User talk:IJzeren Jan

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(Archive 2005)

Neo-SNOR

something from *here* that came through the FOTW mailing list (3rd picture and following):

http://www.slavrus.net/news.php?d=051104

This is their logo:

http://www.slavrus.net/gallery.php?g=misc&p=2

And, irony (or rip-off) look at this desktop of theirs:

http://www.slavrus.net/gallery.php?g=misc&p=10

Just like the logo I did for slevania, I seem to be in-tune with far-right imagery (my ancestors must be spining in their graves)--Marc Pasquin 15:52, 12 November 2005 (PST)

Maybe we should make the logo on the FNLS a lot smaller so that it isn't so conspicuous. But then I guess the damage is already done... BPJ 03:12, 13 November 2005 (PST)

Smaller? Like this?  :)))

Okay, just kidding. But seriously now: if you want to change something that is not forbidden. It's your own domain, after all! --IJzeren Jan 03:29, 13 November 2005 (PST)

Wow. Maybe we should all try and propose happy things??????? Zahir 19:12, 12 November 2005 (PST)

Wow indeed! Well, I guess this proves that we are on the right road with the SNOR! The party (NPR) itself seems nothing but an ultra-nationalistic splinter group with any political significance, but I must say that their website is pretty sophisticated. I looked at the other desktops too. Mostly anti-semitic crap. But this one I found quite funny, actually. And who knows: perhaps we could use this one too? --IJzeren Jan 01:32, 13 November 2005 (PST)

Who came up with the SNOR to begin with? As I'm looking at this I'm amazed at how identical our SNOR is with this group. It's ... unsettling! BoArthur 09:00, 25 November 2005 (PST)

Unsettling indeed. Goes on to prove how close we were to the truth. The SNOR itself was originally my idea, but all the artwork (and a lot of ideas, too) were done by Marc. We've been doing most of it together, really. --IJzeren Jan 09:04, 25 November 2005 (PST)

Jan, are you secretly harboring anti-semitic tendencies? Are you really russian? ;) Truth follows fiction, I guess. Wow. Amazing. BoArthur 09:06, 25 November 2005 (PST)

Its good of Jan to mention me but as far as the law and the anti-defamation league is concern, I`m blaming him. Fully.

Actualy, what is this "SNOR" thing ? WHO ARE YOU GUYS ? --Marc Pasquin 15:08, 25 November 2005 (PST)

ROFLMAO! BoArthur 18:28, 25 November 2005 (PST)

Ok, that was creepy. Did anyone look at that website before coming up with the SNORist emblems? --Sikulu 01:55, 14 February 2006 (PST)

Nope, I did it a few years ago before (I assume) the founding of that site. The idea was simply to make a fascistic-looking logo (if you look in the archive you might see a few others) that combined russianess, christian orthodoxy and monarchism. The first draft had a crown over the eagle (to symbolise the last bit) but it got droped for simplification sake. Like I said before, I just seem to have a knack for "tuning in" to right-wing train of thoughts....--Marc Pasquin 16:45, 14 February 2006 (PST)

Well, it just goes to show how symbolism can run deeper than just the surface! It makes sense, bold, strong, simple designs are highly effective. I think that Jan and Marc simply have a good stranglehold on Russian symbolism. Take a gander at the Arrow Cross article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Cross, which sounds like a similar situation. Doobieous 10:58, 27 April 2006 (PDT)

Batavian Provinces

Jan, with the changes to the map as you've laid them out, wouldn't it be up to holland whether or not to drain the Markermeer? If that's the case, wouldn't they want to, to increase their tax base, especially since the trade for Hoorn was destroyed with the making of the Absljutdijk? Just some thoughts as to the motivations to actually create and drain the Markerwaard. BoArthur 21:39, 15 January 2006 (PST)

RTC invaded by Martians?

I'm a new member of IB Wiki community, but I'm very intrested in IB project. I send you an e-mail last summer about thoes maps, did you remember? Now I would like to contribute to IB Wiki. Firstly I'd like to create an articel about UFO in Ill Bethisad based on your RTC News Page artice in "RTC invaded by Martians?" addition I would create artice about Tomaszu Liublinik. Can I?? Follow by white rabbit 06:32, 21 January 2006 (PST)

Sure, you can! Just remember that that article was a żart primoaprilisowy. There's a lot of talking about aliens, but they don't exist *there* any more than *here*. It is, however, important to know that space exploration is far less advanced in IB; there hasn't been a man on the moon yet, and we know about as much about Mars as we did in OTL in the 1950s. So, there are still people who seriously believe there's life on Mars, although *we* know there ain't.

So, you wrote that something similar happened in Tomaszów Lubelski, right? Could you tell me more about that? Let me tell you: when I wrote that, I didn't have an idea about that! The reason I picked Tomaszów L. is simply because I have a fond memory of it. So, what happened *here*?

The name Tomaszu Liublinik is obsolete, BTW. I'm not 100% sure yet, but I think the name in revised Wenedyk would be Tomaszyn Liublińki. See Cities in the RTC for other placenames.

Cheers, —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 11:27, 21 January 2006 (PST)

What had happened *here* and what is happenig each summer and spring is much as you wrote. People are belived to saw an UFO, there are thoes pictograms in grain, noone was taken so far but one gay claim to be visiting by aliens and as a prove he shows people his power of magnetic body, second have bild a piramid on his yard!! White and colurfull fast lights were usualy seen in rural area. I think that Tomaszyn Liublińki would be more natural. *Here* we have always mistakes in post betwine Tomaszów Lubelski and Tomaszów Mazowiecki. Follow by white rabbit 11:50, 21 January 2006 (PST)

Russia invades Maasai? (!)

Jan,

I'm having a discussion with Abdul-Aziz, and I think that, as caretaker of Russia, your input would be very important in this. (I'm not asking you to side with me, rather, I'm asking your opinion so we may have a better concensus.) Outline of GW2 BoArthur 18:06, 31 January 2006 (PST)

I'll re-iterate my request for you to look at the discussion, as it's drifted to focusing on Russia. BoArthur 15:50, 1 February 2006 (PST)

Help with Bernard & Croll

Jan - I created a page called Bernard & Croll (the publishing house in Bovlai), but the "&" character seems to cause some trouble in accessing the page. So I created one called Bernard and Croll, which dóes work. Could you delete the first one for me? Thanks! Kyrmse 08:40, 1 February 2006 (PST)

Cossack force

Maybe you could comment on this, I could be wrong: Talk:Cossack_Force --Marc Pasquin 07:33, 3 February 2006 (PST)

Xliponian x Wenedyk

The Xliponian page seems to rank a little higher than Wenedyk on the current "Popular Pages" list... ;-)

(This will probably change shortly, but gives me a small pleasure anyway - especially since I haven't been able to be very active) Kyrmse 03:54, 6 February 2006 (PST)

Hehehe. But on the other hand, you must admit that Wenedyk has more Wikipedia entries. I even noticed a Portuguese version!! :)) Now I wonder who wrote thát! ;)

(anyway, thank you very much for that!) —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 05:12, 6 February 2006 (PST)

Slvanjek Tintin title

Could you please change the title in [1] to Jezla Nehrá? New GMP... BPJ 14:42, 10 February 2006 (PST)

Or perhaps Nehrá Jezla? BPJ 14:44, 10 February 2006 (PST)

I had a bug in the GMP, it should be Njehrá Ízla , but we need to add an acute to the adjective ending! BPJ 12:00, 11 February 2006 (PST)

I would think so! Okay, I'll get along with it when I have a little time. BTW, are you sure about switching the order of the words? And how about the header "Avjatyre Tyntyny"? —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 01:19, 14 February 2006 (PST)

What is the prefferred word order for noun-adjective and noun-genitive in Slavic langs? ADVENTÚRÚS > odvjátyry; the question is whether to keep the *d in AD before *v. We better hash that out in email, I think? -- BPJ 11:30, 15 February 2006 (PST)

If I may humbly interfere; west Slavic prefere special junction DeSubstAdj + Subst.NOM (Tintinova dobrodruzstvi), where affix -ova makes an attributive adjective of noun, while east Slavic prefere to use Subst.NOM + Subst.GEN (priklyucheniya Tintina). Polish, although being west one, seems to be in this like east Slavic (przygody Tintina), but Slovakian follows the rule (Tintinove dobrodruzstva). Jan II. 22:55, 15 February 2006 (PST)

Indeed, I should have thought of that myself! Let me only add that even Russian has a similar construction, with the ending -inyj. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 05:00, 16 February 2006 (PST)

Waldemar Fiorarz

As you see I decide to write some articles about Media in RTC. I wanted to make an article about this famous program “Mąd par Siemiura”. Translating name of its host “Waldemar Fiorarz” to polish “Waldemar Kowal or Kowalski” I hadn’t found any journalist with such a name and I gave him face of Larry King (and his life…). Could you tell me if Waldemar Fiorarz is totally fiction or you have someone real on mind ??? Follow by white rabbit 12:12, 11 February 2006 (PST)

No, almost all personnages from the RTC are fictional, including Mr. Fiorarz. Only a few, like Onute Staniszkiene, are loosely based on existing figures. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 01:17, 14 February 2006 (PST)

North American Polders?

Jan, what do you think about the idea of there being Norht American Polders? Would htere have ever been a reason to create them? I know that New York *here* has expanded into the bays, but mostly through the excavation that was dumped there from the foundations of the skyscrapers. What do you think? Also, can you give me a dutch spin on all the different Waards of Breuckelen? BoArthur 22:36, 11 February 2006 (PST)

Honestly, I know too little about the NAL and the USA to be a fair judge of that. If you ask me, I'd say that I can't really see why there should be a difference with *here*. But if you can come with a good reason, then by all means go along with it! As for the Dutch names, what exactly did you have in mind? —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 01:21, 14 February 2006 (PST)

I can't see a reason for Polders like Holland, the land is different. I think they would just dump the dirt from the skyscrapers in the bay and "reclaim" the land that way. As for the names, either "dutchify" the names that are there, or come up with good dutch names, or somehow discover the original names from history? BoArthur 16:56, 14 February 2006 (PST)

Rygen and polabian Slavs

Could, please, check the Rugen discussion and give us your opinion on possible influence of different *there* situation in Pommerania and Polabian region? Jan II. 07:50, 15 February 2006 (PST)

Mraczén i Mracén

What do you think of Mraczén i Mracén or Marcianus et Martianus as Slevan names for Dupont et Dupond? -- BPJ 10:56, 21 February 2006 (PST)

Looks good! —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 16:33, 22 February 2006 (PST)

Popular, popular, popular!

My, you're quite popular, Jan, I mean, Zowan, I mean, John, I mean... oh man.  :) I wonder if I should have my character tribute to you in the novel after all? ;) Cor, tha're as bad as Mr. Clinton! BoArthur 19:07, 27 February 2006 (PST)

There's nó comparison there! Jan is quite worthy of crossdimensional facsimilating! ;) Elemtilas 17:46, 28 February 2006 (PST)

Lla Dafern

Jan, I wanted you to know that I'm not attacking you personnally, nor am I attacking your suggestions, per se, but I am bothered by the removal of some tags, as I think it makes the wiki nice, readable, and we know what to expect; that's my motivation for it. I'm also running very very low on sleep these days, and thus I'm not at my most eloquent, so you must know that I hold you, as always, in highest esteem, regardless of the conversation in the Pub. BoArthur 08:07, 2 March 2006 (PST)

No problem, Dan. I don't feel offended at all, and nothing ever said in this discussion should be taken personally. And of course, I hold you in very high esteem too, but you know that already! ;)

Just tell me: which template do you want to preserve? As for now, I've only deleted four of them, three utterly pointless ones made by myself, and one (the DELETESPECIAL one) which AFAIK has never been used (and anyway, the only difference was that it mentioned the possibility of saving the article by "major rework", which I think is obvious in any case). But we also have DISPUTED/FALLACIOUS, which is not used and only differs from DISPUTED with one word. I have a serious objection against the QUALITY tag, and I don't really see the point of UPDATE and ONGOINGUPDATE. But that's my opinion. If you think we should keep them, or some of them, then so be it.

As for PROPOSAL and CONDITIONAL PROPOSAL, how about a compromise? I've spent many hours on experimenting to find a way of adding a timestamp to the template. I sounds so simple, but it turns out to be impossible. But I can see another solution. It is extremely easy to build it in such way someone can add an expiry date (instead of the day when the proposal was submitted). That would cover both templates: instead of using the CONDITIONAL PROPOSAL tag, you simply put in a week instead of a month as the date when the proposal expires, and done you are! —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 11:39, 2 March 2006 (PST)

Well, now that we've established our warm and fuzzy feelings of respect, I agree with DELETESPECIAL, DISPUTED/FALLACIOUS. I like the UPDATE and ONGOINGUPDATE, which I created for news items, like the hurricane and so-on as a way to remind myself that I need to fix certain pages. That's what I had in mind when creating them. I suppose that if I need to just put notes on my User Page, so be it. Quality was something from Wikipedia. It was created at a time when it seemed there were a lot of shoddy articles being thrown at the wiki, and I didn't feel like policing them all myself...and Quality further evolved into English, and if you would like both removed, I'll acquiesce and accept them. As for Proposals, I'll just use the regular proposal tag and keep a running list on my user page somewhere so I can keep tabs on my own. BoArthur 13:31, 2 March 2006 (PST)

In fact, Deiniol said that he'd like the English tag to stay. And I have no problems with that; it doesn't really hurt, and could come in handy from time to time. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 14:02, 2 March 2006 (PST)

Conlanging Help

Hey Jan, I asked a question on La defern regarding conlanging, anything you could do to help ?

pretty please ?

--Marc Pasquin 07:25, 3 March 2006 (PST)

I've tried to answer it to the best of my knowledge, but I'm afraid I can't be of much help anyway. See my response in Lla Dafern. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 09:12, 3 March 2006 (PST)

Veneda and my contributions

At that time I don't have a clear idea what I'd like to do/change, although if I had my way, I'd like to increase the (cultural?) role of szlachta in Venedian society. Have you read 'Crux' story by Jacek Dukaj, or 'Krzyżacki Poker' Spychalskiego, by any chance? Dukaj as usually has a breathstunning vision of szlachta in 21st century, while Spychalski creates an interesting universe (although I think his writing skills are not very strong).--Piotr Konieczny aka Piotr Finały ^Talk 17:11, 5 March 2006 (PST)

No, I haven't read them. But thank you for the links! I'll look into them... —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 07:00, 6 March 2006 (PST)

I have Crux as an 'unofficial' ebook (it's a shame there are no official ones, as a Dukaj fan I have a copy every single book or magazine with his works, so I'd gladly buy ebooks too). But if you live outside Poland, it's very hard to get his stuf (although there is always Allegro and many ppl ship stuff abroad).--Piotr Konieczny aka Piotr Finały ^Talk 15:43, 9 March 2006 (PST)

Article Review

Please review the article on Żowan Sasomętany.BoArthur 22:54, 5 March 2006 (PST)

Very nice! I have two buts, though: first of all, wouldn't it be better to use the other picture (the one with the goatee). I've no idea why, but I'm quite sure Dr. Sasomętany has a goatee! ;) Another thing is the Florida plan. Wouldn't it be better to have that event in the near future? —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 07:00, 6 March 2006 (PST)

At the same time, I was thinking that your plan was for there to be some agitation this way before now...if it doesn't fit with your grand master plan, go ahead and change it. :) BoArthur 07:26, 6 March 2006 (PST)

Veneds, how to call them in a Slavonic way?

It totally fall off my head, but you know that any Romanised population had Common Slavic name volx#? It is something taken from Goths, *walha, which name was used for Celts. And because Celts/Gauls were Romanised that turned to be name for Romanised pops. So I think, that Veneds will be in Nassian - volkinaki, Czech - Valaši ;) Your opinion? Jan II. 06:57, 7 March 2006 (PST)

Could very well be! Of course, there is always the possibility that they later adopted the native form "Vened#". But I have no objection against either one of them. In fact, it might also be the solution for the problem of the name of the Veneds in Lithuania discussed earlier! —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 08:23, 7 March 2006 (PST)

re:Sarmatism

I won't have much time to talk about iB for about a week, but my short answer would be that Romanism certainly sounds interesting, and copying is not that fun. But I'd guess it would be as negative in reality as real sarmatism was? Do we want to keep it that way, or maybe there was a revival of 'Romanism' in 19th century that trasformed it into a more Enlightened cultural movement (was there an Enlightenment in iB, btw)? As for your question (where are you from, btw?) today in Poland sarmatism is almost forgotten - few people but PLC-fans and school pupils learning about it can tell you much about it. Same with szlachta, althugh the word would be somewhat more known, of course (as it is a Polish word for 'nobility', after all). Of course their historical impact was great, but they are relics of the past now. --Piotr Konieczny aka Piotr Finały ^Talk 15:48, 9 March 2006 (PST)

Ukase of van Steenbergen

I will abide by your decisions in that horrible matter. I oughtn't to have let myself go as far as I did. Elemtilas 12:37, 12 March 2006 (PST)

What is this "Ukase of van Steenbergen"? It sound's scary... BPJ 05:56, 18 March 2006 (PST)

It refer to what happen on the Talk:Ontario page. Look under "Offensive Addition".--Marc Pasquin 06:30, 18 March 2006 (PST)

Yeah. And that's pretty much all there's to say about it. Ukase of Van Steenbergen makes it sound like it's more than it actually is! —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 13:32, 19 March 2006 (PST)

Such an action taken by one of the Gatekeepers doesn't háve to be groundbreaking! You were well within rights. I do think the whole episode following Marc's original complaint ("We have a saying..." on down) should be deleted. We behaved rather badly and probably don't need to have that kind of thing aired in public. Elemtilas 16:38, 19 March 2006 (PST)

You certainly have a point there. Okay, I've removed the passage, and left the ukase intact for a while. After all, an ukase undoing itself wouldn't be a proper ukase! ;) —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 16:55, 19 March 2006 (PST)

Viewing all templates

Hi Jan!

I tried to add the following to the IBWiki:Templates page but didn't succeed. Your magic was too powerful to accept my meddling!

My magic? Hehe. I think you were trying to make it more complicated than necessary. I've added the sentence to the Templates page. Does it look okay like this? —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 14:48, 19 March 2006 (PST)

View all templates on this wiki

   Click here to see all templates available on this wiki. (Not actually an external link, but I don't know how to create it otherwise!)

BPJ 05:50, 18 March 2006 (PST)

Wenedyk Translations

Hey Jan! How was your visit with your guests the night? I hope it was an evening well-spent! Have you by chance had time to work on the dialogue translation? When would be a good time to Skype you? (Like Wednesday or Friday...) BoArthur 02:40, 21 March 2006 (PST)

...working on it! Let's have a Skype session tomorrow night. Cheers, —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 02:42, 21 March 2006 (PST)

You say night, but that's my noon...What time, Europe, are you thinking? :) BoArthur 02:44, 21 March 2006 (PST)

Yes, because your evening, that's my very early morning, or middle-of-the-night! ;)—IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 02:55, 21 March 2006 (PST)

BTW, I hope you don't mind the fact that I rewrote the intro to the IBCOTF a little.

Not in the least, I think it fits very nicely with what we all want it to be! BoArthur 08:22, 21 March 2006 (PST)

Flag

One is civil flag, one is national flag. The crossed one is copied from *here*; the striped one is my own. I was horribly ignorant of *here*s Katanga so I rewrite. --Quentin 01:09, 30 March 2006 (PST)

New Articles by Me

My new articles are geared to a specific purpose regarding the rather lengthy word-document you sent me. I think they will serve well to respond to some of your questions/objections. Let me know what you think. I can talk to you privately at some point should you wish to discuss this. BoArthur 12:08, 6 April 2006 (PDT)

Dzhugashvili

Since this touches on your Realm of Influence....Talk:Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili ... you may want to take a look see. BoArthur

Sud-Floridien

Bitte schauen auf Sud-Floridien, mein herr. Sie finden wurden die neues "events." BoArthur 07:56, 26 April 2006 (PDT) (I know...not Dutch...but that will come. :) )

Dutch? That's Deutsch! Seth 00:12, 27 April 2006 (PST)

Richtig, aber ich möchte hollandische sprechen... BoArthur

Hieroglyphs.

Very interested in differences in IB-Egyptology -> The state of India and China in seperate states, for what ever reason. Thanks for sorting the images, but what if in IB they were something different? --Quentin 05:24, 28 April 2006 (PDT)

I'm still not sure what this is about. What do the hieroglyphs mean? Is this about egyptology in IB? In that case I suggest you to contact User:Zahir, who has expressed some thoughts about that in the past. See also the Conculture archives. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 05:31, 28 April 2006 (PDT)

Where to put the rosette?

Jan...I can't figure out where to stash this on your page!

Hehe. You better find out, because I can hardly put it there myself! ;)) —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 06:14, 3 May 2006 (PDT)

Talk:SNOR

Jan, can you weigh in on the conversation? I'm not the clearest on what you had in mind for Russia (aside there was rumours of a buddhist russia....) Can you help? BoArthur 13:22, 2 May 2006 (PDT)

I just did. As for Buddhist Russia, that was just the basic idea for Russia before I adopted it. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 06:15, 3 May 2006 (PDT)

Commentary Needed

Can you look over the Austro-Prussian War page? :) BoArthur 15:20, 18 May 2006 (PDT)

I will, once I have a little more time. I've been extremely busy lately, and will probably remain so in the next few weeks. BTW, for the Latin translation, you may ask Padraic. Success granted! :) —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 02:27, 20 May 2006 (PDT)

Latin Translation?

Jan,

Can you translate: "Faster, Dumber and two times as Dangerous" into latin? BoArthur 10:57, 19 May 2006 (PDT)

National Anthem

Are you realy the one who decided on that anthem ? Even if a touch of levity was what you were looking for, it seem quite an odd choice. --Marc Pasquin 20:55, 27 May 2006 (PDT)

No no, it's not an anthem, and it's not me who put it there. For quite a while (before I ever decided to do something with the BK), this was actually the only text that was on the page at all. I suppose the real national anthem is the same as *here*. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 02:40, 28 May 2006 (PDT)

GW2

Since I'm working on the Prussian invasion of Russia in GW2, would you be so kind as to take a look at Operation Rhinegold when you get the chance? Thanks in advance! Zahir 23:04, 3 June 2006 (PDT)

Wenedyk spell check

Hello Jan! Could you make a little wenedyk spell check of my new articles (Commercial media in RTC, “Rywiń affair”, Gazeta Jeleconała)? I’m not sure if I use suitable cases’ forms. It would be also nice if you could make your opinion about them. Follow by white rabbit 11:55, 13 June 2006 (PDT)

Thank you. I'll look into that when I have a little more time! Cheers, —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 12:30, 14 June 2006 (PDT)

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Or displeasure...but I was betaken by the map-making bug last night, and created Marsdieperwaard to support the maps. :) BoArthur 08:32, 20 June 2006 (PDT)

IB22

I'm not necessarily against the changes that IB22 made, so we could leave some of them...I just would like him/her to ID themselves. BoArthur 11:36, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

Of course, I agree with that. But looking through the changed made by IB22, I have to say that 90 % of them are useless. There are a few things I left intact (mostly on talk pages and a few changes in language templates). And his/her actions on IBWiki:Templates are plain vandalism IMO.

I hope I'm not coming accross as particularly tough or unpleasant. New members are always welcome, as far as I'm concerned. But they have to play by the rules, and I think both the Main Page and various other policy pages make it abundantly clear what someone should do if we wants to collaborate with us. Wildly reorganising the template and categories structure is definitely not the way! —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 11:57, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

I agree with you BoArthur. I don't think there is a need to revert everything as he is not a real spammer or vandal probably. I believe we should be more friendly to new contributors and tolerate such edits more. Of course, I am not saying that it should be always tolerated, but we should give the new contributors time to understand how it all works. As otherwise it might seem to new people that Ill Bethisad community is some clique that accepts new members very unwillingly. I believe it takes time for everybody to understand it all well and some people starts editing first and only then fully understands everything (it took time for me before I understood everything as well, and I probably started to edit before I completely understood how the Ill Bethisad works - it is hard to find all the policies and to read them all before you could make any contributions; it is probably better to learn with time). I believe we should do our best to make the new members feel welcome and only if their edits are completely malicious (that is, spam links, profanity words and so on) revert them on sight. Abdul-aziz 11:59, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

Look, I didn't revert éverything. What I reverted was: a) a lot of templates subst'ed by IB22 (which I dó consider vandalism, for the record); b) utterly pointless links in the headers of a number of categories; c) two or three categories (like the "blocked users" category) that IB22 created but that are completely unneeded. The rest I left intact. Unfortunately, there was not much of that.

I'm not sure why a complete newcomer would be interested in a list of protected pages, or a list of blocked users, anyway.

Newcomers are always very welcome! Let there be no misunderstanding about that! And you wouldn't hear me complain about some minor faux pas in the beginning of somebody's carreer. I perfectly understand that someone in that stage may not be entirely familiar with our ways. But lack of experience with or knowledge about the project is no excuse for messing up everything here. If someone wants to edit this wiki, I think we can at least expect that he read the main page, no? —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 12:14, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

I liken going in as a newbie and wildly reorganizing things like being a new hire at work. You wouldn't just walk in and start changing the layout of the office your first day, would you? The same holds for edits here. You should read up, and see how things run firs before changing things. Just like at a new job, you'd better have a good reason for doing that otherwise you start off on the wrong foot. I disagree that we should tolerate wild edits just to look more "friendly". I think we are pretty friendly if you play by the rules. Doobieous 20:16, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

I can see both points. I was going to revert some of them anyway. I stand with Jan, as I think we need to more enforce the point of people announcing themselves and declaring their intent. This is a group project. I think that Jan and I should collaborate on updating the lists of policies and so-on to make things more "user-friendly." BoArthur 12:11, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

Probably so. But honestly, I have really done my very best to make things as clear as possible. How much "user-friendlier" can we get? —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 12:14, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

I honestly don't think either of you have done anything at all wrong, and while IB22 didn't do anything like spam, he's at the very least been extraordinarily rude. Maybe things can be tad more "user friendly." Maybe. I'm really not sure. Frankly, I think a tiny amount of good manners and common sense should have told IB22 not to do what he has done. Zahir 12:19, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

Well spoken all. If you, Zahir, or anyone has a suggestion about user-friendliness, I'm sure that Jan and I would be willing to entertain the thought. BoArthur 12:23, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

Indeed, it is nice when newcomers introduce themselves but I believe it is wrong to demand that they would tell about themselves *before* their first edit. I believe it takes some time to decide that the project is interesting and that you want to be part of it. But of course there is nothing wrong to ask about a newcomer in his/her talk page. Probably it is the best to welcome him, to tell that he could ask you any questions he would have about the project and such. In case a newcomer does something you think is not needed or wrong, then you could contact him and explain that - better to ask him what he wants to do and why he does so, what is his vision and such. By "you" here I mean nobody in particular, but any older IB contributor. I would suggest not to revert doubtful contributions (that is, contributions that are not complete spam or advertising) for some time, maybe 3 days or so, so that the newcomer would have enough time to reply. After all, there is nothing to loose. We have our ways to mark the articles that contradicts QSS for example. Of course, if the new user does not respond/is rude and such eventually the reverts and blocking will have to be done. Abdul-aziz 15:08, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

But Abdul-aziz, before we began using the wiki, that was the ONLY way to participate in the project. That's how I and most of my more contemporary members were brought into the group. I think that it's only been during this time of us using the wiki software that the group has become more "open" to others. People had to investigate and announce themselves before they could contribute to the group. I don't think we should necessarily have to go back to that, but I think we should hold to some of it, and announcing yourself to the group, EVEN if it's in conjunction with your first edit would only be polite. Jan? Others? BoArthur 18:46, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

Huh? I don't get what you're saying, Abdul-aziz. Are you saying that it is wrong to ask that someone be polite enough to introduce themselves to the project BEFORE changing things around? I was always taught that it's rude to intrude without introducing yourself in any situation. If you have the time to go in and make edits here, then why should you *not* take the time to just tell us who you are? We're not asking for an epic autobiography detailing your formative, coming of age, and star setting upon the horizon years. All most of us ask is that you just give us an idea of who you are. What happened to manners, you know, introducing yourself before putting your two cents in? Doobieous 20:21, 21 June 2006 (PDT)

There is nothing wrong to ask about the person in a welcome message as I have said. But, however, this is wiki, and traditionally one does not need to introduce himself/herself in wikis (it is somewhat different with for example newsgroups or forums probably), therefore it is perhaps strange to expect that a person would do an introduction *before* his/her first edit. Many new members have used or uses other wikis I assume therefore they act here as they would act there. We should explain the rules/differences politely (if the person is not malicious) and give him/her time to respond. If he/she does not however for say, 3 days, especially if he/she had done other edits during the time, we could enforce the rules. Abdul-aziz 00:31, 22 June 2006 (PDT)

The basic principles are these: a person has been following IB for a while and would be interested in participating. So he introduces himself to the group, submits his ideas, and we try to fit those in. Once that's done, this person can freely develop the area of his choice into detail.

This used to be a matter of writing messages to the Conculture list. Some of us used to present our work on websites. That was before we had a wiki.

Now that we have one, the basic rules haven't changed. But, I've said it before, I think it is our software working against us. It gives the wrong impression that anybody can start new pages or edit existing ones. But that is not so: in fact, even established IB members do not have the liberty to edit somebody else's stuff just like that. In other words, IB is a shared world. Some parts of it are collaborative, others are not. Unless a subject is clearly one of those collaborative things (Second Great War being a fine example), or unless input is explicitly sollicited, people other than the original author should stay away from the article.

And here we have a problem. The pages don't make it explicitly clear that a subject is "owned" by its author. Experienced IB members know that, but a newcomer in all likeliness won't. And the fact that every page has an "edit" option (in addition to the fact that our pages look pretty much like Wikipedia pages) might easily put him on the wrong leg as well. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do about that. Of course, we have three options:

• We decide that a wiki is not the best solution for IB after all, webify everything and move back to Conculture. A very bad idea, I think, and it's far too late for that anyway.
• We make all IB members moderators and protect all pages (so that only IB members can edit them). A lot of work, and besides, it will make it very hard for anybody to join the project.
• To have templates all over the place, saying: "This page is owned by _____. For suggestions, comments etc., please contact ______ at his talk page." Ugly, unfriendly, and a lot of work as well.

As you can see, in all these cases, the cure is worse than the disease!

So let's just accept that things are the way they are. Of course, everything about How We Work should be explained clearly on pages that can be found easily. User-friendliness and all that. And for the rest, I agree with Abdul-Aziz that we should be tolerant, open-minded and patient. When a newcomer is unaware of our way of working and starts making some friendly edits, or creates an article without introducing himself, we shouldn't ostricise him. Instead, we should explain things and help this person as well as we can. On the other hand, we are entitled to protect our material. From any newcomer, we can expect at least a minimum of good manners and the willingness to communicate with us.

In this particular situation that was obviously not the case. If somebody would be really interested in joining the project, he would at least choose a subject. But IB22 was merely messing up templates and categories. And honestly, I don't like it when a complete stranger starts redecorating my room when I'm not watching. He/she continued doing so after being asked "who are you?", "explain your actions", "stop subst'ing templates", etc. If this person is acting in good faith, I can only say that his social skills are substandard at best. Besides, I seriously wonder what interest an outsider would have in a list of blocked users...

As for the three days you mention, Abdul-Aziz: yes, basically I agree with that. But not in this particular case. Moderators have a "rollback" option, which automatically reverts an article to the version by the last previous author. IB22 made a lót of edits on a lot of different pages. If you wait three days, you'll get the situation that other people may already have changed something else, and as a result, reverting to previous versions will be a lot harder to do. Besides, most of the changes made by IB22 were absolutely unnecessary and unwanted.

As for future situations, I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to form some sort of sub-group of experienced members, who might take it upon themselves to act as mentors for newcomers. With IB growing and growing, we can hardly expect anybody to have read all articles here, or to know precisely how things are done here.

—IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 02:11, 22 June 2006 (PDT)

Yes it seems like a good idea to have a group that helps new members. As for the rules, I know that they are the same when IB was conculture list/a buch of webpages and now when it is a wiki. What I meant is that this might be unknown/not understandable for the new members at first as usually one acts differently when he/she joins a newsgroup or when he starts editing a wiki. Of course, the differences needs to be explained to the newcomers in the welcome messages. Basically I do believe that the more members we have the better as each new member enters something new into this world, a new perspective. My first edits were correcting the Lithuanian names of the RTC cities - a minor edit as well that perhaps has added little to the project, but eventually I have thought out some more ideas. Maybe so would have been with IB22, maybe not. Anyways, I will try to write some welcome messages when I will see new members myself as it is always better to act than to rant :-) . Abdul-aziz 02:49, 22 June 2006 (PDT)

Sure, I understand that. But let's face it: your first edits were of a completely different type than the edits made by IB22. This was not some minor correction or some wild idea, but something which directly affected our whole categories and templates structure!

Anyway, I've tried to create a welcome template, here. Tell me what you think. Cheers, —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 12:27, 22 June 2006 (PDT)

I thought about creating such template myself, but I decided later that as IB is far smaller than other wikis and new members comes relatively rarely, perhaps a more personal approach would be better. But, of course, it is a nice idea to post this in talk pages of the new members. Abdul-aziz 14:06, 22 June 2006 (PDT)

Oh, but you are under no obligation to use this template. You can of course always write a welcoming message yourself. What is important about this template, though, is that it conveys some important information, including a few links (now that I think of it, it should also contain a link to the main IB page). Even if you use it, you can always add a personal note. Or, if you prefer, you can copy the text of the template and personalise it at will. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 14:15, 22 June 2006 (PDT)

Yes, I know :-) Abdul-aziz 14:52, 22 June 2006 (PDT)

Possibly mine will be the only dissenting voice here, and what I'm about to write may well come accross as unfriendly, but I assure you that it is not so :D Just a bit concerned.

Are we sure that constant expansion and everything being on the up-and-up is a Good Thing? It's not that I don't value our new members, far from it. But it's the fact that we have such a fairly clear distinction between New Members and Old Hands is a little disturbing. Those who joined the project post-wikification obviously approach it in a different way (as you mention above) to those of us who joined back when it was just chat on Conculture or even Celticonlang.

This wiki seems to monopolise IB. Where once it was an effort spread out across the ether of the internet, with discussion lists, webpages and so on, the pressure to have everything in one place has rather killed all that off. When was the last time a non-wiki IB webpage was updated? One reason I've not seen much of a hurry to get the Arvorec pages back online is because I know that most likely I'll be the only one to read them because they're not on the wiki. I'm not entirely sure I'm happy about that.

I recall a while ago, before the wiki, discussion about legal rights and royalties on fiction set in IB. IIRC, it was a gentleman's agreement that in any such cases a portion of the royalties would be shared among the participants in IB. I realise it's a bit far-fetched at the moment, but if such a situation arose, would that still apply? Would IB22 get a share? How about our unknown feminist who added in the female nation leaders?

One thing which might work and reintroduce something of the "old way" of doing this is requiring interested people to post to conculture *first*, rather than editing anything. Shift the focus of IB from being wholly Wikicentric. What was originally to be a solution to archiving problems has become the whole project, at the expense of individual webpages. I'd like to see people commenting on IB things not found in this wiki. For example, did anyone remark on Padraic's new domain? When was the last time we saw a new text in one of IB's established conlangs? I realise people are busy and that all things change, but it almost seems like that aspect of IB is dying. The focus seems to be these days on sub-subcreation. There's nothing wrong with that, and IMO it certainly adds huge amounts of richness and depth to IB, but what about everything else which makes IB what it is and what it was when I joined?

Finally, please don't anyone take this wrong way or see it as me being grouchy and saying "you should all be conlangers and new people should leave", it's not like that at all. I'm just a little concerned about what's happening to IB.

Also, and a wee bit ironically after what I've written thus far, perhaps this discussion could be better placed in Lla Dafern? Deiniol 15:09, 22 June 2006 (PDT)

Edits?

What are you doing, Jan....? BoArthur 08:21, 28 June 2006 (PDT)

I accidentally noticed that a few IF templates I had created half a year ago are suddenly working. So I decided to remove a number of sandbox-like template I had created for testing them, and implement it in the Proposal template in order not to lose the result. This change is completely invisible on the pages that use it. It's merely a technical thing. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 08:26, 28 June 2006 (PDT)

BoArthur <-- Sleep deprived and cranky.

News!

Just a tad bit of news, eh? I'll be sending you the updated version of my Nanowrimo book in the near future. I've expanded a bit about Bournan, used your great suggestions, and I can't wait for your reaction.

Cheers! BoArthur

Another version yet? Cool, I look out for it! :) Cheers, —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 07:26, 26 July 2006 (PDT)

More the updated version. ;) Have you changed Wenedyk since you gave me the snippets of text? You'll want to check that. I'm really excited about it, I must say! BoArthur 08:47, 26 July 2006 (PDT)

Zowan's Page

Will you check my translation of Inicjaciwa Czywila? Well, I guess, will you take a look at how good I am at intuiting things? I didn't see the translation at the bottom of the WW page until after I posted this. BoArthur

Father of SNOR?

Jan, what do you think about Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky as a predecessor, or even a father of SNOR? He apparently was one of the major proponents of Pan-Slavism when the idea was being born. Your feedback is appreciated. BoArthur 07:33, 25 October 2006 (PDT)

Acknowledging that my feedback is coming pretty late, I fully agree. Given the hundreds of parallels between *here*'s communism (and fascism) and *there*'s snorism, I wouldn't at all be surprised if a personality cult emerged around this fellow. A bit like Marx *here*. I already can see him on flags, along with Kolchak and Vissarionov! —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 01:54, 3 August 2007 (PDT)

I figured it would come at some point, and I would wait patiently until you were able to comment on it. Feel free to run with the idea; I found him randomly on Wikipedia one day, and thought you might like him, as you are the Czar of the East (of sorts). BoArthur 16:35, 3 August 2007 (PDT)

Addition to SNOR page

Hey Jan, I have added some stuff on the SNOR page (neo-snorism & origin of the emblem), if you could have a look when you can. --Marc Pasquin 18:59, 16 January 2007 (PST)

Gambia

Have you given any more thought to my proposal for the flag of gambia ? Image_talk:Flag_gambia.png I just want to know which one to put on FOIB 2.0 --Marc Pasquin 10:12, 6 May 2007 (PDT)

I'll answer to this on the Gambia talk page. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 02:02, 3 August 2007 (PDT)

Dzhugashvili?

What do you think of the Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili proposal? It is almost a year old, methinks. Zahir 09:23, 25 May 2007 (PDT)

Very much ok! I've deproposed it. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 02:17, 3 August 2007 (PDT)

civilian SNORist ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hundreds

Hey! I like this Marc! how did you stumble across it? BoArthur 16:55, 18 July 2007 (PDT)

looking for things in relation to one of my althistories. --Marc Pasquin 22:49, 18 July 2007 (PDT)

Great stuff. And useful, too! I think that the Black Hundreds may have been one of the SNOR's major powerbases. Perhaps they were even the base for the SNOR itself? Food for thought! —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 02:19, 3 August 2007 (PDT)

private question ;)

have you received my email written to wenedyk@yahoo.co.uk? Jan II. 02:35, 11 August 2007 (PDT)

I don't look in that mailbox too often. I'll have a look! Cheers, —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 03:08, 11 August 2007 (PDT)

Categorizing

Thank you for categorizing this wiki, it surely needs greater order :-) . However, perhaps you shouldn't add proposals or former proposals of the flags in the same categories as adopted flags as it would be unclear which flags are "real" and which ones are not when browsing these categories. Pehaps categories like "Proposed flags" and "Rejercted proposals for flags" or such categories for every continent would do? Abdul-aziz 05:10, 9 September 2007 (PDT)

Yes, I actually thought of that too. It would also have another advantage: that from among the rejected proposals someone might sometimes pick a flag for other use. Although, I also think it wouldn't be a bad idea to get rid of a lot of rejected stuff. BTW, in some cases it is not always clear which flag has been finally adopted. Also, I noticed that there are a lot of flags that are only linked to from talk pages. Right now I'm only categorising uncategorised images.

How about a category Category:Rejected Flag Proposals? —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 05:16, 9 September 2007 (PDT)

Already done! —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 05:34, 9 September 2007 (PDT)

You've been a bloody buzy bee of late! Good work, mate! Elemtilas 15:38, 9 September 2007 (PDT)

Great work, Jan! This way Ibwiki images get much more organised.--Pedromoderno 17:50, 9 September 2007 (PDT)

Kudos to you and your efforts sir! Bo? Shouldn't some kind of Title be granted such good works? Zahir 05:48, 10 September 2007 (PDT)

Indeed, indeed. "With great pomp he has been awarded the title of Syndicatus for his extensive categorization efforts on our wiki." BoArthur 17:35, 10 September 2007 (PDT)

Thank y'all! Yes, when a few days ago I look at the list of non-categorised images, I saw there are almost a thousand of them. Categorising them is perhaps not the most important thing to do; yet I feel it can be helpful if they are categorised properly. I also stumbled upon many images that never made it anywhere else than to Lla Dafern or some talk page. In other words, they were not rejected but rather forgotten as proposals. Placing them in the right category will make them turn up automatically when it comes to a discussion.

I'm a bit wondering what we should do with rejected flag proposals.,, When the current flag came in iterations, I think we can safely delete proposals that are similar but slightly different, like f.ex. the flags of SLOBist Ukraine or the flags of Kemr. But in some cases I think we should preserve them, as they always may come in handy later.

And now, back to work! ;) —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 00:11, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

Correct ukrainian flag

I thought you had chosen this one for ukraine during the slobist era. Thats the one I had used on the flag site.--Marc Pasquin 23:29, 9 September 2007 (PDT)

You're completely right, Marc, my mistake. I'll correct it! —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 23:38, 9 September 2007 (PDT)

Removed Polit Party Cat?

Jan, just curious, are you restructuring that? I'm not angry, don't care either way, just wondering why you removed the category from Front National (Louisianne). BoArthur 17:47, 14 September 2007 (PDT)

I stumbled upon that by looking at special:Wantedcategories, the list of non-existing categories. If you write an article and place it in category:Averagely prolific copywriters from Southeast Nepal, then it appears on that list, because there is no such category. First I thought about creating the category (as I did in the case of category:Skuodia), but this was the only Louisiannan political party that had an article about it. As I really don't see the point of having a category with only one article in it, I thought category:Louisianne and category:Political Parties would do. But of course, if you disagree with that decision, feel free to revert! Cheers, —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 01:17, 15 September 2007 (PDT)

No problem with it, just curious. BoArthur 17:04, 15 September 2007 (PDT)

Luxemburger maps

Just a question about your earlier maps of Luxemburg. http://steen.free.fr/ib/maps/bataafs_koninkrijk.png is one of your earlier ones, and the thickness of the lines does indeed imply that part of Lux is in some way a part of France, and the other a part of the HRE. What did you have in mind for the place? I don't want all of my recent musings on the subject to be in violation of QSS. Benkarnell 12:28, 5 February 2008 (PST)

To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure myself. Luxemburg was on that map rather accidentally. I think I followed the assumption that half of Luxemburg was part of the HRE, but I don't even recall what about the other half. All in all, I think that was a typical example of QAA. Don't treat it too seriously. You new map of Luxemburg, where all of it is part of the HRE, is QSS, as far as I'm concerned. And forget about that old map! :)

Cheers, —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 01:19, 6 February 2008 (PST)

QSS for present status, yes. Make sure you adjust Template:FranceAdmin. BoArthur 13:01, 6 February 2008 (PST)

motivations for phenomena in vozgian

hi jan, you wouldn't believe (well, you would), but i am currently in next re-iteration of nassian. it was targeted by heavy critics by some fenno-ugric authority. as i have accepted his (friendly) comments, i am planning to make adjustments to nassian. along with that, i need to come out with the new prehistory of nassians and thus also vozgians. my question is, can you send me on my email any motivations you have for vozgian-specific grammatical phenomena (e.g. why exactly this kind of case system, why exactly these sounds)? among such exact motivations i accept simple "i like it", but then i am worry if we can come out with coherent origin of our north slavic langs :) muchas gracias Jan II. 01:57, 12 March 2008 (PDT)

Willem III of the Batavian Kingdom

You probably missed it when I wrote biographies of all the monarchs of Luxemburg. That list treads on your territory during the reign of Willem III of the Batavian Kingdom, whose page you should probably check for errors as you see them. Benkarnell 21:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

It looks okay to me. The only smallish issue I might have is that monarchs in the Batavian Kingdom have French names: Guillaume instead of Willem, Guillemine instead of Wilhelmina, Béatrice instead of Beatrix, etc. But that won't make the slightest difference for the story itself. BTW, this idea comes from Christophe and dates back to... hm, I think 2000 or 2001. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 11:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Such an early bit of linguistic QSS is very important. I've made the changes. I'm guessing this goes back to Napoleon, since the Batavian Kingdom was more-or-less constituted by him? Benkarnell 17:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

It's all somewhere on Conculture, or even on Conlang. I know for sure it goes back to Napoleon. Instead of a restoration in 1815, it's rather a case of continuation. But I have to admit that I don't remember the details: either the whole d'Orange family descends from one of the Napoleons, and it's just the names that are the same, or it's basically the same family, only more francised. —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 17:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Your American Relatives

I just answered an e-mail from a customer here at work whose last name was Van Steenberg. American cousins, maybe? Thought it was interesting, and thought of you. BoArthur 15:28, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Hehe, no Dan, as far as I know I don't have any family thereabouts. In fact, the only surviving members of my family carrying my name are my brother and I, and my children. My grandfather was the only child of his father, and my father was his only child. My great-grandfather had a brother, who only had a daughter. In other words, if I have any relatives of the same name, it should go back really, really far... Cheers, —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 11:35, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Not a common name hereabouts. There are several van Steenbergens within about 200 mile radius of here. First names indicate that they've been Americanised for some time, one has a Dutch sounding name. By the way, nice new picture! I like the style of shirt -- is it traditional Polish? It's rather reminiscent of my wedding shirt, a traditional Philippine shirt. Elemtilas 13:51, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

No, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Poland. It's a traditional Indian wedding sherwani, so any similarity with its Philippine equivalent might be more than just coincidental. A thing like that is pretty uncommon in Poland, except that Bollywood movies are nowhere as popular as in Poland. Wouldn't you have a picture of yourself in your Philippine shirt, BTW? —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 17:46, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Azerbaijan and Georgia

How did they end up SNORist *there*? While I believe it's QSS by now, I'm not one hundred percent sure on how it could have happened. After all, it seems that the only reason other SNORist states were created was because of the Second Great War!! What's your take on it? (Also, it would seem that Armenia is not SNORist, although I'm not 100% sure.) Juan Martin Velez Linares 22:30, 23 September 2015 (CDT)

Well, the short answer is: I don't know. It's just something that was assumed back in 2004, and later it kind of became QSS. The idea was that Georgia's story was similar to that of Ukraine.

The longer answer, which involves quite a lot of guessing... As far as I can see, Persia stayed neutral during the entire war, and about Turkey we know next to nothing, except that it was invaded by Greece in 1936. Well, if something hasn't been written down yet that certainly doesn't mean it didn't happen, but for now let's assume Turkey was neutral, too, or at least didn't play a major role in GW2. We don't know anything about Armenia either.

Bút!... Be aware that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was really humiliating for Russia, pretty much like the Treaty of Versailles was for Germany *here*. And unlike *here*, it was not undone when Germany lost the war after all. So all those early snorists were deeply frustrated about Great Mother Russia's glory gone to hell, and all they every dreamed of was restoring its power and reclaiming what in their opinion was rightfully theirs.

The Interbellum was a rather unstable period in history, and new countries that had emerged after freeing themselves from Russian rule were extremely weak. Georgia and Azerbaijan were officially independent now, but it's not like they suddenly had become peaceful democracies with flourishing economies. It's more likely that the Russian civil war continued, and a guerrilla war between pockets of bolsheviks, white armies and Georgian nationalists may have been fought during the 1920s. There may have been hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan, who knows?

For most of this period, Russia has been at war with China, and during the 1930s Russia slowly gained the upper hand. In 1931, Russia conquered Turkestan, and in 1938 it finally won the war with China. In 1936 it had concluded a treaty with the HRE (the Grossartige Allianz). In other words, Russia was stronger now than it had been for decades. This may have been a good moment for Russia's leadership to give it a try in Georgia and Azerbaijan. What Russia might have done is following the same sort of recipe it did in the Baltic States, and more recently on the Crimea *here* as well: they staged used agents-provocateurs within these countries to destabilise them, staged some hostilities near the border, managed to put some pro-Russian puppet in power, who subsequently asked for Russian assistance, so that Russia could gloriously roll in and "liberate" the country. IJzeren Jan 01:17, 24 September 2015 (PDT)

Hmm. Georgia taking a similar path to Ukraine makes sense. From what I understand, the SNORist dictatorship in that country arose from a native SNORist party (kind of like the Arrow Cross party or the Iron Guard) and was later incorporated into the SNORist block. I see no reason why something similar couldn't have happened in Georgia. Now, Azerbaijan... that's a tougher one. Perhaps some sort of ill-fated alliance with Turkestan occurred? Although, I have a feeling that Turkey joined the Allies considering that it got invaded by Greece...

An idea for Azerbaijan comes to mind. Perhaps the same thing happened with Turkey and Azerbaijan as what happened in Eastern Europe? Perhaps a separate treaty between Russia and Greece, or an extension of the Lipov-Von Korff Treaty resulted in the Turkic lands coming into spheres of influence? (I'll find some way to explain if and why Armenia ended up Not Snorist, perhaps all those bloody mountains just didn't interest either side very much, or maybe something similar to what happened in Veneda happened in Armenia. IDK) Juan Martin Velez Linares 8:54, 24 September 2015 (CDT)

High Speed Rail in the RTC

It's been suggested that the RTC is using a Pendolino-type train. Please review here. BoArthur 11:42, 30 September 2015 (PDT)

It's merely QAA, mind you. I have no idea if the RTC is able to reach those levels yet, so I just assumed same as in our world. Juan Martin Velez Linares 13:47, 30 September 2015 (CDT)

Hmm, to be honest, I'm not sure if such modern things would be used in the RTC. I'm not saying it's a backward country, but the RTC is not exactly the most developed country in Europe either. I know very little about trains, but the kind of trains I imagine in the RTC are rather slow and old-fashioned. IJzeren Jan 15:43, 30 September 2015 (PDT)

Hmm. I guess it really depends on how poor/dysfunctional the RTC is, although I would say that *here* Poland is pretty backwards. Then again, no communism/SNORism to limit the RTC--more developed territory? IDK--I'll just have it be a project for the near future Juan Martin Velez Linares 18:31, 30 September 2015 (CDT)

Like I said, the RTC is not poor or so, it's just poorly managed. Some people are cosmically rich, but most people have enough to survive and lead a very modest life. There's a notorious lack of interest in public space, and in the RTC it's incredibly difficult to get anything done. So trains, in general, are old-fashioned and slow, maintenance is poor, and the whole network is inefficient. I could imagine, however, some private company buying a few hypermodern trains for particular tracks, most likely in western provinces like Przemarz and Grąweneda. Or an international joint venture exploiting an international train linking Danzig with Warsina and with Preimern, Mecklenburg etc. IJzeren Jan 00:01, 1 October 2015 (PDT)

2015 election for the NAL-SLC?

There is an election supposed to have happened (or will happen this month) in 2015, right?

If so, there should be a bit of discussion about it.

Who would be the people best to discuss this with?

Thank you in advance Celeste Lavender 16:15, 3 December 2015 (PST)

Coalitions in the NAL-SLC

Connected to that, is there anybody who I can discuss the parliamentary make-ups and coalition agreements in NAL history with?

Gwilliam Lyon MacDowell probably had the Socialists in his cabinet since they seem to be the most sympathetic to his pro-labor and reformist agenda as detailed in his wikipage.

There's mention of a "Grand Coalition" between the Progressive Conservatives and Whigs in James Wainwright's term, which probably was quite controversial and might have pushed the Conservative Party to form.

Basically I want to get to grips with parliamentary politics in the NAL-SLC. So, as with my above question, who should I talk to?

With all respect Celeste Lavender 14:22, 6 December 2015 (PST)

Hello! That would be David (User:Zahir). Sorry to be a little late wit answering. IJzeren Jan 14:23, 4 March 2017 (PST)