User talk:BabelStone/Archive 2014

Mongol transliteration
Could you template these with Unicode? The Latin gamma won't appear in most users' default browser font, which makes the transliterations look bad otherwise. I'm going through the ones we already have w AWB, but it looks like you still have some to go. (Also, the city names have no transliteration at all, but I assume you're working on that.) — kwami (talk) 20:04, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

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Middleham and other hoards
Hi BabelStone, thanks for adding Middleham to the list of hoards. Much appreciated! Also, sorry if I seemed at all caustic in my comment about the addition of the Mesolithic site in Guildford - I only noticed that it might come across bluntly after re-reading! Since you seem to have all the right skills, I wondered whether you might be tempted to work more on the Middleham Hoard article or on other English Civil War hoards with support from York Museums Trust's numismatics curator YMT Coins? It would be great for our GLAM-wiki partnership to establish direct links between curators and active editors (other than myself!). Particularly ones with specialist knowledge. Any thoughts? Thanks PatHadley (talk) 14:43, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi Pat, I did have a look at the Middleham Hoard article, but I didn't contribute anything as I thought from your message that some new editors were still working on it ... but as it does not seem to have changed much since then I'll see if there is anything I can do to help. To be honest, I did feel a little put down by your earlier comment; I rather carelessly pulled the offending term out of the air without giving it sufficient thought, for which I apologize.  I don't pretend to be an archaeologist (a couple of digs and a term at university in the late 1970s hardly count), but I enjoy contributing to archaeological articles precisely because I am not an expert in the field, and editing helps me learn more about subjects that interest me. BabelStone (talk) 20:06, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi! First of all - Wow! Thanks! The Middleham Hoard article has made great leaps! It is massively appreciated. Secondly: big apologies. I've just gone and re-read my comment about Guildford again and feel very embarrassed - I must have been writing in a massive rush. The irony is that I'm personally very keen on improving the coverage of the Mesolithic on Wikipedia! I appreciate your work on this and other archaeology stuff and hope that we can get past this and work together in the future! Thanks for being magnanimous PatHadley (talk) 22:31, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You have to be thick-skinned to survive on Wikipedia, so don't give it another thought. I have limited time available for Wikipedia, but I certainly hope to be able to work with you on more archaeology-related articles. Incidentally, I've just noticed that we seem to have three examples of Spanish-American eight reales from the Middleham Hoard on Commons (YORYM-1995.109.16, 17 and 18), but the main source only lists two such coins, which is a little worrying. BabelStone (talk) 22:45, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That sounds great! I'm currently employing a very top-down approach to archaeology content - working on categories and resources rather than specific articles - as I want to understand the inconsistencies before directing my efforts. If there's anything in particular you'd like help with I'm happy to chip in (less hurriedly!). That's crazy about the extra coin! I'll ask the YMT Coins tomorrow. He'll be thrilled to know that the article has grown too! I'll see if I can find a friendly reviewer so we can cheekily skip the creation backlog too. PatHadley (talk) 22:58, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, if there are images of the Scottish and Irish coins they will probably only exist as black and white photos taken before the hoard was split up. I'll see if they're available for scanning. PatHadley (talk) 23:03, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think the article is definitely ready for moving into the main space now. BabelStone (talk) 23:18, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Mystery solved -- there are two genuine Spanish-American coins, but five counterfeits in the hoard. So are the three on Commons genuine or counterfeit? BabelStone (talk) 23:36, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

As it turns out, more than half the coins are counterfeit! Andrew (the curator) thought I knew. I'm about to update the descriptions on Commons. However, this presents an interesting opportunity as coverage on counterfeiting (eg, Counterfeit money and Coin counterfeiting seems pretty poor. Perhaps these coins have new relevance on these topics? What do you think? PatHadley (talk) 13:27, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, that is important to know -- thanks for indicating which the counterfeit coins are (I have now created specific categories for the counterfeit coins on Commons). Those two articles certainly are very poor, but I prefer to edit articles on specific objects, and avoid generalist and overview articles. BabelStone (talk) 21:59, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Congrats! Sorry about the glitches with creation and a massive thanks for all your hard work. If you have the energy or interest in doing any more editing on the hoard (or others) I have just scanned this book A little Barrel of Ducatoons - Craig Barclay and could email you a copy as reference material. The copyright situation isn't watertight but I'm sure no one would mind you having a copy for the purpose of making improvements. Is that something you'd be up for? Cheers and thanks, PatHadley (talk) 15:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Please do send me a copy of the pdf (my user name at gmail), although I cannot promise that I'll be able to do anything with it. BabelStone (talk) 19:22, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

ITN credit
--Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 15:36, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Many thanks! BabelStone (talk) 20:03, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Map Request Completed
► Philg88 ◄ star.png 08:44, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Middleham Hoard
The DYK project (nominate) 23:19, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Many thanks for your kind words and encouragement! BabelStone (talk) 19:03, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * More than 160,000 views in five days. Respect. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 13:46, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was looking at the stats this morning -- certainly had a lot of interest. I think it's great that Wikipedia is able to feature archaeological stories in the news as well as more traditional stories. BabelStone (talk) 18:46, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Mongols and Persians
Do you see any similarity between people of Turkey and Mongols?! I ashore you, there is much similarity between Persian people and Mongols. They are called Hazara people, check it. They live in Iran and Afghanistan, not so much in Turkey, the land of seemingly Pan Turkism .-Raayen (talk) 22:14, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Take it to the article talk page, I don't discuss article-specific editing disagreements on my talk page. BabelStone (talk) 19:47, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

"Foo Dynasty" or "Foo dynasty"?
There's an RFC here. Taekwondo Panda (talk) 07:50, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

ISO 15924
I expect to see beforehand changes in ISO 15924. The Unicode 7.0 then can go smoothly. Is there a waiting reason? (we know, this is not the v7.0 release itself). -DePiep (talk) 21:02, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The Unicode release schedule is not related to ISO 15924, so I think that Unicode 7.0 will be released before any new version of ISO 15924. Is not ISO 15924 up-to-date with Unicode 7.0 already? BabelStone (talk) 21:19, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It should be. All the 7.0 scripts were in the pipeline a good two years ago - before the last 15924 update - and Michael Everson (the acting 15924 registrar) got ahold of me to set up a 15924 code shortly after the Duployan proposal was mature, and I can only assume that this is SOP. I also went through the 15924 and Unicode template after 7.0 went into Beta this winter, and I don't remember any omissions, so I think we're all set. VanIsaacWScont 22:44, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The Unicode release schedule is not related to ISO 15924 -- well, by "Property Value Alias" they are. That is where Unicode ties its script names to the 'independent' ISO 15924. Last time the id numbers had to be corrected, remember: User_talk:BabelStone/Archive_2013. It was sloppy and late. Anyway, I don't want to rough feathers of a rhino. -DePiep (talk) 23:56, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

7.0 released?
I haven't seen an announcement anywhere. Where did you see that Unicode 7.0 was released today? VanIsaacWScont 19:49, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Unicode Consortium's twitter account (also the UCD data files have been updated). BabelStone (talk) 19:53, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Those bastards! They put it on Twitter before they put it on their in-house mail list and forum. I'll gonna have to set Sarasvati straight. VanIsaacWScont 19:59, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * You need to get with the cool kids! BabelStone (talk) 20:02, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm on the Unicode mail-list and have even been to Murray's house party on Lake Washington during the Microsoft UTC. If I'm not one of the cool kids for the first time in my life, what am I? VanIsaacWScont 20:08, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Ok, they've posted it now. VanIsaacWScont 21:07, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Twitter 1 Mailing List 0. I haven't even had time to log in to my email this evening. BTW, we need to create new articles for the 32 new Unicode blocks; I'm adding the new templates, but haven't prepared the block pages. BabelStone (talk) 21:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I noticed that. I just got done watchlisting all the new chart templates (up to the Ms), and I, of course, already made up the Duployan block page and got the block infobox fully supporting 7.0, so it should all be good. You can actually do a mouse-select copy paste from User:Vanisaac/test/10 as the beginnings of a new (Unicode block) page. VanIsaacWScont 21:21, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Nice. Once I've finished the chart templates I've got release a new version of BabelMap -- busy night! BabelStone (talk) 21:29, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've got all of them alphabetically up to Pahawh Hmong, but I'm going to turn in for the night soon. Hope all has gone well with BabelMap. VanIsaacWScont 07:19, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ 67.60.53.130 (talk) 21:28, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I've updated ISO 15924 alias (PVA tied to an ISO id), and L-to-R/R-to-L, and ancient/modern in ISO 15924 script codes and Unicode. See here about issue(s). -DePiep (talk) 08:40, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll reply about Geok on the template talk page. BabelStone (talk) 11:07, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I also checked & edited the 23 script articles (sometimes added the infobox writing system). And the Unicode navigation script list. -DePiep (talk) 11:59, 17 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Babelstone, about edits like this. It now says "Official Unicode Consortium code chart" in the (external) link. This is not helpful. First all Unicode charts are "official", no reason to introduce an "unofficial" option (suggestion). Then, "Unicode" and "Unicode Consortium" don't need distinction. No confusion at hand. Even worse: it takes out the "Unicode Standard" fact (the charts belong to the standard). To be clear: I don't mind whether it is correct or wrong, it is unhelpful this way. Unnecessary.
 * While we are at it, I think the external link should be at the bottom, in a footnote or reference note. -DePiep (talk) 12:08, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I did not think that "Unicode.org" was correct as that is just a web address used for the web site of the Unicode Consortium, and does not identify the source of the charts. Simply specifying "Unicode" also does not identify the source, as many web sites promote their own unofficial Unicode code charts. Therefore, specifying "Unicode Consortium" makes it clear to our readers that the source of the linked chart is the organization that is responsible for the Unicode Standard.  I added "official" as these are the charts used in the Unicode Standard, and therefore are the official charts; and where there is a difference between our Wikipedia charts or charts on any other website, it is the official charts on the Unicode Consortium site that should be believed. I think it is necessary to be clear about the source of the pdf charts we link to, so I do not think that the wording needs changing.  As to the placement of the link, I think it is useful to have it at the top, as charts can be quite long, and it is helpful to have the link where it is visible so that if the chart renders as boxes for the reader they can easily find and follow the link to the pdf charts. BabelStone (talk) 19:16, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * re
 * I did not think that "Unicode.org" was correct: It is, whatever you think.
 * does not identify the source of the charts: It does exactly that. It is the URL (or URI, to be precise)
 * many web sites promote their own ...: Sure they do. So bringing back "unicode.org" would solve that (though there are other solutions).
 * I added "official" .... What I said. Everything "Unicode" is official. It is an addition that adds no information. We could also write "The Unicode official chart, that is published by The Unicode Consortium founded in 1993 in California USA, who provides chart overview of character database in pdf, ... ": all true (at least for the sake of argument), and all useless words. We simply need a phrase like: The Unicode chart for this block is ... (link).
 * necessary to be clear about the source. Sure, again. In WP we use cite web everywhere and very stable. This also solves the 'better into into footnote/ref' quest I stated. (No reference elaborates like "the official publication in which Einstein noted his theory of ... is").
 * useful to have it at the top. No. Footnote or refs go at the bottom. The link is what is in top. As everywhere in wikipedia. (There is freedom on where to have the source ref: bottom-table or bottom-page).
 * so that if the chart ..  -- I don't follow. Wiki references (including external links) have standard and well versed formattings & layout.
 * -DePiep (talk) 21:18, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Yi Transliteration tool
Hi Babelstone,

I know that there is a tool to transliterate Liangshan Yi into Romanised Yi here, however it needs to be downloaded and I am currently using Windows 7 so any downloading is quite difficult.

Would it be possible for you to set up an online transliteration tool for Liangshan Yi (similar to this tool)? --DaveZ123 (talk) 11:01, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Sure. I'll let you know here when it is online. BabelStone (talk) 19:44, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * My javascript "Liangshan Yi (Nuosu) Transliteration Converter" tool is now available online at www.babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/yi.html. It allows transliteration both ways between Romanised Yi and Unicode Yi syllables.  Hope it is of use to you -- let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement. BabelStone (talk) 23:10, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * (Sorry for my late response, I forgot to check up on your talk page so I only saw your reply today). Thanks so much Mr Babelstone for creating the tool! It is of great use to me.
 * Now I can read these conversation dialogues in transliterated Yi.
 * For your information, I have linked that tool to this reference page. --DaveZ123 (talk) 00:40, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Lee Mack
Lee Mack's page has had no image for a while, if you believe the image I uploaded to the page was unsuitable, please replace it with another image of Lee Mack - be constructive, not destructive. Mossbot97 18:47, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The next time I see Lee Mack I will definitely take a photo of him, and upload it to Wikipedia under a suitable license. BabelStone (talk) 18:56, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Sincerely hoping that last comment wasn't sarcastic because I really think his Wikipedia page deserves a photo. In the mean time, do you think you could possibly find one online with a suitable license? Am a hardcore Lee Mack fan myself. Mossbot97 (talk) 22:22, 13 July 2014 (GMT)

Unicode grey areas
I'm thinking of moving the "Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points" verbiage from articles to the Unicode chart templates themselves. I think this is a better place because Unicode chart templates are transcluded into multiple articles (for example, the Myanmar Extended-B chart is transcluded into Mon script and Myanmar Extended-B). What do you think? DRMcCreedy (talk) 20:31, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I think this is an excellent idea -- go for it. BabelStone (talk) 21:00, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

B42
Thanks for that B42 thing. I'm still smiling. -DePiep (talk) 18:15, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it was a bit ridiculous, especially as B42 will direct any lost readers to where they want to go, whether it is the bible or the bus. BabelStone (talk) 20:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Regarding [ your revert] on Template:Unicode chart Egyptian Hieroglyphs
It is quite clear that you did not do your homework on [ this revert]. Firstly your edit summary does show very little understanding about what you where doing and secondly it also shows poor reasoning. Thirdly, you fail to realize that the purpose of the template is to show the characters in question. Using the Unicode character encodings (not characters, I'll get to that in a second) is not the purpose of the template. I'll explain all of this better in the following sentences. Also, since your revert is without any grounds, I am asking you to take back your own revert.

Your claim that you are reverting to the character itself is false. What you did do is revert to an character encoding that represents the character in Unicode. If you are still struggling to understand that, then read up on the articles on Unicode and Character encoding. Images of characters are also representations of an character, so the difference between the two is a lot smaller than you think.

An obvious example of an character representation in an image would be an SVG file with an symbol. In the creation of such a file, the symbol is added as an text. In the source of the file would be meta-data tags, the position of the symbol and the character encoding (like before with Unicode).

When it comes to precedence the hiero tag is dominant. Templates that have the word [ "hieroglyph" in their title] and either allow the user to add an hieroglyph to one of their parameters or display the hieroglyph themselves all except one have that hiero tag. The only one of those that uses an Unicode character encoding is the template in question. It is quite clear that the usage of the Unicode character encoding to show Egyptian hieroglyphs is outdated and should not be used.

What it boils down to is an technical matter that affects accessibility. It is a matter of choosing one option over another, where the character representations are the same but the display of the character from the Unicode character encoding depends on whether the user has specifically installed a font for that. Meanwhile, the same problem of display does not affect the images. Frankly, insisting on having the character encoding instead of images is just an unnecessary impediment.

Just so you understand the full effect of what you where doing I am going to end this post with one paragraph about reverts in general. The act of reverting good edits and good-faith edits (such as mine) does increase decline of new editors (like the research Research:Wikimedia_Summer_of_Research_2011/Summary_of_Findings shows for example). That then means that there are fewer users to step up to decrease editor decline. That ends up to have an negative impact on your activity on the English wikipedia, through things like longer response times from other users.--Snaevar (talk) 18:40, 2 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, yes I did do my homework and I do know what I am doing. The purpose of the Unicode code chart templates is to show the actual Unicode characters, but your change substituted images for the characters.  Showing a table of hieroglyph character images is fine if that is required in a particular article, but modifying the *Unicode* code chart template is the wrong way of doing it. BabelStone (talk) 19:00, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

ISO scripts (2014)
Thanks for updating the ISO 15924 templates. Now there is this, as there was 363 days ago: script number 323 is assigned twice in the ''Table 5. Alphabetical list of four-letter script names (normative plain-text data file)''. I thought Michael Everson had taken care. (Note that the data structure is still broken, for over a year). -DePiep (talk) 21:11, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I told Evertype about that exactly one year ago, and he insisted that it had been fixed. But I agree, the normative file currently available for download has "323" for both "Modi" and "Mult" -- but that file (iso15924-utf8-20131012.txt) is the old one and does not have the six new codes in it. I will ask Michael about it. BabelStone (talk) 21:29, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I see. Hmmmm. So the new decision is published, but not by the normative file? Strange. I assume you have an advance copy.
 * Codes 323/324 were changed (corrected) last year in the Notice list, but that one is not normative . And today it does not have the new ones you mention.
 * While you're at it, can you suggest to remove that space in ? -DePiep (talk) 21:54, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * BabelStone, if the file is not updated, what is your source for the changes? -DePiep (talk) 11:59, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Table 1 through 4 on the code lists page. Those are the user-friendly way of accessing the ISO 15924 codes, and the pages I turn to when I want to check something.  It would be a bit annoying if Michael updated those pages in advance of updating the normative data file, but if that is the case then feel free to revert my changes until such time as the normative data file is updated. BabelStone (talk) 12:14, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * "It would be a bit annoying" - 'Would be'? He actually did, as you know. It is annoying. Also one year ago. I'd say that if the formal normative publication is not inline with these sidenote scribbles shortly, we'll revert to the norm as published. ISO trumps OR. -DePiep (talk) 12:20, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I little bit of WP:AGF would not go amiss! Michael inadvertently misnamed the zip file for the latest version of the normative data file, so that the wrong zip file was linked to. The latest normative data file is available for download as iso15924.txt.zip (not iso15924-txt.zip). The Notice of Changes page has now also been updated. BabelStone (talk) 18:50, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * What does any AGF have to do with it? What are you trying to say? Why doesn't the one and only formal download link not return the right file? How do you know that the file you linked to here its the right one? -DePiep (talk) 21:39, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The professionals have arrived. -DePiep (talk) 20:08, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Be nice. -- Evertype·✆ 20:35, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
 * And writing a little notification here would be even nicer. -DePiep (talk) 20:50, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Recent changes box
You might find this box useful:



Any thoughts? -DePiep (talk) 10:49, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you, looks very useful. BabelStone (talk) 11:37, 29 November 2014 (UTC)