Well done on the Dukes of Devonshire thing. :) Do we need to worry about the copyright status of those images, though? It seems that Isis took them from some publication, and she had somewhat, erm, unconventional views on copyrights on photographs... -- Oliver P. 19:49 25 May 2003 (UTC)
No idea. They've been here this long, though, so I don't see any need to remove them unless we know that they're copyrighted. And I have no idea how to even go about trying to find out if they're copyrighted. Some of the earlier pictures, at least, could very plausibly be from sources that are no longer copyrighted. Of course, I'm perhaps not the best person to ask. My own now defunct website on the Habsburgs was full of what I imagine now, in retrospect, to have likely been copyrighted images. I never got into any trouble for it, but wikipedia is probably more noticeable than some tiny website on the University of Virginia server. In general, what are the rules on copyrights of photographs of old paintings? The idea that such things are creative works that have copyright protection is somewhat rankling. john 21:59 25 May 2003 (UTC)
Excellent work on the Members of the French Royal Families. You have turned a stub with potential into a truly excellent piece that when finished will be a credit to wiki. Well done. FearÉÍREANN 01:43 26 May 2003 (UTC)
I too like your work on Members of the French Royal Families. Assume you are also into genealogy. However, when creating new articles it would seem like a good idea to somehow create several links so they can be found. Don't ask me how, though. How about a page for the "Bastard offspring of European Royalty?" They have their own organization and last time I looked (several years ago) were very active. Triton
Your addition of the list of Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order is appreciated, but perhaps it needs its own page, if we are going to have a list of all their holdings as well!!! (when I get round to it). Also one of those rare topics which I want to spend some time on somewhen is matrilineal analysis of European aristocracy. Harry Potter
Hi John, I've noticed a problem that is arising over the opening paragraphs of many royal and papal pages. We use numerous styles, many of them illogical and a throwback to when wiki named royal pages by personal name not royal nomenclature. I've proposed a solution on the Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles) page. Take a look and let me know what you think. FearÉIREANN 00:51 29 May 2003 (UTC)
Mr John, sir, sorry to bother you but I wanted to help you all I can. You said: “In any event, I'm coming towards the thought that perhaps including the Merovingian kings in a list, so long as we're careful to indicate that they weren't really kings of France, but precursors to the Kings of France (and Germany!), wouldn't be awful.”
Sorry Mr. John, sir, -- here is some of what Ms. JHK said about the University of Washington list:
Thank you. Triton
But that is what the list says explicitly. It is becoming increasingly difficult to follow the logic behind Triton's argument. He doesn't seem to grasp the difference between King in France and King of France, or to put it another way, those who ruled in France and those who were French. That seems to be at the heart of the problem. FearÉIREANN 01:50 30 May 2003 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. Although I'd say it's always been difficult to follow the logic behind his argument. (I'd also say that being "French" wouldn't be a prerequisite to being a King of France. France managed to avoid having any kings who were overtly not French, but surely George I isn't any less a "British King" for not having been British. But this is all semantics...) john 02:13 30 May 2003 (UTC)
Ah but there you see you are talking about someone accepted by the political elite and citizenry of a state to be their monarch. That would contrast, say, with British monarchs in Ireland who even if accepted by the political elite were not accepted by the citizenry. So they were seen as outsiders who took over Ireland, in a way George I wasn't seen as an outsider who took over England but an ousider who was by law the king and had to govern following english laws and customs, not treat it as some province of his extra-British empire. He was if not British by birth at least British by acceptance. Oh the complexities. :-) FearÉIREANN 03:19 30 May 2003 (UTC)
Now for my response: I am aware that Ancient Egyptian chronology is a very debateable topic. The book I'm pulling a lot of the dates from -- Nicolas Grimal's A History of Ancient Egypt (Blackwell, 1995) -- even notes that by attempting to base the beginning of the reign of Amenophis I[?] on a recorded astronomical observation, the resulting date could be either 1546 BC or 1526 BC, depending on the location of the observation. There is admittedly a lot of uncertainty with Egyptian history.
However, that is the reason why I'm focussing on adding the dates from the 21st dynasty forward. From my research, it appears that there is enough synchonicities between the chronology of Ancient Egypt & other civilizations with recorded histories to make the dates from that point forward reliable. In other words, I'm testing this hypothesis by putting it into the Wikipedia, seeing if it breaks & where, & then going to the next step. If this works, I will then attempt to add various dates before the beginning of the 21st dynasty until I run into trouble -- & then stopping. (Frankly, I doubt I will manage to get much before 1200 BC, if that far.)
I know we're not supposed to do original research on the 'pedia, but I would like to know just how back we can trust the dates we find in the reference books (as well as prove to Egil that we should have individual year entries far earlier than 500 BC). If the dates that I am using start showing problems, I'll be happy to roll my changes back to preserve the accuracy of our 'pedia. But I would like some first-hand experience to draw on in order to say, "we can't rely on dates before this point." -- llywrch 00:45 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Hmm. I'll admit that most of my work on chronology deals with events on this side of the BC/AD divide, & I've seen examples there where trained historians attempt to work in a field they are not familiar with, misunderstand the materials, & make fools of themselves (e.g. John Morris on Dark Ages Britain/"The Age of Arthur"). So with that danger in mind, I'm responding to your concerns.
(As a note, there are dangers with many famous dates practically up to AD 1700 -- & if you can cite a few later than that, it's only because I'm not as interested in modern history. As I understand the problem, it lies in attempting to figure out how the source came up with the date in question: was the source a witness, or used reliable sources in turn? Did the source record the information accurately? Etc.)
To be honest, I haven't seen much of the secondary literature that discusses Egyptian Chronology. I was pleasantly surprised to find my copy of Ancient Near Eastern Texts gave the exact same dates for Shoshenq I[?] as in Grimal's book cited above. And I have read the Wikipedia articles about this issue. (No, not the Velikovsky one. ;-) As I said, this is a learning exercise for me, & either it will work, or I'll end up with hands-on experience that we should NOT do this.
As I write this response, I wonder if it would be best to identify an authoritative chronology -- say the Cambridge Ancient History -- & cite (with permission) those dates, a la "1109 BC - Pharoah Example died (CAH date)". That way we avoid dumping tons of arguments into Wikipedia, & only report the fact that someone has that opinion. Sigh. That will mean that I have to do more off-line work before I can submit changes.
BTW, thanks for the heads up on the link. I'll have to examine it more carefully. -- llywrch 18:09 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)
John, I read you response here soon after you posted it. I hadn't posted a follow-up because I couldn't think of anything further to say on the matter. Consider this an "acknowledgement" -- nothing more. -- llywrch 18:00 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)
What exactly does that mean. "Generic names" - doesn't that mean "names of a genus". So, for instance, if you use the generic name Gorilla as the common name, "gorilla", you don't have to capitalize it. It seems to me that while in a normal sentence, the word "gorilla" should not be capitalized, it ought to be capitalized when it is referring to the species as a whole. And that your reference doesn't seem to be referring to what you think it is referring to. john 05:39 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)
A good illustration of all these principles is "Yellow-crowned Night-Heron."
A brief reply: I've basically quoted what I said above on the mailing list. Capitalizing in article titles is the usual English practice (though not in many other languages). Wikipedia links are case sensitive; this is why the rule for lower case, unless there is some other grammatical reason. no great difference about lists; in the changes that I made I was not changing the capital when it was the first letter in a list entry. There was no magic in my starting with bears; it was as good a place as any other for starting.
Okay. I'll go over it shortly. I feel kind of bad that we seem to have driven away the poor new contributor... I tried to send some conciliatory, but firm words, both on the Shakespeare authorship talk page and his/her user talk page. john 22:42 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Wikipedia's treatment of whacko viewpoints is always tense... I certainly think the "alternate" viewpoint has little to complain about as it now stands, and I hope that the article gives some sense of how baseless it is without resorting to ridicule. I'm going to make a few minor changes (hyphens, links) but substantively I don't think it's too bad as is. (well, one substantive change: everyone agree's Shakespeare's father was illiterate, it's just that the anti-Stratfordians have a problem with that). -- Someone else 00:51 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)
On the capitalisation issue, you have to capitalise species in the text as well as the article. The crested lark could refer to several species of larks with crests, such as Skylark, Thekla Lark etc. The Crested Lark[?] is Galerida cristata. Groups of birds, such as the treecreepers, do not need capitalisation. The Treecreeper[?], certhia familiaris, does.
Hmm...perhaps this is true with birds. It does not seem to be true of other animals. And for many animals, what you're saying doesn't apply. There's only one kind of gorilla, for instance. Anyway, I'm not an expert on this at all (my interest in taxonomy has greatly waned from its peak when I was about ten, thirteen years ago), so I don't want to get into this too much. But might this not be a case of ornithocentrism? john 21:16 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)
John -- are YOU editting the List of Battles, ante 1400 pages? If so, do you have a connection faster than dial-up? Respond stat on my Talk page, so we aren't stepping on each other's toes. -- llywrch 05:28 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
John, since you have a much faster connection than I -- I'm still in the dark ages with dial-up -- go ahead & move the pages around. I'll stand back. (Especially since I'm getting a bit frustrated because when I edit the other battle pages, I'm not seeing the updated status of the links.) -- llywrch 05:42 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Actually, John, all that needs doing is updating the relevant links. If you can't get to this administrivia, I'll do it tomorrow when I have access to a faster connection.
And good work on updating the list of battles in the period before AD 1. That is something I've been meaning to do, but I never seem to have both the time & a round tuit. -- llywrch 05:53 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I just had a look at the List of Battles pages. Thanks for finishing the job. -- llywrch 15:36 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I can't claim to have read any, but W.E.B. claimed to have written some<G>. -- Someone else 05:44 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for the details on the Battle of Abrittus: while I reverted the name, I also include the materials you quoted via paraphrase. Much thanks. -- llywrch 04:42 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Hi John, I was in the middle of changing Lord Lucan when you redirected the old text to Earls of Lucan. I removed the redirect to save my text change, then redirected the new text to Earl of Lucan. I also redirected Earls of Lucan to Earl of Lucan, as I think under wiki conventions it probably should be in as singular, given that it isn't a list but an article with a list attached. FearÉIREANN 00:11 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)
BTW, what do you think of History of China. There seems strong agreement that the article is a mess, largely it seems due to one person's additions. We are suggesting reverting to an earlier version to undo the rewrite, which apart from anything else has poor english. FearÉIREANN 00:33 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Hi. I was going to move Lord Lucan to Earl of Lucan, but the disambiguation was the last thing I did before I went to bed. I think the convention is to have the pages listed in the singular as the articles are about the title as well as the title holders. I've just noticed that you've been doing a similar thing with other peers. I hope I'm not treading on your toes. I was going to write an article about the Earl of Lucan who was in the crimea (4th I think) but realised that the Lucan page needed disambiguation, then I decided to do the same with Earl Spencer and Duke of Westminster. You may notice that for the Duke of Westminster I have created Lord Grosvenor and Marquess of Westminster as redirect pages and briefly discuss, and list the holders of those titles. I think this is the correct way to handle these titles that have been subsumed by greater ones. What do you think? Mintguy 23:03 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for the fix-up on Duke of Westminster. I realised that a baronet is styled Sir, but was unsure of the rest of the styling. In Wikipedia knights of the realm are listed without the prefix Sir in the article title. I wonder whether baronets should be. Similarly, as the current Duke of Westminster is a baronet should he be listed as sir Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster[?] instead of Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster? Of course I know that a proper listing of his name as per Burke's peerage would be a mile long. but is the appropriate short form without Sir correct?
Every time there is a consensus agreed on the page, or changes made at someone's suggestion which everyone then agrees to, Scipius reappears with his own agenda, his own highly inaccurate understanding of Irish history and starts reverting agreed versions and putting in his own frequently ludicrously inaccurate stuff, or deleting accurate relevent stuff because he deems it irrelevant. Knowing your skill and knowledge of facts (and desire or accuracy rather than inaccurate simplicities) I would welcome your involvement. Irish users are becoming increasingly frustrated by the antics of Scipius and one or two other users, who don't know accurate facts but nevertheless bulldoze through Irish pages changing things to suit their own theories. In the past Scipius has been one of the worst offenders and I don't want to see him screwing around Irish pages yet again. FearÉIREANN 02:42 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Yeah. I added in one list of Lords Lieutenant of Ireland then found there was another (my work? I can't remember!). So I guess they should be merged. BTW I see Scipius has left a message. I could not help smiling. According to Scipius, "both (Irish and english) are official languages". How many times over how many months does it have to be repeated to Scipius that this is wrong? *sigh*. Oh the saga of Scipius and the Republic of Ireland goes on and on . . . and on and on. lol FearÉIREANN 23:15 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)
What is the correct convention for Capitalisation of titles. I just pulled John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich from EB11 and it had Duke of Bedford[?] as opposed to duke of Beford[?] and suchlike all over the place. Mintguy 09:51 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Hi John,
Someone left this message on specially created page. Before deleting the page I thought I'd better give you the message. Maybe you could help them. BTW - sorry for using here and not your talk page. Because wiki is so flippin' slow right now I can't use my good browser that times out before wiki opens a page but the crappy Internet Explorer that cuts the bottom off pages over 32K. As yours is over 32K I couldn't leave a message there without castrating the bottom of your page. (I can't open mine either. I keep getting messages saying 'please archive'. I'd love to but I can't get it to do it until I can get off IE and back to safari, and I cannot do that untl wiki gets beyond the internet equivalent of a model T.)
Anyway, here's the message from an anonymous punter.
iI am very interested in the life of Prince John. I fel he suffered from autism (sp). i WOULD LIKE TO KNOW 1. Where was York House in the Great Park AT wINDSOR 2. Where was he buried. Any info gratfully received. Annette SPRING.TERRACE.FARM @xtra.co.nz
FearÉIREANN 04:40 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I didn't notice, sorry. Koyaanis Qatsi 07:52 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Okay, Edessa and Antioch are done...thanks for your corrections there. Now you need to do Tripoli :) Adam Bishop 02:59 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)
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