User talk:Gdr/Archive 1

Archives 1 — 2004-04/2005-04 2 — 2005-04/2005-08 3 — 2005-08/2006-03 4 — 2006-03/2007-08

Discussions started here have been moved to:

• Talk:Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald
• Talk:Japanese grammar
• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style for Japan-related articles on multiple romanizations
• User talk:Bobblewik on "Great Britain" vs "United Kingdom"
• User talk:Bobblewik on conversion of exact values
• User talk:RickK on Kingdom of Israel
• Talk:Spanish treasure fleet on choice of examples
• Talk:Greco-Persian Wars on "Persian" vs "Greco-Persian"
• Image:Spanish Galleon.jpg on the origin of that image.

---

Convoy

Nice work on Convoy, Gdr. Much improved. Tannin

Thanks. Gdr 15:21, 2004 Apr 20 (UTC)

Complexity classes

Hello. Your move of the complexity classes out of the main list (list of computability and complexity topics) actually goes against the policy discussed at Wikipedia:Lists (embedded lists). That is, link lists are preferred to having lists tagged onto main articles. Charles Matthews 16:42, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I moved the list to its own page, list of complexity classes. Is that OK? Gdr 16:55, 2004 May 18 (UTC)

Better. It's a bit strange if the complexity classes aren't mentioned on a complexity topics page; and now people have to go to the new list to get RecentChanges for those. Charles Matthews 17:23, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Certainly, but it's much easier to keep one list up to date than two. Gdr 17:55, 2004 May 18 (UTC)

That's the maintainer's perspective. Charles Matthews 18:50, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

And a reader's perspective is that they can find what they want on one accurate list instead of two inaccurate lists. Gdr 18:53, 2004 May 18 (UTC)

NS record

Howdy Gdr. Firstly a thanks for your pages - you seem to write about a lot of things I'm interested in. I did notice someone other than me also assumed NS record was a stub. I put up a few words about why I thought this when I stubbed it a few months ago at Talk:NS record and was wondering if you'd noticed it. Cheers. - TB 14:33, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

CE

Do you have something special against the Common Era? -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 11:59, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Nothing at all. I certainly wouldn't replace it with AD. Gdr 12:00, 2004 Jul 1 (UTC)

Why are you deleting it from Buddhism-related articles? -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 12:03, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I removed "AD" and "CE" from dates. Many articles, not just Buddhist-related. Gdr 12:08, 2004 Jul 1 (UTC)

::laughs:: Well, I was only watching the Buddhism-related ones. In any case the operative part of the question is "Why?" -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 12:12, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

(a) Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) says to format dates in the common era as plain numbers; (b) it's inconsistent: you don't write 2004 CE so why write 874 CE? (c) plain numbers avoid the whole vexed question of what to call the era. Gdr 12:21, 2004 Jul 1 (UTC)

Ah, interesting. Well, I shan't yell at you for the errors of the Manual of Style, but for the record, it can be important, particularly with dates that are close to the turn of the era, to specify which side; it's often necessary to disambiguate, and you have no way of knowing now whether tomorrow someone is going to add a date on the other side tomorrow, so it's better safe than sorry. We don't write 2004 CE most of the time, but that's because there's usually no danger of knowing whether you meant 2004 CE or BCE; this is not true of, say, 150 CE/BCE. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 12:37, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Bounding sphere

Greetings: (re: Bounding sphere) As bad as my spelling is, "tho" for "to" was a keyboarding error ("Typo") and not a spelling error. I seem to be followed everywhere by User:Maximus Rex, athough I suspect that he is using automated tools, just from the changes made (always correct in spelling, but sometimes out of context). Thanks for the alertness and copyedit, regardles of my complaint, it is greatly appreciated.Leonard G. 23:24, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hobson-Jobson

Thanks for fleshing out the Hobson-Jobson stub! Good info. Quadell (talk) 20:14, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)

Object serialization

You could have done something about merging the contents of the article I started writing, into the preexisting one. Never mind, I'll fix it up later. Dysprosia 12:19, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I was in the middle of doing so when you wrote that! Sorry. Gdr 12:30, 2004 Jul 9 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I should have probably looked at the timestamps more closely. Thanks Dysprosia 04:00, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Talk:Japanese language

Please get back to this article. In 4 days, you erased a part of an article by having 2 people agree without a fact presented that disproves anything written. It's free to believe anything but that's not how to go about editing in Wikipedia. Revth 14:58, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

ISO 8601

Hi! Thanks for rewording and clarifying stuff on ISO 8601, it was certainly an improvement. The one concern I have is with the mention of two digit years. Within the ISO 8601 standard, two numbers (19) represent a century. Two numbers may represent a year within an implied century only when preceded with a hyphen (-19). Of course, it's all quite easily confused and that's why we should use four digit years. I just wanted to explain why I'm going to reword that section just a bit, so that it doesn't conflict with the standard itself. Thanks! kmccoy (talk) 21:39, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Digital photography

Good work on Digital photography. I was thinking of cleaning those parts up but I see you beat me to it. Rhobite 17:25, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)

Party designation in early United States Congresses

Hello, I'm leaving you a message because you were one of the people that suggested the above article should be merged and redirected when it was debated for deletion. The consensus appeared to be to merge this material elsewhere but no indication was given by anyone who suggested this where it should be merged to. Could you please either suggest a location or merge the material yourself: if it's still on VFD/Old this time tomorrow it will be deleted. Thank you. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 21:26, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Images

I know you want the correct information on the pictures here, but the way you're posting things on Neutrality's talk page strikes me as rude. Mike H 21:49, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

I intended no rudeness. What would you recommend I do instead? Gdr 21:55, 2004 Aug 6 (UTC)

An email would have probably solved it, as it looked like he didn't respond. I know with me, I respond to emails much faster than Wiki sometimes. Mike H 22:03, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, gdr.

Hello! I know you were concerned about the copyright status of some images. Take a look at RfA for my response. Thanks. :) Neutrality 21:44, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Your vote needed at George_W._Bush

Please go here, ASAP and vote.

Rex071404 07:53, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hill categories

You've been a busy boy/girl re-doing all the hill categories, respect!Grinner 09:16, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

Eiger

Done.

Thank you.

(And thanks for cleaning up ship categories!)

You're welcome.

Wanna be an admin? The only reason I'm one is to be able to move articles around... :-) Stan 15:55, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No, thank you. I've only had to ask for help a couple of times so I think I can manage for now. Gdr 16:02, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)

Categorization FAQ

Thanks for the feedback. I'm taking a wiki-break at the moment, but I've moved the FAQ into the Wikipedia namespace so all the wiki-good stuff can happen like your suggestion. See Wikipedia:Categorisation FAQ. --Zigger 17:34, 2004 Aug 19 (UTC)

Categorisation of military units

Hi Gdr, Given your great work on sorting out categories around the place (battles, history, ships) would you care to comment on categorisation of military units and formations at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military? One question is whether we need separate categories for "formations" and "units" but there's also a question over the general organisation of the existing top-level Category:Military formations. Thanks. Geoff/Gsl 03:48, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I took a look. You seem to be doing fine. Gdr 19:23, 2004 Aug 23 (UTC)

The Man Who Was Thursday

"It was a bit cheeky of you to restore the table without mentioning it in your edit comment. If you feel strongly about these abominable tables, please contribute to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels#Infoboxes considered harmful." Gdr 13:03, 2004 Aug 25 (UTC)

That's weird. I was all ready to trounce you with self-righteous invective, since I believed myself wholly innocent of the crime. My intention was indeed purely to disambiguate depression. I wondered if it might have been a simaltaneous submission of an edit that meant the table ended up going back in, but looking at the times on the edit history I don't see how that can be the case.

The only similar thing that's happened to me like this before was one of my very first edits when someone reverted me and I asked why, since all I had done was to wikify a link... turned out I'd deleted half the article by mistake. I've never really come to understand how that happened either, though nobody has told me off for doing anything similar again.

For the record, I did only go to the Thursday article after seeing the discussion on boxes to see what was being debated, but I had no strong feelings either way. All I can hope to say in support of that is that you won't find me reinserting info boxes on any other novel's pages. Apologies, I'm baffled. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 15:57, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

I think I know what happened. You followed the link from the Village pump, which was to an old version of the page. You clicked on "edit this page" and missed the warning about editing an out-of-date version. Please accept my apologies for impugning you, it was a very easy mistake to make. Gdr 16:02, 2004 Aug 25 (UTC)

Ah, I'm glad you tidied that up. I was sitting here thinking: well, he's never going to believe that I've performed an accidental edit which happens to insert only the lines that involve the table, plus the depression thing many lines below. I suppose this raises a problem that I may also have unwittingly reverted some other edits to the article too. I'll have a look - perhaps you would too, since you know the article a little better. Thanks for getting back to me. Regards, --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 17:46, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

KA on New England

I see you are yet to learn the mysterious inner workings of the mind of Kenneth Alan Mintguy (T) 00:18, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You might want to read Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kenneth Alan/Evidence to get an insight. Mintguy (T) 14:15, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Envelope paradox

Not really. I've read a number of explanations on the web. I'm sure the article will develop. Mintguy (T) 14:11, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What about making this article unbiased by adding the objectivist solution side by side with your subjectivist one? --INic 01:41, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Category:History of Britain

I am sorry for overturning your carefully built categorization system, but it had a major flaw. Category:History of the United Kingdom was serving as both the top level category for the history of that state, and also the sub-category for post-1800 history. The warning on the page specifically states that it is only for post-1800 history, yet paradoxically it was also the correct location for Category:Ancient Britain. Thus I separated it. Cat:History of the UK can now live up to its billing as being for only post 1800 history, while Category:History of Britain can take on the duties of being the higher level category, similar to what the article History of Britain does.

For just as many countries it does not work that way. Category:Canadian history contains pre-confederation articles. Category:German history contains articles on the Holy Roman Empire. Even Category:United Provinces is something of an aberration containing a single sub-category, with other UP articles being in the main Dutch history article. Personally I think names for nations (like German, British, and Canadian) are much better than those for states for history articles fortunately for almost all states those names are the same. State names can change rapidly, with little actual effect on the ground. Category:Burkina Faso need not be divided by each arbitrary name change. nations tend to be more substantive and enduring. The vast majority of British history was unaffected by the Union of 1800. The Industrial Revolution, British culture, the British economy, and the British Empire, those things that modern historians most concern themselves with, were all but completely unchanged. It thus makes sense to keep the full history of these things in one category, dividing only the political sphere, which was much affected by the Union, into two sub-categories. Great Britain is not a geographical or temporal subset of the United Kingdom. Legally it was a distinct entity and there is no logic to making it a sub-category of the UK. What they are both a sub-category of is the history of the British, and Category:History of Britain is thus a logical category to encompass them both. - SimonP 20:26, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

Following you suggestion I moved our discussion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History. - SimonP 20:44, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

human

Where are you getting your info from? I fairly strongly understood that bonobos are more closely related to humans, and that hominids are great apes. (i'm not biting, btw, just curious) Dunc_Harris|☺ 15:37, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's uncontroversial that the evolutionary tree for hominids looks like this:

             .--------------+------------.
             |                           |
    .--------+----------.                |
    |                   |                |
    |            .------+-----.          |
    |            |            |          |
  Homo   P. troglodytes P. paniscus   Gorilla

So neither of the two Pan species is more closely to related to humans than the other, but Pan is more closely related to humans than Gorilla. (Of course, measures of DNA similarity may favour one species, but that's a different story.)

"Great ape" is not a taxonomical term; I think it's more often used to mean "hominids, except for the branch leading to humans" as it is to mean "hominid" only. So I think it needs to be used carefully in a taxonomical context. Gdr 15:57, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I thought, but I thought that P. paniscus was slightly more closely related by the order of a small % base pairs. Dunc_Harris|☺ 16:06, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that people usually mean "% of base pairs" when they say "related"! In my opinion, the story of DNA comparison among hominids is too complex and requires too much interpretation to be simplified to a claim that bonobos are more closely related to humans than common chimpanzees are. It needs its own section in the Hominidae article. My revised sentence is true for both the phylogenetic and sequence-similarity meaning of "related", so I think it can stand without any extra discussion. Gdr 16:13, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

Frame story

Hi Gdr. At the moment Story within a story redirects to Frame story which you recently merged with Frame tale and Frame narrative. I'm proposing a reopen of the more general Story within a story article because as it stands Frame story doesn't give the whole story. See Talk:Frame story.

cheers --harry 15:08, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Super-exponentiation

Super-exponentiation has been edited several times for the past 2 months, and no one bothered renaming it the way you asked it to be done so on Pages needing attention. 66.245.125.240 00:33, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Omoo

First, point taken.

Second, I do try to temper everything I do with common sense. Really! Honestly!

Third, it's very hard to apply this (rough) criterion to works that exist in more than one edition. The Penguin paperback indeed has a sales rank of 218,962, but the THIRTY-DOLLAR Library of America volume with Typee, Omoo, and Mardi has a sales rank of 203,723. I suppose you could argue that all the people that buy that volume are only buying it to get Typee and therefore it shouldn't count :-)

But I think that in the particular case you cite, my criterion is actually pretty much on the money. That is, given those figures (and there are a couple of other editions that include Omoo) it's hard to believe that if there were only one edition its sales rank wouldn't be higher than 200,000.

You'll have to try harder. Pierre?' But don't bother to try too hard, as I'm quite willing to stipulate that there are books I would consider obviously article-worthy that have sales ranks lower than 200,000.

The place I got the arbitrary figure of 200,000 was: originally I reasoned that no more than half of the articles in Wikipedia ought to be about books, therefore the number of articles about books in WIkipedia ought to be restricted to a total of 50% of the total number of articles, currently about 170,000, and of course it ought to be the most notable 170,000, i.e. the 170,000 highest-ranking ones...

What I was really looking for was clear way of sorting out vanity-press and self-published books, which usually have rank number higher than a million... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 16:08, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Battle of Jutland

Thanks for all the work you've put into the Jutland article today - I hope it becomes a featured article. One problem I notice... when you refer to the maps of ship's positions, the new characters you're using in the text display on Internet Explorer (6.0, which I'm using) as black-bordered white boxes; they show up fine in Firefox, my alternative browser... -- Arwel 22:00, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it's well known that IE is poor at displaying exotic characters. Safari and Opera are both fine. Change them if you must, but the longer people abstain from using a wide range of characters the longer Microsoft can avoid having to support them. Gdr 22:08, 2004 Oct 19 (UTC)

Project Liberty Ship

Thanks for the cleanup, Gdr. Much better. I am new to Wikipedia. I added SS John W. Brown photo. Please check that I did the copyright correctly. Oldfarm 22:21, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Gdr: Second thoughts on the cleanup of Project Liberty Ship. Please see my notes on the PLS talk page regarding the PLS mission statement. Oldfarm 01:00, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Image:Waterloo campaign map.png

I have answered your points at Image talk:Waterloo campaign map.png and raised some more questions that I need to resolve before I can fix the map. If you can shed any light on them, I would appreciate it. Geoff/Gsl 07:41, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the answers. Geoff/Gsl 11:21, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have uploaded a revised version of the map. It fixes the glaring errors, changes the Prussian colours, adds a scale and a unit key. It is also less than half the size of the original, which is nice. I haven't attempted to fill in the Hill & Uxbridge moves at this stage as I don't really have enough information to pick their course. Geoff/Gsl 23:00, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Categorisation FAQ

Thanks for your WikiProjects suggestion for the Wikipedia:Categorisation FAQ from August. I've added something, but please note that it has been moved out of user-space, so edit boldly. --Zigger 07:18, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC)

Battle of Leyte Gulf

Why have you removed the Japanese characters? Grant65 (Talk) 10:10, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

See Talk:Battle of Leyte Gulf#Japanese characters. Gdr 10:25, 2004 Oct 24 (UTC)

Thank you

Nice work on Battle of the Aleutian Islands! [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 22:26, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

WP:RM

Sorry 'both that; we're just getting set up, and working the kinks out of the process. I can't speak for everyone, but I want to make sure I don't step on any toes when I do a rename, and so I'm cautious in doing them without sure notice that all are on board (e.g. lots of "go for it" on the Talk: page). However, you are quite right, it has been a while, and the notice has been on the page for a while, so let me go take care of it. Noel 16:32, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Kokoda Track

Hi Gdr, thanks for your comments about Kokoda Track, and for finding the pictures, especially the maps! I've been itching to use this picture for the info-box (a painting by artist George Browning from this website) but I'm a bit clueless as to copyright rules for art-work in Australia, it may still be copyright. A lot of government photos of the battles have been appropriated by the Australian War Memorial which has these copyright rules.

By the way, excellent work in adding all the info boxes to the Pacific War battles and campaigns, very much appreciated! Cheers, --kudz75 00:11, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Template:Did you know

Oops, missed that one, thanks for informing me. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 21:06, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

HIJMS

Relax. I'll take care of it. -Joseph (Talk) 01:35, 2004 Oct 27 (UTC) (but he didn't)

I'll fix the redirects for Japanese aircraft carrier Taiho--Deelkar 17:50, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Great work!

For your excellent work on the Pacific War battles. Keep it up. →Raul654 05:02, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

Ditto from me...Grant65 (Talk) 15:38, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

Battle of Buna-Gona

As it happens, I got the idea for the name from the US I Corps page. Since then I've done a bit of preliminary research for an article on Buna, and "Buna-Gona" is reasonably common, with 584 Google hits[1]. You will note that these include US military and Australian government sites. It's also a name which encompasses the whole operation, around the two places (and Sanananda, which is hard to find on maps, but is smack bang between the other two). Whereas "battle of buna" -gona -sanananda gets 199 hits.[2] Grant65 (Talk) 15:38, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

"Battle of Buna" might be most popular because it was the Americans who reduced Buna while the Australians did Gona & Sanananda. The Australian War Memorial refers to its as "Buna-Gona". Geoff/Gsl 21:48, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's good. I wanted to check that it is not a Wikipedia invention. Gdr 21:51, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

Celtic Tiger

I have tried to address your concerns about this article on WP:FAC, if you are now satisfied, please strikeout your opposition, if not please explain why. Thanks. CGorman 17:48, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Clint Benedict copyvio

Good work on spotting the Clint Benedict copyvio. I always check items I add to DYK for copyvios, but somehow this one slipped past me while adding it. Thank you, [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 15:28, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

Zurich or Zürich

Please see Talk:Second Battle of Zürich Philip Baird Shearer

Battle of Saipan

Great new article! :) --mav 19:15, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

User:Chan Han Xiang

Gdr, please do not delete the images so soon. I will state where it come from. But give me at least half a day. Thanks. User:Chan Han Xiang

However, I will be very glad if you can help me find sources of the rest of the pictures (except for these images, which I will be very glad if you delete them because they are of no use: Image:A2419172-47.jpg Image:BYJ.bmp Image:Choi.jpg Image:Sean.jpg Image:HJW.JPG)

I'm very tired. I need a short break. However, some of the images I have already stated the sources. I am still not able to find the sources of the rest of the images that you state. Thanx. User:Chan Han Xiang

Your Did You Know? suggestion

Thanks for your suggestion. Please go back and include the creation date in the entry. I updated the section moments before you made your suggestion, so you'll have to wait a bit before yours can be featured. (All articles in the section get exposure for 6-24 hours.) Happy editing and I hope to see lots more of new entries by you. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 22:48, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

Late welcome

You haven't been officially welcomed yet?
Welcome! -- [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 22:50, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

Three Kingdoms

Hey, I've updated articles on two of your articles, Battle of Chibi and Battle of Yiling, and I hope you don't mind. I have detailed them as stated in Luoguang Zhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms. While I know that Romance of the Three Kingdoms is not entirely fiction, I have tried in giving alternate interpretations and commentary. I hope to keep the articles as accurately fixed, so if you discover something wrong, please tell me and don't heisitate to change anything! -- User:Xvulcandestinyx

DYK

Your did you know suggestion has just been put up on the front page. Enjoy!!! I'm also short another article for the next update, if you have any ideas, please add them soon :) [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 08:44, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

NS Savannah

I appreciate the work you've been doing removing inaccurate ship prefixes, but in the case of NS Savannah I believe you erred; NS appears to have really been the ship's prefix. I also personally think 'NS Savannah' is a better disambiguation than 'Savannah (ship)', especially since the latter name implicitly claims to be the only Savannah. I've reverted the move and the changes in other articles. If you disagree, let's examine sources a bit more closely.

In the case of the other nuclear powered civilian ships I believe you are correct in removing 'NS'. —Morven 01:09, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for spotting this. (I had checked the other ships but omitted to check Savannah). Gdr 01:13, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)

Ship name change

I feel MM Giuseppe Garibaldi was a better page title than Italian aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi. Why would anyone want to link to "Italian aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi" ? Jay 07:00, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) and comment on the talk page there. Gdr 10:44, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)

Pacific battles

While I am in awe of your prodigious work on the Pacific battles, can you please take more care to make mention of non-American Allied forces when you write them, if only in the battleboxes? Thanks Grant65 (Talk) 12:59, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Featured article candidates

Hi, i've responded to all your objections over the Erich von Manstein nomination. GeneralPatton 16:04, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Non-participant

Just being rebellious. A way of being included without being included. -Joseph (Talk) 03:13, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)

Did you know

Thanks for making the fact more interesting and for fixing the link in the template. However, I'd like to ask you to not delete the image name from the suggestion. Listing it, makes updating easier without having to refer to the article to find what the image was called again. If you want to suggest the use of another image, just change the name. :) Also if you plan on updating DYK yourself in the future, try to find 4 articles, so all of the older facts have equal exposure if you have the time. Thanks again. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 22:08, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Bismarck Islands

"Bismarck Islands", in "New Guinea and Bismarck Islands" is redundant, since the islands were part of the Australian territory of New Guinea (from 1919-75) and are still part of Papua New Guinea (a secessionist movement on Bougainville notwithstanding). Grant65 (Talk) 23:29, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, I will change the name of the template. You may be interested in the following page on the New Guinea campaign by Prof. Hank Nelson.[3] It which has some interesting general info, and an extensive bibliography of the New Guinea actions for Australians, Japanese, Papuans, Americans, New Zealanders and...Fijians. (The Japanese also used 6,000 Indian POWs as labourers in NG, but I don't think they were combatants.) Nelson definitely includes New Britain and Bougainville. Personally, I would treat the later battles as being part of both the New Guinea and Solomons campaigns.Grant65 (Talk) 13:41, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Deutschland

Hey, thanks for catching my brain-fade there. The ref book I was working from had this weird format, and the year wasn't completely clear, so I got them off by one, and obviously had my brain turned off at the time, or I would have realized the text made no sense. I took our your "defense of Norway" text and restored the original because it went back to Germany after the invasion, and spent most of the war in Germany (unlike e.g. the Tirpitz). Noel (talk) 13:14, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No problem, we've got it now - a perfect illustration of the Wiki way at work - two people together better than any one! Noel (talk) 13:40, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Function problem

I my opinion a function problem is a decision problem with a n-bit answer. Can you elaborate on your revert ? MathMartin 15:44, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So far I agree on your definition of decision problem. Do you agree that a decision problem is a problem with a 1-bit answer (if you call it yes/no or true/false does not matter)? A function problem is like a decision problem but the answer is more complex. So one could say a function problem is a decision problem with a n-bit answer. Every decision problem can be treated as a function problem with a 1-bit answer. Every function problem can be rephrased into n separate decision problems. MathMartin 18:12, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I think I understand. I did not meant to say a function problem is a decision problem, but is like a decision problem (only with a more complex answer). Is this our missunderstanding ? MathMartin 19:05, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Nautilus

According to Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(ships)#Disambigating_ships_with_the_same_name, proper disambiguation of ships with the same name is done by launch date, if known. The launch date of the first Nautilus is clearly 1799. Please revert your redirect back to where the page belongs. Or, if you like, I'll be happy to do so. I didn't since I've already done it once and don't want to engage in an edit war.

If you think the naming convention should be changed, then let's discuss, but for now, let's follow what the conventions state. Thanks. Jinian 14:13, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Disregard. Sorry. Jinian 14:14, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

!!!! Gdr 14:18, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

On a similar note, what is the meaning of the page title HMS Dorsetshire (40)?? The meaning of HMS Dorsetshire (1929) was obvious. I assume you're following some sort of convention or have some reason, but I don't like it much. If the title's meaning is unclear to me, it will be unclear to readers as well. Also, if you're going to move pages to titles with meanings that aren't obvious, please put a note on the article's talk page explaining the move. That way people won't have to come ask you what you were doing. Isomorphic 15:10, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I disagree with the convention, but I'll take that discussion to the appropriate page. Isomorphic 16:17, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I saw your post at the Village pump about multi-licensing, so I thought I should at least update this message [blah blah blah] — User:Ram-Man 19:58, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Re: Which Nautilus?

I'd assumed it was the first nuclear-powered submarine, but looking at the Nautilus (submarine) page, it seems the first workable sub was also named Nautilus. Both of those are pretty historically notable, so I don't know which one it was named for. -- [[User:Djinn112|Djinn112 ♠♥♣♦,]] 01:28, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Eighth Army

It was certainly commanded by British generals in practice, but I don't think we should assume that was a given. For example, Leslie Morshead was regarded at the time as a successful, perhaps brilliant general, because of his command of the defence of Tobruk. Montgomery, perhaps more than most British officers, was genuinely appreciative of Commonwealth troops, and I believe he would have recommended Thomas Blamey or Morshead as his successor, had the Australian Army still been in the Mediteranean theatre in late 1943. Grant65 (Talk) 11:29, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Reverse lookup

Please undo this merge. Reverse DNS lookup does not need to be combined with the largely unrelated topic of reverse phone lookup. Gdr 22:58, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)

If you really want to undo the merge, I won't object, but then there should be some kind of disambiguation at reverse lookup (which I don't have time to do at the moment). But do the articles need not to be combined? Both were relatively short, and the concept is the same, so I thought it made sense. I probably won't see your reply until tomorrow, but as I said I won't object if you think its really necessary to undo the merge. ~leif ☺ _HELO 23:08, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Indian Ocean raid

Hi Gdr. Thanks for the great Indian Ocean raid article! PHG 23:19, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

List of books with the subtitle "Virtue Rewarded"

(From Talk:List of books with the subtitle "Virtue Rewarded")
Very cool to have the list go from four to seven, thanks, Gdr! It's looking almost respectable now. :-) I have moved one item to keep it chronological, changed the year for Rochelle to 1967, as on the author's own website (and yes, it is apparently a novel).
I've left Anon., The History of Constantius and Pulchera, or Virtue Rewarded (novel, 1801) as is, though I have some doubts about it. According to this doctoral dissertation, it should be The History of Constantius and Pulchera; or, Constancy Rewarded: An American Novel (1794), which would take it off the list altogether. Maybe you could tell me your source? Best wishes, and thanks very much for adding to this scholarly resource! ;-)--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 17:38, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Class pages into the class category

I've noticed that you've been removing the class page from the ship class category. I see a lot of use in having the class page in this category. Is there a rule against this sort of thing? Jinian 21:49, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The class page doesn't belong to the category of the members of the class. For example, Battle class destroyer is not itself a destroyer, so it doesn't belong in Category:Battle class destroyers, but instead in Category:Ship classes. The right place to mention it is in the category article itself. There's no rule, but the principle makes sense for taxonomic categories, as opposed to topical categories. Gdr 22:35, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)

Tony Blair

You still have an objection against Tony Blair on WP:FAC. Has the article progressed sufficiently to satisfy your objection, or is further work needed? -- ALoan (Talk) 09:03, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for mixup re your comments, and thanks for correcting it - I must have diffed more than I thought I had from the edit history. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:41, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Battle of Dunkirk

Much better. A good "what if?". Philip Baird Shearer 14:05, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Re: American Civil War

I've been following the structure laid out by Wikipedia:WikiProject Battles, and recategorizing the articles accordingly. This will take some time. As for battle articles that haven't been created yet, I may get to them some time, but I was planning on simply completing the entire American Civil War battle structure (including campaignboxes and battleboxes for existing articles) for future ease. --brian0918™ 01:52, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I didn't know that WWII and Vietnam were exceptions. I was going simply by the examples they gave in the WikiProject, which seemed fine. I do think that the categories are necessary, even if they remain blank. Not only do they encourage people to add to wikipedia, but they also allow one to understand the timeframe of the battle/campaign as well as other events in the war. Also, by creating all of the categories now, I am encouraging people in the future to put them in the proper category, instead of a generic list of battles category. --brian0918™ 02:15, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

---

You might want to take a look at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion for the kind of debate that goes on about categories. In particular, see Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#War equipment categories for a proposal to delete an elaborate scheme of categories that was never populated. Don't be surprised if someone proposes to delete your categories on the grounds that they don't have any articles in them. However, I wish you good luck with your work on the Civil War articles. Drop me a line when Category:American Civil War cavalry operations along the Rappahannock has three or four articles in it; I will be interested to read them. --Gdr

Haven't you noticed? I redid all of the categories so that they had the proper naming convention (although some sound odd). Also, I only made categories for those battles with articles. I'm not completely done with this, but am getting close... Now I don't know what to do about all the old categories. I blanked them all, and put a couple up for speedy deletion, but I don't know if they got deleted... --brian0918™ 14:40, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

River class frigate

Ooop, yes, you're right. if the class is named after a ships name it is, otherwise it's not.

Is it really a hyphenated word though? "Bismarck-class" vs "Bismarck class" hmmmm. would you say the car was a "Ford-type car" or a "Ford type car" for want of an analogy?

id say the latter, which is why ive been changing some of those names. hyphens are usually for 2 words which are commonly seen together, rather than rarely, aren't they? "over-hyped", "Never-Never" etc. I guess it's a small thing though. The name of the ship should be in Italics whether it's describing the ship or the class of ships, though, right?

Except for the case of "River", "Admiral" etc.

SpookyMulder 10:12, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC) Yeah, sometimes it deletes the page, or the bottom sections of the page when you edit it. it's not been connecting very reliably, and perhaps that's why.

Goya (ship)

Hi Gdr, thanks for the feedback on the naming of the Goya, especially the link to discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#"The" before the ship's name. For the specific case of the Goya, I've continued the discussion on that article's talk page. I'll ponder a bit longer before deciding whether to wade in on the discussion on the WikiProject Ships page. Amusingly, the US Naval guide quoted in the case for dropping the 'the', contradicts itself in almost the next paragraph. -- Solipsist 07:32, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well Wikipedia has been struggling to respond all morning, so its been pretty painful to check references, but I've now clarified my thinking and added to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#"The" before the ship's name. I'm pretty sure you've all been heading in the wrong direction in being too eager to remove the definite article in a number of ship related articles. -- Solipsist 10:35, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

HMS Sparrowhawk

Could you help me at Talk:HMS Sparrowhawk? Halibutt 10:07, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

Sure. I added three more Sparrowhawks. Gdr 13:34, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC)

Image:Bismarck firing at Prince of Wales.jpg

Someone already asked this question -- how can a photo of Bismarck, taken onboard the Prinz Eugen, have been taken by a USN employee? Surely the tag is in error?

Creating maps such as Image:Aleutian Islands map.png

Hi I translated you superb map Image:Aleutian Islands map.png to Hungarian. I was wondering what tools, techniques or sources did you use to create this map?

My favorite topics are wars and battles and almost all articles could use maps like these. Could you please sum up where I should start if I wanted to make these kinds of maps?

Thanks, nyenyec ☎ 20:10, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps for a list of map-making resources. Gdr 13:34, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC)

Great Britain

Bobblewik is on a "United Kingdom" tear again. I'm willing to help you out, I added a comment to his talk page before looking at the discussion he had archived, so maybe we can get it going again. Gene Nygaard 16:05, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Admin nomination

Hello. You aren't an administrator but I think you ought to be. I will nominate you if you like. You may reply here or on my talk page. Regards & happy editing, Wile E. Heresiarch 16:03, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, but no thank you. Gdr 13:34, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC)

Having trouble

I am having trouble with a simonP. I edit Arete (virtue) and he immediately reverts the edits. Him and his friends have deleted [Classical definition of republic] and after the many facts and the quoting of material they will not acknowledge they won't even let an external link and the talk is ongoing at Talk:Republic. This man doesn't know what he is doing. I ask that someone step in and stop this please. This man has no expertise in the classical field. He is an anonymous user. Please see also Talk:Arete (virtue).WHEELER 17:29, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Calcutta -> Kolkata name change

Hi there. I noticed you voted in the Wikipedia:Naming policy poll to keep the Wikipedia policy of naming an article with the most familiar English name. You may not be aware that another attempt has begun to rename the Calcutta article to Kolkata, which is blatantly not the most common name of the city, whether it's official or not. If you want to vote on the issue you can do so at Talk:Calcutta. Cheers. -- Necrothesp 13:35, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Picture to Common

Hello Gdr! I'd like to use your picture http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5b/300px-Sidereal_day_(prograde).png in this German article: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siderischer_Tag

I learned that a direct link is not possible.

May I ask you to make the picture available at Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (if I did it people may be confused with author and uploader)?

Best regards, Anton (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer_Diskussion:Anton)

Thanks a lot for your efficient and quick answer! Anton

Image:Relative-height2.png

Just to let you know: I proposed your image Image:Relative-height2.png for deletion because it is a duplicate of Image:Relative-height.png. --fschoenm 11:45, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Siege of Port Arthur

Since you removed the merge tag from this article, could you set forth your reasons why this article shouldn't be merged with Battle of Port Arthur? It is listed as a candidate for merging in the To Do template, which implies that at least one other person would disagree strongly with you. -- llywrch 21:58, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The "battle" was a naval battle in Feburary 1904. The "siege" was a land battle from June 1904 to January 1905. I think someone probably glanced at the article titles and thought that they must refer to the same event. But they don't. Gdr 22:09, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)

You may be right. But wouldn't it be more useful to explain your point at Talk:Siege of Port Arthur than here? -- llywrch 05:12, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You asked me here, I answered here. Gdr 07:01, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

Then don't be surprised if someone else goes ahead & merges the two articles. -- llywrch 18:03, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's unlikely since I removed it from Template:Opentask. Gdr 22:22, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)

Alexander Hood

I'd prefer not to feature to articles with a person by the same name in such a short period. Would you mind if I just featured the one with the portrait? I kinda need the space for someone else's item as suggestions are flooding in these days. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:14, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's fine. You can see from my note that I had the same thought. Gdr 19:21, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)

DYK

and. . .

WWII maps

Hi. You made some great maps for Eastern Front (WWII), but there is one small problem: the border between Romania and Hungary is not accurate. It should be similar to this map: Image:Northern Transylvania yellow.png. Bogdan | Talk 11:35, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nameless vessels

Thanks for letting me me about the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ships)#Royal Navy submarines with no name. I have added my views to it--Jll 10:28, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC).

Battles

Howdy Gdr. I've responded to your comment on my talk page at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Battles. Oberiko 16:54, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Musa

Please add a talk page at the start of the line for Musa on the WP:RM page othewise there is no where to discuss the move. Philip Baird Shearer 14:20, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Adminship

I nominated you for an admin. Just go to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Gdr and indicate your acceptance and answer a few questions. -- Darwinek 09:55, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. Gdr 11:22, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Cup of TEA

User:MPLX moved a comment of mine from his talk page to Talk:Tea_(disambiguation). Please check it and, if applicable, point out what's wrong with my reasoning. JRM 18:43, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Collaborative editing at work. One person does it wrong, the other mistakenly corrects him, the third points out what the real trouble is. Ain't Wikipedia grand? :-) JRM 21:08, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Submarine names

A question: is it Wikipedia style to italicise the names of Japanese submarines? The names of German subs aren't italicised, e.g. U-47.Grant65 (Talk) 00:00, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

They are in some articles, e.g. U-238, HMS Kite etc. Gdr 00:25, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)

HMS Kite I can understand, but surely U-___, I-___ (et c.) by themselves are more like pennant numbers, as in the case of E-boats? I have just moved AE1 and AE2, which someone had turned into the entirely fictious "HMAS AE1" and "HMAS AE2"! *lol* Grant65 (Talk) 10:44, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Second Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive

Please see Talk:Second Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive and comment. Mikkalai 04:51, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Talk:Péter Cardinal Erdõ

Please see Talk:Péter Cardinal Erdõ I have tried to list the diffrent options. Please make sure that my cut and past job reflects your position. Philip Baird Shearer 10:11, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Talk:Second Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive

Hi Gdr, we've opened a discussion about the naming of the above article, i believe you have previously worked on it and it would be great if you could come add some input. --Pluke 23:43, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations!

Congratulations! It's my pleasure to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 14:23, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Adminship

Congratulations, on your promotion.  ALKIVAR™ 18:39, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. Gdr 22:26, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC)

Thank you for supporting my nomination for administrator. —wwoods 05:14, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. Gdr 22:26, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC)

Timur

Hi Gdr, I have written some things on the Nestorians on nl.wiki and on their websites I came across mention that Timur was the one responsible for a veritable holocaust amongst the church of the east. With your warning about relying on google in mind I wonder if we could clarify this point further. I do not have any non-internet sources for this. Do you ?nl:Jcwf152.1.193.141 13:56, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(See Talk:Timur)

Delta-number combinations

Did you remember several days ago when you were working with some dis-ambiguation pages of Alpha-number, Bravo-number, and Charlie-number combinations?? Why aren't you thinking about the Delta section?? (See User:Georgia guy/Letter number combinations for the current status of all 26 sections.) Georgia guy 00:37, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't have time for everything! Gdr 22:26, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC)

Captain class frigate

Re: your last edit of Captain class frigate and your comment (no need for two columns; add some more ships; not a Royal Navy frigate) - without two columns it looks over long but hey I'm new here so if this is the house style it is the house style but I still think it makes the page over long. As to the add more ships bit... there were only 78 I can not add any more than there were. Finally I do not understand the not a Royal Navy frigate bit - these ships were commissioned into the Royal Navy as Frigates.

Nice work in general in cleaning up this & both the Evarts and Buckley articles, thank you.

charlesesmith 15:43 11 April 2005