User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 18

Your comments may be archived here after 48hrs

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

Thanks for all who have posted or emailed your support. For those of you who've said they'd support me if I reapplied for adminship, or would even nominate me, I appreciate it—especially when we've brawled & I wouldn't have expected you to! But given how many Randies I've pissed off, and my general lack of diplomatic skills, I don't expect my chances would be very good.

I'm trying to wind down a number of open issues. Will keep an eye on articles I was especially involved in that don't have many other contributors (rongorongo, Esperanto apart from the main article, etc.).

If I don't notice comments posted here, you can contact me through my email link. — kwami (talk) 08:58, 19 July 2022 (UTC) [changed year to prevent archiving]

Kwami, this is NOT good for Wikipedia. Your expertise in linguistics is badly needed here, and from what I've seen, you've been mostly in the "right" on the procedural issues, and not having you as an Administrator is a loss to the community. I hope you remain an active editor in many areas - what was it Frank Zappa said on one of his albums - "... teen appeal. We need it badly." - well, Wiki is in dire need of educated editors to deflect the POV-pushers, and I'd hate to see you go. All the best. HammerFilmFan (talk) 15:37, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

ANI heads up

Just a heads up, if you didn't see this already -- and it doesn't look like anyone else is going to post anything on your talk page -- looks like it is winding down. [1] Neotarf (talk) 01:34, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. — kwami (talk) 04:11, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

FYI, the discussion is now archived. [2] Neotarf (talk) 20:01, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

ANI

I want to be crystal clear in my closing of the ANI regarding your behavior, so it doesn't appear to be an endorsement of your actions, because it isn't. It is a recognition that many people have been tenacious in their edits as well, and while it appears you have justifiably earned the lion's share of blame, it would be inequitable if only you were sanctioned. I expect some blow back due to the clear consensus to topic ban you and my using WP:IAR to ignore the consensus, something I do not do lightly, and have never done before, in fact. If anything should be taken from the experience, it should be seen as a strong warning. As you pointed out, not many admins want to get involved, which shouldn't be viewed as vindication, but instead as a lack of support. This makes what I did, while appropriate, very difficult to maintain, and I'm already getting comments about it on my talk page.

You are an incredibly valuable editor to the project, but it does come at a price. This isn't the first time I've seen you at ANI. I believe the first time I've commented on your behavior was actually during my RfA in April. While some of it might be seen as piling on, you miss the point if you don't realize your less than optimal methods were the root cause. You need to seriously consider self-limiting yourself in regards to reverts and reevaluate your methods, to put it bluntly. While I'm a fan of boldness, I'm aware that it is only tolerated to a degree here, and you are enough in the spotlight due to recent blocks and issues that it is in your own best interest to take a less confrontational and more collegiate attitude when dealing with content disputes. I hate to be here preaching to you, someone with more experience than I have, but this is your Achilles' heel and unless you make some changes, I don't see good things happening in the future. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 13:16, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I was afraid this was going to be another proof that WP is not an encyclopedia but a social network. Thank you for treating it as an encyclopedia.

Frankly, I thought ANI was for admins, so I didn't bother to respond to most of the non-admin votes, especially since many of them were too idiotic to take seriously (the topic is imaginary regardless of sources or consensus, so anyone pushing it should be banned, etc.).

I get the point: when Randy from Boise starts arguing about skeletons, I need to treat him with respect he wouldn't get in a serious setting. Maybe I'll ask your advice on how to proceed the next time s.t. like this happens. — kwami (talk) 13:35, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Admins get the tools, but an extra vote isn't included in the kit. ANI is about admins taking action, but everyone has an equal right to speak, with weight given to the merits of the comment, like any other discussion. And I think you might rethink your Randy perspective. While some of that does exist in places here, this isn't what I saw here. Your threshold is a bit low, and while you might be more educated in an area than say I am (ie: I didn't go to college), that doesn't give you a super vote or more authority. We all have ways in which we contribute to benefit the encyclopedia. We still depend on consensus (with a rare case for WP:IAR), a flawed system but the lesser of the available evils. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:40, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but consensus is not a vote: as you say, we go by merit. When someone demonstrates that they don't understand the issue, their opinion counts for little. We've had quite a few people make a lot of noise about MH being 'imaginary', 'a fantasy', 'made-up', 'doesn't exist', etc., despite the numerous sources which have been provided by a number of people. Although the primary responder to the poll is not one of them, he is still making claims he can't back of with sources, and expects to be able to edit the article accordingly, regardless of what the actual sources state. That's OR and SYNTH rather than Randyism, but when his argument is that s.o. needs to be banned because they keep reverting his OR, IMO that's not a terribly convincing argument. I only counted one voter who actually laid out a valid reason and supported it with diffs. I obviously think you made the right call, but I also don't think it should be as difficult to justify as you seem to think. Anyway, that's all rather beside the point. The article seems to be going well, and with the involvement of the geo projects in crafting a consensus, hopefully it will be stable. And I do recognize I have a bad habit of getting into situations like this. I'll try to head them off in the future at a noticeboard etc, though they tend to get out of hand before I realize it: a response that works well on one article and doesn't raise an eyebrow might blow up on another. — kwami (talk) 15:00, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, you probably don't remember me since we've only interacted a few times. But I'll butt in here. Asking for advice from Dennis "on how to proceed the next time s.t. like this happens" is an excellent idea, since his advice is uniformly good and I have a great deal of respect for his judgement. But I suggest that in addition to trying "to head them off in the future at a noticeboard", you may want to ask other editors whom you respect to have a look at any such situation early on, before things get out of hand. I understand your frustration in the recent situation with a number of editors who were edit warring, merging the article without discussion, shouting WP:FRINGE without investigating the issue in more than a cursory manner, etc. When I first saw the discussion with the many editors labeling it as WP:FRINGE, my first inclination was to agree – who the hell's ever heard of Lake Michigan-Huron? But after looking more deeply, I understood what you were trying to communicate above the din, and I've contributed in a small way to the article with some light copy editing and adding the image of the Straits of Mackinac. So, in the end, level heads prevailed at the article (and at ANI). But now I think you should adopt a lower profile, less confrontational style for a while if you can. It appears you have a target on your back and the mob of angry Shylocks want their pound of flesh from Kwami. It would do you well to stay out of confrontations and off of ANI for as long as you can. May I also suggest that you disengage completely from editing the Lake Michigan-Huron article for a time? Please continue to participate on the talk page, but stop reverting North8000 – he's going to be off wiki for a time anyway, and enough of us are now editing and watching the article that we can take care of any disputed content when he returns. He seems friendly enough with his "beer for you" above, and he seems to be willing to discuss things... And finally, I want to say that you have my respect for continuing to contribute productively to the project despite your recent loss of adminship. Many others would've reacted with far less maturity. I wish you all the best. Mojoworker (talk) 23:04, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I remember seeing you around. Thanks for the support. — kwami (talk) 05:03, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

They all are good editors that I respect, North*, Giant*, Bushranger, BMK, and others, which is what makes this situation so unusual and difficult, extracting a price for me as well, and I think it was based on some simple misunderstandings. And I would take Mojoworker's advice. I have worked ANI for a great period of time and can tell you from experience that once your name shows up many times in a short period, the odds of you getting a fair shake go down dramatically. Fairness is irrelevant, it is simply the truth as there are some that do not research before commenting. Now would be an excellent time to do some gnoming and avoid controversial topics, for your own self-preservation. Not many others would stick their own neck out here with a controversial close like this and you can't depend on it at the next ANI even if you were 100% in the right. You would do well to simply disengage earlier. Once you discover you are in a hole, the key is to stop digging, and you seriously need to develop some new habits to this effect. I'm not a great content creator, that is certain, but this is one area you should trust my judgement. I started WP:WER for a reason, and I've seen the pattern before. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 11:44, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I saw the WPR, but didn't realize you'd started it. There's definitely a need: we've lost too many good editors to personal disputes. — kwami (talk) 16:17, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree, which is why I tend to get involved with so many personal disputes, and try new methods. Not everyone agrees with my methods, some more loudly than others. Now the ball is in your court, and it looks like the discussion is moving along in a very productive manner. Sometimes, all it takes is bending in the wind just a little, and showing a little extra respect to the other side of the argument. This takes the "personal" out of the disagreement, so you can focus on the merits of the content. Respect and empathy are more powerful tools than you might realize, particularly when your goal is to persuade. I know nothing about the lakes, but I would like to think I understand people, so if you have a problem brewing, I would invite you to ping me early, not as an advocate or 3rd vote on content, but as an objective party to help the two sides see the wisdom of each other. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 19:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I want to second what Dennis says. I've followed you for a while (you edit in areas that interest me, but about which I don't know enough to contribute), and, although I've had a disagreement with Dennis, in my experience he is fair and thoughtful. There are times I've wanted to shout, "Pull up! Pull up!", when you've started down a path that was likely to land you at AN/I. I was shocked when your admin bit was pulled, but you were dancing at the edge of the canyon. Personally, I'm not sure what the point of editing at Wikipedia is, but if you see one for yourself, please understand that many of us value what you do. I've spoken out a few times against Kwami-baiting, but if you would ignore the hook a bit more often, maybe they'd give up and we could all do more useful work.--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:52, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Good to hear. — kwami (talk) 23:25, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been quiet for a few days, not because I haven't been following here, but because I didn't know what to say. First, someone has to give a big thank you to Dennis Brown for his sensible close and for sticking his neck out. It would have been very easy to pass by the other side. It should also be noted that someone reverted his close and regentspark had to close it again. Thank you to Dennis also for the extended comments here and for his offer to get involved in any future dispute resolution, and to Mojoworker and Curtis Clark also for their insights. There is much to think about here.

Yesterday I read on another thread, "ANI is a drum-head lynching tribunal for summarily dispatching matters according to which cohort howls loudest..." Trying to sort out this situation has taken a lot of time and energy on the part of many, but in my opinion, Kwami is worth it.

Some time back, during Kwami's previous misfortunes, I was stalking Worm's talk page trying to cheer myself up (his adoptees are always in good spirits) and I ran into his adminship essay. He says, "If there's a part of wikipedia that you're good at, then focus on it. I was good at adoption, other editors are good at templates or file work or copyright." What Kwami does here with his linguistics clinic is unique. Even when no one knew if he would be back, pilgrims were making their way to his talk page in hopes of having some complex linguistic question answered. I have come here myself with a titling question for the spelling of the name of a human rights group from an esoteric language, when various sources were not in agreement. Not only did I receive a definitive, authoritative, and apparently effortless answer, I was given a reason for it that made sense. Various publications like the Guardian are forever publishing something that is just plain wrong and getting lambasted for it in the ligua blogs; the Wikipedia editors are very fortunate to have access to such fact checking. At the top of this page, Kwami refers to "my general lack of diplomatic skills", but when it comes to linguistic questions, that is not at all true. That said, I think he has dodged a bullet; I hope he will keep his head down so we will have him around for a while longer.

A note to Dennis, if you regret not having gone to college, you CAN go back -- my degrees were conferred after the age of 40. To get started, just go to your local community college and sign up for a course, either a common prerequisite like English 101 or something that interests you. Some employers even offer a tuition waiver. If you go at night, the other students will be more mature, with jobs and families.

Neotarf (talk) 22:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Dennis is providing a valuable service here. I hope others join his cause; I've seen too many good editors leave because of personal politics.

I second the CC idea, though I have no reason to think Dennis needs it: there are lots of self-educated and self-made people out there. But when I finished high school, nearly all my friends headed off to the most prestigious university that would accept them. I didn't see the point. I hadn't even bothered to take the SATs, and went to the local community college instead, and then transferred. I got the better education. Students from the local ivy league schools would periodically come to the CC to get their gen ed out of the way, only to discover that the CC was more demanding than the university. My lit class had 12 students. It was at night in the summer, so smaller than normal, but the equivalent course at the local U had 700 to 1,000 students watching a video feed. If you have a good one nearby, CC's are the way to go: as a freshman you get the attention you don't get at the U until your junior year, when you transfer anyway. — kwami (talk) 23:25, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate the kind words, but won't be going to college. Too slow of a pace to learn in, it won't make a difference in my career path, and I'm truly an autodidact at heart. My main point is that some people might consider me a Randy because of a lack of formal education in a particular discipline, yet I still consider myself educated and a student as well. In short, there ARE some Randy's out there, but like the word "Vandal", it is used too often to demean others. True Randy's are trolls. Anyone acting in good faith but terribly mistaken is not "Randy", they are just terribly mistaken. We should show a little patience and education them if possible, or get a counter consensus if we can't, but demeaning someone for simply being mistaken isn't helpful and certainly doesn't win you compassion from others. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Kinda figured, about you being an autodictat.

I don't think formal education is important for everyone. It does more harm than good in some cases. But to me, a Randy is very different from a troll: A Randy truly believes the world is flat. At least, that's what I get from the essay. It's one thing to edit beyond your level of knowledge – I do it all the time – but when s.o. can demonstrate that they know better than you, and is willing to put in the time, it's best to defer to their judgement, at least as far as the facts themselves go. (They might insist on a jargon-riddled mess, but that's another issue.) But a Randy doesn't understand that he doesn't understand. IMO, when s.o. comes to an article and in all seriousness declares that the topic doesn't exist, they're being a Randy. — kwami (talk) 02:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Word with glottal stop in Portuguese and Bulgarian

How do you guys say it in English? Forgive my newbieness, as many here are used to know my contact with it is solely by internet and very little exposure to mass media. Also, if it does exist in European languages other than South Slavic and Portuguese, why is that mentioned in the article if it is not something unusual at all? Lguipontes (talk) 04:02, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it's important for the B. article, but it doesn't hurt.

This 'no' word is one of only two or three expressions with glottal stop in them in English, the others being oh-oh! (or for me uh-oh!) for trouble, and in some prosodies mm-mm! for delicious, where the hyphen represents the glottal stop. The word for 'no' is usually written uh-uh, but really the vowels are quite variable (apart from being identical to each other): they're unrounded central vowels, varying between maybe [ɐ] and [ɘ] (maybe not as high as [ɪ̈]), frequently nasal, or even syllabic nasal consonants: [m̩ʔm̩] or [ŋʔŋ]. Initial glottal stop occurs, but not reliably. The most reliable distinction between these three expressions is not the vowels but tone - another extremely marginal feature in English. — kwami (talk) 04:26, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The former ones I know from Portuguese, ô-ou! or oh-oh! for trouble, uhm-mmm! for delicious (without a stop for most people including me as it would thus sound like [n̪̍ʔn̪̍] instead if not sufficiently long, that is also 'no' but not used with the protesting meaning as our ê-ê, close to a 'yeah right!'), that I knew existed in other languages, but I thought ê-ê! or ê-eh! developed from a lazy way of shouting eu, hein! ([ˌewˈẽj] is quite similar to [ˌʔe̞ˈʔeː]). One can also determine what word it is by tone here, as you know also very marginal in Portuguese, though the vowels are surprisingly stable among speakers and regions (even because our vowels aren't kilometers close to near as much varying with accent and dialect as those of English, specially the stressed ones). Lguipontes (talk) 04:48, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Wait, no, it is not the translation of [ˌʔe̞ˈʔeː]. You are talking about our [ɐ̃ʔɐ̃ ~ ũʔũ], that can be syllabic nasal consonants too (the only use of those at least in the Brazilian variant, BTW), often seen as the antonym of [ɐ̃ɦɐ̃ ~ ũɦũ]. They are never non-nasalized, while ê-ê is always plainly oral. The phonology of the word in Bulgarian, more similar to the ê-ê – still likely to be a lazy eu, hein! besides acquiring the sense of our equivalent of 'yeah, right!' –, confused me of the obviety of it. Lguipontes (talk) 05:04, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

We have [ɐ̃ɦɐ̃ ~ m̩ɦm̩] for 'yes' in English. Not eu-hein!, though: I've heard it, but it sounds foreign. — kwami (talk) 05:08, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I know you do, I've added it to show how one can do the /ɐ̃/ in former WP:IPA for Portuguese. This is in my scope as "exposition to mass media", after all. For what eu, hein is, see the link I added in my last edit to glottal stop. If you heard it in your environment, it probably was from a Portuguese speaker, I'd say. O.o Lguipontes (talk) 05:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I think I heard it in East Africa, actually. — kwami (talk) 05:17, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, there is Mozambique, and AFAIK the country to which most Brazilians would immigrate to in SSA after Angola and South Africa is Kenya. But maybe it is among the Portuguese loanwords in Swahili, I don't know. The person was or seemed to be a native Anglophone or spoke an African language as mother tongue? It could be an African word that entered Portuguese rather than the reverse, too.

If it exists in African languages but is not related to Portuguese, that would be funny. We Brazilians tend to make many words smaller because of laziness, even simple expressions, such as não, é? (close to really? or isn't it?) that became né?. It is so similar to the Japanese nee? that many of our Japanese immigrants use it very often, some in every sentence (my theory is that a [seemingly] word of one's language in a completely foreign nation and its language could be pretty emotionally comforting, after all) – or at least widely stereotyped as such, most of the Japanese in my metro city left it and I was born in the generation of the old nisei to teenage yonsei so I can't really know if it is widespread as claimed, some people of non-Japanese background have this unusual way of using né? too (frowned upon, BTW). Lguipontes (talk) 05:39, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

pronunciation in a DAB page

User:WikHead has directed me to you in regard to a question: is an indication of pronunciation suitable for inclusion in a DAB page or, like refs, should it be avoided? Thanks. Mutt Lunker (talk) 00:28, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

"Polish" has more than one pronunciation.—Wavelength (talk) 00:41, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, agreed, but in which case, to clarify, I can see it may be useful to have pronunciation but is there a policy to avoid it? Another user is indicating that it is to be avoided but WP:DABNOT does not seem to indcate this. Mutt Lunker (talk) 00:50, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Not sure about policy, but common sense trumps policy, and in these very specific type and narrow cases (ie: polish, tear), it makes perfect sense to do so in a minimal way as it adds clarity and usability without taking away anything. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:07, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As far as consensus goes, I have no idea. I've added pronunciations to dab pages when I thought they were useful, and deleted others I thought were not useful, misleading, or too elementary to bother with (per NOTADICT). If it were up to me, I would sometimes include unintuitive and inconsistent pronunciations on dab pages, separately for each entry for the latter. That way, we're telling the reader that when pronounced A, it means X, and when pronounced B, it means Y, which could potentially help them navigate the links. For example, if Menzies were a simple dab page, I'd still want the pronunciation, esp. since different people with that name use different pronunciations. — kwami (talk) 01:15, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Not sure where the situation in question fits in as it's not really akin to the examples above. I provided an audio file for the surname MacLean because the pronunciation is unlikely to be clear from the spelling alone, if the name is unfamiliar to one. As there are several separate articles/dab pages for spelling variants of the name I thought it useful to add the file there, even though these spellings are much more akin to the pronunciation. (I think that they should all be merged into one article as they are simply spelling variants, but that is another matter.) However another user reverted them, partly because of questioning that they are pronounced the same as MacLean (ironically, as their spellings are closer to the pronunciation than McLean itself) but also because "the pronunciation links serve no purpose on disambiguation pages" (I'm unclear why they refer to them as links, which they are not). If you've any thoughts I'd be most grateful. If not, no problem. Mutt Lunker (talk) 01:34, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

See List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations.

—Wavelength (talk) 02:07, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps this isn't quite what you're looking for, but I noticed a similar issue with niche. The word has two common pronunciations and, while several articles listed at the disambiguation page indicated the dual pronunciations (important in clarifying that both pronunciations are correct), the disambiguation page itself did not have this clarification. I went ahead and added the pronunciation to the dab since it seems as though the dual pronunciation applies to most of those meanings anyway. Common sense seems the way to go here. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 05:14, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

In that case, I would recommend moving Manuel Niche to a different section, as I assume people pronounce it /ˈniːtʃeɪ/. If we're going to have pronunciations in situations where they vary, I think it's only responsible to restrict them to the cases they apply to. — kwami (talk) 05:27, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

If there is a policy related to the original question,

then (1) it should be mentioned at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages

and (2) it should be familiar to the members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation.

—Wavelength (talk) 14:15, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Invitation to RfC

Hi kwami. I wanted to invite you to participate in an RfC regarding adding color differentiation to Wiki markup, particularly towards references. You are welcome to participate whenever you are able. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 06:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Miju

Miju language () needs to be moved back to Miju language. — Stevey7788 (talk) 00:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it does. I no longer have the authority to do that. — kwami (talk) 00:35, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

It's being taken care of. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 01:55, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I'm inclined to say no. The editing at the redirect is part of the article's history of how it ended up at its current title. Without a compelling reason, I'm inclined to err on the side of caution with respect to the licence. WilyD 07:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Similar kinds of blanking/unblanking also occur in logs when there is vandalism, etc. The time series of the log shows the edits in order, so original authorship is preserved, but the current version is one I've published under CC-BY-SA & GFDL, based on the version you (and others?) published under the same licence. The only change I've done is the title - but actually, preserving the whole history shows that it wasn't my idea, which is why I'm inclined to say it should be kept, so the person who's idea it was to retitle it also gets properly credited. I'm not a lincence expert, however, so you might try either copyright issues noticeboard or DRV for a wider opinion. WilyD 07:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Miju and Midzu

If Miju is possibly Tibeto-Burman, and the Midzu languages are certainly TB, something is not right here if Miju if definitely Midzu (as is claimed on the latter page). --JorisvS (talk) 08:24, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The pages are not all updated yet. It's been on my to-do list for a few days, but I've been lazy. Miju has been classified as part of the Midzuish branch of TB, and as (possibly) an isolate. If it's an isolate, it's not Midzuish. (Zakhring is TB regardless.) Midzuish is only proposed within TB. The same is true of Hrusish. — kwami (talk) 08:37, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

So, it's like [3]? And if Miju is an isolate Midzu consists of only one language, Zakhring, right? --JorisvS (talk) 11:12, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I believe so. I'd need to read Blench a little more carefully, as well as reread some of our earlier sources. Though if Miju (Midzu) is an isolate, I doubt anyone would speak of a Midzuish branch of TB! — kwami (talk) 17:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Creation of redirects to nowhere

I often patrol the Broken Redirects page and fix or tag as appropriate. I notice lately you've been creating a large number of language-related redirects which the Broken Redirects script picks up as pointed to a redlinked target. What's up with that? BusterD (talk) 16:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I generated lists of obsolete Ethnologue and ISO names for the language project, and have been turning them into redirects to the current ISO names as I've identified them. Because we have articles or at least rd's for 90% of current ISO names, that's usually straightforward: even if a bot needs to correct the rd to a more generic article, the page history will still show which language was intended, which might prove useful if the main article is ever broken up. I started out making sure the article was actually there for the other 10%, but besides slowing me down (significantly, since there have been over a thousand rd's), several times I hit the wrong button and created the article anyway. Later I figured why not, because in these cases too the deletion history now shows where the link should go, for when the target article is eventually created. So there's actually some useful info there. In any case, I've gone through both lists now, so it shouldn't happen much any more. — kwami (talk) 17:40, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I figured there was something useful going on here, so I held fire on CSD tagging. Thanks for the good work. BusterD (talk) 19:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, tag/delete away, as you like. They probably shouldn't be there. Hopefully the history will do someone some good: I used to always review the content of deleted articles before recreating them.

Did you leave any intact? I have a better way to handle them. — kwami (talk) 19:37, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hruso

I was wondering. We have both Hruso language and Hruso languages. Hruso language now says it is possibly TB, whereas Hruso languages says they are TB and includes, without reservations, the Hruso language. This part makes them similar to what we has with Miju above (and should be fixed, I'd say). There is however one thing more: If the namesake language of the family may not actually be part of the family, how appropriate is to use the names the way we're doing now? --JorisvS (talk) 18:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Parallel to Midzu in Midzuish, except that the remaining lang may not be TB either. Both are proposals within TB, and make little sense if their namesakes turn out not to be TB. All of these pages are loaded in my browser, and I have van Driem as well as Blench for reference; maybe this evening I'll be able to address them, if s.o. else hasn't already. — kwami (talk) 18:29, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Right, I missed that part about Dhammai. So is the Hruso family also uncertain (i.e are Hruso and Dhammai not certainly related), like Miju and Zakhring, or is it certain? --JorisvS (talk) 18:54, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I need to review at least Blench and van Driem, since they say somewhat different things. — kwami (talk) 18:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Airport names

More discussion on airport names.

WP:HYPHEN says that proper names get hyphens, like Jones-Smith (or, as the example says "John Lennard-Jones". Are airport names any different? If I take a bicycle trip from Paris to Orly and write an article about it, or someone else does, it would correctly be called Paris–Orly trip with an en dash and trip not capitalized. But if I create a bicycle and call it the Paris-Orly Flyer that becomes a proper name and is capitalized. Is not the same true for airport names? Please see the discussions at WP:MOS, Talk:Seattle–Tacoma International Airport#Requested move and the recently opened RfC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports#New RfC. Apteva (talk) 22:57, 25 September 2012 (UTC)