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Etiquette

I didn't realise posting after your comment at User talk:Alandavidson wasn't done. I apologise. Opera hat (talk) 23:27, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

After I posted on his page, he expressed several times that he doesn't want to be the one fighting it; so it's unfortunate that it became a big argument on his talk page. That's all; it's no big deal. Mlm42 (talk) 00:50, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

RfC

I'm not sure where the RfC discussion is going (PMA's personal attacks are certainly not helping the discussion any; thanks for pointing it out to him), but I was wondering what your long-term plans for closing it are. Ideally, it would be great, after a period of initial discussion, to identify concrete proposals and have people comment on specific changes (rather than on theoretical compliance or vague philosophical questions). I hope you would agree that having a romanization guideline in any form is preferable to having no guideline at all, so do you think it would be sensible to extract every specific proposition from the page and format them as official amendment proposals? I've counted at least five such potential proposals so far. However, since it's you who initiated the RfC, then perhaps you have a different vision for how things should develop? All in all, how do you see this RfC end and, process-wise (not results-wise), what development would you find acceptable?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 16:32 (UTC)

Well, the RfC itself is only to decide whether or not the guideline is currently backed by consensus. I'm not intimately familiar the WP:PGLIFE process.. but if the RfC is closed with the result that WP:RUS isn't backed by consensus, then this is essentially demoting it from being a guideline. So from there, the way forward is to improve the page to a level (through discussion on its talk page) where the community will accept it. Then it can be put it forward through the WP:PROPOSAL process to become a guideline again. Of course, I do think we should have a guideline, as long as the community agrees with it.

If it does get demoted, it can still be useful of course; currently the page is tagged as historical, which seems silly. I'd rather see members of WikiProject Russia tag it with {{WikiProject style advice}}, in the mean time.

On the other hand, if the RfC is closed with the result that WP:RUS is supported, then it shouldn't be demoted in the first place. Mlm42 (talk) 17:21, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Demoting it and then proposing a brand new guideline is one thing I was hoping to avoid, even as, ironically, the absence of a romanization guideline makes my life and editing so much easier in a vast majority of cases. The only people who can compose a new and workable guideline are those who are intricately familiar with the problem the guideline is supposed to address, and there aren't that many around. I hope you agree that questioning the compatibility of a guideline with an upper-level policy is not at all the same as developing a new guideline from scratch? Which is why I am offering to make the amendment process a part of this very RfC—this way, when it closes, we'll have a list of amendments which passed and a list which didn't, and it'll be formal and neat (for the next four years, perhaps ;))

I can help compile an initial list of the proposals, by the way, but not if wholesale demoting of the guideline or letting it stand as-is are the only two possible outcomes you are willing to consider in this RfC.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 18:49 (UTC)

I think there are several parts of the guideline that don't reflect consensus, but I also think the majority of it does reflect consensus. So what do we do? We could get community-wide input on each little change we wish to make to the guideline. Or, we could discuss several changes among a small group of editors, make those changes, and then start another RfC to get the new guideline accepted. Of course we aren't starting from scratch, but there are quite a few points in the guideline which have a poor choice of wording (in some cases, making them inconsistent with policy), and those need to be reconsidered (as is currently happening on the talk page).

One thing I'm concerned about regarding the 2007 discussion is whether those taking part realized they were voting for something that was contrary to established policy. Consider the guideline Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (geographic names).. Pmanderson has the most edits to that guideline and its talk page; and look at the huge number of edits, and discussions, and editors involved in that guideline. It can be considered "widely accepted". Many of the points in that guideline are in direct contrast to the ones in WP:RUS. The prudent thing to do here is to reword the points in WP:RUS so that both you and Pmanderson are satisfied. If we do that (which I think it's possible), then it's likely the result will reflect consensus, which is the end goal. Mlm42 (talk) 19:24, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand—why do you feel we need another RfC after this one, especially if you think that there are parts of the guideline worth salvaging? Why not get as much out of this RfC as possible? In a few days, unless someone new with totally new ideas joins, the discussion will pretty much stop. To me, that seems like an ideal time to find the specific amendment ideas in all the mounds of debates and submit them as proposals. Each one separately, too—I was not suggesting we just drop them all into one thread and start everything all over :) So we'd have "proposal 1"—sack that section; "proposal 2"—amend this section; "proposal 3"—add this clause, and so on. It's pretty much the same as what you are planning, except with less bureaucracy and no gap.

I hadn't really considered this, but if you think it might work then it sounds fine to me. Mlm42 (talk) 20:50, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Would you mind if I try assembling a list of possible proposals then (making sure, of course, that they aren't open for any !voting/commenting until the people who proposed them sign off on the wording)? Or would you perhaps like to do that yourself or find an uninvolved person to take care of that task?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 21:37 (UTC)

On the "contradictions", as I pointed out on numerous previous occasions, most (although not all) are due to the peculiar problems with the process of the Russian romanization. In fact, if these peculiarities did not exist, no one would be bothering with developing WP:RUS in such detail; there would have simply been no need! Consider Chinese, for example. Their approach is pretty simple—if a conventional name can be established by WP:COMMONNAME, use it; if not, use Pinyin, unless there are good reasons not to. That's it, and it works. With Russian, well, it doesn't work. Russian doesn't have a romanization system as universally accepted as Pinyin, and "using WP:COMMONNAME" results in a crapload of alternative spellings which can float to the top for entirely random and non-obvious reasons which, in the end, would make no sense whatsoever to our readers if we are to act on those findings, and which aren't even always stable over time. It frustrates me to no end that we basically have a handful of people who are not even willing to consider those complications and dismiss them as if they don't exist, not in small part because not a single one of them is familiar with the problem or is even editing in the area that's going to be affected. Compliance with upper-level guidelines is important, yes, but it should not be done for compliance sake alone. To me, it's just plain common sense! And it's not like we don't have guidelines dealing first and foremost with a spelling, not a name (or article title, if you will)! WP:ENGVAR is a prime example. Were WP:RUS' conventionality clause originally written as a conventional spelling clause, we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion now. Oh well, everyone is wise in the hindsight...

Other contradictions may be valid, but they weren't really contradictions in 2007—the upper-level guidelines keep changing too, you know.

As an interesting aside, consider this exercise. According to your (and PMA's) interpretation of "common name", what title should be the article about Nizhny Novgorod be placed? "Novgorod", amazingly, is spelled the same in every system, but the first part can be "Nizhniy", "Nizhni", "Nizhnii", "Nizhnij", "Nijny", "Nijni", "Nijnii", "Nijnij", plus a bunch of variants with diacritics of all sorts I'm going to omit for simplicity. If we dispose of WP:RUS and have editors properly apply each of the six steps in WP:NCGN#Widely accepted name, what are we going to end up with? How much time would this research (again, done properly) take? How much time would this kind of research take to establish the "common name" for each of 150,000 existing inhabited localities in Russia and for each of 450,000 which no longer exist (but are notable)? Something to think about the virtues of standardization and what the humanity invented romanization for. WP:RUS isn't about making things "easy". It's about making things "possible".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 20:11 (UTC)

I get that your frustrated because editors aren't seeing your point of view, but this may be caused by the lack of examples brought forward that motivate your point of view? For Nizhny Novgorod example I would say that there is no widely accepted English name, because both "Nizhny" and "Nizhniy" seem very common.. do you agree? In this case, the naming conventions guideline says we should use the "the modern official name". The city's official website suggests we should be using "Nizhny Novgorod". So the result is what you'd like, right? If, on the other hand, it were a small place that doesn't obviously define an official name in English, then the guideline says we should use the "local name" (per Misplaced Pages:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Use_English). The only remaining problem is when the local name has cyrillic characters; and this is what WP:RUS is suppose to help with.

My point is that Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (geographic names) is a good guideline, and will probably produce the right results anyway. I don't think we need to replace parts of that guideline with WP:RUS.. but maybe there is another example that you had in mind? Mlm42 (talk) 20:50, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't quite agree. The "common name" of the city is the romanized version of its modern Russian name; WP:COMMONNAME makes sure that the city needs to be called some variation of "Nizhny Novgorod", not some variation of "Gorky". How to spell that name, on the other hand, would depend on the needs of the source that uses it in a text of some sorts. A linguist using this toponym as an example would consciously choose scientific transliteration; a person compiling a bibliography and including a book that has the city name in the title is likely to choose ALA-LC, and a geographer will stick with BGN/PCGN. "Nizhni", "Nijny", "Nizhnij", or what have you, are not different names; they are different spellings of the same name, just like "center" and "centre" are different spellings of a word that means exactly the same no matter which way it's spelled.

Your approach (and I understand that you didn't make a heroic effort to do the whole research, which is fine for this example, but wouldn't be if one really needed to pick the title the way WP:COMMONNAME tells us to follow), in fact, illustrates a bunch of problems that await WP:RUSSIA. A good number of the spelling variations are quite common in English texts, with "Nijni" being most common of them all (although not overwhelmingly so and with two caveats—that it's most common today is no guarantee that it'll be most common tomorrow; and that it happens to be most common in pre-1993 sources only). Second, what the Russian official website uses is not the same as "the modern official name" (recommended BGN/PCGN romanization actually fits that definition much better). Russian places do not have official English names; they only have official names in Russian and in the languages which are co-official with Russian in some of the republics (in fact, if you look at the naming debates around Kiev, you'll see what happens when someone, in this case Ukrainian government, declares something it has absolutely no authority over, in this case the "official English spelling"). Additionally, the quality of the Russian official websites, to put it mildly, sucks (in any language). Are we really going to take spelling advise from a website which routinely produces sentences such as "in 2013 a new passenger terminal of 15 000 square meters will be built in the territory of Nizhny Novgorod International airport"? And, compared to what the official websites in other places pass for English, is actually not too bad. Most places don't even have English versions of their websites for that matter.

Proper research, as per WP:NCGN, would entail consulting the reference works, analyzing (for each possible variant) the results of the gbooks and gscholar search, making sure to exclude those which are irrelevant or not "mentioned in relation to the period in question", consult "other standard histories and scientific studies of the area in question" (which means going to the library, and a good one at that), and consult major news sources (NCGN is mum about the proper way of the said "consulting", which in practice means people will be counting unrefined gnews hits, unless someone actually has access to Lexis Nexis, in which case it'll be unrefined Lexis Nexis hits). The results of all these approaches are supposed to be aggregated, weighed for relevance, and the "winner" will be declared (and if there is no winner, then we'll just follow the "divided usage" clause recommendation).

Does anything seem wrong with this picture? Even forgetting about the astonishing number of possibilities to introduce personal bias into such a research, even forgetting about the fact that no one is likely to repeat and verify all that research (which makes introducing personal bias even easier), even forgetting about the incredible waste of time this will take to establish a policy-compliant name for each and every place in Russia, even forgetting that in my seven years in Misplaced Pages I've only seen less than half a dozen occasions to honestly do a quality research on such scale, or even to approximate one, forgetting all that, we basically end up with the fact that our new guideline will have us doing the same research... the people working for the publishers of the reference works are supposed to be doing. Does this explain why WP:RUS took the "dictionaries" shortcut in the first place?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 21:37 (UTC)

Okay, well I think maybe it would be a good step to ensure we are interpreting WP:NCGN "correctly", and determine what is intended.. because you and I have different interpretations. How does one draw the line between "spelling" and "name".. cases like "Peking" vs. "Beijing" come to mind. Did this change "name", or just "spelling"? I would say it changed both, but maybe you would claim that only the "spelling" changed?

At the moment we disagree on whether or not Nizhny Novgorod has a widely accepted English "name". I don't think it does because the spelling is part of the name. Mlm42 (talk) 21:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea how to interpret the difference between Peking and Beijing, nor do I really care, because it's not related to the romanization of Russian. I'm sure WikiProject China can sort it out. When in doubt, delegate to local experts :) In all, this just isn't a problem WP:RUS will face, so there isn't really a point of arguing it.

I was just drawing an analogy with Beijing / Peking, because in that case, the Chinese name (北京) never changed - only the common English-name changed (because the romanization changed). So it's not WikiProject China that decides the article title.. it's WP:NCGN. Mlm42 (talk) 16:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it is also WikiProject China that decides that NCGN is sufficient to cover such cases... because it probably is. One wouldn't need an elaborate "conventionality clause" if the choice is basically between Pinyin and whatever else the Anglophones happen to use.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 17:03 (UTC)

I just meant that Beijing is (now) the widely accepted English name, so NCGN is sufficient. Mlm42 (talk) 17:25, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

On Nizhny, if you believe the city doesn't have a widely accepted English name, then WP:UE has you covered: Names not originally in a Latin alphabet... must be transliterated. Established systematic transliterations... are preferred. However, if there is a common English-language form of the name, (which we have just figured out there isn't—Ё) then use it, even if it is unsystematic... For a list of transliteration conventions by language, see Misplaced Pages:Romanization. Which brings us back to where we started—if there is not a common name, and we are supposed to use the romanization guidelines, what do we do when the romanization guidelines are mum about what to do when multiple "systematic transliterations" are available?

Exactly, and this is what WP:RUS should be used for: fixing the default romanization rules, when there is no widely accepted English name (per WP:NCGN). The problem is that at the moment WP:RUS is trying to do more than this. Mlm42 (talk) 16:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but it is exactly what it was used for, so it basically all boils down to how the clause is worded. The term "conventional name" obviously throws a red flag (pardon the pun), which is what my "spelling" proposal is supposed to fix; it'd go like this: use NCGN to determine the correct name to use (i.e., to address the situations such as Nizhny Novgorod/Gorky, or Baltiysk/Pillau); then use the reference works to establish the most common spelling of that name or, if those reference works don't agree, use the default romanization. Sure, you can cut the "reference works" out of that process, but then you'd simply be removing one of the checks and balances, and I just don't see a good reason why. So, instead of having to run every minor spelling variation past the NCGN research process (consider, for example, this case, which by far is nowhere close to covering all possible and valid variations), only the distinct names would be run, and the spelling of the name would be determined using the process above.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 17:03 (UTC)

Yes, this "spelling" / "name" terminology seems to be causing problems. Then would you be okay with adding a sentence to the top of the place names guideline along the lines of: "If there is a widely accepted English name , as described in WP:NCGN, then that should be used. Otherwise.. ". Because I think it's pretty obvious that in cases like Ulyanovsky, there is no widely accepted English spelling, so the "NCGN research process" is really easy. Mlm42 (talk) 17:25, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I think we are getting somewhere! The wording you've just suggested will take a bit more refining, but in general I quite like it. Do you mind if I think about it a little more and add it as a specific proposal to the RfC, or do you prefer to submit such a proposal yourself? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 18:09 (UTC)

Feel free to add such a proposal to the RfC, if you like. Mlm42 (talk) 18:14, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

That is, when different spellings exist? The WP:COMMONNAME/WP:UE chain has just sent us to the romanization guidelines, so on which grounds do we return to WP:COMMONNAME/WP:UE when all we need to figure out is the spelling of a name, not the name itself? To me, that's a good indication that a spelling clause needs to be present. What do you think?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 13:05 (UTC)

What spelling clause did you have in mind? Mlm42 (talk) 16:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I've briefly described the idea in the paragraph above. The exact wording of such a clause would, of course, be up for discussion.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2011; 17:03 (UTC)

Just in case you were wondering when I'm going to get to the promised compiling of the proposals, it'll likely be next week. This week I was hoping to see additional comments from other people (which we did). With two weeks worth of preliminary discussion and two more weeks of discussions of the actual language of the proposed amendments, we should be able stay well within the thirty-day time frame typically allotted for RfCs. Does this plan sound reasonable? Have a good weekend,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 17, 2011; 20:44 (UTC)

I've assembled a list of proposals here. I hope I haven't missed anything important, but the list is, of course, open to additions and editing, so even if I did, it shouldn't matter much. Could you please review the list and let me know if you find it acceptable? If you do, you are welcome to move it to the RfC page. Also, please review the suggestions attributed to you—some were made a while ago and you may or may not want them to be included as a part of the actual proposal, or you may want to reword some of them. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 20, 2011; 17:09 (UTC)

Hmm.. I'm generally of the opinion that Misplaced Pages:Polling is not a substitute for discussion. I didn't realise you were planning on adding 9 proposals to the RfC; I thought it was going to be just the one, addressing the issues surrounding "multiple spellings" of the same name.. instead this is option 6 of the first of nine proposals.. so it is fairly well hidden.

To give you an idea of where I think WP:RUS should be heading, I've just rewritten it (except for the default romanization bit) at User:Mlm42/sandbox (feel free to edit it further, if you like). This is more the size and scope that I think is appropriate. The reason I cut out so much is that most of the rules set out in WP:RUS are already covered by other guidelines, and appear to simply be unnecessary instructions. As suggested on the talk page, it may be best to move the remaining conventions into the Russian section of Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Cyrillic).

But basically I don't think these polls you have set up are necessary, nor particularly helpful.. one of the reasons is that implicitly the questions are endorsing a long version of the page (if a part of the guideline isn't listed as "contested", does that mean it is endorsed?). Pmanderson has suggested replacing essentially everything with only a few sentences; I also think the content should be boiled down to only what is absolutely necessary. What I think we should be doing, is determining exactly what is necessary. Mlm42 (talk) 20:41, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I've gotta run, so I'll respond in more detail tomorrow. As a quick note, these aren't intended to serve as a substitution for a discussion. For one, they are all based on the discussion which is already ongoing, and if any of the items happen to need further discussion, that can also be arranged. Nor are these options intended to establish the "final version"—after it is clear what has support and what doesn't, it would be easy to compile a new draft for further consideration. As things stand now, compiling such a draft from bits and pieces of heated (and often off-putting) banter is nearly impossible. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 20, 2011; 21:04 (UTC)

OK, I'm back :) Regarding a straightforward list of changes vs. one new draft proposal, as you've probably gathered from my yesterday's comment, I'm not a fan of the latter approach. The reasons for that are several. First, people who join the RfC later in the process would have a really hard time comparing the original wording with the wording of the draft. Some major changes would, of course, be obvious, but little stuff (like the "-iy" endings) can easily get lost. Second, it's impossible to incorporate some of the proposed changes into the draft; witness Option 6 of Proposal 1—its very inclusion is something that needs to be decided. Third, I have no confidence that some editors wouldn't go with the "after a day of !voting, we already have two voices in support; let's change the draft NOW" mantra again (sorry, I'm cynical like that). Fourth, having editors read/compare two drafts and the associated monstrous discussion isn't exactly the best way to attract broader input—Sussexonian's comment below is a good illustration.

All in all, people like seeing the proposed changes right away instead of having to dig for them on their own. That's what polls like this are all about—clearly identifying what's at stake. And the question of why something is at stake can be answered by looking at the discussion thread—but at least people will know what too look for.

This said, I understand your shock at seeing nine proposals with the total of about two dozen options :) Putting it up in that form would be overwhelming indeed. Remember, however, that it's a draft, and that I tried to include every suggestion made so far. Not every suggestion would make it to the final version, though. For example, judging by Pmanderson's continuous participation, I doubt he's serious about marking this guideline as an essay or historic, yet that's a suggestion he has not retracted, and I can't retract it for him, so it's included. You probably will weed out or edit some of your own suggestions as well, before the list goes live. And we can contact the rest of the editors to whom some of the suggestions have been attributed, so they can revise some of theirs, if they find it necessary. The end result would probably be half the size of the full list. What do you think?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 21, 2011; 13:51 (UTC)

Pardon my intrusion: I noticed the link from this page Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Wikipedia_style_and_naming requesting input, but the talk page is so full of contributions from a very few people it is off-putting and it's impossible to find a place to comment. I just now read your sandbox page of proposals which could do with some simplification (leave out some of the questions until "stage 2"). If it is to be placed for users to add their 'votes', it would be good to remove or hide the long discussion mostly between 2-3 people first. Sussexonian (talk) 20:45, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, I'm still learning with the whole RfC thing, and I guess I let the discussion run a bit wild. I assume you're talking about the proposals in Ezhiki's sandbox? Yes, if a new proposal is to be added, it would likely be placed before the big discussion from last week. Mlm42 (talk) 21:11, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course, I did mean Ezhiki's sandbox, and as I said, I think the questions should be simplified before going live. Sussexonian (talk) 09:33, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

The discussion is now going on at WP:Romanization of Russian and various other places. It could be that the questions aren't needed. Sussexonian (talk) 20:12, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. I've been involved with this RfC from the start, and by now even I have trouble keeping track of what discussions are going on where and where they are all headed. I'd say that the new threads that appeared in the past week should be added as new proposals, or no one (especially people joining in the middle of the process) would be able to figure out just what's going on with that RfC. Mlm, when you get back from your break, could you (as the person who started it and all) please make an executive decision as to how to proceed with this RfC? Right now the whole thing is a complete mess (which, as I was trying to point out from the very start, is not surprising when process isn't being adhered to).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 23, 2011; 20:28 (UTC)

I've made the "executive decision" to close the RfC; the discussion has moved on leaps and bounds beyond my initial question. The reason I started the RfC was to draw attention to the guideline, and begin a discussion about improving improving it by drawing in people who were previously uninvolved. Now that a handful of new people are actively involved in the discussion, I don't see the point of having the RfC anymore; details are often best worked out among a small group of editors anyway. Mlm42 (talk) 16:17, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Hm, way to pass the buck. OK then; it's your RfC after all.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 24, 2011; 16:42 (UTC)

International Space Station

Hi Mark !,

I need help ! work cleaning up and updating all the information on the ISS page is stagnating with a lack of interest from knowledgeable and/or experienced editors. Please come help ! I need someone's help heckling, belittling, and lampooning my efforts. There is even a Canadian joke in there ! I was worried about that until I saw your an Ogre, which was a relief. So if you have nothing much to do between hibernations, I guarantee this will keep you more than busy.

Penyulap _talk 02:26, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Mark, I left a reply note on my talkpage for you. Penyulap _talk 17:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Mark !,

I wish to sincerely thank you for fixing the 'freebie' edit I made. Regardless of past differences, I appreciate your help in making article better by fixing that. I give credit where it is due, and I am glad that you pay close attention to my editing, and correct mistakes. Thanks.

On a different subject, upon reading my initial invitation over again, hmmm, I'm wondering if I should have worded that differently... hmmm, what do you think ? Penyulap _talk 16:41, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Penyulap, thanks for the message; no hard feelings. Yes, I had forgotten exactly what you had said in your initial message, but looking back it is somewhat amusing.

I hope you have a good break from the ISS (see also Misplaced Pages:Wikibreak); at over 3.6 million articles, Misplaced Pages's a huge place, so I hope you don't have any problems finding other topics that you want to contribute to. I'm not sure how many of Misplaced Pages's guidelines you've read (see Misplaced Pages:List of guidelines), but editors are encouraged to be familiar with most of them (also, some of the essays are pretty funny, like this one or this one). All the best, Mlm42 (talk) 04:53, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Pretty please?

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Decline reason: Checkuser block not likely to be undone. -- DQ (t) (e) 17:00, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Sigh.. collateral damage, anyone? Mlm42 (talk) 17:07, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

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Thank you! :) Mlm42 (talk) 17:06, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

NCRUS - DAB populates places

Thanks for starting the vote on the category rename. I started another WP:NCRUS related vote at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Remove Russia-specific clause and apply general rules. It would simply mean to remove the "Dikson (urban-type settlement)"-rule and would result in Dikson, Russia by applying the general Misplaced Pages rules. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 12:55, 5 July 2011 (UTC)