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ARCHIVE INDEX (EDIT)
2005 2006 2007 2008
2009 2010–11 2012

Aug '08 — Sep '08

Maya calendar

I'm curious why the addition of the Mayan calendar image was reverted. From the research I have done, the typical Mayan calendar was circular with the 20 days (each defined by its glyph) around the outer edge, just like the image that was added. That this calendar was created by a modern craftsman does not affect its ability to show what a Mayan calendar looks like. In the absence of another calendar image, I respectfully request that you reconsider the revert and restore the image. If not, would you please locate an appropriate image and add it to the article. Thanks. Truthanado (talk) 00:06, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Per the article(s), the 'Maya calendar' is not an actual object, something like, say, a clock, that can be simply illustrated. It is instead a concept, actually a system of many different repeatable counts of various lengths, that in several standard combinations could be used—among other things—to fix events in time in relation to one another. It is no more a circular arrangement of glyphs than a clock is an hour, or your desk calendar is a Western year. These are analogues, ways of representing the concept, and just like with instruments we use to measure time there are a myriad ways that this could be done.
The Maya themselves did not actually represent the 'calendar' in a circular disk fashion (maybe you're thinking of the Aztec Piedra del Sol, a sculpture that's not really a calendar per se either. Modern descriptions of how the system functioned sometimes use and illustrate the interaction of calendric cycles as if it were a set of interlocking circular cogs, with glyphs and numbers at each of the cogs' teeth- you've probably seen those about. These are just graphic devices to give some visual cue how the cycles related to one another, not something the Maya themselves did.
The object in that img shows only the set of haab' month-glyphs (not day glyphs) arranged in a circle. Apart from being highly stylised and therefore difficult to discern which corresponds with what, this can't be used to illustrate how the haab' cycle worked. The haab' worked by combining a progression of the numbers 1-20 with each of the haab' month names, and the plaque or whatever that object is cannot show this. As such, I don't think the img is useful to illustrate the article —it might be well-crafted, but it does not show 'the calendar' and the glyphs are too stylised and removed from actual Maya glyphs to be that recognisable. IMO, anyway. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 01:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Capital letters for authors' names

Since you implemented {{aut}} in most Maya-related articles, you might consider droping a comment here. ––Bender235 (talk) 00:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for alerting me to that discussion, Bender. I will see what comments I can add. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Good Article sweeps: Great Pyramid of Giza

Hello, I am reviewing Archaeology articles as part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force GA sweeps. I reviewed Great Pyramid of Giza today and placed the article on hold for a week to allow for my concerns to be addressed. I am contacting you because you have been a major contributor to the article and may be able to help. The reassessment can be found at Talk:Great Pyramid of Giza/GA1. Please get in touch or comment on the reassessment page if you have any questions. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 14:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the notification. Been a little while now since I'd done anything over at that article. If I get the time will see if I can help out. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 23:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (Image:PIA logo.jpg)

Thanks for uploading Image:PIA logo.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 05:18, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I see some kind bot somewhere has replaced the one I uploaded with a PNG version, image:PIA logo.png. In that case, no need for this original JPG version, so I'll delete it myself as superfluous.--cjllw ʘ TALK 05:28, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Good rewrite on Jaredite section

That was a nice rewrite/copyedit of the Jaredite section within the Olmec alternative origin speculations article. Thanks, Madman (talk) 04:09, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey thanks, Madman. And good luck with the GA nomination for Mesoamerican ballgame, by rights it should deservedly make it. Will give it another read-through and see if there are any tweaks that cld help out...cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:00, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

high revision count page deletes

Hiya. A quick note: every time you make a delete or restore action on high revision count pages, it causes a database lock; for, every revision has to be updated each time to mark it deleted or not deleted. So, ideally, unless it's a true emergency, please email oversight instead. Cheers. =) --slakr\ talk / 00:43, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks for the tip, I wasn't too sure what the revision count threshhold might be. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:57, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

On 2012

Thanks for restoring the December 22 and 23 entry. Now summerize them, get to it(!). Cheers. -- Orion11M87 (talk) 11:39, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it could be summarised any more concisely, without losing the important details. Given the amount of interest and general speculation surrounding this event, the factual resume is justified, IMO. Regards, --cjllw ʘ TALK 03:27, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

moved many lists into main space; could use a hand

Hi Cjll,

Long time no chat. I've moved a total of seven "list of endangered languages in x" lists into main space. They are linked at the newly stripped-down List of endangered languages. However, List of endangered languages in North America still needs a lot of help. There is a lot of (unverified) info at User:Ling.Nut/EthnicList. I also temporarily skipped over the Zapotec, Zoque and Otomi languages as they are larger and need careful attention. Any help you could offer would be deeply appreciated. Thanks Ling.Nut (WP:3IAR) 10:39, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Ling.Nut, how's it going. Thanks for the notice, the stripped-down overall list pg makes sense, given the numbers. Had a quick look, removed one (Chicomuceltec) since I assume extinct langs are not to be included. One comment, for a few entries you give two population figures from ethnologue, I presume one is a # of fluent speakers while the other, larger number is a # of community population (who I guess no longer speak the indigenous lang.) If so, suggest putting these in separate columns, would make it clearer. Another suggestion: given that the dates of the sources varies considerably, from anywhere in the past 30 years or so, it might be useful to have a column like "status as of" for the most recent surveyed date the info is from, to better allow for comparision of the data. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:21, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Those are good suggestions... I'll try to do them... but I've already put a couple solid days into those lists (recently, that is; much more time in the dim past of nearly two years ago), and making them perfect would take either maybe four or five more solid days, or a couple weeks of here 'n there work. I'm hoping others will chip in ;-) But I'll bear your suggestions in mind, and will see if I can do them... Unrelated Question: Is it worth the trouble to become an admin, btw? Aside from deleting redirects etc. (which would be very useful in the "languages" area) are there really any meaningful contribs an admin can make to the encyclopedia? later Ling.Nut (WP:3IAR) 01:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Oops, apologies there Ling.Nut, had intended to reply to your Q re adminship, but got distracted along the way—not for the first or last time—and well, here we are a week later.
I suppose the answer is, it depends. While as sysop you have access to some handy tools that make life easier, nowadays a lot of these can be emulated by scripts, widgets, or permissions, like rollback. On the other hand, it can be useful and satisfying to say protect a pg or block a disruptive user on the spot. There's no end of behind-the-scenes activities one could get involved with as an admin, which taken together does rather grease the wheels and so allow you support the project in other, meaningful ways. You can also contribute more substantially to certain debates and processes, if there's some aspect of wiki-life that you find in need of improvement.
There's no quota per se of adminly duties to work thru, so if your interest tends towards content editing then that is not impaired; however, it may not then be worth the trouble going thru the sometimes bruising RFA process. Been some time now since I had a look at how RFAs are being handled, but I suspect not much has changed & if you're going to go thru the process then you need to bring along a thick skin and reserves of patience and forbearance for what will often be a series of niggly challenges. Personally I'd have no trouble supporting your nom shld you wish to pursue, & wld be happy to nominate you myself if you really wanted to do it. But you can be just as productive without sysop tools as with them, so I spose it just boils down to your own personal style and intentions. Let me know if you do decide to go ahead. Best, --cjllw ʘ TALK 01:17, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Thanks! I go back and forth. I have long been opposed to the idea; now I'm looking for reasons (if any) that I should reconsider my stance... BTW, I totally agree with Maunus on that Ray Of Sunshine Award thingie, even though most linguitics- and/or Mesoamerica-related articles have been off my watchlist for a long while (mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!)  ;-) Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 02:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

You know how sometimes you hate checking your watchlist, especially when you see some anonymous IP has edited your favorite articles? The Ray of Sunshine is bestowed on that person that, when you see their name at the top of your watchlist, you know that all is right with the world, you can relax, and do something besides cleaning up another mess.
·Maunus·ƛ· 16:11, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Maunus, means a lot & appreciate it. And likewise compadre, with bells on! Saludos, --cjllw ʘ TALK 01:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Decipherment of rongorongo FAC

Hi CJ,

If you're interested, I've nominated the second half of the rongorongo article for FAC. It's at Decipherment of rongorongo. kwami (talk) 22:58, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi kwami. Sure, and look forward to re-reading your fascinating and informative account, will pipe up with any suggestions for tweaking that may occur (doubt there'll be anything major). Will prob not be until sometime next wk before I review, however. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 23:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Olmec Good Article, and "perhaps"

CJLL, I have been pondering our GA reviewer's thoughts on the use of "perhaps" and "probably" (see Talk:Olmec/GA1):

":perhaps" sounds like an editor thought! . . .looking for an answer ... [how about] "archaeologist believe / think..." "the evidence leads to the possibility that ..." "geophysicians have found possible evidence for..." "research leads to ..." ?

I guess I like "perhaps" because it's just so short and snappy. Long clauses like those suggested seem to be fluff and not particularly helpful since the "perhaps"s and "probably"s should be qualified by a citation. Rather than saying this to our reviewer, however, I thought I would get a 2nd opinion: yours! Give it some thought, and thanks, Madman (talk) 13:11, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
P.S. Feel free to edit the article if you'd like to replace "perhaps"s.
P.P.S. Thanks for cleaning up the references at Olmec. Lots of work.

Hey Madman, no probs. I may not be the best person to ask since in my own writing style I rarely use one word when ten or more will do... ;-)
Personally I don't have too much of an issue with disembodied perhapses and probablys, as long as it's clear from the overall context that the text speaks for verifiable mainstream scholarship opinions — in archaeology or history there are few statements that can be made with certainty, and adverbial qualifiers are standard issue. Anyways, I s'pose we should be able to tweak the prose so the qualifying opinion can be pinned down a little more explicitly without being too wordy; I'll see if I can think of any substitutions. Grazie, --cjllw ʘ TALK 03:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your help - I think the article is now approaching "excellent". I'm nearly done working on the reviewer's concerns, and so we're very close to a Good Article status. In fact, the article is so good, I think I'll go ahead and try for a Featured Article.
In contrast, the Mesoamerican ballgame article sailed right thru GA with nary a comment. I believe it has more to do with the reviewer than the article.
Thanks again, Madman (talk) 13:12, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, guess it can seem a bit of a lottery sometimes. Comparatively I think it ought to readily pass GAC muster. There are probably a few i's and t's to be dotted and crossed before it could be steered thru FAC, but nothing major and should be mostly a matter of progressively tidying and tightening (eg, making sure all the citation calls are formatted alike, & so on) now to make it through a future/imminent FA nom. Top stuff, and cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 02:54, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

(undent) eavesdropping here... yeah... I strongly dislike it when folks insult GA (not referring to anyone here), but it is a crapshoot. There's no reviewer training to improve Inter-rater reliability. ... I wanna work on the wiki v 0.7 articles for WP:3K and WP:ETHNIC (including Aztec, if I remember correctly) but I may be able to help a tiny bit with Olmec.. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 03:05, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

No probs, Ling.Nut. Sure that neither I nor Madman disparage the GA process, and personally I think it has a very welcome place and valid role on wikipedia. As noted sometimes the end result can seem a little arbitrary, with variance from GAC to GAC in the strength of the criteria that are applied. But then FAC is not immune from this tendency, either. The systems work as well as they can ATM, I suppose.
Yeah, had been thinking should get organised to review the meso/aztec articles to be selected for V0.7, Olmec is on the list. The more hands the merrier I say, so anywhere you can help...I'd like to bring some of the wp:ethnic indigenous articles up to scratch, but time is fleeting...Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 03:41, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Tables

Hi,

I am concerned about properly using and inserting Wikitables into my edit of the Q'anjob'al language page. Any ideas or suggestions for doing this?

DKaufman (talk) 03:48, 18 September 2008 (UTC) Dave Kaufman

Hi there Dave, thanks for the Q; have answered with some advice at your talk page. Any more queries, happy to help out if I can. Look forward to seeing your expansions at the Q'anjob'al page. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 04:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Lost Work

Hi, just to let someone know that I spent the last two hours of my life working on this Q'anjob'al article only to have Wikipedia not save it. Is there any way that I can prevent this from happening again, because that really sucks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by DKaufman (talk • contribs) 05:18, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Dave, just noting have responded at you talk page here. Regards, --cjllw ʘ TALK 04:25, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Q'anjob'al edits

Hi, The Q'anjob'al edits look great. Re: the Mateo p.c., this is referring to "personal communication" with a Q'anjob'al speaker, Pedro Mateo, a fellow student here at KU, so no publication is involved here. You were right on about the Variacion Dialectal; I was going to go back to that, but you saved me the trouble! Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by DKaufman (talk • contribs) 04:32, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

No probs Dave. Responded w a comment re published vs unpublished sources at ur talk pg. --cjllw ʘ TALK 05:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Indigenous peoples of Africa

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Indigenous peoples of Africa, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised because even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. — CactusWriter | needles 12:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks CactusWriter, I appreciate the courtesy of this notification. However, I would agree with my colleague Maunus that the article—while deficient in citations—is a valid one and would dispute a deletion proposal. Will comment further @ the relevant talk page. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 08:07, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your response, cjllw, and for moving the discussion to Talk:Indigenous peoples of Africa. I should have done that myself. I've replied there. — CactusWriter | needles 10:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of student page

I noticed that one of my students' entries, Sacrifice and Human Trophy Taking in the Ancietn Maya, has been tagged for deletion. The student has a copy of it on his talk page, and I'm hoping to get him some suggestions soon (it needs work!), but it would be nice if some patience could be exercised in the deletion process. Thanks for all you help with this! Hoopes (talk) 20:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Hoopes, no worries. I removed the prod tag and gave it a work-in-progress sticker. Also renamed the article to Human trophy taking in Mesoamerica, a little more in keeping with the naming conventions around here and reflecting the current scope. Will continue to keep an eye out for any other misunderstandings for the KU pool. Regards, --cjllw ʘ TALK 09:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Q'anjob'al vowel table

Hi. I'm wondering if you could help me with the vowel table for Q'anjob'al. It came out rather messed up - I was trying to get it like the Kaqchikel one (with High, Mid, Low all on the left-hand side), but without the tense and lax divisions and just representing the 5 basic vowels, not all the variations that are apparently in Kaqchikel. Is this something you can help me do? Thanks.

Dave —Preceding unsigned comment added by DKaufman (talk • contribs) 01:52, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi there Dave. This now (hopefully) fixed, if any probs or further tweaks needed pls let me know. Best, --cjllw ʘ TALK 01:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
The vowel chart looks superb! Thanks for your help!

DKaufman (talk) 00:13, 27 September 2008 (UTC)Dave

You're most welcome, & thanks for the great expansion and additions to the article! cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:58, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Olmec/GA1#GA_second_review

I responded to your comments on the Olmec GA review. No hurry on this, since the GA reviewer is out until the weekend I believe. Madman (talk) 21:15, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Okeydokey, thanks! I see Rsheptak has kindly pitched in there as well. I've now made a couple addl comments. Cheers! --cjllw ʘ TALK 01:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
END OF TALK ARCHIVE PAGE
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