User talk:TheKiwiAbroad

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Welcome / nau mai[edit]

On behalf of Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand (WANZ), kia ora, hello, kia orana, nǐ hǎo, talofa lava, bula vinaka, guten Tag, hola, malo e leilei, fakalofa atu, namaste, salâm, see tahay. Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages you might find helpful.

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, please see our help pages, and if you can't find what you are looking for there, please feel free to ask me on my talk page or place {{Help me}} on this page and someone will drop by to help. Again, welcome!

And I suppose your user name implies that you aren't based in New Zealand, but if you want to connect with fellow Kiwis who share the same hobby, maybe joining WANZ is a good idea. Schwede 66 05:28, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the warm welcome @Schwede66. It is truly appreciated. I am grateful for the links and advice. TheKiwiAbroad (talk) 15:06, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Your submission at Articles for creation: Lake Browning / Whakarewa has been accepted[edit]

Lake Browning / Whakarewa, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.

The article has been assessed as Stub-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. It is commonplace for new articles to start out as stubs and then attain higher grades as they develop over time. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

Since you have made at least 10 edits over more than four days, you can now create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for creation if you prefer.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk. Once you have made at least 10 edits and had an account for at least four days, you will have the option to create articles yourself without posting a request to Articles for creation.

If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider leaving us some feedback.

Thanks again, and happy editing!

Schwede 66 09:25, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

AfC notification: Draft:John Samuel Browning has a new comment[edit]

I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:John Samuel Browning. Thanks! Marshelec (talk) 08:55, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

AfC notification: Draft:John Samuel Browning has a new comment[edit]

I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:John Samuel Browning. Thanks! Marshelec (talk) 20:34, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ian Waddy[edit]

Hi there, just letting you know that I moved the article for Ian Dousland Waddy that you newly created to Ian Waddy. As there was no existing article with that name, the more precise title with middle name isn't necessary. Middle names may not be the best way to disambiguate articles if the subject is not well known by their full name; it may be better to use another form, for example what they were best known for. E.g. your proposed "John Samuel Browning" article could be "John Browning (surveyor)".

On a separate note, if you are interested in working on military history articles, check out the MilHist project. It is a group of editors working in this space, and a handy place for getting advice and feedback. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 09:28, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome! Thanks @Zawed - this is really helpful information. What is just as beneficial is seeing the edits/comments you made to this particular article so I can avoid the same pitfalls next time around. Also appreciate the link to Military History project - great to know. Best regards TheKiwiAbroad (talk) 15:13, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Zawed For my edification, regarding citation format when referring to page numbers, you changed the citation format I was using from inline page number using the {{R|...}} template to {{sfn|..}} which repeats the reference and page number in the references section. Is this a Wikipedia preference or personal preference? Thanks! TheKiwiAbroad (talk) 17:18, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, the cite format you were using is not familiar to me but it wasn't showing the page numbers, instead it was just pointing back to the full Sortehaug ref. You do need to show where in a document the information is sourced from so I was about to add in a page number required template until I realised the page numbers were there but not visible in reading view. That was why I changed to the sfn template (there are other citing formats but I find sfn really easy to use compared to them). Zawed (talk) 09:24, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Thanks. Very odd as it displayed fine for me. The page number appears as an inline superscript using the template discussed under Inline page numbers, here Help:References and page numbers. I found it a more elegant solution than the {{sfn}} template. TheKiwiAbroad (talk) 11:03, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, it turns out that I owe you an apology as looking into it more, I now see how the template works. Although I don't think it is a common citation style, as the editor who created the article, your preference trumps mine. If you want to revert back to that citation style, go ahead (from memory, one or two still needed a page number though). I have been looking at the sourcing, in particular the Sortehaug ref (my local library has a copy) and the Aircrew Remembered ref. It seems to me the text in the article hews quite close to the phrasing in the sources which could be a copyright issue. Additionally, the RAF Commands doesn't support what is cited to it. Even the mention of 10 hours on Tiger Moths is dubious as that comes from the Forum part of the page, so that isn't a reliable source. Reliable sourcing is a really important of working on Wikipedia, but you'll get the hang of it. If you intended to work on New Zealand RAF fighter pilots, some good sources (if you don't have them already) are Wynn's 'Men of the Battle of Britain', Shores & Williams' 'Aces High' and Thompson's Official History series 'New Zealanders with the Royal Air Force' (the latter are online - see references section of the Alan Deere article for links). Cheers, Zawed (talk) 09:32, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Zawed No worries. I'll leave the citation style as-is. I don't care too much and will follow a more common approach. I am used to scientific referencing styles and history is different so I will adopt this approach.

Agreed - the RAF Commands citations are flimsy. Happy to be challenged on that.

Happy to be challenged, but far less-inclined to agree about potential copyright violations from either Sortehaug or AirCrew Remembered. For online citations I ran this tool (https://copyvios.toolforge.org/) and note that the DFC citation is the only thing of substance that is returned as potential for copyright. For Sortehaug, there may be short portions of certain passages I've used (always with appropriate citation) but there is nothing taken verbatim.

Thanks for the heads-up on Thompson's Official History and link - I'd never come across this book. Not really focussed on NZ pilots though - more focussed on the aircraft they flew. Having said that, the pilots are more relevant to most people visiting Wikipedia than the aircraft.

Cheers TheKiwiAbroad (talk) 12:37, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Article drafts[edit]

I'm not sure what process you use for starting articles. I see you have drafts in your Sandbox and that you also have articles in Draft space. If you wish, you can start articles in Draft space; that's the recommended option. I'll make some red links on your user page that will result in you starting drafts there. If you don't want to do that (which is fine), just revert that edit. Schwede 66 00:13, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Schwede66. My first few articles were forced to be drafts (hence one is still in draft space still waiting for approval). After those first few I have been creating articles in my sandbox and once I'm happy I create a new page by following a red link from an existing article. Maybe that's an unorthodox approach.

By creating a draft I am then forced to wait for the article to be approved. Although this is the preferred approach, are there advantages for me versus the approver?

I assume the advantages of editing a draft is that I can have multiple drafts going at once rather then using numerous sandboxes. Are there other advantages? Thanks TheKiwiAbroad (talk) 02:03, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You can read up about it at Wikipedia:Drafts. One of the pertinent bits is the info about autoconfirmed users; that means users with at least 10 edits and an account at least 4 days old. You've long passed that barrier, which means that you can move pages, including across name spaces. That is, you can move an article from draft space to mainspace yourself. You can push the review button and then wait for someone to do just that, but you don't have to. Obviously, the less experienced you are, the more risky it is to do something that might see your article being deleted. But if you know what you are doing, just move the article when you think it's ready.

Draft space is the preferred way of creating new articles that you don't want to start in mainspace. One big advantage is that it prevents two editors working on the same draft; it's happened to me before that I put a few hours of work into something and someone else published their article just before mine was ready. If everyone works in draft space rather than sandboxes, that doesn't happen. Schwede 66 06:22, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Schwede66, that makes perfect sense. Appreciate it. TheKiwiAbroad (talk) 10:08, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have sent you a note about a page you started[edit]

Hello, TheKiwiAbroad. Thank you for your work on Ian Waddy. User:North8000, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Nice work!

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with {{Re|North8000}}. Please remember to sign your reply with ~~~~. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

North8000 (talk) 18:59, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @North8000! TheKiwiAbroad (talk) 20:27, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have sent you a note about a page you started[edit]

Hello, TheKiwiAbroad. Thank you for your work on Wilfley table. User:SunDawn, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Hey there! Hope you're having a great day. Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia with your article. I'm happy to inform you that your article has adhered to Wikipedia's policies, so I've marked it as reviewed. Have a fantastic day for you and your family!

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with {{Re|SunDawn}}. Please remember to sign your reply with ~~~~. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 11:35, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for reviewing and approving @SunDawn! TheKiwiAbroad (talk) 16:44, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have sent you a note about a page you started[edit]

Hello, TheKiwiAbroad. Thank you for your work on Christopher Reilly. User:Tails Wx, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Reviewing; good work on the article!

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with {{Re|Tails Wx}}. Please remember to sign your reply with ~~~~. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

Tails Wx 01:04, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have sent you a note about a page you started[edit]

Hello, TheKiwiAbroad. Thank you for your work on Dunstan Mountains. User:SunDawn, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Thank you for writing the article on Wikipedia! I genuinely appreciate your efforts in creating the article on Wikipedia and expanding the sum of human knowledge in Wikipedia. Wishing you and your family a great day!

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with {{Re|SunDawn}}. Please remember to sign your reply with ~~~~. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 04:17, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Your submission at Articles for creation: John Samuel Browning has been accepted[edit]

John Samuel Browning, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.

The article has been assessed as Start-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. Most new articles start out as Stub-Class or Start-Class and then attain higher grades as they develop over time. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

Since you have made at least 10 edits over more than four days, you can now create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for creation if you prefer.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk. Once you have made at least 10 edits and had an account for at least four days, you will have the option to create articles yourself without posting a request to Articles for creation.

If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider leaving us some feedback.

Thanks again, and happy editing!

nirmal (talk) 23:03, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

New Zealand Barnstar of National Merit[edit]

		The New Zealand Barnstar of National Merit
		The Waitaki Dam article has long been missing but you haven’t just plugged the gap, you’ve written an excellent piece of work. Thank you!
		_{this WikiAward was given to TheKiwiAbroad by Schwede66 on 19:24, 18 December 2023 (UTC)}[reply]