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Helpme: categorizations/political agenda

{{helpme}} I've spotted some edits from a new user, User:H3802.1266, which are doubtless good faith and with constructive intent. They are largely, possibly entirely, in relation to articles on South Asian cuisine and there are a few issues in their editing that may be worth addressing with the user. Some of the edits are of the nature of when a food item is described as e.g. "Indian" the user amends it to "Pakistani and Indian", which is likely to be fair enough. However there are other edits where names of countries are already mentioned and the user just changes them around to put "Pakistan/i" first, presumbaly to give more prominence. This is being done in both the text of the articles and with categories, e.g. here [1]. Is the convention to list in alphabetical order? Additionally, some of the edits consist of listing e.g. "Pakistani cuisine" as a category, but also with categories listed for all four provinces of Pakistan as well. Surely it should be either the country or the provinces, but not both?

I'm not entirely sure of my ground on the policies in this field and don't really have much time to get myself across them sufficiently well at the moment. Could someone contact the user with advice if appropriate, and I'd be interested to know as well? Mutt Lunker (talk) 15:55, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I can't think of any policy that forbids a user from rearranging the order of the countries listed. If it is something that you feel is wrong, then drop them a note on their talkpage. As of now, I can't see any policies that they have violated. --Terrillja _talk 22:37, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

duplicate pictures

mutt, i'm wondering if you can help with this. i would like to delete a picture (of Andrew Carnegie's birthplace) on wikipedia since i have uploaded the same picture on commons. i really don't know. Kilnburn (talk) 14:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Kilnburn -message received; I'll get back to you but might not be for a day or two. (By coincidence I'm in Dunfermline right now.)Mutt Lunker (talk) 19:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Glenrothes Article

Hi there, being a Wikipedia guru I wonder if you can help. There appears to be an error with the Glenrothes article. I've been trying to access it to revert some vandalism which has been carried out recently but I have been experiencing problems, which I am unsure how to properly report?

Mcwesty (talk) 15:32, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Replies here. Mutt Lunker (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Im never sure whether or not I have the authority to report vandalism as im only really a part timer on this site.

The problem on the page seemed to fix itself almost as soon as I had left the comment on your page, sods law! Its difficult to discribe what was happening but it looked like a data error with only half the page showing up and the rest of the text gradually getting smaller, alot of the wording wasnt making sense and the pictures looked like they had been erased...? Strange. Seems to be working ok now tho.

Mcwesty (talk) 16:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok article seems to be not working again? Its not loading up properly and the writtings all jumbled....?

92.41.221.50 (talk) 14:38, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The article seems to have sorted itself now. Not sure what happened? Thanks for your help anyway.

Mcwesty (talk) 13:35, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Fife Opera

Thanks for your proof-reading of the Fife Opera page. Your suggestions were bang on. Orthorhombic (talk) 17:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

spurious orthographic reforms on Scots Wikipedia

{{helpme}} There was a recent (re-)appearance of the supposed Scots spelling of Kirkcaldy as Kirkcaudy on that article's page, evidently a result of a good faith edit referencing the Scots wikipedia's article. I'm from the town and as far as I'm concerned, Kirkcaldy is already a Scots word and I have never seen and can not trace the spelling Kirkcaudy anywhere else, historically or now, let alone in common currency. I reverted the addition on English wikipedia as dubious and uncited. As far as I have been able to ascertain this is an inappropriate, not to say spurious, orthography reform introduced, essentially as original research, at Scots wikipedia, apparently just to make it different to the supposedly (but in fact not) "English spelling". If mutual intelligibility carries you far enough the talk page may shed some light (I can translate if not). The continued discussion there in the last couple of days has not reached consensus and, to my concern, has supporters of this wiki-introduced spelling of the name.

That's bad enough for Scots wikipedia but the spread of it to English wikipedia as a supposed fact and potentially to the wikis for all other languages is more worrying and has much wider implications. I am a rare contributor to the Scots wikipedia so the opinions of editors that I view as worrying may not be typical. However if, contrary to no original research, there is widespread practice of concocting new orthographies, particularly of Scots proper names, this will infect the wikisphere. I've already spotted and removed another (and differently spelt (Scots wiki's earlier choice of spelling)) spurious Scots version of Kirkcaldy from the Swedish wikipedia.

Scots orthography is a hot potato as the language is pluricentric, not particularly standardised and, having lost its status as an official language, there may be a need for some level of neologism in articles on subjects being newly covered in Scots in Scots wikipedia. However, in regard to proper names, these have a history, are citable, it should be clear if alternate Scots and English language versions exist and I can see no justification for creating new spellings. Even if there are justifications for proper name spelling changes, they should only be reported in wikipedia, not introduced.

Although I am still discussing this at the Scots site, my concerns for infection of the wider wikisphere lead me to ask, is there a wiki-wide body that could mediate if there's a concern about policy violation on one wiki? Any other courses of action? Mutt Lunker (talk) 12:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

You are doing the right thing by discussing your concerns on the talk page of the article.

To widen the discussion to general articles in the area, I suggest you start a discussion in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scotland.

With respect to mediation, there are many options available; there are some good suggestions in WP:DISPUTE.

For more help, you can either;

• Leave a message on my own talk page; OR
• Use a {{helpme}} - please create a new section at the end of your own talk page, put {{helpme}}, and ask your question - remember to 'sign' your name by putting ~~~~ at the end; OR
• Talk to us live.

 Chzz  ►  13:18, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Kirkcaldy

I marked one of the "caled"s with a {{sic}}, but with the 'hide' parameter turned on. I only marked one, but this should be enough to cause AWB to issue a pop-up to warn any editor to extremely be careful when autocorrecting spelling on the page. If you wanted to be absolutely sure, you could mark the rest in the same way, but it shouldn't be necessary for AWB. Thanks for letting me know about the problem. I had a big queue of about 3000 pages to autoedit over the past couple days and I'm not entirely surprised that I made at least one mistake. Thanks for fixing it! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:34, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Empire Bairn

Re your tagging of the SS Empire Bairn article, this is a rare example of the full wartime history of an ordinary cargo ship being fully known. Hence the amount of detail in the article (which is all referenced and verifiable). I wouldn't expect to see that amount of detail for every single ship, but this is an "occasional exception" under WP:IAR. The article has existed for over 21 months in this condition. Therefore I'd ask whether you would be willing to remove the tags you added. I think it works better as prose, rather than a list. Mjroots (talk) 17:13, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Mjroots, I'm maybe slightly swayed regarding inclusion of all this detail if this really is an exceptional example of a full history being known. In which case it would be useful, if not essential, to note this in the intro to the War Service section to explain the inclusion of such a long and apparently uneventful history. The fact that it is notable that the data exists does not necessarily make the data itself inherently notable. Although I am rather in two minds I will remove the cleanup tag.

That said, in no way does this section work as a piece of prose. Over 1600 words of text which is almost entirely a copious repetion of variants of Empire Bairn was a member of Convoy Xn which sailed from A on dd-mm-yy and arrived at B on dd-mm-yy is not a prose narrative, it's pretty much a list of data with no actual events of note.

As presented it falls between two stools. As a piece of prose it makes for rather relentless and mundane reading as nothing (other than a very long string of apparently unexceptional journeys) actually happens. For those wishing to view the information as data it would be easier to examine or study either as a list or, probably better still, as a table with columns as appropriate: e.g. departure (or other) date, convoy no., port of embarkation, port of transit or debarkation and date (plus potentially a further column for any additional points of note regarding the convoy or journey, although I don't think there is any material for such a column in the article as it stands). Laid out thus it would be easier to take an overview, to follow the progress of the ship, and to locate individual details.

I have no misgivings regarding referencing or verifiability.

I hope this explains my concerns. Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:42, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your above comments. I could rewrite that section into a semi-list format, similar to the SS Empire Galahad article and many others. Mjroots (talk) 20:48, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, it didn't quite work out how I intended, but I've managed to break the text up a bit, so it isn't just a sea of type. If you think the tag can now be removed please do so. Am open to further suggestions on how to improve the article. Mjroots (talk) 07:49, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort you clearly put in this morning. It is an improvement but I'm afraid I still find the section problematic. Thanks for being so constructive and non-defensive about this by the way. I'm afraid I don't have any experience constructing tables, or any MoS provisions pertaining. Is there some way of giving a WikiFairy with the relevant skills a shout to wave the wand over it?

It might be worthwhile explaining how I came upon the article and my initial impression of it, particularly as someone without a specialist interest in shipping. If it sounds blunt or dismissive, I apologise now as that isn't the intention, only to be frank about my first impression as this may indicate how other users may perceive it.

I had made a minor edit to the article last week, thus auto-adding it to my watchlist. (I had spotted the term Fifeshire in a number of articles, mainly apparently sourced from old documents. It's not incorrect per se but the second para of the Fife intro gives some background if you're interested.) I was sifting through my watchlist yesterday, whittling it down, when the extensive history in the SS E B article caught my attention. I assumed that it must have been involved in interesting incidents or actions, had notable design features, been in some way connected with notable persons or the like to warrant such an extensive article. It was with some bemusement that I read on through - again sorry if it sounds blunt - such a vast and repetitive list of non-events. It appeared to be listcruft added by an over-enthusiastic shipping enthusiast.

As I mentioned before, I'm partially swayed if this is an exceptional example of this level of data being in existence, but not to the extent of presenting it in its entirety as prose, maybe if at all. Your inclusion in the intro of Her wartime career is unusually well documented for a small cargo ship helps but still not sufficient to justify the full inclusion of what follows as presented. I'm just a little worried that this opens the door to inclusion in Wikipedia of the contents of musty documents notable for their existence rather than content.

My suggestion of putting it in a table would help, I believe, as it would clearly show to anyone opening the article that what follows is a catalogue of data on journeys rather than of events or incidents. Even then I think it might only just scrape in for inclusion, but it would have the advantage of more clearly signalling for the general reader expecting historical meat in a large amount of prose that there isn't really any there and that they should either just scan through or even ignore it, while still allowing those with a more specialist interest to see the full data or pick out details.

Anyway, any ideas on the best way to pick up fairies? Mutt Lunker (talk) 15:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, time for me to give a bit of background too. I first came across the Empire ships as a result of the MS Riverdance shipwreck in 2008. This led to other articles being created for Seatruck Ferries ships, including MS Celtic Star. Researching that article lead to SS Celtic Star a.k.a. Empire Galahad. Researching that article revealed that there were 1,372 (I think) Empire ships. All of them are now mentioned on Wikipedia, articles on each of the ships over 1,000 GRT will be created in due course, plus the more notable ships under 1,000 GRT. Some of the Empire ships lead exciting lives, others just carried on with an uneventful career, with nothing particularly exciting happening. Empire Bairn gained sufficient notability for an article because she was sold to the Indian Navy. Naval ships generally have a higher notability than merchant ships. If you want another opinion, give Bellhalla (talk · contribs) a shout. He's well respected amongst WP:SHIPS and WP:MILHIST members. Mjroots (talk) 16:30, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not for a moment disputing the notability of the ship. I am questioning the worth and appropriateness of listing all it's many apparently non-notable journeys, particularly as an apparent narrative when in fact nothing noteworthy happens. Mutt Lunker (talk) 16:44, 22 November 2009 (UTC)