User talk:Mzajac/2006

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2006 archive of User talk:Mzajac

Contents 1 З Новим Роком, Michael! 2 AWB 3 Ref_harvard 4 Les Podervianskiy transliterations 5 PSP (disambiguation) 6 AIV 7 Block extended for IP 70.81.117.175 8 T-64 Video 9 Are you interested... 10 Ball (dab) 11 Khreschatyk for DYK and FA 12 Re: A-40 / T-60 Glider tank 13 CAA 14 Cyrillic 15 Thanks 16 Antonov An-70 17 Shooting of qif due to WP:AUM 18 The Đ situation 19 Wikimedia Canada 20 Drahomanivka 21 "Bulgarians" ↔ "Bulgarian people", etc. 22 Names of Ukrainian institute of higher ed 23 book reference 24 Uzbeks? 25 Back to Kharkiv tanks 26 Copyvio tagging 27 Zaloga 28 Image copyright problem with Image:T72 cfb borden 1.jpg 29 a Russian troll 30 G-caron 31 book reference again 32 DYK 33 Sorokopiatka 34 Accessibility 35 T34 36 Jaws 7.0 and tables 37 Medvedchuk 38 CSS and visually impaired 39 AndriyK RfAr closed 40 hiddenStructure 41 Diaspora categorization 42 List of countries 43 Trolling in progress 44 Ukrainian language 45 Verkhovna Rada building 46 User:70.81.117.175 47 Eth/Đ 48 DYK 49 DYK 50 Black Eagle Tank 51 Football AID 12 February - 18 February 52 Romanization of Belarusian 53 BGN/PCGN 54 As of year 55 DYK 56 Ukraine 57 Ukrainian language 58 {{TLAdisambig}} 59 Not sure how... 60 Ruthenia 61 Salo in Space 62 Re: AWB 63 Proposed "Cite" Style Changes 64 Image copyright problem with Image:Canadian_Cougar_AVGP_(DND1).jpg 65 re Template:ent 66 Thanks! 67 Thanks for your voting! 68 Hi 69 question 70 Image copyright problem with Image:Canadian_Coyote_Recce_(DND5).jpg 71 The proclaimed independence Ukraine (1917-1921) 72 Image copyright problem with Image:Mobile_Gun_System.jpg 73 To err is human 74 Image Tagging Image:Canadian Armoured Corps.png 75 Spaces in headers 76 Khreschatyk 77 Can subscripts be fixed? 78 Cyrillic letter 79 Phonetics 80 Insurgency weapon 81 Don't use hiddenStructure 82 Polkovnyk 83 LaTeX rendered as HTML 84 User:70.81.117.175 85 Indication of foreign words in English passages 86 The meaning of the word "Russian" 87 Caron/hacek vote 88 Petro Prokopovych 89 Watershed 90 Mediation request 91 ETA (disambiguation) and primary topics 92 Country subdivisions 93 T-72 94 Busy 95 re: Undiscussed changes 96 Allow me 97 Central Asia 98 T-28 tank 99 Early Cyrillic letters 100 this statement describes the appearance of the spelling, not its history or source 101 Can of worms 102 Canadian Spelling 103 User:70.81.117.175 104 Manitoba (band) 105 Belarusian alphabet 106 'Computer programme' 107 Request 108 Belarusian language 109 Cyrillic alphabet 110 Caesar Cocktail 111 Long talk page 112 Fair use rationale for Image:T-84 Oplot.jpg 113 Double layers/temp 114 Háček 115 Your article, Lynx reconnaissance vehicle, was selected for DYK! 116 Canadian English usage 117 T-34 tank in Finnish use 118 Hi there 119 Template_talk:Languageicon 120 DYK: T-18 121 Misleading edit summaries, in bulk 122 Objection to tone 123 T-34/57 124 Beer & brewery notability criteria discusion document 125 Ukrainian hryvnia 126 Help with translit 127 Brewery poll 128 Gun accuracy of T-72 129 Allow me 130 Redirects for deletion 131 Military history WikiProject Newsletter - Issue V - July 2006 132 Gepard 133 Budd Metropolitan 134 T-90 and T-84 135 Battle of the Dnieper 136 Languages 137 Katyusha 138 Footnotes 139 Ball-bearings 140 Template:fact 141 Copyedit request 142 Nice clean up 143 I'm seeking copyedit help once again... 144 Military history WikiProject coordinator election - vote phase! 145 Naming_conventions_(city_names)#WP:RM -> settlements 146 IPA template/class 147 TfD nomination of Template:Betterfact 148 Inline audio link pop-ups 149 Military history WikiProject Newsletter - Issue VI - August 2006 150 Standard date and time format in signatures

[edit] З Новим Роком, Michael!

. --Irpen

Всього найкращого! —Michael Z. 2005-12-31 22:23 Z

Веселих свят! Перевiр пошту :)! --Irpen 06:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Заємно! Shouldn't we be in church right now? —Michael Z. 2006-01-7 06:59 Z

[edit] AWB

Um... well for a start it's not a bot, and secondly I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Auto Wiki Browser, but the way it generally fixes articles is already programmed, and I haven't changed any settings on this one. I haven't been using the AWB for long, but I'll ask it's creator, User:Bluemoose and see if it's something that can be changed. Thanks, FireFox 11:14, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't know anything about it; from the edit summary I thought it was a bot. Anyway, Wikipedia guidelines don't seem to recommend a "right" way to type the headings, but I find that leaving a space surrounding the heading makes them much more readable in wikitext, and have been changing them to that format whenever I edit.

Thanks for considering this, and Happy New Year! —Michael Z. 2006-01-1 17:42 Z

[edit] Ref_harvard

I added some documentation to the {{Ref_harvard}} template. I had to figure most of this out by trial and error, so it may not be completely correct. Please change as needed. Good luck, SteveMc 00:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, and thanks very much for dropping me this note. Regards, and Happy New Year! —Michael Z. 2006-01-2 05:06 Z

[edit] Les Podervianskiy transliterations

Hi Michael. To the best of knowledge, you're an expert on Ukrainian transliteration. Take a look at Les Podervianskiy and its numerous redirects. I find both the names of pages and heading name erroneous and weirdly-spelled. Would you take care of them? Ukrained 14:34, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Les Podervianskiy seems okay to me (if I recall correctly, it corresponds to the most common usage on the Web). We don't have a policy set in stone, so Poderviansky or Podervianskyi would also be acceptable, going by some other articles' transliterations. Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic) and its talk page—we've documented current usage, and are flirting with the idea of reforming the transliteration conventions. —Michael Z. 2006-01-2 18:02 Z

Podervianskiy ending looks very Russophonic to me. I like Podervianskyi much more. Rename?

And there's more for your attention:

• Hryhori Skovoroda

(to be continued)

Oh, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you Michael! Веселих Свят! Ukrained 18:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Yup, these transliteration issues seem to be coming up more often all the time. I'm not going to suggest changing Podervianskий or Hryhorій right now, because we don't have a firm basis to choose one particular romanization system or another. But go ahead and change them if you think it's an improvement. We really have to set a convention and stick to it. If it was consistent with other Cyrillic scripts' usage in Wikipedia, that would be even better.

For New Year's I'm resolving to put forward a broad proposal at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Cyrillic), although it may have to wait until after the holidays. Щасливого нового року! —Michael Z. 2006-01-2 18:36 Z

Didn't get your latest edit to Les Podervianskiy: it must've been a mistake. Les is dimunitive for Oleksandr, not the first or middle name. Ukrained 18:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops, I must be giddy with the New Year. I'll fix. —Michael Z. 2006-01-2 18:50 Z

[edit] PSP (disambiguation)

Hello. Can I ask why you used your rollback button to revert my change on this page? Administrators are only supposed to use their rollback privilege for vandalism, which my edit plainly was not. Also, I'd invite you to examine my comments at Talk:PSP -- the page has been the subject of an edit war, with folks arguing that it should redirect directly to PlayStation Portable instead of to the disambig page, which I disagree with. My solution was to emphasize the main uses (PlayStation Portable and Paint Shop Pro) on the disambig page, so that people interested in the game platform could quickly click through. In that light, will you please consider restoring my changes? · Katefan0^(scribble)/mrp 20:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[replied at talk:PSP (disambiguation) —MZ]

Thanks a lot for your quick reply. No big deal about the rollback; I accidentally hit it myself sometimes. Have a look at Wangi's changes, he basically just removed the header tags. I'm satisfied with it personally and hope you are as well. Thanks again. · Katefan0^(scribble)/mrp 21:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AIV

• 70.81.117.175 (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) repeated sneaky vandalism, entering distorted or completely false figures—details on the vandal's talk page. Has been repeatedly warned and blocked, and is currently blocked for 48 hours. I have spent hours cleaning up this anon's damage on several occasions, and believe that it requires a long-term block or ban. —Michael Z. 2006-01-4 19:22 Z

You might try bringing this up at AN/I, where more admins will see it and there is room to commment. -- Essjay · Talk 20:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, will do. —Michael Z. 2006-01-4 20:09 Z

[edit] Block extended for IP 70.81.117.175

Thank you for for reporting this vandal to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. As this person is a repeat offender, I hope you do not mind that I have extended your block for a period of 2 weeks. I will keep a watchful eye on this anon's contributions after the block expires. Best regards, Hall Monitor 20:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. —Michael Z. 2006-01-4 20:25 Z

[edit] T-64 Video

Hey Mzajac, here's the link of the video I put it on Putfile.com [1], its about 6min. long but you can see tanks in the video throughout it. Take care. You can e-mail me at [removed —MZ] --MarshallBagramyan 21:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I'm removing your email from this page, to prevent spammers from picking it up. It's probably better to enter your address into the Wikipedia user preferences, so editors can email you without getting your address. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-01-4 22:24 Z

Ok then, I'll send it to you via e-mail. What's your address? --MarshallBagramyan 01:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Are you interested...

... in translating some Canada-related articles into Ukrainian, and/or helping translate short phrases for English-language articles about Ukrainian culture? Kevlar67 01:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

My Ukrainian is not good enough to do any writing, but I could certainly translate phrases or a few paragraphs into English, time permitting. What do you have in mind? —Michael Z. 2006-01-5 03:03 Z

[edit] Ball (dab)

Your edit to ball (dab) perplexes me; I don't know why you made any of the changes you did. WP:DAB and WP:MOSDAB don't mention any of the things you did. Josh Parris#: 11:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I gave the disambiguation page a single lead line with the headword bolded near the beginning, as per MOS:DP#Leading line. Previously, the bolded headword occurred in the second paragraph, which diverges from the usual style.

I also changed two of the entries whose titles were not synonyms for "ball" to the format recommended in MOS:DP#URL anchor notaton, linking to individual sections in strike zone and bullet; The term remains at the beginning of the line, but the link falls later. —Michael Z. 2006-01-5 14:45 Z

[edit] Khreschatyk for DYK and FA

Hi. I suggested Khreschatyk for both the DYK and the FA (although never did before). Please help editing and promoting with whatever you can do and as soon as you can (DYK can't wait). Thanks, Ukrained 23:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I did a bit of copy-editing. A great start for such a young article; it definitely should appear in DYK. —Michael Z. 2006-01-7 23:40 Z

Thank you. I rely mostly on your help. And thank the author of the page I think :).

I found out that suggesting page to FA is a big klopit. I'm still sure we should, but when do you think? Ukrained 00:04, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I think FA is only for long, very well-developed articles (I'm currently picking at "T-34" to try to get it up to that standard). DYK is definitely the place to submit Khreschatyk, and many other new articles; it's easy to forget before the 72-hour deadline. —Michael Z. 2006-01-8 00:07 Z

Is long the key word? Anyway, I can develop the text to virtually any level: I live in Kiev. But the relevance is I think the limit for developing. Another problem is sources (especiallly EN-language). But I repeat: Khreschatyk may be a non-conflict, compromise topic for promoting UA pages. The same is about Antonov, and ... I would say T-34... if it wasn't about a machine with various gizmos and gadgets. Anyway, feel free to ask my help: I used to be a mil/tech fan in earlier teenhood, and my father is from Kharkiv. Ukrained 00:27, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Good point: Wikipedia:What_is_a_featured_article just says "appropriate length" and "comprehensive". I looked through a bunch, and found that they tended to be medium or long, it's not necessarily the case (e.g., bathing machine). "Khreschatyk" and "Antonov" are definitely good candidates.

I would defend T-34 based on its status as a rather important gizmo, as well as the way its innovation illustrates the changing military tactics of early mechanized warfare (the Germans first mastered Blitzkrieg, but it was the Soviets who first built a tank for it), and the industrial aspect of winning WWII. The article still needs some polishing; and a fresh eye would be welcome. Please have a look over it, and see if anything in the article is confusing or insufficiently explained; and leave a comment at talk:T-34 or at Wikipedia:Peer_review/T-34. Cheers.—Michael Z. 2006-01-8 06:47 Z

Need your help: Ghirlandajo likes the derivation from ravines for DYK on this article, I find the Orange revolution as a fitting buzzword for that.

So which one would you pick?

• ... that Khreschatyk, the main street of Kiev, was named after ravines that used to cross the neighbourhood in the Middle Ages?
• ... that the Khreschatyk is the main street of Ukrainian capital Kiev on which Orange Revolution and other historical events mainly took place?

First one IMHO has little apeal to an average reader, the second one is tautological (main street main events even the Orange Revolution which obviously happened on main street).–Gnomz⁰⁰⁷(?) 00:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I say, let's use the building blowing up and/or the street and the ravine receicing its name from the Baptism of Kiev. I will think of how to formulate it but suggestions are welcome. Let's continue this at article's talk. --Irpen 00:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Michael, please go over my edits in Khreschatyk and see my note at talk. Thanks, --Irpen

I gave it a once-over. Looks good. —Michael Z. 2006-01-9 06:44 Z

Could you handle the DYK submission? (see my email) --Irpen 06:52, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Khreschatyk - When you give an alternative suggestion as you did for DYK, pl. let the original suggestion also remain, so that the ditors who frequent the DYK page can pick-up the one that should go to the main page. Thanks, --Gurubrahma 13:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: A-40 / T-60 Glider tank

To answer your question, I found the info on the testing of the A-40/T-60 here. --Theredstarswl 07:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't know how I missed that one. —Michael Z. 2006-01-8 08:22 Z

[edit] CAA

To be honest I didn't notice it was alpha sorted... anyway it should be sorted by frequency of use, and Civil Aviation Authority and Clean Air Act are far more frequent than the uncreated Canadian Authors Association. Also sorted the red links to the bottom. thanks/wangi 09:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Not where I come from; Canadian Automobile Association is obviously much more prominent than either of those obscure items. So you can see why alphabetical order is often a good idea. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-01-10 09:49 Z

I've bumped up the Canadian Automobile Association, but it pretty hard to argue that the Civil Aviation Authority is obscure - we're talking about many many government agencies the world over. I've expanded the list on the Civil Aviation Authority page. Thanks/wangi 10:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cyrillic

Thanks for your past support with the non-Slavic Cyrillic letters. Do you think articles should be made for the Cyrillic letters (the rest of the Kazakh ones, at least?). They could be used for the navbox, while we are still sorting out the layout for the large Cyrillic template. It may take a few days for everything to be done, depending on how much time I have. Mark Wayne 01:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. —Michael Z. 2006-01-11 17:11 Z

[edit] Thanks

[edit] Antonov An-70

Hi Michael. I did a little development to Antonov An-70, including links to articles and entire texts of them on the talk. Your help could be important in translating and transferring the specifications info (at least) on the page.

I know you're busy and fond of tanks (not planes) :)), but you still may be considered an English military/tech language expert. Especially regarding your achievements on T-34 article. If you could find more Wpedians with similar knowledge - just great.

BTW, it won't be a large work. The articles are rather short (from E-newspapers, and the tech info is largely in place). But the correctness of translation and structure needs a check, and was questioned by other users before.

Consider that An-70 is a symbolical product of (independent) Ukrainian arms industry, as well as of UA-RU cooperation in this sphere. I think the article may be worth for Portal-Ukraine FA status. Wishes, Ukrained 23:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind planes at all. I will have a look at the article soon. —Michael Z. 2006-01-13 07:44 Z

[edit] Shooting of qif due to WP:AUM

Hi Michael. I decided to respond here to your posting on Template talk:Journal reference#Junk code. Your last statement there was:

"Just to clarify: is the CSS hack being chosen because the other alternative is more work to implement? Is this being implemented as a temporary fix for visual browsers, or a permanent solution? —Michael Z. 2006-01-16 17:40 Z"

The CSS trick has been choosen because it does not require an additional |if= parameter that would be required by option "Weeble code". Please note that we are here in the middle of a very desaster. We have the following options at hand: (1) implement qif in MediaWiki (2) ignore WP:AUM (3) use CSS trick (4) use Weeble trick (5) remove all calls from articles to journal reference. Now dissecting again: (1) we asked for that, was ignored by devs (maybe we could have done better, I don't know), (2) tried, does not work. Enough admin's are willing to shoot anyone who ignores that on sight, (3) no change needed on calls, but produces "Junk" as you said (I agree with that), (4) weeble trick needs an additional |if= parameter on all calls to journal reference, (5) umm not so great. qif has been identified as violating WP:AUM. It will be shot soon, so we have to choose which bullet to bite now. --Adrian Buehlmann 17:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I do understand why meta-templates are bad, but I know next to nothing about the conditional calls. So I don't have a clue what's wrong with (4) the weeble trick. Does it slow down page loads, or increase cache rebuilds. Does it require massive rewriting of templates? —Michael Z. 2006-01-16 17:59 Z

The worst thing of weeble is that it needs an additional parameter |if= on each call of the template. Please take a look at the wiki source of the page User talk:Adrian Buehlmann/work/Infobox TV channel/2006-01-02 for an example. If there is consensus that we should go with weeble, we can do that. Weeble does not violate WP:AUM. But all calls need that nasty additional |if= parameter which serves no purpose inside the template than making the weeble trick work. If we throw out one of those options we must at least know it exactly. For my personal opinion I fear that if we go weeble with journal reference, we might face the problem that people on articles are no longer willing to tolerate calls to template journal reference. Because nobody will understand what that damned |if= is needed for. People will also forget to add that |if= on calls. Another argument is that we do not live in a clean world anyway and if you wan't to argue against the CSS trick you must do it on all templates. Netoholic favors the CSS trick and has added that already to a bunch of templates, so we already have it on the pages. I'm asking me if we have any chance to overturn that anyway. I'm just entangled by a whole lot of sh*t options. You might want to talk with User:Garzo. He is a fan of the weeble option for template:language (see talk on WP:AUM). --Adrian Buehlmann 18:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I see; I wasn't catching on that that |if= is added to the template call (need coffee). Thanks for your patient explanation.

The way I see it, this is a choice to make inserting the template one time slightly more accessible for an editor, while making reading the page much less accessible, every time, for readers using assistive technology. Lame and lazy. I don't have much time, but I'll do whatever proselytizing against this that I can. I'll support the weeble method wherever you need me to. I'll try to keep up with the relevant talk. —Michael Z. 2006-01-16 18:24 Z

Thank you very much indeed. We need more helpers like you. Maybe we can do something better than CSS in the long run. One thing I forgot to answer: the templates need a complete rewrite anyway due to the prevalent shooting of qif. The rewrite is needed for weeble and for CSS. technically, I would favor weeble but - see above. Ah, and a prominent opposer of weeble is User:Phil Boswell (see his speech at WP:AUM). But he has not jet commented on the improvements I have made in readability of weeble. At the moment he is annoyed by me having put qif on TfD. But what options do I have? Some people have already started to remove calls to book reference due to WP:AUM. We are on a descent here and if we stick our heds in the sand Neto happily changes the landscape in the mean time. If we then look up again we might not be happy with the result. I'm really in between of everybody, getting shot from all sides :(. I need a break now... --Adrian Buehlmann 18:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, I don't have much time, but I'll do what I can. Let me know if there's a place my voice or vote is needed. I won't be able to read all of the relevant discussion (I'm finding it everywhere), but I think I understand the issues. I would certainly remove or replace CSS templates from articles I've worked on. —Michael Z. 2006-01-16 18:41 Z

I give up. Thanks for your announcement to remove CSS templates from articles. This saves me a lot of work. Everybody removes everything from everywhere. I feel that's what Neto was about. What a dark wiki template day.... I wish I never had tried to add a reference to a book. --Adrian Buehlmann 18:54, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I've posted notes to a few talk pages where editors may be interested. It's a difficult issue to publicize, because it's so technical (in terms of both Wikimedia programming and web technology/accessibility). —Michael Z. 2006-01-16 19:05 Z

EVERYONE - in order to quash this ForestFire, please follow-up discussion at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#CSS hack reduces accessibility. -- Netoholic @ 19:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

No. I'm talking to Michael here. We two here do not make up a forest fire. I specifically took that discussion with Michael to here. I would like to find an acceptable solution for Michael. So here comes my next very important question to Michael: If you disagree with CSS for journal reference (and in general) would you then instead agree on adding "|if=" to every call of journal reference (so that we can go with the weeble option)? --Adrian Buehlmann 21:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that would be acceptable; it may look a bit odd for editors, but it shouldn't be a problem if the documentation is clear, and has a nice cut-and-paste boilerplate. I'd be glad to help change occurrences of the template, but it sounds like that would be a lot of work.

I don't know anything about the internal details of the two methods. Does the weeble option make editing the template code much harder? Are there any other consequences of using weeble over the CSS hack?

Are there other options, like a simpler template without the logic, or just always subst-ing the original version with meta-templates? —Michael Z. 2006-01-16 22:57 Z

Thanks. Nice to know that you accept the weeble option. Problem is that Neto will not game. I do not intend to edit war with him on templates. Weeble option would work but there finally seems to emerge consensus to kill the citation templates anyway. But I will not help doing that, though I will not hinder anybody doing this. --Adrian Buehlmann 23:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Đ situation

Hi, could you take a look at this and comment/vote? --Dijxtra 19:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimedia Canada

Hi there! I'd like to invite you to explore Wikimedia Canada, and create a list of people interested in forming a local chapter for our nation. A local chapter will help promote and improve the organization, within our great nation. We'd also like to encourage everyone to suggest projects for our national chapter to participate in. Hope to see you there! -- user:zanimum

[edit] Drahomanivka

Михайле, я додав приклад драгоманівки у статтю. Підкоректуйте будь-ласка. --Yakudza 13:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Дьакују! This is a great example. —Michael Z. 2006-01-18 15:15 Z

[edit] "Bulgarians" ↔ "Bulgarian people", etc.

Thank you for reversing my renaming this article and your observations at Talk:Russians#Requested move and Talk:Germans#Requested move. I accept from these discussions (specifically, from your and Jbetak's observations) that using an adjectival plural for such articles is to be preferred. I also recognize that those articles I did rename were too sensitive to do so without consultation. I apologize for the inconvenience I have incurred.
Best wishes, David Kernow 23:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Please be careful with renaming—important articles' titles are often the result of strong consensus. For this reason, unless a move is trivial or completely uncontroversial, you should always make a proper move request.

And in general, you should not make sweeping changes affecting many articles without at least gauging the consensus on relevant talk pages. Lots of editors have been here before, and are still around.

Finally, a move request like "To follow pattern used for many other articles on peoples" implies that this is already a general consensus. In this case it obviously was not, and the request could have been considered misleading. —Michael Z. 2006-01-19 00:01 Z

I am chastened and bowed. David Kernow 00:24, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Please don't be. I see that you didn't quite appreciate all of the consequences of the moves. Sorry that I was grouchy about it. Regards, Michael Z. 2006-01-19 00:55 Z

[edit] Names of Ukrainian institute of higher ed

Please take a look at Portal:Ukraine/Ukraine-related_Wikipedia_notice_board#Institutes_of_higher_education_in_Ukraine. I took lack of respnonces for lack of objections and went ahead with moving. All moved OK except one. Please take a look. Do you think such a trivial issue require a WP:RM listing or you think you could move it? --Irpen 04:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] book reference

Would it be acceptable for you, as a temporary solution, to use User:Adrian Buehlmann/work/b-ref/2 (improved CSS trick variant) for template:book reference so that we are not forced to remove calls to book reference from templates until we have better support for citations in MediaWiki? The calls in articles to book reference could be converted by a bot to something better as soon as we have citation support in MeidiaWiki. If we remove the calls from articles now we cannot go back as the "meta-information" about books ("which string is the book title?", for example) is irretrievably lost. See also User talk:Sam Korn#Citation templates. Thank you for your careful consideration. --Adrian Buehlmann 11:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course, if it's necessary, then it must be done. I'm glad it's only intended to be temporary. —Michael Z. 2006-01-19 11:06 Z

[edit] Uzbeks?

Hi Michael. Dropped by in mere curiosity about what you meant by Uzbeks? Was it about Suvorov's Aquarium? Ukrained 20:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was from The Liberators, but I can't find either book right now. Working on "T-34" into the late hours and finding that someone declared it a good article had me in a rambunctious mood. I'm glad you got the joke. —Michael Z. 2006-01-19 21:04 Z

I'm glad I got it. It means that my memory is still OK :))). Ukrained 21:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Back to Kharkiv tanks

Now to more serious things (but still having fun as Wikirules say). You mentioned a Bolshevik Factory as one of the first Soviet tank builders in your Malyshev Factory. Are you sure it was in Leningrad? I mean we have a famous and hell large Zavod Bolshevik defence company here in Kyiv. To the best of my knowledge, it wasn't producing tanks in 1970-1980s (however, produced some track-based cannons like Gvozdika). But before the war it possibly could. Any thoughts about? BTW, I have a small AFV-repairing company right in front of my windows. A trace of once-existed tank industry in the city? Ukrained 21:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Guys, please allow me to jump in. AFAIK, the Zavod Bilshovyk in Kiev had little if anything to do with heavy production. I am not a specialist in heavy industry, but of Kiev factories, the first that comes to mind would be "Chervony Eskavator". --Irpen 21:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Just looked it up: this Leningrad Bolshevik Factory was formerly the Zavod No. 185 (S.M. Kirov), formerly Staleliteyniy i Oruzheyniy Obukhovskiy Zavod (SOOZ). It produced T-18, T-26, T-35 tanks, guns, tractors, and probably lots of other stuff.

It is not to be confused with the Kirovskiy Works, Zavod No. 100, formerly Krasniy Putilov Factory, formerly Putilovsky Zavod, also in Leningrad, temporarily relocated in Chelyabinsk. I think I'll write an article.

The tank factories are very heavy industry, and tend to be cited a lot in the literature (although it's still hard to keep track). The repair depots and manufacturers of light AFVs were more portable and flexible, mostly truck and auto manufacturers in peacetime, so it is even harder to keep them straight. —Michael Z. 2006-01-19 22:15 Z

OK, we killed another red link :) Actually, I was considering a Novy Kanal TV report in November on the case when Bilshovyk forgot one of its products (a Gvozdika tracked cannon :)) on the piece of land sold to a private company.

BTW, Irpen, cut that abbreviations talk :). I hardly figured out what the AFAIK is. And I still don't know what the hell OTOH means. Are you trying to show that you're an advanced English speaker?:) Ukrained 22:31, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Funny—"let's take the new 122-millimetre piece for a spin down Khreshchatyk!". And also funny: no offence, but Internet slang is a sign of something advanced, but not English. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-01-19 22:35 Z

[edit] Copyvio tagging

Hi and thanks for your good work spotting copyright violations. Just so you know, the next time you find one, you need to blank out all of the text that violating the copyright; don't just leave it in the article. Thanks! howcheng {chat} 23:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Zaloga

There already exists link to Zaloga in the article, why do we need the double link? Such links usually placed in the bottom. And of course it should be placed in references article (since it is not the only source).--Nixer 08:37, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

A citation in the text points to a reference at the end of the article—the two are not equivalent. See WP:CITE#How to cite sources for an explanation. —Michael Z. 2006-01-21 08:58 Z

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:T72 cfb borden 1.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:T72 cfb borden 1.jpg. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Thank you. Stan 14:36, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

That one is a duplicate of [:Image:T72 cfb borden 1.JPG]], with a capitalized file extension—my fault. I've added a speedy delete tag to it. —Michael Z. 2006-01-22 18:21 Z

[edit] a Russian troll

After vandalizing Belarusian language and History of Belarus article (and totally dirupting editing of these two articles), the Russian troll Kuban Kazak continued his activities on the article about my native town Vorsha ([2]). I would like to ask Wikipedia admins and Wikipedia community members as what I should do in such a situation. Thank you very much. --rydel 02:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Fine, I will not interfere, although I think that admonishing the bad behavior is better to be done less publicly (when possible) than on the article's talk. BTW, did you see my ref to the google books? In any case Vorša makes little sense to me. It is neither translit from Russian nor for Belarusian. --Irpen 19:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The Vorsha/Orsha question is complex, and I guess consensus is moving towards the latter. That's okay.

Regarding Ghirlandajo's comment: it was totally blatant and unacceptable by any standard, but he continues to stand up for it. This kind of disruption by several editors has been tolerated for too long, has wasted far, far too much editors' time, energy, and good will over the months. It has become routine, but I'm not going to let it go any more. —Michael Z. 2006-01-24 19:49 Z

[edit] G-caron

Hi, please have a look at Talk:G-caron to see if you support the move of G-caron to Ǧ.--Hello World! 08:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'm afraid I had to vote against the move. Regards, Michael Z. 2006-01-23 15:30 Z

Today, we have the following articles - Ć, Ĉ, Ĝ, Ĥ, Ĵ, Ŝ, Ã, Ñ, Õ, Ā, Ă, Ğ, Ŭ, Ä, Ö, Å, Č, Ǩ, Ž, Ǯ, Ș, Ş - they are texts, and not redirection pages. Do you think it is necessary to move them to English titles? -Hello World! 15:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a test system with vanilla Windows XP installed, with just the default fonts. Three of those "titles" appear as blank boxes, in the links you typed above, and at the top of their respective page. These three definitely should be titled with their letter names.

The average reader has never heard of or seen the letter ezh. He probably does not know the name or appearance of a caron, circumflex, enye, breve, macron, diaeresis, umlaut, cedilla, and possibly an acute accent. Readers deserve to see a title which is readable, not just a meaningless (to them) symbol. This principle is supported by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), which doesn't only say use the Latin alphabet, but says articles should have an English name, implying it should be spelled out.

Yes, I would move them. Perhaps I'll get the urge and post move requests for them all later this week, so this question can be settled, at least for a while. Or perhaps some general principles should be agreed upon for all letter/character articles. —Michael Z. 2006-01-24 16:20 Z

[edit] book reference again

Hi Michael. We need an admin on book reference. You also voted on Template talk:Book reference#Request to switch back to using qif to revert to the qif variant. I think there is clear consensus to do so (Ignore Phil for now, he is also for the qif variant but seems to have a some strange nasty idea for a change, but there is no reason to wait any longer). Please edit template:book reference and revert to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Book_reference&oldid=35664787. If I had the mop and the bucket I would do it myself without hesitation. WP:AUM is gone and Neto lost his license to terror us with WP:AUM. qif is the best we have for now and it produces decent html. In the long run that will be implemented in MediaWiki anyway, possibly with an intermediate step having conditional logic in MediaWiki. Thank you. --Adrian Buehlmann 14:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! --Adrian Buehlmann 15:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. I carefully considered making the change myself, since I was involved in the discussion and vote, but the consensus is pretty clear. Thanks to you, for all of the well-considered lobbying and informing you've done. —Michael Z. 2006-01-24 20:07 Z

[edit] DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article F-34 tank gun, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Gurubrahma 15:24, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations! Nice article, and a great story behind it! Ukrained 19:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

A particular tank gun is an oddly specific topic, but the details were interesting enough to make it readable. Thanks! —Michael Z. 2006-01-24 20:06 Z

[edit] Sorokopiatka

Talking about tanks and guns, is there an article (or section) on the famous sorokopiatka - the WWII Soviet gun? One of my grandfathers was a (? навідник) for such gun and took part in the legendary Battle of Kursk where he was wounded. I couldn't find it neither here nor in the List of artillery by nation. Was it really a 45mm? Cause it's been a popular subject in Soviet WWII literature (when I was in junior school). Any thoughts? Thanks, Ukrained 20:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The T-35, BT tank, T-70 and others mounted 45mm guns—judging from the tables there were several models, but I don't know anything about them. It definitely belongs at List of artillery#Tank guns and List of artillery by nation#Soviet Union and Russia. See battlefield.ru. Sounds like something neglected in Western literature, that would certainly be nice to have here. Later on I'll see if I can find anything. Is there an article at uk: or ru:?

No. Forgive my poor wording: it was a gun of artillery, but very likely to be an anti-tank one. I saw it once at the open-air museum in Sevastopol: a small and short two-wheeled field gun. And the grandfather was an artillerist, not a tankman. He was actually hunting the tanks in that battle. Couldn't find such gun in the lists for guns (not tank parts). I thought sorokopiatka means 45 mm.

I realized you meant an anti-tank gun, but I assumed there would also be a tank gun version—possibly true or not. A very literal translation of sorokopiatka could be "forty-fiver", although English-speaking gunners would probably just refer to their forty-five. —Michael Z. 2006-01-24 22:17 Z

Would navidnyk be the gunner, or the leader of a gun crew (I guess the latter might be providnyk or komandyr)? —Michael Z. 2006-01-24 20:50 Z

Navidnyk (Russian: наводчик, if in a modern AFV crew - наводчик-оператор) is the one who aims and makes the shoot. Is it a UA for gunner? Sorry for poor English, but I had the basic military drill in Soviet schooll and read SU literature, so my mil-fan vocabulary is Russian. Anyway, thanks for help. Ukrained 21:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

That's okay, my military vocabulary is English (although they did teach me to march in Plast). A gunner is the one who aims and fires an artillery piece or tank gun, and Gunner is also the artillery branch's specific name for a soldier of Private rank (in the Canadian artillery, a Corporal and Master Corporal are called Bombardier and Master Bombardier). —Michael Z. 2006-01-24 22:17 Z

[edit] Accessibility

Hi. I wonder if I could get you to take a look at WT:AUM#Yet_another_kludgy_hack and let me know if it would cause as many accessibility problems as the 'hiddenStructure' CSS hack? Just looking for possible compromise solutions which don't involve making it harder for people to use Wikipedia. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 00:54, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] T34

Ok, I'm looking at the article now. The infoboxes read fine with jaws, as jaws interprets them as just tables. I can read them easily because they are just two columns and the titles are descriptive. They don't need a skip link, because there are in-built commands for getting to the next structure (or getting to the end of the table) in modern screen readers. I'll get to the other points soon. Graham/pianoman87 talk 05:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Or maybe not, jaws 7.0, the latest version, does *not* interpret those infoboxes as tables. However, jaws 6.0 does, which is interesting. A "skip to text" link would be useful then, because there is no effective way of skipping past text when jaws doesn't think it's part of a table. I know jaws 7.0 changed a few things in the way tables were outputted, but nothing was mentioned about detection of tables ...

The references worked properly and were readable in all versions of jaws I tried.

As for the table in "Soviet medium tank models of WWII", all versions of jaws read the caption as the title, which is confusing. When I navigate to the table by pressing t, the caption is the first thing I hear. Therefore, the caption should be changed to the title, or maybe the notes should not be part of the table. I'm not sure how jaws interprets the <summary> attribute, so I don't know whether that would be needed.

As for the list of countries deploying the T-34, it would be better if it could just be one list. I don't have a problem with this because of the settings I use, but by default, jaws will say "list of 13 items" before each list, and having "list of 39 items" spoken once would be better than "list of 13 items" three times. Also, it would be good if either the explanatory note was on the top, or the first instance of "*" could have a link to the description.

The only problem I have with the navbox at the end is that, because of the links, its title is spoken as "Soviet, link armoured fighting vehicles, of, link World War 2". The pause isn't as big as that, but I don't know how to represent it.

And ... what's it doing in category:articles lacking sources? :) Graham/pianoman87 talk 06:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a million. I'll clean all those issues up, probably tomorrow night. The navbox at the bottom probably shouldn't have links in the middle of its headings like that. The table caption has the align=bottom attribute, which makes it look like a note at the bottom, but I guess a caption is a caption.

Weird that the latest Jaws doesn't acknowledge all tables—I wonder what criteria it uses. Maybe because the first row has only one cell, Jaws thinks it's a layout table. Maybe adding a caption or some other feature would help.

The "lacking sources" category is applied by an in-text template that says "citation needed"—I'll clear those out this week, too. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-01-25 06:43 Z

Jaws read all the text in the summary fields, and also indicated that it was reading the summary, so that is useful and needed. As far as I know, that works in all versions, but I'm having trouble testing it here because of the way the demos work. Graham/pianoman87 talk 07:05, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The table of tank models now reads fine, thanks for that. The only thing to remember is that when reading a table, jaws will read the caption followed by the summary. In the table of countries, this initially felt like too much detail.

When navigating the list of countries with table reading commands, it does not read correctly. When I am in the Middle East and Asia section, The European countries are read first, without any indication that there are links to country names. When jaws gets to the Middle East and Asian section, the links are indicated, as they should be. Graham/pianoman87 talk 07:27, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

That's very strange. I noticed thah I had superfluous "vertical-align:top" formatting set for the second and third table cells—now removed. That's the only thing I can think of that would make Jaws read the table out of order. If it's not fixed now, then maybe I will get rid of the table and convet it to three lists in div elements, for layout purposes, or just one long list.—Michael Z. 2006-01-26 13:18 Z

It is still not working. Maybbe it is the combination of the table and the list that is confusing jaws. I think it'd be best to convert it to one long list, or failing that, have the three lists as before. Graham/pianoman87 talk 10:52, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jaws 7.0 and tables

You were right: jaws 7.0 detects the infoboxes as layout tables, and by default, does not read them like tables. Jaws versions below 7.0 recognise the infoboxes as data tables, and read them correctly no matter what the setting is. Adding a caption did not make a difference when I tested it in preview mode in jaws 7.0. I will check the changelogs for the recent jaws versions. Graham/pianoman87 talk 07:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I have found nothing in the changelog about detection of tables. In jaws 7.0, because of the infobox problem, the table summary is not read either. How does the summary attribute look for sighted users? Graham/pianoman87 talk 10:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The summary remains invisible in all the visual browsers that I know of, as well as in Lynx. The W3C standard says "This attribute provides a summary of the table's purpose and structure for user agents rendering to non-visual media such as speech and Braille." [3]. I understand that it's like an image's alt attribute, providing a summary of the data in the table, more detailed than just a title or caption. —Michael Z. 2006-01-25 14:22 Z

[edit] Medvedchuk

Hi Michael. Need your little English help. Would you restyle my one phrase here and solve the thought-to-be POV issue? Irpen raised that issue but appeared to be unwilling to help with a single little rewording :) Thanks in advance, Ukrained 23:37, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CSS and visually impaired

What's the percentage of the people that have to use browsers for visually impaired individuals in comparison to the number of those that use normal browsers? -- Boris 22:24, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, but there may be some statistics that can be found. What's the information for? —Michael Z. 2006-01-26 22:52 Z

I'm pretty sure it's low. I came across twice of your comments about how bad is to use CSS, since browsers for handicaped people cannot use them instead they have to read a load of "junk" code to the user. So, my question is why do we have to limit the presentation for the 95 or more % of the readers b/c the other 5 or les % can not view it? If you say that using CSS is discrimination against them, look from the point of view of those 95 something % who might find that not using CSS is a discrimination. Wikipedia cannot plug all the holes we have in our society - there is got to be some compromise and it has got to go in the favor of the majority. Besides the approach here is wrong - if someone is crippled then crippling the rest so she/he doesn't feel disriminated will make the things worse, instead it is better to find a way to overcome the cripleness. It is better to improve not to worsen. -- Boris 09:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Woah, you're advocating against accessibility of the open encyclopedia!?

It's not bad to use CSS. A lot of energy has been put into creating Wikipedia's entire graphic design 100% in CSS, both the page layout and all text formatting. This is the modern, most accessible approach. This is done because Wikipedia is an open encyclopedia.

The CSS hack in question is something completely different. It's not even a throwback to the prevailing web authoring practices of the mid-'90s, but a new misuse of CSS to try to hide an inadequacy of template programming. It's a hack to hide a bug. It does not improve anything.

Avoiding the CSS hack is not "crippling" anyone. There is a perfectly acceptable alternative called the "weeble" method which makes the templates in question output clean HTML instead of garbage.

Finally, web standards and accessibility don't just help the disabled. They ensure that the site works right in all browsers (including alternative devices like text and hand-held browsers), and that it is indexed correctly by search engines like Google. Ignoring standards and implementing hacks like this makes the site fragile, and ready to break in other future technologies. —Michael Z. 2006-01-27 16:35 Z

you're advocating against accessibility of the open encyclopedia!? - it's all in your head. -- Boris 18:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Boris, the conditional text which is accomplished via CSS can also be done using other methods. In other words, this isn't a 'disabled vs non-disabled' issue... it's whether we are going to build things to work for everyone or just those who can see / who have CSS compatible browsers. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 18:52, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AndriyK RfAr closed

The AndriyK RfAr has been closed. Until by consensus he has agreed to a suitable and mutually agreed naming convention using the guideline Wikipedia:Naming conflict, AndriyK is prohibited from moving pages, or changing the content of articles which relate to Ukrainian names, especially those of historical interest. AndriyK is banned for one month from Wikipedia for creating irreversible page moves. Andrew Alexander, AndriyK, and MaryMaidan are warned to avoid copyright violations and to cooperate with the efforts of others to remove copyright violations. Ghirlandajo is warned to avoid incivility or personal attacks.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Kelly Martin (talk) 04:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] hiddenStructure

You might want to put Wikipedia:hiddenStructure on your radar (see talk). --Adrian Buehlmann 09:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diaspora categorization

Hi Michael. What do you think of the new cat. that I added to this article? I believe we need something like this, but not sure about exact wording. Ukrained 22:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks okay to me. I've put it in a couple of other categories. —Michael Z. 2006-01-27 22:48 Z

[edit] List of countries

Yes - that works fine. It's clearly divided by region, and the note is at the top and in plain text, so jaws won't do anything funny with it. Graham/pianoman87 talk 04:38, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again—I'll update the page. —Michael Z. 2006-01-28 05:54 Z

[edit] Trolling in progress

Michael, I thought you might be interested in looking at this recent comment of Kuban Kazak. I can't he's insisting in pushing outrageous issues in the articles, but his comments start wearing me down. Please react. Wishes, Ukrained 19:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Michael, I think I already dealt with this adequately and the appology by the user have been already given as well as my call to everyone to chill out. That is, you may find that the issue is addressed adequately already, but you are welcome of course to do your part. Cheers, --Irpen 20:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

And Michael, I found out that you ignored his recent insulting comment against me at Talk:Ukrainian language. And, most recently, he promised to forge a future RfA. Few minutes later he posted a highly-insulting anti-Ukrainian text in Russian there. Let me rephrase: I request your admin actions regarding this user ASAP. Thanks, Ukrained 20:57, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ukrainian language

Already fixed. Please check. Thanks--Andrew Alexander 07:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Michael, as per my committment to get to the UA L article, I plan now to devote some time to restore some info deleted from it since last October. It will not be easy because many valuable edits were done to the articles too and I will have to carefully follow its history to undo the deletions but merge the additions and useful corrections. In the meanwhile, please talke a look at this draft article in my sanbox. I hope it is DYKable, the fist things that come to mind to try to feature at DYK is the glass dome and the collocation of the Stalinist architerual building with the late 18th century baroque Rastrelli Palace. Maybe you will have other ideas. In the meanwhile, please take a look if you have time. I kept it in my sandbox because I didn't want the 72-h clock start ticking too early. --Irpen 09:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for copyedit, I will post the article to the mainspace later today or early tomorrow. And will post an announsement at Portal. Would you please think of DYK phrasing? Maybe one of the two ideas above could work for that. I don't know. I won't have much time today to get to other things I planned. Thanks again! --Irpen 20:00, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Michael, I don't understand how EB1911 can be disregarded as an argument that the terminology was generally prevailing (in English too). Could you elaborate? --Irpen 02:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Verkhovna Rada building

On a different subject, the new article is now at Verkhovna Rada building and DYK 72 hours is ticking. I left some suggestions at talk. I would not be surprized if the same editors will come there to erase the fact of the UA SSR flag and make a paragraph or two regarding the yellow-and-blue flag raising in 1991. I witnessed myself this amazing event, it's just that I don't see a need to cover it in the building article in detail but we'll see. Regards, --Irpen 06:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

For now, please read talk:Ukrainian_language#"Prevailing_terminology". It's very late, but I have some real-world work to finish up tonight. If you have more questions or still disagree, I'll get back to it, hopefully by tomorrow night.

I'll have a quick look at the DYK for VR now. —Michael Z. 2006-01-30 06:34 Z

Thanks for copyediting my DYK proposals. Could you please take a look at Talk:Khreschatyk#Times_of_revolutionary_unrest and on? The dispute seems to be about how to cite the sides of 1918-20 warfare that damaged the street. The aruments of both sides are there too. I don't particulalry cherish the way I formulated it that some fiercely try to dump, but I would like whatever different phrasing is chosen to reflect upon the chaos of the time that brough this damage to the street. I could not find the better way than "short-lived states" because it provides the atmosphere very well in a short phrase. Maybe you could do it better? Or maybe you would also think it's fine. Please take a look. --Irpen 02:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Michael, this discussion with AndriyK is pointless. He uses cite:sources policy as a POV warring tool. While anon brought up some references to discuss (I till get to them later), AndriyK selectively tags whatever he dislikes in order to push his point and aggravate users. Whether that there is a "stalin" word anywhere related to the parliament of independent Ukraine, or be it the fact that more people in Ukraine speak Russian that he would like (or that some people speak it there at all), as per talk:Ukraine, or whether there were concentration camps in the USSR i mid-80's see talk:Vasyl Stus, or whether Russian arhitecture is related to the Kievan Rus.

There is carrently an ongoing debate at talk:Cossack. Please take a look. --Irpen 23:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Irpen is slandaring again.

First, I speak Russian on nearly-native level (see my userpage) and use this language when communicating with my russophone friends and colleagues. (What I "would like" is just ill fantasy of Irpen).

Second, I am not against mentioning Stalin if this is relevant and factually accurate. (See the version of Verkhovna Rada building by Alex Bakharev),

Third, I did not invent terminology for the article Vasyl Stus. I just translated it from the sources I used. Irpen did not provide any referencies stating that the terminology is wrong. From which I conclude that he is just trolling to involve me and other Ukrainian users into pointless discussions and prevent us from writing articles.--AndriyK 09:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:70.81.117.175

The IP 70.81.117.175 that likes to make less then factual edits regarding ethnicity numbers is back. Qutezuce 05:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, bugger. —Michael Z. 2006-01-31 05:31 Z

Thanks for catching that; we seem to have cleaned it up before too much damage was done this time. —Michael Z. 2006-01-31 05:43 Z

[edit] Eth/Đ

Since you appear to have an opinion regarding Eth/Đ, please give us your opinion in the discussion at Talk:Đ#Removing eth. Thanks. DHN 17:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Aerosan, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Gurubrahma 18:00, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Scientific transliteration, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Gurubrahma 12:18, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Black Eagle Tank

I copied the info from the warfare.ru I thought it was free for everyone guess not. Well I will try to rewrite it. Also I hade a dream some days ago, I was talking with russian president Putin about the Tank and I asked about the gun size and he said 125,3 mm :D ButI will leave that out of the article ;)

Deng 11-02-06 12.25 CET

Maybe you would like to use this image for your tank article. This is the picture from the GSE's Great Patriotic War article. The caption reads "At a tank factory". --Irpen 04:13, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Football AID 12 February - 18 February

[edit] Romanization of Belarusian

Michael, as I do not know Belorusian, I can only provide very limited feedback. Overall, the article looks good to me, except for two minor things:

• In the "Notes" section, item 4, line 1, Cyrillic letters е, ё, й, ю, я are listed against corresponding Latin digraphs je, ji, jo, ju, ja. The order seems to be incorrect.
• The last line of item 4 in the "Notes" section indicates that the soft sign modifies the preceding consonant, yet letter "l" seems to be unmodified in the list that follows.

Also, do you think adding an example table for each system (as I did for most of the systems in the Romanization of Russian) would benefit this article (and perhaps one on Romanization of Ukrainian as well)? That way readers would have some examples to go with each rule, which is helpful, but I realize that these tables will bloat the article in size quite a bit. If need be, I can help with BGN/PCGN—I have a copy of original BGN's "Romanization Systems and Roman-Script Spelling Conventions" publication that summarizes transliteration of 29 languages (including Belorusian, Russian, and Ukrainian), but I'll need help with the actual examples.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 21:50, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[replied at user talk:Ezhiki#Romanization of Belarusian —MZ]

That's a pretty good idea, about putting romanization systems' overviews (with examples) into their separate articles! I wonder why I didn't think of such an easy solution in the past—it looks so obvious now. The overview articles will, of course, be pretty damn big with all those examples, but I don't think they can be made smaller without sacrificing content, so we'll have to eat it. I'll try to start one on BGN/PCGN some time—I think I can produce a pretty decent article by summarizing the BGN's book intro, but examples, of course, will have to be added by native speakers. The Russian example tables, I think, should stay where they are until the overview article is ready.

I glanced over the scientific transliteration article, but I haven't thouroughly read it yet. Will scrutinize it soon. And hey, good luck with a decent х-word example :) I had exact same problem with the Russian "ъё" combination, which some anon has just corrected.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 23:34, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I replied to several of your comments on my talk page.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 16:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BGN/PCGN

Michael, I started the general BGN/PCGN romanization article. I will be gradually adding to it, but please feel free to review what's already there and add/correct as necessary. A few of those pretty tables of yours wouldn't hurt :) Thanks.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 17:49, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Doing it this way is pretty logical, but it also is very confusing. When you read it fast, it basically is perceived as

Romanization of Blahblanian—see Romanization of Blahblanian

Just some friendly feedback :)—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 23:37, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Oops, quite right. —Michael Z. 2006-02-15 00:23 Z

[edit] As of year

Just wanted to let you know (in case you didn't already) that links to "As of year" are different then links to years themselves. They are used to track statements that date quickly. See Wikipedia:As of. Qutezuce 00:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I didn't know that, and it looks like a clever way to deal with the problem; thanks. —Michael Z. 2006-02-15 00:42 Z

[edit] DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Romanization of Belarusian, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Gurubrahma 18:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ukraine

Please take your time to read discussion page before revert. --Vasile 16:43, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, personal attacks, how that if I didn't name your precious person yet? You use words without knowing their sense. Nazional-komunist is very meaningful: a join between Mussolini fascist version of nationalism superposed on a Communist regime. That was the case of Ukraine RSS and other countries of the Soviet block. --Vasile 15:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ukrainian language

You have written to me: "Thanks for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks."

I made a correction so that the numbers were consistent with the source: http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_lan_97.php?reg=48

If you prefer errors in Wikipedia, let them be. I don't care. But maybe sometimes it's wiser to check what is correct.

Good luck! Krzysztof —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 153.19.70.104 (talk • contribs).

[replied at user talk:153.19.70.104 —MZ]

[edit] {{TLAdisambig}}

Hi Michael, I've seen your edit there, so is this template deprecated? Can I (we) replace {{TLAdisambig}} with {{disambig}}? Thanks, Korg (talk) 17:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[replied at user talk:Korg —MZ]

OK, thank you! Korg (talk) 03:32, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not sure how...

Honestly, I'm not sure how to use it without making the AWB assisted message - but the program is too useful not to use. I shall see what I can do. BD2412 T 14:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding. —Michael Z. 2006-02-20 16:26 Z

[edit] Ruthenia

Thanks for cleanup [4]. There's one guy, though, whose main activity is to go through article and hyperlink all dates, so you may watch the page.

Anyway: perhaps you may add page on Ruthenia in 1918-1938. AFAIK nothing exists yet and pages about history of Czechoslovakia practically omit this region. Pavel Vozenilek 14:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[replied at user talk:Pavel Vozenilek#Carpathian Ruthenia, with a link to Ruthenians and Ukrainians in Czechoslovakia (1918-1938). —MZ]

[edit] Salo in Space

Hello, concerning the article Salo in Space, I was wondering if you could give me a few more details about the comic? I don't speak Russian, so I find I can't glean much from its site. Mainly I'd like to know the name of the author, but other details, such as when it came online and how often it's updated would be useful as well. The reason I'm asking is I'd like to add the webcomic infobox to it and then put it on the list of webcomics. Thanks. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 15:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[replied at user talk:Adashiel#Salo in Space —MZ]

• I noticed Mikka also edited the article. I'll ask him if he knows. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 16:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: AWB

Hi, sorry about the watchlist "spam", but there is unfortunately no way to make AWB not display the link in it's edit summaries. I'm kinda neutral to how it identifies itself though, so if you can convince the developer to change how it works I won't mind. --Sherool (talk) 16:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll see if I can convince anyone important to change the behaviour. Regards. —Michael Z. 2006-02-20 16:38 Z

[edit] Proposed "Cite" Style Changes

I noticed that you previously proposed style changes to "Cite" so I thought you might want to comment on this. Dv82matt 16:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I found it this morning and was just previewing my response when I noticed you left me this note. I'll post my response in a few minutes. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-02-22 16:27 Z

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Canadian_Cougar_AVGP_(DND1).jpg

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[edit] re Template:ent

Hi Michael, with apologies ;-), I've reverted your changes to template:ent. Please see my comments at Template talk:ent, let's discuss your changes there. OK? Regards — Paul August ☎ 17:27, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[replied at Template talk:Ent —MZ]

[edit] Thanks!

You're welcome. Good luck. —Michael Z. 2006-02-23 22:17 Z

[edit] Thanks for your voting!

Hi, thanks for your voting on my RFA. It has finished with the result 88/14/9, and I am promoted. I am really overwhelmed with the amount of support I have got. With some of you we have edited many articles as a team, with some I had bitter arguments in the past, some of you I consider to be living legends of Wikipedia and some nicks I in my ignorance never heard before. I love you all and I am really grateful to you.

If you feel I can help you or Wikipedia as a human, as an editor or with my newly acquired cleaning tools, then just ask and I will be happy to assist. If you will feel that I do not live up to your expectation and renegade on my promises, please contact me. Maybe it was not a malice but just ignorance or a short temper. Thank you very much, once more! abakharev 07:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi

Hi Michael, I didn't notice you got admin. When did this happen? --ST ○ 21:22, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Back in July. It went pretty smoothly, so I guess there wasn't much hoopla. Thanks for noticing. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-02-24 21:43 Z

Congratulations, hope you like this duty ;-) I got admin in oct. The better news is from june: Andreas, a german-ukrainian boy, now sitting on my nees while I'm writing this. --ST ○ 22:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow, congratulations! —Michael Z. 2006-02-24 22:46 Z

[edit] question

You recently changed one of my clean ups for Bass. see here. I am just following the MoS guidelines, specifically this one. I believe your edit goes against it. I'm going to change it back, for now. Let me know if I've misinterpreted something. :) Westfall 16:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[replied at user talk:Westfall#Disambiguation subheadings —MZ]

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Canadian_Coyote_Recce_(DND5).jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Canadian_Coyote_Recce_(DND5).jpg. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

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[edit] The proclaimed independence Ukraine (1917-1921)

I asked about sources presenting an independent Ukrainian state at the end of WWI. Especially, is any of the proclaimed states in the Western Ukraine received a particular sign of recognition from some Western powers? A modern practice was (and still it is preserved) that the simple proclamation of independence is not sufficient, in Europe or North America. --Vasile 00:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The same problem at the article History of Ukraine. If there is no source presenting an independent Ukrainian state, then there were some failed attempts until Ukrainian RSS.--Vasile 01:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to cite some sources when I have the time. In the mean time, please stop removing consensus material from the article. —Michael Z. 2006-03-01 01:40 Z

I don't know what consensus you are talking about. Please read the other articles regarding the events. --Vasile 01:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm talking about the text of articles supported by all the editors except you. —Michael Z. 2006-03-03 01:41 Z

Michael, I came by after your another detailed response at talk:Ukraine to a new round of Vasile's WP:DFTT#Pestering. I think we should remember the golden rule: WP:DFTT#Not feeding the trolls, particularly, WP:DFTT#Dealing with pestering and misplaced criticism. I wasted enough time with this user in the past in the disputes of similar merit. --Irpen 07:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I didn't mind doing a bit of reading about the details, and it prompted me to work on the opening a bit. I promise I'll try to avoid being trolled. Thanks for the support. —Michael Z. 2006-03-03 16:41 Z

I went over the intro yesterday one more time after you. I hope you don't mind. No need to make compromises to accomodate dubious trollish assertions. I provided Vasile with enough links that he can read (starting from the History of UA articles in Britannica and Columbia) and if he chooses not to read them but rather return with frivolous disputes, I would just revert rather than waste any more time. I remember very well him refusing to accept Britannica on Romanian policies in Bukovina, denying Slavic settlements along the Dniester (as per PC) that contradict the Greater Romanian worldview and now this nonsense with denying the statehood of Kievan Rus, questioning of the mainstream view on Russkaya pravda and this trolling in Ukraine and its history. If this persists, I will write up an RfC. While RfC is a giant waste of time and I hate that, I lost more time already with his pestering. --Irpen 19:08, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

No trouble. I hope it doesn't come to an RFC. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-03-03 20:13 Z

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Mobile_Gun_System.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Mobile_Gun_System.jpg. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

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[edit] To err is human

I added references yesterday to articles indicated by one of the people in the de:en project as completed. I noticed afterwards that not all of them were translations and reversed what I believed were the instances were the reference was incorrect. Seems like I missed one there. Sorry. --Mmounties (Talk) 18:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks—I had no way of knowing how you decided to include the notice, so I thought I'd let you know before going on a revert spree. Regards. —Michael Z. 2006-03-02 19:24 Z

[edit] Image Tagging Image:Canadian Armoured Corps.png

This media may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:Canadian Armoured Corps.png. I notice the 'image' page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is therefore unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the media on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then you should also specify where you found it, i.e., in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then you can use {{GFDL-self}} to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media qualifies as fair use, please read fair use, and then use a tag such as {{fairusein|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other media, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Shyam ^(T/C) 18:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. The image page already includes links to its source. I've added a template indicating that I believe it falls under fair use provisions for logos, at least for inclusion in the article Royal Canadian Armoured Corps. —Michael Z. 2006-03-03 20:12 Z

[edit] Spaces in headers

Hi Michael,

I know what you mean, although it seems to me most manual headers have no spaces. These edits were more or less manual, I am using AWB now, which is not making those changes, so your spaces may be safe for the time being! I think that the distinction will disappear at some time in the future when sections become database objects (crystal gazing - not informed guesswork!). Best wishes Rich Farmbrough 18:15 5 March 2006 (UTC).

I didn't mean to tell you how to format the wikitext, just pointing out my preference, in case you hadn't considered it this way. There has been some discussion on the subject recently, but I can't find it at the moment. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-03-05 18:20 Z

Just found it, much more than is necessary on the topic at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#standard and consistent internal formatting. —Michael Z. 2006-03-06 04:48 Z

[edit] Khreschatyk

I would like to thank you for your participation in the discussion. I hope, your compromise version will help to resolve the dispute. Regards, --AndriyK 09:53, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Michael! Could you please have one more look at the article. Irpen does not accept your version either. The reasons are unclear. Could you please help?--AndriyK 20:34, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can subscripts be fixed?

Michael, I was having the problem with superscripts increasing the line spacing (using Opera 8.51), but thanks to your fix that's gone. Is it possible to fix subscripts also? They cause the same problem in chemical formulae, e.g. Aniline. I tried your superscript fix but with a negative value for the bottom property, but this does not work. Alan Pascoe 14:31, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Ignore my previous question, it does work. I forgot to change the selector from sup to sub. Alan Pascoe 16:56, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi; just got back. Glad you figured that out; I'll be adding it to my style sheet too. —Michael Z. 2006-03-12 22:14 Z

[edit] Cyrillic letter

Какой шрифт вы здесь использовали? Хочу добавить казахские буквы. (en: What font You used here? I wish to add the Kazakh-cyrillic letters.) --Wassily 12:04, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[replied at ru:user talk:Wassily#Cyrillic letters —MZ]

[edit] Phonetics

Hi Mzajac. I note your change to the phonetics in the article Fascine to "fa-SEEN" (instead of "fuh-SEEN"). Yes of course English is a quirky old language and so it's very easy to pick holes in attempts at respelling, but I hardly think many people, lest of all English speakers, would interpret the first syllable of "fuh-SEEN" as [fuç] of all things! (Actually, can you name a language where this would be a reasonable interpretation?) You say you have changed it "to use real words" but I am not aware of any English word fa with the pronunciation in question (schwa). It's very likely to be interpreted as [fæ] or "fah" (so-called long a, IPA is too much hassle to reproduce here but you know the one I mean) which is of course incorrect, and on balance "fuh" seems quite a bit more problematic than "fuh". Believe me, I have devised such "Mickey Mouse phonetics" for many publications and do know something about it. Since this means so much to you I won't bother to keep changing it back, but I would ask you not to be too gung-ho about this, and particularly not to delete such attempts, crude as they naturally seem to anyone who knows better, when adding IPA. You would be amazed how few people, even those who have studied linguistics, have any idea of how to read IPA (at least in the UK), and in many if not most cases it's only a matter of a straightforward choice of one phoneme over another or which sylllable to stress so respelling is perfectly adequate. To delete a valid attempt at a basic phonemic transcription using nonsense syllables or "real words" is doing the vast majority of users a great disservice. An even more useful task would be to provide accurate phonetics of any sort for the many proper nouns lacking them, especially placenames and unusual names of celebs one hears pronounced in all sorts of ways. This is often a case where Wikipedia is the only source available to consult as it has such good coverage of the kind of popular culture that doesn't get much treatment in established reference works. Incidentally where IPA has been provided it has sometimes been done by someone who doesn't actually know enough to do it reliably, and these cases need attention too; for example at Jake Gyllenhaal ['dʒɪlɛnhɑl], where that second vowel looks highly improbable, though I don't know for a fact that it's wrong. Best wishes Flapdragon 18:11, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[replied at user talk:Flapdragon#Fuh —MZ]

Hi Michael, many thanks for your reply. Your points are of course very well made.

I agree there is no consistent system worth bothering with apart from IPA, it's just that I think having only IPA really restricts the usefulness of the article, so I get a bit defensive when the Mickey Mouse transcription gets deleted in the process, since I really feel it can't harm to have both. (I actually quite liked SAMPA as it's so much more convenient to key, but I suppose it's even less understandable than IPA and I see it's now officially disapproved of.) Real words are good where they're unambiguous, but when there are so many homographs and accent issues around, hypothetical syllables can be clearer. For example, the musical word fa you mention is [fɑ:] in RP, [fa~fæ] in many British accents, and (I gather) [fɔ] in at least some North American pronunciations. But not, AFAIK, [fə].

I also take your (and WP's) point about non-English-natives, but surely a huge proportion, perhaps a large majority, of readers of the English WP will be native or near-native English speakers. I also feel very many pronuciation issues are in fact very straightforward ("trivial") and don't really need the precision or subtlety that IPA can offer. I'm all in favour of "rhymes with...", "stressing the second syllable" etc, as this seems to me the least geeky and unfriendly approach to the average user. Nothing wrong with being a phonetics geek, I'm happy to geek along with the best of them, but I know how offputting that is to the vast majority, and surely WP is above all about creating something useful to the greatest number of people. Actually "rhymes with machine" seems to me an excellent approach to the word "fascine", apart from a possible slight ambiguity over s/sh, and if I'd thought of it I'd have put it in.

Incidentally, I see you have a Ukrainian background. I expect you've found, as I have, for example with Welsh, that combinations of sounds that English speakers declare "unpronounceable" cease to be a problem when presented across English word boundaries: Dnieper, think of "add nine", that kind of thing (sorry, can't be bothered to search for Cyrillic chars, and this may not be a wonderful example, but you get the general idea!) I feel that is the sort of technique that should be used as much as possible in non-specialist contexts.

Possibly this is something it might be worth raising "officially" to refine the policy on "Mickey Mouse" phons. Something should also be done to regularise the use of square brackets versus oblique (phonemic) "slashes", which seem to predominate, even though the manual of style seems to say they should be the exception rather than the rule. But then again, who could quite find the time/energy for these procedural issues when they could be editing a real article?!

Cheers, Flapdragon 01:35, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

PS: I nicked my user page picture from someone who had written the article on Flapdragon that I had been meaning for ages to write and never got round to it!

[edit] Insurgency weapon

You added a reference tag to the insurgency weapon article, and I have since added weblinks to pages with information on several of the weapons mentioned, and added a bit of supporting text from the Hillberg patent. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look and see if you think there's anything else that needs work. A couple of notes: I didn't add references for the Sten or Welrod because those have Wiki articles that mention insurgent use, and the CNFA reference was added for the Deer Gun more than the FP-45, which also has it's own page. scot 20:10, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[replied at talk:Insurgency weapon#References —MZ]

[edit] Don't use hiddenStructure

Hi Michael, I was wondering if you might look over User:Locke Cole/Don't use hiddenStructure and, if you think you can expand on any of the anything there (or correct anything I got wrong), do so? Your insight would be very much appreciated. Thank you! —Locke Cole • t • c 02:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. =) I've added an expanded introduction that pretty much paraphrases your suggestion. ;) A direct link to the WAI accessibility guideline you speak of would probably be helpful, if you have the time. Also, I've nominated Wikipedia:HiddenStructure for deletion, you might want to check that out at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:HiddenStructure. Again, thanks for your help. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 22:29, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polkovnyk

It seems like AndriyK (talk • contribs) has developed a sense of ownership to this article. He even refuses to discuss a merge to Polkovnik, as suggested a long time ago, and simply removes the tags citing bogus arguments. Looking further to hear your opinion. --DmitryKo 14:06, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[followed up at talk:Polkovnyk#Merge proposal —MZ]

[edit] LaTeX rendered as HTML

From the Village Pump Proposals discussion:

I am curious, what can we do to solve the problem of LaTeX rendered as HTML being in serif instead of sans-serif? At least, is there any way of finding out who created the LaTeX rendering engine so we can figure out why he/she had it render in serif? I think that something should definitely be done, as it looks strange and is harder to read on the page. Thanks. --mets501 ^talk 23:47, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[replied at user talk:mets501 —MZ]

[edit] User:70.81.117.175

User:70.81.117.175 is back again making unsourced statistical edits about ethnicity. User:Alm93 seems to be their user account: after Alm93 created a Scandinavian Canadians category and a user nominated it for deletion, 70.81.117.175 left an angry note on that users page refering to that category as his/her own. Qutezuce 23:02, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Indication of foreign words in English passages

This comment is in response to one of your edits at AAA: Single quotation marks are not the standard method for indicating foreign words in English passages; rather, to the best of my knowledge, the standard method is by italicization. I've seen a number of persons using single quotes here and elsewhere, but this method I believe arose from the need to do so in an era when only ASCII was available for text rendering. Where italicization is available for use, it should be used. If you have information to the contrary, though, I'll watch this space for it. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[replied at User talk:Ceyockey#Indication of foreign words in English passages —MZ]

[edit] The meaning of the word "Russian"

Dear Michael, I a have a question to you as to a native English speaker. What exactly means the word "Russian" in modern English? Does it mean only "of Russia", or it means also "of (Kievan) Rus"?--Mbuk 13:01, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi "Max". Sorry to take so long to reply. It's not a simple question to answer fully, but an interesting one to articulate. You can also read more on the subject in the article "etymology of Rus’".

The complete definition from my Canadian Oxford Dictionary of Russian (adj.) is "1 of or relating to Russia. 2 of or in Russian" (which begs the question "what is Russia?"—defined simply as "a country in N Asia and E Europe", but I would consider this to also refer to the Russian nation).

But several adjectives are in use for things relating to Rus’.

Formerly, English scholarship was based on the Russian Imperial view which held that Ukrainians and Belarusians were not separate peoples, that the White, Great, and Little Russians comprised "one, indivisible Russia" (this is clearly the opinion of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, freely available online, and see also my ramble regarding EB1911 on the Eastern Slavs). Until the 1980s and even since, many western sources continued to use Russia as a synonym for Soviet Union, and also Medieval Russia for Kievan Rus’. I'm not an expert so I don't know exactly how common this usage still is (my Dictionary has gone as far as to offer a prescriptive note: "the use of Russian to mean Soviet can be misleading and is best avoided"). Serious western historians don't seem to make such generalizations any more, although more general sources often aren't as picky about the wording, especially in topics where nationhood is not a central question.

Today it is generally held that the Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian nations are the East Slavic descendents of the people of Rus’, and specifically that Halych-Volyn’ and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the west, and Vladimir-Suzdal’ and Muscovy in the north-east both had roots in Kievan Rus’. Wikipedians sometimes make assertions about who is the more direct inheritor of Rus’, or whether the three nations are equal in this respect. However, respectable western historians don't draw conclusions about such completely subjective and unverifiable questions, although the historiography of such proclamations is sometimes documented.

Scholars who consider the question of a specific adjective for Rus’, for the sake of pedantic accuracy or cultural sensitivity, use the adjectival form Rus’, as in Rus’ people, Rus’ culture (analogous with London boroughs, United States citizens), or occasionally by the (awkward to my ears) adjective Rusian or Rus’ian. More conservative sources continue to use the traditional English adjective Russian, even when they clearly don't consider Rus’ to be Russia. For example, the 2003 revision of Encyclopædia Britannica's "Russian architecture" clearly differentiates Russia from Kievan Rus, but uses the adjective Russian to refer to architecture of both.

When the question comes up in Wikipedia, the argument usually surfaces that in Russian, Russkij refers to both Rus’ and Russia. One could counter with the example of Rusyn (conventionally translated 'Ruthenian'), however this line of reasoning is specious. The central question here is the Modern English terminology, with its own centuries-old etymology rooted in Latin.

Of course, I'm not an authority, and being a native English-speaker has little to do with it. This is a very specific question in a rather specific realm, which 99.9% of native English-speakers have never encountered, and the answer will vary in different contexts of history, subject matter, and intended audience. Most authorities would rather stick to their subject than have to specifically address such a pedantic question of language, and so would presumably studiously avoid it, either by conservatively falling back on traditional usage or, conversely, by using the possibly more politically-correct or neutral neologisms.

Although I enjoy analyzing and espousing my opinion on such questions of language, as you may have noticed at talk:Russian architecture, I think people (like me) who make too much of them should take up more productive pursuits and stop wasting everybody else's time. Regards. —Michael Z. 2006-03-26 19:50 Z

Thank you very much for the detailed answer.

I am sorry I took so much your time with my question.--Mbuk 23:50, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Just two cents: In relevance to this discussion, one more modern book

• Janet Maring; Janet Martin [1993] (2005). Medieval Russia, 980-1584, Fourth edition, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521368324.

The book is available in Google books and may be used to expand the content, not only to argue about names. --Irpen 05:33, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Caron/hacek vote

There's a vote on Talk:caron where the article should be if you're interested. +Hexagon1 (talk) 10:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. —Michael Z. 2006-03-26 16:56 Z

[edit] Petro Prokopovych

Hi Michael, may be you will be interested in this article. I would translate it into English, but terminology is too complicated for me. No worries. I found English translation and already created the article.--Bryndza 03:22, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I was a bit slow off the mark, but I'm glad to at least help out with a bit of copy-editing. Regards. —Michael Z. 2006-03-28 16:45 Z

[edit] Watershed

Since it's not obvious, a previous and brief incarnation of the watershed entry (here) attempted the disambiguation, while also giving a token explanation as well as etymological development of the term. It was shot down (because of reference to dialect differences; see talk page) and reverted. FYI. Cheers, Daniel Collins 21:43, 28 March 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Mediation request

Recently the disputes between Ghirlandajo (supported by some of his friends like Fisenko or Kuban Cossack) and Polish editors (me, Halibutt, Balcer, Molobo and others) have much intensified. I hate wasting time on Wiki politics and personal conflicts, but recently I have found myself wasting more and more time on pointless reverts or disputes. I have always found you to be one of the more neutral and level-headed editors out there, and so I'd appreciate any mediation - or advise - you may give us, or any actions that can be taken to defuse the situation.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:09, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Second that. And while at it I will soon come up with a comprehensive proposal of an ethics code in Eastern European topics that could hopefully prevent those things from happening. I am overloaded at work today but I will get to it as soon as I can. I will probably post it at the EE board's subpage (to revive that one as well) and will leave a message at the talk pages of everyone involved. In the meanwhile, if you would like to get a general understanding of what's going on, you are welcom to check recent edit histories and recent talk page entries at the following topics: History of Poland (1939–1945), Cossack, Kievan Rus', Polish contribution to World War II, Battle of Praga, Kościuszko Uprising, Warsaw Uprising (1794), Alexander Suvorov, Wilno Uprising, talk:Soviet partisan and much of the rest in my, Halibutt's, Piotrus' and Molobo's contributions list. No need to check all this. They are all equally representative. --Irpen 23:56, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll read up on what mediating entails, and get back to you all. Patience, for now. —Michael Z. 2006-03-31 00:40 Z

Thanks. //Halibutt 11:16, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry that I have neglected to respond further to the request for mediation, back at the end of March. I've been drawn away from Wikipedia by other responsibilities and don't expect to spend much time back here for a while yet. Apologies and best regards, —Michael Z. 2006-05-03 15:20 Z

Thanks for the update. It's not easy to find a good mediator, but I certainly understand the time constrains you are under. If you have any suggestions whom I should talk to about the mediation, please let me know. Take care, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:08, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ETA (disambiguation) and primary topics

Thank you for your work on fixing up the ETA (disambiguation). The reason the link to ETA was at the top of the page was that when there is a primary topic and a disambiguation page, the primary topic is linked to at the top of the disambiguation page. MoS:DP#Linking_to_a_primary_topic has more information. But you've brought to my attention that while ETA is the article on the Basque nation (which is the primary topic), eta redirect to the disambiguation page. If ETA were to be the true primary topic, eta should also redirect to it, so I've brought up that issue on the talk page, and would appreciate your input. -- Natalya 11:40, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Country subdivisions

• Talk:Administrative division has a vote Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:36, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] T-72

There have been alot of changes to the t-72 article can you check it out and see if they are correct?

(Deng 09:16, 29 April 2006 (UTC))

I will try to look at it eventually, but I'm currently concentrating on obligations outside of Wikipedia. Sorry, and thanks for the note. Regards. —Michael Z. 2006-05-03 15:24 Z

[edit] Busy

Dishes, eh? :) Whatever's holding you, hope to see you back soon.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 19:39, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] re: Undiscussed changes

• Regarding .LatinX: I'd prefer to combine this one with .Unicode, but this would require listing Microsoft Sans Serif before Arial Unicode MS and I have no idea if that would be a good thing to do at the moment. I created this template to replace <font face="Microsoft Sans Serif"> in articles such as yogh, which affect all browsers, as you know.
• Regarding the addition of Arial Unicode MS: My edit summary did not claim that it only affected MSIE, it claimed that should not affect non-Windows systems (except weird ones like mine that does have Arial Unicode MS). It intenstionally affected non-MSIE browsers to avoid them using another buggy font (MS Reference Sans). There is some more information at Talk:Voiced velar plosive. I was not aware that Arial Unicode MS has IPA bugs as well. I'm also unaware of a better solution than forcing a specific font.

Cheers, —Ruud 19:38, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if that change to .Unicode would be good or bad either (I don't use Windows), but I'm sure someone could answer that question at template talk:Unicode.

Adding Arial Unicode MS affects my Mac, since that font is available for download, and I have installed it. And even if I didn't, the fall-back "sans-serif" specification would use my browser's default sans-serif font, overriding e.g. the body text font which a user has specified in his Wikipedia user style sheet.

I take it the bug you are trying to work around is that MS Reference Sans uses a loop-tailed g instead of an open-tailed g for the IPA character, correct? But I also understand that this doesn't affect the accuracy of IPA (since IPA doesn't use a loop-tailed g at all), but is simply not quite correct for demonstration purposes, am I right? If that's so, then I would opt to ignore the bug until Microsoft fixes it, since the Arial Unicode MS bug is more serious, changing the meaning of displayed IPA, although it occurs somewhat less often.

I don't know of a way to specify fonts to only Windows browsers, either. Is Microsoft aware of the font bug? —Michael Z. 2006-05-07 21:15 Z

The bug is more severe, the open tail g is displayed as a character looking like a Y. —Ruud 21:42, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah, crud. So this affects all windows users with the default style sheet, including MSIE and other web browsers? Are there any fonts that come installed with Windows which do have the correct character in the correct Unicode position? —Michael Z. 2006-05-07 21:46 Z

MSIE user are already rescued by .IPA, so it's the Firefox/Netscape users that have a problem. The only two font that seem to include the IPA characters are Lucida Sans Unicode (ships with Win2K/WinXP) and Arial Unicode MS (ships with MS Office). MS Reference Sans Serif comes with Office as well. —Ruud 22:27, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I pulled out my Windows XP test system and found that the U+0261 open-tailed IPA g also appears correctly in Microsoft Sans Serif, which come with the system. I guess "Microsoft Sans Serif" would be safe to specify, without the fall-back "sans-serif". I think that "Lucida Sans Unicode" might come with Microsoft Office for Mac, in which case it would be preferable not to specify it. —Michael Z. 2006-05-07 22:46 Z

Without the the fall-back "sans-serif" my system (Linux/FF 1.0/FF 1.5) shows IPA in a serif font. Microsoft Sans Serif would be a good choice, but the versions that ship with versions of Windows before XP do not seem to support the IPA characters and many other Unicode chracters (only Latin Extened-B and some Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew and Arabic). —Ruud 22:55, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Allow me

Thank you very much; I am honoured. Although I'm on light duties right now, I'll try to be worthy. Regards. —Michael Z. 2006-05-08 13:54 Z

[edit] Central Asia

Hi, I'm trying to start some sort of working group to improve the coverage of Central Asia and related topics in Wikipedia. Leave a message on my userpage if you're interested. Aelfthrytha 03:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] T-28 tank

Hi, I noticed you changed the number of MGs for the Soviet T-28 tank. In the discussion page a while back I enumerated the MGs - one in each of the MG turrets, one in the main turret rear, one in a ball mount on the front of the main turret, making a total of four minimum. They often carried a fifth on the turret roof in the P40 AA mount. All my sources, including plans drawn by Zaloga in the book you cited, show this. Do you have something different? DMorpheus 12:39, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[response at Talk:T-28#Machine guns. —MZ]

[edit] Early Cyrillic letters

Hi, Michael, thank you for uploading early Cyrillic letters. There is a slight problem with them: most of the images have too much white space around, and when you put one of them into the standard text line (e.g. to give a sample letter), the distance between lines grows, so it looks ugly. I want to crop most of the letters (either from all four sides, or from top/bottom only), but hesitate because they are used in many places. If you know any negative consequences that may happen, please let me know. --Yms 17:06, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I created these to provide samples in the table in Early Cyrillic alphabet, and to be compatible with the Cyrillic letters used in the Cyrillic letter navigation box, such as in A (Cyrillic). They should remain a constant height and width, keeping in mind that some of the letter images are much wider than others, especially those containing two different glyphs.

If you want to provide a sample using these graphics, I suggest you drop them between paragraphs, like below, or in a thumbnail box, as on the right.

Inline images tend to look awkward anyway, because they mess up the line-height in many web browsers, and may not match the baseline and height of the display font on a particular reader's computer (1/2-size sample: ). If you need a letter to to insert within a line of text, I suggest you create a separate version, without the pale blue rules, perhaps with a consistent naming convention like "Image:Early Cyrillic letter Azu-inline.png". I would be glad to create some of the graphics you need, but I may not be able to do it for a couple of weeks due to other commitments. —Michael Z. 2006-05-18 17:28 Z

OK, indeed, I will probably create special inline versions (maybe with some automation), thank you. --Yms 18:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] this statement describes the appearance of the spelling, not its history or source

Thanks fo the last edit, because I have been arguing with JackLumber over history/scource, see here and here. Myrtone@Mzajac.com.au:-(

It's a bit hard to follow the thread of your discussions, since they jump around as Wikipedia dialogues tend to. Canadian English is the product of a 250-year history, and certainly not just a combination of other modern English dialects. —Michael Z. 2006-05-22 16:19 Z

I've added a new section Canadian English#History, based on an essay in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. This will help make the situation clear. —Michael Z. 2006-05-22 17:34 Z

[edit] Can of worms

My thoughts: I was mostly hoping to avoid opening a can of worms with the addition of Sawchuk to the list of Ukrainians. While I have always considered him "Ukrainian", he was born in Canada and I have no knowledge that his ancestry was even first generation. Furthermore, did he speak Ukrainian (more than a few butchered phrases), or was he involved as a community leader? I regard him as famous, and personally list him as a Ukrainian, but for the purposes of that list I feel his inclusion might, again, open up more questions than answers. --tufkaa 17:18, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how well he spoke Ukrainian; do you have information that he didn't, and is it relevant? Anyway, I don't feel so strongly about keeping him in this list, although he definitely belongs in a list of significant Ukrainian Canadians. —Michael Z. 2006-05-31 06:33 Z

Again, I was only thinking about setting precedents after reading the extensive debates on the talk pages. BTW, I would like to help out with Wikipedia: Wikiproject Ukrainian subdivisions. Do I just start augmenting templates or is there a signup sheet somewhere? I'm thinking of starting by expanding the Template:Cities in Chernihiv Oblast into something more like Template:Cherkasy_Oblast.--tufkaa 15:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll defer to your judgment about Sawchuk, since I haven't read much of those debates.

Just go ahead and enhance that template, since there is already a precedent in the other one. The subdivisions project has been quiet lately, but I know some members still watch the talk page, so go ahead and post a note there if you wish to coördinate your edits with others. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-05-31 16:25 Z

[edit] Canadian Spelling

Regarding the MoS(sp.) page. I've noticed that you have added some extra spellings to that of the other spellings in the Canadian column — ie colour, color; theatre, theater. I have a few questions with regards to this:

1. By doing this do you wish to have a mixture of spellings in Canadian articles?
2. Or do you want to show the views of one Canadian dictionary?
3. Could you show me an example of an entry in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary?
4. So how common do you think the variant spellings — ie color, theater, etc — are in Canada?
5. Are these spellings commonly found in Canadian publications?

203.164.184.60 14:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[responded at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (spelling)#Canadian Oxford Dictionary —MZ]

[edit] User:70.81.117.175

Everybody's favorite IP is back again after a long ban and is back to their usual; making questionable edits that are only about ethnicity. Qutezuce 05:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Manitoba (band)

Hi, I see you left a link re Caribou (musician) on the Manitoba disambiguation page a while back. When I came across the page someone had reoved your entry. I added it back but it's been removed again. I'm going to keep a watch on the page and invite you to do the same. I'm not sure why someone repeatedly removes our entry but ? Take care Hu Gadarn 01:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Belarusian alphabet

Thanks for the editing! (What does that "copy" in summary mean, though?) —Yury Tarasievich 14:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Short for "copy-editing": just a generic note meaning minor fixes in grammar, spelling, wording, etc, etc. Good work, by the way. —Michael Z. 2006-06-06 17:05 Z

[edit] 'Computer programme'

pls see my talk page for response? 203.94.135.134 07:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

pls see my talk page for a new response? 203.94.135.134 03:13, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request

Can you redirect my user page to my talk page?
Thankyou. 203.94.135.134 03:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Just change your user page to the following text: #redirect [[user talk:203.94.135.134]]

But I suggest that you register a user name. —Michael Z. 2006-06-08 16:02 Z

[edit] Belarusian language

Thanks! Much neater English now! With WP tags which I didn't know even existed! :)However, I think I'll re-convert the table to the x10 layout, and do the same in the main Belarusian alphabet. Your table style edit (mono->various, WP tags) is relevant, of course. That's x10 tables that look neat (and human), not x11. :)) I'll need to re-check on the (dubious to me) apostrophe inclusion into alphabet layout first, though. Thanks again! ---Yury Tarasievich 06:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

My pleasure. I wasn't sure whether the apostrophe should be listed with the letters or not, but since the soft sign is also a modifying sign and not strictly considered a letter, and appears in most alphabet tables, I thought it would be acceptable. And I thought eleven columns was a bit neater for this alphabet, avoiding the short last line, but it's not so important. Use your judgment. —Michael Z. 2006-06-09 15:40 Z

[edit] Cyrillic alphabet

I'm thinking about some changes to the Cyrillic alphabet, namely:

1. removing all leads on derived alphabets from it (into main article stubs, where appropriate)
2. including nicely sorted (multi-column?) table with links to the derived alphabets
3. merging the Early Cyrillic alphabet with it

What do you think? ---Yury Tarasievich 06:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Since the article is very long, I wouldn't merge the early Cyrillic alphabet into it right now—the two articles have a pretty clear distinction of description of the modern form and usage vs. historic development. In fact, I think much of the history section could be moved into the early alphabet article, leaving behind a brief summary. Perhaps the latter should be renamed "History of the Cyrillic alphabet".

I'll have to think about the other changes a bit. The article is very long, so perhaps each alphabet table should be moved elsewhere, and/or converted into a single line listing the letters. Perhaps a few paragraphs could summarize some of the development of and differences between the national alphabets. Since this would represent a substantial change in the article, we should make proposals on its talk page. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-06-09 15:49 Z

[edit] Caesar Cocktail

Is there any reason why we shoudln't believe it? Clamato is a serious dela for Cadbury-Schweppes, so I assume their marketing research has created accurate results. --larsinio (poke)^(prod)

Well, it's probably not an outright lie, but there's no way to tell how the figures were derived—it may be something a marketing writer 'calculated' off the top of his head. Perhaps it would be safer to say something like "Motts claims ["estimates"?] that more than 250 million Clamato Caesars incorporating their brand of clamato juice are sold each year throughout Canada". Note also that the reference says "Clamato is the number one selling seafood blend from northern Canada to southern Mexico", "[the Bloody Caesar] . . . is Canada's favourite cocktail" (whatever that actually means), and "Bloody Caesar is Canada's top cocktail" (top-selling, top-rated, top-reviewed?), but not that it is the most popular cocktail in Canada in so many words. —Michael Z. 2006-06-14 18:46 Z

"Cadbury schwepps estimates..." would be a good way of putting it. ALthough i dont want to say "top" or "favorite" without a soruce because thats a weasel-wordy kind of way. --larsinio (poke)^(prod) 18:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Long talk page

Greetings! Your talk page is getting a bit long in the tooth - please consider archiving your talk page (or ask me and I'll archive it for you). Cheers! BD2412 T 00:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:T-84 Oplot.jpg

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[edit] Double layers/temp

Hi, I discovered this page through User:Bluemoose/Uncategorised good articles since it has no category. Are you still going to do something with this page? If not, could it be deleted or perhaps moved to your user space? Garion96 ^(talk) 00:29, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll delete it. —Michael Z. 2006-06-23 03:48 Z

Thanks Garion96 ^(talk) 12:10, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Háček

I thought it might interest you that User:Ackoz has initiated another caron > háček move request here. +Hexagon1 ^(t) |*̥̲̅ ̲̅†̲̅| |>̲̅-̲̅| 09:52, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. —Michael Z. 2006-06-28 15:18 Z

[edit] Your article, Lynx reconnaissance vehicle, was selected for DYK!

On June 30, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Lynx reconnaissance vehicle, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Thanks for your contributions! ++Lar: t/c 17:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian English usage

Hey Michael, got a couple questions for ya.

• which construction prevails, in/to hospital or in/to the hospital? What does Canadian Oxford have to say about it?
• which is more common, power plant or power station?

Best, JackLumber. 12:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[replied at talk:Canadian English#Canadian English usage —MZ]

[edit] T-34 tank in Finnish use

Hi, I read about Lauri Heino years ago on the Parola Tank Museum (Parola, Finland) guide leaflet. If my memory serves me correctly, he was the first foreigner to ever capture an intact T-34 at river Svir and drive it in Poventsa, October 1941. Later his driver was Sergeant Reino Lehväslaiho, later a well-known war author. His books and memoirs deal with Heino - unfortunately I don't know if they have been translated into English. their best day was 25 June 1944, when they destroyed five T-34s and two JSU-152s in one combat.

The word "sotka" means waterfowl common goldeneye. The side profile of T-34 resembles a swimming waterfowl. Heino (who survived the war and retired as sergeant major) told 1969: "We had tanker named S. Suominen in my company, who had been donkeyman on steamer named "Sotka" before the war. He was known to tell seaman stories, and mentioned "how tall a funnel did Sotka have". When I drove the captured T-34 to Petrozhavodsk 1941, someone in the company saw the barrel of T-34/76, which was long on the standards of the day, and said: "Hey, look there, Suominen's Sotka is coming!". The name then stuck, and that particular tank was given the name "Sotka". (Finnish tanks were regularly given individual names - usually girls' names.) When me and Suominen later tested and examined the tank thorougly, we found it very agile and mobile: I then said "This tank also swims gently as goldeneye on waves".

T-34/85 was known as "pitkäputkinen Sotka" (long-barrel Sotka)

Finns did not lose a single T-34 in action 1941-1944, but one was lost because of bridge breaking and falling into canal when crossing Saimaa Canal. That T-34 was later raised and repaired. The Parola museum has several T-34s on display, and one fully combat-ready example of T-34/85.

[moved discussion to talk:Lauri Heino#T-34 tank in Finnish use —MZ]

[edit] Hi there

Hey Mzajac, long time no talk since I e-mailed the video of those tanks, and yes they were T-64s =). I have been creating an article called the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the conflict which those T-64s took part in, ever since our last parting and its about 75% complete and about 80 kilobytes long but I have alreadt nominated it for GA status. Take a look at it and tell me what you think and tell me how you've been. Nice talking to you and I hope you get back to me soon. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MarshallBagramyan (talk • contribs) .

Hey, long time, Marshall. I've been busy with real life, but I've had some time to work on the T-34 article. It's getting close to FA quality. Please have a look over it and leave a comment at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/T-34.

I'll have a look at Nagorno-Karabakh War and leave some comments.

I'm sorry I forgot to get back to you about the video. I did have a better look at it, and there could be some T-64s in it, but there are definitely T-72s.

T-64 identification features

• Exhaust is in the rear [5] [6] [7]
• Commander's hatch in normal position opens forward, with searchlight and remote-controlled machine gun to the front, with very large box magazine (although some lack the MG altogether). Examples: Image:T-64.jpg [8] [9] T-80, T-84 and T-90 have this too
• Smaller, stamped-metal road wheels, smaller gap between third and fourth.

T-72 identification features

• Exhaust is near the rear of the tank's left side [10] Image:T-72 tank.jpg
• Commander's hatch in normal position opens forward, with searchlight to the front, but manually-fired ring-mount machine gun to the rear [11] [12] MG turned forward
• Larger, evenly-spaced "starfish" road wheels.

In the video, it's hard to identify most of the tanks, but here's what I can tell:

• timecode 1:29: T-72 exhaust smoke visible on the tank's left side
• 2:50: T-72 with no exhaust port on rear, commander's machine-gun cupola has a manually-fired MG rotated to the front, with turret hatch on the rear
• 2:55: same, with commander's ring-mount MG in the normal travel position: hatch front & gun rear. Road wheels appear to be larger T-72 style.
• 4:15 not sure what these are
• 4:37 might be T-64, with large searchlight on the tank's left of the main gun
• 4:49 appear to have larger T-72 road wheels
• 5:00 no side exhaust visible, but road wheels might be large; might be T-64s, but they're far away

Regards, Michael Z. 2006-07-08 05:58 Z

Thanks, I'll be sure to use those but I think T-64s have that triangle shaped thing on the front of their hulls. I'm not sure about T-72s, maybe they have it too. I'll take a look at the T-34 page, looks good. I also have a picture of my fellow countrymen standing next to T-34s. I uploaded it onto Wikipedia , here it is [13].--MarshallBagramyan 16:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice photo; I haven't seen that one before.

At least some T-72s had the triangular driver's splash guard. I think these were removed when reactive armour became common. See Image:T72_cfb_borden_1.JPG.

Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-07-08 16:46 Z

Of course, its from the Soviet Armenian encylopedia. I have several other Soviet pictures from the war, found in the encylopedia and not published in public. Such as this one Image:Signatures on the Reichstag.jpg and this one Image:89th War Monument.jpg and this Image:HunanAvetisyan.jpg.--MarshallBagramyan 19:02, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey I was wondering if you knew what kind of tank this would be? [14]--MarshallBagramyan 16:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a T-72, but it's hard to be sure. I'd like to see a higher-resolution version of the image. Here's what I can tell:

1. Appears to be Armenian flag marking, and according to Military of Armenia, they are equipped with T-72s.
2. Arrangement of the reactive armour bricks and smoke mortars appears identical to the Georgian T-72 pictured in Image:T72 Georgia.jpg; notice the empty space for the missing main searchlight on the tank's right side of the main gun (T-64 usually has the searchlight on the left).
3. Tanks to the left and right appear to have the larger T-72 road wheels.
4. Tank at image left might have T-72-style side exhaust port—the picture is not clear.
5. Commander's hatch is rotated forward, but there is no AA machine gun visible, although the main gun is blocking part of the view. The MG is either (T-72) facing the back or removed, or (T-64) removed with its ammunition box, and the mount is hidden by the tank gun.
6. Bottom line of the turret on either side of the main gun looks like the T-72's "dolly parton" armour, but I'm not sure what the T-64's looks like here.

Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 06:29 Z

Update: I just deconstructed that image's URL, and found that the same user posted two more photos to that web site. [15] [16] These appear to be the same tank, and are clearly T-72s judging from the road wheels and commander's machine gun.

[edit] Template_talk:Languageicon

I have just discovered that if you try to prefix your sig with an em dash while the lights are low you get something even better. (Possibly since 1984, but I couldn’t possibly verify it) ±Ian Spackman 18:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DYK: T-18

On July 9, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article T-18 tank, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Mgm|^(talk) 20:50, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misleading edit summaries, in bulk

I notice you're making a large number of edits where you delete a category from an article, but you enter a misleading edit summary saying "clean up"[17], or "fixing double category"[18]. What's up here? —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 13:19 Z

Really, I'd like an explanation before you continue[19] what appears to be sneaking a massive number of changes. How was this a double category? —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 13:33 Z

• Hi Michael. I was removing the Microbrewery cat which has been replaced by the Beer and breweries cat. It was a consensus decision [20] made formal by CFD on Apr 4 to recategorise the brewery cats by region. However, at the time the Beer and breweries cat changes took place - conducted largely by User:Syrcatbot, the Microbrewery cat was left behind, creating a double brewery cat. I have closed down the Microbrewery cat and removed the Microbrewery cat tag from the thirty or so breweries affected. Thanks for your concern. SilkTork 17:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[moving discussion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Beer#Removing category:Microbreweries —MZ]

I am just starting to look into the last time somebody used the Microbrewery tag. The first one I look into is the Fort Garry and I notice that you reverted the edit I made with AWB because the comment: "clean up with AWB" is not clear. That is not my comment - that is the comment that AWB leaves. I had put the phrase "Fixing double brewery category" into the software, but it told me that such user-defined phrases could only be left on Talk pages, and I was not editing talk pages. I can see now where you got the feeling that I was concealing something. When I was doing the work manually I did leave a clearer statement. The phrase "Fixing double brewery categories" was, I hoped, clear enough. The breweries had two brewery categories - and I was removing the category that should have been removed at the time of the Great Beer Recategorisation. The breweries I was dealing with had two brewery categories (the "double" of my phrase). The brewery category which placed the brewery into the agreed categorisation scheme, and the microbrewery category which was redundant and unused, containing a handful of the total number of breweries on Wikipedia. I have I believe acted in good faith during this operation. Your frustration was no doubt compelled by my not noticing you had reverted my earlier edit. That was as a result of my working through what I found in the Microbrewery category. When I finished with AWB I checked and saw that some articles had been left. This sometimes happens. I proceeded to deal with them manually. I didn't realise that they were there as a result of a revert. Your frustration was no doubt then compounded by my failure to respond to your message. That, as I mentioned earlier, was the result of me finishing that work and logging off. I can certainly see how you started to get the idea that I was doing something sneaky. I think we have got off on the wrong foot on this debate. I can see how my earlier actions as described would have annoyed and frustrated you. That frustration came over in the tone of your comments. And I have been less than happy with that tone, as I have pointed out. I note that you have been around Wiki for a while, and that you were voted in as an admin last year. You are clearly someone who understands the processes and procedures. I sincerely apologise that my actions caused you concern. I hope we can proceed amicably on this issue and debate the issue not the perceived personality or implied behaviour. SilkTork 08:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you weren't able to enter an accurate edit summary using your AWB software. Maybe try filling in the field marked "Summary" next time. You are responsible for entering an edit summary which summarizes your edit. I suggest you use the software with more discretion, or stick to manual edits if you can't do that, and in the meantime restore the microbrewery category until there is demonstrated consensus to remove it.

Sorry you don't like my tone. I don't like your making a massive change against consensus, and then refusing to set it back. —Michael Z. 2006-07-11 15:23 Z

[edit] Objection to tone

Hi Michael. I'm always happy to have open debate and discussion about all aspects of Wikipedia, including my own actions. I do, however, feel that the tone of such discussions should assume good faith. In the few, brief comments you have made about me so far I take particular exception to phrases such as "the user won't respond to my talk" and "SilkTork's apparent dishonesty". I responded as soon as I recieved your message. And I have not been dishonest. I did not feel the cat - which was largely unused, left behind during several major beer cat changes, and which is misleading and pointless - would be the cause of any debate as it seemed to me that it had been part of the discussion at the time of the cat discussion I pointed out to you. I have not tried to hide my actions. I assume these comments are slips of the keyboard. I hope there will be no more slips of the keyboard in future debate. SilkTork 20:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I make no apologies for the statements I've written. I hope you'll restore the category back to the consensus version of all the microbrewery articles. —Michael Z. 2006-07-10 21:20 Z

[edit] T-34/57

"Nowa Technika Wojskowa" (New Military Equipment) 11/04 "Nieznany T-34" ([The] Unknown T-34) by Tomasz Wachowski pg.53 ISSN 1230-1655 From July until 1 December 1941 there were 133 (or 131) ZIS-4 cannons made in the factory nr 92 in Gorky, the nr of them mounted on T-34 is unknown but one factory 112 Krasnoye Sormorowo in Gorky was supposed to produce a 100 tanks by the end of the year. After October of 1943 191 (172 in 1943 and 19 1944) ZIS-4M cannons for were produced for T-34 and KV-1s tanks and sent to the factory nr 183, again the nr of the tanks produced is unknown but they were probbaly less than the nr of cannons because some of them were meant to be mounted on SU-76 chasis. The T-34/57 used among others a purpose built round (2800 produced) the BR-271M with a muzzle velocity 1010 m/s the round weighted 2,8 kg (with an additionall propellent charge), but the round could damege the cannon with the high pressure it created. This is the summary of this article I have an archive of the "Nowa Technika Wojskowa". 191 + 133= max 324 were built and they probably did not take part in the "Kursk Battle" but 10 T-34/57 from the 21. Armoured Brigade defended Moscow from 14 october untill around 25 november 1941 (when none of them were mentioned on the Brigade's vehicles list). The production was ceased since the T-34/85's cannon had only slightly inferior AT capability with a significantly better anti-personel effectivness. Mieciu K 15:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I'll add the citation to the article, and perhaps eventually summarize the T-34/57 info in T-34 variants or maybe even a short article on the T-34/57 (or is that correctly T-34-57?). But of course, feel free to start on that yourself. Regards. —Michael Z. 2006-07-12 17:54 Z

In this article it written that the "T-34-57" tank was mentioned on the soviet army's list of equipment in 1944, so perhaps that was the official name. Additional info - the decission to produce 400 ZIS-4 cannons and install then on T-34 tanks was undertaken on 5 may 1941 by the Council of People's Komissars of the USSR and the Central Comitee of the Communist Party in a decree nr. 1216-502ss. If you start the T-24-57 article let me know. Regards Mieciu K 18:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Beer & brewery notability criteria discusion document

A discussion document has been opened up. Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Notability Criteria. Please put in your views either on the main page or on the attached talk page. SilkTork 16:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'll have a look. —Michael Z. 2006-07-12 17:55 Z

[edit] Ukrainian hryvnia

Thank you for giving such detail explaination to the plural construction. Do you think you can do the same for Russian and Belarusian ruble? --Chochopk 07:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid not: I don't know either of those languages. But if you post a note at portal talk:Russia and portal talk:Belarus, you should have no trouble finding someone who can fill in the same kind of information for those articles. —Michael Z. 2006-07-17 16:13 Z

[edit] Help with translit

Hello again, I was wondering if you could help transliterate of the Ukrainian title of the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village with me. Proshu duzhe! Kevlar67 08:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. —Michael Z. 2006-07-19 13:58 Z

Thanks much.Kevlar67 02:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brewery poll

Your vote/opinion on brewery notability is requested here: [21] SilkTork 11:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gun accuracy of T-72

Why have you restored completely false statement at t-72 tank page "The main gun of the T-72 has a mean error of one metre at a range"? I've explained in talk page that Yugoslav copy of the T-72 (named M-84) in the test show in Pakistan has placed 6 rounds (100% accuracy) in the same target hole, disipation was about 15 cm, and tank was moving while firing and distance was 1500-2000 meters. Pakistan was planing to by yugoslav M-84 at the begining of '90. but civil war ain former Yugoslavia prevented this.

You asked for citation? This is from yugoslav sources. It is in serbo-croatian language and do you know serbo-croatian? Anyway where is the citation for the first statement? Do you realize that even t-55 gun had less disipation at 1800 meter than 1 meter?!?!?!?! On accuracy more influce has fire control system than gun it self.

Yugoslav copy of t-72 while moving can hit a target of half square meter at 2km with no problem at all from the first shot. This is a fact. (Providing that barrell was tempered, meaning it was fired before)

Second, in article was stated that 120mm gun is more powerfull than 125 mmm gun.. it is nonsense... with ammunition (only HE shell) from the same manufacturer 125mm gun is better simply because round is reasonably heavier (23 kg VS 19 kg) thus could inflict more damage. Muzzle speed of the both guns are similar so conclusion is that heavier round have the edge. When using KE shell only better ammunition would give the edge. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.110.194.10 (talk • contribs) .

[replied at talk:T-72#Gun precision —MZ]

[edit] Allow me

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		For helping me with the copyedit of Aleksandr Vasilevsky, this RAK Star for you! :)

Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 23:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Glad to help out a little bit. —Michael Z. 2006-07-21 23:31 Z

[edit] Redirects for deletion

Hi, for next time you want to nominate a redirect for deletion, please don't use an AfD tag, but the RfD tag, see Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion. Kind regards, --JoanneB 18:32, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Military history WikiProject Newsletter - Issue V - July 2006

The July 2006 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

This is an automated delivery by grafikbot.

[edit] Gepard

Yes, I suppose the title should be changed to singular, but the accent is not needed. Thanks for the input. Shoe1127 01:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Budd Metropolitan

Being the person who authored the article, I must draw objection to your renaming the article. Unlike similar series, the proper name of the car class is the Metropolitans as it was a branding name for a class. A singular car is known under its class name of (M1, M3) by not only staff, but even riders as well. As it is, the branding names have fallen out of favor given it has been three decades since their original manufacture and two decades since Budd left railroad manufacture.

Given that the renamed article gives what technically is an incorrect name, I ask that it be moved back to the article Budd Metropolitans given the fact that the original article is the correct name. Scrabbleship 02:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[replied at talk:Budd Metropolitan#Plural title —MZ]

After all of this hoo-hah and additional research, I've come to a solution regarding the matter. Since the falling name nowadays is largely unknown and both riders and staff know the cars by their classes, I would like to move Budd Metropolitan to M1/M3 (railcar) given that said convention would follow in what the riding public actually knows versus what was sold of the original models to the thirty-five years earlier. To follow this move, the Budd Cosmopolitans article would be split up into M2 (railcar) and M4/M6 (railcar). I would like your take on this before I do such a move. Thanks for any input! Scrabbleship 00:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] T-90 and T-84

Hello Mzajac. Well, I agree that adding the FAS remark on T-90's armour was not a very wise idea. To be frank, I misread their remark. I was thinking about removing the sentence myself but never got the time. What amazes me is your this edit. First, I am not very happy with the sentence. 27-28 hp/tonne (the article says 25hp/t) is great, but high horse-power doesn't necessarily mean high speed in a war-zone. In a battlefield, one seldom finds a paved road. The speed of a tank varies greatly with the terrain. Second, I always thought that Leclerc and Chinese Type-99 were among the fastest tanks in the world by far and when I noticed that T-84 has max speed of 70 km/h compared to Type-99's 80 km/h, I concluded that the sentence was another "rah-rah". But instead of removing the sentence, I just added {{fact}}. All I had asked for is a source for the claim. It is because of these lack of sources and inaccuracy (the wiki article says T-84 has 70km/h whereas according to FAS, T-84's speed exceeds 85km/h) that Wikipedia is considered as an unreliable source. In my eyes, inaccurate statements and lack of sources do more harm to Wikipedia's reputation that a little rah-rah. Well, you are an administrator, so I guess you should be knowing better. Cheers --Incman|वार्ता 11:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The FAS remark isn't wrong, but it just didn't seem very significant. All new MBTs are built to be competitive with the best in the world when they are first released, and all of their armour ratings are secret. The FAS statement just sounds like marketing by the manufacturer, or a guess by a fan of Russian armour. The T-90 doesn't have a reputation as notably better armoured than any other MBT, so I thought this statement in the introduction was misplaced.

Power-to-weight ratio (not just horsepower) is a better gauge of cross-country performance than top speed is. Top speed is how fast a tank can go on a smooth road. Top cross-country speed is sometimes published, but the figure is essentially meaningless, because every kilometre of country is different, and there are no standards on how to measure it. Power-to-weight ratio is an indicator of how quickly a vehicle can get up to speed and how well it can challenge a slope.

I've also read (can't remember where), that the Russian army was disappointed that the T-90, an 840-hp T-72 derivative was chosen over the T-80, because of its much lower mobility. As far as I know, Russian T-90s in service don't have the 1,000-hp engine of the Indian T-90S.

All published sources I've seen have quoted 26 or 27 hp/tonne for the T-84. The calculated value from the power and weight given in the article is 25, so I entered the lower value to deflect criticism. I guess you can't win. I don't remember what was the source for the T-84's specs, but you can adjust them and cite a source if you want to choose a good one.

The other measure of mobility over soft ground is ground pressure, but these figures are hard to find, vary due to changing track on a model, and it was decided at template talk:AFV not to include it in the infobox. Of course it can still be stated in the article, if a good source is found.

When it comes down to it, the T-90 doesn't have any outstanding features: it's just the latest, best-protected version of the T-72, with up-to-date electronics and fire-control; and the Indian version is the latest of the latest. The T-84 is quite similar in many respects, but thanks to its Malyshev power plant, it is one of the tanks with the highest mobility in the world, measured by p:w ratio. The latest version in service, the Oplot, is also unique in being the only Soviet-legacy tank in service with a modern-style turret incorporating separated ammunition storage. —Michael Z. 2006-07-24 15:29 Z

[edit] Battle of the Dnieper

Hi, I noticed you created this redirect earlier today. Would you mind moving the contents & history of Battle of the Lower Dnieper to Battle of the Dnieper and redirecting it to Battle of the Dnieper. This is a move that was agreed on long ago, but was set aside while disputes unrelated to the name were resolved (see Talk:Battle of the Lower Dnieper#My old edit and proposed move). Thanks, heqs 15:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks like you got it sorted out. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-07-28 15:53 Z

[edit] Languages

Hi There! Can you translate my name in what language you know please, and then post it Here. I would be very grateful if you do (if you know another language apart from English and the ones on my userpage please feel free to post it on) P.S. all th translations are in alpahbetical order so when you add one please put it in alpahbetical order according to the language. Thanks!!! Abdullah Geelah 16:00, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Katyusha

< :( <-- sad face

FishHeadAbcd 17:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes

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+ [districts]
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+ [communes]

• 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 Wikipedia articles (such as wilayah) are currently linked, I was thinking of linking each and every one to the Wikipedia 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)

[edit] Ball-bearings

How do you know so much about about Katyusha rockets and such? Cheers, Tewfik^Talk 19:23, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Just stuff I read about, sometimes. I was planning an expansion of the Katyusha article as all of this broke in the news. I occasionally look over the articles about the current events in Israel and Lebanon to make sure there aren't any blatant technical mistakes (for example, copying the media's use of the solecism "Katyusha missile" when referring to an unguided artillery rocket).

I just thought I'd throw in my two cents about the weapons, but I'm intent on staying out of any political arguments. —Michael Z. 2006-08-09 20:26 Z

[edit] Template:fact

Just a note to let you know I have proposed some changes to WP:Cite that have some impact on Template:fact, and I have used some of your suggestions in my proposal. Thanks for all your constructive input to the template:fact talk page! dryguy 22:23, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Nice try. I just don't get why everyone loves the fact template so much. The more I look at it, the more I see that everything about it is wrong.

It looks like to change it, its assumptions must be stated unequivocally on the template page or in the guideline. I see many editors defending it, with completely incompatible assumptions (It must be this ugly! It is wonderfully unobtrusive! It exists to point out dubious facts! It must not be used to point out dubious facts! etc). —Michael Z. 2006-08-10 05:37 Z

I agree completely. How did you obtain the growth rate data for Template:fact? Is that something anyone can access, or does it require admin status? dryguy 17:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a bit of a pain in the butt. Go to the template's what links here page, view by 500 per page, then click "next 500" and count the pages. I calculated the rate by comparing with the last time I counted (I complain on the template's talk page at regular intervals). —Michael Z. 2006-08-12 17:52 Z

I was afraid that might be your answer. Thanks! dryguy 19:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyedit request

Hi Michael, when you have time, and this is not at all urgent, could you improve the English in Olimpiysky Sport Complex. Take your time, though. The article is rather obscure and has been in a non-native speakers written form for months and can easily live longer as it is. Cheers, --Irpen 06:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. I'll try to remember to read it through with fresh eyes in a couple of days. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-08-11 04:32 Z

Thanks a lot! Here is another one. --Irpen 22:55, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nice clean up

Nice clean up on Odessa thanks! Travb (talk) 18:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

It was no trouble at all. —Michael Z. 2006-08-11 04:31 Z

[edit] I'm seeking copyedit help once again...

Hi,

Sorry to abuse your kindness, but can you please take a few minutes to copyedit the Battle of Moscow article??? According to Kirill's review, there are grammar problems but no significant style problems, so it can't be as bad as the previous nom... :)

Thanks in advance,

Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:54, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Might be a day or two, but I'll have a look. —Michael Z. 2006-08-11 04:33 Z

[edit] Military history WikiProject coordinator election - vote phase!

The Military history WikiProject coordinator election has begun. We will select seven coordinators to serve for the next six months from a pool of eleven candidates. Please vote here by August 26!

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[edit] Naming_conventions_(city_names)#WP:RM -> settlements

Hi Michael, maybe you are interested in Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(city_names)#WP:RM Tobias Conradi (Talk) 12:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA template/class

I see you reverted my addition of IPA template to Pronunciation respelling for English on the basis that class=IPA covered it. I can only tell you that with my vanilla MSIE6.0 browser, the template worked and the class doesn't. Who can I complain to about fixing the class? jnestorius^(talk) 20:13, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Betterfact

Template:Betterfact has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. dryguy 21:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inline audio link pop-ups

As you're one of the people who commented about formatting/clutter on the {{audio}} template, I'm wondering what you think of my proposal for a javascript popup instead. I fixed the "clicking on the icon goes to the image page" problem a while ago, but there is still the "overloaded interface"/"too many click targets" problem, and I'm proposing we use javascript to hide the extra links until you hover over it. You can try out the mock-up yourself by adding this to your User:Mzajac/monobook.js:

document.write('<scr' + 'ipt type="text/javascript" src="' 
             + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Omegatron/monobook.js/audiopops.js'
             + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></scr' 
             + 'ipt>');

This would be a site-wide change, so everyone would see it, and it safely falls back to the current design with several links on browsers without javascript. I would be happy with any kind of support, suggestions, or criticism; right now I feel like I'm talking to a wall. — Omegatron 18:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Military history WikiProject Newsletter - Issue VI - August 2006

The August 2006 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

This is an automated delivery by grafikbot -- 12:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Standard date and time format in signatures

"I would really like to know how to show the day padded with zeros, so that, e.g., the third of the month renders as 03." --Michael Z., 2005-10-17.

Michael: Per my requests for two years, the wikipedia system programmers have finally fixed two of the date and time bugs in their software, such that the standard day of month format now appears in a variable named {{CURRENTDAY2}}, and the extraneous seconds (if ISO date format is selected in your preferences) have now been removed from {{CURRENTTIME}}.

Therefore, you can now use the following to obtain a signature string using the standard ISO 8601 date format. Go into your Preferences, turn the Raw signatures checkbox on, enter the following string into the Nickname field, and press Save.

--[[user talk:username|Username]], {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}-{{subst:CURRENTMONTH}}-{{subst:CURRENTDAY2}},&nbsp;{{subst:CURRENTTIME}}&nbsp;Z

Then, to use this, enter three tildes (~~~) in your text, instead of the usual four (or five) tildes. --Simian, 2006-08-28, 15:43 Z

I finally got around to this. It works! Thanks very much for the note. —Michael Z. 2006-09-08 05:27 Z