User talk:Dudley Miles/Archive 7

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Archive 7

Editing problem

. When I am editing, the visible text on the edit page randomly shrinks to three lines. Can anyone advise what the problem is and how I can fix it? Dudley Miles (talk) 14:28, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Are you using the visual editor or the source editor? Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 15:13, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I just click 'edit'. I assume it is the source editor. I should also add that I have edited since 2006 and only had this problem for the last fortnight. Dudley Miles (talk) 16:09, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Probably best to raise at WP:VPT, then, as I am totally unhelpful with technical problems that don't have a glaringly obvious answer. Any chance your browser's zoom settings are on the blink? Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 16:16, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I have raised it there. Dudley Miles (talk) 18:44, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

FA peer review?

Hi. I'm working on getting Fleetwood Park Racetrack into shape for a WP:FA review. This would be my first FA. I see you are willing to mentor in the area of history; would this article be something you could help me with? RoySmith (talk) 16:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Ceol of Wessex versus Æthelbald, King of Wessex

Dear Dudley: On 3^rd March 2016, you undid my revision 708053201 “links added” by reason of “Already linked”; on 31^st August 2023, you undid my revision 1173151462 giving the exactly opposite explanation “Links in lead and main text are separate”; the (repeated) links in my revision 708053201 were also in the lead and main text; it seems to be a Wikipedia rule that links should not be duplicated, and although I think this is carried too far in long articles, I do not think duplication after a few lines is necessary;

moreover, by simply reverting my revision 1173151462:

·        you cancelled my “grammatical improvements” – I would strongly suggest that enwiki, especially history article, be written at least one level above the English spoken (or in this case: written) in “East London”;

·        you restored the redirect from “Surrey” to “Kingdom of Surrey” and back to “Surrey”; I am not questioning the existence or non-existence of the Kingdom of Surrey, I am just commenting on the redirect;

pls explain and/or consider reverting your revert; Jan Hejkrlík (talk) 12:50, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I have been advised that links in the lead and main text are separate, but looking at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking#Duplicate and repeat links, this appears to be wrong, so I reverted you incorrectly. The Surrey revert was correct (if I remember correctly what I did) because Kingdom of Surrey redirects to Surrey, so when you linked to the kingdom you introduced a double redirect (to the kingdom and back again to Surrey), which is strongly discouraged. Thanks for raising these points. It would be helpful if you point to the changes so that I can see exactly what I did. Dudley Miles (talk) 14:51, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your response; only one remark: you misunderstood my mention of the “Surrey” link – originally in the article, there was the double redirect from “Surrey” to “Kingdom of Surrey” and back to “Surrey”; with my revision 1173151462, I did fix it; with your revert of my revision 1173151462, you reintroduced the double revert; so, what now? will you revert your revert or should I do it myself? Jan Hejkrlík (talk) 18:51, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes I got it the wrong way round. Reverted. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:02, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Æthelflæd

Note that in Wikipedia we use common names rather than official titles. While Æthelflæd had the title "Lady" she was still the ruler of a kingdom, hence a queen regnant. It is not helpful to remove her from a category with colleague queens regnant. Marcocapelle (talk) 13:20, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

A ruler is not the same as a monarch. By your logic, Margaret Thatcher was a queen regnant and Queen Elizabeth was not a queen. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:01, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Sahelanthropus

Good morning, You reverted changes to the Sahelanthropus page on the grounds that earlier text was better. This is not entirely the case since: - in the caption of a photograph Professor Brunet's 'assistant' is in reality a Chadian civil servant working at the National Research Support Center and who therefore has no relationship of subordination with Professor Brunet, a retired French civil servant; - the Franco-Chadian Paleoanthropological Mission is in no way a financing organization. It was the French Embassy in Chad, through its Cooperation and Cultural Action Service, which provided most of the funding during the first years and provided a high-level technical assistant, a geographer experienced in Saharan zone with a Phd. On the other hand, I thank you very much in advance for restoring the previous version by providing the necessary additions so that: the National Center for Research Support, the Franco-Chadian paleoanthropological mission and Jean-Pierre Watté, who have Wikipedia pages in French, benefit from the appropriate link without having the skills to achieve this. Sincerely 2A01:CB1D:3CF:CA00:69D6:C90D:67FE:A0E4 (talk) 09:45, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

I reverted your edits because (no doubt accidentally) you removed the links to articles in French Mission paléoanthropologique franco-tchadienne and Jean-Pierre Watté, and because you gave no references for your amendments. As you obviously are an expert on the subject, can you please reinstate your edits with the links and references. I would be happy to give technical help if you need it. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:00, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your help, it's really kind of you. French speaking, I spent yesterday evening trying to open the links to these three Wikipedia sites in French without succeeding while other links to sites also in French exist on this page.

Jean-Pierre Watté : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Watt%C3%A9

Mission paléoanthropologique franco-tchadienne : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_pal%C3%A9oanthropologique_franco-tchadienne

Centre national d’appui à la recherche : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_national_d%27appui_%C3%A0_la_recherche

It is the National Research Support Center (CNAR today CNRD, National Research Center for Development) of the Ministry of Higher Education of the Republic of Chad which is at work in paleontological research in Chad since 1993. His name deserves to be cited on this page. Thank you again for your help. Sincerely. 2A01:CB1D:3CF:CA00:69D6:C90D:67FE:A0E4 (talk) 14:00, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello, thank you very much for your help but in fact it appears that it is not easy to refer to Wikipedia in French since if the sites do exist the links do not work. Good continuation. Sincerely. 2A01:CB1D:3CF:CA00:3DE9:271B:CA67:67B0 (talk) 14:04, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

If you click on the red link you go to a page to create a new article in English. You have to click on [fr] at the end of the red link to go to the article in French. Dudley Miles (talk) 17:28, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Typo reversion

Thank you for pointing out the typo I made on the Miyake Events page. I fixed the typo and re-added the other edits which were part of that reverted edit. Jasonkwe (talk) (contribs) 01:39, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Younger Dryas talk page

Talk:Younger Dryas#Spaghetti code source. I'm not dropping this. The article source is a cluttered mess. - Gilgamesh (talk) 23:04, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Request for comments at peer review

I have Edward the Martyr up for review at Wikipedia:Peer review/Edward the Martyr/archive1. Comments gratefully received. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:22, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Happy Holidays

Peace is a state of balance and understanding in yourself and between others, where respect is gained by the acceptance of differences, tolerance persists, conflicts are resolved through dialog, people's rights are respected and their voices are heard, and everyone is at their highest point of serenity without social tension. Happy Holidays to you and yours. Recently in your wonderful country. Enjoyed your Underground and the goodwill of those that stood so my wife and I could sit. Do we look that old? ―Buster7 ☎

Many thanks Buster. People sometimes stand for me on the underground. I regard it as one of the benefits of old age. A merry Christmas and happy new year to you and your wife. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:11, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Anglo-Saxon history citations at Reflib

 Courtesy links: Template:Reflib, Template:Reflib/Anglo-Saxon history

Hi, Dudley. I'm Mathglot, and I'm working on a project to provide a centralized repository of quality citations (a "reference library") for various article domains of interest to editors for their article development. Goals include availability, vetting of quality citations, and providing shareability of citations across multiple articles from a single source. This project is still in its infancy, but there are five article domains now, including a first version of Anglo-Saxon history as of today. Mike Christie mentioned that you would be a good person to talk to about the Anglo-Saxon history domain. I'm looking for feedback and collaborators to advance the project, either on that topic, or on any other topic that might be a good fit for the project.

A couple of things would help. First, is any thoughts you have about the project generally (see the template doc page linked above), and in particular, thoughts about the appropriateness of "Anglo-Saxon history" as a choice for an article domain–is it too narrow? too broad? correctly named? (This question will make more sense after you've had a chance to have a read-through.) Second, is any thoughts you might have about creating new article domains (topic areas likely to have shared citations in common among articles in the domain) that might benefit from being included in Reflib and having a library of citations devoted to it. Mike mentioned you were someone involved with pre-Roman UK archaeology articles, and might comment on that topic, but I'm open to anything.

I tend to prattle on too long, so at the risk of leaving you mystified with insufficient explanation, maybe I better just stop and give you a chance to have a look at the documentation at Template:Reflib, to see if youre interested in this at all or would like to commment. The proximate backstory for this is at User talk:Mike Christie#Importing your Sci-fi library citations, and Mike's original citation list For A-S history is here. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 09:06, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Mathglot, but I think I will pass on this one. Sorry to be thick, but I find the explanation of Reflib incomprehensible. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:54, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I Understand, no worries. Apart from the template issue, Mike mentioned you might have sources for pre-Roman UK archaeology. Do you maintain a list of top sources for that topic, or can you point me to one? I'd like to compile a list of several dozen quality sources in that topic area but I'm not knowledgeable about it and your advice would be helpful. Thanks Mathglot (talk) 20:19, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

My field is history rather than archaeology. My library is at User:Dudley Miles/Library. It is mainly Anglo-Saxon. If you want to use it, I can point out which books I would not recommend as RSs. There are also sections on science, particularly evolution. I have a Word document with books and articles formatted for sources sections which I am happy to send to you if it would help. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:09, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

This is really helpful, thanks. I recognized a few names, and I have Ladurie's Mind and Method of the Historian borrowed from the library right now. As far as indicating which are not RS, yes, that would be helpful. Do you want to just put an asterisk or some other indicator (* † ‡ ⁇ ⁑ ) next to those ones? You can get the N mark from template {{nay}}, and other marks can be found here. I'd love to have the Word document; you can email me via the 'Email this user' link in the left sidebar under the desktop layout (not sure where it is on the new layout), or this link should work: email Mathglot. Thanks again, Mathglot (talk) 22:02, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I have used asterisks. Dudley Miles (talk) 23:33, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Gillham Wood

Hi, Dudley Miles. I understand the revert on the PROD for Gillham Wood – nobody wants their article PRODed. However, an ostensibly experienced editor like yourself should be familiar enough with notability guidelines (please see WP:GNG and WP:NGEO, which both apply here) to understand how flimsy the stated reasoning behind the challenge was. "The article is notable and useful to readers who wish to know about [specific thing]" could be said to bypass notability guidelines for literally any subject. We draw the line at notability guidelines for very good reasons (the GNG sets the bar just trivially low enough that Wikipedia doesn't become an indiscriminate collection of information), and that's not negated (or influenced whatsoever) by the presence of a hypothetical readerbase who would like to have an article specifically about every character from their favorite TV show, their favorite small local business, or a forest which otherwise does not appear to be covered significantly in any reliable, independent sources. Bulbapedia shows that an article about every single Pokémon, move, ability, town, and character would be widely useful to plenty of people. KnowYourMeme's article on 'Are Ya Winning, Son?' has 1 million views, so we'll need an article about that too. You see where I'm going here. Perhaps newspaper articles from newspaper sources could be dug up here to establish notability? That's often how it goes for this sort of thing. Preferably they would be regional or national, but either way, they need substantial coverage about the subject itself; not just a mention that WP:ITEXISTS.

Right now, the sourcing on the article is entirely primary, and I was unable to find a way to fix that. Please find reliable, independent sources which give the subject WP:SIGCOV, otherwise it objectively does not belong on Wikipedia. A mention on Wikivoyage, perhaps(?), but not an article here. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 15:18, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

In my view, the notablility guidelines artificially exclude articles which are reliably referenced and notable. Characters in game shows are trivia, unlike a nature reserve. However, I have found two other sources which should satisfy the requirements. Dudley Miles (talk) 18:30, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

They really don't, however. They establish verifiability (WP:ITEXISTS), but they definitely don't rise to the standard of WP:SIGCOV (the longest of the two comes to 47 words). Disagreeing with the guidelines is one thing, but I think you may fundamentally misunderstand significant coverage as it pertains to notability criteria (these new sources are ostensibly both reliable and independent, however). When I looked into this before PRODing, the best sources I was able to find were from hyper-local newspapers via the Britsh Newspaper Archive (seen here), and even in those hyper-local human interest stories, the references to Gillham Wood amount to the briefest mention. This doesn't even rise to the level of significant coverage that some fan-made Pokémon receive. I think it's pretty cut-and-dry that Gillham Wood doesn't warrant its own article, most especially because it's largely a repeat of your (quite excellent) work at Sussex Wildlife Trust. Nonetheless, I could be wrong, and perhaps it has some prevalence in print-only books or digitized books which I was unable to find. All the best, TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 18:06, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

You seem to be adopting an excessively strict interpretation of the requirements for notability. SIGGOV rules out passing mentions but does not specify a minimum length. I have seen much worse referenced articles survive nominations for deletion. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:01, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

	A very happy Christmas and New Year to you!
	Have a great Christmas, and may 2024 bring you joy, happiness – and no trolls, vandals or visits from Krampus! Cheers SchroCat (talk) 09:40, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

The same to you SchroCat and the pictures are brilliant. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:58, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

"Harry the house"

Hi,

I noticed you'd reverted a couple of edits by DuncanHill at "Wicken Fen" and "One Tree Hill and Bitchet Common" where he had reverted the changes made by an IP editor. The IP editor is a blocked user known as "Harry the house" (see the SPI archive here) and is very prolific. I'd like to try to coordinate a response to his activity. Would you mind joining the discussion here?

Thanks, Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 11:23, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Jean. I don't think I have anything to add to what has already been said by other editors. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:32, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

		Season's Greetings
		Wishing everybody a Happy Holiday Season, and all best wishes for the New Year! The Nativity scene on the Pulpit in the Pisa Baptistery by Nicola Pisano is my Wiki-Christmas card to all for this year. Johnbod (talk) 02:59, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Merry Christmas Johnbod. I didn't know that sculptors were producing that level of realism that early. Is there anything equivalent in Italian painting in the thirteenth century? Dudley Miles (talk) 09:46, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Not really - the sculptors were ahead of the game for a while, until Giotto really. In Italy they had lots of Roman models lying around, while painters just had mostly 2nd-rate Byzantine stuff to follow. Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 24 December 2023 (UTC)