User talk:Wilhelm meis

Your changes to remove the timeline format were excellent. --76.189.109.155 (talk) 00:06, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. I'd like to do something similar with the Waldo Canyon fire article, but it's a bigger article and the process may be a bit more complicated. Maybe we can work together on that. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 00:08, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome. The Waldo Canyon article is huge - 65,000 characters - vs. Black Forest, which is only 15,000. So although it would be a great improvement to Waldo Canyon, the task would probably be way too daunting for me. But I fully support the removal of its timeline format. The one that made me shake my head the most was Lockheed Fire, which was mentioned by another editor on the help desk a few days ago. It's from four years ago, but it's only 8,000 characters so would be much less work to reformat. I now understand that these timeline formats make it easier for editors to contribute in the early stages of an event like this, but I don't think it should ever be a permanent layout. Your reformatting of Black Forest today is a stunning improvement. --76.189.109.155 (talk) 00:24, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

The Lockheed Fire article will be a huge undertaking too, because it is in timeline format with bulleted lists. That article will have to be entirely rewritten as prose. That's probably just as much work as what the Waldo Canyon fire article needs. I'll probably take a shot at both eventually, if someone doesn't beat me to it, but I'll have to slow down my WP contributions for a while. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 00:34, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Good point about the Lockheed article. Well, I hope you or someone else gets around to fixing them. It would really be a nice improvement. --76.189.109.155 (talk) 01:00, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

As someone (living in Colorado Springs) who has been involved in editing and updating the Waldo Canyon fire article, I feel it would not be beneficial to remove the timeline format. There is just too much detail to put into, basically, a simple beginning-middle-end format. Because of the length of the fire, I feel it remains necessary to show the progression of events. It is because of analysis of the WCF progression that changes have been made in our city/county/state which have been successfully used to improve our response to subsequent fires. And even though the recent Black Forest fire has caused more material damage (in an area not as cleared of potential fuel as much of the WC burn area was prior to ignition), BFF was able to be contained in about half the time as WCF because of the lessons learned from the latter. RJBaran (talk) 17:09, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Do you mind copying your comment to Talk:Waldo Canyon fire#Organization and continuing discussion there? Thanks! Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 19:10, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

"Author" is about as much a verb as "orientate" ... they are perhaps both in the dictionary but no one who actually speaks good English would use either one. You can search through every piece of English literature on Earth without finding one example of a talented writer using author as a verb or orientate at all. Two-bit lowlife hacks, yes, But good English ? Mmm-mmm. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.22.142.82 (talk) 11:16, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that these are of equally dubious status. "Orientate" is a back formation of orientation, and any English writer (indeed anyone with a college degree from an English-speaking school) should know that the verb they are looking for is orient. These authors should properly orient themselves with English diction before authoring papers in that language, lest they disorient their readers with neologisms and awkward grammatical structures.

Please remember, the objective here is not to pass inspection by the grammar police, but rather to make oneself understood, and the purpose of grammar "rules" is only to standardize language structures in order to facilitate mutual understanding.

Using author as a verb is a very different situation, backed by centuries of usage and multiple linguistic precedents. It is not a poorly crafted back formation, but an alternative form (i.e. a different part of speech) without any change in inflection, like thumb (e.g. to thumb one's nose), sign (i.e. to use sign language), play or sleep. Far too many words to list here have both noun and verb forms in English, and while many of them have inflectional differences, such as sing and song, carve and carving, or indeed orient and orientation, many do not. Do you not iron your clothes with an iron?

Oxford attests the use of author as a verb as early as "the end of the 16th century." The back formation of orientate is still quite new and, to the best of my knowledge, not accepted in any academic circles. While I concur with your objection to orientate, I must stand by author as a verb in relatively common English usage for more than four centuries. I am also perfectly content to iron my clothes with an iron, though I suppose you will insist on pressing them. C'est la vie. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 15:37, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

It's pretentious though. In some (fairly rare) situations one might use 'author' as a verb but in general when one speaks of writing a book, play, music, whatever, "to write" is clear and concise and general usage.

"Silly" was used in the sixteenth century also, but it had an entirely different meaning. In the case of that article, "to author" was pompous and ludicrous.

It's not anything worth fighting over, however :) 210.22.142.82 (talk) 13:55, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, certainly not. And please don't take my tone as any other than friendly debate. Language, particularly Germanic languages and the history of the English language, is something I have enjoyed studying for many years, and I always enjoy these little debates as an opportunity to get another person's perspective on some of the finer points. In retrospect, perhaps I should clarify that when I mentioned the grammar police, I was not referring to you as the grammar police, but broadly speaking of the notion that language and writing are dictated by a detailed set of prescriptive rules. Growing up with English-speaking schools, I had compulsory English classes every year I was in school, and many of those teachers sought to drill it into our heads that there are many "rules" we must follow, but that each "rule" has many recognized exceptions, which in turn constitute "rules" of their own, and any violation of this convoluted system of prescriptive rules would be unacceptable. It was in college that I was introduced to the idea of descriptive linguistics while studying the history of the English language. In an historical context, it makes sense that the "rules" are relatively few and broad in scope, that even these developed from language usage within a broad community, where certain conventions became expedient to mutual understanding, and that the exceptions to the rules merely represent further digressions which were also mutually intelligible even if they were at odds with the general conventions. It's rather like studying the development of Wikipedia policies. We have the very general rules which were our foundational principles, like verifiability, neutrality and civility, and then we have other rules which later developed from those, like Use common name, and recognized exceptions to those rules, like Naming conventions (royalty and nobility), and beyond that, we are left to our own devices to study and describe what other forms exist in the field of article naming. The "rules" are descriptive of existing conventions rather than prescriptive in nature, even if they do in turn perform a prescriptive function, as there is a certain expectation to seek internal consistency. Returning to the original question, however, I think we can agree here that the use of author as a verb usually does not reflect the most ingenious diction, although author, despite its origin as a noun, has been in use as a verb (perhaps by less skillful writers, but nevertheless) long enough to be considered a verb, if an unpopular one. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 15:50, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your support and clarification. Yes, some people clearly think they are bosses. Thanks for assuring me otherwise. My full reply's on my talk page. GabrielD2 (talk) 11:08, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Heraldry and Vexillology for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 15:51, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks. I'll take a look over your questions, and I might come up with some answers over the next few days. I have a lot of off-wiki projects going right now, but if it helps the H/V project and the greater Wikipedia project, I'll do what I can to support it. If it's not asking too much, what is your interest in the H/V project, and do you have a deadline for this interview? Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 04:51, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello! I'd like to join your group. From now I'll tell you my suggestions for improvement. Thanks you--Heralder (talk) 02:20, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I noticed that you had been involved with the Heraldry by country template before at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Heraldry_and_vexillology/Heraldry_by_country

I've had a bit of a disagreement over it, should the template be redesigned to make it more flexible? The person is saying the article Cornish heraldry shouldn't be on there as it's not a country, just a region "like Flanders or Wallonia" but hasn't removed Frisia from the list.

see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Heraldry_by_country#Cornwall

Bodrugan (talk) 17:25, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice! I'll take a look. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 23:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Hej! Vore tacksam om du kunde kolla engelskan i denna artikel:British Military Rations during the French and Indian War. Hälsningar Creuzbourg (talk) 20:52, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I made a few minor adjustments. I hope it helps. Interesting article, by the way. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 06:12, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:59, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your work on the Abatement article.

I noted a discrepancy between this article and the one for Bend. Is it possible for you to review the Bend article, specifically regarding bend sinister, and its relation to illegitimacy.

The BBC TV series QI recently had a question on abatements and put forward the view that bend sinister described illegitimacy and my understanding is that this is outdated. - 58.166.89.162 (talk) 14:32, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your question! Generally, my understanding is that the "bar sinister", or bend sinister, was once widely rumored to be a mark of bastardy, but that this claim was never well supported with documented instances in historical fact. I am currently out of town for the weekend, but I will revisit this next week when I am back at home with my heraldry books. Regards, Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 00:22, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that. The Bend article does give examples but I am unsure which is correct. - 58.166.89.162 (talk) 03:40, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

The discussion over whether Amon Amarth is Viking metal has flared up AGAIN. I found some sources that should definitively settle the issue, but another editor has objected. Things are at a standstill because the other editor and I are the only one active on the page right now. We, regretfully, already got into an edit war, so I'm trying to be very careful in how I approach the page. I'd really appreciate it if some other editors got involved to help settle things down. Latest discussion is here. Thanks, --¿3family6 _contribs 15:54, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Europe/The 10,000 Challenge has recently started, based on the UK/Ireland Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge. The idea is not to record every minor edit, but to create a momentum to motivate editors to produce good content improvements and creations and inspire people to work on more countries than they might otherwise work on. There's also the possibility of establishing smaller country or regional challenges for places like Germany, Italy, the Benelux countries, Iberian Peninsula, Romania, Slovenia etc, much like Wikipedia:The 1000 Challenge (Nordic). For this to really work we need diversity and exciting content and editors from a broad range of countries regularly contributing. If you would like to see masses of articles being improved for Europe and your specialist country like Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon, sign up today and once the challenge starts a contest can be organized. This is a way we can target every country of Europe, and steadily vastly improve the encyclopedia. We need numbers to make this work so consider signing up as a participant and also sign under any country sub challenge on the page that you might contribute to! Thank you. --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:08, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!

Kaiser Kitkat (talk)

Hello! I am currently reading about Tablut's history and wanted to know what your source for this picture was. I am particularly interested in the shape of the pieces. I found an old drawing by Carl Linnaeus that is quite similar, but where did you get for example the shape of the black figure from? Thank you in advance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by SlimeyYT (talk • contribs) 15:11, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

As another SCAdian and heraldry geek, I'm curious as to why you don't use the Babel userbox for one fluent in blazon, as you obviously are. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:51, 29 September 2020 (UTC) Lord Inali of Tanasi, GDH; playing since AS VI

Swedish heraldry has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 07:17, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Tafl games has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 23:05, 29 November 2024 (UTC)