User talk:Shanes

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[edit] WW ONE CASUALTIES

It was raining in NY today so I decided to do a major revision of World War I casualties. The numbers are backed up with solid sources.--Woogie10w 21:59, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Great! I'll keep an eye on it to help avoiding unsourced changes from creeping in. Shanes 05:47, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weather forecasting

Dear Shanes:

I am doing some research on the early history of weather forecasting and reporting. A question often asked is "Why are weather bulletins composed in all-caps, with ellipses for commas?" Your explanation was clear, concise and direct. You said:

"Written weather forecasts use an idiosyncratic punctuation style, employing heavy use of three-dot ellipses (e.g.: "light rain...strengthening through the night"). It takes the place of a comma and is derived from legacy computer systems (some of which are still active), which did not include a comma in their character sets."

As you may know, the Wikipedia article has been quoted in many locations (some with attribution, some without), but no one else that I have located has detailed information regarding those early weather bulletins and the equipment used to transmit them.

Can you point me to a primary source? I would be interested in learning more about the equipment used to disseminate weather forecasts and advisories in the early days, where they were used, and what people and organizations used them. I will be extremely grateful for any leads.

Best Regards, Jim Easter someareboojums [AT-sign] gmail.com jre[AT-sign] someareboojums.org http://www.someareboojums.org/blog Jimbobboy 17:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

  • I have requested a primary source for that section in the article by adding a "citation needed" comment. I'm afraid I don't know much about this subject, but hopefully some of the editors of that article will provide a source. If you have further comments or questions about the content of the Weather forecasting article, I suggest asking on that article's talk page, Talk:Weather forecasting. Shanes 20:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WW ONE CASUALTIES

IS IT OK IF WE ADD ANOTHER COLUMN WITH THE NR OF TROOPS THAT SERVED? THE SOURCE IS * Tucker, Spencer C. The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia, Garland Publishing, New York, 1996.(p. 172) --Woogie10w 17:20, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tags

Just read User:Shanes/Why_tags_are_evil. I couldn't agree more about the three tags you single out for attention. Cheers, CiaranG 13:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! The recent excellent introduction of the sprotected2-template has made my GWB-example rather outdated, though. I should probably make changes to reflect that. But I'm extremely happy to see such a change for the better in a time when it's getting harder and harder to find articles that actually follow the style manual and don't start off with some framed irrelevant obtrusive meassage meant for editors and not readers. Shanes 09:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
You could simply replace GWB with GW. ;). CiaranG 10:12, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm. I was the one protecting that very article some days ago, and I clearly remember adding the sprotected2-template and not that big box. Oh, well... I'm not in the mood to fight over that one right now. Shanes 10:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Collateral damage

Hello. You recently indef-blocked "Samsguy", but seemed to have left the IP box tagged, effectively blocking all 218.186.8.12 indefiniely. As this is a dynamic IP, there was collateral damage (see user talk:Advanced ). I've lifted the autoblock, and left the user block on Samsguy. In general, ESPECIALLY when indefblocking, it pays to UNCHECK the "IP also" block unless we are absolutely certain that it is either a open proxy or a static IP. See Wikipedia:Autoblock. Thanks, and keep up the good work vandal fighting! -- Avi 16:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

There are of course no way for me to know what IP-address a user is editing from, so these things happen. And IP-autoblocks all expire after 24 hours, don't they? So, I don't believe indefblocking or not makes any difference. Shanes 18:05, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:No-sleep-Shanes.png listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:No-sleep-Shanes.png, 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. MECU≈talk 00:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted it myself. I can still look it up anyway, if I should ever want to. Shanes 10:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] wiki page

If you wouldn't mind, would you rate my page? (not edit for me, just rate it)

Thanks--'•Tbone55•(Talk) (Contribs) (UBX) (autographbook) 04:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I don't think I'm the right person to do that. But for what it's worth, I think it looks great. Much slicker and better looking than my own crappy user page. That's for sure ;-). Shanes 04:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rants to policies

Hi,

I think that you should reformat User:Shanes/Why tags are evil#The vandalism protection tags (or at least the idea) into some sort of proposal to reformat multiple distracting protection tags to less distracting corner icons; for example, redirecting {{sprotected}} to {{sprotected2}} (well, probably move the later to the former, for this case). The corner icons work beautifully, are much less distracting, and clicking them will follow you to a page explaining what the lock is for.

I fully agree that the large box with text is very distracting and unnecessary. This is especially true when non-user Wikipedia users read the articles, which probably constitutes the majority of Wikipedia readers. They probably don't care that they can't edit the article, nor would they, and of most concern—they may confuse the tag with the article content.

Thanks! +mwtoews 04:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. Yes, the rant has become rather outdated with regard to the protection templates. The excelent {{sprotected2}} template wasn't around when I wrote it last April, and my George W. Bush example has also become less valid as that article is now usually tagged with the icon only. It's really a good thing, as it means things have improved. Yes, I'm quite certain that non-editors constitute a majority of readers. I'm guessing something like 99%, if not more. And the, in comparison, extremely few people who want to edit a protected page, should be perfectly capable of figuring out that the editing is restricted without that big ugly box being there just for them. I think this applies to many other templates as well. It's easy to see that, say, an article without wiki-links needs to be wikified. I don't understand why we need to scream out about it to millions of readers who don't even know what "wikifying" means. I believe we're confusing a lot of people with all those big "fix-me" tags that are now on top of thousands of articles. The stub-tag is just about the only big "fix me" tag I like. Because the article is then so incomplete that we can stand to bug people reading the stub about some help in expanding it. And the stub-tag is put discretely at the bottom. I like that about it, too. (Tags like {{disputed}} with friends are of course fine, since they are about understanding bias and other flaws that aren't obvious, but important for the reader to know about).
But, yeah, I should update the rant and/or write it in a less angry tone and more along a policy or guideline suggestion, or something, that might get wider support or at least attention. Shanes 05:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stephen Lodge aka Stephen Lodge (referee)

Hi Shanes. Thank you so much for your help - it's simple when you know how! I have made a note of the source on the Stephen Lodge redirect page, so that I can apply it to other articles in future. Thanks once again. Refsworldlee(chew-fat)(eds) 12:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anja Pärson

Hello Shanes,

Thanks for reverting the article from its vandalised title... beat me to it by a few seconds! :P

Stele 03:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Eritrean Airlines

Thank you for fixing my edit. I just realized that my edit actually did the opposite of what I intended. Thank you again! --Merhawie 20:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I've made the same mistake many times myself. Shanes 20:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Semiprotect

Yes, I am aware that the semi-protect does not actually protect the page and that the warning is purely cosmetic, but I have noticed on some pages that its presence has been enough to deter vandalism from unregistered IP users. --Ozgod 01:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the protection-tag is not a warning and shouldn't be used as such. And it isn't cosmetic at all, it's rather ugly. And when the page isn't even protected it's just plain lying. Shanes 01:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk page vandalism

Thank you for taking care of the vandalism on my talk page. Someone must have it out for me because this is like the third time in a week that someone has vandalized my talk page. Could I request that both my user page and talk page be protected for a while until this all dies down? If so, please let me know. Thank you. Jdlowery 01:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Replied on your talk page. Shanes 02:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you!

I was just about to remove the "Steve Irwin" comment when I found that you had already done so. Thank you so much - the manta ray is vastly differently (neither "better" nor "worse") from it's cousin the stingray which facilitated Irwin's death. Thank you again!

Jamie DiFlorio Little Rock, Arkansas USA —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.46.242.77 (talk) 20:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Why unprotect

Hi, why did you feel it necessary to unprotect David A. Yeagley when you knew what would happen (nearly immediately, in this case)? I hope you'll reverse this, as it's an ongoing problem! Thanks, Badagnani 00:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I've never unprotected that page. Shanes 00:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, sorry I missed your response at first because you responded on your own talk page rather than mine. Do you have an alter ego? If not, then you did unprotect David A. Yeagley. The edit summary, which a WP editor named "Shanes" left, even says so. Badagnani 05:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it can be rather confusing with who responds where. I usually respond here to keep the conversation in one place. But somethimes I don't. So it's very confusing. About the unprotection of that page: I really didn't do it. Here is the protection log for that page. The latest protection of that page expired two days ago. What I did was simply to remove the tag, and that's what my edit summary says as well ("rm tag"). It doesn't say that I unprotected it. The tags don't protect anything. Now, about the page and its need for semi-protection, It doesn't really look like it needs it at the moment. But I've added the page to my watchlist and if I see that any vandalism/disruption returns in high volumes, I'll semi-protect it again myself. Shanes 06:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

You must be joking! Have you looked at the edit history? Badagnani 06:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not joking, and have in general no idea what you're talking about. I really didn't unprotect that page if that's what you're still refering to. Shanes 15:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WW1 Casualties-Need your help

I made an edit to WW1 casualties for Belgium and got a strange message about an archived discussion, how can this be fixed?--Woogie10w 13:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, been away. I can't find that message you got anywhere. If it's still unresolved, let me know. And if you can be more specific in what this is about, that would be great. Shanes 15:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RFC/discussion of article World War II

Hello, Shanes. As a prominent contributor to World War II, you may want to be aware that a request for comments has been filed about it. The RFC can be found by the article's name in this list, and the actual discussion can be found on Talk:World War II, in case you wish to participate. Thank you for your contributions. -- —Krellis (Talk) 18:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I might look at it later. I've been busy/away the last couple of days. Shanes 14:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Why Tags are Evil" and icons

See the talk page of that essay for something about small icons that I proposed to the village pump.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 04:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I've responded on the village pump. Nice work with the icons. Shanes 14:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to Image:Pikachu.png a while ago

Have you seen what you did to that picture? For more than a month that picture was a parody of Pikachu, drastically damaging the article. Now, how could you have possible done that by mistake? The IP reverted the vandalism, and then you came along and restored it to the vandalized form. Explain how that was a mistake. 声援 -- The Hybrid 05:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't really mess around with pictures that much. I didn't realize that there were two different files. Let's just drop it. 声援 -- The Hybrid 13:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] He's at it again..

[1] LazyLaces 16:23, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The last edits from that IP looks fine to me. Shanes 05:50, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] message

(copied from Tuvalu by gadfium)

Shanes,

Sir, I am a 42 year old comparative politics teacher in the Jacksonville, Florida region and I am new on this site. While my knowledge is vast, my knowledge on how to work this here site is limited. Please explain, by editing this section, how to cite sources.

...Norway... Eh? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.157.29.52 (talk • contribs).

Looks to be settled now. Shanes 05:48, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for deletion.

Hi, Shanes, I am officially leaving Wikipedia for good. I request that my user account, user page, and talk page be deleted because I do not want them to stay here taking up space. Please get back with me as soon as possible becasue I will be signing off for the last time very soon. Thank you. Jdlowery 04:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Responded on his talk. Just delete-tag your userpage if you want it gone. Shanes 05:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I have tagged the page, please delete it for me. Please do not delete the talk page. Thank you. Jdlowery 22:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hello

Can you delete my user page and talk page. — Nobleeagle [TALK] [C] 06:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page in need of cleanup

Bombing of Naples in World War II page is in dire need of an expert to clean it up--Woogie10w 01:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Some kids had made some prank edits the last two days. I reverted them. Can still do with an expert, though. Shanes 06:10, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Vandalism of Mother Teresa article -- can it be semi-protected?

Hello Shanes. Thank you for reverting the vandalism of the Mother Teresa article. I've noticed that the article is vandalismed very frequently. My first thought is that it should be semi-protected. What is your thoughts? If so, what is the best way to do so? Please share your thoughts. Thanks you. Majoreditor 13:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

There's great value in having an article editable for everyone so semi-protection is seen a somewhat exceptional measure to be used only when vandalism happens so frequently that it's really damaging to the article and wikipedia. The Mother Teresa article is currently being vandalised once a day on average, and when it is it's usually being reverted within a minute, so the article is very rarely in a damaged state (compared to many other articles i watch). I personally protect articles either when it's being vandalised several (3-4) times a day over a few days or if it seems like repeated but infrequent vandalism goes on uncorrected for a long time (nobody else is watching it). So in my opinion we should keep it open for now. But the article is on my watchlist and if the vandalism increases I'll protect it myself. That's my general opinion. To your question about how to proceed, normally requests for page protections are made on Wikipedia:Request for page protection. Feel free to request semi-protection there whenever you think a page should be protected. Or ask there now. Maybe the people handling the requests there are less stubborn about it than me ;-). Shanes 14:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New question posed at User talk:Shanes/Why tags are evil

Jerry 16:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll comment on it there. Shanes 16:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese Casulaties

There is a guy posting material in Chinese, is that allowed?--Woogie10w 14:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)Take a look the posting is in Chinese--Woogie10w 14:29, 20 March 2007 (UTC) Thanks for fixing the page, I have no problem with changing the numbers if this guy can produce a verifiable source. The rules on Wiki are NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH. Well I did some of my own research on Chinese losses and came up with losses of 30-40 million. If The guy has genuine Chinese data I want to see it in English.--Woogie10w 16:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 25 million additional WW2 dead

The guy has added 25 million to the WW2 casualties total. His source is the Chinese Communist –Peoples Daily- What do you think?--Woogie10w 18:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, that the Chinese losses exceeded the Soviet casualties is news to me... I'm skeptical. But that the communist party actually reports these high numbers is notable and deserves mentioning. I think I would have liked to have that high number mentioned in the footnotes, but to use numbers from more independent historians in the table. But since the actual Chinese losses is such an uncertain number, with so many things playing in, I really don't know what to put there myself. But I think the numbers with sources that you listed before looked much more reasonable. But how to solve this? Hmmm... Maybe a compromise could be to list intervals for the Chinese numbers in the table? It would emphasize stronger that the numbers are highly uncertain and disputed (which is true) and at the same time draw the readers attention to the footnote where the reader can see who reports what and by that make up his own mind. That's sort of the Wikipedia way. Shanes 20:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I may understand your way of thinking,just cuz,nowaday China is communist,so no reliable data would be used.That's a little illogical.And for the first chinese source I have add here[2],It is a paper from the journal of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.I tried to find the corresponding english translation,but I failed.So I had to use the people's daily number.And for the World War II casualties of China,I have to admit it is really difficult to find out the accurate number,because there's no census for China at that time,all the figures should be based on the estimation.And why the number are somehow exaggerative for you,I may give the my opinion.The war between China and Japan lasted longer than anyother countries.If we didn't take account the conflict before 1937,you will find we fought for 8 years all in the heartland of China the most population density in the world.And at that time,the millitary strength between China and Japan were disproportional,China got almost no mechanized weapon such as Tank and Fighter.We fought on foot and rifle against japanese Gun and bombers.The chinese civilians got no protection in the fallen territories.The japanese troops carried out Three Alls Policy which aim the chinese peasants to deprive them from food and house.I wish the foreign scholars take more serious study before they released the socalled death tolls.--Ksyrie 22:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Please make further discussions on Talk:World War II casualties. Shanes 22:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Google did a translation of the Chinese, I posted it to the talk page WW2 casualties--Woogie10w 02:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I just made a posting to ww2 talk page, must get back to work--Woogie10w 11:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Official Chinese sources confirm that the figure of 35 million includes dead as well as wounded. The WW 2 Casualties page does not include statistics of wounded ,only war dead[3][4][5]
There is agreement that the China number should be 20 million. The revert war has ended--Woogie10w 12:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Great! I've unprotected the page. Shanes 12:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] David A. Yeagley

Hello, how are you? You may wish to reconsider your removal of the anon protect on David A. Yeagley, as a quick look at that article will show. The vandals are very persistent and apparently monitor the page, just waiting for the block to end. This has happened at least 3-4 times already. Thank you, Badagnani 20:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Sigh... I have never removed the protection from that page. Please stop claiming that. A tag doesn't protect anytning. I thought I had explained this. The page has been open and unprotected since March 19. The tag I removed was simply claiming a protection that wasn't there. But I've now semiprotected the page again. If you want to have a tag there as well, feel free to add it. I recommend {{sprotected2}}. But please understand that whatever tag is put on a page doesn't protect it from editing. Shanes 20:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry!

I might have overwritten your edits to McDonald's by mistake.

krallja 01:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I checked and you didn't. ;-). Shanes 01:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I double-checked too -- looks like I somehow managed to get my edit in right after yours was posted. Phew! krallja 01:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] user Bluefoster

Hi - Any idea what user:Bluefoster and seemingly related users user:Redfoster and user:20em89.01 are up to? Clearly not newbies, but I can't exactly tell what they're trying to do. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. No, I don't know what they're up to. I don't really remember interacting with any of them, but I see I've left one of the accounts a message on talk some days ago, and that other has taken my (crappy) userpage with barnstars and all and made it his. Not really kosher, but it's not a big deal. Probably just kid(s) fooling around. But claiming to be an admin when he's not is not good, but I don't really think anyone will be fooled by that and I'm reluctant to make a big deal over it. Shanes 19:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, maybe I'll have a chat with one of them. This eidt is what caught my eye, and it looks definitely un-kosher. Thanks for taking a look. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
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