User talk:SiGarb

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Hi! My username is SiGarb. I live in Lincolnshire, England. My interests are diverse and wide-ranging and include folklore and mythology, folk music, archaeology, plants (wild and cultivated), gardens and gardening, graphic design, photography...

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Contents 1 Welcome! 2 Diacritics 3 Fadas on Bodhran 4 Hi, 68.46.22.195 here 5 Capitalisation of common names 6 Sedilla / Sedilia 7 Architecture 8 Anenome 9 Turf mazes 10 × 11 Legume pic 12 Randoll Coate 13 Taking the ... 14 Dragon images 15 Sheela na Gig 16 sectstub 17 Pete Gilbert 18 Inverted bell 19 Green man 20 Oakham, West Midlands 21 Cauld Lad of Hylton 22 Dynamic maps

[edit] Welcome!

Hello, SiGarb, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thanks for your contributions; I hope you like it here and decide to stay. We're glad to have you in our community! Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Happy editing!

-- Sango123 15:19, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you need help with anything or simply wish to say hello. :)

G'day Si Garb, Sorry to change your details here but how can I contact you? I have sent 2 emails and now you have removed your email address. I think that it is not fair that you can edit other peoples contributions but you remain incognito. Sorry agian to have to add a message in this way. Cheers Graham username-Wallywilbert

(added by Wallywilbert at 03:04, 8 September 2006. For reply, see User talk:Wallywilbert‎)

[edit] Diacritics

Nice work on the Folk musicians site. It looks like you're "fixing" many diacritics that were already in place, by inserting their codes rather than the actual diacritic characters. This means that you see the codes rather than the actual characters while editing, which makes it a bit more difficult when editing. One of WP's continuing improvements is that, recently, things were changed so that the characters can be added via the panel below the edit window rather than keying in the codes. Badagnani 22:33, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, it's quite laborious. I tried cutting & pasting from the panel when I first tried editing wiki pages a few months ago and it didn't work. I use a Mac, so perhaps that's why... SiGarb 23:01, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

When you edit, can you see a selection of about 100 diacritic characters, in blue, preceded by the text "Insert"? This is directly below the large rectangular gray buttons that say "Save page," "Show preview," and "Show changes." If you click to insert these characters, then they show up as that character instead of codes in the edited version as well as the text of the article itself. That seems to be the way to go since this feature was introduced.

BTW I had no idea there were so many artists in Northumberland (or is it Northumbria?). I've got to check this music out. There was a compilation released in the States some time ago called "Northumberland Rant." Badagnani 23:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I've tried both clicking and cutting-and-pasting from the "Insert:" pane, but neither works for me! The underline appears but nothing happens in the Editing window. I suspect it's a Mac thing.

Cutting-and-pasting gives the character on first use, but then when I "Show preview" (or sometimes much later!) a black diamond with a question mark appears instead of the character. It doesn't always happen straight away, for instance, I'd been working on the "List of folk musicians" for a while before the previous editor's accents all disappeared and were replaced with question marks (which has made it difficult for me to track down some of the names I didn't know - I Googled various versions of the name until something appropriate came up! There are still a couple I can't find).

Northumberland is the county, Northumbria is a historical region (at one time, everywhere between the River Humber and the Scottish border!) but Northumbrian music has a definite identity and is widely played in County Durham, so it doesn't just belong to Northumberland. It's a very vibrant tradition and still very much alive, with a lot of excellent new players coming through. Folkworks (http://www.thesagegateshead.org/folkworks/index.aspx) has had a lot to do with the resurgence of interest, running summer schools and workshops with genuine traditional musicians as tutors, as well as notable figures from the revival scene. FARNE will give you a good historical perspective & much more besides! (http://www.asaplive.com/farne/home.cfm). SiGarb 13:58, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fadas on Bodhran

Hi! I've just undone and redone your changes to Bodhran because your edit changed all of the a-fadas (?) to cedilles (?). I'm not sure why that happens because MediaWiki supposedly handles non-Unicode browsers by displaying HTML entities. Between that and the previous comment I see here, though, it sounds like your browser and Wikipedia might be having compatibility problems. — mendel ☎ 00:25, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, mendel. This is weird! I didn't touch the diacritics in my editing of the Bodhran page. I may have had similar problems on Rood, when someone came in immediately and fixed diacritical marks after I'd been working on the page. I had added a paragraph at the bottom, without touching the rest of the page (which looked fine in my browser, apart from a couple of superscript 2s).

What often happens is that I will open a page and it looks OK (I'm using the Safari browser on an Apple Mac, as Explorer for Mac requires me to use hexadecimal codes) but after a "Show preview" or two (or more - it doesn't always happen straight away) it suddenly displays black diamonds with question marks in them for much of the previous editors' punctuation, especially diacriticals. Incidentally, the a-fada in your message looks fine to me, but the cedilla iappears as a black diamond with a white question mark in it).

In the past when I cut and pasted from the "Insert" pane I still got the same black diamonds, so when I edit I use code (the "&" plus "eacute;" or whatever) as recommended on the Editing help page. But people have commented on this in the past (see Badagnani's comments, above), pointing out that it makes the editing more difficult for people who follow on. Recently it seems that the Insert characters will work for me after all ( ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ). But I hadn't realised that just by visiting a page and doing a minor edit on it I would screw up every pre-existing accent on the page. Obviously I can't go through every page I edit and redo all the accents (even though cutting and pasting is easier than using code) because when the page is displaying OK for me I can't tell which bits might change, and once they turn into black diamonds I can't always remember (or work out) what they were before! This is a serious problem that Wikimedia needs to address, urgently. There should be a warning message for Mac users warning of this danger (though presumably a robot could be set up to correct such problems automatically).

Perhaps I'd better just bow out graciously and leave the editing (and reading!) of Wikipedia to the PC community. SiGarb 12:01, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Curious. I don't have a Mac so I don't have any direct advice, but there might be someone on the help desk that's encountered the same problem. Alternatively, Firefox should handle Unicode correctly. Incidentally, I pasted the character your browser substituted for the a-fada (U+00E1) into the Unicode Sliderule and it wasn't exactly a cedilla, it was a "replacement character" (U+FFFD, see a couple paragraphs below here) which, while not what we want, makes a bit more sense. When you go to edit the current revision of Bodhran, what does your editor display for the second "a" in "bodhran" in the text box? (Feel free to reply here, by the way, I've got your talk page on my watchlist) — mendel ☎ 15:04, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The symbols I see are these replacement characters, as far as I can tell - the symbol on the Unicode article after U+FFFD displays as a black diamond with a white question mark/query on it (but as that is also what I see when it all goes wrong, how would I know the difference?!?). When I open the edit this page link of Bodhran at the moment I see an a with an acute accent ("&" followed by "aacute;" is the only reliable way I can produce it: á), but the black diamond rash doesn't always appear straight away, it sometimes waits until a few Show previews into an editing session. I don't think it necessarily waits for a Save page command. I haven't tried making another edit to Bodhr?n to test this, as I don't want to screw it up for you! (PS I'll try asking on the help desk and I'll perhaps try Firefox as well: I've been meaning to try it for some time.) SiGarb 17:06, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, I just checked this reply with a Show preview, having already done a couple on the page while checking it, and all of the cut & pasted letters, including the row of ( ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), turned into the dreaded black diamonds. SiGarb 17:06, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Bizarrely, the cut and pasted row of À etc in the preceding paragraph is still legible, even though the others have changed in the edit window as well as the saved page! SiGarb 17:09, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Bizarre indeed! Perhaps the font your browser is using in textboxes isn't Unicode-aware? (I'm grasping at straws.) — mendel ☎ 17:43, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The font is the standard font used in Mac OSX, which is a version of Helvetica, I believe, but I don't know which. Also, I don't know why, because in Safari Preferences the default font is set up as Times, but the browser has never displayed a page in Times as far as I can recall! If the font itself were not Unicode compliant, presumably the Insert: panel wouldn't display correctly? I could change the Default Encoding in Safari Preferences from "Western (ISO Latin 1)" to "Unicode (UTF-8)". Would this help? (I think I read that some European Wikipedias use UTF-8, but this one uses UTF-16?) But, in any case, this would mean that anyone that wants to edit Wikipedia on a Mac has to jump through hoops that don't apply to PC users. Besides, new Mac-based users will encounter Wikipedia and try to edit it every day of every year. Do you know whether a pop-up could be introduced which warns new editors with the wrong set-up how to alter it to comply with Wikipedia? (When I tried using Explorer, there was a warning that the browser was not Unicode compliant at the top of the editing window (WARNING: Your browser is not unicode compliant. A workaround is in place to allow you to safely edit articles: non-ASCII characters will appear in the edit box as hexadecimal codes.), which was why I swapped to Safari, because hexadecimal is a nightmare to work with.) SiGarb 20:50, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

(Double nightmare! There is now another layer of confusion. The row of grave accented characters which I cut and pasted several paragraphs earlier had changed to black diamonds (replacement characters: �), but the next time I did a cut and paste, the newly pasted ones remained OK. Just now, when I saved the message immediately above this one, the earliest row of accented characters had become ordinary question marks ( ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), while the second row became black diamonds ( � � � � � � � � � � ). And now that I've inserted this row of hexadecimal, both the earlier rows of characters have turned into question marks! This is madness!) I think I will try setting up Safari to use UTF-8 (but there should be a prominently displayed warning for Mac users that just entering edit mode and saving a page could mess up all the diacritics and much of the punctuation on a page). SiGarb 21:14, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hi, 68.46.22.195 here

I'm interested in joining but I'd like to know a few things first. 1) You said it's free to join, so there's no monthly fee or anything? 2) What information do I have to provide? 3) Will this increase spam in my mail? If I have any others I'll send them to you. Thanks.

(message left by 68.46.22.195, 22:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC) )

Hi there 68.46.22.195! (Mind if I call you "68" for short?!)

1) That's right, no fee, nothing. Nobody pays, or is paid, to contribute articles to Wikipedia. (Of course, if you are feeling generous, you can make a donation: see the Donations link in the Navigation menu, under the Wikipedia logo, left.) Users with ordinary access (including visitors, like yourself, who haven't "signed in") can do most things, including editing articles and helping with Wikipedia maintenance tasks. But only signed-up users can create new pages, upload files, move pages, create their own articles or user page or rename pages; see Special:Userlogin to sign up for yourself.

2) You choose a Username and a password. You submit them. You can tick a "Remember me" box to allow a cookie which enables Wikipedia to recognise you when you login from the same computer, and let you straight in, or you can re-enter the password whenever you want to log in. If other people use your computer and you don't want them to make changes in your name, don't tick the box.

3) You can provide your email address if you want other users to be able to contact you directly, but you don't have to. I haven't done so, but I understand that your email address doesn't appear, just a link, so nobody will know what your actual address is. You are actually discouraged from leaving your email address visible in any message: admin will usually remove email addresses if people leave them, specifically to avoid spam problems.

Once you are signed in you can change these settings and many others in your own personal "preferences" settings.

Hope that helps. I'm no expert, but I'll try to help if you have any other queries. Or try the FAQ section at Wikipedia:FAQ - most of the answers can be found there, or on the other pages that you can find from the Community Portal or Help links (in the Navigation menu). It's a long learning curve, but it's fun!

Good luck "68"! Hope you decide to join us. SiGarb 23:08, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalisation of common names

Hi SiGarb - sorry, you're wrong there, the use of caps for plant species is widespread, it isn't just birders. Look at e.g. many/most plant field guides. There are hundreds of wiki plant articles (probably a majority) using caps.

There are various excellent reasons for it, most importantly that e.g. a red campion (a campion that happens to have red flowers) is not necessarily the same as a Red Campion (a particular species, Silene dioica). Also very useful is that it takes away the need to know the etymology of a species name, as to whether it is derived from a proper name or not, e.g. if using proper name rules, did you know that Brazilwood should not be capitalised (the country is named after the tree, not vice-versa), whereas Bishop Pine is (named after the CA town San Louis Obispo, not after the church rank) - and then there's names borrowed from other languages, e.g. should Pohutukawa be capitalised or not - do you know enough Maori language to know the answer? I don't! Another is that it gives uniformity of treatment in lists without "first-class, capitalised" species and "lesser, non-capitalised" species. If you want to dig further, there's been extensive discussion on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life page, take a look through the archives. There's been a small but consistent majority in favour of caps (with no discernible geographic bias of those for and against). - MPF 01:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Another point - "Wood anemone, Anemone nemorosa, is ..." is incorrect comma use - putting a comma between them shows they are two different items in a list, whereas they are the same item (think of how it would look if you have a list of several species, with a comma between every name!) - MPF 02:02, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sedilla / Sedilia

Brookie here - thanks for the note - will check my books and amend as necessary. Happy New Year! Brookie :) - a collector of little round things! ^(Talk!) 11:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Clearly I need to leave the pub earlier - my article was based on a spelling mistake (new glasses for 2006?). Have incorporated my article in the correctly spelled version - and have done a redirect from my one. Will look at the Aisle article after the pub has closed (currently changing the barrell!) Brookie :) - a collector of little round things! ^(Talk!) 19:05, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi.

About Shabkhosb:

Julibrissin is a Latinized and corrupted form of the Persian word Gul-i Abrisham گل ابریشم (Silk flower). Gul گل means flower and Abrisham ابریشمmeans silk.

I checked a Persian-english dictionary and it translates Gul-i Abrisham as "silk-tasseled acacia"!

-Khosb خسب is an older version of Kh(w)ab خواب, both mean sleeper (when used as suffix).

Take care. --Mani1 23:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Architecture

Go for it. :-) Kjkolb 02:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anenome

Hi. Thanks for the explanation. I see what you were trying to do, but I don't think it helps the user. Effectively you created a disambiguation page at a mis-spelling. The most useful way to deal with mis-spellings is to redirect the user to the page they're after.

There isn't an existing disambiguation page for Anemone. If you think we need one, create one and point the Anenome redirect to that. On that page, you could then briefly mention the possible misspelling, although I still think the redirect itself handles it. --Whouk (talk) 16:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

You can set up a disambig page at Anemone (disambiguation) if the main article already exists, but you don't need to be an admin to move a page - you just use the "Move" tab at the top of the screen.

IMO, there are far too many mis-spelled words in the world to have a page for each to put people right. --Whouk (talk) 17:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

You would use a disambiguation page if there are more than two or three possible intentions by someone searching for Anemone. It wouldn't automatically change any links, and most links to Anemone are probably pointing to the right one, though it's always worth checking. Each page linked to from the disambig page should link back to it to help users find the right article. Part of the process of moving a page is updating links pointing to it. --Whouk (talk) 20:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Turf mazes

Nice job on the turf maze article. I was just advising a friend to visit the turf maze at Hilton. Not only could I check that Hilton and Saffron Walden were the correct villages where I had seen grass mazes, but there was much of the history too.

BTW, I can't verify their authenticity, but two other stories I recall being told in relation to these mazes (possibly on a plaque near te SW maze) are that; at Saffron Walden in the C19, the maze was used for courting — one or more maidens would stand at the centre of the maze and their suitors would walk the path to reach them. Another story is that the devil can only walk in straight lines, so walking around the twisted paths of a maze was a way to shake him off. -- Solipsist 19:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ×

PS. Thank you for your civility. I take rather poorly to stress. Brya 08:17, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Legume pic

Would it be "Plectranthus ciliatus"? Sorry for taking so long in replying but I've been away and an electric storm cut out my internet for a week. Thanks for picking it up btw! --Fir0002 05:16, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Randoll Coate

I thought you might be interested in the article on Randoll Coate I created based on his obituary in The Independent by Adrian Fisher a couple of weeks back (along with a number of other sources). I'm not particularly good at proof reading what I've written, so if you have an eye for detail I'm sure you will be able to find some corrections. Of course any expansion would also be welcome. -- Solipsist 15:58, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice one, Solipsist! I hadn't spotted the Randoll Coate obits before you pointed them out. Many thanks. As you'll notice, I've done a bit of proofreading! ... SiGarb | Talk 19:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the proofreading SiGarb. And good work on your detective work over Imprint. I was a little worried about that at the time of writing. But given the different family names mentioned in the different sources, along with apparently different time frames, I came to the conclusion that Coate had used a similar idea twice. However, I think the point you make about Chubb and Durie having only one daughter validates the idea that the mazes are one and the same and Chubb just took over the property later.

I also wanted to include mention of Borges Memorial Maze, but ran out of steam and couldn't find any good information on it, so it is nice to have that clean up. Do you know whether I am right in concluding that the 'Borghese Gardens' in Rome are the same as the Villa Borghese for the Millennium Maze? -- Solipsist 19:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taking the ...

SiGarb, thanks for the recent update to the Newcastle upon Tyne page including the bit about "taking the piss". I'm not sure if it was you who originally added it (perhaps while not logged in) but please excuse my kneejerk removal of it. It is one of those things that makes you thing "errmmm... really?".

Now that it's there, I do recall one of my friends growing up in a big house at the end of an "Alumwell Drive" on Low Fell. I wonder if the name relates to what it used to be!

IainP (talk) 14:55, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dragon images

Hi, and thanks for your comment on my talk page! I am pretty sure the images I have used in the Latvian "Dragon" article are not protected by copyright (since in all of the cases more than 100 years have passed since the death of the artist), but I have not had much experience with the English Wikipedia's image tagging system, which is why I am a bit reluctant to upload the images (not being familiar with the system, I could easily mess something up).

Perhaps I can help you in another way, for example, providing image descriptions (leaving it to others to find the appropriate copyright tag)? --Tail 15:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tail, thanks for your response on my talk page. I, too, am unsure about the validity of the "artist dead more than X years" copyright argument, though it appears to be valid in America. While I think it would be OK to use this defense in the case of an old book or print you had bought (or found, or inherited!) yourself, and could simply scan, I think justifying the use of someone else's photo of such an object is more difficult. It implies that the photographer works for free and is nothing more than a passive recorder of an unchanging object, simply pointing his camera at something and letting it do the rest, whereas, of course, there's a lot of skill involved in getting a good record of even a 2-dimensional work. Lighting plays a great part, even more so in the case of sculpture. The equipment used, and the filtration and post-processing of the image (in Photoshop, for example) can make all the difference between a mediocre image and a great one. Also, I feel the effort of obtaining the image should be taken into account: for instance, if I had travelled far and wide researching previously unknown sites for prehistoric rock art, perhaps risking my life in extreme environmemts, and then published a book at my own expense which sold perhaps a dozen copies, I'd be pretty pissed off if one of the dozen people who'd purchased it made all my hard-won images available worldwide, simply because the actual artists had died centuries before. So perhaps we should let someone more competent decide... SiGarb | Talk 15:53, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I feel the same way. Of course, it depends on the specific situation, because I also feel it is best for a great number of people to be able to enjoy the works of artists that have died a long time ago (and that in many cases the use of such images for educational purposes is justifiable).

So – I agree, it's best to let somebody more competent decide. :) --Tail 14:57, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sheela na Gig

I was wondering if I could have a chat with you about your photo of the German sheela na gig? (Pryderi 13:00, 3 April 2006 (UTC))

Hi Pryderi. Not my pic, I just found it in the Wiki commons pages, but it seems to be indisputably a sheela. The pose is like several British examples I have seen illustrated. SiGarb | Talk 15:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] sectstub

Sorry, it took me a while to find this, but I believe it is what you're looking for. :) (Of course you need to add the {{ }} on each side). Aelfthrytha 20:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pete Gilbert

Hey there, thanks for getting in touch with me.

I declined speedy because there is an assertation of notability; the problem comes with what "notability" means. Gilbert seems to be an established artist who has sold some works but the veracity of the claim is tinuous. A7 is used to get rid of pages people make about themselves or their band/club/business that is absolutely clear cut. While I don't think the article is well written or the subject worthy of Wikipedia, I didn't think that I could justify A7 to myself. So it's discretionary to an extent on the administrators' part when clearing out backlogs that when in doubt, PROD or AFD. Hope this clears things up a little, and keep up participation in the deletion process. It's a vital part of the project! Contact me anytime, Teke^(talk) 01:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I think I talked in a circle there and confused myself. I had just got home from work. My point was that the man is verifiable, but perhaps not notable. As verification is policy and notability is not, it's best to stear away from speedy deletions in those cases. Teke^(talk) 03:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inverted bell

Yep. In fact, I am planning to write an overall article (may be starting from just a list; I don't have a good name yet) about most common descriptive terms for shapes of objects (as opposed to, eg formal mathematical terminology). `'mikka (t) 19:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Green man

Thanks for the praise regarding the Green man pic from Italy. I agree the door bell button looks like a pipe or metal tube. My theory is that the end of the button has worn off after decades (centuries?!) of use. This general type of door bell is rather typical for apartments in Venice and the lagoon area. --dogears (talk) 21:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oakham, West Midlands

The OS map shows it as a locality at SO961897 Saga City 23:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I now see my mistake in the main Oakham article and have fixed it. Interestingly I now see that the word 'locality' is used to describe the area in the Sandwell article. It is a nice description for places that aren't really villages or suburbs while 'district' implies, to my mind, something more urban and 'neighbourhood' is too American for my liking. Saga City 03:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cauld Lad of Hylton

Actually, I couldn't be happier you asked, as that's the whole point of putting those ratings there. :) Well, first of all, as you said, a picture of Hylton Castle and a section heading or two would be a great start. Also, some references (in the form of inline citations) would also be much appreciate. And as for expansion: what's the current status of the castle and the legend? Have they made it into a tourist attraction? Has anyone written a local folklore book about it? Has anyone else seen it? If you'd like more information about our assessment criteria, the scale is here (as you'll see, it won't take much at all to bump it up to "Start" class at least), and if I can be of any more assisstance, please don't hesitate to ask. --InShaneee 14:05, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dynamic maps

See "Finding e & s" Template talk:GBthumb for a way to find the X and Y Cartesian co-ordinates for the dynamic maps. I also have a Perl script, User:Wereon/gbthumb.pl, which finds them given a grid reference, which it translates into latitude and longitude first. The projection is Mercator, but the French (fr:Template:UKgéoloc) approximate it with a stretched plate carrée, which should be the same for such a relatively small area as Great Britain. — Wereon 18:43, 30 September 2006 (UTC)