User talk:Dovea

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Welcome!

Hello, Dovea, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  --Elliskev 16:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Citing sources 2 On all those MP articles 3 Roy Hughes 4 Cross References 5 Layout of articles 6 More on MP articles 7 Still more on MP stubs.. 8 double article 9 Linking articles 10 Liberal Democrat 11 William Hamling 12 MPs by Parliament 13 Willie Hamilton 14 Category:Supporters of the British Conservative Party 15 Category: Living Centenarians 16 Derek Page 17 link to British

[edit] Citing sources

Hello, I see you have created several articles on British MPs recently but none of them cite their sources. Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Citing sources for more information. KFP 17:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On all those MP articles

All those MP articles are fine, and its good to see you are starting to add the source. I assume you are not just copying the text. Just a couple of points. Can you expand the citation to the style in WP:CITE, it would look like

Smith, J. How to cite your sources, Random House, 2005. ISBN 1607000X

Please find the subjects usual form of address and use that as the title of the article, rather than the full name, something like the Angela Knight page. Likewise, wikilinks and categories are nice. It is just so much easier for you to add things in at creation than it is later. Anyway, great stuff, and good wiki'ing! Mr Stephen 18:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

In realtion to the UK MP articles. Please consider using an appropriate stub tag, also Wikilinking to the relavnt parties and constituences would be very much appreicated. :-) ShakespeareFan00 14:42, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Roy Hughes

Hi, Dovea, I (massively) expanded your stub on Roy Hughes. Let me know what you think, especially as I am not British and therefore might have misunderstood some crucial detail. I decided to expand the list because I had read his obituary in the Daily Telegraph. I reccomend those obits much more than the obits for the Guardian or the Times. Cheers V. Joe 09:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cross References

In the text of articles, please put in cross-references wherever meaningful, eg for ministerial positions, the main towns in constituency names, years, including birth years and death years, any people mentioned, etc, etc. You may also wish to add relevant categories. Also note that WP articles normally mark up in bold the first mention in the main text of the article's subject. Compare, eg this page for Archie Hamilton, for a fully 'wikified' entry.

But thanks for all the work you're doing on these very useful articles! -- Jheald 20:17, 15 June 2006 (UTC).

Ditto Jhead's comment above. Thanks. --Richhoncho 11:35, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I am sure those sending the above messages will appreciate I am a new Wikipedian and still need to familiarise myself with many of the things you are asking me to do - I am still learning. Thank you for your patience. Dovea 18/6/06

For a pointer, why don't you have a look at the changes made subsequent to you starting the new page Angela Rumbold? All the tools you need are at the top of the posting box. The more linkage the more use the article. --Richhoncho 19:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Layout of articles

Hi, I noticed that you have created quite a lot of articles of various polticians - good work. But, it would be great if you could Wikify them and provide Categories - thus making it easier for folk browsing the encyclopedia to find them. Forbsey 17:04, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More on MP articles

Dovea, welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. I am glad that you are eager to learn how things work here. There is a lot to learn, and other Wikipedians should be patient with you. Everyone makes newbie mistakes. I would just add two notes:

1. The House of Commons article is a general article about Houses of Commons in general, i.e., in the UK, Canada, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. The people about whom you are writing were member sof the British House of Commons, so it is probably better to link to that article.
2. The standard style for using an acronym is to spell it out the first time you use it with the acronym in brackets after it, e.g., so-and-so was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Flydale North". That way, you let readers who are not familiar with the acronym "MP" (those outside of the UK and Canada) know what you are writing about. American readers, for example, may assume that MP means "Military Police" and be quite confused.

Keep up the great work, and don't worry about making mistakes -- everyone does, and all is forgiven. Ground Zero | t 22:23, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Similarly, the Labour and Conservative links do not take the reader to articles about the Labour Party and the COnservative Party, which is what you intend. Please use Labour Party (UK) and Conservative Party (UK) for the reader's benefit. Thank you. Also, it is not necessary to link years. Complete dates (e.g., 31 December 2005 or June 12, 1998) are linked in order to enable user preferences. more information can be found at WP:DATE. Ground Zero | t 21:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Still more on MP stubs..

Some suggestions.

Please use a {{UK-MP-stub-tag}}, it helps other editors find the articles.

Also please consider when adding constituency details to add them as for example [[Brent South (UK Parlimentary constituency)|Brent South]], as in some locations the place and the constituency are not synonomus..

Thanks User:ShakespeareFan00 07:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] double article

Where's the other article about Graham Page?--Kchase02 T 11:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Under Rodney Graham Page. --Dovea 17:58, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, someone's put up merge tags. Do you know which name he's better known as?--Kchase02 T 19:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Sir Graham Page. --Dovea 16:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linking articles

At Talk:MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1983 you mention that you are not sure how to link articles. There's an explanation at Wikipedia:Piped link, but basically where you would normally just put the name of the page between the double square brackets you instead put the real name of the page followed by a | followed by the name to display. Hard to explain in words, but have a look at the changes I've made to your Frank McElhone page to create links to the constituency articles such as Glasgow Gorbals. It'll soon become second nature--George Burgess 18:29, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks George. --Dovea 16:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Liberal Democrat

Well done for your work on British MPs. I have been going through them and tidying up, adding categories and links. One thing that I've noticed is that you have consistently referred to SDP defectors and Liberals as now being Liberal Democrat politicians, yet your references are all pre-1988. Unless you have clear evidence of them playing an active role in the Lib Dems after they left parliament, I suggest you don't infer - they may have re-joined Labour or stayed in the continuing SDP or Liberals, or dropped out altogether.

Incidentally, you may find it helpful to take a tidied article and use it as a template for new ones - you can just change the names, dates and parties in many cases. That would help you create better articles in the first place that can be more easily found by other editors working on MPs. I have a footer template I am using at User:Mtiedemann/Useful items and you could consider creating something similar for your own work.

Well done again, Mtiedemann 17:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I have Times 1929 to 1955, and 1966, so have been adding occasionally. Except for the 1966 book, they miss things like forenames and personal details, so not as useful for a full article. I would be very grateful for the info on Idris Owen from the 1974 books, as he was a friend of my mother. Perhaps you can type it out on my talk page for me, or send it to my email using the link, or expand the article. It would be much appreciated. I'm also interested in Labour Co-operative MPs; I've seen you've flagged a few of those already and it would be helpful to know if you have been doing that each time so that I can add them to the list at List of Labour Co-operative Members of Parliament. Again, thanks and well done, Martín (saying/doing) 19:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] William Hamling

Thank you for updating William Hamling: it's appreciated. Nunquam Dormio 21:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

No problem. --Dovea 10:36, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MPs by Parliament

I have made a suggestion for how to categorise MPs by Parliament: see Category talk:British_MPs#MPs_by_Parliament, and would welcome your comments. --BrownHairedGirl 21:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

And that category system has now been nominated for deletion. See CFD for category:MPs of the United Kingdom House of Commons, by Parliament and subcategories. Your comments would be welcome. --BrownHairedGirl 17:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Willie Hamilton

You made an edit to this article stating he came 3rd in South Hams. Do you have a citation for this? It seems odd as South Hams is a district council, not a constituency. Catchpole 21:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

It´s on Times Guide to the House of Commons 1987. It was a constituency before the 1997 boundary changes. --Dovea 16:33, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Supporters of the British Conservative Party

Hi - I hope this finds you well! Just a polite note of caution re your addition of a category called Supporters of the British Conservative Party. I can see where you are trying to come from, but what constitutes a supporter of the British Conservative party? Have they: made a speach; donated money (if so, how much); carry a membership card; come out and said "I'm a conservative" - all of the above and more? And what happens if they then come out later and reverse one/all of the criteria and support someone else? Also, wouldn't all the other parties also need such a category if you could define what "membership" was? Such undefined criteria lead to the categories often being removed as being unencyclopedic, as its difficult/impossible to define clearly who fits in. I hope you can define this/reference all against the criteria before you go through a lot of work. Best Regards, - Trident13 16:11, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your message. The fact that those people are/were Conservatives is in fact mentioned already in the texts of the articles relating to them. I'll also point out that I've acknowledged some of them are former supporters, as the category includes former supporters (including deceased ones). Sir John Mills, for example, has supported both the Tories and Labour. I have also done the same for Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP and Plaid Cymru. --Dovea 16:59, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Dovea, as per Trident13's note above, I'm afraid that this category is just too ill-defined to be useful, and that the same applies to its equivalents for the other parties.

I have therefore nominated all three categories for deletion.
See: CFD for Supporters of the British Liberal Democrats. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 18:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Ooops! I mean all five categories. I had missed out Cat:Supporters of Plaid Cymru and Cat:Supporters of the Scottish National Party. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)}

Thanks, BrownHairedGirl. Not all users have the courtesy to inform creators of categories that their categories are up for deletion. I have of course added a keep comment but I won't be creating a category again - I'm having no luck with them and I will from now on stick to creating political articles. Dovea 18:45, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category: Living Centenarians

Greetings, I don't think it's a good idea to put persons 110+ in the category 'living centenarians.' First off, they are already in their elite category, 'supercentenarians' (persons 110+). Putting them into 'centenarians' is like listing Roger Clemens as a 'living minor league ball player.' Sure, he played minor league baseball, but is that what he is really known for? How about 'major league Hall of Famer' instead.

→ R Young {^yakł_talk} 20:04, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that feedback, but I haven't actually done that myself. --Dovea 20:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

If you're interested in more 'survivors of the 19th century,' check this page out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_veterans_of_World_War_I

→ R Young {^yakł_talk} 01:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. --Dovea 10:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I created Surviving silent film actors. My original idea back in January was for the thing to be a list, but I switched to categories as they had been preferred. I'm hoping this will be safe due to the article Surviving veterans of World War I being okay. I know you might be annoyed with me CfDing the cat, but like I said I figured it was soon to be chopped anyway.--T. Anthony 13:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not annoyed with you at all, T.Anthony. It's the policy that should be changed: I've added my thoughts on this issue on the Categories for discussion page. Dovea 19:20, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Derek Page

Hi, only a little information. I have merged Derek Page (the stub you had created) into Derek Page, Baron Whaddon. Best wishes ~~ Phoe _talk 17:39, 8 November 2006 (UTC) ~~

Good, thanks. Dovea 18:00, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] link to British

Hello. Thank you for your recent edit to James MacColl and William Griffiths (politician). Your edit included one or more links to the page British, which is a disambiguation page. This type of page is intended to direct users to more specific topics. Ordinarily we try to avoid creating links to disambiguation pages, since it is preferable to link directly to the specific topic relevant to the context. You can help Wikipedia by revising links to British to refer directly to the most relevant topic such as United Kingdom by typing [[United Kingdom|British]]. Regards, -- Jeff3000 16:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks Jeff. Dovea 19:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)