User talk:Baldhur/archive

Note: My original user name was Cordpyh, so don't be confused by the name change.

See User talk:Baldhur for newer messages

Hello there Cordyph, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you ever need editing help visit Wikipedia:How does one edit a page and experiment at Wikipedia:Sandbox. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Wikipedia:Naming conventions. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. BTW, nice work on the biology articles. Cheers! --maveric149

Hi there. Welcome to the place. I see you've got the hang of things; good idea making punt into a disambiguation page. -- Tarquin 12:17 Sep 21, 2002 (UTC)

Hi, I noticed you're uploading some maps for the districts of Schleswig-Holstein. I've been doing similar for some US states (California, Nevada...). Just a couple suggestions: the JPEG compression makes the hard edges a little funky-looking; you'll get a cleaner image if you save the files as PNG, which is better optimized for line-art drawings. Also, the 400-pixel width is perhaps a bit big for users running at low resolutions or with browser windows smaller than their whole screen. I'd recommend shrinking them down to the 200-250 range, maybe 300 at the most; or else un-floating them so the text doesn't have to wrap around the giant picture. In any case, thanks for your work -- a map is worth a thousand words in making articles about geographical locations useful and appealing! --Brion 21:27 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)

About zero-length uploads... I don't think I've encountered this in particular, but I do know the upload system is a little more fragile than it should be, and tends to tell you "Success!" without really checking. It's possible that your connection got broken somehow, and the whole file didn't get written; just upload it again and it should be okay... --Brion 18:33 Oct 4, 2002 (UTC)

Hello Cordyph, I've seen that you uploaded some coats of arms of German cities. Where have you got them? It would be nice if you could mail them to me (elian (at) gmx.li) as a zip or tar-file, so we can use them in the German wikipedia, too. --Elian

Hi, Cordyph. My name's Ed, and I'm one of the most frequent contributors to Wikipedia. I specialize in acquainting newcomers with our policies and facilitating a collegial atmosphere of cooperation.

I like the way you handled the dispute with Mirsa over History of Israel. You correctly pointed out that my advice wasn't to put the charge of ethnic cleansing into the first sentence of the article although I did suggest that it should be covered in it (somewhere). --Ed Poor

Hi, Cordyph. Just a minute ago I was busy changing names and redirecting the Anderlecht articles. All of a sudden I saw other things change and the recent changes showed you were doing exactly the same thing. Actually I've lost track of what is changed now... I hope things are complete now. And thanks for the help. Dhum Dhum 14:18 Nov 28, 2002 (UTC)

I don't know if you're sympathetic to this cause, but I need support in trying to keep football at football. They want to move it to soccer, please see talk:list of footballers. Mintguy 10:19 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

Hi, Mirko! (Is this a popular German name? Sounds very Slavonic, Czech, Serbian or maybe Lusatian). I did my best in convincing Taw. When I was talking about Frankfurt, of course I didn't mean the one in Hessen but the other one, You know, on the that river with two names.
From Rhine to Ural? From Dniestr to Laba (Elbe) would be more like it. And please understand the Polish point of view: the German irredentists - Heimatvertriebene, Jung Landsmannschafte Ostpreussen and other "Teutonic Knights" want to claim from 50 to 80% of current Polish lands. If Poles just stick to reasonable historical arguments and desperately try to convince the world about their rights to the Recovered Lands, then between the lines they acknowledge that the issue is a subject to discussion. It's not! That's why current Polish strategy is to come up with equally absurd and ridiculous claims from their part. "You want Silesia - well, we want Lusatia (Lautzen/Luzice) with the old Polish cities of Misnia (Meissen), Budziszyn (Bautzen) and Chociebuz (Cottbus)! You want Pomerania - well, we want Pomorze Zaodrzanskie (Vorpommern) with the old Polish cities of Wologoszcz (Wolgast) and Strzalowo (Strelitz). You write about Kaliningrad/Koenigsberg - well it's Kaliningrad/Krolewiec for You, You pickelhaube wearing, kulturkampf Preussener, You!" Me, I don't take any part in it actively. But I see that change as something better than the previuos way of reasoning. I can send You some funny posters and bumper stickers, and we can both laugh about them.
Take care, Mirko!
Space Cadet 14:59 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Cordyph,

the border did not border the flag only but extended to the right until the edge of the screen:

+-------------------------+
| flag                    |
+-------------------------+

which did not look very nice. I see your point at the moment in the factsheet on Hesse, the table is wider than the flag is. I added a small black border to the image itself, I think this looks better than before. BTW, the flags you upload, do you have them available as PNG or GIF? JPEG looks a little bit ugly when used for flags or maps. -- JeLuF

What platform are you working on? There are simple PNG-aware programs available for free on most platforms. -- JeLuF

Thank you for your notice about Trakai. Actually I have got a written permission by email from the Trakai Town Hall officials and they grant free use of all their textual information on their site. How I have to make remark about this grant on that page in wiki style? Teach me - I have started contributing only yesterday :)))) //Darius Mazeika

Hi Cordyph - when you move a page to a new location, could you use the "Move this page" link rather than cutting and pasting? That way, all old version of the page are moved as well, so they're all kept in one place. Cheers --Camembert (by the way, I moved Nurburgring to Nürburgring rather than Nuerburgring - it's much more familiar that way, I think)

I noticed you're a bit slow with adding the maps to the districts you work on. If you don't mind I can create the maps for you, I usually finish them in a minute thanks to your templates. And I think the ones I created look a little bit better with the more smooth scaling. So if you don't mind you can focus on the text, while I do the maps for you - and if you continue alphabetically I can even prepare them so you can add them in your first edit already. Of course I will continue to write district texts myself as well. andy 13:20 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Cordyph, regarding deletions: The rules propose that you should only delete vandalisms or newbie experiments without adding to Votes for Deletion. So I think you shouldn't delete the images yourself. -- JeLuF

Thanks for pictures. Are they Thorburn?jimfbleak 18:44 Mar 13, 2003 (UTC)

As I just seen on the german wikipedia the map of Rhineland-Palatinate with the district numbers is wrong - there is no district "Primasens", that is identical with Suedwestpfalz, thus all numbers above 19 are off by one. But as the map seems already scaled down from a higher resolution one I think it's best if you redo it. Also note that you forgot to add the number for Germersheim (district). andy 14:42 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for suggesting me to sysop status. I hesitated so far to apply for it, as it will one make my status as Wikipediholic more severe - but also because I prefer to spend the time on writing articles then to read administrative stuff on the mailing list. But if it's not much to follow there I might do the next step. andy 22:11 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hallo! You might want to take a look at Talk:Dithmarschen. In all friendlyness! -- Ruhrjung 07:57 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I am afraid that there are at least two current uses of †. Kingturtle uses it as a footnote indicator, to avoid cluttering the important first sentence with derivations, Tannin and I use it taxoboxes to link to parallel groups, eg in gannet to link to booby, the other part of the family Sulidae. Not very helpful I'm afraid. ---jimfbleak 15:02 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi Cordyph, just asking why my "pronunciation guide" to Bremen was removed. You live in Germany so you know that BRE rhymes with clay but remember that most of the English Wikipedia's readers are not aware of German pronunciation. Perhaps it could have been improved but I don't think it should have been removed. Your comments?
PS I put those four pics of Bremen on, I went there when I was working for British Aerospace
Adrian Pingstone 13:47 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Message for you at User talk:Arpingstone.
Adrian Pingstone 08:17 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Don't forget to probe a writer you feel a dislike for: http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Ruhrjung

The degree of seriousness or queerness is often easily detected.
-- Ruhrjung 12:11 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I don't understand what you are trying to tell me. I never said, that I have a dislike for you. We just had some disagreement. My dislike is reserved for other persons ;-) Don't worry about that -- Cordyph 12:33 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Please claify. Why is my illustration of a woodpecker finch "inappropriate?" MB 14:43 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Nice Motmot picture. As it happens, I'd just done a species list for motmots (what are the chances of that?), so I've added that, and I might be able to put a little more text later. In the taxobox, I'd be inclined to delink the genus names, at least until species articles are written jimfbleak 13:15 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

thanks for tip Jim

thanks for message - I actually picked it up from recent changes, and i've already started raiding the store! Jim

Nice work with the bird picture uploads, Cordyph. Better pictures = better articles, in my book. Cheers, Tannin

Hi, if I post a picture of a bird and a description of its habitat, do you think you'd be able to identify it? Or could you point me to someone that could/would? Koyaanis Qatsi 13:47 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

ok, thanks. :-) Koyaanis Qatsi

I posted the image on Jim's talk page. Thanks for looking. Koyaanis Qatsi 14:45 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

OK, done 265 or so. There are some left, but I think some of them are useful the way they are. -- JeLuF 10:12 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Nice work on Felidae, Cordyph. Much improved. Tannin

Hmmmm ... Good queston. My wonderful big mammal book has a bit of an each-way bet - they clasify it as Felis (Puma) concolor! But, on the whole, they seem to think that many of the cats will soon be reclassified into a total of 8 genera, and that the Puma group (Puma and Jaguarundi) will be one of them: i.e., that Puma will become the standard. It's quite recent (2001) and edited by a bit of a who's who of mammologists, so I tend to trust it. Toss a coin, and take away the number you first thought of, I guess. Welcome to taxonomy! :) Tannin

Speed is just a question of choosing the right tools: Mozilla 1.4, tabbed browsing, load tabs in background, mouse gestures, edit wiki by doubleclicking and marking the right words for cut&paste. The only problem was the slowdown of wikipedia when saving more than 10 pages simultaneously ... -- JeLuF 17:09 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I see you are back doing cats again tonight. Great! I've just spent a few hours trying to impose some uniformity and decent layout on some of the existing articles, and adding a new one, Clouded Leopard which (I discovered part-way through) had already got a stub last year but under the scientific name so that no-one knew it was there. I figure I've got time for one more new one before I hit the sack. Are there any missing species accounts that you think ought to be first priority? Or will I just pick one at random? Tannin (BTW, if by any chance you would rather I cleared out and left you to do the cats your own way, just say the word - I have a million interests and could just as happily do another bird entry or more rodents.)

Thanks for tip. I'm not getting much done at present (real world work), but I'll follow up when I can, jimfbleak

No, I entered them all directly. I figured I needed something to numb my brain. :) I would think there would be a conversion program somewhere but I didn't bother to look for one today. - Hephaestos 21:14, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

2.5 hours, judging from my contributions list :) Interesting experience, as I don't know a word of Russian. The site where I found the lyrics had them on a gif, so I wouldn't have been able to copy and paste anyway. - Hephaestos 21:36, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome (User_talk:Kitwe). I've been snooping around for about a month and finally felt like I had something I had. See you around.

See Votes for deletion about US Navy articles. Rmhermen 03:48, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

"draught top" as in the head on beer? LDan 19:20, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Göttingen CoA

An editor has nominated the above file for discussion of its purpose and/or potential deletion. You are welcome to participate in the discussion and help reach a consensus.

Hi Cordyph,

the way I remember the coat of arms, it used to be red/yellow, not red/brown. I found a really ugly CoA on the district's website, very poor quality JPEG version, but it shows the colours as red/yellow, too. -- JeLuF 20:14, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I already wondered where those coats are from, whether you have found some central repository or such. I will ask friends in Goettingen whether they have a printed version of the Coat that they might scan. -- JeLuF 14:07, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hmm, you may be right. I dunno, I think I'm an immediatist, or whatever the word is... :-) You could protect Saddam Hussein for a bit, since you've not been involved in that... Evercat 13:40, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Silesia / Nazi-glorifying revisionism

Please consider the spelling of Goerlitz / Görlitz. As Görlitz actually belongs to Germany, the German spelling ought to be preferred unless the oe-spelling dominates in English.

You might also want to see the bottom of Talk:Silesia
--Ruhrjung 08:13, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I changed the spelling. I was not really engaged in the Silesia article, but I was on a trip reverting every edit by user 80.213.x.x (also known as User:Heine or User:Pius). This annoying troll appears to be interested in making waves by making his revisionist edits. But I will have a look at the article now. -- Cordyph 08:21, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I know the problem of manual auto-reverting also by personal experience. ...and unfortunately I also know the 80.213.x.x-troll.
regards!

As I've experienced it, there is a particular kind of stubbornness thriving in the wastelands of Norway and Finland. I would rather assume User:Heine to suffer from that condition, than from Nazi-glorifying revisionism, but... maybe I've been spared his worst contributions.
--Ruhrjung 08:27, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

He begins to become a big problem. He keeps many identities and always makes the same edits without really knowing about anything he writes. He even called Krakow a German city. I was called a "Polish nationalist" by him - rather funny ;-) Anyhow, I begin to feel tired about this. We all have better things to do than fighting this idiot. -- Cordyph 08:48, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Polish Corridor

Thanks for your help with Oder-Neisse line - the same person/people is causing trouble over at Polish Corridor - could you help out please. PMelvilleAustin 16:21, Oct 20, 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I will have a look at the article tomorrow. -- Cordyph 20:50, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Umlauts

I noticed that a lot of articles on German cities and districts are or were located under the Umlaut-free versions of their names (e.g. Mölln at Moelln, Lüchow-Dannenberg at Luechow-Dannenberg). Since you are apparently responsible for a lot of them, could you tell me wether there is a specific reason for that? - Sandman 19:03, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I can. When I began editing Wikipedia in 2002, the software was not able to retrieve article titles with umlauts. This changed sometime in late 2002 or early 2003, and so I asked on the mailing list, if it should be okay to create titles containg umlauts now. (See http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-June/004158.html for the thread). There was no definite answer, and we have still no convention on this, but now I think, that it is a good idea to change these articles to titles containing umlauts. I will do so in the future as well. Just a request: If you should create further articles with umlauts, please consider creating a redirect without as well. For example, if you should be interested in creating an article about the Rhön, create a redirect Rhoen pointing there as well. So we can avoid the parallel emerging of both articles (which already had happened for Ruegen, Rügen, before it was corrected). -- Cordyph 20:56, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. - Sandman 14:50, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Polish city names

Thanks mate i'l back down on this issue - it just feels weird to me using names which weren't used in the period being talked about (i changed all the pre-1975 references from East Timor to Portuguese Timor in the History of East Timor article for that reason)

PMelvilleAustin 15:13, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

Silesia

There was a misunderstanding (reproduced below), but it's all cleared up now. I'm putting it here, for the record. -- Ed Poor

From admin request page

Cordyph violated his neutrality and took sides in an edit war on Silesia by protecting the page (reverting to the other side's version) as soon as I changed it; he didn't do anything to prevent the other side from editing it before. Can some other sysop please revert this to the last stable version (Aug 14) or unprotect it. --Wik 14:40, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)
- Copied from my answer on Talk:Silesia: Look at the edit history of Silesia: Before my revert I did not edit this page, so I was NEVER involved in this edit war. Instead of that I tried to help the combattants finding a compromise. Afterwards the discussion restarted. There is no sense in having pages with an edit history full of reverts. By the way: If you seriously claim, that I am protecting Nico, you must be blinded. I have no sympathy at all for his ideology. I simply reverted to a version, that was intended as a basis of discussion. -- Cordyph 14:47, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- Nonsense. User:Wik vandalized the page. He has not been willing to discuss any edit he has made, and opposite the other users, he has declared (and showed) that he not will make a compromise. Cordyph reverted to a quite neutral version by User:Ruhrjung, instead of Wik's ridiculous, belitteling, stupid anti-German version. Nico 17:39, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  - Note that the version (with minor differences) Cordyph protected has during the last days been protected already three times by three admins because of User:Wik's vandalism.
Addendum: Cordyph now called me "completely hopping mad" on another user's talk page. I am not responding in kind to such insults, but I will expose them here, though I know it's unlikely it will actually lead to a de-adminship. --Wik 17:53, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)
- So? Cordyph is just telling the truth. -- Nico 18:02, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)
My impression is that the users fighting over the article Cordyph was helping with, are more interesting in fighting each other than in making a neutral article. I'm also going to predict that Jimbo will not de-op Cordyph over this dispute. He was intervening in good faith, whether or not he "technically" broke a rule. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone". --Uncle Ed 18:17, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- I invite anyone to look at the history of the article. Ruhrjung, I and even caius2 and szopen are trying to find a compromise. We have all modified our positions a lot, I think. However, User:Wik is only reverting and reverting, and is not willing to discuss the case. He has declared that he not will make a compromise. I will suggest that User:Wik should be banned if he not stop this. Nico 18:29, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- He may have acted in good faith. But calling someone "completely hopping mad" is an insult that should be apologized for at the minimum. - Mashburn
  - I object. He is right. Nico 18:29, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)
    - No, I am not. I was really enraged. You will see, that I made my edit on Ruhrjung's talk page just a few minutes after Wik's call for my de-adminship. So I apologise for my words, but I don't apologise for the page protection. It was, what several users had called for, and the version of Ruhrjung was apparently a version, that was accepted as a basis for discussion. I will now completely keep out of the Silesia article. My mediation is apparently not wanted. The discussion at this place is a proof, that Wik and Nico are not interested in achieving a compromise, so I give up. -- Cordyph 19:31, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)
      - All right. I believe you acted in good faith, you just didn't check out the issue properly. I never protested the protection, just your revertion to Ruhrjung's version, which I never accepted as a basis for discussion. But meanwhile Ed has reverted to a neutral version, so that matter is settled. I withdraw my request for de-adminship. If there are no further comments, the Cordyph section on this page can be deleted. --Wik 20:07, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)
      - This is not correct. You may find a link to my first version of October 9 at Talk:Silesia/Archive1, and you will see that I have modified my position a lot, and that I have invited Wik to discuss his edits, and that I am highly interested in a compromise. But User:Wik has declared that he not will make a compromise, and he has not modified his position überhaupt. He is reverting every edit both I and Ruhrjung is making, and even caius2 has been reverted without discussion by him. Nico 19:58, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Cordyph, your backing off-reaction is understandable — I have the same urge myself. But I wonder if that is good for wikipedia.

One could have expected a more cooperative attitude from User:Wik, who is a rather experienced wikipedian, having contributed to articles within a pretty wide field.

Regarding contributors of the Nico/Heine variety, I wonder if the Don't Bite The Newbies strategy maybe is working even in this problematic case. Admitedly slowly and probably incompletely, but never the less, I see signs of an effect. I am not so sure that Nico is "not interested in achieving a compromise".
--Ruhrjung 08:57, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, Ruhrjung. Now in the light of a new morning I wonder myself if it was good to surrender so fast. It was wrong from me to accuse Wik of "completely hopping mad". It has always been my strategy not to reply to insults with other insults, but in this case I apparently could not resist. So I repeat my apology for that. Nonetheless, I am extremely disappointed about Wik's reaction to my page protection. He never made an attempt to discuss the issue before, but as soon as the page was protected, he moved heaven and earth in order to call my neutrality into question, in a way, that I still regard as extremely unfair. When this de-admin request page became another battlefield for Nico and Wik, my first reaction was: Okay, let them rip out each other's throat, but without me. I don't need all this. If I would search a place for flames and insults, I know other places in usenet, but that is not the reason for me to help on Wikipedia. I will think about, if I should come back to that article, but not now. Good luck. -- Cordyph 09:43, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

User Nico

Hi, Cordyph!
Is user:Nico, the former user: Heine?
Space Cadet 14:56, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)~

Hi Space, nice to hear from you again. I am not sure if he is - but it is possible. That would mean, that he fooled me, since for a short period of time I thought, that he was on a way towards NPOV. Therefore I left some encouraging words on his talk page some days ago. His recent behaviour apparently shows, that I was wrong. His unpolite words towards Khym Chanur, you and many others show, that he did not learn his lesson.

The current state of edit wars is worse than it was ever before. I hope that this situation will come to an end soon, but I doubt that this will work without banning someone. (And you may know that I regard Wik just as problematic as Nico.)

Perhaps you might want to leave a comment about my text proposal on Talk:Görlitz. Perhaps you can assist the brave Kosebamse in her (his?) attempts to settle the Silesia issues. After all, I abandoned hope, that there will be a peaceful solution.

Heine stopped contributing, when Pius and afterwards Nico appeared. So it is in all probability, that they are the same person. I wonder why one living in Norway could be that interested in Silesia.

Please note, that I changed my user name. You may call me Baldhur or Mirko. Cordyph is not here anymore.

Take care, Space! -- Baldhur 15:14, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

De-adminship

I've removed your sysop status on en: as you requested. I'll fix up the name change later. It's a bit more complicated than an ordinary name change. -- Tim Starling 05:36, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

User Tannin

Hi, the last communication I had from Tannin, he was about to set off to northern Australia, hoping to get some good wildlife photos, but that was ages ago, and I've heard nothing since. I agree that it would be a pity if he really has left, and a loss to this project Jim

I just want to agree with Jim. ;)

Err ... No. I want to say thanks for the welcome back, Baldhur, and I'm looking forward to filling in some missing areas with photos. Not just birds: I spent a day at the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo (New South Wales) taking pictures of the mammals there for the 'pedia: antelope and wild dogs and so on. Trouble is, I forget what most of them are already! Sorry to hear you had problems here, but glad that you are back, even if only (like me) on a part-time basis.

Best -- Tony (Tannin 08:26, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC))

Great! I don't have many carnivores. A nice Cheetah, but we already have PD ones just as good. I'll see what I can dig out in the dog department ... Oh dear - nothing much at all. (My day at Dubbo was almost two months ago, and my memory isn't what it ought to be.) No matter. I'll get onto the herbivores in due course, and trust that you'll be able to help me work out what they were. (Where are my notes?) Tannin 10:05, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Go right ahead. I'll upload some more in the morning. Perhaps I'll make a temp page with a few different things on it and you can pick out anything you like and can ID. (Most of them I'll be OK on, but I really only remember the birds properly - all my bird shots are in the wild, and when you spend all that time finding them, you tend to remember.) Tannin 10:39, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

re:page move

But the page I was trying to move is the content currently at Charles Taylor...it wasn't a redirect. Maybe it doesn't allow pages to be moved on top of redirects created by a move to begin with? --Jiang|(Talk)

Vandalism in progress Page

Please stop reverting the Vandals in Progress page. I am not Calius2ga and I have as much right to place my complaint as anyone else see nicos progress on the talk:silesia page.24.2.152.139 03:46, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Your complaint was not deleted, but moved to Wikipedia:Conflicts between users. -- Baldhur 11:57, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Plural or singular case in animal groups

Most of the conventions are, I think, uncontentious. The main dispute was the use of capitals for individual species names, where the Americans preferred lower case. Capitals are accepted for birds, with a lower case redirect, and are de facto standard for cetaceans, where non-Americans have written most of the articles. Conversely, the fish are mainly written by Stan Stebs, and are lower case. I'll have a look. Jim

Silesian wars

Yeah, I don't know. I've never been huge on the procedures on Wikipedia. Should we nominate him for de-adminship? Also, I tend towards the conclusion that Caius2ga ought to be banned, seeing as he's vandalized other people's user pages, and is completely unwilling to listen to what anybody else has to say, but I'm not sure how to do that. At any rate, Silesia is a complete mess. john 18:27, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hey, I've called a vote on some of the issues at Talk:Silesia in an attempt to work out some kind of consensus. I'd appreciate your input. john 22:05, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have now invited users kpjas and Space Cadet, as you suggested. I had previously invited Szopen, who has participated in the debate. I'm sorry I (probably) deleted your vote...I was busy reverting caius2ga's attempt to hide the vote...I think you're right, though, that this is probably useless so long as caius2ga and wik refuse to vote. Wik's refusal to engage in almost any discussion at all is particularly irritating, since I imagine he might, unlike caius2ga, have actual useful things to say, if he would deign to explain himself to the rest of us... john 23:11, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I was definitely going to keep an eye on it. I just don't want to get too involved...I won't withdraw entirely, I just want to sit back and cool off. As far as inviting Caius2ga, I suspect it won't do much good - and he surely knows that stuff is going on, so he's probably just sulking and preparing for another long burst of text... john 08:35, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Emu Picture

Hi Baldhur. I just posted the following over on the German 'pedia. (In English, so perhaps you would be good enough to translate it for me.)

Please forgive my writing in English (I have no German at all). At first I thought this was not an Emu at all, but maybe a Rhea. But on closer examination, I see that it is an Emu chick, about 3/4 grown - maybe 9 or 12 months old and almost ready to become an adult.

However, it doesn't look very much like an Emu, so perhaps a different picture would be better. I'll have a look through my collection and see what I can find. (I'll upload them to the English Wikipedia as I have a username there and don't know how to upload them here.)

It sure didn't look like an Emu, but it is. Compare with this (poor) photo of an emu chick:

[Image removed so it can be deleted from the Wikipedia server]

Here is a better (but still not very good) one. You may like to use it on the German 'pedia. I haven't loaded it up here as I don't really think it's good enough, and I like my pictures to be taken in the wild, especially with easy birds like Emus. This one is semi-tame (the top one is wild - and he had succeeded in raising 7 chicks in a bad drought year in southern Queensland - not a bad effort!

File:Emu-250.jpg

Cheers Tannin 13:01, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Here is another one.

File:Emu-head.jpg

All 3 Emus are adults, Baldhur. Only in the first picture is there a young one, which is part-obscured by the parent. Excuse my previous post - on re-reading it I see that it doesn't make much sense! I need to sleep more! Tannin

Thanks (Silesia and related issues)

Thanks, Baldhur...I'm trying to be more moderate because I still have hope that Taw and Caius (especially Taw, who as a sysop is obviously a respected cmmunity member) will be willing to compromise, and that Nico will as well. Obviously we have to get everyone to meet in the middle somehow:perhaps reference to both names? I don't know--maybe there is no good answer. I do hope, though, that you won't leave WP...even when I'm most frustrated, I realize that 95% of the work done here is productive and constructive....it's just too easy to be caught up in the drama of the 5% that isn't. What little of your editing I've encountered has impressed me, and I am heartened every day to know there are productive users like you around this place. I would be sad to see you leave: I suggest (if I may) that frustration is easiest handled by making new articles. It always calms me down, and gets me out of the conflicts that will never fully leave this place (we're human). Keep up the good work, and I hope we can work together on something productive in the future. Jwrosenzweig 22:51, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. Probably one should not take my words too serious. Actually I did already leave the English Wikipedia due to these events, but I returned just a week later. Now after becoming involved into this dispute anew frustration is growing again. It is just that I think, that it must be possible to talk to people and effect anything with quiet and polite words. But apparently some people around here are not interested in cooperation, but just in spreading their propaganda, and that makes me angry. I will go asleep now, maybe tomorrow I'll be in better temper. -- Baldhur 22:59, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Silesia

I see that the discussion of Silesia seems to be continuing now, and that is of course very good. Just a warning: When an agreement was found with szopen and other contributors, caius2ga neither didn't participate in the discussion. First when the new version was finally accepted by all participants in the discussion he started to revert.

According to me, I will just let you know that I'm trusting in that John and the others will find an acceptable version, and wouldn't even think about starting reverting them. Nico 07:35, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I know this game, Nico. Apparently Caius2ga left Wikipedia, and I consider it good news, not because of his bias, but because of his behaviour. But I know that there are others who would behave like him. And I do not know the golden way out of the dilemma. All I can do is hoping that a great number of Wikipedians involved in writing a neutral article will prevent partisans from reverting. -- Baldhur 10:22, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Scipios

Hello Balhur! Yes, i made it myself, and the other family trees. I dont know if you can import images across wikis, but if not, i'll be happy to translate to german and upload the family trees you wish in the German wiki. Problem is that i'm out of Mainz (my base camp) and i dont have easy access to the files. Leave a message in my talk page with the family trees you want in the German wiki and i promise i do what i can. By the way, i'm constructing the Norway, Sweden and Denmark royal trees. Mit freundlische grussen, Muriel Victoria 17:45, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Admins

They've all been done already, except for you. I'm not sure who did it, I'll see if I can find out. -- Tim Starling 23:55, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim, thanks for your help. Magnus Manske did it yesterday in the evening, and although he congratulated me for sysophood, he apparently forgot to add me. Thank you again -- Baldhur 09:30, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)