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Barnstars The Barnstar of Diligence I, Agnistus award this Barnstar to Kwami for his invaluable contributions to the Origin of hangul article. The Anti-Flame Barnstar I think you deserve a golden fire extinguisher for helping me deal with that misguided revolutionary Serendious 10:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC) The Graphic Designer's Barnstar For your wonderful moon mass charts, I offer the Graphic designer's barnstar. Serendious 12:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC) The Original Barnstar For transforming Rongorongo from a sketchy, unhelpful mess into a tightly organized family of articles covering the entire Rongorongo corpus in a manner both scholarly and accessible, I award you this Barnstar. May it bring you much mana! Fishal (talk) 02:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC) The Working Man's Barnstar For getting all the EL61 links changed to Haumea (dwarf planet), I think you deserve the working man's barnstar. Must have been tedious as heck. 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Excellent articles, wonderful images, and impressive contributions overall! — Stevey7788 (talk) 23:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC) The Editor's Barnstar For your continued good work in articles on languages. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 00:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC) The Teamwork Barnstar I hope the script story will have a happy end :-) Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC) The Original Barnstar Hi there, I noticed that you edited an article that I created (Chay Shegog) and edited the pronunciation. I am a Shegog myself. I'm not bothered about your change at all. The emphasis is how you wrote it so shi-GOG. I noticed that you have done some stuff related to American Indians on Misplaced Pages. Are you of Native American descent? I've done some research and there is some evidence to suggest that the name Shegog is taken from zhigaag (so like Chicago with two g's and no 'o') which means skunk in the Ojibwe language. But all Shegog's I know pronounce it with a short -og similar to dog. 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On 6 June 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Tambora language, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that Tambora, a Papuan language, was once spoken among unrelated languages in the middle of Indonesia near Bali, far to the west of Papua, until the trading state that used it was wiped out by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815? (check page views, quick check)
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Greek d in classical words

Hi! Concerning this I would have thought that the ancient Greek "d" would be the correct one for a philosophical term like this. The Ancient Greek pronunciation also matches all of the international versions of the word, including all forms of English, apart from in modern Greek (and maybe Castilian)?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:05, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not following what you're asking. The 'd'? or one of the vowels? — kwami (talk) 17:10, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

The d. Perhaps you were not the one that changed it I just realized. I saw you edit the IPA, and then noticed the d is given as a fricative.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:29, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd only edited the English. That's how the Greek was added back in Nov. I fixed it up just now, per our conventions on the IPA link. — kwami (talk) 19:31, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

West Lafayette

I don’t want to get into an edit war, which is why I largely stopped editing WP a few years ago, so I will ask you if you have a good reason for reverting my edit on West Lafayette, Indiana. I know the IPA and I am a native of the town. I know the pronunciation. It really is a minor thing, but I would request that you not revert again, without at least providing a justification.
— Ford (talk) 00:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
In attempting to revert the change, I find myself unable to get the page to render the IPA correctly, so I have restored it to your version. Perhaps that problem emerged from my original edit, which is what you were trying to undo, though generally I check the page preview to avoid that problem. In any case, if you were fixing a problem with the IPA rendering and I caused it, I am sorry for the trouble. But perhaps then you would be so kind as to remove the length marker (and the length markers in Lafayette, Indiana as well, which are also spurious). I believe I have successfully edited the new IPA system in WP before, but I appear no longer to know how to do it. Thanks.
— Ford (talk) 01:00, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

If you want to use a local pronunciation that's distinct from generic English, you'll need to use something other than the normal English IPA template. {{IPA-endia}} has been set up for English dialects. Though it isn't fully supported, it won't generate any errors.

The problem with the generic templates is that they connect the reader to a specific IPA-for-English key, which doesn't support the symbols you were using. Since the key is incompatible with your transcription, it's not really appropriate to use it, and therefore not appropriate to use the normal English IPA template.

/ɑː/ is defined in the key as the vowel of father. If you pronounce the fa of Lafayette the same as you do the fa of father, it makes no practical difference to use the supported (and defined) symbol. Usually we don't bother with local pronunciations unless they aren't predictable, though it really doesn't matter. In this case, you only have to know that most US dialects don't have a length distinction to understand the conventional transcription. Most of our readers probably wouldn't know the difference: they click on the ɑː and see that it's pronounced as in 'father', so they pronounced Lafayette as in 'father', which is correct for their dialect, whatever it is. — kwami (talk) 01:40, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I am not talking about a local dialect with sounds unusual for North American English. I had originally changed the transcription in 2009 (successfully at the time) when the second vowel was mistranscribed like the French pronunciation. The problem now seems to be a disagreement over the generic transcription of English, that the phoneme itself is inherently long, and that it should thus be transcribed as long in all environments, including those (like ‘Lafayette’) where it does not receive significant stress. Since WP does not usually use close transcription, marking the phoneme itself as long seems inconsistent, but I am not going to attempt to persuade the IPA team of that; as I implied, I am done arguing with people here, even those well-intentioned. I will point out, though, that the encyclopedia is moving away from the wiki (or crowdsourcing) model if parts of it are essentially impossible to edit by ordinary users. If, for instance, the French-like pronunciation had been in place when the IPA team instituted the new template, it would now be locked in. Most of the people in Indiana know how to pronounce the town’s name, but would not have been able to fix the problem, even if they knew IPA, and mistakes like this would go uncorrected.
— Ford (talk) 21:18, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Template:IPAc-en editable

As an admin, you should know better than to cite policy while disobeying it — that template was never tagged, AFAIK, and certainly not for seven days. I suggest you undo what you've done as soon as possible. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Uh, I deleted a redundant template with no apparent use, no documentation, and no discussion of what it was even supposed to be for, which simply pulled articles out of maintenance. Perhaps I should have marked it as "routine cleanup". Why don't you start with the purpose/use you should have provided in its documentation? — kwami (talk) 17:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

That's how most templates start. If you wanted to see the difference, you should've diff'd them (or simply asked). You should have marked it with a template as explained in Misplaced Pages:CSD#T3 if that's truly what logic you were following. Why don't you start with reverting your clear violation of policy. It is not I who has violated Misplaced Pages policy (as an admin, no less), but you. The burden at this point is not on me but you. I really don't want this to escalate, it won't go well for anyone. ¦ Reisio (talk) 18:33, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Mostly I just object to your attitude, which out if politeness I won't characterize further. Also, it wasn't the start of a template. If it were a test template I would've left it alone, but you were using it in articles that were therefore not maintainable from the original template, without any indication on that template that there was a fork out there. I only stumbled on it by accident.

The only diff is in the speaker icon. That's not reason to fork the template. If you want different options for the behaviour for the icon, you can discuss it on the talk page, or add it to the template after testing, just like anyone else.

If you want the template back for testing that's fine (and nothing is preventing you from restoring it), but please don't use it in mainspace. — kwami (talk) 19:33, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

My attitude? You're an admin who can't even follow policies you link to. I will restore it, and you will look even more incompetent if you violate policy again. ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:35, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I've cleaned up your mess again, and tagged the template for deletion, since it served no purpose apart from disrupting WP, and you apparently aren't using it for anything else. However, I will delete it and salt it to prevent you from using it if you continue to put it in mainspace; I figure that's a better option that having you blocked for disruption. — kwami (talk) 06:30, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It's interesting how you perceive your complete defiance of Misplaced Pages policy as me being a disruption. It'll be more interesting still to see what others think of it once your actions attract attention. ¦ Reisio (talk) 09:10, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah, the censoring of one's own talk page. I'm sure that will keep everyone from noticing your abusive behavior. :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 09:34, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure it will. And I'm sure that self-righteousness will keep everyone from noticing that you're using WP mainspace like a sandbox. — kwami (talk) 09:45, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not the one deleting templates that are still included in pages. No one else minded my edits, bit odd for being so "disruptive", no? ¦ Reisio (talk) 09:52, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not being used on any page, only linked from talk pages. And there's no problem with red links on talk pages. — kwami (talk) 10:20, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

"09:30, 2011 September 3 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) deleted "Template:IPAc-en editable" — Template:IPAc-en editable

"09:32, 2011 September 3 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) m (107,367 bytes) (Reverted edits by Reisio" — http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Benzodiazepine&action=history

¦ Reisio (talk) 10:26, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Wow, that went unsupported for a whole two minutes, in the face of your edit war to circumnavigate page protection, whereas when you reverted to the unsupported template you left it for 16 hours—and counting. I must really be bad. — kwami (talk) 01:41, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Eh? That's also your fault. I reverted and two minutes later you removed a template that was being used. ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I cleaned up all articles using the template fork, but this is the kind of mess that happens with edit wars. I take it then that you don't mind me reverting you? — kwami (talk) 03:36, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

It is indeed the kind of mess that happens with an edit war (that you participated in as much as I), and if you knew that already I have to wonder why you let it happen. I don't mind you fixing part of the mess you created, no. ¦ Reisio (talk) 13:17, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Deletion review for Template:IPAc-en editable

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Template:IPAc-en editable. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Reisio (talk) 09:52, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Dinner for Three

Hi Kwami, Would you be able to look at the recent actions of Dinner for three (talk · contribs)? The user who only signed up a few days ago has gone on a disruptive mass editing spree in the past 2 days. I believe that the user is also using this 213.226.17.10 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) in order to push a similar agenda but make it look like he is not the only doing so. Efforts made to at least have some discussion went unanswered and the editing continued. The similarity between the usernames is also unusual, to say the least. Thanks. Lunch for Two (talk) 11:54, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I asked him to discuss it. Since the edits involved not only adding redundant names but deleting the Greek from articles on Greece, I just mass reverted. There may be some value to some of the contributions, which you may want to review. — kwami (talk) 01:57, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I think Fut Perf. was advocating Macedonian Slavic as the best solution to deal with the issue at this stage. Given that it redirects to Macedonian Language#Macedonian language in Greece, I also agree that it is probably the best option in order to solve the issue. Unless a special connection can be shown to Bulgaria (ie. the place is inhabited by Bulgarians today), then simply "Macedonian Slavic" should stay (it is much neater than Macedonian/Bulgarian). Likewise, where a special connection can be shown to ethnic Macedonians/Republic of Macedonia simply Macedonian is probably preferable. I agree that there may have been some value to the contributions, however for the better part they were simply mass reversions. Lunch for Two (talk) 05:23, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Certainly the kind of thing that can and probably should be discussed. AFAIK, the language is more Bulgarian than Macedonian (at least, that's how the isoglosses appear to lie), but the people might think of it as more Macedonian than Bulgarian, assuming they see a distinction. — kwami (talk) 16:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what was this nonsense which happened, but according to paragraph Alternate names in WP:NCGN the foreign names of geographic locations are ordering alphabetically and that Macedonian Slavic is spoken not Bulgarian is POV and you can't prove it, but sources until the early 20th century in the respective Greek towns already prove that Bulgarian was the main language in them. I however do not exist on removing the Macedonian names where they have been already add. Lunch for Two your manipulative reverts(which were actually not reverts) have been reverted, which were not reverting to the previous version but adding new propaganda which never existed in the edit history, kwami can check for example.Dinner for three (talk) 22:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

As I've said before, WP:Dispute resolution. I don't care whether you call it Bulgarian or Macedonian, it's all the same thing. — kwami (talk) 03:58, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I reverted prior to Lunch for Two and me because his disruption remaied almostly everywhere. He should use the dispute resulution, becsuse he is pushing some minority views as replacing everywhere the Bulgarian names with Macedonian when even reliable sources rejecting his view are add after them as he did in Proti, Florina for example. I however never delted Macedonian name, where it has already been add but I have been revrted to see the dispute resolution. Just have a look where adding Latin transliteration of Bulgarian name was reverted, transforming it to new Macedonian name, which never existed in the edit history. Dinner for three (talk) 11:00, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

That's fine. — kwami (talk) 11:03, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Of course.Dinner for three (talk) 11:06, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I personally believe that Macedonian Slavic is the best pipe for these name sections. It actually links to a section where the main purpose is to actually the discuss the issues surrounding ethnic identification and the language. In most circumstances the Bulgarian names do not have any more relevance then the "Bulgarian names" of places within the Republic of Macedonia do, given that in both places the Macedonian and not Bulgarian language is spoken. If we are going to add names based on the minority population in the area then it makes sense to link to the appropriate section discussing this language, namely Macedonian Slavic. Maybe Fut Perf. needs to get involved, after all he made reference to the creation of the pipe at some other WP page recently. Lunch for Two (talk) 15:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Kwami, I feel that prolonged discussion re: the above issue is fruitless and is endlessly circular in nature. Where can I take the issue from here? Would WP:ANI be appropriate? Where do you feel that it is appropriate to be lodged? Lunch for Two (talk) 14:22, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, yeah, the two of you are not going to agree. That's why we have WP:Dispute resolution. Read over that guideline and see if you think ANI is called for yet. — kwami (talk) 17:11, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Hi, Kwamikagami! Would you please, semi-protect the page Todor Aleksandrov. There appears again that unregistred User with the same geolocation Aracinovo-Skopje as many others IP-s (sock of blocked User:MicoApostolov) that has regularly vandalized other articles of Macedono-Bulgarian history. Thank you. Jingby (talk) 13:21, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

One edit is not an edit war. I'm not going to protect a page over that. — kwami (talk) 02:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Kwami! What about Saints Cyril and Methodius? Regards. Jingby (talk) 15:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Albanian phonology

http://en.wikipedia.org/Albanian_language#Phonology There is no q (/c/) and gj (/ɟ/) in English. Please check out the vowels before reverting edits. Thank you.--TheAmericanizator (talk) 15:13, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

There are reasonable approximations. There's no in English either, nor (not in those words, at least), but I see you've left those in. It all seems rather arbitrary. Anyway, it would seem there are others who disagree with you. — kwami (talk) 02:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Shabo

Thanks for your good job on Shabo today! That really improved the article a lot! Best wishes, Landroving Linguist (talk) 17:43, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad my half-assed improvements are appreciated! — kwami (talk) 17:44, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

re: Bengali script

You have recently changed the title of the article Bengali script to Bengali alphabet, citing a stylistic reason that since some other major writing systems have the term "alphabet" in their article title, so should this article on the Bengali writing system. But you are missing an important point. The Bengali writing system is not an alphabet, rather an abugida or an alphasyllabary. Therefore the term Bengali script is technically much more appropriate than the term Bengali alphabet. It is for this specific reason the article was titled as it was. It was a conscious choice to better reflect the nature of the Bengali writing system. Just as there can be no article titled Japanese alphabet, because there is no alphabetical writing system for the Japanese language. Thanks for understanding. --Zaheen (talk) 03:24, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

They're all "alphabets" in the broad sense. What we had before was that good rational scripts were called "alphabets", but funny Asiatic squiggles did not get that designation. Per the naming conventions for writing systems, a ordered segmental writing system is an "alphabet", whereas the glyphs that compose it are the "script": cf. Latin alphabet and Latin script, Arabic alphabet and Arabic script, etc. Cyrillic, for example, is not an "alphabet", as it does not have a defined inventory or sorting order.

The Bengali script is used to write Assamese and various other languages. This article, however, is almost entirely about the Bengali alphabet, which is used specifically for Bengali.

Kana is not a segmental writing system, but a syllabary. — kwami (talk) 03:30, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I will indulge. You seem to have defined "script" as the set of glyphs that are "common" or "ancestral" among the writing systems of several languages, whereas the individual writing systems themselves need to be called "alphabet"s. While this (arbitrary? Original Research?) system of definitions somewhat neatly applies to the relationship between Latin script and Latin alphabet, things are not so clear when we are discussing the Bengali writing system. Yes, there is a Bengali script (according to your definition of a script) which underlies many writing systems of the eastern South Asia. But it is also true that the writing system for Bengali is not an alphabetical system, but an alphasyllabary or abugida. Your recent changes don't capture this fact. And no, "They are all "alphabets" in the broad sense" is not a good argument, unless you consider yourself an authority on writing systems and we all have to abide by your seemingly arbitrary definitions. The modern reference works by writing system experts and typologists do not talk about a Bengali alphabet. --Zaheen (talk) 04:27, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The general meaning of "alphabet" includes abjads and abugidas. Hebrew and Arabic have long been called "alphabets" on WP, despite not being "true" alphabets. We also make it blindingly obvious in the article that Bengali is an abugida. If that means we shouldn't call Bengali an alphabet, then we shouldn't call Hebrew or Arabic alphabets either. You can take that up with the naming conventions if you like. — kwami (talk) 17:09, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Talk:History of the alphabet

Question there for you. I'd like to know why we even have an unreferenced section there. Is there a source for the blank row or the acrophony? Dougweller (talk) 17:17, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Lots of sources for both. I think World Book Encyclopedia even has them. The problem is finding a source that reflects the extent of the evidence, as opposed to guesswork filling in the blanks. Not many sources reflect the current state of knowledge, perhaps because there is still a lot of disagreement. — kwami (talk) 18:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks although sourcing would stop speculation it's OR (even fringe OR). I can sympathise with anyone wondering why there's a blank row though, maybe it should be commented out? Dougweller (talk) 20:22, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I guess it's just something I forgot to carry through on. IMO it's useful to have; maybe we should tag it as incomplete / under construction? — kwami (talk) 20:26, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

DIN 31635

Hi Kwami. If you want to choose to use another Arabic transliteration scheme, please, do not keep the them tagged with {{transl|ar|DIN|...}}. Please, remove the DIN, because DIN 31635 uses ǧ not j. That means if you did the same in other articles, you'll have to remove the DIN from all of them. Why is it a problem to use DIN 31635? All the other documented transliterations don't use 1 phoneme to 1 grapheme; except Spanish Arabists School which uses confusing graphemes: ŷ for /ɡ/~/ʒ/~/d͡ʒ/~/ɟ/;   j for /x/~/χ/;   g for /ɣ/~/ʁ/. Thanks. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 09:31, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for any inappropriate edits. Please go ahead and revert them. From what I understand, ǧ is discouraged: I had added it to the Arabic edit window but was requested to remove it so as not to encourage its use. I'm not familiar with our conventions here.

IMO isolated Arabic words in various articles should use the same transliteration as the Arabic article, and currently nearly all of them use "j". If DIN and "ǧ" is preferred, maybe we could come to some consensus on that and mass convert the articles? I'd be happy to add it back in and expand its use if that's what the community wants. — kwami (talk) 16:53, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

No need to apologize, dear. When there's a need to strictly transliterate Arabic words, there must be a documented standard used, so that, transliterations won't look very messed-up and even more confusing. It is preferable to use a 1 phoneme to 1 grapheme scheme to minimize ambiguity, because in Arabic phonology, you can have /h/ right after /d/, /k/, /s/, /t/, making the digraphs dh, kh, sh, th for /ð/, /x/, /ʃ/, /θ/, impractical. In regular circumstances, when a word has already entered English language, the common English spelling for it is preferred and a strict transliteration is used where the etymology is explained. That's what I do. The Arabic language article has transliterated Arabic words which are absent in English and have to be strictly transliterated to be able to properly reconstruct and understand them. Sometimes I see some users disagree on the use of ǧ because of what they think it conveys a /ɡ/ pronunciation. Well, all the Arabic cognates with other Semitic languages (ex. Hebrew) have them with /ɡ/, this Arabic phoneme was originally , it diverged in different regions to , , or (also , or but for exclusively vernacular pronunciations). Each region uses its own pronunciation when pronouncing Literary Arabic, making all the pronunciations linguistically correct; the following three (, or ) are the most prevalent. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 16:04, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I understand the inappropriateness of using digraphs for Arabic. Personally I'm fine with ǧ; if you bring it up on the Arabic wikiproject and get some agreement, I'll be happy to add it back in (and also restore it to the edit window so that people have easy access to it). — kwami (talk) 01:19, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

marking stress on one syllable words

Hi Kwami. My understanding of phonetic transcriptions with IPA is that is customary not to mark the stress in one syllable words. I see you have been adding it to the names of the letters of the English alphabet. —Coroboy (talk) 11:14, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

We mark stress where there is stress. This is important for names, where sometimes monosyllables are not stressed. It's already marked for most letters, but s.o. removed it from some. Now they're consistent. — kwami (talk) 16:50, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for the explanation. —Coroboy (talk) 02:42, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Lese-majesty

I've started a thread about your page move. Talk:Lese-majesty#Page move: Lèse majesté -> Lese-majesty.   Will Beback  talk  07:03, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Dwarf planet

Kwami I agree with you that those four objects are DPs. But this isn't about facts. It's about definitions, and the IAU are the body that defined the term "dwarf planet" and, right or wrong, the IAU specifically included absolute magnitude as one of their criteria. Until they lift that restriction, those four objects will remain unclassified. And Brown, while obviously a reliable source, has a personal stake in this issue, so it is best not to rely on him alone. Serendious 09:13, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

No, they did not. They use magnitude only as a criterion for naming. It's not part of the definition of DP. DP is defined only by equilibrium and orbital dominance. We have a RS that these bodies fit that def, and no RS that they don't. Therefore per RS policy we classify them as DP's. — kwami (talk) 12:36, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

The IAU is usually the trump card source for definitions. We define the Kuiper belt by the IAU's criteria; we define planets by the IAU's criteria. Why now are we going by the arguments of a single astronomer, no matter how knowledgeable in the field? Serendious 04:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

We are going by IAU defs! According to IAU definitions, these are dwarf planets. Please show me somewhere they say they're not.

If you're going to make the argument that these are not DPs because the IAU has not individually recognized them as such, then to be consistent we would need to add notes to several thousand articles on minor planets, comets, and stars that the IAU does not recognize them as such. Are we really going to question whether some hydrogen-fusing ball of gas is really a star if we can't find an IAU publication that specifically classifies it as a star? — kwami (talk) 04:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

The IAU did more than just not recognise them. It specifically excluded them with a resolution intended to keep them out. Yes, it was done for petty and stupid reasons, but it was done, and we can't ignore it. Serendious 05:06, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't see anywhere in that blurb where it's excluding them. You may be reading that into their words, but it's not said explicitly. As for magnitude, they specifically use that "for naming purposes" and "for the purpose of naming". That's purely bureaucratic, to decide which governing body gets to decide on a name. It is independent of the astronomical definition of a DP/Plutoid, which in that same blurb is said to be "celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun at a semimajor axis greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighbourhood around their orbit." No mention of magnitude. That definition has not changed. Sedna, Quaoar, Orcus, and OR10 are Plutoids/DPs per this definition, but they fall under CSBN purview for naming because of their magnitude. We can certainly note that the names for these objects were approved by the CSBN rather than by a joint CSBN–WGPSN committee, if anyone cares, but that has nothing to do with their physical nature. — kwami (talk) 05:17, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Then why is Misplaced Pages currently the only authority describing them as dwarf planets? Mike Brown is a great guy and he knows his stuff, but he has made his activist position fairly clear by this point. We're essentially taking his side in an unresolved issue. Personally, I would take his side anyway, but this isn't about what I think. Misplaced Pages can't take sides. Serendious 05:37, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

"Authority"?

We use the IAU definition. These bodies are DPs per the IAU definition. Therefore we call them DPs. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it. — kwami (talk) 05:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

You have provided only one person's evidence. Where are the other astronomers? Without the IAU's authority, you'd need to cite the entire astronomical community individually before you could make such a blanket statement. Serendious 05:54, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I have a RS that these are DPs. You have not provided a RS that they are not. Why would you ask me for more refs, when you have not provided any refs yourself? — kwami (talk) 06:15, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I've provided the IAU as an authority. The IAU recognises 5 dwarf planets. You think there should be nine. If you feel the IAU is breaking its own rules, that's fine. But until the IAU says otherwise, you can't make that claim. Serendious 10:01, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

You've demonstrated that 3 bodies were named under the IAU rules for who gets to name DPs. You haven't demonstrated anything about which bodies are DPs. Until you do, this discussion is useless. If you can't support your argument, then you have no argument. — kwami (talk) 10:15, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Serendipodous has clearly outlined that the IAU has not officially identified anything other than Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris as dwarf planets. Based on that, we cannot name other objects as being dwarf planets. Strong candidates, sure, but not officially part of that category. --Ckatz_spy 09:14, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Kwami, don't do this

If you want more authoritative refs for the definition of the classical belt, just read refs 43-49 of the Kuiper belt article. Serendious 06:36, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Those sources speak of resonant, classical, and scattered KBOs, but what I'm talking about is what you call the non-scattered population if you don't count the scattered bodies as KBOs. They don't address that point. From the only ref I've found that speaks clearly to this, it's the "classical KB". That may be in error, or poorly worded, but so far it's the only thing I have to go by. — kwami (talk) 06:50, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I've emailed Hal Levison and referred him to his paper. Please let's keep away from this until I hear back from him, OK? Serendious 06:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay. We need a disambiguating term for what Pluto is the largest of, if "Kuiper belt" is ambiguous as to whether it includes Eris or not. — kwami (talk) 06:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Stùc a' Chroin

Are you aware of some formatting tricks that would make the Pronunciation field less cluttered? It seems to add brackets by default, which then run into the {{lang-gd| formatting which adds the somewhat surperfluous Scottish Gaelic pronunciation bit and yet another bracket. All in all a bit messy, plus the IPA is quite small though that my well be my font settings. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:48, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The infobox needs to be recoded. I've noticed it before, but I don't spend time on the mountain arts, so it hasn't bothered me enough to fix it. — kwami (talk) 12:57, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Deleted the brackets from the template. We really should say which language the pronunciation is in, but for SG it is pretty awkward. — kwami (talk) 13:03, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. We could just call it "Gaelic" and link to to the Scottish Gaelic article. But I don't know if that's doable. Akerbeltz (talk) 13:09, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok, it's doable but actually, do we really need to state it? After all, the tooltip for the IPA clearly states it's IPA for Scottish Gaelic. It might not be good for languages which don't have an IPA-xx page but in this case... what do you think? Akerbeltz (talk) 13:12, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

How many people are going to know about the mouse-over? — kwami (talk) 13:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Fair point - though you might similarly as who knows about the IPA ;) - I guess but then perhaps the way forward would be to change the tooltip of the ogg file cause at the moment if just brings up the name of the file which is a bit pointless. Akerbeltz (talk) 13:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Experience

You appear to have some expertise in the discussion going on at the talk page of Lofoi which is also being edit-warred. There are some challenging personalities involved. I'd appreciate your independent advice/involvement if you can spare the time.  Nipsonanomhmata  17:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I reverted prior to the edit war and protected the article. I am fed up with insecure nationalists and their petty squabbles. There are various remedies at WP:dispute resolution you can try. Sorry for not being more helpful, but I simply don't care anymore: there's no end to this bullshit, and I'd rather spend some time on things that might actually be interesting. — kwami (talk) 23:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that what you have done is positive. At least it lets everybody cool their heels off for a bit (even though IMO the POV tag still applies). Many thanks. btw I tried dispute resolution on the Kostas Novakis article which got me nowhere. Since an involved admin who has a distinct POV actually closed the dispute resolution in their own favor. But such is life. Those who wield the power usually win.  Nipsonanomhmata  00:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

If you think the closing admin was biased, you can continue the DR process. Admins are generally hesitant to revert other admins, because that invites just escalating these disputes to a higher and potentially more damaging level, but if you can demonstrate admin bias there will be admins who will revert the decision. Of course, they may not agree with you that the decision was biased: Often in these cases the losing side screams bias no matter which decision is made, and many if not most of the objections are specious. — kwami (talk) 00:37, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

That's fair. It would have been better if someone who was not involved in the dispute had closed it rather than an involved party with a conflict of interest. But to be honest, sometimes it's easier to say "what's the point, let a.n. other editor deal with it because it is too much effort to put it right". Escalating an issue requires a great deal of effort and the tolerance of a thick-skinned rhinoceros and in the end the article will be nobbled again anyway and all the effort will have been a waste of time.  Nipsonanomhmata  02:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Which is why I generally don't bother with ethnic or religious articles any more. Ten Commandments, for example, used to have a dab in the lede for the article covering what the Bible calls the "Ten Commandments", but that's been removed because several editors are adamant that it gives it undue weight. I can't think of many articles where a dab is not allowed in the lede or a hatnote, but religion and therefore people's sense of identity is involved, and that's more important to them than ease of navigation. So it goes. — kwami (talk) 02:42, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind me asking. What's a dab?  Nipsonanomhmata  09:54, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry: 'disambiguat(ion)'. Too long to spell out. Cf. {{dab}}. — kwami (talk) 10:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

btw the person that you have asked for advice from re: "Greek Slavic" (btw that's two different languages) also has a strong POV regarding subjects Greek (notably "Northern Cyprus") although I have not seen their POV concerning "Macedonian" subjects. The problem on Misplaced Pages is that many articles concerning the Greek region called Macedonia reflect the POV of the "Republic of Macedonia". Hence why there are regular edit wars. I took a look at some articles about the Greek Civil War and you would think the articles were about a "Macedonian Civil War" and the POV is heavily-skewed to the Communist version of events (even though the Communists lost in the Greek Civil War). Good luck to anybody who wants to attempt to put that right since today the majority politics in Greece is left-wing and there are actually three separate Communist political parties in Greece (and ofcourse the "Republic of Macedonia" also has a strong history of Communism too). But of course, after the Greek Civil War itself the politics were adamantly right-wing as they were during the reign of the Greek Junta. So on Misplaced Pages, it appears that the version of history sways from one extreme to the other depending on the political majority of a country or the majority POV carried by contributors. The overriding issue concerning the Slavic language that is spoken in northern Greece is that it is both a Slavic dialect of Bulgarian and the language of the "Republic of Macedonia". The majority of contributors on Misplaced Pages claim that it is "Macedonian" or "Macedonian Slavic" and they have references that support that view. However, it is fairer to just call it Slavic to avoid Bulgarian-oriented editors swapping "Macedonian" to Bulgarian and "Republic of Macedonia"-oriented editors swapping back to "Macedonian". Moreover, the ethnicity of the speakers is also complicated by the fact that they have been referred to initially as Christians (to distinguish from the Turks during the Ottoman Empire), they have also been referred to as Slavic-speaking Greeks, as Serbians, and as Bulgarians (depending on which country was sponsoring their schools or churches at the time) i.e. their ethnicity, and religion, was changeable depending on what suited their best interests). Moreover, the issue is further complicated by a major influx of Greek refugees from Asia Minor and Northern Epirus (parts of Albania). Hence why there are such a huge range of POVs concerning the region. Hence why they are always edit-warring. It would be easier to direct the language, instead of to "Macedonian" which is a strongly supported POV, to what is currently called Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia. However, even the title of this article is POV-biased since the region of Macedonia in Greece has never been called "Greek Macedonia" historically or generically in the English-language. The title of that article should be Slavic speakers of Macedonia (Greece) or Slavic speakers of Greece or Slavic speakers of northern Greece. Using the generic Slavic reference would reduce the number of edit wars (certainly from the Bulgarian and Greek POV). Right now the POV of the "Republic of Macedonia" is dominant. btw the ancient Greek "Macedonian" language is also called Macedonian ("Makedoniki" in the Greek language) and that adds another string of complexity to the subject. Moreover, the history of the Slavs has no connection whatsoever with the ancient Greek history of Macedonia other than that Slavs live in part of the territory that once was ancient Macedonia. Further complicated by the fact that there are a large number of ethnic Greeks who speak Slavic who are part of the population of the "Republic of Macedonia" and mostly due to the Greek Civil War where Communists were forced out of the country and the Paedomazoma where tens of thousands of children were abducted from northern Greece by the Communists. Further complicated by the Communist-spin on what actually happened since the Communists claim that the children were evacuated as refugees to help them survive the Greek Civil War. A noble claim if it weren't for the fact that many thousands of children were taken from their parents against the wills of both the children and their parents. Further complicated when the Greek government decided to forgive and forget and allow the return of a large number of Slavic-speaking Greek Communists to Greece (they were also given enhanced Greek Civil War hero pensions by the Socialist government which unsurprisingly encouraged the influx). Further complicated by the spin from the "Republic of Macedonia" which lays claim to all Slavic speakers in nothern Greece as their brethren who speak their language. Even though the dialect of Slavic from northern Greece is only spoken in two locales in the "Republic of Macedonia" and that is mainly due to the influx of Communists during the Greek Civil War. So yes, it is no surprise that you despair of the subject. Everyone despairs of this subject. It would be easier to nuke the region and forget about it but ofcourse that's not an option.  Nipsonanomhmata  10:54, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Sinhala language

Kwamikagami, Danielklein -- Under "Writing system" we see "Sinhala also knows hal kirama and uses two differing virama symbols depending on the basic grapheme to explicitly indicate the lack of a vowel." Could one of the knowledgable editors please clarify this? I get the impression that virama symbols are sound-killers, but I could find nothing on "hal kirama". (I assume "knows" in this sentence should be "recognizes" or "uses".) Thanks -- Jo3sampl (talk) 19:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that was pretty bad. Copy edited the section. — kwami (talk) 00:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

"Wrong version" at Lofoi

Hi, thanks for the protection, but I think your revert to the old version undid quite a few recent improvements that were in fact uncontroversial . The only thing that's currently subject to the edit-warring was this one silly detail of how to refer to the Slavic language in the intro sentence. About that bit, take your pick and choose any "wrong version" you like, but I'd ask to have the other changes reinstated. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:39, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Done. — kwami (talk) 06:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:59, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Template:IPA vowel chart

Hi Kwami. The vowels within the Template:IPA vowel chart look smaller now. Would you please make the vowels with a font-size of 125%? Diacritics don't appear easily on the tiny font-size. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 12:13, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Moving rank articles to appropriate case

Kwami

Thank heavens you've moved First Lieutenant to First lieutenant. Can you also do Sub-Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander? There are plenty more for the army and air force - a quick glance at template:Military ranks will show several candidates. Yours, Shem (talk) 18:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Done. Moving some others. Any idea if the caps in Sergeant Major of the Army are appropriate? Not so sure about that one. — kwami (talk) 20:45, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Not my area, but it sounds like a position or institution rather than a mere rank -probably best left alone. Which of your moves have been reverted? I couldn't find any by searching your contributions. Shem (talk) 08:25, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Any thoughts

Do you have any idea what I can do to try and calm down this editor - Wisco2000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)? He has been running from one edit-war to the other and is constantly removing warning templates from his talkpage. I saw you had previously warned him as well. Currently, he is removing huge chunks of information from National Liberation War of Macedonia and refuses to enter any actual discussion on it. I tried to get to a consensus by trimming down some of the text he removes, but it failed. Seems like page protection is the only way to stop it. I am not even sure how many reverts he has made today but they seem like a lot. --Laveol 18:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the old edit-warrior Wisko2000 is here again. He has deleted several times the whole chapter about Bulgarian liberation of Vardar Macedonia with the added sources without any reasonable explanation. The same game, he is going to delete everything, even properly sourced materials, which he disagrees with. Jingby (talk) 18:49, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

What he does with his talk page is his business. But I'll look into the other stuff. — kwami (talk) 19:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

First,I started a discussion on the talk page over 5 hours before Laveol put his post here and there was a discussion underway already. Laveol's first post on the talk page is only 2 minutes before he posted here. So saying "and refuses to enter any actual discussion on it" is just not true.

Second, I did lay out the issues, they are: 1) Coatracking (I put that in at 13:11, 14 September 2011 on the article talk page):

The whole section was not essential for the article, and it is off-topic. Second, the section did not follow the chronological layout of the article. What was added were facts backed up by German sources to events that pertain to Macedonia, since that is what this article is about. Pieces of the older section were placed in other sections (not deleted) and condensed (without removing a single reference) in the chronologically appropriate section.

There is still a section on what Bulgaria did in Serbia, liberation of Belgrade, going to Hungary, etc, things that don't pertain to the subject (National Liberation War in Macedonia). That's what I have an issue with.

The second objection is that jingiby adds statements (in the article, as well as on the talkpage with me and other users) that "There were only Bulgarian soldiers in Macedonia at that time, no partisans" yet, the whole article somehow doesn't speak to him otherwise. I would guide to some Misplaced Pages policies, such as WP:YESPOV 'Avoid stating opinions as facts' and 'Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts' and WP:UNDUE (If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Misplaced Pages regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article.). Saying things like "there were no partisans" in an article about them falls in that category.

I added the statement "Despite Bulgaria's significant involvement on the side of the Allies at the end of the war ..." acknowledging that Bulgaria had an important role, and kept his references. If people want to keep on reading on that, they can freely do so.

Jingiby's comments, like labels/threats like "politically motivated" "disruptive" "nationalistic" "vandalism" "if you are continuing you disruptive edits I am going to ..." etc. don't help the case.

And it's always the same two editors that pop up every time I add something, and they have to make everything about Macedonia somehow Bulgaria, about Bulgaria, etc, the two single-purpose accounts Jingiby and Laveol.

Wisco2000 (talk) 03:41, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Slavic terminology

About your question at Talk:Macedonian language: I'm afraid no consensus has ever emerged, and it's unlikely to happen. It's an issue that has come up repeatedly for as long as I can remember, at least since 2009. It usually starts up at some random village article and then proceeds across all of Florina prefecture. The Greeks hate to hear it called "Macedonian"; the Bulgarians hate to hear it called anything but "Bulgarian". Between Greek and Macedonian editors, "Macedonian Slavic" has a chance of being accepted as a reasonable compromise (the current design where that phrase redirects to a dedicated section in Macedonian language was chosen explicitly with these cases in mind), but the Bulgarian tag-team has been absolutely intransigent about it over the years. They are basically always the same three editors: the two single-purpose accounts Jingiby and Laveol, occasionally reinforced by Todor Bozhinov, who unlike the two others is otherwise a very respectable editor, but goes into complete stonewalling mode once this topic comes up. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:04, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Has it ever been established that 'Macedonian' is more appropriate than 'Bulgarian'? Dialectologically, it's Bulgarian, and sociolinguistically it appears to be mixed. Wouldn't 'Greek Slavic' or maybe even just 'Slavic' solve the issue? And why not redirect to Greek Slavs? (Which IMO would seem more straightforward than the verbose Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia. — kwami (talk) 21:09, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Most of the international literature that mentions the issue seems to subsume the dialects of Greek Macedonia (at least those in its western part) under Macedonian. We so far have that sourced to Friedman (multiple publications, and he's expressing the view quite strongly), Trudgill (who doesn't go into much of a dialectological argument but just seems to be assuming it as a matter of common sense), and a guy called Schmieger (in International Journal of the Sociology of Language 1998; he gives a structural dialectological reason for it), and of course multiple general survey works that mention the general spread of Macedonian, including Ethnologue and others. There are of course also those authors who follow the Bulgarian view that all of Macedonian (not just the dialects in Greece) are ipso facto Bulgarian. What I haven't found is a modern author who on the one hand accepts the separateness of Macedonian and Bulgarian as two distinct languages, but at the same time claims that the dialects in Greece are affiliated more with the latter than with the former. Sociolinguistically speaking, there are sufficent references for saying that those remaining Slavophones in Greece who adopt any non-Greek ethnic identity at all today do so quite predominantly along the "Macedonian" rather than the "Bulgarian" lines (speaking of geographical Macedonia, of course; not about the areas further east). – About the best link target, we had Slavic dialects of Greece, but that was a wider scope article (including also Pomak etc.) and it's currently merged into Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia, which is a predominantly historical and political hodgepodge and contains very little actual linguistic information; that's why my personal preference is still with the section in Macedonian language#Macedonian Slavic in Greece. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:29, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. I just want something for consistency, and so I don't have to review the same arguments on each article. (I really don't care. It's all so petty.) If the other side can produce counter-evidence, we might go with them or something more neutral like "Greek Slavic", but this sounds good for now.

The other obvious question is what when we start calling Slavs "Macedonian". They did not exist separately from Bulgarian until recently. Any decision on that? Bulgarian up to WWII maybe? — kwami (talk) 21:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

In the context of discussing the ethnic politics of the late-19th to early-20th-century conflicts, "Macedonian Slavs" or "Slavophones" etc. seems to be often used as a neutral descriptive term in the literature (where "Macedonian" is of course merely a geographic descriptor, not an ethnonym). "Bulgarian" is of course used in contexts such as reporting findings from historical ethnographic works or censuses, where those were the categories used, or reporting on identity choices like those expressed through religious affiliation, schooling etc. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:54, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Guys, I read your post, so I thought I'd offer you few datapoints to consider. The first one is: regarding the case of the ABECEDAR, a 1925 textbook for the Macedonians in Florina, based on the language from the region. Read the exchange between the Bulgarian representative to the League of Nations (calling the language incomprehensable) and the Greek representative (calling the language neither Bulgarian nor Serbian) in the bottom half of the page.

Some current interviews with the people from the area can be found from teh Helsinki Human Rights Watch: Until 1923 noone spoke Greek here ... Macedonian was the dominant language. In one example, a teacher in Xyno Nero village ordered children in her class to spit at a child who had spoken Macedonian. During Breaks in high school, kids speak Macedonian to each other. In 1959 in the villages around Lerin, Kostur and Kajlari the inhabitants were asked to conform publicly in front of officials that they did not speak Macedonian. Not to bore you with more quotes, just look at the recommendations by the Human Rights Watch:

Similarly, from the US Dept of State Human Rights Reports on Greece for 2010, 2009, 2008 "The government did not recognize the existence of a Slavic dialect, called "Macedonian" by its speakers, spoken in the northwestern area of the country"

Wisco2000 (talk) 02:49, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

1. ^

Of those eight links, five are the same, and three others are the same thing published year after year. So you really only have two sources. We cannot, of course, call them "Macedonians". It does support the idea that they identify as Macedonians. I thought that some further east might ID as Bulgarians, but that might just be my imagination. — kwami (talk) 03:03, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's the same book, but quotes from different people. The other three are annual reports for three different years. I didn't want to drown you with piles of sources (I will probably lose your attention at one point), so I thought I'd pick two reputable ones (HRW and DoS) and I gave you some quotes on the issue from the past and from the current times (to point out that these people didn't decide to tall their language or themselves Macedonian past few years).

I think if they call themselves Macedonian, and the HRW and the DoS calls them that, who are we to call them something else. I knew a lot of these people personally, I have been in Florina, and what they speak is Macedonian (similar dialect like Bitola/Prilep, which are an hour away), but they are terrified to say it; they don't outright deny it or tell you they are something else, they are simply terrified. But since you won't take my word for it, I hope that reputable sources like HRW and DoS (which really don't have a reason to be anti-Greek, anti-Bulgarian and pro-Macedonian) should speak for themselves. You'll always find extreme views (some people don't believe in the evolution, think the earth is flat ...) and conspiracy theories, but when reputable sources say the same thing year-after-year (like the DoS), that should count for a lot.

To summarize the issue: Bulgarians call them Bulgarian because they used to go to Bulgarian church schools 100 yrs ago, when there were only Bugarian or Greek church schools when that region was under the Ottoman rule. Bulgarian was more similar, so they went with that. Now that there are no Bulgarian schools (no Macedonian ones either) they can call themselves Macedonian. Greece thinks that can cause other countries to interfere in its internal affairs, so it doesn't like anyone calling them Macedonian. If they can call them something else (Slav, Marsian, whatever), they are happy with it.

So if you ask me, given that that's what they call themselves, and sources like the HRW and DoS do the same, that's what I call them.

04:11, 15 September 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wisco2000 (talk • contribs)

Yes, if they self-identify as Macedonian, we should call them Macedonian, though of course since we're in Greece we need to take account of the Arbcom decision, since "Macedonian" on its own is ambiguous.

But no, an org. publishing a statement 3 yrs in a row does not count as 3 sources. It's merely one source that they didn't feel a need to revise. — kwami (talk) 04:18, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Can you give me a link to the Arbcom decision? I agree, the Department of State is one source, I just wanted to point out that they do it consistently (it's not just once or here and there) and recently. Wisco2000 (talk) 05:01, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Sure. WP:ARBMAC is from 2007, and WP:ARBMAC2 from 2009. — kwami (talk) 05:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Rank capitalisation

Given the ongoing, numerous and lengthy discussions on this matter over the last 3 or 4 years, I was wondering if your recent actions are in response to a new discussion somewhere? (If so, could you provide a link to the discussion please?) Pdfpdf (talk) 22:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I was going to ask the same question. Talk:Brigadier General#Move discussion in progress has a link to Talk:Able Seaman (rank)#Requested move where the consensus was not to move (and included references to various previous discussions). - David Biddulph (talk) 22:36, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, hadn't seen that discussion. I was going off Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Military terms, where brigadier general is given as a specific example of something that should not be capitalized (unless of course it's being used as a title). We do not in general capitalize job descriptions (not "Garbage Collector", for example). There's also the fact that caps are variable in these articles, not just between but within the articles, including within brigadier general itself. These should really be discussed together, which is the point of centralizing things in the MOS. It would be silly to, say, capitalize Brigadier General but not major general, just because different groups of editors participated in the two discussions. — kwami (talk) 22:49, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

This mass edit/move created a huge mess and should be reverted. Military ranks are titles. For example:

• Public Law 94-479 defines "General of the Armies of the United States"
• Public Law 78-482 defines "Fleet Admiral for the United States Navy" and "General of the Army"

Very much like the title of a book or movie these are the names for those ranks and so would be capitalized per WP:CAPS. I suspect WP:CAPS should address military ranks or grades. Part of the challenge is that it has not been easy to track down the public laws that defined a rank meaning for many ranks we are still in limbo on what the exact wording or

A second issue is that some of the ranks can only be differentiated based on the capitalization A "General of the army" is very different than "General of the Army" as "General" also happens to be a rank. Thus an attempt to apply standard WP article title-case sews confusion and also lowers the credibility of Misplaced Pages as it would not be formatting the titles the same as they are used by armed services, books, and media coverage.

Many of the military rank article titles have been arrived at via years of discussion and research with people tracking down the public laws and military promotion orders involved to make sure we got them right and had a solid foundation on reliable sources. It was then easy to create a widespread and long standing community consensus on the specifics of wording and capitalization for each of those titles. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:35, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

This should be addressed at MOS so that we're all in sync.

Military ranks are not titles. They may be used as titles. When they are, they're capitalized. There may be exceptions, of course, where a rank truly is a title (maybe "General of the Armies"? I'm happy to revert such cases), but that wouldn't be many of them.

Your alleged "long standing community consensus on the specifics of wording and capitalization for each of those titles" does not seem to exist. The military-rank articles were completely inconsistent. One rank would be capitalized, and the next not. Sometimes the title would be capitalized and the text l.c., sometimes the title l.c. and the text capitalized. Often the text would switch back and forth, sometimes within a single sentence. And in the articles where the ranks were capitalized, often common nouns like "Deck" were capitalized too, to the point where nearly any uniquely identifiable noun was capitalized. That hasn't been normal English orthography for a few centuries. Given the years of discussion, you'd think there would be a little more order than that. Since the articles are unreliable, I don't see why we shouldn't follow the MOS. The MOS can of course be changed, and is a good place for a centralized discussion so that we don't end up with the chaos I started fixing today. — kwami (talk) 23:57, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Could I ask that you please self-revert these moves, per Talk:Able Seaman (rank)#Requested move. As an administrator I am sure you are aware the guidelines and policies (such as the MOS) are meant to reflect what's happening "on the ground". In this case it would appear that this section was added to the MOS in 2007 and consensus has changed since then. I can't fault you for making the move if you were not aware of the previous move discussions but now that you are aware please could you self revert, or at least agree to someone else reverting. Dpmuk (talk) 23:48, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

That decision was never implemented, as evidence by the utter mess of military-rank articles, and a change to the MOS should really be at the MOS. Can you bring it up there? I don't see any point in having mixed capitalization, where, say, "Sergeant" is capitalized but "captain" is not. — kwami (talk) 23:57, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Although I agree that the MOS talk page may well have been where the issue was reached it was not raised there and it would appear that a consensus was found over several move discussions. It would seem silly to start a discussion at the MOS page just for process sake. And it's even debatable whether that is the proper process given that guidelines reflect what's happening. Dpmuk (talk) 00:06, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I would obviously have no problem with you starting a general discussion afterwards to try and bottom this issue out fully. I do have sympathy with your position but as pointed out above this is not a straight forward situation given the problems with titles like General of the Army and the previous discussion and so this whole issue needs discussing rather than unilateral moves. Dpmuk (talk) 23:53, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

If there are exceptions, fine. I may have been overly zealous, and those can be addressed on a one-by-one basis. But "sergeant" is not capitalized in normal English. — kwami (talk) 23:57, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

As another example you moved first moved "Petty Officer 2nd Class" to "Petty officer 2nd class" which is the issue discussed above. You then, however, also moved it to ""Petty officer 2nd-class" citing "grammar". I do not think you should have made that move without looking into it and probably also discussion given that the Canadian Forces website lists it without a dash. I'm sure I've seen you make mass moves before that have caused problems and I think I've raised the issue with you before (and I'm sure I've seen it raised at ANI as well). Can I suggest you try to investigate the situation first before jumping into these mass moves, which often turn out to be somewhat disruptive. Dpmuk (talk) 00:04, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

If I were going against consensus, you'd have a point. But this is consensus, apart for the hyphen (I've moved those to reflect the punctuation at www.forces.ca). A RfM on some obscure page that was never enforced doesn't trump the much more public and widely viewed MOS. If you want to change the consensus, that's the place to go. — kwami (talk) 00:10, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I think we disagree on what the consensus is. I'd be more inclined to take your view if it didn't appear the MOS consensus was so old. As it is I think we should be using the much more recent discussion, especially given that guidelines are meant to be driven by what's actually happening not the other way round. If we can't even agree on what the consensus is it's clear that these moves are controversial and need to be discussed. I still think you should self revert and start a discussion as it's clear there's disagreement. Per the generally accepted WP:BRD if any editor disagreed with your moves they could revert but this seems likely only to make the whole situation worse. If you're not willing to revert then at the very least I think you should start a discussion to try to get consensus for your moves. Dpmuk (talk) 00:28, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

If the consensus is old, that means it's well established. A consensus from last week would be more problematic, because fewer people would have had a chance to see it.

"given that guidelines are meant to be driven by what's actually happening": but what's "actually happening" is chaos. There is clearly no consensus in the articles themselves, either between articles or even within articles! They do not reflect that RfM. If the MOS were out of step with the articles, again, you'd have an excellent point, but it's not: the articles are out of step with each other. They clearly reflect no consensus on the ground, but only a lack of consensus. The only non-local consensus I see is the MOS, and that appears to have been stable for some time. I had nothing to do with setting it up. If you want to change it, go to the source. — kwami (talk)

(edit conflict × 2)Oh, and thank you for reverting the moves of the CF articles. I have a lot of sympathy with what you are often trying to do with standardisation, it's more how you go about it that I have a problem with. I agree that inconsistency is a bad thing, but I also think that moving a page (such as Able seaman (rank) where there's a clear consensus on the talk page for the current title is also wrong. I agree it's a difficult balancing act but I, and it seems many others, think you're not quite got it right at the moment. Dpmuk (talk) 00:46, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

And in reply - I partly cover this in my edit conflict above. I agree that the current article titles are chaos but I'd disagree that there's no consensus on the ground. Rather I'd suggest that articles have just not been moved to the new consensus which is quite different to there being no consensus. I take your point about stability could mean its "well established" but I believe in this instance it's more a case of many people with an interest in this area not realising it's even mentioned in the MOS, so I think that rather than being "well established" it's just not well known about. They both end up in the same stability but for completely different reasons.

I think your statement "I had nothing to do with setting it up. If you want to change it, go to the source." sums up my concern with your edits. It would appear that you often edit based on the MOS without knowing the area and so not knowing what other discussions there may have been etc. For example in this instance if you'd known the area you'd have known about the previous discussions and probably discussed your proposed moves rather than just doing them. I think one of the biggest problems wikipedia faces is how to find out what the general consensus of the readers, rather than editors involved in a subject, is, but I also think you go too far the other way in trying to act on a general consensus and in doing so ignore the often, very legitimate, concerns of those knowledgeable in an area. There's a balance to be struck and my concern is you're not getting the balance quite right.

That may well be true, and perhaps we should capitalize "Sergeant" wherever it occurs. But IMO the best way to handle this is for those knowledgeable editors to chime in at the MOS and make military ranks, or maybe some subset of military ranks, or perhaps certain uses of military ranks, an exception to the general rule that we don't capitalize job titles. They can demonstrate there how l.c. causes problems with parsing or whatever their reasoning is. Otherwise we're left with individual editors who claim WP:ownership of articles because of a consensus no-one else can see, while the visible consensus continues to contradict them. That's a recipe for continuing chaos. If there is consensus to capitalize, it will be quite easy to set up a bot to capitalize across all of WP. We could even put it into the spelling corrections of AWB. That can happen if the MOS is changed through a community-wide discussion, but isn't going to happen because of an unenforced RfM in some obscure article familiar only to a small clique of editors. — kwami (talk) 00:57, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Kwami, I'm completely in favour of the moves where it's clearly a rank, since both WP:TITLE and Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Military terms are quite clear on the subject. Much of the argument against these moves seems to be "the military often capitalise ranks, so WP should also do so". In my experience, the military capitalise every other word, and this is quite against the MOS. Where the article is about a title, some more discussion is required, I suggest. It's great to see lieutenant commander finally at lower case! Shem (talk) 08:31, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Sure, if it's a title, and some of the pages I moved may be, then it should be cap'd. — kwami (talk) 10:36, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Try again

Given the ongoing, numerous and lengthy discussions on this matter over the last 3 or 4 years, I was wondering if your recent actions are in response to a new discussion somewhere? (If so, could you provide a link to the discussion please?) Pdfpdf (talk) 22:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

From the above, am I accurate in deducing that your recent actions are not in response to a new discussion somewhere? Pdfpdf (talk) 10:16, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Just the MOS, and scattered comments about people capitalizing job descriptions. — kwami (talk) 10:29, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

So I am correct in deducing that your recent actions are not in response to a new discussion somewhere.

Right.

Please educate yourself about the various discussions held and consensuses reached, please revert ALL your edits contrary to those consensuses as soon as possible, and please comply with those consensuses. Pdfpdf (talk) 10:46, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The consensus of the encyclopedia is contained in the guidance and is clearly explained at WP:TITLE, Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Military terms, and elsewhere. I see no consensus for not following the MOS, although there are plenty of those who would like to capitalise everything to do with the military. Kwami's edits are entirely in accordance with the spirit of the encyclopedia. Shem (talk) 11:54, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I utterly disagree - what has been created here is a mess due to the unilateral multiple changes contrary to and cutting across previous discussion. I am suprised that an individual would take it upon themseleves to make so many changes in such a short time without discussion - it all seems rather WP:POINTY, not the sort of behaviour that I would hope for from an admin. I would that these are changed back preferably by the person who made the changes asap. Tragino (talk) 14:43, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

It's routine housecleaning. If you want to change the MOS, then change the MOS. Meanwhile it's the guideline for how we write and format our articles. — kwami (talk) 22:59, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Don't fool yourself. Your're not fooling anyone else. It's nothing to do with MOS and guidelines. It's a simple case that that a number of consensus have been agreed after lengthy discussion, and you are refusing to inform yourself of them, and refusing to comply with them. Your behaviour is unacceptable for a "normal" editor. For an admin, they are simply unbelievable, and your continuation of such behaviour, with such volume of changes, is inflamatory and totally unacceptable. And this is not "my opinion" - this is fact, as is shown by the vast number of other editors here complaining about your behaviour. You have been asked politely numerous times. You are now being warned. Pdfpdf (talk) 10:35, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry this particular issue is such a mess; would you please revert these edits and put your change up for discussion? As others have mentioned, this came up for discussion about 8 months ago, and the consensus was not to use mixed case for military titles. The reasoning hasn't really changed over the years, but I see your point about the various MOS entries don't clearly state this exception to the general rules. Yes, this needs to be in the relevant MOS entries WP:TITLE, Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Military terms, etc. as part of the revert/discussion. Thanks!Kirk (talk) 01:17, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not just that the MOS doesn't mention this as an exception, it actually includes one of those ranks as an example of standard English punctuation, something BTW that's easy to confirm just by checking out GBooks. According to our standards, these should not be capitalized. That's been the consensus for years. One obscure and unenforced RfM doesn't change that.

It's too much to change them back like that, and would be against consensus if I did. If you want to change ranks (not titles, which are already capitalized) to mixed case (I just moved them to not use mixed case), then you're the one requesting a change in consensus, and it's up to you and like-minded editors to produce a new consensus. If that happens, we can use a bot to bring the articles into sync. — kwami (talk) 01:30, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that we are dealing with several classes of articles.

1. Articles about a specific rank or grade for a specific country. For example Brigadier General (United States). These have been named and defined in law. There have been discussions in the past about these. I have not looked to see if there's a consistent consensus. Any changes of the capitalization without prior discussion and reaching consensus will likely be regarded as controversial.
2. Articles about a rank or grade in general. For example, brigadier general. I suspect there's widespread agreement that the standard WP:MOS capitalization applies for these.
3. Other articles or redirects, specifically, the "n star rank" articles. I would have thought there was widespread agreement that the standard WP:MOS capitalization applies for these but the moves triggered #n star rank to Aaa-star rank. --Marc Kupper|talk 04:46, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how focusing on a specific country changes anything. "Ship" isn't capitalized in an article on ships of the US. As for them being named in law, we'd need some evidence that the law specifically addresses capitalization, not just that the style guide for the publisher of that law advocates capitalization. If there is such a situation, that would be something to bring up at MOS. Some Canadian place names are legislated with em dashes in them, for example, which is typographically odd, and it's possible we have things like that going on here. Now, if it's a title, sure, that would be capitalized. If you can show me that I inappropriately moved a title as if it were a rank, I'll be happy to revert. Someone already did that with General of the Armies.

As for the starred ranks, yeah, I'm puzzled too. 90% of sources back me up. I don't know what gives. But since user:Pdfpdf has provided zero evidence for his claims, I plan on ignoring him. If he has anything constructive to say in the future, we can address it then. — kwami (talk) 05:00, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

"90% of sources back me up." - No, they don't. Perhaps 90% of the sources you have looked at might, but there are thousands of sources, and very sincerely doubt that you have looked at thousands of sources. So, let's be specific: Please state exactly what it is that you require me to supply sources about, and how many sources is the minimum number required by you to have you admit that "the sources do not back me up". Pdfpdf (talk) 10:45, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

As for the extremely rude: "I plan on ignoring him", and the equally rude "If he has anything constructive to say in the future", this is not the sort of behaviour one expects from an admin. Pdfpdf (talk) 10:45, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Goodness gracious! I now see that you have decided to start edit-warring!! Pdfpdf (talk) 10:48, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, of course the sources I looked up. That's why I asked you for sources, despite your temper tantrum. But evidently your unsupported opinion is worth more than the sources I can find, as well as the conventions of this encyclopedia. Such juvenile behaviour is not the sort of behaviour I would expect from any editor who's been here for four years. — kwami (talk) 10:51, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Wahat District

Hi Kwami. On 11 September 2011 you moved Al Wahat District to Wahat District, but didn't give any explanation for the move. I can see no discussion on the talk page, and the only citation on the page gives the name as Al Wahat. Why? I presume you had a reason, as you usually do. Skinsmoke (talk) 01:46, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't recall specifically for that case. Generally, as Arabic names become more familiar in English, we drop the article and the ta marbuta. That's happened all over Libya, and you can see it in reporting on the war. What we're left with is the rather unsatisfactory pattern of towns that have been in the news using anglicized forms, and towns not in the news using literal Arabic transliteration. But I won't object if you want to move it back. — kwami (talk) 01:54, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the very prompt reply. In this case, as the name mean The Oases, I think it probably makes more sense to bring Al back. A bit like Le Havre in French. Must admit, the news reports are a bit of a nightmare, as they very rarely seem to use the same spelling that anyone else does! Skinsmoke (talk) 02:01, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Caps in dab pages

Please note that entries in disambiguation pages all start with capitals - not sure it's explicitly stated in WP:MOSDAB but it certainly shows up in all the examples there. Your edits to Three star etc all left the dab pages looking messy because you used lower-case initial letter for the entries you changed. PamD 07:18, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry. Went to clean up and found that you'd already done it. — kwami (talk) 07:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

n star rank to Aaa-star rank

Excuse me, but where did this series of moves come from? They bear no relationship to reality, and you have no consensus for making them.
With the absolute greatest respect, quite clearly you are making edits in areas where you have no knowledge, and you are making edits which are contrary to consensuses reached over long periods of time in many hundreds (thousands?) of lines of discussion to reach those consensuses.
Please revert your edits as soon as possible, undo the other damage you have done, educate yourself, and seek consensus before embarking on any further series of unilateral uninformed editing sprees.
Really, you are an admin; you should know better than to indulge in this sort of unilateral uninformed behaviour which is contrary to painfully established consensus. Pdfpdf (talk) 10:41, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

That's standard hyphenation, already present in half the articles, just not consistently. Is there consensus somewhere to not follow standard English punctuation? I just checked GBooks to see if there were some funny convention with these: 1st page of hits, all hyphenated. 2nd page, all hyphenated but for one spaced, and one other in caps instead. 3nd page, all hyphenated. 4th page, all hyphenated but one. Etc. — kwami (talk) 10:45, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Again, with the greatest respect, I repeat: Excuse me, but where did this series of moves come from? They bear no relationship to reality, and you have no consensus for making them.

Please re-read what I wrote, think about it, and reply to what I wrote. Please do not reply with irrelevant facts.

Your so-called "standard hyphenation" is not relevant in this domain. This domain has its own very well defined standards - standards much more throughly and rigorously defined than your vague "standard hyphenation".

"already present in half the articles" - Which half of which articles?

"Is there consensus somewhere to not follow standard English punctuation?" - Yes. Along with accompanying thick manuals.

May I humbly suggest, again, that you educate yourself, and seek consensus before embarking on any further series of unilateral uninformed editing sprees? Pdfpdf (talk) 11:02, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Look. You seem to feel it's more important for you to be right and the rest of the world to be wrong, than it is for you to actually inform yourself of reality.

Your unilateral uncanvassed undiscussed changes are really screwing up heaps of stuff, and you are doing nothing to limit or fix the damage you are doing and havoc you are creating.

If you take the time to read your own talk page, you will see that there are at least half a dozen other people making similar requests as a result of other actions by you on other pages.

Don't you think it might be time to reconsider your modus operandi? Pdfpdf (talk) 11:02, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

You repeating your opinion doesn't tell me anything except that you have that opinion. Okay, I get that. I tried checking to see if your opinion corresponds to anything more, and I don't see it. That's why I asked you where the consensus is that backs you up. The MOS supports my edits, every English style manual I can think of supports my edits, a survey of the literature supports my edits; I don't see anything to contradict what I did.

(edit conflict)

LOL! 1) You may recall that it was Admiral Lord Nelson who held the telescope up to his blind eye and declared: "I see no signal to retreat". 2) You may recall the story of the drunk crossing the street and looking for his lost car keys under the streetlamp "because the light was better over there".

No, you are not going to "see anything to contradict what I did" if you are going to continue to refuse to pay any attention to anything other than your own self-sustaining self opinion.

If you continue to refuse to read what I have written, and continue to refuse to think about it, and continue to refuse to answer my questions, then yes, you are indeed not going to "see anything to contradict what I did".

I'm afraid I must now excuse myself. I will return later. Pdfpdf (talk) 11:27, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Let's see, some of the sources for my edits:

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Acquisition

United States Naval Institute

US National Research Council

Armed Forces journal international

US House Committee on Appropriations (Defense)

US House Committee on Armed Services

US Senate Committee on Government Operations

Dwight Eisenhower

Army and navy journal

US National Defense Research Institute

How, then, is this not justified? — kwami (talk) 11:09, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

a) They're all American. Believe it or not, there are other counties, and armed forces, in the world.

b) Where's your consensus for all this?

c) I've never come across such behaviour by an admin before. I am unfamiliar with the process of censuring admins. Please point me to the page(s) where one complains about unreasonable behaviour by admins.

d) I suppose it's pointless to once again ask you to revert your unilateral illinformed behaviour and seek consensus before making further edits?

Pdfpdf (talk) 10:26, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I asked you for evidence for your claims, and gave you two days to respond before resuming my edits, but you've failed to provide anything. WP is based on sources, not personal preferences. The sources support my edits, as does the MOS.

Is Edinburgh University Press British enough for you? How about "Britain's leading naval historians"? Or an Indian vice admiral? — kwami (talk) 10:28, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Vowel chart

The changes you made to the {{IPA chart vowels}} are quite disturbing. First, the name now is out of sync with comparable names, as the /doc shows. Then, styles like background colors and font-sizes and template reuse (!) is out of the window. At least you could keep the name I started (with the old history), which is what I ask you to do by now. I may note that you did this without starting a talk nor sandboxing on a complicated template (as the /doc says). -DePiep (talk) 14:24, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Did you really throw away the earlier {{IPA chart/table vowels}} code? What did you try to "solve"? Please reinstall or refund the version you threw away. Now it is beyond repair. -DePiep (talk) 14:31, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh, please, Kwami, stop your edits in this. The solution is in an other direction. -DePiep (talk) 20:27, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Which other direction?

In the old, stable version, the vowel lined up with the table. In your version they didn't. Therefore I restored the version that displayed properly. If you can get the new version to work, fine; I don't care about the coding, just the result. — kwami (talk) 22:57, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

What exactly did you see? was it a minor displacement of the bullet, or a big disalignment (then what was it)? Of course I checked before (both on FF ans Safari).

On top of this, first you did copy old code into the template , then you stated "code fork" . Disrupting behaviour, and without using talk. -DePiep (talk) 19:10, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

No, DePiep, merging is the opposite of forking. Forking is when you create redundant copies of something, as you created with this template. Merging is when you combine those copies, and is part of normal maintenance and cleanup. You can revert to whichever version you like, or combine elements from both as you see fit, so I hardly see how this is disruptive.

Is wasn't a huge displacement, it just looked like a bad print job: the right-hand vowel sat over the bullet, whereas now they're equally spaced. Of course, as I noted, they are now displaced in the collapsible template, where the vowels are left-aligned and the table center-aligned, but they are aligned in the raw table and in the individual vowel articles. Since the raw table is the input for everything else, that's where they need to be aligned first. In both the now and then versions, the vowels sit a little low (they are slightly misaligned with the bullets vertically, both in FF and IE), but that's minor. This horizontal misalignment seems to have only been a problem in FF; in IE the two versions differ only in font size, as far as I can see. I haven't checked other browsers.

If you can combine the horizontal alignment of the one version with all your improvements from the other version, I would think that would solve most of the problem. Some of the templates that embed the raw table might still need to be tweaked, but that should be straightforward. — kwami (talk) 01:24, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense #1: I did not create a copy. Yes, the content (CSS-talking) was the same: the IPA chart. But the CSS-style was not. Which is what you still do not get (Admin's Arrogance?). #2: I did not talk about "merge". What is your problem? #3 All in all , you spoiled it, without talking while saying Is wasn't a huge displacement. You have not helped the Project at all. The only thing you did was disturb a good development process. If you can't stand criticism, then drop you admin's status. -DePiep (talk) 23:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

As for development processes, develop away! But use the sandbox. Don't play around with hundreds of articles. If your experiments don't work, I'm going to revert you. Sorry, but the results are more important than your ego. — kwami (talk) 00:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Wow, what an advice, daddy paternalistic, Thank you. You know soooo much! Especially the "use the sandbox" stuff is great. I did not know that. Anyway, since you helped us all, Vowels template is looking shit, the Vowels audio template is disturbed, you fork source code (what you disallow others in the same moment).

You tell me to develop away, while evoking discussion into any development. Do you realise your response is an illustration of my point: arrogance?
Really, Kwami, you don't have don't 'help' me this way. You are an Arrogant Admin, not suitable for a communal development environment. -DePiep (talk) 22:34, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you don't know how to make the template work properly. But it's your project, so it really is up to you. If I'm of no help, you don't need to bother me with it. — kwami (talk) 23:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

you don't know how to make the template work properly, you write. That is your Arrogance. It worked, until you did not understand what cooperation is, and had to revert some parts (but hey, not everything -- why suggesting you knew what you did). Also, the faults you saw were not unsalvable. No one said WP should be perfect at first try. Oh, and it's not my project, you smearing Arrogant Admin. I never said so, and Misplaced Pages is about collaboration. Just remember: for every bit that did not work, you could have started a Talk. -DePiep (talk) 03:29, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

*Sigh* If you want to fix it, then fix it! Quit whining to me about it. All your work is still there, so you haven't lost anything.

You have it backwards: for every bit that did not work, you are responsible. I'm not going to leave dozen of articles messed up while we talk: fix it, then implement it. That's obvious, isn't it? Yes, I did not revert everything, because I was trying to save what I could. Would you have preferred that I did revert everything?

If you do not know how to fix it, then there places you can ask for help. — kwami (talk) 16:14, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Balkans

You seem quite active in the articles concerning that region. I'm just curious where that particular interest stems from. Reanimated X (talk) 16:18, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

No real interest, apart from general linguistics. But a bunch of articles are constantly getting screwed up in the edit wars. — kwami (talk) 22:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Hyphen

Kwami, please would you have a look at the following sentence in the introduction to the article on: Prussian Homage (painting)

"Matejko created his painting to remind others about the history of the no-longer independent country he loved, and about the changing fates of history."

If you feel that it should be hyphenated differently, I have no objection to your changing it.--Toddy1 (talk) 09:37, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

"no longer independent" is a single phrase, and so should be hyphenated as here. — kwami (talk) 09:52, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your help.--Toddy1 (talk) 12:52, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Deletion of Koreatown (Oakland, California)

Hello kwami (talk), I and a majority but not unanimity of editors believe this article should be deleted and merged back into its section in the parent Koreatown article because it simply does not add enough real substance as its own spin-out, and based on its content thus far, appears to have low imminent potential for that. An editor expressed a desire to keep the article solely for the purpose of including this as a neighborhood of Oakland; I've never heard of that before as justification for maintaining an entirely new article. I recommended in discussion that the section be developed in the parent article and if and when there is ever adequate substance to justify a new article, then could do so at that time. I don't have any significant prior experience involving article deletion - does this become an administrative issue at this point?

Thanks.

96.242.217.91 (talk) 13:22, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's not really a deletion but a merge. You can tag it with {{mergeto}} and let the discussion run its course. I don't think that will attract as much input as a move or deletion request, so if you don't get enough for a decision, you can post at Misplaced Pages:Proposed mergers#Requests for assistance and feedback. I don't work much with community articles, so I have no idea what's normally done in cases like this one, but the people there should have an idea. — kwami (talk) 14:38, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. 96.242.217.91 (talk) 16:35, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Reducing parser calls

I suggest linking to Template_talk:IPAc-en#Too many_expensive parser function calls in the edit summary, because these seem like quite trivial edits at first glance. Also since there's ~7500 transclusions of that template, I strongly recommend doing this with a BRFA / bot (so it doesn't pop up in watchlists of those who don't want to see bot/bot-like edits). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:44, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, there were only 321 (now about 240), because I only have to change the ones with sound templates. There are some manual corrections I'm making as well, so a bot probably isn't worth the effort. But I've linked to the discussion. — kwami (talk) 06:48, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

What's the deal here? I see nothing wrong with linking to sound templates. Is this a real problem or an invented problem that's reducing links just for the sake of it? PumpkinSky talk 12:57, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

See Template_talk:IPAc-en#Too many_expensive parser function calls. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:40, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

The IPA articles

v t e International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)
IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association History of the alphabet Extensions for disordered speech (extIPA) Voice Quality Symbols (VoQS) Journal of the IPA (JIPA) Special topics Cursive forms Case variants Obsolete and nonstandard symbols Naming conventions Sinological extensions World Orthography IPA chart for English dialects Encodings ASCII encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode IPA number IPA Braille
Consonants Pulmonic consonants Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal Manner ↓ Bi­labial Labio­dental Linguo­labial Dental Alveolar Post­alveolar Retro­flex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn­geal/epi­glottal Glottal Nasal m̥ m ɱ̊ ɱ n̼ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ̥ ɴ Plosive p b p̪ b̪ t̼ d̼ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant affricate ts dz t̠ʃ d̠ʒ tʂ dʐ tɕ dʑ Non-sibilant affricate pɸ bβ p̪f b̪v t̪θ d̪ð tɹ̝̊ dɹ̝ t̠ɹ̠̊˔ d̠ɹ̠˔ cç ɟʝ kx ɡɣ qχ ɢʁ ʡʜ ʡʢ ʔh Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ̼ ð̼ θ ð θ̠ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ɻ̊˔ ɻ˔ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ h ɦ Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ ʔ̞ Tap/flap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ̼ ɾ̥ ɾ ɽ̊ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̆ Trill ʙ̥ ʙ r̥ r ɽ̊r̥ ɽr ʀ̥ ʀ ʜ ʢ Lateral affricate tɬ dɮ tꞎ d𝼅 c𝼆 ɟʎ̝ k𝼄 ɡʟ̝ Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ꞎ 𝼅 𝼆 ʎ̝ 𝼄 ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l ɭ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠ Lateral tap/flap ɺ̥ ɺ 𝼈̥ 𝼈 ʎ̆ ʟ̆ IPA help  audio full chart template Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced, to the left are voiceless. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible. Non-pulmonic consonants BL LD D A PA RF P V U EG Ejective Stop pʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʡʼ Affricate p̪fʼ t̪θʼ tsʼ t̠ʃʼ tʂʼ tɕʼ kxʼ qχʼ Fricative ɸʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ Lateral affricate tɬʼ c𝼆ʼ k𝼄ʼ q𝼄ʼ Lateral fricative ɬʼ Click (top: velar; bottom: uvular) Tenuis kʘ qʘ kǀ qǀ kǃ qǃ k𝼊 q𝼊 kǂ qǂ Voiced ɡʘ ɢʘ ɡǀ ɢǀ ɡǃ ɢǃ ɡ𝼊 ɢ𝼊 ɡǂ ɢǂ Nasal ŋʘ ɴʘ ŋǀ ɴǀ ŋǃ ɴǃ ŋ𝼊 ɴ𝼊 ŋǂ ɴǂ ʞ   Tenuis lateral kǁ qǁ Voiced lateral ɡǁ ɢǁ Nasal lateral ŋǁ ɴǁ Implosive Voiced ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ Voiceless ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̊ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥ IPA help  audio full chart template Co-articulated consonants Nasal n͡m Labial–alveolar ɳ͡m Labial–retroflex ŋ͡m Labial–velar Plosive t͡pd͡b Labial–alveolar ʈ͡pɖ͡b Labial–retroflex k͡pɡ͡b Labial–velar q͡ʡ Uvular–epiglottal q͡p Labial–uvular Fricative/approximant ɥ̊ɥ Labial–palatal ʍw Labial–velar ɧ Sj-sound (variable) Lateral approximant ɫ Velarized alveolar Implosive ɠ̊͜ɓ̥ ɠ͡ɓ Labial–velar Ejective t͡pʼ Labial–alveolar IPA help full chart template Other Nasal labial–velar approximant Nasal palatal approximant Voiceless bidental fricative Voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop Voiceless nasal glottal approximant
Vowels Front Central Back Close i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u Near-close ɪ ʏ ʊ Close-mid e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o Mid e̞ ø̞ ə ɤ̞ o̞ Open-mid ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ Near-open æ ɐ Open a ɶ ä ɑ ɒ IPA help  audio full chart template Legend: unrounded • rounded

I was told at the help desk that you removed the infoboxes from all the consonant articles. Why did you do this? I have always liked them very much - I thought that they really added some colour to the pages, and it's important that we include a sound file so readers know what foreign sounds are like. Interchangeable|talk to me 18:53, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're talking about. Can you link to a diff to show me? — kwami (talk) 05:09, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah, this is what happened. I don't know who that was. I've reverted and protected the template. — kwami (talk) 07:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to request that an administrator block or warn 203.142.100.17 (talk · contribs). I don't know why on Earth he did that, as his only summary was "copy and paste". There's nothing there! Interchangeable|talk to me 14:41, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Don't bother. It's an anonymous IP, and doesn't have a history of vandalism, so blocking the address probably will not block the editor. — kwami (talk) 14:47, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Continuant allophones

Hi Kwami, why do you think the descriptions I provided on WP:IPA for Spanish are not helpful? A bilabial approximant doesn't sound like a bilabial fricative (between /b/ and /v/), a velar approximant doesn't sound between /h/ and /g/, etc.

Now we are describing fricatives, but we are labelling these sounds as "approximants", as according to recent studies by Hualde, Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas and Carreras-Sabaté. Why mislead readers? What shall we do about this issue?

Similarly in Catalan, Recasens describes them as approximants; while other authors, as Wheeler, assert they are fricatives, but unlike in Castilian, we label them as "fricatives or approximants", while we describe them as fricatives (IMO this poses no problem, as in Castilian). Jɑυмe (xarrades) 15:01, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

As a native English speaker, those descriptions sound nothing like Spanish. You also present the intervocalic allophones as if they occurred initially, which they don't.

Also don't need "approximately", since they're all approximations.

Spanish β ð ɣ are intermediate between fricatives and approximants. Either label is as good as the other. — kwami (talk) 15:08, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Then we could label them as in Catalan (as either "approximants" or "fricatives"), in order to avoid incongruencies.Jɑυмe (xarrades) 15:31, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

How's that? I don't know Catalan, so I'll let you handle that side. — kwami (talk) 15:36, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

You changed it already, thanks. Well, in Catalan should be pretty much the same than in Castilian. Carbonell & Llisterri (1992) and Recasens (1996) describe them symply as approximants, while Wheeler (2005) (The Phonology of Catalan) as fricatives. Jɑυмe (xarrades) 15:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, sounds like the same thing. Ladefoged says they're a bit too turbulent to be normal approximants, but not enough to be regular fricatives. — kwami (talk) 15:58, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

You are right, Wheeler says:

"In recent work on Catalan phonology the bilabial, dental and velar continuants are referred as approximants rather than as fricatives, due to acoustic evidence (these sounds lack of turbulance). However, they also behave as obstruents. They alternate morphologically with the voiced and voiceless plosives of corresponding place, and form syllable onsets with liquids."

Wheeler thinks it is more appropriate to regard them as "non-strident fricatives" (or "spirants", in older terminology), which is also typologically consistent with their being the product of lenition processes.

Dwarf planet candidates

Kwamikagami, I am again imploring you to please stop your troublesome behaviour with regard to the dwarf planet article and several related articles. As you are well aware, the changes in question are under active discussion on the dwarf planet talk page, where your actions have been described as "engaging in speculation and synthesis". Per WP:BRD, your changes were removed for discussion - but you have since engaged in an unyielding effort to repeatedly restore them without any regard for waiting for the discussion to resolve itself. --Ckatz_spy 16:28, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

But you see, Ckatz, I see your edits as troublesome. It is your edits which are synthesis, and disappointingly unscientific for a scientific article. You are the one who has repeatedly deleted referenced material with nothing to back you up but your personal opinions. We go with sources, as I've told you a dozen times at least. If you still don't understand that, perhaps you should review WP help (at the left of your screen). The fact that you would place bureaucracy over scholarship in a scientific article is astounding. Arguing with you is like arguing with astrologers on the astrology article. I'm not going to stop just because you have no idea what science is or how it works. — kwami (talk) 16:37, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Please review WP:BRD; as a fellow sysop, you should be well aware of that document. You should also be aware that repeated restoring your text while a discussion is under way is bad form. You have also repeatedly ignored concerns expressed by others; I note that you've avoided addressing the issue of your "engaging in speculation and synthesis" as another editor pointed out on the DP talk page. If the discussion resolved with a consensus to support your changes, then they would go in - but to repeatedly change the existing and long-standing consensus version in favour of your disputed text while a discussion is under way is not acceptable. --Ckatz_spy 16:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

God you're a hypocrite. You're the one violating 3RR, pushing an unsupported personal opinion, and of course also ignoring those who disagree with you. How is it that edit warring for your POV, especially one which violates WP policy, acceptable? — kwami (talk) 16:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me? How many times, exactly, have you reverted? Neither of us is clean with respect to that. Plus, keep in mind that it is your changes that have been described as synthesis by third-party editors, not mine. I have been restoring articles based on the long-standing consensus for how we label DPs, while you have been repeatedly changing them to reflect your perspective. Look, if the discussion results in support for your approach, then so be it. However, at present, your text has been disputed - by several other editors, not just by me - and as such you should not be repeatedly adding your material back in. Why is it so difficult to expect that you would allow the discussion to resolve this? --Ckatz_spy

Your statements, as usual, are factually incorrect, but then that's what I've come to expect.

Since there is an ongoing dispute, why are you repeatedly adding your material?

We follow sources on WP. Your opinions are irrelevant unless you can back them up. And that, of course, along with the description of your views being unscientific, also comes from a third-party editor.

We follow sources on WP.

We follow sources on WP.

We follow sources on WP.

If I repeat that for six pages, do you think it'll sink in? — kwami (talk) 17:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

As you are well aware, I am most certainly not "adding my own material". Quite the opposite, in fact; I have been restoring the articles to the standards used before your arbitrary changes. Note that I'm also not the first to do so; Serendipodous was also opposed to your methodology. Plus, going by the IAU is hardly an "opinion". Note that I have repeatedly asked for you to simply wait for the discussion to conclude, a request that you have completely ignored. I have also taken steps to try to get a wider range of input, and I have not been engaging in insults, unlike your posts. --Ckatz_spy 17:20, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

God, I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall. If your statements were truthful, it would be a different matter entirely. I, and others, have asked you multiple times you show us where the IAU says this, but the refs you've provided don't actually say it. We go by the words in the refs, not with the ideas that pop into your head when you read them.

We follow sources on WP.

We follow sources on WP.

We follow sources on WP.

We follow sources on WP.

We follow sources on WP. — kwami (talk) 17:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

The feeling is mutual. Explain, if you would, why your changes were described (not by me) as "synthesis and speculation", and why another editor reverted you and challenged your position quite some time before I became aware of the problem. You have not as of yet answered those questions. --Ckatz_spy 17:36, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

You want me to explain someone else's thoughts to you? Yet again you illustrate your irrationality.

Can you explain to me why other editors feel your approach is unscientific? — kwami (talk) 17:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Point me to such a statement, so that I can read it in context, and then I can reply. In the interim, would you care to respond to the questions I've posed? --Ckatz_spy 17:46, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

God, you just don't get it, do you? The standards you apply to other people simply don't apply to you, do they? Since you obviously aren't going to say anything worthwhile, stop posting on my page. You're wasting my time. — kwami (talk) 17:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

If you're not interested in discussing this, fine, whatever. However, please note that your last post does not make sense. You had previously claimed that "other editors feel approach is unscientific", and I simply asked you to show me where that was so that I could review it and comment properly. How is that not a constructive request? --Ckatz_spy 17:54, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

You really don't see the parallel to what you wrote? That was the reason I asked that question.

And of course I did answer your question. You do seem to be able to read what I write without absorbing a word of it. — kwami (talk) 17:57, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Ckatz, Kwami didn't ask you that question to get an answer, but rather illustrate to you how ridiculous your original question was. He was trying to show you that it would be impossible for him to explain someone else's thoughts to you since he isn't that person and cannot possibly know what that person could be thinking. Reanimated X (talk) 18:31, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

If the wording was confusing, my apologies. Perhaps it would have been better posed as "Explain, if you would, why you persist in making your changes when they have been described (not by me) as "synthesis and speculation", and also despite another editor having reverted you and challenged your position quite some time before I became aware of the problem." I asked my follow-up because Kwami was suggesting that a third party had made a claim against me, and I wanted to review it for myself. --Ckatz_spy 19:04, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale

• I made a redirect from Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale to the Seediq Bale article, but on second thought the redir should be deleted and the page moved to Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (and thus Seediq Bale would be a redirect). The actual title, as shown in the reviews I added to the text (please scan them for the title), is "Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale". The reason that only the words "Seediq Bale" appear in English in the title is not because they comprise the English title (and the preceding Chinese characters are irrelevant), but rather because an English spelling comes closer to the sound/feel of that term than would the corresponding Chinese characters. The full title thus uses two orthographic systems. OneLeafKnowsAutumn (talk) 22:24, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I assume this is a request to move it? No problem. — kwami (talk) 22:27, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Itsekiri language

In the Itsekiri article there is "Unlike nearly all key Nigerian Languages, the Itsekiri language does not have dialects and is uniformly spoken with little or no variance in pronunciation apart from the use of 'ch' for the regular 'ts' (sh) in the pronunciation of some individual Itsekiris, e.g. Chekiri instead of the standard Shekiri but these are individual pronunciation traits rather than dialectal differences." I found this hard to understand and perhaps forms in the IPA would help here. Another article I have edited is Chorlton-cum-Hardy where I added 2 pronunciations, again an IPA version would help (the one with no 't' would roughly rhyme with "pollen").--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 15:06, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The Itsekiri comment is too incoherent for me to translate. I'll give a stab at Chorlton; maybe you can check the result to verify. — kwami (talk) 23:29, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, the IPA in Chorlton looks fine. Itsekiri can wait for someone with first-hand knowledge.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 06:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Serer-Sine language

It is evident that you have added Fula-Serer in both the Serer-Sine language article and Fula language article. That was after I've removed them both. Not only is Serer the progentitor of Fula, the Fula just like the Wolof tend to borrow wherever they settle. Fula may be similar to Serer just like Wolof may be similar to Serer with Serer as the "root" (see Serer people this issue has been addressed there) but Serer is not Fula and has nothing to do with Fula and vice-versa. Please remove "Fula" from the Serer-Sine infobox and remove "Serer" from the Fula language infobox. Further, to put Fula before Serer (i.e. Fula-Serer) in both infoboxes appears rather patronising and implies that the Serer language derives from Fula when in fact it is the other way round. I know perhaps that was not your original intention but that's what it implies. Please remove them both. Thank you. Tamsier (talk) 02:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Serer and Fula are related languages. One is not the progenitor of the other. The progenitor would be called "Proto-Fula–Serer". Please check the references I provided. As for "Fula–Serer" vs "Serer–Fula", that is just petty, like saying Indo-European should be called "Euro-Indic". The current order is the one found in sources. See eg. here. — kwami (talk) 02:36, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

WQA complaint

Just FYI, I happened to notice that there is a WQA complaint pending against you. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Dene-Yeneseian

(I don't know whether or not I spelled "Yeneseian" correctly.) This color coding needs to be removed from the Language Template color quilt. It is still too controversial in Ameridianist circles and even the author--Vajda--admits that it's not proven yet. --Taivo (talk) 11:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Sure. — kwami (talk) 11:12, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Your behaviour is unacceptable and a violation of Wiki's policy. This is a warning.

Just incase you have forgotten, as an Administrator, you are "expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful and civil manner" in your interaction with editors. You have failed to do that when you referred to me as a "racist" and "a bigot" in the Serer language article's talk page and in the Fula language edit summary. Here and here .

If you have no problem in inserting Fula-Serer in both the Serer language and Fula language infoboxes, you should not have any problem with me inserting Serer-Fula since they "are part of the same family". Yet again, you deleted my edits and placed Fula before Serer then accused me of being petty. You also deleted my edits which have been sourced with notable references as in here and in the Serer people article as well. If you have a different source to the one I have, please do enter it underneath or next to my edit, and say for instances "but X says this etc". You do not delete my edits which have been thoroughly sourced. You did not even do it once or twice but you kept doing it in the Serer people, Serer language and Fula language articles. Further, as I have stated to you before, why do you want to refer to the relatedness of Fula and Serer in the Serer language article and when I referred to the relatedness (with sources) of the Serer language to Fula in the Fula langugage article, you deleted the Serer language in that article? You cannot have your cake an eat it. In other words, you cannot insert the Fula language into the Serer language article in explaining their relatedness yet failed to mention Serer in the Fula language article. You have also deleted the citation templates I placed on the Fula language article. I placed them there for two reasons: the relevant population figures cited where not sourced neither were the claims made adequately sourced. Just in case you've forgotten, figures cannot come from thin air. They need to be sourced in keeping with wiki's policy. I am sure I do not have to explain to you the importance of sourcing claims.

You also brought in Halaqah a fellow Muslim to back up what you were doing. I originally assumed good faith until your behaviour in the relevant articles and other articles became apparent. You both started at the Serer language article. Desecrating it and then went on to the Serer people article which neither of you have never shown any interest in until this incident, and which I have been editing and sourcing for years to try to bring to standard. In your desire to engage in an "edit war" with me, due your personal dislike of me, which I am sure you know means nothing to me and have no effect on me whatsover, (other than the disruptive edits you are making in order to prove a point), both of you started destroying the Serer people article. Several Administrators and editors have seen the article but have not performed such actions as you and Halaqah have done. You and Halaqah on the other hand went to another level. You in particular have engaged in edit warring with me, reverting Halaqah's templates I rightfully removed including the deletion of sources I have cited in the article.

May I remind you, in both the Serer language and Serer people's articles you were highly involved, just as you were involed in the Fula language article. What you have done was an abuse of your priviledges as an Administrator. May I also remind you that, it is Wiki's policy to revoke Administrator status from those who seriously disrupt Wiki and "consistently or egregiously" exercise poor judgment. In future, if you are unable to adhere to Wiki's policy, please refer the issue to another administrator rather than engaging in "poor conduct." If you are unable to do that, I am sure you are familiar with the policy of stepping down as an Administrator. Tamsier (talk) 11:04, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

All right, so you're a paranoid bigot. What a lovely combination. You make racist comments about the Fula and bigoted comments about Muslims, but if I call you out on it, you ascribe it to my personal dislike of *you*, rather than of the ridiculous opinions you push in the articles. I don't even know you, how can I dislike you? All I know are your words, which are repugnant.

Since I'm not acting as an admin, what does being involved have to do with anything? — kwami (talk) 11:11, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

WQA

Hello, Kwamikagami. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette assistance regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Gerardw (talk) 12:21, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Posting this as courtesy, not because I think a response on your part is required. Gerardw (talk) 12:24, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. — kwami (talk) 12:26, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Protection request

Kwami, can you protect Botswana Ground Force and Botswana Defence Force Air Wing to an appropriate level for a couple of weeks? An Anon-IP keeps re-inserting copyvio and unverified material. I don't mind reverting him from time to time, but I won't always be able to keep up with him. I'd rather discourage him for a week or two, and see if it makes a difference. Thanks in advance, Shem (talk) 13:22, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

It's only happened twice as far as I can tell, and you have at least two editors to take care of it. I'd rather not protect an article unless there's more of a problem than that. But if it continues, please let me know and I'll reconsider. — kwami (talk) 05:20, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I count 30 reverts by various editors on Botswana Ground Force, nearly all of them related to reverting an Israel-based anon IP who inserts fantastical information; although the IP changes from time to time, the modus operandi does not. It happened again this morning, after your comment above. The warnings seem to have no effect, although perhaps you could consider a short block on User:109.64.213.91 to prove the point? In short, please reconsider, although I'm happy to continue as we are for as long as it takes! All the best, and thanks for the advice. Shem (talk) 11:51, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

comment needed

Since you and I have virtually always disagreed, I know I can count on your for an objective view in this dispute at the Bible article talk page: (and the next section) Slrubenstein | Talk 17:42, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, now I take that as a compliment! One is easy for me to answer, the other not so much. But I'll give my rather uninformed opinion. — kwami (talk) 04:46, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I also know you have expertise and interest in language and perhaps a clearer grasp of English grammar than I (with regards to this argument over God and god). I read your comment, which I think may reflect the mainstream view of Christians concerning the Bible but not the majority view of Jews. But I appreciate your commenting. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:55, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

move req

Kwami, could you move Orbital Inclination to Orbital inclination. Notice that the second word in the title is currently capitalized. --JorisvS (talk) 20:10, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

File:Cyrillic alphabet world distribution.svg

Hi Kwami. Please see User talk:Scooter20#File:Cyrillic alphabet world distribution.svg. —Coroboy (talk) 08:04, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

HI, I added a reply at my talk page: User talk:Scooter20#File:Cyrillic alphabet world distribution.svg

Cheers! Scooter20 (talk) 18:35, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi, you have another reply at my talk page. Cheers! Scooter20 (talk) 14:54, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

edit warring?

"You've been here long enough to know not to edit war, especially considering that you haven't said mot on the talk page." ;-) cygnis insignis 15:48, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Huh? — kwami (talk) 15:51, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

File:Forms of government.svg

Hello Kwamikagami. This map needs some changes: Niger and Burma are not currently ruled by military juntas, Niger is a semi-presidential republic and Burma a presidential republic. Egypt and Fiji are ruled by a military junta. Addition, Somalia, Eritrea and Libya have transition governments. I hope the response and the change in the map. Thanks and regards. MauriManya (talk) 22:40, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Burma is not a republic, though it might pretend to be. — kwami (talk) 23:17, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

But, and other changes? MauriManya (talk) 23:23, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Dwarf planets and repeated addition of material during an active RfC

Kwami, please, again, please stop reverting in your material to the dwarf planet articles. There is an active RfC under way discussing this exact issue, and your repeated changes (undone not just by me, but by several other editors) are becoming disruptive. We are making progress in the discussion and getting input from a number of different editors. Why continue to interfere with it by pressing forward with your preferred material? --Ckatz_spy 01:25, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

And why do you also? — kwami (talk) 01:35, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

There is a big difference between restoring pre-existing text (which is what I'm doing) and repeatedly adding your personal perspective during an active RfC (which is what you're doing). I'm not prepared to violate 3RR while repairing your tendentious edits, but you should not expect to be able to ram through your preferred material because of that. --Ckatz_spy 01:45, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

So, adding your personal perspective, which wasn't there before you added it, is "restoring pre-existing text"? So words define reality, rather like an object which meets the definition of a DP not being a DP if it hasn't been officially declared to be? — kwami (talk) 01:49, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Which part are you referring to? I'd be happy to examine it if you could isolate specifically what you're thinking of. The central point here is your insistence on listing more than five DPs, instead of the five ones formally designated as such. You are pushing to change how Misplaced Pages presents the material; what I'm asking is that you stop changing the articles and wait for the RfC discussions to conclude. --Ckatz_spy 01:52, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Angola

Okay - if you can find a citation saying that and saying that the figure doesn't include Angola, that would be good :) WhisperToMe (talk) 22:38, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

He's back

Kwami, Nagarjuna got off his 72-hour block and went right back to Telugu language and started his unscientific editing again. Foodie then followed him like a little puppy. They haven't reverted since I placed a long comment on the Talk Page, but you might want to check in now and then. --Taivo (talk) 04:18, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

@Taivo: You say "Foodie then followed him like a little puppy"? You are Hounding Telugu Language with your nonsense and we wont let that happen. Your Edits are never fair. @Kwamikagami: I request you dont fall prey for Taivo's trap.Nagarjuna198 (talk)

Trap? You sound paranoid. If you have a problem, take it to the talk page. That's what it's for.

When Taivo cuts out the crap, he tends to cut to the bone. He may leave the article sparer than I would, but if you present a case for a passage, and it isn't unencyclopedic, we can probably work out a wording that's acceptable. — kwami (talk) 12:14, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposed edit for Astrology

I am making all recent contributors to the Astrology article and its discussion page aware of a proposed amendment to the text which discusses the 1976 'Objections to astrology' and the relevance of Carl Sagan's reaction. This is in response to the comments, criticisms and suggestions that have been made on the published text, with the hope of finding a solution acceptable to all. Your opinion would be very welcome.

The proposal is here.

Thanks, -- Zac Δ 15:52, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Section looks good to me. — kwami (talk) 22:06, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Blocked IP - at it again

Kwami, I note you blocked 109.64.213.91 on 25 September. I don't know how long you blocked him for, but didn't have much effect, since he did it again on 28 September. Yours, Shem (talk) 15:10, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry - I think User:EdJohnston got there already and re-blocked him. Shem (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

No prob. We tend to start w short blocks and then increase them. — kwami (talk) 00:17, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Reg: Replacing "Odisha" with "Orissa" across many pages

Hi Kwami, I saw that you have made a blanket replacement for a state of India from "Odisha" with "Orissa" over vast number of pages. I agree that at this point of time, it does make sense to use either for the trickling effect of name change is bound to take some time. The state name change and name of the language (from Oriya to Odia) has been officially approved by the Indian Parliament during the early part of this year.

I also went thru the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Use_modern_names, specifically to Mumbai section and can state that, "Odisha" is how it is now being officially represented. This will certainly take time considering people have been taught to write it as "Orissa" in English language since childhood.

The usage of the name of "Orissa" in English language came up during the period Britishers ruled over India. The same representation got carried over many years till recently. However, in vernacular language of Oriya or Odia (recent change), the word has always been spelled as "Odisha". I will also not hesitate to state that this state was also known as "Kalinga" in the past.

I did see that most of the Wiki articles had "Orissa" previously and other editors had effected the change after the approved name change amendment by the Indian Parliament.

Wouldn't it make it much better to have the correct official name also, considering the fact that representation in the vernacular language has always been "Odisha". Also, putting the apt name in all the articles concerning "Odisha" would ease in faster assimilation. If you do agree to this, would request you to please revert the edits.

--Karan1974 (talk) 18:29, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

As I explained on that page, there were all sorts of problems. For one, it was changed in proper names (such as names of institutions) where it should not have been. Many of the changes broke links, invalidated references, removed templates and images, created orphans, and did all manner of other formatting damage to the articles. So I'm changing it to "Orissa" and "Oriya" across the board. If we are going to change these, it should be done properly, not blindly.

But before we start a change, we should have a proper discussion. What the Orissa or Indian parliaments decide are not terribly pertinent. There are few countries that we call by their official names or spellings. (And this is a spelling change. It's the same name.) When we have community-wide consensus that we should use "Odisha" and "Odia" (what an ugly name! sounds like 'odious') in English, then we can change. But consensus first. It'll probably happen, but it hasn't happened yet. — kwami (talk) 00:15, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Kwami for providing the details. I hear your thoughts on what has happened and that's terrible. I also went thru the discussion page of "Orissa" and could get more details. Let me pull out a white flag here before you shoot me down, for I did not initiate the changes. While going thru some of the articles I could see them referred to as "Odisha" and when I had checked the past version it was referred to as "Orissa". To me that sounded OK considering the name change that did happen but was not aware of the terrible mess that had been left behind. I am not an expert on wiki, a fairly new entrant when it comes to contributing, have very few contributions and am learning about the working of it as time goes on.

The original reason I posted this query to you was because I saw a series of blanket replacements carried on and was curious to know the rationale behind this change. To zoom on this further, it's regarding this page http://en.wikipedia.org/Odissi wherein we have had editors along with their sock puppet profiles manipulate the page. Seeing the changes on this page and also looking at your contributions across a host of pages where similar changes had been done made me post the query. I hope you can understand my intention. However, I don't have any concerns as such as long as the articles provide the relevant information; and till a consensus is arrived at, name change in the articles does not make much sense. I get the sense that this might be a ground for edit-warring. Hence, would request you to please keep a close watch.

A suggestion for you regarding the "ugly name... odious": You are blatantly honest ( a quality that I like :) ) but would request you to hold it in your thoughts rather than pen it down for it may not go down well with others. Thank you.

--Karan1974 (talk) 05:04, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I left Odissi alone, as I'm not familiar with the topic. As for the aesthetics, yeah, I always thought "Orissa" was a beautiful name, but that's just my POV irrelevant for actual usage. But such things do matter: the Japanese usually call Kinki "Kansai" in English, because otherwise it sounds like "kinky". (Our Kansai article links to the WP-ja Kinki article, not to their Kansai article.) Turkey's govt. has flirted with umlauts so that their country wouldn't be spelled the same as one of the stupider fowls. (Actually, wild turkeys are relatively intelligent, but the domestic ones people are familiar with are not.) And then we have Indians demanding that we move Ganges to Ganga, and at the same time insisting that we not pronounce it like the word for marijuana, despite the fact that that's exactly how people do pronounce it. Which is why we follow established usage when it comes to names. Also, while it's generally easier to change the names of languages than of states, they don't need to go together: Odisha and Odia may end up being separate discussions. I think if and when we move Orissa to Odisha, then we should change the other articles to match, and similarly for Oriya/Odia. But if the names are not accepted enough for the main articles, then IMO they're too unfamiliar for use in smaller articles which may not provide proper context. — kwami (talk) 05:24, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Kwami for these insights. I certainly get it and agree with you in this regard. Man... you sure have a way with words and I am impressed :) Thanks again. --Karan1974 (talk) 05:47, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Hey, just came across this: L'amore si odia ('Love is hateful', I think). — kwami (talk) 10:10, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

ISO 639-1/2/3 Codes

G'day,

I think that the ISO 1/2 codes you are removing are not spurious. They have been superseded by ISO 639-3, but if someone wants to know what the old code used to be, then I think that information should be supplied. In particular, for Taiwanese Mandarin, you have removed all codes: ISO 639-1 zh ISO 639-2 chi (B) zho (T) ISO 639-3 cmn

The fact that a code is more general does not make it incorrect. Francis Bond (talk) 01:20, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

But they are not the codes for Taiwanese Mandarin. The first three are for Chinese, and the last for Mandarin in general. While we might want to add general codes to our language articles, such as marking all Bantu languages with the ISO code for Bantu, we have never adopted that convention. I think we'd want to discuss it first, considering the amount of work that would be involved. Meanwhile, we have inconsistent use scattered across our articles, and I think it's best to be consistent, whichever convention we decide on. — kwami (talk) 01:31, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that they are the codes for Taiwanese Mandarin, in that Taiwanese is Chinese and Mandarin. For example, language data in Taiwanese Mandarin tagged with ISO 639-01 will be tagged with zh, the locale for Taiwan is zh_TW, and so on. I completely agree that the tag is not specifically for Taiwanese Mandarin, but that is just due to the limited granularity of the earlier standards. Maybe we can come up with a way of showing in the template that a code is over-general for the language in this article? As far as the convention is concerned, I thought we had adopted the convention that languages are marked with all their ISO codes, that is what you are deleting :-). The fact that not all languages had all information marked is just part of the fact the wikipedia isn't finished yet. In this case I would rather aim toward more information for all languages, even if it leads to temporary inconsistency, although again I agree with you the our final goal should be consistency. I'd be happy to discuss it further, but I am not sure where is the best venue. Francis Bond (talk) 01:57, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe WP:Wikiproject languages? I've seen other editors going around removing ISO3 codes from dialects that they were not specific to. Yes, it would be best to sort this out one way or the other. I mean, would every sub-dialect of Taihu Wu be marked with ISO1 = zh? Should every language in America be marked with ISO2 as North or South American? To me, that would seem to be a lot of useless clutter, and potentially confusing to the reader, if they conclude that nai is the code for Shoshone. Unless there's a utility I'm not aware of.

Whatever we decide on, we could add it to the doc for the info box, so that we have a point of reference for future edits.

I was left with only 13 articles when I went to bed last night, so I'll finish those up, as they're not enough to make a difference if we decide to go back. — kwami (talk) 02:16, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Boy seaman

Kwami, could you move Boy Seaman to Boy seaman over the redirect? Thanks Shem (talk) 10:23, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Shem (talk) 10:52, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Odisha/Orissa

I've noticed your changing the former to the latter. I had previously seen the former in a number of articles, and that when I went to categorize them (CAT:U was how I came across them), Odisha cats automatically got changed to Orissa versions as I used HotCat. So, what exactly is the situation? Is Odisha the local name of the province, but Orissa is the English name for it? Can you explain the difference in usage? (Yes, I'm well aware that lots of English names of places differ from their local names; I'd just like to understand what/why this situation is the way it is.) LadyofShalott 15:31, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Odisha in the Oriya name, Orissa the English name. However, the govt. of India has just made Odisha official in English. Or perhaps s.o. still has to sign off on it, but the leg. has approved the name. That's presumably for govt purposes; much of the Indian English media already uses Odisha. This will probably eventually trickle out to the wider world, so we'll probably switch over too, but currently international English is still Orissa. — kwami (talk) 15:37, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, Thanks. LadyofShalott 15:43, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I have a followup question: if Indian English is already using Odisha, then by ENGVAY, shouldn't we leave that alone? LadyofShalott 15:45, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

ENGVAR conflicts with WP:COMMONALITY, which suggests we look to the most international forms. Here we have a situation where most people will not recognize the local form. I think once Orissa is moved properly we can follow up with other mentions. — kwami (talk) 15:51, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

OK LadyofShalott 16:41, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, looking at the move discussion, it seems that Odisha is not used much even within India. I think I've just seen some of the sites where they're pushing the Oriya name. — kwami (talk) 16:49, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Knowing some of the sorts of conversations people can get into around here, that doesn't surprise me at all. LadyofShalott 21:05, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Chaling language

Hi. You moved Chalikha to Chaling language. There's absolutely no indication at ethnologue nor from any of the cites that "Chaling language" is its name or even exists. I tried to move it back, but couldn't. Please move it back unless you can establish they are the same language.

On a related note, you've moved languages ending in -kha (except Dzongkha?) to corresponding -language pages. Might this have been a snafu part of that? Thanks for your attention. JFHJr (㊟) 17:29, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Kwami! Much appreciated. JFHJr (㊟) 17:33, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I was moving them around to pick up red links / set up redirects, and I guess I didn't finish that one.

Didn't move them all: Lakha either. There'd been opposition to moving Dzongkha, as that's fairly well-known under its Bhutanese form. — kwami (talk) 17:51, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Report at WP:ANEW

I'm not having much luck finding an admin today. Any chance you could take a look at the report I entered at WP:ANEW about 90 minutes ago? Editor continues to edit war. Another editor reported additional reverts about 20 minutes ago. Thanks. Mojoworker (talk) 18:06, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Meneage

Hello, Perhaps you could add the IPA pronunciation details here. "The Meneage (Template:Lang-kw) (pronounced with the stress on the last syllable and to rhyme with "vague")". Like many place-names in Cornwall "ea" has this pronunciation (e.g. Brea Hill pronounced like Bray Hill).--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 06:47, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

1. First recorded as "Manahec" in 1269. Weatherhill, Craig (2009) A Concise Dictionary of Cornish Place-names. Westport, Mayo: Evertype; p. 1

Sure. What's the first vowel? Is it a a full vowel, or is it reduced as in menagerie? — kwami (talk) 06:53, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not certain but as unstressed it is more likely to be similar to menagerie. Cornish names tend to be difficult because in local dialect the prounciations are often markedly different from the Standard English version.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 07:54, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. No-one has objected to my indication of the pronunciation and many place-names in Cornwall have variant pronunciations, Launceston is a good example.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 19:50, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Egyptian Arabic

Hi, could you take a look here. I thought about tagging the article as OR but I needed to hear a professional's opinion first.--Rafy talk 12:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

It looks convincing to me. There is a lot of stuff that should be sourced and isn't (I've been guilty of that myself), but that doesn't mean it's wrong. Fortunately, there should be a fair number of people here who can ref it. Maybe you could make a request for help or comment at WP:Wikiproject languages? — kwami (talk) 07:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for your answer. I will add a refimprove template to the article.--Rafy talk 11:13, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The pkm code is finalized?

Hello Kwami! The pkm code for Prekmurian language is finalized code? According to the page of SIL, even discussed about the prekmurščina, the pkm code still a proposal. The prekmurian is the 139th request in list. Doncsecz 14:05, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, you're right. Sorry, I didn't read carefully enough. — kwami (talk) 07:20, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

New disciple

Hope you are having a pleasant Sunday. Looks like Nagarjuna has a new disciple in Telugu-pushing in User:Revharder. At Dravidian languages he keeps pushing a comment about Telugu backed by another Misplaced Pages article. He doesn't seem to understand what "reliable source" means. I've reverted him twice already and explained that he needs reliable sources on his Talk Page, but don't hold out any hope since he gave Nagarjuna a Barnstar for defending Telugu articles against vandalism from pro-Tamil forces. --Taivo (talk) 18:01, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Mr taivo i just congratulated nagarjuna for posting facts on wiki. i would like to bring to your notice that i am new to wiki and iam just learning the nuances. as for the telugu language edit, that was my mistake , iam trying my best. i will make sure that it does not happen again — Preceding unsigned comment added by Revharder (talk • contribs) 18:14, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that. Sometimes it's difficult to tell genuine newcomers from fakes. (See WP:SOCK.) We all have a learning curve; I still make plenty of mistakes. As long as you try to work with other editors, you shouldn't have a problem. — kwami (talk) 07:24, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Another move request

Kwami, can I ask you to move Petty Officer First Class to Petty officer first class? Thanks in advance. Shem (talk) 20:25, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure. Also added the comma, as we have in the Canadian articles. Cleaned up the article a bit ('Sailor' and 'Retired' were capitalized!), but I don't know how thorough I was. — kwami (talk) 23:13, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I had a go at some of the other classes of petty officer, plus airman first class, seaman, seaman recruit, seaman apprentice and some others. Once again, thank you. Shem (talk) 07:11, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Dead Sea Scrolls dating dispute (BCE/CE or BC/AD)

Sir

You blocked me for 24 hours for edit warring with another Wiki user (Mojoworker) and in the spirit of the 3 reversion rule I guess I had it coming. However what concerns me is that you stated "As for the AD/CE question, we generally leave an article as it was written, unless there's consensus to change it". The article appears to have been written in 2002 using BC/AD but on 8 February 2009 this format was changed to BCE/CE. There was no consensus to change it to BCE/CE but a few editors (Mojoworker) and (ElComandanteChe) seem hell bent on imposing this consensus on those, like myself, who want to keep the article true to the academic references on which it was based, i.e. BC/AD. Even my suggestion to re-word sections that omit references to either of these systems meets with silence which implies there is no compromise from these editors. Just so you know there are always two sides to a coin.--Cfimei (talk) 21:26, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm going off of what I've seen on other articles. As you can imagine, this is the kind of thing that leads to disputes all the time (like "proper" spelling, units of measurement, and year-month-day order). By your count, the article has been stable w CE format for 2½ years, so I suspect that if you took that argument to WP:ANI they would tell you that implies that editors at the article have been in consensus with CE for the past couple years (a 'silent majority'), and that you'd need to get a new consensus to change it. At least, that what I would predict.

As for omitting all mention, what would mean omitting all specific dates, which I suspect would be considered inappropriate for any historical topic. Kinda WP:pointy.

As for going off our particular sources, AFAIK that has never been considered a convincing argument. The reason is that sources tend to be all over the place, and we could come up with different sources that used the contrary convention. For example, we could find sources on British history that use American spelling, but that wouldn't be considered reason to change the spelling of the article, which generally follows the conventions of the country concerned. At least, that's what I'd predict from other disputes, but you're welcome to try. See WP:dispute resolution if you wish to pursue this and the talk page isn't getting you anywhere. — kwami (talk) 22:55, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Darkhat, and linguistic stubs

Hi Kwami! Two things:

1. You deleted "Darkhad (also "Darkhat" ; ISO 639-3 code: drh)" commenting that the code was retired. Given that I recreated the article with its current content, you might expect that I am all for retiring that code, but if I search the Ethnologue online (which seems to be of 2009 and unchanged), I still find it. So could you show me where you got that information from?

2. You are still very active with creating stubs of African languages. A few days ago I looked at unrated languages at WP Languages and was caught by surprise that the number of unrated languages was closing in on 700. I have them down to 550 by now, but getting them down to 20-50 again might still take a while. Given that most of the stubs you are create are not likely to be expanded by other editors in the near future, and given that stub is the only conceivable rating for an article consisting of no more than 4 clauses, you might consider rating them as stubs just when you create them.

Best, G Purevdorj (talk) 12:20, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

If you go to the Ethnologue page, you'll see the 16th edition. You won't see any changes until the 17th comes out. If you want to see what's happened to the coding in the meantime, you need to check the ISO code itself. Just click on it; drh is here. Retired effective last year.

I've been creating the stubs for cross-referencing, and also so that they and their relatives will reflect our classification rather than just copying Ethnologue's (which often isn't even really E's classification, as their display is frequently messed up). I'd be happy to create rating boxes if you can answer one question: is there any way to generate a list of the articles I've created? That won't catch when I've changed a redirect into an article, but it will get most of them. I could then automate them with AWB. Or maybe I could just scan that list of 550? Where is it? — kwami (talk) 12:30, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the first info! It ought to be possible to create a list from here, but it does not seem to work. It would of course be good if you could do it for the existing articles, but even taking this as a future recommendation might be worthwhile. G Purevdorj (talk) 14:17, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox language2

I see this page was recreated following its TfD. If this is test code which isn't going to be deployed, do you mind userfying it? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:40, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I recreate it when I need it, and then don't think to delete it. If I forget again and it's a bother, just go ahead and delete it. — kwami (talk) 13:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

About the use of /ɲ/ in Portuguese

Hello,

I trust you have carefully read my arguments now in the talk page. The usage of /ɲ/ is *wrong* as long as there is a specific phonetic transcription for Brazilian Portuguese. If there were only one, it would be fine -- but this would be like, say, using the glottal stop for 'tt' in pronunciation articles for American English when it is in fact a characteristic of the cockney accent. There is consensus about this -- the only lack of consensus is between those two particular editors (both of whom are *not* familiar with this distinction), who should not take charge of all phonetic transcriptions in Misplaced Pages. There is also consensus about using IPA to accurately reflect pronunciation within an agreed upon level of precision. The agreed-upon level of precision is "Brazilian Portuguese" which means that allophones that occur within Brazil may be used with impunity, but sounds which do not occur at all may not. This is simple and should not be cause for controversy. Since talk pages are usually ignored I would like suggestions on how to establish the fact that /ȷ̃/ is the correct transcription, especially considering that cited sources mention that very clearly. I was accused of "original research" and one of my edits was reverted simply due to the fact that I was not logged on (incidentally, WP:HUMAN). I trust you can see how the concept of "consensus" can be misleading if the people reading the talk page are not experts on the subject.

Thank you.Aesir.le (talk) 19:15, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter if it's "wrong". We have hundreds of articles that depend on that key. If you wish to change the conventions, fine: get some agreement that that's what we want to do, and then change all those hundreds of articles to match. — kwami (talk) 19:20, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Of course it matters that it's wrong, this is an encyclopedia. And it is a problem that the people among whom "consensus" should be reached are not actually experts on the subject! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aesir.le (talk • contribs) 19:27, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. "Wrong" only means you disagree, and an encyclopedia doesn't have to follow your opinions. There are other people who edit here. Give them credit for being able to understand your point, which is not a difficult one. — kwami (talk) 19:31, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

That's the thing, they do *not*. This is wrong in a very precise, scientific, sourced and verifiable way. It is *not* my opinion. You will not believe how many people mispronounce BP because of this unnecessary key. The TWO editors who disagree with me are unable to understand my point even if it's not difficult: Luizdl does not know what /ɲ/ sounds like (as can be deduced from another section in the talk page), so he cannot appreciate the distinction. Jaume87 does not speak Brazilian Portuguese, so he cannot appreciate the distinction. It is difficult to build "consensus" when the only two people who read my argument have no idea what I am talking about! You being a linguist should know an expert on the subject, if it is not too much to ask I would like their help.Aesir.le (talk) 19:37, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The question is how precise we should be to be most useful to our readers. We use /r/ for English, for example, even though it's not a trill. You may be right, that people mispronounce names because of us (I wouldn't know), and that would certainly be an argument in your favour. Currently we use ‹j̃› for something else, though, so IMO that should be changed first. — kwami (talk) 19:43, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, "this is wrong, retard" is not a productive comment. I've reverted your edits. It doesn't help our readers if we contradict ourselves from one article to the next. — kwami (talk) 19:46, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I know, I regretted it right after making it. The reverted edits made me really pissed off, and I apologise. But anyway: I did not know about the usage of /r/ in English, which does weaken my point -- but I read the talk page and (predictably) it also had an argument about the accuracy of the transcription. Apparently it was done because /r/ is easier to type in a keyboard and to recognize. The latter does hold true for /ɲ/, but not the former, so I'm not really sure if the lack of precision is worth the tradeoff. I am not sure what you mean by /j̃/ being used for something else, though, can you clarify? Aesir.le (talk) 20:00, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, in English the /r/ key was made to accommodate several dialects with many realizations of /r/, making excessive precision misplaced... which is also not the case in BP. To my knowledge, there is only one realization of the digraph 'nh' in BP, modulo some very isolated and specific dialects which may or may not exist. Aesir.le (talk) 20:14, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Easier to type isn't really an argument for using English ‹r› on WP: it's the reason so many of our sources use it, and therefor part of the reason it's familiar.

For Portuguese, it's easier on our readers if the dialects are transcribed the same, more precise if they are not. Again, a judgement call. If our sources use ‹ɲ›, then it may be familiar for that reason too. Neither are decisive arguments, but I'm afraid it will still come down to sources to establish the exact realization, and that it is distinctive between BP and EP; being a native speaker is of course a great help, but native speakers don't always know what they're talking about (in fact, they very often don't), so it's doubtful that will be sufficient. Also, do you know EP so you can contrast them? I don't know Portuguese myself, so I need to evaluate sources just like most of us. — kwami (talk) 07:21, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

By the way, his "sources" are Misplaced Pages articles, and those are not primary sources, I verified the source used in Portuguese phonology article that says: "In most of Brazil and Angola, the consonant hereafter denoted as /ɲ/ may be realized as a nasal palatal approximant ", and the verification failed, the cited source, available at Google Book, page 8, says the following:

1. At the beginning of a word, like Spanish ñ, similar to ny in canyon. Nhame, nhoque. Some regions of Brazil do not use this sound initially, replacing it with consonantal i. Iame, ioque.

2. Between vowels, like nasalised y. Manhã, cunha. The vowel which precedes it is also nasalized.

That means it is lenited--Luizdl (talk) 03:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian final devoicing

Hi. I missed this edit of yours, but for your information: Serbo-Croatian does not exhibit final devoicing. I'm going to put that information into Serbo-Croatian phonology article, but please revert your similar changes if you performed them in other articles; you edits are difficult to track due to sheer volume. No such user (talk) 06:49, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Good to know. — kwami (talk) 07:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Infobox language

Kwami, I've made a comment at Template talk:Infobox language#Colour choice regarding a change you recently made to a sub-template. Could you respond there? Kanguole 08:42, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

VAT: hyphenation question

Hi, I've asked Noetica, Dicklyon and you for your opinion on this question concerning article titles. I'd be pleased if you had the time to comment. Tony (talk) 14:14, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Labial-velar consonant

Hi kwami, somehow this article's title (still) uses a hyphen, whereas in-text you switched it to dashes months ago. Does this have any particular reason? --JorisvS (talk) 17:15, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Not really. Just easier to type, and I didn't think it made much diff. I'll move it. — kwami (talk) 17:17, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, well, for ease of typing we can simply have the redirects, can't we? --JorisvS (talk) 17:41, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

-isa, -iza ?

Hello, there is no revert war starting here, but our article International English uses the -isation form as does all articles which use British, Australian, New Zealand etc. English. Unsure about India which seems to swap between American English which uses -ization, British English (-isation) and Hindlish (perfectly acceptable, in my view, for articles of lower importance). Regards Crusoe8181 (talk) 08:47, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

That seems odd, since British English also switches back & forth, and the OED exclusively uses -ization. — kwami (talk) 12:20, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Kallawaya people

Please read Talk:Kallawaya people. I had to request the page move from Kallawaya people a few months ago. This is not an ethnic group. Could you please reverse your undiscussed, unilateral move of this page? Thank you. -Uyvsdi (talk) 05:21, 7 October 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Okay. Moved to Kallawayas, since Kallawaya should be a dab. Odd that you never bothered to change the lead, which still says "Kalawaya people". — kwami (talk) 05:35, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Seriously, why move it to a plural? Please restore the article to "Kallawaya," as per WP:SINGULAR. Uyvsdi (talk) 16:54, 8 October 2011 (UTC) Uyvsdi

The sg is a dab page, as it should be. The pl is the people page, as it should be per WP:NCP. — kwami (talk) 17:24, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Criminy. You don't make dab pages for two links, as per WP:TWODABS. Please restore the article to its name. -Uyvsdi (talk) 20:44, 9 October 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Actually, you do make dab pages for two links. We do it all the time, per TWODABS. But I suppose in this case you might argue that the people are the primary topic, though that could hard to defend if challenged. Certainly for the literature I'm familiar with, the language is the primary topic. — kwami (talk) 20:53, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Hessian dialects edits beginning 13:59, 7 October 2011‎

greetings, would be good if the Hessian dialect article is reviewed by yourself,as some changes have been made there, and also within the discussion page. Drift chambers (talk) 15:54, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Talkback (autolang)

So there's no confusion, I just got a username change from Nicky Nouse to Airhogs777.

Slavic peoples - assimilate/dissimilate

Hi there. I intend to restore my references to dissimilation but we need to establish things between ourselves first. I am sure that my wording is correct. It is true that to dissimilate means to "make something unsimilar" but that is the precise point. The sticky point is that the word assimilate is widely and incorrectly taken to mean this. People often say, "The Romans assimilated the Goths after the Goths invaded Roman lands" and this would mean that the Romans became the same as the Goths. Had this been so, the French would still speak a Germanic tongue and the idea of having Frankish ancestry would not suddenly end at France's own border but would stretch to surviving Germanic language populations across borders when Romance languages are spoken. The words are antonyms and used in direct contrast to each other; so if X assimilates Y, X now has the appearance of Y and a single identity (whether it be named X,Y, or something else) exists. However, the very same chapter when observed from the other angle sees that Y has dissimilated X. On the article in question, the section deals with cases where Slavic people lost their identity in some places but won over other populations in others. Do you agree? Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 22:19, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

You have it backwards. To assimilate means to make like. It's causative. So "The Romans assimilated the Goths" means the Romans made the Goths like the Romans. If it were the Romans who changed, you'd need to make the verb intransitive: "The Romans assimilated to the Goths".

I've never heard "dissimilate" in this sense. The rarity of the construction itself would make it difficult for readers to understand. If you wrote "The Slavs dissimilated the Romanians", I wouldn't understand what you meant. If I knew nothing about either people, I might think the Romanians were Slavs who split off and became un-Slav-like (dissimilated from other Slavs). Or maybe that the Romanians were like another people, and they became unlike that people and more like the Slavs – that is, that the Slavs had assimilated them. So I'd probably change the word "disimmilate" to "assimilate", thinking that's what you meant. — kwami (talk) 22:31, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

This is very tricky and needs urgent attention. I have long known of the word's misuse but these past minutes I have been looking into it. This description here confirms my point, as do older dictionaries and modern-day pedants; this however here supports your version. Language is mutable - you know how the word "billion" often has to be specified by stating how many digits a number is to distinguish shortwave (N.Amer) from longwave (British). I amended the intro on Cultural assimilation to the meaning I was advocating but looking down at the article, 90% of the usage is consistent with "become the same as". It seems people don't know one from the other and a word is being used liberally to mean one thing or its complete opposite. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 23:10, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, they both support my reading. I think you're misreading the Chamber's dictionary. And even if the word had your definition in the 18th century, it doesn't any more.

The OED has examples going back to the 16th century, and the word's always had this meaning.

I undid your changes to cultural assimilation. They were also backwards. — kwami (talk) 23:16, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Well now you need to follow suit and rewrite the entire article as most of it agrees with my original. It is still widely referred to in many sources as "become the same as" but I will grant you one thing. Having read the full description on Chambers, you'll see that numbers 2 and 5 directly contradict each other. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 23:29, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

No, (2) and (5) say basically the same thing.

It's "become the same as" when intransitive. It's "make the same as" when transitive. Like "the animals are feeding" vs. "feed the animals". The latter does not mean to eat the animals.

I don't see anyplace else in the article where the meaning's reversed. — kwami (talk) 23:32, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Intransitive doesn't take an object, so what does the sentence Germans assimilated mean? That Germans spent this time turning into something else? If so, how can taking an object mean something the opposite? Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 23:42, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry. I can see it now - trans. and intrans. are true opposites here and I had been confused by the latter. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 23:46, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, just like "break", "feed", "open", "close", "stop", "start", "walk", "run", "fell", etc. — kwami (talk) 23:48, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what to do now. I've made dozens if not hundreds of edits to the opposite effect and all passed censors these past six years. When I encounter them, I shall amend them but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack! Atleast I know for future, it only means as I believed it to when intransitive. We got to the bottom of it and that's what is important. Thanks Kwami. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 23:58, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Yikes! And you've got 20,000 edits. Let me see if I can come up with something.

Okay. You've edited 6,900 articles in main space. This is doable, if you want to fix it. Have you ever used AWB? Download that, load up your edits and filter for main space / remove duplicates (you should have just under 6,900), and scan for assimilat-. (Say, find assimilat & replace w XXXX.) If you run a "preparse" scan, it will toss out all the articles that don't have that word in them. You can let it run while you have dinner. (Maybe half an hour, depending on how slow the server is that day.) Then it's a matter of going through them one by one, but at least you know which articles they are, and AWB will highlight all instances of the word and only display their immediate context, so you don't have to read much. Still time consuming, but doable. And you can always save what you haven't gotten to for another day. If you're unfamiliar with AWB, I can walk you through it. — kwami (talk) 00:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

147 of your articles have the word. Slavic peoples has it right. — kwami (talk) 03:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

HOME STAR

Hello, I was wondering if you can revert the name back of the HOME STAR article to the original cap. The explanation is also in the talk page. Thank you. --Manop - TH (talk) 03:42, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Tetserret and Taznatit

Everything written on Tetserret in the last decade calls it Tetserret, including the two longest sources ever written on the language - one by a native speaker. Why move it to Tin Sert? Are there even any authors who call it "Tin Sert"?

As for Taznatit, calling it Zenati is etymologically correct, but rather confusing, given that "Zenati" is also in common use to describe a large subgroup of Berber of which Taznatit is just one member. "Gourara Berber" might be more helpful, but excludes the Touat varieties. - Lameen Souag (talk) 10:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The tetserret material was in French and even then hyphenated the name, so no name is established in English, but you may be right. Tin Sert seems more accessible though.

Zenati is established in English and is also more easily recognizable, since our readers are unlikely to know much about Berber morphology. We have hundreds of language-family branches named after a language within them. It's almost the default situation. So, for Zenati & the Zenati languages they only need to know one name, whereas for Taznatit & Zenati they have to know two. Going over my edit list since yesterday, there's Hlai languages & Hlai, Hindi languages & Hindi, Muji languages & Muji, Dhimal languages & Dhimal, Hruso languages & Hruso, Padam languages & Padam, Nishi languages & Nishi, Gallong languages & Gallong, etc. etc.

Is Tidikelt a dialect of Taznatit? — kwami (talk) 11:40, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Tetserrét is never hyphenated, in French or otherwise. Shinsart is sometimes hyphenated or separated, based on the folk etymology that derives it from Sirt in Libya (almost certainly wrongly). Tin Sert has no non-Misplaced Pages hits on Google that I can spot, and I've never seen it in any of the half-dozen articles that have been written on Tetserrét (none of which are in English.) The only English publications to mention Tetserret that I know of offhand are Kossmann (2003), my PhD thesis, and my 2010 article, and all three of these call it Tetserrét.

As for Zenati, I'm not sure any term can really be said to be established in English - no article specifically on the language has ever been published in English. In my own work I call it Taznatit, which is what the speakers call it, like Ethnologue. Kossmann prefers "Timimoun Berber" or "Gourara Berber". However, I can't think of any scholarly publication in English that has called it "Zenati" - can you cite an example? - Lameen Souag (talk) 16:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

As for Tidikelt, probably, but I don't know for sure - there's not a lot of published material on it. - Lameen Souag (talk) 16:29, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Hyphenation was taken from the French source, and only used for parsing. We should note more clearly that it's a folk etymology, I think: we currently suggest Sirt is a likely homeland because of it. Which language is the form Tin Sert from, BTW? Can't cite Zenati specifically for this language at present, but it is established in English for the group, and is the same name. — kwami (talk) 16:53, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Tin Sert? Some variant of Tuareg, presumably, to judge by the forms cited in Lux; you put it in here, so perhaps I should be asking you where you found it!

I don't follow your reasoning on Zenati at all; one of the more useful habits of English is distinguishing between forms like "Turkish" and "Turkic" (which are of course the same name, in origin and in present-day Turkish), or "German" and "Germanic". - Lameen Souag (talk) 13:21, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I found it in your sources! That's why I was asking you.

Yes, it can be useful to have distinctions like Turkish and Turkic. But those are transparent to the reader, because they're English morphology. If it were Zenati and Zenatish or Zenatic, there would be no problem. But Taznatit is opaque. Few readers will note any similarity at all. A better parallel would be "Osmanlı" and "Turkic". — kwami (talk) 06:32, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Umm al Rizam

Ra' (ر) letter in Arabic language belongs to the group of Arabic letters names "Sun Letters" (الحروف الشمسية), so in pronunciation it's more appropriate for al+Rizam to be ar Rizam.--Maher27777 (talk) 12:44, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Our convention has been not to do that. Check the other towns. — kwami (talk) 12:48, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Truth

Ay dumbass("Kwamikagami"), you can't hide the truth. The Serer people originate in the Nile Valley, they migrated from there onto west Africa in 300 B.C.E. They were temple and pyramid builders in ancient Egypt and ancient Sudan, thus is why "Serer" means "those who trace the lines of the temples". Also quit lying, you're not African, so leave African history alone. We(meaning, those whom are actually African), are the only ones truly in position to speak about African history.

Is this a joke? — kwami (talk) 14:35, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Breage, Cornwall

Hello, Could you add IPA pronunciation details here: "Breage (Cornish: Eglosvreg) is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is situated three miles (5 km) west of Helston." The 1st edition of the BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names (1971) gives prounciation as "brayg" first, followed by "breeg". The first is used locally and elsewhere in Cornwall, the second is a Standard English pronunciation. The 2nd edition of the dictionary gives only "breeg" but I think both should be given as in the 1971 edition. If it is added it can still be adapted by someone with more local knowledge.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 07:24, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Done. If you use {{IPAc-en}}, with a little practice you can spell it out and it generates the IPA for you. — kwami (talk) 14:56, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you; I'll see how well it works when I come to the next one.-Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 17:33, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll be happy to review when you do if you're not sure. — kwami (talk) 18:23, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Info boxes

Thanks for that hint. I suppose sometimes a language is spoken by more than one ethnic group and sometimes an ethnic group will speak more than one language, but usually they will be the same. I will try to remember to use the parameter in future. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:27, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Languages link together well, with clear relationships and groupings. Ethnicity is a more confused and subjective concept. As far as I can tell, an ethnic group is a group of people who think they belong to the same ethnic group. Geography is one way to link them, which sometimes works. I tried that with Indigenous people of Oaxaca, with a matching template. But I hesitate to make an overview article or template for the hundreds of ethnic groups in the DRC. Often the text will provide natural links between neighboring or interacting groups, and that may be the best way to link them. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:18, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. It is useful to have links to ethnic groups in the language infoboxes, and links to languages in the ethnic group infoboxes. I should do that more consistently. The language group boxes are useful to navigate between languages. It would be convenient if there were some equivalent way to connect related ethnic groups, but any attempt would probably lead to endless controversy given the fuzzy nature of the "ethnic group" concept. Aymatth2 (talk) 11:45, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Notice re: edit warring complaint filed at WP:3RR

Kwamikagami, please consider this to be formal notice that I have filed a report at WP:3RR regarding your ongoing edit warring at Dwarf planet and related articles. Please note that - as I have stated in my report - I have no desire to see you needlessly blocked. However, you have repeatedly refused to address concerns raised over your changes to the articles, and you have also ignored the concerns noted in the RfC discussion over your making disputed changes during the RfC. The complaint can be found here. --Ckatz_spy 07:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Tadaksahak language

No publication in any language has ever used the spelling "Daksahak" (neither for the language not for the people), although a wide variety of other spellings have been used. I would appreciate it if you can move this page back to its original title, which reflects normal usage in linguistic publications in English. - Lameen Souag (talk) 11:31, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit warring/3RR warning

Your recent edits seem to have the appearance of edit warring after a review of the reverts you have made on Dwarf planet. Users are expected to collaborate and discuss with others and avoid editing disruptively.

Please be particularly aware, the three-revert rule states that:

1. Making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period is almost always grounds for an immediate block.
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss the changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing without further notice.
Please refrain from editing the article during the report at WP:AN3. + Crashdoom 02:58, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Your Esperanto Edit

Regarding your edit of the Esperanto article here. I am puzzled by your use of "rvv" in your edit summary. Could you indicate to me the vandalism you were reverting? Thanks. --Escape Orbit 09:59, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

No vandalism. Just multiple edits. (Not sure what the plural of 'rv' is. 'rvv' was my guess.) — kwami (talk) 08:27, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Language

Hi Kwami. I am thinking that our article on Language should be an FA, would you like to help me with this? Your knowledge, editing skills and attention to detail would be greatly appreciated. I am asking other Language specialists for help as well on writing sections for the article on their topics of specialization. I think the article deserves to be better. Thanks!·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:24, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Blocked

During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection.

(X! · talk)  · @932  ·  21:22, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Kwamikagami (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

There is no indication of what I have been blocked for: Which article? Where is the discussion at ANI? I have not been notified on my talk page or by email of any such discussion. (A generic warning above, but no link to any report.) For a proper block request, I need to be notified so that I can defend myself. — kwami (talk) 05:04, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
It appears that it's for the dwarf planet article. (1) I stopped editing that article after Crashdoom's (unlinked) warning. AFAIK, we do not block people for edit warring if they are not edit warring. (2) the claim that I broke 3RR is AFAICT false (looking at this month; no changes listed at ANI). (3) Ckatz was edit warring on that article and yet has not been blocked. — kwami (talk) 05:26, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Also, 3 days?

Accept reason:

Unblocked as the user has accepted the condition of not editing Dwarf planet, the target of edit warring and the reason for the block. Materialscientist (talk) 10:48, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I personally think that some of contribs are very good, and I'm less impressed by others, but at least you are focused the goals of the encyclopedia. The same cannot be said for the blocking admin . Blocking is a very bad form of communication, and this block achieves nothing; it is punitive and thuggish. My condolences. cygnis insignis 05:36, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I would be willing to unblock provided kwami promises not to edit Dwarf planet (build a consensus at talk pages and let others implement it; edit other articles). Materialscientist (talk) 08:56, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I accept. Probably needs DR anyway. I've mostly been editing language articles. — kwami (talk) 10:23, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

tsktsk! You're making incorrect assumptions.

Oh, please! Your removal of my changes in Words without vowels certainly do not AGF. Could I somehow have a secret agenda from the tsktsks alliance?! tsktsk is in every normal dictionary I own. The only exception is my Baus, not a true dictionary. m-w.com lists it, as does wiktionary. You can argue it's just an interjection, but wiktionary lists it as both an interjection and a verb. Maybe it's also been corrupted by that secret alliance.

More seriously, the article is titled "Words without vowels", yet you want to relegate the actual discussion of words without vowels -- the only paragraph in the article which is actually about the supposed subject -- to the last paragraph of the subsection labeled "Words without vowel letters." In that section, the first five paragraphs discuss words with letters that are used as vowels (Y and W) and the next two discuss a non-word and a poem. You relegate it to a "see also" next to a sentence that talks about a bunch of non-dictionary interjections (only tsk, no !, is in the dictionary), and where is the reference for that information anyway?

Is there any logic to your attempt to squelch actual information? I can find none.

Edits like yours hurt Misplaced Pages and drive away contributors. Please stop and let me know that you will accept this useful and correct addition, plus the rearrangement of that section to actually discuss words without vowels before words with non-normal vowels (or a split into two subsections, with the discussion of words without vowels first).

Thanks. RoyLeban (talk) 08:16, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm arguing that it isn't the longest word without vowels, as you keep insisting. If you would read that section, you'd see there are other words that are just as long. It's a bit ridiculous to claim that it's the longest word and then to give examples that belie that claim. — kwami (talk) 08:18, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

You're the one who isn't reading, either on Misplaced Pages or elsewhere. Y and W are serving as vowels. Read Y and W. The words with Y and W do not lack vowels. That is simply wrong. They lack A,E,I,O, or U. I have edited the article again. Please don't edit war, especially when you don't seem to know the subject.

If you truly think I am wrong, point to a single source that says Y and W are not used as vowels in the words in the new second section and point to a single source that says any of those other interjections are actually words. Only tsk and tsktsks are in dictionaries as words. RoyLeban (talk) 08:55, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Go look here List of English words of Welsh origin and you'll find there are more than two words from Welsh in English that use W as a vowel. And there are probably more than listed on Misplaced Pages. Your statement above basically says that the article already says something ("read that section"), so it can't possibly be wrong. That makes no sense. It is wrong to claim that Y isn't a vowel in that case. Y makes that clear, but so does any dictionary. RoyLeban (talk) 08:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The section is about words which lack vowel letters. Y and W are consonant letters. Syzygy etc. do not have vowel letters: that's why that poem full of wyes is said to have no vowels. You claim that tsk-tsks is the longest word without vowel letters, and then give other words which are equally long. — kwami (talk) 09:03, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

This is why I split the sections. Take a look. I did not create the article. I just added an obvious omission to it. your comment makes it sound like I'm giving the examples of letters with Y's and W's in it. If you read the Y article you will see very clearly that Y can be a vowel. That's why it is frequently said that the English vowels are "A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y". (Is English your native language? If it was, you would have heard that statement like a million times in school.) Syzygy certainly has vowels. It just doesn't have AEIOU. If it were completely up to me, I'd remove all the stuff about Y and W words, but somebody else thought it was important to have that information in the article, and I'm ok with it. But, I'm not ok with that being an excuse for misinformation. RoyLeban (talk) 09:17, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

You're confusing a phonetic vowel with a graphic vowel. Speech and writing are not the same thing. "Y" is generally considered a consonant letter, as in that poem. Of course it can stand for a vowel: that's half the point of that section. However, if you're going to go by that criterion, R is also a vowel, as is H, G, J, and probably several others, while I and U (and probably E and O) are consonants. That's why we have two sections: consonant & vowel letters vs. consonant & vowel sounds. But I'll take a look at your latest. — kwami (talk) 09:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not confused. tsktsks, nth, and pwn have no letter which serves as a vowel. Every letter is pronounced as a consonant and the vowel sound is between the given letters (well, in pwn, it depends on how it's pronounced). Consider also the name Flickr, in which neither the k nor the r is a vowel -- the vowel sound is between those two letters. This is not true of the words in the new second section, in which there are letters that stand in for vowels.

You are right that various other letters also substitute as a vowel sound at times and that vowels are sometimes used as consonants. That might be another good addition to the article, expanding its scope. (unless there is already ano article about that on Misplaced Pages).

BTW, have not seen the poem. There does not appear to be a link to it on Misplaced Pages. RoyLeban (talk) 09:35, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, "A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes W" (as the song goes), but it is common to say that "nymph" has no "vowels".

See ref 2 for the poem.

Yes, I think it's worth mentioning, more prominently than we had, that words like tsktsks have no letters that stand for vowels. I rearranged the sections a bit to follow the lead. As for pwn, that's hard to say, since it's a typo. I put it in with the W-as-a-vowel words, since w remains from ow, which was the original vowel. But I suppose you could say that the p is a vowel, or maybe silent, if you pronounce it "own". Not something we can really define, I think. And then of course there are words like ssssssssssssh!, mmmm-mmmmmm!, grrrrrrrr!, and zzzzzzzzzzzzz which are longer than tsktsks, so we need to say the latter is the longest lexical word (excluding interjections and mimesis). — kwami (talk) 09:52, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I really don't understand your insistence, on many levels. You want the section on words that have non-normal vowel letters to be inaccurately named "Words without vowel letters". That's simply an inaccurate description. The words list have vowel letters -- Y and W. Read Y if you don't believe me. And you want that to be before the section which actually discusses words which have no vowel letters at all. And you want that section to also be inaccurately named. There are hundreds of thousands of words without Y or W. There are very few words without a vowel letter of any kind.

Your point on pwn is valid. It's hard to tell if w is a vowel or not. If Misplaced Pages were actually edited instead of being an internet phenomenon, pwn probably wouldn't even be in this article.

Most people would consider a word in the dictionary (like tsktsks and nth) a word. Calling it a lexical word just makes it confusing. To your point, I removed "lexical" and added "which are not listed in dictionaries" to the interjections line.

You're also being sloppy. An extra = sign, "See" misspelled. I'm trying not to be driven away. I'm trying again. Words without a vowel letter first, followed by Words with a Y as a vowel and Words with a W as a vowel. A few other text changes for that, plus a bit more on pwn.

RoyLeban (talk) 02:57, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

If you do not want to restrict it to lexical words, then you cannot say that tsktsks is the longest word without vowels. It obviously isn't, as 30 seconds on Google Books will demonstrate. All you can say is that it's the longest word in a particular dictionary, which isn't particularly interesting.

As for my insistence, we follow common usage when making claims about common usage. You may want usage to be different, but that's not your decision to make. — kwami (talk) 03:11, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I spent 60 seconds on Google Books and didn't find any longer words without vowel letters. If you know of a word referenced by Google books, by all means let me know and let's add it to the article! The singular tsktsk is in every dictionary I own. I own a bunch. It's also on wiktionary and m-w.com. The interjections are in zero of the dictionaries I own, etc. It's not my opinion. tsktsks is a word, a dictionary word, a lexical word, whatever you want to call it. The interjections are not.

I don't understand what you're saying about common usage. I'm not talking about common usage. The references about common usage all predate my first edit. I merely wordsmithed them. If you think they are not accurate, edit them.

I just undid your revert. Your revert is hostile and not in the spirit of Misplaced Pages. You reintroduced errors you had previously made, including typos and blatantly incorrect headings. You have a personal opinion that the actual subject of the article should be buried in the third section (which I clearly disagree with). You have never stated why you think it is important to relegate this information below other less relevant information. I can't even argue with you when you have not made your case. Your edit comment that the article disagrees with the lead is ridiculous. (a) It is not true. (b) If it is true, the lead is not sacrosanct -- if it is inaccurate, change it.

Is your goal to make Misplaced Pages more accurate or to win an argument?RoyLeban (talk) 03:26, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

My goal is to have WP reflect reality rather than whatever you happen to feel reality should be today.

Let's see, here's one in a book title. 9 leters, 3000 hits.. 10 letters, 1800 hits. 12 letters, 1200 hits. 20 letters, 50 hits. 30 letters, 3 hits. Etc. Though I see you're making that distinction now, you don't account for the fact that mimesis is similarly unbounded.

You tell me to correct the thing you just reverted me for correcting, and somehow that means I'm "hostile"? Are you nuts? You're edit warring without consideration for the quality of the article (not that it's much to begin with). I will continue to revert you, per WP:BOLD until you figure out what a discussion page is for. — kwami (talk) 03:44, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Can you point to shhh or any of those other interjections in any dictionary? I've looked and they're not there. tsktsks is. That is reality. Not my opinion or yours. The fact that somebody used some sequence of letters as if it was a word somewhere once doesn't make it a word. If it did, just reading James Joyce would give us a lot more words! Contrast that with Shakespeare and Lewis Carroll -- words they coined are in the dictionary. That's the authority, not me! I don't understand mimesis comment at all.

Yes, I think your revert was hostile. No, I'm not nuts. I'm citing the dictionary. You're citing yourself and the article itself (in the lead). I'm taking your opinion into account in my edits. That's why I split Y and W. I augmented the pwn paragraph in response to your comments. I would say I'm being WP:BOLD and you're the one edit warring. Simply reverting instead of trying to improve is not bold. But, let's forget about that. I'll avoid being offended.

You have way more time than I do. Frequently (and unfortunately) editors with more time "win" and Misplaced Pages is the worse for it. I'll create a section on the talk page of the article so others can weigh in. RoyLeban (talk) 04:56, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Language is more than just what's in the dictionary. If you want to make that your criterion, you need to say "in the/a/my dictionary". That's what "lexical word" means, though you can word it other ways.

A lot of Lewis Carroll's words are not in the dictionary, not even the OED, because no-one else has used them. However, that's obviously not the case with s.t. that gets thousands of hits on GBooks. It happens that the OED does illustrate a longer sssh (it has S-s-s-s-s-s-sh!, 8 letters), though that's just the luck of the draw and it wouldn't matter if it didn't. — kwami (talk) 05:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I have added a section to the talk page. We should discuss there. I would appreciate it you would make a list of your points in a similar format to what I did to make it easy for other contributors. I'll make a couple quick comments here:

• Language evolves, but m-hm is not new. If any dictionary compiler thought it was a word, they have had ample time to add it. That argument works for pwn, not interjections.
• Lewis Carroll made up a lot of things that aren't words. WP:MADEUP applies to him as well.
• There is all sorts of crap that gets thousands or millions of Google hits that is irrelevant. Google Books is no different. It has to be used with a grain of salt.
• If sssssssh is in OED (one of the few dictionaries I don't own), then I'm fine with saying it's a word. Does OED list sh, ssh, sssh, all the way to sssssssh? When you say "illustrate" what do you mean? Are any of those a bold-face entry in the OED?

RoyLeban (talk) 05:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

The point is that what's a word or not a word is a matter of opinion. There is no clear-cut answer unless you're playing Scrabble, but that's just a game.

The OED says: An exclamation used to enjoin silence or noiselessness; = HUSH int. The reduplication or prolongation of the sound is indicated by sh-sh, s-s-sh, and the like (see quots.).

They just happen to give a citation that uses 8 letters. But that's not really relevant: extension is the norm. It's not like sh with 8 letters is official but with 7 letters is not. It's fluid. Other interjections and mimesis (sss, zzz, vroooooom! etc.) are similar. — kwami (talk) 05:31, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. There's no clear cut definition, so you're right? It's a matter of opinion, so your opinion is the one we should follow? If you disagree with me on what should be in the article, please respond there. The goal here is to have Misplaced Pages be accurate.

Your citation of the OED is meaningless without context. Is this in the definition of interjection? exclamation? sssssssh? Please give the whole entry. Things within references in articles in dictionaries are not generally considered to be definitional -- that's what definitions (boldface entries) are for! This is pretty widely accepted. Do you have a citation that "extension is the norm" for any actual word whatsoever? I can't find one.

Your arguments are all over the map. Do you have a logical reason for the claim that Y and W aren't vowels? A citation? Do you have a citation for the statement that sssh is a word?

Do you have any logical reason why, in an article that is about words without vowels, the actual information on words without vowels should be relegated to a paragraph inside a subsection?

I don't understand your usage of mimesis. I can't find a definition that matches your usage.

You're wasting a lot of my time. Clearly you have more time. Please discuss in the article's talk page. Here you're just giving your opinion.

RoyLeban (talk) 06:50, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I won't waste any more of your time. I was trying to work with you, but really it's up to you to justify your edits; I don't need to waste my time to justify what's there, especially if you're immune to other points of view than your own. Present a coherent and informed reason for changing the stable version of the article, or be reverted. — kwami (talk) 07:00, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Pages moved or deleted?

Sir, could you tell me where the article for the different branches of the Drividian family have gone? I am a linguist and have put a lot of work into these.

Regards. Bruinfan12 (talk) 01:55, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

They all contained less info than the main article, so they were merged into it. The edits are still there in the page histories. The one with the most info was S. Drav., but all that was was a list of populations: a WP:CONTENTFORK that could cause problems in synchronizing with the language articles. There was no information on S. Drav. itself: what makes it distinctive, what defines it, its history, sound changes, different scholars' opinions on what constitutes it, etc, so it was essentially nothing more than a list and was not actually about S. Drav. The articles for the other branches were similar but had even less to them. — kwami (talk) 02:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Unilateral moves and dab pages

Could you please slow down with your undiscussed, unilateral moves of ethnic group pages, particularly with articles that are actively edited by a number of users, such as Nez Perce? It doesn't take much time to simply introduce a move proposal on the talk page and gather consensus. Also, WP:Twodabs clearly states that disambiguation pages should not be created for terms with only two links. These should redirect to the WP:Primarytopic. And lastly, when you do make moves, could you follow through and fix all the double redirects? Instead of leaving the clean up job for other users. -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Actually, TWODABS *does* say that we use dab pages for two links. Please read the guideline. See also WP:NCP.

I'll take a look at cleaning it up. — kwami (talk) 17:50, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I've read it on numerous occasions. "If there are only two topics to which a given title might refer, and one is the primary topic, then a disambiguation page is not needed." I know that "people" is the customary description for ethnic groups; however, some of these groups are also polities, including tribes. There's absolutely nothing wrong with engaging other users on very actively edited articles. -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:00, 18 October 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

The problem is that there's no primary topic. Is the primary topic of "English" the English people? We're generally agreed that ethnicity and language generally both have a good claim; in many cases it's actually the language rather than the ethnicity. (And if it's a tribe, we can use that word.) This is specifically addressed at WP:NCP and WP:NCLANG. Unless there's something unusual about the Nez Perce which sets them apart? — kwami (talk) 18:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Arguably, the language is one facet of the culture of the ethnic group, along with their religion/philosophy, aesthetics, etc. In instances where the language has gained importance beyond the ethnic group, it would be the primary topic — as in your example of English language, which has fair more speakers than there are members of the English people, ethnic group. The primary example would be Latin, the language, versus Latins (Italic tribe) (both atypically named). In instances where the language is widely studied and the ethnic group has been wiped out, the language would be the primary topic. But, especially in instances where the language is only spoken by a small minority of the ethnic group, the ethnic group would be primary over the language, e.g. Kaw people over Kansa language or Lakota people (viewed 31,433 times over the last 30 days) over Lakota language (viewed 5988 times over the last 30 days), etc.

Our mutual goal is to make Misplaced Pages more usable and impart pertinent information to people. Creating dab pages while not updating any of the links from other articles to the previously moved page doesn't help. Obviously you are going to continue doing what you're doing, but could you discuss moves first on pages that are actively edited by a number of people to gain consensus? And could you fix double redirects when you move, as well as fix links from other articles when you create a dab pages? -Uyvsdi (talk) 21:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

I'm in the middle of fixing the links (the WP server is extremely slow today), and I've already started a discussion on the talk page. — kwami (talk) 21:21, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Why are you now changing articles like Bannock people to Bannock tribe? If the article name is fine and there's no problem with it, don't move it. -Uyvsdi (talk) 23:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Which "articles like"?

As for your examples above, it's not just a matter of viewing stat. When s.o. looks up an article, they have no idea what the viewing stats are; and people can hardly be expected to remember that Kansa goes one way but Lakota the other (or whatever). With links like "Nez Perce word" and "Nez Perce war", a dab page is better than the wrong one. At least, I think that's part of the rational behind NCP. — kwami (talk) 23:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, not "articles like." Why on earth did you change Bannock people to Bannock tribe? The page did not require renaming/moving. Regarding stats, of course the users aren't going to look up the stats; the stats just indicate what users are looking for. Common sense also comes into play. -Uyvsdi (talk) 00:29, 19 October 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

A while ago I was working with another editor to move all articles named "X tribe" if they weren't actually about a tribe. I realized that the Bannock are a tribe, so I moved it back (apart from the parentheses). We don't need it there, of course, and I may be wrong on that, though currently almost all links are to 'tribe'. — kwami (talk) 00:35, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Kwamikagami, many Native Americans consider the word "tribe" to be condescending at best and sometimes even offensive (even though it's commonly used). Much better to keep "people" or "nation" as a title name unless the group, for some reason, feels quite strongly that they want to be called a "tribe." (Sometimes even their legal name was given to them by the white man and thus they keep "tribe" as a legal convenience, but still prefer "nation"). I'll spare you the bit on the legal status as dependent sovereign nations of Native Americans in the USA, but "nation" is generally appropriate if you feel you cannot say "people." Montanabw 19:30, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that it's offensive if they're not a tribe. This is now reflected at WP:NCP. That's why I've moved dozens of articles (if not hundreds, if you don't just count North America) from that wording. However, sometimes they are tribes. If you have reason to specifically move that article too that's fine, but I haven't done so (except by mistake) for actual tribes. — kwami (talk) 19:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm just sticking with American Indians, where I have some knowledge, and the preferred terms that many ask to be used (which is not universal amongst the hundreds of groups). Sometimes even if a group might fit the dictionary definition of "tribe" or everyone on the outside uses the term, they still don't want to be called one, so I figure it best to call people what they want to be called. And conversely, some just sort of throw up their hands and say "fine, call us a tribe if you must," but it still doesn't mean they are actually thrilled with it. Kind of one of those nuance things that you pick up when you are in the general millieu. Google searches on this are kind of useless, for example Tohono O'odham gets about 500,000 hits, but it's their name, versus a search on "Papago Indian" which would be considered outdated and disfavored, gets over a million hits. Usually with Native Americans, its best to just say "people" unless you have the time to research the issue for each individual group. On that topic, I think my favorite has to be Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation. (smile) Montanabw 20:25, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

That's fine. Move it if you like. It was at "tribe" like dozens of others when I got here. Most of the rest I moved, sometimes to vociferous opposition. Also, I don't know if the Bannock are or were a tribal society. If they were organized into bands, then calling them a "tribe" would be inaccurate because their society did not have a tribal level of organization; but AFAIK calling them a "nation" would also be incorrect, as AFAIK they are part of the Paiute nation. — kwami (talk) 20:34, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to cut in, but can I suggest we move this discussion (regarding dabs, not avoiding the word tribe, which seems to be uncontroversial) to Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (people)#Articles on peoples (ethnicities and tribes) and seek wider input? Obviously this is something that affects thousands of articles and although kwami is correct there is a prior consensus summarised in WP:NCP and WP:NCLANG to created a dab page, it seems to me that this was based on discussion (i.e. Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (languages)#Clarification) mainly if not exclusively between people who work on language articles, not people who work on ethnicity/indigenous peoples articles. I don't necessarily have a strong opinion for or against the status quo, but the lack of an unambiguous convention has tripped me up in the past, and I think that having clear consensus one way or the other would help avoid edit wars flaring up about this in future. joe•roe 20:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure.

There was notification for the ethnicity folks, though there didn't seem to be much interest. It seemed uncontroversial to not call peoples "tribes" unless they were tribes or had "Tribe" in their name. — kwami (talk) 20:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll do the rounds of the relevant WikiProjects and see if we can't get a better turnout this time. joe•roe 21:11, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay. My proposal at the time was the rather obvious "let's not call them tribes if they're not tribes". We didn't have any real discussion about what to do when the are tribes. Personally, I find it rather offensive to insist on not using the word "tribe" when it's appropriate: by doing so we're saying that their society is invalid because it doesn't match our values. Tribal societies are tribal, and it's not up to us to tell them that they shouldn't be. — kwami (talk) 21:17, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

It's calling people what they prefer to be called, and when in doubt, to err on the side of avoiding terms that might cause offense, which in the case of American Indian people, I admit can be sort of a minefield, as some groups take issue with certain terms, some don't, and in some cases, the people themselves are internally split on the issue, often due to longstanding political issues and even family rivalries. There were a lot of the white man's words used to describe Indian people that they did not choose for themselves, and thus even when sometimes a term might technically be somewhat accurate, it's best to avoid it when there is emotional baggage attached. Montanabw 19:19, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, usually, if we know that's the case. However, calling people what they prefer to be called can also cause problems, as witnessed by the several ARBCOM decisions on Macedonian. — kwami (talk) 19:25, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Oman

In the article Oman, should we really keep this "Oman is one of the most developed and stable countries in the Arab World, though its government does not permit any form of liberal democracy. In the wake of the Arab Spring in 2011, several civilian protests took place demanding greater political freedom, and civil rights", since when wikipedia talks about a country small protests (which has ended) in the lead, plus the part about no liberal democracy is that also needed in the lead, although its not totally correct. See this Bahrain voice (talk) 17:48, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you're arguing for or against. I would expect that changes introduced in response to recent unrest should go in the lead. That IMO is far more important than whether or not there were riots or how big they were: they will be forgotten, but legal changes will affect the country for quite some time. As for "liberal democracy", we're treating that the same as "constitutional democracy", as AFAICT from that news article, Oman has no constitutional democracy, though I'm not familiar w the country. — kwami (talk) 11:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you. I really liked your idea that new changes should go in the lead instead of just mentioning protests or riots. Again, I was arguing about whether we should keep the part about the protests that hit that country in the lead. On the other hand, could we just say Oman is an absolute monarchy instead of "it has no liberal democracy"? (in the lead) Bahrain voice (talk) 20:46, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I like that wording better. Generally a good idea to say what a thing is rather than what it isn't, unless we're correcting a misunderstanding. — kwami (talk) 21:11, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Traditional English pronunciation of Latin for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Traditional English pronunciation of Latin is suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages according to Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Traditional English pronunciation of Latin 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 good 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 template from the top of the article. Ridernyc (talk) 22:39, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Brackets

Why are you changing the quotation marks ‹ and › to mathematical angle brackets ⟨ and ⟩ ? (Or is it too late to ask, you have already changed about 350 pages!) —Coroboy (talk) 03:03, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

It's been a couple years, and browser support seems to have caught up. Or is there still reason to substitute?

And no, it's not too late. Both sets are uncommon enough that they're easy to convert.

Anyway, I've finished the run, so I won't be doing any more unless I happen to run across them. — kwami (talk) 03:12, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know it was a question of browser support. I thought that ‹ › and « » were valid quotation marks while ⟨ ⟩ were to be used in mathematical expressions. 03:25, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

They're not supposed to be quotation marks. Angle brackets are used for transliteration. In philology, they'll be used for a literal transliteration into Latin script. In linguistics, they're used for the orthography of a language, or to talk about the IPA as IPA rather than as sounds: is the labio-palatal approximant sound, whereas ⟨ɥ⟩ is the IPA letter 'turned H'. We used to use <ɥ> because it was easier to type, though that sometimes caused html problems. A couple years ago I wanted to convert to brackets, but not everyone could read them, so we settled on guillemets as a compromise, one that would be easy to convert once it wasn't so problematic. — kwami (talk) 04:18, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Still not everyone could read them... Undo please... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.110.145.60 (talk) 04:25, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, please. I use Google Chrome, and I can't read them. 81.35.225.229 (talk) 14:28, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Small capitals

Kwami, I think that the introduction of small capitals to refer to letters in upper case, while having lower case letters as normal size gives a unbalanced look to their presentation. Compare these two extracts from the current version of the article Latin alphabet:

• the letter ⟨Z⟩ — unneeded to write Latin properly — was replaced with the new letter ⟨G⟩, a ⟨C⟩ modified with a small vertical stroke
• and uses letter forms that are more recognizable to modern eyes; ⟨a⟩, ⟨b⟩, ⟨d⟩, and ⟨e⟩

Some small caps uppercase letters look the almost the same as the lowercase letters–this makes the distinction hard to see. Compare ‹C› with ‹c›. The problem occurs even more often with the Cyrillic script, e.g. ‹В› and ‹в›.

Also, including the quotation marks, of whatever sort, inside the {{sc}} template yields quotation marks that are subtly different from those not in {{sc}}, at least in the fonts used on my system. Compare ‹C› with ‹C› and ⟨C⟩ with ⟨C⟩. This makes the difference between references to uppercase letters and lowercase letters even more unbalanced. —Coroboy (talk) 05:01, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I may have not reviewed my edits adequately. At Latin alphabet, the letters are small caps because it looks bad to have full caps, and there were no minuscules until the Middle Ages, so it would be inaccurate to use them. As far as being inside or outside the template, you're right, we should be consistent. I'll take a look.

Moved brackets outside the templates, including {{unicode}}. Left the small caps, as I didn't notice anything inappropriate. — kwami (talk) 05:20, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Housekeeping move request

Kwami, please could you move Captain Lieutenant to Captain lieutenant over the redirect? Thanks, Shem (talk) 13:43, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry - another pair. Could you also do Port Admiral to Port admiral & Corvette Captain to Corvette captain? Thanks Shem (talk) 14:38, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

And potentially Post-Captain to post captain? Although the move request was rejected last time, that was based mainly on the fact that Misplaced Pages capitalises all other ranks, which we certainly don't do now. Shem (talk) 14:49, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Sigh, there's also Ship-of-the-Line Captain to Ship-of-the-line captain, Ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant to Ship-of-the-line lieutenant, Frigate Captain to Frigate captain & Flotilla Admiral to Flotilla admiral. Shem (talk) 15:03, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Kwami, if you feel like dropping by Talk:General_of_the_Armies#Capitalization to dispense some wisdom either way, I'd be grateful. Shem (talk) 18:24, 23 October 2011 (UTC)