User talk:Fredrik

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Islamophobia

Hello. Please take a look at the discussion and pass comment. I see you have contributed in the past. Thanks. John Ball

..cypher.. vs ..cipher..

Fredric, I've noticed several instances in which you've 'corrected' spellings in and around the crypto corner. While the typo count is certainly too high (and my contributions to the list are legion), this is not one. Please see the cypher vs cipher discussion at Talk:Cryptography and the assorted links noted there. It's a mess and we're not likely to move to orthographic paradise anytime soon.

English, as usual, has us all running around like decapitated chickens in re its "spelling". We're probably stuck with it, and in the instant case, with both cy and ci and variants of both. ww 15:47, 24 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

F, Thanks for your prompt reply. I hadn't wanted you to think that I was accusing you of 'messing about' in the crypto articles at all. Please don't think that.

I do notice, however, that you are Swedish, and I trust that Swedish (the language) is not so anarchic in its orthography as is English (the language).

The problem is, I suspect, primarily a historical one as English spelling began to settle, before English recent phonemic shifts began to do the same. In addition, English is (uniquely?) a mongrel. Major vocabulary came into the language from Latin (ca 50 BCE to about 300CE), from the pre-existing Brittanic/Pictish (Celtic in various flavors, descendants of which survive today in Cornwall, Wales, the Scottish Islands, Brittany in NW France, and W Ireland), and then from assorted Germanic strains (eg, Angelic, Saxon, Jutish, etc) ca 450-600CE. Something like these Germanic ancestors of English is still spoken in Friesland on the SW coast of Denmark. Charlemagne imported an English ecclesiastic, Alcuin, to set up schools and such in the new Holy Roman Empire, ca 800CE. The language pot then boiled for some few hundred years, including a large admixture of various Scandinavianisms in the Northern parts of the British Isles (the 'Danelaw') from perhaps 800CE to about 1000CE. The language question followed the political victory of Alfred the Great and his descendants, so pure Viking speech didn't survive. And then there was the earthquake advent of yet another huge infusion of Latinate beginning in 1066CE (from 'Norman' French, itself a kind of mixture of Frankish (old French) and Scandinavian -- the Normans being more or less tamed Vikings, sort of).

Throughout it all, the learned (ie, those who could write at all) pretty much thought in Latin grammar terms -- not a good fit to any sort of English at any time as nearly as I can see -- because of the Church, and struggled to fit the language (whichever one then existed) into 'proper' channels. Eg, Alcuin and the Venerable Bede, Roger Bacon, and so on.

This all simmered for another couple of hundred years (producing Chaucer, whose language is neither Anglo-Saxon (a la Beowulf, Alcuin, and the Bede) nor Norman, but something new), and again for still another few hundred years until we get the Elizabethans (eg, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Francis Bacon, Donne, etc) who write something very much like the modern language, if not exactly so (word meaning shifts, for instance), but they apparently didn't pronounce as we do today (modulo accents).

Spelling was rather variable throughout all this, regardless of who spoke quite what. The first real dictionary in English was that of Samuel Johnson in the mid 1700s, which reflected the literary langauge not spelling as she is said.

The result is a language in which 'knight' is written as it was spoken in or before Chaucer's time (to wit, kuh nik tuh, with a gutteral 'k' in the nik part, more or less); not the way it's actually said today (more or less niit). And many other such lunacies. One can even spell 'fish', the marine animal with fins, as ghoti, in accordance with perfectly acceptable English language mappings between sounds and written glyphs. This was a favorite example of George Bernard Shaw, the playwright who railed on about spelling reform and left money in his will to support it. To no noticable effect at all. Other languages, including I trust Swedish about which I know next to nothing, are less loony in their spelling: German, French, etc.

Cypher (encypher, decypher, ...) and cipher (encipher, decipher, ...) are caught up in all this. It's impossible to say, except arbitrarily, which is the 'correct' spelling. And who, in the absence of an Academy (pace the French Academy which polices la langue to eschew vulgarisms, perhaps especially from across the Channel) is to say? They are in any case homonyms, and pronounced just the same, at least in AE and probably in BE. I certainly don't know about AustE or SAE or NigerianE or...

You'll certainly run up against similar foolishness for the foreseeable future as long as you dabble in this odd and wonderful language. ww 18:23, 24 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

copied from User talk:ww...: I see you've challenged this argument elsewhere, but I disagree that non-conventional spelling should be used for any reason, including that of being used by some experts. I don't think people who prefer the variant "y" make up the largest part of Wikipedia's target audience even when it comes to this somewhat specialized section of articles.

There seems to be consensus against what I'm saying, though, so I'll keep off of the lawn in the future. Sorry for the trouble, and thanks for leaving me a note about the issue. Fredrik 17:29, 24 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there isn't really a consensus, just a status quo. I would argue that we should use "cipher", and that "cypher" is a deprecated spelling. Academic cryptography now universally uses "cipher" (a quick trawl through any conference or journal proceedings will confirm this). It's also very uncommon to see "cypher" in cryptography books (I've never seen it). ww argues against a prescriptive spelling, and I agree, but I would argue that we should reflect scholarly usage and standardise on "cipher" on those grounds. — Matt 09:22, 25 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

A case for "cipher": Wikipedia:WikiProject Cryptography/Cipher vs Cypher — Matt 11:48, 25 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Space Elevator

I just wanted to thank you for your work over on the space elevator. Oy, it's been a mess there, and that was a good idea to split the economics section off to try and get things back under control. Rei 17:02, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I also thank you for creating space elevator economics. -- DavidCary 05:31, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Vincenzo Galilei

Thanks for your comment! I appreciate the feedback and it's good to know someone's reading the stuff I write, LOL. Happy editing, Antandrus 21:30, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Ransom note

You bailed me out on that one. Thanks. :-) Io 01:35, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

Hello, Fredrik! Läget så här i natten, då? Rienzo 01:40, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Här är det full aktivitet, nattuggla som jag är! Rienzo 01:49, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

re: doom engine

Perhaps you should include a description of the bounding box mechanism then.

I'm quite familiar with the way the Doom engine works and I have the impression that my choice of wording was clearer to the unfamiliar reader. Perhaps it might be more appropriate to mention bounding boxes in another sentence or paragraph.

Indeed, the BSP article can use some work. I'll see if I can find some time to expand on it during the weekend. Thanks, cbraga 01:42, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)

Your proposed structure for the BSP article looks quite good. Indeed, I suppose a new article is in order. Definitely a project for the weekend. Cheers, cbraga 02:06, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)

User:Soup and images

Chief, I guess we have to delete them. I had no idea if the images were public domain. Sorry. But I was given permission to use the new one on Ferdinand Marcos' page. Soup 4:20 am, Jun 2,2004

Thanks

Thanks for the work on moving Websites. Isn't there a way to actually move the site that's safer? Oh well, there was nothing there before anyway. Also, do you have an opinion on the subcategories?

Hey... you're a robot, right? No one's work is that efficient or edit summaries are that concise... - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 18:44, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

Standard oil

No problem. Feel free to add in anything you know--that article is junior-year U.S. history talking, I'm hardly a specialist. I'm amazed we didn't have one already, actually. Meelar 18:29, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Capitals

Keep up the good work (with the capital letters and with everything else).

Thank you. Michael Hardy 19:55, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hey, I saw you made a ton of edits on the recent changes page, changing 'occured' to 'occurred.' I love wikipedia and have been using and editing it for a little while now, but I'm still new to some things. Are you using some sort of search? I would love to help editing these errors as well, but don't know an efficient way to search for errors. Thanks!

Lockeownzj00 20:15, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

FAC promotion

Frederick - this morning, your promoted Emacs to the featured articles. Emacs had had an obection lodged against it, and it had just recently been put back in the "No objections" section. You then promoted it. Please do not promote articles out of order - people are supposed to be able look at the list and know which articles are up for promotion next. →Raul654 21:46, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)

Nice work framing the images on Origins of the American Civil War. The article looks a lot better. 172 20:18, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Number of edits

Hi. Am waiting on the stats script to get run again before I can update that page. With all the server crashes and 1.3 upgrade stuff, I think the script hasn't been each week like it has been recently. Pcb21| Pete 14:33, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Baby Mario

I have seen all of what happens in Yoshi's Island. I have the game, and I've beat it too, and all I see is Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, and Baby Bowser. I have written bios a few years ago refuting your edits, and were accepted. --Marcus2

There is no material evidence (other than Nintendo's claim around the time Yoshi's Island's release) that baby Mario is Mario. In a bio I wrote (outside Wikipedia), instead, babies Mario and Luigi were twin sons of Wario, discarded and sent by the stork to other parents. There isn't any material evidence refuting this either. Also, the original "Super Mario World" says that the real Mario met Yoshi in this game, and I have seen this happen in the game: Yoshi's egg cracks and he says, "Hello, my name is Yoshi. Bowser) trapped me inside this egg." --Marcus2

I am making none of this up. What is supportive evidence? If it's immaterial, it doesn't count. This site was made to be an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias were designed not to have video game fiction. And whatever evidence I have given you is valid. If there is room for fiction, it is of little importance compared to factual data on U.S. Presidents, world leaders, historic periods, etc. --Marcus2

fusion power

i assume there is a page on nuclear fusion itself different from the fusion power page.

if so, a picture of the national ignition facility, or a tokomak, or something manmade is more appropriate for the fusion power page.

im a picture-person , see Super-Kamiokande (my work) for example

Hfastedge 20:04, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

roundabout

I love what you've done to the roundabout animation. Well done! Mintguy (T) 17:42, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Lord Basava

Earlier today, I put the cleanup message on Lord Basava, as it was listed on Wikipedia:Cleanup and could use some editing. You removed it without giving any reason, and I'm kind of curious to know why. Thanks. --Caliper 04:06, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

One Life to Live

Why did you remove the cleanup notice from OLTL? It was two sentences long and still is. A 35-year-old show should not have a dismal write-up like that. And to remove the cleanup notice without even doing substantial edits to the article...I just don't understand. TheCustomOfLife 20:06, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Same answer as I gave to Caliper on his talk page in reply to the section above this one. I'll put it here too in case anyone else complains:

I removed the cleanup message from all articles that had it yesterday (you can check my contribution history), because it had been decided that it should no longer be used. The message had been edited so it was empty at the time (see its history). Lord Basava and all the other articles are still listed on Wikipedia:Cleanup; listing and listing alone should suffice in the future.

I do realize that my edit summary probably wasn't the clearest - I should've provided a reason. Sorry about that.

- Fredrik (talk) 20:10, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Who decided that the cleanup message should be removed from all articles? Where was this discussed? RickK 06:38, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)

Nothing discussed solely on IRC should be taken as gospel until it has been discussed here too. RickK 19:04, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not blaming you, not to worry. RickK 19:20, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)

Personal Attacks

Sorry Fredrik, I overreacted. I see you were only enforcing the rules, not taking matters into your own hands. My apologies. -JiangFlungDung 02:11, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

spaces in sorting tags

Thanks for the advice about the category sorting tags. I think I'll also do an experiment to see if it makes a difference. TronTonian 21:26, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It does make a difference – Tony Williams jumped to the front of the Williamses in the jazz musicians category when I added a space to his tag. However, this mean I'm going to have to inspect the alphabetization to see how badly the different formats have affected it. So far I've mainly been addressing the problem of the articles that don't have sort keys. I also noticed that the format with a space is not recommended; it's simply the one used in the example. To my mind, the space is uninformative, so before I commit to using a space I'll also have to brood for a while. What I mean is, I'll probably do it, but first I'll have to overcome my resentment at so unCanadian an idea as doing things the same way as everyone else just so they can be done the same way as everyone else.

There's also the question of fixing the formats without buggering up the alphabetization of the category list. For that purpose the best approach would seem to be to continue as before then start revising the list from the beginning. Sheesh. TronTonian 21:39, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You're right, we need a standard approach. Since the space is used in the example and therefore the closest thing to a standard we have, that's probably the best format. It's just taking me a while to face the necessity of fixing all the unspaced sort keys I've added. But I'll do it. TronTonian 21:48, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This is about the only time in my life I've wanted to be an obsessive-compulsive. However, I'm so impressed by the jazz musicians category (it assembles all sorts of articles that fans of different genres have been adding in isolation) that what I'm going to do is work my way fixing the current list before adding any more links to the category. TronTonian 21:52, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer, Fredrik. I think for the moment, though, I'll just fix the ones that most obviously need to be fixed (people with common names, families of musicians, etc.), then keep an eye on the category afterward. I'd been doing that anyway to catch entries sorted on the first name. TronTonian 21:59, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This has already corrected the sorting of the numerous Browns, so now that I can see the advantages of a standard format I now have a good attitude towards it. Thanks for the suggestion. TronTonian

Thanks also for putting up with my usual recalcitrance. Unfortunately, it works. TronTonian

Urge

Hi, since you are from Sweden, I was wondering if you knew if Surge/Urge can be bought there still? -- Fuelbottle | Talk 07:17, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Adminship

Based on my observation, I believe you are well-qualified to become an administrator. Would you be willing to allow me to nominate you? --Michael Snow 22:08, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, it is a pleasure to nominate someone so obviously qualified. I have posted my nomination in the usual place. As I assume you're aware, you should probably post a statement of acceptance on the RfA page itself. --Michael Snow 22:44, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Contributions graph

Hi...how did you make your contributions graph? What type of script would that be? Ilyanep (Talk) 18:10, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The graph is my whole contrib history, right? BTW, when you finalize the script, drop me a note and I'd love to see it. Ilyanep (Talk) 18:58, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Blockering

Tja! Såg att du hotade mig med blockering... Vore kanske lämpligt att du riktade samma hot till Marcus2, som började bitcha med mig... Rienzo 18:35, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Vandalism?

May I inquire whose user page I presumably have vandalized? Rienzo 20:01, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User:Rienzo

Are you interested in endorsing this? RickK 04:43, Jun 30, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for correcting my mistake. I missed the mention of vandalism by the sockpuppet in all the allegations of personal attacks, and since the template was partially copied from the anon listed below, I assumed the allegations had been uncritically copied from that listing. --Michael Snow 16:17, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You're a sysop!

Congratulations! You're a sysop!You might find the administrators' reading list useful reading. Remember to use your new powers for goodness and niceness rather than badness and evilness! ;-) -- Cecropia | Talk 23:23, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! There'll be plenty of badness and evilness, however, muahaha... -- Fredrik | talk 23:29, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your support

Two things:

(1) Congratulations on your own election as a sysop. I've seen you in a few places, and am very impressed with the quality of your work. You deserved this position a long, long time ago. I'm glad you've been appointed.

(2) Thank you so much for your own vote in my favour. Wikipedia is a project I have great dreams for, and I feel so privileged to be able to contribute to its development. It was very good of you to vote for me, Fredrik. I look forward to working with you. David Cannon 09:49, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Grace Kelly

Could you please revert Grace Kelly again? I've used up my 3 reverts for the 24 hours. RickK 06:13, Jul 5, 2004 (UTC)

Fredrik, you seem to be a somewhat reasonable guy... Varför är det viktigt för dig att benämna Grace Kelly som en gayikon? Kan vi inte ha en öppen diskussion om detta istället för att bara återställa in absurdum? Rienzo 06:25, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It's not important to me. I helped RickK and others revert because you were violating the 3 revert rule, which is plain vandalism. If most people are opposed to your edit, it is up to you to mediate a solution that there is consensus for. I'd rather see an open discussion about it as well. Could you please try starting one? If you leave slurs out of it — this is essential for it being an "open" discussion, there's a chance people might be willing to discuss the matter with you. Fredrik | talk 08:08, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your support

I just wanted to thank you for your support in my recent nomination to become an administrator. I really appreciate it. blankfaze | •• | •• 14:31, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

1980 Mount St. Helens eruption a FAC

You mentioned before that this article was feature worthy, so I added a bit to it and nominated it at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates#1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. Please take a look when you have time and comment. :) --mav

Contrib Graph

Hi, when you have the time, could you please update the contributions graph you made for me about a month ago? Thank you in advance — Ilyanep (Talk) 05:16, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Rock the vote

A vote has been initiated on the standard template for computer and video games. As a member of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer and Video Games, you are being solicited for input into the proposed template. Please cast your vote any make any comments at Rock the vote! Thank you! — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:25, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

Swedish sockpuppetry, urgent

Hi, Fredrik, we haven't met, but if you have the time, could you possibly take a look at the Sång till Skåne VfD listing, and, if the spirit moves you, comment there? It's a little urgent, since a sockpuppet from Skånepartiet has joined in. I don't want to write any more in that discussion, myself: there's a lot from me already, and our friends from other countries don't have the background for sorting out whether it's me or the other person that's being weird, so another voice besides mine would be helpful. I've dropped a note to Mic, also. (I realize that anybody that doesn't keep his/her head down on such a subject may get flamed etc., sorry about that. :-() Bishonen 21:08, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)