User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 18

Thanks for all who have posted or emailed your support. For those of you who've said they'd support me if I reapplied for adminship, or would even nominate me, I appreciate it—especially when we've brawled & I wouldn't have expected you to! But given how many Randies I've pissed off, and my general lack of diplomatic skills, I don't expect my chances would be very good.

I'm trying to wind down a number of open issues. Will keep an eye on articles I was especially involved in that don't have many other contributors (rongorongo, Esperanto apart from the main article, etc.).

If I don't notice comments posted here, you can contact me through my email link. — kwami (talk) 08:58, 19 July 2012 (UTC) [changed year to prevent archiving]

Barnstars I, Ling.Nut award this very overdue Linguist's barnstar to Kwamikagami. Thanks for making the Internet not suck. Thanks for taking an interest in the language families of South America - they really need a hand! ·Maunus·ƛ· 08:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC) I, Ikiroid, award this Barnstar to Kwami for helping me with effectively editing language pages. The Barnstar of Diligence I, Agnistus award this Barnstar to Kwami for his invaluable contributions to the Origin of hangul article. The Anti-Flame Barnstar I think you deserve a golden fire extinguisher for helping me deal with that misguided revolutionary Serendipodous 10:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC) The Graphic Designer's Barnstar For your wonderful moon mass charts, I offer the Graphic designer's barnstar. Serendipodous 12:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC) The Original Barnstar For transforming Rongorongo from a sketchy, unhelpful mess into a tightly organized family of articles covering the entire Rongorongo corpus in a manner both scholarly and accessible, I award you this Barnstar. May it bring you much mana! Fishal (talk) 02:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC) The Working Man's Barnstar For getting all the EL61 links changed to Haumea (dwarf planet), I think you deserve the working man's barnstar. Must have been tedious as heck. Serendipodous 09:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC) The Original Barnstar Presented for your creation of the Malagasy IPA pages and your tireless transcription efforts. Thank you! Lemurbaby (talk) 11:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC) The Graphic Designer's Barnstar For your contributions to File:IPA chart 2005.png (better seen in the English Wikipedia logs since the move to Commons). In taking linguistics courses as an undergraduate, having a printout-size and easy-to-find IPA reference was indispensable. I will probably be finding printouts of this file mixed in with my college papers for decades to come; that's just how often I used it. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 22:31, 7 December 2010 (UTC) The Tireless Contributor Barnstar I, Stevey7788, hereby present you the Tireless Contributor Barnstar for your tremendously prolific work on languages and linguistics. Excellent articles, wonderful images, and impressive contributions overall! — Stevey7788 (talk) 23:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC) The Editor's Barnstar For your continued good work in articles on languages. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 00:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC) The Teamwork Barnstar I hope the script story will have a happy end :-) Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC) The Original Barnstar Hi there, I noticed that you edited an article that I created (Chay Shegog) and edited the pronunciation. I am a Shegog myself. I'm not bothered about your change at all. The emphasis is how you wrote it so shi-GOG. I noticed that you have done some stuff related to American Indians on Wikipedia. Are you of Native American descent? I've done some research and there is some evidence to suggest that the name Shegog is taken from zhigaag (so like Chicago with two g's and no 'o') which means skunk in the Ojibwe language. But all Shegog's I know pronounce it with a short -og similar to dog. Thanks, Shegan AGirl1191 (talk) 04:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC) The Tireless Contributor Barnstar Thanks for your recent run of newly-created language articles, and for your efforts to improve the encyclopedia. Northamerica1000(talk) 17:28, 17 March 2012 (UTC) The Original Barnstar thank for contributing us... Liansanga (talk) 00:23, 8 June 2012 (UTC) The Admin's Barnstar For your past excellent service as Administrator, and a sad reminder that sometimes ARBCOM can blow it - big time. HammerFilmFan (talk) 01:33, 6 October 2012 (UTC) Guardian of Hamari Boli Most sincere gratitude for your invaluable contributions to Hindi-Urdu related articles on English Wikipedia. Forever indebted to you -and wikipedia of course- for telling it like it is.. Amazing how you never gave up and went thru all the troubles dealing with zealots. Bravo! You're one of the inspirations that led to the genesis of http://www.HamariBoli.com edge.walker (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2012 (UTC) The Instructor's Barnstar This Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have performed stellar work in the area of instruction & help for other editors. For your contributions to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and especially for your contributions to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting. Moreover, in providing examples of how to implemented the Manual in text editing and your great cooperation with me! Magioladitis (talk) 22:54, 9 November 2012 (UTC) The Resilient Barnstar For your WP rules following Saraikistan (talk) 18:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC) The Barnstar of Diligence For your linguistic contributions. We will carry on this professional discussion later because I will be off now. Regards Maria0333 (talk) 07:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC) The Original Barnstar For all-round good work, but especially this edit. Keep it up! Green Giant (talk) 09:12, 8 January 2014 (UTC) All Around Amazing Barnstar Dear Kwamikagami, thank you for all of your amazing contributions to language related articles. Your contributions are making a difference here on Wikipedia! Keep up the good work! With regards, AnupamTalk 21:25, 9 April 2014 (UTC) The LGBT Barnstar For your work over at Public opinion of same-sex marriage in the United States, the article looks vastly improved and I am happy to see there was an agreement made on the results. =) Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:46, 25 April 2014 (UTC) The Brilliant Idea Barnstar Good job Sit1101 (talk) 01:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC) The Multiple Barnstar These are just some barnstars for some of the many amazing things you do here on Wikipedia, I don't know what this site would do without you. Abrahamic Faiths (talk) 21:06, 27 April 2015 (UTC) The Original Barnstar For working to help close RfCs and reduce the backlog. Wugapodes (talk) 00:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC) The Tireless Contributor Barnstar For great, expeditious and lynx-eyed reviewing and correction of all Aboriginal articles,Nishidani (talk) 16:37, 14 February 2019 (UTC) The Papua New Guinean Barnstar of National Merit Thank you for your many years of tireless work on articles of Papuan languages! Here's something to add to your long list of barnstars. (Although admittedly, this is just for "East New Guinea Highlands languages" and other Papuan languages on the eastern half of the island.) — Sagotreespirit (talk) 09:56, 20 April 2020 (UTC) The Original Barnstar Because you do an incredible amount of good work, and I am more or less in awe at how much you know. Also, I think you do not have enough barnstars. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 05:06, 22 August 2020 (UTC) The Special Barnstar For creating the Tyap language article. Thanks! Kambai Akau (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2020 (UTC) The Mathematics Barnstar For getting Kaktovik numerals to good article status. Thank you Akrasia25 (talk) 18:22, 6 March 2021 (UTC) The Reviewers Award By the authority vested in me by myself it gives me great pleasure to present you with this award in recognition of the thorough, detailed and actionable reviews you have carried out at FAC. This work is very much appreciated. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:33, 18 September 2021 (UTC) The Editor's Barnstar Thanks for your tireless editing and ability to recognize the nuance most miss, do not understand, or fail to research regarding parliamentary law vis-à-vis a supreme court’s jurisdiction specially regarding Nepal Quaerens-veritatem (talk) 06:10, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
The colubrid Telescopus semiannulatus in an acacia, central Tanzania.		This user is one of the 40 most active English Wikipedians of all time. This user is a former administrator on the English Wikipedia (verify). Quotes: Only an evil person would eat baby soup. To shew that there is no tautology, no vain repetition of one and the same thing therein. In this country we treat our broads with respect. Words of the day: anti-zombie-fungus fungus

Barnstar

Kwami, this is NOT good for Wikipedia. Your expertise in linguistics is badly needed here, and from what I've seen, you've been mostly in the "right" on the procedural issues, and not having you as an Administrator is a loss to the community. I hope you remain an active editor in many areas - what was it Frank Zappa said on one of his albums - "... teen appeal. We need it badly." - well, Wiki is in dire need of educated editors to deflect the POV-pushers, and I'd hate to see you go. All the best. HammerFilmFan (talk) 15:37, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

		The Admin's Barnstar
		For your past excellent service as Administrator, and a sad reminder that sometimes ARBCOM can blow it - big time.

HammerFilmFan (talk) 01:33, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. — kwami (talk) 06:03, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Damn

I hate to see this happen to you, you're one of the good guys. Luckily wikipedia isn't all there is to life, I know I tend to enjoy it when I rediscover the world out there when frustrations drive me to take a break. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:02, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I'll take that route. Unfortunately, WP has been a welcome distraction from the world out there. — kwami (talk) 20:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Sad departures

Kwami, I am sad to see you go, but also sad that I agree with your reasons for departure. Better luck with whatever endeavors you embark on in future. -- Kind regards, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 17:16, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I too am sad to see you go. As a few of us discussed over at WT:WA, process-over-content has become the dominant way of thinking in this place. You have been one of the better content ones - I value your advice on IPA and other topics and your manner in dealing with myself and with other editors that I've seen. Keep well, best of luck, and I do hope to see you back one day. Orderinchaos 18:56, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

There are some remaining issues I hope to clean up. I don't yet know how much I'll be here. But it is a good excuse to stop spending so much time on WP. — kwami (talk) 19:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe I'd had the opportunity to work with you, and first encountering someone as a party to an arbitration case is never the best of introductions, but I am sincerely sorry to see this. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Kwami was, in many ways, the lawn mower for our language articles. No one tracked, maintained, standardized, and improved so many language articles. While I disagreed on occasion with his choices, his contribution to Wikipedia's language articles is incalculable. While he was sometimes combative, he is very well respected in the community of us who work with the language articles. This is a case where the Arbitration Committee failed to weigh the positive benefit of an admin as part of its judgment. --Taivo (talk) 19:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, I'm sad to see you go, too. Your departure will be a big loss to Wikipedia, as Taivo explained above. From what I've read about what happened, I think I must agree with your position. I also wish you the best and hope you'll be back! --JorisvS (talk) 19:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

It is sad to see you go; I appreciated your comments on the Indian language transliteration RfC. Good luck. Lynch7 19:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Good luck Kwami! Like Taivo, I don't think I've agreed with you every time I've seen your comments or actions, but I've always appreciated your input and contributions. Maybe some day, perhaps even within this decade, WP will start valuing expertise. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 20:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Echo the good luck. Like Taivo and spiff above, I don't always agree with your actions but there is no question that everything you do is done with care and thought. And, isn't that what Wikipedia is all about? In this case, arbcom (with a little help from others) has clearly thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Sadly. --regentspark (comment) 20:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

In spite of all our previous disagreements, you are one admin I never ever wanted to see desysopped. Your contribution to Wiki in spite of our huge differences in opinion, is immeasurable. You are an asset to the project and would be sadly missed by many and I include myself in that. I hope you come back and re-apply for that admin position. Good luck.Tamsier (talk) 20:36, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Three days ago I didn't know about your existence. But after having spent those full days reading many long lingvistics and koreanology articles, including their talk pages, I finally decided to find out, who is that extremely productive person. And then I found this... I ask myself: Why does it happen exactly now? Of course it cannot be any objective link between my reading and your leaving. But I feel very sad that the very moment I came to know you was the moment you were leaving. 93.106.214.57 (talk) 21:02, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

This is so discouraging to me. After a couple years away from WP, I have been back for about 5 months, hoping things had gotten better -- but apparently they haven't. So many good long-time editors (both on the content side and the "janitorial" side) have left the project already, we don't need ArbCom contributing to yet another one retiring. I find myself wishing WP was more like it used to be: more WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY (ie decisions were made with only the goal of improving the project in mind) and less WP:Wikilawyering (ie pages and pages of talk straining at every nuance of policy and guideline, to the detriment of the goals of project). I'm sorry to see you go Kwami, but after some thought about the amount of time and effort I spend here, I may come to the same conclusions you have. I wish you luck. Hopefully a more collegial atmosphere will someday beckon you back to WP.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 22:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

• You are an old opponent of me (though not recently). Bad outcome this. Just a week ago I explained to an internet-savy friend: "the problem with Wikipedia is not vandalism. It is good editors dropping out". -DePiep (talk) 00:50, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
• Kwami, as you know (and you blasted me for it) I wasn't with you on the Summit article, but you may not know that I have been looking at your work for years: any time I looked at a language or linguistics article and saw yours was the most recent edits I could leave it be, knowing it was in good hands. I hope this won't be forever. Drmies (talk) 01:04, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I couldn't agree with you more, DePiep. Wikilawyering by non-specialist behavior monitors takes another victim. --Taivo (talk) 01:09, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I forgot to mention the great link Boise Kw gave today, with a nice external. -DePiep (talk) 01:14, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

• Hello, I don't know why people talking about departure. I hope that you continue and I will be glad to see you around. :-) -- ɑηsuмaη ^{ʈ ᶏ ɭ Ϟ} 09:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

All the best, whether you decide to stay or go - you've added a lot even though your articles on Rongorongo are costing me time trying to decipher it ;) You could always try and decamp to a non-English Wiki, I find the Gaelic one much more civilised. Best of! Akerbeltz (talk) 11:14, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

• Kwami, very sad if you really stick to leaving WP. You have been a driving force behind much systematic improvement and standardisation of articles in a wide range around linguistics. When we met in cooperation or disputes, you always submitted good reasons for your choices, even though we did not always agree. −Woodstone (talk) 12:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
• Like many, it seems, I have had run-ins with Kwami, in addition to positive editing experiences with him. I think Kwami is probably a better editor than he is an admin. But that is neither here nor there in terms of the unjustified blocking he had with people who were more interested in Sources than in Truth (regardless of the Wikipedia recommendations, which should never trump common sense). I hope that after a break, Kwami will return one day. -- Evertype·✆ 12:35, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

• Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V from above. On one hand, it's true that adminship requires some tactfulness, patience and ass-kissing that you does not quite possess. But on the other hand, even despite your huge productiveness, you have a rare quality to be always right. Well, almost. No such user (talk) 13:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The way you split, defined and confirmed Malay language and Malaysian language was fantastic. Things like that make a big difference to the encyclopaedia. cheers. Hope you stick around - I suspect you might! --Merbabu (talk) 14:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

• It's a shame, what happened to this talkpage, I had gotten quite used to the snake that hung around. Hope you come back. In the areas we've happened to edit together, mostly the few language pages I've looked through, your hand was always visible in whatever quality the articles had. Good luck, CMD (talk) 14:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

• Shoot. I just now saw this. I am very sorry. ~Adjwilley (talk) 20:06, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

This should never have happened. Neotarf (talk) 11:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• Sorry to hear about your loss...of the admin tools. Just another in whats turning into a long string of Arbcom decisions. This is a big part of the reason why many Admin actions are taking longer to get done. A lot of admins are seeing this type of action and thinking twice before taking action, and we have Arbcom partly to thank for that. Kumioko (talk) 21:20, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I concur with Kumioko, and it's one of the reasons why I prefer to avoid contentious issues, but I must say, as an old opponent of Kwami who possibly insists to this day that Brits should pronounce the names of their cities the American way, that I felt certain for over two years that something like this would be coming, but not sure how and when. I would like Kwami to reflect upon this, and particularly this] which is precisely why as a professional linguist I have never contributed to a Wikipedia article on linguistics since - two comments where I feel Kwami is essentially talking about himself. That said, adminship is no big deal, as I have learned in spite of Kwamis comments, and the loss of the tools should not necessarily lead to a such a retirement of an editor who is otherwise a highly competent linguist and a net asset to the project; on a recent visit to America I met several defrocked admins who despite the embarrassment, nevertheless continue to be very active and make great (and friendly) contributions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:41, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

If you think I ever suggested that Brits should adopt a rhotic accent, then you evidently never listened to a word I or anyone else said on the subject, which may be why it was impossible to work with you. — kwami (talk) 01:51, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• You've done so much good for us ... I'll miss you if you decide to leave. ☮Soap☮ 12:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Reblocked

I unblocked your account under the understanding that you would only be posting in your userspace, regarding the arbcom decision, or to request review of your unblock. You've already made two edits which have nothing to do with either of those. As such, I've reblocked your account for the remaining time. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 23:06, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I have not. I made one edit copying material from my sandbox to a talk page, which I had asked you to do for me before you unblocked me so I could make such routine edits. I have no idea what the second edit would be: checking my contributions, everything else is in my user space. — kwami (talk) 23:23, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't see an agreement between you two, just an unblock summary that says "unblocked to allow discussion for recrnt arbcom case and/or request for block review at AN/ANI." Am I missing something? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 23:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I emailed Magog with a lists of edits I wanted him to make for me. He unblocked me so I could make them myself. He told me to stick to my user space, Arbcom, etc. The notes were only copied from my user space, but he did know that was s.t. I wanted done so I could be done with it. Meanwhile, I can't even delete my user page. — kwami (talk) 23:23, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

It was only one edit. The second one I misread. The first one appears to have been a miscommunication between us; I said he could edit in his/her userspace, and s/he interpreted that to mean s/he could copy something from his/her userspace into the project space, which isn't what I meant. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 23:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I did understand that I wasn't to go around editing random articles. But I expected that the edits I requested you make for me were fair game, since that was presumably why you unblocked me. — kwami (talk) 23:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me it should be sufficient to unblock if Kwamikagami agrees to stay away from the page that the 3RR violation took place on. If there is a list of uncontroversial edits to be made, I don't see much value to delaying for a day in having them made. Although I do hope that "deleting [his] user page" won't turn out to be one of those edits! Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:48, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

You're a bit high on your own sysops Magog, aren't you? Akerbeltz (talk) 23:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

If we really want to reduce Kwami's block time, we could always cut to the heart of why he was blocked: Kwami, you understand that invoking WP:BLP as a justification for WP:3RR violations is unconvincing, right? Right? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 00:02, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that calling devout Muslims mentioned by name in the article "atheists" or, in the latest round of watering down the libel until it sticks, "extreme" and "hostile to Islam", is a serious BLP concern. BLP, copyright, outing, and vandalism are exempted from 3RR for a reason: such things can cause damage and should not be allowed to remain in an article until we get agreement through protracted dispute resolution to remove them. The onus should be on the person who wants to include the potentially damaging material. And the reasons given in this case—that we can call a devout Muslim an atheist if they appear at a forum with an atheist, or if we have a RS that someone else called them an atheist—are simply ludicrous. One of the Muslim speakers has already been condemned by Muslim organizations for accepting the invitation to speak. Do we really want to be saying such things about her, in a forum that is mirrored all over the internet? We're left hoping that no-one is stupid enough to believe Wikipedia.

I suppose I should be more politically astute at neutralizing the idiots. But I'm no good at that sort of thing. As for your question, the BLP concerns have been an issue for months. They were not made up after the fact. They should be, if not convincing, at least worthy of consideration. — kwami (talk) 00:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I understand and agree with your concerns, but this issue isn't exactly cut and dry. In this case, it seems that uninvolved editors have expressed disagreement that this concern is a legitimate reason to bypass 3RR in this specific case. In addition to the blocking admin and Drmies, there is also the ruling admin in this discussion at ANI/3RR (from May this year), The Blade of the Northern Lights, who said very overtly: "I don't consider this a BLP issue, so using that as a reason to revert doesn't garner any favor from me."

As it says at WP:BLPREMOVE, you might want to instead take the matter to the BPL noticeboard. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 00:51, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Renaming WikiProject Native languages of California

Hello Kwamikagami! Posting this in the hope you'll jump back in where you are needed, and ignore all the nonsense. On the talk page I've suggested renaming Wikipedia:WikiProject Native languages of California, as WikiProject Indigenous languages of California. This would be consistent with the name of the Category:Indigenous languages of California, and the discussion in its deletion debate. Do you concur? Djembayz (talk) 01:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a preference. But consistency is one of our goals, so you could have a good argument. — kwami (talk) 06:54, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Invite to WikiProject Indigenous languages of California

Hello! I've seen you around on Indigenous languages of California articles ... Would you consider becoming a member of WikiProject Indigenous languages of California, a WikiProject which aims to expand and improve coverage of Indigenous languages of California on Wikipedia? Please feel free to join us. --Djembayz (talk) 14:24, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi, sorry, I don't feel like taking on new projects after recent events. Sounds like a good project, though: lots of work to do. — kwami (talk) 15:36, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Your bot request

Not sure if you're still active, but I wanted to clarify with you the details of your bot request before going ahead with it.

For digraphs, should the bot create new redirects? Or just edit currently existing ones?

For trigraphs, if I understood it right, you want the bot to take all the pages from here and have the redirects now point at List of Latin-script trigraphs.

If all of that is correct, I'm ready to go ahead and file a request for bot approval. Thanks, LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 09:28, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

New rd's: That wasn't part of my request, and it would create a whole lot of new rd's, but it might be a good idea. Your call.

Trigraphs: yes, exactly. — kwami (talk) 09:33, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I think it's easier to have the bot create the rd's since they should be made at some point. Doing it now is just easier (and I had already coded the bot to do it!). I've filed a BRFA here. LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 01:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. — kwami (talk) 01:39, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Over at IPAlink (IPAsym), I have worked on an old request of you. Could you take a look? -DePiep (talk) 20:47, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Looks good. Works well. — kwami (talk) 01:39, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Greater Accra Region - massive copyvio content

Hi Kwamikagami. I think User:MarkMysoe was right to remove that massive amount of content. His edit summary said it was because it was uncited, but it was added all at once in this edit. You immediately restored the content with no edit summary with this edit. The formatting of the content, and the fact that it was added in one edit should ring copyvio alarm bells. I found the likely source here. I have since removed the content. Maybe I'm missing something obvious. Thanks, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:50, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I was the one who missed the obvious. Adding all at once dn ring alarm bells for me, cuz I know people who craft articles for months in their sandbox b4 posting them. — kwami (talk) 09:04, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

No worries. All's well that ends well. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:09, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Since you aren't gone

Please have a look at the newest flowering of "Let's move it to something nobody knows" over at Talk:Bopomofo. -- Evertype·✆ 10:27, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Bopomofo

Hi, I notice that you participated in the previous discussions on moving Bopomofo, would you care to participate in the current discussion? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:10, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the wise words. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 19:21, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Braille pic

Excellent, perfect pic. Thanks! --CJ Withers (talk) 19:15, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Ryukyus

I don't know if you caught it, but some Chinese nationalist tried to edit the Ryukyu Islands and removed an entire section as well as adding in some nationalist BS concerning the PRC's claims on the islands because of his interpretation of the Treaty of San Francisco and the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations (which are as far as I can tell were never enacted because the war was still going on at the time). However, the article (as well as History of the Ryukyu Islands) does not seem to discuss the Chinese influence on the history and whatnot. Perhaps that is something that can be fixed?—Ryulong (竜龙) 07:53, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. The omission of China is egregious. The anon. only wrote a short paragraph that was NPOV, however, and it wasn't very good. I'm trying to wind down on WP, however, and I don't want to take on another task. You probably know more about it than I do anyway! :) — kwami (talk) 07:58, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Not yet, but I will later in the year.—Ryulong (竜龙) 08:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Pre-meditated Activity

To my observation vandalism is certainly something to monitor in Wikipedia, but pre-meditated attempt to document something for a community by undermining another weaker community is something that is hard to monitor.

E.g., in this Ahom Kingdom page the map of Ahom kingdom is wrong – it includes greater Kamarupa area that Ahom had never ruled. Besides, Ahom Kingdom was never called Kingdom of Assam. Assam is a current state name of Republic of India. Here weaker and minority community is Kamrupi people who does not have a state in India either. But the Kamrupi people had legendary past. Most Ahom pages have something that undermines Kamrupi.

• Probably pre-meditated activity is something that Wikipedia authority is weak.
• Kwamikagami departure signals that a self-activated sword has entered into glass-case - bad news for Wikipedia bad news for weaker/minority people.

Kurmaa (talk) 10:11, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

User:Bhaskarbhagawati

What can be done? Nothing seems to touch him. Chaipau (talk) 16:23, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

He is in right direction defending minority Kamrupi. Wikipedia needs more like him. Review the following as a neutral/unbiased reviewer:

• Ahom Kingdom area highlighted in the map is not correct - the name was not kingdom of assam either.
• Current Assam was not Ahom kingdom, but current eastern past of Assam was Ahom kingdom - Tai-Ahom ruled Ahom Kingdom - Ahom people are broadly Dravidian & Mongoloid, while Tai-Ahom is a branch of Mongoloid Ahom.

Do not include any area from greater undivided Kamrup that Tai-Ahom rulers had never ruled. Do not use derogatory term like Lower Assam to represent greater undivided Kamrup - all pages that has this term Lower Assam must go. Any who had done it please make sure you correct the same - Ahom ethnocentrism behaviour is a humiliation for Wikipedia. Kamrupi people are minority they do not have a State in India, their treasures shall not be plowed through Wikipedia by any much stronger powerful group such as Ahom.

Kurmaa (talk) 18:35, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

See WP:dispute resolution on how to handle such conflicts. — kwami (talk) 19:14, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I have had bad experience going this route. If a resolution is not binding Bhaskarbhagawati tends to ignore it if it is not to his liking. Chaipau (talk) 22:27, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Then have him blocked. I'm no longer an admin, and this isn't my field, so I don't have much to contribute. (Sorry, that sounded rude. I just don't want to start taking on new projects.) — kwami (talk) 23:07, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Your Bot request (again)

Quick question, when doing a trial run, the bot made this edit. Is it ok that it removed the category? Thanks, LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 20:37, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I don't see any point in having cats like that for rd's. At least not basic ones like these. — kwami (talk) 20:57, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Akan

I just posted a note at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ghana#Akan and then noticed your message just 2 above mine, which actually refers to the same editor. Does anybody ever reply to the messages on that talk page? What do you think about the substance of my question about the multiple insertions of the word "Akan"? Best regards – Hebrides (talk) 08:28, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

What can I say? He's a bigot, and possibly an idiot. I thought he'd left WP in frustration when I wouldn't let him fuck up the Ghana article. I'd advise reverting his main-space edits on sight: he hasn't contributed anything of value that I've seen. Unfortunately, I can no longer mass revert him. — kwami (talk) 10:33, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

ISO Codes

Kwami, I don't know where you got the idea that all those ISO codes were no longer ISO codes, but you are wrong. They are all active codes and you need to undo all your changes. If you want to add a link to LinguistList, that's OK, but the ISO authority for these codes is still alive and well. If you think that because they are not in Ethnologue, they aren't actual codes, then you are incorrect. ISO and Ethnologue are maintained by separate groups within SIL for different purposes. You need to undo all your changes which imply that ISO authority is no longer applicable for all these codes. --Taivo (talk) 09:33, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

We must maintain that ISO link directly because these ISO codes are used for far more purposes than just making Ethnologue and LinguistList easier to use. They are used widely within the linguistic community now as notes in articles, for funding and grand application purposes, for library purposes. By no longer labelling them as ISO codes in Wikipedia you have implied that somehow they are no longer official ISO codes. This is exactly the wrong impression we want to give. I've reverted a couple dozen of your unwarranted changes, but you need to fix the rest of them and revert them back to ISO codes and not some fictional "LinguistList" code. They MUST retain their official ISO labelling. If you want to add a separate link to the LinguistList entry, that's fine, but do not conflate them or remove the ISO coding. --Taivo (talk) 10:26, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

They are listed as ISO codes. We merely state that they are maintained by Linguist List (rather than SIL), which is correct. There are a couple ways we could handle this to make that more obvious, but the discussion is probably better left for the infobox talk page. Perhaps we could list the code at ISO with a link to SIL, and link the 'maintained' notice to the Linguist List page. Now that I have AWB back, it will be easier to mass-change the pages. (There are about 250 of them.)

(This is another open project that I started months ago. I was waiting for a complete listing.) — kwami (talk) 20:34, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

No, that is not correct. SIL is the sole authority responsible for assigning and maintaining the ISO 639-3 codes. LinguistList has web pages that link to the ISO code pages (sometimes), but that is different than being the maintenance authority. --Taivo (talk) 22:42, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

SIL is the registration authority "for the purpose of processing requests for alpha-3 language codes." LL may request new codes from SIL the RA, which if they are long extinct or conlangs are then maintained by LL, otherwise by SIL. LL lists the following "Code Standards": SIL, Linguist List, and Private Use. The first two are used when the "Code Authority" is ISO 639-3: that is, either SIL or Linguist List may maintain the standards for ISO 639-3 codes. SIL gives boilerplate descriptions, like this: zsk — kwami (talk) 22:59, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

NO CODES ARE OFFICIAL UNTIL APPROVED BY THE ISO 639 JOINT ADVISORY COMMITTEE. SIL does not do it alone, or by fiat. Language List's codes are an INDEPENDENT standard and are not formally recognized. ANYONE may make an application to the ISO 639 Registration Authorities. Language List has no special power or relation to that process. It is NOT CORRECT to say that "either SIL or Linguist List may maintain the standards for ISO 639-3." I write this as an Observer Member of the ISO 639 JAC. Kwami, you don't know what you're talking about. Taivo is right: The ISO codes are the highest authority and must be maintained throughout the language articles on the Wikipedia. Note that the Wikimedia Foundation gives special status to ISO 639 codes: Wikipedias are named using them, for instance, en.wikipedia.org, haw.wikipedia.org, etc. -- Evertype·✆ 23:51, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Evertype, please do not shout. -DePiep (talk) 00:09, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I'M NOT SHOUTING! All right, I am shouting. I'M SHOUTING; I'M SHOUTING; I'M SHOUTING; I'M SHOU (thanks to Clue) VanIsaac_WS^contribs 00:36, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

You're arguing against things I never said, Evertype. I understand at least the general outline of the approval process, but approval is not the issue. We're not talking about LL's informal codes either. Perhaps you can clarify, though: who does maintain the ISO codes? — kwami (talk) 00:11, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

The codes are "maintained" by the ISO authority. If a code is retired, for example, it cannot be reused for a certain number of years (I think 5, but I'm just going from memory on that). After that, the code can be reassigned. But "maintain" is an odd word--the codes don't deteriorate over time. Once assigned, they are permanent unless a modification request is filed with ISO and it is up to ISO to either grant the modification request or to deny it. But it is the ISO Authority's sole responsibility to be the assigner and keeper of the codes. There is no higher authority for the codes and no equal authority for the codes. It is becoming increasingly common for scholarly articles in linguistics journals to include the ISO code following the first occurrence of a language name in the article. It is also a requirement for funding agencies to require the ISO code as part of the funding request, and these codes are then used to track funding over time. Some Native American tribes have become very possessive of their ISO codes since federal funding is tied to a particular code. It's sometimes tricky to modify the extent of a particular code in these cases because there is federal money tied to the code. But all this is managed by ISO and they are the only authority. --Taivo (talk) 00:21, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying SIL is the ISO authority? (Do you mean the registration authority?) Because that's who we've been linking to. — kwami (talk) 00:31, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

And, Kwami, those boilerplate descriptions at the ISO website are exactly the pages that the ISO codes should link to. That's where the links at French language, for example, go. We must be consistent in Wikipedia in what links to what. If you want an additional link to a LinguistList page, then it should be linked separately from the ISO 639-3 link. --Taivo (talk) 00:23, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, no, those are different links, to the Ethnologue website rather than to the main SIL site.

The boilerplate wording is that LL maintains the "language identifier code documentation." — kwami (talk) 00:31, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

No, Kwami. Click on the ISO 639-3 link at French language and it will take you to the official ISO 639-3 entry for French, which is right where it should take you. The official ISO 639-3 authority is under the auspices of SIL, but it is independent of Ethnologue. If you click on SIL's home page ([1]), you will see separate links to ISO 639-3 and to Ethnologue, they are separate functions of SIL. Perhaps that is what is confusing you? If LL is claiming that they maintain the ISO 639-3 identifier codes, they are wrong. Only the official ISO 639-3 authority, which under the control of SIL, has the official codes, maintains them, and assigns them. Our links for ISO 639-3 codes must go directly to the official ISO 639-3 entry at [2]. --Taivo (talk) 00:38, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Taivo. You didn't read what I wrote either time. The boilerplate links were to the Ethnologue site, not to the main SIL site.

SIL says, The ISO 639-3/RA receives and reviews applications for requesting new language codes and for the change of existing ones according to criteria indicated in the standard. It maintains an accurate list of information associated with registered language codes which can be viewed on or downloaded from this website, and processes updates of registered language codes.

However, if you go to the 'viewed on' link they provide, the codes in question are not listed. So they are not being fully maintained on the SIL site.

The boilerplate listing at Ethn., which no-one appears to be reading, says, The language referenced by this code is an ancient, classical, or constructed language with no living mother-tongue speakers, or was identified as extinct before 1950 (when Ethnologue began). Language identifier code documentation for Kaskean [zsk] is maintained by The Linguist List. — kwami (talk) 00:44, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

We're not talking about Ethnologue, Kwami. That is a separate thing from ISO 639-3. And whatever Ethnologue says about LinguistList is trumped by the official ISO 639-3 site. It's like relying on the Obama kids to tell us what the President's policy is. The official authority for all ISO 639-3 issues is the ISO 639-3 Authority, which is independent of both Ethnologue and LinguistList. But you keep throwing out, "If you click here, you go there" without any actual examples. Give me a Wikipedia language page and tell me what to click to replicate what you're confused about. --Taivo (talk) 00:49, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I gave you links. Here's the boilerplate example again, which you said all our articles should link to.[3] (You obviously didn't mean that site.)

I have no problem with linking to the SIL site, if that's the only issue here. My problem is that we use the Ethn entry as a ref for the article. That's fine when the SIL link forwards the reader to the Ethn. site, but in these 250 or so cases it's insufficient for referencing anything more than the code itself.

As for SIL trumping Ethn, I can't find any mention of this there, so I'm not clear on what's being trumped. — kwami (talk) 01:04, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

What we could do (though better discussed on the info box page) is to link to both the SIL and Ethnologue sites for the ISO 639-3 entry. In those cases where the "language identifier code documentation" is maintained by LL, the Ethn. site will have a link to it for the reader. Or we could specify a direct link, so we have both the SIL and LL sites. — kwami (talk) 00:50, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

You are still quite confused about the relationship between Ethnologue, LinguistList, and ISO 639-3. There is no "language identifier code documentation" at Ethnologue or at LinguistList. Zero, zip, nada. The only language identifier code documentation is at ISO 639-3. Ethnologue is a list of modern languages that uses the ISO 639-3 codes to identify its entries, but it is not official and not tied to the ISO 639-3 authority. LinguistList is a list of modern and ancient languages that also uses the ISO 639-3 codes to identify its entries, where there is an existing ISO 639-3 code, but it is also not official. The link to the ISO 639-3 code in Wikipedia must link to the official ISO 639-3 site, not to either Ethnologue or to LinguistList. If you want a separate link to LinguistList or a separate link to Ethnologue, they must not be tied to the official ISO 639-3 link. As we keep telling you, there is no official ISO 639-3 maintenance performed by either Ethnologue or LinguistList. These two lists can propose additions or changes to the ISO 639-3 codes just as I can (and have on about a dozen occasions). But they have no official role whatsoever. --Taivo (talk) 00:59, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

So, we have your word against Ethnologue's. Not that that's a too much of a problem: you seem to have more faith in the reliability of Ethn. than I do, and I would accept you as a more reliable source than I would Ethn. I can ask Ethn. if the statement is incorrect, and also ask LL if their "Code Standard" is spurious. — kwami (talk) 01:15, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your confusion between SIL and Ethnologue is exactly the reason why SIL had to explicitly agree to keep the two independent. Their selection as the ISO 639-3 was quite controversial at the time since the Ethnologue is perceived as a missionary document directed at providing information for Bible translation. There was a large segment of the linguistic community that objected to that. Therefore, SIL had to set up the ISO 639-3 authority as a very separate organization with absolutely no official links between that code authority and the Ethnologue database. They could provide a link to the Ethnologue entry if there was one, but other than that there is no connection. --Taivo (talk) 01:07, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I understand that they are two different things. — kwami (talk) 01:16, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Why ask Ethnologue, then? They have no authority in the matter. Go to the horse's mouth and read their policies. It's all spelled out there no matter what you think Ethnologue and LinguistList are saying. But you're going to end up at the same place--the code link in the language template must go to ISO 639-3 and if you want it to go to Ethnologue or LinguistList, you're going to have to have a separate link. There is simply no substitute for going to the official code page and not to an unofficial page maintained elsewhere. --Taivo (talk) 01:31, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Again, Taivo, you seem to be arguing against something I haven't said. I proposed having a separate link, and you said that was unacceptable. — kwami (talk) 01:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

If you proposed a separate link in the language template to Linguist List, in addition to the link to the official ISO 639-3 code page, then I didn't see it. If that is, indeed, what you are proposing, that is what I proposed and will agree to--two separate and independent links in the language template--one to the official ISO 639-3 code page and a separate one to Linguist List. --Taivo (talk) 02:04, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

But what you originally proposed at the language template article was "maintained at Linguist List" verbiage (which is unacceptable) and a direct link from the ISO 639-3 code to Linguist Link rather than a separate entry for the Linguist List page and no "maintained at" verbiage. --Taivo (talk) 02:06, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

But this discussion can be continued at the language template page since you've moved there. I will move this there as well. --Taivo (talk) 02:07, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Armenian – User:Mahtrqerin

User:Mahtrqerin[4] has been adding and readding Armenian to various articles on individual phones (mostly various ejectives) not in concordance with the info we have at Armenian language and Eastern Armenian. A request for citations has been ignored. Maybe you could help out? --JorisvS (talk) 10:35, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I can no longer mass-revert people, sorry. But I'll take a look at his edits. — kwami (talk) 20:36, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, we don't note the voiced C's as being creaky voiced in E.Arm. If this is correct, he needs to correct the Armenian phonology page first. — kwami (talk) 20:52, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Is that even possible? I thought creaky voice and regular voicing were mutually exclusive phonations. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 22:02, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I assume what he meant was that what has been called "voiced" is really closer to "creaky". — kwami (talk) 22:33, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello, everyone! I haven't been here, in the Wikipedia, for very long, so perhaps this isn't the right place I'm now writing in. I got several messages about my corrections, but didn't know how to reply to them. I hope I've just found where to react and you - who have been undoing my corrections - will see my message. First of all, there's a minor mistake with the word-final rhotic in the word դուռ (dur) (see the close back vowel 'u'): it should be a trill, not a flap/tap. The Armenian letter ռ (= trilled 'r') is uttered as a trill and never as a flap/tap. This is the only possible allophone of this phoneme in Eastern Armenian!!! Must I prove such things by adding references too??? (By the way, I haven't still managed to learn how they're made.) And why is the word-initial Դ (= D) capitalised??? Is the Armenian word for 'door' a proper name these days??? I have corrected the two mistakes, but only got threats. Well, which of you will now correct these errors if I am not allowed? Please do it and thank you! Mahtrqerin —Preceding undated comment added 09:25, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

That wasn't the reason for the warnings. What caught peoples' attention was that you transcribed other consonants in a way incompatible with our Armenian articles. Perhaps you are correct: but if you are, our articles are wrong. Those need to be corrected before we start changing everything else. And to do that, you need sources: some linguistic description of Armenian that will buttress your argument.

Another problem was that when someone reverted you, you started a fight over it. (See edit war.) That's not a productive use of our time. You can use the talk page of a central article to present your argument. I suggest Talk:Armenian language or Talk:Eastern Armenian. — kwami (talk) 09:52, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Mahtrqerin, I redid your edit to Close back rounded vowel because it was in agreement with what we have at Eastern Armenian and at wikt:դուռ. In this specific case sourcing would therefore not be much of an issue. --JorisvS (talk) 10:06, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

All right. Thank you both for your answers and your recent correction, JorisvS. Now I'd like to know what was wrong with the glottal stop that the Armenian example had that it went missing? Right, it's not a regular phoneme but a marginal one, however it DOES exist in Armenian as it does in English RP.Mahtrqerin —Preceding undated comment added 10:17, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

kwami, the Armenian voiced plosives and affricates have been for more than a century considered to be breathy-voiced (like the Indian ones) and go on being seen so even today. A huge amount of information - false information - can be found on this topic anytime anywhere: each and every linguist copies out this false theory in his/her work and that's awful. But! Recent studies HAVE shown they ARE really creaky-voiced (= laryngealised): we DO narrow our throat when uttering these poor b, d, g etc. but not vice versa - we do not widen the throat to sound breathy (Werner Winter's Armenian Phonology, which I haven't still managed to find on the Web). Moreover, creaky b, d, g etc. CAN be considered as the feature that makes the Armenian accent. For long Soviet decades this creaky pronunciation was stigmatised and a widely-known fact - radio and TV newsreaders were specially re-taught to sound more Russian ('dark' l, a 'darker' r and, of course, no 'peasant-like' creaky b's, d's, g's etc.). These creaky-voiced phonemes are also specially marked in Adjarian's dictionary for dialectal pronunciation.Mahtrqerin —Preceding undated comment added 10:53, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. This is all good info, but belongs on the Armenian talk pages. Once those pages are corrected and properly sourced (if you can provide the names, as you did here, others can verify them), then there should be no further problem with editing the consonant pages.

You need to understand that we get some very ignorant people here who think they know better than everyone else. We might, for example, get someone who insists that Armenian has clicks, or tone, and it's his native language so how dare we contradict him. That's why we insist on sources. — kwami (talk) 11:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about creaky voice, but I did find an interesting table in some notes I took a long time ago from Encyclopedia of European languages (Price 1998)

Correspondance in initial position

Indo-European	d	dʰ	t
Sebastia	d	dʰ	tʰ
Erevan	t	dʰ	tʰ
Istanbul	d	dʰ	tʰ
Sason, Middle Armenian	d	t	tʰ
Malatya, SWA	d	tʰ	tʰ
Classical Armenian, Əylis, SEA	t	dʰ	tʰ
Van	t	t	tʰ

— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 14:28, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

kwami, I understood. Thanks.

Aeusoes1, thanks. This is what is called Seven Armenian dialect types. These dʰ's used to be thought of as breathy, but they ARE really creaky. --Mahtrqerin (talk) 10:27, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

/r/ at Japanese phonology

Hello again Kwami --

I know you're trying to wind things down. I wonder if I could ask your help in clarifying the description of /r/ at Japanese phonology? I had thought from our previous discussion at User_talk:Kwamikagami/Archive_17#Q_re:_recent_change_to_Japanese_phonology.23Vowels that ⟨ɽ⟩ should be used for the phonetic transcription of /r/, but Japanese phonology only uses it phonemically, using variously ⟨ɾ⟩, ⟨ɺ⟩, and ⟨ɾ̠⟩ for the phonetic transcription. Did I misunderstand you in our previous conversation, and ⟨ɽ⟩ should instead only be used for phonemic transcription?

I ask in part as a new user over at EN WT seems to be using the Japanese phonology page as their main resource for entering Japanese pronunciations, and they are using ⟨ɺ̺⟩ for phonetic /r/. Reading the Alveolar lateral flap page describing ⟨ɺ⟩, I don't think Japanese has this sound, as it's not all that lateral, at least to my ears. In some dialects, such as Iwate-ben as spoken by older folk, the Japanese /r/ comes much closer to liquid [l], but that's exceptional and not part of the standard language.

Anyway, I look forward to your insight. -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 17:02, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I believe we got the ⟨ɽ⟩ transcription from the IPA Handbook. Japanese /r/ is postalveolar, but not truly retroflex, so ⟨ɽ⟩ is a rather broad transcription. J. /r/ is also unspecified for centrality. The IPA is simply inadequate to transcribe this, because there are no diacritics for 'lateral' or 'central', and you have to choose one or the other when you choose a base letter, and for Japanese we don't want to choose.

With the accent I'm used to, I hear a clear [ɺ̠] before /o/, and a clear [ɾ̠] before /i/ (as I put in the article, since we have refs that agree). [ɺ̺] works too: it's definitely apical. Maybe because of that, or the retraction, or both, it sounds as much like a [d] as like the Spanish [ɾ], at least to my ears.

I don't really know what the convention is, but I suspect that lateralness is marked, so that you only use lateral letters for actual laterals, and otherwise central letters. Since J. /r/ isn't specifically lateral, any lateral transcription would be (perhaps) more misleading than a central transcription. That's like only using voiced-stop letters for actual voiced stops, and voiceless letters as the default, including indeterminate voicing. /p t k/ in Australia, for example. But not everyone does that: Australian /p t k/ are very different from Polynesian /p t k/, and some authors transcribe them ⟨b d g⟩ to indicate that, though it's actually no more accurate. I think some people want to transcribe J. /r/ as lateral to capture the fact that it can be, which isn't what an English speaker would normally expect from transcription of ⟨ɽ⟩. No matter what we choose, though, it's going to be misleading. — kwami (talk) 19:42, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the clarification. I note what must be dialectical variance in the audio files at Commons; /ra/ and /ro/ have /r/ sounds that are extremely close at [5] and [6], but I'm used to hearing /ra/ as more of a tap and less of a lateral, much as you noted on the Japanese phonology page describing "[ɾ̠] before /a/". The audio files at Commons for ら り る れ ろ (each linked to the relevant Commons file) sound a bit like [ɺ̠ä] [ɾi] [ɾ̠ɯᵝ] [ɺ̠e̞] [ɺ̠o̞], if I've got the symbols correct. /re/ almost sounds more like [le̞] really, but that doesn't jive with what I hear around me at work. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 22:31, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Theoretically, we could transcribe it ⟨ɾ̠ˡ⟩. A superscript letter confers its quality to the main letter, so this would mean a (central) flap with an element of laterality. However, since the IPA chart specifically illustrates this pattern for lateral release, it would be confusing if not explained carefully, and probably most people would argue that it's wrong, believing that when illustrations are given in the chart or Handbook, that they are the only proper way to use the symbols. It is, however, the only way I can think of capturing the nature of the sound in IPA. (A parallel situation exists regarding the vowel [ɯᵝ], which one might misread as having an off-glide (as indeed it does in Swedish). This comes from the ambiguity in the IPA as to whether a diacritic indicates simultaneous pronunciation or not.) — kwami (talk) 23:47, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Umbrian languages

Hi kwami, I'm interested in some inconsistencies between praenomen and other articles. The page says that the Sabine language belonged to the Oscan family, but a few months ago you listed it at Umbrian languages as a member of that family instead. Could you provide a source for this? - Cal Engime (talk) 19:17, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

It's listed as Umbrian at Sabine language, though it ref's LingList, which is not a RS. They give a composite tree,[7] but don't differentiate their sources. However, Woodward 2008 says that the split into Oscan and Umbrian is not supported by the evidence, so the article should probably be redone. — kwami (talk) 19:40, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Attention all users & Kwami

• Kamarupi and Kamrupi holds the same meaning where first is Sanskrit usage second current usage with Sanskrit phoneme (first vowel) suppressed. The second is how Ahom people both Mongoloid as well as Dravidian use as well while Ahom people speaking dialect is what is Assamese basis. Writing in Bengali script, however, both Kamarupi and Kamrupi does not distinguish vowel-phoneme suppression, i.e. the conjunct /mr/ is not used, while Chatterji was Bengali. Currently Bengali script is used to write both Assamese and Bengali languages.

Do you understand above if not what you do not understand?

Kurmaa (talk) 13:43, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Bodu Bala Sena or Bodu Bala Senaa?

I have just made an article for Bodu Bala Sena (බොදු බල සේනා in Sinhala language), but I see that Arab News is spelling it "Bodu Bala Senaa",[8]. This spelling seems to be spreading very quickly as the article is pasted all over the internet, and the organization receives more international attention. The organization's own YouTube and Facebook websites use "Bodu Bala Sena", as have earlier Sri Lankan sources. Ordinarily I would chalk it up to a typo, but the Arab News seems to be very strong in English, and the Sri Lankan sources, not so much; still, my gut reaction is to go with how the organization spells its own name. Google Translate doesn't do Sinhala yet, so I have puzzled over the Omniglot description of the Sinhala alphabet.[9] The problem seems to be with the last symbol නා, but that's as far as I can get. The Arabic letter ع is sometimes transliterated as "aa", perhaps this is how නා sounds to the Arab ear. Or perhaps it is a typo. Is this something I should be concerned about? Thanks. Neotarf (talk) 09:05, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

The last word is sēnā. Both vowels are long, AFAICT. Normally we just omit the macron when assimilating into English, and that's true for Arabic as well. It would be odd to transcribe it with a ع, and I seriously doubt that's how it would sound to an Arabic ear. (Arabic also has vowel length, and it would presumably be heard as that.) It also seems a bit weird to show only one of the vowels as long. Since the org's preferred spelling accords with normal English practice, I'd go with that. — kwami (talk) 09:21, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I have copied this discussion to the article's talk page. Neotarf (talk) 10:16, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Color-coded braille cells

I noticed that you made up some color coded braille cells. I went through and edited them to a significantly smaller file size, but I'd like to encourage you to take a look at the files in a text editor - the SVG file type is a plain-text XML file, and quite easy to understand and hand edit to make simple changes. The graphical editors add a lot of crap to the files that seriously bulk up images as simple as the braille cells we've been working with. Just wanted to let you know if you ever wanted to colorize or alter other SVGs. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 09:49, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Yeah, that does look pretty easy. — kwami (talk) 09:57, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I'd like to get the 5th group marked up some way as well. I just haven't figured out a good color scheme or what exactly to color. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 10:43, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I was going to do the whole thing a medium grey (since the whole thing moves), but decided it wasn't worth the effort. But I think that's the way to go: there is no color which would be appropriate. — kwami (talk) 19:41, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Hm, maybe a bit darker, like 60%. — kwami (talk) 21:35, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that might be a good choice. A 60-70% grey, or even something like a dark seafoam green. I'll work on it. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 02:23, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I already did it, but I did it manually per your recommendation above, and just chose "gray". I think a somewhat darker shade might be better is all. — kwami (talk) 02:27, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

If you want to do it, you can enter colors in the standard "#rrggbb" format instead of color names - I think anything between #404040 and #606060 is pretty good. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 02:44, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

You can, if you like. I just didn't want you to waste your time creating a 2nd set of files. — kwami (talk) 02:46, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

pointy brackets

I see you used these special brackets like this: ⟨⠔⠔⟩. Is this a general notation form of something (of course I saw it earlier, in IPA)? If so, shouldn't it be a nice template? Like: {{pointy brackets|letters}}? If it's logic, we can. -DePiep (talk) 00:27, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

They're mentioned under angle brackets. They're used for two things, orthography (in the original script) and transliteration (in the target script). I'm not sure it's worth a template. The brackets themselves are supplied by your edit box under 'symbols'. — kwami (talk) 00:36, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Linguist list code

This code any time? Doncsecz^talk 05:53, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

If you mean, should we always add it? no, that's not our practice. We generally use it when there is no documentation at Ethnologue. It would also be appropriate when LL has better documentation than Ethnologue, or better references, but in general LL is not a reliable source, and so shouldn't be used by default. (Or at least I haven't been, and I'm the one who added support for it. You could ask on the Wikiproject if people think it would be a good idea; easiest way would be to recode the info box to repeat any ISO codes as LingList codes, and collapse them when we have more than X number of them, but I don't know how many people would use them.) — kwami (talk) 05:57, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Northern Vanuatu languages

As far as I have gleaned from North and Central Vanuatu languages, as per Lynch, Ross and Crowley (2002), and Northern Vanuatu languages (which I've just restored), as per the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database (2008), the groups are not identical in membership and therefore two separate pages would seem to be necessary (therefore I've not changed the second link back into a redirect, the way it was prior to Womtelo's pseudo-move action). How is such a situation usually resolved? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:36, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd merge them back together. When it comes to subbranches of close-knit families like this, every source will likely have slightly different membership. If we separated them out, we'd have a separate article for every scholar! If a different conception requires a different article, then we need a 2nd Indo-European article for the inclusion of Tartessian within Celtic, a third for those who treat Baltic and Slavic as separate branches, etc etc etc. We'd have dozens of IE articles. And Austronesian would be even worse.

Far better, IMO, to merge them together and have separate sections for different conceptions of the branch/family, as we do for Tibeto-Burman or Trans-New Guinea. (The difference in name is not relevant, any more than it is in Indic vs Indo-Aryan, or in Siouan vs Siouan-Catawban, etc.) Usually we only have separate articles for the same family when there is some dispute that's notable in itself, such as Indo-Hittite. That's not the case here.

We know that lexicostatistics is not a reliable method for determining the branching of language families, so the database results should be secondary to actual experts like Crowley and Ross, if we bother to mention the database at all. I'm the one who put all that stuff in there to begin with, but as they say, I've come to realize the error of my ways. — kwami (talk) 19:58, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Your request for undeletion

I have restored LINGUIST List. Cheers, JohnCD (talk) 12:02, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. — kwami (talk) 18:06, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Link to Complaint Form

It seem I am unable to find the link that has information on complaint method. About a week ago Kwamikagami posted it in this page, I recall seeing it. Kwamikagami-San could you post it again please. Appreciate it very much.

Kurmaa (talk) 02:18, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean WP:dispute resolution? — kwami (talk) 02:50, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! In that link I see arbitration. This will work. I asked a user to correct a plagiarized page. He did not correct it. Kurmaa (talk) 11:17, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

FYI, Plagiarism is copying the work of another and passing it off as your own. You seem to be referring to incorrect or misleading information, which is something different. You might first try fixing the information yourself by finding sources that corroborate what you are saying is true. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 12:53, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Kurmaa objects to the map http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ahom-kingdom-c1826p.png showing Kamrup as a part of the Ahom kingdom. His objections have been answered here. Now his objection is plagiarism. Chaipau (talk) 13:04, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, he uses that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 16:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Bog

Hello Kwami. I didn't know you'd got into trouble with "the authorities" - I hope you still manage to get pleasure out of contributing. More to the point, you're the only port of call I know of to help with language-related issues! My specific question is this: can you say whether or not I was right to revert this edit here? My decision was based solely on the pictures - perhaps not the best basis. It might help if you understand that there is a subtle difference between the definition of 'bog' and other wetlands, as outlined in the first paragraph of this article (and the intro of the bog article itself is also quite helpful). Many thanks. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:38, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

It looks like both words might correspond to 'bog' in English, though there's no reason the distinctions in Russian should match those of English – they generally don't. Болот seems to be closer to 'wetland', and торфяник more specifically 'peat bog' (it's derived from the word for peat). (For example, the болот article discusses the three–four types of болот, though they don't correspond exactly to our four types of wetland: the Russian translation of English "wetland" is water-болот-land.) But there's the further issue that all of those WP articles iw with each other. If we start screwing with that, it can become a real mess. So the question is, what does each Russian article link to, and which of those link to WP-en 'bog'. If you want to change one WP in the chain, you need to change all of its iw's, and the iw's of all the WPs it links to, or the bots will just uncorrect you. — kwami (talk) 07:51, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I hadn't thought about iw consistency, as I've never really forayed into it before. I decided to self-revert, seeing as торфяник is more specifically 'peat bog', and the IP who made the initial changes has made edits to that Russian article (though I note that that article doesn't connect to the English wiki at all). As an aside, I'm interested as to why you changed the spellings of the 2 Russian words from what they are in their article titles - is it a question of context? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 10:41, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

We may end up with a mess, if the bots try making all the iw's consistent. Oh well, see what happens.

Didn't change the spellings. Maybe you're seeing the difference between roman т and italic т? Same letter. — kwami (talk) 17:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Your last statement is new information for me (this whole subject not being something I've studied) and hence a bit of a puzzle; can you point me in the direction of somewhere that will explain why they're the same letter? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:14, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Sure: Cyrillic#Letterforms and typography (see the bottom image). — kwami (talk) 07:59, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I was ignorantly looking at them through "Latin alphabet eyes" so to speak - now I know better. Editing Wikipedia can be great for opening new avenues of learning! PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Changing case

I read your message on changing case. Do you ever find out how? I have the same requirement. Some sites say use \U or \L in front of which you want to change the case of, and \E to end, but that doesn't seem to work in AWB. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 15:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

No, I never did. I stopped looking. For AWB, you could always have 26 rules, A → a (as in a switch function), etc. — kwami (talk) 18:01, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the switch function are you talking about 26 different rules else I don't understand how Regex in AWB does a switch. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 22:07, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I was thinking of template syntax. Yeah, in AWB you probably just need to make 26 separate rules. Bit of a pain. Of course, the coding does already exist, since AWB changes section-header case. If you can take it apart, maybe you can see what they do. — kwami (talk) 00:00, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

The coding of AWB is not in Regex. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:06, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh well. — kwami (talk) 00:14, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed your discussion on the AWB page. I thought maybe I could help. What are you trying to do? I don't think you need to make 26 rules but I don't completely understand the problem either. BTW AWB is coded in C# with bits of other things like VB (most of the plugins). Kumioko (talk) 01:02, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Basically If \b(x|y|z)word)\b replace with Upper($1)word. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 01:16, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that doing something like that would be better done as a module and I think I can do that but I don't have time to do it tonight. If you can give me a couple days I think I can do something like what your looking for. Using a module we can use some of the AWB tools and functions for that I think. Kumioko (talk) 01:54, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer but it's fine. I'll manage without it. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 02:34, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok no problem. Good luck and happy editing. Kumioko (talk) 02:36, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Fonts used in IPA charts

Thanks for your excellent work adapting the IPA chart to Wikipedia. I am curious as to the fonts used. In the version found here it is stated that the fonts used are Gentium and Doulos SIL, but it seems to me that the font used for headlines, titles etc. is something else. Do you remember which it is? — Pinnerup (talk) 21:38, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe it was Candara, which is a default MS font. (MS actually designed a nice looking font!)

BTW, I don't think there's any Doulos in this version, since the expansion of Gentium. For that matter, no more hand-made letters either. — kwami (talk) 00:13, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

You are right! It is of course Candara. Thought it looked familiar. I remember thinking that was a nice font, but forgot all about after I switched away from Windows. Thanks for the advice. —Pinnerup (talk) 17:20, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Braille Patterns move

Name was set earlier through talk. It's a Unicode block name. Can you revert? (I can't find the button). -DePiep (talk) 09:06, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Okay. — kwami (talk) 16:23, 10 August 2012 (UTC)+

Thanks. Redirects are cheap. -DePiep (talk) 23:18, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Welcome back

We lose far too many valuable editors as a result of silly disputes.--Grahame (talk) 02:47, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you didn't go away, but far too many do.--Grahame (talk) 02:53, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Don't really know yet. I'm trying to pass off interminable POV battles, to wind down the projects I'm working on, and to not take on new ones (like cleaning up the classification sections of the Austronesian articles, which I'd been planning on since the current mess is partly my fault). — kwami (talk) 03:04, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Hamari Boli = Hindi-Urdu Reinvented!

Guardian of Hamari Boli

Most sincere gratitude for your invaluable contributions to Hindi-Urdu related articles on English Wikipedia. Forever indebted to you -and wikipedia of course- for telling it like it is.. Amazing how you never gave up and went thru all the troubles dealing with zealots. Bravo! You're one of the inspirations that led to the genesis of http://www.HamariBoli.com edge.walker (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

So, how do you write the sounds that the English alphabet doesn't have letters for? Any non-self-published sources? — kwami (talk) 22:09, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

the idea is to evolve an open-source scheme on project wiki.. just sent mail.. plz chk :)edge.walker (talk) 22:53, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Could be fun, though I don't know enough to contribute. One serious problem, though: any script that looks funny is probably going to fail. That includes camel case, which is what you're proposing. It may be okay for chat rooms, but not for serious publication. And ḍ ṇ ṛ ṣ ṭ ġ have accessibility issues. I don't know of any established convention that would be practical. — kwami (talk) 23:56, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

well yes that's a huge problem. that's why the wiki approach, to evaluate and deliberate upon all options to figure out the most practical one. imo, choice is either diacritics or camel case. as u note, diacritics will always have accessibility issues. that's why started with camel case. but its not set in stone. all has to be decided with community input.

as you have already read on the wiki, the HB Initiative is a full-scale Language Planning enterprise, you're a pro-wikipedian, am sure you can contribute in many places, most importantly Admin if not content itself. it all seems impossible i know but i assure you this aint a dud. i know open-source works, i know there are people like you who love to share knowledge. what i've yet to figure out is how to build the initial momentum. with just right combination of controversy, it sure will get attention. the value proposition is straight-forward. "Enabling Open-source collaboration among Devanagari-Nastaliq writers". you know how useless Hindi and Urdu wikis are... -- edge.walker (talk) 12:39, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Dashes bug

The bug you reported is already fixed in the new release. I strongly recommend that you download rev 8207 from http://toolserver.org/~awb/snapshots/ -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:14, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 09:15, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Help on User Behaviour

A user (say User-1) cited meru shikhara lai in a Wikipedia talk page on 3 August 2012.

Same day I asked User-1 to write entire hymn in his native language script as because I found lai can have at least 3 different words in his native language. In addition, I asked User-1 to write 2 other words both in her/his native script as well as Devanagari script.

A 2nd user (say User-2) jumped over and started responding for User-1. The User-2 indicated that s(he) is not disingenuous - s(he) as well as User-1 would not respond.

It is 10-day past since I asked for this information.

Any feedback/suggestion so that I get the information from User-1 and or User-2?

Appreciate it very much, thanks!

Kurmaa (talk) 13:18, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

So, she responded but would not respond? A user might not be here any more, or might just ignore you. All you can do is ask, if they aren't doing anything wrong. If they have email enabled, you can try that. — kwami (talk) 19:54, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

This is a cute mischaracterization of an exchange at Talk:Kamarupi Prakrit. I do believe the issue that User-1 has with the request is its seeming irrelevance to editing/improving the project. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 03:13, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Looks like both User-1 and User-2 are still in Wikipedia, probably not e-mail enabled. As 1st step I am considering contacting them on each User's personal talkpage. I shall update here, appreciate it very much for the input. -Kurmaa (talk) 04:26, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Second language acquisition

I've re-raised the hyphen issue but I didn't think to notify people. Please see Talk:Second language acquisision#Hyphen and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 August 12#Category:Second-language acquisition. Thanks, rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:44, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

August 2012

The word you added to the article List of planetary-mass objects in the Solar System has been reverted. The words said planet-sized moons, but almost all of them are not planet-sized. I changed it to medium to big-sized moons. 71.8.121.8 (talk) 02:48, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me, but "big-sized" is not defined. They are planet sized: They meet the IAU physical definition of a planet. Stern calls them "satellite planets" for this very reason. — kwami (talk) 03:05, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

ISO 639-3

I've just had an email exchange with the change authority at ISO 639-3 and asked about any changes to the authority vis a vis Linguist List. She said that there are a lot of different rumors floating around, but that there are no official changes to the current authority. If there was some official change, then she would know, but there are only rumors at the present time. --Taivo (talk) 23:12, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Māori Braille

Hi Kwami! Do you have an alternate link to use here? The blacklist filter does not like the version you used.  -- WikHead (talk) 00:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

How's that? Same link, I just filtered out the Google cruft. — kwami (talk) 00:42, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

That's perfect Kwami! I knew it was a redirect (I've seen many of these), but rather than it load in the browser to refresh the link, it was trying to force a file-download. The good thing is that we've got it fixed! Thank you kindly. :)  -- WikHead (talk) 00:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Response needed

Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests#spacing_w_ndash_template. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:49, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Shogi variants

If you are still monitoring those pages, I've been adding Ralph Betza's notation for fairy pieces (Fairy chess piece#Ralph Betza's "funny notation"). Double sharp (talk) 12:22, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Template:Language families

Why did you revert my edit bolding Quechua languages on this template? It is clearly one of the larger native language families in South America, with ~10 million speakers. --Eastlaw ^talk ⁄ _contribs 01:39, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

It is not clearly one of the larger families. In some classifications, it's one of the smallest. We don't just add our favorite languages to such things, we need a consistent approach. The current approach is consistent. If you want to change the approach, you need to apply your new criteria to all equally. — kwami (talk) 02:36, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Instead of being condescending, perhaps you could explain what this "current approach" is. Are we ranking the largest language families in terms of number of speakers, or in terms of number of languages per family?

I don't see it as being condescending, or being a dick: You asked a question, and I answered you. If you don't want the answer, don't ask.

The current cutoff is mentioned somewhere in the discussion pages or edit summaries. But I don't care if you change it, so long as you're responsible about it. — kwami (talk) 04:26, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Serer articles

Most of these have been clearly pov, based on what are close to fringe ideas of Gravrand (if he really claims a 10,000 year old Serer culture, I haven't read what he says). I'm trying to edit them so that they present other viewpoints, interested in helping? Dougweller (talk) 09:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite, but I'm winding down on WP, and have had my fill with those articles. And yes, Gravrand does appear to be a crackpot. — kwami (talk) 10:10, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I understand, but it's a shame as these articles are pretty badly pov and I'm almost the only one editing them. At least with Tamsier gone it's easier to try to add other views that disagree with Gravrand (not that I am convinced that even Gravrand's views are accurately presented, the more I look the more mess I find). Dougweller (talk) 11:35, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that edit. The more I look the more annoyed I get. I don't mind him calling me a friend of Hitler, I do mind the pov mess he's made of articles. And I keep finding mistakes in his French translations. He assumed 'arche' meant arche and used that spelling instead of 'ark', including the wikilink. He must have used Google translation on a pdf because that provided the non-word 'irenus' instead of the actual French word 'venus', which made a major difference - and he linked it to a 2nd century bishop which made no sense at all. He managed to translate 'predecessors' as 'ancestors' which nicely fitted his pov, although he doesn't seem able to decide if the Serer had ancestors or if they've been here since homo sapiens began, or at least since the neolithic. It's probably that neolithic claim, claims about 10,000 year old psalms and inscriptions, that bug me the most. And Tamsier never would tell me where these inscriptions were, almost certainly because he had no idea. And some of his edits make it look as though he believes some of the religious stuff, saying that names of the two first people weren't their real names, etc. The French articles aren't much better but than that's no surprise. I've bought Galvan's book and will try to fix these, but one problem is that the sources conflict so much, almost certainly because some are just poor and repeating what others have said. Dougweller (talk) 16:40, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Hitler wouldn't come to my last Bday party, so I no longer call him a friend.

I probably should have taken a harder line w Tamsier, but at least he's gone now.

As for French WP, a French editor once told me not to worry, because no-one reads it anyway. — kwami (talk) 16:46, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Help on User Behaviour

This is just to update further to my 3-Aug-2012 note on User-1 and User-2 behaviour.

• User-1 has responded covering 1st bullet of my inquiry, the response for other bullet is yet to be received - hoping s(he) will response for this bullet soon.

• It has been observed that User-2 exhibits parametric-manners - a manner that is repeated in a manner inappropriate is said to be a parametric-manner. User-2, in addition to indicating not disingenuous in the past, has indicated to be English language guru. Usually this behaviour is observed among some non native English speakers.

Kurmaa (talk) 21:34, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Just to update Kwamikagami-san and others - it appears that confused User-2 has filed RFC/U against Kurmaa. -Kurmaa (talk) 04:54, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Just another update:-

The duo in their RFC/U against Kurmaa stated "(and neither of us had the information anyway)", but User-1 had used that research thesis' info to wage war on a minority-community in Wikipedia while User-2 talks for User-1. Neither user-1 nor user-2 belongs to this minority-community. -Kurmaa (talk) 17:48, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

It's good that you have taken a look at the RFC, Kurmaa. There is a spot for you to give your side of events. I recommend that you take advantage of that. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 00:40, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

• To speak for a under-represented minority-community, it is not required for Kurma to fill any spot.
• But, he may consider to re-visit after the duo (User-1 and User-2) meet the FOIA request deadline.

Kurmaa (talk) 03:37, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not an admin any more, so I'm not dealing with this kind of stuff. — kwami (talk) 04:19, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Apology

Please accept my sincere apology for calling you biased and for any personal attacks from me to you specifically. I should have researched more first and not have included you in the group of other users, who have a record of biased “contributions” in Wikipedia (particularly User:Jingiby). I now realize that any inaccuracy in your comments at the talk page of Hellenic languages was purely unintentional.

I had also misunderstood the meaning of the picture on your user page and perceived it as offensive. Perhaps you can empathise a little by picturing seeing a Samurai instead of a Spartan in the same condition on the user page of a Greek individual. But I really should have read the text accompanied with the picture first, before jumping into conclusions.

I hope that you could take a little of your time to browse through the sources and the points made in the text bellow, that show the reason that I disagree with your expressed opinions mentioned there.

Thank you, Giannis

See Wikipedia:Randy in Boise. — kwami (talk) 15:31, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Apology not accepted then. As you wish.188.238.207.244 (talk) 20:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Sure, apology accepted. I didn't feel you had anything to apologize for. — kwami (talk) 23:04, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Extended content

Quoting comments: “Or because Macedonian had no literate tradition. Were all of Alexander's soldiers, who went as far as Afghanistan, Macedonian? — Tamfang (talk) 05:26, 26 August 2012 (UTC)” “No. Most were Greek. And when Alexander spoke Macedonian, his Greek soldiers could not understand him. That doesn't mean it wasn't a Greek 'dialect', of course: Pontic and Tsakonian are not very intelligible to Standard Greek today, so it could be that Macedonian Greek was a mutually unintelligible variety. But the comments above show that this is about politics, and 'proving' who has the right to use the name 'Macedonian', not about language. — kwami (talk) 05:36, 26 August 2012 (UTC)” First issue: “Were all of Alexander's soldiers, who went as far as Afghanistan, Macedonian?” “No. Most were Greek” The answer written thus effectively states that Ancient Macedonians were not Greeks, which is false. The correct answer here would be: “No. Most were other Greeks (ethnically).” It is true that in the early stages of Alexander's campaign, most of the army was Greek and most of those Greeks were non-Macedonian. Latter on, most of the army of Alexander would evolve to consist of non-Greek people Second issue: “And when Alexander spoke Macedonian, his Greek soldiers could not understand him.” Here also we see a false distinction between Macedonian and Greek (ethnically). But also it is not true that other Greeks (non-Macedonian) would not understand Alexander completely. They would, even if with difficulty. There is no evidence to suggest that the Ancient Macedonian Greek dialect was completely, or even for the most part, unintelligible to other Greeks. But being a dialect, distinct from other dialects, it is natural that communication would be somewhat obstructed. Third issue: “That doesn't mean it wasn't a Greek 'dialect', of course: Pontic and Tsakonian are not very intelligible to Standard Greek today, so it could be that Macedonian Greek was a mutually unintelligible variety.” The use of 'dialect' here makes a clear impression to the reader that the word dialect is not used in its full meaning, when it should precisely be used as such. Ancient Macedonian was a Greek dialect, not a Greek 'dialect'. Further, being a Pontic Greek myself (third generation expatriated from Pontos), I can personally attest that our dialect is in fact understood, of course with some difficulty, by other Greeks today. It mostly depends on the cultural background of each individual Greek. For example, it is much easier to converse using Pontic Greek with someone from Crete than it is with someone from Athens. It also helps that my generation today does not have the strong accent that our parents and grandparents have had in the past. This is comparable to the American English dialect of the Southern States in the USA. Comprehension depends on each individual American hearing it. Fourth and final issue: “But the comments above show that this is about politics, and 'proving' who has the right to use the name 'Macedonian', not about language.” I am sorry for calling you biased here earlier. You may be of the opinion that my motivation is political, which I have to say is not entirely false; I will not hide the fact that I have dedicated so much of my time and effort in order to bring the points I am trying to make to everyone's attention is primarily because I am Greek. But the fact remains; the changes I had made in the page and the sources I have provided are substantiated. I did not make any false claims and my sources are bellow for anyone to draw their own conclusions. Even if there are some people that would not accept the evidence presented as proof, this evidence cannot simply be ignored and deleted. They should be there for all to see and judge for themselves. I did not delete nor advocate deletion of any information from the page that I deemed as unsubstantiated, even when there were no sources attached to that information. I would imagine sourced information should be treated at least in the same way. Following are four links that provide evidence, and together (in my opinion) they form proof, that the Ancient Macedonian language was in fact a Greek dialect, probably a subset of Doric Greek, and not a separate language in itself. Also, that the people who spoke the Ancient Macedonian dialect were people of Greek ethnicity and that they were in fact understood by other Greek people, even with some difficulty. Source one; Alexandra Georgakopoulou, Michael Silk (2009); Standard Languages and Language Standards: Greek, Past and Present; Ashgate Publishing Limited. Centre for Hellenic Studies, King's College London; Page 53, page 69, page 71, page 94, page 200, page 264: http://books.google.com/books?id=s1deoQGPLWAC&printsec=frontcover and http://books.google.fi/books?id=s1deoQGPLWAC&pg=PA53&hl=fi&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false and http://books.google.fi/books?id=s1deoQGPLWAC&pg=PA69&hl=fi&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false and http://books.google.fi/books?id=s1deoQGPLWAC&pg=PA71&hl=fi&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false and http://books.google.fi/books?id=s1deoQGPLWAC&pg=PA94&hl=fi&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false and http://books.google.fi/books?id=s1deoQGPLWAC&pg=PA200&hl=fi&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false and http://books.google.fi/books?id=s1deoQGPLWAC&pg=PA264&hl=fi&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false The pages indicated above provide proof that Pontic is a Greek dialect and not a distinct language and also give evidence of the same for the Ancient Macedonian Greek dialect. Source two; George Babiniotis, Bela Brogyanyi, Reiner Lipp (1992); Historical Philology: Greek, Latin and Romance; Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 87; John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam - The Netherlands; Pages 30 to 38: “Our position in this paper is that Macedonian, an Ancient Greek dialect, existed in an oral form […], so it did not suffer any effect from a conservative written tradition [...]”; http://books.google.com/books?id=MnPR4t0JfhsC&printsec=frontcover and http://books.google.fi/books?id=MnPR4t0JfhsC&lpg=PA30&ots=y5t6QWLT9W&lr=&pg=PA38&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false and http://books.google.fi/books?id=MnPR4t0JfhsC&lpg=PA38&ots=y5t6QWLT9W&lr=&pg=PA38&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false The conclusion of the thorough examination of the Ancient Macedonian Greek dialect based on phonetic characteristics shows that it did not in fact comprise a different language. Source three; Titus Livius Livy (Ab urbe condita libri - appr. 25 BCE); Translated by Cyrus Edmonds (2009); The History of Rome (Books XXVII-XXXVI); Digireads.com Publishing; Page 169: “Trifling causes occasionally unite and disunite the Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Macedonians, men speaking the same language”; http://books.google.com/books?id=2Fg9RIt_CpEC&printsec=frontcover and http://books.google.fi/books?hl=en&lr=&id=2Fg9RIt_CpEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA169&ots=KvOBEh9vXa&sig=mluQd1nH82fC7HaM29kZJb82UvY&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false A contemporary to Ancient Macedonians, a Roman historian, clearly stated that the Macedonians spoke the same language with the Aetolians and the Acarnanians, which in turn were other Doric Greek speaking Greeks. No mention of other, non-Doric speaking Greeks, is made by the ancient historian in this grouping; he is clearly not referring to the koini dialect. Hence, the Ancient Macedonian Greek dialect must have been in itself a Doric Greek dialect. And last but not least, source four; Classical Scholars from around the world (2009); Letter to President Barack Obama; This letter about ancient Macedonia was sent to the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, by 372 Classical Scholars from around the world: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_to_Obama_about_ancient_Macedonia and http://macedonia-evidence.org/obama-letter.html#obamacosigners A total of 372 Classical Scholars from Universities from around the world all have signed the letter above, all claiming that the Ancient Macedonians were Greeks and that they spoke the Ancient Macedonian Greek dialect. However much someone might want to accuse all these Scholars of bias (for whatever reasons s/he might have), it is a fact that they are experts in their field. Would they risk their professional credibility signing a document that is false? They would not even sign it if they thought it was somehow inaccurate. Which means that 372 Classical Scholars from Universities from around the world believe it to be true. Who are we to argue? Thank you. 188.238.62.6 (talk) 13:07, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

From your very first argument, it is clear that you can't see past your preconceptions. (To the Greeks, the Macedonians were not Greeks, but barbarians, so your claim makes little sense.) I didn't bother to read the rest. — kwami (talk) 15:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

You are yet another victim of Demosthenes. My sources are just bellow. Whether you choose to seek the truth or not is up to you. I will not bother you any more. Have a good life.

Eugene N. Borza

In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon

Page 5 and page 198

http://books.google.com/books?id=614pd07OtfQC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA337&ots=Uyb3D9_Jil&vq=198&dq=In+the+Shadow+of+Olympus:+The+Emergence+of+Macedon&lr=

http://books.google.com/books?id=614pd07OtfQC&pg=PA198&lpg=PA337&ots=Uyb3D9_Jil&vq=198&dq=In+the+Shadow+of+Olympus:+The+Emergence+of+Macedon&lr=

188.238.207.244 (talk) 20:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

You can find sources that say this, but also sources that say just the opposite. We're not about "truth". — kwami (talk) 23:04, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of File:Aral Sea 2006-2009 L.gif

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Speedy deletion nomination of File:Aral Sea 2009.jpg

A tag has been placed on File:Aral Sea 2009.jpg requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section F9 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the image appears to be a blatant copyright infringement. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted images or text borrowed from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

If you think that the page was nominated in error, contest the nomination by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion" in the speedy deletion tag. Doing so will take you to the talk page where you can explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but do not hesitate to add information that is consistent with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Bulwersator (talk) 12:40, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Wolof language

Can I convince you to take a look at this again? A lot of Tamsier's edits[10] are still in the article, and I don't trust them one bit. If you look at [11] it appears Tamsier knows some Wolofs, and it's pretty clear he's taking sides in the Serer-Wolof dispute. The statement in the article "These figures are misleading because other tribes who have been Wolofized and speak the Wolof language are added to this figure when in fact they are not Wolofs at all" is cited to [12] and imho is a complete misrepresentation that paper (which he uses at other articles, but for some reason never mentions "The present research confirms anecdotal evidence in the Senegalese printed press of the decreasing size of the Serer ethnic group." He also insists here and elsewhere that the Serer are the ancestors of the Wolofs, using [13] as a source, something written by Ebou Momar Taal[14] who seems to have no qualifications that make him any sort of reliable source. Dougweller (talk) 09:53, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd remove everything he wrote. He's shown himself to be completely biased, and to not understand that. — kwami (talk) 10:20, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

If you think he's biased, look at this Talk:Lamane. This so-called 14th c battle is an integral part of several articles he's written, and it didn't take reading his source to find out it is a memory of a 19th century battle that Gravrand is reporting. And why didn't Gravrand know enough to realise this? Dougweller (talk) 17:55, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

FYI

Hi, your name has been mentioned here. Just thought you should know. Samar ^Talk 20:05, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Ayapa Zoque ()

Why the parenthesis?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:11, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

• I'm guessing it was unintentional. I noticed this too. It appears you did the same thing with Fuliiru language ().

I can no longer move pages properly. The parentheses are an obvious error that someone will fix after a couple days, and the article ends up back where it should be. — kwami (talk) 04:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Japanese pronunciation

Hi Kwami, I've been trying to improve articles about Welsh first names a little (so far mainly tinkering). One of them is Iori. I was wondering if you could check that the Japanese pronunciation is accurate. You seemed a good person to ask. Thanks! garik (talk) 02:42, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that's good. — kwami (talk) 04:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Bunu

Well, in my edit summary, I've said that "Bu-Nao" refers only to a portion of people who speak Bunu languages, since most of the other speakers have autonyms that are "no", "nu", and so on (no diphthongs). Martha Ratliff, generally considered to be the premier Western expert on Hmong-Mien languages, also refers to it as Bunu, not as Bu-Nao. "Bu-Nao" is used in the earlier (1980's) publications (as well as Ethnologue, which is based of those) when very little information about those peoples and languages were available. — Stevey7788 (talk) 10:11, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Except that "Bunu" more generally refers to an ethnicity who don't necessarily speak this language. It's a bit like calling Haitian just "Creole". — kwami (talk) 16:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, so to clear up the confusion: I have moved Bu-Nao language#Varieties to Bunu languages. This is because the "Bunu peoples" speak the following Bunu languages. (1) Bunu 布努 (2) Baonao 包瑙 (3) Numao 努茂. My source is Meng Chaoji (2001), who refers to those Bunu languages as "fangyan." Strecker (1987) refers to Baonao as Bu-Nao, which could be a transliteration error (there are many transliteration errors in his paper) or a variant name. In any case, the recent Chinese sources, rather than the older ones, should be used as the standards as they incorporate a lot of recent research. — Stevey7788 (talk) 18:53, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

That adds to the confusion. The varieties of a language should be in the article on the language. When you add the "Varieties" section to Bunu, it looks as though they are the varieties of Bunu. — kwami (talk) 18:56, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

---

So Bunu languages (ISO code:bwx, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bwx) needs to be split up into 3 different languages, each with different articles.

Bunu langauges/branch: (1) Bunu language 布努 (2) Baonao language 包瑙 (3) Numao language 努茂. This follows Meng Chaoji (2001), the most recent authoritative source on the Bunu languages.

Do not follow Ethnologue, since their current classification of Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien, and Tibeto-Burman languages is horrible. It is still constantly being revised and updated, and many more ISO change requests still have to be submitted and approved. Instead, relevant sources from authoritative scholars specializing in the subject should be consulted.

Now look at http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=844-16 . According to Ethnologue there are 4 "Bunu languages," 3 of which are Jiongnai, Wunai, and Younuo. Those are actually not Bunu at all, and are in completely different branches. In fact, they are in the Pa-Hng or She branch. ISO code bwx itself should be "Bunu languages," with the dialects listed as separate languages.

Look up Meng Chaoji (2001) and read the original Chinese for yourself, and various publications on Hmong-Mien languages after that.

— Stevey7788 (talk) 19:12, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I know that. We already say the varieties may be separate languages; whether we lump them together under in a single article is a judgement call. There are hundreds of other such cases: Mixtec language, for example. You're welcome to split up the article, but we'll have the same problem with naming (1) Bunu language 布努 that we have with naming [bwx].

"They are actually not Bunu at all". You mean that they are not [bwx]. They are Bunu according to many sources, which is why I objected to using the name specifically for [bwx]. Meng Chaoji (2001) is great for classification, but not relevant for what we call the article, since the language(s) have names in the English lit.

I agree that the current name is not terribly satisfactory. Perhaps I'm wrong about "Bunu", but from everything I've seen, it's ambiguous in English and often in Chinese as well. — kwami (talk) 19:20, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Then we'll keep it as is due to all the ambiguity and confusion. I wouldn't want to be a "Randy" involved in endless edit wars either. A lot of classificatory work remains to be done on the Hmong-Mien languages, especially Hmongic and Bunu, so the best thing to do is to wait and see what happens (esp. more publications and presentations from Martha Ratliff). It'd be more productive to work on topics that are not as ambiguous rather than argue about something that even the authorities on it are not quite sure about. Again, thanks for the all your wonderful contributions you have made. — Stevey7788 (talk) 19:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

You're certainly no Randy! And you obviously know much much more about this than me. The problem as I see it is that people are not likely to come here knowing the details, but rather after reading classifications like Matisoff, for which these are all Bunu. — kwami (talk) 19:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Tone

The tones are, of course, Chao Tones. They definitely do have general meaning. Anyone who has dabbled even a little bit in Southeast Asian linguistics will know what they mean. Browse some papers on tonal languages of Mainland Southeast Asia, and many will use Chao tones as part of convention. This is one of the very few papers that use the IPA tone glyphs: http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/edmondson1995english.pdf ; most others will not. — Stevey7788 (talk) 18:28, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

They definitely do not have general meaning. The meanings of the numbers is regional; what is 1 in one place will be a 3 or a 5 in another. Since we are a world-wide encyclopedia, we need to stick to conventions recognized around the world, which means the IPA. We can't expect our readers to be familiar with a regional convention, or to remember which regional convention is which. Using those numbers for Kra is like using Webster's pronunciation transcription for US place names—anyone who has dabbled in US dictionaries will know what they mean too—well, sort of. Edmondson is the way to go. — kwami (talk) 18:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

All right, we'll keep it that way. Thanks for the explanation. — Stevey7788 (talk) 19:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I've dabbled a bit in SE Asian linguistics, and I'm constantly mixing up which number is high and which is low, since I've also dabbled in African linguistics, and there the values are the opposite. — kwami (talk) 19:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Iranian languages template needs verification

Hi. This template (here) has wrong data. For example in Kurdish section/classification. Added Gorani and Zazaki in Kurdish family. The template needs review and verification. Zheek (talk) 04:54, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. — kwami (talk) 05:01, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. Zheek (talk) 05:23, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Re: Altaic

My changing of Korean from "Altaic" to "isolate" is not reflective of my position on the Altaic family, your snide, bad-faithed edit summary notwithstanding. Rather, it was based on the information provided in the article itself:

Most historical linguists classify Korean as a language isolate while a few consider it to be in the controversial Altaic language family.

I fail to see how going from saying that "a few" linguists classify a given language in a "controversial" family to going ahead and grouping it in said family makes any sense. Please enlighten me. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 03:51, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Since I'm acting in bad faith, why would you bother to ask? If you'll read the info box, you'll notice that your edit changed nothing in the claimed classification of Korean. Or you could read the several discussions on this very topic. — kwami (talk) 05:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Never said your action was in bad faith, only that your snarky "well it's not about what you think" edit summary was. I'm fully aware of how language infoboxes work—that's why I changed the colouration in the first place. As for discussions, I did in fact read the discussion page. Threads as this and this seemed to be rather in favour of the isolate status, and I brought the colouration in line with that. The reader may not immediately see what the colour means, but should they look at a few other "Altaic" languages and notice the same colouration, it would become confusing (not to mention if they edit the article and see the parameter "familycolor=Altaic" directly contradicting the text of the article). I don't think having a colour for the sake of having a colour is really a strong argument. Tbh, I think that it would be more helpful if Template:Infobox language were to receive a minor overhaul in which "Altaic" is abolished and replaced by new colours for Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, etc. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 05:39, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

You could make that suggestion on the talk page.

Do we do the same for Khoisan, Papuan, Australian, and American? — kwami (talk) 06:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

There's a difference. Those are more umbrella groupings of geographic convenience and neutral implications, not controversial proposed families with minority support. For instance, we have American (areal), not Amerind. If you want a similarly neutral umbrella grouping for the "Altaics", it'd be something like Languages of Eurasia, which is broad to the point of near-meaninglessness (then you also have the problem that not only Altaic languages are spoken in Eurasia). We do already have a dedicated familial colour for Na-Dené, and families such as Turkic and Mongolic are at least as robust, so having a dedicated colour for them isn't a huge stretch of the imagination. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 12:01, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Look, I'm not trying to rustle things up any more than is necessary. If you think there is a strong argument to retain the Altaic colouration, then present it. You're arguably one of the best linguistics editors on the project—that was my reason for directly asking here for an explanation of your reversions. But if you have nothing more to say, then I will take my case to the infobox talkpage. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 18:19, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

This has been brought up several times, and there's been something of an impasse. The consensus we arrived at was to only list 'Altaic' (with a question mark) in the info boxes of the five families involved and of the eponymous languages (Turkish, Mongolian, Japanese, Korean—that is, not at Chuvash or Kalmuk or Evenki), and to retain the green color as ambiguous between a family and an areal group. Separate colors for Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Japonic would also work (though after a while we start running out of easily distinguished colors), but given the passions on both sides whenever anything is changed (or even when maintaining the status quo), I think this should be something to propose and discuss rather than simply apply. There are still those who insist on going around and adding 'Altaic' to every article, and I seem to be the only one reverting them.

It's very much like Khoisan, actually: there are still people who maintain that KS is a valid taxon, but the term is now generally used more as a typological umbrella. — kwami (talk) 19:16, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Could you point me to some recent discussions? Looking around for major discussions, I find this and this from 2006 and this from 2008, but curiously nothing major comes up recently. Recent minor threads as this and this don't seem to indicate much controversy (at least in terms of local consensus) in declaring Altaic to be a minority viewpoint.

I actually don't strongly object to including "Altaic?" in the infoboxes as we have it. The colouration is, to me, more problematic, because there is no way to make the colour reflect the controversy. It's an either/or sort of thing, and having a dedicated Altaic colour almost seems like Wikipedia taking sides in the debate. In cases like the Korean article, it even directly contradicts what is said in the very text of the article, which I think is the most problematic part. You're right about the finite aspect of the colouration, but I think it could be managed. Might have to tweak some of the pre-existing colours, but I think it's feasible. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 23:23, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

They would have been at least a year ago, probably more, and I don't know there they are. Yes, most wanted to leave out Korean and Japonic when considering only those families; however, nearly everyone who accepts Altaic these days includes them (or so it was argued), so Altaic as only Turk-Mongol-Tungus would be odd. It's also odd to color a family of a dozen languages (Japonic) as an isolate. User:Taivo was involved in the discussions, so you might want to ask his opinion; if he disagrees with me, he certainly won't hesitate to tell you.

Sorry if I was rude in the edit summary. Guess I'm so tired of people reverting these (in both directions) that I don't bother trying to be polite any more. — kwami (talk) 00:58, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Japonic could reasonably be given its own colouration, I think. Korean's a little smaller, though. I dunno. The details can be parsed out later if there's sufficient support for recolouring things. I'll drop Taivo a line, though. No worries about the edit summary, I was Editing While Tired at the time and was more irritable than usual anyway. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 02:44, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

The template colors are certainly a delicate matter. If it was a case of simply assigning a different color for each widely-accepted family (ignoring the question of how to define "widely-accepted"), then we'd end up with 200 or so different colors and the value of color-coding the template would be completely lost. If we chose instead to have a separate color for each geographical grouping, then we would lose the value of family colors for Indo-European, Austronesian, etc. So we compromise--some widely-accepted families have their own colors (Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, etc.) while others are subsumed under geographical groupings (the Americas, Papua New Guinea, etc.), and others under typological groupings that might once have been considered genetic (Khoisan, e.g.). We should always avoid the unnecessary proliferation of entities. While I agree that Altaic is a typological grouping and not a genetic one, I don't see the particular value in assigning new colors for 4-5 new families. I am rather of the opinion that "Altaic" is a useful typological color as is Khoisan. If someone really wanted to get excited about coloring, they would develop a system so that each "widely-accepted" top-level genetic group would have its own distinct color, but that the colors were grouped into regional color families--say, purples for non-Austronesian Papua New Guinea families, blues for South American families, reds for Australian families, etc. In that scenario, "Altaic" would cease to exist, but would be colored with 4-5 shades of "Asia colors". But that's far more work than I'm qualified for (or interested in) doing. So, for the time being, I think that the single "Altaic" typological coloring is preferable to 4-5 new colors for small to middling language families. --Taivo (talk) 14:39, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

My reasoning is similar to Taivo's.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:43, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I would, however, like to see a question mark added after "Altaic" in the language color quilt, in the same way that "Nilo-Saharan" is listed with a question mark. --Taivo (talk) 14:50, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I guess I understand now (adding a question mark would be good though, per Taivo I've gone ahead and done this [15]; feel free to revert if they are any disagreements ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 04:03, 7 September 2012 (UTC)). Nevertheless, the colouration for Korean (the trigger for this discussion) still bothers me a bit in its contradiction of the article itself, but if others generally agree that it's acceptable, then I suppose I can live with it. In addition, I also think the article for Altaic should stress the typological view more, if that's how it is to be viewed here. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 15:16, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Now here's something. Hadza is generally considered an isolate and is coloured accordingly, but is sometimes included under the Khoisan umbrella. This seems to me a similar case to Korean. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 03:57, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Austro-Asiatic classification

Check out this paper by Sidwell & Blench (2011): http://rogerblench.info/Archaeology/SE%20Asia/SR09/Sidwell%20Blench%20offprint.pdf It's a goldmine of valuable info.

— Stevey7788 (talk) 07:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 08:23, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

that Elu language wordlist you threw out

To my mind, that wordlist served a useful function which it wouldn't do so well if it were spread across umpty pages on Wiktionary, and that's give some idea of the sound changes. For that, even better to have a direct citable list of sound changes, sure, but I don't know where to find one. With the list it was possible to see some things that the text above states more awkwardly or not at all: e.g. alongside *p > /v/ we have *k g > zero with various hiatus-resolvers, but only when V_V in Sanskrit; the epenthetic vowel is mostly /u/, and some ?unstressed internal V become /u/ as well; etc. 4pq1injbok (talk) 02:15, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

They can be kept together as an appendix at Wikt. Illustrating sound changes is fine, but not raw word lists. We're not a dictionary. — kwami (talk) 15:54, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

kheeri or Kheeri—a proper name?

Since you recently edited Template:Cheese dishes to lower case the names of three items, including Chhena kheeri, I would like to know your basis for determining that these are not proper names. Please reply at Talk:Chhena kheeri. Also, if you are a former administrator, I would have expected that you are familiar with the procedures for moving articles at WP:RM. Please don't put {{Requested move}} or {{move}} on article pages as you did here. – thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 14:51, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

The writers of those articles capitalized all topical nouns, as if we were in the 17th century. I uncapitalized them. — kwami (talk) 15:58, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

[phoneme page] Hi, Kwami

I've seen that you and Aeusoes seem busier lately, so maybe someone can cause a mess in the house when all people are out... Then, please review this edit of mine. I am asking you for it because, may seem ridiculous, but I had horrible emotional reactions when someone removed a part of an article that I actually liked to develop many months after, and did it in an almost accusative way (you know my newbieness of just a few months ago); and I waited a long time until I had certainty of my correctness at including such Portuguese allophones in these boxes.

Also, I am a bit ashamed of saying it just right now, but I totally support your place at adminship, because you are just an amazing person. I am not used at being particularly colaborative here apart of article pages, so only in late August I saw a part of the things that happened here many weeks before. Cheers. Lguipontes (talk) 19:45, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I think that's really info for the Portuguese phonology article. The box at Velarized alveolar lateral approximant is meant for illustrations of varieties which have [ɫ], not ones which don't. At most, you might make a note saying some have [u̯] instead, but all the details are too much. Really, it's just supposed to be an example: if you know Portuguese, this is the sound we're talking about.

Thanks for the support re. admin. — kwami (talk) 20:21, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it wen in a total verbosity, but I will try to explain my intent. There was only one phrase that described one region that lacked dark el at all, the Northeast (their dialect is different from that of other parts of Brazil by many other phonological factors e.g. from Alagoas to Ceará they use just [h] as the 'rr' sound, don't palatalize 'ni' and/as seem to have no alveolo-palatals at all, in all the region they speak in a syllable-timed way instead of stressed-timed one, if you are used to Brazilian Portuguese you can guess a little by the Commons because most of pt-br files there are by a Northeasterner).

The common sense out there is that Brazil always lacked this phoneme due to bad acquisition of the Portuguese spoken in Europe, which is not true (due to the existence of vocalization there and historic of use of dark el here). It always was commonplace in Centro-Sul, one can know by the music recorded many times ago (it is rare and I never saw in the internet – didn't search for, also –, though). My purpose was detailing the gradual lost of this allophone to vocalization instead of the former dark el standard, in which Brazilian variants still disagree to a certain extent i.e. in Rio de Janeiro people speak 'mil e um' with a dark el in the coda (something inimaginable elsewhere) and if that phoneme in the file is really a velarization (because to my ears it still sounds just like a 'strong lh', not a 'w-like el', maybe because velarization is backer than palatalization ~Captain Obvious here~), everything may sound like that for some speakers (nowhere else people would velarize all el). Is it clear now? I am generally terrible of resolving confusion, eh. I understand that needs repair, just don't know how. Lguipontes (talk) 21:14, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand what needed repair. What you're describing sounds like it should be in the phonology article rather than here. — kwami (talk) 01:10, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thus... I should mantain examples as they are, and just remove information? But this would make the part on Portuguese nonsensical for people not used to the subject, no? Ok, I will try. Lguipontes (talk) 09:25, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

It's a balancing act to provide enough info to illustrate, but only enough. Otherwise, if we update the phonology article, the phoneme articles will be inconsistent, but no-one is likely to notice for months if not years. — kwami (talk) 16:29, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

File:Afaka 1920.png listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Afaka 1920.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Bulwersator (talk) 11:45, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Huron/Michigan

There are substantial policy related issues involved, and wp:ver is policy. BRD is not policy, and you are mis-using it. It does not give you carte blanch to revert any edit, such as tagging unsourced material for sourcing. If you continue I would be forced to report you. At the Michigan-Huron article I suggested a graceful way to work together to evolve that article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:43, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

But you're not tagging unsourced material; you're tagging sourced material simply because you object to the existence of the topic. Plastering an article with spurious tags is disruptive. — kwami (talk) 18:45, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

The core item is that you are warring to remove tags on unourced material. And you did it even more after I indicated that I would be forced to report you if you continued. I am doing so at wp:ani. I am only out to get this resolved. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:55, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I did so. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:26, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Good. We already have some comments on how your edits are "not constructive". — kwami (talk) 22:59, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Croatian language

I'd be very much interested in hearing about your reasons for reverting the last edit of the article's "socio-political standpoints" section.

Footnote 36 only lists that Croatian will become the European Union's 24th official language -- nowhere does it mention the speculations about possible (non)translations between Croatian, Serbian or any accession of Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina or Macedonia to the European Union, yet the way it is worded now, it misleads the reader into thinking that it does.

Secondly, you have removed the info about the origin of the term "Serbo-Croatian" that was sourced with a valid link to Encyclopedia Britannica ... on what grounds?
esse quam videri - to be rather than to seem (talk) 21:59, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Bring it up at talk. Perhaps the other editors will agree with you. We have so many people pushing their POVs on this article that I generally revert anything that isn't an obvious improvement. It took us too long to get to the consensus wording we how have. — kwami (talk) 23:02, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

While this didn't answer the question, I sure will follow your suggestion, thanks. It seems that even obvious improvements get reverted if they don't fit with the POV of some editors.

esse quam videri - to be rather than to seem (talk) 09:25, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

It does answer the question, if you would bother to read it. — kwami (talk) 15:52, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Funny you should say that. :) If you bothered to read what I wrote, you'd know your last comment doesn't apply. Cheers. -- esse quam videri - to be rather than to seem (talk) 23:07, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:ANI

You will stop your edit-warring, or you will be blocked. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:15, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

What's with this "there's no consensus so we have to do what I want"? Your comments show that you had not the slightest idea what this was about. When there is no consensus, go through channels. The article has been there for over five years. — kwami (talk) 00:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

That this bogus concept has been under the radar for five years is irrelevant. It is YOU who's saying, "there's no consensus so we have to do what I want". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:24, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

If there's no consensus to delete, then we do not delete until the article has been through RfD. That's pretty elementary.

And the fact you think the concept is bogus, rather than just minority usage, when we have RS's for it shows that you are not operating from our sources. — kwami (talk) 00:33, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Kwamikagami, we are talking about the NAME of the lakes. What you are trying to war back in conflicts with reality, conflicts with overwhelming sourcing, and has ZERO support (other than you) of the many people now involved and of the people that have commented over the last year. You should just gracefully move on. North8000 (talk) 00:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It has zero support of the people you care to pay attention to, which is restricted to those who agree with you. Really, if you would bother to read the stuff you're debating, you would understand it better.

You were not challenging the "name", you were challenging whether it exists. If you want to rename the article, that is a different matter: make a request to move. — kwami (talk) 00:33, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a formal warning against breaking the 3RR brightline rule and against edit warring across multiple articles regarding the same topic. A WP:3RRN entry with your name on it is the next step. Binksternet (talk) 01:23, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Your use of rollback

Following the discussion here, I have removed rollback, as you appear to be regularly using it to revert editors with whom you are in content disputes.

To request it back, you will need to show that you understand the uses for which it is authorised, and agree not to use it (or its Twinkle or other script equivalent) in content disputes. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

New Lolo-Burmese classification (Lama 2012)

Lama (2012) presents a new classification for the Lolo-Burmese languages, based on computational studies. This is groundbreaking work https://dspace.uta.edu/handle/10106/11161 — Stevey7788 (talk) 15:36, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Great! Our articles are a bit of a mess where we've been relying on E16. — kwami (talk) 19:08, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Wow, that was fast! I didn't expect that you'd put up Lama's classification that quickly. Very well done. ;) — Stevey7788 (talk) 05:21, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

September 2012

This is your last warning. The next time you disrupt Wikipedia, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. Please stop deliberately creating broken redirects/redirect loops as you have been doing at Lake Huron-Michigan and Lake Huron–Michigan. Even taken with good faith this is disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, and it would be easy to see it as deliberate trolling. When consensus does not agree with you on Wikipedia, you move on; pointy disruption of this sort is the kind of thing that leads to being blocked. The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:28, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

You appear confused. I moved the article to the status quo ante so we can have a proper RfD discussion. I corrected the rd's when I did that. That is entirely proper. There was nothing pointy or trollish about it. Perhaps you did not adequately review the page histories? — kwami (talk) 23:32, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

While the remainder of your conduct in this issue remains questionable at best, I do see your point now, and apologies. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:32, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 72 Hours for persistent disruptive editing. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding below this notice the text {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:40, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.

Kwamikagami (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

No explanation as to what is disruptive. Bushranger's accusations are false; I did not create any broken redirects. Per standard WP procedure, a contested deletion is put up for RfD before it is deleted. Beyond My Ken deleted it, in his words, per BOLD; reverting a BOLD edit is not disruptive, but reinstating it is.
And why are you blocking me anyway, when I just got a warning from another admin, and have not made any edits since? — kwami (talk) 7:45 pm, Today (UTC−4)

Accept reason:

Your explanation of the timings of the warning and the block appear valid and your good faith gesture to not directly edit on the articles on these lakes or about these lakes for 72 hours is appreciated. Talk comments are, of course, not restricted in any way. regentspark (comment) 01:20, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Any admin examining this unblock request should read this AN/I thread and this section of the Great Lakes article. The issue is that Kwami wants Lakes Michigan and Huron to be considered to be one body of water, Lake Michigan-Huron, because the two lakes are connected by the Straits of Mackinac, and, for purposes of hydrology can be dealt with as one body. The sources provided by Kwami do not support there being one lake, they support that they are hydrologically connected. The very strong consensus of editors discussing this is that Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are separate lakes, and that Lake Michigan-Huron is only a single body of water for hydrological or hydraulic purposes. Kwami refuses to accept this, and has been edit warring to reinsert his preferred version of reality against this consensus. The block was instituted to prevent the edit warring. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:44, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

No, the block links to Bushranger's accusation that I created broken redirects, which is false. And of course I accept that Michigan and Huron are normally considered separate lakes. I only ask that we reflect what you yourself admit: that scientifically they are considered one, and that you follow normal RfD protocol rather than insisting on deleting an article when you are opposed by several other editors. (And you of course know that we do have sources that call them one lake, as you've done your best to wish them away.) — kwami (talk) 00:48, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

kwami, I'm willing to unblock you if you promise to stay away from any edits or make any reference at all to Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, or Lake Michigan-Huron. I have a great deal of respect for you but this is getting obsessive, and that's never a good thing. Whether they are one, two, or n lakes is not the point any longer. --regentspark (comment) 00:50, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

There are two points:

• My block was faulty. Elen linked to Bushranger's accusation as her reason, but that accusation is false, as you can easily verify by checking my edit history. If a block is based on faulty premises, it should simply be reverted. I shouldn't be topic banned as a prerequisite for a routine correction like that.
• When deleting an article, a RfD should be filed. That's elementary (another editor called the summary deletion a 'fuck you' move), and I don't understand why others aren't being warned for edit warring to impose an improper action.

— kwami (talk) 01:02, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

You're right about the unwarranted topic ban (I was modifying my comment above when we edit conflicted). How about if you stay away from direct edits (talk page comments are ok) for a period of, say, one week, to allow for discussion?--regentspark (comment) 01:06, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

How about the 72 hrs that I would have been blocked? And with a comment in the unblock that I was blocked with a spurious rational, if you don't mind. And can you comment [on the article talk page] on the appropriateness of repeatedly deleting a contested article that everyone admits contains valid, sourced, content, rather than going through normal RfD? That's my problem: if a RfD came down on the side of merging, I would leave it alone. — kwami (talk) 01:10, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Nope. You're not going to catch me commenting on the content issue at all. Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor! Meanwhile, since you're also right about the timing (no edits after the warning from bushranger), I'll take you up on the 72 hour offer and unblock you. --regentspark (comment) 01:14, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not asking for comment on a content issue, but on a policy issue: What is the proper way to delete an article when that deletion is contested? — kwami (talk) 01:23, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll have to look at the specifics of this case but, in principle, an XfD does appear to be the proper way to go. However, there could be cases where an XfD is pointless and, again without knowledge of the specifics of this case (I need to get to bed), I'd say that when everyone else feels an XfD is unnecessary, it might just be unnecessary. I promise I'll look through all this tomorrow and give you a better answer. --regentspark (comment) 01:26, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. — kwami (talk) 01:28, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

No longer necessary. Article has been restored and a merge discussion started.

Great. BTW, Pmanderson made a perceptive comment about Wikipedia that is worth bearing in mind when you're convinced that you're doing the right thing but still find yourself cornered.. Here.--regentspark (comment) 02:25, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I keep treating it as an encyclopedia. — kwami (talk) 02:43, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Exactly what Pmanderson was doing as well. Worth a thought!--regentspark (comment) 02:52, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Lake Michigan–Huron

You are focusing on one element of on article where you feel you might have found a case of failure of someone to dot an "i" or cross a "t". To start with, there are at least two articles currently involved, and you have tenaciously deleted any changes that tried to fix those articles, and warred to remove tags that sought resolve the faulty use of sources and lack of sources for your assertions of your fringe idea on the NAMING of the lakes that you are pushing. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 10:22, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

One of us is misunderstanding what the sources say. Perhaps if you could explain why they don't say what they so obviously seem to say to me? You keep making assertions, but never demonstrate how you come to those conclusions. In one of the sources I see you are correct. In the others I don't. — kwami (talk) 19:46, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, looking at the 4 references given, one had so little info that it was uncheckable. Now with more info that has been upgraded from "uncheckable" to "very hard to check" being a 7 year old issue of a magazine. Here is the story on the other three:

• NOAA: Used "Lake Michigan" and "Lake Huron" as the names of the lakes. Used "Michigan-Huron" only as an adjective to specify the combined basin area.
• Army Corp Article Used "Lake Michigan" and "Lake Huron" as the names of the lakes. It presented a lot of level data, and since Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are at the same level, rather than duplicating they combined it and labelled the data in the chart as "Michigan-Huron.
• "One lake or two?" article. Used "Lake Michigan" and "Lake Huron" as the names of the lakes. Said that they should have been name the combined lake M-H but aren't.

Sincerely,North8000 (talk) 20:11, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

In each case somebody took "not a statement of name" use out of context and made it falsely appear to be a statement of name by that article. In fact all three articles gave :Lake Huron and Lake Michigan as the names of the lakes. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:56, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

You do admit that the lake exists, correct? Then the question is what to call it. These are the only two labels for it in the lit that I can see. Arguing that we should delete an article because the title is not its true name would mean deleting thousands of WP articles that have phrasal titles. And accepting it as a section under the same name in the Great Lakes article is irrational: You're contradicting yourself. None of this makes any sense.

That is not a NOAA quote. It's been misattributed. I corrected it (it's actually the EPA), but of course was reverted. In any case, it's not being used as support for the name, only for the existence of the lake, so your argument here is spurious.

Army Corps: Again, this is being used to support the existence of the lake, not a particular name.

"One Lake or Two?" is only being used as a cite for the size of the straits, though they're clear H and M are "lobes" of a single lake.

The full Royal Canadian Geographical Society quote runs,

Contrary to popular belief, the largest lake in the world is not Lake Superior but mighty Lake Michigan-Huron, which is a single hydrological unit linked at the Straits of Mackinac. Of all the Great Lakes, Michigan-Huron is the least regulated; water levels in lakes Superior and Ontario are controlled by locks and dams, and even Lake Erie levels are influenced by retention structures on the Niagara River. So Michigan-Huron, the default lake for the system, experiences some of the most extreme fluctuations in water levels and is, accordingly, the most telling barometer of the state of the water supply in the entire system. In July 1997, Michigan-Huron's mean water level was 177.19 metres above sea level, not far off the lake's all-time high, set in 1986, according to the Canadian Hydrographic Service, an agency of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Then it began to fall, which wasn't unusual in itself, since the level of all the Great Lakes fluctuates seasonally and from year to year. But this time, the speed of the decline was unprecedented. By January 2000, the lake was at the 175.92-metre mark, a fall of 127 centimetres in 2½ years. It rebounded slightly, but over the winter of 2002–03, it fell 60 centimetres, twice the usual seasonal fall. And by March, it was 175.73 metres, just 15 centimetres above the record low set in 1964. It has been low ever since.

They then switch topics with new paragraph. They are clearly speaking of it as a single lake, and calling that lake 'Michigan-Huron'. It's available on GBooks if you don't believe me.

The State of Michigan DEQ says,

Michigan is the third largest Great Lake (although Lake Huron-Michigan, at 45,300 mi2 / 117,400 km2 is technically the world's largest freshwater lake. This is because what have traditionally been called Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are really giant lobes of a single lake connected by the five mile wide Strait of Mackinac.)

and then repeat themselves at Lake Huron. Here they use the name, and note that even though they follow the popular conception, it's technically incorrect.

So how, given that, can you argue that Michigan-Huron / Huron-Michigan is not the name? And even if it's not the name, how is that an argument for merging the article under that same name? What is your point, because I'm not following. — kwami (talk) 21:32, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

The NAMING of lakes, and the definition of what water is the "lake" included in that name is a human construct. And 99.999999% or 100% of sources say that that naming, that human construct says that Lake Michigan is the name and a lake and that Lake Huron is the name and the lake. I have and have always been on "the fence" regarding merging the article.....actually I only considered it as "Plan C" if all else failed. . Actually if:

• somehow we knew it would stay as the current version with respect to the key area (using "Michigan-Huron" in context rather than the explicit implicit "declarations of name" that it had before) More specifically, that you would not try to change it from that.
• you would not try to use the existence of the article (as a wedge) to reopen the "list" article stuff

Then I would be specifically a supporter of the separate article. North8000 (talk) 09:58, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

That still makes absolutely no sense to me. If we can't call in M-H, what would we call it? — kwami (talk) 10:04, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

For example, the current article is fin with me. We WOULD use the "Michigan-Huron" term, but only in context. The multiple uses of "Michigan-Huron" in the current article all use it in context and thus are all fine with me. North8000 (talk) 10:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

It's always been in context, so I still don't know what you're talking about. — kwami (talk) 10:19, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

My gift/curse is that immediately see/dissect the logical underpinnings/ structure of writings. And IMO it wasn't in context before and it mostly is now. Bottom line I'm cool with how it is now and it appears that you may also be. North8000 (talk) 10:44, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with the consensus wording that was restored, before Ken started gumming it up with false refs, MOS violations, weasel words, etc. — kwami (talk) 10:50, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I haven't had time to compare and contrast to know what the differences between really recent version are. 14:37, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Canadian Geographic's current webpage on the Great Lakes Basin [16]: "Spreading across nearly a quarter of a million square kilometres, the Great Lakes Basin, which includes Lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario and Superior, and traverses parts of eight American states and two Canadian provinces." The Royal Canadian Geographical Society is one of the sponsors of this page. [17] The hyphenated thing is unfortunate, it's like saying the word for "father" is the same in both Danish and Swedish, then referring to it as the "Danish-Swedish language". The people who live around those lakes take it for granted that you have to use locks for shipping between some lakes and not others, because of different levels, rapids, and so forth; this concept is explained really poorly here. Their road maps ALL say "Lake Huron" and "Lake Michigan". Neotarf (talk) 10:40, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, culturally they're two lakes, so of course that's how people normally put it. Technically however they are one lake, and where that matters that's how people put it. — kwami (talk) 10:50, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

So technically, Danish and Norwegian are one language, they are only different culturally? What about this? [18] They are all on the same level, so is it one lake or eight lakes? Is there some reason you shouldn't use reliable sources to determine these matters? Neotarf (talk) 18:37, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Um, Bokmål is a separate article. No, it's not the same, but you brought it up.--Curtis Clark (talk) 20:52, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Curtis Clark, Kwami is probably well aware that Bokmål and Norsk are both official forms of the Norwegian language and Danish is a separate language, even if they do share a word or two, in the same way other editors know instinctively that these are two lakes even if a couple of drops sometimes flow from one to the other, or that people do not walk on the ceiling. If you can think of a better parallel, please deploy it now. Neotarf (talk) 22:56, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

If you would bother to read the discussion, you'd see that we do have RSs. Quite a few of them: Treating them as one lake is the norm in the scientific lit when the water itself is of interest. — kwami (talk) 18:47, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I have no intention of vetting all your sources, I just took the first one you cited as significant, Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and found a webpage with their official sponsorship and approval on it that treats them as two lakes. A lake has water, shoreline, an inlet, and an outlet. Lake Michigan and Lake Huron have all of that. I have no idea where you're from, but I'm beginning to think it's a desert. Neotarf (talk) 20:18, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

And you appear to be from Boise. If you can't be bothered to understand a topic that you are obviously ignorant of, then you have no business giving an opinion. — kwami (talk) 20:25, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Please see my comment at the renaming discussion at Talk:Great Lakes. And by the way, I am from Boise! That in no way should depreciate my right to comment on anything here. I find that quite offensive! Gtwfan52 (talk) 20:55, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Please read the link. Or take a look at my user page. Unfortunate that Boise should be the city that got picked for that, but that's the idiom here on WP. (Although the fact that you're making spurious claims out of ignorance could be seen as confirming the stereotype about Boise.) — kwami (talk) 20:57, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Just because the idiom exists does not mean you have to use it. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of words and phrases in the English language that are offensive to some segment of the population. It is a personal choice whether to use them. And as to what you added as a postscript, that is just plain insulting. An honorable man would have apologized. This behavior too has been reported. Goodbye! Gtwfan52 (talk) 21:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

No, I am not from Boise, not enough rainfall there to suit me, and I have no intention of joining the talk page discussion, I will let you know my concerns here, but I did run into your old friend Randy the other day on a different wiki. If you don't believe that renaming the Great Lakes is WP:FRINGE/PS, and you don't accept it when the first one of your sources that I pick out doesn't turn out to back the one-lake theory, what WOULD it take to convince you? Are you now a hydrological expert? Are you sure you are reading this hyphen (Michigan-Huron) correctly? Neotarf (talk) 23:42, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

You misunderstand. I don't want to rename the Great Lakes, Ken's misrepresentations notwithstanding. Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are fine the way they are (apart from a bit of weasel wording). However, though they are separate lakes in the popular conception, they are technically a single lake, and that, the scientific (hydrological, ecological, etc) POV, needs to be represented as well, no matter how much it offends some people's sensitivities. Previously we've had people say they know better because they learned differently in school, rather like people insisting Pluto is a planet, and that's about the degree of intellectual rigor being displayed by the more vocal participants this time as well. — kwami (talk) 02:28, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's a matter of what people are told in school, it's a matter of being able to stand on the shore and see it with your own two eyes. Sure, the two lakes are connected by a small waterway, and water can flow from one to the other without being impeded by locks, but just because the overflow from one lake can enter another does not make this two lakes. In these highly urbanized areas, the water flow has been highly controlled, for shipping, for municipal water supplies, for sewage, and for flood control. Rivers and creeks have been highly engineered and even reversed, not to mention damaged by centuries of industrial development. Movement of water can occur within a lake, or from one lake to another, or even change direction depending on the season. Take the phenomenon of the seiche, for example. Does a seiche that rises up like a tidal wave and kills people on Lake Michigan occur on Lake Huron at the same time? No. Both lakes can experience such a thing, but independently of the other. If you are going to appear to assert things that people can disprove by their own senses, no one will take you seriously. Are you sure these supposed "one lake" sources are being interpreted correctly, and that your own explanation does not leave room for misinterpretation? Publications that are written by or for the initiated often leave out details that are taken for granted. And there is that pesky hyphen. Perhaps it is shorthand for "Lake Michigan-Lake Huron" or maybe even used as an understood adjective? Neotarf (talk) 12:20, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, Kwami, you got me curious, so I've looked at your sources at Lake Michigan–Huron, and, long story short, I see why you are using this phrase but I do not agree with the way it is being done, as it is just too misleading. First, the sources I looked at were the last two, NOAA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The others are not available online and "Information Please Database" I do not consider to be reliable. Both of these sources have to do with measuring water level. If you measure the level of one lake, you have measured them both, since they are at the same level. Looking first at the Army Corps of Engineers data, the colored chart on p. 6 [19] says "Lakes Michigan and Huron are considered to be one lake" but this is only for the purpose of calculating and measuring precipitation, runoff, inflow, evaporation, outflow, and diversion into the Chicago River. Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are mentioned separately throughout the website, where no calculations are involved. If you check out this chart from NOAA, [20] you will see that the gage for both lakes is at Harbor Beach, Michigan (Lake Huron). [21][22] In the other source [23], the water levels of Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Georgian Bay are considered together, as can be seen in Figure 4, but the runoff, precipitation, evaporation, and diversion of each body of water is considered separately. You can click on individual bodies of water here [24] to verify predictions for each body of water. Here is Lake Huron (not "Lakes Huron-Michigan"): [25] In addition, this source presents another way of modeling the lake levels in pre-settlement times that combines Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron into the "upper Great Lakes", and Lakes St. Clair, Erie, and Ontario into the "lower Great Lakes", since the lakes drained differently in antiquity (see the "Approach" paragraph under figure 4). So Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are only considered together when the U.S. government measures lake levels in the present time. A better title for the article would probably be something like "Great Lakes Water Levels", then you could include the future modeling and data collection for the individual lakes as well. Do with this as you like, I am done. Regards, Neotarf (talk) 23:00, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

What you're missing is that they're at the same level because they're physically a single body of water. Lake Superior is not part of this. They are considered as one lake whenever the physical body of water is more important than the cultural convention of two bodies. This is most apparent in hydrology, but other editors have noted that it's also true for ecology and other scientific fields where the water itself is being studied.

As for your earlier paragraph, no, water does not flow back and forth between lakes. It only flows in one direction, downhill. As for the seiche, tides do not occur at the same time in England and New York, but that doesn't mean that the Atlantic is two oceans. As for looking at the lake, sure -- but a mud dauber isn't two animals just because it has a narrow waist. And previous editors have based their vociferous objection on knowing the lake does not exist because it's not what they learned in school. As for 'disproving by your senses', basically you're saying that no-one will take you seriously if you say the world is round, because all you have to do is look at it to see that it's flat. The sources are very clear that these are physically a single body of water. — kwami (talk) 23:24, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Defining what is a lake is a human construct ending up in common naming. (not a personal derivation based on one aspect)and whenever there is a flat statement regarding naming or general statement about their existence is always Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, and with them being two lakes. All of your arguments and all of your sources that you have tried to use only talk about a combination within the context and limitations of a particular aspect. And please stop the red herring of the two lakes being "what you learned in school/. This from what they learned everywhere. North8000 (talk) 23:40, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

• A very counterintuitive assertion -- it there any editor who has not said this? - and the sources simply do not support it.
• Superior flows into Huron; Huron flows into Michigan.
• The seiche does not hit both shorelines at the same time. It is caused by a storm at one end of the lake, the wave is most dangerous at the opposite shoreline where there is no storm.
• Neotarf (talk) 00:13, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Once again, I have no idea what your point is. You seem to be supporting my argument while contradicting it. You have the water flow backwards, and you are again misrepresenting my position. Can you explain to me why the lakes are a single body of water physically? If you can't, then it would appear that you don't know what you're talking about. — kwami (talk) 00:17, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Backwards??? Neotarf (talk) 00:27, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Michigan generally flows into Huron, since the outlet is in Lake Huron. — kwami (talk) 00:30, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Or is that Michigan-Hurn flows into Michigan-Huron?  :-) North8000 (talk) 01:39, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

So, can you explain why they're a single body of water? — kwami (talk) 01:44, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

?? North8000 (talk) 02:28, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

If Lake Michigan flows into Lake Huron, where does the water for Lake Michigan come from? Neotarf (talk) 04:28, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

The water in the Great Lakes comes from any number of sources, including drainage and rainfall. Meanwhile, today I was watching a National Geographic Channel special about the Great Lakes. Oddly enough, they never once mentioned this so-called "Lake Michigan-Huron", but rather they called them all by their individual names. Must have slipped their minds. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:35, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

The question was for Kwami. The answer is that the water flows into Lake Michigan from Lake Huron. Superior is the highest lake, and water is released from Superior into Huron based on the water levels of Lake Michigan. A small amount, less than 1%, flows out of Lake Michigan through the Chicago River. All of this is in the links I have provided above. I am extremely busy in RL, but because I hate to see Kwami involved in any misunderstanding, I have taken the time to look into this and post explanatory links. There is no point in asking me over and over, correct information is available online. The NOAA website in particular has some illustrative graphics. Neotarf (talk) 08:58, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

From my sources, you still have it backwards, and I don't see anything in your sources which contradicts that. A *small* amount flows out through the Chicago River. The rest flows out though Lake Huron. Usually: as our sources state, water can go in either direction, because it's one body of water. In fact, if you go to Lake Michigan,[26] and click on 'outflow',[27] you'll see it's for combined Lake Michigan-Huron. And on the other site the schematic shows Lake Michigan – Lake Huron – Georgian Bay as one body of water.[28]

@Bugs: and NOAA lists Georgian Bay separately from Lake Huron.[29] Does that mean that Georgian Bay is a separate Great Lake? According to them, Lake Huron–Georgian Bay is parallel to Lake Huron–Lake Michigan.

Meanwhile, I see no evidence that any of the three of you understands the topic at hand. Can any of you explain how Lake Huron–Michigan is a single body of water? Neotarf didn't answer, and North8000 answered with a question mark, so I'm not sure either understands the question. If you don't understand the topic, how are your opinions on the article worth considering? — kwami (talk) 09:54, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

The question marks were on your question which at best wasn't clear. It appeared to challenge me to support a position that is opposite mine in order to justify my actual position. North8000 (talk) 10:50, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

You speak as though facts were opinions, as if the claim that the Earth is flat were equally valid to the claim that it is round. I'm asking to see if you understand reality. It appears that your position is at odds with the facts, which are amply demonstrated in the merge discussion. If you do not understand that they are physically one body of water, then you cannot understand the discussion and cannot contribute meaningfully. — kwami (talk) 10:54, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

They are not a single body of water, they are two separate lakes. They are only considered together for the purpose of measuring water level, since they are at the same level. Neotarf (talk) 10:18, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, it's clear that you still don't understand. Answer this: How can they be at the same level if they are not a single body of water? Coincidence? (Perhaps you can ask at the Geology wikiproject or the science reference desk if you're interested.) — kwami (talk) 10:24, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

That is faulty logic. North8000 (talk) 10:51, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Faulty how? — kwami (talk) 10:55, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Obviously they are connected by a channel at one level instead of a channel with locks or rapids. You are going beyond the scope of the sources. Both of these sources (NOAA and Army Corps of Engineers) deal with droughts or climate modeling and they both use lake levels for their data or predictions. And they both refer to "Lake Michigan" and "Lake Huron" when they are not talking about lake level measurements. If you want to take it further than that, you would have to speculate about the methodology. This would be original research; what you are trying to assert just isn't there in the sources, at least, not in these sources. If you are going to make such startling assertions, you need sources that go into the subject with greater depth. Neotarf (talk) 11:27, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

"Obviously they are connected by a channel at one level" – do you understand how that makes them one body of water? (physically; we all agree that culturally they are two)

"at least, not in these sources" – do you see how ridiculous it sounds to say that this is OR because you can't be bothered to read all the sources?

— kwami (talk) 11:37, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, it is entirely unfair of you to accuse me of "not being bothered to read your sources" when I have gone to a great deal of time and effort to go through them, and post extensive comment on them, at a time that is grossly inconvenient for me to do so. The sources you have provided are about measuring lake levels, and the phrase you picked off a chart, and attach so much significance to, looks like it is some unfortunate idiosyncratic artifact of the calculation methodology. Whether you "understand" something or not or whether something is "logical" or not does not apply here. Wikipedia goes by sources. You need a source that explains "how that makes them one body of water". Otherwise I have some extremely urgent to take care of. Neotarf (talk) 12:17, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

This is just bizarre. You're the one who said you didn't have time to read all the sources! Then you say it's OR because it's not in the sources. It *is* in the sources; it is a simple, RS-supported fact that Huron and Michigan are one physical body of water. The only matter of opinion here is whether that qualifies them as one "lake". Several of our sources state explicitly that they are one lake. That is minority usage, but then referring to the Sun as a star is minority usage, but that doesn't mean it isn't one. — kwami (talk) 12:33, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

The logical core of this debate

(this concerns the "lake" question, NOT the "separate article" question)

Kwamikagami, "Lake" is a word in the English language, not fundamental nature of the universe. This whole debate comes down to and logically hinges on "what is a lake?":

• Our definition is, in short, if the world & society (e.g. map makers, writers, historians, books, the newspapers, the media, the human race) has defined it as a lake or considers it to be a lake, it's a lake, and vica versa. Same with continents and oceans. How the world decides can be based on an agglomeration of factors; high on that list would be to what extent it is surrounded by land, and, within that, whether the nature of the inevitable inlet(s) and usual outlet is such as to not prevent it from being called "surrounded". Other factors doubtless include definitions in dictionaries, historical, the sizes of inlets and outlets in proportion to the lake, how it appears on a map, whether it caught on when a king said it was a lake 800 years ago etc. etc. . The world has decided that North America and South America are continents, even though they are joined by land. They have words to describe the combination of the two (e.g. "the americas" in context when it is useful) but even then there is not the assertion that "the Americas" is a named continent. An extreme version of this is Europe and Asia and the combined word "Eurasia". By the natural geographical definition applied to the other continents, "Eurasia" would be a continent, but the world has decided that it is not, (even though they use the word "Eurasia" when it is useful.) and that Europe and Asia are continents.

• Your definition is apparently one or both of these:

1. If water has a sufficiently strong connection to keep them both at essentially the same level, it is a single "lake"
2. If you can find a source or writer that uses the words hyphenated together in some context or asserts that they are a single lake or combines them for the purposes of a particular discussion or graph then it is all one "lake". Or possibly your actual definition is #1 and you use #2 to support that in a wiki-debate.

So regarding the meaning of the word "Lake" with regard to the water in question, it comes down to the world vs. Kwamikagami. Even the sources which you are trying to use to support you actually refute you when you read them fully (vs. pulling bytes out of context) They all acknowledge and use "Lake Huron" and "Lake Michigan" as the actual names and entities. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:31, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

My god, you still have no idea what you're talking about! Nearly everything you said above is demonstrably false. I will explain it to you again, but then I want you to stop posting on my page, because this is a complete waste of time.

• 'what is a lake' — agreed, as I have said several times already.
• 'if [people have] defined it as a lake or considers it to be a lake, it's a lake' – yes, and people have defined it as a lake, as shown by several references which you either haven't read or fail to understand
• 'there is not the assertion that "the Americas" is a named continent' – false. I asked you to read continent, and I'll ask again, because you still fail to understand. America *is* a continent. The "world" hasn't decided NAm and SAm are separate continents, only certain countries have. Other countries consider them to be a single continent.
• 'the world has decided that [Eurasia is not a continent]' – false again. Some countries consider it two continents, others one.
• 'your definition' – it's not "my" definition, it's the definition of many hydrologists and other scientists writing on the Great Lakes, as demonstrated by the editors responding from the geography and geology wikiprojects.
• 'it comes down to the world vs. Kwamikagami' – no, it comes down to cultural uses vs. scientific uses, and you seem incapable of understanding the latter [okay, turns out he does understand the hydrodynamics. not sure what his point is then], as well as conveniently forgetting all the people but me who disagree with you.

Perhaps the problem here is a failure to appreciate that it can be both one lake and two, depending on one's POV. Just as America is both one continent and two, or the Ocean is both one ocean and four (and three and five), depending on your POV, so Huron-Michigan is both one lake and two. Lake Huron and Lake Michigan address the POV that they are two. They are the main articles because that is the most common POV. Lake Michigan–Huron addresses the POV that they are one. — kwami (talk) 12:49, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation requests

A few pages on my watchlist turned up with pronunciation requests, all from the same editor. On a hunch, I checked the editor's contributions, and (s)he has indeed made a large number of such requests. Since I know you do a lot in this area, and (assuming you enjoy the task!) I thought I'd drop you a note, just in case this would be something you'd want to look at. Here's the contributions list, with specific edit summaries. I'm not saying I agree that all these are required; just pointing it out. Cynwolfe (talk) 11:28, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Yep, saw him on mine also. And of course some time ago. I love "Requesting English pronunciation in Thelema tradition". I'm not sure what is going on here. Sometimes his requests are specific, sometimes not, but I am interested in how we deal with these. Shrewsbury UK is pronounced differently by locals and people outside of Shrewsbury. I don't pronounce the name of my home town, Miami Florida, the way it's pronounced on Miami Vice and have no idea how it's pronounced now locally (although I suspect the Spanish population pronounces it differently). English pronunciation is going to differ between countries. What's the difference between requests for an English pronunciation and an "English=Anglicized) pronunciation"? Dougweller (talk) 12:26, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

You don't pronounce it my-AM-ee? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:32, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

No, that's a city in Ohio. Miami with the last i as in 'it'. Dougweller (talk) 20:18, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I even could pronounce it that way. And anytime I've seen Miami mentioned on TV or by anyone I know who lives there, it's "my-AM-ee". Maybe it's localized to certain parts of the city? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:37, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Coming from only 57.8 miles from Shrewsbury UK, I've never heard it pronounced other than /ˈʃroʊzbri/. However, as the Wikipedia is registered in the USA and there being 12 settlements of the name there, we probably have to acquiesce to USA pronunciations coming first, even if Shrewsbury UK has dab primacy.. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:44, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you're too close. In other areas of the UK I've heard it pronounced uː, not oʊ or even the OED's aʊ. Dougweller (talk) 16:13, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

If the town is well-enough known for an outside pronunciation to be stable, and that differs from the local by more than accent (like only one has the GOOSE vowel), then we need to list both. We can ignore the pronunciations of towns of the same name in other areas. If we give a phonetic dialect pronunciation, that comes second. But if we have two phonemic or diaphonemic pronunciations, I'm not sure we have a convention on which comes first. At Shrewsbury we should indicate which is which, though.

@ Kudpung: IMO the fact that WP is hosted in the US, or that the US has 12 towns by this name, is irrelevant. We give the local and outside (UK) pronunciations. Only if the US pronunciation of the English town differs yet again would we bother to give it, and then IMO it should be given last.

As for whether we need them, we don't need Akkadian, since that can be found in any dictionary. Might not be a bad idea to include it, though, perhaps as a footnote; we do sometimes include the pronunciations of obscure words. Maybe we have readers in the Third World with dictionaries that don't include things like Akkadian? After a while we start running into problems with DICT, though. — kwami (talk) 19:57, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Cushitic languages

Cushitic languages#Composition says:

There are six clearly valid groups of languages which are or have been included in the Cushitic family, as well as a few additional divergent languages

Which are these six groups? I count only four or five: Highland East Cushitic (Sidamic), Lowland East Cushitic, Agaw (Central Cushitic), Dullay, and perhaps South Cushitic – but only the Rift subgroup is fairly uncontroversial and only West Rift is completely clear, and South Cushitic (or Rift) may really be part of LEC. Dahalo, Mbugu (Ma'a) (both may be East Cushitic, but East Cushitic is really HEC+LEC+Dullay+Yaaku after all), Yaaku and Beja (North Cushitic) are the additional single languages. I see that Dahalo is not italicised in the infobox – have you counted it as a group?

By the way, I, too, would hate to see you leave completely, even if you might reduce your activity. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:03, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks.

Yeah, that's become obscured. Hayward (2000) writes,

To see Cushitic as a single family involves putting together six groups of languages ... It also includes the nearly extinct Yaaku

He then lists N/Beja, C/Agaw, Highland/Sidamic (w Burji possibly not close), Lowland (diverse, w 3 branches), Dullay, Southern. For the last, he notes Mbugu is mixed and that Kw'adza is only probable, though as you say, others are not so sure. Dahalo should have been italicized, though other editors italicize extinct branches rather than isolates. — kwami (talk) 20:23, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Would it make sense to explicitly enumerate the six groups listed by Hayward, or would that be redundant with the infobox? Perhaps it would be clearer, as the infobox may end up modified in the future with reference to other sources.

Yeah, Mbugu is well-known among linguists, after all; but only the lexicon of one of the two registers is Cushitic, so Cushitic Mbugu may be better described as extinct – as a complete language, morphosyntax and all – and only existing in the form of a lexical substrate in Bantu Mbugu, which is closely related or identical with Pare. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:39, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Which I'm sure is why Hayward mentions it. Regardless, he believes the Cushitic component is Southern.

Yeah, probably a good idea to list them at this point and make sure they're attributed to Hayward. 6 groups are clear, in his opinion; if others break up Southern, the demonstrated West Rift core can stand in. So, 6 branches plus some uncertain languages: Yaaku, Dahalo, Aasax & Kw'adza. Eastern and other proposed subgroups are not clear, though we might be on the way to merging Southern/Rift with Lowland. — kwami (talk) 20:55, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I see that people have disputed whether Mbugu is Southern. But none of that made it into the Mbugu article where it really belongs. — kwami (talk) 03:00, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Where have you seen that, then? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:46, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Ah, you are referring to Kießling's opinion reported in South Cushitic languages#Classification? Yeah, in that case Mbugu should be restored as one of the poorly classified single languages within Cushitic. In fact, Kießling's doubt must have been the reason why I added Mbugu to the list in the first place. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:58, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

A beer for you!

We'll probably continue to butt heads on the Michigan / Huron articles, but that's secondary. This is how I feel overall. Thanks for your work as an editor North8000 (talk) 02:01, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. You didn't respond above, though, so I still don't understand the point of your objection. — kwami (talk) 02:58, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll do that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 09:42, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The above still goes, head butting and all is secondary. Sincerely North8000 (talk) 17:22, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Maybe a beer would help. — kwami (talk) 19:10, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Cool. I'll be off the grid for 9 days giving you a break to enjoy it!  :-) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:35, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur I renamed to Nebuchadnezzar

"He is unrelated to his namesake, Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur II, who has come to be known by the name “Nebuchadnezzar” by biblical scholars. Consequently it would be anachronistic to apply this designation retroactively to the earlier king, as he does not make an appearance in that later publication." I presume you didn't read that far.BigEars42 (talk) 04:17, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The name in the lead should be the name in the title, and the name in the title should follow WP:COMMONNAME. Therefore it is the line you just quoted that needs to be changed. — kwami (talk) 04:21, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Its fixed. Now the article name matches the lead titleBigEars42 (talk) 04:48, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

You only read half of what I wrote. Check the COMMONNAME link. — kwami (talk) 04:53, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Not his common name, and frankly not used so commonly by even the older historians. I think a neutral designation would be more historically correct, rather than forcing a "Biblical" agenda on a non-Biblical period. BigEars42 (talk) 05:03, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that's a discussion for the talk page. It would be really odd IMO to use the common rendering for everyone else, but not for him, when they're the same name. — kwami (talk) 07:19, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

AN/I

This discussion on AN/I concerns you]. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:32, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Content disputes are for the talk page, where a consensus is emerging nicely, not for ANI. — kwami (talk) 08:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

AN/I again (re:Languages of India)

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 19:25, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

What's with everyone running to ANI whenever they don't immediately understand something? Why not take two seconds to check the link to see if what I said was true? — kwami (talk) 19:36, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I just posted this on Jimbo's page. I am sorry I antagonized you, I should have realized there was a misunderstanding and just confronted you on this page. I guess I won the trout. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 09:30, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I couldn't figure out what you were objecting to, and just assumed that you weren't checking it out. Just one of those situations where each is obviously right and the other obviously wrong. — kwami (talk) 10:08, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Word with glottal stop in Portuguese and Bulgarian

How do you guys say it in English? Forgive my newbieness, as many here are used to know my contact with it is solely by internet and very little exposure to mass media. Also, if it does exist in European languages other than South Slavic and Portuguese, why is that mentioned in the article if it is not something unusual at all? Lguipontes (talk) 04:02, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it's important for the B. article, but it doesn't hurt.

This 'no' word is one of only two or three expressions with glottal stop in them in English, the others being oh-oh! (or for me uh-oh!) for trouble, and in some prosodies mm-mm! for delicious, where the hyphen represents the glottal stop. The word for 'no' is usually written uh-uh, but really the vowels are quite variable (apart from being identical to each other): they're unrounded central vowels, varying between maybe [ɐ] and [ɘ] (maybe not as high as [ɪ̈]), frequently nasal, or even syllabic nasal consonants: [m̩ʔm̩] or [ŋʔŋ]. Initial glottal stop occurs, but not reliably. The most reliable distinction between these three expressions is not the vowels but tone - another extremely marginal feature in English. — kwami (talk) 04:26, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The former ones I know from Portuguese, ô-ou! or oh-oh! for trouble, uhm-mmm! for delicious (without a stop for most people including me as it would thus sound like [n̪̍ʔn̪̍] instead if not sufficiently long, that is also 'no' but not used with the protesting meaning as our ê-ê, close to a 'yeah right!'), that I knew existed in other languages, but I thought ê-ê! or ê-eh! developed from a lazy way of shouting eu, hein! ([ˌewˈẽj] is quite similar to [ˌʔe̞ˈʔeː]). One can also determine what word it is by tone here, as you know also very marginal in Portuguese, though the vowels are surprisingly stable among speakers and regions (even because our vowels aren't kilometers close to near as much varying with accent and dialect as those of English, specially the stressed ones). Lguipontes (talk) 04:48, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Wait, no, it is not the translation of [ˌʔe̞ˈʔeː]. You are talking about our [ɐ̃ʔɐ̃ ~ ũʔũ], that can be syllabic nasal consonants too (the only use of those at least in the Brazilian variant, BTW), often seen as the antonym of [ɐ̃ɦɐ̃ ~ ũɦũ]. They are never non-nasalized, while ê-ê is always plainly oral. The phonology of the word in Bulgarian, more similar to the ê-ê – still likely to be a lazy eu, hein! besides acquiring the sense of our equivalent of 'yeah, right!' –, confused me of the obviety of it. Lguipontes (talk) 05:04, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

We have [ɐ̃ɦɐ̃ ~ m̩ɦm̩] for 'yes' in English. Not eu-hein!, though: I've heard it, but it sounds foreign. — kwami (talk) 05:08, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I know you do, I've added it to show how one can do the /ɐ̃/ in former WP:IPA for Portuguese. This is in my scope as "exposition to mass media", after all. For what eu, hein is, see the link I added in my last edit to glottal stop. If you heard it in your environment, it probably was from a Portuguese speaker, I'd say. O.o Lguipontes (talk) 05:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I think I heard it in East Africa, actually. — kwami (talk) 05:17, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, there is Mozambique, and AFAIK the country to which most Brazilians would immigrate to in SSA after Angola and South Africa is Kenya. But maybe it is among the Portuguese loanwords in Swahili, I don't know. The person was or seemed to be a native Anglophone or spoke an African language as mother tongue? It could be an African word that entered Portuguese rather than the reverse, too.

If it exists in African languages but is not related to Portuguese, that would be funny. We Brazilians tend to make many words smaller because of laziness, even simple expressions, such as não, é? (close to really? or isn't it?) that became né?. It is so similar to the Japanese nee? that many of our Japanese immigrants use it very often, some in every sentence (my theory is that a [seemingly] word of one's language in a completely foreign nation and its language could be pretty emotionally comforting, after all) – or at least widely stereotyped as such, most of the Japanese in my metro city left it and I was born in the generation of the old nisei to teenage yonsei so I can't really know if it is widespread as claimed, some people of non-Japanese background have this unusual way of using né? too (frowned upon, BTW). Lguipontes (talk) 05:39, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

pronunciation in a DAB page

User:WikHead has directed me to you in regard to a question: is an indication of pronunciation suitable for inclusion in a DAB page or, like refs, should it be avoided? Thanks. Mutt Lunker (talk) 00:28, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

"Polish" has more than one pronunciation.—Wavelength (talk) 00:41, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, agreed, but in which case, to clarify, I can see it may be useful to have pronunciation but is there a policy to avoid it? Another user is indicating that it is to be avoided but WP:DABNOT does not seem to indcate this. Mutt Lunker (talk) 00:50, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Not sure about policy, but common sense trumps policy, and in these very specific type and narrow cases (ie: polish, tear), it makes perfect sense to do so in a minimal way as it adds clarity and usability without taking away anything. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:07, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As far as consensus goes, I have no idea. I've added pronunciations to dab pages when I thought they were useful, and deleted others I thought were not useful, misleading, or too elementary to bother with (per NOTADICT). If it were up to me, I would sometimes include unintuitive and inconsistent pronunciations on dab pages, separately for each entry for the latter. That way, we're telling the reader that when pronounced A, it means X, and when pronounced B, it means Y, which could potentially help them navigate the links. For example, if Menzies were a simple dab page, I'd still want the pronunciation, esp. since different people with that name use different pronunciations. — kwami (talk) 01:15, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Not sure where the situation in question fits in as it's not really akin to the examples above. I provided an audio file for the surname MacLean because the pronunciation is unlikely to be clear from the spelling alone, if the name is unfamiliar to one. As there are several separate articles/dab pages for spelling variants of the name I thought it useful to add the file there, even though these spellings are much more akin to the pronunciation. (I think that they should all be merged into one article as they are simply spelling variants, but that is another matter.) However another user reverted them, partly because of questioning that they are pronounced the same as MacLean (ironically, as their spellings are closer to the pronunciation than McLean itself) but also because "the pronunciation links serve no purpose on disambiguation pages" (I'm unclear why they refer to them as links, which they are not). If you've any thoughts I'd be most grateful. If not, no problem. Mutt Lunker (talk) 01:34, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

See List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations.

—Wavelength (talk) 02:07, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps this isn't quite what you're looking for, but I noticed a similar issue with niche. The word has two common pronunciations and, while several articles listed at the disambiguation page indicated the dual pronunciations (important in clarifying that both pronunciations are correct), the disambiguation page itself did not have this clarification. I went ahead and added the pronunciation to the dab since it seems as though the dual pronunciation applies to most of those meanings anyway. Common sense seems the way to go here. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 05:14, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

In that case, I would recommend moving Manuel Niche to a different section, as I assume people pronounce it /ˈniːtʃeɪ/. If we're going to have pronunciations in situations where they vary, I think it's only responsible to restrict them to the cases they apply to. — kwami (talk) 05:27, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

If there is a policy related to the original question,

then (1) it should be mentioned at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages

and (2) it should be familiar to the members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation.

—Wavelength (talk) 14:15, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Invitation to RfC

Hi kwami. I wanted to invite you to participate in an RfC regarding adding color differentiation to Wiki markup, particularly towards references. You are welcome to participate whenever you are able. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 06:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

ANI heads up

Just a heads up, if you didn't see this already -- and it doesn't look like anyone else is going to post anything on your talk page -- looks like it is winding down. [30] Neotarf (talk) 01:34, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. — kwami (talk) 04:11, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

FYI, the discussion is now archived. [31] Neotarf (talk) 20:01, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Miju

Miju language () needs to be moved back to Miju language. — Stevey7788 (talk) 00:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it does. I no longer have the authority to do that. — kwami (talk) 00:35, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

It's being taken care of. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 01:55, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I'm inclined to say no. The editing at the redirect is part of the article's history of how it ended up at its current title. Without a compelling reason, I'm inclined to err on the side of caution with respect to the licence. WilyD 07:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Similar kinds of blanking/unblanking also occur in logs when there is vandalism, etc. The time series of the log shows the edits in order, so original authorship is preserved, but the current version is one I've published under CC-BY-SA & GFDL, based on the version you (and others?) published under the same licence. The only change I've done is the title - but actually, preserving the whole history shows that it wasn't my idea, which is why I'm inclined to say it should be kept, so the person who's idea it was to retitle it also gets properly credited. I'm not a lincence expert, however, so you might try either copyright issues noticeboard or DRV for a wider opinion. WilyD 07:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

ANI

I want to be crystal clear in my closing of the ANI regarding your behavior, so it doesn't appear to be an endorsement of your actions, because it isn't. It is a recognition that many people have been tenacious in their edits as well, and while it appears you have justifiably earned the lion's share of blame, it would be inequitable if only you were sanctioned. I expect some blow back due to the clear consensus to topic ban you and my using WP:IAR to ignore the consensus, something I do not do lightly, and have never done before, in fact. If anything should be taken from the experience, it should be seen as a strong warning. As you pointed out, not many admins want to get involved, which shouldn't be viewed as vindication, but instead as a lack of support. This makes what I did, while appropriate, very difficult to maintain, and I'm already getting comments about it on my talk page.

You are an incredibly valuable editor to the project, but it does come at a price. This isn't the first time I've seen you at ANI. I believe the first time I've commented on your behavior was actually during my RfA in April. While some of it might be seen as piling on, you miss the point if you don't realize your less than optimal methods were the root cause. You need to seriously consider self-limiting yourself in regards to reverts and reevaluate your methods, to put it bluntly. While I'm a fan of boldness, I'm aware that it is only tolerated to a degree here, and you are enough in the spotlight due to recent blocks and issues that it is in your own best interest to take a less confrontational and more collegiate attitude when dealing with content disputes. I hate to be here preaching to you, someone with more experience than I have, but this is your Achilles' heel and unless you make some changes, I don't see good things happening in the future. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 13:16, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I was afraid this was going to be another proof that WP is not an encyclopedia but a social network. Thank you for treating it as an encyclopedia.

Frankly, I thought ANI was for admins, so I didn't bother to respond to most of the non-admin votes, especially since many of them were too idiotic to take seriously (the topic is imaginary regardless of sources or consensus, so anyone pushing it should be banned, etc.).

I get the point: when Randy from Boise starts arguing about skeletons, I need to treat him with respect he wouldn't get in a serious setting. Maybe I'll ask your advice on how to proceed the next time s.t. like this happens. — kwami (talk) 13:35, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Admins get the tools, but an extra vote isn't included in the kit. ANI is about admins taking action, but everyone has an equal right to speak, with weight given to the merits of the comment, like any other discussion. And I think you might rethink your Randy perspective. While some of that does exist in places here, this isn't what I saw here. Your threshold is a bit low, and while you might be more educated in an area than say I am (ie: I didn't go to college), that doesn't give you a super vote or more authority. We all have ways in which we contribute to benefit the encyclopedia. We still depend on consensus (with a rare case for WP:IAR), a flawed system but the lesser of the available evils. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:40, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but consensus is not a vote: as you say, we go by merit. When someone demonstrates that they don't understand the issue, their opinion counts for little. We've had quite a few people make a lot of noise about MH being 'imaginary', 'a fantasy', 'made-up', 'doesn't exist', etc., despite the numerous sources which have been provided by a number of people. Although the primary responder to the poll is not one of them, he is still making claims he can't back of with sources, and expects to be able to edit the article accordingly, regardless of what the actual sources state. That's OR and SYNTH rather than Randyism, but when his argument is that s.o. needs to be banned because they keep reverting his OR, IMO that's not a terribly convincing argument. I only counted one voter who actually laid out a valid reason and supported it with diffs. I obviously think you made the right call, but I also don't think it should be as difficult to justify as you seem to think. Anyway, that's all rather beside the point. The article seems to be going well, and with the involvement of the geo projects in crafting a consensus, hopefully it will be stable. And I do recognize I have a bad habit of getting into situations like this. I'll try to head them off in the future at a noticeboard etc, though they tend to get out of hand before I realize it: a response that works well on one article and doesn't raise an eyebrow might blow up on another. — kwami (talk) 15:00, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, you probably don't remember me since we've only interacted a few times. But I'll butt in here. Asking for advice from Dennis "on how to proceed the next time s.t. like this happens" is an excellent idea, since his advice is uniformly good and I have a great deal of respect for his judgement. But I suggest that in addition to trying "to head them off in the future at a noticeboard", you may want to ask other editors whom you respect to have a look at any such situation early on, before things get out of hand. I understand your frustration in the recent situation with a number of editors who were edit warring, merging the article without discussion, shouting WP:FRINGE without investigating the issue in more than a cursory manner, etc. When I first saw the discussion with the many editors labeling it as WP:FRINGE, my first inclination was to agree – who the hell's ever heard of Lake Michigan-Huron? But after looking more deeply, I understood what you were trying to communicate above the din, and I've contributed in a small way to the article with some light copy editing and adding the image of the Straits of Mackinac. So, in the end, level heads prevailed at the article (and at ANI). But now I think you should adopt a lower profile, less confrontational style for a while if you can. It appears you have a target on your back and the mob of angry Shylocks want their pound of flesh from Kwami. It would do you well to stay out of confrontations and off of ANI for as long as you can. May I also suggest that you disengage completely from editing the Lake Michigan-Huron article for a time? Please continue to participate on the talk page, but stop reverting North8000 – he's going to be off wiki for a time anyway, and enough of us are now editing and watching the article that we can take care of any disputed content when he returns. He seems friendly enough with his "beer for you" above, and he seems to be willing to discuss things... And finally, I want to say that you have my respect for continuing to contribute productively to the project despite your recent loss of adminship. Many others would've reacted with far less maturity. I wish you all the best. Mojoworker (talk) 23:04, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I remember seeing you around. Thanks for the support. — kwami (talk) 05:03, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

They all are good editors that I respect, North*, Giant*, Bushranger, BMK, and others, which is what makes this situation so unusual and difficult, extracting a price for me as well, and I think it was based on some simple misunderstandings. And I would take Mojoworker's advice. I have worked ANI for a great period of time and can tell you from experience that once your name shows up many times in a short period, the odds of you getting a fair shake go down dramatically. Fairness is irrelevant, it is simply the truth as there are some that do not research before commenting. Now would be an excellent time to do some gnoming and avoid controversial topics, for your own self-preservation. Not many others would stick their own neck out here with a controversial close like this and you can't depend on it at the next ANI even if you were 100% in the right. You would do well to simply disengage earlier. Once you discover you are in a hole, the key is to stop digging, and you seriously need to develop some new habits to this effect. I'm not a great content creator, that is certain, but this is one area you should trust my judgement. I started WP:WER for a reason, and I've seen the pattern before. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 11:44, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I saw the WPR, but didn't realize you'd started it. There's definitely a need: we've lost too many good editors to personal disputes. — kwami (talk) 16:17, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree, which is why I tend to get involved with so many personal disputes, and try new methods. Not everyone agrees with my methods, some more loudly than others. Now the ball is in your court, and it looks like the discussion is moving along in a very productive manner. Sometimes, all it takes is bending in the wind just a little, and showing a little extra respect to the other side of the argument. This takes the "personal" out of the disagreement, so you can focus on the merits of the content. Respect and empathy are more powerful tools than you might realize, particularly when your goal is to persuade. I know nothing about the lakes, but I would like to think I understand people, so if you have a problem brewing, I would invite you to ping me early, not as an advocate or 3rd vote on content, but as an objective party to help the two sides see the wisdom of each other. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 19:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I want to second what Dennis says. I've followed you for a while (you edit in areas that interest me, but about which I don't know enough to contribute), and, although I've had a disagreement with Dennis, in my experience he is fair and thoughtful. There are times I've wanted to shout, "Pull up! Pull up!", when you've started down a path that was likely to land you at AN/I. I was shocked when your admin bit was pulled, but you were dancing at the edge of the canyon. Personally, I'm not sure what the point of editing at Wikipedia is, but if you see one for yourself, please understand that many of us value what you do. I've spoken out a few times against Kwami-baiting, but if you would ignore the hook a bit more often, maybe they'd give up and we could all do more useful work.--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:52, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Good to hear. — kwami (talk) 23:25, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been quiet for a few days, not because I haven't been following here, but because I didn't know what to say. First, someone has to give a big thank you to Dennis Brown for his sensible close and for sticking his neck out. It would have been very easy to pass by the other side. It should also be noted that someone reverted his close and regentspark had to close it again. Thank you to Dennis also for the extended comments here and for his offer to get involved in any future dispute resolution, and to Mojoworker and Curtis Clark also for their insights. There is much to think about here.

Yesterday I read on another thread, "ANI is a drum-head lynching tribunal for summarily dispatching matters according to which cohort howls loudest..." Trying to sort out this situation has taken a lot of time and energy on the part of many, but in my opinion, Kwami is worth it.

Some time back, during Kwami's previous misfortunes, I was stalking Worm's talk page trying to cheer myself up (his adoptees are always in good spirits) and I ran into his adminship essay. He says, "If there's a part of wikipedia that you're good at, then focus on it. I was good at adoption, other editors are good at templates or file work or copyright." What Kwami does here with his linguistics clinic is unique. Even when no one knew if he would be back, pilgrims were making their way to his talk page in hopes of having some complex linguistic question answered. I have come here myself with a titling question for the spelling of the name of a human rights group from an esoteric language, when various sources were not in agreement. Not only did I receive a definitive, authoritative, and apparently effortless answer, I was given a reason for it that made sense. Various publications like the Guardian are forever publishing something that is just plain wrong and getting lambasted for it in the ligua blogs; the Wikipedia editors are very fortunate to have access to such fact checking. At the top of this page, Kwami refers to "my general lack of diplomatic skills", but when it comes to linguistic questions, that is not at all true. That said, I think he has dodged a bullet; I hope he will keep his head down so we will have him around for a while longer.

A note to Dennis, if you regret not having gone to college, you CAN go back -- my degrees were conferred after the age of 40. To get started, just go to your local community college and sign up for a course, either a common prerequisite like English 101 or something that interests you. Some employers even offer a tuition waiver. If you go at night, the other students will be more mature, with jobs and families.

Neotarf (talk) 22:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Dennis is providing a valuable service here. I hope others join his cause; I've seen too many good editors leave because of personal politics.

I second the CC idea, though I have no reason to think Dennis needs it: there are lots of self-educated and self-made people out there. But when I finished high school, nearly all my friends headed off to the most prestigious university that would accept them. I didn't see the point. I hadn't even bothered to take the SATs, and went to the local community college instead, and then transferred. I got the better education. Students from the local ivy league schools would periodically come to the CC to get their gen ed out of the way, only to discover that the CC was more demanding than the university. My lit class had 12 students. It was at night in the summer, so smaller than normal, but the equivalent course at the local U had 700 to 1,000 students watching a video feed. If you have a good one nearby, CC's are the way to go: as a freshman you get the attention you don't get at the U until your junior year, when you transfer anyway. — kwami (talk) 23:25, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate the kind words, but won't be going to college. Too slow of a pace to learn in, it won't make a difference in my career path, and I'm truly an autodidact at heart. My main point is that some people might consider me a Randy because of a lack of formal education in a particular discipline, yet I still consider myself educated and a student as well. In short, there ARE some Randy's out there, but like the word "Vandal", it is used too often to demean others. True Randy's are trolls. Anyone acting in good faith but terribly mistaken is not "Randy", they are just terribly mistaken. We should show a little patience and education them if possible, or get a counter consensus if we can't, but demeaning someone for simply being mistaken isn't helpful and certainly doesn't win you compassion from others. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Kinda figured, about you being an autodictat.

I don't think formal education is important for everyone. It does more harm than good in some cases. But to me, a Randy is very different from a troll: A Randy truly believes the world is flat. At least, that's what I get from the essay. It's one thing to edit beyond your level of knowledge – I do it all the time – but when s.o. can demonstrate that they know better than you, and is willing to put in the time, it's best to defer to their judgement, at least as far as the facts themselves go. (They might insist on a jargon-riddled mess, but that's another issue.) But a Randy doesn't understand that he doesn't understand. IMO, when s.o. comes to an article and in all seriousness declares that the topic doesn't exist, they're being a Randy. — kwami (talk) 02:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Let me add a little refinement to your definition: A Randy is someone who is incapable of being persuaded that they might be wrong, or doesn't care and simply wants that cool fact in the article because it is cool. Someone who is wrong, perhaps stubborn but if you were to talk to them calmly and respectfully, they might understand your perspective, that is NOT a Randy. We have to be really careful to not jump to conclusions, assume good faith, and accept that some people are just a little stubborn. Hell, YOU are a little stubborn, after all. Thankfully, we all have things we can do to improve ourselves, and respectfully, one of yours just might be jumping to conclusions with other editors and digging in a bit. ;-) As someone who sincerely wants to see less of you at the boards and more of you in the article history, I offer this objectively and in the best of faith. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:51, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hell, I'm a lot stubborn. But when someone can show me I'm wrong, I'm quick to capitulate. I like being right, but that's secondary to actually being right. What drives me nuts are "I didn't hear that" arguments, people who simply deny the evidence in front of them. And yes, I do jump to conclusions about other editors too much. I did it just yesterday, when an editor changed the Maithili-language article to claim it was a Khoisan language. I assumed that was vandalism, and issued a warning, but then noticed the editor claims to be a native Maithili speaker, and realized they probably just didn't know what they were doing. — kwami (talk) 00:20, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Miju and Midzu

If Miju is possibly Tibeto-Burman, and the Midzu languages are certainly TB, something is not right here if Miju if definitely Midzu (as is claimed on the latter page). --JorisvS (talk) 08:24, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The pages are not all updated yet. It's been on my to-do list for a few days, but I've been lazy. Miju has been classified as part of the Midzuish branch of TB, and as (possibly) an isolate. If it's an isolate, it's not Midzuish. (Zakhring is TB regardless.) Midzuish is only proposed within TB. The same is true of Hrusish. — kwami (talk) 08:37, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

So, it's like [32]? And if Miju is an isolate Midzu consists of only one language, Zakhring, right? --JorisvS (talk) 11:12, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I believe so. I'd need to read Blench a little more carefully, as well as reread some of our earlier sources. Though if Miju (Midzu) is an isolate, I doubt anyone would speak of a Midzuish branch of TB! — kwami (talk) 17:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Creation of redirects to nowhere

I often patrol the Broken Redirects page and fix or tag as appropriate. I notice lately you've been creating a large number of language-related redirects which the Broken Redirects script picks up as pointed to a redlinked target. What's up with that? BusterD (talk) 16:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I generated lists of obsolete Ethnologue and ISO names for the language project, and have been turning them into redirects to the current ISO names as I've identified them. Because we have articles or at least rd's for 90% of current ISO names, that's usually straightforward: even if a bot needs to correct the rd to a more generic article, the page history will still show which language was intended, which might prove useful if the main article is ever broken up. I started out making sure the article was actually there for the other 10%, but besides slowing me down (significantly, since there have been over a thousand rd's), several times I hit the wrong button and created the article anyway. Later I figured why not, because in these cases too the deletion history now shows where the link should go, for when the target article is eventually created. So there's actually some useful info there. In any case, I've gone through both lists now, so it shouldn't happen much any more. — kwami (talk) 17:40, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I figured there was something useful going on here, so I held fire on CSD tagging. Thanks for the good work. BusterD (talk) 19:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, tag/delete away, as you like. They probably shouldn't be there. Hopefully the history will do someone some good: I used to always review the content of deleted articles before recreating them.

Did you leave any intact? I have a better way to handle them. — kwami (talk) 19:37, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hruso

I was wondering. We have both Hruso language and Hruso languages. Hruso language now says it is possibly TB, whereas Hruso languages says they are TB and includes, without reservations, the Hruso language. This part makes them similar to what we has with Miju above (and should be fixed, I'd say). There is however one thing more: If the namesake language of the family may not actually be part of the family, how appropriate is to use the names the way we're doing now? --JorisvS (talk) 18:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Parallel to Midzu in Midzuish, except that the remaining lang may not be TB either. Both are proposals within TB, and make little sense if their namesakes turn out not to be TB. All of these pages are loaded in my browser, and I have van Driem as well as Blench for reference; maybe this evening I'll be able to address them, if s.o. else hasn't already. — kwami (talk) 18:29, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Right, I missed that part about Dhammai. So is the Hruso family also uncertain (i.e are Hruso and Dhammai not certainly related), like Miju and Zakhring, or is it certain? --JorisvS (talk) 18:54, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I need to review at least Blench and van Driem, since they say somewhat different things. — kwami (talk) 18:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Airport names

More discussion on airport names. I am contacting you, and all past participants in recent discussions on this issue, because there is now a new RFC.

WP:HYPHEN says that proper names get hyphens, like Jones-Smith (or, as the example says "John Lennard-Jones". Are airport names any different? If I take a bicycle trip from Paris to Orly and write an article about it, or someone else does, it would correctly be called Paris–Orly trip with an en dash and trip not capitalized. But if I create a bicycle and call it the Paris-Orly Flyer that becomes a proper name and is capitalized. Is not the same true for airport names? Please see the discussions at WP:MOS, Talk:Seattle–Tacoma International Airport#Requested move and the recently opened RfC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports#New RfC. Apteva (talk) 22:57, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

That's misleading, Apteva. WP:HYPHEN says this:

"Hyphenation also occurs in bird names such as Great Black-backed Gull, and in proper names such as Great Black-backed Gull and Wilkes-Barre."

Some proper names "get hyphens", but that does not mean no proper name gets an en dash. "Are airport names any different?" Any different from what, exactly? From the default naming assumption that is mentioned at WP:DASH? That is the question facing the RFC to which you refer. An especially ill-posed one, in my opinion, with poor structure and unsupported preliminary assumptions.

PLEASE NOTE: discussions do not occur at places like [[WP:XXX]]. That is not a talkpage. Try this instead: WT:MOS. I see you making that mistake a lot.

By the way, are you canvassing for that RFC? See WP:CANVAS.

Noetica^Tea? 23:04, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Sockpuppet william plant

You reverted him on Wu Chinese for altering information.

None of his edits are sourced, they are all extremely biased and POV, all pushing his original research claim that southern chinese are not han chinese and that confucianism and han chinese are evil colonizers from north china and are oppresing allegedly "non han" southern chinese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/William_Plant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Profwujiang

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Moviecloth

LLTimes warned himin edit summaries to stop using sock accounts and did nothing else. he didn't even report him for his adding pov original research and uncited info, let alone sockpuppetry

Since every single one of his edits are not unsourced but also original research and POV, they all need to be reverted in a mass blanket revision. Can you file this case as the sockpuppet investigation and get him banned?

William Plant has been editing since june and profwujiang editing since july. Much of the original research he added is still on the articles, and William Plant has also been warned on his talk page for over eight copyright violations related to images

William Plant also edited LLtimes userpage and it has not been reverted. Considing that LLtimes knew that he was a sockpuppet , he is being way to kind to a clear POV pushing vandal. Other people who reverted him also did not bother to warn or report him.Jaabaat (talk) 02:44, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm no longer an admin. Since you're familiar with the situation, it would probably be best if you filed the sockpuppetry report. — kwami (talk) 02:48, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

@Jaabaat Thanks for the notice to this discussion. LLTimes has reported him by now at the sockpuppet investigations, so I'd suggest you help build that case too. I'm familiar with William Plant and somewhat with Profwujiang, but lost track due to being idle lately. I'll check their contributions later. --Cold Season (talk) 14:37, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Panjistani

This chap ain't stopping, something needs to be done. I chose your talk page for this note since you've interacted with him and have a seemingly not-so-pleasant presence on his talk page. Mar4d (talk) 16:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Blocked for 1 month. --regentspark (comment) 18:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I started to report him yesterday but then looked at all the paper work and thought, I'm not an admin, let someone else handle it. Also, that IP address has changed at least once, so this may need to be done more than once. — kwami (talk) 02:40, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Medebur language

Hi, as you know blanking a page doesn't delete it. If you have an issue with a redirect that doesn't qualify for speedy deletion, please take it to Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion rather than blank the page as you did with Medebur language. Thanks! -- KTC (talk) 11:54, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I was hoping s.o. would just delete it, since it interferes with other articles. — kwami (talk) 11:56, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Ah, well feel free to CSD it. KTC (talk) 12:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Michigan-Huron

Let it be, Kwamikagami. Names and their hierarchy are opinions. We use a vocabulary to comunicate with each other. Right or wrong doesn't matter, but consensus/ convention rules. If the meaning isn't agreed upon by consensus/ convention, you can't use it.

There's even a profecy. It states that lake Superior might get a leak, if someone triggers an earthquake at New Madrid Seismic Zone. Chicago would get a problem with its water supply, and lake Michigan-Huron would be a temporary thing. Let it be, Kwamikagami. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 10:36, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Why do people keep saying this is about naming? The name is irrelevant. The point is that the scientific POV is being suppressed by editors who don't like it: okay, since everyone insists this thing exists even though I know it doesn't, I'll accept a note about it, as long as it's not with the other notes where people will see it, but hidden at the bottom of the article ... it's ridiculous. Why should we kowtow to the uneducated here, when we don't at astrology or UFOs? We don't need consensus from astrologers that astrology is bupkis, with the argument that right or wrong doesn't matter, but here we walk on eggshells so as not to upset them. — kwami (talk) 11:03, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

You were right, lake Michigan-Huron exists from the hydrological/ ecological point-of-view, good point. As I understand, people don't want it listed as a great lake on Earth, that's it. Let it be, Kwamikagami. Wikipedia's dispute resolution procedures aim to pacify, sometimes right gets even a compromise. Voluntary work aims to build something up together, fight annoys anyone. Cheers --Chris.urs-o (talk) 11:23, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

No-one's talking about it being listed. We're adding a note about it; the argument now is that the note shouldn't go with the other notes, that it's so outrageous it needs to be segregated where no-one will notice it. That's censorship, or so it would appear from the reasoning given by the editor who still apparently believes it doesn't exist. — kwami (talk) 11:29, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Come on, accept the compromise: We're social animals. We need a herd, we need to stay within mankind. Tomorrow they might change their mind. There are so many issues on Wikipedia needing our attention. If we don't accept the rules of the club, then we have to leave the club. But if we create another club, then we're alone ;) --Chris.urs-o (talk) 11:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

In other words, Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia. If today there happens to be a lot of Flat Earthers logged in, then the Earth article will say that the world is flat, or perhaps we'll compromise and give both POVs, in the spirit of harmony and the truth being too lonely to bear. — kwami (talk) 12:01, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Hypothesis ;) Mankind only survivies if more than 50% loves the truth ;) --Chris.urs-o (talk) 12:59, 29 September 2012 (UTC)