User talk:Karmosin/Archive 3

Scandinavian languages

The anon has reverted your redirect and answered on the talk page. He has also added a disputed template, which is fine by me. I have not protected or reverted in any way, yet. Can you please direct your attention to his answer and my reply? I'd apprechiate it! Inter\^Echo 12:12, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Maps

If you can't do them yourself, then I could certainly help. But I would need source pictures (they may be copyrighted, since I'll make a complete redraw on a GNU licenced map) - but, you could do this yourself, too, with almost any paint program. If you can't, do send me the source material. You can find my e-mail (and instructions to avoid my spamfilter) on a www link on my user page. --Janke | Talk 15:41, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, call me lazy, but I feel I'm a lot better at writing articles, recording sound files and making consonant tables than fiddling around in Photoshop. I'm a terrible artist if anything... And to be honest, it's nice not having to do everything myself. I prefer having some collaboration to duking it out on my own. I'll get back to you when/if I find proper source material.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:49, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Slovenian dialects

By chance, I have just found your post about Slovenian dialects. If you have any question regarding the issue, I suggest you contacting the author of the text (or have you perhaps already done it?) --Eleassar my talk 19:29, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

No, and I don't really have any questions right now. I was just trying to keep the fairly obvious nationalism out of the article. Slovene is sure to have features that makes it unique from other languages, but this needs to be described with proper NPOV. I'll check the SU library for books on Slovene when I have time, but I really don't have enough knowledge to start checking into this issue on my own.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:36, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Slovenian

Please, as you have redirected "Slovenian or Slovene" to "Slovenian", I have to inform you that the use of these terms has been very controversial here on Wikipedia. A consensus had been reached to write something about this topic long before the article was started. There's really much to explain and we would like to avoid duplicating the information. You can learn more about this at Talk:Slovenians (also includes references). You also should be more careful when creating a redirect: you made a double one.

On the other hand, have a look at the cluttered article/disambiguation page French, linking to the French encyclopedia and surely other cases could be found too. --Eleassar my talk 18:07, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

It wouldn't be the least bit controversial if you and BT2 just let everyone pick their favorite synonym and stopped wasting everyone's time with this non-issue. Please just drop this and concentrate on making real article improvements instead. You really need to focus your efforts on something that would actually benefit the project.

Peter ^Isotalo 18:45, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I let everyone choose what they like! What I have especially been striving for is to end the edit war between BT2 and XJaM and the only way I saw out of it was to make a new convention. We also have to agree what to use for headings and to be consistent when using these terms in articles. It's a general rule to consistently use only one term for an entity in an article. --Eleassar my talk 19:47, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

North (Germanic)

This is the standard for classifying these languages in English. I will not stop reverting to the proper notation. – AxSkov (T) 03:58, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

According to whom! At least claim something else but your own opinion on this one.

Peter ^Isotalo 04:00, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

At Ethnologue Languages of the World classifications are listed as:

• Danish as:
  Indo-European, Germanic, North, East Scandinavian, Danish-Swedish, Danish-Riksmal, Danish
• Icelandic as:
  Indo-European, Germanic, North, West Scandinavian, Icelandic
• Norwegian as:
  Indo-European, Germanic, North, West Scandinavian, Norwegian-Nynorsk
• Swedish as:
  Indo-European, Germanic, North, East Scandinavian, Danish-Swedish, Swedish

– AxSkov (T) 04:17, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Ethnologue is not Wikipedia and neither are they the ultimate authority when it comes to linguistics. We have our own guidelines and policies for these sort of things and none of them say that Ethnologue has the final word on anything language related. Least of all something as detailed as a minor layout issue of our own infoboxes. Add to this that SIL has some pretty outlandish theories about the classification of things like North Germanic languages and the separate classification of Flemish (which seems to be accepted by neither the linguistic community in general nor the vast majority of the speakers). I mean, just look at terms like "Danish-Swedish" or the separate classification of the two written variants of Norwegian. I've never seen any other linguist use this sort of terminology and certainly not among Scandinavian linguists (even if there is some of logic behind it).

Please try to respect that I want this added clarity added to the infoboxes for them to be as unambiguous and easy to read as possible, not just because I find it prettier or anything.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:58, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

No Ethnologue may not be, but then who is?

I have found a book on languages, which also uses similar notation for the classification of Germanic languages. For example Danish is classified as: Indo-European > Germanic > North > East Scandinavian > Danish. It also lists Norwegian as two variants, one belonging to West Scandinavian and the other to East Scandinavian – with Swedish and Danish. It makes sense that Ethnologue lists both Danish and Swedish as branches off the Danish-Swedish branch, because Danish and Swedish are similar languages and are fairly intelligible between speakers of both these languages. The differences between Swedish and Danish are similar to the differences between English and Scots. The type of Norwegian understood by the majority of Norwegians is Bokmaal, which is closely related to both Danish and Swedish. This suggests that the classification of Norwegian needs to be reclassified as Indo-European > Germanic > North > East Scandinavian > Norwegian, which is also the classification in the languages book I have.

You also mentioned state the obvious where it says "there is no need to go overboard". By listing North as North Germanic, it is repeating the Germanic part above it and isn't necessary, its just repetition. With having the classification as Germanic > North, it is implied that North means North Germanic, as part of the Germanic branch, anyone with half-a-brain can work that out. – AxSkov (T) 07:57, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

The confusion that Ethnologue causes about the status and classification of languages is a constantly reoccuring problem and it's very, very frustrating. Ethnologue is a useful tool in many situations, but when it comes to certain areas their academic standards seem to have been flushed down the toilet. They are in disagreement with all available sources when it comes to many classification issues and they do not provide the barest minimum of references. Their only reasoning for their deviant theories about a two-fold classification of Norwegian, for example, seems to be that one of the written standards of Norwegian has been heavily influenced by Danish. The reasoning for this, however, is very flawed. No one accepts that there are two Norwegian spoken languages. (I'm not quite sure that even SIL does, but since there is no way to see how they have come to their conclusions, it's impossible to tell.) Not even the Norwegians do it, though Norwegian is unique in a sense that dialectal deviations in formal and official contexts are much more tolerated that in many other national languages. SIL also completely ignores the fact that even Eastern Norwegian dialects are still part of a language continuum that descends from West Old Norse and shows many traits that are common with the other West Scandinavian languages.

As for "Danish-Swedish" as a separate branch, the idea is very speculative. These two languages are indeed more closely related to one another historically, but due to rivalry and nationalism that began after the independence of Sweden in the 16th century, there was actually deliberate attempts to distance the spoken languages from one another, and this is very apparant today. To most Swedes, spoken Danish can be very difficult to comprehend and vice versa. It's not like trying to understand German, but it is more than enough to merit subtitling of any Danish in Swedish TV. It also overlooks the fact that Old Gutnish is considered a member of the East Scandinavian languages, even if the language more or less merged with Swedish sometime in the 16th century and for all practical purposes can be considered to be extinct.

I strongly suggest you don't consider Ethnologue as a viable standalone reference in the future. If there are doubts about classification, the generally accepted theories of the linguistic community should be trusted, not the self-proclaimed authority of an organization that really doesn't fulfill acceptable academic standard and, well, verifiability.

That you wish to be so firm about such a minor issue as the wording of an infobox instead of accepting argumentation based on our own policies and the intentions to present clear wording is of course nothing I can do anything about, and I will not dwell on it. I hope you realize that we could fling various classification schemes from countless sources at each other claiming that one or the other is better represented without ever agreeing on which should be considered more authoritive.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:19, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't just using Ethnologue as a reference, but also a language book I have. The language book is "Atlas of Languages", which is produced by linguists, cartographers, etc.

About Danish & Swedish, well that's not quite true. I know people who speak Danish (grandmother, father, etc.) and can understand Swedish pretty well, while the people I know who speak Swedish cannot understand Danish very well; so I disagree with your vice-versa. Ethnologue is not the only one who has the "two-fold" classification of Norwegian, other texts also do this.

The Norwegian article says that there are two written forms of Norwegian: Bokmaal/Riksmaal which is closer to Danish and Swedish; Nynorsk/Høgnorsk which is closer to Icelandic. It doesn't really say much about whether or not there are one or two spoken languages, I feel it is lacking in this area and perhaps should be clarified. It also lacks references, which should be rectified.

Could you please give me some references in regards to language classifications (in English only, because I'm [unfortunately] monolingual)?

Until I find good references on language classifications, I will still consider Ethnologue a good reference source. – AxSkov (T) 09:47, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

For references on North Germanic language and classification, check my posts at Talk:Scandinavian languages. I would strongly recommend not taking the attitude that puts Ethnologue on a piedestal it doesn't necessaraly deserve. Take some time to actually diversify your knowledge of issues where you might not know that much. We all have them and there's nothing wrong with making some erroneous assumptions now and then, but sticking to old beliefs on account of over-confidence in just one source... It's going to waste a lot of time and effor for other editors to dig out the bare minimum of sources you might very well have checked on your own.

I've never seen anyone but SIL make a two-fold classification of Norwegian, because, like I said, the reasoning is flawed. There is no demarcation as to which speakers use which written language and there is absolutely no recognition of Norwegian dialects as separate languages as far as I know. According to Bjarte at the above mentioned talkpage, people who speak the same dialect can use different writing standards. It's more or of a political question with both tradition and nationalism involved, and not merely a matter of dialectal identity.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:58, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

please move a page

hi, could you please take a look at my request at Talk:Alice Deejay? muchas gracias. :) --213.209.80.54 15:41, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Province categories

Oh, NO. 23 subcats. :-( Bishonen | talk 00:38, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Tell me about it... There's also worthless categories like "Realm of Sweden", based on the silly idea about first directly translating "Svea rike" and then making it a separate term and article (which I have long since redirected to Sweden.

I suggest you simply delete everything that contains Latin names and we'll start from scratch. It's easier that way and we don't have to deal with a category structure that Mic will not be here to explain to us.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:08, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, right. When you say simply, you mean simply depopulate and delete them, don't you? For the pleasure of getting told by the Swedish Wikipedians' Notice Board how much more correct it would have been to conduct a poll there and wait until the acrimony pertaining to some of the provinces had played itself out and then to have put the categories up on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion? Process, my dear boy! Sorry, I'm going on vacation. Bishonen | talk 13:55, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Gay Nigger Association of America FAC

Ok, I removed either duplicate or broken references, causing the references to jump down to 17 from 24. I do not know if this will gain a support vote, or you have more things for me to fix. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 07:25, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Also, what references do you think are redundant and we could use without? Zscout370 (Sound Off) 05:40, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Good start. I made another post at the FAC-page explaining some do's and dont's of footnoting. You also need to simply sum up your sources and put them in the "References"-section and move the notes currently in the "References"-section to "Notes". A formality, but pretty important.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:20, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Figures for Sweden..

The 35,000 figure for Sweden seemed so unlikely that I removed it altogether. I'd be surprised if Hungarian speakers in Sweden were even in the thousands. Ethnologue mentions nothing of Hungarian speakers in Sweden, so please cite a source for this claim.

Hej! Jag hittade inget annat sätt att kontakta dig på än detta, så jag ber om ursäkt om detta egentligen inte är korrekt tillvägagångssätt. Jag såg att du hade anmärkt på den ungersktalande minoritetens storlek i Sverige (se ovan). Om du söker på statistiska centralbyråns sida, kan du se att det finns ca 15.000 ungernfödda svenska medborgare just nu. Dessa kom väl framförallt i samband med revolutionen 1956. Som halvungrare så lärde jag mig att det finns ca 25-30.000 ungrare i Sverige. detta inkluderar då barn till ungrare ( sk "2:a generationens invandrare"). Denna siffra hörde jag senast i slutet av 80-, början av 90-talet. Med detta i åtanke känns inte alls siffran om 35.000 ungersktalande i Sverige idag felaktig.

Mvh, Sebastian ( kommonsens@freemail.hu )

What Wikipedia is not

Where does it say that Wikipedia is not a general knowledgebase? Sorry, I'm relatively new here. Brownman40 03:23, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

No wonder you didn't find it. Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. I guess I was used to the old wording or something.

Peter ^Isotalo 03:36, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

A few SCA websites about subtleties

Also spelled "sotelties", so you can also Google for that. There is a page full of links at [1]. Some particularly promising ones from that page are:

• Menus for Feasts in 1387 and 1443
• 16th and 17th century English references

Here is an archive of messages from the rec.org.sca newsgroup. If you dig through, they mention several books that might be helpful for you.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SCA_Subtleties/ is an SCA wide (but not limited to SCA members) e-list dedicated to the research and recreation of subtleties and illusion foods from Medieval & Renaissance sources.

I think that Society for Creative Anachronism researchers are pretty compulsive about their sources, so their descriptions of historical practices are probably reliable. Hope this helps! FreplySpang (talk) 21:52, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Holkham Hall

Thanks for your support on FA. It will be one lucky page if it succeeds. Thanks Giano | talk 22:19, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Call in the academic mafia, dude!

Peter ^Isotalo 22:29, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

central vowels

hi. i found this paper on central & back vowel distinctions: http://www.und.nodak.edu/dept/linguistics/wp/2000Parker.PDF. although it is theoretical, it does have some descriptions of vowel systems with central vowels. just in case it may be interesting for you. (it also discusses Swedish a bit.) peace – ishwar  (speak) 16:54, 2005 August 11 (UTC)

Most informative. Thank you very much, ish.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:26, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Chennai

The inote work is done. Do you still have any objections to the article? =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:46, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

An outrage

ICA Torkel Knutssonsgatan doesn't have the good sylt. I don't know where to get it. :-( Bishonen | talk 08:44, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, poo! Like that's the only store you could've checked out! I'm gonna go downtown today and take some article photos. I'll see if I can find an ICA with the God-jam for you.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:25, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

re: British Spelling

Sorry about that. I usually do edit in the style of English most used within the article; but this time, for some reason, I just assumed it was British English. I'll switch it back to AmE. —Wayward 22:52, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I just try to avoid these conflicts before they ever break out...

Peter ^Isotalo 23:01, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Please don't edit other users' comments II

Hi Peter,

I noticed you edited one of my comments by striking through it. You did this without even commenting on the comment. Please refrain from doing this in future. I am sure you wouldn't appreciate it if I did it to your comments. Why exactly did you edit my comment?

Cedars 07:15, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Did you notice that Raul himself explained why your objection is not actionable?

Peter ^Isotalo 09:54, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

It's still not acceptable to edit other user's comments. Did you notice Raul didn't edit my comment? This behaviour doesn't seem in line with your participation with the harmonious editing club. It would be appreciated if you made a pledge to stop editing other user's comments at least without their prior consent. I can comfortably say I have never edited another user's comments.

Cedars 10:03, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

This has been done before with people who submitted objections that are not actionable (though never by Raul as far as I know). You've clearly not read the FA criteria properly, misunderstood the point of footnotes and fail to take a hint when Raul explains that your objection is not required. I'll remove myself from the editing club, eventhough it's about editing articles, not discussion, but try to read up on these things before protesting...

Peter ^Isotalo 10:12, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Peer review of Swedish allotment system

Hi Peter, would you mind having a look at the article and make a few comments on the peer review page? -- Elisson • Talk 22:16, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Your voice recordings

Hi there, Peter. I've just been listening to some of your recordings on the Commons. May I just say that you blew me away. That recording of the Chinese name for China is as authentic as I've ever heard it spoken— I'm not Chinese, but have had many (granted, non-native) Chinese acquaintances, and wouldn't at all have been able to tell just by listening that you weren't yourself Chinese. And then there's the Swedish recordings, where you sound perfectly Swedish. How on earth do you do it? Keep it up! Hope to see many recordings from you in future.—Encephalon | ^ζ  17:05:49, 2005-08-16 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliments! The Swedish part isn't exactly difficult because... well... I'm Swedish. :-) I live in Stockholm now and I've always spoken Swedish with my parents, even though I'm partially raised in Moscow and have had Russian as a second (though now way tooo rusty) second language. As for the rest, I seem to have inhereted my mothers knack for accent imitation. She's also a native Swede, but speaks such fluent Russian that she's ever so often approached by ethnic Russian strangers who marvel at her perfect command of Swedish.

I really like your "wiki pedia"-analysis, by the way. Very concise and very descriptive, no matter where one stands.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:32, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Removal of post

I'm going to remove your annoying post, that blames me for something that I have not been doing, shame on you. On some of those dates you mentioned, I wasn't even on the Internet let alone Wikipedia. Even though I do agree with some of the changes the user has made. – AxSkov (☏) 03:32, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

So you're telling me it's just a coincidence that this anon supports the SIL-layout, the insistance on (e.i. -> that is), edits concerning Australia, various variants of English, Danish phonetics, etc. etc.? And the fact that you removed my first post with a non-descriptive edit summary ("few changes") isn't exactly in your favor here.

Peter ^Isotalo 03:42, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, for the first part. Secondly, I removed the post because I didn't like getting blamed for something I didn't do. I was going to remove the post again, but figured you would just post another message, so I decided to reply to you this time. – AxSkov (☏) 03:52, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

No, you can remove it all you want. It's your talkpage and I'm not about to harass you if you don't want it there. However, it doesn't exactly work in your favor. Especially not when one of the IPs reverted when you were most definetly not out of town. E.i. ten minutes before you make your post here [2]. The IP contributor doesn't seem to like using talkpages either. There's also the matter that you're reverting not only me, but other editors. And that's under your actual account.

Peter ^Isotalo 03:59, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the greet

What subtype of linguist are you btw? I'm currently a graduate student in computational linguistics but much prefer descriptive linguistcs. --Kaleissin 20:23:13, 2005-08-19 (UTC)

Oh, I'm no proper linguist. Just a very dedicated language nerd. But I am just about to start my first term of Mandarin at the University of Stockholm and it would be fun to take a proper linguistics course soon enough, but I'm still not sure exactly what I want to do with my life. My biggest weakness is probably a good grip of linguistic theory, grammar and what the various schools of thought within these fields actually represent, though I'm trying to pick things up as I go along. So far I've been very dedicated to phonetics and phonology (you can tell by reading Swedish language). I read up as best I can on unfamiliar subjects by raiding the campus library or making visits to KB now and then.

If you want to get in touch with our proper wikilinguists, there's Mark Dingemanse who is very dedicated to African languages, in particular Niger-Congo languages. There's also Angr (theoretical linguistics) and Wiglaf that I know actually are actually academics. But besides them there's Nohat, ish ishwar (mostly North American languages), dab and kwamikagami (lotsa phonetic articles). I've probably forgotten plenty of people, but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

I'm the one to turn to if you need pronunciations, though. I've done a lot of stuff in a lot of languages, mostly Swedish, Russian, Mandarin and Japanese and I'm always open to requests. Check out Category:Pronunciation at Commons for tons of other recordings as well.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:23, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Stamp cruft

Would you mind telling me in English what this phrase means? What right have you to demand that a whole subject gets deleted just because you are not interested in it and are too lazy to ask the author what he is doing, when it is clear from file histories that he is working on it every day?

--Jack 21:07, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

As it happens, I've since discovered what "cruft" means and it is obviously one of those pieces of jargon that some people use because they think it impresses others. It doesn't. A few words of advice to you: don't use jargon. It annoys people and causes them to form a poor opinion of you. And there is nothing clever about it. Attend an interview talking jargon and you will not get the job. Speak in plain language and show that you know your stuff: you will get the job and impress everyone too.

As for stamps, have a look at the Philately section and you will see it is quite a serious study, although it is still in the relatively early stages of development. My current project can be found under category:Compendium of postage stamp issuers. Look at that and if you still think it's "cruft" then so are 90%-plus of all articles on Wikipedia. The deleted article has been restored and is there under its new pipelinked name. So, no harm done in the long term and I apologise for getting annoyed. Good luck with your studies. --Jack 09:47, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

The meaning of "cruft" is not "a hoaky, nerdy subject which no one is interested in", but rather "overly-detailed piece of information which is only relevant to a very select group of readers". It doesn't matter if they're called fans, nerds, trekkies, aficionados or connoisseurs; if it's quite obviously written to interest only oneself or perhaps ones closest peers then it is of no encyclopedic interest to me. And jargon is what communities are about. I'm sorry if you feel new and unfamiliar with it, but jargon is not a sign of arrogance or even xenophobia; it's just a matter of convenience.

If you're concerned about people taking philately seriously (I have absolutely nothing against stamp articles per se), you might want to spend your time here actually improving relevant top-level articles like philately or postage stamp instead of making endless, (that's right) crufty catalogues over sub-articles that are of interest almost only to philatelist. Both the articles I mentioned are fairly good, but one needs only a quick glance to see that they are far from finished.

The reason why I'm such a hard-line deletionist is because people quite frankly are wasting a lot of time with only overly-detailed lists (cruft), tables (cruft) and minutiae articles (more cruft) that are only really of interests to themselves and die-hard fans, and then get very defensive when you point this out to them. If you want editorial respect, earn it by writing good articles, not by adding yet more lists and categories.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:35, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

"...it is of no encyclopaedic interest to me" is just about the most self-centred comment I have seen on here. And you are? You appear to object to lists containing summary information. I suggest you study more encyclopaedias, because I think you will find useful summaries of this type in every single one. If you want people to respect you, stop pretending to be a competent editor and stop throwing stupid words like cruft around. The whole point of an encyclopaedia is (if I may quote from one learned tome I have at my disposal) to "embrace the whole circle of learning" and "(to be) a work containing information on every department of knowledge". Articles are one means of conveying information but it takes time to study them thoroughly so encyclopaedists utilise other means of presenting information in the form of tables and diagrams. Your dismissal of non-article presentation leaves you completely out of touch with the encyclopaedic concept. --Jack 10:58, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Vilhelm av Oranien

Could you visit Talk:William of Orange and take a look what your old comrade Philip Baird Shearer has attempted to do. 217.140.193.123 09:55, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

From you three sentence comment, it is not clear to me if you were voting on the issue or personality. I hope it was after weighing up the evidence, considering the alternatives you made your decision base on the best alternative for the name William of Orange. Philip Baird Shearer 15:19, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Philiph, you're being a dick and you're obviously having a very hard understanding why people are upset. No person in their right mind wastes so much of other people's time and effort by setting up votes about non-issue POV-pushing article moves. Go write proper articles or take a vacation. Take other peoples protests seriously and don't abuse the wikibureaucracy to push petty personal agenda.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:35, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Holla!

Hey, Peter. You wanted me to let you know when I'm back, so here it is: I'm baaaa-aaaack! ;) IceKarmaॐ 22:32, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Huzzah!

Peter ^Isotalo 09:05, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Re : Slovenian or Slovene

Hi Peter,

Let's go through the votes for Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Slovenian or Slovene. I'll include your vote as well.

• 1 Keep
• 2 Merge
• 2 Delete
• 2 Redirect

Total 5 voters.

Point is, there isn't really a majority vote for any of the options. The point of VFD is to determine whether an article should be deleted or not by a sysop. Merging or redirect can be done by any other user boldy.

No concensus ≠ Keep. For a VFD closed as a keep, the nominator is not allowed to put it for VFD without another good case, and cannot perform any of the other above options. If you've merged an article just simply redirect to the merged article.

From your content of your message, may I ask you to assume good faith.

- Best regards, Mailer Diablo 10:58, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I opened harshly, but just check out Slovenian or Slovene. Eleassar is probably not going to give up until an admin actually writes it out clearly; "consensus is to delete or merge". I hate to use VfD this way, but it seems to be the only one.

Peter ^Isotalo 06:07, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Re:Scandinavian Peninsula

I've just reverted your change to the stub template on Scandinavian Peninsula. Sure "It's just geography", but look at it this way. If you've got editors who know about Scandinavia and will be able to extend this article, is it easier for them to find the article in a category relating to Norway or Sweden, or in a category containing geography stubs from throughout the world? If the geography stubs were not split by country and region, there would be 10,000 of them in one large category, and no editor would be happy wading through all of them looking for articles to extend. Please do not make things a lot harder for editors simply because you don't want an article on the land that makes up Norway and Sweden to be put in Norway- and Sweden-specific categories! Grutness...wha? 06:26, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

You know, you could just create a "Scandinavia"-stub instead and skip the potential nationalist silliness. Your call.

Peter ^Isotalo 06:30, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Considering that this is one of only two or three articles whiich refer to both countries, that would mean either a separate stub template for two or three items (silly) or combining two already large categories into a more cumbersome one styill (also silly). No, I think sticking with the current (sensible) method is the way to go. Grutness...wha? 01:28, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

AOL Proxy Madness

Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate all the help Bishonen and the other admins have been willing to give. Peace. WBardwin 06:28, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Culture of Ancient Rus

Peter, since we've met........ Cleaning up this article is on my "to do someday" list, but I'm happy to admit that Russia in the Middle Ages is not my strong point. If you have sources handy, an old history book?, would you consider looking it over? Thank you. WBardwin 07:27, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Way beyond me. I know very little about Russian history, let alone medieval Russia. You should try asking Wiglaf, though. He's very interested in the history and pre-history of the Vikings and Scandinavia, and I think he might know a thing or two about Russian history as well.

However, I will check with my mom, who's a historian specializing in Russian history. She might have some literature about it. Who knows? I might even learn something new. :-)

Peter ^Isotalo 15:19, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Slovenian or Slovene

I appreciate that you're willing to compromise and I think redirecting Slovenian or Slovene to the Naming convention is very reasonable, but please avoid linking to policy documents from article pages, even if they're only disambigs. We're supposed to avoid self-referencing of this kind except when an article is disputed, which is not really the case here.

I know the guideline, but in the past two and a half years many articles were "disputed" due to this and we have had a bunch of edit wars. Therefore it seems quite reasonable to include the link to the NC. The community has decided to include other self-reference links too, even though no articles were disputed. No one objects and I'm quite sure many people saw them. These things should be judged from case to case. By the way, I wonder why Slovenian cannot refer to country. Also, do you have any reference about Slovenian language being South Slavic; this is in contrast with Slovenian language. --Eleassar my talk 19:51, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't know what other cases you're refering to, so I can't comment on them unless you actually give examples.

I understand that people sometimes fight over completely pointless minor details, but this is not a reason to start letting the conflicts spill over into the article namespace. In fact, it's very easy to lose track of the main objective of the project if you're involved in such a pointless dispute or just happen to be witnessing it long enough. We're not here to please the whims of troublesome contributors, but to write good articles. The way to deal with edit wars is not to produce non-articles to please disgruntled editors, but to either settle the issue through naming conventions or even arbitration if it comes to that.

You're right that "Slovenian" can indeed refer to the country, but it's a pure dictionary definition and... well... we're not a dictionary. At least that's how I write diambigs. Slovenian language does not say that it's a West Slavic language, but rather that it's a Western South Slavic language. It's just a form of sub-division.

Peter ^Isotalo 20:18, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh sorry, I have just come back to correct my sentence about the contradiction. I'll reply tomorrow. --Eleassar my talk 20:22, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's only that you understand something as being encyclopedic differently than I do. It has nothing to do with pleasing disgruntled editors. But let us leave this aside.

I wish to say something about the disambiguation. You know, I wonder why would the explanation that Slovenian is a dictionary definition hold only for the country but not also for the language and the inhabitants.

I also wish to ask what you're planning to do about the disambiguation pages German, French and English. Also be aware of (for example) the articles Human (not to mention Mannaz), morning and especially Freedom, discussing the terminology and the etymology. Are you going to change them too? It would be neither efficient neither appropriate, according to the following:

"Wikipedia is not in the business of saying how idioms, etc., are used. (But, of course, it's often very, very important in the context of an encyclopedia article to say just how a word is used. E.g., the article on freedom has a long discussion about this.)".

I think this also holds for the case of using Slovenian as pertaining to the country, even though it's not an article but a disambiguation. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 08:35, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Look, you have to pretty much disregard the outside world if you want to claim that a minor naming conflict without any background except conflicting views of esthetics to consider Slovenian or Slovene encyclopedic. It has come to being solely because of an wiki-internal conflict, which is reason enough to not keep it.

As for disambig pages, it's pretty pointless to bring up the verbose nature of other disambigs as an argument for verbose dismbigs. I know people tend to fill these pages with a lot of irrelevancies, but just because it's still common doesn't mean it's desirable and it's certainly not a good argument to keep them.

In any case, the wording right at now at Slovene doesn't seem bad to me, so let's leave it at that. I am, however, going to fix the disambigs you mentioned.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:43, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate your decision and will made only a small modification to the existing text of the disambig page (Slovenian is more frequently used). On the other hand, as I said, we have conflicting views on what is encyclopedic (and what arguments can be given on this matter (besides aesthetics also history, etymology, orthography etc) and why it came into being (references were written before Wikipedia came into existance), but let us leave it behind, as our arguing doesn't contribute to anything. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 10:00, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Inline refs

Peter would you take a look at this: Wikipedia talk:What is a featured article. You and Taxman had been recently debating about which method is better. I've proposed a simple solution, a developer would have to work on it though). Taxman's agreed to it. Thanks. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:24, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

You Win

Regarding the classification of the sub-branch names for various languages, I concede defeat. -- Anon 08:44, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Then please stop reverting all the time. / Peter ^Isotalo 08:47, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

That's exactly what I'm going to do. I would not have post this message if I wasn't going to stop! -- Anon 08:56, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

IRC?

IRC? Bishonen | talk 17:25, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

"At least N independent discussions" criterion for conlang verifiability/notability

Please see Wikipedia:Conlangs/Alternative proposal#At least N independent discussions for a possible refactoring of this criterion. Does the refactoring answer your objections? --Jim Henry | Talk 20:08, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

You might also be interested in my general comment further down the page, which might possibly better answer the objections I guess you have. / Alarm 22:01, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

AfD Cartoon physics

May I respectfully suggest you withdraw your AfD? Reason: This article is featured on Wikipedia:Unusual_articles - it has been there a long time. Quote from that page: These articles are valuable contributions to the encyclopedia, but are somewhat odd, whimsical, or... Regards, --Janke | Talk 12:49:52, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

Did you check "What links here" on Cartoon physics? We're talking animation here, not just cartoons, which has several definitions. --Janke | Talk 17:07:27, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

Do you mean these rules only apply to animated cartoons or that they're completely unheard of in just regular comic books?

As for withdrawing the nomination, I don't think it matters one bit. It'll stay up until an admin decides to remove it or until the 5 days are up. It's a bureaucratic flaw as far as I know.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:13, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

No, of course they are applied in comics, and elsewhere, too. I tend to concentrate on animation, because I'm an animator... ;-) These laws have been de facto "working rules" in animation for well over 80 years now - and just because they are funny, and make a Wikipedia article funny, isn't a reason for AfD, if you ask me. This is as serious a treatise on a paiter's tools, brushes, canvas, oils etc. - Vi får väl återkomma! Keep up the good work! --Janke | Talk 18:35:42, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

• Discussion continued at talk:cartoon. / Peter ^Isotalo 18:58, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Belarus

FYI, I did start working on the Belarus article, after your suggestion, and it is now at FAC. It can be seen at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Belarus. Zach (Sound Off) 15:23, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I think this will interest you

Hi. I think the article Silverpilen would interest you. May be you have heard of it? It seems suspect.

Regards, Fred-Chess 19:58, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

IPA Recordings

Hi Peter,

Samples for the following sounds are waiting to be recorded by you:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_nasal
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_bilabial_approximant
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_lateral_flap
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velar_lateral_approximant
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_epiglottal_fricative
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_epiglottal_fricative
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiglottal_plosive
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labial-palatal_approximant
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilabial_click
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_alveolar_affricate
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_postalveolar_affricate
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_postalveolar_affricate
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolo-palatal_affricate
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Voiced_alveolo-palatal_affricate&action=edit

--Pipifax 01:13, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

"This is a chat weapon"

I just wanted to concur with you, and also to compliment you on the eloquent turn of phrase. I think you summarized a lot of people's feelings very concisely. Regards, Nandesuka 12:07, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Your message for Carlsmith

Please be reminded to get Carlsmith noticed if you've got a message for him at my talk page.. just in case he's not watching. Thanks. :-D — Instantnood 07:26, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

Kammerlader

Hi. I applogies for 'spamming' your talkpage like this, but some time ago you was helpfull with comments on one of 'my' other articles on old Norwegian rifles and I wondered if you might be interested in helping out peer reviewing the article on the Kammerlader. Thank you for your time. WegianWarrior 11:33, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate your plight and the article looks very promising, but I try to avoid spending time on articles in subjects that are already very well-represented by similar articles. It's already the third article on Norwregian rifles. If you were to consider improving higher-level articles like rifle, I would be more than happy to assist. It's not so much that I don't like the subject, but I'm simply not eager to help out when it gets super-detailed. At least not in subjects I don't know really well. It's not personal, just my way of fighting systemic bias.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:26, 12 September 2005 (UTC)