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Barnstars

I, Ling.Nut award this very overdue Linguist's barnstar to Kwamikagami. Thanks for making the Internet not suck.

Thanks for taking an interest in the language families of South America - they really need a hand! ·Maunus·ƛ· 08:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I, Ikiroid, award this Barnstar to Kwami for helping me with effectively editing language pages.

		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 Serendi ^pod ous 10:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

		The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
		For your wonderful moon mass charts, I offer the Graphic designer's barnstar. Serendi ^pod ous 12:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

		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)[reply]

		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. Serendi ^pod ous 09:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

		The Original Barnstar
		Presented for your creation of the Malagasy IPA pages and your tireless transcription efforts. Thank you! Lemurbaby (talk) 11:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

		The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
		For your contributions to File:IPA chart 2005.png (better seen in the English Wikipedia logs since the move to Commons). In taking linguistics courses as an undergraduate, having a printout-size and easy-to-find IPA reference was indispensable. I will probably be finding printouts of this file mixed in with my college papers for decades to come; that's just how often I used it. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:31, 7 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		I, Stevey7788, hereby present you the Tireless Contributor Barnstar for your tremendously prolific work on languages and linguistics. Excellent articles, wonderful images, and impressive contributions overall! — Stevey7788 (talk) 23:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

	The Editor's Barnstar
	For your continued good work in articles on languages. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 00:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

	The Teamwork Barnstar
	I hope the script story will have a happy end :-) Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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 Wikipedia. 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. Thanks, Shegan AGirl1191 (talk) 04:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		Thanks for your recent run of newly-created language articles, and for your efforts to improve the encyclopedia. Northamerica1000^(talk) 17:28, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

	The Original Barnstar
	thank for contributing us... Liansanga (talk) 00:23, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

		The Admin's Barnstar
		For your past excellent service as Administrator, and a sad reminder that sometimes ARBCOM can blow it - big time. HammerFilmFan (talk) 01:33, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guardian of Hamari Boli

Most sincere gratitude for your invaluable contributions to Hindi-Urdu related articles on English Wikipedia. Forever indebted to you -and wikipedia of course- for telling it like it is.. Amazing how you never gave up and went thru all the troubles dealing with zealots. Bravo! You're one of the inspirations that led to the genesis of http://www.HamariBoli.com edge.walker (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

		The Instructor's Barnstar
		This Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have performed stellar work in the area of instruction & help for other editors. For your contributions to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and especially for your contributions to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting. Moreover, in providing examples of how to implemented the Manual in text editing and your great cooperation with me! Magioladitis (talk) 22:54, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

	The Resilient Barnstar
	For your WP rules following Saraikistan (talk) 18:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	For your linguistic contributions. We will carry on this professional discussion later because I will be off now. Regards Maria0333 (talk) 07:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

	The Original Barnstar
	For all-round good work, but especially this edit. Keep it up! Green Giant (talk) 09:12, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

		All Around Amazing Barnstar
		Dear Kwamikagami, thank you for all of your amazing contributions to language related articles. Your contributions are making a difference here on Wikipedia! Keep up the good work! With regards, Anupam^Talk 21:25, 9 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

		The LGBT Barnstar
		For your work over at Public opinion of same-sex marriage in the United States, the article looks vastly improved and I am happy to see there was an agreement made on the results. =) Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:46, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

	The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
	Good job Sit1101 (talk) 01:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Multiple Barnstar

These are just some barnstars for some of the many amazing things you do here on Wikipedia, I don't know what this site would do without you. Abrahamic Faiths (talk) 21:06, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

		The Original Barnstar
		For working to help close RfCs and reduce the backlog. Wugapodes (talk) 00:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	For great, expeditious and lynx-eyed reviewing and correction of all Aboriginal articles,Nishidani (talk) 16:37, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

		The Papua New Guinean Barnstar of National Merit
		Thank you for your many years of tireless work on articles of Papuan languages! Here's something to add to your long list of barnstars. (Although admittedly, this is just for "East New Guinea Highlands languages" and other Papuan languages on the eastern half of the island.) — Sagotreespirit (^talk) 09:56, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

		The Original Barnstar
		Because you do an incredible amount of good work, and I am more or less in awe at how much you know. Also, I think you do not have enough barnstars. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 05:06, 22 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Special Barnstar

For creating the Tyap language article. Thanks! Kambai Akau (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

		The Mathematics Barnstar
		For getting Kaktovik numerals to good article status. Thank you Akrasia25 (talk) 18:22, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

		The Reviewers Award
		By the authority vested in me by myself it gives me great pleasure to present you with this award in recognition of the thorough, detailed and actionable reviews you have carried out at FAC. This work is very much appreciated. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:33, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

		The Editor's Barnstar
		Thanks for your tireless editing and ability to recognize the nuance most miss, do not understand, or fail to research regarding parliamentary law vis-à-vis a supreme court’s jurisdiction specially regarding Nepal Quaerens-veritatem (talk) 06:10, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)

The colubrid Telescopus semiannulatus in an acacia, central Tanzania.

This user is one of the 40 most active English Wikipedians of all time.

This user is a former administrator on the English Wikipedia (verify).

Quotes:

Only an evil person would eat baby soup.
To shew that there is no tautology, no vain repetition of one and the same thing therein.
In this country we treat our broads with respect.

Words of the day:

anti-zombie-fungus fungus

This user is an administrator on the English Wikipedia. (verify)

This user is one of the 100 most active English Wikipedians of all time.

Help with the Female heads of state Map

Hi!

I was wondering if I could ask for your help with updating the map on the Female Heads of Government and Female Heads of State articles? I saw that you've made modifications to it earlier, and thought that I might ask since I don't know how to do it myself. It is about Dilma Rouseff; the President of Brazil is both Head of State and Government, and thus Brazil should be colored light orange on the map. It would be great if you could change it :).

Thanks --Darthdyas (talk) 23:54, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

José Sarney is the president of the parliament. Wouldn't that make him the head of government? Or is that not equivalent to a PM, as a presidential republic? — kwami (talk) 23:55, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. Changed. — kwami (talk) 02:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Squaxin Island Tribe - restore caps!

Taht IS the government, Kwami, it's not a "tribe" in the lower-case sense, i.e. "a people" ,but rather comprised of several peoples who share the common government/reservation. I tried to revert but for some reason can't/ this and certain others of the same kind should NOT be changed; they are not ethnographic peoples, they are "Tribes" only in the legal-mandate/government sense.Skookum1 (talk) 21:17, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that wasn't clear to me. Do we have an article on captital-T Tribe to dab our links with? — kwami (talk) 21:24, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Was gonna edit that list some, but don't see how to get to it here; even though it displays - ? Snoqualmie Tribe is a government, should be capital-T; not sure there was a Snoqualmie people at all; I think they're an amalgamation of various tribes in the ethno sense. And no, linguistic unity did not mean political/social unity - this is something of an issue in BC where the provincial government wants to stop dealing with 110+ separate "nations" and reduce it to a list of 23 or so, based on linguistic affiliations; but that doesn't always work well; the Wet'su-wet'en are Carrier, or a subgroup of Carrie, but have been tied to the neighbouring Gitxsan for centuries; the various divisions of the Kwakwaka'wakw were and are distinct tribes, despite the common language; Kitsaoo is a Haisla-Tsimshian alliance, also predating Contact. The Tahltan, Kaska and Nahanni are all the same language, but different tribes/peoples/governments. Some Kwak'wala bands use "Tribe" (capital-T) in their names, one t hat comes to mind is Tlowitsis Tribe....coastal peoples are organized by clan, more than they are by language; see Ganhada, wherever that refers to, which is about one of the main clans, which are cross-language-group and cross-"tribal". Much like "chief", "tribe" is an imposed concept; places like Masset or Squamish/Capilano had more than one chief; in Coast Salish peoples siyam, usually translated as "chief", is really the noble class, and each community has more than one family with that appellation; the idea of a monarchical chief is an outside concept; likewise the notion of "tribes".....each village in BC was its own country, virtually, and within languages there were often bitter enemies, centuries-long in rivalry.....anyway I'll look over that list further; but make sure to read the article; if they were assembled on a reservation they are not a "people", and "Tribe" would refer to the post-conquest government/legal charter. The Okanagan National Alliance homepage lists "bands" in the Colville Reservation, by the way, which are really (in WP Wash) actually towns within that Reservation and SFAIK not chartered as "bands" as such, but as town governments somehow; e.g. Nespelem.Skookum1 (talk) 23:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To edit the list, see User talk:Kwamikagami/top. Comments there or here as you like. For the original list, see my Oct-Dec archive. — kwami (talk) 23:43, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhere out there, User:Uysvidi and I are discussing the same thing; I'll try and find that discussion; it may be, or one part of it, on the NorthAmNative talkpage....Skookum1 (talk) 04:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kwakwaka'wakw IPA?

Thought I'd toss this request over to you....if User:Old ManRivers were around he could supply it (He's 'Namgis (Nimpkish) on one side....I know those /kw/ phonemes are some particular back-guttural, not just like "kwah" in English...many white people pronouncing this make it sound rather, um, vulgar/pornographic......Skookum1 (talk) 04:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can only guess what the allophony might be, but I gave it a shot. — kwami (talk) 06:44, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An article name

Would you cast an admin's eye over Talk:Mad Hatter? Discussion about a proposed move (by me) to The Hatter has been frustratingly stonewalled (in my opinion) to the detriment of accuracy. -- Evertype·✆ 10:54, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hey,

I agree with your POV, but that isn't an administrative issue. It is frustrating to argue about each article rather than having a set convention, and it is the quality of the arguments that's considered, but there are valid arguments on both sides here. As at starfish, for example. I think it's poor form to have it under that name, since it isn't a fish (at least not since the 20th century), and I once moved it, but that is the common name, from the days when turtles and cowries were fish, and I was reverted. I can add my opinion, but I don' see what I could do as an admin, unless I can judge one argument unconvincing. — kwami (talk) 13:26, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

IPA request for The Byrds

Hi Kwamikagami! I have a favour to ask you. I took a look at the contributor statistics for the Wikipedia:IPA for English page and I see that you're the biggest contributor on there, so I reckon you're probably the best person to approach with my request. I'm currently working to get The Byrds article ready for a GA review but because of the unusual way the band spell their name, I want to add a bracketed IPA pronunciation guide to the opening sentence, using the {{Pron-en}} template...as has been done in the Metallica and Devo articles. However, I have very litle idea of how the International Phonetic Alphabet works and I don't want to mess it up. Would you be kind enough to do this for me? Many thanks in advance. Oh, by the way, in case it's not obvious, Byrds is pronounced as Birds. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 19:43, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think your best bet would be to say just that: "pronounced as birds" or some such. That would be the most accessible to the widest audience. If you really want the IPA, though, it would be /ˈbɜrdz/. — kwami (talk) 21:28, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks for your advice and help. It is much appreciated. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 01:11, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Tamazight" IPA

Would you mind clarifying where you sourced the English pronunciation for the word "Tamazight"? (I'm not sure what you meant by "random house".) /ˈtæməzaɪt/ seems dubious; the word is not English and thus a phonetic rendering such as [ˈtæməzɪgt] would seem to be better than a spelling pronunciation ("ight" being pronounced as in "fright", etc.). Thanks, Mo-Al (talk) 03:25, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here. I haven't checked the print version of the Random House dict, though, and it isn't listed in the OED. Webster's III is another place to check. — kwami (talk) 07:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This seems highly dubious to me. I doubt anyone knowledgeable enough to use the term "Tamazight" rather than "Berber" would pronounce it that way (note its pronunciation in French, by the way). However it's not a big issue, I guess. Mo-Al (talk) 02:32, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm not so sure myself. I think if we're going to use it as an English word, we should supply an English pronunciation, but that's all I could find apart from /ˈtæməzɪərt/ for the French spelling. — kwami (talk) 07:36, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Around the Linguistic Data Consortium of the University of Pennsylvania where we've been developing a Language Resource wiki for researchers in poorly resourced languages, we pronounce it [tɑmɑˈzɪɣt].

Random House is the name of a large publisher whose product line produces dictionaries. If they say */ˈtæməzaɪt/, they're wrong: that could only be an uninformed English spelling pronunciation, dollars to donuts automatically generated.

If you're looking for a purely English pronunciation, I'd suggest [tɑmɑˈzɪgt], changing the [ɣ] to a [ɡ]. Thnidu (talk) 04:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[tɑmɑˈzɪɣt] is not English, and [tɑmɑˈzɪgt] is just made up. If we're going to claim this word is English, we should at least have an English pronunciation. — kwami (talk) 07:20, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you misunderstand. I work at the LDC, and have worked with Tamazight speakers. This is a loan form that we have observed and use in borrowing the endonym [tɑmɑˈzɪɣt] into English. We didn't "make it up", any more than anyone "made up" the pronunciation /ˈtæmɨl/ [ˈtʰæmɨl] for the endonym of the Tamil language, [t̪ɐmɨɻ] (substituting an aspirated alveolar stop for an unaspirated dental one and going on from there). Another loan pronunciation would be /tɑmɑˈzirt/ (or /tæməˈzɪərt/), as English-speakers often hear a non-strident [ɣ] as a type of /r/.

Random House's /ˈtæməzaɪt/ is sheer nonsense, a spelling pronunciation no more defensible than */fræŋˈkeɪz/ would be for "français". I would call either a ghost pronunciation, generated from the spelling without reference to any pronunciation ever uttered for the word. It would be better to offer no pronunciation at all than such a bogosity.

So, I conclude, we are in agreement: "If we're going to claim this word is English, we should at least have an English pronunciation." I'm deleting this so-called English pronunciation, with no replacement. See Talk:Central Atlas Tamazight#English pronunciation of the name "Tamazight" Thnidu (talk) 05:17, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Yi language for deletion

The article Yi language is being discussed concerning whether it is suitable for inclusion as an article according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yi language 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. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 11:50, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ainu language and Ainu languages

Hello again. I wasn't sure if you'd checked Talk:Ainu languages recently, but I've (finally) gotten around to responding. --Limetom 20:02, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ANI notice

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Standard Mandarin and Standard Chinese and posisbe inapproiate use of tools. Thank you. Dpmuk (talk) 15:00, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation fest

I see you're on a disambiguation page-creating rampage. So far, you've created at least 7000 new dab links - they're most of the entries at the top of the list here. Now, you aren't required to clean up after yourself per WP:FIXDABLINKS - and if past history proves anything, you won't - but I have to say, it's pretty disappointing to see an editor of your experience willing to create such a huge mess and leave it for others to fix. --JaGa^talk 16:56, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not creating the mess, WP is already a mess. Funny how calling anyone's attention to that, or starting to solve it, makes it my fault. I find it disappointing that you'd rather blame someone than actually do anything about it.

If, of course, you determine that e.g. Telugu is nearly always used for, say, the language rather than the people or script, then you're welcome to revert me. — kwami (talk) 17:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not opposing the change. I'm opposing dumping a ton of work on others. It will take many many hours for the DPL project to fix all of these links, and it would be nice if you could give a hand. --JaGa^talk 17:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate that, but if they need to go to various articles, then it was an even worse problem before I created the dab page, because many were going to the wrong page rather than to just a dab, and I'm not creating any work that didn't already need to be done. If it's too much work, then just revert and bury the problem for some future editor to deal with. I'd like to be able to help out, but I'm backlogged as it is with rd problems that make it difficult to find pages; a dab page just adds another mouse click. — kwami (talk) 18:20, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We'll fix it. If you feel OK with doing the 15 seconds' worth of work to create a disambig, and leave the hour's worth of dabfixing work to others, that's up to you. I just wanted to make sure you're aware of what you're doing. --JaGa^talk 18:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it was good for me to see the consequences. For a well developed article like Telugu, I'm sure our readers can figure it out if you revert. But as you like. — kwami (talk) 18:54, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not reverting you, Kwami. I, along with a handful of other editors, will roll up our sleeves and fix the mess you've created. If you'd like to help, you could take a stab at Marathi. It's not difficult work, just time consuming. It can even be enjoyable, if you're willing to give it a try. --JaGa^talk 19:04, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I am going to revert some of these. I commenced with the sleeve-rolling-up previously mentioned, and after a while, I noticed that for most of the articles, almost all of the links were intended for X people, not X language. That is a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. What's more, these dabs you've been creating have only two entries. So now we're into WP:TWODABS territory. That is, when there are only two entries on a disambig, and one is a primary topic, the proper thing is to redirect to the primary and put a hatnote on the primary for the second article.

So, I'm going through this list of new dabs, evaluating, and redirecting to the primary when necessary. Still a mess, but it cuts down on the workload somewhat.

If you have still more dabs you want to create, please review WP:TWODABS before proceeding (and give us a chance to clear the present backlog first!)

Cheers, --JaGa^talk 05:14, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hadn't seen that before. Still, I'm not sure that's what "primary topic" means for WP. You're saying it's whichever topic that has the most links, while the WP page you linked to says it's the one most likely to be entered into a search engine. With people vs language, I don't know how you'd decide that: is the random reader really more likely to be searching for French people than the French language? And for obscure peoples vs obscure languages? When I've created X people vs X language articles, other editors have complained when X was a redirect rather than a dab, which is why I've been going through them. — kwami (talk) 06:34, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is hugely disruptive of you to create all these dablinks and then not make any attempt to fix the incoming links. Please stop creating them and start dabbing. DuncanHill (talk) 14:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't want to clean them up, then don't. It's hardly a problem to have readers click on a dab page now and then. It's more disruptive to take them to the wrong article. Or do you prefer appearance over substance? We could have a pretty encyclopedia with no actual content--would that make you happy? — kwami (talk) 21:37, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you're the person who has actually identified that the links are wrong, then you are better placed than anyone to actually fix them. Instead you create masses of dab pages byt don't actually fix the links. I would note that at least one of the dab pages you created managed not to include a link to the page which used to occupy the space. DuncanHill (talk) 22:55, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm responding to complaints that we have X as a redirect to either X people or X language when both articles exist. I've gone through what links to several of these redirects, and seen that the links are often mixed, so that readers really are being taken to the wrong articles. Turning X into a dab page solves that problem. It may not be as elegant as correcting all the links, but a quick fix is better than nothing. I'm backlogged on hundreds of these improper redirects; fixing all the links as well would mean not having the time to fix what's actually wrong. (And BTW, I have fixed several thousands of such links, though not much recently.)

The choice, as I see it, is to direct the reader to the wrong article, or to a dab page. It's an obvious choice.

If I've screwed up, which you've alluded to but not linked to, by all means let me know and I'll clean it up. Or just revert me: misdirecting a few readers is less important than getting the rest of these done. — kwami (talk) 23:02, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Zuni. You left a link to Zuni instead of changing it to Zuni people. I fixed it already, but as it was you left the dab page without a link to the commonest intended meaning. That helps no-one. DuncanHill (talk) 23:24, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Darn. That was meant to be a helpful screw up. I'll try to improve the quality of my oversights. — kwami (talk) 00:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On this topic, please don't leave a redirect behind for the talk pages of these newly-created disambiguation pages. I have had to replace the redirect with the disambiguation project tag multiple times. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 21:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Macro-Gê languages

Thank you for your comment, indeed there are more macro-gê language maps in: Category:Macro-Je languages

Ah, thanks. All added to the articles. — kwami (talk) 01:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Improvement in Template:IPA vowel chart/sandbox

Hi, I have changed the workings inside Template:IPA vowel chart, now visible in the sandbox. Could you give it a check? The trick is, that I use a subtemplate "Template:IPA vowel chart/vowelpair", which does the presentation & links for the pairs. -DePiep (talk) 03:48, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks fine to me. The only question I have goes for the original chart too: why do we have [e̞] but not [ø̞], [o̞], or [ɤ̞]? and why ‹e̞› instead of ‹ɛ̝›? — kwami (talk) 05:48, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The answer to that is simple: someone with "time and/or ambition" still has to bother to split these off from their respective close-mid vowel articles like [e̞] has been. As for the symbol, I think it's simply because ‹e̞› is more common. --JorisvS (talk) 11:22, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First, we could put the symbols in there. But they should have a link to an article (through {{IPAsym}}). When there is no article (yet), linking to a sort of dab-page is imo not adding much wiki-wise. Now here's the new catch: the change now proposed in the sandbox ... does not allow for unlinked symbols ;-). Current links: [ø̞], [o̞] or [ɤ̞] -DePiep (talk) 12:44, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: copied the essence to Template talk:IPA vowel chart#Mid vowels. Sandbox now is into live template. -DePiep (talk) 13:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Linkfixes. No errors left. -DePiep (talk) 22:58, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Editing Kurdish People

Why do you revert to the old and false information about kurdish peoples figure in turkey? Can't you face the truth that there are 20 million kurdish people in turkey as the article source I have given tell you too??

Here are the source: "There are perhaps up to 20 million Kurds in Turkey with a population of approximately 70 million."

Source: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http://www.dn.se/nyheter/politik/kurder-besvikna-pa-eu

damn00 (talk) 16:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, you did not give a source. You just said it's from a Swedish paper, but did not provide a link. Second, as we've told you, newspapers are not WP:reliable sources. Which source did the Swedish paper get that figure from? Find that source, and we'll be able to judge whether it's reliable or not.

(I have no idea if there are 10M Kurds in Turkey, or 20M, or 30M, but whichever figure we use, we need to be able to defend it against those who would challenge it.) — kwami (talk) 01:44, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Random Smiley Award

For your contributions to Wikipedia and humanity in general, you are hereby granted the coveted Random Smiley Award.
(Explanation and Disclaimer)

♠TomasBat 00:43, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I like the 'random' part. Counterbalances the random trolls. — kwami (talk) 01:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File source problem with File:ChuShogiPromotions.png

Thank you for uploading File:ChuShogiPromotions.png. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, please add a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a brief restatement of that website's terms of use of its content. However, if the copyright holder is a party unaffiliated from the website's publisher, that copyright should also be acknowledged.

If you have uploaded other files, consider verifying that you have specified sources for those files as well. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged per Wikipedia's criteria for speedy deletion, F4. If the image is copyrighted and non-free, the image will be deleted 48 hours after 13:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC) per speedy deletion criterion F7. If you have any questions or are in need of assistance please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Magog the Ogre (talk) 13:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Added the info. — kwami (talk) 01:38, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Press-up article

In case you are on right now fellow Usonian, I have responded with the information you asked for at Talk:Press-up. Cute snake btw. AerobicFox (talk) 05:13, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Press-up

Kwami, I'm afraid I accidentally overlooked your stated intent to close the Press-up WP:RM request. Please feel free to re-open it if you wish. All the best, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:13, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I was considering wider policy which I thought supported a move, but wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything before I closed. I'll redo it. — kwami (talk) 03:41, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What happened to the Hindi article? :-)

Wrt this edit: is the text in the earlier version of the Hindi article just lost? For instance, that version had a section on writing systems, a section on literature, etc., which the current article doesn't: surely these sections make sense for an article on the language? Is it ok to just copy over those sections, or something? Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 08:20, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There was general agreement on the talk page that when people say "Hindi", they generally mean the national language of India, and not the various other varieties that also go under the name Hindi. There weren't many participants, though, so feel free to start a discussion if you think the redirect should be reversed. Or if you just want those sections merged into Standard Hindi or Hindi-Urdu, you can go ahead and do that too. The literature section could be split between them; the writing system is already covered. — kwami (talk) 08:51, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I wasn't arguing about reversing the redirect… I too think that when people say "Hindi", they mean the national language of India, however defined. I was just saying that the article Hindi (or whatever it redirects to) ought to contain (brief) text on how Hindi is written, literature in Hindi, etc. Such sections existed in the old article, and I was wondering if it's ok to start adding such sections to the current article — asking you because you've followed the discussion and are aware of the several articles on the subject, which I'm not. [Added after edit: Ah fine, thanks; I'll merge them sometime.] Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 14:02, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I moved the stub to MSH, and added a section header to HU. It would be nice if HU would introduce the Hindi and Urdu lit articles. — kwami (talk) 18:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Heads up

Ali Pasha and his IPs seem hell bent on removing even the smallest traces of Serbo-Croatian on Croatian related articles. [1] -- ◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 16:59, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

...and the nonsense continues with suspicious user Hammer of Habsburg [2] -- ◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 12:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Online Ambassadors

I saw you have been really active lately and I clicked on over to your user page and was pretty impressed. Would you be interested in helping with the WP:Online_Ambassadors program? It's really a great opportunity to help university students become Wikipedia contributers. I hope you apply to become an ambassador, Sadads (talk) 23:44, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the offer, but I'm afraid I won't have a reliable amount of time to devote to it. — kwami (talk) 08:39, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"History of Montenegrin language"

Our friend strikes again [3]. Would you kindly block him and/or semiprotect the article? Thanks. No such user (talk) 07:32, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~No, I'm not going to block someone for something like that.~~ I did warn him over edit warring. — kwami (talk) 08:40, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. Yeah, 3 years is a bit ridiculous for edit warring. Blocked. — kwami (talk) 09:09, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are creating redirects

Kwami. The many edits you have made, -- [[Māori people|Māori]] -- are creating redirects because your article title changes were reverted. Moriori (talk) 00:20, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A ref to the Maori language or Maori culture should link to our articles on the Maori language or the Maori culture. They should not link to our article on the Maori people. Thus "Maori" should be a redirect; links to the redirect can be cleaned up later (and as I have been doing today), as that's not a big deal. — kwami (talk) 00:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are doing this -----> [[Māori people|Māori]] but as there is no Māori people article you are creating a redirect from the articles to a page which is a redirect page. Moriori (talk) 00:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but the article should be at Maori people, in which case the links should be redirected. Internal redirects to not create any problem. Linking to the wrong article does. — kwami (talk) 00:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

IPA for Camille Paglia

Hello, Kwamikagami. I notice that you do a lot of IPA fixing. I wondered if you could help with the Camille Paglia article? Seed of Azathoth (talk) 06:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, if you can tell me a bit more than just that the gee is silent. First syllable like pale or like pal? I assume that's also the syllable that's stressed, which would most likely make it either /ˈpeɪliə/ or /ˈpæliə/. — kwami (talk) 07:52, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's pronounced PaHleAH, with the stress on the H and AH. So it should be as in "pal" rather than "pale." Seed of Azathoth (talk) 15:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's the English pronunciation?? That would be odd indeed: /pɑːliˈɑː/, rhyming with hurrah. (And I don't understand how you could stress the H, unless you stress both a vowels, in which case it would be pronounced Pa-lee ah, with pa as in father. It wouldn't even be possible with the A's as in pal.) I'd want to see a ref or hear a recording before I'd be confident enough to put that in an article. — kwami (talk) 15:50, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Pa-lee ah" looks correct to me. The a definitely is not pronounced like the a in Sarah Palin's second name. Sorry if I'm not explaining it properly. Seed of Azathoth (talk) 16:03, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As in this video (0:20)? -DePiep (talk) 16:08, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That would be /ˈpɑːliə/, unless it sounds like Paul for those who make the cot-caught distinction, in which case it would be /ˈpɔːliə/ (which I believe Philadelphia does, and it didn't sound like Paul).

So, Azathoth, does it sound to you like either "Pa" plus -lia or "paw" plus -lia? Any one in particular? — kwami (talk) 16:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds exactly like Pa plus lia to me; I don't hear a "paw" there. But listen to it and decide for yourself. Seed of Azathoth (talk) 16:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I pronounce them exactly the same, so I have to imagine what it would sound like if spoken by someone who doesn't say them the same, but that is the conclusion I came to. Which is /ˈpɑːliə/. — kwami (talk) 16:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so should I add that to the article? Seed of Azathoth (talk) 16:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Just link it to the key with the {{IPA-en}} or {{pron-en}} template. — kwami (talk) 16:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Worth also adding the Italian pronunciation, which I think would be ['paʎa] or conceivably ['paʎja] (just two syllables in either case)? --Trovatore (talk) 20:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does she ever use an Italian pronunciation? [ˈpaʎʎa], I suspect. — kwami (talk) 22:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The gemination of medial ʎ mentioned on the IPA for Italian page is news to me. But then I did live in the North.... --Trovatore (talk) 23:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is /ˈpɑːliə/, and definitely NOT /ˈpɔːliə/. And no, she does not affect an Italian accent.μηδείς (talk) 06:51, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unbecoming edits

Please seek consensus before carrying out potentially disruptive edits such as your move of Māori, and your change of the guideline at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) in support of your position. You should be aware that an article which has existed at its current name for many years, and has a large number of links to it, should not be moved without a discussion. Despite this, you moved it without such discussion, and proceeded to change a substantial number of links, even after your move had been reverted (not by me). Your explanation was that you were not aware that the move had been reverted, although you were advised on your talk page. I note that you did stop making such redirects one you replied to the advisor.

Your explanation for the move was "vs. language", and later said on the talk page it was "per the MOS for ethnicity vs. language", and still later "Sorry, not the MOS, but naming conventions", but the guideline for language naming conventions appears to be fully adhered to for Māori language. It would appear that you did not have the MoS justification for the move that you thought you had.

You changed Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people), again without any attempt to seek consensus, and despite that the guideline applies to individual people rather than groups. When I pointed out that your edit was inappropriate, you decided to remove my edit twice, rather than to address the issue. You also gave me a block warning for pointing this out.

I think your edits on this issue are unbecoming of an admin. I do not think you are trying to harm the wiki, but you appear to have lost touch with Wikipedia's principles.-gadfium 07:58, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gadfium, you've been here since 2004, so I'm rather puzzled that you are so unfamiliar with the way things work here. Inadvertently or not, you're also misrepresenting the situation.

As for discussion before editing, read WP:BOLD. Summary: make a major edit; if someone reverts it, discuss. That's exactly what happened here. BOLD was created so that edits don't become impossible because every correction has to go through committee before being implemented. I mean, look at the nonsense brewed up in this case: you can't move a page if that would leave redirects, but you can't fix redirects without moving the page.

I did not change the naming conventions to support my edit. The convention already existed, and has consensus. What I changed had to do with the use of the word "tribe", which is irrelevant to this case.

As for the guideline being in the wrong place, you have a point, but AFAIK the right place does not exist. Again, BOLD. But you don't deface pages with personal comments. I find it hard to believe that you've been here 7 years and don't know that's what the talk page is for. Of course I warned you for that, and especially for edit warring over it: that's the kind of behaviour that will get you blocked. (And no, that's not a threat. I wouldn't do it myself.)

Anyway, I think I've had enough with Māori. I'm taking it off my watchlist. The people there are just too weird.

— kwami (talk) 08:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you should actually read Wikipedia:BOLD, and specifically the section Wikipedia:BOLD#...but please be careful. You moved the page Māori but according to your subsequent edits you had no idea of the policy behind the move. My point was that you should have used the talk page to discuss your move and your subsequent attempt to modify the guideline, but you threaten me with a block for pointing this out. I suggest that you remove your post to that page if you agree that the talk page is more appropriate.-gadfium 08:29, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you should read it a little more carefully yourself. The caution is for disruptive edits, like deleting a template that transcludes to hundreds of articles. My edit disrupted nothing important: all it did was create links to a dab page, which can be taken care of easily enough, and which don't cause any real inconvenience, and which of course could be easily reverted, as it was.

Do I really need to say this a third time? I didn't threaten you with a block, I warned you that disruptive behaviour may get you blocked, which is true enough and which you still don't seem to understand. (If you had kept it up, I would have requested to have you blocked, and it would have been up to someone else to determine whether you deserved it.) And it wasn't because you disagreed with me, or because you pointed out something that enraged me, or because I'm part of some government conspiracy that involves black helicopters, but because you edit warred to disrupt the page. Do you honestly not understand that signing comments in articles, guidelines, & the like is not acceptable? And I should move which post to the talk page? I didn't make a post: you do understand the different between editing a page and commenting on it, don't you?

Anyway, I feel like I'm talking to a wall. I've never encountered anyone who refused to understand the basics of editing here like this, certainly not someone who's been here as long as you have. So, unless you have something constructive to say, please stop. — kwami (talk) 08:39, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would love to stop. Please retract your edit to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) and seek consensus first. If it is not approriate for me to post to a Wikipedia namespace page, why is it appropriate for you? Posting disagreements to article namespace is not appropriate, but you seem not to understand the difference in namespace. Telling me that you would have requested another editor block me rather than doing so yourself is so reassuring.-gadfium 08:50, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, you clearly don't understand the difference between editing a page and commenting on it. The difference between articles (mainspace or not) and their talk pages is one of the fundamental concepts of any wiki. I'm posting the 'welcome' links on your talk page. Please don't take that as an insult: there is some good material in there, including some that may have changed since the last time you took a look at it, or perhaps some that didn't make sense at the time, and since you've been here since 2004, it's quite possible no-one ever posted it on your talk page, since you weren't a newbie when it was created. — kwami (talk) 09:08, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

RE: Igbo groups

There are too many Igbo subdivisions to list right now. Some are tribes (e.g Izzi), some are remnants of old states (e.g Aro), some are citizens of a county (e.g Onicha), some are 'clans' and families (e.g Ubani), others are village groups (e.g Ngwa). The most simplified divisions are seen through the language dialects which the articles relating to this topic use. All the indicated groups use 'Igbo' in one way or another to identify themselves and their community, this is usually secondary to their subgroups identity. All of them have a strong underlying Igbo culture. Ukabia - talk 19:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Ukabia. I'll keep a lookout for any references. — kwami (talk) 21:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Guarani

Hi, I noticed that recently you moved some guarani related articles for an appropriate naming without diacritic, I also tried to move Guaraní mythology to Guarani mythology (without diacritic), but I couldn't do it because a bot added some categories on the redirect page. Could you delete that redirect to make way for move? That word only has diacritic in the Spanish orthography, but not in the own Guarani writing system, neither according to Portuguese or English orthographic rules (Portuguese words ending with i or u mark stress on the last syllable), we should not use the Spanish orthography in the English Wikipedia.--Luizdl (talk) 00:28, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Moved. — kwami (talk) 00:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for bothering you again, but could you please do the same with Guaraní Aquifer?--Luizdl (talk) 00:39, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Luizdl (talk) 01:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin and AWB

If you really wish to save time, be careful when piping for a term (i.e. "Putonghua") that already is a re-direct to our little battleground article, such as this edit. Just some advice --HXL 's Roundtable, and Record 03:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, if we ever split that off as a separate article, it might be good to have a direct link. My AWB script isn't that sophisticated. — kwami (talk) 03:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Ever"? I see little reason to split it off, as "Putonghua" largely refers to the standard...i.e. this summer when I heard the term vs. Shandong dialect, which to say doesn't really exist as far as I have read --HXL 's Roundtable, and Record 03:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But if we think we're never going to split it off, why bother with the redirect? What's wrong with piping? — kwami (talk) 03:19, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing particularly wrong, but we are advised not to pipe when the re-direct exists. Whatever. Simply a matter of personal view. I am simply advising you to save time if you can, but apparently your AWB script won't be better for you. --HXL 's Roundtable, and Record 03:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, but that guideline is there because we might want to split the rd off as a separate article, which probably won't happen here. (That is why I'm piping 'Standard Cantonese' in the links: if the Cantonese page ever moves again, it will be useful to have links to redirects.) — kwami (talk) 03:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But note I am not commenting on Cantonese. Which reminds me that speakers may not necessarily speak "Standard Cantonese", but another dialect of the entire language/variety, which, in that case, requires linking to the article on Yue. --HXL 's Roundtable, and Record 03:29, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

True. I've changed it to Yue where I've noticed that. — kwami (talk) 03:30, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On a side note. (Apart from translation), Do you have the knowledge necessary to help me with the article I started on the Chengdu dialect, and in the future the Chongqing dialect? --HXL 's Roundtable, and Record 03:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately no. I don't even have sources on those any more, not that they'd be anything you don't have anyway. — kwami (talk) 03:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See if you can't find A Government phonology Analysis of Chongqing Mandarin Chinese by Hayden Windrow. That might be helpful. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also this thought of mine only emerged a couple of days ago, but you could also consider replacing "Standard Mandarin" with "Putonghua". I have already done so on the PRC page, because that is what the Government officially says, and since so many non-Mandarin dialects are written in the City_hua form anyway, replacing with "Putonghua" shouldn't hurt in many cases. --HXL 's Roundtable, and Record 02:36, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Luhya

(essay on how OR is Truth)
"The Luhya did not come from Egypt, and their language is Bantu... their word form 'mother' happens to sound like the Hungarian word for 'mother' is not good evidence that they used to live in Hungary, etc. ...Much of what you've been adding is considered pseudoscholarship. (If they actually say they came from Egypt, as opposed to someone interpreting their history as meaning they came from Egypt, then we can add that, but we'll need a ref that this is actually their history.) — kwami Unlike Stphen G. Brown, who declared that my edits are bordering on 'unconstutional,' simply because I speak of things that he has never heard of. You are a fair individual, even if you call me a pseudo-scholar. But you of all people should know that everything that is scientifically or historically accepted today, was once considered 'pseudo.' But the truth always comes out. I commend you for responsibly and maturely asking for my opinion. Thank you. However, reverting my additions on the Luhya pages, isn't good. I actually know African history - first hand. I am a lexicologist, ethnologist and archaelogist, specifically one who is classically trained in Egyptology. So I am pseuo-nothing. I know what I know. There are many sources that indicate who the Luhya actually are, as opposed to what the British, and some Americans often blinded by prejudice, SAID they are. After all, you do know that they used to also attribute the ruins of Great Zimbabwe to Asians, or Europeans, anything other than actual dark-skinned Africans, right? You suppose that I do not know what I am writing about. It's ok, wikipedia is not considered a reliable source of ANY kind of information in the academic world anyway. So any additions here, are simply a waste of time to those who actually READ and understand world history. You are right - just because a few word are similar, does not mean that two languages are related - but here's the thing: I only wrote that as mere examples. There are hundreds of other words that are similar and have the same exact meanings, from even as far away from Africa as China and North America, (among some Native American groups). On the other hand though, people like Greenberg did exactly that when they were classifying African languages! If the Hungarian word for mother is the same in Maragoli, they do not have a shared history? Of course they do! Everyone, one way or the other, is related, some more recent than others - but my point is it should be noted that some languages are newer than others. They evolve from others. Obviously in 1500, the Luhya did not speak all their various forms of Luhya as they do today. That's why there is Middle English, Old English and current English - languages, and their speakers evolve. And it's obvious that a Hungarian and a Dalit look a lot different from one another, and speak thus. The same is true of an Ashanti and a Swahili. So, what makes two African languages Bantu? Africa has the highest diversity of languages, and physical attributes of any peoples in the world, along with the Papua New Guinea area, and it's surrounding islands. So why does ethnology accept that the Luhya are a Bantu people, along with the Kongo? Isn't it because their words have similar if not the same pronunciations, prefixes, glottal stops and all other facts related to phonetics? Greenberg and his fellows randomly sampled 50 or so words and assigned African ethnic groups. But what about the other hundreds of thousands of words? Just sampling a few commonly used words means nothing. And tying a people who had nothing to do with West Africa, to West Africa, simply because that area is considered a place of high differentiations of languages, means nothing. You said that right with your 'Hungarian' point. So, a Cameroonian can have words that sound the same or even have the exact same meanings as a Tanzanian, but that does NOT MEAN THAT THEY ARE RELATED. After all, there is Niger Congo A, and Niger Congo B, right? Greenberg's Kordofanian proposition was rebutted, right? Have you ever really thought why? You use the word 'Bantu.' Do you know that the word Bantu means 'the (Ba or Va) PEOPLE (Ntu)?' The Ancient Egyptian word for person was 'NTU.' For a quick reference look up 'Ntu Egypt' in Google. As for books, read 'Exiled Egyptians' for one. There are many others. I'm not going to list them all here. After all, you would just dismiss them as pseudo-history, won't you? The classifications of African languages are bandied about wildly - but I'm sure you know that some languages in Africa have elements OF ALL THE OTHER African languages right? And what about the ones in-between language groups, like the unclassified Shabo, Ongota and Kwadi? The people in East Africa considered Bantu are actually more closely related to the ones they call 'Cushites' and 'Nilotes' than their West African counterparts - especially the original West African inhabitants of Nigeria and Cameroonand not the immigrants from Israel and Egypt like the Hebraic Ibo. Some ethnic groups from Mali, and Senegal and even some in northern Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Ghana all the way towards Western Sahara have roots in North-East Africa, and some, in Asia. It is evident in the words they use - after all isn't that ONE OF the major ways of differentiating humans? And contrary to what you believe, or think you know, the Luhya, DID COME from Ancient Egypt, before, during and after the Arab Muslim conquests. But by then it was already a wasteland filled with rampant desertification. Not much different from the way it is today. It is said in their history, and it is written also. You may not know it, but I see that your page has something to do with 'writing systems.' You have very little on Africa, which leads me to believe that you don't know much about Africa, even though you use 'Kwami.' The Luhya and like many other Eastern African and Southern African ethnic groups, considered 'Bantu' had writing systems akin to hieroglyphics. These drawings had symbolic references. A specific drawing represented specific words or letters of the alphabet. I'm sure you realize that this alphabet we're using is Latin, but the numerals we use are Arabic, right? The Luhya have a vocabulary that exceeds the 26 letters of the Latin Alphabet, just as the Amhara of Ethiopia do. And as you know, the Vai. They had their very own alphabet and numerical systems. read a book like African Fractals by Ron Englash, an ethnomathematician who describes how Africans were using fractals to build villages - a form of mathematics that Europeans had not discovered before they came to Africa. African would use their various versions of hieroglyphics on their buildings, weapons and architecture even as late as the 1960's, before they were mostly stamped out by colonizers calling their writings 'pagan.' And this is what some of us are trying to undo. A history of historical arrogance and suppression of real, non-biased facts. I also stated Biblical evidence. There is Koranic evidence too - as a source of African history. What's your reason for removing that? I also specifically added Luhya's OWN ORAL HISTORY. So you know very well that I'm not just pulling words from thick air. You want a refernce? I gave you many, but the best one, meet the people who actually know their own history. And please do not use the phrase 'taken to mean..' anymore. What do you mean? Do you think that they do not know WHO THEY ARE, and WHERE THEY CAME FROM? Why do you people always use that silly line? If their history is taken to mean Ethiopia and Sudan. You must be of the school of thought that 'Africans are slobs, that do not think and clearly do not know what they are saying. So we will take their words to mean this, and not that..' That is an extremely narrow-minded, xenophobic and bigoted (racist in common man's terms) way of viewing Luhyas and their take on their own history. This is 2011. Please, remove yourself from the narrow 1800's, when people thought Africans knew nothing, because they couldn't possibly comprehend how a people who were slaves could actually have had civilizations that at times rivalled and exceeded their own. Obviously, Luhyas know the difference. Cities like Meroe, Thebes (Thaba) and Dongola are in their history. The names of those towns are actually still around in Luhya areas today. On the other hand, why use 'TAKEN TO MEAN Ethiopia or Sudan' after just saying that they are Bantus from Nigeria. Clearly, you obviously don't even know where they came from in the first place, either! Or you do, and you just don't like what you see, and hear. Besides that, there are thousands of credible, proven sources out there. I am not interested in any more additions to this site. You have made reverting my presentations your sole responsibility. Go ahead. Have fun. I'm out of wikipedia, I'm deactivating this account. So don't bother replying. User:Washmuaria, 22:14, 2011 January 31

I didn't read all of that, but the issue is a simple one: if you write something that is challenged, it's up to you to provide the citations to demonstrate it. It really doesn't matter what you know, because we can't judge your competence. All we can judge the quality of your references.

But in the end you're right: if I doubt extraordinary claims that you present without evidence, it can only mean that I'm a racist. There's no other possible explanation. — kwami (talk) 07:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:Cultures in standard cross-cultural sample

Template:Cultures in standard cross-cultural sample has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Uyvsdi (talk) 07:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi[reply]

Another move fest

Well, I see you've resumed your mass undiscussed moves. I notice most of these are North American tribes, many of which seem primary over the languages. Considering how controversial these moves have proven, I would have thought you would start discussions before plowing ahead. But you aren't, so I'm asking you to stop, and start using WP:RM first. Otherwise, I'm going to have to start a report at WP:ANI, because I just don't see any other option. You've got one goal in sight, and are ignoring everything else to achieve it, to the detriment of the encyclopedia. --JaGa^talk 21:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't like a move, revert it. 90% are uncontroversial, and don't cause any inconvenience. And if you think most of them are North American, you haven't been paying attention. I'm not going to post a request and wait a week for all of these articles when it's so easy to revert per WP:BOLD. — kwami (talk) 21:39, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, forget it. I'm tired of dealing with this. Feel free to restructure WP any way you want, although I'm really interested in the 90% remark. If you were a responsible editor, you'd start a discussion for that 10% based on your new-found knowledge of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. But I see your philosophy is to make drastic changes and let other people clean up after you - not just dablinks, but also ill-chosen pagemoves. Well, OK. That's how it will be then. --JaGa^talk 21:57, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't predict which 10% some unknown editor might object to. You're saying that a responsible editor would never make an edit that anyone else would modify. If I could do that, we would never need discussion, because I could determine consensus on my own. Hardly how things work in the real world. — kwami (talk) 22:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Telling us to undo the moves is patronising and unhelpful. As you would know if you had any knowledge of pagemoves, we can't do them without admin tools when there have been subsequent edits to the original title page. DuncanHill (talk) 22:06, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the time there haven't been, so you can undo them. And it's hardly patronizing, it's simply following basic WP guidelines like WP:BOLD. — kwami (talk) 22:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do appreciate that you have never previously been wrong about anything at all (to judge from your responses to various editors on this page), but please do try to open your mind to the possibility that you are wrong about pagemoves and dabbing. You certainly are doing nothing at all to promote a collaborative atmosphere, rather the opposite. DuncanHill (talk) 23:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wrong all the time, of course. I just can't predict when I'll be wrong. If I could, I'd never be wrong. I can't predict which page moves will prove contentious. Some I think will be, and which I do start discussions for, turn out not to be, and some I assume will be unproblematic cause people to go ballistic. But moving a page to a more specific name is not disruptive, so it doesn't matter: if the move is a problem, undo it, just like any other edit on WP. — kwami (talk) 23:23, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I intend to undo any and all moves/changes you make to create dabpages from now on, because you have caused significant disruption to other editors by your actions in this area. It would be easier for everyone if you simply refrained from editing in this area, or even better entered into discussions bout the changes you want to make, but as you have repeatedly refused to do either of these things, I am left with no alternative. DuncanHill (talk) 23:30, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't even about creating dab pages. That's not what JaGa was complaining about, and not what I've been doing today. Also, following people around undoing moves which are not problematic is itself disruptive. If you undo moves, it needs to be because the move is undesirable, not because you have a personal problem with the editor. — kwami (talk) 23:34, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have a problem with your edits. You have been repeatedly asked to desist, and you have repeatedly been asked to discuss first rather than going ahead with vast numbers of moves. You have repeatedly refused to do either. DuncanHill (talk) 23:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm following WP guidelines. If you don't like it, get the guidelines changed. A few have proven contentious, and those have generally been reverted. The rest aren't bothering anybody, so what's your problem with them?

If I had a problem with some of your edits, and demanded that you clear everything you wanted to do before you did it, would you comply? But if you can convince the WP community that this is the way to do things around here, I will go along. — kwami (talk) 23:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh forget it - I was just now trying to fix the mess you made of Blackfoot, but the trail of moves and redirects is too confusing. When you leave histories that make it hard for anyone to understand just what you were trying to do, you make it impossible for anyone to "just undo" you - and you make it much harder for the editors who actually do want correct links instead of dablinks. There's a whole fucking wikiproject of people who actually enjoy fixing dablinks, but instead of engaging with us and getting our help you seem intent on antagonising and exasperating us as much as you possible can. DuncanHill (talk) 00:04, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that must be the motivation: antagonizing a wikiproject I wasn't aware existed.

Blackfoot is a mess, that's for sure. We had two articles, 'Blackfoot' and 'Blackfeet', on different topics, and the links to them had little to do with which was which, so it's completely screwed up. You won't find many like that, though, and anyway, it was screwed up before I got to it. Yeah, I'm trying to fix it too, but it's a headache. (Oh forget it. It's generally impossible to tell which 'Blackfeet' are intended. Linking to the dab page may be the best bet.) — kwami (talk) 00:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you have been referred to the wikiproject before, so unless you deliberately weren't reading the comments on this page, you should have been aware of it by now. You woulf also have found out about it by looking at the talk pages of many dab pages, which have a nice template linking to it. Or, indeed, by reading the guidelines about dabbing, which I do elieve mention the project. DuncanHill (talk) 00:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, fair enough. — kwami (talk) 00:51, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've asked at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America for help fixing the incoming links to Blackfoot. I found out about the wikiproject by looking at Talk:Blackfoot. I've also added the dab project template to talk:Blackfoot. DuncanHill (talk) 01:01, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- I've also made this edit to Talk:Blackfeet. It is rather unhelpful for the talk page to be redirected to a different article than the main page attached to it. DuncanHill (talk) 01:06, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously, Kwami, don't you see what you're doing? WP:BOLD wasn't written so you could do a half-assed job and say "meh, if I did something wrong, someone else will fix it". It's intended as an encouragement for new, uncertain editors, not administrators with over 100,000 edits. You're just hiding behind BOLD to justify lazy edits.

Sure, we'll fix your screw-ups when we find them. But we won't find all of them, so some mistakes will sit around indefinitely. How does that improve the wiki? Do it right the first time. Stop using WP:BOLD to justify the easy way out; do due diligence, think about the changes you're making, make sure another disambig doesn't already exist, make sure you format your disambig properly, apply WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and if you aren't 100% certain put it at WP:RM. It may take longer but it will avoid some of the messes you've been piling up of late. --JaGa^talk 04:47, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What makes you think I'd find all of them? That's the thing with screw-ups: If I noticed them, I wouldn't make them. And the only mess I've been notified of is that a page move failed to carry the talk page along with it (happens occasionally, I still don't know why), and that I fixed, not you. — kwami (talk) 06:19, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I fixed several talk pages which your move-fest left pointing in the wrong direction, you only fixed the one that you had made too much of a mess of for me to do - and then only after it was pointed out to you, as you hadn't bothered to check your moves after making them. And as for "that's the thing with screw ups" - if you were more willing to discuss changes first and ask for help, you'd be less likely to make them. DuncanHill (talk) 11:04, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, I forgot that the talk pages don't always move as they're supposed to. If you had told me, I would've been happy to do it myself. — kwami (talk) 11:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Blackfoot Confederacy

Talk:Blackfoot Confederacy now this is a real mess - it currently redirects to Talk:Blackfoot, but there is an article at Blackfoot Confederacy. Is there any content that should be at Talk:Blackfoot Confederacy? The history of pagemoves and redirects is far too confusing for me to work out, though I suspect that the content currently at Talk:Blackfoot is what should be at Talk:Blackfoot Confederacy. DuncanHill (talk) 01:16, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I forget that the talk pages sometimes don't follow their articles. I'll take care of it. — kwami (talk) 01:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your suspicion was correct. That should do it. — kwami (talk) 01:26, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. DuncanHill (talk) 01:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wolastoqiyik

Your usual problem with the talk page. Please fix. DuncanHill (talk) 12:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, not a usual problem: there are two talk pages for one article. Either one can be left on a redirect, or one needs to be archived. But agreed that it should be addressed. — kwami (talk) 12:31, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A merge would be in order. DuncanHill (talk) 12:35, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done. — kwami (talk) 12:43, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Talk pages of your new dab pages

Please do not leave the talk pages of your newly-created dab pages as redirects to the talk page of wherever you moved the article content. The talk page of a dab page should be tagged with {{tl:WikiProject Disambiguation}}. See, for example, Talk:Haida. DuncanHill (talk) 12:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Got it. — kwami (talk) 12:31, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pagemove help

I've asked if anyone could give you a masterclass on moving talkpages properly, as it does seem to be causing you difficulty. DuncanHill (talk) 12:35, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Usually they move without a problem; I'm unclear why that sometimes fails. Usually when a talk page can't move automatically there's some notification of the fact. — kwami (talk) 12:42, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some editors like to check after making a pagemove to see if the talk page has moved too. DuncanHill (talk) 12:46, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Peoples

Just a comment about some of your moves of standalone indigenous names to "+people"....in some cases this will be redundant....I'm not actually sure what "Haida" means in the Haida language, it could include the meaning "people". Nuu-chah-nulth doesn't (it means "along the outside (of Vancouver Island) and in its proper state in that language would have the -aht suffice, meaning "people". Kwakwaka'wakw already implies "people" as it means "speakers of Kwak'wala". But names like Nlaka'pamux, St'at'imc, Skwxwu7mesh and Secwepemc and Tahltan and Tsilhqot'in already include morphemes meaning "people", likewise Skokomish and Duwamish (-mesh, -mish, -imc, -emc in Salishan, -tan and -t'in in Athapaskan are all "people" suffixes). Not that English convention doesn't habitually attach "people" to these names....so far "we" have made a point (among NorthAmNative members) of not adding them; the convention so far has been to use the native name for the ethno article, the anglo name, more often than not (with some exceptions, such as St'at'imc Nation vs Lillooet Tribal Council, which are both official names for the same body), are used for the government names, and since...someone...came along, also for their languages e.g. Lillooet language instead of St'at'imcets. We really need to come up with a NativeMOS guideline, however....hopefully you noticed the CfR about "Native American" categories which shouldn't be called that...(in the Feb 1 CfDs).Skookum1 (talk) 18:47, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We already have a Wikipedia policy for naming these entities--common English usage per WP:NCON. Since common English usage is Lillooet for the language (at least), that is the name that should be retained for the article. --Taivo (talk) 19:56, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A policy of "X" for the people and "X language" for the language would be fine, even if that means that Amerindian languages are treated differently than Eurasian langs. Is there a discussion where that was contemplated? We do generally have the convention of not appending 'people' or 'language' to names which are used for specifically one or the other.

Whether or not X̣ayda contains the meaning of 'people' in Haida, Haida doesn't in English.

One reason for moving is that links are commonly made blindly, and if "X" is a dab page, all future blind links would end up there, where they belong. Of course, in the case of America that may well be an acceptable trade-off. — kwami (talk) 21:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stop your disruptive and completely grammatically uncorrect application of WP:DASH. Now.

"Pre-main star" and "Post-World War II" and similar things do NOT warrant an ndash by any stretch of the imagination. It's gonna take a while to clean up your mess. Please stop it now. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 07:06, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You change the guideline, and then berate me for following it? Screw you. — kwami (talk) 09:04, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but what you're doing with these dashes is just grammatically wrong. Please stop. Johnlp (talk) 10:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How is it wrong? Check the Chicago Manual of Style or any of many many others: the CMOS even gives "pre–World War II" (or is it "post–World War II"?) as an example. En dashes for prefixing open compounds has been standard for a century or more. — kwami (talk) 10:34, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I've worked in these areas for the best part of 50 years: US usage of dashes rather than hyphens is different, but it is not a world standard. In most of the rest of the world, a dash would be used only to imply an extent or connection between two items, as in 1904–05, where the dash might be replaced by the word "to", and not the simple joining of two words to form a compound or to add a prefix. To impose a US style on articles written outside the US and with no US connection is not right. Johnlp (talk) 10:45, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's hardly the same as being "grammatically wrong", as you put it. I was under the impression that it wasn't just a US standard. However, if it is, you might want to provide some refs for the MOS discussion.

(How would they handle "the anti-conscription–pro-conscription debate" is the UK?) — kwami (talk) 10:49, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The anti/pro conscription debate", or even better "the conscription debate". DuncanHill (talk) 13:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On second thoughts, "the pro/anti" rather than "anti/pro". For always wants to come before against in my experience. DuncanHill (talk) 14:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, but if someone said "the anti-conscription–pro-conscription debate", and you were transcribing it, how would you punctuate it? — kwami (talk) 14:01, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The anti-conscription/pro-conscription debate". DuncanHill (talk) 14:21, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. That makes sense. — kwami (talk) 14:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the relevant sections from the Oxford University Press style guide, as set down in the Oxford Writers' Dictionary.

Dashes:

(a) The en rule (–) is used:

1. To join pairs wherever movement or tension, rather than co-operation or unity (for which use hyphen) is felt, e.g. ‘1914–18 war’ (but ‘from 1914 to 1918’), ‘current–voltage characteristic’, ‘the Fischer–Spassky match’, ‘the London–Horsham–Brighton route’, ‘the Marxist–Trotskyite split’ (but ‘the Marxist-Leninist position’ (hyphen)). Note also ‘Franco-Prussian War’ (hyphen, because ‘Franco-‘ is a prefix which cannot stand alone).

2. For joint authors (hyphen would lead to confusion with a single double-barrelled name), e.g. ‘the Lloyd–Jones hypothesis’ (two men), ‘the Lloyd-Jones hypothesis’ (one man), ‘the Lloyd-Jones–Scargill talks’ (two men).

[There are other sections about the use of em dashes and two-em dashes, which OUP uses even more sparingly, mostly to indicate omitted or repeated text in, for example, bibliographies.]

Hyphen:

This is used:

1. To join two or more words so as to form a single expression, e.g. ear-ring, get-at-able, and words having a syntactical relationship which form a compound, as weight-carrying (objective), punch-drunk (instrumental); and in a compound used attributively, to clarify the unification of the sense, e.g. a blood-red hand, the well-known man, but prettily furnished rooms, the man is well known (predicative).

2. To join a prefix to a proper name, e.g. anti-Darwinian.

3. To prevent misconceptions by linking words, e.g. a poor-rate collection, a poor rate-collection.

4. To prevent misconceptions by separating a prefix from the main word, e.g. recover, re-cover (an umbrella); (a footballer) resigns, re-signs.

5. To separate two similar consonant or vowel sounds in a word, as a help to understanding and pronunciation, e.g. sword-dance, Ross-shire...

6. To represent a common second element in all but the last word of a list, e.g. two-, three- or fourfold.

As usual with OUP thoroughness/pedantry, it also has specific styles for particular words: so in the dictionary part it specifies "pre-war" and "post-war" with hyphens and no capitals (though if the "War" was capitalised, it would be a hyphen under the second point of the "hyphen" section quoted above anyway). I'd be pretty confident other UK/Australian/Indian style guides would be similar on this: with the "post-war" example, they'd if anything tend to have no hyphen in preference to any en dash, which I have simply never seen in standard usage except under the conditions outlined above. Feel free to transplant this into the MOS discussion if you want.

For what it's worth, what User:DuncanHill writes above makes perfect sense to me: I'd never use an en dash in these circumstances, but I just might use an oblique. Johnlp (talk) 21:44, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. I've found some variation in US style guides: some only list these functions, some only list the compounded compound type (generally these are the more basic or introductory guides), and some list both. I found an Oxford guide that described the compounded compound usage as well, but it may have been intended for the US.

BTW, "pre-war" and "post-war" are US usage too: the en dash only comes in with open compounds, "pre–World War" and "post–World War", to show that we're talking about before/after the war, and not before/after the world. — kwami (talk) 21:57, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps on this side of the Atlantic we rely a little more on the commonsense of the reader! Johnlp (talk) 22:08, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe! ;)

But with more obscure, technical, or ad hoc compounds, parsing can get difficult without some way of disambiguating. In speech, prosody takes care of it, so people may use spoken expressions that writing-style guides would advise against.

(Personally, I find it easy to parse the scope of a prefix if it isn't capitalized and the open-compound stem is, but when everything is capitalized I've sometimes found myself puzzled. Can't think of a good example offhand, though.) — kwami (talk) 22:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop this now. This is not English, not helpful to the encyclopedia. These are rules of thumb; not to be followed blindly against usage - as you are doing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:25, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kwami, WTF are you doing? re the CSRD?

I'm reverting that (Comox-Strathcona Regional District); the reason it wasn't included in the RM (and RM2) at Talk:Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District is because it was already properly hyphenated, as per all sources and because it's a hyphenated name. I thought you were one of the good guys, dude.Skookum1 (talk) 10:39, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, if I screwed up, sorry. I was going on the other compound BC districts. If they aren't a valid comparison, then revert it, or ask me and I'll revert it. Don't have a cow, man!

I wasn't aware of that discussion, but many of the participants seem to have no idea what they're talking about. They're using govt web pages as a source? Ridiculous: html punctuation is grossly simplified and should not be used as a typographic guide. — kwami (talk) 10:42, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

BCGNIS and CGNDB are records of official names, they're not merely html; they also use French characters, and often special FN characters. Hansard, which is typeset (and on-line, reproduced according to the style guides of the Provincial Secretary - or Speaker of the House, not sure which - and the Queen's Printer - use the hyphen, as do the publications (including PDFs) of both the provincial government and the regional districts themselves (the RDs are "creatures" of the provincial tier of government, not federal btw), use the hyphen. They're also all geographic proper names, not "and/or" constructions as they people who really don't know what they're talking about averred in the first RM (note the support tally in the 2nd one), and as proper names and being hyphenated, they should remain hyphenated (and should never have been dashed just because some typography-happy twit some countries, even oceans away, decided that they were "and" constructions, which they're most definitely not. I just went through 10-12 pages of the move log to revert it, and can't find it. The reason I'm testy about this is because it was from the Alberni-Clayoquot RM that the Poland-Lithuania one in all its inanity and arrogance and time-consuming nonsense grew, and the related MOS debates. "Consensus" of the uninformed is just that; uninformed; that WP:MOSFOLLOW was ignored throughout is most aggravating; using the excuse, as you have again here, that they're "only" HTML discounts the - gee, what do you know - the possibility that government systems people (BC Systems, which sets standards for BC government websites, and BCGNIS itself) were typographical imbeciles incapable of being sophisticated like holier-than-thou MOSites in Britain or wherever the lot of them came from; they're hyphenated names just like Henley-on-Thames or Baden-Baden; someone also tried to change provincial park names recently, for the same bad reason, but they also are mandated by legislation, typeset legislation (available variously online in PDF and in HTML) and in all government publications as hyphenated. One dash-happy twit said "we don't do official names, what we do is typography" - which is a crock of shit.Skookum1 (talk) 10:53, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, those sound like good refs. There's a difference between attributive usage (X-Y Z) and not-attributives like the MOS example of Guinea-Bissau, but if there are no examples of professionally typeset publications which use en dashes in these names, then I concur that we shouldn't use them based solely on a superficial reading of the style guides.

There is one I pointed out, though, where do I think the en dash should be retained ("Regional District of Fraser-Fort George"), because using a hyphen produces a misparsing of the name: it makes it look as if "Fraser-Fort" is an element of the name. The same is true of "Ed Bird-Estella Lakes Provincial Park"; that looks as though it's named after some guy named "Ed Bird-Estella". That, of course, is regardless of whether the other names should be hyphenated. — kwami (talk) 11:09, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

that's a garbage argument, based in some notion that your deconstruction of a proper name has anything to do with reality and with MOSFOLLOW or CANMOS or COMMONNAME. Fully-capitalized names are proper names and when parts of them are hyphenated, they're still proper names. Unless as a linguist you somehow are going to claim that "Lakes" is a name all by itself and not connected to either the word before it or the word after. You may know your IPA but you clearly have no regard at all for normal syntax or with what is used by the local govenrment which established these names. Here is a link to the Ministry of Forests Library search window which includes links to other government libraries, and also will search the whole of the BC Govt database, go look for regional districts, and for that park, and limit it to Hansard (which is typeset) and PDFs and DOCs (which are typeset); if you want write the Queen's Printer in Victoria, or call up BC Systems, and tell them you know better than they do. You're rattling on about nosense and it's really really disruptive; we were finally getting close to having the proper usage restored, and you had to come in and play spoiler. someone piss in your cornflakes or what?? You don't know better than the sources, or someone actually from the place you're passing judgement on what's best for us "because Wikipedia knows best" etc...typography is given WP:UNDUE weight over reality in Wikipedia, far too much, and by creating new paradigms you are re-inventing reality rather than reflecting it. I'm shocked at your behaviour, and your asinine arguments over this. I really don't know what's come over you, frankly.....Skookum1 (talk) 11:21, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's 3:22 am in my timezone (PST) and I would have been in bed an hour ago if not for your friggin' nonsense.....what a waste of time Wikipedia is turning into because of inane arguments by ill-informed and pretentious people!!.Skookum1 (talk) 11:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, here I am agreeing with you apart from one remaining concern, and again you fly off the handle. Come back after you get some sleep.

(Speaking of which, I should go to bed myself.) — kwami (talk) 11:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cycling teams and WP:ENDASH

Hi, I noticed you moved An Post–Sean Kelly on the basis of WP:ENDASH. On a previous occasion, it was decided that cycling team names don't meet the requirements of WP:ENDASH - see the discussion here. Thanks, Severo^TC 12:11, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This wasn't a case of 'disjunction' vs 'conjunction' (an unfortunate choice of words), or, more relevantly, a junction of two names as opposed to a single hyphenated name, but due to the spaces in the names: An Post–Sean Kelly means [An Post]+[Sean Kelly], which is what we intend, whereas An Post-Sean Kelly would suggest a single person with a middle name of "Post-Sean". (Well, not too hard to figure out, but it makes it difficult to read, which we don't want.)

A lot of the linking articles also used hyphens with spaces, which is just a quick substitute for en dashes.

Anyway, I've gone through almost all of the links, so I might as well finish up for consistency; they can be reversed if the article is. — kwami (talk) 12:20, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is a genuine problem but simply replacing a hyphen with an endash does not solve it. Some people will accept An-Post–Sean-Kelly with two different marks; but that is only acceptable in some forms of English. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, AFAIK it does solve it. Dashes work the same for open compounds as they do for hyphenated compounds. Also, AFAIK there's general agreement on not hyphenating proper names for things like "An-Post–Sean-Kelly". — kwami (talk) 21:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Varieties of Chinese/content fork

It doesn't matter whether you want to call it a sandbox page or an old article; either way, it doesn't belong in articlespace. If you don't want it in your own userspace, then perhaps you can find a WikiProject that will adopt it — but it has to be kept out of articlespace regardless. If it's left in articlespace, then it'll merely get redirected back to the parent article, because we don't keep multiple forks of one article in active production and no page can ever, ever be left sitting in articlespace without a content category on it. Bearcat (talk) 03:31, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So what do we do with article history we don't want to delete, but can't merge?

It certainly doesn't belong on my user page. — kwami (talk) 07:16, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Moving "x cell carcinoma" to "x-cell carcinoma"

I see that you have been moving many pages to a hyphenated form. This is not appropriate. This webpage (PubMed) lists medical journal articles with "small-cell carcinoma" in the title. You will see that the overwhelming majority are not hyphenated. Similarly for basal cell carcinoma. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:35, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but WP is a reference work, not a journal. Medical journals assume that their readers know the terms, and in such cases hyphens tend to be dropped. Reference works cannot assume that, and so need to be precise; you'll notice that among reference works, hyphens are much more common. One of the primary concerns here is that we not rely overmuch on jargon, and logical hyphenation is one small step in doing that. (Similarly, our guidelines specify that we use logical punctuation with quotations, even if that contradicts the national style the article is written in.) — kwami (talk) 10:38, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am taking this issue to WikiProject Medicine. Please comment there. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:52, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A number of us request that you move these terms back. The hyphens do not look good. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Looking good" is not the point: a huge number of reliable sources use logical hyphenation, and this helps our readers. These terms are difficult to read without hyphenation unless you are already familiar with the subject, and we need to assume that our readers are not familiar with it. Even COMMONNAME states that when several names are in use by RSs, we need to consider clarity and precision, not just percentages. — kwami (talk) 02:02, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

dashes in names

If you think you're going to carry out your own vendetta against WP's established style, think carefully before proceeding. It will cause a lot of trouble if you continue. Tony (talk) 12:09, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't. This is established style: precision, as befitting a reference work. We should say what we mean, not what only initiates to the field will understand us to mean. Besides, the en-dash thing is up for discussion, and I haven't been doing anything with it while that's proceeding. — kwami (talk) 12:39, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Accurate IPA pronunciation guides for English?

I would like to know how you can make so accurate pronunciation guides. Especially I would like to know how you can tell when the vowels /ɨ/ and /ʉ/ should be used, as most dictionaries don’t include them in their pronunciation guides. I understand that these two vowels are not used in all dialects of English including American, but are nevertheless recommended to be used in Wikipedia’s pronunciation guides to make them more universal. An example of a pronunciation guide including the /ɨ/ vowel can be found in for example the article of the Adriatic Sea /ˌeɪdriˈætɨk/.

Thank you for answering in advance.

Nxghzt (talk) 14:02, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nxghzt, there's certainly some variation in the transcriptions, and sometimes it's a judgement call. Some dictionaries would mark the i in -ic with secondary stress if it weren't reduced, so the lack of a stress mark indicates it's reduced /ɨ/. Similarly, an American dictionary which marks final /i/ with secondary stress may correspond to a British dictionary with /iː/, while American final /i/ without stress may correspond to British final /ɪ/. But usage of 2ary stress to mark unreduced vowels in American dictionaries seems to be somewhat sporadic. Also, if an Australian dictionary has /ə/, then it's clearly a reduced vowel and should be /ɨ/ rather than /ɪ/ (as in the 'California' example you had). This might be something we need to hash out more explicitly.

Sookum, I answered your post there. I'm afraid it turned into a bit of an essay, and even so I'm not sure I gave my opinion (and what I've seen across thousands of articles) on all of your concerns rather than on peripheral issues that often come up in such discussions, but which you might not have intended. — kwami (talk) 22:55, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mattock

A couple of points:

"Not necessary to include" does not mean "necessary to exclude". I seen nothing in WP:NOT that would apply directly here.
"Fix" does not mean "remove", and so an edit summary of "Fix IPA" is directly misleading when applied to an edit which removes the IPA outright. You did this twice ([4], [5]). Please read Wikipedia:Edit summary carefully; it contains a number of salient suggestions.

Perhaps your arguments would be better received if you gave some details. If you wish to assert that the source (the OED, of all things) has been misinterpreted, then you need to provide some details in order to be taken seriously. In this instance, the source seems pretty straightforward. I trust you will revert your edits and replace a perfectly valid piece of well-cited information that was needlessly removed. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:23, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, WP is not a dictionary. We don't include pronunciations of everyday words such as this. Second, while the OED pronunciation is fine, it uses a different pronunciation key than you linked to. E.g. your British pronunciation included an undefined vowel, one different from the CAT vowel; the reasonable assumption would be that it's the FATHER vowel, which it is not. Also, there is no difference between the UK and US pronunciations apart from accent, so it is misleading to give them separately as if they were different. If you really need to give a pronunciation, you can use what my copy of the OED has, /ˈmætək/.

As for the edit summary, I'm scanning 12,000 articles. Usually they only require a minor touchup, but occasionally I delete incorrect pronunciations when they are unnecessary. If I were to change the summary for that, I'd likely forget to change it back, and tag a hundred minor corrections as deletions. — kwami (talk) 09:30, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOT does not specifically exclude pronunciations. Wikipedia is not paper, and does not have limited space. The pronunciations I included were far down the article in a specific etymology section, not in the lead, so their presence cannot be considered distracting. "Mattock" is not such an everyday word for most people; there could reasonably be doubts about pronunciation (stress on the second syllable, perhaps?), and giving only a single IPA representation would be to bias the article towards either British English or American English. What reason do you have, other than a dogmatic assertion that "we don't include...", to believe that their presence is in any way harmful? Since you have a correct version, why not simply include that, rather than deleting them?

Number of edits does not excuse misleading edit summaries. If you cannot keep up with your rate of editing, then you should probably slow down to a level where you can give meaningful edit summaries. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:51, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, giving a single transcription is less biased. You exclude everyone but Brits and Yanks; the single transcription includes nearly everyone. (Well, maybe not Scots.)

As for WP:NOT, it is frequently cited to remove pronunciations that can be found in a small dictionary. But it's not the pron so much as the fact that it was wrong. — kwami (talk) 10:06, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If it's wrong and you have a version that is not wrong (as you profess to have), replace the wrong version with the right one! Do not simply remove it. And no, providing transcriptions in the two major variants of English is pretty inclusive; including only one is by definition less inclusive. Regardless of what WP:NOT is frequently purported to mean, it does not appear to actually contain anything of relevance here. I see no reason not to include a pronunciation for an unfamiliar word, particularly in a section devoted to etymology, and the source I cited from is perfectly reliable as an authority on the English language. If you have no further reason for your mislabelled deletions, I will restore the information. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:17, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One is by definition more inclusive, but that doesn't really matter. I gave you the correct transcription if you wish to use it. — kwami (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And then when I use it, you remove it with, again, no good explanation (cf. WP:1RR). What are you doing? --Stemonitis (talk) 13:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. You labeled it a reversion, but you did make a partial correction. I didn't notice that. I've reverted myself and fixed the rest. — kwami (talk) 13:25, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"I gave you the correct transcription if you wish to use it" is an evident invitation. Snubbing someone for acting on it seems needlessly spiteful. Please try to explain further if you can, but if you have no further arguments to present, then I can only asusme that there is indeed no reason for the deletion, and that the IPA can be restored. You cannot both insist on deletion and fail to satisfactorily explain the deletion. (And no, what you have given so far is clearly not satisfactory.) --Stemonitis (talk) 13:26, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)

No, this still isn't right. You state that "it's pronounced that way everywhere", which is patently untrue. The OED gives two pronunciations, clearly indicating that two pronunciations exist. I trust the OED more than a Wikipedia edit summary, and I do not understand why this is so troublesome for you. A very reliable source says something straightforward; why are you contesting it? --Stemonitis (talk) 13:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, the OED website, today, gives

Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈmatək/ , U.S. /ˈmædək/

I think that's pretty clear. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:33, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if we were to use their IPA conventions. But we don't. The OED is giving the pronunciation in two different accents, but it's the same pronunciation. Here on WP we ignore such details. This is explained at the top of the IPA key you linked your transcription to. — kwami (talk) 13:58, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't help thinking that explanation would have been useful a few days ago. Problem solved. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:11, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thought I did. Sorry I wasn't clear. — kwami (talk) 14:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pro-life issues

Just wanted to drop you a note because I saw you moved Mark Harrington (anti-abortion activist) from pro-life to anti-abortion, I agree with you that its more precise, but unfortunately consensus seems to be against it per the move discussion currently in progress at Talk:Pro-life. Just wanted to give you a heads up that you might take some flack for that move, particularly if the move discussion at pro-life is unsuccessful. _WikiMan^One 02:45, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link. — kwami (talk) 02:51, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Help with infoboxes...?

kwami, this may be a strange question :), but would you happen to know where or who I can ask for assistance with the Template:Infobox military conflict? It seems no matter what I do on Croatian War of Independence the right column always takes up 2/3 of infobox width (instead of 1/2). --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 03:10, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd ask on the talk page of the template. If that doesn't work, on the talk pages of the people who've recently modified it significantly. (Going to dinner, so I don't have a minute right now myself.) — kwami (talk) 03:24, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Irymple, Victoria

Hi. Can you look at the the IPA and respelling for Irymple, Victoria please It is pronounced EYE-rimple. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 04:07, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. There was just an extra pipe in the respelling template. — kwami (talk) 04:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fish

You do realize that the definition "fins and scales" is the kosher dietary one and has no basis in science - it would make sea turtles and penguins into fish, as a matter of fact. I have been trying to come up with a definition myself, there really isn't any objective one. In the meantime, trying to fix that article piecemeal is like putting lipstick on a pig.μηδείς (talk) 04:58, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying to at least get rid of the self contradictions.

Perhaps the OED definition will help:

In popular language, any animal living exclusively in the water; primarily denoting vertebrate animals provided with fins and destitute of limbs; but extended to include various cetaceans, crustaceans, molluscs, etc. In modern scientific language (to which popular usage now tends to approximate) restricted to a class of vertebrate animals, provided with gills throughout life, and cold-blooded; the limbs, if present, are modified into fins, and supplemented by unpaired median fins.

Except in the compound shell-fish, the word is no longer commonly applied in educated use to invertebrate animals.

As a start, I'll remove 'scales' and add 'gills'. — kwami (talk) 11:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kurdish people

A solution needs to be found quickly, please re-join discussion at Talk:Kurdish people#Turkish Propaganda. Kermanshahi (talk) 08:40, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

edit at Cajun

Whats you're thoughts on this edit? I don't know enough about this stuff to know if its accurate or a vandal screwing with us. Thanks! He iro 02:37, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's reasonable. The tie bar just means liaison: the /z/ is part of the previous word but is pronounced as part of the following word. However, that's really a phonemic concept, or a typographical one, and we've provided a phonetic transcription; it's hard to argue how [z] (in brackets) behaves that way. Another solution would be to just remove the spacing between the words altogether. But I'm not too familiar with how liaison is transcribed in phonetic vs phonemic transcriptions. — kwami (talk) 02:45, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Inuinnaq dialect

Hi kwami. I don't know if you're watching this page, but if you aren't, you might be interested in the move discussion going on there. --JorisvS (talk) 16:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Newark_Pepper

Hello, I think Category:Newark_Pepper should be restored, Category:Newark_Peppers should be deleted, and then Category:Newark_Pepper should be moved to Category:Newark_Peppers. Minor detail, but the page history was lost on the wrong category page. No biggie, but that was the purpose of fixing the c&p move. Rgrds. 64.85.214.196 (talk) 18:28, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not able to move categories. I don't know if s.o. else is, but the only thing in its history is a quick creation by a bot. — kwami (talk) 19:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kx'a languages

Kwami, there appears to be a bum or confusing reference. Looking at the on-line journals from my university, the Journal of Asian and African Studies is only at volume 45 and contains no such article as the Heine et al. article you cited at Kx'a languages. --Taivo (talk) 16:38, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what's wrong. De Gruyter lists it,[6] and I linked to an online pdf. — kwami (talk) 23:05, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see the problem now. There are two Journal of Asian and African Studies. The one you've linked to is (Tokyo) and the one I looked at is (Leiden). This needs to be specified. --Taivo (talk) 23:55, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done. — kwami (talk) 00:04, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One more RD name to fix

I have no idea how to find it in the move log, it's a couple of weeks ago now; can you change Comox–Strathcona Regional District to its proper form now please? I'm about to start the speedy-category change, since Good Olfactory hasn't done it yet.Skookum1 (talk) 18:49, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, don't know why I missed that. Done. — kwami (talk) 22:43, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, here is a pronunciation of her name: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYOe4sHAX-U — Preceding unsigned comment added by WPray20 (talk • contribs) 16:08, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Karen

Can you take a look at Karen, Karen (name) and Karen (disambiguation)? The consensus on the talk page at Karen is that the article should not be a hodgepodge and the name should not be given priority. If you would make Karen a redirect to the disambiguation page and put the relevant material from it about the name under the article Karen (name) this would execute the consensus view. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 22:37, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Put the people first on the dab page. — kwami (talk) 23:47, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Antonio Arnaiz-Villena

Kwamikagami , could you take a look at the Antonio Arnaiz-Villena page? User Symbio04 has reverted all my edits, without justifying his actions. There were several reverts by other editors to Symbio's edits. I do not want to get involved into edit waring and I do not know what to do in this case. Since you have issued a warning to Symbio04 in the past, for this particular article, I thought I could tell you. GoingToPluto (talk) 22:00, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted. — kwami (talk) 00:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you GoingToPluto (talk) 00:51, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's a little hard to follow, but it looks like you restored the article back to here. I'm assuming you did it to back out many improper edits, but at the same time, you also backed out reasonable edits (like mine). Do I have to redo them, or is there an easier way? I don't really have any special interest in the article, but it's never fun to lose work.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if I deleted your work. Once I accounted for the COI edits, the rest seemed relatively minor, so I didn't pay them much attention. If you don't want to redo them (they're still there to copy, after all), I'll try to do it. — kwami (talk) 01:59, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to do it tomorrow. I'm tired and am about ready to sign off. You don't need to worry about it. I just glanced at them, and, you're right, it won't be that hard.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, I did not know this. I guess there is no way to just revert an older bad edit and keep a good but more recent one. GoingToPluto (talk) 11:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not if they overlap. Then you need to correct manually. — kwami (talk) 21:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gerund

Hi, Kwami. Nice catch on Gerund, but I think this is a step too far. I think there is a school of traditional grammar in which "subject" and "verb" must each be one word, but pretty much since the days of phrase-structure grammar (c. 1950s) NPs have been identified as subjects, and that is the standard analysis today. I think you had it right in the previous edit: the subject of "Eating this cake is easy" is the non-finite clause NP "eating this cake". Do you disagree? Cnilep (talk) 14:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. We're imposing categories which might or might not make sense in other contexts. Basically I'm saying the head of the clause is the subject ('eating is easy'), but sure, you could argue that's a different sentence and so only the clause as a whole is. Feel free to revert. Or maybe we could use 'eating is easy' to illustrate why the clause is the subject. — kwami (talk) 21:05, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've very briefly summarized this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics#Gerund. You may want to verify that I haven't misrepresented your point. Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 00:16, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

York

Hello. I was interested in your edit to the pronounciation of York on the page of that name that relates to the place in Yorkshire, England. I was wondering if you had a reference to support the claim that a rhotic R is present in the pronunciation of the York? In my reasonably extensive, though not comprehensive, experience, the R is pronounced neither by the locals nor in an RP accent. Unfortuntately, I do not have a reference to support my opinion. Yours, almost-instinct 22:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, there was no need for that edit. Everyone knows how to pronounce "York", so there is no need for a pronunciation apart perhaps for the local one. AFAIK, the local pronunciation has been non-rhotic for half a century or more. I've reverted myself. — kwami (talk) 09:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that! almost-instinct 10:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Images from Commons

The reason for deletion is that the categorisation should be at Commons, and removal of the local description page (the image will still show up), helps separate images on Commons and thus acceptable from a licensing perspective, from those images locally that are not.

I have asked about this at least twice, and was told there was no problem in flagging up locally categorised commons images. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 08:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

General Chinese

Thanks for all the work on the General Chinese article; can I encourage you to do some more? I still cannot find a publicly available copy of the book. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has a copy but they won't let me look at it. m.e. (talk) 13:33, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The part I have yet to do is much more involved that the rest, and I don't know if I'll have time to get to it. Do you have any specific questions I could answer? — kwami (talk) 23:03, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The link requires a 会员名 and a 密码 unfortunately. One obvious question, is the book in English or Chinese? m.e. (talk) 06:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are extensions that can get around that sometimes, but I don't have anything in Chinese.

Bilingual on facing pages, or in tables. — kwami (talk) 07:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Shoshone language > Shoshoni language

Kwami, I proposed this move a week ago and no one has objected. I can't move it myself since Shoshoni language already exists as a redirect. Thanks. --Taivo (talk) 17:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Also moved Shoshone to Shoshoni people to match. — kwami (talk) 22:56, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Moving the people article wasn't necessary because, perversely, the language is spelled "Shoshoni", but the tribal names are all "Shoshone". Unless someone gripes, however, the people article can stay at Shoshoni people since each of the tribes has its own page. --Taivo (talk) 23:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They're close enough in spelling that it won't matter if we move it again. — kwami (talk) 23:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The growing convention would be that the most common English form is used, not a native-"custom spelling" rooted in modernized orthography for that language (as is any romanization for any such language). Ethno articles and language articles already follow different paradigms for that (partly established by kwami), e.g. Nlaka'pamux and Thompson language, Secwepemc and Shuswap language etc. Not always cf. Okanagan people where the Okanagan language redirect goes to Okanogan-Colville (or is it Colville-Okanogan?); the ethno-correct version of the ethnonym is Syilx but this is not well-established in local English as are Secwepemc and St'at'imc etc. NB all three of Nlaka'pamux, Secwepemc and St'at'imc include "people" in their morphemes so adding "people" would be redundant except it's true that constructions like "St'at'imc people" and "Nlaka'pamux people" are common. I'm not sure what's become of Wuikyala, which might redirect (now) to Rivers Inlet language, its better-known-in-linguistics form. Do we need a standard/convention? Maybe - but in English the regular most-common construction for the item in question would seem to be "Shoshone language", though maybe that's changed in recent years....Skookum1 (talk) 01:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We try to stick to a common name for the people and language where possible. I'm not convinced the Shoshoni move was warranted, but that can be taken up on the talk page if anyone objects. — kwami (talk) 02:46, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Skookum, Shoshoni is the most common, indeed the only, form used in linguistic work over the last 40 years and is the form used by the two publishing linguists who are native speakers. I don't really mind whether the "people" article is at Shoshoni or Shoshone since that's not my interest area. But "Shoshoni" is the modern and most common spelling for the language. --Taivo (talk) 04:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

South Caucasian Languages

Dear Kwami, it seems that the discussion on renaming the aforementioned article has been decided in our favor - 4 supporting votes, and 1 opposing vote from a user who does not appear to be engaged in any further discussion. I think it is time to request that the move discussion be closed but I do not know how to place that request. While I realize that you as one of the parties of the discussion cannot close it yourself, I wonder if as an administrator you may know better on how to proceed from this point on. --ComtesseDeMingrélie 04:41, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If I hadn't voted, I'd move it myself. But someone will be along to take care of it soon. The RfM will expire in a few hours. — kwami (talk) 07:42, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done by User:Maunus. --Taivo (talk) 13:31, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Heartbeat International RM

I started a requested move discussion at Talk:Heartbeat International (Christian organization) -- would you care to chime in? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:42, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

IPA query

Hi Kwam. Wondering if you can explain this edit? Don't misunderstand, I'm not wanting an argument, just curious why the altered pronunciation is marked as 'cleanup'. The new pronunciation is wrong in Scottish English. This makes it sound like the number 5, and if you said it like that in Scotland that's what people would hear unless you had an accent. I'm guessing there is some kind of accent or allophone standardization going on, but if you would explain it to me as someone not familiar with this practice on wikipedia that would be helpful (similar issue with this). Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 04:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure: it wasn't marked as Scottish. Unless stated otherwise, we assume transcriptions are generic ones for everyone who reads WP, not just for a targeted audience. Also, the IPA key that that template links to does not define what [əi] means: it's a bit like defining an English word by linking to a French dictionary that doesn't have it listed.

There's a newish template IPA-endia for regional variants of English that aren't covered by the generic-English IPA key. It's not finish yet, and for now it just links to the complete IPA key. Since "Fife" is such an easy name (apart maybe for some of our non-native-English readers), there really isn't any need for my changes; we can just change the template. — kwami (talk) 06:46, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for clearing that up. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 10:56, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Álava

One of "those" again, sorry. SOme new editor unilaterally moved Álava - the consensus form we established last year - to Álava-Araba. Since it has to be moved over a redirect, I don't think the chap can do it himself and I was wondering if you could spare a moment? Cheers Akerbeltz (talk) 10:46, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh sugar, he also moved San Sebastián... Akerbeltz (talk) 10:50, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, a whole lot of them... Special:Contributions/Jaume87 I left a note on his talk page. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:52, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More problematic are the cut&paste moves, which can be a pain to clean up if let go for too long. I've reverted some (it's late & I'm not terribly alert), & left a note for other admins to review.

Pls let me know of specific cases I may have missed. — kwami (talk) 12:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you got them all - many thanks! Akerbeltz (talk) 13:24, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I apologise about my moves. Kwami, there is not a debate about San Vicente del Raspeig should be San Vicente del Raspeig or San Vicente del Raspeig/Sant Vicent del Raspaig, or is there? IMO I haven't done that many mistakes on my corrections: Fageca is not Facheca, Bossòst is not Bosost, etc. I clearly missed few consensuses, like Villarreal, Xaló Álava and San Sebastián, so i apologise again, i never meant to cause any trouble, plus unnecessary work. Jɑυмe (xarrades) 19:49, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. This isn't my topic, so if I undid some moves I shouldn't have, please let me know and I'll restore them (if you can't, or you do it, or whatever).

Properly done moves can always be reverted. The only real problem are the cut&paste moves, because then the article history is split, and starts growing in two locations, and it's a pain to splice them back together if they're left for too long. I'm thinking you got that already? So if you're prevented from actually moving the page, just ask someone like me to do it for you rather than copying it over. — kwami (talk) 22:34, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest you bring it up on Wikipedia:WikiProject Catalan-speaking Countries. They might already have had that debate and either way, it will save you having to debate it on every talk page. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:55, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or even Portal:Catalan-speaking Countries Akerbeltz (talk) 22:56, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I will read them properly.

I just have a doubt, how long does someone need to wait to bring up new requested moves to discussions? For example, on Jalón and Villarreal there have already been made some requested moves, which seem didn't success. I'd like to know if it is possible to revive them.

One more thing, when I moved Jalón to Xaló, I created Xal without any intention, you can delete it if you want. Sorry again for the mess i did :) Jɑυмe (xarrades) 01:58, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The mess isn't a problem as long as you're willing to work with others, which you obviously are.

There's no set policy on when to revisit a page move. If some aspect was not properly addressed, it may be revisited immediately. Say, if people objected because some other page was not moved, and the names should all follow the same convention, you might make a 2nd proposal to move all those pages; or if the guideline or similar articles that would have affected the outcome have been changed, it might be appropriate to revisit the move. What gets people upset is an attitude of screw you, I'm going to keep making a scene until I get my way. It's the in-between situations that are hard to judge, and I don't have any answer for you there. — kwami (talk) 02:09, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks kwami, you are very helpful. I will read how stuff works and then I'll see if I can do anything. Could do something like:

-Jalon (disambiguation page) → Jalón~Xaló village, Xaló (river)~Jalón (river) (also called Gorgos) in Alicante and Jalón (river) in Aragon-Castile and León. Jɑυмe (xarrades) 03:02, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh! San Vicente del Raspeig was a mess, not because it was moved, but because the page history was split (the content was copied back & forth several times). I think it's fixed now. I don't know which name is correct, so I put it at the most recent stable version and started a move discussion on the talk page. (The article itself is protected from editing right now, since some anon IP started cutting & pasting again, but that's only for an hour.) — kwami (talk) 04:44, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I paid attention to that, I won't move pages without letting you know :D

I replied you here and started some other move discussions (La Nucía → La Nucia and Peñíscola → Peníscola/Peñíscola)

What about Elche? Could I suggest moving it to official form Elx/Elche? Current name do not match with Misteri d'Elx. Jɑυмe (xarrades) 20:55, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, UNESCO uses the Spanish form Elche. (The Mystery Play of Elche).

You don't need to come to me for page moves! It's not a matter of getting permission (who am I to grant permission?), just a matter of politeness to ask first (on the article talk page, not here) in case it's already been discussed. You only need to come here if you can't move the page yourself.

I have no advice on Elche. Personally, I dislike double names. IMO, it's better to pick one, either because it has wider international recognition, or because it's truer to the local form. I think double names should be a last resort, or a temporary solution until a decision can be made. But that's just me ;) — kwami (talk) 21:04, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Spanish.2FCatalan_double_names. — kwami (talk) 21:29, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kinyarwanda and Kirundi

Hi Kwami,

Just a heads up that I have reverted your two page moves of Kinyarwanda and Kirundi. I don't regard these moves as uncontroversial, so if you really want them to go ahead, they should be listed at WP:RM. I have listed my reasons for opposing this at Talk:Kinyarwanda#Name change if you wish to contribute to the debate.

On a personal level, I lived in the area for many years, and in all the time there I never heard anyone use the terms "Rwanda language" or "Rundi language", plus the CIA and BBC do not use those terms, so I think this fails WP:COMMON right out, no matter what ethnologue thinks. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 10:48, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Rundi" is even used in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. — kwami (talk) 11:01, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hakka

Hi, just go ahead and move it back, since I barely expected my movement can sustain.

I just don't know why, when most of the world don't call this language/dialect "Hakka Chinese" (well how many linguists on earth call it this way in their studies?), and when the name "Hakka" is far more accepted in the world and appears everywhere in the article itself already, you guys still insist to suffix it with "Chinese". It's hard not to link that mandatory but strange, affected "family name" behind the name of the language/dialect to some kind of "Sino-centric" or "One Big Chinese Language" view. If you can tell me how reasonable that "Hakka Chinese" is more NPOV than using "Hakka" only, then I'll be more persuaded and less non-conformative. Even if Hakka is regarded as merely a dialect of "the Chinese language", wouldn't it be ridiculous to call every dialect "XXX Chinese"? Or if you guys live in a country where such things are common and reasonable, then be my guest, since unfortunately the rest of the world does not seem to care for this oddity either.

Finally, many disambiguous pages on Wikipedia add "(language)" to refer to the languages mentioned, and I don't see the reason why this practice is unapplicable to Chinese languages/dialects. Even "(linguistic)" should be far more acceptable. But when people use a rare term of "Hakka Chinese", then it's showing the implied classfication and orientation already, and this is NOT NPOV. --Roberto Carlos No.3 (talk) 08:36, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I've said, if you can come up with a better suggestion, I'd be delighted. I agree that, out of context, people would expect "Hakka Chinese" to mean the people rather than the language. But what else is there?

"Hakka dialect" is not acceptable because it's a language.

"Hakka language" and "Hakka (language)" are not acceptable because it's a dialect.

"Hakka (linguistics)" is not acceptable because it's not a linguistic topic.

Just plain "Hakka" is of course used as much for Hakka people as for the language, and is rightfully a redirect.

Again, come up with a good solution and people will jump all over it. But we've gone around and around with this, and no-one's been able to think of anything.

You said, many disambiguous pages on Wikipedia add "(language)" to refer to the languages mentioned. Really? Any examples? I don't know of such a page. The only thing I'm aware of is cant (language), which is something quite different: a kind of language called a "cant".

As for people who call it "Hakka Chinese", true, it's uncommon. Writers generally just call it "Hakka" and use context or circumlocution to dab. In a title, of course, the first does not exist and the second is awkward (though perhaps you can think of something). But there is McBride-Chang (2003) Reading development in Chinese children, Brown & Ogilvie (2008) Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world, Greenberg (1978) Universals of human language, Finegan (2007) Language: its structure and use, Char & Char / Hawaii Chinese History Center (1983) Chinese historic sites and pioneer families of the island of Hawaii, Republic of China (2003) National Science Council Review.

I'd prefer something a little clearer. Perhaps you're smarter than me and can think of it.

Anyway, if you think you can make a good argument for Hakka (language)—or anything else, for that matter—make a move request or otherwise bring it up for discussion. We work off of consensus here. — kwami (talk) 08:55, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User:Jaume87

User:Jaume87 has made a fair number of cut&paste moves. I think I caught them all (at least back to Xmas), but it's late, I'm tired, and it would be a good idea for s.o. to review the account. — kwami (talk) 12:05, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please when will you be able to list all these needed history-merges? See also Wikipedia:WikiProject History Merge. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 23:36, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know which ones do. I caught one after I posted that note, but repaired it myself. I'll need to take another look. — kwami (talk) 23:57, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In most cases, it was only Jaume's edits which were lost, or sometimes a bot or automated cleanup (iw bots, commons delinker, etc.) which will be repeated anyway. I've notified Jaume that some of his work may have been lost, and to see if there's anything he wants to redo. I don't see anything else that IMO is worth the effort of a history merge.

Ah, caught one more, La Vall d'Alcalà. Merged. — kwami (talk) 00:18, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You found Fageca? ~ Thanks i didn't touch any in Valencia province lol. Jɑυмe (xarrades) 03:22, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, Gallinera → La Vall de Gallinera. I think those should be all, or most, i am looking. Jɑυмe (xarrades) 03:37, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those aren't problems, Jaume, because you moved them properly. When you use the 'move' tab, the page history is carried along with the article. People might argue over the name, but there's no maintenance work that needs to be done. La Vall d'Alcalà was different: there you deleted the article in one place, and pasted it in another. When you do that, the page history is left stranded at the old name, and the new article starts building up a separate history. Then if it's ever moved back, it gets to be a real mess. — kwami (talk) 03:40, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly unfree File:ChuShogiPromotions.png

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:ChuShogiPromotions.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. --Magog the Ogre (talk) 07:35, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is about you're citation needed tag in the Warne, NC page.

Yeah, just curious... but what's the problem with it? I by no means meant to make any mistake... if I had, please point me in the correct direction? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.152.77.133 (talk) 02:02, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It just seemed unlikely. Might it be pronounced like war with an n at the end? — kwami (talk) 02:05, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

well, I'm not sure where I could "prove" the pronunciation.... but I'm from the town in question... everyone says worn. (rhyme). In fact, if you were to look at the town motto on the website for the community center, it says "Where your welcome is never 'Warne' out" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.152.77.133 (talk) 01:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indonesia

Please before touching the article again go to the talk page - edit summaries are one thing - an intelligent response would be not to dismiss and revert - but to explain yourself at the talk page - even if it might seem obvious to you Satu Suro 23:05, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was factually wrong. Discussion is for opinion, or for substantiating facts, but this was s.t. no-one would disagree with. — kwami (talk) 00:57, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Facts? hahaha - show me a large area where there is total consistency amongst all academics about a whole range of linguistic arguments in southeast asia ... hmmm, I think fact is acceptable with your specific edit - but a lot more of the southeast asia area is potentially contentious and needs care in placing any claims - rather than 'facts'

however your later edit at Indonesia is accepted - Satu Suro 02:20, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I seriously doubt that anyone would defend the idea that a "sultanate" is a "dialect". Yeah, I think that's rather unambiguously a fact. — kwami (talk) 02:27, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, a Sultanate is not a dialect. But let’s not obfuscate any further: as I previously pointed out in my edit summary, that was a typo. Indeed, that it was a grammatical/syntax error was fairly clear, in my opinion.

Typo or not, I don’t think it justifies the hard revert of a number of other changes. However, I agree with SatuSuro that this most recent edit of yours is good. cheers --Merbabu (talk) 04:15, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if the revert was upsetting. I simply didn't see much difference between a fix and a revert. — kwami (talk) 06:01, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A possible point to consider is that many of the Indonesian/Malay distinctions in articles across the range of south east asia have been regularly contested and created many edit wars in the past - when I saw the info box placing of malay as the language of Indonesia - the immediate thought is that many seeing that diff would consider that an invitation for serious edit wars and arguments - regardless of the intent of the change for linguistic truth or clarity - the concession in this case for encyclopediac clarity (as opposed to truth or fact) is to allow indonesian language for the indonesians and if you wished to make an issue of the origins - then it is either a separate part of the article or other article to prove or establish the fact or truth - I was not in any way focused on the other part of sultanate/dialect Satu Suro 09:09, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with the way the wording is now. The article is not intended for Indonesians, but for those who know little of Indonesia, and I wanted to make it clear to them how close the languages are. I was always amused when Indonesians objected to me calling the language I was speaking with them "Malay", despite the fact that I'd learned it in Malaysia, out of "Malay" grammars, and had a "Malay" dictionary. I know some Usonians who call their language "American" rather than English, and find that similarly amusing. — kwami (talk) 09:18, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm I would never tell my indonesian friends i was speaking malay - thats simply impolite and innapropriate - unless you are speaking javanese - that is another matter - in Yogyakarta in the deep dark past I was told I was speaking malay (I had started at a university where they specifically were teaching malay rather than Indonesian) by a javanese - as he could detect the bhs malay inflections and word usage vs the local javanese affected indonesian which he was using - I think you have to be very careful with claims of knowledge about language with speakers of Indonesian or Malay - or you can end up in some rather awkward situations - unless if you can joke with them about the situation in their mother tongue (ie javanese etc) Satu Suro 10:36, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, people didn't appreciate it, so I didn't do it much. But I was actually speaking "Malaysian", or perhaps it would be better to say my language skills were basic enough that it didn't matter which I was speaking. It just struck me as odd that I was speaking a different language when I crossed the border, even though I spoke the same. — kwami (talk) 10:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Page moves

I see from this talk page you seem to have trouble with moving pages. Please do not move gyros again; there is not support for the name you moved it to. Jonathunder (talk) 03:58, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is plenty of support. No reason has been given for not following the MOS apart from I don't like it. Posted a RfM. — kwami (talk) 06:00, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kudpung up for Admin

Dunno whether you want to get yourself embroiled w/ him again, but your Worcester nemesis is up for admin status. I thought he was an obtuse jerk in that exchange, but I don't have the inclination to devote myself to a big WP argument against his elevation. --Atemperman (talk) 06:43, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can just say what you said here; you don't need to stick around for an argument. If you don't say something, you can't complain if he's made an admin! :) — kwami (talk) 08:23, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I only saw this section as I watchlisted your page for the above. As for your oppose comments, they sum up my thoughts fairly well, but that's based on (as far as I know) a single episode. Your concerns seem to be rather long standing. So, I'm reluctant to provide a similar comment, however, if the kudpung uses the tools in the same boorish manner he "dealt" with me, then that would be no good at all. --Merbabu (talk) 08:36, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP is in general not a democracy, but elections for adminship are. If you don't participate, you'll get a govt that reflects that. If it's just me railing against him, it could be that I'm being unreasonable, or have some grudge. He is, after all, a very good editor apart from his personality, and dealing with him was so unpleasant that I really don't want to revisit it by digging up edit histories. When several people say the same thing, however, it strikes readers as more likely to have some substance. — kwami (talk) 08:50, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You have email Satu Suro 09:07, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Macedonian Sign Language

No such information available. I was trying to find out some info about it, but I couldn't. As far as I know, the Macedonian law describes it as separate language for communication in Macedonia equal to the spoken Macedonian. On the web site of the Association of deaf people in Macedonia, there some general information about the language, about the basic phrases and about the alphabet. I hear about the Yugoslav language for the first time. Regards, --MacedonianBoy (talk) 18:46, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! In the SLs of E. Europe, they say that they had no info on Macedonia. I wouldn't expect a truly separate language, & somehow I doubt they use Bulgarian SL (which might be a variety of Russian SL?). — kwami (talk) 20:55, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, let me ask the Association and I will inform you about their response. If they say it is part of the Yugoslav languages then we should state like that. As soon as they respond me, I'll inform you.--MacedonianBoy (talk) 21:22, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have sent them an email and I wait for the response. I asked them whether the MSL is separate language (if it is which language family is member to) and if it is not, whether it is a dialect of the Yugoslav languages such as Slovene. Best--MacedonianBoy (talk) 21:30, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The book is very good and it is valuable. I went through the book and as you said it is about the history of the language, the basic principles of the language, the alphabet and the teaching and training interpreters. In many instances, the author recalls the situation in Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia and the situation in ex-Yugoslavia association. So far, I did not find even one word about the classification of the language and about the MSL. --MacedonianBoy (talk) 11:31, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting fact of omission. Let's see what the association has to say. — kwami (talk) 20:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Māori

I closed the requested move discussion on the Māori topics and made the requested moves. It's time to start the cleanup that you said you were itching to undertake! --Orlady (talk) 15:57, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I had the time then. Let's see what I can fit in now. — kwami (talk) 21:17, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I got to about a thousand, and then s.o. else finished up the job. (There are about 80 that are now 'Maori people' that come up as obvious choices for 'Maori culture' or 'Maori mythology', so I'm going through them.) — kwami (talk) 08:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

San Vicente del Raspeig

Kwami,

In spite of the consensus reached at Talk:San Vicente del Raspeig, the page was moved back by a Spanish Wikipedia user: Imperator-Kaiser (talk · contribs). He was aware of the proposal and of the conclusion, as well as the other moves such as Talk:La Nucia, where he voted against it, saying in Spanish, b/c he refused to write in English, that the proposal was "another absurd measure of radical nationalists [sic] (i.e. regionalists)".

I do not wish to start a "move" edit war, so I did not move it back. I don't know if you are familiar with Spanish-related articles (especially those related to those autonomous communities in Spain that speak another native language besides Spanish), but I wouldn't be surprised if an edit war ensues, with Spanish Wikipedia users reverting back to the "Spanish-only" version.

-- dúnadan : let's talk 19:26, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I moved & messed up the redirect history so that he can't revert. Hopefully that will be enough. — kwami (talk) 19:55, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gyros merger

Kwami, we need to get more neutral editors involved in this discussion. Posting to the food and drink project doesn't seem to have helped. How can we do that (without, of course, violatingWP:Canvassing)? --Macrakis (talk) 20:20, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll post on one of the editing boards. — kwami (talk) 20:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unsourced additions

Please do not add or change content without verifying it by citing reliable sources, as you did to Mudra. Before making any potentially controversial edits, it is recommended that you discuss them first on the article's talk page. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. Yworo (talk) 22:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Violated 3RR

Hi kwami, You've removed Slrubenstein's changes to the Ritual Decalogue article 4 times in under 24 hours. As you know, this is an obvious WP:3RR violation. I recommend you revert yourself, and work things out on the Talk: page, before you are blocked for violating 3RR, which none of us would want. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:17, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And you are also edit warring. You should know better by now. In this last edit, I removed the offending phrase. — kwami (talk) 23:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you did, but you also removed Slrubenstein's additions, quotations, etc., so it's a revert regardless. And it's pretty ironic when someone who has just violated WP:3RR admonishes someone who has not for "edit warring". Jayjg ^(talk) 23:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I did lose count. But you are violating WP:BOLD: when an edit to a stable article is reverted, you should take it to the talk page, and not resort to edit warring. You should know better by now: you're not a newbie. — kwami (talk) 23:34, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You shouldn't be counting at all. The only important and indispensible part of BRD is the D.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:46, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't make the edit though, someone else did. And I was commenting on the Talk: page too, unlike you; in fact, you reverted three times before deigning to show up there. Also, given your own lengthy Wikipedia experience and recent behavior, continued admonitions that I should "know better by now" are (as stated before) at best, ironic. Now, please think this through: in our recent interactions, what has worked best for you; edit-warring and belligerence, or calm non-personal Talk: page discussion? I think you'll have to admit that the latter has gotten you much farther than the former. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:48, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whereas edit-warring has gotten you further, which is evidently part of the problem. You revert without consensus, but expect others to convince you before they revert. — kwami (talk) 23:53, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Censroship

What are my religious views? Slrubenstein | Talk 14:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gyros merger

See Talk:Shawarma#Proposed merge -- it looks pretty hopeless. See also User:Mgreenbe/Shawarma merge This issue exposes some structural issues around Wikipedia.... --Macrakis (talk) 20:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's not been posted, so no-one's monitoring it. The discussion they'll be watching is at gyro. Also, this isn't a democracy: if it's obvious that the people voting against don't understand that the names don't correlate to the regional variations, then their voices won't count for much. WP policy is part of the consensus too, representing those who aren't part of this particular discussion. It depends on how well each side convinces whoever closes the discussion. — kwami (talk) 20:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those are old merge discussions, no longer 'live' -- but I thought worth comparing with the current dynamic. --Macrakis (talk) 21:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Moves of Jilu Mandarin, etc

Please go to that page's talk to give your input, before enough users who are not knowledgeable enough chime in. Thanks. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 06:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

xiaoerjing

Ive noticed your edits on Central Plains Mandarin and Lan–Yin Mandarin, would you mind adding your input to the conversation taking place at Talk:Xiao'erjing#Footnotes, it appears that User:Babelfisch is skeptical of either the existence of xiaoerjing and massive parts of the article, which i sourced earlier, i checked the article and the facts in it appear to be sound and sourced, variations of spelling do exist, as you noted it is used to write two different dialects of mandarin, Babelfisch complained allegedly that the article says only one variant of xiaoerjing is in use, and i don't see why that is a problem, i'm getting more of the feeling of hostility toward the article, looking for any excuse to destroy it, rather than a genuine concern for facts.ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 20:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

3RR again

Kwami, you've reverted Ritual Decalogue 3 times again. The next time you revert this article, regardless of when or what you revert, I am taking you to WP:AN/3RR. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, because your opinions are more reliable than encyclopedic sources. I forget that we need to edit for Truth rather than verifiablity, and that any inconvenient sources should be deleted. How silly of me to question your wisdom. — kwami (talk) 06:51, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The use of hyphens

You just moved "World number one male tennis player rankings" to World number-one male tennis player rankings. I'm not sure what is proper English or proper wiki protocol in this and the MOS is a little vague. You may be correct but it could also be that proper English in using a compound modifier would give us "World-number-one male tennis player rankings" (i.e. two hyphens). It's been without the hyphen for quite awhile but the important thing is to get it right so we don't get moves left and right. I also put this query up on the talk page. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:58, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, you're probably right. I just knew it was wrong the way it was. — kwami (talk) 21:34, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy notice

Hello, Kwamikagami. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Help with pronunciation format

Hi, since I see you have worked on the Manual of Style/ Pronunciation, can you please help me with an issue at Avatar. I had to remove an unconventional pronunciation line, placed over the the first paragraph of the article [7], but the person is correct in that this is the way it is pronounced in Hindi, ie uh-vuh-tahr, although English speakers pronounce it otherwise. Can you please explain to me how it is proper to insert this (I think) after the first mention (in bold) of the word Avatar? Thank you. Hoverfish Talk 14:41, 7 March 2011 (UTC) PS, I tried to somehow include it like this [8], but there must be a more proper way. Hoverfish Talk 18:15, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

AWB + unicode template

Your edit to Lenition is kinda horked; I'm not sure what the intent was, but you may want to bug whomever implemented that functionality in AWB. (I reverted it, but please go ahead and fix whatever the issue is; I don't really understand wtf that example is actually trying to show, or else I'd dork with it myself.) --moof (talk) 10:38, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was just trying to apply a consistent format to the entire word. Minor edit. Sorry for the mess. — kwami (talk) 10:41, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Inappropriate Hyphenations

Sir:

Your inappropriate hyphenation/redirects of a number of the articles I spent a great deal of time working on is proving very difficult for me - someone who is quite obviously less skilled than yourself at Wikimachinations - to undo.

In the spirit of the consensus reached after the previous discussion on this issue, I would respectfully request, and GREATLY appreciate it, if you could please try to find the time - at your earliest convenience - to fix those articles/redirects that you altered and that remain, to date, inappropriately hyphenated and redirected.

I thank you in advance for your kind attention to this matter.

Regards: Cliff L. Knickerbocker, MS (talk) 03:25, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure thing, if you tell me which articles you are referring to. — kwami (talk) 04:27, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see, you were working under a different name. My understanding was that we have consensus for "small-cell" and "large-cell" carcinomas (which of course go together). Or were you talking about s.t. else? — kwami (talk) 04:32, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the name mixup - real name Cliff, User name is uploadvirus. And IMHO, not to beat a dead horse, but the only hyphen should be non-small cell carcinoma. Isn't there any easy way for you to find a list of your edits on carcinomas and just reverse them and remove the redirects? Thanks again, sir. Finally - wow, I stand in AWE of your overall contributions! I didn't really notice your UNBELIEVEABLE efforts until after you made me mad and I started checking around and yelling and screaming about you :-) Have a good day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uploadvirus (talk • contribs) 12:37, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Cliff,

I added hyphens to a lot of carcinoma articles, which triggered a discussion. The consensus was that, while hyphens may be technically correct, it is more common in the lit to not punctuate, and that we should follow that practice, but that should make exceptions for "small-cell" and "large-cell". This is because the unpunctuated forms are so misleading to the naive reader, who is our primary audience. That is, a "small cell carcinoma", if taken literally, is a small carcinoma of the cells, and a "large cell carcinoma" is a large carcinoma. Most of the other editors in the discussion agreed that this was an undesirable effect, whereas they felt it didn't really matter if people misread other names. So, while I grudgingly concede that I shouldn't move nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome, we do have consensus on hyphenating 'small' and 'large'. (These are often hyphenated in the lit as well, of course.)

Let me know if there are other articles I should move back.

BTW, if you can't move an article, you can make a WP:request for move. If you cut and paste the article, you create a parallel article history, which will just need to be cleaned up. — kwami (talk) 19:14, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Understood, and will do on the WP:request for move. Thanks for the tip. I may come back to you after completion and post you a list of what I've done so you can make sure I didn't fumble the ball (if you don't mind).

Cliff L. Knickerbocker, MS (talk) 13:25, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Languages

If you're going to keep moving language pages at least edit the article to match. See Mapuche language for example. -- Al™ 06:56, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Um, it was me who edited the Mapuche language article to match. — kwami (talk) 07:54, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The title of the page is Mapuche language. Throughout the article it's referred to by the old tile, Mapudungun (including in the info box). -- Al™ 11:06, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, but once the term is introduced, there's no reason it can't be used. That's a fairly minor matter of style. — kwami (talk) 19:05, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Shan (disambiguation)

Hi, thanks for your moving Shan (disambiguation) to Shan. Please also move Talk:Shan (disambiguation) to Talk:Shan. Thanks. --Pengyanan (talk) 08:34, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oops! Sorry. — kwami (talk) 08:39, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for your move! --Pengyanan (talk) 19:42, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Boro/Shinasha

Dear Kwami - I am not happy about your ambush move from Boro to Shinasha. You did not indicate anything on the talkpage that you find such a move necessary - and it would be good to ask around a little before such a major operation. In fact, Boro is the name of the people given in the Ethnologue. This is also the selfname, as opposed to Shinasha, which, although with no pejorative undertones, is the name given by outsiders. The selfname of the language, BTW, is Borna, which may have been a better motivated move target. Landroving Linguist (talk) 16:33, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The people were already at Shinasha. Any reason that article should not be moved to Boro? — kwami (talk) 19:03, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No. I would support that! Best wishes, Landroving Linguist (talk) 16:25, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

CSS

I am not sure I understood what you had meant by the term cladistic sense. A group of dialects/languages (Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin) based upon "synapomorphies" - shared derived characteristics? Anyway, could you point me to previous discussions on this subject? Also, I would like to know if I can be of any help with enabling you to edit the discussion page. Best regards, --Biblbroks (talk) 20:04, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I've lost track of which conversation this was. Much of the discussion has been at Serbo-Croatian language, though there's an incredible amount of ranting to wade through before getting anything useful.

Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin are defined according to the ethnicity of their speakers. They do not correspond to dialects. All four standardized languages are based on the same Eastern Herzegovinian subdialect of the Shtokavian dialect of SC. Ethnic Croats speak the widest variety of dialects, including some Torlakian. — kwami (talk) 20:16, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Moving articles ---- to ---- tribe

Please do not indiscriminately move articles about Native American chiefdoms and other groups to a title ending in "tribe." Many of the articles you moved are not about "tribes", but are about chiefdoms, towns, and other entities. I will be moving back the articles about entities that I am familiar with. -- Donald Albury 21:20, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto. I just reversed Gitga'ata, or rather amended your change to Gitga'ata people, which though redundant (as "git" = "people") is a preferable form; "tribe" has various associations and contexts not always suitable, and is very much a "white man's term" especially when imposed wrongly; in Canada it's rarely used - especially by the peoples themselves. There are a couple of current discussions, inert of late, about this on {{NorthAmNative}}; for a while now I've advocated that a NativeMOS or IndigenousMOS be come up with to address stuff like this, but haven't had time to sandbox a draft.Skookum1 (talk) 21:34, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if I got some wrong. They were all characterized as 'tribes' of a larger ethnicity in the main article; Gitga'ata as a tribe of the Tsimshian, for example.

If they aren't tribes they shouldn't be called such, of course, and I've moved quite a few away from such names. If they really are tribes, then it gets more complicated, but I suppose as long as we note in the lede what they are, it shouldn't matter too much. — kwami (talk) 21:47, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All the more reason we need nativeMOS to govern stuff like that....see the RM at Talk:Dan George, which should always have been Chief Dan George, which is a related matter; what I mean by that is because of the mistitling, some earnest editor had come along and taken out most of the "Chief Dan George' phrasing from the article, when the reverse should be the case.Skookum1 (talk) 21:51, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(people)#Ethnicities for 'tribe' and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) for 'Chief'. NativeMOS should be integrated with these. — kwami (talk) 21:59, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not all sub-groups of ethnicities are tribes. Tribe has a specific meaning in anthropology, as well as having negative associations for many readers. Some of the articles that you moved to include "tribe" in the name explicitly state in the lede that the articles are about chiefdoms, which are not tribes. Also, I think that is was unnecessary to add "people" to names of other articles, such as Calusa, as readers are less likely to search for "Calusa people" than for "Calusa". Adding "people" to an article name is appropriate when disambiguation is needed, which was NOT the case with "Calusa". I would recommend that in the future you propose moves and wait a reasonable time for reactions before implementing them. -- Donald Albury 23:11, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are too many articles to operate that way effectively. If you want me to revert a move I make, tell me, and I'll revert it.

I understand what a 'tribe' is. However, I don't generally know whether a particular group is a tribe or not. If I've made a mistake, sorry, but you might want to correct the article that claims it's a tribe.

We generally add 'people' to disambiguate from 'language' when the two share a name. I suppose the Calusa language is too poorly known for it to be much of an issue in this case. — kwami (talk) 23:24, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Considering that a number of editors are objecting to the moves that you made, and reverting them, you do need to stop moving articles without prior discussion. If you didn't know whether or not a particular group is a tribe, then why did you add 'tribe' to the article name? You moved Calusa, Mayaimi, and Teguesta to names with people when there are no language articles for those groups. The Calusa, Mayaimi and Tequesta probably spoke the same language, but only ten words plus place names from that language are known to us, so there is nothing to write an article about, even if we knew what to call that language. -- Donald Albury 14:33, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I call them a 'tribe' when we describe them as a 'tribe'. If that is inaccurate, the articles need to be corrected. — kwami (talk) 20:30, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this has been a bit of a problem. At least in the case nearly all the articles on Florida Indians, no disambiguation purpose is served by the move, and in many cases it introduces problematic terminology. It would probably be best if you reverted all these moves, if you would.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:57, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll start. Let me know of any ones in particular. — kwami (talk) 20:30, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kwami, PLEASE STOP. That article text says "tribe" is not a justification to change the title, and there is an ongoing discussion in IPNA about proper titlign/formatting and also about the use of "tribe" and what it means. And doesn't mean. Spokane people was fine as it was; the inter-relatedness of peoples in this region makes the concept of "tribe' problematic, except as imposed by outside perspectives; Chief Nicola for example had a Spokan name and was both Okanagan and Shuswap and Coeur d'Alene. Having different languages does not make different "tribes". This article for a while had been titled native-style as Spokan, btw. What yo'ure doing is "scattering" different usages across the same series of articles (ethnographic indigenous ones) where what's needed is consistency, not scattershot irregularity engendered by poorly-termed articles. Plaese change it back, I'm tired of having to look through the move log to find items that shouldn't have been changed for no good reason. WP:If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The "people" paradigm has emerged for a vareity of reasons, one of which is because of the vagaries of the way "tribe" gets used in sources, and by article authors, not familiar with the concept or, really, with the nature of the people(s) they're takling about; someone described the Tlingit Eagle Clan as a "tribe" also recently, because that's what a sign, the source, said. Bad sources underlying bad writing; no, a wiki-convention has to be established; you going off half-cocked changing thigns willy-nilly without regard to existing debates and emerging conventions is not helpful ONE LITTLE BIT.Skookum1 (talk) 01:37, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Minangkabau moved

I don't agree. But I would have appreciated a talk page discussion and would have accepted consensus and/or good reasoning to move. --Merbabu (talk) 03:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

list of languages

What do you mean by same criteriom like other languages? It's not same criterium. Look, Croatian language has writen documents writen in Croatian language as it is stated in those documents and books. Writers like Marulić wrote in "Croatian" (arvacki) in 15 Century. SC is family of languages, not a language. Second problem is that SC family language is used by various states, diferent then Hindu (in India only). And official languages in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are separate, independent languages. Croatian language has it's history for thousend year while SC (family of languages) has been invented 200 years ago, and used no more. Institutions around the world accepted this to be independent languages. I wont try to explain you diferency between Serbian and Croatian, I think you are familiar with it. Croatian language lived great transformation during 19 Century because of political reasons and so on... But it has longer history then any language from SC family. Ivan Štambuk thinks I'm expanding a propaganda, that's insulting isn't it? You see, we have ton of sources saying those are independent languages, and most important of all, it is very clearly without any book.

Regards.--Wusten fuchs 10:47, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I think you've got your facts wrong. SC is widely recognized as a single language, whichever name it goes by (SC, BCS, B/C/S, etc), and we treat it as a single language on WP. It's certainly not a language "family". Also, Hindi-Urdu, Malay, Spanish, and English are also spoken with competing standards in different countries (India and Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, etc), but are listed as single languages in the list, so treating SC as a unit is in keeping those languages together.

There is no right or wrong here, but an interpretation of what we want for the article. I suspect that most people coming to the list are curious as to how many people they could speak to if they were to know a particular language. There's also more politics than linguistics going on in the case of Croatian. — kwami (talk) 16:27, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How about we add those 100 people who speak this invented SC, and at the same time we add those 6 milions who speak Croatian and about 11 milion who speaks Serbian?--Wusten fuchs 14:40, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your figures are wrong. SC is S plus B plus C. Therefore 16+ million people speak SC. SC was not "invented", it's just a name. Take it to the SC talk page if you disagree. Or just read the discussion we've already had on that page. — kwami (talk) 17:11, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Complaint about you at WP:AN3

Kwamikagami, please see WP:AN3#User:Kwamikagami reported by Jayjg (talk) (Result: ). You may respond there if you wish. EdJohnston (talk) 03:05, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

things

Hi Kwami. Thanks for intervening at the eye–hand span article. At about the same time, I wrote a typically hyped-up entry at the Mexican–American War talk page concerning Bartlett's action. I am gobsmacked that people are contemplating that he did not breach WP:INVOLVED. Is there something I'm not getting? Please read his post again. If nothing is done, I believe the Involved policy should be simply dumped, since no one believes it should operate. Which bit of it is irrelevant to Bartlett's actions? Tony (talk) 08:43, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're going to have to provide explicit diffs, Toni. I don't follow how there was a COI. — kwami (talk) 08:45, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

En dashes: please hold off from editing MOS as an admin

Hi Kwami. First let me thank you for working to fix the damage at Mexican•American War. Soon I'll be making a substantial contribution in support of the new RfM.

I have concerns about your recent edits at WP:MOS. I seem to recall that it is judged improper for admins to edit a protected page on their own initiative. Is that right? See this, at WP:FULL (my underlining):

Any modification to a fully protected page should be proposed on its talk page (or in another appropriate forum). After consensus has been established for the change, or if the change is uncontroversial, any administrator may make the necessary edits to the protected page.

Even if it were not strictly against policy, the changes you made do require discussion, for our heavily contested guidelines concerning hyphens and dashes. For example, this innovation has not been discussed:

A hyphen is not used when the attributive element is capitalized in its non-attributive form: Cold War era, Homer Simpson effect (both Cold War and Homer Simpson are capitalized); compare Matter-Dominated Era, Great Black-backed Gull.

It isn't that I disagree. I have wanted a similar addition for some time. Scope is a problem, because (for example) there are classes of uncapitalised elements that are also not hyphenated despite their attributive application.

As for distinguishing compound attributive adjectives (specifically) and compound attributives (generally), that too is unsignalled and undiscussed. There has been some basic conceptual confusion at WT:MOS (in which A di M has played a part), and I want to raise something about that.

In light of these considerations, will you revert your own changes, for now? Those guidelines are so sensitive that fresh complications may not help. But again: I certainly appreciate your knowledgeable approach and your enlightened attitude to MOS.

My best wishes.–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 10:17, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is improper for admins to edit a protected page if they are part of the dispute that led to its protection, for that would give them an unfair advantage in the dispute. I don't think that's the case here; correct me if I'm wrong.

I can certainly see that the wording may need to be adjusted, but content-wise there is nothing new here: our existing examples already illustrated the point about capitalization and that "adjective" was being used loosely for "attributive". The latter has led to misinterpretation based on varying definitions of "adjective", so IMO needed to be fixed immediately. The capitalization bit (perhaps an old version?) has also been used to argue that hyphens must be dropped when a phrase is capitalized, and so IMO needed to be clarified as well. I don't see that my wording precludes non-capitalized attributive phrases w/o hyphenation; please link any discussion or examples you think would make this problematic.

I wasn't familiar with FULL. (I don't spend a lot of time in admin work.) Perhaps you could raise the points on the talk page? If there are intelligent disputes with them, I'll be happy to revert them for now, though I can't imagine an intelligent objection to adj→attrib, which is simply a matter of precision. — kwami (talk) 10:52, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Use of rollback

This is a blatant abuse of rollback. Please remember that rollback is only for vandalism. Non-admins have been stripped of it for less than that. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:05, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've acknowledged that that was inappropriate. It was due to annoyance at an editor playing stupid as a strategy for an argument he wasn't winning on its merits, but I should have used proper procedure. — kwami (talk) 19:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

English noun phrase

I wonder why that article was written separately from "Noun phrase" in the first place. It seems to be in a mess. What do you think should be done about it? Tony (talk) 05:39, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd tag it for merging the way 'nominal group' has been. — kwami (talk) 05:57, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Peking opera move

I noticed that you moved the article Beijing opera to Peking opera back in February. It would have been nice if you had opened a discussion on the talk page on this issue before moving it. There was already such a discussion back in 2007, which ended without consensus. Notifying me, as one of the primary authors of the article, might also have been good. The issue of "Beijing" vs. "Peking" is not as clear cut as you made it sound in the move rationale. Since I found nearly all of the sources for the article, I can tell you that a lot of them use "Beijing opera", especially newer ones. Even if you disagree with that, though, you still have to discuss before moving. I won't revert your move, but please be more considerate in the future.--Danaman5 (talk) 13:30, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. It did seem pretty clear-cut in the sources I could find. For example, Google Ngrams shows Beijing opera tying with Peking opera for a few years in the 1980s, but then dropping back.[9] Similarly for dictionaries. — kwami (talk) 17:54, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Most difficult language to learn

Kwami, this discussion has been going on for 7 days and probably needs closing as the consensus is pretty strong for "Keep". --Taivo (talk) 13:49, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks --Taivo (talk) 18:12, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your en dash edits

Hi, I was just wondering about your en dash edits. I often replace hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes where appropriate, but I don't think your edits are correct. You mention WP:ENDASH in your edit summary, but nothing in that section seems to support your edits. The section a little above it in the MOS, WP:HYPHEN, seems to indicate that the original hyphens were, in fact, correct. Am I missing something? MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 09:05, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The analogous "pre–World War II technologies" is given as an example at ENDASH. The en dash indicates that the scope is post–(World War) and not (post-World) War. — kwami (talk) 09:09, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks for the explanation. Sorry to have bothered you. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 09:13, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

IPAc-en conversions

Please do not revert conversions on talk pages. This just makes it show up on the automated conversion bot again.

Also, if we completely remove the old IPA templates we can start standardizing the template people use. --deflective (talk) 18:43, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

True. Does it matter that the IPAc template doesn't support the transcription? We don't want to correct it when it's on a talk page.

Also, does the conversion bot not flag nonsensical IPA? That would be a valuable function. — kwami (talk) 19:42, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't much care what {{pronEng}} calls are changed to, so long as they no longer show up on Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:PronEng.

I would need some sort of method to detect nonsense IPA (at minimum, i could detect non-standard symbols) and a way to flag them. --deflective (talk) 19:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or any string that does not appear in the IPA chart. I don't know how to do that in AWB (I can't search for a negative set), but a bot should be able to do it. — kwami (talk) 19:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a category these pages should go into? --— deflective (talk) 20:12, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not yet! Another approach would be to mirror the template w a slightly different name; the articles could then be found through 'what links here', and the template would be converted back as the errors are corrected. A category could be mentioned on the template doc page, though, esp. if the bot goes through every once in a while and regenerates the list. — kwami (talk) 20:15, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Astrology

This revert is kind of strange. Have you read the original citation from the NSF? You should, because it does NOT say anything close to what is stated in the sentence. The NSF does not say that astrology is a pseudoscience, nor does it make a case that it is. It's not only a weasel statement, it's flat-out wrong. The reference I added states it clearly, that it is considered a pseudoscience. Since science does not work in absolutes, I'll leave that to the pseudoscience people themselves, "considering" is a perfectly appropriate word. I'm not getting into a revert war, but why should you continue using a sentence that is incorrect and unsupported by the so-called citation? OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 00:08, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like tracking conversations across pages, so I'll reply to you here. As I said "considered to be" is perfect wording for scientists, since we don't work in absolutes. If you look at my background, I have no tolerance for the pseudoscience POV pushers, so I'm willing to make the wording as strong as possible. If I were running this place, I'd write "astrology is pure crap meant for those with little education or intelligence." But I'm flexible. :) I tried something else, if you don't mind rewriting instead of reverting, maybe we can reach something strong but NPOV. Again, the NSF reference is really a bad one. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 00:16, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I notified you on your talk page while you were writing here. I didn't mean to split the conversation.

We have plenty of other references; this footnote was too specific IMO for the lede, and we really don't need any ref for the lede, since the lede is supposed to summarize the body. But "scientists consider" is the kind of wording pseudoscientists push for to support their argument that there is legitimate debate: Well, sure, some scientists consider it to be PS, but that's just one opinion among many, recent evidence shows the opposite, and the matter is yet to be resolved. I'd prefer to nip this in the bud. Take a look at Griswaldo's recent sources on the Talk page. Can you think of a phrasing which doesn't open the "generally considered to be" can of worms? — kwami (talk) 00:34, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Now I remember why WP makes me so cranky. Science isn't a "vote". But if you've been battling the POV pushers in the article, and know the arguments, please put it back to what you think makes the point best. Please leave my reference, so that we have one person who describes the philosophy of what makes or does not make pseudoscience in astrology. Isn't it amusing that when I see "scientists consider" I think it means "there's no doubt scientifically". LOL.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 00:41, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't removed your ref. Yes, in a rational context, that's how I'd read it too, but this isn't a rational context. It's a matter of framing where POV X considers it to be A while POV Y considers it to be B, so that the word "consider" means there is significant doubt. I'll think about other wording, but any suggestions you have would be appreciated. — kwami (talk) 00:46, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't consider (LOL, couldn't resist) the statement "Astrology is pseudoscience" to be POV (A or Y). It is NPOV, of course. We're going about this the wrong way. It's impossible to prove the negative that Astrology is BS. Those who say that Astrology is real need to provide evidence supported by reliable sources. Frustrating. I need to look back on my contributions. We've written this kind of stuff for a whole bunch of pseudoscientific articles. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 00:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that "Astrology is pseudoscience" is the right approach. — kwami (talk) 01:04, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that's good. — kwami (talk) 01:13, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. There was even a peer-reviewed "clinical" study that confirmed that there is no personality difference based on birth date. So, what's the over/under time until we're reverted? LOLOrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 01:27, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That wasn't a scientific study, because the authors didn't understand astrology. Astrology is not amenable to scientific study, and more recent studies have since proven astrology to be correct. (At least, that how I predict the argument to go, given the alignment of Mars when you posted that edit.) — kwami (talk) 01:43, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think some critics were right that there was too much about PS in the 1st paragraph. I left a brief assertion and moved the rest down to your paragraph. It could perhaps use better integration, if you can think of anything. — kwami (talk) 01:52, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kwami, thanks for adding/moving the "Naming" section; I just changed the title to Etymology for the sake of consistency, but the placement is perfect. I could have done it myself, but wanted some consensus for even simple changes. I'd been watching the recent activity and wanted to pitch in with something useful and help get past the pointless arguments about pseudoscience. Alas, I failed to take into account that Mercury is in retrograde and thus our efforts are doomed to failure.... Doc Tropics 04:04, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

McLaren > McLaren?!

Now obviously you are doing something worthwhile to all those F1 pages. Just out of curiosity, what is it? No hurry. Just interested. 4u1e (talk) 23:46, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just formatting. If you had, say, a Simca-Gordini-Frazer-Nash-built engine, someone not in-the-know would have no idea how many companies were involved. Simca-Gordini–Frazer-Nash is more legible, per WP:ENDASH. (Okay, that's a made-up example, but some of the real ones are almost as opaque, like Ligier-Mugen-Honda (Ligier–Mugen-Honda). Some mags use spaces rather than hyphens or dashes, but that can be a problem w s.t. like Toro Rosso Alpha Romeo. That doesn't work w spaces, and if you hyphenated it, Toro Rosso-Alpha Romeo, it would look like there were three companies, one being Rosso-Alpha.) — kwami (talk) 23:51, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See. I knew there was a good reason, although I find it very hard to spot the differences in the example above (failing eyesight, no doubt!). I salute your dedication to clarity. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 00:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could also be your default browser font. Some of them don't have much of a difference. — kwami (talk) 00:04, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

May I request that you don't do any more until you gain consensus for the changes at WP:F1? Also, what are your long-term plans? Are you planning to make such replacements for all constructors in all 800+ F1 race articles? And all 60 season summary articles? And all F1 driver/engineer/constructor articles? And what about non-F1 races? DH85868993 (talk) 02:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've started a discussion at WP:F1 in which I invite you to participate. Regards. DH85868993 (talk) 03:21, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of pre-1920 jazz standards

Hi! I see you moved the list of pre-1920 jazz standards to list of jazz standards before 1920. May I ask what was wrong with the old name? The list has been through quite a few different names, but I can't see what the problem was with that one. The title was actually suggested in FLC review after it was nominated as List of jazz standards (before 1920). Regards, Jafeluv (talk) 09:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'll move that back. It got caught up with some similar but awkward names. — kwami (talk) 09:51, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I think using pre- is better in this case since "before 1920" sounds like it's missing something. You can say "a 1920 jazz standard" or "a pre-1920 jazz standard", but "a jazz standard before 1920" would sound weird (you'd have to say "a jazz standard written before 1920", for example). Of course, there are more than one technically correct names for that sort of lists. Jafeluv (talk) 09:56, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking that "pre-1920" implied a natural class, as if s.t. had happened in 1920 to change the nature of jazz. E.g., there are articles on Florida State Road X (pre-1945), since the numbering system was changed in 1945. — kwami (talk) 09:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see, but I don't think using pre- would necessarily imply that. That said, the current system may not be the optimal naming in any case -- for example, the corresponding list of post-1950 jazz standards actually includes standards from 1950, not just 1951 and after as the name would imply. I haven't yet figured out a better name for it, though :P Jafeluv (talk) 10:05, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"List of jazz standards since 1950"? — kwami (talk) 10:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That would have the same problem as "before 1920", I think -- it would have to be "written since 1950" or something like that. I'll need think about it when I get to that list in my expansion project. Chances are it'll have be split into separate lists for the 1950s and post-1959 in any case, so I'm hesitant to start moving it around before the text is "ready". Jafeluv (talk) 10:14, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

post office article names

Hi Kwamikagami -- On my watchlist I notice your move United States Post Office (Scotia, New York) to United States Post Office–Scotia, New York, and see in your recent contributions you've renamed some others. I don't mind the moves where you are mainly replacing a hyphen by an en-dash, which is probably correct, although your edit summary could try to give some indication. But for others like the Scotia example I don't necessarily agree. You may note that the U.S. Post Office articles, mostly included in U.S. Post Office (disambiguation) do not all carry uniform type names, because the article names are in fact based on official sources such as National Register listing names which are themselves not uniform. About article names, we don't get to impose a uniform system, if the world out there is more varied and if common names actually vary. Other editors have had strong opinions. So, besides for hyphen to en-dash conversions, would you please pause with P.O. article renames, pending discussion at, I suggest, Talk:U.S. Post Office? Sincerely, --do ncr am 10:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. I will revert them if you like. I wasn't aware there was a reason for the variation; it just seemed random. — kwami (talk) 11:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'd appreciate if you could move back the Scotia one and others like that, but actually i don't know if you can if you are not an administrator because there may have been too many moves already. The Scotia one and a number of other New York & area articles were started and really well-developed to DYK by User:Daniel Case, to whom I would defer on his choice of article title. Actually one big past discussion was about imposing "United States" generally rather than allowing either "U.S." or "United States" according to actual common usage for each place individually, reflected at Talk:U.S. Post Office and an RFC somewhere linked from there. My sense of that is that we should follow common usage individually, although certainly reflect NRHP names with the articles. And that it makes sense to create the articles first rather than have battles within the U.S. Post Office dab page about what the currently-redlinked ones should be named (so i proceeded to start a lot more, but did not complete that). Please don't change the hyphenated redlink names within the U.S. Post Office dab; the current hyphenated names are probably consistent with how the articles are named in corresponding county- and city-based NRHP list-articles. If the article is created at hyphen name first, then later moved, all the pages stay linked properly. Thanks. --do ncr am 11:20, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. Moved them back. (Let me know if I missed any.) But many of them are hyphenated in the text and info box, so it wouldn't seem to matter. — kwami (talk) 11:29, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rename of pre-1920s sci-fi films

Hello,

Is there a reason why you renamed the article to "List of science fiction films before 1920"? The name is now inconsistent with the others in the set.—RJH (talk) 16:34, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, per "naturalness" at WP:TITLE and for consistency with other articles named that way. I can move the others. Category:Lists of comedy films by decade has good titles, and several of the categories were set up that way. — kwami (talk) 20:25, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. Thanks for the explanation.—RJH (talk) 22:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SIMS

I have reverted your move of secondary ion mass spectrometry. Science is conservative in some terms, and wikipedia mostly follows conventional use. Please consult literature before moving. Common sense and normative grammar don't work in many cases. Cheers. Materialscientist (talk) 10:31, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately you haven't left a summary when reverting my move, so please explain here. Regards. Materialscientist (talk) 10:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't revert your move. You reverted mine. — kwami (talk) 10:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fine, so please explain your original move. Britannica doesn't use dashes for this term, so as most google books. Materialscientist (talk) 10:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I likely misread my watchlist and thought you've reverted my move, which was a bad assumption, my sincere apologies. Back to the point, for some reasons, science often denies using dashes in triple or quadruple names, like "ion attachment mass spectrometry", etc. Materialscientist (talk) 10:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is simply a stylistic difference, not a substantial one. People tend to drop hyphens from familiar phrases, as high school students for high-school students. However, as a general reference, we can't assume that our readers are familiar with the topic. Sources which hyphenate include Barker et al. (1999) Mass spectrometry, Johnstone (1984) Mass Spectrometry, Volume 7, Kossowsky (1989) Surface Modification Engineering: Fundamental aspects‎, National Research Council (1993) Measuring lead exposure in infants, children, and other sensitive populations‎, Stuart (2002) Polymer analysis, Johnstone & Rose (1996) Mass spectrometry for chemists and biochemists, etc. In other words, there are two formats in common use, and this one follows our MOS and is clearer to the naive reader. — kwami (talk) 10:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

<indent>I don't doubt some books use dashes in SIMS (as I've checked before, though I've never seen dashed use in my entire career), but the vast majority don't. Its not just about SIMS, it is most quadruple science technique names. Check "ion attachment mass spectrometry" for example. Britannica, common use, and "most people will search without dashes" are strong arguments. Materialscientist (talk) 10:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The last is irrelevant, because they will simply be redirected to wherever we have the article.

Against common usage among those familiar with the field is our need as an encyclopedia to present the concept to those who are not familiar with it. It's really annoying to have to struggle to parse new terms when a bit of punctuation would do it for you. We can always drop the hyphens in body of the article, and in any case readers won't have trouble transitioning to sources which fail to hyphenate once they have the concept. — kwami (talk) 11:02, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We don't want to overload redirects, but these articles are of low traffic, thus this is not the issue. I do understand and share your point on hyphens clarifying the meaning. Many science publishers keep this as a policy in double words (like high-school students), but it is usually not so in large compound nouns like SIMS. The issue here is we can't deny common use with logic, or with argument "we think it is good for reader". I think unconventional moves should be discussed with the associated project, WP:PHYS in this case. Would you like me to start? Materialscientist (talk) 11:17, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you like.

Your high-school example means that many science publishers "deny common use with logic", since it is more commonly unhyphenated. It's ironic that the longer the attributive phrase, the less likely it is to be hyphenated. I think there may be two reasons for that: in many cases (though not here) it becomes difficult to decide how to hyphenate multiply iterated attributives, and long technical phrases tend to be rote-memorized, so comprehension of their structure may not be a priority. — kwami (talk) 11:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You know 100 times more in this area (linguistics and grammar), and I can't explain it on the fly, that is why some long terms are not hyphenated. I just know by experience it is not always so, "high-pressure high-temperature [technique, etc.]" is usually hyphenated, though it is not a noun; "light-emitting diode" is also mostly hyphenated. Maybe it is a four-word threshold. Is there some general rejection of hyphens after "y", as in secondary-ion or as in ly- adjectives (where hyphen is rejected)? Materialscientist (talk) 11:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You wouldn't normally hyphenate after -ly adverbs, because the suffix -ly clarifies their role. But you do when it isn't an adverb: a kindly-looking face. If you convert the word to algebraic-style notation, hyphens link whatever you put in parentheses, with (depending on the convention) en dashes playing the role of nested parentheses. The distinction in hyphenation can be important: a government-monitoring program monitors the government, whereas a government monitoring program is just the opposite. But since tech terms are usually carefully coined to be distinctive rather than on the fly, you will seldom get such ambiguity, and if you just memorize them as single units you'll usually be fine. I imagine that "high-pressure" isn't specifically a tech term, so it retains common punctuation. Still, it's nice to be able to parse them. I find them much easier to remember that way. — kwami (talk) 11:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hyphens are certainly used when the phrase would be ambiguous otherwise. The question is should they be used when there is no ambiguity, like in a kindly-looking face, or it is then a matter of preference or style? I have a practical observation (not sure it is correct) that such hyphens are rejected by native (or nearly native) speakers of some countries, like UK and India. Materialscientist (talk) 11:56, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A "kindly looking face" would be a face looking at you kindly. A "kindly-looking face" would be a face that is inherently kindly looking.

There is a lot of stylistic variation in hyphenation.

In the US, I think hyphenation varies with education level. But the reader can always ignore it if we include it. — kwami (talk) 12:05, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

<indent>"Kindly-looking face" was not a good example :-) thanks. I've started a thread at WP:PHYS. Scientific techniques are interdisciplinary, and thus I'll invite WP:CHEM and maybe some other projects (maybe electronics? or maybe this is even a wider issue). Cheers. Materialscientist (talk) 00:22, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Chemistry has much stricter hyphenation rules that physics, so I don't know if it would be an issue for them. Equipment and processes, I suppose. — kwami (talk) 00:37, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I thought of WP:CHEM only because it is relevant and is one of the most active science projects on WP. After reading your comments on that thread, I realized that WP:MED might be related too. There are many pros and cons of making this a general discussion. Do you think it should be such? or at least, should WP:MED, WP:BIOL, etc., be invited? Materialscientist (talk) 00:56, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That might hinder more than it would help. WP:BIOL can't even decide on which capitalization to use. They only last week, after years of debate, agreed to use sentence case for all mammals, when they had been using title case for primates and whales and sentence case for rodents and ungulates. But now we have sentence case for mammals and title case for birds! Since chemistry is so closely related, it's only right to have them involved, but I'd be reluctant to expand it any further. — kwami (talk) 01:02, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fine with me, as it it much easier to talk to similarly minded people. I know a bit about the capitalization problem in WP:BIOL, and it is not that easy as it might seem - the published literature is very inconsistent on that; whereas most biology sub-projects did not have a position and finally decided to follow MoS, WP:BIRDS developed their rules and have always been adamant on them. Thus a contradiction. Materialscientist (talk) 01:22, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't mean it was easy! — kwami (talk) 01:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Raman AFM - this is something I've never heard of. Beware that many new techniques are invented by non-native speakers who give them odd names and propagate them. (I've managed to convince one group to change one utterly non-grammatical name, but some stubbornly reply "the name is already well established [by them]" or simply deny that the wording is poor). Materialscientist (talk) 06:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mass spectrometry moves

Hi Kwami. I see you have been moving a lot of mass spectrometry-related articles lately. For the most part I agree with them, but a few I take issue with. For example, the "mass spectrometry XXXXX" pages like "mass spectrometry software". Here I would argue adding a hyphen to make it "mass-spectrometry software" is not necessary because there is no possible ambiguity in the term. Mass spectrometry is a compound noun and highly recognized as such, and therefore does not need a hyphen. For example, would you hyphenate "high school student"? –CWenger (talk) 14:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, in an encyclopedia, where clarity is at a premium, I would. I'd argue there's no possibility of confusion as long as you're familiar with the subject, but we can't know our readers will be. As MatierialScientist noted above, "Many science publishers keep this as a policy in double words (like high-school students)". But I won't argue if you revert. — kwami (talk) 20:39, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ship classes

At this point, I'd suggest starting a centralized discussion somewhere about the hyphenation of the ship class article titles. Creating the bot to do this is not difficult, but it will need approval before it can run. And before it can get approval, there needs to be a clear consensus for the task. If you can get a consensus on how the articles should be hyphenated (or whether they should be hyphenated at all), then contact me and I will submit a bot request with a link to that discussion. I have submitted a few bot requests recently where the consensus wasn't clear, and they just turn into quagmires, so I'd prefer not to get into that situation again. —SW— ^communicate 16:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

War Films Based on books

As for a title, you might want to make it consistent with other such articles. Our "war film" articles are:

--- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:38, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Do you have a preferred wording or format? The ones I did were rather desperate. — kwami (talk) 20:02, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

Hello, Kwamikagami. You have new messages at The ed17's talk page.
Message added 02:28, 27 March 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]

Request for move

Hi Kwami, long time no see. Hope you're well. Can I ask you to move the page Nalan Mingzhu back to Mingzhu? Some user moved it without discussion and now I can't move it back because of the redirect. Colipon+(Talk) 00:15, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Back in 2009! But sure. (Should Nalan Xingde remain where it is?) — kwami (talk) 00:21, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest these Manchu names have always been quite problematic. Nalan Xingde is a bit of an exception because he has been remembered by his 'full name' in the literary world, where he is famous. On the other hand Mingzhu's name appears in almost all historical records as simply "Mingzhu", i.e., without the clan name "Nalan". So We can leave Nalan Xingde where it is for now. Colipon+(Talk) 01:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're being discussed at WP:AN3

Please see WP:AN3#User:Kwamikagami reported by Jayjg (talk). You may respond there if you wish. EdJohnston (talk) 00:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Moving British submarine pages

Hi Kwamikagami, I noticed that you have moved several submarine pages recently, adding a hyphen in each case to the title, (reference Trafalgar and Porpoise classes for example). As you know this issue is being discussed at length at the moment at Wiki-ships and on article talk pages, including whether or not to bring a bot into action. However no consensus has yet been reached on whether to include or not to include the hyphen. Given this current state, it might be an idea to hold off on moves until such time that a consensus is reached. Best wishes Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 15:41, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not true - consensus was reached here about renaming articles with hyphens in; Kwamikagami is quite within his rights to do so. The current discussion is about a bot-move request, which has become bogged down in discussing the hyphen issue (again). Shem (talk) 16:06, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Shem, was a consensus really reached there? It doesn't seem so. The latest bot-move request has, as you say, opened up into a hyphen merits discussion. So surely that means there is currently not a censensus now? For the record I am not really bothered either way what happens, just that consistency and consensus are important. Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 17:34, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The consensus has existed, apparently unchallenged, for eight years. All well-written articles hyphenate in the lede and the rest of the text, even if not in the article name itself. Given that, I'd say we'd need consensus not to hyphenate, though the bot request isn't going anywhere without a renewed consensus to hyphenate. — kwami (talk) 21:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stop moving ship class articles

Please stop making contentious moves of ship class articles whilst the proposal to move them is under discussion.--Toddy1 (talk) 21:40, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will echo this. A new discussion is underway, which may or may not come to a new decision about this issue. Until it is settled, please stop moving articles. Benea (talk) 22:07, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stopped. Where is the new discussion? — kwami (talk) 22:10, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It started here and has several sub-sections. Parsecboy (talk) 22:45, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Even though you agreed to stop, you have since restarted. So I have placed a notice on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Kwamikagami moving ship class articles from XXXX class format to XXX-class format reported by Toddy1 (Result:)--Toddy1 (talk) 11:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to leave out the consensual punctuation when moving articles for other reasons. — kwami (talk) 11:54, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Would you please return the destroyer articles you moved back until this is resolved?Tirronan (talk) 14:09, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thak you for brilant mish-mash in some pages! Move of this pages is not good idea... Hornet24 (talk) 20:16, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of language families

Kwami, I see that you're busy with non-linguistic articles, but there's an uncommunicative editor at List of language families who is continually removing Japonic from the list of largest families (claiming categorically that it's part of Altaic) and refusing to talk on the Talk page or even make comments in the edit summaries. I'm running afoul of 3RR so I can't really report him in that forum. I've notified User:Maunus and he's helped, but since you're another linguist-admin, I thought I'd enlist your help as well. He just reverts without discussion and it's a bit frustrating. Thanks. --Taivo (talk) 23:23, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Had the history open on a tab I hadn't got to yet, so I'll take a look. — kwami (talk)

Thanks. --Taivo (talk) 01:44, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protection of the "Pashto language" article

Hi Kwamikagami, the Pashto language article was protected before, but now it is unprotected, and I noticed unconstructive edits in the article, for example: in this edit reliable references (Morgenstierne's) were removed and the article is likely to be repeatedly edited unconstructively by IPs or blocked members again. Could check it and kindly semi-protect the article indefinitely, please? Thanks. Khestwol (talk) 12:49, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's just one revert, and that's the kind of thing that should be addressed on the talk page. I can block that editor if it gets out of hand, but first let's see if there's actually a problem. Meanwhile I think you'll find that most linguists here are willing to abandon Ethnologue as soon as something better comes along. — kwami (talk) 19:23, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pi

The math department wants to move Pi to π. I'm pretty sure such usability issues were discussed when naming non-math articles (like Pi (letter)) in general. Perhaps you can provide some input on Talk:Pi. Thanks, Tijfo098 (talk) 09:09, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I brought it up at WP:TITLE, where it might be of some interest. — kwami (talk) 09:26, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hyphen

Where was the consensus for hyphenating tumor name again? I though the consensus went the other way but may have been mistaken. Thanks Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:52, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember now. This was made an exception because of the potential for confusion.

Ah, here. — kwami (talk) 16:48, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Move article

Sorry to bother you again, but could you help move Red Guards (People's Republic of China) back to Red Guards (China)? As far as I can see the name should be as concise as possible - particularly in a dab situation. Red Guards (China) is a totally unambiguous name. Colipon+(Talk)

Sure thing.

Was the move not possible for you? There didn't seem to be anything interfering with it. — kwami (talk) 08:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki:Common.css/WinFixes.css

Hi Kwami

Since you have already edited MediaWiki:Common.css/WinFixes.css, perhaps you can help: There are still lots of templates out there that continue using explicit font definitions, just like {{IPA}}, {{polytonic}} and {{Unicode}} used to do before WinFixes.css was created. It would be great if all explicit font definitions were concentrated in WinFixes.css so the explicit font definitions would no longer affect all users, causing disruptive font display even in modern browsers that are perfectly capable of choosing an appropriate font.

Some of the templates that continue using explicit font definitions include: {{script/Hebrew}} (which already assigns an unused class="script-hebrew"), {{lang-he-n}}, {{lang-he}}, {{script/Gaelic}}, {{script/Cuneiform}}, {{script/Runic}}, {{script/Coptic}}, {{script/Phoenician}}, {{script/Slavonic}}, {{okina}}.

If you don't have the time for fixing these templates and WinFixes.css, perhaps you know of another administrator whom I could address about this? I have already [User talk:TheDJ#MediaWiki:Common.css.2FWinFixes.css asked TheDJ]. Thanks anyway! -- mach ᵗᵃˡᵏ👍 06:45, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll look into it. — kwami (talk) 20:13, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I moved them over, apart from cuneiform, which didn't look straightforward. — kwami (talk) 20:34, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot! -- mach ᵗᵃˡᵏ👍 08:29, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Me again: I have just discovered which includes some more templates with IE font fixes:

{{Script/SMP}} (Code2001, yuk!)
{{Music}}

Additionally, there were several (almost) unused Cyrillic templates. I have proposed them for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion.

I am not sure whether {{Script/SMP}} might be deleted as well. It is only used in very few articles (see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Script/SMP, but I don't know whether {{unicode}} is equivalent. -- mach ᵗᵃˡᵏ👍 11:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ipa check request

Hi Kwami. Wondering if you would look at this IPA edit. I have my doubts about this pronunciation.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, because that o comes from Greek omicron, and is therefore short, it wouldn't normally be stressed. All the pronunciations I've been able to find stress the first syllable. They differ on whether the -ean is stressed or not, which is typical of that suffix. (Stressing it is conservative, but it's often pronounced as if it were -ian.) I've added both pronunciations. — kwami (talk) 19:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese-speaking.reading help needed

I'm guessing you might know a bit of Japanese. There's a problem over at Help Desk that needs someone to take a look at a Japanese website to see whether an editor here can request that it refreshes its cached Wikipedia source. If you can help, it would be much appreciated. Regards Peter S Strempel | Talk 12:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your very prompt and proactive assistance. Regards — Peter S Strempel | Talk 02:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank You!

Dear Kwami:

Thanks for your help on the hyphenated lung cancer articles. While I will never agree with you on this issue (partly out of pure stubbornness), I defer to your considerable and admirable expertise on languages in this regard. Didn't mean to come unglued, just kind of sensitive about it.

Best regards" Cliff L. Knickerbocker, MS (talk) 12:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I'd prefer all of them to be hyphenated, but I can live with just these. — kwami (talk) 04:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File:WritingSystemsoftheWorld2.png

Hi. I noticed you uploaded File:WritingSystemsoftheWorld2.png, please see this. Thanks. --Klein zach 05:08, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ping

I emailed you. Tony (talk) 10:45, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Transcluding Template:Script/Hebrew within Template:Lang-he-n

Hi Kwami

After you have moved the font-family definitions from {{lang-he-n}} and {{script/Hebrew}} to MediaWiki:Common.css/WinFixes.css on my request (thanks again), it turned out that these font-family definitions are not only required by MSIE, but also by Firefox on Mac OS X, due to Bug 648248 - Buggy Hebrew fallback font on Mac OS X. Therefore, Ynhockey undid your edits to the two templates.

However, since {{lang-he-n}} does not use the same font-family definitions like {{script/Hebrew}} (the difference is only that {{script/Hebrew}} uses additional font-family definitions and in a slightly different order), the display of Hebrew text on Wikipedia is inconsistent. Compare for instance the following screenshot from Mac OS X (default settings) that shows the inconsistency between {{lang-he-n|בֵּית}} (procuces: "Template:Lang-he-n") and {{script/Hebrew|בֵּית}} ( produces: "בֵּית‎"):

The inconsistency can be fixed by transcluding {{script/Hebrew}} within {{lang-he-n}}. May I ask you to do that? The transclusion has several advantages:

The display of Hebrew text will no longer be inconsistent since {{script/Hebrew}} will be the only template that stylizes Hebrew text.
It creates a useful functional distinction between the two templates: {{script/Hebrew}} will be the only template that stylizes Hebrew text (including the font-family definitions that are required on Mac OS X Firefox and older MSIE), while {{lang-he-n}} will be a template that prefixes "Hebrew:" to a string in Hebrew stylized by {{script/Hebrew}}.
All Hebrew text will have class="script-hebrew" (which is defined by {{script/Hebrew}}). This will ease future changes and user customization.

The following code will be required for {{lang-he-n}}:

[[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]: {{script/Hebrew|{{{1}}}}}{{#if:{{{lit|}}}|, ''[[literal translation|lit.]]'' {{{lit}}}}}<includeonly>[[Category:Articles containing Hebrew language text]]</includeonly>‎<noinclude>{{doc}} {{merge|Template:Lang-he}} </noinclude>

I have taken the liberty of testing this code on {{CYchar}} (an orphan template marked for deletion). It works perfectly well: {{CYchar|בֵּית}} produces "Template:CYchar", exactly what {{lang-he-n}} is supposed to produce, but in the same style like {{script/Hebrew}}. -- mach ᵗᵃˡᵏ👍 06:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, done. — kwami (talk) 06:59, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Uralic

Kwami, I don't know what inspired you to start revising the Uralic language templates, but it's not right. Altaic is "disputed", where the majority of linguists say it's bunk. Uralic is not disputed. --Taivo (talk) 21:16, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I never said it was. — kwami (talk) 21:17, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For example, your edit at Hungarian language removed Uralic from the language template and put "Ugric ?". I looked at Uralic languages to see where you were getting this radical revamping of Uralic and it seems to be based on a single source. That's not sufficient when the majority of Uralic scholarship uses the "traditional" grouping. Do you have other sources? Or just the one? --Taivo (talk) 21:20, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Going through the entire Uralic family and removing the traditional groupings based on a single source is too radical a shift and needs to be reversed until some consensus is reached. --Taivo (talk) 21:22, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We have more than just that one source. Even Ethnologue has now adopted an agnostic classification. And many of our languages still had Finno-Volgaic, which AFAIK is actually obsolete. — kwami (talk) 21:35, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your use of the bot to make these changes though has led to several of the languages I looked at to have had "Uralic" removed completely from the top level. That's what happened at Hungarian language. You need to check all these changes to make sure that Uralic didn't disappear on others. --Taivo (talk) 21:46, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure? "Uralic" still displays at Hungarian language on my browser (FF). It's triggered by familycolor=Uralic. I only removed fam1=Uralic because it was redundant and inconsistently applied, not because I disputed it. — kwami (talk) 21:54, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It also displays correctly on IE. That's the two most common browsers. If it doesn't display, we have a larger compatibility issue that needs to be addressed. — kwami (talk) 22:13, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Redundancy is often a good thing. Unless the redundancies are conflicting, I wouldn't remove them. They often serve a useful function. In this case, where one sees "lang2" the obvious question is, "Where is 'lang1'?" That's what confused me--I wasn't looking at the templates per se, but at the coding. I saw "lang2" without a "lang1". So I really don't think you should be removing the "lang1" coding even if it is redundant. It's very useful. --Taivo (talk) 00:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it usually doesn't do any harm. I've come across a few cases where it had conflicted, so I've been removing 'fam1' unless there was an overt reason for it (family color is areal, like American or Papuan, etc.) I've now turned off that change in AWB. — kwami (talk) 00:45, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Finnic languages ?

I've just created this from a redirect, noticing it was missing, though thinking on it seems very unlikely it never had one and looking at what appeared in my watchlist you recently deleted a page here to make way for moving the page. Could you have deleted the talk page as you were moving things around?--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 22:11, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't notice that the talk page failed to move with the article. — kwami (talk) 22:14, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cached page on Japanese Content Farm

Peterstrempel advised that you had tried several times without success to have this page removed. I would just like to thank you for your assistance with this matter its been greatly appreciated. Bgrinter (talk) 13:22, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

dash moves related to Mexican–American War

Kwami, as you know perfectly, the article [[Mexican–American War] was recently moved to Mexican-American War Using a hyphen instead of a dash. There was a sucessful request for move, and then a second request for move that didn't get consensus to revert the move. Then Cwenger moved one of the related articles from its spaced form to its dashed form in order to fit its main article, namely List of U.S. Army, Navy and Volunteer units in the Mexican–American War [10].

And today you have reverted the move[11] and you have replaced the hyphen with a dash [12]. That is incredibly WP:POINTy, that article's name was never spelled with a dash.

Go read MOS:STABILITY and the arbitration principles linked in it. If you, or anyone else tries to change any related article back to dashes then I will report him/her to edit warring noticeboard in order to get him blocked for edit-warring over stylistic issues. I hope I made myself clear. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:23, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you've made yourself very clear: You're a hypocrite. — kwami (talk) 00:32, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Tense-aspect-mood for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Tense-aspect-mood is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tense-aspect-mood 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. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Count Truthstein (talk • contribs) 15:29, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unfair edit war warning

I made some changes to the 'Ganges' article. You then sent me an edit war warning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Heloworld321#edit_war_warning

I made these changes with proper reasoning. However, Mr. Credible simply came and undid my contribution without any justification whatsoever. So I reverted it. Note: I even started a discussion about this on the discussions page regarding this matter. I didn't revert the vandalism on the Ganges page more than three times to avoid an edit war. So far, I have not committed anything that is not permitted in wikipedia. I believe it would be unfair to block me and I request you to take back this edit warning. If you read the discussions page of the Ganges article and look at the edit history of that article, you will understand that Mr. Credible has been editing without justification and kept reverting my edits over and over again without any reasoning. Is that allowed on Wikipedia? Heloworld321 (talk) 22:12, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 1,435: / Line 1,435: @@
 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.  <small><span class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Count Truthstein|Count Truthstein]] ([[User talk:Count Truthstein|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Count Truthstein|contribs]]) 15:29, 13 April 2011 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
+== Unfair edit war warning ==
+I made some changes to the 'Ganges' article. You then sent me an edit war warning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Heloworld321#edit_war_warning
+I made these changes with proper reasoning. However, Mr. Credible simply came and undid my contribution without any justification whatsoever. So I reverted it. Note: I even started a discussion about this on the discussions page regarding this matter. I didn't revert the vandalism on the Ganges page more than three times to avoid an edit war. So far, I have not committed anything that is not permitted in wikipedia. I believe it would be unfair to block me and I request you to take back this edit warning.
+If you read the discussions page of the Ganges article and look at the edit history of that article, you will understand that Mr. Credible has been editing without justification and kept reverting my edits over and over again without any reasoning. Is that allowed on Wikipedia?
+[[User:Heloworld321|Heloworld321]] ([[User talk:Heloworld321|talk]]) 22:12, 15 April 2011 (UTC)