User talk:Leithp/Archive 5

This archive page is for messages from June 2 2006 to June 30 2007.

Pages listed on Categories for deletion
Discussion on CFD - proposal to merge all subcats of Category:Members of the United Kingdom Parliament from Scottish constituencies up into the main cat. Relevant categories which would be deleted are:

I think that this is a rather important discussion for editors interested in Scotland-related articles, especially Scottish politics and Scottish biographical articles (particularly local history). Please have a read and ponder, and contribute to the debate if you like. Thanks. --Mais oui! 17:44, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It would also be relevant in this context to consider the discussions in the parent category for the UK parliament: Category talk:British MPs. I find it regrettable that Mais oui! has engaged in a restructuring of that category without entering into the discussions there.  --BrownHairedGirl 18:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I have nothing to add to this. Leith p 20:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Please reconsider. Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_23 is just about to close. I would really appreciate your contribution, because this debate needs some serious input. --Mais oui! 09:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Battle of the Bulge link in Bernard Montgomery
Do I have to have an academic book to mention something? Wikipedia is supposed to have links to other articles in it, right? Isn't that the idea? --Awiseman 20:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The link to the Ardennes isn't really the issue (although you don't need the http stuff). My point was that you're using another Wikipedia article as a source for a claim about what Eisenhower thought of Montgomery's state of preparedness. Is that right? If it is, it's obviously circular and you need to use an external source instead. Leith p 20:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean, as some biased person could just edit both articles, but to me, that statement about Montgomery and Eisenhower is pretty common knowledge and the Battle of the Bulge article is well-sourced, as well as pored over by a lot of people. I don't think that every single statement in every article has to be cited from some book, especially since the encyclopedia is so interconnected anyway. --Awiseman 20:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well that's true to an extent, ideally everything should be sourced but it's not particularly practical. It is quite important though if you're citing somebody's opinion, as you are in this case. External sources should be reasonably easy to find for such high profile figures. Google books can be quite handy in these cases. I haven't really read the Bulge article but I would tend to be quite wary of it, I've read a some books giving wildly different accounts of Montgomery's actions in that battle and Wikipedia isn't particularly reliable in cases like that. Leith p 20:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. The main reason this came about, however, is that I'm trying to fix what I think is a bias on that page, which seems to be getting nowhere. I'm about to give up I think. --Awiseman 21:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history Coordinator Elections!
The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process is starting. We are looking to elect seven coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by August 11!

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Re: Sanity check
Ah, damn.

It was, technically, a personal attack (and on a number of people, I suppose, although it named none); certainly it wasn't a very civil comment. (I'll not comment here on the wisdom of expressing support for Karmafist; R.D.H.'s WikiPolitical convictions are his own business.)

I would, nevertheless, argue that the blocking of a valued contributor—without warning, and over a single comment—to be an unwarranted over-reaction (particularly considering the venue in which the comment was made). Moreso, I find Cyde's subsequent attack on R.D.H. to be entirely out of line for an administrator.

I would not, however, recommend unblocking without bringing the issue up on WP:AN or WP:AN/I first. Wheel-warring is far too likely to get your head torn off these days, even if you're completely right. Kirill Lokshin 17:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Cheers for the advice Kirill. Unfortunately I don't have the time to do the whole WP:AN/I dance tonight, I'm going to see a friend's new-born son. Also, to be blunt, I don't trust the judgement of the majority some of the regular commenters there, which is why I asked you. I really can't be arsed dealing with a long thread there anyway, they're rarely productive. As you say though, Cyde's actions are absolutely out of order. Now I remember why I stopped enjoying Wikipedia. Leith p 17:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Oy! I appreciate the thoughts and support bros. You're right, it's really not worth the trouble anymore. See you when I get out of "jail" my homies. ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!--4.100.68.124 18:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC) AKA Ghost on Block evasion

Couple of points
Hi Leithp. Couple of things;

One is I'd like to stand for Assistant Coordinator at WPMILHIST. Seeing as you have some of the same interests (British military history, by the look of things WWII British Army and Generals), would you plase give me your judgement as to whether I am fit to stand? The other point is I can't really see the point in listing Nick Smart's book on British Generals. I've leafed through it many times and found nothing especially useful in it, and have always found the Dictionary of National Biography infinitely superior even in military matters. Just wondering what you thought of it. Cheers, -Harlsbottom 22:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The DNB very probably is better, but I don't have access to it. I do, however, have Smart's book and use it as a reference and list it in articles I write. Personally, I think it's a pretty good book and is useful for quotes on some of the more obscure figures. It's not something that's ever taught me anything new about any of the major players though.


 * As for the co-ordinator position, it's not entirely clear to me exactly what that entails. I'm guessing that it's overseeing some of the task forces? You seem like a reasonable guy and I'm sure you'd make a good fist of it. You should stand. Leith p 21:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the comment on Smart's book before. I can't remember who they were (having flicked through I put it back on the shelf) but I vaguely recall some glaring omissions which sent me hurrying for the DNB.  If you've got it, I guess you've got a solid base to start on though.


 * As to the Coordinator business, it calls for more people to help organise all the Military task forces and create new ones where necessary. I'm thinking that if I get voted in I'll try and organise more of a structure to the task forces, so that someones doing Generals, Admirals, Vehicles and the like.  Vote! Cheers,  --Harlsbottom 19:45, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I forgot to mention - since I do have access to an online version of the DNB, if you ever need some info just ask and I'll send you a transcript. --Harlsbottom 23:06, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Scotland

 * Pre-script: we are currently undergoing peer review, see: Peer review/Scotland.

I am beginning to think that the Scottish Wikipedians' notice board is not the best vehicle for pushing up the quality of the Scotland article (we ought to try to get it to WP:FA, in order to get into Version 0.5, or, failing that, Version 1.0), and the other key Scottish articles. It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that we really ought to start up the long-mooted WikiProject Scotland.

Most of the stuff at the notice board (at least on the bottom half) is actually WikiProject material anyway, and the Talk page is really being used as a WikiProject talk already! The notice board should be just that: for bunging up brief notices and signposts. I am thinking of launching a Wikiproject and correspondingly radically clearing out, and chopping down, the noticeboard (a re-launch if you like). The Scotland Portal concept is fine (but currently mediocre/undynamic content), but in stasis: it needs a good kick up the jacksie.

For comparison, have a look at:
 * WikiProject Norway
 * WikiProject Australia
 * WikiProject New Zealand
 * WikiProject Peru
 * WikiProject Hong Kong
 * etc.

And, if you are at a loose end, have a look at: Thoughts? Please express them here. --Mais oui! 18:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Version 0.5 Nominations
 * Version 1.0 Nominations
 * Version 1.0 Editorial Team/WPPlaces
 * Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Medieval Scotland articles by quality
 * WikiProject
 * WikiProject/Best practices

Military history WikiProject coordinator election - vote phase!
The Military history WikiProject coordinator election has begun. We will select seven coordinators to serve for the next six months from a pool of eleven candidates. Please vote here by August 26!

This is an automated delivery by grafikbot - 11:52, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Military history WikiProject Newsletter - Issue VI - August 2006
This is an automated delivery by grafikbot -- 13:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Semi protect
Hi again. Request semi-protection from anon vandal on Boy Scouts of America. See edit history and talk page on anon user 69.107.97.36, or if you can't do it right away, please watch it for a few days and see if he continues this pattern of nonsense. Thanks. Rlevse 03:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Hiya, nice to hear from you again. I've had a look at the page in question. Semi-protection isn't meant for cases where there's only one vandal/contentious editor (delete as appropriate), so I won't apply it in this case. I have put it on my watchlist though and I'll keep an eye on it when I'm online. I'll be heading off on a long holiday shortly though, so I probably won't be able to monitor it very thoroughly. You could try a post on the Administrator Incidents noticeboard if you need urgent assistance, and I see at least one other admin has taken an interest. If you get multiple vandals then the Requests for Protection page will also give a reasonably quick response. Like I said though, I'll keep an eye on it for the moment. I hope that helps. Leith p 11:40, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi. Have a nice vacation. He seems to have stopped now. We had two cases of this at the same time by different people, each on a different article. Both were on the "BSA hates homosexuals bandwagon". The anon one couldn't see he was not neutral and that his edits got to be vandalism, which is why someone reverted him as vandalism--which seems to have stopped him and the other kept wanting to make Boy Scout, an internationl in scope article on the Scout himself, an anti-BSA article when this topic is discussed in Boy Scouts of America with and summary and main link to the FA at Boy Scouts of America membership controversies. Rlevse 11:53, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Scotland
Following a successful period of consultation WikiProject Scotland has now been launched. As a participant in the Scottish Wikipedians' notice board I wonder if you may be interested in this new endeavour too? If so, please sign-up here. The WikiProject will be replacing some of the functions of the notice board, especially those in the lower half.

While I am here, please also have a look at the new WikiProject Deletion sorting/Scotland and give it a "Watch". It was started up by User:Visviva a few days ago, after long being mooted at the notice board, and effectively replaces all the AfD listings at the notice board. Being a transclusion of all the on-going discussions it is a much more useful tool.

Even if you do not want to spend too much time on the WikiProject, please give it a "Watch" and feel free to contribute to Talk page discussions: the more contributors the merrier.

All the best. --Mais oui! 11:21, 5 September 2006 (UTC) Bold text

WikiProject Military history Newsletter - Issue VII - September 2006
This is an automated delivery by Grafikbot - 20:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue VIII - October 2006
This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 22:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

General Simon Fraser of Balnian
Hi Leithp, you removed General Simon Fraser of Balnian from Category:Scottish generals recently, and I wonder about your reasoning. I'm not a part of the MH WP, and I don't know much about this Simon (ha! for once, a Simon Fraser I don't know much about!) but Simon was a general in the British army, and he was born in Balnian, and was by all means Scottish. I don't think he served over neccessarily Scottish troops, but he was Scottish, and a General. Does this not qualify him? Canæn 03:17, 4 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Canaen. At the moment Category:Scottish generals is used for pre-Act of Union and Jacobite generals i.e. those who commanded forces of a Scottish government, or pretenders to that. I removed Fraser on the basis that he was a British Army general. Do you agree with my reasoning? Leith p 10:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * This came up on the MilHist project back in February, if you're interested in the brief discussion. Leith p 10:45, 4 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reasoning; it makes perfect sense. [[Image:Icons-flag-scotland.png]] Canæn [[Image:Icons-flag-scotland.png]] 03:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue IX - November 2006
This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 23:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

new toy
Kirill Lokshin and me have developed a new toy (discussion):

Implemented in an article it can look like in Mongol bow (including some misunderstanding) or Indian Wars. While we (mostly me) think it is a great thing (contrary to the long frustrating negotiations for images that can not keep up with the rapid expansion of articles and new requests), it would require some people to use it and not overdo it. You just have to google missing images and insert the url with a short description. I would really appreciate it, especially for the feedback. Thank you a lot. Greatings Wandalstouring 06:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * finished template with guidelines. Wandalstouring 17:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Ghazni
Hi There,

Just created this article, Battle of Ghazni during the First Anglo-Afghan War. I was wondering if you could fix up anything which is incorrect or add to this battle or link this battle to other articles so that it generates traffic. Thankyou. Mercenary2k 02:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue X - December 2006
This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 00:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Percival
Thanks once again for your help. Great to see it on the front page yesterday and amazing to see all the edits and interest Nickhk 02:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * No problem, it was good to see the article up there. Particularly when I remember what a bad state it was in prior to you working on it. Leith p 18:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XI - January 2007
This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 00:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:MILHIST Coordinator Elections
The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process is starting. We are looking to elect seven coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by February 11!

Delivered by grafikbot 11:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Military History elections
The Military history WikiProject coordinator election has begun. We will be selecting seven coordinators to serve for the next six months from a pool of sixteen candidates. Please vote here by February 25!

Delivered by grafikbot 14:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

RFC/discussion of article World War II
Hello, User:. As a prominent contributor to World War II, you may want to be aware that a request for comments has been filed about it. The RFC can be found by the article's name in this list, and the actual discussion can be found on Talk:World War II, in case you wish to participate. Thank you for your contributions. -- —Krellis (Talk) 18:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Richard O'Connor FAR
Richard O'Connor has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LuciferMorgan 16:20, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * That review is an embarrassment to Wikipedia. I have no intention of getting involved with it at this stage. Leith p 11:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XII - February 2007
Delivered by grafikbot 17:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XIII - March 2007
This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 23:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Oleg Kashin
Hello Leitph. Recently you've deleted article about Russian journalist Oleg Kashin (without any preliminary discussion). Oleg Kashin is a young journalist, who started publishing in 2-3 years, but became notable in the medium of Russian federal level political commentaries. Have a look at his babelfished publications:, ,. I'm sure CDS A7 (person of low notability) is not appropriate in this case, because 1) Kashin is a notable Russian journalist. Full understanding of modern Russian political discussions can't be achieved without viewing this journalist. 2) there are already three articles linking to Oleg Kashin (Vladimir Putin, Yevgeniya Albats, Anna Politkovskaya), and very probably their number will grow at time; deletion of Kashin could create problems for Wikipedia contributors. User:Ellol


 * I deleted it because it had been nominated for deletion by User:Mikkalai. The problem with the article as it stood was that it made no "assertion of notability" as specified in CSD A7. The article needed to state some kind of reason to why he is any more notable than any other Russian journalist. A quick google search reveals several reasons why he might be. I'll restore the article with an appropriate tag. Be aware though that it may be deleted by another admin unless the assertion is made (and better yet, sourced). Leithp 08:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I'll expand a bit the article in several days. User:Ellol

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XIV (April 2007)
This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 16:12, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

User:AlexNewArtBot
Hi, as a WikiProject Scotland participant, please check out this  this thread and consider adding the bot results page to your watchlist so we can manually update the New Articles page. There are some false results for the first batch, but I'm sure we can collectively tune the rules to improve the output.

If we get enough people watching the results page, we'll be cooking with gas as they say :)  This looks like a great helper in finding new Scotland related material. Cheers. -- Cactus.man   &#9997;  01:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XV (May 2007)
This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 16:39, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Strange screwups
Just wanted to let you know that I rolled back one of your edits (and a second was reverted by someone else), as they seemed to have accidentally made major changes to two talk pages, Talk:RMS Titanic and Talk:Ambrose Burnside. Not sure how it happened, and I'm sure it was unintentional. I just wanted to bring it to your attention in case you wanted to figure out what went wrong. Thanks!  AK Radecki Speaketh  18:52, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow, that's weird. I was just trying to add unsigned templates. Thanks. Leithp 20:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't worry about it...it's happened to me, too, sometimes. The software just goes crazy.  AK Radecki Speaketh  20:28, 30 June 2007 (UTC)