User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 19

Word of the (whenever):

• anti-zombie-fungus fungus

Orissa name changed to Odisha

Why dou u keep changing Orissa into Odisha again and again??? I belong to Orissa and it's now renamed. Orissa is renamed from 4th Nov 2011 into Odisha.

I don't. Just the opposite. As for why, because we use the WP:COMMONNAME here at Wikipedia. (Also, it has not been renamed. It's the same name, just a different transliteration.) — kwami (talk) 02:41, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Ryukyu Islands

I may or may not be dealing with a nationalist editor trying to enforce the fact that the Treaty of San Francisco mentions the "Nansei Islands" and excludes Amami and north from the Ryukyus and I cannot seem to communicate with this person/there is an absolute refusal to acknowledge our previous consensus.—Ryulong (琉竜) 14:52, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

saraiki and hindko languages

Hi

you are repeatedly changing the edits of these two dialects of Punjabi, i can speak both of them along with standard punjabi because i am native speaker of these dialects. u keep classifing them as Lehnda instead of my continous edits as Punjabi..for your kind information Lehnda is Punjabi word for westeren dialects of Punjabi...How can any forigner language expert who cant speak these dialects can classify them as an separate language only on the basis of 200 to 300 word comparison..there is only 10% minor changes in between and each dialect speaker can very easily communicate with other dialect speaker...these all dialects are mutually understandable...i have put a table in the support which is only high lighting the few differences in words in these 3 dialects....IF YOU HAVE ANY FURTHER OBJECTION THEN EITHER learn these dialects then challenge my edits OR classify AUSTRAILIAN, US , BRTISH, South African english as different languages...GOD HELP YOU — Preceding unsigned comment added by LanguageXpert (talk • contribs) 17:13, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

You need sources to support your claims, because other native speakers say just the opposite. Several editors are reverting you, not just me, because you have not proven your claim. (For that matter, Panjabi and Hindi transition into each other as well: Does that mean Panjabi is a dialect of Hindi?) You may very well be right, but we still need sources. — kwami (talk) 17:17, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Reply to KWAMI....wt is the authencity of a reference if i provide...a book then wt is the dame guarentee that book is a true reflection of reality..STILL i m providing u reference....Book name: 3 HINDUSTANI LANGUAGES Page 99 Author: Doctor K S BEDI...Book name: PUNJABI LISANIYAT (LANGUISTIST) Page 142 Author: Shehbaz Malik...Book name: SHORT HISTORY OF PUNJABI LITERATURE Page 17 Author: Qureshi Ahmed Hussain..Book name: URDU IN PUNJAB Page 76 Author: Hafiz Mehmood Shirani....i challenge u to research by learning these dialects (NOT LANGUAGES) and then analyse my claim...Problem wid 1920 research by geirison (A FOREIGN WHO CANT SPEAK THESE) were that he compared 200 words list of EASTEREN punjab's (INDIAN PUNJAB) punjabi which is full of SANSIKRAT with.... ARABIC PERSION MIXED SAREIKI and HINKO...bt reality has changed after india pakistan creation....now LAHORE's STANDARD punjabi is full of ARABIC PERSION WORDS so if we compare all three dialects then only difference is future tense....so sir,dialects exist for every languages... as i mentioned AUSTRAILIAN, US , BRTISH, South African english so dont classify a dialect as an language......THANX

Named Mars trojan

5261 Eureka. --JorisvS (talk) 17:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, we can add that to the list and drop the capital T. (We don't list all named trojans anyway.) — kwami (talk) 17:46, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Better. I was also thinking, what about adding those pronunciations to the pages of the individual objects? --JorisvS (talk) 17:51, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

It would be best to have them in the individual articles, probably in the info boxes. Lists of pronunciations like this are rather stupid, but putting them all in the articles was more work than I was willing to do. With the regular asteroids, I did that for the first 150 or so, but maybe we can eventually get all 1,000 in, at which point we can delete the list. — kwami (talk) 17:55, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, what about only a few at a time? --JorisvS (talk) 18:00, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Sure. I have a list of star-name etymologies (Arabic etc.) from years ago that I never got in the individual articles, and I thought that was more important, so I never even had this on my to-do list. — kwami (talk) 18:07, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Sounds familiar, I also have a to-do list with things that I have never gotten around to. --JorisvS (talk) 18:41, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Title advice

Could you suggest something better in this discussion? I mean grammar-wise. I don't want to drag you into that content. Thanks, Tijfo098 (talk) 21:52, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

You may be interested in this discussion that mentions an article you have edited. [1] Neotarf (talk) 02:19, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Stop

You know the proper procedure to get Medebur language deleted. Your current edit warring on that article is disruptive and if you continue I will block you. If you want the redirect deleted take it to WP:RFD. If you don't want to spend the time doing the paperwork, then drop it. If you continue the way you are going I will block you. GB fan 13:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Good to know that exists. I thought it asinine to go through the whole article-deletion bureaucracy for an interfering redirect. — kwami (talk) 18:33, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on how it's interfering? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 18:36, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Explained there. Red links for lang articles alert us that there is no article. Blue circular links make it look as if it's been taken care of. They rarely serve any purpose; usually if there's a reason to link to them there's reason enough to create a stub. If there is a purpose, then the remaining 800 red links should be made circular too. — kwami (talk) 18:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Couldn't we make it into a stub right now? That would prevent all the bureaucracy. --JorisvS (talk) 19:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Sure, if someone wants to. But there are a fair number of these, mostly obscure Austronesian languages that aren't any more notable than the other 500 without stubs, and that's not a project I want to take on. I've tried providing minimal support for most languages, but I draw the line at 500 additional stubs when we haven't even settled on a classification, which along with name, country, population, and ISO code is all that can be expected to be included in most of these. (Every stub we create is one more we'll need to correct when we finally do fix the AN classification, one of the projects I was planning before getting desysopped.) — kwami (talk) 19:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I understand. But please don't let being desysopped stop you from fixing the classification! --JorisvS (talk) 20:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Too much work. — kwami (talk) 21:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

And when you were an administrator? --JorisvS (talk) 21:14, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

More motivated, not as much BS. — kwami (talk) 21:17, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Hammer supplies Kwami with a yummy Dole Strawberry juice bar, a good cure for Wiki-burnout (and chock full of vit-ah-muns.) HammerFilmFan (talk) 13:21, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

IPA

IPA is not used for Japanese language words, which despite whatever you believe, "Ryukyu" is one of them. Just because it isn't the name of the island chain in Japan does not mean that the word itself is not Japanese, for which only the Hepburn system is used and no IPA system.—Ryulong (琉竜) 12:37, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Then why do we have Help:IPA for Japanese? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 13:03, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

It's also used when speaking English, and we do indicate the pronunciation of English. — kwami (talk) 15:24, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

But you're going against WP:MOS-JA by removing the {{nihongo}} template. This is how all Japanese subjects are treated and you keep insisting that the name isn't Japanese. Why is it that you are insisting that "Ryukyu" is not a Japanese word suddenly?—Ryulong (琉竜) 15:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

And aeusoes1, I am not sure but the Japanese styl guide uses the Hebpurn romanization system to display pronunciation of Japanese, as it is often less cumbersome than the IPA.—Ryulong (琉竜) 15:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm saying no such thing. "Japan" is a Japanese name, but we still supply the English pronunciation.

If the template is inadequate, then it should be modified to handle the article, rather than the article mangled to fit the template.

Tokyo has both the Japanese and the English in IPA, though the formatting is rather awkward.

You've also violated WP:3RR over this. — kwami (talk) 15:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

You can see on Japan that "Japan" is an exonym and how it and Tokyo are formatted appear to be exceptions to the WP:MOS-JA style. And I have kept the English pronunciation in at this point. I just do not think its placement should supercede the ruling style guide.—Ryulong (琉竜) 16:04, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

日本 is not an exonym. "Japan" is just the English pronunciation of 日本.

All it says in the Japanese style guide is that "the romanized Japanese form should always be listed in the opening paragraph". It says nothing about it needing to come before the English. In fact, the general WP rule for pronunciations is that English comes first, the original language second. — kwami (talk) 16:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

"Japan" is not the English pronunciation of 日本. "Japan" has no roots in the Japanese language. It's the English translation of 日本 and Nihon/Nippon, but it is certainly not the pronunciation of those two Chinese/Japanese characters. And again, Japanese language articles tend not to use the IPA system of transliteration. {{Nihongo}} should be kept over any other formatting as WP:MOS-JA suggests its usage.—Ryulong (琉竜) 05:36, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course it's a pronunciation of 日本. It apparently went from Japanese to Chinese to Malay to Portuguese to English, but its roots are Japanese regardless. Look it up in a dictionary if you don't believe me. Or you could have just read the article you pointed me too.

It isn't a Japanese-language article, it's an English-language article. We give the pronunciation of English words in IPA. If you don't like that, propose a change at MOS pronunciation. — kwami (talk) 05:50, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

It's a Japanese subject and last I checked "Ryūkyū" is a Japanese proper noun. But I've compromised with the way you've set it up, even though you did it incorrectly (and I disagree with the use of the lead=yes parameter, it's not really used anywhere so why start with this page?).—Ryulong (琉竜) 09:07, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's fine. Yes, Ryūkyū is a Japanese word. But "the Ryukyus" is an English word. Similar to the distinction between Nippon and "Japan", if not as extreme. Personally, I use "the Lewchews", even if it's archaic, because I think the English pronunciation of "Ryukyu" sounds ridiculous. But per the MOS, the English pronunciation comes before the Japanese.

If the lead is never used, you should probably change the template doc to say so, where it currently instructs you to use the lead in the first transclusion. — kwami (talk) 21:53, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Surely the English pronunciation should be close to the Japanese one of [[unsupported input][unsupported input]], although with the English rhotic consonant?—Ryulong (琉竜) 13:27, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

No more than the pronunciation of "Tokyo" should be close to the Japanese. (It's three syllables in English: toh-kee-oh.) /rj/ is no longer a possible consonant cluster in English. Therefore, you can either drop the /j/, or add in an extra syllable. This is the same reason "baseball" is four CV syllables in Japanese instead of two. I actually had to look it up in the dictionary, as I had no idea how it should be pronounced. The pronunciation I added was from Merriam-Webster. The OED and Random House have /riˈuːkjuː/, so we should probably change to that. (Same as the term ryu.) A 2nd one in MW drops the 2nd wye: /riˈjuːkuː/ – maybe the effort of getting a /j/ after a /r/ is too much, and compromises the next one? — kwami (talk) 20:37, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) In Brazilian Portuguese it is absurdical [çiˈukju], quite close to the English one (though we can't have a soft rhotic in the start of words except for learned speakers with English loanwords, that is why in both Brazilian dubs of Evangelion one can painly hear [ˈɹʷej ajaˈnɐ̃mi] everytime – though I think it is more because [ˈʁej] is an already existing word i.e. king, as people don't bother with Japanese pronunciation in other instances). Lguipontes (talk) 02:29, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I also don't feel like starting a new thread, but I've brought you up in the discussion I started concerning Masanori Asami on ANI. He's pushing an agenda to change the English and Chinese definitions of what constitutes the Ryukyus all over the net (he admitted to going to some other Wiki and changing things himself).—Ryulong (琉竜) 13:20, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

That's fine. — kwami (talk) 20:38, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Mbunda

@kwami (talk) Thanks for your information. However we have discussed these issues extensively with Aflis (talk). There is nothing like plagiarism here, who stops me from cuttting and pasting my own works and the works of the Association I lead? Logon to Bantu-Languages.com you prove the fact which agrees with our research. Research contained in the "History and Cultural Life of The Mbunda Speaking People", published by Cheke Cultural Writers Association 1994, now called Cheke Cha Mbunda Cultural and Writers Association of which I am the National Chairman, and widely referred to by researchers gives evidence that thise languages are branches or dialects of Mbunda Language. This is an indigenous Mbunda Writers Association who have interviewed, the Mbunda forefathers, some of whom were there in Mbundaland which is now part of Angola. This book was Published under the auspices of The Zambia Journal of History, University of Zambia, ISBN: 998203006X and Edited by Robert Papstein, Central African Oral History Project. The unfortunate part of our (Mbunda) history is that it has been decimated by the Wars in Angola and a deliberate Colonialist policy of divide and rule. Despite the wars our History is still there for those who genuinely seek it from those who genuinely possess it. The onus is on ourselves to research and tell the world about ourselves. We should unshackle the syndrome of accepting and legitimizing anything given and seen through the eyes of foreigners as "our history". We are the only ones better placed to write about ourselves. Foreigners will distort our history to serve their own endeavors as has been the case with the Portuguese. Imagine a Chokwe writing Mbunda history; it will be a complete distortion and misrepresentation of facts as passed on to us from our ancestors. Of course subjectivity is an issue. But it is subjectivity that makes history dynamic that one source is not regarded as a complete and absolute authority. Therefore history is there to be researched. Rich narratives still exists in many forms among our people despite the traumatic turmoil and displacements. The research, publication and cultural preservation efforts done by the Cheke cha Mbunda is highly commendable and significant to our cultural identity. The challenge on us whether we see ourselves as Mbunda or Nyemba or Ngangela is to emancipate ourselves from the colonial mindset of seeing ourselves as different to each other and rise up and complement the efforts of Cheke cha Mbunda by adding new narratives to the rich repository of our history it has given us". Yes Chokwe is a Bantu group like a Mbunda Group, but Mbunda has never been under Chokwe or Luchazi. Infact when you reflect on the same Mbunda History Book research, Luchazi is a Mbunda descendant group. I don't know what goes on at Wikipedia, it is amazing that anybody can delete or anyone's contribution at will or threaten to block. If this is a closed group, please do not allow free editing. Look at your understanding of Ngangela, it is different from our research. Let us be open and let the owners help you.Libingi (talk) 19:03, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, that takes care of the copy-vio concern. It is still unsourced, however, which means that anyone can delete it at any time as original research. I won't delete it, but someone else might, because we have no way of knowing if it's correct. You should present your sources on Wikipedia too.

The block wouldn't be for posting, but for edit warring. Repeatedly reverting an article is considered disruptive.

Regardless, extensive ethnographic info does not belong in a language article. Much better to simply create an article on the Mbunda people. The two articles can link to each other; there is even a field in the language info box for a link to the people who speak it.

Respected linguistic sources state that Mbunda is part of the Chokwe-Luchazi branch of Bantu. If you wish to change that, you'll need to provide better sources. — kwami (talk) 20:36, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

@(talk) Thanks. However, I don't know exactly how the Wikipedia editing works. But, I still don't understand what you mean by "It is still unsourced". I have given you http://www.bantu-languages.com/fr/zonek.html as a source which corresponds with the research in the Mbunda History Book. I have also given you the Mbunda History Book which is found in some UK University libralies as a source, if this is what you mean by unsourced. Or is it only a white man's research which is a "respected linguistic source"? There are many Bantu languages, but not grouped together, why is it that Chokwe-Luchazi are grouped together with Mbunda? And now at Wikipedia you group all southeast Angola ethnic groups under Ngangela, and I repeat ""Nganguela" is one of these ethnographical classification categories invented during colonial times (in a series of African countries) which do not correspond to one people held together by a common social identity", even substuting Mbunda! What is the source for this? It is not true that Mbunda is part of the Chokwe-Luchazi branch of Bantu, it is a creation. Please check the Mbunda history carefully, unless you have another Mbunda/Chokwe-Luchazi history from your so called "respected linguistic sources". I believe language should correspond with the people's history or origin. I have written to ethnologue.com, querrying them on certain issues. I am still awaiting their responce. Libingi (talk) 22:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Libingi, I have made a new section for you. Neotarf (talk) 23:09, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

It is very easy to make a new section, just click the "new section" tab at the top of the page. To edit this section, click "[edit]" beside the "Mbunda (continued)" section title. Happy editing. Neotarf (talk) 23:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks @ Neotarf. Let us continue researching on this important subject. We believe we are a credible source because we have interacted with our people who were there physically, including King Mbandu II Shanda Kazungo, who was imposed on the Mbunda by the Portuguese colonialists during the Mbunda/Portuguese war of 1914-1920s. We expect something substential from your sources. Frankly speaking we need very little input from any other source, if any because that source has to contact us the Mbunda ethnic group if he it has to come up with anything credible about the Mbunda. Libingi (talk) 07:20, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I have done some editing of the Mbunda language article, maintaining/clarifying the basic info on the Mbunda people as well as the info on language, and adding some sources & links. As I am no linguist, could you please have a look at the text as it stands now? In particular, what is your opinion on the ethnologue.com source I have introduced? Thanks -- Aflis (talk) 13:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I will get to this, though maybe not today. Both of you have made substantial improvements to the article, though it sounds like Libingi could write a lot more. Libingi, if you click on this red link to Mbunda people, you'll be able to start a new article, and make it as detailed as you like, though I would recommend listing your sources explicitly, paragraph by paragraph. (That makes it less likely something will get removed later.) Also, the language article will link to it automatically. — kwami (talk) 16:48, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, to me the article looks reasonably balanced. However, the Mbunda coding as a subgroup of Chokwe-Luchazi is erroneous. On 11 November 2011, @Kwamikagami edited it to "Chokwe-Luchazi. At Chokwe–Luchazi, it clearly shows that "With the exception of Chokwe, the Angolan government refers to these languages as Mbunda or Ngangela". Why then, not edting it as Chokwe-Mbunda or simply Mbunda, since "Nganguela" is one of these ethnographical classification categories invented during colonial times (in a series of African countries) which do not correspond to one people held together by a common social identity?". Libingi (talk) 17:38, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Because it's a linguistic article, so we use linguistic classifications, not political ones. Governments can say anything they like, but that doesn't change reality. See the articles on Croatian, Hindi, Indonesian, etc. Though maybe I'm misunderstanding you: I have no idea what you mean by your Nganguela comment, since we're not calling anything Nganguela here. — kwami (talk) 18:14, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Choco languages

Hi, kwami. Someone on FB is asking, "Anybody know anybody who's doing / done any work on Choco languages?" He is a linguist from Slovakia, fluent in English and several others, does work in Semitic languages, and will be involved with a company doing business with Embera-Wounaanhas. He has seen the Wikipedia article, but it didn't give him the background he was looking for. I suggested your talk page, and he wants me to ask on his behalf. Any ideas? Neotarf (talk) 21:13, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Charles Mortensen with SIL, Solomon Sara. Don't know anyone personally. User:Maunus would probably be a better person to ask, maybe Taivo. — kwami (talk) 21:20, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I have posted your answer on his page, and I've asked if he wants to take it further. Neotarf (talk) 22:58, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

The Slovakian linguist says, "Awesome, thanks." (If you ever need a copy of anything from the Bratislava library, he's probably the one to ask.) --Neotarf (talk) 20:39, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Korean provinces

Have you seen Talk:South Gyeongsang Province#Requested move? DrKiernan (talk) 07:50, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Potwari

Hi i m not adding a dictionary but pin pointing the very few differences of all punjabi dialects (which only we locals of these dialects can speak) which you foriegners impose as a language under a political agenda of DIVIDE AND RULE. you first declare english of US and Austrailia and South Africa as a different language then try it here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LanguageXpert (talk • contribs) 08:01, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

This isn't the place for making a political point. Your claims need to be sourced. Also, it isn't foreigners who are dividing the language, but the speakers themselves. — kwami (talk) 08:04, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I am a native potowari speaker....check Pakistan Census 1998 for rawalpindi division language distribution for your kind information...i had already provided you refrences on Saraiki page but your action speaks louder then words that you guys are biased and your agenda is to divide and rule.. u take challenge and learn these dialects and then challenge if i was wrong or right in posting the 30-50 words are only different and those are only due to minor vowel adjustments (U CAN RECHECK IT WITH ANY OTHER NATIVE SPEAKERS)...WE ALL ARE PUNJABI AND NOT EVEN A CHILD HAS LISTENED A WORD LEHNDA LANGUAGE...at a joke u make if u try to proof it a different language...you guys have double standards for english ...you guys have different agenda of spreading voilence instead of unity among people of pakistan and specially province punjab — Preceding unsigned comment added by LanguageXpert (talk • contribs) 09:47, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

We have native speakers who say the exact opposite. You still need sources. — kwami (talk) 09:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi kwami, if u feel blocking is the solution then you can go ahead, but you forgot the end objectivity of WIKIPEDIA is to provide true and honest facts.....you answer me what is the difference between a language and a dialect?????? LANGUAGE means totally un comprehensible and not mutually intelligible ...while dialect means mutually intelligible and communicate able because there is a difference of vowels few or slight gramical variations and regional influenced words... Potowari is perfectly communicatable and mutually intelligible with very few different words...potowari elected PUNJABI as there mother tongue in 1998 Pakistan census...u can check it by searching on net...Hopefully u will now better able to understand my point of view...i have a lot of references from various authors...But question remains that aint they human like us...the only difference is that they have written book....Written book can be untrue or true WHO KNOWS...bt i challenge you to proof my research wrong...sorry for harsh words but REMEMBER end objectivity is to present a true reflection.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LanguageXpert (talk • contribs) 16:22, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the solution is for you to provide reliable sources for your claims. We need people familiar with the topic. That's why I did not request a block despite you reverting 6× in 24hrs, after being warned about 3RR. But you still need to prove that you don't just have a political ax to grind. — kwami (talk) 22:29, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there is no clear, grammatical distinction between a language and a dialect. Even the measure of mutual intelligibility doesn't offer a clear distinction. There are some ambiguous cases, like that how Valincian relates to Catalan and how Galician relates to Portuguese. Often, linguists choose to accept the socially-motivated dialect and language divisions that speakers themselves make. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 17:01, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, Aeusoes1. LanguageXpert continues to make the same edits to Potwari language. At what point does he become an edit warrior and subject to a block? --Taivo (talk) 18:04, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

inappropriate comment

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. 146.90.43.8 (talk) 13:27, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Your edit summary "at least have the integrity to sign in" is totally inappropriate. It is long standing Wikipedia policy than an account is not required to edit. Please refrain from making similar comments in the future. Nobody Ent 17:47, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

The plain appearance of the situation is that the IP is an experienced user who is editing while logged out. We never do much about it unless there are more serious problems, but it is a minor violation of WP:SOCK for an experienced editor to edit logged out in order to avoid taking responsibility for the edits, as clearly seems to be the case here - the IP had never edited, and suddenly was editing the MOS and ANI. The reason we never do much about it is that it's so obvious, so unless the IP address is a proxy we usually just ignore it. But it's still fine to point out the lack of integrity in making edits while avoiding responsibility for them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:21, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

That IP, appearing from nowhere, with zero prior contributions, edited the WP-wide MOS page. From contributions to the talk page, clearly the IP was well-versed in the intricacies of a long-running, very involved, debate on an arcane project-space topic. It was clearly an experienced editor. Churn and change (talk) 21:22, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

This is unrelated, but please feel free to refract "Non-admin closure by a former admin." to "Non-admin closure." (see Wikipedia talk:MOS) Either is appropriate, and I did not know which you would prefer. I did not check to see if you were involved in the RfC. Apteva (talk) 20:59, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

FYI

User talk:Delphi234#Sock Case --Neotarf (talk) 22:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Ancient history. Apteva (talk) 04:30, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

About the description in　地理用語集 (2007)

In Talk:Ryukyu Islands, you wrote as follows:

>地理用語集 (2007) says that 琉球列島 (Ryukyu Archipelago) and 南西諸島 (Nansei Islands) are synonymous.
>Biogeographically, the 琉球列島 (Ryukyu Archipelago) encompasses the entire chain.

The book entitled "地理用語集" is only published by Yamakawa-Shuppan(山川出版社). But there is no such a description in 地理用語集(2002) and 地理用語集(2011). Moreover, in 地理用語集(2011), there is a quite different explanation of "南西諸島(Nansei Islands)" as "北の薩南諸島と南の琉球諸島に大別される。" i.e. "Nansei Islands(南西諸島)" is classified roughly into "Satsunan Islands(薩南諸島)" of north part and "Ryukyu Islands(琉球諸島)" of south part.
So, would you please quote 地理用語集 (2007) as Japanese precisely? -(112.70.7.67 (talk) 07:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC))

I don't have that source. It might be recorded on the talk page. — kwami (talk) 08:04, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I cannot understand what you said. Does it mean you told a lie? -(112.70.1.31 (talk) 14:41, 15 October 2012 (UTC))

No, it means look for yourself. — kwami (talk) 17:54, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Why ()?

You have done at least two moves of language articles to [[foo ()]]. What purpose is the () supposed to serve? — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 21:14, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I can't move it immediately to the proper name, so I move it to the name + (), and tag the proper location for deletion. — kwami (talk) 21:23, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

That's clever. If you have an explanatory edit summary, you can both set other editors' minds at ease and possibly even get the attention of administrators that can speed up the process for you. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 21:40, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I should probly say 'move to temp name'. — kwami (talk) 21:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Or "move to temp name until foo is deleted in X or fewer days" — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 21:50, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Lofoi

I ran across Lofoi, to which you gave indefinite full protection more than a year ago, and I've asked at RFPP that protection be lifted. I could do it myself, but I'm loth to unprotect without input from others. Would you mind commenting at RFPP? Nyttend (talk) 00:11, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Go ahead. I don't think it's a problem any more. — kwami (talk) 00:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the response; I've copied your comment to RFPP. Since I've raised it there, I'd rather let someone else unprotect so that I don't have the appearance of involvement. Nyttend (talk) 00:30, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

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Juliá–Colonna epoxidation

On April 16, 2012, you moved page Juliá-Colonna epoxidation to Juliá–Colonna epoxidation. But throughout the article, the en dash version of the name appears only once, while the hyphen version of the name appears many times. I would think that the article should consistently use the same name as the article title. —Anomalocaris (talk) 08:11, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Will do. And now we have search&replace to easily do that. — kwami (talk) 08:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

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Dh and Old French

I just wonder what is bad with the added sentence or/and what Wiki's rules it's broken. A question has risen about this digraph in Old French, so this information is quite useful, I think.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 08:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a source? You edit contradicts our Old French article. If that article in wrong, it should be fixed first, then the digraph added to the list of digraphs. — kwami (talk) 08:07, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, before I edited the article I've just answered in the WP:RD/L and provided some sources.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 08:22, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Good to know, but could you also correct the table of consonants at Old French, with your sources, both so that article is complete and so your addition to the digraph list is supported? — kwami (talk) 08:41, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Reading Sanskrit affects the brain

Sanskrit & Science Edit: My friend : It is not the question of it being bullshit, it has been proved scientifically after research and the related information for the same is provided in the request. I don't understand how you can refute a research finding which has been published.Title: Physiological patterns during practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique compared with patterns while reading Sanskrit and a modern language. Source: Travis F; Olson T; Egenes T; Gupta HK; The International Journal Of Neuroscience, 2001, vol. 109, issue 1-2, p 71, ISSN 00207454. ISBN 00207454. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rockthemind (talk • contribs) 19:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. People make all sorts of ridiculous claims about their language (or religion, or race, etc.), and some of it even gets published. I'd like to see the response of others in the field. If you think I'm being unreasonable, you can bring it up at WP:RS, because I really do expect this will be bullshit. If I'm wrong, well, truth will out. — kwami (talk) 19:22, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Here is the RS thread: WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Sanskrit and Science - Edit request - Verifying source. Answer is what you would expect. Churn and change (talk) 15:42, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Always a Good Time

Thought you would enjoy the name of Wikipedia's newest vandal: User:KwamiFKu --Taivo (talk) 11:22, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

This guy showed up within minutes of my last revert of User:LanguageXpert's latest baloney on the Saraiki language page, so its obviously a sock of that user. --Taivo (talk) 11:25, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Blocked permanently. Odd edits for a sock of LX, but maybe. Might want to run it by sock check.

Never mind. Blocking admin concluded it was a sock. — kwami (talk) 11:44, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Macro-Arawakan

In this edit, you've removed mention of Candoshi, Harakmbut and Puquina. It's not immediately clear to me why. Has the Macro-Arawakan proposal been reduced?

Also, in this edit, you've added a dialect "KadaupuritanaGuarú". I suspect that this is a copying error and only Guarú was intended. Is that correct? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:15, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

2nd is a typo. 1st are the groups common to the proposals, and what we have on the map. I redid the article: most of the text belonged at Arawakan, and we didn't spell out any of the proposals. Thanks for catching both of these. I must've been really tired when I edited the macro article. (BTW, from what I can access of Campbell & Grondona (2012), there doesn't seem to have been much change since 1997.) — kwami (talk) 20:44, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Etymology of Waicura

Hello,

I saw that you created the page Guaycura people. You write for this people as alternative writing of their name the word Waicura. I'm not sure of the source that use the word Waicura instead of Guaycura is Gursky (1966) ? (as he wrote Waikuri ).

What are the differences ? I'm biologist and i need to justify the etymology of the term i might use (and Waicura sounds better than Guaycura). It's to define a new variety of organism, which was found in this area of the Baja California (and the ICZN is more and more annoying on this point !).

Thanks for your help :-)

--Ndiverprime (talk) 17:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

They're pronounced the same. In Mexican Spanish, /w/ is generally written "gu", as in saguaro /sawaro/ cactus. So these are simply alternative spellings of the same name, like "k" for "c" or "sh" for "x". Not counting accent marks, I'd expect you might find Guaycura, Waikura, and anything in-between. Linguist List has Guaicura, Waikura, Waykuri, but I don't know specifically where they got those, though they do list several refs you could check. (They're not a reliable source, but they're good for references.)

Victor Golla (2011) California Indian Languages, fn 149 on p 313, says, "Although the established scholarly practice is to refer to Latin American indigenous languages in the local standard orthography (here Spanish), I make an exception with Guaycura/Waikuri, where an anglicized spelling is better known in the linguishic literature. As for the choice between Waikura and Waikuri, I follow Zamponi (2004) in preferring the latter."

Zamponi (2004) is the most recent account of the language. (You can find the ref at Waikuri language, which I just moved.) Of course, anthropologists may prefer a different spelling for the people than linguists do for the language, but any of these spellings would work. — kwami (talk) 18:22, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for this clear answer. When the data will be submitted (it's in preparation), i will explain you the details :-) --Ndiverprime (talk) 19:37, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for fixing contradictions. Art LaPella (talk) 17:46, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Sure. I'm amazed how smooth it's been, considering the drama we usually see at MOS. — kwami (talk) 19:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Xenon

Question - what was the reason for this edit?[2] Thanks. Apteva (talk) 04:24, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

To clean up the lead. No point listing it twice. — kwami (talk) 04:25, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I can see the point of removing

<!-- ({{pron-en|ˈzɛnɒn}}<ref>Xenon, entry in the [[Oxford English Dictionary]], prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, vol. 20, second edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. ISBN 0-19-861232-X (vol. 20), ISBN 0-19-861186-2 (set.)</ref> {{respell|ZEN|on}} or {{IPA-en|ˈziːnɒn|}}<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/xenon Xenon], entry in Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1), accessed on line February 19, 2001. Transcribed into IPA.</ref> {{respell|ZEE|non}}) -->

but did you intend to remove the uncommented portion as well? What is the reason for removing the pronunciation, particularly with no discussion on the talk page? Apteva (talk) 13:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

And why no edit summary ? If you had added an edit summary which said Removing pronunciation guide from lead as it is duplicated in the infobox then none of us would have been confused.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   14:33, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

But likely still objected. I do not normally look in info boxes to find pronunciation and expect to find it just like in a dictionary, right after the word. That it is duplicated in the info box I do not see as an issue. Apteva (talk) 17:00, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Per WP:NOTADICTIONARY, it probably shouldn't be there at all. "Xenon" is a common word found in any dictionary. We even give the pronunciation of 'iron' and 'gold'! Also, cruft building up in the lead makes the article less accessible. — kwami (talk) 17:05, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

But.....as one of the most prolific, and presumably experienced, editors on Wikipedia, and as an ex Admin, would not the simple courtesy of an edit summary smooth the waves, just a little ?  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   17:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I should have. I have a bad habit of not using edit summaries. — kwami (talk) 17:41, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't be there? Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of article that include the pronunciation of odd words. It both should be there and is there. Other than of course the edit war to remove it from this specific article. When someone reverts something the second step in BRD is not another R but D - take it to the talk page. There is nothing on the talk page about this other than an old discussion which concluded that the pronunciation was appropriate. And if you follow that discussion to the MOS discussion you end with the horrendous suggestion that maybe "links to Wiktionary from the bolded title word is the way to fix this". No, the way to "fix this" is to leave it alone. What editors have done a hundred thousand times is just fine. Apteva (talk) 18:00, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Fine, put it back if you like. But it's a WP:CONTENTFORK, which is a problem because soon the two transcriptions will contradict each other. Which does the reader follow then? Are you going to keep both on your watchlist, and police them so they don't diverge? Also, it's not an odd word. You can sound it out just by looking at it, and anyone with access to WP can look it up at say dict.com. Anyone with the most elementary paperback dictionary can look it up. Yes, what editors have done before is fine: when you move the pronunciation out of the lead, you move it out of the lead. — kwami (talk) 18:07, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I read MOS:PRON#Placement as backing Kwami up, though the policy comes just short of saying that we ought to prioritize the infobox pronunciation. The important question is whether the pronunciation of xenon in that article needs to be in both places. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 19:07, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can see there has been very limited discussion on that issue. When Xenon became an FA the pronunciation was not in the info box. Basically infoboxes are relatively new and tend to summarize information in the article, but in some cases clearly are used as a place to put info that appear in the text. As I reader, I find the pronunciation in the lead very helpful. To avoid the appearance of engaging in an edit war it would be preferable if someone other than myself restored it in Xenon. Thanks. But content fork only refers to two separate articles. Consistency though, is where the article says two different things in two different places, such as giving two different pronunciations. Apteva (talk) 00:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Technically it is in two separate articles. You can't edit both by hitting the edit button. — kwami (talk) 00:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Use some common sense, man. I seriously doubt that the location (or even duplication) of the pronunciation would, by itself, make-or-break featured article status; to point to the version the article was in when it gained featured article status as some sort of vague standard by which changes are evaluated would imply a publication date, which we don't actually have.

If you think that you can get a stronger consensus at MOS:PRON, I recommend proposing something there (I trust you're not the kind of person who tries to find fault to weasel your way out of adhering to policies. That would be thin and unpersuasive). Until then, we can only assume others agree. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 01:00, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits to Robert Bringhurst!

I appreciate your help maintaining NPOV in the article. A heads up, I've recently rewritten the section in question to (hopefully) further improve WP:NPOV compliance.

Cheers,

--Rawlangs (talk) 23:38, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

October 12

Please. Both of us have indicated our disagreement with each other quite enough on this subject.[3] I would recommend moving on to another topic and bringing the topic of airports and hyphens up at a later time. Time to move on. Apteva (talk) 11:53, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. — kwami (talk) 16:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Uto-Aztecan

Uto-Aztecan languages#Extinct languages also needs some linking. :) — Stevey7788 (talk) 04:06, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Bosnian language Intro

Hi K, I do not understand the reason for your revert. My modifications did not state anything factually different from what the introduction previously did, but rather had it re-phrased to more elegantly present the complex relationship. There is no consensus as far as I can tell between the "five" as you describe them, each article seems to have a slightly different introduction. Unless you have a better suggestion on how to put an end to incessant IP edits to the article (which quite frankly occur because of the blunt opening of the intro) do not revert the edits the first thing you do. I think we should give the re-phrasing a chance, and of course if you feel we should discuss any matter I am always at your disposal. Best, Praxis Icosahedron (talk) 06:01, 26 October 2012 (UTC).

Actually, I suspect it will increase the IP problem, because now people at the other articles will complain about this one. But if you're going to edit war, I won't exacerbate it. — kwami (talk) 06:11, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, IP edits to the articles in question had decreased quite a bit over the last year and these intros have been fairly stable. --Taivo (talk) 06:16, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually the intro to the Croatian language article differs a lot, and even goes as far as stating that Croatian is the Serbo-Croatian language, rather than a standardized register. Obviously there is no consensus that would make my edits incendiary. However, it does write the following about Serbo-Croatian: "Serbo-Croatian" in English, though this term is controversial for native speakers[7] and paraphrases such as "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" are therefore sometimes used instead, especially in diplomatic circles. I fail to see the inconsistency in my re-phrasing or why it should be suboptimal, on the contrary I believe it will have us avoid a lot of infuriated IP editing. It was never my intention to edit war with you K, I am sorry if I came across as such. Take care. Praxis Icosahedron (talk) 06:18, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

It says essentially the same thing, but is perhaps a little easier to twist into saying what the nationalists want. As for hr, it is different: while bs is only an incipient standard, AFAICT (there are claims of ancient roots, but I haven't seen a RS to back that up), hr consists of a number of dialects whose only commonality is that they're spoken by Croats. I.e., hr is paraphyletic. — kwami (talk) 06:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I've moved the talk over to the bs article, please find my reply there. Praxis Icosahedron (talk) 06:39, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Taivo, if you insist on reverting the really insignificant edits I made please motivate it here, and why you think they're detrimental to the article. Obviously this is a touchy subject for you, more so on the Bosnian than Croatian article it appears. My take is that the intro is currently too blunt and needs to be clarified. Praxis Icosahedron (talk) 06:23, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Bird taxonomy templates

I thought I should let you know that I have just reverted a couple of your edits to automatic taxobox templates. I don't know how or why, but one or other of them was causing Category:Taxoboxes with an invalid color to fill with hundreds of pages – mostly other automatic taxobox templates, but also a few dozen pages in the article namespace. If you can find a way to make your edit without that side-effect, then please go ahead and do it. If I had known how to do that, I'd have done it myself. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:24, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about that. That's really weird: the color is produced by 'Animalia', and that clade hasn't changed.

I restored one of the edits to see if we can narrow this down. Might've been a problem of having a class within a subclass, so I changed a couple ranks to generic 'clade'. It looks like the cat is emptying out even w the one revert; once it's down, I'll try Aves again and see if the rank changes fixed it. — kwami (talk) 17:33, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Apparently not. The category was starting to fill up again, so I restored Avialae/skip. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:55, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Saw that. Changed another clade (Sauropsida), which had been a "Branch", to clade. Once it empties out again, let's see if that's it. Odd thing is, other Avialae aren't generating the error. — kwami (talk) 17:58, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's a rank issue. The automatic taxobox system doesn't really care what rank something's at; it's just a label to stick beside the taxon name. I did wonder whether it was because of the large number of extra templates involved in Avialae above those used by Avialae/skip (perhaps related to the template depth limits that the automatic taxoboxes often exceed), but it should affect all the subordinate taxa equally, as you pointed out. I still don't understand it, but at least we've pinpointed the cause! --Stemonitis (talk) 18:01, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you know what the maximum depth is? Perhaps the other descendents don't go down as far as families of birds. — kwami (talk) 18:03, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

See Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded – it seems to be 40 at the moment. The odd thing is that many (most? all?) pages with automatic taxoboxes appear in the category, even though the articles display perfectly well. Picinae is one example; it transcludes 60 separate taxon-hierarchy templates, but the taxobox shows just fine. I think some people are still looking into the situation. I'm not sure anyone quite understands it; I'm sure I don't. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:08, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

We were thinking of trying s.t. like this for language infoboxes. Maybe better not!

I adjusted Avialae/skip so that it doesn't skip as much but there is no difference in how it displays, and the error cat continues to empty out. — kwami (talk) 18:16, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

… () titles

I stiǁ do not understand why you create these titles with () in them. I have just dealt with ǂAkhoe dialect. Why did that have to moved to a () title? Why could you not request a direct move from Haiǁom people? — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 09:31, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Because it would take three weeks of squabbling. Simply not worth it. — kwami (talk) 17:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Meixian Dialect and Raoping

Meixian is geographically a hundred and fifty plus kilometers removed from Raoping. Raoping is coastal whilst Meixian is an inland city. From a language point of view, Raoping's rising and departing tones have merged, making it distinct from Meixian dialect.... The Ping or level tones show pitch contours where Yin is a low level and Yang a high level contour, the exact opposite of Meixian. These several points alone make the two already phonologically different without getting into the specifics of the consonant and rime descriptions.

Please can you remove the re-direct of Raoping dialect to the Meixian dialect. I shall move the sentence "Ethnologue calls it Yue-Tai, and it also goes by the name Raoping." to the Talk page if anyone want to substantiate specifically the claim that it is Yue-Tai. I don't think Ethnologue's groupings are helpful at all. Dylanwhs (talk) 22:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any sources? Would Raoping fall under one of the other dialects listed at Hakka_Chinese#Dialects? — kwami (talk) 23:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Urdu

Hello. I've seen that you're reverting edits of the page when they are fully backed by sources. Please don't do it. Hindustanilanguage (talk) 09:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC).

I'm doubtful that "What a terrible joke they have made of [Islam]" is appropriate in a language article. See WP:SOAPBOX. I could find claims fully backed by sources that Islam and Hinduism are the work of the Devil, but that doesn't mean I should add them to our language articles.

If you think I'm wrong, take it to talk. You're the one who needs to justify your edits. See WP:BOLD. — kwami (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

" What a terrible joke they have made of the religion" does not necessarily mean Islam. Besides, if you read this carefully, you will find the removed text actually acknowledges liberal Pakistani attitude which a single person like you would like to see it removed from the article. Sad! Terrorist are honored and liberals are penalised on Wikipedia!! Hindustanilanguage (talk) 12:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC).

BTW, blogpost is quoted not as a historically significant fact but rather showing existence of liberals in a society supposedly dominated by hardliners. This quote can be replaced by any other quote to show the same. Hindustanilanguage (talk) 12:30, 31 October 2012 (UTC).

Of course it means Islam. The whole *section* is about Islam. That kind of narrow legalistic argument is dishonest.

It's up to you to find the quotes and sources, not anyone else. And it's up to you to demonstrate their relevance in a language article. You might try sources on Urdu. 17:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Date ranges

MOS:NDASH recommends using an n-dash for date ranges. MOS:SLASH says avoid using slashes. You are making changes that conflict with those sections of the MOS stating that your changes conform to the MOS. I can't see how this is so. Geraldo Perez (talk) 01:47, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

They aren't date ranges, they're seasons, which take a slash per the MOS and the guides it is based on. I've been leaving dashes for date ranges, unless I've make a mistake. So, the 1997/98 season of a 1989–2004 show. — kwami (talk) 01:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing in MOS:TV that recommends using slashes, the way you are editing. -- Wikipedical (talk) 01:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

See MOS:SLASH. It's not just TV, but any non-calendrical year, such as a fiscal year. — kwami (talk) 02:00, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Should MOS:SLASH be mentioned at MOS:TV? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 02:04, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I think so. — kwami (talk) 02:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, when was the MOS:SLASH guideline updated? We've been using the n-dash format for years. Not that I object to the change. I will, however, have to change some FAs/GAs which currently use the n-dash format. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

July 2007.[4][5] MOS:Dates&numbers had been edited a couple days earlier. — kwami (talk) 04:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Then it would appear that bot-created mass page moves from 2008 which moved hundreds of articles to the n-dash format, and which cited the MOS in the edit summary, were incorrect. Anyway, thanks for the reply. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:51, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Full linking and transclusion

You replaced full links in List of A.N.T. Farm episodes with relative links in a section of an episode article that is transcluded into the main article. Those links will not work in the main article. You may wish to check this in other edits you have done. Geraldo Perez (talk) 02:19, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Yikes! Thanks for pointing that out. — kwami (talk) 02:21, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I did that on half a dozen other articles. I don't know how many of them were a problem, but reverted all just in case. — kwami (talk) 02:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:Infobox language/ref

Hi! The template Template:Infobox language/ref has a reference error and is appearing on Category:Pages with broken reference names. As you have been the primary editor of the template, could you have a look at it? The code for "e16" is complex and I do not see what could be causing the error. Thanks! (The Documentation for the template is what is actually showing the error, but I believe fixing the template will solve the problem.) - Salamurai (talk) 03:06, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

It's probably in {{Ethnologue16}}, which is used by the ref sub-template, in part of the coding that is different from {{Ethnologue15}}. — kwami (talk) 04:24, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if the problem isn't that {{Ethnologue16}} needs you to send an explicit language tag in order to supply the reference. The /ref doesn't seem to supply a default value to e16, and that would lead to an empty ref tag, wouldn't it? VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 06:23, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

You were right: Just needed a final 'else' statement. I undid the fix, however, because we want the template to generate an error if there is no language code. We can't ref a page that doesn't exist! Maybe there's a way to fix the error on the doc page without fixing it in the infobox? — kwami (talk) 16:06, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Please check my edits

Hi Kwami. I'd appreciate it if you could check my recent edits; I think they're all improvements, but I'd like your view. I think the lead of the Khoisan languages article needs some more work. 203.118.187.196 (talk) 08:52, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure. They all look fine. — kwami (talk) 16:05, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

User:Frenchdreamer

I suspect that that user is a sock of some of our previous troublemakers at the Saraiki language, Hindko language, etc. complex. I've already reverted him three times today at Saraiki language and he just keeps on going. --Taivo (talk) 17:53, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Probably. Tagged his page as a suspected sock; warned about EW and vandalism, will request block if he does it again. — kwami (talk) 18:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Mbunda language

kwami I have reinstated the previous version of Mbunda language which was a contribution of Aflis (talk). It has all the references and I do not think there was need to revise it the way you did without a consensus Libingi (talk)Libingi (talk) 20:31, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Answered on the talk page. We need WP:reliable references, not just something found on the web, especially when it is demonstrably wrong. I deleted the sections which were not properly sourced, or said unencyclopedic things such as the language being "lazy". — kwami (talk) 20:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

GA reviewing

You may or may not care about this, but I know that you do careful work here, so I thought I'd ask your opinion. I'm alarmed by the number of GA reviews launched on articles that are nothing of the sort. They often pass the review, and then Wikipedia looks stupid. I'm asking a few editors to recommend the best place to open a discussion of how to strengthen the process. My chief concern is that some editors are evaluating articles on topics about which they know too little to make an informed judgment about coverage gaps. I think I see a way to address this without fundamentally altering the process, but the discussion should probably not be confined to editors already vested in the process. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:14, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I know very little about GA. It's not s-t I use much. Village pump? Do we currently involve the relevant wikiproject?

For those which pass, is contesting the evaluation not practical? (Better not to have to, but until there's some reform.)

— kwami (talk) 16:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Since leaving the note, I've learned that the problem is procedural. Editors seem to be conducting GA reviews without following the requirement that projects attached to the article are to be notified, along with major contributors. I didn't know this was even a requirement. It does seem to be more difficult to get rid of a dubious rating than to grant a GA in the first place. This is probably just one more instance of what I've observed the last several months: fewer editors minding the store. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:08, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I see elsewhere you noted that "point 4" covers this. However, there's nothing like that in the instructions at Wikipedia:Good article nominations. Could this be the problem? Could you link me to point 4? — kwami (talk) 18:03, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I was mistaken: it's for undertaking an individual reassessment: WP:Good article reassessment. So yes, I would prefer that notifying the projects be part of the original nomination. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:23, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

How's this?[6] — kwami (talk) 18:37, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

It also looks like you can use individual assessment for GAR. That is, you can delist it yourself if it does not meet GA requirements. You should notify the wikiprojects and wait for feedback, but since that should have been done to begin with, that's probably not a bad thing. On the other hand, those instructions are designed for an actual GA that has been corrupted over time, and might be fixed up if people are notified of the GAR. For an article that should never have passed to begin with, and isn't any better now, I'd be tempted just to revert and to inform the nominator that they need to fix it up and resubmit the nomination. — kwami (talk) 21:10, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your input on this. I'm aware of many articles that are in bad shape, but that's just the nature of the beast, and I don't let them bother me until or unless I'm willing to improve them. And of course the purpose of project ratings, which the general reader may not see since they're confined to the talk page, is only to help projects prioritize their efforts. The older reader feedback is a generally useless "like" function that tells you nothing (I've seen an article with five sources, three of them dubious, get a 4 for trustworthiness, while articles with scores of detailed footnotes from dozens of high-quality sources may receive a 2.8), and I much prefer the new one. But I do think it's bad for WIkipedia's credibility if we rate an article as GA and advertise that fact at the top of the page when the article is no such thing. So I confess in part I sought the views of others because I wondered "am I alone in this feeling?" I appreciate your actual change to the guidelines. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:16, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

If a bad article is listed GA, I think it should be delisted regardless of whether you're willing to improve it. — kwami (talk) 20:59, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Is it feasible to generate a list of articles that gained GA status without the relevant projects being notified? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 03:47, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Misleading English approximations

Please, see Talk:Esperanto phonology#English approximation as you requested me to discuss it. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 22:06, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

آپکے جذبات کا احترام

جناب والا! میں نے آپکے جذبات کااحترام کرتے ہوئے ایک مخصوص فقرے کو یونہی چھوڑ دینے کا فیصلہ کیا. پھر بھی آپکا اعترض برقرار ہے؟ تعجّب ہے!Hindustanilanguage (talk) 05:26, 3 November 2012 (UTC).

Yes, nothing's changed, really. There's lots of racist language in English, for example, but English language doesn't deal with it. Like I said, if you can find coverage in linguistic sources, that would demonstrate it's notable; also, if other editors I respect agree with you, that would affect my opinion. Actually, that entire section might be removed: it's only sourced to a newspaper article, which is not a reliable source of linguistic information. But you're the one who added that section in the first place,[7] and now you say you have to add more POV stuff because the first bit you added was biased! That doesn't make much sense. — kwami (talk) 08:10, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Correction: Only a part of my posting is kept and the rest is removed. What I added highlighted a spirited hatred generally prevailing because of grammatical / clergy's nuances. But, at the same time and while acknowledging this, it is also important to see that the character of ordinary Pakistanis is NOT presented in bad colour. Where's the proof that there are liberal Pakistanis who disagree with Mullahs and commonly accepted rules of grammar? We need to highlight that as well. Hindustanilanguage (talk) 09:52, 3 November 2012 (UTC).

But you're the one who added the stuff you now say is offensive. So who's fault is that?

Anyway, none of it is reliably sourced, so it should all be removed. — kwami (talk) 09:56, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

"Gentleman, you shouldn't do this." is a statement - one person can be happy at listening "gentleman" and other will be peeved at hearing "you shouldn't do this". Hindustanilanguage (talk) 10:20, 3 November 2012 (UTC).

Ovambo -> Owambo

People who speak Afrikaans pronounce the letter "w" as the letter "v" sounds in English. This has brought about the common (but incorrect) pronunciation in an English sentence of "vambo" rather than "wambo." In any of the Oshiwambo dialects, "wambo" sounds like "wambo" and not "vambo." Additionally, "vambo" is occasionally used in a derogatory way to insult. I can find no appropriate reason to use "vambo" over "wambo." Thus, I would agree with the previous person suggesting to change all occurrences of "vambo" to "wambo." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oshihuna (talk • contribs) 10:41, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, no. The English name is "Ovambo". It's not used as an insult in English, at least not one I've ever heard. — kwami (talk) 12:22, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

More from the sock twin at Saraiki language

I laughed out loud when I saw this posted on my Talk Page. --Taivo (talk) 02:47, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

He's been blocked for a week, so no more chuckles for a while, I'm afraid. Unless he creates another sock. — kwami (talk) 02:50, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Airport names

Kwami, thanks for your help at some of the recent airport RMs and such. We didn't get the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport fixed to use en dash, but as you noted there, "the slash isn't too bad." I agree. The bigger problem is the moderate number of airports still titled with odd hyphenated constructions. I'm having trouble figuring out some of these. It seems to be more common in some European languages to do this, hyphenating a city name before an airport name (like Madrid-Barajas Airport was, from Aeropuerto de Madrid-Barajas), or an airport name before a town name where it is located (which seems be what Luxembourg - Findel Airport was). The actual names seem to be Barajas Airport and Luxembourg Airport, though our article calls the latter Findel Airport. The hyphenated form seems to be most common in table listings and such, where city name and airport name are combined for disambiguation, tightly to save space. Do these various European languages even use things like en dash that we can use in English to try to make such relationships more clear to readers? And is en dash really the best answer in Madrid–Barajas Airport, where the connected elements aren't parallel city names or people names? Would Madrid Barajas Airport be better? Many of our articles that list flights use short hyphenated forms, like London-Heathrow, even where the article titles use a more conventional style with space, like London Heathrow Airport; I've been changing some from hyphen to space. Any insights you have would be welcome. Dicklyon (talk) 22:50, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Presumably Madrid Barajas Airport or Barajas Airport (Madrid). "London-Heathrow" is common enough, but you might want to check with Noetica. We don't need to copy national punctuation. If you consider that Spanish punctuation might be as variable as English punctuation is, you wouldn't expect a regular correspondence anyway. — kwami (talk) 23:01, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Not suggesting copying it; just trying to understand it. Dicklyon (talk) 23:08, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Neoaves

Hi. Jetz et al. is just based on the nodes of Ericson et al. (2006) and Hackett et al. (2008). They just assumed that all genera were monophyletic.

• Ericsonet al. (2006) Diversification of Neoaves: Integration of molecular sequence data and fossils. Biol Lett 2(4): 543-7
• Hackett et al. (2008) A phylogenomic study of birds reveals their evolutionary history. Science 320(5884): 1763-8

--Ornithodiez (talk) 02:38, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Request for your comment, please

It may not be in your interest or work but you seem to be highly educated in linguistics. There is a user who wants to merge the two Punjabi Wikipedias because he wants a unified Punjabi, as you may know Western and Eastern Punjabi have been regognised as separate languages and uniting them just because one is an activist on the topic does not mean one should change wikipedia. Your comments here would be very appreciated. Thanks — VibhasKS (talk) 14:28, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I really think it should be up to the people who use those encyclopedias. It's isn't really a linguistic matter. — kwami (talk) 19:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Hello

Hello. I've been noticing the edits you've been making to episode lists of various shows regarding how to organize the years of the seasons (for example, 2003-04 to now 2003/04). It's amazing how now all of a sudden that's been an issue considering we've been listing the years the known way for years now. To be honest, I like how the years have usually been listed despite what this says: [8], because they looked better. Now they just look a bit off. I think some one should challenge this. - Jabrona - 16:17, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure. You can bring it up at the MOS. It's been there since 2007, but not followed very well. — kwami (talk) 01:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Bharati Braille

Hi, in this edit you included the words "Thus and actual", which I don't understand. Can the words "and actual" be deleted? – Fayenatic London 08:56, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Just a typo. Thanks for catching it. — kwami (talk) 09:15, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah, fine. I'm glad I asked, as I would have "corrected" it wrongly. – Fayenatic London 00:28, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

MOS

		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)

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 23:43, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Need some advice on Tongva people

The endonym "Tongva" is only attested from a single source (Merriam), but it has been taken up by several groups of that heritage as an alternative to "Gabrielino", which is an exonym that some of them find offensive because of the California Mission period. Another group is now asserting that "Kizh" (which is also the Gabrielino word for "house") is the correct endonym. The source for that, a German work (along with some anecdotal reports evidently without sources) is no worse than the source for Tongva. All of these tribal groups are in conflict over legitimacy and gambling, so there is a lot of POV pushing, but it seems to me that the NPOV approach is to rename the article Gabrielino people and discuss the two endonyms. You have a lot of experience with this sort of issue; does that approach seem reasonable?--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Should at least be a redirect! Partly depends on how common Kizh/Kij is in English. I've never come across that apart from lists of alt names. Ethnologue calls their language 'Gabrielino-Fernandeño', Golla 'Gabrielino (Tongva)', and Mithun 'Gabrielino', so per COMMONNAME 'Gabrielino' may be the way to go. Taivo is probably the person to ask, though. — kwami (talk) 05:41, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!--Curtis Clark (talk) 23:44, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Kwami's right. I've never seen "Kizh/Kij" before your question on my Talk Page. Linguists have used Gabrielino much more commonly and are slowly switching to Tongva. --Taivo (talk) 00:31, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Considering that Tongva seems to have a POV attached to it among current descendents (and Gabrielino/Gabrieleño has more ghits than Tongva), do you see any problem with moving the article to Gabrielino people? --Curtis Clark (talk) 00:49, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I see no problem from a scholarly point of view, but you never know which editors are going to show up to object one way or the other. --Taivo (talk) 20:49, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Map

Please explain why you instantly reverted my new colour scheme on the map as I promised to do. You said you had no objections. Fry1989 ^eh? 23:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I had several objections, which you saw on the talk page. I did explain my revert, in both the edit summary (you conflated two categories) and in greater detail on the talk page, but it took a minute to compose and post it. — kwami (talk) 23:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Second language acquisition

I have proposed that Category:Second language acquisition be renamed to Category:Second-language acquisition, and I am notifying you because you either participated in discussions about the hyphenation of "second(-)language acquisition" on the article's talk page, or because you participated in the previous CfD discussion. I would be grateful if you could give your opinion on the latest discussion, which you can find at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 November 10#Category:Second language acquisition. Thank you for your time. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 03:13, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Yue Chinese Number

Kwamikagami, where does it say that Yue Chinese is 59 million in your book? Please provide me with the page link. Sonic99 (talk) 03:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The full list is at List of languages by number of native speakers. There is no page link that I know of. — kwami (talk) 04:48, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

How did you know the number of Yue Chinese speakers? I need to see where you got that number from the Nationalencyklopedin book. You can't say this number is right without providing the evidence for people to see. You can't fabricate something that isn't there! The List of languages by number of native speakers is also poorly sourced. Sonic99 (talk) 03:03, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

If you cannot access the source, and think I'm lying, then contact someone who can access it. You've given no valid objection to the figures. — kwami (talk) 20:17, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you can help.

You seem to know a thing or two about linguistics. I was wondering if you could help with a phonetic transcription. The details are here. If not, do you know someone who could? InedibleHulk (talk) 18:00, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure. Done. — kwami (talk) 20:25, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:04, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Coalition recognition map update

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/13/syria-crisis-france-idUSP6E8KO01V20121113 Add France if you could, thanks Sopher99 (talk) 18:20, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. — kwami (talk) 22:20, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

IPA consonant chart

Hey, I would like to inquire after the IPA consonant chart image that's used as part of the main template. I couldn't help noticing that the current image used is not much changed from the original image used as far back as 2005, and so much data is actually missing from the current IPA chart template (which is not at all helpful if most of the letters on the chart are missing to begin with, due to the lack of a usable font). I recently actually got two fonts (Junicode and Thryomanes) that both display most of the letters, so really it is not too much of a problem to me anymore, but I am in fact preparing to exchange some language information with a friend of mine and I decided it would likely be of much benefit to him if he didn't have to download these two fonts to see the information I'm sending over.

So, I devised a new IPA chart image that's more or less a shopped version of the current chart although it displays all of the current letters, and I was then wondering if this might be of use to any others learning the IPA? Here's the image: [9] - Znex (talk) 02:36, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. It doesn't have sufficient resolution to distinguish the diacritics, unfortunately. The chart we're using has all the actual letters; there are all sorts of combinations with diacritics that wouldn't even fit on the chart, so at some point it just isn't practical to try to include everything. — kwami (talk) 04:04, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I understand. Thanks for getting back. - Znex (talk) 05:06, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

RTL again

Can you please check if I did it right in this edit and fix if not? -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:53, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

It looks good to me, but I don't know Hebrew. — kwami (talk) 18:53, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Languages of DRC

So I saw that Jabiyan was erased and I was wondering why. I posted here but didn't know if you would get a notification, so there's the link. Thanks, Theuglyman (talk) 01:44, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

It was just a vandal, judging by the other edits. No evidence of such a language. — kwami (talk) 08:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Just googled 'Jabiyan Language,' the third site ("jabiyanfreedom") mentions the language. Theuglyman (talk) 16:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

That's not a valid ref. Assuming it exists at all, it would presumably be a dialect of Rwanda. There is no other language with 100k speakers in that area. AFAICT, there is no mention in the lit of hunter-gatherers in the area apart from the Twa. — kwami (talk) 17:41, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. If it was a dialect it certainly wouldn't be language isolate. If I come across something I'll be sure to run it by you before editing anything. Theuglyman (talk) 20:06, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

splitting Tib Bsm

Hi, Kwami. You've helped with the Tib Bsm article in the past. If you have a moment, would you like to check:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tibetan_Buddhism.

I've proposed something there that would involve work for me but would improve the Tib Bsm article immensely in my opinion. It's turned out to be contentious. I have something coming up in the new year that would make it hard for me to devote the time to this then, so it is now or never. Your thoughts would be most welcome. Moonsell (talk) 00:08, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, not a topic I know much about, so I don't have a strong opinion. — kwami (talk) 19:57, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Era discussion

The interminable era discussion is now at the top of the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers page, which is autoarchived. What happens, given that the RfC is still open? Cynwolfe (talk) 15:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Just move it back, and add a comment that you did so. The recent date on your comment should prevent it from being rearchived for a while. — kwami (talk) 19:57, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Australia (continent)

Can you tell me or help me why you delete "First People", I need some help on editing. Maybe I can work with you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sammei111106 (talk • contribs) 01:57, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there were editing problems, but also some factual errors that did not reflect the sources well. I think the section would be useful once it's fixed up, but I won't have much time this coming week. — kwami (talk) 18:29, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

IPA keyboard

Hi,

I plan to add IPA support to jquery.ime, a typing tool that my team in Wikimedia is developing.

Do you use any keyboard layout to type IPA, or do you just copy it from somewhere?

Thanks! --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 22:01, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I created a Dvorak IPA keyboard for use on my own computer. Otherwise I mostly use the edit window. — kwami (talk) 05:26, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

How do you say "Ny (digraph)" when reading aloud?

Hi, Kwami, I posted the above question on the ny (digraph) talk page and haven't gotten an answer so far. Do you know the answer? DBlomgren (talk) 12:29, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Telugu phonology

Hi, could you take a look at Telugu language#Phonology? It badly needed cleanup. I've already taken care of the consonants, but I don't know what to do with the vowels. Furthermore, according to Telugu alphabet, the fricative that has been under "velar" is actually /h/, but I can't (dis)confirm either. --JorisvS (talk) 17:44, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Don't have access to my Dravidian stuff right now. Maybe in a couple weeks; remind me if I forget. — kwami (talk) 00:21, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Altaic

Hi Kwami,

I'm considering doing a revamp of Altaic languages to better reflect the modern outlook on the theory. Do you have any opinions on which sources would be best to use for this?

Regards, Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:00, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I really don't. Most of what I've seen has been pretty old, apart from Starostin. He should def. be ref'd, but I don't know how well received he's been. — kwami (talk) 22:10, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Alright. I'll search around on my own a bit and see what I can turn up. Thanks anyway! ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Misuse of "minor edit" tag

Hi Kwami,

The minor edit tag is only supposed to be used for uncontroversial edits and reverting clear vandalism. You have many times reverted good faith edits to Solar System as part of an edit dispute using the minor edit tag. (Most recent edit.) There are plenty of other issues with your (and others') behaviour on that article, but using the minor edit tag for edits you know to be controversial is clearly inappropriate. Please stop it now.

—Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 23:38, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Hardly good-faithed edits, but I won't tag them 'minor' anymore.

I agree with your edit, BTW. — kwami (talk) 01:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I AM NEW TO THIS but you are wrong sorry

so i havent seen the warning messages, but btw, why do you keep lowering number of serbs and highering up number of croats on english wikipedia? how is it possible that number of serbs in world drasticly dropped from 12-14 million to only 10 million, and number of croats drastically raised from 6,5 or 7 million to up to 9 million all of a sudden?

how is it possible that there are 4,5 million more croats in world besides 4,5 million in balkans, and out of 8,5 million serbs in balkans only 1,5 million serbs in world? as long as i know serbs had more wars, reasons for leaving their lands, but also a large nuber of people makes a large number of people leave lands... so it would be normal and civilized to put these numbers at.... croats around 7 million in world and serbs up to 12 million in world, (as you should know that throughout whole history, the number of serbs was always one time bigger or more, than the number of croats)... figures for macedonians are also massive... there are 1,5 million macedonians in their country.... how can there be exact or even higher number of them in world? while number of serbs is that much lower? ... no. of macedonians worldwide should be put to 2-2,5 million max. in world..... i live in diaspora myself and believe me i can precise very good.... and also by the old datas that were available in past years.... for the number of peoples....

also number of serbian language speakers used to be 11 million few years ago, how can it just fall to up to 9 million suddeny? .... there are almost 9 million native speakers only on balkans... than in diaspora believe me, serbian diaspora is about 4 million strong and out of 4 million between 1,5 and 2 million serbs speak the language..... while there are also second language speakers... atleast half of albanians in kosovo can speak serbian, about 70% of slovenians can speak or understand serbian (or serbo-croatian) and also a couple of hundreds of thousands of macedonian can do it also....

hope you take some of my solutions and check up those things... coz the data is obviously wrong... and btw sorry for intrusion .... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Правичност (talk • contribs) 05:50, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I am not making a claim. I don't know how many Serbs there are. But you need a ref to support your claims. (And not an advocacy web site, per my comments on your talk page.) Certainly, when a ref says there are X Serbs, and you change it to say there are Y, you are falsifying the data. — kwami (talk) 05:54, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

found sources

i am new to this so i have no knowledge of how to manage texts on wikipedia i can do it only amauterly. i have found a perfect reference to which i have aproof of my data, but i dont know how to add this all on.... i suppose you wrote these texts on wikipedia, i will give you a link to this homepage (its an official page of serbian diaspora) that shows exact estimated numbers of how many serbs live in certain country and how many serbs there are outside the balkans and you can cleary see it mentions that number 4 million should be the maximum, while mor eprecise would be probably 3,5 million... so however we turn it (it is known that there were 8,5 million serbs in former yugoslavia) and that today the number is slightly lower due to moving to other countries and lower birth rate in serbia) if there are 6 million serbs in serbia and about 2.120 000 mor eserbs in neighbouring countries as you wrote yourself (and you forgot to add data for kosovo (130 000 - 140 000) ... then there should be about 8,35 million serbs in the balkans right? .. then add an addititional 3,5 to 4 million serbs in diaspora which is written here http://www.srpskadijaspora.info/vest.asp?id=2056 and we gain a number of about 12 or 12 million + strong in the whole world . right? .... there are also numbers written for number of serbs in usa (about 1 mil.) and germany about 800 000 as i wrote my self when i was editing.... so i would please ask you to use this ref. i gave you http://www.srpskadijaspora.info/vest.asp?id=2056 ... to write the new data on, coz i dont know how to add references or similar things myself on wikipedia, coz i just made account today. would you hange the numbers on those pages now that you have new reliable and correct source please? thank you.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Правичност (talk • contribs) 06:18, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

As I said, we don't use advocacy websites, because they tend to exaggerate. What we need is a WP:secondary source which can tell us which claims are accurate. Your website may be accurate, but without verification we can't know that.

You might want to post your link at Talk:Serbs to see if other people can verify it. Once it's verified, there should be no problem repeating the info on other articles.

BTW, if you think the Croatian data are exaggerated, you can challenge them (e.g. on the talk page), but you'll still need a reliable ref for any new numbers you replace them with. — kwami (talk) 06:23, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

hmmm i dont see this website as advocacy though.... its clearly written in serbian, about the reasearches that were made worldwide through different serbian diaspora organisations, media, societies... numbers of them were counted and estimated... it is clearly just showing off the data of the reasarches made, and i dont see where more relialble data can be found but on the official website of serbian diaspora.... nevermind though ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Правичност (talk • contribs) 06:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

ok thank you for your info ill see what i can do ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Правичност (talk • contribs) 06:44, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

You may be right about that, but how can we know? Most people want to inflate the number of their language, nation, religion, etc, thinking that makes them more important. (And also want to diminish the number of their competitors.) This is true for English (you should have seen the outrage when we ranked English after Spanish by number of native speakers!), Catholicism, you name it. So for such figures we really do try to find unimpeachable sources, such as linguistic refs for speaker numbers, non-sectarian refs for numbers of believers, etc, preferably written by people who have no stake in the outcome. And ethnicity is difficult because it's so amorphous, so different approaches can give wildly different results. — kwami (talk) 06:53, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

yes i can clearly understand wht you mean. but im not a psycho-patriot myself to wanna make my people look like they are counting zillions.... im trying to bring back the realistic numbers .... that used to be.... surely they have changed, in time, but they couldnt have changed, inn millions just in few 5 or 10 years.... while i saw number of croats rising and rising... it looks just so ... (procroat and antiserb) the datas that have been changing for some time i mean.... so ive posted my opinions and my web link on the talk:serbs page... and see what happens, hope changes will occure... i think some nations have their numbers counted way to high while others are being minimized.. like once i saw something that seemed very redicioulus comparing the categories of american serbs and american norwegians ... it is known that at the end of 19th century there were only over 20 000 montenegrin serbs in usa (not counting those from other lands) ... while norwegians had a slightly smaller number (considering also they were much smaller nation) .... then i see data on norwegians today... that there are over 4 or 5 million american norwegians in the us, while there are only 172.000 serbs and i was like wtf.... everyone knows there are 350 000 serbs and ancestral ones in just chicago and illinois area alone.... so these things kinda anger me... such things cant be possible.... sur ethe censuses reveal their numbers, but estimations are more wide , and normally its hard to precise ethnicity ... (for example alot of serbs in usa declare as yugoslavs , slavs or eastern european or just american) ... so its impossible to give out correct number.... but if others can make estimations for themselves i dont see the reason why some cannot.... and they dont even give out the real sources out, it just stays like that on wikipedia and its cool. (btw i cant remember wheter was it the norwegians i checked out or swedes or some else coz it was some time ago but they were clearly smaller than serb nation)... anyway thnx for your good info it will come in handy and it already did for me — Preceding unsigned comment added by Правичност (talk • contribs) 07:45, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

You may not be a "psycho-nationalist", as you put it, but the writers of the website may be. Or more likely (since the figures don't seem ridiculous), simply people who have pride in their ethnicity. There's nothing wrong with that (and how pathetic it is when people have no pride in who they are), but even benign pride has the danger that they will be selective in their reporting of pop figures. I'm not even saying it's a conscious decision: they may simply think the higher numbers look more correct, and so choose them, when an uninvolved editor might evaluate them differently. That's why we insist on WP:reliable sources. — kwami (talk) 00:44, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Extended periodic table limit

Previously there seemed to be a large consensus that elements higher than Z=173 cannot exist which seemed to be backed by large number of scientific articals. Why is the limit now z=218? Robo37 (talk) 09:52, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

No idea. I didn't have anything to do with that, did I? — kwami (talk) 20:56, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

173 was based on a misunderstanding of the theoretical calculations. While it's true that at Z>173 the 1s states enter the negative continuum, that in itself does not stop the atom from existing. Instead the atom remains stable and bound if the 1s shell is not ionized, and the 1s states mixed with the states in the negative continuum to form a bound "resonance" state. Double sharp (talk) 07:34, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Your ref only says that for 173. Perhaps they mean to include all elements above 173, but we really should have a clear ref and some consensus. You reverted an editor who extended the table still further, but per your argument here you had no good reason to do so (apart from miscalculating the # of elements in each period). 173 is discussed in the lit, higher ones hardly ever are. Perhaps we should just stop w period 8. Better yet, link to a relativistic chart as actually used in the community. — kwami (talk) 07:39, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the best solution (that preempts all such arguments) would be to shift everything to a relativistic chart (like in {{Compact extended periodic table}}). As for my revert of the editor who extended it to period 11, we have to stop somewhere anyway, and stopping at period 8 wouldn't change anything. With a relativistic table, we can at least say that we stopped here because no reliable source has gone further (as the calculations are no longer trivial). Double sharp (talk) 07:43, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think that probably would be best.

Maybe a silly question, but why are 167–172 placed in period 9? Is that just to preserve numeric order?

Also, are 165 & 166 really the only two which are out of order?

In the non-extended table, what do you think of adding a ductile–brittle distinction to the transition metals? Seems are practical as metaloid. — kwami (talk) 07:50, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

167–172 are placed in one period because the 9p_1/2 (167–168) and 8p_3/2 (169–172) subshells are of comparable energy and form a single p-shell comparable to the non-relativistic 2p and 3p shells. I suppose an argument could be made for placing all of them in period 8, but that hasn't been done.

139 & 140 are placed by Pyykkö out of order into the slots under 113 & 114, but that seems strange to me, particularly because he (and everyone else) seems to predict them to behave chemically as superactinides instead(!), and also states that he's just placing them there for bookkeeping (to account for the 8p_1/2 electrons, which however are filled much earlier). His arguments that the 138⁵⁺ and 138⁶⁺ ions don't contain 8p_1/2 electrons seem weak to me, as the Eu²⁺ ion also doesn't contain 6s electrons.

You should really join our huge discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements regarding element categorization (i.e. H, Se, Po, At, Fl, etc., and how to best divide up the periodic table into chemical series) and the extended periodic table. Double sharp (talk) 08:04, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite. I'm a bit overwhelmed right now, but hopefully I'll get a chance to take a look. — kwami (talk) 16:31, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Talkback template

Hello, Kwamikagami. You have new messages at Template talk:Talkback.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--Redrose64 (talk) 10:35, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Your edit to Template:Taxonomy/Avialae/skip

Can you clarify what you were doing with this edit? I think reverting it will address the concerns at Template_talk:Automatic_taxobox#Expansion_depth_again, but I want to make sure whatever you were trying to do here doesn't get wrecked. Thanks! ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:39, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Hadoti, language

You marked Hadoti, language for WP:RfD in August, but I cannot find where it actually was posted into a discussion. I was alerting you because I found it at Wikipedia:Database reports/Old deletion discussions and I'm trying to clean up some unfinished tags. You can do what you wish with this information. It should probably be deleted, but that is just my opinion. -- ТимофейЛееСуда. 22:28, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

No discussion because it's supposed to be a quick delete. Useless as a rd. — kwami (talk) 05:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I understand, but it hasn't been deleted even though it was tagged on the 28th of August I was just letting you know about it so that you could either push to have it deleted or we could remove a tag that isn't being paid attention to. -- ТимофейЛееСуда. 14:35, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

what are you doing?

Who are you and what are you doing to the Dhivehi pages? There is no such thing recognised as Maldivian language, There is only Dhivehi language. Maldivian is not a word used for a language. --AtefAadd (talk) 01:20, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Of course it is. But if you want to change the name of the article, bring it up on the talk page, or request a page move. — kwami (talk) 01:24, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

You have changed Dhivehi language to something that is not recognized. Can you please change it back to what it was before? --AtefAadd (talk) 01:32, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

It is recognized. "Maldivian" is the normal name of the language. Per WP:COMMONNAME, it is what we call the article. If you wish to move the article, please convince us on the talk page that "Divehi" is the normal form in English. — kwami (talk) 03:52, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

No Maldivian is not a common language of maldives, don't vandalize maldives pages, you do not know about Maldives, and the language of Maldives, you're involving in a edit war, don't vandalize the Maldives pages as you can see i'm from Maldives, and i'm a native speaker of Dhivehi so i know what my language is. --AtefAadd (talk) 07:18, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

But this is not the Maldivian wikipedia, so the name of the language in Maldivian is irrelevant. That is also not what "vandalism" means. You started the edit war; it is up to you to demonstrate your claim. So far you have not done so. I suggest you take it up on the talk page of the article. — kwami (talk) 07:28, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Maldivian is not a WP:COMMONNAME of the language of Maldives, How many times i have said, you have a degree about Maldives or something? --AtefAadd (talk) 07:36, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

You can insist that the Maldives are made out of green cheese, but words mean nothing. You need to *demonstrate* it. — kwami (talk) 07:50, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

And what words do you think you have revelation from the highest? --AtefAadd (talk) 08:18, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Google results are "Dhivehi language": 73,200 results, "Maldivian language": 28,400 results for the web; 2-0 for news; and 1,600-1,280 for books. Sorry Kwami, but "Dhivehi" is the WP:COMMONNAME. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 10:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Google results over 700–900 are basically worthless. See which of the two words English speakers can identify. Anyway, that's an argument for a move request. It doesn't belong here. — kwami (talk) 16:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

That's not how WP:COMMONNAME works, and you know it. It's not how many people would recognize a particular word, rather what people actually call the thing; otherwise, every language would be called "English" - clearly an absurd outcome. Those people that talk about this language call it "Dhivehi". They do it in news accounts, they do it in literature, they do it on the web. You are in the wrong here. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 00:53, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

That makes no sense whatsoever. If people don't recognize a word, they obviously don't use it. Anyway, the discussion does not belong here. — kwami (talk) 02:21, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. People that don't recognize the word aren't going to be talking about it anyway, so it really doesn't matter whether my parents would recognize the word Dhivehi or Maldivian (they recognize neither, BTW), they are never going to talk about the Dhivehi language in their entire life. How many people recognize a term is absolutely ludicrous a metric. WP:COMMONNAME is about usage: how the people who actually talk about something refer to it. And in this case, it's Dhivehi. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 07:45, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

• Hey Kwami, this stops here, one way or another. Do you wish to continue this conversation with this user? If no, I will block them next time they post here. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 18:33, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. No, I don't, not when their position is that the article is none of my business, or that enforcing consensus is vandalism. If we have anything constructive to say to each other, we can do that at the move request. — kwami (talk) 18:50, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Anti-zombie-fungus-fungus

What does that mean?--Seonookim (talk) 08:32, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

It's a fungus that attacks a fungus that turns ants into zombies.[10] — kwami (talk) 05:27, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Bummer

Looking at Hmong language, I wasn't surprised to see your expert fingerprints on it. Visiting your user page, I'm bummed out at how you've apparently been ground down by the senseless bastards who cause the tragedy of the commons. My sympathy & best wishes to you. --Thnidu (talk) 04:30, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually, I was desysopped for restoring a page move that had been the result of a move request, only to be immediately reverted by someone who had opposed it. At least this way people don't accuse me of abusing my admin powers when I revert them for being idiots ... though now they claim I was desysopped for opposing them, as if they think saying something makes it true. I have yet to figure out if these seemingly intelligent people expect others to believe their falsehoods because they think people will believe anything, or if it's because they actually believe them themselves. I suspect the latter, that some people have a greater degree of insulation from new ideas than I would think possible. — kwami (talk) 07:07, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

move request for 79360 Sila–Nunam

I opened a move request in Talk:79360_Sila–Nunam#Requested_move. You are receiving this notice beause you have made substantial changes to the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:31, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Just saw it. — kwami (talk) 15:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Odisha

nistha 17:20, 19 December 2012 (UTC) Dear editor, (regarding your edited page "fategarh") the state name "orissa" no longer exists oficially. kindly use the name "odisha" .please suggest what can be do for all pages name containing orissa. thanx — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nistha.aslp (talk • contribs)

Hi Nistha,

We don't follow official use, but common use. "Orissa" is still the normal name in English. (The policy is at WP:COMMONNAME.) This has been discussed multiple times, always with the same result. — kwami (talk) 17:23, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Khanty-Mansi moves

Hi, Kwami! Just wanted to let you know that while I still have no clue whether it is supposed to be a dash or an en-dash in "Khanty-Mansi", all those moves back and forth really disrupt the normal workflow. Can I please ask you (if you haven't already—in which case I'm a happy camper) to resolve this with the opposing side and to settle it once and forever? There is a good number of template transclusions these moves affect, and I hope you understand that fixing them back and forth every few months is no one's idea of fun. Appreciate your understanding. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 20, 2012; 21:20 (UTC)

Hi,

Just two templates were involved, AFAICT, and I took care of them both. — kwami (talk) 21:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I still wish you discussed this with your opponents, though. Last time you moved these articles, your moves were basically reverted as "incorrect", with no discussion following. As I see it, there's nothing to prevent your moves from being reverted again (not by me, mind you; as I said, I have no idea which dash is correct), and while you guys have your little fun with the dashes, folks like me have to suffer correcting backlinks and redirects (last time you fixed a bunch, but still missed a good number of them, which I had to correct)... All in all, this is all very disappointing; I wish you established consensus first.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 20, 2012; 21:46 (UTC)

Okay, I'm not moving any more.

As for which is correct, it's still understood to be the okrug for the Khanty and the Mansi (dash), not the Khanty-Mansi as opposed to say the Yamal-Mansi or something. — kwami (talk) 21:51, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

That part I agree with (although I'm not that well-versed in the intricacies of dash usage to substantiate it). It's the endless maintenance due to other people disagreeing that bothers me. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 20, 2012; 21:55 (UTC)

RFC/U for Apteva: move to close

I am notifying all participants in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Apteva that Dicklyon has moved to close the RFC/U, with a summary on the talkpage. Editors may now support or oppose the motion, or add comments:

• Link to the move to close

Please consider adding your signature, so that the matter can be resolved.

Best wishes,

Noetica^Tea? 04:12, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

File:Hangul Cia-Cia primer.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Hangul Cia-Cia primer.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you.  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:45, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Eris

I don't think it needs to be stated that it is the most massive body known orbiting the Sun after the 8 planets, you can just simply say "it is the ninth-most massive body in orbit around the Sun or in the Solar System" or something similar, because people know that the 8 major planets are larger (and I'm sure most people would know the difference between a dwarf planet and a planet). Also I don't think you should use abbreviations in the opening of an article, let alone anywhere else on wikipedia, it makes the article look a bit sloppy.

I don't understand why you had to change it. The old opening sentence was a lot better than the one you had now.

_{Eris, minor-planet designation 136199 Eris, is the most massive known dwarf planet[i] in the Solar System and the ninth most massive body known to orbit the Sun directly"} <-- Unless you can tell me what is wrong with that opening, then I think it should be reverted back.

Rackshea (talk) 03:22, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

As I stated in the edit summary, it's redundant. It's also awkwardly written. — kwami (talk) 03:32, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay. I agree, it is redundant, however, I still think your opening can be worded better because honestly, it sounds a bit sloppy, but if you don't agree then that's fine, I don't want to argue, but my point about the abbreviations still stand. I think it should be "It is the most massive...." instead of "It's" Rackshea (talk) 21:17, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't care about the abbreviations. The idea that we need to avoid them in general is not accepted here, but any particular situation may sound better without. — kwami (talk) 22:16, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

RfD of Hadoti, language

Hello. I have been cleaning up old deletion candidates and I have come across one which you have nominated for deletion but you didn't add it to the RfD log. At this time I have removed the deletion tag. I am letting you know so you can re nominate it if you feel it is appropriate.-- Patchy1 09:11, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Don't make POINTy edits. Just delete the stupid thing. — kwami (talk) 10:56, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

It was just a polite note to let you know you had made a mistake. The following is another polite note to let you know you have made the same mistake again. You need to list it at RfD, putting the tag on page won't get it deleted in itself. -- Patchy1 11:05, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't really care. It's not worth the paperwork to delete a useless rd. If you don't mind clogging up the servers w useless stuff, just leave it. — kwami (talk) 12:18, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

You know as well as I do that only an admin can delete it, and neither I or KTC are admins, so I don't know why you think we are lazy for not doing it, we can't do it. If you want it deleted, take it to RfD, if you don't care, which you have said you don't, then leave it alone - as a redirect. -- Patchy1 23:22, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

{{IPAsym}} links invitation

Kwami, maybe you'd like to do something with these redlinks. Template:IPAsym/check all. -DePiep (talk) 21:18, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Like what? They show the scope of the template, but not all of them deserve articles. — kwami (talk) 22:19, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

My only suggestion is that the redllinks should be blue. e.g., they could have a new article, or they could be a redirect. (or a typo to be corrected). Don't blame me for this invitation. -DePiep (talk) 00:34, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't blaming you for anything, just asking what you had in mind. — kwami (talk) 04:21, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. I'm sorry for my sloppy reading. Still hope you'll take a look. -DePiep (talk) 16:33, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, what I wrote could be said all sorts of ways, some quite hostile. I'm not used to adding emoticons to clarify.

I had taken a look in the past, but didn't see any need to hurry. If one of the red links is actually transcluded somewhere, then we'd have need to act. — kwami (talk) 17:20, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

In that last one I disagree: if the symbol is correct (else: we delete it from IPAsym), then it should lead somewhere. Sort of: Wikipedia should cover everything. For example: redlink voiceless postalveolar stop could redirect to postalveolar. But since I don't know enough about IPA, I should not create that redirect. -DePiep (talk) 19:09, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Dravidian stuff

Do you have access to your Dravidian stuff again? [11] --JorisvS (talk) 11:49, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah. I'll take a look. Looks like much of the rest of the article is messed up too. — kwami (talk) 17:34, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Sinitic

Re:[12] do you say that this map is of "Chinese, not Sinitic" just because it excludes Bai? Or is there any other reason? Usually, they are treated synonymously on Wikipedia... Shrigley (talk) 17:49, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but there's no point in having separate articles unless they mean different things. — kwami (talk) 17:53, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

respone to Nov. 3 message

Kwami,

This is a belated to a message you posted on 3 November:

I partially reverted a couple of your edits. At Monumbo language you ref'd WALS, but they do not support your claim. In any case, that should probably be at Torricelli languages. At Urim language we use Ross as the source; Ethnologue is not reliable. At Aruek language, could you provide a source that the language is extinct? (Also, it may be gone from that one village, but the map at Ethnologue shows it distributed over a fairly wide area.) Thanks — kwami (talk) 06:33, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand "At Monumbo language you ref'd WALS, but they do not support your claim." WALS treats Monumbo as a separate family, not as Torricelli. There is no evidence that Monumbo is a Torricelli language.

RE: At Urim language we use Ross as the source; Ethnologue is not reliable.

The Ethnologue classification is based on a wordlist, while the Ross classification is just a classification of pronouns, which Ross himself says should not be used as a basis for classifying these languages; you are misinterpreting Ross' claim. My edit did not say that Urim is not a Palei language, just that the usual classification treats it as a separate branch, which is accurate. It is misleading for Wikipedia not to include this information. I suspect, on the basis of data I have examined, that Urim is indeed a Palei language, but again, Wikipedia should include the information that the standard classification is that it is not.

RE: At Aruek language, could you provide a source that the language is extinct? (Also, it may be gone from that one village, but the map at Ethnologue shows it distributed over a fairly wide area.) -

People who live in that one village have told me that the language is extinct and that it was originally only spoken in that what one village. The Ethnologue map is not accurate. There are two other villages in that area, one where Lou is spoken, the other where Ulau is spoken. But I have no problem with leaving this entry as is.

Kolinuts68 (talk) 21:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi.

You said that WALS says that Monumbo is a branch of Torricelli. It does not. If the balance of the evidence is that Monumbo is a separate family, we should probably go with that. Can you cite sources for that? We have Laycock, Foley, and Ross attesting to it being a branch of Torricelli.

Could you point to the pages where Ross says he is not classifying the languages? Because I see several where he says the opposite.

I'd hardly be surprised if Ethn. is wrong, which is why I did not revert you on Aruek. But since we contradict our sources, we really do need a ref. Do you have anything? Even if it's just a hand-out at a conference you presented at. — kwami (talk) 22:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Odisha Vs Orissa

although officially name of the state Odisha has changed why you change its name from page Government of Odisha ? actually i don't know.--ଶିତିକଣ୍ଠ ଦାଶ (talk) 18:18, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Read WP:COMMONNAME. This has been discussed many times. — kwami (talk) 19:45, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

thanks. --ଶିତିକଣ୍ଠ ଦାଶ (talk) 21:00, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

At least, can i write in infobox that Name of the State is Odisha (formerly spoken as Orissa)? I'm not going to change the name of article.--ଶିତିକଣ୍ଠ ଦାଶ (talk) 21:06, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

We do already say this at Orissa (check the top of the info box too). It's fine to say the official spelling/transcription is "Odisha", but not that it was "formerly" Orissa, since it still is Orissa. Both spellings are common, rather like colour/color and grey/gray, but "Orissa" is the spelling we use since it is more common. The other may take over eventually, like Beijing has overtaken Peking, but it hasn't happened yet. — kwami (talk) 21:37, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

thanks again sir.--ଶିତିକଣ୍ଠ ଦାଶ — Preceding unsigned comment added by ଶିତିକଣ୍ଠ ଦାଶ (talk • contribs) 18:26, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Request

Can you try not to make any more edits like this one? Save undo and reverting for vandalism and the like. If you see someone trying to fix poor English and you think it could be improved further, just make the further improvement rather than undoing. Thanks a lot. --John (talk) 23:03, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

But when the edit is itself poor English, it should be reverted. The prose was better before you changed it: the section is not about Christy, but about the moon. — kwami (talk) 23:20, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Do you know what ambiguity means? Are you a native speaker of English? --John (talk) 23:40, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes and yes. The sentence is not ambiguous, except at the level where we should avoid all pronouns, which is a bit much. — kwami (talk) 23:43, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

I see. And do you know what passive voice means? --John (talk) 23:44, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Of course, as should be obvious from my edit summary. — kwami (talk) 23:46, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh good. Could you please then refrain from undoing my attempts to improve the article, and could you please also desist from leaving spurious warnings on my user talk? I have made no reverts and you have made three or four. As I said, you should reserve reverts for vandalism or its like. You are presumably familiar with WP:3RR and you should beware flirting with it in a situation like this. --John (talk) 23:49, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

None of what you just said is true. You reverted three times. My warning was appropriate, as you were on the verge of violating WP:3RR. Reverts can be used for anything, as per WP:BOLD. How in the world did you get to be an admin without understanding even the basics of editing WP? — kwami (talk) 23:52, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Could you possibly just check the diffs and then reconfigure that last comment? Each of the three times you've reverted my copyedits I have come back with a compromise version. I see you had the rollback permission removed in the past; was it for behaviour like this? Please take your concerns to article talk, and again, please don't make any further spurious warnings on my talk page as they will be removed. Please read more carefully rather than just hitting "undo". Thanks. --John (talk) 23:56, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

No, it was removed because I used rollback rather than undo for all minor reverts, rather than just for vandalism etc.

And no, you are not coming up with compromises, but are making each edit more extreme than the one before in your misguided attempt to avoid the passive voice.

I did read carefully. Your prose is ungrammatical. The warnings were appropriate because you're edit warring. Per BOLD, you should be making the argument for your version, especially when there is a reasoned objection to it. — kwami (talk) 00:01, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I have made such an argument, both here and in article talk. --John (talk) 00:11, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Only after you were approaching 3RR, and only as an excuse to continue edit warring. Please read WP:BOLD. You are advocating the changes, so it is up to you to convince others. — kwami (talk) 00:28, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for making it clear that you do not understand either 3RR or the basics of English grammar. Didn't you once have the sysop flag? I imagine you probably lost it over ridiculous and ignorant behaviour like this. Sad that you haven't learned from this. --John (talk) 10:06, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

And if that's what you think 3RR is, you'll eventually lose it too. As for the grammar, it's up to you to demonstrate you're correct. So far you've been unable to. — kwami (talk) 10:36, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, you'd be the expert in 3RR. It seems you've lost adminship for wheel-warring and edit-warring, and received several blocks for the latter, but have not yet changed your modus operandi. Isn't that a bit stupid? --John (talk) 10:56, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

And you are lynching Negroes. No such user (talk) 10:59, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Saraiki language.

Dear some one is writting wrong information about Saraiki Language. Kindly confirm these.This is pasted in so many pages. What is this?

You'll need to be more specific. If claims are not substantiated, you can tag them with {{cn}} (citation needed). — kwami (talk) 06:36, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Adjectivals and demonyms for countries and nations

The article "Adjectivals and demonyms for countries and nations" (version of 22:29, 11 December 2012) has a notice questioning its need to remain in Wikipedia, but it is transcluded in the article "List of adjectival and demonymic forms of place names" (version of 19:57, 23 October 2012). I prefer that all those articles remain in Wikipedia, even if one or more of them have been copied to Wiktionary. Are you able and willing to edit the Wikipedia page of the transwikied article so that it qualifies to remain in Wikipedia?
—Wavelength (talk) 22:02, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what would qualify it. It is a rather dictionaryish list; on the other hand, you get lists like this in almanacs too. I wonder if a soft redirect wouldn't be best; it's hard to keep content forks in synch. Also, they messed up the formatting at wikt. — kwami (talk) 22:21, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I noticed these two consecutive revisions on my watchlist: your revision of this talk page at 23:06, followed by this revision of the article "Adjectivals and demonyms for countries and nations" at 23:09 by User:Maunus, who possibly saw your reply. With the new notice as with the other notice on the same article, I do not see a link to an active page for comments. I am acquainting myself with the information at Wikipedia:Proposed deletion.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:25, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I removed the "proposed deletion" tag at 00:31, with this edit summary.

• removing "proposed deletion" tag—by instructions at Wikipedia:Proposed deletion#Objecting—because this article is transcluded in "List of adjectival and demonymic forms of place names"

—Wavelength (talk) 00:35, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Language isolates

Kwami, I see you deleted a number of languages that had been listed as isolates. These are outside my area of expertise, so I want to trust you. But when several are deleted at once, it makes me suspect you have access to a new publication or some such reason. Giving a wee bit of reason or evidence would be reasonable when making several changes at once. Keep weeding the Wikipedia garden. Pete unseth (talk) 16:10, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I hadn't looked at that list for some time. I believe all are described as 'unclassified' in the individual articles, or are part of larger families on the list. (Are we talking Africa here? America? If the latter, it may be due to the greater support for Hokan and Penutian in Golla 2011 than there had been in Mithun 1999, and the approx. equivalence of these proposals with Nilo-Saharan etc. And the latest evaluation of Tasmanian finds 3–4 families, so no longer an isolate.) If there are any discrepancies, please let me know. Listing a lang as an isolate is sometimes as much an editorial call as anything. — kwami (talk) 20:20, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Early greetings for the new year

Best Wishes for a Happy New Year! May 2013 bring you rewarding experiences and an abundance of everything you most treasure. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:59, 28 December 2012 (UTC) Victory, Janus, Chronos, and Gaea (1532–34) by Giulio Romano

Thanks for your willingness to help. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:59, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

disfix

Hi, thanks for the message on my page. I'm puzzled though; you complained that I didn't have a ref for my addition, and then readded info without a ref! How do we know disfixes are uncommon? And is that in English or in all known languages? Most feminine nouns in Russian and Polish feature it in the genitive plural, so I'd say it's bloody common. Many neuter nouns have it too. Therefore, the claim needs to be a) clarified and b) referenced. My addition was less controversial (that it doesn't feature in all languages!) and patently, obviously true. Would you mind reverting? (Oh, and why highlight the obscure Muskogean language in the intro? It was clearly added by someone interested in that language, but gives undue weight.) Malick78 (talk) 23:02, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Muskogean is the best example we have of disfixes. I'd like to see some evidence they exist in English or any other well-known language. (French has been analyzed this way, but it's a minority view. Things are much clearer in Muskogean.) — kwami (talk) 23:27, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Still, you readded something which was itself unreferenced (yet complained about my lack of references!), and hopelessly vague (the article now says "it's uncommon" - in English? In all languages? The intro doesn't specify). The intro sounds amateurish.

I haven't claimed it exists in English, so I don't see your point.

To highlight Muskogean without saying why makes the intro seem very random and badly written. That's not good. Explain why it is being highlighted. Have you a ref which states it is clearer in Muskogean? I'd say it's clearer in Slavonic :) ).Malick78 (talk) 23:55, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the ref I used gives Muskogean as the only clear example. I don't see how using a Muskogean example makes the intro any more badly written than using a Slavic example would. — kwami (talk) 02:48, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see. You already added Slavic examples. Those don't look like disfixation to me, and there's no ref, so I removed them. Question: for a feminine noun which ends in a consonant, such as mysz, is that consonant deleted in the genitive plural? If not, I don't see how it's disfixation rather than just a zero suffix as Polish grammars describe it. — kwami (talk) 03:00, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem with the intro is that it brings up Muskogean too suddenly, without saying why. It doesn't even say "Disfixation is uncommon, but is important in the Muskogean languages of the southeastern United States for example." However, my main complaint was you deleting my unreferenced but correct comment, to replace it with a strange sentence which was vague and unreferenced. And your edit summary complained about my sentence being unreferenced. Can you see how that was slightly contradictory?

As for the Slavonic section, you have presumed too much. I didn't add it, I came across the article for the first time only yesterday. Someone else added it. However, you are right regarding mysz, it loses nothing in the gen plural. But mysz (and other feminine nouns ending in a consonant) is an exception. The majority of (if not all) fem nouns end in "a" and lose it in the gen pl. So, to me, that seems to be disfixation. Isn't it?

Lastly, the intro says disfixation is "uncommon". Can we at least specify what that means? I'd suggest "is uncommon in world languages and is not seen in English". Is that a fair comment? Malick78 (talk) 10:11, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Unseen in European languages, more likely, apart from arguable cases like French. The Polish example is not disfixation, but merely the lack of a suffix in the gen.pl. (A zero form, as they say.) Nothing is lost in that declension; given the gen.pl, you need to know whether the nom.sg takes a suffix or not, but otherwise nothing unpredictable happens. This is unlike Muskogean, where you can't predict the base form from the disfixed form.

How can you say "it doesn't say X", when X is copied directly from the article? — kwami (talk) 18:34, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Kwami - you need to start using sources instead of your own definitions and analyses. And add those sources to articles. Stela Manova 2011 describes disfixation in Slavic languages - the process has been described as săkraštenie in Bulgarian and as usečenie in Russian. We cannot say that disfixation is common or uncommon unless we have a source that says so.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:21, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

They are not my definitionns and analyses. The sources were in the article; all you had to do was read them.

I'd still like to see an example of disfixation in Slavic. The example I deleted did not fix the definition of Manova's that you added. — kwami (talk) 22:54, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Well done with your latest edits.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:03, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Putting words in my mouth

I'm reasonably happy with the changes you have made to my proposal (although the term referent would not, I believe, be widely recognised beyond those with specialised training in linguistics in UK at least: I don't know whether it would be part of typical educational encounter in the US or other anglophone regions) so I won't revert, but I would ask you not to change words that carry another editor's signature in future. Kevin McE (talk) 23:55, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to revert. I commonly edit proposed wording such as this, and others do as well. My changes are clearly marked as such, and I assume responsibility in my comments. And yes, 'referent' is not the best word. I can't think of a better one, though. Maybe a paraphrase? — kwami (talk) 02:46, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

This occurred on a talk page, and the guideline is clear: "The basic rule—with some specific exceptions outlined below—is that you should not edit or delete the comments of other editors without their permission." I cannot conceive of your changes to my comments, well intended as they were, meeting any of the exceptions listed. I would ask you to seriously reconsider if this is indeed a common practice of yours. Kevin McE (talk) 10:58, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

It might be best practice to separate proposed wording from normal signed comments. This is what we did here a couple years ago. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 15:00, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Vedda people edit

Hello, I was confused by your edit and edit summary at Vedda people. Before I edited the article, it had inconsistent uses with four references in the BC/AD style and two references in the BCE/CE style. I changed the references in the minority to the style of the majority. Your edit changed them all to the BCE/CE style. Would it be OK with you if I revert your edit? Thanks, SchreiberBike (talk) 21:30, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

It looks like the article started w CE and that AD was added in later. Looking through the history, I see a mix of BCE, BP, and BC. Since the article has nothing to do with the AD convention, probably best to stick w the more neutral CE. — kwami (talk) 22:30, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Ceneiform

There is no reason to call my edit "nonesense" it is sourced and referenced and you are not an expert on this. You are giving an emotional opinion and not stating why it is nonesense. You are acting like a bully and not sharing the democratic spirit of Wiki because of your personal issues. See edit: The first tablets containing common cuneiform characters are found in Vinca scripts, carbon dated 5,300BC, in the areas of Bulgaria and Romania. Later ceneiform is found in [Sumer]] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.83.208.193 (talk) 08:12, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

How can you say it's referenced when you provided no references? That in itself is nonsense. If you have anything, provide it on the talk page. — kwami (talk) 08:22, 31 December 2012 (UTC)