User talk:Mackensen/Archive4

No
Solicitation

Mackensenarchiv

Spammers: I would like for this page to stay reasonably clean. If you have business with me, feel free to leave a comment, else please move on. Please ignore the gigantic eye in the corner with the pump-action shotgun.

Unsigned messages will be ignored. You can sign your messages with four tildes (~~~~). I reserve the right to disruptively eliminate gigantic blobs of wiki-markup from signatures on a whim if I think they're cluttering up my talk page.

Hey there. I notice you closed the discussion Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Ashlee Simpson U.S. tour, 2005 with a "delete" decision, but didn't delete the article. Just wondering if it slipped through the cracks, or if there was a reason. Joyous 19:47, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

Lord Denning

There is a move to rename the article on Lord Denning see:Talk:Alfred Denning, Baron Denning. Philip Baird Shearer 09:17, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Lord Parmoor

Thanks for your comment. I felt that as a Member of Parliament, he would be better categorised by his surname as he was known by that name whilst in the Commons. It also leaves him next to his son in the category. Parmoor is unusual as his career continued fairly equally after his ennoblement. Certainly in cases like Sidney Webb, it is better for categorisation under his better-known surname, whereas Michael Ancram is better off under his title (Ancram) rather than his surname (Kerr). I guess I feel that categories should reflect common usage and left most of categories for Parmoor alone. Let me know if you disagree. Thanks. Mtiedemann 09:33, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

German Empire

The German Empire (Deutsches Reich) did not ressolve in 1918 but in 1945.

Michael Howard

Hi, I notice you reverted an anon's edit to this article, which described Howard as a parliamentary candidate rather than an MP. However, the anon is quite right - since the dissolution of Parliament two weeks ago there are no Members, and there won't be until the election results are declared. It's pointless going through all the entries for the outgoing Parliament's members changing them to "candidate", since most will have to be changed back in two weeks' time, but if someone does make the change they should be left until May 6th. -- Arwel 17:20, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm only really here on a trial run, though, to see if I can cope with WP without tearing my hair out. :-) Proteus (Talk) 17:15, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thinking-East.Net

I'm the writer for the Thinking-East.Net article. Should I remove the link to the Forum page? My e-mail: nyspaceman at writing.com

Thanks for the quick reply

I deleted all the URLs and the more obviously promotional material. I didn't mean for it to come off like that, but in retrospect you fellows are correct. A little too much enthusiasm. ;) So, check it out now, see what you think. NYspaceman 05:39, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

historians working on digital projects

I’m an historian working at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University (http://chnm.gmu.edu/) and we are very interested in digital historical works, including people writing history on Wikipedia. We’d like to talk to people about their experiences working on articles in Wikipedia, in connection with a larger project on the history of the free and open source software movement. Would you be willing to talk with us about your involvement, either by phone, a/v chat, IM, or email? This could be as lengthy or brief a conversation as you wish.

Thanks for your consideration.

Joan Fragaszy

jfragasz_at_gmu.edu

Countess of Windermere

Thanks. Will keep an eye out.

James F. (talk) 20:16, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

VfD

Actually, there's one left, and you're welcome to it! I'd call it a transwiki, but for now I'm calling it a night. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 04:53, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Mackensen

For supporting my (successful) RfA! I greatly value your vote, & comment which spoke of my personal integrity; the feeling is more than mutual. And thank you so much for being there and stepping up to set the record straight wrt to Shorne when my conduct throughout that incident was raised into question during the RfA. Cordially & sincerely yours, El_C 00:43, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

UL GSoc Page/VfD

Thanks for making a decision on this, and thanks for the appropriate merge with the UL page. I think it wasn't really suitbale to have a whole page on one society at this point in time, especially when there's so little in comparison on UL and practially nothing on the UL Students' Union. Hopefully I'm going to help improve on those, though, or at least annoy people to write stuff. Regards, Zilog Jones 00:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Survey on Prefixed-Styles

Since you are one of the people currently voting only a "First choice" I am hoping to encourage you to vote a full set of preferences in the ongoing survey before May 14, in order to prevent a deadlock which will result in no consensus. Whig 13:06, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Kissinger indictment

While I think it's true that Kissinger has not been indicted, he is wanted for questioning in more than one European country. Your version strongly implies that the allegations against him are not official. They actually are, and you should not bias the introduction, especially since the version I reverted to is the consensus version. Please consider returning the article to the previous version, which I will in any case revert to tomorrow. Grace Note 00:46, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is no suggestion whatsoever that he has been charged with anything. The text said that there were allegations of war crimes against him. No more, no less. Your version trivialises the opposition to Kissinger. His "critics" include the legal authorities in Belgium and Spain, who do not call him a "war criminal" but do suggest he has a case to answer. Hitchens wrote a book setting out his allegations. This is not a question of people's just saying "Oh, Kissinger is a war criminal" in the same way they do Bush or Rumsfeld. Please revert to the consensus version of the introduction. Grace Note 00:55, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've said what I have to say. Wherever you go in WP you find rightists trying to keep the truth out of the encyclopaedia. The most you can do is batter you guys into putting in neutered and muted, twisted versions of it, but the battering isn't much fun. What we end up with is almost nonsense but I suppose that's the point (in this case, that Kissinger hasn't been indicted is a statement addressed at editors who want to include the information, not at the reader). Ultimately, you care more about your POV than I do about mine, and you don't seem very amenable to reasoning. So edit the page to reflect it and I'll leave you in peace. Grace Note 03:33, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Euro-royal-stub

Hi - you wrote: While I appreciate the effort to disambiguate stubs, I object to the conflation of "royal" and "noble". They aren't the same thing and {{Euro-royal-stub}} shouldn't be referring to European nobility. If you have no serious objections, I'm going to move it to euro-noble-stub.

Please don't do this! There was a long debate at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria about the creation of this stub type, and it was decided that, since the two distinct types of article would be likely edited by the same group of editors, it makes sense to only have one stub. Stub templates, remember, are for the benefit of editors, not readers. Having two separate stubs will only mean that the same editors have to look in twice as many categories for articles to work on. The same reason is why building societies get "bank-stub", mountains on Mars get "crater-stub", and amphibians get "reptile-stub". It is not intended to indicate that the two things are the same, but is there merely as a help to editors. Furthermore, although there is a clear distinction in modern Europe between nobles and royalty,l this has not always been the case, and there could be a distinct grey area between the two categories. Oh, and if you do wish to make any changes, please clear them with the stub-storting project first (as is standard practice). Grutness...wha? 00:59, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My concern is that you don't seem to have asked any of us noble/royal/peerage people before going ahead with this scheme. I've also heard concerns about just what constitutes "Europe" (i.e. certain Kings of Jerusalem ought to qualify as European royalty). Also, the message at the bottom is simply incorrect (and grammatically vague). Monarchs aren't nobles, not always, and vice-versa. I really object to this conflation, and I don't think it's that great a hardship for editors to look through two categories instead of one.

Well, all right, but bring it up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria for discussion before making any wholesale changes. Europe is a vague term, with boundaries changing slightly throughout history, you're right, but the vagaries of moving boundaries are a problem with lots of stub categories, not just this one, and they have to be dealt with in much the same way. As to the wording, as I said at WP:WSS, i'm not happy with it and would welcome any improvements on it. One thing that you should note, though, is that editors who know the difference between royals and nobles will be taking items out of the two categories - stub sorters who don't necessarily know the difference will be putting items into them. You'll almost certainly get a huge number of stubs put into the wrong categories if you have two separate ones. And as I said, the conflation is largely for ease of editors rather than for distinct accuracy (as in an example I gave above - personally, I don't like giving frogs "reptile-stub", but it makes it easier for editors overall). This category is intended largely as a transitionary category anyway - our biggest single problem at WP:WSS is biography-stubs - there are over 10,000 of them. The euro-royal category is intended primarily as a way of removing pressure on the main category and also assessing where new categories can be formed (France-royal-stub looks very viable, for instance). Grutness...wha?

And apologies from me that my group ran foul of yours's policies! Balkanisation is inevitable in a project this big, sadly - there should be more inter-project liaison. Grutness...wha? 02:17, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

Please check out Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate, Slrubenstein | Talk 23:57, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Personal Attack by Jtdirl

Please do not restore personal attacks. Whig 06:34, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Whig

He seems to think he's the ultimate arbitrator of Wikipedia policy. Quite where he got that idea from is beyond me. I believe jguk is thinking of starting an RfC on him, though. His constant disruption of Wikipedia is bad enough, but clearly vandalising talk pages is not acceptable behaviour. I'm beginning to wonder if he's a previously banned user come back to haunt us. (No doubt he'll delete this reply as a "personal attack".) Proteus (Talk) 12:56, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed! Oh for a quiet life... Proteus (Talk) 13:18, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the compliment on the RfC Trödel|talk 23:50, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Germany

Mackensen, I've tried to discuss with Gidonb for one week on the Talk:Germany page (see there), but he has not even cared to reply to me. Should it not be time for me to ask protection of MY edits now?

Hi. I would like to inform you that I will start arbitration against User:Gidonb for wilfully vandalising the Germany page. I have enough evidence to prove it! - Heimdal 18:12, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've just read your post on my talk page, Mackensen. It all sounds very bureaucratic and complicated to have my edits protected, and I'll leave it be. I'm just asking that JUSTICE be done to me. Just for ONE TIME, Mackensen, because I'm sick and tired of being cornered and having to defend myself against people with no obvious goodwill. - Heimdal 18:24, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

fine, I won't unprotect again. have you at least protected 'blindly'? I was primarily objecting to the admin doing the last protection having reverted before protecting, making him an involved party. Protections over edit wars should go via WP:RP, with uninvolved admins doing the actual protecting. dab (ᛏ) 18:35, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Mackensen. Just for the record, as a longtime contributor to Wikipedia (and being of German descent myself), my concern is with the quality and neutrality of this article and other articles on Wikipedia. I have introduced the holocaust and parallel genocides to this page and ever since Heimdal tries to to delete and delute negative events in Germany's history. I have made many unrelated contributions to this page. There are pages and pages of complaints about Heimdal's rude conduct. There is no need to answer this posting, and I will not answer subsequent allegations by Heimdal, I just wanted to share my perspective with you. I understand this is not the best page for discussing Germany, I just wanted to attach a minimal response to Heimdal's accusations here. Regards, gidonb 18:48, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

look, I'm not taking sides in this. I know the "wrong version" thing, but that applies only if the protecting admin is uninvolved. Are you? Also, protection harms the whole article, especially such a long article, where many parts are undisputed, and useful edits are prevented. The way to go forward with dispute resolution is, do an rfc, request mediation, and do a poll on disputed points. Just get the article unprotected as soon as possible. dab (ᛏ) 18:51, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In my view, if there are only two antagonists, blocking is unwarranted. The worst that can happen is that they both revert three times a day before they are blocked for 3RR. I'll see how they behave on talk, but I may unprotect again in a day or two. Note for example [1], there were about 30 reverts over the past two days, but nobody even remotely considered protection, because a single troll should not hold the article hostage. dab (ᛏ) 16:22, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't looked into the history of this, but judging from the talk page, it was gidonb's version that was protected twice now, and even if gidonb is a fair editor (which I don't know), he clearly does have a "brand the Germany page with German shame" bias. That's not very fair, and since thanks to the 3RR the edit warriors will mutually neutralize themselves anyway, I do think unprotecting will do no harm. But I'll see how they are doing tomorrow, no hurry dab (ᛏ) 16:57, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Mackensen, I would like to protest against Dbachmann's unevenhanded dealing with the Germany page. I don't know if you would like to get involved, but I would appreciate if you kindly agree to look into this issue. gidonb 23:11, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Mackensen, can you please consider protecting the Germany page again? This is totally getting out of control. gidonb 13:11, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Mackensen, you proposed to archive everything on the page before the sub-heading "This remains an extemely biased article", to which which all (2) respondents agreed. Then perhaps by error, you also archived that section (or did I understand 'everything on this page before the sub-heading "this remains a very biased page"' wrong?). The section was deleted from the page for a while and is very relevant to current discussions. gidonb 20:01, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

my proposal

Hi,

I just announced I am stepping away from the proposal discussion for several days. I know I have polarized the discussion, which I didn't want to do. If you are willing, I hope you will visit the page periodically and do whatever you can or think is appropriate to facilitate discussion between both sides.

Thanks

Steve PS I hope this is not a solicitation

Henry Kissinger

Thanks for fixing that link. Rich Farmbrough 18:17, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No, no bot. Search and replace, then checking the diff. I was editing the Kissinger one when you fixed it. Rich Farmbrough 19:32, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Euro-royal-stub and euro-noble-stub

Hi - I've just done the changing over so that Euro-royal-stub now redirects to Euro-noble-stub, so that Category:European nobility stubs is now the category they'll all go into. I've also changed the wording of the template fractionally (taking out the word "continental"), preparing the way so that the British Category:Peerage stubs can become a subcategory of it. Hope that's better - and sorry about the mess! Grutness...wha? 09:07, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

PS - can I get you to have a look through Category:Peerage stubs and take out any life peers and non-British nobles? The life peers can simply get {{UK-bio-stub}} and the non-Brits (I notice a few - Alan of Brittany, for instance) can get {{Euro-noble-stub}}. Note that - in preparation for it becoming UK-noble-stub - royalty from places like Mercia and Northumbria should stay in there, even though it's pretty dubious calling them "peers"! You'd probably be able to spot which belongs and which doesn't more easily than me... thanks. Grutness...wha? 10:00, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

von Bulow

Adolf Brand, though he was imprisoned. Hyacinth 05:18, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

File:Kitty wee.gif I hope you have a productive —and most of all, relaxing— break, Mackensen. Hope to see you back soon. Yours, El_C 23:41, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Peer-stub -> UK-noble-stub

Hi Mackensen - when you get back from your break, you'll find that {{peer-stub}} now redirects to {{UK-noble-stub}} (to keep the stub naming scheme consistent). At the moment the category is still called "Peerage stubs", but I'm hoping to get that changed through cfd. Hope you enjoy the break! Grutness...wha? 10:18, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

RfAr

Please note that a Request for Arbitration [2] has been opened regarding the prefixed style NPOV dispute, the RfC which was opened with respect to my account, and personal attacks made and restored by certain parties. I have named you as an involved party and therefore I am notifying you of this RfAr in order that you may respond accordingly. Whig 12:34, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]