User talk:Sky Harbor/Archive 16

DYK for Embassy of the Philippines, Baghdad
-- RoySmith (talk) 00:03, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Rizal Monument (Madrid)
Hello! Your submission of Rizal Monument (Madrid) at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) at your nomination's entry and respond there at your earliest convenience. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Hameltion (talk, contribs) 21:08, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Embassy of the Philippines, Damascus
BorgQueen (talk) 00:03, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Niwar (cotton tape)
@ Hi! Thanks for your comments on the subject, DYK. Will it work if I expand it now for the missing bytes? Kindly reconsider if possible. Thanks RV (talk) 14:37, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Rizal Monument (Madrid)
-- RoySmith (talk) 00:02, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Fluency of Philippine Presidents
The suggestion has been reviewed. Fluency is never assumed. There must be sufficient evidence set to prove one could read, write, and converse in another language from day-to-day. The standard of fluency is at B2 or the upper-intermediate level, this merit has been shown by the other presidents on the list from the article Languages spoken by presidents of the Philippines. On the other hand, the 1968 Dia del Hispanidad article is the only example of Pres. Marcos practicing in Spanish, and it was only performed in the language for the purpose of discussing the important of speaking Spanish, without mentioning if it was read from a text. The sources do state that upon his election in 1965 he was even considered non-fluent. There are no other examples of speeches, writings, or conversations to make any safe presumption. Pres. Aquino III also has performed more than one similar speech from the article, but cannot be considered as fluent and has even admitted the fact. New sources need to justify the full degree of fluency before any other president may join those who are considered fluent in any language provided in the article. Oakenbuck (talk) 01:44, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi, . Which of the sources state that he wasn't fluent in 1965? None of the sources where his language fluency is mentioned (neither the Washington Post article, nor Gómez Rivera, nor Cerézo, nor the article from the Hoja Oficial de Barcelona) mention that. In Gómez Rivera's article, it is stated that he learned Spanish after marrying his Spanish-speaking wife. To be clear, Imelda is fluent in Spanish; this is pointed out in the source itself, and I can corroborate this through my own (obviously non-citeable) interactions with the family.


 * Now, Ferdinand and Imelda married in 1954, so he would've learned Spanish from his wife at some point between 1954 and 1965. While the article in the Hoja Oficial de Barcelona says that this was the first time he spoke in Spanish, so taking all the sources into account it is safe to presume that had a command of the language at the time he delivered the speech. Sources are still being found all the time to point to presidents' fluency; Marcos giving that speech didn't make it to the article until last year, when I found the article in question. (On that note, don't you dare accuse me of "persistent vandalism", as you did in your edit summary. This article has been a project of mine since 2016, and though WP:OWN is a thing most of the text you read in the page was written by me. I think I know what I'm doing.)


 * In addition, I find it unusual that you're using the CEFR as a rubric to measure someone's fluency given that the CEFR wasn't even a thing during his lifetime. On what basis are you "reviewing" someone's fluency using this metric? Unless you yourself are a language teacher, I cannot take your "evaluation" of presidents' fluency seriously unless you're implying something I didn't see in the text. I'm taking the words at face value here: Marcos was, per all the sources cited: a "skilled orator who spoke at least three languages" by the time he was in high school (and, mind you, Spanish was still a required subject in the curriculum while he was being educated), had delivered speeches in those three-plus languages (English, Tagalog/Filipino, Ilocano and Spanish), married a spouse who herself is fluent in Spanish and not "partially" fluent as you're insisting despite that claim not being in the text, and has some command of the language. Unless there is something that specifically says he isn't completely fluent in Spanish, as was the case with Magsaysay, the presumption is that he either is or he isn't. In this case, it clearly leans toward the former than the latter. --Sky Harbor (talk) 02:04, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello Sky Harbor. Spanish was a medium of instruction in the Philippine secondary schools. However, Spanish being a required course in secondary school cannot suffice to show one was fluent, because the level of instruction may not have been sufficient for the purpose, and in fact there are no sources to show that the Philippines was considered literate in the language. It would not be proper to list the other presidents who were made to learn Spanish in school as necessarily fluent without more examples provided in the article. Thus, each of the articles were checked for verification on his fluency.
 * With regards to investigating the sources used on Marcos's section, none of them focused on his fluency but rather his promotion of the language. You are correct to say that it was mentioned how he executed an eloquent delivery in his 1968 speech, as it is one of the scant available examples of his use of Spanish in public. The newspaper article at Hoja del Lunes also focused solely on his promotion of the language for the Dia del Hispanidad. Furthermore, the article of Gomez Rivera that was cited to mention the improvement and status of Marcos's fluency noted how Americans finally found a president who could satisfy their political ends, including reasons that he actually did not speak the language. Those are the only substantial similarities with the sources on that matter, however. The source itself from Gomez Rivera however makes a lot of spurious claims about CIA involvement in the snap election's unofficial results and self-made theories on assassination attempts. The claims include accusations on other parties as supported by "US WASPs". The credibility of the facts in that article lacks verification, thus more supporting citations may be scrutinized to lend credence to the other claims relating to this article.
 * The fact Marcos was able to learn from his wife since their marriage in 1954 cannot mean he became comfortable speaking the language. The article you mentioned written by Cerézo actually did expressly stated that "there are no verifiable sources that he actually spoke [the language]", but there are again mentions of promotion of the language as he did in his presidential proclamation to advocate its instruction since historical documents were in Spanish. Also as pointed out, he was a skilled orator in "at least three languages", which only point out to his Native Ilocano, as well as English, and Filipino. Oakenbuck (talk) 02:44, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay,, I'll address this in three points.
 * First, I get questioning Gómez Rivera's claims but that is beyond the scope of the article. Yes, he makes spurious claims, and I'm in enough Spanish-speaking circles in the Philippines to know about his penchant for doing so, but for the purposes of WP:NPOV it is not our responsibility to make that call on whether or not the source needs to be disputed. That being said, whether we like it or not he is still one of the foremost experts on Spanish in the Philippines, his blatant anti-Americanism as evidenced in the cited article notwithstanding, so you can't just discount his claims wholesale just because he makes claims on U.S. involvement in Philippine politics that may seem to be outlandish. (Not to justify his claims here, but CIA involvement in Philippine politics is true; just look at declassified documents involving Magsaysay, for goodness' sake. If you think they weren't involved, you're being naïve.)
 * Second, you are not qualified to judge whether or not he spoke the language "comfortably", nor am I qualified to do the same. I interpret the sources I used based on what is plainly written in the text, and I cannot impose my own value judgements on it even if I wanted to. Gómez Rivera, for example, said that Marcos learned Spanish from his wife (who, again, is Spanish-speaking, and I'm at the very least going to remove your spurious claim that Imelda was only "partially" fluent); now, we can debate how much he learned, sure, but until we have that additional information the only thing we can presume is whether or not he spoke the language. Clearly, per the text he did. What you're currently doing is imposing a subjective interpretation of Ferdinand Marcos' language ability beyond a reasonable interpretation of the text.
 * Finally, don't shift the goalposts here by making this a broader discussion about the Philippines generally. The status of Spanish in the Philippines and whether people spoke it or not isn't touched in this article and will not be touched in this article solely because it's irrelevant to the article's scope. I'm public enough to have a very public position on Spanish in the Philippines, so if you want to look around the Internet for my writings on the matter you're free to do so. While yes, all the presidents of the Philippines have had a Spanish-language education of some sort, this is irrelevant to the discussion given that each and every president has had their fluency assessed against the sources. As I mentioned earlier, for Ferdinand Marcos specifically we can only deduce that he was or he wasn't based on what's currently available, and it is not on us to make judgements on how fluent he was beyond what the text reasonably calls for. --Sky Harbor (talk) 23:10, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Embassy of the Philippines, Manama
Aoidh (talk) 00:02, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:32, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Philippine Spanish
-- RoySmith (talk) 00:03, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Skyline Madrid
BorgQueen (talk) 00:02, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

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