Generalmesse

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Hello, Generalmesse, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! Jaxfl (talk) 02:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

November 2007

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, we remind you not to attack other editors. Please comment on the contributions and not the contributors. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Mayalld (talk) 08:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

A Btn. of the Italian Trento Div. breaches the Australian defences at Tobruk

Kirrages thanks for not deleting my contributions. I think you deserve this link that proves the Italians proved themeselves on 1 May 1941 and I thank the website www.comandosupremo.com for giving me enough grounds to go ahead and establish this Italian effort as true through the Australian website awm.gov.au. Where there is smoke there is fire so I thank the webmaster of www.comandosupremo.com thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Generalmesse (talk • contribs) 11:24, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem - you don't have to thank me for not deleting contributions! I hope I do not have a reputation for arbitrary deletions! My concern is always to uphold the highest quality of contributions - after all this is an encyclopedia not a novel:

• Because an article often has many contributors it becomes over time disjointed so I often copyedit (rewrite) to improve the English and the continuity of the article
• I am fierce on references, both on their quality and how specific they are i.e. I prefer published books to websites (I count books originally published on paper but later published on the web - like the Aus & NZ war histories - as books) because although web articles can be quite good, often they are no more than POV blogs. I also chase people to put page numbers on their references because Wikipedia requires facts to be verifiable and to say that a fact came somewhere from a 500 page book (or indeed a huge website) without giving a page number is not helpful for verification purposes!! So when I put a tag in I am quite often asking for a more specific reference.
• I am very conscious that English Wikipedia articles can be Anglo-Saxon oriented. I don't believe this is because of a national bias (I personally am much more interested in the truth) but because original sources from the Axis side translared into English are much rarer. I am always therefore very happy when non-English speakers with access to foreign language texts take an interest in an article because they add a new perspective. I try to be helpful by copyediting these contributions into better English.
• It's not always easy to get a good balance though. For instance, the Western Desert campaign articles cry out for more Axis perspective but that doesn't mean we should include elements describing very minor incidents. Very typically the articles (even from the Allied point of view) rarely describe events below brigade level - occasionally when part of a brigade is overun etc the relevent battalion is mentioned but this is fairly rare. For greater detail one should read a book not an encyclopedia. What I would like are more strategic insights and descriptions to contrast with (not replace) the Allied views. However, I understand the desire to counter the Allied WWII propaganda which pretty much said that every Italian unit was useless - clearly untrue.

I hope the above will give you some understanding of what drives my editing and reassures you that any changes I make to your contributions are from the best possible motives (although being human I do make mistakes!). Regards Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 13:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Note about formatting and tenses

Dear Generalmesse, I noticed your edit here, and I'd like to bring a few issues to your attention. First, if you are not aware, Wikipedia uses special scripting language, and when you indent, it produces "nonformat" boxes, which do not word wrap, and cause some extreme formatting problems, i.e. horizontal scrolling. Second, the tone of the entry is not consistent with the rest of the article, using a non-standard tense grammar, (i.e. "The Italian soldiers were now irretrievably losing", "The sun had now risen", etc.). Also, the entry is an extremely long paragraph, and has no sources cited to verify any of the information you added. I broke the section into paragraphs, but it would be helpful if you could fix the entry to format it more in line with the manual of style grammar, as well as cite sources to verify the addition. Also, please note that if you obtained that information from another source, be mindful of the copyright policy, as legally, information cannot be copied from other sources. For assistance with editing, take a look at See Wikipedia's manual of style, layout guide, article development, and how to edit for assistance. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, or to visit the Help desk which is covered 24 hours a day. Cheers! Ariel♥Gold 09:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Operation Crusader

Hi GeneralMesse, Thanks for your contributions. However, please be very careful about the supposed "racist" NZ Official History. It's quite difficult to read because often when "dipping in" halfway through it is difficult to work out what day it is talking about. There is a very clear description of the Ariete capturing Pt 175 on 29 November from 21 NZ Battalion (not a Maori unit) at [1]. The Maori Battalion (28th NZ Battalion) was part of NZ 5th Brigade and nowhere near Point 175 or Sidi Rezegh. They were in fact at Sollum fighting 21st Panzer (see the Official History of 28 Bde at [2]) and then moved on 1 Dec to Menastir to form part of the 5th Brigade defence which repulsed the Geissler Advance Guard (see [3]). Regards Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 12:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Strange request

Hi, can you please drop me a line on my talk page? We don't know each other, you're simply the first person I found on the recent changes page, so I have somewhat of a guarantee you're online. I'm asking you to do this because I need to see the Wikipedia format for "you have new messages", for a technical proposal. Thank you! --Gutza ^{T T+} 01:12, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to have bothered you, please disregard the request above. --Gutza ^{T T+} 01:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Italian information

Hi there, i have seen some of the edits you have made to some of the North African articles and i would like to thank you for your contributions, especially the Brevity one. It is a shame as you said that Playfair didnt mention more of some of the heroic acts the Italian soldiers did, as there not like the sterotypes so often portrayed.

Regarding Brevity and the Italians, for you have any information regarding there losses (killed, wounded and captured) during this operation? --EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 15:31, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Please refrain from incivility and personal attacks

Please do not attack other editors, like you did here and here. Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. If you continue, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you - Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:05, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Please note that you were the subject of this WQA. I am closing it as resolved as you have been warned. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:08, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

sign comments

When writing something on a talkpage (ONLY talkpages!) and always at the end of your text - click on the symbol the arrow points to:

this will sign your comment and make it possible for other contributors to answer you.

also if you decide to create articles about the Bersaglieri regiments on my commons page you will find the Bersaglieri Coat of Arms I made --noclador (talk) 10:27, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry case

You have been accused of sockpuppetry. Please refer to Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Giovanni Giove 2nd for evidence. Please make sure you make yourself familiar with notes for the suspect before editing the evidence page. noclador (talk) 09:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

First Battle of El Alamein

This is your only warning: Stop vandalizing the First Battle of El Alamein article. Your claim has been proven wrong. No more insertions of 7th Bersaglieri stuff. --noclador (talk) 10:35, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

You have been temporarily blocked from editing in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy for repeated abuse of editing privileges. Please stop. You're welcome to make useful contributions after the block expires. If you believe this block is unjustified you may contest this block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} below.

The use of multiple accounts to avoid 3RR and to inflate a viewpoint is not acceptable. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:37, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I have now increased the tariff to 1 month. LessHeard vanU (talk) 09:00, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Your ID...

...reminds me of the old Army joke: "How come the Privates eat in the General Mess and the Generals eat in the Private Mess?" :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 18:22, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

intro for your article

Hi Generalmesse, are you still active on Wikipedia? I've accidentally come across your article Italian 102 Motorised Division Trento, and I've trouble understanding what it's all about. Could you maybe give it a regular introduction (probably one sentence would be enough?) to let unprepared readers understand what it is? Maybe you could mention what a "motorised division" actually is (it's taken me a moment to even guess you're talking about the army), mention its nationality, etc.? Thanks a lot, and please feel free to ask me if you have questions. --Ibn Battuta (talk) 17:10, 14 October 2008 (UTC)