User talk:Cnilep/Archive/31 December 2012

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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fisciculture
— Northamerica1000(talk) 21:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Do-support & Tjo3ya
Hi Cnilep,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us both and for making a comment on your revert of the do-support article. If you'll take a look at the change log for that article you'll note that I made the initial revert (they were all the same revert) without any knowledge that the edit had been made by Tjo3ya or a wikipedian at all (as Tjo3ya points out when he reverted that revert, he was not logged in). In my revert I noted the reason that the changes that had been made included opinion (thinking that the person who'd made the edit did so innocently and was not a registered editor and thus was neither familiar with policy on opinionated statements nor with the previous discussions on the topic including the need for backing up all claims with cited sources).

After Tjo3ya reverted that change giving his reason that he'd not been logged in (I'm guessing assuming that I would not have reverted for the original reason had I known it had been edited by him or a registered user), I once again reverted it pointing out the original reason and specifying that it needed a reference and calling for discussion. Tjo3ya then reverted again saying there was no need to discuss anything with me. Every time I reverted his revert I again called for citations/references (an call that he has constantly and repeatedly made of others elsewhere). He continued to revert to his new changes.

Upon realizing that he was intent on pushing it into an edit war and unwilling to address the issues I had raised in reverting his changes, I walked away. I then reported his actions on the edit warring notice board and, following the instructions given, placed the official notice of that report on his user page. Rather than respond to either the notice or the report on the noticeboard, Tjo3ya instead deleted the notice from his user page, seemingly content that his changes got to remain in the article. It wasn't until you reverted his changes to the do-support article that he felt the need to report me as "abusive". Abusive in this case apparently means disagreeing with him and following wikipedia standards for backing up claims made with citations.Drew.ward (talk) 15:19, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It's good that you ceased reverting and used the notice boards. Three-reverts can get you blocked, even if done with the best of intentions. Cnilep (talk) 03:02, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Feed them Trolls!
Hi Chad, I like your essay and have linked it in a new userbox: Perhaps you like to see that :) --Trofobi (talk) 02:29, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Tsuneo Maeda


The article Tsuneo Maeda has been proposed for deletion because it appears to have no references. Under Wikipedia policy, this newly created biography of a living person will be deleted unless it has at least one reference to a reliable source that directly supports material in the article.

If you created the article, please don't be offended. Instead, consider improving the article. For help on inserting references, see Referencing for beginners, or ask at the help desk. Once you have provided at least one reliable source, you may remove the prod blp tag. Please do not remove the tag unless the article is sourced. If you cannot provide such a source within ten days, the article may be deleted, but you can when you are ready to add one. —Farix (t &#124; c) 11:00, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * You are quite right that there are no sources cited as references – I could only find one mention in an English book and wasn't sure the handful of mentions in Japanese books were the same Maeda Tsuneo. There are, however, two external links. On the third hand, IMDb and Anime News Network might be considered less reliable sources. Anyway, I'll leave it to others to decide whether they count as sources for purposes of BLP. Cnilep (talk) 04:20, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Esperanto music
I have proposed merging the article Esperanto music with the article Esperanto culture. You participated in a discussion of  a proposal to delete the Esperanto music article earlier this year. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Naŋar (talk) 13:38, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

'Needs washed' as copula omission
Hi Cnilep,

Thanks for writing. It seems like a straight-forward enough example of a copula omission to me: there's a copula, to be, and it's omitted. But I'm not a linguist and I'm not even particularly familiar with the Pennsylvanian dialect. And, as you say, it could be interpreted in a different way.

Perhaps the example could be stated in a more of a "see also" kind of way rather than listed as a copula omission? Feel free to edit or remove my changes. —Pengo 03:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for getting back to me. It might look like a sky-is-blue sort of thing, but I see at least potential controversy. I've just skimmed about a dozen journal articles on the construction and almost none of them say the copula is omitted or even implied. One source (McElhinny 1999) mentions the copula, but only in passing. Hers is a work of phonology, not syntax, and only mentions "deletion of infinitival copula" in a list of features of Pennsylvania English, without citing a source or giving an analysis.


 * I'll remove the passage for now. If anyone finds a source, we can re-add it. Cnilep (talk) 04:16, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for doing the research. Certainly seems like a sky-is-blue thing to me, but, oh well. Cheers. —Pengo 05:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi, please abide by the guidelines.
When you revert edits, please abide by Reverting 88.114.154.216 (talk) 15:19, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Likely
Well, you have taught me something now. I have noticed that many American contributors use "likely" as an adverb instead of "probably", but in the UK this would certainly be considered a solecism. For example: and - even  does not allow it as an adverb. I shall have to be more careful in future. Deb (talk) 08:20, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Multiple, pointless synonyms
I saw the editor's note about not changing from one to the other, but couldn't find the edits going back in history, so just dumped them both. I've had disputes before about "portmanteau", which has always struck me as a pointlessly pompous fancy word that just confuses readers when easier synonyms are available, but I've never run across the "blend" debate before. It's right up there with the hyphen-or-dash argument in terms of wiki-timewasters. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 01:18, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree; it's a pretty unimportant thing to worry over. If you're interested (and you probably aren't) in some of the arguments over portmanteau, there is old discussion here. Cnilep (talk) 03:56, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Couldn't help getting interested in this. I was rather shocked to see the article title, as in the UK "portmanteau" is almost always used to refer to the bag, and "portmanteau word" is invariably used for the other.  Weird! Deb (talk) 14:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Significance of and citation for ?
I find your revert questionable for a number of reasons.
 * 1. I have no idea in what sense you might find the example I added "trivial." For one thing, there was precedent already in the same article; only a few paragraphs lower we point out that rendering empanada as empañada "changes the meaning in Spanish from 'breaded' to 'fogged up' and perhaps even 'diapered'." And furthermore, there is a perfectly valid reason for including such comments, which is that they illustrate that such hyperforeignisms can affect the meanings (for some listeners). You are free to find discussion of such changes of meaning less than fascinating, but you ought, it seems to me, to accommodate the possibility that other Wikipedia users might find them not only interesting, but affirmatively useful.
 * 2. You object that my addition was "not in the cited source." Why should it be? In the first place, I put my addition in a separate sentence after the citation. And further, it is a comment about words in French, so I would scarcely choose a dictionary of American English as my authority. If the force of your objection was merely that the addition was unsourced, then I'd point out that that flaw (if it is one) is easily enough fixed by remedies far less drastic than deletion of the content. You demonstrated as much in your subsequent response to my addition about the pronunciation of Degas.
 * 3. Judging from this revert and your suggestion that my Degas addition needs a citation, I suspect that what's exercising you most is that I did not provide a source for either addition. Now, exactly which propositions in Wikipedia articles demand (or merit) sourcing is—you must agree—a matter of judgment about which there is room for different points of view. In any event, even were a hard-line policy of "source it or eliminate it" appropriate, your pair of edits strikes me as at least a bit arbitrary. Consider that the same subsection (about final consonants of French words in English) includes assertions about Saint-Saëns, Duras, Boulez, and Berlioz, as well as about claret, none of which is sourced and none of which you have flagged as wanting for sourcing.
 * 4. By the way, and just FYI, you might choose a more neutral wording next time. I don't imagine you intended it, but I found your term trivial mildly insulting because I think carefully about my edits and I certainly do not add things that I find trivial.

In summary, I'm happy to work with you to find a mutually acceptable resolution. I hope you'll take the next step by clarifying your view.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 15:43, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I am sorry that I offended you. The wording of my edit summary ("This addition, by the way, is trivial...") was meant to echo the wording of the portion I removed ("This pronunciation, by the way, changes the meaning...") as a bit of a joke.


 * In my opinion the wording I removed was of little significance to understanding hyperforeignism as such or evaluating /ku də ɡʁa/ as a hyperforeignism. To anyone who speaks French, the existence of grace/gras as a minimal pair is common knowledge, as is the meaning of each word. To English speakers who do not speak French the meaning of gras may come as news; however, I am not convinced that anyone, French or English speaking, understands /kuw də gra/ as "greasy blow" any more than people understood /ɪʃ biːn ain beəliːnə/ as "I am a jelly doughnut". No evidence has been provided to convince me of this. It seems more likely that French speakers simply understand it as silly foreigners' pronunciation.


 * While it is true that other stuff exists on the page that I find unimportant, lacking in proper sources, or even confusing, by and large that is information existed at the page Hypercorrection prior to July 2011. Note that there is a refimprove tag at the top of the page; much on the page is in need of improvement.


 * I am sincere in my apology to you. As a professor of linguistics I am somewhat put off by the attitude of many Wikipedia editors that articles on "vernacular" language need not be held to high standards of quality. As a Wikipedian, however, I try to assume good faith and to work and play well with other editors. I hope that we will be able to work together to bring about constant improvement of the project. Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 00:46, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

As to offense... no harm, no foul. And I'm greatly pleased to learn that I'm corresponding with a professor of linguistics; I am a professional mathematician (or theoretical computer scientist, depending on one's definitions), minored in linguistics, and believe strongly in achieving high standards in Wikipedia pages.

Now, to the specifics of your response. I certainly do not assert that my comment about coup de grâce is important to the article. Nor do I wish to be understood as suggesting that native francophones would be likely to misinterpret /ku də ɡʁa/ in any serious way as though it signified coup de gras. But I do believe that some readers would find the comment to be of some interest. My intuition (indeed my intent) is that it might bring a bit of enlightenment, along the lines of "Hmm, the pronunciation that I've always used not only differs from the (French) original, but also could sound to a French speaker a bit silly, as it might conjure up an absurd image." And some of those readers might reason further, "Well, although I'd otherwise not care about striving for Gallic authenticity, I am interested in avoiding looking a fool [or, as you put it, 'a silly foreigner']. So from now on, I'm going to pronounce that word-final unvoiced coronal sibilant." Note, I do not intend to be prescriptive, but I do imagine that some readers of the article might go through that reasoning.

And, to be sure, holding Wikipedia articles to high standards of quality is not the same thing as turning them into college textbooks, let alone scholarly essays. They must, of course, be accurate, and verifiable. But their primary audience is a general—and therefore nonexpert—readership.

About references, perhaps you and I just find ourselves at different points along the spectrum of what does and what does not call for sourcing. To me, because the meanings and pronunciations of terms in a widely used language are easily found in a bilingual dictionary, and because recourse to such a dictionary may be assumed to be obvious, because of that, I'd find a citation corroborating such meanings and pronunciations gratuitous. But maybe I misunderstood your original comment about not being in the cited source?

By the way, the person from whom I learned that Degas does not rhyme with dégât? One of my professors of French. Elle était parisienne de naissance. Et elle nous a assuré que cette prononciation erronée la gênait vachement. No, that doesn't count as a source.

So, anyway, would it bother you greatly if my comments were restored? And what kinds of sourcing do you think they require?—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 03:28, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * No, reintroduction would not bother me greatly. I trust you will be careful to give the comment only its due weight and not to suggest that this is a common misunderstanding. Cnilep (talk) 04:13, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Hand-coding
Hey all :).

I'm dropping you a note because you've been involved in dealing with feedback from the Article Feedback Tool. To get a better handle on the overall quality of comments now that the tool has become a more established part of the reader experience, we're undertaking a round of hand coding - basically, taking a sample of feedback and marking each piece as inappropriate, helpful, so on - and would like anyone interested in improving the tool to participate :).

You can code as many or as few pieces of feedback as you want: this page should explain how to use the system, and there is a demo here. Once you're comfortable with the task, just drop me an email at and I'll set you up with an account :).

If you'd like to chat with us about the research, or want live tutoring on the software, there will be an office hours session on Monday 17 December at 23:00 UTC in. Hope to see some of you there! Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:33, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

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