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English Civil War

See Talk:English Civil War#British Civil Wars. Gdr 12:16, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

History of rugby league

I have nominated this article for featured status, and I feel your comments on this would be of value. Grinner 09:14, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Cheers for your comments.Grinner 14:44, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Philip, please take a look at the John Lilburne Talk page.

Thank you. MPLX/MH 04:27, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Image:Waterloo campaign map.png

Hi Philip, User:Gdr has pointed out a number of deficiencies and errors in my map of the Waterloo campaign. I have some of questions I need answered at Image talk:Waterloo campaign map.png and was hoping you might be able to help. Thanks. Geoff/Gsl 07:46, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Gdr has been able to answer my main questions, notably that the move I have shown as French from Wavre to Waterloo should actually be Prussian! I'm glad the map is getting some use so I am keen to make sure it's correct. Geoff/Gsl 23:07, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here is a disposition listed on the web for the 14th. I hope it is of interest. One query what is the movement marked 5? The date seems wrong as the battle was lost on the 16th, and all four Prussian cops retreated in the same direction on the night of the 16th. The centre disorganised and the two wings in some sort of order with Thielmann's the least damaged making up the rear guard.

I far as I can tell from the order of battle. The battle of Quatre-Bras was fought by the marjority left wing of the Army of the North under Ney while the Right wing under Grouchy fought the battle of Ligny. But Napoleon had very large reserves ([the Guards xx] [VI corps] and 4 cavalry corps I-IV) which were grouped into the "reserve army". The majority of this reserve army fought at Ligny and then followed Napoleon via QB to link up with Ney left wing to follow Wellington to Waterloo, while the right wing under Grouchy (and [I cavalry corps] reserves) went in persuit of the Prussians.

If you were to turn 5 around and paint it blue, then that could represent the movement of this reserve army moving to the linkup with Ney. Like you have done for the 3 4 arrow you have from Soignies to QB. I hope that this is of some use to you PBS 12:00, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. It's a great help. The Prussian retreat #5 from Ligny always bugged me. It's clearly shown on the source map (and not as a retreat) but I've never been able to associate with a movement, so I shall drop it. There used to be an un-dated French move from Ligny to QB which I dropped because I wasn't sure what it was and I ran out of room trying to represent d'Erlon's wandering (#3). I shall reinstate it.

I've got hold of a decent map of the actual Waterloo battle so shall have a go at that when I get the chance. Geoff/Gsl 21:48, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A little more for you map. As pointed out by someone on the Battle of Waterloo page. the Prussian IV corps did not fight at Ligny. Only II, I, and III corps (in that battle order) did. So there needs to be an arrow from Prussian II corps to Ligny and a bit like the d'Erlon line the one from the IV corps needs to bend towards Ligny and then point to around, Wavre where the IV met the rest of the Prussian army and headed for Waterloo. PBS 01:49, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've uploaded another revision, restoring the French move from Ligny to Quatre-Bras and bending the path of the Prussian IV Corps away from Ligny. I don't know Bulow's actual course but at least it indicates he didn't go to Ligny. Geoff/Gsl 23:01, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Bombing of Dresden in World War II

Could you take a look at Get back world respect's changes to this article and give an opinion? Rmhermen 13:18, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Total War

Can you chcek out the total war page? I've a question for you. Stargoat 19:01, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Laws of War & International Humanitarian Law

I left a note on User talk:GuloGuloGulo as to the inappropriateness of trying to redirect Laws of War to IHT. Perhaps you would be interested in commenting as well. -- Cheers! Cecropia | explains it all ® 01:31, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

RE:Dresden

See my reply @ User_talk:Sam_Spade#Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II. Cheers, Sam [Spade] 23:06, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You are right. The identification of the population in Dresden with their city is untypically strong, even for Germany where people usually like their home towns rather much, I don´t know if really more than in other European countries. I can say nearly every citizen, no matter of what age, is absolutely convinced of Dresden to be the perl of at least Germany, even it has some wounds still. ;-) NetguruDD 16:35, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Protection

Go to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection to make protection requests. AndyL 21:12, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Battle of Berlin

Your proposed changes to the battle box seem fine but I'm a bit vague on Berlin (which is sad because my mother was born there in 1941 and lived through the battle though she has little memory of it). The casualty figures I contributed were from Keegan's "Second World War" but they haven't survived subsequent edits. I've got Read & Fisher's "The Fall of Berlin" which I shall re-read to see if there's anything I can add. Geoff/Gsl 22:14, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Duke of Wellington

Hello. Why did you move Duke of Wellington? Mackensen (talk) 12:43, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please don't do that again. Mintguy (T) 12:58, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What they said. To explain further, the format and location that you changed it to is the standard format and location for articles on peerage titles. Don't move pages around like that without any effort at discussion beforehand. john k 13:05, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Battleboxes

I wrote up four proposals for improvements to the battlebox that would address Jeronimo's concerns about "battle before" and "battle after" in battleboxes. Please take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Battles/Battleboxes and comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Battles. Gdr 17:40, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)

Why did you place this on my talk page?

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,707835,00.html 'They raped every German female from eight to 80' Antony Beevor.
• "A Woman in Berlin: Six Weeks in the Conquered City" Translated by Anthes Bell ISBN 0805075402. First published in 1954 in English. Recently there was a fuss in Germany when the book was republished and the authoress was named .Jens Bisky, identified the author as Marta Hillers - a German journalist

Because I was going to place an argument about something else at the bottom of your talk page, which I thought was clutter on the Dresden page. But in the end I decided that I would not do so. But then I read the last thing you wrote above "I have heard ..." and thought you might be interested in those two sources. BTW The Bever book and the Marta Hillers book are both referenced on the "Battle of Berlin". PBS 22:46, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

ok. Get-back-world-respect 22:50, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

no commonwealth in 1918

I'm not sure what to say. I meant there was no Commonwealth in 1918, as far as I know. The Hundred Days should probably refer to the Allies, I guess, as I am sure the Belgians, French and Americans were involved as well as the BEF. Geoff/Gsl 21:21, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Whatever the case, I think that's a discussion for an article on the Hundred Days (which, at the rate I am going, I will get to in the next decade sometime). The main point is I don't think Commonwealth is the historically accurate term to use here, even though it now encompasses all or most of the participants. "British & Dominion" or "British Empire" perhaps, but I think there were Portuguese divisions involved too. You could call it the BEF, which was effectively an army group of the five British armies. Personally, speaking as an Australian, I'm not offended by just using "British" if it's a one-sentence summary, but then I'm rather lazy. Geoff/Gsl 22:27, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Rugby football

Phillip, you said on my talk page:

"If you read the talk page you will see that it was agreed some time ago that we would try to keep the history on the Rughy Football page to the minimum so that information is not duplicated all over the place." Not agreed by me :-) While there is no point in having absolutely identical pages, clearly rugby football and rugby union are never going to be anything like identical. Rugby football is about both codes and events before 1895 are part of the shared heritage of both union and league

"As you will appreciate there are strong feelings about the 1895 schism and anything seem to increase the importance of RU (like adding informaiton about clubs which stayed with the RU) on the RF page..." Errrm...who said rugby football is about rugby union?!! Like football, it's about more than one code. Real life subjects are not divided neatly — they overlap, and I don't see why we should rigidly restrict good material to one page. I don't really know why you are so concerned about this.

"...will lead to additional information on RL which takes us away from the original agreement to keep it brief." As I said there is no agreement and I don't see what's wrong with increasing the size of any of the pages, as long as they are accurate and linked properly.

"Also for brevity, I think that the paragraph on Canadian and American football should stay on the Football page which is clearly referenced in the first line of the section... the casual reader ... might think that the rugby played in North America is not the same as the Rugby played in the rest of the world." I think the rugby origins of the North American codes is an important point and one which may well be missed if it is just on the football page. Perhaps that passage could be worded slightly differently, but I think it belongs there. Grant65 (Talk) 09:24, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Zurich

The problem I have is that there shouldn't really be a vote at all. There's a very clear policy to use the most common name of something in English for article title and in text (in fact, it's probably the most central policy in the whole of Wikipedia naming convention), which was recently challenged (in very similar circumstances) and received overwhelming support, so it's legitimacy and applicability are not really able to be challenged. Under this policy, Zurich belongs at Zurich, and six-month-old polls involving a couple of dozen people on an article talk page don't really have the authority to overrule a policy with broad community support. If someone started a poll at Talk:Rome to move it to Roma they'd be told to stop being silly, and that's exactly what the people on Talk:Zurich should be told. Proteus (Talk) 22:08, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Thanks for your message, and sorry for getting back to you so late (I'm on "Wikiholiday"). I responded on the article Talk page. - pir 20:55, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Helmuth Weidling

The german version of the wikipedia was my main source (and a book I read about four years ago). The german wikipedia uses the Helmut spelling but I don't know how that shifts over to english. The only reason I wrote that substub was that the comander of the berlin forces was wrong in an article so I corrected it. If I get time I'll dig through my uni libiarly for more info but I can't promise anythingGeni 13:00, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Google lists both with the version with the h being more popular. I suspose we could try asking Pluriscient who orginaly created the article on the german version but that would for me involve spending some time with a german dictionary. As I said I'll cheak this in my uni libiary when I get the time.Geni 13:51, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

spellings

hi Philip — please try to stay on topic. Inquire about my native tongue on my Talk page, if you must (I dare you to show from my contributions, rather than from personal information I choose to put on my User page, that my command of the English language is short of the standard that may be expected of native speakers; and I am speaking of written English, not the chatroom slang some natives find appropriate to leave behind for others to correct). As for "squiggles scare off the uneducated". Well, if I should go to de:, maybe you should go to simple:? Because you will also need to argue against the use of English words that are unlikely to be understood by highschool kids (assuming they are unwilling to look them up in a dictionary). Having vented that, I do think we can reach a consensus, c.f. my reply on the discussion page. dab 15:27, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC) — btw, yes, I am of the Schwyzertütsch persuasion, and should, in a nativist WP doctrine, go to als:. dab 15:32, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

as I say, I am confident we can reach a consensus. I can well imagine people who have never seen a foreign squiggle (they are called diacritics). In fact, I used to teach the alphabet to a Somali woman who had been a nomad during most of her life and had never spent a day in school. Believe me, I can imagin life without encyclopedias, without computers and without alphabets. However, your hypothetical squiggle-agnostics have now found an encyclopedia, where, thank God, they can read all about squiggles, if they so choose, and where they can also ignore the squiggles, if they so choose. Editors of any given article are a different question; I think we should expect knowledge of the squiggly version of the spelling of the term on which they feel competent enough to share their knowledge. dab

Operation Matterhorn

Good contribution. You might want be interested in my recent revamping of British Pacific Fleet and the new British Commonwealth Occupation Force and British Commonwealth Forces Korea, both of which still need work.Grant65 (Talk) 22:52, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

Style guide: "period" and "full stop"

Hi, Philip.

I appreciate your offer to compromise at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. I think you and I agree at least to the spirit of cooperation.

Until your comments of 15:49, 4 Dec, I hadn't realized that all the discussion particpants didn't see "period" and "full stop" as roughly analogous in mutual intelligibility or lack thereof, between speakers of American and British English.

Maurreen 16:27, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Offensive or Battle

I've seen offensive used more often than battle though. It really was a larger operation.

By the way, I really think its about time somebody makes Monty into a featured article, similar to what I’ve done over at Erich von Manstein. I think it would be crucial that an Englishman is involved, to avoid unfair shoots and give perspective.

GeneralPatton 08:50, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Pursuit of Nazi colaborators

As you have removed all mentions of actual Nazis from the article, the background and means of pursuit sections are now mainly wrong, in that those means were used against Nazis, not collaborators. Also do we have an article on the pursuit of Nazis after the war that that information could go in (or is already in)? Rmhermen 21:47, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

The Humungous Image Tagging Project

Hi. You've helped with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Syntax, so I thought it worth alerting you to the latest and greatest of Wikipedia fixing project, User:Yann/Untagged Images, which is seeking to put copyright tags on all of the untagged images. There are probably, oh, thirty thousand or so to do (he said, reaching into the air for a large figure). But hey: they're images ... you'll get to see lots of random pretty pictures. That must be better than looking for at at and the the, non? You know you'll love it. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

• Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
• Multi-Licensing Guide
• Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

US/UK slang clash

Ah, a warning flare: in the US "fag" is not slang for a cigarette (and I reckon most people wouldn't know it); instead, it's a very derogatory term for male homosexuals, simply not used by polite people. Noel (talk) 01:48, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Naive" is not an incorrect spelling

On the Total war page you changed the word "naive" in a quote. Unless you have evidence that it is spelt "naïve" in the original, please do not change the spellings of such words in quotes. PBS 17:56, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Uh? What is the "original" of a spoken statement? Sam Hocevar 20:09, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Barnstar

Philip - for all the great work you do on the world war II articles, I hearby award you this barnstar. Thank you for all the great work you do. →Raul654 14:22, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Page moves

Please do not forget to always fix double redirects after page moves. After you move a page, you have a "click here" prompt to fix redirects. I could have done this myself for 3rd Belarussian Front, but I am afraid I have a problem with my computer, and I will not be able to edit today. Thank you. Mikkalai 18:58, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

nevermind. I did it (abusing my workplace :-). Mikkalai 22:53, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

byyyelorussssian

moved to Talk:3rd Belorussian Front#byyyelorussssian

High moral ground

Wow! Talk:Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki/Archive_1 contains this link, added by someone who's clearly anti-bombing. What is it with anti-bombing people (Dresden, too, clearly) and neo-Nazis? They just can't seem to stay out of intellectual bed together. Noel (talk) 03:32, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Armia Ludowa

Hi there! We've had some problems with the article on Armia Ludowa recently. Could you please drop in to the Talk:Armia Ludowa and explain the problems we have with your version? Thanks in advance. Halibutt 10:47, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Sir John Orde, 1st Baronet

The date you gave in this article (1783-93 Govener of Dominica) doesn't match the external link you also gave[1] or the current one[2] both of which say 1784 - 1789. Any idea about the discrepancy? Are your dates from some outside source?

Eastern Front WWII

See Talk:Army Group Centre.

Also, please take an expert's look at my recent edits at Operation Mars, Operation Uranus, Battle of Passchendaele(category only), Third Battle of Kharkov, Second Battle of Kharkov. Mikkalai 19:18, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sourcing of warcrime claims

You might like to comment on this unsourced claim make on "Human shield action to Iraq" "All these sites were targeted and bombed by U.S. bombers in the 1991 Gulf War as part of the U.N. coalition, in contravention of the Geneva Conventions."

Operation Biting

Phil, I cannot make head nor toe out of your recent addition to the Operation Biting article. You addition seems to be a separate essay, not related to what was already there. Before I get all excited, are you going to do some more editing, given time? Warm Regards, [[PaulinSaudi 17:44, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)]]

Phil, Thank you for your note. I am afraid I disagree. We had a nice little article on Biting, but now we have two. Is this an encyclopedia or a scrapbook? Perhaps we could put an external link to the second article? I would appreciate your efforts in looking at this. Perhaps I am wrong, but I cannot think of any other article that has such a large cut and paste tacked on the end. All the best, [[PaulinSaudi 05:18, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)]]

Phil, I have this day deleted your open source text from the article (but moved it to talk so you can find it again easily). I gave it much thought but the idea of having two articles just freaked me out. All the Best, [[Paul, in Saudi 08:34, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)]]

Soviet Fronts

I am afraid you started renaming too early. The proper names would be, e.g.,

• Western Front (Russia, WWI).
• Western Front (Red Army, Civil War).
• Western Front (Soviet Army, WWII).

The idea is that the "true name" is "Western Front", not Soviet Western Front, since the last term may well disambig to front to the west of Soviet Union. Also, usage of "()" allows you to simplify pipelining: [[Western Front (Soviet Army, WWII)|]]. Mikkalai 10:27, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)