What do you think of my last edit, changing 'mini circular' to 'mini-circular'? I don't think it's good enough; the meaning is really 'miniature circular'. Isn't it? Rothorpe (talk) 19:55, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Lysozym: I've been looking for someone who knows Farsi and English and can help me with two different questions. Perhaps you can help.
1) I noticed what I thought was a missing "g" in both the "English" and Farsi forms of "danandegi" in the table in "Native word formation" in Persian vocabulary. I've been discussing it with User talk:Kwamikagami and Lfdder a bit on the article's talk page but mostly on Kwami's talk page. I understand a bit more about the /g/ but still don't understand why it was left off the table. I wondered if you had any ideas about that. You can respond either here or on Kwami's talk page.
2) I read the article on Dari (Persian dialect) and made a few edits to try and put it into Standard English. I tried to aim for what I thought was the intended meaning (when you have time, or if you have time, perhaps you can review them). (I also read the article Mullah Do Piaza and found many errors in syntax which I tried to fix and some vague words at which I added some "clarification needed" tags with notes to editors. If and when you have time, you might look at that, too.)
Well, that's all for now. CorinneSD (talk) 02:41, 24 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Cuchullain: I've been watching the article Saint Thomas Christians and have seen the recent back and forth edits, edit summaries, and reverts. I'm sure you know much more about the subject than I do and are also watching the article. I just wanted to be sure that you saw an edit by the IP editor 117 that came just before the rearranging edits that you undid, something to the effect that the Catholic Church was not in Kerala in 999. (I believe it may have been in a caption.) If you saw it and approved, that's fine. I just wanted to be sure you saw it. CorinneSD (talk) 18:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Lfdder: I had already made around 3,000 edits with no problem, and once, responding to a comment by a non-native speaker of English in a Talk page discussion, I made a suggestion regarding a revision to a wording, and Rincewind42 sent me a stern message saying do not edit other editors' comments on Talk pages. She's/He's quick to pounce. CorinneSD (talk) 14:46, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Is Help:IPA for English more accessible now? Do the footnotes explain the questions you had? Some of us cut down the amount of text every once in a while, but there are others who feel all the details need to be explained. — kwami (talk) 16:12, 26 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Rothorpe: I am baffled. See responses to my comment under "Tea" at User talk:Sminthopsis84#Tea's talk page. No comment. Now I'm definitely going to ask you first, unless it's science, or something like that. CorinneSD (talk) 23:06, 26 April 2014 (UTC) CorinneSD (talk) 23:07, 26 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Fayenatic london: I just typed a long comment on User talk:Oggmus' talk page and saved it. But I wanted to go look for an editor's user name so that I could add it. I found it, and went back into the comment and added it, and saved it. But for some reason, my entire comment appeared twice on Oggmus' talk page, with the addition I made appearing only in the second one. I added that user name into the first of the two versions, and saved it. Then I tried to delete the second one, but I couldn't. Can you either delete the second (or first -- it doesn't matter) version of my comment, or tell me how to do it? I don't know what I did wrong. CorinneSD (talk) 19:29, 27 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Lfdder: That kind of edit summary doesn't become you. I would take each edit summary as a chance to share your wonderful knowledge and teach other editors both what you know and how to edit. As editors, we feel anonymous, but your editing and edit summaries have an effect for good or ill both on other editors' opinions of you and on Wikipedia as a whole. I was turning to both you and Kwami with my questions, having such a high opinion of both of you for your extensive knowledge, almost in awe, and I was disappointed when I saw that edit summary. CorinneSD (talk) 20:07, 27 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Fayenatic london: I just added two photos of outer space to my User page, one of the earth as a "pale blue dot" and one of the Eta Carinae Nebula. Is there a way to put the one of the Eta Carinae nebula to the right of the one of the earth, but in the same size as they are now? (I don't want the Eta Carinae one too small, and it becomes too small when it is in the size of the earth as a pale blue dot one. CorinneSD (talk) 02:07, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've been adding photos to my User page, and I want to arrange some of them in a certain way. I just read the article WP:PIC and didn't find an answer to my question. There are three different things I want to be able to do:
1) I want to be able to put a small photo under the "userboxes" at the right. I'm thinking about putting the one of earth as a pale blue dot as seen from space there, a little smaller than it is right now. How would I do that?
2) I wonder if it is possible to remove the gray border around some of the photos. For example, I would like to be able to remove the gray border around the photo "Eta Carinae Nebula". Is that possible? How would I do that?
3) I saw in the article WP:PIC#Galleries the series of photos of cats. Like in the first row of those photos, I want to put some that are wider than others. In formatting the gallery, do I just specify the height and not even mention the width, or do I need to mention both height and width?
4) In the article, at WP:PIC#Panoramas, it mentioned that I should not format a picture larger than 550px but should, rather, use the "panorama" template. I have one very wide picture on my User page, the last one, of a forest in Germany. Can I leave it the way I put it? Is that injunction mainly for pictures in articles, or is it also for editors' User pages? CorinneSD (talk) 15:31, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I posted this today on Dougweller's Talk page, but he said to ask at the Help Desk. So I've copied it here:
I've been reading the Wikipedia article on formatting pictures, WP:PIC, and I noticed something I wanted to ask you about. It's in the section WP:PIC#Alternating left and right. I saw this sentence:
However, the pictures in that section are arranged so that the first one is on the right and second one is on the left. Shouldn't the text and the arrangement of the pictures match? CorinneSD (talk) 15:03, 29 April 2014 (UTC) CorinneSD (talk) 23:59, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
1. Any of the suggested alternatives would seem perfectly fine. 2. The lengthy section on Tillich seemed to move away from the topic and more towards his views on Christ rather than Revelation. That paragraph is more suitable to the article on Tillich. By all means feel free to clean up "Revelations", as it could clearly use it. Regards. Mannanan51 (talk) 21:41, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Joshua Jonathan:, @Rothorpe: You might be interested in a discussion at User talk:Dougweller#Hi. Although the IP editor who goes on and on is still learning what belongs in a WP article and what does not, he/she has some interesting ideas which other editors are responding to in a serious (and instructive) manner. CorinneSD (talk) 00:19, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:
Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:41, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Apokryltaros: About a week ago I went through most of the article on Nickel and made a few minor edits. In the course of reading the article, I came across a few sentences that were just slightly off in terms of clarity. I listed the sentences with my questions at User talk:Vsmith#Nickel, but, other than one brief reply on one item, he has not done anything with it. Since you have a science background, I wonder if you have the patience to read the sentences and my questions about them and perhaps make any changes that you feel are necessary to improve them (or let me know if you think the sentence is fine as is). CorinneSD (talk) 14:49, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I found a picture in the article Pierre Bonnard that I liked, so I added it to my User page. It is called "The Dining-room in the Country" and was painted in 1913. Before adding a picture to my User page, I always check to see what kind of attribution, if any, I need to add. For this one, I saw that it is in the public domain in the United States, but there are warnings that it is not yet in the public domain in the country of origin (presumably France). My question is: can I use this picture on my User page without breaking any rules/laws, and, if so, what kind of attribution, if any, do I need to add? Thanks. CorinneSD (talk) 19:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I saw an edit to Talk:Polymath. When I went to look at it, I couldn't find it on the Talk page. I had to go into the Revision History to locate it. I saw that the editor who added the comment had put it right at the top of the Talk page, and had also not signed the comment. I moved the comment from the top to the bottom of the page. I made a new section and pasted the editor's comment. I also added a note saying that it had been moved. However, I knew that this edit to the Talk page, with my note, had to be signed, so I signed next to my note. I didn't know how to add those notices to an obviously new editor who didn't know where to post new comments nor that he/she had to sign with four tildes.
I wonder if you could add that kind of note but also remove my "signature". It doesn't really have to be there, does it? I just didn't want to add a comment but not sign it and then have my IP address there. If removing it is a big problem, then leave it, but let me know how to add that standard note regarding (a) where to post new comments and (b) to be sure to sign comments. Thanks. CorinneSD (talk) 20:25, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Kansas Bear: I saw your post at Florian Blaschke's talk page and thought I'd try to help. I had heard of Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, who is called "Rumi" in the west, so I found the article on him by putting "Rumi" in the search box and choosing his name from the disambiguation page (13th century Persian poet). In the section on "Name" there are a few sources that discuss "Rumi". Maybe they will be helpful. CorinneSD (talk) 00:05, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi CorinneSD, I've moved things around a bit on my talk page, to be less confusing. See what you think. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 00:32, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
can you Dougweller as you said join the discussion on the talkpage 46.45.142.226 (talk) 14:35, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
How can anyone write such a stupid article. Hafspajen (talk) 12:48, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Fayenatic london: I'm writing with regard to another editor who feels he has been bullied by admins to the point where he feels he must retire: User talk:Lfdder. I haven't followed all his edits, so I don't know exactly what led to his being blocked from editing for one month. I have seen a few instances of his cursing at other editors or otherwise speaking to them strongly, but that may have been, as he says, out of frustration. He is very knowledgeable in the area of linguistics and has made quite a few good edits (he works often with Kwamikagami). I am just sorry that such a good editor would feel so upset by the way he has been treated that he would give up editing on Wikipedia forever. I and a few other editors have tried to persuade him to return, but his last note shows he is unpersuaded. If you have time, can you look into this and see if there is any legitimacy to his claim that he has been bullied, not just the recent re-posting of the block notice that he had removed (after he posted the "Retired" notice), but even before that -- whatever it was that made him so angry and frustrated that he lost his temper?
The way I see it, in any group of people, there are always a few who are more emotional or outspoken than others. I feel that an occasional burst of emotion should not automatically get a good editor blocked. I think friendly admonishment and reminders to choose words more carefully are more effective. A block might make this type of person more upset than he was to begin with. Of course, I trust your judgment. CorinneSD (talk) 14:44, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Joshua Jonathan: Joshua, what's going on at Talk:Hinduism and Judaism? Is Blades getting into trouble again? I don't understand how two people could be so far apart about a basic fact about Hinduism. Blades is standing his ground. I thought maybe you could help sort things out in that discussion. CorinneSD (talk) 02:03, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Rothorpe: I'm just wondering if you mind when I chime in on your discussions with other editors on your Talk page. If you'd rather I didn't, or if you'd prefer I did it less often, please let me know and I will respect your wishes. CorinneSD (talk) 22:55, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
For about six days I've been having a problem with edit conflict. When I leave a comment on a Talk page, usually an editor's talk page (and not every editor's talk page), and save it, I often get the Edit conflict notice. A few times I went through the steps of copying my comment from the bottom and pasting it to the top section, and saving it, but sometimes the edit conflict notice returned. So I left the page, to start fresh, and I saw that my comment, with signature and date, had been saved. There seemed to be no other editing going on at that time on that page. This keeps happening. It's getting annoying. I don't think this has anything to do with it, but I enabled Twinkle about four days ago. Can you help me? This never used to happen. I left a comment on WP technical, but got no specific help, perhaps because it was at about the same time that everyone was having all sorts of problems about three days ago. CorinneSD (talk) 02:14, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Rothorpe: I don't know whether you have Kwamikagami's talk page on your watch list, but there's an interesting brief exchange regarding the sounds of Portuguese. I thought you might be interested. I keep his talk page on my watch list because he's an expert in linguistics, and interesting topics come up. CorinneSD (talk) 16:38, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Jerome Kohl: I just glanced at your talk page for a moment (seemed like an interesting discussion was going on) and saw that your and the other editor's comments were getting farther and farther to the right of the page. I just wondered if you knew about {{outdent}} or {{od}}. It moves the discussion back to the left margin and creates a line connecting the last word on the right to the first word in the continued discussion on the left. I learned about it a while ago but keep forgetting it because I don't often go on to the point where it's needed. I would guess that you do know about it since you've been editing for so long, but just in case you didn't, or had forgotten, I thought I'd tell you about it. CorinneSD (talk) 00:03, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Paine Ellsworth: First, let me thank you for leaving that very nice note on Lfdder's talk page. (I hope my last comment to him didn't alienate him even more than he was already; my earlier comments to him were more like yours.)
Second, there is a sentence in Parmenides that I just do not like. I left a note at User talk:Rothorpe#Parmenides about it. I even got Omnipaedista's opinion, and Rothorpe is now agreeing with it. But I know you are a professional writer, so I've got to ask you what you think. I just don't like the sound of "ideas...had a strong effect on Plato, and in turn..." I think a verb is better than had + noun, so that the chain of events is a chain of actions. Then what actually happened is clearer. Do you know what I mean? If you agree with the other two, then I'll drop it. CorinneSD (talk) 00:18, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Phonetic but incorrect spellings of forms of a verb that has at least four alternative acceptable ones. I'm editing an article (about Milli Vanilli, a bogus pop group that I'm happy never to have heard) and need to choose from one of them, since mine are alas off limits. Any suggestions? Rothorpe (talk) 22:44, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Past tense? Let's see.... Lip synced? Lip synched? Lip synct? I think it should parallel whatever you choose for the -ing form.
Regarding other issues, I saw, as I'm sure you will, too, missing commas after years, spaces around an em-dash...
By the way, I didn't look, but I would guess that you added the "the" before the newspaper reporter (near the beginning of the article); I've got to tell you that the "the" looks and sounds really out of place to me. This must be a real difference between American and British writing, at least all but the most erudite scholarly writing. I'll bet you'd like to leave it in so that we learn how to write properly ;) .CorinneSD (talk) 23:29, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Fayenatic london: I just wondered if you could take a look at the comment I posted at Talk:Caryll Houselander. I thought you might be able to answer my three questions. CorinneSD (talk) 14:55, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Fayenatic london: I just added a reference to Saint Petrus Canisius, my first one. I just wonder if you could check it to make sure I did it right. I've been trying to find a source that will support and explain a statement in Taborites mentioning Peter Kanis, which I discovered is the English name of Petrus Canisius (and I created that link, too), but I haven't been successful. Just generally, Petrus Canisius was a Jesuit who brought the order to Germany and who defended the Catholic faith from the growing reforms that were the precursors to the Protestant Reformation. So I can't figure out what his connection to the Taborites, a rather radical group that rejected quite a bit of the Catholic teachings and religious customs, would be. CorinneSD (talk) 23:27, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The editor explained in the edit summary, that was before there was a 'Britain', a United Kingdom. Dougweller (talk) 17:58, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Dougweller: I noticed at the last comment you posted on your User page that you left off one square bracket. Left as is, Slenderdan would not receive notice of the comment. CorinneSD (talk) 17:59, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Joshua Jonathan: (Sorry for butting in. I was just curious.) Re the comment you posted at Dougwller's talk page under "New user", don't you mean Stalkford? CorinneSD (talk) 18:16, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Rothorpe: I saw on the internet today that Maya Angelou had passed away. A lovely person. I was reminded of the news when I saw a single line added to the beginning of your talk page, all the way at the top. What is that? Just thought I'd point it out in case you missed it. CorinneSD (talk) 20:49, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi CorinneSD! You duly undid my rev. as going counter to the existence of an English-language WP art. "Baldassare Castiglione". However, mind you: you wouldn't find a single occurrence of that Italianized given name (with a single r) even if you scroll down on the entire bulk of Italian literature of these past ten centuries. Of course, truncated/purist forms like Baldessar, Baldassar do exist as autonomous variants. So the only outcome would be realizing that in the English-language WP article, from its title down, the given name is misspelt (as now and then easily happens when dealing with those maddening Italian "doubles"..). Till now I didn't dare to put my hand on it, but something should be done to mend this glaring speck on Wikipedia's honest face. Perhaps you could lend a helping hand, being an insider, so to speak. (In the end, you'd have to undo what you undid). With my warmest regards! Brumon (talk) 23:51, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Hafspajen: Can you help me, Hafspajen? A few minutes ago I edited the text at the top of my User page, and saved the changes. Then I scrolled down to look at my pictures and saw that one of them is gone. I had seen it just yesterday or the day before. I looked everywhere in Wikimedia Commons and couldn't find it. It's a watercolor of about two large, light blue flowers. I really loved that picture. Can you help me find it and put it back? Thanks. CorinneSD (talk) 20:37, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Sminthopsis84: I just spent some time catching up on User talk:Hafspajen's talk page, looking at all the photos and skimming the exchanges, and when I got to near the bottom (where I had already left a brief comment earlier today with having looked at anything else), I was dismayed to read that Hafspajen was so upset by some investigation that he (Is Hafspajen he or she?) is giving up editing on Wikipedia. Several other editors and myself have posted comments trying to persuade him/her to come back. Is there anything you can do to persuade him? It would be a great loss if he stayed away.
In the meantime, can you answer the question I posted at the bottom of Hafspajen's talk page about W. H. Auden and a question I posted here on my talk page for Hafspajen? CorinneSD (talk) 22:04, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Sminthopsis84: Since you are a botanist, maybe you could help answer some questions I posted in two separate comments at Talk:Bamboo under Talk:Bamboo#Ecology and Talk:Bamboo#Genus and geography last fall and to which no one has replied. (I just saw them as I was looking at two recent comments posted today.) CorinneSD (talk) 23:42, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Rothorpe: I just skimmed a slightly contentious discussion at User talk:Dbrodbeck just out of curiosity, and I was astonished at the writing style of editor Mark Bassett. It is barely comprehensible. I've rarely seen writing like that. I couldn't tell if it indicated that the editor is a non-native speaker of English or that the editor is a native speaker of English who simply cannot write coherently (notice the "y'all", which is southern U.S. dialect). It probably also reflects unclear thinking processes. Unbelievable. CorinneSD (talk) 21:34, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If you're in the mood to practise your reverting skills... Strictly no obligation. I can't do it again because of the 3RR rule. These British nationalists... Rothorpe (talk) 02:42, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not to worry, others are taking care of it. He is more than usually persistent. Rothorpe (talk) 14:56, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to add a picture from the article on Henri Matisse to my User page. It is "File:Matisse-The-Dessert-Harmony-in-Red-Henri-1908-fast.jpg". However, I can't figure out from reading the license information whether or not it is permissible for me to put this on my User page. The information in the blue box on the license page suggests that it may not be. Can you tell me whether or not I can put this on my User page? Thank you. CorinneSD (talk) 19:56, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am having trouble accessing Wikimedia Commons photos. Before, all I did was to click on any picture, then click on the Wikimedia Commons logo. Now, when I click on a picture, I get a big, wide, black screen with the photo in the middle and white arrows to the left and right. Below are a lot of links. I've tried clicking on some of those links, but I seem to go around in circles. I don't know what to click in order to get directly to Wikimedia Commons (so I can find more pictures). CorinneSD (talk) 16:36, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Rothorpe: and @Sminthopsis84: Kwami replied that he is too busy to deal with the questions I posed at User talk:Kwamikagami#Wayuu people and that he doesn't know anything about the topic. Perhaps you can answer my questions, or know an editor who can. Shall I transfer my questions here? CorinneSD (talk) 23:26, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Copied from Kwamikagami's Talk page:
I have just finished reading the article on Wayuu people and have made a few edits to improve clarity. More work needs to be done, especially on the Religion section. I'll continue working on it tomorrow. But I have a few questions for you about the table in the section "Clans":
1) If you read the translation of the names of the clan territories, you will see some that look like they belong to one phrase (like "Plays a lot"), but there are two words, one above the other, in the box to the left of them, in the territories column. It looks like there are two territories, but it might be just one territory, translated by the phrase (instead of two territories, each translated as a separate word). Do you see what I mean? If it's really one territory, translated by a phrase in English, then it should be clearly shown as one territory. I don't know if there is anything that can be done, or should be done, about it.
2) If you read all the translations in the translation column, there are one or two that I think might be incorrectly written: 1) "the teeth of out eyes", and 2) "laing eyes", which might really be "lying eyes". What do you think?
3) I see the word "rancheria(s)" spelled both with an accent on the "i" and without (mostly without), throughout the article. Should it have an accent on the "i" in every case? I thought that, since it has apparently been adopted by the Wayuu people to name their houses, perhaps the accent was dropped.CorinneSD (talk) 03:46, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, no time now, don't know anything about the topic. 'Rancheria' is spelled w/o a diacritic in English. — kwami (talk) 23:04, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
O.K. Thanks. CorinneSD (talk) 23:22, 5 June 2014 (UTC) CorinneSD (talk) 00:14, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Dougweller: Did you see the latest edits at Talk:Koç family? In particular, did you see the edit summaries written by an editor named Collect? They sound like warnings to the other editor, not a very nice tone. CorinneSD (talk) 00:26, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Sminthopsis84:
I don't know how to format it right. The only lines that should be indented are "Beats...", "Neither...", "I sit....", and "Or what shoes....", and the ends of the lines are: rain, heart., pain, and em-dash, again;, wane, start., then a space before the next line, then ending words town;, chair., brown:, down, gown, wear. (with a period). Maybe it's too sad for Hafs' talk page. What do you think? CorinneSD (talk) 00:53, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Forget it. I decided the poem was too sad. I had thought it would be appropriate only because everyone is missing Hafs and because the last few lines go with the picture I posted (and Martinevans' comment about the shoes). I'll keep looking. CorinneSD (talk) 01:34, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]