User talk:Wildsurmise

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hello, Wildsurmise! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. You may benefit from following some of the links below, which will help you get the most out of Wikipedia. If you have any questions you can ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking Image:Wikisigbutton.png or by typing four tildes "~~~~"; this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you are already loving Wikipedia you might want to consider being "adopted" by a more experienced editor or joining a WikiProject to collaborate with others in creating and improving articles of your interest. Click here for a directory of all the WikiProjects. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Happy editing! -MBK004 20:38, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Getting Started
Getting Help
Policies and Guidelines

The Community
Things to do
Miscellaneous

Contents

[edit] Re: 'Image' sizes (re. 'thumbnails' in particular)

Hi Wildsurmise. That bit of WP:MOS is poorly worded, but the list of cases where it's appropriate to force the size of images is fairly restrictive. The big (300px+) image sizes in the Battle of Leyte Gulf article had rendered the article almost unreadable on my 17 inch monitor as they were dominating the text. Given that it's easy for people with an interest in the topic to click on the image to see a larger version, I don't think that going above the default size is neccessary. I hope that you don't feel that I've "wrecked" your work - I've been following your improvements to the article over the last few weeks and have been very impressed. All the best, --Nick Dowling (talk) 07:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, and sorry for the slow response. My screen resolution is 1024 x 768 pixels and thumbnailed photos work well for me. I'm not into edit-warring so by all means re-add the section on the Fletchers. However, I still think that it best belongs in an article on this class of ships, though adding some of it to the Leyte Gulf article in the context of explaining why the ships performed so well would be worthwhile. By the way, I really liked the photo of Halsey - that section is just about him so a potrait of him is justified, and I don't think that I've ever seen any photos of him taken during this battle. Regards, --Nick Dowling (talk) 10:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Largest naval battle in history

Well, I hope you win more tenners in so easy a fashion :-) As someone who has been writing and editing WP articles for four years, has been an WP admin for six months and teaches at university, I find the style of contributions by many new editors unencyclopedic; it doesn't mean that they are bad writers, just that they haven't got the hang of the housed style.

Re. Battle of the Philippine Sea: I will leave it where it is until we have discussed this further. Strategically it was far more important than Leyte Gulf, because it broke the back of Japanese carrier air power. However, that is neither here nor there, because we are talking about scale of the naval forces involved. Air operations by their very nature require less personnel than surface actions. Philippine Sea's inclusion as a major candidate is conditional on Leyte Gulf being regarded as several battles rather than one. No-one actually does see it that way, as far as I know; i.e. no-one has written, in a history book, words to the effect: "Leyte Gulf was not one battle, it was several". But I would be happy to be disabused, if you know of such a source.Grant | Talk 09:15, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh and regarding the Palawan Passage thing, try a Google search for the respective names. Morrison is just about the only source outside of Wikipedia and its mirrors who does say "Fight" rather than "Battle". I don't know about anyone else, but "Fight" to me sounds silly, as those were are talking about a spat in a playground . Grant | Talk 09:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Good solution. "Submarine action" fits the bill perfectly. Grant | Talk 12:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Now do we have a respectable source for the suggestion that Leyte was not one battle? Grant | Talk 22:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Great, although we really need page numbers too. Grant | Talk 01:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dashes and hyphens

Hi again. Are you a.k.a. 86.135.2.252? There are three horizontal punctuation characters which cause problems:

  • emdash ( — ) only ever used as parentheses, either with or without spaces, according to style and preference, i.e.:
    • Sdgdf sdasfasag — bvbnnbsngn jfdgjdj hfhsf agdfgf — fgagfga fasdfasdf.
    • Sdgdf sdasfasag—bvbnnbsngn jfdgjdj hfhsf agdfgf—fgagfga fasdfasdf.
  • endash ( – ) used in ranges, such as "10–20" years. Now sometimes used as parentheses, usually with spaces, i.e.
    • Sdgdf sdasfasag – bvbnnbsngn jfdgjdj hfhsf agdfgf – fgagfga fasdfasdf.
  • hyphen ( - ), which should only ever be used both to join two words, without spaces, e.g.

See also en dash versus em dash.

Grant | Talk 09:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Errr...

What appears to be your major problem? Grant | Talk 18:54, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Battle for Leyte Gulf - Citations

To be honest, everything in the article needs a citation. Each paragraph should have at least one citation saying where it has been sourced from. User:Cla68's FA articles are a good model for referencing. --Nick Dowling (talk) 09:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Jutland

How do you work it out that the Dreadnought Battle Fleet had been cruising in seven columns of four ships? Considering that in company with Jellicoe were three Battle Squadrons each composed of eight ships, divided into six Divisions of four ships. --Harlsbottom (talk) 10:28, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

No worries. Glad to see some effort being made on the article. --Harlsbottom (talk) 10:55, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Belated thanks

...for the birthday greeting Dave. Due to work commitments I have temporarily barred my main ID from editing. I'm still doing a bit under alternate IDs and IP numbers. Cheers, Grant 07:53, 15 February 2008 (UTC)