Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:31, 28 February 2013

RFC/discussion of article National Union of General Workers

A request for comments has been filed about the use of anonymous sources in reliable publications. The RFC can be found by the article's name in this list, and the actual discussion can be found on Talk:National_Union_of_General_Workers#Request_for_Comment_-_Use_of_anonymous_sources_in_reliable_publications in case you wish to participate. Thank you for your contributions. Sparkzilla 06:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

April 2010

Welcome to Misplaced Pages. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added to the page HTML do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Misplaced Pages is not a collection of links; nor should it be used as a platform for advertising or promotion, and doing so is contrary to the goals of this project. Because Misplaced Pages uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Adrian J. Hunter 04:10, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't look so bad on review. Adrian J. Hunter 13:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hello, LittleBenW, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like this place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• Introduction
• The five pillars of Misplaced Pages
• How to edit a page
• Help
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there.  Again, welcome!

Adrian J. Hunter 04:25, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Tokyo Electron and Horiba

Thank you for your contribution to the Horiba article. Keep up the good work!

As for Tokyo Electron, I downloaded two images, the company logo and the corporate slogan, from the official site and converted them to SVG with Inkscape. Can we upload them to Wikimedia Commons? I'm worried about copyright issues because both of them are TEL's trademarks.

I think that TEL's Annual Report 2009 is a good source of information on the company.

Regards,

--Shinkansen Fan (talk) 08:17, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

> As for Tokyo Electron, I downloaded two images, the company logo and the corporate slogan,

> from the official site and converted them to SVG with Inkscape. Can we upload them to Wikimedia Commons?

> I'm worried about copyright issues because both of them are TEL's trademarks.

Sorry I'm not an expert on such issues. I recommend that you as about this somewhere like User talk:QwerpQwertus

Re: HTML e-mail link deletion

Sorry LittleBenW but that was a long time ago and I can't remember my reason for removing the link. Looking at the site again I can't see any obvious problem (has the site changed since then?)... It has more advertising than most good external links but looks permissible per WP:ELYES point 3 or WP:ELMAYBE point 4. If I made a bad call then I apologise, and I don't object to you re-introducing the link. You might consider removing some of the dated links, being sure to state why in the edit summary and not marking the edit as minor. Adrian J. Hunter 13:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: Misplaced Pages 10th Anniversary

There was a Japanese Misplaced Pages 10th Anniversary get-together in Kyoto!? Damn. Wish I'd known. Organizing a similar event in Tokyo would be a great idea, and I'd consider making the trek up there to attend it. I'll be in Tokyo on the 11th of February if you care to discuss things in person. Shoot me an email via my talk page if you're interested. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrianAdler (talk • contribs) 15:34, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Please contact me at bryan@mackinnon.org Bryan MacKinnon (talk) 12:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Monty₈₄₅ 16:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

An invitation...

Hi. I invite you to join the Outline Wikiproject. Your enthusiasm and initiative are greatly needed there. The Transhumanist 19:31, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Outline traffic

LittleBen,

Thank you for your interest in improving outline availability.

The search engine blindness issue will probably have to be dealt with at the search engine level (bugzilla, etc.).

In the meantime, there is a lot we can do to improve access to outlines.

First and foremost is to finish their initial development phase by cleaning them up.

1. Reformat the lead sections of the regional (country, state) outlines (the leads in the non-country outlines have already been reformatted). Country outline lead paragraphs need to be trimmed or condensed down to a single paragraph of one or two sentences.
2. Remove redlinks that are unlikely to turn blue.
3. Place the links from "general concepts" into the rest of the outline, and remove the general concepts section. (It's a temporary holding bin).
4. Place the links from "lists" into the rest of the outline and remove the lists section. (It's a temporary holding bin).

When the quality rises, repeat visits and word-of-mouth communication about the outlines will increase. Speaking of quality, the main enhancement lacking in most of the outlines is annotations. For outlines with annotations, see Outline of chess, Outline of forestry, Outline of cell biology, Outline of basketball, and Outline of tennis.

Another thing we can do is place links to the outlines wherever they are relevant. There are plenty of places to put links to outlines:

1. See also sections of the corresponding subject articles
2. See also sections of the articles corresponding to outline subheadings (section links)
3. Navigation footers, which can in turn be placed where they are relevant
4. Infoboxes
5. Series boxes
6. {{Main}} links

The placement in Misplaced Pages's search engine's results varies. For geography, Outline of geography comes in second (right after "Geography"). For the United States, Outline of the United States is not in the first couple of thousand results.

For another example, take a look at Special:WhatLinksHere/Outline_of_chess.

There are still a few hundred chess articles that don't yet have the {{chess}} navigation footer.

But, the same day links were placed leading to the outline of chess, its traffic increased significantly, and it has remained at an increased level ever since.

Now in Google title searches of Misplaced Pages, it shows up 122nd. In a normal site-specific Google search of Misplaced Pages, it shows up 130th. It didn't used to show up at all.

Let's see what more we can do to improve its rank. Then the same methods can be used on the rest of the outlines. The Transhumanist 19:31, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

P.S.: I hope you join the Outline WikiProject.

Preview button

Hi!

• I noticed your work on Cascading style sheets required a great number of edits.

Are you aware that you can see a preview of the work you're doing (to check everything looks good, and check spellings and punctuation etc.) before submitting the work as a finished draft?

Just to the right of the Save page button, you'll see the Show preview button. By using this to check our work before saving the page, we can save a lot of space on the Wikimedia database servers, and other editors a lot of bother trying to keep track of the page history. Please try to get into the habit of using it.

• Also, it's good practice to always leave a short comment about what work we did in the edit summary (the text entry field just above the Save page and Show preview buttons.)

This helps other editors tell at a glance what you have done. Sometimes, without an edit summary, your work may be considered thoughtless, and be undone.

Whatever you choose, happy editing!  fredgandt 19:05, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

June 2012

Thank you for your contributions. Please remember to mark your edits as "minor" only if they truly are minor edits. In accordance with Help:Minor edit, a minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. Minor edits consist of things such as typographical corrections, formatting changes, or rearrangement of text without modification of content. Additionally, the reversion of clear-cut vandalism and test edits may be labeled "minor". Thank you. SudoGhost 22:29, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Does anybody care?

Hi, Ben. This is in response to a post you left on the article titles talk page.

Lack of an edit summary can be a good reason for reverting an edit. As you say, "the spirit of Misplaced Pages is to cooperate and communicate with other editors" and I hope you can see how someone might view an unexplained edit as uncooperative and uncommunicative and delete it rather than attempt to start a conversation first. At least they gave a explanation (inadequate perhaps) for their deletion. Perhaps you can also understand that complaining to a general audience about specific poor treatment does little to improve cooperation and communication. I suggest you start a calm and polite conversation wherever the edits were made and see if you can come to an agreement about the issue. You also might review guidance on the BRD process. Jojalozzo 16:36, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the BRD link. Most new editors don't know about watchlists. When a new editor finds that somebody has been following them around and reverting all their work without saying a word, he or she will — in many cases — conclude that any attempt to contribute to Misplaced Pages is wasted time. Even for editors who have been around for five years, repeated reverting — by people who admit that they don't understand the content but are reverting solely because there was no edit summary or discussion that they could understand — is very disconcerting. A Dilbert-office environment where you have to devote a large part of your time to watching your back is not a welcoming or productive environment. Vindictive, obstructive people who keep hit lists and who brag that their opinion will never be changed — that they can argue the legs off a table — are surely not an asset to Misplaced Pages, regardless of their English grammar skills. The survival of Misplaced Pages surely depends on maintaining a welcoming and civil environment, free from hit squads. LittleBen (talk) 17:46, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I find this a bit indirect and obtuse, I think you're attempting to say something specific is happening but instead presenting it as a general problem. Are you describing your own or someone else's experience, something you've heard about, seen happen or experienced first hand? As I understand it, you haven't been editing Misplaced Pages for long. If you've made enemies already, I suggest you consider your own approach to the project as well as that of others. That said, harassment as you describe is unacceptable whether you mis-stepped or not and there are procedures for dealing with it that will be much more effective and constructive than bringing it up on a policy talk page. Jojalozzo 20:24, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I've been around for a couple of months more than you, it seems, but almost certainly your contributions are more awesome.

The reason for my Does anybody care? rant was:

On 28 June, I added links from Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style#Foreign_terms to Regional MOS guides, but my self-evident edits were reverted by User:Noetica for lack of edit summaries.

On 1 July, I edited Misplaced Pages:Article naming, and User:Dicklyon reverted my edits. So I clarified my edits, to make it obvious that I was just creating a logical link between Recognizability in the Deciding on an article title section and the criteria for Recognizability in the following Common names section, and he again reverted my edits.   I made similar edits to Misplaced Pages:Categorization/Naming and he reverted those as well.

I explained my reasons on Misplaced Pages talk:Article titles#Deciding on an article title: Consistency and he jeered at me for not being able to find Misplaced Pages:Article titles, as mentioned in Misplaced Pages:Village pump (idea lab)#Research guidelines.2Ftutorials for new editors.

I then discovered that I was being discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style#Edit summaries.

In the end, only User:Darkfrog24 felt that edits should be judged on their merits, not automatically reverted for lack of edit summaries and lengthy discussions. But finally User:AlanM1 chipped in to support Darkfrog24.

The position of User:Noetica and others is that "lack of an edit summary wastes my precious time, which is far more valuable than that of any mere Misplaced Pages contributor. Why should I treat contributors kindly? They deserve to be reverted". The position of User:Darkfrog24 seems to be essentially, "Why should lack of an edit summary waste your time? The existence of an edit summary doesn't guarantee that the edit is correct, appropriate, or not malicious. The only way to evaluate an edit is to read it".

Noetica implies that she is going to continue to revert even simple and self-evident edits that lack edit summaries, and she even tries to intimidate Darkfrog24 with I can talk the legs off a chair if called upon to do so. Do not call upon me to do so. She is not going to listen. She is going to continue to punish anyone who doesn't leave an edit summary. And she is going to continue to keep a hit list of such people that she is going to get even with.

The Pageview numbers that I cited here suggest that few people are finding Regional MOS guides, but when (on 28 June) I tried to remedy this by adding links, my edits were all reverted by Noetica. My latest edits have not yet been reverted. I won't try to fix the problems with Misplaced Pages:Article titles again until Dicklyon has had time to cool off. LittleBen (talk) 05:19, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for message.

I had a look at the 28 June links from Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style#Foreign_terms to Regional MOS guides, and saw where self-evident edits were reverted by User:Noetica for lack of edit summaries. Noetica is a good chap and I can understand his reverting for lack of edit summaries - remember WP:MOS is not a normal article - the header on talk page says so, I wish the page itself also said so. But Noetica is a good chap who quite probably would agree with that edit once you tee it up on the talk page and then do it slowly. As I said it looks like one I'd support.

I haven't quite got my head around your search engines edit yet as its not an area I'm familiar with - but the same Talk first then edit will work wonders. And Jolazzo is giving reasonable advice above, to make what I'm sure will be useful contributions more welcome. Feel free to leave links to where you're editing/talk on my talk, I'm very happy to look. :) In ictu oculi (talk) 12:00, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

-- John of Reading (talk) 16:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Heads Up! New Reply!

At least one new reply has been posted in this thread Talk:Gmail#Renewed_Official_Help_Center_and_Official_Product_Support_Forums --Tito Dutta ✉ 17:18, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Heads up again! At least one new message has been posted in the same thread! --Tito Dutta ✉ 05:45, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

My account is set to "watch" the Gmail article, so I will notice if you post something even if you don't send me a heads up, thanks ;-) LittleBen (talk) 07:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Capitalization of titles

Please also see here. --Sundostund (talk) 10:40, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

See this too - Talk:List of Presidents of Brazil#Requested move. --Sundostund (talk) 09:53, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Also see WP:CANVASSING. You don't need to recruit votes like you did here, especially from people to whom I have already advertised the RM via a page (Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters) that they have a long-standing interest in. And if you care about such things, you might consider making comments relative to existing policy or guidelines, or data in evidence, instead of just pure opinions that are out of step with consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 04:13, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I simply notified him of the discussion. I didn't threaten to have him blocked if he didn't see things my way. I didn't make his life miserable by rigid and inflexible application of my rules such that he quit Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages needs fewer Grammar Gods and more Tolerant and Cooperative Contributors. LittleBen (talk) 04:37, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

?? what's with the tantrum? Dicklyon (talk) 05:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't think Misplaced Pages is a good place for starting pointless political wars, crusades about creeds or (honorary / job title or article) capitalization. Wars turn friendly, fertile and productive countryside into barren wastelands. I think that Misplaced Pages should be more about ease of use / ease of participation, inclusiveness and diversity than about imposing complex rules. Just my opinion, of course. LittleBen (talk) 05:52, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

LittleBen, you're completely right. --Sundostund (talk) 09:55, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

French bios

Hi. I was welcoming to you when you appeared and supported some of your suggestions re search engines, so I am somewhat surprised with you going into a forum and saying "caught" when there have been a whole series of RMs on French names, on whether or not we should follow WP:FRMOS or not, do you want the links to the French RMs? French is not Japanese, and François Hollande is not 野田佳彦. Can I ask, who told you "caught", did you get that in an email from someone or is that your own personal wording? In ictu oculi (talk) 06:30, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. The link to the Admin. Noticeboard archive where you were discussed was in my post. I have also explained there (in my post) why I think the rammed-through decision to use foreign names in article titles in English Misplaced Pages looks very dumb to me. I agree that French is not Japanese—and Spanish and Vietnamese are also not French. I think that the best way to handle international naming issues is to defer to the regional MoS, and to reach out to involve local people in decision making, rather than arbitrarily imposing naming rules on all languages without involving people with local knowledge. I would leave decisions on minor issues, e.g. whether to link foreign and English-version names at the head of articles (like the tennis articles)—to the people involved in creating and maintaining them. But no "absolutely required" or "absolutely forbidden" universally, please—I don't see why everything has to be hammered down to the same level. I don't see any problem in handling the naming of sports figures, who are known by nicknames, differently from the way presidents, or historical figures (from an era with different style "rules") are handled. I would not want policy decisions to be imposed on and interfere with creation of useful new content—so I'd really have wished that you had involved others (working on tennis articles) in the diacritics-in-titles issue rather than upsetting them by ramming it through and then presenting it as a fait accompli. The objective of Misplaced Pages is not to upset as many other editors and users as possible by sneaking through or forcing through one's own viewpoint and disregarding other people's opinions. Regardless of a person's knowledge, if that person cannot create (or always destroys) a friendly, inclusive atmosphere where everybody feels that they can contribute, then that person is a huge liability to a diverse community like Misplaced Pages, and Misplaced Pages would benefit from his removal. If he insists on winning every time on hyphens versus en-dashes, or capitalization, "NO EXCEPTIONS", and all the productive contributors and editors get fed up and quit Misplaced Pages... As I have said repeatedly, maintaining Misplaced Pages as a respected and trustworthy resource depends more on verifiability (ability to research the optimum title and category, and get facts right) than on minor points of style (en-dash vs. hyphen, capitalization of emperors and presidents) and here is where I tried to add links to make the importance of research and the "how" (process) clear, but was repeatedly reverted. LittleBen (talk) 14:31, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

You seem to be forgetting that WP:TENNISNAMES was not accepted by all tennis editors either. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:12, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

• It is often easy to find which rendering of a word or name is most searched for, by using Google Insights for Search like this (note: sports category) or like this. Since articles are unlikely to be read if people don't find them when they search, this is surely one of the strongest WP:COMMONSENSE reasons for generally not using diacritics in English Misplaced Pages article titles. This is why I think that knowledge of Internet research techniques should be a critical part of making verifiable, neutral POV, commonsense decisions—about which article title is most appropriate, for example. LittleBen (talk) 02:01, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Montemayor is a maternal name. es.wp shows them in titles sometimes. We would expect editors editing Spanish names to know that. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:45, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

• We surely CAN'T assume that people who edit articles about France, Mexico/Spain, Vietnam, Japan or China are necessarily fluent in the language and conversant with the customs. If this—or the use of diacritics—is a requirement, then that greatly shrinks an already-too-small pool of editors.
• I think that the Pelé example that I cited illustrates both the problem and the solution. You cannot use the real name in the article title, because almost nobody would recognize it, much less remember it, and the article would probably not be found in a Google search. Although it makes sense to avoid accents where possible, and people are going to search for Pele without the accent (Google Insights for Search data for searches for Pele just in Brazil is very informative), it's probably unavoidable to use the accent in this case—because maybe the name looks stupid, even unrecognizable, without it. So people are forced to research the COMMONNAME, and use COMMONSENSE ;-) How dreadful that there isn't one rule that can be forced on everyone ;-)
• I'd really like to get some stats on the "cost" of redirects, as I'm sure that such stats would prove that redirects of much-searched common terms are very costly. Misplaced Pages seems to have been on its knees many times recently.
• One of the keys to good SEO is "fine-tuning" article titles and section headings so that—as far as possible—they are an exact match or near-match to phrases used in the majority of search queries. LittleBen (talk) 14:46, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Articles aren't written by one person. Have you ever created an en.wp article? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:59, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

• Precisely because they are not written—or edited—just by one person, the rules need to be as simple as possible. For example: a sports person might not be considered "significant" until he or she becomes active enough for them to "acquire" a (usually non-accented) two-word shortened name or nickname: such a COMMONNAME or nickname is necessary because sports writers can't repeat long formal names many times in news articles and broadcasts. If they become really famous, like Pelé, they will often get a one-word nickname, and people will search on that. (Jakob Nielsen, famous for web usability, has published on his useit.com website that the average user takes only about 15 sec. to decide whether a landing page is relevant. His company's seminars typically cost about $1,000 per day.) If a search for Pelé lands the user on a page titled Edson... or Edison... the searcher is likely to leave.
• The most recent article that I've put a lot of work into was deleted by a drive-by deletionist (with obviously no subject knowledge) for a reason like "it's a stub article, and the topic is not important". (Somebody else created the stub, and it was deleted). I've expanded it greatly since having it undeleted in late Jan./early Feb. such that it peaked up to 1800 page views a day in June and (with no new content) 1650 in July. Not bad for an article that had been deleted a few months previously as "not notable". To put that into perspective: it got 35,762 pageviews in 201206, and 34,011 in 201207, compared with 38,186 pageviews in 201206, and 35,595 in 201207 for WP:MoS (which ranked #3,120 on Misplaced Pages). Readers seem to like the writing and the (brief but relevant) content and links so much that there haven't been any edit wars. Other people seem to be protecting the article from spam links. LittleBen (talk) 02:00, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
• PS: I'm an engineer, so I'm pragmatic. If a page gets 1,000 or more daily page views, then it should look good and be accurate and trustworthy, or Misplaced Pages's perceived quality might be affected. However, if a group of enthusiasts create a tennis stub page about a relatively-unknown player called Manuel Sanchez, and it gets between 4 and 8 daily pageviews, I wouldn't see any point in erasing their pride in their contribution by edit warring about style trivia, by trying to impose my POV on style, or by spending weeks and months discussing the wording of related style rules, because so few people look at such articles that it makes no difference to Misplaced Pages's perceived quality. I wouldn't delete stub pages about subjects that I know little about, or without waiting a sufficient time for their creators or other interested people to improve them, either. This sort of behavior is very destructive to motivation and morale. There are more productive ways to spend time—like creating or improving more searched-for articles—that do make a real difference to Misplaced Pages. I don't feel any need to show off my knowledge of Japanese by insisting that articles on Japan have Japanese in the article title, either. Many or most of the editors on Japan-related topics have quite limited Japanese reading ability, and anyone with the ability to read Japanese, French, Vietnamese, Spanish or whatever, is going to prefer native-language sources to English Misplaced Pages. LittleBen (talk) 04:43, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

LittleBenW, I'll paste here what I've just said on WP:VN:

LittleBenW, you may not realise this but you are advancing a version of the view which was thoroughly rejected at WP:TENNISNAMES RfC. I'm sorry but this view is out of the ballpark here. If you object to Spanish names, you are not, I'm sorry, going to add value to a discussion on Vietnamese. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:43, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Apart from that - your personal attacks on other Users have to stop. I, and the others you've been attacking, have been pretty generous up to now, but if it continues people will start keeping a log of them. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:03, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Whacked

Ben you complained that "People who arbitrarily decide naming conventions without following MoS guidelines are likely to get their edits reverted, and be whacked or even blocked by the MoS thought police." While its true that such edits may be reverted, by people who want to help improve conformance to MOS and/or title policy, it's wrong to think of such reverts as getting "whacked" or "even blocked". You've been around WP long enough that by now you should have some idea how it works. So why are you trying to turn everything into a battleground? You keep on complaining about how you were unable to get your search how-to into WP:TITLE, but you never responded the least bit sensibly to the suggestions that were made explaining why it wasn't OK where you put it. Grow up; please; and stop wikihounding my efforts to improve WP. Also please stop cross-posting the same rants to three talk pages (this bit seems to be on 6 now); just because it doesn't get refuted in all three places doesn't mean you've scored points. Dicklyon (talk) 04:35, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Use preview

Please use preview before posting on talk pages; otherwise your minor edits fill up the screen. thanks. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:01, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Sánchez

We have been through this before. As before the á in Sánchez and 賽珍珠 are not the same thing. As before WP:OPENPARA is the norm.

You are a new arrival to this subject, so you may not realise that en.wp has 4 million articles, of, which, in discussion I've seen it estimated that at least 10%, 400,000 articles, relate to non-English European Latin-alphabet subjects. Of these 400,000 all carry European accents in title and text where appropriate. The only significant exception were 100 tennis BLPs and 300 ice-hockey BLPs which have now been moved by RM over the last 4 months. Finishing with the last large batch at Talk:Dominik Halmoši two weeks ago. There is no "diacritics war", or if there was, you arrived after it had already ended.
WP:Vietnam is the exception to this consensus. It has a total article stock of around 2,500 articles in the bio/geo categories which could be treated as we treat Czech and Turkish bio/geo articles. 13 months ago these were 100% with Vietnamese in body text, and 80% with Vietnamese titles (i.e. 2,000 with, 500 without) - and had broadly been that way since the fonts were enabled in 2006. Now following 1,600 undiscussed moves from July 2011-July 2012 the only ones left with Vietnamese titles are very small village geo-stubs and a few minor bios, around 400 minor articles, plus 500 didn't have Vietnamese titles anyway. From 80% to about 15%. These numbers are approximate but being reasonably familiar with the them, they are are near enough correct.
Irrespective, you may not realise this but RM results are usually upheld right or wrong. Even if RMs have results we do not agree with it is not okay to make undiscussed moves contrary to them. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Personal attacks

You have been asked before to cease making personal attacks. I understand your very strong sentiment against foreign names, but this is not a license to make personal attacks on other editors who do not share your views. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• You are talking nonsense. I attack stupid ideas with neutral logic, I complain about the behavior issues of people who absolutely have to own all the marbles and make all the final decisions, regardless of the cost to Misplaced Pages and to editor morale, but I never make personal attacks. LittleBen (talk) 04:22, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Have you asked a 3rd party to confirm this? For example you could try asking Steven Zhang (below) to have a look at your postings and give you a 3rd party opinion. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:34, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

In this issue:

• Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
• Research: The most recent DR data
• Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
• Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
• DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
• Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
• Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

--The Olive Branch 19:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Impartial study of the effects of using diacritics in article titles

Please refer to this. LittleBen (talk) 11:46, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:Linktext

Regarding your question on my talk page regarding the remark in the /doc to the template {{Linktext}}, I think you have it right. You can see by testing examples like the following in a sandbox or preview:
{{Linktext|雲|緑|lang=ja}} yields 雲緑
{{Linktext|雲|緑|lang=zh}} yields 雲緑
Note that the fonts used are somewhat different to reflect the styles of each country. --Kiyoweap (talk) 07:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Diacritics testing

Two things:

a) A/B testing of different page appearances is something that's been done in the past, and is less intrusive than (eg) tracking read time of individuals, but this is A/B testing different content, which is something the Foundation is (rightly) skittish about touching too closely. You could make a case, but you'd also have to come up with a way of collecting results and defining relative "success" - the reader is likely to read the page we serve up to them regardless of what the title is, after all! I really recommend you talk to the research community on meta if you're looking to design some kind of testing which will get valid results.

• I have already explained repeatedly that the title of a book is not considered "content" by publishers. Diacritic version or not is more about usability and presentation than content: whether to make the user feel stupid by presenting something that he or she can't read. Content (inside the book or article) is a completely different issue, because both diacritic and non-diacritic versions can be presented, and the reader has a choice.
• Quote: "the reader is likely to read the page we serve up to them regardless of what the title is, after all!" That's not the case at all, if you read the short explanation here. By measuring the percentage of people who "bounce"—take one look at the title and immediately leave the page—and by A/B testing with and without complex diacritics in the title, it should be very easy to show in a very short time that the title (like the title and cover of a book) has a huge effect on the bounce rate. For A/B testing and for bounce rate testing you normally have to set an anonymous cookie—because that seems to be the only practicable way of measuring whether visitors immediately quit the page, or how long they stay on the page, and whether they come back again within the test interval (say one month)—the cookie is given a life of one month in this case. The cookie is also to make sure that the people who get version A the first time they visit also get version A if they come back. Ditto for version B. Anonymous cookies (with a short life of say one week or one month) are also used for (random) opt-in questionnaires, because you don't want the same user to be repeatedly shown the opt-in questionnaire after saying no the first time.

• Diacritics/foreign languages in titles is not a trivial issue, because there are many thousands of articles with foreign-language titles on English-language Misplaced Pages. Only WPF can show whether doing this is user-friendly or not. The research community on meta surely already know about public domain open source analytics. But they (and the tech. people in WMF) are surely not empowered to do anything without WMF support and direction. The outward reason for such research can be "usability testing". Likewise arguments about naming—Burma or Myanmar, for example—can be solved easily, fairly, and neutrally by numbers: which of these choices do users show that they prefer? Any search-engine search for these terms that lands on Misplaced Pages carries the term that was used to search for it. Analytics makes it so easy to know what the users want (did somebody use the word "sweet" about analytics?) Just a few high-traffic articles can provide statistically-valid data. Costly, large-scale testing is not necessary.

• "Redirects are cheap" they say, but this is yet another issue the WMF should be able to provide numbers for. Knowledgeable web people never say that "redirects are cheap".

b) however, you will find people a lot more willing to take the question seriously if you don't keep treating it as a matter of to "diacritics pushers" and "mob rule"... this is, first and foremost, a content dispute, and the first rule there is to assume good faith of the people who disagree with you. Andrew Gray (talk) 09:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

• The problem is that there is absolutely no good faith being shown on his part. He has surreptitiously added diacritics to the titles of European articles without exception—despite knowing that this is against Misplaced Pages policy—and he has even jeeringly bragged about being able to get away with gaming the system (adding diacritics to Swedish and Czech articles even though he admits that people in those countries generally do not use diacritics in English) on his talk page, and bragged that he is going to do the same to Vietnamese, whether it is justified or not. He also says that the guidelines should be changed to fit his fait accompli. People who argue that the guidelines should either be followed or changed democratically by an RfC get threatened and intimidated by cronies. At least three or four really capable and dedicated people have been bullied out. It only takes a little drop of poison in the well...
• There will always be politicians like Hitler who want to own all the marbles and make all the final decisions (or let cronies make them) without any regard for whether the decisions are sensible or best for the majority. There will always be cronies who dip their fingers in the cookie jar too. Honesty, transparency, fairness, and accountability are the only way for an organization like Misplaced Pages to survive long term. To illustrate this:
• A British friend visited India, and came back really shocked. "You pay a bribe to get a job". A traffic cop gets his bribe money back by stopping people at random and extorting money—"if you want to avoid a ticket, you will have to buy some (very expensive) bananas at that street vendor"... "How do you get rid of corruption and cronyism once it has dug its roots that deep?" he asked.
• For WMF to do the ostrich act and say, "we only collect the money and take all the credit—we don't accept any responsibility" is surely not a workable long-term strategy. To be perceived as fair, well-informed, transparent, honest, neutral—and accountable—is surely pretty much a necessity for survival. LittleBen (talk) 11:00, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I am going to step away from this discussion now. If you would like to carry out research on this, then by all means do go and talk to the research group about it - I don't have the ability to make this happen, though if conducted well I'd be interested to see the results. However, with this sort of approach to discussion, it does not seem likely to go very far.

It is completely inappropriate to take what is fundamentally an on-wiki content dispute about writing style and explicitly compare those you disagree with to Hitler! I am sure you have good intentions, but this sort of combative and malicious approach is guaranteed to act as, as you say, the "poison in the well"; treating the dispute in this way will do nothing but ensure people dismiss your arguments, regardless of their merits. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:30, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

IIO gone poof

For months, I could count on two or three IIO denunciations every day. No IIO activity since Oct 1, see Special:Contributions/In_ictu_oculi. He was doing a lot of bullying the last few days he was on Wiki, like he knew his time was up. He's obviously been a full time Wiki addict for quite a while. Kauffner (talk) 15:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Things are looking really bad for him if he can't manipulate a proxy into threatening admins. like John Doe, and has to do it himself. LittleBen (talk) 01:09, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh, this is an interesting thing to find. Probably explains the moves while I was on a business trip.

Whatever.

Look, LittleBen, the WP:RM process isn't anyone's "private army" any more than the article space contributors who created/expanded 1000s of foreign BLPs for the London 2012 Olympics are "fanatical and compulsive" - they're merely following WP:BLP "get the article right".

You are welcome to make contributions to Europe/LatAm-related article space - history, BLPs, geography whatever - rather than ranting against en.wp's article space contributor community, but when you do, you'll come across 1000s of editors who won't want you to e.g. remove accents Latin-alphabet names, and you'll understand why we don't give Mexican people ASCII or Japanese romaji names. In the meantime while you (a) don't contribute to the relevant Europe/LatAm article space and (b) make disturbance against it on MOS Talk pages etc, you're heading into WP:TROLL territory. I'm sorry to say that, because I'm sure your opposition to foreigners names is sincere, but we all of us have to learn to respect the majority when a majority consensus is established. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• Surely "get the article right" means respecting majority usage in widely-respected English newspapers and the like? LittleBen (talk) 07:06, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

re: "Web browser engine"

I agree with what you wrote here and here. It's surprising and bizarre to be directed to Web browser engine when you're expecting to read about a Layout engine. The article should be moved back to its well-known name, even if it's not as "general and descriptive of its purpose" as the neologism. Any idea how to go about it? Layout engine has an edit history, so clicking "Move" won't work. Yappy2bhere (talk) 05:29, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• The usual process for making multiple moves that other people might disagree with is described here. This is a similar process to an RfC; if enough people agree, and what needs to be done is stated clearly, then an administrator will do it (or can be asked to do it). However, a non-admin closed it with "no consensus" after discussion ground to a halt.
• The inconsistency doesn't annoy me enough for me to feel compelled to spend a lot of time fixing it myself, and the others involved in the discussion also seem to feel the same way (which is probably why the discussion ground to a halt).
• The category naming also should be fixed; I'm not sure how that is done, but I should ask.
• I've just noticed that you moved the Layout engine redirect to Layout engine (software) which seems totally unnecessary, because (1) surely there are no layout engines that are not software, so it is unnecessary to disambiguate it, and (2) it looks like there is now a double redirect from Layout engine to Layout engine (software) to Web browser engine. We are not supposed to create double redirects.
• If an admin agrees to fix the problem, I believe that he or she will (a) create a list of "What links here" for the Layout engine redirect page, (b) delete the Layout engine redirect page, (c) move the Web browser engine page to Layout engine (noting "What links here" for that page), then fix the broken links (at least for the Web browser engine page. (I think that an admin's help is required to delete the Layout engine redirect page in order to allow the Web browser engine article to be moved back to Layout engine). I'm not sure if admins. have automated tools to help with this process.
• As mentioned above, it is a good idea to use an RfC or the like to discuss proposed moves that people might disagree with, and also a good idea to request the help of an admin. when making moves if you are not sure of the procedure. There's currently a bit of discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Moving a page on Help:Move and Misplaced Pages:Moving a page.  LittleBen (talk) 05:59, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I moved the page back again. My intent was to move the target page out of the way temporarily to make way for the move, but no joy. Is this the discussion you're talking about? Very strange. (Have you really heard the term used outside of Misplaced Pages?) Nevertheless, the procedure seems straightforward, so I'll give it a go. Thanks for your help, LittleBenW. Yappy2bhere (talk) 07:13, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, that's the discussion page. As you can see, a number of moves were proposed in June and then again in September, but a non-admin. closed the discussion with "no consensus".
• Category naming issues are discussed here. LittleBen (talk) 07:22, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, an English major from Boise, Idaho. I'm going to give it a try anyway, LittleBen. (Oh, and two different bots just swooped in to fix two double-redirects , so they don't seem to be a problem for long.) Yappy2bhere (talk) 07:39, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• You can see an example of a Requested move discussion template here.
• I added the RM template here. LittleBen (talk) 15:08, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, LittleBen, I was on a job in the bush. I misunderstood your intent; I didn't realize that you meant to move on this yourself. I'll catch up now as best I can. Yappy2bhere (talk) 00:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• Quote: "I didn't realize that you meant to move on this yourself". It looked like too much work to fix all the problems, and I didn't want to do it all myself. Then when you moved a couple of articles it encouraged me to fix the template at the bottom of the page and the categories, leaving only the RMs. ;-)

• Appreciate all the work you did to justify the name change. I think it's probably better to be flexible and get one of the first two fixed than for neither of them to be fixed. The (XXXX support) suggestions are only there because RA said back in June (at a previous RM he originally proposed) that he couldn't understand the meaning of the ECMAScript one without extra explanation, quote: "I came across Comparison of layout engines (ECMAScript) by accident while googling something completely different. I took me quite some time to figure out what it was about — and when I did it took me some time again to figure out how it got that title". LittleBen (talk) 13:34, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Comparison of web browser engines

Talk:Comparison of web browser engines#Requested move seems to have somehow gotten a duplicated list of files to be moved. Please check and see if it looks okay now? Apteva (talk) 23:21, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks, still not sure exactly how the template is supposed to work. LittleBen (talk) 01:29, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
• It notifies a bot to put a notice at WP:RM and on the talk pages of each of the other articles. When it is first subst'd it places a list of the articles to be moved on the talk page. I am guessing that was done twice, creating a duplicate list. I found the multi-move template confusing myself at first, but it seems to work okay. Note, though that the page with the discussion normally needs to be listed first (current1). When I tried otherwise I got a warning. I swapped current1 and current2 to keep the bot from adding a link notice in the wrong place. Apteva (talk) 18:07, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks LittleBen (talk) 12:59, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Anonymouse321 (talk • contribs) 04:20, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks! Now I have to work out how to switch to the vector skin. ;-) LittleBen (talk) 08:40, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Please see my reply at User:TheDJ's talk page. Anonymouse321 (talk • contribs) 08:58, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the input at Talk:Facundo Argüello (tennis)

While I agree that we should have article names placed at the common English version if sources so state, I think wiki in general is in favor of names at placed at whatever spelling their home country uses. That doesn't make it right, but since we can only have one name for an article it makes it an either/or proposition that is tough to fight. Content however is totally different and consensus is not simply who wins 75% to 25% in a poll... it tries to take into account all sides (even the 25%) and make a compromise that all can live with. hense the reason I have tried to compromise as opposed to the alternative of censoring wikipedia by allowing the banning of all English spellings even if the English sourcing is overwhelming. Heck I'm have trouble just trying to maintain it at Jörgen Windahl where an editor is trying to censor the English spelling, even when I added sources to confirm it. It's a wacky encyclopedia these days. Later. Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:33, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

• Quote:I think wiki in general is in favor of names at placed at whatever spelling their home country uses. Reply: I think that most people avoid warring with diacritics zombies, because they (most reasonable people) have better things to do with their lives. But if you concede a little to some obsessive, unreasonable people they will just escalate the war/the stupidity. Just be careful not to be bitten by a diacritics zombie, or to be baited into edit warring with one. LittleBen (talk) 05:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Ben, I'm not sure why you tried to tell me about "developments" in this discussion (which I have never participated in or heard of), but on looking at your remarks, I think I need to reiterate my note from last time we conversed: this combative approach, calling those you disagree with "zombies" or "obsessive, unreasonable people" is entirely inappropriate for a collaborative project. Please reconsider this behaviour; it does not help anyone take your arguments seriously at all. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:30, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

• You obviously didn't read how every single reference to the widely-used plain English version of the name Walesa was stripped out of Misplaced Pages, even though just a little research shows that only the non-diacritic version is used in English—or notice the continuing attempts to intimidate Fyunck. The whole objective of my pointing you to the discussion was to show how facts gleaned by using basic Internet research skills can help shut down utterly stupid, destructive, and long-running wars—just as analytics data can help shut down utterly stupid, destructive, and long-running wars (link): Research skills and facts can help conquer prejudices. I thought that this concept might interest you, as a librarian, but maybe I misjudged you. Sorry about that, I guess you're not interested.  LittleBen (talk) 14:36, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Ben, you seem to be trying to drag me into the latest incarnation of a long-running dispute by selectively presenting information about how everyone who disagrees with you is "destructive" (or far worse epithets). However, when I follow these links all I see is you ceaselessly jumping into fights over a very trivial issue, and badgering third parties to try and get them to intervene on your behalf; the "prejudices" exposed are very apparent on both sides.

As a librarian, I do indeed value research and analysis. However, before we can have productive use of any research, we need to have an intelligent and collaborative environment to discuss it in, and the way that the diacritics dispute is being constantly escalated every time it is brought up causes me to believe that such an environment is unlikely to emerge any time in the near future.

I am sorry this has come to be the case, but it is the case. Please take this advice in the spirit in which it is meant; there is no "correct" side in this dispute, and neither side is winning any external supporters by its behaviour. Andrew Gray (talk) 15:25, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

• I'm sorry that you don't think that objectively researching facts—and Socratic-style discussion—are relevant to Misplaced Pages. I misjudged you, sorry about that. LittleBen (talk) 16:35, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Accessibility

You made 6 edits to Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Accessibility today with a single edit summary: "Wikilinked". The edits were actually adding {{see also}} templates, so I found your edit summary misleading and unhelpful. You inserted links to two categories: Category:Multilingual support templates and Category:Misplaced Pages Manual of Style (regional). I agree that the former may be useful to those reading the Accessibility MOS, but I don't see that the latter has any value to them. Since the {{see also}} and ((tl|see also2}} templates are only for related links, it is redundant to use the word 'related' in the pipe. In fact, the pipe is a bad idea as it disguises the fact that the link is taking the reader to a category. I took me some time to work out what you were trying to do, so don't you think that supplying descriptive edit summaries would be a courtesy worth extending to other editors? --RexxS (talk) 18:07, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for the comments, RexxS. The MoS/Accessibility mentions only Template:Lang, I think, but it's one of many related multilingual templates. Many or most of these are so poorly documented that you need to know that how-to-use-them is only described in the related Manual of Style (regional). Because few editors on Misplaced Pages have heard about accessibility and multilingual templates, or Manual of Style (regional), linking to these is perhaps the only way that people will become aware of them. HTH. LittleBen (talk) 18:21, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, Ben. Your addition of the link to Category:Multilingual support templates will certainly help rectify that gap in MOS:ACCESS, and I can see now why you wanted to point readers to Manual of Style (regional). I would think though, that the link to regional MOS would be best made from the Category:Multilingual support templates page itself, rather than on every page that links to it - wouldn't you agree? I've done just that, and we can see if it sticks. Cheers. --RexxS (talk) 23:26, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

• Another reason for linking directly from MOS/Accessibility to MOS:Regional was that some people who are not interested in learning about templates will still learn accessibility information (that applies to several Asian character sets) such as here and here, for example. People may not notice the tiny text at the top of Category:Multilingual support templates. Best regards. LittleBen (talk) 01:08, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

In that case, I'd suggest you make a list of all of the Accessibility sections in regional MOS pages - as you seem to know the ones that exist - then put the list of links (directly to those sections) into WP:ACCESS in the section we are looking at. I'm sure that would be much more useful than links to categories that can only point to the top level of pages. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 01:27, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for the suggestion, RexxS. I have been trying to find time to clean up template documentation and provide examples, but haven't been able to do very much yet.
• Change of subject, hope you don't mind me asking, but I noticed on your talk page that you use a screen reader. Do you have problems with pages that use foreign languages—such as words with diacritics or Asian characters—that are not properly marked up with language templates? There seems to be almost zero awareness of language-related accessibility issues on English Misplaced Pages, and I would like to help raise awareness and make pages with embedded foreign-language words more accessible. LittleBen (talk) 05:34, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

No problem asking, but I don't use a screen reader, although I know several people who do. The best person to ask for a direct answer to how any particular character is read is Graham87. Graham is an admin and a very experienced Wikipedian who is blind and uses JAWS - he's very approachable and would be very interested in your ideas. --RexxS (talk) 15:22, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

• Many thanks. When I get some free time then... LittleBen (talk) 15:29, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

3RR warning

Your editwarring and attempts at censorship at WT:BLP are arguably already over the WP:3RR line. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 04:28, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

• Your hate speech, intimidation, and vandalism are way off topic and way over the line. LittleBen (talk) 04:30, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Notice of Edit warring noticeboard discussion

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding your 3RR violations, effective vandalism, and disruptive editing (including censorship of other editors). The thread is User:LittleBenW reported by User:SMcCandlish (Result: ). Thank you.
You were warned: twice by me about WP:3RR; twice by me about edits that were essentially vandalism-by-negligence; once by me and several times by others about personal attacks like characterizing everyone who disagrees with you as "vandals"; several times by myself and others about various habitual WP:DE problems, including WP:OWN, WP:TE, etc.; several times by myself and others about continual WP:NOT issues, including WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:SOAPBOX; among others. Enough is enough. Maybe a block will encourage you to pay attention to other editors' concerns and attempt to collaborate with them, instead of just trying to "win" and abusing WP as a gaming platform for "sport argument". — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:20, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Notice of Administrator's noticeboard of incidents discussion

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Legal threat by LittleBenW. Thank you.
If you think you can just get away with anything because it's American Thanksgiving, you're in for a surprise. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 11:14, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, I think you have some good points to make on the diacritics issue, but coming to a blocked editor's page to say that is probably not helpful. LittleBenW's edits have been brought to the community's attention; the community will act however the community thinks best; let's leave it at that. We need less drama, not more. If either of you want to shout at somebody, feel free to shout at me (I'm quite used to it); this is better than triggering more drama elsewhere on wikipedia. bobrayner (talk) 13:17, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

To be fair, he posted that before I blocked. Black Kite (talk) 16:59, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Then I apologise. Sorry. However, I would stand by the point that diacritics are dramatic enough already without provoking people. :-) bobrayner (talk) 22:46, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, they aren't. The only source of drama on the issue has been LittleBenW, just like the only source of drama on en dashes is Apteva (about to be subject to a WP:RFC/U for similarly disruptive campaigning), and so on. For any style nitpick, there tends to be a single editor who just will not WP:LETITGO. I'm a firm believer in the WP:SPADE principle that being civil does not mean being sweet or pretending that harmful behaviors are not happening. WP:BITE applies to newbies, not users like LittleBenW who know full well they are being disruptive and appear to revel in it. PS: I was not "provoking" LittleBenW, I was dropping off the formally required WP:AN/I notice, and raising a WP:GAMING issue, which I stand by. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

• As you should be well aware, there are several guidelines covering diacritics:
• WP:DIACRITICS: "follow the general usage in reliable sources that are written in the English language"
• WP:UE: "The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage";
• WP:EN: "The title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject which is most common in the English language, as you would find it in reliable sources (for example other encyclopedias and reference works, scholarly journals and major news sources).
• MOS:FOREIGN: "adopt the spellings most commonly used in English-language references for the article"
• Are you claiming that these guidelines do not exist or are irrelevant? Are there are RfCs and guidelines that say that English-language usage is irrelevant, and that English titles are not permitted on English Misplaced Pages? Are you claiming that you are justified in insulting and intimidating other Misplaced Pages users like Fyunck who repeatedly point out such guidelines to you? LittleBen (talk) 11:24, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Please read, and abide by, the many, many rules, policies and guidelines that you hav en directed to by others before presuming to preach to us. AlexTiefling (talk) 19:29, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

• Please be more specific about what you are talking about. I do not ignore these guidelines, and intimidate people who believe that they should be followed. LittleBen (talk) 02:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

November 2012

Notice of Administrator's noticeboard of incidents discussion (2)

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. The admin who blocked you warned you to stay away from editwarring about diacritics, but you have done nothing but that since your block expired. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 11:15, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

• You are talking rubbish. I have not been edit warring about diacritics, that's a blatant lie. LittleBen (talk) 02:10, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I got your link to that long discussion, which I don't care to read. I don't understand your purpose in sending it to me. Best wishes, Yopienso (talk) 04:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure you want to include a violation of WP:NPA on ANI? I was pretty prepared to block first and ask questions later, but I'll give you a chance to rethink your way forward (✉→BWilkins←✎) 12:58, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Howdy

Just wanted to say, hello. GoodDay (talk) 06:28, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

• And a GoodDay to you too. It would be nice if everybody on English Misplaced Pages could wish each other GoodDay and mean it. Best wishes. LittleBen (talk) 10:41, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Notice of ban enactment

Based on the results of the discussion at WP:ANI located here, the following ban is enacted: You are "indefinitely prohibited from making any edits concerning diacritics, or participating in any discussions about the same, anywhere on the English Misplaced Pages. This includes converting any diacritical mark to its basic glyph on any article or other page, broadly construed, and any edit that adds an unaccented variation of a name or other word as an alternate form to one with diacritics." --Jayron32 20:00, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

My condolences

Sorry to hear about your ban. I had work to do yesterday and I put off commenting to today, and its already over. I always assumed I would be banned first. I don't if it will cheer you up, but I redid my user page. Kauffner (talk) 02:17, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Ditto in my condolences. It seemed to close mighty quickly, like they were in a rush to deal out punishment. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:10, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

• Be sure to vote in the ArbCom elections. The discussions on Jimbo's talk page may also be of interest. LittleBen (talk) 02:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I voted with the voter guides, aside from RegentsPark. No one recommended him, but he's written encouraging things from time to time. Kauffner (talk) 10:07, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Re: Misplaced Pages accessibility

Hi Ben, for what it's worth, I've said pretty much all I've ever wanted to say about languages and accessibility in this conversation and that one (along with the link at the top of that thread). In short, these issues aren't a high priority for me, and certainly don't represent a "big barrier to using Misplaced Pages with a screen reader". Also, you've had plenty of free time since being told of my existence; why did you send me a message as soon as you were about to get banned from that topic area? (Of course, if anybody else has questions about this issue that aren't answered in the above links, I'd be happy to answer them). Graham87 03:08, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

• Your essay "Argument for a Consistent & Realistic @lang policy for Wikimedia" is very good; it should be promoted to essay status rather than left hidden away in an archive. People are not aware of language tags and are not using them—but they are poorly-documented, and I have been systematically improving the template documentation. User:TheDJ is one of the most knowledgeable people about MediaWiki internals, and he kindly wrote a language template to handle foreign-language titles at my suggestion. But I don't think anybody will use it, there seems to be little or no education of users about semantic markup and usability.
• As to why I didn't contact you until now: I'm mainly interested in Asian languages, but I also feel strongly about the systematic intimidation of fair, rational, dedicated, and neutral editors (such as MakeSense64) who believe in civil dialog and in following Misplaced Pages guidelines as to neutrality (e.g. mentioning of both English and foreign language versions of words and names), user-friendliness, and accessibility. As I mentioned on Jimbo's page, I don't believe that cronyism and intimidation should be used to block dialog and sensible adherence to guidelines on Misplaced Pages. I honestly don't believe that people who spend all their time keeping and settling scores, needlessly moving hundreds of articles, contrary to established Misplaced Pages guidelines (and bragging repeatedly about it), and organizing lynching mobs are an asset to Misplaced Pages. If you look at my contributions you can see that I spent a lot of time on my WP:BLP RfC on researching reliable sources for names in BLPs, which was an attempt to start a civil dialog and suggest that there are fair and neutral ways to research real-world usage (such as the templates that I developed and proposed in the RfC) that should be used to eliminate this endless intimidation and move warring. It's sad that the only place where a civil discussion about such issues can be held, without intimidation by POV-pushing Admins, is Jimbo's talk page. Maybe Misplaced Pages is irretrievably broken? LittleBen (talk) 04:37, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

For the record, it's not my essay; check the signature at the end of it. And as you are well aware, there is already a section about this issue in the accessibility guideline. Also, I can't "see" any of your contributions. Graham87 08:27, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

• I wrote a couple of detailed articles about interlanguage linking and language templates on Teahouse, but it appears that an inexperienced editor pasted one of them over the other, wiping out one of them: there are now two instances of this. The person who apparently wiped out one of the answers appears to be the same person who removed the search box from WP:Teahouse, and she is not going to put it back, so past questions and answers just drop into a black hole and are unlikely to be found again. All that effort was wasted. Such a shambles would be funny if it were not for the pain of wasted effort. (People who ask a question and then come back to read the answer are also not going to be able to find it). ;-)
• Back on about 3 July, under MOS:FOREIGN, I added hatnote links to Help:Interlanguage links, which I have expanded, and Category:Misplaced Pages Manual of Style (regional). (The Chinese MOS contains quite good info. on using language templates, and also cautions about on-screen readability of bold/italic Asian characters). I have added similar Asian text on-screen readability cautions in other places. Previous attempts to add links from WP:MOS to the Regional MOS category were repeatedly reverted.
• The Regional MOS category had Japanese and Korean under "Altaic languages" and Chinese was also hidden. I have added category links to make them easier to find.
• My recollection is that my repeated attempts to add links from WP:Article titles to the Regional MOS category were repeatedly reverted, so I gave up on it. I was also going to link from WP:AT to TheDJ's new foreign title template, but now will not bother. I also added hatnote links from Misplaced Pages:Accessibility#Other languages, and added links to Template:Lang/doc#Rationale from several places, in an attempt to raise awareness.
• One editor recently moved several of the language templates to new titles, in the process obscuring the actual template contents and where the template docs. are transcluded from. I haven't had time to sort this out with him, and now will not bother. After we discussed the lack of explanation and examples in the template docs., he has made some marginal improvements.
• Apart from a few people in projects like the Japanese train system, the number of people who can read Japanese and are involved in Project Japan seems very small (maybe there are many more users who can speak Strine ;-). China, Korea, and Vietnam seem to be a similar story. Because of a few people who insist on imposing their POV globally and bullying out local experts (as mentioned above), I think that Misplaced Pages is likely to lose most if not all locally-based English speakers with local language proficiency and local knowledge in Asia. There have been several attempts to bully out Kauffner; it was fortunate that Bre'r Rabbit was caught out during the last one.
• It's the same sad story on the tech. side of Misplaced Pages. Internet-related projects are essentially dead. I created Responsive web design virtually from zilch at the end of January, and it now gets over 60,000 pageviews—twice as many as WP:MOS. While there are a few dedicated and IT-savvy contributors, more and more people seem to be getting sick of dictatorial and petty admins., crony politics (mob rule), and the increasing lack of civility and community spirit. LittleBen (talk) 11:10, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

December 2012

Responsive web design (reactive web design)

Hi. You undid a revision I made to the responsive web design article, saying that my edit was "apparent vandalism". I merely added that RWD is also referred to as reactive web design. I added this alternative name as it is how I've seen responsive web design referred to on a number of other websites, as well as within my office. Please could you explain why you thought my edit was vandalism?

Dom Stapleton (talk) 10:01, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

• Hi, thanks for your comments. The best place to discuss changes to a page in Misplaced Pages is on the talk page attached to that page, so that other users who are watching the page will be notified and can give their opinion. Also if you want to stake a claim that Reactive Web Design is the same as Responsive Web Design then you should provide a reliable reference that backs this up. I'll leave a comment at Talk:Responsive web design#Reactive Web Design. LittleBen (talk) 11:35, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Chistmas

Merry Christmas!

Template reply

Hello
You sent me a note about the Google RS template; I appreciate the thought, but am a bit mystified why. Have we discussd the matter before? Moonraker12 (talk) 15:35, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

• It's a very useful tool for Googling multiple reliable sources simultaneously, did you see the documentation? It is useful because—for each search—Google ranks the sources in order in the search results, with the more widely respected results at the top. LittleBen (talk) 00:12, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

It seems to be an ordinary case of canvassing, something that he has accused me for, but nonetheless seems to practice himself. If I've understood things correctly, he has put together a toolbox to facilitate locating reliable sources on the internet, which in all fairness might be useful, even if the motivation behind the effort probably is, or was, to prove that diacriticless spellings are more common than diacriticized spellings of names of people that spell their names with one or more diacritic(s) – i.e. to prove a point. HandsomeFella (talk) 16:39, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

• The link you gave does not show me accusing you of canvassing—unless you are a sock of IIO, is that the case? Surely I have never accused User:HandsomeFella of canvassing? LittleBen (talk) 23:47, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

You didn't check the link I provided very thouroughly. The link leads to an edit of yours to Fyunck's talkpage, where you're inserting the word "canvassing" in a link to an edit of mine (now archived) to IIO's talkpage. Had you used a diff instead if a wikilink (like I did above), it would have been easier to locate. Anyway, here it is. And no, we're not the same editor. HandsomeFella (talk) 08:53, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• Interesting that IIO appeared to canvass SMcCandlish at the same time about the same subject. LittleBen (talk) 10:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Where did he do that? Also, the point is that you did too. HandsomeFella (talk) 10:38, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

That was then. It's interesting that you keep doing now what you've accused others of doing in the past. Do intend to continue down that path? HandsomeFella (talk) 11:42, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• It was the organizing of a mob of "good sportsmen" to bully and intimidate Fyunck that led me to write the BLP RfC. This is easy to see from the time stamps:
• Your post to IIO was 17:51, 11 November 2012 (UTC).
• IIO's post to SMcCandlish was at 10:36, 12 November 2012 (UTC).
• My post to warn Fyunck was at 15:12, 17 November 2012 (UTC)|15:12, 17 November 2012 (UTC).
• The BLP RfC was dated 06:49, 19 November 2012 (UTC).
• I was trying to establish that encouraging people to research facts from a NPOV is a better way to ensure the future of Misplaced Pages than organizing lynching mobs, but you seem to disagree. LittleBen (talk) 14:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't see what any of that has to do with your canvassing. I also don't see how begging the question of "NPOV is better way ..." has to do with anything, or with the dispute of diacritics. Obviously any editor would agree with that. And nobody was trying to "lynch" Fyunck, if that is what you referred to. Being heavily outnumbered by editors with other opinions is not the same as being lynched, even figuratively. I think you may have to look closer in the wictionary on that word. HandsomeFella (talk) 14:49, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• Consensus that is going to last surely has to be based on neutrally-assessed facts rather than on the number of cronies one can canvass.
• Surely the above timestamps establish who started the canvassing, and who was warning Fyunck. Quoting my post: "Threats and attempting to intimidate you are nothing to do with "conversation" or "compromise". Misplaced Pages should have zero tolerance for bullying." LittleBen (talk) 15:11, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• 1) So why do you canvass?
• 2) Citation needed. Who has been threatening whom? This line of argumentation is only too typical for editors who refuse to accept consensus. Instead they portray themselves as victims of "bullying", "threats" and "lynching".

HandsomeFella (talk) 15:52, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• So why do you canvass? And why do you think that telling Fyunck that, "Threats and attempting to intimidate you are nothing to do with "conversation" or "compromise". Misplaced Pages should have zero tolerance for bullying"—or warning him about your canvassing—are canvassing on my part? What do you think of people who threaten other users with "bitey cesspits" if they participate in an RfC? Or who try to intimidate people into not participating in any way in my BLP RfC? LittleBen (talk) 17:39, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Again, citation needed. I see no "threats", all I see is self-perceived victims talking about threats. HandsomeFella (talk) 11:39, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Ben: I'm sorry I asked! Moonraker12 (talk) 10:50, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• Happy New Year! And don't let yourself be intimidated by my talk-page stalkers or by people who threaten you (or other nice people) with bitey cesspits ;-) LittleBen (talk) 11:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Why on earth would Moonraker be intimidated, or threatened, by anything here? HandsomeFella (talk) 11:39, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Clarity

At WP:Titles, you wrote: "I have to agree with (see discussions about Presidents etc. below)." I would like to point out that per WP:FOC it is essential to focus on content, not on the participants. Basically I have no clue what is being talked about if I have to look at everything that editor said and try to figure out which part of what they said is what you were agreeing with. How about instead "we should reflect RS's in WP" (if that is the section you were agreeing with), or "it is not to be trumped by some arcane MOS guidance", or simply "I also agree - (see discussions...". Just a suggestion. A lot of WP editors have gotten into be bad habit of referring to the other editors instead of discussing the content, but it is not what I would call best practices. Apteva (talk) 03:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for your comments. I don't believe in cronyism or "me too" comments (without any added reasons) either.
• I mentioned Born2Cycle because—although I posted after you—I was specifically referring to his brief comments above yours.
• All the best for the New Year! Best regards. LittleBen (talk) 04:32, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:AN notice

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. In particular, I have suggested that you be included in the topic bad that will most likely be applied to Apteva, because you exhibit precisely the same tendentious editing pattern on this issue. You have clearly simply substituted dashes for diacritics as something to WP:BATTLEGROUND about, after being topic-banned from diacritis and are behaving as if you are not here to write an encyclopedia, but simply engage in trolling and sport argument to entertain yourself. That is not what Misplaced Pages is for; try Usenet newsgroups. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:06, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Hello, I cannot find any discussion about me at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard, so I assume that this post on my talk page is just to insult, harass, and intimidate me. It seems to me that your main purpose in being on Misplaced Pages is to bully people, to trash—in a wild rage—what they write, rather than to engage in polite and rational discussion. I believe that Misplaced Pages contents should be based on NPOV, which means adequately researching real-world usage rather than deciding issues based on who can canvass and bring the biggest mob to an RfC.
• There are a lot of geeky articles—such as the Computer virus one that I have been working on recently—that get a huge number of pageviews but contain very little useful information. The reason why very few knowledgeable geeks, who can write well, persist in trying to improve important technical articles is probably that a single encounter with somebody like you persuades them that they are wasting their time—trying to contribute in a constructive and NPOV way is likely to get them insulted, blocked, or banned. What about yourself, have you ever contributed to any significant articles? Apart from martial arts, surely you could contribute to other articles like your specialty. LittleBen (talk) 00:34, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Recent occurrences

I'm assuming you've followed the commotion that's ensued at WP:AN and, prior to that, at the RfC. I would suggest you review my comments to Apteva here, and consider doing what's mentioned at the very bottom. If you're interested, giving an explicit statement that says you'll abstain from the dispute for a time might be a good idea. dci | TALK 21:03, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Please see comment above. LittleBen (talk) 00:35, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

You are not being "accused" of doing anything, per say; nor is it my goal or that of anyone else to harass you or launch an offensive against you. Your name is indeed mentioned several times during the course of the discussion, usually in connection to those of Apteva, Wikid77, and Enric Naval, as you all appear to be in support of reforming the MoS. dci | TALK 00:45, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I am sorry, but I have found that if one gives in to bullies, they just escalate their bullying. Threats and continuously attempting to intimidate and block people are nothing to do with "conversation" or "compromise"—and to keep knowledgeable editors, Misplaced Pages has to be based on rational discussion and fair compromise, not mob rule. LittleBen (talk) 00:54, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I understand your situation. However, I want to reiterate that no one (to the best of my knowledge) is out to bully or intimidate you. I am only suggesting that it would be beneficial to all of us if we take a step aside from the MoS disputes, as they have spiraled out of control quite dramatically. At any rate, thanks for your contributions and a happy New Year. dci | TALK 00:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think your efforts in trying to spread the ideals of the Golden Rule, and cool things down, are admirable. LittleBen (talk) 01:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• I don't think that I am involved in any MOS disputes. MOS is so long, rambling, and poorly organized (fragmented and splattered all over the WP namespace) that it is surely of very little use to the majority of Misplaced Pages editors (if they can even find it), as evidenced by the number of pageviews that it gets. A very short, narrowly-focused geeky article that I wrote at the beginning of last year gets almost twice the number of pageviews. The self-appointed "preservers of the MOS" seem to be there just to prove their superiority, and they ensure that it is virtually always a waste of time trying to improve it in any way. Anyway, thanks for your contributions and a happy New Year back to you. LittleBen (talk) 01:02, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• By all means denigrate the MOS. It may be all those things you accuse it of, but under the circumstances, it just looks like "sour grapes". I'm not supporting a proposal to topic ban you for now, but I do hope you will take it to heart that your behaviour is pretty close to disruption already, and that you will step away from the precipice. Regards, -- Ohconfucius  02:00, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom request

I've mentioned you in an ArbCom case request (see WP:A/R/C). While you are not a party yet, your comments would be appreciated. --Rschen7754 08:07, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

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Re: Misplaced Pages Pageviews stats tool

Hello, I'm not sure how your answer relates to my comment. I've no idea what's trivial or not to fix, but I'm pretty sure the WMF won't do it anyway. However, it's their job to provide the data in a way that can be more easily be used to make such tools (and working ones!). Regards, Nemo 14:41, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Peace?

I think we may have got off on the wrong foot, and I apologize for not nipping our little disagreement in the bud. Unlike JoshuSasori, you seem like a reasonable, good faith editor, and so I have no intention of getting involved in an extended dispute with you over minor stylistic variations.

You are entitled to agree with JoshuSasori's opinion about diacritics, and you are entitled to be disappointed about his getting indef-blocked. However, it would be a mistake for you to believe that his getting blocked was "my fault". He got blocked because, after enduring a month-long campaign on his part to undo every single edit I make, I finally took him to ANI upon him starting to call me names, make real-world professional threats, and refer to my talk page posts as "troll droppings". I did not ask for him to be blocked. I merely wanted him to be told off and encouraged to stop his campaign of harassment and personal attacks. One other admin commented that he should be indeffed for making a real-world threat, I made a final peace offering, he made another personal attack, and then he got blocked. Instead of formally appealing his block, he made more personal attacks against me, and demanded that the blocking admin apologize to him.

If he was really interested in building an encyclopedia collaboratively, the above would have probably gone differently. You must also understand that, had it been you and not me that disagreed with JoshuSasori over the (ultimately insignificant) problem of diacritics, or over something else, he may have started hounding you, and making personal threats against you. JoshuSasori spent has spent the last two months following me around and reverting a huge chunk of my edits (good, bad and ugly) solely because I am the one who made them. Even if you think content is more important (and I would usually agree with you there), you must agree that it is impossible to work with people like that.

You must also agree that it is difficult to assume good faith other users bring up JoshuSasori and how great he was when discussing completely unrelated issues with me. To the best of my knowledge, JoshuSasori has never edited a single article related to Shinto shrines, and never expressed any opinion as to whether the romanized forms of 天満宮 and 東照宮 (and 八幡宮) should be hyphenated or not, so to see his name invoked in that discussion was at best confusing and at worst offensive.

Additionally, I have now expressed my distaste for arguing over macron-usage numerous times. I'm not really concerned with style issues so much, and have said on WP:J that I would be happy to accept a "no-macrons" amendment to the MOS if other members of the project would accept it and it would finally end the ambiguity. I am more bothered by style issues in cases where the MOS is obviously broken (the poorly worded "Pseudonyms" section that seems to be saying the opposite of what it means, the shrine point where it goes against common sense and reliable sources, etc.) but both you and Ryulong seem to be unwilling to help me address these concerns as long as the macron issue is still live.

Therefore I will say this here once and for all: I don't care about macrons. It is not my "POV" that we should use macrons. I think we should have a consistent style one way or the other, but my preference for one way over the other is SLIGHT.

Now that that is out of the way, here's the deal:

1. you refrain from presenting a revisionist history regarding JoshuSasori's activities just because he agreed with you on macron-usage; :#you refrain from bringing up content issues in response to me expressing my concerns over sockpuppetry/harassment on other users' talk pages;
2. I refrain from doing whatever it was that made you angry at me in the first place; and
3. we both refrain from bringing up unrelated issues on MOSJ's talk page.

Finally, I must stress a second time that I am presenting you this peace offering because I genuinely believe you are a good editor, and I think we can work together in harmony if we can get over these few really petty issues. If you have anything to add to the above terms, respond either here or on my talk page and I would be happy to discuss.

Cheers, and happy editing!

elvenscout742 (talk) 13:59, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

• All that really annoys me is (1) seeing people trying to make big changes that will create a lot of unnecessary work—and/or are likely to result in a lot of edit warring in future—without adequately researching their proposals, and (2) seeing some editors vindictively plotting to have editors with different opinions eliminated—particularly in spaces like Japan-related or Vietnam-related coverage: there are too few local people working in these spaces, so every person counts. Personal attacks should not be tolerated, we should not attack people—we should discuss ideas and attack silly ideas with facts, but not attack people: everybody was a beginner once, nobody is perfect all the time. Forgive and forget JoshuSasori having a bad day. Everybody has bad days. Don't carry grudges. Be prepared to walk away from an argument and come back with fresh eyes and ears. WP:3O may be a good way to cool off revert wars and start a civil dialog. WP:AIV is a good way to stop IPs who won't discuss issues and who persist in spamming or reverting.
• There are a few vindictive and manipulative POV-pushing politicians on Misplaced Pages who leave a long trail of misery and destruction. They organize mobs, try to win every battle and show that they can push around or trip up long-time contributors, to prove their own superiority. Don't be one of them, and don't let yourself be manipulated by any of them. Enjoy Misplaced Pages, and let other people enjoy Misplaced Pages too. Because if it's not a friendly, fun place to be, then few good people will stay. Picture me in my Kansai famous-brand men's pyjamas (the brand name is Big Hag—sounds the same as Big Hug, right?) and laugh a bit.
• I'm not here to pick fights with anyone, and I'm glad to let other people take the initiative in the many fields that I'm far from an expert in—like film, popular music, anime and everything else (I'm the shy geek hiding away in the corner with the computer—or occasionally hiking or enjoying onsen).
• Cheers, and happy editing!  LittleBen (talk) 14:54, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Well if you don't like seeing Japan-based users plot to eliminate other Japan-based users, then you should have immediately opposed JoshuSasori's reverting every one of my edits. He continues to do this now through his sockpuppets, and it is quite disruptive. I have made enough Japan-related edits in the last eight years to prove my good faith, and I pointed this out to him numerous times before he went and got himself blocked. He doesn't "own" Japanese cinema articles and he never did, and he certainly has no right to block me out of pre-modern Japanese history and literature, an area he himself never appeared to have much interest in.

Anyway, let's drop the hatchet. "Misplaced Pages not being a fun place to edit will just cause people stop editing" has been my way of thinking about this from the beginning. Cheers! elvenscout742 (talk) 15:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

• <Quote>Well if you don't like seeing Japan-based users plot to eliminate other Japan-based users, then you should have immediately opposed JoshuSasori's reverting every one of my edits.<Unquote> I'm unaware of the details, but—like I say—WP:3O, or a notice on the WikiProject, may be good ways to bring in other people and create a conversation, rather than letting disagreements escalate. Remember that it takes two to tango. LittleBen (talk) 15:27, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I did: I contacted Boneyard first, and they requested to be allowed mediate, but JoshuSasori rejected the offer and then continued to revert all my edits to Kuroneko even when Boneyard told him to stop. Then I posted on WikiProject Japan and asked for help and NihonJoe closed the discussion and told me to go through dispute resolution. Two days later I went back to ANI. When I presented my issues there, the admins quickly moved to indef-block JoshuSasori, who made no serious attempt to defend himself, but rather insisted that the blocking administrator should apologize to him for not believing his lies that I was the one doing the hounding. His last edit, in which he made slight tweaks to the apology request, was on 22 January, 00:53 UST. Roughly 24 hours later, at 01:01, 23 January, JoshuSasori created another account. He continued to harass me through near-untraceable shifting IPs while making general edits (believe me, they're mostly just minor stylistic changes) under his new main account. When IPs were insufficient for the purposes of harassing me, he used his main account, and this is how I found out what he was up to. He also apparently created a single-purpose account solely to revert numerous edits I had made. He continues to make few positive contributions, thousands of indifferent contributions, and harass me when he feels like it.

For the record, in case you do feel like going back and checking the history (you'd need to be very bored) you would likely see JoshuSasori constantly accusing me of "hounding" him. This is not the case. He apparently believed I had no genuine interest in Japanese cinema, and was only editing these articles to troll him. This was simply not the case, as I explained to him thoroughly here (in the first of my many peace offerings to him): I have been a fan of Japanese cinema since I was sixteen. I made numerous edits related to Japanese cinema and many other areas between 2005 and 2008, before going into effective Wiki-retirement until last August. Between August and December, I mostly edited articles relating to classical Japanese poetry (my main interest), but then other matters beyond my control caused me to have to branch out a bit. Japanese cinema seemed like the obvious choice for me. As soon as I did so JoshuSasori started reverting/undermining me on every single article I came to. He would need to have been quite insane not to realize that even if his assumption of my being a hound had initially been in good faith, he had now indisputably become the WP:HOUND. This continued for about a month.

Anyway, that should be all the clarification that's necessary. Happy editing! elvenscout742 (talk) 01:36, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

• Try to put yourself in his shoes: it is feasible that he is also a film fan, and he may have been annoyed that you didn't understand that macrons are no longer officially endorsed as "OK" in English versions of Japanese names (as per the passport and "do adequate research" discussions); macrons are (or have been) used by language teachers just to show foreigners how to pronounce Japanese names. This may be the "minor stylistic issue" that really upset him: he may have thought that you were an ignorant POV pusher. Don't take it personally, you can now see it from other people's viewpoint. Don't pigeonhole people, even if they seem to be pigeonholing you. Focus on the interests—like film—that you share with other people, don't obsess too much about differences in individual style. Make positive comments about things that you both like, interests that you both share, things he did that you liked, rather than focus on the negative. One of the best ways of making friends is to ask a small favor or ask advice about something (even if you already know the answer). I heard a story about Ben Franklin: as a politician, he found that one person strongly opposed everything that he proposed. Ben found that this person was obsessive about history, and owned a priceless history book. Ben mentioned this, and asked to borrow it—and returned it later with lots of praise. From that time on, the person was Ben's strongest supporter.
• It is also likely that—regardless of his possibly-extensive film experience—JoshuSasori is a relative newbie to Misplaced Pages, and didn't learn stuff like WP:NPA before he was blocked. Don't be a score-keeper or score-settler yourself. LittleBen (talk) 04:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I tried to focus on shared interests. But no matter how much evidence (the dozens of edits before JoshuSasori registered, etc.) I presented him with he still refused to admit that my interest in Japanese cinema was genuine, and he continued to revert me constantly. As a matter of fact most of the edits that he was reverting had nothing whatsoever to do with the macron. He tagged my inclusion of obviously factually, well-researched and sourced historical data in the Kuroneko article as OR, and removing it even when I showed him more sources; he removed an explanation of a Japanese-language film title from the opening sentence and accused me of claiming the explanation was an "official English title"; conversely, he reverted my attempt to remove the open claim that similar translations were "official English titles" from Dreams (1990 film); etc. etc. He was well aware of NPA and the other relevant policies and guidelines, because I and numerous others had pointed these out to him. And since we know he's still following me, we can be certain that he has read your comment above.

By the way, what do you think of my proposal regarding macrons now?

elvenscout742 (talk) 05:07, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

• I like Ryulong's view that arguing too long about relatively minor stylistic issues creates bitterness and gets in the way of doing useful work. Maybe there are Japanese who prefer to write their name with macrons, though macrons are not permitted in passports—just as there are Japanese companies who think that Big Hag (it was a registered trademark) is the same as Big Hug. I'd like to see Misplaced Pages editors show that they are doing adequate research as to real-world usage (but I'm glad that some Japanese companies aren't, because it is so funny). I can understand now why people would want to write their name as Shin'ichi, even tho' the government doesn't appear to permit this in passports. The majority version of a person's name, and significant alternative versions, surely should be noted as such. Shin'ichi vs. Shinichi doesn't have to be an either-or decision applied across all Japanese articles in Misplaced Pages. Styles change: Korea and Vietnam officially stopped using kanji, for example. Real-world change doesn't require everything to be fixed right away, Misplaced Pages is maintained by volunteers. LittleBen (talk) 05:36, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree entirely that fighting over minor issues like these prevents us from making significant contributions. My only caveat is that I shouldn't be expected to go out and check whether or not Yūkichi Takeda's name appeared in roman letters on any officially published documents before he died, and to determine whether or not the stylistic representation of his name may or may not have represented his personal preference. I'd much rather just write the darn article. And I'd rather not have some guy who dug up an English-language newspaper article that appeared before he died, and claim that this was his personal preference and so the page should be moved. Those people should demonstrate their good faith by actually contributing something significant to the article before making RMs. elvenscout742 (talk) 06:06, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

• That's essentially the reason for Template:Google RS—it makes neutral research in many of the most reliable sources—for WP:BLP people, at least (for historical figures, it's better to consult books)—trivially easy, and so I'd hope that knowledge of it would help eliminate a lot of the silliness and warring.
• Template:Google RS
• Template:Google RS
• Results for both the above: nothing. Google books' romanization is Yukichi Takeda, but they write Shinryō Ikenaga for another author.
• Template:Google RS
• Template:Google RS
• Again, virtually no modern-day interest. I'm pragmatic, I wouldn't lose any sleep over stub articles on historical figures that few people visit. But I'd recommend that you promote your good work better: look at "What links here" and you'll see that the article is virtually an orphan. If you search for Yūkichi Takeda you'll find many articles that mention him. Unless you link from those articles to yours then few people will find your article. People will only expand your articles if they can find them, and orphans are liable to be abruptly deleted.
• And of course I agree that, in an ideal world, people who aren't involved in creating articles should not be pushing around people who aren't (there was a recent implosion at the main MOS stemming from this). You have the right to demand that other editors provide adequate independently-verifiable proof that proposed moves are justified. Some politicians take a "facts are irrelevant, I have a bigger army of voters" view, but unless decisions are seen as fair, inclusive of all viewpoints, and objective—based on independently-verifiable facts—then they create only bitterness and burnout. The politicians may win such battles, but Misplaced Pages loses good people because of them.
• One distinction that may not have come across: "Does the Japanese government support a modified Hepburn?" My take on this is: probably the Mombusho does for the JLPT and the like, but the answer for passports, names or people and places in official documents (like passports, for example, also diplomatic and state policy statements) is maybe "a simplified subset, close to accepted English usage". Tokyo Metropolitan Gov't seems to be tightening up on variations that it will accept/approve on passports. General Misplaced Pages practice is for the article title to be majority English and the lede to carry significant alternative versions. But there are POV pushers who try to sneak around the rules or wear out other people with bulk moves of unrelated articles without giving any fair and objective justification for the moves. LittleBen (talk) 07:17, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

The problem with Japanese government guidelines for passports etc is that they are designed to be easy to produce (diacritics are a no-no) and replicate by people without having to figure out how to add macrons. They were not designed to be encyclopedic. elvenscout742 (talk) 07:31, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

• I believe that passport data is almost universally embedded in IC chips nowdays—probably soon it will not be necessary to type in names from passports, if it is still necessary now. Airline tickets too are all electronic, using bar codes. Of course, for international accessibility, the international language—English—is the basis for all this. English Misplaced Pages guidelines, for the same reason, say to "use English".
• If you look at my bolded promote your good work better above you'll see that I'm pragmatic. The language that the Japanese government uses in important official documents is history—it's worthy of being in an encyclopedia. The language that the Japanese government uses only to explain to ignorant foreigners how to read and pronounce difficult Japanese (and doesn't even teach its own citizens) is surely not "encyclopedic". Virtually all major entertainment stars who are successful do not use their real names. "Pope John Paul" is not the real name. I don't think there is anything evil about this—or about making difficult technical concepts and difficult-to-read words understandable and memorable to as many people as possible. Surely that is the purpose of an encyclopedia and the purpose of books in general—if they are not read (because they are too much hassle or too difficult to read) then they are irrelevant. If ivory-tower linguists tell you otherwise—if they tell you that "being encyclopedic" means showing off their superior linguistic skills, and rubbing it in that everybody else is just plain ignorant—then tell them that "this is an encyclopedia that is intended to be accessible to virtually everybody, the primary intention is not to satisfy the big egos of linguists or grammar specialists". Misplaced Pages is not a glass bead game. See also the "More encyclopedic" comments below.
• PS FYI: Re. Yuzo Kayama:
• Template:Google RS
• Template:Google RS
• Of course both versions should appear in the article (as they do), but I think that Misplaced Pages guidelines say that (ideally) articles should be at the version that is most widely recognizable in reliable English sources. I have mentioned elsewhere the connection between Asahi and IHT and the NYT; it's not as if NYT people are ignoramuses.
• In any case, I wouldn't lose any sleep or fight over it (as I said, both version appear in the article).
• I would definitely be annoyed if somebody tried to completely strip out the majority English usage. Surely people rely on Misplaced Pages to report the preferred form used in reliable real-world English sources.
• LittleBen (talk) 07:59, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Re: "More encyclopedic", I've just noticed this (moved, back on 25 Oct.):

• Template:Google RS
• Template:Google RS

(This template searches several encyclopedias). I mentioned this issue back here. LittleBen (talk) 14:41, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Note: User:Elvenscout742 is now User:Hijiri88

Not to appear like I'm grave-dancing, but...

Do you still think this is a user whose presence on Misplaced Pages is a good thing and/or something that I was wrong to question? elvenscout742 (talk) 12:45, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

• Admins are unpaid. Some do stupid things, but everybody makes mistakes. Personal insults are counterproductive.
• Like I said, you should remember that Misplaced Pages is not about score keeping,score settling—or grave dancing for that matter.
• I see a lot of nice words for MI not only here, but also here—by Yunshui, who is an awesome guy. Think about this: Will people say such nice things about you when you're gone? Play nicely, be kind—leave some good memories behind. LittleBen (talk) 13:33, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe. I'm not going anywhere for the time being, though. And when I do go it won't be because I was harassing people, swearing or making personal attacks/threats. You're also wrong in assuming Yunshui said anything nice about Mysterious Island on my talk page. That was with reference to the anonymous stalkers who JoshuSasori/Mysterious Island still claims are separate people. And it wasn't a nice thing about the anonymous editor either: it was pointing out that while the editor blatantly violated 3RR, the information he/she was posting was sourced. I still don't think it's sourced well, and on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Jigai Yunshui has already said I can be met down the middle on whether the bizarre fringe theory that the word "jigai" refers to Japanese female suicide culture can be discussed on English Misplaced Pages. The kind words a couple of other users had for MI on his talk page are just those users practicing WP:AGF -- something I did too when I didn't go after MI for the obvious sockpuppetry/block-evasion until he had gone out of his way to harass me on two separate articles. elvenscout742 (talk) 14:08, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

• <Quote>Will people say such nice things about you when you're gone? Play nicely, be kind—leave some good memories behind.<Unquote> What I meant was: live your life in such a way that when you're gone (when you die) you will leave behind many good memories about your kindness, helpfulness, and thoughtfulness—about fun times and shared joys. LittleBen (talk) 14:34, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

What I'm doing, Ben, what I'm doing. I edit Misplaced Pages in the gaps between those memories, though. I'm trying to synch it up so I can learn about the topics I'm editing and grow as a person along with growing Misplaced Pages. By the way, you're free to write talk page comments as you like, but I prefer to use bold or italic text when quoting. It's easier to recognize. elvenscout742 (talk) 15:11, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Note: User:Elvenscout742 is now User:Hijiri88

Re:JoshuSasori's workplace...

Hey, are you still interested in salvaging JS's work? You want all of them? JoshuSasori apparently has no interest in coming back, as he has been blocked for a month now, and without appealing his block once he created a sock account that then went on a cursing-spree and got itself blocked too. If he creates anoth sock account and actually limits himself to constructive editing, that's fine, but he would only be able to get away with that by never admitting to be the same person. Therefore, we don't really need to worry about proper attribution anymore, and the pages are not going to be any good to us rotting in the userspace of an indeffed user. How about moving what you like to your space? elvenscout742 (talk) 03:36, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

• I only mentioned Mark Schilling because I'm familiar with his work, and I hate to see such article creation work wasted, just as I hate to see potentially good editors pushed out. But—as I say on the WikiProject—I'm now regretting having volunteered: other writers in the same space—like Mark Schreiber—are arguably more notable, so it could be considered unfair to publish a Schilling article without doing a Schreiber article first, and I don't have a lot of free time. I haven't heard of the other Japanese article subjects, but maybe those articles should be advertised to see if somebody will adopt them.
• The "respect for others" thing—that should be part of the Misplaced Pages ethic—comes from showing people that you believe they have potential, and that you are willing to help them achieve it, even if they may need education about personal attacks or POV-pushing.
• The measure of a good manager's success is not the number of people he (or she) fails, but rather the number of people he (or she) can help succeed. A team of good people with complementary skills and a cooperative attitude can often create things that a single genius could never do on his (or her) own. LittleBen (talk) 04:01, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Please stop it. I have shown plenty of respect for others. MI was obviously a sockpuppet and I knew he was working to undermine me for two weeks before I even asked an administrator about it. I never "pushed" any "good editors" out -- JoshuSasori and his sock(s) harassed me, threatened me, called me names for over a month, all in a ridiculous attempt to push me out of Japanese cinema articles and eventually Misplaced Pages in general. Misplaced Pages doesn't need users like that. Your manager analogy is horrible -- are you saying that if a Wikipedian creates 100 good articles and intimidates/harasses other users and removes 100 articles' worth of content in the process of reverting those users' edits, that Wikipedian is better than the user who creates 99 good articles and does so in a peaceful, respectful manner? I really don't understand why you continue to defend JoshuSasori's harassing me... elvenscout742 (talk) 05:01, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

• I can't comment on that, because I haven't read up on the history, and don't have time. My comments apply to everyone, I'm not talking about you specifically. Hopefully others are reading this, and will learn something from it. ;-) LittleBen (talk) 05:07, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
• Did you see my comment about "More encyclopedic" above? LittleBen (talk) 14:41, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Note: User:Elvenscout742 is now User:Hijiri88

Re: "but I've seen a lot of other things too..."

-- like?? Don't tell me you're still accusing me of somehow being in the wrong and setting the great and wonderful JoshuSasori up as some sort of martyr for your anti-diacritic/accurate romanization cause?? elvenscout742 (talk) 15:50, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

No, I agree that he's angry at being banned, and striking out blindly at those he thinks responsible. But it appears that what originally started all this and made him angry was another user moving—without discussion—articles that he had created, without contributing in any way to the articles. Like moving Taboo (the cover of the DVD in the article clearly shows the name Taboo) to Gohatto, a title that is no longer available, and others. To repeat again: it takes two to tango; nobody should claim that they are a saint and the other person a demon without pretty good reason. LittleBen (talk) 16:08, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

(EDIT CONFLICT) By the way: would you like me to give you a list of articles JoshuSasori moved without having contributed anything else to them? The most recent one would probably be Yōko Ogawa would probably be the most recent one, but there are probably dozens. And plenty more that he tried to move (often employing sockpuppets to double-vote) but the Misplaced Pages community rejected his move. But really, there is nothing wrong with performing moves by oneself. Even if they are to pages to which one has made no prior contribution. I hadn't contributed a whole lot to Ōkagami before I RMed it: did I do something wrong?? elvenscout742 (talk) 16:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Umm, actually he has no right to complain about that: I was making good-faith moves to articles on Misplaced Pages. He doesn't own the articles he has created. When he pointed out on one of them (in a not-so-friendly manner) that I was wrong I apologized and gave it up. The Gohatto move was performed by an administrator in accordance with a consensus among the Misplaced Pages community after a month-long RM. And tell me: how was I supposed to make any significant contributions to articles on Japanese cinema when he blankly reverted virtually all of my edits? Check the histories of Kuroneko and Dreams (1990 film) for two good examples, but by no means the only examples, of this. Double Suicide of Sonezaki was the first. elvenscout742 (talk) 16:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

• It's generally not productive to review past history, and I don't have a lot of free time. I did notice the Talk:Ryoko Nakano and Talk:Kindai Eiga Kyokai moves that were made without discussion, and you surely were aware from discussions on his page and his discussions on the WikiProject talk page that such moves would be controversial. Polite interference with somebody else's work hurts just as much as insults. Blaming and punishing other people generally does not improve the WP environment; seeing senseless disagreements spiral out of control makes me feel miserable and fatalistic about the future of WP. LittleBen (talk) 16:49, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

JoshuSasori got blocked partly because he was afraid to provide any diffs, knowing as he did that the evidence was all on my side. Therefore, you must have gone through the history to find those articles. Why not try looking at the evidence I presented that he was following me? What about the fact that half the articles he edited in December-January were articles he followed me to? And also, it might be a good idea to stop implying that I don't make worthwhile edits to articles when about 3/7 of your edits were in the article namespace, compared to 4/6 of mine. elvenscout742 (talk) 16:58, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

• I don't know if your 3/7 and 4/6 refers to number or length (as a tech. professional, I'm a very terse writer). I don't think it's constructive to criticize, sorry about that. LittleBen (talk) 17:03, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, I italicized the titles of about 40 JLit articles yesterday. But I also created the articles on Twenty-Four Eyes and Ukare Gitsune Senbon Zakura -- should I complain about how JoshuSasori "followed me" to those articles? PLEASE STOP TALKING TO ME ABOUT THIS. JoshuSasori's accounts have now been indef-blocked seven times. I just want to forget about him. Please stop bringing him up MOS discussions that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM, and bringing up how I was supposedly "harassing" him on various RMs. elvenscout742 (talk) 17:13, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Note: User:Elvenscout742 is now User:Hijiri88

Re: Topic ban violations

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. elvenscout742 (talk) 04:43, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Topic ban violations

I have blocked you for 24 hours for violating your diacritics topic ban at Talk:Yūji Oda and Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:57, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Your query regarding bans

Hi, this is in reply to your query on my talk page. You ask how to appeal a topic ban. However, it's not clear from your message who issued the ban, and in what forum. Consequently, I can't give specific advice. Generally, any ban can be appealed to whoever placed it, as well as to WP:ARBCOM. Community-imposed bans can be appealed at WP:AN and WP:BASC. The process for appealing bans under WP:AE authority is described there, although it is also subject to an open clarification request.

Please be advised also that the tone of your message, in which you ascribe nefarious motives and various misconduct to other editors, is inappropriate. Per WP:NPA, "comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks do not help make a point; they only hurt the Misplaced Pages community and deter users from helping to create a good encyclopedia. Derogatory comments about other contributors may be removed by any editor. Repeated or egregious personal attacks may lead to blocks." If you continue to communicate in this vein, you may be made subject to additional sanctions, including under arbitral authority if related to the manual of style (see WP:ARBATC#Discretionary sanctions).  Sandstein  07:31, 28 February 2013 (UTC)