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Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 2

North American wars
I was just looking around at some of these projects...this one seems to be one I'd like to help out with :) I could do some of the North American ones, like the War of 1812, since I wrote a bunch of stubby articles about that war. Adam Bishop 14:00, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Question regarding this project: Military Operations
Greetings all.

 * My question is simple :
 * — should Military Operations be part of this project or a project apart?

I'm thinking of proposing a new project regarding military operations and would like to know the opinions of other Wikipedians before writing it.

 * For example, the Project Tree would be something like this :
 * WikiProjects
 * WikiProject Military
 * WikiProject Military Operations
 * United States military operations (an article)
 * "U.S. Army Rangers operations" (an article with a timeline of the unit's operations, each operation will have a brief summary to avoid duplications)

The project will rely on experts reviews and advise of former soldiers / combatants. There will be a protected page on the Wikipedia namespace with a list of credits of experts that reviewed the project. However, the article itself will be –as it should be– available of edits by anyone.

The credits' page will inform that the experts reviewed the article on a certain date, and that the article may have changed since his former review. By doing this, we will create a "trusted" point of view on the article, and at the same time protect the expert's integrity. They will not point out personal experiences on the article, they will just give a nod or refuse to the articles' validity.

For example, one credit could be:

 * 1) Doe, John (January 1, 2004). Article review, data submission, and data confirmation. Former combatant on Operation Desert Eagle. Private First Class at the time (retired).

Where "January 1, 2004" is the date where he reviewed the article and "combatant" is the combatant's unit or branch's name at the time of the operation.

Before you start pointing out issues, have in mind that former combatants are usually eager to comment on the operations/battles they served in, as they beleive it is their duty to pass out the history of humankind so that future leaders don't make the same errors. If asked to, these men and women are capable of expressing a neutral point of view regarding the matter.

Feel free to move this discussion to User_talk:Maio/Proposals/Military Operations.

Thanks for your replies and concerns regarding this,

--Maio 00:26, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)

 * An interesting idea, but a nonstarter for several reasons. First off, if a page is protected, who is going to get permission to modify it? Second, how do you verify the claimed credentials of the experts or participants? Third, why would you give any special credence to the opinions of the participants? It is practically axiomatic that eyewitness accounts of combat are often faulty, as witness the WWII reports of Tiger tanks everywhere, when later research usually shows there was absolutely no possibility that any were at the reported location. Fourth, if anybody can edit a reviewed page, then any reviews from before the edit are invalidated - after all, the edit might have changed "did" to "did not".

 * But the #1 problem is that WP is not a primary source and does not do original research. Getting input from participants is what historians do as part of their research work; they then write the results into a book and publish it, at which point we have something that we can use here. For instance, I have a lot of first-hand experience with the GNU project, but can't add it to WP until it's been published elsewhere first. (See No original research.) Stan 18:10, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks for your reply Stan; I totally missed out that policy, thanks for pointing it out. I have several questions now regarding this, would you please email me? I checked your Talk page but didn't find any info, my e-mail is on my talk page. I guess I will just propose the usual project formal, but for military operations instead of battles. Thanks again. --Maio 18:32, Jan 14, 2004 (UTC)

Colour schemes
I understand it has been suggested that battles from different wars or regions use a different color in the taxobox. Whenever this is formalized, please make certain it is reflected at Taxobox (where there has been discussion about duplicating colors between projects and such). Tuf-Kat 02:44, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure if we actually have a system, except for the suggestions...personally, I've followed those, using grey for Europe, yellow for Asia, and pink for North America. But I'm not sure if that's official or anything. Adam Bishop 06:18, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've been using grey because that was the colour used in the first box I copied as a template. Personally I would like to be able to group battles by conflict, rather than geography (or as an alternative to). I think this makes sense for global conflicts with lots of battles. If we want to adopt a scheme, perhaps we using a pale background colour with black text for battles categorised by geography (the current "scheme") and a dark background with white text for battles categorised by conflict. See First Battle of Krithia for my proposed WWI colour scheme.

Also can we agree the current battlebox template should be accepted as the standard? If so, we should promote it to the main project page. And probably make a wiki table markup version of it. Geoff 06:38, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * I agree. But then I created most of it so I'm biased. :) --mav

Way too many conflicts to have any sort of meaningful color scheme. IMO, we should stick with the continent/ocean set-up. --mav

 * I would only recommend using the conflict scheme if there were a large number of battles involved. Would someone be more interested in knowing that the Battle of Romani was in Egypt or happened during World War I?  Personally I like the colour of mud being associated with WWI... Geoff 11:44, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * But people do not normally land on articles at random - they follow links. Thus any WWII battle will be linked from a WWII-related page (the 'before' and 'after' links being one set of such links). That bit of info has already been established. So yes, it would be useful to know in which part of the world a battle happened during a world war. And everybody is going to have their own favorite war and will want to have colors for their conflict as well. I don't think that will be useful. --mav

 * Fair enough. The proposal is gracefully withdrawn.  I'll come up with some provisional colours for the remainder of the geographic scheme.  Feel free to modify it. Geoff 21:14, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * I like your color scheme. :) But we should discuss what "Ocean" is defined as. IMO it would be any battle that is mostly fought outside of the 12 nautical mile territorial limit of any nation on a continent. Alternatively, we could use the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone of continental nations as part of the definition. --mav

 * I've got no experience with ocean battles. I'll add your possible definitions as notes for the "Open ocean" category.  I just realised my "Europe" example (Battle of Naupactus (429 BC)) is a sea battle.  I'll change it to Battle of Lützen (1632) to avoid confusion.  Geoff 22:00, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The Oceania2 color does not fit with the others. It is a strong (IMO obnoxious) color while the others are pastel. --mav

 * Most of these are up for grabs anyway until someone comes along and writes a battle entry using them. I've made the scheme a bit more consistent in tone but some of them are a bit close to one another. Geoff 23:45, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Naupactus was a sea battle, but sufficiently close to land that it should probably be considered a "Europe" battle. But now that I think of it, I'm not sure what to consider a naval battle, since they are almost always fought near land in some way. Maybe battles that actually have a body of water in the name...but then, say, Battle of Lake Erie, or Battle of the Coral Sea, were close to land. (I can only think of the Battle of Atlantic as one that wouldn't fit.) Adam Bishop 00:29, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * One option would be to have an alternate colour scheme for sea battles. So for North America land battles we could have black text on pastel red and for North American sea battles we have white text on dark red.  The light-on-dark sort of matches the scheme used for Taxobox. Or this is just making things needlessly complicated... Geoff 01:17, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Please just make it simple: Use the continent/Ocean scheme for all battles. If most of a battle was fought on any body of water, then the text in the filled headings would be white. But keep all the fill colors the same. That way people know, at a glance, that Battle X was fought in/near continent Y and was a naval battle. --mav

 * White on those pale colours doesn't work too well. I guess we leave it as a single scheme for land and sea battles. Geoff 10:11, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * How about medium to dark blue text on the pastel color for sea battles near land? Gentgeen 11:38, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Hm. That just may work! Maybe we could have navy blue for sea battles and a lighter shade of blue for lake/river battles. --mav

 * I've modified Battle of Naupactus (429 BC) as a test using "color:blue". It makes the heading look a bit like a link which might be a problem.  "color:navy" is a bit hard to distinguish from the black of land battles.  Geoff 23:41, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * It is not underlined, so it does not look like a link to me. Perhaps a slightly lighter shade than navy then (dark blue)? BTW, I've used a blue text color for elements that are liquid at room temp. See mercury (element). Seems to have worked fine so far. --mav

 * I've defined a scheme using #2222cc for the blue. Paler than "navy" but not as bright as "blue".  We'll see if anyone uses it... Geoff 02:25, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Air battle colour scheme
Next question. What about purely air battles, such as the Battle of Britain or the Doolittle Raid? I'd suggest a grey or silver text over the appropiate color. Gentgeen 07:29, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * I've got a battle box up for the Doolittle Raid using #2f4f4f for use in air battles. Any comments? Gentgeen 18:24, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Just a question (unrelated, I suppose), is there a reason the picture captions are dropped for this project? RadicalBender 18:33, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * I find #2f4f4f a bit dark to distinguish from black. Perhaps #0084c4 .  Also should Battle of Jutland become the example using the "open ocean" scheme? Geoff 01:24, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wiki table
On my browser (Konqueror 3.1.3) the 'Battle before' and 'Battle after' lines are left justified to the text. But I see it works fine on Galeon 1.3.8 though (a Mozilla-based browser). --mav

 * I like the idea of just using the "|+" markup for captions. It keeps the whole template pretty simple.  There's nothing wrong with left-justification either, as long as it's consistent. Geoff

I'm not very fond of: Possible definitions of "open ocean" are any battle that is mostly fought outside of: - the 12 nautical mile territorial limit of any nation on a continent - the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone of continental nations Instead, I'd suggest that blue is used for every naval battle. The reason that it is often hard to determine what the exact distance of a fleet, let alone both fleets, was from the closest cape.

Also, cannt we right align the troops and casualties? TeunSpaans

 * If you like. Geoff

Btw, Gsl, what did you have in mind for the image? We don't have art images of many battles, I'm afraid. TeunSpaans

 * My interpretation is that if there's an appropriate image, include an image. If there isn't, don't.  For some of the Gallipoli battles (2nd Krithia, Lone Pine, the Nek) there are associated paintings made by the official artist (I think) so I included those.  If there's nothing appropriate, I leave out the image.  The caption and image are optional, as far as I am concerned. Geoff 00:02, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * I think 'll leave them out. I don't like them, they add no real info, and artists impressions are rarely accurate. TeunSpaans 16:07, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Example article

 * I'd suggest one of our featured articles, Attack on Pearl Harbor, which has no battle box, but that could be fixed; Battle of Aljubarrota, which has an older version of the battle box, again easy to fix, or First Battle of the Stronghold, which is a small battle that not many people have heard of, so might not generate much interest. Just my nominees. Gentgeen 19:58, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Battle of Iwo Jima on the Main Page
Anybody want to create a battlebox for it? ;) --mav
 * Done. Gentgeen 11:23, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Cool - thanks! --mav

Battlebox images
On reflection and based on others comments, I am wondering whether the image should be removed from the standard battlebox template (Battle of Lützen (1632) at the moment).

 * It doesn't have universal support (some like it, some don't)
 * The image doesn't have a caption
 * It can be hard/impossible to find a suitable image
 * It complicates the template if most of the time you have to delete the image row

We could point to Lützen as an example of a battlebox with an image but I now think the standard template and its example shown on the project page should be image-free. Any thoughts? Geoff 09:21, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * An image should not be required at all...if there happens to be a related image, that's fine, but that will be a very rare case, I would think. Adam Bishop 15:03, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * The first image for any article has many of the same issues. Simply add a caption, find a better image, or just leave the image cell blank (so somebody else can come along and add an image later). But images are important in that they make articles look nicer and thus help get the interest of the reader. --mav 03:02, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Wars infobox
Interesting infobox based on the battlebox at American Civil War. There also was an idea for a per-nation war navigation footer table too, but the author reverted herself for some reason (see this diff) Please direct discussion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wars. --mav 02:58, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Battle of Sävar and Ratan
Just want to say, I upgraded the article Battle of Ratan and Sävar with the new info box. I also fixed the erroneous causality numbers (basically a mix up between total KIA and KIA in Ratan), I also found a very precise source for the causality numbers. Kinslayer 21:07, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Naming coventions for battles in the same place
I've moved the Indian wars question to this section as it is about the same thing. Philip Baird Shearer 05:31, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Battles in the same place (was US Indian wars question)
I've been doing some work on the US Indian Wars, and I was wondering what the naming convention was for a particular case. In the Modoc War there were too battles called by the same name at the same place, one in January and one in April of the same year. Any help would be appriciated. Gentgeen 09:23, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * When battles have the same name and are part of the same conflict then usually the first battle has First appended to the name and the second battle has Second. --mav 09:45, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * That's what I was planing on doing, but wanted to make sure. The current naming convention is Battle of PLACE (year), so you have Battle of Ticonderoga (1776) and Battle of Ticonderoga (1777) for the first and second battles at Fort Ticonderoga in the American Revolutionary War.  If I was to follow that convention, then I'd have Battle of the Stronghold (1873) as the titles for both articles, but might use Stronghold (January) and Stronghold (April).  I prefer First and Second myself.

 * On a side note, how was your trip to almost Oregon? That's a long drive for an Angelino, about 13 hours, right? Gentgeen 10:14, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * The (year) disambiguation is to distinguish betweeen battles by the same name in different conflicts. My trip was fine but from where I live it only took half that long. --mav

Battles in the same place and year. eg Second Battle of Zurich
I wrote a small stub for 2nd Battle of Zurich because Jean-Baptiste Drouet (Napoleonic soldier) fought in it. I used a link I found on the André Masséna page. But now that I know about this page :-) I have a question.

The battle is known as the Battle of Zurich II or the 2nd Battle of Zurich so how should the page be entitled, as Zurich I and Zurich II took place only 3 months apart in the same year 1799 and the second battle was over 2 days? Philip Baird Shearer 05:21, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

 * There don't seem to be any instructions regarding numbering battles. Perhaps something should be added if there is agreement.  I have always used "First Battle of...", "Second Battle of...", "Third Battle of..." and I think that spelling out the number rather than using "1st", "2nd", etc. is preferable for the main article.  That said, it probably makes sense to create redirects to cover the alternative.  I've also seen "Battle of First..." titles too (Battle of First Bull Run).  I guess the article should use the most common name for the battle so if "Battle of Zurich II" is the way it is usually named, put the article there and redirect to it with "2nd Battle of Zurich" and "Second Battle of Zurich".  If there have been other battles of Zurich, then the 1799 battle articles/redirects should have "(1799)" appended to the title.  A "Battle of Zurich" disambiguation page should be created to cover all the possibilities. Geoff/Gsl 23:54, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I should also mention that when you create a battle disambiguation page and fix any article links that point to it so that they now point to the correct, unambiguous battle, the disambiguation page should be added to Links to disambiguating pages so that it doesn't appear as an orphan. Geoff/Gsl 04:59, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I think all that you have written is sensible. I did a quick WWW google on Battle Ypres and it seems to be listed every which way. So if the battle is usually listed by number and not year, unless there is accepted alternative then "First Battle of..." seems to be the way to go. My only quibble with what you wrote above would be, that if there are 2 or more battles in a year or the battle lasts into a new year, then the month(s) as well as the year(s) should be included in redirects (as in the Ypres page).

As two diffrent authors have had the same problem, I think that there should be something added to the WikiProject Battles page to give others guidance for three cases: Philip Baird Shearer 05:31, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
 * A good example are the battles for Ypres as there a number of battles and they also have other names (eg Passchendaele).
 * Also what to do if there are two English names for the same battle and the names are contentious eg Bull Run/Manassas.
 * Battles like First and Second Battle of Zurich where they occur on the same year.

 * Some thoughts... For the sake of the person who one day will write articles for the twelve Battles of Isonzo, I agree we should decide on a naming policy.

 * I like the policy that an article about a battle is obviously an article about a battle. That's why I (have come to) prefer Battle of Gallipoli as the article title, despite the fact that no one actually calls it that (instead "Gallipoli", "Dardanelles Campaign", "Battle of Çannakale", and so on).  However, given that anyone searching is going to type in one of the latter, these have to be redirects or have links to the battle article.  For the same reason, I would prefer "Passchendaele" to be at "Third Battle of Ypres", especially considering it itself contained the First and Second Battles of Passchendaele.

 * I've tended to use the most common name for a battle so, for the 1917 Battles of Gaza, they are First, Second and Third Battles of Gaza rather than Battle of Gaza (March 1917), Battle of Gaza (April 1917) etc. Likewise the 1915 Battles of Krithia.  Because its the most common name, its the way people tend to link to them (though in this case, I'm the only one linking...)

 * Another problem is battles with the same name in different theatres, such as the Battle of Hill 60. In this case, the articles have some geographic location in brackets to distinguish them.

 * My attempt at some rules:

 * A battle should be known by its most common name
 * A series of battles of the same root name in the same war/campaign/offensive (eg., "Battle of Gaza") should be distinguished by prepending "First", "Second", etc. unless this breaks the first rule (such as the 1916 "Battle of the Somme")
 * Battles of the same name in a different war/campaign/offensive should be distinguished by appending the year (and possibly month, if same year) in brackets.
 * Battles of the same name but referring to a different place should be distinguished by appending the location in brackets
 * Where the battle has more than one common name, the article is at the most common name and the alternative names are redirects
 * For each battle root name there should be a disambiguation page linking to all derived battle names
 * Where the battle name is contentious, I don't know...

 * My "battle naming" experience is mainly from WWI battles, so I could be missing at lot of the subtle problems. Geoff/Gsl 23:38, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Categorization question
Should naval battles be in both Category:Naval battles and Category:Battles? If so, should all battles be in Category:Battles? Currently WWI & WWII battles are in their own sub-categories. Geoff/Gsl 04:20, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * No, the general rule is that articles should be placed in the most specific applicable categories. The category hierarchy represents the fact that all Category:Naval battles are also Category:Battles too. No doubt one day there will be a feature to expand sub-categories. Gdr 14:10, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)

A job for you guys
World War II wikireader/articles is a list of articles to be used in the upcoming WIkipedia World War II reader. It is to include (at least) the following battles:
 * 1) Battle of Berlin (complete)
 * 2) Battle of Britain (complete)
 * 3) Battle of Dunkirk
 * 4) Battle of France
 * 5) Battle of Guadalcanal (complete)
 * 6) Battle of Iwo Jima (complete)
 * 7) Battle of Kursk
 * 8) Battle of Leyte Gulf (complete)
 * 9) Battle of Midway (complete)
 * 10) Battle of Monte Cassino
 * 11) Battle of Moscow
 * 12) Battle of Normandy (complete)
 * 13) Battle of Okinawa (complete)
 * 14) Battle of Peleliu (complete)
 * 15) Battle of Savo Island
 * 16) Battle of Singapore
 * 17) Battle of Stalingrad (complete)
 * 18) Battle of Taranto
 * 19) Battle of the Bulge
 * 20) Battle of the Coral Sea (complete)
 * 21) Battle of the Kasserine Pass
 * 22) Battle of the Philippine Sea (complete)
 * 23) Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands

Many of those articles are lacking complete battle-boxes, if any at all. I've been trying to do them all myself, but it's slow and tedious work. I'd appreciate whatever help you guys can give me. →Raul654 15:56, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

header obsolete?
The project page says:
 * All battle entries should begin using the header

It seems to me that this header has been made obsolete by the category system and shouldn't be recommended. The category system is more flexible and easier to maintain.

I propose to remove this recommendation from the project page. Comments? Gdr 14:13, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's obsolete now too. I think it was used very rarely anyway - I usually forget to include it. Adam Bishop 16:57, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Strongly agree. →Raul654 17:46, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Should the header instruction be replaced with an instruction to categorize the battle? Should we be instructing people to place new battles in the Category:Battles category? Geoff/Gsl 22:53, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Category:Battles will get too big if all battles are added. The category system means that we can subdivide things along several axes, for example:
 * By war: Category:World War II operations and battles, Category:Battles of the Second Punic War etc
 * By country involved: Category:Roman battles, Category:British battles, etc
 * By type: Category:Naval battles, Category:Sieges, etc
 * By period?
 * Battles that don't fit neatly anywhere else can go in Category:Battles. Gdr 23:04, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)

 * What is the recommended category naming scheme? We have "World War II operations and battles" (based on which I created Category:World War I battles).  Category:Second Punic War battles is OK, I guess, but Category:Napoleonic Wars battles is not as nice as Category:Battles of the Napoleonic Wars.  Should we be consistent?  Does it matter?

 * How keen are we to categorise all battles by country? Some coalition battles are going to require a lot of categories.  Should country categories be sub-categorised, such as Category:British World War I battles?

 * Categories are wonderful things but organising them makes me very confused... Geoff/Gsl 23:14, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I wrote a section at WikiProject Battles explaining how to categorize battles. I think that we can use the hierarchy of categories to avoid having to categorize each battle by countries involved. For example, we don't need to put the Battle of Agincourt in "Category:English battles" because Battle of Agincourt belongs to Category:Battles of the Hundred Years' War which in turn belongs to Category:English history.

I renamed some categories so that World War II is now the only one that doesn't fit the naming scheme. I will change that too but there are a lot of battles so it will take a while. Any comments? Gdr 14:09, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)

 * Excellent work. Thanks very much for tackling it.  In the case of the history categories, there are some "military history" sub-categories that are probably more appropriate, such as Category:Military history of the United Kingdom rather than Category:History of the United Kingdom.  Perhaps use of a "military history" sub-category should be encouraged.

 * Is it worth having Category:Battles by conflict (if that's not tautological) and Category:Battles by nationality (for things like Category:Swedish battles) so that that top-level Battles category only has a few sub-categories: by-conflict, by-nationality, naval battles, sieges, fictional battles? Geoff/Gsl 22:42, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Category:Military history of the United Kingdom seems wrong for, say, the Battle of Hastings. Would Category:Military history of England would be better? Or should the category system not worry about such historical distinctions between countries? I see there's also a Category:British wars which is well used but ill-named as it includes some non-British conflicts like the Hundred Years' War. This seems like a tricky issue and maybe one for WikiProject History to sort out. I'll query this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History.

 * As for Category:Battles by conflict and Category:Battles by nationality, I don't object. If you do implement it, please update the diagrams at WikiProject Battles to reflect your recommendations. Gdr 11:14, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

 * I didn't mean to suggest UK military history should replace English (military) history. Just that battles go in the military history category, if there is one.  As for conflict/nationality sub-cats, I'll give it some more thought. Geoff/Gsl 11:37, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Sorry, I should have said that you're quite right: if there is a Category:Military history of X, then clearly categories of battles or wars involving X should go there rather than directly in the parent Category:History of X. Gdr 12:36, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

Just to let you know, I will be deleting this very soon. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:57, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Image captions revisited
I accept that captions on the signature images are necessary. Can we establish a style that makes them a bit less ugly than the plain text? My suggestion is something like centred, 90% font-size and perhaps some sort of background colour, as below:

Also, I think a requirement should be a maximum of two, or perhaps three, lines in the caption. Geoff/Gsl 00:02, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * That looks fine to me. You might consider using CSS for this, for example by writing
 * class="battlebox-image-caption"
 * instead of
 * style="font-size:90%;text-align:center;background:#eeeeee"
 * together with the appropriate CSS. Gdr 14:11, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)

 * I have no idea how to implement a CSS class in the common stylesheets. It would certainly be nice if it was possible.  I can put the style in a template (like Template:BattleboxStart) but these only work in tables with  which isn't ideal. Geoff/Gsl 06:16, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Looks good to me. --mav 07:20, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Infobox Battles template

Now that piped links appear to work in parameterised templates, I've made a battlebox template at Template:Infobox Battles which hopefully solve the some of the battlebox styling problems, seeing as we can just modify the template to get a new style.

At the moment I've just used one parameter for the image but it might be better to have a separate caption parameter to try and encourage people to write a caption. Geoff/Gsl 05:56, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I tested this out on Battle of Agrigentum - it works well, but if there is no image (and it seems that in the majority of battles there aren't), there will be a blank line at the top. The template also forces you to use "battle before" and "battle after", which I tend not to do (although I probably should!). Adam Bishop 20:52, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Oh, another problem seems to be that you can't change the heading colours for naval battles - see Battle of the Lipari Islands. I managed to force the colour with font tags, for the name of the battle itself, but I couldn't do it for the "combatants" heading. Adam Bishop 21:07, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For naval heading colours, all you need to do is include the entire "style" text so:

 * background:#cccccc;color:#2222cc

for a European naval battle. The thing I couldn't work out how to do was have a parameter value with an equals sign "=" in it. So to set the heading colour, the simplest was is to use style="" for land and naval battles, instead of the old bgcolor="" for land and style="" for naval.

There will always be an empty cell at the top if there is no image. It's exacerbated at the moment because I've used bottom padding to try and separate the caption a bit. We can always remove it. I consider the template a work-in-progress until there's agreement to use it so feel free to make any changes you like.

There's no way to leave out unused parameters that I know of. We could have a series of battlebox templates; with/without image, with/without before/after battles. To switch from using one to another in an article would be a matter of editting the template name and adding or removing the necessary parameters. Or we can wait for the day they add conditional parameters to templates, which might be never. Geoff/Gsl 05:06, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Ah, thanks! I'll go back and fix those naval battles then. Conditional templates would be a good idea, although I'm not sure that's possible. Having more than one template might make things overly complicated...I think it's alright for now. Adam Bishop 06:08, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and separated the caption from the image parameter. If anyone thinks this is a bad idea, say so soon. Adding/removing parameters or changing their names will be a hassle once the template is used by more than a handful of articles. Geoff/Gsl 06:45, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * It was a bad idea. Having two blank parameters in an empty table cell makes it overly tall.  I will change the template back. Geoff/Gsl 06:51, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * The separate caption parameter is now a good idea again. I put image & caption in a nested table with zero padding.  Seems to look OK with or without image & caption or with image only. Geoff/Gsl 10:03, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

One more issue. According to Infobox templates, I should have called the template Template:Infobox Battle rather than Template:Infobox Battles. Should it be moved or do we live with my mistake? Geoff/Gsl 10:31, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Nah, it's fine this way. Adam Bishop 16:55, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Another question - can the "battle before" and "battle" after templates be incorporated into the table somehow? Sometimes they look like part of the text of the article, rather than part of the box. Adam Bishop 16:21, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * How about there (after "conflict", before "date")? It's easy to put them anywhere in the table by editing Template:Infobox Battles. Gdr 17:07, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC)

Battle before/Battle after
On two articles recently nominated as featured articles, I found the use of the "battle before" and "battle after" entries rather strange (the Battle of Verdun and the Brusilov Offensive have little or nothing to do with the Battle of Jutland), and confusing in the case of Battle of Leyte Gulf, which lists the Battle of Leyte as preceding, while the battle actually started a few days before the sea battle, and the victory at sea allowed the battle on land to continue fully, lasting for two months after the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Although the entries are purely chronological, this is not clear from the context, and even if it was, some of the entries are of little relevance. I would therefore suggest to add an entry with "related battles" to the box, and remove the "before/after". Jeronimo 20:24, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * I have another problem with the before and after. In the Waterloo campaign 1815, (Napoleon's 100 days) there are 4 battles. June 16, Ligny and Quatre Bras. June 18, Waterloo and Wavre
 * For the French Ligny and Quatre Bras preceded Waterloo
 * For the French Ligny preceded Wavre (units fighting at Wavre did not fight at Quatre Bras)
 * For the Prussians Ligny preceded Waterloo and Wavre
 * For the Anglo-Allies Quatre Bras preceded Waterloo
 * How should this relationship be documented in the Boxs?
 * Also is it possible to put in a "simultaneous battle"?
 * Philip Baird Shearer 21:41, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * If there's no sensible sequence, I suggest having an alternate template that dispenses with the before/after parameters. I wouldn't bother trying to represent simultaneous battles -- the before/after is more of a navigation aid than strictly chronological representation. Geoff/Gsl 22:32, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I wrote up four proposals for improvements to the battlebox that would address Jeronimo's concerns. Please take a look at WikiProject Battles/Battleboxes and comment here. Gdr 17:33, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)
 * I prefer the "Campaign" proposal. It is brief yet links to related and relevant other battles. The options have too much information, generally; I don't think that is needed, and we can't link everything. The article behind the "conflict" link should provide enough information to find other related campaigns. Jeronimo 20:06, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I prefer the "Campaign" proposal well. For the two World Wars then Theatres on top of campaigns can be imposed. But apart from those two wars, even large ones like the Napoleonic wars tend to map to campaigns. It gets away from the fact that while the Peninsular War (and other campaigns) were going on while Napoleon was campaigning elsewhere, so battles in chronolical order do not work well for the whole of the Napoleonic Wars. I suggest that the battles in a campaign box are listed chronologically as much as is practical and not alphabetically. Gdr if you have the time perhaps could you try out the idea on the Waterloo Campaign because it is only four battles but in a complicated sequence and a lot of people watch the Battle of Waterloo and I am sure they will give you feed back if the idea does not meet with their approval!

There is one problem with it that I can anticipate, sometimes the campaign is different for the two sides of a battle, so deciding which campaign a battle falls into might prove tricky. As an extreme example, with the way Wikipedia is structured at the moment, the Siege of Leningrad falls into two different wars, the badly named Eastern Front (WWII) and the Continuation War. So I am not sure what one would put into a campaign box for that one. I am not expert on theses boxes, so I hope this is not a foolish question, but would it be possible to put more than one name into the campaign section to cover situations like this? Or perhaps in these execptional cases like this would two campaign boxes be needed? --Philip Baird Shearer 22:12, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * I implemented the "campaign" scheme for the Waterloo campaign. Let me know what you think. For battles that fall into two campaigns, there could be two campaigns in the battlebox. (The Eastern Front of World War II is of course not a campaign, but a theater. There were at least 30 major battles on the Eastern Front and many (perhaps hundreds?) of minor ones. So for the purpose of these boxes we should break it up into campaigns, e.g. Barbarossa, Leningrad, Moscow, Blue, Stalingrad, Citadel, ...) Gdr 00:47, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)

 * It looks great. I was unaware you could nest templates in templates.  Will we need a blank Template:Campaignbox for those battleboxes which don't have a campaign box?  Or do we have two templates, one with the campaign box, one without? Geoff/Gsl 00:54, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * I was imagining that pages without a campaignbox would go on using Template:Infobox Battles, but an empty Template:Campaignbox would work too. Gdr

The idea is even better in your implementation than it was in your description. I'm not sure, but think that the the campaing box might look better at the top of the battle box (below a picture if one is there) rather than the bottom. Could you convert one of the Waterloo battle boxes, so that we can compare? Philip Baird Shearer 02:57, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * OK, done. Gdr 11:35, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)

I not sure which is better. But putting it at the top suggests that the "Conflict" line needs adjustment. What do others think? Philip Baird Shearer

 * I prefer it at the bottom, or at least it should come after the battle is introduced (name, date, location). I know the conflict and campaign parameters could be consolidated but that's moving towards one of Gdr's other proposals.  There's usually a conflict article that can be easily linked but constructing the campaign may not be so easy.  As it is, the campaign, image and caption parameters in the battlebox should be optional without upsetting the appearance of the box. Geoff/Gsl 21:42, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * I prefer it at the bottom too, so I moved it back. Gdr 14:31, 2004 Nov 7 (UTC)

The "campaign" section of the battleboxes is a big improvement, but is there any way we can have more than one campaign? For example, I have just created Fall of Rabaul. Someone has since changed the campaign from New Guinea to "Pacific Campaign 1941-42", a category which I think suffers from the problems Phillip alluded to above, i.e. it the individual battles don't really relate to one another. To me the fall of Rabaul was really the beginning of the New Guinea campaign and it is also significant in the Solomons campaign, but I didn't know how to add that in. Is it possible? Grant65 (Talk) 23:41, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)


text:
User:Stixpjr

This is the user page for Paul Ripke (aka stix or stixpjr), who is a SRE and lives in Sydney and Wollongong, Australia. See his home page for more info.

testing equations
$$z = \frac{\overline{x_1}-\overline{x_2}}{s_{\overline{x_1}-\overline{x_2}}} = \frac{\overline{x_1}-\overline{x_2}} {\sqrt{\frac{s_1^2}{z_1} + \frac{s_2^2}{z_2}}} = \frac{3.1-3.15}{\sqrt{\frac{1.265^2}{204}+\frac{1.35^2}{196}}} = -0.382$$

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

title: User:Stixpjr


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hao Hai Ren

Hao Hai Ren
Vanity, delete, jguk 22:38, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Unquestionably. Delete.  Postdlf 22:40, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The above people are Zealots, the article is not finished, keep, J-Rodd 203.167.202.230 23:01, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I am Willing to shave off my barnet to keep this page, Michael Cheesepuff Sutorious

 * Puerile vanity. Delete. -R. fiend 23:17, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Don't DELETE... This page is part of world history!!

 * A pox on you deletionist hippie creeps. I have created a user page in Hao Hai's name : User:Hao_Hai_Ren, but I suppose you will delete that too. It is because of people like yourselves that Wikipedia has become a joke in the community. For shame.

 * Delete. User:203.167.202.230 has certainly been busy editing this VfD page.  It's fine at User:Hao Hai Ren, it just doesn't belong in the article space. -- Curps 23:56, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete the article and move the info to a new user page. Sockpuppets, please take note. - Lucky 6.9 00:02, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Vanity, thy name is Hao Hai Ren.  Didyaevernotice how the less likely a page is worth keeping, the more sockpuppets come out of the woodwork?  RickK 00:34, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

 * Keep I am disgusted by the blatent rascism of all those intending to delete this entry. DO NOT DELETE. Hao Hai Ren is a Kiwi/Asian hero!
 * Keep Ian - he is great. Why is everyone getting so worked up about this? Just don't look at the page if you don't like it... ooo what a suggestion...
 * Keep I am very troubled that the powers that be would want to delete this corner-stone of wellington history. How can this information be passed down from generation to generation if you hippes keep deleting these entries. have a heart ... keep the page! scobes (fight the good fight)
 * Delete and ban the sockpuppets. Gamaliel 01:42, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Regarding accusations of sockpuppetry, there are several of us (distinct people I assure you) that connect through the game gateway (203.167.202.230) - the creator of the page sent this around his colleages, and we expressed our outrage accordingly.
 * There's no way for us to verify that. We can only count votes which we know to belong to distinct people. Mgm|(talk) 09:18, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * VfD policy says that anonymous voters and user voters created after the nomination are typically considered null and void. Nothing personal.  Having said that, I vote delete. Segekihei 01:47, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Vanity, no claim to notability. JoaoRicardo 02:10, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, not notable, vanity. Megan1967 02:18, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete vanity, fraud target. Gazpacho 02:57, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Look folks, I'm sure he's a great guy, but is he important/famous enough that encyclopedia users will want to look him up? Wikipedia pages can't just be ignored, they need to be updated and organised... look at Category:New_Zealand_people, does he really belong with those other people? Kappa 04:46, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, he'd be listed there were there not confusion as to which letter of the alphabet his name should come under. ^_^
 * Delete. Though maybe it ought to be saved somewhere as a canonical vanity page. --Calton 07:39, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. An undisguised joke. But my understanding is that sock puppets' and anons' and new users' votes do count. They just don't count very much. For example, if four or five people with strong contribution histories were unanimous on a course of action, no amount of argument from any number of newbies or anons would persuade me as an admin that consensus had not been reached - on the course of action decided by the contributors. I don't see how it can work any other way, and this way seems to work well. Andrewa 08:13, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete for reasons already listed. ping 09:05, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, already listed at appropriate user page. Mgm|(talk) 09:18, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * One of the best vanity pages I've seen, but vanity nevertheless. Delete. --Angr 16:08, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Your compliment is much appreciated.
 * Delete. Going to university in New Zealand at 16 is not very notable because of them starting primary school at 5. JuntungWu 16:57, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * keep You cretin, we start school at 5, then we have 6 years of primary school, 2 at intermediate, 5 years of high school, so most people don't get to university until they are 18 or thereabouts. Hao Hai's story is touching and inspirational. Retardedness, thy name is Juntung. 202.0.52.252 00:31, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Non-notable, vanity, sock-puppet supported. Jayjg (talk) 19:37, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Hasn't it gone yet?  --Marcus22 20:08, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete Philip 02:29, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep This is only a stub, it could grow into something quite magnificent. Just because someone isn't indexed by Google doesn't mean they're not notable. There's a world outside the Internet, people. dojun 18:51, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * It would seem that the majority of these fanatics beg to differ.
 * Delete. Sign up for an account and put it on your own Userpage instead, alright? ;) - Mailer Diablo 12:54, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete the vanity, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Wyss 23:46, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Rubbish. -- Necrothesp 03:57, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. For everyone's information I recently did a university paper on immigration and used a case study on Ian and his family. I searched wikipedia and came up with his info. It is useful to some people and is not just a vanity page. Keep your ignorant opinions to yourself please. (Scarlet)
 * Keep. This page is the highlight of this little chinese-kiwi boy's life. Enough said. (PMW)
 * Delete, obviously. GRider\talk 18:53, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Blatant vanity, though he does apparently have a number of (real or imaginary) friends to vote for him. LizardWizard 01:34, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
 * Made me laugh. Love the pic. But until there is a Wikicomedia, I guess I'll have to vote to delete.  Shame though.  HowardB 08:15, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. The only claims to notability are unverifiable, and even if true, don't make this young person notable enough.  --BM 23:43, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Books of Swords

Article status after creation
This is kind of stubbish right now. I plan in the near future to add some more information about characters and concepts. If anyone wants to pitch in that is familiar with the series, by all means. Here are some ideas I had to round it out:

 * Characters
 * Mark
 * Ben
 * Barbara
 * Vilkata
 * Wood
 * Jord
 * Draffut
 * Emperor

 * Concepts
 * Gods
 * Demons
 * Magic
 * White/Red/Blue temples
 * ARDNA

Akerkhof 22:38, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Let me just say that this series of books is entirely excellent, and I'm glad that this article exists. Thank you, Akerkhof. Mr. Billion 06:25, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Notes on magic
The knowledge of an person's true name granting power over them is not an inexplicable thing. It's a quite common belief in certain parts of the world, and this is just an adaptation of that 75.71.169.0 23:53, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion / merge
First, I would resist any suggestion that the article be deleted. It had been proposed for deletion once, and survived the vote, and that was when it is in it's proto-state. I think the series and the swords themselves easily meet wiki standards for notability. The content has drifted a bit over time, maybe it could use a going over to make it read better and be more encyclopedic.

I am ambivalent about merging it. The structure of the two articles represents how I like to see things organized in wiki. But, it could fit into the main article, and if someone wants to merge and restructure it, by all means feel free. Akerkhof 19:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

 * When I consider much newer, less influential fantasy series which have whole sections devoted to them, the thought that Saberhagen's Swords series' two pages are even at risk is shocking. The books are highly notable in and of themselves, and the Swords taken as concepts have taken on a life of their own-- they're clearly differentiated in topic and both very note-worthy.

 * Wellspring 01:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The Emperor's interaction with Swords
I'm not entirely certain that the Emperor is quite as vulnerable to Swords as the article seems to imply... if you recall, Draffut tells Mark that, even with Sightblinder, the Emperor could see who Draffut really was... -- 216.87.207.1 (talk) 06:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I do not recall Draffut saying that. Do you remember when this occurred?  I do remember the emperor knowing who Draffut was after Draffut regressed to a dog. Bertrc 18:28,  27 June 2008 (EDT)
 * 3rd book of swords, chapter 3 Nite01002 (talk) 13:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it has been a long time since I read them, and I do not have them handy. What exactly did Draffut say?  Was the implication that the sword had no effect?  Was the emperor simply not fooled by the illusion?  Did Sightblinder simply show Draffut as himself?  Can you check my other recollections: I am almost positive that when the emperor visited the woman who owned soul-cutter, she drove him away by unsheathing it part-way.  Also, after the battle, when soul-cutter was fully unsheathed, I thought the emperor needed Shieldbreaker to approach and re-sheath it. --Bertrc (talk) 21:13, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm in the process of rereading the books now, and haven't gotten up to that point yet. The woman in question, if I remember the story correctly, is Yambu [the Silver Queen], but I can confirm that and your recollection of the event when I get there.  I'm pretty sure that Ariane (Ben's love from the second book) is Yambu's daughter by the Emperor, and I seem to remember that this aspect of Yambu & the Emperor's relationship is confirmed at some point in the 3rd book.  As for what specifically Draffut says:
 * {Draffut} "...I can tell you this: I think that Sightblinder did not deceive him for a moment, though I had it in my hand as I approached"
 * {Mark} "It did not deceive him?"
 * {Draffut} "I think he never saw me as anything but what I am." The Beastlord thought for a moment, then concluded: "Of course it was not my intention to deceive him, unless he should mean me harm -- and I do not believe he did."
 * One could probably interpret that to agree with any of the three statements you asked. Once I get to the Mindsword vs. Soulcutter battle I'll update this page and answer your other recollection, if no one else has yet. Nite01002 (talk) 22:08, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, Yambu the Silver Queen. And yes, Ben's love is her and the emperor's daughter.  It is on the eve of the big battle.  She is in her tent.  The Emperor arrives and won't leave when she tells him to, so she starts to draw soul-cutter. --Bertrc (talk) 00:41, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Just as an aside, I'm not the same poster as 216.87.207.1 above, I just noticed the question as I came through looking for backstory while I was re-reading the books. That said, I think a much more interesting implication of this whole thing is that Draffut seems to be able to control the image he projects with Sightblinder (he mentions it in the quote above; he also is able to intentaionally appear as a dragon [or at the very least is aware that's what he appears as] when he first meets Mark in the same chapter).  No one else seems to be able to conciously choose what to appear as while holding the blade (including the ability to appear as just themselves), and Mark several times wonders who/what he's seen as.  Not sure what, if any, relevance that has, though.  I'm trying to remember if Draffut has any other interaction with Swords' powers, especially ones directed at him, but can't come up with any.  Nite01002 (talk) 14:27, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, I've finished the three books in the First Swords cycle. Here's the parts about Swords from when the Emperor visits Yambu:
 * {Yambu speaking} "... Could you defeat the Mindsword for me then?"
 * {The Emporer} "I'll do all I can to help you, if you will be my bride. We'll see about the Mindsword when it comes."
 * ... {jump cut} ...
 * {Yambu, again} "... Leave now, or I draw Soulcutter"
 * {The Emporer} "It's your Sword, to do with as you will. But I will leave when you decide to draw it."
 * She started to draw the Sword, and at the same moment called out in a clear voice for her guards. When they came pushing into the tent a moment later, they found their Queen quite alone, and Soulcutter safely in its sheath, though her hand on the hilt was poised as if for action.
 * Tough to say for sure whether he's leaving because of the Sword, or because of what drawing it signifies (remember: He's just asked her to marry him and she's using the sword to chase him out as an answer). Later, after she's drawn the Sword:
 * ... There the giant [Draffut] stopped, and set down the man [the Emperor] who had been riding on his shoulders; and from that point the man alone, a gray-caped figure bearing a bright Sword in hand, walked alone into the field of doom and silence.
 * From there the Emperor walks to Yambu and sheaths the Sword. I'm pretty sure the Sword he's carrying is Woundhealer, just based on where the various known Swords were at that point.  The one other Emperor/Sword interaction I can think of is when Coinspinner leads Mark to the Emperor.  When Mark gets there, the Sword leaps out of his hand and into the sheath at the Emperor's waist before the Emperor gives it back to Mark.  In none of these interactions is it clear to me that the Emperor is effected by the Swords, but neither is it obvious that he's not.  I don't have a complete collection of the books of the missing swords, so I can't speak for what's in those.  Any other questions about it while the books are fresh in my mind & the text is handy?  Nite01002 (talk) 23:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

 * The Sword in the Emperor's hand is Shieldbreaker. Recall, Sir Andrew is holding Shieldbreaker when Dame Yoldi and his advance force, under the influence of the Mindsword, savagely attack him. Andrew would rather die and let his own Sword fall into the hands of the Dark King than have his own men and Yoldi die by his hand, but the Sword won't let him go until they're all dead. He then collapses in despair. Dying, the Emperor unexpectedly shows up. He even removes his mask for Andrew, who recognizes his face (a moment I think tremendously important for understanding the Emperor's power). Anyway, the next time we see the Emperor, he has Shieldbreaker and sheathes Soulcutter. Did he really need Shieldbreaker to defend himself from Soulcutter?

 * The argument between Yambu and the Emperor does culminate in her drawing Soulcutter about an inch from the scabbard. Again, it isn't clear whether the Emperor left to escape the sword or simply because he chose to do so (he might also have wanted to avoid Yambu harming herself and her men her own Sword!).

 * Draffut reveals that he doesn't believe that the Emperor was fooled by Sightblinder for even a moment. Wood, in the Books of Lost Swords, attempts to use Wayfinder to locate the Emperor; the Sword fails. Why Coinspinner succeeds for Mark and Wayfinder fails for Wood is unknown. I'd forgotten Coinspinner leaping from Mark's hand, but you're right; Coinspinner leaves when it's ready and at no other time in the series is successfully taken by force like that. In light of the Emperor's mysterious connection with Ardneh and his description of himself at the end, it is I think deliberately left ambiguous whether the Swords have any power on him at all.

 * I added a paragraph on the connection between Yambu and the Emperor. Really, there needs to be a Yambu section of her own-- she is not a minor character. Wellspring (talk) 12:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

 * Nite01002, I'm also pretty sure that the emperor had Shieldbreaker. Why do you think it is Woundshealer?  I don't think Yambu was ever wounded.  Wellspring, do you remember the text from when Wayfinder failed to find the Emperor?  Could it be simply that there was no direction to get to the Emperor at the time or that Wood's desire could not be answered with a direction? --Bertrc (talk) 18:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

 * Well, to be honest, largely because I forgot the Shieldbreaker was unaccounted for at that point (unless it's answered in the lost swords books, there never any confirmation the Emperor picks up Shieldbreaker, is there?) and knew that Woundhealer was last seen in Draffut's hand. Given Draffut gives the Emperor a (literal) lift to the site of Soulcutter and Woundhealer isn't in evidence on Draffut's "person" (dogson?) at that point... *shrug*  I guess I just assumed.  One of these days I'm going to remember to keep notes of every sword that appears and who has it as I read through the books.
 * Wellspring, what are you basing Yambu drawing the Sword an inch on? I just finished the books and it's far from clear in my mind that she ever got past the point of threats. Nite01002 (talk) 18:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Yambu and the Emperor
Re: Is yhe series that clear cut as to their earlier relationship and why they separated? The present text seems a bit speculative/Original-researchy. I haven't read the series for a while, but I think my impression was that the Emperor took advantage of her (A powerful man seducing a vulnerable young kid) but, unexpectedly, found himself emotionally drawn to her spirit. I had thought they broke up because the emperor cheated on her and wanted to control her. Unless it is clearly stated, I think the only thing we can safely read into it is that they had a romatic relationship earlier in her life, during which the Emperor Fathered her child, and that Yambu broke up with him; she still harbors feelings of emnity towards him but he has always wanted to reconcile. --Bertrc (talk) 18:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

 * I don't have the book handy for the quote, but the Emperor left Yambu after asking her to marry him. She had just consolidated her power and was intending to tell him "no".  She turned to give an order to someone else, turned back to say no to him, and he had left before she did.  When they meet much later on the eve of the battle where she draws Soulcutter, he comments that he never got an answer and wanted it then.  I don't think there's any implication he took advantage of her, wanted to control her, nor cheated on her. Nite01002 (talk) 19:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

 * But what you describe above is during the series itself, no? I guess I have an issue with "However, on attaining her throne, the two became estranged for many years, with the ambitious, proud and distrustful Yambu threatened by his power, masculinity and poor reputation. The Emperor repeatedly attempts to reconcile with Yambu throughout the series. When she is old and powerless, she finally agrees."  She is threatened by his masculinity?  I thought that they split well before the series started (and I thought Yambu implied it was because he was unfaithful and a controlling)  As written, the article makes it seem as though she shacks up with him to climb the social ladder; she dumps him like last year's fashions when she got what she wanted; then she comes crawling back once everything falls apart.  Way back when I read the series, I thought it was more: as a young girl she becomes cold and bitter when her heart was broken by a powerful, charasmatic older man (the Emperor); she channelled her resentment ala Xena into conquering the world; then she achieves enlightenment when she learns how much her drive to power cost her and decided to give the jerk another chance, now that they were emotional equals.  --Bertrc (talk) 01:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The creation of the Gods
With the publishing of the novel "Ardneh's Sword" we now know how the gods were created. They were the result of some special high tech suits created by Ardneh that granted the wearer godlike powers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CF7B:3560:C57D:FB55:AF7C:FBCE (talk) 15:36, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Merger proposal
I propose to merge Empire of the East series into Books of Swords. Since these two sets of books are set in the same universe, and discussion of either series consistently mentions the other series, I think they constitute one "topic" best served by a single article. It's possible that the merged article should be renamed to "The Ardneh sequence" (as this set of books is named in the List of works by Fred Saberhagen), or something else, though I currently prefer to keep "Books of Swords" since that seems to be how the series is usually referred to in the sources. ~ oulfis 🌸 (talk) 22:36, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The fact that there is no overarching title for all the novels put together shows that these are viewed as two series, albeit connected ones. "The Ardneh sequence" is WP:OR, and Ardneh doesn't get more than passing mentions in the Swords books (he's dead, Jim). Clarityfiend (talk) 04:59, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose: They're a separate series altogether.   Ravenswing      19:25, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Books of Swords


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kristian Dalen

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was delete. Joyous 00:57, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Kristian Dalen
Probably not notable. I could find no relevant google hits. Thue | talk 22:44, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, nn. Google searches for "Vi skal vise deg" "Kristian Dalen", "Vi skal vise deg" vandalen, and "Dalen State of Mind pt. VIII " got no results. --Idont Havaname 00:10, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. No reference in Wikipedia nor AMG, 61 Google hits, no claim to notability, no article on the Norwegian Wikipedia. JoaoRicardo 02:05, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, not notable - fails Google test (60 hits with a few unrelated). Megan1967 02:19, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, not quite encyclopedic for a band, but close. Wyss 23:44, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * delete. Yuckfoo 01:09, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


text:
Talk:DDRMAX Dance Dance Revolution 6thMix

Candy One More Extra Stage
Didn't Candy have a 3x modifier on MAX? I know Kakumei and Dance Dance Revolution both have 3x modifiers on their OMES. Can someone check? (I'm pretty sure it's consistent on all three versions of DDRMAX) --Poiuytman 22:46, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, it was on 1.5. --Poiuytman 11:45, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Another Extra Stage?
Hey, I'm not familiar with One More Extra Stage ever being called Another Extra Stage. I can't find any reference to that exact phrase on Google, and the JP PS2 version of MAX calls it One More Extra Stage. --Poiuytman 11:45, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * From chriskc on the Bemanistyle forums:

 * "Earning one more extra stage changes the text of the extra stage screens from red to white but it still just says Extra Stage. The only difference is that, on the resutls screen for your extra stage, it says One More Extra Stage in white at the bottom of the screen."

 * --Poiuytman 13:37, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

BBBB not repeated?
The article claims "Bye Bye Baby Balloon" was never repeated on any arcade or console mix and is exclusive to DDRMAX, but Konami's official North American website for their music games confirms that "Bye Bye Baby Balloon" will in fact be on DDR Ultramix 3 for the XBOX. - 159.91.114.73 05:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

With DDR:Supernova, and it's Fascination Maxx, Max 300 is no longer 'extremely difficult'. I editted the page to reflect that.

142.68.198.166 17:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

FLASH IN THE NIGHT/FOLLOW ME
I added a small piece to the article about them, on how they don't have official foot ratings. ToyoWolf 11:52, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

There was a word missing
There was a word missing in a sentence so I just added it in. Danny231 (talk) 07:09, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I praise your enthusiasm but you don't need to comment on the talk page with every edit, unless it's possibly contentious. In this case, however, adding "of" was incorrect. The sentence is saying that you can sort settings, not that it's similar to settings (which is what sort of means).  Anarchyte ( work  |  talk )  08:57, 10 January 2018 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Demographics of the Soviet Union

1937 & 1939 censuses
the 1937 and 1939 census has now been published and is available (e.g. see Soviet Censuses of 1937 and 1939 from Yale University Library; This page states that "Stalin told Kraval that the new census would show a figure of 170 million" and that the "results showed a total national population of only 162 million." and finally that the "1939 census also showed a figure of approximately 162 million, but the census takers, mindful of their predecessors' fate, told Stalin the number was 170 million." given this, can we not clear this page up somewhat with more definitive numbers. What is the source of any remaining dispute.  Mozzerati 22:46, 2005 Feb 3 (UTC)

Ethnic make up
Pretty sure the ethnic make up is wrong.

-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.158.83 (talk) 06:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Is it? What makes you think so? --217.172.29.4 (talk) 07:50, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Source for Update on Stalin era population
Andreev, EM, et al, Naselenie Sovetskogo Soiuza, 1922-1991. Moscow, Nauka, 1993. ISBN 5-02-013479-1 was published by the Russian Academy of Science and is available at the NY Public Library Slavic Studies division.--Berndd11222 02:08, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

You people are ignorant. The Soviet Union ANNEXED land from Poland during September 1939 which added thirteen million people to the population. Calculations of the 1926 and 1939 censuses by Barbara Anderson and Eric Silver showed a excess deaths ranging between 3 million to 5.5 million.

Territory annexed in 1939 was indeed 13 million but the territories given back to Poland in 1945 Bialystok & Przemysl had a population of 1.5 million and the net transfer of Population to Poland in 1945-46 was about 1.5 million. The Soviet Union picked up a net gain of 10 million from Poland not 13 million. --Berndd11222 02:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

As for the calculations of Anderson & Silver all I can say is that I assume that they consider the 8 million deaths in the 1932-33 famine as " natural". --Berndd11222 02:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I would guess they don't accept the 8 million figure as proven. Many of the missing from the famine period were probably never born.~Mack2~ (talk) 05:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

The official demographics of Ukraine stated a 1913 population of 35.2 million. The 1940 figure was at 41.3 million and rose only to 41.8 million in 1959. Source: "Great Soviet Encyclopedia"

Ukraine Population per 1926 census 29.043 million, 1939 census 30.960 million a gain of only 2 million in 13 years. In 1939-45 the Ukranine picked up territory of about 7.8 million from Poland, 1.5 million from Romania, 700,000 from Czechoslovikia(Trans-Carpathia in 1945} and a natural increase of 1.4% in 1939 of .4 million yielding a total of 41.3 million in 1940 whithin the postwar(1946) borders of the Ukraine. The Soviets always quoted the 1940 figure of 41.3 million with the annexed territories included never mentioning the census data of 1939 with only 31 million.--Berndd11222 09:02, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Late Tsarist figures overstated the population. I think the 1914 figures counted 178 million excluding Finland. I think McEvedy and Jones give the Russian Empire 170 million including Finland, which works out to 167 million excluding Finland. 173.66.5.216 (talk) 06:33, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Losses due to Soviet Terror 1917-89

A recently published source in Russia has given a detailed analysis of Soviet losses in the Communist era. Vadim Erlikman. Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke : spravochnik. Moscow 2004. ISBN 5931651071. Here is a recap of the losses according to Vadim Erlikman.

During Russian Revolution 1917-22- Red Terror of regular units and partisans 1.7 million deaths. Also he estimates deaths due to White terror at 300,000.

Red Terror in Central Asian uprising of 1918-33, 250,000 deaths.

USSR from 1923-34- Executed 200,000; deaths in GULAG and labor colonies 1.0 million.

Collectivization 1929-33- Killed in uprisings 50,000 and 950,000 deaths due to deportations. He also lists 7.0 million demographic deaths due to famine during the collectivization but does not attribute them to Soviet government policy.

USSR from 1935-41-Executed 1,000,000; deaths in GULAG and labor colonies 2.5 million. Deaths due to deportations 350,000

USSR from 1941-45-Executed 200,000; deaths in GULAG and labor colonies 1.2 million. Deaths due to deportations 300,000

USSR from 1945-53-Executed 100,000; deaths in GULAG and labor colonies 350,000. Deaths due to deportations 150,000

USSR from 1954-89-Executed 500; deaths in GULAG and labor colonies 500.

The grand total for the entire Soviet era was 10,050,000-(Executed 2.7 million; deaths in GULAG and labor colonies 4.8 million. Deaths due to deportations 1.7 million and 850,000 by partisans)

Deaths from 1922-53 due to executions according to official data were about 800,000 but this does not include estimated summary executions. Official data for GULAG deaths was 2.5 million but this excludes deaths in labor colonies and persons deported which were also estimated. --Berndd11222 15:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Other Points of View

The number of losses in the Soviet era has been the subject of intense debate. The following link to articles in the Journal Soviet Studies presents different points of view on this topic [].

The historian R. J. Rummel has estimated losses in the Soviet era at 62 million. This is detailed in his book Lethal Politics- Transaction 1996- ISBN 89-28836. --Berndd11222 15:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Rummel's methodology is questionable and many of his sources obsolete. As I recall, he claimed that Stalin's era resulted to some 40 million deaths - blatantly impossible when you compare it to actual demographics of Soviet Union; one needs to figure in 27 million war losses in addition.--Mikoyan21 12:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

A Comparison of the USSR with Czarist Russia and the US :

In Czarist Russia in 1913 the death rate per 100 persons was 3.2 In the USSR in 1930 the death rate per 100 persons was 2.7 In the USSR in 1940 the death rate per 100 persons was 2.1 In the USSR in 1950 the death rate per 100 persons was 1.2

In the US in 1913 the death rate for whites per 100 persons was 1.35 In the US in 1913 the death rate for blacks per 100 persons was 2.03 In the US in 1930 the death rate for whites per 100 persons was 1.08 In the US in 1930 the death rate for blacks per 100 persons was 1.63 In the US in 1940 the death rate for whites per 100 persons was 1.04 In the US in 1940 the death rate for blacks per 100 persons was 1.38 In the US in 1950 the death rate for whites per 100 persons was 0.95 In the US in 1950 the death rate for blacks per 100 persons was 1.12

Sources: For Czarist Russia in 1913- European Historical Statistics 1750-1975; Facts on File 1980 ISBN 0-871963299 For USSR 1930-50-Andreev, EM, et al, Naselenie Sovetskogo Soiuza, 1922-1991. Moscow, Nauka, 1993. ISBN 5-02-013479-1 For US - Statistical History of the US from Colonial Times to present- Basic Books 1976 ISBN 0465082033- Berndd11222 15:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Population dynamics in the 1970s and 1980s
I removed a phrase about "improving health services in southern republics", added into GSE ref by someone, because in that GSE article isn't said anything on that.

I also added NPOV-section tag, because I believe the section to be heavily biased currently. Here are some of my concrete points on what is wrong with the section (each of them deserves NPOV-section tag in my opinion):
 * It focuses on death rates, while the population growth parameter, which is much more important for the population dynamics (because roughly, if we don't consider migration, "population growth"="birth rate"-"death rate", i.e. it determines, whether the population grows or declines), is not even mentioned. Even a short sentence on that, inserted by me before, was removed without any explanations. Blaming the USSR for certain variations of death rates and "ignoring" always positive population growth, in contrast to negative one in most of the post-Soviet states, looks at least strange. Another parameter, birth rate, as important as death rate, almost isn't mentioned too (except a short sentence, inserted by me).
 * There is very few actual data in the section, but it's full of interpretations of missing data. "Attention of Western demographers and Sovietologists" and "debates and discussion among them" are considered to be the most relevant for the section. While "Soviet officials" must "defend and explain" variations in their country's mortality to them. Then perhaps the article Demographics of the United States should present only point of view of Eastern bloc's and Soviet Americanists? But it doesn't, it just presents the data from various sources, not its interpretation by someone, and due to this that article is pretty neutral in my opinion. A few interpretations both Soviet and Western could be present, but only after all related data is presented.
 * For the same reason an extended citation of a Western researcher's point of view on the whole decades of Soviet demography statistics (while the statistics itself is almost missing) constitutes to the bias and would be irrelevant even if corresponding Soviet citation should be present.
 * First, the exact period should be presented, when "the percentage who were Russians was gradually being reduced" and it should be clarified, that the percentage is relatively to the total population of the USSR. Second, it should be mentioned, that number of Russians always increased, and their percentage within the Russian SFSR was quite stable at least between 1974-1986 (82.6-82.8 % according to GSE Yearbooks)
 * The focus of the article extends behind the 1970s and 1980s limits and includes also the 1960s. Furthermore, the following abstract quote is present:"Soviet demographers and health specialists remained silent about the mortality increases until the late 1980s". As the coverage of mortality rates in Soviet sources from 1960-1970 is not mentioned, the impression is that all increases were hidden from the public. I looked into the GSE and its 1980 Yearbook and found, that the (increasing) mortality statistics from 1965 to 1979 are present there. Therefore, the statement above is wrong at least for this period. I admit, that somewhere in the 1980s public's access to mortality data (especially death rates by ages) was limited only to researchers in the field (i.e. it was marked "Для служебного пользования"), but this fact should be clarified, and earlier coverage of mortality by Soviet sources should be presented too.
 * Not just the word "dramatic" is a bias in this excerpt:"dramatic reversal of the path of declining mortality in the 1960s-1970s". Much more important is that the late 1970s saw the similar reversal of the path of declining birth rate: it grew from 17.4 in 1970 to 18.3 in 1979 (according to GSE 1980 Yearbook). But as I said, birth rate is ignored in the section.
 * Soviet government's activities since the early 1980s to improve the situation with mortality and other parameters is not mentioned. While, citing "Malaya Meditsinskaya Entsiklopedia", published in Russia in 1991-1996 (more about the encyclopedia is here), the new demographics strategy, introduced in 1981, was effective. Furthermore, the table there shows, that between 1981-1986 birth rate grew, death rate declined, infant mortality declined and population growth increased. Nothing of this data is mentioned in the article.

I don't plan to fix the article in the foreseen future (although there still is certain little chance, that I'll try to fix it myself one day), partly because my additions are removed without explanations, partly because I'm working on other topics right now. But NPOV-section will be present here at least until above points are fixed, showing, that the section is biased at least in my opinion. I'll remove the tag only when the looks neutral to me. Cmapm 15:35, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Response to Cmapm. Thank you for your detailed comments. As you well know, this section started out as a bland and basically misleading section about the population steadily growing, birth rates steadily declining (except in "southern republics" -- not my term), and death rates steadily declining. And the only reference for the trends was the BSE edition from 1977, with the latest data it cited referring to 1974. This was far from a "neutral" picture of developments in the region. That there was/is a "health crisis" in the Soviet Union and (now) in Russia has been acknowledged widely both in that country and abroad. That's not my term, but it's still widely used. When it was first announced, in the Eberstadt article that I cited, this became a matter of wide discussion. When I first visited the Soviet Union, it was a matter of completely "private" discussion because Soviet population specialists weren't talking about it, and indeed the data were embargoed in the First Department of Goskomstat. Those are "true facts," not an opinion: there was an upswing in reported mortality among adults and infants; Goskomstat had closed the data "in one day" and ultimately opened "in one day" (as I was told by a leading demographer).

In the meantime, those of us who were interested in Soviet population did the best we could to figure out what the trends were and what their explanation might be. Some alarmists in the West pointed to failing health care, environmental disaster, and the priorities of the political leaders. I've given them about as much due as they merit in the current version of this essay. But they ought to be cited because they did "break the news story," so to speak, even if their interpretation was exaggerated and alarmist. As I mentioned in the discussion before this article was moved to its own place, the best work inside the Soviet Union at the time was being done by Shkolnikov (and others in the institute with A.G. Vishnevsky, such as Vasin and Avdeev (on infant mortality)), and later by Shkolnikov working with French demographers at INED in Paris. It was in fact the French who first noticed the aberrant trends in adult mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1960's and 1970s (in the article that I cited). And Shkolnikov and Vasin and others started working on the causes and figuring out what was going on. They and the French explored a variety of possible underlying causes, including alcoholism (which Shkolnikov and Vassin showed mattered by a quite literally month-by-month exploration of the ups and downs and ups in mortality trends around the time of Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign). But in later work, they looked at a range of factors basically coming up with the interpretation that Kingkade and Arriaga gave at the NAS meeting in ca. 1992 (which I also attended, as did Shkolnikov and many others).

Some other researchers, Anderson and Silver, proposed a possible "cohort" explanation for the rising adult mortality -- that the rise was the long-term consequence of the hardships undergone by the Soviet population during World War II. They found some correlation there in a paper published in Population and Development Review, but the results were not conclusive because a typical "cohort" explanation focuses on a fairly narrow ranges of ages of people who underwent some privation or shock (famine, war), whereas the rising adult mortality in the USSR seemed to affect a 20-30 year age group. However, one implication of their research is that the rising mortality might eventually "work its way through" the system and things would return to normal. As you may know (and as I cited earlier in a quote that you deleted earlier), in Russia at least, this hasn't happened even yet (or at least by 2001) according to Shkolnikov in the paper that he presented as a recipient of the award from the IUSSP.

I am willing to help to improve the coverage here, including by supplying long series of birth and death statistics if you want them (they're basically in the sources that I cited -- but I can't put them into table format in Wikipedia; someone else would have to take charge of that, though maybe I can do a graphic that would be uploadable). But in fact the issue of what was happening with health care and mortality rates from the late 60's through end of the 80's in the USSR was the subject of a great deal of research by many people in several countries (including especially the US, UK, France, Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic states). I think I have characterized the major different voices accurately: some western crisis-mongers, some western "neutral" analyst-demographers seeking to understand what was happening, some Soviet officials shutting down the data and keeping anybody from getting new or detailed data for 10 years, and some Soviet demographers very interested in analyzing what was happening in part to begin to devise remedies -- whether to errors in the statistics or in the health policy realm.

Once the data were opened again, however, and a lot of new data were published, including new Tablitsy smertnosti (life tables), it became possible to distinghish between what might be artifactual and what might be real in any trends. And once Shkolnikov and the INED researchers gained access in that same period (late 1980's) to detailed cause-of-death records and data (all of this was also shut off for many years in the First Department), they were able to understand the causes and possible remedies. He looked carefully at detailed data by province in Russia, for example, and with a very few exceptions, the age and death data looked "reasonable," i.e., did not suffer from obvious deficiencies in the sex-ratios or age-heaping. So for Russia, at least, it seemed unlikely that rise in mortality rates was due to age-related data. (A totally different story in Central Asia, however, where age data in censuses and vital statistics were very flawed, and completeness of death reporting was questionable.) But there would still be a lot to be gained by exploring the cause of death data. And so Shkolnikov worked with Mesle and others to standardize the Soviet cause-of-death data so that they were consistent with the latest ICD so that comparisons could be made across time and space.

And it turned out, as I mentioned already in the article, that there was no necessary connection between the rising in infant mortality rates and the rise in adult mortality rates in the USSR in the 1970's.  The former were largely a result of improved data (more complete reporting of infant deaths), especially in Central Asia. The "alarmists" who had first pointed to the rise of infant mortality and contended that it was mostly real and denied that it was mostly in Central Asia, were partly right but by accident: the rise was almost exclusively in Central Asia, but whether it was real or an artifact remained in dispute until some Soviet health specialists and Goskomstat demographers (e.g., Andreev and Ksenofontova, Al'bitsky et al.) really probed and found huge understatements of infant mortality in the official statistics from Central Asia; this meant that any improvement in the coverage of infant deaths in the region during the 1970s was likely to lead to increasing reported rates, but this did not mean that the actual mortality was increasing, rather that the high infant mortality rates that had been overlooked before because of poor data were now beginning to be registered. And Anderson and Silver had provided an explanation for the upswing in reported infant mortality by pointing out that Goskomstat had implemented improvements in the data collection procedures, and in fact tried to impose a consistent standard across the republics of the USSR, but this had the perhaps paradoxical effect of producing increasing reported rates in regions where infant deaths had been underreported in the past. So it was by trying to do good (improve data quality) that Goskomstat produced certain very inconvenient results; the response by higher officials, however, was to close the data (infant mortality data after 1974 were not published until the late 1980s').

When I have time, and if it seems worthwhile, I'll respond to some or your specific recommendations. But I'm not going to waste any time on this if you are going to insist that a balanced story is not neutral. I dispute your overall characterization of the essay, which did in fact seek balance and also cited the key works, actors, and researchers from that era regarding the trends in the last 20 years of the Soviet Union. Of course we all need to be sensitive in choice of words, and we all need a good editor and critic, and shouldn't be "defensive" if our prior interpretation or rendition of things is challenged even by a NPV.

(I could also add quite a bit regarding some other issues that I know a lot about, but would prefer to stay out of them, such as the never-ending squabbles about the losses due to collectivation, the 1932-3 famine, "Stalin's terror," and WW II. I think that as long as certain individuals are alive, they will continue with their campaigns to construct history to fit their particular points of view.)Mack2 16:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)Mack2 17:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * It seems, that all the edits and discussion began earlier, than you think: after these edits into the article on the USSR, which I saw to had focused just on problems, "forgetting" about the permanent population growth in the USSR in contrast to the permanent population decline in post-Soviet Russia. But it's not the case. I didn't accuse anyone, I just looked at the section in it's present shape and saw it to be far from neutral.

 * The data on the IMR (presented by you on my Talk Page) would certainly be essential for the article, but only along with the same data for population growth, birth rate, death rate. Meanwhile, my other points should also be addressed, because I see them to be essential for NPOV as well.

 * I should dispute the claim, that "it was in fact the French who first noticed the aberrant trends in adult mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1960's and 1970s". Maybe for all Western demographers this is true, but not for all Soviet ones. First, for overall mortality this doesn't seem to be true, because as I said, the mortality data is presented e.g. in GSE 3rd ed., 24th vol., 1977 (citing it, mortality per thousand:1960-7.1, 1965-7.3, 1970-8.2, 1974-8.7) and, I suspect, in earlier Soviet publications was presented too. Second, the data on adult mortality certainly existed in Goskomstat, and although it was probably marked "Для служебного пользования" (ДСП), it certainly was studied by some Soviet demographers (because it was essential for government's demographic strategy), although their publications on this were also marked ДСП and were unavailable for the majority of scientific community.

 * I still believe, that first, all data should be presented and only after that - a few if any interpretations by Soviet and Western demographers. And it should be taken into account, that serious research of trends by the Soviet demographers was held much earlier, than by Shkolnikov. Shkolnikov worked in the Moscow Aviation Institute and received Candidate of Sciences in 1987. It seems, that his first serious works are dated 1988. I understand, that Shkolnikov is well-known in the West, but e.g. Laboratory of Demography at the Moscow State University held similar research since 1965, and its scientists published a lot of public works on this, even during the early-1980s-period-of-secrecy (see e.g. Osobennosti demograficheskogo razvitiya v SSSR/Pod red. R.S. Rotovoi, Moscow, 1982). Cmapm 08:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

 * cmapm, Thanks for this response. I can see where things need to go. Certainly Goskomstat knew of problems, and the data were shut down before any "westerners" commented on it -- though Vallin and Chesnais were the first to publish openly on the apparent aberrations. I should note again that the reversal of declining mortality was noted in several countries in Europe, and even at the meeting of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) a panel was organized by an Hungarian researcher to draw attention to the issue (but that was late, ca. 1986 as I recall).

 * As for the research groups, as opposed to the government statistics office (at which the leading specialist on mortality and overall population reproduction issues was Yevgenii Andreev, who I met a few times -- in the post-Soviet period he moved over to work with Vishnevsky's group, to join some of the "junior" people who were there including Vasin, Shkolnikov and others) -- in fact there were several different groups or centers in Moscow. These groups included the MGU researchers,the most senior of whom was Valentey, but this group for quite a while focused rather more on theoretical (teoriia vosproizvodstva naronaseleniia or titles of that ilk, or, on bibliography building, rather  than on practical issues of demographic analysis (though certainly they published several books on theory and methods). Also there was Rybakovsky (a kind of isolated researcher who was in the AkNauki and mainly worked on labor and migration; and Bednyi, who mainly worked on health issues.  And then the largest in the 1980's was Anatoly Vishnevsky's demographic research group (who left the Aknauki -- and also left Rybakovsky) and received sponsorship originally of Mintruda.  It had several researchers onfertility, labor, migration (e.g., Zaionchkovskaya and her subgroup of geographers including G. Vitkovskaya and others; she was also wife of the quite famous Viktor Perevedentsev), mortality, and other issues.  Probably the best known researchers on fertility in the late Soviet years were Vishevsky and A. Volkov (at least in Moscow -- there were serious population research centers also only in Kyiv, especially under Steshenko, and Riga, especially under Zvidrins, except for work on geography of population/migration, etc. in Novosibirsk).  In addition, there was Rymashevskaya's big Institute for the Scientific Study of Human Population, which had a similar visibility to that of Zaslavskaya, but this one focused more on labor, gender, and social policy, as well as the Taganrog project, but not on core demographic issues of mortality and fertility and population growth (this was mainly Vishnevsky's sphere, almost like the distinction between those who do "demography" -- focused essentially on fertility, mortality, and migration -- and those who "population studies" -- focused more broadly on social issues and social policy, not just on core demographic topics).

 * In any case, all of these people knew one another, but to some extent they were also rivals with one another for scarce research resources but they guarded their special territory. And so they each found sponsors of one kind or another. The kto-kogo of all this partly was affected by nationality (those who got the more "prestigious" appointments were non-Jews). But when it came to data access, nobody outside of Goskomstat seemed to have access to the detailed mortality data after the data were closed in 1975 or so -- until, one day in 1987 or so, they all opened up again. However, I agree with you that one must assume that at least some people within Goskomstat were well aware of it, even if they kept silent in public.

 * Researchers outside of Goskomstat were also eager to be able to address contemporary issues, since that was after all an exciting intellectual time beginning in 1986 when it was thought desirable to open up so many topics for public investigation. So once the doors to the detailed data were unlocked again, then Goskomstat researchers also started publishing and evaluating data, but many other reseaarchers started addressing some old and sensitive issues such as war losses in the Great Patriotic War, the sources of change in infant mortality, and also some new topics in "social demography" including alcohol use, suicide, crime, and abortion. They were looking at these things not because they had any special motive or agenda, but rather because for decades these topicw were out of bounds, i.e., not publicly investigated. A couple of interesting volumes on novel topics like this were edited by Vishnevsky (I think it was he).

 * So when I get a chance (maybe it won't be for a month or two, alas) I will put up the data series into tables and post them here. I plan to include life expectancy at birth data rather than crude death rates because the crude death rates tend to increase simply as the population gets older, while life expectancy data are not affected by the age structure.  For the same reason, it is much better to report the total fertility rates (TFR's) than to rely on crude birth rates to represent the underlying path of fertility, because TFR's are not affected by age structure.  So I will be trying to post series on TFR from 1950-1990, IMR from 1950-1990, and Eo (Life expectancy at birth) from 1950-1990, all when I can find the time.  I am about to go on a family vacation, and then have to prepare for my fall obligations.  But I would like to get this article done to your satisfaction in a reasonable time.--Mack2 18:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

demographic statistics source
Anyone know where these figures came from? They look like they're from the factbook but they're not cited to anything. I updated the section according to the 1990 factbook for now, but if anyone has a link to the 1991 edition (which I can't find), then we can use that. LokiiT (talk) 21:05, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The crude death rate had been gradually decreasing as well - from 23.7 per thousand in 1926 to 8.7 in 1974
False - the death rate was high during the time of hungers, great terror and wars and low between them. Xx236 (talk) 10:20, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Demographics of the Soviet Union


text:
Tékitoi

Tékitoi is a studio album released in 2004 by the Algerian musician Rachid Taha. The title is a nonstandard spelling of the French question "Tu es qui, toi?" which might be pronounced in speech as "T'es qui, toi?" and, in the context of this song, means "Who do you think you are?" informally.

The lyrics are mainly in French and Arabic. The booklet to the CD includes full sung texts in Arabic in romanization with French and English translations.

The album features guest appearances by Brian Eno, Christian Olivier, Kaha Beri, Julien Jacob, and Bruno Maman.

A video clip was made for "Tékitoi?"

On March 5, 2011, the song "Tékitoi?" was used on Saturday Night Live in a dancing French skit called "Les Jeunes de Paris."

Track listing

 * 1) "Tékitoi?" (Who are You?) - Duet with Christian Olivier
 * 2) "Rock el Casbah" (Arabic cover version of Rock the Casbah by The Clash)
 * 3) "Lli Fat Mat!" (What Is Past Is Dead and Gone!)
 * 4) "H'asbu-Hum" (Ask Them For An Explanation)
 * 5) "Safi" (Pure)
 * 6) "Meftuh'" (Open)
 * 7) "Winta" - with Kaha Beri
 * 8) "Nah'seb" (I Count)
 * 9) "Dima" (Always) - with Julien Jacob
 * 10) "Mamachi"
 * 11) "Shuf" (Look)
 * 12) "Stenna" (Wait)
 * 13) "Ya Rayah"
 * 14) "Voilà Voilà" (Here It Is, Here It Is) - Spanish version

Personnel
Source:
 * Rachid Taha: Composer, Primary Artist
 * Leo Abrahams: Guitar (Bass)
 * Joshua Adel: Vocals
 * Kamilya Adli: Choir/Chorus, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
 * Christopher Allan: Cello
 * Ali Bensadoun: Gallal, Gasba, Ney, Raita
 * Casbah Boys: Choir/Chorus, Vocals
 * Duchess Nell Catchpole: Violin
 * Francois Delfin: Guitar, Slide Guitar
 * Alison Dodds: Violin
 * Egyptian String Ensemble: Strings
 * Brian Eno: Composer, Drums, Synthesizer, Vocals
 * Adel Eskander: Violin
 * Hakim Hamadouche: Banjo, Lute
 * Ashraf Heikal: Violin
 * Steve Hillage: Arranger, Audio Production, Composer, Guitar, Mixing, Producer, Programming, String Arrangements, Vocals
 * Julien Jacob: Guitar (Acoustic)
 * Hakim Kaci: Keyboards
 * Said Kama: String Arrangements, Violin
 * Yahya Mahdi: Cello, Violin
 * Bruno Maman: Engineer, Guitar, Keyboards, Producer, Programming, String Arrangements
 * Anwar Mansey: Violin
 * Abdel Wahab Mansy: Violin
 * Mostafa Mansy: Cello
 * Nacera Mesbah: Choir/Chorus, Vocals (Background)
 * Mostafa Abdel Naby: Violin
 * Christian Olivier: Composer, Vocals
 * Hossam Ramzy: Percussion, String Director
 * Aziz Ben Salam: Flute
 * Dr. Maggid Serour: Qanoun, Quanun
 * Alex Toff: Drums
 * Karima Yahiaoui: Choir/Chorus, Vocals (Background)

title: Tékitoi