User talk:MarcusBritish/Archive 6

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Dolovis

That went well. Thanks for trying. I must admit, I don't understand why it is such a big deal not to have diacritics (I can understand it the other way more - if you're Croatian or something you'd probably prefer your name spelled how it is on your birth certificate). As long as I can search for the name without the diacritics (it's a pain in the bum using special characters on a Blackberry), it's all good as far as I can see. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:14, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, as a Brit I'm only familiar with French diacritics and a few German words. I imagine some Americans encounter a few from Spanish lessons. When you're learning to read, write and speak a language it's all part of the parcel. But when you only know English and are searching for someone on an encyclopedia whose name you've only heard, you don't expect to have to know what diacritics their name includes to find their page. If it looks like a "e" then "é", "è", "ê", "ë", or "ē" would be a lot to work through if Wiki didn't offer a plain text method.. and that's just one letter, and not only vowels have them. I am very surprised that the earlier RFC was a no consensus to actually do something to reform the MOS and make such characters more accessible, to prevent such issues. Dolovis thinks he's right, because the MOS is too vague to give us any reason to question his interpretation. Which only leaves us to question the breach of his topic ban, which he feels was unjust and some kind of conspiracy in the first place. Can't work with someone who can't see reason, or be more open minded. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish ^{[Chat • RFF]} 22:27, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Classic wikifudge - leaving things as "no consensus". What do they think is going to happen. Don't you just love this place. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:37, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

No consensus' are useless. We know there's a loophole, we know some editors will exploit such loopholes. We know that they can wikilawyer their way out of being banned because of the loophole being Wiki's fault, not theirs. And we know that closing those loopholes would save time, reduce the wikidrama, free resources on ANI, RFC, etc, and let everyone do what we all really only want to do: write encyclopedic content. And yet the loopholes remain, red tape slows everything down daily, and people often have too much pride, bias, COI or lack of conviction to do anything objective to reduce the need for bureaucracy. Yup, I love it! Ma®©usBritish ^{[Chat • RFF]} 22:46, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, my position on dios, is based on the fact that this is English Wikipedia & not Multiple language Wikipedia. However, the argument over there usage, always ends in a rough 50/50 split. PS: I've my own theory behind the push/mainetaining of dios (a theory shared by Jimbo Wales), but I won't be repeating it on main-space. GoodDay (talk) 22:45, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Diacritics aren't foreign. In fact, many English words used to use them. We've simply lost them over time, along with many other things and ways of writing. Read Chaucer. Read Phonological history of English or Great Vowel Shift. Jimbo Wales isn't the authority on what makes good English. Modern English is a shadow of what it once was, in fact. Because modern society sucks. Ma®©usBritish ^{[Chat • RFF]} 22:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Images ??

Hi I seem to remember you doing some work with images in the recent past. This image File:HMS Queen Elizabeth class port.png, on the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier has been tagged that it should be "replaced with a smaller version" Not being at all technical in that respect I don't know where to start, can you do this ? or point me in the right direction for someone else. P.S. there are two other images the same size and from the same source used, while they have not been tagged as above, no doubt they will be at some stage. Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:25, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, yes, I happened to read something about this within the last day or two, on Commons if I recall, but typically can't find it again. It said something along the lines of.. non-free images need to be smaller than 300px wide, making them <0.1 megapixels, and therefore acceptable as low-quality fair-use non-free images. I can easily reduce the size of the image, if you wish? Ma®©usBritish ^{[Chat • RFF]} 09:37, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Non-free content#Image resolution – not what I read before, but same idea. Ma®©usBritish ^{[Chat • RFF]} 09:45, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes thanks that would be great. Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:46, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Before I do.. how come the infobox pic File:QE class carrier.jpg has managed to survive since July 2011. Looks similar to yours, but has a non-free rationale. If you added the same rationale, would that work, rather than me making them low-quality? Ma®©usBritish ^{[Chat • RFF]} 09:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Good question I originally uploaded that one as well, they all use the same license / rational so it must have just slipped through the system. I have changed the licenses to match that version [{Non-free promotional|image_has_rationale=yes|image_is_of_living_person=no}] Jim Sweeney (talk) 10:09, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Do I still need to reduce the size? With the "replace with smaller" template still up it's at risk of being deleted if the rationale isn;t enough to satisfy fair-use. I don't follow all these different copyright laws and finicky requirements, they get on my nerves.. no one's going to lose out from it being 800px (0.5MP) or 300px (0.09MP), imo. A photo needs to be like 10MP or more to be of serious commercial value. Ma®©usBritish ^{[Chat • RFF]} 10:22, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes please, as you say its in danger of being deleted, better safe than sorry. Jim Sweeney (talk) 10:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, done all 3. Trimmed off some white edges, auto-toned, resized to 350px width making each <0.1MP. Tagged as reduced.

• File:HMS Quen Elizabeth class carrier starboard.png
• File:HMS Queen Elizabeth class port.png
• File:QE class carrier.jpg

Cheers, Ma®©usBritish ^{[Chat • RFF]} 10:46, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

They look great thanks.Jim Sweeney (talk) 11:08, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Sheodred and their acquaintances

Resolved

Hello Marcus--an old nemesis of yours is gone. You may also be interested in this, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Chairvoyance_breaking_3RR_.28possible_sock_also.29, and this, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/PowerSane. Drmies (talk) 18:08, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Cheers, yes I was watching the drama from the mid-row this time.. front-row seats were getting a little messy. Was watching him dig and bite across a few areas and back to old tricks, so not surprised that it ended this way, just didn't expect it so fast. No idea who the socks are related to, never heard of any of them, but good to know that they've been swept up. Best, Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 18:22, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, EdJohnston doesn't fuck around, methinks. ;) Drmies (talk) 18:27, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

My hero! Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 18:31, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

AWB

Hi. Your request has been approved and listed. If the bot has not enabled your account in a day or two please let me know on my talk page. Please read the instructions carefully and use the tool wisely. Happy editing! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Alright, thanks! Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 12:42, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

"...nor to any other admin uninvolved with the case..."

Well, that seems to leave out Favonian, as you can see here, and it leaves me out too: Favonian beat me to it by seconds. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Lol, you lot are like buses.. when you need one it's always late, then two come at once! Thanks for the update! Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 16:29, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

List of American Civil War battles

Thanks for fixing the assessment at List of American Civil War battles. I was wondering why, after I had changed it to class=list back in November, it had no apparent affect. I thought it might have something to do with WT:WikiProject Military history/Strategy/Archive 3#List-Class or something and just hadn't been finished yet. Mojoworker (talk) 18:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

No worries, been updating several MILHIST banners in much the same way. It's usually the list=yes parameter that people are not realising needs adding also when they try to apply the class. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 18:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Military Historian of the Year

Nominations for the "Military Historian of the Year" for 2011 are now open. If you would like to nominate an editor for this award, please do so here. Voting will open on 22 January and run for seven days. Thanks! On behalf of the coordinators, Nick-D (talk) and Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 23:44, 15 January 2012 (UTC) You were sent this message because you are a listed as a member of the Military history WikiProject.

Well said

[1] ;) EyeSerene^talk 11:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. And good to see you back after a long time away.. real work kept you busy, no doubt! Bugger having to earn a living to pay those bills, eh! Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 18:28, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed :) EyeSerene^talk 10:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Compendiums

Today I received the Compendiums. It took 32 days to come from Ohio, USA. Most of all, they came this morning when Wikipedia had been "Blacked Out" and I couldn't look anything up until the last 30 minutes. I do appreciate the work you've done to get the article's together in one place on your Userpage and to take the time to do it. I'll keep in touch with you about these articles. Adamdaley (talk) 05:33, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Cool. I'm in touch with a guy from Amazon regarding my copies, also. I ordered them on 21 Dec but Amazon didn't notify him.. or it wen into his spam box.. but when he finally got a further message from Amazon that the order would be cancelled on 20 Jan if he didn't confirm it he contacted me yesterday. I'll confirm still wanting it with him today, and hopefully have them within a few days! Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 05:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	This is awarded to you for the hard work you've done for listing the different militia for ACW for me to improve them by the reference/source from Frederick H. Dyer. Adamdaley (talk) 05:37, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, appreciate it. Hopefully we'll both be able to work towards getting them nicely organised, progressively over the year.. as there are a lot! Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 05:40, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

American Civil War: Union Flag

Who would I talk to in designing a Union Flag for use during the American Civil War? I've decided to just use the current United States flag for their country. I feel this is really needed. Adamdaley (talk) 09:08, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the current flag is a good one to use, given that it has 50 stars for 50 states and there were only 33–36 during the Civil War years. Also, the current flag represents the entirety of the USA including the Southern States, so may be seen as a modern Union POV. I think it would be better to determine when each regiment was formed, and using the table I've compiled below use the first flag they would have carried. That represents a much better contemporary POV, in my opinion, and would also stop all 700 articles looking a little too monotonous with the same flag in each one. Use of one of the historic US flags would carry more weight and feel "right". Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 15:41, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Dates in use	States	Design(s)	Duration
July 4, 1859 – July 3, 1861 War started: April 12, 1861	33		2 years (24 months)
July 4, 1861 – July 3, 1863	34		2 years (24 months)
July 4, 1863 – July 3, 1865 War ended: April 9, 1865	35		2 years (24 months)

I've started on the 2nd Colorado Cavalry which is the first one on the list of your table. Currently it is on my subpage as a draft. User:Adamdaley/draft ... While it is far from complete. It is the summary of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry from the book, while it while change and it gives you an idea of what it looks like with sections. Adamdaley (talk) 16:11, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, that's great, just needs the text formatting and MOS applying. Any references to Dyer's Compendium should probably also note which volume of the three any info is from, rather than just a page number. I'll also put a handy link here to: Template:Country data USA which links to all the State flags, also. Will be necessary to check the "variations" sections for each when creating a regiment's infobox, just incase the state flag was a different design at the time, to the current ones, and has been given an appropriate flagicon. The more accurate the data we now, the more stable they will all be in the long run. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 17:47, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, the above link is a good idea. It'll be good for me to use for other articles as well so it's on my watchlist. The Volume #, I have put the Volume # and then the page. The above article 2nd Colorado Cavalry will probably take me a little while, I'm currently adding killed/wounded/captured or missing to certain places. Then I'll worry about the article Sections and totally re-write it. Adamdaley (talk) 18:10, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher ..... GAN Review

Article: Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher.

I am seeking a third opinion on the above article to see what is wrong with it not to become a GAN article. I have also asked AustralianRupert to have his say on what's wrong with the article. As you can see I have started the GAN re-write, unfortunately, I am not pleased with how limited Sp33dyphil's knowledge of some of the information. While he does have alot of knowledge of Military History, it just so happens not in this case (this article: Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher). I have reverted back to the previous editor. Could you read it and write what is wrong with it on the GAN Review so it can be archived? It would be appreciated. Adamdaley (talk) 14:49, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, sorry I'm a bit confused by your request. Are you simply wanting another GA reviewer of the article? I don't understand what you mean by "write what is wrong with it", as opposed to something less ambiguous like "tell me how it could be improved". Although I should note, if Sp33dyphil lacks knowledge in this area, I'm probably not a better choice either, as I know nothing about what I assume is someone involved in the Cold War? It's an area of history I know very little, almost nothing, about.. I'm mainly into Napoleonic, American Civil War, and similar "battlefield active" periods rather than modern or political conflicts since the end of WWII. If you need knowledge for the GAN, I'm afraid I have none to offer. If you need MOS spotchecks, copy-editing and such, it would be the best I could do. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 19:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: User:Oucanto

Hello MarcusBritish. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of User:Oucanto, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: no reason to speedy this - if you think it should be deleted, take it to MfD, but it seems to me well within WP:UPYES. Thank you. JohnCD (talk) 20:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

File:ElectoralCollege1804.svg

Thanks for your assistance! ThemFromSpace 21:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

No worries. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 04:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Dyer's Compendium

Yes you are right. I made an error in the Library of Congress Catalog Card Number. © 1959 by Sagamore Press, Inc. Thomas Yoseloff the publisher. I feel that the majority should be "Stub" and "Start" in the current structure and it's contents. The 2nd Colorado Cavalry Regiment, I have the page numbers for information on it but some battles or engagements are not aligned with the dates and places of the Battle's it was involved in (listed in the article) so I have some concerns. Adamdaley (talk) 13:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll have to figure out how they work. From what I gather, there is a need to cross-reference, so vol 3 gives each regimental background, and details battles, which can be confirmed by checking the battles listed in vol 2 for participating regiments. The info in vol 1 appears to be abbreviated forms of the info given in vol 3 entries, excluding engagements, so I'm not sure I see practical use for it on Wiki, as it's too brief. There is going to be quite a lot of input required, per article, to interpret the data and to format it for Wiki readers to understand. Once we get the ball rolling, it should be straight forward going, though tedious and repetitive work, hence why I intend to pace it out. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 13:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I've added the 2nd Colorado Cavalry Regiment to my subpage at User:Adamdaley/Draft of Article 1, so we can edit it there. I did start to write it out and make sense of the "SERVICE", while the dates/locations/battles etc were not adding up. I know it seems impossible task for so many articles, while I'm positive we can do it. Adamdaley (talk) 15:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

When you pointed out the image of him in the Compendium, I looked at it. It's a shame that his right side of his face hasn't got much light on it. It's probably the best image we would have of him, unless one surfaced somewhere. If you want an extra set of eyes for the article of Dyer, just ask. Adamdaley (talk) 07:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Cheers, I'm developing it at MarcusBritish/Sandbox/Frederick H. Dyer, shouldn't take long. couple of days, tops, as there isn't going to be a lot to say about him, but hopefully enough of notable value and to produce a GA quality article. Yeah, the photo does have bad lighting, and cameras at the time weren't great at handling extreme contrasts. Fortunately, I was able to enhance the quality a little, with a bit of patience and Photoshop witch-craft. I don't think there are any other photos of him as I can't even find this one on Google, which suggests that there probably aren't any others. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 08:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I can sort of make out words and years. While I think it would better if I looked at it tomorrow since it's night time now. Also, it is a amazing how I've been to Des Moine, Iowa as well. Also, you may like to know that if Dyer was a drummer boy, he was only one of three with the Second Colorado Cavalry. That's if he was with the 2nd Colorado Cavalry Regiment. Adamdaley (talk) 10:02, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

He was in the 7th Connecticut Infantry, not a Colorado or cavalry regiment. Not sure how a drummer boy drums whilst riding a horse.. lol, could be tricky! Usually cavalry have a bugler, for a musician. Drummers are supposed to beat a march for the troops. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 10:11, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

With the current article and I'll probably do the same with the rest I do ... I'll be going for a "B-class". With my experience with the only GAN article I've done which is on my Userpage, I'm not really going to go through that again. "B-class" will be good enough for me. Adamdaley (talk) 06:25, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, why's that? I find GA relatively easy to achieve.. and A-class is about GA level, imo. It's FA I can't be arsed with, though, the review process looks way too involved and aggressive for my liking. B-class is sometimes too easy, I think. Just need to add more details, more refs and cover the MOS thoroughly, and A-class is in the hat. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 07:10, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I feel the "Denver City Home Guard" is going to either be a Stub or Start. Not much information but I'll try my best to get it to Start class. Already have got the infobox done, references, biblography etc done. Really I got up out of bed to do it because I knew it was going to be a small article. Give me a few days, I'll see how much I can expand on it, because right now, it's 2:23 am Friday morning, while my mother thinks I'm crazy looking through the Compendiums at this time of night. Adamdaley (talk) 15:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Bless your mother.. she's but right! ..just kidding, I read anytime, myself, day or night. Usually night. I think there's a lot of interesting things to read in the Compendiums. Not so much on the history of the war itself, but about Union involvement.. definitely. I was looking through the maps/photos section earlier. A magnifying glass comes in handy for most of those maps, they are surprisingly well detailed, but very small print. If you meant to know the history, causes and background of the war, out of personal interest, let me know, will be glad to recommend a good book or two that gives an overall general history, as in terms of military history, it is a really great period war to study.. and there are no clear-cut "good guys" and "bad guys" like, say WWII. The Confederacy was by no means made up of racist, cruel, power-hungry men, and it is easy to sympathise with them, which I enjoy reading about battles and not wishing the Union would always win, there's a lot of tradition, character and honest good men fighting on both sides worth knowing about and respecting.

On an side-note, I've ordered that set of photographic history books.. am awaiting dispatch and delivery, so I'll probably get them sometime next week. They weight 11kg! Think I need another book shelf! Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 20:41, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I need a bookcase. I used to have one but that was before we did renovations to the house about 3 years ago. Now all of my books are on the floor in piles carefully looked after. Most of them are in excellent condition, the odd old ones have been neglected prior to me buying them from online or from a second-hand bookstore in the city which I have two books from 1949 and 1954. Other than that if they are brand new, they are well looked after. Adamdaley (talk) 02:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, you may find one at the local furniture or catalogue shop, cheap DIY efforts only take 10 mins to put together. I have three 6 by 3 foot book shelves full at the moment, and a half width/height beside the sofa which I use for "current" work.. but it's proving too small. Thinking of get another half height, full width one just for all my Napoleonic/ACW material. I have a few old books, and some collectible ones, and some 1st editions by a famous author (Ian Fleming) worth a lot which are wrapped up and boxed to prevent light and dust damage. Many of my old fiction books, which I don't read anymore and have had since I was a teen, I might try to sell to free up some space for new material. If only I could be bothered to check and detail them, that is... Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 02:52, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Files with unknown sources

Resolved

Hi MarcusBritish. Could you please address the files listed in Category:Wikipedia files with unknown source as of 19 January 2012 by adding the necessary details to the images' pages? Thanks, Eagles 24/7 (C) 02:59, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done — Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 03:41, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations

		The WikiChevrons
		Congratulations for being nominated as one of the military historians of the year for 2011 in recognition of your success in coming back from a shaky introduction to the project and rapidly progressing to become a valuable and consistently helpful editor, both within Milhist and Wikipedia as a whole. I am pleased to award you the WikiChevrons in recognition of this achievement. For the Coordinators, Nick-D (talk) 03:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Cheers, Nick! Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 03:36, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Other maps

Resolved

Hello can you vectorize these as well: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_war_in_Yugoslavia,_1992.png http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_war_in_Yugoslavia,_1993.png thanks Drax90 (talk) 17:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

That depends – some thanks for the first one wouldn't go amiss, before requesting more. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 17:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

2nd Colorado Cavalry Regiment

I was wondering if you would have a look at what I've done so far with the article. I realise I've typed the information from the book. While I am trying to ascertain, link and cross-link the dates, locations, battles, etc first then expand it further after that. It's located on my subpage: 2nd Colorado Cavalry Regiment. Adamdaley (talk) 12:57, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Sure, if I can make a few comments:

• Volumes need to be in I, II, III Roman numerals format.
• We need to make the references to Dyer's Compendium uniform throughout the 700+ articles. I recommend we both use this fixed {{cite book}} template, also including the |lccn=59-12963 due to the lack of an ISBN is a bonus:

*{{cite book|last=Dyer|first=Fredrick H.|title=A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion|year=1959|origyear=First published 1908|publisher=Sagamore Press; Thomas Yoseloff|location=New York|lccn=59-12963}}

This should produce:

• Dyer, Fredrick H. (1959) [First published 1908]. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. New York: Sagamore Press; Thomas Yoseloff. LCCN 59-12963.

• We also need to try to match categories, etc per article. I think we should put {{Union Army Formations}} in the footer of each:

I think linking to the ACW portal and native state portal per article is okay. Am not sure why you have linked to 3 state portals? I think just the one the regiment is from should be enough. If {{portal}} needs to be placed in the See also section, I'm sure with a topic this big we can find at least 2 or 3 links per article so the portal box doesn't look odd under an empty heading.

• I was trying to figure a way on lightly using some American Civil War Corps Badges for icons, as in vol I, page 270 onwards details each regiments corps and division, though in many cases they move about, and we don't want each article looking like a ships mast.
• Where you have the Colorado flag in the image section, I think we should aim to find a proper contemporary Civil War photograph, preferably of the regiment, or one of its companies or battalions, as they carry more weight, especially for this war.

Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 15:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The Colorado flag in the Infobox, is only an example of an image being there. I tried my best to look through the ACW images on Commons to find a suitable image related to the Regiment, but unfortunately, I couldn't find one. Maybe you could? As for the foot banner I've added it and I will change Volume 2 to the Roman numerals. The reason why I'm doing the sources, referencing, notes, etc for the locations, skirmishes, battles, etc is to help both of us to verify an inconsistancies and to make sure we have a reliable source at the same time. Feel free to leave a message for me about the article and any suggestions you have I'm willing to consider them. We are both working together on these articles. Adamdaley (talk) 01:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

The Amazon seller who sold me his copy of Dyer's Compendium has another set, called Photographic History of the Civil War. It's a 1997 5-volume reprint of a 10-volume series from 1911, and each volume, in the new series (2-volumes per book), has ~750 pages of photos by top civil war photographers, such as Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner. (Volumes: 12345) There is a low-resolution version of the 10-volume original here: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/other/abl/etext/civilwar/toc.html, although the scans there are way too low-quality to use on Wiki, but from the books themselves with a high-res scan, should be decent. All photos are, as you'll be aware, public domain now. I'm considering buying the set off him. Won't be cheap.. about as much as the Dyer's set, but we're talking ~3,700 pages worth of contemporary images here. Plus I have a few more books of photos to choose from. Think I should get this set, and as we update the articles, I could search for a related image to scan and upload, for each one? Bear in mind, the Library of Congress has a database of thousands of civil war photos also, including Brady's, at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwphome.html, many were used in the 10-volume series. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 02:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I could do the scans pretty well in high quality. Unfortunately I would have to get the correct books, and I'm waiting on some books and low on money. Adamdaley (talk) 03:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

No worries, I don't mind, I have a decent Epson scanner and can Photoshop them to improve quality, if necessary, prior to upload. Am waiting for the seller to get back in touch with me. From what I'm told he used to collect Confederate weapons, as some of the books he has on sale are on Confederate firearms, sabres and belt buckles, which he got in the US. Nice, but far too specialised for my liking; great for re-enactors/collectors, though. Photos are a different matter, as they can be put to wider use, and I love photography. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 03:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

The other book in the 2nd Cavalry Regiment Colorado, I have received today "Three Years and a Half in the Army - OR - History of the Second Colorados" by Ellen Williams. I can only find the ISBN for it, not a year that it was printed. The online bookstore states it was 3rd June 2010. Adamdaley (talk) 23:57, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

What's the ISBN, and who is the publisher? Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 00:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

ISBN 978-1-4460-0842-3 by Ellen Williams. On the website it says the Publisher is Thorndike PR (184 pages; paperback). Brown coloured cover. Adamdaley (talk) 00:13, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I see it. Both Amazon UK [2] and Barnes and Noble [3] support 3 June 2010 publication date, although both also say the publisher was "Read Books". Thorndike PR's website claims they are publishers of Large Print books [4]. So unless your copy is large print, I'd guess it's probably a "Read Book" edition. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 00:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Or ISBN 1-4460-0842-8. Adamdaley (talk) 00:22, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, that's the same "Read Books" edition also, just ISBN-10. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 00:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

What information do I put for the book on the article? Adamdaley (talk) 01:13, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean? Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 01:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Non-free files in your user space

Hey there MarcusBritish, thank you for your contributions! I am a bot, alerting you that non-free files are not allowed in user or talk space. I removed some files I found on User:MarcusBritish/Sandbox/Frederick H. Dyer.

• See a log of files removed today here.
• Shut off the bot here.
• Report errors here.
• If you have any questions, place a {{helpme}} template, along with your question, beneath this message.

Thank you, -- DASHBot (talk) 05:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

{{helpme}} See bot notification above. I took this photo of a set of books published in 1959 (note they have no "cover" design as such, and are simply plain leather), but I listed the photo under {{Non-free book cover}} just to be safe. Given that these are new editions, and that the orignal publication of the books were back in 1908, and are now public domain, does this 1959 edition qualify for any copyright? Before anyone asks, why don't I just use a photo of the 1908 version: because I don't have the 1908 version to hand, and doubt I could afford them, they will be a rare collector's item now, and not bought to sit and flick through for Wiki. That aside, anyone with clearer understanding of book cover copyright law, in relation to new editions, a confirmation of where I stand would be appreciated: public domain or non-free until 2029 for this edition by the publisher? I'm aware the textual content is deemed public domain, so this refers purely to the cover pictured. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 05:33, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I think a relevant question is whether the cover art seen in the photograph (actually I'm not sure it is cover art per se; it may have been created just for use on the book box, but I digress) was also on the original or is only for this reprint. Anyway, I have no definitive answer for you but what I suggest is that you ask at a dedicated forum for these types of questions. See Wikipedia:Media copyright questions.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:12, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. The covers have no design - just plain red. The publisher's logo (of a house) is really the only thing we can see on the bookss themselves. That design on the case is also just a big wrap-around sticker, with a synopsis on the rear panel, but I'm not even sure if it is considered a "cover" or a label. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 15:13, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Medal bars and styles

FYI There was a mention of Arms, titles, honours and styles of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Medal bars and styles. -- PBS (talk) 07:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Phil, I don't think the article is under threat, it just seems a couple of editors are taking it slightly out of context and trying to compare modern (WWI onwards) decorations to those of 200 years ago.. I've put a comment, though I don't think Wellington's titles bear relation to the matter of using all these medal bars and ribbons on serviceman articles. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 09:13, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Map Lab

Wanted to say a quick thank you for taking on requests over at the map lab. It is much appreciated. Kmusser (talk) 14:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

No worries.. I'm just lurking and picking up simple requests and hoping someone will look into my request before I lose interest in its necessity. Doesn't appear to enough QGis mappers on the scene, sadly. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 14:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, we've always had a chronic shortage of cartographers. I used to do a bunch of them, but the day job has been keeping me busy. Kmusser (talk) 14:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

As a P.S., if no one takes your request you may want to venture over to the French wikipedia's map lab, most of that style has come out of their efforts. Kmusser (talk) 14:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh okay, cheers. Though, wouldn't they expect me to use French on fr:wiki, as we expect people to use English here to make the requests understandable to everyone, or is there no formality? Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 15:00, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Probably, you might need the help of a French user, but I just saw that you asked NordNordWest directly which is better yet, between him and Sting they should be able to help you out. Kmusser (talk) 22:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I took another look, I uploaded a cropped version of the Italy map to File:North Italy relief location map.png, which is probably what you already had. Using SRTM30 in QGIS really isn't going to get you anything better than that. For higher resolution you would need to go to the SRTM3 which would be a major undertaking as you'd need to download and stitch together 50-some files to cover that area. Kmusser (talk) 21:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I produced something similar to that myself, using ENTOP1 if I recall. I did also try SRTM3, testing out with about 8 files placed contiguous to each other, but even with them I couldn't seem to get high detail, or depth like File:Relief Map of Spain.png has. I'm needing an SVG so that I can enlarge areas of Northern Italy, as I need to create a series of maps on Napoleon's campaigns there, but sometimes focused on maybe 10sq miles, without pixelation. The PNG you have there is great for showing the full region in the lower corner and placing a box in to show an area being viewed in main frame, but too big to fit all the military positions and labels on in small areas round Lake Guarda, Mantua, etc. An SVG with high detail of terrain, and scalability, would be perfect. If I could figure out what I was doing wrong in QGis I would have gladly produced my own, but I lost patience with the software, due to lack of clear tutorials, and eventually uninstalled it. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 00:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I should add that I don't think the depth comes direct from the files, but by adding shaded relief through some function of the software, or via plugins. Couldn't get it to work for me though. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 00:32, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Have reinstalled QGis and played about with it... figured out how to use ETOPO1 as a base, for sea water (oddly, doesn't pixelate) with SRTM3 as land – with colormap set to "linear" rather than "discrete" interpolation, it gives smoother landmasses. So that's that figured. Need to figure out where to get lakes to show, as they are displayed green, rather than blue, in SRTM 3. Then shade relief. And I think I'll be happy, then. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 10:24, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Nice, congrats on getting it to work. For lakes you may need to lay them on top as a separate layer, I've used Natural Earth http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/ for that sort of thing, they should have any supplementary layers that you might need (they have shaded relief too, but it's not as detailed as the SRTM3). Kmusser (talk) 12:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, I've been trying the downloads from that site, but when applied they appear weird.. like, green rivers, or dark blue lakes. I figure I have to theme them once layered. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 12:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Feedback solicited

In response to a comment you left on this thread, I wrote a draft "How to write a good battle article" essay here. Perhaps you can tell me if you think it's the sort of thing you think might be useful. Magic♪piano 02:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. The "Basic article organization" section is the base of idea of what I have in mind, but is more generalised. What I really would like to see is a "how to write a battle report". I have been writing small "overviews" of battles/campaigns.. but it is easy enough for someone to write, for example, "at the battle of Waterloo, the British army fought Napoleon, holding back his attacks until the Prussians arrived in the evening and helped sweep the French from the field and securing an Allied victory". And I suppose it's easy enough to take a battle such as Waterloo, and write about key moments in breakdown format, by noting the time, and the action.. i.e. artillery bombardment, advance on Hougoumont, attack of the British cavalry, attack of Ney's cavalry against infantry squares, fall of La Haye Sainte, advance of the Guard, arrival or the Prussians.. with mentions of commanders, perhaps at a corps/division scale. What I really want is to know how to address writing a battle including battalions, regiments, companies, etc.. but the style, language, ways to express the action clearly, but without it sounding glorified, gung ho, patriotic, or fictional; like something from Sharpe or Hornblower novel. Obviously battles need to written objectively, without over-doing the POV of either side, or involving nationalistic sentiments for the victors or defeated. So I suppose it's not actually how to write an article, but how to address the content and context, and manage the prose in a neutral way, but maintain interest by relaying the sense of urgency and courage in battle, which is always going to be the case, but must be done carefully. What words to avoid, what phrases to use that work well, and which don't.. e.g you wouldn't put "the British fired their rounds then charged in with bayonets and gutted the remaining French infantry", but would hopefully lean more towards something like, "the 33rd Foot fired their muskets and charged with bayonets against the 1er infantry, engaging in hand-to-hand combat. After some fighting, the French survivors were routed." But again, is that too dramatic writing? Hopefully that explains the type of guide I'm wanting to see at MilHist Academy. And not only for land battles, but sea and air, and tank engagements, etc, to help give people a sense of what makes for appropriate battle reports that can be more focused on certain actions within a battle to help readers get a feel for the independent fights that took place to make the battle a whole. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 03:54, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, good food for thought. Magic♪piano 15:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:Dyers_Compendium_1959.jpg)

Thanks for uploading File:Dyers_Compendium_1959.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Melesse (talk) 02:50, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you might cool the trigger-happy approach to an image that was uploaded less than 24 hours ago, and read Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#Non-free book cover or public domain?. The article is not orphaned, its copyright status is being reviewed. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 03:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion

Short answer: Sorry no.

Longer answer

I created a template called {{source-attribution}} which can be used as described in WP:Plagarism#Where to place attribution. It started to be used a lot for articles incorporating text from "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion", so I wrote a custom template for use with text copied from that book and called it {{CWR}}, which is a very simple version like many other customised templates you will find in Category:Attribution templates.

I suggest that you look through the Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion pick a few articles that use it and ask the person who incorporated the template into the article if they know of a copy. I presume though if they are using this template their copy will not be in copyright.

--PBS (talk) 10:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Photographic History of The Civil War

I've got a different set of Photographic History of The Civil War — a two volume 1994 Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers reprint of the six volume The Images of War 1861-1865 1981, 1982 version edited by William C. Davis and Bell I. Wiley under the direction of the National Historical Society. My version has ISBN 1-884822-08-8 for the first volume and ISBN 1-884822-09-6 for the second. You could probably pick them up pretty inexpensively on Amazon — the shipping will be more than the book. Looks like there's a compact edition at Amazon with ISBN 1579120121 for the first volume at less than half the weight which might save you some shipping — I didn't search for volume two. I also have a 1996 reprint of the 1866 Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War ISBN 0-517-18334-X If you guys want me to look for/scan any specific photos, let me know. Also, since you are doing the regimental articles and seem to like Dyer's Compendium, you might want to grab a copy of William F. Fox's 1898 Regimental Losses. I'm sure there are many different reprint versions of that too. I think casualty data is already in most of the articles, but I don't know if it's sourced in many of them. I have the data from Fox's Regimental Losses in a SQL database, so I may be able to help out on the regimental articles with that too — might be able to save us some typing or at least verify the casualty numbers. Mojoworker (talk) 22:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

An Amazon seller who sold me his copy of Dyer's Compendium offered me his complete set of Photographic History... with postage thrown in the price, and considering the hefty weight (~11kg) of the set, I think I did right to take his offer. (12345) No other Amazon UK seller has the full set, As New, available to get in one go, so this is also saving me time going through upto 5 sellers, they'll all arrive together, and will be the same edition and condition, which keeps things tidy. I've got a couple of other books packed with great photos also, this and this. And the US LOC has thousands, so plenty to choose from! Thanks for mentioning Fox's casualty book. The copies in Amazon UK weren't cheap, but I came across this archive.org PDF download, which will do, for the time being, and seems complete and excellent quality scans.

If you want to lend a hand, please refer to User:MarcusBritish/ACWR, which I've put together to help us track the progress of updating so many articles, to avoid us trampling to each other toes, monitor any in review, indicate completion, etc. There are a lot to work though, but no rush.. even if it takes all year at least it's a job well done, rather than hurried unreferenced edits.

Do you have a copy of the Compendium, and if so, which edition? Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 22:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems like a good call to purchase that set given that an inferior version from the USA would probably cost a similar amount when shipping is included. Don't know when I'll get started on it, but I'll take a look at your ACWR list when I get a chance. The only copy of Dyer's Compendium I have is on a CD from Guild Press. I haven't looked at it in years however. I don't even know if it will work in Windows 7 — I could probably try it in a virtual machine if necessary. (edit) I just took a look at the ACWR list and I'm wondering where are the Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin units? Mojoworker (talk) 08:19, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

We picked all these up from an editor who created them all using an online Dyer's ages ago. I copied the list of articles he created from his userpage to make the table with. If states are missing, either he hasn't done them, or hasn't listed them as done. For now, with ~700 on the list, I'm content to call that a BIG job alone, given that Dyer's contains more than 3,000 regiments. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 08:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Cornish SSSIs

Hi, I've submitted List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cornwall as a featured list candidate, and in having a second glance over the numbers of geological/biological sites, is there a way/list to tell how many are in each category? Cheers, Zangar (talk) 23:26, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi, as far as I know, the Natural England website does not keep a tally. Their site only allows you to search by county, but not by designation. Usually, it's a matter of completing the SSSI article table and doing a manual count, then updating List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest by Area of Search. Please let me know of the FLR passes, so I can update User:MarcusBritish/SSSIs. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 23:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

No worries, I'll update the AoS and keep you posted. Cheers, Zangar (talk) 02:24, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher: GAN Re-assessment

MarcusBritish,

I was wondering if you would be able to assess Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher for GAN assessment again. It's all explained on the WikiProject Military History Coordinators' talkpage. Someone renamed the article and therefore I have lost GAN 866 points. Would like you to assess it or find someone who is willing too. It would be appreciated. Adamdaley (talk) 02:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi, you won't need it reassessed, it's still a GA regardless of the move. The points are for the Importance Scale, but MILHIST doesn't use that scale anyway, so the points don't matter. They fluctuate anyway, as far as I know.. points don't derive from the GAR, but from other calculations. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 03:42, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Denver City Home Guard

I'm letting you know that I am making slow progress on the "Denver City Home Guard" ACW article. It's pretty rough at the moment and in no way, would it make it onto Wikipedia the way it is. One thing I have noticed that "Company B" with Dodd as head of the Company, was the only company to see action at the Battle of Valverde? While "Company A" was not far away back at a nearby Fort. Making progress through the United States Cavalry, Infantry and Artillery Batteries that were there in the Battle. Adamdaley (talk) 13:38, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't look more than a militia unit, which saw little action. Dyer doesn't appear to have been able to say much about it either. Might be one of those that doesn't exceed Stub-class. There are bound to be a fair number of regiments that were formed and didn't have much involvement, for one reason or another, which we won't be able to do much with. It's still worth having them on Wikipedia for the sake of completion. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 14:17, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

You can see what I've done so far at Denver City Home Guard. Remember it is still a very rough copy. Trying to get the Companies, Infantry, Artillery, locations, dates, etc to connect. It seems that some Companies that have been mentioned early on, have not been involved at all according to Dyer, while some have at the Battle of Valverde on February 21, 1862. I am doing this offline. Wanted to show you how difficult this one article is. Adamdaley (talk) 15:00, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

MarcusBritish ... This is all the information I can find in the Dyer Compendiums on the Denver City Home Guard. Yes it is a very rough draft but I cannot find all the Companies that were there for the Battle of Valverde on February 21, 1862. Would you like to do the formal article of this? Adamdaley (talk) 06:43, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

If you look at the 4th external link on the Battle of Valverde article which takes you here, the order of battle list mentions "1 Company Colorado Volunteers", which I expect is the Denver City Home Guard, as they were a Colorado regiment. You mentioned earlier that Company "A" was engaged, so I expect that you have found the answer, "all" being just "one" company, from the sound of things. Bear in mind these articles aim to deal with "Regiments" of the Civil War, so if there is a lack of complete information regarding individual companies involved, don't worry, as long as there is enough data to mention that the regiment was somehow involved, that covers the top-level required, companies and battalions are not always going to receive full mentions, I don't expect. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 07:31, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

It was "Company B" that was involved in the Battle of Valverde. "Company A" was not that far away according to Dyer's Compendiums. The other Regiments, Infantry, etc, apparently did take part in the Battle also according to Dyer's Compendiums. Adamdaley (talk) 08:36, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake, Company "B". I'm a little confused by the draft article as it contains a bunch of New Mexico regiments (a state I haven't created a table for but can from List of New Mexico Territory Civil War units info) and Regular regiments. Are the top paragraph details the only relevant ones? Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 14:15, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I realise the New Mexico Regiments are a little confusing. Basically the Infobox and the first two paragraphs is all I have to go on at the moment. The Ellen Williams book she was a wife of one of the soldiers who went with the 2nd Colorado's. It has no images or maps, and is pretty short book to read. I'll have a look at it tomorrow which would be my Sunday. Adamdaley (talk) 14:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

No worries. Someone has noted missing states/territories on User talk:MarcusBritish/ACWR, but I'll eventually go through the Index in Dyer's book and add those which are missing, also. Then we'll "hopefully" have a complete list of what is on Wikipedia relating to Union regiments. If anyone asks us to do all the Confederate regiments also, I'll throw Dyer's Compendium at them and hope it bloody hurts! Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 14:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The New Mexico Regiments were part of the Battle of Valverde and unfortunately, I couldn't find ALL of their individual Companies. What you see on my subpage is what I could find, unless I missed something. How would the three Compendiums hit someone from 30,000 feet? What would happen to that individual? Adamdaley (talk) 14:48, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

With a good aim, a sore head and mild concussion may result, as they do weigh about 4kg. Who is 30,000 feet away though? Sorry I'm so slow replying today.. Wikipedia doesn't seem to be sending me emails when I get messages, and as I'm working on things offline, I'm slow in keeping up. I expect the system is clogged or delayed and I'll get them all in one go later. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 15:40, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Dropped from a plane at 30,000 feet of course. With the article only being a Stub class. I could add more information on what they did after the Battle of Valverde. Then again, they were really only known for that one battle. Because this other book by Williams of the Denver City Home Guards has information, which I don't know what to put though. What do you think? Adamdaley (talk) 01:02, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I figured out that I don't get emails when you drop me a message because you mark them all as "minor" edits, which don't send emails. So that solves that mystery... as for the article, I would simply advise that you include anything you feel is notable and relevant from the book you have that improves and expands the content further than Dyer can offer. Chances are good that a lot of regiments and their companies did not see a lot of action, perhaps due to their location.. a remote garrison that did not see action, or always in reserve and rarely committed to battle. In those cases it's more a matter of styling the article with infobox and Dyer links, etc to match the other articles. If some can't surpass Stub that's likely due to lack of notable action more than anything. It's inevitably going to happen sometimes.. in those cases, a quick clean-up is all that's needed, no point getting bogged down on every regiment digging for info or you'll end up with 100s of books just aiming to develop each one slightly more. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 13:31, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I've found a book on Amazon (America) called "Bloody Valverde". 199 pages. University of New Mexico Press (March 1, 1999). Adamdaley (talk) 10:55, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like it covers the battle in detail. Just so you know, there are now 1,113 Union articles listed on the ACWR tables which should now be pretty much the complete list of states that sent troops and everything on Wiki. There will be units missing so it is not a complete list and won't match Dyer's list.. though that may be something to be thankful for, as he details over 3,500 units, as far as I know. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 15:06, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey guys. Sorry to jump in here, but I had a little bit of time for research today and I found that something doesn't look right at Denver City Home Guard. But I found some references that may be helpful for that article and for the other Colorado units. It appears Dodd's and Ford's Companies were not from Denver, but from Cañon City and I don't think they have anything to do with the Denver City Home Guards:

By the end of November two more companies were raised at Cañon City, and were known as "Captain 'Jim' Ford's Independent Company" and "Captain Theodore Dodd's Independent Company. Ref (this is a cite book in wikitext): Wilbur Fiske Stone (1918). History of Colorado. S. J. Clarke. p. 705. Retrieved 25 February 2012.

and became Company A and Company B of the 2nd Colorado Infantry Regiment:

After a strenuous, week-long march, Hendren's company arrived at Fort Garland on December 14 and was mustered into service by Major Charles Jarvis Whiting, the post's commanding officer. The company was designated Company A of the Second Colorado Infantry Regiment, even though no Second Regiment had been formed. Ford's contingent arrived on December 24 and was named Company B. … Whiting then gave the men Hendren had recruited the choice of remaining in the army with a different company commander or returning to their homes. All but three of the men chose to remain under the command of Hendren's assistant, First Lieutenant Theodore H. Dodd. Ref: Flint Whitlock (1 May 2006). Distant bugles, distant drums: the Union response to the Confederate invasion of New Mexico. O'Reilly Media, Inc. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-87081-835-6. Retrieved 25 February 2012.

Also note that Fort Garland, Colorado is mentioned on that page. There are many references for it being in Colorado – the Ellen Williams book being used in the references is simply wrong on that count.

The Denver Home Guard are mentioned here:

In September and the fore part of October, 1861, two companies of home guards were organized in Denver City for six months service, and were designated No. 1 and No. 2. Of Company 1 Joseph Ziegelmuller was appointed captain; Jacob Garres, first lieutenant, and William Wise, second lieutenant, by Governor Gilpin, late in August. Of Company 2 the governor, about the middle of September, appointed James W. Iddings, captain; John A. Latta, first lieutenant, and Adamson T. Dayton, second lieutenant. These organizations performed duty in Denver City and at Camp Weld. Ref: William Clarke Whitford (1906). Colorado volunteers in the civil war: the New Mexico campaign in 1862. The State historical and natural history society. p. 45. Retrieved 25 February 2012.

and

In addition to the volunteer companies already formed and which were enlisted for the term of three years, two home guard companies, designated as Nos. 1 and 2, were formed in the City of Denver. Joseph Ziegelmuller was the captain of the first one and James W. Iddings of the second. The duty of these troops kept them in Denver as guards, but they were regularly mustered into the United States service and mustered out in the spring of 1862. Ref: Wilbur Fiske Stone (1918). History of Colorado. S. J. Clarke. p. 705. Retrieved 25 February 2012.

and

The Denver City Home Guards Colorado Infantry.
In the fall and winter of 1861 and while enlistment for the First Regiment was being done by Colonel Slough, Governor Gilpin also enlisted men into two independent companies under Captains Joseph Zeiglmuller and James W. Iddings. These 200 men saw no action and were mustered out by Captain W. H. Bachus in March and April of 1862 after six months of service. Ref:Budd, Lily Wright. "The Historical Background Of The Colorado Volunteers During The Civil War Period 1861-1865". Colorado Division of State Archives and Public Records & Columbine Genealogical and Historical Society. Retrieved 25 February 2012.

Which is from the book: Colorado Territory Civil War volunteer records: a comprehensive index to the twelve volumes of military clothing books found in the Colorado State Archives : containing the historical background of the volunteers of Colorado Territory during the Civil War Period, 1861-1865

I can't explain why Dyer says they were at Valverde when these references say they didn't see action…

I hope some of this helps. I can take care of some of it if you want, but I know Adam said he is editing articles offline and I don't want to step on any toes. Thanks. Mojoworker (talk) 21:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. At the moment I have no idea what Adam's position is regarding these ACW articles.. sounds like he wants to back out of being involved in developing them, but I'm not certain. That aside, if you feel like updating some articles, the tables on my ACWR page allow you put an icon and your username beside any you are developing to prevent people treading on each others toes. Though what with so few of us, and so many articles, it seems unlikely that should happen too often for the time being. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 21:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, I left a note for Adam. I may not have much time for the next couple of weeks, but I'll see if I can pitch in after that. Thanks. Mojoworker (talk) 08:37, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Template Sinai

Hi just thought you might be interested in this, after the MILHIST discussion on the subject. The other editor has now added several red links to the template Template:Campaignbox Sinai and Palestine. From one extreme to the other, was that not the whole point of their dispute. Sometimes I do wonder. Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I've always had a feeling that their resentment to being challenged represents some fairly WP:OWNish behaviour, along with the forum shopping, polemic comments and WP:SOUP, all aimed at trying to deter other edits from partaking in discussions against them. Their abuse of the {{RPA}} template and impudent edits of other people's comments was especially irritating. It doesn't surprise me that they're trying a new tactless approach to winding people up with their pointed efforts. I expect someone will grow very bored of it before long and motion for a topic ban or mentoring at ANI to curb their behaviour for a few months. If that happens, I expect I'd support either option. Although military history provides a vast area to work in, there's always going to be those editors who think they "know it all" in their particular period or conflict, and that they won't accept contribs or changes to any articles that doesn't meet their personal agreement. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 10:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

GAN

Hey MarcusBritish, do you have an update on the last few remaining issues here? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:23, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I've covered all the issues which I have been able to deal with, and passed the last few to the original author, most specifically the image and citation concerns. She did start to deal with those, so I am unsure why she stopped.. perhaps loss of interest or due to lack of time. I don't have a wide range of material on the early British Army to expand the citations, and although I did try to cover the images I found none of the info requested.. I suspect one of the illustrators (Louis de Beaufort) may not even be deceased, and that the image was uploaded with a false licence, in 2009, but I could be wrong. GemmaHist needs a prod to see if she's going to tie off the last few loose ends, to achieve the GA status. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 06:32, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, I'll give her a prod and see if she responds. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:34, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

ACW Articles: Redirects

I've noticed that quite a few ACW articles are redirected to another name of that state. Think we need to talk about how we can go about naming the articles to keep them in order with the other ACW articles. Adamdaley (talk) 05:51, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of inconsistencies with regards to titles used, especially word order and inclusion of words, such as:

21st United States Colored Infantry Regiment

28th Regiment United States Colored Troops

33rd United States Colored Infantry Regiment

34th United States Colored Infantry Regiment

18th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry

20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry

21st Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry

22nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry

1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry

2nd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry

3rd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment

4th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment

5th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment

3rd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment

4th Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment

5th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment

6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment

...to name but a few. These need to be cross-checked with Dyer's and new titles created/redirected that fit the pattern, also. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 10:57, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Moved two Connecticut regiments 7th and 8th. Think I've stuffed it up. Have it saying 7th Connecticut Regiment Infantry, should be "7th Connecticut Infantry Regiment", and do the same with the 8th. My bad! I'm tired thats why. Adamdaley (talk) 14:06, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

No it's alright. Don't panic. Just didn't have the book infront of me and I was only going off my hand writing. My hand writing has become bad since High School with my hands. Adamdaley (talk) 15:47, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, they should be named as "Infantry Regiment" rather than "Regiment Infantry", easily corrected though if needs be. You lost me with the hand writing remark.. what was that in reference to? Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 16:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I was writing the names out, and thinking afterwards did I get this right? Because the Dyer books was in another room. That's where my hand writing came in. Adamdaley (talk) 17:40, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

MarcusBritish ... I was just trying to do something right about changing the names. As for the two Colorado article's I'm doing they are like a dripping tap, which means they are moving slowly. Considering getting the "Bloody Valverde" book. But I'll have to wait to get money off my mother to get it. Seems like I can't do anything right on here, even though I have good intentions. Maybe I should just stick to just taking images for wikipedia instead of writing articles and whatever. Basically, I'm down and out, at "rock bottom". Since I've made a mess of some of the ACW names, you'll be cleaning it up! Guess I'm a major screw up and trying to do some of the workload of the ACW articles. Adamdaley (talk) 17:49, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

You're doing fine, don't worry.. this is a huge workload, given that there are over 1000 articles need assessing, organising and updating, a couple of trivial mistakes isn't a problem.. if the correct titles don't already exist, 7th and 8th just need moving again, 2 minute job really.. most of these articles are going to be "Low" importance in terms of being little more that army units, some will have higher importance for notable involvement in the civil war. Up to you if you feel the need to get that book, though personally I think it might be a bit too specific for the sake of that one article, unless you also plan to work on the article about the battle, also. Given that there were something like 10,000 engagements during the war, it would be a huge cost and time investment to try to go into detail about them all per regiment. Might be easier just using Dyer's notes, and wikilinks to the battles rather than going into detail in the regiment articles. I tend to think of articles in terms of "how much will this be read?" and I don't feel all these regimental articles are going to be getting a huge number of hits, really. The job we have here is more a cleanup role for the sake of MILHIST, rather than major article development.. hence why I suggest just doing a bit at a time, no rush, no pressure.. just something to fill the time between higher priority tasks. I don't think many editors age going to come running to help us wade through these, so we might as well just take it steadily, no deadline, and it'll get done when it gets done. Even a dripping tap fills a bath tub, given time. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 18:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I've gotten very confused by the unit naming – Dyer does use "Regiment Infantry" so I screwed up thinking he didn't, you were right in the first place.. had to undo my moves. Messy me. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 18:58, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm getting nowhere with the deleting of redirects. Trying to have them all as how Dyer has them, while I'm dealing with Administrators who don't give a shit, they just want the power and authority while having no common sense. The one I'm trying to get deleted (the redirect) is the Talk:9th Connecticut Infantry as well as a couple of others, but no one is willing to do them. Since they are more formal names than existing ones. Adamdaley (talk) 02:53, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Just CSD those that are redundant and leave them, it can take a couple of days for admins to process CSDs if there is a backlog, for whatever reason. Looks like a couple you CSD'd have been done already, the rest should follow soon. Once nominated it's out of your hands, and admins are just as responsible to give a good reason why they should not delete per a request as you are to qualify the nomination. In the case of a WikiProject coord dealing with a large body of articles, I see no reason for them to refuse any. They may just take a while due to the large number you nominated. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 03:17, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

A couple of users including Nick-D think the Dyer way of naming Regiments etc, is a bad way. You have any ideas? The way I started it, has the number, state, Battalion/Regiment etc and if it was Infantry/Cavalry/Artillery etc. Now if break that down into percentages for example "4th Connecticut Regiment Infantry" and compare it to 4th Connecticut Infantry Volunteers. We can put the word "volunteers" in the article or any differential name changes. As for the percentage of searching for the "4th Connecticut Regiment Infantry" gives you at least 75% chance of finding it on Wikipedia. At worst 50%. Am I too confusing? Adamdaley (talk) 07:57, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I read their comments on the Coords page. Okay, whilst I agree that "Regiment Infantry" sounds back to front, and "Infantry Regiment" is more common usage, I'm going to cite Wikipedia:MILMOS#UNITNAME:

"An article about a unit, formation, or base should be placed at "Name (optional disambiguator)". The name should generally be either the official name used by the armed forces to which the unit or base belongs; or, in cases where no relevant formal name exists or where a formal name is not commonly employed by historians, the most common name used in historical literature."

I do not believe Dyer used his own naming convention, but the official names of units, contemporary to the time. As such, that would be the formal name. So I think MILMOS would win the case here over the opinions given. The optional disambiguator is probably required in many cases, also.. (Union), (Colored Troops) etc, where appropriate. If anyone can give a reason why we should go to the trouble of making up a whole new naming convention it needs backing up, before I intend to mess around running around in circles moving dozens of pages. Whilst I'm sure a lot of historians will use naming methods more suited to modern readers, that does not mean they are "right" versus a Compendium which was based on Official US Army Records, and other primary sources. Just my 2c though. Given that there are going to units and Civil War units.. e.g. 4th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment from the ACW, 4th New York Regiment from the War of Independence, I think modified titles help separate these better for different conflicts. I'm not sure search matters.. soon as anyone enters "4th New York" they get offered the options. We may simply need to add {{For}} to articles with duplicate names to aid navigation. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 09:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Alright. Thought I was helping with the names of the Units/Regiments etc. The naming is all upto you. At the moment, I don't know what I am doing with the ACW. As I only have the Compendiums and the Williams book for the 2nd Colorado's in the ACW. Guess that's all I can do, because I am out of options and ideas. Adamdaley (talk) 10:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I can only suggest not worrying about titles too much at the moment, except in cases when the odd one does not follow the same naming pattern as others in the same state, and which Dyer's confirms it should. Better to focus on content at present, and then look into the names. I firly believe Dyer's work is the authority on the Union Army, and the data was gathered and compiled by someone who was a part of that period, not just a historian or number-cruncher from modern times looking to write a book. I see no reason to ignore or rehash his formats, but if someone has already created 50 titles in a state with the more common "Infantry Regiment" wording, it's too much of a pain in the arse to have to rejigg all those, but far easier to rename the odd one that might use "Regiment Infantry" so it fits the pattern. Working on a per state method, rather than an "all Union regiments as one" makes things easier, for now, as that breaks it down into about 40 independent tables, each with their own Category, rather than trying to organise over 1,100 titles in one go, which is more confusing. In time, we can probably look to an "overall" naming convention and apply it. But as I see it, the wording of the title doesn't do anything for improving the class from Stub/Start to higher and should be saved for later. Because I have created the centralised ACWR page, it's not going to be hard to work through identifying and retitling any at a later date. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 10:48, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, Adam.. I realise that ACW is not your main MilHist field, and so you may be lacking context or in-depth interest to help you want to focus on so many ACW articles, and reading the odd specific book won't always put you "in the picture" in terms of the campaign or part of the war being discussed. If you are interested in learning the ACW, there are many general books, however, I would highly recommend you try to get a copy of, and watch "The Civil War, by Ken Burns" Region 4 DVD (shop.abc.net.au). This is an 11-hour documentary, but is top of its class, a beautifully created series, equivalent to "The World at War" series, if you've ever seen that, but for ACW rather than WW2. If you watch that, believe me, you will feel very comfortable with the subject after viewing it, and it will probably leave you wanting, as the Civil War is such a vast subject, it's hard to know what to read without a good idea of the events. This series covers everything from slavery, the politics, the war and its campaigns/battles, the men and officers, through to Abe Lincoln and Reconstruction. I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone interested in this conflict, and it's a documentary you'll never regret seeing. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 11:01, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I've left my final message on the WikiProject Military History Coordinators page. It's the end of this topic. If you wish to communicate with me, please do it in private (via email). Adamdaley (talk) 13:12, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution noticeboard

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "List of wars involving Great Britain, List of wars involving Russia". Thank you. --Andres rojas22 (talk) 04:02, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I refer you to your own userbox: "This user is a child at heart. They might have grown older but they'll never grow up." You really do have issues. Get over yourself. Several MILHIST members approved the current table format. That's called a "consensus". Accept it, and stop wasting time and resources. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 04:46, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your help!

Thank you for your help with that image change I requested. I've been trying to figure out how to get that changed for a while and didn't know request could be made. Thanks! --Shadow (talk) 02:55, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/John Delaney (businessman)

Re your comment, I am baffled as to how how that happened. When I tried to preview my comment, I got a "Loss of session data" message and got logged out. I logged back in, hit refresh and then saved my message, only to find that your last comment was no longer there. I assumed that you had removed it in the interim, but I should have checked the history to make sure. My apologies. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 15:08, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

No idea, have never heard of that error - not sure why a session error would affect older messages, so it seemed suspicious to me that my entire comment was wiped by a "keep" comment. No matter, the comment has been readded, thanks for letting me know. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 15:13, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your concerns

I'll reply here as I don't want to keep taking up space on your project talkpage. I appreciate your generous motives. However, my position is the correct one to take in these circumstances. Sometimes BOLD is the only way to go. I'm not sure how it will play out, if there is a confrontation, but I'm not doing anything wrong, and I reserve the right to remove OR after 3 plus years. There is no obligation to consult projects. They often fall asleep at the wheel and often they are governed by internal politics that are not in WP's best interests. It's up to them what they do next. Frankly I don't care, so long as I'm doing what's appropriate in an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. Sir Gawain McGarson (talk) 07:01, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I won't dispute that 3 years is a long time for OR to remain undealt with and that removing it may be the only option if it is not workable and unsupported by any known source/s. Just bear in mind that other editors have the right to dispute content removal, although I would say if it bothers them that much then why aren't they doing something about it after 3 years. Policy does not support OR though, so reverting it poses questions for them. If someone does insist on reverting your OR removal, I would suggest you then tag the article with {{Original research}} and give the editor a month or so to deal with it, advising them of that deadline, and if nothing has been done at the end of it, remove the OR, and they can't say they weren't warned or given ample time. If they revert after that period, I think then an admin would back you up better and warn the editor that the OR can no longer be tolerated. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 07:24, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Middlesbrough

It's very nice to see you editing the Middlesbrough page. My opinion is that the whole article is overly long and too detailed for encyclopedic style. I've tried to compare it with similar sized towns, for example, towns in America and elsewhere in the UK, and they don't seem to have quite as much detail. Some of the paragraphs tend towards rambling, with little 'asides' scattered in as if it was a conversation down at the pub. For example: It dates back to 1930 as Constantine Technical College (although teaching formalities had begun in the then-new building as early as September 1929). The full stop could easily come after the word College. I think the amount of writing could be cut by half. What do you think? Francis Hannaway 08:00, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I've lived in Teesside all my life, I know the Stockton–Middlesbrough area best, and some surrounding areas, quite well. I think there may be a bit too much "Boro Pride" expressed in the article, against WP:TRIVIA and WP:PLOT guidelines. I'm not fond of "Notable people" sections unless those people are notable to the point they've made a major difference to the town in question, or history itself, or are very well know TV/movie stars – all these X-Factor, BBC rubbish, TV celebs should not be listed, they're not vital contributors to Boro's image, nor, I doubt, are all of these Sports/Arts people, unless they're Boro players, or represent Boro somehow.. I don't follow sport, so I can't say. People like James Cook, naturally, are highly notable people. Addresses of churches and mosques probably goes against WP:NOTTRAVEL unless those buildings are notable, again I doubt it, only the burned down cathedral in St Hilda's was a notable religious building, if I recall. Listing all those schools, their budgets, population, etc seems to go against WP:NOTSTATSBOOK also. I'm sure there is a lot of the content can be trimmed down, or removed entirely. Perhaps as much as a 30–50% cut might make the article more focused and concise. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 08:44, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

PS: Please see WP:SIGLINK - it's awkward to leave a note on your talk page regarding my reply, without an accessible chat link. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 08:48, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I think I've fixed my signature. Francis Hannaway (talk) 09:02, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

SSSIs update

Hi there, just to update you List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cornwall has passed its FLC. A few changes from the old format of SSSI featured lists were made during the process, including removing the A-Z subheadings and making the columns sortable (which meant removing the top-level column headings). This maybe something worth considering doing to the older SSSI FLs, as it seems the FL criteria has got stricter - one thing they're keen on is accessibility.

8 of the new 22 Welsh SSSI lists have been completed (unfortunately the CCW website database has a few bugs in displaying all sites for county, but they're fixing it). You can see the progress on this table. I'll be taking a wikibreak for a little while, so won't be able to carry on with this I'm afraid. So you may want to farm out this task, or contact a relevant WikiProject for help. Hope that's all ok. Cheers, Zangar (talk) 13:44, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, that's great, thanks for the update! Have raised Cornwall to FL-class on User:MarcusBritish/SSSIs. Good progress on the Welsh-front. Not sure if I'll be able to find anyone who may complete the task, interest in these SSSI list conversions has been a little thin over the past year, but the progress has been fairly good, so I have no complaints. Plenty of FLs in the table, but still many red-crosses; empty tables and basic lists needing attention. I don't think most editors enjoy the back-and-forth trudge work involved to get the tables populated. Will see how it goes thought this year though. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 10:21, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the Derbyshire barnstar, which has re-focussed me on the sssis. I found the Natural England spreadsheet download site at [5] and am able to use a spreadsheet to format the contents into wikitable data. Preserving any blue links and pipes still needs doing manually, but it speeds up the process. (One downside is that the date on the spreadsheet is not the date of first listing, so maybe one day I will go back and find that). I have updated your useful progress table with three other counties I have done. I will get back and subdivide these alphabetically some time soon, to match your others. I have also included coords (using a batch convert from grid refs), which also means a geogroup distribution map link can be added. On the map front, Nilfanian has started producing county locator maps showing all the SSSIs for each area of search, which would be good for the lists as well as on the site pages.

We had some discussion here on maps in general, and in particular the Welsh situation - which is that the [CCW search site] doesn't use use area of search, and only list their sites by Unitary Authority. Do we need to switch to the UAs for Wales, or is there still a current source for AoSs? I have a database list from the CCW GIS download that includes ID codes, areas, location data and dates, but neither UA or AoS, so will need to match it up by site name (or ID code, if any other list has it). I would be interested in progressing this, but getting some consensus on which way to go would be much appreciated. RobinLeicester (talk) 17:17, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for very helpful reply - Your Wales discussion makes a lot of sense. I have done Bedfordshire, and will see what other English counties I can fill in - but it will be sporadic with holidays coming up. Should I be following the guidance above for Cornwall, ie no second level headings and sortable tables? Are you OK with the way I do coords and Nature on the Map? (ps: No more Barnstars for now, please - my talk page will start to get ideas!) RobinLeicester (talk) 00:33, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Template:Westerns invite

I can make it autosign the template if you wish (caught the edit while filtering with Lupin's tool). Ryan Vesey 21:10, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, though I think I've figured it using: <includeonly>{{subst:4~}}</includeonly> - I think (hope) that will work... Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 21:27, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I use something similar but a bit shorter when you consider the nowiki on the signature right before that. I type {{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>4~}} Ryan Vesey 21:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Editor review

• Actually it was not reviewed Wikipedia:Editor review/Titodutta. Anyway...
• I have posted some comments in your review page Wikipedia:Editor_review/MarcusBritish_(2)#MarcusBritish_.282.29.2A! --Tito Dutta ✉ 09:57, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Apologies.. I was only looking at opened and last signed dates, rather than nosing at people's feedback so I didn't see t'was just a comment. Have undone the removal of the asterix. Cheers for your comment also, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 10:04, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Westerns

I just noticed you left a notice on a couple of WikiProject pages. You may want to let these WikiProjects know as well:

1. Wikipedia:WikiProject American Old West
2. Wikipedia:WikiProject Texas
3. Wikipedia:WikiProject California
4. Wikipedia:WikiProject New Mexico
5. Wikipedia:WikiProject Arkansas
6. Wikipedia:WikiProject Oklahoma

Good luck. Kumioko (talk) 01:40, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done — thanks, have invited them all, also! Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 01:49, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

No problem, good luck with the new project. Kumioko (talk) 02:03, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

List of sites of Special Scientific Interest - Welsh Counties

I notice that you are concatenating or dividing up the existing Welsh SSSI lists to align with current political boundaries. Leaving aside the justification or wisdom of so doing, I am concerned that the lists created are bare lists devoid of any wiki-links. Is there any good reason for this ?  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   21:38, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes... because I'm not finished yet.. I can only do one thing at a time... wikifying comes when pages are correctly setup and redirects managed - there are so many new counties, to only make one at a time would be ineffective. So you'll just have to wait until I get to it. ;) Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 21:42, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

But where is the consensus to make such moves? I see no discussion at all. A much more logical approach would be to group around vice-counties which are what all biological recording uses. Modern political boundaries are of little relevance. Please raise the discussion and reach consensus and in the meantime restore the originalversions until consensus is reached. Thank you.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   21:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I have been working with other editors to clean up SSSIs for over a year. See User:MarcusBritish/SSSIs - if you have a problem with that, take it to AN/I, and don't come to me with your pretentious attitude. You don't appear to have lifted a finger to aid in these articles development. Consensus is hardly required to turn update old counties to modern ones. It's called bold editing, and I find your manner rude and aggressive. There will be no reversion, and I shall continue as I see fit. Consensus is not neededin every case, it is called bold editing. Now shoo! Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 21:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh and FYFI, the Welsh council groups SSSIs by AOS, you clearly have failed to look at the website that lists them. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 21:53, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Rude ? Agresive ? Where exactly ? I have expressed an opinion which I believe to be right. I have even taken the trouble to come here and discuss rather than simply reverting which I would be well within my rights to do. And exactly how would you react to an editor who says "Now shoo!" ? Rude ? Aggressive? It is interesting looking at the discussion page of your sandbox that the comment in February of this year by Zangar that "It's funny how Natural England has kept to the 1970s boundaries, but the Welsh ones haven't." is quite prescient. Natural England didn't use the 1970s boundaries, they use vice-county boundaries.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   22:22, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Rude and aggressive: given that these lists have been in a poorly maintained state for years, and the very moment someone pulls their finger out their arse to deal with the out-of-date records, updates the lists and organises them, suddenly you think you have the right to demand I revert 12 hours of work! What gives you the right to bounce in here with size-12 boots, demanding this and that, and insisting on consensus for work that is non-controversial? Do you really think anything would get done on Wiki if consensus was required for every damned tweak? Are you out of your mind? You didn't express an opinion, you were bullish and condescending.. and you can deny that all you wish, I don't want to hear your petty rebukes. The current SSSI lists were taken today from [6]- the Welsh authority, not Natural England, who clearly have not bothered to keep the Welsh lists up to date. That does not make them "relevant", it makes them "out-dated", the CCW clearly maintains the Welsh SSSI lists now, and so the new data has been used here on Wiki, including the new counties. Your opinion, whatever it maybe, as it does not come across very clear other than that you seem to dislike someone doing a good job, does not cite any Wiki policies that you can claim I have broken. I do not see that you have a case, other than personal dislike for the updates or county names used. Give that a lot of articles have been updated and affected, there is fat chance of me reverting my efforts, and creating a whole mess for someone else to tidy up - that would be disruptive, and if you revert I will report it as such: don't claim you have the right, when you failed to back your argument. I am making progress... do you deny that fact? Now please, leave me alone to get on with working, as this non-constructive issue of yours is serving no practical purpose. The articles are being wikified.. in time they will be turned into full data tables like the England SSSIs. It's called progression - deal with it! Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 22:36, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

SSSI citation documents - Wales

If it is of any interest, I do have all of the individual site SSSI citation documents for the SSSIs in Wales as at 2009. You may already have them, but if not, I would be willing (although not happy though because of the exchanges above) to e-mail individual citations on request if that would be helpful. There still need to be some effort in summarising and précising to avoid. copyvio problems. In my book, the quality of Wikipedia transcends the social graces and peculiarities of its editors.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   13:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

"In my book, the quality of Wikipedia transcends the social graces and peculiarities of its editors." Well, at least on that point, we can agree.

http://www.ccw.gov.uk/landscape--wildlife/protecting-our-landscape/special-landscapes--sites/sites-search-results.aspx > highlight "Sites of Special Scientific Interest" in "Designation Type" box, click "Search". A full list of sites is returned, each site name is clickable and the citation PDF is available at the bottom of the page. I don't think just copying the date/area/OSref/type etc into a table is a copyvio, only using the full description text may be, but seeing as these are in the realms of "government documents" there may be no copyright issues, per se, as these are probably created under legislation and at the tax-payers expense, seeing as many SSSIs are on public land and need protecting from commercial developers as well as public abuse. When they're not simply securing (i.e. pocketing) the land for heinous Tory interests, that is...

As I discussed with another editor previously, based on User:MarcusBritish/SSSIs, it makes more sense to maintain the focus on completing the England SSSIs before moving onto Scotland, Wales or NIs ASSIs, rather than start jumping about doing a bit here, a bit there, which may end up leading to people getting bored and half the job being done. As each SSSI article is transformed from list to table, I'm copy-editing and optimising is to "fit the set", i.e. make it uniform with other SSSI articles. Anyone wishing to take them further to FL-class is welcome, personally, I won't sit through a bunch of FL reviews but will gladly note that they have reached that status.

I'm not planning on completing these tables myself, having spent time converting a lengthy list to table for one of the English AOS, I know it is very tedious work, basically just copy/paste data-entry for dozens of rows, for hours/days on end. I'm happier keeping track of the progress of the articles, laying foundations, doing cleanup, error checking, etc. There's no arguing that a lot has been done over the past year, by others inputting the data, myself recording it.. I think England maybe complete soon enough, and then we should worry about starting to transform another country from basic lists to full data tables. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:23, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

As a retired employee of the Government (but not CCW or Natural England), in my very long experience very few Government documents are in the public domain or have any licensing compatible with Wikipedia. At least for Wikipedia they must be considered as if copyright unless they are expressly released.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}  

There is also a risk that we might agree on some political issues, but I would hate to take this evanescent spirit of agreement too far.....  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   20:52, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, so far SSSI articles merely use recorded data and numbers from the citations, I haven't seen one yet that quotes the text description. I think we're safe so far as copyright goes, in that respect, as I can't think of a reason why any article would need to use the text; if I recall, using such material for educational use or research is considered "fair use", even in the UK. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 21:00, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

"Database right fair dealing applies for the use of databases which have been made available to the public. If a person is a lawful user of a database, fair dealing is allowed for the extraction of substantial parts of a database, if the substantial part is extracted for teaching or research, not for commercial use, and provided the source of the material is acknowledged." from Copyright law of the United Kingdom#Fair dealing and other exceptions. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 21:03, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

County SSSI location maps

Just another idea to throw in. Take a look at List of World Heritage Sites in India, where there is a map showing the locations. This might be an interesting thing to attempt for SSSIs. My suspicion is that it might end up looking a little cluttered because of the density of SSSIs in some of the more wildlife-rich counties, I think I may give it a try with one of the counties and see what it looks like. SP-KP (talk) 11:58, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Many would be very cluttered, given how many SSSIs there are in the UK, and due to the use of code to mark the locations on the map could cause pages to take a long time to load, compared to a image with the SSSIs marked on in the file itself, which probably wouldn't be all that much use. The other problem is, once you do it for one AOS article, people expect it for the rest.. personally I think the links to the maps provided by Natural England, which have various overlay and zoom functions also, like Googlemaps, are the better choice over the simple pin-point maps Wiki can offer. To be honest, I don't think that most SSSI articles are viewed on such a massive scale to warrant the long and hard work of working out coordinates to map thousands of sites. The easier option, however, would simply be to place a county map on any article about an actual SSSI site and pinpoint it. There are a number of articles dedicated to a single SSSI that might benefit from that. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 12:19, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree about the page load time. I wonder whether doing them as a separate page would be of value - to get a clearer sense of which sites are clustered together, and how they distribute around a county. (The NE maps are pretty clunky for this). As a separate page they could then be quite big, which would make them much more useful, and provide another live link to site pages. There is a batch convert tool here which I use with a spreadsheet to produce the coords from grid refs, and can then very quickly generate the Location map+ maps. I will knock one or two out in the next day or so, and see what people think. RobinLeicester (talk) 00:08, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, there are apparently around 4,230 SSSIs in the UK. If we look at this realistically, if the purpose of mapping them is to see the distribution SSSIs nationally, for there to be zero bias result all 4,230 would have to be mapped. How your average browser would handle that many instances of a image remains to be seen - very slow to render, no doubt. Perhaps a better selective process would be to work with List of the largest Sites of Special Scientific Interest in England - first that article would need to be completed to gain an accurate overview.. then, with those 150–200 sites that fit the criteria of >100ha, plot those sites on a UK map and use it within that article itself. Personally, I'm not in favour of pages that just display a map with very little context, they feel somewhat disjointed, almost orphaned, and I've argued against it before. Any locator map really needs to have textual context, and it should really be the case that a map is produced to supplement an article, rather than an article needing to be written to justify a map. There are many instances on Wiki where such maps could be produced, e.g. a map of all WWII battles - but for whatever reasons, it's just is not done, probably because it's not good practice in the long-run to have articles that revolve around an image file except for notable paintings, etc. I suspect there are more cons than pros for having densely populated locator maps, but I suppose that remains to be seen until someone produces a feasible demonstration. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 00:42, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

MilHist Coordinators Election

Hi there, I have this vague recollection of you speaking some time ago of throwing your hat in the ring at the next election. Well, whether you did or not, I think you'd be good candidate... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:09, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, and thank you. Yes, I said during last years election that although I was confident enough to consider being a candidate, I had only been about for ~6–8 months, so lacked sufficient experience in a lot of areas of Wiki as a whole, which might have limited my ability to be a coord for such a wide-spread and involved project as MilHist. I'll have to consider whether or not to stand, this year.. I still haven't had that much more experience, as I don't really bother with Admin or technical maintenance areas and I'm not into providing detailed assessment reviews all that much, at present. Also, I'm deeply involved in 3 different WikiProjects now, compared to just this one last year.. so my input might be more limited than you'd expect, and I don't want to put myself in a position where my services are required a lot, or where I might let people down because of being less active than others, which seems to have happened with several coords towards the end of this term, and the backlogs/inactivity is fairly noticeable, from what I gather. If I stand, I'll make this clear, though. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 17:59, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

That's fine mate, see how you go. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:35, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

Hi. I have forgot to thank you for kindly taking the time to review my editing. I highly appreciate it. Cheers, benjamil ^talk/_edits 12:55, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

No worries, thanks! Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 13:15, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

SSSI pages

Hi Marcus

Good to see all the energy you're putting into improving the SSSI pages. I was responsible for creating the very first batch of these pages way back in (I think) 2005, and it's great to see how others have taken up the challenge to create a complete set, and to bring them all up to the same FL quality.

I have a question for you. Have you given any thought to how best to convey the Area of Search in which a site falls? In the early FL reviews, this wasn't an issue as the pages were grouped by AOS. However, I see you're rearranging them by local government area, in Wales at least. I don't have a view on which way is best, so but I thought I'd explain why I went for AOS as the original grouping.

The AOSs were used to aggregate existing SSSIs into groups for use when a new SSSI was proposed. The thinking was that if a proposed SSSI contained a set of features which were not represented amongst the set of SSSIs already in an AOS, then this would be a strong argument for notification. In essence the concept of an AOS was intended as a national quality / consistency check. This is also the reason thay the AOSs were not based solely on Local Government areas - e.g. there are two AOSs in Devon, 3 in Cumbria and so on.

Having said that, some of the early pages I created were based on local government areas, as a bit of a cop out so that we'd at least have some content for these counties (with the intention of splitting them up by AOS at a later date).

What prompts my question is that I looked at the new combined Powys page, where the introductory comment says that Powys is an AOS - it is in fact three AOSs. This can easily be fixed, by replacing the reference to AOS with the word county, but then we lose the information about which site falls into which AOS. A couple of options come to mind: adding a column to the table so that each SSSI has its AOS listed, or subdiving the page using headings for each AOS. Interested to hear your thoughts.

SP-KP (talk) 09:37, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, all I can really say is that I created the new Welsh AOS based on how the results are made available at http://www.ccw.gov.uk/landscape--wildlife/protecting-our-landscape/special-landscapes--sites/sites-search-results.aspx - that way anyone wanting to convert the basic lists to tables, following the completed examples at User:MarcusBritish/SSSIs, which a few editors have, and I have been happy to keep track of progress, which allows editors to pick AOS due completion without treading on each others toes.. I know that my page there has been shared and is updated by editors as they make progress. Over the last year I think about a dozen England SSSIs have been developed from lists to tables, some to FL-class, which is great. I hope for all England SSSIs to be completed and then for Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland's ASSIs to be done also. My choice to update the Welsh counties yesterday was pre-emptive, as some editors had mentioned them and noted the changes from 12 to 22 principal areas meant the AOS were reconstituted also. The CCW website uses those 22 new areas, and it is easier for editors to get data from one area they can relate to fora table, rather than be expected to work out the old areas and new, as I did yesterday, but per SSSI that would be a helluva lot of messing about to expect an editor to do and prone to errors. Working with the data "as is" makes the job considerably easier and more likely to be done. I'd hate to be expected to take data from 22 lists at CCW and put the SSSIs into the correct 12 we used to have on Wiki. Better to simply match the 22.. making a 1:1 copy-over of results. Hope that made sense. I know the editor above is having a hissy-fit.. personally, I don't see there being a problem using the current counties, if it makes the job easier and quicker. We can't all be expected to run round in circles working with outdated areas, can we? Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 10:00, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi. The seems like a sensible approach - as you say it minimises the work needed by editors and reduces the risk of error. When I originally put the Welsh SSSI lists together there wasn't even a online source, so good to hear that CCW have got their act together on this.

All I'd say though is that "Area of Search" is a precise technical term, originating from the Nature Conservancy Council usage I decsribed above, so if we are going to move away from using it as the basis for grouping SSSIs into pages, we shouldn't redefine it to mean something other than that original meaning (as the Powys page currently does). Can you think of a new name for your revised areas, other than AOS? Thanks SP-KP (talk) 10:37, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that Area of Search was so specific, thought it was merely a general term related to database searching. Awkward of CCW to have 12 AOS within 22 counties.. and Natural England not providing Welsh data. I'd suggest the easiest thing would be to have an "AOS" column once lists are converted to tables, so that the correct AOS is given per SSSI row in the Welsh lists.. it means extra work for the editors doing it though. I don't think it wise to invent a new term.. easier to mention in the lead of each of the 22 counties that SSSIs individually fall into separately designated AOS which may have historical county names rather than modern names - given in non-technical terms it should be easier to understand than creating whole new terms to complicate matters further. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 11:02, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Good approach. Of course, we only need the new column where the grouping used for the article and the AOS(s) don't correspond: where they do, we can leave things as they are and don't need an extra column (e.g. Avon, although that might be a bad example as Avon is now four unitary authorities, so should be split up arguably). If you want to do an example intro for a multi-AOS article and a part-AOS article, I'd be happy to review them for you, and then if you want some help converting the intros of other pages to follow the same patterns, let me know and I'll help out with that too. SP-KP (talk) 11:16, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not too sure on the ideal wording at the moment.. am I correct in thinking that the original Welsh AOS are based loosely on the preserved counties of Wales? There are 12 Welsh AOS but I can't find any time when Wales had 12 counties.. whereas English AOS are based on actual administrative county borders, albeit 1970s ones. I'm not sure if there needs to be two different types of explanations for part-AOS and multi-AOS, as the reference to the AOS system would be about how Wales and its SSSIs were designated as a whole cross the country itself, rather than the specific county on each page, i.e. to give a little background info, whereas the table will give the specific AOS in the extra column. Wouldn't need to be a lengthy intro, I don't imagine. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 11:44, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Take a look at the map on page 18 of this link - this gives boundaries of the Welsh (and English and Scottish AOSs). SP-KP (talk) 11:50, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Okay, but are the Welsh AOS borders based on something, such as old counties, like the Engligh ones, or did the NCC devise them with nothing of geographic comparison in mind? The English SSSI articles refer to 1974–1996 administrative counties - it would be useful to be able to refer to a similar practice and article detailed on Wiki for the Welsh SSSIs, to give context in a lead, rather than suggest the NCC made the Welsh AOS up.. if you follow my concern? Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 12:03, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't know of anything more detailed than the stuff in section 4.11 on page 17 of the Guidelines document. Looking at the map, the AOS boundaries in Wales seem to be based on the 1974 admin counties, which would tie in with the section 4.11 comments. There are some modifications though (just as there are for England):

• Mid & South Glamorgan are combined into a single AOS (presumably each was too small by itself to form a sensible AOS)
• Llanelli is included in West Glamorgan rather than Carmarthenshire/Dyfed (presumably the rationale for this was that the entire ecological unit of the Burry Inlet was then all within the same AOS)
• Powys, and Dyfed-minus-Llanelli, are subdivided into their constituent vice-counties, no doubt on grounds of their size
• Gwynedd is also subdivided, but not on a vice-county basis

I notice that the Gwynedd/Clwyd county/AOS boundary on the maps at preserved counties of Wales and the map on p18 of the Guidelines don't match, but interestingly, the map at Clwyd and the green map at Gwynedd do match the Guidelines; I'm not sure what the reason for this discrepancy between the Wikipedia articles is - it may be buried in the text of one of those articles somewhere. Hope this helps. SP-KP (talk) 12:26, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

How about Districts of Wales, formed from the Local Government Act 1972. Based on the map here, and the sketchy hand-drawn map on page 18 of the NCC document we can see that:

#	District codes	Area of Search
1	GD1–3	West Gwynedd
2	GD4–5	East Gwynedd
3	C1–6	Clwyd
4	P1	Mongomery
5	D1	Ceredigion
6	P2	Radnor
7	D2–3	Preseli & South Pembrokeshire
8	D4 & D6	Carmarthen & Dinefwr
9	P3	Brecknock
10	D5 & WG1–4	West Glamorgan
11	MG1–6 & SG1–2	Mid & South Glamorgan
12	GT1–5	Gwent

We can see that Powys and Dyfed are the only 2 of 8 counties divided into multi-AOS. Areas of Search seem to follow their counties district borders closely enough.

The Subdivisions of Wales now used by the CCW for search purposes, probably because people will want to find SSSIs based on current geographical borders and not 1972 - hell, I wasn't even born then - makes it easier than to expect people to have to know old districts before they can find something. Seems to me that it is actually the principle of "Areas of Search" that are out-dated, but with each reconstitution of the UK's borders it would have meant a lot of paperwork, SSSIs changing hands between councils, etc.. and our government is pretty lame when it comes to doing such things properly. So, an introduction in the "new" Welsh SSSI articles will have to mention 2 facts: a) that the AOS were devised based on 1972 borders, while b) the CCW database is based on current borders, as of 1996. hmmm.. nothing too confusing there. O_o Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 04:38, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Yep, you've solved it. A good piece of detective work. SP-KP (talk) 09:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Welsh SSSIs intro

Okay, we need some sort of generic intro to add to the 22 Welsh lists. The following is a very rough draft, which needs working until it is less awkward to make sense of, but gives sufficient detail to explain the situation in layman's terms:

Lead:

The following is a list of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in [[unitary county]], as documented by the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW).<ref>http://www.ccw.gov.uk/landscape--wildlife/protecting-our-landscape/special-landscapes--sites/sites-search-results.aspx</ref>

History (recommended heading for following)

SSSIs in the UK were each designated to an Area of Search (AOS), developed between 1975–79 by the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC), based on regions created by the Local Government Act 1972.<ref>NCC's Bio SSSI Guidelines book, 1998 revision, section 4.5, pp. 14–15.</ref> Where England had its AOSs based on 46 counties, Scotland and Wales were based on their smaller districts. In 1974, Wales was divided into 8 counties, with 37 districts. The NCC created 12 Welsh AOS, each between 400 km² (150 sq mi) and 4,000 km² (1,500 sq mi) in size.<ref>NCC's Bio SSSI Guidelines book, 1998 revision, section 4.11, p. 17.</ref> They closely follow district borders, each area covering several districts. Although SSSIs are grouped by the AOS they originally belonged to, due to subsequent reformation of the UK since 1972 many counties and districts have been divided, merged, renamed making it difficult to search for individual SSSIs without knowing 1972 council areas. As a result, Welsh SSSIs are currently grouped by the subivisions of Wales formed in April 1996 by the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, resulting in 22 principle areas.

See what you make of that. I can't cite CCW as listing by County rather than by AOS for the reason stated, because I'm just hazarding a guess.. but it seems the only logical reason why they should ignore the AOS format, right? Either way, it's the only way their website database allows visitors to search for SSSIs, so it's still a fact that citations are only available in this manner, I suppose. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 10:51, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I've made some edits and arrived at the following; see what you think.

SSSIs in the UK were notified using the concept of an Area of Search (AOS), an area of between 400 km² (150 sq mi) and 4,000 km² (1,500 sq mi) in size.<ref>Joint Nature Conservation Committee, ''Guidelines for the Selection of Biological SSSIs'', ISBN 1873701721, 1998 revision, section 4.11, p. 17.</ref> The Areas of Search were developed between 1975 and 1979 by the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC), based on regions created by the Local Government Act 1972.<ref>Joint Nature Conservation Committee, ''Guidelines for the Selection of Biological SSSIs'', ISBN 1873701721, 1998 revision, section 4.5, pp. 14–15.</ref> Whereas England had its AOSs based on 46 counties, those is Wales were based on a combination of the counties and smaller districts. In 1974, Wales was divided into 8 counties, with 37 districts. The NCC created 12 Welsh AOSs; they mostly follow county borders, but the larger counties (Dyfed, Powys and Gwynedd) are divided into mutiple AOSs using the district borders, Mid and South Glamorgan were merged into a single AOS, and Llanelli district was included in the West Glamorgan AOS.

Within the list below, SSSIs are grouped by the AOS they originally belonged to. Due to local government reorganisation in the UK since 1972, many counties and districts have been divided, merged or renamed. Using the AOS system alone would make it difficult to search for individual SSSIs without knowing 1972 council areas. As a result, the articles here group the Welsh SSSIs using the subdivisions of Wales formed in April 1996 by the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, resulting in 22 principal areas.

— SP-KP (talk) 10:40, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the CCW needs to be mentioned, seeing as they provide access to SSSI citations and are the Welsh equivalent of Natural England in that respect. Perhaps the penultimate sentence could be expanded to say:

Using the AOS system alone would make it difficult to search for individual SSSI citations via the the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) database without knowing 1972 council areas.

Thoughts? Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 09:56, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Good point: yes, they should get a mention, and this is a neat solution. SP-KP (talk) 10:40, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the sentence "Within the list below, SSSIs are grouped by the AOS they originally belonged to." is a little confusing. It sounds as if 1 article = 1 AOS, where now it's 1 article = 1 subdivision = multiple AOSs. The lists, and once developed as tables, are presented in alphabetical order, by site name, there is no "grouping" as such. For the Welsh SSSI tables, I gather the plan is to include an additional column that serves to indicate the AOS an SSSI belongs to, and that column would be sortable.. I think it would be less confusing if it were to simply remove that sentence altogether, and maybe use a footnote against the AOS column heading, with it stating something like, "Areas of Search are based on Welsh counties and districts formed 1974–1996.", as a means to concisely supplement the intro's explanation. It would be less ambiguous to readers, wouldn't you say? It's the use of the word "grouped" that sounds misleading, more than anything, to me. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 11:25, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. I misunderstood what you were planning to do - I thought you were suggesting that within each article we have subheadings for each AOS. I agree that it's much better to show the AOS as a column with an explanatory footnote, so that the SSSIs in each article are listed alphabetically. So, yes, remove that sentence altogether. SP-KP (talk) 11:53, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I know how lengthy some of those Welsh lists are, and it would be a lot of awkward work for editors to try to create separate sets of tables whilst gathering the data from the CCW database. It's tricky and tenious enough just going row by row, A to Z, dozens of times for hours on end without introducing multiple table layouts to the chore. If I recall, the Welsh SSSI citations do note the AOS, so just plonking that into an extra column is far easier, and Wiki markup+html tables does the rest.. with a generic intro, uniform layout, and such, those 22 articles should fit in well with the English SSSIs which look pretty smart once fully developed and upto FL standards. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 12:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I've applied the new format to the Welsh AOS articles, along with a set of Welsh AOS maps, like the one above. Reorganised redirects, etc, because there are "SSSI" and fully-worded redirects - quite messy. I think it should run smoother now, but would you be able to briefly check them out, please?

• Brecknock
• Carmarthen & Dinefwr
• Ceredigion
• Clwyd
• East Gwynedd
• Gwent
• Mid & South Glamorgan
• Montgomery
• Preseli & South Pembrokeshire
• Radnor
• West Glamorgan
• West Gwynedd

Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 12:32, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Good progress. Before I comment in more detail, a question: why isn't the Brecknock list simply a redirect to the Powys list, with the new introductory text appearing there? SP-KP (talk) 17:29, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

The decision was based on Template:SSSI AOS lists. Previously, I changed the Welsh list to the 22 counties, before realising that the template's title included "...grouped by Area of Search". Seemed stupid to redirect 11 of those 12 links (one being unchanged). And several counties are cross-AOSs. It would have been a right mess having half doing one thing, and half another. At least this way it's as uniform as possible.. only Ceredigion has the same county/AOS name since the 1974/1996 county reforms. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 17:35, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Where I was coming from with this question was that it seems strange, and is probably against policy, to have a page entitled "List of X" which isn't actually a list of X but an explanation of why the page doesn't contain a list of X, with a "see also" to point at the page which contains the list (merged with other lists). I don't mind which approach we go with (group the SSSIs by AOS, or by modern local government area); in fact I think you have good arguments for the latter, so I think we should go all the way with this reorganisation. The template is easy to change and you only have to change it once for the changes to appear on all articles in which it features. We don't have to have the "grouped by AOS" text at the top of the template, as the individual articles explain what grouping is used. SP-KP (talk) 17:52, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, let's look at this way - living up to the dictates of policy versus having to filter through hundred of SSSIs in the Powys county list at the CCW, and attempt to create separate Montgomery, Radnor and Brecknor lists, and also work through 22 other counties and reduce them into 12 AOS lists - is going to be very hard work, prone to mistakes, and almost impossible to keep up-to-date, should new SSSIs be notified, etc. This is just one of those "common sense" issues that sometimes rises above the limitations of being unable to cover all ground with one policy. To achieve such a feat would be best done by one editor, with a lot of time on their hands.. but as we know, SSSI lists are usually picked up by different people - I can't imagine how hard it would be to ask them all to dig through 22 lists to find the right SSSIs that make 12. I think this is the safer option. It's not Wiki's fault, it's the CCWs for having the SSSIs sorted by county instead of AOS, which in turn is the government's fault for changing borders all the time - we all know it's just a job-shuffling exercise to either create more over-paid MPs/mayors, or to sack council staff because the economy is screwed - it has no effect on regular people. But yes, rant aside, there are cases where lists are soft-redirects or split. e.g. John Wayne filmography is both, again due to common sense and practicality. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 18:16, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi again. I'm not quite sure I understand the comparison between what you're proposing for Brecknock/Powys and the John Wayne lists. In the case of Gwent, where we have a parent page with links to a set of child pages, I get the analogy, and think this is probably a good pragmatic solution. I can't see why we would want to have a Brecknock page which just has the intro text and a link to the Powys page, and near-identical pages for Radnor and Montgomery, when the same could be achieved by just redirecting those names to the Powys page and including the explanatory text once. This is probably just me being slow - what am I missing? SP-KP (talk) 19:35, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure you're missing anything, just my way of thinking is not always clear. Redirects make people think "Redirect from = Redirected to" - so if you redirect Brecknock to Powys people auto-assume "Brecknock AOS is now Powys AOS".. but no, Brecknock AOS is an AOS within Powys County Borough covering about a third of the county, alongside 2 other AOSs in the same division. So these pages are sort of disambiguating the fact that a County does not equal an AOS, but in most case several. Only one county, Ceredigion, has the same borders and name since 1974, the other 11 have changed - by making sure people can see a) where the AOS covers b) which counties the AOS now occupies, there are no gaps in the system. If you redirect Brecknock to Powsy, an unsuspecting reader may be totally unaware that Montgomery and Radnor also exist within the same county. Trying to explain this on the AOS titled page focuses the reader into understanding the situation. If you try to word it in the county titled articles, some people are so keen to get down to the list/table, that they skip the lead and any prose, this missing a beat in the history of how Welsh borders reforms has affected AOS coverage. Hope that helps explain it. The John Wayne link was just to show that policy isn't always applied, and his article is likely far more viewed than these, and there don't appear to be issues with directing one title to another then splitting to the lists. Probably a bad example. Look at this one instead, which is very much like these AOS ones I just setup: List of Western films. Note how there is no list, contrary to the title, but a short lead then many links to other lists. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 19:54, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I'm still not convinced, as the List of Western films is again a parent list which points to a set of child lists. If you can find some precedents for a set of child lists pointing to a single parent list, I'd be convinced. Maybe we need a third opinion on this one? SP-KP (talk) 15:49, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

"3O is only for assistance in resolving disagreements that have come to a standstill." I wasn't aware we had a disagreement, as such. But as this discussion is not held on an article talkpage I don't think 3O applies. Nor do I want my user talkpage being host to a lengthy debate with multiple editors using my page and filling my inbox with notifications. As I see it, there is no other way of presenting Welsh AOS to the layman.. the way you propose, by redirecting AOS straight to the new counties they occupy, and even then only a select few, gives the false impression I described before.. readers assume the county is an AOS, not a part of it. Without retaining the current format, as a form of disambiguation, there is no easy way to relate new County borders to older AOS borders which in turn host SSSIs - it's a 3-tier process. As I see it an AOS is a parent.. but the CCW has broken these parent lists down into their respective counties, some are exclusive, some are shared,so it's a mess. Redirecting readers would prevent them from realising this is the case and letting them identify with the current geographical situation, and that AOSs established in the 1970s cover the same territory but occupy totally different counties since 1996. It isn't just a matter of parent-child - that's how data usually relates to other data, but it's not necessarily pragmatic in every case - the data we have to work with is organised by the CCW in a non-AOS fashion. Perhaps, one day, when all the Welsh AOS tables are complete, someone might spend some time converging matching AOS rows to produce tables grouped purely by AOSs.. in fact, that would be very easy now I consider it, I could do it in an hour or two, given 22 complete county tables, and turn them into 12 "true AOS" tables. But until that time, I don't see any practical solution that makes gathering the data easy for those editors, or understandable for all readers with no technical background knowledge regarding AOSs or SSSIs. I would suggest, based on that, that we simply consider the current setup a temporary solution.. with a mind to do what I said there: turn the 22 County articles back into 12 AOS articles. It may take months.. but it's a goal worth considering. It all depends on people being prepared to go through the tedious process of getting at that data across from CCW to Wiki. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 16:38, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, I guess I really did mean something less formal than WP:3O, i.e. just the "opinion of a third editor". You've been more closly involved in lots more work on the SSSI articles more recently than me, so maybe you can suggest someone? SP-KP (talk) 16:48, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

User:RobinLeicester, User:Dudley Miles, and User:Sjeans have all been involved in updating the English SSSI lists recently, they may have some thoughts on the Welsh ones also. If they want to read through this discussion, review the setup and comment on whether they approve of it or not, it would be a start, I suppose. Better to have people who are familiar with the SSSI system who might have fresh perspectives should an alternative be preferred. For all you know, we may both be missing something... Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 17:01, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'll contact them. You also said we shouldn't really be discussing this here, but at an article talk page, and I agree, so I'll suggest that the discussion resumes at Talk:Site of Special Scientific Interest. SP-KP (talk) 17:15, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Contact User:Zangar also. He showed a particular interest in the Welsh lists, but I don't think he got back to them. Might be worth stirring his interest with this. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 17:26, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I've initiated the discussion and invited those editors. As you say, a fresh pair of eyes might come up with a solution that neither of us thought of. Cheers SP-KP (talk) 17:30, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I've seen your opening comment at WT:SSSIs and will wait and see what people think. So far, everything I've done to the Welsh AOS pages recently has really been a rush-job to organise something from chaos that existed, as there were both AOS and County articles on Wiki but no ties between them to allow readers to associate which were actually AOSs.. a temporary solution, until the lists can be compiled and a permanent solution determined. I think we're putting the cart before the horse here, and trying to organise the AOSs to the county lists which were half-started and are, to be frank, crappy plain lists.. and need much work once England's lists are all done. Only Scotland and N.Ireland to worry about next. Oh joy. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 17:40, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Military history coordinator election

The Military history WikiProject has started its 2012 project coordinator election process, where we will select a team of coordinators to organize the project over the coming year. If you would like to be considered as a candidate, please submit your nomination by 14 September. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact one of the current coordinators on their talk page. This message was delivered here because you are a member of the Military history WikiProject. – Military history coordinators (about the project • what coordinators do) 09:28, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Battle of Waterloo

Please remove "But you're right, we must be the centre, that's why French perverts in the paparazzi not only killed one of our princesses, but still continue to take photos of our latest princess' tits for you lot to ogle over. French porn-seekers must be in dire need of English flesh. :)" Fun as it is to bash the French,[7] this is a distraction from what is otherwise an effective broadside (the IP addresses are German), please remove it as it is a distraction from the main message. -- PBS (talk) 07:48, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Why bother? Simply invite MilHist members to comment on the Allied order. Pretty soon you'd be able to close the thread under WP:SNOW provocation. Doesn't need a lengthy discussion with a bunch of semi-nationalist IPs or semi-racist revisionist editors. The entire discussion is a distraction per se, the POV/COI offends me a million-times more than any stereotype ever could, as a neutral-minded editor. As I noted, the WP:RANDY in that thread speaks volumes. No one with any sense is ever going to take it seriously.. well, not unless our "friends" in the EU come along and decide to make it law that Prussia won, which wouldn't surprise me. Give it a week or so, that thread will thankfully die out since my reaction.. the original single-use IP (French) editor opened the discussion in May.. 4 months, and 16 replies makes it no threat. If any of these editors were to risk change the article itself, you can bet it would be reverted within a short time as unconventional, anyway. Those IPs are poking a WP:DEADHORSE. I guess the funniest thing is, Prussia hasn't existed for 22 years.. seems like the Germans didn't want to give it any priority. I don't think they can maintain that broadside, not since the article was pp'd for a week due to vandalism. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 10:03, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Incnis Mrsi

I've also had problems with this user. I'll back you up if you need it.... StringTheory11 (t • c) 22:37, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I haven't looked into his issues with other editors, only a couple which I came across, and his attitude was fairly uncivil; as you can see he represents himself as "high and mighty", despite being quite the opposite, obnoxious and bullish. I don't like editors who claim to be better, more experienced or somehow superior to others, as it puts people off joining the community and editor retention is suffering enough, lately,without his kind scaring new members off. I think you may be right that AN/I might be appropriate, if his record is as severe as you say. But AN/I has tried to move away from settling minor disputes, and petty content issues, as it often results in drama and time-wasting but little action. Unless he is making severe personal attacks, or controversial edits, I doubt he'll get more than a warning.. but that might be enough to knock him off that high horse of his. If you do raise it with AN/I, let me know, I'll monitor the discussion incase I need to comment.. but you need a strong case, AN/I really only want the worst issues brought to their attention. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 22:50, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Re RFC: I appeciate the support, but let's focus discussion at ANI. The RFC will likely die a natural death. EEng (talk) 18:10, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations

Coordinator of the Military history Project, September 2012 – September 2013

In recognition of your election as a co-ordinator of the Military history project for the September 2012 to September 2013 period, please accept these co-ord stars. Thank you for standing and I hope it will be a fruitful year. Welcome aboard. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:01, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 11:15, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Please accept my congratulations as well. Intothatdarkness 14:41, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, also! Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 16:21, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

File rename request

Y Done. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 20:11, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Cheers. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 21:22, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks on Cite_quick and Obama article

I must thank you for the time you have taken to analyze the use of new Template:Cite_quick and article "Barack Obama" which began cratering during reformat starting on 28 September 2012. Following your comments at the Cite_quick TfD, I have changed {cite_quick} to quickly show the "coauthors=" in each citation. Originally, I had no idea that major article, viewed over 55,000 times per day prior to the upcoming November Presidential election, was crashing on the bottom 2 navboxes (and {Persondata} or authority control) for over a week, and I discovered it by accident. Even though we have 9,500 other registered editors making numerous changes every month, WP continues to run as a "skeleton crew" where only a handful of editors are fixing problems in each of thousands of areas. I kept thinking, article "Barack Obama" has been crashing everyday, and no one had fixed it, like this is the "wiki-Twilight Zone" where reality does not apply. However, in retrospect, the numerous archive-URLs, added by DASHBot (in September 2012), had probably made the article too large by over 100 citations, so no wonder other editors could not "fix" the article to display properly. Few people think of bot edits as the reason why articles cannot display (or how bots restore vandalism if not removed properly). As you likely know, other editors have been struggling to develop fast-cite templates for over a year, but rejection has been massive, as with the October 2011, older Template:Cite_book_quick (view hist), which was introduced a year ago, with related templates now deleted. Anyway, thank you for taking time to defend this rescue of article "Barack Obama" with {cite_quick}, and encouraging a common-sense view of priorities, about how to improve articles. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll be honest, in that I'm not familiar with the history or citation templates to date. I've just learned to accept the fact that people, in general, do not like or welcome sudden change.. how often has Facebook, YouTube, or eBay changed its design or UI layout in recent years, only to be flooded with "the new look is awful" type threads and comments for the first few weeks, and then people begin to rationally see that new designs are necessary as the internet evolves.. people don't understand that behind every website is a who array of platforms, such as the X/HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, Perl, Ruby, Ajax, MySQL, LiteSQL, and so on. Servers, PCs, laptops, browsers are getting better, and people can't expect dull 1990s Netscape-friendly HTML4 web pages, with basic commands. The same attitude carries onto Wikipedia, in a similar aspect, with people not being able to accept change, moreso because the essence of Wiki-consensus makes them feel they should have a say in how tight every screw should be that holds Wiki together. Some admins, the few we have (many of whom I hardly consider the cream of Wiki) can be over-bearing, to the point of pseudo-moderation, and as a result change is hindered. You simply need to accept that every time you try to do anything on this site, somebody is going to moan about it. There are a lot of "bad faith" editors and IP-jumpers around who don't give a hoot about anyone but themselves (or their "world changing" admin tools) as well as a lot of truly good faith editors striving to keep this sinking ship from foundering.. having the right people recognise your work at the right time is the challenge, because the main thing Wiki lacks is a sense of gratitude between editors and readers. All I can suggest is you consider the possibility that the WMF may be introducing new methods, this "Lua" language, in the near-future, and that if it is successful, may result in the current citation templates being deprecated. Speedier templates are good, but so in the need for them to be accurate and contain the right material. Personally, I can't understand how Obama's article is so long.. he's about as efficient and interesting as a dead fish, and I think his article is more of a "band wagon" than a genuinely interesting piece of American history. But if he does get a second term, there's no hope in hell of that article surviving 4 more years of expansion.. even with quicker citation templates. But I suppose Wiki has to survive that long, also.. you have be be your own worst critic to survive these days. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 08:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Nintendo handheld template

Just wanted to say thanks for the explanation regarding the 3DS vs DS template. I haven't messed much with templates in general, so it was helpful. — GoneIn60 (talk) 20:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

No worries. Interestingly, looking back at the "template" history, it was originally created back in March 2011 as a result of taking a table out of the article it is transcluded back into now.. not sure I see the point of that, but there you go.. still needs to be made into a standalone article. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:45, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Re: DEFAULTSORT

Hi. I prefer SIC codes to SOC codes. I'm sure I was taught to apply DEFAULTSORT to pages from early, early on. I'll try and find out where from. Now I just need to paint over this ocean grey... Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:06, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Harold Lloyd

Hi Marcus. Thanks for bringing this up. I noticed the feature film article a while ago when I was working on the main filmography article. I think it should be merged into the existing filmography. I don't think WP:SIZE would be an issue and I can't think of a good reason why the two lists should exist instead of just one. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 16:41, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXXX, November 2012

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: The month's new Featured and A-Class content Book reviews: Sturmvogel_66, AustralianRupert, and Nick-D look at ships, soldiers, and railways Op-ed: Nick-D on navigating the FA and A-Class review processes

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 01:50, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

IP 66.30.138.33

As you can see in the relevant ANI section here, I have blocked the IP address for six months. I was inclined to do it for a year, but decided to compromise. I have also placed some much shorter range blocks to make it a little harder for the disruptive editor to carry out his/her threat to evade the block. However, if you see any block evasion, please feel welcome to contact me about it. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:06, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

That's great, thanks. I should point out, that you stated that it is clearly User:Beyond495. That being the case, should that registered account not also be warned for socking, or a checkuser performed incase other sleeper accounts are in use, besides the IP? Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 09:22, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I am doubtful if a checkuser would agree to look into this, unless there is evidence of more sockpuppetry. However, you can try asking a checkuser if you like. As for warning Beyond49, I wondered about that, but decided not to. The account claims to be "retired", and has edited only once since June, and only once outside his/her userspace since January. You are, of course, perfectly free to drop a warning on the user's talk page if you like, but my own inclination is to leave it, since the account seems to be substantially inactive. Obviously, if the account now springs back to life, then that will be a very different matter. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:32, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

One more thought. As far as I am concerned, the user has already had plenty of warnings. The fact that those warnings were on the IP talk page rather than the account's talk page is irrelevant: a warning is a warning, no matter where it appears, and there don't need to be separate warnings for the same user at every account and IP address the user has ever edited from. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:36, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with Beyond495, not sure how you even made the match.. so I'll leave it, as you say, and see if anything happens. I think a "retired" tag is a good way of trying to draw attention away from someone who really intends mischief, though. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 09:39, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXXXI, December 2012

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: The month's new Featured and A-Class content Book reviews: Simon Harley on British battleships and Nick-D on the French Resistance Interview: Five editors discuss some less-represented areas of military history Op-ed: Ian Rose looks back on 2012

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 09:31, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Who?

As you no doubt know, the troll you referred to used to use this IP address until I blocked it, and it then shifted to the IP range that it now uses. It may be this editor, who, as you can see if you click on that link, has a resentment against Wikipedia. Certainly that user used the IP address I referred to up to August 2012, but after that it is not entirely clear whether it is still the same person or another one. In that month, the IP stopped editing that user's favourite articles, which could mean that a different person took over the IP address. On the other hand, though, it could just be that the user eventually gave up on trying to impose his/her edits against Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and consensus, having finally realised that it was a battle he/she could never win, and instead switched to deliberately disruptive editing in revenge. My feeling is that that is more likely than the totally new editor taking over the IP address. Unfortunately the IP range now being used contains quite a lot of constructive editing from other editors, so it's not possible to place a range block for more than a day or so, which is of little use against someone who has been doing the same trolling over a time scale of many months. I think the best approach is revert, block, ignore, with a heavy emphasis on ignore. The more attention people like this see they are getting, the more it encourages them. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:05, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, revert and ignore... Oh no, wait. Those two things completely contradict each other since reversion is the exact opposite of ignoring, it's an explicit acknowledgment of a comment's existence. Of course, neither of you seem to get it yet, so I can't say I'm surprised.

I've been on Wikipedia longer than you and Watson here, and he is exactly wrong. This is a battle that I can never lose, because you cannot dissuade me from following you around, you can only slow me down temporarily. I am going to continue to follow you until I feel like not following you. And I will be doing so under different guises, and possibly even under good faith edits as well just to make sure that you realize that I could be anyone you are dealing with, even JamesBWatson here, and at any random time I could be disrupting something you're doing.

You have a few choices. You could completely shut yourself off contact with every other editor. No doubt that would eliminate much of the enjoyment you deprive from this site, which I would consider a victory. You could somehow block every IP address in existence, which wouldn't happen, and when you do block IP addresses, that's a win for me because I want to discourage people from editing Wikipedia and make it more difficult for them to do so. Or you can apologize for yourself and all your ilk who have mistreated people here on Wikipedia in the past. Then I'll move on and harass someone else like you and leave you alone if I feel you have learnt your lesson. The choice is yours. Until then, I'll be around kid. - 66.30.138.33 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 13Jan13 (talk • contribs) 22:33, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't apologise to morons, I let they stew in their own hate. Your "covert operation" is childish, and I don't give a shit if you do it or not.. if I suspect someone is you I'll request a CheckUser, and if it is, the account will be blocked.. and then you'll have to start over. Just remember, you can't reclaim YOUR wasted time when you're lying on your deathbed wishing you had 5 more minutes. You don't scare me, or anyone round here, hillbilly. Go preach to someone who gives a damn. The only lesson to be learned here: your "few choices" are exhaustible and futile. Toodles, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 23:18, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

This response made my day!

Ha! Listen to yourself! When talking about hate, one only needs to listen to the tone of anger and frustration in your voice here. Such childish taunts are clear signs of desperation, apparently you aren't taking your buddy's advice by responding to me, but that's only because you know I'm right. And quite frankly, I'm not particularly surprised. Arrogant and petulant responses like these are why I am continuing to follow you and people like you, the sheer thought that you think you are justified despite all of the destruction that Wikipedia has caused. As for the rest of what you've said, I already saw your AN/I thread, so checkusers don't work and blocking doesn't work (I've had dozens upon dozens of accounts, and I have no need to immediately get back to you, I have multiple computers and multiple IPs anyway). As for the "deathbed" comment, trust me. It brings me plenty of joy to hear you sound so powerless to stop me from following you, a powerlessness that you people love to inflict to innocent, good intentioned people who get in your way. The offer still stands. Apologize for the sins you and your kind caused, and I'll leave you be. Otherwise, I'll see you around, kid. -- 66.30.138.33

You sound like a paedophile with delusions of grandeur. Afterall, only a pedo looking at child porn would need multiple machines and IPs. I'm sure you lack multiple friends, despite having multiple personality disorder. I don't need to "stop you" doing anything, as what you're doing is wining no prizes anyway.. all you're doing is building snowmen that melt away to nothing.. Do as you will, your weak-minded psychology is about as intelligent as most terrorists get. Ah yes, you are, by your own admission, a cyber-terrorist.. stalk, harass, plague away, you lonely boy, you. I'm sure your parents are very proud of you, but when you eventually grow up and get some hair on your tiny balls, someone is going to kick seven shades of shit out of your face oneday. I'm sorry. Sorry that I won't be there to see it. Sins? I'd have to believe in God to give a damn about "sins". So, I look forward to seeing you in Hell and adding to your misery. PS: Text on a screen doesn't have a voice.. those are all in your head. You're cuckoo! :) Have a nice day.. I know I am. Pedantic loser! Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 18:21, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

SSSI notability

Hi. I left a message over at a wiki project and then found the SSSI stuffs that you've been helping to work on. Wondered if you had a view as to the inherent notability, or otherwise, of nature reserves in general? I've come across a pile of very generic stubs attached to the Suffolk Wildlife Trust article that I'm inclined to think some of which need merging with localities, but wondered if anyone who knows the area of wiki better than I do (i.e. knows it at all...) might have a view to offer? I'd be interested in any views on the general notability of SSSI sites as well while you're at it... Thanks. Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:22, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi, you might find Wikipedia:Places of local interest and/or Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features) of use in defining notability for such areas. I don't think anyone has specifically stated "nature reserves" in those, but parks are mentioned, and SSSIs are often located within the boundaries of National Parks and other such Protected Areas (e.g Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty). As for merging, I can only advise common sense. If there is a larger "parent" article covering much the same ground, merging stubs into it can be good, though you should be certain first that the stubs in question are conveying the most they could every attain, as there are many basic stubs with potential to be expanded, and it makes more sense to build on them until they become detailed articles of their own. A lot of editors start stubs without really adding more than a simple description, only later do they expand to worthwhile. It's really a judgement call. That said, you can still merge a stub to a parent article.. if another editor has a lot to say during a future contribution, they can easily break it away again back to its own page. Any more questions, please do ask. If you plan on working on SSSI list articles, feel free to use/edit the sub-pages I've created, they're there to be updated to help others plan and attack weaker pages. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 21:35, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Ta - those were the places I looked before coming here as it happens! I think I probably have a slightly better sense of what's sensible now - some I'll redirect and place any useful content on the locality, others stay as stubs and others I'll certainly be able to expand.

Started on the List of SSSI in Suffolk btw as it seemed one of the few not to have been started on. Interesting process... Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:50, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate that it's a long, boring, oft tedious process getting all the data from Natural England to Wiki, having done a few myself. Fortunately, there aren't too many English AOS left. If you complete Suffolk, please update the table on my SSSI page, I'll do a "consistency copy-edit" just to make sure the format matches up with the other SSSI articles, and to optimise the pagesize, if necessary. No rush. Many thanks, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 17:52, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for editing that table for me btw - much appreciated (I think I stole the original code from one that seemed pretty solid fwiw). Getting there - although the citation sheets seem to have slightly different areas on than the summary report that I used to complete the table did. The summary is more recent in many cases than the citation - I'm inclined to go with that and not worry too much about a small difference in most cases, unless you'd advise otherwise. Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:43, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I would be inclined to go with the areas given in the citations, as those are what we reference and can be verified by readers. I have no doubt that SSSIs change size and are reassessed following the original citation, but there is nothing that says Wiki has to be "100% up-to-date with the paperwork", unless it can be fully referenced. To be truthful, I don't think these lists are highly read by geologists and such, and that even less know what a hectare or acre is, let alone care about it being accurate, people just like to see what's going on in their local area, what nature areas there are and such.. including myself.. I'm no conservationist or nature rambler, I just think it's a nice little project to organise and let people learn about their local areas more.. SSSIs probably being the micro-management of larger protected areas and national parks. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:02, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXXXII, January 2013

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: The month's new Featured and A-Class content Book reviews: Nick-D looks at Mongol naval power Op-ed: Crisco 1492 on war films

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 13:28, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Just an FYI

On this, just so you know, either emdashes or spaced endashes are acceptable to split clauses in a sentence (though there were problems in the article with the date ranges, etc.). Parsecboy (talk) 20:41, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I know that. Only emdashes are meant to be unspaced word—word with endashes spaced word – word. Also, an article should be consistent and use one or the other.. dates excluded.. that article was a complete balls-up, with a mix of both, some used improperly, per MOS, there were spaced emdashes. As such, I've made it completely spaced endashes, which is the more visually appealing option. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:46, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

FYI

Perhaps you've seen The Flight - television, not a western, Hitchcock produced. Interesting. Wish Audie had done more of these. — Maile (talk) 17:03, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

No, I have not seen that one. I was just glancing over the comments.. interesting one about him saying, "I keep turning down liquor and cigarette commercials. I don't believe they are good for kids." I think it would be a wonderful quote to use.. it shows his integrity as a responsible public figure, but it also contrasts with his addiction to sleeping pills.. in those days you'd expect most guys just to smoke and drink. I found this, it may be a good source.. see the column under his photograph: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1774&dat=19680922&id=1jsgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AGYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7368,5127401 The info. about his ending up in debt might be good for his bio. also? Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 17:13, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

-He had a few other issues which I don't think belong in WP, because it is not a tabloid. You take a young almost-a-boy and make all temptations possible to him, you get the kid in a forbidden candy store phenomenon on top of PTSD.

- There's a brief two-sentence subsection "Financial troubles" which begs to be expanded, with whatever I can find. Likewise some of the other small subsections. I've been to the library and checked out Celebrity Secrets, which is about his FBI file. It doesn't deal in depth with the file, but it might be as much as I can find out about that. I also find interesting His Homes - especially that he used to raise quarter horses on his ranch - but after all these decades, the trail seems to have gone cold on finding other details.

-Reworking "Military career" has been an experience when comparing it to his account in his book. That is, some of the details in the WP article were off - which is probably due to "biography by committee". And as I go through it sentence by sentence, I see well-meaning things like vagueness. This article is certainly not going to be an overnight task, but I'd like to get it in the best shape possible. — Maile (talk) 20:34, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

I can imagine.. it's probably why most editors tend to write articles from scratch or not at all.. because reworking an existing article can be a pain. Although I think it's reasonable to identify a bad article, yet create a completely new version in sandbox to replace it out-right, and hope previous editors don't take issue with that. Sometimes you just have to bulldoze and rebuild to get the job done properly. I'm sure, if the intention is to get the article to a high standard, GA or FA, then editors who made no attempt to improve the article themselves to such a degree, other than adding a few sentences here and there, have no room to complain. I think the progress is good so far. Not sure what the tabloids were saying about him, but in terms of his debts and refusal to partake in advertising for cigs and booze, it comes straight from the horses mouth and speaks volumes about some of his opinions, especially given that the U.S. Prohibition would have ended when he was about 8 so would hardly influence him to oppose drinking, and the effects of smoking weren't firmly established, his views seem ahead of his time and very wise.. compared to say, Yul Brenner who smoked himself to death, and Alan Ladd who took a cocktail of alcohol and pills. It's an awful twist of fate that someone so thoughtful in such matters should die from a plane crash, of all things. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 21:03, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

The FBI files and Pamela Murphy's obit, as well as a variety of other places, mention alcohol problems, being a serial womanizer, beating his first wife, and Pamela's obit even says he deserted her (I don't find that last tidbit anywhere else). The drinking is probably fair game with the PTSD. Maybe even his overall temper since that was in his book in his own words. The FBI files mentions some rather violent behavior directed towards people on the movie set. Unless I can prove that elsewhere, I have my doubts. That agency has been known to fib just to keep in practice. But unless somebody later down the line at FA or wherever pushes the issue, I don't think there's a reason to dig up old tales of other women, and marital problems - especially in the case of the first wife it was "he said, she said". It's not essential to the overall story.— Maile (talk) 22:34, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

I only recall one wife claiming he slept with a gun under his pillow and that he once threatened her with it. I think it's fair to mention that, if it was attributed to his PTSD, and an incident relating to his sleeping disorders, rather than claiming he was violent and would have done it regardless.. I can't see any evidence to support him being a violent man, aside from a short-temper and paranoia.. something any veteran could develop, given the circumstances. Perhaps, as a Southern-state American, he had that infamous, albeit stereotypical, Texan zeal? i.e. Aggressive, but only when there's a good cause to be. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 23:21, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Lookie here

Whispering Smith on YouTube I've actually never seen the series, I'm pretty sure. I don't know how it fares on the violence level to upset Congress. I always thought that The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp was the most violent TV western of its era. — Maile (talk) 22:13, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

No, I haven't seen it either.. I especially to see the 1948 Whispering Smith film, because I really like Alan Ladd, having seen Shane and The Proud Rebel, which is one of my absolute fav. Westerns, despite the lack of action. It's getting to the point now though, that I've got so many Westerns (as listed here) that I have almost exhausted affordable Region 2 releases, and have had to flash my main DVD-drive to RPC-1 as I have been ordering titles from the U.S. which being Region 1 require multi-region playability. Fortunately, that was free and painless and VLC media player lets me watch without limits. Happily, a lot of U.S. sellers use Amazon UK and there is no additional postage, and they're usually far cheaper than UK counterparts (due to our damnable tax system), so I'm building up a hefty and respectable collection. As for Audie Murphy, I have all his films listed on my Westerns actors checklist here. I don't have many of his yet, and some are very hard to get hold of, and rare ones can be pricey.. e.g. The Cimarron Kid. Hopefully before the year's out, I'll have seen a few more of his Westerns, as what I've seen so far, I did enjoy.

— I just got some DVDs arrive from the U.S., ordered a few weeks ago, Whispering Smith, the film, is on one of them. :) I had forgotten this. 11:36, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp may have been violent then, but I bet it didn't have anything near the level of language used in the recent Deadwood TV series, which was great but far too much swearing, that it became tiresome. Personally, I'm waiting for them to finish releasing the full Rawhide series onto DVD, so that I can get it all in one boxset rather than series-by-series over a longer time. Has taken them ~3 years to issue just 3 of 8 series on R2 so far.. *sigh* Studios have no idea how to market things efficiently. If I get impatient, the Aussies have already finished, on R4.. beating even America (7 years for 5 series) – too many negotiations over rights and back-handers required these days before anything gets done in the film industry. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 05:52, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm old-fashioned enough to actually like a story line. Not a lot of current-day American productions have much of one. If you take out the foul language, sometimes there isn't much dialogue. In the Audie Murphy era, there was a tight lid on what could come in to someone's living room via television. And sometimes, looking at reruns, it seems funny. People used to have a saying, "...by all that's holy...", which I guess meant, "..I swear it's true..." or something like that. When I see the old Ward Bond Wagon Train series, I have to laugh. That phrase peppers the episodes, but the sanitized version, "...by all that tolley". Still, I wish entertainment today would censor itself on language.14:11, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I usually go for a storyline too. Some of the best films are plot or character driven, and may lack action.. but you can see how times have changed. Modern Westerns are more like action films.. even zombie horror films are nothing like the slow-paced Romero films, but are driven by action and gore. Doesn't stop me watching them, of course, but does show that modern cinema has lost some of its originality to modern ideals of what makes a good film. I think the proof stand for itself if you compare Cameron's Titanic to A Night to Remember. Despite the exceptional effects in the newer production, the story line itself, the characters, the action with pukey romance is awful compared to the earlier attempt. I'm sick to death of epic stories being plagued with fictional romance.. Titanic, Pearl Harbor, The Red Baron, The North Face, et al.. they keep doing it, and it totally destroys the historical relevance of the film. I'd rather they got to grips with that insidious cliché, and then worry about excessive language. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 15:37, 18 February 2013 (UTC)