User talk:John K/Archive 2

Well done on the Dukes of Devonshire thing. :) Do we need to worry about the copyright status of those images, though? It seems that Isis took them from some publication, and she had somewhat, erm, unconventional views on copyrights on photographs... -- Oliver P. 19:49 25 May 2003 (UTC)

No idea. They've been here this long, though, so I don't see any need to remove them unless we know that they're copyrighted. And I have no idea how to even go about trying to find out if they're copyrighted. Some of the earlier pictures, at least, could very plausibly be from sources that are no longer copyrighted. Of course, I'm perhaps not the best person to ask. My own now defunct website on the Habsburgs was full of what I imagine now, in retrospect, to have likely been copyrighted images. I never got into any trouble for it, but wikipedia is probably more noticeable than some tiny website on the University of Virginia server. In general, what are the rules on copyrights of photographs of old paintings? The idea that such things are creative works that have copyright protection is somewhat rankling. john 21:59 25 May 2003 (UTC)

Excellent work on the Members of the French Royal Families. You have turned a stub with potential into a truly excellent piece that when finished will be a credit to wiki. Well done. FearÉÍREANN 01:43 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. Sadly, I got sick of it, and quit for a while, but I'll return to it soon. Something like this, I think, would be useful for other royal families, as well, but it is rather a pain. john 01:55 26 May 2003 (UTC)

I too like your work on Members of the French Royal Families. Assume you are also into genealogy. However, when creating new articles it would seem like a good idea to somehow create several links so they can be found. Don't ask me how, though. How about a page for the "Bastard offspring of European Royalty?" They have their own organization and last time I looked (several years ago) were very active. Triton

I didn't create the article, it was present, but lame. A link from "List of French Monarchs" would be good, except that our dispute over there is likely to get it locked... john 19:11 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Your addition of the list of Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order is appreciated, but perhaps it needs its own page, if we are going to have a list of all their holdings as well!!! (when I get round to it). Also one of those rare topics which I want to spend some time on somewhen is matrilineal analysis of European aristocracy. Harry Potter

Feel free to move it to its own page, if you'd like. john 00:09 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi John, I've noticed a problem that is arising over the opening paragraphs of many royal and papal pages. We use numerous styles, many of them illogical and a throwback to when wiki named royal pages by personal name not royal nomenclature. I've proposed a solution on the Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles) page. Take a look and let me know what you think. FearÉIREANN 00:51 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Mr John, sir, sorry to bother you but I wanted to help you all I can. You said: “In any event, I'm coming towards the thought that perhaps including the Merovingian kings in a list, so long as we're careful to indicate that they weren't really kings of France, but precursors to the Kings of France (and Germany!), wouldn't be awful.”

http://courses.washington.edu/hist112/French%20Monarchs.htm

Sorry Mr. John, sir, -- here is some of what Ms. JHK said about the University of Washington list:

Please note that, although the title of the page is France's Kings and Rulers, the page itself is clear that there are older Frankish kingdoms (as there are on the wikipedia, but they have a page devoted to them) and starts the Kingdom of France proper with the Capetians.

Thank you. Triton

But that is what the list says explicitly. It is becoming increasingly difficult to follow the logic behind Triton's argument. He doesn't seem to grasp the difference between King in France and King of France, or to put it another way, those who ruled in France and those who were French. That seems to be at the heart of the problem. FearÉIREANN 01:50 30 May 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Although I'd say it's always been difficult to follow the logic behind his argument. (I'd also say that being "French" wouldn't be a prerequisite to being a King of France. France managed to avoid having any kings who were overtly not French, but surely George I isn't any less a "British King" for not having been British. But this is all semantics...) john 02:13 30 May 2003 (UTC)

Ah but there you see you are talking about someone accepted by the political elite and citizenry of a state to be their monarch. That would contrast, say, with British monarchs in Ireland who even if accepted by the political elite were not accepted by the citizenry. So they were seen as outsiders who took over Ireland, in a way George I wasn't seen as an outsider who took over England but an ousider who was by law the king and had to govern following english laws and customs, not treat it as some province of his extra-British empire. He was if not British by birth at least British by acceptance. Oh the complexities. :-) FearÉIREANN 03:19 30 May 2003 (UTC)

Hey, I'm just trying to get along -- I appreciate that I haven't had to prove myself to everybody. I haven't been around in a long time, and only a few oldtimers are still here -- not bad, but this is not the way I'd planned to make my comeback! JHK

Hi John. I saw your note last night, but since it was late, local time, for me, & because I had to work on a lot of non-Wikipedia real life stuff (like gardening), I've been delayed from answering you until now. Sorry.

Now for my response: I am aware that Ancient Egyptian chronology is a very debateable topic. The book I'm pulling a lot of the dates from -- Nicolas Grimal's A History of Ancient Egypt (Blackwell, 1995) -- even notes that by attempting to base the beginning of the reign of Amenophis I on a recorded astronomical observation, the resulting date could be either 1546 BC or 1526 BC, depending on the location of the observation. There is admittedly a lot of uncertainty with Egyptian history.

However, that is the reason why I'm focussing on adding the dates from the 21st dynasty forward. From my research, it appears that there is enough synchonicities between the chronology of Ancient Egypt & other civilizations with recorded histories to make the dates from that point forward reliable. In other words, I'm testing this hypothesis by putting it into the Wikipedia, seeing if it breaks & where, & then going to the next step. If this works, I will then attempt to add various dates before the beginning of the 21st dynasty until I run into trouble -- & then stopping. (Frankly, I doubt I will manage to get much before 1200 BC, if that far.)

I know we're not supposed to do original research on the 'pedia, but I would like to know just how back we can trust the dates we find in the reference books (as well as prove to Egil that we should have individual year entries far earlier than 500 BC). If the dates that I am using start showing problems, I'll be happy to roll my changes back to preserve the accuracy of our 'pedia. But I would like some first-hand experience to draw on in order to say, "we can't rely on dates before this point." -- llywrch 00:45 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Well, one thing I do know is that for most of these dynasties there are various dating schemes theorized. And for the 22nd through 24th Dynasties, there are actually various different orders of reigns suggested - nobody's precisely sure of the chronology. From what I understand, the most precisely dated dynasty is the 12th - there's an astronomical convergence of some sort that means that the whole dynasty can be fairly precisely dated. The 18th and 19th are more tenuous - I've seen dates of 1290 BC, 1279 BC, and 1265 BC for the accession of Ramses II. The first dynasty where we're really fairly clear on it is the 25th, I believe (aside from the 12th, that is). There's a forum somewhere that I once discovered in which people post very detailed technical discussions of the possible dating schemes. I browsed it for a little while, and then got tired of it, but it convinced me that the whole thing is pretty complicated. The Mesopotamian dates, I believe, are a lot cleaner (although even there it's weird - the Old Babylonian Dynasty, for instance, has recently been redated to be a century later than we used to think. So, as I said, be careful, and try to look at multiple sources. Some other possible sources are "Chronicle of the Pharaohs", a big glossy pop book, but it has lists; Gardiners's "History of Ancient Egypt" (or some such), an older book; er... hmm... can't remember what other good sources there are, but check out [the Ancient Chronology Forum] (the forum I mentioned earlier), for some very detailed discussions of chronology. One might add that this is all disagreement within the parameters of the accepted basic chronology. There's also wild revisionists like Immanuel Velikovsky (whose wikipedia article is in serious need of NPOVing) or David Rohl, who mash about the chronology pretty wildly. john 06:55 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hmm. I'll admit that most of my work on chronology deals with events on this side of the BC/AD divide, & I've seen examples there where trained historians attempt to work in a field they are not familiar with, misunderstand the materials, & make fools of themselves (e.g. John Morris on Dark Ages Britain/"The Age of Arthur"). So with that danger in mind, I'm responding to your concerns.

(As a note, there are dangers with many famous dates practically up to AD 1700 -- & if you can cite a few later than that, it's only because I'm not as interested in modern history. As I understand the problem, it lies in attempting to figure out how the source came up with the date in question: was the source a witness, or used reliable sources in turn? Did the source record the information accurately? Etc.)

To be honest, I haven't seen much of the secondary literature that discusses Egyptian Chronology. I was pleasantly surprised to find my copy of Ancient Near Eastern Texts gave the exact same dates for Shoshenq I as in Grimal's book cited above. And I have read the Wikipedia articles about this issue. (No, not the Velikovsky one. ;-) As I said, this is a learning exercise for me, & either it will work, or I'll end up with hands-on experience that we should NOT do this.

As I write this response, I wonder if it would be best to identify an authoritative chronology -- say the Cambridge Ancient History -- & cite (with permission) those dates, a la "1109 BC - Pharoah Example died (CAH date)". That way we avoid dumping tons of arguments into Wikipedia, & only report the fact that someone has that opinion. Sigh. That will mean that I have to do more off-line work before I can submit changes.

BTW, thanks for the heads up on the link. I'll have to examine it more carefully. -- llywrch 18:09 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Just to note, the problem with ancient chronology is not simply "trying to figure out how the source came up with the date." The problem is that they didn't even use a calendar the same way we do, and there's no continuous list of Egyptian monarchs with their lengths of reigns (as there is for Mesopotamia), so a list has to be reconstructed based on some astronomical markers and convergences with Mesopotamian history. Which can be difficult. That's why the 25th dynasty is the first one that can be dated with relative certainty - it was in the period of the Assyrian invasions of Egypt, so the kings can be dated based on the much more solid Assyrian chronology. Shoshenq I's dates do seem fairly solid - I always see him as reigning 945-924 BC. But I don't know that anybody agrees on his successors. I would agree that citing the source and specifically saying that it is the chronology according to that source is a good idea. And again, I think this is a more serious issue for the year pages than it is for the Pharaoh page. On the list of pharaohs, I think it's fine to give conjectural dates (although I think that, even there, a source or sources ought to be cited). I'm not convinced that this is the case for the year pages. I'd also note that Mesopotamian monarchs' dates are much more solid, so that might be a better place to begin with this stuff. john 18:52 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

John, I read you response here soon after you posted it. I hadn't posted a follow-up because I couldn't think of anything further to say on the matter. Consider this an "acknowledgement" -- nothing more. -- llywrch 18:00 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

We discussed it at great length on the mailing list, John, and arrived at a negotiated settlement with broad consensus support. He has gone on a unilaterial war of destruction on the work that I and others have put in. It is verging on outright vandalism. The sooner he stops this stupidity the better. I have real work to do. You could help by reverting some of the changes yourself, if you have time. Tannin 04:33 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I thought there was something like that on the mailing list, but wasn't sure. You'll note that my comment to you was probably more civil than my comment to him, because he seems to be starting it. And I bear little love for the man who screwed up all the numbering of all the Holy Roman Emperor Henrys. I'll try to revert if I see something. It's really pretty ridiculous. john 04:42 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks John. Appreciate any help. This was settled long ago and has broad support, so I don't think the one-man reversions will last for long. Tannin

The Style Manual for Biological Journals as "Prepared by the Committee on Form and Style of the Conference of Biological Editors of the American Institute of Biological Sciences" states at page 68, "Generic names used as vernacular names are neither italicized nor capitalized"

Since an other authoritative source has indicated that capitalization is usually done among ornithologists (though it is not a rule) I will leave birds alone ... for now.

What exactly does that mean. "Generic names" - doesn't that mean "names of a genus". So, for instance, if you use the generic name Gorilla as the common name, "gorilla", you don't have to capitalize it. It seems to me that while in a normal sentence, the word "gorilla" should not be capitalized, it ought to be capitalized when it is referring to the species as a whole. And that your reference doesn't seem to be referring to what you think it is referring to. john 05:39 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I thank you for putting a reply on my talk page. When you answer me on my talk page, I am notified that there is a message for me; when you answer me on your own talk page I receive no such notice. I have already commented twice on Tannin's talk page, but he has not replied.

A rereading of the item that I quoted does give some support for your interpretation. The sentence is repeated on the next page with the single change of "vernacular" to "common".(I've since won another much thicker book about writing style in biology, but it might not get to me for another couple weeks.) The Latin species name is never capitalized anyway. Capitals and single quotes are used, however, for cultivars. This may give support for a similar practice for dog breeds, but I'm not yet ready to take a stand on that. A little later the book gives examples and particular rules relating to insects, plants and bacteria. For birds it refers us to the American Ornithologists Union's check-list of North American birds, but gives no examples. It is silent about mammals and other vertebrates.

The Globe and Mail Style Book directs lower case for all animals, including birds, except when what would otherwise be a common name is involved. It is more direct than most general style manuals when dealing with this, and that gives some weight when we are concerned with a work of general knowledge such as Wikipedia.

The other point that favors lower case is the general rule in Wikipedia titles to lower case all words unless there is a good reason to the contrary.

The next source is an online one at http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/courses.hp/biol335/Lecture8-9.html

I quote

capitalization:
- unless the common name includes a proper name (e.g., person's name or place name), most common names are not capitalized
  - however, there are exceptions for certain groups of organisms. One obvious exception is that the common names of birds are now usually capitalized
  - e.g. white-tailed deer vs Atlantic salmon vs Richardson's ground squirrel vs Great Horned Owl vs Englemann spruce vs balsam poplar vs Rocky Mountain juniper
- for vertebrates and probably other groups of organisms, there are international committees that recommend on common names in each language
- e.g. the sparrow hawk is now the American Kestrel

Note the word "usually" in regards to birds. The practice follows the American Ornithologists Union but is by no means universal. I am at least prepared to concede the matter in regards to capitalizing bird names, in the absence of further evidence.

There is no such list for mammals, and apparently none for other vertebrates where I have not explored the matter.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game Writer's Guide at http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/geninfo/download/adfguide/wrtrguid.pdf supports lower case for all species, including birds where it does note that its view is contrary to that of the Ornithological Union.

From the publication The Prairie Naturalist at http://www.fhsu.edu/biology/pn/pnstylerules.htm we have "Common names of organisms are not capitalized except for proper nouns or adjectives that are part of the name, e.g., green-winged teal, American coot, Cooper's hawk."

The Newsletter of the Baltimore Bird Club at http://baltimorebirdclub.org/cn/cn0010.html states,
"Many birding publications follow an unofficial convention for capitalization of bird names. I have chosen to follow this convention in Chip Notes because it makes the name stand out and it honors the objects of our devotion. If you would follow these "rules" in your submissions it would save a lot of time. The "rules" run something like this:

All non-hyphenated parts of a bird's name are capitalized.
The hyphenated parts that are a type of bird are also capitalized.
The hyphenated parts that are NOT themselves a type of bird, such as "-bellied" or "-tailed," are not capitalized.

A good illustration of all these principles is "Yellow-crowned Night-Heron."

Based on all of the above I reach the conclusion that all common names of life forms should be lower cased, with the possible exception of birds. ☮ Eclecticology 07:56 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

A brief reply: I've basically quoted what I said above on the mailing list. Capitalizing in article titles is the usual English practice (though not in many other languages). Wikipedia links are case sensitive; this is why the rule for lower case, unless there is some other grammatical reason. no great difference about lists; in the changes that I made I was not changing the capital when it was the first letter in a list entry. There was no magic in my starting with bears; it was as good a place as any other for starting.

As the cries of the Anti-Stratfordians screech forth, "Foul! Foul!" my only defence shall be "Jlk7e made me do it! -- Someone else 09:57 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I swear you won't get an edit-conflict if you go for Shakespeare authorship now. I won't touch it till you're done, and it could do with another editorial hand. -- Someone else 22:39 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Okay. I'll go over it shortly. I feel kind of bad that we seem to have driven away the poor new contributor... I tried to send some conciliatory, but firm words, both on the Shakespeare authorship talk page and his/her user talk page. john 22:42 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

OK, you're right, I'll do my best at conciliatory on the talk page as well (fair warning - but will leave the article at your complete disposal!) -- Someone else 22:47 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia's treatment of whacko viewpoints is always tense... I certainly think the "alternate" viewpoint has little to complain about as it now stands, and I hope that the article gives some sense of how baseless it is without resorting to ridicule. I'm going to make a few minor changes (hyphens, links) but substantively I don't think it's too bad as is. (well, one substantive change: everyone agree's Shakespeare's father was illiterate, it's just that the anti-Stratfordians have a problem with that). -- Someone else 00:51 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I saw your insectivore comment on Tannin's talk page. I've tried to clarify it, but I'm not a mammal expert.

On the capitalisation issue, you have to capitalise species in the text as well as the article. The crested lark could refer to several species of larks with crests, such as Skylark, Thekla Lark etc. The Crested Lark is Galerida cristata. Groups of birds, such as the treecreepers, do not need capitalisation. The Treecreeper, certhia familiaris, does.

Hmm...perhaps this is true with birds. It does not seem to be true of other animals. And for many animals, what you're saying doesn't apply. There's only one kind of gorilla, for instance. Anyway, I'm not an expert on this at all (my interest in taxonomy has greatly waned from its peak when I was about ten, thirteen years ago), so I don't want to get into this too much. But might this not be a case of ornithocentrism? john 21:16 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

John -- are YOU editting the List of Battles, ante 1400 pages? If so, do you have a connection faster than dial-up? Respond stat on my Talk page, so we aren't stepping on each other's toes. -- llywrch 05:28 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

John, since you have a much faster connection than I -- I'm still in the dark ages with dial-up -- go ahead & move the pages around. I'll stand back. (Especially since I'm getting a bit frustrated because when I edit the other battle pages, I'm not seeing the updated status of the links.) -- llywrch 05:42 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Actually, John, all that needs doing is updating the relevant links. If you can't get to this administrivia, I'll do it tomorrow when I have access to a faster connection.

And good work on updating the list of battles in the period before AD 1. That is something I've been meaning to do, but I never seem to have both the time & a round tuit. -- llywrch 05:53 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I just had a look at the List of Battles pages. Thanks for finishing the job. -- llywrch 15:36 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I can't claim to have read any, but W.E.B. claimed to have written some<G>. -- Someone else 05:44 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

re: my edit of Clovis I -- you make a very fair point. As you know my main concerns were better flow, and more specificity. I trust you have already made the appropriate changes, if not I hope you will, Slrubenstein

John, doing some miscellaneous edits on the List of battles 1400 BC-600 AD page, I noticed you renamed the Battle of Abrittus to the Battle of Forum Terebronii. I've seen it referred to more often by the first name -- is your version the more comon name? It would be nice to get more information about this important, but poorly documented battle.-- llywrch 00:24 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the details on the Battle of Abrittus: while I reverted the name, I also include the materials you quoted via paraphrase. Much thanks. -- llywrch 04:42 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi John, I was in the middle of changing Lord Lucan when you redirected the old text to Earls of Lucan. I removed the redirect to save my text change, then redirected the new text to Earl of Lucan. I also redirected Earls of Lucan to Earl of Lucan, as I think under wiki conventions it probably should be in as singular, given that it isn't a list but an article with a list attached. FearÉIREANN 00:11 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)

BTW, what do you think of History of China. There seems strong agreement that the article is a mess, largely it seems due to one person's additions. We are suggesting reverting to an earlier version to undo the rewrite, which apart from anything else has poor english. FearÉIREANN 00:33 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi. I was going to move Lord Lucan to Earl of Lucan, but the disambiguation was the last thing I did before I went to bed. I think the convention is to have the pages listed in the singular as the articles are about the title as well as the title holders. I've just noticed that you've been doing a similar thing with other peers. I hope I'm not treading on your toes. I was going to write an article about the Earl of Lucan who was in the crimea (4th I think) but realised that the Lucan page needed disambiguation, then I decided to do the same with Earl Spencer and Duke of Westminster. You may notice that for the Duke of Westminster I have created Lord Grosvenor and Marquess of Westminster as redirect pages and briefly discuss, and list the holders of those titles. I think this is the correct way to handle these titles that have been subsumed by greater ones. What do you think? Mintguy 23:03 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm... well I expected that it would probably be more complicated than I first thought, so I guess some thought needs to go into individual cases. Do you have information about the 2nd Baronet Grosvenor (or however he should be correctly titled) I haven't been able to track him down to plug him into the Duke of Westminster page. Mintguy

Thanks for the fix-up on Duke of Westminster. I realised that a baronet is styled Sir, but was unsure of the rest of the styling. In Wikipedia knights of the realm are listed without the prefix Sir in the article title. I wonder whether baronets should be. Similarly, as the current Duke of Westminster is a baronet should he be listed as sir Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster instead of Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster? Of course I know that a proper listing of his name as per Burke's peerage would be a mile long. but is the appropriate short form without Sir correct?

Hi John, your help is needed on Republic of Ireland. Some months ago User:Scipius engaged in a ludicrous war to change the page because he wanted it called Ireland rather than Republic of Ireland. The row got rather nasty. Now he has returned and wants to screw up the page that has been agreed (it was rewritten most by me but also by others. I contacted a lot of users who had views on the matter to see what they thought (people like User:Derek Ross for example) and all were quite happy with the rewrite. Now Scipius has come back again and is starting his rewriting again. He basically wants to remove factually relevant material and install a template he wants, one littered with inaccuracies, eg, it talks about the RofI's languages being Irish and english, as if they were equal. In fact as the Irish constitution makes clear, Irish is the national language, english a secondary language, not even the secondary language. But Scipius has a problem stating that very simply in one sentence and keeps deleting it. He wants to refer to the state as Éire/Ireland not Eire/Ireland/Republic of Ireland which was the agreed version when various Northern Ireland users objected to the article presuming that the twenty-six county state could claim exclusive use of the word Ireland. To avoid offence and give clarity, we have tended to use Ireland to refer to the political entities before partition and to geographic and cultural references to the island after 1920. But Scipius has a 'problem' with this.

Every time there is a consensus agreed on the page, or changes made at someone's suggestion which everyone then agrees to, Scipius reappears with his own agenda, his own highly inaccurate understanding of Irish history and starts reverting agreed versions and putting in his own frequently ludicrously inaccurate stuff, or deleting accurate relevent stuff because he deems it irrelevant. Knowing your skill and knowledge of facts (and desire or accuracy rather than inaccurate simplicities) I would welcome your involvement. Irish users are becoming increasingly frustrated by the antics of Scipius and one or two other users, who don't know accurate facts but nevertheless bulldoze through Irish pages changing things to suit their own theories. In the past Scipius has been one of the worst offenders and I don't want to see him screwing around Irish pages yet again. FearÉIREANN 02:42 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi John, I've read your message and I now see that JTD has unfortunately felt it necessary to misrepresent my position. I originally applied the agreed upon country template to Ireland without any difficulty, but shortly afterwards objections were made to the name of "Ireland" for only the Republic. My preference for using just "Ireland" for the Republic came from the fact that this is what most people outside Ireland would conventionally use to refer to the country and indeed many sites and encyclopedias do so. It was also part of the template to use the conventional short name of country for the article. As it happened, my position was not supported and so the article was moved, after which I also withdrew the template.

People then went to work on the article and it diverged significantly from other country articles. Jeronimo then reapplied the template, but this met with protests from JTD. A /temp version was then written mostly by JTD and applied to the main article. Unfortunately, this version does not comply with the template and so I started work on trying to make it compliant. What I did was not a reversal (except for the overly long history section), but a reworking. I see that JTD here raises some points he might have better raised on the RoI talk page. The bit on the languages is hardly a problem (note that both are official languages), but such a note is better added separately, as mentioning it like JTD did clutters up the table. As for the title, the template prescribes we use the local official name there, and the Irish constitution obviously says its Eire. This was not what the previous debate was about, which was about the name of the article itself.

As for my supposed ineptitude, doubtless things I've added could be improved, but JTD's characterisation is a little off and note that he does not mention examples. Regrettably, JTD is not in a particularly cooperative mood at the moment, but the template is still valid and I hope we can work together on it. Could you please revert your change so that my proposed changes are visible? Thanks. -Scipius 21:58 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Yeah. I added in one list of Lords Lieutenant of Ireland then found there was another (my work? I can't remember!). So I guess they should be merged. BTW I see Scipius has left a message. I could not help smiling. According to Scipius, "both (Irish and english) are official languages". How many times over how many months does it have to be repeated to Scipius that this is wrong? *sigh*. Oh the saga of Scipius and the Republic of Ireland goes on and on . . . and on and on. lol FearÉIREANN 23:15 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

What is the correct convention for Capitalisation of titles. I just pulled John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich from EB11 and it had Duke of Bedford as opposed to duke of Beford and suchlike all over the place. Mintguy 09:51 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi John,

Someone left this message on specially created page. Before deleting the page I thought I'd better give you the message. Maybe you could help them. BTW - sorry for using here and not your talk page. Because wiki is so flippin' slow right now I can't use my good browser that times out before wiki opens a page but the crappy Internet Explorer that cuts the bottom off pages over 32K. As yours is over 32K I couldn't leave a message there without castrating the bottom of your page. (I can't open mine either. I keep getting messages saying 'please archive'. I'd love to but I can't get it to do it until I can get off IE and back to safari, and I cannot do that untl wiki gets beyond the internet equivalent of a model T.)

Anyway, here's the message from an anonymous punter.

iI am very interested in the life of Prince John. I fel he suffered from autism (sp). i WOULD LIKE TO KNOW 1. Where was York House in the Great Park AT wINDSOR 2. Where was he buried. Any info gratfully received. Annette SPRING.TERRACE.FARM @xtra.co.nz

FearÉIREANN 04:40 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I didn't notice, sorry. Koyaanis Qatsi 07:52 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)