User talk:Swansnic

Welcome

Hello Swansnic and welcome to Wikipedia! I'm AndrewvdBK, one of the many editors of this great website. I've posted this just to give you some useful advice and help you to settle in. You'll find that Wikipedia is much more than just articles and that there are many areas in which you can help out.

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Good luck and happy editing! AndrewvdBK (talk)

AndrewvdBK (talk) 22:52, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Countries of origin

I notice you use "British (Welsh)" in your contributions on people born in the principality. I don't think you need be coy about their Welshness. See, for instance, the articles on Ian Rankin, Edward Elgar, and Dylan Thomas, who are described simply as Scottish, English, and Welsh respectively. I suggest you call Jones et al "Welsh" tout court, on the Dylan Thomas model. No doubt they are or were all holders of British passports, but for Wikipedia purposes, "English", "Scottish" and "Welsh" are the norm. Tim riley (talk) 18:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Countries of origin again

Please stop changing "England" to "Britain" etc in English subjects. If you do that sort of thing to lots of articles systematically without first ensuring consensus for the change to Wikipedia as a whole your edits will be identified as disruptive and reverted en masse. I will revert any which are in my opinion clearly inappropiate. If you think that there is a particular reason for the change on a particular article, you are welcome to start a section on that article's talk page. Please see WP:BRD for the generally accepted way of handling contested "bold" changes.

If you are doing, or thinking of doing, the same to Scottish, Welsh and Irish subjects, please stop doing that too. If you want to make such a change you will need to find a appropriate Wikipedia-wide discussion page and try to achieve the necessary consensus, but I don't think you will be able to.

In cases where you have piped a link from "xxx of England" to "xxx of Britain" or similar, you are introducing inconsistency to the encyclopedia. Clearly you should seek consensus to rename the article instead.

In any case, you should always add a clear edit summary to your changes. If it is not obvious why a change has been made, particularly if the reviewer thinks its is the opposite of an improvement, it is likely to be reverted for that reason if no other. --Mirokado (talk) 18:23, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is technically incorrect to replace an appropriate subcategory by its parent, as you did with Richard Glynn Vivian. It would also be incorrect to place an article in both a category and a subcategory. Any article in a subcategory also belongs to the parent category hierarchy. --Mirokado (talk) 18:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have now looked a several of your recent changes. With the possible exception of Charles Saatchi whose connection can arguably be said to be to Britain rather than one of the countries, everything I have checked was at the very least highly contentious, in my opinion clearly incorrect, in any case unexplained and in several cases accompanied by other undisclosed changes which themselves were either contentious, clearly incorrect or required a supporting reference. All these I have reverted.

From my inspection so far I have had to revert nearly everything for substantial reasons and I have provided detailed edit summaries for each reversion. Since there are so many problems with these edits, and you have failed to provide edit summaries as requested with every edit form, I have no choice but to treat all your remaining unexplained edits as one batch, so I will now roll them back. This post serves as the explanation for all such reversions.

Just to be clear, nothing I have said is intended to suggest that you have not meant well, but you should realise as a matter of common sense that if you wish to remove all traces of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from Wikipedia biographies you (a) must seek consensus on appropriate Wikipedia noticeboards first and (b) have not the slightest chance whatsoever of achieving it. --Mirokado (talk) 19:56, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image requested

Thanks for your edits to David Griffiths (missionary)‎. Do you have any idea where a portrait can be obtained? In ictu oculi (talk) 00:23, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks. I should have known that. I've been in the library there often enough! In ictu oculi (talk) 02:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Countries of origin a third time

I see you're still changing "English" to "British" or "UK", for instance recently in John Stanton Ward and Francis Derwent Wood, continuing back to September in Thomas Gray, which seems to have been after Mirokado lost interest in reverting these changes. Presumably most of the articles you've edited include this change. On the face of it, you're on a mission to eradicate the term "English", motivated by a sense of Wikipedia:Duty. Got any comments, or a rationale? Card Zero (talk) 17:52, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly have not "lost interest", but I do have a life and after this response I stopped checking the contributions, sorry about that. It is difficult to imagine that what I have already said could be misunderstood. A quick look suggests that you, Swansnic have indeed started using edit summaries, thanks for that. However in the case of JSW, the change from "English" to "British" and removal of "in England" is later in the article with an edit summary of "expand introductory summary" so they may not always be helpful in this case. If I can find and revert individual edits with edit summaries I will do so, otherwise I will do whatever is necessary to correct what I must now regard as disruptive edits. You must stop doing this immediately. If there is any collateral damage from some reversions you are welcome to restore the other changes in their own edit. I have also checked for any of your edits seeking consensus for these changes: there are none. There is clearly no consensus and you know that perfectly well. Clearly you are also making other constructive changes and I will try not to affect them. --Mirokado (talk) 19:14, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Swansnic has now supplied a rationale on my talk page: User_talk:Card_Zero#Countries_of_origin_a_third_time - seems reasonable. I think this should be done more sparingly and thoughtfully, though. Thomas Gray, for instance, is famous for Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (and that's about all he's famous for), and that article states "The poem's primary message is to promote the idea of 'Englishness', and the pastoral English countryside." Therefore redefining him as coming from the UK, and deleting the adjective "English" from the Thomas Gray article, is a little odd. Card Zero (talk) 22:36, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou Mirokado for your note. For some tentative thoughts on this please see my earlier reply to Card Zero.Swansnic (talk) 22:16, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I started to write this just before your response above. To reply in a section, please indent one further using colons, don't start a new section, particularly not with the same name. If you will forgive me I have fixed that up this time :)

I've gone through some of the recent changes, left what I could, edited the current version where it was very easy to see what needed to be restored, reverted the rest, updated Persondata and added Authority control if I have noticed them, tidied up a few things in passing. That is all for this editing session, more later. If you wish to restore the previous nationality terms in the remaining articles yourself, please let me know and actually make the changes.

I will look for your reply to Card_Zero and I will be happy to talk to you about this before I do anything more... --Mirokado (talk) 22:36, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some responses to your explanation:

In terms of "a Wikipedia policy", the sources ultimately determine what is the (or a) correct usage. If the reliable sources describe someone as Welsh, they should be referred to as Welsh in Wikipedia, and so on. Please always make sure that you can provide reliable sources to back up the change to the term you wish to use and that the changed content is consistent with the existing sources). This is something that you need to do if you want to change something (and it is challenged or likely to be challenged), please see WP:BURDEN.
The countries of Britain are in many respects far more distinct than, for example, the German states (England, Scotland football teams, but Germany not Bavaria etc). There are certainly contexts where "British" would be correct: Gordon Brown, although Scottish, was the British Prime Minister for example.
If you create an article about someone and use the term "British" is it relatively unlikely that someone will change it without providing a good, specific reason. If you are, from time to time, going to change the established description of someone from "English", "Scottish" etc, you should similarly explain why their nationality is in this case of subordinate importance.
Bear in mind that you are automatically trying to change consensus if you make such a change to an established article. That is completely different from adding new content or making a non-contentious change to phrasing. It is not necessarily always going to be challenged, but I highly recommend a good, specific explanation every time for such a change. So far you have provided none that I have noticed.
If nearly every edit you make involves this change then you are indeed making the change systematically and there is no consensus to do so. Ask about this at the various national projects if you wish to do it systematically. I will be astonished if there is any agreement that an editor should routinely make that change when editing articles.
In some cases your changes have been ungrammatical ("London, Britain" for example is simply incorrect) or unidiomatic. Staffordshire is in England just as Anglesey is in Wales for example.

--Mirokado (talk) 00:31, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Lynette Roberts

Thanks for your contributions to Lynette Roberts. It would appreciated if you could add cites for the new biog detail you added, such as her being a Jehovah's witness and the place of her death - out of interest to the readers (extra resources) as much as to follow the guidelines and improve the article. Thanks very much. Span (talk) 16:25, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Paras

Thanks for your contributions to poetry articles. Just a heads up that we try not to create single line paragraphs. I can understand the urge to split up events re chronology but if there were not much text we would usually split paras re early life and career or life and work, condensing where possible. The same goes for sections. We would use as few headings as possible whilst helping the reader to navigate the info. Very long sections make it hard to find what one is looking for. I hope that's helpful. Best wishes Span (talk) 20:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Georgia Henshaw

Please ensure that you include reliable sources when adding or changing biographical data in BLPs. Thank you, --Jezebel'sPonyo ^{bons mots} 19:30, 29 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Christopher Whall

Hi Swansnic,

Thanks for the great copy edits to Christopher Whall. If you're interested in articles about British artists, Weglinde and I are working through a list - Christopher Whall is still to be done. Our tracking list is at User:CaroleHenson/Weglinde list and there's still a number we haven't done yet. Feel like joining the fun?

Comments and conversation is also happening at User talk:Weglinde--CaroleHenson (talk) 16:06, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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J. C. Kumarappa

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