Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 10:43, 19 May 2006

Welcome

Hello, Pseudo-Richard, and welcome to Misplaced Pages. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the Newcomers help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~. Four tildes (~~~~) produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Kukini 07:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

==Please Use Edit Summaries==

When editing an article on Misplaced Pages there is a small field labelled "Edit summary" under the main edit-box. It looks like this:

The text written here will appear on the Recent changes page, in the page revision history, on the diff page, and in the watchlists of users who are watching that article. See m:Help:Edit summary for full information on this feature.

When you leave the edit summary blank, some of your edits could be mistaken for vandalism and may be reverted, so please always briefly summarize your edits, especially when you are making subtle but important changes, like changing dates or numbers. Thank you.

AmiDaniel (Talk) 05:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Spanish conquest of Mexico

Richard, please see Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions#Lowercase second and subsequent words: "Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise almost always capitalized (for example: John Wayne and Art Nouveau, but not Computer Game)."

• I'm moving the page back to Spanish conquest of Mexico, please leave it there.
• It appears (I'm not sure) that you moved the content; you should always use the "move" button at the top of the page to move or rename an article instead of moving the content. That way the page history stays in one place. When moving the page back I think I will kill some of the history now. But what needs to be done, needs to be done...
• When you revert a change by someone else (in this case the moving of the page to its correct name by myself), make sure that you're doing the right thing, to avoid useless edits by everyone.

Absolutely no offense intended, you've done great work the last few days! Piet 21:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Global Warming

Please use edit summaries. It is especially useful when ones edit is to a controversial topic. Many people will rush to revert edits on controversial topics from relatively new users and they are only more likely to do so if there is no edit summary. JoshuaZ 06:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to say the same, now I found it's already mentioned. Your last edits are numerous, but they make it difficult to follow an article's history. See also what the {{Preview}}-Button brings up:

Thank you for your contributions to Misplaced Pages. In the future, please use the preview button before you save your edit; this helps you find any errors you have made and prevents clogging up recent changes and the page history, as well as helping prevent edit conflicts. Below the edit box is a Show preview button. Pressing this will show you what the page will look like without actually saving it.

It is strongly recommended that you use this before saving. If you have any questions, contact the help desk for assistance. Thank you.

Cheers, Hardern 07:48, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer on my discussion page! I also sometimes do three or more changes in various chapters of an article. I just wanted to let you know about the preview function in case you didn't already notice it. And I didn't mention anything about edit summaries... Hardern 08:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Adaptation to Global Warming

I was "bold" and extracted the "adaptation" text from the Mitigation of global warming article into a new article Adaptation of global warming as suggested by others in the Talk:Mitigation of global warming page.

Within minutes, the new article was put up as a candidate for deletion on the grounds that it was a "how-to" article which violated WP:NOT or that it was original research which violated WP:NOR. Other people said that it was not encyclopedic.

The "how-to" criticism was off-the-mark because the article was never intended to be a "how-to". The skimpiness of the text and the section titles suggested that it was a "how-to" but it was never meant to be that.

The "unencyclopedic" charge was valid since the initial text extracted from the Mitigation of global warming article was very sketchy. I have addressed these issues by expanding the article significantly and providing references to sources.

Would you take a look at current version of the Adaptation to global warming article and then consider voting to keep the article? Richard 18:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, my vote is a moot point since the nomination was withdrawn. Frankly I give you credit for making some immediate changes. My criticism of the article was multi-pronged ranging from Misplaced Pages is not a crystal ball or soapbox to potential POV. Overall I used a general unencyclopedic to capture everything.

People tend to jump on stuff pretty quickly around here, as you have found out. Unfortunately a lot of unmitigated crap finds its way out here such that people want to get at it sooner rather than later. But you did a good job in addressing concerns without being the prick that so many out here become when their articles are under AfD.Montco 22:30, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: Siege of Tenochtitlan

Absolutely no problem here with the changes you made to Aztec strength, but if I remember correctly, the Aztec army at the siege had been greatly augmented by levies from the outlying regions, so using the population of Tenochtitlan as an estimate might not be accurate. I imagine I got my numbers from Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture, and I believe Hanson essentially took his information on Spanish military operations directly from William H. Prescott's The History of the Conquest of Mexico. I would generally trust Prescott, but, of course, the mistake could be entirely mine. Anyway, I'll take some opportunity to check the details. Cheers. Albrecht 05:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Carthage

I'm implying that the possibility of Hannibal=Marduk is definitely there, based on Hannibal's language, and if you WHOIS the Marduk related IPs, they are from all over the US, with some emphasis on AOL - so the different IP, though normally an indicator, in this case mean little. If that's how you read what I wrote, OK - or did my other entry totally confuse? This guy's weird, esp as he also appears to have a yahoo.fr email.Bridesmill 19:29, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree. I only wish he would have engaged - had a lot to offer potentially, but intransigence does/did not help. End of the day, the Carthage article is good candidate for taking to FA, which I never would have figured out if I hadn't been RfC'd here. Bridesmill 19:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Going to put this here, rather than the talk page.

I don't think the problem is the content at all. I really don't care whether the "child sacrifice" is included or not. Its a non-issue to me - it can be true, false, or contested, as long as there are references to back up whatever points are on the page, I don't care. The issue is that any version other than Marduk's is reverted. This means ripping out any content that he finds objectionable (any mention of Carthage being depicted in Greek and Roman literture, the mention of the Roman recolonization of the city site a century after the end of the third Punic War, the fact that child sacrifice is attributed to the Carthaginians by some Roman writers, and for reasons I can't fathom, the disambugation link to other uses of the term "Carthage"), and adding content that is unverified, or legendary being portrayed as fact. Heck - look at his own responses to the discussion about Dido being mytho-histrorical.

You are more than welcome to try and "convert" marduk. I just don't think it will happen. Read his own words. He has his Truth, and any who do not support Truth are Trolls and Vandals propagating Myth, and marduck removes such. I don't think he will accept any changes you make either. You can refernece them, source them, footnote them - but if they come from Greek or Roman sources, he won't accept such Spam (his term), he has said so repeatedly. If you add content that he finds objectionable, regardless of how it is sourced, I beleive he will remove it. Re-read the talk page, ignore what anyone else says, read marduk's intentions in marduk's own words. See what he will accept and what he will do with that which he doesn't accept. Heck - I already tried finding a compromise position with him, leaving his "new" sections in, and keeping the "old" sections he found objectionable, tagging questionable uncited claims in both old and new here. This was the response. (both are "comparisons" in the edit log, feel free to look at it edit by edit if you like).

You said: "Maintaining NPOV would dictate that we mention both POV and also mention which one seems to be the majority POV". I agree 210%. Write that section. Put it in. See if he will let it stand. Even post it as a proposal in the talk page, chock full of references and footnotes. If it stands, in the main article, untouched by marduk, I will be amazed, and forced to consider that I am being unfair towards marduk (which I admit is always a possibility).

I find it laudable that you made the effort to find sources for him, but unless they are sources that support his point, I believe he will reject them. I find it praiseworthy that you are willing to try and "convert" him. If you succeed, no one will be happier, or more impressed about that, than I. Also no one will be more surprised. - Vedexent 05:32, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

BTW, with you and marduck editing the talk page, a large chunk has gotten duplicated. Damned if I'm touching it though. You may want to take that out. - Vedexent 05:36, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

excellent point. Consider me shut up :) - Vedexent 07:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Spanish conquest of Mexico

Hello, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! We appreciate your contributions to the Spanish conquest of Mexico article, but we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material. Perhaps you would like to rewrite the article in your own words. For more information, take a look at Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. Happy editing! Madman 04:18, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Update: I have reviewed your rewrite of the Spanish conquest of Mexico article and could no longer find the multiple copyright violations. I have inserted that updated file back in the main article, so we should be good. 02:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Please use Preview feature

Going forward, I wonder if you could reduce the number of Saves. I see that you made perhaps 30 different edits to the Spanish Conquest Temp article. Looking thru your User Contributions, I see that from 18:38 until 18:47 today UTC, you 12 edits to Mitigation of global warming.

The problem with that number of edits is that it's difficult to review earlier versions of an article if the editor has to review dozens of edits. It essentially swamps the system with minor changes. Please use the Show preview feature. Madman 02:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

In Search of Lost Time mediation

Hello! Thanks so much for your offer to mediate the problem regarding the In Search of Lost Time article. It's been a while since the (unresolved) conflict, but I know at least myself and Mcalkins are still active and hoping for a resolution. The problem is that User:Mcalkins and User:Cubdriver can't agree on how to evalute the old (Scott Moncrieff) and new (Penguin) translations of the novel. Mcalkins is trying to reach a "balance" where there are both good and negative comments about both. Cubdriver seems to want to promote the new translation over the old ones. I've suggested removing all evaluations of the translations - just state the bare facts - and link to several reviews of them in external links. Mcalkins & another user seem receptive to this idea, but Cubdriver has not responded. Guermantes 17:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Hello again. Has anything been resolved? I've been watching this page and the ISoLT page and nothing seems to be occuring... Guermantes 01:16, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi

I've been working on some other subjects, I'm still following the Cortes / Tenochtitlan articles but a bit from a distance. A lot has happened there in the last month, which is very good. I still intend to work on them but other things keep getting in the way. A general remark is that at the moment enormous amounts of text are added, which has led to a few articles that are too large. And we should find some images to illustrate the articles. Usually contemporary paintings are very good for this, as there are no copyrights (you can scan them from a book and use them under the { {PD-art} } license - only goes for pictures of paintings, not pictures of statues etc). Anyway, we're very good on the quantity part but we need some more quality now. But we're moving on, which is great. Piet 09:07, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your analysis, Piet. We need to concentrate on bringing all the present pieces together in a coherent narrative. That would mean removing data/words that are duplicated within articles and, to a lesser extent, between articles. And we need images, too. Madman 16:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Me name

"Piet" is short for "Pieter" and "Pete" is short for "Peter". Actually, Pete exists only in English, not in Dutch. In Dutch, Piet is short for both Peter and Pieter. I was named after my grandfather, whose name was Peter but who everyone called Piet. I add Pete mostly so non-Dutch speakers know how to pronounce it (after all they all know Pete Sampras), they usually have no idea otherwise and pronounce it like Pyett, Pi-et or Peeyet or something (did you pee yet :-) )... Nice try, but no :-) Piet 20:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Both Pieter and Peter exist in Dutch. Piet is my real name (I just mention the – or a – long form for explanation), like some people in the US are called Dick instead of Richard. Ghent is in the northern part of Belgium, Flanders, where we speak Dutch. The southern part is called Wallonia and speaks French. There's a very small German speaking part and the capital Brussels is bilingual French/Dutch. Great fun! Apart from some professors, no one really knows how the country is organized, but it seems to work (a bit). The Dutch that we speak is often called Flemish, it is quite different from the Dutch of the Netherlands although officially it is the same language. We can watch Dutch tv without a problem, but in every day language we're sometimes perplexed because they use words that we've never even heard of (and vice versa of course). Like US/UK English but even worse. Also names are often different, some names are common in the Netherlands but not at all here. And the French names are something else again, (I would have been Pierre there). So yeah, language is definitely relevant. Belgium is a very special case of course language-wise. Most other European countries simply have one language. Piet 21:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

re. Mediation offer

Thanks for offering to mediate! Recently in the "discussion" page of the disputed article re. this matter a solution was suggested that we list the "facts" about the translations (the who, what, when) and then link offsite to reviews of the translations. This is the solution I endorse, rather than trying to include balanced citations from reviews in the article itself.--Mcalkins 17:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

The solution was proposed and discussed on April 12 and 13, 2006. However, User:Cubdriver has not yet responded to the proposal.--Mcalkins 14:57, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Templates

Yeah, I hesitated before adding the Aztec template to Hernan Cortes, that's why I didn't put it on top of the page. The problem is that the Hernan Cortes article contains a lot of information that is relevant to the history of the Aztec world. Maybe we could (again) move part of the Hernan Cortes page to a different subpage. But first we should create a structure for the History of the Aztec empire, maybe Nanahuatzin could make an outline for this. I think we have a lot of information, it's mostly a matter of moving it to the right pages. Piet 07:38, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Concerning templates in Hernán Cortés: the position is ok I think, we'll see if it bothers anyone else. I think templates usually receive short names though, maybe we'd better move it to something like "spainamerica" or "newspain" (hm the last one can be interpreted in two ways...).

Concerning moving information from the article: I was wrong, should have reread it first. What is left now deals mostly with Hernan Cortes personally. It is probably still not a bad idea to leave him in the Aztec template since he played such an important role. Piet 16:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Concerning template name: it's not a rule, the naming rules are the same as for articles so no problem. It's just a bit easier to type a short name and since it's not something the visitor ever sees people tend to use shorter names. Don't bother changing it if you've already added it to different pages, I thought it was still only at the Hernan Cortes article. Piet 20:44, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

PreColombian civilizations

I think the information fits better at Pre-Columbian or List of pre-Columbian civilizations, so adding information there would be better. I've added the two civilizations to List of pre-Columbian civilizations that weren't already there and redirected PreColombian civilizations there. TimBentley (talk) 18:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Pre-Columbian template

Moved this discussion to Template talk:Pre-Columbian

Welcome to VandalProof!

Thank you for your interest in VandalProof, Richardshusr! You have now been added to the list of authorized users, so if you haven't already, simply download and install VandalProof from our main page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any other moderator, or you can post a message on the discussion page. Prodego 19:30, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

US article intro

Hi, there's a discussion page for the US article that talks about how the intro should look. Just want you to know as the addition might be reverted by someone later on. Thanks.--Ryz05 01:30, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for appearing a little overreacting when I reverted your edit, but I just thought it did not flow as well as the original version. There was a discussion about the intro, and I'm not exactly sure if the section on Introduction is specifically dedicated to it, so you are welcome to use that section for discussion.--Ryz05 07:40, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I prefer the intro be at three paragraphs- just a summarization of early history, and the part about it becoming a superpower after the World Wars and the Cold War. This will keep it to a minimum, without going into too much details and risk the chance of controversy. You are welcome to discuss. Thank you.--Ryz05 20:24, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the last sentence should be changed back to before, because saying that it exerts global dominance and saything it's a hyperpower are the saying, which is repetitive. Please discuss.--Ryz05 22:28, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

History of the US article

what do you think/do about the 'expansion' tags that are now placed in nearly every section of the article? Thanks Hmains 02:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Your suggestion

I have taken your suggestion into account. --Elkman - 22:30, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Aztec codices notes

Richard, I decided to remove the Aztec template from the Aztec codices article. The template has pushed the codex images off to the bottom and the side and the article looks jumbled now. When we get more verbiage added to the article, there will be room for the template, but until then I'd like to highlight the images from the codices themselves. Thanks, Madman 12:15, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

AfD George Harbottle

Hi, this morning I noticed that you put an AfD tag on the article, but that it wasn't listed on the general AfD list , which meant the community wouldn't see and discuss it, and that the article wouldn't get deleted. I listed it, but also took the liberty of reformatting your text in a slightly more 'traditional' AfD format, since most voters will be seeing it on this page: . I hope you don't mind the way I changed the text, if you want to revert my actions the original text still exists at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/George Harbottle/temp. Kind regards, --JoanneB 05:51, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

No problem, I know that feeling :) By the way, I have a tab in my monobook that sort of 'automates' the whole AfD process, grabbing the right templates and putting them in the right places. I don't know if you list stuff on AfD often, but if you do, a tab like that can certainly be worth a consideration. --JoanneB 06:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Expulsion of Germans after WW II

Great, thx for your amendments, now the page apears to be much more systematic and objective. However I hope that it will stay like this at least for a little while. (213.70.74.164 10:20, 12 May 2006 (UTC))

Hi, I'd just like to thank you for the work you're doing in the Expulsion article. Before your improvements, the article moved nowhere for months/years (despite hundreds of edits). Now, there is new hope. --Wikimol 18:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

You're both very welcome. Thank you for taking the time to express your appreciation. Curiously, I knew nothing about this topic until I came in via the RFC process. I've learned a lot since. --Richard 05:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject

I asked you to self revert. I take it you are saying no? Dominick 19:53, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I am saying "No". You have only to look at Talk:Criticism of the Catholic Church, Talk:Roman Catholic Church and Talk:Anti-Catholicism to see that you are spawning a discussion across three Talk Pages which should be held on one page. The logical and standard WikiProject way to hold these kinds of discussion is on a subpage of the Project main page.

I didn't come up with this idea. It is in the standard template for WikiProjects Template:WikiProject.

Read my response on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Catholicism 101 or on Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Catholicism 101/Strategy for a more detailed explanation.

--Richard 19:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Nothing like working with others eh? We didnt use it on Catholic 101 before. I think more than a few people will object if you read the archives. Dominick 20:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Your text is unclear.

"didn't use it on Catholic 101 before" - didn't use what? presumably discussion forums

"I think more than a few people will object if you read the archives." - perhaps, but what archives? I didn't see any and I didn't see any old debate about discussion forums on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Catholicism 101.

Hey, why not give this a rest and see who else objects? I think it should be clear that I will go with the consensus. However, you do not constitute a consensus by yourself. If the consensus is to delete the Strategy subpage, I will have no choice in whether it gets deleted or not.

I was willing to wait for a consensus vote for the move from Anti-Catholicism to Criticism of the Catholic Church except that User:Vaquero pre-empted the vote by changing the intro paragraph of the Anti-Catholicism article. If I had my preference, I would have preferred that he voted his opinion and waited for the result of the vote before making his edit. But he didn't wait. He was "bold". So I moved the text to be consistent with his edit.

All this can be undone if you can muster votes to oppose the move. I haven't seen anybody else voting in your favor.

However, I do not consider a 3-1 vote to be a consensus. I am advertising this issue across all three articles to see what the consensus is across the editors of all three articles. By putting it on the Strategy subpage of the Catholicism 101 project, I am inviting anybody who is interested in the Catholicism 101 project to vote on this issue. This is just the opposite of a cabal. This is trying to be inclusionary and get everybody who has an opinion to state their opinion and influence the consensus.

We need to form a broad consensus in order to have a strategy that will hold and be defensible against newcomers who may have a different idea about how to do things. It's clear that the organization of Roman Catholic Church, Catholicism and Anti-Catholicism have changed over time. Let's hash this out and document the consensus so that we don't have to keep re-organizing the article every time somebody decides their approach is better.

--Richard 20:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

hoax

Good job uncovering that hoax. Cheers. --Fang Aili 14:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The article about German population transfer

I agree that only citations with reliable sources should be used and only if they relate to the issues decision making and views involved with the process. --Molobo 10:43, 19 May 2006 (UTC)