AndrewBuck

ወደ አማርኛ ዊኪፔድያ እንኳን ደህና መጡ! ይህንን ዊኪፔድያ ፕሮዤ በማሻሻልና በማዘጋጀት ደስ እንደሚያስኝዎ ተስፋ አለኝ። እነዚህ ገጾች በተለይ ይጠቅሞታል።

• የመደቦች ዝርዝር
• ቀላል መማርያ
• የማዘጋጀት ዘዴ - መጣጥፎችን ስለ ማስተካከል የሚጠቅም መረጃ
• 'የአርዕስትና የስም አጻጻፍ ልምድ' ደግሞ መጣጥፍ ስለ ማዘጋጀት አንዳንድ ስነ-ሥርዐት ያስረዳል።
• ስለ ክፍለ-ዊኪዎች (መጣጥፎች፣ ግብራዊ ገጾች፣ መደቦች፣ መልጠፊያዎች ወዘተ.) አገባብ ለመረዳት ይህን ያንብቡ...
• መፈተኛው፡ቦታ - እዚህ ገጽ ላይ የማዘጋጀት ሙከራ ያለ ገደብ ይፈቀዳል!
• በዚህ መርሃ ግብር ላይ መኖር ያለበት ርዕስ ቢያውቁ፣ እባክዎ «የተፈለጉ ፅሑፎች» ጋ ይዘርዝሩት!
• በዊኪፔድያ ላይ አዲስ ገጽ ወይም ፅሑፍ በቀላሉ ለመፍጠር፣ በግራ ያለው «እንሂድ!» የሚለው ሳጥን ደግሞ ይጠቅምዎታል...!

ምንም ጊዜ ስለ ማንኛውም ጉዳይ ጥያቄ ካለዎት፣ በእኔ ወይም በሌላ መጋቢ ውይይት ገጽ ላይ ከመጠየቅ አይቆጠቡ!

---

Welcome to Amharic Wikipedia! I hope you enjoy improving and editing this Wikipedia project. These pages are especially useful for those who are literate in Amharic. However, even experienced Wikipedians who don't know any Amharic have helped out with other things, like 'Interwikis' and updating images from Commons, etc. So don't be afraid to improve the wiki any way you can! Remember, someone else can always come later and fix any changes you make that are not perfect.

You can set your own language for the interface at Special:Preferences. Just scroll in the box where it says 'am - አማርኛ' until you see your language, then click the ይቆጠብ (save) button at the bottom!

Feel free to use our Sandbox to make test edits. If you want to talk with other members in general, for now you can use the Village pump. Sign your name on any Talk pages by just typing '~~~~' (four tildes) at the end of your message.

If you have any questions about anything, don't hesitate to ask on my or another administrator's Talk page. Happy editing! With regards, --ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 11:25, 6 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Your message

Re: «I am fairly knowledgeable about the wiki and how things are done here and would like to contribute to this one to help get it up and running.»

'Up and running'?! That sounds like we still have only 35 articles! Actually, we have been 'up' for years, and we are definitely 'running' strong now; for example, have you taken a look at this?

Of course, we can always use all the help we can get, in getting things to look more like the vision of the truly useful encyclopedia that we all want to see some day. With regard to your specific proposal, I would far rather see stub articles of even just a short sentence if possible, instead an abundance of blank articles that say only «This article currently contains no Amharic text however it is available in the languages listed on the left». In fact, most wikipedias, in different languages, will delete articles that don't say any more than that...! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 12:03, 6 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

I apologise for the tone I used, text is sometimes difficult to convey one's meaning in. I certainly did not mean to imply that there had been no progress here just that it is one of the smaller Wikipedias and one that very few people are likely willing or able to contribute to. I do think it is very important though and would like to see it grow.

As per the rest of your reply I will try to stick to only articles that I can put some text of use into (stubs, etc). One thing I would like to ask you about is, is there a "Stub sorting" project here? I found the stub template however it looks like it's the only one of its kind. Also, I have noticed one or two category pages with no interwiki links on them but at least one with them. Is this something that should be added too? I know they would certainly be useful to editors like me who can just mouse over the other language links to get a quick translation of what that category is for. Finally, I am wondering if there is any way to request someone more familiar with Amharic to proofread things I enter that I am somewhat uncertain about. Should I just post a message on a talk page somewhere or would it be good to make some sort of a category (Articles requesting proofreading?) or template to identify possible problems. My plan was to have my friend hand-write out text to enter and then I could enter it for him as that is a somewhat time consuming process and I will likely make a lot of mistakes with regards to exactly which form of a given character was meant (ራ and ሪ look quite similar to my untrained eye). -AndrewBuck 15:39, 6 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

We don't have any stub sorting - just one kind of stub, similar to the way it's done at simple:. (I find that wiki to be a good framework for studying how smaller wikipedias can work - for example, I also patterned the recent changes' infobox on theirs, at least as it was a couple of years ago, and of course the beginners' tutorial is a straight translation of theirs!)

As for categories with interwikis, you'll find many of them were added by bots. But usually for this to happen, someone must first add a translation in any other language wikipedia for the bot to pick it up. I can try to link a few more cats to their English equivalents if that would help.

Don't even worry about proofreading. We have many editors now who are doing this and little by little, the result will be an interactive book of knowledge with the best possible wording and orthography for an Amharic audience. As long as someone can make out what you are trying to say, any omissions etc. will eventually be fixed. You will probably become more familiar with some of our templates if you spend a lot of time here. Always here to help, ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 12:59, 8 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Translating templates

The part including "Template:" is the "namespace". There is a way to implement the namespace names (also magic words, aliases and skin names) into Amharic, as other wikis have done, by using the BetaWiki utility. I just now put in a request over there for the software to be committed with the new Amharic namespaces, so hopefully it should show up within a few days and all old URLS (I think) will automatically redirect and update from the English defaults. Converting all of the template names etc. from English has not been a priority so far, but I suppose the more that is in Amharic, the more accessible they will be to non English speakers. I will do one of the templates as much as possible in Amharic but at this point I am not sure what features would "break" if they are not in English, so I may need help there. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 17:08, 24 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for checking into that namespace issue, I didn't even know where to begin looking for something like that. As far as translating the names of the templates into Amharic, I know some templates, Infobox settlement being one of them, will break if the other underlying templates are not named correctly but I don't think I will have any trouble fixing that. Even if it can't be fixed completely we can just move the underlying templates to the Amharic name which will leave a redirect behind from the English name. I have already tested that this works, Template:Location map Ethiopia is simply a redirect to the Amharic template and either the English or Amharic version works now.

I'm going to start a page for string translation at Wikipedia:String translation where I will list the strings I need translated from templates, etc, as well as links to where they come from in case you want to see them in context. You can just leave the translated text on the String translation page and I will go through and make the templates work. If I can take over some of the more mundane things like interwiki links, and porting things, you will be able to focus on the articles themselves which I cannot do. I would also like to translate over all of the variables at some point but this is probably a much lower priority than the other things already listed. I will make sections for those separately and they can be done whenever. -AndrewBuck 23:30, 24 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Looking good

Hi Andrew, the templates are starting to look very good, I was just wondering if you can fix the article text so that it appears at the top of the article (maybe beside the template) -- instead of beneath it (so that readers don't have to scroll all the way down, to begin reading the article) Thanks, ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 20:10, 25 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Can you provide a link to an example of where you have to scroll down to get to the article? I have been watching for that kind of thing and hadn't seen any. I'd be happy to look at anything you can point me to though. -AndrewBuck 00:02, 26 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

All of the settlement articles... for instance, መቀሌ... the template with the pic is at top, and the article text only appears at the very bottom... at least on my browser, which is Firefox... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 00:53, 26 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

I made a few changes to the template to see if it renders better for you. On my computer I have the paragraph of text up near the top and just the stub and categories way at the bottom (although there is something funny as there looks to be 2 or 3 blank lines between the article title and the beggining of the text). I am using firefox 3. Let me know if it is any difference as far as the text is concerned, I know the infobox looks worse this way I just want to see if it plays nicer with the rest of the page. -AndrewBuck 01:31, 26 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Cities of Ethiopia

Hi, we already have an Amharic version of Template:Cities of Ethiopia at Template:የኢትዮጵያ ከተሞች, it isn't on very many of the featured articles yet for some reason, but should be... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 00:19, 28 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead and delete the one I copied then. I want to add a map with dots and links for the major towns in the existing template. Similar to the second image on አፍሪቃ. -AndrewBuck 00:23, 28 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		For your useful service to Wikipedia, I, ፈቃደ (ውይይት), hereby award you this barnstar. --ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 02:50, 28 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Great job on the templates! በጣም ጎበዝ! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 02:50, 28 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Sorting in Ethiopic order

Greetings, if you are interested, I wrote a script that can alphabetically sort Amharic words. I think it can help in translating big lists such as list of countries or cities. It is found at [1]. Hope you find it useful. And by the way, great job on the templates! Elfalem 02:43, 30 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I think that will be quite useful. I was actually thinking of writing a script to take Amharic text and translate each character into the keyboard sequence to type it on an English keyboard. I thought it would be pretty useful for learning to type in Amharic. -AndrewBuck 03:20, 30 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean like if you enter አንበሳ, it produces A-N-BE-SA ? Elfalem 05:42, 30 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)

Basically, yeah. I have actually started working on a c++ program to do it. I am in the process of transcribing the table now. Probably won't finish it tonight but I will have it within a day or two. -AndrewBuck 06:00, 30 ጁላይ 2008 (UTC)