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User talk:David Kernow

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2006


Re: Stray votes..?

Hi Instantnood,
Are your votes here meant for elsewhere...?  Regards, David Kernow 17:09, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Apologies; I didn't spot that User:Jtdirl = "FearÉIREANN". I have, however, removed your first vote; hope that's okay. Yours, David 17:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The vote was actually cast to category:current national leaders who are relatives of a former leader. I made some small changes shortly after I pressed the submit button, and I pressed submit button again after making the small changes. Perhaps it resulted in an edit conflict and that's why my vote became two lines. — Instantnood 20:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem, so long as what's been left is what you intended. Best wishes, David 02:48, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks so much for removing the extra vote. — Instantnood 21:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

My Preferences

David,

I really hope you don't mind my coming to you for technical questions, but I'm still trying to learn these aspects of Misplaced Pages.

The problem is, my Preferences keep changing on their own. Sometimes, with some Articles, the font will change & the date preference keeps reverting to 'no preference'. Each time I have to go back and save them again. Is it Misplaced Pages or is it me. I hope you can help.

Thanks,

Michael David 18:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
David,
Update. I went to the Pump with this problem, and apparently a great many people are having the same problem right now. The response I got said, essentially, that they are aware of the problem & are working on it.
Thanks,
Michael David 21:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Hi Michael,
    I haven't noticed any spontaneous font-changing or date-resetting (yet!) but, as JLaTondre mentions, I am accustomed to logging out then back in to Misplaced Pages once in a while in order to restore my link-formatting preference. (I guess this is due to Misplaced Pages's cookies not being retained indefinitely, even if you set them to survive from session to session, or perhaps because they need resetting if/when a developer tweaks the Misplaced Pages software.) If I begin to notice these other changes, at least I know it's not a local problem – so thanks for the alert!
Something unconnected but coincidental with your message: I recently saw this film by chance rather than design and unexpectedly found it very moving. Have you heard of / seen it and if so counsel/led people such as its protagonists?  If you have and have the time to wax a little about it, I'd be fascinated to know something of your point of view. Best wishes, David Kernow 23:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

David,

I just realized the title of the Section I'm leaving this message in.

No I haven't seen the film, Secretary, but I am certainly interested in doing so. I will look for the DVD tomorrow and let you know what I think of it. Thanks for the tip.

Yes I have worked with persons with sexual problems. After hunger & thirst, the sexual drive is the next strongest drive we as humans have. That is why, the society, the culture, the government, and the religions believe they need to control it in us. If you control someone sexually - you control them absolutely.

Be healthy,

Michael David 23:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

(Footnotes here)

Hello again Michael,
Thanks for your input at the Footnotes talk page, especially your recent reminder about {{wikicite}} here. It occurred to me that your know-how would probably save me some "search and research" time: on a page where the same footnote is referenced more than once, is there a template-based system that mimics cite.php's ability to return to the correct reference number from which it was invoked?  (Hope that makes sense.)  I suspect the answer is no – hence the implementation of cite.php – but I do believe cite.php really ought to offer the option to store footnotes away from the main body of text. (Trying to use <ref name=N> on a page which (a) uses many footnotes and (b) will need updating seems vulnerable to someone adding a <ref name=N/> before the place in the text where the footnote was defined. Or am I missing something...?)
Thanks, David Kernow 00:24, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
...Maybe {{ref label|...}} etc is what I'm describing...?  David 01:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Cite.php is the only system I know of that lets you enter the ID only once, and uses it to generate a link to the reference and a corresponding back-link to the citation in the article body.
Personally, I think back-links are overrated. In the normal reading scenario, the browser's back button serves the same function. The back links, placed at the front of the note and appearing as a circumflex accent or superscript letters a and b, make a typographic mess of the list of notes or references. Regards. —Michael Z. 2006-08-07 06:55 Z
Aesthetically, I agree... but what do you make of the demands here...?  Being able to jump back is useful, but I can see the vulnerability noted above may become a problem... Thanks for your advice, David 13:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Wow, stress test. It looks like cite.php must be better than any other method for adding those notes to the table.
The usefulness of the notes format here depends on how you see the table as being read, but I don't see a set of back-links a through bf as being terribly useful to the reader. Auto-highlighting definitely helps me navigate this when I jump to a back-link and there are four or five notes citations on one line (search my monobook.css for "highlight a targeted reference"; works in Firefox or Safari).
But I don't see the disadvantage of doing it more simply, as below. The linked names of subdivisions already serve as notes with much more information about, say, "velayat". —Michael Z. 2006-08-07 16:27 Z
Country
Administrative divisions
 
First-level Second-level Third-level Fourth-level
and smaller
 Afghanistan 34 velayat (provinces) 360+
 Albania 12 qarku (counties or prefectures) 36 rrethe (districts) 300+ komuna (communes),
60+ bashkia (municipalities) 		(3000+ lokaliteteve?)
 Algeria 48 wilayat (provinces) 160 daïrat (circles) 1500+
  • Thanks for your feedback, Michael. I too am not enamoured of the back-links, but have found that trying to shoehorn both local and translated names into cells leads to layout problems (especially for anyone using a screen resolution less than 1024 by 768). Although some of those local names with already-existing Misplaced Pages articles (such as wilayah) are currently linked, I was thinking of linking each and every one to the Misplaced Pages article about each division in each country, respectively. So, for example, the "velayat" entry under Afghanistan would not link to wilayah as at present, but to Provinces of Afghanistan. (A link to wilayah may then occur within the Provinces article, as it currently does; etc.)  I also think I'll retain the local names in the table rather than replace them with translations, as (a) there are often two or more accepted translations; and (b) not all "Provinces of", "Districts of" etc articles mention the local name (at least, not yet). I suppose my ideal is a bank-linked footnote system that doesn't display all the a...aa...ba superscripts but nonetheless returns the user to the correct reference when the "↑" is clicked!  Thanks again, David Kernow 01:01, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Spelling

In your table, you could also check the validity of spelling of the Ukrainian "rayoni"... ---Yury Tarasievich 12:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes; this is exactly the kind of detail I look forward to folks such as yourself spotting/correcting once the table becomes an article in its own right – but I now see you've already amended the "raion" plural for Belarus; thank you!  Another table which I intend to accompany the above is here; you may spot some other errors or know the singular forms for some of the terms currently given in plural. Thanks again, David Kernow 13:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
OK. Why some names are in italics and some not? ---Yury Tarasievich 14:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
To quote the note I've just added at the top of the page: "Terms in italics are terms in languages other than English."  Thanks for the prompt, David 14:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
PS Would you prefer to continue on my talk page alone?

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Ahhh, Awake here at least!

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Andres Bonifacio

Why do you want diacritics on the name? We don't have diacritics on his name in the Philippines. This is not official. If you have a source or link using his name, at least place then in the links at the bottom of the page. We can put diacritics on the pronounciation guide but this is not part of the official name.--Jondel 13:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jondel,
Thanks for keeping me informed re the above...
It was my understanding at the time that his name did include an accent on the "e", but if this is not the case, I am happy to let the current name "Andres Bonifacio" stand. Best wishes, David Kernow 14:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Krais of Russia

Hi, David. I have moved Territories of Russia back to Krais of Russia. The issue of renaming krais to territories and oblasts to provinces had been previously considered and the community decided not to make the switch. I'll provide you with links a bit later. If you still feel the current usage is inadequate, I suggest you list all involved articles at WP:RM. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ëzhiki,
...I have moved Territories of Russia back to Krais of Russia. The issue of renaming krais to territories and oblasts to provinces had been previously considered and the community decided not to make the switch.
Thanks; as I've just noted at WP:CfD, I didn't realise I'd wandered into an area where the consensus is/was to use non-English terms. Apologies!
I'll provide you with links a bit later.
No need, but thanks for offer.
If you still feel the current usage is inadequate, I suggest you list all involved articles at WP:RM.
I would say that if non-English terms are to be used, then for the sake of consistency (and education) the correct non-English plurals should also be used. Hence I'll be requesting moves to Kraia of Russia and Oblasti of Russia respectively – unless these should be Kraya of Russia and Oblasty of Russia or something else...?  (Also, subyekty or subyekti or something else...?)  Thanks, David Kernow 13:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the response, David. I know you said not to bother, but since I already dug two links, here they are, if only for curiosity sake:
These, especially the second, might be very useful for reference, so I'm grateful to have them; thanks.
As for using the non-native plurals, I'd have to disagree. The word "oblast", for example, while comes directly from Russian, can be pluralized as "oblasts". Merriam-Webster (and, by others' accounts, a host of other dictionaries) actually has an entry for this word, and it lists both variants of plural (oblasts and oblasti) as acceptable in English. Surely, "oblasts" sounds more intuitive to native speakers? Plus, it would involve a lot of work to change all instances of "oblasts" to "oblasti", with only a marginal benefit (if any). "Oblast", "krai", and "okrug" are all listed in the English section of my English-Russian-English Oxford dictionary (I don't have other reference handy at the moment, but I can check other dictionaries later), so they must be acceptable in English and subject to English grammar norms as well.
Please let me know what you think. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Understood. I'm not a crusade for non-English words to use their non-English plurals; it's just my first thought when I come by such mixed instances. I'm more interested in the bigger picture, not least for the sake of this which should soon see more light of day; I've been checking through it as best I can and at present have reached Sri Lanka, though putting Russia and a couple of other more complicated situations to one side. If you have a moment and can scan, spot and amend any errors that must (still) be within, I'd be very grateful (again!). Yours, David 14:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
This is quite interesting; thanks for asking me to review it. Unfortunately, I can't really offer you much input on administrative divisions of countries other than Russia—I'm too narrowly specialized, I'm afraid.
As for the term "national administrative subdivisions", I am kind of uneasy with the "subdivisions" part. I usually prefer just "administrative divisions", although even in case with Russia it's hard to avoid using the term "subdivisions" altogether (Subdivisions of Russia, for example, describes some non-administrative divisions, such as economic regions, as well as administrative ones). I realize, however, that while we had plenty of critics advocating to abandon this term, all of them failed to propose an adequate replacement. I guess we'd just have to wait for an insight :)
I too am uncertain about "divisions" vs. "subdivisions" but for the time being am using the latter as "division" is itself a translation for a type of (sub)division and thus far I haven't found the same for "subdivision"!  Once I've finished working through the table as best I can, however, I'm planning to throw this query open – plus the question of whether or not "(sub)divisions" ought to be qualified in the kinds of articles you mention, e.g. "Administrative (sub)divisions of Russia" vs. the current "Subdivisions in Russia", to allow "Political (sub)divisions" or "Electoral (sub)divisions", etc. First, though, I'm aiming to release the table for general comment and proofreading.
Anyway, thanks for your responses and tips. I'm sure we'll eventually bump into each other on another occasion again :) Of course, should you have any questions about Russian administrativia, you are always welcome to contact me—I'll do my best to help. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Tip

Also, David, I don't know if you got a chance to run into Tobias Conradi yet, but he is interested in exactly the same thing you are trying to do—standardizing the conventions for naming of national administrative divisions. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

...yes, he's helped me understand some of the issues involved in national administrative subdivisions (do you think that name describes the topic accurately?) and as with yourself above I'll be asking him to cast his eye over the above.

Here are a few more links about Russia's administrative structure (apart from the top-level ones which you obviously are aware of). I don't know if you found them before; if not, hopefully they would be of some interest to you:

The reason why I give these to you is because I reviewed the Russia's line in your national administrative subdivisions list and found some subtle inaccuracies which these links should address. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much; as mentioned above, I'm only too aware that Russia is one of if not the most complex case as regards (sub)divisions and it was my attempt to start sorting out its entry in the table that led me to make the abortive CfD proposals earlier (yes, forgetting to check for any relevant talk-page history first!). With the links etc you've supplied I feel more confident that I'll find the information I'll need to reach a completed entry, but will let you know if I hit any impasses and/or when I think the entry is complete. Thanks again, David 15:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Kubrick

Hey, man. I think it's cooler now. I'm photographer and designer and like the way the things look. He's my favourite director. Cheers Machocarioca 17:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)machocarioca

Categories page

That page is part of a set. If you make a change to one, it might look better if you changed all of them. I've extended your changes to the rest of the pages in the ref bar, and have implemented them in the Template:Reference page header to make it easier to adjust all of the pages at the same time. --The Transhumanist 03:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!  I'm glad you're happy with my amendment and I think the template is a good idea for the sake of consistency. Best wishes, David Kernow 10:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)