User talk:Jamesinderbyshire/Archive 3

BISE

Just to take this off the BISE page. You said I wasn't imputing that motive to you -> Fine, so why bring it up in response to my post? It certainly doesn't make sense as a general point to interject with in the middle of a discussion about whether "British Islands" is an appropriate term to use. It was crystal clear to me that you were lining that comment to point at me. This is the 2nd or 3rd time you've put out the barbs in your comments, especially when replying to one of my posts. I've explained why I push back at comments such as these, so forgive me if you believe that my reaction is OTT, but having been on the direct receiving end of 2 years of abuse from what is turning out to be a very small number of nasty editors, I can see how my wiki-reputation as unfairly suffered as a result. Why is it that if you comb through the BISE discussions, just about all of the ad hominen commentary comes from the proBI brigade? There's a difference between commenting as an intelligent British editor with a strong opinion, and commenting with the intention of undermining editors on the "other side" of the debate. --HighKing (talk) 15:59, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I will try to be more careful around you. I genuinely didn't and do not mean it as any sort of offensive remark against you. Surely it isn't actually? Isn't it the case that at the heart of this dispute lies the fact that many Irish people do not agree that Ireland is part of the British Isles and therefore find the term offensive? Is that not at the heart of it for you? I thought we had established enough of a working relationship that we can be straightforward about views. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 16:02, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks James, I appreciate that. To be perfectly truthful and frank, I don't find the term "British Isles" ... offensive. That's not a word I'd use at all (at all). But there *is* a marked difference in how I might use the term, compared with, say .... I dunno - you? I would use it freely and without thought if I was talking about the highest mountains or longest river, etc. But when culture or people are somehow involved, I find myself thinking in terms of Irish, British, (or celtic, saxon, pict, etc). Equally, I'm not bothered with the "Rocky Shores of the British Isles" - perfectly sound usage as far as I'm concerned. But I would be unhappy with a statement that the "Martello Towers were designed to protect the coastlines of the two main islands of the British Isles as a whole." But offensive? I genuinely believe that a lot or Irish people find it more ... annoying .. than offensive. A bit like the way some British don't like being called "European" I suppose... --HighKing (talk) 16:29, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually I find that very helpful, thank you. It's useful to know where people are coming from. For my part, I can see merits and de-merits in it's use. I've spent time in Ireland and heard it used in casual conversation there so on a strictly OR basis "believe" it to still be in use. I am probably much less bothered by it being removed from articles than some British editors might be, provided sound reasons are put forward. My own background is fairly typically English but I have had a lot of exposure to foreign concepts like "Europe" and "people from across the waters", so can handle difference. I hope. Sorry if it sound sarcastic when I was speaking in the BISE page though, I am aware that sometimes when I reach for flip it can come across cutting. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 16:53, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Australian policy page

Hi, I'm unsure which article you were referring to at the British Isles talk page. It's just my opinion, but I'd have thought "British Isles" should be linked only where its delineation (against UK, Britain, Great Britain, etc) were important or at issue in a particular context. Do English-speakers commonly need to go to the article on BI in most contexts?

Good linking practice is typically regarded as selective, to avoid diluting the high-value links we might hope a few readers click on. In practice, there's a strong suspicion that readers click on very few links, anyway. WRT the linking or non-linking of Australia in articles on Australian policy, my problem is that the Australia article is rather unfocused in relation to that specific topic, and that anyone who chose to read a Australian-policy-related article, having arrived via google or from within WP, would already know the basics about Australia. Your thoughts? I have watchlisted this page temporarily if you wish to respond here. Tony (talk) 11:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, but surely people in most cases find an article like "White Australia" direct from a Google search - the effect of your script is then to knock out the "easy explore" mode of wikipedia, eg, the famous ability to enter the web of links and jump from page to page and context to context. I do agree that we shouldn't be smothering articles in silly links but surely an article about White Australia can carry one link to "Australia"? You seem to be taking it to extremes and not just that, enshrining it in a script! Does your thing run all the time, or is it just a page-by-page scan thing available to editors? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 09:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't run the script all the time—occasionally. Most unlinking I do manually, anyway, even when I have used the script (the script can't possibly contain more than a fraction of what needs to be unlinked to optimise the wikilinking system). From "White Australia", I'd be inclined to link to the relevant section(s) of the article on "History of Australia". One of my primary objections to the blanket linking of country-names is that they would take the read to a very general article, but should direct to as specific a target as possible. In terms of British Isles (I haven't looked at the article and its relatives, I must admit), I'd also be looking at not linking unless there's a specific reason to in a context, and where that context is historical, to encourage the linking to a section. Wikilinking can be so good when highly specific, and so bad when not. Is this a good idea? Tony (talk) 10:24, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

PS and here's Racism in Australia, which is a start, although I see it has a problematic tag at the top. Section 2, possibly, which would lead on to 3 and 4 if the reader wanted to? Or straight to 3 or 4? That, to me, is part of the satisfaction of combining good prose with good wiki-functionality. Tony (talk) 10:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's a complicated problem and I can quite see that tools may be helpful - at least it isn't a daemon type of program, which I thought it might be. I think I agree that for example it's not useful to link every country or placename reference - it's when they shade into something more complex that I would worry. Actually I think British Isles is an example of that, because it isn't a country - it's a complicated place/concept (as I'm sure your brief glimpse of the BISE page will have convinced you!) - as for example are the shadings of Europe - European, Europeanness, Europa, EU, Europe-wide and so on, one of which crops up in the Australia racism page. So perhaps in the final analysis it's all about one's judgement call is on what constitutes excessive linking. I am happy to delete links myself where they are surplus but tend to the view that for a country it's often, but not always, OK to have one in. For something more complicated than a country which is country-based, like British Isles, I would be inclined to leave one in. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 11:26, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Confession...

...I've refactored a comment you made at WT:BISE. This was in no way due to any "bad behaviour" on your part: it's because you referred to a view I'd expressed during the course of the unstructured discussion, and I don't want my view to influence the close. Hope that's OK. TFOWR 11:45, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

OK. I suppose I may have been attempting to summon the spirit of an admin for my case a little bit there. My next move is to invoke the Bodhistavas. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 11:56, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

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ANI

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Zuggernaut (talk) 21:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

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List of largest empires

Hi there. We're having a content dispute at the article above - the list of empires has a large 216 entries, and currently the article sees fit to repeat this list 6 times! Clearly a waste of storage and bandwidth. A better solution (saving at least 30% and making it much easier to read and use) would be a table with a column for each attribute, sortable, as used in many other articles (see the discussion). However, a silent editor keeps reverting attempts to clean up the article, without explanation. Please see the discussion (currently nobody disagrees). Your comments would be welcome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.18.207 (talk) 21:18, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

United Kingdom

Howdy James. AFAIK, the Queen only uses english when delivering her speech from the throne. I don't recall the UK Prime Minister speaking in english & welsh (the way the Canadian Prime Minister speaks in english & french). I'm just upset that there was no consensus for inclusion & now there's calls for a consensus for exclusion - Something just isn't right, it's as though a house was built on a property without permission & now the builder has suddenly claimed he won't remove the house without contrary permission. GoodDay (talk) 21:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

It should revert to the previous status quo, which was not having it, whilst the discussion is underway. I don't place a lot of store on the head of state using particular languages as proof though - I think the reality is that the UK does not have an official language but that it is de-facto English for obvious historical reasons. I don't buy the argument that because something is official in Wales this officialness can then be mapped UK-wide as regards Wikipedia articles, since we already have a clear wiki-wide consensus that they are treated as being distinct countries. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 22:56, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I too believe it should be 'only' English, at the top of the infobox. However, a consensus isn't gonna be reached on that (nor on English/Welsh), so I'm supporting Snowded's 'drop down' solution. GoodDay (talk) 21:41, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The "consensus" is nonsense - but if you want to drop in and out of the argument with varying positions, that's your call. Jamesinderbyshire (talk)

We can't leave the infobox heading blank, of course. GoodDay (talk) 22:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Looked throught the other country infoboxes & couldn't find any with the set-up the UK article has. You're correct, the drop down should be deleted & the infobox heading left as english (as this is English language Wikipedia). GoodDay (talk) 16:36, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

No doubt, when the time comes for deletion (assuming no evidence has been presented in favour of Welsh), I'll be reverted (possibly by an editor who hasn't taken part in the discussion these last few days). GoodDay (talk) 16:32, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Or months, maybe? And someone never before involved in such matters. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 16:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

It's been deleted, per my edit summary. GoodDay (talk) 17:18, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Not surprisingly, my English-only restoration was reverted. Also not surprisingly, your temp-restoration of English/Welsh, wasn't reverted. I'm simply flabbergasted as to how, after 17+ days, those editors are continuing to push the Welsh version, into the infobox heading. You'd think they'd be satistfied with the 'regional languages' section, but ohhh nooo. This is the diacritics (at hockey articles) scenerio all over again, for me. Editors, who seem to want to make English language Wikipedia into Multiple languges Wikipedia. Try that stuff on non-English language Wikipedias & see how far one gets. GoodDay (talk) 21:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I pushed it that way as it's less ridiculous than having the whole list (why not BSL? Cornish? Old Norse? Spoonerish?) but it can't stay as long as the infobox header means official language of the territory in question. Actually, a simple framer to Project:talk Countries would be "does the presence of language alternates at the top of national article infoboxes mean that those languages are official languages of the nation described?". All this guff about Welsh being "in" and not "for" is so much hot air. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 22:01, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

They've flipped their beanies. GoodDay (talk) 22:18, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Minor point: just noticed a posting a few days back where you said you wer confused by what the new Welsh Language Measure was actually doing/changing. In fact you were looking at he draft as originally proposed which didn't say anything about making welsh offcial. The version as passed was amended to include section 1 making Welsh official. DeCausa (talk) 02:00, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for that DeCausa, I noticed that myself in mid-discussion! The clarity of the final document is high compared to the previous one, which was obviously drafted by civil servants anxious to avoid making it truly official - I wonder if the motive for that came from knowledge that it would confuse UK status, leading inexorably to things like our debate! I was reading in a constitutional blog the other day that there is still deep confusion about precisely what powers the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies have viz-a-viz precedent-setting for the UK. Apparently New Labour left things in a fudged mess in some important areas. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 11:32, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

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Credit Rating Agencies

Hi My concern about the citation is two-fold: first, the cite you gave is actually to a blog article citing to a New Stateman article. It might work better to cite to the original. (After all, most readers probably have no idea who this guy is, and you can find a blog posting saying just about anything.) Second, the claim that the rating agencies gave the subprime mortgages a high rating and the US a high rating, and Greece a low rating despite having the same deficit level, is not quite the same thing as saying that the CRAs are politically motivated. Particularly since much of the rest of the article seems to be saying that there is a common perception about Greece that is wrong. Just because the CRAs hold the same common perception doesn't mean they are politically motivated -- they could just be herding.

Another concern is that this is not as common an accusation as is the others, though that may be different in Europe. If you believe it should be in there and you see this charge made relatively frequently, and not just by one guy, it might make sense to put it in a separate bullet. But on that point, though, I would contrast it with the more common claim that CRAs using the issuer-pays business model are inherently conflicted -- you can't one one side say that the CRAs go easy on issuers because the issuers are paying their fees, and then say that the CRAs have a political grudge against those same issuers and give them too low a rating. (Particularly since, in this case, the CRAs are actually regulated by the governments getting downgraded.)

But on Pilger's article in particular, the argument about the CRA ratings and the comparison between US and Greek debt levels is weak. US debt is denominated in US currency -- worse comes to worst, the US can just inflate some of that debt away while still nominally paying it off. Greek debt is denominated in Euros. It can't inflate the debt away (in this sense, Greece is more akin to California) and the worst case scenario is default. Also, US economic growth rate is far greater than Greece's, so the prospects of the US outgrowing its debt is greater. These are just the more obvious reasons for the discrepancies. My real point is that any article on this point should really present stronger evidence. Or, alternatively, a statement from an EU politician or something like that (since they don't really need evidence to have an impact). Epstein's Mother (talk) 03:33, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I just now saw your note that you check the other person's talk page. I should have left the message on my page. I'll leave it on that one as well, and you can delete it here. Epstein's Mother (talk) 03:35, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Notification

Hello, Jamesinderbyshire. You have new messages at Talk:Famine_in_India#Disruptive_editing_by_User:Jamesinderbyshire.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Zuggernaut (talk) 16:28, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I just placed a warning on Zuggernaut's talk page. You can see from the link he has been forum shopping again. If this carries on I think it may be time to post an ANI report and request some sort of constraint on his AGF issues. What do you think? --Snowded ^TALK 06:39, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Wales, welsh etc.

Given that you are now broadening the debate considerably you may wish to consider raising your concerns at this project page --Snowded ^TALK 15:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course I'm not broadening it, just querying your point about the accuracy of Wikipedia articles - if Welsh language's intro is correct, then it already makes it perfectly clear that Welsh is official in Wales. In fact, it seems to be you who is repeatedly suggesting we need to take this to some outside forum, as a way to gain objectivity, on a point that is really not factual, but semantic - that "in the UK" is different to "of the UK". However, the ramifications of that would affect hundreds of national articles, as it would mean that all current alternate language headers on infoboxes are wrong, because they are currently taken to mean "official" whereas you (I think?) are proposing they mean something else? "Contained within"? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 15:18, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I have answered that particular point (again) on the talk page. As far as I and other editors are concerned if Welsh is official in Wales, then it is an official language of the UK. There is no need to rewrite other articles as a result. I do think that you and some of your supporters are making this a wider issue. DeCausa for example is arguing elsewhere that England, Scotland and Wales are not countries. There is a danger here of getting yourself caught up in a British nationalist bandwagon. Please take that as friendly advise, I have gained respect for you working on Indian Famines etc. I think this particular one is running out of control. --Snowded ^TALK 15:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

This is nothing to do with England, Scotland and Wales being countries, which is widely accepted. DeCausa's views are not mine and this is my talk page. Back to the subject in hand. How can you possibly logically argue that it has no bearing on other articles to push a claim for a national article that a minority language official in one part of that country is therefore official for the host state? Surely you can see the difficulty in that. What about China, India, Indonesia, the USA, Brazil, to name but a few? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 15:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Its your talk page which is why I gave advice here not elsewhere. Your call if you take it or not. Interestingly the UK is different from the USA in that the current (and past) acts all trace their authority to the Crown. The position of the states in the US has no Federal support, so there is a difference. That is the only one I looked at, but I would say that spanish is de facto an official language in much of the USA! I think there is a case for indicating that some official languages have minority status (in part that was my idea in reducing the font size, but one could add a note). If the number of languages are large then drop down boxes could be used. Maybe even two, one for minority official languages, another for others. --Snowded ^TALK 15:43, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the problem is essentially presentational. If they are official minority languages but not official at the mothership level, then there should be something like a small box at the foot of the panel (as we saw in the excellent es-WP example) that displays the official minority/regional languages. That could easily also cope with the "special case" of constituent countries. I see where you are going with all the stuff about distinct legislative and constitutional arrangements for the UK, but the reality is that the current wikiwide usage for the top of the panel means state official lingualities - it will surely be very difficult to draw the UK as distinct, even if we accepted that Welsh was an official language of the UK, to quote your recent sentence. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 15:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Well it links to the thing that both of us were uncomfortable with, namely just listing all and any languages regardless of status. Just to float an idea (without prejudice) ....

.... If we created a drop down box for "official minority languages" which included those on the passport and another for "other regional languages and dialects" would that work? By linking "minority" to "official" we avoid any potential confusion. --Snowded ^TALK 16:07, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean a drop-down at the top of the article? I think the problem with those is they seem to show up as a big list in both Firefox and Chrome whilst loading is taking place, so you get a wierd impression of the infobox with a big list. Sounds like an idea worth developing though - we probably need someone good at wikidesign to work us up an example. The big countries with loads of languages of different statuses deal with it currently just by having a link through to a seperate article. We could also do that, as we actually do have multiple statuses in the UK. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 16:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking in the information box - aside from being the right place the design is easier as its contained. As to browsers, well people who don;t use safari ask for everything they don't get --Snowded ^TALK 19:53, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Before I post a revised proposal, are you open to a compromise along the above lines? Given the entrained patterns of editors contributions it would take something coming from both sides to make a difference. --Snowded ^TALK 06:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not quite clear what the compromise is. What would the title and position of the infobox element be again? Maybe drop an example in here? I'm probably in favour of it, unless it's all some terrible trick. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 08:34, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

OK let me be a bit clearer. At the moment we are arguing about if welsh should be in the information box under english. That includes a dispute as to what having the language in the information box means. So the compromise is to create two drop downs in the information box under the english language text. One will say "Official minority languages" and the other "Other languages in use". That way there is no ambiguity, the prominence of the next is reduced. --Snowded ^TALK 09:45, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I don't have a problem with the titles or (presumably) the content. As I said above, there's still a problem with the positioning. At present, when that dropdown pops up as the page loads in (I just tested) most browsers including IE, it looks as if that is the complete list of official languages of the country. I say "looks as if" based on my perception that the apparent precedent set on all other national articles is that that is the place to look for official national language translations. So the positioning is, I believe, strongly relevant. From our previous conversations, I assumed you were going to position it lower down the infobox to avoid this issue being raised. It sounds like the alternatives are:

(1) We request assistance from the wider community to clarify the role of the alternate language placements at the top of the infobox. What precisely do they imply? As you've previously suggested doing.

Or...

(2) We position it lower down as with other minority/regional languages in other national infoboxes where they have a lot.

Or...

(3) We get nowhere.

Thoughts? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 09:50, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I should add by the way that I can accept that there are strange things about the "constitution" and legal structure of the UK that mean it isn't as clear-cut as some and therefore may require special treatment, but the examples raised by Spain/Catalan, K-of-N and others suggest it is not totally unique and those articles deal with it in a pretty uniform way. My main concern is we don't mislead. The present situation is misleading, because it suggests to a casual reader that Welsh has UK-wide official status in the same way that, say, French has for Canada. That's not to say that Welsh has no official status in the UK, but the discrimination between the perception and the vagueness of the actuality is not best conveyed by using the uniform method. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 10:10, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Well the language box needs fixing, there is a significant difference between a official minority language and a recognised regional one. To be honest I'm not sure some of them are really recognised. That aside agreeing titles is important so possibilities open up if you are happy with that phrasing. As to position, what page are you testing on? I have four different browsers on this computer so can check --Snowded ^TALK 10:13, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I have to go out now and won't be in until late this evening, so done for now I'm afraid, but happy to re-engage with this tomorrow if you want some more thinking time too. I will think about it some more as well. I agree there is imprecision in the nomenclature and that needs looking at in more detail as well if you are envisaging a list under several headers. As regards the browsers, I am looking at the history of the page before I reverted the dropdown [1] in Firefox, IE and Chrome (all latest versions) However, I don't think it's only the browser effect that matters, but the position at the top, as the latter implies high-level national officiality (I think) in the current precendence. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 10:37, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Lets chat tomorrow and see if we can get agreement, worth a bit of effort --Snowded ^TALK 15:45, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

break

Sounds interesting, apart from the Safari bit. Do you read the ibores strip in Private Eye? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 20:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Last time I read Private Eye was when a conference speech I was giving (the title) ended up in Pseud's Corner and that was a decade or so ago --Snowded ^TALK 20:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Aha, so cool! What was the title? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 20:07, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I may have it somewhere, but it was a paragraph long and IBM PR were less than happy ....--Snowded ^TALK 20:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh well, it can be a claim to fame now. Many of us have just dreamt of making into Pseuds Corner. Although reading your material in general, hmmm, perhaps it was bound to happen. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 20:13, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I may forgive you for that one, but not this year --Snowded ^TALK 20:14, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it should go into Dave Snowden - much more notable than "he lives in Lockeridge", wheresoever that may be. Not even a notable place in it's own right, although I suppose it would be if it mentioned Dave Snowden lives there. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 20:15, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey I put work into the Lockeridge article, don't knock it. Only village in the Doomsday book not to have a Church for starters. And its exactly the same travel time to Cardiff Arms Park, Heathrow Airport and the Royal Opera House --Snowded ^TALK 20:20, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a nice article, just think it could do with the glamour your association would provide. Perhaps you should mention the travel times as well! I don't believe them though. No way is Heathrow the same travel time as the ROH, unless you are cheating and using the train. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 21:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Travel time is travel time so its not cheating! Yes ROH is by train, Heathrow and Cardiff by car. Otherwise there are limits to what you are allowed to do on Wikipedia - I haven't added the link to Lockeridge, Mold or Lancaster University, but I have reverted Irvine adding it to Swindon! --Snowded ^TALK 06:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

My fingers are itching this morning. They want to add a bit to Cynefin with a Private Eye reference. My feet want to visit that huge bookshop in Hay where they keep all the Eye backnumbers. And you thought I had potential. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 08:32, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Other comments

Snowded lost me big time, on the in Wales = in the UK & in the UK doesnt = of the UK. I don't know where the logic is coming from for that stance. Thus my decision not to argue with him at the discussion page anymore. Per AGF, I don't believe Snowded's trying to drive me nuts, but the effect is the same. GoodDay (talk) 15:59, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Its not intentional GoodDay, its just a consequence of something (fill in the blank) and remember I have a degree which includes logic--Snowded ^TALK 16:07, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Did it have a module in "sewing semantic confusion" Snowded? (joking, honest. Couldn't resist. Off to see my Doctor for the medicine now.) Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 16:14, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

You get that one in Rhetoric (which we were formally taught in schools). Interesting semantic confusion is key to conflict resolution in the real world, allows you to move forward. --Snowded ^TALK 16:13, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, rhetoric is a very useful skill. Sadly though it doesn't always have good outcomes - I am thinking of Tony Blair's skills in that department for example. Good wiv de verbals don't always amount ta good wiv da actions. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 16:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Degree shay-mee. GoodDay (talk) 16:18, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Well I teach from time to time in Canadian Universities. I would enjoy having you in the class ... --Snowded ^TALK 16:19, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

The mind slightly boggles. Do you also have a module in scatter-gun remarks for GD? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 16:24, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking of setting his wikipedia editorial history as a case study for analysis --Snowded ^TALK 16:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

It wouldn't work, trust me. PS: I've a High school diploma, so there. GoodDay (talk) 16:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know GD, you might find a good solid course in logic and rhetoric quite helpful - Snowded sounds like just the chap! Not to mention he's a Knowledge Management expert! Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 16:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Retroactively speaking, I don't believe in the Education system, it robs people of some of their individuality. It was basically a social thing & a daily relief for parents. GoodDay (talk) 16:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Winging back to the discussion (Snowded), I just noticed your latest remark on the UK talk page. Permit me to dissect it.

I said:

"So the position now being put by yourself is that an official minority language legislated for in a region can be said to be an official language of the host nation. Do you agree, yes or no?"

To which you replied:

"To the way you have phrased the question "No", otherwise I see both of my statements above as consistent with the discussion so far. I am feeling hopeful that you are starting to understand that the position you are arguing against is not one held by your opponents."

Dissecting your statement, you are saying "no" to the proposition that a minority regional language is official for the host nation. So in fact, you now appear to agree with me that Welsh, which is official in Wales and a government-recognised minority language in the UK, cannot be an official language of the UK? If not, what exactly is your position. I'm not inviting you to go off at some new tangent - just in the logic of the above statements. I presume it will be your contention that Wales is not the equivalent of a region, am I right? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 19:50, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

My goodness, I was off internet for a few days and the UK talk page has blown out of proportion. Someone who knows how should reduce miza time. As I am in a total disconnect with the current talk page, even though I've read it, there is a note just after the name in the lede with minority languages. Is that relevant to the debate? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:57, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

From what I've been observing, there's very little chance a consensus will be reached to include the Welsh version. Certainly not by shrouding it in any compromise. Its best chance of inclusion, was the 2-questions being prepared for the entire Wiki-community, concerning Infobox heading criteria. GoodDay (talk) 19:27, 2 January 2011 (UTC)