User talk:Paul Drye

Hi, Paul, loved your History of Scotland stuff. I'll get the History of England crosslinked asap. Keep up the great work! sjc

Nice write up of The Clash, too. And Talking Heads. GWO

You have a flaw in your write-up of IKBrunel, in the section on the Thames Tunnel. "Isambard spent nearly" -- nearly what? 17 minutes to fix it? What took ya so long? :-)

That is a nice Talking Heads writeup. I can see your background in writing. Adding it to Brilliant prose.  :-) --Koyaanis Qatsi

what's "too many" history books? can I have any discards?--MichaelTinkler

Just adding my words of admiration on the Scotland history article. I'd love to see more on William Wallace and Robert Bruce, and on the Picts. -- BryceHarrington

Nice spot on the Dunwich Horror, Paul. It must have been some other horror writer (maybe August Derleth?) that did the story about the Cthulhu tunnels from Walberswick to Dunwich. sjc

Paul, shouldn't the entry be under Walter Scott? --MichaelTinkler

I've been going solely on the basis of "What is he most commonly known as?" Winston Churchill is popularly "Winston Churchill", despite being a "Sir", so his entry is without a title. On the other hand no-one calls Sir Walter Scott "Walter Scott", probably since that's a relatively common name; so "Sir Walter Scott" it is.

I'm operating on the theory that I want to pander to what people are likeliest to type in some article that mentions him, oblivious of what decision I may have made in naming my article. If necessary, it's complete replacements of names: "Duke of Marlborough" instead of John Churchill, "Bonnie Prince Charlie" (when I get around to him) instead of Charles III. All on the basis of popular usage...it seems to me to be the most logical and, more importantly, effective way of filing, seeing as Wiki frees us of alphabetical ordering and the limitations of paper. --PaulDrye

that's reasonable enough. We aren't bound by page-flipping searches, after all. It takes some getting used to, though! --MichaelTinkler

I did have the Thomas More entry linked to as Sir Thomas More, on the same reasoning, but that decision was vetoed. it does, however, present something of a problem for people who are alive and are knighted; for instance I would not expect to link to [[Sir Alec Guinness]] or [[Sir Paul McCartney]] though those may be the most common references a century from now. --Koyaanis Qatsi

While I see the problem, I don't think we should be apologizing for not being able to predict the future :) We can cross that bridge when we pass water under it. What was the reasoning behind the veto? --PaulDrye

Good point in re: the future. All those calls to the Psychic Friends Network just aren't panning out.  ;-) I don't know why it was moved; I don't remember any discussion of it. I'm not broken up over it; it's just something I noticed. Which reminds me to check that all of the links are now to the article rather than the redirect. --Koyaanis Qatsi

I would point out on the issue of Thomas More that a rather large body of those who actually know his name refer to him as Saint Thomas More. --MichaelTinkler

I suppose it's more a matter of culture than anything; titles are "identifiers" in British culture. To Americans, they are just information about a person and/or his accomplishments. We would never think to title an article "Dr. Albert Einstein", so why "Sir Alec Guinness"? He is, and always was, Alec Guinness. It so happens that he was later knighted, which fact should certainly be included in the article. But that's not who he was. Of course, that distinction doesn't work as well for hereditary titles that really are like identities (Lord Byron), or for simple names that can only be disambiguated by titles (Pope Gregory). --LDC

Which brings us back to "Sir Walter Scott" -- British, far more popular and talked about in the 19th century (when -- horrors! -- one DID NOT drop the title) than in the 20th, and with a moderately ambiguous name. My experience is that the "Sir" is practically part of his one-word name: "Sirwalterscott", so pronounced by my English professors. Rather like "Sirwalterraleigh", now that I think about it. Maybe it's just the Walters. All I can say is "Thank God his name isn't James". As far as I can tell, every third male in 18th century Scotland had that as a first name....PaulDrye

Good points which bring us back to the problem of whether to title or not to title, and (in this case) which one to choose if there are several. Perhaps we should hash out a voluntary policy on it. --Koyaanis Qatsi

Paul, I looove the rework of Prussia! Thank you sooo much! (oh -- didn't mean to be so soppy -- haven't had my caffeine yet.) -- JHK

Thanks for the welcome and the kind words! After scanning this page I relize that I'm going to have to look in to your Lovecraft stuff...

Oh, and thanks for the help with the Hoss/Hess thing! -- Dr.scientist

Sheesh, Paul...I said I'd be back to fix it -- I just didn't realize all the links would break if I copied and pasted from a much better version. Sorry I messed it up, but it was unintiontional and could hardly have been worse than the mess I was attempting to fix. Besides, in the meantime, I've found two web sites on Prussian history (one the lecture notes from a German history course) that say the Original Prussians were Slavic peoples eliminated byt the Teutonic Knights.

Anyway, thanks for fixing the page -- how did you do it? JHK

Thanks, Paul -- I thought it was me, because I did try to remove Helga's stuff and replace it with version 20. What is the best way to do a reversion? Go to the desired page and view source, then copy? Any advice would be welcome. Thanks! JHK

Thanks again. Your sanity is very important to me, as it provides very nice articles and re-writes! JHK ---

Hey Paul -- it's just that feudal in this sense is kinda meaningless -- you're really talking about noble rank, not feudal rank. King is theoretically higher than Duke (although not in practice throughout the middle ages and much of the early modern period....).There was never a feudal system per se -- just variations of normal feudal contracts that changed over time and place. In fact, there are very good historical arguments for banning the terms feudal and feudalism. I don't buy into that kind of extreme view, but am very aware of the fact that the idea of feudalism has been badly taught for decades, and think that we should do everything we can to use the term carefully and as accurately as possible. I'll try to get to editing feudalism soon.JHK

I already hit Prussia -- does it work for you? JHK

Kewl! and thanks for being nice to me! <feeling sorry for myself today> :-) JHK

Hi Paul, I just noticed the way you've been adding historical events to year entries, by searching through Wikipedia articles for mentions of years. Very cool! --LMS

Hey, Paul-I like your chronological annals style, myself. I was reading something this weekend that made me think that maybe working on chronology for a while might help me see wikipedia's place in informationdom more clearly! --MichaelTinkler

Hi Paul -- just wanted to say thank you! JHK

for your lovely work on things of dubious Germanicity (it's been a long day!)

You know, I had never bothered to check Google. You're right! The only references to Old Prussi Land or Alt Prussi Land are Helga's own sites (and one link to her site). --MichaelTinkler

Thanks for pointing out the ATT article I've folded my AT and T information into it and redirected.

Paul, I am going to remove your redirect; there are (to my knowledge) at least 3 Penlee Houses in Cornwall, and there is at least 1 in Plymouth, Devon. None of them are as significant as the one in Penzance, but I am striving to keep this as unambiguous as possible. There may also be other Penlee Houses worldwide which are significant... There is no major hassle with having a disambiguated name, it is just a bit tiresome to reference. The search engine will still find it. We maybe need a set of Wikipedia standards for this like we are starting to work up in History for systems of nomenclature. sjc

(response to reply to comments in talk:sjc): Paul, The Eden Project, Cornwall is a good example of where disambiguation is v. important; your comments about Penlee House are quite accurate, as far as I can see at the moment, but cross-referencing is only marginally more difficult if a fully qualified name is given, and has a by-product advantage in that it ensures that the correct cross reference is given; a cross reference to Henry IV is different to a cross-reference to Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor. And there are bl**dy hundreds of 'em (well, quite a few...). And as for towns of Newport, it's going to be a real nightmare.

Tory - Removing corrupt from C18 politics! Patronage and nepotism were rife, rotten boroughs etc.

Why can't words like Quiver, Quintuplet and so on stay in Wikipedia?

Why can't Wikipedia also serve as dictionary?

Well, because it just isn't. See What Wikipedia is not - it's not a dictionary. I'm sure there could be a good entry for Quiver or Dionne Quintuplets or so forth, but it needs to be more than a 'definition'--MichaelTinkler
But don't dictionary-like entries provide a start for encyclopedia entries? --Seb
No, not really, or at least not often. When you've said what a Quimby is, there aren't a lot of places to go. Role of the Quimby in 20th history, perhaps? -- GWO

The Page should not be deleted only noted with a text like "need more writing" -- Peder Persson

I disagree, Peder. In the cases where an entry could conceivably become an actual encyclopedia article, I left it alone -- for example, Quail, which could contain an article one day, Ddroar's sad attempt to the contrary. The ones I deleted are, in my judgement, never going to be expandable in that manner. They are too general.
I would be happy if you proved me wrong by going ahead and writing proper articles for the ones I deleted. -- Paul Drye
Hey now, there's no need to make newcommers feel unwelcome by labeling their first contributions "sad attempts". Otherwise, we'll send people away who write articles like adhesive. --Stephen Gilbert

Paul: you misunderstand me. I'm not criticizing your editing; I agree with your choice of removals, actually. What I was criticizing was your labeling ddroar's first contributions as "sad attempts" instead of giving him some constructive criticism. But, as I was writing that comment, you went to his page and offered such criticism. So... well, ... um, good. :-) --Stephen Gilbert

I think the redirecting instead of deleting is so much better in so many ways. It serves the same purpose as a deletion, but contributes so much more. --TheCunctator

Paul, in case I haven't said so lately, thank you for being you (i.e., for not being, say, an irredentist Old Prussi-phile). --MichaelTinkler

Hi Paul -- I missed the latest round of Old Prussi land stuff -- what happened?? JHK

Hi there - sorry I amputated the second half of your wonderful History of Scotland article --Dweir.

It did it again! Argh, Wikipedia's getting on my nerves. Sorry... Dweir

I'm confused Mr. Drye. I'm a post-grad Sociology, Ethnic Studies and Communications major. My emphasis has always been religion and diestic theory. Further, as a writer you might appreciate the fact that I too must pay the bills and work as a manager for a medium sized printing concern in Seattle. What I don't get is why you removed my addendums. If there is a policy at Wikipedia I'm unaware of, or some protocol I have violated please let me know. Thanks, H.W. Clihor.

I revived your addendums and placed them at Situational Dynamics. I'd love to hear more about that topic. --Ed Poor

Wonderful article at Behistun Inscription, Paul. --Koyaanis Qatsi

Ditto for Ibn Battuta (!) - MMGB

Hi Paul! just wanted to check in and see how things are going...If I'm going to be back, I figure I should at least try to foster a more friendly community! Hope your holidays were happy!! JHK

Mucho thanks for dealing with the vandal last night. Without (I hope) raising renewed accusations that there is some kind of "insider cabal agenda", I have to say that I wonder if it might not be wise in the future to have a way for a (largish) group of pre-authorized "regulars" to easily and quickly put into place a 24-hour ip-number-based editing ban. I mean, you had to waste a lot of time on this vandal, it would have been nice if you could have just zipped him up for awhile. --Jimbo Wales

Ahhh, it wasn't that big a deal. I was actually just sitting near the computer reading when it was happening, so it wasn't too hard to get my browser to refresh automatically, and glance up every now and then. When the vandal changed it, I had copied the URL for editing one "good" version; paste that in, press the "save" button, and revert. Took about one second each time :) -- Paul Drye

Ain't Wikipedia great, Paul? --MichaelTinkler

Hey Paul, what do you think about idea of adding History -- Military history ... etc links in the top of page, as in battle of Adowa and First Italo-Abyssinian War? szopen

I noticed you were having a little trouble with the way we silly English feel we must "translate" names,

Well, ekhm, i am aware that this is English-language encyclopedia and names should be translated into English names, when available. I just have no idea how some battles and wars are called in English, and i am sometimes just guessing. Site you provided will be most helpfull. Do you know, BTW, any site which could provide some other medieval terms? I believe that i am quite familiar with Polish terms (although i am not, nor i am pretending to be, historian) - but whenever i try to write in English i am stopped almost immedietely by my lacks in such vocabulary. szopen

Hello there. I was moving content from wikipedian's old user pages to the correct user namespace. It appears that your old user page still has content on it -- I wouldn't dream of deleting this material and redirecting that page and its talk to your new user page and new talk. So if you have a moment, could you do this? Or if you really don't care either way just say so here and I will make the needed changes (so that your old user page does not show up as a regular wikipedia article). Cheers! --maveric149

Hello there. May I point you back to Talk:Ibn Battuta for my reason for extending particular thanks for this article? --Alan Peakall 17:52 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

Paul! Welcome back.  :-) --KQ

Hi there. Good catch on "Urbain Le Verrier", but when moving a page please use the "move page" function (in the side bar), not copy&paste. cheers -- Tarquin 21:24 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

moved Scots-Irish to Scotch-Irish; new Scots-Irish; removed usage note. i'm both, afaik it's neither archaic nor offensive. talk:Scots-Irish. Badanedwa 02:27, May 13, 2004 (UTC)