User talk:Oliver Pereira/Archive 1

Hello and welcome! --dan

Hello! What's going on? I'm confused... ;) Well, no, not really. I think I'm sort of getting the hang of things... to a certain extent, anyway! -- Oliver Pereira

There certainly are a lot of features and conventions to get a handle on - don't worry it will come in time. Welcome aboard and don't forget to have fun. :) --mav

you are assuming well...I have problem with my browser sometimes (I have not been able to figure the pattern yet), it seems not to appreciate at all stuff put into < and >, so from time to time it just add some ; or change some < into weird characters.

I try to avoid editing pages with tables to avoid the problem, but here, I didnot think there could be some balise stuff, and the browser misinterpretated the font balise :-((. Ended with a non-closed balise, hence the greeeeeen everywhere...

My mistake. Sorry I didnot ckeck afterwards.

I don't think I qualify as a vandal usually...but I may do it again from time to time...user:anthere

Ah, that's all right. It was easy enough for me to correct! :) I wasn't sure if I should ask you first, but then I thought, no, all this greenness is making me feel too ill, so I'll have to change it for the sake of my own health... ;) -- Oliver Pereira 17:18 Nov 27, 2002 (UTC)

Since we're talking to each other now anyway, I'd like to apologise on behalf of Wikipedia for the way you were treated on the mailing list(s). — Toby 18:27 Nov 28, 2002 (UTC)

Oh, that's quite all right! I probably shouldn't have jumped into a discussion of such a contentious issue when nobody knew who I was, and without thinking it through more carefully first. Thanks anyway, though. :) -- Oliver Pereira 20:13 Nov 28, 2002 (UTC)

Oliver, mi respondis al vi en mia diskuto-paĝo. Bonvenon al Vikipedio! --Brion 20:26 Nov 28, 2002 (UTC)

Ha, jes, mi jxus vidis vian respondon. Dankon! Tamen, mi versxajne ne kontribuos multe gxis pli malfrua tempo, cxar mi iom timas verki artikolojn en Esperanto. Mi devas denove alkutimigxi al la lingvo... :) -- Oliver Pereira 02:06 Nov 29, 2002 (UTC)

Ne timu! Via lingvouzado ŝajnas sufiĉe bona (aŭ eble la mia estas sufiĉe aĉa ;) ... kaj krome, artikolverkado estas perfekta praktikejo por plivastigi la vorttrezoron kaj fajnigi la stilon. Aliaj kontribuantoj trarigardos kaj korektos se io misas. Se oni volas alkutimiĝi iun medion, bona metodo estas simple ensalti kaj eklerni naĝi. Mi promesas, ke ne estas ŝarkoj. ;) --Brion 03:27 Nov 30, 2002 (UTC)

(Copied from requests for deletion:)

Chocobo Racing
- New page with no encyclopedic stuff. Subject unknown (to me). --FvdP 02:41 Nov 30, 2002 (UTC)
  - Have a look at my new stub and see if it will do. But no, I don't know anything about the game, either... :) -- Oliver Pereira 02:54 Nov 30, 2002 (UTC)

Looks good, thanks ! I'm not too sure a video game deserves a wikipedia article, though. But... Let it live... FvdP 02:58 Nov 30, 2002 (UTC)

Thanks! But I'm sorry to hear that articles on video games may not be considered appropriate for the Wikipedia. There seem to be quite a few cropping up. I even made a start on an article for "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" the other day - despite having previously known virtually nothing about it! :) For what it's worth, my opinion is that it's better for the Wikipedia to err on the side of too many articles than too few... -- Oliver Pereira 03:15 Nov 30, 2002 (UTC)

Don't be afraid, I'm no authority on what is considered appropriate here ! And i agree with you on which side it is better to err. FvdP 03:31 Nov 30, 2002 (UTC)

We have plenty of articles on things that some people think are uninteresting, including video games, television shows, music albums, cities, poems, variations of poker, obscure authors, and particle physics. Far better to err on the side of too much material than too little, as long as we stick on NPOV description. --Brion 03:27 Nov 30, 2002 (UTC)

Nice observation on Isaac Asimov with the double "most-famous" statement. Vera Cruz lol

Thanks! :) But deary me, all these edit wars are a bit of a nightmare, aren't they? I wish people would be more willing to compromise... -- Oliver PEREIRA 21:46 Jan 17, 2003 (UTC)

It just takes time. Ive been in an edit war on New Imperialism for about 2 weeks now and people are pretty much refusing to even talk to each other, but still its slowly evolving, at least the opening paragraphs are ...;> Vera Cruz

Actually, come to think of it, there were a couple of changes which you made to another article which I've been meaning to take up with you, but I'll leave that for another day, eh? :) -- Oliver PEREIRA 21:55 Jan 17, 2003 (UTC)

whenever Vera Cruz

No prob. I actually ended up agreeing with VC on the Asimov page (but I will not work on any article with VC). Ortolan88

I think you're Louis Theroux page may have been the 100,000th article. Lisiate

No, no, I think you get the crown. :) When I looked at the counter before posting Nigel Buxton, it said "99,998". After posting that one and Louis Theroux, it said "100,001". So I checked, and found that three articles had indeed been posted: since your one came in between my two, it must have been the 100,000th. Congratulations! :) -- Oliver PEREIRA 04:05 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)

P.S. - I mean... *cough*... not that I was looking at the counter or anything... I mean deliberately trying to get the 100,000th article in that way would just have been terribly childish, wouldn't it? ;) -- Oliver PEREIRA 04:05 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)

And I wasn't looking either ;) Lisiate 04:14 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)

Heh heh! I'm surprised more people didn't try for it, actually. I suppose everyone round here must be just far too sensible... or just asleep! Oh, and perhaps I should point out that checking the Recent Changes reveals that I posted Louis Theroux before Nigel Buxton. So, just swap them round in the above paragraph. Sorry for the confusion! -- Oliver PEREIRA 04:24 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)

Congratulations, then! I never noticed the counter at all. What I really wanted to say was... I had begun to think I was the only person interested in Siegfried Sassoon. It's nice to know that's not the case. Deb 21:36 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)

If you mean on the 100,000th article thing, that was Lisiate, honestly! And as for Siegfried Sassoon... erm, I must confess that I only have a passing interest in him. Basically, I made an article on Marlborough College, and started looking for past pupils to link to it. Then I found that the Siegfried Sassoon article looked a bit POV, so I slightly reworded a bit. I might add some more later, though, if I ever get round to it... -- Oliver PEREIRA 21:47 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)

Well, I'll be interested in seeing more about Marlborough, anyway, for obvious reasons (Siegfried Sassoon's brother also went there, by the way, and his name is on the war memorial wall along with Sorley's). And there's that peculiar modernistic science lab that's a listed building... Deb 21:56 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)

Fair point, I wrote up the Princess Royal bit after doing bits on Anne's page. I think though her pre-marital surname should go in. However her surbame isn't disputed. I checked with the Buckingham Palace press office and her surname is Mountbatten-Windsor. She belongs to the House of Windsor and the Royal Family's name is Windsor, but that is different to her personal surname. As Wiki normally places in surnames, it is important that we apply the standard version for all. I am checking with the Palace about the correct surnames of the Queen's children. I'll then put them in the articles so we have an accurate version. (I'll also put a note in the talk pages to make sure everyone knows they are the correct surnames as a lot of people on Wikipedia seem to be mixing up the name of the Royal House with the personal surname, which is causing endless chopping around. :) JTD 02:23 Jan 22, 2003 (UTC)

You checked with the Buckingham Palace press office? That is impressive! :) Okay, it looks like we should use "Mountbatten-Windsor" as her surname after all. Is it all right if I leave it to you to put back in? It's probably about time I went home... -- Oliver PEREIRA 02:27 Jan 22, 2003 (UTC)

Heh heh. Yup. BP press office. (Ok, among other things I work as a writer and commentator so I on to them occasionally. I've also been on to the President of Ireland's office to get permission to download official portraits of presidents for our pages on presidents! They are getting back to me on Thursday. Jeez. I am a real wikiholic. One query: you mentioned Princess Mary, Princess Royal as dying in 1965. That is what I thought to, and the website supports it, but the family tree at the back of Harold Nicolson's King George V says she died in 1967, which was news to me. I'll email the BP press office about it to check the correct year. (Yeah. I'll add in the change on Anne's surname. I am waiting for a 100% definite confirmation from them. All they could give me is 99%, as in "I've always understood it was MW. That's what we use. But just in case that is wrong (but I'm 99%+ certain it is right) I'll double check. But go ahead and use it anyhow. If you are wrong, we've been wrong for decades ourselves! )

Great work on the Princess Royal page. I just put in a stub based on that family tree. It is nice to see it updated and broadened so quickly. :) JTD 02:37 Jan 22, 2003 (UTC)

Just got word back from the Palace press office. The Princess Royal's surname is Mountbatten-Windsor. And Princess Mary did die in 1965. JTD 16:25 Jan 22, 2003 (UTC)

Good work! It's nice to know that at least some of the information in the Wikipedia is backed up by reliable sources. ;) I'm still worried about naming conventions for royal people in general, though. I can't decide what the most logical conventions would be. I'll have to give it some more thought. -- Oliver PEREIRA 22:04 Jan 22, 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, its a nightmare for those people in the public eye with a complicated nomenclature. I've added in stubs for Royal House, House of Windsor and Mountbatten-Windsor. What I suggested to some people is that in doing UK royal pages, we use their title in the article title, the correct surname in the opening line (with a link to Mountbatten-Windsor in that line), following by 'of the Royal House of Windsor', to enable people to get the full understand of the difference between Royal House, surname and title. Otherwise, everyone will keep undoing each other's changes in the articles, because they think 'their' approach is better. If we can all get agreed on one approach, it will make things much easier. So far everyone seems to agree with the THREE GENERATION RULE as the most workable option, subject to some refinements. Even looking through various UK and other royal sites, there are at least four different structures being used, with some people going through everything to follow one version; then someone else changing everything to do a different version, then a third changing everything once again. It is enough to drive you mental! JTD 22:24 Jan 22, 2003 (UTC)

Isis, I see that you have replaced the Juliette Binoche image today. Have you now established that we have permission to use it? -- Oliver P. 16:57 Jan 29, 2003 (UTC)

Yes. -- isis 00:35 Jan 30, 2003 (UTC)

Okay, just checking. You should put a note explaining this on the image description page. See Wikipedia:Image use policy, which says, "Always describe the image and where it came from on the description page. Images without descriptions may be summarily deleted!" Just thought you'd better know! -- Oliver P. 02:51 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)

I did explain it: It's a replacement for the one you objected to that I deleted after I uploaded this one. -- isis 04:16 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)

Where is your explanation written, though? If you go to the Juliette Binoche article and click on the photograph, you get to a page which describes the image. That's the page that I interpreted "description page" to mean, and there is nothing there apart from the usual automatically generated text. I think you need to put a note about permissions there. -- Oliver P. 04:28 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)

Are you not aware of Lir's history, or are you somehow part of his cult? And I don't take kindly to being given orders. -- Zoe

Apologies for any offense caused. It's just that you seem to have dismissed my arguments in favour of Lir's method of linking, without offering any persuasive argument against it. Simply saying that Lir "is just looking to cause trouble again" is a grossly unfair characterisation of the current argument, I would say. And I certainly do not think that the value of any edits should be judged on the past history of the person who happened to make them. They should be judged purely on their merits; nothing more. -- Oliver P. 03:41 Feb 2, 2003 (UTC)

The Lir incident - someone need to write it - to clue us all in... Thanks for the comment, Ill get that quote to you, though, I must admit it was a rip off of Craigslist, and unattributed. Maybe Swan the Messiah wrote it. Dunno, as of yet.-Stevert

I think there have been lots of "Lir incidents", but I've completely failed to follow most of them. I try to stay out of trouble spots most of the time... However, in the ones I have paid attention to, I think that many of Lir's points have been valid, and that other people have sometimes created conflict where none has been necessary, since they have got into the bad habit of rejecting everything Lir says without consideration. My views on this subject are controversial, however. :) Oh, and thanks for the note about the song. -- Oliver P. 23:01 Feb 2, 2003 (UTC)

Any article can be undeleted. The database keeps all versions of all articles forever; we have lots of space.

Any sysop can retrieve a deleted article, although it takes knowledge of SQL. I will help, if and when needed. --Uncle Ed

(Aside: SQL is no longer necessary to retrieve deleted articles; any sysop can get at them through Special:Undelete. --Brion)

Thanks for the message, Uncle Ed! I'm glad to hear that deleted articles aren't just sucked into a big black hole somewhere, because I have a terrible phobia of loss of information. :) I see that there are very strong feelings against restoring the article on K. Kay Shearin, although I don't really understand the reasons. Is Isis still threatening to do things? Of course, if keeping the article out of the Wikipedia would help prevent legal action against Tarquin, then I would support keeping it out. But I'm not really sure I can see any logical connection there. I'm just completely confused about the whole thing, I think. But I would like to see the article again, myself, as she seems such an interesting character! Maybe it could be restored when everything has died down a bit, say in fifty years or so. ;) -- Oliver P. 17:06 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)

The website doesn't necessarily display the correct name. I would accept that it should all be capitalized if a couple semi-official sources capitalize every word, such as the show's website, NBC's website, TV Guide, etc... Probably, there is no official method of capitalization, so standard practice should be to keep propositions (to) and articles (a) lowercase. If you feel strongly about it, I won't kick up a fuss if you move it back, but I think it's correcter where it is now. Tokerboy

Hmm... Tell you what, I'll put moving the page back again on my mental "Things to Do" list. That will guarantee that I'll never get round to doing it, so it's safe where it is. ;) -- Oliver P. 19:04 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)

Re: your message in Wikipedia:Village pump -- the histories of some articles (those which have had histories recombined via undelete or import from the old pre-2002 database) will appear out of order due to some temporary speed enhancement work-arounds. We'll be rebuilding the indexes this weekend and can do a proper sort again. --Brion 19:35 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation. Good luck with the rebuilding! -- Oliver P. 11:02 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)

Just in case you are tempted, don't open the new page Mary, Princess Royal. A glitch occured which garbled the text. I've texted Brion to let him know. So don't open the page until he gets a chance to look at it. JTD 21:06 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

Too late - I've already seen it! I ran away quite quickly when I saw it, though. ;) -- Oliver P. 21:12 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

I'm definitely hooked on the Wikipedia thing!!! Actually, I'm more and more impressed. I went to add to the BBC page the fact that they launched BBC3 tonight, to find it had already been done, three minutes before the station went on air! And it was so quick of the mark on Columbia it was astonishing. I believe some Irish newspapers used Wikipedia along with the wires for info on the disaster! Wow! I was glad to add my bit onto Nice. One minute I'm writing about Prince Albert, the next Nice, or Princess Margaret's lesbianism. This thing is addictive! (And my flatmate, who is an expert of napoleonic battle strategies and the 18th/19th century British army, is talking about adding on his stuff!) JTD 01:52 Feb 10, 2003 (UTC)

I know, it's great, isn't it? And it's bizarre how I ended up at Treaty of Nice. Someone from a forum I go to started an article on Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy, so I expanded the article a bit, found out that his father was a former Anglican Bishop of Clogher, wrote an article on him, with a link to his successor, the present Anglican Bishop of Clogher, wrote an article on him, with a link to his Roman Catholic counterpart, and then whilst looking up information on him, I found some comments he made about the Treaty of Nice! Most bizarre... -- Oliver P. 02:02 Feb 10, 2003 (UTC)

Oliver, I replied to you on my talk page -- Zoe

Yup, thanks. I was writing a reply, but I'm quite slow at typing. :) I always watch the pages of people I write to, so you don't generally need to notify me here... unless I really have overlooked the reply, in which case it's okay to badger me. ;) -- Oliver P. 06:06 Feb 11, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words on Alice Liddell. It was good to not fight over Woman for a bit!. The photo looks good, though Alice is a bit 'sultry' for my (but apparently not Dodgson's) tastes<G>. --- Someone else 07:15 Feb 11, 2003 (UTC)

:) It's nice that you've expanded the article. I've vaguely been meaning to do it for ages, but my mental "Things to Do" list is just growing all the time, and I seem to end up spending all my time here reading things... As for Woman, you are very courageous for taking that person on! It all looks a bit much for me... -- Oliver P. 07:21 Feb 11, 2003 (UTC)

Well, once DrF goes away, maybe someone without an agenda can make an actual article about women. But DrF has to go away first, I'm afraid, cause it doesn't seem like he has any interest in "playing nice" .<G> -- Someone else 07:24 Feb 11, 2003 (UTC)

I find, on perusing the web, that "Francis Aungier Pakenham, the late Lord Longford" is an anagram of "A gallant prison reformer - and he loathed fucking!" This is brilliant. If it were a bit less contrived, and more encyclopedic, I'd be tempted to add it to his article. -- Someone else 08:05 Feb 12, 2003 (UTC)

Excellent! (I just had to check that it worked...) How on Earth do people work out these things!? -- Oliver P. 08:17 Feb 12, 2003 (UTC)

Hah. It seems we were simultaneously putting on a note asking someone to delete Pontiff States Great minds, think alike, eh! JTD 01:09 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

Yep, that must be what it was. :) -- Oliver P. 01:22 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

I don't know if you're sympathetic to this cause, but I need support in trying to keep football at football. They want to move it to soccer, please see talk:list of footballers. Mintguy 10:16 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

Oliver, I don't think I understand what you're talking about on my Talk page. -- Zoe

Oliver, what part of "Tallulah is a name" needs to stay on the Wikipedia? What is there to discuss? -- Zoe

That wasn't what the article said originally. It was something about swearing in Arabic, and invoking the name of Allah or some such thing. I can't really remember. You did check the history of the article before you deleted it, didn't you? Anyway, I said that I wasn't making any comment about whether or not the pages were worth having or not. I was talking about general policy, and how to make the Wikipedia run smoothly. :) If you delete pages while they are still being edited, it will likely lead to fighting. Where's the harm in waiting a while? -- Oliver P. 23:49 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

Oliver, More comments on my talk page, but being a Macintosh person, I use "Reunion" as my genealogy software. -- Someone else 00:19 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

Aha, okay. But doesn't that cost... money? -- Oliver P. 00:27 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

The idea of a genealogical programme integrated into wikipedia is a good one. Somehow, its difficult to convince non-genealogists about the idea. But since the wikipedia is running on php and the database mysql the "engine" is alredy there. Although everyting is possible with wiki as it is, I think. Something which could be useful is a script tranforming GedCom into wiki pages? Worth discussing...Dan Koehl 06:01 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

There's an example of this (mysql GEDCOMs) at The Next Generation, but of course they want to sell it<G>. -- Someone else 06:07 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

Hey Ol; Yeah, the song I was referring to is the one by The Real McCXoy. Shame that they dissapeared. lol.

Ok, laterz, God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Do The Locomotion! Martin

Wow. That's pretty cool about your mom. I'm not even gay, and I'd date Bowie if I had the chance. The closest I've ever come to celebrity is my mother, who used to work with Jada Pinkett's aunt (i.e. Will Smith's aunt-in-law). Tuf-Kat

Dear Oli: Hi! Hey thanks for thanking me on how fast I anwered you last time. LOL that was cool of you. Well I realized what you said about her not saying it in a racist way after I erased it, but I still left it erased because I thought some people might think about it the way I initially did. What I did after you restored it, was to cxhange the word Mexican to people of other nationalities and erase the explesite part, that way no one will feel like the person who said that is pointing them out as mexicans or talking bad about non americans. But I left her basic message.

So, I read your mom dated David Bowie? My kudos to her cause it takes guts to be around a celebrity or even say hi. I admire her. Ive been around a LOT of celebrities (Im a member of a large autograph collectors group, we call ourselves the secret service of autograph hunting) and believe me , it doesnt get old: Everytime I approach a celebrity just for an autograph I get super nervous. Shes brave..:)

I gotta go,

Once again thank you! and God bless you!

Sincxerely yours, Antonio Hooker Martin

Thanks for the notes, both of you. You probably should have ignored my shameless attempt to gain coolness points, though. ;) Anyway, he wasn't really a celebrity at the time! He was just starting out on his music career, and my mum (who lived in the same area that he did) interviewed him for her school magazine, and then he asked her out for a drink afterwards. That was it, really. Nothing significant, but I bring it up from time to time just as a bit of name-dropping... :) -- Oliver P. 11:32 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

That's quite a bit of second-hand celebrity experience you have there. Kudos. On unsigned bands, most don't deserve an article, I don't think, but if they've built up a local following and are famous somewhere, I'd have no problems with it. The best solution, though, might be to include them on an article about the Music of Essex or the Music scene in Essex or something. Tuf-Kat

Okay, I'll consider the idea. I don't really know much about the local music scene myself, but I'll see what my sister can come up with... -- Oliver P. 11:32 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

Good point. I didn't know what to do with the existing Papal States page there. I see you have proposed it for deletion. Yippee!!! :) (I think the page also needs rewriting!) JtdIrL 03:42 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

No problem on deleting and renaming Papal states - you should become a sysop so you can do that sort of thing yourself. Just drop a note to the mailing list and untold power shall be yours. If you apply before the end of March you get a free virtual puppy!* --Camembert (* virtual puppy offer does not apply before the end of March)

I just reworked the article to hopefully make it make more sense- as much as an article about nothing, can make sense :) Its not as general as you might think it is... referring pejoratively to any Japanese attempts at speaking English... read the website.. -&#35918&#30505

Interesting point you made about London, England. I'd been using the whole phrase where it's a person's birthplace, purely for clarity. I didn't want to assume that the rest of the world knows that a British person born in London was necessarily born in that particular London. Deb 18:12 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Oliver, I don't know if you're intentionally trying to piss me off, but if you are, it's working. -- Zoe