User talk:Mahagaja/Archive 35

Word for "Jew" in languages of former Yugoslavia

Dear Angr, your comments (Language Desk, February 20 ff.) on the above were most enlightening. This was the first time I've encountered the suggested Catholic/Orthodox attribution, and this certainly raises my awareness for future instances as I'm still quite unfamiliar with that area of the sociopolitical map. Your assistance is sincerely appreciated, with apologies for the tardy acknowledgement. -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 07:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I should point out that I think the Catholic/Orthodox dichotomy is probably a bit of a coincidence, or at least, it has more to do with cultural connections between the groups than their religious affiliation per se. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 08:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it began already in the division of the roman empire. Rome's or the Pope's later lack of assistance to Constantinople, indirectly allowing the destruction of the east-roman empire, gave rise to bad blood between the two roman churches and already existing differences in religious traditions deepened and entrenched themselves. The worldview differences of the two is probably easy to underestimate. The ethiopian orthodoxy is a further complication to the whole of the nonprotestant christian church view. Henry VIII I guess could be counted as the founder of a fourth also still surviving papacy, namely the anglican church. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AkselGerner (talk • contribs) 21:09, 3 March 2008 --AkselGerner (talk) 21:19, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

But what does that have to do with the fact that Catholic Slavs tend to call Jews Zhid (not derogatory in those languages), while Orthodox Slavs call them Yevrey? —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 21:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Lack of a common religious-domain discourse leading to parallel terminology? But anglicans and ethiopians don't really mix in, that's certainly a fact. Not many of either of those papacies in yugoslavia, but if there was they might have yet other terms... or maybe I should just go away now. --AkselGerner (talk) 21:19, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: Irish phonology

I changed it. :D --SyntaxError55 ^talk 14:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you translate articles?

On the Celts project you mentioned that you were experienced in the Celtic languages. Does this mean that you can translate articles from Welsh? If so, I would be very thankful if you could translate the Welsh version of the Hen Ogledd page, which appears to contain more information. If not, I can find someone else, but you were the first person I saw in the project who knew the languages. ---G.T.N. (talk) 01:59, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Given enough time, I probably could, but I know there are other people at Wikipedia whose Welsh is much better than mine. User:Arwel Parry is a native speaker, I think. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 09:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll check with Arwel. Thanks a bunch! ---G.T.N. (talk) 18:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes Articles

Hello

Would you mind telling me why you have deleted them? I am confused to if it is genuine editing or vandalism to be honest with you. Please reply on my talk page to clarify this. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 19:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

1. (diff) (hist) . . Annie Cartwright‎; 05:24 . . (-138) . . Angr (Talk | contribs) (rm deleted img)
2. (diff) (hist) . . Chris Skelton‎; 05:23 . . (-115) . . Angr (Talk | contribs) (rm deleted img)
3. (diff) (hist) . . Ray Carling‎; 05:21 . . (-105) . . Angr (Talk | contribs) (rm deleted img)
4. (diff) (hist) . . Sam Tyler

Those articles Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 20:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Celts

Thank you so much for joining, your knowledge is most welcome here! Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 23:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations

Great job, getting the Dante's Cove images deleted. The project is so much better because of your actions. Way to go. Otto4711 (talk) 04:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

An old edit of yours I missed

Hello Angr, re. your opinion on the etymology of Istanbul ([1]): I'm a bit surprised to see you say this. Is there any particular reason to think eis tin polin was a folk etymology? It's by no means "blindingly obvious" to me. My understanding has always been it's not only universally accepted in the relevant literature, but also inherently highly plausible, both on the phonological level and by virtue of being supported by parallel cases elsewhere (like Kos > eis tan Ko > İstankoy etc.). I'm the main author of the Names of Istanbul article, so I'd be interested to see anything that would require a rewrite there. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:18, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way, previous discussion is here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

There are several reasons to think "eis tin polin" is a folk etymology, both phonological (how did the "i" become an "a") and semantic (why would anyone call it "into the city", the equally implausible etymology of İstanköy notwithstanding). But as I said in my comments, the published literature agrees on the folk etymology, so that's what we have to go with. I don't have any sources for what I know in my heart is the real etymology, namely Konstantinopolis (not that I've looked, either!), so the article doesn't need a rewrite. But I still refuse to believe it. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 08:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, they didn't call it "into the city". They called it "in X", where "X" ('The City') had already been the de-facto proper name in colloquial Greek all along. That's why it makes sense semantically. The preposition eis had ceased to be a specifically directional one long before, in Greek. The only thing the Turks did, linguistically, was to re-analyse a locative into a nominative, hardly surprising given the incompatible morphological types of the two languages. The /i/ > /a/ part may have an explanation in Greek dialectology; Pontic varieties apparently had at least /e/ rather than /i/ all along. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:05, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way...

		The Original Barnstar
		For outstanding work on Irish phonology. You have helped to create the best treatment of the topic I've seen so far. This is a rare case proving that Wikipedia can even outshine the academic literature it is based on. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Image:Anglospeak.svg

Hello, I see you made a change to this image concerning South Africa. Obviously, native English speakers are a minority there, but their existence in significant numbers is an essential distinction between a country like South Africa and one like India. The South African variety of English (and I'm talking primarily about that of non-Afrikaner whites, of British descent) is an important one, recognizable instantly to most Australian/N.Z. people and many British ones as well.

Also, the definitions of dark blue and light blue both appear to include all countries with English as an official language, which doesn't make sense. I would suggest the following definitions:

1. Dark blue - countries in which there are major concentrations of native English speakers. (Note that Quebec, even if considered a country, would be included - take for example William Shatner, Leonard Cohen, Brian Mulroney, Bryan Adams, etc.)

2. Light blue - Other countries in which English is an official language.

3. Light light blue (maybe) - Other countries in which English is an important administrative language.

I don't think category 3 is really needed. As an alternative to 1., dark blue could mean significant concentrations of native speakers of English or an English creole. Joeldl (talk) 04:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but since I'm not the only editor of this image, I'd say the place to discuss it is Commons:Image talk:Anglospeak.svg. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 08:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted it to the version with South Africa in dark blue - I doubt anyone will mind if you don't, and I modified the English description and some others to match what the map actually seems to be. Joeldl (talk) 10:15, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

March 2008

Please stop. If you continue to blank out or delete portions of page content, templates or other materials from Wikipedia, as you did to History of For Better or For Worse, you will be blocked from editing. (Diff here). Benjiboi 18:55, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I've open up a thread at Admin Noticeboard for Incidents concerning the AfD. Benjiboi 19:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

History of For Better or For Worse

This should go to Deletion review. / edg ☺ ☭ 20:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Be my guest! —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 20:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

let's stick to the customary names outside of the "Names" section

??Customary names?Eog1916 (talk) 20:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. "Irish" in English and "Gaeilge" in Irish. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 21:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Non-free images

I was looking through WP:TFD, and I noticed "It makes me sick to my stomach to think that the thousands of images BetaCommandBot tagged for deletion over the past several weeks have been "saved" in this way, instead of being deleted, as they should have been." Would you be interested in gathering stats to see how things have changed following the tagging runs? See WP:NFCC-C for some stats, and in particular Wikipedia:NFCC-C#More data andthe figure of 40,449 net decrease (that is a 13% decrease). Also, non-free album covers and non-free logos currently account (and for some time have accounted) for almost exactly half of the existing non-free images (the current total of non-free images is around 280,284). I'm not sure if this will make you happier or more angry, but hopefully more light in the form of actual numbers will help regardless. (My position, by the way, is that educational, some forms of identification, iconic, and historical non-free use should be encouraged, and decorative use should be discouraged). In terms of book, album and magazine covers, I think first edition covers should be allowed (those will be the first to become public domain anyway) but not more recent ones. Carcharoth (talk) 23:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

What can I say? 280,284 nonfree images is 280,284 too many. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 01:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I would say "Simply depicting this as "reduce non-free amount at all costs for ideological reasons" is a gross oversimplification and damages the encyclopedia." If you think all non-free images should be removed, then say that at policy and foundation level, instead of chipping away at this level. This "chipping away" process doesn't help and only turns Wikipedia into a battleground between those wanting only free content and those wanting to use non-free content to build a free content encyclopedia (note that I don't place an emphasis on any one word or phrase over the other). WP:NFCC explicitly allows non-free content, and openly and indiscriminately campaigning for removal of all non-free content is not helpful and divides the community. Anyway, that's my position, though I don't expect you to agree with it. Still, did you find the stats helpful or not? Would you like to help collect more stats or not? Carcharoth (talk) 02:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

No one would listen to me at the policy and foundation level, so I chip away as best I can, one nonfree image at a time. I disagree that it damages the encyclopedia, though, since I have yet to see a nonfree image that actually improved the encyclopedia, or for that matter, that fulfilled WP:NFCC#8 in the sense that removing the image would impair readers' understanding of the article. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 08:46, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

• The vegan dinner! I thought I'd recognised the name! I still remember that analogy, even months later, so it worked as far as making me remember it. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 02:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Dude...

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Offensive word for black kid

Do we really have to give racial slurs to children? I'm asking you to please remove that part of your comment. Thanks.--Pharos (talk) 06:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't censored. He asked, I answered. And if I hadn't, someone else would have. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 07:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't censored. Which is why I'm asking you nicely, man. If you wouldn't say this to some snot-nosed kid in a playground (and this kid is almost certainly younger than high school), why would you say it to them on Wikipedia?--Pharos (talk) 07:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't use the word as a term of address, but if a kid asked me in person to name a derogatory word for a black child, I'd tell him, while advising him not to use it, same as I did here. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 07:14, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Your edit to Brian Glover

I propose to reinstate the deleted image: you can't delete a "fair use" image from it's article, then use "orphaned image" as the reason the image is to be deleted. I believe the existing "fair use" rationale is adequate, but I will review it to see if it can be improved.--Old Moonraker (talk) 20:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

You can't use a screenshot from a movie to show what an actor looks like. Screenshots are for illustrating the movie they're taken from. Publicity shots are for showing what dead people looked like when they were alive. That's why I removed it. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 20:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt reply. I'm trying to illustrate and commentate on the actor's interpretation of the film role, which I believe counts as fair use. I may not have brought this out adequately in the rationale and I will give this some more thought. --Old Moonraker (talk) 20:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you want to do that, you definitely can't use the image in the article's infobox. But if you have a separate, sourced section on his interpretation of this particular character, the image would probably be acceptable to most people. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 20:57, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I see the difference: thanks for the suggestion. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:52, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I have reinstated the image, changing the way it's used along the lines you suggest. I have also withdrawn my initial reply to the notification on my talk page. --Old Moonraker (talk) 17:01, 29 March 2008 (UTC)