User talk:Trainspotter~enwiki/old

Messages I've read

Hi Trainspotter ~ I've seen your nic quite a bit recently, so I gather you know your way around, but welcome anyway. jimfbleak 15:10 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

• Thanks for the greeting. This wiki's kind of addictive. Better do some work... Trainspotter 15:17 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the warning re the climate change "minor" edit. Looks like a trainspotter can be useful :-) (William M. Connolley 12:41 13 Jun 2003 (UTC))

Will look at Ozone... though BTW EP has been sane in the GW etc pages... sorry to hear you're not a real trainspotter :-) (William M. Connolley 19:16 25 Jun 2003 (UTC))

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Removed the "Billionaires" talk redirect. Cecropia 14:44, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Brunt-Vaisala frequency

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Are you sure that this Vaisala is the same person as the astronomer? Some online sources say Vilho Vaisala, with a different year of birth and death (see bio at http://www.vaisala.com/ )

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A practice period

Thanks for the explanation over on the Village Pump. Kind of disappointing -- I was half-hoping it would turn out to be something exotic, like Bermudan or Kenyan English. Cheers, –Hajor 19:48, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Re: Thanks

You're welcome :). Just remember to avoid double-redirects for the future. Happy editing! -Frazzydee 22:27, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Peter Fechter

Hello, I just read your message on de:Diskussion:Peter_Fechter and was quite surprised that there is an article about this very German topic on the English Wikipedia.

The German discussion is mainly about "neutral point of view". The problem is, that the GDR did not report the complete truth, but altered the facts to better fit the communistic ideology. Most probably, also the western reporting was biased. So, different people repeatedly changed the article to fit the facts accordingly to what they were told, and a discussion started about what is true and what isn't.

Recently I added some facts to the acticle that I read in a book about the Berlin wall. To my perception the German article is quite neutral now, maybe you want to take over the additions to the English article.

There are some facts in your English article that I did not know before. I searched the web for references, to no avail. I need some proof to add something to the German article. So I would be interested in the source of:

"The plan was to hide in a carpenter's workshop near the wall and, after observing the border guards from there, to jump out of a window" (I found something on that, but it is about an "empty abandoned house" and not a "carpenter's workshop")

"Fechter was shot in the pelvis" (my book says that he was hit in the back and the belly)

"according to a report in Time Magazine, a US second-lieutenant on the scene received specific orders from the US Commandant in West Berlin to stand firm and do nothing" (This is indeed an interesting addition to the comment of the GDR commander. Is there an online version of this article?)

"In March 1997 two former East German guards Rolf Friedrich and Erich Schreiber faced manslaughter charges for Fechter's death, at which they admitted to his shooting. They were both convicted, and sentenced to one year's imprisonment on probation." (amazingly, but there seems to be no information on this on the web. I googled for the names, but there only appear 4 english webpages. Could it be that some name is misspelled?)

"It also emerged during the trial that any aid attempt from the West had indeed been made impossible, but according to a report from forensic pathologist Otto Prokop, "Fechter had no chance of survival. The shot in the right hip had caused the severest internal injuries."" (That one is very interesting)

Facts that I doubt:

"shots were fired, ..., in plain view of hundreds of witnesses" (It seems more logical that the shots were seen only by some people that happened to be there. Later, when Fechter began to cry, hundreds of people gathered.)

"western bystanders were apparently prevented at gunpoint from assisting him" (About this, there is a big difference among the eastern and western reports. Some reports say that the eastern soldiers used teargas (not guns) to prevent western people from climbing the wall. Others say that the eastern soldiers were prevented at gunpoint by the western police... In my opinion, there should be reliable evidence, to have this claim in the article)

You can answer in English on my German discussion page de:Benutzer_Diskussion:MKI

Greetings, ~michael

Counties policy

Hello Trainspotter. Last month I added an explanation note to the counties naming policy at Wikipedia: Naming conventions (places)#Counties of Britain. I have done this to make it clearer because certain people have insisted upon mis-interpreting it (see Shipston-on-Stour and Talk:Gloucestershire). I dont think it has changed the policy just explained it better.

The reason I'm contacting you is because you voted on the original policy. It has already been OK'd by all of the other people (who are still here) who voted for the original policy at my talk page is it OK with you?, sorry I forgot to contact you earlier.

PS. I've noticed that User:Owain's compliance with the policy at the Welsh counties seems to be a bit iffy. G-Man 20:19, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Blocked user who pretended to be you

Three apparently related accounts were used for US election-related templated vandalism via proxy servers. The set are User:Train spotter, User:Driesh and User:Mnx User:200.35.96.37. User:200.35.81.51 was used for one harmless edit by an anon (space removal, perhaps to test whether it was blocked) then by User:Train spotter and User:Driesh. I blocked the IPs concerned for 3 months, assuming that we'll have proxy identification to help the RC patrol by then. Please let me know if you'd like control of the User:Train spotter account - there are precedents for handing over such accounts to the impersonated party, to prevent further use in that way. Jamesday 05:16, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)