User talk:Picapica/archive0507

"Lone Rearranger"
loud groaning  &#08492; astique &#09660; talk 01:07, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

HTML entities vs. Unicode characters
Well, the new software is supposed to solve that problem. And in fact, it does, except for some people who are still using antiquated browsers. I personally don't see why we should have to pander to them. If someone can't be bothered to get a free download of an up-to-date browser, I say phooey on them, they can go back to using a manual typewriter. --Angr/undefined 30 June 2005 20:46 (UTC)
 * OK. Thanks for that reassurance, A.
 * That should at least mean that I shall no longer get beaten about the head again for copying stuff from other Wikipedias into en: that en: couldn't handle... :)
 * Am still somewhat down, though, about the facts
 * 1) that the latest "upgrade" has incompatibilties with my freely downloaded latest-version Opera browser, and
 * 2) that no-one at the various Wikipedia helpdesks condescends to answer my queries about same (clearly my pleas do not indicate sufficient of my being a "cyberhead" for them to merit an answer). My only consolation is to remember that the prosperity of the world was built on the backs of the peasantry, whether "nobility" knows it or not. Sigh! -- Picapica 30 June 2005 21:02 (UTC)

ga:Múnla:ie baile infobox problems == ==

The theory behind it was to make it easier for the person entering the town box. Rather than having to enter the image name and the province name it automatically enters this information based on the County name. This is resulting from two additional templates for each County.

For example, County Mayo has two additional templates named Múnla:ie cúige Contae Mhaigh Eo and Múnla:mapa Contae Mhaigh Eo to which ga:Múnla:ie baile infobox refers when Contae Mhaigh Eo is entered into the template. If the county name inside of the template is incorrect, the subordinate templates need to be moved to new template names. If there are acceptable spelling difference, additional tempaltes can be made reflecting the alternate spelling as well as the original spelling. I will endeavor to create a list of valid County names soon. &#08492; astique &#09660; talk 7 July 2005 16:19 (UTC)


 * Well, I’m prepared to believe that your heart is in the right place, a Bh., but is all of this really making things easier for Joe Contributor? Or is it not, in effect, a case of Mr Cleverclogs showing off just how smart he can be? We have the technology and - By God! - we’re going to make sure all you serfs know it…


 * Goodbye, Wikipedian creative anarchy: "Welcome, newcomer. Of course you can have a go." Hello, rampant technocracy: "Don’t touch that brick, you worm! You’ll bring the whole city tumbling down!!"


 * Look, all I want to do is to move away from the absurdity, a mi parecer, of having [translating from the Irish] "County: County Cork", "County: County Down". These entries should, of course, be "County: Cork", "County: Down". (Would you, in America, have "State: State of Pennsylvania", "State: State of New York"?) Your boxes-within-boxes approach, however, seems to be expressly designed to prevent radical lowlife from even thinking such thoughts. The Ministry of Truth would have been proud of such double-plus-unthink tactics, even if unintentional! -- Picapica 7 July 2005 18:25 (UTC)


 * Every time I use a template with which I'm unfamiliar, I take a look and see how it's done on another page that uses that template! Yes, certainly the templates need to be improved.  But that's a project in and of itself.  As it was entirely copied from the English, where the county name doesn't change when you put "County" next to it, thus enabling a quick way to put the County name in.


 * I was planning to follow up and improving the templates requires some devotion of energy (i.e. fixing all of the entries that use the template) in order that only the County name be included in the box. Until I can schedule some time for that, Contae:Contae is the way it's going to have to be.   &#08492; astique &#09660; talk 7 July 2005 18:40 (UTC)


 * Contae:Contae is the way it's going to have to be. Only if you regard yourself as supreme commander of Irish towns info, Bastique. -- Picapica 7 July 2005 19:31 (UTC)


 * If you don't like it, then take it upon yourself to make the right changes, or ask someone else who understands templates to help you do so. It's no skin off my teeth or back or anywhere else.  I'll do it when I can afford to take the time away from life, work, doctor's visits, etc.  I said I would do it, but it's such a minor thing to make such a huge deal out of.   &#08492; astique &#09660; talk 7 July 2005 20:01 (UTC)


 * I have more to say. Sorry if this reads angry.  I did the template to help get things going in the Irish wikipedia and bring it over 1,000 articles to a much more prominent place on the language list.  If you want to make it sound like I'm anti-Gaeilge because I didn't understand the comment "you wouldn't say State: State of Pennsylvania in English."  Insinuating I'm making an attemt to seem "clever" is entirely inappropriate.  Since I was doing the bulk of the work in putting Irish towns into Irish stubs, I was making my life easier.  Using the full county name was in fact the SIMPLEST way (to prevent having to look up the name of the map image and might as well throw the province name in there while I was at it.  I could make the templates even deeper by allowing for the user to input only the County name.  This involves changing 2 templates for each County and who knows how many towns in Connacht plus County Westmeath as well.  Which I am very willing to do when I have an opportunity to do it.


 * In the meantime, please don't minimize my hard work by making demeaning comments about my intent. I am happy to help the Irish Wikipedia grow by leaps and bounds and being a part of that community, in spite of my lack of Irish.  Perhaps instead of tearing apart my hard work on templates and towns by questioning my intent, you could simply ask for help to understand, the same way I ask for help with Irish from my fellow Wikipedians.    &#08492; astique &#09660; talk 7 July 2005 20:13 (UTC)


 * I could make the templates even deeper by allowing for the user to input only the County name.


 * That says it all: who are you to be allowing users anything, mon cher Bastique?


 * There is nothing at all that I can see in the encouragement we give to new participants to get stuck into Wikipedia that says "Oh, by the way, you won't get very far unless you've taken a course in advanced template-ology, because the obfuscists are soon going to get all the articles so tied up that all you'll be "allowed" to do - if you're very good boys and girls - is perhaps suggest a spelling correction. How long before the template-istas get the very text of the articles themselves hog-tied?


 * instead of tearing apart my hard work on templates and towns by questioning my intent, you could simply ask for help to understand


 * No, I don't wish to tear apart your hard work on templates by questioning your intent. I just wish to tear apart your hard work on templates. I think I already wrote somewhere in this exchange that I thought your heart was in the right place. Your intent is fine: it's the results that rankle. This is what well-intentioned imperialists never understand - sigh! We were getting there, you know, even if it was only in our own decadent socialist Old European way, before the US Cavalry turned up...


 * I'm sorry if I gave you the impression I thought you were anti-Gaeilge. Not at all! User:Kiand has that territory well and truly sewn up! Very few have been learning Irish longer (and never quite getting there) than myself and an Vicipéid has an admirably tolerant and welcoming attitude to foghlaimeoirí. The policy, as I understand it, is "bash on - somebody will eventually tidy up behind you". That is precisely why I am so opposed to the incipient erection of a programming-language barrier. I have been contributing to the Wikipedia in a number of languages for longer than I have been a registered contributor in any of them, and this subtraction of easy editabilty from ordinary users has been a recent but alarmingly fast-growing trend in the English-language Wikipedia -- and now I see the poison spreading. -- Picapica 7 July 2005 22:26 (UTC)

Accents in Categories
Unless Á is supposed to come after Z in the Irish alphabet, accents have to be removed in Categories in Irish Wikipedia. But if we want to keep alphabetization accurate in categories regardless of accents, all words are capitalized, Initial "An" always gets removed and accented letters are converted to non-accented letters. If I'm wrong, I apologize. I noticed that people who actually spoke Irish doing it that way, and that's why I do it that way. &#08492; astique &#09660; talk 7 July 2005 20:44 (UTC)


 * I thought that would get you going, B.! You know I only do it to annoy... (Did you not notice the other little amendment I put into those articles, though?) And how do you distinguish the people who actually speak Irish from those who don't actually speak Irish? Is féidir go bhfuil mé ag ligean orm féin! -- Picapica 7 July 2005 22:29 (UTC)

Calendars of 2005
--Munchkinguy 18:20, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Irish is extremely complicated
I've been wracking my brains trying to figure out whether of the Two Sicilies in "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies" and "Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies" is the dative singular or genitive plural, what a dual form of a genitive noun should take, whether to use an article and whether to use "an" or "na"... And I keep going around in circles.

I've promoted myself to "GA-1" from "GA-0" because I'm starting to actually be able to READ many of the articles at ga:, even if I cannot WRITE them. But it's still not enough to figure out the name of a stupid, brief kingdom in the south of Italy. Your help is greatly appreciated.

&#08492; astique &#09660; talk 13:46, 29 July 2005 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, I'd say: Ríocht na Dá Shicile (though don't place any large monetary wagers on the accuracy of that!).


 * Are you sure that you're not using a very old grammar, a Bh.? As far as I understand it, dual number died out in Irish over 800 years ago, and the dative survives in the modern standard language only in a few fixed phrases such as go hÉirinn. It is true, though, that dhá is followed by the singular (whether nominative/accusative or genitive). -- Picapica 20:06, 29 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Could be, although the website I'm going from, Gramadach na Gaeilge was where I got the "dual" information from, and was suggested to me as a pretty good learning tool, by one of our own members. Although the English has been poorly translated from German, making certain parts completely incomprehensible, most of it seems to be holding true to other people's writing at ga:.  Thanks.