User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 14

incorrect ordering of InterWiki links
In this edit, you moved the Gagauz link (gag:) to follow the Galego (gl:) link. I have corrected it. —Coroboy (talk) 23:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That was automated by AWB. Maybe we should let them know. — kwami (talk) 23:32, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems to have been fixed now. — kwami (talk) 19:22, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. —Coroboy (talk) 09:41, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Altaic is debated, and so should not be stated as a matter of fact
I notice you have been deleting Altaic from some articles.

If it is debated, we should not come down on either side of the controversy, according to WP:NPOV. Judgement of correctness is not the criterion for inclusion - notability and verifiability are. --JWB (talk) 22:59, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Exactly. — kwami (talk) 23:01, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Altaic is notable. --JWB (talk) 19:13, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is. But our sources disagree as to whether it is verifiable. Therefore we should not state it as a fact as you seem to want to. When we have a debated family proposal, we list it for its constituent branches, noting that it's questioned, but not for every language in those branches. That way it's easy to fix if things change, and we don't have the same disputes repeated on all the articles. Same for disputed branches: we may list them at adjacent levels, but not normally for every language within them. In this case, all of the language boxes are colored Altaic green, all the articles have the Altaic navigation box, and if you follow the family tree, you'll find that Altaic is suggested above Turkic. — kwami (talk) 19:15, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * WP:Verifiability is about referencing to publications and notability - it says "verifiability, not truth". I am not saying Altaic should be stated as either confirmed or disproved - in its own article we should cover both viewpoints, while elsewhere it is notable without having to take a position on whether it is a cladistic group. --JWB (talk) 04:50, 4 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay, then I'm confused as to why we're having this conversation. — kwami (talk) 05:07, 4 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Altaic is not debated to me because it's shows similarities. 5 branches of Altaic had an common ancestor. It's not a sprachbund. It's genetic.71.201.63.99 (talk) 17:10, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

crossed-out ɪ
Could you please explain why your addition of ɨ here in both IPAc-en and IPA-en is rendered differently, as an incorrect crossed-out ɪ (not on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_English#Key) in the former and a correct ɨ in the latter. Even stranger is that copy-pasting the letter from the IPAc-en rendering produces ɪ, not the crossed-out version visible in the final UI. Thanks, --Espoo (talk) 00:55, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * That's probably how IPAc-en is set up. Soft formatting is not a good thing because of copy-paste problems, so I'll take a look. — kwami (talk) 01:16, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, both display ɨ now. — kwami (talk) 01:19, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * What did you change? --Espoo (talk) 01:48, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The coding in the template that IPAc-en calls for its display. Just follow my edit history. — kwami (talk) 02:33, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Tambora language
Hello! Your submission of Tambora language at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:58, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Kwami, I was wondering how many DYKs you have. If you have more than 5 already you are supossed to review an article at T:TDYK. Thanks! Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:40, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This is my first submission. — kwami (talk) 16:58, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Alright. It's already been moved to Prep 1. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:16, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! — kwami (talk) 23:19, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Request for help with IPA Pronunciation
Hi Kwami, I was wondering if you could include the IPA pronunciation for Koentjaraningrat. In Indonesian it is pronounced (roughly) koon-cha-“ra-ning-rat (with the r a trill). Sorry to bother you, but I'm not sure which symbols are used in English for some of the sounds, especially the trill R. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:13, 4 June 2011 (UTC)


 * We don't have a trill in English, so you can't transcribe it that way. I can give the Malay pronunciation (I'll go ahead and do that now), but for English I'd need an established anglicization. — kwami (talk) 23:15, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * All the English refs I found used Koentjaraningrat. Thanks for adding the Malay pronunciation... perhaps it would be safe to say that the English is similar, but with a regular r (alveolar approximant) instead of a trill. Actually, when I said "symbols ... used in English" I meant the IPA... I was taught that /R/ represents the American English r Sorry if I don't make much sense. Thanks a lot! Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:25, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * [r] is a trill, but when you put things in slashes rather than brackets, you're making an abstract representation for a sound, not the actual sound itself. (There's a famous grammar of Marshalese that transcribes the vowels with symbols like /♠/, /⊗/.) So we tend to use /r/ for English ar rather than the more precise /ɹ/, if for no reason than it's more familiar and easier to type. (Doesn't matter cuz we don't contrast them.) But we would never say it's pronounced [r] (in brackets) unless you have a strong brogue. — kwami (talk) 23:42, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * So in English it would be or something similar? Thanks for the help; I've used the link provided by the template at Koentjaraningrat to add the IPA for Chrisye. Thanks for all your help! Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:13, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * For English, you'd want to check our conventions though IPA-en. The a's would need to be /æ/ (as in 'cat'), /ɑː/ (as in 'father'), or /ə/ (as in 'sofa'). But if you're just making something up, it would be OR and probably best avoided. Also, do you really mean to stress the name on the first syllable? I thought Malay had (ante)penultimate stress. — kwami (talk) 00:21, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I seem to remember my linguistics professor saying that the stress on the syllables wasn't as strong as in English. However, you are correct insofar as would be OR and would not be used in the article; I was just trying (and failing, judging by those a sounds) to understand the rules for writing things phonetically. Thanks for all the help! Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:13, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, few languages have stress as strong as in English, but it can still be important to get it right.
 * Well, you're working between two languages, which makes it more difficult. The IPA key linked from the template gives example words, so you can use those to sound things out. Our system is set up in such a way that it shouldn't matter which dialect of English you speak, as long as it isn't Scots. — kwami (talk) 02:21, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed. By the way, thanks for fixing the IPA in Chrisye. I am using ˈ now, in accordance with the rules at WP:IPA for Malay (footnote 8). As for the English IPA... I think I'll leave it alone for now; converting (translating? Is there a proper term?) Indonesian IPA to English seems to be more than I can handle for now, even as a native speaker of English. Using a language and writing it phonetically are two completely different creatures. Cheers, and looking forward to another language DYK! Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:34, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Zarma edits
Thanks for the recent edits to the Zarma language article. I do have a few questions about some of your recent edits.

1. My background in linguistics is minimal. What exactly do the "<>" symbols stand for in your edit, which reads "a following ‹n› or ‹ŋ›"? Do they indicate orthography?
 * Yes. Actually, the correct symbols are ⟨n⟩, ⟨ŋ⟩, but they are not widely supported by phonetic fonts.
 * Thanks for the information.

2. I'm not sure the consonant table edits are correct. The article says the consonant table is a "table using Zarma orthography". It used to use standard Zarma spelling with just a few explanatory IPA symbols in brackets where needed. But now it is a mix of spelling conventions and phonetic representations with inconsistent punctuation differentiating the two. I would prefer returning it to the orthographic representations because the text and the bracketed IPA symbols fully explain how the letters are pronounced. But if you disagree, we could rewrite the table entirely in phonetic symbols. In any case, it really should be all IPA symbols or all standard spelling indicators rather than the current mixture, right? Or am I missing something?
 * I'll revert myself and take a better look.
 * Nearly everything looks perfect now. I like the way you reorganized the spelling information. I made a couple of minor additions and answered your [which?] question.

3. Why was the labiodental nasal removed? This leaves the sentence in the text above the table somewhat orphaned and the table incomplete. --seberle (talk) 01:51, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not a phoneme, so the article is simply wrong. That allophone is practically universal, so we seldom bother to even mention it. — kwami (talk) 02:03, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That makes sense. I need to double check what Hamani and Tersis say about this. If I use /n/ before /f/, Zarma people correct my pronunciation in a way no one would do if I pronounced English "infant" with /n/, but I don't think there are any minimal pairs, so it is undoubtedly an allophone. --seberle (talk) 20:53, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, you're right about /n/, and I left a note about that. But /m/ is automatic for English speakers and just about everyone else. There's only one language in the world that's reported to have a contrastive /ɱ/, and they file their teeth in such a way that it sounds different than it would otherwise. — kwami (talk) 20:59, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * In Zarma, the distinction between m and n before f is one of spelling only. For example, some people write damfane, most people write danfane, but everyone pronounces it /dáɱfáné/. --seberle (talk) 14:07, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Allophones of [e], [i], [o], and [u] in Indonesian
Sorry to bother you again Kwami, but as I was taking a look at IPA for Malay I remembered that (in Indonesian, at least) the vowels [e], [i], [o], and [u] have the allophones /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /ɔ/, and /ʊ/ respectively when in closed syllables at the end of a word (for example, 'catfish', but  'melt';  'cheek' and  'to pee (informal)';  'soto' and  'cuttlefish'; and  'know' or 'tofu' and  'year'). Would that be worth including at IPA for Malay? Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:21, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * An online reference can be found here, although it's not the exact same as what I was taught. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:24, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Check out the talk page. This was brought up before but never resolved.
 * What distinguishes [i] from [e] and [u] from [o] in Indonesian? Are they allophonic, predictable from adjacent consonants? — kwami (talk) 03:25, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with zɪzɨvə's table. As for what distinguishes [i] from [e] and [u] from [o] as phonemes (in Indonesian), we were taught the the occurrences of minimal pairs like 'beak' and  'match' demonstrated that [u] and [o] are separate phonemes since the meaning changes with the sound. I can't remember any for [e] and [i] right now. Sounds like /o/ and /ɔ/ were said to be allophones because they could be switched without changing the meaning (we could say  instead of the formal  and it would still mean 'cuttlefish'). Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:44, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * [e] and [i]: 'map' vs.  'tape' or 'ribbon'. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:49, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Kamus Lengkap (Wojowasito) gives cucuk as a variant of (men)cocok. They don't list a similar word for 'beak'. And in the case of peta vs. pita, it's really pəta vs. pita, not *péta. That's what I've generally found: when s.o. claims a phonemic difference, a little digging will show it isn't that straightforward, at least not in native words. On the other hand, Poedjosoedarmo says that these distinctions (and also a o–ɔ distinction) were introduced from Javanese.) I don't have a problem with the extra allophones, but you should probably restart the talk-page discussion. — kwami (talk) 03:58, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (National Education Department, Fourth Edition [2008]) gives cucuk as 'thorn', with some Javanese loan meanings as well. I will try and find more examples, but I agree that this should be moved to the talk page. Doing so now. Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:06, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * And (men)cocok is 'to prick'. They're presumably the same root.
 * Because it's written with five vowel letters, it's been standardized as having five (or six) vowels. But that's always struck me as rather artificial. What we really seem to have is a four-vowel system, /i u ə a/, with /i/ being [i~e] and /u/ being [u~o], and an introduction of a high–mid distinction from English, Dutch, and Javanese loans—and according to Poedjosoedarmo, also /ɔ/ as a distinct vowel in Javanese loans, including a lot used for administration. So we have /i u ə a/ in native words, and /i u e ə o ɔ a/ in loan words. But the [i~e] and [u~o] distinctions in native words, even if set out as absolute in dictionaries, are not stable, and seem to reflect a top–down decision rather than the language as it's spoken.
 * When Malaysia and Indonesia coordinated their national standards, one of the things they had to agree on was which words should have i u, and which should have e o. They couldn't go by the actual words, because the difference was meaningless in native vocabulary. So they set out rules where they decided based on the adjacent consonants. — kwami (talk) 04:22, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Possible. However, for the different versions aren't we using the standard to establish IPA? By the way, I've added more pairs for [e] and [i] at the talk page. Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:29, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but the standard is primarily one of orthography. The distinction is largely meaningless for actual pronunciation, which is what the IPA is supposed to transcribe. — kwami (talk) 04:30, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, although the pronunciation depends completely on the dialect and ethnic group. I think the discussion ought to be continued on the project talk page. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:03, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Declination article
The symbol proposed for the sun in the Declination article do not render as anything meaningful in the Opera browser. Did you not read the edit history reverting the previous change? - Ac44ck (talk) 06:04, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's why I formatted it with the unicode template. Since AFAIK the unicode template supports the browsers which are not versatile enough to display straight text, I think the problem is probably that you're missing the proper fonts. Declination is not relative to a labial click, but to the Sun. I'm sure there are readers who can't read the labial click either. If we introduced errors for every reader who hasn't installed more than minimal fonts, we'd be pretty close to ASCII. — kwami (talk) 06:08, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I apologize for the tone of my post. You obviously have much knowledge about this topic. Your solution is probably best. - Ac44ck (talk) 18:52, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I hope so. If the unicode template I added the 2nd time doesn't take care of it, I'm not sure what to do. The other symbol was factually wrong, and I suspect that other readers would have the same problem with it that you do with the Sun symbol. The reason I found it was that I was searching for bare IPA symbols like it, as some readers need them to be embedded in the IPA template for proper display. When I find an IPA symbol that isn't being used as a phonetic symbol, I replace it with the proper Unicode symbol, assuming one exists. Otherwise I suspect that there might be objections from readers who have astronomical-symbol fonts installed, but can't read this because we substitute a phonetic symbol and they have no interest in phonetics. — kwami (talk) 18:59, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant
I goofed when I attempted to revert a recent move. Feel free to move Voiceless palatal-alveolar sibilant to Voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 19:23, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. — kwami (talk) 19:27, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

East Cree
Kwami, in all your manipulation of Northern East Cree and Southern East Cree, you managed to lose Southern East Cree. Northern East and Southern East are distinct languages/dialects and require separate pages. --Taivo (talk) 08:50, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


 * No, it's still there. Just because Ethnologue splits them doesn't mean we have to. It's not like we have so much material we need separate pages. — kwami (talk) 08:53, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have a reference that combines these two dialects or is it your own collapse? (I'm out of the country, so I'm not at my library and can't check.)  If you don't have a reliable source that combines them into a single node, then you you can't do it here just for convenience.  Every source that I recall separates them and doesn't have an "East Cree" node (despite the similarity of their name).  But I'm working from memory.  --Taivo (talk) 13:32, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The terms "James Bay Cree" and "East Main Cree" are commonly used for both together. They share most of their mergers compared to neighboring lects, and the two isoglosses that distinguish them (ā~ē and s~š) do not coincide, so by that criterion there are three East Cree lects (northern coastal, southern coastal, and southern inland).
 * As for refs, quite a few contrast Naskapi, Monagnais, and East Cree, or Moose Cree, Woods Cree, and East Cree. A few East Cree refs that came up immediately were:
 * Junker, "Semantic primes and their grammar in a polysynthetic language: East Cree", in Goddard 2008 Cross-linguistic semantics (John Benjamins)
 * Older Junker papers on "East Cree" cited in the Papers of the 27th Algonquian Conference, Carleton U, 2006.
 * Jancewicz, "Related-Language Translation: Naskapi and East Cree", in Swann 2011 Born in the Blood: On Native American Translation (U Nebraska)
 * East Cree "dialect" kept together when comparing to Eastern Naskapi (kept distinct from Western Naskapi) in Brittain 2001 The morphosyntax of the Algonquian Conjunct verb (though that's minimalism, for what it's worth): "The status of kâ in East Cree" etc.; NE Cree and SE Cree only seem to be distinguished in this ref when discussing a feature where they differ.
 * — kwami (talk) 19:31, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. Sounds fine. --Taivo (talk) 20:56, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Tambora language
Materialscientist (talk) 16:04, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Request (June)
Would you mind giving a look to this edit request? Thanks! 68.35.40.154 (talk) 04:45, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure. Done. — kwami (talk) 04:53, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Quick service! Thanks very much. 68.35.40.154 (talk) 05:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

IPA2
You broke my user page :( 131.211.84.85 (talk) 14:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry. I didn't want to go around redoing people's user pages, and didn't know how many of these old links were still active. Maybe I should? Anyway, your page is now updated with a Dutch IPA key. If you prefer, there's also a more generic IPA-all. — kwami (talk) 19:47, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for fixing. It indeed links to a more useful page now. The old template is still linked to from quite a few other user pages though, so I think it might be better if either all those instances are replaced by a the new template or the old redirect kept in place. Cheers, 131.211.84.85 (talk) 12:34, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I suppose people won't mind me editing their user pages for that. — kwami (talk) 20:50, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Jubilee 150 Walkway
Thanks! I've been meaning to do that for ages. (Honest!) Pdfpdf (talk) 11:39, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow, I fixed the formatting and someone didn't complain about it! That's nice. I did break one of the links, though. Now fixed. — kwami (talk) 16:14, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Breaking things with AWB
Hello Kwamikagami! It looks like you're [ breaking things] with AWB.  Cbrown1023   talk   20:21, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. That's since been fixed; sorry I didn't notice it happen with Ukraine. — kwami (talk) 20:49, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay, good to hear. Thanks!  Cbrown1023    talk   20:58, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Talkback (June)
--  李博杰   | —Talk contribs email 07:38, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug
May I ask why you used an en-dash between Khanty and Mansi in your most recent move? I just want to make sure I understand the rationale. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 20:04 (UTC)


 * I was trying to figure out what to do with the em dash. That was just lifted from the Russian, but we don't use em dashes that way in English. (We don't space them when we do use them, and we don't normally use them inside of names regardless.) Russian em dash is usually equivalent to English en dash (or hyphen, but a spaced hyphen is even worse, or a slash; a slash might work too). But if we're going to use an en dash for the "– Yugra" part, then to be consistent we should probably use one for the "Khanty–Mansi" part too: They are two separate entities, as AFAIK Russia does not consider them to be a single Khanty-Mansi people, which is what a hyphen would imply. If we're using en dashes, independent entities normally take them. Cf. our war articles, which are "X–Y War", where X and Y are the combatants. Or spaced "X – Y War" when X or Y have a space in them, which is what we have here with (KM Auton. Okrug)–(Yugra).


 * This is a weird one, though, so if you have a better idea, pls let me know. — kwami (talk) 20:14, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The World Bank has "Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra", with all hyphens. The okrug govt. site has essentially the same thing, "Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug-Ugra", but that's wrong because it's not an 'okrug-yugra'. Also, in they go on to call it just "Ugra": Over two tens of Ugra citizens ... (I'm not going to take punctuation advice from anyone who says "over two tens".)
 * The Central Siberian Botanical Gardens has "Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (Yugra)": Ecological Traits of the Lichen Flora of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (Yugra). If you don't like the en dash, we could maybe try that. — kwami (talk) 20:16, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I don't have a better idea, unfortunately. I've asked you in hopes to get one :) Since I link to that article quite a bit, I would like to understand why the dashes are laid out the way they are (correcting all those backlinks is no fun when the article keeps moving from one place to another).
 * The article was previously moved by someone who believed that "Yugra" should be included in the title (before, it was at just "Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug"). I don't care much either way, but would love to see the title stabilize for a reason that can be explained to others and not just on a hunch.
 * In Russian, there is a dash between Khanty and Mansi, and, with Yugra being basically an alternative name, there is an em-dash between "okrug" and "Yugra". That, of course, means nothing from the point of view of English grammar, and dashes are one area of the English grammar I'm not very comfortable with. Thanks for trying to explain, though. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 20:24 (UTC)
 * In English, we use en dash and spaced en dash rather than en dash and em dash as in Russian. They are parallel, since spaced en dash is a typographic alternate for em dash in English anyway.
 * We also use slashes when two languages have equal standing, as in Catalan / Spanish city names, so that might work too. If we don' have a dash for Yugra, there's no real need to have a dash between Khanty and Mansi. (We might decide on that later, but currently we don't do that for other Russian states.)
 * I don't think we need both in the name. The common name in English is still KMAO, so IMO that's where it belongs, and I'd be happy to move it back if you like. Then we'd just say "also known as Yugra" in the lede. — kwami (talk) 20:16, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with you moving it back to "Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug", but you might want to have a talk with the editor who moved it to the "Yugra" variant beforehand. Perhaps he had other reasons we are not seeing.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 20:54 (UTC)

AWB
Please be careful when making such edits with AWB, as the link to the image broke because the file name uses a hyphen, not a dash. Adabow (talk · contribs) 07:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Ah, sorry. Thanks for letting me know. I have it set to ignore file links, but I didn't anticipate that wording. It's now set to ignore the 'cover' parameter. — kwami (talk) 07:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * In this edit, you inserted a birth-year that has no citation. It's okay to add details if you know them, but it's not okay to summarize as just "fmt" when you are changing content facts. This particular fact-edit is completely unacceptable because it violates WP:BLP--uncited, and the cites we do have are contradictory, which is even stated in the infobox and on the talkpage. DMacks (talk) 13:01, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I didn't add that, AWB did. It was an automatic fix. If it's wrong, we need to bring it up on the AWB bug page. — kwami (talk) 13:56, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * As an AWB or other tool user, you are 100% responsible for every change you make using it. But I agree, definitely file a bug if the tool is causing a problem. DMacks (talk) 14:16, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Junrey Balawing
Hi, can you check the IPA for Junrey Balawing? It's certainly not standard English but is labelled as IPA for English. μηδείς (talk) 20:02, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not Tagalog either. I suppose it could be Subanon, but more likely just wrong. Deleted. — kwami (talk) 00:17, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hello, obviously this biographical article is intended for English speakers and not to the subject's country of origin. Though we Filipinos speak English but we do have different sets of languages, alphabet & even Wikipedia page. Thus, I am hoping for the restoration of IPA description you deleted. Rammaum (talk) 10:44, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure. Which language was it in? We need to identify the language when it isn't English. Or if it's intended to be English, you'd need to tell me what the actual English pronunciation is. — kwami (talk) 10:53, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It's a Filipino English intended for English reader. It is pronounced as "June Re" - thanks. Rammaum (talk) 15:44, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I assume re means ray? Stress on the June or on the Ray ? — kwami (talk) 15:46, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Please don't assume. June as to the 6th Month Gregorian, and Re as to regarding, not ray as sunlight rays. Thanks. Rammaum (talk) 16:49, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's why I was asking you, and it would be nice if you answered the question so I didn't have to keep repeating it. So it's ree rather than ray. Fine. Now which is stressed, the june or the ree ? — kwami (talk) 17:39, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It's stressed in ree and please could you kindly resolved the DOB format as I am implying its consistency both in the infobox and DOB in line 1 as explained here despite my request it has been edited many times unxplained. Thank you so much. Rammaum (talk) 18:08, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * IPA done. Don't understand about the DOB: it looks consistent to me. — kwami (talk) 18:15, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Lock down Spratly Islands
Within the past 4 days, there have been 6 edits (example) replacing 'South China' with 'West Philippine' in the context of the sea. All purely disruptive and by changing users/IPs, so either a range-block or a semi-protect of this article, please. Thanks

PS: I have promised not to make any requests at WP:Requests for __ for the time being, and will not renege on that promise. &mdash; HXL's Roundtable  and  Record  06:19, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not following you on your second comment, but I went ahead and semi-protected the article. — kwami (talk) 06:28, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

AN3
I believe Ibibiogrl attempted to report you for a WP:3RR violation on the Efik language article. Best, Meph talk 23:52, 13 June 2011 (UTC).


 * Thanks. — kwami (talk) 02:42, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Corretions made on Efik Language talk Page
Kwami I Have just edited all comments I wrote on the Efik Talk Page, Am Sorry If I offended you. But Now that you can clearly read everything, you will notice that I explained initially the mistake you made, and told you that Efik and Ibibio languages were different just like French and Spanish differs.

I started calling you names only after you ignored my comments and kept asking me what I thought was wrong. I thought you were treating my oppinions as jokes. Most of my oppinions were quotes from you. I also used Caps because my spacing wasn't showing up, so I used caps to explain it to you as I was tired of repeating myself.

Am not usualy easily irritated escept in this case, because you refuse to consider my oppinions at first. This case is personal to me, I doubt that you will ignored it if somebody made a joke of your language.Ibibiogrl (talk) 23:50, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not a joke, Ibibiogrl. Ibibio–Efik is often treated as a single language. You may think that's wrong, and it may be wrong, but it's still the case that it's commonly treated that way.
 * I have no problem with you creating separate pages for Ibibio and Efik. I do, however, have a problem with you saying that Ibibio–Efik does not include Ibibio, which is a joke. That would be like saying that French is not Romance just because you want to declare that Spanish isn't French.
 * As for your opinions, it's great that we have an Ibibio speaker to work on the Ibibio article. But writing your opinions as fact counts as WP:original research. We're not an opinion piece but an encyclopedia, and we need WP:reliable sources. Since you know the subject so well, you can hopefully help us with that.
 * We have an article on the dialect continuum than includes Ibibio proper and Efik. It was once called 'Ibibio–Efik language', then was moved to 'Ibibio language', and is now at 'Efik language'. That's because there's disagreement over what it should be called per WP:common name. If you wish to create separate articles for Ibibio proper, Efik proper, Anaang, or any of the others, I encourage you to do so. If you wish to move the Efik/Ibibio/Ibibio–Efik article to a different name, I encourage you to open a discussion on that too. But insisting that it doesn't exist when we have tons of sources saying it does exist is not likely to be productive, unless you have reliable sources (not blogs) to support your argument. — kwami (talk) 07:04, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

So if it was once called "Ibibio-Efik"(which I have been saying that wikipedia created that name) why should you change it back to that name? I have been telling you That It does not Exist because it implies that the language is mixed with Ibibio & Efik. Such Language doesn't exist.
 * According to Wikipedia A false statement/article is removed immediatley it is realized. Yet once I pointed out the mistakes to you, you kept insisting that it was wrong and asked for sources. I provided the sources and You Called A brilliant Historian who is a Million times more knowledgable than you on the language "utterly ignorant AND not some random idiot who posted a web page". Yet your colleges are claiming that am the one attacking you.
 * I can be Block because I don't care to be part of a web/Encyclopedia of Lies! Like I said I only just signed on to fixed this error. I haven't yet reported the issues to Ibibio Union, but am sure that we all will want out names deleted from a web of Lies! Am sure including the Efiks too. Am done with you all, am going to be taking this issues to the Founder/head by email, once the Ibibio union are involved it might become a legal matter if Wikipedia still continues to portray this misleading information.
 * I will take this matter to the heads by Email first because they might not be aware of what you and your other supposedly administrators are doing to their image. Ibibiogrl (talk) 20:50, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

You still don't understand. Please read WP:TRUTH. Please read anything about Wikipedia so you understand how things work here. You've been here three years; you should know this stuff by now. Also, please read the sourced answers I've given to your objections. "I didn't hear that" is not a valid argument. — kwami (talk) 21:52, 16 June 2011 (UTC) Kwami can you please help me delete all the comments made by me and even yours including my name. Because as I had stated a few days Ago, I DO NOT WANT ANY ASSOCIATION WITH wikipedia. I don't want my name or any links conecting to me to be on wikipedia. THANKS! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.250.191.192 (talk) 21:50, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You're not just removing your own edits, but changing what other people have said too, in order to make them agree with your POV. In publication, that would be considered fraud. I'll hide this conversation, and eventually it will be archived. But as for your name, we don't even know what it is: you're using a pseudonym. Also, your contributions are a permanent part of the WP archives. — kwami (talk) 02:45, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Source software that's free and open
Your advice on this would be good. Tony  (talk)  09:10, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I moved it back to what the RfM had decided on, and I cleaned up some of the punctuation. As for the shorter title, that should perhaps be decided by discussion. — kwami (talk) 11:31, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks; good to know I wasn't getting it wrong. Tony   (talk)  12:49, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You should know better than to move pages without checking that everything moved properly. I'll leave you to clean that up, seeing as you've obviously got a keen interest in the subject. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 08:31, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry. I don't know why that happens sometimes. — kwami (talk) 09:02, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The page move tool should notify you if one of the pages failed to move. In this case it's due to the redirect having more than one revision. Should the page be moved again I'll probably just delete the redirects and recreate them to prevent this happening again. Do you want to fix them for the time being, or should I? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 09:23, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I've never noticed such a notice. Maybe I've just not been paying attention, though I do notice the message when subpages need moving.
 * 'Fix them': you mean deleting their page history? If just redirecting them, a bot should take care of that within a few hours. — kwami (talk) 09:28, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The talk page is still unhyphenated: a bot won't fix that. You need to move it to match the (currently hyphenated) article title. At that point, a bot should catch the Talk:History of Free Software. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 09:30, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I thought I just moved it. Even checked to delete the redirect. Well, it's done now. — kwami (talk) 09:34, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Talkback II (June)
See my talk page for a response. Cheers, m.o.p  22:51, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

File:2011 Libyan Civil War.png
About the map, I find that it is just a way to give you an idea, like holding just one province. The outskirts of Sabha are not held by rebels, but just to show there is a resistance. Message me back so I know you understand at my talk page. Spesh531, My talk, and External links 13:26, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Alphabets of Asia Minor
In light of your remark on Talk:Alphabets of Asia Minor, shouldn't Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic be changed to reflect the ultimate origin of these scripts in regional Greek alphabets? Also, Carian is first attested in the 7th century BC, and none of the others is attested before the 5th century BC, so the "c. 800 BC" in the genealogy seems to be there to push the dubious POV that they are really independent developments from Phoenician. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:07, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, but I wouldn't lump them together either. IMO they should be listed separately just as other scripts are. — kwami (talk) 16:10, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for making the change. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:50, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Anchors in section titles
Hi,

Thank you for the clean-up work you have been doing in the various automobile articles. However, shifting anchors into section titles (eg in Toyota Sprinter) causes the history summaries to look like  /* First generation  */ some action I did . Having '' in every edit summary sure wastes a lot of space, looks ugly and is harder to read. Is it possible for you to leave the anchors in their original positions? Thanks.  Stepho  talk 05:58, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure, it's possible, but then they won't direct the reader to the beginning of the section as they're supposed to. IMO producing a functional encyclopedia outweighs the inconvenience to WP editors. A solution might be to recode WP so that it ignores anchor templates in section headings when recording edits. Another might be to recode it so that the anchors can be placed after the section heading without messing them up, the way html comments don't mess them up. — kwami (talk) 06:04, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I came here to make the same request: please don't move the anchor tags into the section headers. In addition to the problem Stepho-wrs mentioned, it also breaks the section links in the history lists (e.g., see my 12:49 section edit today here), at least until a solution is implemented. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:53, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * How does it break them? — kwami (talk) 12:58, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Click the link to see the history. My 12:49 edit says "12:49, 21 June 2011 (diff | hist) Sara Jean Underwood ‎ (→Modeling : test edit)". Click on the "→". It should take you to the section, but does not. If you use  tags instead of the anchor, they work correctly though. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Got it. Any idea on when that might happen? This has been a problem for years. Are span tags even recommended? — kwami (talk) 13:11, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's what I switched to based on the earlier discussion at Template talk:Anchor and Template talk:Anchor. No idea on a fix's due date, though. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:24, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Your point about making sure that a link to an anchor goes to the top of the section is quite valid. Which is why I always put the anchor just above the section title. that way, a link to the anchor will always be just above the section title - which shows up in browsers as starting with the section title at the top of the screen. Unfortunately some of your edits (eg Toyota Sprinter) have converted the following:

First generation—E10 series
to:

First generation—E10 series
In my original form, the E10 anchor belongs to 'First generation—E10 series' section and browsers correctly show 'First generation—E10 series' at the top of the page but your edit puts 'History' at the top of the page. This isn't a great disaster but it is at least logically wrong (editors will wrongly think that the E10 anchor belongs to 'History' instead of the 'First generation—E10 series', which might cause confusion in any future rearranging of sections). It also screws up the edit summary history (as we both said above). And it doesn't give better results than my old method - indeed, it is very mildly worse. I do think that your other changes are worthwhile and I do thank you for them - it is only the changes to anchors that are causing me grief.  Stepho  talk 13:41, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, that was an oversight on my part. Sorry. I thought I caught those as they went by, but I must have missed more than I thought.
 * The problem with putting the anchor above the header, of course, is that it could get separated if the sections are rearranged. It looks like there is no good solution for this. — kwami (talk) 13:45, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * @Stepho: Putting the anchor on the line before the related heading is guaranteed to break links in some articles in the future. Editors will move sections around and it is highly likely that a "before the heading" anchor will not be moved with the heading in a significant number of cases. Worse, fixing such a problem could be very difficult when the broken anchor is noticed a few months after the section was moved. Using &lt;span&gt; (and not using the template) appears to be the only method that works. See Template talk:Anchor for my comment. Johnuniq (talk) 01:57, 22 June 2011 (UTC)


 * @John: Yep, I did some experimenting a while ago and found that many automated tools separated the anchor from the section title by a blank line - making it a bit more likely that a major rearrangement would separate them permanently. Considering that all the other methods I tried had even worse disadvantages (including anchors within section titles), I was happy to accept this minimal risk. I created a test page at User:Stepho-wrs/test to test out how well your span method works (feel free to experiment with it). It has minimal effect on the edit summary history, with only an extra space that I can live with. but one disadvantage is that the section title looks complicated to novices. A second disadvantage is that multiple anchors need to be replaced with multiple spans (multiple id's on a single span only uses the last one). For myself, I think the risk of my method losing the anchor during a rearrangement is less than the hassle of complicate span statements. But of course, everyone values each of these aspects differently.  Stepho  talk 05:27, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Any further comments should probably be at Template talk:Anchor, but while I agree there are no good solutions (and a MediaWiki enhancement seems best), it's not so much a risk of the anchor being separated from the section as a question of when will it occur (it's highly likely to occur eventually, and hard to detect, and harder to fix—I once needed to do that). Johnuniq (talk) 06:48, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, IMO before the header should be discouraged. — kwami (talk) 08:18, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Vates
Hey Kwami: Shouldn't we give the Latin/Gaulish pronunciation (prolly wɑːteːs) before the modern English one? And for the Greek pronunciation that you changed: the ou stands for the old digamma and represents a sound like the English ww, not an o-sound. Where did you find the pronunciation you entered? I'm only asking because I restecpt you and thought I'd check back before meddling. ;-) Trigaranus (talk) 13:37, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Normally we give the English pronunciation first. More of our readers will be looking for that.
 * Please go ahead and fix up my Greek wherever I messed up. I was merely trying to keep the articles in line with the IPA key: some had [óò], others [ôː], others were simply wrong, etc.
 * I wasn't aware that *w was ever retained in Greek. I thought it had dropped out entirely by Classical times.
 * An Ali G fan! I don't think I ever got through Indahouse, but I loved the Show. — kwami (talk) 13:59, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I was worried I'd lowered the intellectual level too much with the Ali G reference...! ;-) As for the ou you're right: the traditional w sound had been lost quite a bit before Classical Greek (Mykenian wa-na-ka → Classical Greek anax). But it seemed common practice for Greek authors to render names and terms from foreign languages with a semi-vocalic ou where we must assume a v or w sound from their Latin or modern counterparts. There are numerous examples in ethnological / geographical texts, e.g. Ptolemy's Geography. BTW having outed myself as someone who laughs at penis jokes I suppose it won't ruin my reputation when I say that the retention of the digamma in historical/regional varieties of Greek and their respective writing systems is an extremely fascinating matter indeed. :-) I'll tweak the Greek IPA and add the Latin behind the English pronunciation if that's okay with you. Trigaranus (talk) 14:39, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good.
 * Actually, given the context, this might be one of those occasions where it's better to have the non-English pronunciation first. I'll leave that decision to you; just be sure it's clear to the reader which language is which.
 * I used to watch the Ali G Show when it was still only broadcast in the UK and we had to nick it. Some of it was just too cringe-inducing to watch though. — kwami (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Gbe languages
This edit has introduced an incoherent sentence. Roger Blench classifies WHAT? I'd have fixed it but I have no idea what you were trying to say. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:53, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hard for me to remember either. Can't tell if s.t. got left out or s.t. extra got left in. Rewrote it. — kwami (talk) 16:13, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

IPA - always the weird ones :P
Hi, I am stuck at Jarrod Bleijie. The guy's surname rhymes with "playi(ng)" (see ), I ended up with /ˈbleɪjiː/. Any ideas? Orderinchaos 09:08, 22 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks good. Maybe /ˈbleɪji/ with a reduced final /i/, if that's the CITY vowel (what in the UK they would transcribe as /ˈbleɪjɪ/). — kwami (talk) 10:06, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Template:Plutoids
Thanks for the fixes - looks better already. Cheers. --Ckatz chat spy  18:06, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Changed names in phonetics
Hi, some names in phonetics have changed in IPAsym. Could you take a look at this question? -DePiep (talk) 20:57, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Mediation around Abortion articles location
After the latest move request has landed up with about equal numbers for both sides I've started a mediation request. Please indicate there if you wish to participate. Thanks. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 18:45, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought the articles had been merged into abortion debate, so I was no longer paying attention. But I'll pass on the mediation. — kwami (talk) 18:58, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Minor and minor-
FYI, I've reverted your changes with respect to this. There doesn't appear to be any discussion leading to the changes, and a similar attempt last year was not accepted either. If consensus for the change does develop, then so be it, but that needs to happen first given the number of articles it would affect. Please let me know if there are any articles with unrelated grammatical changes that may have been inadvertently reversed in the process, as I can assist in restoring them. Cheers. --Ckatz chat spy  16:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, didn't remember making this request last year. This is just generic English punctuation, followed in some sources but not in others, as is typical for punctuation. — kwami (talk) 18:45, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

AFD for Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic
Articles for deletion/Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic - Were you aware of this, and are you going to comment? I thought all the major contributors were supposed to be notified of an afd, but this doesn't seem to have happened, so I'm notifying you as a contributor. The deletionists' main recurring argument seems to be that it inaccurately portrays language family relationships (including some who really ought to know the difference between language families, and scripts) Thanks, Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:17, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Yupik
I noticed your renaming of the Siberian Yupik article. Please provide a rationale on the discussion page. My understanding is that Yupik is effectively an adjective and Yuit, like Inuit, is intrinsically plural. Perhaps the article should be Siberian Yupik People?Dankarl (talk) 11:47, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * That's the form used in the lede. "Siberian Yupik people" would be fine; I don't see any effective difference. — kwami (talk) 11:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Changes in tribe/clan article titles?
Greetings, is there a particular SOP/policy, or consensus somewhere upon which you're basing your many changes? For example Ghosi (tribe) --> Ghosi tribe. It's just an extensive amount of changes, and I hadn't seen anything at WP:WikiProject India bringing the issue up. MatthewVanitas (talk) 13:52, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * That's how almost all of our tribal articles are named. "Tribe" isn't being used as a dab, but as part of the name, like 'Hindi language'. — kwami (talk) 13:56, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Co-articulated consonants with audio
Hi, in my sandbox I created this for a template. Could you take a look, to prevent mistakes in phonetics, or any improvements? Thank you. Later on I'll put it in a template, and add a transclusion into IPA pulmonic consonants chart with audio. -DePiep (talk) 22:21, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Have started with the affriccates, we have 9/13 sound files. Any suggestions for column- or rowtitles? -DePiep (talk) 22:39, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd say 'Co-articulated consonants with IPA and audio'. Files play, but the time bar stays up after they're done (on FF), which makes the table difficult to read.
 * There are no good column titles, because col. 3 (your 4/5) have nothing in common. — kwami (talk) 22:48, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * All right, no col titles then then. Indeed, the FF soundplayer isspoiling, but I cannot control that. Working on the last, ejectives-table too. Thank you. -DePiep (talk) 01:52, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

language
wow im sorry man. they were good faith tags. I did not know. sorry. I didnt even know u were an admin to begin with man or else I wouldn't have reverted, I just thought it was a user removing the tags. I apologize.KING OF WIKIPEDIA - GRIM LITTLEZ (talk) 06:43, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi
Hi, 神鏡. If I don't misunderstand, you are interested in issues related with Turkey and Turkic world. Could you control sources in the current vandalized edition and this edition of the article Zaza people ? Have a nice weekend. See you. Takabeg (talk) 09:40, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay, I'll take a look. First of all, though, neither of you are 'vandalizing' the article. Calling each other vandals just causes us to take neither of you seriously. — kwami (talk) 12:28, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

hello may I ask why you changed the article and removed all Sources which clearly point out Zaza considering themselves as Kurds? Here is the discussion showing us that he couldn´t give any source providing his claims and he also did call me a Vandal first. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Zaza_people#Neutrality

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikisupporting (talk • contribs) 12:43, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I explained that. I'm not taking sides, merely reverted to prior to the content dispute. You need to find WP:Consensus (please read); if you fight over this just to get your way, I'll block you. (And vice versa, if the other side refuses to cooperate, I'll block them.) If your opinion is supported in the literature, you'll be able to convince other editors. I've given the two of you a week to try to work this out. Meanwhile I'm checking a few refs I have, and will summarize them on the talk page.
 * The 'vandalism' thing is just ridiculous. Crying 'he did it first!' makes you sound like children. (Which perhaps you are, but we expect you to not act like it.) — kwami (talk) 12:53, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

excuse me but it is not a good feeling if someone starts to call you vandal but your right this was childish. I already explained all of this Issue on the talk page of Dougweller (another admin). Here please read it. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dougweller&action=edit&section=1

It is under the section "Why did you change the sentence from most to large."

Also please take in account that the User Taakabeg started a edit war even before this all was cleared between us. I friendly asked him for sources showing us that the Majority to all Zaza consider themselves as Kurds and are seen as such by ethnologist he couldn´t and simply called me a Vandal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikisupporting (talk • contribs) 13:00, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, that's why I reverted both of you. If Doug wishes to unprotect the article or restore your edits or both, I won't have any objection. But this is a content dispute, and we have ways of dealing with content disputes. Doug pointed you to some on his page. — kwami (talk) 13:12, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Please kwamikagama don´t let yourself be manipulated by some users who couldn´t find sources for their claims and now are arguing with "vandalism" look what the User Takabeg is saying to me on my board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wikisupporting#Your_belief

He is simply "insulting" me by saying I am a Zaza who is worshipping "the Kurds". he simply doesen´t wants to discuss with me in a calm manner. instead of showing a sources which says that the majority of Zaza consider themselves as a distinct ethnic group, he only accuses me for Vandalism.

Before the User takabeg started to edit, there was no edit war between me or any other User. He simply changed the whole article and removed some source. Because he found them not reliable for Wikipedia (his own opinion) and also he had double morals in his edits. he only mentioned parts of the sources which suit his believes and had nothing to do with the ethnic identification of Zaza and let the parts out were it is clearly pointed out Zaza considering themselves as Kurds. This is now going on for over a day and i am tired in explaining him he should find sources pointing out that the majority of zaza consider themselves as a separate group.Wikisupporting (talk) 13:19, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * That's why we have the RS rule: if the sources are on your side, you win. If they're ambiguous, however, as the ones I have access to are, then we need to reflect that in the article.
 * But I must say, the more you talk, the less serious an editor you seem. Your attitude seems to be that his opinion is illegitimate because it disagrees with yours. Let the sources decide, and other editors beside the two of you can evaluate which opinion they support. — kwami (talk) 14:11, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Glad that you understand me. my whole point is about the ethnicity not about the language Zazaki. while I asked the User takabeg more than enough times to show sources which say that the ethnic self-designation of Zaza is not kurdish. So I will change it. But he couldn´t instead that, he showed me sources pointing out Zazaki being not kurdish in linguistic manner. And that there are some small circles in Diaspora which consider themselves as separate Group like Van Bruinessen mentioned. There is no evidence to believe that the Zaza do not consider themselves (at least the large majority) as Kurds but there are many sources exactly pointing out that they do consider themselves as Kurds.

Wikisupporting (talk) 14:30, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Zaza people
Glad to see someone else involved. I've suggested an RfC, what do you think? Dougweller (talk) 13:49, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * That may be a good idea.
 * Feel free to revert my rollback or protection if you like.
 * I've added a couple sources, though mostly linguistic with very little on the essential question of ethnicity. And a couple paragraphs of my opinion, though generic stuff since I don't know anything about this situation. That's probably all I'll have for RfC input, though I can unprotect if things settle down. (Or you.) When the block ends, however, I'll be out of the country for another week, and won't be participating during that time. — kwami (talk) 14:08, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

hello Kwami I have given a answer to your sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Zaza_people#Removed_part

You see exactly my point. language doesen´t mean ethnicity. I have found many articles pointing out that Zaza consider themselves as Kurds but the user takabeg couldn´t find any sources claiming the opposite.

and still while I was asking him, he didn´t gave me sources but only mentioned linguistic issues.

here are some Sources pointing out that Zaza consider themselves as Kurds.

http://www.let.uu.nl/~martin.vanbruinessen/personal/publications/Bruinessen_Ethnic_identity_Kurds.pdf

I quote some parts.

"This makes it necessary for me to state at the outset precisely whom I mean when in this article I use the ethnic label "Kurds". For pragmatic reasons I use a rather loose and wide definition, including all native speakers of dialects belonging to the Iranic languages Kurmanji or Zaza,"

This is the linguist part. I think we both agree that Zazaki is not a dialect of Kurmanji but a language.

"as well as those Turkish speaking persons who claim descent from Kurmanji or Zaza speakers and who still (or again) consider themselves as Kurds"

These are the Zaza and Kurmanj from which I told you who are partly assimilated (linguistically ) but still consider themselves Kurdish.

"if any, Kurmanji speakers understand Zaza, but most Zaza speakers know at least some Kurmanji. Virtually all Zaza speakers consider themselves, and are considered by the Kurmanji speakers, as Kurds."

This is exactly the Point I am referring to. Beside among some Diaspora Groups there is no Zaza which does not consider himself Kurdish but only Zaza and I have never seen a sources claiming the opposite. Thats why we should change the Article about Zaza into "Zaza are a Group which ethnically considered themselves as Kurds.

Here is another Source. The author of the book is Ludwig Paul a linguist and ethnologist who claims Zazaki as a independent language but considers them ethnically as Kurds. He also mentions that the Zaza consider themselves as Kurds.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LuVSkpVuAkAC&pg=PA385&dq=zaza+paul+ludwig&hl=de&ei=sFUCTpvML8-OswbH4smODQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=zaza%20paul%20ludwig&f=false

page 386.

" Die Mehrzahl der Sprecher des Zazaki bezeichnet sich heute als Kurden und hält ihre Sprache für einen kurdischen Dialekt."

translated

"The majority of the Zazaki Speakers today call themselves Kurds and consider their language as a kurdish Dialect.

http://www.zazaki.net/haber/among-social-kurdish-groups-general-glance-at-zazas-503.htm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35883517/Kurds ,see page 3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikisupporting (talk • contribs) 14:13, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not going to decide this. Present your evidence on the talk page of the Zaza article, and let everyone there evaluate it. — kwami (talk) 14:16, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your objective point of view. Yes I will add the Sources on the Zaza article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikisupporting (talk • contribs) 14:20, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Hello Kwami now after almost 24 hours of waiting the article blocked the user takabeg still didn´t contributed any sources to the Zaza talk page which could indicate that the majority of zaza consider themselves as a distinct ethnic Group and are due that a different ethnicity. When is this RFO going to end? Cause thats the first time for me. Wikisupporting (talk) 13:01, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Kwami the User takabeg doesen´t stop accusing me for Vandalism and makes a bad name among the Admins about me. Even while you did warn us both two hours before, on the Zaza talk page, to stop calling each other as such.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kansas_Bear#Hi

Wikisupporting (talk) 21:00, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * For action to be taken against you as a vandal, he has to demonstrate that you're a vandal. He can't do that, so relax. No admin is going to think badly of you because he's running around screaming "vandal!", they're only going to think badly of him. What you can get in trouble for is edit warring. I don't know if you're at fault, if he is, or if both of you are, but since the article's been protected, it's not likely to be a problem unless it migrates elsewhere.
 * Meanwhile, present RS evidence for any changes you want to make on the talk page. Present RS evidence against the changes he wants to make. He should do the same with you. I think Doug is putting in a 'request for comment'; the editors who drop by should be able to evaluate who's opinion is better supported, if either. But please don't come here asking me to babysit the two of you because he's calling you names. If it gets bad enough, report it at WP:Wikiquette alerts. — kwami (talk) 21:20, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

?
Hi, 神鏡. I don't understand this message. Who accused you ? Who screamed ? I can say easily that this case is not WP:Content dispute, but propaganda. Because it is well-known fact that there are several theses about the ehnicity, language of Zazas. I only tried to neutralize the article. Identifying reliable sources show this fact. Our duty is not to prove which thesis is "true" but to show what kind of theses are. I (not only I, but also every normal person) accept presence of various theses. One user who are supporting only one thesis, removed imformation that doesn't support his/her own thesis. I hope you will understand it. Takabeg (talk) 21:37, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh God I'm tired of you two.
 * You're running around calling your opponent a vandal. He is obviously not a vandal, any more than you are, so that casts doubt on your credibility. If you want to be taken seriously, don't make frivolous accusations.
 * And it obviously is a content dispute. The fact that you would deny it, again, casts doubt on your character.
 * Present your evidence on the talk page. Other editors will judge whether your sources support your POV, his POV, or neither.
 * As for the Zazas being Kurds, AFACT some of them consider themselves to be Kurds, some of them don't. I have no idea about the relative numbers or how it's changed over time. But ethnicity isn't an empirical fact, it's an opinion, so I wouldn't be surprised if there is no one right answer. — kwami (talk) 22:17, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

kwami thats why I changed the article the last time before it was closed. to Zaza consider themselves as Kurds

You can see it here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zaza_people&oldid=437367876

And I did this because the only two sources I know which give any numbers are Paul Ludwig (who is also one of the main sources of the whole article!) and Van bruinessen ( a ethnologist). The first Paul Ludwig talks about Most Zaza considering themselves as Kurds and their languages as a kurdish dialect. And Van bruinessen talks about all Zazas. The only Reason why I edited this article the first time was, that it says, "many Zaza consider themselves as Kurds" While the only two Sources giving numbers talk about "Most" or "All". I would be fine with it when the article is changed into "the large majority of Zaza consider themselves ethnically as Kurds" (large majority because one source talks about all and another about most) Wikisupporting (talk) 22:21, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

takabeg don´t tell me that there are various "theses" about the ethnicity of Zaza. Just show me sources which provide that their is a larger community of Zaza only considering themselves as a Zaza nation Wikisupporting (talk) 22:05, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Tibetan naming convention
Hello! I thought you might have helpful insight on the current nomination for a Tibetan naming contention. I don't think the topic requires any particular expertise on Tibetan since the proposal must fit within established guidelines. I think the discussion would benefit from your evaluation and advice. If you have a moment, please have a look. Thanks! JFHJr (㊟) 04:59, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Wrong paper cited on Madang languages
Hi Kwamikagami, I've left a question for you on Talk:Madang languages If all you had was Ross (2005), how did you know about this classification, which doesn't appear in it? Alternately, if you have the unpublished (1996) manuscript from which this material is drawn, why didn't you cite it?128.208.76.85 (talk) 22:58, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be called an 'error'. — kwami (talk) 23:01, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Completely new abortion proposal and mediation
In light of the seemingly endless disputes over their respective titles, a neutral mediator has crafted a proposal to rename the two major abortion articles (pro-life/anti-abortion movement, and pro-choice/abortion rights movement) to completely new names. The idea, which is located here, is currently open for opinions. As you have been a contributor in the past to at least one of the articles, your thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

The hope is that, if a consensus can be reached on the article titles, the energy that has been spent debating the titles of the articles here and here can be better spent giving both articles some much needed improvement to their content. Please take some time to read the proposal and weigh in on the matter. Even if your opinion is simple indifference, that opinion would be valuable to have posted.

To avoid accusations that this posting violates WP:CANVASS, this posting is being made to every non-anon editor who has edited either page since 1 July 2010, irrespective of possible previous participation at the mediation page. HuskyHuskie (talk) 19:46, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks
For this. Drmies (talk) 18:08, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Assyriology
Would I be right in assuming that what 19th century historians and linguists refer to as "Assyrian", would be in fact the Akkadian language, rather than the Aramaic spoken by modern assyrian people?ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 22:17, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yup. Assyriologists learn cuneiform. — kwami (talk) 23:31, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Xuancheng dialect listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Xuancheng dialect. Since you had some involvement with the Xuancheng dialect redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). ––虞海 ( Yú Hǎi )  ✍  13:49, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Divination on the Astrology Page
Hi Kwami, since you contributed to the debate on whether divination is the most appropriate term to define astrology in the first sentence, I wanted to let you know that I have asked for a straw poll on the astrology discussion page to find out whether we should seek alternatives (without specifying the wording at this stage) or we should keep divination. Robert Currey  talk  17:32, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Sulcalization
Hello. I saw the new article you created on "sulcalization". Is "sulcalized" just a fancy way of saying "grooved" for fricatives, etc. then? That's what it seems to be. Thank you. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 16:41, 16 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, pretty much. Though I don't know if anyone calls vowels "grooved". — kwami (talk) 19:28, 16 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I see. Thank you very much. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 21:33, 16 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I created the article so that when we link "grooved", the link has someplace to go. But "sulcalization" also applies to the diachronic process of, say, [t] &rarr; [ts]. I've never seen the word "grooved" used for that. — kwami (talk) 22:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

List of ethnolinguistic groups with populations
I can't understand why you did this. You may are right for all but two things: the changes on the European groups and the erasure of the Finno-Ugric subgroup of the Uralic peoples. Ok I see the meaning of ethnolinguistics has nothing to do with skin colour, and I agree, allthough I think the case was other here, ancestry. What about the people of European ancestry residing in the New World for exaple? What about the English-speaking American citizens of German ancestry, Italian ancestry etc? Where should they be included? In the meantime, by that edit of yours, a gap has been created as you didn't change the numbers and the current numbers correspond not to the population of European ethnolinguistic groups in the world but in Europe. I suggest you undo this edit or at least find another solution on how to include the English-speaking European majority of the USA, Canada and Australia or the Spanish-speaking European majority of Latin America etc in this article. A proposal I can make is adding the population of German Americans, German Canadians, German Australians, German New Zealanders, German Latin Americans and German Africans to Ethnic Germans; that of Italian Americans, Italian Canadians, Italian Australians, Italian New Zealanders, Italian Latin Americans and Italian Africans to Italian People and so on and so forth... It may be that the majority of them does not speak German or Italian or their respective ancestral language but don't forget it is ethnolinguistic, it's about ancestry, too. What do you think? If you have a better idea just let me know. If a good solution to the problem can't be fined then I think we should simply revert it to the previous one, because as I said before, it was not that wrong, having in mind ancestry has to do with ethnolinguistics. Warm regards. --109.242.75.41 (talk) 18:04, 16 July 2011 (UTC)


 * It actually was quite wrong. I merely removed the most egregious problems, but that doesn't mean that what is left is correct. There is no such thing as "Finno-Ugric peoples" apart from the languages they speak, and ethnicity is mixed: you can't put people into boxes unless their language or culture fits. It also seems to be OR. If you have no source to correct it, then the solution would seem to be to delete it, not to revert to an even more wrong version. — kwami (talk) 19:25, 16 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Is it? And what is this? You can't edit an article and then leave a mess behind you! To an even more wrong? The article is about language and ethnicity. At least correct the numbers and find a way to include the European diaspora or I shall undo your edit. --109.242.68.184 (talk) 09:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Lenmichí/Lenmichian languages
Hi Kwamikagami,
 * I have created this article Lenmichí languages, if you have time and you want, please check my awful English and fix potential errors. Davius (talk) 00:19, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I've tried to verify the claims, esp. the claim that the connection had been "proven", but it is so obscure that, a decade after it was proposed, there is not a single citation of it at Google Scholar, and nothing mentions it in Google Books. Since it's a fairly mainstream version of Macro-Chibchan, I've merged it to that article, which needed expanding anyway. — kwami (talk) 19:10, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Language article request
Hi Kwami, I was wondering if you would have access to enough sources to finish a 5x expansion of Anal language. I am nominating Anal people for the April Fools DYK, and I think it would be nice if their language were expanded enough as well. I've tried my best, but I'm still short 800 chars. Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I copy edited, which just shortened the article a bit, but couldn't find anything to add except that the number of speakers is "dwindling". But even if it doesn't qualify for DYK yourself (and it isn't as good for April Fools as the people), it's still good to have it expanded for the link. — kwami (talk) 16:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot Kwami. Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:38, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Request for Revision Deletion
Hi Kwami, sorry to bother you again so soon. Could you possibly delete 6 revisions of Wikipedia talk:Local Embassy, starting from this version and ending at this one? A user posted his/her name and email address. Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 17:06, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * How's that? I deleted four of the six. — kwami (talk) 17:12, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm... the address is still visible in the remaining edits. I'm not sure what the policy is on this... thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 17:17, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, you're right. That didn't show up in the comparison view. Deleted those now too. — kwami (talk) 17:19, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 17:50, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Bergen County, New Jersey
Can you please review (and repair as necessary) the mess that the current reviewer of this article, ChrisRuvolo (t), has been making. Not only is he dictatorial, but I honestly have to wonder about his competence and how he was chosen for this status.

This is the second time now that, in the process of reverting multiple editors' edits, he has left behind the same duplication of information, namely in this case, the "State Parks" and "State-owned historical sites" subsections. Not only that, he's deleted the primary body of the "See also" content TWICE now, obviously without realizing it. It's either his way or the highway, and the article has clearly suffered as a result.

Thanks. 96.242.217.91 (talk) 19:22, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Am I missing something? I don't see any discussion of this on the talk page. That's normally where you go first to iron out differences with other editors. — kwami (talk) 01:04, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Certainly, that is the usual course - but in this case, the problem is that the apparent brashness of this editor and his style, as well as my own questions about his competence, make that difficult to even approach. I'm open to that suggestion, but do you have any other suggestions, based on the edits themselves? 96.242.217.91 (talk) 01:54, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * This isn't a content dispute (unless you disagree about the photos), it's a mistake. All you have to do IMO is revert that one edit and explain in the edit summary that it's duplicating those sections. Or say as much on the talk page. Or both. I have no reason to think he wouldn't be capable of understanding that. He's probably just too busy or preoccupied to review the article carefully enough to see it without you pointing it out. It's also fairly common to not give much accommodation to anonymous IPs like yourself. Many of them are drive-by editors or even vandals that don't have anything invested in the article. He might pay more attention if you were signed in. But spelling it out for him should be enough. — kwami (talk) 02:20, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * It's worth a try.96.242.217.91 (talk) 02:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Talkback (July)
 Little  Mountain  5   22:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And again.  Little  Mountain  5   00:58, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Request (July)
Hello Kwami,

It is now over weeks since the Zaza People article was protected. And since then in my opinion the wrong version was saved because the User with whom I had a contend issue has not shown any Sources in the discussion block of the article.

I on the other hand posted (I think) enough Sources which support my claims. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Zaza_people#a_couple_sources

Also the part which was dealing with the ethnogenesis, which I had added was removed.

I could post now any single Sources which considers Zaza as Kurds but I think in the link to the discussion block there are enough sources.

Just one I have to add. You need a account to read on were stands other sub dialects are....

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/325225/Kurdish-language

The thing is no single ethnologist or linguist ever claimed that Zaza are ethnically not Kurds.

Like I mentioned Ludwig Paul, one of the main sources of the Article, points out that the linguistic issue shouldn´t be taken in account by searching for the ethnic identity of Kurds and that Zaza and Kurmanji speaking Kurds build a ethnic unity. The whole problem with Zazaki being classified as "not Kurdish" is, That the linguist refer to a special dialect of Kurdish which is known as Kurmanji as "Kurdish". And when they say Zazaki is not "Kurdish" they mean Kurmanji. You can read it in Paul Ludwigs book. It is written in German but it is obvious that he refers to Kurmanji as "Kurdish" and he also mentions this. No Kurd is claiming that Zazaki is a dialect of Kurmanji.

How ever I don´t even want to argue about this. The only thing I want to change is the part with "Many " into most or large majority because this is support by Sources but there are no sources which support the contrary. And I also want to add the part with ethnogenesis and will quote everything what Paul Ludwig writes in his book about this. Wikisupporting (talk) 01:16, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The article is no longer protected.
 * Zaza is certainly not a dialect of Kurdish. And by "Kurdish", I don't mean Kurmanji. But that has little to do with whether the Zaza people and Kurds.
 * There appears to be ongoing debate as to whether the Zazas are Kurds or not. Some apparently feel the are, others that they aren't. Therefore AFAICT any claim that they are or are not Kurds will be wrong, and correctly reverted. — kwami (talk) 01:25, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok thats why I will not mentioned that they are Kurds as if it is a "evidence" but maybe I will quote parts of sources which consider Zaza ethnically as Kurds and also mention according to who. Like I did with Paul Ludwig I quoted him.

However I still don´t think that there is even a reason to discuss about the ethnic identity of Zaza because from Sources it gets obvious that the large majority are Kurds(consider themselves as such) and where considered as such since millennia. This is all a discussion which started recently due the fact that some linguist consider Kurmanji which is spoken by the majority of Kurds as "kurdish" and so they mean Kurmanji when they speak about Zazaki being not Kurdish.

Well I have already edited the article but no where mentioned that Zaza are Kurds or not. However I have changed parts where there is a talk about "Zaza and Kurds" as if it is proven that both are separated groups. Regards Wikisupporting (talk) 03:05, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Question concerning external links
Kwami, do you think this edit was appropriate or not? Linguistic Science (talk) 22:30, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow, I didn't know those were all available online!
 * The link certainly belongs. Prob'ly just didn't recognize it, and thought it was a commercial site. — kwami (talk) 00:22, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Not to be Kanye West here, but the US State Department language training materials put out in the public domain free of copywrite like http://fsi-language-courses.org are an amazing resource for these languages. I cant fathom why someone would want to edit them out of external article links unless they were somehow related to a website like this http://www.foreignserviceinstitute.com/ that sells copywrite free material to the public that is freely available in the public domain.  Mr. Linguistic Science is a newly created account who has been reported for sockpuppetry by me today for a banned user who did legal threats and had a commercial user account.  Now he appears to be canvassing Bevin  bell  17:33, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't understand your comment. User Linguistic Science was arguing that we should link to the free site, not to the commercial site, and you would appear to agree with him. — kwami (talk) 18:19, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I wasn't actually arguing anything. I was genuinely unsure about the issue and asked Kwami for his opinion, since he's more experienced than I am and I respect his judgement. Linguistic Science (talk) 00:39, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

File:President Obama Monkeys.jpg listed for deletion
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:President Obama Monkeys.jpg, has been listed at Files for deletion. Please see the 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. William S. Saturn (talk) 15:26, 20 July 2011 (UTC) --William S. Saturn (talk) 15:26, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Fali
Hi - not quite sure what you're asking. The Fali people live in Cameroon and Nigeria, as the references indicate. Neutralitytalk 18:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, but you listed them as speakers of one of three languages called "Fali", and one which is spoken only in Cameroon. — kwami (talk) 18:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East, Volume 1 says the Fali is an Adamawa language, so I believe it's the Fali languages (Cameroon). Neutralitytalk 18:51, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, and the geographical groups match. Sorry, never mind! — kwami (talk) 19:54, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * BTW, there's now an 'ethnicity' parameter in the info box, so you can add a link to the people from there. — kwami (talk) 19:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

S/2011 P 1
Please do not re-add unsourced material here. If such calculations can be attributed to reliable sources the those soucres should be cited and the material added without problem. Other than that, we are not interested in any figures you have calculated yourself: that is original research and therefore impermissible. Among other things, this article is currently under discussion for a main page feature in the in the news section: articles with serious quality issues such as the presence of OR are automatically barred from consideration. Crispmuncher (talk) 00:43, 21 July 2011 (UTC).


 * I have not calculated any figures, so your lack of interest is irrelevant. However, many, perhaps most, of our moon articles contain such figures. If you object to them, I suggest to take your concerns to the astronomy wikiproject. — kwami (talk) 00:50, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Then do you want to explain where the figures you re-added came from, or why the cited source you re-added does not mention them? I've just noticed you're an admin - you should know better than that.  "I do it differently" is not an excuse. Crispmuncher (talk) 01:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC).
 * You're right, it's not an excuse. Have you stopped beating your wife? — kwami (talk) 01:42, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Criticism of Esperanto
The paragraph that you're so adamant about readding for some reason is completely unsourced (except for the rebuttal). --134.10.113.198 (talk) 16:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Then tag it. It's a common-enough criticism. — kwami (talk) 16:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Users and edit warring
Hello Kwami.

I think this might interest you. Here is the block of the User Takabeg. it seems he did not only start a edit war with me. He does it with everything what might be against his turkish views. Be it Armenian or be it Kurdish. As a Adming please take a better look at this User. Something is very weird about him. It seems He edits things even before they are resolved simply to get a ban on the article. He works with System. He removes every Sources WITHOUT a Reason given just like he did with mine even while I asked him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Takabeg#Disruptive_editing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Takabeg#Adding_unreferenced_banner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Takabeg#Armenian_placenames_in_Turkey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Takabeg#Refs_removed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Takabeg#Tughra_edit_war

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Takabeg#Vankli

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Takabeg#Anti-Kurdish_vandalism

I am still asking my self how a user, provoking closing of articles and obviously most of them at Kurdish and Armenian articles, can still work like if nothing happened. (You might know the relation between Kurds,Armenians and Turkey.)

If you don´t know about Turkeys anti Kurdish work on the Internet you might read this if you want. The part with "many Zaza" is copied by the former Wikipedia version of the "Zaza People" article.

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=34423&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=26&cHash=c82a6a69c6

And recently a man which was arrested in the "Ergenekon trial" (Ergenekon is a group of People working in high positions of the Turkish state) came out as one of the provocateurs working on the Net claiming themselves as Zazas and making Propaganda on Internet Sites and also Encyclopedias like Wikipedia.

http://www.haberdiyarbakir.com/news_detail.php?id=41870

greets Wikisupporting (talk) 14:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, that illustrates beautifully why we don't take people at their word. We only allow WP:reliable sources for contested claims. If you were to say "I am Zaza and this is false", we would ignore you for the same reason.
 * I do know something about Turk–Kurd relations. When I was in Istanbul, people (including Kurds) told me not to go to Kurdistan because I would probably be killed by terrorists. And children did throw stones at me in Diyarbakir. (I throw them back, and hit some of the little buggers.) But the Kurds were only anxious for their story to be known to the world; we would talk politics, and even though this was nothing revolutionary (just basic conditions of life), everyone would shut up as soon as a Turk came by. And of course there was the Turkish propaganda on the hillsides, saying how wonderful it was to be able to say you're a Turk. If I spoke a little Kurdish, people just beamed.
 * I love Turkey, and the Turks, and the Turkish language, but this is truly disgraceful, second only to the bizarre claims in the museum in Tatvan that it was the Armenians who committed genocide against the Turks. (They had photos of the victims of the genocide, they just swapped their identity.) The Turks have a lot to be proud of; I don't understand why they have such an inferiority complex. (But then the US is the same: self-styled "patriots" claim to be proud of their country, but at the same time are bizarrely defensive and denialistic about it.)
 * I'll take a look when I get a chance, but this might be something you need to take to WP:ANI for more eyes. — kwami (talk) 14:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * He's asked me but I'm busy IRL for a couple of days. He thinks you are an Administrator. Dougweller (talk) 16:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Well than you really seem to have been in the East. The Kids throwing Stones at foreigners. Well I know what you mean. Some Children in such rural Regions are ill-mannered and they usually don´t trust foreigners. Who should blame them for that while they have only seen oppressions and killings. You should visit Iraqi Kurdistan it is a beautiful place.

About the warnings for you to stay away from East because terrorist might kill you. Well I ask my self were those who told you this in the near of Turks or somehow worked for them or with them? It also depends on what they meant with terrorist. Kurds usually mean some people else.

The Turkish education system unfortunately is very nationalistic. The People learn it in this way. Kurdish children are forced day by day before school begin to sing the Turkish national anthem and say how proud Turkish they are, how proud they are to serve Turkey and such things. Turkey solves its problems by wiping them out or ignoring them this is the main problem. Greets Wikisupporting

Orphaned non-free image File:President Obama Monkeys.jpg
 Thanks for uploading File:President Obama Monkeys.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Skier Dude ( talk ) 05:09, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

File:ExtIPA.png
FYI, I just uploaded this image on Commons, see. --GaAs (d) 13:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Huaorani language > Sabela language
I see you have recently made this move. The naming issue was discussed on the talk page, and Sabela is neither a term from the Huaorani themselves, nor in frequent recent usage. If you have reason to suspect otherwise, please bring it to the talk page rather than moving first.--Carwil (talk) 19:18, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I didn't know about that discussion. Everything I've come across recently calls the language "Sabela". I'll move it back. — kwami (talk) 19:29, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I take that back. There was no real discussion on the talk page, just some musings about where the name came from. AFAICT, 'Sabela' continues to be the common term in English, even if Peeke uses the endonym. — kwami (talk) 20:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Google scholar and Google book searches for "Sabela language" vs "Huaorani language" seem to confirm a preference for H over S. Huao/Wao Terero (sometimes Wao Tededo) is also common, but clearly not English. I think there may be more popularity in English sources talking about languages only for S, but H shows up in nearly all other contexts.--Carwil (talk) 21:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I did look at G, but the results seemed ambiguous. Most sources don't call it the "Sabela language", but just "Sabela". But many sources which speak of the "Huaorani people" then dab the "Huaorani language". So adding 'language' may skew the results, and it would be extremely time consuming to do a search without 'language'. That's why I looked in books on languages, and there it seems to be "Sabela" which is more common. I don't know what the general situation really is; maybe we can get some input from people who know the lit. — kwami (talk) 21:20, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks! I was waiting for someone to complain, but this is nicer. — kwami (talk) 00:56, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I see your edits on those articles all the time, and I've grown to have great faith in you. You're an asset to Wikipedia. Now, if you would take over Advanced English Grammar from me this fall, I'd be even happier. Drmies (talk) 01:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure. Sounds like fun, as long as it isn't formalist. I'm imagining sipping a margarita next to a lake in the mountains while attending your course by video. Hell, I'll do that for the lake and the margaritas. — kwami (talk) 01:15, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Please explain edits at Kannada
Hi, could you kindly explain this edit at article: Kannada? You can respond here, I'll have this page on watch. Thanks. -  Niri M / ನಿರಿ  08:58, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That's the family tree of Kannada. You could add Halegannada under 'fam4', or maybe under 'protolanguage'.
 * If the former, you should probably sub it for the 'fam4' parameter at Badaga language as well. — kwami (talk) 09:02, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick response. Appreciate if you could cite a reference for the same. The Tamil–Kannada languages article doesn't help much either. There's also something called "Kandamil" in the Tamil–Kannada languages page. Please suggest if this name can be put in place of "Tamil–Kannada" in the infobox as fam3. -  Niri M / ನಿರಿ  09:43, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Refs are in the KT and Drav. articles, as well as Ethnologue.
 * You could write an article on Kandamil if you like, but AFAIK it is not a branch of Dravidian, but a historical language which has been claimed to be the ancestor of certain modern languages. Identity with any particular node of the tree would be unstable, as it would vary not only with the classification used, but with research on Kandamil. — kwami (talk) 09:52, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi again. Saw that you reverted my edit. I really don't like to make a fuss out of this, but it would help if you just provided a citation there instead of mentioning some articles here. 'nice day, thanks! -  Niri M / ನಿರಿ  03:36, 30 July 2011 (UTC)


 * As far as I can see, your refs do not support your edit. The branch of Dravidian that contains Tamil and Kannada is usually just called "Tamil–Kannada", as the refs for that article show. Now, proto-Tamil–Kannada may be the same as Kandamil, but even if it is (and I believe the claim may be contested), AFAIK people don't call the branch of the family "Kandamil", they only call the Kandamil language itself "Kandamil". I haven't seen anything to the contrary. — kwami (talk) 03:44, 30 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not bothered about the Kandamil part. Just asking you to provide an inline reference to your claim in the article. Hope it clears. -  Niri M / ನಿರಿ  04:10, 30 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't understand. Which claim? — kwami (talk) 04:47, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Hyphens in class name titles
Kwami

There's a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(ships) that I think you should know about. Yours, Shem (talk) 20:12, 29 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. — kwami (talk) 21:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

History of the alphabet
Just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they didn't read the article, so stop the ad hominems and let's work toward resolving this. I've opened up a conversation on the talk page, instead of reverting your latest edit, and invite you to join. VIWS talk 21:57, 29 July 2011 (UTC)


 * That wasn't an ad hominem. Your edits suggested you were not aware of the context. — kwami (talk) 22:07, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Hindustani
These are not my 'opinions', they are logical facts which the page itself refers to & I also tagged a reference with the edit. Actually instead of asking me to the talk page to "first discuss" after reverting, was a bad idea since you not agreeing with my edit already means that we should go to talk: WP:Don't revert due to "no consensus".

Anyway, already added a discussion on the bottom of the talk page of the article under a relevant topic which you appear not to have noticed. Hope to resolve it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hassanhn5 (talk • contribs) 01:30, 30 July 2011 (UTC)


 * It's up to the proposer, not to the reverter, to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposal. Please read WP:BOLD.
 * "Logic" has nothing to do with it: we base our articles on sources. Please read WP:RS.
 * Correct, I did not recognize you, since you signed in under a different name. Please choose one name and stick to it, or people generally will fail to recognize you.
 * BTW, I did reply to those comments, not realizing it was you. If you think Gandhi invented the term "Hindustani", may I suggest you read up on the history of India. — kwami (talk) 01:32, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

That being said, "first discuss" is still a 'not helpful' option as mentioned in WP:Don't revert due to "no consensus" which I happened to see after reading WP:BOLD. Logic here means consistency, which is an essential part of the informative writing. --lTopGunl (talk) 01:42, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I was having some difficulty setting up the username with certain symbols due to which there was such inconvenience. As for the term being "used" and not "invented" by Gandhi, the edit I made itself included the reference tag. --lTopGunl (talk) 01:45, 30 July 2011 (UTC)


 * AFAICT, your edit was factually wrong. It was also unreferenced. Any unreferenced material may be removed. I removed it. Again, if you make a claim, it's up to your to demonstrate it. That's what would be logical. — kwami (talk) 01:49, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Since you keep on repeating, it was actually referenced. The edit had a tag to main Hindi-Urdu controversy. --lTopGunl (talk) 01:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not a reference, that's a link. And a link to WP! We can't use WP to reference WP.
 * You addition was, Although the name "Hindustani" is not as neutral as "Hindi-Urdu" since it gives reference to the Hindu religion/culture creating a bias against Muslim Urdu speakers, especially in Pakistan. You are giving an opinion, yet stating it as fact, and even claiming here that it is fact! I think you need to explore the difference between 'fact' and 'opinion'. Second, the bizarre claim that use of this Muslim-Urdu word 'creates bias against Muslim Urdu speakers, esp. in Pakistan' certainly needs to be ref'd. If it's so offensive to Muslims, why would Muslims have coined it?
 * Distinguish fact from opinion, and reference your claims. It doesn't matter the subject, them's the rules. — kwami (talk) 01:49, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

My reference was to the modern day subcontinent while talking of the bias. The controversy article was already well linked, hence the addition was supported.

Since the discussion is bending more towards the article, it would be easier to continue it along on the article discussion page. --lTopGunl (talk) 02:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I've added relevant references to this topic & also justified them on talk page. Unless you have any references against it, you shouldn't revert. --lTopGunl (talk) 18:46, 7 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Your sources are a joke. I mean, really, do you think we're all idiots?
 * I have access to two of your four "sources". One is an op-ed opinion piece, and so is not a WP:reliable source, but even so, neither of them so much as mentions Hindustani! If you continue this ridiculous POV war I will have the article protected or you blocked. — kwami (talk) 01:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

You are really prejudiced against my point of view, claiming from the start every thing as my opinion, those references are 'reliably accepted' on other wikipedia articles. And they proved that India, Pakistan & Bangladesh don't form Hindustan (something which you were so bent on saying) hence supporting my point of bias. Since you are too busy to reply to any comments on the talk page and yet afraid of a silent consensus, I'm putting up WP:NPOV dispute tag so that other users can resolve the dispute. Donot remove the tag in disregard of the guidelines (since there is a dispute). --lTopGunl (talk) 12:11, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I'm prejudiced against stupid statements like saying that a reference "proves" that the word Hindustani is oppressive to Muslims when the ref never mentions the word Hindustani at all. Here's one: I maintain that the name Pakistan is oppressive to pagans, because it's a mocking distortion of the word "pagan". I'll prove it with this "reliable" reference which never mentions the name Pakistan. Therefore, you have to change the name of your country, and I will add a "disputed" tag to the article Pakistan because it's insulting to pagans.
 * Now we can discuss this as equals, because we're making equally valid arguments. — kwami (talk) 12:22, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

As before you've again distorted my comment to your own accord (if you read it at all). It was to prove Pakistan not being a part of Hindustan anymore. They are not the same since 1947. Continuing to call them the same is the stupid thing to do. That's where the bias comes. You make wrong claims and continue to justify them by labeling my point of view as a mere opinion even where you are given references. Also since you yourself are calling it a POV war, that calls it a dispute and the fact that you simply don't like my point of view will not completely erase the dispute itself. --lTopGunl (talk) 12:53, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * As before, you've distorted this entire dispute. What does what you're saying have to do with anything? You "prove" points no-one ever contested, and then claim that proves some other point. And no, the fact that you're irrational does not make the people you argue with equally irrational. You need to prove your point, and failure on your part does not mean your opponent is biased.
 * BTW, have you stopped killing kittens? Continuing to kill kittens is a terrible thing to do. Please tell me when you've stopped.
 * Anyway, I'm tired of this nonsense. Don't edit my talk page any more. — kwami (talk) 12:59, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

 Toddy1 has given you a Pork pie. Pork pies are full of meaty goodness, and are wonderfully delicious! On Wikipedia, they promote love and sincerity. Hopefully, this one has made your day happier.

I love your comments on this, Kwami.

Spread the goodness and sincerity of pork pies by adding {{subst:Pork Pie}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message! Give one to someone you've had disagreements with in the past, or to a good friend.

Proto-Semitic language and the alphabet
Hi, I see your name around a lot but don't think we've interacted much. I keep a number of "odd" pages on my Watchlist, and as I was drinking my first cup of coffee this morning, I noticed you had changed the article "T" with the edit summary: "the "proto-Semitic alphabet" is not historical or academic, but theological, and so does not belong here. After reviewing Proto-Semitic language it seemed that your edit (and summary) were well intentioned, but not technically correct, so I reverted with an explanatory edit summary. It wasn't until afterwards that I realized you had made the same change to the rest of the alphabet articles. Given your standing and experience as an editor, I'm not about to engage in wholesale reversion of your work. Instead, I'm coming here to ask if I'm missing something? Linguistics is only a minor interest of mine, not an area of specialty, so I'm open to the idea that maybe I'm just wrong :)  Doc   Tropics  13:15, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
 * AFAIK, there is no such thing as a "proto-Semitic alphabet". I have been informed by another editor who I've found reliable (though I have no refs) that the font used to illustrate the alleged alphabet "is distributed by a small and somewhat strange religious grouping which advocates as a matter of religious belief for a number of views which have not found scholarly acceptance". In any case, it's at best a reconstruction of what might have been. For such things we need refs, and we have no refs for this supposed alphabet. There was a discussion on this when I purged proto-Canaanite alphabet a couple years ago. AFAIK all that is actually attested are archaic forms of the Canaanite (Phoenician) alphabet and a few inscriptions that go under the name Proto-Sinaitic.
 * As for reviewing Proto-Semitic language, I don't see how that's relevant. It's a reconstructed proto-language that has nothing to do with the alphabet, except to provide a framework for speculations on which sounds Proto-Sinaitic may have been transcribing. It never even mentions the script/font in question.
 * Anyway, thanks for self-reverting. Best IMO to keep the articles consistent, as you say; if there is consensus to keep, we should keep everything I deleted. — kwami (talk) 18:24, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply and detailed explanation; I appreciate both the information and the courtesy of your time! Now that I understand more about the background I'm more than happy to trust your judgment and leave all of the articles "as-is". Thanks again and happy editing, Doc  Tropics  20:31, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

mass moving of script pages
Did you discuss the mass moving of script pages with anyone? This seems to have come out of nowhere, and this kind of major naming change should only happen as a result of a consensus. I know this wasn't discussed at WikiProject Writing systems, so if you did discuss it somewhere, nobody pointed you where it should have happened. Please put a link to whatever discussions took place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems. VIWS talk 23:50, 30 July 2011 (UTC)


 * No discussion. The major (from an English POV) abjads and abugidas are labeled "alphabets": Hebrew alphabet, Arabic alphabet, Devanagari alphabet. Therefore all should be: minor scripts should be treated equally to major scripts. I'm fine with having them at "script", but then we will need to move Hebrew, Arabic, Devanagari, etc. as well. — kwami (talk) 23:59, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I changed the name to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems, because we might as well develop those principles while we're thinking about them. VIWS talk 00:21, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

PS, sorry I missed you (if you aren't listed under category: WikiProject Writing systems members, WP:AWB can't find you), but

Your feedback is requested


WikiProject Writing Systems is conducting a poll regarding its future goals, and we have identified you as a person with a vested interest in the future of that project. Whether you are a member of the WikiProject, a frequent contributor, or a passerby with an interest in the subject, we want your input as to the future emphasis that the Writing Systems project will take. Please take a moment to peruse the entries and add your comments where you have an opinion. You can visit the poll by clicking here, or on the project image, 書, on the right.

10C question
Hi Kwami, I hope this finds you well. I have a question about something on the Talk:Ten_Commandments page, in the present bottom section called "Can we lift the page protection? Will some sysop help us out?" Your message is presently 3rd up from the bottom, and the reply immediately below yours addressed to you says in part, "I am glad you approve the proposal." I can't figure out what that refers to. Perhaps something in another section? Looking for your clarification there. Thanks. &mdash;Telpardec (talk) 00:24, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming Rubenstein was being sarcastic. If not, I don't know what he's referring to either. — kwami (talk) 00:33, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

help desk
Thanks for your help.

Request for assistance
Unfortunately, given that you have continued to move articles relating to WikiProject Writing Systems, despite there being an active review of naming conventions, I have asked for administrative assistance at Editor assistance/Requests. I had hoped that by purposefully not reverting the original edits, which I considered disruptive, that it would have inspired in-kind restraint on your part, but that appears to have failed. I'm sorry that you feel my efforts to have not deserved the respect that I have tried to show you. In sorrow, VIWS talk

Mandombe alphabet
Hi Kwamikagami. You've moved Mandombe script to Mandombe alphabet, but Mandombe is not an alphabet. --Mᴏʏᴏɢᴏ/ ⁽ᵗᵃˡᵏ⁾ 08:50, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It's said to be an abugida, but currently we have all segmental scripts located at "alphabet". There is a discussion on moving them to "script" instead, but what we had was that Western scripts were called "alphabets" while non-Western scripts were "scripts", which was both inconsistent and dubious on NPOV grounds.


 * Anyway, are you sure it's not a "true" alphabet? It has consonant letters and vowel letters arranged into syllabic blocks, which is basically what hangul is, and hangul is considered an alphabet. — kwami (talk) 08:56, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

False accusations
Sir. I don't appreciate you accusing me of adding ads to Wikipedia, or threatening me with an unwarranted block. I never added any adds to the Azores pages, or any page since I have been editing on Wikipedia, and your false accusation was unjustifiable. What I did do was revert the usage of a image on the Azores page that was inappropriate. The fact that I may have reverted a spamming IP user does not make ME the IP User. You will notice that my edits have all been content inspired, and I have reverted spammers and IP user malicious editing in the past. What I am guilty of doing is not looking deeper into edit history, before reverting content, which ironically, is the case with your post on my talk page. I simple email would have probably resulted in a apology on my part, and quick edit to resolve the discrepancy. Ruben JC (Zeorymer) (talk) 14:30, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I reverted a spam link in the article. You then reverted me. The only effect of your edit was to restore the spam. Perhaps you should check your edit. It may have been unintentional, but it is hardly a "false accusation" to say you did what you did. — kwami (talk) 14:36, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There in lies the point, it was unintentional. It seems heavy handed to assume that I was the original IP User and threaten me with a ban. Therefore, chalk it up to experience. I would much have preferred a reasonable conversation, then a threat of a ban for making a mistake, especially from an administrator. Ruben JC (Zeorymer) (talk) 14:54, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay, I accept that it was unintentional, and I apologize for being heavy handed. But your response was not that it was unintentional, but that you didn't do it and I was making false accusations. — kwami (talk) 14:57, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

To revert back name of the title from "Khudabadi alphabates" to "Khudabadi Script"
Dear Mr.Kwamikagami, Hi!, On 31/7/2011, you have changed the name of article from "Khudabadi Script" to "Khudabadi alphabets" which is highly objectionable. If you see any article or texts about Sindhi Language, the description of this article is given as "Khudabadi Script" and not "Khudabadi alphabets". Further, please note that the text of the article ia about the script and not about the alphabates. Therefore it is requested to revert back the name of title of this article to "Khudabadi Script". Thanks.Gespee (talk) 16:51, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * By the way you're using the word "alphabet", it seems you think it means akṣára, a common mistake in India. It actually means the entire script. — kwami (talk) 00:40, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

You have been reported at ANI
Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents - The final thing was your deletion of a dab page without discussion. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 17:26, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Romance languages
Hi Kwami, I wanted to let you know there is a user who has doubled the size of the Romance languages. Some of the info he added might be relevant and useful to the article, but there is also too much "rubbish", which makes it difficult to follow. I was wondering if anyone could have a look at all these changes, and clean it up a bit. Thanks in advance. Jɑυмe (xarrades) 17:54, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The Romance language article is about 199,000 bytes now, while it had around 94,000 bytes before he started adding and changing stuff. Isn't it necessary to discuss first such radical changes? Jɑυмe (xarrades) 17:54, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ugh, I don't feel so good today. That's a bit much for me right now.
 * No, it isn't necessary for him to discuss them first, but you can revert per WP:BOLD and ask him to justify them bit-by-bit. Ben usually has a lot of good ideas, but sometimes they do need to be scaled back a bit. — kwami (talk) 00:46, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Jɑυмe (xarrades) 14:57, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

'sh’ in Benin Yoruba and not 'c'
see Talk:Yoruba language. --Mᴏʏᴏɢᴏ/ ⁽ᵗᵃˡᵏ⁾ 09:43, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Aspirate
There use to be an article called Aspirate and I was wondering why you merged this into Aspirated consonant. I thought it was legitimate to have this article seperate from Aspirated consonant but unfortunately I can't find it in the history to determine if this is the case or not now. There are some languages that have aspirates that occur at at the end of a phoneme and not with initially. I think it is called 'final aspirate'. Or maybe I'm using the term aspirate incorrectly. Would you know what a final H is called? In Indic scripts there is a diacritic that adds this to letter clusters to produce [h] at the end. I'm not sure what the proper term for the sound it adds is called. The best term I can think of is 'aspirate' but this disambiguates into Aspirated Consonant. --Dara (talk) 02:07, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You mean ः? That's just . If you have refs for the name 'aspirate' we might want a dab, but I doubt there would be enough content for a separate article.
 * As far as I can tell, though, 'Aspirate' was never more than a dab to begin with, and it still is. I don't think I merged anything. — kwami (talk) 02:14, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is what I meant ( ः). Thanks for the explanation.
 * BTW, I don't really agree with the move from Khmer script to Khmer alphabet. The Thai script article was titled Thai alphabet for a long time but it is now Thai script. Many other Southeast Asian writing system articles are titled with 'script' instead of 'alphabet' (Javanese script, Lao script, Tai Tham script, Burmese script, etc.). So I'm not exactly sure what you mean by being consistent with others. I'm not going to revert the name change as you seem to be more of an expert on language articles, but I just thought I should voice my thoughts anyway. --Dara (talk) 09:53, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * All are now at 'alphabet', except for Thai, which was reverted for discussion because of the recent move to 'script', but since there do not appear to be any objections, it will probably be moved back to 'alphabet' soon. A naming convention guideline for scripts is being formulated, and it looks as though 'alphabet' will be the result. The problem was that familiar or important scripts were called 'alphabets', while 'funny' or obscure ones were not. I don't much care which term is used (I once argued that they should all be 'script'), but I don't think familiarity or cultural importance in the West should be what the decision is based on. — kwami (talk) 09:59, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:MOS
Hi Kwamikagami

Please do the following:
 * 1) Read sections 9 (Geographic items) and 12 (Units of Measure) in the article WP:MOS.
 * 2) Read section 10 as I proposed it
 * 3) You will see that Section 12 is very similar to version of Section 9 that you revoked.
 * 4) Please undo your revocation and add your comments to the Talk Page so that a wider audoence can express their opinions.

Regards Martinvl (talk) 11:48, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, we really need to have some discussion of changes before making them, esp. as they've already been rejected. — kwami (talk) 11:53, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Kwami,
 * I have already discussed the matter - (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 122), but the article was locked due to a discussion on dashes and I could not do the changes. I raised the matter again, (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 123) but the article was still locked.  Now that the article has been unlocked, I would this approach to be seen in situ.
 * As you can see, one of the problems with MOS as it stands at the moment is its size and the number of discussion threads going at any one time. The change that I am proposing is aimed at removing those problems.
 * Please undo your revocation so that the rest fo the community can have their say.
 * Martinvl (talk) 12:51, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I've asked on the talk page if this is what people want. It's not clear to me from the discussion that it is, but neither is it clear that it isn't. — kwami (talk) 18:49, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for your formatting, etc. for the article I started, Nimi language. I live in Japan, but I write various language articles. Bruinfan12 (talk) 00:24, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure. — kwami (talk) 00:40, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Kuurn Kopan Noot language


A tag has been placed on Kuurn Kopan Noot language, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia for multiple reasons. Please see the page to see the reasons. If the page has since been deleted, you can ask me the reasons by leaving a message on my user talk page.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion," which appears inside of the speedy deletion tag (if no such tag exists, the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate). Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. Albert7777 ( Talk )  06:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

IPA
Could you sort out the pronunciation at Noel Gayler? The NYT obit mentioned his name was pronounced GUY-ler. Thanks. Connormah (talk) 19:44, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. — kwami (talk) 22:19, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, and if you can, could you also do Ann Marie Buerkle's pronunciation? Connormah (talk) 22:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * One more, could you also do one for Jim Renacci? I'm pretty sure (from campaign commercials) it's pronounced RIH-NAY-SEE. Connormah (talk) 22:49, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure. Let me know if there are any more. — kwami (talk) 22:53, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Ernest Gruening? Thanks again. Connormah (talk) 00:53, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * William E. DePuy? Connormah (talk) 18:46, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Jaime Herrera Beutler and John Robitaille? Thanks. Connormah (talk) 20:27, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Could you also do Bob and Wayne Stenehjem? Pronunciation here: Connormah (talk) 20:07, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Could you do Fridtjof Nansen? The first name is probably the one that needs it, though the full name (first/last) will do. Not too sure on the pronunciation but I imagine it should not be hard to find. Connormah (talk) 19:52, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the Norwegian is easy to find, but without knowing the language I can't transcribe it. I don't know if there is an established English pronunciation. Let me know if you find one. — kwami (talk) 20:13, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the first name is something along the lines of "FREE-tyof" and the last "NAHN-sen" - my Dictionary iPhone app says frit-yawf nahn-suh n Connormah (talk) 22:42, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * See User talk:Brianboulton also. Connormah (talk) 03:39, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * , rhyming with "rid", "off", "man". Well, that's how we say it. A Norwegian might argue, though. Brianboulton (talk) 08:57, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Could you do Andrew Iosue according to his official bio? – Connormah (talk) 04:01, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
 * 'Kay. I'm assuming it's really OZ-way and not AWZ-way, but I'm not sure the refs are that reliable. — kwami (talk) 08:19, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks! — kwami (talk) 22:19, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

A late reply
Kwami, please see my reply to your recent post at my talkpage. N oetica Tea? 06:29, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Your edits to Konkani language
Hello Kwamikagami, I strongly object to the use of 'Maharashtra Konkani' for the purpose of dab, because the Ethnologue also gives an alternate name as 'Konkani Mangalorean'. Mangalore is in Karnataka which is a different state from Maharashtra. 'Maharashtra Konkani' would basically be Konkani dialect (Marathi) while 'Konkani Mangalorean' would basically be Karnataka Konkani or Canara Konkani. For this reason, I have started a discussion at the Konkani talk page as I mentioned in the edit summary. Unless you can provide a good reason, I am going to undo your changes in a few hours time.

The Discoverer (talk) 13:23, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Then you are revert warring and I will ask to have you blocked for disruption. Use whichever name is justified by the lit, but you can't use "Konkani" because we already use that name for something else. You can't use a word for two mutually exclusive things in an article on one or both of those things. That's completely irrational. — kwami (talk) 13:39, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I apologise for my aggressive tone. I now understand your POV, and I hope you will understand mine. Let us continue the discussion on the article talk page. - The Discoverer (talk) 13:50, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Arabic script related move
Talk:ISO_15924:Arab Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:56, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Arabic character-insert tool transcription characters added (MediaWiki:Edittools.js)

 * See earlier discussion at Village pump (technical) -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:59, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Adding some common transliteration characters to the Arabic character-insert tool which appears under the edit box could be a good idea. However, the list includes ǧ, which is not part of standard English-language transcriptions of the Arabic language, and whose use to transcribe Arabic words should not be encouraged (unless perhaps in a very limited way to transcribe Egyptian-dialect forms only). I would highly recommend the removal of ǧ. Thanks... AnonMoos (talk) 20:48, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I just added the hard-to-type characters in the romanization article. I'll take that one out. — kwami (talk) 00:01, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Let me know if the change is not visible after your browser has a chance to recache. — kwami (talk) 00:14, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for giving consideration to this -- "ǧ" has been somewhat problematic in certain Arabic transcriptions on Wikipedia in the past (though it may play a legitimate role in the transcription of languages other than Standard Arabic). It took the previous change almost a week to show up in my browser, so I expect this one will take a while as well... AnonMoos (talk) 02:24, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I just tried IE and the ǧ is gone. I used to have to manually update the css, but evidently that's not necessary any more. Or perhaps it was only ever a way to force peoples' browsers to recache? Doubt such a minor change is worth forcing it for.
 * Hopefully having the transliteration available with prevent some editors from using apostrophe for 'ayn.
 * Would it be worthwhile doing the same for Hebrew? And it would be nice to have Egyptian language in there (it's a pain to copy&paste from the romanization page), but I don't know where to put it. — kwami (talk) 02:30, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Not sure about Hebrew, since there are strongly different transcriptions for different purposes (linguistic/Semitological for ancient Hebrew, ad-hoc liturgical, IPA for modern Hebrew etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 03:32, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, for the IPA we have the IPA window. I was thinking of those letters which are difficult to type and/or aren't in our Latin set. Many are available now for Arabic, but that would require switching between the two. I'll ask at WP Hebrew. — kwami (talk) 03:35, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Some of the Arabic transcription characters are also in the "Latin" set, so I wasn't sure that the sets had to be 100% non-overlapping. Over on Commons, there's a different approach, and they have sets for each separate language (French, Spanish, Italian, etc.).  P.S. The only writing-system article that I've really edited in a major way is Initial Teaching Alphabet. [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] -- AnonMoos (talk) 13:54, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't've bothered had they all been in the Latin set, but if we're going to add some to Arabic, might as well have them all, so that people don't have to toggle back & forth. — kwami (talk) 14:11, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

you have mail
@ kwami — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.227.211.21 (talk) 16:28, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Third Battle of Dalton
I see that Ling.Nut requested his user pages be deleted. Could you possibly restore the start of the "Third Battle of Dalton" article that was at User:Ling.Nut/Sandbox2 to my user space? Ling.Nut and I had discussed collaborating on it a couple months ago &mdash; see the last 2 bullets here. It's on my ToDo list and it would be a shame to lose it. Thanks. Mojoworker (talk) 19:02, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure. Page history, or just the final version? — kwami (talk) 19:08, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess the page history might prove useful, but I think I still have Ling's email address if I have questions, so really, whichever is easier for you. Thanks. Mojoworker (talk) 23:19, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I was off line. Either way is easy enough. Why not email LingNut. I don't know why he wanted all this deleted; for all I know, he might prefer the article history not be preserved. Since he never moved it to mainspace, I feel a bit odd restoring it without either good reason or his permission. — kwami (talk) 01:45, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * LingNut noted there was a bunch of other stuff in the article history, but everything from this year was about the battle, so I restored that much of it. Moved to User:Mojoworker/Third Battle of Dalton. — kwami (talk) 12:08, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm glad he got in touch with you (or vice versa). My email is in the midst of a server transition to Google apps mail, so I hadn't emailed him yet… I hope to see him back here at WP one day &mdash; hopefully sooner than later. Many thanks for your assistance. Mojoworker (talk) 23:03, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

The pages Yup'ik and Yupik not synonym
Hello Kwamikagami. Eskimo peoples are Yupik peoples and Inuit peoples. The page Yupik people is mixed page! This is not true! The page Yup'ik for only Central Alaskan Yup'ik language speaking people! But, the page Yupik for all Central Alaskan Yup'ik language, Naukan Yupik language, Siberian Yupik language and Alutiiq language speaking peoples: Siberian Yupik people, Alutiiq people. Would you please look The pages Yup'ik (Central Alaskan Yup'ik language speaking people) and Yupik (Eskimo languages [excluded Inuit languages] speaking peoples). Why merged ? Not merged, not merged, not merged, please not merged. Best regards --Kmoksy (talk) 23:22, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I've reverted the merge, and moved it to a less ambiguous name. (Many people will not recognize the apostrophe as being a different name. They'll think it's only a difference in punctuation. Most people do not recognize punctuation marks as being letters. That's the trouble with using what Bringhurst called "orthographic cartoons" for writing native languages!)
 * However, the articles are currently WP:CONTENTFORKs, so please move the material to the proper page, or (if you're uncomfortable with editing in English) explain what needs to be done on the talk page. If they continue to be content forks, they may end up being merged again, separate topics or not. — kwami (talk) 01:33, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Kwamikagami; Thanks, thanks, thanks! Eskimo-Aleut languages ​​into my line of my interest. I wrote these articles: Nunivak Cup'ig language, Chevak Cup’ik language, Utkuhiksalik dialect and Netsilik dialect. But, I do not know English well. I am writing a small articles in different ​​wikipedias of minority languages (included Central Alaskan Yup'ik language on the Incubator and Inupiat language Wikipedia). I love you and I love endangered minority languages. Thanks. --Kmoksy (talk) 02:13, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

User:Ling.Nut/User DGAF
You recently deleted User:Ling.Nut/User DGAF as part of what appears to be a WP:VANISH request. I was wondering if you could recreate and userfy it to User:Cerejota/User DGAF. I was rather found of this user box, and sad to see it go. In addition, can you recreated the redirect that what speedy deleted at Template:User DGAF and point it at User:Cerejota/User DGAF. Thank you!--Cerejota (talk) 10:05, 7 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure. Restored the box & moved it to your space. I'm sure you can create whichever redirects you like from here. — kwami (talk) 10:11, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Talk:ISO 15924:Latn#Move
Talk:ISO 15924:Latn. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 11:38, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_August_8 - can you have a look here? -- Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 12:03, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * For Arwi, can we at least use Arwi alphabet for clarity, so it sorts well with other Arabic script alphabets? Should even help your view that there is no language, by making it explicit in the title. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 12:03, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * That might work. I do worry however that it's more than just an alphabet, if not exactly a distinct language. — kwami (talk) 12:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Then put that to Arwi (dialect)/ Arwi dialect? But I also have another proposal with which you maybe can easier agree as of now . Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:01, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it's not a dialect. — kwami (talk) 13:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Reverting is moving backwards

 * Instead of reverting temporally, why not once move forward? -DePiep (talk) 10:17, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Didn't see the request. I was wondering why you kept adding unsupported text! — kwami (talk) 10:42, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. Please update the doc page. (I don't think we need so many examples. Maybe one minimal, on maximal, and one for alt parameters such as 'above'? Also, I restored the tone letters to full height, since we now have multiple lines, but reduce them again if you want. They are a bit overwhelming.) — kwami (talk) 10:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you; of course I could & should have minded that explanation. These doc improvements needed indeed. -DePiep (talk) 12:57, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * re the Tone letters: maybe use only two boxes, not four? I've edited as a suggestion (in 2 separate edits (+1 gone bad). Reverse as you like (I won't touch it from now). While we're at it, you think we should apply this: any diacritic and modifier and such in the infobox should have the dotted circle (&#x25cc;) when appropriate? I think that would be nicely consistent. -DePiep (talk) 13:35, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, circle to mark where all diacritics go. (Not on tone letters though.) — kwami (talk) 13:38, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we were not at it at all. In fact, I went OT as can be ;-). I'll throw in that circle when seeing an option. -DePiep (talk) 14:15, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Added ◌ to the edit window for your convenience, under 'symbols'. — kwami (talk) 14:22, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Added 'nowrap' to the IPA template. However, a side effect is that unused alts show up as thin line breaks.

For the clicks, we might want separate tables for plain, voiced, and nasal (as we do for other C's). Then we'd have only one letter per line, and wouldn't need 'nowrap'. (Done) — kwami (talk) 21:57, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * re the nowraps: indeed, formatting code (without any text) does not count as "blank input", so the basic infobox show the line (when it's text-only and blank, the line is skipped nicely). What do you need to put in the heavier infobox? We can look for more of the same, in the big font, but a few notches smaller? So far, I thought we were OK with the four single ones... -DePiep (talk) 23:29, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Take a look at the click articles. I think they're fine as they are now. BTW, that's an idea for reducing the clutter in the tone letters.
 * Huh, that's odd. I see you're using 'nowrap' at tone letter. However, when I tried that with the clicks I got an error output. — kwami (talk) 23:35, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I used formatting at the Tone letters around the input text. So that does not end up as an empty row. When you put formatting in the template, say for ipa symbol3, that one might stay empty, still the (now idle) formatting code triggers the row showing. -DePiep (talk) 00:05, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understand. But I also first used formatting on the input text, and got as the output. That's the only reason I tried it in the template. — kwami (talk) 00:12, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Apart from this, the now has gone from four to eight ipa symbol options. -DePiep (talk) 00:17, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

edit wars in Santos FC‎, Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas and Sport Club Corinthians Paulista
Hi Kwami, I and user:Xyzzyva are having a trouble with a newcomer user, user:Strawberry on Vanilla, recently Xyzzyva added an IPA transcription on these pages, and got reverted by Strawberry, which made other non IPA transcription as in Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas, and wrong transcriptions as in Santos FC, Xyzzyva tried talk to him, but he just ignored and not answered, and I also tried revert him to the previous edit by Xyzzyva, but I also got reverted. As you are a sysop, I'd like to know from you the best way to proceed.--Luizdl (talk) 03:59, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I reverted and gave a warning. Let me know if they continue. — kwami (talk) 05:08, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Issues with Strawberry are spiraling out of control. Luizdl has reciprocated in a revert war with him on Santos FC as well as Leão do Mar.  The issues have now spread to including sourcing of dubious quality to back up a translation of the club's name, when the club's name is just the name of the city it's in.  I have tried to explain some of these issues on Strawberry's talkpage (to avoid spreading it amongst four or more article talkpages), but when push comes to shove, how do we enforce the IPA keys, especially against sources such this? — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 03:12, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Kwami, he continues reverting us, he is making IPA transcriptions like for "Leão do Mar", Portuguese doesn't have open back vowels, according to our sources cited on Portuguese phonology as well as he is inserting an velar nasal between a nasal vowel and an alveolar plosive, which isn't even homorganic, as  for santos, and he is using a strange dictionary as reference which contradict itself, using  for "leão" but  for "santos".--Luizdl (talk) 03:19, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Kwami??--Luizdl (talk) 22:00, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Evidently PONS is an unreliable source. I've told him it's in error and asked him to ask s.o. else to add in pronunciations. — kwami (talk) 01:44, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Zhuang
I notice the we have both been undoing the of Zhuang by 虞海, however he continues to put them back in. I have tried talking to him but with no effect. What is the best next step?Johnkn63 (talk) 10:28, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Macedonian nationalism (vandalism)
Hi, Kwamikagami. You as Administrator are a specialist in linguistic articles. What about latest  massive disruptive  edits on Old Church Slavonic, aided by vandalism despite my warnings? Regards. Jingby (talk) 18:35, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You're both edit warring, and have both violated 3RR. I can't very well block him without you.
 * And Jingby, a difference in opinion is not "vandalism". Calling people vandals because they disagree with you makes you a troll. Please don't. — kwami (talk) 18:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

OK! You are right. I have hoped, he should stop his blind reverts by viewing was the reliable sources clearly and simply says. But I was wrong. Jingby (talk) 19:15, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi again. I suppose this guy, who has appeared immediately after the block of User:Wisco2000 is his sock. He has the same target, Bulgarian - Macedonian ethnic relation and the same blind-revert behaviour as the blocked one. I do not know, what to do with him! Jingby (talk) 19:41, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Kwamikagami. This is the real sock. Jingby (talk) 05:31, 11 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't have the authority to check suspected socks. You might want to take it to WP:Sockpuppet investigations. — kwami (talk) 05:40, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Thak you. Jingby (talk) 06:48, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me Kwami, could you please, take a look at the nationalistic activity of. Thank you. Jingby (talk) 09:49, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Jingiby you have been provided with numerous avenues in order to explain your reverts. I am more than happy to discuss the issues with you if you are genuinely interested in improving the articles and if you stop with the offensive statements (you know what I am talking about). Regards. Lunch for Two (talk) 12:38, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Kwami, I am just requesting out of good faith that you unblock and revert Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia, given that the development and discussion on the page has actually contributed to a much more extensive and informative article. Thanks. Lunch for Two (talk) 12:45, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, I can see that the edit warring hasn't been bad on that article recently, and I'll unblock it. Can I trust that you'll work out the issues on the talk page? It's not just Macedonian–Bulgarian, but it can be offensive to use the word "Macedonian" to mean Slavic in an article on Greece, where "Macedonian" just means "of Macedonia", and "Macedonian dialects" can just as easily mean Greek dialects. Given the arbitration ruling on not using the term "Macedonian" for Slavic in such situations, I don't see how the wording can be defended, and edit warring to include it is AFAIK still a blockable offense. — kwami (talk) 13:23, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I am genuine in my commitment to help resolve the issues. I will create a few talk threads where I believe that there is a need, I hope that you (being the admin now involved in the matter) will also comment and work towards greater dialogue, along with the rest of the users. Lunch for Two (talk) 13:47, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Good! I just scanned the article and purged it of "Macedonian" when that word was not used to mean "of Macedonia". I'm not claiming the words I chose to replace it are the best, and in some cases they were arbitrary (sometimes "Slavophone", sometimes "Slavic-speaking"; sometimes "Slavs", sometimes "Macedonian Slavs", etc.), though I hope the result is coherent. There are probably other instances I missed that need to be changed. There was a long ARBCOM battle between Greeks who insisted that we shouldn't use the word "Macedonian" even in the case of the RoM (that they speak "Skopje language" or some such nonsense), and Slavs insisting that we should use the word to mean "Slav" even within Greece. The result was that it's fine to use it to mean "Slav(ic)" in the case of the RoM, following common English usage, but not within Greece, nor when speaking of Macedonia as a whole (Greek Macedonia + the RoM), for then the term is truly ambiguous. Given the protracted and acrimonious nature of battle, I don't think there will be much tolerance for people using "Macedonian names" to mean Slavic names of villages within Greece, and this was one of the things I changed. — kwami (talk) 14:05, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I have had a look at your edit's, I do disagree with them. Can you please link me to the WP:ARBCOM decision where it was decided that the word Macedonian needs to be replaced with the word "Slavic" (which is an umbrella term and not an identifier). A number of your edits have changed references to Macedonian language and Ethnic Macedonians to "Slavic"/"Slavs". I doubt that this was the intention of the arbitration.
 * According to WP:NCMAC, "With sub-articles containing "Macedonian" as a language name, the topic related to the Macedonian language will be assumed to be primary". In many cases you have reverted examples of references to the Macedonian language to simply "Slavic" or "Slavophone", this is does not reflect the sources itself nor the context of the language (ie. "In early 2010 several Slavic-language newspapers were put into print for the first time. In early 2010 the Zadruga...", these newspapers are written in the same form of Macedonian used across the border in the Republic of Macedonia, I don't understand how they can be called Slavic in this article yet simply Macedonian in another article, especially since there is absolutely no reference at all to the Greek-Macedonian dialect).
 * I have left the version pending your response. I feel though it will be much more effective to revert and discuss the instances where "Slavic" as opposed to Macedonian is appropriate. Lunch for Two (talk) 14:23, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sometimes I used "Macedonian Slavic", and it sounds as though I didn't use that phrase enough. The problem reading through the article is that I generally did not understand what "Macedonian" was supposed to mean. That's what I meant about clarity of language: if the wording is unintelligible, then it needs to be changed, ati that has nothing to do with politics or even Arbcom. I don't think there would be any problem with you going through and changing "Slav(ic)" to "Macedonian Slav(ic)", though of course Bulgarian is also Macedonian Slavic, so I don't really see how that helps. (This is going to be a difficult problem to solve, considering that the Macedonian language does not have an unambiguous name.)
 * Yes, within articles on the Macedonian language, "Macedonian Slavic" is the default reading. However, within articles on the region of Macedonia, the default reading is *not* Slavic. Here we have an article on the Macedonian language in the region of Macedonia, so the two decisions *both* apply, and conflict with each other. I think we simply need to be carefully explicit in this case. True, we do not discuss Greek Macedonian dialects, but how is the reader supposed to know that we aren't if we only speak of "Macedonian dialects"? Perhaps you should ask for a comment or opinion from some admin involved in the Arbcom decision if you think that I'm not understanding it.
 * The decisions were Requests for arbitration/Macedonia and Requests for arbitration/Macedonia 2. — kwami (talk) 14:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I have edited the page. I have tried to follow the WP Standards. In regards to people, simply "Macedonian" has been replaced by "Ethnic Macedonian" (where this is the intention), per WP policy. I have left "Macedonian language" (as calling this is also WP policy and there is no other form of Macedonian language). I have replaced "Macedonian nationals" with "ethnic Macedonians" (as it includes people from Australia, Canada, etc.). I have replaced "recognition of Slavs" with "recognition of ethnic Macedonians" (they were recognised as "Macedonians" or "Slavo-Macedonians", but per WP policy I have put in the "ethnic" tag). I have changed "Macedonian minority" to "ethnic Macedonian minority". I have left "other Macedonian minorities", I think that the reasoning for this is straightforward, however I don't object to other ethnic Macedonian minorities. Take a look, I have a feeling that I have disambiguated "Macedonian" across the entirety of the page. Lunch for Two (talk) 15:12, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, let's see if that works. "Ethnic Macedonians" may well be acceptable wording for this. If a dispute arises, we can ask for clarification from Arbcom. — kwami (talk) 16:09, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

This guy obviously is nationalist and shell by blocked, but I do not unedrstand how is he reverting Admin without consensus and against the ARBCOM decisions. No reliable sourses, no consensus, against ARBCOM! How is this posible? Jingby (talk)
 * If you think it is against the Arbcom decision, ask them for their opinion. I'm not familiar enough with the details to feel comfortable rendering that decision myself. — kwami (talk) 16:11, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Turkish - æ
I have no sources, so it can be deleted due to WP:NOR, but as a native speaker I can confirm that Turkish has two different e's which aren't reflected in orthography and learned by listening. "sen" is pronounced like. — amateur (talk)


 * Hm, I just never remember hearing that. You don't mean the sound of English send, do you, but of sand?
 * Is it distinctive? That is, is it possible to have a word /sen/, and another word /sæn/? I can't imagine Turkish grammars would overlook that.
 * Oh, and are you from the east, so your dialect may be closer to Azəri than to Istanbul? — kwami (talk) 13:32, 11 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually I'm from the north, whose dialect far closer to Istanbul than Azəri and I'm pretty sure that it's not a dialectal thing. I don't think it's distinctive, but it's just wrong. There must be some rule about this, but for example özlem is pronounced like (with the 'a' in candy) while özlemek is pronounced like  (with the 'e' in get). — amateur (talk)


 * Okay, I think we need to establish this in the Turkish phonology article before we start adding it the the IPA key. — kwami (talk) 14:06, 11 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm still unable to find a source, but it seems like the words having the sound are not determined by a rule, the sound of letter  depends on the word itself. There seem to be some rules about the letter changes, and as I understand, in Turkish, unlike Azəri, the 'æ' sound can never end a syllable, so, for instance, becomes  in definite accusative case in Turkish, in contrary to  in Azəri.


 * Also, the word-ending sounds seem to change to  when they are in the first and second singular possessive forms. So, for example kulübe  becomes  in first possessive.


 * There may be some other rules about the sound, but these are the only ones I could discover. — amateur (talk) 22:31, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * We definitely need a ref, then. If we're going to use the æ in articles, we need to know what the rules are. — kwami (talk) 22:33, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * There's some discussion here, but as I said it's a discussion, not a 'reliable source'. I'm doubtful that we can find one. — amateur (talk) 22:52, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, we at least need to be able to figure out what the rules are. If it's not challenged, we wouldn't need the RS. An RS would just make it easier. — kwami (talk) 22:55, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Then, quoted from the last post in the given link (the 'closed e' is, the 'open e' is ): "There is general rule for when and how to pronunce each e. Most e's are closed apart from the rule below:


 * In the same syllable, if the e is follwed by: r, l, m or n. The "e" is open. Ex: Sen, the "e" is followed by "n", therefore pronunced: sæn. Let's make it accusative: Seni, the syllables are: Se-ni, the "e" is not follwed by an "n" in the same syllable. Thus: closed. There are a few exceptions of course. For instance the word "renk" is pronunced with a closed e, although it is followed by an "n"." 


 * The mentioned exceptions only exist in the standard Istanbul dialect. For instance, in my northern dialect, I pronounce kendi, elli, renk with a sound, while they are all exceptions to the described general rules in Istanbul dialect. — amateur (talk) 23:15, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If we have lexical exceptions, then presumably we're dealing with an incipient phonemic distinction, like the two "I" sounds in English.
 * There are also readers who say the distinction is /e ɛ/ rather than /e̞ æ/.
 * Discussion should go on the Turk. phon. article, IMO.
 * BTW, is there nothing similar going on with the ø, o, ɑ?
 * See Talk:Turkish phonology — kwami (talk) 08:50, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

All I used at Google was and I got a confirmation. It wasn't specific, but "amateur" is seconded by a Turk linguist. Congratulations. The passage does not say whether the conditioning of the variation is lexical or phonological. The text is a book in English, Balpinar, Turkish phonology, morphology, and syntax. See pp. 38-39. There are two vowel phonemes with three allophones, /ɛ, a/. Balpinar claims that some speakers lack the [æ] allophone. Maybe GN Lewis, Turkish Grammar, gave the details; I forget. This clue leads us to enhance the search string to. . . "three allophones". The answers are provided by Göksel and Kerslake, Turkish: a comprehensive grammar, p. 10. [æ] occurs before /l m n r/ in closed syllables; [ɛ] occurs in word final position; [e] elsewhere. There is an additional condition they mention. They do not acknowledge that some speakers have only two allophones. Conceivably, they have explicitly undertaken to describe a certain variety of the language which is a three allophone variety. Check the preface. Dale Chock (talk) 08:18, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I added that to the phonology article. — kwami (talk) 09:02, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

dyadic kinship article
In the dyadic kinship article no mention is made of how it relates to social deixis. Also another Angan language, Simbari, also has dyadic kinship. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.200.60.230 (talk) 02:22, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Add it in! — kwami (talk) 04:42, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Ethnic promoted edits to articles on Transylvania
I am rather concerned that a user has made and is editing large numbers of articles related to Transylvania to remove Hungarian elements from them. Individually all the edits can probably be defended. Please could you have a look. We have all the problems of Ukrainian nationalist extremists deleting names they do not like from articles on places in Ukraine; this looks similar - but from a Romanian nationalist extremist POV. I would value a second opinion on this.--Toddy1 (talk) 13:45, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I started looking, but many of these are beyond my level of knowledge. — kwami (talk) 08:52, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

U seem to know language
So I decided to ask, Have we included the work of Théophile Obenga in any of the African sections? I am not familiar with why some people have issue with his classification. As it is not my 1st subject I wonder how this might be included in African language sections (If not there already). Cheers.--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 17:33, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm into linguistics, so I'm not familiar with him. His ideas don't seem to be something that would be taken seriously. — kwami (talk) 17:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Cheers I came across some language classification charts of his New language Classification, Afrocentrics automatically makes people say "oh no"--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 17:52, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not Afrocentric, it's pseudoscience. It's a classification based on race, which of course is fantasy: people's languages are not determined by the color of their skin. It's not even African, it's Black African (but not Khoe or San) + Egyptian. Berber and Semitic are excluded. (The Amharic you have in your signature is excluded as non-African.) It's not even original: it's just a pastiche of other people's ideas made to conform to his ideology. There's no linguistic analysis, yet it pretends to be linguistic. If there were an article on his négro-égyptien, it would be deleted per WEIGHT, just as similar Euro-racist nonsense is deleted when some advocate posts it. — kwami (talk) 18:31, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Funny you should mention Amharic because there I was hurting my eyes looking for how he classified Amharic et al. and to my shock it didnt make the cut.--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 18:44, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * But Egyptian did, despite the fact that Egyptian and Amharic can be convincingly shown to be related. It would seem to be politics rather than linguistics. — kwami (talk) 18:51, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Cyrillic alphabet
Kwami, you should know after 10 or so years on Wikipedia that controversial moves should go through WP:RM, or at least after an extensive discussion on the talk page. As far as I can see, you moved Cyrillic alphabet to Cyrillic script and Category:Cyrillic alphabet to Category:Cyrillic script without a word of discussion, and now you're using AWB to recategorize all the articles. That is not cool. Please stop using AWB and open a discussion. No such user (talk) 06:51, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, there has been discussion for several weeks at naming conventions. Cyrillic is not a single alphabet (that would be the Russian alphabet), but a script like Latin or Arabic, which don't have a single form either. — kwami (talk) 11:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Then, please point me to it, and I'll gladly revert myself. Better still, link to such discussions in edit/move summaries. No such user (talk) 11:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Here for example. -DePiep (talk) 12:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Advisory of proposal for a renaming
I acknowledge that renaming an article is called "moving" it at Wikipedia. Anyway, I have just expanded a stub, Fertit people. As I point out there, there is no such thing. Therefore, the article should be renamed. Since you have edited it and since you are a major "logistical" or "administrative" editor of language and anthropology articles, I would like to let you know that I propose to rename it "Dar Fertit", because that is a term that, according to the histories, has been in use for close to three centuries, right down to the present. This makes it notable, even though it is a vague term with little social and political substance.

The stub "Fertit people" has an interesting lack of history. Essentially, its content has not changed in the five years since it was created. Until today, it had not been edited at all for a year.

I intend to add more footnotes. I do not think the topic merits much more length than what it has now. My research suggests that people use the name simply because it's been used for a long time. To discuss this would be as worthwhile as discussing the substance of the term. Hurmata (talk) 07:28, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure. If it's about the region rather than the people, it would be best to rename it. — kwami (talk) 07:53, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Santos FC
All right...let's try this...

Since you said you are studying on this sort of thing, can you give me an IPA for this?: Santos Futebol Clube

Strawberry on Vanilla (talk) 02:58, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I would presume, or perhaps . Some people might add an (never ) for , but we haven't done that on WP.
 * If you follow the IPA link, you'll see that there is no or  in the way we transcribe Portuguese: canto; ângulo; âmbar; irmã are all . — kwami (talk) 04:00, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Could you do the same for this two:

1- Estádio Urbano Caldeira 2- Vila Belmiro

Thanks. Strawberry on Vanilla (talk) 22:39, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * All I'm doing is going off a modicum of knowledge of Portuguese (from way too many years ago) and our IPA conventions for that language, which are listed at WP:IPA for Portuguese. You should be able to work it out from the tables on that page. For example, they give [ɐ̃ ] as the vowel in canto, which of course is the same as the vowel in santos. If that doesn't work for you, let me know, and I'll try to find out what the difficulty is. — kwami (talk) 22:46, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Interwikis
Would you please add the Interwikis in the Articles you create?--84.57.62.139 (talk) 08:58, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * No. Not unless there's some place I can look them up. — kwami (talk) 13:37, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Eskimo-Aleut and Wakashan
I've just noticed that the German article Eskimo-aleutische Sprachen mentions a proposed genetic connection between Eskimo-Aleut and Wakashan, apparently argued for in an introduction to Eskimo-Aleut by Holst (2005). I thought you would be interested to learn about this. It would be nice if the articles on Eskimo-Aleut, Wakashan and Indigenous languages of the Americas mentioned this proposal, but I don't have the book and this issue would seem to be more in your own field of competence anyway, so I thought you might want to take care of this. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:50, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I hadn't heard that. It's evidently an idea of Swadesh's: he argued in the 60s that the evidence for a link to Wakashan is "at least as good" as for a link to Chukchi-Kamchatkan. I'll haven't had a chance to see if Holst supports this or is merely reporting it (it's past my bedtime!), but it wouldn't seem to be a "neueren Theorien".
 * Yeah, he devotes 20 pages to it. I'll read it another day. — kwami (talk) 14:58, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Igbo edits.
I was wandering why you said nsibidi is not a writing system on the Igbo language article when the same page mentions it as a writing system, and the article for nsibidi is categorised under writing systems. And just overall, it's considered and ideographic writing system. Also, I added back the largest Igbo dialects that are usually mentioned in publishings. Ukabia - talk 15:29, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * There is no such thing as an ideographic writing system. A writing system is used to write a language. If Nsibidi is ideographic, then it does not write language. It would still be categorized under writing systems because it might be considered proto-writing and therefore of interest for that category. The refs in the nsibidi article don't actually say that it's writing, they only report that some have claimed that it is writing. Given the ideographic nature, and how it seems to be language-independent, we'd need a RS that demonstrates it's writing before we say that it is in the article. (Most of the refs I can find say it's symbolic, and that its descendents in the Caribbean are symbolic.)


 * The Smithsonian site ref'd from the Igbo article says,
 * Nsibidi is an ancient system of graphic communication indigenous to the Ejagham peoples of southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon in the Cross River region. It is also used by neighboring Ibibio, Efik and Igbo peoples. Aesthetically compelling and encoded, nsibidi does not correspond to any one spoken language. It is an ideographic script whose symbols refer to abstract concepts, actions or things and whose use facilitates communication among peoples speaking different languages.
 * That is, it is not writing.


 * Per my refs, standard Igbo is based on two dialects, and Owerri is a subdialect of Enuani. Bonny and Opobo belong to the same dialect. Also, Ika is an Igbo language, but not a dialect of the Igbo language. Same with Izzi and Ikwerre. Such things can be a matter of opinion, of course, but if we're going to go that route, we would need to merge the Ika, Izzi, and Ikwerre articles. — kwami (talk) 15:37, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I understand what you mean by the dialects and languages. By the way Ohuhu is a dialect of Umuahia, Umuahia itself is not a dialect. The Enuani dialect has nothing to do with the Owere dialect which is its own dialect that is related to Ikwere. Enuani communities are mostly in the Western or Niger Igbo cultural region that is separated from the Isuama, Owere and others by the River Niger in northern Delta State. The article on Enuani dialect goes on to explain the major towns under the dialect group, the only towns on the same side of the Niger bank as Owerri is Onitsha-Obosi-Ogbaru and Ndoni which are miles away. Please look at the Enuani dialect article, or look it up somewhere else reliable.


 * On nsibidi, I'm not understanding how something can be a writing system, but not writing. Nsibidi is classified as ideographic writing. I checked Merriam Webster for 'writing' and found:": something written: as a : letters or characters that serve as visible signs of ideas, words, or symbols", nsibidi falls into writing here. I checked wikipedia here: "Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols (known as a writing system)." So how is nsibidi not writing? Aren't we supposed to go off of published sources instead of opinion?


 * I'm sure you already know there isn't a writing system without ideograms. I checked to see if any other ideograms were linked to any other language articles infobox, and I found several including the Naxi language. Ukabia - talk 16:54, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * "Umuahia itself is not a dialect": do you mean that Umuahia is not Igbo, but a separate language?
 * As for why I'm saying Nsibidi is not writing, it's in the WP quote you gave: "Writing is the representation of language". Nsibidi does not represent language, it represents ideas. That is, it doesn't matter terribly which language you're using it for, you can still use nsibidi. If it represented language, it would be logographic or phonemic, and you wouldn't be able to use it for a different language without adaptation to that language. But you're right, we do say the Dongba "script" for Naxi is a "pictographic writing system", though we go on to say that it is inadequate to represent language (as I presume nsibidi is).
 * So yes, we need to be consistent here. Nsibidi would not count as "true" writing. Neither would dongba. So the two articles should probably match (unless maybe there is something else going on). But there are dozens of other symbolic graphic systems across Africa, such as that of the Dogon, and we don't call them writing: that's not right either. If nsibidi is writing, then so are they (or so I would presume). If they're not writing, then neither is nsibidi, but then neither is dongba (Naxi) either. One of the ways Naxi is different is that the geba script (a syllabary) is truly writing, like Bamun or Vai, and geba and dongba are (or were) often used together: dongba for the basic ideas, and geba to flesh it out as language. So dongba and geba could function together as a writing system. I suppose if nsibidi were used together with Bamun, I wouldn't have thought twice about calling it a writing system.
 * I think part of the problem with the nsibidi article was that there were editors who were trying to portray it as something it wasn't: a full writing system, 5000 years old, etc., so I've paid more attention to it being precise than I have been with Naxi, where we don't have anyone making exaggerated claims. I might be too close to it to see it clearly: We might want to ask at the writing systems Wikiproject. — kwami (talk) 18:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Umuahia is a town with several dialects, the dialect being referred to as "Umuahia" (from published sources) is Ohuhu. Ethnologue itself cannot be completely relied on as it is a tertiary source and many errors have been reported here on wikipedia leading to the use of other sources.


 * The 3000-5000 years old claim is from a book that estimates when nsibidi could have been used, that is the only thing that could be seen as exaggerated, and it was done when the article was growing. Nsibidi is not a popular topic and it is understandable if there are doubts about a fully indigenous script coming from a region that was supposed to have none. The definition of writing given by Webster and Wikipedia did not specify writing to be, as you may be implying, the representation of morphemes and/or syllables/phonemes by graphemes, but, wikipedia in particular goes on to say writing is the "representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols", it also says cave drawing and illustration (which are symbolic) are excluded. Nsibidi represents languages. Language is a method of human communication which in this case means speech and thought. If nsibidi were illustration it would not cause the reader to say "plantain" in the language. Nsibidi represents speech and thought, whether through representing ideas such as an order for plantains, or representing a morpheme such as 'nsibidi'. I already mentioned other writing systems either coming from ideograms (I think all did) or are still reliant on them.


 * You said "Nsibidi does not represent language [...] That is, it doesn't matter terribly which language you're using it for, you can still use nsibidi", I am well aware of logographic and syllabic writing systems, what you may term "true writing", the most popular being Chinese characters, and I know that with no tweaking at all except on the morphemes used for a character (a symbol), I can use Hanzi to write any language, in fact most people look at a Chinese character such as a tattoo and read it in their native language (nsibidi has as many symbols or characters recorded as the most used Chinese characters). The ironic thing is that I can use any writing system to write any language, however badly (depending on the type of writing system). There is nothing on either Webster, Wikipedia or in the sources that excludes ideographic writing as "true" writing, neither the info boxes (such as Template:List_of_writing_systems), or even the writing system page itself on wikipedia.


 * You seem to be relying on the Smithsonian source which uses words such as "graphic communication" and "Aesthetically compelling" which may be read as nsibidi is just a set of motifs and designs (which some parts are), just like uli (both have been compared and nsibidi has been described as writing and uli as design). Well the same source describes nsibidi clearly as an "ideographic script", a script is used in writing. Every reliable source I have read refers to nsibidi either as a writing system or as a script.


 * As to the status of other graphic communication systems across Africa, I do not know much about them as to give an opinion as to whether they should be considered as writing, but this is of no relation to nsibidi which has, and continues to be referred to as writing from the day it was revealed to foreign missionaries in the early days of the colonisation of Africa, till recent publishings. Ukabia - talk 20:00, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * If you can use any writing system to write any language, and nsibidi is a writing system, you should be able to use nsibidi to write English. I find that doubtful.
 * Writing consists of symbols, but that doesn't mean symbols are writing. If I show someone the sign of a cigarette with a circle around it and a line through it, they'll respond with the words "no smoking". Yet I can't use signs like that to write English: they are ideographic, but do not constitute a writing system. I'm looking through The World's Writing Systems, and they do not cover ideographic or pictographic systems except for their historical or cultural interest. No Yukaghir writing, even though people compose love letters in it. No Vinča (Old European) "script", except to say that it is "most improbable that the marks represent a language, either logographically or phonetically", so it's not possible to recognize it as a writing system. They identify 16 indigenous writing systems of West Africa (up to Cameroon), but nsibidi is not among them: all are either syllabic or alphabetic. They define writing,
 * "as a system of more or less permanent marks used to represent an utterance in such a way that it can be recovered more or less exactly without the intervention of the utterer. By this definition, writing is bound up with language; consequently, the widespread practice of recording by means of pictures (pictograms) of ideas that are not couched in a specific linguistic form is excluded. Such pictograms are often designated forerunners of writing ..., but in fact writing systems (or scripts) do not develop from them"
 * They even state that a purely logographic writing system is not possible: there must be some phonetic component. So, unless the nsibidi glyph for 'woman' represents the Igbo word for 'woman', and not the abstract idea of woman, it is not a writing system, not a script. If the refs I've seen are accurate, and a sign can mean 'word' or 'meeting' etc. but not a specific word, then it is not writing. So I think the problem lies in being sloppy with our terminology in the dongba article, and that needs to be fixed. — kwami (talk) 20:36, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You find it doubtful nsibidi can be used to write English, yet you said nsibidi can be used to write any language? You're making an opinion, go and read the wikipedia article on writing systems, ideograms are clearly described as a writing system that many other systems are made up of in varying amounts. You're not getting your claims from any sources, because all the reliable sources describe nsibidi as a writing system, in fact you described nsibidi as a writing system that's classified as that because it's proto-writing. Is proto-writing not writing? How can a writing system not be writing? I want this to be explained. And if nsibidi is not a writing system, then what is it?


 * A sign for 'no-smoking' is clearly a pictogram, a pictogram is still considered writing, just because your opinion is that they are not writing because they do not look like Latin letters does not mean it's not writing. Of course some pictographs are more iconic than others. Nsibidi is not a pictogram but an ideogram.


 * Whatever book that omits any material is not relevant to whether nsibidi is a writing system, or if even ideographs are writing. Did the book mention the oracle bone script, or cuneiform, writing systems that are pictographic, ideographic? If they didn't, then that will be because they are talking about current widely used writing systems that have developed from proto-writing.


 * There are so many books and definitions that can be dug up, but this is wikipedia and ideographs are writing systems here, pictographs are writing systems, whether early forms or "true" forms. All you are saying is original research, which is not allowed in this encyclopaedia. You've stuck with an opinion and you are willing to dig out whatever evidence there is to back up your opinion, even if it means dumping sources you've supported, like the Smithsonian one that claimed nsibidi was a script. Explaining whether the symbols which are clearly labeled with the meanings and the sources are what they actually mean is a waste of time because the sources are there to check. Ukabia - talk 21:25, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm going by sources, not opinions, which is what you should be doing too. WP is not a source: if WP disagrees with our sources, then it needs to be changed. I've asked at the writing-system project for comments.
 * The oracle bone script and cuneiform are not ideographic, they're logographic. According to your definition, writing was not invented 3000 BC, but people always had writing. Again, you really should read up on this stuff. — kwami (talk) 21:36, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * That would mean that Webster, as well as other dictionaries are incorrect. I know that I'm going off of sources, because the article would still be stuck at stub level if I didn't, nothing on the page is made up from opinion, including nsibidi's ideographic status.


 * Oracle bone script and Cuneiform developed from ideographs, in fact the Oracle bone script is more pictographic than nsibidi, it is also very similar to nsibidi as there are ideographic elements and logographic elements such as the symbols with specific names. You would have to explain when exactly Oracle bone and Cuneiform became "true writing" to support what you are saying. The example of invention of writing is also irrelevant as there are no ideographic scripts, that is a body of defined symbols , like nsibidi, that predates Cuneiform or Egyptian Hieroglyphs, unless you have proof. Ukabia - talk 21:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * No, it's up to you to demonstrate your claims. I've already shown them to be false according to the sources I have. If you don't understand the history of writing, you can read those articles. I don't have to be the one to explain them to you. — kwami (talk) 22:10, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I have began a discussion here for all the articles. Ukabia - talk 19:42, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Meliti
Hi Kwami, I noticed that Meliti is still protected. I posted a comment on the talk page over a week ago in good faith, it seems that those persons who were constantly reverting me are nowhere to be seen now and have not taken up my offer to talk the issues out (I imagine however they will be quick to revert though). I wish to make a few edits on the page, what is the best course of action to take? Thanks. Lunch for Two (talk) 13:21, 21 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I've unprotected for signed-in editors. See how it goes. — kwami (talk) 21:37, 21 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Kwami, I am just wondering if you would be able to take a look at Bulgarian dialects. The article is extremely biased and the sources misrepresent the information as stated in the original texts (especially in regards to the Macedonian language being a Bulgarian dialect). I have already been reverted once on the matter, and I do not want to start an edit war so I have come to you for advice. Some of the statements are obviously Fringe Views and the composition of the table is also FringeView. What do you suggest? If admin intervention is not effective, what alternative remedies are available? Thank you. Lunch for Two (talk) 15:27, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Macedonian-Bulgarian *is* a single dialect continuum. AFAIK you really can't draw a dividing line between them. Anyway, the article does say "considered Bulgarian by Bulgarians", and a separate language by others, several times. — kwami (talk) 16:23, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * There is no doubt that Macedonian and Bulgarian form a dialect continuum and it that is difficult to say where one ends and the other begins, but that was not what my changes on the page were. I left those dialects considered as transitional but was nonetheless reverted anyway.
 * I'm sure you would agree that in places such as Tetovo, Korce and Ohrid, that it is clear the transitional zone has passed and it is simply not true for the language spoken there to be labelled Bulgarian (Even if it says that the language is considered that way in Bulgaria). I wont be able to make any changes to the page anyway, given that 90% of my changes (across Wikipedia) are almost immediately reverted by Jingiby. Lunch for Two (talk) 08:12, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Of course you "can". The whole point is not to revert each other, which will get both of you blocked, but to resolve the dispute. There are several processes of WP:dispute resolution. The only reason you "can't" edit is if the community decides that your edits are undesirable, usually based on sources. Dispute resolution can be a pain, but it's what's needed when two editors won't agree. — kwami (talk) 09:54, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J1_(Y-DNA)
Please review and comment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J1_(Y-DNA)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Haplogroup_J1_(Y-DNA)

JohnLloydScharf (talk) 23:35, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Invitation
Hey. You make nice edits here on Wikipedia. Something tells me you would be a nice contributor at drobos13 as well, which is a unique discussion environment where everything is pre-moderated and everyone is anonymous in public. It also has a very usable interface and has had over 11 years of R&D put into it. You would be part of the initial crowd of early adopters and be able to really get your voice heard. Please at least consider it and note that this was sent by a human being, manually, rather than some sort of automated bulk spam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rattlemake (talk • contribs) 07:38, 22 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the invite, but I'm actually trying to cut back on WP. Last thing I need is a new one! — kwami (talk) 07:48, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

algorithm for AWB contributions?
Hey Kwami. Every time I visit a random obscure linguistics page, I invariably see you listed in the history, usually with some sort of formatting (e.g. AWB) change. Most recently I saw you in Southern Athabascan grammar. I'm impressed -- and curious what your "algorithm" is for visiting these pages. Do you surf randomly (but vigorously)? Do you search for interesting things and check out the relevant pages? Do you do a systematic scan of pages in certain categories? Do you have some ginormous watch list? (Or all of the above?) Benwing (talk) 23:51, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I currently have 6,150 pages on my watch list. Does that count as "ginormous"? I used to try to cut it down to a more manageable level, but I've given up. (Most of those articles are hardly ever edited, though.)
 * Usually I scan with AWB using regex. Very handy, and it can pre-scan while you're at dinner. It could be all the pages in a category, like tagged orphan articles, or everything that transcludes some template or info box. Or it may be everything that links to some key article. Sometimes I do a text search, like recently to ferret out tokens of "Hamitic" being used as if it were respectable. (Thankfully few.) And often when I find one thing that's screwy, it correlates with other screwy things, so I scan for those too. — kwami (talk) 04:37, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I think 6,150 qualifies as at least "pretty damn massive", not sure if "ginormous" :) ... In any case, thanks very much for all the work on copy-editing and clean-up and such! Benwing (talk) 00:51, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Edittools
Hello Kwamikagami, I'm Zack, from Arabic Wikipedia. I was wondering if you could help me on this one: In the Arabic version of Edittools unlike the English one, when you switch between 'Insert' and 'Wiki Markup' for example, using not the mouse but the downward pointing arrow, the content does not appear unless you press Enter. Any idea what to do? --Zack (talk) 04:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You'll have to talk to the programmers for WP-ar. That's way above admin-level stuff. Actually, that (WP-ar) is the behaviour I would expect, but since I've hardly ever edited that way, I've never noticed the difference. — kwami (talk) 05:07, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Alright. Are there any pages other than MediaWiki:Edittools and .js that are necessary for the Edittools to function? Zack (talk) 05:26, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't know. My understanding of WP's plumbing is quite tenuous. — kwami (talk) 06:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, thank you Kwami, beautiful name by the way. --Zack (talk) 06:34, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm doing it here but I'm getting the same: no content unless I hit enter. I guess that's how it's designed. Could it be customisable? I don't know. You'd have to get hold of one of the developers. J IM ptalk·cont 19:01, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I guess it depends on the browser; I'm using Firefox and I don't have to press Enter. Anyway, thanks Jimp. Please let me know if you know someone familiar with the subject. --Zack (talk) 02:49, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm using FF too, and I don't press enter on WP-en, but do on WP-ar. I have no idea why. But on IE I need to hit enter on both. — kwami (talk) 08:08, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You'll want to find out who is responsible for developing the Arabic wiki and contact them about the drop-down box issue at info-ar@wikimedia.org. Good luck! Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

hello Kwami
you should close the Zaza People article again. There has started another edit war. And I am really tired of this and that the User Takabeg is harassing me on my talk site with Wikipedia rules while he is removing my comments from the articles Discussions site.

My request please use a older Version of the article before the edits between me and Takabeg and close the article.

Wikisupporting (talk) 14:47, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Request about the Zaza people article
Could you revert User:Wikisupporting edition you restored before protecting the Zaza people article, because it was precisely his/her edition done by an ethnocentric point of view, which contains POV materials, using reference which does not correspond to the content. And more seriously, apart from POV material, the user is erasing other academically referenced sources about different theories. Thank you. Menikure (talk) 18:43, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I reverted to the version prior to the edit war. I'm not going to judge who is correct. You may want to go to WP:dispute resolution, especially if there is a pattern of bad behaviour. — kwami (talk) 18:48, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Ethnocentic point of view? Seriously now. Takabeg has no right in editing the whole article into his turkish centric point of view.

1. Uses Van Bruinessen as source, mention that according to him some Zaza have started to consider themselves as a different ethnic group, but why don´t mention that their number is very very small and is in fact only a phenomena among "Exilromantics" this is how he use to call them. He doesen´t even mentionso him that still virtually all Zaza consider themselves as Kurds and permanently edits everything going into this direction while 3 sources at ones confirm this. Another thing surprisingly no other complained about this. Neither the Users Amadoni, Wesar, Sagapane, two of them Zaza nor any other User. Surprisingly just new Users "known" by Takabeg complain about this. And just to make it clear my version was different I even tried out Takabegs Version and only added some fact which are also mentioned in the sources. But Takabeg of course couldn´t stand any mention about how the Zaza consider themselves. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zaza_people&action=historysubmit&diff=446011171&oldid=445989523 The only Problem the User Takabeg and his colleagues, or his own other IPs have, is the mentioning that the Zaza mainly consider themselves as Kurds. And while Takabeg was the one who did involve the User Kwamikagami into this, now Kwamigami is not "neutral" enough and deceived by me. ironically the last edit was made by established member Amadoni and not me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Takabeg#Zaza_people But of course that User Takabeg is known almost by any Admin for permanent edit warring is not important. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Takabeg#Medes

I am going to stay out of this. I really don´t have any more nerves for this permanent edit wars. So my own request is, after some weeks when the locking is over. The article should be protected from non Admin editors and new created by Admins. Means no one not me nor Takabeg should be allowed to edit the article. This should be made by chosen Admins. Or if not possible, the article should be removed.Wikisupporting (talk) 14:03, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * As I told Menikure above, the solution to the problem is dispute resolution. I've had it with petty nationalistic tantrums by ethnically insecure editors. Not saying that you're one of them, but there are lots of battles like this, and I'll be spending my time on things I actually know something about. If you're not willing to make the effort, don't complain about the results. — kwami (talk) 14:11, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I am willing to stay out of this. This is my effort because it is almost impossible to come to a conclusion with Takabeg, a User who made so many edit wars on different Articles. Mainly Kurdish, Armenian, Turkish related ones. My only request is that the User Takabeg should not be allowed to work on this article. It should be closed and worked out by admins or removed fully. If the User Takabeg still goes on in editing the article.Wikisupporting (talk) 14:19, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If you want that to happen, you'll need to take it through dispute resolution, or find an admin (maybe like Doug below) who's willing to take it on. It's not just the Zazas and Kurds, it's the Macedonians and Greeks, the Macedonians and Bulgarians, the Croats and Serbs, the Serbs and Bosniaks, the Ibibio and Efik, and on and on and on. I simply don't care any more. Many of these people are just too ridiculous. — kwami (talk) 14:36, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Menikure took it to about 5 places, but since he has never tried to discuss this, they were all inappropriate. This is all a mess. Dougweller (talk) 14:29, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * This article should be able to be edited and monitored by users who are knowledgeable on this topic and non-political and neutral. The article should not be fully protected indefinitely, but semi-protected for certain periods, because fully protecting this article does not solve the dispute and the controversial aspect is that only one theory but not other contradicting theories about the Zaza peoples’ ethnic classification is present. I myself did not add and will not add anything to this article, but completely blocking the whole article for future and constructive editions is unfair. There should be no fait accompli. My suggestion is that both users’ editions about the conflicting theories of the Zaza people should be included in the article. The main reason is that the Zaza people are either classified as a separate ethnic group or as a part of the Kurdish ethnic group. Both theories and views are supported with academic sources. And academic sources, neutral and objective will of course diverge. -- Menikure (talk) 14:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Kwami. I was also involved in editing Zaza article on different Wikipedia versions, were other People were involved too. Surprisingly we could come to a conclusion and made the article, even though not perfect, at least close to reality. All of the involved Users agreed on the fact, that Van Bruinessen is one of the least Sources who is not politically motivated. When we see Van Bruinessens work, we see this facts. 1. The idea of being a separate group, is only present among a small Group of "Exilromantics". 2. The Zaza were traditionally and are still usually considered as Kurds. 3. Virtually all Zaza consider themselves as Kurds and reject strictly the Idea of being a separate ethnic group. 4. The Zaza language might not be classified by some specialized sources not as Kurdish(used as synonym for Kurmanji which is only one of the Kurdish languages) anymore, but still a very close language to it. The definition of what is Kurdish and not is only based on the own ethnic definition of the Group. And we read that according to Van Bruinessen they do consider their language as a Kurdish dialect. 5. Also very important. In Van Bruinessens schooled eyes. It seems more like a "inner Kurdish" conflict than a Zaza-Kurdish separate one. He mentions and what is the reality. There are as much "other Kurds" who consider themselves as Turks or define their ethnic identity by religious denomination. Means when there are Zaza who consider themselves as non Kurds, those mainly don´t do this because they believe that Zaza are a non ethnic Kurdish group but because they define themselves by religious Groups to which they belong. In other words, a Zaza Alevi feels much closer to an Kurmanj Alevi as he would feel to a Sunni Zaza. So according to Van Bruinessen The Kurds (in which he includes the Zaza) could be separated into 3 Groups not based on linguistics but religious believes. Like "Alevi, Sunni, Yezidi".

You can read it here. http://www.hum.uu.nl/medewerkers/m.vanbruinessen/publications/Bruinessen_Ethnic_identity_Kurds.pdf And now please compare this to the Version of takabeg and you will see the sparsely selected parts of this wonderful work. The only thing he really took out. "According to Van Bruinessen some Zaza have started to consider themselves as a distinct ethnic Group". He took out the part which became the least importance by Van Bruinessen and mentioned it as if this was the most important part.

All other Sources believe it are somehow politically motivated. Be it Pro or Contra Kurdish. And this cant be that much compared to other disputed articles. The Zaza Article on Wikipedia is Used by Turkish Media, like TV and Newspapers as a source to brainwash the People and to tell them as what they should consider themselves. Thats why my request don´t let non admin Users edit this Article. Asking Dougweller is a good Idea. Of course only if he wantsWikisupporting (talk) 15:06, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Menikure, but at the same time the only sources pointing out the number of Zaza who consider themselves as Kurds, confirm all that the large majority to virtually all consider themselves as Kurds. And this was not added. It is impossible to come to an conclusion if both sides have such different views. And I don´t understand why you do insist that normal Users should be allowed to edit the article. Are you not convinced that the Admins could make a "unpolitical" article which does not suit your believes? Do you fear something?. My request stands to block this article and only let it be edited by Admins. I don´t fear anything because I am convinced that non political motivated versions made by Admins will come much closer to the reality than version made by unknown Persons.Wikisupporting (talk) 15:13, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciations in infoboxes: MOS?
I noticed a recent edit in which you moved a pronunciation from the lede to the person infobox. I can't find the relevant guidelines in the MoS. Could you point the way? Considering the percentage of my edits this would effect, I'd like to do it right... — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 18:49, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The other MOS's don't mention the pronunciation. I don't think it was common when they were drawn up. But MOS:BIO, for example, notes that we don't need the full date or place of birth or death in the lead when they are included in the infobox or in the text. One of the MOS's didn't reflect MOS:BIO in this point, so I brought it in line and mentioned on the talk page that I thought pronunciations should be treated the same way. The only comments were supportive. PRONUNCIATION also notes that IPA in the lede can become a distraction, and may be placed in a dedicated section or footnote instead of the lede. In astronomy articles, for example, pronunciations have been moved to the infobox. Now several of the bio boxes also support this, so I think we should add s.t. to the pronunciation guidelines. Basically it's a matter of avoiding clutter in the very beginning of an article, which is a general principle of LEAD. — kwami (talk) 19:05, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * If you want to change the current practice (pronunciation in the lead sentence), start a discussion somewhere. Making undiscussed additions to protected templates is simply not acceptable. Prolog (talk) 21:37, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed. You really shouldn't be adding fields to high-use, fully-protected templates without discussing the proposed changes on the template talk pages first. At the very least you should leave notes pointing to the discussion at MOS:BIO, so that editors who work on/with these templates can be aware of the it and weigh in. I respectfully request that you revert your changes until they have been discussed at the relevant template talk pages. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The practice was always pronunciation in the lede if there's no other place to put it. It's long been a contention that this adds undue clutter. I'll add the notes. — kwami (talk) 21:51, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * See Template talk:Infobox person. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  00:44, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

User talk:Ling.Nut2
Hi. You deleted User talk:Ling.Nut2 under CSD U1. As far as I can see, that criterion specifically and explicitly excludes user talk pages. Mistake? --MZMcBride (talk) 20:14, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yup. — kwami (talk) 20:20, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

comet names
See Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style, regarding a few moves that you made back in May. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:54, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

AN/I
Your editing is being discussed at WP:ANI. Prolog (talk) 19:15, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Abu Salim
Please modify map, you put Abu Salim as rebel-held on the Tripoli map, that was a bit premature. BBC and Al Jazeera reported today that fighting is still ongoing there. Thank you. EkoGraf (talk) 13:37, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Since then Al Jazeera has reported that Abu Salim is under rebel control. — kwami (talk) 14:08, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Wrong, the source says the area is surrounded by the rebels, nothing about it being captured. They only said that they belive Gaddafi is in the district. Quoting the rebel spokesman The area where he is now is under siege. Please make the appropriate change. Fighting is still ongoing in Abu Salim according to both BBC and Al Jazeera. EkoGraf (talk) 16:38, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I can't edit a map based on "an area". That tells me nothing. According to Al Jazeera, they took Abu Salim. If you think I've misinterpreted the source, or if you think Al Jazeera is wrong, you might want to take it up on the talk page, where there are several editors better informed on this than I am. — kwami (talk) 16:47, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Herero
Hi Kwami, sorry, didn't realize the two sentences were related to one another and covered by the same source, makes more sense now, thanks! Rainbowwrasse (talk) 17:20, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I heard it in my own head and didn't realize it didn't make much sense the way it was originally written. — kwami (talk) 17:35, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Disappointed
Hiya. You're obviously keen on WP (as am I) & a prolific editor. And indeed an admin.- well done on both those aspects.

So it's disappointing you choose to generally it seems shun providing wp:ESs in Special:Contributions/Kwamikagami. May I ask why you shun them, esp. as you are an admin.?

Secondly, any thoughts on wp:archiving?

Reply here if you care, & I'll respond. Regards, Trafford09 (talk) 12:05, 27 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I just never got into the habit of ES's. They would also mean far fewer edits.
 * As for archiving, I don't know that my opinion would count for anything, unless there's a discussion open somewhere. — kwami (talk) 12:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies.

So, you've slipped into what consensus would consider a bad habit, & it's more important to you &/or WP that your edits be prolific than following guidelines, regardless of your admin. status. Quantity outweighs quality, and it doesn't matter if it appears 'one rule for us & another for them', or 'do as we say, not as we do'.

Hmm - shouldn't you be setting a good example, if having admin. status matters to you?

wp:archiving suggests: "The talk page guidelines suggest archiving when the talk page exceeds 50 KB".

Your talk page is currently running at ~240 KB - that was my second point. Trafford09 (talk) 12:23, 27 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Not at all. I never tell anyone they should use edit summaries. And their absence has nothing to do with the quality of the article.
 * I try to archive at the end of a month. This month would be good. — kwami (talk) 13:35, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Move discussion
Hi. Since you were the last one who moved the page, about a year ago, I thought I'd alert you to a discussion at Talk:Shilha people. I haven't done any research myself into which name is used by sources, so I'm hearing advice from anyone with knowledge about the subject. Thanks in advance if you have any input to make. -GTBacchus(talk) 17:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I gave my reasons for the move. — kwami (talk) 18:26, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

British pronunciation
With all respect, your IPA at yoghurt is revealing that you haven't heard many Britis talk. The "r" in that word is totally unpronounceable for a Brit. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:26, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * That comment reveals that you think Britain is the same as England—or rather London—an error I'd only expect an American to make. Also, both the US and the UK have non-rhotic dialects. Since ar-dropping, like aitch-dropping, is predictable, we don't bother to indicate either, unless we're giving the local pronunciation, as at Oxford—oops, no, Oxford is rhotic regardless. — kwami (talk) 05:32, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You may want to adjust the IPA templates to indicate RP, then, but that would be overly precise. Only exceptional dialects of British English are rhotic, much as only exceptional dialect of US English are non-rhotic. It's a fundamental basis of phonology in British English (no, not just London!), and the IPA in an article such as yoghurt is not there for minute and precise distinctions, but to indicate the "normal" pronunciations. If you want, suggest wherever these things are decided that there should be distinct listings of Irish and/or Scottish alongside "standard English" or whatever term. But pronouncing the r in that context is so unusual I can't do it without using a trilled r or an American r. And whoever originally put in the IPA therefore left out the r from the "UK" listing. Yngvadottir (talk) 06:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Please don't edit war. This is the established convention on WP. And yes, the UK is non-rhotic, apart from all the parts that are rhotic. Did you know New York and Boston are also non-rhotic, and that there's in the US? The only reason for having two transcriptions is that the first vowel is distinctive. The rhoticity is not. There's no reason to give separate pronunciations for the latter, as was established by a consensus of Brits and Yanks several years ago when the transcription conventions were drawn up: Use RP vowels, even for US place names, but keep ars and aitches, even for UK place names, unless we're giving the local (not RP or GA) pronunciation. Speakers will drop British vowels or /r/ and /h/ as is appropriate for their dialect. — kwami (talk) 06:18, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes of course I did. Did you know that that's due to influence from the pattern of settlement from the UK, whereas the insistence on pronouncing /r/, along with some rhythmic features of standard US English, have been ascribed to immigrants attempting to pronounce English as written? I see no evidence of any such agreement as to transcription, with respect to /r/ - /h/ is much more dialectally variable - I see UK pronunciations being correctly indicated without pre-consonantal and final /r/, because the purpose of IPA in non-linguistic articles is to indicate phonemes, not spellings (and not incidental dialectal variation). The rhotic variants of British English are the marked ones. Their existence does not change that. Just as the reverse is true in the US. If a committee at any point decided to put in silent letters in an IPA transcription because they are sounded in a few dialects or because they are in the spelling, that was nuts. And my observation has been that editors have not been doing any such nutty thing. Yngvadottir (talk) 06:37, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * But they have been doing that, at least for generic English pronunciations of UK places and people. It has nothing to do with spelling, but with indicating distinctions that some of our readers have, so they know how to pronounce words in their dialect. US vowels are predictable from UK vowels, but not vice versa, so we use UK vowels even for US places and people. Similarly, ar- and aitch-dropping is automatic, but intrusive ar shows the reverse is not, so we indicate ar and aitch even for UK places and people. That saves giving separate US, UK, Irish, NZ, Australian, Indian, and SA transcriptions every time we indicate a pronunciation, which many would argue per NOTADICTIONARY doesn't belong here anyway.
 * I find it highly doubtful that US rhoticity is a spelling pronunciation. It's attested from rural areas long before there was any significant literacy, and spelling pronunciations would affect more highly literate urban areas like NYC and Boston before they would Appalachia, which nonetheless is rhotic. — kwami (talk) 06:48, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Unjustified undo of contribution by CalRis to Eris-article
CalRis (talk) 07:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC): Hello Kwamikagami!

You undid my contribution to the article Eris (dwarf planet) making clarifications concerning its orbit classification (and its possible resonance based on a simulation using old orbit data - I communicated with Mr. Dunn about it, and he acknowledged that using the latest orbit data it is not in a resonance). You give the following reason for your undo: "this is not my understanding as to what DO normally means: that's for things like Sedna, not Eris"

It may not be your understanding as to what detached object means, but it is certainly the understanding of Gladman et al. as presented in their paper Nomenclature in the Outer Solar System (Gladman et al. 2008 - you can download it here). The book it is part of - The Solar System Beyond Neptune - is a compendium of the state of knowledge about the TNOs as of 2008. So, a nomenclature in it is no idle talking but should be acknowledged in the respective Wikipedia articles.

According to 10 million years numerical integrations performed by Gladman et al., Eris is not at the present actively scattering off Neptune. Gladman et al. list Eris (together with Sedna) as a detached object. Read their paper for yourself. We cannot simply ignore this classification just because it is not your understanding.

As far as I can tell (and I have been reading a lot about Eris and TNOs) we are just experiencing a shift in nomenclature to a coherent nomenclature based on the "current shortterm dynamics rather than a belief about either where it will go in the future or what its past history was" (quote from Gladman et al. 2008).

As for the classifications assigned by the Minor Planet Center, these should be treated with cautious. I sent an e-mail to them and got the following answer from a Mr. Gareth V. William: "The MPC classifications, particularly in the outer solar system are broad classifications based on the osculating orbits, not on long-term integrations. [...] We consider "Centaur/SDO/ESDO" to be a continuum of objects, that differ only in q and a. [...] It was the intent the classifications of Gladman et al. be incorporated into our classfications but that has not yet happened."

Please revert your undo to activate my contribution or refer this matter to a higher authority.

Yours sincerely,

CalRis


 * As I explained on the talk page, given the number of articles this would affect if we wish to be consistent (which we should), we need some some agreement on this, so that other editors are aboard. I'm not rejecting your change, just want to hold off until we get some input. You might want to comment at WikiProject Astronomy. — kwami (talk) 07:45, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

IPA edits
Hello! With AWB your IPA edits have the edit summary "fix IPA". However, in at least some of your edits, they are not actually fixes; edits such as and  just tag the out-written IPA's as dubious. It would be nice if you're willing to modify your edit summaries for such edits to indicate what you're actually doing. Thanks in advance, Hey  Mid  (contribs) 20:03, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Problem is, I always forget to switch it back, resulting in many more false edit summaries than if I just left it alone. Because of that, I'm deleting garbage IPA manually. But I've just changed my edit summary to cover either/or. — kwami (talk) 20:05, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Tinchy Stryder "Kwasi Danquah"
Hi dear Kwamikagami,

please could you help with the correct pronunciation of Tinchy Stryder`s real name Kwasi Danquah. As I can see you speak the  Ghanian Twi language, my thought on the pronunciation of Kwasi Danquah was (Kwasi > Kway-si or Kwee-si ?) and then (Danquah > Dan-qwah or Dan-qoo-ah ?). Please if you can help me with the correct pronunciation if non of the above pronunciation's are correct  and which one is correct if any of the pronunciation's above are correct. Thanks. Truex75 (Talk) 00:30, 31 August 2011 UTC


 * Hi. For the pronunciation in English, we'd need to know what people call him in English. I know how I pronounce Kwasi (it's "KWAH-see"), but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's pronounced that way in his case, or in British English. And Danquah: who knows? DANG-kway? dan-KWAH? If you can dig up a YouTube video or something that would probably be enough. As for the Twi, sorry, I don't speak it, and it's complex enough that I can't work it out easily. But since he's British, it's really English we should be after. — kwami (talk) 23:39, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi there Kwami,

I have been to do some research on YouTube and found a video of the name Kwasi being pronounced by some Ghanaian DJs one who is named Kwasi pee, and they pronounce the name Kwasi as (Kway-si) just as the IPA that I putted on Tinchy Stryder's article. The video Link is here > and for the surname Danquah witch was pronounced as (dan-QWAH) when an American man is advertising a music record for a Ghanaian musician by the name of George Danquah, the video Link is here also >. So please tell me what you think because I wanted to ask for your permission first to undo the IPA edit that you made since my thought on the correct pronounciation of Kwasi Danquah was a 100% correct in the first place, please let me know what we can do from here. Thanks. Truex75 (Talk) 01:42, 31 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, looks like you're right! I guess I'm just used to the pronunciation further east.
 * Few minor touch ups to the transcription (stress was wrong, "QWH" doesn't mean anything), and I'll add IPA. — kwami (talk) 00:51, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Request for an advice
Hey, Kwami! From your user page info you seem to be quite an expert on languages and writing systems. Could you please kindly look at this? Thx in advance!!! -- Nazar (talk) 09:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Penashue
It seems correct to me. Newfoundlander&amp;Labradorian (talk) 14:26, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It's Pen-ash-u-a. Newfoundlander&amp;Labradorian (talk) 14:40, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Here he is pronouncing it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXQ4DQxI6Ok Newfoundlander&amp;Labradorian (talk) 14:54, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

"Manual of Style (x)" to "Manual of Style/X"
For consistency, please note the desired capitalization of “X” in the moves from "Manual of Style (x)" to "Manual of Style/X”.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:14, 31 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, will redo. — kwami (talk) 18:19, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I've been wondering why the MOSs are moved to their new names/style. Can you point me to a place where this was discussed? Thanks. – sgeureka t•c 09:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There's a link in recent discussion at WT:MOS.--Kotniski (talk) 09:19, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

One more request
Thanks for doing these moves - please could you also do Manual of Style (linking), which I overlooked yesterday?--Kotniski (talk) 09:19, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Someone beat me to it. — kwami (talk) 12:16, 1 September 2011 (UTC)