User talk:Mclay1/Archive 5

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Icelandic people articles

I don't think it matters if Erik the Red or anyone else who lived in Iceland at the time did not speak Modern Icelandic. It directly pertains to the history of Iceland, and his name's modern Icelandic pronunciation is relevant to how such historical figures are locally referenced. The English Wikipedia can be inconsistent in the primary names it uses for Icelandic figures from between the 9th and 13th centuries; many are referred primarily by their evolved Modern Icelandic names, while some are referred primarily by their Old Norse names, and some are referred to by hybrid spellings (Old Norse but with spellings like "ö" instead of "ǫ"). At this time in Iceland, these figures spoke not Modern Icelandic, but Old (West) Norse. Yet in the context of how modern Iceland documents its own local history, all of these figures have relevant Modern Icelandic name forms, and in all cases they are worthy of mention and local pronunciation.

Now, if you'd like to dispute whether Erik the Red should be considered an Icelandic person at all, that's a different matter. At the moment, he is already categorized in Category:10th-century Icelandic people, in Category:11th-century Icelandic people and in Category:Icelandic people of Norwegian descent. I don't think this is necessarily strange, since although he was born in Norway and died in Greenland, he had settled and lived in Iceland for a time, and his son Leif was certainly born there. - Gilgamesh (talk) 13:42, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@Gilgamesh~enwiki: Assuming he can be considering Icelandic or an Icelander, it still doesn't matter how the modern people from his country now spell his name. Why do we need to know how historical figures are locally referenced in Iceland or how they document their local history? It's not relevant to his life. I don't know their guidelines, but the Icelandic Wikipedia doesn't mention the English name of William the Conqueror. How foreign languages write names is trivial and not useful to English readers. Erik the Red was born in Norway and is famous for colonising Greenland – it would be a mess to include all languages relevant to all the places he's connected to. The only names that matter are what we call him in English and what people called him at the time. If the name used in Icelandic was substantially different to the Old Norse then maybe it would be worthy of inclusion, but it's basically just a slightly different spelling. It clutters up the opening sentence, especially with the pronunciation guide, which most readers won't be able to understand. If the foreign-language information is important, I think it works better later on in the article if it fits or in a note, like his Old Norse name was in before (though I agree with showing his Old Norse name in the opening sentence). MClay1 (talk) 14:19, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

As well as the Roman/Italian comparison I gave on Talk:Erik the Red, another example is an Ancient Greek person/character such as Achilles. We give his modern English name and his Ancient Greek name but not his modern Greek name, which is a slightly different spelling of the Ancient Greek. MClay1 (talk) 14:25, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@Mclay1: So what you're saying is that you wouldn't mind if it were part of a footnote? But in any event, the English Wikipedia does tend to include modern local names for historical figures, especially those specifically connected to countries. And since Erik the Red is categorized as an Icelander (in addition to being a Norwegian and a Norse Greenlander), we include his Icelandic name, regardless of whether or not it's in a footnote. He isn't just connected to a time period—he is specifically connected to Iceland as an Icelander, and as such is part of local Icelandic history. And history isn't just about historical events themselves, but how modern people study it, so it's also about how modern Iceland documents its own history.

And I've seen a lot of interwikied Iceland Wikipedia articles before—they are often much briefer than corresponding English Wikipedia articles in general; I don't automatically attribute this to be a deliberate exclusion, but of some Icelandic Wikipedia articles being in a less developed or stubby state relative to their versions in other versions of Wikipedia.

As for the Achilles comparison, I've already had a similar discussion at User talk:Berig#Modern Icelandic for Norse mythology articles, about when Modern Icelandic language mentions are relevant to Norse mythology. The dispute was whether Norse mythological references compiled by Snorri Sturluson in Iceland should also be considered more specifically Icelandic mythology. The agreement we reached in that discussion was, basically, no, since the mythology is pan-Norse and not necessarily specific to Iceland, but was often merely most well-documented there. So, in practice, pan-Norse mythology articles do not necessarily have Icelandic language information unless they have it for other Nordic languages too, but topics specifically relating to Iceland itself always do, and that includes all people who were ever considered Icelanders. - Gilgamesh (talk) 14:55, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@Gilgamesh~enwiki: I think having it in a footnote is preferable to having it in the lead sentence, but my main preference would be to not have it all. Do you have an example of an English Wikipedia article for a historical figure (other than Icelanders) that lists the modern local name? I was trying to find an example before to check the common practice. MClay1 (talk) 01:43, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

@Mclay1: Well, let's see... First, there's a Nordic comparison. Denmark, Norway and Sweden have history from the Old Norse-speaking period, but so many local historical figures' names are filtered through the local languages as they have evolved to modern times. And this is no technicality, as the lasting Norwegian language conflict continues to demonstrate; this is why even some Norwegian historical names have two forms listed for each of the two standardized dialects. And in the last millennium there have been various local languages and dialects that have seen various periods of official repression by central governments, like with Elfdalian, Gutnish, Scanian and Westrobothnian.

But going outside a Nordic context, first of all there's Chinese historical names, which are primarily listed in modern Standard Mandarin no matter how old the reference is. This is at least partly for practical reasons as the reconstruction of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese has always been more difficult than with Old Norse and its highly descriptive First Grammatical Treatise. But Mandarin is also an ausbau language that unites most of the Chinese-speaking world in general.

In Japan, hiragana has been around since the Heian Period, and many historical names' phonetic forms are known from it. But still, even where ancient phonetic spellings are known, they are still primarily known by their modern Japanese language forms. This is why the ancient queen Himiko is not instead called "Pimiko".

In Korea, hangeul has been around for about half a millennium, and phonetic spellings of Korean names have been attested since then, but Korean historical names are still primarily known through their modern Korean language forms and adjusted modern hangeul spellings, and are known internationally primarily through modern Korean romanization systems.

What Japan and Korea had in common were long periods of relative geographic and cultural isolation with mostly specifically limited foreign influences (China, mostly), and a largely unbroken tradition within that same geography. When the history is local, it is often entirely natural to use local modern linguistic forms for referencing historical figures who did not speak the modern forms.

And this is true in Iceland, too. Iceland also has a strong literary culture, with one of the largest ratios of books to people, and Icelanders have the additional distinction of being able to read and understand Old Norse texts as if they were their own language because of how little the spellings differ. So when Old Norse is studied, and Old Norse texts recited aloud, it is the usual case to apply modern Icelandic pronunciation to Old Norse text, even though the pronunciation has changed a lot more drastically than the spelling.

The Greek comparison is a bit more problematic because of the historically far more scattered and divergent nature of the Greek language and society. Most Greek-speaking people who live in modern Greece, had ancestors who lived for centuries or millennia elsewhere. There was even a time in the Middle Ages when Greece Proper had become mostly depopulated and resettled by non-Greek-speaking peoples, and at the time most of Greek society was instead centered in places like Anatolia, the Bosphorus and Sicily, all of which have since lost most of their Greek-speaking populations. When the city of Athens was made the new capital of the reestablished Kingdom of Greece in the 19th century, it also had to be mostly refounded and resettled at the same time, and the countryside had long since mostly become Albanian-speaking (Arvanitic). So it's not just that Greek people moved around a lot, or had far more syncretism with other cultures over time, but that a lot of ancient Greek heritage, even locally, has long since no longer been considered exclusively Greek. For ancient Greek references now local to Italy, Italian language forms may be relevant. For ancient Greek references now local to Turkey, Turkish language forms may be relevant. For ancient Greco-Buddhist references now local to Pakistan...you get the point. And in Greece itself, there are still not only some people who speak Arvanite, but other local non-Hellenic languages like Aromanian and Slavo-Macedonian, as well as Hellenic languages not locally indigenous to Greece like Cappadocian and Pontic because their speakers' ancestors were resettled en masse to what is now Greece only in recent centuries. And even within recent Greek-speaking society in Greece, there has been a degree of language strife, like the 20th century struggle between Demotic Greek (commonly-spoken) and Katharevousa (purist but artificial). Though Katharevousa was abolished towards the end of the 20th century, it had influenced Demotic enough that some modern Greek words for ancient Greek names have multiple forms; for example, Jason can be Ιάσων (/iˈason/; purist form), Ιάσονας (/iˈasonas/; purist form with Demotic case ending) or Γιάσονας (/ˈʝasonas/; Demotic form).

All things considered, Iceland has had a far less dramatic ethnolinguistic history in its more isolated geography. Largely one geography, largely one culture, largely one language, until the mid-20th century with the heavy influence from and diglossia with English. - Gilgamesh (talk) 12:57, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

@Gilgamesh~enwiki: I'm looking at it less from a scholarly perspective and more from a readership perspective. Clearly you know a lot more about linguistics than I do. But I think for an ordinary reader, they won't be interested in the evolution of a historical figure's name in foreign-language records. To me, the only place that would seem relevant to discuss how locals refer to a historical figure would be in a section about the person's legacy and influence in that local culture. It's not basic information needed in the lead of the article. MOS:NICKCRUFT gives an example for Genghis Khan of what not to do in the lead sentence, and I think your addition to Erik the Red was similar in that added long bracketed foreign-language text that is difficult to read for English speakers. The actual current text in Genghis Khan is even more simple but provides extra information about language in notes. MClay1 (talk) 13:53, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

@Mclay1: Well certainly the longer-winded linguistic information can be moved to a note if that would be more appropriate for the article. My argument was about the merits of its inclusion in the article. Also, as someone who studies linguistics, I am especially interested in linguistic information in the articles I read. I am not exactly a lay person in that regard, and I don't exclude information simply on principle that an uneducated lay person might not understand its significance. Perhaps there are more elegant ways to include that extra information, but it still has its place. - Gilgamesh (talk) 14:31, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

@Gilgamesh~enwiki: I think a note is a good compromise. We're unlikely to agree on whether it should be included, and I imagine there would be numerous other editors on both sides of the debate. MClay1 (talk) 14:45, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

@Mclay1: Apparently there already was another editor who disputed the exclusion. Anyway, footnote formatted in nice, neat bullet format. - Gilgamesh (talk) 13:12, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Template:Old cfd

Good morning. You appear to be one of few people in the edit history of Template:Old cfd who is still active. Could you have a look at this problem and do you know who might be best asked to help here? Marcocapelle (talk) 07:17, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

@Marcocapelle Hi. That's fairly baffling. My only involvement in the template was moving it to a new name, so I'm not really across how it works. But unless that issue has gone unnoticed for a while, it seems like it must stem from a recent change in the wiki software, and I have no idea how that works or where it happens. Surely it must be affecting other templates too? MClay1 (talk) 11:07, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I think I solved the problem. I'll join in the discussion on your talk page. MClay1 (talk) 11:21, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Speedy rename" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Wikipedia:Speedy rename and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 26#Wikipedia:Speedy rename until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 07:34, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

"井" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect 井 and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 25#井 until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. – MwGamera (talk) 17:31, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Category:Astronomical objects by source of name has been nominated for discussion

Category:Astronomical objects by source of name has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Cambalachero (talk) 15:11, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

AWB redirect: 2 more pages

Hey, I noticed two more pages that need to be synced with Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates and Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Rename template parameters. They both need to have redirects listed at the template redirect page for their process to work on redirect names as well. Gonnym (talk) 15:48, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym Thanks for flagging that. I'll go through and sync up my recent changes. MClay1 (talk) 00:06, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Category:Literary archetypes by name

Hello, Mclay1,

Please do not remove all of the contents of a category so that it is tagged for speedy deletion, CSD C1. This is called "emptying out of process" and is considered disruptive. If you believe a category should be deleted, renamed or merged, please nominate at Categories for Discussion so that other editors can weigh in on the process. Since WIkipedia as a hierarchical category structure, what affects one category can impact others. Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:49, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I moved the contents to a more appropriate location which happened to render the category empty. I was not involved in it being tagged with speedy deletion. Will keep in mind for future. MClay1 (talk) 00:30, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:No articles

Template:No articles has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Q𝟤𝟪 20:54, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

"The Beatles' line-ups" listed at Redirects for discussion

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Category:The Beatles' musical instruments has been nominated for deletion

Category:The Beatles' musical instruments has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect (talk) 00:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:FA-Class vital articles in Art

A tag has been placed on Category:FA-Class vital articles in Art indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 08:15, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Special:PageHistory/Category:FL-Class vital articles in Art

I'm confused as to what's going on here. First Martin removes the template on the category, presumably so it will be deleted. It is then tagged by Liz as C1. Then you come along and revert that, essentially back to the situation we started off with. — Qwerfjkltalk 10:53, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl I restored the stable version of the page because it appears as though the user is attempting to delete the categories out of process. Unless there's a discussion I'm missing, there should be a CfD before these categories are deleted. They may very well be unused, but since they're tagged as being potentially empty, that's not necessarily a problem. MClay1 (talk) 10:57, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

This is a part of a long-standing cleanup process being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles and also has come up at the village pump. We are using Arts not Art to match the naming of the subpages. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:14, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you please revert your changes to these categories so the cleanup can continue? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:24, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I have now asked you twice to revert these changes. Are you intending to take responsibility for your mistaken edits? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:54, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

It wasn't a mistake. I've already said what I think should happen at the above linked discussion. I have no issue with someone doing that, but I'd rather the editors (including yourself) involved in the process take command of that. I won't revert it. I'm content with staying out of it now. MClay1 (talk) 08:30, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

What a disappointing reply. Next time, please consider asking questions first and then reverting later. It may save a lot of time. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:56, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Anyone can contest a speedy deletion. It wasn't and still isn't the correct procedure for achieving your goal, but I don't care enough to contest it again. It's fine, there's no issue - it just needed a bit of discussion, which there now has been, so its all good. MClay1 (talk) 23:54, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Also, there's no time to ask questions if something is about to be speedily deleted. That's why a proper deletion discussion is required. It makes much more sense to stop the speedy deletion, then have a discussion and then restart the deletion process if need be. There's no need to do any of it quickly so there's no harm done. MClay1 (talk) 23:56, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Kingston.

Your article on Kingston VIC was great. Do you have any information on the enormous building behind the brick fence. It is set back from the road just past the hotel? Zebedee arrived (talk) 23:23, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Zebedee arrived, I'm the most recent contributor to that article; however, unfortunately I just fixed a typo - I don't know anything about the subject. If you check the article history, there a few editors who've made substantial contributions that may know more. Cheers, MClay1 (talk) 11:34, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Category:Mongolian folk culture has been nominated for merging

Category:Mongolian folk culture has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 13:27, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Computing)" listed at Redirects for discussion

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Tartarian Empire

The lead makes no sense. We already have Tartary lead needs to match the title. Doug Weller talk 16:02, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I didn't write any of it. I don't really have any knowledge or interest in the subject so that's fine by me if you want to rewrite it. MClay1 (talk) 03:52, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Doug Weller talk 13:15, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

"Template:R subtopic" listed at Redirects for discussion

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