User talk:Sober Thought/Archive

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If you were to get an accout, you would have a user page, which is intended for informaton like that in Sober_Thought_real. Compliments, Rechze(talk) 23:22, 11 Mar 2005 (GMT)

Then you could have all NS nation information in the article Sober Thought, as is conventional, and people would be able to find your user page by looking at the history of your nation's article. Rechze(talk) 23:26, 11 Mar 2005 (GMT)

random redirects

I noticed that you created a redirect from North Pacific to The North Pacific. Did you know that North Pacific is in fact a separate region of almost 250 nations? The fact that no one has created a wiki page for it doesn't mean we should link it incorrectly to another region. Please be cautious when creating such links. I've removed it. → Fris Θtalk 02:17, 17 Mar 2005 (GMT)

Page Naming

A quick note: I've noticed that you're naming a lot of your articles very generically, like "Air Force". It would be better to name it something ilke "Sober Thought Air Force" or "Air Force (Sober Thought)", because "Air Force" implies that it's a generic page on all air forces that exist in NationStates, which is not the case. Thanks! ~ Ceo rant (or rave) 03:09, November 21, 2005 (GMT)

Suppose you had "Community Defence Forces Air Service" or put one of those italic banners at the top saying something like:
This article is about the Sober Thought Air Service. For general air defense forces, see Category:Armed Forces.

~ Ceo rant (or rave) 13:31, November 21, 2005 (GMT)

What you suggested is a perfect way to do it in theory...until you look at NSwiki:Naming conventions, which says not to use abbreviations in article titles. I think it would be fine, but you might want to consult someone who is more experienced with NSwiki than I am. Or you could just do it and see if anyone has a problem with it! ~ Ceo rant (or rave) 01:01, November 23, 2005 (GMT)
Yeah, but wiki style is also to use singular wherever possible -- something that English speakers are not generally used to and which NSWikipedians have freely ignored. I found some notes Gruenberg left me a month ago covering many of the same matters we've already discussed, and his/her/its (gender and IC/OOC preference unknown to me) national page is fantastic. I'll give it another couple of weeks among the three of us (and whomever else leaps in), then do one massive clean up.

And thanks again for Category: Armed forces; anything to drive up traffic on pages I've spent so many hours and so much effort writing and refining! If you're ever in the market for a flag or similar heraldic graphic, drop me a line via TG or Custom Flag Service]; I do requests.

Sober Thought 01:25, 23 November 2005 (GMT)

I made a template for your notice about it referring to Sober Thought on your Air Service, and took the liberty of putting it on the other Sober Thought armed services pages, which I have no problem with anyone doing anything to, seeing as it's your nation. The template is used by inputting {{STMD}} (stands for Sober Thought military disambiguation). ~ Ceo|squawk 03:43, November 23, 2005 (GMT)

Return-message on Sober Thought, Currency and Currency survey

Don't worry, you haven't earned a renegade reputation... yet. ;)

I was thinking we could move your currency survey to Sober_Thought/Currency_survey since you're the sole author, and the page Currency survey may be used for another survey down the road. Anyway, let me know what you think. It doesn't have to be moved there, of course, but it may be a better way to ensure that all that work is known to be yours. --Pacitalkia 06:32, 23 November 2005 (GMT)

Excellent. I prefer to be distinctive reasons other than malfeasance.
This is a good idea, and I think I'll do it tonight. And as I suggested earlier, I'll put the generalised conclusions (not tabular data, just rough fractions) in the currency article with a link to the new location for the currency survey article.
I'm still picking my brains for reorganising my whole category. I think it will wind up with ~100 pages (man, that looks weird when I consider that I only reluctantly made one RP page and even more reluctantly added what should have been a User: page from the start) with approximately even divisions of geo-political units (provinces, cities, physical geography), government and politics, and of course my belovèd armed forces (which started all the fuss in the first place).
I think the geo-political units could stand on their own (with occasional exceptions like North Island (Sober Thought) which can still be parenthetically qualified), no worries there. How many Schweindorfs (guess where in RL!) are people really going to create? 8^)
Government and politics as a bit trickier. My units of government tend to be pretty distictive even though most do not include Sober Thought -- who else is like to have a Minister of Community Connections? That would be doubleplusungood. Political parties are much tricker, since the major ones such as the Socialist Party and the Conservative Party are almost certain to be duplicated, while the Christian Unity Party and Parti hochelagais are bulletproof. I can live with direct entries parenthetically qualified where necessary, provided I or somebody makes dead-link disambig page for the generic term that gives no preference to any of the subsidiary specifics.
The forces plague my dreams, and not just because of the concern others have shown. There's the civilian political body that oversees them (Ministry of Community Defence and Vice Ministry of Military Defence), the Community Defence Forces as a whole (which I think people are finally agreeing is okay to leave that way with out adding "Sober Thought" as a prefix or suffix, then aspects of the CDF that apply across the board (my DOS file naming conventions use DF for their lead characters), aspects of the CDF specific to a particular service (LS, NS and AS, respectively), and the units and weapons of the CDF (sometimes used across two or three services, sometimes use in just one). I think using the intialism CDF for the latter two classes is the only way around it, and it makes the offending "Naval Service" into "CDF Naval Service."
But even the "Minister of Community Connections" doesn't sound right to me. Even if there is no risk of duplication, it seems like the article titles ought to be more descriptive. ~ Ceo|squawk 00:27, November 24, 2005 (GMT)
But what about the INS for Immigration and Naturalization [sic] Service? Surely there are lots of INSes around the world, but who ever means anything but the U.S. one? (I think it was rolled into Homeland Security so now it probably has some bizarre name that really does need a qualification.) Same for the Inland Revenue, the taxman the Beatles (and Stones, and the Floyd, and Sean Connery...) were trying to beat. Nobody outside Britain has heard of it, and everybody inside Britain knows what it means without the qualification. Same with Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, the Library Association, etc., which I think I mentioned to Pacitalia in a different but related discussion.
If it gets a Sober Thought Ministry of Community Connections' (or Connexions as briefly considered calling), I'm not sure it helps people find it any easier. I have already added them to Category:Sober Thought, and try to link as much as possible and appropriate in other articles to drive up the traffic. It also makes natural language internal links really annoying to type, and unnatural piped internal links really hard to get right. However, if this truly represents the consensus, I'll be happy to change. What think ye, plural?

Sober Thought 03:52, 28 November 2005 (GMT)

Party Template

I noticed you had a lot of parties with the same infobox, so I made a template for it: Template:Sober Thought Parties. I don't know if you want to use it, but I thought it might make your pages look better. ~ Ceo|squawk 00:36, November 24, 2005 (GMT)

Moving Pages

When you move your next page, use the move function, and then go back to the redirect and edit that page for the redirect. That preserves the edit history. See NSwiki:Page moves for more info. Thanks! ~ Ceo|squawk 00:55, November 24, 2005 (GMT)\

Same with [[Conservative Party (Sober Thought). ~ Ceo|squawk 01:35, November 24, 2005 (GMT)

Sober Thought game possible move

NSwiki:Naming conventions (I'm going to cite it anyway, even though it's been desparaged on this page :)) says that nations take second priority after regions for a page name. Why don't you move Sober Thought game to Sober Thought, since there's nothing at the latter page except for a redirect. Your factbook is in the category namespace, so that won't cause a conflict. Also, it will work nicely because then your NSeconomy and NationStates links will work. ~ Ceo|squawk 01:02, November 24, 2005 (GMT)

Comprehensive revamp of Sober Thought with some implications beyond

Greetings NSWikipedians --

After mulling over ideas and considerations developed on my own or presented to me by others, and trying to work as much as possible within the letter and spirit of both NSWiki and wider wiki guidelines, I've come up with a comprehensive proposal on how to reorganise the Sober Thought articles and category. I have also added some of the work of broader NSWiki applicability which I will undertake gladly to make the entire encyclopedia work more smoothly, and perhaps save a future well-intentioned person from making the same mistakes I did. Sorry for the length, but I'm trying to account for all the suggestions people have made so far and to put this baby to rest for all time. Well, maybe a few months. 8^)

1. Main page: direct entry never to be qualified or moved (1 extant and no more needed)

  • Sober Thought main article: I will move it from its irregularly named site to just plain "Sober Thought." I won't move it once there, even if a region gets created afterwards because it violates natural justice and probably indicates malicious naming on the other party's part. If I had a nation name like "Britain," fine, I'd give way to a region with the same way; however, my name is fairly unusual and I doubt a person would independently come up with the same name on their own. But I've been wrong before. Once. 8^) I'll also adopt the practice of having very short sections (e.g., education and defence) which summarise a lengthier freestanding article with a notation like "Main article: Sober Thought education."

2. Direct entries until parenthetical or prefix qualification becomes necessary (about 20 extant and 10 more expected)

  • provinces (10 and dropping): North Island (Sober Thought) is already qualified. Others will be qualified if regions or NS nations of the same name need space for their articles, provided I am contacted first and we both display a pointer notice on top indicating the other possibility. Most likely candidates are: South Island, Central Province and Potato Island.
  • cities (2 and rising): None currently qualified, willing to qualify on the same basis as provinces if needed for NS regions or nations. If a conflict exists with another city, I am willing to make a generic disambig page pointing to both (or all) articles each of which is parenthetically qualified.
  • Very distictive government agencies and products which do not actually include "Sober Thought" (6 and a couple, if any, expected) : Minister of Community blah used four times, Community Defence Forces listed in Category:Armed forces, Denkmark
  • Category:Corporations (1 extant, several expected imminently, perhaps some expected distantly): Public and private companies, discounting the ones like "Sober Thought Blah Corporation."

3. "Sober Thought blah" format (3 more or less extant, perhaps a few more expected) All of these will have short summaries and both opentext and hypertext links in the main ST article described in 1.

4. "Blah (Sober Thought)" format (all the political parties, trying to incorporate Ceorana's helpful infobox template) (8 extant, a few more content-driven and several #REDIRECTs expected, plus whatever gets dumped here from 2) I am going to do all of my political parties. I initially thought just doing the Conservative and Socialist ones would be enough, but the Moderate one was suggested, I saw the utility in doing the Liberal Democratic Action and Christian Unity Party, so why not just do them all? I will plant disambig pages with at least cursory option lists for each of the generic entries. I have already done so for Conservative Party, Socialist Party, Moderate Party and National Socialist Party (of which I have none!), and I will follow it up (depending on time and the responses of people whose articles are already occupying these bits of choice NSWiki real estate) with Libertarian Party, Communist Party, Liberal Party, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Populist Party and perhaps a few others. So far, I have just scanned the category lists and picked obvious ones, but when it is all up and running, perhaps we can get all NSWikipedians to add their own political parties in the appropriate spot. For instance, my own Free Enterprise Party is also colloquially known as the Libertarian Party, but why should I expect a casual glance at a list to convey this fact? This is especially true of the many parties using initialisms and conlangs (I was pretty good sorting out the real langs).

5. "CDF blah" format (about 50 extant and perhaps a couple dozen more expected) While the Community Defence Forces article itself will be unqualified under 2 (and I really think it's fair that it remain there for good), everything else gets qualified by prefix.

  • The three subsidiary services (Land Service, Naval Service and Air Service) all get the treatment, and their former homes will become disambigs listing their new homes of CDF Land Service and the generic Army, etc., with perhaps Space force or some such disambig with a cursory list culled from Category:Armed forces. These beggars (I wanted to use different vowels for these consonants, but I restrained myself) started the whole ball rolling, so I want to do such a clear job on them that no unsuspecting newb or even n00b can accidentally fall into the hole; they've got to deliberately jump. 8^) If I get especially energetic, I might conduct a survey of the three or four basic services (tease out the Royal, Imperial, Mynation, etc. prefixes and the Force, Service, Team, etc. suffixes), but probably not right away.
  • The subsidiary services and their blurred weapons/units, e.g., Air Service VIP transport which refer to two similar but related airplanes and the single class of squadrons in which these aircraft types serve.
  • Straightforward weapons, e.g., Community Defence Forces tanks
  • Straightforward articles applying to all armed forces, e.g., CDF enlistment, Community Defence Forces hieroglyphics (can leave it there since I've already made it and acronyms and initialisms are frowned upon in wikis generally, and make a #REDIRECT from CDF hieroglyphics
  • Question: Can I leave Community Vessel Cruiser and the like (~10 articles) because they are sufficiently distinctive already?
  • Question: Can I leave 0 series divisions, 9 series divisions and the like (oddly, only 6 or 7 are necessary) for the same reason?

I'll give the most interested parties (Ceorana [go President FROG!], Pacitalia, Gruenberg and whomever else I should add by forgot to) a week to raise objections, make suggestions and answer the last two questions contained in 5. In the meantime, any new articles I write will conform to the above policy.

I anticipate it will take at least two weeks after that to complete just the ST part of this, and perhaps another week or so for NSWiki-wide parts (generic parties, generic armies, #REDIRECTS, disambigs and such). If other issues arise during that time, or you have a sudden flash of insight regarding old issues, leave something on my User:Talk or (better yet) TG me on NS proper. Otherwise, this whole mess should be cleared up for good (ha!) by the New Year, or Silvester as they say in the Czech Republic and many other European Catholic countries.

Thanks.

Sober Thought 05:36, 26 November 2005 (GMT)

You seem to have put a lot of thought into this. As far as I care, the answer to your questions is yes for both of them. It looks like a good plan. → Ceo|squawk 16:39, November 27, 2005 (GMT)

Move of Sober Thought game to Sober Thought

I have done this for you. If I misinterpreted the request, let me know, and I'll do whatever's needed to help. Gruen2alk 02:23, 28 November 2005 (GMT)

Nope, mercy buckets, it's a long overdue correction and it will help me as I do my massive edits, renaming and recategorising blitz. I have done about a dozen moves on my own, but the one above required admin authority because it would replace an existing one.
Thanks again for volunteering your time and expertise.

Sober Thought 04:25, 28 November 2005 (GMT)

I fixed a double redirect caused by the move, and removed a couple of links on the page that no longer needed to be there due to the move. → Ceo|squawk 19:42, November 29, 2005 (GMT)

Response

Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. All of this is fine by me. I'm not speaking 'officially', as I haven't consulted with the other sysops, and in particular Goobergunch, but I can't see there being any objections. You seem a pretty friendly user, so I'm sure this advice is unnecessary, but do be tolerant of other users if they see an article of yours that they feel is irregularly titled etc.: if there are particular articles which you think people might be confused over, add a note on the article talk page, as they may not check here. Thanks for your cooperation in these matters, and for your willingness to help out the NSwiki effort: it is no exaggeration to say that this a true example of 'wiki spirit'. Ahem. Anyway, I've culled the (rather long) explanation you left on NSwiki:Cleanup, and reposted it to Category talk:Sober Thought; I hope this is acceptable. Further thoughts welcome. Ta, and I might see around the IDU forum. Gruen2alk 19:04, 29 November 2005 (GMT)

Apology unnecessary. Sounds great to me. I realise I'm not always the most organised and concise when it comes to life or wikis, but I really do want to help and be a contributing member of a communitarian effort. I appreciate those who try to keep on the rails.
Sober Thought 19:33, 29 November 2005 (GMT)

North Island (Sober Thought) Redirect

Unfortunately, redirects only work if it's the only text on the page, so I removed your description on the redirect page from North Island (Sober Thought) to Bristle Island, so the redirect works. Thanks. → Ceo \ squawk 03:24, 19 January 2006 (GMT)

Mercy buckets, IDU comrade. Sober Thought 04:03, 19 January 2006 (GMT)

National animal

Sure, go ahead. National animal sounds like a good title to me. → Ceo \ squawk 01:54, 23 January 2006 (GMT)

National Animal, and a bit about your talk page

Yup, national anthem sounds like a fine article to me.

By the way, you might want to consider archiving your talk page, which is getting a bit unweildy. Just put all the content onto User talk:Sober Thought/Archive and link to it from here, and you've got a fresh page so people don't have to scroll all the way to the bottom to read the most recent messages. :) → Ceo \ squawk 02:36, 23 January 2006 (GMT)