User talk:Kwamikagami

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Word/quotation of the moment:

Pela primeira vez na sua vida a morte soube o que era ter um cão no regaço.
For the first time in her life, death knew what it felt like to have a dog in her lap.

— José Saramago, Death with Interruptions / Death at Intervals

(Previous quotes)

It is now generally accepted that the megaliths that make up Stonehenge were moved by human effort. — as opposed to by what? Anybody who says you only have yourself to blame is just not very good at blaming other people. — It's Happy Bunny When poppies pull themselves up from their roots and start out, one after the other, toward the sunset – don't follow them. — Slavko Janevski, 'Silence' And the dough-headed took their acid fermentation for a soul, the stabbing of meat for history, the means of postponing their decay for civilization. — Stanislaw Lem, Return from the Stars The Church says that the Earth is Flat, but I know that it is Round, for I have seen its Shadow on the Moon, and I have more Faith in a Shadow than in the Church. — (commonly misattributed to Magellan) In the early years of the study there were more than 200 speakers of the dialect, including one parrot. — from the WP article Nancy Dorian Mikebrown is unusually eccentric and not very bright. [...] Astronomers have not noticed any outbursts by Mikebrown. — from the WP article 11714 Mikebrown Ecce Mono Keep Redskins White! "homosapiens are people, too!!" a sprig of spaghetti "I've always had a horror of husbands-in-law." awkwardnessful anti–zombie-fungus fungus "Only an evil person would eat baby soup." (said in all sincerity)

Unsourced information

Why are you adding unsourced, original research? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:39, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Why are you adding false information? I came here looking for a quotable source to support the repeated claim (e.g. on the BBC) that Swahili is an official language of the AU, and found that WP included a large amount of bullshit. Beside actually false claims, such as Swahili being an official language of the AU, there's a lot of wording that seems to have little actual meaning. For example, you changed it to say, "The African Union has defined a number of languages as working languages including African languages". What is that supposed to mean? Which "African languages"? How does the phrase "African languages" clarify the phrase "a number of languages"? They actually say, The working languages of the Union and all its institutions shall be, if possible, African languages, Arabic, English, French and Portuguese. They never clarify what "if possible" means in practice, and the way you changed it, it sounds like "African languages" are few enough that they can be the "number of languages" that function as the working languages of a govt organization, which isn't much different than presenting Africa as a country. Okay, it's incoherent and ill-defined in the original, but we're supposed to be presenting coherent information.

What any reader coming here for this info wants to know is which languages are the working languages of the AU, and we don't tell them. The Act was only published in English, French and Arabic. The amendment protocal was only published in English, French and Portuguese. (How does that even work, if you amend the Arabic act but the amendments aren't in Arabic? Or if you amend it in Portuguese, but the act itself doesn't exist in Portuguese? Or do these things exist, but the AU considers them to be of so little importance that it can't be bothered to upload them with the other language versions?) If you look at their website, the Portuguese and Swahili languages options only say "coming soon", which they've said for a year (and on the Swahili page, it says that in English!). The Arabic page is minimal, with most of it being in English. That is, if your language is Arabic, you can't navigate the "Arabic" page without reading English. Even the French page is half English. So it would seem that the actual working language is English, with French perhaps serving a supportive role, and little more than lip service being paid to anything else. Now, I'm all for developing African languages, and I hope that the support the AU says it's giving to fend off language extinction bears fruit, but when I go to an encyclopedia article for information, I'm looking for factual information, not aspirational goals being palmed off as fact. — kwami (talk) 03:42, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Please give me a diff where I added false information. If you're responding here, please use {{Ping|koavf}} so that I'll see it. As far as "African languages": that is what the source says. I am not personally responsible for writing any of the AU's constitutive documents. It seems like you have some misapprehensions about verifiability versus truth and what constitutes original research. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:15, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf: Sorry, my bad. I saw the edit summary "Undid revision ... by Kwamikagami", which would've meant that you had re-added false information (that Swahili was designated a working language of the AU), but I see now that you corrected that. Though, your correction from "a number of languages ... including ABC and D as well as other African languages if possible" to "a number of languages ... including African languages, ABC and D as well as other African languages if possible" is a bit odd. For one thing, people will think that various unnamed African languages have been designated as working languages, which AFAICT they haven't, so it's rather misleading even though no longer actually false. — kwami (talk) 03:55, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Collaborating is what makes the encyclopedia work. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:57, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf: I'm going to replace it with the actual AU wording. They haven't actually designated any working languages, so both of our fixes are actually false. — kwami (talk) 04:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Great. Thanks for working with me to make Wikipedia better. Happy to have your help, Kwami. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:02, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Reply

Thank you for replying on the talk page where I invited you. Unfortunately, the expert editor you named there is indefinitely blocked as a suspected sock. Certes (talk) 09:48, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Something wrong when the people who most know what they're doing, and are cooperative and work well with others, are so frustrated trying to get anything done here that they feel the need to use socks. — kwami (talk) 10:26, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I was going to start a new topic, but what you're saying above sounds somewhat relevant. Currently there is an editor who is systematically rolling back everything i contribute, without consultation. Do you recall which editor above you are talking about, and whether they might have been harassed by the same editor? there was another user who'd seemed to have made constructive contributions to the pages i am working on who is labelled as a sock, i wonder if that's the same one. Irtapil (talk) 03:30, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Irtapil: I know who kwami referred to, no that's a completely different story. A collegial minded fellow-editor interested in linguistic topics, who got into some kind of shit because of alleged COI-issues. So Steve was actually not blocked for sockery.

The sock editor in the Urdu edit-range is a long-term abuser, User:Gotitbro, User:Kautilya3 and User:Uanfala know most about that case. It's not related to F&f's contributions there; F&f is a tough one with a tendency for occasional templer and high-falutin verbosity. Kwami and I had endless discussions with him, but I value his input. He has a strong POV, and many of his edits are guided by his strong feelings about things important to him (like Urdu literature), that's all. –Austronesier (talk) 12:59, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I am not exactly sure what he discussion here is about, can you clarify/expand a bit. If is about the long term Urdu POVPUSH sock, WP:LTA/SAMI, I can probably help. Gotitbro (talk) 13:05, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Gotitbro: No, it's just that Irtapil has a beef with F&f, and he thought that Sami might have experienced the same and was thus driven to sockery (which is of course not quite the case). –Austronesier (talk) 13:08, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Not sure how you can come to that conclusion after dealing with Fowler, he has a bias towards Urdu and Sami (the sock) is a blatant Urdu-POVPUSHER/vandal since the beginning. Not to mention Fowler has taken the bait of Sami's socks multiple times and gone on unrelated diatribes with other editors though triggers by the socks' trolling (for e.g. see no further than Talk:Urdu). Gotitbro (talk) 13:18, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm lost... can i have a glossary? POVPUSHER? just "point of view pusher"? what about COI?

what does {{tps}} do? i can only find a joke page on it Wikipedia:Talk_page_stalker

"The sock editor in the Urdu edit-range" who do you mean? is there someone i should avoid tagging to avoid causing trouble?

I thought F&F had a "Hindustani" bias, but i might be misinterpreting. I don't like their approach of deleting seemingly almost any substantial contribution of new material pending discussion. Partly personally, of course. But it also seems like it would cause the encyclopedia to stagnate, directly by making updates slower and tying up everything in endless debates, but also indirectly when new editors feel like their work is futile and unappreciated and give up and leave. Though maybe i'm reading too much into it, maybe it was just that i left the alphabet page messy, and maybe their other big rollbacks removed new material with strong biases that i failed to spot in a quick skim.

Irtapil (talk) 23:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Irtapil: Wikipedia does have a problem with driving away new editors who end up feeling that trying to make improvements is futile. A serious problem. I'm part of it myself, I fear. The project can't succeed without new blood.

'COI' is 'conflict of interest'. E.g., a politician or company editing their WP biography to say that they're the greatest ever. Usually it's more subtle than that, but it can be a real problem.

I don't know the Urdu sock.

'TPS' is just an abbreviation for the name of a template that explains why someone's commenting on a discussion they're not part of. It's not an acronym you need to know.

'NPOV' means 'neutral point of view'. It's one of the basic principles of WP. You're supposed to avoid a non-neutral POV, but no-one abbreviates it "NNPOV". Maybe they figure the two N's cancel each other out? Anyway, a POV-pusher is someone pushing a particular POV, which by implication is a non-NPOV. Someone repeatedly editing the Urdu articles to claim that Urdu is unrelated to Hindi would be a POV-pusher.

There are WP:Wikipedia abbreviations and WP:Glossary to answer your questions, but they're kinda overkill. I've been here years, and I don't know a fraction of them. — kwami (talk) 03:46, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Cauque Mayan

Hi kwami, I have come across this one here[1]. I'll gladly finish this, but do you remember the source article where the material came from (in case it's actually relevant for cleanup)? –Austronesier (talk) 08:16, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: sure, here's my edit in the source article. — kwami (talk) 08:20, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Great, thanks! –Austronesier (talk) 08:24, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

IPA pronunciation and respell

Hi, sorry for bothering you again. A while ago (almost a year, actually) I asked you for the IPA pronunciation and respell of Onychopterella. Now I need the same for Roman Dacia, and I was wondering if you could help me again. By the way, is there a page where I can request these things in the future? Thanks in advance. Super Ψ Dro 07:37, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Lexico (the OED online)[2] has /ˈdeɪʃə/ as the primary pronunciation. The print OED has the same for Dacian, and doesn't have a variant with /s/. Webster's[3] has the same as the print OED. I'd ignore the variants with /i/ -- I don't know if Lexico has a real person pronouncing it, but Webster's certainly doesn't.

This agrees with what we have at the article Dacia,, I just removed the optional 'i' there.

In the future, you might check with the humanities reference desk or with the linguistic wikiproject, but I certainly don't mind a word or two every few months! — kwami (talk) 09:00, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

So "Roman Dacia" would be something like /ˈrəʊmən ˈdeɪʃə/? And how would the respell be? RO-man DAI-sha? And thanks, next time I'll go to that wikiproject! Super Ψ Dro 13:35, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Follow the links from the IPA/respelling and you'll get the keys. E.g., we spell the long O sound /oʊ/. (The set is available under your edit window, if you choose "IPA (English)" from the menu.) Same for respell -- DAY-shə. But I wouldn't bother with "Roman" -- per the MOS, we don't include common words that readers can be expected to know, or can get from an ordinary dictionary. "Dacia" is borderline in that regard, but probably acceptable because it's rare. — kwami (talk) 17:00, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, the article is currently a GAN and the reviewer said I should include "Roman" in the pronunciations, so I need it too. After searching for a while, I think the IPA pronunciation is now correct: /ˈroʊmən ˈdeɪʃə/. I found that the first "Roman" with əʊ is British English while the one with oʊ is American English, which (I think) is the one used by the article. However, I'm still unsure about the respelling. The Wikipedia page says "oʊ" is respelled as "oh", while "ə" is kept. This is therefore that I got: ROH-mən DAY-shə, which gives 34k results on Google. Is it correct now? Super Ψ Dro 23:49, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's fine, though I don't know what Ghits has to do with anything -- it's in the dictionary, doesn't matter if it gets 0 hits on Google. And it's not US or UK English, it's just English. As for the GAN reviewer, they evidently don't know the MOS, so I wouldn't listen to them. If you add the pronunciation to appease them, it might get deleted later as clutter, not that it matters. The pronunciation is at the main article Dacia. — kwami (talk) 05:01, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I'll ask him if he still want me to add the word. Thanks for the help! Super Ψ Dro 11:56, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Map request

Hi Kwamikagami,

I hope you are well. I am getting various LGBT-related articles ready for Pride month, including the article for the Equality Act. There is a map on there that needs a state updated. Virginia has passed the Virginia Values Act and the Governor signed the legislation into law which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in all areas. The map is File:LGBT anti-discrimination law in the United States by state.svg . Virginia needs to be dark purple.

Thank you,

-TenorTwelve (talk) 06:49, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

No prob. — kwami (talk) 22:32, 1 June 2020 (UTC)