User talk:Otij

Adage[edit]

Are you sure? fr:Adage is a disambiguation page that points to fr:Proverbe. —Ignatzmice ^talk _contribs 03:56, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

adage= adage(adagium) proverb= proverbe(proverbium) maxim= maxime(maxima) aphorism= aphorisme(aphorismus) etc.

It is not acurate to link to "the french equivalence**" or synonymous , you must link to the exact translation/word : both words are from the latin word adagio/adagium and share the same sens and roots. Unfortunatly the french page for adage is not very explicit.

there is no german roots in this word ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ObfuscatePenguin ** ) --Otij 04:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome!

Hello, Otij, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome!

I've noticed that you do not agree with my reversion of your contribution to Adage, so please allow me to explain further. Your translations are impeccable: you are quite right in stating that adage (English) = adage (French), and that proverbe (fr) = proverb (en); however, I think that you may have misunderstood the purpose of the "in other languages" section over on the left. These links are not meant to give a translation of the article title, as if it were an English–Other Language dictionary. They are there to link to the equivalent article in that language's Wikipedia, so that users who understand one of those languages better than they understand English can read an article on the particular topic more easily. In the case of the French Wikipedia, they have chosen to call that article "Proverbe", so that's where the interwiki (that's what we call links to other wiki-sites, outside the English Wikipedia) should point.

At the moment, the French Adage page is a disambiguation page that firstly states:

Un adage est un ancien proverbe.

The English Adage article also states:

Some adages are […] generally known as proverbs.

Therefore, it does not seem unreasonable, to me at least, to link directly to Proverbe (so a user only has one link to click) instead of to the Adage disambiguation, when the user is almost certain to click the link to Proverbe there (ultimately requiring two clicks to get the information they wanted). Of course, you are welcome to provide a better Adage article over on the French Wikipedia, and then come back and change the interwiki here, but, for now, I think the direct link to Proverbe is most appropriate, so I'm going to restore that.

Please, if you still disagree, do not immediately change it again. Wikipedia works by building consensus: try to convince others of your point of view on the Adage talk page before making the same change.

I hope I've provided you with a decent clarification here, but, as I stated at the beginning, if you have any more questions, just go ahead and ask. ObfuscatePenguin 18:43, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

i think you don' t like it point to a 90% empty page that's right? it is just an esthetic point of view and not a disambiguation. you don't speak french or spanish to know how it could be translated in? yes it is unreasonnable because it's not accurate thing to do , you are misleading french readers to think that the word adage = proverbe . do you see spanish readers having them language scratched like that ? the link goes to adagio. 1) "Please, if you still disagree, do not immediately change it again. : try to convince others" not something you did before undoing two time what i did. 2) " Of course, you are welcome to provide a better Adage article over on the French Wikipedia, and then come back and change the interwiki here" you never been a contributor to the english adage page, still you are undoing without using the talk page; so that special rule apply only to me?

PS (post scriptum) : i notice in the history :(2nd—and final—revert). final?

--Otij 04:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

i think you don' t like it point to a 90% empty page that's right?

The page length is irrelevant. I don't like it pointing to a disambiguation page instead of the equivalent article. The first user to comment above also seemed uncertain of your change.

it is just an esthetic point of view and not a disambiguation.

The French Adage page is a disambiguation page. Aesthetics do not enter into it.

you don't speak french or spanish to know how it could be translated in?

You shouldn't make assumptions about people you do not know: I know enough to understand the page you want to link to.

yes it is unreasonnable because it's not accurate thing to do , you are misleading french readers to think that the word adage = proverbe .

I've already typed that I agree that it's not a literal translation; however, literal translations are not always the most appropriate.

I don't want to mislead anyone. fr:Adage states "Un adage est un ancien proverbe", while the French Wiktionary's entry has "adage […] 1. Proverbe, sentence populaire.", and "Synonymes proverbe"

Are they misleading French readers too? Or could it just be that adage and proverb(e) really are synonyms?

do you see spanish readers having them language scratched like that ? the link goes to adagio.

And the German link is to de:Sprichwort, which translates correctly (though not literally) to "proverb". So let's just stick to the English/French debate, shall we?

1) "Please, if you still disagree, do not immediately change it again. : try to convince others" not something you did before undoing two time what i did.

Since another user (above) also questioned your change, and none of the previous contributors to the article felt a need to change it, I believed that there already were people who would agree with me.

2) " Of course, you are welcome to provide a better Adage article over on the French Wikipedia, and then come back and change the interwiki here" you never been a contributor to the english adage page, still you are undoing without using the talk page; so that special rule apply only to me?

In a way, yes. Because I wasn't altering the page, so much as changing it back to a version others were happy with. But, in general, the notion of consensus does apply to everyone, although I've just explained why I thought I already had it.

PS (post scriptum) : i notice in the history :(2nd—and final—revert). final?

As in: I'm not going to revert it again, regardless of whether you change it for a third time or not. You see, Wikipedia has a three-revert rule to prevent conflicts from escalating. I don't want to argue with you; I'm just trying to make things better. Which I'm sure you're trying to do to. It's just that, in this case, we disagree on how to achieve that.

I have a solution, which I have already hinted at, but will now build upon.

If you follow this link to your sandbox, and write two short paragraphs there in French about what an adage really is, I will help you to make both this and the French Wikipedia better—and certainly more accurate—by making sure all the wikilinks are rewritten properly, and I will support your change of the interwiki. How about it? ObfuscatePenguin 09:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A new French adage article[edit]

I just created a new article at the French Wikipédia: fr:Adage (expression); it is a translation of the first two paragraphs of Adage, and interwikied to it. I hope this is to your liking. The new interwiki points to a page called Adage—just as you quite rightly wanted—and the target is a true article, rather than a disambiguation page, which is better for interwiki links in general.

With that now settled, I'd like to make sure you understand a few things about Wikipedia to make things easier for you. If you haven't already done so, reading the articles I mentioned in my Welcome message will give you a lot of information. And here's a little definition list for you too.

Disambiguation page: A disambiguation page is a list of alternative meanings for a term. fr:Adage is a disambiguation page because it gives a list of things that adage can refer to, e.g. a proverb, in dance, in law. Here is a link to the French explanation: fr:Aide:Homonymie.

Language interwiki: A link to a page in another language's Wikipedia that covers the same concept. Remember, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a dictionary; its purpose is to explain concepts, not to define words. This is why many of the interwikis are not literal translations: because the purpose is to link to a translation of the idea, not a translation of the article title.

It may also be useful for you to spend some time editing the Wikipedia of your native language, where there will be more people to help explain things to you in your own language—something that I certainly can't do, unfortunately—so that you can learn the basics more easily. Assuming that's French, the place to get started would be fr:Aide:Sommaire.

But, whatever you decide, I'd like to repeat "Welcome to Wikipedia", and I'm happy to help you in the future, if you'd like. ObfuscatePenguin 18:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]