User talk:SebastianHelm

Welcome to my talk page!

I prefer to keep conversations together. Therefore, I usually will reply under your message. I may also move your message with my reply to a more appropriate place. (Usually that would be your talk page, if the discussion started there.) If I left a message on your talk page, I will watch it until you're back, or up to a week. So, in most cases, there's no need to notify me of your reply.

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Roman graffiti

Hello, thank you for your recent contributions to an article relating to graffiti or graffiti culture!
You may be interested in WikiProject Graffiti, a group working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics relating to graffiti.
We would greatly value you joining our WikiProject, or adding some input at our talk page.

Wikociewie (talk) 16:16, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

中文

rogering the waters

(Split off from an RD/E convo:)
BTW, Card Zero, since you're asking: The article Lambiam provided gives their name as 水中花, which stands for: Flowers in water (not exactly ‘underwater flowers’, as Google translates). Sebastian Helm 🗨 20:58, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, idiomatically, it's more "underwater". "in water" gives me the impression that it's floating on top of the water, but as a native Chinese speaker I understand that that "水中" means underwater/assuming the top of the water is... the top, the thing is in the middle, ergo, again, underwater. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:55, 13 August 2025 (UTC

Thanks Aaron, great to have a competent partner speaking about this. How would you distinguish that from the translation of "under" in a word such as "地下铁", which to my non-native understanding perfectly fits? (I might make more sense of that if it were "底下铁"; how do you see that?) ) ❧ Oh, and yes, I agree with you that in English, "in" is often used for things floating on top of the water. And it wouldn't even have helped if I had rendered it as "in the middle of". Funny that even such very simple prepositions can be so confusing! ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 11:34, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, should we move this language conversation out of WP:RD/E? Your or my talk page or somewhere else? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 10:41, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I guess “地下花” would work but 1. it loses the "water" part 2. it evokes different imagery. Whereas 水中花 makes me think of elegance and beauty, 地下花 makes me think of... zombies and adjacent things. (Dunno why I don't think the same of 地下水.) Otherwise, I don't see a difference. For another alternative, 水下花 is just less beautiful, imagery-wise. And although one would say "在底下" to say "it's under(ground if that's what you're standing on at the moment)", “底下花” is quite different from “（在）底下的花”; in fact I don't know what it means and perhaps the lack of 的 is a grammatical error, unsure about this one ask your neighborhood Chinese teacher. Plus in modern Mandarin Chinese pronunciation, one might mishear it as “地下滑” or “底下滑”. Here's easily-confused pronunciations of the two https://voca.ro/19Vp0z8kNZAy https://vocaroo.com/15XqolXW4po7, when busy escaping from the horror-movie ghost of Humphreigh Donnfreid in a dark, dank, hallway of damned dampers so you forget to exaggerate enunciation/intonation to prevent mishearing.

I imagine all of the above to be quite different in Japanese, though. Aaron Liu (talk) 04:40, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

“地下花” seems to be a misunderstanding; I'm rather thinking of “水下花” – or, conversely, “地中车” (here I'm avoiding “地中铁”, which makes me rather think of an ore deposit.) But these are no serious suggestions: Of course we're not on a quest to improve the Chinese language here; such conversations just help me better understand it. — SebastianHelm — continues after insertion below

的 omitted

Re. “的”: I never thought of the presence or absence of “的” as a grammatical error; in may layperson's view it just serves clarity. For a short expression like “中国人” it's unnecessary, but in a longer one, which to me seems to be grammatically the same construction, it's necessary: “中华人民共和国的人”. Or should I ask my neighborhood Chinese teacher about that, too? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 11:56, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All I know is there definitely are tons of occasions where 的 cannot be omitted. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:16, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, right, such as “我的书”. Why would you say you need it there, but not in “我国”? And how do you feel about "我头“? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 02:56, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why. A sense of closeness, even though I don't feel close to any countries?
”我头“ seems fine as a subject, though not as an object (in terms of subject, verb, object). Aaron Liu (talk) 03:26, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting! Isn't language a fascinating topic? So I asked a chat bot about it, and it replied that it sees the distinction between possessive and attributive relationships. So you possess your book and your head, but not your country. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 09:49, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought, that doesn't seem right for "我的朋友". Or does that carry a flavor of "possession", as opposed to "我太太"? This led to further conversation with the bot:

Q: Since it's "我的朋友", but "我太太": From what you said earlier, does that mean that, as soon as you marry your friend, the relationship changes from possessive to attributive?

A: In Mandarin, whether you can drop 的 depends on how “inherent / close / identity-defining” the relationship is.
Kinship & family-type relations (妈, 爸, 哥, 妹, 儿子, 太太, 老公, 丈夫, etc.):
→ 的 is normally dropped: 我妈, 我哥, 我太太.
These nouns are seen as part of the speaker’s inherent circle.
Non-kin social relations (朋友, 同学, 老师, 邻居):
→ 的 is usually kept: 我的朋友, 我的老师.
They’re important, but not “inherent.”

That leads us back to your “sense of closeness”. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 10:04, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I would find "他是我……“ + any of the items under "non-kin social relations" completely fine. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:50, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is that still so if you go further away in the distance of a relationship: 我牙医､我面包师? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 19:37, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

'twas long ago, but contact me if you wish

re User talk:Skookum1/BC-Pacific Northwest History I'm still alive but am not sure I can even modify that page, much less elevate it to a project from a sandbox... easier to communicate in private than anything wiki-public skookum70 at substack.com - AOC (AngryOldCanadian) 2604:3D08:5776:7900:480A:B579:E173:8B4E (talk) 02:21, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Guide to temporary accounts

Hello, SebastianHelm. This message is being sent to remind you of significant upcoming changes regarding logged-out editing.

Starting 4 November, logged-out editors will no longer have their IP address publicly displayed. Instead, they will have a temporary account (TA) associated with their edits. Users with some extended rights like administrators and CheckUsers, as well as users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will still be able to reveal temporary users' IP addresses and all contributions made by temporary accounts from a specific IP address or range.

How do temporary accounts work?

Editing from a temporary account

When a logged-out user completes an edit or a logged action for the first time, a cookie will be set in this user's browser and a temporary account tied with this cookie will be automatically created for them. This account's name will follow the pattern: ~2025-12345-67 (a tilde, year of creation, a number split into units of 5).
All subsequent actions by the temporary account user will be attributed to this username. The cookie will expire 90 days after its creation. As long as it exists, all edits made from this device will be attributed to this temporary account. It will be the same account even if the IP address changes, unless the user clears their cookies or uses a different device or web browser.
A record of the IP address used at the time of each edit will be stored for 90 days after the edit. Users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will be able to see the underlying IP addresses.
As a measure against vandalism, there are two limitations on the creation of temporary accounts:
- There has to be a minimum of 10 minutes between subsequent temporary account creations from the same IP (or /64 range in case of IPv6).
- There can be a maximum of 6 temporary accounts created from an IP (or /64 range) within a period of 24 hours.

Temporary account IP viewer user right

How to enable IP Reveal

Administrators may grant the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right to non-administrators who meet the criteria for granting. Importantly, an editor must make an explicit request for the permission (e.g. at WP:PERM/TAIV)—administrators are not permitted to assign the right without a request.
Administrators will automatically be able to see temporary account IP information once they have accepted the Access to Temporary Account IP Addresses Policy via Special:Preferences or via the onboarding dialog which comes up after temporary accounts are deployed.

Impact for administrators

It will be possible to block many abusers by just blocking their temporary accounts. A blocked person won't be able to create new temporary accounts quickly if the admin selects the autoblock option.
It will still be possible to block an IP address or IP range.
Temporary accounts will not be retroactively applied to contributions made before the deployment. On Special:Contributions, you will be able to see existing IP user contributions, but not new contributions made by temporary accounts on that IP address. Instead, you should use Special:IPContributions for this (see a video about IPContributions in a gallery below).

Rules about IP information disclosure

Publicizing an IP address gained through TAIV access is generally not allowed (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 previously edited as 192.0.2.1 or ~2025-12345-67's IP address is 192.0.2.1).
Publicly linking a TA to another TA is allowed if "reasonably believed to be necessary". (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 and ~2025-12345-68 are likely the same person, so I am counting their reverts together toward 3RR, but not Hey ~2025-12345-68, you did some good editing as ~2025-12345-67)
See Wikipedia:Temporary account IP viewer § What can and can't be said for more detailed guidelines.

Useful tools for patrollers

It is possible to view if a user has opted-in to view temporary account IPs via the User Info card, available in Preferences → Appearance → Advanced options → Enable the user info card
- This feature also makes it possible for anyone to see the approximate count of temporary accounts active on the same IP address range.
Special:IPContributions allows viewing all edits and temporary accounts connected to a specific IP address or IP range.
Similarly, Special:GlobalContributions supports global search for a given temporary account's activity.
The auto-reveal feature (see video below) allows users with the right permissions to automatically reveal all IP addresses for a limited time window.

Videos

How to use Special:IPContributions
How automatic IP reveal works
How to use IP Info
How to use User Info

Further information and discussion

For more information and discussion regarding this change, please see the announcement from the Wikimedia Foundation at Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF) § Temporary accounts rollout.

Most of this message was written by Mz7 (source). Thanks, 🎃 SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]