User talk:Mahagaja/Archive 9

Request for comment - URGENT

User:Leyasu has been making personal attacks against me on Talk:Grunge music. At the same time, he is trying to insert false information into the article. If you can, could you please stop by the talk page and help resolve this dispute?

Also, if you aren't able to stop this mess, could you please pass this on to someone who can? I've tried mediation, and nobody there will help. I've tried contacting another admin, and that did nothing. This harassment has been going on for some time now and the poor response to it is IMO an embarassment to Wikipedia. The ability of Wikipedia to enforce its official policy is looking questionable right now, and if this continues on Wikipedia is going to lose my support. -- LGagnon 07:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Happy 2006

I've seen it. As far as I'm concerned, the article could also have sat there with an {{unreferenced}} warning, but whatever; happy editing and success in 2006 -- dab (ᛏ) 17:45, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Collective nouns

Hey Angr, I am sorry to bother you with this, but I have to because I know you are an expert on linguistics. I am trying to explain to User:Fritz S. that band names are collective nouns and that they are singular. Since X number of members make up one band. For example, "New Radicals was an American rock band" not "New Radicals were an American rock band." Also the user keeps on saying that it should be plural because the name of the band is plural. I am not good at explaining things so can you help me out by explaining this to him and/or enlighten me further. You can find the conversation at both of mine and his talk pages. Thanks! RJN 17:48, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you again, but I don't know who else to turn to. Can you tell User:Fritz S. that "New Radicals was an American rock band" is correct usage in American English? He thinks that because the name of a band has "s" meaning it is plural. His rationale is that the band's name is plural. Please tell him that a band's name does not effect the grammar of the sentence. Thanks! RJN 19:06, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Angr, just wanted to check with you as RJN apparently isn't very interested in discussing this. He claims "New Radicals", "New York Yankees", "The Muppets", "The Beatles" etc. are singular, which seems rather strange to me. I understand the concept of collective nouns, I'm just not sure these are collective nouns, especially since a page RJN posted stated that collective nouns are singular in form. Now he claims these are singular because they are collective nouns, which seems to be a paradoxon to me. Also, as Singular and plural for nouns states the plural form is correct in both British and American English ("Proper nouns which are plural in form take a plural verb in both American and British English."; and even gives an example with band names for this), I think this form should be prefered on Wikipedia over the singular form RJN keeps reverting to. --Fritz S. (Talk) 19:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

There isn't really an edit war going on here, I just found the changes he made somewhat strange, especially given the plural is used on several articles - including FAs - and I think it's unlikely that "New York Yankees", "The Muppets", "The Beatles" are grammatically singular. --Fritz S. (Talk) 19:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for welcoming me and for giving tips. I hope to visit Wikipedia once a week at least.jayas 17:08, 2 January 2006 (UTC) Could you tell me what this (UTC) is? User talk something? --jayas 17:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The RipOffs

Hi Angr. I notice that you closed off the above AfD. Since there were only three users contributing to the AfD, I reckon it would be more appropriate to relist for more input. But maybe I'm biased, as I don't think this band deserves an article yet. What do you think? Cheers, CLW 19:35, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Need advice

At the Talk:Classical definition of effeminacy#Unsuitable for Wikipedia a person on the talk page wrote that the article is "POV" and that the article has no merit whatsoever. I would like a second opinion. I thought it was very good and informative. Am I right to conjecture that you also see it that way?

Another User:SimonP has thought it worthwhile to add that the article needs "cleanup". Thus user has gone to synoecism and xenelasia and also added cleanup markers. I feel this user is targeting my work at wikipedia because it doesn't conform to his politics and/or doesn't like my political persuasion.WHEELER 21:14, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Usrbox edit

I edited your usrbox to link to the Constitution. 68.39.174.238 07:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Categories for hypothetical language groups?

Despite my personal opinion that en.wikipedia is well beyond sanity in inflated category use, I've just tried to question one specific abuse: Should articles on languages be categorized according to membership in hypothetical/disputed/fringe language groups? I've taken Category:Dene-Caucasian languages as an example, but there are more, see the subcategories of Category:Proposed language families.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Dene-Caucasian_languages

Pjacobi 16:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

IPA notice

Heh. Okay, thanks for letting me know. --Whimemsz 05:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

My Request for Adminship

Greetings, Angr! I wanted to sincerely thank you for voting in my RfA, which passed with a final result of 55/14/3. Your support means a lot to me! If you have any questions or input regarding my activities, be they adminly or just a "normal" user's, or if you just want to chat about anything at all, feel free to drop me a line. Cheers! —Nightstallion (?) 07:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Two sections listed for deleted in the Phonological history of English consonants section

I've listed two sections in the Phonological history of English consonants for VFD. Please contribute to the discussions. Robot32 22:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Preposition Userboxes

I have created a userbox about prepositions here, but I cannot get the userbox page to link to it. I am asking you because you have also made a grammar userbox and I hoped you could help. If you can, please leave me a message at my talk page. Thanks:) --Think Fast 22:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for looking at this. No wonder you couldn't find a mistake. I was leaving off the "s" on "prepositions." Oops:) --Think Fast 00:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

RFC on pedelec

you expert knowlege of the german language is being requested for the page pedelec. Your comment may also be appreciated on the deletion nomination. --CyclePat 02:52, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

I'm writing to ask your assistance. Matt Crypto has taken it upon himself unilaterally to remove certain images from my user page and block editing. I cannot edit my own user page. I think this is highly improper and an abuse of his authority -- particularly given his involvement in the RfC/RfAs against me. Is there something you can do? Thanks. deeceevoice 13:21, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually it was Snowspinner who protected your page from editing, not Matt. Matt removed the images as a compromise because both Snowspinner and Anthere had completely blanked the page. I'll unprotect your page. --Angr (tɔk) 13:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've unprotected it. --Angr (tɔk) 13:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

user page

I notice you reverted my good faith blanking of the userpage in question. Would you revert it if I moved said user page to a different spot in their user directory (as I suggested they do on their talk page) and removed the redirect? Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

To be clear, I have weighed in on the Arbcom case here and will suggest shortly that they make such a temporary injunction. The user page in question is linked from the following pages: [1], including such commonly read pages as Talk:Jazz, Talk:Janis Joplin, Talk:Joke, Talk:NAACP and scores of others. It is not appropriate to have a disguised NSFW link (an openly NSFW link would be fine) on those pages. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

No, it's a time place and manner restriction. I don't let people scream fire in a crowded theater, and I do let people avoid pictures of pierced penises unless they expect to see them. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

You don't work in Corporate America. If I opened that user page with images on, I'd be in a world of shit. That's why I don't brows Penis from work, but I do look at Talk:Jazz, and in the event that some user wrote something that I wanted to discuss with them, I might click on the link to their user page to quickly get to their talk page. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I wear a white collar. I can see this is not going to be productive, as you don't even care to take it seriously. Thanks for the time. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Cheers, Angr!

Thanks for the welcome and the advice about copywriting pics. I've fixed the pic you were talking about by adding the tag as you suggested. Thanks again! Givnan 07:58, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

DCV

You're literalist interpretation of the rules and willingness to flatly overturn two separate admins has, unsurprisingly, not helped the situation at all. Phil Sandifer 17:13, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It's hardly helpful for someone with an RfAr going on against them to be unable to respond to it for two days. --Angr (tɔk) 17:17, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I imagine the arbcom, being comprised of not-stupid-people, would recognize this in a case that were in the evidence phase. Phil Sandifer 17:19, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. :) Needless to say, I agree that Bauder and Snowspinner's blocks were utterly without merit. deeceevoice 17:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Your unblocking was unjustified. I wish you'd engage in discussion rather than just undoing it. She's being disruptive and unhelpful to the project. Having people undo her legitimate blocks only makes the situation worse. Friday (talk) 18:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

She e-mailed me and asked me to unblock her. I looked at what she had done (removed Fred Bauder's comment from her user page, which was justified since comments are supposed to be left on talk pages), and looked at Fred's reason for blocking her ("Discourtesy, refusal to disuss significant issues") and Phil (Snowspinner)'s reason for extending her block ("Fred's earlier block + personal attacks against Fred"). Then I read all the comments she had made to Fred and found nothing that could be construed as a personal attack. Anger and incivility, perhaps, but no personal attacks. Then I read WP:BP to see if anything she had done warranted a block. The only section of that page that is even relevant is "Disruption", which says: "Sysops may, at their judgement, block IP addresses or usernames that disrupt the normal functioning of Wikipedia. Such disruption may include changing other users' signed comments, making deliberately misleading edits, harassment, and excessive personal attacks. Users should normally be warned before they are blocked." She did not change anyone's signed comment (although he did); she made no deliberately misleading edits; she did not engage in harrassment as defined at WP:HAR; she did not make personal attacks. Moreover, she was not warned before being blocked; she was simply informed after the fact. I stand by my decision to unblock her. --Angr (tɔk) 18:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. IMO she's had plenty of warning- far more than any other user I can think of would be given. An RFC, an RFAr, and she still continues to try to turn Wikipedia into a battleground instead of an encyclopedia. She's a controversial user, to be sure, so any blocks of her will be controversial. I just wish the controvery didn't make it de facto impossible for her to be blocked, which is why I wish people would explain their disapproval of any such blocks instead of overturning them. I believe that the fact that she cannot be blocked makes her behavior justified in her own mind. I respect that you're doing what you think is right, I just wish it didn't involve overturning blocks. There have been blocks I've disagreed with but not overturned. To me, there's a difference between a controversial block and a blatantly unreasonable block. A blatantly unreasonable block should IMO be overturned easily by anyone who wants to, but I don't see that this block qualifies as blatantly unreasonable. Friday (talk) 18:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, she's a controversial user. No argument from me there. I think of her as Wikipedia's gadfly. And I would not have undone the block if she had actually done something specific that's a blockable offense under WP:BP. But I just don't see that she did. I do consider Fred's and Phil's blocks blatantly unreasonable. --Angr (tɔk) 19:00, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Given her unrepentantly combative behavior, multiple past warnings and blocks, and the fact that she's been around a long time and ought to know better, I see no problem with harsher treatment than would be given, say, a brand new user. She's here to fight a race war, not make an encyclopedia, and thus I see no problem with liberal blocks for disruption. I do see a problem with the de facto impossibility of such blocks, and the message it sends, which is why I wish people would discuss rather than unblocking. If you're very interested in "the letter of the law" of the blocking policy, note that it specifically advises bringing up disputed blocks with the blocking admin, rather than just unblocking. I see that you explained yourself, but only after unblocking. The block was a judgement call, not a blatant error, as I think was made clear by the discussion with people on both sides of the issue. Friday (talk) 19:29, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Her previous blocks were always for something tangible: 3RR violations. This one was for "discourtesy" (violating WP:CIVIL isn't grounds for blocking) and non-existent personal attacks. And I absolutely reject the proposition that she's de-facto unblockable. Look at her block log: this is the first time that anyone has unblocked her other than because of collateral damage or to re-block her for longer. It's not as if people are jumping to unblock her every time someone blocks her. --Angr (tɔk) 21:32, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Please reconsider your undoing of the block of Deeceevoice. She needs to discuss the issues if she is to avoid a permanent ban. Fred Bauder 19:42, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

How precisely is blocking her going to force her to discuss the issues? --Angr (tɔk) 21:32, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Hipocrite

Hey, I was hoping you could help me. I’m tired of Hipocrite be aggressive and being bias. I would like something done about Hipocrite personally attacking me by saying:

"Only if it has been resolved to the effect of "Hipocrite is right." Hipocrite - «Talk» 03:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)"

I'm not perfect, and sometimes get out of hand, but I have never made a threat. He has an extensive history of aggressiveness, and pushing his views on to others. Not to mention the pages of conflicts he has had with other users.

He made that threat 4 four times, what is that all about? He is saying that the case in dispute can only be solved if I bow down and praise him like a god. That's a Threat, bias, and personal attack me. I feel like just leaving and not coming back to this site, like so many have because of users like him. He's is not willing to compromise on the dispute unless I do that. Hope you can help, Thanks!

Anakinskywalker 04:57, 09 January 2006 (UTC)

I have nothing to add to what Katefan0 is saying at Talk:University of Ottawa. --Angr (tɔk) 06:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Connacht Irish

I have begun articles on Ulster Irish, Connacht Irish, and Munster Irish. --Angr (tɔk) 21:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

And you call this news? We all knew this two hours ago... (see [2] and countless others...) :) ℬastique▼^parℓer♥^voir♑ 21:53, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

How am I supposed to know what you all have on your respective watchlists? :p --Angr (tɔk) 21:56, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Please accept

I, Ag Foghlaim, award you this original Barnstar for your outstanding work on Gaeilge-related topics: Connacht Irish, Munster Irish, Ulster Irish, Irish phonology, Irish orthography, and others that I probably have not found yet. I want you to know that your work is not only immensely appreciated, but is also a great study/reference material to a learner like myself. Keep it up!

I don't have the luxury of being able to contact Mr. Ó Siadhail for explanations, so, additionally, please accept my gratitude for being tolerant to my pestering you with questions and for providing detailed answers to those questions! I in turn promise to keep this practice to the very minimum :)--Ag Foghlaim 19:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the barnstar! I don't mind answering questions at all. In fact, the questions you ask show me how to improve the articles, because sometimes you catch typos but aren't sure that's what they are, or you catch me being vague or self-contradictory. So don't hold back too much on the question-asking! ;-) Beir bua! --Angr (tɔk) 19:37, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll remember that :) The problem is, most of my questions are the ones a student would ask a teacher (which I do not have); they would do nothing to improve Wikipedia. And improving Wikipedia, not guiding clueless students, is the reason why we are all here. Still, if I have a question an answer to which would benefit both me and this fine encyclopedia, I will not hesitate to contact you. In other cases, I'll just hit the Reference desk :) Again, thank you so much. Please keep announcing new articles--unlike Bastique above, I have no clue what to watchlist on this topic :)--Ag Foghlaim 19:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind answering student-to-teacher type questions; if you feel your question isn't relevant to WP, you can ask it here. Or by e-mail, though it's more convenient here because of Unicode support for phonetic characters. --Angr (tɔk) 19:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

From Felicity

I hope I’m doing this right, editing the page to reply to your comment—I guess I’ll have to re-read the manual to make sure! In the meantime...

I read the linked point about capitalisation and stand corrected, and will happily conform to the Wikipedia standard of header capitalisation from now on.

However, I’m fanatical about directed quotes and apostrophes; as long as Wikipedia allows them, I plan to fix every single one, one random article at a time. I just think that directed quotes and apostrophes look more professional, more like an actual published work; plus, aesthetically, non-directed quotes really, really bother me, and make me want to not use Wikipedia—which would be unfortunate, because I learn so much about so many things just by going through articles replacing quote marks!

Thank you for the welcome and I will certainly read the links you suggested. :-)

PS: I forgot to mention that I’m very careful to leave links that contain undirected apostrophes intact and use the | (pipe?) so that the directed version is only the displayed version. :-)

Homosexuality and Christianity

I see from the history you've been involved with the article in the past. It's going through a major revision and your input would be helpful. A.J.A. 18:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

East Scandinavian this time

Once again I come to you with a question related to a language which I realise might not be among your main interests. This time it is Danish phonology. I am trying to get a discussion going about how to represent the Danish plosives in IPA, see Talk:Danish phonology#Plosives, and I would be grateful if you had a look. Stefán Ingi 14:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Your block of User:65.5.74.2

I notice you increased the length of block for this user to a week, however you didn't unblock in between, so the shorter block is still the effective block. Thanks --pgk^(talk) 16:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that. I unblocked and re-blocked. --Angr (tɔk) 16:49, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Edit tools

No, but it's better. IPA currently seems to be displaying Cyrilic and Welsh seems to contain Scandinavian letters, but most the categories are fixed. I've posted a comment on village pump. Thanks. smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 11:19, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

template ll

Hi Angr. Thanks for restoring template:ll. I cycled again through WLH (what links here) of ll and think I got them for now (see contribs, January 15, 2006). Side note: I used the temporary template User:Adrian Buehlmann/work/ll from under my user space to subst. But again this relies on that likely broken WLH feature. Frankly, I must say deleting template:ll was not such a good idea in the first place. However, please note that I just executed the will of the TfD autcome. --Adrian Buehlmann 10:21, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

removal of several characters from german and french

I agree with the removal of the O-macron and t-cedille from French. The O-macron required when writing fr:Tōkyō in French, but is technically part of the romanisation, so not all that useful on the English Wikipedia. The T-cedille was proposed by a linguist, but not used (on the other hand, this might be why it does have a use in an encyclopedia). The ae is used when writing Latin words, however (and it is on the special charactes list on the French Wikipedia). In German the Y-umlaut is used in surnames. The characters with a real umlaut shouldn't be used on the computers, but I though they might be useful in the article on Umlauts. The M in script was used for the Goldmark. Cheers, —Ruud 12:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Articles For Deletion

Hi, one or both of the following situations applies to you, and you may therefore be interested in related discussions.

• You expressed an opinion about the proposed deletion of an article concerning one of the first 200 verses of the Gospel of Matthew. Would you therefore like to join a centralised discussion about the other 199 articles at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/200 verses of Matthew
• You expressed an opinion about the proposed deletion of an article concerning one of the first 19 verses of the 20th Chapter of the Gospel of John. Would you therefore like to join a centralised discussion about the other 18 articles at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Verses of John 20

You may also be interested in a discussion of whether or not the entire text of a whole bible chapter should be contained in the 6 articles concerning those specific chapters, and whether or not they should only use the translations favoured by fundamentalists. This is being discussed at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Whole bible chapter text.

--Victim of signature fascism | Don't forget to vote in the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections 18:01, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Some people just never learn...

Thanks for the revert and block of Broadmindedtwentysomething. We figured he might have given up, but I have a feeling this one's going to be a headache for some time to come yet... Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 19:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops, must have clicked on a wrong link and not checked. Thanks :-p Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 19:50, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

template book reference

We are actually in the process of upgrading templates to make them compliant with WP:AUM.

At Template talk:Book reference#Rewrite due to WP:AUM (begin of that thread) I present a new version for book reference which is not a metatemplate (you can view the code of that at User:Adrian Buehlmann/work/b-ref/1).

May I ask you to carefully review your position? (Please post at Template talk:Book reference#Rewrite due to WP:AUM). Thank you very much indeed. --Adrian Buehlmann 23:21, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

template:book reference is no longer a meta-template and conforms with WP:AUM [3]. This is a temporary solution and we are looking for further improving to adress any issues. --Adrian Buehlmann 15:29, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedians in Germany

Hi Angr, thanks for the notice that the list of Wikipedians in Germany was replaced by a category; I've categorised myself by my Bundesland now. -- pne (talk) 07:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for your notice. I just read that you live in Berlin: we just had our monthly wikipedia meeting last night. Berlin has an active and lively wp community, even including american wikipedians who live here :-) If you should be interested, check de:Wikipedia:Berlin. Next meeting will be on february 19th. See you --Magadan ?! 12:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Angr, thanks for the notice about the Bundesländer category thingy! At first I tried to include it into my Babel box, but apparently it doesn't work that way. So I just put myself into the appropriate Category (...ies). --Wutzofant 13:53, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Angr, I'm the fourth to begin my comment with 'hi' ;-) Thank you for the, err, the Bundesländer category thingy. Really good idea. Sciurinæ 00:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. Now I can be found more easily. Winnie-MD 12:49, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

South Park Republicans

Hey I had never heard that, but you're absolutely right! I just looked that up. How's this for a great quote from Mat Stone: “I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals.” That's me! Thank you for helping me, at long last, find out who I am! ElectricRay 14:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

ů

Modernes Deutsch natuerlich nicht :) aber Fruehneuhochdeutsch (EMHG), 14.-16. Jh., benutzte die Ligatur sehr wohl, und ich habe sie manchmal benoetigt fuer Zitate aus dieser Zeit. Die Frage ist aber wirklich, ob es eine gute Idee sei, das Menu nach Sprache zu sortieren: Viele glyphs werden so mehrmals vertreten sein. ů waere auf einer Seite "Latin ligatures" geradesogut untergebracht. dab (ᛏ) 16:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Wäre meiner Meinung nach logischer, es derart zu sortieren, ja, sonst dürften die vielen Dopplungen wirklich mit der Zeit überhand nehmen... —Nightstallion (?) 17:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Also ich glaube es wird jetzt daran gearbeitet, dass jede Gruppe von dem Server einzeln abrufbar ist, damit dieser bei jedem Edit nicht überfordert ist. Wenn das soweit ist, wird es dann egal sein, wie viele Dopplungen es gibt. Dann können die Leute, die nur mit Tschechisch oder Estnisch arbeiten, nur die Palette benutzen müssen, die sie eigentlich brauchen. --Angr (tɔk) 17:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Mh... Okay, gut, lass ich gelten. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 17:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

schon, aber wenn die Menu-Liste erstmal auf 500 Eintreage aufgeblasen wird, ist es sicher muehsamer, daraus "Czech" auszuwaehlen, nur um an haceks zu kommen, als wenn haceks einfach unter "Latin diacritics" oder aehnlich abrufbar sind. dab (ᛏ) 17:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Mh. Und wie wär's, wenn man sich einfach selbst aussuchen kann, ob man die allgemeinen Gruppierungen "Latin extended", "Arabic", ... schwafel, bla, haben will oder lieber nach Sprachen gruppiert? Kann ja auch kein großer Aufwand sein, oder? —Nightstallion (?) 20:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Und wie wär's, wenn wir diese Diskussion auf MediaWiki talk:Edittools verschieben und auf Englisch umschalten, damit auch andere teilnehmen können? ;-) --Angr (tɔk) 20:14, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Originelle Idee. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 20:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

-

1. Warum "es gibt" statt "gäbe es"? [4]

   Rein technisch korrekt wäre "... wird es dann egal sein, wie viele Dopplungen es geben wird". Parallelkonstruktion im Englischen: "... it won't matter how many double instances there will be". Ich glaube, du verwechselst das de:Relativpronomen "wie viele" mit dem de:Interrogativpronomen "wie viele"... ;) —Nightstallion (?) 07:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

   Uf. See, this this the kind of question you ask when you haven't used German in 15 years...you start confusing other languages' subjunctive patterns and think it actually sounds "normal"... Tomer^talk 10:07, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

2. Wat káin a (hmmm...méibí "káinn" instèd ä "káin a") Igglix dú ái (hmmm...méibí "dw ái" instèd a "dú ái") tók? (see last section of User:TShilo12#Other stuff about me.) Tomer^talk 23:23, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

   I almost understood that. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 07:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

   The above is written in my own personal orthography for English. See User:TShilo12/Igglix orcâgrïfí. The flapped r on my userpage was a typo; it's definitely a liquid retroflex. Tomer^talk 10:07, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Disruption to articles WP:TFD#Template:Okina

I don't have an opinion on the merits, but Kauai is almost unreadable with the text < ‹The template Okina has been proposed for deletion here.› inserted in almost every line and caption of the article. I wonder if it might be possible to proceed in a less disruptive manner? --Walter Siegmund (talk) 07:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I wonder about that, too, and I went ahead and removed the TFD note. Sorry about that, but It also ruined every article on Hawaii (today linked to from the Main Page). There must be a better way of settling this without going a whole week with many articles practically unreadable because of the note. Shanes 07:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The best way to avoid it would have been not to use a template for the purpose of inserting a single character in the first place. But I've moved the TFD notice to its talk page, so it won't disrupt the appearance of the template anymore. --Angr (tɔk) 12:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks to you both. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

"Congregation"

Well, Ecclesia actually means "congregation", literally "called together", while Oikumene means "world, everybody", congregated or not. "Congregation" is "Versammlung", while "Gemeinde" is "Community", in the sense of some total population, physically congregated or not. dab (ᛏ) 16:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

"Oireachtas" in IPA

If you have a moment, could you provide an IPA pronunciation guide for Oireachtas article, please? Someone keeps adding naff pseudo-English "pronunciation guides". --Red King 17:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

reverting Celtic languages (pictish)

You beat me to it. Hmmph. :P

→ P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 18:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

And I just put it back. I can readily find, and have added, sources supporting Celtic Pictish. It shouldn't be difficult, if it remains controversial, to find some published support for non-Celtic Pictish since the turn of the millennium using recent research. The best I could find was Marija Gimbutas in The Living Goddesses (1999), not exactly an uncontroversial work and not post-millennial. Sure, I found more, but they relied on positively ancient research. Lehmann's Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics (2005) is a good example of this sort of thing. Angus McLellan 12:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It's always difficult finding sources arguing against fringe theories like this, because while supporters publish lots, the majority who don't believe them just ignore the issue and don't bother publishing arguments against them. If Pictish is generally omitted from lists of Celtic languages compiled by modern scholars, then the implication is that they do not consider it to be a Celtic language, even if they don't discuss it explicitly. --Angr (tɔk) 12:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I confess to zero expertise in the matter - I only read the end results - but it seems to me that e.g. Price, Nicolaisen and Forsyth are not cranks. That being so, I don't see how the current orthodoxy can be any more of a fringe theory than Jackson's theory which preceded it. I understood that "P-Celtic Pictish" was also the long-accepted theory before Jackson proposed a non-IE Pictish alongside the Pretenic/Brythonic one. Re Jackson's theory on the Picts page, where you added a (fact) template, I know where he wrote about this, but I haven't read it myself. Wearing your Wiki-admin hat, is it considered the done thing for me to put in a ref to something I have not actually seen myself (i.e. Glanville Price says Kenneth Jackson says, so I can add "see Jackson, K.H. whatever") ? Thanks in advance ! Angus McLellan 00:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it (wearing my Celticist hat), the current orthodoxy is neither that Pictish is Brythonic, nor that it is non-IE, but that too little is known about Pictish to know what it is. That's what Ball & Fife say in the introduction to The Celtic Languages, and also what my professors said when I was studying Indo-European linguistics in graduate school. In the introduction to a different book also called The Celtic Languages Donald MacAulay has a diagram making Pictish a sister branch to Brittonic under the heading "P-Celtic" (itself a sister to "Q-Celtic" under "Insular Celtic") but in the text never discusses this. Paul Russell's An Introduction to the Celtic Languages never discusses Pictish at all. Wearing my admin hat, I think it's fine to give the bibliographical information of a source you haven't read, though you should probably be careful not to put words in Jackson's mouth before reading him yourself. I also want to make it clear that I'm all in favor of saying that there are people who have argued that Pictish is Brythonic, and citing those sources, but I don't think it's NPOV to present that as the current communis opinio. --Angr (tɔk) 09:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Belated thanks for the info. FWIW, MacAulay discusses Pictish at the bottom of page 2. ISTM that I could have written that. Angus McLellan 00:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Welcoming Committee

What do you mean by this edit summary? --TantalumTelluride 20:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

That here and here Jimbo has made it clear that he thinks his vision of user pages is more important than the users' own vision of their user pages. If that's not biting the newbies (and the oldbies too, for that matter), I don't know what is. --Angr (tɔk) 21:11, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I see. I respect your opinion, but I don't really care about userboxes anymore. I prefer my cow, which should be safe unless a rogue admin starts deleting public-domain works of the U.S. government. --TantalumTelluride 21:36, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I concur with both of you, but am personally to stubborn persistent to give up my userboxes. —Nightstallion (?) 21:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

However it works out hopefully you can come back to WC eventually...-Ravedave 18:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

AfD Thanks

Please accept my embarrassingly belated thank you for supporting my RfA, which much to my surprise passed 102/1/1, earning me minor notoriety. I am grateful for all the supportive comments, and have already started doing the things people wanted me to be able to do. And hopefully nothing else... Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 12:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome! --Angr (talk) 13:10, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Theoretical linguistics project live

I've moved the project page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics -- Dalbury^(Talk) 23:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I need your input

You need to take a look at the Iranian languages page. I am in a edit war with a certain contributor there. The page is on Iranian languages, yet the contributor keeps adding many paragraphs on the language history of Azerbaijan. It is rather nationalistic in its tone. Do we need over half the page on Iranian languages how Azerbaijan was once Iranian speaking? Shouldn't this be on the Languages of Azerbaijan page. He also quotes a government controlled language source. This is just a horribly written article. Who could take it seriously. Imperial78 01:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how much I can do alone. If I were you, I'd make a note of the dispute at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Language and linguistics and maybe Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages. --Angr 06:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

canuinti

Haigh Angr

is mor liom do chuid oibre ar altanna na gcanuinti. Rinne me roinnt mionathruithe don alt fa Ghaeilic Uladh. An e go raibh foinse amhain agat le haghaidh an ailt? Bhraith me go raibh rud beag michruinnis ann o thaobh liostai na bhfocal de. Ta sraith leabhar ann a molfainn go mor leat iad ma bhionn tu ag iarraidh goil ar aghaoidh leis an jab seo, mar ata, An Teanga Beo: Gaeilge Uladh le Pol O Baoill, An Teanga Bheo: Gaeilge Ch., agus, bhuel, ta's agat cade teideal an chinn eile... Pe sceal e ta neart eolais bheacht sna leabhair udai fa na canuinti, an stor focal s'acub, a gcuid suaitheantaisi gramadula, 7rl. Beir bua, Palmiro | Talk 22:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, sorry I have to answer as Béarla, ach níl Gaeilge agam ach cúpla focal. I do have both of those An Teanga Beo books (as well as the ones for Corca Dhuibhne and Gaeilge Chléire). The source for the vocabulary is mostly the Linguistic Atlas and Survey of Irish Dialects by H. Wagner. The source for the phonology is listed (Ní Chasaide 1999). The source for the morphology I don't remember; it's just stuff I picked up along the way somewhere. That said, it's probably all in Mícheál Ó Siadhail's Modern Irish: Grammatical Structure and Dialectal Variation, I just haven't tracked down the specific claims to that book yet. The syntax stuff you added, so finding a source is up to you! ;-) Beir bua --Angr 22:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I have a source for that, though I need to sort it out more... I am a long way from Min na Leice at the moment, and the only source I have here is a copy of Caisleain Oir, so I was going through it and marking typically Ulster constructions out for citation in that section, but have suddenly been attacked by a rampant workload, so won't be doing it just yet. I think it's an excellent start as it is, and well done. The morphology is fine, as far as I can see. There were one or two things in the vocabulary list that struck me as odd, and that was why I was impelled to suggest the Teanga Beo book - "tinn" and "Gaeilig" instead of "Gaeilic".

One more question: would it not be better, in general, for the vocabulary at least, to talk about variations relative to other dialects rather than variations relative to the standard language?

Oh, and while I'm at it, how do we refer to forms (such as the synthetic form, or the absolute form of verbs such as chím, which are in line with the pre-Caighdean Oifigiuil literary language?

Finally, the article on initial mutations indicates incorrectly that l and n do not lenite; perhaps you are in a position to fix that? Palmiro | Talk 23:04, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for voting!

Hello there! I wanted to thank you for taking the time to vote on my arbitration commitee nomination. Although it was not successful, I appreciate the time you spent to read my statement and questions and for then voting, either positively or negativly. Again, thank you! Páll ^{(Die pienk olifant)} 22:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

More help with IPA pronunciation

Hi Angr. The Dún Laoghaire page uses a frustratingly vague non-standard pronunciation guide. If you get a chance, could you convert it to IPA? You seemed like the best person to ask. Thanks! Take care, --Whimemsz 01:18, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Request for mediation on Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło dispute

Hi Angr. Can I ask you to mediate a dispute, Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło. It concerns the naming of the Lithuanian ruler Jogaila, who also became King of Poland, as Wladislaus II. The current title is Władysław II Jagiełło, which, along with other rulers of Poland, violates general wiki rules for naming monarchs (although Polish users a little while ago agreed amongst themselves to Polonize the names of all Polish monarchs, moving all the articles in correspondence with this decision). This I personally have little objection to (although others might), but Jogaila was not even Polish nor solely a Polish ruler, and the latter means he is not governed by "rules" "agreed" for Polish monarchs. I moved the page to Jogaila of Lithuania. I may or may not have been wrong in the first place for moving it, but I saw this as uncontroversial, as my experience has taught be that it is far more common to refer to him by his Lithuanian name Jogaila, or the corruption thereof Jagiello, and seemed sensible on almost every other ground I could think of. This was objected to by some Polish contributors. Eventually, it had seemed that compromise was reached with Jogaila (Władysław II), but then another Polish user with admin powers (Piotrus), whose intellectual integrity has been far from obviously displayed, reverted this back to the absurd name. Opinions seem hardened, good counter arguments are not being advanced, and the convo now is producing more heat than light. I'm very busy ATM, and am quite anxious to resolve this, but I can't see it happening. Can you help, or have someone help mediate? Thanks. - Calgacus 18:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I've learned that when it comes to eastern Europeans arguing with each other on Wikipedia, it's best to just cut your losses and run. And anyway, I'm a terrible mediator. --Angr 20:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi

Just wanted to let you know the vast quantity of excellent work you are doing on Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/de is not going unnoticed, very well done, keep it up! Martin 10:17, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! It's interesting translating articles on topics I know nothing about. But I do hope other people come along and edit them, because even after I've translated them out of German, they often still have content that makes it clear it was written in Germany (e.g. the Habitat section of Garden dormouse or the number of Germans living in Llucmajor). --Angr 10:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)