User talk:MichaelMaggs/Archive/2019

File:John Burnet of Barns by John Buchan, first edition 1898.png
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DYK nomination of The Ladies Dining Society
Hello! Your submission of The Ladies Dining Society at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:39, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 20 – 31 January 2019
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:53, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Ladies Dining Society
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:02, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 21 – 28 February 2019
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:02, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 22 – 28 March 2019
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:45, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 23 – 30 April 2019
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:27, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 24 – 17 May 2019
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:52, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

GNL
Thanks for working on short descriptions! Question: would you be able to swap manned for crewed in the descriptions you wrote? That will align it with WP:GNL and a recent RfC.  Kees08  (Talk)   16:17, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Sure. One already said 'manned' so I copied that. But I can change them. MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:23, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No worries; I was going to change them myself but wanted to explain why.  Kees08  (Talk)   16:27, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * All done I think. I see that the word 'manned' still appears in most of the the main texts. MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:38, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That sounds about right; I have been thinking of setting up an AWB run to go through and intelligently change each instance since there are so many that need done. Thanks for doing that.  Kees08  (Talk)   17:41, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Kees08 I've had a go at updating some of the most obvious articles with WP:JWB. MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:41, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I reviewed a (semi)-random number of them and they all look good to me. Thanks for doing that. It looks like you hit up the Apollo program category to at least some extent; if you manage to find the time it would be awesome if you went through Category:Apollo program prior to the Apollo 11 50th anniversary that is coming up this month, as I imagine the articles will receive a traffic boost. If you do not find time, no worries! I would do it myself but I am making other preparations to get ready for the anniversary. Thanks for your efforts regardless!  Kees08  (Talk)   16:21, 11 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Should be able to do some at least, if not of all the sub-categories. MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:26, 11 July 2019 (UTC)


 * OK, I had a bit of free time, and have completed and all of Category:Apollo program and its sub-categories. I've tried to update all instances of 'manned' to 'crewed' where possible - apart of course from quotations, report/book titles and so on. Hope the changes look OK. MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:42, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:GNL
Just letting you know, that your edit summaries (e.g. Special:Diff/905820954) with regard to WP:GNL incorrectly link to mainspace article GNL. —⁠andrybak (talk) 18:13, 11 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Oh dear. Thanks for letting me know. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:14, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

William Lenthall
For your introspection - "was was". Shenme (talk) 17:25, 28 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Well spotted. Thanks for letting me know. MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:17, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

wrong theory
I don't know if you will get this message Michael but your theory about the origins of standing bells is completely wrong. The singing bowl is based on earlier bronze bowls from Persia. They are not at all related to the bells of China. In fact, the standing bowls of China and Japan came much later. You have completely hijacked this post and deleted years of other people's editing, then have the nerve to attack those trying to restore real information. Your theory may be interesting but it is completely false. There is no historical relation between standing bells and the tuned bells of China. Your "research" in 1 book is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.172.165.238 (talk) 17:44, 30 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi 12.172.165.238, thanks for your comment. The Standing bell article doesn't set out 'my theory', but the best available information from scholarly and other sources that I've been able to find within the books and academic papers held by the British Library in London. No doubt there are other sources from reputable publishers that I've missed, and if so you might like to mention them on the talk page. We can then work together to make the article better. Wikipedia only accepts reliable sources, though, and I fear that the self-published book (yours, I assume?) that appears to be the basis for your recent major edits to the page does not fall within that definition. But maybe the information in the book is derived from other specific scholarly sources that we could use. Could you indicate what they were? So that other interested editors can contribute, I suggest that we should continue this conversation on the talk page. All the best, MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:43, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Mary Ward (suffragist)
valereee (talk) 12:02, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Initials
Hi Michael, regarding your claim that the article is written "in British English which does not use full stops and spaces between initials," I'd be most interested to see a source for that. Are you proposing to change all of the content in the C. S. Lewis, A. N. Wilson, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. P. Snow, F. S. Flint, M. J. K. Smith (I could go on, but you get my point) articles to accord with your rule? Do you have sufficient time? Meanwhile, have you studied WP:Manual of Style/Biography? I think you might be confusing the acronym/abbreviation rule in BrEng (no spaces or initials, hence NATO, MCC, CIA etc) with the rule for people's names. All of the people I have cited above are generally written as per their article title, i.e. with space and full stops. Take a look at some A. N. Wilson book covers for a start, all published in the UK. Regards, Ericoides (talk) 14:41, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Michael Gilbert
Glad to see someone else doing serious work on Gilbert's works. I did a LOT of articles over the years, including a major biography of Gilbert that got severely truncated into Wikipedia-Look by someone or other who took out about 80% of what I had written. I was too tired to argue with him about any of his edits, so it's still in his form. Here's the original at Citizendium, where you can judge for yourself which one is preferable. A lot of the articles about Gilbert's works I originally did in CZ and then ported over here -- with SOME modifications to fit Wikipedia-Look....

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Michael_Gilbert

Cheers! Hayford Peirce (talk) 20:01, 9 August 2019 (UTC):


 * Hi Hayford, thanks for noticing. I have to confess that I actually know very little about this author, and only came across him recently while reading Smallbone Deceased. I see that you've done a lot of work on him and his novels, which is why many of his books have much better articles than do a lot of others written during the same period. Well done indeed.  Not sure I'll have  too much time to work extensively on him, but I do think that his wiki article could indeed be expanded with some of the sourced material currently quoted on Citizendium. MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:22, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Glad to hear from you! As you say, over the years, I HAVE done a lot of Gilbert stuff, mostly in fits and starts. I have to admit, however, that Smallbone is WAY down my list as a favorite. It's clever, of course, but simply doesn't grab me -- I have read it at least three times, however. My favorites are Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens. There IS some POV in my CZ Gilbert bio, I suppose, but it's MOSTLY pretty well sourced. I dunno why whoever it was took out so much -- I guess he's one of those Wikipedians who is a minimalist, and I'm a completist -- for me, the more info the better. Why not? We're not using up paper here! Hayford Peirce (talk) 21:52, 9 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I suspect I liked Smallbone Deceased because, as an ex London lawyer myself, I recognised quite a few little details about life in a small firm. Thanks for the new recommendation. I very much like short stories (have just done the page on Penelope Fitzgerald's The Means of Escape). I'll get hold of Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens. Once I've read it I'll see if I can add to its page here. MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:05, 9 August 2019 (UTC)


 * ps just ordered it from Abe Books. MichaelMaggs (talk)


 * Great! But that's the SECOND collection, I think. Game Without Rules is the first one and sets the standard. Anthony Boucher first said that it was the *second* best collection of spy stories ever written, after "Ashendon", then a few months later wrote that he had changed his mind and that it was out and out the best. I don't see how he could be wrong about that! "A Prince of Abyssinia" is one of the most moving stories I've ever read. But the second book is terrific also! Enjoy! And, I'm sure, Gilbert was a master of working in information from his own life as a solicitor into his stories -- I gather that he put in 40 or 50 years as one.  And wrote DOZENS of stories directly incorporating his experiences.... So there must be MUCH that will resonate with you! Hayford Peirce (talk) 04:34, 10 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Ouch, Game Without Rules is no longer available new in the UK and second-hand copies are extremely expensive. I'll have to look at an eBook version, though I try to avoid those. Too many things to read ...  MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:45, 10 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Strange how some books go for pennies and others for hundreds of pounds, doesn't seem to be any real reason for some it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mathematics_of_Murder:_A_Fearne_%26_Bracknell_Collection is a collection about London solicitors, and Anything for a Quiet Life is about a London solicitor who retires to the coast. Both are enjoyable. Hayford Peirce (talk) 15:40, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Hayford, thanks once again for the recommendation. I've now finished Game Without Rules and am half way through Mr Calder and Mr Behrens. I've been impressed with how Gilbert's writing has kept me gripped, in spite of the fact I know next to nothing about the subject matter or this genre of fiction. By the way, looking at the Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens article I wondered if you happen to have to hand source and date information for Anthony Boucher's "second-best" opinion, and his later change of mind. NYT I assume, but on what dates? MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:02, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Glad you enjoy them as much as I do! I re-read both books every couple of years and must have read "A Prince of Abyssinia" at least ten times. I am going crazy trying to track down the exact references you mention. I saw BOTH of them online about a year ago but was too lazy to do the work and put them into the relevant articles. For what it's worth, the first reference, when Boucher called it the second-best book was indeed in the New York Times -- which has a TERRIBLE search engine. The second one, where he calls it the best, came later that year in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, for which he *also* reviewed books. I found *that* one a year ago, but not today. This is *really* annoying! (Did you see my Citizendium article? http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Mr._Calder_and_Mr._Behrens It is, I think, more complete than the Wikipedia one, although I haven't compared them for a while now.... Hayford Peirce (talk) 19:52, 15 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Hayford, hope you'll be pleased to see that I've now written two new Wikipedia articles for the short story collections, Game Without Rules and Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens (book). They are directed to the books specifically, leaving your original article Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens to cover the characters. As there's now a certain amount of overlap, I'll tweak Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens tomorrow to tighten the focus of that page. I found a few more references, which I've added, but unfortunately don't have access to the review you saw that mentions Boucher changing his mind to state that Game without Rules was even better than Ashenden. So I've had to leave that out for now. MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:39, 27 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi Michael, I've been super-busy for the last couple of days but have now got things cleared away. I'll revisit your above comment tomorrow when I will be able to follow up on it. Cheers! Hayford Peirce (talk) 23:31, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Michael Gilbert Sources for Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens
Hi Michael, sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you but I *have* been trying to track down various sources, with very ambiguous results. First, I found my hardcopy American edition of "Overdrive", published in 1967 in the States (the UK book has another title). The back of the dust jacket has ten quotes from reviews of "Game Without Rules". One of them, in its entirety, reads: '"These are short thrillers, in the sense of entertaining and exciting reading. They are also short works of art in social realism." -- New York Times Book Review.' I have tried Googling this, and doing Searches at the NYT site itself, and can find NOTHING more. (Except one BLOG site that quotes the same thing.) I have been totally unable to find an actual review of the book in the New York Times -- but, as I said earlier, their Search function is not the best one in the world. I DID find THIS, however: On June 4, 1967, in, apparently, the weekly book review section, there was a page called "Hammock Chillers", and one of the entries reads: GAME WITHOUT RULES Michael Gilbert (Harper & Row $4.95) The second-best volume of short spy stories ever published. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/06/04/90351652.html?pageNumber=146 More than that, I can't find. Nor can I find the Ellery Queen source in which Boucher changes his mind and says that it is the best. I KNOW that I saw it within the last year or so, but now it's hiding in the shadows. All over the internet, and in his obituaries, etc., the NYT is quoted as saying it was the second-best, or the very best, and it may well because of ME -- I stuck that into the Gilbert (or Mr. C & Mr. B) article YEARS ago, without a source, and it looks to me as if people have been copying it every since! It's too late to do anything about it, however. You know, it just occurred to me that I DO know Janet Hutchings, the present editor of EQMM, maybe I could ask HER if she has a search engine for EQMM that could find it! What are your thoughts on all of the above? Cheers! Hayford Peirce (talk) 19:11, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing that, Hayford. This is really frustrating. I'm not too bothered about Boucher's 'second best' opinion, as I did find a citable quote for that in Gilbert's obituary in The Times (a second-hand quote, but still a reliable source for Wikipedia: 11 February 2006. p 75).  Nothing on the later change of mind, though, so I think we may need to remove that pending someone unearthing that source again.  MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:52, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

A Dobos torte for you!

 * Oh, thank you MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:15, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Old Style / New Style Dates in the UK in 1605/06
I refer to your revert of my change to a date in the article Observance of 5th November Act 1605 from 1605/06 to 1606. I understand why you reverted my change and your revert is consistent with the Wikipedia guide on dates during this period of English history. Nonetheless, I think that most readers will find it confusing that Parliamentary legislation dealing with observing an event which history books state happened on 5 November 1605 (thus today's bonfires and fireworks in the UK) could be interpreted somehow happening in January of the same year (noting that the current wording in the article is: The originating Bill was drafted and introduced on 23 January 1605/06).

Would it not be better to note that the legislation was introduced in January 1606 and note that this is a Julian date and is consistent with the Julian date used for the Gunpowder Plot date. In that regard it is interesting to note that modern celebrations in the UK of the Gunpowder Plot occur today (5 November) based on the Julian date rather than the Gregorian date. I would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks Chewings72 (talk) 10:46, 5 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Chewings72, I agree that the wording could be clearer, as most readers won't understand the OS/NS convention of "1605/06". What about changing the wording to to something like "23 January 1606 (New Style)" ? I'll be away for a few days, but won't object if you wanted to do that. MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:32, 5 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Your suggested chnage sounds fine to me. I will make the change. Regards Chewings72 (talk) 00:29, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

R v Dudley and Stephens
Thanks for putting me straight on the legal spelling of judgment. I’ve learned something! Point of Presence talk  11:24, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Mondegreen
Michael, It may be that the Mondegreen article doesn't deserve a B class rating, but, if so, it is not because of quoting two different versions of the original line in the ballad. These differences come from anglicization of Scots English. If you look at the article The Bonnie Earl O' Moray, you will see variations there. Even the anglicized version in the Child Ballads vary from standard 21st century English (e.g. "layd" instead of "laid"). That being said, can you give me some suggestions on how to improve the article? Paulmlieberman (talk) 15:42, 13 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree that in itself wouldn't be enough. I have added a few thoughts to the talk page. MichaelMaggs (talk)Z