User talk:Connel MacKenzie/archive-2006-08

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

Bermuda

Please justify or revert your recent changes made to the entry Bermuda. As justifying the claim that the aforementioned archipelago has magically teleported a thousand miles is rather difficult, I would advise the latter. Rather hastily, I might add, as such claims aren't particularly good for maintaining the title of Administrator.

You also removed the adjective form of the word entirely, despite such common terms as "Bermuda Shorts", the "Bermuda Triangle" and the "Bermuda High"...in fact, even the Bermuda Government itself.

If you are not familiar with a word or its uses, then please do not attempt to create a definition for it.

— This unsigned comment was added by 199.172.230.145 (talk).

Seeing how emotional you are about the issue, I rechecked several other dictionaries. Bermudan and Bermudian are the noun and adjective forms, while Bermuda, bermuda shorts, bermuda onion and others are listed as nouns. In English, nouns can almost always be forced to act as adjectives, but that doesn't make them adjectivial in nature. Outside of a handful of specific nouns, the adjective is Bermudan, not Bermuda.

Many things are in the Atlantic Ocean. It is a disservice to our readers to say that Bermuda exists in the same ocean as Greenland and Iceland, without being much more specific. The Caribbean is colloquially understood to include nearby adjacent regions, even if some politicians happen to disagree.

I rolled your changes back as they looked deceptive and erroneous. The fact that your "format changes" seem to be POV reinforces that notion dramatically. Helpful additions and corrections are appreciated here; empty threats are not. Since you seem adamant that your POV is the only possibly correct one, (against the Wiktionary community's consensus,) I'll request blocking of your IP address from some other sysops.

--Connel MacKenzie 04:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with the anon as to the placement - per Wikipedia, the island is a few hundred miles due east of South Carolina. bd2412 T 04:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

And an 'nslookup' of the IP points to Bermuda, explaining the anon's indignation. I'm glad no one blocked, for now. The colloquial association of Bermuda to a Caribbean resort is weakened too much, if listed as "North Atlantic Ocean" or "Atlantic Ocean." I've made some changes; please amend and correct if I've now managed to still offend. --Connel MacKenzie 06:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Connel Mackenzie, I do not find your arguments particularly reasonable and I find your tone more than a little hostile and abusive. Please try to remain civil. If you do not, I will be forced to register a complaint. Let us go through this step-by-step:

Edit #1: Caribbean -> Atlantic Ocean

You have asserted that Bermuda is in the Caribbean. You later changed to to being North-East of the Caribbean. Bermuda is no where near the Caribbean. As has been mentioned, it is east of the Carolinas. References to the Caribbean will confuse readers, as it implies that Bermuda is remotely near that place. It is not. "Colloquial Association" does not change its location, nor do politicians. It is an isolated group of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, almost a mirror of the Azores. Describing Bermuda as being in the Caribbean would be like saying that the Azores are in the Mediterranean. In fact, the Azores are fully described as being, simply, "in the Atlantic Ocean". A statement such as "despite popular belief, Bermuda is neither in, nor near, the Caribbean" would be acceptable.

"The Atlantic Ocean", perhaps with "to the east of South Carolina" afterwards, would be the only accurate description. "North-East" of the Caribbean, however, is factually false -- amusing, considering how you accused me of deception. A reference to it being north of (north-east would be rather confusing, might I add) the Caribbean could also be added, but as this is a dictionary, so much information is probably not necessary.

Edit #2: Bermuda Adjective Form

I am sorry, but I have never heard of Bermudan used as an adjective. And I have heard Bermudian used as an adjective only a few times a year. "Bermuda" is the prevalent adjective form -- in Bermuda -- regardless of what miscellaneous dictionaries state. I chose my examples as ones you would have ready access to. I am sorry that the sign to Locals Restaurant, which serves "only the finest Bermuda fish" is not accessible to you, nor the literally hundreds of other examples, so I suggest you just take my word for it. I have never heard of the adjective "Bermudan", but you do not see me deleting it, do you?

Edit #3: Format Edits

Please explain how wikifying the text "Bermudian" in "see: Bermudian" is "POV"? In fact, please explain your entire statement, that "The fact that your "format changes" seem to be POV reinforces that notion dramatically".

Final: Your Behaviour

Your behaviour through this constitutes an abuse of your Administratorship. After receiving -- what I believed to be -- a civil and thought-through complaint, in which I asked you to supply the reason for your changes, you accuse me of "deception", being "erroneous" and attempting to force through a POV (without ever stating what point of view it was, for that matter) after making ONE CHANGE and asking you why you changed that, you appealed to have me banned. I find this disgraceful. Truly.

Please don't make me register a complaint.

P.S. Would not a person from Bermuda be more in touch with the meanings of the word?

Your "POV editing" is here. I see you (or another dynamic IP of yours?) reverted to the contested definition and dewikified a redlinked term (against common practice, here.) Perhaps User:BD2412 or another sysop would be better at cleaning up your POV pushing. You didn't even say "due East of South Carolina" that you had were previously agreeing with! FWIW, North East is not factually incorrect. --Connel MacKenzie 06:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

As another point of amusement, to reasearch your anon IP address, I had to use LACNIC], the Latin American and Caribbean internet address registry. --Connel MacKenzie 08:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:nav

I've made your intended modifications for this template to work. But now, it does not look good in rendered pages. --Bluemask 07:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

i don't have access to irc right now. :( --Bluemask 07:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

contacting users

A user contacted me concerning a block you had made. I'm not so much worried about the block as how to respond. It would be easiest to post on his/her user page except (1) the user page of the same name doesn't appear to be blocked and (2) he/she claims not to be able to respond on his/her own talk page anyway. Either of my current email addresses could potentially reveal information about myself that, if I understand correctly, should be tightly guarded. Or should I only avoid revealing any information on my own talk page itself? Anyways I'm not sure what to do. It seems kind of silly to set up another email address just for Wiktionary. Davilla 14:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, you can e-mail me the details useing the "E-mail this user" link on the left column. That routes through a http://www.spamgourmet.com/ filter. Not perfect (I have to reset the counters occasionally) but I have yet to get a spam-bomb from it. Some like to guard their e-mail addresses, while others rely on gmail's filters while flaunting it everywhere (in an effort to improve the gmail filters, presumably.) WMF says we should protect anonymous IP information diligently; I don't think the same always applies to e-mail addresses, but then, I don't often have occasion to violate either one. --Connel MacKenzie 05:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Where have I been flaunting it, apart from on IRC? BTW, the concerned user has e-mailed every sysop, I guess, so don't bother. — Vildricianus 08:02, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Great link! I'll be sure to use it some time, and not just for Wiktionary. But if it works very well, it couldn't be flawless. What's to keep someone from sending you mail at randomstring.largenumber.username? 59.112.42.174 08:39, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Nothing is flawless for spam. But I haven't been spam/mailbombed yet. --Connel MacKenzie 08:43, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

• D'oh. Apparently I was mail-bombed. The result was that my "e-mail this user" alias dropped all the bad messages and left the "remaining messages" counter at zero. So the last (about) 20 valid messages seem to have been deleted. Counter is reset now.  :-(   --Connel MacKenzie 16:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

re what's going on?

User:Dangherous deleted the page and then blocked himself for a year, after putting rather worrying comments re his resignation from wiktionary and some nhialistic verses at numberless. I am concerned. Andrew massyn 20:15, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. For some reason, I missed that, the first time I looked (replying on the talk page.) I've forwarded the de-sysop request to meta:, but the "request" isn't a formal one, so it's stuck for now. I'll start the needed conversation on WT:BP. --Connel MacKenzie 21:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Backlogs

Could someone do something about the developing backlogs at Wiktionary:WikiProject on open proxies and Wiktionary:Vandalism in progress? Thanks. Jesse Viviano 23:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Fantastic! Thank you so much! I had all but forgotten about WT:OP. It looks like the WT:VIP are mostly false alarms/warnings, or long since taken care of but not archived properly. --Connel MacKenzie 00:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The best way to archive them is to tag them with a template, like w:Template:Blocked proxy or w:Template:Zombie proxy when they are blocked. However, no such templates exist here currently. You might have to transwiki and modify them from Wikipedia them or create new ones for this project. This puts them all into categories for archival purposes. Jesse Viviano 01:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, you might want to bookmark w:Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies. People report and test open proxies there much more often than they do here. Jesse Viviano 01:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we should consider leaving our page as a pointer to it, then, perhaps? --Connel MacKenzie 01:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Nope. What is blocked on Wikipedia does not automatically get blocked here, so a redirect there would be worse than useless. Anyways, the "Need blocking" section and the "Already blocked" section only refer to Wikipedia, not Wiktionary. What really is needed is a central database where blocks on one project for being an open proxy can spread automatically. Jesse Viviano 02:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Imports done...please tweak anything I miss on my edits. --Connel MacKenzie 01:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

You may want to transwiki w:Wikipedia:No open proxies and modify it for Wiktionary as well. Currently, the tag points to a Wikipedia policy and not a Wiktionary one. Jesse Viviano 01:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Not the page you linked at the start here? Oh, are we supposed to have an official policy somewhere? Seems like overkill, for Wiktionary. We have "standard practices" and this (blocking open proxies) is well established as such. If anyone starts arguing on the open proxies' behalf, I'll just indef-block 'em.  :-) Joking aside, no one would take any such arguments seriously. --Connel MacKenzie 02:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

• Hmmm. I'm a little uncomfortable creating all those user talk pages for IPs that (99%+) will never be able to edit here. I also don't like the idea of tipping them off, as to how they got caught. I'll ask around, but I need to think this through. --Connel MacKenzie 01:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe Tawker might be able to write a bot that will go through the block logs and generate those pages. On one hand, tagging those IPs will let vandals know that those computers are off limits. On the other hand, it is an incentive for the owner of the proxy to have his or her computer cleaned up or secured. He or she then could email an administrator to have their IP address checked and removed. Jesse Viviano 02:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I certainly could 'bot upload them too. I'm still wondering if it is the right thing to do. The people that run open proxies are very criminally minded people, who are not likely to simply wake up one day and say "Golly gee, I shouldn't do this." Zombies, perhaps...but the likelyhood of any of them ever seeing a Wiktionary warning are nil. As I said, I'd like to think it through, and discuss it with others. --Connel MacKenzie 02:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Not all people who run open proxies are criminals. Some may be running them to help bypass censors that are up to no good like the Great Firewall of China. Others run them as anonymizers. Others might just be misconfigured computers with too many services installed. Sure, some are criminally minded. However, we cannot assume that they all are criminals. I understand that you wish to discuss this with others, and I respect this. Jesse Viviano 03:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about being flippant. Yes, of course there are some quazi-legitimate uses (but they too are often abused.) --Connel MacKenzie 03:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, should this discussion be moved to the beer parlour or the grease pit? Jesse Viviano 03:41, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I actually meant IRC and e-mail. Given how silly some of my comments above are, I think restarting the conversation in WT:BP would be best. --Connel MacKenzie 03:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Wantedpages transclusion

I guess I should remind you, though I'm not sure why, that {{Special:Wantedpages}} eats up server resources. On my homewiki, (though it's still 1.6), it's really the heaviest load I can get, for a stupid /10 wanted pages. Does it actually matter at all? Have you asked Brion? I'm really wondering whether it's just me and my apache. — Vildricianus 21:31, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh well, never mind. On a non-live wiki like this it probably doesn't matter at all. — Vildricianus 21:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, so that's the culprit. Makes sense that they run it only twice a week here. I'll comment it off my userpage for now. Not much to be done about WT:A with all the stewards on airplanes returning from Wikimania. --Connel MacKenzie 21:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Archive

You've just archived this, haven't you? I really didn't notice that. Perhaps move the archive links somewhere else? Or with font-size:90% ? — Vildricianus 21:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Huh? What's the matter? --Connel MacKenzie 00:44, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

w:Category:Move to Wiktionary

Hi Connel, it's theProject. Could I bother you to please import Wiktionary-worthy entries listed in w:Category:Move to Wiktionary (there are about 200 right now)? I would be very much obliged. Thanks! TheProject 22:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I've been a bit occupied with today's events. Perhaps someone will get to it before I do tomorrow night. --Connel MacKenzie 08:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've started...finished the As so far. I'll update the log when I finish the page. Total of 197 entries... --Connel MacKenzie 05:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

BTW, thanks for the reminder. --Connel MacKenzie 05:22, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I haven't been transwikiing vocabulary and usage stubs. I'm not sure if you want them, but if you want to, by all means. It's the ones in the main Move to Wiktionary category that I'm primarily concerned about. Thanks! TheProject 05:52, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, my import script seems to work. So this may all get cleared out very soon. --Connel MacKenzie 07:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Voting and CheckUser

(You know, I always thought your username was for Colonel, but then I found and categorised Connel today.) Anyway... you're a knowledgable user on here so I thought I'd ask you -- I notice that the only users that vote when there are votes held are admins ... is this because they're the only ones interested, or can any user vote? I'm asking because I see your request for CheckUser rights and I think it's a good idea. Somebody on here needs to have it. Beobach972 01:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes, anyone can vote. Some say that regular contributors ought to have more say in the votes than the sysops. The standing guideline is 50 main namespace contributions, for a vote to be considered valid (but exceptions are made both for visiting sysops having that waived, while bad-faith contributor's votes are sometimes weighed as "lesser" votes.) The CheckUser votes have not started yet, as we don't seem to have the necessary minimum 25 votes as even a remote likelyhood. (Or did someone start a vote, after my last comment?) I'll go check WT:C to see what's happened over there in the last couple hours, now. --Connel MacKenzie 04:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

According to Special=>User list User:Jon Harald Søby has checkuser status. SemperBlotto 08:26, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

That's only temporary as he's doing checks. He's a steward, so he can temporarily grant himself CU status. What we need is our permanent, local CUs. I think we should start a vote later this month, or early September. — Vildricianus 08:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

"Wik lity" (not even close to meeting WT:CFI.)

Sorry? I thought once a word becomes popular enough (like Wiki-ality became in The Colbert Report), then it meets the CFI. In a nutshell, what else should happen to "Wiki-ality" in order to meet CFI sufficiently enough? Thank you for your time. --Takanatsu the Frippant 09:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, "Spanning at least a year"

This is meant to filter out words that may appear and see brief use, but then never be used again. The one year threshold is somewhat arbitrary, but appears to work well in practice.

Oh, ok. I suppose "Wik lity" (or Wik lity) has a year to enter general persistent usage in at least a few Wiki-communities. --Takanatsu the Frippant 09:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Independent sources is the other catch. The likely hood that the vandalism entry 'wik lity' will have three published book references in the next year is not highly likely. In five years, the joke term will have dissapeared entirely, as 90% of such nonce terms do. --Connel MacKenzie 15:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Regex help for IRC

My IRC connection won't stay open, so if you care to relay this to the Germans, my suggestion follows:

Python and regex each interpret string literals. Python is interpreting the backslashes in the Germans' code as string literal escape codes, so it drops them before giving the string to regex. Solution: either modify the Python string from "u'...'" to "ur'...'" or replace each backslash with two backslashes.

If you don't feel like being a relay point en route to Germany, feel free to ignore this. :-) Rod (A. Smith) 17:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

{{italbrac-colon}}

Hi Connel. I just saw that you've broken some of the personalized formatting by hard-coded colons to be non-italic even for people such as Stephen who insist that in such constructions everything should be in italics. This means parentheses, commas, and colons. Did you understand that this was the specific function of the template and also why its name was so specific? — Hippietrail 03:51, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, not. Why would there be such a function? Template:italbrac generates a colon as it is. I think this is probably more an issue (that I've accidentally stumbled into here) that Rodasmith was talking about in IRC: that template naming conventions should be about linguistic function, not graphical presentation function. (I.e. 'definition qualifier' or 'synonym qualifier' or such.) --Connel MacKenzie 06:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Italbrac doesn't generate a colon. This is the only difference between the two templates. I agree that functions such as definition qualifier and synonym qualifier are a good idea and a better long-term idea than italbrac for specific purposes. But I do not think presentation-only CSS is a bad idea and for now templates are the only way to generate CSS. If you care to scan a bunch of articles some time you will see that the parenthese + italics combo are used for many more functions and can be found just about everywhere from Etymology to Pronunciation to Translations. I have no problem with identifying each area of use and coming up with a specific template for each. In the meantime I still think italbrac and italbrac-colon are as good a stopgap measure as any. — Hippietrail 12:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Please re-read WT:CUSTOM. Italbrac doesn't generate a colon for you. --Connel MacKenzie 14:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't generate a colon for you but it does (sometimes) for me, depending on WT:CUSTOM settings. --Connel MacKenzie 00:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

simple gender question

What's the best choice to indicate gender: m or {{m}}?

— This unsigned comment was added by 84.197.188.111 (talk).

Using {{m}} is preferred these days, as you get the "hint text" when you hover your mouse over it. Welcome again! --Connel MacKenzie 03:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for replying and for all the work you are doing here! — This unsigned comment was added by 84.197.188.111 (talk).

transwiki page history

I noticed that the page history for Transwiki:Accredited Asset Management Specialist matched that for the article found on Wikipedia. It also had a final edit by you. Did you change the page history of the transwikied page? If so, how did you do that? I thought that only developers had access for that. Thanks. -- w:User:Kenb215 23:55, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

In the grease pit there is a discussion about the new feature that allows sysops to import pages from Wikipedia directly. --Connel MacKenzie 00:16, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Do not redirect spellings: criticise

US/UK spelling differences are an ongoing point of contention. Entering one form or the other as a redirect is not NPOV. Each should have a stub (or a complete) entry. --Connel MacKenzie 20:12, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I deal with Brit spellings as I do. If they lack a def, send them to the AmE form. That's all I did. Your response was rude. Can you give the rule about ice ize words?--Allamakee Democrat 04:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

This was not meant to be a rude statement. I was trying to be informative. There have been a billion flamewars about US/UK spellings vs. deletions vs. redirects vs. partial redirects vs. section sharing, vs. section redirecting vs. entry sharing.

I'm sorry if my tone came across as rude. However, entering redirects for one or the other, has met uniform resistance from both sides of the pond.

I will try to find the "-ise"/"-ize" rule that I remember seeing on User talk:Paul G. Paul has spent probably the most time (of any of us) researching the actual rules involved. --Connel MacKenzie 06:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Two cats to consider

re: Category:Wikipedia_navigation_templates In introduction, itself needs a sister-global renaming — 'Wikipedia sourced utility templates' makes more sense now that experience is providing perspective. That flavor will keep the point sharp that the templates are interwiki with an 888# gorilla expecting similar operation here. However, it is more desireable to have the same category on all the sisters with the same name, so such will have to go through the lengthy category renaming on wikipedia, before I'd want to do so here in the sister's.

re: the redlinks seen in Category:Wikipedia_navigation_templates (Where I was going before defending that poor name! <g> The things I do for WMF!!!), you may want to peek at the en.wp categories and figure out if there is any likelihood that your mileau has need for some of the utilities: {{I}} {{S}} {{i}} {{indent}} {{space}} {{cat see also}} {{see also}} come to mind. {{Co}} can be imported as Color. I'm to new here to focus on more... I merely wanted to suggest that those two wikipedia categorys might be adopted here for the best interwiki compatibility. My premise is that is the man-power pull, and someone will be more likely to spend time here if the tools and 'hooks' are comfortable. Categories, being infrastructure are 'hooks'—anchors which can be held onto and counted on. (Interwiki Philosophy 101 <g>)

I just categorized {{main}} for you. In fact, take note and promongulate {{TL}} in your forums. The 'tl' template on en.wikipedia is very often used in 'political' discussions, and I suspect similar discussions occur here as well. See also: {{Wiktionary-sister-class}} and (deprecated template usage) . 'WikiPtmp' should be used to tag any templates acting much the same way as one on en.wikipedia, or the commons. I use the qualifier, as the commons versions will sometimes act to address a link to a category page, not to main space. Mostly the distinction is moot. If you have a template talk page and editor group active in templates, {{tlx}} should interest them (as well as more than a few categorized the same, I'm not going to import)!

I probably won't be back around 'til weekdays, it's a 'Honey Do-List weekend' apparently! // FrankB 17:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think {{TL}} should be deleted, in deference to {{temp}}. Wikipedia it prone to that sort of brain-dead ignorant template naming. That's why most of their most popular templates have equivalents here, but renamed. I don't think any Wikipedia template with less than four characters should be replicated here. (But that would make for a lively discussion on WT:GP.)

I'm also unsure where you're going with the category. Is that supposed to be a listing of all our equivalent templates? --Connel MacKenzie 07:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

CommonsTicker: new version, new features

Hello. A new version of CommonsTicker will be rolled out soon (probably tomorrow). Please have an eye on what the bot is doing, and report any problems to m:User_talk:Duesentrieb/CommonsTicker. Some of the changes are:

• the ticker can now post warnings to the talk page of articles that are using "endangered" images. This is not enabled per default, and you can select for which namespaces it is done. If you want this feature, please request it at m:User:Duesentrieb/CommonsTicker#Change_Requests.
• in append mode, there are now three empty template parameters: status, editor, and notic. The ticker does not use them itself, but you can use them in the TickerEntry template, for example to strike through entries that have been fixed. en:wikinews has already been using this for a while now.
• if the ticker fails to post an update, a warning is posted to your and the ticker's talk page. In append mode, the ticker will also re-try to post the update on the next pass. Until now, failed updates where simply ignored.
• edit summaries become a bit more informative.

I hope these changes will help to make CommonsTicker more used and more useful.

On a related note: you may have noticed that on long pages, entries near the bottom of the page are sometimes not expanded but rendered just as {{TickerEntry}} or similar. This is due to a new limit to template expansion - see bugzilla:7005. To avoid it, try to keep the page short and/or try to simplify the TickerEntry template.

This message was posted automatically by the CommonsTicker bot. For feedback and discussion, please go to meta:User talk:Duesentrieb/CommonsTicker -- CommonsTicker 23:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Standards

Some days ago I asked you if I should use ''m'' or {{m}} to indicate gender. You advised me to use the latter option, because of its tooltip (though I don't see it, maybe because of my browser - Opera - or my settings). So I changed some ''m'' into {{m}}, but in the article socialist this change was reverted by someone else.
I also thought that the noun template was preferred over something like '''socialist''' (''plural:'' [[socialists]]), but probably not, because it was reverted too.
It doesn't what the standards are, but at least we should try to agree on them. Otherwise editing Wiktionary could become frustrating and/or never-ending. — This unsigned comment was added by 212.29.160.170 (talk).

Thanks for the heads up. What I said still stands; I've been known to do silly things after an extended absence, too. With 7000+ languages, I don't exactly see how Wiktionary will be "done" in my lifetime. But even then, if the project still exists, I'm suree it will have lots of daily updates. --Connel MacKenzie 07:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

socialist

I have reverted your change to socialist. For some reason you also deleted the additional quotes from J. S. Mill. My main point is that whether a person chooses to use templaites or plain text should remain optional. That your templates may have a wide support does not render the use of plain text by others invalid.

BTW, Please note carefully

none of these are my templates. --Connel MacKenzie 07:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the link that you gave regarding preferences, but it is really unclear as to what it is trying to do. Eclecticology 05:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I did as you suggest, and at least can see what you are talking about. I still don't intend to use Monobook. I find the typeface too cramped and the lack of serifs make it more difficult to read. I am quite satisfied with the Classic skin that I have used from the beginning. Eclecticology 06:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Armenian script

ԱԲԳԴԵԶԷԸԹԺԻԼԽԾԿՀՁՂՃՄՅՆՇՈՉՊՋՌՍՎՏՐՑՒՓՔՕՖ

աբգդեզէըթժիլխծկհձղճմյնշոչպջռսվտրցւփքօֆ

Thanks, GerardM 06:56, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

ԱաԲբԳգԴդԵեԶզԷէԸըԹթԺժԻիԼլԽխԾծԿկՀհՁձՂղՃճՄմՅյՆնՇշՈոՉչՊպՋջՌռՍսՎվՏտՐրՑցՒւՓփՔքՕօՖֆ

This is first uppercase, then lower case .. GerardM 07:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the welcome, I hope to contribute further to Wikitonary. Yanksox 22:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Japanese

Those nolang terms you tagged are in Japanese. I'll ask A-cai to have a look at them to confirm whether any are actually meaningful words. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:28, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. Thank you. I didn't want them to get lost in the shuffle, so I tagged all the ones I saw with no language, with {{nolanguage}}. Perhaps some of you could monitor those categories more regularly?  :-)   --Connel MacKenzie 20:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

AOL

I see that there are many many bad usernames are being blocked and the person is making these names out of contempt of AOL being blocked from editing. What's wrong with AOL editing this site anyways? — This unsigned comment was added by 71.250.145.62 (talk).

Anonymous editors from AOL are blocked from normal editing because of the particular manner of proxy serving that AOL uses. To edit this page, you need to use https instead of http, to bypass the AOL proxy servers. The routine vandalism we get now originates most of the time from AOL; blocking only works as a short-term block. The vandal then has to create a new username each day, but most of the "good" vandal account names are already taken (and blocked.) So, in desperation (or because of a lack of creativity,) these ridiculously long usernames are now seen regularly. --Connel MacKenzie 15:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Well at least you can still make an username and then edit. So AOL users can edit, if they create a legit username. ZordoniseviI 15:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, they can also edit anonymously via https:. But yes, once they have an account, the can access the site normally. --Connel MacKenzie 20:10, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

SempraBIotter?

Sir, I direct your attention to the suspicious activities of this new account. bd2412 T 15:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Never mind - already handled, I see! bd2412 T 15:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I take that back - the impersonator received two blocks of different lengths in January - the shorter one was the one that stuck, so he must be blocked again. I am rather chafing at not being able to handle this myself! bd2412 T 15:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The real semperblotto has blocked it infinitely. The fake one tagged itself as an imposter. ZordoniseviI 15:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The real SemperBlotto laid down an indefinite block on January 12; another admin laid down a finite block on January 13, which has the effect of over-riding the earlier indefinite block; ergo, there is now no block in place on this account (and there certainly should be one). bd2412 T 15:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you all. User:ZordoniseviI, sorry about that block (now cleared.) You'd better request a username change though, usernames with capital "i"s are normally blocked indef. --Connel MacKenzie 15:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay,...

"...slightest spelling (or capitalization) difference merits a separate entry here (not a redirect.),..."

I can easily, yet provisionally, accept that.

I would, therefore, contend that these sorts of variations would need the intermediate stub articles, that would lead to the larger pairs.

That is especially true regarding any issue where wiktionary &/or wikipedia define | describe themselves. Certainly, "wiktionary", "wiktionarian", et al, readily fit that category.

I would, further, advocate that any articles which define wiktionary - characteristics would be afforded more prominent links. I do contend that such a need is demonstrated by the fact that I do not recall seeing these pages prior to today. It is my contention that I do not have a further recollection of these pages, or if I do, it is not clear.

If you would continue to object to my solution to these several issues, then, please do assist me to achieve more appropriate alternatives.

< http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiktionarians >;

< http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiktionarian >;

< http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiktionary >;

< http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiktionaryans >;

< http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiktionaryan >;

< http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiktionary:wiktionarian >.

Also, I've written comments on several issues, including this, that have no response:

< http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Wiktionary_talk:List_of_protologisms&oldid=1237482 >;

< http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Wiktionary_talk:List_of_protologisms&oldid=1352395 >.

Thank You.

Hopiakuta 17:59, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I would think the problem with the variations you propose is that they are not actually words. I could call a librarian a "libraryan", but I would likely not be able to find sources attesting that use. bd2412 T 18:03, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Correct. Wiktionarians should be a stub entry, but wiktionarians does not need to exist, as anyone entering the term will get redirected automatically to the correctly capitalized version (when it exists.)

I have left that redlinked, so that you can try using the preload templates' [Plural] button, as a learning exercise, if you'd like to. If not, I'll happily create it for you.

I'll check on Talk:WT:LOP shortly. I don't normally watch that page. --Connel MacKenzie 18:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Please, do look to my historylog for other comments that had been designed to inspire conversation, as well. No response.

This chart does seem to inspire crosseyed confusion:

< http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search/Wiktionarians&go=Go >.

I, again, advocate "...more prominent links."

Thank You.

Hopiakuta 18:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Some days have passed now, so I've entered that entry. Do you like the search results now? --Connel MacKenzie 08:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

ja-attention and zh-attention

You recently passed on a batch of apparently Chinese entries to (perhaps indirectly) user A-Cai.

If you add Template:ja-attention or Template:zh-attention (or both) it will flag the entries and keep them from being lost. (Probably both, even when I can recognise the word I don't know if it is also Chinese or Japanese.) Robert Ullmann 20:48, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Did I? Honestly, I don't remember doing that - I usually only put entries on WT:TR or WT:RFC or WT:RFV. I'll try to remember {{ja-attention}} and {{zh-attention}}. Too bad there isn't a {{rfc-CKJV}}.  :-)   --Connel MacKenzie 21:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

bd2412 gave us a short list, from you? Got them, no worries. Robert Ullmann 21:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

A link would really help refresh my memory. I presume it was a one-time thing? If it is the sort of thing that should be refreshed after each XML dump...  ? --Connel MacKenzie 08:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Just in case

I made a small contribution see: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lexigraphical and lexicography I'll get to your rules eventually, right now I'm being demanded at dinner! <g> // FrankB 00:51, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Um... uh-oh

Wish I'd seen that discussion before I created Template:en-prespart. I suppose I'll have to knock those out as well. Since Template:en-plural is now empty, you should delete it, or replace the content with an out-of-use message, so others do not follow my folly. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

No worries - I'll just do a python replace.py -ref:template:en-prespart "{{en-prespart" "{{subst:en-prespart" on them, if you want me to. --Connel MacKenzie 23:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll fix it - see comment on my talk page. bd2412 T 23:18, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. bd2412 T 02:56, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

I noticed you blocked this IP by mistake. I am posting the IP's info on the talk page, so you know who it belongs to. 199.233.80.251 15:46, 26 August 2006 (UTC).

Thank you. I was tied up in a heated IRC conversation about bot policy, and saw vandalism in progress. I mistakenly blocked all involved, then two minutes later reviewed what actually transpired and unblocked the helper. Sorry if it caused undue grief to anyone. --Connel MacKenzie 15:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Primetimery

Since you mentioned inter-project coordination for dealing with the copyright-vandal Primetime, you may want to check this. I mentioned you as knowing about his WkT activities, hopefully I haven't misunderstood the situation over here. Also, I hope this doesn't count as userSPAM (If it does just blank this and let me know). Thanx again 68.39.174.238 18:06, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Im interested in strengthening all aspects of inter-project coordination. Thanks for the link; I've replied there with (hopefully) some helpful clarification. --Connel MacKenzie 20:06, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanx. Hopefully Jimbo will declare him banned across all WMF wikis, which'll make some cleanup easier. 68.39.174.238 00:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

He might be hesitant to do that. Each Wiki is given a lot of leeway. I think his ban of 'T on Wikipedia was symbolic support of a community decision (to help remove doubt.) He may just make a recommendation to all wikis that they ban 'T socks. Hard to guess at, really.

Wiktionary does seem to be the wiki of choice for vandals. They find Wikipedia too-well patrolled, so they come here. I think the Wiktionaries are therefore the natural place to be discussing pan-wiki blocks. I wouldn't mind it too much, if Wiktionary could honor Wikipedia blocks. But to do so, would require a software change (there is no way our ~15 active sysops could keep up with 1,000 Wikipedia sysops!) Because it is so inconceivable, it hasn't even been discussed.

Or, I could have a 'bot do it, I suppose. Perhaps it is time to discuss it on WT:BP. --Connel MacKenzie 07:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Common.css

You still need to change 16px to 22px so the speaker looks right. See MediaWiki talk:Common.css Omegatron 00:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I owe you a beer. I don't know how many times I looked at that. Way, way better now. --Connel MacKenzie 00:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Shoelift

Maybe you could help user Shoelift to improve the edit style of his articles. Otherwise there is a lot of shoe work to do :-) — This unsigned comment was added by 212.29.160.170 (talk).

Thank you. Can't tell if it is good faith yet, so I'm AGF (even though it looks spammy.) --Connel MacKenzie 01:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

You should know, though, that this shoelift fellow is doing much the same thing on Wikipedia. bd2412 T 03:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I did see an exact copy posted on wikt: and wp: for the one that I edited, but I doubt the wp: entry is still there. The wikt: entries may pass our CFI though, so they should get the normal amount of review here, with no regard to what wp: does. --Connel MacKenzie 03:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

User:68.39.174.238

Good luck getting this one to create an account - he's the top IP contributor to Wikipedia (see w:User talk:68.39.174.238), and apparently he likes it that way. But, he's a static IP and he does good work, so I've stopped making serious efforts to convice him to get an account. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:24, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, we're not constrained by 'pedia's rigid rules. I suppose I should block him (with "Allow account creation" checked) then?  :-)

Seriously though, his reminds me of User:Uncle G - he requested deletion of his own talk page so often (so that he could impersonate a newcomer) that we had to sysop him, just so he could press the [delete] button, himself.

I do understand the point of trying to subliminally suggest to trigger-happy sysops (Ahem! Not me, oh no! *Cough*) to appreciate the value of anonymous contributors more. Don't bite the newcomers, etc. Empirical evidence suggests the opposite, sadly.

If I ever run for board memeber of WMF, my platform will be: to block all anon IPs (allow account creation only) and identify the stupid IP address with each and every account.

--Connel MacKenzie 04:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I suppose that will encourage users to create accounts from proxies. bd2412 T 04:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Correction: identify the IP ADDR of each edit. --Connel MacKenzie 04:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I found my personal IRC logs from a few months ago, if figured out why I previously blocked this IP (as generating impersonator accounts) and trolling about it in IRC. The humor was lost on me then; he was simply suggesting we should have a formal policy against impersonator accounts. But in such a round-about way (by hypothetical example) that the question looked malign.

I'll do a little JS hack to apply the ASC username to any occurrence of his ip, so at least I won't be caught off-guard so often anymore. --Connel MacKenzie 06:20, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Much nicer. And the links seem to still work correctly.  :-) --Connel MacKenzie 06:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I just remember asking if/why AOL was blocked... Anyway, since the js is for your personal use, you can make it whatever is best for you. Just remember that other people probably wont understand "AlabamaStateCons". 68.39.174.238 20:44, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

your question

Connel MacKenzie said on Wikipedia:

I saw your question from a few minutes ago on #WM-tech.

Perhaps the popups could be fixed instead, to check the page, an see if the tab says "watch" or "unwatch"?

Just a thought.

--Connel MacKenzie - wikt 05:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll look into that.

That Guy, From That Show! 06:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki coordination and an apology

I found a way to report interwiki vandalism. It is at meta:Vandalism reports. You might want to write up a report on Primetime there.

By the way, I am sorry for mixing up your gender in the Wikipedia Wonderfool sockpuppet report. Tha last Connel I met before finding about you was a woman. Jesse Viviano 18:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Oops! I found out that there is a report on Primetime there at meta:Vandalism reports#Primetime. However, you may wish to fortify it. I will do that next, because this user uses open proxies and needs to have a CheckUser request filed to find the open proxy. It is a good thing no casinos are around where I am at, because my family and I have been hit with rotten luck lately, causing me to miss the report earlier among other things. Jesse Viviano 06:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Gutenberg concordance

Out of curiosity, how have you generated your wordlists from the Project Gutenberg texts? I've been doing some mucking around with word frequencies (from various other sources). Everything's straightforward (using off-the-shelf *nix tools) except case-folding words that happen to occur at the beginnings of sentences. How did you handle that? (Or did you just not worry about it?) —scs 18:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Connel doesn't do anything special for the case you mention. Other similar cases are disambiguating single quotes from apostrophes,

(Yup. Yet another is periods, if you'd like your word list to include abbreviations, e.g. "e.g.", "Mr.", "U.S.", "etc.", etc. —scs 00:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC))

and hyphens at the ends of lines due to word-breaking but could coincide with a hyphenated compound word. A few years ago I did some experiments on such things and I'm keen to do so again when I have my own computer. Word stemming is also related and an unrelated but relevant problem is filtering out the Guternberg headers and footers. — Hippietrail 23:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I remember noticing at least one amusing anomaly -- an unremarkable word ranked preternaturally high -- in Connel's concordance due to those headers. —scs 00:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Some of the versions of the Gutenberg rankings here may be older versions. What I did for case-folding was to count up all case-variants separately. I then sorted by the sum of the case variants. When displaying a ranking in a list, I use the most common capitalization variant (i.e. the instead of The.) For page rankings, I also use the "sum"'s rank for each of the variants. --Connel MacKenzie 18:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks. —scs 04:53, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

MacGuyver

The Simpsons episode in England tonight included lots of references to MacGuyver. First I'd heard of him outside Wikt...we're clearly a great cross-cultural education tool...I felt quite authoritative explaining about him to my children :-) --Enginear 19:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose I should add the Babel and a para or two. Maybe this weekend. It's just that talking about words is more interesting. Thanks for all your good work too. --Enginear 19:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

CheckUser nominations

As of 31 August, 2006 the CheckUser status vote is beginning, you have been nominated and if you are so inclined please accept your nomination on the CheckUser page. Please also read the Meta Check User policy to be sure that the responsibilities are ones you would be interested in and willing to fulfill. Tentatively the end of the election will be one month from the beginning, but that is subject to change at any time, seeing as I just made that length up and a community consensus on duration will have to be established. Thank you and good luck! - TheDaveRoss 16:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)