Foroa

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Hello, Foroa, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Cirt (talk) 12:29, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Glad that you still can live without a bot-hostess. --Foroa (talk) 13:02, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Kortrijk and Broel Towers

Hi Foroa, I wondered why you changed the redirection page from Broel Towers to Broeltorens, because in English one says Broel Towers (also the official documents use this instead of Broeltorens in English). Also in French the title of the page states 'tours du broel' and not Broeltorens... And on the page about the City hall, I used Courtray in English because the source where I got the information (which I stated on the very page) uses Courtray (with an y, not with an i), so apparently, Courtray ís used as the British equivalent of Kortrijk, just as Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, Ostend, Ypres and so on... I don't get why Wikipedia would use those English names, but ignore some others like Courtray... It's quite odd don't you think? (I don't want to be a pain in the ass :), but I do think this is not very consistent...) But anyway, you changed even the source wich I stated, but that still has to be 'Courtray invites you' (not Courtrai), because that's just the title of the book... Kindly regards, Speha702 (talk) 07:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Speha702. In the past, there have been attempts to put everywhere Courtray (and Furnes, Roulers, ...), and since you used Courtray everywhere, even in new article names, I thought that the same story started again. So maybe a bit of overreaction combined with a revert to more consistency. Nevertheless some comments:

• as you can see in the Kortrijk talk pages, there has been never any evidence here when and whatfor Courtray has been used somewhere in history. Just references to some random webpages. Your statement that "Courtray ís used as the British equivalent of Kortrijk, just as Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, Ostend, Ypres and so on..." is completely unsubstantiated and most probably untrue. My impression is that some people try to be trendy and differentiate with the term Courtray against the French Courtrai. Anyway, I see no reason to add to the confusion by adding another spelling variant without solid reference documents and a piece of related history on that.
• Personally I don't care too much if the article is called Broel Towers or Broeltorens. Anyway, there is a growing trend to (finally) accept more and more the endonyms instead of the exonyms. And because Broeltorens is a proper name and endonym, why not use it. I have equally my doubts about consistency: if you translate towers, why not translating broel ?
• But to be honest, the biggest trigger was your hijacking of the Broeltorens article. One of, if not "the", the fundamental rules of the wikipedia and GFDL is that one respects the author contributions and hence the article history. You did copy the article and published a new one under your name, then you made the original disappear under a redirect. I can understand this from a newbie in good faith, but that does not mean that we don't have to react.

Hope this clarifies. --Foroa (talk) 11:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi foroa, thanks for the reply! I never ment to use the wrong term, I just used Courtray because that's the term used in the source I used. I have to say I don't really get why Wikipedia uses English names for one town, but not for another... Not very consistent at all. Indeed, there has to be a concensus which term to use, but there are a lot of references which use an English equivalent for Kortrijk. I do get the confusion, so I went to the library today and did some research and indeed, sometimes Courtrai is used in English (e.g. the famous 'Courtrai Chest' (a lot of articles also on the internet like [this one], discovered in Oxford; the 'battle of Courtrai' (e.g. even used on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Battle_of_Courtrai.jpg); books like Medieval Warfare: A History a Book by Maurice Keen, Oxford University Press, 1999), but other sources use 'Courtray' (e.g. the book I used for article about the history of the City Hall; on Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Courtray.svg). So I don't really know which term is correct, but I can say most of the references I found use Courtrai and not Courtray or Kortrijk. I do think one should use the correct term on Wikipedia. An Englishmen will never say Napoli or Munchen but Naples and Munich... Just like we use Londen instead of London... I think it's a good thing each language is different and has it's own words, that's the richness of the language, so let's not force native english-speakers to use a word which is not part of their own language (and is much more difficult to pronounce...)

Anyway, to clarify, I went to the tourist office this afternoon and they told me English people still use Courtray as pronounciation, but the tourist maps and brochures use the word Courtrai... Based on all this (historic references like the Courtrai Chest and the use nowadays by tourists) I believe Courtrai is the best -and most used- English equivalent.

About the Broeltorens article: I apologize, I just thought it was the best thing to do. But since you did practically the same with the arctiles on the City Hall and the Our Lady Church, I don't really get what's wrong with moving pages and redirect the old ones...

kind regards, Speha702 (talk) 21:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Speha702. Glad that you took the time to do some serious research work. If you want to discuss further about Courtrai/Courtray, you better do it on Kortrijk talk pages, where it is clearly stated by native English persons that "Kortrijk is often used as the official spelling in library records" and "never" Courtray".

That brings us to the endonym/exonym discussion. People used to have a name for most major cities in their own language, which creates more problems than it solves: Cologne, Keulen, Köln, ... I see a tendency of more and more respect for the local names and not inventing al sorts of "localised" variations, which is a good step towards standardisation and internationalisation (In France, you will not ask the way to Rijsel or Parijs I presume). So far, only major cities which have a long common history with the foreign country, such as Bruges, Ypres, Antwerp, Ghent and Ostend are difficult to "standardise"; it will take another ten or twenty years or so. After all, as a foreigner, when walking in a city and its documentation, if you don't know the local name, you are lost. Moreover, with translations, it is next to impossible to remain consistent for example in Bruges, you have Brugse Triple, Brugse reien, Zeebrugge, Brugse vaart, Gentbrugge... Or just look how Category:Kortrijk is consistent.

So I feel that, as a general rule, we should try to standardise on one single international name and move to the endonym name. With Brussels as exception as it solves our internal Belgian problem.

Concerning a move/rename; when you move an article as I did with the City Hall Kortrijk article, it gets effectively moved along with its talks page and its history. So even when I moved your article, the history remains connected to it. When you move an item, a new item is created by the system with the old name and containing a redirect to the new name. So history remains intact. So this is substantially different from copying an article into a new one as the copy doesn't carry the history with it. You can check that by looking at the history pages from both Broeltorens (5 Mai/Lamadude and 10 August/you) and the City hall articles.

No harm done, this is just part of the learning process. If you need some special pictures, just give me a shout (no guarantee on timing, but we should have a picture of the Astrid Park with its pink coloured fountains). --Foroa (talk) 06:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposed move Mura → Mur

Hello Foroa. I'm a little bit confused, you support [1] the move here in enwiki, but you oppose [2] it at commons? Is there a special reason for this or do I miss the point? Best regards, --R.Schuster (talk) 09:09, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Your initial move request on commons was not really substantiated and in contradiction with the name here. Now, it is documented and should normally move, so we can move it on commons too (maybe with the "Mur River" form). This is the best long term approach: make sure it is right on en:wiki. --Foroa (talk) 09:24, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Piranga

Hello Foroa!

Bots may spread human mistakes and the only way to avoid any other bot repeat the mistake is to fix the mistake in all the affected wikis. I have changed the articles devoted to the Brazilian town in order to point to Piranga, Minas Gerais ... so I expect to avoid automatic modifications made by bots. Regards. --Loupeter (talk) 15:12, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you I appreciate. I am a bit surprised that interwiki mistakes spread like gossip or viruses while escalating. When looking here, it does not seem fully solved yet, so "it" might come back (One leak and it comes back). There where only 15 or so wikipedias involved but I am wondering what we will do when there are hundreds of wiki's involved. I guess I could maintain a list of wrong interwikis, and the day that the interwiki updating process goes a bit faster, I could inject chained errors that wreck the whole system in a couple of days. --Foroa (talk) 20:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Gentse wikimeet op 15 jan '11

Foroa, misschien weet je hier nog niet van, daarom dit berichtje ;-) Zie nl:WP:O#Wikimeet_Gent MADe (talk) 10:55, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

move

hi there,

you might be interested in this discussion here [3]. cheers Gryffindor (talk) 01:55, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Copyrighted image on the Commons

Hi. I don't think this image is free. I don't know enough about copyright templates or notices on the Commons to place on that page, so I thought I'd tell you. Nightscream (talk) 04:38, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Barack Obama file deletion

Hello Foroa. Apologies if this is not the best place to contact you, but I'm not very comfortable navigating Commons or the other sister projects.

According to my grossly inadequate understanding of the Commons deletion log, it appears you deleted at 02:21, 22 August 2011, with the edit summary "Broken redirect". That file is used in the en:Wikipedia articles for both U.S. President Barack Obama and his father, Barack Obama, Sr. Several days before the deletion, there was a problem with a vandalized version of the file, as noted at Talk:Barack Obama#Pronunciation needs rollback, and another user reverted, or tried to revert, to an earlier version. It's possible that whatever was "broken" when you deleted the file was related to the vandalism. In any case, is it possible for you to restore the last good version of the file (presumably the one that was current prior to the 11 August change mentioned on the talk page) so it will again work in the Obama articles? Thanks for any help you can provide. Fat&Happy (talk) 04:36, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I just deleted a broken redirect. The file has been renamed to Commons:File:En-us-Barack-Hussein-Obama.ogg and then deleted by user jcb because of a lack of license. I restored the older versions. --Foroa (talk) 06:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm still not sure of everything that happened, but the restored file seems to be working well; I'll change the article links later, since I'm supposed to be sleeping right now but woke up and decided to check on this because I knew I was missing something, but not what. As you see it, is the file you restored now properly licensed? Going through the file history just now, there seemed to be a lot of vandalism changes to the text, but like I said, I'm half asleep and didn't actually do a comprehensive review. And probably don't understand Commons rules well enough to be sure of anything even fully awake. Fat&Happy (talk) 09:29, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I restored only the older versions, before there has been some fiddling with the files. --Foroa (talk) 10:47, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

VLS

Dag Foroa, wil je hier eens naar kijken en overleggen met ons ? Lotje (talk) 15:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Admin coaching barnstar
		Thank you Foroa, all your kind help. Wish I had done this earlier. Lotje (talk) 16:51, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Seasonal Greets!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2015!!!

Hello Foroa, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2015. Happy editing, —Lotje (talk to me) 03:22, 23 December 2014 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Foroa&curid=1652529&diff=156828988&oldid=156525673

@Foroa: hallo, ik weet dat je er niet meer actief bent, maar zou je toch een kijkje willen nemen? Bedankt. Lotje (talk) 15:08, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability 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, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:05, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings

Merry Cristmas everybody!!!

"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,

I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

Luke 2:10-11 (King James Version)

Lotje (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas.

This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove.

Spread the cheer by adding {{Subst:Xmas4}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Lotje (talk) 06:44, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians

@Foroa: I added you to the list of missing Wikipedians. If you decide to return you might wish to revert that edit. Cheers. Lotje (talk) 06:54, 24 August 2019 (UTC)