User talk:Ling.Nut

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Ling.Nut (talk • contribs • count • logs • page moves • block log • email)

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Ling.nut (talk • contribs • count • logs • page moves • block log • email)

Contents 1 hrvcoln template 2 Phylum 3 Requests for feedback 4 Thanks 5 [pagename] 6 about Chen Guangcheng 7 adopt a shroom 8 Robert William Lawrence 9 Taiwanese aborigines 10 Identification of the varieties of Chinese 11 Adopting a disambiguation page (Any Wikignomes in the House?) 11.1 Disambiguation 11.2 Disambiguation Discussion 12 Dialects 13 Handy Wiki abbreviations 14 Austronesian languages 14.1 Proto-Austronesian 15 Thanks 16 Mellat Park 17 Standard cross-cultural sample 18 Manila Science High School 19 Template:Ref harv 20 Taiwanese languages 21 Welcome Template 22 WikiProject Disambiguation Talk Request 23 Schools 24 Ethnic groups 24.1 Category:GA-Class Ethnic groups articles 24.2 to see the Ethnic groups sidebar on (not updated) version of page 25 Hey, thanks 26 Template:Ref harv 2 27 Classifying articles: 28 Vandalism question 29 time to remove the "Individual nationalities, ethnic groups, etc." assessment table... 30 Move 31 "pages needing attention " section; midterms 32 "Failed" 33 Reply: 34 Question about a worrisome image 35 Translate GFDL Request letter into Traditional Chinese 36 assessment of Abayudaya 37 WikiProject Hawaii 38 WikiProject directory 39 ‎Ethiopia articles needing attention 40 Disambiguation Adopted Pages 41 Assessment system for WikiProject Kentucky 42 You have mail 43 Editor review 44 El Vez 45 Taiwanese aborigines 46 Review 47 The revert at Taiwanese aborigines... 48 November Esperanza Newsletter 49 Embryonic Basque Portal and (maybe) Wikiproject. Interested? 50 Esperanza Template Tutorial 51 Re: A useful tutorial... :-) 52 Your question 53 Citation question 54 Treatment of TS 55 Cats and Dogs Portals 56 Endangered languages 57 Late reply 58 Romanians and Roma people 59 Got Cruft? 60 List of Australian Aboriginal languages 61 Thank you 62 Related changes 63 RFA Thanks 64 Endangered languages 65 Arabian horse--thank you and questions

[edit] hrvcoln template

See User:Ling.Nut

[edit] Phylum

re. your recent edit of Austronesian languages in which you change language family to phylum. The term phylum is usually used to refer to something taxonomically higher than a language family, and also something necessarily speculative (since a language family is the highest level which can be reconstructed using the comparative method). Austronesian languages are definitely a language family, not a phylum.

In the same edit you change one of the largest into the second largest. You should really note which is the largest. If the largest group that you have in mind is a phylum not a family then it doesn't count! (and I suspect that there is lots of speculation about bigger linguistic groups which could be considered instances of phyla)

Cheers, Ngio 10:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and welcome aboard! Nice to see somebody new working in the Austronesian languages.

That was quick. But I'm not sure your correction quite works. The components of Niger-Congo are properly established families according the comparative method, but Niger-Congo hasn't been (and probably can't be). That makes it a phylum, and comparing the size of the Austronesian family to the Niger-Congo phylum doesn't make sense. You could compare Austronesian to Bantu and the other big families that make up Niger-Congo (this kind of Guiness Book of Records factoid stuff is a bit silly, but interesting too).

The WP article does call Niger-Congo a family, but in the external links there is a paper (acknowledging Greenberg amongst others!) which shows that this is not true: An Evaluation of Niger-Congo Classification.

Cheers, Ngio 14:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

• Hi, I responded to your comment on my talk page (this conversation was getting too spread out) -- Ngio 08:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requests for feedback

I was going to look at your Taiwanese Aborigines page, but would like to know whthere you want comments on your editing or on how the article as it stands now. Cheers, Yomangani^talk 10:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

[Barnstar moved to User page. Tks!]

Ling.Nut, Thanks for the edit/contribution to Synchronized Universe.PEACE TalkAbout 20:33, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] [pagename]

Hi. Thanks for letting me know about this. I closed the AfD, deleted the page and 'salted the earth', as they say. It's a page that has had its day in AfD and lost. The author is simply creating more login names and then recreating it. I've put a stop to it. - Richardcavell 12:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] about Chen Guangcheng

Hi, I notice that you added "This is a Chinese name; the family name is 'Chen'" in Chen Guangcheng. I think that it's unnecessary to add that statement. There are so many articles about Chinese persons. No other such articles has such a statement.

Thanks for your reply. I can understand your concerns. But that statement in the head of the article does not look so good. Probably we may add family name to Template:Chinesename and use it, instead of using Template:Chinese name. For the articles like Jiang Jieshi and Mao Zedong, in which the family name has been clarified in the table, we do not need to add Template:Chinese name. --Neo-Jay 19:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] adopt a shroom

Hi Ling.Nut, I'll take a look at it, but I'm probably just as novice as you are. (I've kind of become addicted to Wikipedia, and so I've started disambiguating pages.) Probably RussBlau is the best person to get some ideas from. -- Jeff3000 22:15 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Robert William Lawrence

I added the following comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert William Lawrence

• Keep. According to the article, Lawrence was Tasmania's first botanist. Sir William Jackson Hooker, the Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow, named a species of flower ‘Correa lawrenciana’ in honour of Lawrence. -- TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 02:10, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taiwanese aborigines

thanks for the reply, when I get the time to, I'll translate the German to English, I don't think it warrants enough to be a seperate article on the English wikipedia, however a section mentioning them in the article should be sufficient enough. Abstrakt 15:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ling.Nut - per request I've reviewed this article, and for my money I'd say an "A" project rating is quite justified. I think that with only a few more revisions of prose tightening and the like, the article would have a very fair chance of passing FA muster (the claimed 'fair-use' map might possibly be an obstruction to this, if challenged). Nice work and congrats!--cjllw | TALK 00:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm no expert in copyright law, but the govt site has an explicit copyright statement on it, and the fact that they no longer have the img on their website would not invalidate the copright. Even so, it may well be OK to use under the terms of 'fair use', I'm just noting that one of the FA reviewers when it comes to that may (or may not) question it. I suppose the only real way to find out is to try...--cjllw | TALK 01:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ling.Nut, following out your remarks at WikiProject Ethnic groups talk page, it occurs to me to wonder if you've crossed paths with Doug Fix? He's a historian (& friend & former colleague of mine, teaches at Reed College in Portland, Oregon) who works on the history of indigenous Taiwanese nationalism, among other things. Cheers Ngwe 18:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Identification of the varieties of Chinese

It is a mishmash because I created it by gathering content scattered all over various articles and mashed them together. It certainly is not the smoothest or most consistent article in existence.

Feel free to tear it up as much as you want. -- ran (talk) 19:53, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adopting a disambiguation page (Any Wikignomes in the House?)

copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anglicanism

It seems your page count may be increasing, which is good... If you look at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links you'll see that Episcopal Church (462 links) (+352 in the last month or so!) is a fairly hefty (and rapidly-expanding) repeat offender in the Disambiguation link repair queue. Recently there has been talk of Wikipedia:Adopting disambiguation pages.

There are many possible options for linking to "Episcopal Church," and a non-Anglican (such as myself) might be a little lost. This sort of topic really requires people with specific knowledge of the content's domain... It would probably only take a few vigilant editors to keep this particular aspect of Wikipedia neat & tidy, if you think it's a good idea... Thanks for your time --Ling.Nut 19:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

We don't have lots of new Anglicanism articles, but we do have several hundred new incoming links. These appeared because Episcopal now redirects to Episcopal Church. (My doing, I'm afraid.)

80% of the articles are bios linking to Episcopal to try to identify the denomination of the subject. Only someone with detailed knowledge of the bio would know for sure, but it would be reasonable to guess that a U.S. person should be Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and a Scottish person would be Scottish Episcopal Church.

The rest of the Episcopal links should probably be changed to Bishop, and very rarely to Episcopal polity or Anglicanism

Episcopal Church should always go to the nationality of the article in question. If there is a very rare link like Reformed [[Episcopal Church]] then it will go to the wrong place, but that is tough luck.

Are there any tools that Wikignomes use to make this work faster?

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Hroðulf, some people use bots to help them in the task of disambiguating links. I haven't quite gotten that far, myself... can I copy/paste your remarks, minus the mea culpa, to a page that people who do disambigaution link repair would see? It might be helpful to them. Oh and thank you kindly for the response! --Ling.Nut 15:41, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

copy and paste them wherever you want - just make sure you ask people to send any personal questions to my talk page, as the page you past it to won't be on my watchlist.

I have downloaded CorHomo, but I won't have the time to try it any time soon. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk)

• I do think that "Pages for adoption" is a great idea, and I wish you the best of luck with it. I am trying to reduce my level of involvement with Wikipedia right now, so I don't think I'll be able to contribute much to your project. In terms of automation, the key thing would be to adopt a consistent and unchanging format for the tables, since a script would need to parse the raw wikitext of the page to locate the adopted pages and update their link counts. Once the format is set, writing the script would actually be quite easy. --Russ Blau (talk) 12:31, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

RussBlau,

No need to reply -- but I do hope you see this. In my short time on Wikipedia, I've seen that you are a true pillar of the dab page link removal project. (You're probably as important in other areas too, but I haven't been around long enough to see). So goodbye, good luck, hope to see you again, and above all thanks for all your hard work!--Ling.Nut 15:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation

Hey Ling.Nut, you are right that I said there was a lot of help, but I don't know exactly who it was. The way I know is that the numbers of links was going down quickly, much more than I was doing, plus sometimes when I tried to fix a dab link, it was done just immediatly before by another editor (and then I could figure out who it was). I found two other editors in that manner, but it was just luck. -- Jeff3000 13:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation Discussion

I put it on three different pages at first, the page for adopting articles (the one you initially responded to), the list of dab pages that had too many links (no response) and the finally the WikiProject Disambiguation page (this one had all of the responses). You can find the discussion here. For the most part, the majority was against the idea. I realize how extreme the idea was, so I attempted to settle on a lesser template, but people are still focused on the first one I proposed. The second one I proposed would include a link to here and here, which would benefit both pages. Plus, there would be no declared ownership of dab pages on their talk pages. Perhaps if you want to propose it, it would help in the discussion. I don't know how to make this template, so I was hoping one of the people in the discussion would. Thanks for your previous feedback. Nehrams2020 18:05, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dialects

Could you explain a little more on my talk page please? I have only seen the language/dialect debate become heated in political contexts, but do not follow debate among language experts, so I would be interested to hear more. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation! Very illuminating indeed. I wonder if those insights will help clean up the Ulster Scots language page. How did you get on in your language exam? --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 19:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Hroðulf, I forgot to mention the idea of a dialect continuum. It's an interesting phenomenon: in some cases.. hmm.. imagine a coastline no more than a couple hundred miles long (maybe less). Imagine five distinct linguistic groups living alongside each other on that coastline -- let's say from north to south the groups are [A,B,C,D and E]. It's not at all unusual for A to be largely mutally intelligible with B, B to C, C to D, and D to E... So perhaps a series of linguistic innovations has occurred, and each group shares a number of innovations with the groups next to it, but the number of innovations begins to pile up as you move along the continuum. At the far ends, then, A and E are only slightly mutually intelligible. So someone could make the case that A and E are separate languages... but are they, really? Moreover, don't get the idea that mutuall intelligibility is the only criterion one would use. It's just the first step...

I think I aced the exam, thanks!--Ling.Nut 20:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Handy Wiki abbreviations

Good news about the exam. I hope WP didn't distract you too much. Was it on Mandarin?

As far as I recall ‘rv’ at WP means 'revert' (not 'remove'). ( I don't know of a list of definitions of these things ) Best! --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 05:12, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry, just evesdropping on this. There's a list of these things (rv, rvv, rm and so on) at Wikipedia:Edit summary legend. HTH. ➨ ЯEDVERS 16:30, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Austronesian languages

That's probably a good idea. I didn't write Austronesian people article, and I don't know how much I'll be able to contribute to it either. I did, however, include a link to it in the "see also" section, as it's a related topic.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:02, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proto-Austronesian

Ling.Nut: I won't be writing an article about PAN - I was just adding its abbreviation to the disambiguation page because I felt it was needed.

Superbfc 10:55, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for your wikipost. Your propositions of improvements are good ideas in the whole. I add them to the list of improvements for CorHomo2.0. Escaladix 07:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mellat Park

Could you disambiguate the Mellat Park. There is an editor who keeps undoing my disambiguation, and I can't revert anymore. -- Jeff3000 17:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jeff, I'll take a look at it and try to see what is going on. Have you tried "moral suasion"? Cheers! --Ling.Nut 17:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'ved tried to be as nice as I can on his talk page, but he's been quite uncivil on my talk page. -- Jeff3000 17:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Forget it, he's fixed it himself. -- Jeff3000 17:55, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I saw the lack of civility; it did in fact very clearly cross the line into ad hominem. People take issues of ethnic identity personally, and sometimes even the slightest miscue is unacceptable to them. But his later edit seems just fine. Sorry you got hit by that!! Cheers --Ling.Nut 18:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Standard cross-cultural sample

The article Standard cross-cultural sample explains it fairly well, I think. I've added the category to help students using the SCCS learn the basics about each culture by browsing Wikipedia. --Anthon.Eff 15:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the template tip. Looks like a bit of work, but I'll try to use them. I see you are a linguistics PhD student, and are interested in Austronesian. I noticed the Peter Bellwood book in your demo bibliography--I very much enjoyed his book about the Neolithic, First Farmers. --Anthon.Eff 22:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Manila Science High School

I definitely agree with you for tagging Manila Science High School AFD since it is a non-notable high school in the Philippines. However, I'd just don't know the procedures in doing that. Is it required that an administrator would do that? And, can you help me tagging that article for AFD? Thanks! --Darth Narutorious 18:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

HI Darth,

You need to be aware that there's a fairly substantial debate going on at this very moment at Wikipedia talk:Schools about when schools should be deleted. I... dunno...whether AfD'ing a school is a sound practice..until that debate is finished... if it ever will be (sigh). I will say that I personally am not AfD'ing any schools at present, though I may change my mind at any time, depending on the thrust of aforementioned debate.

In general, though, anyone can nominate an AfD for almost any article, but only admins can delete it (the nomination for deletion is voted on, and anyone can vote). Instructions on the process of AfD'ing an article are at WP:AFD. You'll need to edit.. hmm... at least four different pages for every page you nominate:

1. The page itself
2. The specially-made discussion page for that article's deletion nomination.
3. The page where such nominations are posted publically.
4. The Talk page of the person who originally wrote the article, or perhaps its heaviest contributor (judgment call on where to go with that one).

That may sound like a lot, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes less intimidating... Please read WP:AFD.. you can ask me if you have questions. later, --Ling.Nut 19:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the info. I'll just wait for the right time to nominate that article. --Darth Narutorious 04:25, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Ref harv

Template:Ref harv is used in Retreat of glaciers since 1850 a featured article that was also on the Wikipedia main page. The Harvard citation style is an old style, but works well since the references can be sorted alphabetically and the editing window isn't cluttered with a lot of ref templates as is found in the cite template. The Harvard style of referencing is accepted for use on Wikipedia, but I believe the Template:Ref harv is only used in the one article I mentioned. It was developed so the citation is smaller in appearance and doesn't take up as much space in the reading format.[1]--MONGO 06:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!--Ling.Nut 14:35, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taiwanese languages

Thanks for your feedback! My college roommate and I were chatting about languages in Taiwan (was the original language a sort of Chinese or not?), so I decided to check out the pages to find out. I just saw a few small odd-sounding bits and — being one who is somewhat obsessed with good grammar and syntax — thought "That's easy!"

As you thought, Rifkin was the author of a book about entropy, and there's even an article about it, Entropy: A New World View. I only went to his lecture (on another topic) for extra credit for a class, and wasn't excited. Nyttend 03:41, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Nyttend, I'm happy you took a look at those pages. The mainstream position is that the Formosan languages are unrelated to the various Sino-Tibetan languages (including Mandarin Chinese), but there are a minority of linguists who disagree... depending on how interested you are, you can check out Formosan languages and Austronesian languages. Later --Ling.Nut 13:12, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh PS -- the language commonly referred to as "Taiwanese" is Min Nan. It is definitely related to Chinese (from the Fujian region of Southern China); but one's position in the debate about whether it is a dialect or a separate language depends largely upon whether one accepts political or linguistic arguments, respectively. --Ling.Nut 13:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome Template

Hello,

You can find the template at User:Kf4bdy/welcome just be sure to change all the info to you and copy it to your user talk page. I say that because I made the mistake of not doing so in the beginning. ;)

--Kf4bdy ^{talk contribs} 04:19, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Disambiguation Talk Request

This is a form message being sent to all WikiProject Disambiguation participants. I may have found your page based on your contributions or your link repair user box on your user page. If you are not a member, please consider including your name on the project page. I recently left a proposed banner idea on the WikiProject Disambiguation talk page and I would appreciate any input you could provide. Before it can be approved or denied, I would prefer a lot of feedback from multiple participants in the project. So if you have the time please join in the discussion to help improve the WikiProject. Keep up the good work in link repair and thanks for your time.

I don't know how busy you are right now, but I appreciate you leaving a message on the page before you left. If you want to continue the discussion I left messages for every member, participants in link repair, and people who have the userbox on their page. Have a good break, and we hope to hear from you soon.Nehrams2020 23:05, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Schools

I've taken no offense, and I certainly don't mean anything I've said to be taken personally. The nature of disagreement too easily draws me into being belligerent, perhaps.

It is my belief that Wikipedia offers an opportunity to FAR exceed Britannica in scope and detail. I don't see any reason to limit the coverage of verifiable topics, nor any advantage in trying to predict what topics will suit researchers. Good data finds good uses. A detailed map is better than a diagrammatic one because you can lose yourself in it, or find yourself when you've lost the way. A good school article on Wikipedia is better than two dozen Google results that are scraped from public reports because we aren't just selling ads and there's some editing going on and a chance for endless improvement.

I'm not arguing that middle schools make great articles - but I do think they make useful ones. And as long as they're not misrepresenting themselves, they do more good than harm. Wikipedia excels at covering the obscure even as it struggles to come to a coherent presentation of the elemental. Let's let it grow unimpeded.

Now.. if you want my help going after "in universe" fancruft. I'm with you. That's much better off somewhere else. Schools, I believe, matter. They matter in the real world. Even if there are 20 million of them, they are documentable and real and somebody somewhere might really like to know something about one of them. --Dystopos 02:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnic groups

Hope it's OK with you that I've had a bit of a go at User:Ling.Nut/EthnicGroupsTemplateSandbox. If not, then revert me. - Jmabel | Talk 04:09, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Responded on my user talk page. - Jmabel | Talk 17:39, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

We haven't been using bots, but feel free. - Jmabel | Talk 18:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Nice work! Let's see how this goes, then look into what we can do next. - Jmabel | Talk 00:52, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:GA-Class Ethnic groups articles

Hi Ling.Nut (rhymes with wing nut? :)

That's an interesting question. I'm not sure how you could easily detect the intersection between two categories. It can be done within AWB by skipping articles that don't have both cats - but I'd suggest a more mundane method. I only touched the cat because I'm doing some minor category work, but I'm assuming your assessment work is just starting. If it was me I'd just take a more systematic approach of working through all the {{Ethnic groups}} articles and update the tag for all {{Grading scheme}} classes. Does the project have a complete assessment department, or is it a bit ad hoc? I'd suggest fleshing out the whole department; it'll make things easier in the long run. Cheers.--Bookandcoffee 18:58, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] to see the Ethnic groups sidebar on (not updated) version of page

Go here to see the Ethnic groups sidebar on (not updated) version of page: User:Ling.Nut/NewPageSandbox. --Ling.Nut 13:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks basically good. I think we should probably do something (like surround it in another layer of invisible table, just for margins) to get a little bit of space around it. - Jmabel | Talk 16:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hey, thanks

Hey there, Ling.Nut, and thanks for your kind words. No problem at all if you wish to adopt aspects of the WP:MESO structure and layout to WP:ETHNIC, and I see you've made a fine start already in setting up the assessment scheme for that project. If I can help out, or there are aspects of the design which need clarification, please let me know. Keep up the good work, cheers! --cjllw | TALK 01:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Ref harv 2

In response to your question on my talk page, the motivation behind this reference style was to have Harvard-style citation, yet make the citations easier to read past in heavily cited articles. This style was used in the Featured Article Retreat of glaciers since 1850. The style was selected in favor of the non-superscripted Harvard citations through a consensus process based on improved readability.

As to the question of whether it should exist in template space, I would say that the Harvard style is in widespread use, but that the typewriters in use at the time the style was developed did not have the ability to easily superscript the citations. The superscripting isn't an attempt to create a new citation form, but merely to improve the readability of an existing one.

—Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 07:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I second Doug Bell's comments here. The usage on the FA mentioned made it not only appear scientific by kept the refs alpabetical, which is something cite.php doesn't do. I would actually prefer to see the harv template incorporated within the software better so that we can better maintain articles over time.--MONGO 07:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello Doug Bell and MONGO,

• I am quite sincerely reflecting on and mentally taking apart and examining these comments (as well as other comments that other people have made on different topics) as I try to refine my stance on many issues. If I have adopted an uncompromising stance, I hope you will lower a curtain of grace over a philosophy that is still very much under construction.
• My problem was never with Harvard citation per se, but with the practice of recasting it in superscript form -- period. I have never seen that format before. If it is in use outside Wikipedia, then please completely wipe away all my comments, and "know them no more". If it is not in use outside of Wikipedia, then my first instinct is to suggest that we should "...follow the established practice for the appropriate profession or discipline that the article is concerning...", as mentioned in WP:CITE#How and where to cite sources.

Thanks,

--Ling.Nut 13:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

What happened in the course of wrting the article Retreat of glaciers since 1850 is that we went through ref|note, then I believe we tried cite.php for a few sources and then went to the standard harvard template. A few of us complained that the Harvard style looked too large and simply made the text harder to read than just a footnote...but we wanted the author name in the text instead of a footnote. Doug Bell wrote the harv template and that automatically superscripted the reference. Then we nominated the article for peer review and sent it through FA twice, and it sailed through the second time. I don't know if harv is used in areas outside of wiki, but it is the harvard style, just automatically superscripted so it doesn't blend into the article as much, which is something that can be done with the harvard style, just that it requires more key strokes to achieve. See:Wikipedia:Footnote3--MONGO 19:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Classifying articles:

How could you label something as large as African American a "stub"? (I've changed it to B-class, as a tentative rating). - Jmabel | Talk 16:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

And I notice that for Talk:Taiwanese aborigines you didn't note "needs infobox". Please, if you are going to go through and add these, fill them out correctly, or all it does is to give the illusion that the job has been done, making it less likely that someone will come through and do it right. - Jmabel | Talk 16:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Or are you just experimenting? It's really hard to tell.

In any case, I see one problem: If you look at Talk:Taiwanese aborigines, you'll see that the template doesn't show the "edit" button for the tasks list. I fixed one blatant syntax problem, but it didn't fix this. - Jmabel | Talk 16:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi JMabel,

Thanks for your comments.

I am experimenting with everything. For example, I set Taiwanese aborigines as "class=A" simply to see if "A-class" would show up in the summary box on the WikiProject Assessment page. It didn't occur to me to set "needs-template=yes." I was just seeing if the MathBot would pick up the assessments.

Regarding the African American rating of class=stub, I left a long note on the Talk page that explains this setting in detail. I left identical notes on each of the 16 pages I edited, but for example see Talk:African_American#New_Assessment_Criteria_for_Ethnic_Groups_articles. The real problem is that I didn't see the option to set custom edit-summary text on AWB. It was my first time to use AWB. Crucially, the edit summary text as it appeared did not give you any clue at all about what I was doing. I did a later test of 6 further edits using (New Assessment Criteria for Ethnic Groups articles using AWB) as the edit summary, which is much more to the point.. In retrospect, perhaps I should have manually done dummy edits on all of the 16 or so talk pages that I had earlier edited in my first test run with AWB, in order to display a more descriptive edit summary.

[The second run of 6 pages also included a slightly modified version of the Talk page note. The modification changed "don't feel slighted" to "don't be alarmed." As I was looking it over after the first edit run, I thought the first version sounded slightly negative.]

I apologize for the blatant syntax error. Thank you for pointing out that bug.

The reason that the drop-down task list does not have an edit button has nothing to do with the new version of {{Ethnic groups}}. That edit button is a feature of the task-list template itself; see Template:WP Mesoamerica tasklist. Since you desire that feature, I will look at it immediately. I anticipate being able to add that feature this evening.

Thanks,--Ling.Nut 18:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• "Show/hide" button working fine now. - Jmabel | Talk 02:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• Oooh, you know what it is? That button is the last thing on the page to show, so if the page loads slowly, it can be a long time until it appears. Not really something we can control. - Jmabel | Talk 02:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all you are doing, and I hope I am not being too critical; it's just that if I am being confused, you may really be confusing editors on these articles when they see their article given an inappropriate classification. May I assume that all of the places you are putting templates to test them, you will take responsibility for eventually leaving them in a reasonable state, so that I don't feel obligated to follow you around?

Sorry I didn't mean to say "edit button", I meant to say "show". The "show" button shows up on the template page itself, but not in the templates on the talk pages of articles. - Jmabel | Talk 18:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Jmabel,

• You're not being too critical.
• You don't ever need to follow me around. If I have made an error, tell me and I will fix it.
• I looked at the templates on 3 pages and saw the "show" button, and I am certain I saw it earlier...
• My plan was actually to change all unassessed pages to class=stub and reassess=yes in order to spur people to change them. The note on the talk page should alleviate hard feelings, assuming people notice it. But if you don't like that plan, I will not continue. I can hand-fix the 22 pages already so edited, if you like, but that will be a project that will need to be spread out over a couple days.
• I will put the "edit" button mod on hold, since you were talking about "show." Plus I have homework to do.

--Ling.Nut 19:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The thing is: I won't know you've made an error unless I follow you around! I just want to make sure you will do another pass.

Instead of making "stub" the default as you do this, could you possibly leave it out entirely, and just mark them as reassess? I'm just afraid that people will feel that their work is being disparaged. - Jmabel | Talk 20:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Will do. Will alter the talk text accordingly.--Ling.Nut 20:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The mystery of the no-show "show" button has been resolved, then.

I removed all the stub class labels I inserted earlier, and struck out the relevant text from the talk page entry... I think the next thing I'll do is put that on real stubs. I was thinking 75 words or less is a stub. I dunno how you feel about that.--Ling.Nut 02:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

A stub can be more than 75 words.

I'd tend to trust whether the page is tagged as a stub. - Jmabel | Talk 16:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism question

It was asked in an out-of-the-way place, so I moved it HERE, at the bottom and in its own section.Anchoress 23:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] time to remove the "Individual nationalities, ethnic groups, etc." assessment table...

On WP:ETHNIC, I was randomly clicking on links in the assessment table, and the assessments are outdated.. (see for example Ethnic German and Ethnic Japanese rated as stubs). The table is supplanted by the new ratings system, altho the latter is not really ramped up yet.. and the table takes up a considerable amount of vertical real estate on the project page.

I suggest retiring it. There's a copy of it on User:Ling.Nut/NewPageSandbox that we can refer to while updating assessments.--Ling.Nut 14:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't have any general problem with this. How, though, do we generate some type of assessment remarks that can be found without having to look at each individual talk page? - Jmabel | Talk 16:22, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

All of the topics you mention are probably worth keeping in the sidebar.- Jmabel | Talk 23:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move

One more illustration of why not to do cut-and-paste moves.

Anyway, where should I be editing if I want to keep working on it? - Jmabel | Talk 00:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

You are here--Ling.Nut 00:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "pages needing attention " section; midterms

[copied]

Hi Jmabel,

Yeah, I've always wondered about that "pages needing attention" section too. There was never any text under the highest-level heading, then the section below is about archaeology. I think this and a few other sections can easily (and fruitfully) be removed from the project page... it will make the page crisper, cleaner etc.

I have midterms now, then papers to write. This afternoon I will put up a wikilink to the page on Wikipedia 1.0 that discusses having "Articles about blahbahblah with comments" structure. Beyond that, I may need to stop for a while. I will be checking my talk page for messages.--Ling.Nut 11:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[end copied]

"So pages needing attention" wasn't one of your experiments in this process? I'll get rid of what is there. I think the section is potentially useful, but the present content is worse than useless. - Jmabel | Talk 15:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Great work! Thanks! See you in a few months. - Jmabel | Talk 16:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Failed"

Ling.Nut, what exactly is it that you are saying failed? Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Ethnic groups articles by quality looks basically right to me, in terms of the work I've been doing towards this. The "Assessment" values look right, as does the comment I put in for Taiwanese aborigines. - Jmabel | Talk 06:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reply:

Hi, thanks for letting me know about the assessment scheme, I never noticed it :-( --Rudjek 22:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question about a worrisome image

HI Jmabel,

My pet project includes a fair use image, taken from a non-US, quasi-governmental website (national park, actually). This image and the accompanying fair use argument were posted long before I entered the picture... I'm afraid that the "fair use" argument will be stricken down if I try to put the page up for GA or FA. The page it is on bears no copyright notice, but I doubt that argument would carry much weight.

I fear that asking a bureaucratic org. to put GFDL or other licensing verbiage on a particular page will be an uphill struggle. Moreover, English would not be their native language, and that might further hinder communication.

However, there is another possibility. The website in question has a free download page for images, and perhaps I could persuade them to copy the desired image to that page.. Full details are here. I don't know whether this fact provides an exception to the rule about free licensing etc. If you happen to know of anyone who is knowledgeable about these issues, I would be eternally grateful if you would send them my way.

Thanks, --Ling.Nut 03:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

1. Not having an overt copyright claim on a page means nothing. Pictures and written works are copyrighted by default. Unless one explicitly relinquishes one's rights, one still has them.
2. In any event, fair use doctrine applies only to copyrighted images. If a copyrighted image is, indeed, irreplaceable, then you have a fair use justification; if it is replaceable, you should elicit a free use equivalent. Wikipedia policy is against making fair use claims on replaceable images.
3. The link you supplied to the Image copyright tags talk page does not lead to a section on that page. However, the answer is: the fact that they offer a free download does not mean that they are relinquishing any rights about reproducing the image, just that they welcome people to use the image non-commercially on their own computer.
4. You might want to contact the site in question and ask for GFDL permission to use the photo. That would make it abundantly clear one way or another whether they would be happy to have the image used this way. See Wikipedia:Example requests for permission.

- Jmabel | Talk 03:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ling.Nut - re your query at my talk pg, I can only echo Joe's suggestion above that you approach the site directly with a usage request per WP:COPYREQ process, to circumvent any concerns. As for general assistance/advice on copyright matters, the places to go would be WP:CV and WP:RFCA. Some copyright-savvy folks there can probably assist. Cheers, --cjllw | TALK 06:44, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translate GFDL Request letter into Traditional Chinese

Re: [2].

I'm a bit busy in real life at the moment, but if you'd like I can take a crack at translating the letter this weekend. -Loren 01:18, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] assessment of Abayudaya

You are very welcome, Ling.Nut. For additional help with expansion of the article, you might want to visit WikiProject Ethnic groups. That project has developed a sort of standard article format for ethnic group articles. Basically, it suggests sections that ethnic group articles should include in order to be comprehensive. This was what I had in mind when I commented on the article's potential for expansion. I'm a participant in the Project, so if you have any questions about it, feel free to ask. Good work with this article! --Fsotrain⁰⁹ 16:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Hawaii

Thanks for clarifying the tasks on my talk page. Yes, I will work on them. —Viriditas | Talk 01:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

As I said previously, it's been somewhat inactive. I'll go through it in the next few day and update it where necessary. Thanks for keeping me informed. —Viriditas | Talk 00:48, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject directory

Please keep in mind that the department fields (assessment, peer review, collaboration, etc.) need a raw link, not just "yes", to work correctly. The full instructions, and some samples, can be found here. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 03:10, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ‎Ethiopia articles needing attention

Heads up ! I suspect that you didn't mean to create a mainspace article ‎Ethiopia articles needing attention (from the description it looks like it should be a category). Cheers ! Angus McLellan (Talk) 13:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not an admin, so I can't zap the pages for you. The easiest thing to do is to add {{db-author}} to the top of the page. Hope this helps and good luck with the Wikiproject. I'll have to have a look around as Ethiopia has always fascinated me, although I've never managed to find time to visit. All the best, Angus McLellan (Talk) 13:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation Adopted Pages

At first, I had no idea what you were talking about, since I did the edits several hours ago. I was fearful that I did blank the whole page and rushed to my watchlist to see what was up. I was relieved to see that I had only sorted it from a-z to the recent edition. Hopefully the people that are reverting my edits, should be a little more cautious as they make their edits. I'm sure it was just a simple mistake. But thanks for checking up on me. Don't ever hesitate to contact me if I do make a mistake. --Nehrams2020 23:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment system for WikiProject Kentucky

I'd love to see an assessment system like the one you proposed for WikiProject Kentucky. I haven't been editing on Wikipedia that long, so I'm not sure I know how to create one myself, but I'll be glad to help (and therefore learn). Let me know when you want to get started. Thanks for your offer! Acdixon 15:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Christmas works for me. I have a number of days off around then. Gotta love higher education! Thanks again. Acdixon 16:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You have mail

You have a reply waiting for you at Wikipedia:Esperanza/Admin coaching The Transhumanist 19:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Editor review

I took a look, but I'm not familar with the process in detail. I'll take a look at how it works and leave you some comments when I get a chance... Despite our disagreements on the Schools issue, I can see you care about the project, and I'll give you some constructive feedback. Georgewilliamherbert 05:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] El Vez

Thanks for fixing the <ref> issue! adavidw 09:12, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taiwanese aborigines

As you wish, if you don't want other contributors in the article. There are just so many redundancies. — Indon (reply) — 16:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Indon, am replying on your talk page.

But of course I want you to contribute to the article! Please don't think I don't value your contribution. And I see your point about redundancies. You just made so many changes, and some of them were not about redundancies. I would like to discuss them one by one, or at least by small groups of related changes, on the article's talk page. Thanks --Ling.Nut 17:22, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Review

• Thanks for the invitation to contribute to your editor review. You have been generous in our dealings and I appreciate the invitation. However, as a matter of principle, I prefer to evaluate Wikipedia's contents, not its participants. --Dystopos 18:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The revert at Taiwanese aborigines...

...doesn't seem like a big deal. In general, given that this was a good faith edit and not blatantly wrong, it might have been better to leave it in place while discussing and certainly would have been better to raise your specific issues with it on the talk page at the time you reverted. Probably should not have been reverted entire, in any case. But, again, not a particularly big deal. - Jmabel | Talk 23:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

No matter what the basis of your disagreement, you have to address the matter directly. If it's about style, revert the stylistic edits you disagree with and say that it is about style, but some of these were substantive, and you reverted those as well. - Jmabel | Talk 00:07, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Somewhat apropos joke, vis a vis those edits: Three men were traveling on a train, a philosopher, an engineer, and a sociologist. The philospher looked out the window and said, "It would appear that the side of the cow that is facing us is brown." The engineer said, "The cow is brown." The sociologist said, "All cows are brown." - Jmabel | Talk 00:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you've already alienated the person, all you can really do now is whatever you think is best for the article. - Jmabel | Talk 00:18, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] November Esperanza Newsletter

Program Feature: Admin Coaching (needs coaches!) Admin Coaching needs coaches!!! If you are an administrator, or even a generally experienced user, do consider signing up to be a coach. Admin Coaching, now being coordinated by HighwayCello, is a program for people who want help learning some of the more subtle aspects of Wikipedia policy and culture. People are matched with experienced users who are willing to offer coaching. The program is designed for people who have figured out the basics of editing articles; they're not newcomers any more, but they might want some help in learning new roles. In this way, Esperanza would help keep hope alive for Wikipedia because we would always be grooming the next generation of admins. What's New? The Tutorial Drive is a new Esperanza program! In an effort to make complicated processes on Wikipedia easier for everyone, Esperanza working to create and compile a list of tutorials about processes here on Wikipedia. Consider writing one! A discussion on how Esperanza relates to the encyclopedia has been started; please add your thoughts. Many thanks to MiszaBot, courtesy of Misza13, for delivering the newsletter.

The last AC meeting (full log) The list of proposed programs has been updated, with some proposals being archived. There is now a new program: the Tutorial Drive! Consider writing a tutorial on something you are good at doing on Wikipedia. The suggestion of adding a cohesive look to all the Esperanza pages is being considered; join the discussion if you are interested! In order to make a useful interlanguage welcome template, those involved in translation projects will be asked what English Wikipedia policies are most important and confusing to editors coming from other language Wikipedias. A discussion of Esperanza's role in Wikipedia is being held, with all thoughts of all Esperanzians wanted! Shreshth91 informed everyone that he will be leaving the Esperanza council as life is rather busy; his spot will be filled by the runner up from the last election, HighwayCello. Signed... Natalya, Banes, Celestianpower, EWS23, FireFox, The Halo, Shreshth91 and HighwayCello 20:33, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Although having the newsletter appear on everyone's userpage is desired, this may not be ideal for everyone. If, in the future, you wish to receive a link to the newsletter, rather than the newsletter itself, you may add yourself to Wikipedia:Esperanza/Newsletter/Opt Out List.

[edit] Embryonic Basque Portal and (maybe) Wikiproject. Interested?

Hi. I have noticed that you have been recently noticeably active in the discussion/edition on some pages of Basque theme. If you are interested in adding up to this project, please visit my talk page (and check this draft for the portal contents). --Sugaar 21:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Esperanza Template Tutorial

I noticed you volunteered (saying pick one) for the tutorial for creating templates. Do you mind if I do that instead and you choose one of your other options, or at least collaborate on the tutorial? Thanks in advance. -- tariqabjotu 01:33, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Go for it! :-) I'm busy now.. and perhaps I can chip in a little comment here and there after you finish. Thanks!--Ling.Nut 01:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia:Anatomy of a template; tell me what you think about it and make changes at will. I tried not to go overboard and just provide the basics of a template, as we already have two extensive template tutorials (Help:Template and m:Help:Advanced templates). -- tariqabjotu 00:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Will do so whenever I have time (not now & maybe not soon). Thanks!!! --Ling.Nut 00:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: A useful tutorial... :-)

That's awesome - thanks! Now it's fixed. Much better. :) Thanks for pointing out it out. And we're just happy to have you around Esperanza anytime that you get the chance! -- Natalya 17:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your question

I actually noticed this one get passed myself and wondered about the references, but looking at the talk page, several different GA reviwers seem to of looked at it, so I just let it go by. But I do think there might be reasons to change the decision, I probably wouldn't of passed it, but then again, I normally don't like to review articles where I think it can go either way :/. (Which, annoyingly enough, seems to happen alot.) If you feel strongly enough about it you can open a dispute on WP:GA/R, there's actually been a fairly large amount of nominations for review lately anyway. Homestarmy 00:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not that there aren't any checks, people can look at the GA page as things happen and stop people (and we have before), its just not really fool proof. But even though its not really secure like the FA list might be, anyone can delist any article instantly, so I think that mitigates that somewhat. Homestarmy 16:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation question

I've responded on my talk page. Cheers! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 14:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Treatment of TS

Thanks for the review of Treatment of Tourette syndrome: I've left a response on the talk page. I wasn't thrilled when someone nominated four of my articles for GA just as I was preparing to travel (since I wrote them, and no other editors are currently working on them): I won't be home until next week, and I have limited, slow, and sporadic internet access right now. Thanks again, Sandy (Talk) 16:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cats and Dogs Portals

Hi, Ling.Nut. If you can offer some tips on the respective portal talk pages about how to improve Cats and Dogs up to "featured" quality, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Rfrisbie^talk 18:15, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Endangered languages

How do you decide that something should go in Category:Endangered languages? You added the category to Maa languages, for example, but neither Maasai nor Samburu is currently considered endangered. I have removed the category there, but I wonder if there will be other cases of miscategorization. Thanks, — mark ✎ 07:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

All is well. replied on your talk page.--Ling.Nut 20:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! — mark ✎ 21:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Late reply

Hi Ling.Nut,

If you ever have any questions about the Kurds fell free to ask. :-) As for the controversial edits, the best thing is to ask the user(s) to discuss, mind the 3RR, and cite sources. If I ever spot any more incidents I'll let you know. Ciao, Khoikhoi 00:03, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Regarding ede Yorùbá, you are correct. Someone who comes to Wikipedia solely for the purpose to promote/advertise their website can be called a spammer. Once your revert them, please add {{spam}} to their talk page (then {{spam2}}, {{spam3}}, etc.). I've also added the page to my watchlist so I can help out as well. ;-) Cheers, Khoikhoi 01:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I've added that page to my watchlist as well. BTW, always remember to subst these templates, i.e. instead of using {{spam}} use {{subst:spam}}. Adios, Khoikhoi 03:41, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Romanians and Roma people

After a cursory review, I'd rank Roma people a high B-class, mainly because of the cleanup tag on the article as a whole as well as on the "Genetics" section. There are also many {{fact}} tags. Romanians does not have so many {{fact}}s or any clean-up tags. Both articles need major improvements in their lead sections so that they summarize the articles completely. There is a bulleted list in the "Population" section of Romanians; each item is meaty enough that I wonder why the section isn't prosefied. The similar list in Roma people should have its redlinks evaluated: do they have a reasonable chance of having stubs written for them? If not, please black (dewikify) them. That's my assessment. -Fsotrain⁰⁹ 21:34, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Got Cruft?

Want more? Here's a place to find it User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard. Happy editing! Morton Devonshire^Yo 01:47, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of Australian Aboriginal languages

This is the correct list I wanted to present to you, so maybe just edit this one, it would be outstanding. Enlil Ninlil 05:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

Thanks for the compliment. Kukini 02:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Related changes

Hi Ling.Nut, in response to your query at my talk pg: the "related changes" is a feature of the wikimedia software. Dunno specifically how it works but what it does is compile on the fly a sort of watchlist of recent changes for all articles which appear as links on some particular page in wikipedia (also works on all articles in some given category). Thus, when you have an article, list or category page open and you hit "related changes" (should be in the general toolbox, normally to the left of the page if you are using the classic default skin), it will generate a list of the last x number of recent changes over y period (configurable, just like a watchlist) for the articles/pages which have links on the page/category you are viewing at the time.

You can also code this feature as a link on a page, such as I have done on WP:MESO/ALIST, you can go there to see the syntax. That's how I keep tabs on recent changes to WP:MESO-related articles (I do the same with their corresponding talk pages, which the project banner places in an overall category). The list of mesoamerica-related articles I generate/maintain manually from an exported list generated by AutoWikiBrowser, so it's not that hard to set up. Are you asking in terms of how such a thing might be useful for WP:ETHNIC? Regards, --cjllw | TALK 04:32, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Replied on cjll's talk page. --Ling.Nut 11:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, well if you want to keep an eye on the recent changes for a number of articles associated with some particular wikiproject, then you can either compile a single project list containing links to all these articles, or alternatively have all of these articles in a single category, and run the 'related changes' function from there. Probably the easiest is to have a project banner on all the relevant articles' talk pages which (among other things) assigns all to some single high-level project category (for WP:MESO, that is category:WikiProject Mesoamerica articles). A 'related changes' view on that category will give you the changes on the talk pages, to get the changes on the article pages you'd just need to do a category dump (AWB exports this easily) into a text file, strip away the prefixed Talk: string and then import the result as a list of links to some project page, from which a 'related changes' view will give you the wether eye on what's been happening for your project's charges. Keep up the good work, --cjllw | TALK 23:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFA Thanks

Thanks!
Thanks for your input on my (nearly recent) Request for adminship, which regretfully achived no consensus, with votes of 68/28/2. I am grateful for the input received, both positive and in opposition, and I'd like to thank you for your participation.
Georgewilliamherbert 06:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Endangered languages

Man, you are so back and forth about whether you want to start new projects or don't have time for the ones you are already doing!

Why exactly would this be a separate WikiProject rather than a focus within Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages? If you've got a good answer to that, sure, go for it; if you don't get the critical mass of participants you can always say "oops" and just roll it back into WikiProject Languages. - Jmabel | Talk 19:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply!--Ling.Nut 23:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Considering ther is not much done on endangered language than maybe a new project focusing on it is needed, maybe include extinct languages too that can be revitalized like the Prussian language. Enlil Ninlil 06:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arabian horse--thank you and questions

Thanks for your very useful comments on Arabian horse I have made some fixes per your suggestions (some citation will take a while), and had some questions: First, what does one do with information that is so common within the field (though not necessarily known by newcomers) that almost every basic book on the topic mentions it? Does is still need a specific cite, just pick a standard reference, or can it remain uncited? In the article, this would be the case of the reference to the "mitbah" and "jibbah" Second, because I am too close to the horse world to catch all unfamiliar terms, would you eyeball the article and note if there are other undefined terms that people need a link for? I pretty much cross-referenced to the horse anatomy article for the parts of the horse questions, hope that worked. At any rate, your comments were constructive, positive, helpful, USEFUL, and I would appreciate your further remarks. Montanabw 08:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Confirming that for GA status, proper wikilinks and definitions were what you were looking for, the citation issues are more what is needed for consideration as a FA?? Montanabw 18:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm making a judgment call here. It seems that a large number of your statements have been cited.. but far from all of them. So the answer is YES. You have satisfied the requirements for GA, in my opinion, but I strongly suggest that you get to work on the rest of those citations.

Congratulations!--Ling.Nut 18:50, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

OK! Thanks! Citations will take a while. Thoughts on web sites versus textbooks? In particular, links to web sites that partially quote textbooks or magazine articles? Montanabw 19:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

(remove indents) This is a deep question. :-) Books and especially refereed journals are almost always better than websites. Blogs are definitely out. Geocities and other such personal webpages are out too. The official website of a well-known and respected professional organization.. hmm.. judgment call, but has a good chance of being OK. If the website quotes a book, giving page numbers etc.. ideally you should go to the library and double-check. That's easy for me to say, since I'm here at the university. :-). But if the book itself is well-known.. again, judgment call, but it has a good chance of being OK. In that case, quote the book, not the website's quote of the book (if you know what I mean). Does that help?--Ling.Nut 19:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

OH PS Google Scholar (not regular Google) is the student's bestest best friend! :-) --Ling.Nut 19:54, 17 November 2006 (UTC)