User talk:Polaris999/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Che, again

Thanks for your continuing great work as an expert and moderator. It's nice to come back to such an inherently controversial article after nearly three months and see that it has not degenerated into a battlefield. - Jmabel | Talk 16:47, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Jmabel -- Many thanks for the very kind words. "La ausencia de su presencia" was deeply felt while you were away, and it is great to have you back. While perhaps not a battlefield, the CG article has certainly been the scene of on-going skirmishes, and things got especially wild after it was TFA on 18 June. Right now there is something of a hiatus, but I have been warned that the intensity may be expected to return to the previous levels when the summer vacation period ends. -- Polaris999 19:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Cuba-Soviet relations

Hi Polaris, if you have a moment, would you mind scanning the early section of Cuba-Soviet relations which is a rough article I have hastily created. It needs reference to Guevara's trips to the Soviet Union in the early 60's, which played a key part in solidifying the relationship. Guevara's subsequent ideological shifts were also partly responsible for a cooling of relations between all parties - so he has a major role there. As you have worked so hard on the Guevara page I wondered if you had anything in your scrapbook that would slot in easily? Other than that it's a lonely article at the moment and needs some scanning and input. Thanks.--Zleitzen 01:50, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Zleitzen, thank you very much for the invitation to take a look at your new article re Cuba-Soviet relations and Guevara's role in their evolution. This is a subject that interests me greatly and one that I feel has never been adequately addressed in any of the books or articles I have read. I will be very interested to see what you have written and ascertain whether I might have any sources that could provide additional information for you. I am not even going to peek at the article tonight, however, as I prefer to give it my full -- and fresh -- attention first thing tomorrow, so will be in touch then. -- Polaris999 05:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Follow-up: I did look at the article and have a few ideas about quotations by Guevara concerning Cuba-USSR relations that I would like to pass on to you. Unfortunately, this information is only stored in my head because I never intended to write in detail about this particular topic; I will therefore need to look through a number of books in order to give you his exact words and the sources. When I have done this, I will post the results on your Talk page. -- Polaris999 06:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Polaris, by the way I think the Guevara page is excellant. It's a relief to look at in comparison to the hideous Castro page which is a dead loss at the moment. --Zleitzen 09:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:Re-work

Hi, I know you created that template but I think it should still be 'archived'. The template name itself is misleading also it is not used (check what links here) or publicised to editors. We currently have 300+ cleanup templates which is way too many and I am trying to condense them down to fewer more commonly used ones by archiving unused templates and ones that are covered by others.

In this case I dont see a place where I would use it as a tag and it is very very infrequently used so I archived it. Do you have any firm evidence that it is an essential and useful temlate? --Errant Tmorton166^(Talk)(Review me) 10:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

PS. Things can depreciate besides currency. see dictionary definition ;)

Hi, I created that template for a specific purpose and have used it many times in various articles for that purpose. I especially like the fact that it makes it easy to "time stamp" a sentence, paragraph, or section that needs re-work. I really don't care what you do with it so long as it is still available for me to use. Re the word "depreciate", the dictionary reference you cite stresses the difference between "depreciate" and "deprecate". There is no reason to think that this or any other template has "depreciated" which would mean that it has diminished in value over time, i.e. that it is worth less now than when it was when it was originally created. Is this really what you are suggesting? If so, what process(es) would cause such a phenomenon to occur? Concerning your statement that its name is misleading, I do not understand your point as its name ("Re-work") indicates exactly what the template requests be done and every time I have used it the desired effect has been achieved. -- Polaris999 14:25, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Protection for CG

In general, officially, page protection is not a very good idea. That's officially speaking; we all know that 90% of the damage is caused, sometimes unknowingly, by anonymous users and/or new users. In this case, page protection is not warranted, since there's no edit war or massive vandalism going on, no content dispute, no widespread disruption. It's just a newbie that probably doesn't understand why his text was removed twice, and the usual touch-and-go anon Guevara bashers. In this case you have to assume good faith and warn the editors as appropriate (see User talk:Gabrielfoto for example). I'll monitor the page a bit more closely. You and the other "established editors" of the page should be alert, especially, to spot strings of minor changes (which cover the previous ones' track in watchlist display), and to revert harmful changes quickly before someone else adds good content (which deprives you of the chance to do a quick revert, lest you lose that good content). If the situation gets out of control, by all means let me know. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 01:35, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks for your reply, Pablo D. Flores. It is semi-protection that I was hoping for. A couple of nights ago something extremely disgusting was done to the CG article. The identical thing was done to the FCR article at approximately the same time and it immediately got semi-protection. There seems to be some bias against giving semi-protection to the CG article, which I do not understand. It seems to me that right now what has been going on all day today with someone repeatedly inserting garbage re "carnicero" etc. is either edit warring or vandalism (personally I would say the latter) and that it needs to be brought under control; but, just my humble opinion, and I will leave the matter to your discretion ... -- Polaris999 02:09, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Che

Thanks very much for the help with quotes for the Cuba-Soviet relations article. I'll gather together what I've got adding your Che based material and will hopefully begin creating a good article. My "dream" is that all Cuban related material will be so solid on wikipedia that disputes will fade, this seems to be happening already.

Regarding protection for the CG page, the best way to protect a page is to make the writing and sourcing so tight that partisans are simply unable to destabilise it for any sustained period. The CG page is a good example of this and also has a number of good editors monitoring the page, so improvement is almost inevitable despite the occasional setback. --Zleitzen 11:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Polaris, I've been watching the Che article for a month or so and I feel that my theory above still stands. The article, which is a universe ahead of any other article concerned with Cuba/Cuban revolution, has become so refined that I imagine it is extremely difficult to dispute or destabilize and hasn't been since I've watched it. It should be a model for all pages, notably those which deal with disputed or controversial subjects. I checked the history and development of the article from way back and saw the inevitable POV tags which hovered over the article for some time. It is a long time since someone saw fit to impose them on the article which is astounding progress in my view. Congratulations and well done for all your hard work. Presently I'm sifting through various key texts on the history of Cuba I have to hand, and am painstakingly trying to apply them to 200 or so articles on my watchlist. Eventually I'll get round to reading the Guevara specific books, but there is little opportunity for me to improve the Guevara main article thanks to its present high standard. He's also a figure that has always grated on me I'm afraid - in the last hour we have encountered two t-shirts carrying the Korda image whilst simply picking up groceries, making me grumble under my breath! Saying that I now have Che Guevara's involvement in the Cuban Revolution on my watch, and will see how that improves over time with various inputs (hopefully including my own). Anyway, well done again. Great work.--Zleitzen 17:12, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Zleitzen. Thank you very much for the extremely kind words, which I greatly appreciate! As you say, the Che article seems to have reached a certain stability during the past few weeks after 14+ months of intense development. I agree with you that careful sourcing has contributed to this, and I think that, as you indicated previously, another factor is that a number of editors have put the article on their watch lists and quickly revert any vandalism that occurs. I am concerned that the Legacy section of the article continues to be weak. It is hard to work on because it is the one that generates the most POV activity. Perhaps after the "stable version" concept is introduced on en.wikipedia it will be possible to begin to do some serious work on it. In the meantime, I shall look forward to seeing your contributions over at Che Guevara's involvement in the Cuban Revolution, and wish you the best of luck on your ambitious project of improving the 200+ Cuba-related articles. Thanks again! -- Polaris999 00:49, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I've uncovered an article that I haven't read before : Escopeteros with a section written by El Jigue and almost untouched by other human hands. I feel like an explorer discovering the last of a rare specious. My favourite of all time was Women in Cuba which I deeply regretted having to clean up to save from extinction as it was marvellous. The talk page responses from random editors still make me smile on re-reading.--Zleitzen 01:57, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Zleitzen, and many thanks for bringing the Escopeteros article to my attention; I enjoyed reading it and look forward to reading the "unredacted" version of Women in Cuba later tonight. I believe that EJ is quite an expert on the Escopeteros (think he said that his upcoming book is on that topic) which is a subject about which I know absolutely nothing. It may be true that the reason Camilo and Che passed through the territory stretching from the Sierra Maestra to old Las Villas province so easily was that the way had been cleared for them by these outlaws — it certainly seemed that they had something of a "cake walk" over much of their trajectory. Nevertheless, we definitely need sources for these statements if they are to remain in the article. EJ still doesn't seem to have accepted the fact that his saying "I was there" or "My friend saw it" is worth absolutely nothing so far as Wikipedia is concerned. At least, once his book is published, I guess that Wikipedia's rules will allow him to cite it as a source, so he will finally be able to use himself as a reference which will no doubt make him very happy indeed. -- Polaris999 02:27, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the John Lee Anderson quote, Polaris. I have his book, but I've never actually got round to reading it (oops!) - which is rather typical of me - so I'm grateful for any leads as to key details for the Soviet page. --Zleitzen 00:34, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Image:Tinyspkricon.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Tinyspkricon.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. YellowDot 20:41, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Transfer of messages from User talk: Ligulem (because they contain info of special interest to me)

String functions?

Hello Ligulem, and warmest congratulations on your adminship! I was wondering if you might have time to answer a question for me that I have been trying to figure out for a couple of weeks now, but without success. I have recently created a "navbar" template Template:Nav Arch-all ‎for Talk Archive files (TAFs) and would like to code it in such a way that the user doesn't have to provide any parameters. As it now stands, it requires one user-entered parameter -- i.e., the number of the TAF on which it is placed. I would like to use string functions to analyze the end of the name of the TAF on which it is placed so that the user doesn't need to enter that number. I found the description of string functions on Meta ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/StringFunctions ) and if I could use them I could work this out. However, when I try to use them, nothing seems to happen. Therefore, I am wondering, am I doing something wrong, or are they still not implemented in en.wikipedia? If they are not, is there any workaround available? Many thanks -- Polaris999 22:10, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, thank you for your very kind support. Per your question, I will have a look tomorrow (it's already a bit late for me, 0:38 am). Don't hesitate to kick me again if I should forget. --Ligulem 22:39, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I've had a look. [1] says that StringFunctions are not implemented on this wiki (seems to be a proposal to extend m:ParsersFunctions). I'm not aware a workaround, sorry. --Ligulem 08:13, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks for having a look at it. I believe that I have thought of a way to handle it but figuring out the code may prove to be more trouble than it's worth. Perhaps one day those string functions will be implemented here; I certainly hope so as they would seem to offer many new possibilities for the future development of templates. -- Polaris999 05:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Follow-up: This seems to do the trick: Template:Auto-taf-nav ... (but being able to use string functions would certainly be more elegant!) -- Polaris999 02:49, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I see you are a template whizzard yourself :). Per the string functions, I do have near zero influence on whether they are implemented on the site or not. This is up to User:Brion Vibber and User:Tim Starling. The devs are generally very reluctant to add new "programming" like features. And right they are (it's a road of no return). Nevertheless, I probably could solve a long standing issue with template:cite book with the string functions (The obnoxious double period bug [2]). But the important thing is m:ParserFunctions. I'm very glad we have that (thanks to Tim Starling). --Ligulem 08:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Ligulem and many thanks for your very kind words! I continue to delve into the mysteries of templates, mostly by studying those you have created and also through experimentation. I just now finished Template:auto-utaf-nav that does the same thing for User Talk Archive files that Template:auto-taf-nav does for article TAFs. Perhaps one day User:Brion Vibber and User:Tim Starling will look kindly upon us and decide that the time for String Functions has come. In the meantime, I will concentrate on trying to learn the intricacies of m:ParserFunctions ... -- Polaris999 05:13, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

---

José de la Serna

Hi Polaris999,

Do you have a reference for your change in the relation between José de la Serna and Che Guevara? --Rbraunwa 13:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I discovered that the idea that CG was a direct descendant of José de la Serna was a misinterpretation or mis-representation of various statements made by Ernesto Guevara Lynch, Che's father. He had said things to the effect that Che's mother had the "same bloodline" as José de la Serna, which is correct, but authors such as Jon Lee Anderson present this information in a confusing manner. For example, Anderson writes on p. 4 of Che: A Revolutionary Life: Celia de la Serna was a true Argentine blue blood of undiluted Spanish noble lineage. One ancestor had been the Spanish royal viceroy of colonial Peru, failing to indicate whether the ancestry was lineal or collateral. In his work,Che Guevara: Compaňero, Jorge Castaňeda writes on p. 4: On his mother's side, Guevara's landed roots went back to General José de la Serna e Hinojosa, the last Spanish viceroy of Peru, whose troops were defeated by Sucre in the historic battle of Ayacucho in 1820, when South America's independence was finally secured. Castaňeda then provides a source note citing the book by I. Lavretsky, which we will visit later. Finally, a more correct version is presented by Paco Ignacio Taibo in his Ernesto Guevara, también conocido como el Che, when he writes: No mucho más (información) del lado De la Serna, fuera del abuelo Juan Martín de la Serna, dirigente de la juventud radical, militancia compartida por uno de los Lynch, el tío abuelo Guillermo, por la que ambos intervinieron en la fracasada revolución de 1890. Note that Taibo makes no mention whatsoever of any ancestral link to José de la Serna.

Turning now to Lavretsky, who is cited by Castaňeda as the source for the ancestral link, what does he actually have to say about the matter? On page 13 of Ernesto Che Guevara, he provides a direct quote from Che's father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch, as follows: It should be noted that my wife's family also includes its Spanish grandee in the past. Don't think that either she or I consider it of any particular importance, but a fact is a fact. At this point, Lavretysky interjects: "There is a Russian proverb, Don Ernesto, to the effect that you can't leave out a word from a song." Ernesto Guevara Lynch then continues: Exactly. Anyway, I was thinking of General José de la Serna e Hinojosa, the last Spanish viceroy of Peru. It was his troops which were smashed by Marshal Sucre of Great Colombia at the memorable battle near Ayacucho. This statement by Ernesto Guevara Lynch is 100% accurate as it is true that Celia de la Serna's family does "include" José de la Serna e Hinojosa, but that is the extent of his relationship to Che.

Based on the statements by Anderson and Castaňeda, I had originally thought that there was a direct line of descent between José de la Serna e Hinojosa and Che Guevara and was in the process of searching for the details in order to incorporate them into the the family tree/genealogical file of Che Guevara that I am developing on Rodovid. I immediately came across certain inconsistencies (such as there being no record that José de la Serna e Hinojosa had any direct descendants in Argentina), then the dates of known ancestors of Celia de la Serna which did not mesh with his, and finally a comprehensive genealogy of the Argentine De la Serna family which makes it patently clear that José de la Serna e Hinojosa was not a direct ancestor of Celia de la Serna y Llosa: De la Serna Genealogy Site. In fact, Celia's immigrant ancestor was D. Juan Manuel de la Serna y de la Quintana who was born in Ontón, Santander (España) ca. 1765 and immigrated to Uruguay before 1802. His son, D. Martín José de la Serna y Loaces, moved to Argentina before 1834 and became the father of Juan Martín de la Serna Fonrredona who was born in Buenos Aires ca. 1840. The latter in turn became the father of Juan Martín de la Serna Ugalde (b. 1871), whose daughter, Celia de la Serna y Llosa (b. 1906) would become Che's mother.

I hope the above provides a satisfactory answer to your question. -- Polaris999 18:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Che, como siempre

Sorry that I haven't been tracking closely the (clearly massive) activity in the Che Guevara article. I know you've been the main person holding it together amongst the contending forces, and at a quick look you are doing a great job. Is there anything on that or related articles where my help is needed? I frankly cannot bring myself to read comprehensibly through the talk page and work out everything that's been going on. - Jmabel | Talk 05:47, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks for your very kind words re the CG article. Things there have taken a turn for the better since User:Zleitzen and User:Dasondas have become active on it. They are considering undertaking a major re-write of the "Legacy" and "Criticism" sections but, of course, that would be something approaching a Herculean task.

There is one specific sentence about which I would like to ask your opinion, i.e. the first sentence of the article, which currently reads:

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara or el Che, was an Argentine-born Marxist, politician, and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas.

I would much prefer to see revolutionary there rather than "politician" as I consider it more accurate. Or, if you think that "politician" should remain, could "revolutionary," perhaps precede it? For example:

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara or el Che, was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary, politician, and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas.

I would appreciate hearing your ideas about this -- or, perhaps you might suggest an entirely new first sentence for the article? Thanking you in advance -- Polaris999 17:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

How about "…an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary, political figure, and leader of…"? - Jmabel | Talk 18:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I do like that better. Will you make the change in the article? BTW what do you think of the new Legacy/Criticism section contributed by Zleitzen? -- Polaris999 18:25, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Havent' had a chance to review it yet, but Zleitzen usually is good. - Jmabel | Talk 00:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

IMHO he has done a masterful job on it. -- Polaris999 04:10, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Legacy

Thanks for your words of support concerning the legacy rewrite. I hope it is an improvement, but I hold no illusions about how difficult it is to maintain such a section in the future. I hope the incorporation of the two sections, and the sentence structure limits the chances of "drive-by postings" - where a random poorly sourced tidbit is bolted onto the article to its detriment. But I'll see how long it lasts before someone adds something like the below; --Zleitzen 07:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

"In November 2006 Robin Williams caused controversy by wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt on the Daily show and...."

El Jigue

Polaris,

El Jigue has drawn some admin attention (again, as I have discovered that this isn't the first time). Perhaps you want to take a look here. (perhaps not :))Dasondas 03:05, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello Dasondas, and thank you for the "heads up". I haven't noticed any recent actions by EJ that would cause me to think he should be banned. I find this whole matter quite perplexing ... -- Polaris999 03:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello Polaris999; I'm the user who's been complaining about 'El Jigue' use of 'talk pages'. Just wanted, to let you know, I like his views, observations & conversations. However my complaint was, those discussion were better placed somewhere else (say 'El Jigue's personal 'talk page'). However, I've learned (acceptingly) not everyone agrees with me. I'm allright with that, PS: I wish 'El Jigue' would become a registered user. GoodDay 04:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello GoodDay -- Thank you for your message. I just finished posting my thoughts over at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Durova#El_Jigue, should you wish to read them. I think that your conclusion that El Jigue is sui generis and should be allowed to continue in his own idiosyncratic way is for the best, and I appreciate the tactful way in which you have resolved the matter. Kudos! -- Polaris999 05:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Polaris, your comments on Durova's page were great. Perhaps you may want to send a properly-pitched note to EJ himself to make sure he doesn't give up in disgust when he sees the block warning. I think that Durova acted fine given the information she had, and I also think that the resolution we seem to have come to, based in a large part on GoodDay's magnanimous good will, is the best for Wikipedia. I had written something to EJ here to the effect that he might try, without modifying in any way the content of his comments, to phrase them in a way that is more directed towards the article; I left that message at what I have since come to discover is an IP address that he may no longer be using. Now I think it might be for the best, and I don't intend at this time to copy the message to his new IP -- however a friendly word of encouragement from someone such as yourself might be quite helpful right now. Dasondas 06:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Dasondas. Thank you for your message. I hope that this matter will now fade away. Probably EJ has actually enjoyed the episode since it will have given him something new to add to his "dossier" on wikipedia. Let's watch tomorrow and see if/where he reappears ... -- Polaris999 07:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)]

Polaris, I was going to write you about that. In about ten minutes I'm shutting down for a two-week trip. I'll have internet access, but don't know about my time availability for editing. I was quite disappointed about Durova's response; my problem is that my exposure to EJ has been limited to CG where there is nothing I have ever seen that would amount to a violation of policy, let alone a blockable one -- yet I can't speak to his actions elsewhere. My impression is that Durova is, for some reason, making a particularly narrow interpretation of policy but I can't really make a strong rebuttal due to my lack of complete information. I am, needless to say, available to do whatever I can to make sure that EJ continues his participation; please let me know how I can be of further help. Dasondas 19:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Dasondas. Many months ago EJ did get involved in edit warring on several articles. He came close to that on the CG page but everything was resolved amicably before it reached that point. Anyway, it would hardly make sense for him to be judged now for what some considered his excesses back then. In the end, I guess it will be up to him to defend himself if he wants to continue editing. I have never had occasion to pay any attention to the "dispute process" before and am quite ignorant of it. I believe that at some point wikipedians are allowed to comment for or against the accused party; I guess that is when we would have a chance to present our views. Please keep in touch during your travels! -- Polaris999 19:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Polaris, EJ's conduction of his own defence has proved predictably disasterous! His unorthodox decision to respond to a block warning for disruption with a lengthy and marvellous analysis of Cuba's black rebellion of 1912 - and its relationship to the Haitian revolution - was never going to get him off the hook! --Zleitzen 21:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but we must understand that he had to realize that as well as any of us, so it was his pre-meditated decision to follow that path, whatever the consequences. In fact, his defense made perfect sense to me, but perhaps that is because I have become accustomed to his rhetorical style over the many months we have been "dialoguing", or perhaps because of my familiarity with the milieu he is describing ... -- Polaris999 21:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

HEY

Hi, I'm kind of a new user here, how do you change the title of a reference that has been cited? There's one in particular, in Castro's page, that I really do not think it's right. (The Spirit Of Moncada: Fidel Puto Castro's Rise To Power). I would appreciate the help from a more experienced user!KeNNy 16:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello KeNNy, and thank you for catching that vandalism. To correct vandalism inside a reference like that, you need to go to the section where it appears in order to make the change. If you look at how I fixed the instance you brought to my attention, you will see how it is done. I hope that you will keep your sharp eyes on this article because vandalism of it is constant. -- Polaris999 16:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Content notes

Hi Polaris, I'm very impressed with your use of content notes. I think that they are an excellant addition to a page - so much so that I have used them extensively on my long term project British African Caribbean Community. What is the history of these content notes? I haven't seen them on other pages, are they your own creation?--Zleitzen 06:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Zleitzen -- Thank you so much for your very kind words. The history of the wikipedia "content note" concept is this: At one moment in time many months ago while I was pondering the chaos of notes that was then strangling the CG article, the idea of creating them suddenly popped into my head! I figured out a way to make it possible for them to coexist with what was then the new <ref></ref> system that I wanted to use for source notes. Somewhat later, I created two templates (i.e. template:cref and template:cnote) to facilitate their inclusion in articles. I am delighted that you like them and are using them in your project! -- Polaris999 07:01, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Well done, I won't pretend to understand how you managed to create the templates as that area is all a mystery to me, but they provide a fantastic way to explain a problematic aspect and thus "protect an article" without breaking the flow of the main text. I plan to use them on more articles in the future, they should certainly become a prominent feature of complex articles. By the way, I've been meaning to return to the Cuban-Soviet relations article for some time and add your well chosen quotes, but have been drawn into other areas and time sapping disputes with some of the more ideologically driven editors over representation, that page is still on my to-do list and hasn't been forgotten.--Zleitzen 08:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Santa Clara

Hi Polaris, I've written a rough page to get that article started. Feel free to make any amendments and improvements as it probably needs a fair bit more context/detail.--Zleitzen 14:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Earth/All-1to10

Hi, I added 11 to this template because I archived the discussion page, and apparently I was a bit confused. I think I misunderstood the way that template was supposed to work. Thanks for correcting me. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 05:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi HighInBC -- Thank you for your reply. When the Earth Talk Archive Files reach the number of 11, someone will need to create an Earth/All-11to20 with the numbers 11 through 20 in the loop in order to display all of the TAFs 11-20 on a single page. BTW in order for the "navbar" system I created to work on Archive 5, it will be necessary to place it at the top of that file. I will do so momentarily. -- Polaris999 05:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow, nice system. You should put a link to the instruction page on each archive you use that on. If you have already and I missed it, forgive me, sometimes I miss things. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 05:49, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words, HighInBC. You didn't miss anything -- I haven't placed such a link on any of the (very few) pages where I have installed T:auto-taf-nav. I did place it in the list of "Talk Page Templates" with a link attached, but not many people seem to have discovered it there. Well, to say "not many" is quite an exaggeration because I believe that only one person has discovered it; he placed it on the Talk Archives of the "Mathematics" article  :-) So, I think that your suggestion about my finding a way to put a link to its instruction page on each Talk Archive file where it appears is a very good one, although I would want to make it as non-obtrusive as possible ... -- Polaris999 06:19, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Spelling

Hi Polaris, thanks for all your work on the various revolution articles, I particuarly like the audio sample on the radio page! Just a note about the subject of spelling. All my spellchecks are hooked up to English standard spelling, though I personally believe all Cuban articles should be in US spelling, that being the dominant form of spelling of English by Cuban sources over the years (see the the Anglo Granma etc). I try to write in a US style using US spelling if I can, but often make mistakes. I would appreciate it if you cast an eye over the spelling on these pages, that is if you have a better knowledge of US English than me and the time. Thanks.--Zleitzen 20:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Zleitzen, I am so glad that you created those new articles! The RR audio sample is one of my favorites and I am very pleased that you like it also. Re spelling, I will certainly take a look (and request that you do the same for my contributions) but must confess that I am what might be described as an "eclectic" speller. For example, I greatly prefer British spelling in most cases and tend to use it, although combined with "ize" verbs because the "ise" form seems to trigger instant reverts here on WP.

I guess you saw the ext link to Pombo's interview that I put on the Battle of Santa Clara page? I found his description of events most illuminating. BTW I have been meaning to ask you whether you think that we should have a "Ñancahuazú Guerrilla" article? The idea has been floating around in my mind for quite a while now; I am not sure that I'm ready to begin major work on it right now, but would like to hear your thoughts on the subject ... Many thanks, -- Polaris999 21:12, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The Bolivian expedition is not something I know a lot about, Polaris. Though an article on the Ñancahuazú linked to foco - and the Guevara articles would be good. At present I am enjoying improving the revolution series, and am contemplating more visual aids such as creating maps (fortunately I have more youthful computer literate assistance outside wikipedia for these!). I'd like it if the articles told a continuous story that readers could flick through, even if it is merely threaded via the introductions. --Zleitzen 22:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I've just had a good read of the Pombo interview. Numerous things struck me upon reading. Firstly, again the train incident is described in fairly undramatic tones; I have no idea why writers have pounced upon that episode believing that it is falsely portrayed as a heroic display by Guevara. If one were to compare the two reports, one from Pombo and one from the grandson of an occupant of the train, they differ in perception of course, but are hardly gross contradictions. My reading of it would be that there was obviously a certain amount of fighting around the city and the train, and a period of threats and negotiations with the army to ensure that they left the train without incident. Merely differing perceptions of the threats and negotiations depending on which side of the train doors the participants found themselves. Another thing about Pombo is that he is an afro-Cuban from the east of the country, and as such represents a demographic that is often forgotten in the analysis of Cuba from outside. The story of Afro-Cubans (particuarly in the east) is key to understanding the survival of the revolution but requires a paradigm shift that media commentators and observers rarely seem to undertake.--Zleitzen 09:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello Zletizen -- I just added a map I made showing the route of the Granma. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that it was impossible to get it to display properly without modifying the layout of the article a bit. Perhaps next time you visit you will see what I did and have a better solution of your own. You mentioned about Pombo. I find him a very impressive individual. I hope that when Raúl takes power outright, he will make him First VP. He has many outstanding qualities and, so far as I have been able to determine, always tells the truth. He has survived because if the truth is "inconvenient", he simply says nothing at all. He seems to be the antipode of Alarcón who I believe has become so accustomed to lying that he doesn't even know what the truth is any more. I do agree with you completely re the Santa Clara train incident and, given Pombo's record, have reason to believe that his version is truthful. About Ñancahuazú, I could probably start the article and may get around to doing so one day. I suppose that there should be an in-depth look at the Congo expedition also, but am hoping that someone else will rise to that challenge. -- Polaris999 05:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Template:cref edit

Noticing your a heavy contributor to Template:cref, I would like to find out what you think of my recent edit [3]. I changed the citation size since I though it was too small and made the text overlap. If you have a problem with this edit I would be welcome to revert it. Hope to hear back! - Tutmosis 21:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello - Tutmosis and thank you for your thoughtfulness in writing to me about the change you made. When I created the templates "cref" and "cnote", I initially used the same size font that you prefer for "cref". Then it occurred to me that some readers might find that size intrusive, so I reduced it. However, my true preference matches yours, so I think that your change is all for the best. BTW I have been wondering if it might be a good thing if the WP programming wizards would create the option of viewing each WP article without any notes appearing in the text. This probably shouldn't be too hard to accomplish, just filtering out superscripts should do it, shouldn't it? Because I believe that there are some people who are not at all interested in reading the references, source notes, content notes or whatever they may be called in various articles, and they would be glad to have the option of not seeing them. Those with visual challenges might also find an "uncluttered" version preferable. (Just a thought!) -- Polaris999 21:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to eavesdrop, but I've been using the c:Ref template on a page I have written, noticed the change in text size and like the new size. I agree that methods should be sought to minimise the intrusive nature of refs - which at times skew the line spacing in the text making a page look quite ragged and ugly. I'm surprised that this isn't a priority of wikipedia. --Zleitzen 21:56, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, I too wouldn't mind such an option. Maybe have an option like that in the preferences menu for registered users? Lastly, I'm glad your happy with my changes. All the best! - Tutmosis 14:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe Jmabel will be able to suggest to whom we might present this idea ... -- Polaris999 05:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The José Martí Barnstar
		For excellent work on Cuban related articles

Hi Polaris, you can be the first recipient of this new barnstar created with help from one of my unruly brood!--Zleitzen 18:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Zleitzen, and many thanks for giving me the honor of being the first recipient of the wonderful José Martí Barnstar! As you may have noticed, I am on something of a wiki-break at present, having become distracted by other matters. I do keep an eye on CG from time to time, however. Thanks again -- Polaris999 20:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Template:Auto-taf-nav

Hi, I just came across this. It's impressively complicated... I think it would be useful, however I'd like to see a few changes made before I start applying it to archives. (I'd make the changes myself but can't for the life of me figure out how). First, can the colours be a bit more subdued? How about giving the default background colour that comes with the class="wikitable" declaration for the top and bottom rows, and something slightly darker in the middle? The green doesn't really fit with the fairly subdued colours of the rest of the interface. Second, could the "BACK" and "FORWARD" labels be made a bit more like those in {{Archive-nav}}? That is, have the name of the archive as the link, with "←" and "→" arrows to make things clearer. The third thing is more of a "bug" than a request; when used on pages where the article has spaces in the name, the "article" and "current talk page" links are displayed with ugly underscores. I think there are two magic words that return the name of the page, one with underscores and one without; perhaps the other one could be used in the link name? Thanks – Gurch 03:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello Gurch, and thank you for noticing Template:Auto-taf-nav. While I don't object to changing the colors as a matter of principle, I did choose the brighter colors intentionally in order to make the navbar stand out on the page -- I didn't want people to think it was "just another table" or tag and not bother to take a second look at it. Re changing "BACK" and "FORWARD" to the names Archive n-1, Archive n, and Archive n+1, that would be a straightforward change and one I had considered. Concerning your third point, I was not aware until reading your message that there is a magic word that returns the name of a page without the underlines -- that is something that I would like to change on an urgent basis; many thanks for this information! In the end, I think I might develop a new version, the appearance of which would be as you describe but with a slightly different name (perhaps "auto-taf-nav2" or simply "atn") while keeping the current version operational also until/unless I decide that I like the newer one better. How does that plan sound to you? -- Polaris999 04:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: When you have a chance, please take a look at Template:Atn. I haven't changed the colors yet, want to look at the wikitable colors you mentioned and perhaps a few more ... -- Polaris999 07:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Another Update: Now I have changed the colors. I took all the colors from the WP Main Page, so hope they will be considered standard. -- Polaris999 08:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's a big improvement. One little aesthetic change, if it isn't too much trouble... there's a "<<" arrow on the left side that takes you back, perhaps there could be a ">>" link on the other side (where applicable) to take you forward? On a related note, I notice someone has just decided to completely redesign {{archive-nav}} – it still needs a parameter, but now displays up to 19 links at once – see for example Talk:Main Page/Archive 44. While I like the extra links I'm not sure it's worth it as the result is just a string of numbers which might not be too clear to a newcomer. I don't know if you have any thoughts on this.

I'm hoping at some point everyone can settle on one standard archive-navigation template and use it in all archives, ideally something along the lines of your new template. A few months ago I went through all the existing archives and tagged them with {{talkarchive}} (see for example the Fidel Castro archive histories), which now seems to have become accepted as standard. This makes future tagging efforts easier as all the pages are in this category, though of course many of the pages will need moving to conform to the naming system if we want to use the template on all existing archives. I might be able to set up a bot to do that; I'll look into it – Gurch 07:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello Gurch. Thank you for your feedback re T:atn. I looked at the string of TAF numbers now being displayed by T:archive-nav, and my personal take on it is that most people when using a navbar are not going to be seeking to jump to a specific TAF because, had they known the number of the TAF they wanted, they would have gone there directly from the "Archive Box". I also agree with you that a string of numbers like that might be confusing for a newcomer; I have tried to design T:atn keeping them in mind because I still remember my first hours on Wikipedia and how it takes a while to "learn the ropes". (And I'm still learning ... )

Concerning the "fast forward" right arrow, the complication here is that T:atn doesn't look ahead to see what the number of the last TAF in the series is, it moves forward one by one until it comes to one that doesn't exist; incidentally, I have purposely left in the red link to the next TAF to be created because that makes creating it so simple — just one click! Because of this, it would be impossible (with the existing code) to have a "fast forward" arrow corresponding to the "fast reverse" arrow. However, I could create a ">" arrow that would advance to the next file in the series — which would probably be a good idea — and a left arrow that would go back to the previous file, just as the "FORWARD" and "BACK" links do in T:auto-taf-nav. Anyway, I do think that having those single arrows might be useful (will leave that decision to you) but I will have to study the code very carefully to see if I can devise some way to do a "fast forward". In the meantime, I'll wait to hear from you about whether I should implement the "<" and ">" arrows. -- Polaris999 20:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Update re fast-forward arrow: I investigated the code and confirmed that the situation is as I described it above. However, I did a work-around using an add-on routine and you can see the results here: User talk:Polaris999/Archive 2. Try as I may, I cannot get that extra white space between the original navbar and the new arrowbar to disappear. Do you know why it might appear there? (I would like the two "bars" to be contiguous, which -- with a few tweaks -- would give the appearance that they are one table.) Also, has any wiki-wizard figured out a way to store a variable? If I could store and retrieve just one variable, I would not need to use the add-on routine ... -- Polaris999 23:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Follow-up: I resolved the table issue by removing class="wikitable". Also, the new version of T:atn with arrowbar included is now operational; please see Talk:Fidel Castro/Archive 1 et al. -- Polaris999 07:41, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's the problem with wikitext being a markup language, not a programming language! It's only designed to display simple documents, with a few more advanced things to handle templates, not do the sort of things we're trying to make it do. Unfortunately you can't store data without actually editing and saving a page. The parser functions themselves aren't really part of wikitext, they just expose a few PHP functions. What's actually included is left up to the developers; MediaWiki can expose other functions but for performance reasons and the potential for abuse (repeatedly trying to do a string search on a 1Mb page, for example, would tie up a lot of server resources) they're not enabled. But there's no way to store data because ultimately you're just including text documents inside other text documents and then rendering HTML from them.

I'm not that bothered about a fast-forward arrow, if it means making the template even more complex, but I suppose it would be useful for people browsing the archives. As far as the layout of the whole thing is concerned I was wondering if we should perhaps simplify it a bit. Here's my idea (it's not a template so it won't actually work, it's just an example of the layout):

Discussion archives for Fidel Castro Article – Current talk page

<< 1     < Archive 4     Archive 5     Archive 6 >     13 >>

In particular I'm putting the "<" and ">" arrows in the links to the previous and next archives, since they do the same thing. Obviously if you were at the first archive, the "< Archive 4" bit would be blank, but I think that's OK – Gurch 08:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Gurch. Many thanks for your reply and for the cool design; I am working on a version of T:atn that will incorporate it. Re the fast-forward arrow, now that it is implemented I have become quite attached to it and would not like to give it up. The reason I find it especially useful is that perhaps while browsing in a low-numbered TAF one wishes to see what was said in the final TAF, then it is great to have the FF arrow there so that you can make a direct jump. I also like the symmetry it provides. I don't think that the add-on routine takes significantly more time to process. The only problem is that, because of the limitations of the WP template software, I will have to use absolute positioning in the display table in order to get it to display the way it does in the navbar you have designed rather than as a separate arrowbar attached below it. Presumably this shouldn't be a problem (?) since the navbar will always display at the top of the TAF page ... -- Polaris999 16:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

That looks great. I assume the "User page" and "User's current talk page" bits will change automatically depending which namespace the page is in? Absolute positioning is best avoided if possible as it causes problems for people with different font sizes or skins – for me, the box on User talk:Polaris999/Archive 2 overlaps the table of contents. If you've figured out how to do it without that, that's great.

Since this template (and in fact {{archive-nav}} as well) works only with pages that are named "/Archive 1", but many existing archives are named "/Archive1", "/archive 1", "/archive1" or something else, I intend to do a mass page-move some time soon, to standardize the names (leaving redirects from the old names of course). Once that is done, the template can be applied to any of them – Gurch 05:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks, Gurch. I believe that T:atn is now fully operational with relative positioning throughout. Your idea about creating a bot to standardize the Archive pages sounds excellent -- I have had occasion to look at quite a few TAFs while looking for ones to "gift" with T:atn and have come across some truly remarkable naming methods! -- Polaris999 07:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I remember somebody once used Roman numerals to number the archives (I think I already moved them). Just a couple of minor things; looking at User talk:Polaris999/Archive 2 there's rather a large gap between the template and the table of contents. Would it be possible to make that gap a bit smaller (say, more like the gap between it and the {{talkarchive}} template)? If the gaps look the same size to you, then it probably means you're still specifiying an absolute position somewhere, in which case you might want to fix that. Also, it doesn't seem to work on "Wikipedia talk" archives... it seems to think they're user pages. There's a magic word somewhere that gives the name of the namespace, perhaps if you use this rather than "User" in some places it will work? I'm still not entirely sure how it works, but it would be nice if it worked in all the Talk namespaces. Thanks – Gurch 09:43, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Never mind about the first part, I think I fixed it – Gurch 10:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Gurch. Until reading your message, I had never been aware that such a thing as "Wikipedia talk" archives exists! I had, however, expected that, as currently configured, T:atn would not work with Template Talk Archives since no provision had been made for them in the code. I think that the modification needed to make it work with all types of archives should be straightforward, just a matter of checking for more namespaces (as you indicate) and writing the case-specific code. I will certainly do this, but not immediately since today (sadly) I have to catch up on a large queue of pressing "real life" tasks that I put on hold while having fun working on T:atn. I hope to have time late tonight or early tomorrow to get back to work on it. Re the change you made to "narrow the gap", I haven't looked at the modification you did in the template yet but observe that it seems to be having the side-effect of causing the fast-back and fast-forward arrows to display on the line above where they belong (and where they used to be). I am going to try to fix this before re-entering the real world ... -- Polaris999 19:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: Sad to report, I was unable to get the arrows positioned properly so long as the changes you made in the archgt files were en force. I made many attempts, but the right >> was frozen in a horizontal position and I could not get it to move! I do not understand this and therefore have no clue as to how to fix it. Consequently, I reverted everything to my previous correctly-working version, which only had the problem that you noticed re the "gap" since I think the extra ws is less of a problem than having the arrows out of alignment and T:atn is now in use on several high-traffic pages. I will try to figure out what is causing the gap later and perhaps(?) will find a way to correct it wo freezing the ff arrow. Sorry I don't have time to work on this any more right now, will be back as soon as possible ... -- Polaris999 20:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

For reference, the full list of "talk" namespaces is Talk, User talk, Wikipedia talk, Template talk, Category talk, Image talk, Portal talk, Help talk and MediaWiki talk. You don't really have to worry about the last four, though, as there are hardly any archive pages for those (I think only half a dozen of each). Sorry about messing up the arrows, I hadn't noticed that. I'll have another look at it later – Gurch 23:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks, Gurch, for the list of the "talk" namespaces. I think it will be interesting to try to work out a "one-fits-all" solution -- I look forward to working on this ASAP. Re the "gap", I seem to have resolved it by setting a negative bottom-margin in last-taf. I hope that this fix works for all browsers ... -- Polaris999 00:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, {{NAMESPACE}} is the magic word that gives you the namespace name; there's also {{FULLPAGENAME}} which may be useful, that gives the whole page name including namespace, essentially {{NAMESPACE}} plus {{BASEPAGENAME}}.

So on this page:

• {{NAMESPACE}} = User talk
• {{BASEPAGENAME}} = Polaris999
• {{FULLPAGENAME}} = User talk:Polaris999/Archive 3

– Gurch 23:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, after I posted that I figured I might as well have a look at it myself and see what I can do. Once I got the hang of how things work, I think I've managed to solve most of the problems. I haven't changed the appearence, but I've made some fairly substantial changes to the way the various templates are laid out. Since the changes are so big I've left {{atn}} as it is and made a copy of each template in my userspace.

The first thing I've done is insert magic words in appropriate places to make one set of templates work with all namespaces. This is good news as it means there no longer needs to be two versions of each template (one for Talk and one for User talk). There are now five templates in total (not counting {{for loop}}; I haven't changed that so I didn't bother making a copy of it). They're all prefixed by "User:Gurch/T/", so you can see a list of them from this 'Special' page – Gurch 01:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I've also made the "<<" and ">>" arrows part of the table, rather than having to use "position" attributes to get them in the right place. This fixes the problems with spacing as it should now look the same for everyone, without needing to tweak margins on the different templates. To do this, the wikitext that defines the actual table is now directly in {{atn}} (or rather, my copy of it). One cell contains the template that produces the "previous" and "next" archive links, another contains the fast-forward template, and the other just contains the "<<" link (which always points to the same place so isn't dependent on the extra template logic).

The only page currently using my version of the template is User talk:Gurch/Archive 3. I haven't added it to any other pages at the moment because it's still in my user space, but if you preview it on an archive in another namespace (for example, Portal talk:Current events/Archive 1), it seems to work. More feedback is of course welcome – Gurch 01:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Gurch -- That is great!! From your work, I see that there is a solution to passing more than one variable into a given template and that it is accomplished by doing a second call -- I had tried this some time ago on a different project and it hadn't worked for me (obviously because of some error I made) and I had therefore assumed that it was not possible to have two "external" variables active simultaneously and that is why I was trying to find a way to store one. Everything you have done looks fine to me, so why don't you go ahead and replace the existing T:atn with your version? -- Polaris999 02:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've replaced the existing versions, and fixed a small problem I didn't see before. At the moment, the name of the page has a colon before it if it's an article; that's there because it's necessary to display the name properly when the page is in another namespace, but it shouldn't be too difficult to hide it for articles, I'll see if I can fix that later. When I copied the templates to my userspace I took out the commented sections so I could see clearly which bits were actually part of the template. I think it's probably best to leave them out, since they mainly seemed to be testing syntax and would probably just confuse someone looking at the source of the template (as if it weren't complex enough). If you need them, of course, they're in the page history. At some point I think it would be a good idea to explain somewhere more or less how the template works (on Template talk:Atn is probably best) – if at some future time someone wants to change the appearence of the template, but we've both left the project or are unavailable, it would make their lives a lot easier :)

Earlier this year (in July, I think) I decided to search through all the discussion pages in Wikipedia and tag all the archives with {{talkarchive}}. I'm glad I did that now, as besides marking the pages as archives that template also usefully puts the pages into Category:Talk archives. Not every archive is in there now, unfortunately, as many new archives have been created and not everyone tags them. However most of them are in there. I've been able to use that category to draw up a list of archives that need to be renamed so that they can use this template – there are 2523 of them. Although there are probably many more that would need to be renamed, unfortunately if they're not in that category, there's no easy way of finding them, short of going through Wikipedia's entire page list by hand (and we have over 6 million pages!) Still, 2523 should be plenty to be getting on with; I already have a script that can do page moves but I'll probably need to get approval to use it – Gurch 04:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for all you have done! It is definitely for the best that you removed my test comments, etc. and this is something I probably never would have done myself because I keep thinking "but this may be useful some time in the future" even when the likelihood of that ever occurring is near zero. BTW I think I have fixed the problem with the colon appearing before the name of an article that you refer to above -- please have a look when you get the chance ... -- Polaris999 06:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

A Question: I am wondering what the best way to handle cases where T:auto-taf-nav is in place on talk archive files? Should we do a re-direct, or wait for the bot you are planning to create to take care of this by replacing {{auto-taf-nav}} with {{atn}}.? -- Polaris999 07:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

We might as well redirect Template:auto-taf-nav to Template:atn for now; I'll go through and change all the occurences of {{auto-taf-nav}} at some point. When the page moves are done the bot will add {{atn}} to all pages that have {{talkarchive}} but don't have {{archive-nav}}. At some point it might be possible to redirect {{archive-nav}} to {{atn}} as well. This would mean every archive was using the same template, which is obviously convenient, and would be a lot quicker than replacing each occurence of {{archive-nav}} with {{atn}}, since it's used on several thousand pages. However, it's probably best to wait until this template is more widely used, as that change would affect a lot of people. Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page currently tells people to use {{archive-nav}}, so that would need changing also; I'll mention this template there once I've done the bot-work – Gurch 22:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Fidel Castro

Hello, Polaris999. You, might want to check the 'edit history' of the discussion page of Fidel Castro. Some anon users(s) maybe using 'El Jigue's moniker and posting in his name. GoodDay 01:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Or, it could be EJ himself logging in from a different IP? — It seems he travels frequently ... -- Polaris999 01:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Possible, however the contribution history on the new IP address, doesn't seem 'EJ'sh. I'm hoping, it just an imposter. GoodDay 02:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

GoodDay, I looked at that IP and it appears to be a hotel or some such, could be that EJ is temporarily lodging there and other previous guests are responsible for the "contribs" you mention. I don't think it is anything to be concerned about for the time being. (One more reason for EJ to register since then he wouldn't have to worry about an impostor usurping his "handle".) -- Polaris999 03:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed; hopefully EJ (if it's him) will go back to his previous IP address, for this questionable IP address could be in-danger of being banned. GoodDay 19:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

You're correct, it's EJ again. Furthermore, if he's going to get on that Blogging kick again, I just might report him again (no matter how many IP addresses, he uses). GoodDay 21:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

See my 'talk page' for apologies from a Raddison Hotel group Board Member (Nashville) named PL. Hmmm, EJ sure gets around. GoodDay 23:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

GoodDay, IMHO this is all much ado about nothing. -- Polaris999 23:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm letting EJ get my goat again. Here's hoping he'll stop blogging. GoodDay 00:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Interesting discussion, well Happy New Year El Jigue 1-2-07

Re: URGENT!!!!

Erk! Sorry about that! I guess I should have checked things more thoroughly before I moved it out of my userspace. I can't think how it escaped my notice before... anyway, thanks for fixing it – Gurch 05:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It was quite a shock to come across that bizarre display; on the positive side, this incident has made me realize that all of the templates in the atn series should probably be protected in order to prevent vandalism since they will no doubt become an attractive target for same. If you agree, are you able to implement protection for them? -- Polaris999 19:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I've semi-protected them, which prevents editing by unregistered users and newly registered users. At the moment I can't really justify full protection, though once they're used on several hundred pages it'll probably be acceptable – Gurch 16:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

El Jigue Amendment

Thinking of EJ amendment proposal for Administrators.See Beardo's discussion page (El Jigue Amendment). GoodDay 20:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Question is? Would Administrators think 'Blogging' on 'Talk' pages were important? Would you support 'blogging' on Public 'talk pages'? If so? back my 'EJ' OR BLOGGING amendment. Again, I like EJ's blogs, however WIKIPEDIA's current POLICIES & RULES are very clear. That's why I'm proposing to have those 'Talk' page policies & rules changed (to alow for blogging). In the meantime, (due to EJ's current IP adress), EJ really should register in. EJ is a highly intelligent person, Why can't he understand, what Blogging is ? GoodDay 21:35, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that we concetrate discussion on User talk:GoodDay. -- Beardo 23:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Polaris999. Decided to end debate, and respect consensus on rules interpretations. See posting on Zleitzen. I've also apologised to 'EJ' on his current IP adress discussion page. GoodDay 01:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Update on archives

I've gone through and replaced all occurences of Template:Auto-taf-nav (which is now just a redirect) with Template:Atn. I've also changed the entry at Wikipedia:Template messages/Talk namespace to use {{atn}}. So it should be OK to delete Template:Auto-taf-nav now. I'm still waiting for approval to run the page-moving bot; hopefully that shouldn't take much longer – Gurch 16:08, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

One other thing; I notice Template:Docheck02 and Template:Nav Arch-all aren't actually used any more (Template:Docheck02g and Template:Nav Arch-allgt seem to have replaced them). Is it OK to delete these, or do you need them for something else? – Gurch 16:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Gurch. I had changed T:auto-taf-nav to be a redirect to T:atn. Great news that you replaced the actual "call" wherever it occurred! I think it is now fine to delete T:auto-taf-nav, T:docheck02 and T:Nav Arch-all; also all of the "utaf" variants of same, if they still exist.

Is there any reason why we would not request protection for T:atn and its "associates"? -- Polaris999 16:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

They're already semi-protected; see above – Gurch 19:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Pics

Regarding this pic [4]. What do you think would be the copywrite issues here? Its such a great photo that demands to be used.--Zleitzen 02:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Wonderful indeed! It was my understanding that all of Korda's works were considered to be in the public domain and that he went through a special court proceeding in order to claim copyright on the CG "La Coubre" image after becoming indignant because of the purposes to which it was being put. Be that as it may, I would definitely think that the Castro - Lincoln photograph should be eligible for "Fair Use" in Wikipedia because it captures a unique historical moment. However, I would suggest that you contact the North Dakota Museum of Art and ask their opinion about its status. -- Polaris999 03:02, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Re: T:For_loop at risk

A {{tfd}} tag doesn't mean that the template will be deleted, merely that the possibility of deletion will be discussed at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion. {{for loop}} is now under discussion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_December_20#.5B.5BTemplate:For_loop.5D.5D; I suggest you state your opinion there – Gurch 19:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for telling me to go there and vote. I still do not understand why AzaToth or anyone else would wish to delete it since it is performing an important function and causing no harm to anyone, so far as I can ascertain. -- Polaris999 22:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Test page

Hi again. While tagging some archive pages I came across Talk:Che Guevara/Archives Index. It looks like a test page of yours; do you still need it for anything, or can it be deleted? – Gurch 21:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Gurch. Yes, that is one of my development pages that is no longer needed. I blanked it out so it is ready to be deleted ASAP. Thank you -- Polaris999 07:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Break

Hi Polaris. As you may have noticed I have decided to take a bit of a wiki-break. There is a notorious editor who writes prolifically on wikipedia to support his political views and occasionally arrives to rearrange Cuban articles to his liking. Generally reducing articles to incoherent collections of "views". This editor's whole attitude really gets on my nerves like no other, and to me exemplifies some of the worst aspects of "collaborative editing". Therefore, rather than resume my ongoing disagreements, and become another name on this editors boast list - (the editor seems to revel in the numerous criticisms about his work) I'm going to take my leave. Incidentally I spent New Year with a knowledgeable Argentinian couple whose thoughts on the subject matter were of much interest. Certainly more satisfying than some of the arguments I've been hearing on this site of late, and only reaffirms by belief that I need a break! Keep up the good work. --Zleitzen 11:52, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Re:T:atn

Sorry! I'm in the middle of changing it and I messed a couple of things up. Give me a few minutes and I'll have it working how it should :) – Gurch 23:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Great! I didn't realize you were working on it — Sorry for the interruption.    :)  -- Polaris999 23:23, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I fixed the alignment and the next-archive link is back. I forgot about that link, sorry. I've also made a change to {{archive box}} that you may be interested in. Normally this is used by listing all the archives in a parameter, like this:

{{archive box|[[/Archive 1|Archive 1]], [[/Archive 2|Archive 2]], [[/Archive 3|Archive 3]]}}

and so on if there are more archives. I've created a new template, {{archive list}} that works in a similar way to the templates for {{atn}}. When you place it on a talk page, it produces a list of links to every numbered archive that page has. {{archive box}} has an optional parameter that will include it. So if all the archives for a page are numbered, all you need to do to get a list of them is type

{{archive box|auto=yes}}

If there are named archives as well, they can be listed as before by adding them in another parameter. Right now the formatting isn't great, but I'm going to work on that at some point – Gurch 23:26, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

At the moment the only place this is in use is my talk page, so go there to see it – Gurch 23:27, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Polaris go see discussion section for escopeteros I have added:

Raul Castro, Ernesto Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos' views on escopeteros

Raul Castro recognizes the presence of escopeteros in his Diario de Campa~na. He divides escopeteros into two categories: (1)"escopeteros por la libre" and (2) "escopeteros" under the control of the Castro comandancias. During the "opening" of La Segunda Frente Raul admits the prior presence of "500" escopeteros in the area and talks about executing some he accuses of banditry. Then and this is the surprising thing he incorporates the rest into his own forces. This generates the largest group of anti-Batista guerrillas in existence at that time.

Guevara's approach is far more self serving, he accuses the escopeteros of crimes and executes a good number of them (see Jon Anderson). This action drastically decreases the resistance to Batista in the Sierra Maestra zone ("Primera Frente"). The credit for the military actions of these guerrillas is then assumed by Guevara. For instance at the second action at Hombrito, much of the credit goes to El Mejicano (Francisco Rodriguez Tamayo) but this is not mentioned. Anderson refers only to Guevara pardoning of Rodriguez Tamayo. Of course later one finds on the web reports of the defection of Rodriguez Tamayo who had been sent to Miami to kill Rolando Masferrer, leaving one with puzzling thought that if Rodriguez Tamayo was considered such a skilled assassin (he is also reported by Cuban government sources as involved in the JFK assassination), what did he do to earn that reputation, become second in command of Universo Sanchez's forces, and then be completely written out of Cuban government official histories.

Camilo Cienfuego's first Llanos campaign's success is readily attributed to support of Orlando Lara Batista group (Los Muchachos de Lara). Cienfuegos, a more generous soul, readily admits this support, and after Lara Batista is wounded the support of the July 26 Movement towards the central provinces by the Muchachos de Lara is also recognized. However, orlando Lara Batista did something to offend the powers that be and sometimes in official Cuban sources their are hints of such. El Jigue 1-11-07

Fabio Grobart

A mayor éminence gris of Cuban history is best known as Fabio Grobart (although his original name is Polish). His importance in founding the Cuban (Stalinist) communist party is/was(:>) recognized by Fidel Castro:

Castro, F. 1965 (accessed 1-9-07) Pursc Central Committ Presentation, Havana's Chaplin Theater -Havana Domestic Radio - Speech Report_Nbr- Fbis - Date- 19651004 -Text- Castro Refers To Cuban Refugees, Guevara [5],

the Rand thinktank [www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/2006/RM4994.pdf],

and Jewish History experts: Asís, Moisés 2000 (accessed 1-8-07) Judaism in Cuba 1959-1999 ICCAS Occasional Paper Series, [6]. “By 1925, there were 8,000 Jews in Cuba (some 2,700 sephardic, 5,200 ashkenazic, and 100 Americans). Four ashkenazic Jews were in the small group that founded the first Communist Party of Cuba in 1925: Grimberg, Vasserman, Simjovich aka Grobart, and Gurbich. They opposed the religious and community life of the other Jews.”

Evidence has been presented to link Grobart to the Leon Trotsky assassination, and less strong evidence to the Julio Antonio Mella assassination.

Although the party Grobart helped found was not the first Cuban communist party, it is considered as such by the present Cuban government.

His son(?) Fabio Grobart Sunshine has a number of publications and is highly placed among the Cuban Nomenclatura.

I am preparing a major footnote in my book on Grobart and I am will to share some (but not all (:>) citations) to this major figure in Cuban history. Could somebody be so kind as too open such an article El Jigue 1-12-07 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.65.188.149 (talk) 20:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC).

Hello, El Jigue. Many thanks for the New Year greetings that you extended to me a while back; I wish you all the best also. As you may have noticed, I am on something of a wiki-break. The only motivation for this is that I discovered that I had gotten way behind on a number of "real life" activities and decided that the time had come for me to pay more attention to them, which means fewer hours available each week to devote to WP ... I was fascinated to read your information about the escopeteros above. Concerning "Fabio Grobart", I have always been intrigued by his role behind the scenes (and ditto that of the mysterious "Sunshine") and will certainly begin an article on him as per your request. However, since I don't plan to do much editing in the immediate future, I will leave development of the same in your capable hands.   ;-)  -- Polaris999 00:35, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much Polaris. I will start immediately. One problem will be his many aliases. There is even a misspelling of Grobart as Grovart for in one of Castro's speeches, the minutes were apparently taken by somebody from old Oriente province where the v is synonymous with the b, as in viajaca, a fresh water "pan" fish (usually Cichlasoma tetracanthus [7]), which is commonly spelt Biajaca in the rest of the country. El Jigue 1-13-06

Polaris, started work on the Fabio Grobart article, adding to the short piece you so kindly started El Jigue 1-13-06

Polaris. I did quite a bit more then took a rest from Fabio Grobart to work on something else. You may want to take another look at it. Thank you. BTW If you are not a trekkie you might want to watch re-runs of "Deep Space Nine," the complexity of the tailor-spy Garak tells you that he is a composite character taken from real life. Besides there are quite a number of followers of this program in the computer world and in fiction who recall such, e.g. John LeCarre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" or was it "The Tailor of Panama" El Jigue 1-14-06

Guevara and executions

Fuentes, Norberto 2004 La Autobiografía de Fidel Castro. Destino Ediciones. Barcelona, Editora Planeta Mexicana, Mexico D.F. ISBN 8423336042. ISBN 9707490012 pp. 695-696 Lists four "traitors" secretly executed before the Granma left Mexico these were Jesus Bello Melgarejo, Arturo Avalos Marcos, Cirilio Guerra plus a fourth unnamed individual. One was said executed by Raul Castro. This leaves three who could have been executed by the Che. Now I do not completely trust Fuentes as a source, not because he does not know, but because he follows "line" that is suspiciously closer to the present Cuban government official dogma than I would like. BTW on page 692 Joaquin Ordoqui, is quoted as saying the Antonio Blanco Rico, Batista's chief of Military Intelligence (who was assassinated in Havana before Castro landed in 1956) was a member of the Cuban Communist Party. This can be taken to suggest that the Cuban communist party as usual was playing both sides of the fence. On page 696 this author states that Guevara was in Mexico for two years and three months which is sufficient time for quite a lot of things. El Jigue 1-27-07

Thanks again EJ, more food for thought and this information has been noted. Apparently, the graves of those executed in Mexico remain to this day. I understood those executions to be the responsibility of Fidel's "council" and I might be wrong but at least one of these men was executed by Fidel himself. I'm not sure if Guevara, who was not yet an integral figure at that time was directly involved. This would be an area that I imagine Polaris would have some further details on.--Zleitzen 19:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

It would seem that Fidel Castro has never been reported to carry out a murder personally, attempted murder yes in his student days, but not successful killings. Thus if this could be documented it would be of singular interest. Now Raul had no problems with this and neither did Guevara. One must be aware that at the present time Raul according to some reports is trying to shift all blame on Guevara, and thus present himself as "clean." Raul could be expected to have difficulty with this since his killings are well documented. One wonders if the bodies in Mexico can be dug up, bodies buried on beaches might be "lost." Still the present Mexican Government might be interested... According to word of mouth (oral tradition) Guevara had a grave yard, which was called "La Hortaliza" which could be anywhere along the main ridge of the Sierra Maestra, and from below the heights of El Oro on the upper Bayamo River to perhaps at la Pata de Mesa below Las Minas de Frio. At least some of Fidel Castro ordered execution were said carried out in a small valley labeled "Puerto Malanga" near the heights of La Plata (Castro's main "Comandancia"). Other reported execution sites include the Universo Sanchez's comandancia at Pe~na Prieta, and some at Fidel Castro's last rebel headquarters at the sugar mill "Central Oriente." El Jigue 1-27-07.

Manuel Artime Buesa

Polaris I would appreciate it if you addressed the obvious flaws in my writing posted to Manuel Artime Buesa page. El Jigue 2-1-07:

Wikipedia revised

Manuel Artime Buesa (29 January 1932 - 18 November 1977), joined with Castro rebels in late 1958; was a Cuban soldier in the United States. He led the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Hunt (p. 47) places Artime in 1958 with as a member of Castro forces at Guisa, Maffo and Palma Soriano actions. This action at Maffo may well have placed him in contact with Rebel Lieutenant Cipriano Beatón Martínez (see last plate in the Dickey Chapelle’s 1962 book labeled “La Maya Oriente Province Cuba, December 1958 Lt. Cypriano…” Cipriano was executed for rebellion against Castro June 15th 1960, Corzo p. 36).

After the war against Batista was over Artime became an official in the INRA (Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria), in the Ciro Redondo district (that would include Agua Revés where Ciro Redondo was killed on the main ridge of the Sierra Maestra) this was agrarian Zone then under the direction of of Comandante René “Bujero” Vallejo and as such implies what Hunt says is true. A devout Catholic apparently he was involved in an early (January 26) promoting Catholic style (e.g. small holdings) agrarian reform (Comandos Rurales) in that area where he was in contract with Comandante Humberto Sorí Marin and Rogelio Gonzalez Corzo (see Pedro Corzo p. 14). Both Sorí Marin and Rogelio Gonzalez were captured on the eve of the Bay of Pigs Invasion and executed on the 20th (Corzo p. 92; Ros pp. 181-185 and others).

Hunt’s assertion that Artime participated in actions against Batista is credible (although denigrated by Cuban government partisans [8]), since he showed courage during the Bay of Pigs actions,. He had a degree in Medicine and perhaps served as a medic during the war against Batista since rebel losses in the above mentioned actions were not negligible.

Artime was said to have been the civilian leader of Cuba if the Bay of Pigs Invasion had succeeded was not among the civilian leadership held incommunicado 17th to 20th of April 1961 at Opalocka Florida until the invasion failed (Ros, pp. 252-253). He landed as leader with the expedition and was captured after two weeks [9], and is maligned by Cuban government supporters e.g. [10]. He lead several expeditions against Castro after that. He died of cancer November 18th 1977 [11] [12], he was 45. The circumstances of his premature death are considered unusual on both sides of the Florida e.g. Straits [13], [14], [15], but to date such comments are commonly considered speculative.

Hello El Jigue -- I looked at the article in question but it seems to me to need a major re-write and I am not knowledgeable enough on this subject to undetake such a project. Sorry! -- Polaris999 23:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

References

Chapelle, Dickey 1962 What's a woman doing here?: A reporter's report on herself Morrow New York ASIN B0006AXN80

Corzo, Pedro 2003 Cuba Cronología de la lucha contra el totalitarismo. Ediciones Memorias, Miami. ISBN 1890829242

Hunt, E. Howard 1973 Give us this day. Arlington House, New Rochelle, N.Y. ISBN-10 0870002287 ISBN-13: 978-0870002281

Ros, Enrique 1994 (1998) Giron la verdadera historia. Ediciones Universales (Colección Cuba y sus jueces) third edition Miami ISBN 0-89729-738-5

Image:Vallegrandescboliviamine02.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Vallegrandescboliviamine02.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Conscious 08:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Bay of Pigs Invasion redoux

Polaris: made some additions to Bay of Pigs Invasion page. Hope you like them. Here are some of the additional references inserted (Franqui p. 123) may interest you:

• Franqui, Carlos 1984 (foreword by G. Cabrera Infante and translated by Alfred MacAdam from Spanish 1981 version) Family portrait with Fidel. 1985 edition Random House First Vintage Books, New York. ISBN 0394726200 p. 56 Guevara ”surrenders” to Camilo during la ofensiva. p. 123 “We lost a lot of men. This frontal attack of men against machines (the enemy tanks) had nothing to do with guerrilla war; in fact it was a Russian tactic, probably the idea of the two Soviet generals, both of Spanish origin (they fought for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War and fled to the Soviet Union to later fight in World War II. One of them was a veteran, a fox named Ciutah* (*p. 182 a.k.a. Ángel Martínez). He was sent by the Red Army and the Party as an advisor and was the father of the new Cuban army. He was the only person who could have taken charge of the Girón campaign. The other Hispano-Russian general was an expert in antiguerrilla war who ran the Escambray cleanup. But the real factor in our favor at Girón was the militias: Almejeira’s column embarked on a suicide mission, they were massacred but they reached the beach.”

• de Paz-Sánchez, Manuel 2001 Zona de Guerra, España y la revolución Cubana (1960-1962), Taller de Historia, Tenerife Gran Canaria ISBN 8479263644 pp.198-203, analyzes the career of Francisco Ciutat de Miguel (correct spelling).

El Jigue 2-21-07208.65.188.149 15:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Blog

Hello Polaris, as an editor who is a stickler for sources, I thought you might like to read the discussion between myself and EJ on my talk page [16]. EJ has sourced some material concerning Hemingway to a blog by Larry Daley, a descendent of the esteemed Major General Calixto Garcia, veteran of the war against BATISTA and extensive writer on Cuban history. You may be interested in the thread.-- Zleitzen^(talk) 09:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Otto Katz

One wonders at the relationships between Fabio Grobart and Otto Katz. Koch, Stephen. 1994 (2004 edition) Double Lives. Enigma Press, New York ISBN 1929631200 103-104, 346-349 and others. From 103 states " He (Otto Katz) is known to have worked closely there (Mexico City) with the long time NKVD chieftain Umansky, spending the war (WW II) much involved in Soviet operations within the United States and the Caribbean, working among other things with Fidel Castro's predecessor, Fulgencio Batista. Batista was at this time much admired and promoted by the left, and Katz was empowered to make Batista grand offers on behalf of the Soviet Union if Batista would enter Stalin's sphere of influence. (footnoted to Otto Katz, FOIA dossier #65-9266) El Jigue 208.65.188.149 14:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Fascinating! I hope that your research will uncover more information about this possible connection. -- Polaris999 17:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Template:Atn

Hi, there seems to be a problem with using {{atn}} on help page talk archives. See Help talk:Contents/Archive 4 for example. I'm not sure whether to pester you, or somewhere else, but the template syntax is beyond me ;) Thanks for any help. --Quiddity 18:48, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

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Che Guevara

Hello Polaris. I briefly came out of retirement (again!) to address comments on the Che Guevara talk page. This time they were made by none other than site founder and guru Jimbo Wales. I'm not sure what drove him to make his sudden bizarre declaration, but I have my theories. Anyway, if the site's head honcho is advocating that standard of debate, tone of discussion and that form of attitude to articles and their editors, then my time spent on this project is ruefully and regretfully lamented. And if your work, which had done a significant amount to raise the level of the article and had been an excellent advert for the site as espoused many times over elsewhere, is viewed by Jimbo in such a poor light, then I suggest you reconsider your position here as well. I certainly won't spend any more time imparting my knowledge to help feed this project, when the one who benefits the most from its success treats the work which made it so with such obvious contempt. If Jimbo's actions are a sign of "harmonious collaboration", well....-- Zleitzen^(talk) 13:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Jimboresourcing

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Hey there!

Glad to see you are still alive. Regards, --Mattisse 17:49, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Alive, but still in shock over what happened on the CG Talk Page. You certainly were right about the need for a cooling off period! Those are troubled waters into which I do not choose to enter. I had hoped to get the article in shape for the upcoming 40th anniversary of his death, but my current thinking is: may it rest in peace. I suppose that there is no reason why it can't stay the way it is indefinitely ...

Cheers -- Polaris999 18:03, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

That is what I am thinking too at present. Better the way it is than more trauma. Regards, --Mattisse 21:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)