Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Nick-D (talk | contribs) at 10:30, 12 August 2009 (→Guy Royle: resp). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Talk archive 1 (November 2005–May 2008)
Talk archive 2 (June 2008–December 2008)
Talk archive 3 (January 2009-July 2009)

Awards people have given me

Re:Atlas Cavar

Repositioned myself as weak keep at afd. Article still needs help though. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 16:20, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Doltna block and authoblock

Nick, your autoblock when you blocked doltna probably had rather a lot of collateral, I've determined that the user is a rather over-enthusiatic colleague, and I htin I should be able to sort out the editting. It was well-intentioned, but could have been done better. David Underdown (talk) 11:10, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the note David. I've just unblocked them - a 24 hour block was probably too long anyway given that the edits appeared to be overenthusiastic but essentially good faith. Nick-D (talk) 22:46, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

RAN White Ensign

Hi Nick, thanks for your info on the AWNB. I take this to mean that on eg. Battle of the Coral Sea, I should replace the {{flagicon|Australia|naval}} to be something like UK|naval. Is that right? Slac speak up! 02:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

File:Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg is the right one to use, I think. Nick-D (talk) 09:06, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

World War II

I've just replaced the subheadings as they made zero substantive change to the article (no text change at all, in fact) and substantially added to the ease with which a large summary article can be navigated. Such as at the similar articleCold War. I examined the Talk sections and saw no such prior discussions of merely adding more subheadings.

I would like to think that such non-substantive changes could be made to the article without some sort of automatic revert. If there is an actual problem with merely adding subheadings (again, zero substantive change to the article), I would of course be more than willing to discuss it, but none has been raised so far, including in the above paragraph. I'm not sure what such a complaint would be as the article is substantially easier to navigate with subheadings on the various topics, but again, I would be more than willing to discuss it.Mosedschurte (talk) 09:46, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

• Nick, I just noticed that you also mass reverted a huge number of typo and source fixes and adds to unsourced sentences by me and others, which are in no way major changes and not under any kind of article policy. Please do no do this again citing article policy, as many of these are simple conventional Misplaced Pages source and typo fixes. If you have a problem with any specific substantive change, that's one thing, but please don't mass revert simple fixes.Mosedschurte (talk) 10:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I did no such thing - I manually removed the sub-headings and left the text unchanged. Please check the diffs of my edits. Nick-D (talk) 10:24, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

History wars

I understand your concerns about my unilateral rewriting of the Background and Black Armband Debate sections. I had the same concerns myself about a renewed bout of edit-warring. But we've been locked in a stalemate with Likebox for months over the Genocide debate section and nothing seemed to be happening to improve other parts of the article. So I took the chance that if I removed some of the excessive quoting and rewrote some of the badly disjointed sections in as balanced and neutral a tone as I could manage (and I've kept tweaking it to try and make it more NPOV), others might bypass the Genocide debate section for a while and do something constructive with the article. So far no-one seems to be protesting that I've 'ruined' the sections that I've rewritten. I'd be happier if others would join in and do some NPOV rewrites on other parts of the article, where it's needed, or at least make some suggestions on the talk page but, otherwise and so far, it doesn't seem to have caused a problem. Perhaps my cunning plan is working?? Webley442 (talk) 03:32, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

re: Convoy GP55

Hi Nick. Following the closure of the ACR, I wanted to come here and post a few comments on the above, but got a little preoccupied with other things. ;-) That said, I have now completed a review of this excellent article and have come up with the following suggestions/pointers/comments:

• It should probably be clarified in the lead that the convoy took place during World War II.
• WP:Alt text is required for the images. Alt text is basically a newly enforced requirement in which you add "|alt=" in the image mark-up followed by a brief, but concise, description of what is actually in the image. This is in place for the aid of blind wiki uses, so they get an idea of what is in the image. As an example, for File:I-68.jpg, you might like to have something along the lines of "|alt=A black and white photograph of a submarine in a body of water with a land mass in the background".
• MOS:NUM recommends the use of a slash ("/"), rather than an endash, to separate the dates describing a single night.
• The year that Centaur was sank should probably be clarified.
• What exactly was the purpose of the convoy? Why was it formed? What was its objective?
• There is a large amount of repetition of the word "and". Would it be possible to replace some of these with alternate words?

I hope these are of some help. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 03:54, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Those are excellent comments - thanks a lot Nick-D (talk) 03:56, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

History Wars

You seem to be interested in history wars. There is a major problem with this page, that the fringe theories of Windschuttle and quadrant, which have next to no academic support, are being presented as if they were majority opinions (or even opinions worthy of respect). Fixing this is difficult, since another administrator (PBS) has taken the position that introducing mainstream sources is not allowed. This leads to severe editing problems. There is no "nice" way to fix this. What is absolutely required is another person (other than myself) willing to take a hostile position. Hopefully you are willing to be jerk number 2.Likebox (talk) 14:19, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm keeping an eye on that article in my role as an administrator only - I've got no intention to participate in the discussion there, and certainly not as a 'jerk'. If you feel that it isn't possible to constructively develop the article I'd suggest that you make use of Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution process. I'd suggest making a formal request for comment to bring in the views of other editors. Nick-D (talk) 07:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I did the formal request for other editors twice, with nobody willing to step in. I also asked a few people if they could help, but nobody really wants to touch it (that includes me--- this is really annoying). The reason, I think, is because the situation requires taking an antagonistic position, and nobody wants to antagonize. I will bring it up for formal dispute resolution if all else fails. But I am worried that the people there will not take time to read the literature.Likebox (talk) 20:18, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

If you're concerned about editor misconduct and can demonstrate this then there's no real need for people who know about the literature. Evidence that editor(s) are relying on a narrow range of literature which covers only one side of the debate could, for example, be useful in seeking mediation of the issue. Nick-D (talk) 23:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Brendan Wise

Hey Nick, all athletes on the Australian WBC Roster or have been in a previous World Baseball Classic pass WP:ATHLETE due to them playing at the highest level of amateur sport. Also Brendan Wise competes in the Eastern League currently which is a fully professional tier of Major League Baseball. However, I have added a couple of secondary sources to prove notability and can provide more if Wise's notability is still under a cloud. All the best! JRA_WestyQld2 10:17, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks for adding those refs. Nick-D (talk) 10:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Backlog resolution

I noticed here that you removed the 'resolved' tag that was added but then put it back. I am wondering, has it been? Perhaps they have been done (I don't know how to track which admins are doing work on the buildup) but I am not sure if it was resolved properly. Also, the person who backed it up in the first place has made promises to fill it up again by doing the same thing to my contributions, so I would expect this to be a potentially ongoing problem. I think solving the root of the problem (seal leak, as opposed to bail buckets) would be a more useful resolution. Since Bettia initiated the topic, it would be good to hear the reply as to the progress. It's somewhat concerning that the one causing the issue was also the one to state (prematurely IMO) that the issue was resolved, especially since, as long as this is allowed to continue, it would be an ongoing problem as these would just keep getting tagged for undeserved speedy deletions. Even so, I can agree with the idea of collecting the conversation into a single area. Tyciol (talk) 11:55, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Tyciol, The backlog of speedy deletion nominations was the issue which had been raised at the Admins Noticeboard. As this backlog had been cleared, the matter there was resolved as no further admin action was required. The discussion of whether the redirects are worthwhile and speedy deletion nominations justified probably best belongs at the ANI thread. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 08:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Lake Burley Griffin

Thanks for your help YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:06, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

World War II

Could you please explain why this was deleted? This is a highly recognized resource of primary government documents used by scholars all over the world. Also, is this the correct place to ask about these changes? Historic Government Publications from World War II, hosted by Southern Methodist University, contains 343 informational pamphlets, government reports, instructions, regulations, declarations, speeches, and propaganda materials distributed by the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) during the Second World War. Thanks!--signed Digitaldomain (talk • contribs)

As the article is about all countries experiences in World War II, it seems inappropriate to have links to relatively small collections of material from only a single country, especially as you've been adding links to the Southern Methodist University's collections to a range of articles without any explanation of why the link adds value to the article. Nick-D (talk) 08:43, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Coincidentally this has also been under discussion here; I've warned Digitaldomain about spamming these links. EyeSerene 10:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XLI (July 2009)

The July 2009 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 20:35, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

WWII

Dear Nick-D. Since you initiated a discussion about some recent changes in the WWII article could you please comment on my recent post there ?
Regards,
--Paul Siebert (talk) 10:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

vc WINNERS??

I wasn't aware that the VC was either a race or a competition. Hence, I wasn't aware that one "won" one. Please educate me. Pdfpdf (talk) 09:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It's longstanding usage. British MoD is happy enough with it, obits in The Times frequently use it in obituaries and other articles related to the VC, the OED's first definition of winner is "One who gains something, esp. by effort or merit;" the definition of winning a competition etc is the secondary definition. David Underdown (talk) 10:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Well there you go! To quote somebody else: "You learn something new every day. Sometimes, some of it is useful." Thank you. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 10:27, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Guy Royle

Hi mate, postscript to Convoy GP55 FAC, did you have any plans to turn that red link blue? If not, I might have a go sometime - does he have an entry in the Oxford Companion though? I notice he's missing from ADB... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't planning on doing so, but I did look into it a while ago. There are some excellent portraits of Royle on the AWM's database and a reasonable amount on him in the official history. David Stevens A Critical Vulnerability: the impact of the submarine threat on Australia’s maritime defence contains a critical evaluation of his role in the fighting in Australian waters. Nick-D (talk) 10:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)