User talk:Mahagaja/Archive 44

Miami and the papists

Glad you made those changes I only suggested. I avoided making them, frankly, because I find that pages with any possibility of controversy whatsoever (in other words, 87% of all pages) are riddled with tripwires that bring zealotry out of the woodwork (and other dimensions)... and, to be slightly kinder, because FA status tends to be loon-bait. So I amuse myself with tiny tinkering here and there. --- OtherDave (talk) 14:10, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

A discussion you might be interested in

There's a discussion going on regarding fair use overuse that you might be interested in. See Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Severe_overuse_problem. Quick and dirty summary at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Another_fair_use_debate_has_erupted. Enjoy, if possible :) --Hammersoft (talk) 19:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification, but I try to avoid discussions like that because they just make me angry. Since I can't accept that nonfree images are ever acceptable (except possibly in cases like Golden Arches and Swoosh where the image itself is the topic of the article), I'm not going to be much use in helping to carve out a compromise on the issue anyway. —Angr 20:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

• I'll keep that in mind in the future. I was hoping you could do exactly that; step in and help craft a compromise. The debate is spinning in circles, with no way out other than draconian (either way) measures. I don't blame you for your stance. I find the situation very frustrating as well. Onwards to meat based vegetarianism, --Hammersoft (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Another discussion you might be interested in

Per your comment as you voted in opposition to Kurt Weber, perhaps you'd care to leave one here as well. Daniel Case (talk) 00:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

aia vs. aya

Thanks so much, Angr, for your succinct and sourced explanation to :ru:en transliteration query on the RD/L. It put me on the fast track to making a recommendation for the purpose of standardizing our archives key words. As the data base program is diacritic-unfriendly (only nondirectional quotation mark allowed!), the natural choice is y rather than the i meant to represent, what, a diphthong? On the other hand, I'm somewhat uneasy about putting the letter y in the middle of a VCV sequence, as this might overtly or covertly encourage its being (incorrectly?) regarded as a consonant, i.e. a-ya rather than ai-a (with a glide ending the penultimate syllable; is that what the source indicates?). I hope this description is comprehensible; it's been a looooong time (= since the mid-1980s) since I really knew something about phonology. Anyway, I'm dealing with visual (= textual) material and will leave English-speakers' grasp of Russian names at that level. I subsequently—in the interim between reading your response and writing this (tardy, pardon me!) thanks and acknowledgement—encountered Dmitry Karbyshev (a current subject; am keen on expanding his page!) and checked my memory by viewing the page for Dmitri Shostakovich...which I take to be a canonical romanization...sigh! I'm not taking this one back to the drawing board, and I think I've nailed another letter in my as-yet-incomplete attempt to master the Cyrillic alphabet. (Next, Arabic.) -- Cheers, Deborahjay (talk) 11:04, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm no expert on Russian phonology, but I'm pretty sure that -aya is indeed [a.ja], not [ai.a]. Anyway, mastering the Cyrillic alphabet on its own terms isn't hard, what's hard is finding a romanization that optimally fulfills the (often mutually conflicting) desires of being (1) legible by English speakers, (2) consistent, and (3) unambiguous, especially if a fourth requirement of being diacritic-free (or more concretely, of sticking to the ASCII 94 printable characters) is added. —Angr 12:35, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Reference desk question

Sorry to bother you, but I didn't understand your answer at Reference Desk/Language fully. I posted a follow-up question there. thanks, --Soman (talk) 20:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

edit summary...

[1] Responding to that being bad style I must point out that "English" on its own is incorrect style and the use of the word "originating" is just bad grammar bordering on purposely picking out the oddest sounding reference not to mention the awfully lacking and biased quality of information in that lead section. ~ R.T.G 01:48, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't disagree more. How is English on its own "incorrect style" and how on earth is it "bad grammar" to use "originating" here? It clearly sounds more natural to say "English is" rather than "English language is" ("The English language is..." would work, but it's not clear that anything is gained from that), and "originating" is clearly better than "developed" in this context. You might have "a West Germanic language that developed...", but "a West Germanic language developed" makes it sound like an intentional endeavour. garik (talk) 14:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Help with Image problems

Hi, Angr. I suspect the following images of being copyright violations, but I'm not sure what tags to use. Can you help? File:Britneyspearsonyx.png, File:BritneyGMA2008.png, File:BritneyGMA.png. The Bookkeeper (of the Occult) 03:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The two that aren't being used I would take to WP:IFD on the grounds that they're orphaned and low-quality (out of focus, she's not facing the camera, whatever) as well as your suspicion that they may be copyvios. The one that is being used you could take to WP:PUI and explain your reasons for believing the {{PD-self}} tag is false. —Angr 09:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Image Question

Hi Angr. I am wondering about your map of Berlin and the districts and boroughs. I am wondering if there was a way to contact you directly? Skyandbase (talk) 21:54, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure, if you want send me an e-mail, just go to Special:EmailUser/Angr. —Angr 23:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Season's greetings

Wishing you a merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid al-Adha, Winter solstice, Zamenhof Day and Hogswatchnight — and all the best for 2009! ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 16:28, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

English language

Hi. I tend to agree with you [2] and the tag was my last resort. The best thing would be to have the map changed (reverted to the old version, a user included Malaysia in spite of all the facts). I'm not able to do that, but perhaps you are. The second best option would be to have only the map tagged as incorrect in the article, but I don't know hot to access {English language} in which it is inserted. If none of these better options can be addressed, I still think that the whole article will need to be tagged as the map is in violation of OR. However, I do hope we can find a better solution. JdeJ (talk) 13:13, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I can change it. Is the only change to be made that Malaysia should be gray? Singapore should be light blue, right? (Not that it's really visible anyway, but it's the principle of the thing.) —Angr 13:26, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Precisely, thanks for your help! JdeJ (talk) 16:29, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Masspike.png

Thanks for deleting Masspike.png, thus making Wikipedia:Copyright_on_highway_shields useless for discussion of the copyright status of that shield. Did you know that use for commentary is a protected fair use regardless of whether anybody puts that in their Wikipedia fair use justification? Check to see where an image is being used before you delete it, kthxbye. RussNelson (talk) 17:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)