User talk:Alastair Haines/Archive 5

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HELP US MAKING THE PROJECT OF ANCIENT GREEK WIKIPEDIA

We are the promoters of the Wikipedia in Ancient Greek. we need your help, specially for write NEW ARTICLES and the TRANSLATION OF THE MEDIAWIKI INTERFACE FOR ANCIENT GREEK, for demonstrating, to the language subcommittee, the value of our project.

Thanks a lot for your help. Ἡ Οὐικιπαιδεία needs you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.40.197.5 (talk) 19:55, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Vädersolstavlan

Hello,
You are a volunteered copyeditor listed at Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers and I'd be glad if you could have a look at the article Vädersolstavlan I just nominated for peer reviewing. My shortcomings in English most likely makes copyediting both necessary and easy.
Thanks
/ Mats Halldin (talk) 05:27, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Note to self -- this article now at GA. Could reach FA. Author has very good SL English, lots of content, copy-edit assistance important but not drastic. Alastair Haines (talk) 22:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Request for peer review

Hi, I saw your name on the wikipedia:peer review volunteer page. I'm currently working on a science article called the Kardashev Scale, the page has gone through a lot of changes in the last 3 months, some of them reverts that I wish to overturn. I've sent out some notices to people who have worked on the page previously but I'm having problems getting open opinions and feedback. Their ideas about what they want the article to be about and look like are pretty set. I need outside opinion.

In my opinion the Kardashev scale has 3 primary interests:

• 1) A benchmark used by Seti scientists in there search for extraterrestrials
• 2) A catch-all vocabulary term for a scale used by scientists, in classifying advanced civilizations. This has important implications when speculating on sociological structures of advanced civilizations. But also, it is a necessary analysis when talking what about clues might be left behind or generated by alien species; which then might lead the the discovery of extraterrestrials.
• 3) Because it is can be used for the speculation of advanced civilizations it is a magnet for those interested in science fiction. Not many science fiction writers actually talk about the scale or the power generated by fiction species in power(WATTS) terms, but science fiction enthusiasts are interested in the Kardashev Scale.

My primary goals are in advancing the content area of number 2 and diminishing the fictional content. After all, it is a scientific not a fictional topic. My secondary goals are to find and add published content on the extension of the scale. The feedback I have gotten is pretty much divided between goals 1 or 3. And I don't want to create a editing war!

So please read the article and the discussion page and tell me what you think!!

• 1)Is the article presently fine the way it is?
• 2)After you read it, did you get the impression that it was a science article or a science fiction article?
• 3)Was it too long, too short, easy to understand?
• 4)Was the article interesting, was it boring, did it feel jumbled or was it concise?
• 5)What do you think might be needed to be added to this article, what do you think needs to be edited out?

Thx--Sparkygravity (talk) 18:44, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Note to self -- author has excellent, energetic, terse English style. Minor MoS punctuation issues. Difficult topic to circumscribe. Difficult judgement calls on where to expand explanation, and where to avoid digression. Alastair Haines (talk) 23:05, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Heroes Peer Review

I noticed that your user name was on the Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers list. I was wondering if you could take some time out of your schedule to head over to the Heroes (TV series) talkpage and give us an honest peer review. The page has gone through some major changes in the last few months, and it would be fantastic if a prominent editor/contributor like yourself, could head over and give us at the Heroes Wikiproject some sound opinion and ideas on improvements for the page. We have all worked very hard at improving the page, and we need great outside, reliable and trustworthy users to come over and help us improve. I you are interested in joining the peer review discussion with other prominent users/contributors, much like yourself, please follow the link. Thank you very much for your help and your continued effort to improve Wikipedia and its quality! Wikipedia:Peer review/Heroes (TV series)/archive2--Chrisisinchrist (talk) 05:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Passed this for GA. Outstanding article, should reach FA. Grunt work required standardising format of almost 200 references. Alastair Haines (talk) 23:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yet another request for Peer Review

Hello! I, too, saw your name on the volunteers list for peer review, and would like some constructive criticism or general comments on the Preludes (Chopin) article. It requires a general, overall clean-up, and, in my opinion, a good Copyeditor face-lift, considering the not-up-to-par literary tone and other details that need fixing. Much effort has been given into the improvement of this article, by myself and others of the Classical music project. I myself am a copyeditor, albeit a novice, and so I humbly ask for your assistance in the reshaping and betterment of this article. Thank you for your consideration! :-) --~~MusicalConnoisseur~~ Got Classical? 20:16, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Peer review of Huldrych Zwingli

Hello Alastair, Looking over the field of volunteers, you and this article might be a good match for a peer review. I noticed that you have a five solas user box! I would be interested in hearing your opinions. I don't mind lots of criticisms. The last article I took to FA (John Knox) was reviewed by two historians and they made some tough, but valid comments. Thanks in advance for your help! --RelHistBuff (talk) 13:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Article is now FA. Alastair Haines (talk) 23:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

One more request for peerreview

Hello Alastair, if you have the time I think the article on Nahuatl which I have nominated for a pre-FA peerreview is right up your ballpark. I would certainly appreciate any comments and suggestions you have that might lead me to improve the content, style and grammar of the article. Thanks beforehand. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 15:40, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Academic Journals Collaboration notice

The current WikiProject Academic Journals Collaboration of the Week is Electrical Experimenter Please help to improve this article to the highest of standards.

Speedy deletion of Template:Books of the Biblical Apocrypha

A tag has been placed on Template:Books of the Biblical Apocrypha requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Peer Review of Jack Warner

Hi Alastair, Thanks, again, for all of your help on Jimmy McAleer! The FAC languished for more than a month, but I'm happy to report that the article was promoted. Earlier today, I requested a peer review for a piece on movie mogul Jack Warner. The article includes plenty of information, and it's fairly engaging; but I know it would benefit from your outstanding copy editing. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, as always! Cheers, -- twelsht (talk) 15:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

rongorongo peer review

Hi Alastair,

I've requested peer review for rongorongo. If you're interested, I'd appreciate any comments you might have. kwami (talk) 09:37, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Retiarius

Hello, Alastair! I got your name from the list of peer review volunteers. I hoped you might take some time to look at retiarius, an article I put up for peer review yesterday. I hope to take it to Featured Article Candidates soon, but before that, it would be nice to get some feedback from people who are interested in ancient history. The peer review page can be found here. Thanks for your time! — Dulcem (talk) 05:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Requesting peer review of Facebook

I noticed that you listed yourself as a volunteer for general copyediting for peer review. I am requesting a peer review from you for Wikipedia:Peer review/Facebook/archive2, if you have the time. Thanks! Gary King (talk) 18:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review idea

Hi, I have made a proposal that no peer review request be archived without some response. To aid in this, there is a new list of PR requests at least one week old that have had no repsonses beyond a semi-automated peer review. This list is at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog.

There are just over 100 names on the PR volunteers page, so I figure if each of these volunteers reviewed just one or two PR requests without a response from the list each month, it would easily take care of the "no response" backlog (as there have been 2 or 3 such unanswered requests a day on average).

If you would be able to help out with a review or two a month from the "no responses" backlog list that would be great (and much appreciated). Please discuss questions, comments, or ideas at the PR talk page and thanks in advance for your help, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 23:56, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Requesting peer review of PHP

I noticed that you listed yourself as a volunteer for general copyediting for peer review. I am requesting a peer review from you for Wikipedia:Peer review/PHP/archive2, if you have the time. Thanks! Gary King (talk) 21:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing the Kardashev scale

I think you had a lot of good suggestions I'll have to take sometime and think about how I can improve the article. I was wondering if you could explain a little more by what you meant by saying the article was TOO concise? I'm struggling with understanding that, since I tend to ramble and always find I need to work at being more concise.--Sparkygravity (talk) 00:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, that explanation was helpful. I've had editing conflicts, in the past, where information was deemed irrelevant and removed. Information that I felt gave a breadth to the topic which made it easier to understand for younger readers or lay audiences. So your explaination is an outsiders opinion that helps me. I understand what your saying, now, about being too concise. Kardashev scale is a rather broad and speculative topic, with fictional, scientific, social, and even teleological implications. I have to think about how to embed the article with this conceptual information, including formatting. I'm thinking that it might be helpful to either add to the introductory paragraph, or introduce a new paragraph that tries to summarize but expand the tools, references and wikilinked topics a younger reader would find helpful. I think I've tried to implement a wider range of perspective into each individual sub-paragraph.... but so far I don't know if that's been really helpful or appreciated. I'll think about it some more. Thanks.--Sparkygravity (talk) 10:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Heroes GA promotion!

Wow! Thanks for all the kind words you left on my talkpage. I am really excited that everyone's hard work on the Heroes page during the hiatus paid off and we have been elevated into a GA. I think we are almost ready for FA status. It is just the refs section. The refs are jacked up...seriously, I dont know what to do about it. I cant really find anyone to commit to cleaning them up. To be honest, refs arent my thing. I hate hate hate formatting refs because sometimes I am just in the mood to write and I dont feel like formatting and all that...but the project really needs to find someone who can help us. It would be great if you could copyedit. I have been petitioning the LOCE to come to do it for months, but they are so backed up that they havent even had time to come and edit the article. If copyediting is something you are good at, I encourage you to come and do it. I think those are the two areas that would stop us from being a FA. Refs and lack of proper/professional copyediting. I want to reach FA status before the new season begins, so I can try to get Heroes as the article of the day on the premiere night and try to get it at FA with a hire standard before people start coming and tearing the page up when the series returns in the fall. but, thanks for your kind words...and thats for listing us as a GA article. Let me know about the copyediting and I will work on finding someone to clean the refs. thanks...cheers to you!--ChrisisinChrist ^{comments and complaints here!} 06:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for review of Nahuatl - now it is at the FAC

If you want to participate it is found here. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 09:05, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Aang

I saw your name on the PR volunteer list, so I decided to come to you. The Aang article was kept from FA status mainly for one reason: prose. I would really appreciate it if you could look over the article and provide some comments on the prose or maybe even copyedit it yourself. Thanks. — Parent5446 ^{(t n c e m l)} 21:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Re:Aang

Thanks for the review! I appreciate the copyedit. You suggested I should either develop or drop the Buddhist influence paragraph. Since I believe the paragraph is important, I decided to develop. I have expanded it a little bit by adding relations to the show. As for your other comment, even though it does not seem to have much hope, I wish to make this article FA anyway (or at least attempt). One last favor for me would be if you could just check over the influences paragraph again and see how much more it needs. Thanks again. — Parent5446 ^{(t n c k e l)} 02:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Retiarius again

Hello, Alastair! Thanks again for your input in the retiarius peer review. I have now submitted the article to Featured Article Candidates. If you have time, your input there would again be appreciated. — Dulcem (talk) 00:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Rongorongo FA

Hi Alastair,

I've put rongorongo up for FA[1] if you wish to comment. I've expanded it slightly since you were last there. — kwami (talk) 02:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't mean that the scripts were cognate, only for the etymology of the name that the root rogo is an old AN root. — kwami (talk) 17:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Patriarchy (ethnographies)

Template:Patriarchy (ethnographies) has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Neitherday (talk) 22:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review assistance requested

I started a peer review at WikiProject video games for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. If you could copyedit it or put in any other suggestions, I'd appreciate it: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_games/Peer_review#The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Ocarina_of_Time. Thanks! Voyaging^(talk) 01:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Sex

You're the only person I know that's paying attention to my work on the Sex article... at some point I run out of ideas on what to include / add. Can you tell me which parts are the most confusing / hard to understand? I can work on expanding and/or simplifying these. Also, is there anything where a diagram would help a lot with understanding? I've gotten pretty good at making diagrams. It helps to hear what an outsider to the field sees as confusing in an article.

While I was writing this I changed my mind about my justification for the opening statement regarding male, female, and hermaphrodite as the three possible sexes - people are going to think a single species can have three sexes. I've reworded it to remove that sentence. Do you think the current version sufficiently emphasizes that it's a dichotomy? Madeleine ✉ ✍ 22:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree on both points you made and made the changes. Thank you! That last sentence about gender was mostly there because I felt guilty about removing all the gender information that used to exist in this article and worried about what to do if people came here and didn't find the information they were looking for. That's going to be one of the major issues with an article about a word with so many different (but related) meanings, I'm afraid.

I hadn't noticed that you had established androdioecy—you obviously know quite a bit about this material too! :-) Madeleine ✉ ✍ 16:02, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

		The Reviewers Award
		For your review effort during the Nahuatl FA nomination process. Thanks, you did a great job!·Maunus· ·ƛ· 13:06, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

·Maunus· ·ƛ· 13:06, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

The Food of the Gods...

I had mused on getting pork to GA or FA at some stage. I wondered in your middle eastern studies whether you'd seen anything re discussion of the evolution of the restriction of pork. There is some material on Religious restrictions on the consumption of pork which I may import to the main article (the bit on Maimonides seems good), would be good to get some references on this stuff.

And then there is Scottish pork taboo...gosh, one learns something new every day! Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 18:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Dweller found some stuff on Maimonides and I was wondering what you thought as well. I am a complete neophyte in this area. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Christianity Newsletter

BetacommandBot (talk) 23:22, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Tafl games

Greetings! I would like to request your feedback on the article Tafl games. My goal is to get the article up to WP:GA standards, and I am ready to make the necessary changes to improve the quality of this article. Your thoughts and ideas would be most appreciated! Feel free to post your review on the article's talk page or on my talk page. Thank you for your time. Wilhelm meis (talk) 17:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Tafl games is awaiting a review for its Good Article nomination. Perhaps you would like to review it for GA pass/fail? Wilhelm meis (talk) 02:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Just a friendly reminder. Looking forward to your feedback. Wilhelm meis (talk) 01:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! Please see WP:GAN. Wilhelm meis (talk) 03:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again for your help with the tafl article. If you ever need my help on a peer review or anything related to games, heraldry, or anything else, drop me a line. Wilhelm meis (talk) 20:22, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for peer review

Hi! I was wondering if you'd be able to look over this peer review (article). It's got a long way to go, and any input would be greatly appreciated. :) This spam message brought to you on behalf of the current Tzatziki Squad collaboration. Thanks, Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 22:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

G'day

G'day esteemed person who has expressed interest in Sydney based meetups at this page (I hope that's the correct wording for the formal greeting!!). You may have heard that Australia is to have its very own 'chapter' of the Wikimedia Foundation - and further, there's a meeting coming up to discuss / enact the chapter's incorporation (details here). I'm afraid that I don't know too much about the details of what this entails, other than having a private hope that we might get a secret handshake, and maybe cheap coffee at wikimania (this is a poor attempt at humour - I'm sure that the Chapter's do great work, and it's a good thing that Australia is to have one).

If you're interested in meeting up this weekend (the set date is the 20th) - or later, then please do head over here and sign up, or make a comment at the talk page... the drive to create the chapter has largely come from another town in Australia that I'm afraid I haven't actually heard much about.. and anything they can do.... right? - cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 11:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Avatar: The Last Airbender (Season 1)

Hi, seeing such a great job you did on Aang, I wanted to ask if you could look at Avatar: The Last Airbender (Season 1). It requires more general advice because it has not been copyedited yet, but I just want as much advice for where I should go with this article as I can get. Thanks a lot. — Parent5446 ^{(t n c k e l)} 02:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for encouragement

It is wonderfull to edit articles with people like You and Andrew. We have a lot of work. All codices. Yes all. Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus and other are not finished. But I work on "History of the Text of New Testament", it will first this kind of book in Poland. It is really very difficult job (relashionship between families of manuscripts). I do not know when I will finish it. Not quicly. To much complications. From time to time I write some articules in polish, english and russian wikipedia (usually about biblical manuscripts). It is much easier than work with this impossible to finish book. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 21:01, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Drinks and a wiki chat?

G'day sydneysider - fancy a 'not quite a meetup but a few drinks' sort of thing? - We can chat about the new aussie chapter, the price of eggs and have our very own 2020 Wiki Summit! - or just sink a couple of cold ones and gass bag about the good 'ol days of wiki, when an editor could get some repsect (not a typo)! I've suggested something here so take a look and sign up if you're up for it... cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 02:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what we do.

Hello Alistair:

I have the impression that the focus of your contributions to the talk:Genie discussion is more on underlying principles than on the specific case. Also my question of you is general rather than specific. So I have brought my question here.

You wrote: "And I have not heard a coherent case for excluding the name. That's my point, it doesn't matter what we do, it matters why we do what we do."

I can agree that our reasons for actions are important, but why do you say "it doesn't matter what we do"? That is a very sweeping statement. I'm not certain you mean it that way but I suspect you do.

Thank you and best wishes, Wanderer57 (talk) 13:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello Alastair

Thank you for your well-written response to my criticism of the opening section of the gender article. I must have been angry at something when I wrote that, sorry. Just letting you know that I will put together a response for you and supply some evidence this time around. However, it may be awhile as I have final examinations coming up next week. Good luck with you and although I came off poorly in my first post my efforts are to better the information provided.Ripcurlprfection (talk) 19:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

BLP

Further to your comments, I think you might be interested in following and/or contributing at WP:BLP and WP:BLPN (and talkpages) where those interested and/or experienced in these issues discuss both individual questions as well as have more policy-based meta discussions. You might also be interested in various essays, pages and guidelines that have been created by other editors, e.g. [2], WP:HARM and Wikipedia:Coatrack. My personal opinion is that since every case is different, it is hard to set in stone that many 'standards', though as you will see the WP:HARM does contain some clues. In this particular case, I found it telling that two very experienced editors who are often, by their own admission, quite unsympathetic of a "Do no harm" reasoning, thought that this was a clear case where this applied.[3] [4] --Slp1 (talk) 16:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Another peer review

Hello Alastair. I have come by with another theology-oriented article that is undergoing peer review, Thomas Cranmer. Please help if you can. Thanks! --RelHistBuff (talk) 11:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Nair

Saw your comment on Ricky's page. If you look at the Nair article now, I've added a reference for the marriage format from Google Books. It describes the process in some detail. I also recommend O. Chandumenon's Indulekha. I can't remember the version (I bought it on Amazon though), but in a letter he describes the Nair Marriage format in great detail. --vi5in^[talk] 15:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

No problem :) Do send me the results of your study/research when you are done. I expect it will be a pleasure to read! --vi5in^[talk] 17:19, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Sexual dimorphism

I'm not really sure what your question is. I only added ref quotes to the Daly and Wilson and the Buss, et al. citations, but the exact same issue could be said for the later Evolutionary history citation in the same paragraph. Frankly, the direct quotations seem out of place and I would put them into the ref tag themselves but there is doesn't seem to be anything in the article that they specifically are attached to. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:17, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Facebook/archive3

Hi, you peer reviewed Facebook a few weeks ago. If you have time, could you please take a second look at the article as it is now and post some comments at the peer review? Please let us know if the comments you posted last time have been addressed or not. I would like to bring the article to FAC soon, so any copyediting help would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Gary King (talk) 00:05, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Sydney meetup

Tomorrow 6pm (hopefully!) Andjam (talk) 09:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer review request:Anekantavada

Hi Alastair, I see your are listed as a volunteer for Peer Review on Religion and Philosophy related articles and need your expertise. This is a request for additional peer-review of article Anekantavada. This article had been peer-reviewed by Ruhrfisch (talk · contribs) who suggested that someone with interest in religion and philosophy should also peer review the article. Besides peer review I would also appreciate active improvements on this article (like copy editing, tagging for citations/ NPOV, wikifying links etcs and other stylistic concerns) That is, if you have time. The problem is not a single article relating Jainism is a featured or A-class article and all the articles are in a pathetic state. Hence I would doubly appreciate your efforts.--Anish (talk) 07:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi I have changed the Structure and added some material......can you check it out ?--Anish (talk) 03:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Attachment theory

OK, this is an OK overview - there is a great book called Becoming Attached by Robert Karen, which is a great read and readily digestible by laypeople. Enjoy. 05:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Dispute at documentary hypothesis

Alastair, I'm currently having a dispute on the Talk page at documentary hypothesis. Neither I nor the other editor can convince each other of our respective positions. Would you like to be brave and offer an independent opinion? PiCo (talk) 13:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your masterly handling of the situation Alastair. As you say, the two positions weren't really that far apart, but it needed someone like you to find the way out. As for nominating you for the big one, I'd be delighted, just let me know. PiCo (talk) 02:43, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Rewording talk section

That's what happens when a cooler head prevails. Thanks again for your assistance. Faith (talk) 15:32, 10 May 2008 (UTC)