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Pictures - integration is the preference

Hi, I hope that this finds you well! I reversed two of your edits today re articles tagged with gallery clean-up, because there do seem to be an excess number of images on some of the articles that you have edited. The number of similar distance shots make your edit reversal summary of the Anon edits hard to understand: "illustrating different versions" seems difficult unless close in, which most are not. I have noted that on many occasions, these are also your images - they are good, I just don't understand the need for such volume/number. I appreciate your knowledge of South African railways, but quoting WP:Gallery:

Images are typically interspersed individually throughout an article near the relevant text (see WP:MOSIMAGES). However, the use of a gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject.

I hope that this is a constructive way on which to engage you and hence improve these articles. Rgds, --Trident13 (talk) 23:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the current images below the articles serve the articles well. The Andre has put effort into choosing the best examples. -- Firefishy (talk) 10:49, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Keeping well enough, thank you, apart from the "skete en kwale" that comes with getting older.
I’m well aware of the contents of WP:Gallery and, where practical, images were accordingly interspersed individually throughout the articles near the relevant text. Two factors that almost always made this impractical were, in some cases, the very sparse information that was available on some classes of locomotive and, in ALL cases, the space already taken up by the Infobox which often ended up being longer than the article itself. Pictures interspersed in the text in accordance with the policy guideline therefore resulted in a cluttered appearance, which led me to the gallery option with the pictures out of the way right at the bottom.
All pictures were selected for a reason such as to illustrate something, to show different paint schemes, to show specimens from different builders, to show the locomotive from different angles (front, left, right, etc), and were captioned appropriately. No gallery "merely consists of an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject".
It is probably "politically incorrect" to admit that South Africa’s rich railway heritage is rapidly disappearing. Even unique locomotives such as the Red Devil regularly gets stripped of parts that end up with scrap dealers, in spite of it being staged in a "secure" location "protected" by security guards. Just last year a large number of unique heritage locomotives that were being staged for eventual cosmetic restoration were completely destroyed by scrap metal vultures. A very few items are still being preserved against virtually impossible odds by a few dedicated individuals and organisations, but with a transport executive who refers to railway preservation as "white man’s toys" and a government that would rather spend tax money for personal gain than on heritage items, it will all soon be gone and you’ll only be able to see South Africa’s heritage locomotives in places like Wales, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland.
These locomotive articles are my own small contribution to the preservation of our heritage and I’m very much afraid that in less time than you may think, it will literally be all that is left. If it ends up eventually as a collection of bare text-only pages, so be it, but I would personally prefer them to remain illustrated without a broomstick invitation to all and sundry anymouses to remove images as they see fit.
André Kritzinger 14:53, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Inviting you to WikiAfrica Incubator!

Hey Andre Kritzinger,

WikiAfrica invites you to support the Africa Incubator

WikiAfrica is pleased to invite you as a self-declared African Wikipedian to evaluate the Africa Incubator. WikiAfrica has created the Africa Incubator to support and assist new authors, as they create their first articles and learn the ins and outs of contributing to Wikipedia.

The Africa Incubator is a ‘soft landing’ for new authors to develop articles that relate to Africa. It assists them in becoming compliant and knowledgeable of Wikipedia principles and rules. Based within the Wikipedia framework, the Africa Incubator is fully interactive and enables feedback, assistance and forums.

This is where we need your help! For the Africa Incubator to be successful, it needs the intervention, interaction and experience of Incubator Mentors. We are looking for a pool of active experienced Wikipedians to consistently participate in ’owning’ the Africa Incubator. Incubator Mentors will assist new comers through the editing process. They will also help test and expand the Africa Incubator, and will play a vital role in encouraging newcomers to be Wikipedians for life

Please visit WikiAfrica Incubator to give us your honest feedback and evaluation. WikiAfrica is a ground-breaking project that is designed to Africanise Wikipedia by generating and expanding 30,000 articles over two years. Find out more about this project here WikiAfrica. To get involved, contact Francis [wikipedian@wikiafrica.net] Twitter: twitter.com/#!/wikiafrica Facebook: www.facebook.com/WikiAfrica

--Awinda 12:24, 6 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awinda (talk • contribs)

Wiki Loves Monuments in South Africa

Dear WikiProject South Africa Wikipedians

This is an urgent call from Wikimedia South Africa. We are currently working hard on the South African side of the exciting international photographic competition, Wiki Loves Monuments [1]. We have been planning to make this national competition really take off, but to do so, we need your help! The competition starts on the 1st September, and we need your help now! If you are interested in being part of or can help the Wiki Loves Monuments national organising team, then please join here [ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012_in_South_Africa]. If you have limited time, but want to help out at an upload marathon at a heritage site near you, please then contact either Lourie [louriepieterse@yahoo.com] or Isla [islahf@africacentre.net]. We look forward to hearing from you!"

Kind regards Lourie

Sent by Lucia Bot in 13:56, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Steam loco stub tag

Hi, regarding edits such as this and this: first, stub tags don't go at the top, but per WP:FOOTERS they go almost at the end, between the categories and interlanguage links; secondly, both of these articles are somewhat too large to be considered stubs, see WP:STUB. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:15, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Redrose, thanks. About the size of some of these articles, I agree some are big already, but all of them need some expansion wrt countries where they were used. For example, the 0-8-0 can certainly not have been limited to usage only in Austria, Germany, Russia, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States! I must have missed the guideline about where to place it, but I felt that it would get more readers' attention right at the top. In that position it's visible when the page opens and it should get the attention of any Canadian or Australian or Kiwi or Frenchman, etc, who read the article and noticed that his/her country is absent. Will fix it tonight. André Kritzinger 13:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm wary of turning 0-8-0 into List of 0-8-0 locomotives by country (unless we formally did that, by creating a new article) as it's all too likely to turn into "Photo gallery of my favourite locos from my country". Some of these articles that aren't small articles are still poor articles with little real content, they're just bloated by the worst sort of train spotting. I'd agree that some of these are still stubby, but that's because they don't yet have a narrative of why the 0-8-0 existed, existed instead of the 0-10-0, and why it fell from favour to the 2-8-0. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:52, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

South African diesel locomotives

Goeden dag Andre, of goeden avend in SA.
(Het is hier 16:10) Dan nog een stuk of wat opmerkingen onder User talk:Peter Horn#South African diesel locomotives. Groetjes. Peter Horn User talk 20:14, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Ek het gesien jy antwoord jouself. :) André Kritzinger 20:20, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Decimal point and "," (commas) marking off thousands

Hello Andre,
As far as I could see are not guilty of that but a number of European users, when translating articles into English, insist on using decimal commas and periods to mark off thousands. This gives hilarious results when using {{convert}}. I am aware of the fact that South Africa, upon metrication, opted for the decimal comma even in the English language. However the rest of the English speaking world stuck with the decimal point and {{convert}} (template:convert) works only correctly with a decimal point. E.g in 4-8-4#The South African 4-8-4 I had to make adjustments.
Groetjes, Peter Horn User talk 02:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Fixing typos in header. Peter Horn User talk 02:23, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Nope, not me, I've not been to the 4-8-4 yet anyway. Only got done with the 2-8-2 last night - 04:00 this morning, actually - three days to rewrite large parts of it into understandable English, including standardising the page layout, and a few hours to update the South African section. Since I work on a sorted list of SA-used wheel arrangements, I'll get to the 4-8-4 last. 12 to go....
The convert templates can give strange results sometimes, especially after someone fiddled with a template, eg lately with unneccesary rounding of millimetres to the nearest ten when I don't want it to. But I'm learning how to get it to give the correct results. Only problem is I then have to go back to check my previous edits.
The biggest problems are editors who just "klap" enter without previewing and checking their work, and people who dont flag pages for their watchlist after large edits so they cannot see when someone comes along later and screw up.
We went decimal in 1961 when I was 12 and the way I was taught was to use commas for thousands and the fullstop for fractions. Lately it seems the "new" way in the press is to use spaces for thousands and commas for fractions, but I prefer the old way. Besides, when data is entered in spreadsheets, no punctiation is used except for the fraction fullstop. Same with these templates.
Groete. André Kritzinger 10:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Ach ja... Peter Horn User talk 17:02, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
About 2-8-2, I made some additional edits therein. In most locomotive articles, and elsewhere there is the problem of three possible tons. the tonne or metric ton, the long ton used in Britain and its former colonies, except Canada, and the short ton used in the US and, for the most part, in Canada. In addition to that there are the two gallons, the US gallon and the imperial gallon. The latter was in predominant use in Canada. Peter Horn User talk 17:02, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I've noticed your similar edits in my loco pages too.
André Kritzinger 17:13, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Garratt

I really think that the production list of Garratts is excellent worek - b ut would it be possible to separate the years from the woerks number? It is unlikely that I could help as I have limited wiki time at the moment - it is just thay KI the tasmanian original is lost amongst the others in the current format - I had the pleasure of being an admirer of working south african garratts in North Wales some 3 years ago - we have so few left in Australia (as far as I know G42 at Puffing Billy is it for working ones) SatuSuro 00:02, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, will give it a go. André Kritzinger 01:05, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Kontak vir SAR foto's

Baas Andre, kan jy my jou e-pos of selfoonnr verskaf...ek wil fotobydraes maak/ontvang van SA treine.

Dankie, gert.coetzee2010@gmail.com Aliwal2012 19:17, 9 October 2012
Apology Wikipedians, I thought i was writing on the Afrikaans Wiki, eish !

Wikipedia:Non-free content policy and guideline

Please do not place or replace any non-free images to any pages except for actual articles, as you did at User:Andre Kritzinger/Sandbox. Such use is a clear violation of point number 9 of our policy concerning the use of non-free images. Continuing to do so can be viewed as disruptive behaviour and you may be blocked from editing. VernoWhitney (talk) 03:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

If you looked at the contents of my sandbox (or its editing history) before removing the image (twice now), you'd have noticed that I'm in the middle of reworking the 4-6-2 article. It's a huge article, it's in a huge mess, and I've been working on it daily since 8 October, 9 or more hours a day. I'm not quite done yet, maybe tomorrow or the weekend.
To start with, I copied the whole 4-6-2 article into my sandbox. Usually I work in Word on the PC and don't bother with the Sandbox except for previewing. This time I saved it in the Sandbox once a day as I progressed, specifically so that non-Wikipedian friends in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the USA, the UK and elsewhere could see it and give me feedback where necessary. Which some of them did with good results.
Now, before removing the picture again, after I save tonight's version of the article when I'm done working on it for the day, usually at 03:00 or later, please explain to me how all this is "not an actual article". Would a car undergoing a major overhaul be "not an actual car"?
André Kritzinger 11:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
It's not an actual article because it is a draft and it is in userspace. The actual article is 4-6-2, and copies of it elsewhere (modified or not) are not the same thing. If you wish to use a car analogy, then perhaps this one is appropriate: a car made of gummy bears is not an actual car. If it is essential that others be able to see the article with any non-free images in place then it must be done on the article, not in a sandbox. {{Under construction}} is designed and used specifically to notify readers that an article is undergoing such a major overhaul.
I appreciate that there are useful reasons to have non-free images elsewhere, but the long-standing policy has been that their use in sandboxes and the like is not. If you have any questions or concerns with the policy, feel free to bring them up at the policy's talk page or other appropriate venue. VernoWhitney (talk) 14:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Call for Wikipedians in Residence in Africa

Hello,

I hope you are well and thriving!! WikiAfrica has just put out a call for two Wikipedians in Residence. One in Cape Town at WikiAfrica, at the Africa Centre; and the other for WikiAfrica Cameroon in Douala, at doual’art. If you are interested, please contact either Marilyn [marilyn.doualabell@doualart.org] for the WikiAfrica Cameroon call or Isla [islahf@africacentre.net] for the WikiAfrica position in Cape Town.

If you are not interested in applying, I would be very grateful if you could spread this call far and wide among your networks to ensure that both projects get excellent candidates. Here is the link for the information page: http://www.wikiafrica.net/two-wikipedians-in-residence-for-africa/

Best regards, Islahaddow

(This message was sent using Lucia Bot at 22:15, 16 November 2012 (UTC))

SAR Locomotives Models

hello Mr. Kritzinger

I do not know if I told, but I'm also ferreomodelista, and was negotiating with a micro producer (http://www.reddevilsar.co.za/) of South Africa to buy some models (shells) of GT18, GT26 and U20C1.

The site is unavailable and he's not responding to email, know anyone in South Africa who can help me?

I would love to model Spoortnet who came to Brazil ...

to Meloaraujo (talk) 13:35, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like it could possibly be Scalecraft. They are also on Facebook, if you want to try to contact them that way, at http://www.facebook.com/Scalecraft?fref=ts
The owner/model builder is Adrian Hill, also active on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/adrian.hill.750
André Kritzinger 22:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Some info from archive.org

Andre, I occasionally come across additional info on Archive.org while scanning for references. You might find this useful:

--NJR_ZA (talk) 12:14, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!
I'm preparing to tackle the real old stuff. In the process I'm creating redirects for those oldie locos that ended up in SAR service, to make sure the eventual lists in the categories will be complete. So far:
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