User talk:BabelStone/Archive 2019

About putting a photo of Ken Lunde on his bio…
I recently added more info on his biography, using his 2008 CJKV book and three UAX’es (and UTS#37) as verifiable sources (thus those BLP_source and stub tags are no longer needed). The only thing missing is a photo, but given that photos usually carry copyright and other IP issues (regardless of their circulation around the interwebs), I am reluctant to put one. Given that both you and Michael Everson have photos on your bios (yours uploaded by Everson, his uploaded by someone else), you might provide some ideas regarding this. &#x200b;‑‑🌀⁠SilSinnAL982100⁠💬 22:04, 16 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Why don't you e-mail Ken and ask him to upload a photo (or several) with an appropriate licence to the Commons? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 22:15, 16 January 2019 (UTC)


 * I upload photos of many people (mostly academics) that I meet, and if I ever get an opportunity to meet Ken in person I will certainly take his photo, and (if he agrees) upload it for use in his article (I was actually thinking about this when I saw your edits earlier today). I was originally going to meet Ken this summer, but now it seems unlikely. You could email Ken, but you need to be careful how you phrase the request as in most cases he will not be the photographer and therefore not the copyright holder. If he uploads a photograph of himself that is not a selfie it may end up being deleted. BabelStone (talk) 22:41, 16 January 2019 (UTC)


 * There was an old B/W picture of him wearing a lab coat, but I can no longer locate it on Google search. I don’t think this modern color variant would be suitable because it would need to be cropped around (assuming that its © owner, whether Nicole Miñoza or someone else, gives its blessing). &#x200b;‑‑🌀⁠SilSinnAL982100⁠💬 22:59, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Given that Ken dedicates 110% of his attention to UTC #158 as I write this, I would have to ask him about this next week. &#x200b;‑‑🌀⁠SilSinnAL982100⁠💬 23:16, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
 * It looks like you finally got to meet him this summer, as evidenced by the two photos uploaded to the Commons. ‐⁠‑🌀⁠SilSinnAL982100⁠💬 06:12, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I had the pleasure of meeting both Ken Lunde and Lee Collins for the first time at WG2 #68 in Redmond last week, and with their permission I took a few pictures for use on Wikimedia projects. BabelStone (talk) 18:45, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

mid dot
Hi BabelStone,

Yes, mid dot is used in some transliterations for the onset 影, which is usually reconstructed as a glottal stop. But that's not the same as saying mid dot *is* glottal stop -- a scholar that reconstructed 影 as a zero onset or [ɦ] would still use the mid dot to transliterate it.

And, although Sinological usage was the justification for adding it to Unicode, it's more commonly used for vowel length in the Americanist tradition. Quite a few orthographies use it, actually. It's a graphic variant of the colon and commonly called a half-colon. (Indeed, one of the letters to Unicode advised simply using the IPA triangular half-colon, which derives from a dot, for Sinological use.) We should probably redirect to mid dot and enumerate its uses there.

— kwami (talk) 03:51, 28 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi kwami. The Unicode character is explicitly intended not to be used to represent the vowel length sign in the Americanist tradition. The reason why the character has "Sinological" in its name is to let users know that it is intended for sinological use not for Americanist use (the reason that it took so many years of discussion to encode is because of objections fro Americanists who did not want it used as the vowel length sign; and addition of "Sinological" in the name was a condition of accepting it for encoding). The character for Americanist use should be U+02D1 MODIFIER LETTER HALF TRIANGULAR COLON, not the Sinological middle dot. BabelStone (talk) 12:49, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Now redirects ꞏ|here. Does that work? — kwami (talk) 04:25, 28 February 2019 (UTC)


 * It would be better to move that section to its own article. BabelStone (talk) 12:51, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

File:Russian revolutionary plate designed by Mikhail Adamovich.jpg listed for discussion
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Russian revolutionary plate designed by Mikhail Adamovich.jpg, has been listed at Files for discussion. Please see the to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 06:24, 1 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi BabelStone, as it appears you just took care of the copyright status of the depicted object but forgot about the photograph which is also a copyrighted work by itself. If this is your photograph, you should release it under a free license. Otherwise, we would need a permission from the photographer. Regards, AFBorchert (talk) 08:21, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I just noted that you declared this to be your own photograph in your initial upload: “Immediate source: Photograph of object taken by BabelStone”. Please add a statement that you release this photo under a free license (like cc-by-sa-4.0) or that you intend to put into the public domain. Thanks & kind regards, AFBorchert (talk) 08:32, 2 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi BabelStone, I just added (falsely) a IMHO fitting template to the File on Commons but removed it  because Magog (correctly) criticized that I wasn't the photographer . So, if you made the photo by yourself, it would be very helpful if you put in a template that shows, you'll give it into public domain (or else) like you seemed to intend in uploading it. Best regards --Rax (talk) 02:04, 8 March 2019 (UTC) (PS: I'll send this per Mail, too, because you haven't edited since March 1.)


 * Hi Rax, thanks for notifying me. I was taking a short wikibreak, but got the email. I have now added a cc license to the file on Commons, so once the DR is closed the enwiki version can be deleted. BabelStone (talk) 09:09, 8 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Great! It's used on some other wikis now :-) Regards --Rax (talk) 22:00, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Unicode history docs
I've been toying with the idea of adding earlier versions of Unicode proposals to the block histories. For example, including L2/12-345 instead of just having L2/12-345R. These are sometimes referred to in meeting minutes and would show a more complete picture of all the steps taken to get a set of code points encoded. The down side is a longer list of documents. What do you think? DRMcCreedy (talk) 19:51, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, but would note that in many cases (esp. on WG2 registry) only the latest version of the document is kept, so it would only be worth adding versions that are preserved. BabelStone (talk) 22:47, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * FYI: I've decided against adding replaced versions. DRMcCreedy (talk) 21:55, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Template:Emoji (Unicode block)
Hello and thank you for looking at Emoji (Unicode block). As you seem to have a clue about this topic, please could you assess my comments on the talk page? As for the IP, I know that the usual equation is "edit war – edit summary = block", especially as you've had to revert them elsewhere, but they're trying to be constructive and may actually have got this one right in the end. Certes (talk) 11:34, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments on the IP talk page, which I did see. They are good faith edits, but they are not improvements as a table full of redlinks looks bad to the reader, and most of the redlinks will never be resolved to a meaningful target page (some may be redirected to an article related to the object represented by the Unicode character, but I personally think that makes the wikilinks even less helpful, and I would restrict wikilinks only to articles on the actual Unicode character). BabelStone (talk) 11:45, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
 * FYI: I agree with BabelStone's assessment. Certainly, red-linking each chart character is pointless and distracting.  DRMcCreedy (talk) 15:11, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Peter Frankopan
Sorry, but it is very subjective to deem his hotel business as merely a "sideline". He was a successful hotelier for many years before he ever published a book, and it is in fact a major international financial enterprise. He has given at least as many interviews about his hotels as he has about his books. The section doesn't belong below "personal life" or deleted from his bio. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lilipo25 (talk • contribs) 15:45, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It's not a big issue for me, but please discuss it on the Frankopan page, not here. BabelStone (talk) 16:59, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

The Replenisher
How to handle these contributions? As for Mandodari, I deleted them, asking for explanation. AVS (talk) 05:50, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The categories do not seem to be encyclopedic in nature, and I have nominated them all for deletion. You are welcome to contribute to the discussion. BabelStone (talk) 09:47, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Hejia Village hoard
It would be great to see an article on this, if you fancy it! I'll probably get round to it eventually. Hansen, Valerie, The Silk Road: A New History, 2015, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0190218428, 9780190218423, google books has several pages on google preview. Cheers, Johnbod (talk) 14:34, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the encouragement. It certainly crossed my mind when I saw the redlink. Given that hoards and Chinese archaeology are two of my interests, it is probably no surprise that I have been vaguely contemplating Chinese hoards for ten years or so, but have never got round to doing anything. Perhaps this would be a good article to start with, although I probably won't have time to work on it just at the moment. Anyway, I'm watching Hejia Village hoard so if you start on it before I do I'll try to help out. BabelStone (talk) 16:19, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Chew Valley Hoard
Thanks for your edit of List of hoards in Great Britain adding the Chew Valley Hoard. I saw the report on the BBC and was going to do an article on it. Can I ask where you got the coordinates from (placing it on Knowle Hill near the Pony & trap)?&mdash; Rod talk 11:24, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The coordinates for almost all the hoards are just approximate/semi-random positions in the known area (in this case I just choose rounded coordinates that were in the Chew Valley but not under water), with the main intention being that users can see the approximate location or the distribution of hoards on a map. I was thinking today that we ought to make that explicit with a note in the article. BabelStone (talk) 11:46, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh, I didn't realise you lived in Chew Valley. You could be in the ideal position to write the article! BabelStone (talk) 11:54, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I've made a start at Chew Valley Hoard but would welcome your input.&mdash; Rod talk 15:34, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Great! Hope we can get some photos soon, but none yet available on PAS website or database. BabelStone (talk) 15:52, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

What is BLP?
Based on the changelog for article Ken Lunde, BLP infringement was the reason for reverting the last edit there by an anonymous IP address. What does BLP mean? ‐⁠‑🌀⁠SilSinnAL982100⁠💬 23:00, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * BLP stands for Biographies of Living Persons, and is shortcut for saying that the edit infringed Wikipedia policies for articles about living people. BabelStone (talk) 23:11, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

SCIPIO
Do you have access to the SCIPIO database of book sales catalogues. I think you have to be signed in to OCLC to have access Hochithecreator (talk) 10:55, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't have access to SCIPIO or OCLC, but it seems that the Sotheby's and Christies sites are good enough for most sales. Thanks for all your help in improving the article, I think we are slowly making it actually useful to readers! One thing that concerns me is the $1m limit, which makes sense for 20th century sales, but does not seem to be a sensible limit now. BabelStone (talk) 11:25, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Obscure expensive books
I've read about sales of several books in Library World Records that I can't find a decent provenance for. Specifically the "Psalter and Hours of Elizabeth de Bohun" (apparently Sotheby's $2.1m 1988), the "MoneyPenny Breviary" (Sotheby's $2.8m 1989), and the Jami' al-tawarikh (Sotheby's $1.5m 1980). I've found Library World Records to be fairly reliable (it's where I discovered the Cornaro Missal, the Northumberland Breviary, the Burdett Psalter and the Mozart Symphonies) but I haven't found any auction records or news articles confirming these three books. Hopefully you might have better luck than me.

If however you don't find anything would you regard Library World Records as enough of a source considering how reliable it's been to include them anyway. There's also a second book reference for the Jami' al-tawarikh I found on its Wikipedia article. Cheers, Hochithecreator (talk) 23:29, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Ready-made versus composite characters
Your This covers the use of combining diacritical marks which may be added after the base character by the user. is certainly an improvement on what I wrote but it still suffers from the problem of "who is the user"? My arabic is not good, so take the simple latin character è as an example: we still seem to be saying to the average reader that if they want to write a composite character like that, they should type e then ` and it will automagically turn into è. Which it won't.

I can't offer a better way of expressing the concept but I feel that we still haven't hit the spot. Though I suppose you could argue that anybody reading this article should be assumed to have a reasonable grounding in the concepts? --Red King (talk) 00:00, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for covfefe
I was looking where to report Wikipedia vandalism; when I went back to the "covfefe" page to get the exact text, I saw you'd already reverted the wacko conspiracy ravings. Thanks for the quick work!