< User:Saukkomies

Feel free to leave a comment here.

Thanks for the compliments on the photo and letting me know where it's being used. Small world indeed :) Hope all is well --IvanTortuga (talk) 05:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to this edit, please see WP:BLANKING. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 01:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that information. I didn't know about that policy, but now that I think about it, I can see the wisdom in it. I am now wiser and will not restore warnings from other users' talk pages that they've deleted, even though their doing so is against the rules. Thanks for the instruction and the help in dealing with that vandalism against one of the article's talk page that I had done so much work on. --Saukkomies ^talk 05:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to tag the file for deletion but it had already been tagged and was kept. I looked at the old deletion request file Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Old Europe.png for the dratted thing and the administrator who ruled on it cited some commons rules which are different from Wikipedia rules. So somewhere in Wikipedia there must be a forum to debate the accuracy and usability and to prohibit use of false info, else we'd have all sorts of blatantly false photos springing up. If you find the forum let me know please. Trilobitealive (talk) 05:37, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the way they organize info, even a successful request to delete from Wikipedia wouldn't get rid of it from Wikimedia.Trilobitealive (talk) 05:49, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is torqued off about that dang map. I know where it came from, too, well generally... It's most likely from someone who is a devoted cult follower of Marija Gimbutas, and who is using her work as the gospel truth about Neolithic history, which, well, appears to get some people in trouble about knowing what is real and what is not, it seems. At any rate, it's one of my pet peeves to see incorrectly made maps published as factual. grrrrr..... --Saukkomies ^talk 07:46, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Marija Gimbutas eh? Well as a personal aside I once decided that I could pull prehistory out of my arse about as well as she and all her disciples so I wrote a novel about a fictional late neolithic/early bronze age european tribe. At least I didn't try to pretend it to be the product of research or channeling dead pagans. Trilobitealive (talk) 14:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was looking at your new comprehensive and well written article. I feel that it qualifies for WP:DYK and will be nominating it NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 05:59, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. I'm speechless. :) --Saukkomies ^talk 07:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was your titanic effort also!CristianChirita (talk) 11:35, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Cristian, but I could not have done it without your contributions. --Saukkomies ^talk 14:00, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, You have put the template {{dubious}} in some articles on svwiki. It doesn’t work in Swedish and have now been removed. The correct template in Swedish is {{Ifrågasatt uppgift}}. You may put it back only if you leave a comment on the discussion page and it is ok to do that in English. -- Rex Sueciæ ✎ 06:05, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

::Thanks for that information. I didn't know about that policy, but now that I think about it, I can see the wisdom in it. I am now wiser and will not restore warnings from other users' talk pages that they've deleted, even though their doing so is against the rules. Thanks for the instruction and the help in dealing with that vandalism against one of the article's talk page that I had done so much work on. --Saukkomies ^talk 05:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. It is now 02:40 AM my time, obviously I need to go to bed, since I have no idea how I managed to copy and paste a previous post into a comment here. My apologies. At any rate, I was just wanting to say how I apologize for any ruffled feathers I may have cause by including that "dubious" tag - I was trying to go through all of the articles everywhere that have used it to try to alert people that it is in error. I will follow your advice, Rex, and go take care of it - but in the morning when I'm more alert. Thanks for the comment about it here. --Saukkomies ^talk 07:43, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for pointing out that the map is inaccurate. I have moved it to talk and commented there. I think the best way to solve that is to request its deletion at commons. Do you know any accurate map hosted by commons or en.wiki that will work as a substitute? Best Skäpperöd (talk) 07:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying, Skäpperöd. I welcome the help in getting rid of a map that contains false data. I do know of a number of maps from the Neolithic European period, but if you could tell me what exactly you're needing it for (what you're trying to illustrate with it), that would help me in giving a suggestion. --Saukkomies ^talk 07:31, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, heh heh, you could do like I often do, and make your own map.... :) I use Paint to do this usually. Here are a couple of recent examples of my work:

--Saukkomies ^talk 07:37, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'd appreciate it if you look at the article and see if any map is available that fits, not just as a replacement of the one that is flawed. I guess I won't draw one myself... And leave me a note whenever you start the deletion request.

As an aside, the {{reflist}} and <references /> templates are for the most part redundant, you only need to put in one of them. I like the reflist template more because it has some extra parameters to add. I reformatted some of your articles accordingly - great work! Best Skäpperöd (talk) 07:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Long-story-short: impressive job! I took the liberty and cleaned up the template. I am going to start by giving a few suggestions: first of all, please replace the map with something prettyer (I would suggest downloading File:BlankEurope.png and altering it accordingly; secondly, you should definitely check out Wikipedia:Did you know/Nomination and nominate some of your work; thirdly, I have placed a few citation needed tags (the articles look ok, but as a rule of thumb, each paragraph , and each number (year, amount, etc) should have a referece should have one reference; fourthly, you may want to check out Wikipedia:Good Articles - the articles still need some work (polishing and references) but they are getting close; lastly:

		The Original Barnstar
		for all your work on the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture and the dozen of its subarticles. Keep it going! Nergaal (talk) 09:21, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for your help and advice Nergaal! And, I am quite surprised to receive a Barnstar! It's my very first. Thank you for that. :)

I plan on doing all that you mentioned to these articles. The map does have a high priority - I created it because I couldn't find anything that was available that did the job to my satisfaction, but I did it in a hurry, and it looks that way. SO, yeah, it definitely needs to be "prettier"! LOL!

The advice about citing the work is critical, too. To tell the truth, much of the material that is in the articles was contributed by other editors, and I just rewrote and reworked it (although, to be honest, much of it is also my own work). Some of the contributions from others was uncited, and I need to now go and try to find where they got their facts from and source them. Oy! Lots of work still to do! But I feel like this whole project has attained a certain level of progress, and your recognition of that is greatly appreciated. Thanks again! --Saukkomies ^talk 15:06, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My honest opinion is that you can put all of this together into a nice topic and then nominate it at wp:Good Topics. But for now, take my advice and go for wp:DYK, and slowly pick an article at a time and submit it at wp:Good Article Nominations. Good Luck! Nergaal (talk) 19:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On January 25, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Economy of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 18:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this! I had no idea it was there. Woo hoo! --Saukkomies ^talk 22:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a message I left on Materialscientist's talk page, but I wanted to copy it here since it basically defines a lot of what I've been doing the past few months in Wikipedia. Here's the message:

Thanks for the DYK nomination! Thanks so much Materialscientist for sponsoring the Economy of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture article I wrote for DYK inclusion on 25 January 2010. It meant a lot to me - I have slaved on that project for months, and I finally am bringing them up to where they are presentable, and this recognition is deeply appreciated. When I first stumbled on the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture article last October, it was a very sorry mess. Here, if you want, you can compare the old version dated 29 October 2009 to today's version. I had not really done much editing in Wikipedia - just a bit of fixing typo errors here and there - but I stumbled on this article while trying to track down the roots of where the Ancient Mycenaean civilization came from. For some reason this article called to me. I didn't know jack about the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture before that day, but it just reached out and grabbed my attention so strongly I couldn't resist. In a way, it was a perfect article for a beginner editor like me to work on - there was only one other editor involved with it, and he was a native Romanian speaker who was having trouble writing in English (as you can tell if you look at that older version), and welcomed my help. It allowed me to dig in and edit away to my heart's content without worrying about a bunch of hyper-critical UberEditors looking over my shoulder and undoing my mistakes - which I made plenty of. Instead, I figured out how to undo them myself. And it was a BIG article, so it really took up my best efforts for a long time. It still does - I'm nowhere near finished with this yet. These past months I feel as if I've come through a similar experience to learning a new highly-technical job on the seat of my pants. A certain point finally came when I screwed up enough courage to finally bite the bullet and just whack away at that article - getting rid of stuff that didn't belong, creating new stuff on my own, and then the ultimate decision to subdivide it into smaller related articles. At that point I feel like I was attending a birth of a new baby - the labor pains went on for about a week, and then I suddenly was the proud father of a dozen new sub-articles, one of which just today was featured on the DYK thanks to you. This whole process has been a fantastic experience for me. Thanks for your part you played in this. --Saukkomies ^talk 06:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your article was already viewed 6500 times and tomorrow we'll get an updated count. This is rather high for a "non-lead" (not pictured) DYK hook. Congratulations. Good article and elegant hook. Materialscientist (talk) 06:22, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. So, I'm still new - what is a "hook"? --Saukkomies ^talk 07:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for uploading File:Greg Epstein.jpg. I noticed the description page specifies that the media is being used under a claim of fair use, but its use in Wikipedia articles fails our first non-free content criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed media could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this media is not replaceable, please:

1. Go to :File:Greg Epstein.jpg|the media description page and edit it to add {{di-replaceable fair use disputed}}, without deleting the original replaceable fair use template.
2. On File talk:Greg Epstein.jpg|the image discussion page, write the reason why this image is not replaceable at all.

Alternatively, you can also choose to replace this non-free media by finding freely licensed media of the same subject, requesting that the copyright holder release this (or similar) media under a free license, or by taking a picture of it yourself.

If you have uploaded other non-free media, consider checking that you have specified how these images fully satisfy our non-free content criteria. You can find a list of description pages you have edited by clicking on this link. Note that even if you follow steps 1 and 2 above, non-free media which could be replaced by freely licensed alternatives will be deleted 2 days after this notification (7 days if uploaded before 13 July 2006), per our non-free content policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

Please note that Wikipedia very rarely accepts non-free imagery of living people for purposes of depiction. See [[Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy]] #3. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 15:43, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that because this photo of him was used on a book jacket that he wrote, that it would fall under fair use as an "identification" of him as an author. I'll make a note of that in the fair use disputed link. --Saukkomies ^talk 00:43, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This has been fixed - I just got permission from Greg Epstein's publisher to use the photo. See the File talk:Greg Epstein.jpg for further details. --Saukkomies ^talk 16:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, just a note to sort of bring some closure on this subject. After getting permission from Epstein's publisher to use the photo, Hammersoft let me know that I needed to actually have this permission sent in a specific form that included precise language in which the owner of the copyright surrendered all control of the work in order for it to be included in WikiCommons, to be used by anyone for any reason. So I sent another request to Epstein's publisher, including the form for him to fill out, and never heard back, which isn't too surprising. So, after a while, the time limit expired on the deletion of the photo, and it was deleted from WikiCommons. This whole thing has been a big lesson to me - next time I'll be certain to send that form first before uploading a non-fair-use image. Basically, another example of CYA. Here's the page that gives details about how to request permission: Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission --Saukkomies ^talk 15:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

More closure: I removed the link brackets to the photo file that was removed, as well as the warning tag, since the file no longer exists. --Saukkomies ^talk 15:19, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Saukkomies, I noted that (other than myself removing non-free images) you're the only one that's worked on User:Mythology, and that editor has never edited anything. Did you create that account in order to create a userbox template for Mythology? If so, that's now how we create userbox templates. I think you should look at User:UBX. May I suggest we move the page User:Mythology to User:UBX/Mythology and delete User:Mythology? --Hammersoft (talk) 16:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about that - I still am fairly new at this whole thing. Please feel free to go ahead and do what you suggested. --Saukkomies ^talk 00:40, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• No worries. I've done the move, and made the corrects to the places that referenced User:Mythology. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:46, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I saw from your bio that you live on the UP. Just curious roughly how much snow is on the ground there right now? How much snow does your area normally get in a winter? --Hammersoft (talk) 17:45, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for asking. I live in the Keweenaw Peninsula, which is the bit of land that pokes up from the southern shore of Lake Superior, thus, it's the "U.P. of the U.P." As it sticks out into the middle of Lake Superior, you can easily imagine it gets a LOT of Lake-effect snow. In fact, we vye with the Syracuse, N.Y. region as having the highest amount of snowfall per year on average for any settled area in the U.S. (there are, of course, mountain peaks that get more snow, but nobody lives there). We average between 250 - 300 inches of snow a year (635-760 cm). Right now the snow is as deep as it can get here. If it gets deeper, it packs itself down, so it tends to level off at a certain height and stay there, even though the snow just keeps a-falling. This makes it at about 2.5 to 3 feet deep in most places. It can get deeper though, due to blowing drifts, and when it gets shoveled off of driveways and highways, it packs up very high - in some places it's well over 10 feet deep next to roads and driveways. In the late Fall some people get ready for it by building little ramps from their porch out to the driveway, so they don't have to be living in a tunnel.

The worst part of it for us is taking the garbage out. We don't shovel the front of our house, since the driveway is in the back and goes to the street from there, which is all plowed. But the garbage men won't pick up the garbage behind the house, only along the front street side. So, on garbage day, we load the bags of garbage into the car and then DRIVE the garbage around the block to the front of the house, where we drop it off at the curb. Or, rather, we drop it off next to the 10-foot bank of packed-down solid snow on the side of the road, left behind by the snowplows. That's why we don't shovel the front... Andyes, I hate the snow. But, when the summer comes, this place is paradise. Except for the bugs.

So, do you live in snow country?--Saukkomies ^talk 19:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for the long reply :) The ramps from the porches to the driveway fascinate me. Not sure I can visualize that. I have lived in some very snowy regions before, but not like what you're describing. I do remember visiting the Seattle area and skiing up there back in the 90s during a winter when the upper elevations experienced 50+ feet of snow. Kind of wild seeing from the Interstate gas stations/convenience stores as holes in the snowscape. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:23, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

Sorry if my relies have been a bit short and curt, I have been fighting with conjuntivitis for the last couple of weeks, it was in one eye then moved to the other so I havent been able to spend much time at the computer.

You have done a marvellous job so far and I hope that I will be able to give you more help at the end of the week oncve I am fully cured

I can see again now but still cannot focus very well in one eye - hoping that will be fixed in a couple of days though.

I am sorry once again, I know you probably deserved a more friendly response on the Ukr portal but as I said it has been difficult to look at the monitor for more than twenty minutes or so a day...

I was over in your neck of the woods for the new year, what a cold place !! I did not understand how cold new york state could be in winter - the wind was terrible where I was and I got stuck in the panic at the airport over the student that "nipped back to kiss his girlfriend"

I really enjoyed the open space though and was nice to see a bald eagle in the wild only 30 feet away

hope to speak to you more over the next couple of days as my eyes get better..

thanks

Chaosdruid (talk) 16:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi - i have answered again on the discussion page in case you missed it lol Chaosdruid (talk) 20:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As it looks like we are the only active at the moment could you possibly give the article Stryi River an assessment plz (I cannot as I created and did lots of work on it so am disallowed from rating)

There are also others that are in a similar situation - perhaps we could go through some of them ? (and update any collections of data that need it)

I know that you are a meticulous person and good on research so i am thinking this would be a good task for you and I to do

Chaosdruid (talk) 20:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds great! I've been looking for someone who would be interested in working with me on some projects, so I would love to help. I'll give it a look-see. As I understand, I'll be maybe tweaking it a little here and there, but also you were interested in seeing if I'd nominate it? Is that right? And if so, for which category? --Saukkomies ^talk 21:38, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah - if you havent done this sort of thing before, it is simply to agree on how important an this article is to the Ukraine Project

On the discussion page you will see the tag, and the ???, and if you go to "edit" you can change the importance to a level.

You can check here for the ways it is done...Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ukraine/Assessment#Importance_scale

Chaosdruid (talk) 21:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm there dude! Hey, could you do me a favor? I don't know how to revert an article to a previous version that I didn't edit. But I need to do that. article to a previous version that I didn't edit. But I need to do that. The article is Neolithic Europe, and I made a mistake by adding a bunch of Neolithic cultures to a list in the article that didn't belong to Europea! I forgot I was in the EUROPEAN Neolithic page, and just went nuts adding links to Neolithic cultures willy nilly. I went ahead and copied the list I'd made over to the general Neolithic article, so the data is saved and will be useful there, but now I need to figure out how to remove all my nonsense in the European Neolithic article, and I can't figure out how to revert. I suppose I could go in and remove everything I did, bit by bit, but the stuff is mixed throughout the article, and would be hard. So, if you'd like, you are free to revert the article back to the "10:16, January 29, 2010" version (the one before I got involved). Thanks--Saukkomies ^talk 22:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

1 Try clicking the undo next to all the ones you want to undo and if it cant it will tell you when you click ok. Once you have done the ones that will work that way you can go for option 2 on the rest

2 If it cant then you will have to edit by hand all the ones that dont work.

Chaosdruid (talk) 22:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, there are a lot of them, 1500 nearly, that need some looking into for ratings etc[1]
Chaosdruid (talk) 22:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Chaosdruid! I've been busy working on a map for the Styri River article, so I haven't been reading my messages. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten you. I'll be working on all this stuff. Talk to you later. 02:38, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

did you manage to fix the Neolithic article ? Chaosdruid (talk) 02:57, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not yet. I was busy the last few hours with my family (Sunday evening stuff here), so I am now finally sitting down again to work on things, now that everyone is in bed. I'll be posting what I've worked on, and we'll see how it goes. But I haven't had a chance to fix the Neolithic Europe article yet... --Saukkomies ^talk 04:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK - well I have to go to bed now, its 05:20 here lol, and if i keep looking at my watchlist I'll be up all night - good luck and speak to you tomorrow im sure :¬)

Chaosdruid (talk) 05:20, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was very hard to find references about Maritza Culture.CristianChirita (talk) 21:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hehe! I was surprised at first, because I tried to create a new page, but it was already done. :) But it all came out. I'd been working on that for about a month, and was finally ready to make it yesterday - so, just like they say: "Great minds think alike"... --Saukkomies ^talk 22:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again ! lol

You got any experience on proto history of Cyprus ? (c. 8000bc to 2000 bc)

I have lots of PDF's to go through on pottery and proto language but if you have knowledge of that area would be a great help on a couple of matters

Chaosdruid (talk) 22:33, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I know a little about Cyprus history, but am not a complete expert. But I do a fairly good job at digging stuff up - I have a lot of background, so it helps when I'm chasing down something - I know where to dig because I have a good idea of the priority of data. So, I'll look at it and see what I can come up with. This is definitely up my alley - Neolithic/Mesolithic European prehistory - It's got "Me" written all over it!! --Saukkomies ^talk 04:42, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

hi again again (? lol)

I have just done the first 10 off the list. I will post progress at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ukraine/Assessment

I am now going to do these two Archaeogenetics of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture & Architecture of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture for quality and importance

Chaosdruid (talk) 00:52, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wow !! Really good article on the architecture - well deserving of B class. I did move a few words around and hope you arent too annoyed with my changes. A lot of it was due to the use of commas though.

Chaosdruid (talk) 03:24, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! A lot of that is due to Cristian Chirita, who is a Romanian Wiki editor. He dug most of that article's original research up, along with almost all of the photos for the entire Cucuteni-Trypillian milieu, I've looked through a couple of thousand of his photograhs he's uploaced to WikiCommons that he's taken himself - quite the camera bug! However, I pretty much wrote the Economy of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture on my own without anyone else's help (exceppt I did borrow a couple of photos from Cristian) - so if you like that, then you'll see what my work is like. I also have started a project where I'm looking at all of the archeaological sites for the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, in order to create or improve Wiki articles on them. I've done a few so far, all in Ukraine, where I'm starting out. So far, my favorite one has been the Bilche Zolote article - I got distracted with that one when I discovered this amazing story about the Jews who hid in the caves near that village in WWII. You should check it out! --Saukkomies ^talk 04:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, your addition of one or more external links to the page Squirrel has been reverted.
Your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove links which are discouraged per our external links guideline from Wikipedia. The external link you added or changed is on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. I removed the following link(s): http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2209193204 (matching the regex rule \bfacebook\.com).
If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert. However, if the link does not comply with our policies and guidelines, but your edit included other, constructive, changes to the article, feel free to make those changes again without re-adding the link. Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! --XLinkBot (talk) 15:53, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This was done to the edit I made in the article: Squirrel, section: Albino squirrels. The problem occurred because I included a link to a Facebook group page that is called "I've Seen the Albino Squirrel of Michigan Tech", and which I included to provide another example of how local albino squirrels impact American culture. Apparently this is breaking a rule of Wikipedia to cite a Facebook group, even though I was doing so in good faith, it was relevant to the discussion, and was not promoting anything other than the fact that there's a group in Houghton Michigan that has an avid interest in the local famous albino squirrel, and it is where people may post sightings and photographs of the squirrel. Just another example of a stupid rule. --Saukkomies ^talk 20:27, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You should have no problem if you put it like this:-

A Facebook group called "I've Seen the Albino Squirrel of Michigan Tech" is dedicated to this squirrel (or squirrels) by local residents and students (see link at bottom), and...

Chaosdruid (talk) 04:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice. I've included a newspaper citation referencing the presence of albino squirrels on the MTU campus, which should silence the hecklers for a bit. Later, after the fur stops flying, I think following your advice would be good, but for right now I don't want to create any more tension. --Saukkomies ^talk 04:52, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I shouldn't worry too much, it was just a bot that picked up on the text "facebook" in the body of the article.Chaosdruid (talk) 18:21, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I will be in touch in next half hour over others as am just finishing a film ... are you about for a while tonight ?

Chaosdruid (talk) 00:28, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Presented by ChaosDruid on 10 February 2010 - regarding the map I took three days (20+ hours of work) to do for the Stryi River article.

I give you this Ukraine Barnstar for your hours of work on a wonderful map.

Here's the map ==>

Sometimes I get carried away... --Saukkomies ^talk 02:15, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry - I as researching on the SR-71 blackbird and Cobra helicopter. I went to the Intrepid museum while I was over your way and took some close ups for the article but got into things too much lol - 3 hours on it was too much tonight.

Good work on the map though, seriously, with that much work its a shame you cant do it for all the rivers...(NO - DONT DO IT !! I know your mind was off there contemplating it lol)

I'll try and get back to things like checking and assessing in a little while, but still need to spend 30 mins on these other things

Do you have the start and end geodata co-ords - its on my "List of things to do I havent quite got around to this year yet!"

Chaosdruid (talk) 03:07, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cool thing about the Blackbird and Cobra. My dad was a chopper pilot in the Air Force (yep, I'm a full-scale Air Force Brat) for 20 years. He flew Sikorsky S-61R helicopters mostly - search and rescue... That's how I ended up growing up in Alaska. At any rate, here are the coords for the start and end of the Stryi River:

Start: 48°55'56.57"N 23°08'14.59"E

End: 49°23'50.09"N 24°12'26.91"E

Don't think I won't do that for all Ukrainian rivers! LOL! But I actually want to get back to my other obsession: creating articles for every Neolithic archaeological site in the Ukraine. Muahahaha! --Saukkomies ^talk 03:24, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have you had a look at the open street map project ? I dont know how much of Ukraine is done though...I do now I just looked - its a whole lot of not a lot lol !

Ah well thats not going to help then...Chaosdruid (talk) 03:51, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(My dad was in the "we dont talk about it much" 14th SS Division)

(reverting margin)

Wow. I was wondering where your family was from, and how they ended up in Britain. That explains a lot. So, I take it your family was from the old Galician region of western Ukraine? That would also explain your interest in the Stryi River. :)

I have a good friend who's father was from Lithuania, and was involved in stuff he won't talk about. Both my friend's parents were from Lithuania (Lithuanian by birth, too, not transplanted Russians), and somehow they managed to survive the war and met one another in a refugee camp in Poland, and later immigrated to Chicago. The ethics and morality of WWII get very complicated when you start examining what was happening in Eastern Europe.... It's not the "clean, feel-good" war that the Americans fought in France and Westphalia...

At any rate, I hadn't heard about the Open Street Map thing before. Fascinating! And scary, too. Thanks for the link. --Saukkomies ^talk 04:36, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to have caught you in a bad mood, but could you refactor your response to me here, once you have some time to collect yourself? Maybe just delete the comment now, then reply when you're feeling better? --Ronz (talk) 22:28, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Someone has now responded, so I suggest striking it out. --Ronz (talk) 23:13, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I regret anything I said to cause concern. I think I'll stick to editing history instead of biology. I don't have people reverting my edits in the history articles I edit... --Saukkomies ^talk 00:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply. I'd be upset as well if I had a bot revert my edits.

I think it's very difficult to incorporate cultural information into an article that's otherwise heavily based upon a science like biology. It's much easier in history articles, where cultural information is often expected. --Ronz (talk) 01:46, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It appears there are already lots of redlinks in things like this :-

We will need to look at those and see what needs doing, I suspect for all the Oblasts !! a bit of work methinks !! lol

Chaosdruid (talk) 00:12, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh boy! You're really opening a kettle of fish with this! I totally agree with you - the administrative centers of every oblast and raion need at least a stub article. Well, it looks like I might have to roll up my sleeves and dig in with you... It beats hanging out at the pub! --Saukkomies ^talk 00:39, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lol - you and your sleeves lmao

Anyway I think you should start here - List of raions in Ukraine by subdivision

As you can see ther are some without lists of raions.

It seems as if there were some articles that have been deleted, all those redlinks, and if that is the case then they would probably be deleted again.

It seems that DDima and others havent been around for a couple of years so I cant tell which it was.

yup - my Dad was from Stryi lol. Problem is that just about every WWII Ukraine article is being heavily edited to add whole sections on war crimes and the argumentsdiscussions can get a bit heated here (i would just read - dont get involved m8) and that is the way it has been the last three years, makes your squirrel problem seem quite amicable lol

Chaosdruid (talk) 01:26, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked up a lot of them on the deletions/moves logs and it seems like they were never in existence so we/you should be ok to carry on !

Chaosdruid (talk) 01:46, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oy. I just scanned through that talk section on the Ukrainian SS, and holy wah! It does nothing to alleviate my built-in (and freely admitted) prejudice I have that every Ukrainian I've ever met is certifiably crazy. Of course (cough cough), I also feel the same way about nearly every nationality, including my own - I'm part Swedish, German and English, and those people are nuttier than a truckload of fruitcakes! Of course, you probably would have an opinion about the English being crazy, I imagine... At any rate, I happen to have next-door neighbors who are from Ukraine - Kiev. She came to the US as a (get this) mail-order bride in the early 1990s, and her son came with her (he's "on the spectrum", so can't live on his own). They are some of our best friends here, and I take her son fishing, we have them over for steaks and beers in the summer, etc. But they're insane - absolutely totally insane! LOL!! And it's the same with every other Ukrainian I've ever met. And I can only imagine what it would be like to have a room full of Ukrainians having a "discussion" about something as touchy and volatile as the Ukrainian Waffen Grenadier SS division! There would be furniture broken, I can absolutely guarantee! I hope you don't take offense to this - like I said, I feel the same about my own cultural heritage - especially the Swedish part of me (which comes through a lot sometimes). I tell my wife that she never has to worry about whether I'll get depressed about anything, since I've already got built-in clinical depression just by being Swedish, and it doesn't get any worse. Oh, well, and then there's the German hot temper... We won't talk about that.

On the other hand, I've been watching the tv show Jericho lately (from Netflix, which I don't know if you have in England or not). And what I'm finding is how it is reminding me so much about what the conditions must have been like for people living in western Ukraine and that general area during and immediately after WWII. I have tried over the years to imagine what it must have been like to have lived through that horrible period of time, but I just simply do not have the life experiences (rich and varied as they have been) to even remotely guess at what that must have been like for people. And so it fascinates me, since I can't understand it. This show (Jericho) is about a town in Kansas after a nuclear attack that destroys a bunch of US cities, and it shows how the town and the country end up being thrown into a period of almost complete lawlessness as a result of the government being destroyed. And this is done so that it is absolutely believable - and having it take place in the US really brings it home for me - it actually has helped me understand viscerally what things must have been like in western Ukraine around 1941-46. There would be no government or group back then (or in this tv show) who were "clean", and so what does a person with conscience do? One of the worst scenes in this tv show is when a group of military folks finally show up and end a civil war between these two neighboring towns and establish order, but they have a slightly different-looking American flag - the stripes are vertical, and there are not enough stars on it. And they haul down the real American flag, and raise that one in its place. And that sucked big time for me - I am in no way a jingoistic American, but I did NOT like seeing my flag being lowered and another one raised in its place on American soil. And that awoke in me some of the feelings that some of the people in Western Ukraine must have gone through at various times in the not-so-distant past - and that's just one example. I would seriously love to talk to someone like you about this in very great length sometime. :) At any rate, off to bed for me, I'll see about working on those raion lists tomorrow. --Saukkomies ^talk 05:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yup Ukrainian at first back in the 800 cent but then Autrian - French - AustroHungarian - Polish - Russian - Polish - German..i think they had enough of it really, can understand why they wanted independence back again.

Anyway I have you to blame for my computer being tied up all night lol

I have "acquired" the first two episodes of Jericho (we had a crap ITV prog of same name so never watched it on tv as thought it was that same crap one)

First was pretty good so am now watching ep2 while I wait for the rest

Will be on later to do some more assessments if you are about this evening...

Chaosdruid (talk) 23:23, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Although I have a guilty satisfaction of having intruded upon your peacable revery with my assertion of watching the Jericho series, on the other hand I also am delighted that you are indeed watching it. I hope you end up enjoying it as much as my dear wife and I have...--Saukkomies ^talk 01:14, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lol - thats 3 watched today now

As for the lions - Ukraine needs 4 of them one for each of N,S,E and W - bloody invaders from every direction (south being those nasty Pecheneg pirates from the sea)

Chaosdruid (talk) 04:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi I've made a new C-T map in SVG, what is your opinion?

It's now part of the infobox. --Shandris^{the azylean} 08:55, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I love it! Well, if anyone is interested, go to Shandris' "talk" page to see further discussion about this map.--Saukkomies ^talk 01:11, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

oh dear - I have a bug, its a Jericho bug...I cant stop watching it !

Up to episode 12 so far...thats 8hrs and 25 mins lol. It's very good - another stupid decision to take a good programme off air...typical CBS stupidity (along with so many other TV companies it seems)

I just wish they would give a programme more than one season before they yank them off the air and this one, along with the others, was put on a such a silly time - they can hardly expect them to do well on ratings when they put them up aginst competitors like Bones, NCIS, 24 and so on

Ah well just like Firefly and its finale Serenity we'll have to wait for the film to see how it was really meant to have gone...Chaosdruid (talk) 02:03, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no! I feel guilty for having turned you onto Jericho! Well, sort of... Actually, I too got addicted to it. We were watching it tonight - my wife and I. We're half-way through the second season (and I agree - I'm very bummed that CBS canceled it!).

Anyway, I wonder if you (like I) are drawing any analogies between what the writers have created in Jericho and various historical events and themes? As I mentioned earlier, I think it has a lot of comparisons to Ukraine and Eastern Europe during the 20th Century (and other times, too). I think the overall development of the plot is absolutely solid and completely believable. The thing I really like about it is that it walks you through the "post-apocolypse". All of the other sci-fi post-apocolyptic movies I've seen basically start where there's already been a fairly lengthy time of societal breakdown and lawlessness, but Jericho shows in detail how this could so believably happen to even a country as stable and solid as the US. The result of that is incredibly disturbing in many ways, because it shows just what a thin line we walk between civilized society and what we see happen in that show.

Season Two is just as good, if not better, than Season One, so far. I won't give away any of the plot, but it actually picks up the pace a little and events begin to escalate at a rapid pace for people in Jericho. Anyway, I'm delighted you are enjoying it! --Saukkomies ^talk 05:49, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi mate

I havliterraly just got back after a weeka nd a bit away for work.

I had no internet access , well apart from my mobile phone, so nothing but WikiWithdrawls. I should get back online in a couple of hours, or maybe Sunday morning and I will try and catch up then...

I did take the second series of Jericho with me though :¬) watched it all on my phone screen lol - that was one pretty good series - I wish it could have carried on though and not been killed off..

Anyway - Ill cach up with you soon

Chaosdruid (talk) 23:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good to see you back, CD. And I hope that your break had some certain compensating advantages to outweigh the burden of Wikiwithdrawal. I am also glad you enjoyed Jericho; I have not yet seen the last few episodes of Season Two, but look forward to culminating the series. I'll be working on some of the articles in need of attention within the Ukrainian WikiProject, so I'm sure we'll have much to discuss soon. --Saukkomies ^talk 03:30, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wow

once again you have surpassed even the map making effort !!

I would give you another barnstar but then it might look like I give them out for just any old thing, so instead I am giving you something nice to eat :¬)

I cannot find fault with it - it looks like you have included everything in there...glad you are working hard as I have not been for the last few weeks...I have been doing stupid things like this Free_Norwegian_Forces and this They_Raid_By_Night and watching the something like 120 hours of rubbish i have downloaded for research on a couple of topics...hopefully I'll get some time to do a few more asessments later

Anyway good work once again !!

Chaosdruid (talk) 03:51, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well - I say research but really its not...I'm just trying to justify it I suppose lol

If you havent already discovered it, its the Internet Archive...[2]

Just don't get carried away like I did ! I spent hours downloading stuff from there, old films, vietnam war reports, Waco things, my god there is so much there it is unreal.

One useful resource though is the wayback machine - it keeps archived copies of webpages - roughly every six months it scans a page and keeps a copy of it

Enjoy !...Chaosdruid (talk) 03:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I loooove pampushkies! I used to live in a very Polish section of Chicago, and had a Polish bakery about two blocks from my place, so I am well acquainted with them. I'll have to check out the Internet Archive. I showed the site to my wife, who is interested in it - she's a librarian. Anyway ... yawn ... more later. It's now bed time for me. --Saukkomies ^talk 05:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi m8

Thanks for your nomination!

Unfortunately I do not think that I have enough experience on the technical side, such as MilHist MOS, maintenance of lists or even assessments, to run for a coordinator position nor enough experience of MilHist matters in general as there is also the problem that I have only been a member of the MilHist project for a month or so.

I really do appreciate the nomination though - I am glad that you, at least, saw how I have tried to keep the peace, managed some success at turning diputes into consensus as well as maintaining a neutral position in pages that undoubtably cause heated debates (notably Cyprus articles and anything to do with the Polish/Ukranian Galicia issues)

I cant thank you enough for those kind words my friend !

Also nice to see you back again - I am starting on the Ukranian articles without assessments again tonight :¬)

Chaosdruid (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Be aware that nominations are self-nom only. Accordingly your nomination of Chaosdruid has been removed. If he desires to run he is free to put forward his name. -MBK₀₀₄ 10:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, and also I am not a member of the WikiProject:Military History group, so in hindsight I don't know what the heck I was doing, but I'm still glad I did it. CD - I still think you'd make a good coordinator, but at least this way you won't have your attention diverted from the projects you're already busy with. --Saukkomies ^talk 23:06, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

lol

The coordinator role is pretty time consuming by the look of it - and probably best suited to someone who does nothing other than MilHist project stuff. It also looks like the time spent on it would be around two hours a day and to me that is pretty limiting to ones editing. One of the tasks I noticed was welcoming new members by posting a welcome on thoer chat page - I didnt get one so I can only assume the coordinators are too busy to get around to those small tasks lol

Anyway nice to hear from you again - hope all is well

Chaosdruid (talk) 23:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's really not time consuming, actually. For example, "This includes keeping the announcement and open task lists updated, overseeing the assessment and review processes, managing the proposal and creation of task forces, and so forth." The first is normally done by MBK whenever there are new noms. The second means assessing sub-B class articles ("review process" means the A-class review process within Milhist, which you don't have to participate in if you don't want), and the last rarely happens. The most time-consuming job you'll have would be adding to discussions taking place at WT:MHCOORD. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 22:01, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder, if you can find, to which culture this lady belong?CristianChirita (talk)

WikiProject Good Articles will be running a GAN backlog elimination drive for the entire month of April. The goal of this drive is to bring the number of outstanding Good Article nominations down to below 200. This will help editors in restoring confidence to the GAN process as well as actively improving, polishing, and rewarding good content. If you are interested in participating in the drive, please place your name here. Awards will be given out to those who review certain numbers of GANs as well as to those who review the most. Hope we can see you in April.