User talk:Dave souza/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Dave souza. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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Archive 5

Welcome to Wikipedia!

AD Gododdin

Very good work on adding material to the Gododdin article . . . but the abbreviaton for Anno Domini ("in the year of the Lord") always precedes the number of the year -- it does not come afterwards. I've been told that placing it afterwards is gaining more acceptence, but no one has yet shown me an authority that gives approval to that style. -- llywrch 01:21, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome!

Your comment about AD makes good sense, it being year of our lord... I cannot tell a lie, my usage was cribbed from the History of Scotland page which set me off on trying to clarify early history of south east Scotland. Chastened, I've looked at the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), and find that AD is not required. This matter will be corrected with my future edits.

Since there doesn't seem to be a Y Gododdin page I've expanded this section as well as making other edits and improving External references {focusing Votadini on earlier history to follow later. Since I'm approaching this from a Scottish viewpoint and your username looks rather Welsh, I'd be delighted to have any comments or advice on this page.

many thanks from a newbie, dave souza

Well, I'm just cranky about the proper use of AD -- & if you don't need to use it, then I'd say do without it. As for the user name, don't let the double ell's fool you: I live on the other side of the Atlantic. Learning about things during the two centuries associated with King Arthur is one of my hobbies.

As advice on things Scottish, be careful about the articles dealing with the period before Kenneth MacAlpin -- looking over the material there, some of it seems a bit suspicious, but I haven't had the time to check it. Never be embarassed in providing your sources (e.g., instead of saying "Joe Hornbeam was the most important figure in the history of Lower Slobbovia" because you read it in H.W.Q. Dingbie's History of Lower Slobbovia, write "According to H.W.Q. Dingbie, the most important figure in the history of Lower Slobbovia was Joe Hornbeam") it'll save on the wear & tear around here.

And feel free to ask questions: either of me, on my Talk page; or of anyone at one of the sites mentioned at the Community Portal. -- llywrch 02:47, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

No more ADs for me!

By happy coincidence, as you may well know, Y Gododdin the poem contains what may be the earliest reference to Arthur - but it's just indirect, and there's argument as to whether this is a later addition to the 7th century poem (for discussion, see Edinburgh).

He charged before three hundred of the finest,
He cut down both centre and wing,
He excelled in the forefront of the noblest host,
He gave gifts of horses from the herd in winter.
He fed black ravens on the rampart of a fortress
Though he was no Arthur.
Among the powerful ones in battle,
In the front rank, Gwawrddur was a palisade

Since the poem was written in Edinburgh this gives a tantalising hint of the origin of the name of Arthur's Seat, which is a rocky hill about 2 miles to the east of the castle. thanks again, dave souza

oops, my last comment was typed with more haste than judgement, as the Y Gododdin reference is well covered in the King Arthur page. I've taken the liberty of adding a link to it and to Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh to a (slightly revised) Gododdin page.

I've also expanded the Votadini entry, including reference to Coel Hen alias Old King Cole; the vagueness in those linked articles emphasises what a tricky period you've chosen for a hobby. Work on the BC part is still in progress. Thanks for the advice, dave souza 19:17, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I've just been on holiday to the Shetlands ("did" the Orkneys a couple of years ago). I'm sure I was Scottish in a previous life. (I'm Welsh now.) Deb 15:24, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Greetings! I've not been to Shetland, but visited Orkney as you can tell from Prehistoric Scotland and Knap of Howar. Though Scottish, I got into this editing because my son's school had a questionnaire asking what ethnic group I identified with - so I put Votadini, which caused slight embarrassment and got me into editing Y Gododdin page. Which brings us to Welsh - edits to any misconceptions on that page would be most welcome. Ta--- dave souza 07:33, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hi Dave -- Just saw your note, & thanks for fixing the spelling of Traprain Law; the mistake was mine. We all make mistakes here, so don't be embarassed about your own. -- llywrch

FYI, History of Scotland will be the front-page article tomorrow (or today, depending on your timezone). It looks pretty good, but it's not too late to get in any little tweaks you think necessary. Also, the text which will denote it on the main page is currently marshalled at Wikipedia:Tomorrow's featured article - tweak that too (but it mustn't get any longer). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:36, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Dave, I don't know if you knew it exists, by you might wish to add yourself to Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Scotland. We seem to have had something of an influx of Scots and Scotophilies lately (which probably isn't good news for the economy). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:06, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sco'sh

anonymous insults will get you nowhere.

Congratulations

Dave, I've just read your new article on George IV's visit to Edinburgh and I'm highly impressed. This is an extremely good article, even more impressive because it just appeared on the Wikipedia fully formed rather than through the usual slow process. You've done some good work in the past but this is outstanding. Sometimes I get a bit discouraged by the vandals, the American spellers and the "politicians" who seem to be so common on the site nowadays but tonight at any rate I feel proud to be a Wikipedian. Cheers -- Derek Ross | Talk 02:36, 2004 Oct 7 (UTC)

Enquiring minds

Well these "enquiring minds" are just me. I was referring to myself in the plural third person just for the novelty of it. Enquiring minds want to know was a phrase taken from The Enquirer's advertising in the 80's some time. That was the catch phrase. - Taxman 23:02, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Kilt

Dave! That link you deleted from Kilt was bad, and I should have cut it myself. I've actually been planning on rewriting most of the Kilt page to discuss more what it is, rather than what it isn’t. It is coming along, but I think it still has a long way to go. I myself am only Scottish by name (Mc) but I truly enjoy the wearing of the kilt. - Drhaggis 00:43, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ken Park

Thanks for my first edits Dave. Wow you visited Henry Moore... Yeh and interesting yr comment about HM losing his accent. A lot of us lose out accents as we get 'upwardly mobile'... for obvious reasons. But a lot of us don't entirely lose the values or culture. ````

Thanks for the story on our Enry. BUT re: "about formatting - I've learnt the hard way not to leave spaces at the start of a line." They were intended as a way of differentiating contextual information from time line entries to do with the park itself... Is there a better way of doing this you can suggest? Szczels 18:51, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yeh I knew about italics, did you know about use of colons to indent paragraphs. I've used a mixture of both to get what I hape is an improved effect that doesn't look like a mistake in formating. Thanks. I need to find out how to indent first line of a paragraph... Szczels 21:33, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Scottish clan map

Hi Dave, I am happy to make additions to the clan map if you send me a source image (or point to a source online). If you e-mail via Wikipedia, I'll reply with my real address so that you can send an attachment. Depending on how crowded it gets, it might be preferable to have separate highland and lowland maps.

I do my maps using The GIMP and when possible I would upload the source (.xcf.gz) files as well as the image. However, the clan map source is over 1 MB which was a bit too big. Plus it now seems non-standard graphic files can't be uploaded. If I can upload it somewhere, I have no problem with someone more knowledgeable than me (which isn't hard) using it to make a better version. (My interest is mainly military maps and I did the clan map as a bit of light relief.) Geoff/Gsl 22:54, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What Dave has done seems to be a good compromise - it seems to work well, at least for the present, and he's been able to take in the corrections/amendments which I recommended some months back. I'm happy to go with the new list of Scottish Clans as it is - a lot of work has clearly gone into it. Probably a good idea to ditch my old list (which is now looking rather forlorn!) Bruce, aka Agendum | Talk 17:09, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Your admonition to read the Glasgow Herald - which article? - I had a look on the online version on that day, but couldn't find anything, apart from a fascinating article entitled 'The remarkable tale of Indian Peter'.... Bruce, aka Agendum | Talk 20:45, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I will repair “villages” category

I am sorry to have moved so hastily. I am new at this and certainly got carried away. I will put it back to rights. A separate category for “villages” does make sense. Ideally there should be some kind of guidelines for judging between a village and a town on the category pages themselves? This distinction was not clear to me at first. Also, there should be a consistent format. All the other categories read, “Towns in Scotland” or “Villages in England” etc. I will try to undo the changes that I had made so thoughtlessly. --[[User:Jjhake|Jjhake (talk)]] 01:29, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Clans

Dave - I notice you resurrected the shorter list of clans at the foot of the large table. I had deleted this and incorporated most - if not all - of the clan names in the main chart.

I just thought it looked a bit silly, as an anonymous contributor had done such a good job on the table - any reason for reviving the shorter list? Cheers, Bruce, aka Agendum | Talk 16:32, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation - it was just that I wasn't sure if someone had added the list back in deliberately, or not.

Your mention of a Borders family brings me to the question of what we do about Lowlands and Borders families in general. I have long held that these are very different from clans (and don't claim to be so), but have long and distinguished histories of their own. Names like, Black, Scott, Elliot, Bell, Muir, etc, etc. There are many lists - some of the names appear on websites about the Reivers - although there are many who were further north than the Borders. I tend to think that these families possibly merit their own chart, similar to the Scottish Clans one - although there are fewer details (no clan chief, although some have coats of arms or badges, and/or mottoes).

I think I'll suggest this on the Clans Talk page and see what the reaction of others is.... Bruce, aka Agendum | Talk 13:33, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I have to confess that I'm afraid that Wallace and Gromit was my little joke!

I've made a start on writing the short article about Lowland families -- but, inevitably, I'm almost immediately coming up against the fact that there's some overlap with the list on the Scottish clan page. I still maintain that there is a big difference between the two -- ie, clans and families -- and that some entries on that chart should (more properly) be included amongst Lowland families. Conversely, there are many smaller families who would never ever claim to be a clan. I guess we'll have to see what happens. I'll give you a shout when the page is up and running -- and then wait for it to be torn to shreds :-) Bruce, aka Agendum | Talk 00:31, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Doune Castle photo

Dave, do you perchance have a photo of the outside of Doune Castle (other than the nice courtyard one you have there already)? It would be nice to show the castle in context. - Middenface

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

English Civil War

Please see Talk:English Civil War#Dates Philip Baird Shearer 18:36, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Kilts, again

Dave, could you take a look at the "underwear" edits to the kilt article. I'm not happy with them but perhaps it's just me so I'd appreciate your thoughts. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:00, 2005 Jan 12 (UTC)

Williamite war in Ireland

Just to say how much I liked this when I found it as a random page. It is knowledgable, easy to read and pleasantly neutral on such a controversial topic. --Theo (Talk) 15:01, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Evolutionary creationism

Dave, I really like your edits on Evolutionary creationism. Thanks! --G Rutter 19:30, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouragement: it felt a bit like poking a stick into an ants' nest, but there's not been the anticipated reaction so far... still think two articles would be better, but nearly all of the info would go under "Theistic evolution"...dave souza 19:54, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I still think that one page is best, but anyway, your edits are definitely making it better- and I like the Progressive Creationism article you did as well. --G Rutter 13:22, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've just realised that there's also an article at Progressive creationism! Unfortunately, that's probably where it should be. The best thing to do would be to merge the stuff into one article at Progressive creationism and then create a redirect to it from Progressive Creationism. Ho hum. I thought it'd be polite to let you know, rather than do it myself. --G Rutter 13:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My typo! - now merged into Progressive creationism and redirected ..dave souza 19:09, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Looks really good now. --G Rutter 20:44, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

From Arnold Perey

Dear Dave Souza -- I think the quote you found, since you've got the exact source, would be the one to use. It means the same as the quote I used. I don't have my copy of the Voyage of the Beagle, and don't have the exact reference. So why don't we use your quote? As long as we have this wonderful sentence, where it dawns on Darwin that he may be looking at an actual instance of biological evolution, the purpose of the quote is served.

Thank you so much for your care about this.

--Aperey 21:49, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Link in "Visit of King George IV to Scotland" article

Dave, I replaced the link to Historical Development of the Kilt with another one (to an article on the Scottish Tartans Museum site). When I visited the former page, I got a drop down "request" to register. When I clicked "cancel", it came back. Continued clicking of "cancel" did not help. And I couldn't quit the page, go to Google, or quit Safari browser. It was like a mouse trap.

JFPerry 04:05, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the link, sorry you had that trouble: when I found the link originally it didn't give any problem in Safari, but it does now. Having tried the link (then gone offline), the repeating can be stopped by typing Command-. (Apple key then full stop key) a few times, but that's still very unsatisfactory. Have a few updates to the page in hand, hope to edit the page shortly, dave souza 04:52, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Category:UK Wikipedians

Hi, just to let you know that the list of UK participants at the UK notice board was getting rather long, so I have replaced it with the above category which I have added to your user page. -- Francs2000 | Talk 30 June 2005 19:11 (UTC)

Thanks re Darwins illness

Dear Dave souza,

Thank you for your keep vote in the "Darwin's illness" area of Wikipedia. It is appreciated. I did a lot of hard work.

Sincerely,

7/25/2005 kdbuffalo

Machair

I've just replied (rather belatedly!) to your query at Talk:Calcareous grassland - MPF 23:20, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Descent of Man

I stumbled on a page titled "Descendent of Man" in the Wikibooks category science. I thought the title was incorrect, verified, and corrected it. Then I found the "Descent of Man" online as a part of the Bank of Wisdom. I started reading it and decided to add to the page in the wikibooks with my own summaries. I had added summaries on the introduction and the first two chapters of the "Descent of Man". Then I looked up Darwin in the Wikipedia and found your excellent contributions. Now I don't know whether I should continue with what I'm doing. I don't know if I can link my work with the wikipedia. I don't think it's on a bookshelf but can be found by clicking on category and then science, biology. Please advise.

User:M.Parshall 15:19, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

God Save the Queen

Dave, on 18 Sept 2004 you made an addition to God Save the Queen, adding a sixth verse that begins George is magnanimous....

That verse is missing what should be its sixth phrase (I've since added a metrical filler line as a placeholder). Do you think you could find again your original source and then fill in the gap, so that the lyric will be accurate? --StanZegel 05:38, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Parliaments

Dave, you've done your usual great job on the Parliaments. I couldn't really see any changes that I wanted to make. Cheers -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:16, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Administrator

You know, Dave, you are the sort of straightforward, trustworthy editor that would make a good administrator and I'd like to nominate you. You've been editing long enough that you know the ropes and that you've demonstrated your commitment to the project. However I know that not everyone wants to do it, so I thought I'd ask first how you feel about it. So what do you say ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:44, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, Dave, I've nominated you on WP:RfA. You just need to go to your entry and edit it to indicate acceptance and to answer the "interview questions". Good luck! -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:21, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Darwin's theory of sexual selection

Dave—Pursuant to our brief discussion of natural and sexual selection, I've taken the liberty of pasting in a precis of a relevant chapter of Geoffrey Miller's The Mating Mind", Random House, 2000. You can find the full precis at http://www.cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy?12.008

I'll quite understand if you wish to remove this paste-in from your page; it's rather large.

II. CHAPTER 2: DARWIN'S PRODIGY.

8. This chapter reviews the peculiar history of Darwin's theory of sexual selection through mate choice, tracing its rejection by Victorian biologists, its neglect for over a century, and its dramatic revival in the last couple of decades (also see Cronin, 1991).

9. Charles Darwin, like his grandfather Erasmus, recognized that sexual reproduction was central to evolution. His theory of sexual selection was developed not so much to explain sex differences, but to account for complex ornaments that seem useless for survival, and therefore inexplicable through natural selection. He suggested that if animals of a species came to prefer a particular trait when choosing sexual partners, that trait would tend to grow in size, complexity, and quality over evolutionary time, even if the trait had high costs in every other domain of evolutionary competition.

10. Darwin (1871) had a sophisticated view of the psychology of mate choice. He emphasized that even relatively simple nervous systems (e.g. insects, fish, frogs) suffice for mate choice -- but that the more complex an animal's brain, the more intelligent its mate choice could be. As mental complexity increased, the discriminatory power of mate choice would increase, so sexual selection would command ever greater importance in evolution, reaching its zenith in human evolution. DARWIN noted "He who admits the principle of sexual selection will be led to the remarkable conclusion that the cerebral system not only regulates most of the existing functions of the body, but has indirectly influenced the progressive development [i.e. evolution] of various bodily structures and of certain mental qualities." He did not attempt a one-way reduction of psychology to biology, but saw psychology as a driving force in biological evolution.

11. Whereas Darwin's natural selection theory was widely accepted, his idea of sexual selection through mate choice was almost universally rejected by Victorian biologists. Alfred Wallace was a leading critic, suggesting that most male ornamentation was a developmental side-effect of greater male energy and physiological exuberance. Wallace's objections led mate choice theory to be viewed for the next hundred years as Darwin's most embarrassing blunder. This sceptical view of mate choice was reinforced by leading biologists of the early 20th century, including Thomas Hunt Morgan, Julian Huxley, J.B.S. Haldane, and Ernst Mayr. They combined a group-selectionist, good-of-the-species abhorrence of survival-reducing ornamentation with a Modernist machine aesthetic (derived from the Bauhaus and other puritanical sects of socialism), which viewed ornamentation as morally decadent, economically oppressive, and tasteless.

12. As a result, almost all of 20th century psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, and the humanities developed without recognizing any role for mate choice in human mental evolution. Instead, Freud's paleolithic fantasies dominated views of prehistoric sexuality, and his theory of excess libido being sublimated into artistic creativity echoed Wallace's surplus-energy arguments for ornamentation. This bias against mate choice theory began to erode only in the 1970s, leading to a runaway revival of mate choice theory in evolutionary biology, to the point that animal behavior journals are now dominated by experiments on mate choice and sexual competition. Yet this revival has gone largely unnoticed in mainstream psychology, neuroscience, and the social sciences, which still view 'survival of the fittest' as evolution's bottom line, and which therefore have trouble seeing any evolutionary rationale for those aspects of human nature most concerned with self-ornamentation, display, status, ideology, fashion, and aesthetics.

Tony 12:32, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

It's a different mechanism from that of natural selection. There are two mechanisms in Darwin's theory of evolution. Tony 01:09, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Darwin's Nationality

Hello, you reverted mention of Darwin's nationality with the note: rv english nationalism: this was considered earlier. I don't mind if it has been decided that Darwin was British and not English, but can you point me to where this talk took place? Thanks. Oswax 22:25, 12 September 2005 (UTC)