User talk:Robert

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Welcome!

Hello, Robert, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! Arnoutf 07:02, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] List of rail accidents

There is currently a discussion about whether we should set criteria for inlcusion of accients on the List of rail accidents page, and if so what the criteria should be.

The discussion is located at Talk:List of rail accidents/Criteria for inclusion, where your input would be most welcome. Thryduulf 00:41, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Barnstar

The Minor Barnstar
A minor edits barnstar to you for referencing several items on List of road accidents. Circeus 02:55, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Referencing is hardly a minor thing! I should know: I've tried to source some of the entries you did Circeus 07:08, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks again! If you're trying to source events where reference material might be in Dutch language, you're welcome to contact me on my nl.wikipedia talk page, or try the nl.wikipedia IRC channel. Almost every Dutch speaking wikipedian is fluent in English. Cheers, Brinkie 07:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
I'll keep that in mind. A few comments:
If you could write your entries in present tense instead of past, that would be great (simpler than rewriting the whole list.)
No edit conflict for us, as I fell asleep right after my last edit to the page
Don't worry about notability. My notability test right now is whether something is more notable or not than the 2007 French Alps coach crash, and this passes with flying colors!
I wouldn't worry too much about the dates, We don't in normal articles because they are automatically adjusted for user preferences (even though unlogged users don't have prefs), do I don't think it's necessary here. I will, however, strip the year part of those dates, who are really redundant.
I'm probably going to take the time to trim quite a few entries (especially unsourced ones with lower death count, maybe a few sourced ones too.)
As for the split, that would probably be a good idea.
Circeus 17:11, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brent Crude

Thanks for catching that. User:Sandstein has removed the notice. I should have noticed the "(source: Wikipedia)", but it's always better to be cautious (though not paranoid) in copyright matters. Superm401 - Talk 00:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maus Gatsonides

Contentious changes in Wikipedia should be discussed first. I notice no discussion of the page move at the article talk page... is there discussion elsewhere that I have missed? Some quick checking shows that in English sources he seems to be more commonly referred to as "Maurice" than either Maus or Maurits. This Anglicising of foreign names is not uncommon in English language media. --Dweller 17:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

What? Oh, I see, you're apparently a bit annoyed about an edit I did in February. There was no talk page present at that time and the article was (and still is) a stub-class article. I stubled into it while doing a major spam-cleanup and it looked more or less abandoned, so I decided to do some research and more or less translated the Dutch article about Gatsonides. If I have broken a guideline on the English wikipedia (on which I'm rarely active), my humble apologies for that. I did what is common on Dutch wikipedia, when one spots an obvious error there, one corrects it. Unless it's a big or important article, the same applies to page moves.
I oppose your arguments for calling him Maurice. Just because the English speaking world cannot pronounce it, is that a good reason to deny the poor man's birth certificate and baptise him with something they can pronounce? I don't think so. In my side of the world (very coincidentally the same side of the world Gatsonides used to be a native), he is known as Maus Gatsonides. Maus is a common name for people who are officially called Maurice or Maurits (I think it is Jiddish of some sort).
Unfortunately, Gatsonides left a heritage which is costing me serious money... I spotted a police radar trap too late this morning, when I was doing at least 20 km over the speed limit :-(
cheers, Robert (you'd probably want to call me Bob ;-)) "Brinkie" 19:26, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi. I thought I was careful not to get annoyed, assuming I'd missed a debate somewhere. No matter, let's debate it now.
The convention is, as with all things in Wikipedia, not to take a stance on what is "right" or "wrong" in the world, but merely to report stuff, as it is, for an English-speaking audience.
We normally name articles "CorrectFirstName Surname" but we deviate from this when characters are (bunch of examples follows) overwhelmingly known by a nickname (Fatboy Slim), by abbreviation (Ted Alletson), with initials (WG Grace) or just a name of convenience (Ranjith Amunugama. Note, it's not a Wikipedia fixed and unwavering preference that we follow, or there'd be more than a redirect at Anthony Blair.
So, whatever is the norm in English, we should use. I'm not convinced yet whether or not there's an overwhelming preference in English-speaking media, but if there is we should go with it. (And NB it may have been Gatsonides himself that preferred the Anglicised version in the English-speaking world)
As for the notion that the English-speaking world is appallingly intolerant of other languages; heck I'm with you, dude, but Wikipedia is merely a mirror of the world.
Cheers, --Dweller 21:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC) (PS The fact that there are no edits on a talk page doesn't mean you can't start one! :-))
I think I'd better start a discussion on the article's talk page after all... ;-) --Brinkie 09:21, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please help save Repo Man movie article

Hi Robert,

This guy, Dædαlus, is in there trying to remove parts that you, I and many others contributed to the Repo Man article. Please add to the bottom of this thread on the Repo Man talk page that you think the "Notable Motifs" section should not be blanked (erased), but left as is since the Pulp Fiction article also has a "Notable Motifs" section that isn't being considered for removal at all (even by Dædαlus himself).

While I agree that the "Notable Motifs" section could use some work, it certainly won't help the article to delete the whole thing and erase all our work which consists of many multiple contributers over a course of years. I'm willing to work on it and better incorporate it into the article, he just wants to delete it all!

With consensus, we can stop this guy from deleting all our work soon!

Thanks in advance. Cowicide (talk) 02:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)