User talk:Lecen/Archive 3

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Brazilian Conservative Party

I'm afraid I know nothing about the history of the party -- I copied the text (editing it a bit) from the Simple English article. (I have no idea why there was a Simple English article and not an English one, but that's another story.) Anyway, I'm sorry it's incorrect, but I don't have time to do anything about it now -- I have a huge editing job and tomorrow is the deadline. I created the stub because I needed to link to it from another article (and I discovered there were a bunch of articles that mistakenly linked to the Conservative Party disambiguation page, so I redirected them to the new one). I would suggest you fill it out yourself, and I'll be glad to go over it and copyedit it when I have time; your English is excellent, and you obviously know a lot more about it than I do! Thanks for being so polite about my slapdash effort. Languagehat (talk) 00:10, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Platine War/GA2

Hi, I will be reviewing your GA nomination at Talk:Platine War/GA2. I just looked through the writings on the article talk page, and really, I cannot follow all that stuff. I have read through the article as it is, and it seems clearly written. I am not qualified to evaluate the article from the point of view of a political agenda, so I hope nothing like that enters into it while I am doing this review! Warmest regards, Xtzou (Talk) 20:12, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I have added some comments on this page regarding the article. I also removed some comments by another editor and put them on the talk page. My comments were suggestions only and I welcome discussion. I will put the article on hold for seven days in the meantime. Hopefully that will discourage comments by others with a fixed point of view. Regards, Xtzou (Talk) 17:56, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Is there a hopeless edit war going on regarding this article? If so, that prevents further GA evaluation. Best wishes, Xtzou (Talk) 22:29, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your message on my page, okay. I think the article is doing well, so as long as the dissenting editor does not try to implement anything, that is fine. Xtzou (Talk) 22:37, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Pedro II

I noticed that the Bibliography section is missing the reference info for Salles (2003), Pedrosa and Lowenstamm citations. I was only able to do a small bit tonight, but intend to work more tomorrow. • Astynax ^talk 08:11, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm delayed a bit in editing the article. I was going to finish editing today, and then go back and edit it for consistency and shorten it a bit. I hurt my hand yesterday afternoon and couldn't type very well. It is doing better today. I will let you know once I've finished going through the article. Unless some other interruption, I think I should have something for you to look at over the weekend. I like the new user interface, but the text is very, very small on my screen. Right now I'm finding it easier to just print the article and edit it on paper. I may have to figure out the custom CSS feature so that I can better read it, though I'm hoping Wikipedia fixes it after complaints from me and others. • Astynax ^talk 19:22, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I've edited the article some more. It is now around 56 kilobytes in length. That is still a bit bigger than the recommended maximum size, but close enough. I deleted some material which seemed would be better in the more detailed sub-articles. If you think any of it needs to be put back, I have no objection. I need to do a cleanup of the short references. Once we have that done, we need to do a Peer Review and note that the purpose is to move the article to FA status. Hopefully, we can get some people from History projects to take a look and give constructive comments. • Astynax ^talk 08:47, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I've finished cleaning up the citations, and have requested a peer review from Wikiproject Biography. I invited a couple of editors to look over the article if they have time. Hopefully we will get some constructive comments. • Astynax ^talk 09:45, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Hello, Lecen. On the Talk page for "Empire of Brazil" you said "You won't find it (the Constitution of the Empire of Brazil). I could translate it to you whatever parts you want to, however." Have you translated any parts of it before, and if so, do you have these translations on hand? If not, and if you are translating "from scratch," what would you like in return, if anything? Josh (talk) 19:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Obrigado! Josh (talk) 00:03, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi Lecen. Sure, why not! I'll take a look at the article and tell you what I think. My critique of the article may take a little while, though, so don't hold your breath. Take care and good luck with any future FAC nomination!--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:05, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the sentence in the lead ("nation grew to be distinguished from its Hispanic neighbors on account of its political stability, zealously-guarded freedom of speech, respect for civil rights, vibrant economic growth and especially for its form of government"): I think the reviewer is saying that there needs to be a statement in the body of the article that show that the neighboring nations were under dictatorships and didn't have civil rights, freedom of speech, political stability. I think that the Consolidation section is a good place for saying those things, because the end of the Platine War is when other countries began to notice Brazil was different than other South American nations. I put the references and the quote from Calmon in that section. We will see if the reviewers think it is sufficient. • Astynax ^talk 10:26, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi Lecen! No, I didn't give up. I just was busier than I thought I would be for Memorial Day Weekend here in the United States. I'll be out of town and headed to New York City for today until Friday afternoon; hopefully this upcoming weekend I can resume the review. Cheers and great work on the article. Pedro is smiling somewhere. Regards.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Brazilian Declaration of Independence

If you know anything about the various battles that occured in this conflict, please add information and references. I'll leave a tag blocking vandalizing IPs. B-Machine (talk) 16:00, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Elections under the Empire

The wording in the section can be taken to mean two things with regard to Deputies, provincial deputies and town council members. Were these also selected by the emperor from a list forwarded by Electors? • Astynax ^talk 20:15, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm still unclear whether the Deputies, etc. were directly elected by voters, chosen from the candidates by the Electors, or by some other means? • Astynax ^talk 20:51, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again. You may want to look over the edits I made to the section. During the 19th century, senators were not directly elected in the United States (they were appointed by the State legislatures until 1913), so the situation was comparable in that case also. I intend to go over the Ethnic groups section tonight. • Astynax ^talk 21:25, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your patience in explaining. • Astynax ^talk 21:54, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Anglicized Portuguese names for political figures

I posted a question regarding anglicizing Portuguese names at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portugal, though no one has responded yet. I also posted the issue at talk:John VI of Portugal, and one person commented there. I think using "John" instead of "Joao" or "Peter" instead of "Pedro" is very confusing to English readers, particularly since there are many English-language sources which do not anglicize the names. It is probably a minor issue, but it is irritating when people change it against the sources in articles like Pedro II. • Astynax ^talk 21:54, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Brazil barnstar

It is embarassing to have this star without it also being displayed on your own page. You deserve it:

		The Brazil Star
		Lecen has done a huge amount of excellent work on articles about Brazilian history, and deserves this small token of Wikipedia's appreciation! • Astynax talk 17:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Why did you have to remove all of the text from the History section of Empire of Brazil in order to work on it per this edit? Thanks!   — Jeff G. ツ 18:56, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

June 2010

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Pedro II of Brazil. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. If the edit warring continues, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. TFOWR 10:36, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry that you received a warning

I reported the unreferenced edits to ask for temporary semi-protection for the article. I thought that semi-protection would best solve the problem. However, the administrator who looked at it saw it as edit warring instead of a problem with the edits. S/he was right to warn about the seriousness of 3 reverts in 24 hours. This isn't the first time we have seen these same type of unreferenced edits inserted into multiple articles, and so to us they do not seem constructive. But it is best to patiently put back correct information that is according to the sources, and avoid WP:3RR. If bad edits continue, there will be other ways to address them. Please be patient. What you have done is too good and too important to allow to go back to confusing, incomplete and inaccurate articles. • Astynax ^talk 05:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Empire of Brazil

Hi

I have finished the editing of the article now.

Just one question - there are a few parts written like this:

... led to problems "The leading edge of the text was here, and that was why, they put it there"<ref name="fred, p.11">fred, p.11</ref>

Was that you putting those in there ?

The quotes (if they are quotes) should be preceeded with something like

... led to problems, Fred said "The leading edge of the text was here, and that was why, they put it there"<ref name="fred, p.11">fred, p.11</ref>

As there were some major edits going in there just before I started I didn't want to change them as I do not have access to the books used as refs to see if they actually were quotes or not ;¬)

Chaosdruid (talk) 19:35, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Pedro II

I was thinking of ending the peer review early next week (Monday is a holiday in the U.S.). I'm not sure that further comments or editing will be useful. There is no way of knowing who are the people who will comment during the FAC process, and we will likely need to make changes and changes of changes to satisfy the review, just as we have done for other GA articles. I think it will be best not to do much editing before submitting to FAC, since it makes it look like the article is not stable. Stability is one of the requirements. If you want more input, I suggest that putting it up for GA would be a better solution, since it will look better in the FA review. Those are just my thoughts, but you can do as you wish. • Astynax ^talk 06:52, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I can do the GA nomination at the same time I take down the various Peer Review flags. I will try to do that Tuesday, and perhaps we will get someone refreshed from a vacation. • Astynax ^talk 17:33, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Someone else nominated the article, so I just closed the peer review. Let us watch to see when reviewers begin commenting and maybe making minor changes. • Astynax ^talk 18:35, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

While linking the citations and looking at the edit made by another editor to the foreign honors, I came across a mention that might eventually be good to put into the Apogee of Pedro II of Brazil article. When he was in Great Britain on 5 July 1871, the ensignia of the Order of the Garter were delivered to him in person by Queen Victoria to his hotel (Claridges in London). Usually, the honoree goes to the king or queen to Windsor to be invested, or the insignia are delivered by an emmissary. And since Victoria very seldom made visits or public appearances at this time (she even refused to attend the openings of Parliament), this was a notable honor (source: Begent, Peter J.; Hubert Chesshyre; eds. 1999. The Most Noble Order of the Garter: 650 Years. London: Spink & Son Ltd., p. 212. ISBN 1902040201). This was the same year that the Order of the Garter was given to Napoleon III of France and Franz-Joseph of Austria, which shows that Brazil was held in similar regard to those nations. I thought this might be a useful bit of information, but I don't know where it would fit. • Astynax ^talk 20:21, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I know that story. He visited the Queen at Windsor and she later went to see him at his hotel, which was unusual. What is the most interesting is that she gave him a kiss in the cheek when she presented him with the order and she did not ask the permission of the British cabinet to bestow such honor, which was even more unprecedent. She wrote in her diary that she considered the Emperor a handsome man, althoug prematurely aged. If she did all that as recognition of Brazil as an emerging power or for personal reasons, we are left to wonder... In case you want to add that, you should do it in his first trip to Europe, in 1871.

There other facts about Pedro II that I did not add to the article for lack of space. During the U.S. Civil War the French envoy volunteered to put Napoleon III as a mediator between both sides. I beleive he did that to a general, I don't remember, I would have to look in the book. The American general felt insulted and said that the United States would never allow a French mediation but would gladly accept Pedro II as a mediator. I remember that the historian wondered if that was due to Brazil's long good relation with the U.S. or if the general only wanted to make the Frenchman angry due to France's involvement in the Mexican Empire civil war. That, however, did not surprise me: Pedro II was openly sided with the Union and sent letters of support to Lincoln and in a time when many European countries were eager to see the U.S. split apart that must have meant something. Also, by the end of the Empire, Pedro II had been, at least two times previously, a mediator between European powers.

I wish I had time time to write about Brazilian decadence in the 20th Century but I believe I will have to leave that for another time. In 1889, Brazilian GDP was 40% higher than the one of Argentina. By 1913, Argentina was the 4th greatest economy in the world and its GDP was 40% higher than Brazil. Not only that, it was a stable and democratic country. And yes, you read it correctly: even Argentina had its moment of glory and guess how it ended? Yet another caudillo-dictator appeared (Perón). In the 1940s Argentina almost entered in war with Brazil. The former had a close relation with German Nazi and wanted to recreate the old Viceroyalty (yep, remember Rosas in the Platine War? 100 years laters they still pursued that dream) while Brazil had joined the Allies. In fact, even now, in 2010, Argentina's dispute with UK over the the Falklands is nothing more than its former dream or recreating the viceroyalty.

Well, I talked too much but getting back to the original subject: you could add that if you want to, but do it before someone begins a review. Regards, --Lecen (talk) 23:34, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know that about the kiss on the cheek. She wasn't that friendly with some of her own family. I didn't want to put that info into the Pedro II article, which I think already contains enough information. I was thinking that those things would be better when the Apogee sub-article is expanded someday. That article now only contains a bit about slavery. The other international incidents might also be good there.

I agree that the 20th century would be very interesting for people outside the region to learn. Because of the 2 World Wars and then the Cold War, South America was only covered in general terms by the press—often focusing on spectacular strongmen like Perón and Trujillo. And the US made some bad decisions in that time, too, by sometimes supporting the wrong factions just to please the special interests of corporations—it wasn't all to do with communism, even though that was the story Americans were told. I hope this century turns out better than the last one!

But 20th century topics will be more difficult, as people have even more emotions over those events. • Astynax ^talk 03:43, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

The sub-articles on Pedro II will need to be expanded in the future, but I don't believe they should be our top priorities right now. Ending the Empire of Brazil and its history should be our focus. Later I'll try to look on Brazilian independence and Pedro I of Brazil.

Well, I have to disagree with you on U.S. involvement on Latin American history. It is always easy to blame someone else for our own mistakes, right? Leftits Latin Americans (mnnn... Hugo Chávez, anyone?) were always prone (and quite happy) to blame U.S. on every single bad thing that every happened in the region. The United States is indeed and outstanding powerful country but is not God. It is not capable - even with all money in the world or CIA expertise - of changing the destiny of a nation, no matter how small and weak it is. If Latin American countries became dictatorships in the 1960s and 1970s was because someone (and trust me, they were many) in and from those countries wanted that to happen.

The Brazilian dictatorship that lasted from 1964 until 1985, for example. The U.S. supported the coup and the dictatorship for a while (until Jimmy Carter, who was a far better President than many Americans nowadays believe he was), it is true, but it would have happen with or without U.S. support. The Brazilian military hated democracy, hated politicians and dreamed with a dictatorship with a strong state and anti-religious attitude. Does that remind you of something? Positivism. End of Empire. The roots to the 1964 dictatorship can be found in 1889. And I am quite sure that if you look around, the roots for the others Latin American dictatorships were far older than the Cold War dispute between U.S. and Soviet Union.

I read about the Mexican Drug War that is going on now and I am surprised to see the Mexican government (and several U.S. newspapers and websites) blaming the U.S. for being a market to drugs and for selling weapons. Always easy to blame the "Evil Empire", right? No one wants to remember that Mexico has - since its independence - a country with strong issues of corruption, state bureocracy inefficience, political instability and others. The problem is not out of Mexico, but in Mexico.

Since 1999 Venezuela went from a democracy to a dictatorship. Who did that? The United States? Cuba? Russia? No. Hugo Chavez and his political party.

As you can see, I could hardly agree with you on that matter. Blaming the U.S. (and bombing it with terrorist attacks sometimes) might be fun to those who are blind - or chose to be blind - to the truth but not the ones who still have values. Those people do that for their own political agenda, for their own purpose. And, unfortunately, there are many Americans who fall into their speech. Those Muslim terrorists in the 9/11 attacks, for example, came from Saudi Arabia. They blame the U.S. for everything bad in the world. They should blame that corrupt Royal Family that has 500 Princes all with several wives and their own palaces and airplanes and costly trips to Paris while their people live as they ancestors lived hundred of years ago. And what they do? They bomb their own people such as in Iraq where dozens to hundreds of innocent people perish for no good reason!!!--Lecen (talk) 11:05, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Our pet troll...

Probably both: in a 984 page book by Ribeiro (with no indication of page or chapter), and after you read it, you don't find the information anywhere. Ninguém (talk) 11:42, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Because his sources are in Portuguese, and our administrators don't read that language, and because Opinoso is a good garbage collector, always removing petty vandalism of the kind "and all Brazilians are gay", which has earned him an undeserved reputation as a "good contributor".

I am now removing his absurds about the Spanish character of Rio Grande do Sul. It is astonishing how he picks an inconclusive genetic research and, based on that, defies all well-established historic knowledge about the region, even making fun of the supposed ignorance of those who oppose him. I gave him some rope and then suggested two mainstream historians, Moacir Flores and Barbosa Lessa, which apparently made him again busy in real life.

Have you seen his veiled threat against me, suggesting that something bad could happen to me when I eventually stop using the computer? That alone should be basis for a definite block. Instead he gets (more) a warning to not do something he has been doing for four years, in spite of countless warnings and half a dozen blocks! Ninguém (talk) 12:30, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

By "the veiled threat", do you mean this? I took it to be no more than a confused and silly comment. Come come, let's not get personally sensitive. (For a sense of perspective, take a look at this. You're accused of fantasizing about, or being proud of, or not being proud of, your [human] ancestry? That's nothing: I was accused of canine ancestry and -- so far as I was even human -- neurological damage. The more malodorous it was, the nuttier the writer appeared and the more I chuckled -- although I would have appreciated brevity.) Forget the editor and think of the edits. And if sources are being miscited or misquoted, let's hear about this. -- Hoary (talk) 14:46, 5 July 2010 (UTC)