User talk:VirtualSteve

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Contents 1 Selected Picture 2 D. H. Lawrence & Somerset Maugham 3 counties 4 RE: Alloy wheels and other articles 5 Random Smiley Award 6 Vandalism 7 Goulburn Valley and some more photos 8 Ze' challenge is accepted... 9 Re: Ellen Fanning 10 Re: Deniliquin 11 Hermit's Cave and Valerio Ricetti

[edit] Selected Picture

Hi VS,

I see this photograph of yours is being used as the selected picture at Portal:Australia!

Cheers--Mattinbgn/ ^talk 05:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey Matt - that's pretty cool - thanks for letting me know. I have been a bit quiet the last couple of days (work and caught some dog's disease) Will get back into it on the weekend. --VS ^talk 06:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] D. H. Lawrence & Somerset Maugham

Steve, if you're still working on the Somerset Maugham article, I suggest you have a look at the D. H. Lawrence article, which I just stumbled across - it seems to me one of the best articles on a writer I've seen on Wiki, and could be useful as a template. PiCo 08:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] counties

Awesome!, I'll add maps shortly. I've been adding the river boundaries where possible too.. now all we need is a list of which of the 7,459 parishes belong in each county hehe --Astrokey44 12:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• F*ck! Well it can be done but do you think it is worth it (and the month or two of editing)? Where would we put it up? Perhaps just a table on each county page? --VS ^talk 13:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• lmao.. well maybe as a lonnnng project that could sit here for a while, there are alot of projects that stay unfinished for years on WP. yes I thought a list for each county like how it is done on Cumberland. --Astrokey44 13:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Guess what (apart from you being a bastard and putting the idea in my head!!). I am going to do it - absolutely - it's a stunning project (there will be detractors that think that putting this stuff up is no longer important but the history alone is fantastic). I won't put it up into info boxes - else we will receive the ire of some of the community but I will add it to every NSW county as a table. Consider it done! (I may have to loan some money from you for the psychiatrist).--VS ^talk 13:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

well dont do it unless you really want to.. there are probably better things to do here :) I will take no responsibility for medical expenses! but if you do want to, great! - the national library has 19th century maps of most of the counties with parishes marked and even some separate maps of individual parishes like [1] which might help. --Astrokey44 13:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Nah - it'll be fun!! I already have it partly worked out (well in my scone at least). Watch these spaces--VS ^talk 13:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow!! Ive just seen the articles you updated, the box looks amazing! it is great with the LGA and the coordinates. How did you even find this information? --Astrokey44 02:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Glad you like it - I sort of worked it out in my head last night. It's a lot of work in terms of sorting and then checking every link and coordinate etc but I have the template in place on my desktop and if I knuckle down then I should be able to prepare up to about 4 or 5 counties per day (perhaps a few more on weekends) so I should finish in about 20-28 days. I have opted not to link Parishes - they just turn into a very, very ugly sea of redlinks or link to other obscure pages. I thought the good, better, best touch was that each one points directly to its governing LGA and to a centralised coordinate which can be opened (as you no doubt know) via Google Maps etc. --VS ^talk 02:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes its definately better not to link parishes. that was fantastic how you could go straight to the map for each one!.. I could see people who live in those areas finding it useful. I also agree the LGAs are excellent to link to, as they are more known than the counties, and it tells you which LGAs the counties are in. --Astrokey44 02:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

ok cool, Im still amazed at how you did it so fast! Ive now finished putting maps on the articles. Just had another idea.. what about a box for them like with the LGAs so that you can navigate to neighbouring ones - I've added a type:cadastral to infobox australian place and tested it out on Argyle County, New South Wales. What do you think? --Astrokey44 11:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• I like it for many reasons but mainly because a navigational tool makes the whole concept of Counties much more valid and is a tangible way of getting a reader to conceptualise this part of Australian history. I think you should go for it. I also think that with the Parishes and your Navigation addition the NSW GeoStub could pretty well come of the page (at that stage the page is way bigger than a stub). --VS ^talk 11:58, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

great, Ill start adding them. goodbye stub template! --Astrokey44 12:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		For super fast and fantastic work with your parish-LGA-coordinate tables! --Astrokey44 03:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• Gosh thanks for the barnstar. I have so much further to go but I appreciate very much the acknowledgement. --VS ^talk 03:52, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RE: Alloy wheels and other articles

Hey VS, check out my User Page in requests and you will understand what assistance I need. By the way, how did you get your barnstar?. Thanks Harrison Bass - HB4026 00:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Hi Harrison, thanks for your question - Barnstars are given by fellow members of the Wiki community when that person believes that an editor has done a particularly good job on an article or a project. There is no set criteria for giving or receiving - some times they seem to come for relatively small achievements and sometimes for much larger ones. Whilst any compliment (including Barnstars) are nice to receive - in general (well in my opinion anyway) the best compliment you will receive is a feeling of satisfaction that you have added something of real value to an area of Wiki.--VS ^talk

[edit] Random Smiley Award

♠TomasBat (@)(Contribs)(Sign!) 21:09, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you. I am smiling today as a result of your lovely random gift.--VS ^talk 22:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Hey VS, you may remember me from editing the AU Falcon article. Do you know how to block established users? Because User:Wismosis has attacked Ellen Fanning because of her story on the Sunday program about Wikipedia. Wismosis has put gibberish through the article such as shsofhibbero and wrote she needs to perform fellatio. I think its deservant of him to be blocked for a while. Thanks. Harrison Bass - HB4026 01:26, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Harrison - I am not an admin and only they can block users. There are strict guidelines for blocking such people - but I note that someone has beaten us to it by protecting the Ellen Fanning article already. Thanks for keeping an eye out and letting me know. Keep up the editing work! --VS ^talk 01:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Goulburn Valley and some more photos

Hi VS, thanks for the kind words. Also, I am uploading some more Riverina photos this afternoon, including Balldale, Walla Walla and Culcairn. --Mattinbgn/ ^talk 05:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ze' challenge is accepted...

Well, I didn't think to bother looking that closely at the photo.

I'm lucky to kick an AFL ball the length of my back yard clearing my dog in the process, let alone kick a ball over a Riverina wheat silo (I'm sure they're much the same at Gunnadah and points equally distant).

Good photo. They are amongst the things that helped open country New South Wales up to profitable habitation (along with the associated railway lines) and are rapidly becoming just another piece of history to be discarded along the way...

Garrie 06:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Ellen Fanning

Thanks anyway. If you would like to know I was the one that disabled the editing :-) Harrison Bass - HB4026 08:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

• Well actually it looks like it was user:BigDT that placed the protection on - 'cause you need to be an admin to do that too. --VS ^talk 09:24, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Deniliquin

hey, thanks for your comments.

I am not trying to promote any websites on wikipedia - that would be impracticle, as the audience of people looking at the Deniliquin wiki is not the audience the websites are aimed at - I am just trying to be complete with the listings I submit - I intend to include all local bands on the wiki if practical, as well as information about all locally created music media, and all local music events.

Since Deniliquin is my home town, I am interested in having the wiki as conclusive as possible - music is just the area that I am starting at.

Would it suit you if the listings remained, without links to the site? Pharmer4 10:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for your question. Having a link to the facts of a band is fine but where the page is simply a self-promoting page then that is not a way of establishing notability. For example for Adrian Ross where the only thing telling us Adrian Ross is a great musician is Adrian Ross' Management site then editors will remove those links.

• Also where the link is in the body of the page so that clicking on it leads you to an off-wiki page is a no-no. For example the way that the article linked to the Heavy Metal Nation page. So to compromise - yes clearly you can tell us about bands but you may face many questions about why this or that band is on a encyclopedia page about a town. Let me put it this way - imagine if the people interested in Melbourne or Sydney decided that it was a good idea to put every band in the city on the wiki page - absolute chaos right?

• So if you are interested in promoting the bands (and they are notable) then they may deserve their own page - although there are very strict rules about band notability - see WP:Band.

• In terms of the fact of the band, or the facts about any other part of Deni, then there is a way of referencing fact which you can find on any featured article (just look at the edit page for all the coding or ask me more questions) but to reiterate I would not think that putting up each bands name is a particularly good way of writing about Deniliquin.--VS ^talk 10:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair points about Adrian Ross, althugh most of the information about him is offline - I suppose that would mean he is not particularly notable! What information would you class as being removed enough from Adrian to support his notability - would online newspaper articles qualify? And if so, what if referencing such articles requires people to log-on to the newspaper's website?

I would personally disagree about the listing of bands, although linking to their sites is unnecessary, I agree. Many bands are worth noting, just due to their existence and the hard work their members put into the band, although they are not popular enough to warrant their own page. Hence a section on music in Deniliquin is, in my opinion, a perfect place to mention these bands. It gives the bands recognition, and also demonstrates that Deniliquin has a burgeoning creative community (which all towns have of course). As for comparing Melbourne or Sydney to Deniliquin, I see no reason why these places should not also do the same, although due to the large quantity of information, these should probably have their own pages based on bands from that area.

It is a fine line to tread, in my opinion, to arbitrarily decide what information is and is not notable. If someone thinks it important enough to list a band in the firt place, then it is, by definition, notable.

Lastly, I believe putting information about the different festivals held in Deniliquin is also important for the cultural aspects of Deniliquin. many times Night Of Darkness and Shakedown have been removed - these are major events for Deniliquin (given the size of the town - if they were held in Melbourne, perhaps not, but the site is not about Melbourne). I will attempt to re-intriduce information about these and other cultural events in Deniliquin, without linking directly to these pages. As I stated before, I am not trying to promote them - I'd use myspace etc for that, as wikipedia is not an effective way to promote events! For the record I am involved with the organisation of one of these events, but that is not relevent.

Anyway, looking forward to your feedback --Pharmer4 10:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks like I should have assumed good faith and not simply reverted as a spammer. Thanks VS for doing the right thing and my apologies to Pharmer4.--Mattinbgn/ ^talk 10:49, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

• Good return - you appear to be picking up the intention of my comments - that is not to police you directly but to point you in the another direction and to offer support. There is room for most what you suggest but how you do it will decide whether other editors remove, revert or adjust. Importantly whilst you live in Deniliquin and are close to the article - no-one owns anything that is written. So because Wiki is such a dynamic place you have to be prepared for other editors to adjust, change and disagree. Oh I should say there are strict guidelines about notability at WP:N and verifiabilty at WP:V for you to work out Adrian Ross' place - framed over many years of Wiki and by thousands of editors. My final suggestion is actually that you do take the time to read all of the links that user:Longhair provided - if he hadn't of provided them, I or another editor would have. When you do you will see that the adjustments made by me, and others such as user:Mattinbgn (see his comments above on my talk page) etc are all well meaning and just our attempt at helping Deniliquin get to the stage of being a good encyclopedic article. Keep editing! --VS ^talk 11:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

• • No probs Matt. I think he is a good editor in the making - obviously keen on country towns (just like us) - needs a little redirection but he seems sure to get there. - We need to get him interested in futher afield than Deni and maybe jump on board with Wikipedia:WikiProject Riverina... --VS ^talk

[edit] Hermit's Cave and Valerio Ricetti

Hey VS. Thanks for the heads-up on the real spelling of Valerio Ricetti. Nice work on that page! It looks like you have already covered a lot of material, so thanks for starting the article. If I come across anything else I will be sure to add it. --Culix 01:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you for your kind words. Anything you can find will be greatly appreciated. You might have noticed on the talk page that others have suggested the real possibility of FA status ... and some suggested improvements.--VS ^talk 02:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)