Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:12, 23 June 2005

Hallo Sarcelles! I've noted that you changed the section about "Flemish" dialects in the article about the Dutch language. You apparently based these changes on the Dutch article about Dutch and the German article about Limburgish. At first blush they seem very reasonable. They also pose a few major problems however:

I. You are now mixing up two irreconcilable systems. What most German linguists mean with Limburgisch-Bergisch is not the same either in range or interpretation as the Limburgs of linguists in the Low Countries. Hint: the old town of Limburg is today located in Germany.

II. You use Dutch and German names. However there are English ones and obviously these should be preferred, especially when they link to already existent articles.

III. You use the higher-level grouping of the Dutch article. It's not a very bad system and often used, but there is no consensus whatsoever among linguists about its validity. The relations between the various Low Franconian dialects are extremely complex. East Flemish in particular is very difficult to categorise. In some ways the southern Brabantic dialects and East Flemish are very closely related. That's one reason to talk about a Central Dialect Group. However there's also a very strong isogloss bundle between them, while there's none between the southern and more northern Brabantic dialects. And in some ways West Flemish and East Flemish are more closely related. So it seams preferable to me to use a more traditional and "atomistic" lower-level approach and to speak of four groups. Of course we should then add that according to some criteria East Flemish should be grouped with Brabantic.

IV Strangely however the system is in some ways too atomistic: it shows divisions where there are none. Now why should it do that? The answer is: Hollandocentrism. Holland has been for four centuries the dominant province in The Netherlands. The normal sociological process has taken place of creating a value system in which the Hollander is at the top and the others are his inferiors. To emphasize his uniqueness his language also has to be set apart. In reality however the standard Dutch the Hollander today uses is basically Brabantic in origin. To repress this painful truth defence mechanisms have been activated. One other reason to use the term Central Dialect Group, is that "Brabantic" can be avoided. Also the fact is hidden that Brabantic very gradually fades into present Hollandic. So artificial dialects are created in the system to form a buffer, like the non-existent Zuid-Gelders (no isogloss bundle exists) and the barely discernable Utrechts (very weak isogloss bundle). The same trick is used to keep the Flemish away by talking about Zeeuws which in fact is northern West Flemish. But is there no justification to be found to distinguish a separate Zeeuws in the fact that the dialect continuum is broken by the geographical division in several islands? No. For the dialect of each islands then would have be considered its own dialect group: they form no unity.

Do you find my remarks correct or do you disagree? I'll also put them on the talk page of Dutch, in case anyone else should care to comment.

--MWAK 09:23, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hallo MWAK,

your comments on Dutch are founded and seem valid. Thanks a lot, Sarcelles 20:13, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No thanks: especially as I made a mistake in stating the town of Limburg was located in Germany: it's in fact located in de Voerstreek in Belgium, south of Dutch Limburg.--MWAK 07:51, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ituri

I have moved Ituri war back to Ituri conflict. This is by far the most commmon name, albeit for a vastly underreported conflict. I'm not arguing that it does not fit some definition of war, but that it should go under the most common name, e.g. Darfur conflict. Many of the google hits for "Ituri war" are for "Ituri's war", which is not a proper title. Also, I have changed the link at List of current wars for Second Ugandan Civil War, listed as beginning in 1995, to the insurgency of the Lord's Resistance Army. 1995 roughly coincides with the collapse of the Bigombe talks and the beginning of Sudanese support so I think that's what it's referring to, though it's possible it's referring to the Allied Democratic Forces insurgency. Feel free to change it if I assumed the wrong rebel group. Cheers, BanyanTree 01:51, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Please be more careful with your edits

Hi Sarcelles,

When I noticed that you switched your edit efforts to the English Misplaced Pages, I took the time to check some of your edits.

I noticed that you keep producing substub quality articles in English just the same way you did in nds:. I strongly urge you to put more effort in good quality and especially in longer articles. No one will be interested in articles about administrative parts of small towns in Germany. Especially not if it is just three sentences.

I also noticed your change in England. You added info about more religious communities. You added so many entries that it would be better to move that into a separate paragraph. The info box of a country has one simple purpose: to give an overview. This purpose is not fulfilled by listing all religios communities in the info box. (Besides you missed mine: Seventh days adventists :) ). One more thing: You listed Church of the Latter-Day Saints, which does not exist. This should not have passed unnoticed, after all the English Misplaced Pages already has more than 500.000 articles, so a religious community of 180.000 people can expected to be covered. Indeed it already is: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Please, please take care of your quality.

Heiko Evermann 19:24, 9 May 2005 (UTC) Hi Heiko Got your message. There is no need for 5 lines-articles. Particularly not careless ones. Regards, Sarcelles 09:25, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Laogai

Hi Sarcelles, I appreciate your efforts in adding more information about laogai to Misplaced Pages, but don't you think that it's too specific to start articles about cities just for the purpose of describing laogai facilities there? Articles about American or European cities, for example, don't contain lists of prisons or prison abuses; even a list of schools, hospitals, courthouses or police stations is really pushing it. Many of the cities that you're describing have long, illustrious histories; interesting and unique local customs; and are hometowns of famous personnages. It's just strange to sum all of them up by describing the laogai camps there, and starting so many articles about individual geographical locations for the purpose of supporting one particular political voice is not particularly NPOV either.

Frankly, I would suggest collating all of the info you have into one single Laogai article. -- ran (talk) 14:53, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

I've brought this issue up at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Chinese cities#Laogai articles. -- ran (talk) 15:11, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree, that prisons in China are comparable in their importance to ,say, US prisons. Furthermore, the Laogai system is one of the main features of Mainland China of our days.

Sarcelles 12:31, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I suggest further discussion to take place at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Chinese cities#Laogai articles.

Sarcelles 12:35, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Censorship

Sarcelles,

nice to talk to you again.

You said I have to criticize your habit of voting for deletion of German articles critical of Mainland China's system. - again an allegation, please give evidence. I never vote for deletion unless I spot articles that are clearly wrong, such as your masterpiece Chinesische Volksreligion. But this one has nothing to do with Mainland China's system, as you write. So, I am waiting for your evidence. -- Herr Klugbeisser 00:46, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Ah, Not Really.

As mentioned above, this dispute is going on on Misplaced Pages talk Chinese cities. Sarcelles 09:19, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

As mentioned on the talk page, personal allegations should be discussed on user talk pages. This is one reason why they exist.

So, where is your evidence? There is still plenty of space on my user talk page for this. -- Herr Klugbeisser 13:20, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Tetauni

Is this spelled correctly? The name of the city is Tétuan, it seems strange that the name of a dialect named after the city would be called Tetauni instead of Tetuani. Tomer 23:56, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

This is the spelling I know, independent from the article Ladino language, which uses Tetauni and Tetuani. Maybe it is best you decide, which title is better.

Sarcelles 06:06, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

For you

just in case you are interested: de:Chinesischer Volksglaube, I'm not yet 100% satisfied with this article, though. -- Herr Klugbeisser 11:00, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks.

Sarcelles 11:16, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Tewu

Please look at Talk:Tewu. -- ran (talk) 17:06, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Edit quality

Hi Sarcelles, I've been looking through your contribs and found that you have created MANY new articles. That is good. However, I noticed that most - if not all - of them are substandard. There is no wikification, and no elaboration. Of course, many articles start that way, but we would all appreciate it if you would place a

{{stub}}

template after each article that are not really well elaborated. Thanks. -Hmib 02:31, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I actually overestimated the formal quality of my recent edits.

I didn't realize my last article in this wiki was not written in English. Sarcelles 05:57, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please use this template:

{{China-geo-stub}}

This Chinese location article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

Also, seriously.... rather than starting one million tiny articles, why don't you focus on one city and write it out well? -- ran (talk) 06:32, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

First of all, using that template is a good point.

Writing a major article on a city currently not having an article is quite difficult, considering that I neither live in Asia nor in an English-speaking country. Translating fully developed German articles might be an option. Sarcelles 08:09, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay, Sarcelles... you really really need to improve the quality of your edits. Like Shihezi for example, it was horrible until Physchim62 and Abstrakt cleaned it up for you. (And what is the "Xinjiang Cultivation Corps"? Can't you find the official translation of an organization before putting it down?)

The truth is, we need 1 well-written, comprehensive article more than we need 20 poorly-written stubs. Why don't you focus on one city and make it better, rather than the way you're doing it right now?

Finally, about the World Christian Encyclopedia, can you tell me where they get their numbers from, and what year those numbers are applicable for? -- ran (talk) 18:12, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Sudanese localities with massacres

Hi Sarcelles,

Actually I'm not really a Misplaced Pages guru or anything, but my suggestion would be to write up the locale as one would write up any geographical location, and then note the historical events that took place there. This is the pattern I've seen in other articles, although I don't have any examples at hand. I think the sound approach is to describe the place as a place first, in general terms, and as the place where atrocities took place second -- as difficult as that may be on an emotional level, it's the encyclopedic approach... --babbage 10:25, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cite sources

Please read and respect Misplaced Pages:Cite sources. Thank you.--Fenice 11:39, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)