User talk:PBS/Archive 5


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=Page five=

Request:
Can you please vote for our good old friend LordAmeth for his adminship here? I'm sure he would greatly appreciate having such a valued member of Wikipedia like yourself vote for him. Spawn Man 04:04, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Brain Teasers:
Hi, I'm just posting a friendly notice stating that I have got Brain Teasers on my user page that you're welcome to have a go at. Will post new questions one day after they have been answered. Thanks... Spawn Man 05:07, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Battle of the Seelow Heights
Hi Philip,

You've made major reverts to Battle of Seelow Heights and Battle of Berlin just now. I have left them unchanged to prevent a revert war, but please consider the following and modify accordingly:
 * 1) Battle of the Seelow Heights does not contain all info in the old Battle of Seelow Heights (e.g., post-war criticism of Zhukov). While I agree that Battle of Seelow Heights should be merged into Battle of the Seelow Heights, a simple redirect erases all the extra info.
 * 2) Battle of Berlin, IMHO, was much better with a shorter section about The battle of the Oder-Neisse, linking to the main article. After all, this article is about the Battle of Berlin, and this sub-battle should certainly not outshine the much more important, difficult and longer battle in Berlin proper. Also, it is against Wikipedia conventions to repeat entire paragraphs already present in another main article (Battle of the Seelow Heights). Folding entire articles into a large article defeats the purpose of a hyper-linked encyclopedia.
 * 3) Heinrici's defensive preparations are a part of the Oder-Neisse battle (which is why they're rightly included in Battle of the Seelow Heights), so they should be placed within that section in Battle of Berlin - you moved it outside for some reason I cannot understand.

To summarize, I think Battle of Berlin changes should be reverted, and the old Battle of Seelow Heights should be merged, not deleted. -- altmany 01:37, 12 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Ok, your points were taken. Actually, it was your specific comment in the Talk about the different section development levels that got me started on the reduction edit in the first place (consider that a compliment). I still think that if detailed information is available in a sub-article, it shouldn't be repeated in the parent, but I agree with you that instead of reducing the data in Battle of Berlin, we should instead expand the data in Battle of the Seelow Heights (as you said, a paragraph for morning, noon etc.).


 * I'll just restore the reference to the main article. While true that strictly-speaking the battle of Seelow Heights was just part of the larger battle, in practice that article includes information about the wider battle (for both 1BF and 1UF), so it's reasonable to refer to this article as the main article for the battle.


 * In any case, note that the Battle of Halbe sub-section is exactly the opposite in size - a very short note linking to the main article. All these inequalities in sub-section detail level may cause reader misperceptions, so the Halbe sub-section needs to be beefed-up too. I'll try to get around to it in the next few days, keeping the standard detail level of a paragraph per day.


 * Regarding the armchair generalship, I fully agree with your aversion from it. But the fact remains that several critics did raise the issue, and the fact that they did is in fact encyclopedic. We're not here to judge - just report the facts - readers can judge for themselves if they agree or not. I'll add the section with a warning.
 * -- altmany 12:25, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Scanian
You have supported a move of the article Skånska over at Talk:Skånska that is not compatible with the concept of NPOV and general guidelines over at WikiProject Languages. I would appreciate if you'd read the objection I've posted and reconsider your vote.

Peter Isotalo 11:08, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Heh. I got one of those too :) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 11:28, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

White City
On Talk:Weissenburg in Bayern there is again a discussion on whether to move the article to the ß-spelling. I thought I'd give you a heads-up lest someone accuse us of attempting to sneak something past community oversight. I know that the wait-for-6-months guideline is a useful one but I really feel we need to harmonize the names of Weissenburg in Bayern and Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen. Both votes were originally started around the same time and one may have been closed prematurely, based on the recent interest. Of course ideally we'd discuss the issue of ß in general somewhere rather than vote on each article individually. Haukur Þorgeirsson 11:28, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

On ASCII and the English Alphabet
Hi again, Philip!

Just thought I'd clarify one thing in my terminology. I prefer to speak of ASCII rather than the English alphabet because the former is completely clear and exactly defined whereas the second means different things to different people. Take this question: "Is 'é' a part of the English alphabet?" Some will say "no", some will say "yes" and some will say "well, 'e' is so 'é' sort of is because it's not really thought of as a separate character in English". The question: "Is 'é' a part of ASCII?" has an easy well-defined answer: "No!"

I just thought I'd make this clear lest you get the feeling I don't think there is an English alphabet or some such unusual opinion. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 19:33, 13 October 2005 (UTC)


 * You keep using the phrase ASCII but as Noel pointed out in an earlier discussion:

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)/Archive 1)
 * Look at Wurttemberg, Riksdag, Goering, Tweede Kamer, Zurich (that's one's particularly ludicrous - walk up to the average person on the street in Auckland or New York or Sydney or London or Toronto etc and ask them to write "Zurich" on a piece of paper [so keyboards don't come into it] and they'll write "Zurich", not "Zürich"), etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.


 * Using the term ASCII makes it a technical argument not the cultural one that it really is. That is not to say that technical issues do not come into it (but few today care that shift and control are bitmaps 0x41 "A" + 0x20 is 0x41 "a" or -0x20 gives "^A"). When programming in Germany or Switzerland, I always ask for an American or British keyboard so that the Hex 0x21 to x0x2F characters are easily accessible, which of course means that German characters are then not easily available.


 * In summary please use the term "26 letters of the (basic) English Alphabet" or something simlar rather than ASCII as its more neutral and not everyone knows or cares what ASCII is. PBS 14:56, 14 October 2005 (UTC)


 * It is still completely unclear to me whether the "26 letters of the (basic) English Alphabet" include 'é' or not. It is completely clear to me that ASCII does not. Sometimes it's a technical issue, sometimes it's not - but ASCII is at least well defined. But if you want to strive for neutral terminology please consider using "diacritics" instead of "funny foreign squiggles". I could accept "the 26 letters of the basic English Alphabet without diacritics" as clear and well defined (if annoyingly long). Would that be acceptable to you? - Haukur Þorgeirsson'


 * As a curiosity I use Icelandic keyboard settings on my Windows laptop (useful for writing e-mails in Icelandic and arguing about the use of diacritics on Wikipedia) and British keyboard settings on my Linux desktop (useful for programming). - Haukur Þorgeirsson 15:09, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Catholic Encyclopedia
I've noticed you have worked on an article that is covered by the public domain Catholic Encyclopedia. While a religious resource, there is a great deal of impartial information about historical events, persons and ideas that are covered by the CE. I've created a project page for the Catholic Encyclopedia as part of the Missing encyclopedic articles project to coordinate incorporation of relevant information from the CE into wikipedia. I would appreciate any help you can offer in the project. Reflex Reaction 21:17, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Úbeda RM
For what it's worth, and for the information of all the voters in the March requested move vote, there's now a new requested move vote at Talk:Ubeda. -- Curps 01:33, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Revert
Philiph, please stop changing votes drastically right in the middle of an ongoing discussion. Encourage people to vote according to the standing vote, not one you decided by yourself. Please read my objections about the validity of RM as a policy maker. I do not recognize RM as any kind of arbitrator of NPOV.

Peter Isotalo 16:23, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Requested moves
Hello. I know you've dealt with many requested moves. Could you look at Talk:Großglockner please. Ryan Norton put a "not moved" tag on it, but looking at the numbers, this appears to be inconsistant with the threshold normally used. Jonathunder 01:11, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Old Norse names
Philip. I hope you realize that the people who have actually written articles on Old Norse matters have given the spelling standard a lot of consideration. Personally, I would have preferred the modern Scandinavian standard for the same reasons as those you put forth. However, there is only one international benchmark for the spelling of Old Norse names, and that is Old Norse spelling. This is Wikipedia where compromise is an important virtue.--Wiglaf 13:04, 15 October 2005 (UTC)


 * It is just my comment on the issue of Old Norse spellings which you have had opinions on. I saw your post on Haukurth's talkpage and had the impression that the matter is not settled. I have had (and still have) my focus elsewhere at the moment, but I thought I'd just explain where I stand in the issue and why. Best,--Wiglaf 13:59, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is still not a democracy
Philip, you are currently editing against both my own and RN's wishes as well as trying to uphold an interpretation of "consensus" which as no support anywhere else on Wikipedia. You are acting as if you have some sort of senior authority over RM and the right to interpret community consensus as you see fit. Please make some kind of acknwledgement that you've understood my arguments before make all kind of reverts.

Peter Isotalo 14:48, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Höðr
Hi!

Could you check Höðr for me? It's still a work in progress, long on quotations and short on commentary, but I'm mostly interested in your view of the pronunciation and anglicization information. What's the best way to make things clear and helpful? - Haukur Þorgeirsson 22:56, 15 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for looking into it. In addition to listing the various anglicized forms in the article redirects have been created from most of them (not by me, actually). I thought I'd also share one more thought with you. While I think we should try to be roughly consistent in that if the article on this Norse god is on Höðr other articles on Norse mythology should refer to the god by that name - I don't mind that articles outside that scope mention the god with some anglicized form. For example Dart_(missile) mentions Hod and Baldur and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Once a user zooms into a specialized field it seems natural to me that the terminology grows more specialized or scholarly. This is also a part of avoiding the winner-takes-all mentality that can give rise to ill will. For example I see nothing necessarily wrong with having one article at "Zürich" and another at "Battle of Zurich". Just thinking aloud here. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:31, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

How do I do it?
How do I go about removing foul language on an article, if the creator, keeps reverting my edits? Can you block him? I've explained on the talk page of the article the laws surrounding it, but he wont listen. See Here & Here. I just want the foul language &/or the explicit external links removed. The article should be neutral, meaning it contains no foul language or pornographic links. Any help would be appreciated. Spawn Man 22:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Sigh, why is this still going on? To avoid wasting space on your (and all the other people he pasted that to) talk page, I replied at the bottom of Talk:Strap-on dildo.  Thanks, Bushytails 01:01, 18 October 2005 (UTC).


 * I asked for advice, from people who know what they're doing. Admins, not weasely people who just because they think swearing in public is okay, that it should be allowed!! Swearing is not allowed on wikipedia! It is a blatant link to a near complete porn site! It even has at the bottom, "Buy Your Strap on Dildos Now!". Why should that be allowed? I'll ask the whole wikipedia community & get a consensus if I have to. Why do I always have to fight for morals? Spawn Man 01:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks.
I have made my final point, & will be partially walking away, partially replying toany comments he may have. Spawn Man 23:14, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

New template for characters outside of the 26-letter-English-alphabet-without-diacritics
Hi, Philip. We're developing a template to do essentially what you've been advocating - the inclusion of ASCII basic English alphabet versions of non-English names.

We're still hashing out a wording on the template's talk page. Your contributions would be valued. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 12:55, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks
thanks for moving the comment of the move-page. I was already wondering why I was the only one interested in commenting on any of these proposals to move.. DocendoDiscimus 10:22, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Concerns about policy interpretation
I'm very concerned about your behavior here at Wikipedia. While it is clearly not done in bad faith, you seem far more concerned with following a very strict (mostly your own) interpretation of policies and guidelines that are intended to be secondary or mere recommendations. I've already refered you to pages such as Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, Wikipedia is not a democracy and (I hope) polls are evil. Despite the fact that these are general policies or recommendations that are widely respected elsewhere, you insist on that these should overridden by very minor local wording of guidelines, such as those of Requested moves. I feel that you're actively or passively ignoring these common practices and focusing only on minor documents that you yourself have helped write. The same seems to go for any objections made at the RM talkpage, where you demand that anything that once been slightly agreed on must be removed with some sort of bureaucratic decision.

I believe you should take a break from RM. Your presence in the RM discussions, your reverting of other editors' suggestions and the quite extreme rules lawyering you always display in individual votes are not constructive and none of these things promotes a good environment for discussions or consensual decision making.

Peter Isotalo 12:30, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Foz do Iguaçu
Hello, Philip. I think it might amuse you to take a look at Talk:Foz do Iguaçu. Basically, the Foz do Iguaçu town council has voted to change the town's name to Foz do Iguassu because: (1) that's what it was historically, prior to some orthographic mucking about in the 1940s, and (2) "of the 198 UN member states, 146 don't use ç" and "we cannot ignore 655 million internet users". Related matter: I've not see you comment on Foreignchar. Are you unaware of it, opposed to it, or just biding your time? Cheers, –Hajor 14:14, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

List of national coats of arms
Hi, I just wanted to let you know that I am working on this page. I am adding links to articles about the coa and I am adding/deleting countries according to the list of sovereign countries. Any comments? Or maybe lending a helpful hand? Because at the same time I am adding the link to coa article in the country's infobox. So it's a lot of work. Also, what to do with those removed countries and teritories? Renata3 20:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Death by Rugging
Hello: I had placed the merge template on this page after discovering it on RC patrol. I cannot find any references on google. What are your thoughts on placing it for AfD vote? The article asserts that it was a method used during the French Reign of Terror, but as you point out, not verified. thanks. &mdash; Gaff ταλκ 00:31, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Interesting stuff...thanks. &mdash; Gaff ταλκ 18:13, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Ubeda
Thank you for your interest in the article Úbeda. You will be aware that this article has suffered from the vandalism of one user. Any issue you have about the name of the town should be taken to the article's talk page. If you decide to make edits to the article about the name of the town, you are not only participating in a rather lame edit war with the vandal, but also giving the vandal reason to keep on being silly. If you wish to make a change, suggest it on the talk page: there is already sufficient consensus to keep the article as it is. Thank you. --Gareth Hughes 16:05, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
 * The extended majority support for keeping the article at its current location doesn't necessarily indicate the same support for keeping the ASCII (sorry, Philip ;) version out of it. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 16:54, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

The following may be of interest: User_talk:David_Gerard (and the earlier Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents). -- Curps 21:05, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Bombing of Dresden in World War II
Re your comment on your edit of 20:56, 3 November 2005: the court did not call the Dresden bombing a Holocaust, it said Voigt's usage of the term did not violate the Holocaust denial laws: there's a big difference there! I don't like the "can legally be termed" construction, though both the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Telegraph used it, better to say they are both constitutionally protected forms of free speech. I'll make the change. --- Charles Stewart 19:24, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Würzburg radar
As far as I know a compromise was worked out to use diacritics in the title and the "foreignchar" template to satisfy those who insist on seeing a non-diacritic version. Frankly, I think the latter is superfluous and yet to maintain the compromise I've been busy reverting and blocking the sockpuppet vandal who keeps removing it from various articles... I hope you are not going to argue over each and every article, I don't think thousands of "requested moves" votes would be acceptable. Given the survey and the outcome of Úbeda, can you please just accept the consensus and then we can move on. -- Curps 18:30, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

The notion of "primary author" doesn't really apply on Wikipedia, see No ownership of articles. I'm not sure what you refer to as a "primary source", Google shows tens of thousands of hits (the majority of which seem to use the "Würzburg" spelling, there's no one source of information that would be considered "primary". Again, I've been spending quite a lot of time battling the sockpuppet vandal who keeps removing any trace of the non-diacritic version from more than a hundred articles even though I consider the non-diacritic version to be superfluous.  I believe that accepting a compromise and defending it is how Wikipedia should work. Do we really need yet another Requested Moves vote? -- Curps 19:11, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I have blocked P.B.S. who is obviously simply another incarnation of the same vandal who was hitting Úbeda. Regarding the broader issue, there are many thousands of pages involving diacritics and case-by-case voting at each and every one is completely unwieldy and really not acceptable, barring any exceptional circumstances such as famous names where a debate might be applicable. The survey is fairly clear and the result of the Úbeda vote is in line with it, and I assert that for routine non-famous names pages can be moved to the diacritic version without further ado.

The "spelling style" refers only to British vs. American spellings such as "color" vs. "colour", and normally applies to words within an article, not to the title (since titles are proper names, there will usually be a definitive official spelling). The reason we have to be flexible here is becuase of national sensitivities, we don't wish to favor one dialect of English over another.

However, in cases where no national sensitivies or characteristic dialect differences are involved, Wikipedia like any other publications uses a style guide and in general we expect consistency of usage. For instance titles that are created in all-lowercase by the original author are modified to the capitalized versions. Titles that use the disambiguation "(movie)" are modified to use "(film)" instead, and we don't have a case-by-case vote for each and every one.

In the case of diacritics, it is not the case that British and American usages diverge, so it is really purely a style-guide issue, and we need to have a consistent style, not case-by-case voting.

Case-by-case voting over thousands of articles simply isn't acceptable. We need to pick one style and stick with it. Unanimity would be nice, but in the absence of unanimity a healthy majority will have to do. In the case of Úbeda we had the WP:RM vote at your insistence, but we can't endlessly travel down that same road over and over again. The basis of successfully working with others on Wikipedia is willingness to accept compromises, and I am once again asking you to accept the need for a consistent style. -- Curps 20:13, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Regarding your proposal at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English), well, please re-read what I wrote above (before you wrote your proposal). Diacritics are purely a style-guide issue, not a "British vs. American dialect" issue where flexibility is required, and therefore we need consistency for routine cases (with possible exceptions and debate for famous or exceptional cases).  The first contributor has no special rights, see [[Wikipedia:No ownership of articles. -- Curps 21:21, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Mythology again
I'm sorry that you feel you're being suckerpunched, Philip. That certainly has never been my intention.

Would you be willing to comment on the current status of Naming conventions (Norse mythology) and my most recent comments on it? From my point of view this is quite a compromise - I'd personally prefer Valhöll to Valhalla, Ásgarðr to Asgard and even Óðinn to Odin. But I'm willing to concede these in the name of using common English names where they exist and in the hope of establishing a convention that everyone can at least live with. I've also tried to sweeten the deal for you by pledging to include alternative anglicized forms prominently in the articles.

As you can see from the talk page Wiglaf is somewhat territorial about this (and I can't fault him - he's made an absolutely immense contribution to the field on Wikipedia) but I feel it would mean a lot if we could get you on board with this. Even though mythology isn't your field you've been paying attention to spelling issues on Wikipedia for a long time. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 12:56, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree with you that there's got to be a certain idea of live-and-let-live here. I'm personally happy to leave the military terminology to you and the German city names to those interested in German cities. Thus, Würzburg and Wuerzburg radar can reasonably coexist in my opinion. Same thing with Battle of Zurich. On the other hand I think that we should try to be consistent in using or not using diacritics in German/Spanish/etc. city names. I'm willing to make an exception for capital cities, though. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Ivory Coast
Thanks for inviting me to the request for move. I have commented at talk:Ivory Coast (oops, hope that redirects!).

I checked the history of the talk page, and I don't think there ever was an archive. Uncle Ed 15:20, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Adminship
You've been here forever, you've got lots of edits, you use edit summaries well, you know the rules, from what I've seen you're always civil and you participate in activities where you could make good use of admin options. Can I nominate you for adminship? - Haukur Þorgeirsson 16:38, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, the offer stands if you ever feel the need :) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:36, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * You would surely deserve it more than anyone else (me included). Think about it :) Halibutt 02:35, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I was about the say the same as Haukur Þorgeirsson. Pace Halibutt, for me, it is not so much a question of whether you deserve to be an admin (adminship is not a reward or a mark of approval) but rather whether you would find the extra couple of buttons useful.  I take it as read that you can be trusted not to abuse them. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:53, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

In response to your latest comment on my talk page I just sent you a private e-mail on the matter. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 20:16, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Convention up for a vote
I called a vote on our text at Naming conventions (Norse mythology). I hope you don't think it was premature, hadn't heard from you in a while. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:36, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Quoth Curps: "First of all, Philip, you failed to address the main point. If you can live with "æ" in Britannica, why not in Norse names? Answer that or drop your opposition."

This is the weirdest ultimatum I've seen in a while. The whole issue hinges on the æ in Britannica? And what opposition is he talking about anyhow? - Haukur Þorgeirsson 17:14, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Please be careful!
You deleted a large segment of List of military engagements of World War II, declaring it was a copy of List of theaters and campaigns of World War II. Regretfully you did not notice that the segment you removed differed from and was larger than the other one. I with many others have been working hard on it, so please do not make such drastic changes without suggesting it first on the talk page. Furthermore, I think the extent of List of military engagements of World War II as it is now is legitimate, and I am sure others agree. I am however open for new suggestions, but I think the organization of pages/campaigns/theatres/battles/operations etc etc must be thoroughly discussed and thought through. Maybe some hierarchical organization of pages is needed? Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 06:17, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * There are rare instances when editing a talk page is necessity; this is one of them. I have replaced all links to "List of World War II theaters and campaigns" with a link to the page it moved to: List of theaters and campaigns of World War II, to avoid double-redirects. Thanks. &mdash; Chidom   talk   18:04, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:UE
I made a couple of changes to WP:UE as I note on that talk page. Would appreciate your help in trying to rewrite that guideline for clarity. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 15:59, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

The Great Calamity
Hi Philip. In situations such as these, I'm usually happy to take a course of action that I think will leave most people least-unhappy. However, this time, it is far from clear that there is a consensus to discard the content, as a redirect would do, but not much actual support for a merge. Clearly we can't delete it with this kind of distribution, and it's not an outright keep. Even if I had declared it a merge, I wouldn't have gone further than a tag on the article since the debate doesn't make clear what should/not be merged. This is one of those cases where which of the three main directions we should take (del, merge, redir) is not clear from the debate, and nor is it clear that supporters of two of those are likely to have been satisfied by choosing the third. Since I didn't declare an outright keep, you can still go ahead and merge/redirect as you see fit so long as you are prepared to defend your course of action on the relevant talk pages. I hope that helps explain my thinking. -Splash talk 22:46, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't revert a revert directly, always discuss inbetween
Remember to always do at least one line of discussion before you hit revert, it's a good rule of thumb to at least allow some semblance of civility. Dry edit-wars have never gotten anyone anywhere. But editwarring while shouting at each other sometimes at least resolves, eventually. :-) (in fact it was the only solution before 3rr came along ;-) )

Kim Bruning 23:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh so you did, I was misled by the edit summary. Sorry about that. Kim Bruning 23:55, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Hmm, that and it was a bulk revert, so you threw out some babies with the bathwater I guess. See if the new section layout is any good, and edit in your changes separately. (I could do it for you if you like, but that'd be tricky for me :-) )
 * Kim Bruning 00:06, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

WP:V citations
You may be interested in Wikipedia talk:Verifiability: Format of citations and WP:V examples, and WP:FN. (SEWilco 16:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC))

Re WP:UE
I agree. The two or three most common versions should be in the lead. - Haukur 16:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Again I agree with your change. Let's call a function rather than hardcode the functionality into every guideline which needs it :) - Haukur 17:30, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

You've been following WP:RM much longer than I have. Can you tell me from the top of your mind some votes where a diacritics-free version has been chosen for article titles? I know that the first Battle of Ubeda went that way and there was one at Talk:Guantanamo too. I assume there have been many more but searching through the archives is quite time-consuming and I wonder if your memory provides faster access to the data :) - Haukur 00:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * No worries, there's no hurry :) - Haukur 12:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Talk:C%C3%A1diz
Hi there. You bring up a very interesting point concerning the accent in Cadiz/Cádiz. I've written a response, but my only conclusion is that its difficult to argue either way here. -Rebelguys2 03:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Flakturm
Your additions to the Flakturm articles are much appreciated. I had some nice pictures posted, but they were taken down. The pictures were over 60 years old, but they still deleted them !! WritersCramp 21:28, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Removed your page from Category:Wikipedia
FYI I just edited your user page to include the ':' at the start of Category:Wikipedia. -- Mark Hurd 09:28, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Camouflage Peer Review
Hello, you once edited Camouflage. You might be interested to know, this article has been nominated for peer peer review. novacatz 03:39, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Chad-Sudan conflict (War)

 * sigh* Whether or not it's okay to declare war under international law is meaningless here. The Chadians did it anyway! Whether or not Wikizach is telling the truth is also meaningless because we know Chad has violated Sudan's national sovereignty by invading in the north. There's also (arabnews.com) news that several people have died in a new attack on Madioun village, see the talk page. KI 04:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history
While I generally agree with your rearrangement, I've reinserted the announcements/tasks box at the top; I think that for project "regulars", it's really the only section of importance, since we've all read the guidelines. Hopefully you don't mind too much ;-) &mdash;Kirill Lokshin 02:52, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Vocabulary
From Wictionary:
 * Verb
 * effect

To make or bring about; to implement. The best way to effect change is to work with existing stakeholders. Usage notes
 * Don't confuse effect with affect. The latter is used to convey the influence over existing entities, while the former indicates the manifestation of new or original ideas. For example, "...new governing coalitions during these realigning periods have EFFECTED major changes in governmental institutions" indicates that major changes were made as a result of new governing coalitions, while "...new governing coalitions during these realigning periods have AFFECTED major changes in governmental institutions" indicates that before new governing coaltions, major changes were in place, and that the new governing coalitions had some influnce over these existing changes.
 * Transitive verb
 * to affect (affects, affected, affecting)

1 To influence or alter. The experience affected me deeply. The heat of the sunlight affected the speed of the chemical reaction. 2 To move to emotion. He was deeply affected by the themes in the play. 3 To make a false display of. He managed to affect a smile despite feeling quite miserable. 4 Of an illness or condition, to infect or harm (a part of the body). Hepatitis affects the liver. Usage notes
 * Do not confuse affect with effect. The former is used to convey the influence over existing entities, while the latter indicates the manifestation of new or original ideas. For example, "...new governing coalitions during these realigning periods have EFFECTED major changes in governmental institutions" indicates that major changes were made as a result of new governing coalitions, while "...new governing coalitions during these realigning periods have AFFECTED major changes in governmental institutions" indicates that before new governing coaltions, major changes were in place, and that the new governing coalitions had some influnce over these existing changes.

(RJP 16:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC))

Genocides in history
Hello, I just wanted to apologise for being a bit curt at Genocides in history. You were doing the right thing, and I was more interested in my own opinion than a good article. I do believe that the view 'Norman invasion = genocide', although a minority opinion, does deserve a mention somewhere, but I am not the person to write it. If I can't keep cool when writing about something, I oughtn't be writing about it, hence I walked away. Thanks. Oswax 17:56, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Your islands voyage link doesn't seem to work.--shtove 22:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Public school
Discuss on the talk page of Public school why you think it is a disambiguation page.--Commander Keane 20:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Facade
My apologise, I never intended to overstep my mark, was just attempting to be bold, I apologise if I have distressed you in anyway. I did not think the alterations made were drastic enough to warrant posting a notice, since (the way I understand it) it was against the general wiki convention, so to correct this I standardised the Disambig page and divided the largest definition into it's own article, thats the typical convention. The way it has been altered since my contribution is an improvement, but I figured someone had to take the first move and I had wikifaith that any lapse in judgement I might have would be corrected. But again, if you feel I overstepped my power, then I appologise. - UnlimitedAccess 11:33, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Rwanda, Historical revisionism, Unlawful combatants...
Hi! So, as said before, let's take those issues separately as not to bash our heads against walls.


 * Historical revisionism (political)

First of all, the distinction between a "true historical revisionism" and a "political" historical revisionism is more than controversial. This is the reason for the creation of two different articles, as it seems in the US some claim historical revisionism as a valid scientific way of reviewing fact. In Europe, dis is not the fact, as it is an evidence that historical studies requires reviewing of facts all of the times. Thus, revisionism only designs "political" historical revisionism (beside, historic studies as a whole are a political matter, it is quite artificial trying to divide between objectivity and ideology, as both are always mixed together. True NPOV is not for human beings).

Second, the Rwandan Genocide has been included in this entry as it is a major theme of debate about revisionism currently in France. Of course, since France's responsibility is questioned, it may not seem that important to you. But may i remind you that we are talking about a genocide... Pierre Pean's book, recently released, as caused an uproar, as he deliberately ignore France's role and claim there was a "counter-genocide". This is exactly what we are talking about when we talk about revisionism (as when Holocaust deniers talk about a "counter-genocide", refering for example about the Dresde bombings).


 * Unlawful combatants

This entry should be treated according to a juridical point of view. We are discussing the Geneva Conventions here, which precisely don't even use the term "combatant" (let alone "unlawful combatants"). This term has been used prominently, as added another user recently, by the Bush administration. Why deny it? According to you, this term has been in existence for a 100 years... especially in the US. Well, if i read well, only the 1942 Quirin case talks about it. And we're speaking here of international law (laws of war fall under this category). The problem of what i or you think of the Bush administration or about this new concept is irrelevant; the thing is that this "enemy combatant" status has been an invention of the Bush administration after 11-S, and as such causes considerable juridical problem. This is why the Supreme Court has to think about it... The only point of a Wikipedia entry on it is to explain this juridical problem and new concept. Cheers! Kaliz 17:53, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

R. J. Rummel
I left a long discusssion on the talk page. On the Boer War: it is quite possible that neither the British nor the Boers meet Rummel's standards of demcoracy, but this is because Rummell's standards are so strict that hardly anybody qualifies: which may well make his theory meaningless. Have I misunderstood what you want my comments on? Septentrionalis 00:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Gunpowder warfare
I've changed a lot of this article in line with what we were talking about on my talk page. See what you think. Jdorney 17:00, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Robert Thompson
Philip, before I saw your request for a rename of this article, I saw that someone had renamed it to drop the "expert", so I put the previously disputed hyphen back in, with another move. If the status quo is acceptable, you may want to cancel your request, otherwise you may want to update your request. If you get it renamed again, I'll be glad to fix the double redirects. I finally found a dictionary that listed counter-insurgency and not counterinsurgency, and it was allwords.com, which is American. Go figure. Let me know if there is anything else I can do, or "No, you've done quite enough already!" Chris the speller 00:42, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I have added a section to American and British English spelling differences. I used counter-attack as an example, because there was a better sampling of that word in the dictionaries. Just to make things more fun, OED uses the hyphen in counter-insurgency, while cambridge.org omits it; of course, the Cambridge dictionary includes a fair amount of American sources.
 * The River Plate discussion is a howl. Yes, most Americans only know that name because of the battle, and only if they are WWII buffs. The other thing to remember is that an awful lot of English-speaking Americans take Spanish courses in high school, and are used to Spanish place names in California, so it may be easier for them to absorb other Spanish place names, and easier yet since the country has no grudges against Argentina. Chris the speller 03:25, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

battle of berlin
well,maybe no two sentences are alike,but if you have indeed altered the main article from the webpage,then you should have also wikified it,added sufficient templates and discussed this on the talk page prior to this.you could have atleast removed the numbering,which wasnt done.you can still write the article,but since i am not a admin,i cant direct you,maybe you can change the whole stylr of the article.--Jayanthv86 04:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Rugby union
Although I haven't seen any rugby union edits from you for a while you were in the past one of the main contributors. If you are still interested in the rugby union sections, there is a rugby union project that you might be interested in joining, we currently have 11 members. You don't have to join, of course, but any contribution you made would be welcomed.GordyB 11:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Names
In regard to River Plate, I can sympathise with the Latin Americans, even though they are not following Wiki naming policy, because most people thinks that everyone else should use their name for their things, but what do the Americans care? They don't play soccer, so they haven't heard of CA River Plate, they weren't in the war when the battle took place and the film was retitled Pursuit of the Graf Spee for the US market. Of course they haven't heard of River Plate (unless they are into naval history).

I use "British Commonwealth" in WW2 articles because it was the official name in 1926-46 and because it also reflects the changes that took place in the structure of the beast betwen WW1 and WW2. Allies is an even better word. Grant65 | Talk 13:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Historical revisionism
You mass-reverted again everything. This is going into edit war, so we will have to find a solution. We may be able to agree on something written together - that's the beauty of Wikipedia - but we will certainly not agree if we keep rv our changes. Henceforth:


 * can you give me a good reason for deleting the Rwandan genocide example except that's its far away from your concerns?
 * can you give me a good reason for deleting the Serdar Argic spam-attempt concerning the Armenian genocide?
 * can you give me a good reason to center the lasting controversy concerning the Japanese downgrading or outward denial of war crimes committed during the period which the Japanese imperialism article refers to? Why should it be centered on the textbooks controversy, which is only one of the aspects of it, beside, for example, visits by the Prime minister - he is the official representant of Japan - to the famous Yasukuni Shrine?
 * I am open to any suggestions about improving the article concerning the February 2005 French law on colonialism. However, we should'nt mistake everything. If you really feel like the British colonization was "globally good" (i'd like some references though, as i was asked to provide ref for something that the French historian community agreed on), why not put a disclaimer such as: the French historian community believes that the colonization wasn't "globally good", as did the law stated, but this point of view is not shared by the world-wide historian community, in particular concerning the British colonization, which is considered, by example by such and such, as globally positive?

Lapaz 16:34, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Ottoman Empire
Dear sir; I was hoping you would consider this proposal. Under the "World War I", "Middle Eastern theatre of World War I" is listed. If you look where the battles had been performed, also between the armstice to "threaty of serves" most the allies were in the anatolian lands. That name does not really cover the material presented under it. If you consider this proposal, either we should rename that to "Ottoman Front" or break it into peaces. I'm specifically objecting the "Caucasus Campaign" and "Dardanelles Campaign" listed under the Middle Eastern, even if you like to interperet that word liberally. --user:Tommiks