User talk:Kirill Lokshin/Archive 7

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Advice on reforms to a Wikiproject
I'm thinking about jumping into the fray and trying to reform wikiproject College Football like you've done with the military history wikiproject. After being around WP:MIL, I can definitely say that it's easily one of the most organized and best-run wikiprojects around. If you don't mind, I'd like to bounce some questions off of you and see how I can best get cracking on this project.
 * How do I send a newsletter out to the members of the project?
 * What's the best way to hold coordinator elections?
 * What sorts of things should be prioritized? What's the first priority?
 * What sorts of problems crop up in a reorganization?

I know this is going to be a massive project if it works out. I've had a blast contributing to the Military History project, but I think this project could use some work, and I'd really appreciate any help you could provide. Thanks. JKBrooks85 16:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Input please
Can you help here: WP:SSP (See RFCU too) — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 20:01, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Tks. Not worth blocking to me--PS unless a range block is warranted, but I don't know much about that. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 21:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Early Muslim military history task force
I propose to reduce the time interval of this task force. Please tell us your idea here. Thanks.-- Seyyed(t-c) 05:18, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: Our discussion on User name change
Just for the record, (and I'm sure you're desperate to konw ;) ) I've changed my name to Rebel Redcoat. I hope i havn't committed a major faux pas in changing my name, but it's done now. Cheers Rebel Redcoat (talk) 15:59, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar thanks
Thank you for the award and thank you for your selfless leadership, patience, and example in leading what is probably the best project in Wikipedia, in which I'm proud to be a participant. Cla68 (talk) 11:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

ship infoboxes
(bsd) i noticed there are many ship articles that still use full table syntax instead of infoboxes (USS Northampton (CA-26) for instance). i would like to know if there is any need to upgrade them to infoboxes or not. if you don't mind, please reply on my talkpage. thanks --Ben Stone 07:13, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks --Ben Stone 07:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!
Thanks a lot for the award, it was a really pleasant surprise! Best, --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 17:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I would also like my thanks Kirill. And also congrats on receiving an award. Kyriakos (talk) 20:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Me too, much appreciated, glad to see you got one as well.--Jackyd101 (talk) 22:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks, Kirill. Much appreciated. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 23:10, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Per all above... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Dittoed, Kirill. Thank you very, very much. Thanks to you, I've been inspired to create a newsletter for Wikiproject College football. JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:43, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

"Undoing" content decisions
I'm wondering if there is any precedent for redacting content decisions from prior ArbCom cases. If not, is it something that you and/or the Committee might consider in theory? Thank you, Ante  lan  talk  05:43, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Ante lan  talk  15:48, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Off topic ?
Since you were the one who proposed this and this, could you look here? I believe that changing the subject of this discussion is not constructive, and we could use input on that issue (and of course, input on my main query itself).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 02:06, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Dbachmann
Hi, Kirill. I'm not sure if the ArbCom was planning to review this case any time soon, nevertheless I'd like to request that the arbitrators hold off considering the evidence until early January, if this is at all possible. For many reasons, including (obviously) the forthcoming holidays, User:Deeceevoice and I - and no doubt many others - will not be able to give our full attention to this matter in the near future. Also, some users have yet to present their evidence. Apologies if this request is superfluous and you weren't planning to review it soon anyway. Thanks. --Folantin (talk) 10:32, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Update I'm not sure how true the above is any longer. "Some users have yet to present their evidence" - I no longer believe the users I had in mind will in fact give evidence now. I certainly have no intention of adding anything to my own evidence section. Of course, you'd have to ask Deeceevoice whether she has any additions of her own to make. Otherwise, I can't see much new information coming forward. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 18:23, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Ferrylodge case
A recent case you Arb'd was mentioned here Talk:Mitt_Romney. I don't know if this is the appropriate forum to ask, but any guidance you could give might help sort things out. Mbisanz (talk) 20:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The ArbCom decision stated: "Any uninvolved administrator may ban Ferrylodge from any article which relates to pregnancy or abortion, interpreted broadly, which they disrupt by inappropriate editing." I suppose one could take the position that no Wikipedia article would exist but for pregnancy; however, I doubt that ArbCom meant such a thing.  In any event, the article in question (Mitt Romney) has never been reverted by me once, and no admin (involved or uninvolved) has suggested otherwise, much less banned me from the article.  This request by Mbisanz is frivolous, IMHO.Ferrylodge (talk) 01:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Apologies if this was frivolous. In this diff  another user presented an argument that invoked the arbcom case.  Since I wasn't involved in the case, I wanted to know if it was a corect interpretation.  Mbisanz (talk) 01:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * hmmm, I noticed this because I watch Kirill's talkpage. So now polygamy is related to pregnancy and abortion: interesting.  Tourette syndrome is related to the ArbCom restriction too because kids who are borne to mothers who don't have abortions have a higher tendency towards TS during stressful pregnancies, so I guess FL better not show up on that article either.  Considering how extremely helpful, patient and civil I found Ferrylodge to be on restoring Roe v. Wade to featured status, and that I couldn't decipher his POV during that FAR, I hope post-ArbCom hounding of Ferrylodge doesn't become an issue.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 02:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

General sanctions
I wonder if the Gdansk vote qaulifies? Also, while it's not high on the list of my priorities, I wonder if we should not consider retiring it, since WP:NCGN covers this pretty well.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:29, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Advice
Hi Kirill! I noted on the Battle of Musa Qala article this campaign box:. Could you advise why it specifies 'US war in Afghanistan' when it is in fact a UN mandated action under the command of NATO/ISAF and not specifically a US War? Richard Harvey (talk) 02:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

John Buscema arbitration question?
Hi, seeing is how I am being referenced in this arbitration, I made a response to the comments made at the talk page. I am wondering if I did put them in the right spot or not, and is there anywhere else I can put my comment in response to all the evidence?Phoenix741 (Talk Page) 02:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Does my statement count as evidence?Phoenix741 (Talk Page) 03:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm
Should it be stopped then? I think everyone's made themselves fairly clear by now anyway.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 04:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

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ANI thread
Hey Kirill, Adam Cuerden has opened a thread at WP:ANI regarding you. The link can be found here WP:ANI. Regards. Woody (talk) 17:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Asgardian-Tenebrae/Proposed decision
I'm not sure who I should report this to, but I think Asgardian violated his restriction on the Vision (Marvel Comics) article (making two reverts in four days) and on the Quicksilver (comics) article. --DrBat (talk) 03:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Not true. The user, however, did make several blind reverts. I have not responded with still another revert, as this will only cause an edit war. Rather, I will explain the changes on his Talk Page and the relevant character Talk page. Thank you.

Asgardian (talk) 08:46, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible arbcom on a wider set of interrelated conflicts?
Hi, I am contacting you because you were one of the administrators on the Macedonia arbcom.

I'm having problems with two specific editors (The Dragon of Bosnia and Grandy Grandy) on a wide number of articles. These, to varying degrees, include: 7th Muslim Brigade, Bosnian Mujahideen, Serb propaganda, Role of Serb media in the 1991-1999 wars in the former Yugoslavia, Alija Izetbegovic, Mujahideen, Bosnian War and Srebrenica massacre. These conflict are all related to, what I perceive to be, certain editors' use of these articles (and potentially others) for the purpose of pushing nationalist views, breaking Wikipedia principles relating to WP:POV, WP:COAT, WP:SOURCES and WP:OR, to name a few. This user has also deleted articles or links to articles which which he does not agree with. I feel that I have raised these issues (POV, etc) with him but have met with no understanding. I have also nominated the articles Serb propaganda and 7th Muslim Brigade for deletion. The latter is still pending while the outcome of the afd process on the Serb propaganda article was no consensus. While I agree that the subject deserves an article, Serb propaganda certainly was an important factor in the Yugoslav Wars, I, as did most of the non-Bosniak editors who participated in the afd debate, feel that the current article is grossly POV.

My question is, rather than engaging in never ending reverts and engaging in lengthy and extremely time consuming mediation processes for each individual article / conflict, is there a way to deal with what is the underlying problem with all of them, namely WP:POV, in one single mediation/arbitration process? All the other problems are merely symptoms/results of the underlying nationalist POV being pushed in these articles? Stifle recently mentioned that there was a precedent for dealing with conflicts related to Balkan issues where an "editor fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, the expected standards of behavior, or the normal editorial process" (where I take the first two to also cover POV issues). Could this be used as a basis for such an arbitration process?

If it becomes too time consuming to continously seek remedies against people who are consistently misusing Wikipedia to push nationalist views, only die hard natioalists and people with extreme views will have the tenacity to edit pages which attract these types of editors. Unfortunately, some of these articles are not notable enough to draw a large number of editors and the POV pushing is often quite subtle (though more often, such as in the examples I cite above, it's not). I believe an arbcom encompassing a wider set of smaller conflicts related to the same issue or user(s) would be an efficient way of dealing with these types of probelems. Your comments and/or guidance on this matter would be much appreciated.Osli73 (talk) 14:07, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, I must comment Osli73's claims. He says he is having problems with me and user:Grandy, which is wrong. He is just having problems with Wikipedia policies and guidelines. If you look at his block log he is constantly blocked because he permanently breaks Wikipedia rules:


 * 00:49, 5 September 2006 Blnguyen blocked Osli73 with an expiry time of 96 hours (did about 10 reverts on Srebrenica massacre in about 2 hours)


 * 09:48, 18 December 2006 Srikeit blocked Osli73 with an expiry time of 1 week (Sockpuppeteering and directly violating his arbcom probation and revert parole)


 * 01:48, 1 March 2007 Jayjg blocked Osli7 (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 2 weeks ‎(violation of arbcom revert parole on Srebrenica massacre again)


 * 02:26, 23 March 2007 Thatcher131 blocked Osli73 (anon. only, account creation blocked, autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of 2 weeks ‎ (violating revert limit on Srebrenica massacre see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Kosovo)


 * 07:37, 24 July 2007 WikiLeon blocked Osli73 (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 3 months ‎ 


 * 07:45, 24 July 2007 WikiLeon blocked Osli73 (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 month ‎ 


 * 12:23, 5 December 2007 Stifle blocked Osli73 (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (Three-revert rule violation: Bosnian Mujahideen

Regarding his claims that the problems are results of the nationalist POV being pushed in the articles he mentioned above, I also can't agree on that. If you look at the history of those articles you will find this:


 * Osli73, wrote Bosnian Mujahideen in order to replace the existing article with the offical and precise terms 7th Muslim Brigade. He also nominated 7th Muslim Brigade for deletion after he wrote Bosnian Mujahideen (which is mostly based on WP:NOT content).


 * Osli73 then wrote Role of Serb media in the 1991-1999 wars in the former Yugoslavia in order to replace the existing Serb propaganda article based on International court for War Crimes verdicts. And he also nominated Serb propaganda article for deletion. But it didn't go well, and now he is asking another way to destroy other users effort and contribution. I was also suggested to start a request for comment if he continues to behave this way. Regards. The Dragon of Bosnia (talk) 12:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer Review
How am I doing with this? &lt; DREAMAFTER &gt; &lt; TALK &gt; 01:58, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Article naming advice
Kirill, I'm starting to draft an article about the 1958 Cold War shootdown by the Soviets of a U.S. C-130 reconnaissance plane - it's the first entry in List of C-130 Hercules crashes, and a brief synopsis can be found here. But I can't figure out what to name the article. About the only similar article we currently have is Hainan Island incident, but this event has no similar commonly-known name. Should I use a naming scheme like 1994 Fairchild Air Force Base B-52 crash? If so, what should I call this? Would welcome any advice you may have. Videmus Omnia Talk  22:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I should note that there were many of these Cold War incidents that I hope to start articles on, so I'm trying to come up with a consistent naming scheme based on year/location/type of aircraft. Videmus Omnia Talk  01:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Cold Fusion Decision
The practical result of what has been done to the cold fusion article is the public will get misleading information on the current status of cold fusion. Since cold fusion is something that can be a major benefit to the human race, this is a serious error.

I have decided to give up on Wikipedia. PCarbon seems to me to have the patience of a saint. PCarbon has told me that he is also quitting Wikipedia. I will admit that cold fusion is a complex and unique issue. I think that most people who do not have at least a bachelor’s degree in the physical sciences or engineering would have a hard time grasping it. However there are many notable exceptions to this rule.

Pons and Fleishman made their announcement in March of 1989. The announcement was to protect The University of Utah’s patent rights. Some important information like the palladium alloy they used and the length of time it took to get a result (weeks) were not released to protect patent rights. Many scientists understood the significance of the discovery and scientists all over the world began experiments. Pons and Fleishman had been reproducing the experiment for five years and did not expect the difficulty others would have reproducing the experiment. Expectations were raised very high, and when a lot of positive experimental evidence was not appearing, there was a backlash. In the scientific world editors of journals have a lot of power, since scientists must publish or perish. The editor of Nature and other editors decided that cold fusion could not be real, that it was an embarrassment to science and that it needed to be squelched immediately. They also concluded the end justified the means. The used de facto censorship, name calling, and tried to ruin the careers of people who advanced the cold fusion idea. For this reason many of the scientists who continued to work on cold fusion, were retired, had tenure, or worked in another country where the witch hunt was not active.

Even while this political assault was under way, Nature refused to publish a positive result on the grounds that the issue was already decided. Melvin Miles had an initial negative result which he reported to the DOE committee. The DOE committee told the world about this negative result. When Melvin Miles later reported a positive result to the DOE committee, the DOE committee reported the result to no one.

This is how the “consensus” and de facto censorship came about. Cold fusion was done in by the political method, not by the scientific method.

The experiments have gone on for 18 years. Something like 3500 scientific papers by hundreds of scientists with PhDs in physics and chemistry have been written. Since 1992 nuclear transmutations with unnatural isotope ratios have been found. These nuclear transmutations are proof that nuclear reactions are occurring. More heat, tritium, He3, and He4 has been found. Some x-rays, gamma rays, and charged particles have been found. Reproducibility has improved.

Now some comments about Wikipedia. When working on the cold fusion article I have merely tried to include the experimenters’ point of view. I have not tried to censor or delete the skeptics’ point of view. I have tried to create a NPOV article.

I have a problem with some of Wikipedia’s rules and how they are applied. The rules do not show a grasp of the scientific method. Wikipedia has a nest of self appointed scientific censors that do not have a grasp of the scientific method. The scientific method is that experiment is the reality check of science. The only logical proof against experiment is experimental error. Consensus, existing the theory, and expertise can cast doubt on an experiment, but they are not a logical proof that negates experimental evidence. To imply other wise is a use of the political method. Your “undue” weight rule is seriously flawed. It seems to favor consensus over truth and does not give experimental evidence its proper weight. The principal of “information suppression” is well described in the NPOV Tutorial. Wikipedia does nothing to stop “information suppression.” Wikipedia claims that NPOV is its highest principal, but it does not enforce it. Apparently consensus is its highest principal. Truth and facts do not make the list. I do not see how content dispute is not a NPOV dispute. I do not see why “information suppression” is allowed under content dispute. “Content dispute” just seems to be a buzz word for doing nothing. I was told by one of your admins that if Wikipedia had existed in the Middle Ages, it would say the world was flat. If this is true, you should put this statement on your home page as a warning label.

You seem to be overrun with censors who like to throw around words like pseudoscience, pathological science, proto science, and fringe science. These are nonsense words. There only purpose they serve is political name calling. It is not all that complicated. If you are following the scientific method you are practicing science. If you are not following the scientific method you are not practicing science. If you make mistakes while following the scientific method, you are still practicing science.

There are ways that Wikipedia can improve their product. Wikipedia could change its rules to incorporate a sense of the scientific method and give experiment its proper weight They could stop using old censorship to justify new censorship. They could bring their nest of scientific censors under control. They could stop publishing articles on controversial science or new science since they cannot do it competently. They could issue warning labels. They could stop “information suppression”. They could enforce NPOV. They could resolve disputes with people who are scientifically knowledgeable and do not have a censorship passion or axe to grind. However Wikipedia does not seem to be interested in reform.Ron Marshall (talk) 02:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

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Quote
Beautiful quote on your user page. Just wanted to say hi :) Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 08:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

96.229.179.106
Hm. If you look at his deleted contribs, you'll see that his IP has been involved in importing a stack of copyvios along with who is blocked. The activities of since then suggest that it is probably the same guy. They often edit logged out and he's been deleting a part of Yen Bai mutiny recently on his IPs I think.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 23:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Re:Dbachmann ArbCom
Just in case you didn't get the message I posted as a follow-up to my previous communication in your archive, here it is again: Update I'm not sure how true the above is any longer. "Some users have yet to present their evidence" - I no longer believe the users I had in mind will in fact give evidence now. I certainly have no intention of adding anything to my own evidence section. Of course, you'd have to ask Deeceevoice whether she has any additions of her own to make. Otherwise, I can't see much new information coming forward. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 18:23, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd like a few days to submit a little bit of evidence of my own, if I may. Cheers, Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 10:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Fourth generation jet fighter
We still have a banned user disrupting a vote on this page's talk - user:Downtrip I believe. Are you able to stop him doing this? Thanks Buckshot06 (talk) 08:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Problem with user ScienceApologist
Hello

It seems you have earlier voted against user ScienceApologist regarding his actions. Could you please check the conversation on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Extraterrestrial_hypothesis#Total_overhaul_needed and give help if possible. I have never seen such an arrogant and shameless censorship on Wikipedia.

89.27.11.114 (talk) 13:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Musa Qala
Hi Kirill! could you take a look at the info box on this article. The inclusion of casualties in this case seems to be somewhat messy, with differing claims for casualties of different nationalities by different factions! Parts of the main text refer to casualties and reports of different claims, but having numerous referenced claims in the infobox as well does not seem the right way to go! Richard Harvey (talk) 14:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Time to call a referee
There's a dispute between myself and Kurt Leyman about the content of Fiat M11/39 article, and in order to avoid it escalating into an edit war, I'd like to ask your opinion about the matter.

The question is, whether or not, a sentence "Thus, the initial enthusiasm of the Italian tank crews (which, after having only the L3 tankette, was quite understandable), rapidly cooled." should be included in the article. We have discussed about that (in Finnish, because it's our native language), and Mr Leyman's opinion seems to be that it's PoVish, and in order it to be retained, the source of it should be clearly defined.

Personally, on the other hand, I believe it should still be in the article, because for me it seems plausible that it's based on interview(s) of former Italian tank crew members, and may well be (although I have no way to prove it) from Nicola Pignato's Italian-language book listed on the references. Also, if interpreted too strictly, any subjective statement (such as "the troops had a good morale when they went to attack") could be considered as PoVish and their exclusion would leave too much information out.

Läyhä (talk) 15:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Randall and Hopkirk
HI Kirill I;m extremely disappointed that I spent hours uploading title images for all the episodes for the series Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) yet User:Maxim deleted them all without even telling me -I am furious they were at least 50 images and I spent a lot of time on them -this is destructive however much he uses #10 as an excuse. They all had detailed rationales apparently all that was missing was the title -which could have been easily saved in minutes. I fear he may block me in my protest -please can you do something asap thanks ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦      Talk? 22:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Now he keeps reverting my messages [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Maxim&action=edit&undoafter=179854637

Happy Holidays
Happy Holidays Rlevse:) ''' (T/C)

Something I could get into
Thank you for your greeting upon my entry into the Wiki Military History Project. I've recently earned my BS in Military History and it is my life's goal to advance history in any and all capacities, be it teaching, researching....and that's about it, I guess.

I know very well that Wikipedia's entries on my favored topic (French Revolution and Napoleonic Era) are very complete, but this is my very first foray into Wiki editing and I would relish any opportunity to enhance it's historical entries any way I can. To that end, I would like to ask you in what ways I can contribute. Thank you for your time.

APZachariah (talk) 13:22, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Consistency - state names
Hi Kirill. I'm sure this was discussed numerous times, but I tried looking through your large archives, and considered looking through the Project archives also, deciding that that would take too long.

The current state of things is that on the Eastern front articles 'Germany' is misused, as is 'Russia'. I have come across articles that refer to both states in this way although one was of course (by Wikipedia definition) German Reich, and the other was Soviet Union (or USSR). In addition for the German Reich the names 'Third Reich' (this being the propaganda term) and 'Nazi Germany' (this being the post war term) are also used. The actions of these states were by German Reich and Soviet Union, except where ideologies are involved in which case they were by the ruling political parties, which were of course the Nazi Party and the Communist Party. Where military actions are being described it should say Wehrmacht (or Luftwaffe, or Kriegsmarine, or Waffen-SS) and Red Army (or the Red Fleet, or Soviet Military Air Force (VVS/PVO)). At no time should these actions be referred to as being undertaken by either the 'Germans' or the 'Russians' in the collective, or alternatively the 'Soviets', or the 'Nazis', except where the Soviets refers to a collective action or decision by the Soviet republics, and the Nazis refers to an actual group of members of the Nazi Party.

Is it possible to promote this as a Project-wide consistency policy because I do not want to get into this discussion over every page I visit as part of the Eastern front work I'll be doing?--Mrg3105 (talk) 21:21, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Reactivate publication departement
We should possibly reactivate the publication departement. Greetings Wandalstouring (talk) 16:19, 25 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The lecturer of this has linked it to almost every possible page in wikipedia. I have deleted the links since there are quality problems, but it has potential and he seemed interested in editing wikipedia. It would be a good starting point for a podcast or presentation. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:53, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Moving Military of the Soviet Union
'Military of the Soviet Union' is a wikiinvention. Would you please move it to Soviet Armed Forces, as I cannot?- needs an admin. That title seems to be more legit. Happy Christmas Buckshot06 (talk) 23:34, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks Kirill. 'Military specialist,' as you probably know, was a term used for the Tsarist officers that the Red Army initially decided to use. So it's redirected there only for that specific meaning of the term. Buckshot06 (talk) 01:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Smolensk (2nd)
Hi Kirill, you may want to reassess this article since I think it needs a bit of work still to ne called FA grade.--Mrg3105 (talk) 08:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

More categories?
Hi Kirill. I can't see to work out how to create new categories. In any case, I need one for Category:Military communications|Military railways. Could you do the honours? Cheers--Mrg3105 (talk) 09:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

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copyright requests
Hi Kirill. I was wondering if there is a central Project repository for received permissions from sites to use their content? In the past I never bothered because it was for my own use, but now will have to go and ask so wanted to know where to advise others. Should this be a MilHist area-specific resource (in my case Russian and Soviet)?--  mrg3105mrg3105 01:21, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

?
Would you like to drop into the talk page of What the Bleep Do We Know? It is very informative. "Don't rely on shitty science reporters to get educated about physics. That's part of the problem with this shitstorm of a movie." —— Martinphi   ☎ Ψ Φ —— 01:35, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom
Please see this WP:AE discussion regarding an ArbCom in which you sat on the committee: WP:AE. Please be reassured that I will answer and all questions, to clarify the question brought up of my character in the matter, something which I insist on in coming to proper closure of the matter. Charles 08:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Random portal component
I saw that you answered a question on the "Random portal component" template talk page, so maybe you can advise me. I maintain the Portal:Philately and have added the template to the "Stamp of the month" section but I am confused as to how to determine what will be the current selected sub-pages being displayed, if any. Right now it is displaying page "1". It looks fine for now and maybe when I have added more pages they will all work. BTW how do I limit the amount of sub-pages references on the archive page here which are now 50? I only intend to have about 12-15 sub-pages rotating about once a month but I also don't see any way to decide on the rotation rate. I reply where I post, so please reply here. TIA ww2censor (talk) 04:09, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm? The bulk of the portal doesn't seem to be using random rotation at all; and, if you're planing to explicitly schedule things on a monthly basis, there's no reason for it to.  Just transclude the appropriate month subpage directly.
 * As far as archives are concerned, you can just delete the extra archives, presumably? Or perhaps I'm not understanding the real question here. Kirill 04:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * When I gather enough appropriate articles I will likely use random rotation for the "Selected article" and "Biography", maybe more, but I was starting with the one section for which I have most data right now and will try to fill that out first. So the questions are:
 * How do I control when the rotation takes place or what dictates the time interval?
 * Can I decide which page will be displayed now, or at a specific time?
 * How do I get rid of the the unnecessary 35 sub-page sections with redlinks on the this page?
 * Thanks for the quick reply. ww2censor (talk) 05:19, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * With random rotation, you can't; hence the random aspect of it. If you want to have scheduled rotation, you'll need to transclude dated subpages (e.g.   ); you can look at the code on Main Page for more examples of different rotation schemes.
 * See above.
 * Just delete the lines with those numbers from the page.
 * Hope that helps! Kirill 05:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I will investigate 1 & 2 but 3 is based on the template Numbered subpages so there is no text to remove. Any other suggestions. Thanks again. ww2censor (talk) 05:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I have no idea how (or even if) that template works. Why not just transclude the subpages directly, as in, say, Portal:War/Featured article? Kirill 05:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I have taken your advise and transcluded the subpages. Much tidier. That template seems to be little used anyway, so I will follow this course for now. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 14:26, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject advice
I'm asking for some advice in relation to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council; if you wish to decline, simply let me know. I compiled User:NE2/USRD scope, but the problem seems to be getting people to realize it's not just about what they're interested. Can you please help? Thank you. --NE2 21:20, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Just created by Rschen7754: Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-12-28 WikiProject U.S. Roads --NE2 21:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

A job for a man from Leningrad
Hi Kirill. I'm having a problem with another user who is editing Siege of Leningrad. Essentially the article is way off in terms of keeping to the subject of the article, and the guy insists on inserting a timeline that included celebration of the 60th Anniversary of Leningrad's liberation. I tried to explain that the article will become unmanageable because there is a whole lot more content to go in to cover actual military aspects of the siege, but he is obviously now on defensive and thinks I'm interfering with his 'major edit'. To boot he thinks that because he is from Saint Petersburg he has some sort of rights to the article or cares about it more then any other contributor to Wiki. I have notified him that the military part is a part of a larger project that will include all Soviet operations during WW2,a dn Leningrad had several aside from the actual siege (defensives before the siege, attempts to relive and liberation counteroffensive), so I and others will be cramming for space as it is without the guy having reduced the page size with his green box. Besides that he is using all-Soviet sources and really heavy on the social side which probably needs to have a separate redirect to. --  mrg3105mrg3105 13:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Hah! And I'm just sharpening my fingernails in anticipation to rip his Finnish contribution to shreds. I can't believe he still maintains the internal inconsistencies in the article. I thought that time travel is a blatant enough hint, but no... 8-O --Whiskey (talk) 13:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok so the guy has no idea about editing. I'm sure he has good intentions though. I would really like to work with him, but he keeps on retyping that 1964 Soviet book. How do I get him to listen and consider expanding the page to maybe several? As the page stands now its all socio-political with almost no military content. The almost insignificant Finns get more space then the entire Wehrmacht force committed to the siege. The Re Army commander Meretzkov I believe is not even mentioned —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrg3105 (talk • contribs) 14:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Guys, let's try to work together nicely, okay? :-)
 * FWIW, the list-form timeline may be suitable as an outline for an article, but it would prevent it from achieving featured article status if left in place. Really, you only need one narrative; the content of the timeline should be integrated into the prose description of the siege, not separate from it. Kirill 17:37, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not going to work Kirill. Steven is on his own track with the articles as an expression of his "Truth" (see his post). Aside from content and structure problems, his English is not really as good as it needs to be for en-Wiki. I'll let him be for now and to to the South-Western Front. Hopefully he'll be finished or relaise his mistakes by the time I get to the North of the Eastern Front.--<font face="Edwardian Script ITC" size="5"> mrg3105mrg3105 08:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Deletion
Hey why did u delete my page mofo! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yep93 (talk • contribs) 07:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Why u deleted my page
Hi i wuz just woundering why u deleted my article about PaJ! it the same as ur war stuff send me an email at sfscrusaders@hotmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yep93 (talk • contribs) 07:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#ST47
Mr. Kirill, being that we are from the same country and born in the same city, feel an affiliation here, but I would not want to use this or should use this to sway opinion or your dicission. I do not know if I followed the right procedure in bringing light to the issue, but an administrator calling a user a Troll, is not something that I understand or approve. I was doing my job policing the article as a Spam patrolman, if that looks like trolling it for social engineering Malware Spam, that was exactly what I was doing! But is the terminalogy Trolling or Patroling? Igor Berger (talk) 09:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

RFAR Basboll
I added another comment at RFAR regarding Basboll which can be read here Please reconsider.--MONGO 18:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Template:Submarine
I noticed you dropped this from the infobox conversion page at WikiProject Military history/Infobox conversion, but a handful of articles still use it. Has there been some conversation about keeping it? If there are conversion issues with Submarine or Infobox Military Submarine, I'd be happy to help tweak Infobox Ship Example to accommodate. We're really committed to one standard infobox, and have nearly reached that goal :) Maralia (talk) 20:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

request to move
Hi Kirill,

Could you please move the Iaşi-Chişinău Offensive to Yassy-Kishinev Offensive and remove the redirect? Aside from the fact that all the English texts refer to it as Yassy-Kishinev, and that the operation was a Soviet one, and named in Russian, so should be transliterated from Russian, the convention is only to leave the Operation code names in the original language, and not the operational names of the operations. One may actually think that it was Romania attacking Soviet Union.

Thank you --<font color="#21468B"><font face="Edwardian Script ITC" size="5"> mrg3105mrg3105 21:56, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure whether here is the correct place, but I also believe that the Russian name for the operation, whether Iassy-Kishinev or whatever other transliteration, is more correct. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Kirill, as the operation took place on Romanian territory, I would say it would be better to have posted the oficial names of the towns involved. Elsewhere, we should rename all such articles into Russian (Vistula-Oder Offensive, East Prussian Offensive, etc). Best, --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 22:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, as there's obviously disagreement here—the talk page has more of the same, FWIW—I'm not going to be making any arbitrary moves. Please take this to WP:RM and get a consensus for a new name. Kirill 22:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, but you might want to say your opinion on this. Which way should it be? --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 22:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd go with whatever is more common among major English-language historians. I have no idea which variant that is, though, as this is rather outside my area of expertise. Kirill 22:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * With all due respect to your awards Eurocopter, please allow me to make some relevant points before going to WP:RM.

1. This is an English version, and no English source I know of uses Romanian names for the operation.

2. The operation was a Soviet one, planned and conducted in Russian.

3. The convention on Wiki is that only the Operation code names be retained in their original language. The name here is an operational one, and not the code name of an Operation.

4. The name of the operation does not refer to the cities as such, but uses them as a general geographic reference for the area in which it took place, unlike for example the Siege of Tobruk.

5. I would agree that some of the article titles for some of the operations in Wikipedia are inapropriate. For example the Battle of Stalingrad describes neither the who, the when, the where, or the why of the entire 'battle'. In fact it describes three different operations, seen from at least four different perspectives, of which only one can be called a Battle of Stalingrad, and that is the actual tactical fighting IN the city. On the other hand little would be gained by renaming into German (or Polish) the Vistula-Oder Operation since the English versions of the rivers are very similar, and the operations were essentially about the breaching of the river-based defensive lines by the Red Army. In any case, I'll be working on the Eastern Front operations, so hope to enlist your able support in future improvements :o)

6. Finally there is a wider practice in the discipline of History to use contemporary names where known. That is the point of History. If for example Yassy is renamed city No.r345-6 300 years from now to comply to a new EU standard, the historians will not refer to it post-factum as such ;o)

BTW, in requesting the move I did not intend any insults to either yourself or Romania in general. It was only when I tried to find the operation and found a redirect that I requested the move since to find the operation from an English woulrce I would have had to change my keyboard layout to Romanian, not something en:Wiki expects from the ordinary user. Cheers--<font color="#21468B"><font face="Edwardian Script ITC" size="5"> mrg3105mrg3105 01:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Help
Wow... I feel like such a burden... Could you please move this page to the main-space? And once you have done that, could you please delete the Dreamafter link per "CSD U1"? <font color="crimson" face="Papyrus">Dreamafter <font color="indigo" face="Papyrus">⇔ 01:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_reform
Multiple tagging is out of control. The banner containers are a kludge, not a solution.

Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_reform. --kingboyk (talk) 19:52, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Renamed admins
Kirill: Since I've been back editing with a little more frequency, it seems that pretty much every day I run into an admin who has clearly been around for a while but who has a username which is new to me (several have been one letter usernames). I check their RfA, nothing there. I do a little digging and eventually I will find an old user account of theirs, but invariably no redirects have been left behind. Try and edit those pages and the admin pounces - "I have a right to vanish!"

I just wondered what you think, because this bothers me somewhat. People have a right to vanish and to change their username, but I don't think they should be allowed to take their sysop bit with them unless there is total transparency. Adminship is about trust, and why should the community trust admins who don't even have an RfA on public display? --kingboyk (talk) 23:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Adding categories
So I need to create a page first? Its there already Theater (warfare), but miscategorised as Military conflicts. Do I just replace Category:Military conflicts with Category:Theater (warfare)?

In actual fact the Theatre, Campaign, Operation and Battle, need to be under Category:Military Events, since the commencement of each is an event. Please look at the expansion I just made to the Military operation. I could not decide if the three concepts belong in one article or three separate articles with a disambig.--<font color="#21468B"><font face="Edwardian Script ITC" size="5"> mrg3105mrg3105 03:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Kirill. What happened last night is I was trawling for any inappropriately categorised articles relevant to Eastern Front, and noticed some articles that were in root categories and just started recategorising. I hope you don't mind, and I see that I may have got a couple not quite right, but still better then having hair styles dumped in the root Military I think :O) It may be a good idea for active memebers to do occasional 'pruning' of articles unless there is already a procedure in place and what I found are from old times (didn't look at the history). Cheers and thank you for your patience and help (again)--<font color="#21468B"><font face="Edwardian Script ITC" size="5"> mrg3105mrg3105 23:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Armenia-Azerbaijan
There is much duplication in the Armenia-Azerbaijan remedies. Can you look at Editing restrictions and confirm if we can collapse those to just the three point list? Jehochman Talk 14:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

disambig help
I was trying to add this

to this List of military occupations, but for some reason its not working. Can you please tell me what I did wrong?--<font color="#21468B"><font face="Edwardian Script ITC" size="5"> mrg3105mrg3105 03:30, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


 * See above; if you're linking to a category (as opposed to placing an article in that category), you need to put a colon in front of it. Are you planning to create the disambiguation page?    There doesn't seem to be one yet, as far as I can tell. Kirill 03:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Or maybe you meant to have instead? Kirill 03:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm, no I meant the forst one, but I thought that the disambig page is created when the tag is used. I hadn't created disambig pages before so will have to see how that's done. Thank you for pointing out the colon. Cheers--<font color="#21468B"><font face="Edwardian Script ITC" size="5"> mrg3105mrg3105 03:56, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Infobox Military Structure
I saw you undid the modification to the "Template:Infobox Military Structure" for a second image. This provided an option for a second image. This option actually works quite well in the infobox in certain situations & its use is optional. I realize you can also add images other ways, but in certain situations it works well inside the infobox. Just trying to determine the logic for removing this improvement. Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 17:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I now see what you did - thanks for the clarification. My preference would be to have the second image next to the first as I think it looks cleaner, but I am happy to defer to your judgement on that.  Anyway, please have a look at Naval Support Activity New Orleans when you get a chance & let me know what you think.  Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 18:13, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Category:Nuclear weapons programs, etc.
Hello Kirill, Thanks for your note -- just wanted to let you know that I am reflecting on the new arrangement you've created. Cgingold (talk) 13:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Jim62sch case
Hi,

I just just was looking over the Requests for arbitration/Jim62sch/Proposed decision case decision and saw something that you may want to address if it's relevant. Orangemarlin was added to the case, but I don't see his name anywhere on the proposed decsions, whether he is is impacted by these decisions or not. I think maybe a clarification on that point might be in order. wbfergus undefinedTalk 19:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

+FA -A
I really need to remember to look for those!! Thanks for clearing up after me as always. Regards. Woody (talk) 22:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

My Russian Brother
I am glad my Russian brother is such a great person and really helps this community in such a mognanimous and selfless way. Thank you, Igor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Igorberger (talk • contribs) 23:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

RFA
[] I would like to complain about Alison placing herslf be for me at the above. Aatomic1 (talk) 23:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Please also see this discussion on ANI - A<font color= "#FF7C0A">l<font color= "#FFB550">is o n  ❤ 00:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Casualties or losses?
Hi, I'm new to editing, but an 'old hand' at military research. I'd like to suggest that the sections in the boxes headed 'casualties' be replaced by one saying 'losses', for the following reason: 'casualties' implies killed and wounded, usually including MiA and DoW; 'losses' however, also encompasses other fates of force, notably prisoners (PoWs), but also materiel losses, e.g. guns taken, tanks KO'd etc..

It is obvious that contributors, myself included now, interpret 'casualties' broadly, and so it should be, for PoWs often outnumber KiAs, WiAs and MiAs combined ... though the loser's MiAs are sometimes the victor's PoWs! To have a broad definition is important for those of us who use loss statistics in operational research. What do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wally Tharg (talk • contribs) 14:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Kirill. This should probably be moved off your talk and into the template Infobox Military Conflict and operational plan discussions per my guidelines suggestions. For Wally, the suggestion is already made that where known the casualties/losses be divided into the following categories:

Classification of Losses

Unreturnable losses – killed, died from wounds, missing in action or taken prisoner

Medical losses – wounded, sick, frostbite victims, or suffering from combat shock

Demographic losses – all killed and dead, missing and not returned from captivity

Materiel losses

Unrecoverable loss – equipment damaged beyond repair

Recoverable loss – salvageable and repairable equipment

Broken down – equipment unusable due to requiring maintenance

Abandoned – functioning equipment abandoned by personnel to the enemy

Surrendered – functioning equipment surrendered to the enemy by its personnel

This would of course require more rigorous research by the authors and editors.--mrg3105mrg3105 22:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Kirill/mrg3105, I agree with most of the above, and thanks also for the improvements to my Agnadello edits.

One of the points I would take (minor) issue with is that it would require more rigorous research by contributors. It may require more rigorous thinking, but that is different! I make this point because if the information doesn't exist in the historical records that we use to compile our entries, it doesn't exist. However, by tightening up the terminology, we can avoid adding ambiguity or confusion to incompleteness, or implying spurious accuracy. Thus if the only information available is on fatalities, then we should make that clear, perhaps with a note such as, "plus unknown numbers of wounded". If the only information is on total losses, then we should say so (as with Agnadello) that the figure was the total of KiA, WiA and PoWs. If the first contributor to an article is only able to provide "losses", so be it; but if a further contributor has better data, then these should be added with a more precise definition of what they mean, or how they are broken down.

Medical losses are usually (in the UK at least) classified as disease and non-battle injuries (DNBIs). These also include a significant category that you don't explicitly list above, namely those from non-battle injuries (these days, chiefly road traffic and flying accidents, and negligent discharges). These, like broken down vehicles, can be added to campaign losses, but are confusing if added to battle losses without explicitly saying so.

To cut a long point short (which always goes against the grain!), I don't think it would be helpful to mandate that we split losses into predefined categories, because much of the time, we do not have the information to do so. (Bryan Perrett in The Battle Book tried to be as systematic as possible about the data he provided, but was often defeated by incomplete records.) But by agreeing to the definitions of loss types, exemplified by those suggested above, we can make the most of what's available without loss or ambiguity.

Regards, --Wally Tharg (talk) 21:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC) ... and apologies for forgetting to sign first time round.

Welcome Message
Thank you. I will review the references you provided before I start any editing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SteveMancarelli (talk • contribs) 01:46, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Recent military history
Hey Kirill. I believe another editor has already pinged you regarding the Battle of Musa Qala, a recent Afghan battle. It's been sitting at FAC for three weeks, here and I can't seem to get it closed. A look from you would be most welcome. Marskell (talk) 07:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Z-SG question
Need an arb to respond to Brad's 14:43, 14 January 2008 (UTC) edit on the clerk noticeboard. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 15:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Banner sharing
Well if banner sharing is the way to go can you please activate the work groups displays on the central american template. See Talk:Dolores, El Petén it should be displying this is part of the Guatemala work group but it isn't. Can you blame people for wanting to have seperate templates when nobody will fix the regional ones? <font style="color:#fef;background:black;">♦ Sir Blofeld ♦     <font size="-4"><font color="Black">Talk? 15:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Mmm hidden by default I see. Wouldn't it be best displayed (if it doesn't bloat the template too much?) <font style="color:#fef;background:black;">♦ Sir Blofeld ♦      <font size="-4"><font color="Black">Talk? 16:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It doesn't. I'm figuring to adjust the parameters myself on that banner and the others as soon as I finish the the category list for the Mexico tagging. John Carter (talk) 16:27, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Well at least its actually in the template which I didn't realise initially. I'm certain it could be displayed by default and not affect the size of it too much. Thanks anyway <font style="color:#fef;background:black;">♦ Sir Blofeld ♦      <font size="-4"><font color="Black">Talk? 16:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Would you do me a favor?
Would you keep an eye out on the USS ILLINOIS fac for me for a few days? I would apreciate it. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar
I gave one of these to Newyorkbrad recently, and he wrote that you deserve it as much as he does, for your pre-election work. Who am I to argue? :-) Please keep up the good work. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 21:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Possible edit warring on project article
There seems to be some issues going on over on the article : Military history of African Americans, in particularly in the section Military history of African Americans. Could you take a look at the article's edit history as well as the discussion, Talk:Military history of African Americans, and possibly give some input? Thanks. Sf46 (talk) 23:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Working group, eh?
Sounds very interesting. From first reading one issue stands out — the proposal says "The working group shall be free to develop recommendations of any form, including those ... requiring community adoption of new or changed policies. The group shall present its recommendations to the Committee". Does this mean that this group may develop new policies for the whole of Wikipedia, submit them to the Arbitration Committee for review and approval, and if they receive approval from the Committee, go live? How does this fit in with the long-standing principle that the Committee doesn't make policy?

Just general curiosity, and I appreciate you're very busy so this is in no way an urgent issue :) Cheers, Daniel (talk) 03:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The recommendations will be just recommendations. If the group comes up with something that requires the community to adopt a new policy, then it'll ultimately be up to the community to make that decision; and I expect that the group's recommendations will be presented entirely in public, in any case.
 * (From a wiki-pseudo-constitutional standpoint, the group "reports" to us, since we're convening it; but that's really just semantics.) Kirill 03:17, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Understood, thanks for the reply. I guess whatever this group suggests to you (and you accept as reasonable) will either a) be applied if within the scope of the Committee or b) presented to the community if it isn't within the scope. I look forward to seeing how this works, as it was certainly the one proposal which stood out from your draft decision in the P-I case. Cheers, Daniel (talk) 03:25, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Native American Military History Task Force?
HI Kirill, does the Military History Project have a Native American History Task Force? I recently updated or added several articles I think fall under the project; though they are biographies of Native American figures, Dohäsan and Isa-tai ; both are primarily known in history for battles, Dohasan for the First Battle of Adobe Walls and Isa-Tai for the Second Battle of Adobe Walls. Am I correct that both these articles would fall under the project? Thanks, JohninMaryland (talk) 11:07, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Yassy-Kishinev requested move
After all the bru-ha-ha the move vote was closed with the verdict of No consensus to move but with a vote of 9 supporting the move and 6 opposing! So how does that work?! Or did I have to get some magic number like 75.1% or something?--mrg3105mrg3105 05:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Never the less I agree with you, Wikipedia is not a democracy, its an encyclopaedia. As an encyclopaedia it depends entirely on standards, logic and sources, and not on 'votes'. When I requested a move of the article, I did not request a vote, and so as far as I am concerned the exercise was a waste of time. I had said so during the 'vote' that it is not a poll, and that the reasons for the move were to be evaluated on merit, and not on 'agreement' At least one of your supporters had absolutely nothing to add to the argument as I noticed, and two others were essentially repeating your own self-defined standards of who should be doing what.
 * Wikipedia is not democracy, and even if you are 9 who support the move, that cannot happen without having consensus to do that, as you don't have a majority of sources which use the name proposed by you. The only source mentioned by you would be Glantz, for sure a respected historian, but that's not enough - let me also remind you that BBC calls it "Iaşi-Chişinău Offensive", not "Yassy-Kishinev". --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 13:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's funny. Usually if I want to talk to someone on the user's talk page, I expect the actual user to reply. Had I wanted to talk to you Eurocopter, I would have asked the question on your talk page. Had BBC spent a better part of 30 years researching Eastern Front operations and published a lot of fairly deep books on the subject, after being granted access to the former Soviet Military Archives, I would have considered BBC also. I don't particularly want to talk to you again. But, if I do, it will be on your user talk page.--mrg3105mrg3105 14:29, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This is Wikipedia and all of us are welcome to edit wherever they want. However, I only wanted to make sure that Kirill isn't misinformed regarding this situation. Also, I think it's the second time i'm asking you to calm down and be civilised. --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 15:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Be careful. When I added a note on user:Raul654's talk page under user:Miyokan's request to restart the Russia FAC, Miyokan was not happy, to put it mildly. Sometimes if people have strong views about something, one can cause offense. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I have a different impression of User Talk Page then yourself Eurocopter. I see it as the virtual face of the user, and when I post there, I am actually lo and behold talking to the user in question. I do not expect another face to appear between us in the middle of a conversation. Besides that I think Kirill is well able to make up is own mind on who is misinforming whom in most situations, and if you notice I actually posed a question, and that is not a common use of language if misinformation was my intent. I was in fact seeking information myself.


 * Now, I would like you to once and for all stop telling me to calm down. I am outraged at the lobotomy that was performed on logic and reason in that 'discussion', but I am I assure you very clam. Angry people don't generally think straight. So you do me a favour and go away and come up with a much better reason to keep your title for the article then its acceptance by the Rumanian government or the EU because as you yourself pointed out, Wikipedia is not a democracy and is therefore not obliged to accept other democracies as a guide to doing things. Cheers--mrg3105mrg3105 03:08, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
Thank you !! Bwmoll3 (talk) 14:56, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for reverting the vandalism to my page. (I didn't realize it until now. :-)) --Nlu (talk) 18:44, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Russia FAC/Good article
Hi Kirill, not WP:MILHIST, but you're the most experienced wikipedian I know, so I thought I'd ask your advice. user:Miyokan has repeatedly put the Russia article forward for FAC, while slowly censoring (that's virtually the right word to use, in my view) of any negative reporting toward the USSR in the 80s or Russia now. For example, he's just removed a cited statement saying there were empty shelves and high inflation in the 80s from the article, saying it was NPOV. Several editors apart from me have commented upon the subtle Sov/Rus propaganda view of history in the article. The FAC looks like it's heading to fail, but at the moment, it's also listed as a good article. I would really like to list it for removal from GA status, given this creeping un-realism, but I expect a firestorm of reverts, complaints of NPOV, etc, as soon as I do, with the intent to defend the picture that Miyokan want to present (In fairness, he's from Chelyabinsk; he's probably only putting over the attitude that he's learned all his life.) Do you have any advice? Regards Buckshot06 (talk) 02:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Palestine-Israel articles RfAr
Hi Kirill. I have a question about the Proposed decision on the RfAr. One of the proposed remedies is that "Any uninvolved administrator may, on their own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if that editor fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, the expected standards of behavior, or the normal editorial process."

Uninvolved admins are later decribed as having "not previously participated in any content disputes on articles in the area of conflict".

To me, this wording is problematic, as there instances in which neutral admins (such as myself - you are welcome to check the 150-odd articles I have started on Israeli topics for bias) have intervened in the past to try and stop the various POV pushing where the interventions could be seen as a content dispute (e.g. attempting to enforce WP:NPOV at Gideon Levy back in October/November 2007). I am probably one of the best placed admins to actually implement policy against the various trouble makers as I am one of the largest contributors to Israel-related articles. As I noted in my statement, I would like to able to carry out admin functions to stop both sides, and I was hoping that the RfAr might strengthen my position (it was weakened by the pro-Israel lot attempting to disrupt my RfA). Nevertheless, I do agree that there are also admins who have been involved in POV pushing and that they need to be prevented from carrying out admin functions, but I am not sure about how this could be done bar specifically naming the admins who should not be allowed to act as such in this area.

I recall reading a suggestion during one of the many debates that there should be a full-time aribtartor on these issues to whom the warring factions could bring their dispute for resolution. If you were to consider it as an outcome, I would be willing to put my name forward for the position.

Could you clarify the meaning of the statement, and whether it would effectively bar me from helping out?

Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  13:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * In relation to the above, I've suggested a principle relating to the NPOV policy which I hope you would be able to support (it's based on principles agreed in the Falun Gong and Free Republic cases). I'd very much like to see it in the proposed decision, and I don't think it would be controversial. Please see Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles/Workshop. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:58, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick note of appreciation for your attention to this case. Thanks. HG | Talk 06:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair Use Images
I am unclear on Wikipedia's image use policy for websites related to the US Army. It lists several department of defense websites and the like, but not more prominent ones like the US Army websites ([army.mil], [goarmy.com], etc.) How would I be able to tell which images can be uploaded and which ones can not? -Ed! (talk) 22:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

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Template help:
Hey Kirill, long time no see! I've seen your recent exploits from afar and I have to say I'm pretty impressed - not that I thought you'd achieve any less on here. :) Anyway, I'll get to the point: I was wondering if you could add an assessment feature to Template:WikiProject Dinosaurs. It's about time our project got a feature like that; I was going to copy/paste one from another template, but I went into about 5 and the syntax is very complicated. Anyway, if you could do that, it'd be brill, but if you don't have time could you point me in the direction of someone else who knows that sorta stuff? Hopefully I'll see you around some more, but I haven't really been travelling in your circles recently (Closest was helping out at the MilHist assessment drive). Cheers, Spawn Man (talk) 09:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I see you've added a photo of yourself to your userpage - I must say, that's exactly how I'd have pictured you! :)


 * Just the old "This article is - A class" (IE, class=stub etc). I hope that sorta explains things...? Spawn Man (talk) 22:53, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much Kirill. Yes, I'll do the cats - I'm not that hopeless... I think... ;) Cheers, Spawn Man (talk) 04:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Really regret bothering you with this
But I can't figure out why the new sample template at User:John Carter/Sandbox doesn't show any assessments for the various groups, as per its talk page. If, when you get a free moment, if that actually does happen, you would be willing to see what was wrong, I would be very grateful. John Carter (talk) 21:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Requesting input
Your input on the ideas presented at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject reform would be very much appreciated. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 18:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Template fix request
The Template:WPAVIATION banner is putting spaces into the bannershells when nested. See Talk:Boeing and Talk:British Airways Flight 38. When you get the chance, could please try and fix it? Thanks. Woody (talk) 20:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thankyou very much. It had been annoying me for a couple of days, and I simply could not find the problem!!! Thanks again. Woody (talk) 20:49, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Question
Hi Kirill, i've just overhauled the Michael the Brave article and would like to put it on A-Class review as soon as possible. However, i'm not sure about one thing: which would be the recommended dating system to use in this article, OS or NS? In present the dates are posted in OS, and some of them have NS also mentioned in brackets. Now, should I put both styles everywhere, or should I use only a certain style? --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 20:57, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * And which one would you recommend? --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 22:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * But if I use OS, shouldn't I mention somehow at the beginning at the article that all dates used in the article are in OS? Maybe some kind of note will do.. --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 22:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 22:22, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Question
What was here? If you don't want to tell me, thats okay too. <font face="Edwardian Script ITC" size="3"> Dreamy   §  03:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, that makes sense, you see I am no admin, so could not access it. Thank you! <font face="Edwardian Script ITC" size="3"> Dreamy   §  04:01, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Dbachmann RfAr case
Is there any difference between protection and semi-protection? The FoF 4/4.1 say "protecting" when even the "evidence" actually cited specifically shows that he did no such thing: he semi-protected. Shouldn't a FoF have facts?:-) I've put scare quotes on "evidence" because of this analysis on the /Workshop page. (This is mostly academic curiosity on my part; you need not reply if it seems trivial to you.) rudra (talk) 01:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the clarification that there is no relevant or material distinction (in the context of anon IP attacks/disruptions). rudra (talk) 02:07, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * this is obviously false. Protection and semiprotection may be implemented within a single framework technically. This is irrelevant. For the purposes of policy, protection and semi-protection are treated as separate features for good reasons (see WP:PROT). Similarly, Category:Semi-protected is not a sub-category of Category:Protected: it is customary to refer to "full protection" as "protection" (there is no Category:Fully protected), for historical reasons ("full protection" is a retronym because semi-protection was introduced later than protection). It is disingenious to say the least to use "protection" when in fact referring to semi-protection. dab (𒁳) 12:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Realising the extent to which User:Samvak and him minions, including, but certainly not limited to, User:A Kiwi have invaded and taken over my mind, my emotions and my life over the past 9 years... It really has been that long, and it really has been that unrelenting. Basically, I think User:Samvak has managed to render the internet itself, at least for me, into one long running Gaslighting game. Josef Goebbels once said that "if you tell a lie long enough it will become the truth", so User:Samvak carefully concocted a fiction of me and told it over and over again, directly and through his minions for 9 years, until nobody sees me at all, just the lies. Believe it or not, I don't actually know most of those lies myself (beyond the poison pen mails authored by User:A Kiwi that I only finally saw since New Year), just their effects. I am an Aspie, driven further inside myself by childhood abuse. I'm not a people person, I don't find people comforting, we aren't on the same wavelength, and besides I grew up, isolated, in a house where I would have had to be insane to trust anyone at all. So I was really a soft target, I just looked strong which must have made it so much more satisfying. I realise that, over the past 9 years, all this stalking and lying has erroded any trace of a potential to trust people I ever had. It has also erroded all faith in myself. In spite of everything I know intellectually, about the lies that have been told and how they have worked on me it has also erroded any faith I had in myself, leaving me fully intellectually aware of who I am, and how hard I work to be realistic, honest and honorable and yet also utterly incapable of feeling or believing that anyone could ever want, like or care for me anymore. I am losing my grip now, the breaking point came suddenly. I don't see any point in even surviving on these terms. I am sitting here wondering how I can even go on having any kind of life this way... It's not just on the outside, it's in my head now, like brainwashing. I run from anyone who makes a move towards me now, because I am conditioned by all this to believe that everything I do or say, no matter how hard I try, will be percieved as abuse. I am conditioned by User:Samvak and his friends to see myself as someone people see as repulsive and disgusting, I am so conditioned by all this that I cannot see any reality beyond that. It's easy to do that to an Aspie, we can't read interaction intuitively and have to work it out intellectually. The worst kind of people sense that vulnerability and put the boot in instinctively, and it snowballs. Along the way I have seen the most sadistic harpies present themselves as victims, and get away with it both because of the lies that have taken the place of my reality, and, sometimes, just "because". User:SandyGeorgia is of that kind, a blatant bully with a cavalier attitude to the truth and a driving need to dominate everyone she encounters. Weaker people just go along with it because it's easier than facing and telling the truth. I believed in Wikipedia, I believed I would get a fair hearing and I was horrified, halfway through to see arbcom members actually manipulating the evidence, lying about me in their own right, and deliberately putting my health down on the line to gag me. I don't know what User:Samvak's point was. I know User:Samvak wanted me for something, not in any caring or human way, no doubt just as a "thing" to own and control, and I turned him down, and not only that, I saw through him and refused to pretend I didn't. I defied him, and I will defy him all the way to my grave, he is loathsome, and so is his agenda, and anyone who enables it. Realising here that there is no way I can stop all these lies reaching into the life of a very innocent person who needs me and insuring that I will never be allowed to help, and that the conditioning in my head will always make me run away from everyone I ever like, or want now. Because whatever they do or say there will always be this little voice in my head telling me that whatever they say they really despise me because I am disgusting, repulsive and pathetic. Knowing that is a lie does help when somebody goes to all the trouble of spreading lies behind my back to get that lie reinforced everywhere I turn. It's not going to end, if anything it is shifting up a gear. People ask why I go on fighting it, there are two reasons: a) Knowing how wrong the whole agenda is I don't have a moral option but at least TRY to oppose it. b) I can either be trapped in it and fight back, or I can just be trapped in it, there has never been a third option, which would you choose? I hope those of you responsible are proud of your tactics and lies.


 * I suggest that if A Kiwi has any allegations to make concerning myself that she take them, and her (usually creative) "evidence", without further delay, to the proper authorities, for example, the FBI. I am desperate enough to consider pleading guilty to any charge she can persuade them to bring, simply because, after that, whatever the penalty, she will never again be able to stalk me with poison pen emails, false identities, impersonation, defamation and a degree of sick obsession that, after 9 years, is truly terrifying. The effects on my mental and emotional wellbeing, as well as my, once, good name and reputation have been honestly devastating. Even if I had to serve a couple of years in prison for something I didn't do, at least, when I came out, I would finally be able to live my life free from the devastating effects of the malicious fixation of a total stranger. - Zeraeph, by IP --78.152.236.67 (talk) 13:08, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what this is about, or how a claim of a 9 year dispute arrived into our six-year-old Wiki, but I strongly advise against admitting to false charges. I also advise on taking this offwiki to the Committee by email. To notify the authorities if anything becomes life threatening. To, perhaps, hire an attorney and have all the evidence compiled and see what s/he says about your prospects. The most important thing is not to do anything hasty. When things feel unbearable, do something that inspires calm. Approach the situation composed and collected. Certainly, do not let your life be consumed by it. There's a lot going on in life, don't let something negative take over. No human being deserves that fate. Good luck. El_C 21:29, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Infoboxes
Thanks for that, didn't think anyone was watching/noticing. Once I get the parameters in my head, it almost becomes botlike. I was wondering which one to turn my sights on next. ;) Woody (talk) 16:37, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Issue
Regarding WP:ANI, what are the implications if someone has access to a private checkuser tool? Is it even possible? Woody (talk) 02:10, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Question about whether a proposed finding of fact has a chance
Is Requests for arbitration/Highways 2/Workshop a content decision, or does it have a chance of passing? If the former, is there a way I can reword it to make it acceptable? --NE2 01:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

PM
Where do I post it? Can you motion for me? I'm unsure of the process here. Regards, <small style="background:#fff;border:#090 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">M<big style="color:#090">- ercury at 23:56, January 13, 2008

Message for you on the Proposed Decisions talkpage
Bishonen | talk 15:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC).

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Barnstar

 * I don't normally give these out Kirill, but I looked at your contribs the other day (sorry!) and I couldn't believe your dedication to the project. You really do a great job.  Ry an P os tl et hw ai te  03:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Can we bring it back?
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (military units) because I will need it for the Eastern Front project. There is a problem with the naming convention/style as you may be aware in the suggestion that Armies be spelled out. In any case, it would be good to have as a resource in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/World War II task force page if nowhere else. Cheers --mrg3105mrg3105 05:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

How'd we get a second copy?
See: - you didn't hear it from me. --Jack Merridew 11:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

MILHIST Taskforce Suggestions
Hi Kirill,

had a few ideas and observations when tagging as part of the MILHIST Assessment drive.

1. Indian taskforce name might be better if renamed as the South Asian Taskforce, since the other countries are as important in many ways, and I dont see how the Pakistanis would like to include their military related pages on the Indian task force for want of a suitable taskforce. However, I expect that this may be counter-productive and very controversial, so I dont have much expectation for it; just a thought though. Alternatively, we could also add a south asian task force for the other countries apart from india, like the Nordic or Balkan Task Forces. 2. Battles taskforce: Unfortunately, battles and engagements are quite a few, but lack a taskforce, which I think is essential considering how useful that may be. For one, it would really aid in the improvement of such pages. Most battle pages are atrocious, lacking most details that characterize other somewhat more comprehensive articles, like, say, Battle of the Hydaspes River page. WW2 and WW1 battle pages too could be improved by creating a suitable taskforce. Science taskforce is fine, but, IMO, is somewhat different from this. Perhaps the Military science Taskforce could be renamed as "Military Science and Battles Taskforce" to include this aspect in the scope as well. 3. Individual Taskforce pages REALLY need to improve their scope sections. In many cases, these are non-existant or minimal. This is essential since we wouldn't really know what exactly they do. For eg, the Historiography task force scope explanation could be improved by giving examples and explaining the scope in more detail. A "WHAT IT IS NOT" section would also be very useful to exclude pages that may not be a part of the page. 4. Could we add a cold-war period taskforce, since I think thats quite a distinct and important period, considering the increasing distinction and historical interest with which the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s are looked upon with today. 5. In my opinion, Future assessment drives could focus on adding taskforces, periods and assessments for article pages, since this drive should take care of most of the military related pages. I think future drives will throw up fewer pages, so that should give more time to editors to add assessments and task force info to them. Incentives to do this wouldn't hurt in my opinion.

Overall, great work with the MILHIST and Assessment Drives. Keep it up. Cheers. Sniperz11talk 13:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Bump... any opinion on this? Cheers. Sniperz11talk 15:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * 'Ullo, mate! Best is probably to raise this directly on the Milhist talk page (it will probably end up there anyway). I think Kirill is travelling at the moment .... -- R OGER D AVIES   talk 15:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reply Kirill.... As always, your points are excellent and correct. I hadn't thought of that. Anyway, taking Roger's suggestion, I'll post my other suggestions in the milhist talk page. Thanks. Sniperz11talk 07:09, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Nega-work
Hello. I am not exactly sure what happened, but in reviewing my deleted contributions, it appears that in the past week you had to do a WP:CSD speedy deletion on fifty-odd template talk pages that I had assessed for WP:SHIPS and WP:MILHIST ... but the templates themselves did not exist. Sorry you got stuck cleaning up my Wally-moment. --Kralizec! (talk) 14:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Message for you on the Proposed Decisions talkpage
I have replied there; please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. Kirill 03:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I do. I'd like to know what happened, that turned this guy into this guy. Bishonen | talk 00:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC).
 * Inertia in the Committee must have reached absurd heights so as to ignore the bad blood generated by its one-sided flow. For weeks, the proposed decision reflects this un-fair-mindedness: quantitatively, by listing three people to one. And on the qualitative front, anyone can see that arbcom-l peer David Gerard, whose conduct during the dispute includes such colourful expressions as "idiocy and trolling," was being treated far better than his opponents during those weeks. And then we have Uninvited Co's theatrics, again? I'm at a loss for words. El_C 17:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Mixed languages
Hi Kirill. If the MHP rules that names which mix two languages are acceptable, then I don't have a problem with them being reverted. I didn't really think anything of it; they just seem wrong to me. Such things may be "reasonably standard," but then a lot of terms that military historians use are similar abominations. I didn't think of Unternehmen Barbarossa, but that is a similar case. Likewise Operatsiya Bagration. I mean imagine Operatsiya Overlord or Unternehmen Cartwheel. 17:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Italian War of 1542–1546
I've looked through your edits, as requested, and I like all of them. The what, where, and why are now in better balance, and I doubt the reader will mind the extra touches of detail. The article is a gem.

I'll certainly look at your next Italian Wars article; please remind me when the time comes. I am stronger on the later sixteenth century, but several of my books cover the whole period, fortunately. qp10qp (talk) 23:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Ionas68224 and User:68.224.117.152
I have no motivation to file a WP:RFAR, I simply post here on behalf of blocked IP 68.224.117.152. Please see the post here. Best regards! -- omtay 38  02:14, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Aiding and abetting a known criminal?
On Bishonen's talk page, you said the following:
 * "Or do you want me not to view you as a "problem user"? I'm sorry, but I simply can't do that at this point; it was ultimately your decision to assist Giano—and I cannot believe you so ignorant of the history that you had no inkling of the potential consequences of doing so.  It is my view that Giano's method of interacting with other editors must be stamped out, ruthlessly if need be; and that anyone who aids him in his actions must bear a portion of the responsibility for their effects.
 * Or is it something else that I haven't thought of? Kirill 14:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)"

This begs some serious questions that I'm curious about. I have offered my own opinion that many of the arbitrators are acting out of prejudice or out of "received wisdom" about users, as I cannot find anyone communicating with any of the users, asking them anything, or seeking any mediation of problems. Your statement seems to confirm this, as it appears to say that Giano is somehow persona non grata despite having no findings against him in the past, that he is "well known" for being bad... again in the absence of anything showing this... and, in fact, so well known that anyone who so much as has a kind word for him is somehow guilty of grave crimes (which are still unstated). This aside, though, I'm not sure, as one of the people who edited David Gerard's vanity page (and that is my honest opinion of what it is, and I can, what's more, prove that it is inaccurate, inappropriate, and protected without consensus or discussion), how I was assisted or how I assisted Giano, and as a person who is a friend of the person behind "Bishonen," I did not know of any "assisting" in any criminal act. You do appear to know of something that isn't shown in a finding of fact, and I would like to know what it is, too, lest I accidentally "assist" someone and find myself labelled for it. You may answer here or on my user talk. Geogre (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) In what way did Bishonen "assist" Giano?
 * 2) What did she "assist" Giano in doing?
 * 3) Is there some finding or ... some statement? ... whereby it is wrong to assist Giano in general, or is this in reference to a specific violation of policy?
 * 4) Which policy was violated by Bishonen in this assistance?


 * Yes, yes, I'm terribly evil. We all know that.  Just look at all the acrimony on my talk page for proof.
 * The question was what Bishonen did.
 * Let's do be specific, though, and not general, and let's do talk about specific insults rather than "designed to provoke a group." I was asking about Bishonen, not me, and not Giano.  I was asking what Bishonen did.  I could ask what I did, too, but I don't much care.  The way "incivil" is used at the proposed decision page, it has no meaning whatever.  No one can tell what it is, and therefore there is no way for anyone to contest that he or she is not, and I'm not in any case concerned with it, as "civility" is an absurd goal.  (And see how people reacted to Bishonen quoting David Gerard, the man at the center who never gets any derision, who wrote an essay... which is still here!... and in the wrong space (again!) on "fuckheadism."  The way that people will get shocked at "civility" and then quote "don't be a dick," which is an insult, simply evacuates any whiff of meaning from what they're saying.)
 * No, what did Bishonen do?
 * Also, who was insulted? Were you insulted, as a user of that IRC channel?  Who found it difficult to edit Wikipedia because of the changes to that page?  Who found it difficult to edit Wikipedia because of the illicit page protection there?  Who found it impossible to go on with matters because the page describing that IRC channel said what was actually true -- that there is no redress from abuse there -- and who found it difficult to go on after having an unheard of (and never checkusered) party start a frivolous arbitration and have that accepted without any charges?
 * If harmonious editing is the goal, you would never, ever have voted to accept this "case." You would have spoken to the people who were so displeasing (at least once would be something).  You wouldn't use vague language with no purport and make valuable administrators leave to register your unhappiness.  Geogre (talk) 21:01, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I hate to come back to add things, as some people do, but I did miss one critical feature. There is a vast amount of "Giano meant" and "Bishonen meant" and even "Geogre meant" going on.  I don't know how people are so sure what people meant to do without asking them and without believing them when they answer on their own, but I know one "meant" that you put in that I can answer to.  The changes to David Gerard's vanity page: were they "meant" by Giano to make the users of that channel cry and throw away their accounts?  Interpreting it that way is strained.  Even if you don't ask him why, even if you just want to conclude without discussion, even if you want to figure out the most rational and likely reason, that wouldn't be it.  If you wanted to guess his purpose, it would be to shame the users into addressing the abuses.  That would be a noble goal, if he believed that previous attempts at getting the abuses addressed had failed, and we all know that they have failed and failed and failed and are going to fail again.  Geogre (talk) 21:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Assistance
Thanks for replying to Geogre's question. Sorry to be re-opening these communication lines after actually asking you to keep them closed; but I didn't originally focus on the charge in your last post that I'd "assisted" Giano (I was too gobsmacked by having you call me a "problem user" to notice much of anything else) and I had been wondering what this assistance was about. I'd like to register that I think it's a very strange way of describing the events. If anybody assisted anybody, during the events that are the subject of this arbitration, surely Giano was the one who assisted me. When I was insulted and disconcerted on the admin channel, Giano was angry on my account (as I think he would have been even on behalf of a stranger); he wrote to Tony Sidaway, receiving atrocious rudeness in return (so much for dispute resolution), and in frustration edited the WP:WEA article to reflect what he thought a more realistic picture of the channel. So did Geogre, and so did I. Please compare my narrative in my evidence section, which I took some trouble to make descriptive and precise. Chronologically, I did indeed edit the article slightly later than Giano's first edits; but how does that mean I was rendering him "assistance"? I was the one under attack! And he was the one defending me. His head start in editing WP:WEA before me came about because he's fast and I'm slow, that's all. I was thinking what to write. The assistance notion that you're structuring these events along makes naught of my dismay on IRC—no surprise there, as several arbitrators (Mackensen, FT2) have already suggested I was merely amusing myself by trying to get the unfortunate Tony to call me names—and of course makes naught of Giano's loyalty and chivalry. No surprise there, either. Bishonen | talk 20:15, 26 January 2008 (UTC).

Infobox conversion
Hey there Kirill, whilst converting Infobox Military to Infobox National Military I have come across a few pages that don't really seem to fit any of the infoboxes. The pages concerned can be found here. They are specific branches of a National Force, but they don't seem to fit Infobox Military Unit or National Military? Suggestions? Woody (talk) 21:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism and other violations related to the article Siege of Leningrad
Dear Sir,

It was my pleasure to see your attention and updates you made to the article Siege of Leningrad. I was born and brought up in Leningrad, and my edits are based on first-hand experience as a medical doctor treating survivors of the siege in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. My edits are also based on my experience searching for remains in study groups during several summers in the 60s and 70s, taking part in construction of the Memorial on Moskovskaya Ploshchad near Pulkovskaya Hotel in 1974-75, as well as on sources and books from my own library, and public libraries here in CA.

However, my well sourced edits were deleted several times by User:Reino Helismaa, who disregarded the references, and also disregarded the inuse template. Same actions by the same user in this article were reversed by admins in the past, albeit the user does not stop. The user asked me to use Russian in communication with him, because the User:Reino Helismaa does not understand English (see the user page). Warnings to stop using Russian in English Wikipedia were ignored by this user.

Another edits with substantial Russian text in the English article were made by User:Mrg3105. This user also deleted well sourced material from the article Siege of Leningrad in the recent weeks. The latest disruptive activity by this user was today; the user disregarded my work and inuse template, and added numerous edits with Russian text and links to article that do not exist in Wikipedia. The user does not show any respect to my well sourced edits in progress.

Such disruptive activity by this two users did not help me to contribute to the main article in a more productive way. Much of my time was wasted on undoing the damage done to the article. User:Mrg3105 posted numerous conflicting and aggressive messages addressed to me, including such terms as "insane" in quite a counterproductive manner.

Thank you in advance for your efforts to improve this environment and to make it conducive for productive editing, to make Wikipedia better.

Regards,

Steve shelok  honov  22:03, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The dispute resolution process is the appropriate forum for cases like this; I do not actively edit articles on topics related to World War II, and so cannot comment on the specifics of the matter. Kirill 22:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for making extra work
Did get a bunch done on CW cats today. Will wind this up by next weekend. BusterD (talk) 03:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Decommissioned highway
Decommissioned highway has been protected for several months. However, I note that it's mentioned in a current ArbCom case. Ordinarily I would unprotect - it's been months, it's not a high profile article, and this is the "encyclopedia anyone can edit" - but because of the circumstances I thought it best to check with you. Cheers. --kingboyk (talk) 20:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Great!
I was on the wikiproject for military history yesterday and I just wanted to tell you that I was very impressed with your contributions to the project. Please keep up the good work! I left a message on my page telling people to participate in a particular discussion on the page so I hope people see it! Please reply on my page.Historybuffc13 (talk) 01:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Milhist admin notice
I swear I remember there being an admin notice on milhist talk recently. If there is, is there a place for us non-co-ordinators to alert co-ordinators that there is? Anyway, Roger is up at Requests for adminship/Roger Davies, so if you could sort it out. Thanks. Woody (talk) 16:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Project MOS Guidelines
I may have missed a step; do you have a moment to review this? Best, Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 02:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * oh :-) Not my intent; MilHist conforms and was subjected to community approval AFAIK.  The issue is at Film and Aviation.  Am I stirring up a hornet's nest?  There may be an easier way to skin this cat; make it clear somewhere that arguing that something is approved per a Project guideline, when it contradicts WP:MOS, isn't kosher. I keep getting arguments from nominators that such-and-so Project approves of something which isn't supported by WP:MOS. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 02:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Ugh ... I hate working at MOS because it's so contentious and tedious and time consuming, and Tony1 is really busy in real life. I'll propose an overall disclaimer for now, and see if that does the job. Thanks, Kirill. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 02:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

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Email
I've sent you an email. Please do reply when you get it. Thanks, --Solumeiras (talk) 21:01, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Working group
Greetings. I'm writing to ask about the working group you recommended for the recent Isr-Pal ArbCom case. You all decided "The group shall be appointed within two weeks from the closure of this case." Was the group appointed? Where was/will it be announced? Thanks, keep up the good work. HG | Talk 04:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for you prompt reply! Be well, HG | Talk 04:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot...
Hi,

thank you very much for the help you did.. i was going heads to toes to figure it out..

thanks again for the fixes... Swraj (talk) 17:58, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Banner shell alterations
... and other unilateral talk page changes, at Village Pump. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 18:00, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXIII (January 2008)
The January 2008 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. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:19, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:MHCON
May I kindly ask if it's regarded in the spirit of the contest for a person to rate their own entries? Because Dreamafter has rated all his articles as B-class although only three of them are 2kb in prose size, while the rest are 1kb in prose size, according to the prose checker. Another problem that might arise IMHO, like in some real armies where officers report inflated statistics, is that it would give an incentive to give inaccurate article statistics.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 02:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was aware that there was no mandatory prose baseline, I guess that when I feel that I have exhausted my supply of information on some topic I would send it to GA or above.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 02:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I do believe some people got their articles up the ladder in multiple steps as well, so some articles may have been counted twice... Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 02:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

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MilHist MOS
Recently, Style was edited, one of the results being that the listing for WP:MILMOS was moved from the "Manual of Style and its subpages" section to the "Related policies and guidelines" section. Seems like it may have been moved purely because the document is not a literal subpage of WP:MOS, but regardless, doesn't seem kosher. Maralia (talk) 05:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Interesting, I just raised the same question elsewhere; I don't understand that split at all. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 05:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Military history WikiProject coordinator elections
Hi Kirill; thanks for the trust and invite, but as I started a new job project which will eat up all my time at least until October, I can not run for coordinator - but I#m honored you asked me to be one :-) thanks, --noclador (talk) 00:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Happy Birthday
-- Nadir D Steinmetz 10:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * And, considering your importance to wikipedia, I think we all hope for many more returns of the day. John Carter (talk) 21:53, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Military history WikiProject coordinator elections
Happy Birthday Kirill. Thanks for the invitation for the coordinator. However, I'm not really sure about contesting yet. Probably will try next time. Thanks a lot. Cheers & Good luck. T/@<font face="Georgia" size="3">Sniperz11 editssign 17:55, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Bahrain military history
HI friend. Recently started an infbox for building the history of the country. Perhaps you or one of the "lads" could start Military history of Bahrain. Thanks  ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦       $1,000,000? 21:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup
Zdrastvuite!!! (I'm in awe of the credentials on your user page.)

I've just joined the mil.hist. project (thanks for your welcome) and I'm starting by doing some cleanup work. I mainly copyedit and I wouldn't presume to declare an article up to standard on my own initiative, so how do I best proceed when I've done what I can with it? Should I just leave it on the cleanup list or refer it for someone to assess? LuckyThracian (Talk) 04:07, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Army (Soviet Army)
Kirill, can you point out anything more specific I need to do to this article before sending it to A-class review? I think I've practically incorporated all the peer review comments. Thanks Buckshot06 (talk) 05:27, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Jewish history
Hi Kirril: Can you explain why the WikiProject Jewish history template is broken, and hopefully fix it. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 05:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've fixed it. Someone had broken the syntax in the todo page at WikiProject Jewish history/to do. Maralia (talk) 06:16, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Second Punic War
Hi Kirill

I'm working on the Second Punic War. I have been struggling with this mass of 14 years of war and many campaigns until I found a new structure to it, dividing the whole affair into 3 stages in 3 different regions. I know no other author but me doing so, making it original, I hope not OR. For this reason I ask you take a look and state your opinion. Thanks Wandalstouring (talk) 12:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. Wandalstouring (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 15:03, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

MILHIST Question
How does one propose a new task force? As in, What must a user do to attempt to create a new task force. <font face="Edwardian Script ITC" size="3"> ~ Dreamy    §  23:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Shock
It's quite a shock to see you not running because I'm afraid we will have slight trouble with the maintaince. I don't know the reasons for your decision, but as a friend I ask you to continue the maintainance work until your successors sufficiently know their job. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Ditto Wandalstouring! I hope this doesn't end up being like Trash of the Titans!--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 14:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I hope he changes his mind, providing it is just a decision that he has made rather than one that circumstance has forced upon him. I have vague memories of disagreeing with him on a couple of things but he is a good leader for the project and it would feel weird not to have him around has head, and probably detrimental to the project in the short term (No offense to you there RDH) Narson (talk) 14:49, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * None taken...I want him around too in whatever capacity he chooses. But the decision is his and I will respect him no less for it.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 14:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll still be around; if the new coordinators want my assistance, I'll be happy to provide as much as I can. Kirill 15:58, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, you're hired...--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 16:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Welcome back, R.D.H.? Kirill, I hope you recover from the fatigue that being such a versatile contributor to the project has evidently caused. The recent Arb' furore has been profoundly unfortunate, and it is regrettable that it has caused such trauma. I assume it isn't connected, however? Dedicated personalities at MILHIST are thankfully in abundance - but there is but one Kirill. Not that we're a directionless flock. Baaaaaaaaa!! Ahem. Apologies for the sycophantic praise. Regards, SoLando (Talk) 16:49, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * According to him it seems more a case of Meow! HIISSSSS! than Baaaaaa:)--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 18:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Name etymology
Did you know you have a storm named after you? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 15:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Also a Pope!--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 15:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * This and this will likely be definitive. Carcharoth (talk) 15:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * You missed the best-known form. Kirill 15:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

LOL! "The storm was named after a Bulgarian man living near Berlin, whose family donated to the university's "Adopt-A-Vortex" programme." (not you, obviously) - but still, 'how to get a storm named after you' - wonders will never cease. Carcharoth (talk) 15:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Hah! At last, my path to fame becomes clear! ;-) Kirill 15:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

template external images
A suggestion has been made to broaden the scope of external images to contain all kinds of media. I'm a bit sceptic and would like to have your input as codeveloper. Perhaps we should write a MoS concerning quality criteria of the material that can be linked to. Thanks Wandalstouring (talk) 16:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Can we possibly create an external media template for videos and one for soundsamples with an extensive guideline on quality. Images so far does fine without such recommendations. It would also help to keep track of videos(most likely to spread rapidly). Wandalstouring (talk) 16:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't know, let's see what reply I get. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

If you ever miss the kitties...
I'm sure there would be more than a few other projects around which would give you the opportunity of once again hearing screaming, yowling, herds of cats again. Just a thought. John Carter (talk) 01:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Ping
You have mail. -MBK004 04:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you -MBK004 04:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Still in shock
I just heard that you're stepping down from Lead Coordinator for MilHist. To quote The Princess Bride: Inconceivable! Even though I am not a member of MilHist, I've always sought your advice and guidance as far as WikiProject matters go, and I view the project as a model for much of my work on WP Films. I'm more perpetually grateful, though, that you also took the time to organize WP Council and actually write all this down for the rest of us! And reading your outgoing advice to Coordinators has confirmed many of my thoughts regarding both my strengths and weaknesses at Films. What else can I say? I realize you're not really "going" anywhere, but it's still overwhelming and slightly sad to know that you're no longer going to be on the forefront of WikiProject development. That being said, I look forward to seeing where your successors take things, and I am certain that you will do continue to do exceptionally well - if not even better! - on the higher-level Wikipedia responsibilities you've gradually come to assume.

As a recipient of this award myself, I feel great pride in being able to bestow one upon a fellow editor where surely there is no better candidate. Therefore, please accept my congratulations, as I present to you:



For a job well-done ...
Kirill, I wanted to drop by and give you a hearty “Thanks!” for all your hard work on behalf of the Military History Wikiproject these past two year. I’ve been wondering just how long you could keep up your amazing pace – knowing that it’s not “just” the MILHIST Lead Coordinator role you’ve been dabbling in. Still, yours has been the significant touch that has made WP:MILHIST much of the success that it is today. In an article I wrote many years ago, I observed that the greatest proof of leadership is to do well leading a volunteer organization – one where you have no control over anybody who works with or for you (to wit, “herding cats”). Your essay “Advice to coordinators” is particularly interesting to me because it shows you’ve successfully “figured it out.”

In my own signal experience of successful cat-herding, I was able to take a minor entity and turn it into a major success – much to the consternation (and some dismay) of my superiors, whose vision for my organization was for it to remain a minor factor in the overall scheme of things. Not wanting to dispense with the revenue we were producing, it was nevertheless decided at the highest levels to constrain our further growth by hamstringing the personal initiatives of myself and the core leadership team I had built; as soon as we (quickly) caught on, my little leadership team and I left the initiative development to the rest of the group – and our superiors were confounded by the fact that we kept growing at the same pace as before. That’s the other hallmark of a successful leader – when you’ve built a successful group, it can run itself. Your job is not to make yourself indispensable, but now to cheerlead and fend off the occasional stray arrow. Like you, at that point I left the organization so my leadership team could continue growing their own leadership skills and building the next generation of leaders who would take over from them.

I take it that that is where you are at now. It took me about 2½ years to burn out – because it’s actually a lot harder than it sounds; autocracy is the lazy way out – and the quickest way to destroy a volunteer organization. “Lead Coordinator Emeritus”, as BusterD suggested, is indeed a fitting and suitable position for you. Meanwhile, have fun. Sincerely and respectfully, Askari Mark (Talk) 04:21, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

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User:Yannismarou/Signpost tutorial - Getting an article to featured article status
Kirill, I am writing this tutorial, and I am open to any suggestions. But I do have also a question: What happened to this great advice for FA of the MILHIST. The link I had does not work? Did you remove it?

And by the way, pitty you decided to step down from MILHIST's lead coordinator position. But it is your personal decision, and everybody respects it. Cheers!--Yannismarou (talk) 13:12, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

WP MOS proposal
FYI,. I seem to remember you have Project coordinator advice somewhere that could be useful? Sandy Georgia (Talk) 18:10, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * ok, I see it's a "beast of a different nature", thanks ! Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 18:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Further to this, as I'm sure you have seen, I've started a thread on a proposed new WikiProject to coordinate Manual of Style pages. I think this might provide a mechanism to address the problem without raising concerns about centralization of authority on the main MoS page. Your comments on whether and how such a WikiProject might work would be very valuable. See WT:MoS. Geometry guy 19:40, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Whacha gonna do?
Hi Kirill,

Just curious what you are going to do with your time after your (temporary?) retirement as a coordinator? Cheers--mrg3105 (comms) If you're not taking any flak, you're not over the target. 02:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Eligibility
Can I just clarify who is eligible to stand for election and who is eligible to vote for the nominees. For example, can editors who are not members of the project vote in the election?--mrg3105 (comms) If you're not taking any flak, you're not over the target. 07:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

family tree
Hi Kirill

do you have an idea how to code a family tree template? It would be of great use in the Second Punic War since the Carthaginian side was mostly commanded by one big family. Wandalstouring (talk) 10:19, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot, stupid me should have just typed Template:Familytree. Greetings Wandalstouring (talk) 14:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much
RE: User:Leobold1/template/ACW Corps I was looking to make one up for just the Corps, but this fits too. I was figuring this would be how I would have to go with it. And the reason for the "Role" title is to differentiate between a Cavalry Corps and an Infantry Corps. And I know this was taken directly from the MilitaryUnit Infobox (see 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment). That was to differentiate between Infantry, Cavalry, and an Artillery unit.

Thanks again for your aid on this.

Leobold1 (talk) 06:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Episode and Character Rfar
I have collected some evidence and I want to make sure arbitrators see it. So I would like to ask you to take a look at /Evidence#Real identity of Jack Merridew: Could it be Davenbelle/Moby Dick and the relevant workshop entry and the discussion there: /Evidence#Indefinite block of Jack Merridew

At Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2/Proposed decision you have posted several referances to "television episodes" but that implies an exclusion to non-television related articles (such as articles on movies, video games and books) were edited by involved parties in an identical manner. The shift particularly intensified after the arbcom remedy on "television related articles". You may want to check /Evidence#Gaming the system such as the arbitration injuction for an example. It might be better to boradly refer to "fiction related articles" to prevent gaming around this. Of course this is my two and a half cents.

You may also want to take a look at this: /Evidence#Continuing harassment from Ned Scott.

For the most part all these are evidence I posted very recently and I feel they may have slipped by. Thanks!

-- Cat chi? 18:55, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd also like to point out the below comments (well, they are obviously there) as well as Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive371 thread which below users are seemingly seeking "admin action" against me collecting evidence for the Episode/Character Rfar. I intend to collect more evidence despite such attempts to prevent me. -- Cat chi? 13:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh look, more childish retaliation evidence for anyone who you feel has rubbed you the wrong way. Cat, not a single proposal in this case effects me, what do you think this will achieve? -- Ned Scott 22:09, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, Kirill, I should have responded to Cat on his talk page, instead of putting this here. -- Ned Scott 22:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * a pity that's stricken. I think this is a fine place to rebut this issue. White Cat seems to conflate disagreeing with him with harassing him. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Comments requested, and visit
Kirill, I understand that you are retiring as coordinator at WP:MILHIST, I hope you enjoy some extra time. You've done an amazing job over the last couple of years, congratulations for that. I hope you're keeping well. I'm actually visiting Baltimore next weekend, if you live near there maybe we could meet up for a beer or something? I've already agreed to meet up with User:DMacks, a wikichemist from the area.

I'm also here to ask for your comments on a couple of things: Thanks! Walkerma (talk) 04:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * We are finally getting close to having a viable Selection Bot to choose articles using the WikiProject lists, and hopefully get the 30,000 articles we need for Version 0.7. We combine the quality data with a four-component score for importance using a log formula.  We want to tweak the formula as needed to ensure that the importance-quality "score" is reasonable.  Please can you take a look at the test results, particularly the French Military History list (which I sorted with you in mind!), and let us know if you think these are decent automated selections?
 * You may know that List-Class has been added to the 1.0 assessment table, and it seems to have worked well so far. Several projects that use lists a lot have also asked for an additional FL-Class.  When this was raised before some argued that FA-Class was OK for this, but some seem to really want it.  I'm inclined to support the proposal, since projects that choose NOT to use FL-Class won't see an empty line in their tables.  Could you please read over the comments here (older) and here and add your own comments?
 * Thanks a lot for the feedback! And don't worry, Napoleon will appear in the "real" selection, and as an Englishman I will ensure Poitier, Crecy and Agincourt are there too!  Your comments are very helpful, thanks, Walkerma (talk) 05:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Butting in
I readily admit to reading other people's mail, a sick habit of mine. Regarding importance assessments for military history articles by other projects possibly getting some of those articles included, if a given article is of particularly high importance to a particular national project or nation, then it would likely qualify for inclusion on the basis of that high importance ranking. This is provided the project actually has importance ratings, which many don't. I have noted that the other criteria for inclusion do not place such a great emphasis on the quality of our existing article. One option which I think could be potentially exercised is notifying the relevant projects of the importance of articles based on the other criteria, potentially allowing them to raise or lower that article's importance rating on that basis. I personally wouldn't mind seeing that other information made available in advance of making the bot selection criteria active, as many projects have, at least to my eyes, a tendency to lay too much importance on more recent phenomena rather than important historical ones. Anyway, I will try to control my sick habit of reading other people's mail and maybe try to join some sort of "Gossips Anonymous" society. God give me strength. John Carter (talk) 14:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

IM A NEW HARDWORKING ROOKIE
THAT HAS MADE 10 ARTICLES IMPROVED 40 ARTICLES AND YOU KEEP GIVING ME NEGATIVE POINTS, THE HUMANITY!!! I NO ONE KNOWS ME AND I HAVE NOT GOTTEN ANY MEDALS OR AWARDS, (CRIES), AND IM CONSTANTLY IMPROVING MY OWN STUFF, BYE! I know too much yelling, thanks for the ancient advice anyways...--Ariobarza (talk) 13:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

Formations template
Thanks for fixing that up for me. What do you think so far? Mrprada911 (talk) 03:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Request for comment on main page deletion incident
As you made an edit to the incident listed in the Administrators notice board, it is requested that you confirm the details of the incident here (section 1.1.2)

This is as the incident is used as the basis of an argument and needs to be confirm by persons familar with the event

Regards --User:Mitrebox talk 2008-02-22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.11.244.78 (talk) 07:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Trial of Satanta and Big Tree
Hi Kirill, I am still working on catching up the Native American military history articles. In that vein, I just posted an article which I think is military history, but on which I would like another, wiser opinion. In 1871, the Army, tired of Indian raids, (drat those pesky indians who would just not accept the theft of their land and go quietly to the reservation!), had three Kiowa chiefs arrested and tried in a Texas state court for murder, for the Warren Wagon Train Raid. This became an international cause celebre. Wikipedia did not have an article on this interesting event, so I wrote one, and just posted it. To me, since it was an integral part of the Indian Wars, it is clearly a part of Military History. Am I right? Thanks for always listening, I don't know we are all going to do when you are gone from the project! :(   JohninMaryland (talk) 18:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:1.0
Well, you put up WP1.0, but I'll be darn if I can find anywhere in their pages what their divisions/categories are. I know you gave it to me once before, but I can't find it. I'll follow your page. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 03:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I find divisions at Version 0.5 but don't find anything similar for 1.0 Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 03:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The index page itself is what I was referring to; the statistics for each project will indicate the number of FAs for the area in question. Kirill 03:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks. I thought you were referring to the organizational scheme at 0.5, which someone suggested once.  Best, Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 04:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Cleomenean War
Hey Kirill, sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you had the time could you please have a look at the Cleomenean War and tell me what you think needs to be improved before I can begin it's push for FAC. Thanks. Kyriakos (talk) 05:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

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Re:Elections
Thanks Kirill. Its going to seem real wierd to not have you at the helm of this particular battleship though, but all good things must come to an end I suppose. Take care, and good luck :) TomStar81 (Talk) 00:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all your work Kirill. Also, I had to bother you again, but were there templates that you used to subst for the P/A Review notices or the welcome notices to new members? Thanks again. <font color="GoldenRod">Blnguyen  (<font color="#FA8605">vote in the photo straw poll ) 03:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Heh. I should have looked. I've been cutting and pasting for the paste month on the sporadic occasions that I did the annoucnements. <font color="GoldenRod">Blnguyen  (<font color="#FA8605">vote in the photo straw poll ) 03:55, 29 February 2008 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by YellowAssessmentMonkey (talk • contribs)

Milhist
Thank you very much for your kind message and for all the help you have given me in the past. I look forward with keen pleasure to further collaboration with you in the future :) -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 00:59, 29 February 2008 (UTC) By the order of the coordinators of the Military history WikiProject, you are hereby awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of your outstanding organizational work, your painstaking maintenance work, and your unstinting advice, throughout your two years of project leadership. For the coordinators, -- R OGER D AVIES   talk 01:35, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your kind (me too) words, and serving the project so well these past two years. Also, my reply to Tom may be of interest to you as well. -MBK004 02:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Well done again. (The vote was my first official action). <font color="GoldenRod">Blnguyen  (<font color="#FA8605">vote in the photo straw poll ) 03:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2
Regarding this case, I know a lot of discussion is floating around, but I really feel strongly about this and wanted to get more attention to this comment I made:

If any of the arbs are reading these messages, I beg of you to accept a proposal that limits TTN's actions only when challenged. Like the others, I'm still not convinced TTN has even done something grossly wrong, but it's far better than the current proposal, allows TTN to preform non-controversial actions, and addresses the core issue of force rather than content judgements.

TTN might have had a liberal interpretation of ArbCom's instructions from the last case, but something like this would be a lot more clear cut, and I have no doubt he would follow it. Perhaps this could be given a trial time of a week or two, and if not effective then simply default to the 1.1 proposal that you are supporting now. I really believe this issue comes down to when situations where forced when challenged, and not the initial editorial actions. He would learn a lot from that kind of six month (or whatever) probation, and still be able to be constructive on Wikipedia. I also believe it's something that both "sides" would be able to live with. -- Ned Scott 04:25, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Temporary injunction and "any currently existing article"
I realize you are quite busy with other cases, but I have a question regarding the temporary injunction related to the Episodes and characters 2 arbitration case. Does the wording "any currently existing article" mean any article created before the injunction was enacted (February 3, 2008) or does it also apply to articles created after February 3, 2008? This arbitration enforcement noticeboard thread was archived because some editors think the injunction does not apply to articles created after February 3. --Pixelface (talk) 05:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Kirill Lokshin/Archive 7
Can you please take a look at this? At the very least confirm that you had seen it. :/ -- Cat chi? 12:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I have seen it (though I would much prefer that you guys keep your arguments on the case pages). Kirill 13:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Arbcom /evidence page for episodes is a bit too long and editing it has been rather difficult. I am somewhat panicking because the voting on the arbitration case has started and I feel the late evidence I provided may be overlooked. The sections on the evidence I collected that I would like arbcom to take a closer look are:
 * #Real identity of Jack Merridew: Could it be Davenbelle/Moby Dick
 * #Continuing harassment from Ned Scott
 * #Common editing behaviour of some users (Meatpuppetry)
 * #Gaming the system such as the arbitration injuction
 * So far arbcom has addressed the sections (to a degree)
 * #Bot-like (automated looking) edits by TTN
 * #Not seeking consensus
 * #Revert waring
 * I can understand why arbcom would perhaps disregard these sections in "/Proposed Decision"
 * #Vandalism
 * #Community ignored the issue
 * #Intentions
 * Aside from these I feel the combative mentality (comradeship) exhibited by some of the users has not been addressed. This is more evident in sub pages of the arbitration case itself such as the talk page of the proposed decision. Any time something is said about one of them they all defend each other 'to the bitter end'.
 * I am very concerned because after the first arbitration case the disruption continued. I do not want to deal with 2 more months of disruption just like the past case. As it stands I feel the passed remedies will not be adequate in resolving the dispute. Despite the temporary injunction by arbcom, people have continued to mass remove material. Alas on 'video game' related articles and not 'television'.
 * -- Cat chi? 14:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Military cout
Hey, can I ask you something... I am trying to translate a Lithuanian pamphlet that was distributed after a military coup and I got stuck at one English term. It says "karo lauko teismas" which translates directly as "war field court" and means a court which is held during a battle - on the spot and without much paperwork. Do you know English equivalent? Renata (talk) 18:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Again.
Sorry to pester, Kirill. I, like everyone else, wanted to thank you for your help with the project and particularly your patience with my neverending questions and concerns. I wish I could have made it out to the DC meetups--something always came up. See you around the Project. :) --ScreaminEagle (talk) 19:08, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Milhist newsletter
What is the process for getting this out? I think it is fairly complete, there don't seem to have been many active policy discussions this month, people seem to have been distracted by the election. Is there anything that has been missed from the newsletter. Thanks and warm regards. Woody (talk) 12:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

seven years war
hi kirill, i posted a sugestion on the seven years' war discussion page (smollet). would you please take a look and let me know what you think? thanks, bruce bruce (talk) 19:38, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Well?
As an overly frustrated user I'd like to know if arbitration committee is paying any attention at all to the evidence I presented. I'd prefer a rational explanation over senseless silence. I have had my fair share from arbcom inactivity. I am quite tired of it. -- Cat chi? 03:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * As I've told you before, I've looked at the material you've presented, and do not believe that modifying the proposed decision will be in the best interests of the project. Neither, apparently, do any of my colleagues. Kirill 04:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * We seem to be having difficulty communicating... Would you prefer IRC?
 * Would you find it in the spirit of the passed arbitration remedies if people carry out the edit behaviour they had on television-related articles (what this case handled) to video game related articles? That is what is happening to a degree due to the wording of the remedy with an emphasis on "television". Video game related articles are typically not television related. This is only one of the issues I feel arbcom failed to address.
 * Is meatpuppetary not an issue? Granted arbcom is passing the "Fait accompli" thing, yet again... I presented evidence of editors are acting as a group on hundreds of articles. Surely this is not the preferred way of editing per "Fait accompli"... So why can't arbcom pass a ruling to limit or discourage any more such behaviour?
 * There are 10 headers on the evidence I presented. All I ask is a rational explanation why none of it is not used on the /Proposed decisions? I never expected all of them to make it to /Proposed decisions.
 * -- Cat chi? 05:15, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The bulk of your evidence is simply irrelevant to the matter at hand. This case concerns the broad question of editorial conflict over the disposition of certain articles; if you have private conflicts with certain other editors involved in the matter, you should pursue the dispute resolution process in that specific regard, rather than expecting those issues to be handled as a side effect of an unrelated case.
 * The rest of it is no different, in essence, from that presented by the various other parties. We're already well aware that there are two groups of editors fighting over the issue here.  The current remedies remain, in my opinion, the most appropriate method to deal with the editorial conflict at this juncture.  If the conflict spreads or otherwise increases, we can deal with the matter then; but I see no need to try and predict where someone might try to take it in advance. Kirill 05:46, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I find it strange that arbitration committee is willingly overlooking problematic behaviour. Is the desire for me to file more arbitration cases? I can do that if you like. I already filed two arbitration cases on Davenbelle, I can file a third one no sweat. I can file a video game rfar as well, fyi it has already spread. Evidence to this end has been presented and that is not just by me. I can file an rfar over meatpuppetry issue. Is this what arbcom wants? More workload? -- Cat chi? 06:32, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The arbs have a lot to do and I'm sure are giving the case its fair share of attention. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 04:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

A personal thank you
Hi Kirill:

These don't cover all of your tenure, just since I joined the project. They're intended as a small but permanent token of appreciation :) -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 05:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Leo J. Meyer
Please have a look at the DRV for Leo J. Meyer (currently seen at User:Meyerj) located at Deletion review/Log/2008 March. Its my opinion that the article met the standards for verifiability and notability. I would appreciate your input into the matter. Mrprada911 (talk) 18:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)