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Exonyms

Perhaps I didn't make myself very clear on my last passage on the Serbian exonyms; I'll leave that for the moment. Originally I thought that you were Serbian (or affiliated with the Balkan/former Yugoslavia) but according to your user page, you're multilingual though appear to be from somewhere else. Do I take it that you aim to standardise all exonym related pages as you are doing with Serbian? The reason I ask is that many are in the form to which I had hitherto adhered. How did you know that Sakartvelo was Georgia? And how did you know that Hayastan was Armenia? This isn't the name in Serbian, or in any European language: I thought that if I would write "Hayastan" in Cyrillic (believing you to be Serbian), it would be harder for you to unscramble it (ie. Hajastan in transliteration, which on English Wiki leads nowhere). The Serbian name for the country is simply Јерменија (Jermenija). How come your knowledge is so good? Evlekis 16:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're right in that I'm working not only on the Serbian exonym pages, but rather trying to extend all exonym pages. It's obviously easier with languages that I personally have a knowledge of that.

How do I know that Hayastan is Armenia and Sakartvelo is Georgia ? There's no real answer to that - I just know. I've had an interest in geography and toponymy for many years now, so I guess, if you've read so much on the subject as I have, you know the odd "factoid". I first got interested in exonyms over 10 years ago when I did a paper on Slovakia and got incredibly annoyed when I kept having to guess what all the Hungarian and German names in the old gazetteers translated into in modern Slovak. Since there wasn't anything published (available) on the subject back then, I had to establish most names myself by comparing maps - not a very good technique, especially for smaller villages !

Btw : Hayastan and Sakartvelo are some of the very few countries in Europe whose local name is not widely used out side of their respective country. The only others I can think of are Deutschland (Germany), ΕΛΛΑΣ/ΕΛΛΑΔΑ (Greece) and Suomi (Finland) and to some extent Magyarország (Hungary). Travelbird 22:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot about this! You're right. Obviously Hrvatska is not the most obvious for Croatia, and it isn't 100% clear whether Croat and Hrvat are related; there are many theories, none empirical. I guess you can say Alba (Scotland) and Cymru (Wales) as well. Shqipëria for Albania is one that you either know or you don't, but just for your information. I know a little something about Sakartvelo. Georgia as a state occupies a region of the Caucasus known historically as Kartvelia, important for people with an interest in Indo-European languages. Georgian is not Indo-European and I think that Kartvelia is Caucasian (Georgian) in origin, but never the less, the Sa- which precedes -kartvel(o) is just a Georgian common prefix. Incase you were interested. Evlekis 15:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cross-border town naming

Care to explain your reasoning? How are Altlandsberg and Gorzów Wielkopolski related as cross-border towns? The driving distance between then is 140 km (according to www.viamichelin.com). Balcer 17:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, never the less Alt Landsberg (Old Landsberg / Old Gorzów) is the "old" town to Neu Landsberg (New Gorzów). The "Neu" of Neu Landsberg was dropped in the late 1900s, so when the town became Polish in 1945 Landsberg became Gorzów instead of Nowy Gorzów. But nevertheless you still have the Gorzów / Landsberg naming connection. The relationships is similar to Neuf-Brisach and Breisach or Oradea and Kisvárda. Travelbird 17:52, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Read the what the page says: Cross-border town naming occurs where towns or villages with the same or equivalent names are divided between two different countries. Altlandsberg and Gorzów Wielkopolski clearly do not fall into this category. They were never a single city. By your reasoning, we should add York and New York to this list as well. Balcer 17:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed - What you are refering too is a divded city, not cross-border naming. Most of the towns on the list were never one town - it's only the name that is "divded". I'll re-write that section to claify it a bit. In addition to the examples above there are als Helingborg / Helsingor or Sas van Gent / andGent.

As for New York and York : I have currently excluded all towns where there is one "mother" town and many other towns named for that one town, e.g. all New Yorks, New Berlins, New Londons etc, because these are not particularly notable. If there are only two then there is usually some kind of interaction, most often that "old" is added to the official name of the older town, while in the latter case the "mother" town doesn't take much notice of the new towns being named for it. Travelbird 18:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the "up to service the border" bit from point 2, so that it now reads "*A community on one side of a (future) border grows up, and takes the name of the adjacent community on the other side of the border. That should be sufficiently clear to include Altlandsberg/Gorzów and the others. Travelbird 18:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I am beginning to understand the criteria by which you want to populate this list, but I must admit I do not see much use for a list based on them. On the other hand, a list of cities forming a single urban entity but divided by a border and carrying a similar name would be quite useful, and I believe this is what this article was meant to be.

Still, I am not going to fight revert wars or hold long discussions over this obscure page. Over and out. Balcer 18:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As for the divded town list : There is a seperate list for that at Divided cities which also includes name that are not related, e.g. Forst and Zasieki as well as historical divisions such as East and West Berlin or Nicosia Travelbird 18:25, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying I'm not important?

You have said that I'm not a notable person. I thought it was God's teaching that we are all equal. Therefore, we should all have a Wikipedia article. What say you? RollingPaul 19:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Information about yourself should be put on your Wikipedia:user page and not on a mainspace article. That is reserved for people that are actually famous. Travelbird 19:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah right...I suppose you've never heard of Paul Stefanson (me) then. I am the local bowls champion. I suppose winning a little competition at your local leisure center against a bunch of OAPs (and it isn't even a competition, just a practise), doesn't make me notable then. Ah well, life does that sometimes. RollingPaul 19:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. I've won my local tennis club's competion a few times. Unfortunately I don't have a Wikipedia article either. Live is so unfair isn't it .... Travelbird 19:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it just. Perhaps if you won it once more? RollingPaul 19:18, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Communism

i think that just because someone is a communist, that doesnt give you the right to persecute them. we live in a country called america. in america, we have a thing called the freedom of expression. if you continue to violate my personal rights, i will have you prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AngryGiraffe (talk • contribs) 17:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't add randon pictures to artciles to promote you own personal political views. Travelbird 17:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

maybe just because people are communists, they aren't important either. take a look a stalin or gorbachev or even lenin. how can a system of government that proclaims everyone as equal be right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AngryGiraffe (talk • contribs) 17:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can be anything you like. Just don't add random images to articles that have nothing to do with communism. Travelbird 17:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of most wealthy historical figures

Some nice person has gotten around to translating this, so if you're interested in moving it to History's richest people, feel free! :) -Yupik 07:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I personally don't care too much about the title. Now that the page has been moved to fromThe History Richest People to an acceptable title at List of most wealthy historical figures I'll leave it up to others to decide if the page should be moved again. Travelbird 08:01, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok! :) -Yupik 11:42, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK

Dxfgvfdgdf 18:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

??? Travelbird 18:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rachel Zevita

I hate Communism as well and Ronald Reagan is my hero. Will you please reconsider your stance on Rachel Zevita. Check out her myspace page and watch her American Idol audition. She rocks! By the way, do you get to make decisions about deleting articles and if so, what is the best way to persuade you guys to leave someone's article be? Thank you. 'Moellering2007'

Artciles are deleted on Wikipedia due to a varity of rules. One that is probably most applicable in this case is Wikipedia:Notability (people). One criterion for notability is that is should be permanent, i.e. people should remember him/her one, two years down the road. In your case, Rachel Zevita's only claim to fame is that she appeared on a TV show once. That alone doesn't qualify for sufficient notability.

The best way to get people to "leave your article alone" is to establish such notability. In this case, however, that may prove difficult. Note also that the article had already been deleted 4 times; recreating it again way bound to cause discussions. Travelbird 02:47, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Champ Car

The article was severely vandalized, and you applied a speedy delete tag to the vandalized article. I have reverted the article to something proper. The series is highly notable, and it was the sanctioning body for the Indianapolis 500, and it is a premiere racing series in the United States. Please be more careful and check the edit history of an article next time. Thanks! Royalbroil^T : C 05:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good work...

... keeping an eye on all these SummerThunder socks. It's been fun :) – riana_dzasta 08:50, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks ! Travelbird 08:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]