User talk:ZH8000
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Mass IP undos (native names, local spellings, sister cities, ...)
Hi, you seem to be mass-reverting the contributions by IP 65.129.203.34, like this one. I'm not sure I see the point, is there anything I'm missing? – Uanfala (talk) 11:29, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
- Well, the very same user does these rather arbitrary edits for quite a long time now. (S)he eventually started as the users User:Laibwart and User:Chickensire. Both have been blocked indefinitely for the very same kind of edits. Since then (s)he does continue under various IPs, but always from the same ISP, namely CenturyLink, Tuscon, Arizona, USA (tcso.qwest.net). Latest edits are by IP 2600:8800:7C00:5AF:3D3B:EFC9:C819:531E .
- So far I know edits by the following IPs (most recent first): 67.1.13.52, 67.1.131.50, 67.1.110.141, 67.1.105.141, 67.1.210.62, 67.1.148.69, 71.33.64.121, 67.1.105.169, 67.1.14.209, 67.1.226.117, 67.1.133.169, 67.1.113.85, 67.1.194.190, 67.1.112.110, 67.1.134.48, 65.129.203.221, 67.1.248.80, 65.129.129.192, 67.1.220.157, 65.129.157.166, 67.1.129.0(!), 67.1.224.185, 65.129.132.108, 67.1.142.64, 67.1.155.152, 65.129.133.133, 67.1.155.112, 67.1.233.54, 67.1.244.84, 67.1.247.236, 65.129.203.77, 65.129.153.116, 67.1.225.20, 67.1.237.50, 67.1.111.35, 67.1.128.43, 67.1.147.112, 65.129.202.189, 67.1.196.182, 67.1.198.250, 65.129.196.200, 67.1.251.133, 65.129.203.34, 67.1.109.60, 65.129.195.249, 75.164.97.180, 67.1.115.126 (e.g. see talk page!), 67.1.215.109, 67.1.140.59, 65.129.223.166, 67.1.157.12, 174.18.87.185, 65.129.155.10, 67.1.144.142, 65.129.128.18, 67.1.144.44, 67.1.226.194, 65.129.128.18, 75.164.99.113, 67.1.46.81, 67.1.209.111, 67.1.144.14, 67.1.144.142, 67.1.215.109, 67.1.109.64, 75.164.97.180, 65.129.195.249, 65.129.203.253.
- (S)he is editing almost always the same two patterns:
- Adding presumably local spelling of places
- Changing national entities, e.g. of sister cities entries
- and others
- The issues are the following:
- The local spellings are never sourced. I can say for sure regarding German Swiss places (my mother language), there are often errors, though astonishingly quite often quite correct. But not always. Often quite correct, but not totally. And sometimes simply wrong. For example, the issue with German Swiss places in particular is that there is no official spelling of Swiss German – it is just a spoken language. We can assume that (s)he "knows" them from hearsay or derives them from some rather basic knowledge of the corresponding languages/dialects, but not with certainty, or even by source. So I can easily assume that her/his contribution is quite arbitrary. A very good example of the IP's applied arbritraryness is also given by this comment to the undo of such an edit to an Irish village: "Per IMOS, place does not derive from Irish. "!
- (S)he edits the listing of sister cities by adding subnational units. This for itself is not a problem, though it is not a consensus on almost every list. For example, (s)he often replaces UK with England, or Wales, or Scotland and changes the flags accordingly. But this is not the consensus! The sister cities lists roughly follow the pattern of "<national flag> <place name>, <nation name>, since <year>", more or less.
- I revert all of her/his edits just because of the large work load. I am not willing to check every single edit for correctness. Or even to search for missing sources.
- I also feel supported by the previous blocks of the users Laibwart and Chickensire.
- I tried to communicate with this person several times, but never got a single response.
- I also often reported her/him to administrators. But this did not have any effect. So I stopped to do so.
- It also seems that (s)he does not recognize my or anybody's reverts.
- So I assume that this person has some psychological handicaps and does not concern about the quality or seriousness of her/his edits.
- I would however acknowledge any better solution by the admins than just telling me, "well (s)he stopped editing under the same IP, we won't do anything further"; (s)he will simply come back later under a new IP and continue.
- So, I can only revert her/his edits if I find some time of peace and quiet to do so. -- ZH8000 (talk) 19:19, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
Rhône
Hi, what makes you think that the description of a river is upstream? Normally, the description is from the source to the gulf . I don't get it. Obvousisly you followed the description in the paragraph, but it is awkward to make a river description upstream. Anyway have a nice day. Tschüss --Gabriel HM (talk) 10:49, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
- Yes, you are right. To describe a river upstream is somehow awkward, counter-intuitive (however, in earlier days, the sources of streams have been discovered exactely that way!).
- But as far as I understand the original author, (s)he just wanted to describe a south-northern dividing line between the Alps and the French Plateau by the major line of the Rhône. The remaining part between Lyon and Geneva then became a kind of a collateral, (s)he then only could add writing upstream-wards, so to speak.
- And I was just too lazy to rewrite the whole sentance. ;-) -- ZH8000 (talk)
- Ya, it was the same for me, i don't really have the energy to rewrite the whole paragraph. Furthermore I didn't see that the contributor was making an upside down description, so I assumed that it was a mistake. Anyhow, the subject is closed. Merci--Gabriel HM (talk) 20:16, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Rail usage
Hi ZH, Thanks for your contribution, it was not me that i added the stat for Chineese passenger-km, the data was registered by a chineese user with a chineese link so i could not verify it. However it seems to me that his source is more relevant than the stat given by UIC. Perhaps one should open an item in the talk of the Rail usage statistics by country page to make sure, however what i could find i english is the passenger traffic for 2013 it was 1,059.5 Billion passenger-km source here.
Anyway if you corect something and if you still find the UIC more relevant than the oficial Chineese stats' office at least please do it corectly you still left China in the top of the ranking ;)
P.S. i consider i wrote nothing of novelist i liked only to add a brief introduction about the historical evolution of rail traffic (freight & passengers) as a backbroung to that page, your subjective judgment found it novelist it was your point of view.
River names
Hello- I saw your edits to river-related articles in France. I realize that many of the edits fixed links to point to the correct article name. But I wanted to let you know that in English, river names are often expressed including the word River (capitalized) as part of the name. It is neither incorrect nor bad style. For example, many anglophone readers will not necessarily know that the Charente is a river unless this has already been established in the context. You might read or hear Rhine or Rhine River interchangeably, the former more in situations where the context is already established. You will also sometimes encounter names with River first, as in River Thames. Eric talk 19:06, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- Hi, Eric. Thanks for your commemts. Yes, I am aware of these linguistical aspects. During my changes I tried to make sure the context about rivers are given. I will never change a river's naming where River is part of its original language. – Nevertheless, as you probably know, even though in some European languages that despite for lakes is true, that their kind is part of their names, such as in "Genfersee", "Lac Léman", "lago di Ginvera", and so on, this, however, is not true for rivers: "Rohne"
fluss(ge), "Lefleuve duRhône" (fr),il fiume di"Rodano" (it) etc. In French, the article is even part of the name! I will always keep speaking about the River Thames, the Colorado River, Lake Tahoe, and Lake Zurich, but I very much prefer to speak about the Rhine, or if necessary at all, the river Charante, while always following the very same motivation: acknowledging their original meaning/usage. -- ZH8000 (talk) 20:15, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
- Hi ZH8000, whilst I agree generally that "River" is not part of the official name of rivers in Europe, it is quite common for English sources to refer to them as "River Foo" (British and Irish English) or "Foo River" (US English). For example the "River Lech" and "River Inn" are both referred to in that way here. It's just common English language practice. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:58, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
- WP:NCRIVER -- ZH8000 (talk) 18:52, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Twin cities of Munich
You deleted "Harare" in the "International relations" section with the comment "WP:VER is failing". Actually Harare is pictured on the official plaque and it's well documented in the article as a reference. So do you have a personal problem with Harare? --Einemnet (talk) 15:33, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
Chewa language deletion
I'd be interested if you could tell me which part of WP:SOAP was the cause of your removing the link to a foreign language course on Chinyanja in the article Chewa language. I have read the guidelines but cannot see anything relevant or which might justify deletion. Kanjuzi (talk) 13:54, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
- The deleted link to livelinga.com, a private company, had been promoted by User talk:Rcb5 on many language articles as a US Foreign Institute service. The user has been "blocked indefinitely from editing for advertising or self-promoting in violation of the conflict of interest and notability guidelines". -- ZH8000 (talk) 16:19, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
List of countries by intentional homicide rate
You have reverted all my edits to the above with the message "everything works just fine". Are you aware that you have reverted edits adding extra functionality? Did you even examine the edits at all? The previous comment is without prejudice to whether any functionality in question does in fact, work "jsut fine". 92.39.201.191 (talk) 00:43, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
Changing Swiss Federal Railways to SBB CFF FFS
Hi.
I notice that you have amended a number of articles on Swiss railway stations to change the link from Swiss Federal Railways to SBB CFF FFS and I'm puzzled why. The target article is definitely called Swiss Federal Railways, with SBB CFF FFS as a redirect.
The name Swiss Federal Railways is the normally used English language name for the organisation, and whilst the individual language specific acronyms (SBB, CFF or FFS) may be more common in their respective linguistic regions, I don't think I've ever heard anybody call it SBB CFF FFS in normal usage (in English, German, French or Italian). Yes, I know that is what they write on their assets, but that is surely a multi-lingual compromise rather than a real name. As WP:EN is the English language version of Wikipedia, surely we should prefer the perfectly good English name over an awkward compromise that is pretty irrelevant to the English speaking world, however necessary it is within Switzerland.
In support of that view, I would also cite the fact that the German, French and Italian versions of this article are called respectively de:Schweizerische Bundesbahnen, fr:Chemins de fer fédéraux suisses and it:Ferrovie Federali Svizzere. Just as on WP:EN, SBB CFF FFS is merely a redirect.
-- chris_j_wood (talk) 14:57, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
- Hi @Chris:. First of all, excuse my very late response. I just forgot about it. MY apologies!
- My reason was: I prefer to use abbreviations, especially in overviews, such as the info box. For the ease of use and especially the much better recognizability. In General. Well, it's a brand finally.
- We–here on WP–do it for every other case of a railway company as well: We prefer to use ZVV instead of Zürcher Verkehrsverbund. And ZVV is even less prominent than SBB to the outsider!!
- Secondly, "SBB CFF FFS" is THE official brand and by far most often used by SBB, not their language-specific abbreviations, though you can use them as abbreviations (but not as a brand).
- Thirdly, if I see the "SBB CFF FFS" written, I of course do not read the whole thing, just SBB, me as a German speaking person. And eventually a Romand reads it simply as CFF. And so forth. And no, I do not think it is a compromise, not at all. Especially not a bad one, quite the contrary!
- Fourthly, even on international travel sites, they very much prefer SBB over Swiss Federal Railways, such as on forums like by tripadvisor!!
- Fifthly,
- Finally, I used to add "(Swiss Federal Railways)" as a fast hint on its first apperance. I think, together with the link, this should sufficient, by far.
- Therefore, I think, that, especially for info boxes, the usage of the no. 1 brand by SBB, accompanied with the written-out name on its first appearance is not only suitable and prefered for its ease of use and recognizeability, but also a must for the uneducated reader to learn about it. -- ZH8000 (talk) 10:10, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- Hi. No problem about the lateness, no need to apologise. First let me say I have no problem with the use of abbreviations, and on the whole I prefer to use names in the local language rather than over-translate into English. Thus ZVV or Zürcher Verkehrsverbund are fine, and I think both are much preferrable to using Zürich Transport Network. I've no problem with using SBB as an abbreviation where the linguistic context is clearly German, and indeed I've just done so in my recent changes to tabulate the routes of the Zürich S-Bahn. Likewise obviously CFF or FFS in their respective linguistic contexts.
- My problem is specifically with SBB CFF FFS, which is hard to say, write or think about. It comprises no less than nine consonants, with no vowels, so it is unpronouncable and you cannot mentally deal with it as anything other than a string of nine unrelated letters. A three word name (like Swiss Federal Railways) is much easier to think about or remember. Whilst I'd prefer a local name (I would never, for example, write German Railways rather than Deutsche Bahn), the multi-lingual nature of Switzerland means that in some contexts that isn't available, and I think using a English name rather than a nine-letter not-quite abbreviation is the lesser of two evils.
- I think you explain the way SBB CFF FFS works in Switzerland quite well when you say if I see the "SBB CFF FFS" written, I of course do not read the whole thing, just SBB, me as a German speaking person. The point is that I, as a native English speaker, do not have that option. I'm forced to read and process the whole thing. And the target audience for WP:EN is English speakers.
- However from a practical perspective, I seem to remember that the articles you were amending were about railway stations in the German speaking part of Switzerland, and where therefore there is a valid local language context. If my memory is correct, I'd have no problem if you were instead to replace Swiss Federal Railways with SBB. Indeed I'd probably regard that as an improvement. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 11:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Sorry
Lauterbrunnen Wall
Thanks for the alert and your precision. I'll change the intro to state that it's a term used (quite widely) in the English-speaking mountaineering world, cite multiple sources for this, and add that it has no official status. Then I'll remove the deletion template. Regards, Ericoides (talk) 09:59, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
Swiss international schools recognized as such by the Swiss federal government?
I expanded Template:Swiss international schools to include multiple Swiss schools, some of which are listed by the Swiss government and others not. Do you have a definitive current list of schools approved by the Swiss government?
I also heard somewhere the one in Accra, Ghana used to be recognized as an official Swiss school but is no longer considered such...
WhisperToMe (talk) 17:26, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
Rome/Paris Sister Cities
Hello, you clearly feel very strongly about the subject for some reason. However, you claim that "the convention is to list twin and sister cities and separate partership cities". Could you please point me towards the discussion where this convention was reached or the guideline saying as much? Because for example Tokyo, one of your two reverts alongside Prague, has a single section. The only relevant community activity related to this subject I could find is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities, but that one actually has another user speaking out against your edits. Because creating a new section for a single city and spelling out just how special their relationship with an unrelated city is on the page of a completely different city seems rather unnecessary. --CCCVCCCC (talk) 08:53, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
Amateur site
I'm a little uncomfortable about you adding a 'type=amateur site' to citations, as you have on Rigi–Scheidegg railway and Scheidegg (Rigi). I don't really see what it adds to the cite, nor do I know how you know the amateur or professional status of the web site, or indeed what that means. I'm sure you don't mean it as a value judgement (the eingestellte-bahnen.ch web site, at least, comes across as pretty well researched and presented) but it could be read that way. What is your motivation in doing this?. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 16:54, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
- It is intended to mean what it literally says: they are sites by amateurs. And yes, it does not say whether the statements are correct or not. But it also says that the published information is not offical, nor by a professional publication. And therefore, it maily means, that there is no editorial process behind such private websites. And last but not least, according to WP policies, these would not even be acceptable source: WP:USERGENERATED. -- ZH8000 (talk) 23:33, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
Your edits to Swiss history topics
I frankly don't know how to go about your edits to Swiss topics.
Many of them are valuable, but some of them are completely misguided. Almost all of them introduce problems, mainly stylistic or linguistic. Please try to seek input and don't simply butcher well-developed pages. Failing that, follow WP:BRD.
To point out some recurring problems specifically, which seem to be informed by a German-speaking perspective
- your campaign against the term "canton": you do not seem to be aware that the term "canton" is the literal translation of the (historical) term Ort
- you introduce inflected German forms. This is jarring and confusing to the non-German-speaking reader
- your "corrections" of e.g. "Aare river" to "Aare" with the "explanation" that "river is not part of the name". Please learn about WP:UCN. It is perfectly common to introduce the name as "Aare river" the first time it occurs in the text just for clarity. If in doubt, use google books (1,750 hits for "Aare river") to get an idea of preferred usage in relevant English-language literature.
If you find that the usage as it stands in the page is perfetly current in English and you still want to change it, don't use haughty summaries like "correction", but as a sign of respect to the original authors present your rationale for the change. If it doesn't fit into the edit summary, use the talkpage and present a coherent explanation of why you think your change was an improvement. Remember that this is a collaboration and if you ignore proper procedure people will feel justified in simply reverting your edits.
You also introduce tons of redlinks. If you aren't going to write these articles over the next few days, don't introduce the links. E.g Oberhasli used to be a well-developed, more or less self-contained page. After your "enhancing" it is a sprawling mess of redlinks. That's not to say many of your additions weren't valid, so I am reluctant to just revert you wholesale, but you really need to spend more effort copyediting your additions if you want them to stand. --dab (𒁳) 09:46, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
Alpine Rhine
Hi there, i was wondering why you undid ALL of the additions made by me in the article Alpin Rhine? Could you be more specific on "too many substantial errors or inacurracies"?! I understand if some parts are not ok but undoing everything is a little hard... kind regards MichaelPedro (talk) 10:34, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
- @MichaelPedro: Because I was too upset about the many inconsistencies and errors and too lazy to correct them. -- ZH8000 (talk) 11:55, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
- @ZH8000: It took me 2 hours worth of research and creating content. I miss a little respect from your side to this effort. If there is a problem, make a suggestion or help me out and i will gladly try to improve. I know the region very well and wanted to provide more information to visitors and interested users. Errors i understand as Englisch is not my mother tongue but inconsistencies? You mean lack of sources? (MichaelPedro (talk) 09:27, 26 January 2017 (UTC))
Clarification request on cycle parking info added for Zürich stations
Hi. You added the following text to the infobox at Zürich Hauptbahnhof:
- openair (10/1048), covered (3/214)
and to Zürich Stadelhofen railway station:
- openair (3/349)
It isn't obvious, at least to me, what the numbers mean. I can image that 1048, 214 and 349 are the number of cycle spaces, but what are the 10 and 3?. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 14:06, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Alps range coordinates error
Your edit seems to have had the effect of breaking the range coordinates math; see the error at the top of the page and in the infobox. I have no idea how any of this works, and you didn't edit the template parameters directly, but based on the error message I guess it could be due to the hyphen in the width_km parameter. But I suspect that is a correct depiction of the Alps' N-S extent, so I didn't want to change it without being aware of all the consequences. David Brooks (talk) 13:22, 26 April 2017 (UTC)