User talk:MFIreland

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Hi there!

Hi there MFIreland. My name is Skinny87 and I thought some more information about why your article has been nominated for deletion might be helpful. Wikipedia has a number of guidelines that set out how notable something—a military unit, a person, software, a car etc—has to be to have an article. The key is always the existence of multiple reliable sources that cover the subject in significant detail (as opposed to just mentioning it in passing). The reason this is so important is that everything we write has to be verifiable; our editorial policies forbid us from simply writing from personal knowledge. Examples of suitable sources are focused articles in national broadsheet newspapers, books (or chapters of books) written by recognised experts in the field, articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, reputable websites, or any other credible sources that haven't been self-published on sites like lulu.com, in blogs, or by a vanity press.

What this adds up to is that your article was nominated for deletion because there don't appear to be sufficient reliable sources that mention its subject in more than a passing manner. Please don't regard this as a criticism of you or the subject of the article; it's sometimes the case that such sources do exist and the article can be improved rather than deleted. For military history-related articles, the Military History Wikiproject's own notability guidelines give a good general indication of the sort of things we'd normally expect to be well-enough covered by reliable sources to establish their notability. To take the example of the Dodge Armoured Car, it seems that it didn't make enough of an impact in its area (military vehicles) to be commented on in any significant detail by historians or writers of reliable sources. I've found that this is often the case for vehicles - and indeed many other military-history subjects - that did not see any action in battle or in a high-profile civilian role. As I commented in the AfD nomination, I'd suggest writing an article on armoured cars used by the Irish Armed Forces, which could then include a subsection on the Dodge and any other vehicles that would not merit an actual article.

I hope that you have not been too discouraged by this deletion nomination and that you will continue to contribute to Wikipedia. Most of us have had articles deleted at some point—it helps to regard it as part of the Wikipedia learning process! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talkpage. As an aside, this message is partially a template that the Military History Wikiproject is trying to develop, to explain in more detail why military-history related articles are nominated for deletion. Any feedback you might have on this would be greatly appreciated. Skinny87 (talk) 17:31, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Irish Army Armoured Fighting Vehicles

This seems like the best way to go with your project. Would you like some help with developing the article? I have some experience in writing articles on military vehicles, and have a number of sources that might be of aid. Skinny87 (talk) 19:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey, no problem! I think the first thing to do is to make some rather boring but vital structural changes to the article. This would add a small lede introducing the subject, adding in a reference and bibliography section, and also removing (for now) those two infoboxes; the latter because there's no room for them at the moment and they rather overwhelm the other headings. Would you be okay with me doing this for a start? I've also got at least one book to add as a reference for the Universal Carriers. Skinny87 (talk) 20:00, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

MFIreland, you've uploaded several pictures of armoured cars which, at the moment, are labelled incorrectly. You've used the tag 'I created these myself' and, even though you have actually uploaded them tothe website, this is incorrect as you did not actually create the photograph yourself. This means that the copyright status of the photographs is currently unknown, and is a potential WP:Copyright problem. Could you please list here all the photographs you have uploaded to wikipedia, along with where you got them from (say a website or book) and any copyright status that comes with them? Once that is done, we can ascertain their copyright and decide from there. Skinny87 (talk) 04:45, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you tell me where you've got these photos from, the ones you've uploaded? It may be possible to tag them as Public Domain pictures, as they look quite old. But this is quite urgent, as it could be a warnable or even blockable offence. I certainly don't want that, and I'm sure you don't either! I'd suggest you read around WP:COPYRIGHT and other related pages at the same time. Cheers, Skinny87 (talk) 18:05, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so I see that you've edited File:Irish Rolls-Royce Armoured Car Co. Cork 1941.jpg to state that it is from the Irish Examiner. However, this still poses a number of problems. I'll be honest, copyright statuses for photographs on wikipedia is something of a minefield, and I usually just stick with Public Domain photographs, ie from the Imperial War Museum, many of which are public domain due to being taken by official photographers. But back to this particular example: you have the permission tag added incorrectly, as unless you specifically and literally took the photograph, you can't use that tag. Because it is an older photograph used by a paper, it is quite likely to be copyrighted and thus unlikely to be able to be used. On wikipedia, it is generally preferred to have a Public Domain photograph over a copyrighted and WP:FAIRUSE one. This photograph would fail this test, as its quite likely there's an armoured car in a museum we could photograph for ourselves. However, it would be a good photograph to keep, but only if we know more about its copyright status. Can you identify exactly which copy of newspaper you got it from, exactly when it was taken, and who is credited with taking it. If we're lucky, it might have been taken by an Irish Army photographer and thus Public Domain. But we need this information for all of the photographs you've uploaded. I hope this isn't too confusing for you, taking it all in at once. Skinny87 (talk) 20:46, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank-you for adding new tags to that first file. Fair-Use might be entirely correct, but it's a start at the very least. Can you do the same with File:Dodge Armoured Car.jpg, adding where it came from? Now that the picture stuff is out of the way, in order to improve the article, you need to start adding in references and citations to the text you've been adding. To do this, at the end of each sentence or paragraph, you need to add a citation in the style of < ref >Author, p. 1< ref >, taking the spaces out so that it is formatted correctly. The sources used will also need to be added to the bibliography so that readers know where the text came from; if you're not sure how to do that, let me know the source details and I'll add them in. Skinny87 (talk) 09:41, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you tell me what source you're using for the article, please? And I'm not sure that the Ford Mk V is sufficiently notable for its own article, especially uncited as it is right now; it might be put in for an AfD like your previous one, I'm afraid. Skinny87 (talk) 18:57, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Good to see you around

Hi MFIreland, It's good to see new contributors, but as you've noticed, Wikipedia policies can make it seem like we're a bit of a rough crowd. I recommend you take Skinny87 up on his offer of help for your first referenced, cited article, and swing by Military History project. There's a good crowd there that are always ready to help. Doug (talk) 03:29, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey MFIreland. I agree with Dhatfield. The new article, on the German machine-gun crews, will most likely need to be prodded. It's far too specific and detailed for a wikipedia article, although some of the details would quite likely do well in this section of the Heer article, although the entire article is a mess, to be honest. On the plus side, however, the Irish AFV article is going very well, and I'm glad to see it has a lot of citations. Skinny87 (talk) 09:38, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and prodded the article for deletion. Please don't take it personally, but I believe the information is far too specific and detailed to warrant its own article. I've suggested several articles where the information might be suited, and I welcome discussion on the subject, either here or on my own talkpage. Skinny87 (talk) 09:43, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Another concern, which I've just thought of, is that the article layout looks very much like that used on Bayonetstrength, the website in the External Links section. Can you confirm whether you have copied and pasted in the information on the article? If so, this would be a serious copyright and plagarism issue. Can you please confirm this, and link to the exact page on Bayonetstrength that you got the info from? Skinny87 (talk) 13:10, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi MFIreland. I'm one of Wikipedia's administrators and here on your talk page because Skinny asked me to take a look at the work you've been doing with a view to offering some friendly advice. You've had a slightly rough start here, but that's nothing unusual simply because Wikipedia is a huge endeavour with more policies, guidelines and community norms that you can shake a stick at. We certainly don't expect everyone to get everything right first time, and most of our editors are very friendly, knowledgeable, and willing to help out (as Skinny and Doug have been doing). However, because Wikipedia is a collaborative project what we do expect is that editors are communicative and respond as positively as they can to any concerns raised by their peers. To your credit you've tried to address some of the image issues brought up, but copyright is still a major concern. It didn't take me long to find this website which appears to contain sections that are word-for-word the same as in your Armoured Fighting Vehicles of the Irish Army article. Additionally German Heavy Machine Gun Platoon was largely a direct copy of this web page (to the extent that I had no choice but to delete the article). You should be aware that users who violate copyright after being warned about it are usually blocked from contributing to Wikipedia without further warning; for legal reasons this isn't something we can afford to be lax about (see WP:COPYVIO for the applicable policy). The same applies to image licensing, as Skinny has explained above.

I hope this isn't coming across as lecturing - my intention is purely to try to prevent you from being excluded from the site as I believe you have the potential to develop into a very good contributor. To fix the copyright problem on Armoured Fighting Vehicles of the Irish Army, which I think is confined to the Comet section though I haven't checked everything, you'll need to rewrite that section as soon as possible. There's a helpful guideline here that might be useful. There are only really two things you need to remember to make your editing go as smoothly as possible: listen and respond to advice from other editors, and ask for help if you're unsure about anything. Everything else you'll pick up as you go. Best wishes for your continued editing, EyeSerene^talk 17:09, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey, absolutely no problem. Apart from the photos, which happens to everyone, and the German MG article, I haven't see anything other than great editing from you. I know what you mean about the file of photos, I have something similar. I don't upload many photos, and when I do its usually from the Imperial War Museums Online Collection, as they're usually Public Domain. The photos will probably get deleted, but don't be worried about that. I'm sure we can find some decent ones that can be properly licensed. As for talkpages, I don't use them particularly often, but they can be useful, especially for advice and the like. Keep up the good work with the AFV article, however - I think if the section EyeSerene mentioned is rewritten and you can find details on all the vehicles, it'll be a good shot for a Good Article at the very least. Skinny87 (talk) 19:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Just to add to the above, thank you very much for your positive response. Regarding the images, it's often worth trawling through Commons to see what other editors have uploaded (Commons is a free media repository for use by all the Wikimedia sites and you can be 99% sure there will be no copyright issues with the stuff on there). I agree that you're doing a really good job on the AFV article - it's an enjoyable and informative read. Finally, I'm sure Skinny's already mentioned it but you'd be most welcome over at the Military History WikiProject if you fancy checking us out :) Best, EyeSerene^talk 19:48, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Contribution to Churchill tank article

Thanks for supplying a reference for the Irish Army service. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Irish Oak

Thanks for sorting the "Ireland" issue on the Irish Oak article. Mjroots (talk) 10:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I realise that the subject of Ireland (the island and countries therein) is contentious. My point was that the link directed to the article that covers the country during the period of time being discussed. I've no objection to Éire being used as the displayed link, nor do I have a strong opinion on the display of the word "Ireland" there. Mjroots (talk) 13:43, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Easter Rising

Hi again. I don't know if you were aware of this being on line but the Weekly Irish Times published a lot of it's articles regarding the Rising as a separate book called the Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook. It's now available on line at http://www.scribd.com/doc/30860794/Sinn-Fein-Rebellion-Hand-Book. For example there is a five page article on the court martial of Flood. NtheP (talk) 10:03, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

£250! I'll stick to looking at it online. I was reading the section on Flood's court martial and I'm more and more suspicious that it was a whitewash. It just doesn't stack up properly. I think that in the immediate aftermath of the Rising the last thing the British authoriites wanted was one of their own being convicted of murdering two other British soldiers and two Irish non-republicans. So make sure the evidence comes out to put a suspicion of doubt in the members of the court martial - enough to secure an acquital, and then transfer Flood to another unit very quickly. I know you and I are likely to disagree over a lot of things especially around Irish history of this period but that doesn't mean to say that I think what the British had to say or do is necessarily the truth or correct, just what happened and can be verified and that's what is demanded around here; verifiable, balanced info. NtheP (talk) 11:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Sheehy-Skeffington's killing and the court-martial of Bowen-Colthurst is covered in depth as well. The cynic in me says strange that he was found to be insane by reason of shell-shock, whereas on the Western Front the same defence to a charge of desertion would be far less likely to succeed. There were killings by both sides that ought not to have happened e.g. the shooting of unarmed Georgius Rex men that lead to Pearse ordering his men from firing on anybody who was unarmed, uniformed or not. That is not by the way a statement that Georgius Rex played no part in the actions just that the shootings on the 24th of a unarmed party was a mistake. NtheP (talk) 12:28, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Warning re non-neutral edits/failure to communicate

Further to this thread at the Military history WikiProject talk page, where around half a dozen editors have expressed some serious concerns about some of your edits, I'm requesting that in future you try to ensure that your edits fully comply with our neutrality policy. The unanimous view among those editors that commented is that you seem to spin certain edits in an anti-British and anti-Irish regiments of the British Army direction. There was also concern that you have not taken up offers to discuss this when you've been approached by other editors, and in fact have rebuffed their attempts by removing them from your talk page.

• Neutrality is a fundamental, non-negotiable site policy. In addition, in areas where nationalism has been a source of conflict on Wikipedia a number of Arbitration committee cases have established precedents for handling disruptive influences. Of most relevance to your work area is Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles. In short this covers "any article that could be reasonably construed as being related to The Troubles, Irish nationalism, and British nationalism in relation to Ireland", and gives administrators a range of sanctions that can be imposed to encourage policy-compliant editing or, failing that, to remove problematic editors from the project.
• Communication too is a fundamental expectation of all editors, as I pointed out to you back in July. Consistent failure to respond to and address the concerns of other editors is taken as evidence that an editor can't work collaboratively and generally leads to their account being prevented from editing.

Please take the above to heart. You've left many editors with the impression that you're here to push an agenda and are more interested in your personal point of view than in writing quality, accurate, neutral content. If you aren't able to edit neutrally in certain areas due to your no-doubt sincerely-held personal views, it may be best for you to work in other areas or find another website to contribute to. If there are further problems you will almost certainly be blocked. EyeSerene^talk 10:43, 18 November 2010 (UTC)