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This file is an archive - please do not add new discussion here - add it to my Talk page

Admin nomination

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Gidday Grutness. Have you considered becoming an admin? I'd like to nominate you.-gadfium 21:12, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Eek! I've thought about it, but don't really know what's involved. Thanks for the offer though! What is involved in being an admin? Grutness|hello? 22:32, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Mainly, it's that Jimbo stays at your place whenever he's in Dunedin, and he gets to drink all your beer. For more details, see here.-gadfium 22:48, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Well... not as bad as I feared... I still feel I'm pretty new here though. Give me a bit of time to think about it. Ask again in a few weeks and I'll probably say yes. Thanks! Grutness|hello? 23:03, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's now a few weeks later. Any change in your answer?-gadfium 01:45, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sigh.. okay :) So, what do I have to do to apply? Grutness|hello?
Tis done. Just go to WP:RFA and accept formally, then answer the standard questions. Feel free to point out any shortcomings that I forgot to mention as well.-gadfium 04:30, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Template:Offensivetemplate

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Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!!! RickK 09:08, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

(bows) Thankyew! :)
Okay, what did I miss out on? - RoyBoy [] 05:32, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I made a joke template based on the tfd one, reading something like:

It categorised to Category:Nasty things.

Sadly, I don't think it's been saved on BJAODN. Grutness|hello?

Adminship

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I decided to test my strength. Do you want to nominate me for admin? Darwinek 16:29, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Re:Antarctica-geo-stub

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I'll see what i can do about making the Template:Antarctica-geo-stub image better looking. Unfortunately my image editing tools and techniques leave something to be desired, but i think leaving a fringe of blue around the continent would look nice. foobaz· 07:52, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

OK, what do you think? I gave the image a blue border to outline it. If your browser supports alpha channel PNGs, the border even fades out. foobaz· 04:19, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Chimes of Freedom

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This is NOT just a song stub - there is also a fairly significant (IMHO) book by Mike Marquesee, deliberately of that title. Please go to discussion and put your point if you wish to rererererevert. Bob aka Linuxlad 09:35, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

See note at the discussion article. And please note that I am simply reverting. I have only changed this to a song-stub once. Grutness|hello?

Yes, someone else did the first change to song-stub IIRC The full title of the book IS in the article. But the main title is the one everyone will try to search on. I don't see what's gained by moving it off into a separate article when the two (song and book) are SO closely related.

I'll accept a double-stub to make peace :-) (but is it actually literature? Is there a biography stub??) Bob

Bio-stub is for biographical articles, but there is book-stub, which is what you're looking for. Grutness|hello?

Thanks

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For updating that Ohio State Highway 562 page and Norwood Lateral page, making the latter redirect to the former. After I created it last night, I was thinking about it and logged on today to make the change only to find out you had already done it! Thanks again!

I was just sorting through the stubs. I changed the Norwood one, then a few minutes later came across the other one. It just seemed to make sense for them to go together. Glad you weren't annoyed! Grutness|hello?

Controlling stub growth

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Part of the reasons I have created the policies is to attempt to control stub growth. I don't want stub growth to get out of hand that they become a problem. Here's a new suggestion for the deletion:


A new stub template and/or new stub category may be deleted if the stub has not been approved at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting for its creation or does not follow any of the stub sorting guidelines. Prior to its deletion, a trial period of 10 days is given to prove if a stub is useful before the template and/or stub category is deleted. After its trial period duration, a vote with a period of 10 days will be held at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting to determine its usefulness.


Does that seem better? I know that all the waiting and approval may annoy you, but I feel it is necessary. This evident from certain stub templates we have discussed they need to be deleted on our page. I very much would like to try to empower the project such that it can vote stub templates and stub categories for deletion without going through the regular TFD and CFD process. -- AllyUnion (talk) 23:25, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Geo-stubs

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I don't want to slow anybody down, but think about this: I just went through a long list of stubs and anything that was a geographical location (amongst many other things) was moved to their general category. If you're familiar with all of the geographical stubs, you don't have to go through the google search, I've just given you a bunch that you can properly sort once and for all. Having every one going through the generic stubs list and/or the google search and just picking articles that suit them isn't any faster for the project. I would know, it's not the first (or 2nd, 3rd, 4th) I see the same articles looking for a science stub. Having that said, since you've seemed to have worked with a lot of geo stubs, tell me what templates I'm most likely to encounter and I'll be sure to specify it. --jag123 01:07, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hey man, I totally understand where you're coming from. This is a huge task and it's really overwhelming. No matter how it's done, it's a lot of work for everyone. For my part, like I said on a talk page somewhere, if you find anything science related, just throw it in sci-stub. If the geo (or any other) category is getting too big and you want to tidy it up, let me know and I'll gladly help out, especially if it's because of me. Sorting generic stubs into 20-30 broad categories is just as fast as sorting geographical stubs into 20-30 country-specific stubs. However, sorting generic stubs in 20-30 country specific stubs, plus 10-20 specific sport stubs, plus 10-15 biography stubs, etc is different ;) --jag123 01:44, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

First of all, congrats on being admin! Second, I've went through the geo-stubs category and moved some Falklands stub into UK-geo stubs, since it's an english colony. Now I'm thinking maybe you didn't want to do that. If that's the case, let me know and I'll move them back. Then again, it might give you an excuse to use that nifty rollback function ;) --jag123 17:30, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

nativespeaker

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changing geo-stub

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this is bordering on the absurd. I have ended a number of my articles and stubs with Oceania-geo-stub, and someone has changed them to just plain stubs, so now I make it just a stub, and someone comes in behind me and changes it first to a geo-stub and then to an Oceania-geo-stub. TShilo12 07:09, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Nuthin' to do with me - and anyone involved in the Stub sorting project should know to leave it as a oceania-geo-stub. Which articles do you mean? Grutness|hello?
I don't even know precisely which articles they are anymore...most of my recent edits have had to do with the islands of French Polynesia and the Cook Islands. I haven't bothered to look at who's changing the stubs, or if perhaps it's a problem with the db (I've had on occasion to submit several times...) TShilo12 07:46, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The db may be the culprit. These stubs are very heavily used and the system does seem to slow down a bit with them. Not sure why that would result in the multile template changes though. As to an overhaul of the names, that would mean changing 50+ different regional stubs which between them are used on close to 10,000 articles. It's simply not practical. Grutness|hello?
Ah. I will look into it. Tokelau has always been something of a side-bar interest for me, since they seem to be the "left-out" islands. I'll check out what you've written, and add anything that I think I might have to contribute. Unfortunately for my ability to contribute to these Polynesia-related articles, Wikipedia is catching me about 15 years after my interest in the subject reached its zenith... I ardently believe in the philosophy that drives Wikipedia, and so I'm doing whatever I can to write, edit or create appropriate articles, based mostly on memory (which is why they seem sometimes perhaps to be a bit light on citation...)...If I had a crappier memory, I'd be more hesitant about contributing... :-) Believe me tho...when I decided to move to the Marquesas, specifically, to Eïao, my decision was well-researched. Of course, this is the unrealized pipe-dream of an adolescent misfit...but my extensive research into the subject has left me with a tid-bit of knowledge.  :-) TShilo12 08:16, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations, James!

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Congratulations! It's my pleasure to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 05:29, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Eek! :) and it looks like I need to send about 40+ "thank you" messages! Grutness|hello? 05:39, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Why, then you get 40 "you're welcome" messages. I think you'll be a great admin; cheers! Antandrus 05:49, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations from me too! Open a bottle of something special tonight.

This is probably a good time to add a note of caution about Wikipedia. It's addictive, as I'm sure you've realised. Don't feel that you need to work harder or longer hours because you're an administrator. Make sure you have a balance in your life between Wikipedia, work, and your loved ones. It's probably okay if Wikipedia has pushed some other hobbies out of your life, but if its affecting your work, your art, or your relationships, then its getting out of proportion. I suggest that as well as the reading list above, you look at wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians. Consider the case of User:fvw, who was a great administrator, but only lasted two months before burning out.-gadfium 06:03, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good thoughts, and it is true that I spend too much time on Wikipedia. Still, you will have noticed that the number of new articles I have started has dropped in the last few weeks, and I have concentrated on janitorial tasks such as stubs. This is such a chore that I can't spend huge amounts of time on it without getting fed up, so it's helped me reduce any Wikiholism. The arrival of two new kittens in the household is giving me non-computer things to spend time on, too :) Grutness|hello? 06:06, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Don't forget, keep on eye out on the Administrator's Noticeboard. You can also help out in many other places, like WP:RFPP. -- AllyUnion (talk) 06:19, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations, and you're very welcome. Good luck! --Ryan! | Talk 06:24, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations! Yes, watching and waiting.  :-) You never know who's peeking over your edits, um I meant shoulder. I'm sure you'll do a good job. Remember, God does not subtract from your alloted time on Earth the time spent with kittens. SWAdair | Talk 06:32, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations, Grutness! If you're not kidding and you really still don't know which variety of administrator-only kryptonite is which, just try them on me or my contributions. I'm thick-skinned plus I'd be no great loss! -- Hoary 07:04, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)

Belated congratulations, I'm sure you'll make a great admin! Jayjg (talk) 19:56, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations! You don't have to thank me. For me it was an honor to vote for you. I'm glad you made it and I wish you good luck. User:Marine 69-71

Congratulations on becoming an admin, I was more than happy to vote for you. Rje 20:10, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations. Try deleting yourself, it's fun, it doesn't harm anyone and it's kind of transcendental. It's what I did when I got "the power"... -- Francs2000 | Talk [[]] 21:04, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

And congrats from me too! I'm sure you'll do a splendid job! —Stormie 21:21, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Stub sorting guidelines

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I sincerely believe that we really need to lay down the law in stub sorting, and really provide a guideline. I believe that we should all attempt to reach a general consensus by April 2, 2005 in a set of rules that we can follow. Once we have built a set of guidelines, we can formally create a policy out of those guidelines. We need to define what a specialized topic stub is, how many articles it should cover, when is it appropriate to create it, what defines its need for its creation, what defines its need for deletion, what criteria it should follow, what are the general steps should one take when sorting a stub, whether or not to start using subst: for all templates, whether or not use subst: for all templates created by the meta-templates, and any other matters that may come up in consideration. I thank jag123 for initially creating the subpage for the project at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Guidelines. Even though they have been discussed, I feel that we really need to confirm everything. For that, we should discuss each issue with its own sections, and raise a list of issues that we need to nail down before really continuing on. The English Wikipedia is nearly at 500k articles. Either the MediaWiki software needs to handle stubs such that they can be found with a simple union of categories, or the sorting is done manually by Wikipedians. Personally, I think the latter is less taxing on the server load, especially when we use subst:, which I think would help the Wikipedia out, performance wise. Please make your comments at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Guidelines. I apologize for making this somewhat of a spam notice, but since the project has more members, the project can finally decide on these important issues at hand. -- AllyUnion (talk) 23:23, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That thing you did

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‘’Hi Gadfium - a while back I was having trouble with some geography stubs, and you found out that they'd been created twice, and fixed them. What did you do?’’

Just delete and restore the article which is appearing more than once. If that doesn't seem to work, try refreshing the category that they're in (edit the category page and then change the URL to say refresh instead of edit), and as a last resort, make a trivial change to the duplicated article to force a change to the database. gadfium 01:47, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Cardiff Arms Park

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Cynnar dda Arwel, any reason why you reverted my changes to Cardiff Arms Park? You're going to make stub-sorting far harder if you revert correct changes. Grutness|hello?

Bore da, Grutness. Did you actually look at the version of the article I reverted? It was terrible - misformatted text, bolded text in the wrong place, etc. I just reverted that to get back to a decent version, knowing that someone would come along to fix the categories later if needed... -- Arwel 01:10, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

km2

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Are you using an old IE for Mac? It seems your browser destroys km2 (km²) in case the square is done with the direct character. See e.g. [1]. andy 20:09, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I am using an old version of IE with a mac - I didn't realise anything was happening with km². I haven't noticed that happen anywhere, but I'll watch out for it in future - sorry! I didn't even realise there was a direct character - I thought that square was always done by either ² or 2. Grutness|hello?
It seems that the Mac charset does not contain that character, and IE for Mac only understands characters in that Mac charset. When the German wikipedia was switched to UTF8 many webbrowsers were tested for compatibility (see de:Wikipedia:Umstellung_auf_Unicode - sorry, but I have no english equivalent), and IE for Mac was knocked out. Maybe you should try to switch to Mozilla, because once the English wikipedia will be switched to UTF8 (in the next few months, if I understand Brion correctly at the tech mailing list) you probably cannot use IE anymore anyway. And besides Mozilla is IMHO better than IE :-) andy 10:18, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Taiwan and Republic of China

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China-geo-stubs

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There are currently 201 articles in the category of China geography stubs. Two involves both mainland China and the ROC; 16 are related to the ROC only; and 183 are related to mainland China only.

I don't think readers would recognise Category:China geography stubs covers geostubs related to the ROC, until they read the notice on the of the category, or see category's link at an ROC-related article. — Instantnood 18:59, Feb 19 2005 (UTC)

Then we think differently. Just because there are more stubs relating to one than the other doesn't mean they should be separated. In fact, the paucity of Taiwan geo-stubs is a very good reason to keep them together, as there wouldn't be enough for a separate category. Believe me, before stub categories are created they are debated at great length in the stub-sorting wikiproject. Grutness|hello?
The current settings make Template:China-geo-stub fails to fulfill its function to include ROC-related geostubs. Most ROC-related geostubs are inserted the tag {{Taiwan-stub}} instead of {{China-geo-stub}} (see Category:Taiwan-related stubs), an obvious evidence that editors do hestitate to put on such a template. — Instantnood 15:53 Feb 20 2005 (UTC)

List of sources referring to the Taiwan Strait islands as Taiwan

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Since the advocates of the terminology "Republic of China" consider islands other than the island of Taiwan (esecially Quemoy and Matsu) significant, I am putting together a list at User:Susvolans/List of sources referring to the Taiwan Strait islands as Taiwan. Feel free to edit it. Susvolans (pigs can fly) Did you know that there is a proposal to treat dissent from naming conventions as vandalism? 18:08, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that - I'll check it out. Grutness|hello?

Taiwan-stub

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Would it be possible to keep {{Taiwan-stub}}, although it will only have a few articles after being reorganised? A consensus can be reached a little bit more easily. A separate {{ROC-stub}} can be created when the requirement is meet. — Instantnood 01:22 Mar 2 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why it shouldn't be kept, although it won't have many items in it. As I think you've said yourself elsewhere, the numbers requirement is for the creation of new stubs, not the deletion of old ones. It's also one of the reasons why I'm concentrating on geo-stubs first. Grutness|hello?

I see. Coz I guess it will be more controversial to reorganise them as one single {{sino-stub}}. People such as Mababa may not agree. In her/his opinion saying Taiwan is (or isn't) part of China the geographical region is also POV. I could anticipate some contributors will just put on the {{stub}} tag for ROC- or Taiwan-related stubs, to avoid the {{sino-stub}}, like what was done to {{china-geo-stub}}. — Instantnood 09:05 Mar 2 2005 (UTC)

Well, yes and no. After all, countries in the same geographic area are opften grouped together in the stubs. MEast-geo-stub, for instance, has Israel, Iraq, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and a host of other countries lumped together which are at least as disparate and controversial in their relationships with each other as Taiwan/RoC and ChinaPR. I could easily see someone suggesting a Balkans-stub, too, for articles dealing with Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, and the like. Maybe Sino-stub is the wrong name (EastAsia-stub, perhaps, which would allow for Korean articles, too?) but given the often overlapping and joint histories of the two Chinas, it might make more sense to categorise them together than have some articles with two different stubs because they relate to both places (an article like Kuo Min Tang, for instance). Grutness|hello?

I'm not sure if some people will agree with sino- or eastasia-. Sino- might not be appropriate to some people who supports desinicisation. If Korea do not have to be included perhaps greaterchina- can aslo be one of the options, but it also has the problem of sino-. — Instantnood 16:27 Mar 2 2005 (UTC)

RfC

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Hello there. I am recently being listed on RfC. Feel free to comment as you wish to. I regard it as a way out and to have the matter settled. Thanks. — Instantnood 12:50 Mar 1 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that - and gracious of you to mention the fact, given that my comments were not likely to be glowingly positive. (As it was, they were negative, but not damningly so). Grutness|hello?

Thanks a lot for sharing your views. It does not matter whether it's positive or negative. We're all working on to improve Wikipedia. — Instantnood 00:19 Mar 2 2005 (UTC)

The sharing at RfC seems to be over. I have made a response there. Please take a look. I do hope that with everyone's effort Wikipedia will soon be the best encyclopedia ever. — Instantnood 21:09 Mar 5 2005 (UTC)

Italians in the wrong country (bot request)

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I wish to assist you with your bot request. Could clarify the problem? Below is what I understand:

In the article, Communes_of_the_province_of_Brescia, there are links to several articles in a list format of: * [[Article]] or *[[Article]]

You want each article in this to make sure that all articles in the taxobox is linked correctly as: [[Regions of Italy|Region]]:. Is that correct? -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:11, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yup - many are (or at least were last time I checked) linked as Regions of Germany.

Also, do want to change the list to a category or leave it as a list for now? -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:11, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Just leave it as a list, I think.

Stub notice

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Cheers for changing Yardang. I'm always a little overwhelmed by the volume of stub notices... Is there a full, comprehensive and clear list somewhere? Smoddy (t) (e) 23:52, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, there's the list with all the icons at Wikipedia:Template messages/Stubs, but that means waiting for all the stubs to load (and if, like me, you're on a dial-up modem, that can take some time). But I made myself a 'crib-sheet' of them all (as of a couple of days ago), which I'm very tempted to add to my user pages... in fact, I will. See User:Grutness/Stubs

Thanks for compiling User:Grutness/Stubs. I've been meaning to do it but never got to it. Question: do you think it should be slightly reorganized so it has, for instance, math-stub at the top of the math stub and then stubs types like gemoetry under it? Again, thanks for the great list. RJFJR 01:02, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. I did change the order of one or two things - Pro wrestling is under sport, for instance (even though I feel it would make more sense under theatre!) Grutness|hello?

I like your new listing of the stubs at User:Grutness/Stubs. If you would add in links to each of the template, I would suggest it would then be worth putting in the regular Wikipedia namespace rather than hiding it as a user subpage. I had been thinking about doing something very similiar, put was also planning to add links to any associated Wikiprojects and Regional notice boards (using [WP] and [RNB] tags to keep things from looking too cluttered). BlankVerse 07:54, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Just noticed this - good idea. It may take a few days to do this, but I will. Grutness|hello?
Thanks, that's a great help. Smoddy (t) (e) 13:05, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Unique NZ place names given New Zealand qualifier in article title.

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Is there a reason for giving unique NZ placenames a qualifier of "New Zealand" in the article title? Some that I have seen are Kumeu, Kawau Island and Bombay Hills, New Zealand. Alan Liefting 19:34, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Bombay Hills simply because of Bombay, India. I found references to Kawau Islands in both Hawaii and Australia on the web (though I've since checked and the "Australia" one was our very own N.Z. Kawau). As to Kumeu, I've no idea... I probably had a reason at the time, but that was 10,000 edits ago... Grutness|hello?

Promoting private companies

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Hello! I noticed you've been doing a lot of work on NZ pages. I have a question. Recently a change was made to the Lake Waikaremoana page whereby the name of a company was added that guides tours around the lake. What is the policy on this? My hunch is to remove the reference to a specific company, unless that company is the only one (doubtful) and there is no possibility of others starting up (like because of some kind of a government regulation). What do you think? Thanks. Mona-Lynn 10:59, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... given the area it could be the only company involved in tours. You're probably right though, since it is advertising. I've made a change to the article by removing that link but putting in a couple of other external links about the lake, so that there's at least as much information available as there was before. Grutness|hello? 11:18, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Hmm. Having hiked it a few months ago and seen it with my own eyes I would not be surprised if there was more than one group offering guided hikes. Local Maori would certainly have something, and also I saw a small birding group. The visitor centre seemed to have a lot of info in it. I agree with your edits. Thanks. Mona-Lynn 11:16, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

BoNM

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Indeed, to every Wikipedian his own! You deserved this award for your work in favor of our coverage of New Zealand. Regards, Redux 16:00, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks! I wasn't fishing for an award, you know :) I shall move this to my user page... Grutness|hello?
It was my pleasure. The award was well deserved. In fact, you did me a favor when you posted your comment on the project talk page: I had been looking for Wikipedians that were deserving of the award, but the process takes time, so I had managed to award it to only one person (172). I had not gotten around to New Zealand-related articles though. Regards, Redux 01:00, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In recognition...

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In recognition of your persistent dedication to the community on Wikipedia_talk:Barnstars_on_Wikipedia, I hereby award you with the The Barnstar of DiligenceClockworkSoul 20:58, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thank you! Another one! I shall move it to my user page! Grutness|hello?