Hosta

Archives
Archive 1 - November 22, 2006 Archive 2 - June 28, 2012

Welcome!

Hello, WilliamThweatt, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Kukini 23:17, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Register in Mon

Appreciated your expansion on register in the Mon article. What do you think about just changing the name of that section to "Register" (since it's not about phonation per se--i.e., not about voicing--but only about phonation differences on vowels as a contrastive feature)? By the way, "tone" in Burmese is partly a phonation thing too--with modal ("clear"), breathy ("heavy") and creaky tones. I did some instrumental phonetic studies, but the actual nature of the three "tones" never really came clear to me. Where you draw the line between tone languages and register languages has never been clear to me, where either might use pitch, pitch contour, phonation types and length in various ways to distinguish words. ...Anyway, good job, thanks. · rodii · 17:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! It's great to see Mon-Khmer languages on Wikipedia. I agree, Burmese is definitely somewhere into true tone language territory and Mon isn't. I wrote my dissertation on Burmese (but more in syntax than phonology); later I did field work in Africa on another tone language and it became increasingly clear to me that tone in Southeast Asia is almost a different phenomenon than it is in Africa.

I look forward to your work on Mon language. I knew Gerard Diffloth a little, years ago, who know more about Mon than anyone I've ever met, but unfortunately seemed averse to writing it up, so I never learned much. I noticed you have a redlink for Nyahkur on your user page, by the way--I thought Nyahkur (or Nyah Kur) was basically just a Thai Mon dialect. Not? · rodii · 00:47, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Commons POTY identity confirmation

I confirm I am the same user as 69.225.87.189 --William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 04:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged revisions, underwent a two-month trial which ended on 15 August 2010. Its continued use is still being discussed by the community, you are free to participate in such discussions. Many articles still have pending changes protection applied, however, and the ability to review pending changes continues to be of use.

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under level 1 pending changes and edits made by non-reviewers to level 2 pending changes protected articles (usually high traffic articles). Pending changes was applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.

For the guideline on reviewing, see Wikipedia:Reviewing. Being granted reviewer rights doesn't grant you status nor change how you can edit articles even with pending changes. The general help page on pending changes can be found here, and the general policy for the trial can be found here.

If you do not want this user right, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Courcelles 05:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Welcome back

By sheer coincidence (or sheer sockpuppetry) I have also returned to WP around the same time after a long absence. When I saw your name pop up on my neglected watchlist, it was definitely a welcome blast from the past. I've enjoyed your previous writing and I wonder if you would care to collaborate on a Cambodian article or two? I'm up for a low pressure joint project or two, if you are. Welcome back in any case. I hope you stick around. Cheers, Paxse (talk) 10:26, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words. It's always great to hear from other editors who share similar interests. I'm still fairly busy in real life, so I don't know how much time I'll have to spare, but I intend to resume editing at least on a semi-regular basis. So, "welcome back!" to you too and Happy Editing!--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 01:12, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Non-roman script cluttering leads

William, thanks for your work on Bulgaria. I have footnoted non-roman scripts that occur at the outset of en.WP articles whenever I see them; indeed more ... sometimes even roman-script original-language equivalents. If the latter are of very secondary utility to English-speakers, the former are a downright irritant. Few English-speakers read non-roman scripts, and they are accessible in the very first footnote if of some particular use. Thanks. Tony (talk) 07:02, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

They may be "cluttering" and "downright irritant"s to you, but don't assume that they are to others, and it is just not true that "few English-speakers read non-roman scripts". As an academic encyclopedia, the native name of a country is of utmost relevance, hence the usages in most all country articles (see my examples on the Bulgaria talk page for just a few). It sounds like your issue is Wikipedia-wide and perhaps you should seek consensus at the appropriate project page(s).--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 07:11, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countries/Templates--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 07:19, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

And while we're talking of irritants, would you be able to fix your talk page so the right side of the text doesn't float beyond view? Tony (talk) 08:12, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Your request for rollback

Hi WilliamThweatt. After reviewing your request for rollback, I have enabled rollback on your account. Keep in mind these things when going to use rollback:

• Getting rollback is no more momentous than installing Twinkle.
• Rollback should be used to revert clear cases of vandalism only, and not good faith edits.
• Rollback should never be used to edit war.
• If abused, rollback rights can be revoked.
• Use common sense.

If you no longer want rollback, contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some more information on how to use rollback, see Wikipedia:New admin school/Rollback (even though you're not an admin). I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, but feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. Thank you for helping to reduce vandalism. Happy editing! Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 12:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

Hi Sir... I am Sorry... Please Guide me for Editing... Thanks Vithurgod (talk) 05:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Sir... In the Wiki Page of Ranina reddy, please Restore the 'Discography" Section. I will explain you my point. Its a Table containing the list of songs sung by the singer and its a Must appear in her wikipedia. All other singers in the same category have it. Its all having proofs and please include it and restore it. . Thanks Vithurgod —Preceding undated comment added 10:15, 11 April 2012 (UTC).

Your free 1-year HighBeam Research account is ready

Good news! You are approved for access to 80 million articles in 6500 publications through HighBeam Research.

• The 1-year, free period begins when you enter the code.
• To activate your account: 1) Go to http://www.highbeam.com/prof1
• If you need assistance, email "help at highbeam dot com", and include "HighBeam/Wikipedia" in the subject line. Or go to WP:HighBeam/Support, or ask User:Ocaasi. Please, per HighBeam's request, do not call the toll-free number for assistance with registration.
• A quick reminder about using the account: 1) try it out; 2) provide original citation information, in addition to linking to a HighBeam article; 3) avoid bare links to non-free HighBeam pages; 4) note "(subscription required)" in the citation, where appropriate. Examples are at WP:HighBeam/Citations.
• HighBeam would love to hear feedback at WP:HighBeam/Experiences
• Show off your HighBeam access by placing {{User:Ocaasi/highbeam_userbox}} on your userpage
• When the 1-year period is up, check applications page to see if renewal is possible. We hope it will be.

Thanks for helping make Wikipedia better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 22:02, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Cambodia

Hi and thanks for your message. I can take a look at the article but it may not be for a few days. Are you in a hurry? :) Riggr Mortis (talk) 04:46, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Not in a hurry at all. A peer review was done this morning and it seems, in addition to copyediting, there is quite a bit of work to do on the references, but I'm in it for the long haul, so sooner or later, it will get done. Cheers--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 04:56, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Best not to copyedit if there are substantial changes coming to the text, but it sounds like you're talking about adding citations more than reworking text? Thanks for reminding me that I'm listed on the peer review page, BTW--not sure anyone's contacted me based on that. Riggr Mortis (talk) 23:47, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think there will be a lot of adding citations and updating/verifying existing references. But with that usually comes changes in text as problems are found or new or more current info is discovered. So, yeah you're right, my request for copyedit may have been a bit premature. Thank you, nonetheless, for your response and willingness to help out! Once the referencing is done and other issues are worked out, I'll resubmit it for Peer Review and/or Copyediting.--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 00:47, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

DYK for Northern Khmer dialect

Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:04, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

DYK for Stockton Cannery Strike of 1937

Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:04, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Jru' language

Hello! Your submission of Jru' language at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! The Bushranger _{One ping only} 19:06, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

List of sovereign states

I don't view Cook Islands and Niue as sovereign states. They are like Puerto Rico and French Polynesia, incorporated territories and have succession rights. But that does not grant sovereignty to those. Remember definition of Sovereign states on Wikipedia: A sovereign state is classically defined as a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. I don't think those exercises internal and external sovereignty. Neither do they have the rights to grant citizenship to their people. They haven't declared independence either, why do you think they are sovereign states? You can hold a "referendum" on wikipedia if you want. 183.91.13.72 (talk) 14:50, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

But your edit removed Bosnia and Herzegovina from the list, not Cook Island and Niue. Please discuss your edits on the talk page of the article so people who regularly edit that article can participate, I was merely reverting the removal of Bosnia and Herzegovina that I noticed through Recent Changes.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 17:41, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

DYK for Jru' language

Yngvadottir (talk) 08:03, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Reporting to AIV

is appropriate when you have exhausted all resources and only a block can resolve the matter. Please learn how to communicate with (misbehaving) users. I can help with that. We rarely block a user who has not been warned about our policies. Cheers. Materialscientist (talk) 04:53, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

hhhmmmm, I didn't mean to do that. I had to look at my edit history to see what you are talking about. I must have hit the wrong Twinkle button a few times. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I will be more cautious in the future.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 05:03, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Yes, Twinkle and Huggle are known to glitch sometimes and report a user/IP at will, especially in times of server problems like today. Materialscientist (talk) 05:19, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Green papaya salad

I saw that you specified cherry tomato as one of the ingredients in Cambodian papaya salad. Are you sure about this? In Thailand the much more meaty plum tomatoes are used. I can't really imagine the watery and non-meaty cherry tomatoes being used in this dish at all. - Takeaway (talk) 10:20, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Good catch, I meant to type grape tomato, which is a roma or plum-type tomato that is the size of a small cherry tomato. I was thinking "grape tomato" but my fingers typed "cherry tomato". Funny how the brain works (or doesn't work) sometimes. I'll change the article right now. As an aside, Cambodians in the US (at home or informal vendors in parks, etc. but not in restaurants) often use (red but slightly unripe) cherry tomatoes added toward the end of the pounding process. It does result in a more watery consistency, but not as runny or messy as you might think.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 16:35, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

New page for petrolling

If you don't mind can you petrol my new article Jaya Suriya Engineering College. Ramesh Ramaiah ^talk 18:35, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Joseph Uliano

Hello WilliamThweatt. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Joseph Uliano, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: The article makes a credible assertion of importance or significance, sufficient to pass A7. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 03:37, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Bulgaria

Will, I didn't know where to leave you a note, so I'm using this page. Can you please not change Bulgaria's page and replace Formation section with independence, Bulgaria's history goes well beyond 1878 and starting with this date is not consistent with Wikipedia's standards. Please, see countries like Czech republic, Poland, Germany, France, etc. these all have formation and not independence. Thus, kindly stop changing Bulgaria's Formation section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.202.157.163 (talk) 20:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Please read the discussions on the talk page of the Bulgaria article. Per the discussions there, history belongs in the history section of the text, not in the infobox. The date in the infobox is for the establishment of the current political entity which came into being after independence from Ottoman rule.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 22:41, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

==Notice of Dispute resolution discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgaria". Thank you. --Ximhua (talk) 01:13, 26 July 2012 (UTC) ==

Thank you!

Copy and paste copyright violations

JamesBWatson (talk) 17:35, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Formal mediation has been requested

The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Bulgaria". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 6 August 2012. Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you. Message delivered by MediationBot (talk) on behalf of the Mediation Committee. 09:54, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Request for mediation rejected

The request for formal mediation concerning Bulgaria, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. For the Mediation Committee, Lord Roem (talk) 03:54, 8 August 2012 (UTC) (Delivered by MediationBot, on behalf of the Mediation Committee.)

Bulgaria article - your last edit

I'm OK with your version. Ximhua (talk) 02:33, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Moving Burma to Myanmar - ongoing poll

This is to let you know that an ongoing poll is taking place to move Burma to Myanmar. I know this happened just recently but no administrator would close these frequent rm's down, so here we go again. This note is going out to wikipedia members who have participated in Burma/Myanmar name changing polls in the past. It does not include banned members nor those with only ip addresses. Thank you. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:25, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Notice of Dispute resolution discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute in which you may have been involved. Content disputes can hold up article development, therefore we request your participation in the discussion to help find a resolution. The thread is "Bulgaria". Thank you! — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 18:02, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Bulgaria dispute

Will, why are you so stubborn with this change? Most other countries have listed their important dates in this box, why not Bulgaria? And it is not as the it did not exist for these 400 years, even on maps in XVII century the area was refereed as Bulgaria... let alone the cultural, tradition, etc. continuation. Why are you doing this? Ximhua (talk) 18:32, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

thx for help

i meant to do what you just did and restore talk page comments. i have already 3-4 times on this page recently and my last attempt i mangled, thx for correcting my error.  :) Darkstar1st (talk) 03:41, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Ways to improve Mark Wayne Glasmire

Hi, I'm Kerfuffler. WilliamThweatt, thanks for creating Mark Wayne Glasmire!

I've just tagged the page, using our page curation tools, as having some issues to fix. An actual discography would also be helpful.

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, you can leave a comment on my talk page. Or, for more editing help, talk to the volunteers at the Teahouse.

Notice of Dispute resolution discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute in which you may have been involved. Content disputes can hold up article development, therefore we request your participation in the discussion to help find a resolution. The thread is "Talk:Berber people". Thank you! --Guy Macon (talk) 00:08, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Chittagong

Hi William! Can you please create an article on Chittagong each in Khmer, Lao and Koine Greek languages? Thanks --Zayeem ^(talk) 16:07, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

(random user commenting) Why would you want a translation of the article about Chittagong in Koine Greek? It's a dead language which was spoken between 300 BC and 300 AD. Also, there's no Koine Wikipedia (in fact, there's no Ancient Greek Wikipedia). πr² (t • c) 19:48, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I saw the language in the userpage that's why asked for it! Sorry about that! --Zayeem ^(talk) 10:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

First Glasgow Wiki Meetup

You are invited to the first ever Glasgow Wiki Meetup which will take place at The Sir John Moore, 260-292 Argyle Street, City of Glasgow G2 8QW on Sunday 12 May 2013 from 1.00 pm. If you have never been to one, this is an opportunity to meet other Wikipedians in an informal atmosphere for Wiki and non-Wiki related chat and for beer or food if you like. Experienced and new contributors are all welcome. This event is definitely not restricted just to discussion of Scottish topics. Bring your laptop if you like and use the free Wifi or just bring yourself. Even better, bring a friend! Click the link for full details. Looking forward to seeing you. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:06, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedian in Residence at the National Library of Scotland

I'm just dropping you a quick note about a new Wikipedian in Residence job that's opened up at the National Library of Scotland. There're more details at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scotland#Wikimedian in Residence at the National Library of Scotland. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 14:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Love history & culture? Get involved in WikiProject World Digital Library!

World Digital Library Wikipedia Partnership - We need you!

Hi WilliamThweatt! I'm the Wikipedian In Residence at the World Digital Library, a project of the Library of Congress and UNESCO. I'm recruiting Wikipedians who are passionate about history & culture to participate in improving Wikipedia using the WDL's vast free online resources. Participants can earn our awesome WDL barnstar and help to disseminate free knowledge from over 100 libraries in 7 different languages. Multilingual editors are welcome! (But being multilingual is not a requirement.) Please sign up to participate here. Thanks for editing Wikipedia and I look forward to working with you! SarahStierch (talk) 22:15, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

/soon/ vs /soun/ 'zero'

You mentioned that other sources declare it as being phonemically /soun/, could you provide a citation? I'm having no luck verifying your claim (in Huffman or Jenner), and it's worth noting that spelling and pronunciation aren't forcibly correlated. The vowel in clip provided on this website sounds rather flat more than like the diphthong in the English word 'tone'. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 22:58, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmong clustering

Thanks for your help with that language article. – SJ + 14:55, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Tampuan

Is the ⟨a⟩ in Tampuon really pronounced [u]? Might that just be an English pronunciation spelling? — kwami (talk) 07:23, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, good catch...well actually it's the Khmer pronunciation spelling. A small oversight on my part transcribing the wrong word. For the Tampuan pronunciation, the unstressed vowel in the pre-syllable would probably be better rendered as /ə/. I'll go change that now.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 08:33, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Tasks

Hey, here's a gnomish task for you, if you're interested:

1. update all Mon-Khmer speaker populations per Ethn. 17
2. cite Ethn's sources directly if you have access
3. cite better or more up-to-date sources if you know of some

I'm gradually doing all lang articles, but won't get past level 1. I won't have the time for 2, and in most cases don't have the knowledge for 3. — kwami (talk) 23:58, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey, thanks. One petty point, though: In this edit you imply that the number of speakers is from the 2009 census, when it's from Bradley 2007. I don't know what Bradley based his figures on, but if it's from several years earlier, there may be a significant difference from 2009 due to population growth or language shift, as well as from different methods of estimating. Thus dividing the number of speakers by the number of people does not provide the percentage of people who speak the language, as the article now implies. — kwami (talk) 01:05, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Yeah I can see that. I didn't mean to make that implication. Guess I shouldn't edit after a long day of work. Just trying to point out the disparity between the number of people and the number of speakers. I'll just leave the infobox to speak for itself.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 08:53, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

FYI, I've added support for "linglist" in the ref field. Only useful for a few extinct languages, but Ethn. is gradually shifting support of extinct languages over to Linglist. — kwami (talk) 00:42, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Hindi

The E17 figures for Manak Hindi are not actually for Manak Hindi, but rather based on speaker identification. The Indian census makes that clear, but the nuances are lost in Ethn. — kwami (talk) 22:17, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

hhhmmm, I'm not familiar enough with the Hindi situation to disagree (I should have read the 2nd paragraph in the lede, doh!). However, one would think that for a nation as large and developed (2nd most populous, 10 largest economy) there would be a reliable source with info more recent than a 22 years ago. For a 1991 number of 180 million and a current population growth rate of 1.51%, the number of Hindi speakers in India alone is bound to be much, much higher than the number we have now. I'll add looking for source to my already large (and growing) list of things to do.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 22:46, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it is a rather remarkable problem, and there are a lot of us who would appreciate it if you're able to find anything.

Besides the general rate of population growth, there may be language shift, so the number could be growing quite quickly indeed.

The census has a category for "Hindi" in the broad sense, and then breaks it down into Awadhi, Hindi, Chhattisgarhi, etc. The problem is that the numbers reflect speaker identification, so that for example the majority of Awadhi speakers reported their language as "Hindi" rather than as "Awadhi". The result is that only the total for all languages called "Hindi" has any validity, but this "Hindi" is a social construct that doesn't have any linguistic validity. — kwami (talk) 01:00, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Tampuan language

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:03, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Books and Bytes: The Wikipedia Library Newsletter

Hmong people

Thanks for reverting that copyvio on Hmong people, I was looking into it too. I've left a friendly notice on the new user's talk page to point them towards our copyright policies. Novusuna ^talk 08:00, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library Survey

As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:56, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

"Thai" languages

Proto-Thai is Proto–SW Tai, isn't it? I'm coming across plenty of refs to "Thai languages" which include more than just Siamese or languages in Thailand, but not finding a clear definition. The edit was from last year and I don't remember where. Rv. me if I got it wrong. — kwami (talk) 21:27, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Cambodian People's Party

Note, I've changed you're edit to the infobox and replaced it with "Non-ideological"... It sounds about right, don't you think? You may disagree but hegemonic and authoritarianism are not ideologies, they are something even more diffuse. --TIAYN (talk) 19:59, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Help for Albania article

Hi there, I just noticed the above article. User 77.49.58.129 has been doing some sourced edits, while User:Malbin210 has been reverting constantly with no justification. I can see you also got in between. I suspect also sockuppetry from User:Malbin210, creating multiple accounts to avoid 3RR. I think we need an Administrator to put an end to it. This article containts lots of inaccuracies coming mostly from Albanian editors (no suprise here). Thanks. Astarti34 (talk) 21:46, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I first reverted here yesterday thinking it was a simple case of restoring a deleted, properly sourced, fact and left a message on User:Malbin210's page about claiming to revert "vandalism" in an edit summary that clearly wasn't vandalism. Today, after seeing the fact was removed once again I checked the page history and noticed that it was just a small piece of a larger on-going edit war. I'm planning to notify Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring shortly.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 00:27, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Your revert on page:Hun Sen

Hello. You reverted an edit of mine on page:Hun Sen and removed:

"According to Reuters"

in the Section on his political career, claiming he had vowed to rule Cambodia until 74 years of age.

I am here to explain why you are wrong and why your revert will not be accepted.

The page need a source on this claim and I put up a source needed template. The Reuters article was provided, along with a stupid comment, that it was "common knowledge". We all know that "common knowledge", is not a proper source for anything. well, anyway the Reuters source was provided.

The Reuters source however, does nothing but mention the same claim, that is expressed in the article. The Reuters article does not cite Hun Sen or explain in what context he vowed (or said) that, they just happen to mention it. This is not a credible sourcing. Secondly the Reuters article only says that Hun Sen had vowed to rule until 74 years old, not that he vowed to rue Cambodia until he was 74 years old. This could very well be a reckless translation of him vowing to stay in politics until 74 years old, if he ever vowed to do anything in the first place. On this background I could have inserted a template of better source needed, but instead I choose to insert "According to Reuters", which is a better solution in my opinion.

Your revert will be reverted on this background and if you want to discuss the issue, please comment below, as edit-wars are unwanted.

PS. It may be that the claim is "common knowledge", but this would just make it easier to give a proper acceptable source, right? If this source can not be given, this "common knowledge" might in fact be wrong.

You may think this is a small thing, but the page on Hun Sen, is filled with so many similar unsourced (or badly sourced) claims, that overall something must be done and every small bit counts towards improving the page to an acceptable level. I have started the clean up and you are welcome to join this project in a constructive way.

RhinoMind (talk) 04:52, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I have been "working on this project" since 2005, so please dispense with the condescending attitude now. From what you wrote above I can't tell if English is not your first language or if you just don't understand the concept of reliable sourcing. And if you knew anything about Cambodia, its history and its politics, you'd know that this fact is fairly well established and the Reuters article is plenty sufficient to support its existence. In general the more outlandish or controversial a piece of text is, the more stringent the sourcing requirements should be. Although "common knowledge" doesn't need to be cited, I agree this isn't common knowledge, but for people who follow or are involved in Cambodian politics, this fact, as I said, is fairly well established (neither outlandish nor controversial). A quick google search reveals countless references for it. For example, here is a newspaper article directly addressing it. Throughout the years we've had many CPP supporters and Hun Sen apologists try to whitewash this article, which is just as unacceptable as edit-warring and unsourced fact. Aside from all of this, from a style standpoint, a sentence that is appended with a footnote attributing it to a particular source should not, in general, start with "According to (the source)"...that's just redundant and bad writing and why I reverted it. I'll update the article with this better source.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 08:40, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Hello. I have moved this discussion to Hun Sen's talk page.

Personal comment: First, I dont think I am the one being patronizing. Secondly, google searchs, number of digital hit or "countless references", does not necessarily imply a proper referencing per se. As an example, I can find several on-line sources claiming that the Earth is no more than 6.000 years old or so or that our planet have been visited by aliens. Statements that are either objectively wrong or unsourced at best. So these are not criteria for good references at all. Thirdly, political motivated edits are always a problem in a project like Wikipedia. If we could stick to properly sourced material and statements, we could also minimize and isolate these problems. Thank you for putting up the better source.

Btw. There are several murky spots in the article overall, can you provide a proper source or reference to the statement that:

In 1987, Amnesty International accused Hun Sen's government of torture of thousands of political prisoners using "electric shocks, hot irons and near-suffocation with plastic bags."

for example? Its important, and I believe you would agree? RhinoMind (talk) 23:04, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

At least we can agree on that. BTW, my mention of "countless references" was not made as a prima facie justification for the fact in question but rather to point out that the comment was neither so outlandish nor so controversial as to require extraordinary sources (which see). It was also an implied suggestion that instead of drive-by tagging, it would be relatively easy to find a source that you find more acceptable. The Amnesty International accusation is a different story, a statement such as that does indeed require sourcing to a higher standard. I haven't checked the present source yet, but I will get to it later on this evening. Cheers.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 02:05, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

GDP of albania

Thanks for your recent contribution to article Albania. You said that figures from both sources need to remain. But here is a point. The article shows that GDP per capita of Albania as a whole is 31 billion(government source) but the estimate from world bank is not mentioned. Could u please get the figure from world bank site and place it on article. do it also for gdp purchacing power parity.Will be very thankfull. Further could u please resolve my dispute with user malbin. At one time he reverts my edit through his wikipedia account and in the next time does this by an anonymous IP address making me confused. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mingling2 (talk • contribs) 10:47, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Your request does not make sense. Two very different figures are given by two different sources, so citing a range is preferable to cherrypicking which source we like or don't like. Estimates for other statistical categories have no bearing on these figures. As for your dispute with Malbin, I don't have the time or the patience to get involved with that mess. It looks like you both are revert warring when you should be engaging in discussion and attempting to reach a consensus on the article talk page instead. If you both can observe WP:Civil and WP:AGF, you can try to ask for an editor to give a neutral third opinion or else see WP:Dispute resolution. For allegations of sock puppetry see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Guidance. Continued edit warring (especially on any Balkans related article) is just a waste of everybody's time and will likely result in you both being blocked so I suggest you both take advantage of the more productive processes available on Wikipedia.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 18:58, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

A page you started (Khieu Chum) has been reviewed!

Thanks for creating Khieu Chum, WilliamThweatt!

Wikipedia editor Carriearchdale just reviewed your page, and wrote this note for you:

Thank-you!

To reply, leave a comment on Carriearchdale's talk page.

Learn more about page curation.

File permission problem with File:RomvongExample2009.jpg

Thanks for uploading File:RomvongExample2009.jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.

If you are the copyright holder for this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

• make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
• Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here. If you take this step, add {{OTRS pending}} to the file description page to prevent premature deletion.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:File copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read the Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:39, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the explanation about The Big Bang Theory. Fresheneesz (talk) 21:38, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Artist

And I also suggest you read WP:SOCIALMEDIA. I agree that the article needed third party independent sources but do NOT remove sources and then tag as you did so. One self published source contains valuable biographical data is acceptable if it is combined with others.♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:26, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Cambodia info box - Talk page

William, there's a Talk page discussion of the question of what to put in the info box - you might like to comment on the merits of the case there. PiCo (talk) 05:06, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, PiCo. I noticed that after I reverted and I was in the process of composing my response when you left this message. I have made a case regarding animism in Cambodia, including a few, admittedly hastily gathered, sources. I could go into more depth with better sources if these won't suffice.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 05:33, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Some confusing information on crocodile flags. The flags hung at temple festivals and the flags hung at houses for funerals are both tung krapoe. The reason: the crocodile supports the earth and is under the earth, and the flag therefore reminds people that they will return to earth. (BUT WTF???? THEY GET CREMATED!!!!) Maspero apparently wrote on this, but the Hun Sen Collection at RUPP lacks the relevant work.

Can you help with this one: An old lady (90 years old) told us on Saturday that meba are only called meba at weddings; when not on duty they have another name. Also this same old lady has a special shrine in her house for what I gather is the caul in which one of her children was born - shrines just keep multiplying. Do you know about this? PiCo (talk) 10:19, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Apologies for the delayed response. I get so busy in real life, I don't have nearly as much time for Wikipedia as I'd like anymore. I'll list my thoughts below.

• The white mourning flags and the colorful temple flags are indeed both called ទង់ក្រពើ (tong krapoe). I tend to believe that the legends regarding their (separate) development are mythologized embellishments on and conflations of some probably semi-historical and events. I've also found that the modern Cambodian laity are often unaware of the historical origins and significance of even a lot of their more important spiritual practices (e.g. Pchum Ben: rooted in pre-Buddhist ritual, but adapted to a merit-making opportunity, rather similar to the way Samhain became Halloween in Christian culture...try to get a lay person to describe what exactly is going on spiritually or how/why it works or when the practice began, you'll get vague and conflicted opinions as well). Due to this lack of awareness, I believe the separate origins of the two uses of the tong krapoe have been merged into one in the minds of most modern laypersons by newly- (or relatively more recently-) imagined "folk histories".
• I'm sure you're aware of the etymology of មេបា (me ba), i.e. "mother father". Also I'm sure your aware the primary usage of the term refers to the go-between(s) in negotiations for marriages. A tertiary meaning is "spirits of the ancestors of the bride and groom". Outside of the context of marriage-related issues, these same spirits are most often referred to by the parallel construction ជីដូនជីតា (ci doun ci taa, "ancestors, grandparents"). So, simply put, the me ba are the ci doun ci taa of the bride and groom who take an interest in their marriage and marriage related issues. Oftentimes I find a comprehensive dictionary can be helpful in getting the native sense of how terms are supposed to be used. Here are some examples from two (Headley's and Chuon Nath's): មេបាចាស់ទុំ (me ba cah tum) "name given to ancestral spirits who intervene in quarrels between husbands and wives"; មេបាពំនាក់បំពង់ (me ba pumneak bampong) "name given to ancestral spirits when they intervene in a case of adultery"; សែនផ្ដាច់មេបា (saen pdach me ba) "to make a spiritual offering to release a young woman from the control of her ancestral spirits"; សែនមេបា saen me ba "...a kind of marriage ritual...offerings are made to the young woman's ancestors to placate them...in order to legalize an elopement".
• Sorry but I'm not sure what "caul" is supposed to mean. Is it Khmer? If so, I'd probably recognize it if you could write it in Khmer. But, yes, some people do get carried away with shrines (ហ៊ឹង hɨŋ). Yesterday I was at the house of a ~60 yr old widow who had 3 in her living room: what appeared to be the main one adorned with a picture of the local head monk and various Buddha figurines, a separate one for her deceased husband and parents, and a third one with pictures of various yantras, tevedas, Riahu, grut, etc. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, has one large hɨŋ that takes up half of a wall in her living room with all of these elements combined and a much smaller one at the head of her bed specifically for her deceased children, parents and husband. So it seems to some degree a matter of preference informed by whatever is most spiritually or supersticiously (is that a word?) important to the person in question. Also a គ្រូខ្មែរ (Khru Khmer) consulted for reasons of illness or bad fortune will sometimes prescribe maintaining a shrine to whichever spirit/teveda/etc. he divines is either responsible for or can remedy the situation.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 00:53, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

• William, thanks for the long and thoughtful response. I've made several attempts to reply but they don't satisfy me and take up too much of my time. What I'm doing, and the reason for this interest, is that I have a contract with a publisher to produce a handbook on Cambodian beliefs. It's something that's completely lacking in the market at the moment - visitors come here and see the spirit flags or experience Pchum Ben and ask what's going on, and there's no answer. So I'm going wide but, by necessity, shallow. And I have a deadline of early January. So, if you are willing, would you agree to being a "reader" of the draft? Not that it's anywhere near ready. PiCo (talk) 04:38, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
• The caul, by the way, is the amniotic sac - sometimes, rarely, a baby is born with part of the sac, usually on the face or head. Very very rarely, the entire sac is unbroken, as in this story: [1]

Cambodia

Hi William! i came across you - these days. I guess you are around Wiki for quite some time - i am not. On top of that i am no English native speaker. And - i presume you are into Cambodia topics. Anyhow, it would be great to have your advice and support once in a while!
All the best!!!
Wikirictor (talk) 00:51, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

List of islands of Cambodia

Hi! Can you please have a look at the article - lots of bad editing has been going on lately. Thanks!Wikirictor (talk) 18:36, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Reported at WP:AN3

Please see WP:AN3#User:WilliamThweatt reported by User:Ezhilarasan446 (Result: No violation). Though I have closed the request with no action, if you have any comment to add you can do so. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Population update project

Hi. The 18th edition of Ethnologue just came out, and if we divide up our language articles among us, it won't take long to update them. I would appreciate it if you could help out, even if it's just a few articles (5,000 articles is a lot for just me), but I won't be insulted if you delete this request.

A largely complete list of articles to be updated is at Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 17. The priority articles are in Category:Language articles with old Ethnologue 17 speaker data. These are the 10% that have population figures at least 25 years old.

Probably 90% of the time, Ethnologue has not changed their figures between the 17th and 18th editions, so all we need to do is change "e17" to "e18" in the reference (ref) field of the language info box. That will change the citation for the artcle to the current edition. Please put the data in the proper fields, or the info box will flag it as needing editorial review. The other relevant fields are "speakers" (the number of native speakers in all countries), "date" (the date of the reference or census that Ethnologue uses, not the date of Ethnologue!), and sometimes "speakers2". Our convention has been to enter e.g. "1990 census" when a census is used, as other data can be much older than the publication date. Sometimes a citation elsewhere in the article depends on the e17 entry, in which case you will need to change "name=e17" to "name=e18" in the reference tag (assuming the 18th edition still supports the cited claim).

Remember, we want the *total* number of native speakers, which is often not the first figure given by Ethnologue. Sometimes the data is too incompatible to add together (e.g. a figure from the 1950s for one country, and a figure from 2006 for another), in which case it should be presented that way. That's one use for the "speakers2" field. If you're not sure, just ask, or skip that article.

Data should not be displayed with more than two, or at most three, significant figures. Sometimes it should be rounded off to just one significant figure, e.g. when some of the component data used by Ethnologue has been approximated with one figure (200,000, 3 million, etc.) and the other data has greater precision. For example, a figure of 200,000 for one country and 4,230 for another is really just 200,000 in total, as the 4,230 is within the margin of rounding off in the 200,000. If you want to retain the spurious precision of the number in Ethnologue, you might want to use the {{sigfig}} template. (First parameter in this template is for the data, second is for the number of figures to round it off to.)

Dates will often need to be a range of all the country data in the Ethnologue article. When entering the date range, I often ignore dates from countries that have only a few percent of the population, as often 10% or so of the population isn't even separately listed by Ethnologue and so is undated anyway.

If Ethnologue does not provide a date for the bulk of the population, just enter "no date" in the date field. But if the population figure is undated, and hasn't changed between the 17th & 18th editions of Ethnologue, please leave the ref field set to "e17", and maybe add a comment to keep it so that other editors don't change it. In cases like this, the edition of Ethnologue that the data first appeared in may be our only indication of how old it is. We still cite the 14th edition in a couple dozen articles, so our readers can see that the data is getting old.

The articles in the categories linked above are over 90% of the job. There are probably also articles that do not currently cite Ethnologue, but which we might want to update with the 18th edition. I'll need to generate another category to capture those, probably after most of the Ethnologue 17 citations are taken care of.

Jump in at the WP:LANG talk page if you have any comments or concerns. Thanks for any help you can give!

— kwami (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2015 (UTC)