Territory" applies.  FWIW the Outline of Akrotiri and Dhekelia correctly uses the form "Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia" - that being the only territory directly referenced in the 2002 Act.  The territories are all British Overseas Territories but that isn't considered part of the official name.  Pfainuk talk 00:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe the title issue is situational, depending on whether the title is used as a endonym or exonym. In Wikipedia, we normally use titles as they are known outside the country.  --Buaidh (talk) 15:57, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The field says "official name". Therefore it should surely list the official name of the territory and only the official name of the territory.  And surely the only people competent to define the official name of a BOT are the British government and the government of that territory concerned.


 * If "British Overseas Territory" is not part of the official name, as defined either by the territory's government or by the British government, then it should not be included in the field. That's not to say that an extra field saying "status" would be inappropriate in the General Reference section, and I would have no objection if you chose to add that to the BOT outlines. Pfainuk talk 16:25, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Outline of knowledge
We would greatly appreciate your participation at the WikiProject Outline of knowledge. --Buaidh (talk) 17:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I can't say I plan on being very active there, but I don't mind lending a hand. Pfainuk talk 00:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXVII (March 2009)
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Polish Government in Exile Leader and History of Gibraltar
Hello Pfainuk. There is a discussion at the Gib talk page regarding mention of the death of the Polish Government in exile leader in the "History of Gibraltar" section. Your opinion would be appreciated. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 14:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

List of countries and dependencies by population density
Hi! I am trying to figure out how to easily add Macau and Hong Kong back into this list. Someone on Help desk pointed out that you had added Guernsey to the list in January. I was wondering if you did all the editing by hand, changing the numbers for the rest of the countries? Did you do it in Excel? If there is a simple way, please let me know. :) joye (talk) 00:41, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid I did it by hand. It took a little while to do.


 * I've posted a comment regarding inclusion criteria at that talk page. Pfainuk talk 17:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

British Empire
Not to influence your comment in any way shape or form (I couldn't if I tried anyway) but I would be interested in your opinion on Talk:British Empire. Regards, Justin talk 22:37, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Recent discussions
Hi, I noticed you've been having recent conversations with User:Baksando. I noticed some peculiar edits by this user and took a longer look. By the fascination with stubs, categories, and country organization within lists; along with the style of language used on talk pages, it is very obviously an incarnation of User:Instantnood who is permanently banned from contributing to Wikipedia. It is probably not useful to engage in long discussions in the end he will devolve into edit warring. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)


 * Thanks for the heads up. Pfainuk talk 10:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXVIII (April 2009)
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The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XXXIX (May 2009)
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A study on how to cover scientific uncertainties/controversies
Hi. I have emailed you to ask whether you would agree to participate in a short survey on how to cover scientific uncertainties/controversies in articles pertaining to global warming and climate change (survey described here). If interested, please email me Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 20:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)