User talk:Olivier/Archives 2003 1

Hi there again, Olivier. I see you've started applying the template to Thailand. Though the page previously had nothing but links in it, using the main article for working out the template isn't recommended, as it leaves a rather chaotic and unfinished impression. Could you please use a /Temp page for applying the template in the future and only move the article when a reasonably finished and usable article has been created? Merci beaucoup. -Scipius 20:39 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)

No problem. Thanks for creating the Temp page. olivier 20:41 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)

Please note that historical topics need to use historical names. Re: Asiatic Fleet Vera Cruz

I have never read about that rule. Is there a guideline in the 'pedia about this? olivier 16:10 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)

Besides, in the example you are mentioning, I believe that the old transliteration of Chinese names is not exactly a "historical name". The names of the places have not changed, only the way they are transliterated into Roman alphabet. I have posted a question regarding this topic on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (chinese). olivier 16:18 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)

Right, but the way the Asiatic Fleet spelled these names needs to be noted in the Asiatic Fleet text, or somebody is going to have trouble searching through non-wiki info for information by the Asiatic Fleet on these places. Vera Cruz

Hi there, Olivier. You have created quite a lot of China related articles but can you please observe the standards on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (chinese) for a uniform format of titles? Also how you, lorenzius and voidvector communicate with each other on Wikipedia:WikiProject Chinese provinces? Merci beaucoup User:kt2

OK. As you certainly know by know, we mainly communicate through the "talk page". olivier 07:23 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Hi again, here's a list very useful for your Timeline of Chinese history [1]. It doesn't have a copyright. User:kt2

Thanks, that looks cool, but I am afraid that my Chinese might be too limited to make the best use of this list. Regarding this list (which I have created, but is not "mine"), it might seem difficult to make an edit in the huge table. If you have anything to add in the table: if you prefer, you can put it in the discussion page of the list, and I will add it myself in the table. All the best! olivier 07:23 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Olivier. I don't suppose you'd be interested in doing an article on Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau? He's important to us Americans for obvious reasons but I'm afraid I won't get all the details correct. Chadloder 09:59 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

I am afraid I do not know this gentleman. Why don't you start an article, and I will have a look at it and contribute what I can. olivier 10:20 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

I just posted a new article on painter Willem Drost. There are a few portraits at the Louvre with a French language title. Would you mind posting the English translation with the French shifted to brackets. Thanks.

Re: language links; I've become convinced that putting them at the bottom is preferable. See the note I just added to Wikipedia:Interlanguage links. --Brion 08:27 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

Why do you call it an "open question" whether Le Punching-Ball et la Vache à lait : La Critique universitaire nord-américaine face au Surréalisme should be in Wikipedia? --Daniel C. Boyer

Was that an un-surrealist comment of mine? olivier 07:23 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Maybe, but I am really looking for an answer on why it might not be appropriate to have an article on this book. --Daniel C. Boyer

The article as it is today does not say anything about the importance of the book or its impact on the Surrealist movement. It does not say much about the book itself either. Therefore, I do not know at this point if this article is of encyclopedic nature (although, I agree, defining what is of encyclopedic nature or not is an "open question"). I believe that it might be, but I also would love to see a bit more content in the article. I never said that this book did not deserve an entry in the Wikipedia: I was just asking a question. olivier 09:29 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

How is it now? --Daniel C. Boyer

Better. olivier 01:08 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)

Much appreciation for fixing up Dredg. It was one of the first articles I did for Wikipedia. Goatasaur 02:23 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)

You are very welcome! Welcome to Wikipedia! olivier 07:23 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Olá Olivier! I'm new in Wikipedia and just saw that you did some stuff on the portuguese kings (and perhaps others?...) I guess you will be interested in a site in portuguese (but since you are french you will understand)which is an on-line Gotha Book. It has all genealogical details on all royal houses. write sapo.pt and then follow the link genealogia. Happy hunting! Muriel Gottrop

OK, sounds cool. As you might have noticed, I am spending much more time on Chinese stuff, but anyway thanks for the info... and welcome to Wikipedia! olivier 07:23 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Olivier,

"Verzeichnüss" seems old German, and the term Mozart used for this work, most of the 32 Google hits are for this. - Patrick 01:16 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

It's correct. Someone did look it up, before they added it to the article! :) Patrick is right about Google, Mozart did use the term for his catalogue. I've got the BL's exhibition notes for when they put 75 items from the Zweig collection on display in May-June 86. Nevilley 08:08 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

Great, guys. olivier 08:09 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Olivier, this map is the one you wanted? Sadly I cannot create the same for France, I only have the province borders for france, not the departement borders. andy 23:03 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

Looks great! Do you think it would be possible to create versions of this map with each Chinese province blackened, to indicate its location, so that we could include these pictures in the Chinese province tables, like the one in the Guangdong article? (the template for this table can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chinese provinces). Such maps would be helpful for French Regions (have a look at Regions of France). Thanks! olivier 09:43 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I can do the highlighted map of the chinese provinces quite easily - I only need to know which province is which on the map, so I have to do a little searching first. And a naming scheme for the image names would be helpful as well. And now you link to the french regions I can see that it's those which are it have in the map I tried to create. So I also uploaded the template map for those. For the maps with single regions highlighted same applies as for the chinese provinces, only thanks to the map it already has on Regions of France the identification is easier. andy 18:10 Mar 16, 2003 (UTC)

Great! The French map looks great too. I am not completely sure what you call the "naming scheme", but if I understand right, the answer to the question could be: china_provinces_xxx.png and france_regions_xxx.png . It is OK that you put what you feel appropriate for xxx (abbreviation or full name of the province/region). Let me know if you need help, and thanks again! olivier 01:08 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)

That's exactly what I meant by naming scheme. So I just finished with uploading and including the chinese provincial maps into the articles - except Tibet which already has map and the three provincial cities - shall I add those as well? I only hope I did no mistakes in painting the wrong provinces. I'll do the same for the french regions soon as well. andy 21:47 Mar 18, 2003 (UTC)

I'm almost afraid to bring this up but is is possible to change the China template maps to be more NPOV regarding the status of Taiwan. Including Taiwan with a crosshatch to indicate that it is disputed for example. I'm actually a bit nervous to bring this up given the emotions involved, but it is something that does bother me. Roadrunner

Too bad - you should have notified me about that before I created them all yesterday. It's of course possible to add a shaded Taiwan to those maps, but it would have been less work to do from start - but I did not thought about that one being a problem. The main use of these maps is to help to localize the province in China, for that task the depiction of Taiwan isn't needed. andy 08:54 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

Andy, you did a really great job! thanks a lot! I agree with your point that the maps are posted for informative purpose only and that as such Taiwan being there or not should not be critical. Nevertheless, I agree with Roadrunner: many people take this issue very seriously and I guess that it is not a question of "if" but of "when" will people start complaining about Taiwan not being on the map. Roadrunner has posted a question on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chinese provinces and I hope that this question will be solved in a satisfying manner. My suggested answer to the question would be to simply add the island of Taiwan as an additional province on the map. My understanding is that most people in the PRC and in the ROC agree on the fact that china = mainland + island of taiwan. The debate tends to center around "who should rule this entity" rather than "what is the entity". I realize that it is a lot of work to change all the maps. What you could do is do it for one map and post it on the discussion page I just talk about to see how people react. Such issues are unlikely to arise for the French maps..... Thanks again for the work! olivier 13:00 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

Andy, the province of Sichuan has been divided into Sichuan and Chongqing Municipality. I am not sure that your representation of Sichuan is reflecting this (maybe you used a pre-1997 source). olivier 13:08 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

I continued this topic at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chinese provinces, you can see Sichuan already for the preliminary result. So we can move discussion there. I'll start with the french regions later, that should be less problematic. andy 22:49 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

RE: FRENCH CITIES - I am putting in the commune names in all the Departements. Like American cities, they should be designated with ", Departement". One of the reasons is to TEACH through an encyclopedia. If one searches Toulon for example, it implants in the brain its department name. Also, here is no point to a list of communes by name only because out of the thousands there are duplications within France, Belgian etc. USER:Black Widow Also, I put the map in French Regions (my late husband did it months ago but it was deleted by some fine gentlemen at Wikipedia). I plan to post a map on each Region and Depoartement with the named location highlited/colored for identification so as to TEACH relativity. USER:Black Widow P.S., I am a sweetie pie. I never artgue.

Thanks for the maps. olivier 16:44 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

I do not see why they "should" be designated this way. If one searches for "Toulon", one will have the relevant information by clicking on the article link. Following your argument, why not call the article "Toulon port city of the Var in France where the French navy fleet destroyed its own fleet during WWII so that the Germans do not capture it" ? There are thousand of articles in the Wikipedia covering distinct topics with the same name. There is not always a disambiguation page for these, especially when there is little content for each topic. olivier 16:44 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

You might want to consider not being so disdainful because I am sorry I don't have your obvious intellect. I was just trying to make Wikipedia the best possible I know how. Of course I will go along with anything you want. It is going to be a heck of a job but I'll yield to your view and start changing all the thousands of American and Canadian cites to delete State or Province. But, someone else will have to help with deleting the Great Britain ones and elsewhere. Big job, but I never argue... User:Black Widow

P.S. I never argue, so please don't be offended when I say that France refused to destroy her naval fleet so Winston Churchill did it for them. User:Black Widow

I do not think I was disdainful: I was just opening a debate and I would be happy to exchange views regarding the article naming topic in a courteous manner. Please do not insult me, because I remain polite and respectful on Wikipedia and no need to try to upset me, that will be "a heck of a job". Thanks for the historical precision and... thanks Winston, then (although I guess he did not do it by himself, or did he?). olivier 17:03 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

A little research shows there already was a debate on including the state or province as part of the city name and it was agreed that Omaha, Nebraska was how it should be done. Why do you wish to discriminate against France? And, putting the state/province/department does teach. Seeing as the current President of the United States couldn't find Ireland on a map, I just thought lower intellects like me might appreciate it in a book of learning. User:Black Widow

This question of the city naming has obviously not yet been resolved as I can read in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names) and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names). Key sentences being "Convention: In general, there are no special naming conventions for cities, unless multiple cities with the same name exist." and "Cities in the United States and Canada, however, will be disambiguated with a format of City, State or City, Province". I am not discriminating against France, . olivier 17:47 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

YOU SAID: "I am just noticing that most cities in other countries, which have an article in Wikipedia, do not have their name disambiguated." -- So, you approve of treating other countries with less information and facts than the U.S. or Canada in Wikipedia. I'm sorry you feel that way. I'll will pray for God's blessing and guidance because I still believe we are all equal. I don't speak French so I don't know why I would wander around the French Wikipedia. But, seeing as you were aware of the Val-d'Oise commune list being there, why didn't you paste this important information? Too, may I edit the article Etienne Francois, Duke of Choiseul that you copied and pasted from the 911 enclycopedia? It needs a few links and restructuring that you don't have time for, what with being so busy changing my work. Thanks, yours truly User:Black Widow

I did not say that I am approving, but that "I am just noticing". As Tarquin told you on his Talk page "as has been said MANY times in MANY places, the names of articles do not contain information, they are just names. If there is no other thing of the same name, no need for extra information." The different treatment of information contained in these titles has nothing to do with the treatment of the countries. Moreover, as I said before, the issue has not yet been solved by the Wikipedia community, so I suggest that you bring your contribution to the debate at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names). Did I suggest anything like "we are not all equal"? I do not believe so, and if anyone understood it this way, I apologize. Regarding the lists of communes posted on the French Wikpedia, you can refer to Departement article on the French Wikipedia, which contains a list of departements. By clicking on them, you will certainly easily find the links to the lists of communes. I had not pasted the list of the Val-d'Oise communes because I had not YET done it, and I am happy to notice that other people like you are working on these lists. If you do some research on the English language Wikipedia, you will notice that I have posted quite a lot of the French communes lists already. Of course, feel free to edit the article Etienne Francois, Duke of Choiseul and Be bold in updating pages. olivier 18:39 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

Am glad you have asserted we are all equal. That is the fundamental operationial requirement to be an open website where no "community" can exist to oblige others to do things their way. Also, I hate to break your heart, but 'no one has done a thing on listing the communes of France for quite some time. I did about 8-12 in the last day or so. Are you or others going to finish? Should I stop? User:Black Widow.

You are certainly not breaking my heart by saying so: it is a fact. Not doing things on that front for "quite some time" does not mean that nothing has been done before. As I said, I really appreciate your work and hope that you will continue contributing on these articles. olivier 19:15 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

The historical Greater Tibet (Fo), is divided among the three chinese provinces "Qinghai", Sichuan and Yunnan. The part of Greater Tibet in "Qinghai" should be called Amdo, the part in Sichuan and Yunnan should be called Kham. What China calls "Xizang Tibetan Autonomous Region" should be called U-tsang.

There are parts of historical Greater Tibet free of Chinese control, but are under Nipali or Indian influences. Those under Indian influences enjoy greater autonomy, such as Sikkum and Butan.

That would be valuably clarified in the Tibet article, or other people will ask again the same question as I did. olivier 11:19 Mar 18, 2003 (UTC)

Hi! Olivier. I just wanted to say thank you for the thoughtful improvements you've made to my Seine article. I appreciate it. -- Arpingstone 13:44 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

You are very welcome! Thanks for all the work you did on the article. olivier 13:49 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Hokkien. -- prat

Oliver, I'm confused, maybe you can explain it to me. I went to the page that was disambiguating Brest, France and Brest, Belarus and then went to the "What links here" page and fixed all the links from Brest, Belarus so they went straight to the Brest, Belarus page only leaving all other links going to the Brest, France page. It seems to me that now all references to Brest without Belarus are referring to Brest, France. You then put back Brest, Belarus, but it seems to me it is not needed because when someone uses the link Brest it takes them to Brest, France which is exactly what all the links refer to, this seems very disambigious to me. Alex756

Alex, you did a great job at fixing all the links linking to Brest. The reason why I changed the "Brest" page back to a disambiguation page is for the future. People who will write about Brest, Belarus in the future might very well simply call it "Brest", and, with your redirect, users clicking on the link would be redirected to Brest, France, which would not be appropriate. The "problem" with Wikipedia is that it is a work in progress, and that even though all the links have been fixed today, new links could be erroneous in the future as Wikipedia growths. Of course, fixing the links everyday would be an option, but it does not appear to be very sustainable. That's the very reason why we have disambiguation pages. Hope this helps. olivier 12:40 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Oliver, I realize that and went back and disambiguated all the links to Brest either to Brest, France or Brest, Belarus as there were not too many, but I see your point. Now if someone puts in Brest they will get the disambiguation page, otherwise they should be directed right from the page referencing the correct locale, I just think the linking is so elegant that if these disambiguation pages are not a necessary stop that they take away from the potential elegance of Wikipedia. I have another question for you related to using special French characters in naming conventions. I've seen it done both ways, I think one of my links to the Civil Code of Quebec had Québec changed to Quebec. Is there a right way to do this? There does not seem to be an convention in practice. An example being Jonquière, Quebec where there is an è on Jonquiere but no é on Quebec see also Bloc Québécois and Jean Chrétien. In Canada even in English many people the accent in as a tip of the hat to the bilingual nature of Canadian society. I know this really seems like nitpicking but I'm a newbie here and as I am planning on starting some more articles on French and Quebec civil law when do you think I should put the accents in and when should I leave them out? Alex756 05:40 Apr 30, 2003 (UTC)

I have answered your question on Talk:Var_(département). -- Timwi 13:12 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Congratulations, you have just been made a sysop! You have volunteered for boring housekeeping activities which normal users sadly cannot participate in. Sysops basically can't do anything: They cannot delete pages arbitarily (only obvious junk like "jklasdfl,öasdf JOSH IS GAY"), they cannot protect pages in an edit war they are involved in, they cannot ban signed in users. What they can do is delete junk as it appears, ban anonymous vandals, remove pages that have been listed on Votes for deletion for more than a week, protect pages when asked to by other members, and help keep the few protected pages there are, among them the precious Main Page, up to date.

Note that almost everything you can do can be undone, so don't be too worried about making mistakes. You will find more information at Wikipedia:Administrators, please take a look before experimenting with your new powers. Drop me a message if there are any questions or if you want to stop being a sysop (could it be?). Have fun! --Eloquence 19:16 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I don't know what your scribble map means, but I guess the map looks like 'China' means China mainland. If you meant that's PRC, I think you ignored Taiwan, if you meant that's ROC, I think you ignored Mongolia. Anyway, I think you maybe it also means something that only looks like 'China', but in fact it's not at all a map! :P Samuel 08:54 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)

These drawings, which look like maps were used for discussion purpose quite a while ago, and the one looking like China was the basis for the maps you can see on the page of most provinces of China. We had a discussion about Taiwan also at that point. You can see a part of it at: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chinese provinces AND also a bit higher on this very page... (look at Mar 11, 2003). olivier 09:04 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thank you. I have read some of the words on that loooong enough talk page. I totoally agree with you! I meant It's only a bit strange for me to see this kind of 'map' for the first time! But the solution is smart. :D --Samuel 10:45 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Why are you creating new user pages with a dot? IMO it is rather usefull to see the red link user pages so that I know at glace who is new (and by extention who might need to be cleaned-up after). So long as you have a sidebar set-up you can access all user page functions via an edit window. --mav

You are right. I was doing this to access the "user contributions" function, but since I can apparently do it from the edit window, I will leave the pages blank in the future. Thanks for the feedback. olivier 06:02 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Oh, look, Mav is passing on knowledge he gleaned from me. This truly brings a tear to my eye ;-). --Eloquence

LOL. --mav

Please leave links such as List of newspapers at the top of pages about regional lists of newspapers. Such a schema allows users to quickly and easily browse trees of related information. Pizza Puzzle

Such a schema is very uncommon in Wikipedia. olivier 14:57 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It is not that uncommon; many list oriented pages use such linking. Even if it were uncommon, that would not invalidate the idea. Pizza Puzzle

Thanks for improving the Arles page. Jeremy J. Shapiro 23:51, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

My pleasure! olivier 07:42, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

When RK comes back I want to nominate him for sysop (again) I dont ask for much, but I ask that you support his nomination. Sincerely-戴&#30505sv 23:08, Aug 16, 2003 (UTC)

Who is RK. Why this insistance? olivier 07:17, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

vaut mieux pas s'en meler si tu n'es pas deja emberlificoté la-dedans! ;) -- Tarquin