IJzeren Jan

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Thanks! I'll do my best. In the meantime: I did know about the four tildes, but not about the three. Therefore, a little experiment. Best regards, IJzeren Jan (three tildes) / IJzeren Jan 07:40, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC) (four tildes).

Hi. You seem to be interested in politics of Ukraine. Most articles on Ukrainian politicians are really rough "stubs". Especially, as far the biographical information is concerned. It is relatively easy to get autobiographies of all presidential candidates. However, these are in Ukrainian and I am not a particularly skilled translator. I am wondering whether you know of anyone who would be interested in doing that. Thank you. Sashazlv 06:15, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hello! Well, yes, I am indeed interested in Ukrainian politics. As a matter of fact, I am responsible for almost all entries about Ukrainian politics in the Dutch wikipedia. Now, I wouldn't mind translating my own stuff into English. The trouble is only that the time I spend working on the Dutch wiki is about all I can spare at the moment. Besides, English is not my mother tongue, not even my L2. But if you ask me if I know somebody else, I'd definitely have to say no.

Do you have any particular links available? I can handle Ukrainian quite easily (passively, at least). Maybe I can give it a shot! Thanks for the new Moroz picture, BTW. It's much better than the older one indeed. Did you take care of the copyright yourself, or is all the material on the SPU website free?

Cheers, IJzeren Jan 15:42, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC).

Hi, again. Copyright. All materials on the SPU site are free to re-publish, provided that a proper citation of the source is given. At least, that's what they say there. Technically, this means you can take the picture and even publish it somewhere for profit, subject to citing www.spu.org.ua.

I think I'll handle the autobiographies in the following way. I'll place them in the articles under the discussion tab. Hopefully, someone will find time to translate them and re-organize the material. I could do the translation myself, but right away it's too large a time investment. The bios are just very basic info required by the election law.

Best regards, Sashazlv 00:29, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi Jan...I tried to translate the IB page into German...but I've gotten myself into a bit of a snit with the Germanwiki...they're not as warm and fuzzy as the Swedish or French wiki...Eep!

Anyway. IT's fun to try and read your dutch page and your Polish page is....RIGHT OUT. :)

Have you thought about doing a Wenedyk page? :) BoLingua18:43, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hey Dan! The German entry is gone, unfortunately, so I can't even see it. :(( The problem, as far as I understood from the discussion page, was that you used a machine translation (and we both know that machine translations are often bad, if not totally incomprehensible). If you want, send it to me privately; perhaps I can improve it somewhat!

Wenedyk page? What do you mean? A page about Wenedyk exists already! A page in Wenedyk would be troublesome, since there is no Wenedyk wikipedia to store it in.

Cheers, IJzeren Jan 17:08, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC).

I had used a machine translation...but when I posted the handwritten one they disregarded it completely. I'm going to try linking through the Alternativgeschicte page in a few. Oh well. Yeah...a Wenedyk text would be difficult, but if you write enough pages you can have a Wenedyk wiki...although i think they might require it to be a real language. :) I may just send it privately. Bo-Lingua

Strange, really strange. I'm not too active in the German wikipedia, but still I follow it with interest, and from time to time I contribute something small there. I didn't have the impression that our German colleagues are unfriendly at all! Perhaps it was just a misunderstanding? Anyway, this is how it works in the Dutch wikipedia: a page can be nominated for deletion, and then there is still two weeks time to make improvements, to discuss the page, etc. Immediate deletion takes place only when a page is pure nonsense. Things like bad knowledge of the language or shameless self-promotion ("vanity") are definitely not sufficient to have a page removed immediately.

A Wenedyk wikipedia? No, that would be a bad idea. There are several wikis in constructed languages: Esperanto, Interlingua, Ido, Occidental, Lojban and Klingon, as far as I can remember. There used to be one in Toki Pona too, but that one has recently been cancelled. I don't really know why; despite the limited number of active users that wiki was quite active. Probably it's just the fact that there will always be a large number of people who think it's all useless crap what we are doing!

Cheers, IJzeren Jan 19:30, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC).

They deleted it immediately, even though I made improvements. *sigh* I guess I'll just have to try, at a later date to link it through the alternate history page. Oh well. Bo-Lingua

This image is listed on WP:IFD because it is an orphan. Feel free to object.

No, I've no objections. The article about Mykola Azarov has another picture now, which is fine with me. So go ahead and delete it! IJzeren Jan 08:40, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Conlangs. Almafeta 14:54, 28 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Re: My request to you is to restore the two pages in question, keep the VfD open in both cases, and reevaluate them once we have established some more objective notability criteria. Sorry, no. A lot of people attempt to use Wikipedia to further the goals of their personal projects; conlangers are just another special interest group among many. I am opposed to any special interest group using Wikipedia as a vehicle for their promotion. Wile E. Heresiarch 04:56, 2 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

Re: An administrator should take responsibility for his actions and explain them when asked. See above, and see also my remarks [1] on vfu. Apparently you're not satisfied with that. Very well; but you may wish to bear in mind that I really have no explanations any more elaborate than that. Regards, Wile E. Heresiarch 16:31, 6 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

Oh, no problem. This is a new conlang, but is in construction... I wanted olny, show my language to the world. Well, even so, thank you. --Król 05:50, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you about the hints! You was a genius!

--Król 18:39, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Re: Just curious: where does your interest in Babm come from? Sorry to take so long to get back to you; I took a break from Wikipedia editing for a bit. As far as Babm itself, I stumbled on Okamoto's little enigmatic book about 20 years ago in a university library. The language interested me in that it didn't seem to be based on European languages as others were. I haven't seen the book for many years and I can't get it; that—along with the fact that I don't know Japanese—is the reason why my entry is rather meager (although accurate, I hope). Sincerely, Scott A. Neuman 18:37, 20 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

Hello! I saw you listed as one of our rare users who are good at Latin. Would you be willing to help translating a bit of text from English into Latin? Let me know please. Yours, Radiant_>|< 09:51, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't have a lot of time at the moment. Far too much real life on my neck nowadays! But if there's no rush, yeah, sure, I'll be glad to be of assistance! Sounds like fun, actually! What kind of text is it?

Cheers, IJzeren Jan 19:28, 24 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

Hi there. I'm a member of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles. We're filling in articles which exist in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Encarta, etc, but not yet in Wikipedia. One article that we are missing is ideal language - see Britannica's article. Looking at your interests, I thought you might be the ideal person to create at least a good stub, bringing in the conlang angle - or if not, to suggest someone else who could help, given that you say above that you are busy at the moment. Are you able to help at all? --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 15:14, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry about this now - Arj has suggested a redirect to engineered language instead. OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 09:02, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Ah, too late! Actually, what I was going to say is this: that I thank you for your confidence, but that at the moment I really don't have the time. I was going to suggest User:Pablo-Flores or User:Jim Henry as good candidates for writing the article. To be honest, I still think that would be a better idea. Whether ideal language really warrants an encyclopedia entry I can't tell, but it surely is an interesting subject to write something about. The trouble with it is of course that "ideal language" is an extremely subjective thing. I can understand why User:Arj proposes a redirect to engineered language and I partly agree with him. But on the other hand, the context in which I have seen it used most of the time, is auxlanging in sentences like: The ideal language is very easy to learn, and therefore the vocabulary is easy to memorise, the grammar is extremely simple, and there are no irregularities. Furthermore, the language is culturally neutral, so that nobody has an advantage over anybody else. And its pronunciation is easily accessible for as many people as possible. To some, Latin would be "the ideal language", for others English. The ideal language for programming is not exactly the same as the ideal language for opera singing. In short: I think a redirect can work, but preferably in the form of a disambiguation page, where it should definitely also include international auxiliary language. You know what? Now that I think of it, a disambiguation page is not the right way to cope with this. Some short, stubby article would probably be the best solution to my mind, even though it contains mostly links. --IJzeren Jan 09:18, 26 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for thinking about this in such detail. I'll leave it with you for now, and whenever you have the time, you can pull something stubby together to replace the redirect. I was making the (always slightly foolish) assumption that the Britannica article was reasonably comprehensive and accurate - clearly not! OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 09:34, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Really? What did the Britannica say?

Anyway, give me a few days and I'll take care of this. Cheers, IJzeren Jan 09:41, 26 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

Here is [[Britannica's attempt, on the basis of which I think the redirect to engineered language makes sense - but you're right that it's a wider topic than that. Thanks for your help, and there's absolutely no rush for any of it. OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 09:46, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Several places you've voted more than once in the same category. What type of election do you regard this to be? Not the same as me and Arj, ergo we should discuss the rules of the election, how to score it etc. --Kaleissin 12:24:31, 2005-08-29 (UTC), who is amused by the already clear cliques: artlangers/conlangers versus the rest :)

What do you mean? If you are referring to the "sufficiently large vocabulary" question, then I did that on purpose: a vocabulary of 2,500 qualifies as a minor criterion and a vocabulary of 20,000 as a major one. That's a consequence of the way the questions are asked. Frankly, I think the questionnaire might have been a little more consistent from that point of view: in the case of number of speakers one has five different sections, in some other cases we simply have to fill in one N=?. In my opinion, in this particular case two votes (1 major, 1 minor) should be allowed.

But I won't complain. If anything, I should have done that BEFORE the vote started.

If I have votes more than once in another category (you mentioned "several places"), then please tell me where, because that's obviously a mistake then! --IJzeren Jan 12:35, 29 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

"Has 10 speakers" in addition. I also notice you don't vote on all the criteria. Logically one might think that a major on "Has 10 speakers" for instance implies "Has 100 speakers" but this isn't stated anywhere... --Kaleissin 12:59:44, 2005-08-29 (UTC)

Ah yes, indeed! Well, it was suggested that we distinguish between auxlangs and artlangs. I can't find anything from that suggestion in the voting form, and I'd still like to make the distinction in this case. If that's not allowed, I will of course withdraw on of them. --IJzeren Jan 13:16, 29 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

The 'sufficiently large vocabulary' is for voting on whether or not having enough vocabulary to carry on standard conversations qualifies a language, and what that target level of vocabulary is. It's not a two-tiered vote. I'll go clear that up. Almafeta 15:40, 29 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for the comment "My dear, judging the (non-/)notability of a constructed language project is one thing, ridiculising language construction is another. Please don't do that. --" in the page of voting for deletion of the page Lara language. I agree that my page should not appear on wikipedia because not notable, but maybe you know that if the work is serious (complete grammar -with a lot of revisions in many years!- and more then 7000 words) it's very hard (and exciting at the same time)! Some people told me that they prefer Lara language to Esperanto, because more easy to speak and learn, and some other who speaks Esperanto created the page about Lara on wikipedia (that no one deleted!) and I thank him for that.

So, thank you again, also for more competent comment in respect to other people in wikipedia.

Ciao Alexped 08:52, 30 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

Thank you so much for shifting Lara language to Conlang.Wikicities. I think it's the best thing to do and I didn't know of it; of course I created the page there if I knew before!

The Conlang.Wikicities is a great idea!

Now, can I improve the page? With a more complete explanation of the grammar? With texts in Lara language? I have also fantasy culture (history, people, philosophy, religion, dialects, etc.) constructed on the base of the language...but need some time because still only in italian available!

Finally, did you create an internal list of different conlangs in this web-site, in order to have a link to the language? (..am I asking too much? sorry...)

Still thank you for all!!! Alexped 15:12, 30 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

My pleasure. Glad to be of service. If you have a look at the main page on conlang.wikicities, you will see a "list of conlangs" (here). And yes, you can do with the page as you please, including adding grammatical details, info about the conculture, and sample texts. Cheers, --IJzeren Jan 15:58, 30 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

I hang on #conlang at Freenode, as does several other conlangers and wikipedians. Much quicker to discuss things there. --Kaleissin 21:20:35, 2005-09-03 (UTC)

I've never done that, and to be honest, chatting is an activity I'd much rather avoid. But if you think it could be useful, then I might give it a try after all ;) . --IJzeren Jan 03:20, 4 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the information for the Conlang portal. As with anything on Wikipedia, you are more than welcome to edit the portal as you see fit! Again, thanks! &mdash; {{User:JonMoore/sig}} 22:08, 22 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for all you contributions to (and fixes of) the Conlang wikiportal. I think it is coming along quite nicely. Obviously your knowledge of the subject far outweighs mine. I've just been a dabbler in creating my own langs, and an on-again, off-again Esperantist. I believe your name is familiar to me, though. I've done a couple of the conlang translation relays, and I believe I've seen your name on the mailing list. Anyway, I appreciate the help. Cheers. &mdash; {{User:JonMoore/sig}} 18:24, 23 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, that's right. According to my own list you participated in two relays, in which I participated as well. Unfortunately, you missed the relay I organised myself (the tenth), but in case you're interested: I'm still adding translations of the source text to the page. So if you'd like to try your hands with Aganean...

As for the portal: I'm very happy about it. It looks really great! I have indeed built up some expertise in the field over the years, and I am more than happy to do anything I can to help giving it the place it deserves in WP. I'm not overly active on wikipedia.en, but when it comes to conlangs I give a hand whenever I can.

There's one thing I'd like to discuss with you. What shall we do with all those red links ("requested articles")? In a few cases, I'm sure they would be a welcome addition, but at the same time I see a lot of languages and other stuff there that would never survive a VFD.

Cheers, IJzeren Jan 20:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, I just may take you up on the offer, and translate that text. As for the redlinks, maybe we should decide which conlangs are "notable" and get rid of the rest. Also, a WikiProject might add credibility to the cause. I believe the German Wikipedia has a current conlang Project. Let me know. &mdash; {{User:JonMoore/sig}} 22:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

The problem with those red links is that almost all of them are old IALs, most of them poorly documented. I don't know too much about auxlangs in general, so I think it would be best if someone more knowledgeable than me would look into that. ----IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 07:46, 24 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

I am working on a template for constructed languages, User:JonMoore/conlangtemplate. Currently it is under my user namespace, but I could move it to the template namespace, which is where the "Edit this template" link currently leads. I was wondering your opinions and such. It is based on the "articles" section of the conlang portal, but probably needs thinning out.

I am also considering starting a WikiProject about conlangs, and was wondering if you would participate.

&mdash; {{User:JonMoore/sig}} 21:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

Yes. Quenya would be a great pick for December. As to the template, yes, your version is much better, and maybe we don't need it. We shall see.

Jon 05:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Just wondering: how come you know Polish so well? It's quite an uncommon language among Dutch people, is it...Halibutt 20:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Thank you! Well, it's indeed not very common for a Dutch person to know Polish. But from my earliest youth I've been fascinated with languages. I started learning Polish when I was 18. Why? Just the timing, I suppose. If I would have turned 18 one year later it might as well have been Czech, or Romanian, or something else. Anyway, Polish it became. I'm mostly an autodidact. A few years later, I studied and worked a bit in Poland, and a few more years later I became a licenced translator/interpreter. That's my story! Oh, and I've been speaking Polish with my (Jewish-Russian-Ukrainian) wife for many years, too. :)

BTW, since your mentions the PLC as your fatherland, may I recommend you to have a look at my RTC?

Best regards, --IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 10:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

I added a rotation for the DYK section, but I really think it doesn't need to be changed once a month, maybe once a quarter? That would make it more of a manual process. See:Portal:Constructed languages/Did you know. JonMoore 20:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

I agree. But is there a way of programming that? I know how to use {{CURRENTDAY}} and {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} and the like, but quarters?...

I suggest we wait a little. I've just added three more DYKs, and I'm sure we can bring the total up to some twenty or so. After that, it can simply rotate each month. Mind, the same DYK could of course easily appear in more than one month! —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 21:06, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

I wish there was something like {{LASTMONTHNAME}} or {{NEXTMONTHNAME}}, which would make it simple... Maybe I should work on that... JonMoore 21:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Well, we could of course use the {{CURRENTDAYNAME}}. That would mean that we need only seven sets, but it would also mean that it rotates every day! —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 21:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Actually, I like that idea... Would you be against it? JonMoore 21:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

No, I kinda like it too! As you can see, I have added quite a few new DYKs to the list as well. It's remarkably easy: just open any article and see if there's anything interesting enough for it! :) —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 21:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Ok, I'm working on it now! JonMoore 22:33, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Can I be of assistance? (asking that, because it could be inconvenient if two people worked on the same thing at the same time. Edit conflicts and the like...) —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 22:53, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Sure! I did a preliminary layout at Portal_talk:Constructed_languages/Did_you_know. Please rearrange as you see fit. Also, 3 items a day would be nice... JonMoore 22:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Okay, thanks, I'll look into it. And I'll see if I can produce another one or two items... —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 22:59, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Ok, yeh...and please help as much as you want! I'll look for some more items, too. JonMoore 23:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

I'm a little tired and uninspired right now, so I have substituted the remaining three (Thu#3, Fri#3 and Sat#3) with doublets. Let's replace those later... I'm going to move the stuff to the CURRENTDAY pages now. —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 23:11, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Okay, I have completed the transfer, and modified the Portal: from now on, it links to the day pages. In about 40 minutes, we'll see it shift from one DYK to another! :) —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 23:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Not sure if I'll see the change...it's only 16:34 on Thursday... As to the vandalism, I guess it shows that people are looking at our portal! JonMoore 23:37, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, indeed. That's why in a way I was pleased with the vandalism! :) Anyway, here it's 0:38 AM now, time for sleep! Cheers, —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 23:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Yay, it works! —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 00:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

I created a template for an invitation to the wikiproject: Wikipedia:WikiProject Constructed languages/Invitation. I added it to the talk pages of those you suggested, thusly:

{{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Constructed languages/Invitation}}

~~~~

You can use it if you like. JonMoore 01:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Please see Portal:Constructed_languages/Language_of_the_month/Suggestions and Portal:Constructed_languages/Did you know/Suggestions. I used your guidelines from the main talk page for the LOTM guidelines. JonMoore 19:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Excellent! I do have one very minor issue, though. The text

Archive | Nominate a language...

and its DYK equivalent are quite a mouthful of code. Instead of repeating it on every individual LOTM/DYK page, wouldn't it be much better to have this code in the portal itself? Just one thought! —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 13:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Sure, honestly, I never thought about that.

Oh, and if I'm the father than that makes you...the mother? ;-) Haha, just kidding. You are at least co-father (which I think is illegal here in the United States, but legal in the Netherlands, heh). You put a lot of work into the portal, so I should say congratulations to you, too.

I hope you enjoyed yourself in Deutschland. I studied German for 2 years in high school, but never have gotten to Europe. Someday, maybe... Happy New Year to you also! JonMoore 17:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Ha, you may be right about Georgian declension. I translated that (probably poorly) from the French version of the language portal. My French isn't very good. JonMoore 20:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Before I add it, I was wondering your opinion on adding a section to the Conlang portal which includes a selected topic, other than specific languages, such as creator bios, language types, con-cultures (Ill Bethisad comes to mind :-) and other miscellaneous topics. What do you think? JonMoore 21:21, 7 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure, to be honest. I suppose we can do it, but do we really have enough articles for that? The bulk of all conlang articles are about specific languages, and certainly not all of the few conlanger bios we have are suitable. I don't think the beginning of bios of, say, George Orwell, Hildegard von Bingen or Giuseppe Peano even mention their conlangs. You know what? Let's just have a look at articles that might be suitable. If we can find enough articles that would fit for such a purpose (twelve or so), then we can implement a system similar to the LOTM. If not, well, then let's just skip the whole idea. And sure, I think Ill Bethisad wóuld be suitable! ;) —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 08:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

I have never doubted your honest intentions or your civility. I could not, however, deny myself the opportunity to explain what I had written. Please don't think my message was written in spite. Thank you for transferring my article. What I know is language, not computers. --Erika00177 22:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, I'm glad to hear that. It's always unpleasant doing things like this, but I've promised myself to take care of our conlang section as well as I can - and that includes weeding out articles that for one reason or another would not belong here. There's nothing personal about that; in fact, I hate doing it. But believe me: if I don't, and nobody else does, that will only be ammunition for those who don't know anything about conlangs and would love to delete everything related to it! If it hadn't been me, if would probably have been somebody else, and in all likeliness in a far less pleasant fashion!

Don't hesitate to drop me a note when you've something uploaded on your website. And please remember the suggestions I made on your talk page. I've a little experience in all this, and if you really want to share your language with others, they are a better starting point than Wikipedia.

Cheers, —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 22:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Recently you added "An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language" back into the list because you said it wasn't a duplicate. I am pretty sure that "An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language" is the same thing as "John Wilkins' 'Real Character'" (it looks that way from reading the two entries). Can you ascertain that they are in fact different?

its a good idea to move this Hystud to my user page. Hystudian is very dear to me, and i'd like more exposure. Akerensky99 20:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)Reply