User talk:Simon Burchell/Archive 16
 | This is an archive of past discussions about User:Simon Burchell. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
| Archive 10 | ← | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 |
Books and Bytes - Issue 12
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 12, May-June 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)
- New donations - Taylor & Francis, Science, and three new French-language resources
- Expansion into new languages, including French, Finnish, Turkish, and Farsi
- Spotlight: New partners for the Visiting Scholar program
- American Library Association Annual meeting in San Francisco
The Interior 15:23, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
|
The Editor's Barnstar |
| Thanks for all your hard work bringing Maya civilization to FA status. It's a massive topic and an epic undertaking. Very impressive, especially with no co-noms! RO(talk) 19:30, 24 July 2015 (UTC) |
- Thanks RO; that was a lot of work! Best regards, Simon Burchell (talk) 08:51, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Thank you
Thanks for your PR comments and edits to Chetro Ketl, which is now a featured article. It was a long and interesting process, but thanks to a wealth of insights and suggestions the article is now among our best. Thanks for taking time out of your busy editing schedule to help me. RO(talk) 17:00, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry I couldn't get to the FAC in time, I'm glad it made FA. I was just about to join the FA review, having just wrapped up a GA review... too late... Well done, and thanks for all your hard work... Simon Burchell (talk) 19:28, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
- No worries, Simon. Thankfully, we had lots of eyes on it, and the end result is pretty satisfying. RO(talk) 19:37, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
A Barnstar for you!
|
The Epic Barnstar | |
| You've received several awards for this already, but Maya civilization is a magnificent piece of work, and you deserve one more. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:35, 11 August 2015 (UTC) |
I mean to give you this a while ago; I held off because I didn't want to give the appearance of trying to influence the GA review. Also, I wanted to bring something else to your attention; the history section of the Guatemala page is in poor shape. I've fixed some of it, but my knowledge is basically limited to the 20th century, so I was wondering if you could have a look. Regards, Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:35, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks Vanamonde93! With regard to Guatemalan history, I have some books I can use to check through, and I've certainly written enough about the pre-Columbian, Conquest and immediate post-Conquest periods to fill in some info - I'm not so well-informed on the Colonial period, but I do have plenty of sources available. All the best, Simon Burchell (talk) 08:23, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Re
I understand your point of view, but it should be remembered that during World War II , Guatemala was an observer of the shaft, as in Guatemala and had branches of the NSDAP , and the government closed them. The cruiser Emden traveled to Guatemala and Ubico received. --ElisonSeg (talk) 00:45, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
- Hi ElisonSeg. Nonetheless, without a solid cite to back this up, it is original research, and against Wikipedia guidelines. If you have reliable sources available, by all means reinsert the information, but it must be explicitly covered in the source you use (i.e. a specific statement that Ubico admired Hitler), and the source must be cited. All information on Wikipedia should be referenced, as per WP:VERIFY. All the best, Simon Burchell (talk) 08:32, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Maya civilization
See the new section on the talk page "Short count". Senor Cuete (talk) 15:01, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Correlation question
I got a copy of The Ancient Maya so I could see what you used as the source for the article. Wikipedia prefers secondary sources for articles and Sharer and Traxler are to be commended for including an appendix that lists the primary sources for the text. This is not the case for some other heavily used sources such as Miller and Taube. If you read books about the Maya, you will be surprised at how much of what's written about Maya calendrics is dead wrong. Again Sharer and Traxler are to be commended for getting a lot of it right. However they get some of it quite wrong:
The table of higher orders of units of the Long Count on page 102 is correct. There are 20 bak'tuns in a pictun. The evidence for this is described in the Long Count article. Then on page 110 they describe the great cycle of 13 bak'tuns three times. This is impossible. Either there are 20 bak'tuns in a pictun or there are 13, not both. The answer is that THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE ANYWHERE IN ANY INSCRIPTION OR CODEX THAT THE MAYA EVER HAD A 13 BAK'TUN GREAT CYCLE. This is why the great cycle is not mentioned in either the Maya calendar or Long Count article and why the overwhelming evidence to the contrary is presented in the Piktuns and higher orders section. They also say "Our western chronology, the Gregorian calendar, begins with the traditional year for the birth of Christ". Actually the Julian calendar started in 46 BC and the Gregorian calendar started on October 15, 1582.
Page 114 which discusses the Correlation Question states that the 11.16 correlation is based on the "Gregorian date" of November 12, 1539. The Julian calendar was in use in 1539. The Gregorian calendar wasn't adopted until 1582, but this would be correct if one uses the Proleptic Gregorian calendar. This revisionist calendar is used by many Mayanists, but nobody else, such as astronomers or historians. This has caused a great deal of confusion and if Sharer and Traxler understood this, they should have mentioned it. You can find this in the Appendix where they give a long table of Long Counts and proleptic Gregorian dates. In the First paragraph they say: "There are[sic] a variety of computer programs for converting Maya dates to Western dates. There are also computer programs that allow the plotting of the positions of the planets and other celestial objects on a given Maya date. By using these sky-chart programs to plot the astronomical phenomena visible to the ancient Maya on dates given in the inscriptions..." Actually you CAN'T do this with their methodology or tables because astronomy programs use the mainstream proleptic Julian / Julian / Gregorian calendar system and astronomical dating of BC years. An example of this is the date of the start of the current creation 13.0.0.0.0. Most books about the Maya give this date as August 11, 3114 BC. This is September 6, -3113 Julian, astronomical. Actually the times of astronomical events are calculated as Julian Days. The table could be useful to astronomers if it gave the Long Counts this way. This has caused a tremendous amount of trouble.
Page 114, Correlation of the Maya Calendar, seems to be based on Andrews 1951; Beyer 1936; Linden 1986; Maudslay 1889-1902; Morley 1915, 1916, 1925; Rice 2004; Satterwaite 1965; Spinden 1924, 1930; taube 1988; Teeple 1931; Thompson 1950 and Tozzer 1941. Look at those dates. The text certainly does reflect the state of knowledge about this in the early 20th century. Presumably the Thompson 1950 reference is when he re-examined the correlation constant and decided that the 584,283 correlation was correct. Naturally Spinden (1924) and Vaillant (1935) gave reasons for their correlations but as you mention in your article, these have proven to be wrong.
Most Authors are experts on some field like epigraphy, archaeology or something else. Because it's important, they include a chapter about the calendar, even though they don't bother to study or understand it and western calendrics. This is why writing in books about the calendar is generally crappy.
The Ancient Maya appears to be an excellent book and this is why your synopsis of it (113 out of 284 references) is a featured article. You should be proud of your article which you have edited 1654 times. The next editor to edit it has only done 218 edits. But you still have to let other editors improve it. Otherwise it would be the serious Wikipedia no-no of Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content. The article should reflect the content of the main calendar articles, not what it says in your favorite book. There are other reliable sources besides Sharer and Traxler and this article relies way too much on them. Should I post this to the talk page of Maya civilization as well? Senor Cuete (talk) 00:45, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Books and Bytes - Issue 13
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 13, August-September 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)
- New donations - EBSCO, IMF, more newspaper archives, and Arabic resources
- Expansion into new languages, including Viet and Catalan
- Spotlight: Elsevier partnership garners controversy, dialogue
- Conferences: PKP, IFLA, upcoming events
The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Article upgrade assistance request (Pre-translation stage)
Seasons Greetings,
This is in reference to a relatively new umbrella article on en-wikipedia named Ceremonial pole. Ceremonial pole is a human tradition since ancient times; either existed in past at some point of time, or still exists in some cultures across global continents from north to south & from east to west. Ceremonial poles are used to symbolize a variety of concepts in several different world cultures.
Through article Ceremonial pole we intend to take encyclopedic note of cultural aspects and festive celebrations around Ceremonial pole as an umbrella article and want to have historical, mythological, anthropological aspects, reverence or worships wherever concerned as a small part.
While Ceremonial poles have a long past and strong presence but usually less discussed subject. Even before we seek translation of this article in global languages, we need to have more encyclopedic information/input about Ceremonial poles from all global cultures and languages. And we seek your assistance in the same.
Since other contributors to the article are insisting for reliable sources and Standard native english; If your contributions get deleted (for some reason like linguistics or may be your information is reliable but unfortunately dosent match expectations of other editors) , please do list the same on Talk:Ceremonial pole page so that other wikipedians may help improve by interlanguage collaborations, and/or some other language wikipedias may be interested in giving more importance to reliablity of information over other factors on their respective wikipedia.
This particular request is being made to you since your user name is listed in Wikipedia:Translators available list.
Thanking you with warm regards Mahitgar (talk) 06:08, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:09, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
Dear Simon: This old draft is still sitting in limbo, and will soon once again be eligible for deletion. Is there anything that should be merged into the Anglo-Saxon weaponry article? If so, are you interested in moving the content? I am not familiar with this subject, but I can do the attribution templates. Or should it be let go? —Anne Delong (talk) 15:55, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
Signpost exit poll
Dear Wikipedian, you recently voted in the ArbCom election. Your username, along with around 155 other usernames of your fellow Wikipedians, was randomly selected from the 2000+ Wikipedians who voted this year, with the help of one of the election-commissioners. If you are willing, could you please participate (at your option either on-wiki via userspace or off-wiki via email) in an exit poll, and answer some questions about how you decided amongst the ArbCom candidates?
If you decide to participate in this exit poll, the statistical results will be published in the Signpost, an online newspaper with over 1000 Wikipedians among the readership. There are about twelve questions, which have alphanumerical answers; it should take you a few minutes to complete the exit poll questionnaire, and will help improve Wikipedia by giving future candidates information about what you think is important. This is only an unofficial survey, and will have no impact on your actual vote during this election, nor in any future election.
All questions are individually optional, and this entire exit poll itself is also entirely optional, though if you choose not to participate, I would appreciate a brief reply indicating why you decided not to take part (see Question Zero). Thanks for being a Wikipedian
The questionnaire
Dear Wikipedian, please fill out these questions -- at your option via usertalk or via email, see Detailed Instructions at the end of the twelve questions -- by putting the appropriate answer in the blanks provided. If you decide not to answer a question (all questions are optional), please put the reason down: "undecided" / "private information" / "prefer not to answer" / "question is not well-posed" / "other: please specify". Although the Signpost cannot guarantee that complex answers can be processed for publication, it will help us improve future exit polls, if you give us comments about why you could not answer specific questions.
quick and easy exit poll , estimated time required: 4 minutes
|
|---|
|
|
Detailed Instructions: you are welcome to answer these questions via usertalk (easiest), or via email (for a modicum of privacy).
how to submit your answers , estimated time required: 2 minutes
|
|---|
Processing of responses will be performed in batches of ten, prior to publication in the Signpost. GamerPro64 will be processing the email-based answers, and will strive to maintain the privacy of your answers (as well as your email address and the associated IP address typically found in the email-headers), though of course as a volunteer effort, we cannot legally guarantee that GamerPro64 will have a system free from computer virii, we cannot legally guarantee that GamerPro64 will resist hypothetical bribes offered by the KGB/NSA/MI6 to reveal your secrets, and we cannot legally guarantee that GamerPro64 will make no mistakes. If you choose to answer on-wiki, your answers will be visible to other Wikipedians. If you choose to answer via email, your answers will be sent unencrypted over the internet, and we will do our best to protect your privacy, but unencrypted email is inherently an improper mechanism for doing so. Sorry! :-) |
We do promise to try hard, not to make any mistakes, in the processing and presentation of your answers. If you have any questions or concerns, you may contact column-editor GamerPro64, copy-editor 75.108.94.227, or copy-editor Ryk72. Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping Wikipedia. GamerPro64 14:33, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Books and Bytes - Issue 14
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 14, October-November 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)
- New donations - Gale, Brill, plus Finnish and Farsi resources
- Open Access Week recap, and DOIs, Wikipedia, and scholarly citations
- Spotlight: 1Lib1Ref - a citation drive for librarians
The Interior, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:13, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for December 12
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Kejache, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Chontal. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 12:42, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Best wishes for the holidays...
|
Season's Greetings | |
| Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, and all best wishes for the New Year! Adoration of the Shepherds (Poussin) is my Wiki-Christmas card to all for this year. Johnbod (talk) 10:26, 22 December 2015 (UTC) |
Simon, Maya civilization is one of yours, are you interested in writing a roughly 1150-character summary for TFA? - Dank (push to talk) 21:37, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
- Hi @Dank:, all done. Best regards, Simon Burchell (talk) 12:16, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks, that looks great. - Dank (push to talk) 19:14, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
- No problem. All the best, Simon Burchell (talk) 19:44, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks, that looks great. - Dank (push to talk) 19:14, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Precious again, your complex workon a complex civilization, "never unified into a "Maya Empire", rather existing as a large number of competing polities entwined in a complex network of alliances, vassalage, and enmities"!
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:03, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Four years ago, you were recipient no. 19 of Precious, a prize of QAI! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:01, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Today: Spanish conquest of Petén, helping to understand a complex story of a conflict between culture, with inevitable outcome, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:55, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
RfC announce: Religion in infoboxes
There is an RfC at Template talk:Infobox#RfC: Religion in infoboxes concerning what What should be allowed in the religion entry in infoboxes. Please join the discussion and help us to arrive at a consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:38, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
Capitalisation
You may want to review rules of capitalisation in English with respect to "Sun" and "Earth". When referring to our day star, it is capitalised, since that is the proper name of our star. When referring to our planet, it is capitalised. When we write "earth", it refers to "soil", not the planet. — QuicksilverT @ 18:08, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
- Not at all - please see MOS:CELESTIALBODIES. Sun and Earth are only capitalised when used in an astronomical context:
The words sun, earth, moon and solar system are capitalized (as proper names) when used in an astronomical context to refer to a specific celestial body (The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System; the Moon orbits Earth). They are not capitalized when used outside an astronomical context (The sky was clear and the sun felt warm), or when used in a general sense (Io is a moon of Jupiter). However, they are capitalized in personifications, as in Sol Invictus ("Unconquered Sun") was the Roman sun god.
- All the best, Simon Burchell (talk) 09:19, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
DYK for Chutixtiox
 | On 3 February 2016, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Chutixtiox, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that two life-size stucco jaguars were excavated at the pre-Columbian Maya city of Chutixtiox in Guatemala? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Chutixtiox. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page. |
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:02, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Maya civilization
I am trying to defend your article against Senor Cuete's OR onslaught. I spend a good chunk of the day yesterday corresponding with experts and finding sources and improving my understanding of the calendar. The least you could do would be to weigh in in the discussion.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:02, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Books & Bytes - Issue 15
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 15, December-January 2016
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs)
- New donations - Ships, medical resources, plus Arabic and Farsi resources
- #1lib1ref campaign summary and highlights
- New branches and coordinators
The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:20, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Notification about disabling the Wikipedia collections tool
Thank you for using the collections feature in Wikipedia beta! Due to technical and moderation issues, we will be turning off this experimental feature. Your collections will be available for viewing and export until March 1st. If you would like to save your collection as links on a special Wikipedia page, please fill out the following [http://goo.gl/forms/ZyYQm6uu7e form]. If you are interested in giving your feedback about Wikipedia Collections please do so here.
Thanks,
Jon Katz
Product manager, Wikimedia Foundation
Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 23:56, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
DYK for Cerro Quiac
| On 22 March 2016, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Cerro Quiac, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the small Maya archaeological site of Cerro Quiac (pictured), the most important Maya ceremonial site in the Guatemalan municipality of Cantel, was once used as an artillery emplacement? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Cerro Quiac. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page. |
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:01, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Disruption at Guatemalan coup
Greetings, Simon. Could you possibly take a look at this? An IP has showed up making wild accusations, while another, or possibly the same, has been vandalizing the article. It's a little difficult for me to request page protection, since I'm involved in the dispute; so more eyes would be very welcome. Best regards, Vanamonde93 (talk) 02:47, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
- Sorry for the delay getting back to you - when I get a few spare minutes I will drop by and take a look. Best regards, Simon Burchell (talk) 10:23, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
A bowl of strawberries for you!
|
Thank you Simon, for your help on the History of South America -- Marek.69 talk 11:27, 31 March 2016 (UTC) |
No problem! Simon Burchell (talk) 11:51, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
DYK for Yopaat
| On 5 April 2016, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Yopaat, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the ancient Maya lightning god Yopaat helped with the rebirth of the maize god by breaking the shell of a turtle with his thunderbolt? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Yopaat. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page. |
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:09, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks Cas. Simon Burchell (talk) 09:25, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Books & Bytes - Issue 16
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 16, February-March 2016
by The Interior (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs)
- New donations - science, humanities, and video resources
- Using hashtags in edit summaries - a great way to track a project
- A new cite archive template, a new coordinator, plus conference and Visiting Scholar updates
- Metrics for the Wikipedia Library's last three months
The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:16, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
DYK for Cihuatán
On 17 April 2016, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Cihuatán, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the large pre-Columbian Maya city of Cihuatán, in central El Salvador, was destroyed by a massive fire within 150 years of being founded? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Cihuatán. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Cihuatán), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:02, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Overflow at your citations page
Dear User:Simon Burchell. I am trying to empty Category:Pages_where_template_include_size_is_exceeded. Recently your User:Simon Burchell/citations page turned on overflow. This is probably due to some modification to one of the cite templates. As a result, the last transclusions in your page weren't performed. I have made a temporary fix by commenting out these transclusions and providing a link instead (after all, this is only what the software was already doing). Perhaps dividing the page, or any other method would better fit your needs. In any case, feel free to revert ! Best regards. Pldx1 (talk) 07:53, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for letting me know - I hardly use the page since I stopped using CS1 templates some time ago. One of these days I'll go through and strip out the cite templates altogether. All the best, Simon Burchell (talk) 08:17, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
Hi Simon, I'll start work on this one today. You nominated the article at WP:FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 13:36, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- OK - thanks Dank. Simon Burchell (talk) 15:42, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
| This is an archive of past discussions about User:Simon Burchell. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
| Archive 10 | ← | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 |