Lla Dafern/Archive 16

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Bengwenid! Bieńwięty! Moyn moyn! Bemmeinde! Pemmenut! Benvenuto! Welcome!

This is Lla Dafern, or, as the Saxon invaders call it, The Pub. It is one of many places where the members of Ill Bethisad enjoy meeting each other informally. It is the place where opinions can be exchanged and questions can be asked concerning Ill Bethisad in general or about topics that do not fit in the Talk compartment of individual wiki pages. It is also the place where technical questions can be asked to the moderators of this wiki.

THE MENU: Our chef, whose nationality for reasons of security will remain undisclosed, offers you a broad assortiment of Helvetian and other specialties, such as Montreiano Sea Elephant steaks with rended blubber, or if you prefer a side of Pacific white sided dolphin babyback ribs. He will be more than happy to give you a demonstration of his culinary talents. Just keep your health insurance card ready! And if you aren't particularly hungry today, he will also happily treat you on a rosy-scented Jervan Muscatel, a cool Dumnonian cider, a warm Irish or a cold Batavian beer, or, if you are amongst the more daring, a true Venedic jekwiała. For those who appreciate fine wines we carry the rich red wines of Bordeaux and les Ozarques, Brandy or Montignac, and bin ruper from Hostreht in Xliponia. For the discerning, a good 1984 vintage Arvorec anaf aval is recommended as an apéritif. Especially for minors and teetotallers we also serve Coke, orange juice, goat milk, Italian Limonata, and Neofrancian Spruce beer. If you prefer a more active pursuit to accompany your imbibition, there's a rousing game of puir-man whummlin going on out back. There's even an occasional pickup match of hibercrosse. Cheerio!

WARNING: Please don't pay attention to the smoke, the noise and the mess. Watch your steps and don't break your neck over cables, books, broken chairs, empty beer cans, leftovers of cigarettes and snacks...our bus boys get to it when they can...

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Any similarity to what the Wikipedians call The Village Pump is not entirely coincidental.

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Archive

Dornburg Disaster

... on which I would like pertinent comments and suggestions for improvement. I intend to publish at least one illustration in the near future. Kyrmse 05:43, 3 January 2008 (PST)

Blank Maps, Easily Edited

... are here: http://english.freemap.jp/index.html

Kyrmse 04:44, 9 January 2008 (PST)

Population and Area of European Nations

This:

http://www.geocities.com/xliponia/IB-EU.PNG

is a quick spreadsheet I made containing population & area data for the nations of Europe. My remark is that precious little quantitative information of this sort is available, not only about Europe, but elsewhere as well. You can't even calculate population density for many of the countries. Besides, what is this thing called km²? One of those funny Louisiannian units, it seems. Shouldn't we do something about this?

Kyrmse 09:39, 20 February 2008 (PST)

Just because our units are rationally designed and not arbitrary with bushels, pecks, ounces, pfennings and what have you!

To get the data for Louisianne, I roughed it in, extrapolating from the US states *here* that Louisianne supercedes *there*. I suppose you could do similarly with the provinces and such that Xliponia covers *here*

And FWIW, my understanding about miles *there* is that *there* they're about 2.1 km or something strange? BoArthur 11:21, 20 February 2008 (PST)

1.48, so not that weird; here they're about 1.6km. The incompleteness of this is astounding, although there is usually a good reason for everything. I believe the RTC is a nation whilst the FK is a supernational organisation. Surely the SR is the biggest nation in the world (35 million pop.), with all its worldwide territories? Or the NAL which has Canada and the eastern half of the USA from *here*? --Quentin 09:41, 21 February 2008 (PST)

The largest country might still be Russia as *here*--Marc Pasquin 12:05, 21 February 2008 (PST)

I'd think Russia would still trump the SR, since most of its global territories are quite small. For Luxemburg's area, I was going to add the area of the Grand Duchy *here* to the area of Belgium's Luxembourg Province *here*. Benkarnell 12:24, 21 February 2008 (PST)

The FK is kind of both a supranational organisation and also a, well, "federated" state. I guess quantitative data has been a long time in coming to IB. I did the population and area of Ter Mair quite a long time ago, but up til then, such information has been scarce indeed! Kudos to the bold adventurers into the unknowns maws and quagmires of IB censustaking! Elemtilas 14:56, 21 February 2008 (PST)

I remember reading that in IB they look at each entity uniquely and quibble less over defining sub/supra/nationality. I would be curious what entities are members of the League of Nations. Is Kemr? Or just the FK? Is the SR a member? Is Ter Mair? Novgorod? The Lusoamerican Union? Benkarnell 15:22, 21 February 2008 (PST)

Well, in the League of Nations charter, it says "peaceful community of nations", so I suspect that entities like Ter Mair (provinces) are not members. I don't have a list of member states (but I have the feeling it is quite comprehensive), but am sure that individual countries have the right to apply for membership. Supranational organisations like the Commonwealth or Scandinavian Realm can also join, I'm sure. Since the LoN works primarily through the mechanism of "regional assemblies", an entity like the SR naturally forms its own "regional assembly". That said, it seems that ministers can be sent by a wide variety of nations, regional interest blocs, trade organistaions and the like in order to address the various regional assemblies, and even the Council of the World itself.

The LoN is, as far as we know, a very powerful organisation. Very much unlike our UN. It also seems to be a much more behind the scenes kind of organisation. Elemtilas 19:00, 21 February 2008 (PST)

Agreed that supranational organisations, federated states, states and subnational entities are pretty much like a scale in IB. So, what would maps look like *there*? I suppose it really depends on the mapmaker. One would treat the HRE, the RTC, the SR and the FK like states and their components like subnational entities, others would treat them more like supranational organisations. My preferred solution would probably be something with shades of colours: England, Kemr and Scotland in different shades of, say, green, Veneda and Lithuania in different shades of, say, red.

As for data regarding area and population: in the case of the RTC I think I omitted area, since most RTC provinces do not entirely coincide with existing provinces and the country encompasses territories of four different countries. As for the population, I extrapolated the numbers of each province from the existing provinces as starting points, made some educates guesses regarding the rest, and made some changes for a different course of history (for example, the fact that there was no massive genocide in WW2). In the case of the Vozgian republic, I based both area and population on the data for the corresponding Russian rayons. In some cases where the borders did not match, I had to make some educated guesses again, but I'm pretty sure the current data (153,200 km2, 1,404,500 inhabitants) are pretty close to the truth, albeit maybe not for the full 100%.

As for the League of Nations, there's one thing I remember pretty well from what its conceiver, Dr. Cowan, wrote about it: that it is not an organisation like the UN *here*, with member states and ambassadors and the like. It's more some kind of recurring international conference, which starts acting once a state behaves badly in its relations with other states.

Cheers, —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 05:03, 22 February 2008 (PST)

Right. Members have "ministers" (usually more than one) that sit on the various conferences. And I don't think the UN has ambassadors from multinational organistations, either.

And even the NAL is listed as a supranational organization on FOIB, Marc's sites, etc. Methinks the humble term "province" is just one more "Less is More" situation. Benkarnell 06:01, 22 February 2008 (PST)

The NAL really isn't a supranational organisation. Not as I understand the term, anyway! I can understand where any confusion comes from, because it is both independent and dependent upon the monarchs of four foreign nations for heads of state. It is both a federal national government and something of an equal party to one of its constituent members (keeping in mind that the early SLC sought its early legitimacy within the arena of the Native confederacies). And some of its provinces have special relationships with foreign monarchs. The UT often (and rightfully so) acts as an independent country. What I mean to say is that the provinces are not much more independent countries than the states are *here*. But the provinces aren't independent countries any more than our states.

So, while I concur that the provinces have a "more" situation when compared to states or provinces *here*, I don't see how that makes the NAL itself a supranational organisation. Elemtilas 15:14, 23 February 2008 (PST)

Back on the topic of population, I think the figures have some bloopers in them - The FK's population is 57 million, Kemr's is 7 million and England's is 5 million. That would suggest that Scotland's is 45 million! Surely, wrong. The population of Britain *here* is 59 million, which would be comparable with *there*, but I'm understanding the population of IB is slightly less than here? --Quentin 13:37, 28 February 2008 (PST)

But is the population of IB slightly smaller than *here*? I have never seen this stated explicitly. And if so, why? (That is the reason why I started this thread in the first place) Kyrmse 04:32, 29 February 2008 (PST)

Some places are more crowded (Henua, for one). Some places are less crowded (Francophone Luxemburg, for one; probably the Unincorporated Territories for another). I know that places like Asia and Latin America are more developed, and that may correlate with lower birth rates and a lower population. I can't think of any reason why Europe or North America would have fewer people. Benkarnell 06:30, 29 February 2008 (PST)

I expect São Paulo (not my hometown *here*, but where I live *here*) to be less populous in IB, since IOTL we have 19 million in the metropolitan region... I imagine that the capital of the Republic of Paraná is a more civilised place to live in - that the Republic is less crowded along the coast and more evenly populated in the interior. Kyrmse 04:26, 3 March 2008 (PST)

For Airship Lovers

Try the Xeppelin font (www.iconian.com/fonts/xep.zip) from this page. Kyrmse 08:50, 26 February 2008 (PST)

How to Tell if You're a True IB Citizen

When arriving at work one of the first favourites you open on your computer has the URL: http://ib.frath.net/w/Special:Recentchanges Kyrmse 09:59, 5 March 2008 (PST)

Most every workday, before the kids show up. Benkarnell 07:14, 22 March 2008 (PDT)

More mathoms: Hay-on-Wye

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conculture/message/11006
http://www.geocities.com/flagsofillbethisad/hw.html

This seems to be in keeping with giving micronations *here* status as independent nations *there* (Saugeais, Conch Republic), albeit with very different histories. Assuming this is QSS (and it seems to be), what is it exactly? How came it to have an English name when it appears to be in the middle of Ill Paes? Or is this one of those things which we can allow to remain mysterious until somebody wants to devote more attention to it? Benkarnell 07:14, 22 March 2008 (PDT)

Probably a bunch of saxons who never got around the idea of living in a chomro country.--Marc Pasquin 11:41, 22 March 2008 (PDT)

ahem* Conch Republic's not actually autonomous. It started out that way, but it looks like Irish Occupied Florida's going to turn out more germanized than East Florida; that is, if we can ever get anything out of Jan van Steenbergen on the subject. It's like he's moved halfway across a continent or something... :) BoArthur 20:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

A Flag to Hoist? A Pin to Wear?

... what would they look like if we want to show we belong to Ill Bethisad, or that Ill Bethisad belongs to us? I can imagine my car flying a small Xliponian flag on the antenna, but on the other side? An airship with a red dragon? Come on! ;-) Suggestions welcome. Kyrmse 06:54, 9 April 2008 (PDT)

I've actually printed a slightly different version of Image:HE-oval.PNG as a real sticker, but I keep it on a notebook rather than on my car. It would be hard explaining Rongorongo to the curious... I know that in the US such oval stickers have no legal status, and many people display stickers representing their favorite beach town or university. I don't know if an "XL" (or even an "IB") sticker would be OK down in Paraná. Benkarnell 07:12, 9 April 2008 (PDT)

That's part of why I created my online webstore, and Marc his... :) I'm seriously thinking about buying the Repubulique Française shirt. BoArthur 07:39, 9 April 2008 (PDT)

You can wear an IB cap, I still have some. otherwise, I could send you a vectorial version of the Cambrian flag you could print on sticker paper.--Marc Pasquin 11:31, 9 April 2008 (PDT)

Technical note.

Please don't use the pipe symbol ("|") when linking to another website or it breaks the link. Thanks. --Quentin 02:10, 16 April 2008 (PDT)

I've added a note regarding this in the Help files (I don't know if anybody ever uses them, but you never know...). —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 14:17, 17 April 2008 (PDT)

Oblong Office

A discrepancy has been noted in the location of the GM's office: either in the capitol or in the Octagon House. I am sure that the reference to the Octagon House is righter; but have also suggested that a harmonisation could be made whereby the GM has his principle office in the Octagon House and an "office of convenience" in the capitol for when he's there. Elemtilas 21:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Wonky Navigation Menu?

Has anyone else noticed the navigation menu acting strangely on the Main Page? I've noticed that when I open the Wiki, the Wiki icon is a little bit cut off and the navigation menu is displayed in fine print and way down at the bottom of the page. Also, the tabs across the top are displayed incorrectly. This only seems to be happening only with the main page; no other pages behave this way. Is this a problem with some setting in the code of the main page, or an issue with the underlying settings? Elemtilas 18:23, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I have seen it to, and on various systems to that! How ugly! Honestly, I haven't the faintest idea where it comes from. Must be something related to the code, because the main pages in other languages have the same problem. I'll try to find out what can be done about this. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 10:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Fixed! :) —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 11:32, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

And there was much rejoicing. Elemtilas 18:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

"Minority cultures" category

I recently archived three Conculture discussions to the Wiki (Celto-Moors, Cilicia, and Føtisk), and it occurred to me that these and other similar Wiki pages could be put into a Category:Minority cultures or something similar, to complement Category:Nations. IB has plenty of well-developed cultures with no nation of their own, so it could be a very useful category indeed. Thoughts? Benkarnell 03:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

No complaints from this quarter. BoArthur 14:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for that! It's a good reminder to get back to work! Kodé 01:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

If You Don't Know xkcd Yet...

... you should. But this: http://xkcd.com/430/ is something special for us! Kyrmse 11:20, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Webcomics :-). Internet culture has definitely spawned some bizarre things. Makes you wonder what sorts of wacky creativity is coming out of IB's fledgling Idirlíon. Benkarnell 12:55, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikinfo

Wikipedia may have deleted the article about us, but I put it onto wikinfo, here: http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Ill_Bethisad. I got the info from a French translation still on the French Wikipedia, which apparently is not so stodgy about deletion. Benkarnell 15:41, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The IB Article has been deleted twice, because, apparently despite the fact that everyone in the conculturing world knows about us, we're "not notable" because nothing has been published about us.

Retarded. BoArthur 17:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Probably it was taking up space urgently needed for articles on fetishist sex groups and microgenres of hardgoth punkcore. Benkarnell 23:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Wordle Reveals All!

Wordle seems to be the latest craze. You paste in a text, and Wordle counts the words and turns them into a frequency-based (editable!) word-cloud. Here's what I got from the How It All Works page of the IB Wiki:

Kyrmse 19:05, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Nice effect, but also a bit confusing. --Pedromoderno 23:19, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I can't tell you how much time I wasted looking at that site :). This one's based on the Homepage. Benkarnell 00:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Where do I begin?

I don't know if this is the right place to place this, but whoever the caretaker of Greece's page is, could you contact me? Misterxeight 18:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Nik is the caretaker of sorts with regard to Greece. I'm sure he'd be open to some collaboration on that regard. BoArthur 19:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Two Questions

My first question is

Is IB as technology advanced as this world is?
I forgot the other one, damn. Maybe I'll think of it later.

Misterxeight 22:54, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe in some aspects technology *There* might be as advanced as in real world. But due to historical differences with real world IB technology had different developments. For example, space technology is much more recent in IB than in real world. Without competition between major world powers and Cold War situation IB politicians didn't need to put a man in the moon until the end of the decade as JFK wanted. Until now no small step to the man and big step for Mankind.--Pedromoderno 01:17, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I think "differently advanced" is a good way to put it. Some areas are more advanced than *here*; others are less advanced. IB has taken its own course to solve problems, so sometimes a whole area of technology that was ignored *here* has become commonplace *there*. Space technology is a good example of IB being behind: rocketry is largely where it was in the late 1940s. Electrical production and computers are a good example of IB being different: we assume that Tesla's ideas actually work; computers work rather differently *there*, with a different kind of architecture. Materials sciences is a good example of IB being ahead (airships aren't much good if they're too heavy after all!, so lightweight synthetic materials have gotten lots of attention since the 1930s and thereabouts). Elemtilas 05:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

What about DVDs & DVD players, cellphones, iPods, and stuff like that? I don't understand how computers evolved differently. I'm technology "Stupid". Misterxeight 06:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

IB uses video disk instead of DVD http://ib.frath.net/w/Video_Disks --Marc Pasquin 14:55, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

My computer engineer friend keeps saying that one of these days he's going to join Conculture and set IB's computers straight. Benkarnell 15:57, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

He's welcome to see what can be done with what's been worked on already! Elemtilas 19:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Animals

I've noticed there aren't any articles on animals (that I've seen.) Are there animals here that never went extinct or extinct in IB but not here? Are there animals here never seen by the western world in IB? Are there animals here not found in IB or vice-versa? Misterxeight 01:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

An overall theme is that the ecology is a little better; in fact there have been some militant environmentalist militias now and then. If you read the welcome at the top of this page, though, you'll notice that attitudes toward eating whales and dolphins are much more relaxed. And don't forget the Penouigonead, great epic of the Penguin kingdoms. Benkarnell 04:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

It's QAA that the same animal types and species exist in both the primary and secondary worlds. I'd like to think that some animals that have gone extinct *here* are still around *there* (thylacines, for example). On the other hand, it is to be hoped that more terrible disease species (viruses, etc) will be or have been entirely wiped out *there*. Elemtilas 05:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Cloning & Genetically Engineering Them

Has anyone done that yet? If no, I'd be up for doing an article about the two sujects. Possibly even cloning extinct animals. Misterxeight 17:51, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Possibly. In general, medical and biological sciences are every bit as advanced as here and perhaps more so. Elemtilas 02:27, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Can I do an article on the first genetically engineered animal? Or cloned one, or both?

AS long as we don't end up with Jurassic Park--Marc Pasquin 13:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I would have to argue that cloning and genetically manipulated life is a bit far off still, given that IB computers, IIRC are somewhere in the early 1980's equivalencies to *here*. Most of the cloning and gen-mod stuff *here* takes a great deal of computer process power, which doesn't exist *there* AFAIK. BoArthur 15:14, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but it strikes me that we've been saying that for about ten years now! ;))) So they must be up to the 1990s or later by now! Perhaps some kind of interesting breakthrough has been made in all this time? Elemtilas 02:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Well if the computers are like 1997 technology, then there could be cloning. Guess since Ireland's the tech place, Dolly would be cloned there, not Scotland. Or Japan. Misterxeight 03:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Alliances

On a completely different subject, how can one nation form an alliance with another? Does the caretaker of one aliance just ask the caretaker of the country he'd like to ally with? Misterxeight 02:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not quite so "geofiction roleplaying" as that. Caretakers don't "act" as if they were players in a game. IB's more along the lines of writing a collaborative story, or, better yet, painting a collaborative mural, in which everyone weighs in to help decide what looks best. Benkarnell 07:11, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Nicely put, Ben --Marc Pasquin 13:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Marc. To expand: it's not like Greece has no allies because you and a caretaker have not "formed" an alliance. The approach is more that Greece certainly has allies, and you can figure out who they are, with input from others. Benkarnell 14:42, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Granted...there have been some notable moments when two or three members conspired in the creation of events, such as the Florida War, the Assassination of the First President of Louisianne and the Empress of Japan, but all the same, that was the creation of an event and we all worked to figure out what the ripples of such things would be. BoArthur 15:12, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

How'd you guys know I was talking about Greece? :) Misterxeight 23:22, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Like I wrote on Conculture, I see one good opportunity for Greece to build an alliance, and that would be its strategic position at one side of the Bosporus. Greece might be trying to force an alliance of countries surrounding the Black Sea, particularly Bulgaria, Ukraine, the Crimea, Russia, Georgia, Armenia. Such an alliance could either be an alliance of Christian nations vs. Islamic Turkey (which on the way might wish to protect the interests of the Pontic Greeks), or it could be more of an economic alliance and include Turkey, something akin to the Baltic League. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 21:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Main Page message

It still suggests that anyone can log on and edit, but how long has it been since that was changed? I'd speculate that the reason the message is the same is because of all the conlinguistic translations, but I think it would be helpful to change the main message and get to the translations as we have time. Too many people are just plain confused. Benkarnell 15:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. I'll take care of that as soon as I have a bit of time. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 21:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)