User talk:Andrwsc/Archive 7

HKG 1964

Hi! The link HKG for the year 1964 does no work. {{flagIOC|HKG|1964 Summer}} =  Hong Kong but the page Hong Kong at the 1964 Summer Olympics exists. Can you please repair this? Kind regards Doma-w (talk) 02:37, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

 Fixed Template:Country IOC alias HKG had been broken. The irony is that I am currently working from Hong Kong! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 02:48, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

LOL! Many thanks for your help and kind regards from Vienna to Hong Kong Doma-w (talk) 03:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Template:Country data Zululand flag

User:east718 suggested I ask you about this. I'm trying to get Image:KwaZulu flag 1985.svg removed from the edit protected Template:Country data Zululand. This flag was not the flag of Zululand (~1816-1897). It was the flag of the KwaZulu Bantustan from 1985 to 1994 (as noted in that article). A cursory webs search does not reveal a flag for Zululand and the current polity, KwaZulu-Natal, does not yet have an official flag. Thanks. — AjaxSmack 20:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Template:NIC

Instead of showing the flag and the country name, Template:flag for "Nicaragua" only shows the image name and the country name. This appears to be fine for most other countries.

• Nicaragua

All of these templates appear to be protected against editing by mortals such as myself. –BozoTheScary (talk) 23:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. As you can see above, it's been fixed by someone. –BozoTheScary (talk) 19:39, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Deleted articles by Aaron Pryor fan

Please don't delete articles about fighhters that are listed here: Boxing_at_the_2008_Summer_Olympics_-_Qualification I believe that's all correct.German.Knowitall (talk) 00:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Banning policy: Any edits made in defiance of a ban may be reverted to enforce the ban, regardless of the merits of the edits themselves and It is not possible to revert newly created pages, as there is nothing to revert to. Such pages may be speedily deleted. Although these edits (made by a sockpuppet of banned User:Vintagekits) are "correct", they must be deleted per policy. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 05:23, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand, I'd like to rephrase it. The man's contributions were perfectly ok, he's by no means a vandal and his site should be restored. My impression is that he isn't a native English speaker, therefore was only technically not in line with regulations. Where do I have to go to make this point?German.Knowitall (talk) 14:01, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

He most certainly is an English speaker — he lives in Ireland. He has been banned from Wikipedia by the community for long-term abuse, not just any simple technicality. None of his edits are permissible anymore, regardless of their merit. This is Wikipedia policy; you would need to go to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), perhaps, to get consensus for change. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not banned, I have an indef block! GK - I have backed up all my edits that this - how should I put it - person - has either detailed or oversighted so I will email them to you.--John Duddy Fan (talk) 16:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Vintagekits, WP:TER is quite explicit that you and David Lauder are listed under "Community Ban". This is permanent, unlike your previous "indefinite" blocks. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thats not my understanding of it.--John Duddy Fan (talk) 16:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

What is your understanding? That it's acceptable to start a new sockpuppet every other day and continue to edit with it until it is blocked, then move on to the next one? Sorry, you are not permitted to edit under any circumstances, and all your contributions will be deleted or reverted without any other justification necessary. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:58, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Grand, I was xausing zero disruption when I was blocked so as far as I am concerned its invalid. I back up all my work so will just pass it on for someoneelse to add anyway.--John Duddy Fan (talk) 17:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Definitely last post from me on the subject, I do not know any other user here personally and therefore cannot evaluate this case. BUT even though the anglosaxon wikipedia seems to be well run generally speaking there have been on occasion erratic decisions in the past, i.e. an article from me was deleted, I was informed that it would be deleted as irrelevant but noone ever explained this to me. 6 months later I found that somebody else had written about the same person with fewer sources, nobody complained this time. ??? So strange things do happen, even though it's rare around here (In Germany it's much worse).I have seen several articles by Aaron Pryor fan, they were all ok, may be he should have put the sources in a link, but he is certainly constructive. Now you've pointed out that he has had other names in the past, well, that doesn't prove he has bad intentions. My point is vandals act differently, you think in terms of regulations and technicalities, I see it from a user's perspective. Peace.German.Knowitall (talk) 20:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree that Vintagekits' contributions in boxing (as Aaron Pryor Fan, Michael Gomez Fan, or any of his other sockpuppets) are otherwise worthwhile additions to the encyclopedia, but their content is not why they were deleted. They were deleted in enforcement of his community ban. See Wikipedia:Banning policy#Enforcement by reverting edits for more information. I agree that at first it seems counter-productive to delete any "good" content, even from banned editors, but my experience is that the policy is sound. What good is a community ban if it is not enforced? Vintagekits has already had more lives on Wikipedia than your average cat (who has nine), yet still fragrantly ignored our core policies — and still continues to ignore them by his use of sockpuppets to evade his ban. There is no room in this community of volunteers for anybody who does not abide by our core policies. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Olypic

I came across a category Olypic XXX and thought I might as well expunge all 'olypics' while I was at it, and didn't notice the 'sic'. Well spotted. -- roundhouse0 (talk) 16:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, no worries. I'm moving that list towards featured list status, so I'm very conscious of every tiny detail. My understanding is that if a source has a spelling mistake, the MOS allows the mistake to be noted on Wikipedia with [sic], so that's what I did. Thanks — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Post

See my newest post on my talk page. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:55, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Re:Movement of Hong Kong Olympic pages

Looking at the past discussion you cite, I do not actually see much direct discussion on the case of Hong Kong (and Macau). I would just like to point out that the Chinese case should be handled with extra care in reference to Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Political_NPOV. Calling the "PRC" as merely "China" would not have been acceptable (and that is also the reason why the People's Republic of China article is not at China). For cases pertaining to HK and Macau, the existing preference is to use the official designated name when participating in international events. So if Taiwan is referred to as "Chinese Taipei", than "Hong Kong, China" and "Macau, China" should be used as well.--Huaiwei (talk) 22:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree. That previous discussion was long, but involved a couple of dozen countries, so not a lot of attention was focused on each individual one. I admit that Hong Kong, China at the 2004 Summer Olympics is not completely unwieldy, so I don't want to dismiss that out of hand. I am convinced that the top-level summary article for each nation (i.e. Hong Kong at the Olympics, still a crappy stub right now) needs to have an all-inclusive name for all appearances, so I don't think that specific article ought to have ", China" in the name. I'm also concerned that we start down the path of wholesale renaming for POV correctness. People's Republic of China at the 1984 Summer Olympics and United States of America at the 2004 Summer Olympics are somewhat awkward; Czech and Slovak Federative Republic at the 1992 Winter Olympics or United Republic of Tanzania at the 2000 Summer Olympics are outright goofy, yet all would comply with an "IOC naming only rule". — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I personally do not feel that we need to trot down the path of "full compliance" in all cases. There are only a few exceptions to the rule in wikipedia when it comes to country names, and I can cite Ireland/Republic of Ireland as another example. Each is accompanied by serious political issues, and exceptions has been agreed upon after years of debate in respect of NPOV. Until the term "United States" is considered too POV to be acceptable, I do not see it as a comparable issue to cite. Ditto to the rest. And since we are on this topic, I would say that it is a matter of time before we end up having to rename all the "China" articles into the full "People's Republic of China" name. You will be surprised how many articles on the PRC are indeed named by that!--Huaiwei (talk) 23:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

That's what I fear, and as I noted in that WikiProject discussion from ~18 months ago, I would accept "PR China" if it came to that. Maybe something like [[People's Republic of China at the 2008 Summer Olympics|PR China]] generated from template output, for example. Results tables get fugly quickly if the nation names are too long. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I can fully understand your concern over unweldy long titles. Perhaps some code magic can give users the option of displaying an abbreviated format in specific circumstances? If this could be solved, we can then cautiously impliment this in Chinese-related articles. The entire hierachy of articles in Category:China at the Olympics needs to be reorganised to make clear distinctions between the "China" of pre 1950 which participated in the games as one team, and that of post 1950 as effectively "two Chinas" under different teams.--Huaiwei (talk) 17:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, let me see what I can work out. I had been thinking for a while about how to merge the template system used specifically for {{flagIOC}} et. al. with the standard flag template system used by everything else, and that may be the opportunity to "fix" this. The latter has the concept of both an alias and a shortname alias attached to each country, so that you can do things like {{flag|Ireland}} and {{flag|China}} and have the wikilink point to the "full" name. The same concept might be useful here. I can understand the desire for target article names like People's Republic of China at the 2008 Summer Olympics, but I am also quite certain that many, many results tables would have layout problems if we used the "long names" for the display part of the wikilink too. The display part really needs to be something simple, like "CHN" when called by {{flagIOCathlete}} (as it does now) and "PR China" (perhaps) when called by {{flagIOCmedalist}}. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the attempt. Wish I can help more, but I am no code wizard! As for the long-form name linking example, I wonder if it can work with dynamic name templates like the ones we have just implimented? Alternatively, is it better if we have this: inserting {{flagIOC|CHN}} shows "People's Republic of China" or "China, People's Republic of" or "China (People's Republic of)", etc, etc and produces a link to the full "People's Republic of China" article, while {{flagIOC|CHN|short}} shows "China, PR" or "PR China" or "P.R. China" etc, etc while still linking to the "People's Republic of China" article? Of couse this can also be switched to use {{flagIOC|CHN|long}} instead if there are far more instances where the abbreviated name is used.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

RE:FlagIOC template changes

I was not 100% certain that the variable name feature will work properly in all circumstances, so I have refrained from unleashing it on other templates for now. I was not sure how the name paramter should work and removed it temporary (which invited reactions such as User_talk:Doma-w#Re:HKG) with intentions to work on it later. I arent sure if this counted as "intentional" or "an oversight"--Huaiwei (talk) 22:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, but I think your last revision works as expected, so I think it's ok to "go live" with the change in all flagIOCtemplates. As an aside, I originally consciously decided not to code it this way, as I feared abuse of its usage for certain nations, and I felt we should have consistency. However, since Pandora's box has been opened, so to speak, it will be useful to use it for cases like Gold Coast, British Guiana, etc. Thanks — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reassurance. I am absolutely no expert in horrible looking wikicodes, so that was quite a morale boost. And come to think of it, it did cross my mind why this feature didnt exist in the first place when it was already applied to flags. Guess I have the answer now. Please do highlight to me potential areas of abuse, if any, least I step on a minefield unintentionally.--Huaiwei (talk) 22:44, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of WP:BEANS, the specific motivation was because of a long-standing edit war about Great Britain. Some of us, who spend the majority of our wiki-time perusing the old official reports and spend significant editing time on Olympic-related articles, assert that the United Kingdom team is simply called "Great Britain" in an Olympic context, but others (esp. editors with a strong UK bias but not necessarily "Olympic-aware") insist on "Great Britain and Northern Ireland" for 1924 onwards and "Great Britain and Ireland" up to 1920 per the official name of the country ("United Kingdom of Great Britain and ..."). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah I see. I wonder if there is also an issue with the "Ireland" name (as I cited above)?--Huaiwei (talk) 23:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I've never seen any comments about Ireland at the Olympics and the individual per-Games pages. I don't think there is any issue there. My perception about the ones that may be contentious:

1. Koreas (we use South Korea at the Olympics and North Korea at the Olympics to match the main article names, despite the use of "Korea" and "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" respectively by the IOC)
2. Palestine
3. China (as you point out)
4. Myanmar (currently a major dispute over the main article name, now Burma. For the Olympics, we follow the IOC naming, using Burma for 1948–1988 and Myanmar since then, similar to the way we handle other name changes, such as Ceylon→Sri Lanka, etc.)
5. Timor-Leste (ditto)
6. FYR Macedonia (per WP:MOSMAC, we don't use just "Macedonia", but we also don't use "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" either, as it is unwieldy in results tables. I'm sure someone will soon object to the abbreviation in the article name...)

— Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

If the issue of Ireland has not creeped into this arena yet, lets just leave it at that. I arent gonna stir any hornet's nest! As for the other cases, I personally feel that the Chinese and Korean issues will need a fair level of additional work, together with that of Macedonia (or whatever long-drawn-name they prefer to call it). I was previously involved in the Burma/Myanmar naming debate, so I don't think I can comment on it without sounding biased. That said, since IOC usage is the general preference here, it more or less answers straight forward cases like that of Timor-Leste (and Ivory Coast too)...and that extends to Palestine as well.--Huaiwei (talk) 17:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Welcome

Welcome to the Unionist Cabal, Andrwsc. Now all you need is to piss off one of the other side and you can be part of the Republican Cabal too. You should be aware that "uninvolved" admins are only welcome to comment on The Troubles as long as they agree with the complainant, but you don't have to worry about that anymore, because you now have the distinction of being an "involved" admin. Congratulations. Anything you do or say will henceforth be an act of admin abuse driven by your support of "terrorists" or "colonial murderers". If you are listed at WP:RECALL, now might be the time to think again. Rockpocket 23:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I managed to survive after wasting hundreds of hours trying to broker a consensus solution on Talk:Northern Ireland and Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Northern Ireland flag usage, and I think I managed to piss off both sides on that case! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:48, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Please would you add User:Vintagekits to Wikipedia:List of banned users. - Kittybrewster ☎ 10:56, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be more appropriate for one of the admins actually involved in the arbitration case to do that, thanks. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:03, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

RE:Olympic page renaming

Hah no problem, although of course I then start wondering to what extent we would create distinct templates for each IOC code. How tedious it would be having to create a template for each distinct IOC code, some of which were in existance for just one event. Also, I noticed we have a template for "ROC" (As the Republic of China) and "TPE" (as Chinese Taipei) but no "TWN" (as Taiwan) although it was used in 1964 and 1968. I suppose the current trend is to (generally) create a seperate template for each code only when a different name is also applied? How about the case of the Netherlands, btw? Was the name "Holland" ever officially used by the IOC?--Huaiwei (talk) 18:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, yeah, we have consensus on WP:OLY (somewhere in the archives) to only use the standard codes. As I wrote on List of IOC country codes, there was a plentiful amount of pre-standard codes. However, I think it would be downright confusing to try to use them on results pages (e.g. who would recognize "SUA" or "EUA" for the United States?) One of my "to do list" tasks was to update all the individual per-nation per-Games pages (e.g. United States at the 1960 Summer Olympics) to add explanatory footnotes for the actual code used at the Games in question. All of those ~3000 pages need an update to use proper references anyway, so it would be useful to tackle those two jobs at the same time. And to answer your last question, the official Games reports used "Holland" 18 times in the 40 appearances of the nation (summer/winter combined), but for the last time at the 1984 Winter Olympics. We agreed to use Netherlands and NED for all Wikipedia pages though! Now that Template:Country IOC alias NED could be used to selectively return "Holland" or "Netherlands" on a per-Games basis, it's possible to directly match the official report usage for each Games, but I'll have a stroke if someone actually made that change. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

As a point of order

If a sentence includes the words "anti-Scrotum prejudice" it's likely it isn't meant to be taken that seriously. However my second sentence was. I can point you to hundreds upon hundreds of unencyclopedic images that currently are in use only in userspace, and there has never been an attempt to delete all those en masse, and I doubt there ever will be. Therefore it is not the fact that the images are taking up this purported oh-so-valuable room in imagespace, but a dislike of what these particular images are being used for. Therefore if you object to the userpage, MFD is the correct venue for any such discussion in my opinion. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 15:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't personally nominate hundreds upon hundreds of images; I started with five I encountered after browsing the WP:ANI report. Looking at the IFD page, there are clearly other like-minded editors who nominate unencyclopedic images, although it may take some time to get through them all. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

And as I stated, I actually don't object to the userpage per se. It's the use of non-userspace resources to support it that I object to. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:40, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Facebook is a good place for non-encylopedic images.... One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 15:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Holy crap, what an utterly moronic idea that is! I never saw it before. I see that it survived MFD by "no consensus", and I will be sure to recommend strong delete if it gets nominated again. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

From where I am standing, you are looking extremely foolish. I hope you will learn by your mistakes. Catherine de Burgh (Lady) (talk) 20:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Scotland

Hello Andrwsc. As you can see, your attempt to fix that articles map, was quickly reverted. As I've said to others, I'm growing concerned with what appears to be an eagerness at that article - to sperate Scotland from the rest of the UK, as much as can be possible. GoodDay (talk) 20:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to the responses to the question I just posed on the talk page. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to AGF at that article. But, sometimes I get the impression that there's a 'group ownership' mentality there. I hope I'm wrong, but everytime one brings up the United Kingdom? one seems to run into a defensive wall. GoodDay (talk) 20:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment removed. I for one am tired of an otherwise pretty good article being altered for the sake of uniformity with other unrelated articles. The article is about Scotland, not Scotland (UK) or Scotland (EU), and what verges on paranoia, (see first post above), by some that the Scotland article should dare to be different form those concerning England, Wales and Northern Ireland is frankly nonsensical. There is no requirement that every article on a country is a clone of that belonging to another country. One-size-fits-all does not appear in any wiki-guideline I've ever read. If people bother to read the introduction fully they will glean enough info to determine precicely the constitutional status of Scotland. The map is simply a visual means of planting a finger on the globe and going "Scotland? Where's that? Oh, there it is!" Rab-k (talk) 20:59, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a reasonable opinion, and it's also one that can be expressed civilly (as you did here). My comment on your talk page was about the way you posted your message to Talk:Scotland, not about the opinion itself. As long as you stay cool, we'll all be ok!

Specifically to address this comment, I suppose it just seems awfully goofy to folks like GoodDay who live thousands of miles away, to see how UK-related articles are treated, and I must admit, I shake my head a lot at some of what I see too. From my perspective, I am a very strong advocate for consistency across Wikipedia — but that doesn't mean that I want to see a "one-size-fits-all" approach for everything. But it does mean that I think all country articles must use standard infobox templates, common map designs (and at least you based Image:Europe location SCO 2.png on the original, so that all colors, scale, etc. are consistent), etc. Obviously we have a MOS for the "nitty gritty details", but I think it is also important to have a certain amount of visual consistency across articles in the same series. With respect to the infobox map, it seems to me (and probably to GoodDay too) that removal of the camel-shaded rest-of-UK portion is simply a POV fork because you want to disassociate the article from the UK. Now, if you went ahead and created alternate versions of the ENG, WAL and NIR maps and installed them on the respective articles, that would tell me that your edits are not POV motivated and you share my same care for consistency. Thanks — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

If you're creating maps, how about one for the Northern Ireland that doesn't have the country in orange, which isn't the most neutral colour under the circumstances..... One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 21:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh geez, I'm no mapmaker, but I thought that the full set of maps used from commons:Category:Locator maps of countries of Europe was very well done and aesthetically pleasing. I think changing the colours of one map in that series (instead of all of them) is the lesser of two evils here. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh don't get me wrong they are very nice, and I'm sure the person making them was unaware of the problem that particular colour might cause. I'm not suggesting changing all of them, just creating a new one to avoid any problems. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 21:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think there was any bad intent with the original designer's colour palette selection either! But I do think it's a bad idea to create yet another special case version of something just for Northern Ireland alone. If somebody wanted to go through the whole set of PNGs and change the colours (and re-save as SVG along the way), that would be a worthwhile effort. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:30, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

"I think changing the colours of one map in that series (instead of all of them) is the lesser of two evils here" vs. "But I do think it's a bad idea to create yet another special case version of something just for Northern Ireland alone". Which?! One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 21:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Ugh, sorry, I don't know what I was trying to say there. Too many discussion threads at once, I guess. My preference is to maintain strong visual consistency across all those maps, so I guess that means:

1. Only show the location within Europe for each of ENG, SCO, WAL and NIR, since there seems to be massive objection to also showing the location within the UK as a distinct colour
2. Update all the maps in that Commons category to use a different highlight colour.

— Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there going to be a colour that's universally neutral? Good luck with that! One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 21:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing he chose orange because it is across the colour wheel from blue, which is the predominant colour of the background, and would provide good contrast. In that case, yellow would also work. Would anybody be pissed off at yellow? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Why does Rab-k keep comparing the United Kingdom to the European Union? Would someone explain that to me? GoodDay (talk) 21:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I've left that discussion at Scotland. Too much ownership issues there, for my liking. GoodDay (talk) 21:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

IMHO, the map at Scotland should be like the map at England, Wales & Northern Ireland. I've very dissapointed in the resistance at the Scotland page. If (as they claim) the current map there isn't political? why do they reject the map I'm proposing? GoodDay (talk) 22:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Apologies Andrwsc, I was elsewhere when you posted your comments above - I was on GoodDay's (talk), which included the following as part of my reply to him:

The Scotland map showing just Scotland is deliberately done to exclude any factor other than the geographic location of that part of the globe called Scotland. If you're going to introduce anything else other than simple geography, why stop at the UK? You might as well go on to include the EU while you're at it. In my opinion, neither is relevant to showing the reader what part of the globe is occupied by that place called Scotland. It has nothing to do with politics, which is why your assertion that it does is wholly misplaced.

Your suggestion to do equivalent maps for England, Wales and N.Ireland as I did for Scotland would not, I suspect, be welcomed by all; I'd probably be accused of POV by the majority of regular editors on those articles. Also, it runs against my opinion that uniformity/conformity should not be a requirement, unless you wish to mirror the best of the best. (Of all the UK constituent countries, I'd rate the Scotland article above the others for style, content and structure, but that's simply my opinion, and one very easily challenged). The reason I re-designed the map was indeed to try to ensure a degree of consistency in the info box for all the countries which used the excellent David Liuzzo (talk) maps. The concensus reached to use a map showing Scotland's location on its own was reached a long time before I re-designed the Liuzzo map. However, the map chosen on the basis of this concensus was far inferior to the Liuzzo series, therefore I altered one to suit. This maintained the concensus amongst the editors and also a degree of consistency with other articles using those maps in the info box. Like I say, I've no problem adopting a standard so long as it is of the highest standard, and the Liuzzo map series is certainly the best wiki-world has to offer. Therefore my map was not to push any POV, but to ensure the highest standard in the info box while maintaining the consensus already reached. (A concensus which I have gradually come to agree with, albeit too forcefully at times, as you've witnessed). Rab-k (talk) 22:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. To be honest, I'm not sure there would be a huge uproar if the ENG, WAL, and NIR maps were updated to match what you've done for SCO. It sounds like you and I actually do agree with respect to consistency, quality, aesthetics, etc. Perhaps we should poll the editors who watchlist those three other articles and see if anybody objects? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

If you guys can get England, Wales and Northern Ireland to adopt Scotland's type of map? I'm for it. But, changing 3 articles to accomodate 1 article (instead of 1 article accomodating 3), won't be easy. GoodDay (talk) 22:52, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

By all means poll-away if consistency is what you wish. As I've said it is not a priority for me unless to copy is to improve. If the majority of editors of the other articles wish to mirror the Scotland info-box map and refer simply to the geographic rather than to the geo-political then fine by me. However, I suspect if there were any desire for such someone would have done so already. (After all, to change a Liuzzo map is a straightforward cut-n-paste job, nothing too tricky given I even managed to do it to Herr Liuzzo's satisfaction). Rab-k (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunatly, Rab-k is correct. The chances of bringing England, Scotland, Northern Ireland & Wales in sync? is very small. There seems to be a devolution feel, on all 4 articles. GoodDay (talk) 23:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Careful GoodDay, devolution only applies to three of the four you mentioned (says with tongue firmly in cheek!). But you're absolutely right in that all four articles, (five including the United Kingdom article), do indeed have an individual feel to them. But that in itself is no bad thing surely, as each can cherry-pick from the remainder to improve their respective formats, as and when editors see an opportunity to do so. (Goodness knows it is hard enough to reach a concensus on an article on a constituent country, never mind trying to reach similar over all four plus the UK article itself!). Don't be too surprised to find that it is the differences as well as the similarities that make the peoples and countries within the UK what they are today. As with any marriage, opposites can indeed attract. (I should know; I'm a Scot - my wife is English!) Regards Rab-k (talk) 23:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any problems when articles have a different "feel" to them. But I do think that the framework of similar articles needs to be consistent. That includes things like infoboxes, navboxes, categorization structure, map images, etc. It's just one extra step beyond the MOS, which ensures consistency on the real bare-bones stuff of which articles are constructed. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree Andrwsc. But, there's a resistance on the 4 articles to comply to being in sync. GoodDay (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't phrase it that way. I'd say that there is resistance on one article to use a particular map format, so we need to find a different map format that all four articles can live with, thereby re-asserting consistency... — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I swapped the original map for a version of the Liuzzo one so the Scotland info box map would have a degree of consistency with all the european info boxes using the Liuzzo series maps which it did not have previously, albeit it still differs slightly from the ENG/WAL/NIR Liuzzo maps. You may not like it, but it's a whole lot better than it was! However, IMHO swapping the best map in town just so you can have "consistency" is a non-starter - I wouldn't even bother going there! (I note the UK article doesn't use a Liuzzo map, but one which shows the UK within the EU. Perhaps that should be the real candidate for change?) Rab-k (talk) 00:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

::There's no reason why Scotland can't fall in with the 3 other articles (other then editors resisting it). GoodDay (talk) 00:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Wait a sec - Can we have a map that shows 'only' the British Isles, with the required constituent country highlighted? GoodDay (talk) 00:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Why - why - why - should we? To go back to your previous comment, why should Scotland "fall in with the other three articles"? You're really not getting this are you? There is neither a requirement nor a desire on the part of the Scotland article community (for want of a better description) for this to happen. What is it about this that you have such a problem with? Is the Scotland article soooooo difficult and incomprehensible for want of a map which shows the position of the UK relative to Scotland? The article is not about the UK but about Scotland? They are not one and the same thing! Read the intro if you wish to clarify Scotland's status in the world. It's what the written section is all about. The map just indicates where it is. Is that so hard to comprehend?Rab-k (talk) 00:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it's better to show a broader geographic context, namely, the whole continent. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 00:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

As you can see (above), a resistance to fall in for the sake of resisting to fall in, is an unsolvable problem. GoodDay (talk) 00:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

As is also the case, the desire to fall in for the sake of falling in, irrespective of the logic and consequences of doing so, is an equally unsolvable problem. I'll take quality over consistency any day, therefore as far as articles are concerned, and as your fellow countrymen would say GoodDay; Vive la Différence! Rab-k (talk) 00:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Anyways Andrwsc, I support your hopes of consistancy among these 4 articles' maps. GoodDay (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Just Curious

You removed the Image:Flag of NATO.svg from one of my personal pages. Looking at the copyright information on it, I don't agree, but we see things differently on it. My question is why it is not allowed on my personal page but is allowed on a page of Flags of Europe which isn't a page about NATO itself (going along with the literal copyright information)? Thank you for your time. Leobold1 (talk) 00:05, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The relevant policies here are WP:Non-free content criteria and WP:Non-free use rationale guideline. Basically, the image description page says that NATO explicitely forbids the use of the flag for commercial purposes. Now, while Wikipedia itself is not commercial, all of our GFDL-compliant free content actually could be used by someone else for commercial purposes. Therefore, the image must be considered a fair-use image for Wikipedia, and hence has the restrictive usage. Now, you bring up a good point — the image description page only has fair-use rationales given for two articles (NATO and Flag of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), so yeah, it really ought to be pulled from the Flags of Europe article. Thanks — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 00:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. From now on, I have to remember to check the copyright info for stuff on my personal pages. Leobold1 (talk) 00:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

No worries. I don't think it happens a lot, but probably more often with screen shots from TV shows or movies than with flags! I think there are some bots that check for this sort of thing also. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 00:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on your FL

Hi Andrwsc! Long time I didn't write on your talkpage. Even though I'm very pleased to have a job that fills my time, I miss those moments I spent here, developing our Olympic-related articles, discussing several issues concerning this subject, etc.

Well, just wanted to say hello and congratulate you for your first featured content! I see there's another one coming soon so, in no time, you'll have the same featured pages as I do. I hope you're proud. I know I was!

Cheers! Parutakupiu (talk) 16:31, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that! (And thanks for your copy-edit help on those two lists.) I hope to see more of you in the next few months — the Olympics WikiProject has been rather quiet lately, with only a handful of us working on articles. Cheers — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:33, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You're more than welcome. I want us to have more and more Olympic featured content, so whenever and wherever I can help... I will.

In the project's heyday, we weren't that many active members already, so it's perfectly understandable that when two of them (me and Jared) are not contributing as intensively, the project enters a quieter phase. Thank God we have you and your good old professionalism. Parutakupiu (talk) 16:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Much appreciated, Parutakupiu! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:11, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

changes to 1896 Olympics

I made the changes to the kinds of medals awarded based on research for a reference class. Your info did not match the official IOC site. See http://www.olympic.org/uk/passion/collectors/object/index_uk.asp?ObjId=317. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.34.101.14 (talk) 03:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not "my info"; nobody owns articles on Wikipedia, and I'm sure I didn't write that line of text either. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

1976 medal winners list

Thanks for adding the number of medals to the events section, I was going to do it but I couldn't find a source for it, and I was wondering if you could add a citation for it. Also, as for your comment in the 1928 FLC, I added the general ref, and I realize that it is repeated, but I like to have general refs because it is easier for someone just searching for a basic list and they don't have to search through the various citations. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 22:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully that can be found in the respective official reports, all of which I have cited at List of participating nations at the Summer Olympic Games, so I'd suggest looking inside that big document, or in volume 2, to see if they have a citable table. For my edit today, I just happen to have constructed a big Excel spreadsheet that I used for cross-referencing when I was working on the table numbers for the Olympic sports article and when I was working on the All-time Olympic Games medal count article, and it was very easy to write Excel formulas to auto-create those bullet lists with numbers — but we can't use my spreadsheet for a reference... — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the page is ready to go for an FLC. I reformated it to be similar to the 1928 list (although I also included which nations won their first medals), but I am waiting until that FLC is finished to nominate it. Either way, could you take a look at it? Thanks, Scorpion⁰⁴²² 19:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I've got some "fiddly bit" feedback that could be addressed now, or wait until FLC comments are requested. Should I just go ahead and edit the list, or wait until then? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead and make any changes you feel are necessary. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 22:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

And in regards to the 1928 FLC comment about lack of secondary sourcing, I found a site that does have medal info: databaseolympics.com but I'm not sure if it's a RS or not, are you familiar with it? -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 13:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it is used regularly as the only reference (external link, actually) for many, many athlete stub articles (see Special:Linksearch/www.databaseolympics.com), but there seems to be a fair amount of errors, so it's not infallibly "reliable". Perhaps it would be useful as an external link, just as the example links I posted to that FLC discussion page (CBC, BOA, AOC). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it's more self preference than anything, but you will see that style almost exclusively in list articles. With list articles, in many cases you only use one source for a table, and I feel that the easiest place to put a source for that is in the references section at the bottom. Just having it in a citation in the paragraph above usually doesn't work because people wouldn't specifically know what to look for, but if you have it in a special section, then many will assume that is the main table ref. Again, it's mostly preference, and if you feel it should be changed, feel free to do so. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 21:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Move back

Hi! After the discussion on our WikiProject Olympics talk page I would like to ask you to move the following two pages back to the version without spaces?

• Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's 4 x 400 metre relay
• Athletics at the 1920 Summer Olympics - Men's 4 x 400 metre relay

Thanks and kind regards Doma-w (talk) 23:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the issue is totally closed, and also note that an article exists at 4 x 400 metres relay, so perhaps we should wait for the discussion to continue. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

World Flags Page

Feel free to comment on the proposed new guidelines for what is on the page and potential compromise on the NI flag issue - Highfields (talk) (contribs) 17:28, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Puzzling editor at WP:AN

Hello Andrwsc. I see that you're an admin, and you already issued one block to this editor. Do you consider yourself too involved to take further steps? The fact that this guy has occasionally made good edits should not be allowed to outweigh his policy violations. In my view people have been more patient with him than justified, since the problem has existed for nearly two years. Since you have all the necessary information, my thinking is that you should be permitted to follow up until you can obtain some reform, including use of admin tools if necessary. Nothing to the contrary has been stated in the AN thread so far. Do you agree? EdJohnston (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Oops, User:John Reaves appears to have just addressed the problem. EdJohnston (talk) 19:34, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, of course. I sought outside input from WP:AN precisely to avoid any appearance of impropriety on my part. I have done a great deal of work on those same articles myself, and I don't want to appear as though I am abusing the admin tools by using them to force him to adopt my preferred edits, or that I am the only person "picking on him". (The highly focused niche of articles he works on makes it unlikely that any other admin will notice his work, I suspect.)

The one time I did block him was in direct response to a warning left on his talk page. I asked him to stop some damaging edits; he blanked his talk page and continued; I asked a second time, stating that I would block him if he continued; he blanked his talk page again and continued; I blocked. Therefore, in that instance I felt as though the block was well justified and would certainly be endorsed by any other admin if it came to that. Strangely enough, instead of following the instructions to lift the block, his response was to blank the talk page yet again and wait it out.

So, at this point, I feel that enough warning has been given to him by multiple editors and admins, and the WP:AN thread shows support for additional action, so I would not be afraid to handle it myself. I think I'm a bit on the lenient side anyway, since I think I would only block upon the next edit that requires repair. Thanks for your help and feedback, — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

As for John Reaves' block, I will still try to follow up with David to get him to change his behaviour. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Art competitions at the 1948 Summer Olympics

Can you expand the article a little bit today so that it could be used in another update for the April Fool's DYK? It's close to the length requirement. Royalbroil 05:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's late in my time zone, but I will be able to get back to the article in about 12 hours. Is that too late? (still leaves about 14 hours before the end of April Fools for the last few time zones). Do you have a hook in mind? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 05:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

We're only doing 2 rounds this year, so nevermind. Royalbroil 13:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

No worries; the article was improved anyway, which is still our desired end result! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

April Fool's Day DYK

On 1 April, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Thank you for your contributions of the annual tomfoolery! The competition is too unbelievable to be true! --Royalbroil 13:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Mediation for Scotland article

As an agreement between editors at Scotland seems ever more unlikely, some users have decided to contact mediation. However, mediation require the acceptance of all involved parties. Would you be willing to accept? Thanks for your compliance...--Cameron (t|p|c) 18:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

date redirects

The redirect deletion discussion has finally closed. Do you want to speedy the rest of them? The link in the discussion points to the place in the contributions log where they were all added. Neier (talk) 14:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Usage of self-created pictograms

I think, that usage of this and similar self-created pictograms is appropriate only in general "Olympic <Event>" (e.g. Olympic Swimming) related articles and templates. But not at pages and templates related to "Olympic <Event> at <NNNN> Olympics". Because there were official pictograms for each event developed for each Olympics (since some time). And self-created pictograms should not "replace" official ones in the webspace (Wikipedia is a large contributor to this space as everybody knows). For example, I believe, such pictograms should be removed from Template:SwimmingAt2004SummerOlympics and all similar ones. Cmapm (talk) 14:43, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Art competition

Hi! Thanks for all the articles about the art competitions. I like them and I am happy that also these events have found their place. I have two questions or requests. Is it possible to bring all the "MedalistTables" to the some width? In my opinion it looks nicer and more stylish when they all width. And I want to ask you about the titles of the works. I have seen that sometimes they are written in the mother tongue of the artist and sometimes they are written in English. E.g. Art competitions at the 1936 Summer Olympics the epic work is written in Finnish for the Finnish artist, in Polish for the Polish artist, but in Englisch for the German artist. Do you think we can bring them in line? Maybe we can write the original title and the translation into English? Kind regards Doma-w (talk) 01:05, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

For the works of art, I simply used the names as they appeared in the respective official reports, without alteration. I'm not so sure that we should be translating or interpreting those names, as we don't really know what the original artist intended, and I don't want to introduce any original research. As for the table width, that can be fixed. Glad you like the new articles! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 04:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. Yes, you are right I also do not want to translate or interpret those names, but I think there are possibilities to find out the original title and the translation in some/many cases. I think the Finnish title for the epic work in 1936 "Avoveteen" is not really helpful in English wikipedia. :) I will tell you if I find out more. Can you please fix the width? I tried but it doesn't satisfy me. Kind regards Doma-w (talk) 10:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the right place to suggest the English names for the art works might be in the individual articles on each medalist, as you've been doing. I think the tables would get cluttered if we have two names (one English, one foreign) within the table cells. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the new style of the art pages. Yes, you are right this would be too much. Thanks and kind regards Doma-w (talk) 20:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)