Hello, I'm Jordan; you remember me as the one who offered some controversial suggestions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for English and "cot-caught" merger articles. I was wondering if you had an AIM screen name so we could continue our linguistic conversations.
Thanks for fixing that picture for me! The seal was atop a building and I was at ground level; I'm afraid I didn't know how to fix it myself. Again, thank you. Mike H 08:18, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for correcting the perspective on architectural images. I'm not the only one who appreciates it, though I might be the only one to tip you a note! --Wetman 09:23, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! It's kind of fun, although I wish I had higher-resolution photos to work with. If you can point me to other photos that need it, I'll be glad to oblige, eventually. Nohat 09:27, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Hi, Nohat! I understand from your profile that you are interested in linguistics. "Syntactic saturation" is a long-time article request that seems to be unfillable. I can't find anything useful about it on Google, otherwise I'd write a stub myself; I would greatly appreciate it if you or any of the other linguists on Wikipedia might be able to help. -- The Anome 10:50, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)
When I added the link to California English, the article existed! It doesn't anymore; it must have been speedily deleted. But why? It was actually a pretty good article, I thought. Do you have any idea what happened? --Angr 08:20, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
If underlined links are annoying you, you can click preferences at the top of the page, then click "Misc settings", and then uncheck the box marked "underline links". --Angr 19:07, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Elianreferred me to you as I was enquiring about the name of the typeface used in creating the Arabic version of the logo. I originally wanted to create some banners and buttons, and now I'm interested in designing a leaflet and a high resolution version of the Arabic logo. Also, before I downloaded your high resolution Photoshop version, I had wondered if there is a vector format version of the globe.
I was also reading about the history of I must say that I prefer the current one to all the previous phases. --Alif 19:02, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I appreciate your reply.
I can see that the version currently in Wikipedia is different than the one :currently in use. Do you have any idea when did this happen or why?
Is the font file usable on Windows systems? Is it possible/legal for you to give me a copy of it?
Any other suggestions regarding this issue would be great.
And, regarding a scalable format, recently Adobe have incorporated 3D capabilities in Illustrator. I have no clue what/if it is useful for this case. --Alif 00:04, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I saw you clean out the Sandbox... would you prefer the Sandbot to clean the sandbox more often or less often? -- AllyUnion(talk) 09:16, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I have seen that you have posted on some discussions on the macedonian wikipedia ( www.mk.wikipedia.org ) regarding the logo of the macedonian wikipedia. Are you somehow involved in the making of the national logos? Because there is a little mistake with our wikipedia logo (Vikipedija: Slobodnata Encikopedija - Википедија - Слободната Енциклопедија)... although it is gramatically correct, it is unusual to use the -ta article in macedonian(it has a somewhat a bulgarian spirit in when it's put in that way)... so could you please change the picture and replace it with Vikipedija: Slobodna Enciklopedija (Википедија: Слободна Енциклопедија)... without 'TA'... our logo should be exactly as the Serbian one... although our languages differ much. However if you're not in the logo business, could you please instruct me how it is possible to change it? :) thank you for reading.
Hey. I've been checking out the sound files you've provided for various sounds. Are all of them by Ladefoged? There's also a reference to UCLA in the image files, but I don't quite see the meaning. Is it a URL? It would be nice to get some files of higher quality for some of the fricatives. Are there any more files like this available? Peter Isotalo 18:40, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
I replaced one of Ladefoged's recordings with one of my own at uvular trill. Hope you don't mind, but you can see my motivation on the talk page. I also recorded a few ejective consonants.
As for the sound files. A lot of the fricatives like voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative and voiceless palatal fricative are hard to tell apart. The velar fricatives are even more difficult to discern from one another, even in the cases where I'm actually familiar with the sounds. There's also the problem of the copyright, since I would like to start building a proper collection of pronunciation files at Commons, and I assume there would be a problem uploading the UCLA-files there with the current copyright.
Would you mind if I made recordings of the sounds that I do feel I can pronounce properly to replace those of Ladefoged's that are of very low quality? Peter Isotalo 21:14, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
Absolutely it would be better to have recordings that are GFDL than the somewhat ambiguous situation with the Ladefoged recordings. The benefit of the Ladefoged recordings is that there were recorded in a proper studio, so the noise floor of the recordings is very low (although the resolution is admittedly somewhat poor). If you add your own recordings, I hope you will understand if I am hesitant to replace the Ladefoged recordings if they are very noisy or otherwise amateurish. On the other hand, if you have access to a recording studio, then I'd be thrilled to replace those sounds. Nohat 21:51, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Sound pretty good to me. :-) Nohat 22:20, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I replaced a bunch of files, mostly fricatives. Just check my contributions if you want to check out the sound quality. I don't have that much experience of recording sounds myself and my equipment is rather modest. I also posted a suggestion to start improving the phonetics articles. Have a look at the talk page if you're interested. Peter Isotalo 17:04, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
The axes on the IPA diagram are clearly labeled: front-back, close-open, with roundedness in place (not given an axis).
The axes on the second diagram are not mentioned. Noting the dissimilarities between the diagrams I can't help but wonder what's on the axes. What does the location of a vowel in this diagram mean? As a native speaker of Dutch I could maybe guess, but someone else might try to use the IPA chart as a reference and find them incompatible...
I hope you can enlighten me on this. Cordially yours, Shinobu 01:03, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I drew that diagram based on a similar diagram which appears in The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. The slighty variant location of the vowel sounds represents the fact that the actual position of the tongue and the resultant formants in the produced vowel vary slightly from the "standard" positions as described by the International Phonetic Alphabet. For example the Dutch [y] sound (as in fuut) is significantly more centralized than the Dutch [i] sound (as in biet). In fact, the IPA symbol [ʉ] is probably a more accurate transcription of the sound. However, [y] is used for phonological reasons—in the sound system of Dutch, it works in a way that is parallel to [i]— in particular there is not a 3-way contrast in backness in Dutch, so there is no reason to posit that the vowel of fuut is both rounded and centralized, as rounded is sufficient to describe the phonology of the vowel. I hope this explains it. Feel free to ask me if any of this is unclear, as it very may be, considering I've just had a couple glasses of wine :-). Nohat 03:47, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Okay, that makes sense. If Dutch "uu" resembles more IPA [ʉ] than IPA [y] then I think that should be symbol used, but that's only my personal opinion I guess. It would be less confusing, though. Also it might still be nice to "put something on the axes" so to speak. Maybe some mention of all this could be made in the text. I'll think about it some more time. (And give my coffee some time.) It would be nice if the vowels were somehow hyperlinked to pronunciations as sound files. Shinobu 13:37, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The vowel /o/ (in Dutch orthography usually spelled oo in closed syllable, o in open one) is missing from the chart. It occurs in Dutch in contrast with /ɔ/ (spelled o, always in closed syllable, often before doubled consonant). You can find an example in the table in the article. The IPA manual shows it in the diagram as start of a diphthong, but in the example text there you can see it occurring as a pure vowel. −Woodstone 19:13, 2005 Apr 14 (UTC)
The diagrams were drawn based on one from The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, which says that the Dutch /o/ phoneme is actually realized as a narrow closing diphthong. This is supported by Geert Booij's authoritative The Phonology of Dutch, as well as most other phonetic analyses of Dutch. Nohat 20:04, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The IPA manual shows the /o/ used in English, which has in effect a much bigger glide than the Dutch one. The German /o/ is shown as well, wich is quite similar to the Dutch one. The example text in the IPA manual shows all occurring /o/ as /oː/ not as /ou/ or /oʊ/. I'm afraid the handbook is not consistent. But no matter, I just saw the diphthongs are shown in additional chart in the Dutch language article. −Woodstone 20:53, 2005 Apr 14 (UTC)
A lot of Dutch hardly "glide" the /o/, if at all, especially when speaking fast. To me personally "gliding" the /o/ sounds like a city-dialect in most cases.
I've listened to the sound files on the pages for u, ʉ and y. Unfortunately the examples for ʉ don't seem to contain the same sound... the first sound sample sounds kind of like a dark u ("hoed"), the Swedish sample starts out with something very similar to an ʏ ("hut"), but lighter, a bit like an y ("fuut") even and slightly diphtongized. (Examples in Dutch.)
My apologies for flooding your talk page with strange questions. I hope you can answer them. Regards, Shinobu 22:50, 4 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
User Chinasaur moved comments from Wikipedia talk:Requests for
arbitration/Tkorrovi vs. Paul Beardsell, remaining his there and moving mine
[2],
just after I put a link on an evidence page to that page
[3]
because it contains important information. Also, he moved a question about his
nationality to my talk page
[4].
I understand the reason, but I demand for me an equal right, to remove
mentioning my nationality against my will by Matthew Stannard from that page
(unfortunately cannot provide diff, as the commentary was moved that after).Tkorrovi 02:54, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I am trying to complete Ranks and Insignia of NATO. As you can see airforce and navy are basicaly untouched. I have the images but lack the patience to upload them (as we are talking about 500-700+ images) . I was wondering if a bot could be usefull. --Cool CatMy Talk 15:35, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hi Nohat. I typed the IPA consonant table for Thai. You might have a look in Thai language. I am wondering about [w], which appears in the IPA handbook in the Thai section as a velar approximant, whereas in the general tables it is set apart as a voiced labial-velar approximant. Any idea why that could be? The Thai /w/ does not seem much different from the English one to me (perhaps slightly more affricated). −Woodstone 22:03, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC)
It probably has to do with roundedness. If Thai [w] is not rounded, or not very rounded, or its roundedness is not relevant to Thai phonology, it may make sense to group it as a pure velar. As for why they would use the symbol w instead of the normal velar approximant symbol, it may just be the principle of using normal Roman letters where possible. I don't have the handbook in front of me, so I can't see for myself at the moment. That's my guess. Nohat 22:06, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Latest comment: 19 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi Nohat, I'm trying to gather together the source material necessary to reproduce an exact duplicate of the current international Wikipedia logo from scratch. You seem to have changed Paulus Magnus' POV-Ray stuff quite a bit; is there anyplace on Meta where the source files for the current logo are stored? I'm also trying to track down the exact variants of Garamond that are used in the text for the English logo. Thanks for any help you can provide. silsor 08:06, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and I'm also looking for the characters used on the current logo. At one point you had a list of characters here but I don't think those are the ones on the current puzzle globe. Also, what font are they in? silsor 08:08, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
It's not Garamond, it's Hoefler Text. I will have time to look around on my computer for the source files possibly tomorrow. E-mail me via the e-mail this user feature and I'll send the files in an attached reply. The characters on the globe are in a variety of fonts. I don't recall them all specifically :-/. They're probably mostly characters from the default fonts for those scripts that come with Mac OS X. I will see if my original files contain that information. Nohat 08:30, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I tracked down Hoefler Text fonts, I can match up the text perfectly except for kerning (I assume it's a little different in Mac OS X, but I can adjust it manually). In case you didn't get my email, my address is jbonham@mail.utm.utoronto.ca. silsor 00:41, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
The kerning was adjusted manually. I'm in PDT, so it will be a little bit before I get home and can get the files. Nohat 02:00, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This is just a ping to see what's going on :) silsor 14:22, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)
I'm interested in a copy of the source files of the logo too. --Alif 19:47, 4 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 19 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello, Nohat. Thank you for your nice Wikipedia logos. Now then, I have some requests and questions about your logos. I want to be excused for my broken English. I'm a native speaker of Japanese, not of English. :-) A part of the following topics may overlap with upper topic by silsor.
On the common part (globe) of Wikipedia logos, there are characters look like Japanese katakana "ワィ", and I think that these are misspell. The correct spelling is "ウィ". In Japanese, "Wikipedia" spells "ウィキペディア". "ワィ" can't be pronounced. It looks strange. This topic was taken up in Japanese Village pump. I would be very grateful if you would modify it.
There is a character looks like Chinese character "祖" on the globe. But in Chinese, "Wikipedia" spells "维基百科". Therefore, I think that it is more natural that "维" is written. The characters written on the globe are the first characters of "Wikipedia" in many different languages, aren't they? Or there are any different standards for the choice of characters?
I read m:Final logo variants/Nohat, and noticed that the current logos of Wikipedia in various languages is version X through fine distinctions of characters on globe between version X and version XI. Why isn't version XI used? Is it for any reason or other? I made some draft logos for Japanese Wikipedia and put they to the vote now, and the common part of they is version X. Should I change the common part for Version XI? Enirac Sum 16:15, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hi. There have been several suggestions over time for minor changes to the character set selection on the puzzle sphere logo. They have all been reasonable requests, as yours are, but at this time, making a new set of logos for every Wikipedia for a small number of minor changes is not something I'm willing to invest time in—it will require hundreds of hours of work, and if I make changes for you, then everyone else will start demanding changes, and when I refuse, as inevitably I will have to, because I have other demands on my time, I fear others will start making changes on their own, comprimising the aesthetic integrity of the logo, which to me is paramount, above even glyph selection. However, I have been considering spearheading a cross-linguistic effort to select a new set of glyphs, with input from the different language communities, which was not unfortunately not forthcoming at the time of the original logo design. I am hesitant to do even this because I fear that the process might be co-opted by some strong personalities who lack the requisite aesthetic sensitivities and who might want to introduce radical change to the logo, which is something that I am really opposed to. So, not much is likely to happen in this area unless a plan can be developed for updating the logo that can be certainly limited in scope to just changing the glyphs.
As for why version XI is not used, it is because version X was rolled out before version XI was completed, and there wasn't enough support for version XI to justify to the powers that were to replace X with XI. Nohat 17:03, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hi, Nohat. I read the summary of the dialogue above on JA WP, and question came to me. If I recall corerctly now the Foundation has the copyright of Wikipedia logo, registered it as Trademark and now it is internationally protected by WIPO according to Madrid Treaty. My question from curiosity is, if you are delegated the right to change the Wikipedia logo. I am sorry if you take my question aggressive, but my intention is just clarification. Cheers, --Aphaea* 14:21, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The legal status of the logo's copyright is not currently well-defined. The image itself, since it has been uploaded to Wikipedia, is protected by the GFDL. It is my intention to grant all relevant rights to the Wikimedia Foundation. I am not certain, but I believe that the name "Wikipedia" has been registered as a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation. However, to the best of my knowledge, the logo itself has not been registered as a trademark; however, it is a de facto trademark of the Foundation. The foundation has not delegated to me any rights regarding changing the logo; neither has it explicitly denied me those rights. From a practical point of view, I do not have the direct ability to change the logo because I don't have the permissions to change the file where the logo is placed. The only people who have that ability are the developers, who presumably take their orders from the board. I am not aware of any cases where the board has intervened in logo matters, however. I hope that the board respects my opinions and wishes regarding the logo enough that if they were going to authorize any changes to the logo, they would at least solicit my opinions and wishes before making them. In the end, however, they have final authority. Hope this answers your question. Nohat 16:52, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your friendly explanation. Things seem to be complicated and I hope it would be clearer and simpler than now. Cheers, --Aphaea* 22:58, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. Excuse me for my being late for gratitude to you. Enirac Sum 04:55, 4 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
hi,
when you created Flap consonant, you wrote that [ɾ] is a flap. but that’s not right. it is a tap. maybe you could correct this. thanx --213.209.71.43 18:17, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that the IPA says that it can be called a flap or a tap. Nohat 18:51, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The Swedish phonetician Olle Engstrand describes the difference between flaps and taps in Fonetikens grunder (2004) pg. 149, a book on general and Swedish phonetics intended for university students (my translation):
"The phonetic distinction between taps and flaps has often been overlooked in [phonetic] literature. It is reasonable to reserve the term 'flap' for sounds where the active articulator sweeps forward and on its way touches the place of articulation so that brief contact is made. When producing taps, the brief contact is produced by the articulator moving perpendicular against and from the place of articulation. While Spanish and North American [ɾ] both are taps, Hindi and other languages have the retroflex flap in words like [bəɽɑ] 'large'. The tounge starts in a sharply bent, apicopalatal position, is thrown forward, makes brief contact with the alveolar ridge and lands, sometimes clearly audible [this I , against the floor of the mouth."
He then goes on to describe examples of certain northern and central Swedish dialects that feature the retroflex flap as an allophone of /l/. My own variety of speech (slightly "Stockholmized" Central Standard Swedish) regularly features plenty of alveolar taps as realizations of /r/, but the retroflex flaps are quite well know in Swedish as distinctive marks of certain dialects, and it's very easy to relate to Engstrand's explanation when imitating these dialects. I think the two are destinct enough to be mentioned seperatly, though not in seperate articles.
Greetings, Nohat! I've noticed you've been manually converting the consonant pages to use the Infobox IPA template. I'm pretty sure I can write a bot to scrape the data out of the existing tables and replace them with the template. If you're interested, drop me a note on my talk page. :D IceKarma(talk) 23:48, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)
Hi Nohat, did you realise that you haven't voted for a month, and so are marked as inactive again? It would be good to have your input again :) -- sannse(talk) 23:22, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Latest comment: 19 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
First of all: much praise for the Wikipedia logo. I really think you did a great job.
That said, don't you think that the text "自由な百科事典" below the Japanese logo should be in the same font as the corresponding text in the Chinese logo? I think so because as it is a cursive font it would provide better uniformity with the other logos. I also think it looks better, but that is of course a matter of taste.
The same could perhaps be said about the text "维基百科" in the Chinese logo.
I hope that this information is of some use to you. As I end this message I feel obliged to praise your work once more: "Wonderful Job!" Regards, Shinobu 20:40, 4 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
Judging from the discussion of Dutch vowels above, you seem to have the IPA Handbook. Do you think you could draw a vowel chart for Swedish language based on the chart in the Swedish example?
I would be very greatful if you could make a chart that illustrates the diphtongs of southern and central Swedish dialects and regional varieties of Standard Swedish as well. I have some literature that describes the diphtong patterns in some detail. Could you draw these charts if I instruct you? Just let me know how to explain it best if you're up for it.
Latest comment: 19 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi,
Can we keep the article titles as they are now until an admin decides whether or not "California Highway 17" is going to stay like that -- it seems everyone is against you in the moving of the articles, but whatever the admin decides to do with 17, I will agree with and adhere to. But for now, can we keep this conflict in the 17 article and see what happens there first?
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Why did you remove the link to the latin category on AbbreviationZ.com from the Wikipedia Latin topic?
Wouldn't the Wikipedia users will be able to take advantage of 178 latin abbreviations?
The following are relevant to the above link pusher. Note sometimes using AbbreviationZ.com and sometimes initialisms.com or other aliases. (SEWilco 03:46, 20 May 2005 (UTC))Reply
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi Nohat, I too am hoping you'll become active in the arbcom again because you're a linguist and I'm thinking of turning to the arbcom regarding Zivinbudas who refuses to accept consensus at Indo-European languages as well as a number of Poland- and Lithuania-related articles. Right now there's an RfC about him going on, which is now four days old. He hasn't responded to it yet except to write "Suck dick, you bum" (in Lithuanian) in the discussion section. --Angr/comhrá;; 06:41, 23 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
Hi Nohat, I asked you about a month ago about getting some source files for your Wikipedia logo. Were you able to find them? Thanks, silsor 16:24, May 26, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for linking Los Gatos High School on the Best High Schools list - I'm thinking of moving it to the main article namespace - what do you think? -- BD2412talk 16:11, 2005 May 30 (UTC)
Your spelling fix in House of Vlastimirovic changed more than it should have [5]. I fixed it, but I thought I'd let you know because it may be due to some special editing method you are using. Rl 07:55, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thank you... apparently there are bugs with the system. I will have to watch for those. Nohat 07:56, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Nohat, I wanted to thank you for joining me and many other users in our struggle against Rovoam. I am putting regular disclaimers on all his known anon IPs [6], so that to increase the awareness about this person among Wikipedians. This is really an unprecedented case in Wikipedia and I really did not exagerrate when I put in disclaimer that Rovoam is the *most* persistent and obsessive vandal that has ever appeared in WP so far. I think this person gets his motivation from two powerful sources: 1) his personal hatred to me for whatever reasons he has in mind, and 2) almost fanatical nationalism. I believe this person will retreat *only* if Wikipedians stand united in struggle against him. I thank you once again for your contribution.--Tabib 13:38, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
Can we deal this longlasting problem again? See Talk:Slovene language. Categories are also a huge problem. I know you do not care much, but if you would be of Slovene origin, you would care this much more then now. Hypothetic: I can throw another term across the World (let us say 'Slovenaian'), and wait some time, so it might come 'preffered' one. This sentence from American Slovenians is really funny (at least to me): Large Slovenian areas in USA - if we ratify a term Slovenian to be related with the modern state of Slovenia. And do not think I do not have something better to do than to just talk all around. I've found (at least an English) version of Wikipedia sometimes very hard to achieve something. And this is just a small problem - naming one nation Slovene, and not with semi-artificial term Slovenian. And I thought that if I shall make valid contributions here, that someone would listen to me and to problems I show. --xJaM 22:33, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You can also read this FAQs - you might learn something more. --xJaM 22:56, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand what point you are trying to make. Are you trying to say that "Slovenian" is not a real word? Because that's just ridiculous. It's a perfectly ordinary English word, as attested not only by many dictionaries but by a gigantic mass of actual usage. Demonstrating that there are some prescriptivists in the world who prefer one or the other doesn't really prove anything other than there are poeple who have opinions about things that not everyone shares. Nohat 23:13, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hi, Nohat. I hope you don't mind, but I pulled your name back into the Slovenian vs Slovene debate going on at [Talk:Slovenians]. The discussion is really heating up, with some users using misleading data to press bizarre policies (e.g. Oxford English dictionary lists Slovene first and Slovenian second, and BBC uses Slovene (and noun and adjective) more often than Slovenian, therefore Slovenian should be used strictly as adjective and Slovene as noun). BT2 19:01, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to draw your attention to User:203.218.107.119, I can't for the life of me figure out why you blocked this user? ... Too bad we can't see deleted's in contributions and it's such a pain to walk the delete log looking at history. The only edits look like a newbie but good faith, was the user making nonsense articles? No talk page comment so the user is likely as much without clue as I am.
Now looking at User:211.231.187.48, and a number of your other blocks. You blocked this user without warning. I see that the user made edits that would indicate that it was being used as a sock by a persistent vandal. However, the existance of other crappy edits previously probably indicates that this IP is a NAT or a proxy where our persistent friend has access to a comprimised system behind it, and that we've probably managed to block some additional people as well. At least with a talk page notice the blocked people would have a better understanding of what happened.
I appriciate your vandal fighting, but please be more careful (or at least more clear) in the future. --Gmaxwell 18:18, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You are correct. My block of 203.218.107.119 was incorrect. I have looked over the logs and I have no idea why I blocked that user. I must have accidentally clicked on the wrong IP address to block. I have unblocked that user.
As for the other IP addresses, this user was using open proxies to repeatedly vandalize articles related to Azerbaijan and grabbing new IP addresses every minute or faster. There is no point in going through the whole warn, warn, warn, warn, block rigamarole with every new open proxy that he found. As soon as I identified an edit from that IP address as being from him, I blocked the address for 24 hours. The presumption is if that vandal has access to make edits via that IP address, then it's an open proxy and should be blocked on sight. We don't permit edits from known open proxies. In fact my blocks of the open proxies are more lenient than the policy specifies: Administrators are permitted and encouraged to IP-block anonymous proxies indefinitely .... Such blocks are routine and uncontroversial. I've kept a list of IP addresses I blocked in that way, and if, after the blocks expire, the vandal reuses those addresses, I will block them indefinitely. Nohat 19:37, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing that one, I was hesitant to unblock it since I didn't feel like going through the delete log. :) As for proxies, I nmapped a couple of those IPs at random and none of them had an open proxy. I think it's highly likely the vandal was using trojaned machines which ran closed proxies... It wouldn't be bad to block these, perhaps, but if they are behind a university NAT then the block might also affect other editors (which seems to be the case, as the history for some of them show a few mostly good edits in the past). ... Because of this we should always at least toss up a <nowki>You have been temporarily blocked from editing for vandalism of Wikipedia. Please note that page blanking, addition of random text, deliberate misinformation, and repeated and blatant violation of WP:NPOV are considered vandalism. If you wish to make useful contributions, you may come back after the block expires. </nowiki>, or even better you should make a template that says this IP has been blocked from editing because we suspect that it is an open proxy write to xyz to complain if this is in error. --Gmaxwell 20:36, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
If you try to edit from a blocked IP, it gives you a special user blocked page with information about the block: MediaWiki:Blockedtext. This should provide enough information to the user about the block and what they can do about it.
I think we can both agree that edits from trojaned machines with closed proxies are just as unacceptable (perhaps more so) as edits from open proxies. I didn't test all of them for being open proxies, which is part of why I only blocked them for 24 hours. I don't think it's possible for a trojaned machine behind a large NAT to be used for this kind of vandalism because there is no way for the vandal to send proxied requests that can reach the compromised machine behind the NAT. Possibly the previous valid edits from those IPs were made from the owner of the trojaned machine or from a previous owner of that IP address, if it's a dynamic IP. In either case, it likely that the block will expire before someone with valid access to that IP will try to edit. If not, the block info page gives instructions for resolving the situation. Nohat 21:10, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for marking pages that need to be deleted. Please check before you click submit if the page has already been deleted. If you submit your edit adding the delete tag after the page has been deleted, it actually recreates the page and has to be deleted again. Nohat 09:49, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm aware of the problem, however since the bulk of the delay is not the inserting of {{d}} but waiting for the server to respond to the request, checking the pages existance again after having hit edit isn't going to reduce the chance of the race condition happening. The only proper solution is for deletion to trigger edit conflicts just like edits do, but that'll require someone to code it up. --W(t) 09:53, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)
Thrilled as I am that you want to highlight the dab MOS page from the Disambiguation page (since I spearheaded that project), I must point out that the MOS only applies to one type of dab page (with nothing but links), whereas the article on the dab description page itself describes several other kinds of dab pages, so that isn't really the "main article." That whole section needs some cleanup, but I'm waiting for the first-name-page proposal to die down before dealing with it. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:11, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You have wrote: Having the Polish name for Kiev as the third piece of information in the article is ridiculous
Compare this two examples:
Gdansk was part of Prussia/Germany in 1793–1806, 1815–1919 (and 100 years the city was occupied by the Teutonic Knights).
Kiev was part of Poland since 1569 until 1671. Before that, it was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which was in personal union with Poland.--Witkacy 19:29, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
So? The Polish name for Kiev is not so important it needs to be the third piece of information in the article. It's a midly-relevant ancillary piece of information that can go in the section on the Polish history of the city. Nohat 20:34, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
So I guess, you have the same opinion about German names in articles of Polish cities? --Witkacy 22:43, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The relationship between German and Polish names is very different from Polish and Ukrainian names. Their histories are not analogous, so the comparison is not apt. Nohat 00:53, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
That is not true- situation is the the same (old borders, settlement). Why do you think that "their histories are not analogous"- could you explain me this, please. Vuvar1 01:07, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
First, I want to note that changing other articles to prove a point elsewhere on Wikipedia is bad form (see WP:POINT). Nohat 02:49, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
What I mean by "their histories are not analogous" is that the history of German names for Polish cities being used in English is not the same as the history of Polish names for Ukrainian cities being used in English. It is true that there are parallels in the history of the cities, but those similarities extend only to the histories of the cities, and not to the histories of the cities' names as used in English. The name Kijów is never and has never been used in English, so it does not need to be included at the top of the article. This is not the case for German names of Polish cities; for example "Danzig" has a long history in English of being used to refer to Gdansk. The situation is not the same for Kijów, so the fact that German names of Polish cities are included in the articles about those cities on Wikipedia does not make a very convincing argument that Polish names should be included in the articles about Ukrainian cities in Wikipedia. Should we include Japanese names of Chinese cities? The answer is no, because we should only include alternative names where they have a demonstrable history of being used in English. Note: this only applies to including the names in the very beginning of the article. Where relevant in the discussion of the history of cities, the historical foreign names should be included. Nohat 02:49, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
So- what with Russian names in these atricles (Russian isn't oficial language in Ukraine)?Vuvar1 07:15, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
There is a large minority of Russian speakers presently in Ukraine. There is only a tiny number of Polish speakers in Ukraine. The Russian name is relevant. The Polish name is not. Nohat 07:20, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The usage of foreign names in English language has nothing to do with it. Ideally all foreign names should be mentioned only once in history section, native name up front, and the English name consistently throughout the article about the city and related articles. Space Cadet 03:53, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The name Kijów is never and has never been used in English, so it does not need to be included at the top of the article.
1. Actually "Kijow" is used in English even today in historical context. (see google) 2. Where do you have the information from, that the name "Kijow" was never used in English? I guess the name was used in different (often misspelled) forms (like in the case of Gdansk) --Witkacy 09:39, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"First, I want to note that changing other articles to prove a point elsewhere on Wikipedia is bad form (see WP:POINT)."
The Polish name was removed by User:Mkweise[7] (Folks, let's not have ANOTHER Gdanzig...articles go under the current official name of cities, alright? )--Witkacy 09:48, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"There is a large minority of Russian speakers presently in Ukraine. There is only a tiny number of Polish speakers in Ukraine. The Russian name is relevant. The Polish name is not"
See your edit on [8] (Russian spelling not relevant in first line of article, added to bottom)--Witkacy 09:29, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) , Vuvar1 14:55, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
First, a person is entitled to change an opinion on the subject. Personally, I allowed myself to change my opinion when convinced by other editor (see for example this). Second, if one wants to dig hard trying to find "true motives" of the editor, it is important not to jump to conclusions too fast. The arguments should be judged on their own merit. In the recent arguing about Kijow in the first line, I tried to answer specific points brought up by the editors who were inserting Kijow. I didn't invoke any hints that this may be a part of the more global campaign (see Wikipedia_talk:Polish_Wikipedians'_notice_board#Minsk_i_Kijów), no matter what I think about it. I suggest we move on from this and write a chapter of Kijów Voivodship part of the city history (this is in support of Nohat). -Irpen 18:56, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)
At this point, I'm ambivalent about the Russian name appearing in the first sentence—on the one had, it seems relevant because the English name may be based on the Russian name, and there are many Russian speakers still in Ukraine. On the other hand, its presence seems to make Polish nationalists and their apologists jealous and makes them want to put in a very old and not-widely-used name too because excluding it seems somehow "unfair" or whatever. A well-written article places relevant and important facts first, and less relevant and less important facts later. However, telling Polish nationalists that the Polish name of Ukrainian cities is not particularly relevant seems to invoke a particularly unpleasant breed of defensive response that involves repeating the same tired arguments and making weak ad hominem attacks in a misguided quest to force anyone who opposes them into a logical contradiction that might somehow force them to admit that they were wrong. I'm sorry your feelings are hurt or your pride is wounded, but cry me a river. If something is not relevant, it shouldn't go in the first sentence, regardless of how many people's feelings it hurts. The Polish name Kijov is old and not widely used and doesn't need to go in the first sentence. So get over it. Nohat 19:29, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"to make Polish nationalists" - "However, telling Polish nationalists that"
... racist remarks. Your POV and arguments should be based on logic not polonophobia (espacilly for a member of the ArbCom).--Witkacy 15:35, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Irpen. 100 years in PLC deserves a mention in lead and a section/subarticle, but the very name Kijów, as an alternative spelling - not necessarily. I wouldn't add it and I wouldn't remove it. Perhaps a compromise would be to link the Kijów Voivodship and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from history section of the lead? On another note, Noah, while I agree we are seeing some Polish nationalism at work, we are also seeing equally unhelpfull Ukrainian/other nationalism at work from some other users, so I'd advice you to avoid accusing only one side of this argument of such motives.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul PiotrusTalk 16:25, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The WP as a whole is certainly prone to many sorts of nationalisms at work, no doubt. BTW, I am the first who intervenes when I notice any, but especially RU or UA, nationalism bias makes it into the articles. However, the particular issue at hand (Kijow in the first line) was provoked specifically by the hurt feeling of the Polish national pride (and mostly from a completely different conflict which is especially annoying) and the other recent footprint in the Minsk article would better be addressed too.
A general talk that any nationalism is bad and should be opposed is a trivial issue not worth repeating. I think that this particular case was resolved entirely appropriately on its own merit. When one sees other nationalisms in other articles or, particularly RU or UA nationalism in Kiev article, please correct it or raise the issue and we will all correct it. Let's move on. -Irpen 20:06, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)
P.S. Nohat, sorry if continued usage your talk page for this rant annoys you :)
Nohat, thanks for moving Randy Jackson (American Idol) to Randy Jackson. Could you also do the same for its talk page? It's currently stranded in the Randy Jackson (American Idol) redirect. Thanks, Wasted Time R 13:33, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
