User talk:OwenBlacker

/Archive 1 — June–October 2004 (inclusive)

London Wikimeet

Hi Owen, I just wanted to make you aware of this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/London) Theresa Knott (Tart, knees hot) 21:28, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ooh, I didn't! Thanks, I've now signed up… :o) OwenBlacker 18:07, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

.wf

I change this page because Category:Wallis and Futuna Islands does not exist. The category for the country is Category:Wallis and Futuna - SimonP 19:12, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

You'll never take me alive, Koppa!

Missing image
Cyrillic_letter_Koppa.png

Done: Image:Cyrillic letter Koppa.png. Now is that service, or what? If you have a chance, please suggest some improvement to my proposed table in talk:early Cyrillic alphabet. Cheers. —Michael Z. 02:59, 2004 Nov 25 (UTC)

London postal district

Hi Owen, thanks for your comments!! As a resident of Woodford Green 1975 - 1984, I distinctly remember receiving a leaflet from the Post Office notifying us of our "new postcode". The leaflet refered to IG as Ilford & Barking. Anyway, until I find evidence of that, shall we keep IG as just Ilford?? Ilford & Gants Hill sounds a bit corny ... oops I forgot, you live there...greetings from Berlin IsarSteve 15:22, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Goodness, I stand corrected then. I've repeatedly been told it's Ilford and Gants Hill. My apologies. I dunno, I think an explanation of why there's a silent G in Ilford should prolly be on the List of postal codes in the United Kingdom article. Given you had to live in Woodford Green to acquire that knowledge, I think you earn my trust (and sympathy) on that datum… ;o) — OwenBlacker 15:49, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)

Hello! I caught the back end of a programme on Radio Four this week which was solely about British Postcodes and their introduction, including some Jingles on postcodes. Of course the Royal Mail representative thought that the British system was "the best in the world" and of course it was "the first"..... Did you hear the programme?? I´ve tried to find it on "Listen again" on the BBC website but to no avail.. greetings from Berlin IsarSteve 15:40, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia meet in London

Hi.

A while ago you told me about this:

Btw, you might be interested in Wikipedia:Meetup/London. — OwenBlacker 03:14, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

I was intending to go; unfortunately a sudden family illness means I cannot make it. Thanks for telling me anyway. -- Chris j wood 13:34, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nice to have met you last night. I had an enjoyable evening and drank too to much :) Martin TB 15:59, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It was great to meet; thanks for coming!

James F. (talk) 16:32, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

License plates in Germany /Translations

Hi Owen..maybe you can help?? while checking out License plates in Germany I can across some really unnecessary translations of German Place names. see:- Sächsische Schweiz (Saxon Switzerland), with its Rocks of Saxon Switzerland and also the Giant Mountains !!??!!. These translations really make me cringe, but I didn´t want to offend the over prolific German author by just deleting them.. Is there some Wiki rule that maybe can be used to get rid of these pages..?? Thanks for your help IsarSteve 16:03, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've added merge notes (Template:Merge; Template:Mergefrom) to suggest Saxon Switzerland should be incorporated into Sächsische Schweiz and made a load of edits to the Licence plates in Germany article (where I spent as much time changing my licences back into licenses as I did actually altering the content!), but I'm not really sure what else to do. If you think an article is cringeworthy, you can always list it on Cleanup or VFD — or just edit it! :o) — OwenBlacker 23:11, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

WP:UKCOTW

Can I ask for your support for West End Theatre as a possible UK collaboration of the week please *grovel*. I know you are part of the WP London project, and this falls within that remit :) Martin TB 18:39, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Noun capitalizing

Regarding Latin alphabet, could you also mention where and when exactly did Old English texts use such convention? -- Naive cynic 00:38, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Erm, no, I'm afraid I can't. I'll look in the book of mine that I think is the most likely possibly reference, but it's something I read well over a decade ago, so I don't honestly recall the details. I'll see what I can find… :o) — OwenBlacker 23:56, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Unverified images

Hi! Thanks for uploading the following image:

Image:Irish_coin_1p_(1980).jpg

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GNU Free Documentation License, {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know at my talk page where you got the images and I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 22:17, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. You can help tag other images at User:Yann/Untagged_Images. Thanks again.

See response at User talk:Poccil. — OwenBlacker 23:56, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

West End Theatre

You voted for West End Theatre, this week's UK Collaboration of the week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 23:26, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Queen's Christmas Message

You voted for Queen's Christmas Message, this week's UK Collaboration of the week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 04:02, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Prevention of Terrorism Act

Your edits seem fine to me, but I'm not the most anti-civil-liberties editor here... ;-)

Keep up the good work!

James F. (talk) 06:21, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Jack Holbrook

I'm sorry that Jack went for your user page. He was on a vandalism spree, which I've reverted, and I left him a message @ User_talk:Jack Holbrook but forgot to sign it and it would appear that he just went for the nearest link, which was you. I left him a second message and corrected my omission. – Davenbelle 12:23, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

Geo-stubs

Hi... just a reminder that UK places should get {{UK-geo-stub}}, not the plain {{geo-stub}}. (There's a full list of all the geo-stub subcategories at the top of Category:Geography stubs) Grutness|^hello? Missing image
Grutness.jpg

05:42, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

World Heritage Sites in Ukraine

OwenBlack, I've reverted your edit to those pages because the category Category:World Heritage Sites in the Ukraine was misnamed by you. My country is called Ukraine, not the Ukraine (which is rather insulting). Please keep this in mind and do not try to populate or link this category again. Moreover, since I couldn't delete it, your moral obligation now is to raise a deletion procedure and keep the category from filling by others.

I've created a new category with a proper name Category:World Heritage Sites in Ukraine. You can use it if you want. Best wishes, AlexPU

I'm not sure I see how The Ukraine is insulting. It's certainly a common English usage and makes more sense than Category:World Heritage Sites in Ukraine, which doesn't sound like correct English to my ears. In English, your country is Ukraine, but one tends to talk about The Ukraine in a sentence or sentence-fragment, just the same as one talks about The United States, hence Category:World Heritage Sites in the United States, not Category:World Heritage Sites in United States.

I had nominated my category for deletion, but I've changed my mind and nominated yours for deletion, as I don't think it is correctly named. I have taken the issue to Wikipedia:Categories for deletion, so we can gain a consensus decision on the issue.

As a separate issue, though, calm down — you seem to have taken the issue very personally ("do not try to populate or link this category again"). No offence was intended, but I honestly believe that "the Ukraine" is more natural English language usage. — OwenBlacker 20:35, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

I won't let you keep your category name no matter what the voting will show. I have a full right for this as a Ukrainian (and other reasons are a separate issue). Please give up to the common opinion of Ukrainian Wikipedians. AlexPU

Alex, that's not how the Wikipedia works, any more than I could decide that Northern Ireland is part of Éire just because some Irish wikipedians might say it is. The English language Wikipedia uses common English language names, even if other wikipedians disagree with them. The Wikipedian way of doing things, by my understanding, would be to make a note that, for example, The Ukraine is commonly-used but is considered offensive and that Ukraine is preferred.

"Giving up to the common opinion of Ukrainian Wikipedians" isn't how an NPOV Wikipedia can work. What happens with the common opinion of Israeli wikipedians disagrees with the common opinion of Palestinian wikipedians? — OwenBlacker 14:38, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

Though see User_talk:Mzajac/2004#Ukraine.2FThe_Ukraine and the WP:CFD. I've changed my mind again, haing read some style guides. Again, my apologies for any offence. — OwenBlacker 15:12, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

Rail boxes

Hi Owen. Good evening, hope you are well. Just to let you know I had the same idea a while back about adding LUL nav style boxes to National Rail/joint station pages and I created two templates in order to make things clearer and then didn't do much with them until now.

{{rail insert}} is for adding between LUL and NR lines like in Kentish Town station

and {{rail start}} is for stations like Kings Cross Thameslink railway station.

Kind regards, Steve Mrsteviec 22:24, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Superb! Thanks for letting me know :o) — OwenBlacker 22:40, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

London Meetup

Owen,

I've been bold and suggested Easter Saturday (26th of March) for the next London Meetup; your input would be great.

Love to see you there,

James F. (talk) 22:51, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

substub template (regarding Salim Kéchiouche)

Owen,

There is currently a significant risk of Template:sub-stub being deleted (see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Stub_sorting#Substubs), in which case there will be a significant technical hit against the Wikimedia server infrastructure. Several (most?) persons associated with the stub categorization WikiProject are of the mind that in the presence of the Template:Stub, the Template:sub-stub is obsolete, particularly because the definition of a sub-stub is tactically equivalent to that of a stub.

If you want to keep the general stub ... which there is no reason to after addition of a categorized stub ... please take in the discussions at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Stub_sorting and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Criteria. Remember, the goal is to eliminate stubs by article expansion, not rigorously label or categorize them .. that is merely a means to an end.

Courtland 19:20, 2005 Feb 26 (UTC)

response to your note on my talk page ... please feel free to express your opinion @ Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Substub. Courtland 19:30, 2005 Feb 26 (UTC)

Royal Assent, 1914

Owen: Thanks for your correction re the Government of Ireland Act 1914. I've lost my note of the mistaken source I used -- so I'm the only one to blame! :( -- Picapica 21:07, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hi, and thanks for the message, but there are a number of official, semi-official and other sources pointing to Government of Ireland Act 1914 - not least Parliament's Standard Note (http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/notes/snpc-00675.pdf) on the Parliament Acts, but also the Irish courts (http://www.courts.ie/courts.ie/Library3.nsf/pagecurrent/8B9125171CFBA78080256DE5004011F8), Parliamentary papers (http://www.bopcris.ac.uk/eppi/ref15486.html), David Boothroyd's page on the Northern Ireland Parliament (http://www.election.demon.co.uk/stormont/intro.html), The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/hunt/Story/0,2763,1354172,00.html), the First Report of the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform (http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/jt200203/jtselect/jtholref/17/1710.htm), and Dicey (http://www.constitution.org/cmt/avd/law_con.htm)... -- ALoan (Talk) 11:08, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ensuing discussion moved to Talk:Home Rule Act 1914 by OwenBlacker 12:48, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

German/Polish issues

OK, thanks for the clarification.

I'm also OK with the consensus reached on historical issues, but I still have the same concerns about the survey not distinguishing historical contexts from purely modern ones. The notorious German/Polish edit wars were fought over historical contexts, and it would be a shame if in attempting to settle them a whole new edit-war front was opened for modern contexts where there hadn't been any edit warring before. We'll just have to cross our fingers. -- Curps 18:43, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject Aids

I have adopted your suggested terminology for the WikiProject Aids. Any more suggestions would be appreciated. Sci guy 15:45, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Known Space

I thought you'd be interested in my addition to the Known Space articles on Wikipedia with my synopsis of the book Protector (novel). Much work needs to be done, but I think it's a start. I just finished it today, and I've read all the other Ringworld novels. TimothyPilgrim 02:24, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Home Rule Bills

Owen, I think your moving of the various home rule bills is a major mistake. Accuracy in terms of the names of Acts and Bills is a major problem because, with with very rare exceptions, very very few Acts and Bills are known even by their correct short title, let alone official long title. No-one (and I do mean no-one) will recognise the Bills under names that have not been used for a century and which even when they were debated weren't generally used. In teaching history, when it comes to laws historians always use the most common names by which an Act has come to be referred, not a strictly accurate name where the name has long since been forgotten and probably not used by any living person for centuries. I would never dream of talking about an Succession Property Rights and the Matrimonial Home Act if the Bill was universally known as the Succession Act except by law students. If I mentioned to my students about the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act they would not have a clue what I was talking about. They know the Act as, and every history mainstream history book on the planet knows it as, simply the External Relations Act. Similarly I could not tell students about the Executive Powers (Consequential Provisions) Act because no-one, barely even lawyers, calls it that. They all know it simply as the Consequential Provisions Act. They learn about the Amendment No 27 Act, not the Constitution (Amendment No. 27) Act.

If this was a law textbook, it would be OK to repeat the literal original bill name as the name of an article title here. But 100% of people here outside the law won't have a clue about what the Irish Government Bill was, and the last person who would have probably died around 1950. The Bill name is so utterly obscure that there is no point using it as an article name here. Where a literal law name is never ever used, and where the article is not describing the law in legal depth, but describing (as is the case of the Home Rule Bills) the political campaigning, the social contexts, and the constitutional implications etc etc of the Bill it makes no sense to abandon the use as the main heading of a name known or understood by 100% of people for one known and understood by 0%. This is a classic case where the most common name should apply. Otherwise wikipedia will be completely out of step with all historical standards of research and really only suitable for use by lawyers.

I am all for accuracy (I take it very seriously) but there is a distinction between accuracy and absolutely detailed accuracy. The latter is pointless if it obscures the message and context. (BTW I've checked a host of history books (school, undergraduate, post-graduate) this evening. I have not found one that uses those names for the Home Rule Bills. The names are right, but they are not used.) Obscure legal names have to be stated, but where as in these cases they are utterly forgotten they should not be the name of the main article but should stated in the opening of the first paragraph and perhaps used in the text exclusively when describing the Bill or Act, along the lines of

"The Irish Government Bill, 1893 contained seven sections, describing the proposed function of the executive and legislature. Section 1 provided . . . "

But the overall article is about a Bill predominantly known as the Home Rule Bill then as universally known as that now. The debate was all focused on home rule and it makes logical sense for the article name to reflect the term universally recognised. If at least the official Bill name was close to the name widely known one could then justify the full name's use. Or if the generally used name could cause confusion. But I think using a universally unknown name, with a meaning that won't be obvious, in preference to a universally known name with a clear meaning, is in this case a mistake. (Oh the fun of home rule!!!) FearÉIREANN 23:55, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ensuing discussion moved to Talk:Irish Home Rule Bill by OwenBlacker 00:17, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Category:Irish Constitutional Law

Re the above category - I created it because there are effectively two separate areas that can be covered with Irish constitutional law. There are specific Irish constitutions (the Constitution of 1782, Act of Union, Dail Constitution, Free State Constitution and Bunreacht na hÉireann, alongside all their amendments, etc). It is worth keeping these together as a group to see the logical development of Irish constitutions from kingdom to union to republic to constitution to quasi-republic (later becoming a full republic). However there are a lot of secondary Acts that together form a central block of a broader category - Acts that are in effect key constitutional texts even when not part of the constitution. Poynings Law is a classic example - it was crucial to how the parliament of the Kingdom of Ireland functioned. The act enabling Catholic Emancipation was also crucial in defining the right to participate of Irish Catholics in parliament. The Representation of the People Act defined politics by deciding who could vote. The Government of Ireland Act, 1920 partitioned the island into two states and created a government system in one that lasted for 50 years. The Ministers and Secretaries Act set up Irish government in the Free State while the acts creating the Governor-Generalship were also effectively constitutional Acts, even if not literally part of the constitution. Similarly the External Relations Act was a crucial statute law that was in reality a constitutional law even if not part of the constitution. The same is true of the Republic of Ireland Act.

The categories look the same but actually they are intertwined but crucially different. One set was primary, the other supportive to the primary law. One category on its own would either leave out crucial laws, or equate very important statute laws with higher status constitutional law. Some Acts belong on both lists but because they cover different laws (and also reflect the fact that Ireland as part of the UK had no written constitution until the early 20th century, so a lot of Acts made up part of this 'unwritten constitution') while from 1919 there have been 3 super-status constitutions. That is why I created the two categories. I think it solves the problem of how to deal with the Bunreacht and Poynings Law without making it look as though they had similar status. I hope that clarifies things. :-) FearÉIREANN

IG box

Hi Owen. No problem with your changes, however in the skin I am using (Cologne Blue) the box appears to hug the text and makes the layout look crushed together. Inserting a line either at the start of the template (or on each article) would get rid of this. I think I'd prefer it in the template. I see you also saw the BBC report about "Ilford tries to change it's postcode". Mrsteviec 05:23, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hi Owen. Yes, I'll leave it to you to amend those templates as long as you can tear yourself away from the 'countryside and culture'. Mrsteviec 07:51, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

GLBT categories deleted

Hi, OwenBlacker. I encourage you to visit Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 May 7#Gay, lesbian, and bisexual / LGBT occupational categories. (Wikipedia really needs a GLBT noticeboard for stuff like this.) Jonathunder 04:26, 2005 May 8 (UTC)

Inspired by Jonathunder's idea, I have created a LGBT noticeboard. Please take a look. -- Samuel Wantman 07:09, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi,

Thanks for cleaning up the Template:Hungarian counties! I didn't have a clue why did it look odd on Explorer after we added both flags. :) Thanks again. Alensha 23:02, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

lots of edits, not an admin

Hi - I made a list of users who've been around long enough to have made lots of edits but aren't admins. If you're at all interested in becoming an admin, can you please add an '*' immediately before your name in this list? I've suggested folks nominating someone might want to puruse this list, although there is certainly no guarantee anyone will ever look at it. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:31, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

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