User talk:Nohat: Difference between revisions

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Hi, would you mind commenting here on your reason(s) for unblocking yourself? I'm afraid your timing was a bit unfortunate, as your unblock came after an extended discussion on the evils of unblocking oneself. Thanks! Carbonite | Talk 03:32, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. After yesterday's events I have decided to take a break for a while, but there were a couple things I wanted to fix that I knew I wouldn't remember or it would be too late to fix when I came back, so I took the liberty of fixing them. If you consult my contributions log you will see that they were innocuous. I have re-instated my block. Nohat 03:58, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute 2 has been re-opened. Please place evidence at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute 2/Evidence. Proposals and comments may be placed on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute 2/Workshop. (SEWilco 03:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC))[reply]

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)[reply]

User:Denelson83 has found an inaccuracy of your redrawing of the IPA-chart found at Image:Ipa-chart-all-1000px.png (see [1] and [2]). On your chart, it is the palatal trill/tap or flap that are greyed out, while at http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/fullchart.html it is the velar ones. If you still have the file from which you've created that image, this could be fixed easily. -- j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 17:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted the change from "DPRK" to "North Korea." The main reason is that I believe User:Bjornar might stop by the page at some point, and I worry about giving him any excuse to rewrite large sections of it. He previously removed many details from the article. Gazpacho 00:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No. The common name for the country is "North Korea". It should be as clear to as many people as possible that the article is about North Korea. Fear of other users is not a valid reason for making an article less accessible. Nohat 00:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Nohat. Following Wiki guidelines, articles are formed collectively and differences are resolved by consensus through discussion. --Bjornar 15:29, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I removed the Pokémon links because, as a former Pokémon freak myself when I was younger, it was in my judgement that no-one looking for the Pokémon would search for the word "Abracadabra": they are separate Pokémon and no-one could possibly think of them as one; at least not anyone looking for the Pokémon. I don't know what your background in Pokémon is, but I thought I'd tell you why I removed the Pokémon entires. (It did involve some discretion, so if you're absolutely convinced that there is space for confusion there, I won't revert your change a second time.) Neonumbers 10:40, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, am sorry for reverting your edits. As I saw most of the disambig pages with the dab pages in bold, I assumed that it was the style to be followed. Thanks for informing me abt the correct style through your edit summary. --Gurubrahma 07:08, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very late getting back into Wikipedia after being away from Wikipedia a while. But looking at my last posts in October, I noticed I was then talking about the "logical style" quoting / British style that I had then discovered was in use here after someone had edited an article I'd worked on to reflect that. I saw that you replied at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style on October 16 to me about this matter, suggesting I not worry about changing all my past quoting errors unless I want to. I was wishing now I could just delete whatever I'd said in the discussion back when I was unused to the style but now two months later it's a bit late (I think they've archived it by now so that it's not even up any more?). I don't really care about the issue that much and am sorry I said I thought the logical/British style didn't look good to me. I just am so used to carefully adhering to the way I had trained and edited in for years that I guess it took a while to adjust. I am already adjusted now and am planning to use the British style other places too besides wikipedia, where appropriate. So I'm sorry I rambled on so much in the discussion area about the logical quoting style. If I had it do over again, I probably wouldn't have said as much in the discussion page about it. I haven't had time to go correct all my past quoting errors in that vein yet, but I will sometime when I have more time. Emerman 16:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, mate. Sometimes discussions can get a bit cantankerous here. Best not to take anything too personally. There are, of course, perfectly good reasons not to use the logical/British quoting style, but somewhere along the line, it was decided to be consistent, and any kind of consistency will require some arbitrariness. So it is what it is. Nohat 16:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The simple English Wiktionary needs a new logo. Just a small change to show people that they are on the simple English version and not the English version. Thanks, wikt:simple:User:Gmcfoley.

Hey Nohat, I live in Boston, site of the next m:Wikimania! I'm trying to make a few logos/designs that I think would be good as stickers and such, and I was wondering if you perhaps had an SVG/ia of the Wikipedia globe logo. Yes, I know it's copyrighted to the Foundation, but perhaps I could just mess around a little with it? I'm looking for ideas re: a design for a sticker or t-shirt, and any help you could give would be appreciated greatly. Feel free to e-mail me. Thanks! -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 22:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is a large PNG version at meta:Image:Nohat-logo-XI-big.png. It is a 3-D rendered image, so it only exists in raster formats. Nohat 23:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I think I downloaded that, but I'll check again.

I have Illustrator, how do I mess with it in 3D? Should I maybe get GIMP? (My idea is to meld the globe with a disco ball, to create wiki-mania, yeah.....:-\). -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 00:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You can't really change anything about the 3-D image. It's a bitmapped rendering, so the only things you can do to are the same things you can do to any other bitmapped rendering. You can place it in Illustrator and illustrate over it, or you can open in a program like Photshop or the Gimp and modify it that way. I do not have the files I used with POV-Ray to render the original image readily available. The PNG is really the best raw source imagery available for working with the logo. Good luck! Nohat 00:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, and again, nice job on the world-famous logo :). -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 03:00, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Nohat, I would like to use one of the logos you have already created on my main non-commercial website. The logo is currently located at www.unixville.com. I'm not sure what the legal licenses are behind it, but I just want to make sure it is OK for me to use it. Thanks!!

Hi there, Nohat! I really love the logo you've made for Wikipedia. I think, however, that the high-resolution version is both a little small and has strange inaccuracies (the texture seems to have been upscaled for that particular rendering). Maybe you would like to release the original file used to render the logo, so that I (or anybody else) could have a look at it? I'm not certain how copyright would restrict this, but I have no intention to use the logo for any other purposes besides maybe cleaning up the high-resolution version a little bit. Thanks! --Michiel Sikma 14:39, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Gee, you must get sick of messages asking about your logo :)

I know it's a long shot, but I was wondering if you still had the original jigsaw puzzle bitmap you used; I want to use it for a bump map on a re-rendering of the globe I'm going to attempt. If you can't find it, don't stress (I can make do). Thanks :) - Mark 03:19, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Nohat. I have mad a request for a new hindi wikipedia logo at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_logos#Wikipedia_2 at the bottom of the section. It'd be great if you could help me with this. Thanks a lot --Spundun 09:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I understand perfectly, in fact the only wiki reference I find about obscenities is Wikipedia:Words to avoid. My edit summary should be different, but the result the same. The use of "fuck" does not seem appropriate to me in an article about a church, unless it in some way contributes to a reader's understanding about the church. Were the use of obscenity common in culture, i.e. if a number of songs, dances and plays used obscenity in art (directed toward any subject) then it would have a place. As only one song of one group does, it need not be in the article and should be avoided I think. Thanks for the heads up re: Wiki policy, that was a hotheaded thing of me to say. Terryeo 19:05, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, a previous Wikipedia user ( User:AI ) attempted to use the Wikipedia guidelines as a way to force his changes through. This is not a good policy to follow, because the Wikipedia guidelines are simply guidelines, not hard and fast rules. Second, I'll actually support Terryeo on his suggestion of removing the word "fuck" from the article, as this really isn't a subject where use of the word is absolutely necessary. It's the same reason why the word was removed from the Pac-Man article, and even from the article on the album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band; there wasn't a good reason for it to be there. --Modemac 20:55, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Huh?? Rv?? I had left a note saying why I reverted. I think the previous version had more info and think all the OED and M-W thing is unnecessary.Cribananda 06:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, the previous version has less information. Nohat 06:06, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a useful resource. I've added some that you missed. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I ran Wikipedia's Finnish logo trough PNGOUT and compressed it to 97% of its original size.

You can see it at here: http://mbnet.fi/lateksi8/Wikipedia-logo-fi.v2.png

The Japanese 'character' at the top (クィ) should be ウィ, which is the first character-combination spelling Wikipedia (ウィキペディア). It MAY be the result of warping or cropping, as クィ isn't an acceptable character-combination in Japanese. (It would be pronounced ku + i = ki, but there is already a character for ki (キ).) I don't know if I'm the first person to notice this ... I thought it was strange that it even made it onto the ja Wiki without anyone complaining so I checked meta to see the vote to ratify it and it seems that all (or most) of the users that voted to accept it on the Japanese page were not Japanese, and I presume had varying levels of Japanese comprehension!   freshgavin TALK    07:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's just a random selection of characters not intended to signify anything more the multilingualism. Nohat 07:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I can see that the Chinese character doesn't seem to signify anything either. But even saying that, the character クィ doesn't exist in Japanese... so it looks strange. I just assumed it was meant to be the ウィ from the name following the example of the capital W : /.   freshgavin TALK    11:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I read the discussion you had previously with the Japanese Wikipedians. Case closed.   freshgavin TALK    04:26, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia does not have normal logo. Current logo is on English. Can you make new logo whit good extension (.png - small letters.)? You will mix logos from hr and from sr Wikipedia. Thank you.

Look here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Sh-wikipedia-logo.PNG

--M. Pokrajac 16:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We want to print some posters for advertising of the Russian Wikipedia. Can you send me the logo of Russian Wikipedia in .TIFF or in curves (.AI or .CDR)? Thanks! My e-mail s_t_a_s@mail.ru --Ctac 22:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Nohat. My friend, User:Visviva is working on the List of English words of Korean origin. Since you were so helpful when I worked on the List of English words of Japanese origin, I was wondering if you could help in a similar fashion, by visiting Talk:List of English words of Korean origin. Visviva is very capable in the Korean language, and should know many words in Korean. Thanks.--Endroit 15:37, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not nonsense. See my reversion summary at the history link above. —WAvegetarian•_{CONTRIBUTIONS}^TALK• ^EMAIL•06:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC) [reply]

The word del.icio.us isn't supposed to ever be capitalized. It's a brand name that wants it that way for whatever reason. Thus I would suggest undoing your change to the article. Also read the first italicizes lead sentence for more information. --Ben Houston 19:51, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Brand names do not get to dictate how we write the English language. If a word begins a sentence, it is capitalized. That is not negotiable. If it cannot be capitalized, then it shouldn't begin a sentence. Nohat 20:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I take issue with your description of my Acronym and initialism edit as "ridiculous". The whole tone of the original paragraph was tantamount to throwing the established (and current) dictionary definition out of the window. Also, your comment about the difference being "alleged" would seem to suggest that the Oxford English Dictionary — described on its website as "The definitive record of the English language" — has its facts wrong! Yes, there are those who, like the phenomenon of the greengrocer's apostrophe, do things a certain way through nothing more than pure ignorance; I now concede that there are others (like you) who are aware of the difference but nonetheless reject it; and some (like me) who say "Vive la difference!" However, I should point out that the term "initialism" had never even crossed my path until I saw this article, which shows how uncommon it is. You may wonder then, if I didn't know the word, how I could tell the difference. The answer is that I was always taught that an acronym is a pronounceable word, whereas everything else is simply an abbreviation. I have now rewritten elements of the opening to be (hopefully) wholly factual and impartial, giving equal weight to both schools of thought. Sorry, but if your intention was to wind me up, then you succeeded! Chris 42 18:10, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The only thing about your edits that was ridiculous was when you wrote that the only people who use "acronym" to describe things like "IBM" were those who were unaware of the alleged distinction. This is what I corrected and commented on in my edit. And yes, I use the word "alleged" to describe the distinction because it is a distinction that only exists in dictionaries. Most speakers and writers of English use the word "acronym" to describe things like "IBM", completely oblivious to the fact that most dictionary makers have failed to define the word in a way that reflects how the word is actually used. And yes, the folks at the OED do have their facts wrong: at the very least the folks at the Merriam-Webster dictionary acknowledge that many people do use the word "acronym" to describe things like "IBM". Their definition explicitly gives "FBI" as an example for "acronym". I do expect that in time, the Oxford folks will revise their entry to reflect the facts of usage. At the moment, however, the current definition is like a dictionary defintion for "hopefully" that says only "in a hopeful manner": one that represents what the editors of the dictionary think the word ought to mean, rather than what the word actually means, based on how people actually use the word.

I think it is a misapprehension of the situation to describe the use of the word "acronym" to describe things like "IBM" as merely sloppy English. To me, "JPEG" and "FBI" are as much "words" as "NATO". Whether the pronunciation of the word is derived from the names of the letters or the sounds the letters represent seems like an inconsequential idiosyncracy unrelated to the fact that they are fundamentally the same thing, and fundamentally distinct from other kinds of abbreviations like "Mr." or "etc.". An "acronym" (in this sense) is a name which is formed from the initial letters of some other phrase or multi-word name, and what makes it distinct from abbreviations (like "etc.") is that acronyms act as a separate linguistic entity from the thing it stands for. What I mean by this is that something like "etc." is just a written shorthand for "et cetera". When you see "etc." you think "et cetera", and when you read it out loud, you say "et cetera". On the other hand, with acronyms, when you see FBI, you think and say "FBI", NOT "Federal Bureau of Investigation". Of course, FBI means "Federal Bureau of Investigation", but it only means this in the same way that banana means an elongated yellow fruit of the banana tree. It is in this way that acronyms like FBI are in fact words of their own: they exist as independent linguistic entities that have a unique spelling, pronunciation, and meaning of their own that is not merely a written shorthand for some other word or phrase.

If one therefore accepts that FBI is as much a word as NATO or banana, careful scrutiny of most dictionary definitions will show they don't necessarily exclude such things, even if that was their intention. I think the problem is that dictionary writers simply haven't taken these facts into account, and like many others, have simply decided that things like FBI are not "words" and therefore simply cannot be acronyms, despite the fact that many, many people use the word that way. I once compiled a list of many such examples in published, printed books; it is somewhere in the talk archives. I also find it quite amusing that, despite the fact that most modern dictionaries, OED included, claim to be descriptive; that is, their definitions are supposed to reflect how words are actually used rather than what the dictionary editors think the words ought to mean, and also despite the fact that there is a preponderance of usage not only in informal and spoken English, but in professionally edited printed works that reflect this usage, only one major dictionary, Merriam-Webster, have deigned to reflect this in their definition of acronym. And they miss the generalization: they say an acronym is any abbreviation formed from initial letters, but fail to note that people do not use acronym to describe any old abbreviation formed from initial letters, but only those that act as independent linguistic entities; in other words, "words".

At this point, it is important to note that dictionaries are not the final say in the meanings of words in the English language. Dictionaries only reflect what the editors of those dictionaries believe that a word means. Unlike some languages, like French, there is no official language academy that casts down decisions from on high as to what a word does or doesn't mean. There is no final arbiter of English usage other than how people actually use a word. So the article on acronyms cannot simply defer all responsibility for defining words to the dictionary makers. And I think the analysis that use of acronym to refer to things like IBM is just a slipshod extension of the "original" meaning is disingenuous, and should not be reflected in the article, except as attributed to the misguided and misinformed linguistic prescriptivists who hold it. The important thing about acronym (which comes from the Greek for "head-name" [note nym means "name", not "word"]) is that things that are described as acronyms exist as independent linguistic units from the things they stand for. Nohat 07:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's okay, I've calmed down now! You've put your point very coherently and extensively and I'm grateful for the obvious time you took in writing it. Chris 42 12:43, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Howdy, you added this to AfD, but since it was tagged {{prod}} by Tonywalton, I removed it from AfD--Isotope23 17:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Per section 4 of Wikipedia:Undeletion policy, I am informing you that I have undeleted the article dawg because I believe it was deleted out-of-process. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dawg. Nohat 09:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No Probs - if rather over bureaucratic in my view - the afd now has 5 votes - all to delete of which three recommend a speedy - but he ho! Brookie :) - a will o' the wisp ! ^(Whisper...) 10:44, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, I'd rather piss you off. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 05:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]