User talk:OwenBlacker

order of preliminary matter in Keep

Hi, I've reverted your edit as the hatnotes are indeed supposed to go before any maintenance tags - the idea being that if someone is at the wrong article they need to know that before worrying whether it's in need of any maintenance. See Wikipedia:Lead_section#Elements_of_the_lead. Cheers, PamD (talk) 14:51, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Good Lord. I've been "correcting" things wrongly for ages! Thanks for the correction (even though it looks uglier this way round, imho ;o) — OwenBlacker (Talk) 15:07, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

The Contribution Team cordially invites you to Imperial College London

All Hail The Muffin Nor does it taste nice... 23:42, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Web accessibility: good job!

Hi there. I just saw some of the accessibility improvement you made, one back in 2008, and one yesterday. You're doing a great job. :-) My guess is that you are a web developer interested in accessibility. Though I admit your LinkedIn profile helped. Slightly.

Did you ever considered joining the Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility? You'd be a great help there. More specifically, I plan on deploying a few scripts that improves usability and accessibility, like a new script for collapsible navboxes. Help from a pro would surely come in handy. Cheers, Dodoïste (talk) 19:24, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Your template

Regarding Hanseatic League is full of errors. I suggest correcting them. Whoever invented an idea that Kraków was part of Prussia, Sweden or Livonia...I corrected the countries and the cities in the main article, perhaps you should update this in the template as well.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 16:51, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I know the cities you mention were not in those states; these were the names of the subdivisions of the Hanseatic League, not some arbitrary grouping made my modern Wikipedia editors — see File:Extent of the Hansa.jpg, for example. Accordingly, I've reverted your edits. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 18:10, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Umm, how do you see Krakow, Torun, Wroclaw etc on that map? Gdansk yes, but the others, no.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:16, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, but those are the closest Circles to the cities, perhaps? Either way, the Circles in the list pre-date my involvement in the article (and I created the template from the article). I'd suggest someone find a source for the Circles (I will have a look around in a moment; I suggest you do the same), so we can find a definitive — and accurate — list. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 19:11, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Hansa

Just as a general comment on the Hansa article, I notice that while there is a lot of information about the formation of Hansa, its political development and allegiances, its geographic structure and its demise there's very little, if any, information on ... what it actually was and did. So it says that it "was an economic alliance of trading cities " but what did that mean in practice? What differentiated these cities from non-Hansa cities, other than some kind of vague promise of military support? How did they promote or conduct trade? How did they enforce membership rules? Etc. In other words, very is very little about the actual economics of the Hansa, which after all, was the whole point of the organization.

I read a bunch of books on this subject long time ago so I'll see if I can remember/dig up anything. I know there's at least one exhaustive "classic" work on the economics of the Hansa out there but can't recall more than that at the moment.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:34, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Tudor dynasty#Move?

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Tudor dynasty#Move?. OCNative (talk) 09:00, 8 June 2011 (UTC) (Using {{pls}})

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	You did say you'd never had one, after all... and yet you're so clearly deserving! James F. (talk) 22:40, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Imperial election TOC

Template:Imperial election TOC has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 10:28, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Diacritic in Ulstèr-Scotch

I notice your interest in linguistics and diacritics and thought you might now how to research some background information for an article footnote.

The diacritic in Ulstèr in the Scots language is getting some official support, so it seems likely there will be a consensus to include it in the lede for Ulster Scots dialects.

Are you aware of who proposed that diacritic, and what it means? If we can find out, it might be helpful to footnote the lede with an explanation.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 06:50, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid I know very little about Ulster Scots, sorry. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 19:28, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind response, and your assistance with my userpage. (I have been offline for a while.) I am glad to see an unregistered user at Talk:Ulster Scots dialects uncovered a piece of online research that answers my question.[1] --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 14:43, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

No problem; glad you got the information you needed, at least :o) — OwenBlacker (Talk) 15:26, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Like

I like the white-on-red improvement you made on the script-userbox. Looks nice. -DePiep (talk) 21:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks; I was looking at the userboxes on my user page and couldn't read the text very easily, so I figured I'd change it :o) — OwenBlacker (Talk) 21:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Template

Hi. I noticed you are involved in "Template former country". Perhaps you could help us out. There is an issue over the suitable template for "Serbia" in WWII in the Serbia under German occupation article. It was rump territory under German military administration after the invasion and dismemberment of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It had a puppet civilian government that had hopes of achieving a degree of autonomy but never did. Some editors are anxious that it should not be presented as a state when it was not and are concerned that the use of the wrong template may imply this. Can you suggest the correct template to use here? Thanks. Fainites ^barleyscribs 19:25, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

List of states with limited recognition

Since you edited this article before and are a reviewer, would you mind looking at this [2] and weight in? I've presented all the sources and rationale in a concise and short format, easy to read. Won't take much of your time. Thank you. --Jurisdr1975 (talk) 08:46, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! Let me know if I can contribute on any articles you feel need urgent review and feedback. --Jurisdr1975 (talk) 17:52, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I think this article can once again benefit from your involvement. The issues at hand (which I've described in the article's talk page as well as on the individual talk pages of some involved users): three users (Jan CZ, Yuriy Kolodin and Sephia karta, who are all very active on all Abkhazia-related articles) insist that a local newspaper source from July 2011 [3] about Vanuatu's recognition of Abkhazia trumps the August 2011 [4] comprehensive analysis by an independent and highly respected NGO watchdog Transparency International (TI) that Vanuatu did after all annul and withdraw its recognition of Abkhazia. Obviously, TI's analysis is more valuable here due to later date and more comprehensive review.

Here are diffs: [5], [6] and [7]

Another issue - a user (Night w) stated that a state cannot withdraw its recognition, can only annul it. I've shown that in international law, recognition definitely can be withdrawn - here's from eight (8) legal experts on the issue [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15]

I've previously addressed the whole de facto vs. de jure states and recognitions, with multiple sources listed in the talk page.

Other minor issue was about using bold vs. italics for Latin terms, and British English spelling vs. American English, which we fully resolved with Night w. --Jurisdr1975 (talk) 07:34, 24 September 2011 (UTC)