Billmckern (talk) 18:38, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alex Shih^Talk 12:47, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

	The Original Barnstar
	Good job on all the pictures for New York congressional district members. Keep up the good work! Jamo58 (talk) 00:11, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	Truly impressed with all the pictures you are uploading! Keep it up!!!! Jamo58 (talk) 23:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nyttend (talk) 16:02, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be all right with you if I nominated your article of Edward H. Ripley at Did you know? — Maile (talk) 01:21, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

By all means, feel free.

Billmckern (talk) 01:22, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion at Talk:List of United States congressional districts related to style of new district-level maps for the post-2013 United States congressional districts. Your input would be appreciated. Thank you. --7partparadigm ^talk 02:24, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The DYK project (nominate) 16:02, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Wow. Did you check the Page view stats for this being on today's front page? Impressive. — Maile (talk) 01:22, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Those stats are impressive. I noticed that several people jumped in and made edits to the Edward H. Ripley page, too -- some of which were quickly reversed.

Billmckern (talk) 01:27, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, alien abductions and other fun stuff. They really ought to protect these articles while they're on the main page. — Maile (talk) 01:33, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

	The Original Barnstar
	For your work on expanding Kenneth J. Gray. Great job! Connormah (talk) 21:27, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Connormah (talk) -- Thanks very much. I keep meaning to go back and add details about Gray's family, but I haven't gotten to that yet. I'll try to follow up soon.

Billmckern (talk) 17:00, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I just read the Find-A-Grave stuff, and I have no reason to doubt his brevet. But the article claim is that the 5th Cav produced 12 generals, and Royall doesn't belong on that list. He never operated as a general and never had a general's billet. He got a brevet just as he was retiring, perhaps after he retired. I'd have to assert that such a claim (of 12 generals) is original research and is not supported by reliable secondary sources. Ordinarily I'd say that such a claim was simple calculation, but if an editor must jump through hoops to claim the fellow (a noble and fearsome fellow, I'll grant) belonged in that rarefied list of generals, I'd say we're pushing it. I want the name removed. It doesn't belong. The subject does deserve his own pagespace, however. I put the redlink on the ACW task force's to do list. Do appreciate your speedy reply. BusterD (talk) 12:48, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, find-a-grave doesn't meet the test for reliable sources. It's basically a crowdsourced forum, but very useful. The text from the find-a-grave entry reads like army register, so there's probably a better place to source this fact. The gravestone itself certainly may be accurate (although as a graveyard walker myself, I've seen embelishments on military tombstones--at West Point, no less). BusterD (talk) 12:56, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

BusterD (talk) -- The line in the article doesn't say "operated as a general and had a general's billet." It says "produced 12 generals." In that context, having William B. Royall on the list is accurate.

I would think that a military rank chiseled into a gravestone at Arlington National Cemetery, and a photo of that gravestone are about as good as it gets in terms of definitive proof, whether the photo appears on Find A Grave or elsewhere. There are in fact additional references. This edition of the Army-Navy Journal refers to Royall as "General." This edition of the Monroeville Breeze (Monroeville, Indiana) contains a death notice that explicitly states "Brevet Brigadier General." This edition of the Daily Democrat from Huntington, Indiana also contains a death notice and refers to "Brevet Brigadier General." Colonel Richard Irving Dodge: The Life and Times of a Career Army Officer by Wayne R. Kime also indicates that Royall received the rank of Brevet Brigadier General.

It doesn't matter to me one way or the other whether Royall is included in the article on the 5th Cav. But you deleted it because it lacked a reference. I was just trying to help by providing a reference. There are in fact plenty of references on this point, as I've indicated here.

Billmckern (talk) 13:50, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Billmckern,

a question has been posted in the helpdesk with concerns about end date of congressional terms [1]. Please stop all editing concerning this topic until the issue has been resolved. I have started a central discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics#US Congressional term end dates. Please post your arguments there so people can discuss them. Please do not edit (concerning this topic) until this has been resolved. Any editing can cause edit wars on a dozen articles. A situation noone wants.

Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 10:42, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would respectfully ask that you please self-revert all the edits where you changed March 4 to March 3. No editor should ever unilaterally make a change to a huge number of articles without first starting a proper discussion and achieving consensus from the community. Czoal (talk) 20:47, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:10, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Billmckern - The John Durkin article is really shaping up nicely from where it was several months ago. Thank you for your recent work improving it.
Regards --- Professor JR (talk) 20:23, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Billmckern for all your editing and great work on the Henry Wilson bio article. I have been working on Grant's first Vice President Schuyler Colfax's bio article. If you are interested you are welcome to make the Colfax bio article better too. Cmguy777 (talk) 19:13, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Cmguy777: -- Thanks for the kind words. Let me see what I can do on the Colfax page. I still have a couple of ideas for the Wilson page, too -- there were Harper's or Leslie's pictures of him in a bed in the Vice President's office after his final stroke, as well as pictures of his lying in state in Washington and Boston. If I can find good copies I'll add them -- I think they'd be a nice finishing touch.

Billmckern (talk) 20:50, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Billmckern. Yes. I do too. I think Wilson deserves a Good Article nomination also. As a Vice President and Senator he seemed like a good guy, except for the Crédit Mobilier scandal fiasco...I wander if Grant would have had a better second term if Wilson was healthy...Thanks for looking into the Schuyler Colfax article. He is intersting person too. Unlike Wilson Colfax was always overshadowed by Crédit Mobilier and another scandal. Cmguy777 (talk) 21:37, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Billmckern, I see you're in the process of some edits to Colleen Bell—and I like what you've done in the first one!

I'm not sure if you've seen this, but I've been working for a few months to propose improvements to the article, section-by-section. Most recently, I'd offered a new version of what was previously called Political career, and had some interest from other editors, but they've been busy on other projects. You can find the open request on the Talk page; I've even even prepared a full draft of the article in my user space. If you like what you see, would you consider using as much as you like from it?

As you will also see on the article's Talk page, it's important to note: I have a financial conflict of interest here: I am working on behalf of Ms. Bell through my firm, Beutler Ink, and SKD Knickerbocker. I will not make any direct edits myself, so I'm looking for others' input and assistance in making the changes if they seem reasonable. Do you mind taking a look? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:33, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@WWB Too: -- I had seen your note on the Politics talk page, which is what caused me to look at the page for Colleen Bell. I'll try this weekend to look over what you wrote, check current events news, etc. and see what else I can find to improve this article.

Billmckern (talk) 19:01, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, I'm glad you saw my post! To briefly bring you up to speed: I've already had editors help update the Early life and education and Producing career sections, as well as the photo in the infobox. The next steps for me were to see about having what was called the Political career section rewritten and creating an Ambassadorship section, since the current article only dealt with the nomination process and nothing about her time on the job. Then Personal life (although it would be very minor) and finally the intro. Let me know if you have any questions. Feedback is welcome. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:26, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Bill, I added the "vague" tag to the section on Dachau concentration camp#Killing of camp guards, with the explanatory comment "Non-U.S. civilians are not subject to the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, and crimes committed by civilians are not covered under the Geneva Conventions". Your clarification " Many guards were also killed by the liberated prisoners and not U.S. soldiers, which would have made prosecuting soldiers more complex. " doesn't really address the concern I raised. The concentration camp inmates were not covered by the same military codes and laws that the Allied soldiers were under, so Patton's actions could in no way have been justified by the inmates killing of the guards. Perhaps "vague" was not the best tag to use, because the issue was whether the internees' actions made prosecution of the soldiers actions "more complex". I don't think it really did. I'd appreciate your view on this. Thanks. N0TABENE (talk) 00:31, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@N0TABENE: -- It would have been harder to prosecute the soldiers if the evidence wasn't clear that they had committed the killings. If there were courts-martial, and the soldiers blamed the prisoners, but the prisoners blamed the soldiers, how could a jury find the soldiers guilty? That's the complexity of the issue. If that's not clear in the article, I can try to make it more so.

Billmckern (talk) 01:10, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Billmckern, Thanks for you reply. I wasn’t aware that there was confusion as to who was being held responsible for the killing of the guards, and hadn’t heard that rationale before. The specifics of the court-martial proceedings for the members of the 45nd ID that Patton dismissed were pretty well documented as you probably know, including photos of the SS soldiers being lined up for a firing squad by the U.S. soldiers. If you haven’t seen it, there was a good article in the Boston Globe reporting on the declassified military report from 2001 that is archived here: [2]. Patton’s rationale for summarily dismissing the court-martial charges and destroying some of the records is not clearly explained in any record I’ve seen. I’m just wondering if it should be included in this article (the comment about making the decision to prosecute the U.S. soldiers based on some guards being killed by internees being more complex) making some equivalent rationalization between the soldiers’ actions covered under military law, and the internees acting individually out of revenge and not covered by the same codes. Eisenhower and several modern historians quoted in the Boston Globe article do consider the actions of the soldiers to have been a breach of international law, regardless of the actions of any of the camp internees. Further, the responsibility of the internees for the deaths isn’t mentioned in the Wikipedia article Dachau liberation reprisals and I think the 2 sections should comport with each other. Maybe they should just be merged? Personally, I think the statement about the internees making the decision more complex should be deleted, since the argument that the soldiers could blame the internees was never actually made. I appreciate your considering this. Thank again. N0TABENE (talk) 15:18, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@N0TABENE: -- I don't know if this line needs to be included at all. I was just trying to make it more precise so as to remove the "vague" tag.

Another way to approach this decision not to prosecute US soldiers is that there were widely varying accounts from the available witnesses -- some said the US soldiers killed the guards without provocation. Some said the prisoners did it without provocation. Some said the guards had been detained and tried to run away or fight their way out, so the US soldiers had no choice but to open fire. The number of guards killed also varies widely from version to version -- anywhere from 30 to almost 400. To me, these widely varying accounts also means that attempting to prosecute soldiers for killing guards would have been "complex" to day the least -- if there's no agreement on the basic facts of what happened, how effectively can you prosecute someone for having done it?

The most readily available reference I found to explain that idea is Access to History for the IB Diploma: The Second World War and the Americas, 1933-45. If we wanted to go down this road, I suspect I could find additional references.

Billmckern (talk) 15:36, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bill, Thanks again. I have some concerns about the secondary reference you mention. If you could do me a favor and review the original transcript of the testimony of the soldiers involved in the killings https://teaching.cs.uml.edu/~heines/secretwar/GlobeSecretHistory/index5_transcript.shtml. It’s pretty clear the charge that the surrendered SS guards were escaping was false based on the testimony of U.S. soldiers there. It’s difficult and long reading. I just don’t see any reason to confuse the charges against the soldiers with the possible arguments that the internees may have been involved. You check out the references I mentioned and I’ll look at yours, and we’ll talk more. Have a nice weekend. N0TABENE (talk) 18:33, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@N0TABENE: -- It really doesn't matter to me. I was just trying to provide a detailed enough explanation to remove the "vague" tag.

There are lots of conflicting accounts of what happened, and I think the lack of clarity and agreement about what transpired would have made prosecution at courts-martial difficult, if not impossible.

Felix Sparks from the 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division claimed that he saw perhaps as many as 50 guards killed by US soldiers, and that one of the US soldiers claimed that the guards had to be killed because they had tried to flee after being detained. Howard Buechner, the 157th Regiment's medical officer, claimed that as many as 350 guards were killed by US soldiers at an incident following the one Sparks described. I also found written accounts which claim that US soldiers allowed liberated prisoners to use the soldiers' pistols to kill guards, and accounts of liberated prisoners killing guards by beating them with shovels and other tools. There's also the long running dispute I've described in a few Wikipedia article between the adherents of Felix Sparks and those of Henning Linden over who was the "true" liberator of Dachau -- a controversy that has further colored peoples' judgments and comments about the events surrounding the camp's liberation.

Because the accounts of what transpired after the Dachau liberation vary widely, and range from the plausible to the fantastic to the blatantly self-serving, I think it's pretty easy to see why prosecutions at courts-martial would have been "complex" -- the original comment I tried to clarify. If I'm on track, I can write a passage to that effect for the article. But maybe I'm wrong. If you believe I'm off track and have a better way to explain in the article the investigation and decision not to prosecute, then please do.

Billmckern (talk) 16:27, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Billmckern:, Now I see the point you were trying to make, but the way the original comment read looked what would have made the prosecution of the soldiers complex was the killings of guards by the internees, not the conflicting accounts by the soldiers themselves. The internees weren’t responsible for the killings by the soldiers, so maybe not having the statement I tagged immediately follow the statement about the internees would clarify it. I’m trying to look the article from the perspective of someone reading this for the first time and not having an in depth knowledge as you and I, and it would seem the way it was written mitigated the soldiers actions by the actions of the internees. That was my point. I think if you provided more explanation of the reason for the complexity of the prosecution it would be more helpful to readers. If you’d prefer me to try to draft something I’d be happy to help, or you can take a stab at it. I think we’re on the same page.

I’m aware of the disputes regarding credit for the liberation. I redrafted the section on the liberation of the subcamps a few months ago, and listed every Division recognized by the U.S Holocaust Museum as a liberating unit. N0TABENE (talk) 18:24, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@N0TABENE: -- Why don't you go ahead with drafting the change? I can look it over and let you know if I have any suggestions.

Billmckern (talk) 19:02, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Billmckern:, I’ve spent a fair amount of time looking back over the original source documents, including the 7th army report and the eyewitness reports. A few unreferenced secondary sources mention the inmate killings, but never in relation to those of the soldiers. There was one reference to the killing of the guards as providing a “Tu quoque” defense at Nuremberg (“you too” – we both committed war crimes), but this was on what looked like a revisionist forum. When most sources talk about the killings they discuss the soldiers’ culpability as separate from the internees’ actions. So that this section agrees with the Dachau liberation reprisals main article, I propose just omitting the last part of the sentence entirely, so it would read: “Many guards were also killed by the liberated prisoners.” with no mention of providing a defense for the soldiers’ actions. Let me know if you're amenable. N0TABENE (talk) 05:48, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@N0TABENE: -- Concur. All I was trying to do was provide enough detail to remove the "vague" tag. If you re-write the passage and provide the references along the lines you suggest, I think that will be fine. I'm willing to read what you write and let you know if I have any suggestions by way of improvement, but based on our discussion here, I'm pretty sure what you come up with will be accurate and contain enough details that the readers won't find it vague. That should satisfy the original intent we both had at the start of this process.

Billmckern (talk) 12:29, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@N0TABENE: -- I just read your edits. I think you nailed it -- I have nothing to suggest by way of addition, deletion or correction.

Billmckern (talk) 18:06, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Billmckern Thanks. It's been a pleasure reaching a consensus with you. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year. N0TABENE (talk) 21:45, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]