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Welcome note

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Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them:

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Tip: you can sign your name with ~~~~

snoyes 14:35, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Races of Middle-earth

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Hi, thanks for your reaction on my edit of the races list. I've replied on Talk:Middle-earth — Jor 14:48, Jan 11, 2004 (UTC)

Middle-earth

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Thanks again for your feedback. As you can see I am still busy writing Middle-earth articles, but your edits of the main article inspired me to rewrite 'Places' as well and provide links! Your Kingdoms of Arda is very interesting, but as you mention not all are actual Kingdoms. What do you think of Realms of Arda as a title? This would allow for the inclusion of places as The Shire (not a Kingdom) and Angband and Mordor. Jor 15:43, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thains of the Shire etc.

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I hope you don't mind that I've been completing articles you started, I have lots of this material already in Word documents for my own personal use gathered over the years so it is a trivial task for me to add names etc.. I do not mean to "steal the glory" from you or anything, I'm just doing my best to make the lists as complete as possible. Cheers, Jor 18:49, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)


No, I don't mind at all. The only way you can steal my glory is if you too can juggle twelve weasels at once, in which case remind me to send you an invitation to the brotherhood. Other than that, it should be noted that you did a commendable job over at Thains of the Shire, which is good, because all information I had was just the two entries. Generally speaking, if I don't want anybody else to edit my articles, I place them as obscure subpages in my user page (for instance, see User:Itai/My Top Secret Plan to Take Over the World, in which case I will have to kill you). Sometimes, however, I invite people over, and sometimes - well, I never did it yet, but theoretically - I declare the pages free for all, and release them into the ocean. Generally speaking, it would appear to be that the Tolkien section of Wikipedia is advancing splendidly. I suppose we stop the moment we reach Funny words of Middle-earth, but until then we should proceed in full throttle.
-Itai 22:26, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Statute of Limitations

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First off, I commend you for your dedication to things Tolkien. Second of all, your question has been answered by me at Wikipedia:Reference desk. I believe the term you want is "the statute of limitations"...we would say "the statute of limitations for robbery is 7 years" to mean that no prosecutions for robbery could occur after 7 years had passed since the incident. I hope this makes sense. Drop me a note if I've been unclear. Thanks, Jwrosenzweig 20:43, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the commendation, and thanks for the quick reply. I must say that I was greatly surprised (for the better) by the speed in which a reply was given. Furthermore, I have now found the Statute of limitations article, which is extremely useful. Much obliged, Itai 21:46, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

your requested German-to-English translation

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  • Article: de:Göktürken
  • Corresponding English-language article: Göktürks
  • Worth doing because: Material to incorporate into English-language article
  • Originally Requested by: Itai 16:38, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  • Status: Translated, but review requested by Jmabel 23:16, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Reference Desk answer

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I've posted a hypothesis to your question on Wikipedia:Reference Desk regarding that ABBA song. (Feel free to delete this post after you have seen my response.) Garrett Albright 01:22, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Graphical Timeline

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Hi Itai, I justed wanted to say that contrary to other comments I find your contribution to wikitech pretty funny at times. You will make it into Wikiquote this way sooner or later :)

I see you are working on a graphical timeline. I will release a project in one or two months to produce script based graphical timelines. I mailed you some examples. If you're interested let me know. Erik Zachte 11:27, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Once again, I feel a better person after checking your list :) By the way EasyTimeline and doc's are ready. Eloquence will add it to MediaWiki software when he finds the person who has his time. Erik Zachte 05:02, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Bashshar al-Asad

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There's an odd redirect at Bashshar al-Asad. On one hand, it looks like a type. On the other hand, I can't read Arabic, and it may well be that the letter standing for "sh" appears twice in Mr. Asad's first name. Any suggestions? -- Itai 15:19, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

We allow redirects for typos and mis-spellings and variant transliterations, so that redirect seems fine to me. See wikipedia:redirect, if you haven't already. Martin 20:02, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Moody Blues

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Thanks for your comments on The Moody Blues - I've replied on the talk page for the article [[1]]. --Auximines 09:07, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Fijian Prime Ministers - RATU Title

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Hi Itai! Just a brief reply to your question. RATU is a hereditary title in Fiji, much like "Duke" or "Earl" in England. Fiji has 52 chiefly families. Only one member of the family may hold the official chiefly office at a time, but all other members of the family are still given the title of Ratu (if male) or Adi (if female). Fiji's constitution follows British models, and therefore incorporates the nobility into the modern political structure. The Great Council of Chiefs elects the (mostly honorary) President and 14 of the 32 Senators. UNLIKE the British model, however, Fiji does not make a strict separation between the nobility and the commoners in the political structure. In Britain, for example, the inheritor of a Peerage is disqualified from membership of the House of Commons, but Fiji makes no such distinction. Many Ratus have sat, and continue to sit, as democratically elected members of the House of Representatives, alongside commoners.

Now, to answer your question: No, not every Prime Minister of Fiji is a Ratu. Mara was; he held three chiefly titles as King of Lakeba and Paramount Chief of Nayau and Lau. (He was also a descendant, on his mother's side, of Tongan royalty). The present Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase, is a self-made man, a "commoner," and does not have the Ratu title.

In a nutshell: The title Ratu denotes hereditary rank. The chiefs have guaranteed representation in the Senate; the 52 chiefs elect 14 of their own to represent them in the Senate. A further 9 senators are appointed by the Prime Minister, 8 by the Leader of the Opposition, and 1 by the Rotuman Islands Council; these Senators may, or may not, be Ratus themselves. (The Senate is a reflection of the British House of Lords, which consists of both hereditary nobles and "life peers" who elect from among themselves 75 Lords with voting rights). The House of Representatives is elected by universal suffrage; its members may, or may not, be Ratus. In the years immediately following independence, almost all of the ethnic Fijian representatives were, in fact, of the chiefly class, but that proportion has diminished in recent years; less than half of the current House is of the nobility.

So no, Mara was a Ratu by virtue of his royal ancestry and chiefly titles, not by virtue of his holding the offices of Prime Minister and (later) President. Momoedonu was also a Ratu. Rabuka and Qarase are not.

I'm sorry my reply is a ramble. I've had a particularly exhausting day and I'm not thinking very clearly. I ought to be sleeping, but you know what Wikiholism does ... David Cannon 11:56, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion to write a Ratu article. I'll get around to that later today. And thanks for your kind words, too:-) David Cannon 21:24, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Done. (Although it still needs more work). David Cannon 23:05, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Thank yoiufor your kind words:-) I still need to do a bit more work on it, but a start has been made. David Cannon 22:56, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Logan

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Why did you remove the Search link from Logan ? - Gaz 11:46, 20 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Well, mostly because pressing it simply brought you to the Logan page. Other than that, it's a good page, although the comments at the beginning really aren't necessary - you can keep them if you like, however - and I've just noticed that a {{msg:disambig}} at the bottom may be forthcoming. -- Itai 17:56, 20 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Walloon translation

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Wow, I didn't expect a request to come so soon :) I put the English meaning on the talk page Talk:Regions and provinces of Belgium#Image. Thanks Srtxg 20:16, 20 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

The Walon todi! motto has been choosen at about the same time as the flag, anthem, and fest day (by 1913, I don't remember the exact day right now), it means "Walloon forever!" in walloon language (and was proably written Walon toudi, [tudi] being the most common prononciation, todi is a normalized writting (it covers [tudi] and [todi] pronounciations).
The Walloon federal State (currently called "Region", which is misleading about its true nature, and a demand to change "Region" into "State" or "Region-State" in the constitution exists) came into existence only on the 1980s, so the official recognition of the walloon symbols is quite recent, but they exist for near a century. I'm not sure if the motto itself has been officially blessed by the Walloon government; flag, anthem and "national day" have.

BTW, the etimology of the word "walon" doesn't mean "stranger", but "Celt", and also (as all Celts bordering the germanic frontier back then where under Roman Empire rule) by extension "roman, latin". From there derive words like "Welsh", "Waelsch" (used on the latin/germanic linguistic border by Germanic people to talk about latin languages speaking people). In an old medieval roman/germanic dictionnary it says, in the roman title, "Vocabulair pour aprendre Romain et Flameng" (Vocabulary to learn Roman and Flemmish) and in the germanic title "Vocabulaer om jeleerne Walsch eñ vlaemsch"; which shows that the term "walsch" (it is "waals" in modern Dutch now) was used by the germanic side first (logically, it was a germanic word), roman side used the latin derived word "roman". "walon/walloon" started to be used by Walloon people to differentiate themselves from other roman populations; it was already in use by the 16-17th century.
The word "Wallonie" and "Walonreye" are quite new (by ~1840, it seems it was first created in Walloon language); however, what is new is the use of the concept of "Wallonia" as a political body; culturally "Payis Walon" (Walloon country" has been in use for centuries; and there is also an old medieval religious map, in latin, that uses "Vallonia" to name roughly what is current day Wallonia. The reason why Wallonia hasn't been much in use in the past (with the exception of religious use, that is bishop etc areas of influence) is that there wasn't political unity; there was a people called "Walloons" by themselves and the others, but they were under the rule of different political entities (Comty of Namur, Principalty of Liege, Duchy of Luxembourg, and some smaller ones).
Srtxg 20:23, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

As for the map (Image:Detailed_Wallonia_map.jpg), you may want to take the original one from [2]; note that the German speaking community (in white on the right) is part of Wallonia, the map just shows the native languages of the part of Wallonia where French is the official language. Here are the translations of the names (when two names on the left, the first one is the one on the old map, using an old spelling, the 2nd one on the new map)

and rivers:

(more rivers of Wallonia: wa:Wikipedia:Pordjet_aiwes_di_Walonreye)

Sorry it took me so long to reply. Let's take this one at a time:
  1. Firstly, I am most grateful for your gracious help, without which I would be at an utter loss.
  2. Secondly, it is probably a good idea to as of now limit myself to languages I understand. I shall have to remember this.
  3. As for the translation for Walon todi! (I wasn't off by too much. Most of the time it seems today is forever) and all the information you provided above - it will probably be better, as per wiki etiquette, if you added it to the Wallonia article, in order to set the credentials right.
  4. As for the map:
    1. I don't know what the text below the Walloon image page means (see items #2 and #1 respectively). Thus, I do not know under what license was this image taken from the site you specified - I'm not a copyright lawyer, but I gather it may be lawful for me to copy the image from the Walloon Wikipedia and translate it back into English, but unlawful to simply grab the image from [3]. If you could specify what is written below the image - specifically, whether it makes any mention of a license - I'd be much obliged.
    2. Once the license issue is sorted, I could translate, using your translations, the Walloon names into their French - and thus, I gather, official - counterparts, although this will go entirely unnoticed by the majority of the readers of this Wikipedia, who couldn't tell Walloon from Malay.
Anyway, I am determined to pull through this.
-- Itai 20:27, 23 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
There is no mention of the licence actually; but you can assume you can use it under GFDL, once the author knew about the GFDL he made all of his linguistics works available under that licence. I could specifically ask him, or send you his email so you ask him, if that makes you feel more comfortable.
Note that the map at [4] is more usefull to display the geographical location of walloon language, or maybe to illustrate a section on Wallonia article about regional languages; for a detailed map of Wallonia more city/towns should be added imho.
On [5] there are some maps by the same author (and here clearly stated as GFDL), it shows only a couple more cities, and also the provincial boundaries; but most interesting, maybe the author has the data to create vectorial images.
I'm writting him right now Srtxg 09:09, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


Trouble Editing

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from the pump

The oddest thing has been happening to me. I tried several times, both some hours ago and both now, to edit Template:Feature ("Austrian" should like to "Austria"), but to no avail. Every time I press "Edit this page", get to the edit page, make the modification, press "Save page" - and my Mozilla Firefox appears to be loading the page, until, several minutes later, it gives up. Wikipedia isn't the most reliable site when it comes to performance, so I wouldn't be surprised were it not for the fact that in the meanwhile I successfully edited and saved other pages. Is there some sort of curse hanging above the MediaWiki: namespace? -- Itai 20:20, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's you that has the curse :) I just made the change you suggest (with firebird, no less) and it seems to have taken. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:03, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
My Mozilla also had that issue. I tried to do it before Finlay and it took a really long time and came back not able to do it. Things are working fine, though a little slow, on other pages. Weird. moink 21:45, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen this issue too several times in the past, including yesterday. I use Mozilla 1.7. When I click Save page, sometimes it will take minutes before it returns. In the meantime, I can look at my contributions and see the system has recorded my change, yet the page has not refreshed yet. If I use another window to go back to that page I just saved, then it seems the page gets refreshed just before I see the updated page in the other window (tab). RedWolf 18:51, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate all your responses. I've been editing freely for quite some time now, so I suppose the curse has been lifted. Must've been the goat. -- Itai 07:27, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

WP:RFA

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Itai, your Vote for adminship is being threatened by your jocular statement in your request. At the moment you'd fail the vote. Please clarify your stance on "reverting for fun"; you'll gain four votes.
I know how much fun reverting is, when a nasty vandal with a complex has been putting garbage in obesity. Don't let this cloud your responsibilities... JFW | T@lk 15:03, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It's not ha-ha funny. I never did say that. I expected neither a groan nor a chuckle nor anything but a mildly disconcerted frown. Still, I think people - with a few notable exceptions - are confusing the articles (which warrant some seriousness, I'll grant you that) with the community pages, where a more lax approach is due. Still, this is good place to make a stand - if I managed 2,000 edits without being an editor, I'll probably manage 2,000 more without a change of status. -- Itai 01:40, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm glad you clarified. You're good as an editor, and I trust you'd make a great admin. You might have to notify the present "oppose" voters that you've issued a clarification.... :-) JFW | T@lk 17:01, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I appreciate your support. Informing the opposition is a good idea, which I would have implemented were it not for the fact that I secretly had them killed, dismembered, and buried beneath assorted crossroads. As you can see, overreaction extracts its toll when it comes to politics. (Honestly, however, I think I may leave the situation as it is. I may crack up tomorrow, but for the time being I'd much rather avoid prostituting myself. Not that contacting the opposition would be in any way prostitution, but it will deteriorate quickly from there. I may even wake up some day and find, Kafka-style, that I've become a politician.) -- Itai 22:15, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I took down your request for adminship because a consensus was not reached. If you would like, I could nominate you for adminship sometime in July. --"DICK" CHENEY 23:39, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

How could you not know that admins are forbidden to have a sense of humour? Didn't you read the secret invisible policy pages that must have been created some time between me becoming an admin and now? Κσυπ Cyp   07:42, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Nobody told me about secret invisible policy pages! Well, I suppose I'm better off this way. If it's a choice between not being an admin and having to undergo that surgery they told me about, well... It's a difficult decision, isn't it? -- Itai 13:00, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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