User talk:Lemuel Gulliver

Click on the + sign above to leave a message. — Gulliver ✉ 16:35, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Clarification

Well, the first part was the standard welcome template, {{welcome}}, which is good to have on your page as it has good links.

As far as the second part is concerned, was very much tailored to you, and I thought you would appreciate the humor. Oleg Alexandrov 19:51, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I apologize for deleting the tailored bit then. Of course, the horses were a reference to the noble Houyhnhnms! I think I'll give the Land of Mathematics a miss though, since I hated all that at school. Thank you for your welcome. — Gulliver ✉ 21:20, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I saw you doing a fix to a math article (math education something), that's why I mentioned the mathland. :) Enjoy! Oleg Alexandrov 21:32, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Ah. I came to that article via "Random page" and just fixed the punctuation. — Gulliver ✉ 23:19, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Accuracy with Latin?

Hi Lemuel,

thanks for the cleanup on the Viz article. Just one thing, though: why do you think "uidēre" is more accurate than "vidēre" and "one may see" more accurate than "seeing is licit". Being a native Italian speaker and having studied Latin I'm pretty sure that both are wrong, but I wanted to ask. Cheers - Gennaro Prota 12:43, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

La lettera vu non esiste in latino. È un'invenzione moderna. La prima lettera della parola uidēre in latino è la vocale u, la cui forma maiuscola è V.

Oggigiorno, si suole adoperare le lettere vu (v) ed i lunga (j) quando si scrive in latino, ed accetto questa prattica, ma non dobbiamo cadere nella trappola di pensare che queste lettere esistessero nella lingua classica. Le parole "vedere" e "già" in latino si scrivevano VIDERE e IAM, e quando s'inventarono le lettere minuscole, si cominciò a scrivere uidere e iam. Perciò, io in inglese scrivo videlicet, ma se devo scrivere veramente in latino, sono più fidele alla lingua.

Per quanto riguarda la traduzione seeing is licit, il problema è che non ha senso in inglese. Non direi mai questa frase. Poi, l'idea di licit non c'entra con l'uso dell'espressione uidelicet in latino. Se dico in inglese che qualcosa is licit, dico più o meno che la cosa non è illegale. Questo non è mica il senso dell'espressione latina. Licet in latino può significare "è legale" ma può anche significare semplicemente "si può", il quale è ovviamente il suo senso nell'espressione uidelicet — "si può (facilmente) vedere" oppure "chiaramente". — Gulliver ✉ 02:29, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I didn't know you are Italian :) In any case, I think it is preferable to reply in English here, so that others can understand our discussion (I'll be glad to talk in Italian by mail, if you like). You are right about the absence of the lowercase "v" in classical Latin. I was deceived by the existence of "V" (uppercase) and I admit our Latin teacher never told us about the lowercase issue.

About the translation "seeing is licit", what about something like: 'literally: seeing is licit, thus "you may see"'? I realize however that "vedere è lecito" in Italian is not the same as "seeing is licit" in English. Ciao :) Gennaro Prota 11:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not Italian; I just saw that you were. I'll use English if you prefer others to understand.

I think it is best to avoid all mention of the English adjective "licit" as its meaning is completely irrelevant to discussion of videlicet except in terms of its etymological connection. — Gulliver ✉ 07:34, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, now I'm curious. How come do you write Italian so well? :) As to the use of "licit" I'll trust you: if I understand correctly, you are a native English speaker, aren't you? Cheers. --Gennaro Prota 11:34, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'm a native English speaker. As for Italian, there are plenty of speakers here in Australia! — Gulliver ✉ 08:18, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:NoCoins

Look, you're contributing to systemic bias. Wikipedia strives for NPOV not what you might consider the "right POV". It is a fact that the United States and many Carribean Nations utilize the imperial system. Additionally, Canada while "officially" on the metric system utilizes the imperial system in day to day transactions (Canadian construction companies utilize imperial measures, and ask a Canadian for their height and weight and you get an answer in imperial). Like it or not, Imperial is what a lot of Wikipedians understand. The fact that the NoCoins template mentions that systemic bias leads to the use of US coins should tip you off, a large chunk of Wikipedians are unfamiliar with metric as they live in a country which uses Imperial measures.

Stop trying to push POV, please. To avoid bias, we ought to encourage the use of metric AND imperial.

Please don't use profanity!

While I understand that you were trying to make a point in your edit on the Pajero, I have reverted it because "wanker" is considered profanity.

But pajero is a profanity. If we can't say one, we can't say the other. — Gulliver ✉ 07:20, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Keratoconus

Rather than dropping this section about Riboflavin in because you heard it on the TV, you might like to explain it: what does it do? are there any published studies? what are its success rates? any there any side effects? in what countries is it approved? how long does the treatment take? and so on. Secondly, the number one treatment for keratoconus is the use of RGP contact lenses: something like 90% of patients will use them at some time or other. As an experimental, or at least new technique, eye drops should be placed much further down the list of treatments, don't you think? Regards, --BillC 19:20, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

It is a good idea to put it at the bottom. I didn't give more information since the TV news report was rather vague. I seeded the section by putting in the basic information, hoping that knowledgeable people could flesh it out at a later date. — Gulliver ✉ 07:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

If the above came across as a little harsh, then I apologise. It was really the sudden placement of the text right at the head of the treatment section that suprised me; plus, we need some more on the technique (as per above). Otherwise, there is nothing that distinguishes riboflavin drops as a serious medical technique from quackery. I'll do some research on the subject myself, but if you have more to add to this section (another editor has now moved it further down and provided a link to a peer-reviewed medical study) it would be welcome. Best regards, --BillC 07:05, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

The report was from a mainstream news source that I though reliable. The treatment involved riboflavin and UV to strengthen the cornea and prevent it becoming misshapen. It said it was in the process of being approved in Australia, and was already in use overseas. — Gulliver ✉ 07:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Middle Chinese

Are you talking about Entering tone? It is translated from zh:入聲. — HenryLi (Talk) 17:40, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I was hoping you had access to a website or book with further information. I can't find anything in English online, and I read Chinese very slowly. I need info on pronunciation in ancient times. — Gulliver ✉ 10:21, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

These books about Chinese pronunciation in ancient time are usually written in Chinese. I have founded a book published by the Chinese University of Hong Kong lists constructed pronunciation of Chinese characters. But please bear in mind that these constructed phonetic values are highly controversal. Unlike alphabetic scripts, Chinese characters provide only limited hints how it pronounced. Different languages pronounce Chinese characters in their own ways. On the other hand, it is lucky a character with different pronunciation in various languages are bounded by the character and they are related. With help of different live languages, and old rime category books, and old translation of other languages like Sanskrit from Buddhist sutras. We can deduced a better proximate value for a particular character. For example, for Chinese character one(一). In Cantonese, it is /jɐt/. In Mandarin, it is /ji/. In Japanese, /itʃi/. With help of rime books and systematic deducing the rhymes and initial consonants, the pronunciation in early Tang dynasty and somewhere in the Tang Empire could be deduced as /jit/. The early the years, the harder to construct. In the past, various tongues and regional languages existed as today. You might expects there would be great changes from time to time under the partial framework of Chinese characters. — HenryLi (Talk) 12:21, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Middle Chinese pronounciation: As I said I think Hugh M. Stimson's books may be helpful to you and they are available (in English) at the University of NSW library if you are in Sydney. The best book may be the fairly comprehensive Tang Poetic Vocablary (1976). It's located at call number: S 895.11408/3 on Level 4, Social Sciences and Humanities Library, Kensington Campus. (I should point out that my background is in Korean and Japanese so I don't no how useful the material will be for a more serious Chinese scholar as yourself.) DMC 05:11, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you both very much. I will check out those books if I can. Meanwhile, I have found an excellent online dictionary which should be sufficient for my Old/Middle Chinese needs for the moment. Lhiaks nhejʔ (謝爾 / 謝 爾)! — Gulliver ✉ 08:38, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

3RR & Vandal Warning

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at [[:2003 invasion of Iraq]]. Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted. If you would like to experiment, please use your sandbox. Repeated vandalism may result in the loss of editing privileges. Thank you. Merecat 04:59, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

You are breaking Wikipedia policy by abusing vandalism templates. Please read WP:VANDAL. Note that there is a series of warning templates. Your template should have been the fourth (or in extreme cases, the third) one used. You are not allowed to post a "final warning" without prior warning; that much is rather self-evident. {{test4im}} is the template to use in extreme cases of obvious vandalism that nobody could possible disagree about.

All this, of course, does not address the fact that my edits were attempts to counteract your contravention of the NPOV policy. It is forbidden to use any vandalism templates at all in disputes with fellow Wikipedians. Please read WP:FAITH.

As regards WP:3RR, please review the edit history [1]; I have made only a single revert. You, on the other hand, have made three reverts. Please do not edit that article any more, or you will be banned from editing Wikipedia. Thank you. — Gulliver ✉ 05:19, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I hope you've not inferred from my comments on Merecat's talk page any particular animus or malign motive; I've looked only cursorily at the situation and, so, to the extent that I've improperly characterized your contentions, I surely apologize. I certainly, it should be said, concur in your sentiment that, irrespective of Merceat's concerns apropos of his personal tranquility, where he acts in a fashion deleterious vis-à-vis our production of a "fabulous encyclopaedia", he ought certainly to be warned. I wasn't altogether certain that either of you had acted altogether inappropriately, and so I suggested that his removing your warning was not likely counseled against under policy, even as such removal may seem a bit gauche. The argument you may above does seem persuasive; I really haven't the inclination to look further into the incidents betwixt you two, but I certainly didn't mean to suggest that I found his case to be compelling, only that each of you probably could have framed his/her comments in a different fashion (of course, each of us, even as we attempt to be constructive, happens, from time to time, to phrase things in a manner that might have been better considered, even when his/her manner is not without justification). I certainly think you to be acting in good faith, and I certainly respect that you have been decorous in your dealings with Merecat; I wonder, though, if you mightn't be better served to extricate yourself from the revert war in which the two of you are engaging at his talk page and to allow him to remove your comment, even assuming arguendo that your comment was properly made and framed. I think it much better for one to leave a warning on his/her talk page and to respond (as you do above) where he/she thinks the warning to have been given wrongly, but sometimes one does well simply to overlook irksome removals; were Merecat not to have been warned previously on his/her talk page, I would surely understand your desire to leave a warning, inasmuch as, when a contributor acts inappropriately, others may later monitor his/her contributions more carefully, but Merecat has been warned several times previously and so will be closely watched in any event, I think, by many editors. My apologies for having written so much; when I'm tired and would do best to write succinctly and get to bed, I tend to drone on; my main thrust, I suppose, was simply that I didn't mean to suggest that either of you had acted wrongly (I likely oughtn't to have gotten involved, but I reverted Merecat's removal of your warning and thought I ought to justify such reversion), and I probably oughtn't to have been quite so quick to suggest that Merecat ought to be permitted to remove your warning (I must confess that, having seen you to have had only a few entries on your talk page, I reflexively concluded that you were a new user wantonly throwing around vandalism warnings, but having now looked at the content of your talk page, I can say with certainty that I surely misjudged you, for which I am sorry). Joe 06:22, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I should add, with respect to the last point, that I am delighted to meet someone who ostensibly uses viz; our number are few... Joe 06:25, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Haha, are you a fan of V? You seem to imitate his speaking style! — Gulliver ✉ 06:52, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Tea brick

Nice to see someone add some more stuff to the tea brick article. Do you have any additional information about the production of the stuff? (plz reply to my user page, that way I get notified) Sjschen 05:42, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Bias in the project's governance structures

In your most recent comment, were you referring to me? I am not "feigning ignorance". If you are not interested in explaining yourself further, don't try and hide it by claiming I really know what you mean but am just pretending to not understand. JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know whether you are a person such as I described or not. On IRC I have observed people starting like you ("please be more specific about your grievances / I don't see the relevance of democracy") and then getting very aggressive and abusive in their defence of the various cliques they belong to. — Gulliver ✉ 02:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Ok. I have seen this on IRC also. I have also often seen people complain about cliques, abusive admins, and etc and be entirly unwilling to explain exactly what the substance of their complaints are, or provide any evidence. (I've also seen people who do make clear complaints with evidence.) I don't know if your complaint fits into either of these categories either, yet. Hopefully this will become clear. Sorry for assuming you were referring to me. JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Assassinate

Greeting please do not re-add Category:Assassinated people to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as his death does not fit the definition of the word. From Dictionary.com:

as·sas·si·nate Audio pronunciation of "assassinate" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-ss-nt) tr.v. as·sas·si·nat·ed, as·sas·si·nat·ing, as·sas·si·nates 1. To murder (a prominent person) by surprise attack, as for political reasons. 2. To destroy or injure treacherously: assassinate a rival's character.

.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was not murdered but was killed in a legal act of war. Netscott 09:53, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the entire war is clearly illegal, but I won't bother to waste time on the matter. — Gulliver ✉ 09:59, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, where are those WMDs? Still, as you've said yourself, this is not worth quibbling over. Netscott 10:01, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

"Old" pronunciations of Xiongnu

Hi there. Thanks for your contributions to Xiongnu. I went to the Russian website from which the material is sourced, but I can't figure out what system is being used to write those pronuncations - it doesn't seem like IPA. In particular, "sŋoŋ" in IPA would be pronunced "sng-ong", with no vowel in the first syllable. Is that intentional? Or is it some type of Russian notation?

It is IPA, with some minor modifications. I have written to the website owners for more information.

In any case, 匈 /sŋoŋ/ represents a single syllable. The initial consonant cluster is not at all implausible. — Gulliver ✉ 08:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

A second issue is that old/middle Chinese pronunciations are unverifiable and cannot be known with certainty - any theory is at most a conjecture - which would seem to be the case here since the pronunciations listed appear to be quite far from ordinary rules of Chinese pronunciation? --Sumple (Talk) 07:23, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I know what you mean. However, where would we be if we decided that all information that cannot be definitely verified is not appropriate for academic treatment? We would have to delete most of our articles on history. We would get rid of our coverage of Hittite, Gaulish, and all other languages for which we can never be sure of the correct IPA transcriptions.

The transcription that I inserted is from standard academic studies of Chinese etymology. It is no original research of mine. Whilst I appreciate your valid concerns about verifiability, your comment about the reconstructed pronunciations being "quite far from ordinary rules of Chinese" is hopelessly naïve. You are judging the reconstructions to be weird based on your personal inability to see any connection between sŋoŋ and xiōng, which is — with all due respect — an argumentum ad ignorantiam.

What if I told you that the words "war" and "guerrilla" both come from Old High German werra, meaning "strife"? It may seem strange, but it is known to be the case, even though "war" and "guerrilla" sound very different. What if I told you that "knight" /'naɪt/ comes from the Old English cniht /'knɪxt/? It does, despite the fact that /'knɪxt/ is very far from ordinary rules of English pronunciation, including an initial consonant cluster just as troublesome as /sŋ-/ ! — Gulliver ✉ 08:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I understand your case but I would suggest those cases are not comparable to the present simply because old Chinese pronunciations are not known with any degree of certainty at all.

I have doubts about the authority of that Russian website because of the following reasons: 1. Old Chinese pronunciations are not known with certainty. 2. The website's explanation of the meaning of the character 匈 is not comprehensive. (It lists only one meaning in English). 3. These two factors toegether suggests that the website is not as reliable as it may be. Perhaps another source can be consulted to verify its claims.

BTW the four common meanings of 匈, according to my classical Chinese dictionary, are 1. chest; 2. the state of being unsettled; 3. (as a part of the word Xiongnu) the Xiongnu people; 4. abbreviation of Hungary.

Even if this is not original research, it would appear to be a novel claim that needs backing up. --Sumple (Talk) 08:57, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

You are missing the point. Those cases were not supposed to have a comparable degree of certainty. I deliberately selected examples which are comparable in their degree of strangeness to the uneducated eye, but which had a high degree of certainty. The point being that an etymology does not become unreliable just because it seems outlandish to you. Do you understand?

The website, dealing as it does with ancient etymology, does not give all the modern meanings of every character, such as you will find in a modern dictionary. Instead, it gives only meanings that can be confirmed from ancient texts. For this reason, if you look up 丁, you will see the archaic meaning "to strike" (which today we write 打), and you will not see such modern meanings as "Tintin" or "diced food". This is not an omission; it is intentional.

You can add the "unsettled" definition to the list if you like. It didn't seem significant enough for me to add.

From what I can see, Mr Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin [2] was a fine scholar and I trust his work. I am of course enthusiastic about finding and using other sources of information as well.

What exactly is a novel claim? That ancient languages can be (tentatively) reconstructed? See Internal reconstruction and Comparative method, plus the work that has been done on the Proto-Indo-European language — Gulliver ✉ 09:16, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I might add that, although the Pre-Classical Old Chinese /sŋoŋ/ is a tentative reconstruction due to the huge timescale involved, the Middle Chinese Postclassic Old Chinese: /hoŋ/ (which is what we are actually talking about) is completely uncontroversial and virtually the same as the modern Cantonese hung1 /hʊŋ/. — Gulliver ✉ 10:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to proceed in a reasonable manner. Clearly you are not reading my post. Did I or did I not state that these are definitions from a Classical Chinese dictionary? Have you bothered to look this character up in a proper Chinese dictionary? You think the omission of "being unsettled" is intentional do you?

I feel unable to continue a reasoned discussion when faced with such an attitude. "Uneducated?" "argumentum ad ignorantiam"? Perhaps you need to read up on what argument from ignorance actually means.

You also don't seem to appreciate the verifiability issue relating to ancient Chinese pronunciations. But you seem to simply refuse to appreciate any point that I raise. So I shall stop trying. Good day. --Sumple (Talk) 14:56, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

How disappointing. I thought we were getting somewhere, but you have decided to throw a tantrum instead.

I haven't seen your Classical dictionary, so I don't know what sort of content it has. I am aware, as I hope you are, that Classical Chinese (文言) and Old Chinese (上古汉语) are not identical concepts. The former is a literary language used (to a limited extent) to this day; the latter is what the website is dealing with. The point is that the fact that a given definition is in your dictionary does not mean it necessarily ought to be in the brief summary of ancient meanings given at http://starling.rinet.ru. Therefore, the fact that I did not concede the point was not because I was "not reading [your] post" but because you had not fully proven your point. Do you understand?

An important point that needs to be understood is that the website is primarily a Chinese etymological dictionary, not a Chinese-English dictionary. It is assumed that the reader has other resources for the latter type of look-ups.

You now speak of an unidentified "attitude". This seems to refer to the fact that you are offended by some of the points I have made. If you read over what I have written, you will notice that there is no argumentum ad hominem or any gratuitous provocation via insults. All I have done is argue the points. If you are so thin-skinned as to take offence, it is not my fault.

You seem keen to imply that I have labelled you an "uneducated" and "ignorant" person. Not true. You seem quite well informed. When I spoke of "their degree of strangeness to the uneducated eye", my intention was clearly not to say "Sumple is uneducated"; no, I indeed actually noted that "the point [was] that an etymology does not become unreliable just because it seems outlandish to you [because of your unfamiliarity with reconstruction]".

You also seem to have completely missed the relevance of argumentum ad ignorantiam, to such an extent that you bizarrely refer me back to the article that deals with the logical fallacy in question.

If you sincerely do not understand how your argument is an example of ad ignorantiam, let me explain, using quotations from the article:

"A thousand-ton piece of metal could never float. Ships need to be made of wood, or at least something that floats." In this example, the person argues that ships cannot be made from steel because he cannot imagine steel floating. But steel ships do float, so his argument comes purely from ignorance or personal incredulity. Similarly, you implied that xiōng was highly unlikely to have come from sŋoŋ because they are very different, a line of argument that would lead us to conclude that guerrilla is unlikely to have come from werra and /naɪt/ is unlikely to have come from /knɪxt/. But xiōng, guerrilla and /naɪt/ do come from sŋoŋ, werra and /knɪxt/, so your personal incredulity is proving unreliable. This is the relevance of my reference to argumentum ad ignorantiam. Do you understand?

You also claim that I "simply refuse to appreciate any point that [you] raise". Not true. My first comment to you was "I know what you mean", and from then on I continued to take your points seriously. However, I found weaknesses in them and successfully argued against them. You say I don't "appreciate the verifiability issue". Not true. The issue had already occurred to me before I added the information to the article. I had already weighed up the issue and realised that the problem of verifiability was no greater than with the other historical information in the article. See the following extract:

• "Very ancient (perhaps legendary) historic records say that the Xiongnu descended from a son of the final ruler of China's first dynasty (Xia Dynasty), the remnants of which were believed by the Chinese of the Spring and Autumn Period to be the people of the state of Qǐ (杞). However, due to internal differences and strife, the Xiongnu fled north and north-west."

What part of that is verifiable? It is largely legend. The next thousand years of historical research will probably not bring us closer to knowing whether such things truly happened. Do we therefore delete this, and hundreds of pages dealing with the history of the Greeks, Scythians, Aztecs and others? No, we keep the information, and note where necessary that it is historians' best guess. See for example Socratic problem, which is an entire article that explains that much of what we think we know about Socrates is unverifiable because it may have been invented by Plato.

I would appreciate it if you would actually engage, and either accept or logically refute the points I have just made, rather than getting angry and storming off with the declaration that you will "stop trying". — Gulliver ✉ 02:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Hua Mulan

As you said, Titus Flavius Vespasianus referred to in English as Vespasian and not Latin, which is a different sub-family group, there's nothing controversy here between contemporary and modern under one language. Note that when we refer to Middle Chinese, its actually a de facto Mandarin in particular spoken by the court which encompassing in the metropolis, dialects had been existed thoughout then. We don't know when or where Mulan was born, so its completely controversial to reconstruct her name under these terms. Eiorgiomugini 10:46, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Chinese has become more diverse over time, so if she was not necessarily a Mandarin speaker, the more modern the transcription, the less sure we can be that it corresponds to the way she spoke. By your logic, the most controversial transcription we can possibly assign to her name is "Mùlán", which is very much modern Běijīnghuà.

Furthermore, your argument that "Vespasian" is an English name and that English is not descended from Latin is a non sequitur. There is nothing in my analogy that required the contemporary name to be an ancestral form of the other name. The matter in question was only the issue of whether to include names which are (likely to be) the ones used at the time and place in discussion, as opposed to names which are from another time and/or another place.

However, if you insist on limiting analogies to cases of names in the same language in different historical periods, there is no problem:

• We can take the case of Vespasian, but put him in the context of Romance languages. Would you consider it "trivial" for the French, Spanish or Italian Wikipedias to include the fact that the person they know as Vespasien or Vespasiano was known by his contemporaries as Titus Flauius Vespasianus?

• We can stick to an English context. Would you consider it "trivial" for us to note that Alfred the Great was called Ælfrēd in the English of his time?

Why is Chinese a special case? Contemporary names should be given, where known, for all ancient historical figures. The only logical reason one could possibly come up with for questioning the inclusion of such names for Chinese historical figures is the tentative nature of the recontructed pronunciations (and this argument is still weak, because the problem can be solved by a note indicating the tentativeness). There is no other sensible argument. Strangely, this sensible argument, made by User:Sumple above, is the one argument you do not make. — Gulliver ✉ 11:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Chinese and indo-european languages are quite different. I'm not here to make an argument, a best example would be under Vortigern. I don't see your point for inserting her recontructed pronunciation name over the introductory template, and is quite controversial. Eiorgiomugini 12:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Any two languages are different. That much is a truism. But you have not said in what way Chinese and Indo-European are different, or explained the relevance of any such difference.

Nor have you explained what Vortigern has to do with all this. Looking at the article, I see that it gives the modern English version of the man's name, and then informs the reader of the man's contemporary names in the two relevant languages: "Vortigern (Latin Uurtigernus/Uuertigernus/Vertigernus, Old English Wyrtgeorn)". In other words, the article is exactly as (I believe) it should be. According to your logic, the contemporary names should be deleted.

You claim that you "don't see [my] point" is inserting the actual (as far as modern scholarship can determine) pronunciation of 木兰's name. But you seem to admit that you do see the point in inserting the actual pronunciation or actual name of Vespasian, Alfred, Vortigern and others. That is a bizarre double standard that you have completely failed to justify. — Gulliver ✉ 12:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I never said it should be deleted, but the way you present it on the article is quite odd as far as most China-related articles concerned, its quite double standard here that only Mulan recevied such treatment while the rest don't. Another problem is that the link you provided seem failed to match your cite over the article:

Character 蘭 Query method Match substring

No records found.

Total of 0 records

Character 兰 Query method Match substring

No records found.

Total of 0 records

Eiorgiomugini 14:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah! You have finally made a good point! I shall deal with it first. 蘭 is indeed missing from the database. This usually means that a slightly different variant was used historically, and I haven't been able to identify it in this case. So, I had to take the pronunciation of identically pronounced characters. Looking at it again, I see that I was sloppy with making sure that the reference character was identical in pronunciation and tone not just in Mandarin but in other dialects too. Here is a table

汉字	普通话	广东话	中古汉语
蘭	lán	laan4	unknown
欄	lán	laan4	unknown
瀾	lán	laan4	unknown
籃	lán	laam4	unknown
嵐	lán	laam4	unknown
藍	lán	laam5	la^m
攬	lǎn	laam5	la^́m
濫	làn	laam6	la^̀m
纜	làn	laam6	unknown
爛	làn	laan6	unknown
覽	lǎn	laam5	unknown

This casts sufficient doubt on the reconstruction of the third character of 花木蘭/花木兰 that I think we should remove the transcription. See, it is easy to convince me when you make a valid point.

Now, let's go back to your invalid points, just for completeness. You claim that you "never said it should be deleted". Not true! You actually did delete it several times and since then you have been trying to justify this.

You then say that "the way you present it on the article is quite odd as far as most China-related articles [are] concerned". What you are getting at is the fact that very few articles about China include this information. Indeed this is true. That is why I am adding the information! The unfortunately fact is that due to systemic bias (see WP:BIAS), there is an overall lack of information in China-related articles on Wikipedia. Whilst we manage to give the contemporary names of Western figures (Vespasian, Alfred...), we neglect to do this with East Asians. Wikipedia has an official policy of combating bias, and not (as you are suggesting) compounding it by arguing that, because articles on a certain country are currently missing certain info, such info should never be added to them.

It regrettable that you feel the need to repeat back to me every argument I make to you. For example, I point out that you are arguing for a double standard with Chinese articles versus non-Chinese articles. You "counter" this by saying that I have a double standard with Hua Mulan versus other articles. How absurd! I cannot edit all China-related articles in a day! I have not singled the Hua Mulan article out for special attention. It is merely one of the first articles I have edited. I have to start somewhere! My plan is to add such information to a handful of Chinese articles in a logical and helpful way, and thus create a showcase of such articles to which I can point when I make an official proposal to alter the MoS to mandate the addition of such information where appropriate.

I repeat: you have failed to logically justify the double standard that you advocate. Your Tu quoque argument is merely a distraction.

I also believe that as well as contemporary pronunciations, contemporary characters should be given where appropriate. For example, the it is appropriate to include the poetry of Jia Dao in seal script as well as modern script, because that is what he actually wrote. — Gulliver ✉ 02:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the info you added on Hua Mulan since it doesn't provided on the datebase. "How absurd" How could it be absurd when you're doing the same. "I cannot edit all China-related articles in a day!" And you should had blamed yourself then by not doing so, not me. Eiorgiomugini 03:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I removed it before I even replied to you. Do try to keep up.

So, you are saying I should blame myself for not being able to edit all China-related articles in a day, instead of what I am doing (i.e. not blaming anyone, and just accepting that it is impossible). That doesn't make sense. Please make sense. What is your mother tongue? — Gulliver ✉ 03:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

"and just accepting that it is impossible" Right, that's just I'm about to said.

That is not correct English. Please say something comprehensible. — Gulliver ✉ 03:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

"I removed it before I even replied to you" I had removed the entire info that you added in here Eiorgiomugini 03:17, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

You do not have the right to remove all of the info. You are just doing it to spite me, which is not a valid reason. — Gulliver ✉ 03:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

This is not a cantonese article and therefore I suggested it to be removed. Eiorgiomugini 03:24, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

As you correctly argued, it is not Mandarin article either! We don't know exactly what dialect Mulan would have spoken. So why are you not removing the hanyu pinyin? That is the question you are unable to answer.

All we do know is that the archaic nature of Cantonese means that the modern Cantonese pronunciation is far more likely to be similar to her real name than the modern Mandarin pronunciation is. There is no debate on this subject. There is a clear consensus among sinologists that Cantonese is one of the most conservative forms of Chinese and that it preserves many features of Middle Chinese which are lost in Mandarin.

Since I am unable to give a full and accurate transcription of 花木蘭 due to doubts about the third character, I am resorting to the entirely uncontroversial statement that the Middle Chinese form is likely to be similar to Muk6-laan4.

Furthermore, it is relevant to include a brief mention of Cantonese because Disney (who brought the story to the West) utilised the Cantonese form of her surname. — Gulliver ✉ 03:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, Hanyu pinyin was used on the major articles, unless there's some reasons to include other romanisation. "There is a clear consensus among sinologists " There's actually been a long debate whether the dialect fully resemble in the Middle Chinese form among Chinese scholars. "But you have not said in what way Chinese and Indo-European are different" If you talking about "sound symbols", the Chinese has been using phonograms since the Shang dynasty. But the the writing system of Chinese characters was never replaced by a "full" set of alphabets because that would result too many indistinguisable homonyms and near-homonyms in writing. E.g. just try rendering pre-Qin poetry from the "Poetry Classic" into IPA. Eiorgiomugini 03:46, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

<Sigh> I was not asking you to give me a random example of a difference between Chinese and Indo-European. As I pointed out, there are differences between any two languages. I clearly stated that my point was that you have not "explained the relevance of any such difference", and you have still not.

If you look at Cantonese_(linguistics)#Cantonese_and_Mandarin, you will see that Wikipedia itself points out that Cantonese is highly conservative and preserves ancient distinctions and similarities far more than Mandarin. Examples are given. With Hua Mulan, I cited a sinologist's reconstruction of 木 as muk. There is no POV or original research here: just properly-cited academic claim. — Gulliver ✉ 03:57, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

You had not provided more specific references so that all the editors can better decide, through consensus, and as you can see this is way more controversial than you might think. I don't want you to think the entire thing was to spite you. Eiorgiomugini 04:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll assume good faith and accept that you may be sincere in your wrongheadedness. — Gulliver ✉ 04:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

You can do that for a start with your wrongheadedness. Eiorgiomugini 04:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Could you please make actual logical arguments instead of repeating what I say in a schoolyard fashion? I am tired of debating with you. You will shortly be blocked for your six reverts, which will end the matter. Should you ever wish to argue sensibly, I shall be here waiting. — Gulliver ✉ 04:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Bogus 3RR report for Hua Mulan

KimvdLinde

This user is asking that their block be reviewed:

Lemuel Gulliver (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

There was no 3RR violation

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You know the rules as you were very capable of reporting the other, so even without a warning, cool down for 24 hours. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

"You have not to do exact reverts, just going back and forth is bad ebough." Please quote me the official policy page that states what you just stated. If you cannot, then please unblock me. To block both of us is a clear case of false balance. — Gulliver ✉ 05:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:3RR: Note: There is no requirement for the reverts to be related: any four reverts on the same page count. I think it is clear enough! -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I think there is a linguistic problem here. You don't seem to have understood what I said. — Gulliver ✉ 05:49, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Let me elaborate. Here all all my edits to the article in question:

1. 01:59, 10 June 2006 (revert)
2. 07:43, 10 June 2006 (revert)
3. 15:17, 10 June 2006 (compromise)
4. 03:38, 11 June 2006 (compromise)
5. 05:19, 11 June 2006 (revert)
6. 05:28, 11 June 2006 (compromise)
7. 05:39, 11 June 2006 (revert)
8. 06:15, 11 June 2006 (compromise)

As you can see, this is a period of two days, and no more than three reverts in any 24h period. All the compromises make important changes that bring my version closer to the other user's one.

Let's look at Eiorgiomugini's edits:

1. 18:30, 9 June 2006 (revert)
2. 06:21, 10 June 2006 (revert)
3. 09:05, 10 June 2006 (revert)
4. 15:58, 10 June 2006 (compromise (3 successive edits))
5. 05:07, 11 June 2006 (partial revert)
6. 05:22, 11 June 2006 (revert)
7. 05:31, 11 June 2006 (revert)
8. 05:47, 11 June 2006 (revert)
9. 06:22, 11 June 2006 (revert)

If we start at the second one, we can see that he made a full seven reverts in a period of 24h and 60 seconds. Even if we discount the partial revert and the one that came seconds too late, that is still five completely unambiguous and blatant reverts. Only four are needed for a 24h block. Eiorgiomugini has expressed no remorse or willingness to stop reverting. He should remain blocked.

In case you are still muddled, let me point out that the issue of whether the reverts all go back to the same version or not does not arise. I am fully aware that the 3RR applies to all reverts on the same page. I was aware of this before you made your first edit at 04:25, 30 January 2006.

The assertion of yours that I countered was the following: that to violate the 3RR rule it is not necessary to make reverts, and that "just going back and forth" in an effort to find a compromise is "bad ebough". I deny your assertion, and counterclaim that it is indeed necessary to revert to a previous version of an article (or revert to almost the same version except for token changes intended to "game the rule"). — Gulliver ✉ 07:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Tawker

I have unblocked on the understanding that you'll stay away from the article for a bit, no need to get into block crazyness -- Tawker 05:30, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Could you revert the article to one of my versions please? The other version is currently only there because the other user made seven exact reverts. If you allow his version to stay, you are saying that once a person has gone beyond three reverts, they should keeping on reverting hard because there will be no additional sanctions and their version will remain! — Gulliver ✉ 05:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

What's more, I am still blocked. I am "autoblocked" every time I try to edit. That is only supposed to happen if you log out and edit as an anon. — Gulliver ✉ 05:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Got an autoblocker reason / IP, can't unblock without one of the two -- Tawker 05:55, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The autoblocker reason is:

Your user name or IP address has been blocked from editing.
You were blocked by KimvdLinde for the following reason (see our blocking policy):
Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "Lemuel Gulliver".
The reason given for Lemuel Gulliver's block is: "3RR at Hua Mulan".

I have e-mailed you my IP address. — Gulliver ✉ 07:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)