AnotherBDA

Wikimedia Canada

Hi there! I'd like to invite you to explore Wikimedia Canada, and create a list of people interested in forming a local chapter for our nation. A local chapter will help promote and improve the organization, within our great nation. We'd also like to encourage everyone to suggest projects for our national chapter to participate in. Hope to see you there! -- user:zanimum

Right of return

This is very nicely written. ;-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 07:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much!! AnotherBDA 08:04, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Right of Return and Czech Republic

Just FYI: there is no broad policy or grand strategy of Czech government about foreign Czechs. It is more chaos.

• The law about Volhynian Czechs was approved ex-post to formalize position of people who moved because of fear of soon-to-come civil war in post-Soviet area. These people were initially provided with some housing but not really cared much after.

• Some uncoordinated actions were done during Yugoslavian wars (small groups of Czechs lived just in the middle of war zone in Hrvatia). There are several very poor villages in Romania inhabited by ethnic Czechs and when someone from there wanted to live in Czech Rep. he was treated more benevolently than typical Romanian.

• There's quite large (est. 170-300 thousands) diaspora of emigrants from 1948-1989 period living in the West and Czech state was not very helpful toward them (they bitterly complain). For example they cannot obtain dual citizensip and their grabbed property was generaly not returned.

• Small stream of Czechs from Soviet Union (typically Ruthenia, Volhynia) came in during communist era. These people were handled case by case and bribery often helped to speed the things out.

• An even earlier event happened during 1945 (after the war): the Czechs (few thousands) living around Polish city Ratibor (on border with Czechoslovakia) were expelled together with local Germans. (There was almost border war between Poland and Czechoslovakia at that time.) The state set up an office to help the refugees.

All in all, absolute majority of Czechs lives in well defined geographical area with no overlap and things like "right to return" sound as something from the other planet to Czechs. I don't know whether that much of article space is deserved. Pavel Vozenilek 06:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Pavel -- very interesting. There is no disagreement that most Czechs live in the Czech Republic or in well-defined communities of Czechs living outside the Czech Republic, which is what I think you are saying. But the points you raise are important about the Czech government not being all that solicitous of ethnic Czechs living in the West, particularly who emigrated in the 1948-1989 period. I will edit the page accordingly.

As to the term "right of return", I think it is inevitable that every nation-state will have its own terminology for what duties, if any, it owes to the national majority with which it has a special link. So I am not so worried about the terminology. Some term must be used to describe the general class of policies, and none is better than any other unfortunately!

Finally, there does nonetheless seem to indicate some broad policy in this direction in the post-1993 era, although I can see it is nuanced and it would be good to know more about the specific reasons driving these nuancing. Clearly the state has felt a duty to ethnic Czechs living in some areas (FSU?) and not others. Sources discussing it include:

Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Report on the Czech Republic´s Implementation of the Outcome of the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, 1995 (only in Google cache now, I think, http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:vP_iaEqNg6kJ:mpsv.cz/scripts/clanek.asp): "The aid program for resettlement of ethnic Czechs to the Czech Republic continued in 1998. The program is based on the Czech government's policy principles regarding the resettlement of foreigners of Czech origin living abroad."

Report of the Czech Republic on Performance of the Obligations Arising from the CERD, http://vlada.cz/1250/vrk/rady/rlp/dokumenty/cerd_report.pdf, section on "Right to Nationality", noting the ongoing grant of citizenship to "Czechs coming from the Ukraine" (1128 foreigners).

The "People in Need" foundation: see http://www.clovekvtisni.cz/download/vz00en.pdf, section on "Repatriation of Czech Minorities".

I think your edit on Right of return is correct although broad policy is IMHO too big word. The people from former Soviet Union came in and the government saw it as the fact and ex-post created a policies (read: an ministerial officer wrote something boring and it was quickly approved to get rid of this annoyance before dinner). To the people from Romania the state sent some material help, partly to keep them there since those few who came in (typically young ones) often had hard time to find a job.

The policy toward emigrees in the West was initially formed by few politician (who disliked them) and since no one really cares it somehow stayed intact over years. It is not stringly limiting in practice: because of many holes in the law system quite a few people got Czech citizenship and retained previous one. I can provide few examples how absurd the sytem can be. Pavel Vozenilek 23:44, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That's really helpful. Broad policy is no longer there at all, and I think the current version may capture the sense of arbitrariness or lack of consistency which you explain well. If you have a chance, do take a look to make sure though! AnotherBDA 06:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I think this is OK now. Thanks for the work and maintenance. Pavel Vozenilek 09:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Language demographics

Hello AnotherBDA. I am in the process of rewriting a number articles I started on language demographics in Quebec and Canada. If you are knowledgeable on the subject (and interested of course), you are invited to contribute to my drafts here:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mathieugp/drafts
• http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Mathieugp/Brouillons

The objective is to cover the subject in full and allow room for expansion for the years to come. The most valuable documents I have found online on the subject in the English language are here:

• Getting the facts straight on French : Reflections following the 1996 Census by Charles Castongay, in Inroads Journal, volume 8, 1999, pages 57 to 77
• Transcript of a Standing Joint Commitee on Official Languages hearing, April 28, 1998

Both are from Charles Castonguay. There are a lot more information available online in the French language:

• Données sociolinguistiques - Table des matières
• Suivi de la situation linguistique
• Indicateurs et dynamique démolinguistiques - 1991, 1996, 2001
• Dynamique des langues - Secrétariat à la politique linguistique du Québec
• La force réelle du français au Québec in Le Devoir, December 20, 2005
• Assimilation linguistique et remplacement des générations francophones et anglophones au Québec et au Canada
• Évolution Démographique des minorités de langue officielle

-- Mathieugp 15:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Suggested guide to WP

On Wikipedia:Village_pump_(perennial_proposals) I found your post "A printed (printable?) guide to hand to academics and the like", where you write:

... [helping with Wikipedia is] not that easy for someone who isn't particularly computer-savvy ... It would be great if there were a manual -- a step by step, PDF-style document that they could print out, walk through, and begin using to help them lend their knowledge to the Wikipedia universe. (A seminar to accompany it would be even better ...)

I am very happy that you have found WP: it needs academics badly!

What in particular might be difficult for new users? Suggestions for improvement would be very helpful, as it is sometimes difficult for seasoned users to imagine the difficulties of novices.

It seems you got the hang of editing talk pages, which is an accomplishment. You can get your questions answered at Wikipedia:Village_pump. You could also ask around the people you meet reguarly, like colleagues. After you get the hang of it, you could organise a seminar yourself. -Pgan002 07:17, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Halukka

Hello. I wanted to let you know that I've marked the article, Halukka, as a copy vio, as it is a duplication of an article here. As you are an experienced editor, I suspect you may have added this with permission, but forgotten to take the relevant steps to inform Wikipedia of it. Please see Wikipedia:Copyright problems for more information on this topic, or generally, Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. Please do not remove the copyright violation notice placed in the article or repost the suspected infringing text. Ladybirdintheuk 08:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Ladybirdintheuk 08:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, it's no longer a duplicate -- there are some heavy edits there! But, yes, the base article is from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, which a foundation has digitized and placed online at the Web address to which you link. I think your premise is that either permission has been secured, or it is a copyright violation. There is a third possibility, though -- that the source is in the public domain. That is the case here. The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia is in the public domain. Although the foundation which digitized it asserts copyright, that copyright can apply only to the digitization in its entirety -- in other words, one does not have the right to reproduce the entire Web site, because the data array is protected by copyright as a collection. The individual articles cannot be recopyrighted, because copyright has lapsed. (If public domain could be reversed by asserting the contrary, then it would not be a very useful concept.) AnotherBDA 02:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yvon Deschamps translation

I have just discovered that the English Wikipedia having such a thorough article on comedian (and philosopher!) Yvon Deschamps was thanks to your impressive translation effort. A (late) thank you for your work on this and other articles. --Liberlogos 05:48, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

You're invited!

Hello, AnotherBDA,

You are invited meet with your fellow Wikipedians by attending the Montréal meetup scheduled on Sunday, June 27, 2010; between 1500 - 1700 to be held at the Comité Social Centre Sud (CSCS), located at 1710 Beaudry, in Montréal. You can sign up at the meetup page.

The meetup is happening in concurrence with RoCoCo 2010, a free, bilingual, weekend unconference including many people involved with Wikis both within the Wikipedia/Wikimedia Community and abroad. You do not need to attend the conference to sign up for the Wikimeetup, but you are certainly welcome! Bastique ^{☎ call me!}

(PS: Please share this with those you know who might not be on the delivery list, i.e. Users in Montreal/Quebec)

Delivered by SoxBot (talk) 00:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Nomination of Grodzinski Bakery for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Grodzinski Bakery is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grodzinski Bakery until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Bergenwood

At Bergenwood, North Bergen you added some material which appears to come from another article/source, or possiblly an AfD. Can you send e that link or info. ThanksDjflem (talk) 09:43, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Figured it out and fixed linkDjflem (talk) 10:06, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

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