User talk:Thewellman/Archive 2012-2014

Poland Maine

I removed all your aviation incident links to and from this article. First of all the aviation templates are for incidents that have a dedicated article. The article Poland Maine doesn't count nor is it aviation incident itself for categorization purposes. If you want to write an article on the Orion crash, feel free to do so.- William 20:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I understand your removal of template listings for the 1944 B-17 crash, the 1959 Flagstaff Lake collision, and the 1978 P-3 Orion crash; but I question your removal of the category listings for these articles, since it will prevent people using a category search for air accidents from locating this information.Thewellman (talk) 21:33, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

BTW I transferred your post to your talk page to here to keep this thread all together. If you reply, do so here. I will be keeping an eye out.

I work on aviation articles alot but do edits to town articles regularly too. Aviation, Towns, Baseball, Golf, anything related to Florida are most of my edits. You caught two of my specialties.

Aviation incidents aren't mentioned generally except in articles on the aircraft, airport, or air base they happened at. In at least one town article you edited, the crash now dominates. It has to be just one small part of its history. Honestly I think these crashes need an independent article, not be put into town articles. So I went to a Wikipedia administrator who does town edits(I've come across him on baseball articles) asking for advice. The post is here.[1] Reply to what I have written on his page and lets see what he thinks. Ok?- William 00:59, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Rockford

Hello again; how are you doing?
I came across this and thought you might know the answer, or where to find it. I was editing this page, and the source I had said Rockford was a USCG cutter: OTOH the Rockford article doesn’t (refers to her as USS Rockford and defines her as a frigate, tho’ her skipper was USCG). Do you know which is correct? Or are they even incompatible? Thanks in advance, Xyl 54 (talk) 18:40, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that. If it wasn’t unusual to have a USCG officer in command of a USN ship, I’m guessing that’s where the assumption came from that she was a USCG ship (and therefore a cutter?). The book itself seems a pretty reliable source, though the focus is on the Japanese side of things; the information was in a loss table, which has the caveat that the various sources they used were sometimes contradictory. Ah well! That clarifies thing a bit... thanks again, Xyl 54 (talk) 03:30, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

(Looking again at the Rockford page, it says there she was manned by the USCG; sorry, I could have saved you the trouble if I'd been a bit more observant! Regards, Xyl 54 (talk) 03:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks; I feel the same as well, and it's my hope too :) Xyl 54 (talk) 22:49, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Smokeless powder reply

You provided an excellent and detailed reply to my inquiry at talk:smokeless gunpowder about the contributions of the Du Pont company and family to the development of smokeless powder, but none of that appears in the article or others you or I mentioned. While the Du Pont contributions may be US centered, the United States was (and is) a major arms producer, and should receive mention where they are relevant. --DThomsen8 (talk) 18:05, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Amphibious Battle of Gela

Hello, Thewellman. Thank you for writing up the article Amphibious Battle of Gela. I have nominated it for DYK on Wikipedia's MainPage. You may want to respond to reviewers' comments that will be posted on the nomination page soon. Also, please feel free to propose alternate hooks to appear on MainPage. Hope this helps. Cheers! --PFHLai (talk) 03:23, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

DYK for Amphibious Battle of Gela

Casliber (talk · contribs) 16:30, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Thewellman. You have new messages at Kirrages's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

WWI Editathon

Hi,

Just to let you know we've finalised the list of academics who'll be attending the World War I editathon next month, along with their areas of specialisation. If any of these are topics you'd be particularly interested in collaborating on, or you want to suggest articles in those fields that need work, please do make a note on the page - it'd be great if we could have some suggested topics ready in advance.

We're still working out how best to organise remote participation, but I'll be in touch closer to the time with more details.

Any questions, do let me know... Andrew Gray (talk) 15:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Arctic naval operations of World War II

This is an automated message from MadmanBot. I have performed a search with the contents of Arctic naval operations of World War II, and it appears to be very similar to another Wikipedia page: Arctic Ocean operations of World War II. It is possible that you have accidentally duplicated contents, or made an error while creating the page— you might want to look at the pages and see if that is the case. If you are intentionally trying to rename an article, please see Help:Moving a page for instructions on how to do this without copying and pasting. If you are trying to move or copy content from one article to a different one, please see Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia and be sure you have acknowledged the duplication of material in an edit summary to preserve attribution history.

It is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article. MadmanBot (talk) 18:28, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

In future, if you want to rename a page then please use the move tool rather than copying and pasting the content. Hut 8.5 19:18, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

ALSIB

One remark. In the USA the plane was overtaken from initial to a terminal point of the route by the same pilot, unlike the USSR where planes were transferred on relay race. The route from Ferbanksa to Krasnoyarsk was divided into five stages. It is to translate itself not a smog used an online translator.--Inctructor (talk) 21:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC) On October 7, 1942 from Fairbanks in Uelkal the first group of seven fighters P-40 Kittyhawk took off. Небо без границ http://dkw-rus.narod.ru/Nebobezgtaniz.doc--Inctructor (talk) 21:48, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• Arctic naval operations of World War II at us absolutely without references.--Inctructor (talk) 22:12, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Detonation velocities in Smokeless powder article

Thanks for your message. I provided some internal links. As you anticipated things are quite complex when dealing with smokeless powder in high pressure systems. These propellants can be tailored for specific systems and tasks. There are lots of differing propellant formulations for firearms around that behave differently and applying the wrong kind or amount of propellant in a fire arm can lead to very dangerous catastrophic destruction scenarios. There is however a general historic line to provide more energetic smokeless powder formulations.--Francis Flinch (talk) 08:39, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Pacific Lumber Company

Hello. The entry you left on my talk page intrigues me greatly. I have to say that, though members of my family were on hand for the big celebration when the power plant went online, I have no first-hand information on the behind the scenes issues of power and control that left the Murphy family vulnerable to takeover. One fact is certain however: The amount of timber that was available on their lands was undervalued and misrepresented on purpose simply because it kept costs down, perhaps in terms of taxation related to valuation, though I am not sure. In any case, the fact that they listed the company on the Stock exchange and then had virtually no debt left them dangling there as a tasty morsel for sure. They were not at all equipped to play hardball with the bigtime folks from the world of high finance, etc. from the East (or Texas, for that matter). Of note here is that the original Murphy found the company as a way to move significant capital from the East after he had depleted forests first in Maine and then in Michigan. So, your questions and statements regarding the power plant interest me greatly. However, I have been working hard in my life away from Wikipedia, which has been particularly demanding as of late. I do see that a period will come soon that I will have more time to work in cleaning up both the facts and pov issues, and perhaps further develop the article. PL is a fascinating company and story and it most certainly deserves a much better article than the one we see presently. I will likely be in Humboldt soon, where I will poke around, in addition to my other research, adding your very interesting question to my own. I still cannot determine which Murphy(s) or which manager(s) chosen by them was/were really in charge between 1905 and 1931. Thank you for your many fine edits I see around in various places in the encyclopedia as well. Regards, Norcalal (talk) 02:40, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

DYK for Sphaerotilus

Casliber (talk · contribs) 16:05, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization of Army et. al.

It is a common mistake to capitalize "army" (and "air force, and most especially 'marine corps"). As you can see from my edit history, I seem to have become an eccentric nut on the subject. I blame the Germans who capitalize all nouns. (Twain thought it a great system. I agree, but it not English.) The trend to capitalize these words is furthered by the fact that the US military does so in their own writing. Like many others, I learned to write in the army. But, the Wiki Manual of Style requires adherence to normal capitalization rules. If the manual changes, I shall be pleased to revert all my many nit-picking edits. Paul, in Saudi (talk) 09:56, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Frankly I made a mistake on my user page. Now that you have kindly pointed it out, I somehow feel robustly stiff-necked about fixing it. But I will correct it in the fullness of time. As for consistency, more than the hobgoblin of little minds as Oscar Wilde (?) said, it is the finest attribute of dogs. But I do appreciate you pointing out my errors. Thank you, Paul, in Saudi (talk) 01:29, 13 October 2012 (UTC))

Congratulations!

	The Camouflage Cup
	For fine work on USN WWII ship camouflage measures. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:15, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Hope this was all right with you and that I wasn't too pushy... Today someone complained about all the "Measure nnn" titles. I've replaced them all with 3 tables, probably the best solution. BTW the paragraph about the Royal Navy feels a bit lost and lonely in the article (given the title) - perhaps it needs some explanation and reference. All the best - Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:59, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Limits of Dazzle camouflage

It doesn't seem there's a huge rush to discuss what's dazzle and what isn't, so while I blush to rush in, not sure anyone else is around to reply. The interesting (and free) review paper by John Endler is useful as background - it doesn't talk about military cam but is very clear on the principles, carefully distinguishing disruption (e.g. bars breaking up outlines), masquerade (e.g. dressing up as another ship), and countershading (e.g. painting superstructure darker than sides ... not often done, I think).

FWIW I'd say (to answer your question about the limits of "dazzle") that all ship cam that is obviously "patterned" - barred, checkered, zigzag... - is lumped together as "dazzle", at least if it's first world war; the term was already fading, it seems, by 1940. Anything plain (all white, plain sea-grey, or like submarines all dark blue or black) is not considered "dazzle" by anyone I've managed to read.

"[Razzle-]Dazzle" is not the same as "motion dazzle" - it doesn't rely on motion at all; and in fact it cuts across scientific categories, making use of disruption and masquerade, and even blending with the background. It is thus not a scientific camouflage category at all, just a general label for (early) 20th century (mainly ship) camouflage involving any sort of obvious pattern. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:56, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Logging railroads

FYI - moved to Forest railway today - cheers SatuSuro 04:45, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Women's history editathon

Hey - Sorry for the late notice, but since you have yourself tagged as living in the Bay Area, I thought you might appreciate notification that we’re having an event Saturday! It’ll be held at Hoyt Hall, an all-women's house of the Berkeley Student Cooperative from 3 to 6 pm tomorrow. The main event page is here. Anyone is welcome to show up, but we’re expecting a significant number of people to come who have literally never edited Wikipedia before. If you’re an experienced Wikipedian who would be able to provide useful help to some of the newbies, your presence would be especially appreciated (and it might be a good idea for you to show up at 2 or 2:30 instead of three. Thanks, Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:07, 6 April 2013 (UTC) I’m AWB’ing this message to all Wikipedians who have tagged themselves in the bay area. I’m sorry if the message isn’t of interest to you; feel free to delete it. I’ll be unlikely to send future messages in a similar way, but if really don’t want to receive future messages of this sort, please let me know.

Multiple images in Ship Camouflage Measures...

Oh dear, I'd just reached agreement with Solicitr to remove the multiple images. There are several points to consider on both sides of this.

For multiple images per Measure:

1. it's nice to see different ships of course.
2. there are sub-measures. --- this could be handled by having a row of table per sub-measure.
3. different ships wear a Measure differently. If this is intentional then we need to source it. At the moment the article says of some Measures that shapes of patches were not specified, so in those cases showing variety might be helpful (or not).
4. Measures might be designed to make ships of type A resemble ships of type B, in which case we should have 2 columns, say with the mimic (imitator) on left, and model (the imitated) on right, and captions to explain what is happening and why, with cited source.
5. Measures might be designed to make ships of types A and B both resemble ships of type C; in which case again we need (at least) 2 columns, explanatory captions, and cited source(s).

For single image per Measure:

1. it makes for a clean and simple story: one Measure, one example.
2. it avoids leaving large chunks of whitespace in the table.

The current situation is basically not very satisfactory, either in terms of visual layout or of explanation. The formatting is starting to look a mess; but obviously the need to communicate the story of the ships is key, so we should be willing to change the format and redesign tables if need be. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:45, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

8"/55 caliber gun

Hello

1 inch is 25,4 mm. So 8 inches = 203,2 mm ≈ 203 mm. And that value is shown in all metric-base sources. I fixed in text in one place, but can you change other values, specially in infobox?

Beside this: thank you for quite good article. PMG (talk) 15:11, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I suggest 20 centimeters may be a reasonable conversion unless you have specific information on this weapon. Sorry but is not. First - all your data also show some other data: for example one of sources show that diameter of base is 7,977 inches. So its 20,26158 cm so its still 203 mm. But its not important what you or me think - its what sources show. And this source and this shource show 20,3 cm. And for sure your way of conversion is very strange. I am not sure if you are from inch or metric country, but I never ever see such conversion. And beside all - 8"/55 caliber gun was mainly use for "treaty cruisers" in what according to Washington Naval Treaty. Ant that was 8 inches. And as you can see on article on pl.wiki, fr.wiki and es.wiki - all of this metric-centric wikis give 203 mm. So using your own words average maximum diameter of an 8-inch projectile (neglecting the malleable copper rotating band) was expected to be 7.988 inches. - so its 20,28952 cm co its 203 mm. So I can`t understand your sentence I suggest 20 centimeters may be a reasonable conversion unless you have specific information on this weapon.. Even if all efect what you are talking about will be - it will be minimum 202 mm. For sure not 200 mm. So I can`t understand why you propose 200 mm. Please describe why you choose 200 mm. PMG (talk) 13:19, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I am really sorry if I was annoyng for you - English is my second language, and I am using it only for computer stuff. So sorry - lets start from beginning. I have problems with en.wiki and metric system. I described it here. If you translating many articles there are errors what are strange for editor. In your/this gun case I don`t know to change this value in infobox, because I don`t know en.wiki system of convert templates. Thats why I was asking you for change - you were first editor in this article. I think that navweaps.com is recognized as trusted source so we can use "203 mm" value. Also in all sources what I see always 8 inches is 203 mm. One more time sorry for problem. PMG (talk) 18:57, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

As a drive-by commenter, I think we normally use 203 mm in infoboxes, etc., right? We don't round off that much. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:34, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

There are several issues here which may have been blurred in translation. The first issue is the appropriate conversions for 8 inches (2 decimetres), 8.0 inches (20 centimetres), and 8.00 inches (203 millimetres). The second issue is what are the actual dimensions of various portions of an 8"/55 gun. The third issue is the original request by User:PMG for me to change dimensions in the 8"/55 caliber gun article. I decline to implement that request because I believe doing so would inappropriately apply an arbitrarily assumed dimension without reference citations identifying the portion of the weapon which has that dimension. The fact that other good-faith editors may have done so in the past does not encourage me to repeat their error.Thewellman (talk) 15:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Love history & culture? Get involved in WikiProject World Digital Library!

World Digital Library Wikipedia Partnership - We need you!

Hi Thewellman! I'm the Wikipedian In Residence at the World Digital Library, a project of the Library of Congress and UNESCO. I'm recruiting Wikipedians who are passionate about history & culture to participate in improving Wikipedia using the WDL's vast free online resources. Participants can earn our awesome WDL barnstar and help to disseminate free knowledge from over 100 libraries in 7 different languages. Please sign up to participate here. Thanks for editing Wikipedia and I look forward to working with you! SarahStierch (talk) 20:29, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Thewellman. You have new messages at SarahStierch's talk page.
Message added 02:22, 23 May 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

SarahStierch (talk) 02:22, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

gun control RFC

Confused about your !vote. Your edit summary was "mostly support", but you only !voted No for one question. If you support the rest, will you !vote for the others?

Re your No !vote, I am confused by what you mean. I agree that laws have unintended consequences. Is it your opinion that the use of gun control by these governments has nothing to do with their later oppression and that it was coincidental?

Though not linked in the RFC, the 1918 communist constitution reads (mangled google translate) "In the interest of full power for the working masses and eliminate any possibility of restoration of the power of the exploiters decreed arms workers, education of the Socialist Red Army of workers and peasants and complete disarmament of the propertied classes"

Also listed in the german sources section above the RFC are several quotes from Nazi memos etc discussing the fact that jews were disarmed during the Kristallnacht pogroms.

Clarification of what you meant in your !vote and your consideration of the above points is appreciatedGaijin42 (talk) 21:01, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Saw your update, and thanks for the clarification. On the side, I certainly agree with you, there are many unintended consequences of any law or policy (including the ones under dispute here)

but is it ambiguous that they had the intent to use these laws for opression/repression in this case? (along with whatever unintended side effects come along for the ride).

The russian constitution was quite explicit about preventing the overthrown and landed classes from being able to resist, and mere days after the nazi chief of police had announced that the jews were disarmed Kristallnacht occurred, and multiple cables were sent instructing the pogrom leaders to attack the jews, and specifically told those leaders that the jews had been disarmed.

Certainly you are entitled to your own opinions, and your !vote as you see fit, and I will not hound you any further, but I would ask you to comment or !vote on some of the other proposals/statements as well if you agree (or disagree) (or just feel like a $0.02) with them Gaijin42 (talk) 18:14, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

2nd Annual Wikimedia New England General Meeting

You are invited to the 2nd Annual Wikimedia New England General Meeting, on 20 July 2013 in Boston! We will be talking about the future of the chapter, including GLAM, Wiki Loves Monuments, and where we want to take our chapter in the future! EdwardsBot (talk) 09:21, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history coordinator election

Greetings from WikiProject Military history! As a member of the project, you are invited to take part in our annual project coordinator election, which will determine our coordinators for the next twelve months. If you wish to cast a vote, please do so on the election page by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September! Kirill ^[talk] 16:17, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Operation Tungsten FAC

Hi, I've nominated the Operation Tungsten article which you posted an A-class review of for featured article status. If you have time, I'd appreciate it if you could post a review at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Operation Tungsten/archive1. Thanks, Nick-D (talk) 11:18, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations!

		Military history reviewers' award
		By order of the Military history WikiProject coordinators, for your good work helping with the WikiProject's good article, Peer, A-Class and Featured Article reviews for the period July-September 2013, I hereby award you this Military history WikiProject Reviewers' award. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:09, 10 October 2013 (UTC) Keep track of upcoming reviews. Just copy and paste {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} to your user space

Nomination of Robert V. R. Bassett for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Robert V. R. Bassett is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert V. R. Bassett until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Student7 (talk) 23:25, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

gun control rfc

As you were involved in a previous discussion on this topic, I am notifying you of a new RFC on this topic. Talk:Gun_control#Authoritarianism_and_gun_control_RFCGaijin42 (talk) 16:31, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

New England Wikipedia Day @ MIT: Saturday Jan 18

NE Meetup #4: January 18 at MIT Building 5

Dear Fellow Wikimedian, You have been invited to the New England Wikimedians 2014 kick-off party and Wikipedia Day Celebration at Building Five on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus on Saturday, January 18th, from 3-5 PM. Afterwards, we will be holding an informal dinner at a local restaurant. If you are curious to join us, please do so, as we are always looking for people to come and give their opinion! Finally, be sure to RSVP here if you're interested. I hope to see you there! Kevin Rutherford (talk)

(You can unsubscribe from future notifications for Boston-area events by removing your name from this list.)

Z-gram

Do you think that this section would be worthy of an article? -- John Reaves 14:30, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Frame numbers

Why did you change back my change about frame numbers? It is not correct that these are counted from the bow, they are counted from 0 at the rudder post numbers going up towards the bow. I don't want to change your eddit without asking why you did this? but its not correct at all. Ian Splinter (talk) 19:31, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I believe you will find there is more than one convention for frame numbering. The explanation you provided would be a good addition to the article with an appropriate reference citation, but the existing reference citation is for the convention used by the United States Navy.Thewellman (talk) 21:22, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah that explains, as the navy's of the world have the habit to do everything slightly different then merchant ships :D. I will find a source first then, I have plenty books about the subject, then add the article with the information that there are different ways of numbering. Ian Splinter (talk) 09:08, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Remote attendance for Jan 18 New England Wikimedians

Hi there, Thanks for your interest in remotely attending the Jan 18 NE Wikimedians meeting. If you email me at maiaw // nasw.org I can send you information about participating in a Skype or Google Hangout call. Girona7 (talk) 20:19, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Notice of a discussion that may be of interest to you

There is a Split proposal discussion on the Gun politics in the U.S. talk page that may be of interest to you. Lightbreather (talk) 04:47, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Ship class stubs

Please stop assessing my ship class articles as lists. I know that's what they look like now, but their stubby skeletons will be fleshed out at some point.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 08:10, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I recognize I may have made some inappropriate classifications, and I have absolutely no objection to editors reclassifying the articles I have classified. I will stop all of my reassessment activities if I am causing dissention. However, I do not assess articles I have created, because I feel my own perceptions of those articles may be skewed by the effort I have put into those articles; and I believe other editors have a more balanced perspective. Your description of my ship class articles implies a perception of ownership.

I was merely attempting to help reach the WikiProject Military History goal of bringing ten percent of project articles to B-class or better. It appears to me that much of our effort has been focused on the Good and Featured articles, while unreviewed and Stub-class articles have been in a holding pattern receiving little attention. I have been searching for articles which have been improved without recognition, and I have found quite a few. I have also found a large number of former articles converted to redirects without eliminating their Stub status; so our B-class percentage will rise as we reduce the apparent number of functionally non-existent Stubs.

I recognize that some of these ship-class lists could be converted to text articles of better than Stub-class, but I wonder how many years they should remain as Stubs awaiting that conversion. The effort of reclassification from list to C or better seems negligible in comparison to the effort required for article improvement.Thewellman (talk) 16:56, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Please stop reassessing stub class articles as lists - it serves no useful purpose. Remember that we are in no hurry to expand every article, and it is perfectly fine for an article to remain a stub for quite some time before one of us gets to expanding it. Parsecboy (talk) 16:39, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

My attempted participation in this project has raised some questions about the Wikiproject Military History assessment procedure:

• Is there any value to the assessment procedure, or does it merely distract editors from the real work of improving articles? How will the project measure progress toward goals without assessment?

• Why do editors object to having articles classified as LIST? Are list articles somehow inferior to text articles?

• Are START and C (and LIST and CL) worthwhile measures of progress, or should everything be held at the STUB level until it satisfies the B checklist?

I perceived START, LIST and C/CL classifications as a means of encouraging and recognizing the efforts of novice editors to improve Wikipedia; but I seem to be encountering resistance from some senior editors with reservations about individual review of their articles. Until I get some answers, I will abandon my review of STUB Wikiproject Military History articles to find unrecognized B articles for the Wikiproject Military History goal. Thewellman (talk) 19:19, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Lists are treated differently than articles, and they follow a different assessment track as they are improved - lists cannot go to WP:GA, for example (and they correspondingly go to WP:FLC rather than WP:FAC). Mischaracterizing articles as lists will only cause confusion for new editors as to how a given page should be handled in the higher assessment programs. Also, there's no reason to change them from stubs to lists, since assessments are usually only changed to reflect some change in the article's quality status.

This is not an ownership problem, regardless of what Sturmvogel said above. He was simply referring to several articles he created that you reassessed as lists. Start and C are perfectly fine as methods to evaluate progress. But at the same time, a host of stub articles should not be hidden as lists in an attempt to clear out the stub category.

The effort of reassessment is indeed negligible, but expansion depends on interested editors willing to spend the requisite time. Nonetheless you're not helping anything by reassessing ship class stubs as lists. They may look like a list at the moment, but they won't once they get some meat on their bones. So if the article title says, foo-class, don't classify it as a list, no matter what it looks like. If the article's been improved past stub, please assess it for what it really is, but not as a freaking list! As for ownership, I keep a watchful eye on them, nothing more. You want to add something substantial, feel free, but don't do things that will cause me extra work to correct.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:32, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

You're invited: Women's History Edit-a-thons in Massachusetts this March

Women's History Edit-a-thons in Massachusetts this March - You are invited!

New England Wikimedians is excited to announce a series of Wikipedia edit-a-thons that will be taking place at colleges and universities throughout Massachusetts as part of Wikiwomen's History Month from March 1 - March 31. We encourage you to join in an edit-a-thon near you, or to participate remotely if you are unable to attend in person (for the full list of articles, click here). Events are currently planned for the cities/towns of Boston, Northampton, South Hadley, and Cambridge. Further information on dates and locations can be found on our user group page. Questions? Contact Girona7 (talk)

You're invited!

NE Meetup #5: April 19th at Clover Food Lab in Kendall Square

Dear Fellow Wikimedian, New England Wikimedians would like to invite you to the April 2014 meeting, which will be a small-scale meetup of all interested Wikimedians from the New England area. We will socialize, review regional events from the beginning of the year, look ahead to regional events of 2014, and discuss other things of interest to the group. Be sure to RSVP here if you're interested. Also, if you haven't done so already, please consider signing up for our mailing list and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. We hope to see you there! Kevin Rutherford (talk) and Maia Weinstock (talk)

(You can unsubscribe from future notifications for Boston-area events by removing your name from this list.)

Notice of RfC and request for participation

There is an RfC in which your participation would be greatly appreciated:

• Talk:Gun_control#RfC:_Remove_Nazi_gun_control_argument.3F

Thank you. --Lightbreather (talk) 15:13, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Notice of RfC 2 and request for participation

There is an RfC on the Gun politics in the U.S. talk page which may be of interest to editors who participated in "RfC: Remove Nazi gun control argument?" on the Gun control talk page.

• RfC: Replace existing Nazi gun control paragraphs?

Thank you. --Lightbreather (talk) 22:33, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Adrianne Wadewitz Memorial edit-a-thons

Adrianne Wadewitz edit-a-thons in Southern New England

As you may have already heard, the Wikipedia community lost an invaluable member of the community last month. Adrianne Wadewitz was a feminist scholar of 18th-Century British literature, and a prolific editor of the site. As part of a worldwide series of tributes, New England Wikimedians, in conjunction with local institutions of higher learning, have created three edit-a-thons that will be occurring in May and June. The events are as follows: May 21st at Northeastern University's Snell Library, in the Digital Scholarship Commons on the second floor May 22nd at Brown University's Rockefeller Library, in the Digital Scholarship Lab June 25th at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (exact location TBA), where we will also be hosting a "how to conduct an edit-a-thon" session beforehand We hope that you will be able to join us, whether you are an experienced editor or are using Wikipedia for the first time. If you have any questions, please leave a message at Kevin Rutherford's talk page. You can unsubscribe from future notifications for Boston-area events by removing your name from this list.

New England Wikimedians summer events!

Upcoming events hosted by New England Wikimedians!

After many months of doubt, nature has finally warmed up and summer is almost here! The New England Wikimedians user group have planned some upcoming events. This includes some unique and interesting events to those who are interested: Cape Cod Wiknic and Photography Blitz on June 14th in Barnstable County, with complete travel reimbursements available for those who participate Adrianne Wadewitz Memorial Edit-a-thon on June 25th at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (exact location TBA), where we will also be hosting a "how to conduct an edit-a-thon" session beforehand 3rd Annual Wikimedia New England General Meeting, which will feature at least one guest speaker, and possibly many more Although we also aren't hosting this year's Wikimania, we would like to let you know that Wikimania this year will be occurring in London in August: Wikimania 2014 in London If you have any questions, please leave a message at Kevin Rutherford's talk page. You can unsubscribe from future notifications for Boston-area events by removing your name from this list.

New England Wikimedians summer events!

Upcoming events hosted by New England Wikimedians!

After many months of doubt, nature has finally warmed up and summer is almost here! The New England Wikimedians user group have planned some upcoming events. This includes some unique and interesting events to those who are interested: Cape Cod Wiknic and Photography Blitz on June 14th in Barnstable County, with complete travel reimbursements available for those who participate Adrianne Wadewitz Memorial Edit-a-thon on June 25th at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (exact location TBA), where we will also be hosting a "how to conduct an edit-a-thon" session beforehand 3rd Annual Wikimedia New England General Meeting, which will feature at least one guest speaker, and possibly many more Although we also aren't hosting this year's Wikimania, we would like to let you know that Wikimania this year will be occurring in London in August: Wikimania 2014 in London If you have any questions, please leave a message at Kevin Rutherford's talk page. You can unsubscribe from future notifications for Boston-area events by removing your name from this list.

Your input is requested at WikiProject Maine!

	Hello fellow WikiProject Maine members!
I'm trying to breathe a little new life into WP:WP ME and as such I have posted a few questions on the project's talk page that I would like to get some feedback from all of the project's members on! There are apparently a lot of inactive members on our participants list (and even a user that has been blocked for years). What do we as a project want to do about inactive or blocked users? I have some ideas on the issue, but would love feedback from others. Remove blocked users that appear to be no longer interested in participating in developing Wikipedia. Users with zero activity at all in three years are unlikely to come back. I suggest that we remove them from the mailing list and deactivate any categorizing feature of a userbox on their page. When doing this, we must make sure to leave a note on their talk page explaining that since they have been off-wiki for three years that they have been removed from the list as a purely technical measure and they are more than welcome to add themselves back to the list if they choose to start editing again. Users with zero activity on wiki for 18 months may come back, despite it being unlikely. I would suggest that we mark those users as inactive on our mailing list, and stop sending them messages like this one to prevent their user talk page from filling up with irrelevant notices. Users with zero activity on wiki for at least six months should be marked as inactive in the mailing list template, but should still receive mailings. I'm also trying to gauge some interest in there being a Great American Wikinic in Maine! If you are interested, possible locations might include Portland, Augusta, and or Bangor, please make a note in the appropriate section on our talk page! We should create a template to use for mass mailings from this wikiproject so all we need to do is enter our message and signature and the general format of the box and image and title and stuff will stay familiar. What is your opinion on this idea? Do you have any preferences to what that may look like (because I think this looks horrible compared to some I've seen from other projects)?
This message was sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) at 17:26, 11 June 2014 (UTC). To remove yourself from this list, please remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiProject Maine/members, remove the WikiProject's userbox/category from your user page (rarely used for mass mailings), or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page.

Welcome Home, Brother!

Normally I would answer a post on my talk page on my talk page...but not for a Brother! Welcome Home, yourself, and thank you for your service. Your Vietnam service was perhaps Navy from your userbox postings? My Vietnam service was Army from 28 September 1966 through 7 December 1968 when I was released from the service to go the college. I was honorably discharged on 25 January 1972. I served as a photo laboratory specialist at the Vietnamese III Corps Headquarters near Bien Hoa Air Base with the 1st Military Intelligence Battalion. Thanks for the shout out, sir... Cuprum17 (talk) 18:07, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

The Greenland Patrol

Thank you for creating the article Greenland Patrol. Your efforts to preserve the history of the United States Coast Guard are appreciated. Semper Paratus Tjlynnjr (talk) 21:05, 6 August 2014 (UTC) .

Hi Sailor. Thanks for the note at my talk page. You do good work. A long overdue article.

My late father was USN in WW2, Korea and USCG Viet Nam era. Dad had many older shipmates in the CG who had served in Greenland Patrol. I heard many true, accurate and un-embellished sea stories from them in my youth. I have 2nd, 3rd, 4th cousins (maybe 5th by now) in Mass...Ayer, Leominster, Worcester, Lunenburg and Fitchburg. The USCG Historian's site has heaps more info. Bravo Zulu and Semper Paratus Tjlynnjr (talk) 06:35, 9 August 2014 (UTC) .

SS Yoshida Maru reference

Back in 2011, you added a Japanese reference regarding the casualties when this ship was sunk, replacing the extremely implausible "3,000 soldiers" from Blair.

The Take Ichi convoy ‎article was using Blair, and when I changed it to reflect your reference, it was reverted.

My written Japanese is non-existent - could you come to its talk page and say why this is a reliable reference? Thanks. Lovingboth (talk) 20:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Thewellman. You have new messages at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Rivers.
Message added 00:35, 4 November 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--Jakob (talk) 00:35, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Fleet Submarine article

I'm working on it right now. RobDuch (talk) 06:23, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Nominations for the Military history Wikiproject's Historian and Newcomer of the Year Awards are now open!

The Military history Wikiproject has opened nominations for the Military historian of the year and Military history newcomer of the year. Nominations will be accepted until 13 December at 23:59 GMT, with voting to begin at 0:00 GMT 14 December. The voting will conclude on 21 December. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:41, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

This message was accidentally sent using an incorrect mailing list, therefore this message is being resent using the correct list. As a result, some users may get this message twice; if so please discard. We apologize for the inconvenience.

WP:GUNS importance assessment

In response to some objections, I've started a thread at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Firearms#Importance_rankings. I believe you drafted the original version in 2013. Your input would be helpful. Rezin (talk) 22:26, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

BTW, I'm still scratching my head about this importance ranking criterion:

• Broadly descriptive firearm or ammunition types, features or components representing at least ten percent of military or civilian firearms or ammunition inventories at some point in history.

I understand the intention, but I don't know how to meet the 'ten percent' standard. Has any researcher made these calculations? If not, is there some other way of defining the topics of top importance which doesn't require unobtainable information? The rest of the criteria are somewhat easier to implement, but this one's got me stumped. Rezin (talk) 17:26, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Did you have any specific sources in mind? If there aren't any which provide percentages then maybe the wording should be changed to something non-numerical like "significant". Rezin (talk) 20:22, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, while popularity is not the same as importance and probably fluctuates for various reasons internal and external to Wikipedia, it's worth taking a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Firearms/Popular_pages. Of course some pages are included that are of little importance to WP:GUNS, like Ted Nugent, but for the most part that listing shows which topics are of importance to Wikipedia's readers. Since the whole point of importance ratings is to nudge us towards improving articles which get or deserve the most interest, it's a relevant part of the equation. For instance, 5.56×45mm NATO is the 6th most popular article, but it's rated 'low'. Meanwhile, .25 ACP is the 446th most popular, but it's rated 'high'. Do you think they're correctly rated? Rezin (talk) 20:34, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, if there's no source which we can use for determining which items are of 'top' importance then I'm going to suggest either re-writing these rankings into a form which is usable or just delete them entirely. It'd be a waste of time to do all the research necessary to implement the current scheme. I appreciate your intent in creating them, but they don't seem to be practical or even have any value. Rezin (talk) 00:11, 16 December 2014 (UTC)