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Language evolves

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

"I'm my grandfather's descendant, that doesn't imply I don't have a father in between" Actually, you make the point quite well: three distinct individuals. Your father's father could have died before your father was born, just as your father could have died before you were born. Although that's just the extreme; you're still three distinct individuals, not a single unbroken continuum (annoying legal proof: inheritance tax). -- Or just go back more generations even if your family are all long-lived, and the discrete breaks will begin. Historical Linguistics 101: Barring (linguistic or other) catastrophic events of various sorts, no such breaks appear in natural language evolution in a community. Nothing "descends". The language just continues, with speakers changing it gradually. "Spanish is just Latin, only later," to quote an illustrious Hispanist. Obviously ditto any other Romance language. The most obvious example is Romanesco, but pick any one you like: Picard, Mirandés, Bolognese... are all local evolutions of Latin. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 22:53, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

@Barefoot through the chollas: Languages are typically described as descending from earlier languages. That this isn't 100% the same meaning as its usage when speaking of one person descending from another is irrelevant, as you are certainly aware that word meanings aren't rigid like that. In addition, the very fact that you don't call Spanish "Latin" illustrates the suitability of "descendant". Spanish is a thing (a language). Latin is a thing (a language). They are not the same thing. This demonstrates that, despite the continuity, we conceive of them as discrete things. So it isn't incorrect to say that the later thing is descended from the earlier thing. And, in the context of languages, it's the common terminology.
Also, your notion of continuity is misplaced. If you move from one end of a corridor to the other end, you pass through every point between your starting point and your ending point. If you designate to points through which you passed, I can point to a point between those two points that you also passed through. In contrast, when my parents' generation referred to as "dungarees" what nobody today calls "dungarees" (because we call them "jeans"), there is no intermediate point between "dungarees" and "jeans". It was one word. Then it was the other. No in-between.
On the other hand, your use of the word "evolution" here,—it seems to exist, per the OED, but it's arcane. Largoplazo (talk) 01:58, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
The very fact that you don't call Spanish "Latin" is irrelevant to the continuum and not fundamentally linguistic (and collectively, Italians sometimes do: le lingue neolatine = le lingue romanze). V. "the Arabic world", or, for that matter, English. Beowulf? English. Canterbury Tales? English. Normally specified Old, Middle... but always English. Name game. Spanish is Modern Latin, as any Romance language (lingua neolatina) is.
Continuity is the point, and beginning undergrads in Romance Linguistics grasp it immediately. Take the newly invented time machine and plop it down in the middle of Rome -- outside the Pantheon will do fine. Pay attention to today's native Roman speech around you. If you set it to go back in 5-year increments and you get out and listen every time, chat with the locals, will you notice much linguistic difference in any one of those 5-year jumps? The student answers rightly no, probably not. 50 year jumps? Yeah, probably some; maybe a few new words haven't appeared yet and a few old ones are frequent and sound antiquated. But that's lexicon; the language itself -- phonology, morphology, syntax -- probably doesn't change much in 50 years. What about a jump back from now to 2000 years ago? That's Latin! Exactly.
Now, get back in the time machine and start going forward this time, from 2000 years ago in 5-year increments, stopping to get out to listen every time. Do you expect to be able to identify, in any one 5-year jump, when Latin "became" Romanesco? No. Why not? Because languages don't change that fast. It's a slow development, a continuum of subtle changes accumulating gradually. Bingo. / Lots of reading to do, it seems. Start with Roger Wright. 1972. Late Latin and Early Romance: https://www.scribd.com/document/436684735/Late-Latin-and-Early-Romance-Roger-Wright Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 04:30, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
@Barefoot through the chollas: This is an awful lot of painful analysis to create a distinction that people don't generally make between when the term "descent" applies and when it doesn't. "Descendant" is a term people typically use to describe the relationship between, say, Spanish and Latin. "An evolution" is not a phrase I've ever seen used in this manner.
  • National Geographic: "A language family is a group of different languages that all descend from a particular common language."[1]
  • Merriam-Webster, defining "cognate": "related by descent from the same ancestral language"[2]
  • World History Encyclopedia: "Just as languages such as Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian are all descended from Latin, Indo-European languages are believed to derive from a hypothetical language known as Proto-Indo-European, which is no longer spoken.[3]
  • "The Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Catalan, Provençal, Portuguese, Romanian, and the Rhaeto-Romanic dialects) are direct descendants of the Latin language as it evolved in the different areas of the Roman empire."[4]
  • " The language of the Normans was an old form of French, itself descended from Latin." [5]

Largoplazo (talk) 10:11, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Impressive array of references there. This one is especially telling: "Some languages do not come from a protolanguage. These are known as language isolates, and include languages, such as Basque, spoken by some in southwestern Europe [...]" Seriously? Today's variegated array of Basque cannot have been part of a larger collection of languages evolved from a less differentiated earlier speech type because now it's the last survivor? Good grief. But back to the point.
The family metaphor seems, and can be to some extent, useful for describing language relationships, although many have pointed out its multitudinous infelicities, the most crucially misleading of which is that all people (and other fauna) necessarily die, whereas languages don't -- some die, some just continue existing (in constantly changing form). "x is a daughter language of y." Hmmm. Anne, Princess Royal, is a (the) daughter of QE2. QE2 is dead, Anne is alive. Anne is a descendant of QE2, not her continuation. "Spanish is a daughter language of Latin." You sure of that? In what sense? Uhhh... in the infelicitous sense of the family metaphor only. It's actually a continuation of Latin. Bravo. Now, an essay assignment.
Explain in what sense(s) this is true: "Latin is a dead language, but Latin never died." Base your tight reasoning on your own research and the research publications of experts, not what "people" say. You're auditioning for a position writing clear and accurate encyclopedia entries, not a job perpetuating muddled thinking and/or popular misconceptions. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 14:29, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
BTW, note that one of those quotes is very easy to adjust for unambiguous clarity: "The Romance languages are direct* continuations of the Latin language as it evolved in the different areas of the Roman empire."
  • ("direct" is a little troublesome for the languages that have been subjected most enthusiastically to "the dead hand of standardization", but not to the extent that it's actually misinformation.)
Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 14:06, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
The word "descendant" is typically used in this context, demonstrably so, while calling a language "an evolution" of another is not. All of your response to that observation of mine amounts to "it is wrong to allow one word to have two meanings unless an absolute 100% correspondence can be drawn between aspects of those meanings", which is an absolute falsehood about how language works. So you have given me no cause to relent in my position. If you'd like to achieve a consensus to do it your way, continuing to banter with me about it here won't achieve that. If you want to give a stab at convincing anyone else, you'll need to do that at the article's talk page. Largoplazo (talk) 21:28, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
'Continuation' works just fine. It's a) true, b) basic lexicon comprehensible to all, c) unambiguous. -- Stating what should be obvious: this is not about you or me or the posturing implied by positions, relenting, convincing, etc. It's about avoiding "two meanings" to communicate basic facts clearly to ingenuous readers. I absolutely agree that an article's talk page is the place for discussion of such matters. Unfortunately, some prefer short-circuiting that process by reverting and issuing peculiar (at best) peremptory declarations ("modern Spanish didn't come immediately from Latin. But "an evolution" isn't correct usage.") that can be resolved easily in talk -- evolution in no way implies immediacy; "correct" usage can be sorted out rather than proclaimed. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 13:40, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
You aren't hearing me. I am not looking to perpetuate an isolated discussion so that you can try to keep trying to convince me that we must innovate awkward or stilted phrasing in place of the terminology that is commonly used and understood and perfectly acceptable. Also, to clarify, to the extent that I'm engaging in this discussion at all, it's only in the context of wording the article in a manner that conforms with the terminology people use and are accustomed to it. I'm not at all engaging in any discussion of whether they "should" be using that terminology. They do, and, for me, that's the starting point for the scope of the discussion here. Largoplazo (talk) 14:54, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
Good grief. continuation is very basic lexicon, "commonly used and understood and perfectly acceptable", "terminology people use and are accustomed to". It's also unambiguous and descriptively accurate, greatly reducing the opportunity for mistaken validation of possible misconceptions. That's fact, nothing to do with convincing anyone of anything.
Only you can convince yourself to be more attuned to writing clearly for readers who know little or nothing about a topic -- or worse, who come to a topic misinformed -- and/or to be more collegial in editing procedures. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 19:16, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
...nothing to do with convincing anyone of anything—If your purpose in coming back to me here over and over isn't to convince me, then what the heck are you trying to accomplish? Fill up my page so the next auto-archive happens sooner?
Unambiguous, descriptively accurate: "Descended" is perfectly unambiguous and descriptively accurate because people know what it means in this context and it has the benefit of being the term that people commonly use for this purpose. It is not misleading. For the very, very last time, I disagree with your insistence that it is going to lead people to misconceptions, just because it doesn't match 100%, in every possible aspect imaginable with every aspect of its use in the context of a human family because words are capable of having more than one, excruciatingly narrow meaning—and how do you figure anyway that the human family context is the canonical, defining one for the concept of "descent"? At its core, "descend" means "to move from a higher level to a lower level". That's all. Its use in the family context is an extension of that. Its use in the language context is an extension of that. They are equally valid extensions.
And, whereas I've already shown you examples of "descend", and there are plenty of others with "descendant of" and "descends from" (including "español desciende del latin"), I found exactly one Quora comment in which the phrase "Spanish is a continuation of Latin" appears.
If this isn't about convincing anybody about anything, then I'm not going to hear any more from you about this here on my talk page, right? Either leave it as it was and forget about it, or else, if you want to pursue it, follow WP:BRD and begin a discussion at the article's talk page, but stop nagging me about it here, OK? Largoplazo (talk) 19:48, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Dabke

They’re still at it, not sure if it’s people who don’t want to mention Arabs dancing Dabke in Israel, or people who just don’t want Israel mentioned. Time to request semiprotection, perhaps? Brunton (talk) 22:03, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

@Brunton: Yes, I think so. It's clear to me what's going on. This behavior is self-defeating, in that in trying to erase Israel they're actually erasing Israeli Arabs, who are still in Israel and still, presumably, engaging in the artistic elements of their culture, but logic doesn't always prevail. Largoplazo (talk) 23:24, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Template index/User talk namespace

Template talk pages often redirect there, as a single place to discuss everything, where more people will actually see it. It took me a while to realise what was going on there when I first encountered it... Belbury (talk) 14:13, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I had just figured that out and restored my message, tailoring it to the generic environment. Ha. Thanks for letting me know! Largoplazo (talk) 14:15, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

The World Factbook is often inaccurate

Hi, I come to your talk page to let you know that the world factbook may not be the best source to work with on Wikipedia, as there's multiple innacuracies on it as other editors and sources have denounced, see [6], [7], Pob3qu3 (talk) 01:49, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Nevertheless, you came at this from the unfounded point of view that "Its not plausible that the country's population has gone up by 3 million people after the last two years." There's nothing unplausible about it. Largoplazo (talk) 11:24, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Well to be fair it is fairly unplausible: I looked up information about Mexico's migration rate and currently it seems to be negative, so at most the current population would be around 127,100,000 which is still far from the estimate of 129,150,971 unless you have other information about migration rates that I missed. Pob3qu3 (talk) 23:50, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Perhaps you missed the link I provided in my follow-up edit summary, Demographics of Mexico#Registered births and deaths, showing that, even without reference to immigration, annual births regularly appear to exceed deaths by a million or more. Largoplazo (talk) 10:47, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
The estimate I presented on my previous reply (of around 127 million) already considers the additional births, as well as the negative immigration rate. Pob3qu3 (talk) 22:32, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
What you're asking is to remove sourced data because the same source has been questioned elsewhere, and because you don't personally find it credible based on your own analysis.
You note that content in the World Factbook has been at times subject to dispute. But the section you pointed me to at The World Factbook to bring this to my attention is almost entirely about grievances over the book's failure to align itself at times with other parties on matters of national naming or territorial soverignty. The only mention of population involved a single issue 13 years ago over figures in the West Bank territories and East Jerusalem. There is also a general comment in that subsection from ten years ago that "Scholars have acknowledged that some entries in the Factbook are out of date. But the population estimate given in this case is dated to 2022, so it isn't a matter of citing a figure from the 2022 Factbook that comes from, say, 2015. You haven't made the case that The World Factbook has aroused great concern over the reliability of its population figures.
If you feel sufficiently strongly that the number is just plain wrong, your best course of action is to make your case and seek consensus at Talk:Mexico. Largoplazo (talk) 05:11, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm gonna have to stop you there, it's not that "I personally don't find it credible" as any other editor (including you) who does the calculations with the birth and immigration data that is aviable will find that 129 million is an unattainable number. Or did you find different data regarding immigration rates? if so I'd like that you showed it to me. In the meantime here's other two sources that talk about the World factbook inaccuracy [8][9]. Pob3qu3 (talk) 00:20, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
You didn't have to stop me there because I'd indicated as clearly as I thought I needed to that I was done. If you want to have its removal considered, please use the article's talk page. Largoplazo (talk) 02:59, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
Already took the whole thing to what seems is a more appropriate place [10]. Pob3qu3 (talk) 01:08, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
You must be out of your mind. By the way, in case it isn't clear, stay off this page, permanently. Largoplazo (talk) 03:09, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

October 2022

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. This means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be although other editors disagree. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus, rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Points to note:

  1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made;
  2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes and work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:06, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: I stopped before the third edit. You're the one who acted like a clueless newbie who just had to have his way before the RFC was over and let it happen then. It isn't a matter of how the RFC is obviously going, merely a matter of it isn't done yet, and it's disruptive for one person to think he's better than everybody else and decide that he's just going to go ahead and act outside of the procedure. For all your work in Wikipedia, one would expect you to understand that and not to be so impatient you can't bear to let a process roll itself to the end. Anyway, I see The Night Watch had the same point to make. Largoplazo (talk) 11:01, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Christian Bale edit notice

Hey Largoplazo, since only admins and template editors can create edit notices, I have gone ahead and created Template:Editnotices/Page/Talk:Christian Bale, linking to the talk page archive mediation. Feel free to adjust as necessary (I believe any editor can modify them, just not create them). - Floydian τ ¢ 15:29, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

East Timor

Hi -- I know that edit looked weird, but the nominator agreed it was OK to mess it up while testing -- see WT:GAN#Status update. I'm going to put it back to the broken status and I'll fix it once we're done testing. The bot is User:ChristieBot and there are links to the BRFAs on its user page. If you still think there's a problem, please comment at the GA talk discussion I linked. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:39, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: OK, I get what's going on. I was interpreting the events as you bot having previously messed it up (perhaps intentionally) and then you undoing, and then the bot messing it up again. So I jumped in and fixed it in your place. Sorry for getting in the way. Largoplazo (talk) 16:50, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
No problem; I think I should have been using more informative edit summaries, tbh. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:51, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Near East, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Directorate of Intelligence.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:03, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Venezuela#German colonization

I found this on the copyedit list, and did quite a bit of work on it based on its daughter articles. Could use a thorough go-through if you care to take another look. I believe that all of the statements are true; however I have not looked at the references. And no, I don’t know what language it was initially either. Elinruby (talk) 23:09, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Also, if you are minded to look at it further: the last two sentences in the section are from somewhere or someone else, and while they seem to also be true, stylistically they probably belong further up in the section. I haven’t taken the template down as I or someone else — you if you are interested — should probably do some verification before we bless it and call it done. I personally have had enough of it for just now Elinruby (talk) 18:56, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
@Elinruby: Sorry for the delay in responding; I did notice you putting a great deal of effort into it! I will stop by and take a look per your guidance above. Largoplazo (talk) 01:42, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks! Elinruby (talk) 01:56, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Jewish population percentage

I attempted to correct the errant math regarding the Jewish population in relation to the world population. The math is clearly wrong. Please explain. Grademacher (talk) 16:26, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

@Grademacher: I do see that the number and the percentage are inconsistent. So you thought the best solution—without changing the cited sources—was to make up both a new number and a new percentage with no regard for the sources? Then I looked at your follow-up estimate and it seems you had some trouble with the arithmetic yourself, by several orders of magnitude. Largoplazo (talk) 17:03, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
As of 2020, the world's "core" Jewish population (those identifying as Jews above all else) was estimated at 14.8 million, 0.19% of the 7.95 billion worldwide population.
14,800,000 divided by 7,950,000,000 equals .00186... What numbers are you using? Grademacher (talk) 17:37, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
Got it...my wife rememebered the decimal needs to be moved as a percentage. Thanks! Grademacher (talk) 17:49, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Politicsandmorebiography

Hi. It is simply useless to talk to him, because he has a long history of vandalism, sockpuppetry and wrong contributions to Wikipedian articles. Scheridon (talk) 15:20, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

The city of Banjul has a dry-winter tropical savanna climate. The humid season in that place is the summer. So, the information (Aw) is correct. He changed to As (dry-summer tropical savanna climate). Totally absurd! Scheridon (talk) 15:51, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Jewish hat

Actually, there is A LOT wrong with it, in fact most of it is crap. Thanks. Johnbod (talk) 14:42, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Largoplazo!

Happy New Year!

Largoplazo,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
— Moops ⋠T⋡ 04:28, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

— Moops ⋠T⋡ 04:28, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your help on the Bogota article.

Thank you for your help, it is greatly appreciated! 2600:4040:2A94:4000:19BB:2A55:E762:F435 (talk) 20:33, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk page conventions...

Hello there - you've inserted your comment within someone else's comment. You should place it at the end of their comment. :) here regards, --Merbabu (talk) 00:38, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

@Merbabu: Oh, thanks for catching that. Fixed. Largoplazo (talk) 00:41, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello! Thank you for the comment in your edit summary.

The reason why I believe in linking Wikipedia articles primarily over the citations in the templates is because Wikipedians need to examine the books themselves and their reputations, which are often apparent in reviews (especially scholarly book reviews). The way of doing that is to have Wikipedia articles on the books that serve two purposes:

  • Being a Wikipedia article about the book itself
  • Being a central clearing house about information about the work internally for Wikipedia purposes: the articles themselves summarize what the scholars wrote about the book, and the talk pages can contain additional notes on observations about the books seen in book reviews.

One example of a Wikipedia article serving that purpose is The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. People may cite the sections of Hmong history in this book without examining where that information comes from. The author revealed her source of info was Hmong: History of a People. That work was criticized by later scholars of Southeast Asian history, and lacks footnotes. By having that sourcing information on Wikipedia, readers can see that the sourcing is flawed. And instead of having to track down scattered talk page discussions, readers can just go on the article of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and see it all right there.

I would however prefer that the templates are re-engineered so that they can handle both a wikilink and a URL at the same time (the URL could be relegated to a "read online" link). WhisperToMe (talk) 00:54, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: I appreciate what you're saying. But if linking that way was the primary intent, then references would be easy to create to make that happen. The fact that you had to jump through hoops to get a link to the actual source at all, and were able to do that only because there happened to be a page number that you could link, should be a fair indication that that isn't what's intended. Certainly, the main purpose of a reference is to validate the article's content, not to validate itself.
Besides that, it's only an unusual happenstance that a cited source is itself the subject of an article. It's not as though we can rely on that in general as a basis for assessing reliability. That purpose is better served by noting the author and the website or publisher where the reference was published. Those can be wikilinked without any trouble. Largoplazo (talk) 01:19, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
Academic books frequently have reviews written about them in academic journals, and multiple book reviews mean WP:GNG and WP:NBOOKS are met. In my experience many, many academic books could potentially have Wikipedia articles written about them. Also for general layman books, Booklist, Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus Reviews (except for self-published books that have paid-for reviews), and various newspapers often have reviews of such (though there are cases where articles can't be written because not enough RS reviews exist about the book). For layman books it may be a tossup, but IMO it's good to have an article written about the book if one can.
As for validating the content versus validating the book itself, I see validating the book as an inherently important step in validating the content. If say Joe cites The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down but does not read about The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Joe may believe that he's validating the content about say Sonom being a Hmong king. But if he reads the criticism of Hmong: History of a People (which The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down relies on for sourcing), Joe may find out that he in fact did not validate the content at all: his sourcing is shaky.
Even for books that are generally well written/generally reliable, minor errors of fact do occur; authors are human, after all. I have seen published book reviews document minor errors of fact (and I myself refer to such in talk pages of Wikipedia articles on books). Having Wikilinks of articles about books make Wikipedians consider this aspect.
WhisperToMe (talk) 01:26, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
We have millions of references to articles within online journals and news sources. Those articles and individual articles are never going to be the subject of a Wikipedia article.
If the user has little chance of finding a link to the material that validates the content, then there's no point validating the source that we're making it very difficult for the reader to see, and no point in having it at all. Further, there are many of use reviewers are notice sources on their way in and are validating them then. Every reader isn't going to go through the same exercise, nor do they want to. Largoplazo (talk) 01:29, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
It is true a journal article itself or a news article itself is not likely going to be the subject of a Wikipedia article (though its author may be, and the journal itself, newspaper, TV channel, etc. often is). However Wikipedia does rely on books as a significant part of its sourcing diet. I feel that making wikilinks for book articles more prominent is doing what I can do in that regard.
If the concern is that a wikilink would make it harder for the reader to find a general way to read the book online, one solution could be to link all external ways to read the book (such as Internet Archive, DeGruyter, JSTOR, Project MUSE, etc. and maybe Google Books book previews) in the external links section of the book's Wikipedia article. I also notice FRwiki has a specific "lire en ligne" links for URLs on citations (example: fr:Québec#Bibliographie), and so having such in my opinion still highlights the URL enough for the casual reader.
WhisperToMe (talk) 01:43, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
I started Help_talk:Citation_Style_1#In_citations_of_books,_should_wikilinks_or_URLs_have_primacy? to raise the issue to a wider audience. WhisperToMe (talk) 21:48, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
That's a reasonable approach. Largoplazo (talk) 22:20, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

The New Mutants (film)

38.70.206.49 (talk · contribs) was refactoring numerous film-related articles. After checking a number of references, I simply reverted everything. The anon is now blocked for three months.
I see "mixed to negative" (or positive) a fair amount in viewing edits for wp:RCP. I've assumed it means "mixed trending toward the negative". Not sure how to verify such a statement. I don't have any investment in the film. Cheers Adakiko (talk) 11:56, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi, Largoplazo. You quite rightly posted a request for revision deletion in the article Bobotie, and I have now done that. Thanks for flagging it. However, I thought it worthwhile mentioning that it's best to remove the copyright infringing material from the current version of the article, as well as requesting revision deletion.JBW (talk) 11:05, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I have now seen that you did that at Jalebi, so I guess it was probably just an oversight not doing it at Bobotie. JBW (talk) 11:08, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

@JBW: Oh, my, yes, I customarily revert such additions before posting the tag, it was an oversight. Thanks for catching/mentioning it! Largoplazo (talk) 11:28, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Kiribati

Greetings Largoplazo, I apologize for not making clear my reason for asking the talk question regarding Starlink and Kiribati. I authored and have occasionally monitored and updated the section re telecommunications capabilities available to the country, which is a crucial aspect of daily life in the Gilbert Islands. It can be hard to get current information since I no longer have contacts in-country. Regards, and thanks for your patrol work. Zatsugaku (talk) 04:00, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

@Zatsugaku: Ah, that explains the relevance. But, while I understand you were seeking the information, talk pages aren't meant to be used to ask general questions about their articles' topics, only for discussions of the state of and improvements to the article. Largoplazo (talk) 10:05, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
Thank you. And another apology for not noticing your kind note on my Talk. I've been offline for 18 months and the Articles for Improvement messages have been piling up. (Not to mention a hundred or so watched pages not being watched.) It turns out that I initially missed a signifiant new article on the topic of Starlink and Kiribati and so I now have the information I need to improve the section. Zatsugaku (talk) 14:13, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

What makes this tool "private"

You have removed external links added by me to tools on this page, saying that they are "private." What does this mean? They are webapps that do not require any signup or payment to use. Some of these EL sections contained other simmilar tools for a long time before they went offline, which was pretty useful. 82.43.190.243 (talk) 17:34, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

See WP:EL and WP:NOTLINKFARM for guidance. Also, see WP:BRD about not restoring additions that have been removed without opening a discussion, as you did here, and trying to gain consensus before restoring your contribution, as you didn't do. And, in general, don't be dishonest and show bad faith by claiming that I hadn't given a reason for my reversion, and by giving the impression that I'd been unresponsive because I hadn't responded to you within 10 minutes of your having posted your message to me above. Largoplazo (talk) 18:28, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
I apologise for my hastiness: I was frustrated after being accused of spamming. Neither of the pages you linked explain what "private" means or suggest that links to relevant web tools should be avoided. I think this discussion shows consensus that such tools are useful on the page where I re-reverted you (not consensus for this specific tool, but all of the previous ones are defunct). I'm unsure how BRD applies here when my original edit was based on precedent and not particularly bold. (It might apply on the pages that didn't have the precedent of including such tools, but on those I did not restore my edits.) Across your edit summaries, the only justifications I see are that I'm spamming and that "private tools" should not be included. 82.43.190.243 (talk) 18:54, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello. After asking at the help desk, I still don't see what makes a tool private, or why some (all?) tools should not be linked in EL sections 82.43.190.243 (talk) 21:05, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

New Page Patrol – May 2023 Backlog Drive

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Empty sections

In response to your question "Why add a section if not to put content in it?". My understanding is that {{Empty section}} exists for the following reason, quoting the template documentation: "Content tends to follow sectioning on Wikipedia, as editors naturally will tend to fill in sections over time. Therefore, using this template to set up good placeholder sections at the start of an article's lifespan can aide its development over time." Of course we're beyond its lifespan start, but I added the section "Critical response", because in my opinion the article can use a section covering the sitcom television series' reception. I've re-added the section with a tiny bit of content, so I could use {{Expand section}}, hopefully providing a good compromise. --2001:1C06:19CA:D600:D37A:36F:8CC4:2EB4 (talk) 17:13, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

OK, I stand corrected, thanks for pointing this out to me. Largoplazo (talk) 17:25, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Proof that Calabrian Greek uses the Greek script

Open Google Maps, enable street view, click on a intersection in Bova Marina, you will see street signs written in Italian and Calabrian Greek in the Greek Script. 2600:1700:6730:E380:61E0:94CF:3BEB:D63E (talk) 01:59, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

You can't even be bothered to give me a link? And you're choosing to ignore all the rest of what I wrote. You saw street signs in one place, therefore every single person who reports that it's generally written in the Latin alphabet is wrong and the examples I showed you don't exist. Is that how you think it works?
Is there any reason why you brought this discussion here instead of leaving it on the article's talk page for the benefit of everyone who might be interested? Largoplazo (talk) 02:21, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks noting the problems with Wallacevio at WP:ANI

I was curious and started looking at some of Wallacevio's edits.

I noticed another related editor Irehdna (talk · contribs); I wrote up the details below your report.[11]

It's troubling that Wallacevio has made 405 edits and Irehdna even more -- I wonder how much misinformation is still in our articles, unreported.

You may want to look at the articles on your watchlist to see if Irehdna has tampered with them.

I'm not an admin so I cannot block Irehdna. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 02:45, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

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Cape Verde demographics

I've seen there's a dispute between you and the other two users concerning Cape Verde's ethnic demographics. Let me clarify something. Commonly, around 28% of Cape Verde’s population is labelled as “African” (based on uncritical copying of CIA factbook info), even when these are just darker-skinned (‘black”) Cape Verdeans whose families have been living in Cape Verde (esp. Santiago) for many centuries already! They're are not recent African immigrants. All Cape Verdeans are creole and African (both at the same time) so how is only 71% creole the rest African? This entry is supposedly based on a source from 2000, which I could not find specified anywhere on their site. Even though, to my knowledge, no official data has been kept on the racial or ethnic background of Cape Verdeans since independence in 1975, Obviously, the 71% creole number is rather taken from the 1950 census, apparently the last time racial origin was counted in Cape Verde. I hope you consider removing this misleading classification of Cape Verdeans. Let us wait for an official source before adding anything about ethnic groups.

Kabuberdi (talk) 14:18, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I have no personal knowledge of the details. My argument is with anybody who
  • replaces those numbers while leaving the CIA source,
  • replaces those numbers and replacing the CIA source with a link to a web page that has no relevant information on it, or
  • replaces those numbers and removes the source without replacing it.
If you disagree with the CIA World Factbook and can make a good case against it, you should raise it on the article's talk page. But, hopefully, before you do so, you'll have come up with some verifiable basis for your claim that the CIA's rationale is based on skin color or that "all Cape Verdeans are creole". Presumably, if the distinction is made at all, then it's between those whose genetics are purely African versus those whose aren't. Are there no Cape Verdeans who lack non-Africans in their family history? (I'm assuming the definition of "Creole" here is genetic, not "natively speaking Cape Verdean Creole".)
Can you supply evidence to that effect? The more substantiation you can bring for your criticism of the CIA info, the better change you'll have at prevailing. If the CIA info really is bad, then the answer for now is to show no statistics at all. Largoplazo (talk) 16:30, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
@Kabuberdi I'd meant to ping you when I replied. Largoplazo (talk) 19:52, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Please join us.

Hey Largoplazo, please join us at the RfC talk of RfC about arabs being ethnolinguistic group to help build a better objective talk. Both users M.Bitton and Skitash for some reason personalized the talk, this personalization predates this rfc. I don’t want to assume a bad faith in them but their edit history seems to promote a berberist direction. They even removed significant amount of sourced contents from the article unrelated to the topic we are discussing even after it was WP:EDITCONSENSUS. Your objective judgement as a third party really matters. Stephan rostie (talk) 17:38, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

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