User talk:Wtmitchell

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[edit] Contacting me

One way to contact me is to edit this page and leave a message here. Please sign your messages with four tilde characters, like this: ~~~~

[edit] Messages

The Bronze Wiki
Quadell has awarded you a Bronze Wiki for your tireless disambiguation work. You may proudly boast of your laurels, but resting on them is discouraged.


[edit] Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Straw_Poll

This relates to the text on the placement of footnotes which you helped to work out last month; you may wish to comment. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] State Religion

Please refrain from vandalizing articles. The Catholic Church has never been established in Ireland. User:Personalbest 11/7/07 —Preceding comment was added at 00:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Number of Orthodox

Hi Bill. I think it's okay to cite the article by Rev. Fr. Castro as a reliable source. After all, according to http://www.cs.ust.hk/faculty/dimitris/metro/Phil_back_clergy.html, he is the parish priest of the largest Orthodox church in the Philippines. --Angelo 01:28, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I just realized that the source I provided was from basically the same website, my apologies. However, the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia's URL (http://www.omhksea.org/) redirects there, so I guess there shouldn't be any problems. --Angelo 03:07, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reaction

I would definitely react... -chris^_^ 06:19, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your recent removal of Feast Day of Saint Roch from Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 16

Just letting you know that the addition & removal of this Feast Day is being discussed here. -- Boracay Bill 23:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I responded. -- tariqabjotu 01:20, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About Spanish in the Philippines

I made the mistake of mentioning the current status of what's going on in Talk:Spanish language (#31) because they were debating of including the Philippines or not. I really regret it!

If you'd like the link to that article: La presidenta perdirá ayuda... Preferably I'd like that news restored to update the world about it, but... I just don't have the will to do it. Idolmonkey 18:09, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish language

I removed your failed verification tags on Spanish language. With respect to Spanish's status as the second most spoken language by native speakers, this Ethnologue cite clearly ranked it as second, with 332 mil speakers as of 1999. The CIA link was added as more recent verification. If you look in the box under "World" you will see a list of the most spoken languages by percentage of world population: Mandarin (13.69%), Spanish (5.05%) and English (4.84%). These sources verify the text.

With respect to Belize, please check page 7 of the PDF citation. According to the 2000 census, 52.1% of the population speaks the language very well. The text mentioned "native speakers," which as far as I can see is not mentioned in the citation. But I have changed the text accordingly, and it should be OK now.

If you see anything else that you think is wrong with the article, I invite you to raise the issues on the talk page. Thanks! SpiderMMB 18:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] William Radford (disambiguation)

A {{prod}} template has been added to the article William Radford (disambiguation), suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice explains why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you endorse deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please tag it with {{db-author}}. Wl219 01:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Hello, I saw that you made an edit on citizenship talk page. I have a question and I hope that you can help me with it: do you know about any western democratic state that can rule out the citizenship from any given citizen for doing a crime other than immigration fraud? Best--Gilisa 17:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Responded on your talk page -- Boracay Bill 23:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiPoject Citation cleanup

Thanks for joining the group. It hasn't really grown to be honest, but give it time. Onnaghar talk ! ctrb 16:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] <refhide>

Hi Boracay Bill! Thanks for your help pushing for this potential refhide extension. I saw your comment on Meta.Wikimedia and copied it here on mediawiki.org. It's hard for me to tell which page is more likely being watched by developers. I've never watched the process of proposing an extension before, but hopefully this will gain some traction. Cheers! --JayHenry 01:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The hidden section trick was my trick, which is why I'm happy you're helping to push it! I actually think the hidden stuff should go in the references section because footnotes should be ordered as they appear in the text (first footnote should always be 1, in my opinion, as this is standard for all types of footnotes and endnotes). Also this way, when you click the edit button next to references you get to actually edit the references. You can type "Section=0" into the URL to edit just the lead of an article, but not many people know to do this, and for the majority of editors, hidden refs up top would basically be confusing meta-data in a non-intuitive location. But I digress...
You might have seen this, but you can actually order sources in a bibliography section separate from footnotes by combining the <ref> tags and the {{harvnb}} templates. The article Charles Darwin really makes splendid use of this system. --JayHenry 03:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed that it was you who first mentioned the hidden section trick. I'm not an academic and am not familiar with the various style standards, but I have seen several different styles used. I've also seen several different styles used in Wikipedia, often used badly because tools to do better aren't available. Anyhow, that example article I mentioned on your talk page which I redid the references for to try out the hidden section trick uses {{harvnb}} and {{Citation}} templates similarly to the Charles Darwin article (see discussion here, where opposition to the hidden section trick gotme started thinking about <refhide>). None of the stuff I discussed on your talk page is incompatible with placing the <refhide> block in the References section and having the refs expanded there in their order of first encounter in the text. I know that there have been talks about sorting the refs, and about whether/how to do that. I'm just observing that the refhide block in which the ref text is defined could as an editorial option be placed at the head of the article, and that doing that gives the editor control of References section item ordering and possibly sensible organization into a (probably alphabetized) list or into several (probably alphebetized) sub-headed lists.

I don't do a lot of talk page banter and don't know what protocols are usual. I'll put a note on your talk page that I've sent this, in case you've not watchlisted my talk page. -- Boracay Bill 04:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I've never figured out what protocols are usual either. I guess just go ahead and respond on my page so I can see the little yellow bar. While my gut reaction to references at the top was to object, I just realized that one could simply comment out a note under the references section of an article saying: <!-- References for this article are included at the top--> or something like that. Either way, I really like the idea, and if we keep bringing it up I'm sure we'll get someone's attention eventually. (I really like the idea of having separate <ef> and <note> tags that could generate separate sections, but I agree it's probably an issue to tackle at a different time. --JayHenry 19:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
I replied the refhide/refdecl stuff here. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 05:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hi :) IRT OLPC Philippines (The Aklan Pilot Project)

I'm trying to get a Pilot Project started at an elementary school somewhere in Aklan, pref in Kalibo, Ibahay, Boracay to show DepED and Batasan Pambansa that the provinces can lead the country into the digital age unlike as in the ZTE Broadband controversy. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Philippines :)


<a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Philippines" target="_blank" alt="One Laptop Per Child">
<img src="http://wiki.laptop.org/images/e/e1/Olpc_badge_white.gif" alt="One Laptop Per Child Logo" style="border: medium none ; padding: 5px;"> </a>
--Mkouklis 06:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC) aka Chief Mike

I would be somewhat interested in participating, though I'm not sure in what role. My wife is an officer in one of the local churches, and is a sometime participant in community-service projects. The president of the Kiwanis club of Boracay is a friend, and Kiwanis seems a natural organization to involve. I looked at the OLPC Philippines page, and don't see anything which jumps out at me as a natural role for me (I do have some IT and Linux background, but would guess that there is probably no need for Boracay-based work in those areas). Your thoughts? -- Boracay Bill 00:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
FYI Unang Liwanag l8st!
  1. I have received the first Production XO-1 in the Philippines early this month and started talking/showing it around Kalibo
  2. A Canadian tourist took two of them to Boracay last week but I miss connected with him (He was going to leave them here :(
  3. Don Bosco Mandaluyan City (Element ary School Div.) pls.excuse m'spellin is considering the OLPC and the group has scheduled a meeting next Saturday with them.
  4. Ive invited a couple from the (M-LUG)Malaya Linux Users Group and AkLUG for a get together here in Kalibo sometime around middle of May. TBD
My Main Point as of now is still to get people talking about this, I'm trying to stress the point that 1. it's not about teaching kids how to use a mouse printer or what have you it's a para-dyne shift (wish I knew a local equiv.term) in the tools of teaching. and ultimately a way of communicating with kids from here to there, were-ever they are.
--222.127.252.238 (talk) 14:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)User:Mkouklis
Thanks for the update. I'm on Boracay now; wish I could hook up with that Canadian tourist. I try to avoid traveling to Kalibo, but could take a day trip up there if it makes sense. I'm planning on relocating to Romblon for probably a couple of months beginning in May; haven't finalized my schedule yet.
I saw a neat mini-laptop in Manila recently. See this page. Comes out of the box running Ubuntu Linux. I didn't have time to fiddle with it much, but my understanding is that OS reinstall facilities do not come with it -- probably requires use of an external USB-interface CD drive and installation CDs from a third-party OS distributor.
Cheers, -- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

the link IRT The Blue UMPC says "Bundled OS Microsoft Windows XP Home" I don't think it's a full/legit OS for the price they are quoting, the OLPC project has been having an effect on laptop specification/prices "Revenge of the clones?" SeaTacSystems(of Kalibo/Boracay) was showing me their newest arrival ASUS EeePC the other week but, mine is better for learning/teaching though for many reasons and not just only IMHO!
BTW I have your page here on my watch list but don't sign in to wikiP very often due mostly due to lack of time :)Busy with many other things esp. the kids R on summer vacation, not to mention Akelco's all day power outages/clogged up Globelines-DSL :( ping me here when you're back from Romblon, ok? --Mkouklis (talk) 12:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Burma internet access

My report is first-hand, but that is not the same thing as Original Research. I was not expostulating a theory. I was reporting a fact. -- Evertype·✆ 20:15, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] William Stanton (disambiguation)

Hey, I made William Stanton into a disambiguation page to decrease confusion, but when I was checking links, I saw that this page already existed, so I put a PROD on it. Hope that's okay. GlassCobra (Review) 13:23, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religion UK

I know you're trying to arbitrate a bit here, but re: your explanatory note; if the option had read "I believe there is God" as opposed to "I believe there is a God" it would not have been grammatically correct. The capital G indicates the name of the god of the Abrahamic tradition or the monotheistic God. Jooler 07:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

You are reaching further into the mind of the author of the wording of that option than I am able to. I personally am unable to divine what moved that anonymous author of the offered alternative response which reads "I believe in a God" to say "a God" instead of saying "God", "a god", or "god". Perhaps, as you suggest above, that anonymous author used the capital G with the specific purpose in mind of indicating the name of the god of the Abrahamic tradition or the monotheistic God — perhaps not. -- Boracay Bill 22:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Manual of Style

Can you send me a link to that Style Manual. It came up as a bunch of jarble when you commented on and reverted my editing. It's hard to find manuals and such regarding editing wikipedia. where are they all at? Yaki-gaijin 12:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC) I was talking about your undo of my editing on the Comfort Women article.


I will check out the Style Manual. The "jarble" I was talking about was just that the link you tried to make didn't work; thus I couldn't get to the Manual of Style. Now I can because of the links you put on my talk page. Thanks. Yaki-gaijin 05:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Publisher

Thanks for the reply. I'll look into the matter further. The website frequently posts articles from print media, so I doubt it's a brazen copyvio. Thanks again. Tromboneguy0186 11:30, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On Mohammad Mossadegh

Dear Wtmitchell, you mention that you do not understand my revert. However, neither do I understand your addtions! You are adding material related to Hojatol-Eslam Khatami, Ayatollah Kamenei, etc., to the biography of Dr Mossadegh! Is there any need for me to explain that this is inappropriate? The same would apply if you had added a similar amount of material concerning Dr Mossadegh to the biographies of the last-mentioned individuals. I believe that you must be confusing things. I shall revert your changes right now, and should you disagree with my reversion, we should put the matter to arbitration by other Wikipedia men and women. Please note that my statement should not be misconstrued as any kind of opposition from my part towards Hojatol-Eslam Khatami, Ayatollah Kamenei, etc. (my work on Wikipedia is purely academic and not motivated by my political views, whatever they me be). I am stating the evident, that one person's biography should not be mixed with the biographies of others. If you wish, you could always make reference to the above-mentioned individuals in the section "See also". Kind regards, --BF 14:03, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi BF.
If you will examine the edit which I made, you will see that I added nothing. What I did was to convert inline external links which already existed in the article to full citations listed in the References section. My concern was the sloppiness with which the inlinne external links had been added without (per the WP:CITE guideline) providing a full citation in the References section. I provided the needed full citation for these external links which had been added by some past editor(s). -- Boracay Bill 08:03, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Dear Boracay Bill, thank you for your note. I am confused! Your apparent conversion of inline and external links has resulted in an increase of 16,658 bytes, increasing the size of the entry by 60%!!! (the entry is 26,593 bytes right now). Have you then checked the layout of the entry? I suppose not, since what I saw there did not look pretty — a large number of paragraphs consisting of half-lines. I did not like the changes for this and other reasons explained in my previous message. Be it as it may, you are one person, and I am one; there is no reason why my opinion should count more than yours. I leave it therefore to you to put the matter to arbitration (in the event that you wish to reintroduce your previous changes). My view has been, and still is, that your changes did not do good to the entry, so that I still respectfully oppose your previous changes. Kind regards, --BF 21:05, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Thanks for your clarification. From what I can see I seem to have somehow deposited some unintended junk into the "Early Life" section while fleshing out a citation there. I also hd left a garbled Ref in the "Plot to depose ..." section. I've cleaned up these problems. The article should be somewhat improved now from its condition prior to my edits, with all the supporting citations having been fleshed out and placed in the References section except for the one in the "Shah's exile" section which seems to cite a dead link. Sorry about the glitches. -- Boracay Bill 05:16, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! (I have just looked at the entry, but have not re-read it yet --- will do it later.) --BF 09:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citation restoration

My apologies for the massive expungements(by others)/restorations (by me) going on in the Puerto Rico page. Unfolrtunately, many hours of work to produce over a hundred edits had gone down the drain by the massivbe expungement done by one of the overseers of the page. Whatever cites I may have affected was unintentional. My apologies.Pr4ever (talk) 01:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Right of foreigners to vote - USA

Thanks for the source quotation, I couldn't have done it that way. I also added several links towards State constitutions, but it will take more time to find more, not all the historical constitutions are online... --Pylambert 02:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:VP

Hi, I reverted this edit of yours. Perhaps I miss something but that didn't look like vandalism to me. Garion96 (talk) 12:20, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quote added to Citizenship and nationality talk page

Hello there. Could you please explain the purpose of doing this? – SJL 00:13, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cycle of poverty

Your recent sourced additions to this article are a big improvement! futurebird (talk) 05:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox_Country ---Problems_with_refs_and_footnotes

Hi W,
I saw your posting over at Template_talk:Infobox_Country#Problems_with_refs_and_footnotes and thought I'd let you know that {{Infobox Settlement}} has footnotes/ref parameters set up in it. It may help you with {{Infobox Country}} to look at how Infobox Settlement does its footnotes for area, population, elevation, etc,. I'll post something over there, as I won't be adding your talk page to my watch list. Good Luck. —MJCdetroit (talk) 18:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tagalog

Kumusta, Bill! Say, I noticed on Tagalog language you labeled this source as having failed verification. I took a look at the page, and it appears that there is a heading in that document titled "Nine out of ten can speak Tagalog" - was there anything particularly wrong about this or did you happen to miss it? Based on the 2000 population of 76.5M Filipinos, this should amount to about 73.7M Filipinos, of which 20M are native speakers. So the amount of second language speakers in the Philippines alone is over 53.7M and not 65M as stated in the article. What do you think? --Chris S. (talk) 17:55, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I am going to discard the US Census link for now, but I am going to put 20M and 2000 census but the mother tongue statistics aren't available online. For the 53.7M figure I cited, I'll put the source I labeled above. Is this acceptable? --Chris S. (talk) 01:40, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
PS.. Btw, I thought you put the failed verification tag because there was no mention at all in the source. There is a mention, but just an inflated number that should be actually 12M speakers lower. --Chris S. (talk) 01:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I hope you see this here, Chris. I'll post on your talk page if I don't get a response, but bouncing back and forth between talk pages gives me a headache. IMO, a source cited in support of assertion X should support assertion X. Sources available online are better for me than paper sources (from Boracay I'm pretty much limited to online sources), but I don't have a problem assuming good faith if a publicly-available credible-sounding source not available to me is cited (a NBS publication, say, cited by title, publication date, publisher, and giving specifics of page number, table title, etc. where the data supporting the assertion is located). I'm not selectively nitpicking here— your addition of the 24M and 65M figures to the infobox caused the article to pop up on my watchlist; I saw supporting sources cited, checked them, and placed the tags when I couldn't verify the assertion from the cited supporting sources. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:14, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Your talk page is on my watchlist, so you don't have to worry about me missing your replies. In any case, I didn't see what you did as nitpicking, I just want to get it right because I'm not too hot on citing sources. I've made an edit to the article - I've combined the overall figures from the Philippine, US, and Canadian censuses to get 75M. 73.7M (96.4% of the Philippine population in 2000) from the Philippines plus 1.2M from US and 119K from Canada. BTW, were you able to locate those Census CDs? It might be moot now since I recently read that the 2007 census results will be released this year. --Chris S. (talk) 07:19, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi again, Chris.
I am big in supporting sources, and my perception is that there is increasing sensitivity to this need in the WP editor/watchdog community. There is entirely too much "I heard this somewhere" information in WP.
I won't flag this at this point regarding your latest changes, but you should look at WP:SYN. After just a quick look, my first reaction is that you're in violation. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 09:39, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
This is new to me. So adding figures is considered original research? Should I instead list the countries separately? --Chris S. (talk) 06:47, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm.... The supporting sources you cited in support of the ≈ 75 million total speakers assertion are:
  • Educational Characteristics of the Filipinos. Philippines. Retrieved on 2007-05-16. (Results from the 2000 Census of Population and Housing, NSO)
  • US Census 2000
  • (Statistics Canada, 2006 Census Profile of Federal Electoral Districts (2003 Representation Order): Language, Mobility and Migration and Immigration and Citizenship. Ottawa, 2007, pp. 6-10.
The first one says that, from the RP 2000 census, the estimated RP population was 66.7 million and that "Nine out of 10" or 96.4 percent of those who were able to attend school can speak Tagalog. 90% of 66.7M is 60.03M. 96.4% of 66.7M is 64.3M.
The second one isn't a cite of an online source, but I see that Table 1 (Twenty Languages Most Frequently Spoken at Home by English Ability for the Population 5 Years and Over: 1990 and 2000) in Census 2000 Brief: Language Use and English-Speaking Ability: 2000 gives a figure of 1,224,241 Tagalog-speakers.
The third one also isn't a cite of an online source, but I see that Statistics Canada: Population by mother tongue, by census metropolitan area (2006 Census) lists 235,615 persons reporting Tagalog as their mother tongue.
It's probably not proper to add two figures from 2000 and one from 2006 together, but let's do it anyhow: 64,300,000 (RP 2000) + 1,224,241 (US 2000) + 235,615 (Canada 2006) gives 65,759,856.
The three sources I've discussed above, taken in combination, might be considered to support an assertion that the total number of Tagalog speakers exceeds 65 million. As I read WP:SYN, separate sources are not supposed to be combined in this manner in order to support an assertion. However, if it were me, I would probably think of WP:IAR and WP:IAR? and cite those sources to support that assertion. If I did that (and I have done similar things) I wouldn't be suprised to be reverted (as I sometimes have been). -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I misread then. The figure I got was based on the fact that the population of the Philippines was 76.5M in 2000 - 96.4% would be 73.74M. I will make that change accordingly. I took a look at WP:SYN and I do not believe that it applies to adding statistics especially when I will make light of the breakdown in the body of the article itself. Even if they do come from different time periods, the figure I have is still an approximation. --Chris S. (talk) 02:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wiseman hypothesis and Genesis article

That the Wiseman hypothesis is pseudo-scholarship is a fact, not a point of view - rather like the world being round. It's never mentioned in the scholarly literature, never cited in scholarly books, is simply ignored by scholars. Perhaps there's a vast conspiracy to never mention Wiseman, but I don't think so. The definition of "scholarly" I'm using includes all those who hold teaching/research positions in major seminaries and universities, and who publish in scholarly journals (Journal of Biblical Studies, for example) - research and publication (in peer-reviewed outlets) is the sine qua non of scholarship. The reason it's ignored is that it ignors over 200 years of research - if Wiseman wants the scholarly community to accept his idea that Moses had clay tablets available detailing the contents of Genesis, then he has to begin by convincing the scholarly community that the existing theories on how Genesis came to be written are incomplete. He will have to convince them, for example, that the author of Genesis 1-11 wasn't taking Babylonian myths and inverting them to show that Yahweh was greater than the gods of Babylon, he'll have to show that people like Gunkel and Noth were wrong in their ideas on the Patriarchal stories, and much more. He does none of this. So this is why he's ignored - he ignores 200 years of scholarship, and advances ideas that are already disproven. This makes his work pseudo-scholarship. This is why I dfon't think the Wiseman hypothesis belongs in a scholarly article on Genesis. (Are you really from Boracay?) PiCo (talk) 12:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have the expertise in this area to discuss this in any depth. However it seems to me that, if what you say is the case, then the existence of this scholarship consensus considering the Wiseman hypothesis to be silly should be pointed up (as I said elsewhere) in the Wiseman hypothesis article. I'm nonreligious myself, so the argument is a matter of only passing interest for me. However, the apparent scholarly disagreement about this not being made apparent to readers of WP articles touching on the area does trouble me.
For me, this is a side-issue. I was looking at an article which referred to an article which referred to the article from whence this user page discussion came, and I got to the Wiseman hypothesis from a google search I did looking for more information about something in that article. I saw that there was a WP article on it, and wondered why this apparently article-worthy related topic had not been mentioned in that clearly-related article.
I'm writing this from Boracay. I've lived here since 1996. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 13:29, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I'll leave it to someone else to edit the Wiseman hypothesis article - it's the kind of thing that attracts very committed editors, yet it's not so important that I want to spend time wrestling with them. Boracay is beautiful, or so I hear. Phnom Penh is not beautiful, but it's interesting. (Incidentally, thanks for providing all those refs to bible verses for the Genesis article - much appreciated). PiCo (talk) 04:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the table, Boracay Bill. I'm probably not going to come by this talk page again, but here are my thoughts on the issue. Wikipedia doesn't actually operate on a policy of truth, but rather on one of "verifiability" and popularity. The Wiseman hypothesis could very well be true, and even have all the evidence and logic on its side, but if there are no "significant" scholars who adhere to it, then it cannot be given serious weight on Wikipedia. On the other hand, the Wiseman hypothesis can also be completely fraudulent, but it seems that Wikipedia policy does not allow for that to be stated without the same requirements, as has been discussed on the article talk page. Anyway, I'm getting rather tired of the extremely rude remarks by some who continually equate literalist Christians with flat-earthers. My final comment is that the scholars who advocate Genesis being derived from Babylonian traditions are acting upon faith that the book of Genesis is of human making. This comment is no doubt going to ruffle some feathers, or perhaps just draw mocking laughter, but it's a fact. I'll be on my way. --Zephyr Axiom (talk) 18:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Filipino Veterans Fairness Act

The message was not meant to offend. I only wished to point out that the original title was the accurate one, and that it had been mistakenly changed when the refrences were reformated. Sorry about any misunderstanding. F-451 (talk) 05:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] oops

Wtmitchell, you just overwrote a bunch of stuff at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources -- would you mind undoing & redoing your cmt? --Lquilter (talk) 23:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Short footnotes with "Reference" section

Thanks for responding to my questions in Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Short footnotes with "Reference" section. I have tried out your suggestions in User: Gerry Ashton/Harvard citation and have extended them slightly in User: Gerry Ashton/Note citation. They seem to work quite well, but if this were to be done more widely, we would have to find a way to educate users, because the methods are intimidating at first glance. If you care to glance at my examples to see if I did what you intended, your comments would be welcome. (The large vertical spaces in my examples are so I can easily see if the links are taking me where I want them to.)

Also, your response didn't address the fact that you suggested using the Citation template in the reference list, but most style guides suggest using periods to separate reference elements, while the Citation template uses commas. Is it actually necessary to use the Citation template, or would Cite book, Cite journal, etc. work just as well? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 07:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

{{Cite book}} supports a ref= (lowercase 'r') parameter. Some other {{Cite ...}} templates support a similar parameter and some don't. Support for this may or may not be documented -- you might need to look at the template source code to find it. I tend to use {{Citation}} because it is flexible enough to use for citing books, journals, web pages, newspapers, chapters in books, patents, and other stuff and does support an ID'd <CITE> tag. If the citation formats produced by the various templates are ever regularized, the regularization will apply to all of my template-based citations, while hand-formatted citations which aren't in step with the regularization will stay out of step. It's pretty easy to create formatting templates similar to existing ones but with a couple of minor formatting changes, but we've got too many alternative templates to do the same job in twenty slightly-different ways as it is. It might not be too difficult to modify {{Citation}} (IMO the most generally useful one) to take an additional optional argument like style=CMS to set items like separator chars according to a particular style. Changing the order of the various citation components according to various style guides would likely be more difficult.
I expect to run into a problem myself at some point with features missing from {{Cite ...}} and {{Citation}}. {{Citation}} provides good support for citing chapters in a book which {{Cite book}} lacks. {{Cite web}} provides good support for citing web pages which have gone dead but which have copies available in online archives which {{Citation}} and {{Cite book}} lack. examples:
That's all well and good, but when I run into a book with dead URLs for its online info and for online chapter text and with the dead link content available from an archive, I'm going to need to figure out a way to deal with that. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 08:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
One other thing
<ref>{{Ref harvard|Castro|Castro 1998:45|1998|noid=noid}}</ref>
produces approximately the same stuff in the <References /> list as
<ref>([[#CITECastro1998|Castro 1998:45]])</ref>
( (Castro 1998:45) vs. (Castro 1998:45) ), except that it produces a link to Endnote_Castro1998 instead of CITECastro1998, and that might be a bit less cryptic and is susceptible to citation format regularization via template regularization if such a thing ever occurs. If you do use that, please do not leave out the noid=noid parameter as that avoids a generally benign but nonetheless illegal (x)html error. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 12:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I made a copy of this thread off of my user page for future reference. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Treaty of Tripoli

The author and his background is not "dubious". A quick search of the book could have given you this: [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ottava Rima (talk • contribs) 04:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bugzilla bug 12796

Hi Bill, Just to be clear, so you could use <ref>s like this, yes?

The Sun is pretty big,<ref name=Miller2005 /> but the Moon is not so big.<ref name=Brown2006 />

== References ==
{{reflist}}

<ref decl=Brown2006>Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).</ref>
<ref decl=Miller2005>Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.</ref>

--SallyScot (talk) 21:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The reason I ask about this is because I believe it'll relate to the rendered display order of the footnotes.

If the new 'invisible' content bearing named references are included a Reference section following the article body text, then they'll render (via <references /> or {{reflist}}) in the order that their associated <ref name=AuthorDate /> instances appear in the article body text.

If the new 'invisible' content bearing named references are included preceding the article body text, then they'll render in that order. The point being that the order could then be different to the order that their associated <ref name=AuthorDate /> instances appear in the article body text.

One could make an argument for ordering them alphabetically by author name for example, so that they appear that way in the References section. In which case the article's superscripted reference numbers will appear out of sequence. That may be fine and dandy, but I just wondered what your view on it was.

Cheers, --SallyScot (talk) 22:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi SallyScott.
Yes.
The changes are intended to be completely backwards compatible with current wikitext.
cite.php currently collects article references in the order they are encountered, and expands them in that order. It will continue to do that if this change is implemented except that the order in question could be the editor-chosen order of invisible declaration early in the wikitext -- with un-numbered headers optionally inserted at arbitrary points in the expanded references.
Perhaps the test+demo wikitext submitted with the bug and the code to implement it will help make this clear:
<!--
     Footnotes and footnote headers are pre-declared in a block ahead of the article prose,
     Note that these declarations are invisible.
     That is, no visible links (e.g., <sup<[1]</sup>) appear for them.
     Note that refs are expanded in the References section in their declaration order here.
-->
<ref head>Notice that:
* These are footnotes are listed in the editor-controllable order of their declaration, not in the order in which their references were encountered in the article prose.
* The footnote declarations at the head of the wikitext appear in the '''References''' section, not above the article prose.
* Arbitrary information such as this can be inserted above, below, and between numbered footnotes.
</ref>
<ref head>'''A header such as this might be inserted above a block of related footnotes'''</ref>
<ref decl=one>this is the first reference defined</ref>
<ref decl=two>this is the second reference defined</ref>
<ref head>'''A header such as this might be inserted above some other block of related footnotes'''</ref>
<ref decl=three>this is the third reference defined</ref>
<ref decl=four>this is the fourth reference defined</ref>
<ref decl=five>this is the fifth reference defined</ref>
<ref head>'''A header such as this might be inserted above yet another block of related footnotes'''</ref>
<ref decl=six>this is the sixth reference defined</ref>
<ref decl=seven>This is an orphan footnote — one which is never referenced in the article prose. (this could be handled as an error)</ref>
<ref head>'''This is some arbitrary text placed at the end of the footnote declaration block'''</ref>
<!-- that ends the footnote declarations -->

This is a demonstration test case for a proposed cite.php extension coded by wikipedia user Wtmitchell.  The explanatory text which follows is laden with a number of arbitrary footnote references in order to demonstrate the functionality added by this extension.

The implemented extensions are intended to be entirely backwards compatible with existing wikitext, and to enhance functionality as follows:
*Allow <Ref>...</Ref> declarations outside of the article prose, thus reducing editorial clutter inside the prose.<ref name=six />  Support for a ''decl=whatever'' parameter is added for this. Refs can be invisibly declared in a block using <ref decl=whatever>...</ref>, with all the clutter represented by "..." being removed from the article prose. Only minimal clutter (e.g., <Ref name=whatever />) would need to be placed inline in the article prose.
*Allow editorial control over the order in which Refs are expanded when the <References /> tag is encountered.<ref name=four /> Editors would exercise this control by placing the block of invisibly declared footnotes, grouped and ordered as desired, early in the wikitext — ahead of the first occurrence of a Ref tag in the visible article prose.<ref name=six /><Ref name=one /> Cite.php will have stacked the Refs in the footnote declaration block in the order they were encountered, and they will be expanded in that order.<Ref name=five />
*Allow anonymous subheaders to appear in the list of expanded references.  Support for a ''head'' parameter is added for this.  Subheaders can be invisibly declared in the invisible block of declared Refs as <Ref head>...</Ref>, and will appear in the expanded references list at the point where they were declared.<ref name=two />
Named and anonymous Refs can appear inline in article prose,<ref>This is an anonymous footnote placed inside the article prose</ref><ref name="probable error">This is a named footnote which first appeared within the article prose</ref> but placing them in the article prose instead of within the footnote/citation declaration block is probably an editorial error.<ref name=three />

==References==
<references/>
To get a rough idea of how that would render, paste it into a sandbox, change each "<ref name>" to "<ref>" and replace each "decl" with "name", and preview it. With those changes and using the current cite.php, the declarations won't be invisible and the headers in the References section won't be un-numbered, but it should give you an idea of how it'll render with the cite.php changes to implement bug 12796. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Little context in 155.144.251.120

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on 155.144.251.120, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because 155.144.251.120 is very short providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles.

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting 155.144.251.120, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. To see the user who deleted the page, click here CSDWarnBot (talk) 06:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please vote!

Hi! Please join us here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Lianga13#Bingo.21

Thank so much!

Angelo De La Paz (talk) 12:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tagalog language

I responded to your response at Talk:Tagalog language. --Kakofonous (talk) 00:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Antonio Taguba

May I ask why you reverted my assessment? The article is a part of a worklist in WP:PINOY.--Lenticel (talk) 13:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll revert for now until you have an explanation in my talkpage. --Lenticel (talk) 13:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Here and this is the diff. See the history. --Lenticel (talk) 15:29, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

So its was just a Twinkle misfire. I just want to clear things up but I think were okay since the problem is fixed.--Lenticel (talk) 23:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How to create ICU page when template has been deleted?

How do I create an ICU page as outlined in - To admit an article to ICU, when the template - Wikipedia:Intensive Care Unit/Article name, has been deleted? I want to formally admit 2 articles in Category:Articles placed in the Wikipedia Intensive Care Unit, Allen Joines and Senang Hati Foundation Kathleen.wright5 13:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you!

Thank you very much! I am new to editing and your corrections really helped me a lot in editing the article on the Ivatan language. If you still see any mistakes on my work, please tell me and I would really appreciate it.

--Ugar001 (talk) 07:55, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article importance scale for WikiProject Equine

Hello. WikiProject Equine is discussing an article importance scale here. Your POV would be appreciated. --Una Smith (talk) 16:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ummm

Why on earth did you revert my removal of vandalism from Wikipedia:Reliable sources and call it vandalism?[1] Did you not look at what he had done? Collectonian (talk) 22:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of your failed verification

I just want to inform you that I removed your failed verification tag on Policies, activities and history of the Philippines in Spratly Islands. The reference cited said:

When the Philippines abandoned Pugad Island in the 1980s, Vietnam took over with lightning speed and has since held on to it.

I added the ref tag on the first paragraph because the reference did not elaborate further on how the invasion happened. The reference said "it was abandoned" and this does not go in conflict with what the subsection tells ("soldiers left for the b-day party"). Also it said Vietnam "took over." Again, it does not go against the "invasion." The October 1993 date you're saying is for the lighthouse. Please read carefully the entries in Spratly Islands. The numerous edits on the listing have compromised the chronological order of events in that entry. Thanks. eStaRapapax xapaparatse! exsatpaarpa! 12:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. I apparently missed that when checking the cite. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Boomerangs in Space!"

(somehow I imagine a large theatrical voice (with echo effect))

That reference you gave actually did mention "inside a pressurized module of the ISS" so it had the fact that air was involved. Thank you. Shenme (talk) 04:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Philippine-American war

Hi, thanks for linking to User:Wtmitchell/Work1. I hope you don't mind that I used a little from it (US soldiers shooting drunks) in the relevant Phil-Am war article. Credited you in the edit comment. Uthanc (talk) 10:57, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again. I expanded the "First shots" section to include the American "provocation" account (fairness/neutrality above all), but isn't it only fair to note he seems to contradict the gunman himself? Uthanc (talk) 15:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Tagalog Wikipedia

Tagalog Wikipedia Campaign March 2008!

Tagalog Wikipedia is campaigning for your participation in writing, editing, assessing and translating articles!
The purpose of this campaign is to expand and improve articles at Tagalog Wikipedia. Your participation will be highly appreciated by the community.

There are over 16,000 articles to view, read, review, edit, and expand, so please visit the Wikipedia Café and the WikiProject Philippines at Tagalog Wikipedia to help out!

The campaign includes seeking your assistance in:

Or just anything you can do to help us just like what you are doing there at the English Wikipedia.

Thank you in advance and regards, Tagalog Wikipedia Community

Finally, Wikipedia is the 7th most visited site in the Philippines. Then why is it that the Tagalog Wikipedia, the Wikipedia in your own language remains unknown to most of the Filipinos? The mission of this campaign is to change that. Will you join us?

[edit] Buddhist numbers in Japan

I am wondering that why you always deleting higher Buddhist estimates although it has got reliable citation given [2] and please read its introdution again (not Buddhism only) and I think you could read this line [3]:

"...Shintoism and Buddhism are not mutually exclusive and most Shinto and Buddhist believers follow both faiths..."

And there is no problem with me if in 1 country could contain 2-3 various estimates (lowest, highest); it's suitable for NPOV. Now do you understand? I only want many people know about East Asian culture and custom as much as better because our culture is totally different to Western culture; and I know that about 90% Westerners don't know or know wrong about East Asian culture and religions. Do you believe it or not? 25% in over 300 million Americans believe that Earth is the center of universe (OMG)!!! Best regard!

Angelo De La Paz (talk) 06:43, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


  • But mostly Japanese people and I (a East Asian mix) don't think so because we respect all our traditional religions [4][5] but as you can see that Buddhism and Ancestor Worship are two most common religions in mostly East Asian countries. I think you should send your questions about East Asian culture to User:Esimal. Chinese and Vietnamese people worship the mixture of Buddhism-taoism-Confucianism; Koreans worship Buddhism-Shamanism under Confucian influence; Japanese people worship Buddhism-Shinto, etc...See?Shinto can not mix with Confucianism or Korean Shamanism. Don't like mostly other religions, Buddhism has taught you shouldn't leave your parent religion and convert to Buddhism [6]; that is why in this USA, many Jews still keep their original Judaism but practice Buddhist teachings (see Jewish Buddhist). My mother cousins (mostly official Catholics) who are living in the Philippines are go to church every Sunday and go to pagoda few times a year; and they don't worship Jesus Christ and Mother Maria alone but with Great Buddha, Guan Yin and other Chinese deities with the Ancestor Altar [7]. In the latest report (March 2008) of BBC News (Vietnamese) has confirmed there are 1.5 billion Buddhists (nominal) around the World [8] (So if you don't believe it, you could ask User:Blnguyen who is a Vietnamese admin for the translation). And as you can see that Buddhism is always the most important material of "religious union" (as similar as European Union or the relationship between Canada and USA...no border, you could read East Asian Buddhism; living together in the respect, friendship and complemented each other). I know you are one of mostly Westerners who think that is really strange and difficult to understand but with us Asians, that is very beautiful, familiar and different...because it's our culture, our character and our pride. Buddhism didn't and never destroy any tradiitonal culture or nice custom and that is why in every country has various Buddhist sects as Chinese Buddhism, Vietnamese Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism, Korean Buddhism, etc with different architecture (you can know the national origin of a pagoda or a temple from the first sight) and so much more. And I've learned Buddhism (mostly East Asian region) in many years and because I want to improve my original background. I think it could help! Be happy!

Angelo De La Paz (talk) 12:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Angelo, I don't have a POV axe to grind here either regarding Buddhism or regarding Japanese people. The Axe which I am attempting to grind regards WP:V. The article edit which sparked this discussion involved the Japan entry in the Buddhism by country article. Currently, that entry asserts that 44% - 84% of the population of Japan are Buddhists, citing (1) the CIA Factbook] and (2) the US DOS 2006 IRF Report to support this assertion.
(1) says that 84% "observe both Shinto and Buddhist" That could be taken as support for the 84% figure, but I would guess that it is probably an oversimplification.
(2) says, in part, ". While academics estimated that 20 to 30 percent of adults actively practiced a faith, the Agency for Cultural Affairs reported in 2004 that 213,826,661 citizens claimed a religion. That number, which is nearly twice Japan's population, reflected many citizens' affiliation with multiple religions, particularly Shintoism and Buddhism. Many citizens practiced both Buddhist and Shinto rites. Furthermore, membership statistics kept by the agency were based on self-reports from various religious organizations." (emphasis added) OK, we're talking about a survey where responses amounted to double the country's population, which leads me to conclude that the survey is of doubtful reliability.
(2) also says "Of citizens who claimed a faith, 51 percent were Shinto, 44 percent were Buddhist.", and says, "Shintoism and Buddhism are not mutually exclusive and most Shinto and Buddhist believers follow both faiths." OK, that might be taken as support for the 44% figure, but we're not talking here about 44% of the country's population, we're talking about 44% of "nearly twice Japan's population".
(2) also says, "Shintoism and Buddhism are not mutually exclusive and most Shinto and Buddhist believers follow both faiths." I have no problem with that, but it does not follow from that that all Shinto practitioners also practice Buddhism. For purposes of the Buddhism by country article, we're concerned only with Buddhism practitioners.
Boiled down to essentials, I think the figures are very shakey and the sources cited to support them do not support those figures with any solidity at all. The article in question here sports a {{disputed}} tag (not surprising, in light of the foregoing), and its lead sentence reads, "Obtaining exact numbers of practicing Buddhists can be difficult and may be reliant on the definition used." — admitting from the get-go that figures in the article are probably unreliable and sources cited are probably shakey.
I do not intend to contest this specific issue further with you. I may or may not revisit it as the article in question attracts my attention by popping upon my watchlist. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:03, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry

I forgot to add that policy shortcut back to WP:EP. Well, it isn't so much I forgot as the servers went down and I had to leave before they came back up. Hiding T 12:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Oops, I hit the wrong Twinkle button

Sorry about that, it probably labeled you as a vandal in the edit summary. Anyway, you accidentally blanked all or a large part of WT:CITE, at least I'm assuming it was an accident. Carry on :) - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gini coefficient

"2500, 250, 250, 250, 250, 250" (income by families) is not "an economy with one wealthy household that has half the total income and the rest of the households share the other half equally" - it is "an economy with one wealthy household that has two thirds of the total income and the rest of the households share the remaining third equally" (the total income is 3750 = 2500 + 5*250; 2500 is 2/3 of 3750)--83.132.77.218 (talk) 23:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] {{shortcut}} anchor dropping

Hi Wtmitchell/Boracay Bill. I am adding your suggestion to drop anchors to the new version of the {{shortcut}} template. See Template talk:Shortcut. --David Göthberg (talk) 17:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Consistency through the timespace continuum and all that

Hello. It is one of my pet peeves that editors of various continents and countries reflexively change words to their individually preferred spellings. Trust me, I'm familiar with MOS#Consistency within articles.

First, let's consider the article and its subject, Boomerangs. Most popularly associated with Australia, colonized by the English, thus quite likely to use British English spellings, such as, say, 'metre'. So I can't help but think that a British English spelling is going to be more natural to the article.

Second, let's consider what is actually used in the article. Currently, after your revert, we have 3 'meters' and 5 'metres', the original edit and your revert having changed 2 'metres' to 'meters'.

If we go back farther in time, say to your vandalism revert of 04:55, 21 March 2008, we find the numbers, 1 for 'meter' and 7 for 'metre'.

So I'd say that 'metre' was the 'correct' usage for this article. Did you get the from/to direction you meant to do in your recent revert? Or was it late in the day for you like it has been for me when I've reverted to the "tracie has too much hair! hahaha" version of a page? :-) Shenme (talk) 04:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Or like this revert? :-O   (User:Catgut correctly got back to the correct prior-to-series-of-vandalisms version in next try) Shenme (talk) 04:26, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi Shenme. You seem to be arguing that the article ought to use British spelling because, well, Boomerangs bring to mind Australia, and Australia is associated with Britain. WP:MOS#National varieties of English does provide some guidance regarding that, and my take on it is the national tie here is not strong enough to make that argument. You then count instances of meter vs. metre. Admittedly, I had not done this prior to my change at issue here — I was blitzing through my watchlist and took your edit summary (something like: "ought to be able to say metre in an article about Australia") as an indication that the change I reverted was the exception rather than the rule in the article. I count 3 vs. 7 in favor (in favour?) of metre in the article as it currently stands. I really don't give a fig whether the article uses U.S., British, or Australian spelling conventions, but it ought to be consistent. I took a quick read through the article and the only other American vs. British spelling difference which jumped off the page at me was centre vs. center (the article uses centre), though I may have missed some others. I'm not sure whether the currently spelled (oops — make that "spelt") "organize" and "maximize" ought to be "organise" and "maximise" in British spelling, for example. Another item which jumped off the page at me was "2.5 to 4 ounces" — per WP:UNITS, if this article is to be considered Australian-centric, this should probably read something like "70 to 110 grams" and the mention of yards in "yard/metre" should probably be excised. I'll leave it to you to make whatever revisions you feel are appropriate. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:13, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Susan

Thanks Bill, sorry, im not exactly sure how to fix this reference tags, do You think You may kindly give a better explanation, thnks. As far as copying a sentance word for word, this stems from a now Banned user who deleted everything that wasnt copied for word as part of his harrasment and stalking against me. He insisted everything from an article must be copied word for word. In a few months time his ban will be up and i have no doubt the whole matter will start again and end back up in arbitration again. Kind RegardsSusanbryce (talk) 15:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, just noticed one of the tags you tidied up in the article and i think i understand now, thankyouSusanbryce (talk) 15:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Infobox Islands

I left a recommendation on the talk page for that template. 67.86.73.252 (talk) 23:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] List of official languages by state

HI Wtmitchell,

Thank you for your edits to List of official languages by state, however I am in the process of clarifing this page by cleaning it up and adding flagicons. Please edit away as you see fit, but be careful not to undue the edits I am making to the flagicons.

Much thanks and best wishes --RobNS 03:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I did have one conflict with you after you reached M. I don't think I trashed anything. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Koreans in the Philippines

I get the feeling that the writer of that press release got his information from Wikipedia, given how closely the wording matches what we already had there for nearly a year. E.g. we're basically citing ourselves --- so it might not be the best source for stronger verification. Any thoughts? Cheers, cab (talk) 11:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I confess to having the same nagging thought. The addition of the source citation here was a fallout of this related change to another article, where an unsupported figure of 92,000 was changed by an anon to an unsupported figure of 72,000. The choices as I see them are (1) remove the supporting cites from both articles as suspected self-pub, (2) possibly also remove the population figures as unsupported, or (3) let the cites and the figures stand, hoping that someone who has access to more solid info from a better supporting source will improve the situation. I incline towards (3), but have no strong feelings about this. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 22:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Constitution of the Philippines

Do you have some more inline citation for this article? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 03:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Not offhand. Did you have something specific in mind? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of Philippine-related topics

I can see the logic of PRODding List of Philippine-related topics, but it's part of a set for all countries. I de-prodded that article but would have no objection if you want to propose all members of Category:Lists of topics by country at WP:AFD. - Fayenatic (talk) 21:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Orphaned ref's

Hello Bill, with respect to this comment, can you give me a few examples of of articles with orphaned ref's? I have some client software that searches article history for strings, I'd like to see how well it would handle the problem you mention. Thanks. Franamax (talk) 22:16, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I haven't kept a log, but this edit as of 09:52, December 23, 2007 is one example of where I fixed an instance of this problem. Revision as of 21:45, September 10, 2007 had trashed a Ref named hoophall, resulting in a "Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named hoophall" error message in the References section. I stumbled on this 3+ months later and fixed it. I approach these by going back in large steps until I find the trashed or deleted named Ref, then forward in smaller steps until the problem reappears, then doing a sort-of binary search to find the edit which trashed or deleted the Ref declaration. That's pretty tedious. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes it is tedious, that's why I wrote the program :) I entered the article name, fetched the history, did a search for "<ref name=hoophall" and found where it first appeared. Then I copied a larger piece of the text "<ref name=hoophall>[http://www.hoophall" and searched for its last occurence, same place you found it. Elapsed time 59 seconds, three copy-pastes and 6 mouse-clicks. Easy as pie! Let me know if you want anything like that chased down in future, or if you use Windows, I can give you a copy of the software. Franamax (talk) 23:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I'd like to get a copy of that. You could email me a copy at <redacted>, or just let me know a download location. For years I was a determined anti-MS bigot, ran Debian Linux and reluctantly kept Windows as alternative OS just-in-case. I gave that up on my first Linux upgrade attempt after moving to the RP and now run Win-XP. My unix/Linux skills are probably so rusty by now that I'd have to do a lot of relearning if I triedto move back. Cheers, -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I still am a determined anti-MS bigot and I hate their Visual C++ compiler too, but it's what I have, so it's what I use :( I dispute that you would have any problem going back to unix, it's like riding a bicycle or putting on an old flannel jacket. Anyway, I'll send you the program. Franamax (talk) 00:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Sign me up for that software too, if possible, via my wikipedia email. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 03:53, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Map of Beer Consumption

Just click on the "upload a new version of the file" link, and fill in the upload form that appears. It should be the same as uploading a new file, but make sure you don't change the address in the "destination filename" field. Laïka 11:24, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DANKOO MULTIPASS

Thanks for fixing my attempted betterment of Alexander Haig‎. First time I've messed with named reftags in a while, but I think I see what I did wrong. Bravo! /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 03:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem wasn't in the named reftag, the problem was in the parameters to {{cite web}}. The required "url=" was missing just prior to the URL itself. I added that. Cheers. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Englog?

Kindly point out where exactly I "infused" Tagalog words or structures into this sentence fragment: "conducted an ocular inspection" --Edward Sandstig (talk) 13:58, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Relating to this edit, I guess. — I've only encountered the "conducted an ocular inspection" usage in the Philippines; simply "inspected" is more usual usage in American english (not that American english is somehow "better" than what I might call Filipino english — see WP:ENGVAR). There are a number of English language quirks like this which seem to be peculiar to the Philippines (e.g., "I will be the one who will" vs. "I will"). Perhaps it's not Tagalog-related, though I've always guessed that it is. I probably mentioned Englog because I knew that there was an article on that, and that there wasn't one on Filipino english. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:02, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
There's an article on Philippine English, and although it's true that "conduct an ocular inspection" is a lot more common in that variant, it's also used by non-Filipinos: [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Personally, I prefer "conduct an inspection" over "make an inspection" which seems to be more common in American English.[18] That's personal preference though. As to "I will be the one who will", maybe this can be attributed to songs. It's unusually wordy, but we can blame that on Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder.[19] --Edward Sandstig (talk) 19:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
My understanding is that "I will be the one who will" vs. "I will" in Philippine english comes from the Tagalog "ako na lang", but I'm not a Tagalog speaker, so that's second-hand (from here). See recently added info & suggestion at Talk:Philippine_English#Usage. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:53, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Citing sources/Example edits for different methods

Saw your edit to subject page. I infer that I probably made a mess with my immediately-preceeding edit to add a subsection, and that you cleaned up my mess. Thanks. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. No problem Bill. Good to have the Harvnb/Citation example included anyway. --SallyScot (talk) 14:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Meatbot. Love it!

I'd support making a project page for it.Somedumbyankee (talk) 03:11, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The citation style is a side show

With reference to your comment in the section Talk:Allied war crimes during World War II#Notes and refs "This isn't the proper forum for a discussion of likes and dislikes re templated vs. hand-formated cites." it is not strictly true, see WP:CITE#HOW. Now I am sure we can reach a compromise as there is a lot more wrong with the article than pedantry over the citation style which is a side show. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:34, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

That rushed comment sounded more contentious than I intended. Some people strongly favor templated citations, some strongly favor hand-crafted cites. Discussions about that are usually, IMO, better undertaken on WT:CITE or on a user talk page rather than on the talk page of a particular article. The WP:CITE guideline says not to change from one style to the other in a particular article against consensus. If I do the work, I'd use templated cites, and I wanted to establish in advance that that's OK rather than risk having complaints about not having established consensus re templated cites surface later. If there is a firm consensus for hand-formated cites in that article, I'd prefer that someone else work with it. Regarding the work I foresee, I'd rename the References section as Notes, create an empty References section, then go through the Notes section converting References seen there to Author-date style using {{Harvnb}} or {{Harvcolnb}} and moving full-reference information to forward-linked entries in the new references section using {{Citation}} items, similar to the WP:CITE/Example edits for different methods#Shortened notes with {{Harvnb}} and {{Citation}} links example except with page numbers in the footnoted author-date cites where applicable. Some difficulties would no doubt come up in this process, which I'd handle on a case-by-case basis. I've got other work to do, so I've back-burnered this. If there's no objection, and that lack of objection is expressed on the article's talk page, I'll go forward on it as time allows. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Noah's Ark

Taiwanboi has asked for a vote on Noah's Ark. As a recent editor you might like to be involved. PiCo (talk) 03:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)