User talk:Ron B. Thomson

Hello, Ron B. Thomson! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking

or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Tikiwont (talk) 19:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PIMS

Right, sorry! I didn't realize I deleted the names as well. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/College Street (TTC)

Hi, I notice that when you merged information from these articles that you also blanked the pages. Please do not do this during an AfD; content should remain visible in articles until the conclusion of the AfD process since blanking the pages makes it harder for the articles to be evaluated and some editors may not realise that the pages have been blanked. In article merging it is common practice for pages to be redirected. However, that is a separate process. TerriersFan (talk) 22:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Richard de Fournival

Hello Dr. Thomson: I linked the name using the French form; an article had already been written back in 2006. Thanks!

If you ever need any research help, please let me know. I work at the Library of Congress, where we have a large collection of things mediaeval; and I have contacts at Catholic University of America (Frank Mantello, whom you might know...); ave valeque! Peter --FeanorStar7 (talk) 15:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blanking talk page

Hi, I notice that you are regularly blanking your talk page. Though permissible, it is not recommended since it makes it harder for other editors to follow discussion threads. A better approach is to periodic archive the page - see WP:Archive. HTH. TerriersFan (talk) 19:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Medeshamstede

Hi,

I see that you are a member of the Wikiproject: Middle ages, and that you are an active editor.

I have recently helped a little with the article on Medeshamstede, with a non-expert peer review.

I think this article should be rated 'B' class, or at the very least 'Start' class, following the considerable work put into improving it, chielfy by user:Nortonius.

I would assess it myself, but lacking any expertise in the subject area, I feel that would be inappropriate. Therefore, if you can spare the time, I would very much appreciate your assessing it and rating it (as B or Start).

The work is still in progress; after a time, it should be worthy of a GA review.

Regards,

-- Chzz ► 17:31, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To Ron B. Thompson: thanks for the review and revision of the article - I'll have a closer look at it, and your comments, later. Something I did spot though is a point where I think the sense has been changed, but don't worry I'll sort that out at some point today. Also, I've had thoughts about a revamp for the whole structure, so the introduction of that new section was a very welcome thought: at the time of writing, you can look at an outline for a future structure here, if you like. Certainly the intro needed and still needs attention! Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 15:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. As I said elsewhere, apologies for the wet "Thompson" - a slip of the digit! I know how annoying that kind of mistake can be. I've had a closer look at your revision - if I may, I'll list some comments here:

"name given to Peterborough": trouble is, it wasn't Peterborough until after the 10th century refoundation, so logically no.
"something" is redundant, but ~~Chrisieboy~~ David Underdown's taken that out.
I would avoid using parentheses and hyphens in the main article, wherever possible, so I'll be taking those out - ~~but thanks for the commas in that Durobrivae/Castor para, I must've missed those!~~ I now see that the commas were removed in your revision.
""Gyrwas", to whom he refers": it's the word Hugh Candidus is describing, not the people, so I'll be changing that back.
That bit about Sexwulf possibly being an East Anglian prince: here the sense really is changed, as that possibility does not derive from Hugh Candidus. See Sexwulf.
"bishop" vs. "Bishop": I think that one could be argued. It is a title, as Chrisieboy has pointed out, but Sexwulf was "a bishop": I think it was intended to be understood as "consecrated as bishop of Mercia", where you would have a lower case "b"; but I really don't mind.
"chronology of [the] kings": I don't see the need for "the" in that, it seems unnecessarily repetitious to me...?
"in varying degrees": um... Again, I don't see how "in" is an improvement over "to"...? It's normal to speak of things being done "to a high degree", rather than "in a high degree".
"Mercian royalty": another question of logic, and sense, I think. Unfortunately for the phrase "Mercian royalty", not all of the saints that might have been Mercian royalty necessarily were - I confess that I've struggled to word that, do feel free to have another stab at it, preserving that sense!
Guthlac: a problem here is, we now have "and" twice in the same sentence. I might just change it back...
Pega: similarly, we now have the sense "who" twice in the same sentence...

I have similar thoughts on much, but not all, of the remainder. I would also stand by the prior use of things like colons and semicolons as correct. Sorry the list is so long, but I thought it was the least I could do, in view of the detailed attention you have paid to the article. But, bearing that in mind, could I ask that you suggest such changes on the article's talk page in future, as I'll be undoing a lot of your changes? No offence, but this will take some time, and I think a lot of it would have been proper material for prior discussion. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 17:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

History of Science WikiProject

Ron,

Nice to see you on Wikipedia; it's a useful place for us retired academics to present our insights to a broader audience. I see that most of your edits have not been in your professional field, but in case you want to get involved, you might want to join the Wikiproject dealing with the History of Science.

Another historian of medieval science would be most welcome to help retain some balance on articles. As you may have noticed, there is a current tendency for some editors to go overboard in trying to compensate for the perceived neglect of Islamic science. That's a politically sensitive, and time consuming project and I would understand if you don't want to get into that area; I've somewhat backed off the more general articles myself.

Anyway, glad that you're involved. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Steve: I noticed you lurking about, and I noticed the long involved discussion about "Science in the Middle Ages" in various articles, especially about the planting of the dates of European history onto other cultures where such a division is not valid. For now I would stay out of this.

I have been cleaning up a variety of items which have to do with other interests (my brother-in-law on a Canadian railway; the articles relating to my winter home in the Algarve; and the Church of St. Roch in Lisbon where my new English Guide Book is about to appear. This latter has led me into cleaning up 16th-century Portuguese portrait art! I hope to get back soon to HofS. Richard de Fournival is on my list to look at, as well as Masha'allah and astrolabes. Cheers. Ron B. Thomson (talk) 19:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Igreja de Sao Roque

Hi Ron, I found your article on the Sao Roque church of Lisbon wonderful, you should consider nominating it as Featured article. However, I had already written an article on this church, called São Roque Church (Lisbon), some time ago. The one I wrote is much less complete and less referenced than yours, but somehow we need to blend the two, perhaps incorporating the photos and other details from mine into your article, which is much more authoritative. I know you are new to Wikipedia: when starting a new article, it is always advisable to search extensively for similar articles, so as to avoid making duplicates. It would have been perhaps much easier to have edited the preexisting article than starting anew. Best wishes, Fsouza (talk) 14:41, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, I didn't know you were writing a guide to the church and museum! When I visited the church the museum was closed, unfortunately. In the church I got a small guide which was actually just a sheet of paper, but the info was very complete and accurate. The blending you did looks right to me. I'm going to clean the other page. If I get more photos I'll try to add them. Cheers, Fsouza (talk) 01:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Garcia Fernandes

Hey, many thanks for your corrections. Please feel absolutely free to change whatever you find is wrong in my contributions. I try to do my best but I'm not a specialist and my bibliographical resources are rather scarce. Actually, I don't even live in Portugal and finding info is difficult, particularly on Portuguese painters. Concerning the St Roque guide, I've got the Portuguese version (it was 2004), which looks very nice to me. Good luck with the new guide. Cheers Fsouza (talk) 22:56, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Olá

Olá Ron B. Thomson. Poderias dar a tua opinião em [1] pois o artigo não tem a visibilidade e os esclarecimentos que tem em PT [2] . Cumprimentos.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/Madeira work group

Hello Ron B. Thomson! I see you are a participant in Wikipedia:WikiProject Portugal. You may want to come to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Africa/Madeira work group and participate / help. Thanks! The Ogre (talk) 15:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again Ron B. Thomson! Could you at least voice your opinion on the proposals I advanced in the talk page? Thanks! The Ogre (talk) 04:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response

To your comment at the AFD of Greater Europe. The reason you ave for deletion was "per nom". I am sorry but this does not qualify as a reason, since if you cared to check the history of the article, you would have seen that the reasons given for deletion in the nom no longer apply to the current article, as has been pointed out by another user. 78.146.235.129 (talk) 20:20, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Winter Kept Us Warm

I'm not particularly interested in getting into a disagreement about it; I know only what the sources that exist on the web said. If they're getting it wrong, that reflects badly on them. Bearcat (talk) 15:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Antonis Mor

I originally noticed the image was obstructing the text above it and also a series of section edit blocks were appearing out of order at the bottom. I had seen this happen before when a number of images are placed one after another. I first moved the last image to the right and that corrected the problem on my browser (Firefox). But someone else using a different browser reverted my change because it looked worse on his. I then re positioned all the images and tested it with Firefox, IE and Chrome and that had solved both issues AlexGWU (talk) 02:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC).[reply]

War Edition at Dili

Users J. Patrick Fischer (talk) Merbabu (talk) and Darwinius (talk) are removing systematically the symbols of the city alleging they are not used anymore. The problem is that they doesn´t quote any relevant source to remove the symbols and prove they are not used anymore, despite there´s a law supporting them. I gave the data, he is disputing it, just for personal taste. Domaleixo (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.41.242.19 (talk) 14:22, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pedro I of Brazil

Hello, Ron. You seem quite interested in Portuguese history. I was wondering if you have access to high quality pictures of Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (King Pedro IV of Portugal)? To be more precise, I've been trying to find, for some time now, a good quality version of the painting made by John Simpson (1782-1847). There is one awful uploaded version at commons (File:29- Imperador Rei D. Pedro IV - O Soldado.jpg) and that's not even the full painting. Regards, --Lecen (talk) 20:15, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File:Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II X.jpg

Hi Ron,
another user asked me at Commons, whether this image could be transferred to Commons (to make it available for other Wikipedias). However, when I looked at the description, I wondered why you did license it CC-BY-SA, when it wasn't shot by yourself, but by some "Jim Lynch, National Film Board of Canada". Are images in the "Library and Archives of Canada, no. C-018846" automatically CC-BY-SA or did you get an individual permission/release from Jim Lynch? I am asking this sort of questions to prevent the image becoming deleted after the transfer to Commons, which happens not so rarely. --Túrelio (talk) 18:50, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

File permission problem with File:Coronation_of_Queen_Elizabeth_II_X.jpg

Thanks for uploading File:Coronation_of_Queen_Elizabeth_II_X.jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file agreed to license it under the given license.

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Possibly unfree File:Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II X.jpg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II X.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 21:52, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

File source problem with File:Great Ex Telescope Telescope.jpg

Thank you for uploading File:Great Ex Telescope Telescope.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, please add a link to the page from which it was taken, together with a brief restatement of the website's terms of use of its content. If the original copyright holder is a party unaffiliated with the website, that author should also be credited. Please add this information by editing the image description page.

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This is a newspaper photo, from a now defunct newspaper, whose records are unobtainable, and which did not give a photographer's name. Since it is 112 years old and a corporte-owned photograph, its copyright no longer exists, and is in the public domain in virtually all countries of the world, including the United States. No further information can be given and there is no reason to delete since it does not violate any copyright laws, nor would anyone using it violate any copyright laws.Ron B. Thomson (talk) 14:26, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That information is relevant; that means it is truly anonymous. Pardon for the nuisance, however, "unknown author", in the lingo of those who are uncareful about such things, often means, "I didn't bother to look" or "the source [some Geocities page or something] didn't bother to provide it." Thus we prefer to double check. Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:01, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Peregrinus De Maricourt Astrolabe Charts

Hello,

I am wondering if you can provide a source or more information about the image you provided on the Peregrinus of Maricourt page (the diagram on back of his astrolabe). It is quite different than other astrolabe charts and I am very interested to know what the charts were utilized for. I can't find and translations for most of the labels that appear in the actual image.

Thanks very much for you input and time! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.120.114.144 (talk) 19:31, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

?? Can you identify yourself please? RBT

A number of questions. First the diagram was redrawn by me, based on one of the manuscripts of Petrus' text on the astrolabe. I believe that the manuscript was Vatican, Pal. Lat. 1392, where the text is found on fol. 16r-36v.

The bottom right quarter consists of a shadow square, numbered 2 to 12, and the unequal hour lines (the arcs), numbered 1 to 6. These are standard on many astrolabes, and are often engraved as pairs, symetrical to each other.

The other three quadrants contain two sets of information for calendar purposes. The first contains a list of solar years (ciclus solaris -- cycle of the sun), 1 to 28; then the 'ciclus clavium' which is a series by which one is able to calculate the church's moveabile feasts especially Easter; the third is the Epact (ciclus epactae) which is a different, and more common way of calculating Easter. These last two seem to be the converse of each other and relate the phase of the moon to the beginning of the solar calendar year, usually 1 January.

The other set of information contains first the 19-year cycle (ciclus decemnovennalis -- 19 cycle), also known as the Metonic cycle during which an even number of solar years and lunar months were thought to pass. (The numbers 1 to 19 are themselves known as the Golden Numbers.) Then comes the concurrents (concurrentes [septimanae] which give the week-day for the first day of the year during the 19-year cycle (notice that it jumps up one over leap-year). This is followed by indiactors of leap-year (annus bissextialis). Finally there are the Dominical letters (littera dominicalis -- A to G) which again gives the day of the week for the first day of the year.

All of these are used for calculating the date of Easter, as well as all the movable feasts based on Easter. By having them inscribed on the astrolabe, once could use a rule (pivoting around the centre) to mark the sets of numbers for a given year. It is obviously a substitute for a table written out in a manuscript.

This is not a common inscription on the back of western astrolabes, although in my work on the astrolabe text of Pseudo-Masha'allah I have found a similar 19-day cycle, but it appears in only one out of about 90 manuscripts with the text -- so it is obviously a unique addition.

For more information on how this works, you could consult a detailed book on calendars. A simple start might be C. R. Cheney Handbook of Dates for Students of English History (London: Royal Historical Society, 1970), pp. 8-9.

Ron B. Thomson (talk) 16:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]