User talk:Timrollpickering/Archive 11

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This is an archive of past discussions on my talk page. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

A belated response to one of your comments

Talk:List_of_post-nominal_letters#University_alumni_and_degrees. If it is of any interest now.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 15:28, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom/Article title

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom/Article title. DrKiernan (talk) 09:17, 18 March 2010 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})

Shadow Cabinet

I have developed a table showing the holders of the senior positions in the shadow cabinet since 1945. I thought that it might be of some use somewhere on English wiki, but it doesn't seem to fit with the current schemes for the Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet page, or the Official Opposition frontbench page. Any ideas on where the table might go? BartBassist (talk) 12:20, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

In view of your comments, I have removed Stanley and Butler as Shadow Chancellor during the 1945-51 term. Eden and Morrison as Shadow Foreign Sec both seem fairly uncontroversial, as Eden served as Foreign Sec immediately before and after the 1945-51 term, and Morrison served as Foreign Sec immediately before the 1951-55 term and was the only extant Labour former Foreign Sec, Ernest Bevin having died. Their position as Deputy Leader is also pretty definite, as Eden was always Churchill's designated successor, and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party is elected. In terms of the dates used, I simply took them from the various pages on the relevant positions. Some of the dates are clearly wrong (e.g. Heath simultaneously becoming Leader and Shadow Chancellor in July 1965), but I will wait for adjustments on the master pages before adjusting the table. BartBassist (talk) 20:29, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I think it's a little dubious to label Eden and Morrison as "Shadow Foreign Secretary" - they may have been the opposition MP who usually spoke on Foreign Affairs but it implies that such an officially recognised position existed at the time when it didn't really. Ditto Gaitskell as "Shadow Chancellor". Similarly labelling Eden as "Deputy Leader" again implies the existance of a formal position which didn't really appear until later (and whilst Eden had been seen as the likely successor on & off for some twenty years, the Conservative Party in those days still strongly believed in "emergence" of leaders and the monarch retaining the power to choose the Prime Minister, and were not keen on formally designated heir apparants). Timrollpickering (talk) 20:55, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I take your point; it's just that 1945 seems such a neat point at which to start this table: end of WWII, end of the last coalition government (and all the mess this entails for listing a coherent shadow cabinet), conclusive disappearance of the Liberal Party (the wartime coalition being the last time the Liberals had a hand in government), and consequent reversion to two-party politics ... 1945 was surely a more seminal political watershed than 1955. BartBassist (talk) 23:12, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

A watershed maybe but it's very anachronistic to imply positions existed before they started. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:29, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

On reflection, I have taken your advice, and cut the table to start at 1955, if this was the first Shadow Cabinet in the contemporary sense. BartBassist (talk) 01:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Plural morphemes

Just because you feel that the plural of stadium is stadiums and referendum is referendums doesn't mean it is ... child does not have a childs plural, ox not oxes and foot not foots ... It is nice that you have internalized the -s morph but keep in mind that there are several allomorphs out there. Chartinael (talk) 19:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Lord Bute

On the biography entry in Wikipedia for the 3rd. Lord Bute (the prime minister under George III) there is a link in the "References" to a .pdf file that has moved. All attempts I have made to find a way to edit in the actual wiki entry have failed.

The link was to an article on Religious Disabilities among members of parliament. Searching on the UK Parliament website failed but I found it using Google.

Here's the new link: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-01493.pdf

Margaret DeLacy Margaretdelacy@comcast.net —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.115.64.234 (talk) 20:05, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Updated. Timrollpickering (talk) 09:18, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Admin needed (something I think you will approve of)

Hello Tim,

Please see the discussion on this page:

Template_talk:Infobox_person#Honorifics_before_and_after_the_name

I think you will agree that this is a pretty uncontroversial suggestion and one which has probably never been made before because nobody has ever thought there was a need for it. If you would like to make the suggested edit there are at least two Wikiepdians who would be much obliged. Alternatively, feel free to point out a reason for not doing it!

Best wishes --Oxonian2006 (talk) 20:39, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Hello again. I see you have done the requested edit. Thanks for that. The template still appears to be just the same as before. Does it take a while for the edit to take effect, or am I looking at the wrong thing?--Oxonian2006 (talk) 21:04, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Not sure - give it some time first to see if the code has worked, otherwise it may need a rethink. Timrollpickering (talk) 21:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Please check your Reflinks script

Re this edit - don't know how, but you've managed to place new <ref></ref> tags inside existing <ref></ref> tags. Also, what's caused |author=Thursday, January 8, 2004 12:01 A.M. EST? Third, a deliberate external link was reformatted as a ref. I have tried to fix it all up; please check both my fixes and your Reflinks script. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

The first one is because the original reference used dodgy <sup> tags which the bot automatically converts to <ref> as usually the reference is in the main text not the footnotes. The second one is probably because of the original webpage carrying the wrong coding information. The third one comes because a link that displays just an automatic number is auto-assumed to be a reference from the days before footnotes. I can try passing on your comments to the bot operator but some of the problems are rooted in how the page was originally coded. Timrollpickering (talk) 21:25, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

David Laws

Someone has questioned the research on your blog. In David Laws:

Laws is thought to be the shortest serving cabinet minister since George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham, who served for four days in 1783.

Do you want to reassure them? Nunquam Dormio (talk) 19:59, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Well the blog post in question didn't set out to chart every single short cabinet minister between Temple and Laws - that would require sitting down with over two centuries worth of lists. Rather it was seeing if the claims Laws was the briefest were accurate. Still the reference has been removed now. Timrollpickering (talk) 03:13, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

New Movement-Meretz

Dear Timrollpickering,

Thanks for your edits to New Movement-Meretz. I have edited several Israeli political party articles and am familiar with all of them. I am wondering why you added so many references to the fact that Meretz is a left-wing party. Meretz indeed is a left-wing party, and it proudly identifies as such. That is not disputed, so I am not sure why it is needed, but there may be something I am unaware of. Thanks. --Shamir1 (talk) 06:38, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I did not add the references; I merely ran a tool to tidy up the way the references are presented. You'll see all the links were already there. [1] Timrollpickering (talk) 07:23, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Referenda/referendums

Hi, I've checked two dictionaries (M/W online and a dead tree one on my bookshelf); both list both forms as equivalent. What's your evidence for "referendums" being standard or preferred? (Also, not that it's a RS or anything, but Google shows significantly more hits for "referenda" than "referendums".) AV3000 (talk) 13:26, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

The Oxford English Dictionary deprecates "referenda" as the product of cod Latin as it doesn't have a plural in Latin - see Referendum#Terminology - and "referendums" is certainly the standard plural on Wikipedia - see Category:Referendums. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:30, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm perpetually annoyed by "OED is the Truth" assertions - this isn't France and the Académie Française - but OK, I accept that it's WP standard. Thanks, AV3000 (talk) 13:35, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

UK Shadow Cabinets

I notice you reverted my Nick Clegg entry. No problems with that as it's currently the only one and did look a bit out of place there. However, as the Lib Dems have formed a number of Shadow Cabinets since 1997 I think in the long run it would be worth including information on them. This could be in the form of extending the template to have something like Official Opposition and Other Opposition Cabinets. I'm investigating the possibility of creating articles for the Frontbench teams of Ashdown, Kennedy and Campbell, so hopefully there will be others, and I'll open a discussion on the tempate talk page. Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 20:44, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Parliamentary constituencies in the South West

Category:Parliamentary constituencies in the South West, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:30, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Prime ministership

Why did you revert my fix of -ship??? I don't do it for the good of my health. Tony (talk) 12:46, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems you made that edit in between my loading the page into the reflinks bot and uploading the bot amended text. For some reason the bot has stopped showing when a page has been edited since one started. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:52, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Work Choices

Hey mate, great job on adding the reflinks to the Work Choices article. I missed a lot of those when I was trying to correct the other things that were a bit of a mess. Good editing job on the article. Thanks for following me up and getting all the stuff I missed. Good on you! Cheers, Themoodyblue (talk) 03:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

NPWA

Thanks heaps :) I keep meaning to go back and finish this one but have somehow never found the time. If there's anything I can help with (I have loads of references, mostly in book form but I have all the AJPH's as PDF) feel free to ask. If you want me to email you a PDF source just send me an email with the request thru "Email this user" and I'll send it by return. Orderinchaos 18:17, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Will ask if & when. There's a bit of information already in other Wiki articles that provides a skeleton & refs to start with. With the recent rise to federal (and even international) prominence of the WA Nats the article history will need filling out, especially their history of independence and having tried both extreme independent responses to demographic changes. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. It's an interesting story (oddly enough probably much of that other info was placed there by me at some point :P). Orderinchaos 04:58, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Numbering Prime Ministers

Hi, I see somebody has recently gone to a lot of trouble numbering all the PM's, only for you to come along and revert them all! I've seen this happen several times. Would it be worth putting a hidden "<!!--NOTE TO EDITORS: -->" into each article about a PM (perhaps in the infobox itself?) explaining that they shouldn't be numbered? It might save a lot of unnecesary effort in future. If you can come up with a suitable comment and a common location, I'm happy to help you update them - you start at one end, I'll start at the other! Regards, Lynbarn (talk) 10:46, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Transport

You seem to be interested in transport categories. There are CFDs:

• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_September_9#Category:Transportation_in_Venezuela
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_September_9#Category:Transportation_in_Iraq
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_September_9#Category:Transportation_in_Kosovo

TruckCard (talk) 10:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Deseparation of refs

Hi Tim, can I just ask regarding the deseparation of refs you've been doing (noticed in the Kevin Rudd article)... What is the reasoning behind this? A WP link perhaps? Wouldn't it make it that much harder in future to reuse citations common to two separate statements in different parts of the article? Thanks, Donama (talk) 12:57, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Other users have deseparated them in the past on that article, disliking the endless footnote numbers next to a single word it otherwise produces. I had to separate them out for the bot and then deseparate them afterwards. You'd have to ask on the talkpage to move away from that consensus. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:44, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay. So it's just a consensus for Kevin Rudd, not other articles. Donama (talk) 13:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

PM list numbering

The numbering issue has cropped up again (see discussion here). As the latest numbering scheme seems to have some basis (and some google hits), I'd appreciate some consensus on whether to remove it again or not. Many thanks.

On an entirely separate note, I'm in the process of looking into the genealogical relationships between PMs. I thought that an equivalent to the US Presidents version might be useful. I'd appreciate your thoughts. Yours, BartBassist (talk) 22:27, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

First ethnic & minority rights in England

When was the first ethnic & minority rights (culture education political language rights) declared in England? Don't confuse it with immigration and citizenship laws/acts! Can you write me? Many Thanks! mail: stears333@gmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.2.100.11 (talk) 07:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

FL at risk (List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom)

Hello. Instead of going straight to WP:FLRC, I'm here to let you know that the subject list is at risk of being nominated for demotion. There are several comments on the talk page. If these are not addressed in the next week then the list will be nominated for demotion. Feel free to let me know if you'd like to understand more about this process. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:23, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Reflinks

Hi. I notice and appreciate your effective use of Reflinks. I've looked it up, but still don't understand how I "load" it. Would appreciate your assistance. Thanks. ─AFA Prof01 (talk) 21:24, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/view/Reflinks is the URL. Click on the "interactive" tab for the controls. Paste either the article title or the URL in the box and then set the various controls for which refs to target and press "Run reflinks". It will produce results for you to check before submitting. On larger articles you may need to do it in stages. Just ask here if there are further questions. Timrollpickering (talk) 21:32, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate this! ─AFA Prof01 (talk) 21:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Culture of fear

This is an article that you have edited in the past and you appear to me to be an active editor on Wikipedia today. You may wish to be aware that the article has been nominated for deletion. You can can comment on the proposal by following the link in the panel referring to the proposed deletion at the top of the article. Kind regards --Hauskalainen (talk) 00:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

UK spelling

You corrected A. J. P. Taylor‎ changing "ize" to "ise". Note that both forms are acceptable so your change was arbitrary and not encouraged by WP:ENGVAR. Personally I go with the OED which lists the Z form as the primary spelling due to its etymological background - see OED entry for militarize. Thanks, Fæ (talk) 12:12, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

The rest of the article already uses the standard ~ise form. The ~ize is increasingly archaic in UK English and survives largely because of the OED resistance. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:21, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

You may be misusing the word archaic in this context and I doubt there is much evidence that the OED is on some sort of resistance campaign. However I accept the basic principle about most common usage in the article even though in this case the word "militarise" is used once and only because you changed it to that. Thanks, Fæ (talk) 12:34, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I love TRP's work here but I will defend "-ize" to my last breath. Pistols at dawn at Stepney Green if you please. My seconds will be in touch. :) DBaK (talk) 08:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC) PS Oh dear I wrote that assuming that there was actually a Green at Stepney Green, which from our article it sounds like there might not be. Bother. That'll teach me to "know" London from Tube station names ...

London Wikimedia Fundraiser

Good evening! This is a friendly message from Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry, inviting you to the London Wikimedia Fundraising party on 19th December 2010, in approximately one week. This party is being held at an artistic London venue with room for approximately 300 people, and is being funded by Ed Saperia, a non-Wikipedian who has a reputation for holding exclusive events all over London. This year, he wants to help Wikipedia, and is subsidising a charity event for us. We're keen to get as many Wikimedians coming as possible, and we already have approximately 200 guests, including members of the press, and some mystery guests! More details can be found at http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/London - expect an Eigenharp, a mulled wine hot tub, a free hog roast, a haybale amphitheatre and more. If you're interested in coming - and we'd love to have you - please go to the ten.wikipedia page and follow the link to the Facebook event. Signing up on Facebook will add you to the party guestlist. Entry fee is a heavily subsidised £5 and entry is restricted to over 18s. It promises to be a 10th birthday party to remember! If you have any questions, please email me at chasemewiki at gmail.com.

Hope we'll see you there, (and apologies for the talk page spam) - Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 00:05, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

K B Thompson

Hi Tim. I take it that you have seen the very sad news here? I am a bit shocked and very saddened. I never met him in real life but I thought he was a really splendid editor here, equipped with vast wisdom and sanity. Do you know, was he actually a QM person, or was it just that he was a locally-knowledgeable London type? I know it's not really important but I was just interested: certainly there's no-one of that name in the current staff directory. I had some minor dealings with him regarding the SMD over the years. Best wishes DBaK (talk) 08:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd not previously seen that - thanks for letting me know. I think he had links but can't remember what implied them. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome - sorry to be the bringer of bad news. I don't think I'd seen anything specific re QM but I was just guessing a little from some of his interests and editing patterns, I think. All the best DBaK (talk) 13:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

WPNPA listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect WPNPA. Since you had some involvement with the WPNPA redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Mhiji 03:56, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Parliamentary constituencies in Northern Ireland

Category:Parliamentary constituencies in Northern Ireland, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:08, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Category for deletion : Former pupils by school in England

Hello Timrollpickering, Could you explain your rationale, or reason, from deletion of this category from a number of School alumni pages. In your edits, you only say that you "remove from parent cat". It will be good for everyone to know why they are being deleted! Thanks! --Abacchus1974 (talk) 22:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Because there are specific former pupil categories for the schools in question, which in turn are in the parent category. Articles should generally reside in the relevant subcategory, with the parent as an overall guide to them. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:36, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Scotland

As far as I can see we had a series of vandal attacks from 82.6.2.141 and then Mick arriving late to a discussion on what is a trivial issue which has been resolved on the talk page (check the straw poll). No harm in a freeze as knowing Mick it would become an edit war but it does seem wrong to reward him, especially given the polemic of the edit summary. --Snowded ^TALK 20:24, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The straw poll opened today is encouraging it that way but when quick & reversion keeps happening it suggests that a brief freeze is needed to help. As for which version got protected it's always going to be The Wrong Version for someone but I tried to give a few minutes of not looking at the latest changes in the hope of at least a random element determining which version got locked. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Only Mick, check all the "remove" votes with no "retain" ones. As I say Mick is Mick and its probably a good thing he can't edit war given his recent RfC troubles. However I think its reasonably to remove the reference if the balance of the vote stays tomorrow? Maybe you could make a diary note to review and close as a uninvolved admin then we can all stop worrying about a trivial issue. --Snowded ^TALK 20:38, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Gerry Adams

Would you mind having a quick look at the talk page of the Adams article? An outside opinion would be useful.Traditional unionist (talk) 21:25, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The Contribution Team cordially invites you to Imperial College London

All Hail The Muffin Nor does it taste nice... 12:01, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

You're kidding right?

[2] Really? So what's next, should the article on cats start out with, "Cats should not be confused with elephants. Elephants are bigger and found on fewer continents." This unsourced paragraph has no business being the first level 2 heading in an encyclopedia article. At best, this should be fused in an existing section, such as the (IMO redundant) sections on voting systems and/or related terms. Dave (talk) 02:59, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

It got moved upwards over time because of changes to the early part of the article since it was written, but it is necessary because the two concepts are frequently muddled up as shown by the examples given. If there's a better place to put it then put it, but simply blanking it out is unhelpful. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Category:Input method editor

Thanks for closing. Any chance you could make this plural? --Pnm (talk)

• I should say: much thanks for all those closings! --Pnm (talk) 05:10, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Organization vs. organisation

Despite what your spell checker says, "Organization" is the preferred spelling in British English, according to Chambers and the Oxford English Dictionary, to name but two.

So why are you renaming all these categories? 77.103.71.10 (talk) 15:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It's the preferred spelling in a few dictionaries but not all and is certainly the minority spelling in British English as a whole - see ~ize and Oxford spelling, the variant of British English using it. The reason for renaming the categories is that the parent categories for their countries use "Organisation" and the convention is to use consistent spelling across the individual countries' section of category trees. Timrollpickering (talk) 15:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I didn't see anything in ~ize or Oxford spelling to support your claim that -ize is "certainly the minority spelling in British English as a whole". Can you back this up? Also, why are you disregarding the OED (apparently "the premier dictionary of the English language") in favour of other lesser-known (and as yet un-named) sources? 77.103.71.10 (talk) 15:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

My initial reaction is that this is so well known to be in "water is wet" type of things. Do you really think the ~ize form is predominant? Try the British National Corpus for one. Or look at the use in the broadsheet newspapers. Or the way the IETF language tags are organised - en-GB is the standard, en-GB-oed for Oxford spelling is the derivation. This is the main area where the OED notoriously sticks to its guns on the basis of traditional etymology despite actual usage.

I think if you want to discuss this further try Talk:British English or Talk:American and British English spelling differences. Timrollpickering (talk) 16:30, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The above is preserved as an archive of past discussion on my talk page. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on my current talk page or the talk page for the article in question. No further edits should be made to this section.