User talk:Taxman

Note: In order to keep a coherent conversation, I'll usually respond only here to comments unless you request me to do otherwise. I also don't mind responding to you on your talk page either for a conversation that I've started there. Thank you, and happy wikiing.

Welcome

Hi there. As you know Hindi, could you verify choad (or not). It is supposed to come from some Indian language. Thanks. Here is our standard welcome. SemperBlotto 16:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I added what I could to that talk page. I certainly don't know Hindi yet, but I'm learning. In fact, on the babel scale, I'd still probably rank a zero, maybe a one, since I have a few dictionaries and I know the script. - Taxman 16:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

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Hello

It's great to see you have taken an interest in Wiktionary. Perhaps you might add the Babel templates to your user page? Gerard Foley 19:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I've discovered it's a pretty useful exercise while I'm learning Hindi, as it forces me to look everything up to confirm it. I had previously tried adding the templates, but it didn't work. Maybe I hadn't capitalized the template name, I don't know. There's only a couple Hindi babel templates, but I certainly don't even meet the criteria for level one in Hindi. The Italian Wikipedia has a nice zero template for users that don't know a language or only know enough to contribute with difficulty. That fits me for Hindi, though like I mentioned above, since I can read the script and have a few good dictionaries I can add a fair number of translations and simple definitions in English. I plan to be very careful not to overstep the bounds of what I know. - Taxman 19:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I imported the template from hi.Wikipedia and fixed your user page. Gerard Foley 21:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I tried to fix the links too, but I'm not great with templates. It still doesn't add me to Category:User hi, and the other templates aren't in there either, but I'm not sure it's worth putting more time into it either. - Taxman 21:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

i've

We already have the correct spelling - I've - would like i've deleted? SemperBlotto 17:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought it would auto capitalize like Wikipedia, but it does not, so I redirected it instead. There's no harm in a redirect and it makes the Gutenberg list show as complete. If you don't think that's a good solution let me know and the redirect can be deleted. - Taxman 17:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Requesting deletion

Hi there. Rather than add a talk page, just put the {{rfd}} template somewhere in the article and save it. Then just follow the generated link and add a section explaining your reasons. SemperBlotto 17:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I was aware of how to do it, but I thought I would let the creator establish that it meets inclusion criterion if possible. Then I was going to list it. - Taxman 18:10, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

अंग्रेज़ी

Hello,

You edited this page in the past, but omitted what language it is. Could you please clarify it? TIA.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 06:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks like someone beat me to it. I really need to brush up on the style guidelines so I can fix those kinds of things myself. - Taxman 22:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Transliterations

Hi there! In my opinion, transliterations should not be entries. They should be mentioned in the article that's written in native script, but should not be entries on their own. Presently, the only transliterations that I recognize are Japanese Romaji and Chinese Pinyin. I'm following the Wiktionary:Transliteration un-official policy regarding this. The policy does need some work and that is why it is not official, but it can give you an idea about how we handle transliterations here. I hope that this helps you. --Dijan 20:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, Sanskrit only uses the Devanagari script (officially). To help learners, they should know how to spell the word in Devanagari. A transliteration should be placed in that Devanagari entry to help them know how to say the word. The transliteration is not there for them to learn how to write Sanskrit in Roman letters because Sanskrit is not written in Roman script. As for prāṇa, I moved it to प्राण, which is how it should be spelled. --Dijan 21:13, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, yes it should be with a dot under the "n". It is not showing up on your system because you probably don't have the necessary unicode fonts installed. I'm using one of my friends' computer right now, and all I see is an empty box but not the "n" with a dot under it. On my system, it shows up as an "n" with a dot under it, but then again I have over 199 fonts installed on my computer!  :) My suggestion is that you find the right fonts. You might already have them but they're just not used by the Explorer. Did you try using Firefox? I use that when I'm at home and it works just fine. Sometimes the Explorer does not render non-Roman scripts correctly on my computer, so I use Firefox. Good luck! --Dijan 23:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

About romanization of Sanskrit. Romanization is not official for Sanskrit. The page that you directed me to only says that Western scholars have used romanized Sanskrit for the purpose of easily learning the language. That does not make the Roman script the official script of Sanskrit. Devanagari is the official script of Sanskrit and it should be written that way here. The Wiktionary is not about teaching Sanskrit, but rather to just be used as a reference. If you go to a Hindu or Buddhist temple, I don't think that you will find holy works written in romanized Sanskrit. On the Internet, romanized Sanskrit is used because it is easy to type and not many people know how or where to find nor do they want to take time to learn Devanagari script. I suggest that you stick with Devanagari for Sanskrit. Yesterday, I have added the Devanagari script to the Edit tools on the bottom of each page. When you edit a page you can use the drop down menu, click on Devanagari, and click on needed characters. Did I answer your questions?  :) --Dijan 23:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, we can go with that for now. I wasn't saying romanized Sanskrit is official, jsut that scholars do use it, and since Sanskrit is ancient, many scripts have been used. But I suppose devanagari is better. I actually have my keyboard set up to type the devanagari, I find that a lot easier, but the edit tools is very nice too. And supposedly I have the right fonts installed, and they are selected to be used, but it's still not working. Oh well, I'll figure it out. - Taxman 12:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

IAST and other romanisations should be redirects to the Devanagari IMO. DaGizza 00:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Swadesh lists

I noticed that you’ve been working on the Swadesh lists, and it may be helpful to look at Wiktionary:Swadesh template. This page gives more definition to some of the terms. As I’m sure you know, the Swadish lists aren’t teaching tools, but only for comparison of different languages and dialects. For this reason, the words have narrow definitions, and many synonyms are not wanted (also not needed is grammatical info such as gender or number). Two examples are bark and know. The word bark is only the noun for tree bark, and nothing to do with dogs (this is a common error that I see in Swadesh lists). And the word know is only the verb for to know facts, and not about knowing people. That’s why only saber is appropriate for Spanish, but not conocer. The page I mentioned provides a lot of help, especially in seeing what part of speech a word is, but occasionally a language simply requires a different part of speech. For instance, many Amerindian languages, such as Ojibwe, do not use nouns for days of the week, but only verbs. But in most cases, we can find pretty good fits for the words as long as we are aware of the information provided in Wiktionary:Swadesh template. —Stephen 17:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, yes that makes sense, that's helpful. And no I'd never seen that template, so I was left guessing which meanings were wanted. There are still quite a number that are ambiguous when I'm adding the Hindi, is there an accessible source somewhere that makes clear the meaning desired? - Taxman 03:36, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I’m sure I’ve seen more comprehensive definitions of the Swadesh words before, but I can’t remember where. I searched briefly today but did not locate anything better than the template page that I mentioned above. But in general, all the words have the simplest, most neutral and most common meaning for that part of speech. For instance, wet and dry are adjectives that describe a material that has water on it, and nothing to do with atmospheric humidity. Likewise, dull and sharp describe knife blades, not personalities or pins. The main question that usually seems to arise is whether a verb is transitive or intransitive, and I believe the template page does clarify some of those (e.g., burn). —Stephen 05:21, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

To do

Check these contributions and move them to devanagari. Just a reminder and easy link. I don't know Sanskrit, but I do know the devanagari. - Taxman 13:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Devanagari script

Well done. I can almost read the numbers! Did you know that "1" redirects to one - it really needs to be a separate entry. SemperBlotto 14:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, and, yeah, I'll go through and correct and fill in all the ones I can. But then I saw that someone had created Devanagari alphabet which is a problem on many fronts. The two articles were not aware of each other, and it's not an alphabet, it's a syllabary. Got any ideas to clear that up? - Taxman 14:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Categories for words in other languages

Generally, whenever I have the chance, I have been changing categories for words in other language to the format Category:lc:Topic, where "lc" (all in lower case) represents the language code, and "Topic" (beginning with a capital letter) represents, where possible, the corresponding topic that would be used for English words. The net effect is that each language can be sorted separately from the main English language list without being embedded in the middle of that list. Thus for Hindi, Category:Hindi language would remain, and its primary subcategory Category:*Topics would be at the top of a tree for all categories of Hindi words. A few others, like Category:Hindi derivations would remain since they do not really categorize Hindi headwords. Eclecticology 18:23, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

There's got to be a better way to do that. I can't see what you're talking about enough to see any advantage in that, but the disadvantage is clear in very ugly and much less intuitive category names. What do you mean by the main English language list? - Taxman 20:36, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Devanagari numerals

I think they're best formatted like this:

==Devanagari script==

===Numeral===
headword
# def

====Names====
*Hindi: 

Even though I don't know anything about it. But their current format is a bit out of sync with our other entries I think. Any thoughts? — Vildricianus 18:37, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

That's probably better than what I'm doing. From looking around at a few I hadn't seen anything as good as the above. Thanks - Taxman 18:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it’s also important in sequential terms such as numbers, days of the week, and months, to include a *Last: and *Next: link as we did in семь (seven) and январь (January). —Stephen 06:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I've also modified that for use with the other characters. Can you have a look at श and अ and let me know what you think about that formatting before I standardize all the characters on that? - Taxman 16:10, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps something like this:

 ==Devanagari script==
 
 ===Pronunciation===
 
 ===Letter===
 headword
 # def
 
 ===Transliteration===
 
 ===See also===

But those you had done were already quite good (as far as I can see, that is). Most important is that you have the definition beginning with a "#", so that it's recognized as such by software that scans for it. If these are only for Hindi, then it'd be best to use that as the level 2 header. When in doubt, you can also have a look at the Cyrillic letters, which are generally in a good shape. Good luck! — Vildricianus 20:29, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, they're not just for Hindi, there are many languages that use the script, and there are a few variations in what all characters each language uses, and of course the pronunciation is different. Those Cyrillic characters use a totally different format with pronunciation in the definition. Now I'm torn, but maybe I'll go with that instead. - Taxman 21:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I've not a clue here. I was confused by the level 3 Hindi header, so that's perhaps not a good one. Perhaps a Hindi subheader in those sections where it's applicable eg. in Pronunciation? — Vildricianus 17:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Hindi

Hi! Thanks for the links! Wow, you have a very nice collection of vocabulary! One of these days, we must make those into proper entries!  :) --Dijan 20:45, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I will try my best.  :) --Dijan 23:20, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Could you break up the "Vocab" page into two pages (Vocab1 and Vocab2 maybe?) so that it loads faster? It would be easier for me as well to add Urdu spellings. Thanks. --Dijan 03:15, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, can you (or am I allowed) to edit the list so as to include only singular (masculine) forms of certain words (especially adjectives)? If we add all forms, I think it might be somewhat repetitive. Instead, on the page for masculine form of words, we can list all other forms. That's what I've done for other languages that have many forms for adjectives. --Dijan 04:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'll try to break it up tonight. I want to sort it ideally first, so I may even break it up into more pages. And yes, if you want to, change to the masculine singular form, but I think the idea is to have an entry for all the inflected forms too, at least pointing to the main entry listing all the inflections. Either way we certainly need the main entry at the masc singular. So far I've just kept them all to preserve the information because I didn't have a good way of formatting the inflections in the vocab list. - Taxman 14:01, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Bot assistance request moved from WT:BP

Hi, I've got a list of about 2,000 Hindi words and definitions that I'd like to create entries for. Simply running through it and mindlessly creating the articles wouldn't be too helpful. I'd like to have some sort of bot assist in formatting the basic template with each word, definition, gender, etc, and create it in the edit window for me so that I can hand check it with a couple other sources, make the final improvements, and only then save the article. Does anyone have anything like that that I could use? - Taxman 20:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I could try generating a list (formatted to feed into upload.py) and post it to User:Taxman/Vocal-intermediate list. You would then edit it (sortof like our current Webster's 1913 entries) and when satisfied, say the word and they could then be bot uploaded. The upload could be either as a 'bot account or a new user account. Your current list doesn't have romanizations nor parts of speech though, so it would be hard to generate. If you could sort/section them by part-of-speech it would be much easier.

Do you have a Hindi equivalent of {{artfl}}? That too might be helpful. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm working now on finishing getting parts of speech added. The difficulty is with those that have more than one, I'm not sure the best way to format them. But I can focus on the easier ones first and then I was planning on sorting them as you mentioned. I'll have to add the transliterations by hand (even though it is perfectly consistent and a script could do it if I had one), and I'm still working on getting those fonts working right for me. I can set up a tab separated text file to be processed into entries, if you're willing, but it would be easier if you emailed me the result as the current page is already 80kb. With entry formatting it will be several times that. Does anything besides the missing parts of speech make it hard to generate? The way it is currently, m is a masc noun, f is a feminine, and n can be either. Or if you want to show me how to set up the processing, I'm a perl/python neophyte, but I'm willing to do the work. Oh and you mean m:pagefromfile.py right? As far as Template:artfl goes, there's only really one useful site, but I can create a page like that with the link on it if you think it would be helpful. Thank you very much for being willing to help. - Taxman 21:27, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

The ones with multiple pos I would hope would be grouped separately, for each combination. Using {{m}}, {{f}} and {{n}} might be less ambiguous in this context for gender. Wikifying the English translations would make it that much easier. Yes, I meant pagefromfile.py. As for the link, if it's just one, then tell me what it is and I'll link it on each one in the ===References=== section. Please test your own "e-mail this user" link...it's telling me you've either never set up a private address, or never (re)-confirmed it. As for setting up your own bot/bot account, I think that is a great idea. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, email is fixed, and we can move this to my talk page if you want, or leave it here if it could help anyone else. It's going to take me some time to finish off the parts of speech and get it sorted, but hopefully not too long. The query url would be http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/search3advanced?dbname=platts&query={{PAGENAME}}&searchdomain=headwords&matchtype=exact&display=utf8 but the two word page name seems to mess it up. I don't know a way to escape a space through the pagename template. - Taxman 13:15, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Great. That is exactly the URL I need for this - I'll list it in the references section for each. I don't have a way to change the space to a plus using templates either, which is the main reason I've pursused offline tools for problems like this. Give me some time now, please.

Considering how busy the BP is, I think it should be moved to your talk page (leaving behind a link!) now that (presumably) everyone interested has seen that the discussion exists. --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Well I still need to finish adding the parts of speech and find a new way to sort them since I'm having trouble getting the unicode text imported into openoffice.org calc, so you've got some time. Let me know if you need me to reformat the list or whatever (beyond the sorting, POS tagging, and wikifying of the English words that I already plan to finish) to make processing easier. - Taxman 15:34, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

See User:Taxman/Vocab2. --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:24, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't believe I ran that without Unicode support turned on. I got a bit of feedback from Dijan (quite relevant) that you may have missed as well. I'll try and find the link in my archives... --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:17, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

IRC

Thanks for visiting yesterday. I have used the 'apropos' *nix command before, but only once or twice... When I tried later to recall the command, I could never seem to spell it correctly.  :-) For the past couple years, I'd forgotten it even existed. --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:50, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, and even though it's meaning aligns with the word a bit, I still didn't make the connection for years. :) Heh, and I liked the bear skin diff you pointed out too. Nice example how different experiences affect language. On another note, it's getting annoying not having admin tools as I'm so used to them. The standards here don't seem ridiculously based on edit counts, but do you think that because I don't do a ton of RC patrol and that type of thing it would result in a lot of opposition for Wikt adminship? - Taxman 18:11, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I know most self-nominations get snuffed out here pretty quick. Sysop status here is much more contingent on 1) getting along with others (hint: I am no poster-child!) 2) understanding Wiktionary policies (especially how they differ from Wikipedia!) 3) A lack of desire to do vandal patrol (as that aspect, the bureaucrats seem to believe, is too-well covered already.)

The 'pedia WP:RfA process has been overwhelmed this year by a barrage of automation-assisted vandal fighters. That in itself is a Good Thing, but I fear it may be flooding out "regular" sysop candidates, particularly with the "Mathbot" BS³. Wikipedia's WP:RfA is now nothing like it was six months ago.

• Here's a question I forgot to ask you on IRC yesterday: What is the US Federal Government's/IRS' definition of religion? Do they have multiple definitions? Where would one find them? --Connel MacKenzie T C 00:12, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not a tax attorney, so beyond just general pointers you'd have to go to one of them. I imagine it would depend on the purpose. Due to separation of church and state they try to stay out of the religion issue, so as far as I know they just define exempt organizations under section 501, specifically under section 501(c)3. The code itself is pretty generic and just says religious purposes as one qualifying case. The actual definition for that purpose may be spelled out in regulations somewhere, or it may be the case where they don't define it and have just let the courts sort it out. Then you'd have to dig into case law. I think everything else the IRS cares about depends on an organization being 501(c)3. But there could be more places they define it for different purposes. I've never really looked into the issue. - Taxman 04:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering about it, not out of interest, but rather with regard to how such a definition might work itself into Wiktionary's entry for religion. The tax code is, however, completely ambiguous. In section (i) they dictate what it is not but never try to say what a religious or apostolic institution is. Weird. --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, that makes much more sense. I do know some wikipedians that could likely look it up to see if they do define it somewhere. I'll ask them to see if they can find it. I did find this from the LA times that indicates there may not be one on purpose due to constitutional reasons. It doesn't refer very specifically to the cases though. - Taxman 16:57, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

satguru

Hi. I've restored the word. I must have been having a bad day when it was deleted. Appologies and Best wishes Andrew massyn 18:06, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Hindi

I got them from this page which came from the Hindi Wiktionary. They only have 1:1 translations, so that is as specific as I can make it. Thanks for looking through them, I was hoping that if I took care of the copy-paste portion others could verify the accuracy. I did look at the ones that were blue anyway and those seemed correct, so I just assumed that the list was more or less accurate. If there are some that are entirely wrong or need fixing please let me know. - TheDaveRoss 17:17, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I pasted a template and typed in the definition given, I am not surpriesed that I mistyped some, I probably went faster than I should have. I will run through them and double check a little later today. - TheDaveRoss 17:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Voting

I would like to point out to anyone who hasn't voted yet that there are at least four votes going on at the moment that everyone has a vested interest in, 4 Checkusers, 2 Admins, 1 new logo and 1 boardmember, the more the merrier when it comes to these votes, especially the checkusers which requires 25 votes before anyone can be appointed, and the board vote which determines the course of Wikimedia! - TheDaveRoss 15:45, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, thanks, I had managed to miss the checkuser one until your message, so I added my votes. Thanks. - Taxman 17:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

gharry

Hi. Could you put the Hindi word on the etymology for this page? Thanks Andrew massyn 21:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. We already had an article on the word too. - Taxman 22:39, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

Dear Taxman,

Thank you for signaling your confidence in my ability to act as a CheckUser for the English Wiktionary. Your vote means a lot to me. I deeply appreciate it.

You may not be aware, but the Meta: policy dictates that there must be multiple CheckUsers on any given project, or else none will be granted. Each must get 25 votes on their local wiki, as per Meta: policy, to be granted the CheckUser privilege.

I'd like to take a moment to endorse my friends and co-runners. Each of them offers different skills that, as a whole, complement the needs of the English Wiktionary.

1. User:Uncle G has been an English Wikipedia sysop longer than he's been an English Wiktionary sysop. This year (2006) he has refocused his efforts outside of Wiktionary. He was dragged away from Wiktionary while cleaning up the tens of thousands of entries on Wikipedia that linked incorrectly to Wiktionary after the case-sensitivity change in June 2005. He knows Wiktionary very well. And he is very competent at focusing his efforts wherever they are most needed. He operated the original Transwiki: bot, before we had the Special:Import feature we have now.
2. User:Kipmaster is a French Wiktionnaire sysop and bot operator who is very technically capable. He also is in Europe, making his hours of availability complementary to his American counterparts. He is active in WiktionaryZ imports and understands very well which data can be imported here, from there. He normally acts as our primary liaison to fr.wiktionary, whenever compatibility issues arise.
3. User:Jon Harald Søby is a steward. As a meta: steward, he is the primary person we call on to perform CheckUser checks now. His availability is often limited, but his Central European timezone proves to be very, very useful on occasion. He has contributed extensively to Wiktionary over the years.
4. User:Kelly Martin was recently called in to help perform CheckUser checks on the English Wiktionary. She is currently up for election also for the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation. (In the unlikely event she wins that election, she will no longer be available to pursue her CheckUser nomination here.) Since she also has CheckUser privilege on other sister projects, she is accustomed to the 'can's and 'cannot's of CheckUser procedures, in detail.

I hope you can take a moment to consider these fine candidates again. Your support means a great deal to them, as well as to Wiktionary's ability to perform its own CheckUser checks in a timely manner.

Thank you again, for your support.

--Connel MacKenzie 06:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Hindi imperatives

Thanks a lot! :D --Dijan 13:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)