User talk:David Finn

Welcome! Feel free to ask any questions. I will answer them where I find them, so I will reply here if you type here - if you are replying to something I wrote on your talkpage or an article talkpage, just reply there as I watchlist everything and it is much easier to hold one conversation in one place! And if your question is about unsourced additions I have made - well, I don't make unsourced edits. If an edit I make has no obvious source it is just that I haven't added the source yet - all my edits are based on verifiable sources which I can produce on request. Happy editing! David Finn 06:46, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Welcome!

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at CZ:Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list (do join!) and the blog. Please also join the workgroup mailing list(s) that concern your particular interests. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forums is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any constable for help, too. Me, for instance! Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! Hayford Peirce 17:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Reason for Picatinny renaming

Pain pills, I think. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:32, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Ha! Oops, mustn't laugh at the pain of others. You do a phenomenal amount of article creation I have noticed, well done. David Finn 22:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Class names

I wasn't sure if you would follow the discussion on my user page; we should decide where to discuss which, I'm pleased to say, is a CZ: Military Workgroup matter. Briefly, I have used the hyphen format for ship class names, fairly comfortable that there is no standard, but finding that it's useful to have a clear visual distinction between class and lead ship so it's always unambiguous if we are speaking of Yamato-class or IJN Yamato. (Note: there is a redirect, with a separate short definition, of IJN Yamato to Yamato-class. There's no reason except resources not to have an article on each ship of the class, but redirects with definition are an interim solution.

As you'll see from Destroyer/Related Articles, this applies to many more classes than battleships. There are a tremendous number of class references in many articles, and I've tried to be consistent about the hyphen style. I'm willing to recommend it, as the only active Military Editor, as a CZ style subject to workgroup discussion.

Naming has been a continuing problem, not just for ships. There have been arguments raised "but this is most common in Google", by nonspecialist Citizens, about a variety of naming categories. For example, I created the Hezbollah article believing that transliteration, while not unique, is most common in professional literature. Hezb'Allah, Hezballah, Hizballah, and others are also plausible transliterations, and for which I certainly would have no argument against having redirects to the arbitrary article name. Correctly, in English, the organization is the Party of God, or at most, the Party of Allah. The others become authoritative only if we write and index in Arabic. Nevertheless, names have been a hot argument and often the only ones associated with Military articles.

I would be delighted both to have a Military style guide, and more Military participants both as Authors and Editors. David, I have quite a few articles that may be close to Approval-ready, but can't advance unless there are either three editors (in some cases History or Politics) or there's a non-author Military Editor.

Shall we move this to discussion under CZ: Military Workgroup? Howard C. Berkowitz 11:18, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I am happy with your reasoning and your solution. Without a clear reason to do otherwise it seems best to just go with how things have been done, especially since there seems to be common use of both terms. Standardizing the process via the workgroup would be good, it would prevent any argument arising in the future should another contributor start changing things.

My Military contribution is likely to revolve around ships and vehicles, aircraft and equipment - technical matters, rather than anything controversial like politics, but I can afford to spend some time working on whatever else is necessary, and I am happy to continue discussion wherever it is most appropriate. Thanks for the reply. David Finn 14:39, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Great. Not too long ago, we were able to Approve several articles after I also received Editor status in History and Politics. Roger Lohmann and Russsell Jones and I did a number of three-editor approvals, more in the political area. I would be delighted to have more involvement in the technical area. The cruiser and destroyer articles, for example, are in decent shape, as are a number of specific battles.

There's a substantial amount about current technologies, which sound as if they are a bit outside your area of interest. Would you have any ideas about potential Editors for Military?

Stray question: As I've been revising various things about the Pacific Theater in WWII, I see a need for some articles hierarchically below the theater. Naming is a challenge and I really don't have strong preferences. Would you prefer:

• Philippines campaign (1941-1942), WWII resistance movements in the Philippines, and Phillipines campaign (1944-1945)
• Japanese occupation of the Philippines, WWII resistance movements in the Philippines, and U.S. Philippines counteroffensive

or something else? It's also an interesting question if the WWII resistance movement article should include postwar as well as wartime Hukbalahap activities.

Do let me know about more of your interests. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:04, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Last question first - it would be nice if we had enough material to support an article about postwar resistance, then the WWII resistance movements article would only need a short reference to the postwar period accompanied by a link to the postwar article.

I looked up the Huks, it seems they were named for the fact that they were opposing the Japanese, but the 9 years of their postwar struggle was exclusively against their Western backed leaders, if I read it correctly. I think that at this point their motivation was no longer the same as their wartime motivation, so maybe too much of their postwar activity would be out of scope. I like the second style you present, it seems much more attractive.

I don't mind modern technologies so much, I have Jane's Fighting Ships 2005-2006 and Jane's Military Vehicles and Logistics 2006-2007 as well as a lot of other material about more recent defence procurements and the military balance in the world today, but my real interest is the period 1880-1920, really the golden age of motor vehicles, powered aeroplanes and modern ships and yachts. I am not an expert but I am good at legwork and sourcing - I use the opportunity to educate myself, and it should mean that my contributions are solidly sourced. David Finn 18:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Photo

Thanks for the encouraging words. This is what I posted to my talk page. Lighten up fellas. The name I submitted sure looked like a REAL name to me and let it go at that. It is a lovely photo that I used on my wikiHow account and decided to move over here. The photo came from Flickr and I liked it. Do YOU make time to share anything positive here, or are are you all sitting around waiting to "pounce" on the newbies? I did add the hyperlink showing where the image was found so anyone could search it out. Finally, I did some research and indeed this is a dying wiki. I wonder why... Mary Ash 16:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)