03:49, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

User:24.251.243.233 says:

If you're not Maltese, why are you applying for adminship?

- Hello. Special:Userlogin please consider using an account here so you have a name.
  - Correcting myself - I see that you enjoy being anonymous elsewhere (or you are a shared IP). Fair enough- my request was not meant rudely.
- Do you mean, 'if you aren't a fluent speaker'?
- I am applying so that I can be available to help with the structural matters, such as a copyright violation which already has occured, and get momentum going.
  - I don't think that's nessecary. There are other qualified candidates (such as Ramon Casha) who will apply when the time is right. On other Wikipedias, having non-fluent speakers as sysops has sometimes impeded rather than promoted the development of the new Wikipedia. The copyvio has been removed, and most future problems can be fixed without sysophood and those that cannot can be referred to stewards such as Angela or Anthere.
    - Just of curiosity - are you Node ue? I will try not to impede any development. In fact I am working on recruiting more editors.

- - - - You could also un-protect th

e MediaWiki messages so everybody can translate them. It's not reccommended, but so far we have no problems with vandalism so it shouldn't be big problem.

- - - - Ah. Didn't think of that. thanks. --Srl
        
        233 - i'm still curious about the not Maltese part. If you'd like to comment on that. Srl | Talk 04:17, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Do you know how bad your spelling is?

- Yes, I do. But I'm working on it. Srl | Talk 08:25, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

srl

- - Hi Srl, to help with spelling please paste all text into http://linux.org.mt/lingwa/spellcheck.html?locale=mt before submitting it. Its dictionary doesn't contain /all/ Maltese words so every once in a while it makes a strange suggestion, but most things are correct and it fixes common errors too such as "F'Malta" -> "F'-Malta", "-ijet" -> "-ijiet", and usage of non-diacritic letters where the Maltese letters should be used instead ("enciclopedia", for example). --24.251.243.233
    - Hi. Maybe we can make a link to that on every edit page? -Srl
    - "F'-Malta"?! X'grammatika hi dik? wizgha

Bad translations

Now that you have adminship, you are using it to perpetuate bad interface translations. Why are you doing this? All Maltese people speak English, so the interface translation is not particularly urgent, and it should wait until a fluent speaker can do it. Why did you request adminship, and now ruin this Wikipedia??? - 24.251.243.233 circa 14:29, 30 Mar 2005
- Hi unknown user, please let me know what is broken and I'll fix it. Or bad, and I'll remove it. See User:Srl for some links to things I've been trying. Let's talk about it here or anywhere else you would like. You're even welcome to email me directly on my user page. Thanks!
- Specifically: [1] here is a list of my changes in MediaWiki. Let me know if any or all of them should be changed or removed. Grazzi.
- I rolled back a few of the ones that might be contentious. It looks like the glossary server at [2] isn't working right now. :( Srl | Talk 23:38, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  - Moved discussion of Wikipedia and its bylines to Talk:Wikipedia, which see. Srl | Talk 01:06, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    - Sorry srl, I didn't mean there was a problem with "Wikipedija". I meant there was a problem with replacing {{SITENAME}} with "Wikipedija", but even in talkpages {{SITENAME}} is replaced with "Wikipedia" so the wrong meaning came across. Wikipedija is fine for use all over, there is no problem with it. The only problem is when variable tags such as {{SITENAME}} are replaced with the actual. 24.251.243.233
      - No prob. But let's be clear on how it should be spelled, before changing it. Can I change {{SITENAME}} itself? Not sure. -- Srl
- "Why did you request adminship, and now ruin this Wikipedia???" This is ridiculous. Firstly, Srl is working hard on getting things organised. And secondly, it was Srl who created the Maltese Wikipedia in the first place! --AntoineCassar 14:25, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  - Is it really? It doesn't seem like it, first edits here aren't by him, most edits to mainpage aren't either.
    - [sep 2004] - accidentally used my IP. But it doesn't mean I own the wikipedia or have permanent or claim to admin, etc. See note at the bottom of this very page. Srl | Talk 23:54, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User:AntoineCassar says:

Just a quick note. In case you are not already aware, and although I don't know him personally, Srl has made and continues to make a great contribution to the Maltese language, mainly in the field of its representation in Information Technology. If there are spelling mistakes in any of his work, the rest of us can correct them. To be honest, and I say this without arrogance, if I were to count the number of Maltese people I know with perfect spelling (and I am certainly not one of them), I wouldn't need more than one hand.
- Grazzi.. that's exactly what I mean, I'm happy to get things going, and it can be corrected later. That's the way it has been with many of my projects.. Srl | Talk 16:36, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Congratulations and best of luck to all contributors to the Maltese Wikipedia. It will be a great pleasure to write a few articles when I get the chance... and my written Maltese will need correcting!
No problems at all. Looking forward for your contributions. wizgha

Note from Aphaia

Hello, I saw you on meta. Congrats for your appointment and sorry for your waiting. Right now I called stewards online on irc, but both of them were away; perhaps someone would see your request after the Easter holiday is over ... anyway have you considered to request for not only sysopship but also bureaucratship? I am also a sysop on a tiny project, Japanese Wikiquote, and currently found it is annoying we have no bureaucrat on the project, particularly in case a candidate was approved but no steward was available. Nowadays many projects, like newly created Wikinews start with a sysop and bureaucrat. And I think it is a good idea; you can avoid visiting meta only for request for permission. --Aphaia 16:55, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I asked for just sysop but was granted both.

Congrats. I saw your comment to Node on meta. In my personal opinion you are not necessary to care for any anonymous comments, but perhaps it would be better for us that you waited a week after requesting for sysopship. But I don't think there were something wrong. It is much better to do something even with some tweaks than do nothing.

That was sort of my thinking. At least it might, err, motivate someone to do it properly. Now we have quite a few experts doing their thing, so there is less need for large scale experiments. What I should have done was translate the things I knew for sure, and held voting and discussion for the rest. I'm doing that now, for example Talk:Wikipedia, so I don't think there is need for unprotecting or redirecting the messages. Thanks again. Srl | Talk 19:49, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My main topic: we can't unprotect MediaWiki messages, if I recall correctly. Since MediaWiki 1.3 all files under MediaWiki namespace are protected preventing vandalism. If you want to let ordinary users edit those files, you can put their content in another namespace and have them edit the latter as below:

write {{Wikipedia:Recentchangestext}} in MediaWiki:Recentchangestext
Edit Wikipedia:Recentchangestext
Then appear the content of the latter as the content of the former.
- Thanks. If that's needed and useful, it can be done later. Srl | Talk

But in my opinion it is absurd to deal with all MediaWiki files in this way. There are over 100 files in that namespace.

Cheers, --Aphaia 08:35, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You are now an admin and bureaucrat on mtwiki

Both user rights are subject to community approval - especially the bureaucrat user rights. Consider the bureaucrat user rights to be temporary until the mt community has a proper vote to elect a bureaucrat. --Maveric149 17:52, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Understood, thanks. Srl | Talk 21:00, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Unprotection of mediawiki

Hi SRL,

Unfortunately you can't unprotect MediaWiki files. HOWEVER, it is my suggestion that you copy the contents of the page Special:Allmessages and paste them on a publicly-editable page like All system messages (title should probably be in Maltese though), and request that other people assist in translating them. Once a message is translated, you can copy it to the appropriate MediaWiki page, and commit it. This would be my recommended method for cooperative translation of the user interface, especially with the issues surrounding fluency.

Node ue 19:55, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hi Node ue! That sounds like a good idea. I think before we launch off into translating everything ( like.. I .. err.. haphazardly started to do ) we need to get some terms figured out. For example, we're discussing what 'the free encyclopedia' means, the old beer vs. freedom thing. My apologies if you are already aware of the situation (as you seem to be quite well read), but many technical terms are still in their formative stages in Maltese. Yes, one could discuss all of the messages in the page, but it might be a bit overwhelming. Maybe what we need to do is to take allmessages and make a taxonomy of the technical terms contained therein, perhaps in conjuction with the wiktionary. But, on the third hand, I could copy allmessages and then we'd have a starting point for translations. I'm thinking, Special talk:All system messages say. S^rl | lblb 20:08, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Clicca

Can you take a look at the Italian wiki (it.wikipedia.org) adn try to edit an article? There is this sort of table with special characters at the bottom of the edit box. Do you think its possible to do something of that sort for our wiki as well? It would include those characters as well as the Maltese ones ċ, ġ, ħ and ż. I have read Michael's comments in the discussion page and it seems that some people might find problems with Maltese characters. --Roderick Mallia 20:07, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes it is in the w:it:MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning (!) and seems to involve the <charinsert> tag. ( see also w:it:Speciale:Allmessages .. Hmm, it doesn't work for me on this browser (Mac Safari), but I'll try putting it in to our MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning . S^rl | lblb 15:33, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the Welcome message

Halló Srl! I will come back tomorrow. Best regards Gangleri 00:53, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Srl

I've blocked the IP that was spamming. --213.255.107.33 21:42, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) (it:Utente:M7)

Wikimania PR

Hello, I'm contacting you as you are listed as the ambassador for your Wikipedia!

It would be nice if also your Wikipedia could place the Wikimania PR banner on MediaWiki:Sitenotice. The text which should be used (translated into your language) is:

[[Image:Wikimania-468x60-en.png|100px]] The first '''[http://www.wikimania.org International Wikimedia Conference]''' will take place in [[Frankfurt]] [[August 4|4.]]-[[August 8|8 August]]!

The text should be kept until August.

it looks like we have done so! S^rl | lblb 21:34, 17 Mej 2005 (UTC)