User talk:Wahib Frank

Thanks for coming to my talk page to help in writing a better encyclopedia!

Because my native language wasn't English and it's often easy to misunderstand the tone of brief comments made under time pressure by a slow typist, I apologise in advance if I sometimes appear brusque or unhelpful or less than conciliatory. (People who meet me in the flesh usually find me a friendly old codger).

Please call free to call me by my middle name of Frank (- everybody does in real life since the first and last names on my passport are invariably mangled by English speaking peoples).

Welcome

Tasks: start a new article • add basic, wanted or requested articles • add definitions • add metadata • edit new pages

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 Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, our help system and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via Twitter. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any administrator for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! --Ruth Ifcher 22:25, 17 April 2007 (CDT)W. Frank 19:43, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

Thank you for your welcome. I'll go and read http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Citizendium_Pilot:Start now before I get started.W. Frank 09:33, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

Henry the Navigator

Hi W. Frank, thank you for your help on Henry the Navigator. Regarding the question you made on the summary, yes sometimes I get a bit of a doubt about Afonso or Alfonso. The first is the Portuguese form and the second Spanish. What happens is that in English there is sometimes a tendency to use Spanish names to refer to Portuguese-related people and places (as in Cape Blanco/Cape Branco), I don't know why. In the Peter Russel biography about Henry he uses Afonso; Britannica [1] and Wikipedia use Afonso [2], so I think we can use Afonso too. --José Leonardo Andrade 10:24, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

Thank you for being so tolerant of my little cleanup - I think I'm of the generation that tends to spot piffling little trifles.

The English speaking peoples have never been famous as linguists, and this trend is likely to continue - although I am interested to see what happens in places like Singapore. Until and unless this particular Afonso/Alfonso becomes a household word in English, I think the choice you've made is probably the correct one.

It is strange that Spanish should be favoured - especially considering the ancient alliances with Portugal and ancient (and modern) enmities with Spain. W. Frank 07:31, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

Ireland

Good catch on the disambiguation page I created at Ireland. I just started here today - after two years at Wikipedia, it'll take me a while to get used to different naming conventions and suchlike. Regards, Anton Sweeney 19:36, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

I'll take the liberty of changing the relevant stubs on your user page if I may?

I hope we can co-operate in a more collegiate and congenial manner in trying to reflect the various referenced points of view in Citizendium articles - Ireland [the state(s) and the island] as article topics certainly have been prone to uncompromising and warring positions at WP - hopefully we can keep cooler heads. Feel free to pop in for a dram if you ever find yourself in Glasgow - I'm housebound right now. W. Frank 19:48, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the invite - I'm developing a taste for single malt Scotch (far superior to the vast majority of Irish whiskey!)

Actually, thinking about the naming of Ireland articles further - I'd rather neither of us did anything too hastily (no problem with the change of stub names, though).

Over on Wikipedia, here, you can see the endless "discussion" (its in the archives too!) over what article should go where when it comes to Ireland (the island) and Ireland (the state). The problem being that "Republic of Ireland" is officially a description of the state, which is officially named just "Ireland". The reason I picked the names I did here when creating Ireland as a dismbiguation page on CZ was to stave off that kind of interminable debate. I'm working on articles at the moment for both the island and the state (as you've noticed), so before moving them from my sandbox to mainspace when I have them in a fit condition, maybe its something we should talk about on CZ:Geography Workgroup so we can head off potential trouble before it arises? We effectively have a clean slate here on CZ, so a bit of planning and thought now will save a lot of time and debate later, hopefully. Regards, Anton Sweeney 20:14, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

I fully concur! W. Frank 20:17, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

Just noticed your 'PS' when I went to save. I wasn't aware of a change in the status of the "Republic of Ireland" being a description - I'll check it out at a more reasonable hour (work in the morning!), but if you have any links you could point me at, that'd be great. Regards, Anton Sweeney 20:14, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

Hi W. Please see the discussion here. Regards, Anton Sweeney 06:28, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

Timestamps

Will it stamp this with the CDT or UTC stamp? W. Frank 11:10, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

W. - if you click on the "my preferences" link on the menu, you will see a "Date and time" tab. An option there lets you specify to use your browser's time, and you can also put in an offset for BST. That should work and give you local timestamps. Anton Sweeney 11:16, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

Hmm. Apparently not :-( Anton Sweeney 11:18, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

Balky

Thanks for your cleanup work on John Logie Baird. Balky is what was meant; though the usage may be more common in the UK, it's known in the US as well:

balky. adj. balk·i·er, balk·i·est. 1) Given to stopping and refusing to go on: a balky horse; a balky client; 2)Difficult to operate or start: a balky switch; a balky engine. (American Heritage Dictionary).

Russell Potter 12:24, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for that, Russell - and apologies for being lazy with the dictionary!W. Frank 23:47 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Signing posts

With reference to [[3]] please remember to sign your talk page posts - I sometimes forget myself. Derek Harkness 12:54, 29 April 2007 (CDT)