User talk:The Duke of Waltham/Archive 4

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This is the fourth archive of The Duke of Waltham's talk page. The main discussion archived here concerns the development of an experimental succession-box template; the Four Principles for the Manual of Style also made their first appearance here before being further analysed elsewhere. Other messages were shorter (with the exception of a long general conversation with kkarma), from various editors and for different reasons, although several of them pertain to barnstars and secret pages. Here are stored all discussions beginning and ending in the time period from 1 January to 24 March 2008, i.e. the first three months of that year.

Archiving took place on 13 March, 17 March, 23 March, 4 April, and 24 April 2008.

H. Cartwright

Happy Birthday

	Happy Birthday	from the Birthday Committee
	Wishing The Duke of Waltham/Archive 4 a very happy birthday on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Don't forget to save us all a piece of cake!

--  Idontknow610  (WANNA SIGN??) 18:19, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

BF tag

[Debivort's answer to a message here has been moved to join the rest of the conversation.]

Help with succession boxes for event host venue

Your Grace, in my work editing succession boxes for venues hosting events (like the NCAA Final Four and the DCI World Championships), I have run up against a limitation of the formatting. I despise seeing multiple boxes listed for hosting of these recurring events. An example would be the Louisiana Superdome's page with the Super Bowls. I worked on this page and "compressed" portions of that page for the Sugar Bowl Host and NCAA Men's Basketball tournament finals host. The biggest problem I encountered was getting the individual years to line up in a row and being unable to make the vertical spacing attractive in the before and after heading. So, I began working on a template to achieve this. Would you please take a look at the following page and offer feedback? User:Gwguffey/Succession Box Venue Thank you. -Gwguffey (talk) 04:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello, dear fellow. The problem with huge succession boxes is indeed very real, and your proposal is quite intriguing. However, I ought to warn you that such a solution is not likely to be very popular (for a variety of technical and other reasons), and that if it should be applied, a template will probably have to be created that will be both easy to learn and compatible with WikiProject Succession Box Standardization templates and guidelines. Remember that inexperienced editors will often edit these boxes.

Now, I have tidied up the Superdome box a little, in order that it would conform to our standards a bit more. You might wish to have a look. I have de-linked the years (following our guidelines) and placed those for the predecessors and successors in parentheses. In my opinion, these years ought to be removed completely.

Please do not be mistaken: I have not yet decided upon whether to support your idea. I am torn at the moment. I think I will take this to WT:SBS, but I warn you that most people are still away. In any case, seeing new ideas is a marvellous think (especially in the rather small cycle of succession box editors), and I hope that you will keep the good work up. Waltham, The Duke of 16:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback and consideration. I am interested in learning more about the "variety of technical and other reasons" that you mentioned as I wish to continue my education in realm of succession boxes in order to be a good and cooperative citizen.

As for your preference about removing the years completely, it seems that as venues in the sequence may host for a multiple year range or for a single year and that information may be useful to the viewer in their decision regarding their next click destination.

I most definitely concur in your assessment that a solution needs to be developed that will be easy for inexperienced users edit, hence my thoughts on the "beforevenue2, beforeyears2, years2, aftervenue2,afteryears2" parameters so that the entry could look like this on the page

{{succession box venue

|eventname=

|years=

|beforevenue=

|beforeyears=

|aftervenue=

|afteryears=

|years2=

|beforevenue2=

|beforeyears2=

|aftervenue2=

|afteryears2=

...

}} and be as analogous as possible to the generalized succession box. If you deem my solution unworthy, I am hopeful that it will spur thoughts that will help make this class of succession editing more standardized and user friendly.

Humbly yours, Gwguffey (talk) 18:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Do excuse me, but this might delay somewhat. The exam period is beginning, which means that my time on-line will be somewhat limited, and that it will probably be spent on more pressing matters. I shall come back to you on this when I find that I have enough time to deal with the matter properly. I sincerely apologise for the inconvenience. Waltham, The Duke of 15:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

No worries, your grace. Best wishes with the exams. -Gwguffey (talk) 16:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Back to business. Two basic problems I have noted in the template are:

1. A visual problem, namely the positioning of the separators. If the lines between different rows are not properly aligned within the succession box, the aesthetic result can be bad, and it makes the template difficult for editors to use if they must start handling line breaks. Succession templates are meant to be as simple as possible, so that all editors may use them with the least possibility of committing errors.
2. A sorting problem, namely the order of the succession lines; the large box includes all the years for which the venue has hosted a particular championship, disturbing the chronological order of the other lines.

Generally speaking, the whole template is too large to fit in with the rest of the s-start series, one of the main objects of which is flexibility. Furthermore, there are not so many special cases as this one, so this is not a measure that could be widely adopted anyway. As a matter of fact, such cases can be better managed by article series boxes; {{Super Bowl venues}} does an excellent job of listing all the venues and the specific Super Bowls they have hosted without any repetition. The best way to go in the case of the Louisiana Superdome would be to remove the Super-Bowl-related succession lines altogether; template creep is discouraged in Wikipedia (now that I think of it, actually, I must start removing the lines for Academy-Award-winning films, which is a little painful because I have spent time editing them).

I am sorry for being so harsh, because it is an interesting and original idea you are proposing. However, I am preparing you for the things you will hear if you decide to go further with this. This is just my opinion, of course; if you find that you want to receive more input by people in the succession box business, I have reserved a place for you in SBS's agenda for the last third of March. I hope one month is plenty of time for you to make a decision.

Sorry for keeping you waiting for so long, just to give you such bad news. Do not be discouraged, though; keep thinking, and a more successful idea might occur to you. And I know just the way to cheer you up: if you want to see a true site of bloody idea executions, check the Village Pump. A daily massacre, I'm telling you... Waltham, The Duke of 14:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Your Grace, thank you for your kind consideration and follow-up. Your response has made it clear to me that I need to further educate myself, as my travels across venues as revealed a general lack of consistency in implementation within the realm of venues. Here's the order of what I generally see listed:

• current tenants of the building
• former tenants of the building
• 'huge' events
• 'big' events
• 'other notable' events

They is a general disregard of pure chronological order. Should they be in strict chronological order? If that is the case, then my thought of "compressing" multiple non-sequential hostings of the same event is silly and much better handled by separate boxes. Is there a manual of style for these circumstances? If not, should one be developed? I'm would happy to lead a crusade toward standardization of these boxes across venues if/once there is a MOS to directly refer question to. Humbly yours, Gwguffey (talk) 15:13, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

One question about your response: You mentioned concern about the user having to deal with 'line break'. I don't understand this, as the backend code handles the line breaks automatically. No user knowledge required. All the user as to do is enter the parameters exactly like existing succession boxes. Also, the horizontal lines are apart of the actual table itself, so there is no way for them to be un-aligned in this solution -- as opposed to abusing <hr>'s manualy which is one of the issues that I was attempting to eliminate with this solution. If you had a moment to take a peak back at User:Gwguffey/Succession Box Venue, I have clarified what the user actually has to enter. Very humbly, Gwguffey (talk) 15:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

First of all, no thought is silly. Well, some thoughts are silly, but yours isn't; Wikipedia's criteria for silliness are (or, at least, should be) rather strict. The matter of education is likewise relative; specialisation is rather important in the vast world of Wikipedia, where it is impossible to learn everything anyway. Learn best what you expect to use more often, and for the rest you have but to ask people well versed in those sectors of operations.

Unfortunately for me, you, and a few thousands of other Wikipedians, the Manual of Style has organisational problems, leading to redundancies and inconsistencies. There is an effort to address the problem in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, but these things always take time. SBS is slowly compiling its own guidelines specifically for succession boxes, which you may find at WP:SBSGUIDE.

As far as venues are concerned, the order of succession boxes in such articles does not need to reflect the order of sections within the article. On the contrary, it is highly beneficial for succession boxes to offer to the readers something different from what the article has to offer, so that they can maximalise their usefulness. In other words, navigational templates must generally be able to excuse the space they take up in every possible way. (Or at least that's how I see it.) So, if the articles utilise a decreasing order of importance, it is useful to have a chronological order in the succession box; if it must present the same data, it can at least do it in another way.

About the horizontal lines (yes, these are the ones I was referring to), I was probably confused by the system used in the Louisiana Superdome article. However, you don't really have a template to use for testing; in the page you mentioned (which I had looked before writing my response, though somewhat cursorily), you use the code as it is and enter the data. You should not be afraid of creating the template in your userspace; just create the subpage and include just the template. You can then transclude the template and see how it is supposed to work if it is adopted. One thing I should like to know about its performance is how it would handle cases where one side has a long stadium name (taking up two rows) and the other a short name. We need the template if we are to make any decisions on it.

Finally, there is the issue of the years. Personally, I find the years in the flanking columns redundant, as they are almost always the previous and next from that of the middle column. If you insist on retaining the years, at least have the template include them in parentheses. Even better, they could be optional, to be entered only in cases where the year is not the one expected.

Still, I am not fully convinced of the necessity of this template. Collapsibility has long been an issue in SBS, and I have just located an interesting possibility with potentials in the article of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. In other words, if the whole thing is just to save space, there are easier ways to do that.

But, again, who knows. Waltham, The Duke of 16:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Your Grace, I have followed your suggestion on transcluding the template in my userspace. If you would be kind enough to take a look at User:Gwguffey/Succession Box Venue/test and click 'edit the page' so that you can see what the end user would see. I completely understand that this may have been a mental exercise, but I would appreciate your feedback regardless. Gwguffey (talk) 17:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Mental exercise or not, you should follow due course. Transcluding the template is the only way to properly test it. I have examined it, and the results of this inspection are the following:

• The parameters are reasonable and easy to remember. I believe, however, that you should add "1" to the first trio of parameters ("years1" and so on), for standardisation reasons and in order to avoid confusing the editors. After all, if this template is to be used, one is not supposed to use it for just one line.
• If the "Host of" part will be a standard part of the title, and it seems that it will, I suggest including it automatically, and only having the editor writing the name itself; that would be in accordance with the parameter name, "eventname".
• I find the version with the lines preferable to that without them, which could create a crammed-looking and hard-to-read box.
• The above concerns are rather minor; my greatest problem is with two-line titles. I tried breaking a succeeding stadium's name into two lines, and the whole table was upset. As a matter of fact, the left column stuck to the bottom, while the middle one didn't align with any line. Check it for yourself, please. It is my belief that this template will not be acceptable unless this problem is resolved, as the resulting table in this case does not create a good aesthetic result and makes it harder for the reader to understand the successions.

End of official report. My consulting services will cost you fifty Euros. Waltham, The Duke of 19:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for honoring me with your quick response. I have made the adjustments of:

1. adding 'host of' automagically (yes, 'g' not 't')
2. adding 1's to the first treo

I shall now get to work on attempting to solve the multi-line issue. As for the 50 fifty euros, your services are underpriced and demonstrates your grace's generosity. Humbly yours. Gwguffey (talk) 01:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

(whispers to Cartwright) Should I tell him that we have been charging him for every hour since he's first asked for my help? No? You're right; sooner or later he will realise that he owes more than €74,000. Waltham, The Duke of 01:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

PS: Why did you change the number? Numbers with more than one digit are optionally written fully; it is bad style if you write 2 instead of two, but this doesn't apply to 50 and fifty. Waltham, The Duke of

Thank you for clarifying the numerics style. Your patience with my complete implosion in understanding this is another demonstration of your kindness.

As for my indebtedness, I have resigned myself to begun looking forward to my future as your grace's moat dredger. Gwguffey (talk) 05:53, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Kind Sir, I have completed addressing the multi-line entry issue and would appreciate your taking a look at User:Gwguffey/Succession Box Venue/test for commentary. Your humble moat dredger, Gwguffey (talk) 19:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I am impressed. All my concerns have been addressed, and the alignment is perfect. I am very pleased. You seem to have a knack for this kind of things; as opposed to your dredging skills, which suck. Can you tend a garden? I promote you to under-gardener in my Waltham Hall estate. Lots of work, but good pay (you will be getting nothing, of course, because of your debt). Waltham, The Duke of 19:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey Duke

Grace to the King, long live the Queen, and preserve the republic. Igor Berger (talk) 16:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes! Indeed!

What republic? :-) Waltham, The Duke of 18:18, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

PS: I really like the Two Rules—and I am proud of a perfect understanding of them, too.

Nice going, welcome aboard your highness! Being that your excelency holds powers above our mear mortals maybe your office can design a Hebrew user box. Now hebrew user boxes can be worn by all believers of the pure race the upholders of Zion, including Your Grace The Duke of Waltham. Regards, Your Humble Servent, Igor Berger (talk) 10:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

We can put Moses and the Ten Commandments on it here some pictures to chose from I like the one on the right as best, but google result may change. Igor Berger (talk) 10:35, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your appreciating my powers, Igorberger, but I am afraid that you have misunderstood something: I am not a believer of the pure race, or an upholder of Zion. You see, I only believe in myself, and uphold nothing but my plans for world domination. In this goal, the support of others is helpful, but I do not count on it, and always have plans for contingencies.

Seriously, now, I am not exactly the best one to design a userbox. I am involved in succession boxes, there is a distinct difference. Unless this is part of a joke (understandable), I cannot be of much assistance; especially now that I am preparing, or at least trying to prepare, for my end-of-semester exams. I humbly apologise. Waltham, The Duke of 17:09, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S.: There must be thousands of Jews editing Wikipedia; I find it impossible that there should be no Hebrew userbox available. Let me have a look... (has a look) Well, there are several options here... And if you are not satisfied, you may copy the code from the template's page into your user page and replace the image or the colours (or both). Customisation is not that hard. Now, if an image you are interested in is not on Wikipedia, you could upload it, but it better not be copyrighted; fair use images are not allowed in user pages. I hope I have been of assistance. Waltham, The Duke of 17:09, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the assistance and suggestion, but Hebrew is a race and not a religion. One does not need to be Jewish to be a Hebrew. So, I will need to upload an image which maybe hard being that I am a nub and still fighting with the dark forces and defeding the republic from Darf Vader. Long live the Queen your excelency, and hope the day of salvation and liberation is not far away! For now I just put it in script User:Igorberger#I_am_a_Hebrew Thanks, Igor Berger (talk) 17:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Slight confusion there... Well, so far as there are no consequences, no problem (I hope). In any case, there are userbox directories for all sorts of things; just go there and have a look around. And if you have trouble, there are always these editors who claim to be the experts on userboxes; find one and make them prove themselves right! Waltham, The Duke of 16:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Duke I need the Ten Commandments and Moses! If you ever meet them let me know. Regards, Igor Berger (talk) 10:05, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

(belated response) If I do find anything, I shall of course notify you promptly. However, you must know that it is highly unlikely. I suggest that you should ask another Hebrew to help you finding images suitable to your purpose; I have neither the time nor the interest to engage in any search to this effect. I am sorry that I cannot be of more assistance; I wish you the best of luck. Waltham, The Duke of 00:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Making it clearer that S-start should replace succession box?

Hello, I'm pretty new to the whole succession box thing; in fact, I just came upon the need to edit a page with an existing {{succession box}} layout for the first time today.

My usual approach when I find a template I'm unfamiliar with is to go to its page, so off I went to Template:Succession box. No doc of any kind. OK, my next stop is its talk page, since it seems that's where template documentation used to go prior to the Template:foo/doc convention being adopted. I found enough at the top of the page and elsewhere to satisfy me.

Note I mentioned the top of the page...

Now, I usually also go to the bottom of a template's talk page to look for late-breaking news, but somehow I managed to completely miss your entry about {{S-start}}, and spent my time happily dinking away with {{succession box}} for my edits, and now it appears I was learning about and using the wrong, old stuff. I think part of the reason is that the title of the entry, "Template:S-start", meant nothing to me out of context.

So anyway, I have a few suggestions:

1. Create a template:succession box/doc page that says something to the effect of "this is the old way. The shiny new way is described at template:S-start/doc" and get it transcluded onto template:succession box.
2. Lather, rinse, repeat for all old succession box templates.
3. On template talk:succession box, but a note at the top of the page, too.
4. Change the title of your entry on that page to something much more explanatory, like: "Make sure you know about Wikipedia:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization !" As mentioned above "Template:S-start" means nothing to anyone who doesn't already know what "Template:S-start" means, so it gets lost among the 30+ other comments on the page.
5. Lather, rinse, repeat for all old succession box template talk pages.

Hope this helps! The project looks like a worthy one, and I look forward to using the new templates. I just wanted to give the perspective of a maybe-typical clueless editor, in the hopes that there's a way to get others like me to the right place as quickly as possible. Cheers,--NapoliRoma (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

First of all, I should like to apologise for the delay in answering your extremely interesting message. I am happy to see that there are people interested in succession boxes beyond our small circle, and I could not possibly leave them waiting.

Now, I appreciate your advice, and I find it more or less sound, but it seems that the true complexity of the situation has escaped you. As a matter of fact, it has probably escaped most editors. The templates of the s-start series have not superseded those of the succession box series. In SBS we are working towards this goal (and many others), but it is a long way and we are only at the beginning. At this present stage, we can only urge editors to cease using the older templates in favour of the newer ones, but we cannot really force anyone, especially since there are Wikipedians who actually prefer the succession box templates—I think they see it easier to use one template for one series, or they prefer it because they find it tidier in the edit box (or both).

In any case, I have changed the post's header in the talk page you have mentioned, and I also agree that some steps ought to be taken to make the s-start series more prominent. The problem is of a wider nature, as succession boxes are virtually unregulated, and practically no guidelines apply to them (except for a couple of Manual of Style directives disallowing their usage for fictional characters). We have guidelines which we intend to eventually make official, but in order to achieve this we must perfect them and plug the various holes that are present at the moment. To do that, we need participation in the project, so that discussion can ensue and progress can be made.

In other words, we need people to help. As you seem to be interested enough, you would perhaps be interested to join... Waltham, The Duke of 10:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Not to complain

about my New Years gong, but for the record, I happen to be male. Very busy this spring, but hope to take more in hand afterwards. Long life to Your Grace, etc. Choess (talk) 13:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Duly corrected. Sorry as I am for this most embarrassing mistake, it ought to be a lesson to you as well, for not including more information in your user page. (Evil grin) I am not sure about why I thought you were female; perhaps a post I had read about you implied as much. In any case, my sincerest apologies.

Hey, now that I have your attention I should probably mention that there are two issues in WT:SBS you might want to state your opinion about. Busy as you may be, it will not take you more than ten minutes, and... Well, let's just say that I am getting desperate with the situation in general. People have simply stopped coming, as if they are still on holiday. I have a host of other proposals to make, but I fear that they will just pile up in the talk page. We need to keep business moving, and I really don't want to pressure people about something which is, in the bottom of the line, a voluntary participation. Waltham, The Duke of 13:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, Happy Wikipedia Day. Waltham, The Duke of 13:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Happy Wikipedia Day to you, too. No worries. I've cast my vote at the two proposals at WP:SBS; I've watchlisted it, so I'll try to stop by as more things come in. Choess (talk) 16:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

This is marvellous, Mr Choess. It may sound funny, but if only all members would just watch the page in question, many of our problems would vanish surprisingly easily. Waltham, The Duke of 10:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Greetings

Greetings my lord. I am a humble servant of your lordship for many years and i would be happy to be in your service for many years to come. I am sending this letter because i would like to thank you for those words you wrote in your letter i received when i first came. If your Lordship requires anything ... please name it.

Your servant, Crazyjim the magician —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crazyjim87 (talk • contribs) 09:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, you are welcome, Crazy Jim. Minions are always handy, and I can make good use of a magician like yourself... I shall let you know when the time comes, have no doubt of it. (Evil grin) In the meanwhile, please do make sure that you will be adequately educated in the ways of Wikipedia (by utilising the links I have provided you with), so that you can be of greater assistance in my attempts to conquer the encyclopaedia, and the world.

Yours sincerely, Waltham, The Duke of 09:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Germany Invitation

Hello, The Duke of Waltham! I'd like to call your attention to the WikiProject Germany and the German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board. I hope their links, sub-projects and discussions are interesting and even helpful to you. If not, I hope that new ones will be. Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany | finger on pulse Wikipedia:German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board | finger on pulse

--Zeitgespenst (talk) 01:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, but German matters do not appeal to my interests. Imagine that I am 75% Greek and 25% German, yet I have never showed up at the Greek noticeboard either. No, I have long ago decided to dedicate my available time to other pursuits. Regardless, thank you for your invitation. Waltham, The Duke of 14:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

νοητικά

Interesting how things are going at WP:MOS, yes? Just one thing: from the evidence of one recent contribution of yours, I think you may have assigned me a wrong gender (unless it is I who have been mistaken all these years, which is at least an abstract possibility). Note that νοητικά is to be taken as a neuter plural, like φυσικά meaning "physics". Εν τάξει? A perfectly understandable mistake, since I give something less than zero information about myself at my userpage. I enjoy being a featureless cyberentity; but I'll have to change that, since it's impractical. Expect a more developed userpage soon.

All the best for your exams, young Waltham.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 18:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, not again... What's wrong with me? This is the second time in one week! First poor Choess, and then you... A lack of a user page ought to be banned for users with more than 200 edits...!

Greek is my native tongue, but I cannot always see exactly what word is being used; the transliteration can create some misunderstandings. And I had to be confused by the final a, didn't I?

A, well, I suppose that it will not happen again... I must be more careful from now on. As the Ancient Greeks said, "το δις εξαρματείν ουκ ανδρός σοφού εστί" (or something like that). Waltham, The Duke of 18:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Main page

Thanks for keeping an eye out on the main page, we need MOS afficionados to keep an eye on all those ndashes!! I think the vast majority update the recent archives, it is only rarely missed, and usually when it is, the next admin will do it anyway. Regards. Woody (talk) 18:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, just doing my best... After all, the Main Page is the single most visible page; the slightest mistake is a multiple embarrassment. Or, at least, this is my view; most people seem to be rather tolerant to such mistakes (most of them make much more anyway...). In any case, I shall be bolder next time I see such a slip. Cheers. Waltham, The Duke of 23:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Your userpage

Is awsome, and you deserve this several times over. I've read through your whole article and the subpages and still can't stop laughing/smiling, whatever's appropriate.

		The Excellent Userpage Award
		To His Grace: to His superior User page and all its content we must kowtow. If there is a place in royalty for a sense of humor, the Duke certainly sets a new standard it in the best possible way, and may a thousand suns expire before that valuable quality does. ALTON .ıl 09:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

You insult me! This is a serious article!

Seriously, now, thank you very much for the honour, Alton. I am most pleased to see that I have made another person, hundreds of kilometres away, laugh by showcasing my eccentric and self-centred joke of a persona. I promise to continue the tradition of humour in my user page, as well as source the rest of its claims ;-). Waltham, The Duke of 21:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S.: The money for the award is in the envelope. Take it and leave before anyone sees you, or we're both dead. Waltham, The Duke of 12:29, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Answered at my page

Hi Waltham. I will always answer messages at my page, OK? Keeps discussion in one place.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 23:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I quite agree; this is my system as well. I was a little late in answering, that's all. Waltham, The Duke of 15:17, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

---

"Wikibreak" over

The quotation marks show exactly what people who know me might have noticed: I barely stayed off Wikipedia for more than two or three days at any time. In any case, I am officially back, so I guess that I shall usually edit with my usual level of efficiency. Waltham, The Duke of 14:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Secret page

If you read the beginning, that's a level 1 secret page, and the 2nd one is nearly impossible. 3 people have found it... ever. I made an obviously easy one to encourage people to look for the difficult one. нмŵוτнτ 22:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I am aware of this, and I do intend to look for the second page. In the meanwhile, I wanted to taunt you, and encourage you to look for mine. Can you find it... ever? Waltham, The Duke of 14:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

User Page

I love your user page! --AStanhope (talk) 19:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

How come I haven't noticed this before? Strange. Anyway, thank you for your kind words, Mr Stanhope, and I am really sorry for, uhm, ignoring you as I have. Perhaps I did so subconsciously, somehow knowing that your user page was standard and common-looking. :-p Never mind, though; you have a higher edit count than me, and that's all that counts in Wikipedia. Definitely.

You do have an interesting userbox: how is it that you don't know how many countries you have visited exactly? Does it have anything to do with some boundary dispute, a faulty memory, your not knowing whether it counts visiting a country as a foetus, or simply not knowing whether your own country is included? Waltham, The Duke of 19:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Haha!

I found it! I thought I was going crazy, because I've looked for it for three hours now (pathetic, I know), so I finally cheated and used the prefix finder, and I figured it out! I won't say it here, and ruin the surprise, but I must say, well done. :] ElisaEXPLOSiONtalk. 23:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

First of all, there is no link; there are clues (one in this page and one in another of my pages). Cheating is, therefore, required.

Secondly, the laugh's on you. Did you actually stop to read the page you've found? I suggest that you should see the page's edit preview. Then you will realise that your laughter was quite premature. (Mwahahaha!) Believe me, when (or, rather, if) you find the page, you shall know it.

What do you think of my user page, by the way? I must say I have found yours quite interesting, especially the "odd" userboxes. Waltham, The Duke of 16:43, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The Four Principles

Having reviewed the discussion about the relations between the Manual of Style and its satellites, seeing that there is no consensus amongst editors in creating a hierarchy where the main MoS will have precedence over its subpages even on a provisional basis, and believing that we as Wikipedians must find ways to ensure that there will be no discrepancies between the individual parts of the Greater Manual of Style, but there will be a unified, cohesive, and consistent style aid useful to all the esteemed editors of this noble encyclopaedia, I hereby submit to thee:

The following four principles, which I have written in an attempt to establish a framework upon which, in my not-so-humble opinion, the relations between the various pages of MoS ought to be defined. In other words, they are intended to provide a foundation where the process of guideline revising can be built with the least possible controversy and disagreement. These principles are based on a viewpoint of the Manual of Style as a bi-level structure, comprising a main page and a number of specialised "subpages" with parenthetical designations. This proposition only concerns the Manual of Style and does not at all take into consideration the relations between the MoS and other guides, like layout- and categorisation-related pages.

• Principle of equality: The main page and the subpages are of equal importance and have the same degree of authority; no Manual of Style page has precedence over any other. The hierarchy of the pages only applies to the level of analysis and presentation.
• Principle of consistency: Every change in the main page should be reflected in the relevant subpages, and vice versa; no Manual of Style pages should under any circumstance conflict each other to any extent. The existence of exceptions to guidelines should be made clear in both levels, and should not be construed as conflict.
• Principle of redundancy: One guideline should be covered in depth in as few pages as possible (preferably one), so that conflicts are kept to a minimum, and changes can be made, and kept track of, more easily. Other mentions of the guideline should refer to this main entry, either summarising it briefly (in the case of the main page) or only stating the part relevant to the other guidelines of that page (in the case of a related subpage).
• Principle of delegation: As specialised matters are given their own space in subpages, discussions about specialised matters should similarly be delegated to the relevant subpages, so that the main talk page is not cluttered. On the other hand, more overarching discussions affecting multiple areas of the Manual ought to be discussed in the main talk page. In any event, the main page and all affected subpages must be notified of such discussions without any delay.

All in all, I believe that every change to style guidelines ought to be discussed, agreed upon, and then applied to both the main page and the relevant subpages, or not be applied at all. Discussion should take place in the most appropriate venue with the participation of all interested parties ensured. All discrepancies should be ironed out with discussion in the proper venues after a careful mapping of the guidelines and in how many places each is encountered. It will be hard work in the beginning, but I have high hopes for its effectiveness and long-term benefits. The role of a WikiProject overseeing this process would ideally be one of organisation and advise: it would organise the guideline structure, monitor the MoS-related discussions, and answer the questions of editors (serving as a style help desk of sorts). It would not discuss changing the guidelines, but the way in which guidelines shall change.

I am fully aware of the fact that there is too much disagreement in this area for this proposal to go far, but I am confident that a full-fledged plan like this one will be taken more seriously than any half-measures (and leave much less room for misunderstandings); if it isn't this one, it will certainly be another. I now require your feedback, and hope for the best. I shall, of course, answer any questions which may arise. Waltham, The Duke of 14:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S.: I wrote this (for WT:MOS) before seeing the new project's page, and only edited it slightly afterwards. I more or less agree with the WikiProject's goals as they are outlined at the moment; although I am far from an expert in style matters, I have joined because I consider myself useful for the organising effort that will definitely be needed by the project. Waltham, The Duke of

Current activity and inactivity

Ah, Waltham! Good to see you at work at WT:MOSCO. I'm monitoring developments there, but holding back for now on contributing. I do like the idea of calling the subsidiary pages satellites, of course. I subtly though not subliminally planted the idea in your mind several times in the discussions about the hard space, and in fact I used the image here, back on 10 December 2007. Meh. Whatever. Some good name has to be found, but it's hard to get agreement on anything.

A renewal of the hard-space campaign soon. I'm preoccupied on other fronts at the moment. I trust all is well with you.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 11:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice try to take credit for my idea Noetica... ;-) I assure you that I have only recently started looking at the Dates and Numbers talk page, and I've never done so often anyway. As a matter of fact, the word just flashed in my head about 42 seconds before I posted it. In any case, nice to see you like it; I hope that some sort of agreement is reached ("subpage" is wrong). And if I do win the Name-maker of the Year Award, I will certainly thank you on-stage, along with my parents and friends.

Good luck on your other pursuits; from what I've noticed, there is a certain hubbub about century names, so I suppose your hands are quite full. I shall be ready for the come-back of the hard spaces whenever that happens. Waltham, The Duke of 12:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Shot down, it was... He has a point, I think. Perhaps the simplest solution is the best one. I hope that you shall eventually comment on the principles (a new version was posted now); I should like to see your take on them. Waltham, The Duke of 23:44, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The Greeting

I was reading the greeting and general rules of your talk page, and noticed that some letters were italicized. The letters were: A, N, D, B, and X. (Not counting the word 'not' that is italicized.)

At first I thought it might be a secret message, but became totally confused after the 'B' and 'X'.

Maybe you could shed some light on this for me. :D

Thanks!

kkarma (talk) 15:03, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

How clever of you... Wouldn't it be a pity if I spoiled it now? Just find all the letters in the intro, and use the resulting word as a clue for the location of my secret page. Answer briefly so that I shall know you have read the message, and I will archive it immediately afterwards. A lot of people pass from here, and we don't want them taking advantage of your observation skills, do we? Waltham, The Duke of 18:04, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S.: I know what "italicized" means, there's no use explaining it to me. ;-) Waltham, The Duke of

Got it. Thanks!

kkarma (talk) 23:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• I have found the missing letters, and now know what it spells out. But it doesn't seem to help me, since it doesn't seem you have a user subpage with that title. Now I am very confused, and even more determined to figure it out. :D

kkarma (talk) 00:10, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, well, I am afraid that locating my secret page requires some advanced detecting skills, and a good knowledge of the various tricks of the trade. This comes with experience, so I should not hurry if I were you. I could say much more, coming from a place where newbie-bashing is a sport, but this would not be conforming to the Wikipedia spirit.

I do wonder how you have found me, however. Searched "Waltham", I suppose? (Good work on the article, by the way. My servants from the area will be most pleased.) Waltham, The Duke of 02:19, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I actually don't remember how I found you, but I searched Waltham after seeing your username, and because England and it's minor cities/towns/villages are of major intrest to me. (I like your real page better, by the way User:The_Duke_of_Waltham/Personality.) And I don't get why people are mean to the new kids. You'd think you would want to welcome them, and make them want to stay. Otherwise, this would be like a ghost town. And to anyone who reads this, and wants to help me, the secret letters spell sandbox. kkarma (talk) 16:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

You fool... You bloody fool... How dare you?! You shall suffer my wrath!

Now that I think of it, it's not that big of a deal, as nobody has found the page yet, so all these protections have started losing at least part of their appeal. I am patient, though, and I know that somebody is bound to find it; I have advertised it in more or less all the secret pages I have found, and you must know that there are plenty of them.

As far as newbie-biting is concerned, I was not talking about Wikipedia. I said "where I come from", referring to an Internet forum. It's in my "Links" section. Honestly, did you think we were so stupid? Newbies are stupid, not us. That's the difference, you know. :-p Waltham, The Duke of 18:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I may be a newbie, but I'm not stupid. And when does someone ever stop being a newbie, anyway? I believe in an ideal life, you learn something new everyday. kkarma (talk) 04:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

True. But this is a caste system; you shall always be a newbie. Mwahahahaha! Waltham, The Duke of 22:24, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

That would make you a fellow newbie, too, if it is impossible to move up this caste system. kkarma (talk) 03:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

How dare you even insinuate that I could have ever been a newbie? This is an insult of the lowest kind. I am a duke, for Unicorn's sake, I was born in high station. You are a nobody, while I am rich and powerful and have many friends who stay close to me for my money. Yes, I am lucky man, after all. Waltham, The Duke of 10:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Haaa, you're a kid from Greece. Not some Duke from England. Do you have multiple personalities? And you said that I "shall always be a newbie," so therefore, I cannot move up in the caste system, and neither can you. Once a newbie, always a newbie. And I really don't see why it's an insult? I'd rather be new at something and able to learn more, than have been involved with something for years and years, and have nothing left to learn. kkarma (talk) 01:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The Duke of Waltham is not currently available for a comment. Waltham, The Duke of 01:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, then hurry back, Duke. :D kkarma (talk) 03:46, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Whom are you calling "a kid"? I'm four years older than you. Show some proper respect, boy.

Seriously, though, it is impossible for anyone in Wikipedia to reach—or even get close to—a state of "omniscience". Its world is so vast, complex, and fast-changing that one will always have to adapt and stay up-to-date. New features, practices, and institutions are created every month, others change significantly, and some fall in disuse or are removed outright. Specialising in an area is the only possible outcome for any Wikipedian who takes themselves seriously enough, without this meaning, of course, that they shouldn't have enough general knowledge for editing and co-operation. Waltham, The Duke of 09:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Just because your four years older than me doesn't mean I can't call you a kid. And it's just plain rude for you to call me a boy when you obviously know that I'm a girl. You shouldn't take such offense to me saying that you are a kid. It wasn't meant in a derogatory way. Good luck with your future Wikipedian endeavours. kkarma (talk) 21:05, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Calm down, I was only joking. Why else would I start the next sentence with "seriously, though"? And, in any case, I didn't know your gender. I just took a stab in the dark, and failed as usual. (A pleasant change, however, given that I have already misidentified two males for females. I'm almost even now.) Good thing that I know now, although even if you hadn't told me I might as well have guessed it by now. Your reaction reveals a certain degree of... sensitivity. (Yuck, yuck. :-p)

I am offended now, basically; after all this talk you have yet to realise that I have a persistently strange sense of humour. What should I do, add emoticons after each sentence? That's not going to work.

Actually, I didn't take any offence now, either. I'm an easy-going duke (and cynical enough, when necessary); it will take a lot of effort for anyone to manage to offend me, I assure you. Waltham, The Duke of 22:56, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I have just located the infamous gender userbox... Normal people put the important ones first, but noooo, you had to put it last. As if that was not enough, I also discovered that you are a filthy Slytherin. How can a faithful Ravenclaw like myself expect to reason with a Slytherin? I mean, for Unicorn's sake, it's a disaster waiting to happen. Waltham, The Duke of 23:08, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Harry Potter and other (un)related stuff

Harry Potter...

I just put the userboxes in the order I found them... mostly. Slytherins are not filthy, since you have to be pureblood to get in. :D And all Ravenclaws do is study, read, repeat. And for Invisible Pink Unicorn's sake, lets all get along. :D (Yes, a Slytherin suggesting peace. Imagine that.) kkarma (talk) 01:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia abounds with paradoxes, so it is reasonable to come across one once in a while. As far as the houses are concerned, it is much more than a simple fondness of reading that got me into Ravenclaw. I shall quote one of my own messages, from 16 December, to another Harry Potter fan (writing exactly the same thing differently would be just stupid):

“ About the Houses, now. I consider myself a more or less typical Ravenclaw, based on both my character and aspirations. I am relying on a wonderful essay at Red Hen, which thoroughly analyses the four Houses and tackles the question of why Neville Longbottom was not Sorted into Hufflepuff (yes, it is a quite old writing). It also includes a theory about the Sorting Hat having being tampered with; a theory I was fond of, even though it has turned out not to be anything more substantial.

The entire collection of Potterverse-related essays is quite extensive, and tremendously interesting, though perhaps not as much as it used to be before the publication of Deathly Hallows. I warn you that the essays may be a little sharp-tongued as far as the aforementioned book is concerned; I have not yet read the essays of the latest revision (last October—they have been revised twice a year up to now) due to a lack of time, but I have corresponded with their author.

The main page of the collection is http://www.redhen-publications.com/Potterverse.html , and the specific essay about the Houses is this one. I hope you find them enjoyable and educating.

”

Nothing further to add, really. I hope you get the time to peruse my suggested reading; I didn't receive an answer last time, so I'd like to know what someone other than me thinks of Red Hen. The specific essay is not only one of my own favourites, by the way, but the author said it was also many of her readers'. Waltham, The Duke of 13:22, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I won't lie and say I've read the whole essay (since it is quite long, and my attention span short), but I have definatly bookmarked it, and plan to read the whole thing. From what I've read, it does have a point about Neville possibly being in the wrong house. Ever since I began reading the books (my fifth grade teacher made us read it, and I fell in love with the books), I always hoped that Neville would play a greater role than the kid who can't do anything right, especially since Seamus Finnigan had that role taken care of. And I had always wondered why Harry was chosen, and not Neville. (Could you imagine, "Neville Longbottom: Falling from a Broom" for the first book title?) Anyway, needless to say, I was overjoyed when Neville destroyed the last Horcrux. I find it ironic, that all through out the books, we all think he should have been in Hufflepuff, and he ends up marrying Hannah Abbot... a Hufflepuff! (J.K. Rowling said he married her a while back. http://www.newsweek.com/id/50787) Anywho. Thanks for showing me that website. I'm sure I'll spend more hours than needed reading there. :D kkarma 15:34, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I wonder why I'm not using any bookmarks... (shakes head) Never mind.

I am issuing a pitfall alert, kkarma. You have completely missed the point about Neville (understandably, but still): although people have often held that Neville has been placed in the wrong House, Gryffindor has actually been the best choice for him (out of a set of poor options). Perhaps people were justified in believing that he belonged to Hufflepuff up to Book 4, but after that he has proven his value, and I am quite happy about that.

His marrying Hannah Abbot I was aware of (I've read several interviews since Deathly Hallows came out, and MuggleNet has a lot of information on updates and the sort. I think Rowling said she didn't want to have Neville marry Luna because it would all sound too "neat" (and I agree), although they did seem to match. In any case, irony or not, Houses are irrelevant. I mean, sure, we make a lot of friends at school, but most of us end up with partners from elsewhere.

In any case, when you eat up enough of your precious time reading useless stuff like the essay I've shown you, we can return to the topic. ;-)

On another note, I started reading Harry Potter at one point during the Long Summer (the three years between Books 4 and 5); I believe it was sometime in 2001. I borrowed the first book from a classmate, who brought the subject up in a conversation; interested to know what was causing so much news coverage, I decided to have a go at it. I never regretted it. I bought the next book a while after finishing the first, and then borrowed the remaining two from another classmate. Until I bought OotP, I had already bought all four books (the fourth one on 31 July, imagine that). I now have all seven of them in the Greek translation, and the last one in the original as well (I couldn't wait six months for the translation to come out, and wanted to read the original anyway. And that's my reading record. There are also the films, but they're not really worthy of my attention...

PS: Where is your signature? I cannot see it. I warn you that I won't pay a single penny if it has been kidnapped. Waltham, The Duke of 17:53, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I made my signature in small font.  :] Squint and maybe you can see it. Anyway, I think it was in 2003 that I started reading, seeing as I was in fifth grade then. I remember half the class wasn't allowed to read the book, so it was just like, me and four other kids reading the book. I never really understood what the big deal was. I mean, Disney movies has just as much magical stuff and you don't hear people saying anything about that. I guess people just pick and choose. Anyway, after you mentioned you have the books in Greek, I got to wondering, is it common for most people in Greece to be so fluent in English? kkarma 18:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

No, not really. Greeks have a varying level of command of the English language, ranging from rudimentary to very good. Generally speaking, most people under fifty can understand the language quite well, and can sustain a simple conversation. Younger people are even better at it, a result of both the education they receive and the various media (films, music, video games, the Internet) that they are exposed to. However, I flatter myself that I am at a higher level than most Greeks who have not lived abroad or studied the language professionally ("forgive my lack of seemly modesty..."). I was one of the very few people in the country to attain an A-graded CPE aged 15, and I got my University of Michigan ECPE at the same time. I strive to improve my language skills continuously, and am quite fond of English anyway; this is one of the reasons why I prefer to edit the English rather than the Greek Wikipedia. And it certainly helps me successfully pass as a British Duke. :-D

As far as the reaction to HP is concerned, I agree that the intensity of the attacks against the series is at least interesting, although the immense popularity of its various instalments and the degree to which they have permeated popular culture could at least account for part of it. Religious debates over Harry Potter is actually a featured article, but haven't had a chance to read it yet. I'd like to do so sometime soon. Waltham, The Duke of 02:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

...and other (un)related stuff...

Foreign languages here are ... well, foreign. It's rare to find someone who can talk half way decent in any other language (in my area, anyway). But I remember in middle school, we were learning about ancient Greece, and it had a picture of part of the Greek Alphabet. My friends and I decided that we would copy those letters, and make up the rest, and use them to write notes to each other. That way, if a teacher caught us passing notes, they wouldn't be able to read it. :D Anyway. Is Greece really as beautiful as all the movies and brochures make it out to be? Because sometimes I see ads on t.v. trying to convince people to stay in-state for vacations and such, and I see places that really aren't as pretty as they make them out to be. But I'm sure anything near the ocean is gorgeous. ...Sorry to be asking so many questions. I just love anywhere but the U.S. :D kkarma 03:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand... The United States is a terrible, terrible country. :-p Of course, there is always an element of "the grass is greener on the other side"; Greece has many problems itself, mostly its perennially lousy government and everything it touches.

Greece is beautiful, and has many places worth visiting. The main problems that compromise Greece's status as a popular tourist destination are high prices, problems with transport, over-development, and, in some cases, lots of trash. (I am not referring to the current strike of the sanitation workers, which, in combination with the warm spring days, has led to an unbearable stench overrunning our cities.) Some shop owners and taxi drivers simply rip off tourists (and not only them), and many wonderful landscapes are ruined by bad executive decisions and most Greeks' irritating habit of throwing litter more or less everywhere (most evident in the radius of trash three metres around all motorways, even deep in the mountains).

As far as codes are concerned, I am more modern... I have learned to use Tolkien's Elfish script, Tengwar. It's a beautiful cursive script, and it is utterly incomprehensible to anyone who sees it. I haven't learnt to use the language that goes with it (Quenya), so I write in English instead, as there are phonetic rules for it (according to the Tengwar article, which I've just read, most of Tolkien's samples are actually in English). I can tell you that I've impressed quite a lot of classmates in high school that way. This will not have the same effect in the geek-filled information heaven, however, namely the Internet. Waltham, The Duke of 22:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Haa, the U.S. is just... BLAH. We currently don't have a major problem with a sanitation workers strike... but we did have a writers strike a little while back. Which lead to a lot of crappy reality shows for a while. Anyway, I'll have to look up the Elfish script. (Is it the writing that was inscribed on the inside of the ring?) I have to admit, I've only ever seen the LOTR movies. The books are on my 'To Read' list, though. kkarma 00:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the infamous writers' strike. Who hasn't heard of it? It messed up with all the TV shows. Our problem, however, is far greater, and it's not only the garbage people that strike. The workers in the power company also strike, leading to black-outs all over the country, and the employees of the Bank of Greece strike as well; the week before the last one they even forced the Athens Stock Exchange to close for a few days. Seriously, this isn't a really good time for us.

Indeed, it is the script on the ring. I have also seen the movies, and I really like them; I own the Extended Edition of the second one and the Collector's Edition of the third one, which included a model of Minas Tirith now decorating my desk—the extras are the best I've seen in a DVD. I also own the entire "trilogy" (it is really one work), and have read the other three books (The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and Unfinished Tales). The books are even better than the films, in my humble opinion; I enthusiastically recommend them to you.

By the way, as you might have noticed, I have split this over-long section into two at a point I though was adequately suitable. I have taken the opportunity to archive the first part; I had to wake Cartwright up in the middle of the night to unlock the archives for me. He wasn't thrilled. Waltham, The Duke of 02:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it took me a second to realize where our post had gone. :D And poor Cartwright. You should have just waited until after he woke up to make him open the archives for you, you unpatient lord. Make sure Cartwright gets my apologies for our long conversation and it's need to be archived. :D Anywho, it does sound like Greece is having some problems. I wonder why it's never on our news here. In fact, it is very rare for us to get news of anything other than a looming recession, and the Iraq war, which I am sure everyone in the world is beyond tired of hearing about. But, in recent months, since we have a presidental election coming up, we get to watch the candidates rip each other to pieces. In fact, I think our news only covered the problems in Myanmar... (or Burma, whatever it's called now,) for a couple of days. And from what I've heard, they're still having problems. It seems like if you want to know anything about what's going on in the world, you have to search for it yourself; and that's where the internet comes in handy. What caused all the strikes in Greece? I just looked it up on Google, and it mentioned something about pension plans. I'd be terrifyed, if I lived there. Blackouts, a possiblity of the ATMs running out of money, etc. kkarma 19:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

A duke waits for no one. All right, no one except the Queen. :-D Cartwright will receive your apoligies, but I don't think he'll take kindly to them, as it will be I who will pass them to him. Cartwright is a very well-mannered and polite man, but he can be surprisingly rude to me. Unfortunately, he's indispensable.

Problems? What problems? Do you see any problems? The country's simply going to shut down for the next two days due to the upcoming general strike. Hospitals, schools, transport, banks, media, everything. Furthermore, garbage is piling up in huge mounds in the streets, threatening with diseases (at least that strike is apparently at an end), and the power company strike keeps going even though a court has judged that it is illegal and abusive. Indeed, all these make for a terrifying situation. But we Greeks are a brave people. ;-)

The government simply try to rush the law through parliament and hopes that all opposition will gradually die down after that. They insist on presenting the whole thing as a "reform"; however, it is just a bunch of disconnected measures trying to cope with the immediate problem, with little long-term planning. I admit that some of the measures are to a good direction, but many others are simply intended to collect money in order to cover the great deficits in the budget. Bottom line: people will end up working more and getting lower pensions. And the worst thing is that nothing whatever is done to ameliorate the true problem: low birth rates.

About your problems, there is no looming recession; the crisis is knocking on your door (and everyone else's...). It is said to be the worst one since World War II, actually, and, to be honest, I have always known that it would come some day. For various reasons, the state of the world is not at all promising, and I have for a few years now been moderately pessimistic. Oil will eventually run out, and this will make things even worse because alternative forms of energy aren't being developed fast enough. Furthermore, fresh water will start running out in some places, other areas will begin to submerge, the weather phenomena will begin to become more intense and destructive, etc. etc. I don't want to sound like some sort of eschatologist, but I cannot help it; this is where things seem to be going. People are simply not trying enough.

Now, we all know how much you Americans love shutting the rest of the world out, although I shall acknowledge that you have a reason to do that now. Watching Obama and Hillary attack each other (mild selection of words) is popular here as well, at least in a category of people (the rest don't care about politics in general).

It truly is a good thing the Internet is there, because I am honestly tired of the thematology of our news programmes (with one bright exception; most programmes just don't cover the news equally, and tend to give undue weight to some stories). I like browsing the BBC News site once in a while, as it has a decent coverage of world news and its stories are well-written, although the strikes in Greece only received some coverage initially, and then nothing. Waltham, The Duke of 21:42, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that most Americans choose to shut out the rest of the world. It's just whatever the media feeds us, we take with little to no questions asked, unless it threatens us directly. I guess that is one of our main faults; not caring what's happening unless it is happening to us. From some other people I've talked to, I'm actually kind of shocked at how much the world watches us, and some of the opinions people have of the general American public. I've actually heard that some people blame us for what our president does. Which makes no sense to me, because at one point, I believe the countrys approval rating of Bush was around 30%. As for the recession, I think I've only heard anything about the stock market in Japan or China slumping, but other than that, the media here makes it out as if we are the only one's with with money troubles. In fact, now that I think about it, they were making it out as if the rest of the world depdends on us, which I believe to be a load of crap. The world did just fine before we were even founded some mere 200 years ago. Compared to other countries, that have been around for thousands of years, we're nothing but a toddler in the global community. kkarma 01:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

(Irrelevant note: I don't know about you, but I couldn't edit for an hour up to half an hour ago. It must have been a server problem.)

The United States may be a young country (I shall not use the term nation; although I do not doubt the patriotism of many Americans, I am not sure if you people feel like belonging to one nation in the sense that Europeans do), but its role in the global economic arena is way too big not to be taken seriously. America's industries and banks, its impact on technology and culture, and, in general, its imprint on the world is definitely a significant one.

Actually, the fact that a toddler has so much power may be one of the reasons for all this international mess. Although the country did have ideals once, long-gone now.

People generally apply their negative opinions of a country's actions on that country's people, be it the Germans fifty years ago or the Americans and British today. It's unfair, I know, but that's how it goes. People are held responsible for the governments they elect, after all, and the approval rates of Dubya today have nothing to do with those that got him in the White House for a second term (I still remember that British magazine cover—I think—about those x million idiots).

Stereotypes may not be very accurate, but they are rarely created without reason, and the stereotype of the average American whose geographic knowledge extends to the 48 contiguous states must have been based somewhere; the various researches to this effect that are occasionally made public help to sustain this view. I do not know if it is education (which I know is not good, or at least public education), mentality, the media, or a mix of all these, but the average American has no idea where Iraq is, or that neighbouring Canada is a monarchy, or why World War I started, or how great the problem of global warming truly is. And I say average because the problem with the US is that it's so bleeding big; its five or so regions are completely different in most areas. Personally, I wouldn't mind if New England was a separate country; it's the only area I really like in this over-sized slice of North America. Waltham, The Duke of 02:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

...like education...

(I couldn't get on Wikipedia for a while, either. Freaked me out a bit.) Anyways, yes, the public education system here is absolutly horrible. I've gone to three different high schools looking for a decent one (and I'm only in my second year of high school), and I never found one. Some were slightly better than the other, but I ended up being homeschooled with an online private school. I have learned more in these past few months of this one school than I have in my entire public school career, believe it or not. I remember being frustrated in 8th grade (the equivalent of grade 9 in the U.K. I think) that our history teacher spent her hour and a half making us listen to her rap music instead of teaching us anything about history. She even looked shocked when we all failed our history exams, too. Lately, on my local news, they have even admited to saying that the public schools these days are nothing but drop out factories. Some schools are so bad with gang related problems, that police are routinely called out to help stop fights and riots. Just a month ago, the school that most of my friends go to, had a major riot. Fifteen kids went to jail, and one to the hospital with head injuries, along with a police officer who got stabbed. At that particular school, it's a daily occurance for fights to break out. I used to joke that the school should charge a cover charge for the fights we got to see, then maybe they'd be able to afford more rent-a-cops to control us. That school also has a day care for the many pregnant teens they have wondering their halls. Not to mention, the school was grossly over crowded. It was meant to hold only 1000 students, but was being forced to contain 1400 kids. Seems the whole world is falling apart, if we can't even keep kids in order, let alone the adults. Did you know that most people in the U.S. believe global warming to be a hoax. The CBS national news reported about a year ago, that it was possible that global warming was just a hoax, and since then, it has been nearly impossible to convince anyone otherwise. It absolutly bewilders me how anyone can say that all the smog around our cities, and the rapidly falling and rising temperatures can be normal. Actually, tomorrow it is supposed to be 70 degrees F, then on Wednesday, it is to be no higher than 50 degrees F. I mean, that's a 20 degree difference in ONE day. Yet no one will believe it. And I can't even imagine what would happen if all the gasoline were to be gone. I remember shortly after September 11, everyone was rushing to get as much food and gasoline as they could. People were stealing gasoline, and ramming cars to get others to move along. And that was just with the possiblity of the price going up. Imagine if it were all gone. I don't remember where I heard it, but sometime shortly after that, they reported that the U.S. oil reserves had just enough to last the country just a few days. But with the way people would be hoarding, it would get to few people in even less time. And I fear the worst has yet to come. kkarma 03:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, but I've been quite busy lately, both here (you should see my edit count; I've done more edits this month than in any other month before, and it is still the twenty-first) and in so-called Real Life.

As far as education in Greece is concerned, the system is mediocre: neither especially good nor exceptionally bad. The basic problem is that it encourages pointless memorising, and a lot of the things the students are taught are unlikely to stick in their minds for long. This is why there is such a lacking knowledge of history, geography, elementary physics, and biology, and why proper language skills are hard to find. (Not to speak of anything more advanced...) These are things everybody is supposed to know, yet relatively few do. Unacceptably few. Thankfully, we don't have any major violence problems. Large-scale fighting and shootings are virtually unknown in Greece, as is violent crime in general. Well, sort of. We do have a rise in robberies, and many elderly people get seriously beaten up for their meagre pensions, and we have a major problem with violence in football games, but, although we are not exactly Japan, we are relatively safe. People tired of crime could find some peace here (depending on the locality, of course).

All that said, we have a drug problem in urban areas, although not widespread in the tender ages. Smoking is much more popular, in all areas and in most ages. And our greatest problem is... Obesity. Greek children are the fattest in Europe.

When it comes to the environment, things do look gloomy. The little progress Europe is trying to make is rapidly counter-balanced by the growing economies (and fumes) of developing countries, with China and India as the ringleaders. The United States are no help, with a Texan president at the mercy of oil companies reversing the few green steps Clinton has taken, and various scientists being paid to erode the credibility of global warming amongst the American public; the country is the world's greatest polluter, yet it prefers to ignore an internationally recognised phenomenon in order to maintain its short-term profits. It gives foreigners (especially those in countries suffering the consequences, like poor Tuvalu) yet another reason to hate the United States. It's nothing to wonder about.

Not that Greece is better. People here are insane; while the rest of Europe is planning a green future, here they plan power plants that burn fossil fuel. And it's not even the kind found in Greece, which used to be the main excuse for building more such plants due to its low cost; this one is going to be imported. Madness, I'm telling you. It's only natural that people in all of the areas where such plants are scheduled to be built have risen in protest. Waltham, The Duke of 21:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Drugs are a for-sure problem here. My first day in middle school, (at the tender age of eleven) some guy tried to sell me crack. It's ridiculous. By the next school year, most of my friends were smoking pot and cigarettes, and breaking into the coke and candy machines. Speaking of candy machines, obesity is horrid here, too. I think the US is one of the worst countries in that area, too. There should be some sort of international wall of shame, or something.
As for the world slowly wasting away at the hands of humans, we should run out of fossil fuels and such within the next century, shouldn't we? Maybe the decline in production will scare leaders into making decisions that leave a bigger impact, in a good way. If not, the world's population (that uses cars, anyway) will go bankrupt trying to pay for the gasoline to get to work and such, as the supply drops and the demand gets higher. (Thanks for putting this in sections. Poor Cartwright; you'll probably decide to archive this in the wee hours of the morning (again), and wake his poor blessed soul, yet again. kkarma 04:30, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps that fellow was trying to sell you crackers and you didn't hear well. I hope you didn't offend him.

In all seriousness, though, drugs must be the stupidest (for the buyers) and most immoral thing (for the sellers) in the world. I consider starting smoking despite knowing perfectly well its consequences an extremely unintelligent thing to do; imagine what I think about paying huge amounts of money—and doing anything to pay—in order to become a slave to some kind of dust, potentially filling one's body with holes in the process, which can only lead to a miserable life up to an unavoidably premature, ignominious, and highly painful death. And to think of those thousands people who get rich by selling this fate to thousands of poor souls each... It makes you wonder about human nature, really. How important can money be to a person? (And I'm not talking about the small producers who barely make the ends meet; I am referring to the "barons".)

I've heard several things about obesity in the United States. If I remember correctly, I read a few years back that 62% of Americans was obese, and that percentage must be even higher now (but you know what they say about statistics: 96.42% of them are made on the spot). I've also heard that the average width of theatre seats was widened thrice during the last century or so. In any case, a great part of the problem seems to lie with the over-sized portions. The bigger the portions, the more people eat. I can eat a medium-sized pizza on my own here, but I'm not sure I could do that across the "pond". And it is, of course a matter of culture. There are also genetic reasons (obesity in Greece and Finland is, at least partly, based on the fact that these peoples used to be frugal in their eating habits, leading to their bodies conserving more fat, with disastrous consequences for their wealthier and better-fed descendants). This might also be true about some ethnic groups in America, although, honestly, I don't know what common cause could exist in such a complex genetic make-up. But I am no expert.

Big decisions will be taken sooner or later; I am only worried that they might be taken too late, and that the situation with global warming, depletion of fresh water reserves, deforestation, the ozone hole, and various other environmental issues will be irreversible. As far as oil production is concerned, I should suggest Peak oil, Hubbert peak theory, and related articles. They make for an interesting read, save the complex maths part.

I have no pity for Cartwright, and nor should you. He deserves such a fate more than any one else would. However, this does not mean that I shall get out of my way simply to torture him. My convenience is paramount—if I see fit to archive at noon, I shall do so with a passing sigh. Waltham, The Duke of 13:16, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

PS: As it turns out, I have just done so. (Although, technically, it is not noon but afternoon). Waltham, The Duke of 13:27, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I heard well. And I saw well, too. The guy held up a bag full of smaller bags filled with a white clumpy powder. But of course, maybe it was just white rock candy.
As for obesity in the US, I'm sure it is around 70 per cent or higher, but most websites claim that women are 62% obese or overweight, while men are 67% obese or overweight. Kids are around 30%. And you would think with how weight obsessed we are here, (with all the stalking of celebrities and such) that we would all be a bit smaller. But, that's where Anorexia comes in, I suppose. And as for genetic make-ups predisposing people to obesity, it would be really hard to say that, since we are so mixed. But, with the global famine and (as you mentioned) water drought that is probably soon to come, we'd all better fatten up.
I've just heard last night about a seed bank that they built in the arctic. But what I don't understand about it, is if it's so indestructable, how are we to get into it if the world falls apart? And then, if we do get into it, how do we decide who gets what? It was a minor step in the right direction, but I don't think it was thought all the way through. Or, maybe it was, and they're planning on keeping it all to themselves. (I can hear the conspiracy theories now...) kkarma 17:52, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
PS: I shall always feel bad for Cartwright while he is under your rule, Duke. :D kkarma

First of all, you should know that I shall generally answer with a lower-than-before frequency from now on; I am quite busy both on-line and off-line.

About weight, it would seem that the traditional roles have been reversed: a rotund figure used to mean that one had enough money to be able to eat well on a regular basis, with kings in the Middle Ages often required to prove their eating skills on the table. Now the norm is for the poor people to be obese because of fattening fast food, while the rich people have the resources to keep themselves fit. In much the same way, having a tan was once the symbol of manual labour, contrasted with the white skin of the upper classes. Now, of course, the pale complexion shows that one is restricted to working in the office, while the rich enjoy themselves holidaying at warmer climates.

The seed bank (about which I heard three or four weeks ago) is supposed to store samples of seeds, in case these plant varieties become, for some reason, extinct. They will be used for the re-generation of their respective species, not to re-populate the planet themselves. In any case, I don't think these seeds will ever be left unguarded; the facility will probably be manned at all times (it's a bank, after all).

PS: All that said, I have started feeling sorry for you, kkarma. I do pity all people who "feel bad for Cartwright", especially when they know what a nasty piece of work he is.

PPS: What about Earth Hour? Was there any noticeable difference in your vicinity yesterday at 20:00? Waltham, The Duke of 04:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

...and the environment

Everyone deserves a little bit of sympathy, even Cartwright.
As for Earth Hour, the only noticable thing was that Google's page was black instead of white, which I only noticed after friends started calling saying how cool it looked. Otherwise, the downtown part of the city was as bright as usual.
And don't worry about rushing to answer my replies. (As if a Duke would worry about answering lowly subjects, anyhow.) I'm sure the less frequent conversation will at least prolong Cartwright's impending late night archiving endeavours. kkarma 19:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Same here—sorry to say, most people are not that eager to do anything to contribute to the environment. I wanted to observe Earth Hour myself, but, as it turns out, I was in a fellow student's flat, working on a team project for school; I returned home at about 20:40, having completely forgotten about the whole thing until I was reminded by the nine o'clock news.

For the record, I did check the Google website, but saw nothing. Perhaps it was too early, and Google only used the darkened background for the American evening.

I do enjoy prolonging Cartwright's agony, having him impatiently waiting for the inevitable next archiving. In any case, I agree that people like you are not worth my time, but should note that this case is different, as I find you useful. For now, that is. Ensure that this state of affairs does not change, or the consequences could be dire (for you). Waltham, The Duke of 23:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure people would be more eager if we could somehow show them how the world is going to be soon, if they don't do something.
And does everyone else in the world say 'flat' instead of 'apartment' or 'house'? I thought only people in the UK said 'flat'.
I hope to never see the day that I prove to be unuseful (and for that to happen, I need to figure out how I am useful). At least, if I do live to see that day, I have a feeling I won't live to see very much of it. kkarma 01:15, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Most Europeans seem to be aware of at least many of the aspects of the future, in terms of environmental damage—from what I've seen, many Americans are as well, even if only because it's the new fashion launched by Hollywood. I have watched all sorts of highly interesting documentaries on the subject, actually (I generally watch lots of documentaries, with those by the BBC, the Discovery Channel, and the National Geographic Channel being the best by far). Books are also published—I remember having read a review about a specific one which has disturbing and very realistic images of how familiar cities and landscapes will look in the future because of the effects of global warming—and articles about the environment are included in most newspapers and magazines. You've also seen that symbolic movements like Earth Hour are successful; Earth Hour's impact might not have been great everywhere, but it's only the second year. The world is waking up, kkarma. More governments are starting planning a green future as time passes, and more corporations realise that it is more profitable long-term to be green (and it's good for sales). Even if it is in most of the cases for purely selfish motives, being green is becoming ever more popular. I am optimistic as far as the new green revolution is concerned. I am not very optimistic as far as its eventual success is concerned because of the increasing pollution generated in China and India, and because of how delayed all this progress is. But again, it is our generation that will first see how successful or failed the course humanity has taken truly is. All we have to do is wait. (Sounds easy, doesn't it?)

Notes: I use British English, so I use words like flat and lorry. You are useful because thanks to you I have Cartwright work more. Your feeling is correct; if you stop being useful, you won't live to see the Beijing Olympics. End of message. Waltham, The Duke of 09:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It does sound easy to just sit and wait to see what happens; but scary, too, for what will probably happen. As for hearing about it on the news... I stopped watching the news a lot, because of all the Obama and Clinton fighting. I was about ready to throw my t.v. out into the yard. So, now I just read about stuff that sounds weird on the internet. (As for being useful... I intend to never shut up, now. Unless your royal Dukeness gives me permission, that is.  :]) Sorry, Cartwright! kkarma 21:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's going to be slightly different; we'll just live our lives as we can until then, and at some point we shall exclaim "Ah, how have the years passed!" and start making comparisons between the past and the then-present, between what we imagined of the future and how it will have turned out to be, and so on. The stupid thing is that we'll find everything annoyingly predictable, while nothing really is (the unavoidable effects of hindsight)...

I do check out the bbc.co.uk website once in a while, in order to get a good look around the world and read more about stories I am interested in, but, thankfully, we actually have a couple of television channels in Greece with a general news focus, unlike the others that mostly or exclusively mention (and often over-analyse) internal news.

It shall be after a significant time period, if it shall ever be, that I will release you of your duties. Keep talking, kkarma talker. Waltham, The Duke of 22:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Oops, a little bit of a silence there. Sorry, Duke. Anyway, I hope that there will be only subtle changes, and not many major problems (such as everyone becoming homeless when they cannot afford to even go to work anymore, since gas prices will be sky-high.)
And I love the BBC. I think they are one of the very few news channels that gives a global perspective.
As for my duties for you, my Duke, I shall do my absolute best.  :] kkarma 01:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, we have to be realistic: if there are houses, people will be able to occupy them. Don't forget how the market works—the law of supply and demand always plays its part. Now, if we are to talk about the rise of the water levels and how that will submerge a few millions of houses worldwide, that is a completely different matter.

On the petrol front, I daresay that when it does start running low, the demand for alternative forms of energy will rise sharply, and so investments will be made to ensure that there will be a supply as well. I case you haven't noticed, the great petrol companies are the ones leading research into clean energy. Since they have so much money, why not invest it in order to ensure that in fifty years they will still be the colossi that they are today?

Generally speaking, the changes will be much subtler than one imagines, simply because these things happen gradually. However, this kind of change is by no means comparable to what people were used to in, say, the eighteenth century (not to talk about classical history). Time felt much slower in the past. No, no, one will have to see the greater picture, a period of perhaps ten or more years, in order to realise the true magnitude of the changes. Waltham, The Duke of 02:52, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:WPMoS

Duke, I don't want to see momentum lost on your 5 (oh, pardon me, five) principles, which look very good to me ... but there's not a lot of discussion. Hopefully that means people are in awe of your brilliance, or feel the job is mostly finished, rather than disagreeing. I do feel that either an understanding of what actions to take based on the five principles, or possibly a sixth principle (maybe "less is more"?), would be helpful. Obviously I've comprised my own persuasiveness (moral: never try to do therapy and engage in complex conflict at the same time :). Perhaps you could bring up the point. Please look at the three sentences I left on "sixth point" after I removed my unhelpful reflections. Maybe better would be something like: "When divergence of opinion has lead to long, complicated, or conflicting guidelines, work towards clarity and brevity using whatever works best: engagement, persuasion, bargaining, or yielding on points that are not critical." - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I have answered on that page: what you say, although useful as a suggestion, is not really consistent with what the principles are supposed to be. I shouldn't like to repeat my argument here. In any case, I do not intend to impose my principles, or any other opinions of mine, upon the project, especially when more important, or at least more urgent, things require our attention, in this case the auditing process. If, and when, the project deem that pursuing the matter further is to their benefit, I shall be glad to offer my insight once more.

Good luck with your therapy, by the way. ;-) Waltham, The Duke of 02:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks kindly. And I agree that we're on to another project now, I'll report on my progress on that page. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:31, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

RE: Fooled me?

I am sorry but the reason why I give you that box is because I do not have a better one at this time but I am trying to make one. But as for the removale of your signiture out of the list it is for me to make it easier when I go to send more. I do understand why and thanks to you I will make a page for people who found my secret page and just copy all names there in the future. Thank you for your time in reading this and for your helpful critism.--Destructo^{Talk to me} 01:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The next step for venue succession boxes

I'm sure that Cartwright will be much happier once the earlier thread is archived. My only question is what should the next step be regarding this topic once I am caught up with my weeding and tilling? You had mentioning something about discussion at SBS later this month. Your humble under-gardener, Gwguffey (talk) 18:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

He wasn't exactly delighted, but he was certainly more pleasant than usual. He's not a cheerful chap, you know. As far as the template is concerned, it should be introduced to the noble Succession Box Standardization WikiProject as soon as possible. As my March agenda has not yet been implemented, thanks to a drop in activity, I can modify my plans. The problem is that I must muster the members first, so that discussion can happen. I shall notify you when the time is right, so that you can present your template there. Hopefully, this will not take long. In the meanwhile, you can take care of the rose bushes. Waltham, The Duke of 02:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Forgive the long delay, but it seems that most people have been away due to the so-called Spring Break. I am hoping that they shall return soon; when they do, this template shall be the first item of the agenda, I assure you. I wish I could do something more—we have already lost a month in SBS. Waltham, The Duke of 12:57, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the update. I, too, have been following the sbs talk page and your frustration is apparent. Hopefully, folks will wander back soon. Off to finish up my weeding....Gwguffey (talk)

Your reward, Your Grace, The Duke of Waltham

User:ComputerGuy890100/HiddenLinkAward You may put the following code onto your awards area to show you have been on my secret area.

Code:{{User:ComputerGuy890100/HiddenLinkAward|The Duke of Waltham}}

ComputerGuy890100^Talk_Polls 23:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Why, thank you, Computer Guy. Although I do not intend to use it (as I have found scores of such pages and using all the barnstars would be simply unwieldy), I nevertheless appreciate the gesture. Your name has been duly included in the relevant box in my "real user page". Waltham, The Duke of 02:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I think!

>If you want us to stop taking you seriously, you're trying too hard. (evil grin) - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Just a bit of evil advice there, Dank. Cheers, Waltham, The Duke of 15:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: UK spelling on the main page

On main page errors: "I have noticed the word "centre" in the fifth hook. It seemed strange to me because I am used to seeing American English in the Main Page. Is "centre" an error or is the practice with language variants more complex than I thought?"

Usually DYK hooks reflect the language of the article, so an article about London would usually feature UK spelling. Regards, Espresso Addict (talk) 01:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I was going to reply on WP:ERRORS, but thought it more important to update DYK at your Grace's chiding! I agree with Espresso Addict, and would point out Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English. I'd also add that the creator of the article in question is, according to his/her user page, American, so bonus points to him/her for the "correct" usage! Regards, Bencherlite^Talk 02:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Bravo indeed. Now, I am aware of ENGVAR, but I did not know the extent of its application on the Main Page. I suppose the anniversaries are treated similarly? Waltham, The Duke of 02:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea about anniversaries, as I don't touch that particular minefield, but I can't see why it would differ. AFAICT, the one that generates the most discussion is how to describe the game of 11 per side kicking a medium-sized leather/leather substitute ball towards a goal: is it "soccer", or "Association Football", or "football (soccer)", or "football-and-Americans-just-have-to-get-used-to-the-fact-that-what-they-call-'football'-nobody-else-calls-football-unless-the-word-'American'-precedes-it"? Ugh, no thanks. I'll stick to calmer waters! Bencherlite^Talk 02:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Hehe. I've heard of the conflict, and I'm glad I am not a part of it. (To be honest, though, I don't really like the trailing parenthesis that much.) In any case, thank you both for your prompt and helpful response to my query. Regards, Waltham, The Duke of 02:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Hidden Page

User:Destructo 087/Userboxes/Hiddenpage--Destructo^{Talk to me} 02:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Dashes in page titles?

I didn't think of that until you mentioned it. I can't think at the moment of a good reason for a dash in a page title, but I can think of bad reasons. Do you know of any pages currently with dashes in the title? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:41, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I shall provide some basic categorisation, so that you can get the bigger picture. Each of the following categories includes from tens to hundreds of articles. Ahem:

• Periods (e.g. Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, List of North Carolina hurricanes (1950–1979))
• Bilateral relations (e.g. Canada – United States relations)
• Wars and conflicts (e.g. Franco–Prussian War)
• Compounds used in scientific terminology (e.g. Eye–hand span)
• All sorts of other relations (e.g. Melbourne–Voyager collision, Michelson–Morley experiment)
• Date ranges for disambiguation (e.g. Cretan War (1645–1669))

All of them perfectly legitimate reasons to include dashes, woudln't you agree?

In general, if a dash must be used in a title, then the correct dash must be used; if that would be an en-dash, then there should exist a version with a hyphen as a redirect. Waltham, The Duke of 17:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'll concede that there are good reasons for a dash in a page title, but ... my god, what a mess. I'll read the relevant style manuals. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:26, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm warning you that there is little to read; the Naming Conventions say "use the Manual of Style", and the Manual of Style has this.

Several times you have doubted me so far, and my views have always proven to be undisputably wise and sound. Perhaps you ought to simply stop questioning me? :-D Waltham, The Duke of 19:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Indubitably. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

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