User talk:Itayb

Hello, Itayb, and welcome to Wikipedia! I'm Anas, one of the many editors here at Wikipedia. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or type {{helpme}} here on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. I'm looking forward for your contributions! Image:Crystal 128 ksmiletris.png ← ANAS ^Talk 20:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On your request for assistance

I would be glad to be of help. As there is no need to put in a formal request since you have expressly contacted me, that saves us 'paper' work so to speak, but I need the particulars (who did what, links, et cetera.) If your complaints are valid, this could lead to a greater issue as to the moderators. If you wish this to be more private, you can email me at davelikesdinos *asdj*at|sdfui| gmail.com, or you can just post on my user page. If so, I'll create a special section so that it'll stay out of the other users responding on my talk page. Regards, Dåvid ƒuchs (talk • contribs) 23:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I see you're adding in some of the recent developments. I sent you an email, but I had not gotten all the story about the porn stuff, though Yonatan filled me in. Dåvid Fuchs (talk / contribs) 01:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maw`ed Ma` al-Sa`adah

Shalom Itay, how's it going? :) You know what, your pronunciation is pretty accurate! Thanks so much for that. I'd appreciate it if you can upload your version of the pronunciation of Faten Hamama by replacing this file. Good luck recording and thanks again. :) - Anas ^Talk? 12:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Quite impressive, I applaud you for your enthusiasm. For uploading the recordings, just upload it normally. Name it, preferably, something like 'Article name'-pronunciation.ogg and use a normal summary and license, like you would do with any normal image. The guideline was set for recordings of complete spoken articles, not the mere pronunciation recordings, so there isn't any problem if you don't use the Spoken Article template; actually I prefer not to myself, as it is somehow inaccurate to use. For simplicity's sake, you can copy what I used in the Faten Hamama file and just change the information which needs changing. For the Faten Hamama file, I suggest just replacing yours with mine. I've been meaning to record a better one (the current one is terrible), but I'm a lazy man. :D

As for the pronunciation, well, it depends. Film titles are usually pronounced without tashkil, in TV for example, so I think it is better to ignore tashkil in such pronunciations, especially that most of them are films that use vernacular languages, not the literary Arabic language. As for people names, you should definitely ignore tashkil. Generally, I think it is better to ignore tashkil and use it only in such cases like a pronunciation from the Qur'an, which uses the literary language. Please leave me a message if you need any help at all. Good luck recording! - Anas ^Talk? 14:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Gee, thanks a lot Itay! I truly appreciate your efforts. :) - Anas ^Talk? 15:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, just wow! Splendid work! Thank you so much Itay, I am very appreciative of your diligent efforts. The pronunciations were mostly correct and some were very accurate. There were four which were kind of inaccurate (Khulood, Lahn al-Khulood, Kursi al-I`tiraf, and Al Haram), I have replaced them with correct versions, I hope you don't mind. :) Here's a barnstar for your hard work. Other more important articles need pronunciations too, like those of countries, historical figures, presidents, etc. I really hope you can continue your valuable work. I have left you a welcome message, a late one, for you to get a grip of the place, that is if you haven't already. Thanks again, have a good day! - Anas ^Talk? 20:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, well, I'm sorry to hear that. Anyways, you certainly deserved it! Yep, 13 is pronounced Talata`sh in Egyptian Arabic (vernacular), and since the film is Egyptian, it is named so. As for Maw`ed Ma` al-Hayat, you're right the ta' marbouta is silent. As for the remaining two, you were right again, I have mistaken the Arabic script. :D Hehe, I wrote all of her article and more than 30 of her films (and counting) and I haven't even seen a single full movie for her! But I guess, she is pretty popular as a classic Egyptian star and I think her films are pretty good. See you around. :) - Anas ^Talk? 21:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image tagging for Image:Abu zaydi lhilaali.ogg

Thanks for uploading Image:Abu zaydi lhilaali.ogg. The image has been identified as not specifying the source and creator of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the source and creator of the image on the image's description page, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided source information for them as well.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:

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This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 18:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Shalom Itay! Thank you for noticing me that broken link, I have removed it. - Darwinek 08:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Faten Hamama recording

Hi Itay, how's it going? Actually, the article is definitely not in its final form, I still have a huge expansion for it, which I'm planning to do in a coming vacation, so I really don't think you should waste your time recording it. :) As for me previewing a sound file, well, as long as STC rules Saudi Arabia, that's probably not going to happen. Yep, I use dial-up! Those 20KB files were exhausting enough to download. :D But hey, if you like and enjoy doing it, don't mind me. All the best. - Anas ^Talk? 12:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm planning on making it reach FA status. Thanks anyway, you've done an excellent job already. :) - Anas ^Talk? 14:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not me

That wasn't me, it was actually an anon; I was just fixing a typo he or she made. The edit is here. Everyking 12:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

By the way, if you doubt the accuracy of the claim, one thing you can do is add ^{[citation needed]} at the end of the sentence ({{cn}}), if you didn't know that. You can also bring it up on the article's talk page, or if you feel really strongly about it go ahead and remove it from the text until/unless someone can cite it. Everyking 12:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Akkadian Citation

I've added a cite to Akkadian language. WP was a lot more fast-and-loose back in 02, so very little from that time will be well cited, and none of it will use the recently-developed ref tags.. If you'd like to see the actual page the diagram is from, look here: [1]. -Ben 18:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Please reconsider your reorganization linking to the scanned version of Caplice. I used my print versions of the book for the article back in 2002, and never became aware of the online version until today. In fact, if you look at the root page of the online version, you'll see that the poster has retracted his scans. I only mentioned the link to the scanned version to you because it seemed like a good reference -- I had to hack the URL to find it. Caplice appears to be quite popular among amateurs like me, not least because of his affordability and clear organization. I'm willing to bet that many of the other editors of the article also possess hardcopy versions, based on its popularity in LibraryThing. -Ben 03:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Response up at my talk page. -Ben 14:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Ditto -Ben 20:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Tigrinya

The first citation was for the 6.1% figure (actually I have a better citation that has the direct data from the 1994 census; the embassy citation is unnecessary and a broken link anyway), which comes out to about 4.5 million when considering Ethiopia's current population (in the 1994 census, when the 6.1% was calculated, it was only some 3. something million). If this is to conjectural for you, the most recent (2005) CSA census data (CSA 2005 National Statistics, Table B.3.) shows Tigray Region to have a population of 4.35 million, with the region being 95% Tigrayan (i.e. native Tigrinya speakers). There are another few hundred thousand or so speakers outside of Tigray, and a few hundred thousand in the diaspora (see http://www.joshuaproject.net/ for diaspora numbers). Is this good enough for you? — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 03:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Itayb, not all Tigrinya speakers live in Tigray Region, but you are missing a big piece of information. I never claimed that any more than 4.5 million Tigrinya speakers live in Ethiopia. That is in fact my claim. However, there are another 2+ million speakers in Eritrea that must be included. For this reason, I am reverting your changes, since it seems your disagreement stems only from this misunderstanding. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 16:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki Project Israel

You can ask on my talk page. frummer 19:53, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Multicolumn stuff

It's really pretty easy. First off make a list with lines starting with *, then you can use the HTML <div something>...</div> markup.

Here's an example of two columns (<div style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;">...</div>):

The same stuff in 3 columns (<div style="-moz-column-count:3; column-count:3;">...</div>):

Hope this makes sense! Cheers! Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Aaaaaaaaaargh! You're absolutely right: that method doesn't display correctly with Internet Explorer! OK, how about plan B? There are some templates, {{columns-start}}, {{columns}}, and {{columns-end}}. If you look at the examples below, you can see how they work.

2-column looks ok

3-column isn't very good

This is not automagic and needs fiddling with as the number of items change. It does seem to work with other browsers though. Does this look OK? Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Susning.nu again

Apparently, Alexa has redesigned their website once again, and now the traffic details page at the end states that: "Susning.nu traffic rank in other countries: Sweden 304; Finland 13,740" --LA2 22:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Azmi Bishara

Why revert something that remains untrue? He considered running, put up his candidacy, but then dropped out. Why is a source needed for something not happening? I could quote the Knesset election results which show he didn't run, but isn't it a bit pointless? Number 57 09:26, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Steve-O

Thanks for the tip, another editor has removed it. You can revert something yourself if it doesn't seem right to you, be bold! —Ocatecir ^Talk 01:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Azmi Bishara

No offence, but I think you're overdoing it with the referencing, and it is making the article look very ugly. Why on earth do we need a reference for how his name is spelt in Arabic and Hebrew and what his DOB is? I would suggest that instead of having every single sentence/fact followed by a reference, only quotes from him or news items about him should be specifically referenced with a ^[1], whilst everything else can just be put under references without citing it in the text.

Also, why is there a seperate section for notes and references? The notes section appears totally unhelpful and unnecessary - why not just go straight to the references. Number 57 17:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

P.S. What is the picture of a camera all about?

No offence taken. In fact, i pride myself of my contribution to the current high degree of verifiability of this article.

• As for the article being rendered very ugly due to the abundance of citation indicators: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You may look at them and see visual disturbance; i look at them and see the Attribution policy - "one of Wikipedia's two core content policies" - at work.
• You ask: "Why on earth do we need a reference for how his name is spelt in Arabic and Hebrew and what his DOB is?" First of all, who are we? As you know, there is no editorial board in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I'm an inclusionist in the sense that if someone has added a piece of information to an article which (1) is relevant to the subject of the article, (2) does not duplicate already existing information and (3) is attributable to a reliable source, then i see no reason to delete it, whether or not i consider it useful, important or "encyclopedic". However i do, in fact, think that Bishara's birth date, as well as the spelling of his name in Arabic and in Hebrew, are useful, important and encyclopedic pieces of information (i wasn't the one who added these pieces of information, by the way). As for the DOB, take for comparison the articles William Shakespeare, Isaac Asimov or Robert Aumann. As for the Arabic/Hebrew spelling of Bishara's name i urge you to look up in the library Donald Knuth's monumental series of reference books "The art of computer programming" and peruse the index. You'll find he mentions, besides the English transliteration of each name, the original spelling, too.
• As for the separate sections for notes and references, i'll have to take a rain-check on this one, because it deserves a careful explanation, and i'm too tired to do it now.
• Finally, the camera is there as an icon, serving as a placeholder for Bishara's photograph, which can't be used directly, since it would violate copyright (see User:Angr# The picture of Azmi Bishara you've deleted: where should i look for an alternative?). Itayb 22:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

But this isn't the Attribution policy at work. According to Wikipedia's own guidelines, you only need to reference on three occasions:

• for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged
• when adding negative material about living people
• when quoting published material

Shakespeare's DOB is not referenced, but is a note because it was affected by the change in the caledar dates (possibly the same reason for Asimov as the Russians moved calendar in the early 20th C or because it is not a well-known fact) whilst Aumann's is not referenced. With regards to Bishara's DOB or the spelling of his name in other languages, there are no doubts whatsoever about their authenticity, and therefore they will not be challenged. They are also not negative, and not quotes. Thus a reference is unnecessary. Number 57 22:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with your interpretation of the "Citing sources" guideline. It's not that you only need to reference on three occasions; rather you certainly need to reference on these occasions, but, as a matter of fact, "[m]aterial added to articles must be directly and explicitly supported by the cited sources." (original emphasis) Itayb 23:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

But again, this almost certainly does not apply to the extremely basic information such as DOB and name. If you're going to do that, why not cite the spelling of his name in English? Articles would be ridiculously convoluted if there was a reference after every fact, and this is happening to the Bishara one. Number 57 09:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with you. If you look closely, you'll see that i did, in fact, provide a citation for the spelling of his name in English. Adequate citation does not make articles convoluted: if you don't want to verify the citations, you don't have to. Just ignore them. That's one of the reasons why i opted for footnotes rather than Harvard-style - or similar - citation method: it's the least visually obtrusive method (hence the easiest to ignore) i could think of.

I believe, that in an encyclopedia, such as Wikipedia, which anyone can edit, pedantic citation is the only way to assure consistent quality and to reduce content-based edit wars to a minimum.

In any case, if you feel strongly about it, i suggest that we request comments from other editors (you may, of course, just delete those citations you consider superfluous, but i'll just restore them - you see, i feel strongly about it, too - so we can try to preempt edit war by directly jumping to the RfC stage). Itayb 18:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: template oriented adoption

Hello Itayb! I'd be happy to adopt you and teach you as much as I can about templates. I can point your towards documentation on how these work, and supervise any templates you are working on or will work on. I guess I should start by learning what you already know. Do you know HTML, and more specifically, HTML tables? Do you understand wiki format, and more specifically, wiki-formatted tables? This gives me an idea on whether I can get right into designing templates or if we should start with tables. The only hard part will be giving you assignments that will be useful to Wikipedia. Honestly, if I knew of a template that is needed by the community, I probably would've already created it. We can always start creating templates in your userspace. But I would suggest getting involved in WikiProjects. Most of the templates I have built have been in response to a need by a WikiProject I am involved with. You can also go through current template messages and see if you can improve any. There have been a couple occasions where I have combined two templates into one. Nevertheless, we'll start wherever we can and contribute wherever we can. I look forward to working with you.↔NMajdan•talk 14:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

That's great! Thanks for your warm response.

I have but skimpy knowledge of the topics you've mentioned (HTML, HTML tables and wikitables). For example, i can set-up wikitables, but only the simplest of their kind. So, if you don't find it exacerbating, i would like to start with the very basics. But if you can't be bothered with such low-level fuss, i'll do my best to fill up any gaps of knowledge i have as we go along.

I'm looking forward to working with you, too. :) Itayb 15:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, great. Sounds like you have an intermediate grasp of wikitables. I'm gonna start with basically a list of "must read" documentation from the Meta site. To learn more on wikitables, see m:Help:Table. After reading that and practicing it a little, move on to m:Help:Template, m:Help:Advanced templates, and m:Help:Parser function. More reading: m:Help:Parameter default, m:Help:Variable, parts of m:Help:Magic words, and m:Help:Calculation. Now remember, these are all the major readings so a lot of this stuff may not make sense until you have practiced it. Also, go out and look at current templates and infoboxes and view the code. Start playing with templates in your own userspace. I have a template that I developed (well, I expanded its functionality) but have not yet implemented at User:Nmajdan/Test. You can view how to develop a template and view the results on a userpage there. If you have any questions, let me know.↔NMajdan•talk 16:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll read everything you've recommended, but it will take me some time. I'll keep you posted on my progress. :) Itayb 21:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds great. Like I said, some of those latter links may not make sense yet but they will as you begin to develop templates.↔NMajdan•talk 22:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I understand. You have to have priorities and university should always be a priority over a hobby. Good luck.↔NMajdan•talk 12:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Prof Shahak

Could you have a look at Talk:Israel_Shahak#RFC and see if you have anything to add to the discussion? Thanks/Todah/Shukran ابو علي (Abu Ali) 20:48, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Shalom Itay, I must admit that I feel bad about inviting you into this snake pit especially as I have not had time to contribute to the discussions myself. Just a short note to say that your work there, (as well as on other articles) is much appreciated. ابو علي (Abu Ali) 09:05, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

You needn't feel bad. I don't see it as a snake pit. I think the subject matter is emotional, and controversial, and the strong reactions from all sides are only to be expected. I hope that we can all be able to work out our differences of opinions and shape together a good article. But even if this doesn't turn out to be the case, there's still a lot to be gained just from participating in the discussion, in my opinion. Besides, human interaction - even hostile - is part of the fun of Wikipedia, in my opinion. Please also bear in mind, that, after all, there are other places on the web, where people can stumble on the name "Israel Shahak", and there are other references, beside Wikipedia, where interested people can find out more about him and his work. Take it easy. ;) And thanks for your kind comment. Itayb 14:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tirghra

Have you seen that the book is for sale on line and the link that I provided for details of its public launch!? I am pretty damn annoyed to say that VERY VERY least that you are trying to have this booked marked as an unreliable source especially as it is used as a source in a number of articles such as Diarmuid O'Neill, James McDade, Kevin Lynch (hunger striker), Kieran Fleming, Martin McCaughey, Raymond McCreesh, Dessie Grew, Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde, Martin Hurson, Michael Devine, Michael Gaughan (Irish republican), Billy Reid (Irish republican), Kevin Coen, Daniel McCann, Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade, Mairéad Farrell, Francis Hughes, Thomas Begley and Joseph MacManus - NEVER in any of those article have facts from that book been wrong. I do not understand why you are at this!--Vintagekits 14:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recruiting

I don't think it's a good idea for you to recruit people to edit war on your behalf. It would make more sense to engage in discussion on the Talk: page, and abide by policy, don't you think? I note you still have failed to respond to any of the issues raised there. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RFC

Thanks for letting me know. I've fixed the link and description to accurately refer (and point) to the current dispute. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:51, 8 April 2007 (UTC)