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Andrei Kirilenko (politician)

Andrei Pavlovich Kirilenko (Андрій Павлович Кириленко; Андре́й Па́влович Кириле́нко; 8 September 1906 – 12 May 1990) was a Soviet politician, and a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was one of the most loyal politicians to Leonid Brezhnev.

His role in the CPSU was to ensure Brezhnev's power base and, if possible, to strengthen Brezhnev's position within the party. In order to accomplish this task, he emerged as one of the leading figures in the Secretariat under Brezhnev's rule.

Early life and career
Andrei Kirilenko was born on 8 September 1906 in the village of Alexeyevka, Belgorod Oblast, in the Russian Empire, to a working-class family. As a young boy, he worked as an electrician and a locksmith. In 1920, Kirilenko graduated from one of the local schools; five years later, he graduated from the Alekseevskii vocational technical school. In the mid-to-late 1920s, Kirilenko started working for a mining enterprise located in the Voronezh Oblast. He became an active member of Komsomol in 1929 and, two years later, became a member of the All-Union Communist Party. In 1936, he graduated from the Rybinsk Aviation Technology Institute. He started working as a design engineer for the aircraft factory, Zaporizhia Engine Plant. In 1938, Kirilenko became an active participant in party politics and was eventually selected to the position of Second Secretary of the Voroshilov District Party Committee in Zaporozhye Oblast. The following year, he was voted in as First Secretary. Later that year he was appointed to Second Secretary of the Zaporizhzhya Regional Party Committee of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In this role, Kirilenko made significant contributions to the development of metallurgical and electrical engineering, but also other sorts of industry.

During the Great Patriotic War, Kirilenko was directly involved with evacuating industry to safe zones. From 1941 to 1943, he was a member of the Military Soviet of the 18th Army of the Southern Front. He contributed by improving discipline among soldiers as well as improving the materiel support for the troops. In 1943, Kirilenko was relocated to Moscow, and during his stay there the production of advanced aircraft increased rapidly. By the end of the war, in 1944, Kirilenko was made First Secretary of the Zaporizhzhya Regional Party. He succeeded Leonid Brezhnev, future Soviet leader, as First Secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Party Committee. From 1955 to 1962, he was First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee; he was appointed by Nikita Khrushchev himself to take charge of economic planning and personnel selection in urban areas of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Kirilenko was later promoted to Khrushchev's vice-chairman of the Bureau of the Central Committee. Brezhnev benefited from Kirilenko's position, Brezhnev used him to win over supporters of his conspiracy against Khrushchev.

Rise to prominence
Immediately after Khrushchev's ouster, a "collective leadership" had been formed with Brezhnev as First Secretary, Alexei Kosygin as head of government and Anastas Mikoyan (replaced in 1965 by Nikolai Podgorny) as head of state. Central Committee Secretaries Mikhail Suslov and Kirilenko were also a part of the collective leadership, with Kirilenko ranked fifth behind Brezhnev, Podgorny, Kosygin, and Suslov. In 1962, Kirilenko became a voting member of the Political Bureau (Politburo). In 1966, the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSFSR was abolished, and Kirilenko became Brezhnev's chief lieutenant. Vadim Medvedev, a Soviet official, said Kirilenko's chief concern was maintaining and strengthening Brezhnev's position within the Party. Men who were loyal to Brezhnev were also loyal to Kirilenko.

Konstantin Chernenko, another old Brezhnev protégé, became a "counterweight" to Kirilenko's power within the Central Committee (CC). Before Chernenko's rise in the Soviet hierarchy, Kirilenko provided detailed supervision of new party personnel and the economy. When Chernenko came on board in 1976, Kirilenko supervised the economy. By the mid-to-late 1970s, Kirilenko's health was beginning to decline, and his memory weakened. Despite his failing health, he was still a high-standing member, and he usually presided over the meetings of the Secretariat when Suslov was not around. While First World representatives treated Kirilenko as Second Secretary of the Communist Party because most of his duties had been associated with that office in the past, the position was actually held by Suslov. During most of his term, Kirilenko was one of four who had both a seat in the secretariat and Politburo; the three others were Brezhnev, Suslov and Fyodor Kulakov.

By 1976 Kirilenko's position within the Soviet leadership had grown to such an extent that leading officials, such as Brezhnev and Suslov, were beginning to worry about his "organisational tail" in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). His supervisory responsibilities led many of his colleagues to view him as a threat to the Party Organisational Work Department of the Central Committee – the Central Committee department overseeing the civilian economy and the military–industrial complex. His position was weakened drastically by the end of the year, his weakened position did not lead to a strengthening of the Collective leadership but to the weakening of it.

Later career and resignation
As with Kosygin, Kirilenko's leading position in the Soviet leadership was in "limbo" due to his support for economic reform to countenance the country's stagnating economy. Kirilenko grew increasingly estranged with Brezhnev in 1977, some believe that it was due to the growing economic hardship that faced the Soviet Union. It is said that the two argued over resource allocation and on how to modernise the ailing economy. However, the most common explanation is that Kirilenko grew estranged was because of his weakened position within the Collective leadership.

Kirilenko led the Soviet delegation to the December 1977 MPLA Party Congress. At this congress, MPLA officially subscribed to the doctrine of Marxist-Leninism. This congress was important to the Soviet Union, and Kirilenko compared Angola's development with that of Vietnam. Kirilenko, along with Premier Kosygin, had been one of the most vocal opponents to a Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. He blamed the Afghan Party leadership for the rebellion against them, claiming that the Soviets "gave them everything." He also disliked it when the Afghan leadership tried to justify their murderous actions on the grounds that Vladimir Lenin also did it.

Kirilenko was seen as a possible candidate for the post of First Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1977, however, First World observers tended to overrate the significance of the office, and because of it, their observation were completely off the mark. Vasily Kuznetsov, first deputy minister of foreign affairs, was chosen to the office of First Deputy Chairman instead. During Brezhnev's later rule, KGB chairman Yuri Andropov gradually took over the functions and, eventually, Kirilenko's position within the Soviet leadership. In 1979, Kirilenko lost his unofficial office as supervisor of the defence industry over to Pavel Finogenov, a protégé of Dmitriy Ustinov. Kirilenko was seen as a key candidate by the West to replace Brezhnev as Soviet leader in 1982. After Brezhnev's death, Kirilenko was removed from the ruling Politburo by the new General Secretary Andropov. With his deteriorating health, having a disease known as arteriosclerosis, Kirilenko was disabled from ensuing active politics or protecting himself from Andropov's attacks. After Brezhnev's death and funeral, Kirilenko's mental condition deteriorated to where he could not remember the names of several leading Politburo members. He was unable to write properly during his later life; when asked by Andropov to write a letter of resignation in 1982, he was unable to do so. The decision to remove Kirilenko was taken before Andropov rose to power, so in the event Brezhnev had died later, Kirilenko would still have been forced to resign. The reason for the decision was that Kirilenko's son had tried to defect to the United Kingdom.

Later life, death, and recognition
When compared to other Soviet politicians who shared the same fate, Kirilenko's downfall was, in the words of historian R. Judson Mitchell, a "relatively easy" fall from power. At Brezhnev's lying-in-state and subsequent funeral, he was allowed to stand next besides Brezhnev's family even if he was not a member of the Soviet leadership at the time. Kirilenko made his last public appearance in 1983, and was given an honorary retirement the same year. Mitchell believes that Andropov gave Kirilenko the honorary retirement so that he could win over Kirilenko's "organisational tail", literally Kirilenko's appointees to top-ranking offices during his years in service. He lived the rest of his life in Moscow and died on 12 May 1990 at age 83 and was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery.

Awards and honors
During his lifetime, he was awarded the Hero of Socialist Labour twice, and he received seven Orders of Lenin and one Order of the October Revolution.

 * USSR
 * Foreign

title: Andrei Kirilenko (politician)


text: Talk:Cutlery

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Cutlery


text:
User:Stardust~enwiki/Settlers of Catan, New World maps

Settlers of Catan


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Wikipedia:Village pump/December 2003 archive 2

Should one create articles that are of little use to the general public?
I'm as newcomer as possible, and I was wondering whether one should consider the relevancy of an article before posting it, or post it, assuming that if it is of little relevance few articles will link to it, and no harm will be done. For instance, I could write an article about my high school, but I very much doubt whether this will be of interest to anybody. Should I do this, so as to broaden the scope of Wikipedia, or should I dedicate my time to things of greater use and importance, such as juggling bananas?

--81.218.180.201 23:36, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)Itai

 * The debate about high schools is an old and ongoing debate, I think...you can create other sorts of articles that may not be of everyday general interest (I would say a lot of the history articles I have created fit that description), but it may not be a good idea to start out with your high school. Adam Bishop 23:40, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * See Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/schools. Angela.

I'm a newbie here myself. So far, I've found that if I try looking up any article on a topic on which I have any significant degree of knowledge, I instantly find things that I think should be added, things that I think are not quite right, things that I think can be phrased better... so I suggest that's where you start.

If you look through an existing article, often you'll find links that display in red—for example, this one: Raymond Loewy. This means either that there is no article at all on the great industrial designer Raymond Loewy, or that I've misspelled his name.

When an existing article already links to an article that doesn't exist, that's a reasonable excuse for creating the missing article.

In your case, you mention juggling bananas. As you can see, there is an article about juggling and an article about bananas. Both look good as far as they go, but it seems to me that there might be more to write about. What do you think?

In other words, before creating a questionable article, why don't you see whether there is some contribution you could make that would be just as much fun to do and more likely valuable to users of Wikipedia?

Oh, one more thought—I grew up in Scarsdale so I know a little about the town. Well, almost every town in the U. S. has a Wikipedia article based on census data. I'll bet your town is there. And I'll bet you know something about it that isn't in the article. In my case, I added a snapshot of one of the stranger-looking buildings in Scarsdale and some notes on famous people who lived there. I don't know if anyone really cares—but I'll bet that there are at least as many people interested in knowing that Gish Jen lived in Scarsdale as in knowing that 32.8% of its inhabitants are under the age of 18 Dpbsmith 01:38, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * Indeed, I have been doing the same for towns on Oahu where I live. I would suggest beinging your new material to the top, and have "Demographics" as one of the last subtitles. Census data are there not because of intense interest in the numbers. - Marshman 01:53, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Actually, I strongly disagree. There is a WikiProject and a guide for these articles at WikiProject Cities, with the suggested template given farther down the page here. It actually is a good convention to be consistent about. I (like many people) first found Wikipedia through these articles, and it's one of the things that people tend to expect consistency in. It's fine to add more info, but it would not be good for them to have the information arranged in completely different orders. -- BCorr ¤ Брайен 02:42, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Case of Internet TLDs?
Should the Internet TLDs of countries not be in lowercase? Anjouli 07:23, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Yes, I would agree that lowercase is the de-facto standard representation. Daniel Quinlan 07:42, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)

 * Such Qs are more appropriate on Reference desk. --Menchi 07:46, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * I beg to disagree. This is not a Reference Desk question since it relates to the standard format used in all WP country pages. It is therefore a WP format issue, presumably best discussed in Village Pump (WP related issues) before making into a style guideline, if agreed. I though that was clear from the countries link, but perhaps I should have been more specific. Anjouli 05:59, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I have moved this back to VP where it belongs. All our Countries of the world Internet TLDs are still in upper case which is incorrect. Volunteers to help me change them all to lower case please? Anjouli 17:49, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * In this context let me draw your attention to Reference desk. I really believe that there should be a page with a name that is easy to remember and guess (which I believe would rule out ISO 624-213-5 or whatever it is) where the various abbreviations are juxtaposed and where users can easily browse through them without being distracted by additional information. --KF 18:12, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Uppercase isn't incorrect. Of course, you can change them all to lowercase if you like, but it's fairly pointless, and arguably less readable. The reason they're currently uppercase is probably because they were originally added to the articles as ISO 3166-1 codes rather than TLDs. --Zundark 23:13, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I would not agree that it is pointless, since lower-case is correct and upper-case is wrong. I refer you to the ICANN General TLD Policies, which clearly state this. . This is an encyclopedia after all and we are supposed to care about things like that. I don't buy the readability argument. The same argument could justify having all of WP in upper-case. Anjouli 16:50, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Uppercase is not wrong. No ICANN document says otherwise (though ICANN certainly prefers lowercase). See also the relevant RFCs. As for readability, I was talking about 2-letter codes - paragraphs of text are a completely different matter. Anyway, I have no objection to you converting them to lowercase, as long as you don't make a single mistake. --Zundark 23:44, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Have oyu ever seen me make a mitsake :) Anjouli 13:56, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How to move an article to another Wiki
I frequently see (for instance on VFD), the suggestion to move an article to Wiktionary, Wikisource, or to the Memorial Wiki. What is the process for doing this as a non-sysop? Should the page history, talk page, talk page history, any other subpages be moved as well? How? Is this something that can be done as a "bold edit" or is a more formal process required?
 * -Anthropos 18:05, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * See Transwiki and Transwiki log. -- Cyan 18:35, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Sysops don't have a special tool for this. Basically, it's a matter of cutting and pasting as you can't actually move the page history (yet). Whether this is a problem depends on your reading of the GFDL. The since we are on legal matters ... thread on Wikilegal-l last month looked at the issues of moving text between pages within Wikipedia, but left many unanswered questions. My view is that is that it is ok to move text as long as you note "at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five)" (see section 5.4 of the GFDL). When I move a page, I either list the authors in the edit summary when creating the new page, or I list the authors on the talk page (see m:Talk:Wikistress for an example). There is a function to output the full history (Special:Export), but not, as yet, any method to import that elsewhere. So, I would say – be bold and make the move yourself. If you are unfamiliar with the wiki you are moving it to, you may want to leave it in their transwiki pseudo-namespace rather than their main namespace. The page "Transwiki" here, and at Wiktionary, Wikisource, and hopefully in future other places, will redirect you to a page where you can log such moves. Angela. 19:43, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the responses. Once the content of the page is question is copied to the destination Wiki, what is to be done with the article that remains on Wikipedia? Should that be listed at VFD? Is there some other mechanism for having someone with authority delete the page? -Anthropos 14:30, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Currently policy (depending which one you read) allows these to be deleted instantly, but there are issues with that, so I think listing on VfD is best. Angela. 08:01, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Adding html tables to wiki pages
Hi. I maintain a list of remote sensing satellites (www.matox.com/agisrs/arsist) and I love so much wikipedia that I'd like to share the table within wiki. However, it is not in a "normal html table" format. What should I do ? What do you propose ? (Plenty of people (www.matox.com/agisrs) are using this list and it would be great to make them participate in wikis :) You can contact me on arsist@matox.com, thanks !

 * Something that size would be problematic on a wiki page and very hard to edit without making a mistake and messing the table up. Is there a way it could be split into a number of smaller tables? Angela. 07:52, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * For something like that, http://sources.wikipedia.org might be more appropriate Dori | Talk 08:03, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

What to do?
What can sysop do when someone keeps creating the deleted topics? (There was a hot argument about if we should keep so-called lixiang-yu or not in Chinese Wikipedia, but when I deleted it according to the result of vote, I noticed that there was already 50 deleted edit! Someone kept creating that again and again after deleting) --Samuel 02:59, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * You could blank the page and protect it. This has been used as a short term measure here before on some pages. Angela. 07:48, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Relax. Go get a cup of tea. You will be here longer than them. Martin 00:08, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Certain characters becoming question marks on my talk page
All of a sudden, on my talk page, all of the bullets (•) and this character that I use in my sig (¤) have turned to question marks. This happened to me once on VfD a couple of months ago, but I haven't seen it since. Anyone know why this is and if it's a bug or not and why it would happen so rarely? Thanks, BCorr ¤ Брайен 04:37, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Perhaps someone who doesn't have a Unicode-enabled computer edits the page, and subsequently doesn't transfer the Unicode glyph properly. It's not your fault, I don't think. Dysprosia 04:45, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Dysprosia above is correct. The last editor of your Talk (TonyClarke) does not have extended Unicode apparently. I'd assume • is a very basic character though. --Menchi (Talk)ü| â 11:44, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Thank you both. And I actually thing it was Ajd who made the edit.... -- BCorr ¤ Брайен 15:20, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Phrase "towns, villages and townships" in all Dutch municipalities articles
The phrase "towns, villages and townships" occurs in all the articles for Dutch municipalities (in Dutch: gemeenten) and is an attempt at a direct translation from the Dutch "plaatsen, dorpen, gehuchten, stadsdelen" (see all the entries in http://www.sdu.nl/staatscourant/scdata/gemeentenindex.htm ). Although the Dutch names have official meaning in the Netherlands, that's lost in the looser English translations (where we even go from four designations to three, since the translator presumably ran out of English words to express the Dutch distinctions!) Unfortunately, after I'd corrected Nijmegen to replace the phrase with the all-encompassing "settlements", I noticed that over 300 articles have the same problem :-( Solution? Can this be automated? Leaving the articles as they are is an option, but the phrase sounds extremely peculiar in English and doesn't even capture the Dutch distinctions.---Spellbinder 14:05, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * I can't help you with the automation question, though my guess is that someone out there will. I'd like to comment though, that the use of the term settlement may not be the best. As a typical mono-lingual US American, when I hear that word, it tends to bring to mind a village of newly arrived pioneers. I'd suggest the word community as a generic term for a village, town, villages, etc. I'm not sure what other English speaking peoples would think. -Anthropos 15:03, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * Well a hamlet is a small village (in UK English at least). I think "community" doesn't work as the name of a town. I've only ever seen people use township to refer to South Africa. I think settlement is ok. Secretlondon 15:13, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)
 * Township seems to be used by the US as well. ("Define:" in google is your friend ) Township: "Generally, a square tract of six miles on a side containing thirty-six square miles of land. A name given to a civil and political subdivision of a county in the U.S." Note that the term "township" as used in the South African context refers not to some nice little town, but to a squalid collection of shacks, often on the outskirts of major cities. --snoyes 15:34, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * Hurriedly: the word "township" is indeed used more or less throughout the U.S., but its meaning is complex and technical and varies very significantly from state to state. The meta-information that it's complex is really the only thing I can say for sure; I'm not an expert, and an expert is required. The Google definition refers only to the midwestern states that were surveyed during a big land-surveying project sometime in the nineteenth century; you can see the results on any airline flight, where the roads, farms, etc. follow an obviously squared-off pattern.

 * In these states, every piece of land is specifically tied to "range and township;" a 160-acre farm might be described as the NE quarter of section 11, range 40W, township 78N.

 * In New England, there is an entity officially and informally called a "town" is county-like in the sense that the land is fully apportioned and every square inch of it falls within one town or another. The U. S. census, however, I believe, calls New England towns "townships." Anyway, broadly speaking a) the word exists in the U.S.; b) nobody really knows what it means; c) it means something different depending on what state you're in. Dpbsmith 17:26, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I'd imagine that the best translation would be hamlets, villages, towns and cities, as this probably covers the equivalent English concepts (i.e. groups of residential and other buildings above the size of the single-family or extended single extended-family units or something like that). sometimes word-for-word translations just aren't possible, I suppose. Bmills 17:30, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * "Village", "town", and "city" are about the only terms in English that are broadly understood to have a generic meaning in addition to any specific legal formulations. I would use just those, then supply the specific Dutch term in italics and parentheses following, ideally linked to an article so us non-Dutch-speakers can understand what the term is supposed to mean. Stan 18:03, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * It really varies. In states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as Michigan and most of the Midwest, a township is a municipality, is the basic division of counties, has a government, etc. Almost everyone there knows what a township is, just as they know what a city is. Also, in most of New England, the state is divided into towns, and then counties are composed of towns (the opposite of Michigan). Maine, however, has cities, towns, townships, plantations, and unincorporated townships. Etc., etc. -- BCorr ¤ Брайен  19:49, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * The translation of the word "gehucht" is hamlet or settlement. The word is derived from the middle Dutch "gehochte or gehuchte" and originally meant a collection of farmhouses. Nowadays the word is used for verry small villages.
 * The word "dorp" is translated with village or town. A "dorp" used to be every larger settlement in the country which had no "stadsrechten" i.e. oficial priviliges which only cities had. Nowadays the word "dorp" is used for every village which is larger than a "gehucht" and has less than 10,000 inhabitants. The size of a "gehucht" is not defined but in contrast to a "dorp" a "gehucht" usually doesn't have a church.
 * The word "stad" means town or city. Since "stadsrechten" are now abolished, a "stad" is every settlement with more than 10,000 inhabitants. The Dutch distinguish between small, middle large and large cities, which depends on the number of inhabitants.
 * A "stadsdeel" is a quarter, area, district or part of a town/city. The word "plaats" (literally: place) can be used for every settlement and includes both "dorp" and "town"
 * Jurriaan 18:43, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * Returning to the original comment, I do not think that "towns, villages, and townships" sounds peculiar in American English. To me, what it communicates is actually quite accurate: it sounds like a list of names of town-like things that have technical and legal distinctions that need not bother me. That is, although perhaps "village" may not be a technically accurate translation of the individual plaatsen and "village" may not be a techically accurate translation of the individual term dorp, I suspect that "towns, villages and townships" is a very good translation of the entire phrase.

 * If you ask people what the meanings of the words are in the United States you'll get general agreement that a village is small, a town is bigger, and a city is even bigger, but beyond that few people know or care about the exact distinctions.

 * It seems to me that, at least in the Northeast, "community" is the generic word used e.g. by makers of street atlasses; the table of contents of an Eastern Massachusetts street atlas would probably list ll the place names (Dorchester, Norwood, Waltham, etc.) under the heading "communities" in order to avoid fussing with the fact that Norwood is a town and Waltham is a city... and goodness knows what Dorchester is (a zip code? a neighborhood? a village?) Dpbsmith 20:37, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I think that a more accurate translation of "plaatsen, dorpen, gehuchten, stadsdelen" would be "towns, villages, hamlets, districts" though. Jurriaan 21:17, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * OK, sounds reasonable. One more thought, though. I'd consider dropping "hamlets" and just making it "towns, villages, and districts," unless there's a strong feeling that the translation should be word-for-word. The dictionary definition of "hamlet" is "small village." However, in the United States, it is very rarely used other than as a jocular archaism. Nobody ever says "I grew up in a little hamlet named Barneveld near Blue Mounds State Park." One might say "all the little burgs and hamlets out in the boondocks." Indeed, even "village" is rarely used to describe an isolated community. The only times I've ever heard the word, it referred to small residential clusters with their own small commercial centers within a large town; as in Scarsdale, New York which contains the villages of Scarsdale, Heathcote, etc; or Newton, Massachusetts, which contains the villages of Newton Centre [sic], Chestnut Hill, etc. "Village" to me means a small isolated settlement in some other country e.g. England--or the Netherlands. Hamlet has one very specific and peculiar association: for some reason, it was the word invariably used to describe small settlements in Vietnam during the Vietnam war. Not helpful and we're now down to shades of meaning that are debatable and don't matter, but I think "village" is a better word than "hamlet." People in the U.S. who live in places with populations of, say, less than a thousand, usually call them "towns" with some descriptive adjective or phrase ("tiny little town, just a bend in the road."). Just musing. Dpbsmith 12:01, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

My goodness, I'm the originator of the thread and I didn't think so many people would contribute; I thought I'd be lucky to get a couple of comments! Anyway, the subject has moved on a bit; at the moment, I'm investigating with the help of some of those who contributed above, whether the lists that use these words are actually valid - they appear to be at best idiosyncratic and at worst misleading, so no more comments for the time being please. Thanks to everyone who commented. Spellbinder 13:44, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * I just wanted to add a link to Wikipedia's own article on townships which seems to have been missed in the discussion. Rmhermen 13:46, Dec 17, 2003 (UTC)

Hostile experience on Wikipedia
On December 15 a poster on one of our game boards alerted me to a Wikipedia article that referenced one of our products. A Table Top RPG called The Morrow Project.

I went to the Wikipedia site and sure enough we were mentioned but the link page was empty. I thought I would contribute a general description of the game. I placed a section of text from our website describing the game on the page. Then I went back into edit mode to add some comments and more info. Before I even finished the edit someone (Silsor) had come along and voted to have the page deleted. They stated it was a rehash of an old RPG. While I don’t disagree with the statement that it was an older game I thought that a general description was a good way to start. I went to the indicated page and gave my reasons why and pointed out that it was a work in progress having only been up less than 5 minutes. At least one other person agreed with me and voted to keep the page.

The same person (Silsor) voted to delete the page then marked it as possible copyright infringement. I suspect this was more out of spite than a true desire to protect my copyright.

Another person (an editor) that goes by the handle of Smack then looked at the page. For some reason he believed it was copyright infringement. He sited a geocities site where someone had copied 3 lines from our description page onto their site. Since this geocities site was obviously a game related fan site and could be construed as a review we normally don’t pursue sites like that. I went to the your copyright site to explain that I was the copyright holder. This Smack person wrote a response but did not answer my questions just asked another question. I did my best to answer this ambiguous question. It would seem obvious that since I was the copyright holder and also the person that placed the text on the site that I did intend for it to be read on Wikipedia. His response was to ask the inane question “I don't understand whether you support or oppose the inclusion of the content on Wikipedia. -Smack 00:04, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)” I answered the quesiton that I did indeed support the inclusion of text. No response was ever give to that. The page is still listed as possible copyright violation.

It would seem that your editor is not performing his due diligence. The company website is listed in the original article. If this Smack has even bothered to go there he would have seen that it is a company website. The site he listed (if he even bothered to visit it) is obviously a personal fan website.

At looks like you have a fine idea here. I would like to contribute but the experience I have had makes it difficult to justify the time involved in doing so. If not for the people Silsor and Smack working against my efforts I would have been done in 15 minutes.

Chris Garland President TimeLine Ltd. Chris(at)timelineltd (dot)com

 * I guess you are talking about The Morrow Project. The problem with that article in it's original state is that it doesn't give any context about what it is about. If it had an introductory sentence like "The Morrow Project is an online RPG game" the first Vote for Deletion nomination wouldn't have happened. Keep in mind we are trying to build an encyclopedia here, so a marketing text for the game is not fitting here - as I would have voted to delete it in its current state as well. As for copyright violation we are sometime too much paranoid to spot them, but as it is so easy to copy-and-paste text from any other website here it is a common problem. Of course there are sometimes false positives posted by the holder of the copyright, but these are rare. I hope that'll explain it a bit to you. andy 16:38, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Chris, sorry about your negative experience, but perhaps I can clear some things up for you:
 * Wikipedia does not employ any editors. The users you had conflict with are just free users just like everyone else. The users you had conflict with were just using due-diligence. We have to work hard to keep copyrighted material off Wikipedia to avoid any lawsuits. If you add copyrighted material to an article for which you own the copyright and are allowing its inclusion, note that on the Talk page for the article (click the "Discuss this page" link on the left). That should clear up any questions about copyright infringement.
 * You might get more cooperation if you create a (free) account and sign your posts (by using three or four tildes ~ at the end of your posts) (only on Talk pages, not in articles proper). Anonymous posts are usually frowned upon. Signatures also make it easier to keep track of who said what. You don't have to create an account to sign your postings, but a handle of some kind is easier to refer to than an IP number.

 * Please don't let this negative experience discourage you from contributing to the 'pedia. It's addicted several hundred people already and we'd hate to lose one potential addict due to a negative first experience. :^) I'm sure after this initial bump in the road, things will go much smoother. :^) —Frecklefoot 16:42, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * You also must understand that there is no such thing as an "Editor" of Wikipedia. We are all editors, it's a joint project.  In addition, for items to be released under the Wikipedia aegis, you must specifically release the material under GFDL.  Have you done so?  If not, the material is a copyright violation, and must be deleted.  RickK 16:41, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Surely this is not true? He's the copyright owner. If he places his original text on Wikipedia, then that's implicit approval under the GFDL. I agree that as it appears elsewhere on the Web a release is a good idea, but I think you're overstating it when you say it must be deleted without one. It's not a copyright vio at all, and it never was. It just looked like one. And now we know it wasn't one. Andrewa 18:28, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I See. Some very good suggestions. I have created an account. Also I will rewrite the info this evening and repost. Thanks for the great info.TimeLine 17:01, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Meantime, I have reverted this article to, well, to an article, the most recent version that is an article. IMO the chat that was there belongs in the talk page, which is where it is now. I hope this meets with approval by other editors. IMO it was not acceptable to make the article a de facto chat page. The copyright vio and VfD notices are still on the version I've reverted to. Andrewa 17:07, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hmmmm, I now see that the text I regarded as "chat" is actually the boilerplate from Possible_copyright_infringements, which concerns me a little!

I think this boilerplate needs a rework. Remember, this is the article namespace. It's our product. I don't think a signed letter such as this fits here very well at all. If the article must be blanked (and is this really necessary if the only evidence of copyright vio is that the text also appears elsewhere, and the copyright status is unknown?) then I think a link to the talk page is more appropriate. But interested in other views. Andrewa 18:28, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I think the boilerplate is essential. No, it's not an article, and it isn't usual to have a signed letter in the main namespace, but it is only there for seven days and is, in my opinion, highly preferable to having copyrighted material there. The message is meant to be more friendly to newbies as it clearly explains what the issue is, where to discuss it, and what to do if you want to rewrite the page. Having this prevents someone trying to edit the page further, and then causing problems where the copyvio remains in the page history, which happened a lot before the boilerplate included links to the "temp" page. I don't think that this boilerplate being in the main namespace is any worse than the normal VfD boilerplate being there, particularly since that has been expanded and is now signed as well. One solution might be to immediately take the copyvio out of the main namespace, such as moving it to talk:article name/potential copyvio but you'd still need something in the main namespace explaining where it was, or at the least, a redirect. Would this be better than having the whole letter there? Angela. 19:18, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Fair enough. I think the response to this particular case was over the top, and I was a bit surprised to reflect that the procedures seemed to have been followed. The only evidence of a problem was that the text appeared somewhere else on the web. The website owner hadn't objected, or even been contacted. The article could easily have been replaced by a good stub, which would seem to me to be a good response to many copyright vios. But what happened was that the text was removed, a very non-standard page was inserted into the article namespace, and the page was listed for deletion. Not good IMO.

 * Have a look at my good stub proposal on the Meta. It cuts across some of what is said on the existing stub and copyright vio pages. It's short and to the point, and intended to encourage the proper use of stubs. Comments and updates welcome. Andrewa 00:31, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Yes, replacing it with a stub is a good thing, but not on the same page. This means the original copyvio can not be deleted. See Copyright violations on history pages for the justification of using temp pages for copyvio rewrites. Without this boilerplate, there would be no link to the temp page, so anyone wanting to rewrite wouldn't know to go there instead of the actual article. Angela. 01:02, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Good point! I'd missed that. Andrewa 01:22, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Hmmmm. I see what it's trying to do, but it's ugly. We shouldn't need to delete an entire page and its history in order to remove copyvios from the history. I notice that a developer can delete specific versions from the history, and that this is the recommended procedure when copyvio material is added to an existing page. It seems to me that there should be a tool to allow an admin to do this conveniently and perhaps even reversibly. This would simplify everything. Possibly not a top priority, but if Wikipedia grows as many of us hope things that are rare now will become common enough to need elegant tools. Andrewa 02:59, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * It seems to me that there is an issue here, perhaps not as important as copyrights, that we Wikipedians are missing. TimeLine (as anon.) was in the process of editing the article when it was placed on VFD? Doesn't anyone else see this as an issue? Shouldn't we all be a bit careful not to "jump on" a new contributor. If the article is patently offensive or nonsense, there's may not be a need to wait (though, practically, I think we should). But if an article seems trivial, or POV, shouldn't we give some time to it before we place it on VFD? I mean, would an hour, or even a day be too much time to wait? -Anthropos 22:06, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * IMO this delay should be standard practice. Without it we waste everybody's time in edit conflicts and incidents like this one. Andrewa 00:31, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I had the same bad experience. In fact it is still ongoing.  While in the process of editing my first (and last!) Wikiproject, RickK swept through with indiscriminate deletions of whole sections and all the images in the entry.  When I pointed out, on the Talk pages, that Wikipedia's editing policy guidelines discourage such blanket revisions and subsequent reversion wars, he replied, "Really?  Who says?"  After a period of broader participation, the copyright and fair use debate ended, and my position carried.  With full knowledge of that outcome, Gentgeen began pursuing the alternate route of suggesting that all games' documentation (including chess, go, and many other games with substantial Wikicommunities) be moved to Wikibooks, which by his own admission is still nonexistent.  Likewise, RickK continued to pursue two votes for deletion against the Catan Wikiproject, one regarding the same images that were already shown to be legitimate, at Possible copyright infringements (*cough* double jeopardy *cough* and the voters have been voting without reading the prior Talk page discussion and its resolution), and one regarding the Wikiproject's secondary pages, at Votes for deletion.  These secondary pages are under construction; people are working on them as well as on foreign language translations.  And yet, as in the situation highlighted by Anthropos, they are already on the VfD.    Since RickK himself has sysop controls, I have no doubt that he will delete whatever he can as soon as seven days pass from the time of the two VfD listings.  Is this just? ~ stardust 09:31, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I just read the first talk page you linked, and there were at least three people explaining to you why those images were, at the very least, questionable. Alfio 18:39, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Your extensive attacks on me don't warrant responses. Kinda glad to see you won't be sticking around.  RickK 16:43, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Please tell me if I've violated the canons by zapping my own ill-considered comments that were here for a short time. I have no opinions, except a doubt that a curt dismissal is a good response when a subject comes up in a public forum where almost no one has heard of the issue.  I'm taking up space with this note just to explain my self-censorship.  Dandrake 23:33, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)

Quoting the reply to the conclusion that you jumped to, after having read part of the Catan copyright discussion:
 *  You replied to a portion of old discussion quoted here, which includes a completely wrong definition of fair use which was refuted in later discussion. I've set all of the quoted portion to italic to reduce the chance of others doing the same. Jamesday 22:59, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please read the discussion itself. ~ stardust 03:13, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * I've read a great deal of that very long discussion, and I think it would be unconstructive to put down my opinion of it. But that's unconstructive too, so: a classic flame war in which the main antagonists of both sides make efforts to conceal the merits of their case because they're so busy slanging each other.  Constructive comment: it really does illustrate problems in how Wikipedia works. Dandrake 06:08, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

Today an anon user came and I guess clicked on a link to sour, entered some junk and saved it. I put a {subst:test} on his page, and went to check out the "what links here" for sour. Less than two minutes, and the page was gone. Now imagine if that user was really just testing. Types something, doesn't get it immediately, and by the time he tries to edit what he's done the page is deleted, gone, non-existent. The only impression a chance user could get out of that is: "The editting feature doesn't work". Is this really what we want? Zocky 03:32, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * That's why we go to the effort of putting a message on their talk page telling that their test did work, and giving advice on where future tests should be done. So, I don't think we do give the impression that editing doesn't work, just the impression that vandalism doesn't work, which has to be a good thing. Angela. 03:38, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * You know, Angela, this is exactly what happened to me at the zh wiki. I specifically went to Sourceforge and submitted a bug report because I thought the edit feature wasn't working because my page kept disappearing.  Not only did I not receive notice of deletion on my User Talk page, but I received a warm and fuzzy welcome from the same guy who had deleted the stub page.  Then we got into a feedback loop: I didn't want to start translating in earnest without being sure that the edit feature worked, and the page was getting deleted over and over again because nothing had been translated on it.  A helpful admin at Sourceforge helped me figure out the real reason my edits had vanished three times.  Of course your judgment of what happened to me was that I was unfair in accusing zh wiki of not using due process.  Your above assessment of the impression given by Wikipedia is flat out wrong. ~ stardust 12:39, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * My assessment was based on what I do at en, not what Shizhao did in this situation at zh. If I delete a page that looks like it was test, or even if it is outright vandalism, I leave the author a note stating precisely that their test worked and has been deleted. I doubt any confusion could occur over that. Perhaps you need to address that at zh, but the procedure here is that authors are informed of deletion, either on their talk page where it is instant, or on the article itself if it is being listed on VfD. I fail to see how you can say I am "flat out wrong". Are you saying that a message containing "your page has been deleted" could be misinterpreted to be a software failure? Angela. 13:23, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Your m.o. is far from a standard procedure followed by your peers. For instance, Jiang just deleted one of my stub pages (which I suppose is fine since our top New Shores player hadn't gotten started on the page).  No notice given.  I only noticed because the links to that page went red.  I knew where to find to the deletion log, but most wikinewbies don't know that it exists, or know how to use the Talk function.  Even if a newb knows there ought to be a deletion log, he has to be able to find it (think an english-as-a-second-language situation).  Also, in the foreign language wikis, the translation for "deletion log" may not be obvious (e.g. native speaker of portuguese having trouble finding it at pt wiki).  The truth is that new users do get the impression, at various language wikis including this one, that Wikipedia edits don't go through. ~ stardust 16:35, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Also, new users are not used to checking top right for new messages, and might have no clue what really happened before they wander off. I'd say wait 15 minutes before deleting a page.

Maybe "you have new messages" for anon users should be more prominent, and maybe it should include the summary of the last edit to the anon talk page. Zocky 16:59, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * See bug reports for instructions on submitting this to sourceforge. I think for anons, this is a good idea, particularly when bans are justified on the fact that the user was warned. If they aren't seeing that warning, they are not getting fair notice of the ban. Angela. 00:10, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Another topic
related to comments made in Village pump/December 2003 archive 2

I have to agree with the section title which describes hostility. I think that copyright notices are placed a lot of times out of spite. other users' thoughts? Greenmountainboy 20:10, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I don't really think that's the case (from reading over a lot of the cases). I'll grant you that the copyvio notice is a tad abrupt, and there are several wikipedians with the social skills of a tasmanian devil, but in general I think most notices reflect someone's honest caution in the face of any amount of willful abuse. -- Finlay McWalter 20:18, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Agreed. If people are hasty -- it's often simply that they want to bring attention to a problem before it grows into a big problem.  We certainly don't want someone to go to a huge amount of work and create something huge and THEN tell them, weeks or months later, 'Oh, by the way, all that stuff you did, we're deleting it'.  Better to question it early.

 * It's not helped, of course by the facts that a) Not every volunteer editor understands copyright law very well, b) that exactly what our standards are for IMAGE copyright aren't too well defined, and c) that the laws are not all that clear in the first place ('fair use', especially, is open to question at times). --Morven 02:36, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Of course copyright notices aren't added out of spite! They are added because the person finding them believes a violation has occured and genuinely wants to do something about that. Angela.


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User:Stardust~enwiki/Settlers of Catan, Greater Catan maps

Settlers of Catan


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Abolhassan Banisadr

Seyyed Abolhassan Banisadr (22 March 1933 – 9 October 2021) was an Iranian politician, writer, and political dissident. He was the first president of Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution abolished the monarchy, serving from February 1980 until his impeachment by parliament in June 1981. Prior to his presidency, he was the minister of foreign affairs in the interim government. He had resided for many years in France where he co-founded the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Following his impeachment, Banisadr fled Iran and found political asylum in France. Banisadr later focused on political writings about his activities during the Iranian revolution and his critiques of the Iranian government. He became a critic of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the country's handling of its 2009 elections.

Early life and education
Banisadr was born on 22 March 1933 in Baghcheh village in Hamedan province. His father was an ayatollah and close to Ruhollah Khomeini. Banisadr studied law, theology, and sociology at University of Tehran. In the 1960s, he studied finance and economics at the Sorbonne. In 1972, Banisadr's father died and he attended the funeral in Iraq, where he first met Ayatollah Khomeini.

His father, seyyed Nasrollah Banisadr migrated to the Hamadan area from Qazi Qushchi village in Bijar in Kurdistan province.

Banisadr participated in the anti-Shah student movement during the early 1960s and was imprisoned twice, and was wounded during an uprising in 1963, which led to his fleeing to France. He later joined the Iranian resistance group led by Khomeini, becoming one of his hard-line advisors. Banisadr returned to Iran together with Khomeini as the revolution was beginning in February 1979. He wrote a book on Islamic finance, Eghtesad Tohidi, which roughly translates as "The Economics of Monotheism."

Career
Following the Iranian Revolution, Banisadr became deputy minister of finance on 4 February 1979 and was in office until 27 February 1979. He also became a member of the revolutionary council when Bazargan and others left the council to form the interim government. After the resignation of the interim finance minister Ali Ardalan on 27 February 1979, he was appointed finance minister by then prime minister Mehdi Bazargan. On 12 November 1979, Banisadr was appointed foreign minister to replace Ebrahim Yazdi in the government that was led by the Council of the Islamic Revolution when the interim government resigned.

Banisadr was elected to a four-year term as president on 25 January 1980, receiving 78.9 percent of the vote in the election, and was inaugurated on 4 February. Khomeini remained the Supreme Leader of Iran with the constitutional authority to dismiss the president. The inaugural ceremonies were held at the hospital where Khomeini was recovering from a heart ailment.

Banisadr was not an Islamic cleric; Khomeini had insisted that clerics should not run for positions in the government. In August and September 1980, Banisadr survived two helicopter crashes near the Iran–Iraq border. During the Iran–Iraq War, Banisadr was appointed acting commander-in-chief by Khomeini on 10 June 1981.

Impeachment
The Majlis (Iran's Parliament) impeached Banisadr in his absence on 21 June 1981, allegedly because of his moves against the clerics in power, in particular Mohammad Beheshti, then head of the judicial system. Khomeini himself appears to have instigated the impeachment, which he signed the next day. According to Kenneth Katzman, Banisadr believed the clerics should not directly govern Iran and was perceived as supporting the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK). Only one deputy, Salaheddin Bayani, spoke in favor of Banisadr during his impeachment.

Even before Khomeini had signed the impeachment papers, the Revolutionary Guard had seized the Presidential buildings and gardens, and imprisoned writers at a newspaper closely tied to Banisadr. Over the next few days, they executed several of his closest friends, including Hossein Navab, Rashid Sadrolhefazi, and Manouchehr Massoudi. Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri was among the few people in the government who remained in support of Banisadr, but he was soon stripped of his powers.

At the same time, the Iranian government outlawed all political parties, except the Islamic Republican Party. Government forces arrested and imprisoned members of other parties, such as the People's Mujahedin, Fadaian Khalq, Tudeh, and Paikar.

Banisadr went into hiding for a few days before his removal and hid in Tehran, protected by the MEK. He attempted to organize an alliance of anti-Khomeini factions to retake power, including the MEK, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the Fedaian Organisation (Minority), while eschewing any contact with monarchist exile groups. He met numerous times while in hiding with MEK leader Massoud Rajavi to plan an alliance, but after the execution on 27 July of MEK member Mohammadreza Saadati, Banisadr and Rajavi concluded that it was unsafe to remain in Iran.

In Banisadr's view, this impeachment was a coup d'état against democracy in Iran. In order to settle the political differences in the country, President Banisadr had asked for a referendum.

Flight and exile
When Banisadr was impeached on 21 June 1981, he had fled and had been hiding in western Iran. On 29 July, Banisadr and Massoud Rajavi were smuggled aboard an Iranian Air Force Boeing 707 piloted by Colonel Behzad Moezzi. It followed a routine flight plan before deviating out of Iranian groundspace to Turkish airspace and eventually landing in Paris. As a disguise, Banisadr shaved his eyebrows and mustache and dressed in a skirt.

Banisadr and Rajavi found political asylum in Paris, conditional on abstaining from anti-Khomeini activities in France. This restriction was effectively ignored after France evacuated its embassy in Tehran. Banisadr, Rajavi, and the Kurdish Democratic Party set up the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Paris in October 1981. Banisadr soon fell out with Rajavi, however, accusing him of ideologies favoring dictatorship and violence. Furthermore, Banisadr opposed the armed opposition as initiated and sustained by Rajavi, and sought support for Iran during the war with Iraq.

My Turn to Speak
In 1991, Banisadr released an English translation of his 1989 text My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution and Secret Deals with the U.S. In the book, Banisadr alleged covert dealings between the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign and leaders in Tehran to prolong the Iran hostage crisis before the 1980 United States presidential election. He also claimed that Henry Kissinger plotted to set up a Palestinian state in the Iranian province of Khuzestan and that Zbigniew Brzezinski conspired with Saddam Hussein to plot Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran.

Lloyd Grove of The Washington Post wrote: "The book is not what normally passes for a bestseller. Cobbled together from a series of interviews conducted by French journalist Jean-Charles Deniau, it is never merely direct when it can be enigmatic, never just simple when it can be labyrinthine." In a review for Foreign Affairs, William B. Quandt described the book as "a rambling, self-serving series of reminiscences" and "long on sensational allegations and devoid of documentation that might lend credence to Bani-Sadr's claims." Kirkus Reviews called it "an interesting—though frequently incredible and consistently self-serving-memoir" and said "frequent sensational accusations render his tale an eccentric, implausible commentary on the tragic folly of the Iranian Revolution."

Views

Banisadr, in a 2008 interview with the Voice of America on the 29th anniversary of the revolution, claimed that Khomeini was directly responsible for the violence originated from the Muslim world and that the promises Khomeini made in exile were broken after the revolution. In July 2009, Banisadr publicly denounced the Iranian government's conduct after the disputed presidential election: "Khamenei ordered the fraud in the presidential elections and the ensuing crackdown on protesters." He said the government was "holding on to power solely by means of violence and terror" and accused its leaders of amassing wealth for themselves, to the detriment of other Iranians.

In published articles on the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, he ascribed the unusually open political climate before the election to the government's great need to prove its legitimacy, which he said the government had lost all of it. The spontaneous uprising had cost the government its political legitimacy, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's threats led to the violent crackdown, which cost the government its religious legitimacy.

Personal life and death
Beginning in 1981, Banisadr lived in Versailles, near Paris, in a villa closely guarded by French police. Banisadr's daughter, Firoozeh, married Massoud Rajavi in Paris following their exile. They later divorced and the alliance between him and Rajavi also ended.

After a long illness, Banisadr died at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris on 9 October 2021, at age 88. He is buried in Versailles, in the cemetery of Gonards.

Books

 * Touhid Economics, 1980
 * My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution and Secret Deals with the U.S. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 1991. ISBN 0-08-040563-0. Translation of Le complot des ayatollahs. Paris: La Découverte, 1989
 * Le Coran et le pouvoir: principes fondamentaux du Coran, Imago, 1993
 * Dignity in the 21st Century, Doris Schroeder and Abol-Hassan Banisadr, with translation by Mahmood Delkhasteh and Sarah Amsler
 * books after 1980

title: Abolhassan Banisadr


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User:Stardust~enwiki/Settlers of Catan, Four Islands maps

Settlers of Catan


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User:Stardust~enwiki/Settlers of Catan, Into the Desert maps

Settlers of Catan


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User:Stardust~enwiki/Settlers of Catan, Great Crossing maps

Settlers of Catan


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Call of Cthulhu

Call of Cthulhu may refer to:
 * "The Call of Cthulhu", the original 1928 short story by H. P. Lovecraft

Film

 * The Call of Cthulhu (film), a 2005 silent film, distributed by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society
 * Call Girl of Cthulhu, an indie horror film by Chris LaMartina

Gaming

 * Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game), published by Chaosium (first edition, 1981)
 * Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet, a 1993 adventure game
 * Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game (2008), published by Fantasy Flight Games
 * Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, a 2005 first-person survival horror video game
 * Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land, a 2012 tactical RPG video game
 * Call of Cthulhu (video game), a 2018 survival horror role-playing video game

Other uses

 * "The Call of Ktulu", a track on the 1984 Metallica album Ride the Lightning

title: Call of Cthulhu


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Mikhail Suslov

Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (Михаи́л Андре́евич Су́слов; 21 November 1902 – 25 January 1982) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as unofficial chief ideologue of the party until his death in 1982. Suslov was responsible for party democracy and power separation within the Communist Party. His hardline attitude resisting change made him one of the foremost orthodox communist Soviet leaders.

Born in rural Russia in 1902, Suslov became a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1921 and studied economics for much of the 1920s. He left his job as a teacher in 1931 to pursue politics full-time, becoming one of the many Soviet politicians who took part in the mass repression begun by Joseph Stalin's regime. He was made First Secretary of Stavropol Krai administrative area in 1939. During World War II, Suslov headed the local Stavropol guerrilla movement.

After the war, Suslov became a member of the Organisational Bureau (Orgburo) of the Central Committee in 1946. In June 1950, he was elected to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. From 16 October 1952 onwards, he was a full member of the 19th Presidium of the CPSU. In the ensuing shuffle of the Soviet leadership following Stalin's death, Suslov lost much of the recognition and influence he had previously earned. However, by the late 1950s, he had risen to become the leader of the party opposition to First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev. When Khrushchev was ousted in 1964, Suslov supported the establishment of a collective leadership. He also supported inner-party democracy and opposed the reestablishment of the one-man rule as seen during the Stalin and Khrushchev eras. During the Brezhnev era, Suslov was considered to be the party's chief ideologue and second-in-command. His death on 25 January 1982 is viewed as starting the battle to succeed Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary.

Early years and career
Suslov was born in Shakhovskoye, Khvalynsky Uyezd, Saratov Governorate (today, a rural locality in Pavlovsky District, Ulyanovsk Oblast), Russian Empire on 21 November 1902. Suslov began work in the local Komsomol organisation in Saratov in 1918, eventually becoming a member of the Poverty Relief Committee. After working in the Komsomol for nearly three years, Suslov became a member of the All-Union Communist Party (the Bolsheviks) in 1921. After graduating from the rabfak, he studied economics at the Plekhanov Institute of National Economy between 1924 and 1928. In the summer of 1928, after graduating from the Plekhanov institute, he became a graduate student (research fellow) in economics at the Institute of Red Professors, teaching at Moscow State University and at the Industrial Academy.

In 1931, he abandoned teaching in favour of the party apparatus. He became an inspector on the Communist Party's Party Control Commission and on the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate. His main task there was to adjudicate large numbers of "personal cases", breaches of discipline, and appeals against expulsion from the party.

In 1933 and 1934, Suslov directed a commission charged with purging the party in the Ural and Chernigov provinces. The purge was organised by Lazar Kaganovich, then Chairman of the Soviet Control Commission. Author Yuri Druzhnikov contends that Suslov was involved with setting up several show trials, and contributed to the Party by expelling all members deviating from the Party line, meaning Trotskyists, Zinovievists, and other left-wing deviationists.

From 1936 to 1937, Suslov studied at the Postgraduate Course of the Economic Institute of Red Professors. He gained a reputation as an unsociable, modest, and serious student who carefully studied and memorized the works and speeches of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin and became known for keeping a complete record of their statements on economic and political issues in boxes of cards and file cabinets in his tiny room in a communal apartment. Somehow, Stalin urgently needed Lenin's opinion on one narrow economic issue and dispatched his secretary Lev Mekhlis to locate the answer. Mekhlis, Suslov's classmate at the institute, approached him and instantly found the necessary quote. An amazed Stalin asked how he managed to find the quote so quickly, upon which Mekhlis introduced Stalin to Suslov. Stalin immediately had Suslov promoted to a secretary of the Rostov Regional Committee in 1937. Suslov has been linked to political repression in Rostov as part of the Great Purge in 1938, however writer Roy Medvedev has questioned this, stating that "we have no evidence of his personal involvement in the repressive campaigns of 1937-1938, though they certainly paved the way for his rapid rise." Suslov was made First Secretary of the Stavropol Krai Committee in 1939.

Wartime activities (1941–1945)
On the Eastern Front in World War II, Suslov was a member of Military Council of the North Caucasian Front and led the Stavropol Krai Headquarters of the Partisan Divisions (the local guerrilla movement) after the Germans occupied the area. Suslov spent much of his time mobilising workers to fight against the German invaders. The guerrilla movement he led was operated by the regional party cells; Suslov for his part maintained close contact with the Red Army. Suslov also supervised the deportations of Chechens and other Muslim minorities from the Caucasus during the war.

According to Soviet historiography, Suslov's years as a guerrilla fighter were highly successful; however, testimonies from participants differ from the official account. These participants claim that there were a number of organizational problems which reduced their effectiveness on the battlefield. Suslov also suffered badly from tuberculosis, which he had contracted in his youth, that was further exacerbated in the dense partisan forests and hampered his ability as an effective combatant. Fearing further relapses, for the rest of his life, he continued to wear galoshes on his shoes as well as a hat and raincoat at all times, even in the hot summer weather, which made him the subject of jokes among his colleagues in Brezhnev's Politburo.

Suslov later purged the Baltic region in the aftermath of the Great Patriotic War. From 1944 to 1946, he chaired the Central Committee Bureau for Lithuanian Affairs. Anti-Soviet samizdat literature from the height of his power in the 1970s would accuse him of being personally responsible for the deportation and killings of nationalist Lithuanians who became political opponents of the Soviets during the course of Soviet re-entry into the Baltic states on their drive to Berlin in 1944.

Stalin's protégé
In 1946, Suslov was made a member of the Orgburo and immediately became the Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Central Committee. Within a year, Suslov was appointed Head of the Central Committee Department for Agitation and Propaganda. He also became a harsh critic of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the post-war years. On 26 November 1946, Suslov sent a letter to Andrei Zhdanov, accusing the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee of spying. Suslov's letter, which was well-received among Soviet leadership, would serve as the basis for prosecution of the committee during the anti-cosmopolitan campaign. After becoming head of the Agitprop, at the height of the anti-cosmopolitan campaign, Suslov also purged Jews from media and public institutions. In 1947, Suslov was transferred to Moscow and elected to the Central Committee Secretariat; he would retain this seat for the rest of his life. Suslov had the full confidence of Stalin and in 1948 he was entrusted with the task of speaking on behalf of the Central Committee before a solemn meeting on the twenty-fourth anniversary of Vladimir Lenin's death. From September 1949 to 1950, he was editor-in-chief of the central Party daily Pravda.

In 1949, Suslov became a member, along with Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, and Lazar Kaganovich, of a commission created to investigate charges levied against Moscow's local Communist Party First Secretary, Georgy Popov. Russian historian Roy Medvedev speculates in his book, Neizvestnyi Stalin, that Stalin had made Suslov his "secret heir". Lavrentiy Beria, who hated Suslov, evidently felt so threatened by him that after his arrest, documents were found in Beria's safe labeling Suslov as the No. 1 person he wanted to "eliminate".

In June 1950, Suslov was elected to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. He was promoted to the CPSU Presidium (later known as the Politburo) in 1952 following the 19th Party Congress. He suffered a temporary reversal when Stalin died and was dismissed from the Presidium in 1953. He continued to work in the Supreme Soviet, even becoming Chairman of the Commission of Foreign Affairs in the years immediately following Stalin's death.

Khrushchev era
Suslov recovered his authority in 1955 and was elected to a seat in the Presidium, bypassing the customary candidate membership. In the 20th Party Congress of 1956, Khrushchev delivered the famous Secret Speech about Stalin's cult of personality. In Suslov's ideological report on 16 February, he updated his criticism of Stalin and his personality cult:

"'(They) caused considerable harm to both organisational and ideological party work. They belittled the role of the masses and the role of the Party, disparaged collective leadership, undermined inner-party democracy, suppressed the activeness of party members, their initiative and enterprise, led to lack of control, irresponsibility, and even arbitrariness in the work of individuals, prevented the development of criticism and self-criticism, and gave rise to one-sided and at times mistaken decisions.'"

During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Suslov, along with Anastas Mikoyan, operated in close proximity to Budapest in order to direct the activities of the Soviet troops and to lend assistance to the new Hungarian leadership. Suslov and Mikoyan attended the Politburo meeting of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party which elected János Kádár to the office of General Secretary. In a telegram to the Soviet leadership, Suslov and Mikoyan acknowledged that the situation had become more dire, but both were content with the dismissal of Ernő Gerő as General Secretary and the choice of Kádár as his successor.

The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet criticised Suslov's and Mikoyan's concessions to the new government in the People's Republic of Hungary. Despite his initial reservations, Suslov eventually supported the Presidium's decision to intervene in Hungary militarily and replace the government's leadership there.

In June 1957, Suslov backed Khrushchev during his struggle with the Anti-Party Group led by Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, and Dmitry Shepilov. Mikoyan later wrote in his memoirs that he convinced Suslov to support Khrushchev by telling him that Khrushchev would emerge the winner even if he did not have enough support in the Presidium.

The following October Suslov accused Georgy Zhukov, the Minister of Defence, of "Bonapartism" at the Central Committee plenum that removed him from all Party and government posts. The removal of Zhukov had the effect of firmly subordinating the armed forces to Party control.

In a speech on 22 January 1958, Khrushchev officially proposed to dissolve the Machine and Tractor Stations (MTS), state organizations that owned and maintained the farm machinery used by kolkhozy. This reform had a particular significance in Soviet ideology. In Marxist-Leninist doctrine, cooperative ownership of property was considered a "lower" form of public ownership than state ownership. Khrushchev's proposal to expand cooperative ownership ran contrary to the Marxist theory as interpreted by Stalin.

Suslov, who supported Stalin's economic policy, regarded Khrushchev's proposal as unacceptable on ideological grounds. In an election speech to the Supreme Soviet in March 1958, Suslov refused to recognise the ideological significance of Khrushchev's reform, preferring instead to focus on the reform's practical benefits in improving productivity. Unlike other Party leaders, Suslov avoided mentioning Khrushchev as the MTS reform's initiator.

The 21st Party Congress convened in January 1959. Khrushchev wanted to consider the draft of a new Seven-Year plan. Suslov cautiously demonstrated against Khrushchev's statement that the country had developed from the socialist state of development to the higher state of communist development. He saw Khrushchev's view as flawed, and countered that his view had not been approved by the Party. To discredit Khrushchev's assertion further, Suslov invoked Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin:

"'Marx and Lenin teach us that communism doesn't appear suddenly, but comes into existence, matures, develops, passes in its development through definite stages or phases.... The new period in the development of Soviet society will be marked by the gradual drawing together of two forms of socialist property – state and kolkhoz... The process of these social changes will be long, and understandably, cannot end in the course of a seven-year period.'"

Suslov was becoming progressively more critical of Khrushchev's policies, his political intransigence, and his campaign to eliminate what was left of the Stalinist old guard. There were also deep-seated divergences in foreign and domestic policy between Suslov and Khrushchev. Suslov opposed the idea of improving Soviet Union–United States relations and was against Khrushchev's attempts at rapprochement with Yugoslavia. Domestically, Suslov opposed Khrushchev's policy of de-Stalinisation and his economic decentralisation scheme.

Suslov visited the United Kingdom in 1959 as a parliamentarian for the Supreme Soviet. The visit was a success, and Hugh Gaitskell, the Leader of the Labour Party, travelled to the Soviet Union later that year as a guest.

Sino–Soviet relations had long been strained and, as Suslov told the Central Committee in one of his reports, "The crux of the matter is that the Leadership of the CCP has recently developed tendencies to exaggerate the degree of maturity of socialist relations in China... There are elements of conceit and haughtiness. [These shortcomings] are largely explained by the atmosphere of the cult of personality of comrade Mao Zedong... who, by all accounts, himself has come to believe in his own infallibility." Suslov compared Mao's growing personality cult with that seen under Joseph Stalin.

Suslov was highly critical of Maoist China, as he led the Sino-Soviet Dispute and criticized Maoism in various ways under the Khrushchev administration, particularly its split from the Soviet leadership in the Socialist Camp, the rejection of the theory of Peaceful Coexistence, and Mao's support of anti-Soviet rival communist militant groups globally. In a report made on 14 February 1964 at a plenary meeting of the Central Committee, Suslov compared Mao's China to Trotskyism, and denounced the Chinese leadership as petty-bourgeois nationalists and left-deviationists:

"[...] the entire range of the CPC leadership's theoretical and political views are in many ways a rehash of Trotskyism [...] an examination of the sources of the present anti-Leninist dissentive policy of the CPC leadership leads up to the conclusion that the world communist movement faces a tangible danger of petty‐bourgeois nationalist deviation that disguises itself with 'Left' phrase-mongering."

In the years following the failure of the Anti-Party Group, Suslov became the leader of the faction in the Central Committee opposed to Khrushchev's leadership, known as the "Moscow faction". Khrushchev was able to hold on to power by conceding to various opposition demands in times of crisis, such as during the 1960 U-2 incident and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the aftermath of the U-2 Crisis Suslov was able to remove, and replace, several of Khrushchev's appointees in the Politburo with new anti-Khrushchev members. Khrushchev's position was greatly weakened further after the failure of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Suslov's power greatly increased.

A campaign to oust Khrushchev from office was initiated in 1964. Although leader of the opposition, Suslov had fallen seriously ill during his trip to the People's Republic of China the previous year; instead, Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin led the opposition.

Collective leadership
In October 1964, Khrushchev was ousted. Suslov played a crucial role in the event.

Suslov was, alongside Premier Alexei Kosygin and First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, one of the most influential Soviet politicians of the 1960s following the ousting of Khrushchev. Having led the opposition against Khrushchev for years, Suslov had acquired and wielded great power within the Central Committee when Brezhnev rose to power. However, Suslov was never interested in becoming the leader of the Soviet Union, and was content to remain the man behind the scenes. During most of his term, Suslov was one of four people who had both a seat in the Secretariat and the Politburo; the three others were Brezhnev, Andrei Kirilenko and Fyodor Kulakov.

A collective leadership was founded immediately after the ousting of Khrushchev, consisting of Brezhnev as First Secretary, Kosygin as head of government, and Anastas Mikoyan (replaced in 1965 by Nikolai Podgorny) as head of state, who formed an unofficial Triumvirate (also known by its Russian name Troika). From the beginning, Suslov was a vocal critic of one-man rule such as that seen under Joseph Stalin and Khrushchev.

While he condemned Stalin's one-man rule, he equally criticised the individualistic assertiveness of Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation policy. A strong supporter of democratic centralism, Suslov prevented Brezhnev from taking over Kosygin's post as head of government in 1970. Kirilenko, Brezhnev, and Suslov were members of an unofficial Troika within the Communist Party leadership. Suslov was ranked fourth in the Politburo hierarchy behind Brezhnev, Podgorny and Kosygin, ahead of Kirilenko. Throughout the Brezhnev era, Suslov became increasingly hardline. Suslov was opposed to any sort of anti-Soviet policies attempted by the Eastern Bloc leaders, but voted against Soviet military intervention in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in 1968 during the Prague Spring. Suslov was regarded, according to Christian Schmidt-Häuer, as the "pope" for "Orthodox communists" in the Eastern Bloc. Throughout his political career, Suslov became increasingly concerned that the Soviet Union's leading role in the communist movement would be compromised. Häuer, in his book Gorbachev: The Path to Power, argues that Suslov "was a Russian nationalist" who believed "Russia was the centre of the universe".

It was during the Brezhnev era that Suslov was given the unofficial title "Chief Ideologue of the Communist Party". Suslov spent much time in memorializing the legacies of Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. However, Suslov followed the party line and supported the retreat from some of the beliefs of Marxism-Leninism. Examples of ideological retreat include the end of single, Party-approved natural science versions of biology, chemistry and physics.

There still existed, on the other hand, a tight ideological control over literature. This included not only literature critical of Soviet rule, but according to Robert Service, much of Lenin's work: an unpublicised ban on the sale of Lenin's Collected Works existed from the late 1970s onwards, although no such decree has been uncovered.

Later life and death
At the beginning of the 1980s, the political and economic turmoil in the Polish People's Republic had seriously eroded the authority of the Polish United Workers' Party. Suslov's position on this matter carried particular weight as he chaired a Politburo Commission, established on 25 August 1980, on how to deal with the Polish crisis. Members of the commission included such high-ranking Soviets as KGB Chairman Andropov, Minister of Defence Dmitriy Ustinov, Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko, and Brezhnev's long-time associate Konstantin Chernenko.

On 28 August, the Commission considered Soviet military intervention to stabilize the region. Wojciech Jaruzelski, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party, was able to persuade the Commission that a Soviet military intervention would only aggravate the situation. Suslov agreed with Jaruzelski's argument, stating that "if troops are introduced, that will mean a catastrophe. I think that we all share the unanimous opinion here that there can be no discussion of any introduction of troops". Suslov was able to persuade Jaruzelski and the Polish leadership to establish martial law in Poland.

In January 1982, Yuri Andropov revealed to Suslov that Semyon Tsvigun, the First Deputy Chairman of the KGB, had shielded Galina and Yuri, Brezhnev's children, from corruption investigations. When these facts were revealed to him, Suslov challenged Tsvigun to make a statement on the matter. Suslov even threatened Tsvigun with expulsion from the Communist Party, but Tsvigun died on 19 January 1982 before he could challenge Suslov's statement.

Two days later, Suslov had a coronary thrombosis, and died on 25 January of arteriosclerosis and diabetes at 16:05. His death is viewed as starting the battle to succeed Brezhnev, in which Andropov, who assumed Suslov's post as the Party's Second Secretary, sidelined Kirilenko and Chernenko during the last days of Brezhnev's rule.

Suslov was buried on 29 January at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin wall. Brezhnev expressed great sadness at Suslov's passing.

Recognition
Suslov was awarded several decorations and medals during his life; among them were two Hero of Socialist Labour awards, five Orders of Lenin, one Order of the October Revolution, and one first degree Order of the Patriotic War. The USSR Academy of Sciences awarded Suslov the Gold Medal of Karl Marx. Suslov was awarded the highest state awards of the German Democratic Republic, the Mongolian People's Republic, and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

 * Soviet Union

 * Foreign

Personal life
Suslov married Yelizaveta Alexandrovna (1903–1972), who worked as the Director of the Moscow Institute for Stomatology. In her life, she badly suffered from internal diseases, especially diabetes in a severe form, but ignored her physician's recommendations.

Bernard Lown, a Lithuanian-born American M.D., was once requested to see her in the Kremlin Hospital; it was one of the few cases where a renowned foreign doctor was invited to visit the Kremlin Hospital. Suslov expressed his gratitude for Lown's work, but avoided meeting Lown in person because he was a representative of an "imperialistic" country.

Yelizaveta and Suslov had two children, Revoly (born 1929), named after the Russian Revolution, and his second child, Maya (born 1939), named after May Day.

title: Mikhail Suslov


text:
Wikipedia:Counties of England/Traditions vs Administrative

Administrative vs. Traditional
There seem to be at least two groups of people, those who think 'county' means the current, administrative entity, and those who think it means a traditional or historical entitiy.

In itself this isn't a problem, but Wikipedia needs to have a policy on which county a particular place is in. Maybe such a policy has already been debated and agreed; if so I'd be grateful if someone could point me to it. There's no discussion about the article Counties of England, though the article itself mentions that the different meanings exist.

It's a problem because someone has gone through the article on St Neots and moved it from the current, administrative county of Cambridgeshire to the historical county of Huntingdonshire, which will confuse the reader. For now I've returned the article to its original form. And this is happening on a wide scale, articles on towns and villages are being modified wholesale.

Is there any guidance on this sort of thing, other than to kick off the talk page, debate the topic and see if we can come to a consensus view? Advice anyone? Chris Jefferies 10th December 2003

 * Common sense should prevail. The St Neots article should say it is in Cambridgeshire, but was formerly in Huntingdonshire, because the article is about the village both in the past and the present.  An article about Junipero Serra should say he lived in Alta Mexico not the US state of California.  The Romans invaded Gaul, not France,  but Tabo M'Beki is the president of the Republic of South Africa, not of the Cape Colony.  I can't for the life of me understand why this seems be be contentious in so many places (cf the enteral Danzig debate...).  There can be few places that haven't been parts of many countries, or have had many names. -- Finlay McWalter 00:19, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Ah, yes. I've been trying to keep out of that mess apart from protecting Warwickshire overnight in one of the early outbreaks of the edit wars. It appears to me that the traditionalists, if I can name them that, are only one or two people, but they're very determined in their point of view! It'e even worse with the Welsh counties where the old names have mostly been reused to cover areas with little territorial commonality with the pre-1974 counties. My view is that all the county articles are currently untrustworthy, but for practical purposes the current administrative counties are the ones that an encyclopaedia ought to be concentrating on, with just a note on the former history such as e.g. "Stoke-on-Trent is now a unitary authority but was formerly in Staffordshire". In my view the only current relevance of the old traditional counties is to determine which cricket club covers the area! -- Arwel 00:27, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Thanks Finlay, and Arwel, I appreciate your input. I'm afraid the person who altered St Neots has changed it back again. I don't particularly want to have a 'change war' (how childish, what a waste of time) and I'm trying to discuss it on his/her Talk page. There's also been an exchange of views on the Godmanchester Talk page and I can't say I'm encouraged. Chris Jefferies 11th December 2003

 * Clearly Finlay stated it perfectly. The current, on the ground, designations are the proper ones, but reference to historical standings are important contributions to the articles. I'm preparing a "Style" page for Proper names at Proper_names and will use Finlay's sage advice there as well.  - Marshman 01:09, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * The encyclopedia should definitely concentrate on the current administrative divisions of the United Kingdom (and everywhere else) -- not to the exclusion of historical data, but certainly with much greater prominence. Granted, the UK has been IMO way too obsessed with messing with administrative boundaries in the last 30 years or so (it's crazy that somewhere like the United States has it all MUCH more settled) but we must document what is not push what we wish was. --Morven 01:15, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Quite. I can't remember if Chigley is in Trumptonshire, or Trumpton is in the Chigley unitary authority :) -- Finlay McWalter 01:29, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * "The current, on the ground, designations are the proper ones". Well, I wasn't being quite as sweeping as that, for the encyclopedia as a whole. I really mean that the context of the article determines the correct usage of placenames, languages, social groups, etc. This article should mention both counties, as its scope spans the period where each prevailed.  If Alfred the Great had done something interesting there, it would be perfectly reasonable to mention it was in Mercia, or Wessex, or whatever. Equally, if an article were about a battle in the english civil war, the prevailing county at that time should be the dominant one in the article's text. -- Finlay McWalter 01:29, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understood what you were saying. That first sentence was really intended for the discussion of the counties situation, and the point next made by Morven. - Marshman 01:59, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

OK guys, thanks for all your comments. I think there's a great deal of common sense in what you say, especially about the historical county relevant to the article being the correct one to use in each case.

So what are we going to do about User:80.255 who is throwing his weight around, aggressively changing dozens of articles without consideration for either other editors or indeed (and more importantly) for the poor readers. He is damaging the Wikipedia and will also damage its reputation with readers if he's allowed to continue.

I don't mind having a dialogue with him, but if (as I suspect) he proves resistant to both reason and the majority view, what then? If that happens, maybe we should consider having his IP address blocked, though it would probably have only a temporary effect. Chris Jefferies 11th December 2003

 * The "80.255 vs everyone else" battle has been going on for some time (the particular battleground for my tussle was Kent). 80.255 has a particular view point, and argues for it in a consistent and eloquent manner. This is rather different from childish vandalism and I wouldn't support banning him at this time (despite having gone through the same sense of frustration as you, Chris). It is time however to formulate a policy on the specific issue of county names. If this policy can be rolled into a more general policy of historic place names then so much the better. Once this policy is in place, if 80.255's sense of how Things Should Be is so strong that he flauts the policy (in addition to common sense and the majority view) over several articles and over a reasonable period of time, then we may have to say "sorry 80.255, but this just isn't the community project for you". Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:22, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I believe we should have a wide and open debate with the aim of formulating the policy on current and historic place names mentioned by Pete above. And I think we should begin sooner rather than later to minimise the damage to Wikipedia.
 * I know there are correct procedures for doing this, but I'm going to need help from someone wiser and more experienced in the world of Wikipedia. What's the first step? Where should the discussion take place? Chris Jefferies 11th December 2003

 * Seconded. I've been trying to reason with some people over Oder/Odra for a last few days, and some just don't seem to give up. A clear policy on names, their use in text generally as well as in historical contexts, is definitely needed. Zocky 20:54, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * You may wish to take this discusion to the Talk: page for Proper_names - Marshman 03:27, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * I just started Naming_conventions_(places) before reading your comment. Comments are sorely required before that page can become policy. 80.255's input is obviously particularly required if the process is to work. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:13, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

My feeling is to use Naming_conventions_(places) as there's quite a large discussion going on and the final description of the convention will probably be fairly lengthy.

I'm therefore copying this discussion to Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(places) - please continue there, not here! Chris Jefferies 11:14, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Maps
The maps also need some standardization.

The following map appears on Dorset:

While the following map appears on Northumberland:

Note that, in the second map, that peninsula at the tip of Scotland appears as all one county, while in the first, that peninsula appears as several counties. And that's just one of many differences between the maps.

Someone needs to figure out which map is correct, and fix the incorrect map. I'd do it if I knew more about British counties.

LuckyWizard 01:36, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * The ones that don't have the Shetlands or Orkneys are the 'traditional' counties; see Warwickshire for an example of both for one place.
 * James F. (talk) 23:43, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Make a policy page?
Maybe the above could be reformatted into a policy page on how to deal with the counties of England?


text:
User:Michael Snow

My name is Michael Snow, and I have been contributing to Wikipedia since 2003. I served for two years as chair of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, was on the Advisory Board for a period, and currently serve on the audit committee. Although it has occasionally produced some confusion, I am not Michael Snow, the Canadian visual artist.

About me (or, why I contribute to Wikipedia)
Although no specific expertise is necessary to contribute to Wikipedia, I'll share a little about myself for anyone interested in my qualifications, or lack thereof. Sorry if it resembles a résumé.

I work for the central research office of a major American university. This is not to say that I am a scientist (well, I studied political science if you want to count that) or that I conduct research myself. Rather, by profession I am a lawyer, so in this context my role is to negotiate the legal framework within which specific research proposals are funded and sign contracts related to these projects.

When I was a university student myself, I also majored in history, which is really the field of study I love best. Part of my interest in history, however, is that I consider it a field with the potential to incorporate all human knowledge (though other fields might also make that claim). So naturally I find the objective of Wikipedia worthwhile. My legal training also gives me a perspective on the problem of balancing opposing positions (and having to present arguments for a position one does not agree with). I fully support the NPOV policy.

In a project of this nature, I expect that people will pursue personal interests in their contributions. That is much of what I do with my own contributions, although I will not trot out here a list of everything I'm interested in. As I indicated before, I'm interested in everything; it's just that some of my interests have been developed to a greater extent. I recognize that contributing based on enthusiasm for the subject is itself arguably a form of bias, whether in myself or others, but I don't consider that a problem here. If Wikipedia is to be a true encyclopedia, and it would be the first, then it simply needs to attract more enthusiasts until all subjects are covered.

The Signpost
Before joining the board of the foundation, I started The Signpost, a weekly community newspaper for the English Wikipedia. As you might guess from the information above, journalism is a field in which I did not have any particular experience prior to doing so (but for a little work on a single issue of a high school student newspaper). Nevertheless, many people seem to have appreciated the endeavor. I am grateful to Ral315, who took over as editor when I could no longer fill that role, along with the many others who have kept it going since. For anyone who wants to see better, more complete coverage of important news in the Wikipedia community, I strongly encourage them to get involved in The Signpost.

title: User:Michael Snow