User talk:Nbarth/Archive 2012

Kaytek the Wizard

 * Replies at other page. —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 23:27, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for starting this. If you were to expand it a little and add inline references, you could nominate it for front page exposure at T:TDYK. Let me know if you need any help with that, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 21:51, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Pl wiki has nothing worth translating for this article, but I'll see if I can improve it to a DYK with other sources. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 18:48, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. I think we can DYK it soon, sadly, majority of sources I can trace are not available online other than snippets on Google Print, and I don't have several hours to play with them. I added a cite request to one of your sentences I was not able to verify; that about the popularity of the book in 30s rivaling Harry Potter today. Could you reference it? Thanks, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 19:30, 7 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Would you like to nominate it at T:TDYK now? I think it is ready! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 23:29, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Kaytek the Wizard
Hello! Your submission of Kaytek the Wizard 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! Daniel Case (talk) 21:21, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops!
 * Sorry about that, fixed (in this edit). Hope it looks better now, and thanks for notifying me!
 * —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 22:51, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

DYK for Kaytek the Wizard
The DYK project (nominate) 22:40, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Adjuction or adjunction?
It seems in this diff you typed "adjuctions". I suspect the word should be "adjunctions", so I changed it. I'm not 100.0000% sure so I'm running this by you. Please check the spelling and change it back if I am wrong. Thanks. --Teratornis (talk) 05:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops – misspelling on my part. Thanks for fixing!
 * —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 10:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Key to the midway listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Key to the midway. Since you had some involvement with the Key to the midway redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 22:02, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Ninomiya Sontoku

 * Header added. —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 22:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Nils:

Thank you for your important contribution to credit union history, about Ninomiya Sontoku. As the original author of that page (and sadly deficient in Japanese history) I would love to know more about this man! Are there any books you can recommend, or other resources? I am particularly interested, of course, in learning more about his cooperative finance model.

Brett epic (talk) 21:56, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Brett,
 * Thanks for the kind words! I’m no scholar on these matters, but I was able to dig up some books about him, which I’ve put at:
 * Ninomiya Sontoku: References (as of this edit)
 * Notably, there are two old books (1912) that you can read online or download, which should get you started.
 * Other than that, if you have any Japanese colleagues or correspondents involved in development, you can obviously ask them – he’s a folk hero in Japan and everyone knows of him. I don’t know if he’s known in East Asia generally, but Taiwanese (or possibly Korean or Chinese) people in development should be aware of him.
 * Hope this helps, and thank you for all of your work on Wikipedia and in development!
 * —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 09:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * PS, in this edit (and the one before it) I took the liberty of fixing your talk page so it’s not all bold (the welcome message was messing it up). Trust this is ok.
 * —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 09:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

On your edit of Language of flowers
Hi, Nbarth. I have a question on of Language of flowers in this May. You added the "history" section, which closely resembles ja:花言葉 except the mention to Hamlet. I suspect your edit had some source, which may be the Japanese Wikipedia article, or something else. As you know, you have to respect copyrights in Wikipedia. If your source was ja:花言葉, you have to record a due attribution, and it'll be ok.

Anyway Wikipedia requires contributors to show the source (WP:BURDEN), so please clarify it at Language of flowers.

どうぞ、お気を悪くなさらないで下さい. これは、編集者の義務である事を、ご理解願います. (With due respect, I ask this. Please understand it is a duty of contributors.) If I lack politeness due to my inadequecy in English, sorry. Best regards. --Ahora (talk) 00:31, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Oops, forgot about that!
 * Thanks for the note; I’ve fixed it in this edit to Talk:Language of flowers and left a note in the edit history at this edit.
 * As per Copying within Wikipedia, the correct way to do this is to:
 * leave a note in an edit summary (which I failed to do originally), and
 * a link left to the original at the article’s talk page, such as via Translated page.
 * I actually did this previously at Tōrin-in (see Talk:Tōrin-in) – I just forgot it this time. Thanks for the catch!
 * —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 08:41, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

By the way, regarding your politeness/English skills, in case you’d like any feedback or pointers:

Your note is ok as it is, particularly due to your use of cushion words (and thanks for including links!), and your English is fine, but it does come across as a bit stiff and formal.

In particular, your citing policy pages (WP:C and WP:BURDEN) feels legalistic and aggressive, though I’m sure this was not your intention. (There are plenty of editors who do mean to be legalistic and aggressive.)

Further, I am a (very) experienced editor (25,000+ edits, contributing for 7 years – since 2005 – as reflected in Archive box and badges above) and even have a Citation Barnstar, so I clearly understand the importance of sourcing – lecturing me about it feels condescending. (Similarly, your edit count, currently a bit over 1,500 edits, suggests that you’re reasonably experienced.)

Again, I know you don’t mean to offend, but you might want to check a user’s edit count (or just glance at how long their talk page and its archive are) to figure out if they are experienced or a novice, and adjust your message accordingly.

You might try more casual and direct language such as:
 * Hi Nils,
 * Thank you for of Language of flowers in May! It looks like a translation of ja:花言葉, but there’s no attribution – perhaps you forgot it? If this is correct, could please you add one? Thanks!
 * (Sorry if my English is rough – I’m Japanese.)
 * Best regards. (signature)

Everyone has their own voice, but this style should work ok.

…and the main way to convey politeness in English is frequent use of “please, thank you, could, would, might, may” (esp. English modal verbs).

To close, I’m sincerely grateful for your note – we’re all working to make Wikipedia better! Thanks again.

この先、どうぞよろしくお願い申し上げます.
 * —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 09:47, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much, Nils. I really feel the warmth in your kind, elaborate reply. There's much to learn for me from your maturity. I'm now embarrased by my a little ridiculous attitude. Take good enough care, and thank you again for your efforts in Wikipedia. --Ahora (talk) 01:26, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

No problem – 頑張ってくださいね.
 * —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 04:41, 30 November 2012 (UTC)