Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:06, 16 November 2005

Welcome to Misplaced Pages!

Hello Berndd11222, welcome to Misplaced Pages!

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If you feel a change is needed, feel free to make it yourself! Misplaced Pages is a wiki, so anyone (yourself included) can edit any article by following the Edit this page link. Misplaced Pages convention is to be bold and not be afraid of making mistakes. If you're not sure how editing works, have a look at How to edit a page, or try out the Sandbox to test your editing skills.

If, for some reason, you are unable to fix a problem yourself, feel free to ask someone else to do it. Misplaced Pages has a vibrant community of contributors who have a wide range of skills and specialties, and many of them would be glad to help. As well as the wiki community pages there are IRC Channels, where you are more than welcome to ask for assistance.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me on my talk page. Thanks and happy editing, Alf 16:33, 28 August 2005 (UTC).

WW2 Casualties

Hello Berndd11222, and thanks for your message!

You asked me for a review of your points on the discussion page for WW2 casualties. This is sadly not my area of expertise, but I have however posted a message called "New casualties numbers?" on the discussion page, where I give my recommendations. Good luck!

Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 07:00, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

More WW2 Casualties

Hi! I see you have posted well documented casualties numbers on Talk:World War II casualties for a long time. Thanks for that! You seem to have a good grasp of the topic, and I want to encourage you to make updates to the article as well. Just Be bold and dive right in and edit! And if someone changes the numbers without explaining why, just revert them. It's an important article, and we shouldn't let unsourced and unexplained changes slip in. Many numbers are of course uncertain, but we need to at least be consistent in what to include as war casualties (i.e. not natural deaths), and as long as we cite sources (like you do) we should be safe. If you have any questions about this or need help in editing, just ask me. Thanks again. Shanes 12:26, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi again. We shouldn't have copyrighted material anywhere on wikipedia. I don't have the book you're referring to, but if it's an obvious copy and paste from that book, we should remove it or rewrite it. Though, I'm not sure how serious it is to copy factual numbers from a source. I mean, if Italy lost 5,272 planes in the war, we can't change that or leave it out just because the number is in a book ;-). But we should of course cite the source. I'll put it in.

Regarding learning how to edit, the best way is really to just dive in. Start editing and learn by doing. Editing tables can be a bit tricky sometimes, but if you make mistakes it's easy for others to fix or in worst case just to revert it. Shanes 19:29, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

No, nobody took it down... Did you have a problem accessing it? Anyway, I can access it fine now, so it's still there. At the moment nobody has edited it since I added the Ellis ref you mentioned yesterday. Btw, "the folks at wikipedia" are you, me and everybody else editing pages here! Shanes 18:11, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Your updates to World War II casualties

Hi! Just a heads up to your updates to World War II casualties! Based on your extensive documentations and comments on talk I'm sure they're good. But you might want to fill in the Edit summary field when you make an edit and put in a comment there along the lines of "See talk", or some such comment so that other's realise you're not just making the numbers up ;-). I know you aren't, but other people with the article in their watch-list or people just monitoring recently changed articles could get suspicious when they see major changes made without an edit summary. And it's also considered good style to make them. But, anyway, thanks again for diving in and fixing up the page! Shanes 01:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Re: Footnotes

Ok, no problem. I can fix that last glitch with the layout on Yugoslavia and the total numbers. If you aren't fixing them as we speak, that is. But I'll stay away from editing the page for a while in case you want to make further chages. It's so anoying to get edit-conflicts when editing a page like that, so it's better to let one person edit at a time ;-). Thanks again. Shanes 01:55, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Great! Looks good. Though there seems to be a typo in the numbers on China. The military and civilian deaths don't add up to 19,600,000. Should the total there read 19,100,000? Shanes 03:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

The Polish footnote

Just a quick question about the Polish footnote. It says:

"http://www.projectinposterum.org/ Go to section entitled- European War Casualties."

But I can't find any section entitled "European War Casualties" on that page. Am I just missing something? Shanes 02:01, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I found it. It was on a page back there. I changed the URL to point directly to that page so it's easyer to find. Shanes 02:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

WW2 casualties

I think some more narrative prose is a good idea. The main tables should still be there for easy lookup, but the topic is complex, often controversial, and different sources have different numbers. And all this could/should be elaborated on and explained in the article, yes. Many people will come to the page with numbers on their "own" country that they have learned or read, and we should have some text explaining more thorowly what the numbers we list include. And that's probably best done outside tables and in addition to just simple footnotes.

Maybe we could also have separate casualty sections for the different (major) countries, with text and tables where there could be made room for lower and upper bounds on numbers and space for citing different sources and their numbers. Not so much that I expect you to find and look up every different estimate, but there are many people editing and there could be a value in having room for those comming here later with different sources to add to the information. I don't know.

But I really like your work so far. It was about time that we got some well-sourced numbers in this article. Well done! Shanes 09:58, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, as I said above, maybe separate sections for each country. A bit like how you listed the data on the article's talk-page. Giving room to list differing numbers and some text explaining sources, differences and how and to what degree they are uncertain. Shanes 11:34, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The link

You had just mis-typed the last "]" as a ")". Fixed and reinserted now. I labeled link as "R J Rummel's Statistics of Democide", edit and adjust as you see it fit. Shanes 15:13, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Soviet Losses

Sorry for late answer, been away. Regarding your note on my talk-page, I haven't argued against your numbers. As long as you cite sources for them, I'm happy ;-). And if anyone makes changes to the numbers without citing a source, you can safely revert them with a comment in the edit summary asking for a source. I'll try to keep an eye out for undocumented changes as well.

But maybe it would be better if we continued discussions over this article on Talk:World War II casualties so it's more available to others who maybe want to join in the discussion. But if you just need help with something or have a question, please continue to ask me directly as you've done. Keep up the good work. You really seem to sit on alot of information on this topic, and it's great that you want to share it with the rest of us. Shanes 08:12, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I reposted your comment on the Soviet losses there. Hope it was ok. Maybe more people have comments/sugestions. Shanes 08:25, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Excel file

If it's a file you made and there are no copyright issues with it, maybe you can upload it to wikipedia? It works just as when uploading images. Then we can link to the file from the article. If this is not to your liking, let me know, and I'll give you my e-mail so you can mail it to me instead and I'll have a look at it. And good luck with the September financial statement, you hard working American ;-). Shanes 12:02, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Notes and references

Yes, splitting the notes and references sounds like a good idea. Then you don't have to list a ref more than ones, and you can just refer to that ref-listing wherever you need to above in the article and notes, see example here. I think you can use Cyrillic letters to specify a ref, but you should write it with western letters, too. Maybe put the cyrillic in brackets ( ). Shanes 07:10, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Had a peek now, and it's looking good I must say. Seems like you're really getting the hang of editing wikipedia now. Large tables with intervined footnotes and references is about as complex as editing here gets. So, you're on your way to become a wikipedia editing-expert now ;-). Shanes 06:59, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Re: Asian data WW2 Casualties

There are various projects and groups of people here organized by contry. Regarding Japanese, the Misplaced Pages:Japan-related topics notice board should be a good place to get in touch with people speeking Japanese. And you can find links to other notice boards for other countries/languages on Misplaced Pages:Regional notice boards. I see there's Korean and Chinese there, and some others. Don't know how active all of those boards are, so maybe you'll have to wait a day or two for people to notice or reply, and maybe there aren't that many able to respond to your requests, but it's worth a try! Shanes 15:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Protection of userpages

No, a regular user can't protect any wikipedia-page from editing. Not even his own userpage. Administrators (I am one) can protect pages, and do so now and then if a page is really heavily vandalised, but are encouraged to not keep pages protected for long. I see your page hasn't been vandalised yet, and I doubt you'll have that as much of a problem anytime soon, but if you for any reason at any time want to have it locked from editing, I can do it for you. But then you'll not be able to edit it yourself, so it's not something I'd recomend or think you want. Shanes 14:35, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Netherlands East Indies in WW2

Hi Barney. As far as Misplaced Pages goes, I have done a lot of work on ABDACOM, and others have covered the sea battles of 1941-42 fairly well, although there is room for improvement. We have almost nothing on the land battles of 1941-42 in the NEI. I lack the time to go to libraries and do real research of the literature at the moment. The only significant source on the web for the 1941-42 period is L.Klemen's website http://www.geocities.com/dutcheastindies/

As for web resources 1942-45, the civilian situation is not well-covered, although there is a lot on the Allied POWs and the Borneo campaign of 1945. I did find this Library of Congress article: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query2/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+id0029) This page from the International Institute for Social History: http://www.iisg.nl/w3vlindonesia/ This private page: http://members.tripod.com/~leavis/WWII.htm And this book: Bibliography on Japanese occupation of Indonesia/Indoneshia Nihon senryoki bunken mokuroku (by) Takahashi Muneo, et.al. Tokyo, Ryukei Shosa, 1996. 386p., 27cm. ISBN 4844784544. Grant65 (Talk) 00:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

BTW, User:Dtasripin also has a strong interest in these matters. Grant65 (Talk) 02:14, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Re: Sandbox

There's really nothing wrong in making multiple incremental updates. Sometimes it's even encouraged, if the updates are of different kinds and need their separate edit summary. But, yeah, sometimes it's better to try out the edits in a sandbox. And a tips regarding that: The wikipedia:sandbox is often crowded with lots of people doing experiments and deleting what's in there, so many people chose to use their own sandbox. They just create a page as a sub-page to their userpage, like e.g. User:Berndd11222/My Sandbox and do their own edits undisturbed there. It might be a smart place for you to do tests and experiments with tables, data or whatever you're working on at any time. Shanes 08:32, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

MY SANDBOX

The actual population transfer included about 7 million from former eastern Germany, 1.5 million from Poland in the borders of 1938 (total of 5.075 million from new borders), 2.5 million from Czechoslovakia, around 2 million from the Soviet Union, 240,000 from Hungary, 300,000 from Romania, and another 1 million from other Eastern European regions.

Heh, I think you misunderstood my note about a personal sandbox. You shouldn't use yopur talk-page as a sandbox ;-). Just click that red link above, and start editing there instead. Shanes 11:51, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

OK THANKS--Berndd11222 13:40, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Re: Copyright

I'm afraid I'm not an expert in copyright issues, but in general copying contents of a book or journal is not permitted. But there are exceptions. If it's just a short quote, it's ok when you give proper credit. And also the copyright laws are different from country to country. I definitely don't know much about Russian law, but reading Misplaced Pages:Copyrights#Russia:_copyright_exemptions there seems to be an opening in that "Reports about events and facts, of informative characte" are not subject to opyrights. If you think the source in question falls under this, then I guess copying stated facts from the source will be fine.

But in general, just copying 3 pages from a book and inserting it in an article is not recomended, simply because it makes for a bad encyclopedia article to contain such an extensive quote. But maybe you just meant to copy it to a talk-page or a page outside the article to refer to when debating facts and numbers?

I'm sorry that I can't give you a clear yes or no. I think I'll just ask you to use your own judgement and common sense here. Does the source contain a copyright-notice? Do you think the owner/publisher of the work will object if he sees part of it republished here? My own stand on issues like this is to stay away from grey areas, but I'll let you be the judge on this here. Worst come we can remove it if it turns out to be a copyright infridgement. But if you have a suspicion of it being under copyright, then don't copy it. But rewriting a translation in your own words, is fine. Shanes 21:11, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

They are two links

One to Spiegel the other to Gazeta Wyborcza. --Molobo 19:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

The link has been corrected to free one. --Molobo 20:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

No not from Gdansk

I am from Upper Silesia.--Molobo 14:45, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Re: WW 2 casualties table cleanup

No probs man, I hope it was to your satisfaction. After all, I have to contribute with something when so MUCH work has been put into that page. I am truly amazed! And considering your comment that "I need to read those rules on formatting", I have to say the following: tables are f*cking b*tches! But if you want to know more about various stuff, here are some useful links I have copied from my own user page (maybe you know them already, but nevertheless here they are):

• Misplaced Pages help forum - The "Village Pump" - here you can get (almost) immediate help from fellow wikipedians
• Tables help
• Basic Editing help
• More editing help
• Images & other
• How to write a great article
• Help pages
• Manual of Style
• Misplaced Pages IRC channels
• Tutorial

Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 11:28, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

How to revert a page

Hi Berndd! Since you seem to be experiencing vandalism, here is a page which explains how to revert to a previous version. Maybe you know it, but here it is nevertheless:

Misplaced Pages:Revert

Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 15:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Re:Page Expulsion Germans

I believe that only sources, sources and more sources can stop the revert war plaguing such discussions. Besides, I was amazed that almost none of the related articles have any sources. This situation creates a fertile ground for POV pushers. In other news, you may be interested in this nomination: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_adminship/Halibutt. I think Halibutt was always one of the more moderate and reasonable voices in the related discussions. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)