Talk:P. K. van der Byl

message: David. I had barely entered the new text before your editing started. That said, you have definitely improved it. Bob BScar23625 12:06, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry about that! Edit conflicts can be annoying, I know. Feel free to add more. David | Talk 12:10, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  recent edits 

message: David, a lot of improvements there. I am sure I could make use of your services on a professional basis. Leave that one with me. Bob BScar23625 11:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  more recent edits 

message: David, I am really stunned by the depth and quality of research that has gone into this. You have even identified some of the obscure sources from which I had pinched memorable turns of phrase. Here is a question to test your abilities to the limit. The article contains the following section of text referring to the Lancaster House agreement :
PK greeted the event with amused detachment. 
What is the source of that?.
Bob BScar23625 08:05, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, drawn a blank so far. Any clues? David | Talk 11:45, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  depth of research 

message: David, in the opening comments you write "He was a cabinet member from 1968 to 1980". Are you sure that is correct?. My understanding is that the Muzorewa 'internal settlement' government ended on the day that Soames arrived as Governor. PK therefore ceased to be a Minister in 1979, not 1980. The government departments continued under the Governor with the civil servants still in place, but there were no Ministers. Or, that has always been my understanding. Am I right?. Bob BScar23625 15:50, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've checked. You're right. Article amended. David | Talk 20:33, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  events of 1979 - 1980 

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thread_title:  Recommendations from the peerreviewer script 

message: Does anyone know if the following sentence was actually written or merely said by van der Byl? 
"If the battle should wax fiercer, there can be no question of surrender. We shall contest every river, every crossroads, every village, every town and every kopje."
In South African English the Afrikaans spelling koppie is always used, not the Dutch kopje, which would be regarded as archaic. Presumably the situation would be the same in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Dutch has not been used for many decades. Therefore if the quote was not actually a written one, which of course cannot be changed, I think kopje should be changed to koppie. After all the word koppie has entered the English language, whereas I would not say the Dutch version has.
Booshank. The source of the quote is PK. As you see, the word there is "kopje". Bob BScar23625 06:03, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To add to that, the hill just south of the centre of Salisbury/Harare is definitely called 'Kopje'. Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 08:04, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fair enough if this is the case. Zimbabwe must follow a different spelling from SA. Booshank 15:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks for your note - you sum PK up very well, based on what I found when I was researching him. Credit should go to Bob for starting the article and providing a base on which the facts could be placed. Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 09:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling of kopje/koppie 

message: “He left as a rich man” --
What’s the significance of that? Didn’t he come a rich man? And what money he might have made had no relation to his position in government.
“UDI had been a bit of a lark, to be enjoyed while it lasted and shrugged off when it failed.”
--If he was putting himself literally on the front line (joining operations with his hunting rifle) it was certainly more  of a personal commitment than those politicians glued to their desks who are always trying to placate themselves with those who they suspect may be in power tomorrow. 
What else could he do but shrugg it off after 1980? The Rhodesian Front was no longer in power and would hardly be in power again. You can’t be held responsible for something you no longer have control over. The responsibility now lay with the new government.
“Despite the deaths of thousands of Africans at the hands of white (?) Rhodesian troops and police resisting the inevitable…."--
Take a tally of how many innocents either killed or dying due to privations in Zimbabwe since ‘independence’, and one suspects that the per capita annual untimely death toll would have been much lower under UDI.
Edward Carson 04:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Most deaths were caused by the Black terrorists. That is an undeniable fact. Before the Marxists began attacking the country in 1968 or so, there were no or very few deaths in Rhodesia. The place was far more peaceful than most of the rest of Africa.Royalcourtier (talk) 05:46, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Retirement 

message: The BBC documentary 'Rebellion' is available from memoriesofrhodesia.com. In it are several clips of PK talking about Rhodesia, in his own inimatable way. These video clips  could be of interest to readers of this article, but I am not quite sure of the appropriate way to present them.
The memoriesofrhodesia.com people sell videos with different points of view, so they are not a total propaganda site, though they look generaly pro-Rhodesian to me. Note that you must buy another and get 'Rebellion free with it; I suspect there is a copyright problem here.
What is the policy on commercial links? Or maybe some clips could be put on YouTube with appropriate links? There should be some way to get these live-action examples of 'the accent' available to Wikipedia users. What is the policy? 62.3.235.96 (talk) 11:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure if memoriesofrhodesia.com are selling officially licensed copies of 'Rebellion'. However you can hear PK talk on a preview clip of a 1969 French documentary here at about 10 mins 30 seconds in. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:03, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  You can hear PK talk! 

message: The reference to his "extreme views " is both unencyclopaedic and unsupported by any references, or even clues as to what this refers to.Royalcourtier (talk) 05:44, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: Right, I am not familiar with the article and was going through old featured articles. I asked  who replied thus. So if folks could take a look and avoid this going to FAR then that'd be good. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:42, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: This Featured article was promoted in 2006, and its main writer has been gone for more than a decade.  It has large amounts of uncited text, and a MOS review is needed.  Unless someone is willing/able to engage to bring this article to FA standards, it should be submitted to Featured article review.  SandyGeorgia (Talk)  18:41, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

text: Several of the references (#2, #52 and #62, etc.) appear to be improperly formatted. Templates are not used in refs when they really ought to be. I know this might not be the most important of the FACR, but it strikes me as a bit unprofessional. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 22:59, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  FA concerns 

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thread_title:  External links modified