User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 16

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) 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 Serendipodous 10:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC) The Graphic Designer's Barnstar For your wonderful moon mass charts, I offer the Graphic designer's barnstar. Serendipodous 12:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC) 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) 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. Serendipodous 09:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC) 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) 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) 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) The Editor's Barnstar For your continued good work in articles on languages. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 00:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC) The Teamwork Barnstar I hope the script story will have a happy end :-) Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC) 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) 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) The Original Barnstar thank for contributing us... Liansanga (talk) 00:23, 8 June 2012 (UTC) 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) 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) 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) The Resilient Barnstar For your WP rules following Saraikistan (talk) 18:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC) 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) The Original Barnstar For all-round good work, but especially this edit. Keep it up! Green Giant (talk) 09:12, 8 January 2014 (UTC) 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, AnupamTalk 21:25, 9 April 2014 (UTC) 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) The Brilliant Idea Barnstar Good job Sit1101 (talk) 01:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC) 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) The Original Barnstar For working to help close RfCs and reduce the backlog. Wugapodes (talk) 00:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC) 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) 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) 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) The Special Barnstar For creating the Tyap language article. Thanks! Kambai Akau (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2020 (UTC) The Mathematics Barnstar For getting Kaktovik numerals to good article status. Thank you Akrasia25 (talk) 18:22, 6 March 2021 (UTC) 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) 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)
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

Macedonian

OK, I will remove it. You cannot join them together since it is not the case as Serbo-Croatian or the Scandinavian. --MacedonianBoy (talk) 11:15, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Typo there: "of the Scandinavian"? I don't follow. Macedonian-Bulgarian is a lot like Scandinavian. — kwami (talk) 11:19, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Ups, sorry, yes it is typo. My point is that Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Croatian are usually classified as one Serbo-Croatian. BTW, you have to delete from the list the languages that are bellow 3 million. I gave you sources that Macedonian is spoken by more than 3 million, but you follow Etnologue. Happy New Year and regards--MacedonianBoy (talk) 11:22, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Can we add Macedonian in the list "Additional languages" or "Other languages frequently cited as having more than 3 million speaker"? Here we can add more languages that are often cited having more than 3 million speakers. --MacedonianBoy (talk) 11:26, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

The "Other languages frequently cited" group are all languages with something exceptional going on: widely spoken as an L2 (Swahili), disagreement as to scope (Tibetan), undocumented number of speakers (CSL), etc. (If Pakistani SL is the same language as Indian SL, then it probably has more than 3M, but if not, then it's under 3M.) There are only a few languages listed there, not the dozens which may or may not be over 3M. Macedonian would fit if what you meant was that it fit as long as we were including Bulgarian, but in that case we would just list it with Bulgarian, as we had.

The "Additional languages" group are left over from when the list attempted to include all languages with 1M speakers (based on an older version of Ethnologue). That is a work-in-progress section: those languages should either be moved up into the other sections, or removed from the article. They're either languages I never got around to finishing, or ones I couldn't decide what to do with, because they're not straightforward (what should we count under Hmong? whether it qualifies depends on a rather arbitrary answer). Macedonian wouldn't fit: if we've decided that it doesn't include Bulgarian, then its scope is clear, so it's not like Hmong, and our source states that it is well short of 3M.

As for why we follow a single source, it was to avoid the unending arguments over whose language is more important. Huge fight over whether Spanish or English should be #2, for example; under different definitions Hindi would be much higher in the list; and French and Portuguese sources are all over the place, not even close to agreement. There's a potential fight for every language whose speakers have a disagreement with their neighbors, which is probably most of them (Persian, Uzbek, Azeri, Turkish, Kurdish, etc. etc.) all able to find sources to push their language up higher in the list, but those sources can't be used equally for all of the languages, which Ethnologue can. It's not always a very accurate source, but it's the only universal source. — kwami (talk) 12:04, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:TITLE

From the archives...

The discussion is scattered all over the place. I don't see consensus; perhaps I'm just missing it? What I am hearing (perhaps mistakenly so) is "consensus except for all the wrong people who disagree with it". Can you show me where this was decided? <snip> — kwami (talk) 00:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, consensus favoring V1 over V2 was clearly established, and I've already pointed this out. Have you looked at this?

When the change in meaning was realized and first raised for discussion by me, here, over a week ago, consensus (measured in terms of arguments made) unanimously favored restoring the V1 wording, as clearly shown here: WT:AT#RFC on Recognizability guideline wording, where nine editors explains why V1 is better/preferred, and no one even articulated anything in support of V2 (despite claims of ram-rodding, etc., the section remains open to this today for such input, and still there is nothing).

Thanks, and happy new year! --Born2cycle (talk) 18:45, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I still don't see consensus. What I do see are some people agreeing with you, and others complaining that you're quoting selectively and calling that consensus. You say that there are no substantial arguments against, meaning that all the arguments against can be ignored, but that means you're playing prosecutor and judge, which is a COI, or at least can be easily mistaken for a COI. Usually when I bring up a point for discussion, it's not me who decides the outcome. True, many of the cons are not counter-arguments so much as requests for further discussion by people who have yet to make up their mind, but that's reasonable when dealing with an important policy decision. And with the discussion broken up and repeated in various places, with some participants being restricted to one or another, it's very hard to tell who wants what and why. Perhaps the cons are all being pig-headed and edit warring because they didn't get their way, but it's hard to tell. Anyway, I wasn't trying to judge whether or not there was consensus, or which way it went, but wanted to stop the edit warring until there was consensus that there was consensus.

You link to your summaries of the consensus, which have been contested by people who weren't even involved. Can you link to the consensus itself? Where people said 'support' or 'opposed' and gave their reasons why? Though I really don't want to be the judge of this, I just wanted to throw some cold water on it until it got sorted out. — kwami (talk) 20:30, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you see an argument in favor of V2 over V1 or not? If so, what is it? If not, do you agree that since there are arguments in favor of V1, and no argument in favor of V2, that consensus supports V1?

Just read that section,WT:AT#RFC on Recognizability guideline wording, and the section above it. They're both full of nine different people's clearly stated statements in favor of V1. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:23, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if there are or not, because I don't know where all of hte discussion is. I do know that some people have asked for further discussion, that you all deliberate before making a policy change, have expressed concern that the old wording could lead to obscure jargon in titles, and accuse you of trying to shut down the discussion. At least one editor who hasn't even expressed an opinion on the wording has echoed the last point. — kwami (talk) 01:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I just told you where all the discussion is. Did you look, or not? Did you see nine people making statements in favor of V1 or not? If you're not willing to even read the relevant sections, why put yourself into this?

Yes, Tony, Noetica and Dicklyon all complain about a variety of things, but none of them has argued that V2 is better than V1 (again, if they have, what's the argument?). Nor has anyone else.

The word "jargon" does not exist on the page WT:AT, so I don't know what you're talking about when you say "some people ...have expressed concern that the old wording could lead to obscure jargon in titles". You don't seem to be looking at this very carefully, nor objectively. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:41, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

You cannot possibly claim objectivity on this issue (you didn't ever explain yourself above), and yet you're conveniently locking the page at the version you favored last time, even though three different editors have changed it to the previous version, and only one, Noetica, has changed it three times. Really? --Born2cycle (talk) 05:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure you're aware of the dispute resolution process on WP, so I won't explain it to you. If another uninvolved admin feels that I've missed the obvious consensus, then they're welcome to revert to whichever version they choose. — kwami (talk) 05:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

A-Hmao

Thanks for contributing the A-Hmao article. I'm unable to find a reference to this being the language for which the Pollard script was developed, though. I can't find a mention of it in the Ethnologue entry. Could you supply a source? Thanks! Waitak (talk) 17:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I see E only notes that it is written in Pollard. I'm not finding the sources I was using last night, but I found another that I'll cite in the article. — kwami (talk) 04:21, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

chongzuo languages

The article entitled Chongzuo languages has several problems that need to be addressed - the title is in appropriate. "Chongzuo languages" correctly refers to the languages spoken in Chongzuo, Guangxi, China these include at least Zhuang and Pinghua . Whilst Pittayaporn (2009) is quoted this does not use the term "Chongzuo languages" . The article is in fact about the C group of Thai languages, which we all admit would be a strange title however tshere does not exist to the best of my knowledge another published term for this group of languages. Furthermore this is a designation, which the author himself calls both provisional and tentative. Ｔhe article is a stub because it refers to a concept found only in one thesis, it would be best merged into an article on Pittayaporn (2009) or some aspect the Thai languages. One significance of Pittayaporn (2009) is he builds upon the the work of Gedney and Li Fanggui an article that refers to the theories of all three would be excellent. Other points Zhang et al(1999) is again misrepresented in the article. Please also read the achieved comment on the same article please. Johnkn63 (talk) 02:15, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that would be good. I don't think I have access, though, so if you could expand that would be a help.

When I have time I will do what I can, Zhang 1999 is actually largely a summary of some of the survey work done in the 1950's Johnkn63 (talk) 10:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

As for the name, yeah, that is a problem. Maybe "Group C Tai languages" would be the best title. However, Zhuang and Pinghua do not form a language family, so the fact that they are both spoken in Chongzuo is not really relevant. You could use the same reasoning to argue that many other languages and language families should be renamed: The Chinese languages are not the only languages spoken in China, the Atlantic languages are not the only languages spoken along the Atlantic, the Iranian languages are not the only languages spoken in Iran, etc.

What about the 2ary names, 'Chongzuo Tai languages' or 'Chongzuo Zhuang languages'? Would that help? — kwami (talk) 05:23, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

One problem with using Chongzuo in the title is that 2 of the three places are not in Chongzuo, furthermore languages being in the same Pittayaporn grouping does not mean that they are mutually intelligible. Johnkn63 (talk) 10:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, mutual intelligibility is completely unclear.

I don't recall where I saw the name 'Chongzuo' used for all three. Not all Germanic languages are in Germany, either, nor Indic languages in India, so I didn't think much of them not all being in Chongzuo. More that they were simply named after an exemplar. — kwami (talk) 16:03, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

But the point is when writing for wikipedia one needs to be faithful to existing conventions, the phrase Chongzuo Zhuang/Language/Tai already has an existing convention, the current title is at odds with that convention. Even the thesis cited as the source uses that existing convention. In the future someone may well come up with a better collective name for 'Group C Tai languages' in some publication at that time the title of the article could be that. The groupings are provisional, even Pittayaporn may in his later work change them, perhaps that is the reason he did not give more explicit names. Johnkn63 (talk) 23:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Re File:World_homosexuality_laws.svg

I responded to you on on my Commons talkpage - htonl (talk) 11:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Proto-Esperanto

Hi, you just reverted my edit on Proto-Esperanto saying "I believe ĝ is attested". That might well be, but I doubt it, as later that same phoneme was expressed by Zamenhof as <dź>. I'd love to read more on Proto-Esperanto, so if you could dig out a source that states that Zamenhof used the letter <ĝ> in his Proto-Esperanto, I'd appreciate it. It would be a good addition to the article as well. Or maybe you remember, what made you believe that <ĝ> is in fact attested somewhere. I think this short song/poem is the only thing left of it? Thanks in advance. — N-true (talk) 12:55, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

That was taken directly from Kiselman (2010). He says that all phonemes are attested apart from ĉ ĥ ĵ ŝ ŭ (w is used for v), and that all letters are attested apart from six, ĉ ĥ ĵ ŝ ŭ v (he specifies that they are six in §5.3). But he says the others 'aperas en la himno', which ĝ obviously doesn't. (W only appears in the name Lingwe Uniwersala, AFAICT.) So I think you're right, that would appear to be an oversight, esp. given the dź in a later version. — kwami (talk) 20:11, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks! Also for naming the source. Maybe I'll find the time to read more on that topic. — N-true (talk) 20:31, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Fixing a Move

Kwami. A little housekeeping move is needed. The Talk page for Jordanian Arabic is at Talk:Jordanian Levantine. The Talk page needs to be moved to match the article. Thanks. --Taivo (talk) 10:45, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

done — kwami (talk) 10:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Ganga -> Ganga

Please do not mechanically replace Ganga with Ganges, in many Hinduism articles Ganga refers to both the goddess as well as the river and the goddess is not called Ganges in English. eg. in Ardhanarishvara, Ganga refers to both the goddess as well as the river. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:42, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't catch that one. — kwami (talk) 17:50, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

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Tancredi (2010 [2009]) ref: http://www.google.com/

then: url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=13&ved=0CCwQFjACOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.cambridge.org%2Farticle_S1743921310001717&ei=P7wFT5btC4n9sQLkpMmQCg&usg=AFQjCNEPgt0xnS-QeNJJ2PG7_lAu3xuBqw

& web (modified 27 June 2008)

Coupla things

I'm currently planning on staying out of the discussion on naming Pollard script, but I agree with your call on having it remain as is. If you feel that more input is required, send up a flare, and I'll chime in. Also, I noticed your interest in Esperanto. I'm also an avid avocational language geek, and wondered, cxu vi ankauxe estas esperantisto? Waitak (talk) 18:26, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Ekesperantadisto. Dank', mi atentigos se trovigxas kverelemo. — kwami (talk) 18:35, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Korea

I saw your changes at S. Korean provinces. Maybe the items in Category:Provinces of North Korea should use the same format. Dankon. Principe Azul (talk) 19:19, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. The leads needed changing as well, as the English did not match the Korean. — kwami (talk) 02:37, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Great. I adjusted Template:Regions and administrative divisions of North Korea, and changed lead for Kangwon as you have done with the others. Now only the categories remain in need for renaming. Principe Azul (talk) 07:15, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I think s.o. semi-automates that. Or at least I've often seen cats get bot-updated after page moves. — kwami (talk) 07:41, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Macedonian language

Greetings. There's a SPA pushing an agenda at Macedonian language. He's been reverted by two different editors now and has reverted three times himself. You might want to keep an eye on it. Thanks. --Taivo (talk) 11:51, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Khoekhoegowab

Shouldn't the text quoted from a given source remain as is appears in that source? -- Aflis (talk) 14:03, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it should, but if there are typographic errors, they should be followed by [sic].

Also, we note that modern orthography coopts the voicing distinction of consonants to indicate tone. Do you have a text that illustrates that?

Wow, that's not even close to the original text anymore. Since the orthography is obsolete, I think it would be easier to just get another text.

Okay, not very good, but I found something. The earlier text would be better, if we had it in modern orthography. — kwami (talk) 21:22, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

That's ok with me. I dont speak Khoekhoegowab and thus wouldn't know about the questions of orthography you are raising. I simply found a text in the article, unsourced, got the source from someone (don't remember who) and put the reference in the article. I then reacted to your changing the text without giving an explanation. Replacing it for the reason you are giving appears to be a good solution. -- Aflis (talk) 22:19, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Old Hungarian

Thanks for keeping an eye out. -- Evertype·✆ 11:21, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, thought I'd taken care of the OH alphabet article as well. Maybe the save didn't go through. — kwami (talk) 01:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Hmongic

Unfortunately, Ratliff (2010) doesn't include classifications of Younuo and Wunai.

Ratliff considers the Hmongic branch to be Miao. Hmong would be a macrolanguage of group of closely related languages within the Hmongic branch. Pa-hng would not be Hmong, even though it's within the Hmongic branch. Also Ratliff's "Hmong" does not correspond to any ISO codes, since the Ethnologue classification tree for the Hmong-Mien language family was based off Matisoff's tree.

Similarly, Mienic = Yao, but Mien is just one language within that branch.

Hope that helps. — Stevey7788 (talk) 23:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I think we can probably go with Matisoff then when Ratliff doesn't have data. — kwami (talk) 23:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Yongnan languages Title

Yongnan languages is a title which I think will need to be changed. In short the problem is similar to that mentioned elsewhere, however the case is even clearer. Namely (1) the article quotes Pittayaporn who uses the term Tai languages group D for the content of this article, not Yongnan languages. All sources I have read use Yongnan languages, or similar to refer to the ISO 639-3 zyn . In this case there can sometimes be confusion with the Yongnan lect as both are abbreviated in Chinese to the same thing. As the issue affects several articles the solution is an agreed naming convention for Pittayaporn's branches. Ｏne solution would be would be a naming convention of ‘Group A/B/.../R/S Tai languages’. In the case of 'Group N Tai languages' a direct link to Northern Ｔai would make sense, where the difference is only Ｗuming Zhuang, however the other grouping are present seem to be unique to this one thesis and it may be hard to link directly to groupings in other literature. The principle here is the question of attested sources and that Wikipedia is not the place for original research. Whilst such a naming convention is a little cumbersome it would be both in line with wikipedia policy and allow for the creation of all the 16 outstanding branches if so desired. Of course variations on a theme 'Branch A/B/.. Ｔai languages' , 'Tai languages group A/B/C ...' would also meet such requirements.Johnkn63 (talk) 00:55, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Old Turkic script

.. Proto-Sinaitic

.... Phoenician

...... Aramaic

........ Syriac

.......... Sogdian??? (controversial)

............ Old Turkic script

Hello Kwamikagami,

well, I think A.S. Amanjolov is completely right. Most researchers and philologs etc. agree with the currently constructed theory of writings systems, you see above. There is also strong connection with Aramaic alphabet and more or less Futhark. But if you want, we can change Amanjolov's words into more neutral form? What would you say?

Cheers!

Tirgil34 (talk) 10:43, 20 January 2012 (CET)

I think the question is over the reliability of Amanjolov as a source. Also, you're claiming that it derives from cuneiform? Or do you mean Egyptian hieroglyphics? (The wording is too ambiguous to tell.) I think we'd need confirmation by other researchers. — kwami (talk) 18:14, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Tirgil34

I can understand reverting this [1] if the reason was copyvio, but why did you revert it? See [2]. I agree the edits referencing an iUniverse book and Mankind Quarterly were bad. Could be just ignorance about our sourcing policy.Dougweller (talk) 05:58, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The user made some very biased edits, and I thought it would be best if all were taken to talk, since they were all on a similar topic. — kwami (talk) 16:00, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for misunderstanding, I will work on it to present a new more completely description of it. Tirgil34 (talk) 22:08, 10 January 2012 (MEZ)

User account

You can now reach me at my user account. I will keep this post brief since I have else to do. No one opposes the self-evident fact that Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian are mutually intelligible, something which has been continuously stated in all articles. The highly subjective issue is rather the name previously given to these languages (i.e. Serbo-Croatian) implying that this language is in origin exclusively the linguistic entity of Serbs and Croats. This unfortunate event is however not difficult to grasp given the biased constitution of a undemocratic nation we all liked to call Yugoslavia; alike a cradle for genocide and grave breach of human rights.During the week I will make sure to pick up some scientific, contemporary, literature on the subject sure to substantiate my changes and improve the article segment as a whole. I am frankly not satisfied with Mr. Blasczviesczsiscszsscis's school work cited in the opening lines of the Bosnian language page. I expect all of you to maintain a civilized tone: manners which have already been compromised on the discussion of Bosnian language. I will come to that later on that page. MarcRey (talk) 08:13, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

First of all, even in English the name predates the founding the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. These constant claims that it's a Communist plot are ill informed. Second, it's the common name for the language in English, and there's nothing offensive about it in English. Until another term takes over, our naming policy requires that we keep the article where it is. — kwami (talk) 08:17, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Stop your edit warring

Now you're simply being stubborn and unscientific, Kwami, and you know it. Discuss on the Talk Page. You're edit warring and you know it. Threatening me with a block when you are participating in the same activity without reasonable discussion is simply hypocritical. Read WP:BRD. You made a change, I changed it, but instead of discussion to consensus you simply reverted back to your unacceptable edit. --Taivo (talk) 11:36, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. We go by sources, not by what you imagine the truth is. Blanking sourced info that you don't like is not acceptable behaviour. If you have a source to the contrary, or a critical review of the source I gave, then let's have it. Otherwise let the experts speak about their field without your OR. — kwami (talk) 11:41, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Changing "two" to "a handful" is not "blanking", it is being honest with linguistic reality. I've added multiple sources that show more than "two". --Taivo (talk) 11:49, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Evidently you did not bother to read them. The languages they described (back in the 30s) are extinct. (Actually, one is an extinct dialect of a language we've already counted.) I'm tempted to report you for violating 3RR, but will give you some time to remember that you're a linguist and to read what you cited. — kwami (talk) 11:54, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

"POV"? LOLOLOLOLOLOL. --Taivo (talk) 11:52, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

And now you're just being an asshole. Grow up. Or get some sleep, if that's what the problem is. (Try not to *be* Randy.) — kwami (talk) 11:54, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

No, Kwami, I'm not being the asshole. You are simply pushing your single source POV to the exclusion of linguistic sensibility and to the exclusion of other reliable sources (which I've cited in the article). That's not POV. You got your feelings hurt when I pointed out that such linguistic claims are not reasonable and then you got stubborn about it and refused to recognize that you were being unreasonable about it. I've got sources in the article, the wording is linguistically acceptable (although I'm still uncomfortable with putting any numbers), but there's not a POV issue at all. The only POV is that you refuse to accept that you're wrong about insisting on one source to the exclusion of linguistic reality and linguistic uncertainty. --Taivo (talk) 12:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Randy, you apparently don't understand your sources. They don't demonstrate anything except the pitfalls of engaging in OR. It would be one thing if we didn't have a source thats treat the matter directly, but we do. — kwami (talk) 12:04, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

You clearly don't understand WP:RANDY, but I'll ignore that. Your single-minded obsession with a single source is ridiculous and not firmly based on scientific reality or scientific reasonableness in expression. I've given you plenty of reason to gently question the absolutism of Miller's statement. I'm not asking to remove her as a source, I'm not asking for you to personally doubt her veracity. She has her reasons for stating "two", but unless you're putting her reasons in the article for why she selected the number 2, then stating it categorically as a fixed universal fact is disingenuous. There are all kinds of reasons why her number might be different than other numbers, that's why it's more encyclopedic to say something like "fewer than a half dozen" rather than categorically taking one possible number, fixing our eyes on it, and not accepting any other possibilities. And unless you specifically state that you're excluding recently extinct languages, then that "2" is also misleading. Does Miller specifically exclude extinct languages? You cannot make that assumption unless she specifically states that. --Taivo (talk) 12:24, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Not a single source. As I've said, you can find equivalent statements in other sources; this is just one that I happened to read the other day so it was easy to track down. (And I hope you don't really take Ruhlen as a source for anything.)

Quote, "The bilabial click occurs only in the related Tuu languages !Xóõ (Traill 1985) and N|uu (Miller et al. 2009a), and in the Ju-ǂHoan language ǂHoan (Bell and Collins 2001). Other languages with a bilabial click, such as |Xam, are now extinct."

Note the present tense, which is also used in this article.

If you like, I can get sources like yours to support a claim that there are 1 to 4 members of the Basque language family. Being unduly imprecise isn't scientific either. If you truly think being inflexible when the other person is demonstrably wrong is inappropriate, I'll remind you of that the next time you're arguing over whether Croatian is really related to Serbian. — kwami (talk) 12:36, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

So you've missed the point. My enumeration precisely matches Miller's comment--that there are more than three languages including the recently extinct languages for which we have evidence. The way you've worded the comment in the article implies an absolutist claim that there are and always were only three languages. I wouldn't have a problem with something like, "two other living languages and at least two recently extinct languages", because that's exactly what I've said and what Traill said and the truth of the matter. The "present tense" is simply not sufficient since linguists don't always make such a careful distinction in their writing and we can't expect readers to make such a careful distinction. It also obfuscates that fact that it really isn't "three only", but "three survivors and a few others that we've recently lost." It falsely exaggerates the scarcity of the segments. --Taivo (talk) 12:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

No, Taivo, it's present tense, not a gnomic statement. "There are" does not mean "there always have been". We can say "The US has 50 states" without edit warring over it because it didn't use to have 50. The statement here was factually correct and not misleading to anyone who paid attention to the verb "is". Yes, we can indeed add the truth of the matter: if we understand what it from our sources, we can word it to avoid being misleading. And it hardly exaggerates the scarcity: /ʘ/ has become more scarce since those languages went extinct. Noting that they went extinct does not make it less scarce. Adding a statement about them is fine, but the argument that they still "are" around is silly. — kwami (talk) 13:16, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

And Ruhlen isn't blanketly a bad source. His source for the Xekwi phonemic inventory I cited is the Current Trends in Linguistics article (volume 7, page 415). --Taivo (talk) 13:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

move req

Kwami, could you move blood-brain barrier to blood–brain barrier for the obvious reason? --JorisvS (talk) 15:32, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Nasal

Template:Nasal has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Night of the Big Wind _talk 16:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Oral-nasal

Template:Oral-nasal has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Night of the Big Wind _talk 16:09, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Burmese diphthongs

Hi Kwami, I've finally been able to confirm that Burmese diphthongs (which occur only in closed syllables anyway) close to near-close vowels, so if you could get AWB to change all remaining instances of "iʔ", "uʔ", "iɴ" and "uɴ" to "ɪʔ", "ʊʔ", "ɪɴ", and "ʊɴ" wherever {{IPA-my}} is invoked, that would be great! Thanks! Angr (talk) 10:06, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Started. — kwami (talk) 20:48, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I removed some extraneous tone marks from the lead of Burma. You might want to verify they weren't supposed to be on other syllables.

If diphthongs only occur in closed syllables, what's going on at Palaung people (lead)? — kwami (talk) 21:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I placed a move request for Yangon → Rangoon, since we use 'Burma' on WP. — kwami (talk) 22:10, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Good luck with that. I seem to remember a previous discussion where it was decided that "Yangon" is more common in English than "Myanmar" is, so that people are content to keep the articles at Yangon and Burma. I'll check out the other articles you mentioned above. Angr (talk) 22:27, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

What happened at Palaung people is that since [o] and [oʊ] are allophones of a single phoneme, the monophthong occurring in open syllables and the diphthong in closed ones, people aren't always careful about distinguishing them. I've corrected it to [lùmjó]. Angr (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Should [iŋɡ] be chanɡed to [ɪɴɡ]? to [ɪŋɡ]? — kwami (talk) 01:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Constitution of Burma, maybe? — kwami (talk) 08:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, [iŋɡ] should be [ɪŋɡ]. I forgot about the assimilation of ɴ to the place of articulation of a following stop. You may encounter im/um before labials, in/un before alveolars, iɲ/uɲ before palatals and iŋ/uŋ before velars; they all need to be changed to ɪ/ʊ too. Thanks! At Constitution of Burma I found [nàiŋàɴ] instead of [nàɪŋŋàɴ]; is that what you were referring to? I also found that last November, someone who had no Burmese font installed had decided no one else should be allowed to see the Burmese text either and so removed it all. Angr (talk) 09:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Most are not assimilated, and I remember a discussion about that, so I'm converting the rest. The diphthongs are done, except for whatever I missed because of nasal assimilation. — kwami (talk) 11:16, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Pls. check Pyinmana. — kwami (talk) 11:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Trouble at WP:TITLE

Kwami, please review the situation at WP:TITLE, where I have in good faith reverted attempts to force changes onto the page against your restoration of an earlier status quo: my edit.

This might technically be considered a violation of 3RR; but I merely undertook to support your requirement that people discuss instead, on the talkpage. Your reversion took place after the RFC that editors have been referring to, which was subverted (against civility and due process) to promote their view alone.

In fact new discussion has begun; but surely it is proper that the more stable status quo version stay in place till there are unhurried and fairly conducted efforts to settle consensus. Myself, I have been reluctant to join in yet because of intimidation at my talkpage and elsewhere.

Thank you!

Noetica^Tea? 04:50, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Your protection of the page is timely, Kwami. It is difficult for a non-admin to do much against edit-warring without seeming to participate in it, as much as it may be against one's intentions.

I hope the present attempts at discussion will generate something positive and consensual. A number of editors have been exploring new ways; but others insist on reverting to old wording that is plainly contentious, but has real effect in RM discussions without ever having the scrutiny it would need.

Noetica^Tea? 06:07, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, it's rather hard to assume good faith from you when I (just as B2C did the last time you acted in the same way) have linked in my edit summaries to a clearly conclusive RfC in support of the version that I restored, but you nonetheless proceeded to protect the other, clearly rejected version. It isn't necessary for such discussion to be bureaucratically "closed" when the result is so obvious - the brief "discussion" that led to the imposition of the "current" version was certainly never closed in that way either. Do you not see that this is a blatant attempt to overrule consensus by edit-warring?--Kotniski (talk) 08:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe it is. But you linked to the same things you linked to last time. As far as I can see, everyone went on holiday and then came back and restarted the edit war. If the consensus is there, ask another admin, and if they see it, they'll restore the correct version of the article. — kwami (talk) 08:17, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

It has been listed at WP:AN#Requests_for_closure since January 3rd. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Good. Hopefully that will take care of it. (As for why it's taking so long, maybe no-one else can get through it any better than I can, or don't see any more consensus than I do.) — kwami (talk) 08:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, are you actually looking at the RfC linked to? The result is overwhelming; there's not the slightest doubt about which of the two versions represents consensus. If you don't even want to consider the evidence, then it would be better if you didn't interfere at all; that makes it look to other admins as if you're already onto it, and discourages them from looking at the matter at all. --Kotniski (talk) 08:54, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

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"Two"

Here's the problem with your continued linkage between the facts of a language and the speech community. The facts, the data exist in the present. It doesn't matter whether there are speakers who can productively add to the data or not. The data exist. The Beatles no longer create new music, so they don't exist, but their music still exists in the recordings. The Xam people no longer create new linguistic material, but their language still exists in the data. There is only a finite corpus in either case--the recorded Beatles oeuvre is not a complete collection of all the possible music they had in them and the record of Xam is by no means complete either. But the data exist. We can talk about the facts of the Xam language in the present tense because the facts, the data, are right there to observe. We can say without any time distortion that "There is a bilabial click in Xam", meaning, without ambiguity, "There is a bilabial click in the recorded data of Xam". We can say, without confusing any linguist, "There are three branches to the Germanic language family", despite the fact that one of those branches is no longer spoken. We can equally write, "There are strong verbs in all three branches of Germanic," without any opposing voices calling in a peer review for our paper to be rejected on the basis of, "No, there are only two branches of Germanic because one is extinct." We can write that sentence as the very first sentence of an abstract or paper without establishing any kind of "historical present" simply because we are not talking about a speech community, but about a body of language data. Indeed, even when we talk about living languages, we're not really dealing with a speaker sitting next to us supplying us with current, up-to-the-minute forms. We rely on recorded data. Thus the status of the speech community is immaterial to talking about the grammar and phonology of a language because once the data have left the speakers' mouths and been recorded in field notes, conference papers, published works, Wikipedia, whatever, it exists as an independent entity. I use data from my own linguistic recordings done in the 1980s. There are still speakers of the language, but the data is 30 years old and unless someone returns to that community and records new data, then that data from the 1980s will be the record of the language for all time. Yet we still talk about the linguistic facts of the language in the present tense. While some authors do use past tense for languages such as Hittite, it is far more common to read statements about the speech community in the past tense, but statements about the linguistic data in the present tense. --Taivo (talk) 11:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

We obviously disagree as to what "is" means. I understand your point. I just don't agree with it, not out of context, and I'm pretty sure most people would think we were being disingenuous if we were to word things that way. I also disagree that data = language. It's not incorrect to say Basque is the only language isolate in Europe just because we have tidbits of Etruscan, and that would be true even if Etruscan went extinct 50 years ago. — kwami (talk) 11:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Let me expand on that comment to apply it to the specific incident at Hoan. When a language is no longer spoken, its data do not "become unavailable". It doesn't become an "unlanguage", no longer eligible to be counted in statements of linguistic universals. Thus, when you wrote, "only two other languages have bilabial clicks", you, in essence, were treating the Xam and Xegwi data as nonexistent. Within that data, there are bilabial clicks, but you chose not to count them. That was my objection. Miller counted them with her "in addition to" comment, but you were ignoring the data of the extinct languages. When dealing with language universals, we must count the recorded data of languages that are no longer spoken. You'll find data from no-longer-spoken languages, such as Karankawa, in WALS, for example, because the data are what is important in statements such as "there are bilabial stops in...", not the existence of an active speech community. --Taivo (talk) 11:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

But we're not dealing with language universals. If we were, it would also be incorrect to say that there are only a couple extinct languages with labial clicks: there were apparently many, including the ancestors of both the Tuu and Kx'a language families. It's reasonable to assume that the whole of southern Africa was once populated by languages with labial clicks. Saying a language no longer "is" does not make it an "unlanguage". Etruscan is not included in WALS, but that does not make it an unlanguage.

What you're saying is that it's wrong to say that Japonic is spoken in Japan. It's wrong to say that Basque is an isolate. It's wrong to say Chinese is tonal. It's wrong to say that Arabic is the language of the Iraqi marshes or the Nile Valley. It's wrong to ever say that language X is spoken by people Y, because once they spoke something else. There are only three languages with labial clicks. That's a fact about the world today. It's sad that the others are extinct, but they are.

Now, if we're in the context of language universals, or anything else that would include looking at languages that were once spoken, then it would be fine to say "is" re. that body of data. But we need to first establish that context. Otherwise such a statement is factually incorrect. — kwami (talk) 12:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

In the Hoan article we are, indeed, dealing with universals. The comment about "there are bilabial stops in only two other languages" is a comment about language universals. Anytime you use the phrase "in X other languages", you are talking about universals and in each of those cases, you're talking about data sets, not speech communities. That's what we mean as linguists when we talk about languages in a grammatical or phonological sense--not speech communities, but data sets with labels. The data set may be dynamic and growing, or fixed and permanent, but we still are talking about data sets with particular labels and not speech communities in that sense. But "Proto-Indo-European" is not a data set, nor is "Proto-Taa" or "Proto-World" or whatever else may be a hypothetical construct. When dealing with language universals, we do not include reconstructed languages when making statements such as "X is found in Y languages". Had you quoted Miller's comment in full, that there are two other living languages plus other extinct languages such as Xam", you would have never heard a peep from me. But basing your unwarranted exclusion of extinct languages from a comment about a universal because of the present tense of the verb is false. --Taivo (talk) 12:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

"there are bilabial stops in only two other languages" is a statement of fact. And it is factually correct. By "language" you may mean "data set", but that's not what people normally mean by "language" and not what our audience is likely to understand by "language". There is no language without the people who use it. Unless you establish the context, a statement that a feature exists, when really you mean that it's recorded from an extinct language, is incorrect.

I can see I'm not going to convince you what "is" means, and you're not going to convince me (at least not if you keep repeating the argument that failed to convince me the last few times), so I don't see much point in this discussion. — kwami (talk) 12:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, if you look up the article where Doke describes Xam, you will see a bilabial click. It's there. Do you deny it? No. Therefore there is a bilabial click in Xam. Now you are simply being stubborn and refusing to see linguistic practice for what it is. You do this often--back yourself into a rigid corner based on some style or grammar "rule" that you have set up for yourself or imagine exists and refuse to move out of it. Read any book on linguistic universals (such as Maddieson's description of the UPSID data) and you will see that the present tense is used throughout even when the data sets include languages that are no longer spoken, such as Wiyot, Tolowa, Tonkawa, Wappo, and Shasta (and that's just in his North American data). He has no problem whatsoever in using well-recorded data from extinct languages in his conclusions about phonological universals. Indeed, I've seen no book on language universals that excludes extinct languages simply because they are extinct. They might be excluded for insufficient data, but they're never excluded for the absence of a contemporary speech community. Indeed, when it comes to understanding the way language works, linguists do not make distinctions based on the existence of a speech community (unless, of course, they're talking about the dynamics of language within a speech community). By making a statement like "it is found in only two other languages" you are emphasizing the relative scarcity of the item within the world's languages. But by ignoring the fact that we have evidence for twice as many languages, you are simply lying to the reader and making the item sound rarer than it actually is.

(edit conflict) It would be nice if you argued against my position rather than against the opposite of your own. As I've said several times, present tense is fine once the context is established (as in your |Xam and UPSID examples). You are obviously intelligent enough to understand that, so why are you wasting my time by pretending you don't? Again, you evidently have a different definition of "is" than I do, but misrepresenting my argument is hardly going to convince *me*, and I don't see who else you would be trying to convince on my talk page.

What I've noticed in dealing with you is that when anyone disagrees with you, you think they are either ignorant or dishonest. That's quite an arrogant attitude. You will in your life meet honest and informed people who nonetheless disagree with you, and sometimes they will even be correct in doing so. — kwami (talk) 13:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Your "is" might have been technically correct in some non-linguistic universe, but as far as honestly describing the frequency of bilabial clicks in the world's languages, it was a prevarication. --Taivo (talk) 13:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that "non-linguistic universe" is called Wikipedia.

"Prevarication" entails an intent to deceive. Once again, anyone who disagrees with you must be dishonest. — kwami (talk) 13:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, meet pot. Wikipedia is supposed to be a place of scientifically valid information, not the place to exercise deception or exaggeration by some legalistic interpretation of grammar that doesn't match actual linguistic practice. Actual linguistic practice is to make no distinction between spoken and extinct languages when the data are equally good and the topic at hand has nothing to do with the presence or absence of a speech community. That's the point that you are simply ignoring in your arguments. The point is that you were deceiving the reader by chopping Miller's statement in half and exaggerating the relative frequency of the sound in the data we have on the world's languages. Miller recognized that the data from extinct languages were just as valid as the data from living languages so she included both. Another author might have simply lumped them together. I suspect that Miller separated them because we don't have sufficient data from all the extinct Khoisan languages of South Africa and so a firm number is not possible. However, she did specify that the sound was more common than just its occurrence in living languages. So my objection to your legalistic interpretation of "is" at Hoan was twofold: 1) it simply isn't supported as a rule in linguistic practice, and 2) you used it to exclude half the relevant data on the issue. --Taivo (talk) 14:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Damn you're arrogant. We disagree, and you can't accept that anyone would honestly disagree with you, so I must be being deceptive. Since you have demonstrated several times now that you are not willing to work in good faith with anyone who disagrees with you (since they are obviously not working in good faith, or they wouldn't disagree with you), I have no interest in even trying to work with you any longer. Go away. — kwami (talk) 14:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Not arrogant, simply pointing out that you seem to think that extinct languages are irrelevant to issues of linguistic data description. That's the arrogant part--your insistence on the importance of a speech community. --Taivo (talk) 14:26, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

No, what's arrogant is that you think I'm being deceptive because I don't hold the opinion you do. No-one could honestly disagree with you, so I must be dishonest.

And again you are glossing over my actual point to substitute your straw man. Do you really think I will forget my opinions if you misrepresent them often enough? Of course extinct languages are relevant data. When did I even say otherwise? (No, don't answer that, you'll just make something up.) But they're not extant, and it's inaccurate to say they are, and that's what you were doing. Now, go away. — kwami (talk) 14:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

FFS, just add "extant" or "living" or whatever. Problem solved. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Florian. The problem on the page is solved; Taivo's edit is perfectly acceptable. We're just arguing because we still can't agree about the initial point of what "is" means. It has nothing to do with the article any longer. — kwami (talk) 20:52, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Kwami is right that the article is already fixed. But our argument isn't over what "is" means, but actually over what the term "language" refers to when there is no extant speech community. --Taivo (talk) 21:18, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Language means language, extant or extinct. But IMO you can't say "there is" a language when it's gone. So it is an argument over what "is" means. Washington "is" our first president, though you'd normally say "was", and you certainly can't say he "is" president. When asked how many presidents there "are", I seriously doubt most people would answer "43" (assuming they knew the answer). More likely they would say "4" (alive) or "1" (serving). You'd hardly accuse someone of lying if they didn't give the first answer. — kwami (talk) 21:44, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

LOL. And now we're arguing over what we were arguing about. You have misstated my position with an invalid analogy. My point was that when dealing with a language without an extant speech community, the body of recorded data itself constitutes the language and therefore can be (and is) referred to with "is" so that statements that deal with language features on a universal basis are correct in counting data from no-longer-spoken languages since those data do exist and provide equally valid evidence. A better analogy is that the music of the Beatles still exists in recorded form even though the Beatles themselves are no longer with us as a group and no longer perform their music, so we can still talk about "Hey, Jude" in the present tense and not the past tense. --Taivo (talk) 23:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I think a better analogy to that would be specific speech acts: Churchill's speeches still exist. A language is like a living thing: it's the production that really matters. Yes, a part of the language (usually a very very small part) exists as data that can be compared with other languages for typology or to reconstruct ancestral forms. But that's like a photograph or DNA sample of a person being used to analyze or classify them. When asked how many people drink bottled water or belong to the X party, you don't count the dead. (Well, you're not supposed to. Sometimes parties do.) If there are 4 species of frog in a marsh, and 3 of them go extinct, you don't continue to say that there are 4 sp. of frog in the marsh. |Xam is and will be used for comparison and reconstruction and other things, but the data we have is not the language, only a record of the language. Saying it "is" the language because it's all we have left is like saying Grandma's shawl "is" Grandma because it's all we have left of her. — kwami (talk) 23:50, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

But the statement over which this whole issue began said that "there are two other languages with X feature", ignoring the other two languages for which we have data. It's not about "three languages exist", it's about "five languages have evidence for X". If the data exist and the data show Y, then in an encompassing statement about Y, it is right and proper (and is done throughout the appropriate literature) to include the languages without extant speech communities in the calculation and discussion without explicitly separating them into "living" and "dead". --Taivo (talk) 00:02, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

If we were in the context of comparing data rather than languages, but we weren't. We were in the context of comparing one living language with other languages. We didn't say "we have evidence that this has existed in X languages", or "we have records of this from X languages", but that "there are two other languages with this". And that is correct. There are two. There are also records of several more that once were, and we can compare data sets between living and dead languages, but the languages themselves no longer are.

There's the President. There are 3 other (ex)presidents. We have records of 39 more, plus another 14 under the Articles and Continental Congress, and we can compare their lives and their politics. But it's at best misleading to say there "are" 43 (or 57) presidents, unless we give a suitable context to establish that we don't mean in the present moment. Without such a context, present tense means in the present moment. — kwami (talk) 00:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

An incorrect analogy to begin with, still the wrong analogy. And the statement was not about comparing languages, living or dead. It was about making a typological/universal statement on the presence of a particular set of clicks in the known languages. It was about making a statement about the scarcity of those segments, not about "comparing" anything at all. When such a typological statement is made then it is to all the data we know in order to give an accurate and not a misleading number to judge a segment's scarcity. By eliminating the data from the extinct languages, you effectively halved the number of languages that have evidence of the segment, thus giving the impression that the segment was twice as scarce in our knowledge base than it actually is. Show me a single instance in Maddieson's Patterns of Sound where he distinguishes between sounds in living languages versus sounds in extinct languages. There isn't one. UPSID includes segment lists from half a dozen extinct languages in North America alone, but in not a single place does it matter for the description of the relative frequency of sounds. --Taivo (talk) 03:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I still disagree that's what it was about. That's not how I read it, and still not how I would read it. Perhaps I'm more literal than you are, but it seemed, and still seems, perfectly clear to me. I'm afraid we're just going to have to disagree on this. 03:55, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

So it's essentially a philosophical and partly linguistic problem. Another take on that issue, and this is where I disagree with Kwami, too: Present-tense verbs such as are do not necessarily refer to the present time exclusively. They can also refer to some general fact, independent of time. See Gnomic aspect. Exactly this aspect must be expected to be pervasive in encyclopedic texts, given how they describe (scientific, or other) knowledge or at least definitions or (social, or other) facts established by some sort of consensus or convention. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:36, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Gnomic is usually understood with generic statements: "Birds fly" rather than "The birds are flying". Historical/narrative present is understood within certain contexts: "So this guy comes up to me and says" introduces one, introducing topics that require such a framing may be another: "Cicero's Latin is" (though Taivo would take the latter to concern present records of Cicero's Latin rather than living Latin in the time of Cicero). But if I were to say "There are X official languages in Europe", even in an encyclopedia I would not expect that number to include languages which are no longer official or to include states which no longer exist. Similarly, if I say "there are 400 languages in the Indo-European language family", I'm not counting the hundred or more extinct IE languages which are attested. That is, in such cases present tense means 'at present', and that's how I read the statement we were debating. — kwami (talk) 20:44, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

But, Kwami, our disagreement has never been about speech communities, but about data. There was never any attempt to say that "there are 5 Khoisan languages in South Africa" or anything like that. It was strictly about data and the existence of a particular class of sound in a particular group of languages. It was never about whether there were speakers of those languages or not--that's the totally irrelevant spin you put on it. In the data for five different languages there exist bilabial clicks. Whether there are extant speech communities is irrelevant. --Taivo (talk) 22:52, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Taivo, that is precisely what the disagreement is: I read it as being a statement about speech communities. You read it as a statement about data.

(There is actually data for bilabial clicks in 7 languages in Southern Africa, 1 in East Africa, several in West Africa, one in Europe, and perhaps others I have not heard of, of which only the first are phonemic.) — kwami (talk) 22:58, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Indo-European languages map

G'day! Just a friendly heads up to point out that your latest update to this map has apparently pulled the continents off the globe and created some unusual proportions. Would you be able to restore its proportions while retaining the updates? Best regards, Hayden120 (talk) 16:48, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, Inkscape does that, and I don't know why. If you want to fix the continents, you'll need to revert, and loose the corrections. Or redo them with a different program. — kwami (talk) 17:02, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

No worries, I have restored the last stable revision. Hayden120 (talk) 17:07, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

The description should be corrected, then: It's not a map of IE languages, but of IE languages and IE-based creoles. — kwami (talk) 17:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

The image can still be corrected. The problem was only with the changes in dimensions and the layout. I'll try to fix it later after I have some sleep. Hayden120 (talk) 17:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Bob's your uncle. Hayden120 (talk) 04:15, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

How to resolve the Dwarf planet dispute

Hello Kwami. The complaint that you filed against Ruslik0 at AN3 is still open. Very-long running disputes that involve admins tend to wind up at Arbcom, but I think that could be avoided in this case. The original RfC that you opened in September is here Your question was:

So, if we have RS's that a body qualifies, but the IAU hasn't weighed in, is the body a DP for our purposes?

The implication is that you want Wikipedia's criterion of dwarf planet status to use the outside sources that you propose, and not be limited to what the IAU has ruled are dwarf planets.

Actually, I want us to reflect the literature, not my sources: that is, what I was told we should do when I raised this issue at the RSN. I did not propose Tancredi, for example. And if Ckatz or anyone else finds RS's that contradict Brown or Tancredi, let's add them in too! In fact, I have asked repeatedly for such refs, for months, maybe a year, but no-one has provided one. I want all significant reliable sources to be represented when we make that introductory statement: "X is a DP" if that's what our sources say. For several bodies, DP status is unanimous. For others, it is not. There are varying degrees of acceptance which should not be difficult to capture in the lead if NPOV is seriously our goal.

And the IAU process is a bit weird. They named three bodies as DPs which everyone agrees are DPs. Then two more large objects were waiting to have their names approved, and there was a dispute over which committee would review and approve the names. It was decided that if the abs. magnitude is < 1 (which in both cases it was), then the planetary-nomenclature committee would name them under the assumption that they were DPs, and that it wouldn't matter if they turned out not to be. But if it was > 1, then the minor-planet committee would name them, and the question of whether they were DPs would be addressed at a later time. (That was 5½ yrs ago, and it still hasn't been addressed. Meanwhile, the world has moved on.) Then, when Haumea and Makemake were named, the press releases said things like "4th DP announced", "Solar System now officially has 5 DPs", etc. It's impossible to know what went on behind the scenes, or how "official" they are, because it's not public record. But according to the IAU's own definition, a body is not a DP because they say it is, but because it meets the criteria for for a DP. See the IAU (2009) quote I provided, which states that it is not their intention to say that the bodies named as DPs actually "are" DPs, though it is "likely" that they are—perhaps coincidentally, the same assessment that Sheppard et al used and which people are so upset about! Of course, the committee may have decided it was certain, but we just don't know. (And in any case, science isn't done by fiat from a committee.) Nonetheless, nearly everyone accepts them as DPs. They only exception is Sheppard et al., and here we have Kheider and Ruslik vociferously denying that they say what they so obviously say.

My impression is that the underlying dispute is solvable by compromise, but the people engaged have become too angry to consider reasonable steps. Some editors who responded to the RfC (including Ckatz at 18:20 on 27 September) have claimed that you have continued to change the text of the Dwarf Planet and related articles while the RfC was under way. If that's a correct assessment, I can see how that would make people mad. Please respond with whatever ideas you have to resolve this. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 20:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

If you mean the current RfC, the only changes I have made to the DP article have been on unrelated topics such as whether a working group at the IAU accepts the term "plutoid", which even Ruslik agrees with. As for the previous one, I was blocked for edit warring with Ckatz, and at that point I promised to leave it to someone else to to put whatever is agreed on into the contested section. I have not touched it since, except for copies on the talk page (or, in case I'm called a liar again, possibly basic cleanup such as fixing links or spelling—I make a lot of edits and don't remember half of them). Yes, after months of stagnation in the DP discussion, running in circles with claims that the sources were "lying" and all the rest of the nonsense, I started editing the other articles, which have their own NPOV problems. But Kheider and I have actually been able to resolve a lot of it, when allowed to do so.

The primary stumbling block currently is Ruslik. I don't want my interpretations of his actions to be seen as a personal attack, so if you want them I'll email them to you. I just realized he was an admin a couple days ago, and still find that difficult to believe. As much as I disagree with Kheider, I can work with him. Perhaps some mediation would be needed, but we can work together. Ckatz continues to assume bad faith, which would make it very difficult to work with him, but if he can overcome that, maybe we can.

The problem as I see it is that we are seriously violating NPOV is several featured articles, and we have several editors who are either unable or unwilling to see that. (Ask JorisvS his opinion, and I'll probably agree with 90% of it.) Brown and his team discovered all the bodies in question. He's the renowned expert in them. The IAU website refers readers to his web site for a better understanding than what they provide, and their technical reports make numerous citations of him. Sheppard and his teams have discovered half of the known moons in the Solar System. Tancredi is used as a reference by the IAU committees themselves, and I believe they've even asked him to prepare the reports that we're citing. These are not peripheral people. It's also obvious that Alan Stern, the man who coined the term "dwarf planet" and who heads the Pluto mission, believes that these are all dwarf planets too, although I have not been able to dig up a direct "X is a DP" quote to support that impression. (He only refers to them as dwarf planents in bulk in what I've been able to find.)

We are sidelining the principal experts in the field. Such blatant violation of NPOV is not acceptable. Mediation would, I think, probably work with Ckatz, and would obviously with Kheider, if it's even necessary with him: We've already come to an acceptable compromise on several articles, usually only to have Ruslik revert it to his version, which generally has little connection to reality (since the sources which everyone else accepts are either "imaginary" or "lies"). Add Jorisv, and I think we can get this to work. I think Ruslik is either mentally or emotionally unable to handle this, but with a formal mediator calling him on his nonsense, we can probably work around him. The alternative as I see it is to apply to have the FA status of these articles revoked. (I know what a pain it is to get an article through FA, and that many reasonable people have worked very hard on them, but they're currently an embarrassement.) — kwami (talk) 21:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Can I ask why you resumed making controversial edits without ever asking for the original RfC (which you opened in September) to be closed? There seems to be some very bad communication going on. If everyone takes their eye off the ball I can see how they would never perceive that a consensus has been found. Paying attention to a single RfC is one way to make everyone focus. EdJohnston (talk) 22:33, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

When it became obvious that the discussion at DP was going nowhere, I moved on to other articles, figuring that if we could work them out one at a time (and we have worked out a few), maybe we could build up to consensus at the DP article: "Look, we've already agreed on this, that, and the other. Can we now focus on the rest?" But then Ckatz and esp. Ruslik started reverting everything I did, whether there was any apparent reason for it or not. At one point Ckatz reverted me, Kheider restored the edit, and Ckatz said, well, if Kheider said it, then I guess I'll let it pass. He wasn't reverting me because he disagreed with the content, but merely because he was being obstinate and refused to accept anything I did. You can't have a discussion in that kind of atmosphere.

But honestly, I can't remember what was part of the RfC and what lay outside it. When you asked why there was no RfC on the page, and I found it, I assumed it was one Ckatz had started and never properly opened. Ckatz had to point out to me that I had opened it. What I can tell you is that there has never been anything close to consensus on the DP page. We are no closer to agreement now then we were when I opened the RfC—farther apart, actually, because some time after that Ruslik arrived, with his fantastical belief that a thing only exists if it's been declared in committee, regardless of what scientific sources say. Many of the opinions expressed were so stupefyingly ignorant (to put it euphemistically) that I had a hard time believing that they were made in good faith, which is why it was such a shock to me when I found out R was an admin. Maybe I concluded it was pointless. Maybe after the tag was removed I simply forgot about it, since it wasn't relevant to achieving anything. For whatever reason, I did take my eyes off the ball. As for the new RfC, so far it's the same people as last week, and we've all heard each other's opinions ad nauseum.

It would be nice if we got even one or two editors who could read a semi-technical ref without arguing about whether it exists and who had a basic understanding of NPOV policy. That's why I think mediation may be the way to go: someone who knows how policy applies in contested cases, and who can read a ref and say, "yes, it does say that" or "no, it doesn't" or "what do you mean it's imaginary, the link is right there". I don't have a problem being wrong—Kheider has disproved several of my claims in this debate, and I've simply abandoned them—but you have to demonstrate it, not just jump up and down screaming "you're lying!" — kwami (talk) 23:18, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

People seem to think that you are the obstacle right now. At least, nobody has responded in the 3RR case to support your position. A 3RR case from October 12 ended with a block of your account. If you were to agree to step back from the dwarf planet issue for a period of time my guess is that the remaining editors would be able to sort out a compromise on the issues presented on the talk page. EdJohnston (talk) 23:43, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I know what the compromise would be: apart from JorisvS, it would be to ignore RSs and continue to violate NPOV. Their arguments are that (a) the sources don't exist (despite their quoting from them) or (b) they don't say what any reasonable reader would understand them to say. It's simple sophistry to ignore the obvious. Sometimes we get reasonable arguments about WEIGHT, but rarely.

The 3RR case was a case of edit warring over POV tags, for Christ sake! I didn't realize Ruslik was an admin at the time, but really, an admin edit warring to remove POV tags? You just don't do that.

Talk to JorisvS about what should be done. He is reasonable, willing to compromise, but also understands that we need to respect the sources and not just the ones we happen to think are right. — kwami (talk) 19:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

You seem to believe that the rightness of your position is so obvious that it frees you from having to follow the normal steps of dispute resolution. It should not be up to me (as a reviewing admin) to go around and negotiate with all the other parties. You surely understand what it takes to gather a consensus and make compromises. Do you notice that you've offered a bunch of *content* arguments in answer to the complaint that you personally have a conduct problem? Ckatz complains that the dispute has been running for more than a year; I didn't check. It takes a lot of stubbornness to keep something going that long. EdJohnston (talk) 21:52, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I have filed for a RfC and requested comment at Wikiprojects and at the NPOV and RS boards, and have said that this may require mediation. Those are the normal steps of dispute resolution. — kwami (talk) 22:22, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Nasal stop

I am rather puzzled by your rename of "Nasal" to "Nasal stop". The nasal consonants in most languages are not stops. The airflow is not interrupted and they can be continued indefinitely. −Woodstone (talk) 23:21, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

They are stops orally. "Stop" is the conventional term for that: "Nasal" is an abbreviation, at least in some refs. SOWL uses "nasal" because they use "stop" for "plosive", but you can't assume that's the case with an unknown source. Generally stop = {plosive, nasal}, and nasal = {nasal vowel, nasal stop, prenasalized stop, etc.}. And a good number of our articles had [[Nasal consonant|Nasal stop]].

Is this a problem? Should we put it on hold? — kwami (talk) 23:40, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I never heard the term stop used in this way (but, though I took some classes in linguistics and have read up on it, I'm not a linguist). The IPA handbook, both in its figures and symbol lists, has plosive and nasal categories on the same level, and I cannot find any reference to an overarching stop category. As the explanation at plosive states, the term is often used interchangeably with stop or occlusive. Naming the nasal a nasal stop is thus confusing and unnecessarily qualified. We also don't have plosive stop. If you think nasal is too vague, we may use nasal consonant. It would avoid confusion for the average reader. −Woodstone (talk) 05:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I've heard nasals are oral stops for precisely the reason Kwami mentioned. However plosives are also oral stops, and we don't call the plosive article "plosive stops." By their nature, nasal consonants are sonorant stops as one of my teachers liked to put it. And that's what people will think you're talking about when referring to nasals. Nobody is going to assume for example that when you talk about "nasals" you're referring to nasal clicks. --Quintucket (talk) 19:08, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

They're stops in the oral tract, but no-one calls them "oral stops". Rather, a "stop" is defined as complete occlusion of the oral tract. They're called "nasal stops". An "oral stop" would be a plosive, since "oral" is defined as "not nasal". At least in some sources. Others use "nasal" for "nasal stop" and "stop" for "plosive / oral stop". So "nasal stop" and "plosive" are unambiguous, because no-one uses them for anything else. — kwami (talk) 19:37, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's a rather common example of a nasal consonant that's not a nasal stop (and so both is and is not a "nasal"): Nasal palatal approximant. — kwami (talk) 07:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I suppose that, if Nasal consonant is to remain a disambiguation page, then there will be about 400 incoming links to check and divert per WP:FIXDABLINKS. Thanks for fixing lots of them already with AWB. This tool may help with the rest. Certes (talk) 23:30, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Bud Selig

Thanks for letting me know...made the fixes and adds I did intend to add. Nate • (chatter) 05:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Kwami

Just to let you know, I kicked you in the groin a bit at the Noticeboard fight that is currently going on about Dwarf planets issues.

To be fair and honest, I wanted to let you know once again that, in my entire 51+ years of life on this planet, I honestly have NEVER seen an expert in ANY field with the breadth, depth, dedication, and "prolificness" (is that even a word?) as you have/are in languages and linguistics. Your skills, dedication, and contributions are just ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, and I have INCREDIBLE respect for you in that regard!

I await your devastating counterpunches with a bottle of 800 milligram ibuprofen and a large Coke at the ready.

Your fan and occasional punching bag: Cliff (a/k/a "Uploadvirus") (talk) 14:36, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

You think I'd block you for commenting on a 3RR case?

Also, check the page history of my user page for how active that to-do list is, and for how long that has been at the top of it without action. (Top doesn't mean top priority. It probably means it's been there the longest, or among the longest. The list is nearly inactive. The ones I have finished have been at the bottom, and it's been quite a while since I've done any of them. The rest have just been sitting there since whenever I added them – years, in some cases.) — kwami (talk) 19:56, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Request protection downgrade of Zaza people

Hi Kwami,
It's been about half a year since you protected Zaza people. Looking at the revision history, unless I'm missing something, it seems like you protected it because of a dispute between two editors (Takabeg and Wikisporting). I'd like to make some minor edits, and yes to tweak some things that do seem problematic to me (the larger point of the dispute whether the Zaza are Kurds is one on which I have no opinion, except that it should obviously be neutral and verifiable.).

So I'd like to request a downgrade to semi-protection (or even full unprotection). As a general rule, I refuse to participate in improving fully protected pages in article namespace, since it tends to be needlessly difficult for everybody involved, and frankly a bit insulting, since it implies that based on a dispute between two users the rest of us can't be trusted.
Regards, --Quintucket (talk) 18:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Unprotected. Let me know if it becomes a problem again. — kwami (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I know both of the users involved in the dispute remain constructively active in articles other than this one, and I've posted on the talk page. I think if Arab Christians and Israel can reach a consensus, this should be relatively easy, at least as ethnic conflicts go. --Quintucket (talk) 19:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

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cat links

Just put a colon at the front of the link: [[:Category:Siouan languages]] = Category:Siouan languages. — kwami (talk) 04:45, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, hey, I almost forgot: Thank you very much for that helpful hint! --BjKa (talk) 17:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Difference in writing style

Am I crazy, or is there a basic difference in the writing style here [3] and that of the editor on talk pages, ie yours? Dougweller (talk) 06:07, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Juǀʼhoansi1987 orthography

Hi Kwamikagami. I have a question about the 1987 Juǀʼhoansi orthography. You've added data about it [4]. I'm wondering whether <a̹, o̹, â̹, ô̹> (currently with right half ring below) should not be <a̧, o̧, â̧, ô̧> (with cedilla) or perhaps <a̦, o̦, â̦, ô̦> (with comma below) since both cedilla and comma below are much more common. Of course it's still possible that right half ring below is the correct diacritics, it's just that they can be pretty similar looking sometimes. Thanks in advance. --Moyogo/ (talk) 10:54, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't have access to that anymore. I'm gonna guess the comma, because the cedilla I would have transcribed as such. But it was a print source, not electronic, and AFAIR, they did not say. — kwami (talk) 11:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

An uncivil accusation at WT:TITLE

Hi Kwami. Please see this note that I have left at Kotniski's talkpage.

Best wishes.

Noetica^Tea? 10:08, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting he would use the name "Dick", since he's being one. But that's just Kotniski: if two people disagree with him, they're part of a conspiracy, because no honest disagreement is possible. His opinion isn't worth my time. — kwami (talk) 10:14, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for showing again just how neutral you are about this. (Presumably the opinion of the other dozen or so people in the RfC in which you "can't see a consensus" is of similarly little concern to either of you.) --Kotniski (talk) 10:27, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, Kotniski, you know the conspiracy is real. The six months the article was supposedly stable didn't really exist: I forged the page history to cover up the True History which was exactly as you would have it. Too bad I covered my tracks so well no-one will ever be able to prove it.

And when I asked any other admin who could see a consensus to revert the page to the appropriate version, I'm sure you've noticed how no-one stepped forward. That's because we're all in this together. Actually, we're all just socks of Noetica: none of us actually exist. — kwami (talk) 10:50, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

As you obviously know, the contention is not that the page was not stable at that version for that much time, but that the consensus following the current discussion is clearly for the other version (which was also stable for an even longer time before that, as it happens, and was changed six months ago without much attention). If you support one editor who disagrees with the result of a discussion (even though he didn't even condescend to take part in the discussion or give any reasons for preferring his version), over a clear supermajority who have given their reasons for taking the opposite viewpoint, then surely you can see how the normal consensus-based decision-making process (which doesn't require unanimity, as we know) has been manifestly disrupted? (And the fact that no other admin stepped forward doesn't mean they all agreed with you - they probably had better things to do than look into a matter that you looked to have already handled.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:01, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I do rather resent the allegations of corruption, and that I'm feigning ignorance. And the conclusion you take from that is that I'm not neutral. So, if we're in a dispute, I vandalize your user page, and you get upset, should you be disqualified from the debate because you've proven you're not neutral? I'm exaggerating, of course, but that's your logic here. — kwami (talk) 11:10, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, I withdraw all of that, but please address the nub - consensus was against Noetica, wasn't it? On both occasions when you protected his version, that consensus was pointed out to you, wasn't it? On neither occasion did you then restore the consensus version, or take any action against N. for edit-warring against consensus, did you? So maybe you genuinely believe that any one editor should be allowed to veto any change that he doesn't like, without saying why, regardless of how many other editors have expressed and reasoned for the opposite opinion? --Kotniski (talk) 11:19, 23 January 2012 (UTC)