User talk:Derek Ross

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Contents 1 Rothesay 2 Scotland the nation 3 Scots language version 4 List of British monarchs 5 Hi 6 Re:RfA 7 Neilston on sco? 8 Some advice? 9 England 10 Moving articles 11 Map 12 Single User Login at gd.wiki 13 Land value tax 14 Dovecots 15 Basic income 16 Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot 17 Barnstar 18 Re: account rename

[edit] Rothesay

Hi, Derek! Happy new year! How pronounce the name scotish town Rothesay? (Прон, Bulgaria) (90.154.207.255 (talk) 13:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC))

And a Happy New Year to you, Прон. Nice to hear from you again! The pronunciation of the name, "Rothesay", is not obvious from the spelling. Although it looks like there might be three syllables there are actually only two. The first syllable, "roth", rhymes with the English word "moth". It does not rhyme with the English word "both". The "e" in the middle of the word should be ignored completely. The second syllable, "say", rhymes with the English words, "day" or "bay". When the whole name is pronounced, the emphasis should be placed on the first syllable. Derek Ross | Talk 16:02, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! This IPA [roθ - sɛi] is near ? (Прон)(90.154.207.255 (talk) 14:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC))

Yes, that's it. -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

OK (Прон) (90.154.207.255 (talk) 16:38, 8 January 2008 (UTC))

All good! Don't speak IPA myself, but as they say locally, "dooni watter tae Rossi 'n Arn"  ;) Happy New Year! .. dave souza, talk 16:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

And a Happy New Year to you and your wife too, Dave! I hope that she is keeping well and that you both had a good Christmas. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scotland the nation

I've raised this issue again at Talk:Scotland. Others have voiced an opinion but would like your input too. -- Jza84 · (talk) 01:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

<Groan>, I don't know if I can be bothered. I noticed that you'd restarted this debate but didn't particularly want to take part. I've already gone over this ground a few times in the last 5 years. My personal opinion is that it should be "country", not "nation" but the fact is that whichever one is chosen there are going to be objections and accusations of a hidden separatist agenda. At least that was what happened when it was "country" before. Still since you have requested my input, I suppose I should say something. Even though it will probably just be that I'll just go along with whatever is "decided". -- Cheers Derek Ross | Talk 03:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I really don't know what the fuss is about. I mean, "nation"? It's just bad English, it's as simiple as that. Personally I say it ought to be constituent country, but at least say country, like you say! It's madness. I think there are alot of entrenched views that this word "nation" somehow convays to the world that Scotland is anything but less than strong and proud country. To me it reads like its compromised. There are alot of weak, but passionate, views to keep this, although I count at least four editors now who share this view. Consensus could change. Thanks for replying though, it is much appreciated. -- Jza84 · (talk) 12:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scots language version

Derek, have you spotted this yet?

• [1]

--Mais oui! (talk) 08:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Only just out of my bed. Mais. Thanks, for drawing it to my attention. It looks fairly reasonable, a bit positive, a bit negative, although it's sad that they didn't try to contact any of the contributors, relying solely on third-party opinions. Oh well, hopefully it'll raise the traffic level a bittie... -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of British monarchs

Hello Derek Ross. I would accept changing the article title to Great Britain and United Kingdom monarchs. Though such a title is kinda 'long' & would appear cluttered. GoodDay (talk) 20:37, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't It's missing the point altogether. You've created a duplicate article with duplicate content. It needs to be removed completely. -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

If that's the case, we'd have to delete List of English monarchs, List of Scottish monarchs as well. I'm assuming you're talking about redirecting these article to the article List of monarchs in the British Isles? -- GoodDay (talk) 23:17, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

That was exactly the situation before the nationalists (both separatist and unionist) changed it. We had one article, List of British Monarchs, which has, over time, had the English and Scottish monarchs copied from it to List of English monarchs and List of Scottish monarchs and was then renamed to List of monarchs in the British Isles. I'd happily reverse all that and return to the set of articles we had three years ago. -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:12, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, I'd consider deleting the English & Scottish & British lists. I'd keep the List of monarchs in the British Isles (though I believe the Irish may object to the BI part). I fear however, such a move would be stonewalled & I'm not going to support English merged into British Isles, unless Scottish is mergerd into British Isles. I'm guessing the Scottish would resist a merge/redirect into a British Isles list. GoodDay (talk) 15:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm Scottish and I wouldn't resist it. Maybe some Scots would. Maybe some English would too. But it's an individual thing. You can't predict from people's nationality how they feel about the matter. That's just stereotyping. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:01, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears as though the 'merge idea' for English & British lists will be defeated. When it's ended, I'd suggest you bring up your proposal for redirecting the British, English & Scottish lists to List of monarchs in the British Isles. It's worth a try. GoodDay (talk) 18:50, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hi

Just thought I'd say hello.I'm new to wikepedia but would like to be more involved as time goes on.I'm Scottish like yourself with a broad interest, but mainly Scottish subjects.I don't intend to edit for some time until I know the in's and out's but when I do I hope to bring something constructive and intereresting to the subjects.Well,as I said,it's just a hello!--Jack forbes (talk) 00:24, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, that was nice! Hello to you, Jack. And welcome to Wikipedia! Although I know that you have been looking around already.

I think you're very wise to "ca' canny" at first. It's important to know who's who and what's what, so that you don't step on toes, or accidentally upset carefully agreed compromises. However I am sure that you'll see how to go about it that if you read some of the old talk pages from articles that interest you. One thing that I've found useful over the years is to try to be Wikipedian. By which I mean that I try to understand what the Five Pillars of Wikipedia are trying to say and to follow their intent. Your broad interest will be very helpful to you as well. Some of the Scotland-related articles can be quite contentious because some people tend to polarise into separatists and unionists, so it is a good thing to work on non-Scottish articles too. But the best of the Scottish editors, people like Angus McLellan or Dave Souza, manage to calm things and to work on all sorts of stuff too. I thoroughly respect these editors and am pleased to point them out as my Wikipedian role models. Anyway enough of the hero worship! I hope that you enjoy contributing to Wikipedia. drop me a line if you run into problems or have any questions. Cheers -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re:RfA

Thanks for the message and moral support! All the best, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 13:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Neilston on sco?

Hello mukker, A'm tint! A've been re-lairnin the Scots. A bidit in the veelage o Neilston but hae bide in Oldham since a wis a wee laddie. Ma paw spaek scots but A gaed Inglis schuil sae ma Scots is bad! A spaek juist a wee Scots an write e'en smaa! A want tae translate Neilston (WP:FA) to Scots for the Sco.Wikipedia.org. Can ye gie's a haund mebbe? -- Jza84 · (talk) 00:39, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Gladly. Juist dae yer best, man. Gin onythin's wrang the lave o's 'll tak it in haun -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Some advice?

Hello Derek, I made a small edit to the article Border Reivers and was wondering if you could take a wee look at it. The only reference to it was a book by Alistair Moffat and although I searched for others, I could find none. I was going to hold back but decided to be bold. I referenced his book but there are no citations attached to the statement! Was I wrong to make the edit with only a reference? -- Jack forbes (talk) 21:44, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Basic edit is fine, Jack. Watch your punctuation though: one space after a comma, dot, exclamation mark, etc. Re the reference, what you did isn't wrong, but it could be improved. My suggestion is that you should tie your new fact explicitly to your reference otherwise people may add a {{fact}} tag to it, as they have done to the sentence before. To see how to do this take a look at the article, Catherine Cranston, which makes good use of this kind of "inline" reference, using <ref>...</ref> in the new sentence and {{reflist}} at the end of the article. If you want I can do it for you but I think it's good learning for you to have a try first. -- Derek Ross | Talk 02:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I've done just as you suggested Derek, I think I've got it right! Thank's for your help. I'll try and keep the dumb questions down to a minimum, promise! Cheers!--Jack forbes (talk) 10:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] England

Hello DR. To my recollection, I've never complained of what you do or don't do at Wikipedia. Please, show me the same respect. GoodDay (talk) 14:50, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Moving articles

DR, if you can convince the article List of Scottish monarchs to move to List of Monarchs of Scotland? Then we could get List of British monarchs moved to List of Monarchs of Great Britain and the United Kingdom. GoodDay (talk) 16:56, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I've just proposed a split/rename of the article List of British monarchs, but I suspect it won't be accepted. GoodDay (talk) 17:16, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I would have no objection to either of those renames. In fact I think that it is quite a good idea. Unfortunately it is difficult to get anything through in this area (as you have noticed)! Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I have one worry though - the article List of Scottish monarchs. They've already rejected (in the past) moving to List of Monarchs of Scotland. And I don't dare (again) request they consider moving. PS- my being a consistancy buff, hasn't been well received on the Scottish articles (particulary Scotland). -- GoodDay (talk) 17:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Map

In case you're interested Derek, there's a vote going on at the Scotland discussion page on whether to change the map!--Jack forbes (talk) 20:30, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Jack, but it's another of these trivial, time-wasting sessions over something that really doesn't matter that much. I won't be taking part. -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

No bother, I'm sure I'll come to the same conclusion myself in time!--Jack forbes (talk) 21:40, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Single User Login at gd.wiki

I'm requesting you this because it seems that you're a bureaucrat at gd.wiki. I'm asking you for the usurpation of gd:User:Leonardo.stabile to complete the unified login process. I'm a sysop at pt.wiki since the end of 2006. The same user at Commons and Meta belongs to me. The person that created this account at en.wiki clearly created this account to affect me, doing the same at different ga projects, en.wiki and simple.wiki, in the same week. This user does not have valid contributions. The same request at en.wiki was accepted. Thanks in advance, please let me know whether I must request this in a page at gd.wiki. Regards, --Leonardo.stabile (talk) 03:19, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, Leonardo. I'll deal with it. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:27, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! --Leonardo.stabile (talk) 06:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Land value tax

Sorry, I don't quite follow your edit. We are trying to split the overlarge cat Taxation into subcats (see the note at the head of the cat). Do you see a problem putting this article into Category:Property taxes, per WP:SUBCAT? Thanks Mhockey (talk) 18:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't think that there's a big problem if you're treating all taxes that way. If you intend putting Income Tax and Poll Tax into the Personal Taxes subcategory and LVT into the Property Tax subcategory that would be reasonable. But at the moment there doesn't appear to be a subcategory for Sales Tax and VAT or for some of the other taxes in the Taxation category. I think that you need to sort out the subcategories before reassigning the taxes from Taxation. Otherwise we lose consistency. The current taxation category may be large (although I've seen much larger) but at least it treats the various taxes consistently. -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:14, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Consistency would be good, but it's hard to achieve. There are already subcats for business taxes, corporate taxation and, as you say, personal taxes. If all the articles just in those subcats were put in the top cat, it would be pretty unmanageable. Actually, Sales taxes was next on my list. Some of the taxation articles cannot sensibly be put into subcats, but I would have thought property taxes was a fairly discrete area which does call for a subcat.Mhockey (talk) 19:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. Since you are doing this as part of a rationalisation project, I'll revert my change. Good luck with your campaign! -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dovecots

G'day Derek Ross, fair enough if you think the link belongs in the article. Dovecot is a term generally not used with pigeon racing. The urban doocots you refered to in your edit summary are ramshackle constructions that would more correctly be called pigeon lofts. In fact in most English speaking countries they would be. I'm of the opinion that the pictures are unsuitable for that article. They certainly do not portray the more traditional type of Dovecote as used for the production of meat i.e. squab (food). The picture of the derelict dovecote in Belgium is likewise just a picture of an old racing pigeon loft. Just because some editor adds an image to an article and calls it something doesn't make it so. I have kept pigeons most of my life (I am a product of 1958 also). I have many reference books here on the topic of pigeons. In my studies at the moment I see a reference that pigeon houses were called columbaria back in Roman times. Heaps of references for Dovecotes in Europe and England in very early times being used to keep pigeons as a food source. An early ref (1735) from a chap called Moore (Columbarium or the pigeon house) which goes on to use the term "loft" (which incidently is the first ref to the use of "loft" I can find). Tegetmeir (1868) and Fulton & Lumley (1895) also use "lofts". The term "loft" is very widespread now, and in fact you will very rarely find doocot used in reference to racing pigeons unless it is a specific regional term or being used by people unfamiliar with the more commonly used "loft". The pigeon articles in general are slowly undergoing much needed changes. Perhaps an article on Pigeon lofts is needed? I could probably work on the pigeon housing section at the Pigeon keeping article and split off to a main article? Anyhow, I've rambled on! Just felt a need to comment. I used to race pigeons (from a loft) and I am pretty confident that if you ask any pigeon fancier who races their pigeons, that they will say they race from a loft and not a dovecote. When I reverted your edit I did so in good faith.--Sting au Buzz Me... 23:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, Sting au. You obviously know a lot more about it than I do. The thing is that the article as it stands actually mentions pigeon racing in its opening paragraph, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to have a link to that topic in the "see also". I like your idea of adding a pigeon loft article though since the current dovecote article seems to cover both uses. I agree that pigeon racers will almost all say that they race from a loft -- unless they come from Scotland where they race from doocots as well. -- Derek Ross | Talk 02:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Basic income

Hi DR,

I've commented at guaranteed minimum income on the point you made at talk:basic income. Note that the way you used basic income was akin to a poverty threshold; a measure to determine how much money was needed to survive. At the point I merged [2] and its recreation from a redirect [3], the basic income page was about providing individuals with an unconditional sum of money and not a measure. This is outside my area of expertise, so I'm working with what's extant to the various pages. Naturally if the page content changes then my opinion will as well. The old BI page was also a near duplicate content fork of GMI, the main reason I merged it. But the main point I'd like to bring to your attention is the different definitions of the concepts - basic income was about a sum of money handed out, not a yardstick. Thanks, hope I'm not muddying the waters! WLU (talk) 17:55, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

And now it's all over at Talk:basic income, which has been un-redirected. WLU (talk) 18:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You're not muddying the waters. I too would like to get that sorted out. It's obvious that different people have different ideas about what the terms mean and we need to get some agreement. -- Derek Ross | Talk 18:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've unwatched both pages now - since I'm not a subject matter expert, I can't really argue without putting in a lot of reading. Since GDB has stated he's going to reduce the content fork aspect, there's no real interest or need in the page for me. Thanks, WLU (talk) 18:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

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[edit] Barnstar

		The Copyeditor's Barnstar
		For your edit to Hastati in particular, though it looks like you do a lot of good work around wikipedia and you've been here for ages :-) Serviam (talk) 19:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That is very kind of you, Serviam. I am touched. Thank you. -- Derek Ross | Talk 20:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: account rename

Thanks for renaming the impostor account. I think it's probably better to not rename User:GHe-enwiki to User:GHe since User:GHe-enwiki is already on a global account and I'm not sure how a rename would affect it. Also, since User:GHe is now free on gd.wikipedia, I would be able to successfully merge it with my other accounts once the remaining renames are done on the other projects. Again, thanks for the quick response to my request. :) GHe (Talk) 04:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay-doke. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:53, 30 May 2008 (UTC)