User talk:Bzuk/Archive May 2007

Fokker Dr.I

I will check my books on the first flight. Off the top of my head, I think maybe February 1917 was the first flight for the V1, and the V3 (or V4 if you use Imrie's book) following in the summer. I'll get back to you. M Van Houten 19:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Turns out the date for the first triplane (V.3/V.4) was July 5, 1917. For the Germans, it was pretty common to put in a small production order near the time of prototype's first flight. M Van Houten 22:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Categories

Hi Bzuk - my hat's off - you're doing some fantastic work on British aircraft right now! One small hint if I may - the category system here works by decade of first flight, so your article on the Blackburn Dart was indeed correctly classified when you originally put it in Category:British bomber aircraft 1920-1929; but Category:British bomber aircraft 1920-1934 was a mistake. You may also like to check out Wikipedia:Aircraft encyclopedia topics to help close some gaps in the coverage. Cheers, --Rlandmann 23:00, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Image placement

Hi Bzuk, I'm in doubt. Do I understand correctly that standard says there is no images put between {{Infobox Aircraft}} and first sections' heading? I couldn't find any reference for that, but from my point of view it's logical - it's easier to edit one section than whole article. If I'm right, could you be judge in Sopwith Dolphin article? I don't want to revert someone's revert. Regards and TIA, Piotr Mikołajski 06:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Reply

Hi Bzuk, the only guidance I'm aware of comes from section 16 of the MOS. Is there a rule about putting images under the infobox? Not anywhere I've seen. My concern was with not cutting off the heading from the text. It does say that the left-aligned images should be arranged in a manner that doesn't cut off the text from the heading, so I gather that a right-aligned image that creates a big gap is also no good. So that's my two cents. M Van Houten 18:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion pages

Hi Bzuk. Just a heads up; it really isn't necessary to clean up others' comments on talk pages (like WP:AIRCRAFT recently), I know other people's poor spelling and grammar can be annoying, but as per WP:TALK, this runs contrary to the guidelines. If you must alter your own comments, it's always best to strike out your old comment using the <s> markup, so others can see what you previously wrote. Just a friendly pointer :) Emoscopes ^Talk 21:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Hypenations

Thanks-much for the good-work on removing the unnecessary-hyphenations. A wiki-pedian's hard-work is never-done. :) - BillCJ 01:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Protecting Tuskegee Airmen

Just to let you know, adding {{sprotected}} or {{protected}} to a page is only a means for an admin to notify users that a page is protected. This does not actually confer protection to the article, such as with the notice you placed on Tuskegee Airmen. If you need help protecting a page, please contact an admin or request it. Thanks! Greswik 18:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, so I can't do that, either! :-) Try Wikipedia:Requests for page protection if you think it is warranted. Greswik 18:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Jimmy Stewart edit

I see you to have had to deal with Granville1 aka HarveyCarter aka JohnRobertsly aka Rogersleigh [[1]] I don't know why this guy has it out for certain dead celebrities. He thinks we are protecting them by reverting his obvious pov vandalism. Putting uncited very inflamitory statements about both dead and living (which is against WP:BLP) is quite wrong. He doesn't see it that way. I do it for any article if I like the person or not personal feeling for the article do not and should not play in to it. Luckily all his sockpuppet originating from HarveyCarter seem to follow blantantly obvious patterns. Take a look at the newest sockpuppet case (link I provided above) they make identical edits and patterns of contributions. Anyway to make a long post short. Thanks for the help cleaning up pov from articles like that. Thanks. --Xiahou 15:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

by the way user Gibsonism is ANOTHER sock account of Granville1 who just got blocked today for vandlism. Ive already linked this newest account making almost identical edits to the same articles as the other sock accounts of Granville1 see [[2]] Don't know why he has it out for dead celebrities? If you want to revert (if necessary) his Jimmy Stewart edits if they are incorrect (I got to go but they appear more the same, don't have time to check at the moment) feel free per wiki to remove more uncited pov (if thats what they are)--Xiahou 18:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Some technical issues

Hello Bzuk. What do you think about clearing some issues which appeared in aircraft articles? I mean:

1. Flag templates should be used only in Operators section, not in Infobox Aircraft area. We are doing that right now but there is no clear rule.
2. Flag templates should use the historical war flags in military aircraft, if available / different. I mean for example using for WWII Japanese aircraft, not . The same for Hungarian aircraft - , not etc. There is no strict rule for that and from time to time we can see smaller edit wars.
3. Images of aircraft in foreign users markings should be placed in Operators section, if available. This can help illustrate different camouflage and markings, sometimes quite different from original operator's ones.
4. Images should be placed under section header only, not directly above it. This rule can make life of editors easier because to fix image we can edit only one section, not whole article.
5. No images should be placed between Infobox Aircraft and first section header. This rule can make life of editors easier because to fix image we can edit only one section, not whole article.
6. No galleries should be allowed. Instead proper images should be placed for sections of article and all available images in Commons should be gathered in one page and this page should be linked in Related content section. With this rule sections of article are better illustrated and we can get some order in Commons.

What do you think about such rules? I would like to tweak all a little and post it in proper Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft talk page. Regards, Piotr Mikołajski 09:01, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Your RfA??

Bill, were you aware that Signaleer created this page in an attempt (though completely the wrong method) to nom you for admin? Akradecki 15:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding edits to Handley Page Marathon

Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia, Bzuk! However, your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove spam from Wikipedia. If you were trying to insert a good link, please accept my creator's apologies, but note that the link you added, matching rule \bmembers\.aol\.com\/.+, is on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. Please read Wikipedia's external links policy for more information. If the link was to an image, please read Wikipedia's image tutorial on how to use a more appropriate method to insert the image into an article. If your link was intended to promote a site you own, are affiliated with, or will make money from inclusion in Wikipedia, please note that inserting spam into Wikipedia is against policy. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! Shadowbot 13:58, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

P-40/Desert Air Force

Hi Bill, I would be opposed to a separate article about the P-40 with the Desert Air Force, for two reasons: (1) the DAF usage of the P-40 is so significant to the history of the type and (2) the Desert Air Force article needs improvement. While some material could be moved to the DAF article, I am reluctant to significantly' reduce P-40, because of (1). Thanks, Grant | Talk 17:01, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Or perhaps an article focused on the Air war in North Africa, 1940-43 would be better(?) Grant | Talk 17:09, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Avro 626 Image

I'm not going to tag the image as personally I think Wikipedia is way to anal about Intellectual Property law, but the picture posted is not more than 50 years old and I would be startled if it was British Crown copyright - it is of the restored RNZAF 626 over the Southern Alps in the late 1980s or early 1990s. I seem to recall having seen the same image in NZ Wings magazine. You may want to revise the catergory before deletionists get hold of it. :-) Winstonwolfe 01:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

• thanks for your message on my page - Damn I'd already linked the RNZAF page to it :-). But good work on the other image postings I see you've made, WW. Winstonwolfe 02:00, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

F-35 article

Hi Bzuk, I hope that you don't mind me reverting your edit in the F-35 Lightning II‎ article in which you'd combined the 'references' and 'further reading' sections. I personally find it confusing when these sections are combined and the guideline Wikipedia:Guide to layout states that they should be seperate. regards, --Nick Dowling 07:27, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you 100% on 'further reading' sections. If these works have been consulted when making additions to the article I think they should be briefly cited in a 'notes/reference' section with their full details in a 'bibliography' section or similar. If they haven't been consulted then they shouldn't be mentioned in the article - especially as this is an invitation for link spam and advertising. Perhaps the best option for the F-35 article would be to delete the 'further reading' section? Many of the 'external links' also seem of limited value, and it's not clear whether these are actually references. --Nick Dowling 10:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Bracketed numbers

Bill, earlier this year, a user with several different IPs began adding material from Chris Bobson's book on Viet Nam losses. The bracketed numbers were this user's way of referencing his sources, usually with the number also beside the Hobson listing under references. He did this in a number of VN-era aricraft articles. I think most of them have been removed, or converted to proper Wiki footnotes. - BillCJ 19:34, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, on the Grumman Goose, yes, I was funnin' with you! Couldn't resist, tho I probably should have tried harder to resist! - BillCJ 19:36, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Aviation articles formatting talk

I've prepared some proposals for page content and started discussion at WikiProject Aircraft talk. I'll be happy to hear your comments. Regards, Piotr Mikołajski 08:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Your edit to Battle of Britain

Hi Bzuk. Regarding the style of references in the Battle of Britain article. I am not sure what you mean by saying that the references do not follow any recoginsed citation style, they clearly follow the style put forward by the Manual of Style at Wikipedia:Citing sources. Your edit reverts them to how they appeared prior to sometime around April the 3rd. The Maual of Style goes on to say "Do not change formats without checking for objections on the talk page." (the emboldment comes from the page). When I homogenised the reference format I was careful to ask for people's opinions on the talk page before I did it. There was not a huge number of replies, so if you want to kick start the discussion please do, but lets keep the references in the most recent agreed upon style in the mean time. I look forward to discussing it further with you at Talk:Battle_of_Britain#References.Mumby 08:12, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, quite an interest you've got going here. It reminded me that on 27 April this year the BBC News featured live coverage of the first flight for a while of the Lancaster of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, together with Spitfires and a Hurricane. Anyway, thanks for the info about citation style, must admit that it's a bit over my head. There are articles where a simpler style is appropriate, but having been pressed into using a Harvard style on Charles Darwin found it pretty good, and would be interested if you've any comments on the way we've done it on that article. Don't know who's been deciding on guidance on which style to use, but if you could help with some advice there I'm sure it would be appreciated. Thanks, .. dave souza, talk 13:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi Bzuk, thanks for the note on my talk page, it certainly gave me lots to think about. First of all let me say that all I am interested in is that the Battle of Britain page gets a good, consistent system for notes, references, and further-reading/bibliography. One of the main problems I see is that there is no single 'agreed upon' system for citations in wikipedia, although perhaps some people may see this as an asset! As a result, people tend to do it in the manner they are most comfortable with, for example, the Harvard system. I have no experience as a librarian or editor, but in my field of research (nuclear physics) publishing papers is the bread and butter on which my research grant relies. In all the journals I come across, a numbered system is used analogous to that I used in the Battle of Britain article, I have never used the Harvard system, in fact it is considered unacceptable in my field! That is not to say that one way is more correct than the other, simply that this is the way I have been taught, so it tends to be the way I think on wikipedia! Clearly you are more comfortable with a different system. I don't really mind which one we use, but my preference would have been to discuss your changes on the talk page before you edited.

I see your point about the current situation not being elegant, my reverting has really screwed the section up, I hope we can sort something out quickly to resolve the issue one way or another. My original change to the Notes and references section looked, in my opinion, elegant enough. You can see how I originally envisioned how it should be by looking at my edits around April 4th here [3]. As you can see, it does not look like that anymore! I see now that this could be improved by removing the repetitive full citations using "ref name=" footnoting instead of just "ref" as dave souza pointed out on my talk page here[4]. However, this brings up the other very important point you mentioned, the fact the this article cites Bungay far too much. This was not my doing, and as you can see from the Battle of Britain talk page I have warned against this in the recent past. I am currently reading books at a rate of knots to provide some fresh citations, I consider this one of the most urgent requirements of the page.

I understand the advantages of the MLA and APA styles, but I only take my wikipedia style from the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. I'm sure some of the content therein is sourced from the aforementioned styles, but probably not all of it. Therefore, whenever the MoS deviates from the MLA and APA styles, so will I.

I understand that "Bungay, Stephen (2000). The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain. Aurum Press Ltd, 86. ISBN 1-854-10801-8." deviates from the Harvard style, but I was not trying to adhere to the Harvard style for the reasons I mentioned before.

I agree with you that the bibliography should be a section containing further reading relevant to the subject. However, none of the bibliography is my work so I cannot account for any errors in it, I would like to see it scaled back a bit in the article. I believe that in the past, people have added information to the page and stuck the source in the bibliography rather than citing it properly. If I understand you correctly, I think you are saying that cited sources should appear in the bibliography as well. I happen to think the opposite, I see no reason why, for example, Bungay should be in the references and the bibliography. The manual of style is typically ambiguous about what a bibliography should be, I quote verbatim from it [5]

"This section follows the same formatting rules as the "References" section, but is generally for resources on the topic that are not specifically cited in the article. If an item used as a reference covers the topic beyond the scope of the article, and has significant usefulness beyond verification of the article, you may want to include it here as well. This also makes it easier for users to identify all the major recommended resources on a topic."

So, basically it says it is fine either way! My argument for not including cited sources in the bibliography would be that, for this article, there are so many of them that we will end up with a long references section and a long bibliography in an article which is, frankly, already too long!

Regarding your comment "You have, in addition, used at least two dating conventions which is also inconsistent, e.g. "RAF website. Ministry of Defence (2006-03-20)" [why the brackets?] and "Access date: 3 March 2007.")": The brackets were inserted automatically by the template I used. As for inconsistencies in the date style, they are a result of the recent reverting/undoing of this section, once again I refer you to how they looked immediately after my edit of them on April 4th which you can find here [6]. I admit that my work may not have been perfect, but small mistakes probaly don't justify changing to a completely different citation style, I can assure you I will make just as many mistakes whichever style I use!

With regard to your "scratch" editing, I see your point, but I think that the use of citation templates means that at least the order and format of in-line references remains consistent. All the templates I use can be found at Wikipedia:Citation templates and links therein. I strongly recommend that we stick with these as any user, no matter how inexperienced, can be encouraged to copy and paste the template into an article inside some ref' tags and fill in the fields. As I said before, the template will then worry about the formatting and the citation will be automatically addd to the references section. We may not agree with how it does it, but at least it is consistent. I admit though that I should learn how to use the code that dave souze mentioned to make it a bit neater when referring to the same source many times. When this happens, there are a couple of options. Either we can repeat the reference using alphabetical superscripts as used at Astrophysics Data System for example, or we could just have them all on different line such as at is now (except better, hopefully!).

I prefer the notes and references section to be combined into one, this is acceptable according to the manual of style page here which says [7]

"Notes" is only for footnotes (explanations or comments on any part of the main text). "References" is only for referenced materials (books, websites etc. cited in the main text). Otherwise "Notes and references" should be combined.

I should wrap this up now, I think that I have covered everything I wanted to say. As I said, I use a reference system that I am comfortable with, I don't mind if there is consensus to switch to another style, but I think it deserves to be discussed first. Again, my reverting has unfortunately given as nothing but a mess so hopefully we can clean it up quickly without losing the useful edits made in the meantime! Regards,Mumby 22:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Reply

Bzuk, That would be great, thanks. When it comes to formatting for full citations, can you tell me if and how your style deviates from the style described at Wikipedia:Citing sources:Full citations and Wikipedia:Harvard referencing? Thanks,Mumby 11:29, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Mumby, there is a standard MLA (Modern Language Association) protocol that is simply: Author (last name, first name[s] separated by commas and ended with a period), full title of work (written in title format with capitalization or in the actual words of the title chosen by the author which in some cases leads to different spellings [e.g. "since 1932" rather than "Since 1932"] and if it is a major work, shown as italics, if it is a minor work, such as an article within an encyclopedia or other, shown in quotation marks and the major work shown in italics, all ended with a period), place of publication (usually the city and sometimes the country of origin separated by a colon [there are a number of practical changes here in order to fully identify a location or one which is not well known, e.g. "Washington, DC:" or "Shrewsburville, Ramsgate, UK:" [as well, countries can or cannot be written in abbreviations or in full]), Publisher (separated by a period) and date of publication (if editions are important, they are identified here or with the title) and finally ending with a period.

The addition of an ISBN seems to be standard practice in Wikipedia but that is an optional note that identifies the work for location in a bookseller's directory. ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 protocols are an issue here as well as actual full citing but that's another story, another time. There is sometimes the need to identify a page number from the reference source and that is given as "p. ___ ." and listed as the last entry or "tracing" of the record. If the source is also identified as being "electronic" or other media, that entry is also recorded at the end of the bibliographical statement.

Here are some examples, albeit, made-up:

• Carson, Deliah R. and Jones, Ichabod. The Master Works of the Plumbing Industry: A Treatise. Stovehat, United Kingdom: Barnum and Bailey Publishers Ltd., 1933. ISBN 1-435678-234.
• Cashum, J.G.L. "Burping: A New Art." Psychological Review, Issue 12, no. 413, May 2006.
• Caxton, Joyce, Girding, Louis and Restuck, Al Jr. Sturdy Souls: A New Perspective on Plumbers and their Trade. Plumber's Union website, 23 June, 2003. Plumber's Union Access date: 3 July 2005.

As to Harvard citations, I cite them as prescribed with one slight variation in that I end the page numbers with a fullstop or period (which is optional). Again, all of this is in the domain of making things consistent and using a logical or formalized system. I find that Wikipedia editing of references demands a steady hand and dogmatic insistence on format. IMHO Bzuk 12:26, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

To show the outcome of using the Template:Citation, I've tried it out on the Battle of Britain page with this result:

• Bungay, Stephen (2000), The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain (hardcover ed.), London: Aurum Press, ISBN 1-85410-721-6

Since there was a reference to (paperback 2002, ISBN 1-85410-801-8) I added that after the template. Compare and contrast. ... dave souza, talk 12:58, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Image:Orenda_PS.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Orenda_PS.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. User:Gay Cdn (talk) (Contr) 11:55, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Service award

Have a service award by my reckoning its worth it. GraemeLeggett 13:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Britain

Hi Bzuk

Yes the note is a bit long. Would you perhaps consider editing it please? Im not sure how else to put it.Dapi89 19:18, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Reply

Hi again.

Yes I think perhaps a more radical edit would be in order. I wanted to get the point across that Dir. 21 ended the battle, but of course thats only true in hindsight. It was not known that Russia would prevail, so perhaps its misleading to suggest the battle was over as the Germans had every intention of continuing it, one may even say through Naval means (U-Boats). But I'm not sure now if really is necessary. On the other hand it does give the reader all the facts, what do you think?Dapi89 10:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Percival Mew Gull

Hi Bzuk - I have blocked the disruptive user as I said I would. However, I'd also like you to have a think about your conduct in the "Percival Mew Gull incident" - you've been skirting dangerously close to an edit war there with all the reversions of text back-and-forth. Please take a read of Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot. If things don't settle down, it may be necessary to protect the page for a while till things cool off. I can see that you've been goaded and taunted, and I don't think that you've actually given in - but let's take steps to ensure that tensions don't escalate further. How about leaving the Mew Gull alone for a while and having a go at some of the missing aircraft instead?

Thanks also for the kind remarks on my talk page - I value your contributions too, so please treat this as the very friendliest of cautions. --Rlandmann 21:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC) (PS and BTW - I agree with ericg that the "Holy Grail" remark is a little silly. If it hadn't become a focal point of tensions with your antagonist, I think you might have been better able to see that yourself...)

Don't get me wrong - I think that you have stayed cool so far - I'm just encouraging you to stay that way and not let things get out of hand. I also wonder whether the various reversions and "nit-picks" may have contributed to a generally acrimonious atmosphere around that article. I applaud your attitude towards the new editor, and also look forward to having him/her rejoin the project with a more civil "tongue" --Rlandmann 23:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Listed

See WP:DP. If it's an article you created put {{db-author}} at the top --Closedmouth 14:26, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

W. T. Larkins

Bill, could you take a look at User talk:W. T. Larkins? He needs some help on uploading pics, and it's a bit beyond my expertise. GIven that you fixed one of his pics for him, could you see if you could assit him? Sounds like he could be a great contributer. Thanks. - BillCJ 05:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)