User:Gilgamesh/Talk Archive 5

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[edit] Talk Archives

[edit] Star of david

Sure, do whatever you like. Your version was too large and 2-bit colour so I rendered my version from a SVG flag of Israel from the Sodipodi collection I think. ed g2s • talk 12:11, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What's too large about it? The bigger a public domain image is, the better. :) The image can always be shrunk to any arbitrary size in Wikipedia articles, and is shrunk on the server side if download size is an issue. - Gilgamesh 03:54, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That is true - but the main problem is that is isn't anti-aliased. An image half the size with anti-aliasing is more useful that an 2-bit image twice the size. ed g2s • talk 13:10, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well that's okay — Wikipedia automagically antialiases images when they shrink. I had these points covered. The image is huge, is 2-bit, and consequently it has a small total file size. It becomes small and beautiful when you shrink it. :) - Gilgamesh 02:15, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I am a bit confused as to your choice of colour. Is it supposed to be blue as per the Israeli flag like this? In which case it is the wrong blue (

). If its supposed to be "neutral" as you say - surely blue associates it with Israel - in which case the only neutral colour would be black, surely, like this? ed g2s • talk 15:11, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I chose blue because it's the RGB opposite of yellow, associated with the yellow badges the Nazis forced people to wear. As such, I associated blue with a "good" star of David. :) Yellow = #FFFF00. Blue = #0000FF. - Gilgamesh 17:57, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

An interesting - if not a slightly dodgy link... You assume that Nazi yellow stars where perfect bright yellow (the opposite of a darker yellow would be closer to 'Israeli blue'). If you want to protray the simple shape of the star the only neutral colour is black. If you want an association with Israel, you shoulduse the right blue. Your blue suggests to the average user that it is Israeli star - so it should either be the right blue or, if you are trying to achieve neutrality, black. ed g2s • talk 17:10, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My goal was to avoid the yellow star. But I felt a bit of freedom in choosing blue, so I chose the most neutral blue I could think of — not aqua blue or navy blue, but mere blue. However, if you think it is best and most neutral, you can make it black. - Gilgamesh 01:45, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Volcanoes

Gilgamesh wrote: "I spent most of the day restructuring Category:Volcanoes into a rich extensible hierarchy."

Wow, I'll say! Fg2 12:47, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Why did you move Taiwan to disputed territories?

Taiwan and nearby Taiwan controlled islands are politically belonged to the Taiwanese government; thus, they are not disputed in any way. Why did you put Taiwan under that catagory? I am a Taiwan national and I felt strongly about that act. Taiwan belongs to the people of Taiwan, not China! Please change it back, or else I will do it. Thank you.

(I do not think myself as a Chinese, nor do I wish to possess any Chinese value.)

I'm sorry, I truly meant no offense. The truth is, Taiwan is disputed. It is not a desirable dispute, but it is a dispute nonetheless. The government in Beijing — though I think very wrongly so — claims Taiwan, and harasses any other government that disagrees. And yet other governments want to protect Taiwan. That's what this dispute (and the bizarre international political situation) is all about. Taiwan belongs to the Taiwanese people to govern themselves, but that cannot change that really big and powerful governments (with a lot of money to spend) want to disagree, and as a result Taiwan disagrees with those big and powerful governments. That is a dispute. It's a frightening world, but it's the reality — I'm here to state dry and cold dispassionate fact, and not (officially) take sides. But unofficially, Taiwan has every right to rule herself without being under Beijing's thumb is Taiwan so wishes, and I wish you the best of luck with that. But please understand that I have to be a responsible academic. NPOV policy and all. Until Beijing and Taiwan have no disputes over the sovereignity of Taiwan, the category must stay. - Gilgamesh 03:14, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I think you were right. I know the world is unfair sometimes.... May there be a war, Taiwan will defeat China and undo any unfair things brought upon her by the Chinese Nationalists (KMT). ╮-"-╭

Well, I mostly agree...except that I never wish for war in any situation. :P - Gilgamesh 07:18, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Edit to Pica (disorder)

Hello,

I'm wondering why you made this edit to Pica (disorder).

Thanks,

Acegikmo1 02:52, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wow, I made that edit a long time ago. I made that edit because it's true. Most people don't even want to talk about it and hear it mentioned. - Gilgamesh 04:15, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Éilat.

Please see Talk:Éilat. --i@k5 22:43, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Saddle

Hey guy, you know I do not remove things to be mean, but I deleted your reference to "saddle". There is no volcanology concept "saddle" so the article you created saddle (volcanology) did not really make sense; and in fact the text was mostly incorrect. I fixed the definition of saddle at saddle - Marshman 01:24, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Whaya talking about? Saddle is mentioned periodically at HVO website texts. :P - Gilgamesh 04:50, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

And in all kinds of other (non-volcanology) contexts. It is not a volcanology term, but one of topography from common parlance and perhaps physical geography. It was the use of "(vulcanology)" that I objected to, as it has nothing specific to do with that subject or volcanoes. We have a "Saddle Road" here in Kāne‘ohe. As a common parlance term, it really belongs in Wiktionary, not as an article in Wikipedia. Much of what you wrote there had problems and would be difficult to repair and still have an article. I can explain in more detail if you really want? - Marshman 17:54, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, that's sufficient. ^_^ - Gilgamesh 00:38, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Gaijin

Gilgamesh, why did you move gaijin to gaikokujin? The article wasn't about the neutral term, it was about the controversial term. I appreciate your effort but you could have at least given the rest of us some notice and some reasoning. Sekicho 03:23, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Really? I thought the article was about Japanese terms for foreigners in general. - Gilgamesh 03:25, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Even if it was, why would you change the title to gaikokujin? Why not choose something more generic? That said, if you look at the article, a good part of it deals solely with the nature of the word "gaijin." "Gaikokujin" is only mentioned briefly as an official/kotobagari euphemism for "gaijin." The article may not be about gaijin in your view, but it is even less about gaikokujin, so I still don't understand why you moved it. Sekicho 03:32, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

I used gaikokujin because I thought it was neutral. In the first paragraph, it said that gaijin is a contraction of gaikokujin. And there wasn't already an article for gaikokujin, so I thought it was killing two birds with one stone. - Gilgamesh 03:35, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Are you...

Are you he:משתמש:גילגמש?--Roy 17:04, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

No. - Gilgamesh 22:48, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A Hebrew gilgamesh! how cool!--Josiah 23:20, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Use of quotation mark for glottal stops, etc.

You will probably be interested in Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Use_of_quotation_mark_for_glottal_stops.2C_etc.. Jallan 15:37, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to make a Mormonism WikiProject

I'd like to discover if there would be community support for a Mormonism WikiProject. I think it would offer several advantages to our current decentralized approach. Please comment.

See Talk:Joseph Smith, Jr.#Propose we make a Mormonism WikiProject — Cool Hand Luke 18:10, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Interesting Idea. Though I'm not Mormon, I'd like to participate in it.--Josiah 23:19, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi. :) I wasn't aware my personal talk page had turned into a group talk page without my reply. :D Well...sure, but I don't know how useful I'd be. I don't want to invite flames or hate speech (and it seems like I always stumble across it). In any case, I'll join — my primary interests in this field are Hugh Nibley and Judaism-LDS topics, rather than the ugly flame grounds of Christianity-LDS topics. - Gilgamesh 02:42, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Heh. I went ahead and made the WikiProject under Wikipedia:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement. As User:COGDEN commented, we would actually like people from outside of LDS culture to participate. I hope the project will be useful. To these ends I've compiled a list of red links and short Latter Day Saint articles not listed as LDS stubs. Cool Hand Luke 18:46, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

LDS "culture"? :P You're from the Intermountain West, aren't you. :) I regard LDS as a uniting religion and principles, with people of many cultures. :P - Gilgamesh 00:20, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes. Hmm. I suppose I more closely mean "someone not involved with the belief systems inspired by Joseph Smith, nor reactions to these belief systems and its effects." Most of our editors seem to be LDS or ex-LDS, and from a narrow Great Basin perspective, this seems to represent a monolithic "LDS culture." Cool Hand Luke (Communicate!) 04:06, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Zionist_Revisionism

Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Zionist_Revisionism

User:Alberuni is adding, yet again, material intended as propaganda. You'll notice that there isn't any palestinian equivalent of the article, and that the claims made about "Zionist Revisors" happen in any conflict.--Josiah 00:28, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You know that as Azionist, I disapprove of Zionist and Anti-Zionist weight in information. But I have no clue what I'm supposed to do about this. :( - Gilgamesh 03:06, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Supervolcano

Thanks for rewriting Supervolcano. Your text is clear and thorough and should hopefully stop the problem of folks trying to insert a clearly wrong definition in place of the ambiguous definition. Excellent work! -- Cjensen 19:16, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You are most welcome. ^_^ - Gilgamesh 00:13, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Judeo-Berber language

I'm sceptical about the claim that Judeo-Berber is a single language. Jews spoke Berber in several different areas, not just southern Morocco, and I strongly doubt they all spoke the same dialect... any thoughts? - Mustafaa 00:44, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yeah. Change it to "languages" or "linguistics", whatever you think is best. - Gilgamesh 02:06, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] County map

[1] - Mustafaa 18:39, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thank you Musy. ^___^ - Gilgamesh 03:28, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[2]. - Mustafaa 02:16, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] National flags

I noticed you created two images, Image:Wikipedia_flag_united_states_large.png and Image:Wikipedia_flag_united_states_large.png. Firstly Wikipedia should not be self-referential, so these filenames are inappropriate. Secondly, there is already a complete set of national flags using the naming system "Country flag large.png". This makes it easy for people to implement a set of falgs as they know what the image will be called. If you feel strongly that there should be very large, non-AA'd flags avaliable discuss so on the flag's talk page. Perhaps a compromise would be to link to your version from the current image pages. Or you could host your images on the Commons. ed g2s • talk 21:13, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wow, this came from left field... I never dreamed in my wildest imaginations that this would be a problem. Yes, I feel strongly that the large flags should be available. But I'm totally flexible about the filename — change it to anything you want. - Gilgamesh 00:08, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Jerusalem

Check out Jerusalem#In Mandaeanism - I was really surprised to find this out today. Seems not all "People of the Book" like the city... - Mustafaa 23:15, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of them. ^_^ Thank you anyway. ^^ Samaritans don't think much of Jerusalem either. - Gilgamesh 00:04, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I'd heard of Mandaeans - but I had kind of assumed they would like Jerusalem! Might be nice to add a section on Samaritan views, if they have a lot to say about it. - Mustafaa 00:43, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Morning Star symbol

Are you aware that your morning star symbol is a Sumerian symbol for the inverted pentagram, otherwise known as a Pythagorean pentagram? --Viriditas 00:52, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No, but it wouldn't surprise me, as many common geometric symbols have duplicates in other cultures. It may be a Pythagorean pentagram, but it is still also a Christian morning star. - Gilgamesh 00:54, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What is the history behind the use of the "Christian morning star" from your perspective? I just found it ironic that you were using a Sumerian name, that's all. --Viriditas 01:11, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, it was commonly used in various inverted pentagram shapes by Christians — even in the United States — until about a century ago, after it became associated with Satan worship because of some popular occult literature from out of France. Fewer Christians use it today, and many are scarcely aware that it was so recently a common Christian symbol. It is still, however, used prominently by the LDS Church, chiefly in Temple design (as it has been since the mid 19th century) and is the only Christian pentagram I know of that is still in continuous use. The design as I submitted comes from the Nauvoo Temple, and features the characteristic radial light/dark relief shading and the elongated bottom point. The symbol represents Jesus Christ as the morning star, as he replaced the previous morning star — the rebellious Lucifer — in the pre-mortal existence. I'm sure there is plenty of Christian pentagram information on the Internet; just look around. - Gilgamesh 01:26, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I obviously know very little about LDS, but I am willing to learn more. --Viriditas 08:34, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, I think I can think of some quick figures. 12 million worldwide... 5th largest religious denomination in the U.S... Comprises roughly 50% of Tonga's religion... Areas in the U.S. and northern Mexico with large LDS populations are called Jello Belt. Adheres to the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrine and Covenants, and believes in a living modern succession of prophets and apostles. Ahh! I know some good statistical information. http://www.adherents.com/ And a brief collective statement of creed: Articles of Faith.

[edit] Thanks for your apology

Hopefully we can discuss this on the appropriate talk page. You are certainly not my adversary, nor do I see you as one.--Viriditas 05:15, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Greetings, codes and projects

Hallo Gilgamesh!

Mustafaa mentioned you are interested in Semitic languages. I've just done some work on Syriac language and Aramaic language (a little too much on the latter!).

I'm having some trouble seeing all the transliteration characters that people are using on Wikipedia: they just appear as boxes. Do you know of the easiest way to fix this?

I've had a look at the Hebrew languages project page you set up. Would it be possible to set up something with a bit more scope, like Semitic or Afro-Asiatic languages, for project? I'm unsure what the best way to transliterate here is.

Keep up the good work.

Gareth Hughes 00:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for my late reply, it's been a madhouse. Anyway, the problem is an unrelated dispute at Wikipedia over font displayability. At present, Wikipedia forces a small size of the Arial typeface on all Wikipedia pages, which hinders readability for many characters and makes many alphabets illegible. This issue for unregistered users is an ongoing debate. However, for registered wikipedians, you can edit your own CSS file to eliminate predefined typeface information and allow your own browser's settings to dictate what fonts to use. You do this by editing the monobook.css file in your own user subdirectory. For me, it's User:Gilgamesh/monobook.css. For you, it's User:Garzo/monobook.css. Try editing your version by copying the material from mine, and your browser should (knock on wood) default the font to your browser settings. When no font is specified, both FireFox and MSIE fall back on multiple fonts depending on the alphabet. Your default alphabets each for Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Devanāgari, etc. ... and even Syriac (if you have WinXP). I hope this is helpful. - Gilgamesh 11:53, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Judaism, Quran, and an RfA

Hiya Gilgamesh! I couldn't get you on IM, so i'll post here.

Mustafaa began an article in a Sandbox, and gave me permission to work on it after I asked him. When I start it, I'd like it if you worked on it with me. See User:Lameen/Judaism in the Quran

Last, but not least, User:CheeseDreams has opened up an RfA against myself and 9 other users. While it's virtually for sure that the RfA will me completely rejected (he has not met followed any of the Dispute Resolution steps, nor has he adhered to the other requirements of the RfA, and has a RfM, RfC, and Vandalism in Progress page currently against him), it'd be helpful if you would give input on this issue if/when it does go through. (Or even comment on it now ;0)--Josiah 01:03, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Jaffa City Page

Thank you for your words of wisdom in the Jaffa City page I agree that neither a zionist or any other point of view is the object but just the historical facts presented as dryly as possible the Isreali citizens of Jaffa are welcome to write about modern jaffa and indeed there are paragraphs on this describing the devlopmement of the city the sights etc... However before 1949 this was a arab city with only a few hundred jews and this is also very musch part of the history of the city just as it was a Christian city even before this.

Thanks for your comments its pople like you that make wikipedia and bind this community together

Thank you for your praise. ^_^ On Wikipedia I try to promote neutral uninvolved non-Zionism without passing judgment on any side, rather than embracing any Zionism or anti-Zionism with their points of view. Personally (and this is an unencyclopedic opinion), I think that if any Jew, any Samaritan, any Muslim, any Christian, any Druze, even any Ba‘al-worshipping neo-pagan etc. etc. wants to live anywhere in the region, they should be perfectly allowed to, as long as they live in peace, mutual respect, and social and civil equality with all their neighbors, as well as complete religious freedom. That applies equally to ירושלים-قدس, תל אביב-يافا, نابلس-שכם, غزة-עזה, عمان-רבת אמון, دمشق-דמשק, عقبة-אילת, etc... - Gilgamesh 08:01, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Article Licensing

Hi, I've started the Free the Rambot Articles Project which has the goals of getting users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to...

...all U.S. state, county, and city articles...
...all articles...

using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) version 1.0 and 2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to the GFDL (which every contribution made to Wikipedia is licensed under), but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles (See the Multi-licensing Guide for more information). Since you are among the top 1000 most active Wikipedians, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles.

Nutshell: Wikipedia articles can be shared with any other GFDL project but open/free projects using the incompatible Creative Commons Licenses (e.g. WikiTravel) can't use our stuff and we can't use theirs. It is important to us that other free projects can use our stuff. So we use their licenses too.

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} template (or {{MultiLicensePD}} for public domain) into their user page, but there are other templates for other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} with {{MultiLicensePD}}. If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know at my talk page what you think. -- Ram-Man 17:56, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Brad Levicoff

Brad Levicoff, the article created in the space to which your former redlink from Zophar had led, is up for deletion. You might want to contribute comment and to vote at its entry there. Cheers! Samaritan 01:19, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Apologist is not a Misnomer

Ok, I got around to reading the nitty gritties of your user page. There's a few things I'd like to point out *evil smile*. 1) the term "apologist" isn't a misnomer. It comes from the greek word απολογια (apologia) which means "defense", and is found in your bible in 1 Peter 3:15 [3], though here the word is generally translated as "answer." 2) Muslims believe Jesus was the Messiah. --The Karaite who went Frum

Alright, I cave. :Þ - Gilgamesh 07:48, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] I am that I am

An article you might like to edit. - Mustafaa 18:35, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Rename of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Can you please support the rename and requested move to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter=day Saints Wikipedia:Requested moves#Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_.26rarr.3B_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints Thx in Adv --Trodel 06:35, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Clan of the Cats categorization

May I ask why you're categorizing CotC as an anthropomorphic comic? It doesn't seem to fit: aside from Sebastian, who can talk but is physically indistinguishable from a normal housecat (and thus not visually "anthropomorphic"), the main cast is almost entirely human, and I don't think lycanthropes usually fall under the heading of anthropomorphics. — Gwalla | Talk 00:58, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, he may not he visually anthropomorphic, but he is still anthropomorphic in that human characteristics are applied to him—in this case, his ability to talk. However, if his role is so minor, then I personally wouldn't care if the category were removed. - Gilgamesh 06:57, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Great Slave Lake a rift lake ?

If I read the history correctly you added Great Slave Lake to the rift lake category. Are you sure it is a rift lake? I did a google search, and couldn't find anything to back that up...

Well, it exists on a continental tear, which is technically a kind of rift. Other lakes like Lake Balkhash are similarly formed. - Gilgamesh 21:00, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Daniel et al

You changed the Hebrew in Daniel. -> (דָּנִיֵּאל),

I know (almost) nothing of Hebrew but I see that less characters are displayed in my browser. Maybe other readers have the same effect. Just a friendly word - I thought you should know. Peter Hitchmough 06:53, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

They're vowel pointings. Many fonts support them, but until recently, they were combined properly in Internet Explorer and only a few other browsers. Now Mozilla Firefox-based browsers (real 1.0 release) combine them correctly too, and that's 99% of the people out there. It's great now. - Gilgamesh 06:55, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wow! You're online. :) Yes, I'm on Firefox 1.0 (final). Looking closer I see the pointers you added. They looked like spaces to me eyes, so I should get them checked. - Peter.

They're very useful information. See nequddoth. ^_^ - Gilgamesh 07:04, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tenjo san Volcano

Is there an article on the Tenjo san volcano near Kozushima? I couldn't find one, and thought that with your interest in volcanoes, you might like to? ;) --Josiah 19:13, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Not now. Having a bad day. :| - Gilgamesh 02:06, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)