Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 17:15, 21 June 2006

Welcome! 19:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC) Hello, Anthony Bradbury, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Misplaced Pages
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• How to write a great article
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! 

It looks like you've been very active in the last few days! I have one request: could you please provide your reference(s) for Zone of immunity? Cheers, Melchoir 05:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, the main page describing citations is Misplaced Pages:Citing sources, but it's kind of geared towards experienced users. You certainly don't need to insert footnotes into Zone of immunity. In practice, you can just replace the {{unreferenced}} tag at the bottom with a description of your source, and don't worry about getting the formatting right! I can always help with the cosmetics. Melchoir 18:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I've replied on my own talk page. Melchoir 00:39, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Dad, sorry to be dim. I thought this might be the only way to leave messages, but it seemed rather rude somehow! Have you seen the page on Jackie Fisher? looks rather sparse on the details of the great man. Perhaps you'd like to have a go? Davidelit 16:05, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Spelling

Thank you for clearing up that rule of spelling variations for me. I was unaware that such a rule existed. However, I'm now curious as to why you changed "favor" to "favour" in the first place if, as you explained to me, such a change was unneeded. Adamc714 17:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mean to give the impression that I wanted to fight over such a small and insignificant thing - I was merely curious. Sorry for the confusion.Adamc714 20:12, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

HMS Valiant (1863)

Of course - feel free. Stub articles are only placeholders anyway, I feel; "here is a couple of lines summarising the article that will eventually replace it". Good luck! (Incidentally, I note you created Defence Class; the standard form for naming these is Defence class battleship, and I've moved the article. The link you had for Warrior class went to an article on some warrior caste somewhere...) Shimgray | talk | 21:31, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

• I've given it a copyedit; some explanations. You don't need to link to the article itself inside the article; this just gets confusing for editors. The introduction should be in a broadly standard form ("X" is/was a "Y" of "Z"), before moving onto the history. Ship names should be, if possible, italicised - you can do this with links like ]. Otherwise, looks good to me. Shimgray | talk | 10:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Sure - no need to ask permission. (If you want to doing some from scratch, we've almost none on the various Admiral class battleships, & they're weird enough they seem to deserve articles!)... Shimgray | talk | 18:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

HMS Royal Oak

You are more than welcome to rewrite the article, and thank you very much for asking. Have a nice day and happy wiki'ing! Johann Wolfgang 03:15, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

HMS Swiftsure (1870)

Hello, Tony!

Having chanced upon your recent post on Johann Wolfgang's talk page, I thought you might appreciate being informed of the existence of the HMS Swiftsure (1870) stub. This item has a curious history; when I came across it a few weeks ago, I discovered that the ship described in it was an entirely different vessel of the same name, lanched in 1903. I therefore created a new article and copied the existing text across. From what you told Johann Wolfgang, the 1870 ship should be right up your street.

Can I also take the opportunity to thank you for taking up the baton for ironclads and "pre-Dreadnoughts". Coverage of these fascinating ships is sparse in Misplaced Pages (I would like to work on them, but I don't have the expertise). I have added this page to my watchlist.

Hope this is useful.

Regards, John Moore 309 16:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Photo sources

It's always hard to tell quite when an old photograph is in copyright and when it isn't; UK law is very confusing in this regard, and there's no reliable rule as to whether or not republishing something affects it.

The US Naval Historical Center has an online gallery of public-domain images; most of these are of course American, but there's a few foreign ships in there. This has the British ones, which offhand seems to include about half-a-dozen ships of the period. If you upload any of these, mark them as {{PD-USGov-Military-Navy-NHC}}.

The Imperial War Museum has a photograph database, but the copyright status varies. Per this, any of them listed as "Crown copyright" and dated to before 1955 can be freely reused. If you upload any of these, mark them as {{PD-BritishGov}}. Not all of them have digital images attatched, either.

Those are the first two web sources that spring to mind - if you have any old books with images, it may well be legal to scan these, depending on the details. Let me know if you have any trouble uploading images. Shimgray | talk | 19:30, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

• Wikimedia Commons may also have some useful images: commons:Category:Royal Navy battleships. Shimgray | talk | 19:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Prince Albert

Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I linked Victoria there but didn't link through to Albert... fixed now, anyway. Thanks for putting these articles up - it's interesting reading, and nice to see decent content going up. Shimgray | talk | 23:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

DYK

On January 13, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article HMS Ocean (1862), which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Lorenzo

Hi Anthony! You commented on the link that I removed from the Lorenzo de' Medici page. Yes, I still think it served no purpose. Even if the English translator decided to mention Lorenzo's name in the title of the book, of course the book is not really about him but the city. If Machiavelli's views on the Medici are important, one could instead expand the article itself and summarize them in a few words. In fact I could do this myself. But it should be noted that Machiavelli's views on Lorenzo may tell us more about Machiavelli than they tell us about Lorenzo.

However, if you think that the link ought to be restored, I think that at the very least it should be changed to point to the chapter of the book in which Machiavelli actually talks about Lorenzo. timo 08:24, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Ettiquette

For metric/imperial - Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Units of measurement boils down to "using either is no big deal". Whilst the numbers were never used in the period, it is more useful to many readers (especially Europeans) to give a size in metres - it should be given as a converted figure, in brackets, since it's not the original source, but there's no harm in leaving it in if it's not excessive.

(This makes more sense when you consider, say, articles on classical antiquity - our articles would be very confusing for the reader if we avoided putting (X miles) after saying that something was however many stadia long.)

Unless the converted figures are wrong or just oddly misleading (like putting a kg weight after "24-lb gun"), it's probably considered rude to revert. Might be best to check they're not spuriously accurate, too (like giving a two-decimal-point conversion of a rounded figure). Shimgray | talk | 20:45, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Dimensions

You left this message on my talk page, but it is not related to an edit I made -- probably an edit just befor or just after one of mine !! --mervyn 21:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

re:

Images

Save a copy of the image to your machine, then follow the instructions at Misplaced Pages:Uploading images. Remember to add a description when you upload the file (in case anyone stumbles across the image by accident and gets confused), and to add a tag as mentioned above. Shimgray | talk | 19:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

is this better!!lou 11:45, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Balanced rudder

Thank you for the article about the Balanced rudder. Could you please add a reference to it, so that people who are interested in the topic could see where to go for further information? Also, I noticed that you used the spelling "foreward". Is this a nautical usage, or should it be "forward" instead? TruthbringerToronto 23:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Useful books

Anthony, I've just been enjoying some of your recent articles. I see your are mostly working from the two standard sources, Conway’s and Parkes . Can I recommend a couple of other useful books to back them up?

• DK Brown “Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development 1860-1905”. Caxton Editions 2003. ISBN 1-84067-5292. An excellent study by the world’s expert, with a huge amount of previously unpublished information.
• EHH Archibald The Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy 1897-1984 (Blandford, 1984), ISBN 0-71371-3488. Although not 100% reliable this remains a rich source of information and an excellent read. Its best feature are the hull profiles, which show the underwater hull; absurdly, the Conway’s drawings are cut off at the waterline.

Both these books appear to be out of print, but you should be able to get them from Amazon here and here (if these links don’t work, a Google search should do the trick).

Hope this is useful. Regards, John Moore 309 22:11, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

John: thank you for your suggestion, which I shall follow through on. As I get to ships of a later period, I shall also start quoting Jane, but he does not quite go back far enough.--Anthony.bradbury 22:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Anthony: You may already be aware of this, but Jane's should be used with caution. The editors were largely dependent on information released at the time by the navies which owned the ships, and this was sometimes misleading (often deliberately). For example, no navy would willingly advertise the fact that its ships were breaking treaty limits! In addition, some navies (especially Japan and the USSR) were secretive as a matter of course. Figures for speeds are particularly suspect; in many navies (notably Italy), prodigious speeds were obtained on trials by such expedients as pre-cleaning the coal, embarking only enough fuel to complete the trial and disembarking the ammunition! For factual accuracy, Conway's will be more reliable.

On the other hand, the very fact that Jane's presents a contemporary view, without hindsight, gives it a value of its own (editions prior to 1941 famously say of Hood that "her protection is extremely comprehensive").

Regards, John Moore 309 15:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

PS This page is on my watchlist, so you can reply here if you prefer.

John: I did, of course know that Jane was dependent on data provided by the naval services of the period; as witness Bismark at 35,000 tons, Graf Spee at 10,000 tons, etc. Possibly there was more honesty in the 19th century; in any case, one tries to use as many sources as possible and separate fact fron fiction.

HMS Royal Oak

The article looks substantially better than the one I had written. Very nice. Keep up the good work. If you ever need help, information, etc, please feel free to ask. Have a nice day! Johann Wolfgang 14:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Your welcome. Happy Wiki'ing.

Cereberes class

Appreciate the immediate attention to my concern. I look foward to seeing the results. One of my major interests is ships. Cheers V. Joe 21:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC) AB: Thanks for the interest, again, although my knowledge is a little more aimed at ships of the USN, since I grew up in the literal shadow of the USN in Virginia Beach. I've got some books at home, and when I get there, I'll be sure to add some on ships. My question about the Cerebus class and the Monitor is the story of how the RN managed to get these secrets from the USN. Given the lukewarm support that the UK had given towards the Confederacy and the Fenian Uprising in Canada, I doubt the US govt. and HM Government were on speaking terms. If you knew anything about that, I'm sure that we could collaborate in some way. Cheers V. Joe 22:30, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

M&c

Would you like to look at, and improve, the article called M&c comics?--Anthony.bradbury 23:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

HMS Monarch

Thanks. I discovered that piece of trivia while working on some of the United States ships' history. Jinian 15:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Scapa Flow

The article on Scapa_Flow looks rather sparse, despite the link. By the way, if you're bored, check out Constitution_of_Indonesia. Davidelit 04:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Welcome message

You (accidentally, I assume) left User:WJHC a welcome message on their user page, not their user_talk page. I've fixed it. Please be careful. Thanks! JesseW, the juggling janitor 03:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Soils retrogression and degradation

Anthony: You are familiar with the French language and on that basis, perhaps you may want to help me out. I should be more familiar with French, having spent several summers there when I was young, but that ended 30+ years ago.

I have left a message on a French wikipedia talk page: http://fr.wikipedia.org/Discuter:R%C3%A9gression_et_d%C3%A9gradation_des_sols. In it I point out that, without verifiable sources the English WP version of the article will be no more. Could you review my wording? And, if so moved, provide a translation on the same page? Hopefully my choice of recognizeable words makes translation unnecessary. I used terminate instead of merge, but I think it is a workable alternative in this case. -- Paleorthid 17:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)