User talk:RobertG

Archive to 31st October 2005
Archive to 23rd March 2006
Archive to 27th May 2006

Please post new messages to the bottom of my talk page (click here). I will respond on yours unless you ask me not to; please respond on mine so that I get notified via a new message box as I tend not to watch other people's user pages.

Please remember the five pillars and, in particular, please be civil.

Hello!

Hi Robert. I'm wondering if I can ask you a few questions about the wikipedia community. I would like to be more involved in working together with other editors, but it's strange, I'm not quite sure what's going on in the big picture. I know there's a music portal and a composers project and some other things, but I'm not sure if they're especially active or how I should best contribute. Of course, there's plenty to write and edit - I'd just like to feel a little more connected to everyone else, like we're working together instead of next to each other. I also notice you're a part of Esperanza. I'm really interested in that as well, but again, unsure where or how to start exactly. I like the idea of positive cooperation and kindness and working towards goals as a group. Do you have any advice? Thanks a lot. Best wishes --MarkBuckles 07:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Project composers

Hello. Is there a consensus I missed? I think you will find that it is not Wikipedia policy to link to project pages from the main article space, and I expect your links will all have to be removed. Best wishes, RobertG ♬ talk 12:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Meladina"

Thanks for the information. (Meladina 12:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC))

So far I put the logos only to the articles I've been personally involved. I don'd mind to cut the link to the project, but I like the idea to leave the logo at the bottom of the articles linked to the paternal article Composer. What is your opinion? (Meladina 12:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC))

Another opinion

Here is another opinion (Meladina 12:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)):

File:Russian Opera logo1.jpg This Russian Opera article is part of the Opera Project

It can be placed at the bottom of the article. (Meladina 16:40, 29 May 2006 (UTC))

Nice! It would be good to have more of these for other countries' operas, maybe a Valkyrie or Papageno for German opera, Mephisto for French, Butterfly for Italian... (And a more distinctive one for the Opera Project userbox rather than just the boring old Wikipedia globe.) I'm not volunteering - I'm hopeless at graphics - but I'm sure there are more imaginative people around here. --GuillaumeTell 21:44, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Panufnik

Excellent expansion of the article. Warmest applause. Tim riley 21:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Cricket - All Rounders

I'm an American wondering about the skills in cricket. In baseball, pitchers are seldom good hitters. That is mainly because pitchers only play in every fourth or fifth game, so they do not acquire the batting skills that only come with regular playing. Occasionally there will be a "good-hitting pitcher" such as the famous Babe Ruth, but even then, their hitting isn't very useful because of their infrequent presence in the game. I'm wondering why, in cricket, there seems to be a similar separation of bowling and batting skills. Can you help? Lou Sander 14:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. Baseball also has the phenomenon of a pitcher coming to bat and being totally bewildered. Part of the strategy of the game involves substitutions of players in a way that avoids pitchers having to come up to bat. In the American League (one of the two "Major Leagues," pitchers do not bat at all. Instead, a specialist player, known as a "designated hitter" bats in their place. The DH never takes the field -- he only bats and runs.

There ARE a few cases where exceptionally good players might switch from pitcher to general purpose player. Most of them take place in the lower leagues, and I think that most involve pitchers who aren't quite good enough deciding to try their luck as everyday players.

It is part of baseball lore that good pitching will beat good hitting, so good pitchers are prized players. It's also part of the lore that no skill in sport is as difficult as hitting a baseball thrown by a good pitcher. So good batters are also prized. The other major skill is fielding (catching and throwing), but in general it isn't as highly valued as pitching or hitting.

I guess baseball's catcher is analogous to cricket's wicket guy (name?), in that he's got a specialized defensive skill that is used in the vicinity of the batter. Lou Sander 01:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Grand piano link

Dear RobertG, Re: grand piano I.Q. test link

Since I am unfamiliar with your choice of acronym "SEO" tool, kindly redefine as this link is an extremely good resource on the subject (in my estimation), but I don't know what exactly you're asking. Kindly expound so we can get this back up. Thanks- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by My2cents (talk • contribs) 8 June 2006.

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your very thoughtful and considerate clarification (and education). Search engines hadn't even really dawned on me one way or another, to be truthful. I am curious though as to why search engines picking up links from Wikipedia would necessarily be a bad thing?

Anyway, I wish to solicit your assistance again, if I may. There is a user (rainwarrior) for whom invariably and strangely edits/reverts almost anything which differs with his own personal views. As such, I and others for whom I am acquainted have virtually stopped trying to contribute, out of sheer frustration.

In this particular instance and being you are an admin., rainwarrios seems somehow reluctant to modify your last edit (at least as of this writing). I suspect had you not "jumped in", it would be gone too.

I'd like to make a suggestion for a slight change to the text for the link being discussed, assuming you may be be inclined to agree. The link "label a diagram of the piano action" is actually part of 4 different "quizzes", if you will. Each one refers to different physical elements of the piano. I understand these scripts to have initially been a cooperative effort between the host website and a university professor for his music theory students. It was later expanded to include all 4 "panes". My feeling is that if the link were called something a bit more descriptive, it may better explain its content. Perhaps something like:

"locating & identifying the parts of a grand piano"?     

Your thoughts, help and suggestions are truly appreciated. Again, many thanks for your kind input and support. I thought about just doing this myself, but felt it more practical to seek your views in this, rather than having edits randomly reverted by another user (present company excluded) again.

My2cents 03:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

G Patrick Maxwell

Was the image that you removed properly sourced for copyright purposes? It was added back. I don't know, the problem may have been corrected.MollyBloom 15:19, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Openers

Hi, I noticed you edited my minor change to the Jack Hobbs article. You did say that "being an opener is not a handicap". While I can't deny that, of the list you gave in the edit summary, all of them were openers and have among the highest run aggregates, surely you're not claiming that if we compare the averages of openers and averages of number 3s, say - (I hesitate to say "average score as opener" and "average score as number 3") we'll find that the first is higher than the second? I fancy the second will be considerably higher than the first. Aggregates are perhaps misleading, as they take into account the longevity of the player's career, and it is possible that openers tend to have longer careers perhaps because of some correlation between the skills required and the time for which those skills are possessed. Just a thought. Hornplease 09:03, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Here's another not-quite-directly-comparable cricket/baseball similarity: In baseball, the man who bats first is called the "leadoff hitter." He is typically chosen for his skill at getting on base, either by hitting or by being walked. It's not so much that he scores runs through his skills, but that he gets on base so that the skills of others will advance him to score runs. Batters #2-#4 are more chosen for their ability to get hits that will advance the runner(s) ahead of them. #4 is called the "clean-up hitter," and is usually a man who hits a lot of doubles and home runs. If there's at least one man on base when he bats, his job is to get the man to score. Lou Sander 14:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

MYOB

hello robert, mind your own business in future. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Joshuarooney (talk • contribs) 19 June 2006.

wow. . . i guess that's what they create wikistress meters for. . . MarkBuckles 18:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

And also

No worries about the rvv on your page. Also, I wanted to say thanks for your thoughtful comments you left on my talk page. I think it's really easy to be rude to people when you never see them, and when you're talking they don't even get a chance to talk back. But I really admire the pillar of assuming good faith that the community aspires to. And the fact that the whole project even exists is a testament to a lot of positive effort and care. I think there are a lot of really 'good' editors out there. And luckily a lot of kind ones too, even if many can be flippant or overly antagonistic sometimes. I'm enjoying my work here so far.

Some of the project pages, like tthe composers project, and even the music project, seem to be kind of dead. Is there anything to be done about that? I suppose maybe projects vitalize when they reach a critical mass of active users.

Best wishes -- MarkBuckles 18:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Edits

Robert,

Sorry, I'm new to this Wikipedia thing, so I didn't realize I had to comment on my edits. I will say, though, that the music (theory) entries are quite a mess, almost to the point where they're really beyond repair without extensive revisions and additions.

As it stands, it would be better to have one entry--"music"--with a link to either the New Grove Online or, at the very least, a used copy of the "New Harvard Dictionary of Music" listed on amazon.com. Not only do many historical and, worse, technical errors (and omissions) exist with regard to music theory, but there is an overtly "popular"--dare I use the phrase "academically exoteric"?--slant to the entries. The fact that many people apparently use Wikipedia as a(n initial?) research tool is an unmitigated crime in this case.

I'll fix the more disturbing entries as I find them, but the adventurous overhaul about which I was contemplating will have to wait for a more dedicated Wikipedia soul....or at least someone who is both competent and unemployed.

LPRcycle--B.A. Music, Columbia University; A.M. Music Theory, University of Chicago —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lprcycle (talk • contribs) 22 June 2006.

G. Patrick Maxwell

The photo of this man is back on the article. You deleted it previously for copyright violation. I do not want to delete it, because the author of the article (and the one who posted it) is vitriolic towards me. We are already having an argument, because he is deleting whatever he does not like on the article -- eg anything that is not his POV on this man. Would you help at least with the photo? Thanks.MollyBloom 03:57, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

that's fine. I didn't know which is why I asked. I did not delete it, but reverted to a previous version of the article. The author is not listening to other editors, but just deleting. Therefore, I had reverted the article. I don't care if he uses the image, if it is fair use.MollyBloom 15:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

List of first-class cricket records

Re Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cricket#First-class_records, the exact problem is that the Association of cricket statisticians and scorers have given/taken away fc status to/from some old matches. This has changed the records for some old cricketers. The article currently contains bits of both.

According to Cricketarchive and Cricinfo (which follow ACS), Jack Hobbs has 61760 runs and 199 hundreds. As per the conventional figures used by Wisden 2006, he has 61,237 runs and 197 hundreds (p.278 and p.284).

But in the Wiki article, he has 61,237 runs and 199 hundreds. We should avoid such mixups. Tintin (talk) 10:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Since all the player articles use Cricketarchive/Cricinfo, it is the more logical choice but it might better to drop a word in [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cricket to see if the others have any different opinions. Tintin (talk) 10:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

A short Esperanzial update

As you may have gathered, discussions have been raging for about a week on the Esperanza talk page as to the future direction of Esperanza. Some of these are still ongoing and warrant more input (such as the idea to scrap the members list altogether). However, some decisions have been made and the charter has hence been amended. See what happened. Basically, the whole leadership has had a reshuffle, so please review the new, improved charter.

As a result, we are electing 4 people this month. They will replace JoanneB and Pschemp and form a new tranche A, serving until December. Elections will begin on 2006-07-02 and last until 2006-07-09. If you wish to run for a Council position, add your name to the list before 2006-07-02. For more details, see Wikipedia:Esperanza/June 2006 elections.

Thanks and kind, Esperanzial regards, —Celestianpower ^háblame 16:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

thank you

RobertG--

Thank you for your support. I shall contribute more information to the "Saint Francois d'Assise" article in the next week or so. Any further information I provide will come from an extensive study on the opera (researched with scholarly sources, of course) which I penned in college. I shall also consult the pages you've suggested to me.

Thank you again. --Mungobuh 09:19, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

RobotG

Your signature with timestamp

Hi, I understand you are the operator of the bot "RobotG". The mediation cabal has recieved a mediation request pertaining to this bot. The user GPSpilot has expressed concern that your bot is deleting categories from articles with the result of removing those categories from wikipedia. He also has suggested this has been done without prior community consultation as to the suitibility of the categories especially via the usual categories for removal discussion. I am not taking sides at this point and i have no power to stop this bot however you may wish to consider suspending use of the bot until this gets sorted out. Perhaps you wouldn't mind explaining what is going on and putting this users mind at rest. The mediation discusssion can be found here: Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-06-26_A_bot_on_a_rampage.

I will accept the mediation of the case for now and pass it on or close it as is necessary, if you need to contact me you are welcome to use my userpage.

Thanks for your time -- Tmorton166 (Errant Emote)  ^talk 21:27, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually scratch all that it was just a case of the user getting the wrong end of the stick! Sorry to have bothered you. -- Tmorton166 (Errant Emote)  ^talk 07:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi thanks for that comment, I do try. No there is no need to do anything now, I am just waiting for permission from the submitting user to close the request (merely as a courtesy), I was sure there was a simple misunderstanding involved but its always worth going through the process.

If you want to make a comment on the mediation page - for completeness sake then feel free but don't worry too much -- Tmorton166 (Errant Emote)  ^talk 09:11, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey Robert, no problem, I'm glad it was resolved quickly. Cheers, Mak (talk) 15:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Canyons & gorges

Hi - can you let me know if you plan to replicate this change down through the category tree? Thanks SP-KP 18:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

RobotG (→:Category:Members of the Privy Council to :Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom

This hasn't been thought out very well has it. A very large number of those in this category were alive BEFORE the United Kingdom even existed. eg John Baker (English statesman) Jooler 10:17, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The first thing you should do is stop your bot. I'll add more in a sec. Jooler 10:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay there are several thousand people listed is this category who have been privy councilors for the Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Ireland, Kingdom of Scotland, Kingdom of Great Britain United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If there were separate catergories for all of these hisotical states of the British isles then there would be a lot of overlapping with people being in several categories. The only contention for 'privy councillor' is with Sweden and there are 27 people listed as privy councillors. The category move was badly thought out and the support of only three people and should be reversed or at least put to the vote again. Jooler 10:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't other Commonwealth Realms have their own Privy Councils too? e.g. Canada, Australia etc. David Underdown 10:47, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

They have an Executive Council (Commonwealth countries)- Canada has a privy council (so I am mistaken about only Sweden), where disambiguation is neccessary, but the UK/English etc.. privy council is by far the most significant and is the primary topic. It is anachornistic to have Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset etc.. listed under Privy Council of the UK. Jooler 10:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I stopped RobotG for now pending agreement of a way forward, but we currently have a split category: the worst outcome! I've left a suggestion at User talk:Jooler#Privy councillors. --RobertG ♬ talk 11:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)