User talk:Dilidor: Difference between revisions

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Content deleted Content added
No edit summary
No edit summary
Line 989: Line 989:
Hi, why are you removing many wikilinks with no apparent reason? --<span style="border:1px solid black;font-size:100%">[[User:Mazewaxie|<span style="color:white;background:green;">'''Maze'''</span>]][[User talk:Mazewaxie|<span style="color:white;background:green;">'''waxie'''</span>]]</span> 11:07, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
Hi, why are you removing many wikilinks with no apparent reason? --<span style="border:1px solid black;font-size:100%">[[User:Mazewaxie|<span style="color:white;background:green;">'''Maze'''</span>]][[User talk:Mazewaxie|<span style="color:white;background:green;">'''waxie'''</span>]]</span> 11:07, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
:The links are to absurdly simple or generic things, such as definitions of words, genres of film, or names of cities such as New York. They clutter the article to the point of near unreadability. And on top of all this, they are linked over and over and over and over and over. How many times do we need a link to HBO?? —[[User:Dilidor|Dilidor]] ([[User talk:Dilidor#top|talk]]) 11:21, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
:The links are to absurdly simple or generic things, such as definitions of words, genres of film, or names of cities such as New York. They clutter the article to the point of near unreadability. And on top of all this, they are linked over and over and over and over and over. How many times do we need a link to HBO?? —[[User:Dilidor|Dilidor]] ([[User talk:Dilidor#top|talk]]) 11:21, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

== Let's break this down- Rhode Island ==

'''One of the few contemporary usages of the term'''<br>
In a state government context in the New England region, there are other exceptions but this is indeed one of the few still in use

'''with a similar context would be the plantation territories of Maine,'''<br>
As explained in the article Plantations (Maine) and Plantations of New England, plantations are also used to denote territory, not unlike parishes.

'''which function as a form of municipality'''.[28]<br>
This is the key difference between the two; Maine would keep theirs through codification in the 21st century.

Source:
James J. Haag, "A Study of Plantation Government in Maine." Orono, ME: Bureau of Public Administration, University of Maine, 1973<br>
An excellent 20 page report discussing the history of the plantation handle in Maine, and how it differs from the historic contexts of places like Quaboag and Rhode Island.
None of this is fiction, none of it is original research. Just because you think something, and use caps-locks doesn't make it so. --[[User:Simtropolitan|Simtropolitan]] [[User_talk:Simtropolitan|(talk)]] 16:58, 26 July 2019 (UTC)


==Merger discussion for [[Clark Kent]]==
==Merger discussion for [[Clark Kent]]==

Revision as of 10:06, 29 July 2019

Agatha Christie

Welcome to Wikipedia! Good work at Agatha Christie! CorinneSD (talk) 00:23, 10 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A beer for you!

For your work on Blackbeard. Cheers!  :) —This lousy T-shirt— (talk) 20:54, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Season's Greetings

File:Xmas Ornament.jpg

To You and Yours! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:56, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thomas Cromwell

Hello. I've reverted a lot of your edits to Thomas Cromwell. The article is not the best-written on Wikipedia, but your changes in general were not improvements. Most of them seem to have been imposing an idiosyncratic style that is not based on Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Newspaper style deprecates commas, but academic style does not. Wikipedia is an academic publication, not a newspaper. There is nothing wrong with starting a sentence with a dependent clause: "Once, upon a time, . . . ." is good English. A couple of times your edit summaries referred to split infinitives where there were none. I see that other editors have taken you to task on this page for this kind of aggressive imposition of a personal style. Please make yourself familiar with Wikipedia's MOS, and make sure your edits follow its guidance. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 16:34, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for pointing me toward the Manual of Style. I will look forward to your demonstrating exactly what portions of my edits were "not based on" its tenets.
It really would be far more helpful and constructive in the future if you were to merely alter individual edits, rather than wholesale reverting an entire article. This would demonstrate any possible deviations from the Manual of Style, and would also open the door to constructive dialog concerning areas of disagreement, such as correct use of commas.
Finally, please do remember that even the Manual of Style is open to debate and revision.

Dilidor (talk) 18:09, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I did not revert your changes wholesale, but carefully reviewed each one (or each set), reverting only those that I found unconstructive or incorrect. The burden of justifying changes (other than reversions) lies with the person who originates them, in this case, yourself, so I don't plan on demonstrating anything, at this point. If you want to argue on the Talk page for certain changes, I'll be happy to consider them there, and respond as I think appropriate.
I don't regard the MOS as the be-all and end-all of good style, but if you take issue with anything in there, it's up to you to propose changes and persuade others to accept them before you start imposing your idiosyncratic style on articles. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 18:29, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am adding

the “then” back into Giordano Bruno because the Copernican model of the solar system is no longer novel, but it was “then,” so it needs to be there. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 15:12, 14 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The word "novel" means new. It is self-evident from context that the idea was new when it was first put forward, not that it is new today. Nevertheless, it makes little difference to reinsert it.

Dilidor (talk) 15:38, 14 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

1689 not 1776

The New Englanders were annoyed with being placed together and administered under another layer of government. So the union, such as it was, stopped with the overthrow of Andros in 1689. It's hard to prove a negative. The confusion may have started in the summary paragraph above which conflated the end of the Glorious Revolution, nearly a century earlier with the start of the American Revolution. While the New Englanders occasionally cooperated, they were never united except for this brief period. Also, it was to Englands advantage NOT to deal with anything united. It might give the 13 colonies ideas, which happened anyway, as it turned out. The NE confederation was a short term aberration. Please answer on my talk page. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 16:27, 25 October 2016 (UTC) Student7 (talk) 16:27, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent points, and thanks for the clarification. I completely missed the significance of the date, but I agree that there was no unified political entity--at any time, actually, apart from the one that was forced upon them by the Brits, an "aberration," as you point out. I've reworded the opening in order to make this more clear.
Dilidor (talk) 17:09, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Poor writing"?

[1] Thanks for your efforts to copyedit but there's no need to insult me like that, mate. Cheers, —  Cliftonian (talk)  12:32, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies. It was a hasty summary without thought; didn't intend any form of judgment. If I could change an edit's summary, I would happily take more time to summarize my changes, rather than my regrettable laziness. Again, my apologies.

Dilidor (talk) 15:33, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this Dilidor, I appreciate that very much. No offence taken. All the best, —  Cliftonian (talk)  16:24, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Merry, merry!

From the icy Canajian north; to you and yours! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:08, 25 December 2016 (UTC) [reply]

Adjectival phrase in History of Massachusetts

You reverted my change to Massachusetts Bay Colony. I'd defend my change; the current construct implies that "April 1630" (which is essentially a noun) is modified by the adjectival phrase "sometimes known as the Winthrop Fleet." Semantically nonsense, but that's the syntax of it, IMO. Still, I don't care enough to fight over it.

It's a lovely article, by the way - although I wonder why it attracts so many vandals - but it does contain several examples of adjectival phrases set adrift from their nouns and attached to another, for example "several European explorers charted the area, including Samuel de Champlain and John Smith". Of course the sense is clear but it creates a tiny jag in my reading. David Brooks (talk) 18:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it was a very small nit to pick at, and I wouldn't care enough to do battle, either. I debated whether it was even worthwhile reverting, but my editorial OCD dominated once again.
There are several widespread writing peccadillos which I habitually correct, including beginning a sentence with a dependent clause, and splitting a noun from its verb by interrupting with something extraneous. The classic example of the latter is found in every mainstream obit ever written: "John Smith, who invented fire and the wheel and wrote Shakespeare's better plays and walked on water but never drank any, died."
The "Winthrop Fleet" info scarcely fell into that "interruptive clause" category, and it really wasn't particularly disruptive to the flow. But, as I said, editorial OCD. Dilidor (talk) 12:12, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I recognize the syndrome :-) David Brooks (talk) 19:01, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thanks for your edits. "Use of spectral evidence" does not appear to be particularly confusing. Please take your concerns to the article talk page to raise any questions you have or to seek consensus rather than threaten to unilaterally delete important and very germane text. Yours, Quis separabit? 12:06, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your response. I was not threatening to delete anything, merely suggesting that the witchcraft section should be more heavily edited. I have no intention of doing it myself, so perhaps I will indeed make the suggestion on the talk page. The topic is certainly germane to the life of Cotton, but it does not necessarily require or even deserve such an in-depth discussion; the article is about Cotton, not about the trials.Dilidor (talk) 12:23, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Misplaced Comma?

MOS:NUM shows that a comma is needed after the year when a date is written month - day - year. You removed the comma after the year 1781 in the following sentence - "The surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, marked the end of major fighting in North America." Would you please cite the Wikipedia guideline that shows a comma after the year when a date is written "month - day - year" is wrong? Jerry Stockton (talk) 23:55, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Rhode Island People

Thank you very kindly for the barnstar award for articles concerning the people of Rhode Island. I greatly appreciate your taking the time to look through and improve so many of them. I have done little active writing in the past few years, but Rhode Island is always very near and dear to my heart. The writing isn't of great interest to me, but the historical accuracy is. I'm doing other projects right now, but hope to return to the people of Rhode Island. My big goal is the Roger Williams article. I've already spent a bit of time perusing the two-volume set of Williams's correspondence, and know that that work will alter many of the other articles I've already put into play. It's nice to have someone else with interest in Rhode Island in the neighborhood! Warmest regards.Sarnold17 (talk) 11:47, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • You're very welcome. I, too, have an interest in Williams and anything else RI-related, as I live there. I do strive for historical accuracy, but writing and style are an involuntary compulsion, and I mentally edit absolutely everything I read—including billboards and junk mail. So I guess we make a good team. I'm presently slogging through S.G. Arnold's second volume, as well as Bloudy Tenent. I just finished Hall's book on the Antinomian Controversy, as I prefer to stay as close as possible to original sources. I'm trying to get a better understanding of the issues involved in that mess, but they are so subtle and slippery that it's taking some time. But ultimately I'd like to add a little more theological precision to your otherwise outstanding article on that sad event. —Dilidor (talk) 12:10, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wow; kudos to you for tackling Bloudy Tenent. I've contemplated reading several of the early historical accounts, such as Gorton's Simplicities Defence and John Clarke's Ill News from New England but I just can't see the payoff to working my way through any of these classics. If I could get heavily annotated editions that offered plenty of historical context that might be different. Williams's correspondence, at least, is in bite-sized chunks, and what I've read of it has been fairly easy to understand; the editing really helps with historical context. One thing that has stymied me in the Rhode Island articles is a good contemporary history of the state. S. G. Arnold's history is over 150 years old, and Bicknell's five-voume set is 100 years old. I haven't been able to find anything online about the Rhode Island Royal Charter other than those two sources, so the wikipedia article on the subject has been rightfully flagged for the pitiful lack of sourcing. At least the Antinomian Controversy has many current sources, and I've read Hall's account as well as many others, and the many biographies of Anne Hutchinson offer a take on the issue. When I introduced the article on the Antinomian Controversy, it met with a good amount of fanfare, but I was not able to get it to good status. One of my personal limitations is letting go of someone else's words, as I'm afraid to lose the historical slant that those words convey. Doing that article, though, got me into many of the leading Puritan ministers of the day, and I had great fun researching them, particularly John Cotton. Anyway, perhaps your interest in Rhode Island will help lure me back into working on these wikipedia articles. There are many I'd love to write--like about the Brown brothers, and the slave ship Sally, and the list goes on and on.Sarnold17 (talk) 21:32, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've found a few through interlibrary loan: Constitution and Charter, State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, prepared by Robert F. Burns, Secretary of State, 1981; The famous old charter of Rhode Island, granted by King Charles II., in 1663 etc., by I.H. Cady, 1842 [an entire 8 pages long! plus library use only]; A lively experiment: reflections on the Charter of 1663, etc., by the Rhode Island 1663 Colonial Charter Commission, 2013. I've ordered the two that are available for loan; there are several others that are "library use only," but it looks like they might be the only useful resources. The Robert Burns one is only 77 pages, and the essay collection (Reflections) is 24. I've a strong suspicion that Arnold and Bicknell are the primary sources, as this is a somewhat esoteric topic. But I'll see what those titles have to offer and will add in anything useful to your article on the Charter. I will also give some thought to how to make it better; the RI Charter is a genuinely significant document in American history, and there ought to be some way to convey that in the article.

Pequot people

Hi - Thanks for your interest in the Pequot people article. Editors can argue over many nuances, but I think my changes did improve this article. Let's discuss on the Talk page of that article if you have specific issues with what I edited or added.Parkwells (talk) 16:46, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • There were numerous issues, including what I deemed a racial slur. I have repaired the grammar and syntax issues, and smoothed over the unnecessary racial detail. All your additional information is still there. —Dilidor (talk) 10:11, 17 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for April 20

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited John Coggeshall, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Great Migration. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:48, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Commas and dates

Per MOS:DATEFORMAT, "A comma follows the year unless followed by other punctuation" when using MDY format. And MOS:COMMA says "Dates in month–day–year format require a comma after the day, as well as after the year, unless followed by other punctuation." Please don't remove commas that follow those rules, as you did in Stamp Act 1765. Chris the speller yack 15:09, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Kindly refer to the Talk page, where I have addressed this issue. Your edits are incorrect; unfortunately, your rationale is correct—which is to say that the problem lies with the style guide. It needs to be corrected. I will leave your incorrect punctuation as-is for the time being, as it's not worth my while to fight over misplaced commas. But understand quite clearly that your punctuational edits are wrong. —Dilidor (talk) 18:46, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I'm sorry about this edit you had to revert. Since it's not an improvement, I'll stop editing the headers in this manner. The last thing I want to do is make extra work for other editors. Cmr08 (talk) 02:46, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Which/That Confusion

Hi, you just reverted my change of several instances of “which” to “that” States Declaration of Independence: Difference between revisions that are in keeping with proper grammatical use. One description of this usage is provided by the | Chicago Manual of Style: Which vs. That, but you can find many other references. Please explain why you think my edits are incorrect. Thanks — Andy Anderson 12:05, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That is restrictive; which is non-restrictive. If you read back through those sentences, you'll find that the which is non-restrictive. I cannot link to CMS, as it requires a membership, and I don't have my hard copy at hand, so I cannot offer citation from that source. But regardless of any style guides, it's a grammatical issue. —Dilidor (talk) 13:23, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly — in each of these cases, the dependent clause is restrictive, so “that” should be used:
  • “The best-known version of the Declaration is a signed copy that is popularly regarded as the official document” — the dependent clause “popularly regarded as the official document” applies only to this particular version of the Declaration and helps distinguish it from the other signed copies of the Declaration;
  • “Congress passed a resolution on May 10 that had been promoted by John Adams and Richard Henry Lee” — the dependent clause “had been promoted by John Adams and Richard Henry Lee” is required to distinguish this “resolution on May 10”;
  • “the committee discussed the general outline that the document should follow” — the dependent clause “the document should follow” is necessary to indicate what the “general outline” refers to.
In any case, “which” should include a comma before it. I will allow that in the first case what may be a more important distinguishing characteristic is that the document is visible at the National Archives, so how about this: “The best-known version of the Declaration is a signed copy that is displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and which is popularly regarded as the official document.” — Andy Anderson 15:52, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"The best-known version of the Declaration is a signed copy...." There is only one signed copy; there is no need to restrict which signed copy. That is the sense in which "that" is restricting the meaning. If there were two signed copies, one might want to restrict the reader's understanding of which signed copy was being referred to: "The best-known version is the signed copy that hangs in the National Archives." "Which" is merely expanding upon the information concerning the only signed copy. —Dilidor (talk) 16:48, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You are incorrect, there are multiple signed copies: [2]Andy Anderson 17:34, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No comma is required before "which" because there is no new subject, nor is it a separate clause. Your understanding of clauses is inaccurate; "popularly regarded as the official document" is not a dependent clause at all, it is part of the same clause. —Dilidor (talk) 16:48, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you are incorrect — quoting from the Chicago Manual of Style page linked above (which you *do* have access to, it’s open): “Use ‘which’ plus commas to set off nonrestrictive (unnecessary) clauses”. — Andy Anderson 17:34, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is my final response to this topic, because it is clear that you do not grasp some very basic concepts. The phrases which you are referring to as dependent clauses are not clauses at all—dependent or otherwise. Without this basic foundation, the conversation is hopeless. —Dilidor (talk) 18:42, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your revert on the "Thirteen Colonies"

Hi,Dilidor, I see no indication in the "Population" section that the "colonial population" did not include blacks. If I read you right, you are under the impression that the colonial population included only white settlers from Europe or their descendants. The given citation of Perkins does refer to the "demographic experience" (whatever that means) of blacks, in contradistinction to that of the white majority of the population. If your interpretation of the demonym "colonial population" in the article includes only whites, then that should be alluded to in the text, since there is nothing there now that suggests such an interpretation. It is not intuitively understood by a reader that only whites are referred to, and the text you want discriminates against the black portion of the population, as if they don't count. Carlstak (talk) 17:13, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Immigrate/emigrate

Hello, Dilidor; I thought I was doing the correct thing by changing the word emigrate to immigrate. Here's what I found online:

"Emigrate means to leave one's country to live in another. Immigrate is to come into another country to live permanently. Migrate is to move, like bird in the winter. The choice between emigrate,immigrate, and migrate depends on the sentence's point of view."

When we talk about leaving England, we are emigrating from there; when we are talking about coming to New England, we are immigrating to there. Is this not correct? I felt I was correct in making the edit to the William Arnold (settler) article. Please give me your thoughts.

BTW, it was great to have you go through all of the articles that I worked on, and make edits and corrections. I hope to get back into wikipedia again soon. I was just talking to someone the other day about my desire to do the article on Roger Williams, but the literature is immense. The cornerstones of such an undertaking will be his recent biography (2012) and the two-volume set of his correspondence which is a GOLDMINE of Rhode Island history. Warmest regards.Sarnold17 (talk) 15:08, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, Sarnold17. Very nice to start my week with a note from you.
Regarding "emigrate," as your quotation mentions, it is determined by the context. As I recall, the sentences involved were discussing the person's life in England, whence he emigrated elsewhere. If those sentences had been discussing what was happening in America at the time when someone moved here, it would then be immigrated, as the person would have been moving into rather than out of the context. That's why I short-handed my explanation for one of my changes re: the prefix im- vs. em-.
I greatly appreciate all the work that you've done on all the RI history. As a native, I am very interested in all details of RI, particularly during the Colonial and Revolutionary times. Unfortunately, all I have time for at present is to do copy editing; I'd like to sit down someday with books at hand and do some in-depth writing and adding to existing articles. I do hope that you'll be able to do that yourself soon, as I'd welcome anything you have to add to the material on Williams.
What are the titles of the recent bio and collected letters? I definitely want to read those. —Dilidor (talk) 10:24, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello once again, Dilidor
The correspondence of Roger Williams is found in the following source: The Correspondence of Roger Williams. Vol. 1: 1629-1653. Vol. 2: 1654-1682 ed. by Glenn W. LaFantasie. (1988) 867 pp. The recent book on Williams, which I have sitting next to me as I write, is Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul/ Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty by John M. Barry, published in 2012. I used this book to add material to the wikipedia article on Sir Edward Coke, who was Williams's mentor, and surrogate father, in England. As for the correspondence, I was able to get it on interlibrary loan (not easy, and it took a long time to get), and had it sitting in my living room for about four weeks. An absolute goldmine, particularly concerning interactions with my ancestor William Arnold, with whom Williams did not see eye to eye (Williams, the preacher and dreamer; Arnold the unabashed publican, interested in little other than land acquisition). The literature is so immense on Williams, that I just cannot see myself undertaking a rewrite of his wikipedia article (which is GREATLY needed). I have other projects I am currently passionate about, and am not willing to put my life on hold to do Williams research, though it continues to greatly interest me. I will likely get back into wikipedia with some simple articles at some point in time, but not yet. Some things have changed since I took a break, and I'll have to do some re-learning. It's great to have a chat, and I appreciate your interest in Rhode Island history. So with that said, let me share a little story with you. I fell in love with Rhode Island as a small child, going to visit my grandparents in Oaklawn every summer. Then I became interested in genealogy in the late 1960s, and began visiting RI to do research in the early 70s. Well, in my 65-year affiliation with Rhode Island, I never once visited the Gilbert Stuart birthplace in N. Kingstown. So, last April, while on a research trip with my wife, we visited that site. It was early in the season, and we were the only visitors at the time. The tour guide was not the regular person, but was filling in. But the guy LOVED Rhode Island history, making the entire visit an electric experience for me. Our tour was a 50-minute conversation for me, and then after the tour we stayed and just chatted for another half hour or so. This guy and I exchanged little tidbits of Rhode Island history that no one on earth would know, unless they were true affecionados (sp?) of the subject. One of us would ask the question "who was it that did such and such" and the other would have the answer. This was just one of those great, and unexpected, life experiences. So, enough rambling. I'm glad that you have enough interest in the subject to make your way through most of the articles I've worked on. The work was pretty lonely while I was doing it, but that didn't seem to matter too much. Cheers.Sarnold17 (talk) 01:04, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not "nothing"

Hello Dilidor. Happy Monday to you. I wish you'd look again at my edit to Mark Twain, which you reverted with an unusual summary: "accomplished nothing". As a self-described professional editor, you likely will be aware that book titles are normally italicized while parenthetical qualifiers such as "(book)" are not. Compare:

Do you see what I mean? It's roughly analogous to another entry in that section: "Mark Twain's Library of Humor (anthology)". "Anthology" isn't italicized because it isn't part of the title. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose that my edit accomplished little: cities won't crumble, asteroids won't strike the Earth, and not a single Wikipedia reader will be the wiser for it. Nevertheless, it was consistent with a convention that is widely accepted both on and off Wikipedia, and that's hardly "nothing". I trust you'll either gently explain how I've missed something that should be blindingly obvious or just go ahead and self-revert. RivertorchFIREWATER 15:47, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies—I hadn't noticed the italics, and it appeared that you were merely repeating the link. I've reverted. —Dilidor (talk) 16:04, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Connecticut River changes

I really have an issue with swapping "Natives" with "American Indians". "Natives" is much more accurate. Columbus' error in calling the natives "indians" is something we should not be propagating. They are not, and never were, indians.- Denimadept (talk) 01:37, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Denimadept. I recognize those facts, but it becomes a problem very quickly as we go through the river's history, because in one generation, everybody involved is a native. The only time period where the indigenous people groups can be accurately distinguished as "natives" vs. "non-natives" is during the first generation, when the settlers were arriving from Europe. Their children were born here, and were therefore every bit as "native" as the tribal children. The entire world at that time referred to those indigenous tribes as "Indians," regardless of its erroneous etymology, so it is just simpler to use the terminology which the people involved used. That is a policy in other areas of Wikipedia articles; I've seen great debate, for example, concerning the term "Patriots" for those involved on the American side of the Revolutionary War—and consensus is always to use the terminology that was common in the time period. —Dilidor (talk) 10:02, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I know the Canadians like "Natives," but it sounds wrong in American English. Just think what the usage implies for nativists. SillyBear (talk) 10:08, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Dilidor No argument, really, but you leave us with no options. They're no "Indians", and they're only "natives" until the Europeans have been around for 20 years. What's better? Calling them by their tribe name doesn't work, as we're trying to be all-inclusive. - Denimadept (talk) 03:20, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My point is that the simplest method is to use the terminology of the time period being discussed. When discussing the French and Indian War, for example, we should simply use the labels and terminology that were used at the time. This is what I mentioned above concerning "Patriots" vs. "Loyalists" during the American Revolutionary War. If you look through the talk page on the Revolution, you'll find some heated debate because the word "patriot" is loaded with significance and might be offensive to some. But it was the term used at the time of the context, so that's what we use.

My suggestion would be that we use "Indian" when discussing the Connecticut River Valley in Colonial times. Then, when discussing its history in 20th Century and later, feel free to use the term "Native American" in that context. It's still a ludicrous term, and I find it offensive because I am a native American with entirely the same rights to the land as someone whose predecessors were here a trifle farther back in time than mine were—in fact, it's every bit as false an etymology as calling the tribes Indians, and just as offensive—but it fits with the historical timeframe, so I won't change it. In the modern context, that is. —Dilidor (talk) 10:39, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thirteen colonies...

Please read WP:BRD, which outlines the proper course of action. You were bold, I reverted, now we discuss on the appropriate talk page. Just dismissing a book as "no-reliable" w/o any evidence for that is not the way to go. Please refer to WP:RS and explain on the talk page why you think that source is unreliable. Moreover, introducing unsourced claims is a direct violation of WP:V. Please refrain from doing that. Thanks. Kleuske (talk) 11:39, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Tom Waits genre

Hi, I am inviting past editors of the Tom Waits article to contribute to the discussion at Talk:Tom_Waits#Genres. I am in dispute with User:TheOldJacobite, who has reverted even my sourced changes and ignored my appeals to discuss the issue. Please express your opinion on the issue if it interests you.--MASHAUNIX 18:04, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fauna - Connecticut

Hi Dilidor.

Are we looking at the same thing re Connecticut fauna?

I have just checked and every one of the see also articles definitely does exist and so does the main article. The text is an almost direct lift from the biodiversity section.

I will restore the article to my version but want you to have a chance to have another look first, or am I missing something?

Eno Lirpa (talk) 12:08, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Eno Lirpa. The links to which I was referring are the ones in the citations—all dead links, making the citations of no value. Perhaps this is the case on the fauna page, as well, but duplicating the problem on the CT page does not resolve it. Further, I also don't see much value in a list of how many endangered species there are in the state. It seems a better idea to repair and expand on the fauna page first, then transpose some of that to the CT page. −Dilidor (talk) 13:14, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Halloween

MrBill3 has given you some caramel and a candy apple! Caramel and candy-coated apples are fun Halloween treats, and promote WikiLove on Halloween. Hopefully these have made your Halloween (and the preceding days) much sweeter. Happy Halloween!

'"On Psych, A USA Network TV series Episode 8, The Tao of Gus, Season 6, Shawn refers to pumpkins as "Halloween Apples" because he thinks all round fruits are a type of apple.

Wow, just wow. Your work on Bigfoot was fantastic. A quick read of your talk page reveals that you have an exceptional command of the English language. Thanks for your contributions

If Trick-or-treaters come your way, add {{subst:Halloween apples}} to their talkpage with a spoooooky message!

Greetings. I have added some content to the above linked article. It is only a few sentences. My writing may not show the skill with prose you have demonstrated. If you could take a moment to look it over, the encyclopedia might be improved. Best. MrBill3 (talk) 15:50, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Edit war warning

Stop icon

Your recent editing history at Samson shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. Jytdog (talk) 17:31, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reversion of the same material 3 times:

Required talk-page warning. Use the article's talk page to get consensus. -- GreenC 17:39, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Piers Morgan

You may be interested in the discussion at Talk:Sutherland Springs church shooting#Reactions - Piers Morgan. WWGB (talk) 04:21, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Using your edits in an edit-war report on Jytdog

Hello. I have used your edits on the article Samson to support my case for temporarily blocking user Jytdog for his disruptive persistent editing, as I agree with your edits on the article and believe that Jytdog's edits are damaging to Wikipedia. If you have any objections to that, please let me know, and I will remove them as soon as you do so.OlJa 23:51, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dilidor:

I noticed your edit of the Charles Morgan article, and I hope you are willing to help me. I have been wanting to expand this page for a few years, and now I have the knowledge to expand and rewrite the article. I need at least one fresh set of eyes to look at organization, substance and style.

The Charles Morgan article has the potential to be either GA or even FA. Do you have any interest? cheers, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 19:10, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Oldsanfelipe. I'd be happy to do a pass-through in interests of style and such. I'm not sure which page you're referring to, however—the ship or the man. I have a personal interest in the old ship and would love to see that article strengthened, but I'd still be happy to look over other pages, as needed. Please let me know when you've completed. —Dilidor (talk) 19:33, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Great. The link is in the subject header. This may not be finished until early 2018. I have not done much reading about his railroad holdings. I have created a few articles about ships from the Morgan fleet: Columbia (1835 steamboat) and New York (1837 steamboat). I will take a look at the article about the ship. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 19:49, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I hope this does not dampen your interest, but Charles Morgan (businessman) of the Morgan Line and Morgan City, LA fame is not associated with Charles_W._Morgan_(ship), the 1841 whaler. The two Charles Morgans were born a year apart. Charles Morgan (businessman) was born in CT and did business in NYC; Charles Wald Morgan was born in PA and did business in New Bedford, MA. This makes sense because New Bedford, MA was a famous whaling port. I already changed the blue link from Charles_W._Morgan_(ship) to Charles Morgan (businessman) to a DAB link. Here is a link to the Charles Wald Morgan Papers: [3]. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 20:11, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, thanks for all that great info! I also did not know about the museum in New Bedford—another thing for my "I hope to do this one day" list… in the "…but I probably never will" sub-category. Interesting similarities twixt the two men, though, one going from CT to NYC, the other crossing paths in the opposite direction. Makes me want to know more about both men, so I'll hopefully edit your Morgan today. —Dilidor (talk) 11:00, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please monitor and protect the Mangalore article from Vandalism

I request you to give protection to the Mangalore article and monitor it, regarding vandalism.
No Administrator is protecting this article and it could be delisted (removed) from the list of Featured Articles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_review#Mangalore 223.186.38.187 (talk) 09:03, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Dilidor. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

George Washington's Farewell Address

Hi, Dilidor. Twice you have deleted my entry on the page dedicated to George Washington's Farewell Address. The subject of the entries was a documentary, now in post-production, which focuses on analyzing the Farewell Address itself. You claim it to be "self-advertising" and while I make no attempt to hide the fact that I am the filmmaker, I do have a question for you: how do you define the difference between "informing the public" and "self-advertising"? I have provided the IMDb site to show the documentary is legitimate as well as a link to a college news site which profiles me as a filmmaker currently in the process of crafting the documentary. Please clarify this for me so that I can understand your mindset as well was what I would have to do in order to simply inform the general public of the documentary's existence on the very page that its subject is covered. I thank you for your time and patience in answering this for me. Professor Icon (talk) 21:16, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings, Professor Icon. When your documentary is readily available to the public, then I would recommend listing it in the "See Also" section at the bottom of the article. Informing the reader that you're making a documentary is equivalent to adding a sub-section to tell the reader that you're presently writing a book on the topic, or even a sub-section to discuss the relative merits of one historian's book versus another historian's book. These would not add anything to the reader's knowledge or understanding of the article's topic. Also, you can always create a new article about the documentary itself—once it's available to the public, of course. Hope that clarifies. —Dilidor (talk) 11:18, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It does clarify things. Thank you very much. Professor Icon (talk) 13:36, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Learning from others

Dear @Dilidor:, as we constitute a dedicated community of knowledge seekers that grows and becomes stronger by constantly learning from each other despite all the differences in opinion and perspectives, I would like to respectfully ask you to kindly share your reasoning insights that made you to deduce that,

"most of forensics was unsupported and incomprehensible horseshit and was therefore deleted"

— Dilidor

and proceed with deletion of the Forensics section in Doppelgänger's article. For your convenience, I took the liberty to recreate it:

Forensics section

The concepts of facial familiarity and similarity of people are of practical importance for criminologists due to the instances of wrongful convictions based on eyewitness testimony. In one case, a person spent 17 years behind bars persistently denying any involvement with the crime he was accused of. Eventually, he was released after a doppelganger sharing not only a striking resemblance, but also the same name, was located.[1] Increased reliance on video surveillance while dealing with offenses ranging from traffic infractions to bank robberies leads to situations when people are connected to events by images. Steve Tom of the TV series Major Crimes was issued a red-light camera ticket in Culver City, California despite denying being there at the time.[2] Mike Rowe of the TV show Somebody's Gotta Do It was linked to a bank heist in Medford, Oregon and had to respond on his Facebook page.[3] However, the forensic research suggested that the issue of full facial familiarity after being approached with the 8 metric dimensions methodology remained unproven, and that the statistical likeness to find two exact looking persons under these conditions is less than one in a trillion.[4][5]

  1. ^ Mary Emily O'Hara. Kansas Inmate Freed After Doppelganger Found 17 Years Later, NBC News, June 12, 2017.
  2. ^ Richard Winton. My ‘doppelganger’ did it: Actor says it was a man who could be his double who blew red light, Los-Angeles Times, July 31, 2016.
  3. ^ Henry Hanks. Mike Rowe mistaken for suspected bank robber, CNN, January 8, 2016.
  4. ^ Teghan Lucas and Maciej Henneberg. Are human faces unique? A metric approach to finding single individuals without duplicates in large samples, Forensic Science International, Volume 257, December 2015.
  5. ^ Zaria Gorvett . You are surprisingly likely to have a living doppelganger, BBC, 13 July 2016.

Thank you in advance, --Taterian (talk) 03:30, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dear @Dilidor:, I take your silence as a tacit acknowledgement that you had made an honest mistake in your assessment as we editors may all do at times. No harm done as one can easily restore the section in question due to the wonderful go-back-in-time feature of wiki technology. With best wishes, --Taterian (talk) 03:09, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Seasons' Greetings

...to you and yours, from the Great White North! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:58, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Self-published

You removed a {{self-published inline}} tag relating to a book published via vanity press XLibris. Why, please? Guy (Help!) 00:46, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please put the note in references, not 10 million times throughout the articles. —Dilidor (talk) 12:33, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mayflower

The only deliberate change I was making was to add {{self-published inline}} for the XLibris book - and yes, this should go inside the ref tags, I don't know what went wrong as the regex is supposed to do exactly that. Anything else was AWB, so I will check your comments and feed them back to the AWB team. Guy (Help!) 12:59, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

JzG: I realize that you want to draw the reader's attention to the fact that a source which is cited repeatedly throughout the article is actually self-published—but the problem with these 2 articles is that the goddam source is cited repeatedly throughout the articles! There has got to be a better method than repeating the template every single paragraph! Please—desist from reverting and find a better solution. —Dilidor (talk) 21:20, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The real problem is that it should be using a standard referencing scheme where the ref tag just cites the page, so the book is only listed once, but I don't have any experience with those. And there's also the fact that when virtually an entire article is drawn from dozens of references to a self-published book, there is probably something wrong. Guy (Help!) 23:15, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Modern Flags Section of New England Flags

Hello, Dilidor, I understand that my changes to the last section weren't to your satisfaction, and I do agree with your decision to roll them back. However, that paragraph simply doesn't flow in its current state. It jumps from the story about Ebinger's presentation to the NEGC to the appearance of the flag back to the story of Ebinger's copyright scheme and the NEGC once more. One sentence in particular rubs me wrong, "It was copyrighted by Ebinger in 1965,[15] and the NEGC adopted the design without realizing that it was under copyright.". It states twice the flag was under copyright, having already said so. There are very rather small issues I have with how it's written, but seeing as you like how it is and I'm not too great at English (nor any other language, for that matter), I would like to ask if you would be willing to work with me in some capacity to spruce up the modern-flags section. Thanks, clinically lazy (talk) 02:45, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings clinically lazy. I have made another pass on that section in an attempt to make it read better. If you have suggestions on how to improve it further, I'm glad to work on it. The fact is, though, that I don't see much point to that sub-section in the first place. The stuff about copyright issues goes nowhere and has no bearing on the article, and I think it would be better to trim out that facet altogether, cut the block quote entirely (esp. since it merely reiterates what's been stated), stay focused on the NEGC flag, and move it as a single paragraph into the body of the article someplace. The graphic is nice, of course, and deserves to be retained. For the time being, however, I've not made any drastic cuts. —Dilidor (talk) 11:16, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Commas after MDY-formatted dates that include a year

Hello,

I notice that you reverted some edits that I did to the Myles Standish page. In retrospect, I can see that I did put in a few too many commas, and will re-evaluate going forward.

However, there is one that you removed that I disagree with, which is the comma after the year in the date of death in the "Last years" section

I can see in another section of your talk page that another user had the same situation on a different page, and your reply to that user indicated that the Wikipedia style guide is wrong. However, if that is true, then the Chicago Manual of Style, heading "6.38: Commas with dates" is also wrong.

CMS requires a subscription, so of course I will not post the relevant content. That said, the examples given do indeed put a comma after the year in the case of an MDY date that occurs mid-sentence.

I can find several other respected, non-subscription resources online, including APA Style, that back this up:

http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/when-use-comma.aspx

and several others, which I will not post here in the interest of keeping things tidy.

I cannot, however, find a single authoritative source that indicates a comma should not be used in that situation.

I therefore believe Wikipedia's style guide (and thus that particular edit of mine) to be correct and done in good faith. And I agree with the other reversions and improvements you have made to the article. We are on the same team in wanting to make Wikipedia a better place.

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter, as small as it is. Sincerely, 1980fast (talk) 23:02, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for January 17

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Plymouth Colony, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Plymouth Plantation (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:56, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for February 21

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Samuel Ward (American statesman), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Specie (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:16, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate what you're trying to do with this article. Given that Henson's memorial was a performance in itself, would you consider creating an article devoted to it? This would allow us to keep the information already sourced without cluttering up his biography with excessive detail. Rklawton (talk) 17:10, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's probably the best approach—create a "start class" article on the memorial service itself. I've never done that and don't know how; can you tackle it? —Dilidor (talk) 17:27, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Undoing Interruptive Clause in Culper Ring

Hey Dilidor. This is so minor as to almost not warrant a response (it's a one sentence caption, after all). However, I think I disagree a bit with your reversion of my edit on the Culper Ring caption. You said the sentence is better without the interruptive clause. This may be correct, however I do not believe it is better as it was previously written. As it stands, the clause "including the capture and execution of Nathan Hale" remains after "well-organized intelligence," giving the impression that "including the capture and execution of Nathan Hale" modifies/clarifies "intelligence." However, this is not the case (and is actually, contextually, quite the opposite). I would argue that if you do not wish to have the interruptive clause after "A number of early intelligence failures," (which is what the clause is actually modifying) then the clause regarding Nathan Hale should either be made a separate sentence, or the caption itself should be rewritten such that "intelligence failures" comes at the end. Shorttom007 (talk) 14:12, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it was still not a good sentence, so I've edited it again. I still don't like it, but it's better than it originally was. Feel free to improve on it further, and thanks for the follow-up. —Dilidor (talk) 14:25, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the response. I like the new caption much better. Thanks for hearing me out! Shorttom007 (talk) 14:36, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please read the documentation for Template:Redirect: "Its purpose is to reduce confusion by helping users get to their intended page if they were redirected to another page while, for example, searching for a topic. An example would be when a user searches for Achilleus (as in the emperor), but ends up on the page titled Achilles (as in the mythical hero) after being redirected." In this case, Boston uprising redirects to 1689 Boston revolt, while a person might instead have been searching for Boston Uprising, the eSports team, which differs from the redirect term Boston uprising by only one capital letter. 93 16:46, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, there is no "edit warring" if I have been reverted one time by an editor and then explained my edit to him on his talk page and in my edit summary that his justification is in error because he failed to realize Boston uprising was the term that would be confused for Boston Uprising rather than 1689 Boston revolt. 93 16:52, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Stop

Your recent edits including your templateing suggest you don't understand editing nor policy Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:53, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Enlisting your kind services (editing skills)

Hi User:Dilidor. I noticed your particular skills in editing and correcting flawed sentences. There seems to be an "interruptive clause" (perhaps even a few of them) in the Wikipedia article Hayyim Habshush, in the section "Man of justice." Can you please help improve the English style there, in that one section? Good luck!Davidbena (talk) 13:44, 25 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:Davidbena. I gave that section a quick once-over. I also put a small suggestion in a hidden comment on the clause which alludes to "a perceived threat" to the government. It's a nice little start-class article; let me know if I can help further. —Dilidor (talk) 14:37, 25 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks!Davidbena (talk) 14:43, 25 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Scots Irish vs. Scotch Irish

The article on Connecticut uses the term "Scotch Irish". I changed that text to "Scots Irish", which I believe is more correct. You undid my change because the link itself is named "Scotch Irish". I realize that; I just didn't want to take the time to modify the name of that page too.

I will try to find a source to substantiate my claim that "Scots Irish" is more correct than "Scotch Irish". I believe that people who have that heritage intensely dislike the term "Scotch Irish", but I will do some research.

Please do. The term "Scotch" is traditionally equivalent to "Scottish", as in "he is of Scotch descent". So, on that level, the use of the word is not technically incorrect at present. The fact that the article uses it that way in its title seems to clinch it. Nevertheless, if you can put together a case for "Scots", I'll be happy with the change. —Dilidor (talk) 13:08, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Benty Grange helmet

Thanks for your good edits on the Benty Grange helmet article. Groaned reflexively when I saw all the changes in the redline, then read through them and realized how on point they were. --Usernameunique (talk) 12:09, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Usernameunique for your encouragement and thoughtfulness! —Dilidor (talk) 12:39, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to the Portals WikiProject...

I noticed that you believe portals are worth keeping.

So, I thought you might like to join the WikiProject on Wikipedia dedicated to supporting them...

You are invited to join the effort to revitalize and improve the Portal system.

The Portals WikiProject was rebooted on April 17th, and is going strong. Sixty-six editors have joined so far, with more joining daily. We're having a blast, and excitement is high...

Our goal is to update, upgrade, and maintain portals.

In addition to working directly on portals, we are developing tools to make portals more dynamic (self-updating), and to make building and maintaining portals easier. We've finished two tools so far, with more to come. They are Template:Transclude lead excerpt and Template:Transclude random excerpt.

Discussions are underway about how to further upgrade portals, and what the portals of the future will be.

There are plenty of tasks (including WikiGnome tasks too).

With more to come.

We may even surprise ourselves and exceed all expectations. Who knows what we will be able to accomplish in what may become the biggest Wikicollaboration in years.

See ya at the WikiProject!

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   06:47, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

New London Union Station

Please stop your copyedits on New London Union Station. Your edits on the article have previously have been previously reverted multiple times by multiple editors because they are factually incorrect and go against the MOS, and this time is no different. Because your edits are disputed, you need to the talk page and make a case for your changes rather than edit warring. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 12:17, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Cooperation

Learn how to work together instead of removing additional information like at Providence Plantations. Statements such as "Your edits made these well-written sections into badly written hash--if there is an error, correct it---but DO NOT wholesale revert." Such statement and your corresponding reverts are against WP policy (edited warring/3RR). You are the wholesale reverter. You created badly sourced hash. Learn how work with other instead of your whole sale reverts because clarifications are need to insert additional information. If you are a professional editor then be one instead attempt to own the article. Spshu (talk) 15:56, 7 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was taking the "unsourced hash" and making it into sensible and accurate information that stayed on-topic. I admit that I made a typo concerning Coddington vs. Gorton; had you merely addressed individual details such as that, we would not have a problem. Instead, you did a huge wholesale revert, then became indignant when I reverted your reversion. Practice what you preach, please. —Dilidor (talk) 16:07, 7 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Since, my edit all you have done has been mass reverts. I am trying to expand the article with available sources. I am not trying to keep the amount information in the article to a minimum. So, "Practice what you preach" is hollow. Spshu (talk) 20:26, 7 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I, too, want to move this from a stub to a bona fide article. Therefore, in a spirit of cooperation, I have once again edited the text which you have added. Here are just a few of the problems which I have corrected:

  • neutralized the point of view; you used heavily biased language such as "the oppressive atmosphere of Mass. Bay Colony" which I have toned down for NPOV
  • extensively edited, rewritten, and expanded the information concerning Pawtuxet and Shawomet
  • corrected various minor errors, such as Aquidneck vs. Rhode Island
  • reduced over-linking and wrong links
  • untangled a great many sentences and twisted phrases to create a smooth-reading section

Please note that I have worked hard to improve the work that you began. Kindly demonstrate the spirit of cooperation which you have requested by ceasing your revert war. —Dilidor (talk) 14:38, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I'm sorry to ask, but would you mind giving the Gevninge helmet fragment article a quick look with an eye towards prose issues? It's currently nominated as a featured article, but recently picked up an oppose for "readability" (along with a support). I'm both confident in the article's overall quality and an unobjective observer; if you would be willing to give it a look, as you did for the Benty Grange helmet article, I'm sure a better article would result. Thanks, --Usernameunique (talk) 06:31, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings, Usernameunique. I am always happy to do a copy edit, and thank you very much for asking. Please note the following:
  • the intro needs some clarification on the capital—capital of what? You'll notice that I hazarded a guess as "Danish capital," but that might not be right. I've inserted 2 hidden comments in the intro to draw attention.
  • "Context and Beowulf" has the same issue; I've guessed that it's the capital of Denmark, but please change if that's wrong.
It's a good article, and I'm especially intrigued with the connection to Beowulf. I hope it attains Featured status. —Dilidor (talk) 11:20, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much for that, Dilidor, looks a lot better now. I've changed capital to variations of "the seat of the Scylding kings," which is probably more accurate, and more directly connects to Beowulf (Heorot being the Scylding's mead hall). --Usernameunique (talk) 23:21, 12 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much

The RfC discussion to eliminate portals was closed May 12, with the statement "There exists a strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals at this time." This was made possible because you and others came to the rescue. Thank you for speaking up.

By the way, the current issue of the Signpost features an article with interviews about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

I'd also like to let you know that the Portals WikiProject is working hard to make sure your support of portals was not in vain. Toward that end, we have been working diligently to innovate portals, while building, updating, upgrading, and maintaining them. The project has grown to 80 members so far, and has become a beehive of activity.

Our two main goals at this time are to automate portals (in terms of refreshing, rotating, and selecting content), and to develop a one-page model in order to make obsolete and eliminate most of the 150,000 subpages from the portal namespace by migrating their functions to the portal base pages, using technologies such as selective transclusion. Please feel free to join in on any of the many threads of development at the WikiProject's talk page, or just stop by to see how we are doing. If you have any questions about portals or portal development, that is the best place to ask them.

If you would like to keep abreast of developments on portals, keep in mind that the project's members receive updates on their talk pages. The updates are also posted here, for your convenience.

Again, we can't thank you enough for your support of portals, and we hope to make you proud of your decision. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   23:27, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: if you reply to this message, please {{ping}} me. Thank you. -TT

@Dilidor: You have repeatedly reverted my good faith MINOR edits at the Abraham Woodhull article while using such pointy comments such as "...restoring this section to previous state; recent edits did not improve it..." I respectfully ask that you please stop the reverting of my MINOR content change, which, in my opinion, betters the article. I, and you, are entitled to edit the article. I have explained my reasons for my MINOR edit, and you have offered a pointy "opinion" and unilaterally reverted any change. Again, a MINOR change. I humbly suggest that you are showing ownership over the article, even breaking 3RR yesterday to do so.

I have re-inserted my MINOR content change. If you care to once again revert my MINOR change, please explain a policy derived reason for doing so. Thank you. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 12:18, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@GenQuest: I sense that you are trying to convey the notion that your edits were MINOR. My most recent edits were certainly MINOR, as well. It is unnecessary to point out that there was a lapse of 18 years between 1806 and 1824; the reader can do the math. You have created several short, choppy sentences, and you insist upon an unnecessary repetition of "Woodhull" when a pronoun can be used. There is no "policy derived" reason for these things; it's just better writing. —Dilidor (talk) 13:24, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In your opinion. As a former advertising editor/copywriter, your edit makes no sense to me, as mine probably does to you. We can agree to disagree, because anyone can edit Wikipedia. Your writing style is evidently different from mine, but I am not a newbie here, or even in the field of copy-writing, and resent being treated as such and talked down to. As for your continued reverting of said minor edit — again, showing complete ownership over the content — the bigger problem uncovered now is your condescending edit summaries; your edit warring; and your "my way or the highway" attitude over what should have been a largely insignificant edit I made chiefly for reader comprehension / clarity reasons. You don't have to agree 100% with it, but it is my edit, which — in MY opinion — makes the article better. See, everyone has an opinion. As such, unless my edit violated some policy, it should stand. "Short choppy" as you call it, can sometimes be a good thing. Because you have no policy argument to revert my changes, I guess I'll be discussing this behavior at ANI (which will be a big waste of time for both of us) — unless you choose to self-revert said edit today. Regards, GenQuest "Talk to Me" 14:03, 30 May 2018 (UTC).[reply]
Your own edits cannot be supported by any policy statement either! It is a bit of a double standard, don't you think, to insist that I support my edits with some Wikipolicy while not pointing to one for your own edits? This is such a silly thing to be debating in the first place. Since it is causing you such pain and heartache to be disagreed with concerning style and syntax, please feel free to set those sentences however you like. I will not concern myself with it any further; but I also will not "self-revert" what I feel to be better writing. —Dilidor (talk) 14:14, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request for Abraham Lincoln

Some sources I found that could be added for the "assassination" section on the Abraham Lincoln page. These have mentioned by some respected sources, and even a few historians.

“As he died his breathing grew quieter, his face more calm.[1] According to some accounts, at his last drawn breath, on the morning after the assassination, he smiled broadly and then expired.[2][3][4][5][6] Historians have emphasized Lincoln's peaceful appearance when and after he died.[7] Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Lincoln Administration, Maunsell Bradhurst Field wrote, "I had never seen upon the President's face an expression more genial and pleasing."[8][9] The President’s secretary, John Hay, saw "a look of unspeakable peace came upon his worn features".[10]

References

  1. ^ Tarbell, Ida Minerva (1920). The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Vol. 4. p. 40.
  2. ^ Fox, Richard (2015). Lincoln's Body: A Cultural History. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393247244.
  3. ^ Smith, Adam (8 July 2015). "With a smile on his face" – via content.The Times Literary Supplement.co.uk.
  4. ^ "'NOW HE BELONGS TO THE AGES' ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION". Abraham Lincoln died, according to press reports, with a smile on his face. "I had never seen upon the president's face an expression more genial and pleasings," wrote a New York Times reporter. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |title= at position 29 (help)
  5. ^ Abel, E. Lawrence (2015). A Finger in Lincoln's Brain: What Modern Science Reveals about Lincoln, His Assassination, and Its Aftermath. ABC-CLIO. Chapter 14.
  6. ^ "President Lincoln's Thoughts on April 14, 1865". When he finally gave up the struggle for life at 7:22 A.M., his face was fixed in a smile, according to one bedside witness, treasury official, a smile that seemed almost an effort of life. Lincoln has passed on smoothly and contentedly, his facial expression suggesting that inner peace that prevailed as his final state of mind.
  7. ^ The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Youtube.com|Historian at 4:06 minute mark|quote="It was the first time in four years, probably, that a peaceful expression crossed his face."]
  8. ^ "OUR GREAT LOSS; The Assassination of President Lincoln.DETAILS OF THE FEARFUL CRIME.Closing Moments and Death of the President.Probable Recovery of Secretary Seward. Rumors of the Arrest of the Assassins.The Funeral of President Lincoln to Take Place Next Wednesday.Expressions of Deep Sorrow Through-out the Land. OFFICIAL DISPATCHES. THE ASSASSINATION. Further Details of the Murder Narrow Recape of Secretary Stanton Measures Taken is Prevent the Escape of the Assassin of the President. LAST MOMENTS OF THE PRESIDENT. Interesting Letter from Maunsell B. Field Esq. THE GREAT CALAMITY". The New York Times. 1865-04-17. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-04-12.
  9. ^ "Now He Belongs to the Ages - BackStory with the American History Guys". Abraham Lincoln died, according to press reports, with a smile on his face. "I had never seen upon the president's face an expression more genial and pleasings," wrote a New York Times reporter.
  10. ^ Hay, John (1915). The Life and Letters of John Hay Volume 1 (quote's original source is Hay's diary which is quoted in "Abraham Lincoln: A History", Volume 10, Page 292 by John G. Nicolay and John Hay). Houghton Mifflin Company.

Thanks

I do appreciate your help exposing my mdash abuse at Washington. Unfortunately, I have been getting away with this for some time. If only I had been a tad more careful in my initial review of their proper use. I am going to be unable to help further to get Washington ready for FA NOM; to the extent that you can step in for me, that would be good—the other editors will be grateful. Thanks, Pal. Hoppyh (talk) 13:21, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Will do. Thanks for your extensive contributions copy editing George Washington. —Dilidor (talk) 14:22, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for June 9

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Colonial history of the United States, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Plymouth Plantation (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:02, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments justifying my revisions

Dilidor:

Twice now you have reverted my edits. Your reason for the first reversion was that the "editor did more than copy edit---changed meanings, inserted new notions and bad syntax and grammar; thus the reversion." Even if I had done all three things, reversion should not have been the solution: if I had made syntactical and grammatical mistakes, then you should have corrected them; it isn't clear what you meant by "inserted new notions" or "changed meanings," but you might more properly have listed them one at a time in the talk page to determine whether they were warranted. Your reason for the second reversion ran, "Once again: adding uncited non-information presented in bad grammar and syntax." If you consulted the history and compared my revisions with the original, you would find that in only one instance did I add anything, and I gave a reason for that on the talk page. Since you do not quote any passages that you consider problematic and identify the problems, but simply revert to the version I found as though it needed no improvement, I am beginning to think that you do not act in good faith. Nevertheless, I will take it for granted that you are a reasonable person and ask you to consider my arguments below for each change—and note well that I did indeed find that I had made mistakes, so after noting them, I did not just revert your reversion, but I improved on my earlier revision by inserting an indefinite article where it was needed, moving an orphaned phrase to its proper place, and restoring a line I had inadvertently omitted. If you think that my observations have no force, you will show the world that you, too, act in good faith by using the same procedure to point out the specific problems in each paragraph and each sentence with the intent to improve the article.

1. The Opening Section.

1A. Original text: "This voyage has become a cultural icon in the history of the United States, with its story of death and survival in the harsh New England winter environment. The culmination of the voyage was the signing of the Mayflower Compact, an event which established a rudimentary form of democracy, with each member contributing to the welfare of the community."

1B. Problems. (i) The antecedent of "its" in the first sentence is "this voyage," and that is illogical, since the voyage did not die or survive. (ii) The culmination of the voyage was the arrival of the Mayflowerin New England; the signing of the compact had nothing to do with the voyage.

1C. My revised text: "With the story of its passengers' death and survival in a harsh New England winter, the ship itself has become a cultural icon in the history of the United States. The Puritans' own sense of identification with the ship was expressed in their naming and signing of the Mayflower Compact, an event which established a rudimentary form of democracy, with each member contributing to the welfare of the community."

1D. Comment. It is true that I introduced the notion of the Puritans sense of identification with the ship, but I did so on the supposition, again, that Mayflower is the name of the ship, not of the voyage, and on the additional supposition that the choice of the name of the ship for the compact rather than "Plymouth," the name they gave to their settlement, for the sake of which they made the compact.

2. Mayflower Structure and Layout.

2A. The original text, first paragraph: "The Pilgrim ship Mayflower was a square rig with a beakhead bow and high, castle-like structures fore and aft that served to protect the ship's crew and the main deck from the elements—designs that were typical with English merchant ships of the early 17th century. Her stern carried a 30-foot high, square aft-castle which made the ship extremely difficult to sail against the wind and unable to sail well against the North Atlantic's prevailing westerlies, especially in the fall and winter of 1620, and the voyage from England to America took more than two months as a result. The Mayflower's return trip to London in April–May 1621 took less than half that time, with the same strong winds now blowing in the direction of the voyage.

2B. The original text, third paragraph: "This ship traditionally was heavily armed while on trading routes around Europe, due to the possibility of encountering pirates and privateers of all types. And with its armament, the ship and crew could easily be conscripted by the English monarch at any time in case of conflict with other nations. By 1620, the Mayflower was aging, nearing the end of the usual 15-year working life of an English merchant ship in that era."

2C. Problems. (i) The topic of this section is the physical build of the ship itself, and the importance of that physical build to the voyage. Thus the material in the third paragraph about arms and pirates belongs, by theme, to the section on the gun deck. (ii) the sentence in the original third paragraph about the age of the ship has no thematic relation to the material about the arms nor any thematic relation to the material in the subsequent sub-sections; where should it go? Since it is the physical build of the ship that determines, in part, its useful span of life, I thought it best to place it at the very beginning of the section. Its place there also gives it implicit force: the passengers faced even greater dangers than we can appreciate because the ship was near the end of its useful life. (iii) "As a result" is a weak phrase, so I removed it from the end of the sentence where it had an emphasis it did not deserve, to the beginning of the clause, where after the itemization of the interacting causal factors of the ship's build and the ocean's meteorological activity it performs the logical function of introducing the effect. (iv) Although the Pilgrims made their voyage on the Mayflower, the Mayflower was not built by or for the Pilgrims, so it is inaccurate to refer to the Mayflower as "the Pilgrim ship." That would be like calling the planes the terrorists used to attack the WTC "the terrorist planes."

2D. My revision. "By 1620, the Mayflower was aging, nearing the end of the usual 15-year working life of an English merchant ship in that era. The ship was a square rig with a beakhead bow and high, castle-like structures fore and aft that served to protect the ship's crew and the main deck from the elements—designs that were typical with English merchant ships of the early 17th century. Her stern carried a 30-foot high, square aft-castle which made the ship extremely difficult to sail against the wind and unable to sail well against the North Atlantic's prevailing westerlies, especially in the fall and winter of 1620, and as a result the voyage from England to America took more than two months. The Mayflower's return trip to London in April–May 1621 took less than half that time, with the same strong winds now blowing in the direction of the voyage."

2E. The original text: "No dimensions of her hull can be stated exactly, since this was many years before such measurements were standardized. She probably measured about 100 feet (30 m) in length from the forward end at the beak of her prow to the tip of her stern superstructure aft. She was about 25 feet (7.6 m) at her widest point, with the bottom of her keel about 12 feet (3.6 m) below the waterline. William Bradford estimated that Mayflower had a cargo capacity of 180 tons. Surviving records from that time indicate that she could certainly accommodate 180 casks of wine in her cargo hold. The casks were great barrels holding hundreds of gallons of Bordeaux wine each."

2F. Problems. (i) Again, in the first sentence the information that identifies a cause is put after the information that indicates the effect. (ii) The first three sentences have the same subject, the dimensions of the ship, and since the second and third sentences indicate the best estimates of the ship's dimensions, the information should figure in one sentence, not three. (iii) In the last three sentences the topic is cargo capacity and the two themes of the numeric indication of the capacity and the merchandise for which the capacity was important; but the sentences are inelegant because mention of the source of the information interrupts the actual detailing of what we want to know, because it is not necessary to explain what a cask is, and because "casks...holding hundreds of gallons of Bordeaux wine each" is nicely specific, so that the earlier and vaguer "casks of wine" is unnecessary. The original text consists of six sentences and 120 words; my revision consists of two sentences and 113 words.

2G. Revisions. "Since this was many years before hull measurements were standardized, no exact figure for the Mayflower's dimensions is possible, but she probably measured about 100 feet (30 m) in length from the forward end at the beak of her prow to the tip of her stern superstructure aft, was about 25 feet (7.6 m) at her widest point, with the bottom of her keel about 12 feet (3.6 m) below the waterline. William Bradford estimated that the Mayflower had a cargo capacity of 180 tons, and surviving contemporary records indicate that in her cargo hold she could certainly accommodate 180 casks holding hundreds of gallons of Bordeaux wine each.

2H. Original text: "Forward of that was the steerage room which housed a whipstaff (tiller extension) for sailing control, rather than a wheel as in later ships. Also there was the ship's compass and probably also berths for the ship's officers."

2I. Problems. (i) These two sentences leave it unclear what is where, but the "also there was" and "probably also" seem to mean that the steerage room housed the whipstaff, the compass, and berths. (ii) The repetition of the "also" and, again, the parcelling out of information in more sentences than necessary and the placing of uncertain information after certain make the prose weak.

2J. Revision. "Forward of that was the steerage room which probably housed berths for the ship's officers, and in which were to be found the ship's compass and, rather than a wheel as in later ships, whipstaff (tiller extension) for sailing control."

Comment: There should most certainly be an "a" before "whipstaff." That was my oversight.

2K. The original text: "The poop deck was above the cabin of Master Jones, on the ship's highest level above the stern on the aft castle. The poop house was on this deck, which may have been for passengers' use either for sleeping or cargo. On normal merchant ships, this space was probably a chart room or a cabin for the master's mates."

2L. Problems. (i) Was the poop deck above Master Jones' cabin or above the stern on the aft castle? Or was it on the highest of many levels above the stern on the aft castle? Or was Master Jones' cabin on the highest of many such levels? (ii) Which do you need to know first, the probable normal use of a thing or the probable unusual use of a thing? I say that you need to know the normal use first—it is absurd to say something like "sometimes people rent storage space to sleep in, although usually people do so to house overflow possessions."

2M. Revisions: "On the ship's highest level above the stern on the aft castle and above Master Jones' cabin was the poop deck, on which stood the poop house, which on normal merchant ships was probably a chart room or a cabin for the master's mates, but on the Mayflower may have been for passengers' use either for sleeping or cargo."

Comment: My revision may get the spatial relations between the highest level, the stern, the aft castle, Master Jones' cabin, and the poop deck wrong, but my sentence has the virtue of syntactic clarity. Only someone who has expert knowledge of how these features of a ship were generally ordered should decide.

2N(a). The original text: "The gun deck was where the passengers resided during the voyage, in a space measuring about 50x25 ft with a 5-ft overhead (ceiling).

2N(b). Problem. Why should a merchant ship have guns? The reason is given in a sentence from another paragraph, so I placed that sentence at the opening of this section.

2N(c). Revision: "As was customary for ships on trading routes around Europe, against the possibility of encountering pirates and privateers of all types, the Mayflower was heavily armed. The gun deck was, etc."

2N(d). The original text: "The gun room was in the stern area of the gun deck, to which passengers had no access due to it being the storage space for powder and ammunition for the ship's cannons and any other weapons belonging to the ship.

2N(e). Problems: (i) "due to it being" is an ungainly four words; (ii) "belonging to the ship" is redundant after "the ship's." The sentence has fifty words. Now consider my thirty-five word revision:

2N(f). Revision. "The gun room was in the stern area of the gun deck, to which passengers had no access because it was the storage space for powder and ammunition for the ship's cannons and other weapons."

2N(g). The original text: "The gun room might also house a pair of stern chasers, small cannons used to fire out the stern of the ship."

2N(h): Problem: "of the ship" is wordy.

2N(i). Revision: "The gun room might also house a pair of stern chasers, small cannons used to fire out the ship's stern."

2N(j). The original text: "There were no stairs for the passengers on the gun deck to go up through the gratings to the main deck. To get up to the main deck, passengers were required to climb a wooden or rope ladder."

2N(k). Problems. These two sentences on the same topic make for thirty-eight words and repeat the expressions "passengers" and "main deck." Consider my thirty-three word revision:

2N(l). Revision: "There were no stairs for the passengers on the gun deck to go up through the gratings to the main deck, which they could reach only by climbing a wooden or rope ladder."

2N(m). The original text: "There was no facility for a latrine or privy on the Mayflower, and ship's crew had to fend for themselves in that regard."

2N(n). Problems: (i) "Facility for" is unnecessary because "latrine" and "privy" just are the names for what we now euphemistically call "the facilities." (ii) Since "privy" is the 17th-century term, and is well known, "latrine" is unnecessary.

2N(o). Revision. "There was no privy on the Mayflower, and ship's crew had to fend for themselves in that regard."

3. Early History. General Remarks. A history of X is useful only if it is developed in historical order relative to a single topic or theme. There are three topics in the history: (i) The history of the name "Mayflower" for ships and the problem of identifying the historic Mayflower from the records; (ii) the construction of the historic Mayflower'; (iii) the history of the historic Mayflower and her captain before the voyage; (iv) how the Mayflower came to be involved in that historic voyage.

Basic Structural Problems. In the original text there are six paragraphs ordered according to these topics:

P1: Where was the Mayflower built?

P2: What Captain Jones did before the historic voyage and what persons owned the ship at the time of the voyage.

P3: A review of ships named Mayflower from 1603-25 backwards to 1588 to show that identifying the historic Mayflower could be difficult.

P4. What Captain Jones did before the historic voyage.

P5. What Captain Jones did before the historic voyage.

P6. The strange fact that no records indicate the doings of the Mayflower between 1616 and 1624.

My first revisions were then structural: I put the section in topical and thematic order.

3A. Basic structural revision. I made the original P3 the new P1.

Here is the original P3 text:

"There were 26 vessels bearing the name Mayflower in the Port Books of England during the reign of James I (1603–1625), and the reason for this popularity of the name has never been found. One particular Mayflower that has caused historical confusion was a ship that was partly owned by John Vassall and was outfitted for Queen Elizabeth in 1588, during the time of the Spanish Armada. However, there are no records of Vassall's Mayflower after 1594. The identity of Captain Jones's Mayflower is based on records from her home port, her tonnage (est. 180–200 tons), and the master's name in 1620 in order to avoid confusion with the many other Mayflower ships."

3A(i). Problems: (i). As I pointed out on the Talk Page, if the 1588 Mayflower does not appear in the records after 1594, a a full twenty-six years before the historic Mayflower, then how in the world could it be confused with the historic one? (ii) In the opening sentence, the statement that in the twenty-two years of King James' reign there were twenty-six ships bearing the name Mayflower makes an issue of the popularity of the names, and so implies that there should be an explanation—since no explanation has been found, "and" makes no sense—only "but" does. Thus my simple revision:

3A(ii). Revision. "There were twenty-six vessels bearing the name Mayflower in the Port Books of England during the reign of James I (1603–1625), but the reason for the name's popularity has never been found. The identity of Captain Jones's Mayflower is based on records from her home port, her tonnage (est. 180–200 tons), and the master's name in 1620 in order to avoid confusion with the many other Mayflower ships."

3B. Structural Revision: I made the original P1 the new P2.

The original P1 text:

"It is not known when and where the Mayflower was built, but it is likely that she was launched at Harwich in the county of Essex, England. She was designated as "of Harwich" in the Port Books of 1609–11, although later known as "of London". Harwich was also the birthplace of Mayflower master Christopher Jones about 1570."

3B(i). Problem: There are two bits of information in this paragraph: (i) the conflicting evidence about Harwich or London; (ii) the fact that Jones was born in Harwich.

3B(ii). Revision. "It is not known when and where the Mayflower was built, but it is likely that she was launched at Harwich—coincidentally the birthplace of Mayflower master Christopher Jones about 1570.—in the county of Essex, England. She was designated as "of Harwich" in the Port Books of 1609–11, although later designated as "of London."

3B(iii). Comment. The orphaned "in the county of Essex, England" was my mistake—I simply did not succeed in distinguishing the actual text from the text of the inserted reference.

3C. Basic Structural Revision. Since the history of Jones' relation as captain of the Mayflower took up portions of the original P2 and P5, and all of the original P4, I combined them in a single paragraph.

Here is the original text of P4, which I made the new P3:

"Records dating from August 1609 first note Christopher Jones as master and part owner of the Mayflower when his ship was chartered for a voyage from London to Trondheim in Norway and back to London. The ship lost an anchor on her return due to bad weather, and she made short delivery of her cargo of herrings. Litigation resulted, and this was still proceeding in 1612."

3C(i). Comment. I made no changes to the text.

3C(ii). Structural Revision. Since the opening of the new paragraph covered the years 1609-12, I placed those sentences in P5 after them that covered the years 1613-16.

Here is the original text:

"Records of Jones's ship Mayflower show that the ship was twice on the Thames at London in 1613, once in July and again in October and November. Records of 1616 again state that Jones's ship was on the Thames, carrying a cargo of wine, which suggests that the ship had recently been on a voyage to France, Spain, Portugal, the Canaries, or some other wine-producing land."

3C(iii). Revision: "Records of 1616 again state that Jones's ship was on the Thames, carrying a cargo of wine, which suggests that the ship had recently been on a voyage to France, Spain, Portugal, the Canaries, or some other wine-producing land."

Comment: It was only by inadvertence that I omitted the original sentence about 1613.

3C(iv). Structural Revision. The opening sentences of P2 develop the information about the cargo Jones carried, so I placed them last in the paragraph.

The original text:

"Captain Jones became master of the Mayflower 11 years prior to the Pilgrims' voyage, sailing the ship cross-Channel taking English woolens to France and bringing French wine back to London. He had also transported hats, hemp, Spanish salt, hops, and vinegar to Norway, and may have taken the Mayflower whaling in the North Atlantic in the Greenland area, and she had traveled to Mediterranean ports."

3C(v). Problem: (i) Since it has already been established that records show Jones to have become captain of the Mayflower in 1609, the original opening clause is no longer necessary. (ii) Since both sentences are about the cargo Jones carried, they should be one sentence. (iii) Because the paragraph mentions his activities in chronological order, the simple past tense is necessary—the past perfect would be necessary only if the theme required that we view his career from the temporal perspective of the historic voyage. We are not doing that.

3C(vi) Revision. "He sailed the ship cross-Channel taking English woolens to France and bringing French wine back to London, transported hats, hemp, Spanish salt, hops, and vinegar to Norway, may have taken the Mayflower whaling in the North Atlantic in the Greenland area, or sailed to Mediterranean ports."

3C(vii). Comment. After "Norway" there should be an "and." Again, a simple oversight.

3D. Structural revision. Since P6 (the last paragraph in the section) mentions the years 1616 to 1624 and the new topic of records, following strict chronological order I made it the new P4. I did not change the text.

3E. Structural revision. The last portion of the original P2 concerns the immediate period before the historic voyage and the owners of the ship; since the immediate period before the historic voyage is necessarily the end of the ship's early history, I made this material the new P5, the final paragraph.

3E(i). The original text. "By that time, Jones was one of the owners of the ship, along with Christopher Nichols, Robert Child, and Thomas Short. In 1620, Jones and Robert Child still owned their quarter shares in the ship, and it was from them that Thomas Weston chartered her in the summer of 1620 to undertake the Pilgrim voyage. Weston had a significant role in the Mayflower voyage due to his membership in the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London, and he eventually traveled to the Plymouth Colony himself.

3E(ii). Problems. (i) The sentence that begins "By that time" was originally preceded by these sentences: "Captain Jones became master of the Mayflower 11 years prior to the Pilgrims' voyage, sailing the ship cross-Channel taking English woolens to France and bringing French wine back to London. He had also transported hats, hemp, Spanish salt, hops, and vinegar to Norway, and may have taken the Mayflower whaling in the North Atlantic in the Greenland area, and she had traveled to Mediterranean ports." Since in these sentences the only temporal indicator is that Jones became the master eleven years before the historic voyage, and nothing is said about the time between 1609 and 1620, "by that time" sounds strange. (ii) But if by 1620 Jones had become part owner of the ship, why should we be told that he still owned his shares? We haven't been given any reason why, by 1620, he might not have owned his shares. Since the phrases "by that time" and "still" stand in conflict in the original context, I eliminated them in revising because all that matters for the early history is simply the state of affairs just before the historic voyage—we don't need any even implied information about the partnership among the owners.

3E(iii). Revisions. "By 1620, however, along with Christopher Nichols, Robert Child, and Thomas Short, Jones was one of the owners of the ship, and it was from Child and Jones that Thomas Weston chartered her in the summer of 1620 to undertake the Pilgrim voyage. His membership in the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London gave Weston had a significant role in the Mayflower voyage, and he eventually traveled to the Plymouth Colony himself."

3E(iv). Comment. The "however" is intended to acknowledge the fact that, although there is no other information about Jones and the Mayflower between 1616 and 1624, we do know how things stood in 1620. I put the information about CN, RC, and TS in a subordinate clause because Jones is the link of transition from the paragraphs about his career to the broader matter of the historic voyage, and I joined the sentence about the charter to the other sentence because Jones is identified as acting in his capacity as owner, rather than as captain, in his dealings with Weston.

@Wordwright: The major problem here is that you are making massive edits to the entire article! Some of those edits are good and justified; others are not. For example: "The Puritans' own sense of identification with the ship was expressed in their naming and signing of the Mayflower Compact…." This statement is absurd! The Pilgrims did not identify with their ship; it was a vessel on which to sail to the New World, nothing more. The Mayflower Compact had nothing to do with the ship; it was a binding agreement regarding how the Pilgrims were going to conduct a new society once they left the ship. And what's more, the Pilgrims did not give any name to the document, never mind calling it the Mayflower Compact!
Since you persist in this revert war, I will now take the necessary time to go through the entire article to correct the errors which you have created—one section at a time, which is how you need to make your edits in the future. —Dilidor (talk) 13:12, 18 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]


@Dilidor: I did not make a "massive" edit to "the entire article"; I made some macro-edits of two sections and some micro-edits of paragraphs or sentences, but I have neither read nor edited sections after "Early History." I have read the changes you have made, and I must say that, with three exceptions, I think they are excellent.
You really ought to be more charitable. It was not out of stupidity or bad faith that I wrote the sentence about the sense of identification—I simply did not know why the document was called the "Mayflower Compact" or when it was signed, but I knew that the signing of the document could not possibly be the culmination of the voyage. So I made a conjecture that was wrong—so what? All you had to do was to point out to me just how the document came to have its name. I did not know that the pilgrims signed the compact aboard the ship—I think that's important to state. I think it's quite interesting that the Pilgrims did not give it a name at all—if you know when it was given that name, you should say so. There's no need to get excited about the fact that I made a mistake.
Nor is there any need to act as though I made so many errors that it falls to you and you alone to carry the burden of sacrificing time you should be spending elsewhere to correct my errors one by one. You might be a little more humble in your estimation of your mastery of English grammar, syntax, and rhetoric—even great masters make mistakes, but they are just slips, yet you write as though I am so appallingly ignorant that errors riddle my prose. You might also consider that some things that strike you as wrong or peculiar might simply be stylistic possibilities with which you are unfamiliar either because the editor has linguistic habits that reflect a different or stricter general education or has richer literary sensitivities and sensibilities than you. So for instance, I abide by the principle that, wherever possible, one should use plain English words and expressions in the place of jargon (e.g., "prior to" is jargon for "before") and that repetition sans logical or rhetorical purpose should be eliminated (you used "establish" in two different senses in two close sentences in the opening paragraph). "Less is more" is a very good stylistic rule for editing an encyclopedia article.
You do not cite any WP page to support the assertion that one should edit only one section of a time, but even if that is the rule, is there any reason to wax wroth over the fact that I edited more than one section at a time? If I had edited only one section at a time I would have made the same changes, so in editing more than one I certainly did not increase the burden on anybody who wished to improve the article, for all they had to do was to edit one section at a time themselves, and for each section make the appropriate micro- or macro-changes. As far as I can see, you are implying that my having edited more than one section at once made it simply impossible for you to assess each change on its own merits, and then make any necessary improvements in one-section-at-a-time editing of your own, and that my practice forced you to revert the entire article, because only that blow allowed you, tight in the grip of the lex talionis as you were, to perform a simple act of restoring order to the moral universe that, translated, would run: "Take that, you misbegotten cur of an editor-of-more-than-one-section-at-a-time! You think that, against all right and reason, you can make massive changes of the whole article in one fell swoop, you villain? Presto—at a single stroke I undo your cursèd changes. Look upon my work, you wretch, and gnash your teeth!" Seems to me that something like this is right because, even though you concede that I did in some instances improve the article, you just couldn't purge yourself of bile, and in your final salvo at me made yourself out to be the aggrieved party, and you tried to assert your superior sense of responsibility by telling me how, in future, I should make my edits.
It seems to me that you feel such ill-will because you placed such a crude construction on the situation: just taking for granted that I was an irresponsible ignoramus who not only had the temerity to make ill-considered substantive changes but who couldn't write English to save his life and, worse still, had the utter gall to edit more than one section at once, you didn't bother to distinguish the matter of the number of sections I changed, the difference between the scope of the changes (macro- and micro-editing), the simple absolute number of the changes I made, the different types of changes I made, and the difference between important or substantive errors and minor linguistic mistakes. You might consider that you will boil less if you make more distinctions.
I do want to say again that, in my estimation, the clarifications and the cuts you made strike me as on the whole felicitous, so I could see that you overcame enough of your ill-will to be committed to improving the article, so I thank you for cooperating with me, and hope that I've helped you stop a little demon's mouth.

GW review

Dilidor, now that the Washington FA review is underway, it has been met with a couple of (rather generic) criticisms. After all our efforts I have grave reservations when I hear that the text is "...often completely unintelligible". "Completely"? While keeping the tone friendly, I reminded them of a few things and of course made it clear that we would be happy to accommodate any specific issues. I'm currently making some simplifications in the article text, while retaining important context. Your comments at the review and general help with the article would be appreciated. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:19, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Gwillhickers: I haven't done much on the article as a whole in quite a while, mostly just subsections. Consequently, I don't know what someone could be referring to as "completely unintelligible". I will try to work through some of it today as a big-picture read-through to see if there are any egregious areas. Can you point me to what they were talking about? My impression is that it's coming together into a good article overall. —Dilidor (talk) 10:05, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It was a hasty-overkill remark, evidently by someone who couldn't be bothered to point at specific examples, assuming there are any. In any case, I'm seriously thinking about withdrawing the nomination. See Washington Talk page. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 02:24, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Gwillhickers: I take it that you have withdrawn the nomination? I do think that the article is strong and will eventually be FA-worthy. As to the specific issues involved in getting there, I can only offer a small contribution. As I tried to express previously, that contribution amounts to writing style, grammar, syntax, good prose, etc. I am not able at present to delve into sources and citations and such for personal reasons which I cannot elucidate here. You make comments on the talk page concerning "the realm of mere grammar style" and so forth which suggest that you want more technical assistance than what I am able to offer. I regret that I cannot help with the serious issues which appear to be preventing the article from FA nomination, but I'm offering all that I have to offer at present. —Dilidor (talk) 10:44, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. It wasn't my decision to withdraw the nomination, but that of User:Ian Rose, who is the editor in charge of FA promotions and such. See FA nomination review page. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 22:16, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Canaan

I presume that was a good faith mistake, but you might want to admit that on the talk page, even if the IP is a bit angry. Doug Weller talk 14:15, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Doug Weller: My edits were certainly good faith; I'm not sure what "mistake" you are suggesting. However, I will not participate in a discussion with someone who is accusing me and others of being "racist" and "bigot" and whatever other words he is using. I am not the first person to confront that user; he deletes posts on his talk page when other editors attempt to confront him on his abuse. So I see no point in attempting rational discussion on that article's talk page. But thank you for your attempted intervention. —Dilidor (talk) 14:43, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hamites was added 3 days ago by an IP with a bee in his bonnet about them. It wasn't there before presumably because it wasn't in the source, it's an obsolete concept that doesn't belong. Doug Weller talk 14:50, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's as may be. The issue here has nothing to do with whether "Hamite" is obsolete or not; the issue is an editor who routinely abuses others who make changes that he/she does not like. That abusive behavior needs to be stopped. Alas, I have no idea how to involve Administrators in such matters. —Dilidor (talk) 15:33, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Trainwreck"?

I was disappointed to see this remark in the edit logs for 2018 Eritrea–Ethiopia summit. Perhaps there were syntactical shortcomings that needed resolving, but in no way did it merit such derision, which I would add is a rather clear violation of WP:CIVIL. --Varavour (talk) 21:25, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Varavour: My apologies if that offended you on some level. It was just a shorthand way of saying "too many problems addressed to enumerate them in this summary." Not intended as a reflection on anyone's character. —Dilidor (talk) 10:05, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You have repeated this personally derisive & offensive remark, "trainwreck" just this last month in describing the article Hyman G. Rickover. Force of habit...? --104.15.130.191 (talk) 03:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Unlinking

Your recent unlinking on the article for Cyprus has been undone because it was unconstructive. Please do not unlink content that is usually always linked. Vif12vf/Tiberius (talk) 00:00, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please read the manual of style regarding over-linking. Things that are not "usually always" linked include countries and languages. The Cyprus article is grossly over-linked. —Dilidor (talk) 10:07, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Approaching the bright line

You're an experienced editor, so I'll spare you the template, but you are at risk of violating the 3-revert rule on the Martin Van Buren article. Favonian (talk) 17:04, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Commas in geographical references

MOS:COMMA says "In geographical references that include multiple levels of subordinate divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element unless followed by other punctuation. ... the last element is treated as parenthetical." So the text "... from Annapolis, Maryland due to concerns ..." requires an additional comma after "Maryland". So I will restore the changes I made to Rhode Island in the American Civil War. Chris the speller yack 19:39, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Lafayette

I think you will have to accept that I will modify your edits. Your insistence that I not won't go over well if this goes to AN/I. You are making changes that don't read well, regardless of grammatical correctness. I suggest you take your objections to talk page, and be specific. It is your responsibility to build consensus. Remember this is a FA and while no article is perfect, admins are more likely to accept that FA people know their jobs than that everything you edit cannot be touched.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:20, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, though I have not reverted you, nor am I reverting you, the Confederation Congress did not meet in Philadelphia after 1783, therefore your edit summary question can be answered "New York, Trenton, Annapolis ...".--Wehwalt (talk) 15:27, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Are you ready to desist as well? So: It is common in every country infobox; are you going to remove it from all the others for consistency as well then? Thayts ••• 14:48, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Thayts: I do indeed unlink such things wherever I encounter them, regardless whether "it is common" or not. I find many things frequently linked that should not be linked, including "United States" and "English language" and "ice cream." These are common; I unlink them.
You will find more detailed information here and here. —Dilidor (talk) 15:38, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If it is relevant, then it is not overlinking. A link to the "Dutch Empire" is completely relevant in the context of the article. Coming back to my question regarding other country infoboxes: shouldn't you be consistent and for example also unlink "English" in the United States article's infobox following your same reasoning? Thayts ••• 15:46, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Thayts: If I ever find myself editing that particular article, then yes, I will certainly remove over-linking there, as well. I don't know how to answer your question with any more clarity. —Dilidor (talk) 16:37, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
But you don't feel the urge I suppose. Why would every infobox contain links to language articles? And wouldn't you agree the Dutch Empire is relevant enough to link to? Thayts ••• 17:34, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Flora MacDonald

Re your edit on Flora MacDonald; I'm not clear as to what you mean by 'heavy handed.' Disagreement is fine, that's what Wikipedia is for but I put a lot of time into researching and updating this article and simply dismissing that work is disappointing. You make a specific statement without any back-up.

I always find edits useful, even when I disagree with them because (as here) it forced me to expand or clarify. What I would ask is the simple courtesy of asking for clarification, rather than simply changing it.

Let me explain why it is not 'extraneous;' a lot of the traditional views on Flora MacDonald do her less than justice because she's often portrayed as doing this for romance or some sort of Stuart loyalty (Skye Boat song for one). In fact, if you take the time (as I did) to read the literature on this, she helped Charles not out of any starry-eyed romantic need but because she thought it was the right thing to do and she wanted him to get gone because of the danger he posed for other members of her family. And if you look at her subsequent career, she was clearly a woman of determination and strength.

I've covered that in more detail within the body of the article; so I think the onus is on you to disprove what I've said. I've put a lot of effort into this; that doesn't make me right but it does entitle me to expect the same in return.

Robinvp11 (talk) 17:05, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Terms such as "heroine" and "person of integrity and determination" are value judgments and opinions. It is fine to say that "some historians view her as a heroine," provided that you cite an example. Writing that she was "clearly" such a person indicates that you are drawing your own conclusion, stating an opinion, and quite likely doing original research—all of which do not belong in Wikipedia articles at all, and most certainly not in the introduction. Telling me that if I "take the time to read the literature" does not point me to any form of scholarly support for your opinions. If there is scholarly support for your contention concerning her motives, then it does belong in the body of the article and in this form: "Historian John Smith argues that she was motivated thus and such." But none of these things belongs in the introduction, which should be offering a short glimpse of important events in her life. —Dilidor (talk) 17:14, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You're starting with the answer, then working backwards which I think is simply discourteous. I've spent far more time explaining exactly why I said what I did than you have in dismissing it twice. For the second time; what does Heavy-handed mean? I'd like to avoid it in future.
'Heroine' was not my addition and doesn't seem to have bothered you previously. The Lead paragraph is supposed to generally reflect the article, where I have provided copious support for my points; which means reading the literature. That should be sufficient - unless of course you've simply edited the Lead without bothering to read the body.
The number of Wikipedia editors who when challenged fall on guidelines of 'Style' or 'Citation' is beyond belief; I currently have three different editors providing different interpretations of a 'accepted style.' So it's the 'my dog ate my homework' approach.
I find this behaviour hugely frustrating because it is completely avoidable; this article had barely changed for years until I updated it, added in copious references. The Talk Page says Assume Good Intent - so based on that, what stopped you raising these points? It is this constant discourtesy and oppositional approach on the part of experienced editors that makes Wikipedia unnecessarily combative. I'm going to edit this again and if you have objections, the right thing to do is to raise them, not simply reverse it.

Robinvp11 (talk) 18:07, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' Noticeboard

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you have been involved. Thank you. Wwallacee (talk) 09:48, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Question

Hi, you recently wrote; "no, don't link countries", and I was just curious... why not? Thanks - wolf 18:31, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Thewolfchild: The following is from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking:
  • [Things not to link] includes major examples of: geographic features (e.g., the Himalayas, Pacific Ocean, South America), locations (e.g., United States; New York City, or just New York if the city context is already clear; London, if the context rules out London, Ontario; Japan; Brazil; Southeast Asia….
There is an interesting essay here which discusses the issue of over-linking. I think the general rule is to link only those things that a reader is likely to want further info on, in the context of the article. Hope that helps to clarify. —Dilidor (talk) 18:46, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, the MOS. A guideline that ends with "use common sense". I thought you may have been referring to a policy or a consensus. Since it's just the MOS, it's not it must not be done, more like the 'the preference is not to, unless...'. I don't particularly agree or disagree with the link in this case, so I don't really care if it's removed. I didn't actually add it, I just moved it to the first mention of the subject in the article. Otherwise, I am familiar with overlinking, which you can see with my previous edit. But thanks anyway. Have a nice day. - wolf 19:47, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Twain

I was watching the PBS-Ken Burns, documentary on Twain, and opened the article just to clear up some questions I had about his life that arose during the program. I wondered if the tags were still appropriate, as I see they are. I noticed the considerable work you'd done on it and the frustration you felt in the process. I presumed you were a professional editor, so that was a pretty good guess. Then I looked at your "contributions" history and realized how much you've contributed and wanted to thank you for your efforts. Activist (talk) 06:11, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Activist: Thank you for your very kind and thoughtful comments! And yes, the Twain article was a frustration, especially given my fondness for his writings and humor. It is somewhat disappointing that such a great writer does not have a better tribute on Wikipedia, but I fear that I don't have the time to put one together—which is probably the reason that others have not done so, as well. But I am grateful for the fact that you took the time to stop by and leave me this encouraging comment. Thanks again! —Dilidor (talk) 09:59, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

George Washington

No need to revert George Washington Farewell Address edit. New version is accurate. Old version unnecessarily ambiguous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ecirpcire (talkcontribs) 01:20, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No, your edit actually changes the nuance of Washington's message. Leave it as it stands. —Dilidor (talk) 11:48, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain what specific nuance of Washington's message is being left out. Ecirpcire (talk) 11:54, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For starters, "look beyond their differences" is to recognize that there are differences but to get past them, whereas your "they do not have more than slight differences" suggests that the minor differences do not require any effort to overcome. You have neutered W's admonitions to the people to work hard at unity into some happy celebration of unity. Please just leave it as is. —Dilidor (talk) 12:01, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You are suggesting the literal opposite of what this part of George Washington's farewell address says. He says "slight shades of difference", I don't know how he could have acknowledged differences between Americans whilst emphasizing their relative insignificance more than that! Maybe "tiny particles of difference". You seem to think that his message is about overcoming substantial differences, it is not. Nothing he writes suggests he thought the slight differences were hard to overcome. I recommend you read the corresponding section of George Washington's farewell address. I will wait for your response, and am not stubborn about my specific wording of a summary of this section of his speech being the final edit, I don't care, but I was struck by the difference between his actual speech and what you keep reverting to. Ecirpcire (talk) 12:19, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

USS Constitution

The reasons given for your revert, besides being trivial, are incorrect. --Kbh3rdtalk 18:05, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Dilidor. You've been warned per the result of the edit warring complaint that you filed. You and the other party are both risking a block the next time you edit List of municipalities in Rhode Island unless you get a prior consensus for your change on the talk page. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 18:32, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Abusive language

Your string of commentary disparaging the writing of previous editors is not helpful. People have taken time to research and produce sourced content, a highly valuable contribution, and you respond by abusing their writing. An editor once told me, “we contribute what we are comfortable with.” If your skill is to improve writing through copy editing, then that is also a valuable contribution. But scolding and abusing those who took the time to produce content completely misses the point of the project, and does not create a collegial atmosphere. Please appreciate the efforts others have made, and improve the product where you can without abusing other editors. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 18:05, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Laszlo Panaflex: Points well taken—and taken to heart. Thank you for your own gentle tone in a helpful reproof. —Dilidor (talk) 18:19, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Overlinking"

You remove more links than necessary whenever you remove links on a page. Duplicate links are most times allowed in infoboxes under MOS:REPEATLINK. You also seem to remove links to specific things that aren't generally known by a typical reader. (WP:COMMONWORDS) You already got into disagreements with me and another writer at both Hartford, Connecticut and at List of municipalities in Rhode Island. Just please stop delinking more than what's really needed. —JJBers 01:55, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@JJBers: The problem that we keep having is that you do enormous wholesale reverts in order to restore one or two things that you feel are useful. Your revert on Block Island is a good example. You have restored utterly useless links to lists of every sovereign nation on the planet or a list of every state in the union or even a definition of what a state is! Do you seriously think that any reader on Wikipedia is going to find those links useful? If I have inadvertently removed a genuinely useful link, please simply restore that link individually in an edit rather than a wholesale revert. —Dilidor (talk) 09:56, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Andy Dingley: Thanks for the helpful input. —Dilidor (talk) 11:43, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK, so no discussion, just "You're right". Noted. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:51, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Andy Dingley: I had not noticed your links to my edits, so I acknowledge that you did provide at least that much clarification. Nonetheless, saying that these are "way excessive" is not particularly helpful. Explain why they are "way excessive" and offer suggestions on how to improve them. —Dilidor (talk) 11:58, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
JJBers has already covered most of it. Why would you remove links to Russian Empire, let alone RSFSR? The purpose of links is several: not merely to define the term, but also as a navigational path for those interested to learn more. Perhaps the notion of a pre-Soviet "Russian Empire" is well known, but that's no reason why a reader can't reasonably be expected to want to then read that article to discover more. Unlinking obscure acronyms in infoboxes is particularly unhelpful. If a term was significant enough to appear in an infobox, we would assume that it's important enough to ba potential navigation path, rather than an inexplicable acronym.
You are also making significant content changes, such as Within five years of his capture and execution by Soviet agents in 1925, the press had turned Reilly into a household name to Soviet agents executed Reilly in 1925, but the press had already made him a household name and hiding those behind comments such as "overlinking". Now I have no idea which is correct, this isn't my field, but clearly that's a 5 year shift you've made to the timeline. Also, why remove a cite to a long-established biography by a notable author, Robin Bruce Lockhart? If you did it "because it was tagged" then that's a pathetically bad reason and just shows that you didn't check when and why that tag had been added.
This is far from good editing, by someone who styles themself a "professional editor" and the closer one looks, the worse it appears. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Andy Dingley: Tone down the hostility and snideness in your responses if you want me to continue this discussion. I removed the final phrase with Lockhart citation because A) it was brought into question by another editor while B) adding nothing noteworthy to the sentence. I also removed many of the links to nations and kingdoms because such links are specifically discouraged here. As I pointed out above, the vast majority of readers who are interested in this article are not going to chase down a rabbit trail of "gee, I wonder what the Russian Empire was". Your concern re: the "household name" is valid, and I will immediately address the ambiguity which I inadvertently created. —Dilidor (talk) 12:26, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Then tone down the bad editing and the simplistic link stripping. You have three editors on this page complaining of your changes. Who's the common factor here?
You claim that I also removed many of the links to nations and kingdoms because such links are specifically discouraged. By which I presume you mean:
The names of subjects with which most readers will be at least somewhat familiar—unless there is a contextually important reason to link:
This generally includes major examples of geographic features
You are wrong in this. These are not geographical features, but historical features. The physical location of "Russia" might indeed be seen as such a well-known feature. However the terms at issue here are specific historical periods and Russia's government during them, in an article where the history of that region is a core aspect. They are thus both relevant, and yet relatively unknown for their specific details (to the levels relevant in this article). They ought to be linked. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:10, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Andy Dingley: If you are so exorcised over the Russian Empire link—then re-link it in another edit. However, your aggressive, abusive, and hostile tone has ended this discussion. —Dilidor (talk) 14:42, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What JJBers said. Why on earth de-link an obscure technical expression such as wrong-side failure and the only linked occurrence of British Rail in the whole article, as you did here? --Deeday-UK (talk) 01:21, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hawker Hurricane

In you edit today, you say added the last 3 words in this sentence: "On 6 November 1935, the prototype Hurricane K5083 performed its maiden flight in late 1934." This does not make sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.148.11.189 (talk) 13:25, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I've repaired my typo. —Dilidor (talk) 14:48, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bestselling

"Bestselling", "bestseller", etc, sans hyphen, is recommended by less conservative style guides, such as the Guardian's. I respect that it's not followed by everyone yet, but it's not "incorrect". Popcornduff (talk) 14:30, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly not a question that I feel strongly about, but I do think it's a stretch to suggest that hyphenating the phrase is "archaic". —Dilidor (talk) 17:13, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'd call it a stretch to call not hyphenating it incorrect. Wikipedia style is always the last to change; it's just about the last place online or off to treat "internet" as a proper noun. Popcornduff (talk) 17:40, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

LIRR shooting grammar

You reverted my moving the explanation to the position of an appositive. However, "He was held down for several minutes until Andrew Roderick boarded the train, an off-duty Long Island Rail Road police officer who was picking up his wife from the train, and he handcuffed Ferguson" makes it seem that the train was an off-duty police officer, as the phrase should refer to the immediately preceding noun. Perhaps the aside could be set off by em-quads, but the sentence as it nmow stands is very convoluted. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 13:17, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Piledhigheranddeeper: I've endeavored to make it clearer. The problem is that the sentence contains too many small details, many of which are irrelevant. —Dilidor (talk) 13:29, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Peeve Petting Zoo

Is it OK if I copy your Peeve Petting Zoo for my User Page?
Vmavanti (talk) 15:45, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Vmavanti: Absolutely! Please just keep your pets well-fed. —Dilidor (talk) 17:13, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Dilidor: As regards what appears to be an edit war over the Virginia Company The edits which you keep erasing and claiming are original research are not original research. The source "American History, Revolution to Reconstruction". definitely has all of that information. One must read the whole page. Please do not revert without discussion. thank youOldperson (talk) 02:01, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]


@Dilidor: After saying I would not get into verbal fisticuffs I certainly did, and I apologize for the rudeness and slander. As an explanation and not an excuse I underwent a craniotomy to remove a tumor, radiation of the brain, and am undergoing immunotherapy. I still try to live a normal life, and was working on the yard, I get exhausted within minutes and was not at my best when I wrote that garbage. Never the less it is apparent that you have not read the references on the second paragraph you deleted and I reverted again. And I added a reference [8] to the first paragraph that indeed does include the language about knights, gents, etc. I asked you yesterday to discuss. You never responded so I reverted. If you wish we can take this to the

Incident  board. I have never ever engaged in a revert war, nor have I ever reverted an edit into yours.

I would only do so when I feel justified, and in this case I feel justified.. Thank youOldperson (talk) 18:34, 15 January 2019 (UTC)![reply]

@Oldperson: I am very sorry to learn of your medical concerns, and hope that things improve quickly and dramatically. I have, however, replied to your questions and concerns—on the article's talk page. Please continue this discussion there rather than here. —Dilidor (talk) 18:40, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notice of Edit warring noticeboard discussion

Information icon Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:33, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:Dilidor, this doesn't look good for you. An administrator might decide to block your account. You seem to be too aggressive in removal of links (per your personal interepretation of WP:OVERLINK). You would need consensus to continue with this aggressive link removal, and it appears you don't have that consensus. If you are willing to make a promise about your future editing, there might still be time to avoid a block. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 17:36, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A promise of what nature? —Dilidor (talk) 17:43, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A promise to stop removing wikilinks unless you get a prior consensus on the talk page of each article concerned. EdJohnston (talk) 17:49, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That is a draconian expectation. Correcting over-linking is no different from other forms of improvement to an article. It is possible that my standards need to be lowered on what constitutes over-linking, and that would be a reasonable agreement to expect. But promising to never remove another wikilink without first seeking consensus? That is excessive. —Dilidor (talk) 19:03, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
We have a clear policy on edit-warring. You have proven unable to abide by it. So other editors are unlikely to be well-disposed to you making what is just a promise to keep doing what you've already been doing, and to remove links which you regard as excessive. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:17, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I am attempting to be conciliatory and to make changes in my editing approach. I'm asking that you also be reasonable in your expectations. You are effectively demanding that I never remove another wikilink, and that is not a reasonable expectation. Consider, for example, that it would include not removing a dead link! Please work with me. —Dilidor (talk) 19:27, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to butt in here, but I have some slight experience with Dilidor, and I believe his heart is in the right place, and he is quite competent, even if at times overzealous. Perhaps if everyone was on board, this could be resolved by Dilidor agreeing to a 1RR restriction when it comes to Wikilinks, with the understanding that things will escalate if it is broken? Just a thought. Feel free to ignore me, and have a nice day all. ETA: I just assumed Dilidor is male! My apologies if I am wrong. Dumuzid (talk) 20:09, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
He already had a 3RR restriction, and he never paid any attention to that. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:16, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
1RR seems a reasonable offer, if they'll agree to abide by it, and 3RR for all other edits. If they don't from this point on, then something stronger can be pursued. - BilCat (talk) 20:45, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know what 1RR and 3RR mean, nor was I aware of being "under restrictions" of any kind whatsoever. Can you please elucidate on these things so that I do not continue in ignorance? Thank you. —Dilidor (talk) 13:01, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You have twice been issued with a WP:3RR warning in just the last week, both times you blanked it. Now it's fine for you to blank warnings like that, but it's taken as a recognition that you have at least read them and hopefully understood them. For an editor who is not new to the site, and who is happy to continue obvious edit-warring past such warnings to claim ignorance of 3RR is not very convincing. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:06, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That is the third time that you have implied that I am lying. I find those implications deeply offensive and your behavior to be a very poor model of the sort of civility which you claim to be pursuing. Refrain from your offensive hints and accusations. —Dilidor (talk) 13:12, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:ANI is over here. But you still haven't deigned to reply at WP:ANEW, so you seem to have little interest in such things.
I have not accused you of lying. I do find your claimed ignorance of 3RR to be remarkable and your explanation of it unconvincing, but per WP:AGF I'm required to take it on trust. However that then brings up the issue of WP:COMPETENCE (you were given a very clear warning message twice). For an editor to be so high-handed about their own editing skill that they persistently ignore a parade of other editors telling them that it's not acceptable isn't a good start for then trying to plead ignorance of our basic policies. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:15, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm supposed to reply on the admin board?? I did not know that. I will, however, point out that both of you are demonstrating "high-handed" and haughty attitudes in your own replies here. The snarky accusations of "haven't deigned" and "high-handed" are merely making your accusations hypocritical. I do not lie, nor am I being disingenuous in attesting that I did not know what "3RR" was referring to. I do now, thanks to your rude explanations. I also now understand that I am expected to respond on the admin page and will do so shortly. But I no longer desire to continue this conversation, for I am weary of your hypocritical responses and accusations. —Dilidor (talk) 15:16, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Agreement to a 1RR on wikilink removal

I have recorded at WP:AN3 that you are accepting a 1RR restriction on your removals of wikilinks: 'Dilidor will not revert any editor who undoes their removal of a wikilink'. The restriction is indefinite unless removed at WP:AN. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 03:09, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

February 2019

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Shot heard round the world; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus, rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Points to note:

  1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made;
  2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes and work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing.
This sort of edit-warring: [6] [7] is not good behaviour here. Especially not for someone who has recently collected a related editing restriction.

Talk:Shot heard round the world#February 2019 Andy Dingley (talk) 16:10, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Information icon Hello, I'm Tgeorgescu. Wikipedia is written by people who have a wide diversity of opinions, but we try hard to make sure articles have a neutral point of view. Your recent edit to Nebuchadnezzar II seemed less than neutral and has been removed. If you think this was a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. More precisely the POV that the Book of Daniel would be historiography (except Vaticinium ex eventu) would be considered ludicrous at WP:CHOPSY. Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:55, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:JOBTITLES

Hello. Per MOS:JOBTITLES, this edit incorrectly capitalizes many occurrences of "president". Please observe the guideline, which is backed by community discussion and consensus. If you wish to discuss the guideline, please do so at its talk page. I would surely appreciate your assistance in reversing your changes, but otherwise I can do it myself. Thank you. ―Mandruss  19:38, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted some of the instances; others are correct as capitalized, such as the title of the office. —Dilidor (talk) 19:43, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Looks fine to me now. I was confusing you with that other editor who was incorrectly capitalizing on a much wider scale. I shall now go deal with that. ―Mandruss  19:46, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

French an Indian War

This is one of the sloppier reverts I've seen. I don't know what problem you thought you were trying to solve, but this revert didn't do it. Please be more careful in the future. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:22, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

George Washington article

You are welcome to edit on George Washington and I believe your editing is needed for FA review. I know there was an issue with another editor. Any contributions would be valued. Thanks. Cmguy777 (talk) 16:56, 12 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Cmguy777: Thank you for your kind words and encouragement. I did make a start recently, only to have that individual immediately revert it with scathing commentary and verbal abuse. Frankly, that user needs to be reigned in and rebuked by... well, whoever does the reigning in and rebuking here. I personally do not have the energy to constantly do battle with that person, because he has a most overbearing sense of ownership and control which he adamantly denies—and that is an insurmountable combination. Nonetheless, I will make another tentative attempt and see whether it gains approval from the Owner. —Dilidor (talk) 17:35, 12 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. I appreciate your valued edits on the George Washington article, much improved. There is a dilemna in the Farewell Address section. I believe the blocked quote is not needed and the "acclaimed" or praise information from scholars belongs in the Historical reputation and legacy section. Another editor disagrees. Any help on the matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Cmguy777 (talk) 02:26, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Heads-up on Referencing issue at George Washington

On March 14th you removed a Sfn reference (Ellis|2007) - the removal is not the issue - with this edit which left the full reference in the Bibliography/References section stranded. If you look at the article you should be able to see the following bolded reference warning: Harv warning: There is no link pointing to this citation. The anchor is named CITEREFEllis2007. When you remove Sfnm/Sfn references from within the text of articles that use the Harvard cite syntax, please also remove the full citation or anchor from the Bibliography/References section. I have not corrected this as I figured you would want to do it yourself. And thank you for all the work you have been doing on GW. Shearonink (talk) 04:46, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In this case the stranded citation is "Ellis, Joseph J. (2007). American Creation. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780307276452." Shearonink (talk) 04:53, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A Harv warning issue has also popped up with this edit. Since we are all hopeful that someday this article might achieve FA status, if you would remove the stranded anchor of "Wright, Robert K.; MacGregor, Morris J. (1987). "The Articles of Confederation". Soldier-statesmen of the Constitution. U.S. Army Center of Military History (U.S. Government). p. 27." that would be helpful towards that goal. Shearonink (talk) 04:53, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Shearonink: I would happily fix this if I knew how. Unfortunately, I have never understood how Sfn citations work; when I notice that an edit has broken one, I always undo the edit and try to avoid it. On this occasion, I did not notice the break. My apologies, but someone with more technical knowledge will need to fix that. —Dilidor (talk) 09:42, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I personally despise Harv cites and the whole Sfn/Sfnm nomenclature. It's not supported by the pre-loaded cite-templates and very few people understand how the system works and almost every article that uses Harv cites is littered with errors and warnings. /rant over lol...
If you don't mind I'll walk you through how to fix these issues yourself. I know I could do it but I also know that you can do it too...if I can teach myself about Harvard cites? *anyone* else around here (especially a careful editor like yourself) can do it as well.
  • Go to George Washington. You can even do a "page search" at the article for "Harv error" & you'll see the Ellis 2007 warning and the Wright Macgregor warning.
  • Open up an edit window for the Bibliography.
  • Search for Ellis. You'll find a couple of entries, he's a prolific author. Find the book he wrote in 2007. Delete it from the Bibliography/References. It's not needed anymore.
  • Search for Wright. There's only one book that he was an author of - delete that entry. It also is not needed anymore.
  • Hit the "Show preview" button. You will see that now both Harv errors have disappeared because you have fixed the issue.
I always check for any possible problems when I am adding/removing Sfn/Sfnms by using the Show preview button (before I hit "Publish changes") and by doing a page search for "Harv error" and "Harv warning". Then I can fix any issues before they get saved. Hope this helps, let me know if my instructions don't make sense. I had to teach myself all about the Harv cites (aka Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing). If you need to look at some examples for problem-solving & self-teaching I find that the Wikipedia:Harvard citation template examples page is the best. Cheers, Shearonink (talk) 18:02, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

C S Forester

It wasn't a revert as such just replacing awkward English. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 16:19, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Murgatroyd49: I am endeavoring to avoid the clumsy construction of "two novels, named...". Another possible construction would be "the Hornblower novels "X" and "Y". But pointing out that there are two of them is self-evident and unnecessary, and setting off the titles with commas is clunky. That's the reason why I tried different constructions to smooth it out. —Dilidor (talk) 16:51, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
My edit didn't have "named" in it and the whole point is that the two books were jointly named. Hate to say it but your latest edit is clunky too. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 16:55, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I recognize that your edit did not state "named"; my example was hypothetical intending only to convey my point. Regardless, I have smoothed it further still on my recent edit. The offending sentence actually brings up a greater problem: I don't think that the "joint award" is addressed in the body of the article. Perhaps I missed it; but if not, it needs to be addressed or else that sentence needs to be excised altogether. —Dilidor (talk) 17:48, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]


James Otis Jr.'s Reversion of Edits

Hi Dilidor,

I'm revising James Otis Jr.'s page. Can you please tell me why you reverted all my edits?

Jdang2019 (talk) 17:46, 10 April 2019 (UTC)JDang2019

The material that you were adding appeared to be original research. —Dilidor (talk) 10:22, 11 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Dilidor - can you explain which parts were original research so that we can work on fixing this? I checked over the last additions and it looks like Jdang2019 used the University of North Carolina Press book The Otis Family: In Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts to back up the content. The other additions may have been what you were more concerned with, as some of the content went a little wide to explain Otis Jr.'s inclusion, but it looks to have also been sourced by things like this journal article in The New England Quarterly that did specifically mention Otis Jr. I just need more information so that the student can improve their work. Since they also made a substantial edit during this time, I'm going to tag KylieTastic so that we can get as much feedback as possible. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:22, 11 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Shalor, I only reverted a vandal so I cannot really be of much help content wise. However the reverted content was referenced including much from "Subjecthood and Citizenship: The Context of James Otis’s Radical Critique of John Locke" that was already, and still is, used as a source. Without reading the sources it's difficult to judge but it doesn't look like standard unsourced "original research", so it would have to be a problem with interpretation of the sources beyond the scope of what was actually written. So from a outsider view it would seam a little over the top just to revert everything just citing OR without more detail. Is "The Otis Family: In Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts" not a valid source? Are the additions not true to what is written in the two sources used? Anyway sorry I cannot be of more help. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 13:40, 13 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I did not want to be critical here, so I simplified my reason by merely pointing to original research. But since the issue is being pressed, I'll be more detailed. The new material consisted largely of disjointed rambling facts with no points of connection between them and no explication as to why those factoids are being included: he favored businessmen, ok, but why is that of any significance in the article?

Then there are portions which sound suspiciously like direct lifting from an academic text, such as: "He formulated these notions in a theoretical structure that was unpopular during the American War of Independence." Even if those are the student's own words, what on earth do they mean? What is a "theoretical structure"? What specifically was Otis's theoretical structure? Why was it unpopular?

I have no idea what the context is for JDang2019's edits, but it sounds as though this person is a public school student carrying out an assignment. If so, this could be an excellent opportunity for the student to learn the importance of thinking through the implications of what he or she is reading in the text—to think critically. "Why did the author tell me this detail? How does it fit into the context? What does it reveal about Otis?" etc. Hope that helps to clarify my reversion. —Dilidor (talk) 16:54, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I just reverted the latest pass, as well. Each new paragraph had one citation at the end; is that one citation intended to cover the vast array of factoids covered in the entire paragraph? And again, the relationship is completely unclear between the factoids and the overall information and direction of the article. —Dilidor (talk) 18:24, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Siege of Springfield

Hello,

I'm a new to Wikipedia, trying to figure out why you removed some of my edits with regard to the Siege of Springfield, MA. You suggested that my information was unsourced. I indeed failed to list a few citations, and am working to correct those errors. However, there are a few other times in which you removed entire sections, including their original citations. Could you explain why you did so?

EX:

DELETED: These sites were excavated in the 19th and 20th centuries by anthropologists, who, as previously noted, took cultural objects and human remains and displayed them for years in area museums. With the passage of the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990, a long process of repatriation began. [1]

Thank you very much. Aureliano the Nth (talk) 17:21, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your source is a doctoral thesis, presumably unpublished. This is not a valid reference. Also, the information concerning anthropological research and local museums really isn't germane to the article. —Dilidor (talk) 10:47, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

The dissertation is distinctly available in the public record with an ISBN, accessibility on ProQuest, availability in published collections. Wikipedia's guidelines:

"Completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a doctorate, and which are publicly available (most via interlibrary loan or from Proquest), can be used..."

I see your point with regard to relevance, however I would also argue that one of the key components of the battle's "aftermath and legacy," such as in any battle, is its memorialization. The excavation of the site from which the Agawam attack was launched is integral to that legacy. Would you agree?

Aureliano the Nth (talk) 15:09, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your citation does not provide any way for a reader to find the thesis, including no ISBN. Thus, the source cannot be verified, and that really is the main issue here. I don't quite see how archeological excavation is considered a "legacy" of the battle, and the fact that some people considered it a desecration doesn't strengthen the argument any. But verifiability is the main problem. —Dilidor (talk) 16:18, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

I revised the citation of the dissertation to include further information such as OCLC and URL, making it easily accessible to any viewers. However, you still deleted the source. Furthermore, you deleted a series of other revisions I made which had no connection to this dissertation. Could we discuss just a few of these?

1. In a process Lisa Brooks calls "the deed game," Native people lost their land to alcohol, debt, and other practices (ex: purchasing land from an Indian who had no personal right to sign it over.[2]

This is a crucial part of the history of the battle - the only two settlers killed in the initial attack had both feuded, publicly, with Native people over land. Indeed, this is part of a war-pervading pattern in which Native warriors targeted specific English targets with whom they had had hostile interactions.

2. Some individuals became deeply enmeshed in colonial life, even becoming employed by white households. However, there was a simultaneous effort by the English to enforce social division, including bans on interracial marriage, English habitation among Indians, and Native presence in English towns during nighttime hours.[3]

This is relevant when considering Toto, the Native man from Windsor who saved Springfield by giving them advance warning of the attack. He lived as part of an English household, presumably a deciding factor in where his loyalties fell.

3. The spilling of Native blood at the foot of Sugarloaf Hill was a critical moment. For Native people, the hill was remembered as the body of the Great Beaver, the subject of an ancient story who was killed to prevent his dams from flooding Native planting lands. The battle invoked this story, provoking a valley-wide kinship network against the English.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

I believe that the motivations of the attacking side in the battle - the attack on sacred land and the taking of hostages - are relevant to understanding it. You also deleted the entire story of how the English received advanced warning. I assure you that all of this information is as authoritatively sourced as possible - this is a mix of 19th and 20th century histories, along a recent book which recently won the Bahncroft Prize. I very much want to make this into a well-sourced, detailed, thorough article that discusses the battle in all of its complexities, and I have appreciated your input but also struggled to understand some of your decision processes. Please let me know how I can ensure that the above information can remain.

^^

I know this section has gone on for a while, so I just wanted to bump this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aureliano the Nth (talkcontribs) 13:37, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Pilgrims

I do not seek a revert war. However the term Pilgrim is apocryphal, it is purely American and in fact it was created for propaganda purposes. In fact many Americans believe and text books promote the idea that the founding of the U.S. started with the so called Pilgrims. They weren't Pilgrims. They were a sect of Puritans, there were at least three sects of Puritans,so called because they were Anglicans (Church of England)that disapproved of the rituals, structure and leadership of the Church of England. The term Pilgrim did not become popular until the 19thCentury https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AwrXnCLYs_5cQl4AdgVPmolQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjR0MTVzBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwM3BHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--?qid=20060917202225AAjoJ6f and they were not oppressed in England. These people were rigid, intolerant and vicious, the government they established in Massachussets was a theocracy. They even tried to get Cromwell's parliament to authorize polygamy. Parliament would not condone or approve their form of religion, as it was too intolerant. Their rigidy resulted in Roger Williamsbeing banished and establishing his own government based on separation of church and state in Rhode Island.

I don't know whom I'm talking to, since you did not sign your post. But there are many things wrong in what you state, and it's hard to know where to begin. First, the term "pilgrims" was drawn from the words of William Bradford's journal, who referred to himself and his fellow travelers as "pilgrims". The term did not come into popular use until the early 1800s, but it was not invented by later generations.
I have no idea what you mean by "apocryphal", and your contention that it was propaganda is outlandish. On what do you base that notion? And of course it's purely American! We're discussing the people who founded America!
Nonetheless, you negate this entire discussion by tipping your hand on your profound prejudice and hatred toward the Puritans themselves when you rant that they "were rigid, intolerant and vicious". And to suggest that "they were not oppressed in England" is ludicrous—unless you consider being thrown in prison a freeing experience. Please learn more about the history of the Puritan Pilgrims. —Dilidor (talk) 10:13, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I see that you are unaware of American History, the Puritans were not founders of America. That distinction goes to the Jamestown Colony, and in specific the officers of the Virginia Company of London. The "Great Charter" of 1619 provided for self governance of the colony, which served as the foundation for the government of the United States.

And I see by your own statements that your prejudices are known. Enough said. I see no profit in backand forth accusations.

By the way America is a continent, it includes North, Central and South America. North America Includes Canada. Canada and U.S.A. have two different political systems. Canada belongs to the Commonwealth of Great Britain, U.S.A does not.

The Puritans were indeed rigid and intolerant and superstitious as well, to wit: the Salem Witch Trials. Those are facts. The Puritans left England because they could not practice their intolerant form of religion. In 1531 Mary Latham was executed for adultery, lesser punishments were whipping and banishment. The laws were not applied equally to men and women (just as in Islamic countries).

Religion per se, regardless of denomination is intolerant, rigid and tends to fundamentalism.Christian,Jew,Islam. Puritans were not singled out for "persecution". In1593 in England, a law was passed that was "anti separatist", and there were was more than one nascent protesting congregations at the time. The anti separatist law required everyone over the age of 16 to attend the local parish church on penalty of exile or death.


As regards the history of the Puritans, it is obvious that I know more about the subject than you. For instance there were at least three Puritan factions, and they were not a separate religion,but devotees of the Chuch of England (Anglicans) that sought to "purify" the religion, according to their own prejudices. As regards imprisonment, none were imprisoned for their beliefs; Ifso provide a source.

Separatists, not Puritans, were imprisoned, but Puritans were not Separatists, they were men who wanted to reform the Church of England. For your edification. http://www.us-roots.org/colonialamerica/religion/history.html also the Act against Puritans:https://history.hanover.edu/texts/ENGref/er86.html;. There was virtually no Puritan migration between 1649 and 1660 because this was the period of the Cromwellian (Parliamentarian Government).

Here is a definition of apocryphal https://www.dictionary.com/browse/apocryphal. It certainly applies to the useage of the word Pilgrim as applies to the Puritans. As regards William Bradford referring to himself as a pilgrim that is different than Pilgrim. A pilgrim is a devotee who travels to a holy place. Virginia (as it was known then to the colonists) was not a holy place. Referring to Puritans as Pilgrims is 19th Century religious/political propaganda as is this notion that they were the foundation of America, and it's representative government.Oldperson (talk) 16:59, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Enough said. I see no profit in backand forth accusations." Amen. Except, next you write this—shut up. —Dilidor (talk) 17:08, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
What's your problem? Are you a teenager trying to prove something. I didn't revert your revert. I simply clarified the status of pilgrims. Were they or were these "pilgrims" Puritans? Were they Catholics, Separatists, Congregationalists? No. They were Puritans. I did not argue with your insistence that they were pilgrims, simply clarified there religious denomination. Puritan pilgrims is quite accurate.

And it is you who is starting a revert war. Youhave reverted me twice. Go ahead Report me. Actually I think I will report you. And for ABF as well. Oldperson (talk) 02:35, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Copy editing on The Sopranos

Hi, why are you removing many wikilinks with no apparent reason? --Mazewaxie 11:07, 4 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The links are to absurdly simple or generic things, such as definitions of words, genres of film, or names of cities such as New York. They clutter the article to the point of near unreadability. And on top of all this, they are linked over and over and over and over and over. How many times do we need a link to HBO?? —Dilidor (talk) 11:21, 4 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Merger discussion for Clark Kent

An article that you have been involved in editing—Clark Kent—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 19:33, 28 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ Bruhac, Margaret (May 2007). HISTORICAL ERASURE AND CULTURAL RECOVERY: INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN THE CONNECTICUT RIVER VALLEY (Thesis).
  2. ^ Brooks, Lisa (2018). Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-19673-3.
  3. ^ Thomas, Peter. Buckley, Kerry (ed.). A Place Called Paradise chapter=Chapter 1: Into the Maelstrom of Change. ISBN I-55849-485-5. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Missing pipe in: |title= (help)