J.A.Biddulph

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Charles (talk) 22:10, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Malvern, Worcestershire

Hi. Thank you for this contribution to the Malvern, Worcestershire article. As this is is a Wikipedia Good Article andy to be nominated for Featured Article, could you please provide a referenced source for this interesting addition? Many Thanks, --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:44, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Eastbourne churches

As an experienced editor may I make a few sugestions about your section on churches in Eastbourne? Starting with the section heading it is our style to use upper case only for proper nouns. You do not give any source for the information when Wikipedia requires that all facts are verifiable by reliable secondary sources. We do not make judgements that buildings are exciting, interesting or merry looking. If this has been said by an authority such as Pevsner we can repoert them as saying it.

It takes time to learn our way of doing things and following links in the welcome message above will lead to a lot of useful information. Thanks.--Charles (talk) 22:22, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I see here a problem with reports on places. They can be observed just by looking at them, without having existing written sources to quote from. For instance, do we really need to cite sources for such a statement as "There is a market cross in the middle of the High street"? St Saviour's, Eastbourne, is a "remarkable" building simply to anybody who looks at it - and I'm likely to have seen it more often than Pevsner did. Also, there has to be some way of selecting the church buildings in Eastbourne - which are very numerous. The historic and architecturally remarkable have to be picked out some way - and I am familiar enough with the town to do this picking out without reference to a single source. In a sense, I become the source - though you still have to know that I'm not telling a pack of lies (Even Pevsner makes mistakes sometimes!) (J.A.Biddulph (talk) 10:13, 20 December 2011 (UTC))

I agree that this can be a problem but Wikipedia policy it to put verifiability above truth. However honest and reliable we may be as individuals we are not allowed to add our own observations. If a single source is obviously wrong we can leave it out per due weight if there are other sources that contradict it. Sorry if this seems a bit officious but that is how it works. User:Hassocks5489 is an expert on Sussex churches, having compiled lists of most of them. I recommend discussing things with him.--Charles (talk) 11:19, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Moved from user page

Thank you for your input "Religious Life" to the Eastbourne article. Pse see that article's discussion page regarding the need for citations. Mikeo1938 (talk) 17:29, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Fine on the additional citations; the banner about their lack can soon be removed. There's a useful tool at [1] which is helpful when creating citations. Mikeo1938 (talk) 22:44, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Additions to language articles

Good job expanding the various minor African language articles; I've been meaning to spend some time improving these myself for quite some time now. - TB (talk) 11:16, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

At this point I need some advice - I have A LOT of information on African languages, sometimes nothing more than a name. I can't always find an existing category to put them under. How can I create a "stub" - if necessary, at a later date, cross-referencing? For instance, Degha or Diam or Diammu - the enquirer may want to find it under any of these. This should also include "obsolete" names, as many of the sources are quite old. (J.A.Biddulph (talk) 16:58, 23 March 2012 (UTC))

If you want to create a stub, you may find some useful advice at WP:STUB. However, do not create a stub if all you have is the name. Stubs, although short, must contain some useful information. As for the naming issue, you can create redirects. Create the main article at whichever name is most appropriate (see WP:NAMING) and then create redirects (see WP:REDIRECT) from alternative or obsolete names. – GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:10, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, most languages now have articles. There should be an article for every African language well-enough known to have an ISO code, though sometimes several partially intelligible varieties are consolidated in a single article. I've created half of them (generally stubs), so let me know if you get stuck or have a question, or just can't find something you're looking for.

If you're dealing with a language that does not have an ISO code at Ethnologue, see if you can find it at Linguist List. Sometimes we end up with duplicate articles that just get deleted, because their creator did not realize we already have an article on the language.

As GorillaWarfare suggested, if all we have is a name, and we have no way to rigorously identify it, it may be best to mention it elsewhere, maybe in one of the family articles, as an unknown language. Or a redirect if you just want people to be able to find the article. If a name is used for several languages, you want to create a WP:DAB (disambiguation) page.

As for much of your info being so old: While that's fine for some things (the grammar and vocabulary of the language presumably hasn't changed, though our understanding of it might have), it's not so good for things like classification. We've tried using the best modern classifications that we can find. If your source from 1950 classifies a language differently, it's likely that that classification has been abandoned. You might want to review the article on the language family/branch to see whose classification we're using. Or if you do want to mention it, rather than saying it's "also" classified as X, you might want to give a date for that classification, so that it looks like a change rather than simply chaos. Certainly we don't want to use any refs from 1913 for classification, as you added to Ngas language! Classifications from back then were based as much on race as on linguistics. Probably any classification more than 30 years old should not be used, unless you're giving a historical overview. (And no population figures from the 50s either, please, unless you wish to demonstrate how the language has grown or declined over time. We have more up-to-date info just in Ethnologue.)

J.A.Biddulph (talk) 15:16, 28 May 2012 (UTC) Surely classification of languages should depend on empirical data rather than on the DATE the account appeared! My experience (such as it is) with the African vernaculars leads me to question the "latest" theory as much as the older ones: even the scholars in the Cambridge University Press "African Languages: An Introduction" admit that the inclusion of some languages in some classifications is still tentative (though in my humble opinion in some cases not tentative enough!). Some classifications are simply another way of saying "I don't know yet - miscellaneous" for instance, the "Kwa" group (="West African, but I can't assign it to another group") or are so theoretical as to be virtually useless ("Afro-Asiatic" - it includes Ancient Assyrian, Hebrew, etc. etc. with the totally different Egyptian, as well as some very distant African languages! Much more helpful to know HOW THEY DIFFER FROM ONE ANOTHER). Perhaps it simply falsifies the information to be too sure about the group - as you rightly point out, some scholars in the past (e.g.Miss Werner) completely deceived themselves and the scholarly community by creating unreal categories. I daresay if anyone had dared to differ from such "up-to-date information" in the 1920s they would have been shot down in flames as unscholarly and anti-academic. A certain amount of "chaos" and differing theory (even if devised some decades ago - we rarely have enough additional information to proceed with) might actually be more truthful. I have immense respect for Mssrs. Heine, Nurse, Bender, etc. and eagerly gobble up everything they have to offer, but I cannot simply regard their current positions as the last and final word on the subject - particularly given the fact that the documentation for very many African vernacular languages is very poor. This is why I am anxious to try and find out something, however sparse, that helps to identify a language as itself - let me use a parallel: it is not enough in Wales to know that Welsh is Indo-European and Celtic: we need to step out into the culture, individuality and linguistics of the language itself. Why should this step be denied to my brothers and sisters in Africa, just because scholars in the West haven't yet caught up with the possibilities? (J.A.Biddulph (talk) 15:16, 28 May 2012 (UTC))

Please link to the language article, not just to the name. For example, for Sukuma you'd want to create the link [[Sukuma language|Sukuma]], not just [[Sukuma]]. They look the same to the reader, but only the first links to the language article.

PS. It is not a good idea to use phrases like "as above" or "ibid" in your footnotes, because the sections often get moved around, so that what was once above is now below. Instead, add a name to the reference the first time, like this: <ref name="ABC"> ... </ref>, and then link to it with <ref name="ABC"/> the second and subsequent times. The template for repeated mention of a ref can be found in your edit box, so you don't even need to type it by hand.

Oh, one other stylistic issue: When giving phrases in a foreign language, it's conventional to put them in italics. Putting them in bold, as you've been doing, looks like shouting, and is distracting. I don't know if we cover that in the WP:MOS, but it's probably there somewhere.

— kwami (talk) 20:21, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

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Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! Cerebellum (talk) 10:25, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit summaries, multiple consecutive edits

Hello J.A., and thanks for your contributions. A couple general editing notes if you don't mind: When you make a change to an article, please make a habit of providing an edit summary. Doing so helps your colleagues here understand the intention of your edit. Also it will also be easier for you and your co-editors to collaborate on articles if, instead of making multiple consecutive edits in rapid succession on an article, you use the "Show preview" button to view your changes incrementally before finally saving the page once you're satisfied with your edits. This will keep the edit history of the page less cluttered. Regards, Eric ^talk 15:50, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 6

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Disambiguation link notification for March 14

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Kamwe language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to Sina, Modi, Fali and Hong

Delo language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to Deg, Tem and Kasem

Makonde language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to Palma, Mwera and Makonde

Anyin language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Anyi

Nande language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Shu

Sisaala language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Tumu

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J. Biddulph writes: I am daring at the moment to enclose the names of languages, dialects and places in Africa in [[ ]] if only to point out how very little there is to follow up on these. It's no great problem having to pass through disambiguation pages, as these might serve to define and crystallize the identities even further: besides, if it's a name like "Palma" or "Newport" I simply can't help falling into "disambiguation!" mode, and to add something artificial, like "Palma, Mozambique" would suggest that it's somehow a LESS IMPORTANT Palma than the others.

Disambiguation link notification for June 5

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Budu language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Matta

Ndam language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Lua

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Disambiguation link notification for July 18

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I feel the fact that so many African language references refer only to disambiguation or a "stub" demonstrates how much more needs to be done in this line. I am deliberately placing [[ ]] round the names of languages and dialects because I think that to do its job properly any reference tool REALLY OUGHT to have proper entries for these items. It is then a matter of pot luck whether these names are part of an entry or not: if not, perhaps either I or someone else can try and make up the deficit. This of course is assuming that the multiplicity of language names can enable me to find the language entry or stub under the name already chosen by previous contributors.

Disambiguation link notification for July 25

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Kinga language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to Bena, Nyakyusa and Hehe

Dagbani language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to Bulu and Moore

Kabwari language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to Shi and Lega

Kadaru people (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to Nubian and Dilling

Kambari languages (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to Yauri and Kumbashi

Kabye language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Tem

Kaiku language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Beni

Kari language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Zande

Nkongsamba (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Mbo

Songhay languages (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Hausa

Swo language (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Makaa

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Adding obsolete info

Please stop adding obsolete info to articles. Sources from as far back as 1913, really? When "the road" they speak of may no longer exist? And when you even have to add notes that you're not sure if they're talking about the same language? I'm going through and reverting all of the edits you've done over the past several months. This is a huge waste of both of our time. If you want to add useful information, why don't you get a RS from the past quarter century? — kwami (talk) 05:49, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/SUKUMA Language of Tanzania concern

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Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/SUKUMA Language of Tanzania concern

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Your draft article, Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/SUKUMA Language of Tanzania

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