User talk:ScottDavis

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Archives

January–September 2005 October–November 2005 December 2005–February 2006 February–May 2006 May–June 2006 July–August 2006 - includes Liberty Star award September–November 2006 (started using Werdnabot) December 2006–January 2007 February 2007 ...

Contents 1 G'day (sorry i couldn't help myself) 2 On redlinks and lists 3 Judges 4 Escape from woomera 5 Archbishops 6 Problem 7 Lists... 8 Chicago & Philadelphia style consensus 9 Help with a disruptive user 10 Mars Bar 11 ACOTF - Australia and the UN 12 An indonesian issue 13 Notability Guidlines - Minor Sporting Leagues in Australia 14 Meetup on 23rd April 2007 15 Mohave (disambiguation) revert question 16 Populations 17 Nhulunbuy 18 Wind power in Australia 19 Cricket in Australia 20 Lake Margaret Power Scheme 21 Mildura, Victoria 22 Tullah 23 WikiProject Australian motorsport

[edit] G'day (sorry i couldn't help myself)

"Wow! You look like an expert on the topic. I came to make more comments (probably as questions) based on your response at Talk:Atlantic slave trade. Are all African Americans assumed to be descended from slaves? How valid is that assumption? Is it possible for people (or even their descendants) to ever stop being "African Americans" and just become "Americans? I notice that Barack Obama is an African American, but his father was Kenyan, so I guess that answers my second question. Is he noticed to be different from slave-descended African Americans? I apologise if these questions are offensive—they are not meant to be—although they may be naive. Living in Australia, I don't come across many Americans, African or otherwise, although I have visited the USA. Thanks."

Thnx for the compliments. i've become sort of an expert on African history in general. I began studying the dynamics of the TAST (trans-atlantic slave trade) about two summers ago and found out a lot. my interest started when i traced my own ancestry via genetic testing from AfricanAncestry.com. As you surmised, not ALL african americans are the descendants of slaves. however, the overwhelming majority are. i don't find that as a mark of shame since i know my ancestors only survived cuz they were the strongest (remember 2/3 didn't survie the ordeal). As far as the possibility of us just becoming Americans (instead of African-Americans), you should probably ask White Americans. Remember, we didn't ask to come here (the majority of us). Strides have been made, but prejudice and downright hate still exists here. And yeah, Obama is noticed to be different, but that difference has proabably been to his advantage with the electorate here. i'm glad you asked the questions, and i don't think they're naive. Thnx again for the shout out and contributions to this topic.

One luv scott "4shizzal"

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4shizzal (talk • contribs) 13 February 2007. It was a response to a question I asked at User talk:4shizzal#Atlantic slave trade. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On redlinks and lists

I'd agree that for a well structured non-category style list that redlinks play a part in identifying gaps. But for a list that's really a category some degree of notability should apply. For an article to have a category associated it must pass criteria on notability (amongst other things) but a list can have series of redlinks and invite non-notable creation. I was getting rid of redlinks as a way of cross checking with the associated categories for our current exercise.

And don't worry about Rebecca. Those Australian National University alumni all have a chip on their shoulder about the whole ANUS thing ;) --Steve _(Slf67) ^talk 11:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Judges

I deleted the articles because they were worse than nothing. Every article had been created without doing the slightest research from information already existing on the project, and virtually none had been expanded beyond that.

This caused some terrible examples - for example, creating an article on Alastair Nicholson that mentions only his relatively obscure and unknown stint on the Victorian Supreme Court in the 1980s makes clear to any reader that the author knows absolutely nothing about the man and did not do the most cursory Google search, seeing as he's one of the most famous Australian judges of the last twenty years. There were judges marked as being from the Court of Appeal before the Court of Appeal existed, and the templated sentence about "XXX court being the highest in the state hierarchy", while technically correct, is misleading in the case of judges not in an appeals division.

In short, it does Wikipedia absolutely no credit to have a bunch of factually dubious substubs written by someone who, it would be obvious to all and sundry, knew absolutely nothing about any of the people he was mass-creating pages about. It does not help things, either, by letting these propagate onto all the sites that host Wikipedia content and pollute Google results accordingly - this makes it all the more difficult to actually find useful information on the people (something we discovered with the guy who did this on NSW state politicians). People had tried on several occasions to explain to this guy the need for him to actually do research and fix up his mistakes, and his attempts at dealing with this showed that still he had absolutely no clue. I'd rather bite one newbie than leave what was a topic area of average standard as an execrable, worthless mess for a long time to come. Rebecca 00:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Escape from woomera

Still there after all this time - what do you think?.... SatuSuro 11:51, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Archbishops

Archbishop suggests they are a subset of bishop with a bigger diocese and a few extra perks. An executive bishop perhaps ;) I'd concur with your renaming suggestions, I'll off and do it now --Steve _(Slf67) ^talk 08:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problem

Hey I confuse you? Well at least thats more than just my wife and kids - phew! It was a logistical issue to utilise the list - as the list was used at times to divert the red link enthusiaists from clogging Perth and WA articles with their favourite band with or without articles. We have few eds on the wa project who even take any notice of this - as a consequence it was a very unoffical short term stop-gap. The WA music article to which they could be added to is beyond me - checking notability of some of the more obscure ones is weird stuff - i suppose if we lose the list - the un red ones could be somehow included in the wa music article - a deafening silence from any one on the project so far :) SatuSuro 12:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough :) SatuSuro 12:51, 10 March 2007 (UTC) I'll give it a go - and I've sent you an email as well SatuSuro 13:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

List of musos in west oz - the main editor for most recent edits has transferred the list to a sub page (all unlinked i think) for homework purposes - so i guess its ready to go...no other comments i dont think...SatuSuro 11:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I think List of Western Australian musicians stays with the prod tag for a full 5 days unless the only author asks for a speedy deletion, which can't happen as it has more than one author. That wasn't so bad - want to try another one? :-) --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Not yet - just trying to sound out some other eds off wiki re a major issue, sigh - will keep you posted SatuSuro 13:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

No problems. Just keeping the ball rolling. I hope whatever it is turns out well. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to bother my talk page has disappeared.. could you help me at all? SatuSuro 14:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC) Oh its returned. very odd - sorry to have bothered. cheers SatuSuro 14:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

No probs. The logs will show you what happened. If you want to know more, ask someone by email. --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC) Hey i savvy now, sigh SatuSuro 22:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lists...

I was pleasantly surprised to see those Religion and TV and Film lists disappear this morning. I hope JRG isn't too disappointed and can use his excellent referencing work on the actual articles. I've added a few more lists into the main article over the past few days, what do you think needs rationalising next? --Steve _(Slf67) ^talk 02:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The music ones bug me. They could cover everyone who plays a guitar in their bedroom, and definitely everyone who has ever played, sung or crewed/roadie in a pub or church. Also architects and immigrants/emigrants. Television presenters might be well enough defined to be filled out instead of deleted. --Scott Davis ^Talk 02:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Scott, was in the middle of completing the list when you put the message on my page! Have referenced the information, but it needs some cleaning up. Guessing you far better skills at this than me, do you mind having a look at it again? Also not sure how to put in an 'incomplete list' message at the top. Cheers qwertytam 07:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

For whats its worth I've put my two bits in about the list of independent australian bands - consider that it should be moved to a category - particularly given such a category already exists Dan arndt 08:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - both now have {{prod}} tags, so should disappear in about 5 days if nobody objects. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Scott you can watch my talk page anytime - thanks for your advice to dan - very well put and i have taken notice. SatuSuro 02:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

No worries - I haven't worked out what the point of putting an extra colon in all the links on User:Dan arndt/Musicians list is for though - it still appears in "what links here". The colon is useful for linking to a category or image instead of including it.

BTW, Your first proposed deletion has succeeded. --Scott Davis ^Talk 03:19, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Gawks - I though it was a means of not linking - something horribly misunderstood - just didnt want dans sub page to necessarily be dragged into things... any suggestions? SatuSuro 03:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see it as a problem - if people find the page via "what links here", they're probably going to help. One of you can put a description of how to help at the top, like you'll find on my working pages under User:ScottDavis/plain town names. --Scott Davis ^Talk 03:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chicago & Philadelphia style consensus

Howdy, I'm doing an analysis of the votes on the Chicago and Philadelphia page moves at User:Agne27/City, State convention/Chicago & Philadelphia style "Consensus" with a discussion on the talk page about what this means about the page move process. You did not participate in either move though you have seemed to voice opposition to these types of moves in the past. I would like to confirm if I am correct in my assumption that you would have opposed these moves if you were aware. I would also like your general input on the discussion page about these moves. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help with a disruptive user

Hello Scott,

You may recall a little while back that the user CieloEstrellado expressed his opposition to the changes in the Chilean place naming conventions. Since that time we've had a couple of disagreements over certain terms or interpretations of them, but now I've noted that he's undertaken to make massive changes to Chilean place names without any previous discussion and in direct contradiction to the convention which he opposed. See Special:Contributions/CieloEstrellado.

I hesitate to leave a note for him about this, he's demonstrated in the past that he's not willing to be cooperative in undoing anything which he has done even if he's clearly made an error, and also because I suspect that he may consider anything I say as antagonistic. I get the impression that he's undertaken to undo anything that I might have done. For example, I sorted a listing of citys alphabetically because that seems to be the most likely way that a typical wiki user would use it, and he changed the listing to a geographical (north to south) order which is common in Chile) See [1] his change on March 8th vs Mine of Feb 6th.

I put a lot of work into making Chilean place names consistent throughout all of Wikipedia, have corrected double redirects and updated links were they were inconsistent. I can see that he has not changed all chilean names to reflect his idea of the policy, so at this stage we are back to a hodge podge of different naming methods.

I don't mind that all my "work" is undone, if it is for a good reason and consistent with the way that I had to go through in order to have it be acceptable.

I have the impression that he is a conflictive user and is likey to continue to be disruptive.

Do you have any ideas of what can be done about this?--JAXHERE | ^Talk 15:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I have posted to his talk page. If things continue, I suggest a request at WP:AN or WP:AN/I to get immediate assistance from someone less involved in the original process (I assisted you to establish the convention, and have an opinion which is different to but closer to yours than to Cielo's). You may well eventually have to follow the processes at Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:23, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for posting the notice. I'm wondering, besides, how can these moves be undone? It seems that in several cases I've looked at that the moved pages have received another edit by the same user which makes a simple undo impossible. Is there some massive way that all these changes can be moved back to where they were -- at least until any changes in the convention have been hashed out? --JAXHERE | ^Talk 14:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm finding it difficult to assume good faith - he has visited Wikipedia since I posted my notice, but not responded to it. Analysis of his page moves and edits suggests an unauthorised bot may have been used, each mapge move was followed by editing "#REDIRECT" to "# Redirect" to prevent non-admins from moving the pages back. I've moved back around half, I think, and edited several of the list articles to use the naming convention-approved names for linking to cities, so that other editors are more likely to use the right name for new articles. This also corrected a number of links to disambig pages or the wrong city. If I spotted more page moves today, I would have hit the block button to force an explanation. --Scott Davis ^Talk 08:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

'Scuse me for interrupting - If I want to i.e. undo the 3rd-last edit, I go back using "show next edit" until I see the starting wrong edit, then I open the correct version, choose "edit" and save that version ignoring the messages about saving an old version, new edits will be lost and blablabla. It takes a moment and a ½ extra, but it seems to work... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by G®iffen (talk • contribs) 11:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC). ^{sorry! G®iffen 21:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)}

Thanks G®iffen. That doesn't work for page moves - non-admin users cannot move a page over any other page with more than a single history record containing a redirect to the article to be moved over it. In these cases, that single entry (created by moving the page) has been edited so that moving the page back to its original position is no longer possible without deleting that target first. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've never had to move something back - and with children screaming around me, I didn't realize THAT was the clue :-( I'll just keep my mouth shut, then, and remember to sign my posts... :-) G®iffen 21:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

No worries - thanks for trying to help. --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mars Bar

Hi, and thanks. Unfortunately the only online cite I could find in my google search was their own site @ http://www.themarsbar.com.au/Place's/gay%20places%20to%20go%20in%20adelaide.htm however anyone who knows Adelaide will agree i'm sure. Problem is, that isnt a citation. Timeshift 14:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Seems that it won't last anyway. At least this time it was given the chance to survive and went through wikipedia procedures, even if i don't agree with all of them. Thanks for rectifying the speedy delete anyway. Timeshift 14:43, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ACOTF - Australia and the UN

Thanks Scott, I'll dig up the article I started on this a while ago and expand it. --Canley 23:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An indonesian issue

Hi an issue has come up - if youre on and willing to be led into the fray, please let me know - otherwise I'll leave you be. ta SatuSuro 12:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I think I'll send a gmail - thanks for responding, It is appreciated SatuSuro 12:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Temporary retirement. My phone line is cut - have no idea how long.... SatuSuro 08:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability Guidlines - Minor Sporting Leagues in Australia

Hi Scott,

I noticed at the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mallee Football League 2007 Season discussion, you asked if there was an accepted AfD guideline for minor sporting leagues in Australia. I can't find any trace of one at present. As I have written a number of articles on minor Australian football leagues such as Picola & District Football League and Murray Football League and have been involved in some AfD discussions regarding football leagues and clubs, I would like to see some guidelines developed as well. My idea at present is to start with Australian football and then use that as a base to bring other Australian sports in if needed.

Would you be willing to provide input into the development of suitable guidelines and do you know of any suitable guidelines I could use as a template. Also, do you know what would be the best way to get word out about the development of these guidelines? Thanks--Mattinbgn/ ^talk 03:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm prepared to help set up the guidelines. Depending how widely you want to advertise for help, try Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian sports, WP:AWNB, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). --Scott Davis ^Talk 08:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I am looking for the English football guidelines as they may be useful as a template to get us started.--Mattinbgn/ ^talk 09:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

A very preliminary draft created here. Please make any comments you feel appropriate. Also, I carelessly created this in the article mainspace first. Could you please delete Notability Australian football leagues and clubs. Thanks--Mattinbgn/ ^talk 11:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Meetup on 23rd April 2007

Hi Scott,

Apologies if you're already aware of this, but I'd like to let you know that the second Adelaide Meetup will take place on Monday 23rd of April at ZUMA Caffe, 56 Gouger Street, Adelaide. The meeting is at 7:30am for breakfast with Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales. Please see Wikipedia:Meetup/Adelaide/Meetup 2 for more details and indicate if you might attend.

Thanks,–cj | talk 13:54, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
NB: The above message is being delivered to users who are listed at WikiProject Adelaide or in Category:Wikipedians in South Australia with AutoWikiBrowser.

[edit] Mohave (disambiguation) revert question

I see you reverted my removal of the red links. Can you point me to a reference that justifies what you wrote in your edit summary, because I can't find anything that permits that. What I do see is that Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) says "Disambiguation pages are solely intended to allow users to choose among several Wikipedia articles" (emaphasis added), and nowhere in the guideline, nor in WP:DAB is there any mention of redlinks being allowed. Your guidance is appreciated. Akradecki 01:22, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Redlinks includes "Links to non-existent articles ("redlinks") may be included only when an editor is confident that an encyclopedia article could be written on the subject." and "Do include a redlink when another article links to the ambiguous article with none of the disambiguation options in mind." --Scott Davis ^Talk 03:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Populations

Hi Scott,

I believe you left a message for me regarding populations of several cities in SA. The population statistics that I posted were sourced from the ABS website and reflect the 2006 figures.

This is the first time I have done any editing on Wikipedia and until a couple of days ago, wasn't even aware that I could edit it. Please be patient with me as I become more competent at updating.

Thanks,

Cheers, Mal —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Victmw (talk • contribs) 01:09, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

copy of my reply on User talk:Victmw

No worries Mal. Welcome. If you could provide the exact URL from the ABS, that would be helpful. The simplest way is to put the URL between square brackets straight after the population number. [http://www.abs.gov.au/] renders as [2]. Many pages use footnotes to be able to provide more information about the source - see WP:FOOT and Help:Footnotes for details, but use <ref>footnote text</ref>. Often the footnote text will be a template like {{cite web}} that includes parameters for all the metadata about the reference. Welcome. You'll get the hang of it and become hooked. --Scott Davis ^Talk 01:19, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Scott. I have put a comment on User talk:Victmw about his changes to Port Pirie. The only reason why I watch the article is that I accidentally found out it was often vandalized, and in a rather childish way, so you did not really need to be an Australian to take care of that. I have replaced what I thought was Victmw's guestimates with the 2004 figure of ABS. I hope he will not be discouraged by that. I have a hunch that today he is/was editing as an anonymous IP, since 203.37.111.193's contributions look like he is correcting Victmw's mistakes. All the better, but he should log in as Victmw, of course. All the best there, and greetings from sunny Belgium, where spring started ... er, well, we did not have any winter actually. --Pan Gerwazy 08:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Pan. I hope to visit Belgium sometime. What's the best time of year to spend a week or two discovering the country? The weather in South Australia is quite pleasant now, after having had some hot days through summer. On the whole, we've had a mild summer with no stretches of more than a week above 35C. It has been very dry for the last year, but we are getting close to average rainfall so far in 2007.

Thankyou for watching some Australian articles - I watch some odd things sometimes, too. Thanks also for providing an example of how to cite a population figure - we should really go through and do that for all the regional cities and towns in Australia. They tend to get these sorts of uncited change reasonably often, and because the original is not cited either, there is nothing to identify which is right.

I noticed that the IP seemed to be the same user, too.

--Scott Davis ^Talk 12:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nhulunbuy

Hello Scott, I've noticed you editing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nhulunbuy%2C_Northern_Territory and I'm intrigued. I grew up there from 1971-1981. Do you have an association with the place? Regards Paulhage 12:03, 30 March 2007 (UTC)Paulhage —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Paulhage (talk • contribs) 12:03, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

I've never been there, although I stopped at Gove Airport once on the way from Cairns to Darwin (QantasLink, ~2000). It was after dark, so I didn't even see anything out of the plane window. I edit a lot of Australian articles, especially geography, industry and business, so finding my mark on that one is no great surprise. Sorry I'm not more help. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wind power in Australia

Hi Scott,

I've been enjoying contributing to Wind power in Australia and have noticed your name coming up quite a bit. I feel the article has a lot of useful content now, but that it is rather uneven.

I'd like to suggest that it be split in two, and am writing to see what you think. The second article could be "Wind power development in Australia" and would cover the "bigger issues" such as future trends, economics, environment and government policies.

The first article would mainly relate to "technical and site-specific" issues. The large table would remain there and my thought is that discussion of issues such as wind resources and turbine efficiencies could be expanded.

The split being proposed would generally be along the same lines as the split between Renewable energy and Renewable energy development. Please let me know what you think. regards, Johnfos 04:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

My name comes up trying to filter out the rubbish and improve the format and grammar more than any valuable contribution to the content. I have no problem with splitting the article if you have a plan to make two useful articles, but you should raise the idea at talk:Wind power in Australia. I would encourage a higher text-to-table ratio (more prose). A couple of interested editors come with rather strong bias - I encourage you to attempt to continue to maintain the neutral point of view. Remember that both articles have "in Australia" in their titles, so should link to the general technology information, not repeat it in Australian English, but should describe what's different or specific about Australia's situation. --Scott Davis ^Talk 07:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cricket in Australia

Have just whipped one up now - needs some work, but I guess that is the point ;) -- Chuq 13:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lake Margaret Power Scheme

Hi Scott. I noticed your work on the Queenstown Wiki entry. I have just joined after stumbling across the Lake Margaret Wiki entry, in which I noticed a few factual errors and out dated information. I'm pretty keen to breath some life into this Wiki entry as it's my area of research and due to the rather murky future of the place I'm keen for the Lake Margaret wiki page to be as accessible and transparent as possible.

Could you please have a look at my first entry and give me some feedback on how it looks (re: formatting etc)? It is my first entry and I wasn't sure how much depth to go into. The 'history' section is basically all there, it probably just needs tweaking a bit to get it working a bit better chronologically. Regards Travis Tiddy 13:25, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mildura, Victoria

I live here, and I too have missed a hell of a lot of edits to the main article recently, like it's not even on my radar sometimes... :) Mildura is a city, with a rural "town" feel about it. Most locals here refer to Mildura as a town, but it's a city all the same. It's true - size doesn't matter :) -- Longhair\^talk 13:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tullah

Thanks for that - I left a message at his talk saying expect it to get edited :)  ! SatuSuro 15:44, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't even looked at the user's page. I think we stopped in Tullah on the way through on one of the few really dull rainy days in our holiday, and failed to even find a coffee. --Scott Davis ^Talk 02:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It was the base for the pieman development - the chief engineer on the king river project still has his holiday home in tullah SatuSuro 02:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Could you do me a favour and look at my entry in the checkuser page and tell me whether someone should stop him in his tracks? He seems to have been driven by something SatuSuro 02:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

gmail if you are around SatuSuro 02:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Australian motorsport

Scott,

Seen your name around quite a bit over the years. Would like to help out with the above Project as time permits. I'm a commentator and journalist within the sport and also used a historian at various levels.

yours Mark Jones203.185.235.165 04:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Welcome Mark. Register for an account and let me know if I can help in any way - you will be a great addition to the Australian motorsport team. I see you've already picked up a bunch of critical errors. Thanks. --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)