User talk:Ran/2004

Welcome
Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here's some tips:
 * You can introduce yourself on the new users page.
 * You can sign your name using three tildes, like . If you use four, you can add a datestamp too.
 * Remember to use the show preview button before you save a page.
 * If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page.
 * If you would like to assign the edits you made before you got an account to your username, see assigning those to your username.

Other useful pages are: how to edit, how to write a great article, naming conventions, manual of style and the Wikipedia policies.

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Angela. 04:16, Apr 4, 2004 (UTC)

Ran, I'm still hoping you'll expand on your exposition of Singlish grammar (as you started to do in talk comments that you edited afterwards). Martijn faassen 22:13, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reply on User_talk:Martijn faassen, and good luck with your finals! Martijn faassen 23:55, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * And a "me too" regarding Singlish -- truly excellent work! Jpatokal 06:55, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I just saw your awesome edits to Singlish, thank you very much! Martijn faassen 19:57, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Hehe, thanks! ;) ran 20:05, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)

Ran, thanks for the additions to Nerchinsk Treaty stub. However, I reverted your change of "Priamurye" to "Primorye". These are in fact two different regions, Priamurye being the territory along the Amur River, and Primorye being modern Primorsky Krai of Russia. The treaty covered the territory of whole Priamurye, not just Primorye. Also, I am not sure if the river's name is Aigun or Argun (the sources I worked with contradict each other). Where did you look this one up? Thanks! -Ezhiki 04:44, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

When you use, how does one edit the content of the nav-box? Can you give me the link to the page just containing the mark-up of Chinese_language so I can add or alter the contents of nav-box?

Dylanwhs 06:47, 19 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply in my talkpage, Ran. Dylanwhs 21:27, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

IPA
It appears that you have used the same symbol for the "r" in "ri4 ben" in place of the "r" in "yi4 diar3". They are not the same. (I'm trying to work with Margorie Chan to get a clear transliteration table worked out. There seem to be several ideas about IPA representations. So I think the final "r" is just a regular English "r." The other one is definitely the correct one for the retroflex initial. I've already cleared that up with Dr. Chan.) P0M 22:37, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

§ To make the "r" in "ri4 ben3", follow the ridge along the top of your mouth to the point where it ends. That is approximately where your tongue curls back to (retroflexes to) to make zhi, chi, shi, and ri. diagram The "r" final is not a retroflex r, nor is it like the English "r" in "rabbit." It is made with the tongue fairly relaxed, tip approximately in line with the gap between the front teeth (and it's just sort of hanging there to be out of the way). The sound actually comes from the base of the tongue approaching the uvula as the back of the mouth tightens up and the jaw closes slightly. It's the "r" in the Mid-Western English pronunciation of "bark." (Boston people are so lazy that they let the back part of their mouths stay slack, so they say "The dog was bokking all night." ;-) )

§ If you look at the NPA (National Phonetic Alphabet, zhu4 yin1 fu3 hao4, bopomofo), the symbol for "ri" is basically just the "sun" character, and the final "r" symbol is basically the simplified Chinese character for er2zi. P0M 20:29, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

§ I'm trying to figure IPA out. As far as I know, the final "r" is just written with a regular lower-case "r" glyph. It's the vowels that are driving me crazy. P0M 04:03, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Software used for EU map
Hi there. I used the software "Paint Shop Pro" to edit the map - actually I used an old version I got free on a magazine, PSP v5 (v7 which I have here at work is nicer). In truth, any image editing program would do the same - what matters more is the techniques:


 * Work at the highest resolution possible and reduce it down to size afterwards. (I used the Europe map as a basis, working at a size three times the end result)
 * Add the text AFTER reduction. Text will not resize as well, so use a small text size on the finished version with anti-aliasing.

Steps I took:


 * 1) I used simple colour replacement, changing the multi-colours on the Europe map to all grey, with just light grey countries, dark grey rivers and sea boundaries, white sea and red country divisions. I used a 2x2 pixel brush to edit out the existing captions. This was easy as there was no anti-aliasing (just 4 solid colours).
 * 2) I changed the red boundaries to dark blue by using image-wide colour switch.
 * 3) I filled in the EU members and candidates with colours.
 * 4) I reduced size to 33%
 * 5) I added the eastern map portion from the old EU map, matching up by pasting on a seperate layer and using it semi-transparently until matched.
 * 6) I changed the colours on the eastern bit to match.

Now I had a blank map.


 * 1) I added the country names. As it was small font size I used a clear featureless font for the EU members. (I delibrately used a less bold scriptlike font for the neighbours - not to attract attention to them but to still have a label)
 * 2) I drew a blue box, then a white box inside it to create the other territories box.
 * 3) I added empty interior boxes and title, laid out as I wanted.
 * 4) I copied this to a new image and increased 300%.
 * 5) I drew the islands and Fr. Guiana freehand using a 2x2 pixel brush and Atlas + Euro note for reference.
 * 6) Reduced to 33% and copied into the main image.
 * 7) Added key.

Hope this helps! I can offer you the blank EU map by email (or should I upload it to Wikipedia?)

Zoney 12:56, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Re: Navboxes for Subdivisions of Russia
Hi Ran, The new "navboxes" you have put in on the Russian pages contain so much info that on my computer screen they are barely visible. Is it just me or is it a general problem? IZAK 02:32, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Increase font
Yes, I think if you increased the font it would help. IZAK 02:55, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Much better !
Great, now I can actually read what it says. Very impressive work that you did. IZAK 03:09, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Royal Dutch-Shell
You reported a bug about an edit missing from the history of Royal Dutch-Shell, but it looks fine to me. Can you confirm? --Brion 18:51, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I've deleted the redirect for you so you can move the page. Secretlondon 01:43, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Beijing
What a positive surprise to log back in to Wikipedia at 1 AM (which is when I often do my Wiki-ing) and finding a whole load of valuable info filled in for the remaining parts of the Beijing article!

Ni xingku le! Good job, and thank you so much! :-) It is great when Wikipedians like you help out together, replenish info on Wikipedia's articles, and make not only the article, but the entire Wikipedia, great.

Xiexie ni!

--DF08 17:53, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)

Maps
Hey, I will let you in on the secret for my maps. All I did was take some maps that statistics Canada has on their site, and changed them a bit in MS Paint, and then I added major cities and towns. All you have to do is find a good outline map, and it's simple really, if you have the patience. Earl Andrew 23:19, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Inner Mongolia/Southern Mongolia
Hello. As far as I know, the official name of the PRC's entity is "öbür mongghul-un öbertegen jasaqu orun" in (Classical) Mongolian, where
 * öbür = southern (sunny side of mountain),
 * mongghul = Mongol,
 * -un = genitive case,
 * öbertegen = autonomous,
 * jasa|qu = to rule, and
 * orun = region.

I don't think "Dotood Mongolyn Öörtöö Zasah Oron" is the official name. Political divisions of China uses the Cyrillic alphabet but actually its use isn't official in Inner Mongolia.

For dotood=inner v. öbür=southern, the author of my Mongolian textbooks wrote an interesting paper:

The History and the Political Character of the Name of 'Nei Menggu' (Inner Mongolia) by Huhbator Borjigin http://www.erica.demon.co.uk/IA/IA604.html --Nanshu 01:07, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Chinese Cities
Want to help me on WikiProject Chinese cities? Colipon 04:55, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Re: Comment on my talk page. Hey Ran thanks for the support. We will be dealing mostly about Prefecture-level cities yes, and the articles themselves will be quite similar to those of zhixiashi. Make sure, though, that the article deals predominantly about the urban area of the city itself and each county will have its own article. WikiProject Chinese Counties might be in the plans afterwards.

CHECK WikiProject Chinese Cities Colipon 16:54, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * NEW : Hi Ran, where do you get the information regarding Chinese Licence Plate prefixes?


 * NEW : Thanks, I'll probably start an article on a list of Area Codes soon. If you want, you can develop one for the Postal codes. Colipon 17:53, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Whoa, nice sites Ran. If you can find any sites on the statistics of individual cities of anything like that it'd be great. I've checked a few but there are way too many broken links. So far I've placed a lot of reference pages on my User Page, not good enough yet though. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Colipon 04:02, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it's very fortunate that you have the &#12298;&#20013;&#21326;&#20154;&#27665;&#20849;&#21644;&#22269;&#34892;&#25919;&#21306;&#21010;&#31616;&#20876;2004&#12299;,it will be especially useful if we decide to start the project on Chinese counties. The Chinese &#34892;&#25919;&#21306;&#21010; site has a very limited amount of information, it does not include much about the population and area of individual counties or even cities. Until I can find something better I'll just have to stick with my sources currently listed on my Chinese user page (zh:User:Colipon). Colipon 17:28, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and see Template:Beijing to see if the format if correct. Colipon 18:11, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Temporary templates are at Jinan and Nanjing. Colipon 23:22, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Two things; first of all, many province articles like Shandong need desperate improvement seeing their current articles deal with little. Related to this, I am considering changing the template on the project on provinces. Second, please respond to discussions at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese) for naming counties. Thanks ran. [[User:Colipon|Colipon -- (Talk)]] 03:00, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * NEW :Actually, now that I checked the tables on Heilongjiang, I found that the same table was not on the Shandong article. If all provincial tables looked like the one on Heilongjiang it would be good. [[User:Colipon|Colipon -- (Talk)]] 22:55, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * NEW: I'm not sure if I'm familiar with the adminstrative status of Shandong, but why exactly were the Prefectures removed on the Shandong template box? [[User:Colipon|Colipon -- (Talk)]] 21:52, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Actually now that I checked I'm assuming that Heze and Binzhou are both prefectural-level cities now. Okay I will modify the box to fit this standard. [[User:Colipon|Colipon -- (Talk)]] 22:02, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ran, Thanks for your kind message. I don't know much about Jilin and Heilongjiang. As I think of things to add for Liaoning I will certainly do so. -- camcam 08:33, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)

Asian Cup 2004
Your expertise is appreciated on Asian Cup 2004 (history), where POV has become a problem with User:Nanshu and User:TakuyaMurata. Fuzheado | Talk 02:16, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Naming Conventions (Chinese)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)

--replied on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese). [[User:Colipon|Colipon+(T)]] 20:22, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hey, you might want to check back to the Chinese naming conventions survey, as there's been some discussion since you last left. Basically, the survey only needs to accomodate three possibilities: -- Xiaopo &#8465; 22:17, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * 1) Using the Chinese name, wholesale, e.g. Taishan, Honghu, Hanshui. I disagree with this, because it can cause confusion between, say, Taishan the mountain and Taishan the city.
 * 2) Using the Chinese proper name, but translating the Chinese geographical name, e.g. Mount Tai, Lake Hong, Han River. I also disagree with this, because both Hanshui and Hanjiang are translated as "Han River".
 * 3) Using a redundant name, e.g. Mount Taishan, Lake Honghu, Hanshui River. I favor this one (just like you, apparently!) because it avoids the problems with the other two proposals just mentioned. The only downside is, well, it's redundant. I don't understand why that's such a problem, but apparently everyone else does, which is why the discussion is still going on.

Korean -ju and -mok
Hi, Ran: Thanks for bringing this issue to light. The designation mok (as in "Gwangju-mok") came from Andrew C. Nahm's 1988 book, Korea: Tradition and Transformation - A History of the Korean People, and was definitely applied to the political division, not its governor. I did a quick search on the web just now, and other Korean web sites use mok in the same way&mdash;to designate the territorial division. Beyond that, I can't really offer an explanation for the difference, but there you have it. -Sewing - talk 14:07, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Info please
Greetings Ran. A couple of nights ago I was part of a team at a quiz night where the following question was asked --"what is the capital of Singapore"? Most people answered Singapore but were marked wrong because the answer they wanted was Singapore City. Caused quite a debate. How would you have answered? Wiki's article says "Since Singapore basically consists of only one city, there are no further administrative divisions" The phrase no further administrative divisions seems to me to infer there is a body such as Singapore City Council which I guess would control the city of singapore (and thus the city would be the capital). It's not a big deal, but can you eleborate? Cheers. Moriori 23:03, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks Ran for your response on my talk page. I suspected that was the case. Cheers. Moriori 23:42, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

Naming conventions
Hey! Thanks for editing the titles, it's a lot clearer now. (I didn't really mean for option 3 to include things like "Mount Wutaishan") Incidentally, Jiang's already seen the new survey, but he's undecided between options 1 and 2 at last check. --Xiaopo &#8465; 18:02, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

On Singapore's estates
Hi Ran. I'd like to thank you for all your good work on Wikipedia. I was just questioning the validity of one project "Major Estates and Neighbourhoods of Singapore" -- I don't know if you are the initiator of it, but is it really that necessary, do you think? I was going through the wisdom of it. As you know, Singapore is no bigger than any major city in China or anyway else in the world, and to do such a minutae guide to its housing estates is really wringing little from practically nothing. As it stands the series is pretty unuseful. My take is that a generalized article on the major housing in Singapore would be much more useful, but I seriously don't know where to take the debate to. What do you think? Mandel 01:51, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Nice Map-making
Just saw the new map of Shanghai that's been desperately lacking. It looks great! Very refined and clean. An excellent work you've done! --Menchi 17:17, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Menchi. :) -- ran [[User talk:Ran|(talk)]] 17:21, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

Requests for comment Shorne
A few of us are talking about doing a RfC regarding Shorne. Before we can do that we must pass this threshold:

"Before listing any user conduct dispute here, at least two people must try to resolve the same issue by talking with the person on his or her talk page or the talk pages involved in the dispute. The two users must document and certify their efforts when listing the dispute. If the listing is not certified within 48 hours of listing, it will be deleted."

If you feel that any issues exist with respect to his edits, please enter into a dialogue on User talk:Shorne and see how much progress we can make through negotiation. Fred Bauder 19:04, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

Ran, I' ve never been to China, but I began reading about China when I was in elementary school, and have always followed events. Over the decades you learn a lot. It is not at all surprising that we would be similarly grounded in the realities of the situation, however much our politics may differ. Fred Bauder 01:15, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

China-related bulletin board
I agree. Let's look at UK Wikipedians' notice board as an example. --Jiang 23:31, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

List of administrative divisions
You did a really good and useful job with these pages for Chinese provinces. Thanks! If I may express a request for a new one, I would suggest "Guangdong". Cheers! olivier 10:10, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

Jiangsu Tourism
Hey Ran, I've checked Jiangsu Tourism, I see no big problems actually. The whole provincial article is looking pretty good now.

[[User:Colipon|Colipon+(T)]] 17:17, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mongol Ruler -> Chinese Emperor
Copy of message left, by me, at my talk page Presumably during Kublai Khan's reign - he did, afterall, take China - becoming the first Yuan Dynasty ruler of China - those who preceeded him were simply Mongol Khans. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 08:06, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Help needed
Hi Ran, I wonder if you can help me out at the talk page of Straits Times. I am having some trouble with a nameless fella whom I think inserted POV edits and who thinks I am an "apologist" for the local government, and who clearly thinks me some minion of some government of sorts and start initiating some sort of political argument. If you know enough about the paper or you would just like to have a look at the edits and discussion, I would appreciate your input. Mandel 22:14, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Cheung1303
Thank you so much for being willing to try communicating with this user. If anything comes of it, whether successful or not, if you could let us know that would be wonderful. Probably the best place to post about this now is Requests for comment/Cheung1303 if there are any new developments. Again, thank you. --Michael Snow 06:03, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi Ran, we are both trying to help and I believe our messages help each other. I hope Cheung1303 can understand what is going on. -- Felix Wan 16:52, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)

Adminship
I've nominated you for adminship. --Jiang 09:58, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The sandbox is not a litterbox.
You are hereby awarded the Atlas Award for your work in removing undesirable things from the sandbox and not allowing the bullies of the world to kick sand in our collective face. It is now yours. You are therefore entitled to display it prominently, and are encouraged to award it to other deserving editors who have likewise raked the sand clean.

Thank youPedant 22:30, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)

List of state leaders in 1220
About the Bishop of Utrecht: Utrecht was an ecclesiastical principalities of the Holy Roman Empire, which means that the bishop had both ecclesiastical and worldly powers. His status as a "state leader" was exactly the same as the counts of Holland, Guelders and Flanders, and the duke of Brabant, and generally he was about as powerful as those leaders. So if Holland, Guelders, etc. are on the list, Utrecht should also be. Eugene van der Pijll 21:15, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Congratulations
Congratulations! It's my pleasure to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 09:32, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

China Collaboration of the Week
You showed interest in taking part in a China Collaboration of the Week - I have finally gotten around to setting it up. Please add one, or several, nomination(s) and tell others about it. You may access it via the notice board China-related topics notice board/ZHCOTW or through the shortcut WP:ZHCOTW. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 11:02, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee Election Get Out the Vote Effort
Hello Administrator Ran,

Someday I aspire to be as good at map-making as you are.

I really appreciate the tips you have provided in articles and talk pages that make it easier for me to learn what I need to know in order to contribute to the China-related articles I have an interest in. Specifically, I aspire to create an English-language map of Shenyang City and Liaoning province, that will make it possible for anyone who knows English to traverse the length and breadth of that great area of China.

In the big picture, the China-related articles are a great example of the diversity of opinions here on Wikipedia.

As an Administrator, I'm sure you are aware of the upcoming Arbitration Committee Elections.

It's important that a diverse range of viewpoints be represented in the makeup of the Arbitration Committee.

I think the best way to make that happen is to help to increase voter turnout.

One of the technical people on this site, who goes by the name Danny, helped me to make a very convenient tag that makes it super easy to place this "get out the vote" banner on your user page:

If you support helping to increase voter turnout, please consider adding this tag to your user page, as a great many pages link to your user page.

Thanks in advance if you choose to help out. If there are any issues which prevent you from doing so, please let me know - I would be happy to make a custom version of this tag just for your page if that's what it takes for you to proudly display it.

If you choose to display this banner, please put the tag as near to the top as your aesthetic sense will permit. :)

Regards,

--DV 17:46, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ukraine turnout map
Hi ran,

Thanks for your kind words on the Ukraine turnout map that I did. I've replaced it with a more detailed version - see Image:Ukraine ElectionsMap TurnoutChange v2.png.

State leaders by year
Hi Ran, it's not really that much work, it's mostly just copying the entire chunk of text and pasting it in a new year...a few of them change each time, but not many (1118 had the most changes, so far!). It was a lot of work to come up with the whole list for whatever year I started with, though (1100 I think). And I notice there are some missing ones, I forgot about the Khmer Empire and the Kingdom of Cuzco, for example, and I'm sure there are others. Oh well. You can keep filling up the other years if you want, I guess having something there is better than having nothing...if there are changes for that year for any entries that are already there, it's easy enough to cut and paste them into the list. Adam Bishop 15:09, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I've been going through hostkingdom.net, which is generally reliable (the guy who runs it sometimes contributes to Wikipedia, and he's told me we can use his lists). I haven't been adding everything I find, just the ones whose territories are mentioned somewhere on Wikipedia, so I can give at least one link. The History Files is also a good site for this sort of thing. Adam Bishop 00:05, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Humungous Image Tagging Project
Hi. You've helped with the WikiProject Wiki Syntax, so I thought it worth alerting you to the latest and greatest of Wikipedia fixing project, User:Yann/Untagged Images, which is seeking to put copyright tags on all of the untagged images. There are probably, oh, thirty thousand or so to do (he said, reaching into the air for a large figure). But hey: they're images ... you'll get to see lots of random pretty pictures. That must be better than looking for at at and the the, non? You know you'll love it. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

Article Licensing
Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:
 * Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
 * Multi-Licensing Guide
 * Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the " " template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:


 * Option 1
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR
 * Option 2
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions to any U.S. state, county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace " " with "  ". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. – Ram-Man (comment) (talk)  15:08, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

More state leaders
Hi Ran, using hostkingdom.net and some other Wikipedia articles, I made a much longer list of people who might be state rulers, but for which we don't have articles or lists here. It's at Talk:List of state leaders in 1124, because I just stopped with 1124 out of convenience (convenience for me, anyway!). If you're interested in figuring out who rules what that far back, let me know! Adam Bishop 00:31, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Chinese Wikibook
Hi Ran,

Thanks for pointing out the difference in tone marks. I thought mine were a bit off--too rounded--but I had no idea there was an actual difference. Had just been using the Wikipedia extension for Firefox. Thanks too for correcting the characters for the traditional sections. For some reason my computer won't let me type in traditional.

Also, please join the Chinese Wikibook mailing list. Taking after the Japanese Wikibook, I think this is a good idea to keep a centralized and searchable dialogue about the Wikibook not spread out over many discussion and talk pages.

--Everlong 05:43, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)