User talk:Mzajac

[New comments at the bottom of the page, please —MZ]

Mysterious deletions

Michael, would you as a Web expert take a look at the history of police (as well as at my contributions history)? A guy says I've ocasionally deleted the whole article. How could it happen? Earlier I've been accused in deleting the whole page after minor editing only a section of it. Was it my mistake, or should I suspect viruses, intentional interference, hackers using my log etc? Best wishes, AlexPU

Hey Alex. What changes were you trying to make in that second edit to police? Can you point out which other items in your history are suspect? (WP is quite slow right now.) There's probably a simpler explanation (browser bug, network problems?), but I can't think of any obvious cause right now.

When you edit a section, I think it actually updates the text of the whole page anyway. A couple of times I've accidentally reverted my own edits by editing different sections of one page simultaneously, in two different browser windows. I'm guessing this is similar weirdness that you're experiencing.

—Michael Z. 16:16, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)

Hey Michael. On the police page, I first added internal links to MVS and militsiya, than replaced MVS with MVS (Ukraine). In both cases, I've been opening for edit the "Europe" section only. As for elder item, I can't freaking recall the page, but it was some talk regarding Russia-Ukrainian relations cause I remember the ill-famous DrBug gloatingly accusing me of vandalism. And what I clearly recollect, the circumstances were just the same: I edit the section of talkpage, then the guy comes out crying "you deleted the whole", I'm naturally denying, then DrBug links me to the history of that page. I've tried to find that contribution of mine, but ceased attempts soon. When WP is slow for you - it is expensive for me cause I'm using time-counting Dial-Up connection now : (((.

BTW, my new guess that it was my slow connection that caused the deletion. I mean I was using 4 windows simultaneously (including WP editing processes for 2 different pages) in order to save connection time. Could it be the reason? But! I thought both WP engine and browsing software are full of gizmos protecting from such effects?

Another guess that it was caused by my browser's poor compatibility with WP. You now, I did switched to Opera 7.53. I'm hoping to find a time for describing the bugs (and advantages) that I experience with it. I think Wikipedia needs a special talk/help page dealing with different browsers usage for editing. Or do we have it already? I think it would be interesting for your Web-creating practice. Pryvit, AlexPU

I use multiple windows and tabs for browsing and editing WP all the time. Just don't edit parts of the same page in two windows. You're protected against conflicts with other users, but not from yourself. Even when editing two different sections, the whole page is updated so your second save will wipe out the changes of your first.

That doesn't explain blanking a page, though. Maybe if a very long save is cancelled, or times out, then the page can register as updated before any data is sent. Police is a long page; maybe the slow connection comes into play too.

You might be able to save connect time by loading up lots of pages, clicking "edit" on some, then disconnecting before reading and editing. It should be no problem to connect again, then click "save" on pages you've edited. You would like a browser with tabs (dunno if Opera has tabs, but Firefox does).

Have a look at Wikipedia:Browser notes. I don't see anything resembling your problem there, though. Good luck, Michael Z.

Cyrillic vs. IPA; font-serving; Cyrillic fonts.

If the latin-based Slavic languages display fine without IPA, then you're absolutely right.

The problem is cyrillic, since there is very poor support for the pre-reform orthographies of Russian, Bulgarian, and (I'm a little nervous to say this) Ukrainian and Rusyn.

Basically, the yat, fita, izhitsa, and yuses are hard to find. Arial Unicode MS is awful in inclined pseudo-italic, I agree.

I wonder if a font-serving template Template:CyrFont can be concocted, perhaps in two versions, for semi-uncials and civil-script. There are some not-too-bad fonts available for non-commercial use, or indeed entirely in the public domain, that include the entire set, diactitics and all. I did not design them, but for my private use I have tuned their Unicode mappings and have even played with the OpenType composition tables. Of course, the Mac uses a slightly different format for pre-composition.

Typographically the non-commercial Irmologion font set (the site keeps moving, but it's available through google) gives really excellent semi-uncials (perfect for OCS, CS, and OESl languages). Perhaps they could be contacted for Wikipedia use.

With respect to the civil-script cyrillic, there are public-domain versions of New Standard, Academy, and Elizabeth typefaces at [1] which possess the yat, fita, and izhitsa. They are print rather than display fonts, but a bit of hackery will give the necessary screen smoothing, I think. Unfortunately, there is no public-domain version of Literaturnaya, which was the standard cyrillic typeface for most of the twentieth century in the USSR and Bulgaria.

I possess the skills to attempt to construct such a template, that would work multi-browser, but I am leery of uploading fonts until both the licensing and technical issues are resolved. Unfortunately, my computer is not really powerful enough to run the MediaWiki software chain.

What do you think? A. Shetsen 19:25, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Good ideas. In my opinion, the simpler solution is usually the best, especially in computing. I'd rather start with an open source font and enlist necessary help to convert it to a good Unicode font, than mess around with licensing issues. On the other hand, it can't hurt to ask if someone would release their font under GFDL.

There are some lovely non-unicode Slavistics fonts, and I've always wanted to mess around and modernize them. Sounds like you're way ahead of me, but I'm willing to learn and contribute. TTF and opentype fonts do seem to work well on Mac OS X, although I don't know anything about composition tables. The odd exception is Kirillica Nova Unicode, whose font name shows up in Chinese, but it still works. Thanks for the font link—Drevnerusskij looks like the most complete version I've seen of the old Cyrillic font that I've seen floating around, although the encoding is weird.

Template:IPA is really only needed for MSIE/Windows. Maybe the solution for Wikipedia is to add some styles in the MSIE/Windows-only style sheets (Wikipedia already has towe browser-specific style sheets, for MSIE5+ and 6), and make template:IPA and template:Cyrillic simply provide selectors. This would also let technically proficient readers use them in their own user style sheets.

 <span class="IPA"></span>

   <span class="Cyrillic"></span>

Mozilla/Win and Safari/Mac automatically substitute a different font if a character is missing. On my Mac, I've found that template:IPA makes IPA look a bit different, although all the characters still display. On the Mac, bold and italic don't get auto-generated (I guess the emphasis is on high-quality display).

Bringing italics and partial Cyrillic fonts into the mix can make things worse. On my Mac, in template:IPA, the first three fonts are skipped because one isn't installed and the others don't have italics. Gentium italic is used next, but it only has Russian characters. The rest fall back to the last resort Lucida Grande roman, I think, and I end up with a mix of italic-serif and roman-sans.

Here's a screenshot of part of Old East Slavic language in Safari. I've specified Arial (not Arial Unicode MS) as the default font in my monobook.css, because it renders nice Cyrillic italics. Characters not present in that font are displayed in a fall-back font, usually Lucida Grande. But Template:IPA overrides all that.

File:Font-mix.png

I found the Irmologion UCS fonts. Very nice. Do you have any idea how they're licensed? —Michael Z. 23:34, 2005 Jan 12 (UTC)

Russian (spelling) article

Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Russian_.28usage.29_page Jayjg | (Talk) 20:59, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

country infoboxes

Hi, and thanks for your support. I fear that minds are already made up about the endgame of a brutal edit war. I view infoboxes as companion pieces to articles – an ad-bar for a right margin with relevant content. Since they don't change often (and shouldn't) they would be best moved out of the article proper. That they are right up front means that everyone has to scroll around them — hopefully without damaging them — each and every edit. On some pages, they begin on the very first line, which, from a layout point of view, socks them into the top-right corner; to good effect. But from a source point of view there they are, right in the way. The transclude mechanism reduces the in-article clutter to a single line.

There is another move afoot to move the infobox down after the opening paragraph, which I suspect is driven more by a desire to present at least some recognizable article text to a neophyte editor before they have to face an infobox. I wouldn't mind seeing most tables and other gritty stuff moved into subpages.

Anyway, thanks for your vote of support. — Davenbelle 08:35, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Template:IPA

I was glad to have you introduce me to the template. I was excited to use it, and spent quite a bit of time adding it to one page in particular. Your recent changes have caused it to cease functioning on my computer entirely, though. I’ll give you some time to figure out how to accomplish your recent goal while still preserving its earlier usefulness; but if you cannot, we should revert your last two changes to your version before January 14. You know far more than I on this subject, so I will look forward to seeing the product of your efforts.
— Ford 22:02, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

- - - - -

It looks fine today. I noticed that you had fixed it, as I supposed you would. I appreciate your efforts (and even your failed experiments) on this matter, because I believe they improve the encyclopedia for its users. Carry on.
— Ford 20:17, 2005 Jan 15 (UTC)

But IE6 does inherit...

Sorry. The second spec of the same css attribute (font-family) seems to override the first on IE6/XP. I've got a custom font set for my #content in my monobook.css file, and after you made the change, IPA now displays in it as well. A. Shetsen 22:08, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PS. the only thing that appears to work on IE6/XP is to put the inherit at the end on the one fontlist, which I've done at Template:IPA (not IPA fonts). Does it work on a Mac? A. Shetsen 22:25, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have done a better job testing that. No, just "inherit" doesn't work. Oh well. —Michael Z. 23:33, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

Hey Zajac,

  Check out the distinguishing beteween Ukr. and Russ. history of languages!

. Many Russian historians of the East Slavic region equate Russia with an earlier political state called Rus' (Русь). Other scholars consider Russia to have developed later from Slavic settlements amidst the Finno-Ugric areas of the northeastern hinterlands of Rus'. Ghirlandajo 22:53, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This statement on the lamentable state of scholarship of the history of Russia and the Russian language is true. However this blatantly false equation of Russia with Rus' is a late invention. It became current in the politically Mongolian and ethnically heavily Finno-Ugric and linguistically heavily Old Slavonic newly-formed nation called "Moscow" only in the 15th century, to justify the claims of its rulers to the aristocratic title to "all of Rus'", which was, at the time, a wish, not a reality! Genyo 01:13, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:History_of_the_Russian_language"

This page was last modified 01:13, 16 Jan 2005. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details).

. Many Russian historians of the East Slavic region equate Russia with an earlier political state called Rus' (Русь). Other scholars consider Russia to have developed later from Slavic settlements amidst the Finno-Ugric areas of the northeastern hinterlands of Rus'. Ghirlandajo 22:53, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This statement on the lamentable state of scholarship of the history of Russia and the Russian language is true. However this blatantly false equation of Russia with Rus' is a late invention. It became current in the politically Mongolian and ethnically heavily Finno-Ugric and linguistically heavily Old Slavonic newly-formed nation called "Moscow" only in the 15th century, to justify the claims of its rulers to the aristocratic title to "all of Rus'", which was, at the time, a wish, not a reality! Genyo 01:13, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:History_of_the_Russian_language"

This page was last modified 01:13, 16 Jan 2005. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details).