User talk:Derek Ross

As a'Wikipedia

Clàr-innse 1 Sysop 2 Deuchainn 3 Cooperation with the Irish Gaelic Wikipedia 4 Beginner question 5 promotion 6 Hi again! 7 Moran taing 8 Arbroath 9 Badipaddress 10 Aistean goirid 11 "Well meaning anonymous contributor" 12 Teachdaireachd Template:Cleanup 13 Duilleag Fàilte 14 logo 15 Duilleagan coimhearsnachd 16 Rudeigin briste? 17 php 18 Mìle aiste 19 Tapadh Leibh 20 [Mediawiki-i18n] Internationalisation news

[deasaich] Sysop

You're now sysop and bureaucrat. Have fun! --Brion VIBBER 08:22, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

How can I get that, Derek? --AileanMacRaith 08:32, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ailean, gheibh mi dhuibh sysop ma sgriobhidh sibh userpage beag (briogas air ainm agaibh) ag ràdh cò tha sibh agus cò às a tha sibh. -- Derek

[deasaich] Deuchainn

Tha deuchainn.

oibrich e! -- Derek

[deasaich] Cooperation with the Irish Gaelic Wikipedia

Haigh, a Derek! I translated the Irish Wikipedia (Vicipéid), and I hope that the Wikipediae in Gaeilge and Gàidhlig can collaborate. Gabriel Beecham

Bhiodh sin math, a Ghabriel. -- Derek

Bhuel, a Derek, I suppose that content isn't directly transferable (except when used as a general reference for translation in conjuction with something else), but one issue would be the interfaces. For example, seeing the name "Mùthadhan ùran" gives me the inclination that "Úrathruithe" might be a more stylish phrase on the Irish wiki than "Athruithe deireanacha". -- 213.94.253.59 22:08, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I like the idea of some kind of Inter-Gaelic interface for the three languages. --Creachadair 16:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[deasaich] Beginner question

Do I live in Sassain or Sasainn? :-) The BBC spell it the latter way, Wikipedia the former. Nickshanks 00:38, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good question. It pains me to say that the BBC are correct (although according to my copy of Maclennan, you live in Sasunn). I'll fix the Wikipedia entry if you haven't already done so. Cheers -- Derek

[deasaich] promotion

Hi Derek, I was thinking perhaps you could promote this Wikipedia by sending e-mails to young netizens in the Hebrides or the Highlands, or just people in general with pages in Gaelic? You might also look for a web community for Gaelic-speakers, but you might want to be careful that it is for people who actually speak Gaelic instead of those who just want to learn it as posting messages at the latter will probably be a waste of time (nobody knows enough to contribute) or may actually be bad for the Wikipedia (people might write in a mix of English and Gaelic, they might write word-by-word translations from English using just a dictionary without actually knowing any grammar).

If you personally know anybody whose native language is Gaelic, that might be a good start. -- Anonymous editor

These are good ideas. There is no doubt that we need interested native speakers to do this properly. The problem is that with only 65,000 or so worldwide, it may be difficult to interest enough in contributing. That is why we need to welcome learners as well despite the problems that you have listed above. I will try spreading the word as you have suggested but the native speakers that I know are not interested in the Internet unfortunately and here in Western Canada, I am less likely to meet others. -- Derek

[deasaich] Hi again!

Hi guys - I've been away for a good while because my house was burgled and my laptop was stolen. GRR! I'll hopefully have a new computer soon to start contributing more regularly to this. To add my tuppence worth, I don't really care about English creeping into Gaelic - it's happening with all languages. As long as we get more people to start using it, that is the important thing. So use verbs like watcheadh and catcheadh if you like but keep creating a useful Gaelic resource. And remember, the more that is created, the more likely new users will contribute, so it is VERY important to keep on at it just now. --AileanMacRaith 12:32, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm very sorry to hear that you've been burgled, Ailean. I know what an unpleasant experience it is. I hope that you have managed to get things sorted out without too much bother. When you have your new computer and are ready to edit again, we will be delighted to get your help on the English and on the Gaelic versions. But we will certainly keep on at it in your absence. It may be a bit early to wish you a prosperous New Year but at the least I hope that 2005 treats you better than 2004 has. Cheers. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:27, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[deasaich] Moran taing

Moran taing, Derek, airson mo chur nam sysop (tha mi direach air ais bho na laithean saora agam is mar sin bha mi beagan slaodach le bhith freagairt). Eoghan 20:11, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Tha sin math, Eoghan. Bha mi a' smaoineachadh gun robh sibh saoithreach. Tha mi an dochas gun robh sibh riaraichte le na laithean saora agaibh. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:28, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[deasaich] Arbroath

Arbroath - Obar Bhrothaig

Tapadh leibh. Bha mi a' smaoineachadh air an de. -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:52, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[deasaich] Badipaddress

Saoil dè tha dol fo'n ghrian le MediaWiki:Badipaddress?

Thòisich mi lethbhreac sa Ghàidhlig an raoir, ach an diugh tha mi a'faicinn san eachdraidh gun deach e air ais ri default, ann am Maigh!, agus gun do chuir sibhse lethbhreac eile ann!

Seanns gu bheil mi a'deanamh rudeigin gòrach. A bheil fhios agad dè thachair? - Eoghan 22:14, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm, dh'fhaoidte gun do dheasaich mi seann lethbhreac, an t-amadan a th'annam ... Codhiù, chuir mi feadhainn eile a-staigh, a'togail air an deagh thòiseachadh agad fhèin. Eoghan 02:21, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Not at all, Eoghan. I am very pleased with what you are doing. Please continue the fine work. You are doing far better than I ever could. Please revert my edits if they seem stupid. I only changed badipaddress because in that one case you seemed to have translated the name of the message rather than the message itself. I am very pleased to see the grammar and spelling fixes and the English text disappearing as your work progresses. Talking of which, my apologies that my reply is in English but I am not fluent enough to be sure of getting my message across in Gaelic when it gets a little more complicated and I wanted to be sure that I said what I meant to say to you. -- Derek Ross | deasbair 06:51, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Haidh Derek, just for my wiki-education, why are the dates of the edits out of order, though? Did the system revert it back to the default? I took a look at the French and German equivalents, and they both talk about the IP address in their translation. On the other hand, the Irish version says no such user, etc. so I wonder if the eireannaich have actually got it wrong?

I do not know for sure why the dates are out of order. That is strange and I would guess that it is probably a minor bug. The only way to be sure would be to download the WikiMedia code from SourceForge and examine it. As for the French and German versions of badipaddress, I see what you mean. Perhaps it would be better to translate the German message than the English one. It certainly looks like a better message. -- Derek Ross | deasbair 03:13, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Codhiu, codheth, cùmaidh mi air an eadar-theangachadh agus tòisichidh mi gu luath air na duilleagan-fàilte (style guides is a leithid). Feumaidh deasbair beag bhith againne air sin. Cuideachd, seans gum bu chòir dhuinn lethbhreac Gàidhlig a dhèanamh airson a'php gus nach feum sinn faclan Bearla mar category agus image a chleachdadh sna h-aistean.

Na reubaibh mu na faclan Bearla. Tha eadar-theangachadh sam bith nas fheàrr na ni sam bith. Cuideachd, tha mi a' smaoineach gun robh sinn saor a mùthadh faclan mar "image" gun a mùthadh an php -- tha an facal airson "category" air fràngach "catégorie". -- Derek Ross | deasbair 06:08, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[deasaich] Aistean goirid

Rud no dhà eile, tha mi a'faicinn gu bheil cuideigin neo-ainmichte air mòran mòran aistean goirid a chur air bhoile. Ged a fheumas sinn bhith taingeil le cuideachadh sam bith, chan eil mi toilichte a dh'fhaicinn tòrr obair neo-ainmichte, pàirt dheth sa Bheurla codhiù, agus a'cleachdadh keywords gum feum sinn eadar-theangachadh uair air choireigin. A bheil beachd agaibh? Eoghan 02:25, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Again, this is a tricky one so I'll answer in English. Basically you have taken the words out of my mouth. If the user concerned wasn't anonymous, I'd leave a note on their talk page. I'm pleased that they are contributing and I don't want to scare them off but I wish they weren't just creating lists or copying the bare minimum from the English Wikipedia. I'd rather have fewer articles with more content. I see nothing wrong with taking articles from the English or German wikipedias and translating them fully but these skeletal entries are a problem. We need to inform the person concerned of the sort of format somehow. Perhaps you could create some variant of the {{cleanup}} template message so that we could append it to the beginning of articles which need fixed. That would at least allow us to call the anonymous editor's attention to the problems that will be caused by these "articles". -- Derek Ross | deasbair 06:08, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Derek a charaid

I have to say I am guilty myself of perhaps establishing a few articles and putting in a few lists but only of things I can think people might wish to apply their own knowledge to such as Sohailre MacGill-Eain or Runrig no rudan mar sin. I do however fully expect to expand many of the articles myself when I have the time. But I think that seeding an article acan allow other people to run with it. I do have to also admit that only recently did I start logging in, for some reason I found it hard to. However, I did notice that some one is just putting inmassive lists of thigns like languages, some of them without either AGelic Translation or even an attempt to agelicise the words, this I don't feel as comfortable about. I am however now logging in, and was quite quite proud that I did the 100th article, only last friday. Also once we get to 1000 articles i think that this thing will really take off.

Le speis

Meatbong

I hope that you are right, MB. I think that it probably would take off with 1,000 good (although short) articles and I'm quite happy with the paragraphs that you have done on Runrig, etc. They make a good basis for expansion. It's just that the lists and partial articles that our well-meaning anonymous contributor has been adding need some content, however small. Otherwise the article count just gives a false impression which readers will be very quick to detect when they actually look at the articles. In my experience people are more likely to contribute to an article when it has a small but valid core that they can build on. -- Derek Ross | deasbair 16:19, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Aye, I think a stub is only useful if it's likely to be fleshed out reasonably soon. I can't see that happening any time soon with this cornucopia of micro-stubs so now our statistics, random page, and so on, are pretty much useless.

One way of contacting this person might be to temporarily block the IP address. I believe this would flash some kind of message up?

Re Template:Cleanup - sure, as soon as I've figured out a nice word for Template :-) Eoghan 23:35, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[deasaich] "Well meaning anonymous contributor"

hi, I'd better throw my chips in...

Yes I'm "well meaning", but I think it's a bit harsh to block my IP(s). I'm biased on that score... however my aim has been to push past the 1,000 mark, since it looks better in some ways. Manx Gaelic for example has just two articles, which is almost worse that not existing.

And, in actual fact not all my contributions are "ungaelic" - cf Iain Mac a' Ghobhainn, Aonghas Padraig Caimbeul, Dun Aluinn etc, I just think that a purely Gaelic scope is not a good thing. It's not as if other people can produce them if they want to, (although my fear perhaps, is it may confirm a widely held misconception that Gaidhlig is not doing well enough because it is too inward looking -- if the scope is mainly such). Personally I can't stand most of Runrig, but go ahead. Be sure to include Scatha, Hoi Polloi (even Ultravox!) and various other non-folk bands that have tried Gaidhlig songs in their time though. As I've said before, the people who need to know about Gaelic culture most are those who currently play no part in it, hence the need for Gaelic culture related articles to be developed on English wikipedia for example... they're the people who will ultimately help Gaidhlig, because there's more of them, and their support is a positive thing. Currently there's a hundred and one myths about Gaidhlig floating around Scotland, ranging from the idea that it was never spoken in the south, to having no words for email, internet etc, to being only spoken by old people in islands. (Besides which, there's a wheen of stuff from Nova Scotia, which would be good here...)

"I think a stub is only useful if it's likely to be fleshed out reasonably soon. I can't see that happening any time soon with this cornucopia of micro-stubs"

I would argue that the stubs in actual fact facilitate development, and I have been coming back to some of them and developing them (I will certainly do this with the ones relating to countries). Properly developed for example, the entries for countries and counties, kings of Scotland etc can be very useful for schools. They aren't orphans. Some are already being fleshed out. As Meatbong "I think that seeding an article acan allow other people to run with it." - that's what I'm hoping.

My last question is when is a stub not a stub? Just how long must it be? I'm not sure what the purpose of wiping all non-Gaelic subject matter is.

"That would at least allow us to call the anonymous editor's attention to the problems that will be caused by these "articles"."

Take a look at the other Wikipedias, some of them have vast amounts of changes on the one day. I don't know what the fear is, but I have an idea or two what it may be. The whole idea of a wikipedia is that it grows and that everyone joins in... If you don't like my "stubs", you can always add your own stuff to them.

Mar sin leibh nis, tha mi'n dochas nach bidh fuadach nan artagailean a' tighinn co-dhiu...

I have no intention of blocking anyone who is contributing in good faith. Rest assured on that point. And I agree with you about needing a more cosmopolitan scope as well (without losing a Gaelic focus, I hope). So please carry on with your work. My only wish is that you change the format of the articles that you are adding a little.

The reason is the seeding issue which you referred to. I am sure that we both agree that articles need to be easy to add to and need to show the sort of structure that the Wikipedia uses. Lists and articles involving boxes are not so good for that because of the added complexity of the table syntax for the "boxy" articles makes them more difficult for beginners to edit; and because the lists -- while they are great for navigation and seeding -- aren't so good for more than very basic information. Also I think that people tend to add more list entries to a list article rather than descriptive information on its topic. In my opinion the ideal stub article consists of a line or two of description on the article topic followed by a See also section containing a list of links and I'd appreciate it if you were to bear that in mind when adding new topics.

To sum up I think that we have the same aim of encouraging contributions and I don't doubt that having a thousand articles on a range of topics is a good part of it. I would just ask you to consider that the format and content of the articles also plays a part and to change the format of your new articles a little to take that consideration into account. Cheers -- Derek Ross | deasbair 16:52, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[deasaich] Teachdaireachd Template:Cleanup

Derek, chuir mi dreach ann airson Template:Cleanup. Tha e a'feumainn beagan markup, tha mi a'smaoineachadh, ach seans gun dean e an gnothath airson an ceartuair. Eoghan 02:03, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

'S toil leam obair agad. Of course, I couldn't help adding the little bit of markup that you mentioned. -- Derek Ross | deasbair 05:57, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[deasaich] Duilleag Fàilte

Derek,

Tha mi air dreach a thoiseachadh airson an duilleag-failte aig User:Eoghan/Failte (dreach). Cha do dh'eadar-theangaich mi a h-uile rud bho'n Bheurla, ach a'chuid as motha. Tha rud no dha ri dheanamh air fhathast.

Chan eil mi a'smaoineachadh gum faod sinn radh gu bheil "huge amount of information" againne fhathast, mar a tha sa Bheurla. Mar sin, chan eil mi cinnteach an doigh as fhearr a sgriobhadh an earran "Browsing Wikipedia".

Cuir fios thugam ma tha rudeigin a dhìth air, no rudeigin cearr.

Ma nì e an gnothach, cuiridh mi san aite cheart e. Am bu choir dha bhith dìonta? Eoghan 20:35, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Eoghan, it doesn't need to be an exact translation. I think that the best approach is just to reword or remove things which don't apply and remember that it doesn't have to be perfect. I realise that you want to get it as good as you can but, as I'm sure you already know, our readers love changing things even when we both think that an article is already perfect! So let's put your draft in place. It looks good enough to me already. Thanks for the hard work!

On your second issue I'm inclined not to protect any of these pages until we absolutely have to. When I started with the English Wikipedia, there was no such thing as page protection, and initially there was little need for it. It's really needed now because of the large numbers of people using the English Wiki. My hope is that the smaller numbers using this one will allow us to leave more of the pages unprotected. Cheers -- Derek Ross | deasbair 19:24, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Gasda. Tha an duilleag "beò" nise. Cuideachd, chruthaich mi duilleag log (se Wikipedia:Leabhar-aistridh nan cleachdair ùra a'Ghàidhlig a chur mi air). Nach cuir thu an t-ainm agad ris gus nach bi mi nam aonar! Eoghan

Ceart gu leòr. -- Derek Ross | deasbair 06:43, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[deasaich] logo

Hi Derek, I've made a logo for gd.wikipedia using the correct font: http://gd.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wiki1.png

You can download it to your harddrive and upload it over wiki.png (it's protected, so I can't).

--Node ue 02:20, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Node. You're a hero. -- Derek Ross | deasbair 18:45, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[deasaich] Duilleagan coimhearsnachd

Haidh Derek,

Tha mi air a'chuid as motha de na duilleagan coimhearsnachd a chur suas nise. A bheil feadhainn eile ann a tha cabhagach na do bheachd?

'S toil leam an obair agad. -- Derek

Gabhaidh teachdaireachdan an t-siostam treis fhathast a dh'eadar-theangachadh, ach rinn mi barrachd air paipear. Eoghan 20:59, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ma ghabh e treis, gabhaidh e treis. Chan eil e cabhag. -- Derek Ross | deasbair 20:21, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[deasaich] Rudeigin briste?

A bheil thu a'faicinn rudeigin cearr leis a'WP Ghaidhlig o chionn treis?

Tha iomhaigh a'Wikipedia air ais ri Beurla, chan eil an javascript airson "special characters" ag obair, agus a-reir choltais chan eil an stor-data nua-aimsireil.

Bha mi air falbh o chionn seachdainn ach bha e mar seo o chionn an de codhiu. Eoghan 21:13, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Tha mi a'faicinn, ach I haven't managed to fix it yet. Tha me a'feuchainn fhathast. -- Derek Ross | deasbair 20:34, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Eoghan, I have finally fixed the scripting problem but could you translate the English text, please ? The page needing attention is MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning. -- Derek Ross | deasbair 06:27, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Deanta, ach de fo'n ghrian thachair ris an stor-data? A bheil fhios agad ca'n deach iomhaigh a'WP? Eoghan 21:33, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[deasaich] php

A'leantainn ri #Badipaddress, tha mi gu math cinnteach gum feum sinn php eile a chur an seilbh. Faic meta:Namespace agus meta:MediaWiki_namespace.

Bhitheadh a nas fhearr sin a dheanamh gu luath. Cha b'urrain dhuinn gnethan a shuidheachadh is a leithid gus am bi na h-ainmean-fanais suidhichte. Eoghan 21:13, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[deasaich] Mìle aiste

Cha b'urrain dhomh mo chur an aghaidh am mìleamh aiste a chur ann (Bathar-bog). Air Special:Statistics:

As aonais sin, tha 1000 duilleagan ann le brìgh.

Nuair a tha mi air a'chuspair, tha rudeigin ceàrr leis an duilleig stats, tha mi'm beachd. Codhiù, tha mi an dòchas gum b'urrain dhuinn uile nise na h-aistean a mheudachadh gu ceart ... Eoghan 02:09, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Is math sin! — Nickshanks 02:36, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[deasaich] Tapadh Leibh

Tapadh leibh airson cumhachdan sysop a thoirt dhomh. Ni mi a h-uile oidhirp cuideachadh cho trìc 'sa s'urrainn dhomh.

" I was thinking perhaps you could promote this Wikipedia by sending e-mails to young netizens in the Hebrides or the Highlands, or just people in general with pages in Gaelic?"

This is something i have been considering over the previous week or so. If those involved in various aspects of gaelic society (im specifically thinking foghlam here) were made aware of an Duille Mòr and its potential it would only take a dozen or so regular/semi regular contributors to see it enlarge at pleasing rate. For example a gàidhlig teacher could ask her Higher level students to write essays which could then be saved onto wikipedia as well as writing articles themselves. Staff at an Commun Ghaidhealach/CNAG/Sabhal Màr Ostaig/Collaiste a' Chaisteal could also contribute articles of the highest possible fluency and quality while also reading through the efforts of the less fluent among us. There is a conference - http://www.cnag.org.uk/gaidheilog.htm - in a months time which will deal with issues facing Gàidhlig and its future in all areas which i will be attending. I intend to raise awareness of an Duille Mòr and hopefully ensure its promotion in the relevant circles which would ensure an increase in contributions.

AnSiarach

Tha mi air post-dealain a chuir gu Alasdair Moireasdan, MSP na h-Eileanan an Iar; Iain Fearchar, MSP an t-Eilean Sgiathannach; Aonghas MacNiall, MP na h-Eileanan an Iar agus Muireach MacLeoid ,neach-Deasachaidh am paipear naidheachd 'an Gaidheal Ur' ag innis mu dheidhinn an Duille Mòr.

Please go ahead, AnSiarach. I think that these are excellent ideas. As a Gaelic learner who is currently working in Alberta, I am in a very poor position to support you in a practical sense, but you have my complete backing for anything that you can do to raise awareness of and participation in this Wikipedia. -- Derek Ross | deasbair 21:23, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[deasaich] [Mediawiki-i18n] Internationalisation news

• Halló Derek! If you can help improuving the "{{int:Allmessages}}" – "Uile teachdaireachdan an t-siostam" files "LanguageGd.php" and "MessagesGd.php" to run the Scottish Gaelic projects please log in at [1], go to Betawiki:LanguageGd.php and MessagesGd.php at section "contact persons" and list your name. We can start with the new messages translated already and continue step by step.
• If you are on IRC please visit the channel #wikipedia-BiDi.
• For other "LanguageXx.php" and "MessagesXx.php" files please see Betawiki:category:Internationalization. Thanks in advance! Best regards Gangleri · T · m: Th · T 17:35, 10 May 2006 (UTC)