"annoying edits" are not grounds for banning on ANY Wikipedia. Do they violate policy? Not that I can see. Do they disrupt the workings? Hah! There are no workings.
Yes, it does disrupt the workings. Removing links to the pages that new users need to read to find out what Wikipedia is and how they can help are vital to the main page before a project has any users.
But locking a Wikipedia doesn't disrupt the workings? As I noted before, the removal of interlanguage links was purely unintentional.
Replacing boilerplate text in English with text in the target language may be annoying to YOU, but to speakers of that language it is more likely to be seen as a gesture which seeks to invite them to participate and make them more comfortable.
The "text in the target language" is only any use if it makes sense in that language. You admitted you don't speak these languages so how do you know it makes sense? The text also needs to be relevant to Wikipedia. Adding a paragraph about the National Language Services that you copied directly from some website and removing all Wikipedia-related content is not helpful to those who speak the language.
1. It does make sense in these languages.
2. When on earth did I admit I don't speak these languages?
3. It's more helpful than a paragraph of what might as well be a bunch of squiggles.
The [http://ve.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page&diff=2&oldid=1 Venda Main Page] is copied directly from [http://www.cyberserv.co.za/users/~jako/lang/ventexts.htm].
No, it's not. It's copied from http://www.dac.gov.za/about_us/cd_nat_language/national_lang_service/nationa...
As I noted before, I am not 100% sure of the things I wrote in articles on bo: or sq: (but I didn't write hundreds of articles, and I know they're at least not totally gibberish), but unless I note otherwise for any other text I post, I do not have any doubt that it is 100% correct (unless it's not grammatically, in which case I can easily do some fact-checking before posting)
You were asked to stop doing this on [[sq:]] by at least one of the users there who is fluent in Albanian. Does this not tell you something about the appropriateness of your edits?
Hmm. Let's see. If you'll read the logs of the chat, Dori apparently agreed with the rationale and the only reason he asked me to stop was a fear that I was going to create a lot when in fact I only created a few.
Does this not tell you something about your incompetence when it comes to individual incidents?
Perhaps we should show these people the edit you are talking about? http://fj.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page&oldid=1459
As you can clearly see, compared to the version that was there previously, it is preferrable because there is actually content IN THE TARGET LANGUAGE (if you wish to assert it is somehow incorrect, I would respectfully request that you confirm that beforehand with a professional translator or areal linguist unless you claim to speak the language yourself and can offer an explanation or correction)
Firstly, I did check with a user who knows Fijian. Secondly, directing users to your email address when you don't speak the language isn't going to help them.
Oh? Who might that be? And what did they tell you it means? Because if it has you so upset (don't say "I'm not upset" because you are), I would be glad to work things out with them and inevitably it would either come out that they speak some Fijian from an alternate universe, or they told you what it means in real Fijian and you got upset about it for no particular reason.
And if we have a Fijian-speaking user, why on earth did we have not even a shred of content in Fijian? Other Wikipedias where we have users but they're not interested at least have a short paragraph in the target language either welcoming them, telling them waht Wikipedia is, inviting them to contribute, etc...
However Angela did indeed revert a contribution on another Wikipedia... Since she simply specified in the edit summary that it was "vandalism", I reverted her edits with an edit summary "isibusi vandalism" - she had removed legitimate, target-language content and replaced it with content in English.
[http://ve.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page&diff=4&oldid=3 This diff] is presumably what you are talking about. In what way was this content legitimate? Being in the right language is not enough if that content says nothing about Wikipedia.
"Wikipedia Tshivenda" is clearly about Wikipedia. Or do you have word from some phantom Venda-speaking user that Wikipedia is Venda for "three-eared flying monkeys"?
Similarly, removing everything useful and replacing it with a few odd words you picked up in a language is not helpful ([http://kj.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page&oldid=2 kj: example])
Hmm, and how do you know what that says? You know Kwanyama? In that case, I'm sure we can discuss this and we'll reach a conclusion that either we are talking about a different "Kwanyama", or, well, you won't really be able to speak it at all because it's not "a few odd words" I picked up in the language. Or is it that you've asked a Kwanyama-speaking user?
If the article is deleted and the mainpage is reverted NOW, the only possible explanation would be that people don't like Venda, and for this reason I don't think it will happen.
Don't like Venda or don't like potential copyright problems? Do you have permission from the author of [[te:Tshumelo ya Nyambo dza Lushaka]] to release it under the GFDL?
There is no article at http://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tshumelo_ya_Nyambo_dza_Lushaka because that title is in the Venda language in the Roman alphabet rather than the Telugu language in the Telugu abugida.
But if you meant the article at ve: (Remember, it's Venda, not Tenda, and it's Telugu and not Velugu), well, there is no copyright issue because, being produced by the government itself, there IS no copyright.
This can easily be inferred by 1. going to the page you earlier claimed I copied teh text from and 2. noticing that the other text in Venda cites a source and bears a notice that permission was given by the publishing house, whereas the NLS one says nothing, as it was written originally by the government, for the people and has never been distributed for profit.
After your behaviour in trying to remove alleged copyright violations from toki pona, edits such as [http://tn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirelo_ya_Dipuo_tsa_Boset%C5%A1haba this on tn:] appear quite surprising. Do you have permission to use this text? Or are you happy to contribute copyright violations as long as they are "in the target language"?
I am not happy to contribute copyright violations in any language. Well, I am, but it's illegal and it might hurt Wikipedia, so I wouldn't.
After people accused me of being stupid (and that's just one "respected community member". not you though; I'd not expect you to say that) for my lack of knowledge of copyright law and Wikipedia policy and the fact that I did not get the correct answer from a cursory Google for answers, I find it quite ironic that you are accusing me of a copyvio in even more unquestionable situations. Whether or not languages are copyrightable has been decided in court, and not internationally, and at the time at least (not sure about now) the official Toki Pona website had a copyright notice which was ambiguous in that it could be interpreted to mean that the site was copyrighted OR that the language was copyrighted, and there was no sort of document whereby Ms Kisa released it under the terms of the GFDL... but the sort of material I posted is public domain, no questions asked, and was at no time copyrighted, which should have been apparent after a cursory Google search where you looked at the first 5 or 7 results, as I did viz Toki Pona.
Mark
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