User talk:TopQuark

Welcome!

Welcome to Wikipedia, TopQuark! My name is Ryan, aka Acetic Acid. I noticed that you were new and haven't received any messages yet. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Wikipedia can be a little intimidating at first, since it uses different formatting than other sites that use HTML and CSS. In the long run, though, you'll find that the WikiSyntax is a lot easier and faster than those other ways. Here are a few links to get you started:

There are a lot of policies and guides to read, but I highly recommend reading over those first. If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. Please be sure to sign your name on Talk Pages using four tildes (~~~~) to produce your name and the current date, along with a link to your user page. This way, others know when you left a message and how to find you. It's easier than having to type out your name, right? :)

I hope you enjoy contributing to Wikipedia. We can use all the help we can get! Have a nice day. Sincerely, Acetic '^Acid 10:13, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Date Formatting

Hi TopQuark, Thank you for the welcome, and for the advice on date formatting. I'll keep it in mind. For the record, in certain parts of the article the format 2005-11-17 was being used, and my intention was just to change the format into 17 November 2005. However, I inadvertently ended up destroying the links. I'll watch my fingers next time. --Tito4000 15:31, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Thank you for your kind words. I'm going to answer at length on Talk:Esmeralda. Conf 17:17, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is War of the Pacific too long?

I don't think that the article is actually detailing any important fact of the war, but rather a quick review of the most important military actions of it. I don't think that banner belongs to the article itself. Messhermit 23:51, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, working with you ~~has been~~ is quite enjoyable and I appreciate your feedback. Ah, the banner should not be there for long, I will remove it myself after some more discussion, if it is still there by Friday this week. I am actually 100% on board with the quick review approach. The current section on the war itself is very close to what I believe it should be. I intend to summarize some aspects, and insert additional info, but that should not be a significant change.

I do have a stylistic issue with an extensive section on an auxiliary topic, in this case submarine technology. The amount of detail here is astounding: we can find the name of the transport that took it to Callao, the major development dates, even how many people participated in initial testing! Please do not get me wrong, this is good material but, hey, that is a lot of detail.

Also, I have noticed the WotP article go over the 32K recommended limit last week. This is only a recommendation, but my biggest concern is actually not scaring casual readers off. We will see where discussion takes us on this. Cheers! TopQuark 11:49, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree with the issue about the Submarine. It should be deal as a separate topic. About the war itself, I think that it is safe to procced with the battles now, cause the article itself it's a good summary of everything in the war. We should also expand the section about the most relevant characters of the war, and learn more about foreign ones (they are the least remembered unfortunately).

Maybe we can send some of the info about the territorial issue between Chile and Bolivia to another topic, that could deal more properly with the situation.

And yes, It was quite nice to work with you! Cheers, and send me a reply to my propositions. Messhermit 22:52, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

After some feedback, I am inclined to break the submarine off to its own article and keep tabs on the rest. The original Bolivia/Chile dispute is one of my candidates for spinoff, if necessary as Jmabel suggested (and it may well be, if we go into the population angle and dig deeper into each country's documents). The current Bolivia/Chile issue is a different story.

By the way, did you notice that the latest IP user's contribution seems to have been either a typo or a browser error? I was about to remove the {{verylong}} banner as promised, but noticed this and decided to keep it. I will remove the banner as soon as I am able to write a fair article on Toro.

Finally, I intend to weave the actors of the war into the main story. History is the best story you can find, they say, and these participants do provide a lot of depth to the story. The Lynch expedition, the Diplomatic Corps, the neutral fleet are all related.

In any case, I think we are ready to start with the Battle of Arica... Cheers! TopQuark 09:42, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Chorrillos as a Battle?

I think that you may have the wrong name for the battle. The actual battle is called Battle of San Juan, and it was fought outside the capital. Chorrillos was later looted, but at any rate there was a battle over there. Maybe you can specify in the list of battles that you have as Campaings ?. Cheers ! Messhermit 19:02, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]