User talk:Dahn/Archive 36

Altermedia

You asked yesterday: "It's hard to track down, but the whole deal actually relates to a neofascist site, managed by David Duke, that ro:wiki kept using as a source (you actually commented on it at some point, when a user kept pushing it here)."

Yes, I've been following the discussion, slowly forming an opinion (I had never heard of that site before the subject came up, on the VT talk page). As you probably know, I don't like to jump to conclusions, but rather, I prefer to look at an issue from several angles, wait for various evidence to be presented, and give everyone a chance to make their case (which is so diametrically opposite to what some ro.wp guy commenting on the notice board recently assumed I do, that it's simply hilarious). At any rate, the evidence you presented yesterday on the RS noticeboard—this document from the Internal Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia—has clinched the case for me: not only is the tendency you describe apparent by looking at the posters displayed on that site, but this is confirmed by an un-impeachable source.

On a lighter note, I meant to link something in the above to the saying, "Who you gonna believe? Me, or your lyin' eyes?", but alas, it's not on WP. I thought it was from the lyrics of Lyin' Eyes, by the Eagles, but not quite. I'd be curious to know where it comes from, if you have some idea (I still think it's from some lyrics, but more likely, from the 1950s). Turgidson (talk) 21:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The NYT attributes the saying to Richard Pryor, but again, I suspect it goes back much further. Turgidson (talk) 01:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Lots of food for thought, but the subject is too weighty (and not very pleasant), so perhaps it can wait for after the New Year? Looks like a tangled web, it's gonna take some effort to untangle all that. In the meantime, yes, alas, Richard Pryor was no longer so funny in his later years, but I still remember Blazing Saddles fondly. The Who you gonna believe... expression is quite notable, I think — and is used in a variety of forms, contexts, and meanings. An interesting twist is that it is sometimes used to make the opposite, counter-intuitive point: that images can sometimes lie—well, that is, when taken out of context, they can manipulate and/or distort what they are supposed to show. (A sample usage is on this blog, referring to the photo discussed here.) But probably the most common usage is in political commentary, with the meaning sort of like Pryor's and the Eagles' (hey, you don't like Hotel California? I think it's one of the great rock songs of all times!). Does any expression like this exist in the ro media? I mean, I can just envision a Saturday Night Live-type of sketch, with a guy stuffing blutwurst and palinka in the trunk of his car, caught on camera by some enterprising newshounds, explaining, with an air of pained innocence, Who you gonna believe? Me, or your lyin' eyes? Sounds too far-fetched? Turgidson (talk) 21:36, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

The TV story is good — I didn't know it (I studiously avoid watching TV, much prefer the www). Yep, I'm thinking of adding a page on that expression (and various other sayings and proverbs, when I get the knack on how to go about it); I still need to research the history of it, and dig out good quotes from RSs. (The master at this sort of thing is William Safire, in his long-running "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine, see e.g here; that's a potential goldmine to dig for various etymology and usage issues, I wonder whether anyone has looked into it here at WP.) As for songs: well, it so much depends on when one first hears them — they tend to be much better when fresh, than after years of use, over-use, and abuse (think muzak). Dated as the music in Hotel California may be now, the lyrics are still rather stunning, I think (and also, full of hidden references, I hear). At any rate, one more parting thought on all this: did you know that the well-known expression, Life in the Fast Lane, comes from that same Hotel California album? (And not from Life on the Fast Lane, which came later.) Turgidson (talk) 02:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Funny how free association goes! While searching for some piece of Bill Safire related to the above musings, I stumbled upon this piece from (one of the branches of) the outlet in the section title. I don't have the patience, or the inclination to read through more of this stuff, but, if this article is any indication, yes, this is really, really fringe stuff, that I cannot imagine would pass muster with any of the relevant WP policies. At least, I hope not. Turgidson (talk) 04:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

And here is The San Diego Union-Tribune's take on one of the threads above: "Perhaps the governor's idea of faith is what Groucho Marx had in mind with his line, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”" OK, Duck Soup makes more sense, and is way before either Pryor or the Eagles. So I googled with renewed energy, and found this discussion of the phrase, which refers to wikiquote for a Chico Marx attribution! Turns out that the guy running this Language Log is Mark Liberman, who also gives there a really apt (though grammatically shaky) usage of the phrase, by Slavoj Žižek, in a New York Times piece referring to the classic TV performance by Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf. Hmmm... One really needs to get to the bottom of this. Turgidson (talk) 17:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Christmas wishes

Dahn — thanks for the wishes. Here is a Christmas carol to mark the spirit. Enjoy, and have a Merry Christmas! Turgidson (talk) 14:39, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Merry Xmas

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Crăciun Fericit!--R O ^{A M A T A A} | msg  17:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

translation

User:Adrianzax just wrote something on my talk page in Romanian. I have absolutely no idea what it says. Can you help me out please?! K. Lásztocska^talk 23:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

You think you've bored me enough? Not at all! It is so nice of you to offer such a detailed reply.

I used to know Romanian better than I do now. One of my neighbors was Romanian (he moved out about six years ago), so I had some incentive to study. Now, the incentive is not so strong; there is no longer any real-life incentive for me to learn Romanian.

It's also nice to wind down and talk about languages. In this case, Romanian, in which somehow I ended up using an "elegant" expression that I guess I can use again: foarte mulṭumesc for "boring" us and lightening the mood! --Kuaichik (talk) 05:12, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Romanian Declaration of Independence

I added an entry about that, at Declaration of independence. Couple of details to check--since there is no article per se on this, just a mention (alas, too brief) in Romanian War of Independence, itself viewed by some as mergeable with Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). I went by the new-style date of May 21 (old-style: May 9), since that's the one mentioned in that article (where the declaration by Kogălniceanu in Parliament is mentioned), but I listed King Carol as the signatory, since he officially signed it, on the next day, May 10 old style (the national holiday for many years after, but then again, we don't have a specific page for National Day of Romania). But now we have a bit of a contradiction here: logically, it should be either May 21--Mr K, or May 22--King C (though no one knows those dates by the new style, but that's another story). Any ideas how to get out this jam? Thanks. — Turgidson (talk) 18:14, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Job hunting at Unibuc

Getting back to the Barbu/Barbilian thread, how do you like this story on how he got a job at U.B., way back when? I bet you a nickel to a donut that something like this could not happen nowadays—no way, José! At any rate, have a happy 2008. — Turgidson (talk) 05:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Looking more carefully at all 4 articles involved in this story (Gheorghe Vrânceanu, Miron Nicolescu, Grigore Moisil, and Dan Barbilian), I see that they were hired at U.B. in 1938, 1940, 1941, and 1942, respectively. (I should have known, since I worked on all 4 articles, but I'd forgotten the exact dates). So it looks now to me that the story from the MacTutor archive is not quite right -- probably true in rough outline, but embellished to make it sound better. Most likely, seems to me, the time frame got compressed: the position must have opened in 1938, GV got it, then GM appealed (probably not in 1941, as they say at MacTutor, but in 1938/39?), so they gave the positions in order to the other 3 guys, as the positions became available over the next few years, with our friend B/B bringing up the rear. Now, this is just my speculation, of course, but this sounds much more like the modus operandi of Academia—it couldn't have changed that much in the past 65-70 years! Finally, note that GV and MN were at U. Cernăuţi, and GM at U. Iaşi before coming down to Bucharest, but the B/B article does not say what he was doing beforehand — I assume he was mostly hanging around Gambrinus, writing poetry or something :), but I'm not sure. But it makes some sense to me that he would need some "pull" from GM to get the prof position at U.B. (was he even an Asst. Prof. somewhere beforehand?), whereas for the other two guys (pretty big shots, let me tell ya), I kind of think they simply did it by themselves. At any rate, that's about where I am right now with all this, I'll try to dig out some more stuff to clarify all these stories, and set them straight (though it's probably not so easy). If you happen to know of some sources that may be helpful with this, I'd appreciate. Turgidson (talk) 06:20, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

email

hi there, check your wikimail. something strange is afoot in Romanian corners of the Wiki. K. Lásztocska^talk 05:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Romania Help

Hi - I'm working on a split of Category:Communes and villages in Romania because someone made a lot of stubs. I based some edits on previously created categories for communes, but I am not so sure that make sense now that I've looked at it more deeply. Do you think it would be better to make categories for communes, for localities, or for communes and villages? There are all three types in the category. Whatever is best, it should be done in a uniform way. I know I made a lot of edits already, but if you (and Romania wikiproject) think something else is best, don't worry -- I'm willing to change it all back. Looking forward to your opinion. Aelfthrytha (talk) 06:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXII (December 2007)

The December 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

hi there friend !

I want to show you some article www.ziare.ro/articol.php?id=1195855382

this is only a sample, if you want more about this subject you only have to ask. Regards ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adrianzax (talk • contribs) 16:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Back?

Things are kind of getting crazy around here—starting to feel like this guy here. Perhaps we need an article on Bălăceanca—does that place exist, or is it just a myth? Turgidson (talk) 16:19, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Take it one step at a time, no hurry (Mother Nature can play games when one least expects them!). And yes, that redlinks fan (who takes about 10 edits to create one) is just one of the holes in the dike one tries to plug. I think I'll go watch once again this movie; was it shot here? Turgidson (talk) 17:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

urgent!

Check your wikimail as soon as you read this message. A very serious and urgent matter has just revealed itself and I need your input. K. Lásztocska^talk 17:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply, and I eagerly await your full response. I'm scared sick about this.

BTW, isn't "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco? If so, count this as the fourth time in as many weeks I've been urged to read his novels...may just have to get around to that one of these days... :) K. Lásztocska^talk 17:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Try The Name of the Rose first, I think it's much better. Foucault's Pendulum starts great, full of promise, but then it slowly drifts and meanders, till it loses its way. Still worth reading, but the first one is the real masterpiece, I'd say. Turgidson (talk) 03:07, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I would be glad if anyone could explain to me Baudolino (oh, there's an article...) -- AdrianTM (talk) 04:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Dahn, I just had another thought and emailed you again. :) K. Lásztocska^talk 17:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I'm taking it quite seriously, don't get me wrong. I just still can't quite figure out what we should do beyond the emails I mentioned. (btw, regarding my other idea, you probably know much better than I what groups might exist that should be contacted...and I couldn't contact them anyway, not speaking the language...) K. Lásztocska^talk 00:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

...right, good point. I make things too complicated sometimes...K. Lásztocska^talk 02:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Housekeeping

Welcome back. A few matters to greet you with:

1. Is this this?
2. Is this new title correct, and the title of this new page?
3. Some arguably strange happenings on President of Romania and especially Template:Heads of State of Romania - I hope you agree the version listing everyone is a bit absurd; even putting Văcăroiu, and Băsescu twice, strikes me as a bit silly. Biruitorul (talk) 02:20, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem and thank you for the reply. Indeed, the troublemakers are proliferating. See Ploieşti - first of all, the image gallery (!), and second, passages like this one: "The lack of motorways and well-built roads in Romania makes transport a challenge, but the situation will change. Rather slowly until now, with only one undergoing motorway and another one ready to start, hopefully faster in the near future, under the scrutiny of the EU, the motorway infrastructure will improve substantially over the next years. Why is this important for housing? Being next to a busy road will have a negative impact on the interest for a property, but being in the middle of nowhere does not make wonders for the price tag of a house, particularly for working couples. ... Therefore, buying land in the vicinity of soon-to-start major road developments, either for housing or for industrial projects, is likely to be a very good investment." Again: ! -- Biruitorul (talk) 01:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Romanians

This is the last warning you will receive for your disruptive edits.
The next time you vandalize Wikipedia, you will be blocked from editing. Greenrico09 (talk) 02:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

WTF? K. Lásztocska^talk 04:43, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I have my doubts as to whether this warning is legitimate. See my first comment here. How can Greenrico09 warn you, Dahn, when he just declared himself an admin just a few hours ago and joined Wikipedia only yesterday?! --Kuaichik (talk) 05:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Ohmygah...this place is getting too damn WEIRD. Fake admins, rabid fanatics, blackmail, sockpuppets....*head explodes*. K. Lásztocska^talk 05:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry much about the fake admin thing: looky here, he just plays with the tools of the trade, but they don't have any power. I don't really understand how all this works (and I'm not really that much interested at finding out, except on a techie level), but why let newbies play with matches like that? At any rate, what's all this about? The fairy moon? The Curse of Turan extended by osmosis? A katadesmos? Strigoi and vârcolaci? Quick, where is the garlic? Turgidson (talk) 05:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Let me guess, Bonny? -- AdrianTM (talk) 16:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Nah. Can't be. May Professor Moriarty? Turgidson (talk) 17:13, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I wish I could squeeze in an "Evidently, my dear Watson", but the fact is I'm clueless. The real mystery here is why the joker hasn't yet been banned (and no, I don't mean "blocked"). Dahn (talk) 01:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

If you mean Adrianzax, it's because I've been trying to ban him, but at the same time I have work to do in RL. So I'm trying to balance both efforts at the same time. --Kuaichik (talk) 02:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, that would be something, but I was actually referring to the guy who left me the above "warning". Btw: sorry for not yet answering your earlier posts - it seems that as soon as I got back from my relative isolation, I walked straight into this mayhem. Dahn (talk) 02:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

PS: When will they learn to love me in El Salvador? :) Dahn (talk) 02:32, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Whoa. The newbie-made-admin? Are you sure you want him banned? I hope what I'm about to say isn't just plain dumb, but this is all I can make of the situation right now: calm down, he's just a new guy; no need to bite his head off. He probably just doesn't know what he's doing. What I wonder is how on Earth he got those tools in the first place, and who could have possibly given them to him! And don't worry, I'm sure the salvadoreños love you as you are ;-) --Kuaichik (talk) 02:46, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was wondering s'all :). It's not like I want him banned or have lost my temper, but it looks quite clear to me that when one goes around impersonating an admin he's asking for it. In fact, I wonder if that isn't perchance how this story is going to end. And, as far as I can see, it's not like he has those powers: the guy is just pretending he has them, and for some incomprehensible reason they let him keep pretending. I mean, come on! Dahn (talk) 02:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's not lose our temper, isn't anyone allowed to leave warning templates? (like this one: Template:uw-vandalism4) I left some before for some obvious trolls, I didn't have the impression that you need to be admin to do it... -- AdrianTM (talk) 04:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Adrian, I did not actually lose my temper, and I'm not intrigued by the template itself - or rather, what intrigues me about the template is that it advertises some disruptive editing from my part (reverting to a version that at least did not have spelling errors, and that was the result of seeming consensus), that it is formulated as a "last warning" with no preceding warnings, and that it coincided with page protection. What leaves me scratching my head till it's raw and bleeding is how this guy can go around impersonating an admin, especially seeing that he is himself responsible for some rather severe disruption in the process. Dahn (talk) 04:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, the reason the warning is there is that Adrianzax reported you to Greenrico, whom he (for obvious reasons) mistook for an admin, during the most recent battle on Romanians. Greenrico, apparently not knowing much about the nuances of the subject at hand, took him at his word and assumed you were a vandal. I too am mystified how he can get away with impersonating an admin though...K. Lásztocska^talk 04:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Hm. Now, this MO rings a bell. Who remembers this gentleman here? Dahn (talk) 04:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

But why would Bonny impersonate a 15-year-old from El Salvador?? The Bonaparte heyday was before my time but I've seen enough of his sockpuppets to get a general feel for him, and my Bonny-radar is definitely NOT going off now. Or are we saying Adrianzax is Bonny? (Again, no blip on the radar. But maybe he's getting better at disguising himself?) K. Lásztocska^talk 04:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, considering that he did spend months on end editing small in Israel-related articles and passing himself as a Jew (well, that last one is not actually a first, I guess - the man thinks he has the perfect "cover" to introduce any sort of nationalist rant by producing this disclaimer, which is actually sad even if his claim were true) just so that he could "warn" me, "mediate a dispute" and then rant all over the place that I am a vandal, El Salvador doesn't seem that far-fetched. With Mr. Zax, I would say it's more on the meatpuppet side, and there may be an even more disturbing connection there if I'm allowed to put two and two together. Dahn (talk) 05:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, so I might be right after all (I had the same flashback about HIZKIAH, and the language used in the user page is very similar to our puppeteer). And Dahn, I did't know about other instance of impersonating an admin, I just mentioned that anybody is allowed to add that template as far as I can tell from that Recent Changes Patroller page.-- AdrianTM (talk) 05:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to agree with that, though, it has to be said, most other admins will simply laugh off a first and only "last warning", handed by a noob under the circumstances. I tend to delete such warnings on my page as soon as I notice them, because they are mainly a way of tarnishing a reputation (and false warnings are a form of vandalism, while deleting any warning is interpreted as a sign of you having noticed it etc.). I left tis one here because of the interesting discussion it sparked. In any case: Bonaparte or no Bonaparte, I can't see this guy going too far as an editor, let alone as an admin. Dahn (talk) 06:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm clueless on Baker Street, but here's a little pic to inspire y'all in your cogitations. Turgidson (talk) 05:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have access to coke as Mr. Holmes... :D AdrianTM (talk) 05:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. It just occurs to me that, since KL plays a classical instrument, we're sorted as far as to who's who in that scenario (though I'm sure she's way better than Sherlock). Dahn (talk) 06:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Not just any instrument, the violin! I certainly hope I'm better than Sherlock...if not, I'm wasting my conservatory tuition...K. Lásztocska^talk 06:13, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

This reminds me of that old Russian joke: Holmes and Watson went camping. After they went to bed, in the middle of the night Holmes wakes his friend up and asks: "Tell me, Watson, what does this starry sky tell you?" -- "It tells me that the weather is going to be nice in the morning" -- "And to me it tells that someone has stolen our bloody tent!". Turgidson (talk) 05:35, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this Russian joke is more appropriate: "Stirlitz opened a door. The lights went on. Stirlitz closed the door. The lights went out. Stirlitz opened the door again. The light went back on. Stirlitz closed the door. The light went out again. "It's a fridge," concluded Stirlitz." (only that in this case it's Bonny not a fridge... patterns my friends...) AdrianTM (talk) 05:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Old it may be, but I still giggled. Did you happen to see that Treehouse of Horror Simpsons episode where Lisa is Sherlock and Bart is the [verbatim] "easily amazed" Dr. Watson (where the Scotland Yard's official motto is "What's all this then?", and where they arrest a Peter Pan whose one line is "I shall never grow old" - to which the Victorian Chief Wiggum replies "In jail you will")? It's magnificent. Dahn (talk) 06:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, Russian jokes! Hooray! OK, here's my favorite: there comes a knock at the door, and Shapoklyak answers. She sees King Kong standing in front of her. "Is Krokodil Gena at home?" asks King Kong. "Umm...no, sorry, he's not here," says Shapoklyak. "OK," says the big hairy brute. "When he gets back, tell him Cheburashka stopped by to say hello--just got done with army duty, you know!"

Not that it has any bearing on the situation at hand. I just like that joke. On a serious note, maybe some checkusers are warranted here? I didn't ever have any contact with HIZKIAH, so I forgot that about the whole Jew-impersonation creepy bit... K. Lásztocska^talk 05:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I read the Krokodil Gena story in Romanian (Crocodilul Ghenea şi alte povestiri), and I wouldn't have thought anyone outside of Russia other than a bunch of Romanian youngsters remembered him. Say what you want about the Soviets, but some of their children's stories were beautiful.

Checkuser? Perhaps, but it would be quite hard to formulate the grounds (in these cases, it may be better to have an admin well-acquainted with Bonnie looking directly into this). I've watchlisted the Bonnie-related checkuser page (his one true accomplishment) as a shortcut to file the ones I spot, but there are other things I would rather do at the moment (before logging off) - one of which is chatting with you guys. Dahn (talk) 06:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It's only in this past few months I became acquainted with Cheburashka et. al.--I had to take Russian last semester for an easy credit and one of the first things we did in class was watch the Cheburashka cartoons. :) Consider me hooked! I didn't know he'd made it to Romania though! K. Lásztocska^talk 06:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I never saw the cartoons, alas. I only have the illustrator's take on the characters to get me going. I have serious problems with finding out who was who from Russian to Romanian (I forget what exactly they called Cheburashka, but I think it was something like Trampampam or Hodoronc-tronc). It was a package deal with some other stories: something about a tractor called Tr-tr-mitea and about the postman Cuptorin. Maybe I'll reunite with that book one day and add something to the respective articles on names the characters had in the Romanian edition. (It would be interesting to see if Bulgarians and East Germans and, hey, Hungarians could do the same...) Dahn (talk) 06:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think a checkuser would be successful since this is only a hunch, we don't have enough proof. As for hunches, I will keep an eye on this new guy who seems obsessed with Romanian economic issues (just like youknowwho) AdrianTM (talk) 06:17, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, the new guy is definitely him. Dahn (talk) 06:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Writer reverts

Hi,

The default size is still included in the rewrite; I'm sure this could be fixed if you could give an example of a broken article. It's difficult to fix issues like this without feedback, because sandbox edits can only test so far. Can you give an example of an article where the infobox "looks like crap" in the most recent revision, so that it can be corrected? Thanks. Chris Cunningham (talk) 23:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Mircea Eliade

I brought up a rather important concern on the talk page for Mircea Eliade. Any input would be appreciated. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 06:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Vlach language in Serbia

Where do you see a POV here?? --Olahus (talk) 21:44, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Even the serbian wikipedia says about the so-called "Vlaški jezik": Vlaški jezik je popularni srpski naziv za arhaične rumunske dijalekte kojim.

It seems that your real worry is not to hurt the feelings of some serbian nationalists here.--Olahus (talk) 22:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Just cos

Nengscoz416 (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

excuses, excuses....

;-) Actually the situation seems to have calmed down for now, at least there have been no new developments. The same, unfortunately, can be said for my wiki-productivity...K. Lásztocska^talk 20:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Eliade

Thanks for doing all this research! I'll look over it, but I can't promise to get back to you right away. By the way, I again have the Politics of Myth book I told you about, so I'll be adding stuff from there in hopefully not too long. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 00:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi

Please see my revert here and see if it was correct. - Francis Tyers · 12:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

It appears that a gentleman has aired his grievances on the talk page. - Francis Tyers · 12:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Diacritics

Ploiești, Iași-Chișinău Offensive and now this - are we at the edge of a precipice? Or can we pull back from the brink? S-comma and t-comma are correct, no doubt, but I'd rather not get into mass page moves, if you know what I mean, and now we have two standards, which is also damaging. I hope we can find a solution. Biruitorul (talk) 12:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Can I intervene (somehow Dahn's page remained in my watch list), I don't see a problem with this move since this seems to be the standard in Romanian, the other one is not a "standard", it's probably acceptable for the reason that's not really noticeable, but it's not the official standard as far as I understand. -- AdrianTM (talk) 14:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Adrian, aside from the fact that only the Acadmy uses the official version, and aside from the fact that many users will not be able to see the new diacritic as anything other than a square (unless we turn it to unicode in every single place), and aside from the fact that English wikipedia would become more Catholic than the Pope (given that not even rowiki uses that character), can you imagine changing the gazillion instances where the latter shows up, just for the sake of changing it? If this was really necessary (and it isn't!), I have to ask: why the hell didn't people start doing it back when there where two articles on Romania, and not several thousands?!

It's these nonsensical moves which make me grow really disenchanted with wikipedia, and in particular with Romanian-related wikipedia patterns. Dahn (talk) 14:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You are right then I didn't know that it doesn't show on some computers, on my it looks OK even though I don't think I can type them, let's see: ţş, yep. --AdrianTM (talk) 14:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Oddly enough (even if I do say so myself), I never use my keyboard to type any diacritic (I have no diacritic installed on my default keyboard, and use the shortcut keys only in various individual programs). What I do here is click the tiny icons at the bottom of the editing window. Dahn (talk) 14:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You know what, I never paid attention to those tiny icons on the bottom of the editing window, that's a good tip for blind persons like me. -- AdrianTM (talk) 15:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm don't intend to change my keyboard layout in order to side with the majority. There are free fonts and free operating systems that support the standard orthography and if people have trouble they can install them. If you want to revert me go ahead. My objection is not on visual grounds, but on character encoding grounds. There are many other barbarities possible with character encoding, I don't support them either. - Francis Tyers · 14:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The cross-over could be done rather trivially with a bot. The fact that the correct encoding is not being used devalues Wikipedia as a resource. Converting from ș → s<turk> is easy, because ș is not found in any other languages, s<turk> → ș is harder. I don't think ș is going to go away, and if people want to keep changing ș → s<turk> then fine, but it is up to them. Anyone who uses GNU/Linux is welcome to ask me for help in configuring their system to use the correct characters. - Francis Tyers · 15:04, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand the part about seeping into other languages. - Francis Tyers · 15:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

This can be done in an automatic manner and I'd hazard the accuracy to be approximately 90% if we use a wordlist and only do replacements based on known words (in Romanian) -- I have personally a wordlist of around 500,000 lexical forms, but this could be expanded using the flexonline database. It will need to be done at some point anyway. - Francis Tyers · 16:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, thankfully it seems that crisis has passed, for now. By the way, this isn't an article I regularly monitor, but talk about some absurdity! (Which grew out of this.) Granted, a mention in the etymology section might be appropriate, but until "Servia", "Siam" and "Belorussia" appear right away, this is quite silly. Also semi-related: this -- I'm not one to see "anti-Romanianism" around every corner, but really, that was a bit much. Finally: I know you're busy with other projects, but good old (well, not so good, but anyway) Ghizela Vass cries out for your attention! Biruitorul (talk) 02:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll see about the wider Eliade issues, but on the more technical points: a search reveals he had a Social Security number - 320-34-3616 - but he could also have been a permanent resident, so nothing definitive there. This should be of more help for the cause of death; turn to the next page for burial. Biruitorul (talk) 04:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Just checking, but this is worthy of deletion, right? We've kind of decided there is no Székely language, there definitely is no "Krashovanian" or "Lipovan" language (and no unified Chinese one either), and the whole thing feels rather contrived and a duplicate of this. Biruitorul (talk) 00:35, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Nominated. Was the Eliade death link helpful? By the way, this reminds me - I put a couple of proposals at the bottom of User:Dahn/Templates. What do you think of the general idea? And what other parties might we extend it to? (What I mean is it would be rather boring to do for Becali's party (it's had only one leader, I think), but there may be others with longer, more complex histories where a template would be illuminating.) Biruitorul (talk) 02:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, yes. I put in the troika separated by dashes, but if it needs a footnote, I can put that in too. I could also put in dates, particularly as the PCR is no more so we don't risk overcrowding with new leaders, though that may be in excess. Anyway, I'll formally create the templates soon, unless you get to it first. Biruitorul (talk) 05:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, although for now at least, one of us has been driven away from Wikipedia. Biruitorul (talk) 17:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

No, it didn't have practical consequences, but one might expect administrators to be more discerning, and to take a harder line against trollish behaviour as opposed to more productive editing. So it was a voluntary decision. Biruitorul (talk) 18:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Now that's a BAD decision! I know that he became (uncharacteristically) a little bit heated because of moronic attacks but this is ridiculous. -- AdrianTM (talk) 21:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe if someone like me joins the admin team. Indeed, my next RfA is on the horizon, so watch and wait... Biruitorul (talk) 22:02, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Michael the Brave

Hi Dahn, I just overhauled this article and would like to put it on A-class review as soon as posible. However any additions or copyedit (especially) would be more than welcome. Just take a look when you have some time... Thanks and best regards, --Eurocopter tigre (talk) 16:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

"Nominator's Vote"

Just a quick reminder that there's no need to advocate "Delete. Nominator's vote" in an AfD discussion that you've created. The nominator is automatically assumed to be advocating deletion, since they created the page in the first place. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 00:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

"Eliade's spouses"

Hi, Dahn. Thanks for summarizing my article published in Contrafort, actually I am working on a book on Mircea Eliade right now and I am eager to help u at finding any important informations on Mircea Eliade. The book will be published this autumn, I hope. Nina Eliade, his first wife, was a typist, before she married Eliade she had been the ex-girlfriend of Mihail Sebastian, and she died of cancer in Portugal. Eliade was convinced it was his fault cause he forced her into making an abortion that caused her death. His second wife, Christinel, whom he met in Paris, was the sister of the famous Romanian conductor Ionel Perlea. She survived Eliade and died few years after him. Mayuma 92.80.76.149 (talk) 16:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Mayuma, and please excuse my tardiness in replying. By the moment you posted here, I had managed to find the minimal info on Eliade's spouses (the "what, where, when") - provided we don't go into too much detail, I would of course welcome any other information on this and all other parts of the article. At the moment, however, I was not able to track down any other published sources for those details, and I think the article is (as any article should eventually be) past the stage when unsourced info is added to it - in fact, I'm in the process of, among other things, smoothing it out to either source or remove all remaining bits of unsourced info (most of which were by now trivial). They did prompt me to do some more searching, and I was able to track part of the info you provide above in other sources. Since the text is turning massive, we may actually have to see about creating a separate article on Christinel Eliade, and probably include more detailed info in some sort of subarticles.

I think that the best and easiest thing to do would be for me to buy your book when it is eventually published and add more more ferences from it (way short of plagiarizing it, of course!); the situation is a bit awkward, as I'm sure you see: on one hand, you are obviously the best person to summarize your texts and include info from them; on the other, it goes without saying that your priorities are in publishing the book and other material, not in expanding wiki articles, so I do not mean to imply that you should summarize them, and neither do I want it to seem like I would start copying from it once it is in my hands. I am looking forward to reading it, though.

At the moment, I have not yet summarized your Contrafort article outside of the talk page, but I do intend to use it as one of the sources for the article, with more or less text depending on where it fits into the article and how relevant it is to the subject as a whole (having glanced over it, it would seem that the bulk of it could be used as a source in existing or possible spin-off articles).

Keep in touch, and best of luck on your book in the meantime. Dahn (talk) 07:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

FYI

[1] K. Lásztocska^talk 21:34, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Closed. WHOISed the IPs, resolved to Germany. Will ^(talk) 22:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi

Please tell me why you keep removing the link to information about this city. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lpscal (talk • contribs) 22:41, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

German

The DYK above your message is deceptive: that is what we call a machine translation, albeit with the necessary improvements in grammar. It even (probably) contains a couple of mistakes that will hopefully be corrected by someone who actually knows the language. That said, if I have time I am willing to type in some of the text into Babel Fish, but for more concrete translation help, if would suggest someone else - I really don't know German! (And would that I did - great FA earlier this week.) Biruitorul (talk) 23:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Stop the presses! You may be looking at my first FA, once it undergoes the necessary improvements. Biruitorul (talk) 00:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, the author tells me improvements are indeed necessary, so FA status is some time away, but eventually I trust it will get there. Biruitorul (talk) 01:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts on Constantin Schifirneţ? Rădulescu-Motru is mentioned. Anyway, most of the last paragraph can probably be thrown out. Biruitorul (talk) 17:32, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Military history WikiProject coordinator election

The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process is starting. We are aiming to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by February 14! TomStar81 (Talk) 02:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXIII (January 2008)

The January 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 23:34, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

once more unto the breach...!

I've finally nominated Joseph Szigeti for Featured status. Your comments and input would be much appreciated. K. Lásztocska^talk 05:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

YYYYESSSSS!!! Geez, took me long enough but there it is, with a nice shiny star on top. Thanks so much for fixing up the references...I really had no idea how to do that... :) K. Lásztocska^talk 04:12, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I figure this cabal spot is as good as any to place a message. Yes, of course, your vote will be most meaningful and appreciated. I've said I need one FA before I run, and I will work on that in March, so April is fine with me. By the way, any thoughts on this? Granted, an English version should ideally be better presented, and go back to 1921 if possible, but the idea of listing Politburo members seems like an appealing one. Biruitorul (talk) 17:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC)