User talk:EdJogg/Archive 1

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An archive of EdJogg's WP:THOMAS-related discussions between 06 June 2006 and 06 June 2007.
For all other topics, please see: /Archive 2.

WP:Thomas

Welcome back from me and all of WP:Thomas! Mdcollins1984 13:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. (It's nice to be considered part of the team!)

And thank you for all the work you have put in on WikiProject Thomas - most of the boring structural stuff must be complete by now, and we can soon concentrate on content! (I'm still digging through my watchlist backlog, but I keep getting sidetracked :o) !)

EdJogg 13:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was structurally ok (apart for the lack of RS pics) - but there is talk of re-re-rationalisation, because someone doesn't agree about the Major/Minor/Unfeatured Characters organisation. They have all been marked for clean-up already too! Mdcollins1984 10:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

First, regarding 'cleanup'. I was surprised to see this too. Having had a think about it, I think I know why. One reason for this tag, I suspect, is the treatment of 'headings'. For example, in Minor characters in The Railway Series, each of the Mountain Engines has a (level 4?) heading, followed immediately by the character name, as the first word in the sentence, also being in bold. If you look at Diesel Engines, immediately above, you'll see that the treatment is slightly different, and just that bit easier on the eye.

(I've also seen a number of areas that need copy-editing, so I'll go and do that now!)

Second, regarding the article structure. If I were to say "I think you've gone to far", that would sound very rude, which is not the intention, but I think it is nevertheless correct. Again, considering the Mountain Engines... The Culdee Fell Railway has plenty of space to cover all the engines and rolling stock associated with the Mountain Railway, yet now links over to 'Minor Characters'. I suggest moving over all of the character details you have created, back to Culdee Fell Railway, and replacing them with a simple bullet list and a cross-link on 'Minor Characters'.

I think this was also the original intention of the character rationalisation. Culdee Fell Railway, Mid Sodor Railway, Skarloey Railway, Arlesdale Railway are the correct places for the actual character descriptions. Minor Characters can be used as a starting point for further reference, and the actual repository for the other minor characters. (Also avoids two character descriptions for Duke!) This will also have the major beneficial effect of shrinking the enormous contents list for that page!

Does this make sense? I think if the narrow/miniature gauge characters are moved to their respective pages, this page will become more manageable.

EdJogg 12:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Hadn't thought of that! I was aware that I may have been getting a bit carried away, but my mental rationalisation was the need for consistency and that by looking for characters in the series one would expect to find them in one place. Hence I moved them and cross-linked them from the Railway line pages. Working this the other way is fine by me, if you feel it needs doing. Now I remember what started this in my mind, was that the characters from the major lines (by nature the more major characters) were taken from those pages into the Major/Minor pages which seemed inconsistent. In order not to get into hot water, I have left dealing with those pages for a minute!

It is worth checking for more 'new' pages that are created, without anyone noticing, primarily due to the lack of linking to/from the pages, and the entries in the various categories.

I have just re-organised The Railway Series too if you'd care to take a look.

Mdcollins1984 12:31, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I've just finished the first cleanup activity on Minor Characters. I think this goes a long way towards addressing the 'cleanup' concerns.

'Major characters' needs the same treatment. I have already moved 'Rolling Stock' to match 'Minor Characters', but I noticed that the 'Non-Railway Character' headings are all screwed up. (Sorry, no time to fix these today)

In doing these pages I discovered that the contents list generation code is intelligent - it allows you to skip a level (eg from '=' to '===') and still maintain the correct numbering. It is important to note that the number of '=' used determines the font size and whether there is an underline, and this should be consistently applied across an article. At present this is not entirely possible with 'Minor Characters', without adding even more headings, but this issue will go away when the Culdee/Skarloey/Arlesdale/etc characters are moved.

Had a quick look at The Railway Series. First sight it looks OK (although I initially missed the new reference to The Railway Stories). Will have to check more thoroughly some other time. You may want to double-check that the heading levels are as you intend them to be - I wasn't sure whether some of the sub-headings were supposed to be 'sub-' or not.

Back to work now... :o( EdJogg 13:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I've had another go at The Railway Series. I've adjusted some of the heading levels, simplified a few titles, and moved (and renamed) 'Cameo Appearances', which had been dropped in the wrong place. Hopefully the result still achieves the logical order that you were aiming for.

OK? EdJogg 15:51, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Fine. I've done some minor copyediting. I was just wondering whether the "history" of the Sodor railways, would actually be better on Sodor (fictional island) (I'd also be happy to reinstate the list of "current" railways on the island - think I may have made a mistake moving that paragraph onto Fictional locations).

Mdcollins1984 16:xx, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, having considered which page should 'own' the information, I agree that the 'History of railways' should be moved (as a section) to the Island of Sodor page, since it is the most logical 'main' page for this. And, yes, I would agree that you should re-instate the list of railways on the Sodor page - I would be inclined to move the whole chunk of railway descriptions from Fictional Locations (excepting Barrow Station, which should remain, moved into its correct place in the list of Sodor towns).

EdJogg 23:04, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Oliver

Original message posted by User:EdJogg on User:Gonzerelli's talk page:

Oliver the Great Western Engine - separate page, or re-direct?

Hi again! Your recent change to Railway engines (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends)#Oliver, to remove the link to Oliver the Great Western Engine seems to be verging on 'edit war' territory! I have no particular problem with your edit, but I think I can see why it is happening.

If you look at the linked page for Oliver, you will see that the article has a lot of text (actually, of little interest to a fan of The Railway Series! :o)). Hence, there are several users who presumably feel that it is 'the main article', and therefore should be linked-to.

I haven't tackled the link issue, since I think the separate page must be tackled first. WP:THOMAS identified Oliver as a 'Major character', without his own page, but this doesn't seem to have been reflected elsewhere. Even Major characters in The Railway Series - where Oliver and Bill & Ben are the only major (steam engine) characters without a 'Main Article' link - cross-links to Oliver the Great Western Engine, which is primarilly TV Series text.

Hope you can understand my reasoning... EdJogg 09:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi there Ed,

Something may have slipped past my eye, but when I first set up the Character Page Rationalisation mini-project (dating back to Feb-Mar), I set the guideline that only engines 1-10, Emily, Bertie, Harold, Terence, Trevor and Annie/Clarabel were to have their own individual pages. Since then, I have temporarily relaxed it a little to allow the Skarloey engines their own pages for now (although when pages are more structured I would like to phase these out too).

The basic reason for Oliver, in my view, not having his own page is that he was a "late" addition to both series, particularly the TV Series. This hasn't allowed him to develop to the extent of, say, Duck or Gordon. As Oliver the Great Western Engine currently stands, it holds a lot of superfluous content - detailed descriptions of specific episodes (also with a little much TV focus for my liking), as opposed to the limited story information on other pages, like James the Red Engine. Once we take the time to "weed out" the waffling, there wouldn't be all that much left, to prevent us from simply using it as part of a larger article. In particular, from a TV Series perspective, I would argue that Railway engines (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends)#Oliver contains more useful information than a "weeded" Oliver the Western Engine. As such, there would be no point redirecting to the individual article.

The reason I'm going to stand fairly strong on this is that if we start to make small allowances here and there, we'll just end up with the same mess of pages we used to have. It would go something like: Well, we've given Oliver his own page, how abot Bill and Ben? They're popular too... Oh but Daisy was much more prominent than Bill & Ben ever were, so she deserves her own page... BoCo didn't do much in the TV Series, but a lot of things revolved around him in the Railway Series, and hey the Bill and Ben story wouldn't be complete without him... And since we've got the first two Diesels, we should really have D3, or Bear, having his own page... And why not add Mavis too, she's much-loved, and it's another female character for us... And so it would continue, with an "excuse" or "allowance" being made for more and more characters...

I hope my reasons are clear, and will copy this onto the WP:THOMAS Talk page.

Kind regards, Gonzerelli 14:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Reasons are crystal clear. I'll let you get on and sort out Oliver the Western Engine and its redirects then :o)

PS - The Skarloey Railway engines are a whole different problem (as you'll have seen from my conversations with User: Mdcollins1984)...

EdJogg 16:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Culdee Fell Railway

I was just getting around to moving the Culdee Fell engines back to Culdee Fell Railway et al., but doing so will lose the distinction between The Railway Series/TV series, presumably causing edit conflicts etc. Thought I'd ask your opinion before doing anything.

Mdcollins1984 09:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Need to engage brain - of course Culdee Fell hasn't appeared in the TV series, but Skarloey has...Mdcollins1984 09:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi again. I'll try to have a look at lunchtime! (in a couple of hours time) I really ought to be working now, not reading Wikipedia :o)

EdJogg 09:39, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Umm, sorry. Checked Culdee Fell Railway engines (and updated important links found pointing to 'Minor characters...'), then got side-tracked and moved the Arlesdale Railway engines instead of looking at the Skarloey Railway/Mid Sodor Railway issues...! Willl try to look another day!

EdJogg 13:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Arlesdale Railway

Have moved loco descriptions from Minor characters in The Railway Series to Arlesdale Railway, to match approach taken for Culdee Fell Railway engines.

The most significant links to 'Minor characers...' have been updated, but some of Felix's creations remain. (Recommend deletion for these in the future, as they would not be found by accident!)

EdJogg 13:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Anchored Page Links

Redirects to anchored links DO work. See Bear the Diesel Engine for an example.... EdJogg 09:39, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, they redirect to the page, but not to the sub heading. It matters to me, I'll have to grow out of worrying about it :-)

Mdcollins1984 09:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

That's what I thought too. (See the WP:THOMAS Project talk page ( here) - I have visited this problem before!).

I have found that they don't work while editing (ie in preview). After you have saved the page, try again and the link should work correctly. However, it is possible that it is a browser or server cache issue - occasionally I have found that they don't work as I want.

I would encourage you to apply them regardless of whether you can see them working. They work for me (mostly!) and others and are very useful.

They do have an important limitation: the link colouring is taken from the main page, not the anchor. So it is not possible to highlight a missing anchor as a red link without cheating (as you may have seen me do before!)

EdJogg 10:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Still nothing for me - never mind! Mdcollins1984 10:24, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Important point - bot edits may not modify redirect pages correctly - anchors may be lost. (So re-check pages following a bot edit).

EdJogg 13:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Minor Characters

Hi. Do you think the Minor Characters page is now at an acceptable level? It seems to be doing well although it is still tagged for cleanup. It looks a bit odd with the headings at the top of the article (ie with no text between Standard Gauge and Steam engines, but I'm not sure what can be done about that. If its fine, we can probably remove the cleanup tag. Mdcollins1984 11:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

There have been approaching 100 edits since the cleanup tag was added. Unfortunately, User:HonestTom did not specify what needed doing. However, if you look at the page as it was when he tagged it, you will see it includes images from the TV series, missing images, text for characters from the various railways (since moved), an enormous TOC box with blank space, etc.

So, you can DEFINITELY remove the cleanup tag. I would suggest that we also need to add some text between the headings 'Standard Gauge Engines' and 'Steam Engines', if only to indicate that most either run on or are visitors to the NWR. (Perhaps a link to standard gauge too?) The other headings could be similarly treated, for the benefit of non-fans!

EdJogg 16:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Good stuff, that man! It's much better now. I hope you'll excuse me for having tweaked your new text further - it's always that much easier editing someone else's work than trying to write it yourself. But I think it's just about 'there' now - just minor facts to add.

The Skarloey Engines bit is still 'wrong' (not your fault!). It refers directly to the 'Major Skarloey Engines' (by a 'Main' link), and then dives straight into Ivo Hugh. No mention of Skarloey, Rheneas, Peter Sam, etc I still reckon that the characters would be better served grouped together on the Skarloey Railway page, like the other railways are. Gonzerelli had some ideas about that (see talk page for the Thomas template, I think), but they haven't come to light yet. I was waiting to find out his plans before diving in myself....

EdJogg 01:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Well done! I agree that it is easier to change other people's work than it is to create your own. Let me know if I can help re: Skarloey etc. I just decided it was worth sorting out!! Feel free to keep changing my text - I don't mind! Mdcollins1984 02:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfair image use

Chin up mate, I've not disappeared - been busy with a couple of other projects, but I'm still vandal-checking even if I'm not reverting on site (!) - sometimes it seems easier to leave it for a day or two, then revert 6 edits at once!

I'm still coming to grips with all of this enforcement, and its currently too late after a long day, for me to comprehend. It seems that to keep any images at all will need a lot of work, I'm happy to play a leading part in that, but only when we (I) know exactly what we (I) have to do. The trouble will be if some overzealous enforcer removes all of the content before we have a clear view of what needs to be done. It all seems a bit over-the-top, and in my mind WP:FAITH doesn't apply anymore. I agree that some notice period would be nice, but would be very surprised if that doesn't happen. Similar to a 5-day prod warning, even a 2-week notification would be very helpful wouldn't it.

It does seem like it will be down to muggins, yourself and Gonz to do all of the donkey work (again!), as I imagine the rest of WP:THOMAS don't have the skill/capability/sense to do anything about it. I may be wrong...

It seems we both share the same view that copyrighted/non-free material shouldn't be used, but like a lot of editors can't really see what harm a scan of a book cover will do, other than enhance the reputation of the publishers... (Should keep that quiet though, Durun wouldn't agree! even if he does put a hell of a lot of work into it) Them rules are the rules are the rules...

We'll get through this, somehow, sometime...

I'll read up over the next few days, but keep in touch. Let me know of any major developments to your mini-essay! –MDCollins (talk) 22:30, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Good to hear from you. I saw you had been somewhat busy with the KP article! I've been busy all over the place -- so easy to get side-tracked here, especially when linked to several projects!

My 'appeal' did produce some useful pointers, although it also helped fuel the already incendary discussions going on over there. As I see it, the problem will be as follows:

1. creating valid 'fair-use rationales' for all the pictures (some are easier than others)
2. ensuring that each image has the appropriate 'critical commentary' associated
3. Complying with all the other gudelines for Fair Use (like 'source' for the screenshots).

I had a bit of a think earlier, and I reckon the initial tasks need to focus on the images themselves.

1. Make downloaded copies of as many images as possible, to allow restoration at a later date (this will also have the benefit that the images will be in our names, and hence any notification will be directed to us.)
2. Apply FURs to the images, starting with those for the individual character pages, since these are easiest to justify and hence safest. (They're only 'safe' once the FUR is in place, otherwise it would make sense to target the most threatened!)
3. Work out what we do about the other images...I'm afraid the long-term goal is likely to be the exact opposite of what we've tried to achieve over the past year, namely the splitting of grouped articles to feature more characters on their own pages. The books will need a page each too, although these may provide a better home for some of the minor characters. Sigh!

EdJogg 00:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Further thoughts...

1. Just looked at the 'Recent Changes' list from the project page (you know, the one that works on your article list). Very annoying: it doesn't show bot edits!! So we can't use it to spot the bot-identified images that are scheduled for deletion. (I'll start a list on the project talk page.)
2. The screenshot images are not in your article list, and I suspect that they are not yet categorised. May I request that they are added to an appropriate cat when they are edited?

EdJogg 08:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

My turn to lay a rant down, here - in particular due to the request for FUR, but the deletion of the image 2 hours later, at 2am. Ridiculous. I have linked to your rant as well for some more eyes! –MDCollins (talk) 09:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Good point. EdJogg 10:45, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I've started a sort-of 'Project Plan' over at WP:THOMAS, based on some of the ideas above. It's probably best if the project-related discussions continue over there. EdJogg 17:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The Railway Series book table

I had done some work on updating the links on the book table - you may wish to update your user page. I think I got to about book 25/6 but they may need checking again! Mdcollins1984 10:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I will try to remember to. (Actually I had forgotten it was there!) My WP:THOMAS'ToDo' list is somewhat out-of-date now - I've been too busy editing to maintain it! :o)

NB - We still need to find someone with a copy of book 39 to complete the list of characters added!

EdJogg 12:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify - I've updated the table on The Railway Series, not on your userpage (it was that I was refering to, not the fact that your userpage/ToDo list was out of date!

Best, Mdcollins1984 12:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Duck

Hi Ed,

I didn't read who had made which comments on Duck the Great Western Engine, and had snapped fairly firmly without realising part of it was by you. It definitely is frustrating, but to put notes to our vandals within the articles themselves is practically conceding defeat. We'll just have to keep reverting crap, as time-consuming as it is. Gonzerelli 14:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Gonzerelli. That page, and Oliver the Western Engine had to be reverted twice in the space of about half an hour and my 'unencyclopedic' paragraph was rather a knee-jerk reaction. Out-of-character I think you'd agree. Actually, I'm surprised it took as long for anyone to notice - I was expecting our vandal to come back straight away. Just as well you did spot it, because I had moved onto fixing 'Oliver', and have since been working elsewhere. Goodness knows how long it might have stayed in place!

I'm having to take a back seat with the vandal watching now, since Season 10 has become 'live', as I don't know the facts. I'll continue playing with the books side of things instead...

EdJogg 14:20, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The Railway Series article list

Hi,

I have just done some work on your list of Railway Series articles page to update some of the locations work. It now gives us a place where we can check the dis-ambig pages for extra incorrectly located material such as that at Knapford.

On another point, how are we refering to Oliver? I was thinking about editing some of it to read 'Oliver the Great Western Engine' before realising that it was your work. As such I assumed you were clear in what you were doing so didn't correct! :-). To be consistent, is he 'Oliver the Western Engine'?

Mdcollins1984 07:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! I had hoped others might see it and join in - you will appreciate what an enormous task it is just gathering all the pages and redirects, let alone searching for and fixing them. In due course I may put the location links in a table with the grouped links, as I have done for the characters - but this is best done piecemeal to avoid boredom! Please feel free to add more yourself... :o)

Currently the characters (etc) are being added at random - pretty much 'as I encounter them' during other work - but I find the copyable links are useful. (This is why only two of the books are listed so far.)

Now, Oliver. I changed the references to Oliver the Western Engine to match the book title, and was surprised to find a redirect of that name as well as the original article name of Oliver the Great Western Engine. The changes were brought about following a spate of vandalism, as Oliver was NOT supposed to have his own page but people kept re-enabling the link to it. If Oliver is referred to as 'the Great Western Engine' anywhere in the books, I'll agree to change it, but I suspect you'd find he was just plain 'Oliver'.

EdJogg 08:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Railway Series books

Hi EdJogg. It's my pleasure adding the Railway Series book covers. Felix Cheng 14:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Season 10 Page

Again, I'm sorry for removing the colons from the Season 10 page. I didn't check the history before editing, so I didn't know who added those. I re-added them & removed punctuation. I just noticed that the other pages for Seasons 1-9 had punctuation & no colons, so I figured that this was some sort of error on that page. Keep up the good work! :) Rusty5 02:06, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Apology accepted, and my apologies in return for criticising you for what was, in fact, a 'good faith' edit. It's not the first time my edits have been temporarily mislaid due to anti-vandal work - goes with the territory, I guess!

EdJogg 07:55, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Fictional Locations (again)

Hi,

I have just noticed that User:Hammersfan appears to be re-creating all of the major town's fictional locations pages again. Before reverting, I thought I'd ask for your opinion. The user doesn't appear to be part of WP:Thomas but I am unsure what to do about it. Any ideas? Admittedly the Fictional locations in The Railway Series has been getting large with lots of small sections, but surely that was the intention.

Thanks,

Mdcollins1984 11:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for drawing this to my attention.

When I saw the first such change (Barrow-in-Furness railway station) I was rather amused - I liked the idea that a real railway station could have a 'Fictional Railways' box too. And I think this box is the basic reason for all of User:Hammersfan's changes.

The Fictional locations in The Railway Series page is large, but not by Wikipedia standards (check out some of the Featured Articles such as Lord of the Rings!!). I thought it was coming along nicely, with very readable descriptions of the various towns, and nearly every town covered. So, firstly, I do not agree with splitting-out the entries to separate articles again - this goes against one of the fundamental aims of WP:THOMAS. Those changes should be reverted.

Next, what to do about the 'Fictional Railways' boxes? For a 'real' railway station, there should be enough to talk about for it to have its own article. Therefore it makes sense to provide a means of navigating along the line. However, there's not much that can be said about any of the fictional stations. It is incorrect to put these boxes on the location 'disambig' pages (such as Dryaw), since the box can only describe the railway as it is presented in the books. The TV series railways are much less clearly defined, and probably don't include al the same stations. So, the 'Fictional Railway' boxes should be removed from the dab pages.

But, to be fair to User:Hammersfan, the use of the 'Fictional Railways' boxes is a nice idea. So, is there any mileage in adding them to each of the stations on the 'Fictional locations...' page? Would this make it look too messy? I think it may not, as each box would provide the extra break between sections that is so desperately needed on that page. The side-effect of adding them is that a user could use the box links to navigate up and down the lines, 'visiting' each station on the page in turn. Incidentally, the 'sub-heading' under North Western Railway could be an appropriate anchored link - eg to the branch line section on the NWR page - more work, but worthwhile, I feel.

This will be a not insignificant task to complete (I suggest you try a few first and see what it looks like!). So, perhaps it is worth contacting User:Hammersfan on his talk page and try to get him on board - he might even join the project.

Hope this helps! -- EdJogg 11:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi EdJogg. Thanks for your reply. I've sent a message to User:Hammersfan, which i've copied here, and also his reply. He seems unresponsive...! Maybe you could have a go. I thought I'd give him a chance to reply before reverting his edits. Mdcollins1984 10:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Quote:

Dear Hammersfan,

May I point you in the direction of WikiProject Thomas: a project aimed at sorting all of the articles related to Thomas the Tank Engine, the books and the TV series.

One of the aims of this project was to reduce the number of short articles related to Thomas, and this included all of the fictional locations - joining all except the main towns into Fictional locations in The Railway Series. The other reason for this was to separate the differences between The Railway Series and Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.

While the work you have done, recreating these pages with the novel fictional line linking box seems like a good idea, it has gone against some of the aims of WP:THOMAS. We have been looking at your work and have thought that perhaps, if the reason for your edits was for the insertion of your box - it could perhaps be added to the relevant Fictional locations in The Railway Series page. This is partly due to the differences between the stations in the books and the TV series in which they may be in a different order or the stations may be different altogether.

Take a look at WP:THOMAS and please consider joining us to improve Thomas on Wikipedia.

Best wishes,

Mdcollins1984 09:27, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Quote reply:

While I have added a couple of pages regarding locations on the Island of Sodor (Crovan's Gate, Ballahoo), the majority existed already, and all I have done is add the text from the Fictional Places in the Railway Series page. The two that I have added are significant interchanges according to the map based on Awdry's, and in my mind worthy of inclusion as main pages, particularly as Ballahoo includes reference to Henry's Tunnel and the joint National Rail/NWR route from Barrow, and Crovan's Gate is the location of "The Works". The only other new location I had a mind to include was Arlseburgh, as the only town on the island seemingly with two railway stations, and the interchange between the NWR and the Arlesdale Railway. As regards the references to the TV series, this could also be included on the main pages under headings. Hammersfan 10.45 BST, 27/10/06

End Quote.

Well, I have added my reply after yours (see below), and we'll see what happens.

I have tried a mockup of 'Fictional locations' with some boxes added and I think it will look OK. If the boxes are added AFTER the text, they provide a natural break between each entry. I think they will need to include the station name (which they do not need to at present) so that it is absolutely clear which box relates to which station. I have suggested to User:Hammersfan that the colours used for the line should follow those on the 'Harry Beck' map of Sodor - red for Skarloey, purple for Culdee Fell Railway, etc, as they were chosen with a logic that reflected their origins in the books.

I don't have time to patrol these changes at present, so I'll have to let you keep an eye on things. I am also avoiding applying any corrections to the locations pages since these would likely be lost when the pages are reverted. Hopefully Hammersfan will start pulling in the same direction as us (I mean, Felix did, in the end, didn't he?) and reversion will not be needed. However, if you do have to revert and start to enter 'potential edit war' territory, I can recommend a particular railway-enthusiast admin who is symapthetic to the project aims and can apply more weight if required.

Regards EdJogg 12:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

<<<< Quote (start): >>>>

Dear Hammersfan

Your current editing on 'Fictional Locations' is undoing a great deal of effort applied by various members of WP:THOMAS over the past few months. So please stop and consider the following before you continue.

One of the prime aims of WP:THOMAS is to reduce the vast number of individual pages associated with The Railway Series and Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. This has been achieved through the combining of individual character pages into group pages. It is an on-going project, although it was largely complete for the various aspects of The Railway Series books.

I support your idea of adding the "Fictional Railways" box for the stations on Sodor. However, I do not agree with the way it is being done. There is already a clearly defined structure to the coverage of 'Fictional Locations': all stations are described in Fictional locations in The Railway Series, with a cross-link provided to the equivalent TV Series entry, where appropriate. Only a few 'significant' places (Ffarquhar for example) would retain individual pages, as they could be covered in more depth -- but even this was under review. The 'original' pages, such as Dryaw and Gordon's Hill, would never amount to much more than a paragraph of meaningful text, and they had been retained as disambiguation pages (if the location features in both book and TV series), or just redirects.

You are obviously putting a lot of time and effort into this restructuring, and we (WP:THOMAS) would like to capitalise on that. If you would like to add 'Fictional Railways' boxes, please add them (only) to the entries in Fictional locations in The Railway Series (after the text). They are not appropriate on the individual location pages, as the locations (and hence the boxes) can differ between TV Series and books. It would be confusing to users to see TWO boxes, so they will need to be removed.

As a suggestion, could you please use the line colouring shown on the 'Harry Beck Map' on Sodor (fictional island). It's not essential, but there is a logic to the colours chosen and would be more harmonious.

Please do not consider this request as a threat. I am sure that you are applying these changes 'in good faith'. However, as your changes are directly opposed to one of the basic tenets of WP:THOMAS you may well find that some of the project's founders take a less charitable view to your efforts, and you may find the whole lot reverted (it wouldn't take very long), considering your efforts as 'vandalism'.

Finally, you are obviously a 'Thomas fan', so please consider joining us at WP:THOMAS. There is much work still to be done, and we are a friendly bunch, really...

EdJogg 12:38, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

<<<< Quote (end): >>>>

(Update)

Having taken another look at my mock-up, the 'Fictional Railway' box WOULD be clearer if the link to Fictional Railways were replaced by the station name, although this would require creation of a new template (eg 'Fictional station rail start' ?). For individual location pages, the existing format can remain.

EdJogg 13:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

re: Heroes?

Original text posted by User:EdJogg on User:Gonzerelli's talk page, included here in full to make proper sense of the reply.

What makes a hero?

Hiya.

Noticed you'd removed Duck from Category:Fictional heroes. (Not a problem, I didn't add that cat.!) Had you noticed that Percy and Thomas are also listed?

This set me wondering. What classifies a character as a hero? If it is a case of Hero vs Villain, then virtually all of the engines qualify as 'heroes'. Alternatively, if the character has performed some 'superhuman feat' (is that possible for a steam engine? :o) ), maybe that is qualification enough. In which case, we must list Duck (preventing runaway trucks crashing, ends up in barber's shop), Edward (catches James when he runs driverless down line), Henry ("Super Rescue"), Duke (when he prevents Falcon/Stuart from crashing down an embankment), Rheneas and Edward (continuing after major motion failure), Lord Harry (rescuing injured mountaineer on Culdee Fell), etc, etc. These are just some examples from memory -- I'm sure there are many more.

Writing this has made me realise that The Railway Stories article makes no (apparent) mention of the moral tone of the books, yet these examples clearly show the characters going 'beyond the call of duty', and might be appropriate to highlight in such a section. (I'm not the person to write it, neither, as I've always been hopeless at literary character analysis!)

Any thoughts?

EdJogg 12:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

My thought on this is that, while the stories (both TV and books) are packed full of protagonsists, and the occasional antagonsit, to place characters in the high position of "hero/heroine" is a sweeping statement, which isn't entirely accurate. Indeed, the engines are by and large represented as being "only human" (not the best phrase, but the meaning is clear), having occasional acts of bravery, but at the same time not being "above" the other engines because of this.

The only exception is Duke, who is specifically referred to (in the TV Series) as a hero.

I'm not arguing that the characters have not made acts of heroism, but it is far from the most correct term to use for the characters.

Gonzerelli 13:15, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

WP Thomas merchandising and User:Soopahoops77

Hi,

Thanks for your comment about the merchandising move/redirect etc. I trust you saw User:Soopahoops77's reply?! I had to laugh. Anyway, can you check something for me? I am almost certain that User:Soopahoops77 and User talk:Motorman are one and the same (the last two participants of WP:Thomas. I suspect that Soopahoops was created as Motorman was being blocked for vandalism, and that he is not particularly clever at remembering which one he is signed in as! E.g. Motorman was added to participants by Soopahoops, who then added a message on Motorman's talk page saying that WP Thomas could do with more participants like him (who makes about 3 edits and gets banned!).

Is there anything wrong with this? Accusations of sockpuppetry seem drastic...

If you've time, have a look.

Thanks, Mdcollins1984 17:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

First, I don't think there's anything wrong with having multiple WP identities where appropriate - for example to separate contributions on wildly different areas of expertise. (I know one contributor who does this). However, if a new identity is created to hide a 'real' identity for malicious purposes, then that is bound to be against WP guidelines, especially if the original editor has been blocked. I'm not sure that he/they qualify for this yet. Granted, some of the edits have been vandalism, but most of the Thomas stuff has been tolerable – it's also mostly in the TV series area, so I don't have to worry about it :o) !!

Second, I think we just keep a quiet eye on things for now. Even "Felix" was eventually brought into line, and added some quite useful pages (where's he been recently??) Frustrating though it is for us, continuing to revert poor quality edits will eventually wear that perpetrator down, or cause him to lose his temper and vandalise (when he can be dealt with appropriately). I won't put up with people putting rubbish on 'my' Railway Series pages!!!

Third, if you're really worried, here are two people to call on. (i) User:Gonzerelli is one of the WP:THOMAS founders and patrols the TV Series pages (and more) - you'll have seen we have had a number of conversations on project matters before now. Always a good first port of call when it comes to project policy, and is always happy to accept constructive edits to his work. (I'm still waiting for his ideas on Skarloey characters rationalisation though... ..must be about 6 months now!!) However, he is not an admin. (2) User:Gwernol is a useful ally. He's an admin with an interest in railways(!!), and is sympathetic towards WP:THOMAS. (IIRC he is an ex-pat living in the US). If you wanted to know whether Superhoops and Motorman are sharing an IP address, or if you want to report their behaviour to someone with muscle, he's your man. (NB There are other admins, available!)

Incidentally, check-out User_talk:EdJogg#Best_steam_tractor above. If you can still get at Gwernol's video, the tractor is an incredible beast when you're only used to UK traction engines!! EdJogg 17:58, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Fourth, both characters have had warnings placed on their talk pages, and have since removed them. This is been frowned upon by some.

Hope that's of some help.

Incidentally, I have noticed that Superhoops' edits have caused considerable overlap in the human TV series character coverage on the 'Minor' and 'People and Animals' pages. Not my area, but it gives an indication of his lack of expertise with WP. Hopefully someone will be able to resolve that one, 'cos I have enough to do elsewhere!!

Cheers. EdJogg 17:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

You morons, Motorman and I go to the same school. We talk on MSN Messeneger. We are not 'as one' we are mates and we were reminissing about our childhood and I found this project and told him. That is all. Yes I have been blocked before but I don't intend to again. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Soopahoops77 (talk • contribs) 17:59, 8 March 2007.

Welcome back! It is good to hear that you don't intend to be blocked again. I trust this means that you will be co-operating with us, in which case you will be welcomed. Otherwise, well, basically, vandalism isn't tolerated on WP, so you'd be wasting your time and everyone else's. I trust it is the former... EdJogg 20:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

re. FAQ, and Mavis comment

Original text posted by User:EdJogg on User:Gonzerelli's talk page, included here in full to make proper sense of the reply.

WP:THOMAS FAQ

Hi. I think you may have had a 'senior moment' while creating Wikipedia:WikiProject Thomas/FAQ. Have a look at the 'Structural change' paragraph and see if you can remember what you were going to say... :o)

Incidentally, you reverted the edit about Mavis being a BR Class 04. In her case this information is present on her book character entry, so is that a project policy? Ie, "TV Series characters were based on book characters which were based on specific prototypes." I don't have a big problem with that, if that's what we're doing, but we would need to make it clear to readers where such prototype information was available. It would lead to consistency problems within the article though, as all the non-book characters would still need their prototype info locally, so there would be a continuing desire by readers to add prototype info to the 'book characters' in order to be 'complete'.

EdJogg 09:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think I'll put it down to a senior moment on the FAQ page... Even at 21, I about Senior Moments all too well... Am fixing that one up right now.

As for the Mavis comment, I'll admit... I got a bit lazy, and just straight reverted, whatever edits got in the way got in the way lol...

But seriously though, in the end, Mavis (and indeed all the other Railway Series characters who made the transition to TV) were not based on their original engines, they were based on the characters who appeared in the Railway Series. From Season 5 onwards, any new characters were (by and large) based on real-life equivalents.

Despite this, a few comments of the "based on" nature have remained in some characters' descriptions. But in these cases (going completely by memory here), there was more significant information than "based on an X".

At the end of the day, if it wasn't caught in the cross-fire, your edit probably would have stayed. And I know it was careless on my part, but it's far from the most vital information, so it probably wasn't too bad in the end... :)

Gonzerelli 09:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The 'Mavis' edit wasn't mine (this time!!) – I have been known to warn you when I have applied changes that I think might get 'lost'!!.

I haven't yet made a concerted effort to ensure prototype information is applied consistently, only on a few characters, piecemeal... That's a future project, but it's a way down my To-Do list :o)

EdJogg 11:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Recent edits to the WP:THOMAS/FAQ page are AOK. My mind's been far from on-task lately, but it's just as well someone as capable as you can cover my tracks when I stumble about a bit. :) Gonzerelli 11:29, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Categories and Redirect pages

Hi.

Do you know whether redirect pages should belong in categories? While trying to collate some more WP:THOMAS links for the article list I noticed that you put Oliver the Western Engine in Category:The Railway Series characters, but that it was a redirect page. Was this just so it would show up in the category list and that we know it exists?

Mdcollins1984 15:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it wasn't just so we would know it existed, it was to allow readers to find the character from the Category list. (see below) EdJogg 16:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry, I've found Wikipedia:Redirect#Categories_for_redirect_pages this which suggests not. I'll remove Oliver from the category unless you have any objections. Mdcollins1984 15:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Have a look at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Thomas#Category Membership - Include redirected characters? for my thoughts on the matter. I think the WP guidance is to avoid adding, for example, Reverend Awdry, Wilbert Awdry, Wilbert Vere Awdry, Rev W Awdry, W V Awdry, etc, to Category:The Railway Series, since that would add nothing more than multiple links to the same page. I think that adding the redirects for, say, Oliver, Henrietta, Bear, Rusty, Pip & Emma, etc, etc is NOT the same thing.

Well, anyway, take a look at my reasoning on the project talk page...

EdJogg 16:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, OK, I take your point, I knew I'd read it somewhere :-). Perhaps for now we ought to leave them out until we have worked out how many redirects we have, and create a list of those suitable for inclusion, otherwise we could have chaos if other editors assume that they all ought to be there. Also which 'redirects' should be used (Oliver the Great Western Engine or Oliver the Western Engine for example) although that is a small point. It is useful for now to keep a track of which are redirects and which aren't when looking at the categories (especially whilst spending a year collating all the links for the related changes tool.

Best,

Mdcollins1984 17:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thomas the Tank Engine Merchandising Articles

Original posting on Slambo's talk page, copied for reference...

Please don't groan! If you look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas Tomy Wind Ups you will see that a whole raft of articles listing 'Thomas' merchandising have been slated for deletion. WP:THOMAS members have been fretting over this issue for a while, and it seems to have come to a head.

I am inclined to agree that the pages should be deleted, as they are essentially just lists at present, but the people who are editing them are likely to want to continue to do so, and there is some merit to their content, even if they need a lot of work. Hence I have suggested that the appropriate place for these listings might be 'Train Spotting World'. Seeing as how I've just found your name over there too (and quite active!!) it seemed appropriate to see whether you thought it might be an appropriate course of action. If it is, may I ask for your help in copying sufficient articles from one Wiki to the other (as I would only know the long way of doing it!) so that we can complete the tidy-up in WP in a sensible time?

Thoughts? EdJogg 14:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I saw the post on the Thomas project page earlier this morning. I think we could easily find a place for the information in question at TSW. Tim has a handy Wiki-import script that can easily grab pages and copy them. I hope to have more time tonight to pursue this further. Slambo (Speak) 14:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

FYI... I don't forsee any problems in moving the lists to TSW, but have started a discussion there to hear other editors thoughts about it. Slambo (Speak) 19:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Unilaterally, if you like, as Co-founder of TSW, I welcome the idea. Let's port and preserve the pages under attack first and worry about other things afterwards. I've posted this in more detail on the AfD page and the Wikiproject page, so please just get me a list of the ages you want ported before the AfD closes. If it is "All pages in such and such a category" then, provded your cat name is accurate, they will come. I'm on wikibreak here, so please answer me there. Fiddle Faddle 20:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Hello, what can i do too help?!

Hello. I joined the wikiproject thomas team a few days ago, and have been given no specific tasks to do. Please can i have one!? regards Zesty Prospect 17:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

TUGS

Hello I was wondering if you would like to join the new Wikipedia:WikiProject TUGS. Driveus 20:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Ok, sorry if I wasted your time.Driveus 00:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

A WikiProject you may be interested in...

Hi there! I notice you're from Surrey - please take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Surrey, which I started earlier this afternoon. Cheers.--Vox Humana 8' 21:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation. I've added the Project Page to my watchlist so I can see what's going on. Not sure I've got much time for any more WikiProjects, but it's certainly a worthwhile one to be involved in.

EdJogg 00:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

"Mega-edits"

Original message follows

All that editing must have taken hours! (The contributions log suggests 4 - 5 hours!)

So much wasted effort...

When you are considering the intermediate edits (I hadn't spotted any worth keeping, but I quickly gave up looking!) note that some of the pictures added by Cgs4151 (talk · contribs) had some VERY suspicious tags, including at least one screen-shot that was tagged as 'his own work'!!

Could you please tackle Non-rail vehicles (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends) too? This has had the same treatment, and appears to have acquired a few non-notables again.

Cheers

EdJogg 12:12, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The mega-edits have come about simply because I have not had much time at all to check Wikipedia. I shudder to think what the TV Season pages have turned out like in my absence!

In any case, you're quite right, I've double-checked the "new" images. They were all tagged as "I, the creator of this work, release it to the public domain". Absolute bull of course. Nominated each for deletion.

The only edits worthwhile to Railway engines (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends) were actually to remove superfluous content. In the end, I conceded that it was better to restore a few slightly over-informative comments for the sake of getting rid of a lot of other crap.

Non-rail vehicles (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends) was easy, reverting back to my own last edit (at the start of this month!) took care of that with no problems.

Thanks again for your vigilance!

Gonzerelli 10:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Patronization , not illegal, but very mean!

RE:'So you've 'not been assigned a task yet' for WP:THOMAS? Well, that doesn't surpriseme, as that's not the way WP works. '

I just thought i'd tell you i found that perticular sentance of your last message unfriendly and patronizing. Always remember what my gran said; a little friendlyness goes a long way.

Kind regards,

Zesty Prospect 16:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

SiF

Hey there mate,

I thought that pages from Sodor Island Forums could be accessed (but not edited) by non-members, so sorry to have gotten you excited about info you couldn't see.

If you can shoot me off a quick e-mail to my lesser-used address ( removed ), using the e-mail you used to register with SiF, I will do what I can to fast-track it through. (As a back-up, if you could include your date of birth, which will of course be kept confidential, we can set you up more easily if you accidentally got "lost in the system)

I'll do what I can, so that you're more in the loop... And I'm sure you'll have the consideration to remove my e-mail address after you've used it :)

Gonzerelli 10:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Seems to be working now, so thank you: either for the offer of help or the actual help (delete as appropriate!). I have to eke-out my online time, so I'm not sure how often I'll visit, but it could be useful... EdJogg 11:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thomas DVDs

Grrr,

You're tempting me to spend money. Not good!

–MDCollins (talk) 10:05, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah - the excuse of the children!!! Yeah right!

Book 39 if you're interested. As you probably remember I bought the complete collection, so would be happy buying the 'new collection' but not until no more are published! Perhaps I'll contact Egmont. –MDCollins (talk) 10:29, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I've been lax in checking my 'Favourite Search' emails recently, thanks for pointing it out.

Unfortunately, you missed three little words at the top of the listing: "Reserve not met". So he's trying to get over £50 for it...and it's not going to happen. I think this is a re-re-listing of the same copy. '9701kathryn' has also been trying to sell a (much better) copy at a similar price. It's been listed at £49.99 twice, and can now be seen on BIN at - wait for it - £75.46! (My copy of Wilbert, which was 'well-read' but otherwise OK, cost me £16, and came with five other books in the series!!) Silly money. Only the really serious collectors will be interested at those prices...

EdJogg 10:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)