User talk:Vardion/Archive 2005

Thanks for answering my question about the marriage of Helen Clark:) Which city are you living in? :) I am a Chinese student living in the North Shore.....:D

--Eternal 16:35, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Non-wiki Political Project
Hi, I am working on a non-wiki political project for the upcoming 2005 general election, and having read your work on the political entires here, thought you may be interested in providing some input.

Please email me so I can give you more details - dylan at wibble dot net

Presidential Government
I do not appreciate your changes to the presidential system article. You don't know what you are talking about on half the changes you've made.

THe objection people like Juan Linz have to presidentialism isn't "concentration of power," it's the tendency to dictatorship.

Please undo the most recent changes.

[ User: Dinopup ]

Image recreation requests
Greetings. I just started the Image recreation requests project, and I thought you might be interested. Your help would be greatly appreciated. (I got your name from the list at Wikipedians/Cartographers.) Best regards, – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 03:20, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

Help us pls with an image
Good afternoon Vardion. I am from the es.wikipedia and we have a little problem with a map. In the article “Perú” the first map have been done by you, if I am not in a mistake. Peru appears with a wrong frontiers, specially with Ecuador and Colombia. This wrong map is Imagen:LocationPeru.png. The appropiate limits of Peru appears in the second map in this article. You can see it in Imagen:Pe-map.jpg. Please can you do something magic in order to have an appropiate map instead of “Imagen:LocationPeru.png” ?. I think it will be necessary to do somethig similar in the articles of Ecuador and Colombia. Thank you in advance. Great regards, Manuel González Olaechea y Franco

Map information
Hi Vardion. I've had an email (on the Foundation mail system, via Jimbo) asking about one of your maps. To quote:


 * "I came across your map of Vietnam while searching for up-to-date GIS shapefiles of the provinces of Vietnam. I was wondering if you have this data, and if so if it is possible to acquire this shapefile."

Would it be OK to put you in touch with this person? The easiest would be if I could give them an email address for you. If you prefer to give this privately - my address is sannse(at)tiscali.co.uk Thanks -- sannse (talk) 02:13, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Many thanks Vardion - I'll pass on what's needed. Regards -- sannse (talk) 20:23, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hawaii missing from Image:BlankMap-World.png?
Hi Vardion,

I noticed Hawaii doesn't appear on Image:BlankMap-World.png, although it is on, for example, Image:LocationUSA.png. Did you leave it out intentionally? I'd like to make a higher resolution version of Image:LocationUSA.png, but I don't want to leave Hawaii out.

dbenbenn | talk 01:35, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * From what I remember, the projection of the map is such that Hawaii doesn't actually fit onto it &mdash; it would be slightly off the edge. Its unsatisfactory, I know, but the map was really intended for the creation of smaller images, not to be viewed as a single image. If you feel that it can be improved somehow, please go ahead. I'm far from an expert on maps and suchlike &mdash; I just made these ones because no one else seemed to be doing it at the time. -- Vardion 03:04, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I guess objectively the right thing to do is have Hawaii near the right edge of the map. It sounds like Image:LocationUSA.png must have Hawaii in the wrong place.


 * I'd like to try adding Hawaii to the map, but I have no idea how. Perhaps you could provide some information at Commons:Image:BlankMap-World.png about how you made that map?  Any details you remember would be wonderful.  Thanks, dbenbenn | talk 10:13, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * By the way, we now have SVG uploads enabled. If you could produce an SVG version of that map, wonderful!  Otherwise, if you could provide any data or information about how you made the map, that would help others to make an SVG version.  Thanks!  dbenbenn | talk 16:31, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

NZ politics
If you return to editing in Wikipedia then you might find some interest in editing the articles on the New Zealand National Front and its opponent, the MultiCultural Aotearoa. Both articles would benefit from having more local editors. I hope your technical difficulties are easily resolved. Cheers, -Willmcw 02:15, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

Calcutta -> Kolkata name change
Hi there. I noticed you voted in the Naming policy poll to keep the Wikipedia policy of naming an article with the most familiar English name. You may not be aware that another attempt has begun to rename the Calcutta article to Kolkata, which is blatantly not the most common name of the city, whether it's official or not. If you want to vote on the issue you can do so at Talk:Calcutta. Cheers. -- Necrothesp 13:56, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Map of Egypt
Hi! I noticed that at the LocationEgypt.png you created Egypt is not marked on the map of the world. Could you correct this and leave me a message or upgrade the pages where it appears. Thanks very much. --Eleassar777 20:27, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Map of Angola
The country selector map of Angola you created doesn't show the Cabinda enclave; I can't tell if the scale is too large for it to appear at all, but it looks as if it should. Can you/would you correct it? siafu 21:18, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You da man. siafu 22:35, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Translations
Do you have the translations of the following NZ parties: Gangulf 10:25, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Mana Maori Movement
 * Mana Motuhake party

Map of Vietnam
Hi there, do you happen to have the version for this map without labels? I'd like to make a Vietnamese version of the map for the Vietnamese Wikipedia. (If you'd like to make one, please do so.) Thanks. DHN 02:01, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * For reference, the article is at Các & so that you can see the Vietnamese spellings. Thanks :-). DHN 03:48, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you again, but I found one error in your map. You have the labels for Thái Bình (13) and Nam &#272;&#7883;nh (10) switched. Could you fix it ASAP? Thanks. DHN 03:37, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have another tiny request for the map for you to edit whenever you have time. Could you change the label H&#7891; Chí Minh into TP H&#7891; Chí Minh so that it's not confused with its namesake? Thanks. DHN 03:23, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Capital punishment in New Zealand
Thanks for writing this excellent article. It is a nice addition to Wikipedia. I noticed that there are no references or sources given. I mean this is the most polite way &mdash; could you please add some :-). Thanks. Evil Monkey&#8756;Hello 09:40, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

Maori again?
I see you are flat out again, in at least two languages. Good work.

Any chance you could briefly revisit Wikipedia Maori (where you are currently in fourth place on "number of edits" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediaMI.htm - but may be overtaken soon by a Taiwanese, a Spaniard, and a Dunedinite, among others)? We could make really good use of a map of "mi:Ahitereiria" in the style of your excellent "Hapana" (now renamed "mi:Nipono" in deference to the apparent preference of its inhabitants). Australia has many more ties with NZ, including mi:R&, and several of its cities have translations blessed by mi:Te Taura Whiri i te Reo M&; so I could do quite a lot of expansion if we had the inspiration of a map and the table of main facts.

Kia ora! Robin Patterson 02:46, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

- thanks for great quick response (especially the detail of South Africa's capitals)! Robin Patterson 01:12, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Egypt locator map
Indeed I was asking to show Egypt in green in the small world map in the corner of the locator map. However, I did not realize that should be done not only Egypt but also for other countries. If you could take time to change them all, that would in my opinion be fantastic. Anyway, I'm aware that you probably don't have much time. --Eleassar777 05:57, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Great work on NZ politics (and very much NPOV).
It is great to see all your up to date, NPOV, accurate and extensive work on NZ politics. Keep it up but do not burn yourself out! Alan Liefting 12:25, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'd also like to say that I appreciate the work on NZ politics. I commented in Votes for deletion/Russell Norman that you seem to be writing a short bio of every candidate who has a non-zero chance of being elected. I don't know if that's exactly your aim, but it would be valuable if we had such articles by the election. If other candidate articles are put on VfD please let me know.-gadfium 00:39, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And another thankyou. I was astonished at the coverage and balance of the Neil Kirton article, and now I see that other lesser-known NZ pols are similarly well-covered. Well done. -- Mpt 05:31, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Mapmaking
You seem to be one of the master mapmakers at Wikipedia. How is it that you are able to make such excellent, professional quality maps? What software and techniques do you use?

- Pioneer-12 09:13, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hello Vardion, i am basically asking the exact same question as Pioneer-12 did...what software did you use? also i recently looked at you map of central asia and noticed an orange shaded area. How come you knew how much area that needed to be shaded in and and how much area (in sq. kilometers) did it cover?

-Secant 19:17, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

NPOV images
Hi. We have a problem regarding the POV status of image:LocationIndia.png image that you have created. You map does not take into account the dispute between India, Pakistan and China. We would like to see the image modified as per the Image:Indianstates&utsnumbered.png. The image is considered an NPOV map by all sides. Since you have the source files, please modify the India, Pakistan and China images. (If possible, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Uzbekistan images too.). Thanks, == 19:37, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

Death penalty map
Hi, I find helpful. According to my informations (Amnesty International.org), however, Russia has abolished the death penalty in peacetimes since 1997. It should be marked in Green, then, not Orange. We need the change for the German article soon cause it´s on the list for excellency, only few day left. Thankyou, Jesusfreund 10:04, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Vietnamese map request
Hi again Vardion,

Whenever you have time, would you make the following minor changes to the Vietnamese version of the map of Vietnamese provinces:
 * 1) H&#7891; Chí Minh -> TP H&#7891; Chí Minh to distinguish it from its namesake
 * 2) &#272;&#7855;c Nông -> &#272;&#7855;k Nông (official spelling).

Thanks! DHN 19:51, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your prompt response! I just realized that Cao B&#7857;ng in the northeast is written as Cao B&#7855;ng in the map.  Would you fix that as well? :-) DHN 21:31, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Hi, there may be error in all of your map about the border between "Dien Bien" and "Lai Chau". See the detailed map of Dien Bien here (which may be the best according to some member of vi.wikipedia). If you have time, could you confirm and eventually fix this?193.52.24.125 3 July 2005 08:05 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your correction to all of your maps related to Vietnam. I guess that because I am not log in, and that I am not speaking well English, you may have probably ignored my messaeg until User:Mxn or User:DHN frapp your door again several months later (July to January). Next time I will log-in then. 193.52.24.125 09:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi &mdash; I'm not sure if this message will reach you, but anyway. Sorry for not responding to you when you first raised the issue regarding the Vietnamese maps &mdash; I somehow missed your message to my talk page. If there's anything else I need to do, please contact me &mdash; hopefully, I will notice it next time. -- Vardion 19:45, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

lots of edits, not an admin
Hi - I made a list of users who've been around long enough to have made lots of edits but aren't admins. If you're at all interested in becoming an admin, can you please add an '*' immediately before your name in this list? I've suggested folks nominating someone might want to puruse this list, although there is certainly no guarantee anyone will ever look at it. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) June 28, 2005 04:03 (UTC)

Blank maps
Hi Vardion. I just found out that you created the blank world maps. We frequently use your blank maps for animal distribution areas in articles on the German Wikipedia. The maps are very helpful but there is a problem with animals having a distribution in the Pacific Ocean or on either coast of the Pacific. A map centering at the Pacific or exclusively showing the Pacific would be better for those. Do you know if any such image is in existence on Wikipedia, and I just can't find it? Did you by chance create such a map? Thanks a lot -- Baldhur July 9, 2005

Māori macrons
Hi Vardion, the thread New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board seems to have died. As you said it would be better to discuss on the 'English usage' page, can you direct me there? I've been unable to find anything appropriate. Barefootguru 19:36, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

McGillicuddy Serious
At the present momment I am constantly correcting the wikipedia entry for the the McGillicuddy Serious Party.

In essence this dispute is over whether or not the party is defunct.

WE SAY IN REPLY.... The party history has been hijacked & santised by vicious editing practises and reversions. back to politically sanitsed template.....we are here to stay.

You have been asked not to refer to the Party in the past tense and your edits seem politically motivated. The first instance being your quote to replace MP's with hot air machines. Sorry, simply not funny.

Likewise, your reference to "Younger Pretenters" is incorrect, with the spokespersons in our last press release having collectively stood for Parliament 6 times and have the support of their electorate.

Simply because Laird Cairns decides to end his involvement with the party in a public humiliatian ritual does not confer on him the right to terminate the membership for life of the southern clan McGillicuddy. Likewise Natioial did'nt die a total death when Rob Muldoon dropped off the planet.

If you have an issue with content, please name your sources, otherwise further edits will be noted. Thank you..and good luck with your attemp to write serious articles about sillyness.

Thane of Real & 113 loyal supporters(figures from last census) Drstuey 11:04, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

New articles (New Zealand)
Are you aware of the page I've linked to in the title? This gives a chance for New Zealand Wikipedians to see what new pages are being created, and in some cases people will be able to extend the articles. I know you create a lot of relevant pages; do you by any chance have a list of those you've started in the last few months that I could work through and add to the page?-gadfium 08:51, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

About Your World Map
Hey, is great and I thank you for releasing it into the public domain! I used your map as a base to draw my Web statistics for my site wikinerds.org! If you are curious to see how your work was useful for our statistics, http://stats.wikinerds.org/ see this page]. Thank you for creating this great map! NSK 00:09, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the World Map!
 Just a small thank you... for the World Map. Best Wishes, Liquidat Thank you very much for your wolrd map! It gives me a possibility tko mark palces where I have been and were I want to go and these things in my own homepage without problems - thank you very, very much :-)


 * Greetings from the Great White North (i.e., Canada)! I hope you're well.  I second Liquidat's note, et al.: thanks so much!  It's made my – and all of our – work a whole lot easier.


 * Similarly, I've made some minor modifications to the world map and its permutations; this was prompted by my desire to create a map indicating the UN Human Development Index (HDI) for countries worldwide, and realising that some territories – namely numerous island nations/microstates – were absent. (I have been doing other world maps, too; for instance, for international organisations like La Francophonie). So, the current map edition includes the nations Cape Verde, Comoros, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, São Tomé and Principe, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, and also Hong Kong.  These are generally represented by single or few pixels approximate to the capital; I also tried to create them so that it wouldn't become onerous when colourising.


 * Thoughts? Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 03:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Vietnamese map - again :-)`
Hi Vardion,

I just noticed another problem with the Vietnamese version of the map of Vietnamese provinces. Thừa Thiên - Huế is shown as Thừa Thiên - H and it partially obscures Đà Nẵng. Hope you can get it fixed soon.

Thanks. DHN 05:53, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

New Zealand political lists
I've been thinking about doing some work on some of the shorter articles on New Zealand MPs, and I noticed that you seemed to have done a lot of the list creation. Did you come up with the naming and style conventions? We've started doing things completely differently across the other side of the Tasman (where I've been creating most of the lists), and I was wondering if you'd like to work towards standardising the two somewhat. Ambi 09:43, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Japanese Empire Photo
Hey, thanks for including that photo of the Japanese empire and its accumulation of territories. It really helped me understand the topic.

Map of Tanzania
Hi! Thanks for creating all these maps on wikipedia! I was wondering tho, if you could change the map of Tanzania a bit to more accurately portray its shape. The coast should be more straight and the land boarders should be more straight. That would be super. Oh, and this is your call, but the island of Zanzibar is pretty big and since it is pretty impoartant, it would be nice to have it in the map. Thanx! --159.28.7.139 15:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Tanzania consists of 2 parts - Tanganyika & Zanzibar. - (Aidan Work 07:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC))

Category:Wikipedians in New Zealand
Hi, You might want to consider adding User NZ res to the top of your user page, which will add you to this category automatically and also add a nice graphic. Onco_p53 07:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Image:Flag katanga large.png
Hi, a long time ago you uploaded this image of a flag. At User talk:Den fjättrade ankan you wrote that you had made the flag yourself. The copyright tag on the image description page is not quite clear, may I ask you to verify that you made the flag and that you place it in the public domain, eg ? I am asking because I would like to upload it to WikiCommons and want to be clear about the source. Regards, Thuresson 05:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. Since the flag is your own work and the country Katanga doesn't exist any more, I don't think anybody will object if I upload it to WikiCommons. Thuresson 07:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Sources for David Benson-Pope
Hello, some time ago you added a fair bit of content to David Benson-Pope. As you may be aware, we are currently trying to improve Wikipedia's accuracy and reliability by making sure articles cite the sources used to created them. Do you remember what websites, books, or other places you learnt the information that you added to David Benson-Pope? Would it be possible for you to mention them in the article? Thank you very much. - SimonP 17:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

'Papua' incorrectly used as a name for New Guinea
Hi, I'm wondering why you reverted my insertion of the word '(incorrectly)' from the 'Papua (disambiguation)' page? And why label it POV? cheers, Dougg 08:39, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I replied to your comments on my talk page but I'm not sure you saw them so I'm posting them here as well. cheers, Dougg 21:51, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, fair enough. I'll accept what you say, though I still think it's incorrect to refer to the island as 'Papua' and that it's not a matter of opinion, this being the internationally accepted name for the island for centuries. I suspect that 'Papua' might be the name used by Indonesians as most of the links you give are about that side of the island. And I would argue that the authors of those articles simply haven't checked their facts and would more than likely accept that they got the name wrong. Anyway, how about if I change the line on the disambig page to something along the lines of:


 * 'Sometimes used to refer to the whole island of New Guinea (the latter being the official name).'


 * BTW, thanks for those links, I think I bumped into the author of the Diacritica article when he was in Vanimo so it was interesting to read it. Dougg 00:57, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Minnie Dean
Hello, In June you wrote an interesting article about Minnie Dean the only woman executed in New Zealand. Could you site the sources for the article? --FloNight 03:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thank you--FloNight 03:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

A question
Hi Vardion - I've got a question for you. I've been noticing with alarm the increasing number of aussies who are becoming admins, and I think it's time we evened things up a bit on this side of the Tasman. So... have you given any though to becoming an admin? You've definitely been here long enough and done enough edits to consider it. You also do quite a bit of anti-vandal work, by the looks of your recent contribs, and tools like the rollback button would probably be useful to you. I'd happily nominate you if you're interested - let me know on my user page! Grutness...wha?  04:09, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Ah, well. If you change your mind, let me know, because I still think you'd be a good admin! :) Grutness...wha?  06:01, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Public transport in Wellington
Hi Vardion, you missed a bit and I'm not sure what you're trying to rephrase it to:


 * The system covers not Wellington proper, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, Porirua, and the Kapiti Coast

Barefootguru 03:15, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for picking that up. I've fixed it to show what I was trying to say. -- Vardion 03:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

John Luxton
This article really needs some references. I thought that since you started it, that you might be able to provide them. Thnx.TheRingess 07:08, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Could you help me with a map?
Hello Vardion,

may I ask for your help? This article is currently on FAC and one of the objections regards a missing location map. Being totally clueless WRT graphics, I am afraid I can't do it myself. I guess a good location map would show all of Scandinavia plus some of Northern Europe, lets say to England and the North Sea, and the rest of Svalbard. If that were possible, would you mind mentioning it on my talk page and/or the FAC page? Thanks a lot, Kosebamse 16:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
 * That map is absolutely fine, thanks a lot!. Kosebamse 05:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry but there is a minor problem: the inserted world map does not seem to show the location as usual with these little maps (cf. Image:LocationSvalbard.png), would you mind adding that? Thanks! Kosebamse 08:10, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks a lot! Kosebamse 10:58, 27 December 2005 (UTC)