User talk:Mintguy

User talk:Mintguy/archive 1 User talk:Mintguy/archive 2

Using the useful [WWPerson database], a fine, though not always completely reliable database of European noble and royal genealogy, I was able to determine the name, but not the dates, of the 2nd Baronet Grosvenor. For future reference, baronets are referred to as: Sir Firstname Lastname, #th Baronet. The wife of a baronet is known as Lady Lastname, just like the wife of a knight. john 00:42 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Baronets, I think, could have article titles that are just their names. for instance, Sir Samuel John Gurney Hoare, nth Baronet, should have an article titled "Samuel Hoare". As far as peers who are knights, the sir is unnecessary. Firstname Lastname, 9th Lord/Viscount/Earl/Marquess/Duke of Placename, or 9th Lord Placename, or whatever, is sufficient. And the full Burke's titles are massively long, in that most of the higher nobility is going to have five or six different titles. The late Duke of Norfolk, for instance (the senior Duke and Earl of England), was according to Burke's "Sir Miles Francis Stapleton Fitzalan-Howard, THE 17TH DUKE OF NORFOLK, Earl of Arundel, Earl of Surrey, Earl of Norfolk, Lord (Baron) Beaumont, Baron FitzAlan, Baron Maltravers and Baron Howard of Glossop, K.G., GCVO, CB, CBE, MC, DL W Sussex", or some such. john 02:19 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi Mint, (good work on the disambigulation!) There is a row brewing on the Republic of Ireland page. Put simply, we have an agreed template, structure and text. Scipius, who wanted to ignore the consensus some months ago and change the name of the article and factual details to a version that was factually incorrect, is now back. This time, even though there is agreement on what should be in the page, he wants to remove relevant information he almost alone thinks irrelevant, change facts to his own inaccurate understanding of them, etc. He tried to ignore the consensus last time. He now wants to pull the same stunt again and highjack the page to introduce his own factually inaccurate version again. If you could visit the page and join in the chorus of telling him to stop messing the article it would be most appreciated. It took a lot of effort the last time (from a lot of Irish people who were furious at what he was trying to do!) to stop him. Every bit of help in stopping this nonsense before it becomes a full scale edit war a second time would be most appreciated. There is clear agreement on what should be in and out. Yet again, it is Scipius back doing his 'lone ranger' routine that wants to change everything to a version he likes, and as before ignore the consensus that disagrees with him. wikilove. FearÉIREANN 03:36 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi there Mintguy, just thought I'd point out that JTD's representation of me is somewhat off. You can see User talk:Jlk7e for a lengthier reply. It's a pity that JTD is not in a particularly cooperative mood, but I'd like to mention that my intentions and edits aren't anything near what JTD suggests they are. Thanks for listening. -Scipius 22:58 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

"Subpages are definitely out."

Why? MB 15:17 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Fair enough. Well then, I don't see any compromise. MB 15:36 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Well, Taku appears to be pretty unexperienced with programming (I may be wrong). In any case, he says he is in his 20's, but based on info from his page, it sounds like he is in school (maybe college, I don't know). In any case, he needs guidance, and the articles he has combined, need to be scrutinized. The Wikipedia works this way, and I hope that you contribute more to these articles in light of these things. BTW, I've never new subprogram was a proper term? MB 18:32 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Fine, but if you want the wikipedia to be correct (I certainly do, then you need to stand-up when you don't think somethingi s correct. If you ever get around to correcting these problems, I will back you up (assuming you are correct, I like to research these things a little to make sure I am right most of the time). I hope you will put your expertise to work. MB 18:57 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Yes they are the same guy. On the list, where someone was reappointed, they were simply named by title, with the full name used only for the first appointment. (That was how the list was recorded elsewhere and it was simply copied straight in.) I suppose in Abercorn's case, maybe put formerly . . . . in italicised brackets after the Duke reference might make sense. And on his own page, he should be in as the 1st Duke of Abercorn with a redirect from his previous title. For example, George III, who changed from King of Great Britain to King of the UK of GB and I during his reign is in as his later title, George III of the United Kingdom. FearÉIREANN 16:50 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)~

Well, this is kind of hard for me to understand, becuase I am not totally sure why anyone would want to make up such myths in the first place. In addition, I'm not sure what the statement "Note: Three-sided football is used by the AAA as a valueable training exercise for Autonomous Astronauts. This introduction is by East London AAA" on the "Introduction To Three-Sided Football" is all about. What is the AAA, and what do they mean by excercise. Are they excercising intellectually? Are they practicing perpetualizing a lie? Are they truely physically excercising? MB 13:29 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Mintguy seems very bold in making assertions about things which they clearly know nothing about. Space 1999, Ten days that shoke the universe was a "Festival of independent and community-based space exploration" held in London, Earth from June 18th 27th 1999. It started with a protest against the militarisation of space outside the headquarters of Lockheed Martin. This was also part of J18 global festival against capitalism which initiated a wave of anti-capitalist protests including confrontations as Seattle, Prague, Gothenburg, Genoa and most recently Evian. It also included a conference, performance, astral travel, music, film, discussion and training. The festival explored "the new possibilities that open up when we form autonomous communities in outer space". Check the calendar of events - there is only one session which was about art: The Foundation for Art in zero-Gravity Environments launch event. (Indeed there was much discussion amongst the organisers as to whether such an event should be included as many participants felt that art constitutes a bourgeois category inappropriate to the acrtivities envisaged. In fact the Association of Autonomous Astronauts was an world organisation with events in Italy, Austria as well as London, with branches in New Zealand as well as across Europe. The idea that Space 1999 was an "art exhibition" is what we call Absurdist. As for MB's question, on page 39 of Space 1999, Ten Days That Shook The Universe! there is photograph of the winners of the first ever Intergalactic Triolectic Football Cup (Hard copy of these documents will be posted to you if you e-mail your address.) Your friend, Harry Potter 11:28 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I've responded to your comment in User_talk:Muppet. Muppet 15:53 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

See Cambridge United F.C. Muppet 14:25 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Ebola also linked to prostrate. Please let me make an article there without blanking it between edits. LittleDan 13:02 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I believe that peerage titles are supposed to be capitalized, at least in English. john 16:38 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Please stop assuming that British small towns are the only places in the world of any importance. In particular, Exeter in England cannot be the only link for "Exeter." The place in New Hampshire is a site of a famous private school, where among others a President of the United States was educated. In the United States, the name "Exeter" nearly always refers to the school, never to the jerkwater town in England.

As for my putting Holyhead in England instead of Wales, I apologize; but that even more shows why you should not assume an unqualified placename makes sense. I happen to have heard of Cardiff, so I knew it was in Wales; your tiny little British towns that you deem so important, but with less than a hundred thousand (or just over, like Exeter), are not the major sort of places that deserve treatment as if they were London! Nobody outside the UK has the slightest idea where Holyhead is, and perhaps the same even holds for Exeter. -- BRG July 9 2003

Any town with only 100,000 people is certainly a "jerkwater town." And of the Wikipedia articles I was looking at that linked to "Exeter," several had meant the school. As you say, Wikipedia is an international community. It seems that the Britons on here are most guilty of assuming that "Exeter" or any unqualified placename must mean the one in England.

Some time ago I had argued that we should _never_ use unqualified city names, that even "London, England" and "Paris, France" should be treated the same way. I was overruled, but the decision was that only major city names get special treatment. London would qualify. Perhaps Cardiff. Certainly a jerkwater town of 100,000 people (which is not "more than 10" times as large as Exeter, New Hampshire, for example) is not major. (The UK census says Exeter, England had a 2001 population of 111,078. The US census gives Exeter, New Hampshire a population of 14,058. It is much smaller, but not by a factor of 10.) BRG July 9, 2003

YOU learn the conventions. Nobody outside the UK has probably even heard of your jerkwater town of Exeter. The rule is that you assume a single place only for major cities like London, Paris, Rome. Not some place that is small enough to omit on most maps. Unless I see a consensus to the opposite, I will continue to revert Exeter to a disambiguation page every chance I get. BRG July 10, 2003

Please note that your comment that "What you are saying is that YOU have never heard of Exeter. This is your problem. Perhaps you should read [1] and enlighten yourself. Whatever, my point remains that the word Exeter is most associated with Exeter in Britain, and this is the convention." is more insulting than my characterizing a tiny place of 100,000 as a "jerkwater town." which it is! I know more about British geography than 99% of Americans --- I remember in an online chat with some guy from Sheffield that he was surprised that I knew Sheffield was a city, as I was the first American he'd spoken to who had even heard of it. I think _you_ should enlighten yourself. You referred to a Google search that found most of the links to the name Exeter referring to the city in the UK. What proportion of those were from sites in the UK? If you can find even _one_ site anywhere that is put up by someone outside the UK that uses "Exeter" unqualified to refer to the one in England, and does not preface that with some reference to England, Britain, or the UK (to make it clear that he's talking about UK places!) I would like to see it! -- BRG July 10, 2003

Well. This is a daft challenge. How about the Columbia encylopaedia [1]

Dont worry I was G-Man 22:16 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Sometimes things go fast. :-)
I saw your Naming-convention mentionign of Helsinki, made a minor note on the size of the Capital Region's population, and you removed Helsinki again. Actually, I regard Helsinki to be Scandinavia's second-most metropol-like city, beaten by Copenhagen in some, but not all, respects, ...and fully comparable with Hamburg, which culturally is more of a Northern-Europe-city than a Continental-Europe-city. -- Ruhrjung 06:17 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Re: Attlee Cabinet, I say just do it however you see fit. Just to note that it's not "Privy Secretary" but "[Lord] Privy Seal" john 14:22 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I see nothing in the Naming conventions (city names) article that convinces me that you have a consensus for considering 100,000-population cities as major cities. -- BRG July 11

You say "There is no need to get so uncooperative and make statments like revert (once again, until you darned well give up, Mintguy!)). this is not very constructive or helpful." It is you who are being non-constructive. Until you quit reverting my reverts and leave the articles as I've made them, I keep having to waste my time restoring my reverts. There is _nowhere_ a consensus that I have seen that towns of a puny 100,000 are in the category of London, Paris, or Rome. The arrogance of Britons amazes me. They assume that "if it's in Britain, it's the only one." Thus the UK has an exemption from the UPU's rule that a country must put its name on its stamps; all they put on is a silhouette of the Queen, despite that she is also queen of Canada, Australia, and several smaller countries! Also the USA has the American Chemical Siciety and the American Automobile Association, while in the UK the corresponding organizations have no "national" name; they are just the Chemical Society and the Automobile Association.

Nobody has the arrogance that UK people seem to there. Name one reason why putting "Colchester, England" as thye article title harms anyone; yet you keep reverting, as if I'd put Colchester in Scotland or something. -- BRG July 11

Look this has nothing with me being British (I'm actually Irish by heritage) other than the fact that I know more about British history than say French history. There are about 50,000 town in Britain, a few of them are of great historical significance, Exeter and Colchester have long histories. This means that a lot of links for these places need to be created, hence it has been established that in such cases these places take precedence. Mintguy

There's no big difference between a Colchester which redirects to Colchester, England and an article Colchester about Colchester, England. But the latter setup has the advantage that you don't get the redirect message when following a link from other places (since they all link to Colchestor, not Colchester, England.) ( 15:20 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

When I was going through all the articles that linked to Exeter to fix them, several actually should have linked to Exeter Cathedral or Phillips Exeter Academy and at least one to Exeter, New Hampshire. It is when people get led astray to the wrong one like that that the whole Wikipedia system falls apart. That's why I don't like even the redirects at pages like Exeter but prefer these pages to be disambiguation pages. That way, perhaps you need one more click to get to Exeter in England, but if the real reference is to Phillips Exeter Academy you don't get totally lost. -- BRG

That's why there's a disambiguation block at the top. Try Notre Dame. Mintguy

You didn't even provide that in your version of Exeter! -- BRG

I think you'll find that before you started monkeying around with things Exeter had it's own disambiguation block. Mintguy

It's a point of view, but you are arguing for a major policy change to Wikipedia disambiguation. This would affect lots of articles, not just place names ( 15:33 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No, it's not a major policy change. What I'm asking for is a rule on when a place is major enough to get the London treatment. Right now we do one thing for places like Springfield and another for places like Berlin, and nobody has drawn the line -- BRG

As I keep telling you, this has already been debated, over Durham. see talk:Durham (disambiguation). Mintguy

I looked at that page and I don't really see what was decided. It makes a distinction which was supposed to be explained on the wikipedia:disambiguation page, but I don't see where it is explained on that page. Also, it seems that the decision in regard to Durham was hardly clear, 3 to 2 with one abstention! -- BRG

The vote was actually 4 : 2. Some stuff was tidied up on that page, and I guess some of the debate took place elsewhere. But look at http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Durham_(disambiguation)&oldid=709086 for Nevilley's impassioned argument. Mintguy

Short's comments were carried on the ITV News at 10.30 tonight. It didn't say it but it looked as though it was made on a morning TV show on ITV this morning. FearÉIREANN 22:16 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I took the wording from the ITV headlines. I should have known not to trust the ITV News! In the good ol' days ITN was equal in reliability to the BBC but since the early 1990s it has gone tabloid and is a pure shadow of its former self. I will change the entry. FearÉIREANN 22:46 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

What!!! Britain still using the Julian Calendar for tax purposes??? I know Ireland changed in I think 2002. We had an eight month tax year and then hey presto we were into the gregorian calendar, only a couple of hundred years too late! I understood from a Treasury briefing I got some time ago that Britain was planning to change. I presumed when Brown moved the budget date they must have made the change. Our budget date was changed to reflect the new year and normally because of how close the Irish economy is tied in to the UK one we stick to what Britain is doing. (That is why we chose with Julian not Georgian after independence. FearÉIREANN 01:34 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Grin. :) <TONGUE IN CHEEK> Ahh, but it's still British arrogance, only he's picked it up second-hand. The arrogant bastard poms write horribly biased history (e.g., about how the wonderful English won the Battle of Alemein when, in actual fact, the single largest share of the ground fighting was taken on by the Australians, with major contributions also from the New Zealanders and the Scots, not to mention the South Africans and the Indians). There are countless other examples. Point is, the British complain like crazy about Americans pretending that they won the war all by themselves and forgetting about the massive contribution made by the UK, but they are even quicker to pretend that they themselves did a great deal of stuff that was, in reality, done by Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, South Africans, various other small Commonwealth nations, and last but most certainly not least, the Canadians. We colonials watch the movies and read the history books and get the double whammy: if we are smart enough to figure out that John Wayne didn't actually win the war all on his own, we fall back on reading British history books that tell us that the British did it all by themselves.

PS: I'm allowed to say "arrogant bastard poms" because that is a vital part of my national heritage. Same as you are allowed to call me "ignorant spawn of convict scum", because looking down on the colonials is part of your heritage. It's a family thing. </TONGUE IN CHEEK>

Cheers

Tannin

Fair enough, I'll revert jim

Hello. I see that you moved List of places in London to List of places in London, England. Was there a reason for this? -- Oliver P. 13:29 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Oh, er, are you sure? I was just looking at this page... - Oliver P. 13:37 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Ah, I see... Thanks for explaining. I think I'll move it back. The title as it stands seems a bit silly to me. :) -- Oliver P. 13:50 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I look forward to seeing the pix of Lewes. Maybe you could manage a few other Sussex sights, eg. Fishbourne Roman Palace. Deb 18:05 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I don't know what to say about Magenta. I was going by the BBC, who normally bill her as Magenta De Vine (note capital D). Deb 17:03 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Do you know anything about David's project? If so, could you add details to the page? If not I'll ask him for further info. --Eloquence 12:12 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Not sure of your question regarding Bulletin Board Dmsar 23:19 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I like your disambiguation of Secretary of State, but I think the Secretary of State page would probably be better disambiguated if the UK and US definitions were on completely separate pages (well, there already is a US page, so the revised article could just be two links, one to UK, and one to US. As it stands, the US one is buried at the bottom. --Daniel Quinlan 10:24 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, British spelling annoys me too. Oops, that's not what you're trying to say on your annoyances page, is it?

Hits on Google:

"colour" (8,150,000) vs. "color" (43,300,000)
"aeroplane" (233,000) vs "airplane" (1,940,000)
"spectacles" has more meanings than "eyeglasses"...
"pincer movement" I agree with you, it's the traditional name

--Daniel Quinlan 10:36 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Wow, that image of the London postal codes is very useful, though perhaps we might want to shrink it. Where did you find it? James F. 04:46 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I found something similar on a website somewhere and basically traced over it using paintshop pro adding my own colours and text. The size is a bit of a problem. That's about the smallest you can get it whilst allowing EC2 and EC3 to still be readable.

Mintguy 17:18 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've uploaded a smaller image for London postcodes.

Mintguy 13:52 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

And I've just run pngcrush on it to save the last few bytes of peoples' bandwidth ;-)

James F. 16:24 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I just want you to know that Sir Michael Checkland came to my 40th birthday party. (It was a pure fluke; we happened to be on the same holiday.) Deb 21:31 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Actually, he's a very nice man - bought us a few drinks. On another subject, have you seen next week's Radio Times? It not only mentions Magenta De Vine (sic) but gives her real name. All we need now is for someone to start an article. Deb 21:43 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You mean Magenta De Vine isn't her real name? Oh how disappointing! What is it, Mary Brown, Tracey Dumpling? Marla Horlsbruken-Wittselsbach-Carlsberg? lol :-) FearÉIREANN 03:35 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Many thanks for the Queensbury comments. I must confess that I can't remember if I had been arguing some other position (I hope not<G>) though I think I may have pointed out that some people count him and some don't, because of confusion about a novodamus of 1706 that was supposed to cut James out of the succession but which was decided in 1812 not to have done so, and that's why the numbering is sometimes "off-by-one" and you need to check the name as well as the number to be absolutely sure which one is being talked about. If I didn't quote it before, I should quote the Complete Peerage now, if only as "print" confirmation of the website you found:

James (Douglas), styled Earl of Drumlanrig, 2nd but 1st surviving son and heir; b. 2 Nov 1697; was an idiot,(a) probably from birth, but certainly before June 1706, when he was passed over in the entail of the estates as also in that of the titles of Duke of Queensberry, &c. He, however, de jure(b) succeeded to the peerage [S.] as Marquess and Earl of Queensberry, &c. [S.]., on his father's death, 6 July 1711, though he never assumed such titles. He died unmarried, and was buried 17 Feb. 1714/5, as "Earle of Drumlanrick," at Lanesborough, Yorks, among his mother's ancestors.
(a) He was called the "Cannibalistic idiot" from a terrible incident which occurred in 1707. He was kept in confinement in a cell at Holyrood, but was left unguarded, while the servants went out to see the riots at Edinburgh during the debates on the Union. He escaped from his cell and fell upon a cookboy, who was turning the spit in the kitchen and whom he killed, spitted and roasted before the fire (Maxwell, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 284; Chambers, Traditions of Edinburgh, p. 355).
(b) According to the decision of the House of Lords, 9 July 1812, the Marquessate of Queensberry (1681/2), the Earldom of Queensberry (1633), the Viscountcy of Drumlanrig (1633) and the Barony of Hawick and Tibberis, not being mentioned in the resignation and regrant of 1706, are not affected by it and descend according to their original limitation (see Riddell, vol. ii, p. 668).

So the numbering was in question between 1711 and the House of Lords decision of 1812, another reason for confusion. It's so hard to get a novodamus done properly<G>. (On the Hamiltons, for what it's worth, Bay Middleton's mother was a Hamilton, though I haven't been able to find out what her connection is with the dukes thereof...) -- Someone else 21:17, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

"don't insult the reader's intelligence". Yes, it was obviously unnecessary for me to put France but it was an honest mistake so no need to be so insulting to me. Your comment could have been phrased in a much more friendly way!
Adrian Pingstone 11:17, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)