User talk:Agamemenon

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Sincerely,

RMaung (WMF) 14:29, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

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Sincerely,

RMaung (WMF) 19:11, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

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Hi Agamemenon,

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Sincerely,

RMaung (WMF) 17:02, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

We sent you an e-mail

Hello Agamemenon,

Really sorry for the inconvenience. This is a gentle note to request that you check your email. We sent you a message titled "The Community Insights survey is coming!". If you have questions, email surveys@wikimedia.org.

You can see my explanation here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:48, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

chunom.org

Yeah I don't trust this site. I highly recommend using this instead, since it's pretty much the only one that shows the contexts and actual attestations, plus with this, you can actually tell which characters and usages were popular; with other dictionaries, even if a character/usage is actually attested only once (or none at all, which I suspect with some), they can be positioned in a way that can mislead people to think they were popular. PhanAnh123 (talk) 02:52, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing the link - the nomfoundation database definitely seems to have more solid footing than chunom.org, especially with the attestations (very nice and useful!), so I'll be referring to nomfoundation from this point forward. Agamemenon (talk) 06:58, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Don't use Nôm Lookup Tool by the way, it's sourced from other works, which can contain some character that I really suspect to be ghosts. I used to make the same mistake of using simple search tools like this when I knew less about Nôm characters. PhanAnh123 (talk) 11:21, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up! "Tự Điển Chữ Nôm Dẫn Giải" is the one to use then, I would assume? Agamemenon (talk) 01:25, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

PIE reconstructions

Agamemenon, if you add PIE reconstructions, you need to cite them the best you can. We have a many good source materials templatized. Thanks. --{{victar|talk}} 09:42, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Duplication

This is a bad idea. When a Proto-Iranian or a modern Persian entry exists, the further Iranian etymology should be kept there, not at the Armenian borrowing's page, otherwise we will have duplication, then desynchronization and then contradiction. We don't discuss the origin of Tetragrammaton in the entry Johnson. Likewise, you should discuss the PIE origin of Iranian terms at Iranian pages as much as possible. Vahag (talk) 08:17, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Gotcha, thanks for the heads up. Do you have any links to articles on how Wiktionary is structured, in regards to the "duplication, then desynchronization and then contradiction" part? Would be helpful to have. Agamemenon (talk) 08:23, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

There is no formal policy. We use common sense and experience. Vahag (talk) 10:00, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Armenian etymologies

You are making the same mistake I made when I started editing Wiktionary: uncritically adding Armenian etymologies from the most accessible source (HAB for me, Olsen 1999, Martirosyan 2010 and Jahukyan 2010 for you). Armenian etymology is very difficult. The sources are unreliable, especially {{R:xcl:HSB}} which is a badly edited version of Jahukyan's unfinished and already outdated work.

Each proposal must be evaluated with a good knowledge of Armenian historical phonology and philology. If you don't have this knowledge yet, I have to discourage you from adding Armenian etymologies for now. Vahag (talk) 09:19, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

OK, thanks for letting me know. I didn't realize that the current literature on Armenian etymology is so "work in progress"-like, and assumed that the etymological dictionaries were well-researched and thought-out enough to be valid references. I like getting to the roots of words and having a clear, complete vision of a language; many historical linguists probably feel the same way, which is what draws them to the field in the first place.

It might be helpful for WIktionary to have appendix entries or such that explain the "meta status" of its templated references, plus caveats on citing them. Appendices for sound laws with relevant examples, textbook-style, could also be of use; Wikipedia pages for the sound laws and changes exist, but lack examples and may not be up-to-date with current research. Armenian etymology is hard, as you say, so it is telling that no Armenian-specific sound laws are listed on the Wikipedia page for the IE sound laws (Adjarian's law has a page but isn't listed on the general page). Agamemenon (talk) 10:00, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

"Wikipedia pages for the sound laws and changes exist, but lack examples" -scratch that, individual sound law pages do come with explanations and examples Agamemenon (talk) 10:01, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

All those things should be done, but we don't have the manpower and knowledge. Martirosyan is writing a monograph on historical Armenian phonology since 2016. If the best current Armenian linguist can't finish the job, what do you expect from simple volunteers? Vahag (talk) 11:14, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Dictionaries, by their mere literary-genre, are of superficial research and gappy coverage, though they be valid references. Like a novella it only touches the most pressing cornerstones of what supposedly happened, by a repetitive more than morally sound scheme. One writes something because one has to, having reached a graphic sequence. Especially if there is a research grant or tenure for the purpose – namefaggotry attracts ambition that even employs ghost writers to impress. For كرزية “Corriente” (or as I sometimes say: Team Corriente) in three references provided three unconnected etymologies, of which I found only the second comprehensible; even the “conventional” etymology of Berlin our local schizos even had to admit to be unsubstantiated by Slavic language materials. Toponyms are the most terrifying, yet at the same time there is the greatest endurance to fill their etymologies, with even frailer data, to propagate the regional gemeinschaft. Which supervisory authority has the capacities to notice that during one’s whole academic carreer one writes always the same thing, or argues against oneself? There is quite an advantage for an internet resource in that one only needs to write when one is independently motivated, and informed, to lay bare the actual story. This is why Vahagn and me have reasonable grounds to boast higher accuracy. And sometimes revert additions if someone was faster motivated. Fay Freak (talk) 12:20, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Good points, @Fay Freak and @Vahagn Petrosyan. It's an unfortunate result of the "publish or perish" culture, which pays no heed to the required scope of a research topic, that's so prevalent in academia - and it shows no signs of changing for the better. Agamemenon (talk) 09:20, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Cheung does not list ուրախ (urax) or Middle Persian urwāhman⁠ under that root. Did you perhaps use some other source? Vahag (talk) 09:24, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

That was my guess based on the semantic and phonetic similarities of urwāhman and urwāhmīh to the "rejoice" roots listed in Cheung under *uarHz⁠. If the evidence seems too tenuous, it can be removed. Agamemenon (talk) 09:39, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

No prefix *հրաժ- (*hraž-) exists in Armenian. You have abstracted it away from the wholly borrowed terms հրաժարեմ (hražarem) and հրաժեշտ (hražešt). I am going to delete it, sorry. Vahag (talk) 09:42, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. How should "հրաժ" be dealt with then? Explanations on each of the relevant pages? Agamemenon (talk) 09:44, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

In the etymology sections of հրաժարեմ (hražarem) and հրաժեշտ (hražešt). Vahag (talk) 09:47, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

It appears that in հրաժեշտ (hražešt) you engaged in original research. None of the sources you cited derive the Armenian from the Iranian root *zaH- "to leave behind". How do you get -ժեշտ (-žešt) and -ժար- (-žar-) from that root? Vahag (talk) 11:08, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Acarean and Jahukyan seem to treat հրաժ as separable from -եշտ and -ար-. Thus, I analyzed հրաժ as such - and Proto-Iranian *zaH seemed the closest match to the ժ, semantically and phonetically. The -եշտ and -ար- are thus out of the question (hence "the first part is from") for analyzing just հրաժ, unless A&J weren't right in treating հրաժ as separate. There is also the chance that the ժ isn't from *zaH in which case the etymology needs to be revised. Agamemenon (talk) 11:30, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

You are too bold with etymologies. Please don't do original research until you are more experienced. I started contributing original etyomologies to Wiktionary after 10 years of contributions here. Vahag (talk) 11:46, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Inline sources

Agamemenon, always use inline sources were you can. I've had to revert you for converting inline sources to plain lists. Please don't do that. Thanks. --{{victar|talk}} 07:35, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Reminding you of this again to please use inline sources instead of just adding them manually to the bottom of the page. --{{victar|talk}} 12:28, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Templates {{der}} and {{inh}}

Please familiarize yourself with when to use {{der}} and {{inh}} on their respective documentation pages. PG *frōwaz is derived from PIE *proh₁-, not inherited, because the structure from the two has been altered. --{{victar|talk}} 12:27, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification and links - wasn't sure what the difference between the two was. Agamemenon (talk) 22:43, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Hey, Agamemenon, I noticed you made a mistake in using {{inh}} here. Otherwise, you're going as great job adding sources. I pinged you on a few edits though. --{{victar|talk}} 05:47, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Hey Victar, thanks for the catches! Oof, that reversed cat was my bad there. Glad that you appreciate everything getting sourced - it's kind of crazy how under-sourced the Proto-Germanic entries are compared to the Proto-(other IE branch) entries, and consequently how sus some of the unsourced entries (for some pretty common words) were, lol. Agamemenon (talk) 07:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Welsh etymologies

If you're going to add etymologies to Welsh entries, can you be more careful please? I've had to correct some of your edits, such as gorfod - it's not derived from gorfyddaf, gorfyddaf is the first person singular non-past form of the verb (Literary Welsh) or first person singular future (Colloquial Welsh). Which the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru uses as a citation form instead of the verbal noun like we do here.

Cheers, Arafsymudwr (talk) 16:19, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Sure thing - thanks for pointing out that GPC doesn't use the verbal noun as the citation form. The way the dictionary's structured can get a bit terse and confusing! I'll put in more due diligence on my part.

Cheers to you as well, Agamemenon (talk) 02:15, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

No worries. Btw the GPC is not necessarily the final word in Welsh etymology - so if the GPC says an etymology is unknown it's worth leaving a {{rfe|cy}} on it. That way it can appear in the etymology request category for someone with access to Matasovic and other sources. Arafsymudwr (talk) 20:30, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Yea definitely, I've certainly noticed that with a lot of the GPC entries. I always do a double-triple check and cross reference with Matasovic + do a Google search for literature whenever a word isn't given an etymology, and if I can't find anything, I leave a {{rfe|cy}} to indicate its unresolvedness. Agamemenon (talk) 00:30, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

1100 kanji?

That's only about half of Joyo Kanji in Japanese. And with Chinese if you know 3000 hanzi you can understand around 80-90%. They're both tough languages. 178.120.14.106 19:32, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Ye bruh MB, my original estimate was off. In reality you only need 43.3 hanji to read Japanese, and more like 682761 for Chinese (add another 935218 for dialects, bless dem brave souls who endeavor on that task) Agamemenon (talk) 02:51, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah I see now that you were joking. Completely missed the joke since there was no /s. ha ha ha.

Hey for dialects you don't need to learn them tho. They don't write them out anyways! 178.120.14.106 16:00, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

RFE and Etymologies

@Agamemenon Hello! I think you misunderstand the rfe template. Yes, adding etymology templates is a standard in entry layouts but it doesn't mean every word that has missing etymologies should have one. Having an etymology header with an rfe template alone or no etymology header, or even an etymology header that I write "Unknown." or "No etymology found so far." tells the same thing that nobody bothered to fill out the etymology or nobody knows one. (Of course every word has an etymology and must have sprouted somewhere, just nobody knows it for now) All the entry layout says is that the etymology should included before everything else (pronunciation, definitions, etc.) or if the word don't seem to point to only one etymology, best include numbered etymologies.

Please see Wiktionary:Etymology.

Other useful templates are {{rfe}}, and {{etystub}}, for flagging stubs or disputes. As many entries lack etymology, this is most useful if there is a partial etymology; including it for all entries lacking etymology would be distracting.

I suggest that only include it if there is something online that you saw and would like us people to verify if there really is one, or that something can maybe lead somewhere to discovering the etymology in the future. If it really it was standard, Wiktionary admins could've created a bot already to fill pages with no Etymology headers to have Etymology header with rfe template already. Thanks. Ysrael214 (talk) 04:34, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for the response, I see where you're coming from. FWIW, there seems to be no standard way to handle disputed or unclear/unsolved etymologies on Wiktionary entries, in practice at least. Most users prefer to leave an {{rfe}}, some prefer to write "Unknown/uncertain origin" (and perhaps link inline references), while some simply omit the Etymology header entirely.

I will say that I am not a fan of the last approach, because just as you said, it indicates either a certain lack of diligence and/or knowledge about the language being edited, or unknown-ness at the time of edit. The other two options seem far more preferable to me, because they at least indicate that the etymology progress is at a certain development point. By omitting the header, it's a lot less clear. Maybe the etymology is already known and just needs to be added (like with lapit, tingting, etc.) - or maybe no attempts have been made to trace it further back. Without any sort of indication, it isn't clear, and if one were to forget the words etymology or lack thereof and revisit the page, one would have to re-waste significant amounts of time just to confirm that the words etymology is, in fact, still unknown.

Adding {{rfe}} or "unknown" clears up all that trouble in a straightforward and efficient manner. Adding "Unknown", in particular, gives a certification that linguists have yet to find a suitable explanation for the term in the literature at a given point in time, clearing up a lot of entropic etymology cruft. This is the biggest advantage of adding {{rfe}} or "unknown" over omitting the etymology header - that former "can't be bothered" possibility mentioned above is eliminated.

In addition, adding {{rfe}} to an entry adds it to a category of words whose etymologies are effectively unsolved - this is of great help, as it collects all the unsolved words into one clean list and serves to narrow the focus of linguists and enthusiasts looking to solve the more mysterious etymologies. Other fields do this as well, such as the Millennium Prize for difficult unsolved math problems.

Perhaps a compromise solution would be to include the Etymology header and put nothing after it - as is done with certain Latin entries. This provides a bit more of a hint that the etymology is unsolved, but without populating the {{rfe}}category list, for those concerned about the category page becoming too long or bloated, or the entry page looking less aesthetic. Agamemenon (talk) 02:49, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Lithuanian adjective accent markers

In future, use "head=" only for nouns and verbs. Adjectives use "m=", like in my most recent edit on ypatus. You can also add the "f=" and "n=" forms, but I guess it's not relevant to the base form accent markers. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 14:08, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Etymologies

Agamemenon, breaking alternative etymologies into bullets can be helpful, but citing each an inline reference at the end will suffice, you don't need to name the source in front of each etymology as well, as you did here. --{{victar|talk}} 20:35, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, Victar. FWIW, I'm mostly going by the model chosen de facto by Slavic editors for Proto-Slavic pages, like for *buga and *krękъ. Agamemenon (talk) 20:51, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I've mentioned it to the author of those articles too, but I don't think they're very active anymore. --{{victar|talk}} 20:54, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

HALS

To prove that this lexeme meaning 'sea' has the same etymology, there needs to be some record that this form did not exist before its main meaning 'salt'; or else, the two identical forms could have diverse etymologies. 18:22, 18 July 2024 Andrew H. Gray 17:23, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Ancient Greek pronunciations

When adding {{grc-IPA}} to Ancient Greek entries, please be sure to add a parameter marking α ι υ as long or short (outside of diphthongs). Thanks! —Mahāgaja · talk 09:19, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Your nice Greek

Congratulations, M @Agamemenon for editing so many Greek lemmata. Ancient, but also, to my surprise, Modern too, a period studied by less editors. I do Modern and Medieval Greek, and I would have liked to help a bit more, but unfortunately I am sick at the moment. Sorry that I had to correct some of your edits without a message, here, at your Talkpage. I can see that you are getting better and better, more familiarised with {{R:DSMG}} where etymologies are presented with less words and more symbols. I promise, if my health improves, to add your pronunciation requests. At the moment, i have difficulty typing. If interested, some notes and pdf links: User:Sarri.greek/ref#notes. I see that you like to write morphologies of ancient words at the modern section with nocat=1 Consider moving them at their own section perhaps? Some of them are also done as surface analysis +Modern categories. No Categories for inflectional endings though, like -ος, -ώνω, -α and so on (inflectional templates cover those large categories). Yes for -ικός, -ίτης that is, for 'productive endings'. When unsure, do not write (the less we write, the less mistakes). ありがとう for your good work, and excuse some of my abrupt interventions. ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ I 03:30, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Ευχαριστώ πολύ για τους σύνδεσμους, @Sarri.greek♫ - big help for deciphering some of the DSMG etymologies + the entire Greek K-12 curriculum is excellent learning material! I put down surface analyses + morphologies in entry etymologies whenever the last-linked word doesn't have an entry - the point of etymology is to be able to drill down to the most basic roots, so you can see where the word ultimately comes from. That makes etymology the most useful to students of the language + historical linguistics enthusiasts. Thus, they should not be moved to other sections - and it seems that most languages on Wiktionary follow this heuristic de facto.

Thanks also for planning to get to filling out pronunciations - though those aren't high priority TBH. The reason is that it is probably best to make an el-IPA module (if it doesn't exist yet) that automatically handles pronunciations - written Modern Greek is phonetic enough that this is possible, and in fact, the "Byzantine" pronunciation in the grc-IPA module might be identical. This will save a metric ton of work down the road.

Also, no need to ping me for every correction you make. Pinging disrupts workflow, and we'd be here all day if everyone pinged everyone for everything! Thank you again. Agamemenon (talk) 20:40, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Medieval Greek

About your comment for my 'Medieval Greek' cf request for renaming 'Byzantine' and split from 'Ancient'. Thank you. ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ I 19:41, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to the discussion - I read through it, and boy is it hairy! I do think that "Medieval" is an etymologically more apt and clear descriptor than "Byzantine", and it seems the majority of editors agree. Unfortunately, as a volunteer project, change on Wiktionary tends to be very slow, but it is what it is. Agamemenon (talk) 20:01, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Lithuanian

Please do not create dozens of Lithuanian entries without references and full of pronunciation and inflection requests, if you cannot do even the basics in Lithuanian, then you should rethink about continuing to "contribute" to the language Anatolijs LTV (talk) 01:13, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Hey there. As Wiktionary is a volunteer project, users are encouraged to contribute to entries, even if not everything is filled out at first glance - if everything has to be 100% perfect from the beginning, then there is no reason for request templates to exist. The Baltic languages, as you know, are barely studied outside their native countries, and English info on them is rather limited. I edit and create entries in order to facilitate my and others' learning of various languages, including Lithuanian.

My primary focus on Wiktionary is on understanding the etymologies of the languages that I learn, and I have done my due diligence in expanding + filling out current research in Lithuanian etymologies on Wiktionary, which have been very lacking to non-existent. I also prefer to fill out words as I encounter them in my studies and textbooks - the further one gets in a textbook, the better intuitive understanding of a language's grammar one develops.

Thus, if you looked further, you would have noticed that many of my inflection requests were at the beginning of my Lithuanian studies (and edits), and that my later entries such as kaktà are mostly filled out, etymology, definition, declension, and references. Once I get more comfortable with verbs and their Wiktionary templates, I'll fill those out too, and if anyone else wants to fill them out, they are more than welcome to do so.

Regarding pronunciations, Lithuanian pronunciation is very regular as long as you have knowledge of the accents - that's why online dictionaries like LKZ always mark them. Thus, it is far more efficient down the road to make a "lt-IPA" module and then simply copy-paste that module into every entry with a request template. That's one good feature about requests - you know which pages need a certain section (like pronunciation) to be filled out.

I would also appreciate if you spoke in a more cordial tone - you seem to not care for etymologies, as you wouldn't write to me like this if you did. I note a double standard where you sweet-talked the other frequent Lithuanian contributor @Insaneguy1083, complete with smiley emoticons, for contributing what you seem to personally value more (pronunciation and inflections), despite him rarely if ever filling out etymologies, while insulting my (earlier) contributions for not filling those sections out. Everyone on Wiktionary has by definition an uncommon interest in languages, let's try to be nice - positive reinforcement is psychologically more productive than punishment. Thanks, and enjoy your stay at Wiktionary!

(also haven't been focusing on Lithuanian for over a month, so this message came out of the blue TBH) Agamemenon (talk) 02:17, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Did not expect to get involved in Wiktionary formatting drama in two different language spaces, but here we are. Also, I do fill out etymologies where possible, mostly with loanwords. I don't have a dictionary with Proto-Indo-European or Proto-Balto-Slavic stems in relation to Lithuanian, nor do I know where to readily find sources with such PIE/PBS stems, so it's hard for me to fill out the etymologies of native Lithuanian words. I tried my best with vartai, but again, I'm not very familiar with PIE or Proto-Balto-Slavic.

I can fill in etymologies in Belarusian most of the time, since that can generally be traced back to Proto-Slavic, and most of the time there's a cognate word in Polish/Ukrainian etc. whose etymology I can just copy. On the other hand, Latvian etymologies are either insanely wordy (see krēsls) or non-existent, and this is quite often not very helpful when I want to find the relevant part to copy into a Lithuanian etymology. Re inflections, whenever I add a new verb (which is not very often, I must admit), I try to look through existing Lithuanian entries to see if there's a verb with a similar ending, whose inflections I can copy from. This is especially easy with verbs that end in the same ending, like -uoti. Sometimes I also use https://cooljugator.com/lt to check conjugations, although I have a feeling it's not actually always correct, and sometimes it just lacks even very common verbs.

So yeah, I try where I can, but my knowledge of proto-languages stops at Proto-Slavic and barely even that. I do a lot of copying with my entries, especially the references section. Sometimes I add personal little notes to words like garnyras, but otherwise I usually just copy from the dictionary. I've slowed down a lot in recent weeks though, since I left Vilnius at the end of June. And looking at the entries that I personally made, I've tagged an etymology onto each and every one, minus non-lemma entries. So I'm not sure what you mean by "rarely if ever", unless you mean words made by someone else where I fixed the declension and references. In those cases, I don't add etymologies, because I don't know where to start looking for them. That's all there is to it really. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 02:42, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Reference formatting

Reference templates, such as {{R:gem:EDPG}}, are designed to use numbered parameters, e.g. |1=, |2=. And is there a specific reason why you're removing quotes around the |name= values of <ref>? --{{victar|talk}} 06:02, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi Victar, thanks for the comment. From what I've seen, reference templates are often parameterized with their English-coded names, such as "page" and "head". This is also much more human-readable and apparently consistent than arbitrary numbered parameters that aren't consistent across etymological dictionary templates. Note how 1 = head in {{R:gem:EDPG}}, but 1 = page in {{R:grc:Beekes}} - though both happily accept "page" and "head". Readability is also the reason I've removed quotes around the "name" values - they seem unnecessary and honestly rather ugly (though this is definitely based on one's own subjective taste), in addition to being more cumbersome to type. Is there some deeper computer-parsing reason to use numbered parameters and quotes around names? Agamemenon (talk) 06:10, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

If you prefer to use that formatting for new references you add, that's entirely your choice. However, please refrain from changing the formatting of existing references. If we, as a project, decide to do away with numbered parameters, for instance, we would implement that change using a script rather than through manual edits. --{{victar|talk}} 06:21, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

For sure, I'll keep the formatting for the current references as-is then, thanks for the heads-up Agamemenon (talk) 06:22, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, and once again, thank you for all the work you're doing to add references. --{{victar|talk}} 06:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)