User talk:Connel MacKenzie/archive-2006-03

If you are here at the top of the page, you are lost. Go here instead.

Act of Parliament

Do you really think that's better? 210.86.118.15 08:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do. Thank you. --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:19, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

template:welcomeip

I had a little play around with template:welcomeip for you. I found a funky spinning image in Wikicommons. And I was gonna try to reword the message, but thought it was alright. --Dangherous 13:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Thank you! Looking at it makes me think some thoughts. What follows are free-association thoughts. I am grateful that you cleaned this up, so take my petty critiques with a huge grain of salt (or just ignore them completely.)

I'd have picked a different color of course (those pinks appear in a horrid shade on my monitors) but I'll have to just trust you on that.

I noticed the system message is now conjoined with it somehow. Is this really what we want? The system message appears both before they've been "welcomeip"'ed and after.

Please add to the wording freely. What is there is my first draft of the text, covering topics I found to be commonly discussed with anon IP users as I tagged the User talk:nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn entries. I started going into Wikipedia vs. Wiktionary differences, but that probably should be a link to something like Wiktionary:Wiktionary for Wikipedians (WS:WFW?) with maybe a mention of the top two or three things. Maybe even a harsher name like Wiktionary:Wiktionary warnings for Wikipedians? (WS:WWW?) Heh - AKA Wiktionary Welcome for Wikipedians.

Thanks again. The look of it is very much improved! --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:34, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

• I moved the "noinclude" tag to be after the table is closed, but now my typical signature is outside that box, looking a bit weird. Meh. Weird is fine for now...adding a template parameter for signer username would be a lot more trouble than it is worth. I don't want to edit over 200 user talk pages *again* just for a stupid signature. --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't you consider running a bot for this? Or some other automatic or semi-automatic thing to welcome anons? This might become a tiresome and time-consuming job I guess, as more and more IPs will float in. Furthermore, I think it's a good idea showing them that their edits are actually closely monitored. whoa, 5000 edits :-) — Vildricianus 17:52, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I considered it, but the variety of mistakes new anons make is mind-boggling. Each one needs (not much) some personal attention to understand what the community here is doing. There may be a way to automate that, but I feel that would be a mistake.

5k good edits in such a short time! And 7.5 languages! Has anyone nominated you on WT:A yet? --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I had a gut feeling it would be a non-starter.

As for joining the A-team: if you think the time is right, then yes. I've quickly taken this project to heart and am still wildly enthusiastic. But remember I'm only here since early January. — Vildricianus 18:41, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

"The A-Team." Hehe. The A-Team? WS:A-team? Hrm, The A-Team; The A Team. Figures.  :-) I look awful in thick gold chains.

You are right - 1.5 months probably is too short in general. I will not nominate you for several reasons: 1) Ncik would automatically (immediately) vote aginst you. 2) I've nominated far too many admins in my day. 3) My sysop selector must be broken; of about a dozen nominations, half are MIA now. --Connel MacKenzie T C 05:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

---

3/6/06: I noticed the 'pedia Main Page Redesign effort, and found a nice shade of light purple there. This page being the easy target that it is, I've replaced the color on it. --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:34, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Obfuscated tag

I see you added a "slightly obfuscated tag" to the bottom of the Main Page. You might want to explain in an HTML comment the reason for it; I almost reverted it away before I looked at the page history. Oh, and there's a problem with it, which I assume was accidental: the "p" in "copyleft" is not bold. - dcljr 23:03, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Hrm. I don't want to draw any undue attention to it though...that's why I tried talking about it on the talk page or the redesign page. Yes the "p" was accidental - is it fixed already? --Connel MacKenzie T C 23:06, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It is now. Well, for editors of the page it stands out like a sore thumb. Of course, you're talking about those who would circumvent its purpose; I don't know what to do about that. Is anyone (i.e., you) actually checking for violations that would be indicated by this tag? - dcljr 20:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Irregular verbs (again)

I've started drawing up some rules for inculsion for Category:English irregular verbs on the respective talk page. Your claim that words ending in -c which form their past participle and past tense in -ked, and their present participle in -king is not sustainable. I will remove them from the irreg verb cat very shortly if you don't provide references. Similarly for words ending in -e and an i sound. A good reference work for these things is The Cambridge Grammar on the English Language, Cambridge University Press, 2002. Ncik 23:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Ncik, I know it must be very confusing to you as a non-native speaker. I shall solicit other's comments as well as begin external research on this. However, your reliance on a single British source is probably throwing you off. A one week period of discussion is advisable, before you begin your new POV vandalism spree. I have already provided empirical evidence that you are wrong; as such, blindly removing them can be considered nothing other than vandalism. --Connel MacKenzie T C 00:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

1. The current definition here for irregular verb is inaccurate, or otherwise expressing a British POV. In American schools, this is a typical definition. When recognizing that from the start you and I are describing different things, it is apparent your deliniation of the members of Category:English irregular verbs is POV at best.
2. http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/verbs.htm#irregular
3. Canadian: http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/irpast.htm
4. http://www.esldesk.com/esl-quizzes/irregular-verbs/irregular-verbs.htm

• Each of the above references indicate regular verbs as the infinitive + -ed to form the regular past, defining irregular as all others. More to follow as the week progresses. --Connel MacKenzie T C 01:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I too would caution Ncik not to move headlong into his idea, but without the suggestion about vandalism. His treatise on the matter is unnecesarily long and confusing. Simply put regular verbs are any that use -(e)d in both the past tense and past participle. Doubled letters, i/y alternations, added "k" after "c" or "u" after "g" do not make the verb irregular.

Most -ic verbs add the "k" in inflections, but the forms without the "k" are also found, but much less frequently. Eclecticology 02:15, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

You're saying those initial references, linked above, are wrong? I disagee. --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Huh? It wouldn't make sense for me to say that they are wrong when they all agree with me. Eclecticology 09:13, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Is the word "not" in reponse a typo then? For example, from the "Canadian" link above: "Although many verbs in English form their past tense with -ED, some do not. These are called irregular verbs, and they include some of the most basic verbs in English." --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with that. "Trafficked" has an added "-ed", so it's regular. What's the argument? Eclecticology 12:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The issue is verbs such as "magic" or "havoc" that I assert are irregular. --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I've added some relevant references to Category_talk:English irregular verbs. Please let us continue any discussion on the matter there. Ncik 19:07, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Todo considerations

A couple of questions/remarks:

1. asking price, all walks of life, macromolecule and probably some others as well do appear on your /todo4, although they have the correct header. I presume that is because of the space behind it? (They're not on another /todo page).
2. There's no TOC on /todo2. How come? I can't see a __NOTOC__, so it's perhaps because of the page length. I also find it nigh impossible to load the page (844 kb), perhaps it needs to be split in two.
3. Also on /todo2, would you consider making all the wrong header names ===headers=== to simplify having a quick look at them? (Note: I think the div class="plainlinks" works across headers, so I think adding them once at the top and bottom of the page should suffice).

Cheers. — Vildricianus 12:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, very much. As I said to SemperBlotto, it is enormously helpful to have these pointed out, while they are still unedited.

1. Those three entries yes, appear on the list because of the extraneous " " after the fourth equal sign. My thinking is that if we are checking everything for consistency, we may as well make them all consistent.  :-)
2. I'm still trying to track down which heading caused the problem on todo2. For now, I've put the TOC on the right column. One of the templates, used somewhere as a heading, has either a TOC of a NOTOC directive embedded. Simply forcing it near the top seems good enough for now, while I continue to hunt down the offending template.
3. todo2 originally did have them that way, but I found them very hard to clear. Grouping them in sections of 100 works better for me. That way, when I hit a section of the similar heading misspellings in a row, I can edit that section only once, instead of three separate times. Letting them be their own heading level caused most be be far too short, and some far too long. (This was a big problem, back when every edit of /todo2 took 30 seconds to three minutes. Maybe not so big a problem anymore, with the newer servers?)
   1. I forget why I needed to split the DIV's up. I know the a section edit's preview will goof up if they aren't specific for each section, but I don't think that is why I did it. Probably some similar gaffe as the TOC/NOTOC issue, where someone's unacceptable template included a </DIV>. But I don't remember exactly why now.

Thanks again for helping out! I think (by and large) /todo is done. I am considering consolidating it for the next run. Objections? Ideas? I'd like to compile a list of languages that are "known" to be real language headers and exclude that whitelist, rather then anything with over 50 entries. For /todo2, if you come across headings that you know are listed as valid in WS:ELE but that I've listed, please let me know, so I can whitelist them for the next run.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 16:28, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

My pleasure.

About the header issue: we may indeed need an exhaustive list of language headers. I remember Kofi appeared on /todo2, while Akan is the right language, though probably has only this one entry.

An idea? If you run a query similar to what you did for /todo2, I'd consider perhaps dividing the matter between notable and non-notable headers. A bad header with two instances should perhaps go on a different page (or in a different section?) than one with 50 instances.

There's probably more ideas I've got, but at the moment there's a black out. — Vildricianus 16:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Ohhh. That's good. I was using the list to correct headers such as "===Pronountiation===" or other such typos...but assigning them a permanent "this header not allowed, it's a typo" status might help. Conversely, having a much more extensive header white-list would cut down on the size of /todo2 significantly. --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

why

hi why did you change Template:hstr coz biblical hebrew and modern hebrew are not thesame langs.--Dubaduba 20:41, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Because I didn't want to have to delete all your entries. "Biblical Hebrew" is not a language according to this (from our criteria for inclusion.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:49, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Primetime

I agree that Primetime is being irritable, and insisting on having articles formated in his own peculiar way. His persistence in these activities on such a large scale likely warrants the 72-hour block that you have applied. If he has been using new names to circumvent this that is more serious, and we may need to discuss further actions. The article at give is indeed long, but that's not unusual for a very common word like that. Most of the quotations appear to be properly sourced, but he should be asked to provide verification for his long etymological treatise at that page. I do not see any evidence of copyvios. His entries on obscure biological taxa mostly have minor errors of format or capitalization. The definitions are mostly ones which can only be defined one way, so there should be no need to delete them. Perhaps I can help restore some of them that have already been deleted in error. Eclecticology 09:37, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

How are you certain they are in error? (I hope that they were erroneous deletions.) But the rate of additions seem to indicate a very short off-line compilation time as well.

I didn't notice his trailing spaces until I tried to clean some up, and that's a lot more work than a simple restore. That makes me a lot more selective about which of his items I'm choosing to restore and fix. The rate is indeed suspicious, but the material could as easily be from a public domain source as a copyright one.

He initially created the account User:Primetim%D0%B5 but I saw that and blocked it instinctively. He then posted to WS:BP from two additional anonymous IP addresses. (Anonymous IPs sharing the same address associated with a user are blocked, so he seems to be using at least four separate IP addresses.) One account was blocked for 24 hours, the new account was blocked for 72, the last two anonymous IPs are not blocked right now. --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:47, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry is not a good way to gain or keep friends. If he keeps that up I could become very upset with him. Eclecticology 10:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in. I was looking at the give page...the use of the insular G character, the term ’Teutonic’ and some other typographical features make me suspect that this essay is copied straight from the OED online. It reads and looks exactly like one of their etymological disquisitions...I no longer have a password for the site so I can't check it but it might need to be looked into. Widsith 19:17, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

That's a serious crime. I have access to OED online during the week, I will check tomorrow. — Vildricianus 19:34, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I just checked the OED online: Primetime does violate copyright. I reverted his edits. Ncik 19:36, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Ncik. If you can establish the pattern of copyvio for the rest of his submissions, it might help in the long run. For now, I'll let Ec decide what action is needed. --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:04, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I randomly checked a few of his last 1000 edits, and they don't seem to be direct copies from either the OED or www.dictionary.com. But somebody should definitely compare his entries with Webster's 3rd New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged. I don't have online access to it and am unlikely to find the time to check in the library. Ncik 20:56, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

No. The entry is mostly from the First Edition of the OED. I'm restoring the article and adding a {{oed1923}} template to it.--Primetime 21:31, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Javascript revisited

Your javascript (I guess) seems to do weird things with < and > (see [1]). The < !-- and -- > don't work with the Unicode characters. — Vildricianus 11:12, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, it is the XML dump, not the Javascript, but the result is the same. I saw one &lt; displaying that way yesterday, but also saw some of the more serious errors. I remember thinking "well, it *is* only a temporary section...exposing that comment is a *good* thing, right?" But then I got some sleep.

Because I was cutting and pasting the results directly into the edit box, no transposition is occurring. Doing the same thing with a 'bot instead, I'm pretty sure, does decode those conversions during upload/save. But considering how rough around the edges it is so far, I'm not ready to test it.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 16:42, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

This I spotted (===Hdr===). It shouldn't really happen, should it? — Vildricianus 21:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

• Hrm. Well, at one point, that was the format used by a rogue contributor against consensus. So that formatting I auto-convert. But in this case, those should have been preceded by a ":" to prevent that confusion. I hope I remember to go back and turn this off...I don't think those entries (with this particular misformatting) occur much anymore. --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

"A rogue contributor", that can't be you, can it? :-D — Vildricianus 21:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary:English inflection templates

I've, without success, tried to remove Wiktionary:English inflection templates from Category:Not comparable. How do I do this? Ncik 00:43, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The 61 articles you deleted

Thankfully, I have backup copies of these saved on my hard drive. I intend to recreate them once my block expires (without any trailing spaces, of course).

Sincerely,

Primetime 02:42, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Suffixes

Hi, please remember that suffixes are not only Latin here; also suffixes in any language, especially English, are allowed here.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 06:25, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

• I know. In both English and Latin, this suffix is exactly the same: "-rix" (as in "dominatrix"), not "-ix" ("dominatix"?) or "-trix" ("dominattrix"?). Hence I'm merging both misspelled pages into a new, accurate page, -rix. Do you disagree? -Silence 06:37, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Unwatched pages

Hi Connel. Surely, most pages are unwatched aren't they? Or do some people watch all their own submissions? I've got 10 articles on my watchlist. SemperBlotto 08:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Hrm. I saw a note about the page existing only for sysops, looked, and there it was. For some reason, I thought it was a new feature. If in fact it *is* just a Wikipedia feature that we can't use, why are the first entries so obviously crap? --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:48, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Vandalim in progress

Good you're online. Got to go the bed now. See WT:RFD. Ncik 02:34, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Connel! --Dijan 02:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

TTBC

Two considerations on semi-automatism:

• What about the {{lang}} templates? Does {{ttbc|subst:{{sv}}}} work? As I presume that is what will happen with your JS.
• Make sure that in the following widespread instances, you don't add both scriptures to {{ttbc}} (only Serbian).

*Serbian: [[blah]]
:*Cyrillic: [[blah]]
:*Latin: [[blah]]

— Vildricianus 21:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. The way I'm setting this up, it works in separate passes. The "subst:"ing has to happen first (and it will need to be saved then re-edited) then the checking I'm doing for individual lines can start. In your example above, yes, only the "parent" syntax will match, so ":*Cyrillic" and ":*Latin" will be skipped. As much as I hate Javascript, I think I need to try doing this there, rather than Python, since I still can't figure out how to do a section edit there (even when I know the section number in advance.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[2]. — Vildricianus 14:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Question on template en-noun

Hi!

Adding Category:English nouns on this template would be a good idea? I have noticed the omission of this category in many English nouns. In this case would automatic adding be allowed through the template in question? Waltter Manoel da Silva wten User_ talk:Waltter Manoel da Silva wten 06 March 2006 20:50 (UTC);

Hello! Thank you for asking. So far, there has been a lot of resistance to having that huge category - some people really do not like the idea. Others (such as myself) think those categories should simply be added by 'bot...that humans shouldn't waste any time on them. But generally, no, we do not like having that category at all. --Connel MacKenzie T C 23:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Strange backslashes

Connel - what are all these strange backslashes I keep seeing (eg at the top of Wiktionary:Requests for deletion? SemperBlotto 08:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

This is the answer. — Vildricianus 13:34, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

To add a little to the explanation...when uploading changes via a 'bot, much of the time special characters (in Unix, "'" in particular) must be "escaped" be preceding them with a single backslash. Because of the vagarities of parameter passing, sometimes double escaping is required (that is, three backslashes before the apostrophe.) Sometimes triple escaping is needed, even, as seven backslashes are required before the apostrophe. A very common error is to screw up the number of slashes needed - I made that mistake when I generated my rankings for the Project Gutenberg frequencies.

The appearance of spurious "escape" characters implies that Mr. Exic*nt is using the pywikipediabot python suite (or something similar) to upload his changes these days. Unfortunately, bot edits are not identified in Special:Recentchanges, so this is currently our best indication of what he's up to. --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

steal

Does a page have to be deleted (by this I mean it's history included, as you did with steal) if a copyvio occurs?? I don't think/hope so. This would mean that a vandal could nullify all our work on a certain page by adding copyright protected material to it. Please do not do this again!! I don't know where SemperBlotto got the stuff from he reinstated, but it is certainly something from before my last edit. Ncik 15:14, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I deleted it only because everything done to it since 7 December 2004 was a derivitive work of what was cut-and-pasted from www.dictionary.com. That was the majority of the edits. Normally I reinstate the 1913 definition in such a case, but I must have been overwhelmed that day, or perhaps the servers were very slow. I do not recall offhand which it was.

Vandals can't nullify our edits to entries by simply pasting a copyvio definition. But in the case of steal, the majority of the edits were to the copyvio version. If a copyvio is rolled back right away, there is no need to delete. But in the case where almost all edits pertain to the copyvio version, there is just no need to keep it. Confer User talk:Tonners62. --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:29, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Please stop deleting that page!!!! If the definitions were pasted from www.dictionary.com then delete them. But do not delete the entire page!! I can't believe you are doing this. As far as I remember there were at least a homophone on that page, the inflections for both noun and verb, categorisation in Category:English irregular verbs and some translations. Even if it's annoying for you and causes a lot of work, you must not simply erase an entire page!!! Ncik 16:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Ncik, I am not deleting it nonchalantly! The last time it came up for discussion about a year ago, Ec said the way to deal with copyvios is to delete them, and let valid entries be reentered. SB seems to have misunderstood why it was deleted, as what he reentered was so painfully close to what had been there. --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, I must delete the entire page. Derivitive works are owned by the original copyright holder(s). --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:14, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems that a lot more was deleted here than what would have been derived from the dictionary.com. Wouldn't it be better to just replace the offending passages and retain the rest. A lot of people were involved in editing this page. Eclecticology 01:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

A derivitive work is anything added to the entry after the copyvio was added...such as translations or etymologies, right? I do not know how to selectively delete items from history, do you? How can I re-add the content as of 20:21, October 4, 2004, with history of edits? Most of the work done to the entry was from after that point. --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:30, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

---

I have acted in good faith with regards to my understanding of US copyright law. If you wish to restore portions that I have deleted, I cannot stop you. --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Nobody is questioning your good faith about this. An excess of enthusiasm for a task does not imply bad faith. Copyright law as it relates to dictionaries is more muddled than it is for most other forms of writing. Many of these definitions have been around for a long time, and can probably be traced individually to a public domain original, or sometimes there can be only one way of defining a word. Coincidentally identical definitions are not copyright violations, but that argument is difficult to sustain in all but the shortest definitions. A fair use argument is also available, and is quite appropriate in many situations. If that is done, however, sources must be cited; in many countries that have a fair dealing provision that is a legal essential. While single instances of fair use are not likely to cause problems, patterns of such claims can. The amount of material of this sort that one user can add before he's noticed is limited, and probably not enough to cause problems if he is stopped when he is discovered.

Primetime has not been as responsive as he could be when confronted, and it would seem that he has also engaged in sockpuppetry in order to continue adding un sourced material. That's more than enough reason for an indefinite block, but at the same time I see no need to indiscriminately delete all his edits. If you think there is still a copyvio in an article rewriting the offending parts, or giving proper credit should be enough. Copyvios in the history should not be something to worry about; this material is not likely to interest the average passive user, and the history will also show what we have done about the copyvio. The derivative work argument seems stretched, and I think it would be an error to make this argument when the problem parts of an entry are really just a small part of everything that is there. Eclecticology 10:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

With this it seems apparent that you wish to endanger all of Wiktionary pointlessly. Such an egregarious copyright violation makes me suspect your account has been compromised. --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:47, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I find your tone and failure to assume good faith to be offensive. You chose to make unilateral allegations of copyright violations without any evidence, and without leaving any opportunity for discussion. You found another unquestionable source, but rather than simply rewriting the definitions, you chose the most destructive path of deleting all the work that others had put into the article. Fair use is not a violation of copyright. If you had the least bit of understanding about the laws you purport to apply you would know that. Eclecticology 10:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

ttbc

These new categories are working a treat. Thanks for setting this up.

What happens if I use a language for which there isn't a category? For example, in Congo, I have "ttbc|Chinese, Simplified" and "ttbc|Chinese, Traditional" which give "Translations to be checked (Chinese, Simplified)" and "Translations to be checked (Chinese, Traditional)" in the list of templates used on the page, but these two links are red. Have I done these correctly? — Paul G 15:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome. Yes, it looks like you did it correctly.

Since I'm currently about 3/8ths done setting it up, there will be many more "reds" listed here: Category:Translations to be checked. Note the link at the top of that page. The offset is a guess (but at the moment, a rather good guess.) The ones you indicate, are currently red, and will be sub-catted soon...probably after I do the next hundred checktrans entries. Or, when you or someone else subcats them.

I have noticed numerous problems with my automation of the "ttbc|" tagging. If you come across errors, please fix them manually, and if possible, let me know what was missed.

In the future, I think we may want to instruct people to only add "ttbc" links to blue pages, but for now, I'm still trying to fill out all the "reasonable" possibilities, such as the two you mentioned above. We may still need additional brain-storming on some of the lingering problems, to make the whole system gain momentum with translating visitors. But so far, it seems like a pretty wonderful experiment. --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Wonderful indeed, nothing less. Paul, any new category will show up red. They will be "settled" once you have edited them. — Vildricianus 15:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I am trying to be careful not to be too excited about a technical solution; the proof is in the pudding. If translators still find the new method too difficult, I'll still think it is a cool approach. But if truly is still too difficult, we will need to revisit the checktrans proposal Vildricianus suggested in the first place (an arduous manual process for us, to be sure.) In a month's time, I think we'll have a good picture of this method's acceptance. Perhaps we should be keeping rudimentary statistics? --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The main categories (German, Dutch, French) will be quickly emptied, but exotic languages will remain exotic, whatever we try.

peace :: Wow. So this must be our most (ill-)translated word then? Anyway, applying our technique here would simply destroy the page. Let's keep peace (and any other word like this) for the end, then see which categories are still red, and move those TTBC to a subpage linked from the section ==TTBC==. — Vildricianus 20:40, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

• Even better might be to have all languages with 5 or less terms listed separately...and no sub-category defined. The category would still be red, and still have those memeber entries, but just not be listed as a sub-category. (Or is that what you just said?) --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

• How about a Category: TTBC - almost done (5 or less) ? --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

• Sounds good. Perhaps first finish the job (I see you're almost done), then see what we can do with it. We'll have to go through all those categories anyway. I'll think now of some content for WT:TTBC. — Vildricianus 20:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

• PS: Wow, that's a blue link! Perhaps it should lead to Wiktionary:Translations to be checked? That's what I meant anyway.

• How's that? — Vildricianus 21:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Argh. Not only that, but Serbian/Croatian worked when you first asked me about it, but somewhere along the way I broke it. Irish, Serbian, and I wonder what else. Probably not too much, as I was at least scanning these as I did them, but little things like that have slipped through. The instructions should probably indicate that mistakes like that should be cleaned up as we go. At this point, I don't think I'll be automating any more of it (with less than 100 to go now.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:39, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

That you missed out on a few is no problem. I've been going through your contributions looking for "subst:lang", which I check, and it's not that bad. I was actually pointing out that the system is already being used effectively. — Vildricianus 21:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

rm indent

• I've noticed about 5 edits so far, from 5 different people, but I am afraid it is the noise of starting it all up. I think this subtask will need you to be an ongoing "cheer squad" to keep the momentum up. Weekly summaries on WT:AN, that sort of thing.

But you are right...it is encouraging to see it being used already. --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

TTBC - thoughts

Well, now that the 800 have seeded those categories, I think it is time to consider integrating the "Babel" templates into the mix.

I think each Babel template should have a link to the corresponding categegory *AND* should place that person in that category...so if people like me have a question about a Swedish word, there is a single place to go looking for those contributors (which happens to be the same place where we keep Swedish words that still need clarification.)

--Connel MacKenzie T C 22:09, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

• The English template can link to the page where the requests for beter example sentences lives. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Reword please. I don't see what you're actually meaning. If you want a Swede, you can check Category:User sv, right? — Vildricianus 19:35, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

By "accidentally" adding all Swedes to the category Category: Translations to be checked (Swedish) (pipe *) via template:User sv, many people might notice cleanup categories that are actually applicable to them. Then again, that might be considered to be messing with people's user pages, so I hesitate to jump on it. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:43, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Nah, I think there's no need for it either. You'll be surprised at how quickly these things will get worked through. Try to compare the old and the new system, it's a huge improvement. I'm ready to jump at Dutch. We'll also need a clear link from the Main page. If it still doesn't get enough attention, we can simply notify some knowledgeable people on their talk page. — Vildricianus 19:53, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

OK. That would be much more polite too - thereby increasing the likelyhood of cooperation. Yeah, messing with the Babel templates for this is now unthinkable for me.

Hrm. Where is the list of language names to ISO 639 code? Should be add a subtle link e.g. on Category: Translations to be checked (Swedish) that points to Special: Whatlinkshere/ Template: User sv? --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

w:List of ISO 639 codes. Good idea. — Vildricianus 20:53, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Protection policy - stub???

Could you please fix whatever is was you did to Wiktionary:Protection policy? That page is linked internally by the MediaWiki software, and needs to reflect all aspects of our protection policies. What you've done looks almost like page-move vandalism to delete edit history! No page in the Wiktionary namespace should be moved or deleted without checking WhatLinksHere first. --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry :-). I've moved it back. --Richardb 10:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! --Connel MacKenzie T C 10:26, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Noarticletext

Where do I request a change in this? Here, then. I'd suggest there be a link to the deletion log for the corresponding article, like on Pedia. — Vildricianus 21:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! — Vildricianus 22:05, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Now that I've finished making the change, it occurs to me that I should have done the semi-protection thing with all this. But the system delays are prohibitive right now. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:08, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

En-templates

I read on Patrik's talk page that you were considering making new templates for English verbs. Are you still? Because I'm about to update Template:en-verb and stuff with a new layout. I'm still confused about its placing, since it may collide with nearby translation sections. — Vildricianus 17:03, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I am still working out details of my new approach, yes. I'll look at your layout now... --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Considering the extensive history of Ncik's controversial templates, I don't think it is very wise to introduce a competing format without significant prior discussion on the beer parlour. (Lack of discussion was my primary complaint for many of Ncik's actions; him ignoring comments was of course, much worse.) I think overwritting his templates would needlessly cause ill-will, which would set back the acceptance of new ideas.

P.S. You still have the order of parameters wrong, just like in Ncik's templates. The Present participle must come before past and past participle. One benefit of following the several-years-old convention, is that the 5th parameter value can then be defaulted from the 4th parameter. Most of the time, past == past part.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 18:05, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, my main concern for now was a temporary layout solution to the very ill-looking boxes, until I read about your venture. Of course the 4th parameter is wrong, because it is wrong in Ncik's boxes. I'll wait now for you to come up with something before I replace the layout.

PS: I've now put an alternative at the same page, with the order adjusted. I've got no idea as to how you would approach the layout of your templates, but perhaps my tables are useful. — Vildricianus 18:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

1. I meant don't overwrite; but I didn't mean stop...just pick a different name, e.g. "en-verb-c-*" or "en-v" or something.
2. Parameter three needs to be the present participle, 4 the simple past, 5 the past participle. Then instead of saying {{{5}}}, you say instead {{{5|{{{4}}}}}} and when you use the template, you simply omit the 5th parameter whenever it matches the 4th (which is most of the time.)
3. My layouts suck. I do not focus on artistic abilities; my layouts tend to reflect a leanness that apparently displeases many people here. I would have a separate line for each inflection, with ":*" as the only ornamentation, the term wikified in bold.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 18:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Template:wikipedia

Why did you change the Pedialink? It used to forward to the search function but now it goes straight to the article. I'm not fond of this change. — Vildricianus 14:25, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

beach

Hi. You made a minor mistake with the "infl". Cheers. — Vildricianus 16:48, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I got one right, anyway. --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:51, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Scots/Scottish/Scottish Gaelic

Seems like I will need to make this my homepage :-)

I don't know what is meant by Scottish, but Scots is not the same as Scottish Gaelic. — Vildricianus 21:16, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Oops. Oh no. But Scottish is the same as Scottish Gaelic? --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:21, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

w:Scottish? Dunno. — Vildricianus 21:36, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've reverted that series of recombinations. I clearly haven't a clue how they ought to be. --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:41, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not that important anyway, since there are very few speakers of Scots (let alone Wiktionarians). Yet, you know the British... don't mix their names up. — Vildricianus 21:49, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

With a name like Connel, or with a name like MacKenzie, I ought to know better.  :-) From the Wikipedia page today, I learned that what I thought was one language (with three dialects) is actually five separate languages. Yikes. Since I haven't a clue, I'm just leaving those entries entirely alone now. --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:56, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Invitation to contribute

Hi,

(Connel - please excuse the impersonal message: this is going out to loads of people. You know about this already, I know. I also know you do tons of work here already so feel free to say no if this is more than you are willing to take on.)

You might or might not already be aware that there is now a new system in place for marking translations that need to be checked (those that are suspected of being incorrect or those where it is not clear which sense(s) of a word the translations apply to). (See here for the Beer parlour discussion on this topic.)

Translations to be checked are now categorised by language. For example, Category:Translations_to_be_checked_(French) contains a list of all words where French translations need to be checked. This is designed to make the checking of these translations easier to maintain and work with.

I'm contacting everyone who has expressed an interest in working on translations or has indicated in Wiktionary:Babel that they have a good knowledge of a particular foreign language or languages.

Would you be interested in helping out with the translations to be checked for Swedish? If so, please read the page on how to check translations.

If you want to reply to this message, please do so on my talk page. Thanks for your help you can provide.

— Paul G 08:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: Invitation (From Paul G's talk page):

LOL! --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course you knew about this before anyone else, but I wouldn't have wanted you to feel left out :) — Paul G 08:49, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I was only laughing because you invited me to contribute to Swedish translations. All the Swedish I know, I learned from the Muppets' Swedish Chef! --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:52, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I see what I did. I looked at the list of native speakers of Swedish in Wiktionary:Babel and saw your name there. Unfortunately it was a link from your talk page, not from your user page. Oh well, if hurdy-burdy or bork-bork need to be checked, I'll know who to ask :) — Paul G 08:56, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

You probably already know this but what the Swedish chef speaks is "a semi-comprehensible gibberish which parodies the characteristic vowel sounds of Swedish", so it not nearly as funny for me since I'm used to these sounds. Still, I find the Swedish chef quite funny despite this. :-) ---Patrik Stridvall 10:43, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't tempt me to start tagging every Swedish entry with {{rfap}}... --Connel MacKenzie T C 10:47, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have other priorities. But yes, some day perhaps I will get around to that. Swedish have several sounds that it not used in normal languages. In the mean time you can hear some at Wiktionary:Swedish_pronunciation. --Patrik Stridvall 11:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

monobook.js

Thanks for the explanation you gave on IRC about the linking stuff to wikt: on w: and to w: on wikt:. This is most useful indeed when adding links to pedia articles. I've copied your JS and adapted it slightly, so I should give you credit. Cheers. — Vildricianus 14:56, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I want to add a row of buttons atop each screen, but I had forgotten that I planned to.

The "code" here is not GPL - it is GFDL. That makes it pretty weird. I suppose if you mention in an edit summary comment where it was copied from, that would be the end of it. So, thanks for the extra recognition. --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:54, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

RfB

Formal request for being blocked until March 17, 2006 AD, UTC 1500. Thank you. — Vildricianus 22:08, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Eh?

What the hell is wrong with WikiSaurus:easy? How could anything in there be interpreted as vandalism exactly? --Expurgator t(c) 22:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, I was too hasty in my snap back at you. Sorry, I blame my mother (partly). See u another day, --Expurgator t(c) 22:28, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

== template:BE-ready etc. ==

Richard,

This project seems to be defunct. The entries that are tagged show up in Special:CrossNamespaceLinks...can you clean these up somehow? In particular, I don't understand what the -ready template is for. Why should an entry that is clean now advertize an outdated cleanup project? Am I missing something? --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Probably right. The dictionary content does some to be a bit better, even a lot better, for the basics, though still far from complete (Check head versus a dictionary entry, for instance). I'll review if it would be better to wipe all this out.--Richardb 06:59, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Re:Never redirect misspellings

We are note Wikipedia. Spelling differences matter here. We don't redirect misspellings. At all. --Connel MacKenzie T C 10:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

(Replied on user page. enochlau (talk) 07:47, 13 March 2006 (UTC))

I see. Thanks for that. enochlau (talk) 07:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Translation Bot

Hi Connel. What would your Bot do in the case of a word (such as hacksaw) being translated by a phrase whose words are individually Wikified? By the way, I'd like to see it in action - even if only run manually on a few entries. SemperBlotto 10:32, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding order: Sorry, I'll get to it after the others. Just because the 'bots are no longer administratively linked, doesn't mean I won't still attack the problems in a logical, methodical manner. After the plurals are essentially done, I'll move to comparatives. When they are essentially done, I'll move on to superlatives...

For multi-word entries, I think I'll have to skip them on the first pass. Phrases should be entered, yes, especially when they correspond to a single English word. But considering the translations are entered as separately wikified terms (incorrectly,) I'd imagine my parsing of them would end up quite confused, as it stands now. --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

GutenBot buglet

You may have fixed this already, but the Gutenbot inserted a bunch of escaped apostrophes, e.g. "I\'d" and "isn\'t". I don't know if it's a glitch in the script or in the data you fed it with. I've cleaned some of them up, but I've left them in at that's and meet ("I\'ve") so you can see what they look like. —Scs 20:46, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes, I've since fixed the bug in the data being fed to the 'bot. I haven't re-ranked them in quite some time. Since a new XML backup was started today, I think I will wait until next week when a newer XML dump is available before trying to re-run it. Also missing is the update to the Frequency lists, to correspond to the individual rankings, which I need to correct before running. --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Polyglot/monobook.js

Sorry to pester you with this again. But the above, protected page still shows up on Category:English irregular plurals. Another favour I'd like to ask you for is unprotecting Template:appendices. Ncik 03:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I've sent him an e-mail requesting his return to attend to it. If another week goes by, I'll nominate it on WT:RFD. That way, he could restore it if he wants, when he returns. --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for unprotecting. Ncik 03:37, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome. Template: appendices is now semi-protected so you and others can edit it, but anons cannot. --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:54, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

As per your request, I contacted Polyglot. He is unable to return to editing at this time, so I've deleted the offending page and left a note about it on his talk page. This way, when he does return, it will be very obvious what is and isn't there. Considering the care that is needed to use this Javacscript properly, it is probably not wise to jump right into it adter a long absence anyway. Furthermore, from what he indicated, his absence may last long enough for the assumptions made within that Javascript code to become invalid. As a sysop, he can immediately retore it when he returns, if he wants to. --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:43, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Ncik 02:22, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Thanks Connel for cleaning up. I have too much hay on my fork and something had to give... I really loved contributing here, but priorities have a tendency to change. Wiktionary took too much of my time. Soon I'll be buying a house and then I'll have to put my spare time into improving that. In the mean time I have to work as hard as possible in order to have enough and some reserver to take care of my little family. You'll probably be seeing me adding a translation here or there, but I'll be leaving the vandal fighting and the effort to make everything standardized to others to accomplish. Cheers Polyglot 15:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

WT:EC up for deletion

I've listed WT:EC, which you created, for deletion. Please comment there. - dcljr 03:55, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Toolserveraccount

Hello Connel MacKenzie,
please send your prefer login-name and your public-part of your ssh-key to [email protected] and you will get your account soon. --DaB. 21:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Sorry about the delay; I had to get the right one. --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC).

WT:WS gone missing, replaced by WT:WT. But incomplete.

Hi Connel,

just wondering why you (well, I'm assuming you) took out WT:WS as a short cut for Wiktionary Shortcuts, changing it effectively to WT:WT ?

Also, it's not quite been completed, becuase on page Wiktionary:Shortcuts still shows the shortcut as WT:WS. Leave it with you to decide which way it should go.--Richardb 09:59, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Richard, the why is discussed at Wiktionary talk:Shortcut and Wiktionary: Beer parlour archive/January-March 06#Bot Request: User: Tawkerbot.

Please note that I was taking care not to remove the older ones.

The one you are asking about in particular, WS:WS was moved to the WT: namespace, but still stands for "Wiktionary Shortcuts". I referred to the w:WP:WP page on Wikipedia (and the other projects) in trying to make the standard expected entries, such as WT:WT. For maintaining the link integrity of archives, I'd object to any of them being removed, for quite some time at least. --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:05, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

No problem. Sounds sensible. Actually, I now realise the question should have been the other way around. Why did you not create WT:WS ? I guess I might create it now ?--Richardb 23:26, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Must have got my wires crossed, 'cos now I see you have created WT:WS back on 5-Mar. Sorry.--Richardb 23:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

No prob! --Connel MacKenzie T C 23:35, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

User:68.39.174.238

Why did you block him? I don't see him doing anything wrong, and he's a good contributor. --24.46.201.42 21:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

For trolling the IRC #Wiktionary channel. The preemptive block is therefore a very short duration, instead of indefinite. --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Delinking uncommon languages

Thanks for the welcome. Good point; I must've missed it while reading WT:ELE. I went through and (painstakingly) reverted my edit. I'm wondering if there is a specified list of languages that should be wikified, because certain articles (as an example Green) have near no languages wikified while others (Flower) have many languages wikified. 141.153.247.25 00:15, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

To wikify or not to wikify, is the question on Wiktionary talk:Entry layout explained and in WT:BP. Unfortunately, there is still no solid list, only guidelines still. I think I may revive that conversation, as it seems to have grown quiet (without any resolution.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:48, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Imitation User pages

Hi there. What do you make of such pages as User:Vito corleone? I'm sure that he doesn't intend to make any contributions. Can you detect such pages (and talk pages) for users who have made no other contribution? SemperBlotto 19:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes I can; I'll write something now to find them. Hrm, this is actually a series of cleanup lists:

1. Users with no contribs, but a user page (created by anon, presumably)
2. Users with no main name space contribs
3. Users with only one crontibution (any namespace)

Any others I'm not thinking of offhand?

--Connel MacKenzie T C 19:23, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I cannot at this time. Building the xref by contributions is on my todo list, but I haven't done it yet, so this will have to wait a couple days - maybe a week. Additional ideas are welcome in the meantime. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:05, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

English in italics

I'm not sure where the relevant discussion is happening, but I'd like to recommend against putting English words in italics (as in the recent run of past participles). Reason 1: italics is usually reserved for foreign words by editorial convention. Reason 2: Despite what most people think, italics does not emphasize a word visually -- it merely makes them "small and hard to read", as one of my friends has put it. --EncycloPetey 20:53, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Erm, I'm not sure there really is a conversation about it (other than right here.) Perhaps on WT:ELE. I'd love to see a vote on the topic, but if I present something for vote, you can set a timer for when Ncik will vote against it, then double the timer and Ec will unilaterally reject it, unless it is just too painfully obvious a correction. Since this one is so subjective, someone (NOT ME!) should submit it for vote on WT:BP.

In the meantime, I'll go ahead and change those italics to bold, for new entries. --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Alternative spellings

Thanks for your message, re my consolidating the two spellings of manoeuvre:

"Alternate spellings are equally valid, especially if regional. It is not NPOV to redirect one to the other."

(For the record, I usually use English spellings, and normally use "manoeuvre"; but if I have to choose one spelling arbitrarily without personal prejudice I use the simpler spelling, which in practice virtually always means Benjamin Franklin's simplified US spelling.)

I don't suppose there's any point in discussing this as it'll be entrenched practice. If you agree, you could either not bother to respond to this comment, or simply mention that it's not new.

I suppose this idea isn't new, though I haven't found it in a quick check of discussion on spelling. I'm concerned about having everything in a single place if the meaning of the word is common to all spellings, rather than duplicated independently (good data-processing practice); I'm not concerned about which spelling is to be preferred in some way.

Everyone seems very exercised about the issue of alternative spellings. But can't we have a single article text which inrorporates all the spellings, the main entry being under any one of the spellings, the others being redirects? If anybody cares (and I'm sure they do, very much), the choice of the "master" spelling could be made using some simple objective criterion, logically equivalent to tossing a coin. I personally use the criterion of choosing the simplest (though I use English usage myself); this virtually always is U.S., so I can see objections.

It is easy to write and publish a small computer program to select pseudo-randomly in a unique manner one among several spellings without bias towards the shorter forms. For example: list all <n> alternatives alphabetically, and use a published pseudorandom number generator seeded with the sum of the checksums of all the spellings to select a number between 1 and <n>.

Pol098 08:54, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

New vandalism, Old vandal?

The user Wikigregg is vandalizing numerous pages again with automated text. (See Recent Changes) At first it looked like some kind of spam, but it appears to be orthographic information pertaining to shorthand. Is this relevant for Wiktionary, or would this be more appropriate not to include? --EncycloPetey 05:54, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I think this is OK. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:01, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Clarification: I don't really like it, but I think it was discussed. His experiment hasn't quite gotten out of hand yet, has it? I'm still looking for the conversation, ATM. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:05, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know whether it was discussed elsewhere, but here nobody objected. I'm fine with having shorthand notations. Maybe we should advise User:Wikigregg not to link the 'Gregg' header, or otherwise at least tell him to use the format [[w:A|B]]. Ncik 02:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

User talk:EncycloPetey#User:Wikigregg had some on this topic too. Thanks for that link...I thought there were some more comments (but with the same general conclusion.) Do you want to walk Wikigregg through that basic formatting? Also, where did we end up with the ===Misc.=== heading? Wasn't this one of the proposed sub-headings of that? --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:47, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Romaji

Are you sure it's necessary to apply the CFI to romaji entries? Wiktionary:Transliteration says "As for whether to create transliteration articles (redirecting or pointing to the non-transliterated form) for the benefit of beginner students, the decision should be made individually for each language, on a language considerations page." I don't see any clear statement at Wiktionary:About Japanese, but it seems to me that Japanese is a particularly good case for including transliterated entries - it would certainly make wiktionary much more useful for me. Kappa 05:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I apologize if my mistake caused further confusion. Romaji does belong in Wiktionary; I was confused by our inconsistent treatment of other languages. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

(And no worries, Connel.) Rodasmith 17:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, Kappa. CFI is one of the more challenging aspects of Wikimedia projects. Anyway, I will revoke my CFI-based RfD's for the romaji and kana entries. I will also request comments in Wiktionary Talk:About Japanese to ensure that it is OK to add a note to Wiktionary:About Japanese regarding modified CFI for romaji and kana entries. Rodasmith 17:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

First character indices

Could you please redo the "First character indexes" section you added to the Main Page/Redesign talk page so it uses pipes on the links? What I'm looking for is this:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ...

in place of the current:

Special:Allpages/0 Special:Allpages/1 Special:Allpages/2 Special:Allpages/3 Special:Allpages/4 Special:Allpages/5 Special:Allpages/6 Special:Allpages/7 Special:Allpages/8 Special:Allpages/9 ...

The former method would take up much less space on the page and be much easier to scan. I'd do it myself, but I can't quite figure out a fast way of converting the hex codes you used into regular characters short of writing a Perl script to do it, which I'd rather not take the time to (relearn how to) do. (Even though [[Special:Allpages/%C2%A2]], for example, shows up as Special:Allpages/¢, [[Special:Allpages/%C2%A2|%C2%A2]] obviously doesn't work!) Presumably, though, you can do it with one small change to the script you used for the original. (What language is that, anyway?) - dcljr 07:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, give me five minutes or so. The language is MUMPS. --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Gah! I don't know what I'm doing with the unicode right now. Bear with me a minute... --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:47, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, Fixing the settings on my terminal emulator did the trick. I just had to un-comment ";" the part I had in the first place, before the terminal went crazy last time, and force PuTTY to not lose its mind when seeing strange unicode characters. Fifteen of them didn't quite work. Can you get those characters "by hand" or should I try again? --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• Harumph! The spastic conversion of left-to-right to right-to-left causes the MediaWiki software to go berserk.
• I noticed that I skipped Radicals, Kanji, etc. In the process of trying to get them included, I found that I had also skipped Tamil Hindi, etc. They are there now.
• I'll need a subpage to do the Kanji/radicals. There are a gazillion of them, and the browser just locks up when trying to overload a page that big (when as a section of another large page, especially.) I am too sleepy to go on right now though.
• I am shocked and amazed at how much crap-loading has been done to en.wiktionary. At the end of the list, there are a slew of chess and card-game symbols, of all things. I haven't spotted the kitchen sink yet, but I'm now pretty sure it is in there, as a single unicode character. --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Probably! The "index" is now is fine; you don't have to worry about it any more. I might go through and fix the remaining problems manually, but it'll have to be done at home where I can actually see most of the non-Latin characters (as opposed to here at work). Then again, I have my own (dreams of an) "index" I should be working on.... <g> - dcljr 16:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Requests for language cleanup - is the system working?

Hi. Category:Requests for language cleanup February is empty. However you added the {{nolanguage}} template to ἀγάπη on the 5th February, and it hasn't been edited since. I'm pretty sure that I noticed this sort of thing last month - I just looked at "what links here" for the template, then at the history of each entry, and deleted the out-of-date ones. SemperBlotto 09:48, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

There seems to have been a change to the MediaWiki software. By using {{subst:nolanguage}} instead from now on, everything should work as it used to. I've substed the existing entries, as there wern't many. --Connel MacKenzie T C 10:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Mm, I don't know what this should have done. I changed it back to a simple version, and put up a notice to subst: it henceforth. — Vildricianus 12:44, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Vild, the trick there is to include the text "subst:" without doing a subst in the template. When the template is then included on a page, the CURRENTMONTH gets subst:'ed into that page, instead of just included. If is is included, then it is recalculated every time the maintenance:updateSpecialPages.php script is run (currently twice a week.) If it is subst:'ed, (only in a subst:'ed template, mind you) then the double-subst:ing causes it to work correctly. By correctly, I mean the month in which the entry was first tagged becomes part of its category name. Clear as mud? --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:02, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Yup, nice trick. — Vildricianus 16:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

rhodanna

Sry for asking, but why have you deleted the entry 'rhodanna'?

unsinged comment from 16:05, March 31, 2006 User:84.113.28.71

Because no references were provided, no citations appeared on normal searching for the term and it was an otherwise dubious entry that matched the pattern of someone trying to enamour a friend of theirs. See our criteria for inclusion and our formatting guidelines. --Connel MacKenzie T C 23:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)