User talk:Cplakidas

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DYK for Battle of Meligalas

On 2 November 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Battle of Meligalas, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that after the withdrawal of German forces, left-wing partisans defeated and summarily executed some 700 to 1,100 Nazi collaborators in Meligalas, Greece? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Battle of Meligalas. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Battle of Meligalas), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Constantine V

Hi Constantine,

Thanks for your suggestions, unfortunately I know no German whatsoever - some Old English, but it isn't really of much help with modern German. I have Angold, M. (2012) Byzantium: The Bridge from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, but as a digital copy which is lacking page numbers, so not a great deal of use. Feel free to add any modern interpretations that can be gleaned from other sources. Urselius (talk) 10:14, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Urselius, I have access, but no time, it will probably be a couple of weeks or so before I can get to it. I can nevertheless send you a digital copy if you want. --Constantine ✍ 10:29, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Certainly, thanks. Urselius (talk) 10:35, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Digital restoration

Hi Constantine,

Thanks for the download on Constantine V.

I did a digital restoration of the mosaic of John II - just wanted you to see it in case I did something wrong (not having uploaded any image before) and they remove it for some reason. Urselius (talk) 12:55, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Urselius, the only thing missing is a link to the original file for verification purposes. Possibly also add a {{PD-art-100}} tag to cover the original mosaic. Constantine ✍ 13:02, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Right, thanks. Cheers! Urselius (talk) 13:08, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Vettore Cappello

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Vettore Cappello you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:03, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

EI 3

Hello, Cplakidas. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

- LouisAragon (talk) 00:35, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Did you receive my email? :-) No hurry, just to make sure. - LouisAragon (talk) 17:10, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi LouisAragon, yes I did, sorry I was a bit busy. I'll try to get them for you in the next couple of days. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 17:46, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Aight. Can you ping me when you have sent it? Thanks alot, - LouisAragon (talk) 11:27, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi LouisAragon, I have sent it already per mail. Have you not received it? Constantine ✍ 11:36, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately I did not. Can you resend them by any chance? - LouisAragon (talk) 11:42, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm, it appears the mail server on your end is blocking attachments. I'll have to copy out the text. Constantine ✍ 11:57, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@LouisAragon: have a look again please. Constantine ✍ 12:08, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Yep, appeared straight away in my inbox this time (just like previous times). Ευχαριστώ πολύ. - LouisAragon (talk) 12:25, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

A pleasure. Happy editing! Constantine ✍ 12:27, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #022, 11 Nov 2018

Welcome AmericanAir88

Give a hearty welcome to AmericanAir88, who has adopted working on portals as one of his main purposes on Wikipedia. So far, he has created the following portals:

• Portal:Blueberries
• Portal:Olives
• Portal:Bananas
• Portal:Bone fractures
• Portal:Carbohydrates
• Portal:Cherries
• Portal:Coconuts
• Portal:Hartford Whalers
• Portal:Integumentary system
• Portal:Exercise
• Portal:Fatty acids

Way to go!

Where's Evad?

Evad disappeared from Wikipedia on October 18.

He has been, and will continue to be, sorely missed.

Hopefully, he is okay, on a Caribbean cruise or something.

The conversion continues

Portals of the old design, are slowly but surely being converted to the new single-page design.

One factor that has slowed things down is that for many sections, the section header call and section contents call are integrated into a template and buried in a lua module, locking them in on each portal. They have been that way for years.

This means that these sections can't be directly edited like the other sections on the same portal. So, search/replaces affect all the sections except those. So, upgrading headers on these portals, for example, misses the integrated sections and inadvertently results in 2 different header colors.

Before we can continue with the upgrade of these portals, the headers and section contents calls need to be restored to each portal, so that those can be edited in concert with the other sections on the portal, and worked on independently of each other.

This is underway, with a solution implemented on about 1/4 of the affected portals so far. Around 300 of them. The remaining 900 should be done within a couple weeks or so.

Going wide...

We now have banner-shaped pictures included in the introduction sections of 180 portals. The rarity of such pictures has made it difficult to find suitably narrow images for display across the tops of portals.

We have a solution for this, courtesy of FR30799386...

Most pictures are not banner-shaped. But, you can still use them as banners. Here's how:

{{Portal image banner|File:Blueberries .jpg |maxheight=120px |overflow=Hidden }}

Using both maxheight=120px and overflow=Hidden produces this:

Project's status

There are now 4,140 portals, with more being created almost daily. Prior to this project's reboot, portals were created at about the rate of 80 per year. Since April of this year, we've created about 2,600 new portals, or 32.5 years' worth at the old rate.

Of those new portals, about 3/4 of them need links leading to them. Almost all of them are linked to from the category system, but they still need links in article see also sections, at the bottom of navigation templates, and on the main portals list at Portal:Contents/Portals.

Of the 1500 portals created before the reboot, about 300 have been completely converted to the new design so far. About 1100 more have been partially converted, with intros, image slideshows, and associated wikimedia sections getting the most attention.

Discussion has resumed on the portal guidelines.

Until next issue...

See ya round the portal system!    — The Transhumanist   11:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CLI, November 2018

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Peacemaker67 looks at the Sydney Wars Op-ed: TomStar81 on the end of World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 09:39, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Vettore Cappello

The article Vettore Cappello you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Vettore Cappello for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Sturmvogel 66 -- Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:02, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.15 16 November 2018

Chart of the New Pages Patrol backlog for the past 6 months.

Hello Cplakidas,

Community Wishlist Survey – NPP needs you – Vote NOW

• Community Wishlist Voting takes place 16 to 30 November for the Page Curation and New Pages Feed improvements, and other software requests. The NPP community is hoping for a good turnout in support of the requests to Santa for the tools we need. This is very important as we have been asking the Foundation for these upgrades for 4 years.

If this proposal does not make it into the top ten, it is likely that the tools will be given no support at all for the foreseeable future. So please put in a vote today.

We are counting on significant support not only from our own ranks, but from everyone who is concerned with maintaining a Wikipedia that is free of vandalism, promotion, flagrant financial exploitation and other pollution.

With all 650 reviewers voting for these urgently needed improvements, our requests would be unlikely to fail. See also The Signpost Special report: 'NPP: This could be heaven or this could be hell for new users – and for the reviewers', and if you are not sure what the wish list is all about, take a sneak peek at an article in this month's upcoming issue of The Signpost which unfortunately due to staff holidays and an impending US holiday will probably not be published until after voting has closed.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}18:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Gascon campaign of 1345

Hi Constantine. I have just nominated this for an ACR - Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Gascon campaign of 1345. It is the campaign which included Battle of Auberoche, the ACR of which you were kind enough to comment on. And so I thought that I may be able to sweet talk you into looking at this one too. Thanks in advance. (He wrote, pushing his luck.) Gog the Mild (talk) 18:37, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Sure, I always enjoy reviewing your articles. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 18:56, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Cplakidas. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Cplakidas. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Help with Greek

Seleucus VI's statue

Hello Constantine. I nominated Seleucus VI Epiphanes for FA. An reviewer noted that no image have an alt. One of the images is a drawing of a Greek inscription found on a statue base. He asked that the alt include a translation of the Greek text. Problem is, the source itself do not translate the inscription, it just explain it. And I cant read Greek. So, is it possible that you translate it for me? Thanks in advance.Attar-Aram syria (talk) 08:48, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Attar-Aram syria, here it is, both in the original and in translation: [Βασιλ]έα Σ[έλευκον Ἐπιφανῆ]
[βασιλ]έως Ἀν[τιόχου Φιλομήτορος]
[Διον]ύσιος [...]
[Ἀθη]ναῖος τ[...]
[Ἀπό]λλωνι, Ἀ[ρτέμιδι, Λητοῖ]

(implied: Dedicated to the) King S[eleukos Epiphanes],
(son) of king An[tiochos Philometor],
[Dion]ysios [...]
the [Athe]nian [...]
to [Apo]llo, A[rtemis, Leto].

Cheers, Constantine ✍ 09:44, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you so much man. Appreciate it.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 09:46, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Always a pleasure :) Constantine ✍ 09:56, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Basil II

Can I get your current judgement on the article of Basil II? Векочел (talk) 17:22, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Векочел, i am a bit busy at the moment, I'll get around to it over the weekend. Cheers, --Constantine ✍ 10:06, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't really see much difference, unfortunately. Just at the beginning, I still see over-reliance on Psellus when describing his character and intellectual stance, without any modern source to counter-balance him. More worrying, I still see an inability of choosing the right source for the right reference, as exemplified on his parentage: of the five (!) references there, four (!!!) are tangentially related to the topic (Nicol; McCabe; Diacre, Talbot & Sullivan; Durant & Durant), two are incorrectly cited (Diacre, Talbot & Sullivan, where "Diacre" is the French translation of "Deacon"; at Bury etc., you should indicate the precise chapter and its author, not all the authors of a multi-author volume, and the correct term for "and other authors" is "et al."), one that is definitely outdated (McCabe). Another very tangential source (Walsh) is used to reference the meaning of porphyrogennetos. Right after that, I see Hyslop's Varangian, a work of fiction used as a reference on whether Theophano poisoned or not Constantine VII; this was added way back in 2009, but you did not check that.

Moreover, glancing at another usual troublespot, in the Assessment section, his popularity with the military is mixed with his great-uncle Alexander being childless (irrelevant), with the treaty with Venice and the allelengyon (both of which definitely do not belong in the Assessment section but are properly part of the main topic in foreign and domestic policy), the Macedonian Renaissance (without any indication of how/why this is associated with Basil or how this constitutes an "assessment" of his reign), etc. etc. I intended to do a full and detailed review, but I cannot. I would have to put in tags and comments for every single sentence in the article, and at this rate I'd rather rewrite it myself.

Sorry Векочел, but I still do not see the ability to do proper research on the subject. Your editing pattern appears to be random googling-and-citing one tidbit at a time, and then moving already extant text and references around without a clear plan or structure in mind, resulting in a hopeless mess. For instance, the five references I pointed out above were originally used together to cover his parentage as well as his "Laconian Greek" origin, but you split that up and now all five are used in both places; without checking the references' content, this is simply wrong practice. Have you checked Nicol (1992), p. 44? It does mention a "Greek mother Theophano", but it refers to the mother of Otto III, Theophanu, and not Basil's mother (!!!). Again, I mean this as well-intentioned advice: please leave the article for now, improve your knowledge on the topic by reading books cover to cover; improve your editing skills, and come back prepared to approach this in a systematic way. My suggestion is to start writing a draft of the article in your own user space, completely from scratch. Read a couple of books, and with them, and them alone, write a small article. Then, source by source, start expanding it. You can incorporate portions of the existing article as you go along, but it would help you get a far better grasp of the subject and provide a clear structure from the beginning of the process, rather than trying to do this in media res. Constantine ✍ 11:09, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #023, 25 Nov 2018

There are now 4,180 portals.

Will we break 5,000 by the end of the year?

I know we can. But, that is up to you!

( New portals are created with {{subst:Basic portal start page}} or {{subst:bpsp}} )

Happy Holidays

Hello everyone! Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice (if it's occurring in your area of the world), and thanks for your work in maintaining, improving, and expanding portals. Cheers,    — The Transhumanist   06:51, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Jingling along

The following portals have been created since the last issue:

1. Advanced Micro Devices
2. Aqua Teen Hunger Force
3. Aquatic ecosystems
4. Blackberries
5. Blade
6. Blake and Mortimer
7. Climate
8. Democratic Party
9. Dua Lipa
10. Eels
11. Eggs
12. Emmy Awards
13. Fallout
14. Flutes and whistles
15. Geophysics
16. Ghost
17. Hartford Whalers
18. HBO
19. Hot sauces
20. International System of Units
21. Jawaharlal Nehru
22. Kendrick Lamar
23. KFC
24. Kingdom of England
25. M.I.A.
26. Marvel Comics
27. Marvel Entertainment
28. Minerals
29. Mixed martial arts
30. Money
31. MTV
32. Museums
33. National Hockey League
34. Natural resources
35. Nature
36. NBC
37. Nehru–Gandhi family
38. Orthoptera
39. PATH
40. Pears
41. Physiology
42. Ponds
43. Pope Francis
44. Potatoes
45. Presidents of the United States
46. Republican Party
47. Salad dressings
48. Santiago
49. Six Flags
50. Stan Lee
51. Starbucks
52. Stem cells
53. Systems of measurement
54. SZA
55. The West Wing
56. Tintin
57. Tomato sauces
58. Tove Lo
59. Viticulture
60. Waffles
61. Wendy's
62. White House
63. Will Smith
64. Winemaking

Keep 'em coming!

By the way, the above list was generated using this Petscan query. It can be easily modified by changing the date. The data page (under the Output tab) also has options for receiving the data in CSV or tabbed format, which some operating systems automatically load into a spreadsheet program for ease of use, such as copying and pasting the desired column (like page names).

In closing

We'll keep it short this issue.

Expect a flood next time. Or the one after that.

Cheerio,    — The Transhumanist   07:46, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Treaty of Gallipoli

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Treaty of Gallipoli you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Spinningspark -- Spinningspark (talk) 19:41, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Macedonia during Ottoman era.

With the gradual conquest of southeastern Europe by the Ottomans in the late 14th century, the name of Macedonia disappeared as an administrative designation for several centuries and was rarely displayed on maps. The name was again revived to mean a distinct geographical region in the 19th century defining the region bounded by Mount Olympus, the Pindus range, mounts Shar and Osogovo, the western Rhodopes, the lower course of the river Mesta (Greek Nestos) and the Aegean Sea, developing roughly the same borders that it has today. Regards. Jingiby (talk) 16:34, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Jingiby, I am aware that "Macedonia" fell out of use during Ottoman time as an administrative or geographical term; however it continued to exist as a historical term, as even one of the sources above admits. So the name clearly survived. Furthermore, let's not kid ourselves: you know perfectly well what the context of this statement is, when placed in an article about Emperor Samuel of all people, and why it was put there; it is about the supposed link between Samuel to the modern-day "Macedonians". The "Macedonian name" was not used by Samuel or his people, but by the Byzantines; if it disappeared, only to be appropriated by rival nationalisms in the late 19th century, then it should be clarified as such, and not by omission inferred that somehow the "Macedonian name" was tied to Samuel in the Middle Ages. --Constantine ✍ 19:07, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Check this please: The ethnic groups inhabiting the former territories of the Ancient Macedonians and the adjacent lands hardly ever called them Macedonia for a period of almost a thousand years before the early 19th century. In the Byzantine period the name Macedonia applied to a part of that is now Thrace, and the territory of present-day Republic of Macedonia was the core of the Byzantine province Bulgaria. Until the late 19th century the Turks did not even know that they were of occupation of a place called Macedonia. The term Macedonia was regularly applied to the territory of the ancient Macedonians only by Western travellers, cartographers and politicians after the Renaissance, and was widely re-adopted for local use first by the Greeks in the early 19th century. Drezov K. (1999) Macedonian identity: an overview of the major claims, p. 55. In: Pettifer J. (eds) The New Macedonian Question. St Antony’s Series. London, Springer, 1999, ISBN 0230535798. By the way I have changed slightly the sentence to NPOV. Jingiby (talk) 19:33, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Again, I know. I know that a "Macedonian people" had not existed since antiquity, and I know that for the Byzantines this meant Thrace; however, a) the name was still around, because a certain guy called Alexander had written it indelibly in popular and historical memory, and b) precisely, the connection to Samuel is a modern, ahistorical connection, tying a modern geographical region to a person and a people who did not use it at all (not incorrectly as the Byzantines did, but at all). My problem is with the phrasing, which implies a connection where none actually existed, for the uninitiated reader at least. I'll do a short rewrite to illustrate what I mean. Constantine ✍ 19:44, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

I've moved the text around a bit to follow a bit more straightforward exposition of the problem. I hope it is OK with you, and I think it is more comprehensible for the average reader. Constantine ✍ 20:03, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Editor of the Week

		Editor of the Week
		Your ongoing efforts to improve the encyclopedia have not gone unnoticed: You have been selected as Editor of the Week in recognition of your great contributions! (courtesy of the Wikipedia Editor Retention Project)

User:Krakkos submitted the following nomination for Editor of the Week:

I nominate Cplakidas to be Editor of the Week for his outstanding contributions to Wikipedia. During more than ten years of service, Cplakidas has made more than 100,000 edits and created an impressive amount of high-quality articles. He has certainly contributed more to our coverage of the Byzantine Empire than any other editor in the history of Wikipedia. Not content with just creating new high-quality articles, Cplakidas also contributed by cleaning up those created by others (including my own), and frequently resolves disputes by serving as a voice of reason in heated discussions. I could think of no better candidate for the Editor of the Week award. Support for this nomination also came from User:Chetsford and User:Gog the Mild.

You can copy the following text to your user page to display a user box proclaiming your selection as Editor of the Week:

{{User:UBX/EoTWBox}}

Thanks again for your efforts! ―Buster7 ☎ 18:08, 1 December 2018 (UTC)