User talk:Narson/Archive 1

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Cornwall

np, I'm aware that military C2 can be pretty convoluted for the uninitiated. Hopefully it's a bit clearer now why CTF is on-board.

ALR 10:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

tbh Army C2 is even more complicated than Navy. Royal Air Farce have it easy.ALR 14:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Blocking anon users

Over on 2007 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel I see you've wondered a few times whether it's possible to block anon users from editing an article. It is and it's called semi-protection. I've requested it over at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection since we do seem to have a problem with anon editors. --Imroy 02:32, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Siege of Malakand

Thanks for fixing those dates! I typed the whole thing in one spell, and was typing 1987 and Makaland instead of 1897 and Malakand all over the place by the end of it. 1987 was the year I was born so I kept slipping up! I have a freidn quickly proof it but she obviously didn't read the dates. Cheers SGGH speak! 12:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

re: Boston tea party

Believe it or not, I understand perfectly where you are coming from. My personal opinion is that Parliament was perfectly within its rights to ask the American Colonists to help pay for their own defense... and American taxes (even at their highest prior to the repeal of the Stamp Act) were far lower than those in England. My ancestors vastly over reacted to the situation (I guess would have been a loyalist had I lived back then).

Perhaps POV was the wrong term for me to use. What I was trying to get at is that sticking the word "illegal" into the article is bound to cause a huge controversy on the article and will lead to edit wars. Most Americans will not see it as being an illegal act (whether they are right or wrong in this view is besides the point). By leaving out the issue of it's legality, we avoid riling those who think in American POV ways. It was a protest... why not leave it at that.

Now, if you insist on raising the issue of the protests legality, I would have no problem in your saying that the protest was deemed "illegal" by the British Government (that is a fact that is born out by the passage of the Boston Port Bill), or even that some Englishmen today call it an illegal act (although such a statement should probably be attributed as an "opinion" to some scholar). However, to simply state that it was "illegal" will do nothing but cause unnecessary problems.

If the article strikes you as being overly "Pro-American"... raise the issue on the talk page and work with the regular editors to make it less POV. Be prepared for some minor resistance, but I think you will find that most of them will be happy to compromise. Find good scholarship to back your view of things (it does exist, and having the sources ready to quote will help convince "die hard" American POV editors that you do know what you are talking about, and are not just some brit with a chip on his sholders because his country 'lost' the war). Blueboar 18:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I have been thinking about your concerns... trying to think of something that would be a bit stronger than "protest", but that would not immediately start the Pro-American editors screaming "POV".
All I can come up with is "act of protest" (instead of just "protest"). Adding "act of" indicates to the reader that the Tea Party was a deliberate act, and not just grumbling or spontanious reaction. Another idea mught be "act of defiance in protest of..." Let me know what you think. Blueboar 15:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

1833

Sure I would be happy to help.

Regarding your presently proposed wording:

"The contemporary Falkland Islanders consider themselves to be British and, after the 1982 war, have British citizenship, although Argentina does not recognize the right of the inhabitants to self-determination due to their ancestors not being native to the Islands, having been brought to the Islands after the British invasion of 1833."

For all I know everybody's ancestors were not native to one's present place of residence; if you are resident in England for example, then your ancestors came either most recently from Poland, France, Pakistan, the Western Indies, or hundred other countries, sometime earlier came the Mormans and the Vikings, or before that again from continental Europe the Angles and the Saxons, and still before them the Romans, still earlier the Celts came also from continental Europe etc.

The single possible exception is a certain tribe in Eastern Africa that has been traced as genetically closest to the recently identified single pre-human person proved to be the common male ancestor of all present humans; he happened to live precisely in that area several million years ago.

More seriously, your intention to find some compromise text should not be at the expense of bending the Wikipedia requirement of verifiability. Where are your original sources supporting the claim that the ancestors of the present Islanders do not include the pre-1833 inhabitants (sealers and Vernet's settlers) who remained on the Islands and whose presence in 1833 and later is well documented in contemporary 19th century evidence by eyewitnesses?

For your information and use, here follows once again a brief sourced resume of the demographic development of the Falklands around 1833; it focuses on Vernet's settlers in Port Louis, in addition to whom there used to be a much larger number of British and American sealers in the Islands (up to 1,000) some of whom on various occasions opted to settle too.

I am not aware of any original 19th Century sources, Argentine or otherwise, that mention expulsion of Argentine settlers by the British. If someone could give such original 19th Century sources, that would be appreciated.

At the same time, there exists well sourced information on the demographic development of Vernet's settlement at Port Louis that disproves such allegations.

First, about the number of settlers as of 1833.

Even some of those that claim British expulsion of the Argentine settlers cannot but admit that the settlers number barely reached 20 persons in 1833 (En 1833 las Malvinas contaban con apenas 20 pobladores),[1] hardly anymore a viable settlement (or rather a single-company enterprise as Vernet's Louis used to be). That demographic collapse however was by no means caused by the British takeover in 1833, having happened already before that.

According to Admiral Laurio Destefani's well sourced book[2], prior to Vernet's conflict with the US sealers the settlement used to have 100 to 120 inhabitants (with some people sent for short-term assignments by Vernet's company) comprising some gauchos, criolles, and apparently a majority of recent colonists of various nationalities (mainly German, also English, French and Spanish). That population was greatly reduced by the US Navy (see Commander Silas Duncan's original 1832 reports[3] to the US Navy Secretary Levi Woodbury) removing some 40 colonists that Commander Duncan believed included virtually all the population excepting several gauchos encamped in the interior of East Falkland. The US Navy also detained on piracy charges and brought to River Plate seven persons including Vernet's deputy Mathew Brisbane. Britain did not expell anyone during those events.

The Royal Navy ships Clio and Tyne left the Falklands in January 1833 without leaving any new person on the islands. If the claim that Britain expelled the Argentine settlers were true, then Port Louis would have remained uninhabited, which simply was not the case as testified by Charles Darwin who stayed at Port Louis from March 2 until April 6, 1833[4]. Furthermore, according to the 1833 narrative by Port Louis settler Thomas Helsby,[5] after the British left, the following 24 residents of Port Louis remained — to the last one settlers brought by Vernet:

Captain Matthew Brisbane (superintendent), Thomas Helsby, William Dickson, Don Ventura Pasos, Charles Russler, Antonio Vehingar (known in Buenos Ayres as Antony Wagner), Juan Simon (Capitaz), Faustin Martinez, Santiago Lopez, Pascual Diego, Manuel Coronel, Antonio Rivero, Jose Maria Lune, Juan Brasido, Manuel Gonzales, Luciano Pelores, Manuel Godoy, Felipe Salagar, Lattore; three women: Antonina Roxa, Gregoria Madrid, Carmelita and her two children.

Helsby reports also the presence of 12 "temporary residents" of Port Louis since before the arrival of the Clio, namely:

The sealer William Low and his crew members Henry Channen, John Stokes, Daniel MacKay, Patrick Kermin, Samuel Pearce, George Hopkins, Joseph Douglas, Francis Marchedo, Jose Manuel Prado, and a black man known in the settlement by the name of "honest John", as well as Antonio Manuel from a US schooner.

On August 26, 1833 eight of the settlers (allegedly expelled!) murdered five other settlers (allegedly expelled too!), thus further reducing the population of Vernet's settlers. The British authorities (HMS Challenger under Lieutenant Henry Smith) did not appear until January 1834, when the 8 murderers were arrested and removed from the islands, and the settlers restored their business. (A side remark: For Spanish speakers, here is a thoughtful modern Argentine reading of those events.[6]

What happened in 1833 was that Vernet made an attempt to renew the operations of his settlement, with no British objections or obstacles whatsoever; Vernet's deputy Brisbane returned to the Islands and together with other Vernet's managers and foremen such as Dickinson and Simon tried to renew the normal functioning of the settlement. That failed as the gauchos and Indians led by Rivero refused and went violent. Of course those who committed the brutal murder of innocent people were criminals, but there was something else to it too.

Namely, Vernet used to pay to the Port Louis settlers not by money but by bonds. Under the new situation the bonds were 'devalued' by Vernet's managers, i.e. the workers started to get less goods from Vernet's store for their wages. That had its good reasons too: those bonds were paper supported by Vernet's standing, and in 1833 he was no longer the boss residing in Port Louis but a man sought by the US Government for piracy who risked being arrested as soon as he sailed from Buenos Aires. Under the circumstances, the attempted revival of Port Louis was quite a hopeless endeavour, even though Vernet's people (Brisbane, Simon and Dickinson) tried in good faith.

Two points to be stressed: all that resulted from Vernet's own action in 1831 against the traditional American sealing industry in the region, with Britain not involved in Vernet's decision; and second, after raising the Union Jack in January 1833 the British came again to the Islands only in 1834 to relieve the settlers and arrest the murderers -- the attempt and failure of Vernet and his people to resume the Port Louis operations during 1833 was not interfered with by Britain.

In the following years, according to various sources quoted by Admiral Laurio Destefani's book the population of Port Louis varied around 41-45 settlers (with more children) including Vernet's settlers Antonina Roxas, Manuel Coronel and another gaucho, and several seamen. During his visit to the Falklands in March 1834, Charles Darwin was accompanied by some gauchos (expelled by the British in 1833 no doubt!) to carry out his research in the interior of East Falkland, as narrated in the Charles Darwin's 1834 diary.[7]

Another interesting authentic XIX century evidence of Argentine presence on the Falklands is an 1869 publication in the newspaper Rio de la Plata by the prominent Argentine naval commander Augusto Laserre (who later founded Ushuaia). His account of Port Louis mentions the local family of a Pampa Indian and an Englishwoman. (By that time the settlement had been moved to Port Stanley).

So much for the '1833 expulsion'.

REFERENCES:

  1. ^ Pablo Kleinman, ¿De quién son las Malvinas?
  2. ^ Laurio H. Destefani, The Malvinas, the South Georgias and the South Sandwich Islands, the conflict with Britain, Buenos Aires, 1982
  3. ^ Commander Silas Duncan's original 1832 reports
  4. ^ Charles Darwin's 1833 diary
  5. ^ 1833 narrative by Port Louis settler Thomas Helsby
  6. ^ Rolando Mendez, Las Malvinas de Rivero: Toda la historia que engloba este personaje
  7. ^ Charles Darwin's 1834 diary

Just in case you don't see my reply on Talk:Lewis Hamilton i though I'd put this here also. To try and stop editors adding spam links to a page then use the warnings on this template below

Description Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 4im
Adding spam links {{subst:uw-spam1}} {{subst:uw-spam2}} {{subst:uw-spam3}} {{subst:uw-spam4}} {{subst:uw-spam4im}}

Each has a varying degree of seriousness, the first one will generally help educate newer members or I.P's to our policy. hope i have been of help to you --Childzy ¤ Talk 22:59, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Alex and the Islands

I take your point and your concerns are appreciated, so far his edits in the Mediation Cabal have only re-inforced our statements. I don't propose to do any more. It will be interesting to see what citation he comes up with to support his latest claim. Justin A Kuntz 15:48, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

For info, as per our earlier discussion, I don't see a point in further responses to our friend, I rather expect that the mediators will refuse to take this one. His conduct really speaks for itself. Justin A Kuntz 18:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
You owe me a new keyboard, mine has tea in it from when I read "Spamming the talkpage with this circular argument is about as useful as trying to chop a tree down with a sex toy." I like your style, I just hope I won't be drinking tea next time. Justin talk 10:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't know, that an obviously intelligent bloke could completely misunderstand wiki policies in such a fundamental way makes me think there is an agenda here. Justin talk 20:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Apologies aren't needed, I needed a kick to bring me to my senses. Instead of thinking about writing good articles I'd allowed him to drag me into a point scoring exercise. So thank you, it was what I needed. Justin talk 14:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Mediator is away and I've just noted he's posted on his talk page (Eagle101), including a personal attack on me. So I guess not. 18:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Justin A Kuntz (talk • contribs)
Single use account and very single minded. I don't think it was ignorance of wiki policy that cause him to behave like that. Justin talk 19:30, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hi, and welcome to the Military history WikiProject! As you may have guessed, we're a group of editors working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to military history.

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask one of the project coordinators, or any experienced member of the project, and we'll be happy to help you. Again, welcome! We look forward to seeing you around! Kirill 02:32, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Gaza bust-up

I slipped up over the date of Yasser Arafat's death in Battle of Gaza (2007) - but the point of my edit was right on the ball and my references were good. The current article doesn't state some of the most basic facts about the event. PRtalk 20:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Falklands

Apparently there's a streak of completely or partially unsupported Anti-Argentina bias in my edit history and now I'm responsible for Anti-British bias. I guess that means I'm getting a pretty neutral point of view across....

As a very wise old sergeant once observed "blessed are the peace makers, for they are shot at by both sides". Justin talk 21:58, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

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Delivered by grafikbot 10:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

"Freedom" of the BBC

Worth noting that there were sackings (two of them at the very top) when a journalist (also sacked) told Radio 4 (once) at 6.30 in the morning that "Downing Street had sexed-up the WMD dossier". The person who told the journalist was harrassed into committing suicide (or possibly murder, never sorted). This was a world-standard expert on Iraq and WMD lost to us, the kind of thing Putin would do to inconvenient critics. It's difficult to have much faith in the Western media when this kind of thing goes on. I also note a case where the BBC makes an easily provable wrong quotation from a UN report, the wrong information is still on their web-page 5 years later. PRtalk 11:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

You mean Dr David Kelly, Andrew Gilligan (and Greg Dyke) and the Hutton Report. In my opinion the whole Kelly/Hutton affair was very embaressing, but in a twisted way proved the independence of the BBC. It also hasn't affected the quality of the BBC's attacks on the government (And on itself. It was very bizzare to watch the BBC attack itself over its conduct over David Kelly on things like Newsnight). If Lord Hutton is to be believed then Kelly did not say some of the things Gilligan attributed to him (Oddly, this would mean he 'sexed up' his report, though, thats journalism for you). Unfortunatly the government decided to seize upon this as a campaign. Sadly I think this story owes more to Dr Kelly's timidity combined with his discontent with the ludicrous dossier. (The decision to fire the people was for totally failing to apply any editorial guidelines, whether thats justified or not is a bit odd). Something I think has happened at several commercial news services (The chief takes the rap for some reporters loose leash). The freedom to cock things up is a sort of freedom in and of itself. Narson 12:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm being a tad unfair to the BBC, because they still often behave honourably - even going so far as to spring deeply embarrassing leaks at a critical time for Blair. But with them (and other sources) having failed abysmally (for instance) to bring us most of what has been happening in Iraq, that was a damp squib. (Maybe the public and Conservatives most at fault?). Here's the report where the BBC wrongly quotes the UN as saying there were 52 dead in total in Jenin 2002. I have reminded them it's wrong, it's not been corrected. PRtalk 15:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

USS Liberty Incident

Dude, I'm gradually going through undoing the pro-Israel loony's changes. Jesus, some of what he was saying is priceless, e.g. to use his logic (there was no English on the Liberty, merely a 'Latin script') the US could mark its ships in German or Polish or Swahili. Utter and complete nonsense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.43.145 (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't feed the trolls

Friendly advice: Don't feed the trolls, as this (somewhat) legitimizes their comments. Rami R 18:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Not use CAMERA

I removed CAMERA here because it uses language such as "Palestinian Duplicity"[1]. We'll use its material the day we use sources that speak of "Jewish Duplicity". PRtalk 07:06, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Constantly screaming that it is a hate source is not helpful. It is clearly partisan and clearly has an agenda, that in mind, the article you are removing is sourced in itself (Sourcing both Halpin's comment and the statistics plus other quotes) and is relevent to the article. I think having only a single source of criticism in the article would add the misconception that that group is widely accepted. We also currently have unsourced praise for the group on the page, which I would say is a more urgent correction needed than dealing with CAMERA. Narson 10:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I know a little bit about hate-sources in the project - I was accused of using one and blocked indefinitely (May 07). Only good fortune amounting to astonishing luck saved me (I'd taken my information from a book that I had to hand, and it pre-dated the Holocaust Deniers having noticed what Israel had done). You make it sound as if Wikipedia cannot recognise such sources after all. Or are you saying that foul-mouthed defenders of Israel cannot be hate-sources? From the same article "despite copious evidence of their blatant lying ... refuting their fictitious 'massacre'", so the source is not encyclopedic either. PRtalk 11:10, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The Argentine Icebreaker

Thanks for the feedback. BTW all Government statements etc are published by Hansard, which is online back to 1988. You can access all of the House of Lords & Commons debates, notices, committees etc at http://www.parliament.gov.uk/. Main drawback is that the search engine is not as good as the "They work for you" website.

BTW have you by chance stumbled on APCBG's new article in progress on The Origins of the Falkland Islander, it really is turning out to be a fascinating article. Justin talk 12:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Justin talk 12:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Hansard link to the Government statement if you want to use it. Justin talk 21:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

UNINDENT. Looked hard but I can't find a reference to the wikiproject echo translation. Have you got a link? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Justin A Kuntz (talk • contribs) 11:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I've looked at that before, its dreadfully POV, as are most of the Spanish Falkland Island articles. I thought the references to a "just war" particularly nauseating. Justin talk 12:21, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
After going through the Spanish version I couldn't find anything that wasn't already covered that wasn't POV. So I included the tag in the archive. Justin talk 12:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Raikkonen

Yeah, I have no real intention of actually changing it at the moment, I think it probably should be, but I'm certainly not going to do it without consensus, but as you say I don't like the way it's being approached by the other users. John Hayestalk 12:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Melbourne GP

No problem. But believing that the tifosi shouldn't have a problem with even a fair and verifiable statement that might just, possibly, perhaps, be construed in such a way as to cast negative light on the Scuderia just shows that you probably have a more positive mindset than I... Pyrope 14:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, as I mentioned to Sporti, McLaren were busted for breaching Article 151(c) of the sporting code, while Ferrari's actions in Melbourne were arguably (and you would be arguing with considerably more evidence on your side than the FIA had against the Woking lot) in breach of Article 151(a) (I think I might have said b to Sporti, but there you go). So perhaps wysiwyg, and all McLaren are after is some firm ruling so that people know where the FIA actually stands! Pyrope 14:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Latest Vandalism

IP shows our friend was from North Carolina Research and Education Network, ain't education wonderful. Justin talk 22:25, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Kimi

Yeah, I agree. I toned down some of the obvious POV and errors, but I'm afraid that, the human attention span being what it is, it is probably best to leave the blow-by-blow account there for now. Recent events always seem more significant to many people, no matter how banal in truth. Once the new season is underway it would probably be prudent to trim it down quite a bit. Pyrope 12:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

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Delivered by grafikbot 14:37, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Brawn

Yes, because that worked sooo well for them in the past! ;-) Pyrope 14:34, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Reversion...

Too much Bruce Forsythe and the Generation Game when you were younger? ;-) Pyrope 15:55, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. Been there, done that, got the jacuzzi, the bed linen, the trip to Paris, the coffee cups, the box of chocolates and... the cuddly toy! And I'm not gambling. Pyrope 16:22, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Redirects that aren't broken

Hello! I've noticed that you're changing links to redirects that aren't broken. That is against Wikipedia editing guidelines, because it's much harder on Wikipedia's servers to make an edit like this than it is for people to just occasionally follow the redirects. Please do not change links to redirects that aren't broken unless you're making other, useful changes to the article at the same time. TomTheHand (talk) 19:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Heads Up

For info, the guy who altered the Falklands War page has a long history in his block log of contentious edits. I gather from looking through them that "decisive victory" was an issue for him when other editors disputed his use of the term in an article about a WWII battle. It would appear edits were for a WP:POINT. Justin talk 11:14, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

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