User talk:Mzajac

[New comments at the bottom of the page, please —MZ]

Archives:

1. User talk:Mzajac/2004
2. User talk:Mzajac/2005

Orange revolution

Michael, I remember well how painstakingly we were building a balanced article researching and adjusting every phrase. Therefore, it especially pains me to see it's being added to the butchers' list. Please keep an eye on it. This is one of few rather detailed articles we have. With Ukrainian language largely killed, we have now less article with FAC potential. I think OR is one of them. Cheers, --Irpen 03:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Michael, I worked a little more on the O.R on Sunday. Could you take a look, if you have time, whether it is ready for a peer review. I would love to have this featured.

On the side note, please check Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Geographic names and its talk. Right now a final verion is almost agreed by several interested editors. If approved, it would allow to keep vandals at bay with lesser effort. And yet on another side note, you reverted Chernihiv exactly 3 secs before I was about to. Have a great Monday (if it is possible). --Irpen 16:44, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Just forgot to mention re O.R. In the recent time two pieces from there were attacked. One was the SBU-KGB lineage which, I think, is well defined and I returned it. The other, is the perception of Yushchenko's "oath" that he took in the midst of events, the oath that helped to put pressure on "vlada" but had no legal bearing. I remember vividly that many people who supported and even participated in the protests against election fraud (they may have not been necessarily fervently pro-Yushchenko, but they definitely stood up to overturn the vote rigging), many of these people had mixed feelings about this "oath", while his strong supporters of course didn't mind. Also, the public figures from his camp obviously would not have expressed any ambivalence to the press, at least at that time, because that would signify the crack in the team. Nevertheless, from the articles published by pro-liberal observers and from the content of forums, such as Maidan.org.ua or Ukrayins'ka pravda, one could see that the perception of this step was mixed. Do you think the sentence should be rephrased? Because Andrew Alexander just removed it as he usually does. Would appreciate your opinion. --Irpen 20:11, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

T-34

Michael, I looked at the T-34 and made some small changes up to "Combat effectivenss]] chapter already. The article is great, and will be FA, I am sure. I checked ru-wiki and it also says that it was a first diesel engine tank. I have no idea, but I thought I let you know. --Irpen 08:37, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I thought I was done, but now I'm thinking of expanding the intro into more of a summary of the whole article, since parts of it go into so much detail. I also want to add a paragraph or two of background, to show how the design of this tank was (r)evolutionary and how it came about against political pressure and circumstances. You don't think the production history section is too long?

I think its fine. I would keep it. Production history of T-34 is unnecessary as a separate article. --Irpen

The use of diesel fuel was important. But I read a Soviet tanker's account where he describes how the crew of a lend-lease gasoline-powered Sherman would hide under the hull of their tank when it was disabled (although they were called "Tommy-cookers" by the Germans). T-34 crews would run for it, because even a minor diesel fire would cook-off all the main gun ammunition. I'll read around a bit, and double-check that it was actually the first, and add this. —Michael Z. 2005-11-8 18:02 Z

Also, I added "best tank of the war" to the lead and google search confirms that. I may be wrong, of course. Also, I am not clear about the figure caption with sprung bed frames. How the frames helped is not evident to me. But this is the great article already. --Irpen

Have I anderstood you correctly? Do you mean that diesel is more inflammable then gasoline?

In fact, just in opposite. When I was in the army, one officer told us a story: the whole crew of gasoline-powered armor transporter ("bronetransporter") died because one idiot had been smoking there. It never happend to diesel-powered machines.--AndriyK 18:22, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Yup, just gas fumes are explosive while diesel is hard to get burning even with direct flame—big safety issue when you're shut up in something that's designed to be shot at.

The RPG screens are supposed to detonate shaped-charge (HEAT) rounds too far away from the armour for their focussed explosive force to penetrate; I'll try to make it easier to figure out in the article. —Michael Z. 2005-11-8 20:58 Z

I did a bit of reading. Morozov's Model V-2 diesel engine was first fitted into the very last BT tank model, the BT-8 produced from 1938. It also went into the T-34, KV-1 and 2, IS-2 and 3 and all the large self-propelled antitank and assault guns of WWII. The engines in the T-10, T-44, T-54, and T-55 (in production until 1981!) were versions of the same, so similar that in the 1960s T-54 engines were retrofitted into second-line T-34 tanks. It must have been a pretty solid design to be manufactured for over forty years. —Michael Z. 2005-11-9 08:17 Z

liberal vs strict interpretation of 3RR

Hi, in case you missed, I would like to draw your attention to the recent discussions at User_talk:AndriyK#User_blocked followed up at User_talk:Robchurch#3RR. The latter link is an interesting policy debate. I thought you might be interested. --Irpen 18:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Grand Prix

What does adding "__NOTOC__" to Grand Prix do exactly? {{TOCright}} is putting the contents on the right, "__NOTOC__" seems redundent to me.--Commander Keane 06:14, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, that's why it didn't seem to work. I thought it was a glitch. the __NOTOC__ directive prevents a table of contents from being shown, which seemed like unnecessary clutter on such a short page. —Michael Z. 2005-11-4 06:16 Z

Historic maps of Ukraine

Hi Michael, thanks for the hint. That is a very interesting source of maps. I didn't know about two more oblasts of ukraine yet. When I look at the oblast articles I'm a bit sorry, that the enWP obviously don't like to store images at commons, so other languages could use it more easy. commons:ukraine --ST ○ 17:27, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Are you thinking of the little oblast maps with highways, etc? They are public domain, so I'd be glad to move them to commons; let me know. We could ask User:ChrisO to provide the source files, so you could make multilingual versions. I've looked at the original UN pdf maps, and some of them have all the themes separated out into layers, so they shouldn't be too hard to work from, either. —Michael Z. 2005-11-9 18:03 Z

Yes, like Image:Lviv oblast detail map.png. We could store this images as SVG (best option: vector graphic shapes) so everybody can use them directly in all wikimedia projects or make his own language version without problems (see also: meta:SVG image support). --ST ○ 18:48, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Cool; does the SVG rendering to PNG work automatically, or is this still the plan?

I'll post a note on User talk:ChrisO. —Michael Z. 2005-11-9 19:07 Z

Sample: --ST ○ 19:22, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Cooool! —Michael Z. 2005-11-9 19:28 Z

ChrisO doesn't have source files to offer. It sounds like the individual maps are derived directly from this PDF. According to the licence posted with them, it appears that derived maps are public domain; I would interpret that to mean that if you clipped a region or changed some colours, then you're free to post it at the Commons. I have got to get myself a copy of Illustrator, so I can join in the fun. Cheers, M. —Michael Z. 2005-11-9 20:37 Z

Subdivisions of Kyiv

Hi Michael. Here is the article of a man who haven't been writing in English for a few months. Would you please making it a little bit normal? And of course sharing your thoughts on how to use it best? Details on the respective talk page. Thanks, AlexPU

I'll read it over and see what I can add. I think you may want to merge it into this initial article: Raions of Kiev. —Michael Z. 2005-11-11 21:12 Z

moved the rest to Talk:Subdivisions_of_Kiev. --Irpen 21:30, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Michif

Michael, take a pill and try to relax. The comment was not even directed at you - given the constant vandalism the article has been getting, I assumed that the term was added added by one of the many previous anon vandals, and that it had simply been overlooked in earlier corrections. My previous ignorance of the term comes into play...the fact that it looked like "mischief" and was not wikilinked led me to believe that its addition was just a kid playing around. So apologies... you will notice that I wrote the bulk of the text now present at Red River Rebellion, so I thought I knew the subject area reasonably well....but you learn something every day I guess. Fawcett5 19:48, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for apologizing; I appreciate that it was a misunderstanding. I'm sorry to have reacted so extremely; I'm oversensitive because I'm involved in editing dozens of articles that have non-stop edit wars and reams of unproductive discussion. Please try to keep your edit summaries informative, not accusative; I understand the temptation. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2005-11-13 21:36 Z

Ukrainian language

Michael, thanks for your attemts to appeace the short-tempered folks. Although I grew rather a thick skin in the time I've been around here, a word of support helps.

What do you think about spinning of the history of UA L into a separate article? On one hand, we have it much more complete than the rest and, if in the separate article, it would be easier to bring it to a WP:FAC. Also, the word or two about suppression that some are just so eager to have in the lead would at least make sense there. OTOH, if we do that there will be little left in the UA L article and someone will have to write a short history summary for the UA L article to replace a detailed history, and I am afraid that would have to be one of us. Please, see also my note at Talk:Ukrainian_language#The_opening_paragraph.3F.3F. Cheers, --Irpen 23:08, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I've been keeping an eye on that. I'd be glad to write the summary of UA lang. history for the main article. Actually, with the history removed, it could still be a nice concise article.

I could also add a bit of linguistic information based on the articles in my Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia, but there's really a huge amount of very specialized writing to be done there. I was planning to do some more work on the history of orthography at Ukrainian alphabet before starting to chip at that iceberg. Come to think of it, the UA lang. article could also use a little bit more summary on the Ukrainian alphabet too. —Michael Z. 2005-11-14 04:28 Z

Also, user:Iopq mentioned in a discussion I had with him at his talk that he was considering writing a Ukrainian phonology article. As for the history part, spinning it off might really be a good idea. Then we could restore large pieces butchered from there by I don't want to call names who as "too much politics". History has illustrations, details and potential to become a FA on its own. This is definitely one of the topics I intend to be firm with the POV pushers/butchers because so many people invested so much effort into it and the article is featurable. I care less about Polkovnyk, an interesting but rather obscure topic, and being called ignorant about it by the same characters. --Irpen 06:08, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Here is another example of what kind of temper these guys posses. This is another fellow (Andrew Alexander). Previous messages too. I think there will be more... Sad :( --Irpen 08:50, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello Michael, if you have a spare minute, please take a look at (this) talk about Kyiv Metro stations (bottom of the talk, table). We need your expetise. Thank you, --Oleh Petriv 17:31, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Meat Shield redirect?

Hi. I wanted to ask you why you created a redirect from Meat shield to Tank (role-playing game terminology)? Considering that Meat Shield has a full history and Tank was created that day by an anon (as a cut and paste of the Meat Shield article...I would have preferred a move to preserve the article history.

Can you take care of that as an admin? I certainly don't object to Meat Shield being moved to the new name. Thanks! :) --Syrthiss 13:04, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry that I didn't realize what had gone on before I got there. I merely moved Tank to a correctly capitalized name (without the capital R in role-playing), and updated the redirect which was already in place.

Cut-’n’-paste moves are bad. I'll have a look, and see if I can set it straight. —Michael Z. 2005-11-14 15:28 Z

Done. A cut-paste move is simply undone by reverting, since this preserves the page history. The important part is to explain to the offending user how a move should be done—make them feel welcome and prevent misunderstandings. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2005-11-14 15:40 Z

Thanks. Yes, I know I could have reverted it. ;) What I had been suggesting was since Tank (role-playing game terminology) did seem a better name, that we do a rename/move of Meat shield to that (which requires an admin since the target page exists, correct?). Heh in any case, tis fixed as it sits now and I'll go write a nice note on their page.--Syrthiss 15:52, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

ah you already handled that too.  :) --Syrthiss 15:54, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Nope, it's still at Meat shield. I'll let you handle the move. If it can't be done without an admin, post a request at WP:RM.

But I suggest a simpler name if possible; maybe Tank (games), or Tank (role-playing games)? Be consistent with other article names if possible. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2005-11-14 15:59 Z

WPSU

Hi, thanks for joining WPSU and thanks for your input :) - FrancisTyers 22:24, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Need your help (as always)

Hi Michael. Here are two brief questions for you as a Wikiexpert:

• how the F. exactly should I eliminate the double redirects after creating or moving the page? Couldn't find the understandable explanation. So please drop a link or something
• don't you think we urgently need few more stub templates for the Category:Ukraine-related stubs (with more than 140 articles inside and counting)? I become scared every time I get in there :)
• how can I have a "noie" notice in the middle of my page too? Should I just copy the code from yours and change the digits? Do you mind that? BTW, it was a brilliant idea to stress the fact that we don't use Billy's explorer. If you know some Wiki campaign on this issue - please drop a link!

Pryvit, AlexPU 20:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

1. In the "what links here" listing, click every disambiguation page that links to another disambiguation page (I cmd-click to open each in a new tab in my non-Billy™ browser). Then edit each one, and change the link target to go to the new real page. Very low tech; the server should be programmed to skip all the redirects automatically.
2. Honestly, I never browse the stub categories. With 140 articles though, it sounds like a good idea, but don't spread it too thinly. On the other hand, they still fit on one page, and it is nice to see them all at once.
3. There's an official way to do it described at Wikipedia:Babel, but I don't like the extra box around the boxes. You're welcome to copy my code (below). There's also a zillion other languages, and see also User:NSR/userboxes (although I would avoid using an image until the servers catch up to the load).

Cheers. —Michael Z. 2005-11-15 20:55 Z

<div style="float:right; margin:.25em 0 .5em 1em; width:245px; text-align:right;">
{{User en}}
{{User uk-2}}
{{User fr-1}}
{{User noie}}
<small style="margin-right:3px;">see [[Wikipedia:Babel]]</small>
</div>

Done. Thanks! AlexPU 21:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Re:Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Halibutt

Thanks for your vote of support for Halibutt. Could you perhaps address the statement by Ghirlandajo, who is accusing Halibutt of strong pro-Polish and anti-Russian bias? It would certainly add a more legitimacy to Halibutt's position if Ghirlandajo would be moderated by somebody who is not Polish (like me or Halibutt). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. Perhaps it would clear the things up a bit if I noted on the RfA that my nationality is not necessarily Polish. In reality, just like Rick Blaine from Casablanca I'm a drunkard. However, I'm not sure if such a statement would suffice for those who believe I'm anti-(put your favourite here). Halibutt 05:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. WikiThanks.

I would like to express my thanks to all the people who took part in my (failed) RfA voting. I was both surprised and delighted about the amount of support votes and all the kind words! I was also surprised by the amount of people who stated clearly that they do care, be it by voting in for or against my candidacy. That's what Wiki community is about and I'm really pleased to see that it works.
As my RfA voting failed with 71% support, I don't plan to reapply for adminship any more. However, I hope I might still be of some help to the community. Cheers! Halibutt 05:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

ISO 8601 date in signature?

Hello, Michael; noticed your signature at MediaWiki talk:Common.css. I have tried all manner of curious template and variable incantations to get an 8601-like timestamp in my signature, to no avail. What's the trick? The thing that has stumped me is that I can't seem to use subst in my signature, which I would think would be required. I hadn't thought to use Javascript until just now, but maybe that would work... —HorsePunchKid→龜 19:55, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

See User talk:Mzajac/2005#Custom timestamp in your signature for details. I don't have it in my Wikipedia signature preference, but drag-’n’-drop or paste it in; my user monobook.js adds a convenient text field to the page for this. Minor problem: Wikipedia macros don't pad the date with a zero, so the first nine days of the month only have one digit. —Michael Z. 2005-11-18 20:53 Z

Thanks for the info! For what it's worth, there's a {{CURRENTDAY2}} that's zero-padded (see meta:Help:Variables#Varying with time). (I see now that this does not subst properly.) I was playing around with my monobook.js, and ended up doing something probably similar to what you're doing, only with pretty much just plain Javascript. The net effect is a tab along the top of the page that will insert a signature. I'm trying to hack it up so that Alt+S will insert it, but I cannot figure out how to disable the accesskey on the "Save page" button. :( —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-10-19 03:26:09Z

If you have something working that fills both digits, would you mind to post a step-by-step instruction somewhere for us non-tech-savvy people? – Wikipeditor 04:24, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know of anything, but I suppose a Javascript could generate a two-digit date. —Michael Z. 2005-11-20 17:03 Z

You know Ukrainian well, right

Check out this Russian to Ukrainian translator [1]. It does good job in the reverse direction for me. I presume since we have somewhat similar grammar with Ukrainians, so translation may be more reliable than say Russian to English. It is opensource and the English<->something translation pairs are virtually absent at his stage. –Gnomz⁰⁰⁷(?) 22:01, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Cool. It even translates Sovnarkom SSSR to Radnarkom SRSR. Thanks very much. —Michael Z. 2005-11-21 22:07 Z

Well, kudos to those Ukrainian programmers –Gnomz⁰⁰⁷(?) 22:19, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Polish invasion of Russia

[moving to Talk:Polish invasion of Russia#Ad Ghirlandajo, —MZ]

RfAr

An arbitration request against User:AndriyK has been filed. If you intend to participate/co-sign, please add your name to the "Involved parties" section and write a statement.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 18:02, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

ArbCom accepted

This is the generic message left at several editors' talk pages in relation to the ArbCom case Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Community_vs._User:AndriyK. Since the fourth ArbCom member has recently voted to accept the case, the case is now considered accepted by the ArbCom as per Arbitration Policy. Please make sure your statement for the ArbCom is on the page if you are willing to write one (OTOH, being named as a party does not require you to make a statement, it just gives you a right to write one) and please make sure your statement is proofread if you wrote it earlier. Please, also, make sure your statement is in the appropriate place of the ArbCom page and not interjecting with others' statements. You are welcome to read up on the Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy and the associate pages.

--Irpen 04:00, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguating abbreviations

You contributed to the TFD discussion for {{2LCdisambig}}. I am following this with further discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Abbreviations. Susvolans ⇔ 18:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

returning to damaged articles

Michael, I see you returned to editing Ukrainization. Do you think we should give it a major overhaul first after it was messed up so completely? I raised issues at talk a while ago. I just never got to this article yet and have postponed doing it until the mess of AndriyK and co is being dealt with. Same applies to Ukrainian language with a wealth of info deleted from there. I say, we either restore it, or return to our idea to spin off its history into a separate article. In the latter case, I will have little say in what remains in the language article, since I know little about the linguistics. I temporary undid your recent addition to the UA L article because I had first to undo the contribution of this anon. I already restored yours afterwards, but I just thought I explain why it was done. Regards, --Irpen 20:31, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry about the change; that was obvious. I was just trying to follow some of the recent changes to Ukraine, Holodomor, etc., and while looking for a quotation noticed that Ukrainization was missing that bit of material which was covered in Ukrainian language, so ya roztlumachyv a couple of paragraphs. I would still like to keep polishing those articles and spin off History of the Ukrainian language, but I can't dedicate huge amounts of time. I also have had Orange Revolution open in a browser window for many days now, because I still owe you a look at that article. —Michael Z. 2005-11-24 20:43 Z

Take your time! Also, should it rather be History of Ukrainian rather than History of Ukrainian language. As for the anons messing up the UA/RU topics, I get really upset when the fellow does both. It really, puts us, Ukrainians, in bad light. Before this anon, there was another one whose contribution to the RU article was a disgusting one, and his other contributions showed from which POV he was editing. Such characters, despite being on the fringe in UA, are disproportionately vocal and active. Andrew Alexander and AndriyK are the best manifestation of that. --Irpen 20:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Most of these guys' Wikipedia career is only about three hours long before they lose interest; only the very best manifestations hang on for weeks & weeks. Regarding the article title, they all sound fine to me. I'll have a look and see what other languages' history articles are called. —Michael Z. 2005-11-24 21:05 Z

See Special:Search/Language history. There aren't many specific language history articles, but they all seem to be titled in the form History of the Ukrainian language. They also tend to be more pure linguistic history: the languages' development, changes in phonology, etc. What we have for Ukrainian language history is going to be a rather unique article (FA!). It could use a bit more about literature (which I know very little about) and pure linguistics (on which I'm no expert, but I think I can contribute). —Michael Z. 2005-11-24 21:35 Z

Siverian Principality

Please let me finish the article. Only then one can judge whether there are reasons to merge it with another one. Unfortunatelly, because teh arbitration procedure against myself you and your frends have requested, I cannot promice I can finish the article soon. If you need ideas what you can do during this time, I'd suggest you to merge Kalinigrad Oblast with Prussia, or Golden Horge with Russia, or doing other equelly usefull things up to your choice.--AndriyK 09:28, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I merely removed the inuse notice which appeared to have been on that article for three weeks, and replaced it with a merge notice because I didn't see anything going on. Normally, an inuse notice shouldn't remain on the article for more than an hour or so while you are working. I won't do any merging, but you might want to explain the situation on the talk page. —Michael Z. 2005-11-25 15:40 Z

I am waiting until this naming mess is resolved somehow: either by adoping a policy/guideline, or by arbitrage decision, or ... I do not know how. Otherwise you-know-who will come and start renaming, merging, redirectiong etc. You may consider this as a very naive method to "protect" the article. But I do not have anything better.--AndriyK 00:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Belarussian History

Have a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Belarus#Russian_occupation, and tell me do you see this as History of Belarus or more like the history of Poland and the Polish Partitions, lets modify it I have an excellent source on 19th century history in Belarus, it is slightly religiously orientiated but good nevertheless. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/arhiv/050513111111 Kuban kazak 23:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry I haven't even looked at this yet. I'll do so tonight when I'm at my own computer. —Michael Z. 2005-12-2 17:43 Z

Arbitration accepted

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/AndriyK has been accepted. Please place evidence on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/AndriyK/Evidence. Proposals and comments may be placed on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/AndriyK/Proposed decision. Fred Bauder 02:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Template talk:Fact

the square brackets look very unprofessional. maybe it's just because I've spent too much time on wikipedia. maybe they should be replaced with parentheses or glowing silver pentagrams, I dunno, but the squarebrackets look ... amateurish. Tomer^TALK 07:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[Responded at template talk:Fact —MZ]

[Responded at Template talk:Fact :-p -t]

Russian architecture

Michael, your changes work fine for me. --Ghirlandajo 10:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

dab style

Excellent explanation of the purpose of dab pages! Tedernst | Talk 18:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks; it took a while for me to figure all that out myself, so I'm always trying to spread the good word. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2005-12-2 19:25 Z

AM

I won't get into a pointless edit war, but I'd like to point out two things:

1. Isn't it ironic you felt compelled to remove « encyclopedic material » from an encyclopaedia?
2. How is the user going to tell which of the three main country code systems uses AM for Armenia (turns out it's all three in this case) if we snip that out and leave "country code" link-less?

Making Wikipedia concise is a worthwhile aim, but there is such a thing as being too concise. If I want concise, I'll use the Wiktionary. I want an encyclopedia to throw "useless" tit-bits at me, so I come out of the experience enriched, and go to bed less ignorant than when I got up in the morning.

Urhixidur 04:43, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

But,

1. A disambiguation page is not an encyclopedia article—there's no irony in following the spirit and word of the convention. According to WP:DAB: "a disambiguation page contains no article content, ..." and and MOS:DP: "Disambiguation pages ... are (like redirects) non-article pages in the article namespace."
2. The user doesn't have to know which country code system uses AM for Armenia! If the context of the link which brought the user to the disambiguation page indicates that the target was Armenia, then he can click on Armenia. If it indicates another link on the page, then he can click the other link. I can think of no scenario where the user clicked on a link to AM, where "AM" was meant to be a link to "ISO 3166". MOS:DAB: "Don't wikilink any other words," and "Only include references to related subject articles if the term in question actually is described on that page"—ISO 3166 does not describe Armenia.

A disambiguation page is not an article. It stands between the user and an article. It is an interface for when a link fails to link to its intended destination—in an ideal Wikipedia there would be zero links to disambiguation pages. It's like a very slooow redirect. Its job is not to give any information, just to let the reader find the right link, without offering any distractions to the process.

If someone linked AM and meant Armenia, then:

1. The link should be changed to [[Armenia |AM]].
2. If it's important to know that AM was the ISO code for Armenia, then that information should go in the encyclopedia article about Armenia.

The useless tit-bits belong in articles. According to the convention and the MOS, they clearly do not belong in the disambiguation pages. —Michael Z. 2005-12-3 06:13 Z

Your input would be useful at Talk:AM where the wikilinks and other non-MoS:DP content is being added back by User:Tobias Conradi. Thanks/wangi 18:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

transcription, transliteration, and brackets

Re: Your Podolia edits.

"Brackets denote IPA phonetic transcription" True but they also denote parentheses within parentheses which was the case there. Without parenthesizing, the Cyrillic and Latin forms are implied equal. While this is obviously not the case with Ukrainian or Russian, it would apply to other languages with multiple scripts such as such as "Serbo-Croatian," Hausa, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Tatar, etc, so there is potential for confusion. Do you have antoher possible suggestion?

"Standard Ukrainian transliteration for WP" "For geographic names in Ukraine, the Ukrainian National system is used." (Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Ukrainian_names) In this case, the entry, Podolia, has an English exonym in which case the rule doesn't apply (see Kiev). The rendering of the Ukrainian form here was using the International Scholarly system, a reasonably decent way to romanize. The Ukrainian National system follows neither Ukrainian orthography or phonology and is inadequate as a transcription and a transliteration system. The lack of palatals and the conflation of І, Ї, and Й are just some of its problems.

LuiKhuntek 09:34, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

In the nomenclature section, commas, semicolons and position are used to represent the relationship between the Cyrillic and Latin transcription. Perhaps this isn't ideal, but it's the way it is already done in probably hundreds of articles on English Wikipedia. Personally, I think that a more disciplined transcription system should be chosen, the same one for Ukrainian, Russian, and other languages, and in most cases a Latin transcription alone should be sufficient to represent the word.

I don't know how WP does it for multiple-script languages, but I think it makes sense to standardize on one, at least in cases when the other(s) can be reliably reconstructed from one. No need to include redundant information.

Regarding transcription system, I removed the Scholarly notation, because we currently only use that in linguistics articles; it is never used in the lead nomenclature section for a person or place. Although the National system is used for article titles and text in modern place names, the nomenclature system uses a better-representative but informal system, including doubled consonants, apostrophes for ь and usually e.g., "ia" for non-syllabic я, and "ya" where it forms syllables.

I'm actually planning to start a separate page and start a discussion about Cyrillic transcription in Wikipedia shortly, because the current conventional practice is unsatisfactory. When I get things going, I'll post a note at the Russian and Ukrainian portals, and other relevant places. —Michael Z. 2005-12-3 16:28 Z

Looking forward to the Cyrillic discussion. Any standard is better than none. I don't agree that "a Latin transcription alone should be sufficient to represent the word" as long as there is ambiguity in the transcription system. I still get confused with the Russian "ь" in certain situations. East Asian languages have much more standardized systems on Wikipedia. It's the Arabic and Cyrillic ones that suffer from the most dissonance.

The beauty of Wikipedia compared to other on- or offline sources is the wealth of native language geographical information. Of course the problem with multiple languages and scripts is that it clutters the intro too much (e.g., Qinghai_Lake). I'm guilty of that at Podolia -- it probably needs a separate names paragraph like the one I made at Ulaanbaatar and your move was wise. I'm making one for Budjak now too. LuiKhuntek 20:48, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

On languages with multiple scripts: Concerning Korean, even if it were possible to guess Hangeul spelling from the transcription, it is still a good idea always to include a word's hangeul next to the transcription if only to prove that it has indeed been correctly transcribed; so many mistakes are made that it would be unwise to solely rely on transcription. For Ukrainian, however, the situation might somewhat differ. – Wikipeditor 23:26, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

RfC

Hi. In regards to your comment here, it seems like you have left a very reasonable "Outside View" on the Talk page. Do you have any objection to to it being moved to the main RfC page so that other editors can, if they agree with it, endorse your view as part of the community's response? Thanks. Jkelly 17:57, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't mind—I almost did, but the description implied that I had to summarize the outsider view, rather than being able to just contribute an isolated comment. —Michael Z. 2005-12-3 17:59 Z

Ussr/German cooperation

Military-technical cooperation of the USSR and Weimar' Germany began in 1923 after the treaty in Rapallo. Both countries were dissatisfied with restrictions of the Versailles treaty. The coperation has stopped in 1933 because the Weimar' Germany has turned to nazi Germany. Ben-Velvel 16:52, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes. That's why I changed "Till 1939" to "In 1939"; the previous version implied that the USSR and Germany had been enemies throughout the inter-war period. Germany helped establish modern tank factories in the USSR, and the Soviets provided a tank school where the Germans and Soviets could conduct secret joint trials and develop tactics for the Blitzkrieg. —Michael Z. 2005-12-5 16:57 Z

"From 1933 to 1939" is OK? Ben-Velvel 17:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Hm, I just found the article Soviet-German cooperation which seems to contradict that view. Perhaps it's best to keep it simple and add a link. —Michael Z. 2005-12-5 17:10 Z

I have not found any distinct facts in this article confirming military cooperation of the USSR and Nazi Germany during 1933-1939. Ben-Velvel 23:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The following is quoted from Soviet-German cooperation. —Michael Z. 2005-12-5 23:39 Z

This was the start of military cooperation between the two countries, which ended with the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22 1941

[...]

While Britain blockaded Germany at sea to prevent her importing war materials from overseas, all the supplies which the Reich needed for the war were sent direct from Russia by rail. Stalin promised that what Russia could not supply from her own resources, she would buy up on the world's markets and pass on to Germany. Three-eighths of the oil used by Germany in 1940 came from Russia, including high-octane spirit for the Luftwaffe to fight the Battle of Britain.

From the start of the war until Germany invaded Russia less than two years later, Stalin had supplied Hitler with 1,5 million tons of oil, the same quantity of grain, and many thousands of tons of rubber, timber, phosphates (for making explosives), iron and many valuable metal ores, particularly chromium, manganese and platinum.

We do not discuss Soviet-German cooperation in 1939-1941 after signing the Pact. We speak about the period 1933-1939 before signing the Pact!!! Ben-Velvel 23:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I see. I was not getting that there was a specific thaw in relations during 1933–39, sorry. This calls for an addition to the Soviet-German cooperation article, which currently implies coöperation right through 1920–41. Also, the wording in Russia#Russia as part of Soviet Union should be altered a bit, to account for the change after the beginning of industrialization. —Michael Z. 2005-12-6 00:09 Z

Toque

Thanks for fixing the spelling of toque in the Canadian English article! I had wanted to fix it, but figured I should let a Canadian do it as perhaps I might not be aware of a Canadian spelling of the term. :) Regarding the usage of "skull cap", I agree that a toque isn't close to the scalp like that -- I used that term because when searching for knitting patterns for such a hat, I keep finding some called "skull caps" for some reason. To me, a "skull cap" is more of a yarmulke or beanie, but clearly some people call a knitted watch cap a skull cap. So I figured I would include it. I'm just as happy that you deleted it, since the usage would not be in my idiolect. Cheers, ManekiNeko | Talk 07:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikitable contrast

If you are still interested in the issue of wikitable contrast, you may be interested that I made another comment at: MediaWiki_talk:Common.css#Increase_wikitable_contrast_2 Bobblewik 09:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for adding your comment there. In have now raised the issue of text contrast more widely at: WikiProject_Usability. Bobblewik 11:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

March of the Soviet tankmen

No its not Soviet tankmen song - volk sond March of the Soviet tankmen the oficial song I dont understend what you

and it would be better to put that into a small stub article with a bit of info about the march, and link to the article from the "See also" section of the tank articles.

Compositor Pokrass brothers text Laskin ???

I've gone ahead and created the stub article: March of the Soviet Tankmen. Now the information is in one place, and can be expanded.

Is this the official march of the Soviet Army, or Soviet Armoured Troops? —Michael Z. 2005-12-6 17:34 Z

Operation Wisla

Michael, could you translate from UA into EN a short passage I added in the end of Talk:Operation_Wisła#Modern_legacy (not the Russian passage in the beginning, but the Ukrainian one in the end as our Polish colleagues usually know Russian better than Ukrainian). I think you would do the translation better and faster than myself and also more grammatically.

On the other topic, I read your outside view at Ghirlandajo's RfC. I think you are a little too harsh. My first encounter experiences with him, as you know, were similar to yours, and I agree that he may indeed be short-tempered. However, most importantly, he is able to compromise, unlike his opponents in this RfC that do have patience for endless arguing but would never give an inch content-wise. This is what ultimately caused this RfC, IMO. --Irpen 01:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I thought I gave a fair description of my own experience. The first impression sticks pretty hard and I've mostly avoided him or watched the action from ringside. It's only very recently that I've had the opportunity to collaborate with him a little bit, and seen what significant work he can do. —Michael Z. 2005-12-7 06:26 Z

Ukrayina

Hi, Michael! For no particular reason, I noticed today that the infobox in the Ukraine article gives readers the English name ("Ukraine") and what I suppose is a Romanized Ukrainian version ("Ukrayina"). According to the Romanization of Ukrainian guidelines (or, more specifically, their "national" portion, which is what I believe is in use in Wikipedia), it should be "Ukraina". Am I missing something, or are both variants acceptable? Just curious...—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 04:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's like this... (I really have been planning to write up a more detailed summary of the current usage; and see also Wikipedia:Requests for comment/History and geography; and see below for how I'd like to change things)

For general Ukrainian article titles, we use the standard sort of transliteration, similar to the method in "Transliteration of Russian into English". Then to make clear the Cyrillic name, next to it we use a more detailed transliteration; including doubled consonants and apostrophes, ia and ya to differentiate palatalizing я versus syllabic я (similarly є, ї, ю); we should use one of the standards, but we don't.

For places that have strongly-established conventional place names, we use those for article titles (Ukraine, Kiev, Odessa, Dnieper). For all other political entities, we use the official simplified geographic naming convention for the title (that would be Ukraina)—but for more traditional regions whose names are not in official government documents, like Podillia and Zakarpattia, we still use the conventional transliteration, which seems closer to intuitively phonetic for anglophones—and so we do this for Ukrayina. (FYI: we also use the scholarly system for linguistics topics, which is as it should be)

I know it's a complex justification. I've been meaning to start a Cyrillic transliteration MOS page, so we can coördinate all the different languages. In my opinion, for Russian transliterations we should abandon that original research article, and use a conventional transliteration for most article titles and proper names in text, but one of the standardized systems for transliterations wherever Russian words are shown in an article's nomenclature line or in the text. Then Ukrainian and possibly Belarusian and Bulgarian could use a compatible system, so that all Cyrillic is transliterated using similar assumptions. —Michael Z. 2005-12-8 07:37 Z

[See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Ukrainian names, Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Russian names.]

Well, it's about time. I'm going to start a skeleton Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic). Once I have all of the current usage documented, I'll post notes at the relevant portals and language articles. Then we can start some discussion about reforming the conventions—if there's no interest, then at least I've documented current usage so it can become the convention. —Michael Z. 2005-12-8 07:50 Z

Well, it's a bit more information than I was hoping to hear, but OK :) For what it's worth, I think that current Russian transliteration system used in Wikipedia is doing its job quite well (also, you might have missed the fact that unmodified BGN/PCGN is generally used to transliterate stuff like anthem lyrics and such). What is wrong, however, is the way it's documented. The Transliteration of Russian into English indeed smells like original research, is not very properly titled, and does not cover a whole lot of material. To make matters worse, it is referenced by an official Wikipedia policy. The very least that needs to be done is for that article to be moved to the Wikipedia namespace, if it is to be used for policy, and to rename and heavily copyedit the main namespace article to bring it up to snuff. Also, the policy is lacking any guidelines about conventional/non-conventional names and other less apparent issues.

Anyway, I'll save my arguments for later, when the discussion is open. I am sure there will be plenty of discussion by that time. Take care, —Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 14:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm sure there'll be lots to say. The Russian system is fine for names, since it's really the intersection of several "conventional" systems in use. But it falls down flat where transliteration is actually needed to represent words, so it's always necessary to add the Cyrillic too, just to show what the "transliteration" represents. I have no idea how to point these defects out without the risk of offending someone. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2005-12-8 15:00 Z

I'm sorry, Michael, you confused me somewhat. I am not entirely sure what you mean by "offending". Offending whom? Are there any particular words that are offensive when transliterated one way but are not when transliterated differently (apart from "Kiev"/"Kyiv", of course)? Are you referring only to Russian transliteration, or transliteration of Cyrillics as a whole? And, just to make sure we are thinking about the same thing—what kind of words you have in mind, which need transliteration but are not names (and can you give an example or two)? Pardon me for the barrage of questions, but I'm a bit slow this morning.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 15:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I just mean I don't want to upset the creators who worked hard on "Transliteration of Russian into English", if I propose such a major change to the status of the article.

I'll look for some more specific, instructive examples, but essentially in every page's first line where both Cyrillic and transliteration appear, it could be sufficient to simply show the transliteration if it were rendered using one of the disciplined standards, and omit the Cyrillic altogether. A real transliteration method is able to convey the spelling, not just the general pronunciation of a word. In many articles the lead sentence has three times more nomenclature than meat. —Michael Z. 2005-12-8 15:42 Z

Well, don't you worry about offending the creators of Transliteration of Russian into English, because it was me who created this article/transliteration table in the first place (the intro was added later by other editors). I am a tough nut to offend :) Basically, what happened was that at that time we desperately needed any Russian translit guidelines (it was an aweful mess), and this article worked well enough. I was not as experienced in Wikipedia matters back then, and the thought that the article on transliteration should be separate from the Wikipedia transliteration guidelines only occured to me much later, after the article was already mostly accepted as a Wikipedia standard for transliterating Russian. I'd be more than happy to work with you on improving the situation—there is definitely much to be improved.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 16:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Example: in Polesie there is a very long nomenclature line which includes "Belarusian: Палесьсе, Paleśsie; Ukrainian: Полісся, Polissia; Russian: Полесье, Pelesye';"—the Cyrillic would be redundant if we knew it was represented unambiguously by the Latin transliteration. The sentence which follows implies that Cyrillic is not required when transliteration conveys the spelling: "An inhabitant is called Palašuk in Belarusian, Polishchuk in the local Ukrainian dialect, Poleszuk in Polish, Poleshchuk in Russian."

Also, I'd like to treat names differently from words; the difference is easiest to see in anglicized names, like Volyn Oblast/Volyns’ka oblast’. —Michael Z. 2005-12-8 15:59 Z

I don't necessarily agree that Cyrillics is redundant once a good, unambiguous transliteration system is in place. It is quite possible that a reader might want to know how the name of the place/thing/concept is written in Cyrillics. Good transliteration will give such a reader an idea, but if s/he does not know Cyrillic letters, s/he will not be able to convert the term back, even if transliteration is perfectly unambiguous. There are probably cases when original Cyrillics is redundant, but it's definitely not going to be the case every time.

Another thing is that "transliteration" is basically a system of presenting of a script that's foreign to a reader in a way the reader can understand (which pretty much boils down to replacing letters of the original alphabet with the letters of the alphabet native to the reader; in this case Latin). The problem is, however, that it's impossible to establish a one-to-one conversion between Cyrillic and Latin alphabets without use of diacritics and/or other supplementary means. When the result is saturated with auxiliarily symbols, it becomes just as foreign to the reader as the original script. How many English readers know exactly what "ž" or "ş" stand for?—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 16:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding redundancy of Cyrillics, I agree. There are particular cases where Cyrillics can be especially relevant, like why the Soviets called the M4 Sherman tank "Em Cha". But there are also many places where words or names are referred to in the body of an article, and Cyrillic orthography is irrelevant and could be redundant.

Agreement about transliteration systems too, so this requires careful consideration. But, for example, the Oxford atlases have found BGN/PCGN translation to work perfectly well on their maps, so it can be done successfully. And readers who are particularly interested in Slavic topics or the details of orthography can learn about transliteration, so they'll know why KhPZ has a mix of upper and lower case, or why Rus’ often has an apostrophe. If we can use a unified transliteration system, it can only help these readers. —Michael Z. 2005-12-8 22:10 Z

re: RfC - Russian architecture

Sure. So how is it going to go with that? Am I right in inferring that its kind of AndriyK vs. everybody else? Is hegoing to see the light, do you think? Herostratus 07:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

AndriyK and Andrew Alexander; IlyaK posted the POV notice the first time, but has refused to rejoin the discussion since then. See the light, I doubt it. I'm hoping we can boil down the argument to the essential points, and edit the article to the best possible acceptable compromise position. I was thinking creating a separate "Architecture of Kievan Rus" article may be a last resort, but even so, the topic can't be removed from "Russian architecture", so that wouldn't really help (AndriyK actually did copy the section to a new article, and lost interest in it).

After the RfC runs out of steam, I guess we take it to the next step. I don't see moderation as being any more helpful after the amount of discussion that's taken place. AndriyK's involved in a lot of other disputes which are holding up Ukraine-related articles, and that has gone to arbitration, currently in progress (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/AndriyK/Evidence). I believe I'll write up this dispute in the arbitration evidence. —Michael Z. 2005-12-11 16:36 Z

Blond

While I don't really care about you changing my edits to the article as it's all a matter of opinion. I would prefer your edit summary to be a little more straightforward. Saying something like "rv badly done edit" would be better than "rv uncited figures". I didn't add any figures to the article so how could you have reverted them. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:35, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

So sorry, I don't know what happened there. I clicked in the history to revert the previous user's addition of demographic figures (he has been adding bogus statistics to various articles). I've restored your edit now. —Michael Z. 2005-12-11 17:38 Z

Thanks. I have also had run-ins with that user on several articles besides blonds. At least you didn't do my trick. An anon editor had made several edits in a row, all valid. I hit the rollback button by mistake! My other trick is to copy the article into the text editor then back into the article without checking to see if it's changed since. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:44, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I've always found that If I paste it back into the same open edit window, Wikipedia will return an "edit conflict" if someone has edited the article in the mean time. This is the first time I've screwed up a history revert; I think I must have merely clicked the wrong item. Apologies again. —Michael Z. 2005-12-11 17:46 Z

Back to naming conventions

Michael, the new EE naming conventions work is evolving very slowly but I have a q. re old guidelines in connection with the ongoing move vote at talk:Kiev Oblast. We need clarification, I think. First of all we have the page: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). Then we also have Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Ukrainian_names chapter that is unchanged since long time ago when you wrote it and these two pages are not interlinked. Add editors' POV to the breadth of possible interpretation and you get the battle at talk:Kiev Oblast.

First of all, I think we should get some order with all those pages (existing and under construction) so that they are at least mentioning each other even if they can't be made consistent all at once.

Secondly, a q. for you since you wrote both Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Ukrainian_names and [[Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Russian_names and both remain unchanged ever since. In "Russian names" you wrote "Many Russian names have a conventional English spelling." In "Ukrainian names" you just wrote how to transliterate. We need clarity in all this, I think. I know full clarity and full consistensy is impossible at WP, but perhaps we should try to put some order in this. I never changed anything in policy pages, so could you help me with these? Thanks! --Irpen 04:26, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I must have been asleep because I haven't even noticed the vote. And did I really put the Russian naming convention on that page? Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic) for my latest input on transliteration. I'll look over the vote at Kiev Oblast and respond ASAP. —Michael Z. 2005-12-14 06:50 Z

I think you did write both RU and UA chapters. It was almost a year ago [2]. In any case, we need to work these issues out to minimize the ambiguity and unclarity that some try to use to advance their POV. I think I will have a little more time soon to help, once the ArbCom is behind. Cheers, --Irpen 07:09, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Cyrillic naming conventions

Michael, do you by any chance now how the Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Ukrainian names and Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Russian names came to be? I am really surprised that no one caught a reference to the main namespace for the Russian naming conventions when the policy was being discussed (it was discussed, wasn't it?). I must have missed that event completely. Was anyone from the Slavic community involved at that time?—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 18:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I wrote both of those notes, purely to document the practices that I observed in use on Wikipedia at the time, and hoping that they could become the basis for further reform. "Transliteration of Russian into English" was being very actively developed at the time, and I didn't want to butt in and suggest abandoning or reversing all the hard work—I also improved the introduction there, but it really needs a major overhaul as you propose. Recently, I felt confident enough to start the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic) effort, prompted by a few instances where the existing practices have been a major discussion point or a real problem, and encouraged by some of your comments. —Michael Z. 2005-12-14 18:54 Z

Thanks for your comment, Michael. You may add one to the list of the "few instances", by the way—this just came up again yesterday :) Which, of course, only confirms one more time that current conventions are indeed problematic. I'll be participating as time permits, and by no means expect it to be a quick process. The split I made (see above) was just to better document existing status quo; it certainly was not an attempt to solidify it and/or give it more weight and substance (in case you were wondering).—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 19:05, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm with you. This is definitely going in the right direction. —Michael Z. 2005-12-14 19:08 Z

And we need to be sure that there is some clarity that Naming convention (cyrillic) addresses only a part of the more general naming conventions as applied to the names in the countries that use cyrillic alphabet. The transliteation rules are very important but the choice of the names that we transliterate and whether we use "oblast" or "region" and such similar issues won't be resolved by the "cyrillic" part of the NC. The current debate at Talk:Kiev Oblast#Comments is caused, IMO, largely by bad faith, but the lack of clarity in the naming conventions and their consistensy just adds the heat. We very much need to address that asap. --Irpen 02:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Survey on Russian architecture

Dear Michael, I would propose slightly change the question of the survey to make it more clear:

Who is in favour of including all of the architecture of Kievan Rus (including buildings located in Ukraine and Belarus) in the article "Russian architecture"?

It's clear enough that you voted. —Michael Z. 2005-12-15 00:40 Z

Hyphens and en dashes

Hi! Can you please come and check out User:Chocolateboy's comments on the current hyphens vs. en dashes guideline on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)? I have not been here long enough to understand the issue, and a solution must be found quickly. He says that this manual and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes) are inconsistent with the rest of Wikipedia, or something like that; I need to look up past discussions to figure out what's going on. A revert war depends on your assistance! lol, well there are less dramatic ways of putting it. Thanks. Neonumbers 23:14, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I left a brief comment, and I'll keep an eye on the page. I hope this is mostly a non-issue, thanks to Unicode. [sigh] I guess we have to work out the manual wording. —Michael Z. 2005-12-15 01:43 Z

Soviet WWII armour units

Hello, found out about you at the Wikiproject SU. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Fourth_Mechanized_Corps this is my main reason for contacting you as I'd like to hear your opinion on whether or not it would be feasible to create something larger out of it (a list of all units or battle participants etc). Scoo 09:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

teenager newbie

Michael, could you please keep an eye on the Paeris (talk · contribs · checkuser · block user · block log · edit count). He left two hate messages at my talk and some inflammatory edit summaries. He seems rather young and trigger-happy. If he keeps his style, he needs blocked. I tried my best to talk reason at his talk and I hope blocking him would not be necessary. Just check him up from time to time. Thanks, --Irpen 23:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I've left a message on his page. The usual dispute resolution, yadda, yadda, and if you continue to be troubled, let me know. —Michael Z. 2005-12-19 23:53 Z

I don't think it would be necessary. He uploaded a porn image with "I am a fed employee" "tag". This generated enough attention to this user and he will be watched from now on by even more people than needed anyway. So, never mind. --Irpen 05:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

Hi, your user page was recently vandalized and I reverted the edits. The vandal, Vipsta has been warned several times within the past few days, and deserves to be blocked. CanDo 02:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clean up. —Michael Z. 2005-12-20 04:52 Z

Romanization of Russian

Hi, Michael! I added a table to the ALA-LC section of this article, but I am having problems with a ligature sign (used for TS, IA, IU and such). From what I found, it seems they are Unicode codes U+0360 and U+0361, but neither of them shows up in my browser, so I cannot check for myself. Would you know how the ligature is coded? Also, could you check the hard/soft sign primes for correctness? They do not show up in my browser as well. Any help will be much appreciated, if you have time. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 18:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

These are combining double diacritics

• U+0360 (   ͠  ) combining double tilde
• U+0361 (   ͡  ) combining double inverted breve

To display over a pair of letters, one of these characters should be inserted between them.

Using these is complicated by the fact that the relatively common font Arial Unicode MS renders them incorrectly (see discussion in IPA talk archives). Arial Unicode MS draws them one character too far to the left, so they will combine the two letters before. Courier New, Lucida Grande, Code2000 and Gentium fonts include these characters and work correctly.

Do the ts, iu, ia under ALA-LC display correctly in your browser at Romanization_of_Ukrainian#Table_of_romanization_systems? MSIE/Windows has some problems with Unicode characters; and template:IPA may be required to make them work (not sure). You may want to try Firefox. I use Safari on a Mac.

I'll add the diacritics to your ALA-LC table. —Michael Z. 2005-12-20 19:02 Z

Thanks, Michael, this was educational.

Romanization_of_Ukrainian#Table_of_romanization_systems also does not show up correctly in my browser. I only wish I could switch to something else. I'm using Opera at home, and I never had a problem with it displaying symbols incorrectly (or not displaying them at all). At work, however, I am stuck with IE with no other options.

Anyway, thanks again for your help, I much appreciate it.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 19:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Any time. These tie characters seem to be supported properly by the tahoma font that came installed on my Win XP test system. Maybe we can get these to work right after all. —Michael Z. 2005-12-20 19:25 Z

Thanks again, I'll try Tahoma now.

Also, just wanted to note that i-macron is used by the LOC to transliterate Russian "i" (which was rendered obsolete by the 1918 reform), not "и". I made a correction.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 19:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Did a quick test. These tie characters seem to be supported properly by the Tahoma font that came installed on my Win XP test system, but not by Microsoft's version of Tahoma for Macintosh. Can you see this: t͡s, i͡u, i͡a? Maybe we can get these to work right after all, but it won't be as simple as just specifying the font. Oh, Microsoft. —Michael Z. 2005-12-20 19:32 Z

Yeah, those I can see, although by now I am now completely lost as to what I should use to have it fixed :)—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 19:39, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Cool; so it's doable. Can you see any of the following? If not, then we'll have to figure out which fonts work, and create a new template, and update the style sheet common.css. —Michael Z. 2005-12-20 19:45 Z

• in {{IPA}}: t͡s, i͡u, i͡a
• in {{Unicode}}: t͡s, i͡u, i͡a
• in {{Polytonic}}: Template:Polytonic

I can see the first two ligatures all right, but they are shifted to the left (so it's diacritics, then letters). The third one does not show any diacritics at all. I am currently using Tahoma (and omfg, it's ugly!).—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 19:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Too bad these templates don't work. They use the offending Arial Unicode in their list of fonts. I'll see if I can get something together in the next day or two. Better Tahoma on a couple of letters than the whole browser window. —Michael Z. 2005-12-20 19:57 Z

All right, I've just looked at Romanization of Russian through my new Tahoma glasses, and no, it's not better. Not only the font is ugly, but the ligatures seem to span three letters instead of two (e.g., in "TSimliansk", the ligature starts over "T" and ends over "i"). Prime and double prime still do not show up, and I lost the "ǐ", which is also an empty square now. I guess I'll have to live with IE. Arial at least does not hurt my eyes, unlike Tahoma. But for those symbols that only work in Tahoma altering the template a bit may indeed be the only solution.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 20:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Ukrainian phonology

Михайле я не мовознавець і не спеціаліст з фонології, і подав свою точку зору спираючись на публікації фахівців з фонології. Тоня Білоус, у цій публікації [3] пише про відмінність між вимовою "в" в українській і російській мові. Також про це йдеться тут [4] і тут [5]. Всі зазначені джерела вказують, що це лабіальний звук, на відміну від Labio-dental в російській. Крім того на кінці слова, та після приголосних "в" звучить як [ў]. В білоруській мові для цього звука є окрема літера ў. В IPA вона передається як w. Але ще раз повторюю, що я не фахівець а лише опирався на праці Тоні Білоус. --Yakudza 20:07, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm no linguist either. I was going by the article in my Kubijovyc encyclopedia, which transcribes в as v in most places, ŭ "after a vowel but not followed by a vowel", and this is consistent with the Ukrainian I am accustomed to hearing (and with what you describe, too, I think). I quoted some of the relevant passages from the encyclopedia at talk:Ukrainian language#Phonetics.

Мені легше відповідати по-Анґлійське, але прошу писати як вам найвигідніше. Привіт. —Michael Z. 2005-12-20 20:17 Z

Шановнi друзi, (як каже наш президент).

Ми можемо з повною впевненiстю сказати, що думки лiнгвiстiв з цього приводу рiзняться. Все що стосується України та української занадто полiтизовано, навiть лiнгвiстика. Але треба також застосовувати здоровий глузд (common sense), тобто прислухатись, як говорять диктори на телебаченнi та радiо центральних каналiв, де намагаються говорити не дiалектами, а так званою "класичною українською" (по аналогiї з Hochdeutsch). Там "В" звучить як V, i нiхто не каже "W" чи "Хвастiв."

В останнi роки дуже зрiс вплив захiдної школи в усiх гуманiтарних сферах. Це приводить к поширенню книжок, що вiдображають лише захiдний дiалект, навiть мабуть його варiанти. З цього приводу, ще раз рекомендую статтю з Української правди пiд назвою "Все ґеніяльне просто або українців можуть відучити розмовляти мовою Шевченка." --Irpen 21:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Am I allowed to write in Ukrainian even in view of this? I hope so :). Cheers all! --Irpen 21:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Halo Disambuguation

Hi I saw that you changed halo disambuguation. Before you changed it, the article was acurate. Because the megastructure, books, flim, and video games are in the universe. You changed it to look like the flim and the books were in the video games. This is not ture. I fixed it so it's acuate again. Thanks.