User talk:Qwirkle

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Anmccaff!

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Rail Jeeps, Jeep trains, and J--p-m-t-v

You seem to have solved this problem, because Category:Jeepomotive is now empty. Correct ? (I think the system automatically moves files in a category a little while after you rename it). There is a also a tool called Cat-a-lot which enables you to select any or all files in a category and move them together to another category, rather than individually editing each file. regards, Rod Rcbutcher (talk) 03:53, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

OK. I'd checked it after what I thought was a decent interval and nothing had happened, so I figured I'd missed a step somewhere.

What do you think, BTW? As far as I can see, "jeepomotive" was almost entirely a bad journalist's pun, not a proper name, or even a widely used nickname, but it is spreading into the internet still from the German wiki. (After Jeepomotive was created as an en:wiki article, the number of google hits for it began climbing steadily up to about 300; it's down to 186 now when I checked.) Anmccaff (talk) 04:29, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that the exact name of an article or category doesn't matter too much so long as it is correctly described and people can find it : language is notorious for names changing and meanings and spelling of words changing. E.g the article should state abc, also known as xyz, is a [accurate description]. And a similar brief description in the Commons category helps. I feel the most-used name is probably best, even if technically slightly inaccurate. Example is hydrogen bomb vs thermonuclear bomb : the former is what everybody calls them but the latter is more accepted by "experts". Most important is that correct facts and accurate images are presented. regards, Rod. Rcbutcher (talk) 04:51, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

In this case, (Deutche)Wikipedia is making up a word from whole cloth; I think that's a Bad Thing. Anmccaff (talk) 15:09, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

If the name is totally incorrect or just made-up and used by a few people, yes it should be changed. Rcbutcher (talk) 01:54, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Can you use " "scare quotes" " in a file name? Anmccaff (talk) 02:09, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

...and could I ask you to take a glance at the German article itself: [[1]]? Choice of words aside, there are some very questionable facts being vectored. Anmccaff (talk) 03:05, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

German article seems reasonable to me, I know enough German to follow the basic story but used Google translate to translate the complex stuff. German article focuses on the use of the jeep as a locomotive. It gets the name "jeepmotive" from an article in the Herald-Journal of Jan 1945 : https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=19450120&id=X1YsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8MoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6952,1410612&hl=de

So they certainly haven't invented the word. I don't know whetgher the newspaper invented the word. Maybe we need more references to use of the word. It is dangerous to base an article on a couple of newspaper articles. Rcbutcher (talk) 06:21, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Invented themselves, no, just misinterpreted them entirely. Notice the articles from Dayton: quotes of two sources from the same area, which include exactly the same language about a local guy who is in the service...i.e., a press release. Notice that an article about US use of rail jeeps in Burma during the war is first used to claim British (military) use in 1950 (i.e. after Indian Independence, and the split-off of Burma), then used to claim US use in India in 1950. It is clearly about Burma, US usage, and was -published- in 1950. The editor isn't reading the source, just picking words out of it. If you read through the versions of the article, you'll see even more glaring examples. It originally claimed that a stretched jeep, used to carry a 10 man Coast Guard patrol, was a locomotive, because it used the same pun. It originally claimed, based on the Dayton college newsletter, that actions in the liberation of the Philippines occurred in 1940, based on a person's college year of graduation. Anmccaff (talk) 14:18, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Rail Jeeps, part 2

I know absolutely nothing about this topic so would have to spend a lot of time before I could comment. In military ordnance articles, which I do quite a lot of work on, I trust books, articles and quotes from reasonably senior military officers; official spokesmen; official government manuals, handbooks, conflict histories; books and articles by acknowledged specialist military historians. Even then we have to make clear it is a spokesman, historian or officer who is making the claim. Newspapers and general publications as usually written by non-experts who are prone to being loose with facts and terminology : to be trusted just to say that "at a press conference on dd/mm/yy General xyz stated he had won a great victory at abc". And we hope they get the General's name and the battle right. So we need info in the article where they got the word "jeepmotive" from : did a military source use it ? Rcbutcher (talk) 05:15, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

What, authoritative, knowledgeable sources? Heaven forfend. It'll stifle our natural creativity, that. This is precisely the tack taken by one person on the German talk page, btw:

 Railway bogie has also made ​​other cars, which is not so unusually, but in order to draw even trains that already! As Lemma perhaps would jeep Train possible but Jeepomotive expresses truly the from that Jeep for locomotive and thus was more a legend. The VW Beetle or 2CV has never pulled a train to my knowledge. Case words are actually getting bit silly, portmanteau word in and of itself of course :-)! Of this living language and our language feel lucky there are more journalists than the schoolmaster, which form the language. And they fit beautifully on aufeinder. - Ilya ( Talk ) 04:37, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Even through the mists of machine translation, the idea that a "creative" name is better comes through.

There are no -literally no- uses of this pun in any official military documents that I've found, and I've looked in the usual places. Hathitrust, which is fairly well supplied with US government documents, and with a good deal of engineering technical journals worldwide, doesn't even recognize the term. There is one use in a museum in Australia, based on 3 photos from a very extensive collection of railway jeep information. Here is one photo caption:

 NORTH BORNEO. 1945-08-01. LIKE THE TINY BUT POWERFUL ANT, THE "JEEPOMOTIVE" CARRIES, PUSHES OR PULLS MANY TIMES ITS OWN WEIGHT. THE MAKERS SET THE HAULAGE MAXIMUM AT 1,000 POUNDS, BUT "JEEPOMOTIVES" HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO DRAW A THREE-TON TRUCK LADEN WITH FOUR TONS OF SAND ON THIS SYSTEM. SQUADRON LEADER JACK LIBERTY OF PERTH, WA, ADAPTED THE JEEP BY DESIGNING SPECIAL ATTACHMENT TO THE WHEELS OF JAPANESE MOTOR TRANSPORTS AND BY MODIFYING THE STANDARD JEEP AXLE TO TAKE THESE WHEELS AND TRACK THE ONE-METRE GAUGE. OFFICIALLY THE AVERAGE SPEED OF THE JEEP-TRAIN HAS BEEN SET AT FIFTEEN MILES PER HOUR BUT ARMY DRIVERS ALWAYS SEEM TO RUN TO TIME IN SPITE OF ANY DELAYS ON THE ROUTE.

[[2]]

Reeks authority and expertise; don't it? (BTW, rail wheels for jeeps were adapted in Australia 2 years before this[[3]], and use of steel-wheeled road automobiles as speeders goes back about as far as rubber-wheeled autos. There's no "invention," just a particular local adoption. Anyone familiar with railroading or military logistics at the time would be aware of this; the Australians were involved in "jeep trains" in Burma and New Guinea, as well as joint US use as switchers in Australia itself.) Next we have:

 NORTH BORNEO. 1945-08-01. ALL HANDS ARE NEEDED WHEN THE "JEEPOMOTIVE" REACHES ITS DESTINATION. HINDUS, MALAYS AND CHINESE WILLINGLY HELP BRAWNY DIGGERS TO SWING THE SMALL BUT WEIGHTY VEHICLE IN A HOMEWARD DIRECTION, USING AN IMPROVISED DISTINCTLY MANUAL "TURNTABLE". SOMETIMES HIGH ARMY OFFICERS COMMISSION "JEEPOMOTIVES" FOR EXPRESS RUNS BETWEEN FRONTS, AND FREIGHT AND PASSENGER TRAINS MUST THEN BE SIDETRACKED INTO LOOPS ALONG THE SINGLE LINE. STATIONMASTERS ARE IN TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION WITH THE CONTROL CENTRES, AND WARNINGS ARE QUICKLY FLASHED DOWN THE LINE.  [[4]]

Again, journalistic glurge. After this, we have:

 NORTH BORNEO. 1945-08-01. ONE OF THE ODDEST RAILWAYS IN THE WORLD WAS INTRODUCED WHEN TROOPS OF THE FAMED 9TH DIVISION CAPTURED A SECTION OF THE NORTH BORNEO STATE RAILWAY, WHICH IN PRE-WAR DAYS LINKED JESSELTON-BEAUFORT-MELALAP WITH 116 MILES OF ONE METRE GAUGE AND WAS THE ONLY RAILWAY SYSTEM FOR GENERAL TRAFFIC. RAAF FIGHTER BOMBER AIRCRAFT AND RETREATING JAPANESE HAD TAKEN TOLL OF LOCOMOTIVES AND ROLLING STOCK, AND A RAAF ENGINEER, SQUADRON LEADER JACK LIBERTY OF PERTH, WA, WAS ASKED TO DESIGN A SUBSTITUTE. HE PRODUCED THE "JEEPOMOTIVE", AND IT PROVED AN OUTSTANDING SUCCESS, PROVIDING MEANS OF SPEEDILY TRANSFERRING TROOPS AND SUPPLIES TO ADVANCED NORTHERN FORCES.  [[5]]

Related to these gems are a newspaper article:

 JEEPTRÁIN  Jeep engine of one of the strangest railways in the world-in Borneo, between Jesselton, Beauford; and Melalap, covering 116 miles of one-metre gauge. Fighter-bombers and retreating 'Jlaps took heavy toll of locomotives and rolling stock, and an RAAF engineer designed a substitute locomotive, producing the "jeepomotive."      Australian Official photo.

[[6]]

The trove site has a fairly extensive collection of newspapers; this is their only cite for "jeepomotive." They have 228 for "jeep train" [[7]] and 73 for "rail jeep." [[8]], 38 for "railway jeep" [[9]] and 12 for "jeeptrain/jeep-train" Even counting duplication, and the occasional use of "jeep train" for a tractor tow of daisy-chained rubber wheeled jeeps across bad ground [[10]], "j--p-m-t-v-" is a vanishly rare term.

The Trove site, of course, also shows usage in '43 up until the 50s - jeep trains were used extensively in the Malayan Emergency. I suppose the use in '43 in Brisbane and '44 in Burma and Bouganville was time-travel.

Excuse the remaining errors, but it is gone midnight; I'll clean up anything remaining tomorrow. Anmccaff (talk) 07:59, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

In the past I've found the photograph curators at the AWM (Australian War Memorial) very responsive to corrections and polite requests for background information on where a caption and photo came from. They inherited a huge pile of stuff and generally upload the original caption if there was one, until somebody corrects it. Unlike most civilian museum curators, they take military detail and communication with the online public seriously. Try contacting them. info@awm.gov.au Rod. Rcbutcher (talk) 09:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I can deal with them OK; the file-moving admins who insist this is a German or an English word because it is found -twice-, or worse yet, found on Wiki itself are another kettle of fish. Anmccaff (talk) 20:06, 14 August 2015 (UTC)