Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems/Archive 3

transliteration
We may need a sub-project to deal with transliteration issues. At least, I would like some central list of templates tagging individual transliterations/transcriptions, such as IPA, IAST, PIE, ArabDIN. dab (&#5839;) 11:46, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * there are also an unknown number of templates like ar that tag languages as spelled natively. dab (&#5839;) 12:10, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * there is also Ivrit. We need a place to collect these... dab (&#5839;) 18:29, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * &#123;{UPA}} for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet. —Felix the Cassowary 11:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
 * he, which is being tfd'd, should be replacing Ivrit. dab (&#5839;) 14:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Semxlit for generic Semitic transliteration (Proto-Semitic, Akkadian, Phoenician etc.); should possibly be renamed. dab (&#5839;) 14:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

New member
Hi, I'm just added my name to the project. I want to help transliterate articles into IPA, add images, and maybe help make some templates. Any suggestions, or ways I can find articles needing help?-- The  i  kiro  id  (talk) (Help Me Improve) 00:52, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi there Ikiroid. As you can probably see from the Project's history view, this has been a rather moribund project for a few months now (at least), as others (including me) have been pursuing other activities. Still, don't let that discourage you, sometimes all it takes is for a couple of new interested editors to come along for things to pick up again. And thanks, BTW, for setting up the WS User template. If you feel inclined, and you'd like to round up a little more interest in this area, you could possibly work on a WikiProject WS banner template for article talk pages, which could direct other interested parties to this project. As you can see, there's also a bit to be mapped out on the project page itself, you're welcome to expand it if you can see things to add.


 * As for your question re finding articles with portions in need of IPA transliteration, AFAIK there's no listing of these, but one way would be to review the articles in the writing system categories and see what's there, and what's missing. You could even compile such a list yourself and put it on the project page to be worked on. Regards, --cjllw | TALK  23:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, I was thinking of also working to create a template for the writing system articles. However, I'll be sorta strapped for time in the next week or two, but I'll do what I can with the time I got.-- The  i  kiro  id  (talk) (Help Me Improve) 00:50, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I've created Template:Infobox Writing system. It needs much work.-- The  i  kiro  id  (talk) (Help Me Improve) 16:56, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Infobox Writing system is complete
It's good enough to be added into any Writing System article. I've already put it in katakana, hiragana, Arabic alphabet, Leet, and a few others.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Cantillation
I'm not sure it's a "writing system"; it's more of a system of punctuation/musical notation. --Dweller 06:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Benjamin Franklin?
I'm not really sure I understand the logic behind adding Ben Franklin's biography to this project. I'm going to remove the tag from his Talk page, but if for some strange reason it should be there, anyone is welcome to add it back. MagnoliaSouth | Talk 13:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * A bot recently added a bunch of articles to the Writing systems project. It automatically picked up every article in a number of categories, including Category:Inventors of writing systems. I originally added Franklin there because he indeed invented a phonetic alphabet (see his article). Someone later made Ben Franklin's own category a subcategory of this, so he is still in the parent category as you can see by checking Category:Benjamin Franklin.  Because he did work with phonetic alphabets, it may or may not be appropriate to include him in the Writing Systems project, as the bot did... What do you think? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:02, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean now! Yes, he did "invent one" but it was more of a toy of his. Actually I was thinking he was added due to his typeset inventions, which is the reason I was confused because it is a print format and not really a writing. I guess it's worth it then to at least explore what it is that he did, but would the writing systems project still be interested if it's not in use, or never was in use? I'm not entirely sure, but I don't believe it ever evolved into a true alphabet. I'm currently reading a book on him, as time allows, and perhaps I'll learn more but I have to admit that this is an interesting idea. I'm adding the project back to his talk page. :) Thank you! MagnoliaSouth | Talk 22:23, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Problems with talkpage tags
I see above that there were some...er....off-topic articles that had the wsproj added. This is because we had a bot add this tag to all writing systems categories. Feel free to remove these tags in articles that don't apply. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 00:32, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah come on. Did you add them? It looked like a spate of spam. You (or whoever) should not have put them into articles that don't apply. Why put it on us to clean it up? Evertype 00:41, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I did not count on articles that had nothing to do with writing systems being in writing systems categories. I'm sorry. There are hundreds of writing system articles, and this was the best way to tag them. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 00:44, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * -) Not a problem for me. I know what it can be like trying to tag loads of articles. I noticed this because an inventor of several writing systems (J. R. R. Tolkien) got tagged. I've removed the tag from that article talk page (as the article actually says little about his work on inventing these writing systems), but left it on Tengwar and Sarati and Cirth, as those are articles about the writing systems themselves. Carcharoth 14:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Additional Template and Project work
I've added WikiProject Writing systems/Assessment. There is a bit of a question as to whether "system" or "systems" should be used in some of the template pages. I mean, is it   or   ? And should we migrate from   to the more informative and standard   ? We should decide these things now before the project gets too big, I should think. -- Evertype· ✆ 14:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * For the project banner's name, agree that WP Writing systems is a more informative and standard choice. It will not be that difficult to migrate to it, I'll look to doing this in the next little while.--cjllw | TALK  01:21, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've now moved the project's banner to WP Writing systems, and commenced migrating from the previous name. However, I hadn't counted on there being so many articles' talk pages already tagged with the banner (1200+), and it's proving a little tedious- perhaps the bot could be re-enlisted to make the updates.
 * In any case, it doesn't matter so much since the previous banner Wsproj redirects to the new one, and either can be used (the category inheritance still functions OK).--cjllw | TALK  07:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding scope and assessments
As has been commented on above, when the bot went through tagging all articles within the schema of the writing systems category and its child categories, it picked up quite a number of articles which could be seen as "non-core" or only tangentially-related. At this juncture it's probably appropriate for the Project to decide how wide or narrow its scope should really be. Articles on specific writing systems, and articles on writing system types, components and terminology would seem to be a given for inclusion in scope - but what about articles on say, inventors of writing systems, or writing implements/materials? Either approach would be valid, but how extensive the project's scope needs to be should be determined.

Re the rating assessments- before doing too much more of this the project also needs to articulate what each of the importance classifications mean in the project's context. The general idea of importance rating as used in other projects is for Top- importance to be reserved for those topics (generally at the highest level of coverage) indispensable for any brief extract or compendium of information on the subject (viz. writing systems), High- importance to include other significant (sub-)topics, and so on down the line. Any thoughts on what would be the best way to define how the importance scale is to apply for this particular project?--cjllw | TALK  07:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Evertype seems to be establishing a lot of this....I'll contact him. He created the class/importance subpage of this project. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 20:30, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Evertype is in Tokyo hopelessly jetlagged. But I dunno. I've been tagging things according to my own whim. ;-) Obviously Latin alphabet is Top. Ogham probably Mid. -- Evertype·✆ 09:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps articles about individual letters should be low, and all articles on writing systems themselves should be at least mid, if not high. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 18:55, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * High and Mid for writing systems at least. -- Evertype·✆ 22:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Tagging talk pages and assessing articles
Hi. If you still have work to do tagging talk pages and assessing articles, my AWB plugin might be of interest to you.

The plugin has two main modes of operation:
 * Tagging talk pages, great for high-speed tagging
 * Assessments mode, for reviewing articles (pictured)

As of the current version, WikiProjects with simple "generic" templates are supported by the plugin without the need for any special programatic support by me. I've had a look at your project's template and you seem to qualify.

For more information see:
 * About the plugin
 * About support for "generic" WikiProject templates
 * User guide
 * About AWB (AutoWikiBrowser)

Hope that helps. If you have any questions or find any bugs please let me know on the plugin's talk page. --Kingboyk 15:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

John Dee
John Dee is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 21:03, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Names of letters
Has there ever been any general discussion about what forms the names of articles on the extended letters of the Latin alphabet (or other alphabets) should take? Some articles are under the name or description of the letter (or its function) (e.g., Voiced velar plosive, Open O, Wynn) while others are under the symbol itself (e.g., Ă, Ɛ, Š). Ever any attempt at standardiz/sation? Where would be the appropriate place to discuss this? -  AjaxSmack    01:10, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, if it's a rare symbol not supported by most browsers, then the name is usually written out. However, if no actual name exists (such as Ҩ) they are made into the letter. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 19:16, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

What constitutes a "letter"?
I notice that in some "alphabet" articles (Romani Latin alphabet to pick an example at random) letters with diacritical marks are considered separate letters of the alphabet, whereas in others (French alphabet to pick another example at random) they aren't. Is there any logic to this, or is it just down to the whim of the editor? If there is no logic to it then ideally the articles should be standardised in this respect. Matt 20:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC).
 * This depends on the language and its traditions. Look at any dictionary (or directory) in the language in question and you will see how the words are sorted alphabetically.   A n d r e a s    (T) 22:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Importance of writing systems
Which writing systems should be considered "top" importance? Latin alphabet is as of now, and I raised the importance of Greek alphabet to "top." But what about phoenician, japanese, chinese, cyrillic, etc.? I'm in a quandry over what to do. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 19:19, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I just started assessing some Cyrillic alphabet articles, and found that existing articles don't seem to be consistently tagged for importance. How does the following sound?  Please add to the list. —Michael Z. 2006-10-19 22:31 Z 


 * Top
 * Writing systems main/overview articles: writing system, writing
 * Types of writing systems: syllabary, alphabet, Abjad, Abugida, Logogram
 * Major writing system families: Latin alphabet, Greek alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet
 * High
 * Writing systems terminology: grapheme, Transliteration, Decipherment
 * National alphabets: Russian alphabet, Ukrainian alphabet, Tajik alphabet
 * Well-known extinct scripts: Cuneiform script, Egyptian hieroglyphs
 * Very well-known special-use scripts: IPA, Braille
 * Mid
 * Alphabets not in use: Ukrainian Latin alphabet, Belarusian Arabic alphabet
 * Specialized alphabets and transcription systems:Scientific transliteration, ISO 9, Romanization of Russian
 * Low
 * Individual letters: A (Cyrillic), Be (Cyrillic), Ve (Cyrillic)
 * Narrow topics spun off from mid-importance articles: BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian
 * Obscure topics: ?

A spinoff article or subordinate topic would typically be one level lower in importance, depending on the breadth of its scope (use your judgment).


 * Where would we rate families which are represented essentially by only one national alphabet, such as the Armenian alphabet or Georgian alphabet—top or high? —Michael Z. 2006-10-19 23:33 Z 


 * I'd say they should be rated 'High'. - Francis Tyers · 20:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Italics in non-Latin scripts
A guideline on whether or not to italicize all scripts other than Latin is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting). - - Evv 16:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:Unassessed Writing system articles
We need people willing to help chew away this backlog by rating articles according to WP:WPW/RATE, and helping standardize articles with the appropriate infoboxes, navtemplates, and Writingsystem-stub. On another somewhat related note, should we start a newsletter or something about projects we are working on? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 21:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

GA Collaboration
An article in this wikiprojects criteria has been chosen to be the GA Collaboration. We would appreciate your assistance in figuring out what a few sentences as found on the Alphabet article's talk page as well as a few places that we could use as references. Also any other suggestions would be appreciated. Tarret 00:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Problems at ISO 15924
Please see Talk:ISO 15924. Mr Orlandi continues to add more and more to this section. This is, in my view, bad faith given the view of the ISO 15924 Registration Authority. Please discuss. Thank you. -- Evertype·✆ 18:09, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * false claim of Michael Everson. No Mr Orlandi around there. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * This is uncivil. I made an error remembering Mr Conradi's name. Actually, I confused Tobias Conradi with Copticist Tito Orlandi. This is not a lie. These things happen. But Mr Conradi feels it best to attack me. -- Evertype·✆ 18:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

'''There is so much chatter on this page that I have taken it upon myself to barge in at will. Please excuse me for doing so and I mean no disparagement to anyone.

I am by most regional Scribal and Calligraphic societies considered a Writting Master and sense there is no wikipedia search that explains the same I will point out that I am an expert in writting most western scripts from the first century up to the demise of Writting Masters in the 18th Century and can provide supportive examplars from a varity of copybooks. In addition I am now gone so far as to concentrate on Kanji Gyosho and Sosho according to the Naaganuma Reader circa 1951.

Western writting is it's own history and a complex etymology well worth a PBS documentary, especially sense events in history generally have had a marked impact. Thus this is hardly the dull subject that the common lot might think.

To present such a well versed subject one must start in Mesopotamia and travel to Egypt to evolve the realization that the origins in the west are no different than in the east. That is origionally written letters are either ideographic or pictographic. Next is the Punic Wars which is the showdown between the Uncial Writting North African Merchants and the Super Power status of Imperial Rome. That showdown is the prolegus of the remaining history and a silent war has been waged ever sense. Note that even Japan has been naively talked into reffering to Western Writting and names as Romanji which is quite rude to say the least. I could go on from here but you can now well guess that I could go on and on for years. So with the proper collaborative company I will stop for now and post again hopefully in two days. ''' --MicPowell 06:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Problems at N'Ko
Please see Talk:N%27Ko language. Mr Orlandi split the article needlessly; I have reverted. Please discuss. Thank you. -- Evertype·✆ 10:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * false claim of Michael Everson. No Mr Orlandi around there. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * This is uncivil. I made an error remembering Mr Conradi's name. Actually, I confused Tobias Conradi with Copticist Tito Orlandi. This is not a lie. These things happen. But Mr Conradi feels it best to attack me. -- Evertype·✆ 18:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Interesting that you started to explicitly state after one of your statements that it is not a lie. Shall we assume the opposite in absence of this? How do you know my feelings (But Mr Conradi feels it best to attack me.)? BTW, I did say that you made a false claim, which is different from attacking you as a person. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * A false statement, or lie, is intended to mislead. An error is not. I consider being accused of falsehood to be an attack. -- Evertype·✆ 18:38, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 'Intentional false claim' = 'lie'.
 * 'Unintentional false claim' = 'error'.
 * 'Bickering over whether just "false claim" is meant to infer intentional or unintentional' = 'annoying'
 * Confusion cleared up. Can we please move along? --CBD 13:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Please see N'Ko alphabet which has been proposed to be merged with N'Ko and deleted or made a re-direct. -- Evertype·✆ 18:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Writing system != Language
Michael Everson does not want to follow the WP concept that there are articles for languages and articles for writing systems. This is ok. I on the other hand want to follow this. Reasons: Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:28, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * If you link from somewhere you should be forced to link to the correct item (lang or script) so that WP gets links of higher quality
 * not confuse the reader
 * make clear what the content is about, e.g. the mixed N'Ko article is to 90% about the N'Ko alphabet. The language related stuff is almost not existing. By having a seperate article N'Ko language, this is much more visible. This in turn may encourage people that know about the language to add content.
 * no mess with two Infoboxes at the top right. BTW which gets precedence? The language box or the writing system box?
 * I object to Mr Conradi's characterization of me here. I do not object to the split of Latin and Latin alphabet as both are long and complex articles about language and script respectively. However, N'Ko is quite different. It is a short article, and there is no justification for the split. I suspect that Mr Conradi's motivation here is nothing more than his unhappiness about the "mess with two infoboxes" which is not, actually, messy at all. Comment from other editors is invited. -- Evertype·✆ 18:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Again: false claim by you. And yes, I am unhappy about mess with two infoboxes. But look above, this is not the only motivation. I wrote more reasons than only that one. IMO general policy should be to have one article for each item. The N'Ko alphabet article is IMO a nice small writing system article. The language article would only constitute a small stub right now. But this is work for the WikiProject Languages. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:42, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I object, again, at your calling me a liar. I have made no "false claim". What do you think the "false claim" is? That there is "no justification" for the split? I haven't seen a credible one offered. There is no "mess" with two info boxes. It looks quite good, in my opinion. There is nothing about the language that does not belong on the same page as the script. I say this as someone who knows a lot about N'Ko, and who knows many people who use N'Ko. A language stub for N'Ko will stay a stub indefinitely. Until such a time as there is enough information about the language that it would justify a separate page, the only article we ned is N'Ko. -- Evertype·✆ 18:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * What do you think the "false claim" is? That there is "no justification" for the split? - Exactly. BTW, I would like to see evidence that the N'Ko language exists at all. If it exists, I wonder why you think there is nothing that can be written about it. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * You have offered no credible justification for the split. My claim is not false. -- Evertype·✆ 23:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Did you notice that you changed your claim? "no justification" is different to "no credible justification". It now depends on how one interprets "credible justification". I don't know how to show they are credible nor that they are not credible. So, I would now say you made a difficult to prove claim or an unproven claim. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * My view of the unhelpfulness of your splitting of the N'Ko article remains unchanged, whether modified with an additional adjective or not. You're not going to "prove" anything by suggesting that I am changing my mind or my claim. -- Evertype·✆ 09:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed, the intention was to let you think, not to prove anything. But since your initial claim was false, you added one with by your "23:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)" post. Quite a lot around now. BTW, modification IS change. Seems your kind of logic is very different to rationalism. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 04:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia
Beginning cross-post.
 * See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★ MESSED  ROCKER ★  03:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

''End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.''

Classification
See this where I have endeavoured to describe how we may wish to classify articles. I would like to see consistency in the use of "alphabet" and "script" in article titles. Can we discuss this and come to consensus? -- Evertype·✆ 10:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Consensus would be good. My objection continues to be that actual usage is not consistent with the way you are actively renaming/rewriting these articles... which would be a good thing to hold off on doing until there IS consensus. See Naming conventions (common names) for the basis of my objection. It would be more 'logical/consistent/organized' to have all the life-form articles in Wikipedia by their scientific names... but we don't because 99 times out of 100 someone is going to search for 'Bat' instead of 'Chiroptera'. IMO the same applies to writing systems... it would certainly be more logical/consistent/organized to name and describe all the writing systems based on some sort of formalized hierarchy. But that isn't how Wikipedia naming conventions work and I don't think it should be. If people commonly call something a 'script' then Wikipedia should call it a script... regardless of whether that complies with a formal hierarchy of definitions. --CBD 11:55, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Look, though I have explained this to you about a dozen times, I will try again. There is a thing called the Arabic script. It has many hundreds of letters in it. There is a thing called the Arabic alphabet, which is a subset of the Arabic script, using only a couple dozen letters. There is a thing called the Urdu alphabet, which is a subset of the Arabic script, using only a couple dozen letters. There is a thing called the Persian alphabet, which is a subset of the Arabic script, using only a couple dozen letters. There is a thing called the Arwi alphabet, which is a subset of the Arabic script, using only a couple dozen letters. And there is a thing called the Sindhi alphabet, which is a subset of the Arabic script, using only a couple dozen letters. We need to be able to distinguish "script" and "alphabet". It does not matter if you find somewhere on the internet the term "Albanian script" used to mean the "Albanian alphabet" (being the Latin-script alphabet used in Tiranë). The word "script" may also mean a kind of cursive handwriting, but that is orthogonal to the question of terminology in articles about Writing Systems. I re-iterate my proposal that we use consistent and precise terminology for Writing Systems articles. -- Evertype·✆ 14:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That seems like a logical, clear and useful distinction, but I can't help but be curious, can you tell me who is it who first made that distinction, Evertype?  ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It certainly isn't a new way of describing things. -- Evertype·✆ 19:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * You say that "we need to be able to distinguish 'script' and 'alphabet'". Why? Given that there are literally millions of people in the world, commonly known as 'our users', who do NOT distinguish between these two words why would it be beneficial to here use them for specific different meanings? You say 'this is a script and that is an alphabet'... per the specific definitions of the two terms you are using... and that we should ignore the fact that other people call your 'scripts' "alphabets" and your 'alphabets' "scripts". Why? Doesn't the fact that they ARE so used mean that we should do so here as well? Wikipedia is a reference work for 'the way things are'... not a research project for 'the way things should be'. As I have tried to explain back to you just as many times. --CBD 15:55, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * We need to be able to distinguish them because people are confused by the fact that there is an Arabic script which is a superset of the Arabic alphabet and the Arwi alphabet, and because it is important for us to be able to make this distinction so that our articles are clear and unambiguous. We want articles on Writing Systems to be well-structured and unambiguous, and so we should choose precise meanings for words like "script" and "alphabet". The fact that the word "script" may be polyvalent and can be used in an imprecise sense does not mean that we should use it in an imprecise sense. What would be the advantage to that? -- Evertype·✆ 19:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * If people actually use the terms that way then they aren't "confused"... that really is the way the concepts are commonly expressed and I don't think we should be trying to impose an artificial consistency on them from without. That seems a clear case of original research to me. The argument that we could pick amongst multiple accepted terms is reasonable (and beats the various claims that alphabets aren't called 'scripts' hands down), but it still takes us away from more common/natural usage to an artificial standard. Also, you need to consider that this represents a contradiction... you have argued that we should not have an article titled 'N'Ko script' because it isn't used that way independently of the N'Ko language. Now you are arguing that we should work not based on how terms are actually used, but by a formal hierarchy we define... which, as you designed it, would title an article on the writing system... "N'Ko script". We can't simultaneously follow actual usage AND ignore actual usage to follow a locally defined hierarchy. --CBD 12:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I have dismissed your accusations of "original research" about a dozen times, so I'm not going to deal with that here. N'Ko is one of those exceptions that prove the rule, because N'Ko is only a literary language, never written in any other script, it makes sense to deal with all of that in one place. There are therefore good reasons to deviate from consistency in the case of N'Ko. This is not the case for other scripts. Regarding the other "Common usage" which confuses the Arwi alphabet with the Arabic script is bad usage, and accuracy trumps frequency. -- Evertype·✆ 19:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The proposal sounds sensible to me. Although I am personally used to seeing "Cyrillic alphabet" more often, "Cyrillic script" is good for consistency. Have you considered the wordier, but more accessible "writing system" instead of "script"? —Michael Z. 2006-11-29 21:15 Z 
 * Is there any problem with having Cyrillic alphabet / Russian alphabet / Tajik alphabet etc. ? -- However it doesn't matter that much, I would be happy with script or writing system for some consistency. Perhaps we could have an infobox template or something for these... - Francis Tyers · 09:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Cyrillic is the script; indeed there is no "Cyrillic language". The others are alphabets. In cases like this, I hope we can create policy for teminological simplicity. The WikiProject Numismatics has pretty robust rules about what to do about terminology. Could we have the same? There will be high feelings about Latin Script vs Roman Alphabet, but if our policies are sound, we might help users understand scripts and alphabets better. (The assumption that the Latin script is just the Roman alphabet is widespread, and mistaken.) -- Evertype·✆ 19:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * In particular, see WikiProject_Numismatics/Style -- Evertype·✆ 19:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Vernacular scripts
vote on scripts.--D-Boy 02:37, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Writing systems by geographical area
I just set up a page, Writing systems of Africa, and a category under the same name. These group a diverse range of topics and pages relating to use of writing (and symbols) in Africa. I'm not aware of other wide geographic scale collections (other than worldwide), but the thought occurs that it might be a useful addition for other areas as well, not necessarily continental in all cases (Asia for instance would certainly be too large a single category for number of writing systems to cover, even in such a brief overview format). --A12n 09:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Cool! Nice job, although it's a bit listy. But for being a new article, it's off to a great start. I'll try to fix around some things. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed program
I'd like to a propose a monthly (or perhaps a [bi]weekly) collaboration for our wikiproject. I've started the page at this location, does anyone have an opinion or any further ideas regarding the matter? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 23:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)