User talk:Haukurth/Archive8

Snow

Scratch that. I apologize for my earlier remark; I've been reading too much of a certain arbcom case and I'm letting that get to me. Sorry. My only actual point was that CHILD is unrelated to SNOW. >Radiant< 21:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Encarta and "Scandinavia"

Dear Haukhurth, so now I finally run into you, and I have to disagree. :> I've seen a lot of incredibly good stuff written by you! Well, not that this issue is worth arguing about, but the statement that "Scandinavia" is equivalent to "Nordic" in English will need another, more precise reference when you get a chance to look for one, because Encarta's Scandinavia entry is not saying as much as the quote appears to hope to imply. The Encarta entry is quite clear about the fact that Scandinavia is in the first instance a "name applied collectively to three countries of northern Europe—Norway and Sweden (which together form the Scandinavian Peninsula), and Denmark." When the entry continues: "The term Scandinavia is sometimes extended to include Iceland and the Faroe Islands, which are linguistically related to the others, and to Finland, which is not linguistically related," it is not at all saying that the English language is ambiguous or confused about which is which, or about the most common denotation of "Scandinavia" as opposed to "Nordic". All it is saying is that the term Scandinavia is sometimes extended (although with no reference to whom or in which circumstance) to include Iceland, the Faroe islands and Finland. Considering the history of the three kingdoms, I assume the English would find nothing odd about having the term Scandinavia stretching beyond the peninsula to cover the territories the three Scandinavian kingdoms once dominated. However, Encarta is not shy about pointing out that there is a difference in how the terms are preferably applied (prefered as in "by first choice"): Scandinavia is a group of three countries that have historical, cultural, and linguistic affinities, versus Nordic - a group of five countries that are united by geographical and economic factors. I'm sure the usage must be dealt with in more detail in other English sources and encyclopedias, or? Take care and best wishes, Pia 17:06, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Pia! I'm glad you're pleased with my stuff :) The issue of the definition of Scandinavia in English has been dealt with at some length on Talk:Scandinavia. Here are some sample reference works where I've bolded the crucial parts:

"Scandinavia (skăn'dĭnā`vēə), region of N Europe. It consists of the kingdoms of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; Finland and Iceland are usually considered part of Scandinavia." Columbia Encyclopedia

"SCANDINAVIA: a region of northern Europe consisting of the kingdoms of Sweden, Norway and Denmark; culturally and historically Finland and Iceland are often considered part of this area." — The Random House Encyclopaedia

"SCANDINAVIAN: a native or inhabitant of Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland)." — The Concise Oxford Dictionary

"SCANDINAVIAN: of the countries Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland in northern Europe, or their people or languages." — Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

Some sources include Finland but not Iceland and vice versa. The meaning of the word in English is somewhat flexible. Haukur 18:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Haukhurth, you're right about the fact that Iceland and Finland are rudely kicked in and out of the definitions on random, all over the place, but not particularly more often in English. But one last observation I wanted to add to that scenario: I don't think it's about different languages and how these languages chose to define the region, as much as it is about the various ways "Scandinavia" is defined in different disciplines in the area. Scandinavia is definitely used in slightly different ways in linguistics (the division between East and West Scandinavian dialects, and the later split betwen North and South Scandinavian dialects, which leaves out Finnish an Greenlandic---the term "Nordic languages" does the same thing). In geography you have the peninsula ideologues calling the shots, in economics and political science the definition is shaped with the idea that money talks and kingdoms rule, and the region is either a brotherhood of economic possibilities and similarities (excluding Greenland again) or an exclusive Kingdom club of three. To me, the ambivalence in the term is therefore not so much a question of established usage in different languages as it is about the direction the wind happens to blow over each political landscape in the area itself. English is just reflecting that gusty reality. Since Scandinavia is not an official, state-sanctioned, cross-border entity, I suspect it will keep being redefined too, in any way it suits the powers that be in each corner of the area at any given moment. That's the reason I thought the KISS principle seemed the most attractive and least POV option in this case. But I trust your judgment to work out any possible kinks with proper referencing, so I'm not worrying about it. Best, Pia 19:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

RfA thanks from StuffOfInterest

Thank you for participating in my RfA, which finished with a tally of 52/6/1 (~90%). It was an interesting process which gave me a chance to learn a bit about myself and about the community. My intention now is to slowly ease into using those additional buttons on my page. No use being over eager and mucking up the works. The support of all those who went over my record and/or rallied to my defense after the big oppose vote was instumental to the success of this review. Again, thank you! --StuffOfInterest 11:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation file

Hi Haukur. I’ve seen that you added an .ogg file with the pronunciation of Björk. So, as I have published several biographies about Icelandic musicians I was thinking that perhaps you could help me with the following names: Magnús Þór Jónsson, Guðlaugur Kristinn Óttarsson and Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson. Despite I’ve been writing about Icelandic musicians for a long time, I don’t know exactly the Icelandic pronunciation, so I would be very grateful if you could help me out. Kind regards, Luis María Benítez 17:48, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I've uploaded sound files to the Wikimedia Commons. Haukur 22:13, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the file added to the biography of HÖH. Did you created the others too? Luis María Benítez 15:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, check my Commons contributions - or the category of the HÖH file. Haukur 15:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, now I saw them. Thanks again, and if there's anything I could be useful with, don't hesitate to ask. Best, Luis María Benítez 15:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Iceland

Hi Haukur. I've just created Portal:Iceland (Iceland was one of the few European countries that didn't have a portal) and I would like you to have a look. Feel free to contribute to it. Best regards. --Húsönd 00:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Þjóðólfr of Hvinir

As this article is on the English language Wikipeida, why is this article not entitled Thjodolf of Hvinir? Walgamanus 16:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

You could argue that it should, but that's not where you moved it. The form of the name the article is currently at is the one used in the most recent English language book on the poet. Try going to http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/ and searching for both "Thjodolf of Hvinir" and "Þjóðólfr of Hvinir". To find information on people like this you often have to try several versions/transliterations of their name so ideally our articles should list several of the most common ones. See Skúli Þorsteinsson for an example of this. Haukur 16:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Moves

By the way, how do you do a move, if a redirect page already exists for the page you want to move to? Walgamanus 16:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

More moves

Hi Haukur,

could you do the following moves:

• Thrud -> Þrúðr
• Thjálfi -> Þjálfi

or do you prefer I use WP:RM?

Sigo 19:06, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted all but one version of each so you can do the moves yourself now :) Haukur 19:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I should add a bit to this. Currently our articles on characters from Norse mythology are quite inconsistently named. I found out the hard way that trying to impose a standard will sometimes get people upset and can lead to fruitless debates about relatively inconsequential matters. Nowadays I tend to only move articles I'm actively working on and leave a talk page comment first. In my experience WP:RM isn't very helpful, it tends to bring in people who don't have much interest in the article as such but are quite willing to argue about its title ;) Questions are often resolved more amicably among people actively working on the article.

That said I will delete redirect histories when they are arbitrarily preventing a move because I don't believe admins should have a monopoly on moves. Haukur 19:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. "WP:RM isn't very helpful, it tends to bring in people who don't have much interest in the article as such but are quite willing to argue about its title": that’s the way I feared it might be, and that’s why I preferred to ask you first. But isn’t there supposed to be a consensus on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Norse mythology)?

Sigo 22:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I wrote a guideline, called a vote, advertised it a bit - got a bunch of people to agree with me, some others didn't (and some of them were sockpuppets) and then we slapped a guideline tag on it. Then someone removed it. Then we put it back. etc. Even if everyone agreed on it you would be justified in calling it vague. And in practice conventions like that don't mean so much - next person who comes along and disagrees with it won't pay any attention to it and quote some other convention which says things he likes more. It's just not a very orderly place and it's just about impossible to get a binding decision. Haukur 23:51, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes - protection

Hi, please don't reverse my protection of this as a deleted page. (You should really have discussed it with me before undoing my admin action.) This is constantly being recreated as a cross-space edirect. See the deletion log for how many times it has had to be deleted. --Doc 22:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Having a deletedpage there is harmful and pointless. I know how often this has been deleted - I've deleted it several times myself (as well as Userbox). If you think there is no longer a consensus for keeping these deleted then take your case to a new deletion review, don't keep recreating the page with metadata. Haukur 22:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Deletion review? A deleted page? That's crazy. It isn't pointless - it prevents recreation. Please explain how it is 'harmful' - I'm happy to be convinced--Doc 22:53, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

While there is a deletedpage template there people who type 'userbox' into that nifty search bar on the left won't find what they're looking for, they'll get stuffed with an irrelevant metadata template. It's perfectly reasonable that people will want to search for Wikipedia-related terms with Wikipedia's search bar and we shouldn't kill that functionality. Haukur 22:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

But, surely if there is no page - just a redlink, then when people seach for it, they'll get nothing at all. So how is it killing functionality?--Doc 22:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

They won't get nothing at all, they'll get lots of hits. Try it. When 'go' doesn't yield anything the search bar tries to 'search' and crappy though it is the search will probably get most people what they're trying to find. Haukur 23:16, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hm, what we really need is the ability to protect a deleted page without having to create a dummy - but that for the devs. The solution at the moment is far from ideal, but I can't see it as particularly harmful either. It is standard operating policy ATM to make constantly recreated pages into protected deleted pages. Perhaps we need to nudge the devs to giving us another option to solve the search problem you outline.--Doc 23:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, a change in software would be good. Meanwhile - the standard operating procedure of replacing continually recreated pages with protected templates doesn't make sense in this instance. The harm done by the deletedpage template is small but the harm done by having a CNR is even smaller (at least that's useful metadata, not menacing and useless metadata). Keeping the page on one's watchlist and deleting it while it shows up is trivial work. Haukur 00:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Copyright in speeches

I checked with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, there is no justification for reproducing UK political speeches. They may only be reproduced from a direct record (if we were actually there at the time), or under fair dealing (which doesn't apply on WikiSource). Physchim62 (talk) 14:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Elonka

Thank you very much for your support in my RfA. Unfortunately consensus was not reached, and the nomination was not successful. I do however appreciate your comments, am still in support of the Wikipedia project, and will continue to contribute without interruption. Thanks again! --Elonka 08:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

PDUSgovt

All documents produced by the government of the united states are PD - see WP:PD#U.S._government_works. PlaWatch 16:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Indeed. I may have been a bit overzealous in using the 'copyvio' tag on that couple of articles but many .gov sites carry some content not in the PD so I was hoping someone would double-check. And they did :) I also didn't know if we had a specific nifty tag to attribute text to this particular US government website. Haukur 17:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

User:W.marsh/list / President.pl

I've checked User:W.marsh/list. My name appears twice, at Cuno Amiet and Edouard Vuillard. Which articles use material from president.pl? Aecis ^{Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984.} 23:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

After having gone through the first year of my contributions, four copyvio edits have surfaced: Edvard Munch, Edouard Vuillard, Cuno Amiet and Synthetism. One article has been deleted, the copyvio in the other three articles has been removed. If you come across more copyright violations, please let me know. Aecis ^{Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984.} 14:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Quick question about an Icelandic word

Does Sundlaugin mean something like "of/pertaining to a swimming pool"? This dictionary says "sundlaug" means "swimming pool". Thanks. --user:Qviri 16:03, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

"sundlaug" means '(a) swimming pool', "sundlaugin" means 'the swimming pool'. Haukur 16:09, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks a lot. --user:Qviri 16:16, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi

Hi, you deleted my entry for Ron McVan. I will not argue, but can you please advise how I can get the information back for my own references. I will like to see what I put again but am unsure how to view a deleted file. Thanks FK0071a 15:45, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I have done what you asked. Please submit the information. MANY THANKS! FK0071a 16:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to tick a box. Now done. Thanks! FK0071a 17:14, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Block

Hi, Jack Cox has requested an unblock and (at a glance, he came on IRC) seems to be sincere about stopping his plagiarizing ways. I thought you might want to review this one. User talk:Jack Cox#Block. Thanks. --W.marsh 23:54, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I unblocked him based on his acknowledgment in IRC of what he did wrong - he apparently assumed that simply supplying the source of the copied contents was enough. I'll keep an eye on him, and if he continues with this action I'll reblock him. Cowman109^Talk 00:26, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, that's fine. Haukur 00:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Cirwen

Hi Haukur,

Have you ever heard about that character? Sigo 16:07, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

No. Let's try to get that article deleted. It's a fairly obvious hoax but since that's not a speedy deletion criterion I suppose we should do WP:PROD and then haul it through AfD if all else fails. Haukur 17:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't know there was a WP:PROD. Sigo 18:14, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Unifying Old Norse

This is perhaps not entirely relevant to the Wikipedia project, but I think it is worth bringing up here. Today I realized that one should be able to unify Old Norse into one single ideal written normal. As an example, which was what I brought to myself earlier today, consider the Old Icelandic (often synonym to Old Norse) verb søkkva 'to sink', which comes from Proto-Norse *sinkv- (only writing out the relevant stem) through v- (i.e., u-) umlaut of i to y and then opening of y to ø due to the nasal n which gets assimilated into k, i.e., one might have the development (only looking at the stem)

• *sinkv- →^v-umlaut *synkv- →^{nasal opening} sønkv- →^{nasal assimilation} søkkv-

Now, in Old Swedish (and Old East Norse in general?) which had sjunka, one instead had the development

• *sinkv- →^v-breaking *sjunkv- →^v-loss sjunk-

The question is now, is it possible to have a compromised spelling for Old Norse? One could make the compromise that the western umlauts should be used instead of the eastern breakings, and that the eastern preserved nasal dissimilations should be preferred. This would preserv the highest degree of information. Furthermore, the non-initial v is used. Thus, one would end up with the idealized Old Norse spelling synkva, cf. Old Icelandic søkkva and Old Swedish sjunka. The problem, of course, is the random choice of western vs eastern features. (Umlaut but no breaking or nasal assimilation.) One could of course have made the complementary choice, i.e. breaking, nasal assimilation and dropped v giving sjukka as result. (Interestingly, sjukka is quite usual in some Swedish dialects which have both eastern and western features.) What preserves information best: Umlaut or breaking? I suspect breaking, but I am not sure. Assuming bearking, one would get sjunkva. (Does the stem søkkv- automatically reproduce Proto-Norse *sinkv-? I think "senkv-" would give the asme result. I know *sjunkv- does, though, since "senkv-" would produce "sjönkv, ö = 'ǫ'.)

What do you think of such a project of finding the "best" compromise between Old West Norse and Old East Norse?

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 21:26, 30 October 2006 (UTC))

Inventing a unifying spelling for different languages/dialects is always a fun project :) The basic method is usually to select the common ancestor of two forms that differ - but sometimes that's not a very attractive choice (*sinkv-).

I've been thinking about the spelling of the West-Norse languages lately. Faroese spelling is intentionally designed to be similar to Icelandic - but there are still some choices in it that strike me as strange. For example using 'ey' and 'oy' for Icel. 'au' and 'ey' makes sense phonologically but it seems like a strange concession to phonetics in a spelling that already requires writers to make a heroic effort like placing silent ð's all over the place.

One could invent a spelling for Nynorsk which would make it very similar to Faroese/Icelandic. Of course Nynorsk spelling is already very etymologically based (especially the 19th century variants) but some of its spelling choices seem to have been made to be deliberately different from Danish ('kv' at the start of words, 'namn' rather than 'navn' etc.). Interestingly Aasen used a lot of silent t's and d's where Faroese has silent ð's.

But I'm moving far away from your question. The project you suggest might have some advantages. For example it seems a bit strange to me to give Swedish runic inscriptions in standardized West Norse spelling - and yet this is often done because that's the spelling most people are familiar with. It would make perfect sense to give them in a unified Norse spelling system :) Haukur 21:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I am afraid that the phonological spellings ey (< au) and oy (< ey) in Faroese can't be changed into something more etymolgically based. Remember that Faroese ey is a soft vowel (which the spelling au wouldn't suggest) and that oy is a hard vowel (which the spelling ey wouldn't suggest). And I don't think there are any other possibilities. The only possibility I can see is to use eu (<au) which even may be etymological: au > öu > øu > eu > [ɛɪ] ~ "ey". I think that the u in eu actually may be a derounded [ʉ], i.e. [ɨ] (øu [œʉ] >^derounding eu [ɛɨ]). So, except for ey and oy, the only possible choice would be eu and oy. (Ironically, e in eu is a derounded i-umlaut of o in oy, which is kind'a backwards.) The Faroese spelling is very amusing, and I find it very strange that people actually started to use it instead of an orthography looking more like more conservative Nynorsk.

I assume that Nynorsk kv is because Bokmål hv is pronunced /v/. In fact, Nynorsk and Bokmål has the same pronunciation rules (otherwise it'd be too confusing), which means that in order to account for e.g. the development hv > /kv/ vs /v/, one must have different spellings for the two languages. Do you think that it'd be possible to define an Icelandic "Bokmål" based on Danish but somewhat Icelandified? In Faroe islands, they have Gøtudonskt, i.e. "Street Danish", which is merely a spoken language, but I guess it'd be no problem to create a Faroese "Bokmål" from this.

Note that, which I may have told you before (look in your archive), I am working on a written normal for Jamtlandic. Linguistically, it's not very unique keeping in mind that it is similar to most "Northern Scandinavian" dialects, but today there is no standard Scandinavian language which is "northern". So, in that perspective there's some linguistic interest to normalize Jamtlandic. A more crucial reason for the construction of a written normal is the fact that the province Jamtland, where it is spoken, historically is neither a part of Norway nor Sweden. In Jamtland, we have - AFAIK - the oldest continuosly existing democratic institution called Jämtlands läns landsting, or Jamtamót until Middle ages. The "ting" must at least be as old as the time when the first jamts settled the province. (Migration period?) The name Jamtamót in itself suggests that the institution is at least as old as the first jamtish settlements.

The standard procedure of using normalized Old West Norse when transcribing and normalizing Swedish runic inscriptions is indeed slightly hilarious. One can easily invent a spelling for the Sueonic dialect Old East Norse which is "compatible" with Old West Norse. One thing though is the umlauts, especially u-umlaut. Did Old East Norse have the u-umlaut or didn't it? It is clear that this umlaut would only affect words where the umlauting u is dropped through syncopation or apocopation. (I think this is called the Tröndish rule since in in old documents from Tröndelag one wrote tonn 'tooth' but mannum dat. 'men'.) As you know, an u-umlauted a was initially pronunced a rounded a, i.e. [ɒ]. This may have drifted to [ɔ] in the west and back into [ɑ] in the east. When á became [ɒː], the u-umlauted a may have been pushed towards [œ]. Well, you probably have more accurate theories on this.

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 19:15, 31 October 2006 (UTC))

What I was getting at with the Faroese is that it's already so etymologically spelled that the change I was suggesting, though illogical from an orthophonic perspective, isn't any worse. And the Icelandic pronunciation of 'au' is already not orthophonic. But these are all idle thoughts anyhow. In reality I'd be much more in favour of moving Faroese spelling closer to the pronunciation.

I don't have anything to add to your umlaut ponderings. I think you're basically right. Haukur 19:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I think both Faroese and Icelandic may gain from becomming more phonetical. In Icelandic, I would first like to replace ö with ø. This'd merely be a change of alphabet, but I think it's a good change since the we have reduced the number of diacritical letters. Furthermore, the letters y and ý should be replaced with i and í everywhere. (One has already changed œ to æ which is the phonetically the more open version of the change ý to í.) This would give two manifested diphtongs in Icelandic, ei and øu, where øu is the phonological spelled of the old au-diphthong. Thus, one would e.g. have tønn (< tönn), filgja (< fylgja), dír (< dýr), leisa (< leysa), høukur (< haukur). I would also like to write dn and dl for nn and ll. Thus, fjöll (pl.) > fjødl.

Needless to say, one should also make the changes ang > áng, eng > eing, ing > íng, ong > óng, ung > úng, yng > íng, öng > øung. E.g. langur strákur > lángur strákur, löng stúlka > løung stúlka. (Perhaps you'd really use hár here to describe height.) One already has e.g. alk > álk etc., so why not ang > áng etc.?

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 22:26, 31 October 2006 (UTC))

Yes, replacing 'y' and 'ý' with 'i' and 'í' in a Faroese/Icelandic spelling reform is a no-brainer. Perhaps using 'ø' would be slightly cleaner than using 'ö' but I'm not fussed. We can use both 'langur' and 'hár' to describe height but there are slightly different shades of meaning; using 'langur' is slightly negative/slangish while 'hár' is neutral or even positive. The most difficult problems will arrive when you need to reconcile the Faroese dialects into one spelling - in the south short 'ó' is pronounced like short 'o' but in the north it is pronounced like short 'ø'. This is a case where the current etymological spelling actually makes some sense as a compromise (unlike the 'ð' monster). Haukur 20:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course, in the case of Faroese, the etymological spelling is motivated by the relatively high degree of dialectal differences. In the case of Icelandic, which today due to the extrem demographical centralization to Reykjavík and the already low degree of dialectal differences has practically only one spoken form, one has a greater reason to employ a phonetical spelling. But in Icelandic's case one has the readability of the old sagas in their (normalized) original to think about.

In my orthography for Jamtlandic, I use the letter ð as a silent consonant. Thus, it's not as monstruous as the Faroese ð (which in fact is identical to g in the phonetical sense, but can't be replaced by "nothing" in all instances due to some strange hiatus rules), but it's not "explicit". What do you think about such a reanimation of a phonetically "obsolete" letter like ð? (NB: Old Norse ð is [ð] in some situations in Jamtlandic speech, but then I - like most other people - write it d. For example, Old Norse laðu (acc.) 'barn' I write as ludu in Jamtlandic, since the pronunciation is [lɵðɵ], not "[lɵɵ]".) The letter ð also denotes a "silent" r in e.g. báðn [boːn] 'child' (ON barn); I think that the r > ð actually is etymological since the opposite, ð > r (e.g. bondska síða > säir), is clearly evident insome Scandinavian dialects.

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 21:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC))

Thinking about it, there's a unique way of choosing between the western umlaut and eastern breaking when defining a unified Old Norse written normal. Indeed, one should always choose the breaking since it is the most indigeneous phenomenon of the two; umlaut is a general feature of Germanic, breaking is specifically North Germanic. So, choosing between synkva (umlaut) and sjunkva (breaking), one should take the latter. One should choose umlaut only when there's no possible breaking. Sometimes umlaut is not possible, but breaking, and then one of course naturally have a breaking. This would give the first person pronoun jak (< *eka); there's no possible umlaut. (Well, maybe *eka > ęk? where ę is the i-umlauted a in e.g. hęstř 'horse'. Here I let ř denote the special r with origin in Proto-Germanic /z/.)

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 18:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC))

Barnstar

Thanks for the barnstar. It's my very first one! -- Vary | Talk 03:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort

Hi. I have replied to this query here. Can you now reinstate the article? Thanks. Smallweed 15:12, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Deletions

Sir, I'd like to contest your deletions of articles on several Governors of Massachusetts. Yes, the content in those articles did come from a copyrighted site. However, the prose in them is of a very stripped-down, basic style. It is not florid or literary in nature; it presents facts. While copyright is available for works, no one can copyright mere facts, which is what was reproduced in those articles. In other words, when those articles are re-created, they'll still contain the same facts. So why delete them? Given that only one set of facts exists about these men's lives, what's the alternative for us but to use that information? Biruitorul 23:49, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Facts can't be copyrighted but their presentation can be. And the selection of which facts to include is not trivial. There are a lot of facts about each of those men which were not included in the biographies I deleted, there's not just one unique set of 10-15 facts about each man. And even if there were, there are a million different ways to write a biography containing the exact same facts. Lifting whole passages infringes copyright. Please don't do it. Haukur 00:02, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Please add a new category on the W.marsh/list

The John Macoun entry under "Apparent mistakes in Brandt's report" should not be listed there. You need a new category, something like "Remote site adds an attribution." There will be more of these. If the "Last Modified" header on the remote page shows a modification later than October 22, then it should be assumed that the attribution was added in response to the plagiarism report. It's a "fix," not a "Brandt mistake." But in these cases, it's a "fix" on the remote site, not on the Wikipedia article. If Wikipedia admins contact these remote sites, some of these sites will add an attribution. If you call all of these "Brandt mistakes," then I will no longer be able to assume that the W.marsh/list is a good-faith effort. --Daniel Brandt 216.60.70.8 19:46, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

We just need a category for pages where the other site actually copied from Wikipedia rather than the reverse. The present or absence of attribution on their side isn't a key issue for us except insofar as it helps us identify our own problems. If the current header annoys you then, sure, I'll change it. Haukur 20:16, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

On another note, since you're here, I was slightly surprised by this sentence in your (sound and useful) study: "Administrators already make efforts to patrol copyright violations on images posted by users to illustrate articles, but no meaningful efforts have ever been made to detect plagiarism." Well, sure, we do make efforts - but it's a Sisyphean task. You estimate, and I agree, that something over 2% of Wikipedia articles contain plagiarized text - most of those will be problematic under copyright law. But I should think that the percentage of Wikipedia images which are problematic from a copyright standpoint is probably something like 20% (many are mislabelled, many have completely bogus fair use claims etc.) - I'd be interested to know what other admins in the trenches think, I doubt the consensus number would be lower than that. We do make efforts to remove both problematic images and problematic plagiarized text (see e.g. User:Wherebot). My estimate is that our image problem is bigger than our plagiarized text problem. Haukur 20:33, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for renaming the section. As a postscript, I just realized that it doesn't even require an inquiry from someone at Wikipedia to alert a remote site that there's something strange about one of their pages. All that's required is for the remote webmaster to notice unusual activity in their logs on one of their pages that no one ever visits, and follow the referrer to wikipedia-watch.org, and get the whole story that way. On the image thing, you may be right. But I've seen a lot of image warning and take-down activity. I looked for information on wherebot, and didn't find a description of how it works. I'm not convinced it's very effective. In any case, it's for new articles only, apparently. That's like closing the barn door after 1.46 million horses are already gone. While patrolling new articles is necessary, what if someone comes along later and drops three paragraphs on the end of the article right from Britannica? You need new article patrolling, and some level of patrolling of old articles that have been newly appended in a major way, and all this presumes that you've already checked the 1.46 million as best you can. I looked for the word plagiarism and wikipedia in the major engines, and there was very, very little (about 20 links in each major engine) concerning plagiarism IN wikipedia. There were hundreds or thousands about plagiarism OF wikipedia, or about wikipedia's own article on plagiarism. My impression is that there has been no organized effort apart from wherebot and now the W.marsh list to ferret out plagiarism IN wikipedia. I just learned about that German wikipedia situation that occurred last December, from the Signpost article, but they're different from the English wikipedia. 216.60.70.8 21:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, yes, good thinking on unusual activity in someone's logs - that's the most straightforward explanation for why they'd notice. Let me try to compare our image patrolling with our text patrolling.

When someone adds an image and says they took it themselves and are releasing it under some free licence there's often not so much we can do to find out if that's correct. It's very dependent on the contributor - when I add an image and label it you can be pretty sure it's legit and correct. I'm an established contributor operating under my real name and I understand copyright issues reasonably well. But when someone under a pseudonym with just a few contributions and no registered e-mail address adds a supposedly free image there may be more reason to be skeptical. But there's only so much we can do - we can try searching for the image name on Google, to see if the editor nicked it from some website without bothering to change the filename. But if that doesn't yield anything we've got basically no way to find out whether the image is what the uploader says it is (see the publicgirluk episode for a test case). And believe me, there are myriad incorrectly labelled pictures in here now.

With text we are much luckier - we can't search for an image on Google but we can search for text. And we do. When newpage patrollers see articles started with unwikified text dumps they check Google and if there's a hit then the article is gone and something like Template:Nothanks is stuck on the contributor's talk page. This works quietely and effectively. The same principle works for addition of text to an existing article. When I notice a new contributor adding a significant amount of text to an article on my watchlist I get suspicious and check Google - if there's a hit I revert. Now, like most everything else on Wikipedia this kind of patrolling is done haphazardly rather than in an organized way. So some plagiaristic edits do slip through where no-one happens to be looking.

Actually I think plagiaristic edits and incorrectly labelled images go hand-in-hand. I've noticed that the talk pages of the serial plagiarists I've been dealing with in the last few days have typically been chock full of image problem warnings.

As for organized efforts to weed out plagiarism, hmm... I think a part of the reason why you didn't find much when looking for that is that we tend to talk about 'copyvios' rather than plagiarism. The established mechanism is described on WP:CP. When a plagiaristic edit is discovered we do consider the correct practice to be to check the editor's other contributions. Here's an example I happened to deal with some months ago: [1]

In sum I think we have a problem with both plagiarism and improper use of images. Both are dealt with in various ways, sometimes effective, sometimes not, sometimes organized, sometimes haphazard, sometimes manually, sometimes by bots. I think the image problem gets more attention because it is more pervasive and more difficult to deal with, all the work on that may have misled you into thinking we're doing a spiffing job of handling it - I think we're probably not :) We should certainly aim to do better both with plagiarism and with image use. We're probably doing miles better than sites like YouTube but we should aim for near-perfection. Unlike YouTube we're aiming to produce reusable material and it's pretty hard to reuse if you can't even be sure that the copyright issues are in order. Haukur 22:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Svolder

So when do you plan to submit it as FAC? ;) Fornadan (t) 22:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully fairly soon :) I still aim to make "Course of the battle" longer and probably split of a "Death of Olaf Tryggvason" section. The lead needs expanding too and then I'll probably submit it for WP:PR and hope someone can help polish the prose a bit. Haukur 22:44, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Just be carefull you don't get accused for battlecruft ;) Anyway, it might be an idea to give chapternumbers in addition to pagenumbers in the notes section since especially Heimskringla comes in so many editions. Fornadan (t) 23:02, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

More obscure battles than this one are already FAs ;) Chapter numbers are a good idea but do you know if the chapter division is consistent across editions? I'm not sure if it is or if it's consistent (or even there at all) in the original manuscripts. I notice that the division into sagas isn't even the same across editions - in the 1899 Norwegian edition there is a saga of Jarl Hákon where other editions I've seen consider it a part of the saga of King Haraldr Greyhide. Haukur 23:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Not sure, but they seemed to be when I was working with Angus on the Finn Arnesson article. Fornadan (t) 23:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Gladsheim

I read through the article to try to find the edit but overlooked the interwiki link. My point was that you shouldn't have to hunt to try to determine whether or not an edit was constructive since it may or not always be obvious, though I'm prepared to admit that I may be more dense than most when it comes to the obvious ;) Cerdic 01:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Removal of image from Saddam trial article

On November 6th you removed an image from the Trial of Saddam Hussein article which showed him at the time of sentencing. This was a captured image from the streaming video coverage of the court proceedings which of themselves are a significant event. The licensing cannot be assigned to BBC News as it is just the carrier of a public trial and is acting in the public interest with its coverage. As you live in London, you probably live under some restrictions governing British residents and the licensing of receivers but this was an international transmission and is it legal for you to directly or indirectly censor the BBC and international communications? The removal of the image might be considered vandalism although probably well intentioned on your part. If you think that you have the right to regulate the actions of a British state-owned public corporation and interfere with its dealings with the rest of the world I would have to object most strenuously. But if it is definitely not considered fair use I will defer to you as a Wikipedia adminstrator in this matter. Do you have to get permissions to take photographs in London in the open public? Some areas might be considered restricted even though they allow public access and excesses on the part of a photographer might be considered harassment in some cases but do the same rules apply to open proceedings? --Jbergquist 09:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Why a screenshot from the BBC might be considered fair use

The BBC Charter states,

3(a) "To provide, as public services, sound and television broadcasting services (whether by analogue or digital means) and to provide sound and television programmes of information, education and entertainment for general reception ... within the Commonwealth and in other countries and places overseas (such services being hereinafter referred to as 'the World Service') the Home Services and the World Service together being hereinafter referred to as 'the Public Services'."

3(k)"To provide to other bodies, whether within Our United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man or elsewhere, by such means and methods as may be convenient, services, programmes and materials to be transmitted or distributed by such bodies and to receive from such other bodies services, programmes and materials to be transmitted by stations of the Corporation for reception as aforesaid."

3(u) Subject to the prior approval of Our Secretary of State, to enter into joint ventures or partnerships with other companies and to establish companies whose objects include any of the objects of the Corporation or whose business is capable of being carried on in such a way as to facilitate or advance any of the objects of the Corporation, and to purchase or otherwise acquire stocks, shares or securities of, and to subsidise and assist, any such company.

So it would seem that some services of the BBC are intended as public information. I personally consider the BBC a reliable source of information and I do not see why Wikipedia would object to the information that it provides. FU Counterexample 5 appears to refer to private news services since only Reuters and AP are mentioned and some of their photos are copyrighted and have a photocredit associated with them. The BBC World Service is in the business of informing the world of newsworthy events such as the Saddam trial. The question is whether or not Wikipedia needs prior consent from the BBC for the inclusion of a screenshot within a Wikipedia article. This is not misrepresentation of the BBC or taking credit for something done by the BBC or reported by it. The image captured was of an ephemeral nature and there was no link available for later use in an article. No barriers were in place to prevent a screenshot and so it would seem that it was permissible to do this. If the BBC has control over material used in the image is permission for retransmission needed by some other entity and is this enforcable? It is the state governments of the world that assign ownership rights to property and that includes intellectual property but there is some disagreement about exactly what protections one is entitled to and there is a lot of abuse of privilege that is taking place. The arts and artists in particular a targets of abuse and their work misappropriated by some and attention needs to be drawn to this. But the public has a right to know and be informed of current events which supercedes that of individual whims about what might be for the good of the public. The conclusion that one can draw from this is that some things are permissible to copy while others are not since it would be harmful to the individuals that produce them. It might be advisable for Wikipedia to enter into an agreement with the BBC for the reuse of its material as a matter of public record. If you look carefully at the BBC Charter you will notice that it is up for renewal 31 December, 2006. --Jbergquist 12:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm just this guy, you know. As far as I can tell BBC material is no different from that of any other news service as far as copyright is concerned. Apart from that, all I can tell you is to read WP:FU and Wikipedia:Copyrights. The idea is (mostly) to produce material free for all to use - we don't get Wikipedia-specific special permissions. Haukur 12:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Tyr and Mars photograph.

Hey, this is my first time on this so be gentle if I do something wrong. In the Tyr and Mars photo you posted there is writing underneath it. I have been trying to decypher it but have had no luck. I have searched the different runes and old germanic languages but I cannot match all the characters. I was wonder since you posted it you would know what it says. Thank you.

It says "MARS edur TYR", meaning "Mars or Tyr" - the names are written with Icelandic runes. Haukur 08:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

William Jay Gaynor

Hey Haukur, you've got a lot of nerve claiming that I plagarized the content of the article that I wrote about Mayor William Jay Gaynor. I pieced together the information for that article and wrote it IN MY OWN WORDS, citing my references. I'm pissed off that you, a foreigner who KNOWS NOTHING about the history of New York City, has the audacity to delete my hard work and accuse me of plagarism. I DID NO SUCH THING! - 172.162.168.111 15:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused. Are you User:Mytwocents? Haukur 16:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Elation! :)

It really is a very happy day! You might consider making Wikipedia an even happier place, by running in the ArbCom elections yourself. ;) Best wishes, Xoloz 23:30, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't commit the time and emotional investment needed to do that job well :) You should run, though, if you feel up to it! Haukur 21:05, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Warning removal templates

The {{wr}} series of templates has been deleted, undeleted, and is now on Deletion review. You may wish to comment. BTW, may be time for you to archive this page. Thank you. John Reid ° 06:01, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

RfA thanks

Thank you for the extra feathers on my wings! Thank you so much, Haukur, for your support in my RfA, which passed on November 11, 2006, with a final tally of 82/0/2. I am humbled by the kind support of so many fellow Wikipedians, and I vow to continue to work and improve with the help of these new tools. Should you have any request, do not hesitate to contact me. Best regards, Húsönd 21:04, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Fairuseold

Hi, Haukurth. I am trying to comply with Wikipedia's image-use policies on Charles Atangana, but I'm still a bit confused. The license you pointed to, {{fairuseold}}, redirects to {{fairuseunsure}}. This one includes the note:

This tag should not be used. Instead, use either one of the more specific tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use or {{Non-free fair use in|article name}}.

It seems that this skirts the issue, since the obvious aim of {{fairuseunsure}} is to say "This picture is really, really old. It's most likely in the public domain, but it's next to impossible to determine that." Do you have any idea what gives? Should I ignore the warning and use {{fairuseunsure}} unless I can uncover photographers' names and death dates or dates of first publication? Changing to {{fairusein}} will result in folks crying, "Too many fair use images!", a tolerable fate, but an undesireable one.

Sorry to bother you about this, but any suggestions are welcome. Thanks, — BrianSmithson 22:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, it's a tough cookie. I would be inclined to use the tag despite the warning as it seems to most accurately reflect the nature of the images. But whatever tag you decide upon make sure you say as much about the images as you know (and is reasonable and relevant). If the book you scanned them from doesn't say anything about their origin then say that. And state within what period of time each picture was most likely taken. Haukur 22:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the tags per your suggestions. Please take a look when you get the chance and let me know if this is a satisfactory way to handle the issue. Thanks, — BrianSmithson 09:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Request

Hello, Haukurth. Today I started template:Baltic emporia, to eliminate some listcruft from Birka. May I ask you to look if the place-names are spelled correctly? If I omitted some important centres, please let me know. Over the following days, I plan to add detailed information about the Viking sites in Russia and make a separate template for these. Thanks, Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:54, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

By the way, don't you think that our coverage of Viking ring castles may benefit from placing them into a separate category? I ask these questions of you, because I don't know anyone else interested in the Viking Age here. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The template looks nice, I have no objection to the spelling (perhaps the 'ó' in Hólmgard is unnecessary). Unfortunately I know very little about the archaeology of the Viking Age, what I know is mostly literature. You could try User:Berig, I think his knowledge is probably broader than mine. Haukur 22:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I'm going to add Lindholm Høje, Kaupang and Dorestad to the template. By the way, could you categorize Skiringssal? --Ghirla ^-трёп- 19:25, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Oswald & a request

Thanks, that should be useful. By the way, I have a small chore that I need an admin to do for me. 2004 Haiti coup should be at the title 2004 Haiti rebellion, as it was initially and remained up until a few months ago. I explained the reason why it needs to return to its old title on talk (no responses): "coup" can only accurately refer to the very last act in the drama, whereas the article in fact covers all the events leading up to that, and moreover some people don't feel it was a coup—they say Aristide resigned of his own free will. I think it was a hit-and-run move by someone trying to make a political point (one that I agree with, if I set aside my wiki-neutrality) without giving any consideration to the nature or context of the article (notice the intro still says "rebellion"—the change in focus that occurred with the move was not reflected in any change to the content of the article, so now the title and the article stand in weird contrast). Everyking 04:55, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

When moving in with my delete button I noticed that the redirect at 2004 Haiti rebellion doesn't actually have a history so no admin action is required.

The substantive issue sounds tough and I hardly know anything about Haiti. The question reminds me of the Deir Yassin massacre debate. Some people prefer Battle of Deir Yassin or Deir Yassin incident as article titles, arguing that the article has a wider scope than the (putative) massacre. Others argue that omitting the word 'massacre' from the title is something of a whitewash and that "Deir Yassin massacre" implies "The Deir Yassin massacre and the events leading up to it". Likewise I can imagine someone arguing that the (putative) coup was the most salient part of the 2004 Haiti events and thus shouldn't be omitted from the title.

But of course it can be annoying when someone makes a move without bothering to bring the article text in sync with the new title. Haukur 10:24, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

By God, you're right, I was able to move it just now. I could've sworn I remembered trying that weeks ago and it didn't work. Everyking 12:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Very minor translation

Hi Haukr! Great work on the skalds! It inspired me to write an eternal stub on Erpr lútandi. However, there is a small text in Skáldatal that might contain interesting information. I simply don't understand what it means: vá víg i véum ok var ætlaðr til dráps. Hann orti drápu um Saur konungshund ok þá höfuð sitt fyrir. Would you mind translating it for me?--Berig 20:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Sure! Roughly: "Erpr lútandi killed in sanctuaries and was intended for killing. He composed a drápa about Saurr konungshundr and accepted his head in return." Haukur 20:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Great and thanks! That story is too good not to include in his article.--Berig 21:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Þakka þér fyrir kveðjuna

Það verður seint um þig sagt annað en, að þú fylgist með vökulu auga. Bústu samt ekki við miklum framlögum frá mér um hríð. Ég hefi svo sem aldrei yfirgefið Wikipediuna, en það hefir ýmislegt gengið á undanfarið, og ég er m.a. kominn með nýja vinnu, þar sem mér finnst ég oft vera eins og drukknandi kettlingur. Jæja, maður nær tökunum fyrr eða síðar. En í bili skoða ég Wikipediu eins og ævinlega og mun eflaust bæta við setningu og setningu hér og þar eftir því, sem skapið býður.

Kærar kveðjur Io 17:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Spánverjavígin

Sæll!

Fyrst ég er nú hér og þú ert áhugamaður um rímur, þá manstu eftir Ara í Ögri, seinasta fjöldamorðingja Íslandssögunnar á skrá. Væri ekki rétt að (og ég skal reyna að grafa upp heimildir eftir föngum, þótt ég hafi varla aðgang að þeim traustum) klambra saman atburðaskrá? Spánverjavígin voru síðasta voðaverk Íslenginga og ég held, að rétt væri að hafa grein um þau frá sjónarhóli beggja aðilja, þó aðallega fórnarlambanna og, eins og enskir segja, "be done with it". Þessar aðfarir voru ógeðslegar, það er rétt að viðurkenna það, en hins vegar finnst mér rétt að það komi í ljós, að ekkert slíkt hafi gerzt síðan.

Skoðun?

Kær kveðja Io 18:56, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Rétt er það, ég kallaði þetta "the last massacre" og ég stend a.m.k. við, að þetta hafi verið fjöldamorð. Þessi skipreka Baskagrey áttu fárra kosta völ annan en ræna sér til matar. Þeir fóru, ef ég man rétt, ekki verr fram en aðrir í þeirra stöðu hafa gert alla mannkynssöguna. Og svo var þeim slátrað eftir að hafa verið heitið griðum, að mig minnir. Ari í Ögri er ekki maður, sem ég hugsa hlýlega til.

Við sjáum til um skriftir. Ég er með margt á könnunni.

Kær kveðja Io 17:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ian Thorpe

Hello Haukur. I've addressed your concern about the copyvio, which has been removed. It has been replaced by one free image and five fair use images with proper rationale. Thanks, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Brain of Pooh

Excellent work, Haukur! That's exactly the kind of bot that I thought was much needed. So much for Gene Nygaard's argument that article titles shouldn't have diacritics because redirects don't exist for many of those. Very good news indeed. :-) Can you run the bot through all the existing articles of Wikipedia? Best regards, --Húsönd 16:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Wintery thanks

From one (supposedly) cold clime to another, thank you for your support at my RFA. I wasn't going to send thank-you cards, but the emotional impact of hitting WP:100 (and doing so unanimously!) changed my mind. Please let me know if I can do anything for you in the future. Cheers! -- nae'blis 23:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Belfast murals

I'm sure that you ask for evidence of rights to use the two Northern Irish murals from the best of intentions, but I doubt it's possible to obtain. Many of the murals in Belfast were painted anonymously by masked men at night, especially if they were paramilitary or covered a previous paramilitary mural. This makes it rather hard to find out who owns the copyright! In addition, I think it is fair to say that there is a fair use for displaying them on the web at high resolution - these murals are extremely public, on prominent roads in the City. They are intended to be seen, as a statement of pride, political allegiance, mourning, or whatever. Whoever painted them would almost without doubt want them publicised. Beardy Mike 20:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind fair use as long as images are tagged as being fair use. Haukur 09:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Flateyjarbók

Hello ! I saw that someone has marked that there are bad weblinks in Flateyjarbók. I'm afraid that I'm not up to figuring out where the linked material has gone to, if it is still accessible. Would you have time to check ? Thanks ! Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Bravalla

Could you help me identify the Battle of Bravalla (770) that is mentioned in my article about Bravlin? It is supposed to be "one of the great battles of early Scandinavian history, a contest that was long remembered by the skalds and chroniclers" and "affected very considerably the distribution of the balance of power in Scandinavia" (Thomas Kedrick's A History of the Vikings). Nevertheless, I can't find anything about in Wikipedia. Thanks, Ghirla ^-трёп- 12:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. User:Berig helped me to indentify the article, which was impossible to find due to the presence of some tiny circles in the title. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 13:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Doing something about the ridiculous date autoformatting/linking mess

Dear Haukurth—you may be interested in putting your name to, or at least commenting on this new push to get the developers to create a parallel syntax that separates autoformatting and linking functions. IMV, it would go a long way towards fixing the untidy blueing of trivial chronological items, and would probably calm the nastiness between the anti- and pro-linking factions in the project. The proposal is to retain the existing function, to reduce the risk of objection from pro-linkers.Tony 15:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Hel and Freyja for Asatruar

You reverted my articles Heland Freyja I’m very angry with you! …(I’m joking!). My articles are seriously sources with famous historians and archeologs. My English isn’t very good I know, so can you find a solution to resume what I've exposed in the discussion pages? Thank’s for your help.Thorgis 09:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I undertand your explanations in "article history" and I’m sorry for my English. I’ll take care to stay completely neutral in regards to subjects. I’m not accustoming yet with encyclopedic definition! If you think that the news articles are better(in discussion page), I request your help to translate in good English with changing few words if I still write not neutral sentences. Thorgis 14:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Why did you remove the semi-protection of RuneScape?

It's really caused a lot of problems, and the page is now being constantly vandalized. We're trying to reach featured article status, or at least Good Article, but with all the vandalism and fancruft, it's nearly impossible. --Pyrospirit ^{Talk Contribs} 17:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Semiprotection is intended as a temporary measure when all else fails, not as a permanent status for articles. It doesn't just block vandalism, it also blocks good faith edits - and you've had some of those too.

If there is severe vandalism from multiple sources then you can semi-protect again, but the shield should be lifted every now and then. Haukur 23:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

FYI

I have nominated User:Berig for adminship. See here: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Berig

Barnstar

Thanks, that's a great Christmas gift :) Sigo 19:27, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Boar's head

Thank you for the great barnstar, Haukr! :-).--Berig 13:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Patent nonsense

Dear Haukr. User:EMT1871 has kindly warned me that the article Runestone U 29 is patent nonsense and tagged it for speedy deletion. What is your opinion?--Berig 17:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

LOL :) Some runestones are indeed "unsalvageably incoherent" (not this one) but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have articles on them. Haukur 21:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Raven banner

I will be expanding this article over the next few days as I'm able, but in the meantime, I wanted to alert you to it so that you could add if you were interested. --Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 23:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)