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Although you are right to create a category called Gibraltarian culture, the correct use of the word for the media is Gibraltar media rather than Gibraltarian which has a precise legal meaning. Although the people working for the station are probably Gibraltarian, the TV station itself is not.
If in doubt, contact the webmaster at www.gbc.gi and see what he says.
As I don't understand how to change category names, perhaps you could fix it.
I don't think you are necessarily correct as the fact that a word has a precise legal meaning does not mean that it cannot also have other meanings, but I've changed it for you. LukeHoC00:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That is the meaning as used in Gibraltar.
Similarly the laws of Gibraltar are refered to as 'Gibraltar law' but never as 'Gibraltarian law'. I had a go at fixing that, you may wish to check what I did as categories are important but not something I understand in depth. --Gibnews09:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm writing to you because you contributed to the discussion on Category:Castles in France, which resulted in the category being deleted, or redirected articles in that category. This decision, as I hope to show, was wrong and needs to be reversed. Please take the time to read the following and respond.
Firstly, I should say that I did not take part in the discussion because I did not know it was taking place. (I was actually in France following the presidential election campaign and, ironically, taking photos of French castles!)
My reasons for questioning the decision are:
1. As far as I can discover, the debate was not advertised on the Wikipedia:WikiProject France page, so that editors with a declared interest in topics related to France could be aware of it.
It would have been sensible to at least mention the proposal in these projects and to seek advice.
3. The problem identified is very real. The French word château does not translate easily into English. It can mean a castle (in the usual English understanding of the word - a medieval, military defensive structure). It can mean palace/stately home/ mansion (and in fact, English speakers will frequently use the word château with that meaning). It can mean a vineyard, with or without a castle or palace attached. And, even more confusingly, the thousands of water towers in France are named château d'eau.
4. Even the French sometimes need clarification. In recent years, French language guide books have often described castles as châteaux-forts to distinguish them from the palaces.
5. Some months ago I came across a page in Wikipedia called List of castles in France (see original). This made the mistake of including article links solely because of the word château in the title; in fact only about half of the list were real castles - the rest were palaces etc and even some vineyards. I set about revising the list and along with other editors we managed to get the page as it appears now. We have gone on to add dozens more articles, particularly by translating pages from the French Wikipedia. All of these articles were categorised as Castles in France; any then categorised under Châteaux in France were moved over to Castles in France. The Châteaux in France category was left to be just for French palaces etc (i.e. what we as English speakers would call châteaux).
6. The Category:Castles by country lists 56 sub-categories and many of these are further divided (e.g. Castles in the United Kingdom is divided into Castles in England, Castles in Scotland, etc). The only country without a category concentrating on castles is France and this is a serious oversight. Anyone looking for details of castles in France now has to wade through a category that is not dedicated to castles!
I would be interested in your comments, particularly on how to give French castles the same category status as castles in Denmark, Spain, England and other countries. I have to say, the only way I can see that happening is to reinsate the Castles in France category as it was and for some work to be done on where the real problem lies - in the Châteaux in France category. Emeraude10:43, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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Please stop and think before criticising other user's contributions. I am doing this because at the moment the way the date formats work in Wikipedia is U.S. centric, in breach of the long standing policy that all variants of English have equality in Wikipedia. The redirects will allow people to use British English dates in auto-generated footnotes without creating red links. If you check you will note that such red links exist for most days in 2007, and for some dates in other years. They will proliferate in the future. I would ask you for an unreserved apology for falsely implying that this is not a constructive contribution to Wikipedia. LukeHoC (talk) 17:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but I cannot apologize. I don't see this as constructive in any way, shape or form, despite the North American-centricity of many WP articles. Those that have a more worldly-focus cite internationally formatted dates. This appears to me to be a complete waste of resources and counter to the standards previously established for Wikipedia. --Mhking (talk) 17:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is obvious that you just don't understand the issue. There should not be any restriction on use of British date formats on British articles, but American users have created a systemic bias in the way the standard citation notes work. The so called use of resources issue is a complete red herring, as the resources required are minimal (and a great deal less than my own contribution the fund raising drive, which will not be repeated, if you drive me away). I am appalled by the horrible way you are treating me. LukeHoC (talk) 17:13, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why is it a waste of resources to clear red links that have been created by a great variety of users? How many red links have you cleared today? This is good tidy editing work, pure and simple. On the other hand, deleting the redirects would be premeditated vandalism. LukeHoC (talk)
I also agree, and think it is unnecessary. It would be ideal for you to add {{db-userreq}} to each of the pages, as that will make things easier. - Rjd0060 (talk) 17:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So are you advocating red links, or U.S. centrism, or both. I find this attack so bizarre, that I would like to think it is just an joke made in bad taste. LukeHoC (talk) 17:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Call it what you want. It is just absolutely unresponsible / unreasonable / unnecessary to think that we should create a new page for every day, of every year. - Rjd0060 (talk) 17:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely not. Why on earth would you think that? I am not planning to do it for every year, only for the recent period for which there are many I think you are being totally "unresponsible" and unreasonable. Please can you give any sort of rational reason for your views? I am doing the work. It will clear red links. It will improve the presentation of the encyclopedia. It will gratify users by reducing the appearance of U.S. centricity, which will enhance (in an extremely modest way) wikipedia's reputation. The financial cost involved is maybe a U.S. cent or two. LukeHoC (talk) 17:37, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Luke, I think you are missing the point here. The templates actually require the ISO standard dates as commonly used in Europe, not the typical U.S. format. There generally shouldn't be links to individual days. If there is any problem that isn't dealt with by the user preferences already, it should be dealt with by fixing the templates, not creating fairly useless redirects. (The dates really don't need to be linked to articles to start with - the only reason they are is to avoid the U.S. centrism you are complaining of through the date preferences.) JPD (talk) 17:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain how the changing of dates that are in the future, and not tied to any single event or time-frame "enhances" Wikipedia. If there are specific Euro-centric dates/events involved, I might be able to understand. But it appears that you are trying to eliminate any sort of North American presentation for the simple sake of doing so. --Mhking (talk) 17:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am doing 2008 in advance as a public service. This is entirely in good faith, and I am disgusted at the way I am being treated. LukeHoC (talk) 17:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, you actually are doing this for the simple sake of doing so, and are refusing to back off while we talk about this? --Mhking (talk) 17:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was doing it to help Wikipedia. I dare say a number of professional reference works are already putting in place the facilities they will need in 2008. As for discussion, I have seen no sign that anyone is willing to engage with the points I have made. Just blank assertions that black is white, ie that there are no red links where there are red links. This is beyond belief. LukeHoC (talk) 17:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I left on ANI: It is also important to mention that the users reasoning behind all of this (changing redlinks to blue) is unfounded. I've checked several pages that he's created and nothing links to them, except his own talk page. - Rjd0060 (talk) 17:44, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have discussed it an length. You have responded with factually incorrect claims, that you are lack the grace to admit are such. LukeHoC (talk) 17:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't think like that. You have simply misunderstood what the problem was here - most of the links are actually like that - I'm sure we can find a better way to fix it. JPD (talk) 17:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, not even that one is like that! It is redirected to December 6, as it should be. I just can't cope with the way that everyone is angrily saying things that are just totally wrong. What happened to Wikipedia:Assume good faith? I feel like I have been assaulted by a gang of bullies. I have no obligation to help wikipedia, and as it seems that the admins think that meting out this sort of treatment is well and good, I will not risk my piece of mind by trying to help it ever again. LukeHoC (talk) 18:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And just how have we mistreated you? I simply started this out with a question and a conversation. I did request that you back off a bit while it is sorted out, but please show me where I have mistreated you. --Mhking (talk) 18:03, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Luke, I am sorry that noone discussed this with you before taking it to the admin's noticeboard. (Actually, most of the people discussing the issue there are not actually admins.) I can see how this felt threatening. I can see that you were trying to help, but I think you have misunderstood how dates work on Wikipedia. I tried to explain this, but I probably didn't do very well, and the conversation was quite mixed up by that time. I will try to explain in more detail, just in case you have changed your mind about not editing any more.
6 December and December 6 are actually the same link. If you have set your date preferences (click on "my preferences" at the top of the page), then they will even look the same. You are right to point out that many users will not know about the preferences, but that doesn't change the fact that they will still link to the same place, without the need to create a redirect. This is how Wikipedia deals with date formats, allowing people to enter the date in either format: either [[6 December]] [[2007]] or [[December 6]] [[2007]]. Note that in both cases, the day and month are linked separately from the year. What you have been doing is creating redirects for 6 December 2007, where the whole date is one link. In general, articles about a specific day in a specific year do not exist (December 6 2007 is also a redlink, it is nothing to do with the format), and there is usually no reason to include such a link. (This is why the date preferences are relevant, even if you are not using them. If there were no date preferences, the dates in citations would not be linked at all. The only reason the links are there is to facilitate the process which makes 6 December and December 6 the same link and allows people to set a preference.) If for some reason, there actually was an article about December 6 2007, then it would make sense to make 6 December 2007 a redirect to it. However, it doesn't make sense to make a redirect to December 6. It would be better to remove the links to 6 December 2007 altogether or format them properly as 6 December2007.
You were right that there is a problem with the usability of some of the citation templates. But the problem applies equally to U.S. and "British" date formats. If you type the date in either format as the accessdate parameter in {{cite web}}, for example, you will get one of the redlinks I mentioned above. To give a properly formatted date, the template assumes the ISO standard 2007-12-06, which in the "real world" is common in some parts of continental Europe, not Britain or the U.S. (Note that I am saying that the template requires this, not that I think it is the best thing. Actually, for users with preferences set, it makes no difference which format is used to enter the date, but you are right to point out that this is not most users.) If we don't want to use this format, we can use the accessdaymonth and accessyear parameters instead. You will probably say that this is a confusing design for the template, and I would agree. The template is causing people to unthinkingly create redlinks like 6 December 2007, which shouldn't exist, let alone be redirected somewhere else. That is the source of the problem. JPD (talk) 10:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]