User talk:Wawelength

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, but when you add or change content, please cite a reliable source for your addition. This helps maintain our policy of verifiability. See Wikipedia:Citing sources for how to cite sources, and the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 00:55, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. I am now adding references to those paragraphs, which you did not delete, - and I will later on put in some of the paragraphs you deleted with proper references.

Trouble with finding your source material for #22 ('PET Kommissionen')

Please help to conserve space in the Tvind entry. Otherwise, it will seem "bloated."

For example, if you use the same reference more than once, you can consolidate them into one line in the references or notes sections. For instructions on how to do this, please refer to [1], then go to the section titled "Same reference used more than once."

You may also want to look at the sections titled "Information to include" as well as "References not online."

I tried to look up your reference #22 (www.petkommisionen.dk 'PET Kommissionen'). I found a Danish language website listing several volumes with various titles, but I couldn't locate the precise place where you obtained your excerpt. Please provide the link directly to the material for which you have provided an English translation.

I am also concerned about the accuracy of the English translation for the above reference (#22). Is it your translation? If so, are you a certified Danish to English translator? I ask because it is difficult to understand the text in several places. For example, you write;

"DAPP arranged courses in Denmark to assist the Africans to live a better live in the refugee camps."

Did you mean to use the phrase "live a better life"? "Live a better live" makes no sense.

In the next sentence;

"When the white regime in South Rhodesia fall, and the country became Zimbabwe, DPP had build an expertise about the country, which likely paved the way for that the organisation could establish itself as a local partner of cooperation for a number of donors.

In the above sentence, there are two occurrences of incorrect verb tense ("fall" should be "fell", and "build" should be "built"). Use of the wrong verb tense can make sentences very confusing.

Even more confusing is the last clause;

"which likely paved the way for that the organisation could establish itself as a local partner of cooperation for a number of donors."

This is not clearly written. What were you trying to say here?

Further down;

"The so-called Frontline Institute became established in Denmark in 1983 and Africans and Europeans as well became educated to build up Front Line Village Centres to function as examples of the positive development in Africa."

This sentence is a bit clumsy, and could confuse readers as to your intended meaning.

In order to be helpful, I have cleaned up several occurrences of what in my opinion was confusing and poorly written English text within your contributions. But I'd rather not continue with such, as I'm simply doing your work for you.

It is also my opinion that much of your original contribution reads like it came directly from a Tvind company brochure. If this is in fact the case, such rhetoric[2] may not meet Wikipedia's neutral point of view guidelines.[3]

In addition, please try to avoid run-on sentences. Thank you.

As you know, I strongly prefer English language references for this English language wiki. Call me a purist. However, as you seem to strongly prefer Danish language references, I thought that you might be interested in the following:

1) "Imperiet" (The Empire), a documentary on Tvind's alleged serious financial crimes; from TV2 in Denmark (2000): [4]

2) Notice of Appeal with Indictment ("Forkyndelse af Ankemeddelelse med Anklageskrift") for four Tvind leaders, posted on July 14, 2011 by the Danish State Prosecution Service to Statstidende, the Danish government's official website: [5]

3) A January 7, 2012 news item from the Jydske Vestkysten newspaper in Esbjerg, Denmark about four former employees of the Casablanca residential center in Holstebro who are suing Tvind for several hundred of thousands of DKR each. They claim that they have worked many more hours than what they were paid: [6] Saskehavis (talk) 06:08, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

On translation

Thank you Saskehavis for some of the above comments. I have corrected the translation, and you may see some of your comments reflected in the corrections. Yes it is my translation and I am not certified Danish to English translator. And it is not a Wikipedia-required qualification for me to be a certified translator. A translation of such a source has to be faithful. Faithfulness is the extent to which a translation accurately renders the meaning of the source text, without distortion. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation. This means a translation of such a source does not necessarily be easy to read. You seem to imply that I prefer Danish sources for English sources. I do not. And I am not quoting any brochures. Wawelength (talk) 11:40, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Dear Wavelength:

If you don't actually prefer Danish language references, you certainly have included quite a few of them in your contribution. That is why, incidentally, I've assumed that you are a Dane; I also had already assumed that you're not a professional translator.

As for concerns over accurate translation, you appear to summarise a Wikipedia guideline as saying:

"This means a translation of such a source does not necessarily be easy to read."

I assume that you meant to say "This means [that] a translation of such a source does not necessarily [need to] be easy to read."

I haven't read that guideline. However, here on English Wikipedia, all I can say is "how fortunate for non-native English speakers." And how unfortunate for native English speakers, most of whom don't understand one single word of any other language, and generally have difficulty deciphering the clumsy writing of those who haven't yet mastered English as their second language. Furthermore, I think that for the majority of native English speakers, coming across reference material in a foreign language would effectively thwart access to such a source's content — unless one can afford to hire a good translator.

And again, Google Translate is generally not reliable, despite the hype.

Yes, that reference translation that you cleaned up is better. Thank you. But you still missed a few errors:

1) " ... to live a better live in the refugee camps."

I assume that you meant to say " ... to live a better life ..." (that last word should be "life," not "live").

2) " ... which likely would pave the way for that the organisation to establish itself ... "

In English, it is incorrect to include the word "that" in a sentence such as this. Remove it, and the sentence will read correctly.

As for my other comment suggesting that you are merely copying Tvind companies' brochures, I didn't intend to imply that that was in fact what you were doing. Rather, I was commenting that, in general, your contributions tend to read as if they could have come directly from a Tvind-related company's public relations material on its website. I'm referring in particular to a recently added section called "DMM," which, by the way, contains several misspelled words. Just run the text through an online English spell-checker for clues.

In my opinion, all of this may come across to most American and British readers as so much long-winded rhetoric ('vidtløftig retorik' på dansk). To be honest, it can make for some very tedious reading (meget kedelig læsning).

In addition, if there are ways to economise on space, please do so. One example of this is to consolidate a reference used more than once into only one reference listing. There are several examples of such in the Tvind article. Perhaps you could also try to be more succinct with your descriptions of the various Tvind school programs, and leave most of the details to the actual reference material.

Brevity in writing may make one's contributions more "readable" and understandable. One certainly wouldn't want to make it appear as if one were filling an article with a lot of filler just to impress and overwhelm the reader.

By the way, have you had an opportunity to view the TV2 documentary on Tvind? [7] I'm also interested to know what you think about the Danish State Prosecutor's Service of Appeal Notice with Indictment to four top Tvind leaders, now posted on the Danish government's official website Statstidende: [8] Saskehavis (talk) 00:02, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

To whom are you referring?

I have some concerns about your "Controversies and opposition" section.

To be frank, much of this section is written like high-flown opinion (højttravende udtalelse), even though you have included apparent references to support your material. How unfortunate that all of the references in this section are in Danish and apparently unavailable anywhere online. I suppose one will have to take your word for these, unless one is willing to track down a hard-copy of these references and pay to have them translated from Danish.

In the first paragraph, you say that "disagreement and even anger emerged" and "opposition emerged." From whom and where did these feelings emerge?

Moreover, in several places there are references to "politicians," "media," "others" and "individuals." Why aren't any of these people named? Such vagueness makes this material seem even more like mere opinion.

An example of this:

Certain media some politicians and others like to describe this issue as “Tvind” being on trial and as Denmark’s legal showdown with “Tvind” that the persons not having received the notice of appeal as “fugitives” etc.

Setting aside the very poor syntax of the above sentence, the reader may reasonably gather that you are expressing an opinion here. Which media? Which politicians?

In the subsection "Criminal allegations and 2 verdicts," there isn't a single reference. In addition, there are no names given. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saskehavis (talk • contribs) 22:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I have reinserted most references again, because my references in this subsection was lost, probably when you, Saskehavis, began an editing process asking for references at the same time as I was inserting references. More references will follow. Wawelength (talk) 23:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Wawelength, it is vital for you to understand that regardless of how many references you add, much of your contribution still reads like a personal opinion, which it basically is — in my opinion. That's not what Wikipedia is for.

Furthermore, when readers see that many of your references are not in English and apparently unavailable online, they might find it difficult to take your material seriously. You see, realistically, virtually no one is going to try to verify your content by first tracking down printed material in Danish, and then pay to have it translated. Thus, many of your references are, in effect, utterly useless to 99.92% of the world's population — those who don't speak Danish.

By the way, I'm curious to know if you are a student at one of the Tvind schools in Denmark. Or are you a member of Tvind? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saskehavis (talk • contribs) 03:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC)