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Trouting

Petting my ego

If you want to rub my ego instead, feel free.

Please comment on Talk:Spanish Empire

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Spanish Empire. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Abusive, Mean and Petty

I see the Category Police have visited. -Roxy the dog. bark 05:30, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

So that's your bark, but what about your bite? :)

Mjolnir, could I impose upon you to use {{fmbox}} instead of the actual categories? For example:

That way, you can display any "tag" you want, in any color you want, without actually creating a category grouping. -- Black Falcon 06:49, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

advice ;) insertthisisajoketemplatehere -Roxy the dog. bark 00:44, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Great. So that means I can add the category Users with a surfeit of iron in their bite and their hammers. (Have to look at my last blood test results.) O3000 (talk) 00:52, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

We need a Judge Dredd type to go and sort out those fiddlers. -Roxy the dog. bark 08:34, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I rather like the idea that they have to have a proper and by the book deletion discussion, which appears to be taken seriously. Keeps them occupied and away from more important areas I suppose. -Roxy the dog. bark 08:17, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

I felt inclined to modestly contribute to the proposal. Mjolnir, Roxy, are you not traumatized by having had the appearance of your user page modified against your will? Perhaps you didn't know about the existence of ‎Category:Wikipedians who have had the appearance of their user page modified against their will? No such user (talk) 22:26, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:June 2017 Brussels attack

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:June 2017 Brussels attack. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, MjolnirPants. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Retirement

Why? You must be kidding me. Please come back. Your contributions are appreciated. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:48, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Let me know if you ever want to bitch about WP or politics. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:36, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

@DrFleischman: I actually ended up editing pretty regularly again after that comment at... Well, I forget what page. Some conspiracy theory/pseudoscience page or another. Our watchlists seem to have a lot of overlap. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:53, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

The offer stands. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:56, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Much appreciated. Will do. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:29, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Re: Working for Bigfoot

Do you think that Butcher's Working for Bigfoot warrants a page for itself? I don't, but I'll appreciate a second opinion.

Thanks, 79.13.126.10 (talk) 16:29, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

@79.13.126.10:Probably not. It never got the publicity that a collection like Side Jobs did, and Side Jobs doesn't even have it's own. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:46, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again. 79.13.126.10 (talk) 21:20, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Happy Holidays

	Happy Holidays
	Wishing you a happy holiday season! Times flies and 2018 is around the corner. Thank you for your contributions. ~ K.e.coffman (talk) 00:34, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Sexism

Certainly not worth a trout but that Finlander was right. Now go take a shower and wash off that fishy smell, boy. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:46, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

No, they weren't. Using the wikilink in that manner may come across as snide and unprofessional, but it also neatly sidesteps the requirement of expanding the single sentence into a long paragraph of explanation about the (inane and rather ignorant) critique, complete with multiple opposing sources attacking and rebutting points. Instead, we have an argument which is -via a wikilink- identified as an informal fallacy and left at that. It is a straightforward and concise way of presenting accurate information to the reader.

It's not factually inaccurate, either, and the IPs argument ignores the very nature (no pun intended) of the fallacy. The argument presented there and which was made into a wikilink is an appeal to nature; the fact that gender (or even sex) is not purely binary is completely immaterial to the question of whether or not "gender roles are rooted in biology and thus good for us" is a naturalistic fallacy. It is, by the very nature of the argument.

That being said, the argument could stand to be explicated a bit better to make the context clear. Barring that, it could stand to be removed entirely as it doesn't flow at all with the preceding paragraphs. In fact, I think I'll do just that as soon as I finish this comment.

Also, trouts aren't for when someone disagrees with me; there are talk pages for that. They're for when I fuck up. Or for the hell of it. If the IP had posted here without taking the extra step of using my trout button, I'd likely have engaged them. But when they start a discussion off by essentially announcing "I'm already right and you can't win" by suggesting my disagreement with them was some sort of faux pas, I'm not going to bother. They're going to get the same treatment that a creationist, a flat-earther, a 9/11 truther or an Obama birther will get: told they're wrong and summarily dismissed. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:28, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree with everything you just wrote. The Finlander's arguments overstepped but their position was correct, in my view. The link was Easter eggy and non-neutral since it was to something that's related but fundamentally quite different. The Darwinist conservatives' argument, at least as written, is a factual one ("gender roles have a biological ground"), whereas the linked argument, at least as written, is a normative one ("a thing is good because it is 'natural'"). The implication here is that Darwinist conservatives argue that gender roles and/or sexism is not only grounded in biology but also good. This may or may not be accurate but if it's true it should be stated explicitly rather than being implied with a wikilink. Honestly I'm not particularly interested in the article. I was just entertained by the Finlander's comment and thought I'd pitch a couple of cents into the MjolnirPants rehabilitation fund, boy. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:24, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

The Darwinist conservatives' argument, at least as written, is a factual one ("gender roles have a biological ground"), whereas the linked argument, at least as written, is a normative one ("a thing is good because it is 'natural'"). Note: I'm not disagreeing with you, just quoting the part of your comment that approaches my point the closest.

Yeah, that's the thing. I'm unaware of any serious, intelligent feminists who would even consider arguing that gender roles were not, at least in part, formed by biological differences between genders. Although the difference is not large and one of averages rather than ranges (an overlapping bell curves sort of thing), it's true that women are physiologically better suited to childcare, social organization and domestic tasks and men are better suited to fighting, labor and abstract tasks. So the argument as written is really nonsensical, as it's just a statement of fact that's only really contested by the sorts of feminists who whiled away their biology lectures wondering if they could get that boy three chairs down who smiled at them expelled for ocular rape.

So it only makes sense, given the attribution of the statement, to assume the implicit "therefore, they're a Good Thing™." Which of course, makes it a naturalistic fallacy. Which in turn, makes the wikilink an informative one, regardless of how snarky or easter-eggy it may appear to be. (For the record, I do agree that more verbosity would be generally preferable to alt-text wikilinks, but I didn't see any future to the position that the sentence should be expanded into a paragraph or two.)

I had presumed that there was some consensus for keeping that out-of-place statement (given that the origin of gender roles was being address in a section about the origin of the word "sexism"). But the article history did not bear that out, so I felt removal would be the best approach. I'm fairly certain that Gender roles would be a better article for that sort of claim, anyways. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:07, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

I disagree that we should be linking an argument to a fallacy, no matter how informative it might be. But that's just belly scratching now. That sentence was totally out of place and was awful to boot. Did you check the source? It didn't say jack shit about gender roles, let alone sexism. There are a surprising number of editors here who seem to think that verifiability is some kind of aspiration. Maybe they thought when Colbert coined the word "truthiness" that he was actually advocating for it. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:11, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

I didn't check the source, no. By the time the question of verifiability entered my mind, I'd already noticed it was sticking out like a sore thumb and needed removal more than anything. TBH, I only realized it was in the completely wrong section as I was writing the comment in which I said I'd remove it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:13, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Yesno

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Yesno. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Sam T.

I don't mind your posting comments about this user's block on his Talk page, but I don't want the two of you to have an extended discussion about ID on his Talk page while he's blocked. I'm not going to revert your initial comments or his response, but don't continue the discussion.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:51, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

@Bbb23: I'm not planning on having any conversations with any blocked editors about anything except their block or pending unblock request. But thanks for asking so nicely; it's "good" to know that not every admin sees the mop as less about authority and more about responsibility. If I change my mind about having those conversations, I'll be sure to make sure you know, to show you my "appreciation" for your politely worded "request" here. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:53, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

HNY

Happy New Year! Best wishes for 2018, —PaleoNeonate – 13:39, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

ANI

Please bear in mind that ANI is an Administrators' noticeboard. Do not revert admin action, and certainly not without discussion first. Thank you. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:29, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Please read WP:ANYUSER and WP:ANOT before you say something so cringeworthy as this again.

I will continue to revert any action that appears unhelpful, as your close did. If I am mistaken, it can be undone. I will not ever take to going around with my hat in my hand asking politely if someone who made a mistake would mind terribly fixing that mistake, when I can do so in a few seconds. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:37, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Image colourizing

I've only just seen the work that you and Hohum did to colourize File:Catherine Elizabeth Middleton (colorized).jpg (3 years ago!) and I have to say, belatedly, that I'm pretty impressed. Colourizing is something I never really got the hang of. If you'd like to share how you did it (which tools you used) I'd really appreciate it. If not, no worries. nagualdesign 06:19, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

@Nagualdesign: Well, I started working on a monitor at work with horrible color correction, so me and Hohum went back and forth "fixing" the "horrible" look each other did (my stuff was horrible, his just looked horrible on my monitor). Being an idiot is always step 1 (at least for me). But after I got home to a decent monitor, I used the process I outlined at User:MjolnirPants/Colorizing. I used GIMP for all of it. It's easier in Photoshop because of the brush controls, though. To be honest, I think it could still use more work: her skin tone is too even, the shadows aren't blue enough, it's a little undersaturated and there's a few spots where the color line was much too sharp.ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 06:32, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

You wrote all of that just for me? And so quickly too! How wonderful! Seriously though, thanks for the link. I'll digest it with great relish. I've never gotten beyond step 1 when it comes to colourization. I'll tell you what, leave the image as it is and I'll practice on it – it'll give me something to aim for, and if I ever get to the point where I think I've managed to improve upon it I'll upload it for you and Hohum to see. All the best, nagualdesign 06:55, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

...That was delicious! Thanks again. I think I'll have a go at it tomorrow. Wish me luck. nagualdesign 07:32, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

@Nagualdesign:I'm glad somebody's getting some use out of it. :) I do have a tip or two about practicing, if you're interested. If not, well, just don't read this comment, I guess? lol

• Start with a color photograph that you've completely desaturated. The way the grey levels work in desaturated color photos is different from the way they work in actual B&W photos, and the results look much better if done right (and just as bad if done wrong). Plus, you have a reference image.
• Blow up the saturation in a copy of the reference image to give yourself a reference for shades. Since the time I wrote that, I've taken to using much more saturated colors and then adjusting level opacity more later. It seems to produce better results.
• Old portraits are the best sorts of images to practice on, as skin is one of the hardest materials to colorize, and there's plenty of skin in those.
• Old war photographs actually end up looking the best when done right. I don't know why this is exactly, but it probably has something to do with how cluttered and messy the scenes often are.
• I really hate to say this, because it sounds so arrogant but... Don't follow any other colorizing tutorials on the web. I've seen some beautiful work, but none of those artists have written a tutorial that I can find, and none of the other tutorials I've been able to find document even something as simple as using a different shade for the shadows. Of course, there might be a few out there which are good that I've missed, so if you find one from an artist whose results look good, please let me know! Lord knows I'm not done learning yet.
• Aim for, but don't expect perfection (this is a general tip I know, but it seems particularly applicable to this task). Perfection is impossible, and near-perfection is all but. If you don't believe me, google "amazing colorized photos" or "photos you wouldn't believe are colorized" and look through them to see how obviously and poorly colorized many of them are. Some are amazing, but many of the ones that look brilliant to the average person look like crap to an artist. I think I've seen maybe a half-dozen colorized photos in my life that I couldn't immediately tell were colorized, and 4 of them were in a museum (it was that visit that got me into colorizing). I know most of my best works look a little "off" to me, and most of the time, I can't fix it no matter what I do. But you can produce results that will look great, and most folk won't be able to tell.

I think that's about it... I was planning on adding a section to that page about the differences between B&W photos and desaturated photos and why they look different, but I wanted to experiment a bit with making the one look like the other to really nail down the differences, first. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:35, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Great guide! The only things I can think of which is worth adding are:

• *Calibrate your monitor carefully*
• Make sure your image looks the same in a variety of browsers plus in your graphics tool. If not, you need to start looking into what colour profile you're embedding in the image, using on your operating system, and have configured for your browser.
• Consider whether colourisation is appropriate (unless you're just doing it for your own entertainment)
• Seek out colour reference images of the same or similar scene as a guide.
• Skin tones are tricky, especially faces - the human visual system will spot discrepancies there above all - my main tip would be to say that skin isn't all the same colour, and you need to work on it almost like applying makeup. (Hohum ) 18:56, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

@Hohum: Those are all good bits of advice. The bit about skin color is already touched on, but I noticed that I never said anything about the typical slight mottling of human skin (even though I do it). Though obviously the first one is a dig at me, so I'll be reporting you to ANI now. ;) I haven't edited that guide in a while, but I'm planning on doing an expansion very soon, and I'll incorporate all of those. I plan for part of that to be the addition of an entire section about colorizing for Misplaced Pages, which presents its own unique considerations. Thank you. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:32, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Something else that might be worth mentioning is that for graphics work like this which may take several sessions to complete, save it the format which keeps all the various layers and undo histories, and at the very least, not in a lossy format. (Hohum ) 19:49, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you both for the tips and advice. Great stuff. nagualdesign 19:54, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

@Hohum: You know, actually that's a good one. It shouldn't be. Something like that shouldn't even be photo editing 101, but rather high school "so you want to edit photos one day" remedial class stuff. But, I know a professional photographer who's been working since the late 90's, who still stores all his photos on camera as jpg's, and re-saves them numerous times during the editing process. I tried explaining RAW to him once and he literally told me to stop talking; it was too complicated. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:02, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Its always interesting...

...When I'm offline for a day or so due to a number of doc appointments and I come back to a load of notifications about my talkpage. I took far longer than I want to admit to work out wtf was going on. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:09, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

That was mostly my fault, I'm afraid. I hit rollback without noticing that sinebot had gotten in there in between moron edits. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:37, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I particularly liked 'Israel is the eternal capital of Israel and has been Israel's capital for thousands of years.' Everything about it is wrong. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:03, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I saw that. I thought it was some bad drugs I was taking and moved on. -Roxy, Zalophus californianus. barcus 14:05, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Well my sock alarm went off. Probably just some US Zionist (an Israeli wouldn't actually make the mistake of saying Israel is the capital of Israel). The description of me as a leftist is another clue. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:10, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Maybe he was making a comment about grammar, you know? Like what he meant to say was "Israel is the proper capitalization of israel and has been for thousands of years," and just got confused by the bright lights coming from that 'lectric window just pass the letter-button-thingy he wuz writin' on. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:37, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Just for clarification on why the Scarborough edit was BLP

The simplest answer is the history with this Lori Klausutis. The story starts by inserting her death into Scarboroughs article and then there are incremental attempts to expnd it with the implication that Scarborough was involved. The reality is that it has 0 to do with Scarborough. Any reference is undue weight and no statement about it relates it to him except as a smear. Trump tweeted about Hillary Clinton having Vince Foster killed but you won't find it on Clinton's page because despite all the investigations and reliable sources, the final result is that the death didn't have anything to do with her and keeping it just invites more and more insinuations of involvement. The article above was a fork to propagate the smear against Scarborough. That's why all of it is gone. --DHeyward (talk) 03:56, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

DHeyward I disagree that the text that you removed in the cited edit was a BLP vio. It clearly identified the conspiracy theory as a conspiracy theory, which is fine. We have entire articles on CSes, including political ones like the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. That being said, as I indicated at AN, I wholly understand why you could see that edit as a BLP vio. I agree that you were editing in good faith, and that extending the TBan was unnecessary. I think they should overturn it, as I said there, even though that doesn't look likely. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:54, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Spelling?

MjolnirPants,

I hope I can bother you with a question.

This edit replaces some american spelling with the corresponding british one. The article does not seem to be either improved or worsened for that, but certainly it appears odd; should the edit be reverted, an attempt at contacting the author be made, or is it simply not worth worrying about?

Thank you, 79.51.60.74 (talk) 22:01, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

@79.51.60.74: As long as the article is consistent with its spelling, it doesn't really matter. The differences in spelling aren't great enough to really impact readability. I've considered a template that would change spellings of certain words based on the editor's IP geolocation, but I've been too lazy to look up enough Lua to actually accomplish that (and I'm not 100% sure it would work). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:15, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I will drop the matter then. Thanks again! 79.51.60.74 (talk) 23:10, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

It would also screw up WP:ENGVAR. As even when you are in location A, due to ENGVAR you sometimes have to use spelling from location B. Anything automated would interfere with that. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:33, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

That's true. But you wouldn't have to use the template on every word. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:47, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't remember to use it at all... Or I would use it too much. Every time I have tried to invoke a template in article space it blows up on me anyway. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:58, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

That's intentional. All of us who've made templates have a meeting every week or so to make sure there's code on the WMF servers to ensure that any templates you use do funky things. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:13, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Authors use of 'black'

Do you have a link to that paper? It sounds like an interesting read. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:01, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

I read it many years ago, and I've been looking since I mentioned it. As soon as I find it, I'll let you know. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:35, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

testes, testes, one two three...

This is a test. This is a test of the emergency broadcasting system. This is only a test*.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/15/lab-leak-theory-doesnt-hold-up-covid-china/

https://mashable.com/article/fauci-email-conspiracy-theories-debunked/

https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2021/05/lab-leak-conspiracy-theory-rears-its.html (expert blog; Laurence A. Moran)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kRxmEgzbQ (This Week in Virology)

https://medika.life/debunking-nicholas-wades-origin-of-covid-conspiracy-theory/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/07/india-misinformation-covid-19-pandemic/

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain-of-function-disagreement/

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/lab_leak_theory_credibility.php

https://mashable.com/article/fauci-email-conspiracy-theories-debunked

https://medika.life/debunking-nicholas-wades-origin-of-covid-conspiracy-theory/

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/07/wade-j07.html

https://airmail.news/issues/2021-6-26/origin-story

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2021/05/20/no-science-clearly-shows-that-covid-19-wasnt-leaked-from-a-wuhan-lab/

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/10/2029882/-The-far-right-s-conspiracy-theory-blaming-Fauci-for-COVID-19-worms-its-way-into-mainstream

"Honestly, everything's fine." nagualdesign 21:29, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

If this were an actual emergency, instructions would follow this warning.

If this were an actual emergency, instructions would follow this warning.

nagualdesign is gonna get it for making me edit conflict while testing this template out...

Is it just me, or does else anyone watching this page giggle a little every time they hear the name of the nuclear test in that image? Operation Upshot-Knothole. Sounds like a a porn genre. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:01, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Scott Manley recently did a series of YouTube videos titled, "Going Nuclear - The Science Of Nuclear Weapons" – a serious and highly-informative discourse on the development and miniaturization of nuclear weapons. I must admit I was a bit distracted by my inner child giggling every time he mentioned Operation Upshot–Knothole. Sounds like a top secret plan to get your girlfriend so drunk that... well, you can probably guess the rest. nagualdesign 22:28, 18 January 2018 (UTC) PS: Always remember, consent is sexy, and don't forget to lube!

I once dated a girl that had "spit first" tattooed around her I'm not going to finish that sentence. I can only -in retrospective mourning of my lack of good judgement- wish that I were making that up. Suffice it to say, she was not one to bring home to mother. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:39, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Oh, and she wasn't my worst ex, either. Not by a long shot. And don't bother asking me on wiki, I have no desire to see half of my talk page get rev-delled because WP:NOTCENSORED only goes so far. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:40, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

She sounds like a keeper. nagualdesign 23:04, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

I have multiple ex's who have been sectioned under the mental health act for being a danger to themselves or others. Make of that what you will. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:06, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Funnily enough, I have too. In fact, I'm married to one of them, and another was actually one of my better exes. Of course, I'm from 'Murika, and from a part that has its fair share of "the south" in it, so the intersection of "more or less normal people" and "people who have at some point done something so batshit insane that the authorities had to lock them up for a few days just to make sure they weren't going to go even more batshit insane" is fairly close to 1. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:29, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

I like it

Just been repeatedly hitting refresh. Very good. nagualdesign 20:05, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

lol I'll probably erase it before too long. It's the first functional bit of Lua I've ever written, so it was written mostly to see if I could make it work. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:12, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

I read them in an outrageous French accent. nagualdesign 20:42, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

The first draft had a "Your mother was an X and your father stank of Y!" option, but I didn't want to write 300 lines of code just to get it working. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:16, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism of your comments at Talk:Racial views of Donald Trump

Hello. Just here to let you know about this edit, where User:Spidersmilk deleted a long string of comments you left at the mentioned talk page. I have re-inserted your comments and left a message on his talk page here. -- Gokunks (Speak to me) 23:19, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Much appreciated. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:17, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

C

Regarding “the day when we all get together to try to overhaul some of the policies here (I think you'd be surprised at how many editors would join you in that, me included)”, my primary policy recommendation for improving Misplaced Pages has long been to introduce randomly-selected juries to resolve disputes by applying the policies and guidelines. I have had it up to here with the cliques and the vendettas and the slant of the centralized hierarchy here that’s so devoted to their voluntary duties that they voluntarily look the other way when cohorts lie and push POVs and twist the rules. The elections here are also a farce given that (1) admins don’t have to seek reelection, (2) there is no convenient log of shared complaints against each admin even if they did have to face re-election, (3) the pool of voters is the same here for every election and so the results are monolithic rather than having admins/arbitrators chosen to represent the different views of different groups of editors. So the structure of Misplaced Pages is very problematic. The hierarchy does not censor content directly (usually), but accomplishes the same thing by attacking editors who write content they don’t like. I see no prospect of any of this changing via internal dissent here. Do you? How influential do you think Misplaced Pages is now, and why would people stop trying to misuse that influence voluntarily? Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:26, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Randomly selected? So on average you get the average level of experience, competence, intelligence, diligence, and knowledge to do the most difficult job on WP? Wouldn't you rather have at least a bit better than average folks judging you? You know, like the WP versions of Scalia, Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas? SPECIFICO talk 01:46, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Criminal cases don’t get to the jokers on the US Supreme Court unless a jury has already voted to convict. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:15, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

You think your American trial court judges are chosen at random to be of average intelligence, experience, and knowledge of the law? I just chose the most exceptional above average jurists to illustrate? Do you want to be judged by the average editor on WP or by the best and the brightest like Mr. Pants? SPECIFICO talk 02:29, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

I want a jury of my peers, rather than leaving the whole matter in the hands of elitist holier-than-thou specialists in twisting everything to produce the outcome they desire. And I want you, SPECIFICO, to give me the space you promised. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:38, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

You have no peer! I gave you space on your own talk page but I'm pleased to disengage here as well. SPECIFICO talk 02:49, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

• @Anythingyouwant: Juries are not a bad idea. I don't think it's really the best idea, but it's certainly not a bad one. But SPEC raises a good point, too. When you say "randomly selected", that means you'll get plenty of bad (or more often, "bad from your perspective") editors along with the good ones. Yes, it would average out over a large number of cases, but that's little consolation to the conservative editor who gets a jury of liberal editors, or the Atheist editor who gets a jury of Christian editors, or any editor who ends up with a jury full of foul-tempered editors.

You might be interested to know that the last person I saw opining that admins should require re-"election" every so often was, themselves an admin. One of the better ones, too, IMHO, though I'm not willing to say who as it was said via email. (I'm fairly certain they watch my page, so they can chime in if they want to be known.) I agreed with them then, and I agree with you now. As for point 2, I don't think that would really be necessary; interested editors could do such a thing.

Finally, I think it would be best to establish the existence of the hierarchy before trying to say what they're doing. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:17, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Hierarchy isn’t synonymous with cabal. The former is defined as “a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority.” Obviously, Misplaced Pages has one of those, don’t you think? I think it’s very unlikely that random editors would be slanted in the way that admins who repeatedly gravitate toward political articles are slanted. Anyway, if you’re worried about it, we can say that no sanction is valid unless approved by BOTH a random jury and the hierarchy too. Regarding (2), how could an interested editor do it other than trying to read and understand a candidate’s entire editing history? That strikes me as unrealistic. Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:48, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Obviously, Misplaced Pages has one of those, don’t you think? Misplaced Pages possibly has one of those, but I don't think it's obvious. The link to the cabal was to illustrate a point; that claiming there's a hierarchy and then immediately jumping to "the hierarchy does this and that," is different only in details from claiming there's a cabal and then immediately jumping to "the cabal does this and that." Maybe I could have indicated that better by spelling it out, or linking to different parts of my comments.

I'm not arguing that there's no difference in influence between editors, obviously some editors are more influential (read "powerful") than others. But I'm not convinced that this is systemic, or even hierarchical. The last admin I told to shut up and learn some policy (in rather less polite tones than here) was, I believe an ArbCom member, which should be rather high up on any hierarchy. But it didn't matter to me, and it didn't have any of the consequences one would expect from me "striking above my station" as it were.

Regarding 2: How is your proposal any different? Someone would still have to try to read and understand a candidate's entire editing history. I said that it could be done by an interested editor, but the only difference between your suggestion and mine is the formality mine lacks. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:28, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

I don’t guess we’re going to get very far here if we can’t acknowledge that Misplaced Pages has a system in which people are ranked one above the other according to authority, e.g. editors are below admins, admins are below arbitrators. To suggest that hierarchy implies cabal implies paranoia is kind of a conversation-killer. Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:35, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

To suggest that hierarchy implies cabal implies paranoia is kind of a conversation-killer. Did you read my first paragraph above? If you did, you didn't grasp the meaning. That's not my suggestion at all. My suggestion is that -before you ascribe traits to a hierarchy- you should document and collect evidence of the hierarchy from which traits can be extrapolated. I'm a skeptic and a huge fan of science and methodological naturalism. I also have a very broad base of experience in my life, and I've found that when seeking truth, methodological naturalism is the best approach for getting to a truth that won't be later contradicted, and which can be used to make useful predictions about future events.

I'm not dismissing your claims of a hierarchy. I'm saying that it's not obviously true. So establishing the truth should be the first step, not presuming the truth and moving on to addressing it. And I'm completely on board with collecting the data that can be used to establish the existence of such. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:43, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, I don’t think there’s any need to prove that there’s a ranking of authority at Misplaced Pages, e.g. editors below admins below arbitrators. That’s not a value judgment, it’s just descriptive. Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:08, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Ordinarily, I would agree. But there's the oft-repeated mantra that an admin is just an editor with a mop, and the oft-repeated if less pithy soliloquy about how there is no hierarchy. There's both a reason those things get mentioned so much as well as an effect that they have on the community. If the reason plus the effect combine are enough to overcome the natural tendency towards the formation of a hierarchy, then there is no hierarchy. But if the reason plus the effect together aren't enough to overcome the natural tendency towards the formation of a hierarchy, then there is a hierarchy. If the truth is somewhere in between (which is what I suspect, though I'm open to being wrong), then there's something else entirely, and I'm not sure exactly what that is. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:32, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Mental health days

NOTE: This was relocated by MjolnirPants from a closed discussion with this edit.

(Sorry to post in a closed thread but I need to clarify), as I wrote in the first section, I often take a mental health day to take off work and just enjoy the day. It's a common term that just means to shut off your computer and take a day off. It had no negative connotations, I was just using the common term. I apologize if anyone read it differently, but that was not my intention. Sir Joseph 20:39, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

My cool new userbox...

I borrowed your code to create User:Atsme/Scientist now that I'm a rank & file member of the Wiki Science Competition 2017 which makes me a "scientist" of sorts...so I chose Doctor of Acnestis as my field. 00:28, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

@Atsme: Hah! That's awesome. I just may steal it. ;) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:12, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Random graphs

Following a discussion at the help desk and some further discussion on Loraof's talk page regarding a graph at Empirical distribution function I've been wondering if it's possible to draw a graph on the fly each time the page is visited. Only the step function (the blue line) needs to be generated, the rest is the same each time. Then I remembered your NonsenseNameCaller and wondered if you might have any suggestions. nagualdesign 19:40, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

@Nagualdesign: Hmmmm..... I don't think there's anything in the Lua we have access to that can draw vector graphics. Even if there is, it might not be doable.

I suppose something could be cobbled together with a div and some ascii characters, but that's so hacky and huge; you'd have to scale characters, add shadows to bold back up the ones that are too small, use bolding, all in conditionals, re-write it multiple times after finding that one edge case that breaks it... Yeah, such a code would be a hot mess, a pain to create and would be as likely to bug out on older browsers as not.

I took a brief look at the discussions you linked, and I'm not seeing how JIT (Just-In-Time) drawing would really accomplish anything but confusing people. Imagine someone who finds a truly remarkable variation and then presumes that's what such a graph always looks like. They'd be misled. Then, when they pulled up the page again to win an argument or bet (which is what WP is truly best suited for, IMHO), they'd be confronted with an entirely different graph. No two editors would see the same graph, and no editor would see the same graph on different page loads. Cats and dogs would start getting along. It'd be pandemonium. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:41, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm thinking that we could make a series of images – maybe a few dozen – which are themselves created from randomly generated samples and pick one at random each time. I dream of a world where the lion and the lamb shall lay down together. nagualdesign 20:46, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

That, I could do in a heartbeat. I'm not so sure it's the best idea, but I'm not going to get involved in that. I write code (geospatial code, which means trigonometry and the odd bit of calculus) for a living, therefore I avoid all discussion of mathematics like the plague in my hobbies. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:48, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't really want to make the final decision either, but I'd like to offer this as an option, so it's good to know that it's possible. Not that I doubted you for a moment, of course. nagualdesign 20:58, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

When we're talking about code snippets, digital painting, music or the ability to teach a 14 year old how to field-strip an AK-47, doubting me is a bad idea. (The rest of the time, it's pretty much your safest best.) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:06, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Here's the kind of image I have in mind (right). So the idea is that I'd create perhaps 100 such images (if I can be arsed) from File:ECDF-1.png to File:ECDF-100.png, and you'd create a bit of code so we could write {{#invoke:MjolnirPants|RandomECDF}} or whatever in the article and it would show a different image each time the page was loaded. nagualdesign 21:49, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, like I said, that would not be a problem at all. Just let me know when you're done making the images, and I'll make a function in the module I made to swap them out with each refresh. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:23, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

One thing I've noticed; when I linked to a previous version of your talk page, just refreshing the page is enough to change the text, but I've placed the same code at the bottom of my talk page and I've had to add a purge link to make it change. Refreshing the page does nothing. Ideally, I'd like the image to change automatically. nagualdesign 22:41, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

The following is an educated guess about how the wiki software works: It'll run every time you do a fresh load. With a page, the software is just grabbing data and passing it to the page to fill out, and your browser recognizes that. So if the new data doesn't look different enough, it'll just restore the cached version, which has the "insult" already written to it. But when you're looking at a diff, it's grabbing data from multiple different sources, including the differentials from the earlier edit to the later edit, the current page, and the differential between the current page and the later edit. Even when you go directly to the "page as it was as of this edit" version, it's using the current page plus a differential between the edit in question. So your browser doesn't bother to load the page. Now if you wait a day or so between visits, you'll have overwritten the cache. Or if you follow a link from another page to get to it. Again, this is all an educated guess, there are different ways the wiki software would work, but I know the basics are accurate (they have to be) in that loading a current page is much less complex, and pulls from far fewer tables than loading a diff. I know that using a forced reload regenerates the "insult", so in Firefox, I do Ctrl+F5, and it will show a new version.

I believe there's a trigger somewhere, either in a Lua script, or built into the wiki software that will force a new instance to load whenever you load a page. But I could very well be wrong. I'm just recalling something vague that I remember reading over once. If so, I'll find it and incorporate it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:17, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that all makes sense. Pretty much what I figured. To be honest, it's not really that important how often the image is swapped out. If needs be we can incorporate a in the image caption (although the purge confirmation page is rather ugly).

Back to the images; I decided that making tonnes of images by hand using Photoshop would be too tedious (and I'd learn nothing in the process) so I spent the morning writing a little JavaScript to do the job for me. It produces a 10×10 'sheet' of graphs, which can be copy/pasted into Photoshop and saved as PNG files. Having made the script I thought it would be more useful (more explanatory for the reader) if the graphs were kept as a single image (right). So my question is, instead of randomly selecting an image out of 100 possible images, would you be able to show a single graph chosen at random from the sheet using {{CSS image crop}}? nagualdesign 11:53, 30 January 2018‎ (UTC)

Yes, I believe I could write a Lua script that outputs the necessary text to make the CSS image crop template work. Let me see what my work load looks like today, and if possible, I'll get to it sometime before 6pm (EST). So do we want to do this so that it picks a random graph, every time someone reloads the page? Or possibly put some sort of pattern on it? Hell, I could (much more simply) make an animated GIF out of it, but that wouldn't be nearly as cool. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:24, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Good stuff. I'll leave the finer details up to you, but it would be nice if it loads a new graph at random each time the page is visited. I thought about doing an animated gif but decided against it in the end. nagualdesign 13:57, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

In case you're interested, below is the code I used to generate the graphs. ECDF-0.png is a blank graph with no step function, and grey.png and blue.png are single coloured pixels. nagualdesign 11:53, 30 January 2018‎ (UTC)

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <script>
    function gaussian() {
      // Generate a random number, mean=0, standard deviation=1
      return Math.sqrt(-2*Math.log(Math.random()))*Math.cos((2*Math.PI)*Math.random());    
    }
    function run() {
      // Set number of graphs, samples per graph, number of columns
      var graphs=100, samples=20, columns=10, content='', s=new Array;
      for (set=0; set<graphs; set++) {
        // Generate a set of samples, scaled from -100 to +100
        s=new Array;
        for (sample=0; sample<samples; sample++) s=Math.round(gaussian()*25);
        // Sort samples into ascending order
        s.sort(function(a, b){return a-b});
        // Display blank graph
        var offsetX=(set-(columns*Math.floor(set/columns)))*250, offsetY=Math.floor(set/columns)*250;
        content+='<img src="ECDF-0.png" style="position:absolute; top:'+offsetY+'px; left:'+offsetX+'px; z-index:-1;">';
        for (sample=0; sample<samples; sample++) {
          // Step function 'treads'
          content+='<img src="blue.png" width="'+(1+Math.abs(s-s))+'px" height="1px" ';
          content+='style="position:absolute; top:'+(210+offsetY-((200/samples)*sample))+'px; left:'+(s+139+offsetX)+'px;">';
          // Step function 'risers'
          content+='<img src="blue.png" width="1px" height="'+(200/samples)+'px" ';
          content+='style="position:absolute; top:'+(211+offsetY-((200/samples)*(sample+1)))+'px; left:'+(s+139+offsetX)+'px;">';
          // Display samples
          content+='<img src="grey.png" width="1px" height="9px" ';
          content+='style="position:absolute; top:'+(201+offsetY)+'px; left:'+(s+139+offsetX)+'px;">';
        }
      }
      document.body.innerHTML=content;
    }
  </script>
</head>
<body onLoad="run();">
</body>
</html>

Result

@Nagualdesign: So what do you think of this? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:40, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Bloody brilliant. I wonder if we can make the purge a little more user-friendly? nagualdesign 15:45, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure how. Maybe @RexxS: would know. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:51, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Not sure what happened then but a moment ago the map was missing. It was a plain white square. nagualdesign 15:53, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I noticed that, as well. It's my fault, because I need to give it a 0-9 range, instead of a 1-10 range. I'll fix it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:56, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I've tested it in Chrome, where you can emulate iPhones and wotnot, and it looks good. It's making me giggle, playing with it. I love it when a finished bit of code works. I should point out as well that on the Empirical distribution function article this will be at the top, so purging the page won't be nearly as jarring. nagualdesign 16:00, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I can't wait any longer, I'm too excited. I'm going to shove it in... nagualdesign 16:02, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

...Oooh, yeah. That's so good! nagualdesign 16:05, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Were you listening at my bedroom door last night?! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:07, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Hehe. I can't tell you how satisfying that is. The graph, I mean. You know, this may be a first for Misplaced Pages. I don't know of any other interactive sort of widgets within article space. It opens up a lot of other possibilities too. I just hope somebody doesn't come along and say, "Stop! You're not allowed to do that."

Well, I hope you're as pleased as I am with it. I'm going to go and eat now. Thanks a lot for sorting that out. I'll probably be back here later. Cheers, big ears. nagualdesign 16:27, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I can't tell you how satisfying that is. You were listening in last night! That's exactly what my wife said...

Thanks a lot for sorting that out. I'll probably be back here later. Cheers, big ears. Yup, she said exactly that, too.

Not a problem. I think it's pretty fun, too. Hopefully, as I get better with Lua, we can figure out new uses that can make even more interesting features to use. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:31, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Now she sounds like a keeper. I like a woman who's grateful.

In return for your efforts you might like this little code snippet that I'm using on my user page. It shows the Picture of the Day nice and big, and you can click on the date to purge the cache each day. Works like a charm. nagualdesign 16:38, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

]'''<br /><sup>{{purge|{{date}}}}</sup>}}}}{{POTD/{{#time:Y-m-d}}|caption}}]]

I've seen that on your page. It's definitely cool, but I want to do something unique on my page. I was thinking maybe a random image thing like Bishonen has in her talk page edit notice (it changes once per day), or a link to a page from a list I'd compile with the infobox image shown next to it. I'm not sure yet, but I want it to be truly unique. Someone nobody has yet, though of course people would be free to steal and use it to their heart's content. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:54, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

You could Photoshop a picture of Adolf Hitler riding a dolphin, with the word Adolfin underneath in pink furry letters. That'd be unique. nagualdesign 17:10, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I already did that on /b/. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:12, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the MediaWiki software was changed some time ago so that any purge originating from within the Wikitext is trapped and redirected through that crummy confirmation page. You can purge without confirmation if you use a gadget (which operates outside of the normal page content), like the personal toolbar clock/purge, but that's the best I've been able to do, sorry. --RexxS (talk) 18:12, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I've got the automatic confirmation script installed. It was our readers that I was hoping to make things more seamless for. It'd be great if they could just click the link and the graph changed, but it's not terribly important. Thanks for the response though. nagualdesign 18:45, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

(In response to this comment by nagualdesign.)  I can do something similar with the Lua, if you run across another situation that could use this widget. Make so you pass arguments into the function call to specify the size of the crop area and the width and height of the original image. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:37, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

It took me a minute to work out what you meant. Yeah, if we ever find another use for the script it would be good to generalize the code. I'll bear that in mind. Cheers. nagualdesign 17:17, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

3 things....

1. You never cease to amaze me. How did you get that banner in the edit mode of your TP. I'd love to add a funny banner to my TP, but don't have a clue how to do it.
2. May I borrow your DS notice for my page, too? Brilliant idea!!
3. Will you advise as to what I should do next about the violative and highly defamatory list of unsubstantiated allegations that makes National Enquirer look like the NYTimes. What most don't realize about me is that when I'm writing/reviewing I enter "the focus zone" (aka tunnel vision) which acts like a barrier to my own opinions and forces a central focus on context, semantics and syntax with the occasional break to check sources to corroborate the material. I have a consistent pattern that I follow with regards to the lede, its contents, how the sections should be laid out and so forth. It's actually quite mechanical. The problem with such a focus is that once I'm out of it, I can't remember a damn thing I wrote - only the pattern remains in memory - which may explain why I'm the slowest reviewer on the project. Same thing happens when I'm striper fishing - intense, highly focused - once the fish is caught, into the cooler it goes, and I'm back trying to catch the next one. When done, I have to count how many fish & what species I caught so I don't get in trouble with the game warden. 🎣🚨 I love it because it's an escape. Annnnnyway...back on point...considering the sensitivity of the policy issues and level of scrutiny required for that particular article or whatever it is, should I take it to AN for review? It's such a controversial topic, I feel like I'm wade-fishing in the surf unaware that Jaws is circling my stringer. 17:30, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

what I should do next May I suggest dropping the stick? You tried to CSD this; refused. You tried to AfD it; no consensus. You tried to get the closer to change his mind: refused. Throughout all of this you have repeated, over and over and over, your fixed beliefs about this dossier and this investigation and this whole subject; you have not convinced anyone or found consensus to agree with you. I'd say you have only one option if you refuse to drop the stick: what Sandstein suggested, a merge discussion at the talk page. There were a number of people who were open to that option at the AfD. IMO if you take it to DRV, or worse yet AN, you could be going over the edge into disruptive behavior. WP:BOOMERANG is always a danger at AN. (As usual, I'm not commenting as an admin, just another editor - and this is not a warning, just advice.) --MelanieN (talk) 17:58, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, probably good advice, MelanieN. 18:07, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

1. You have to create the edit notice. On the page you want the notice to appear, go to the address bar of your browser and add "/Editnotice" to the address of the page (so mine is at User talk:MjolnirPants/Editnotice). Create that page, and use the {{Editnotice}} template to make the notice. That should do it!
2. Absolutely. You can see the full code I used in this diff.
3. I don't think AN is the way to go. Possibly posting about it at WP:BLPN, as attack pages fall under the purview of the BLP restrictions. The problem is that consensus overrides policy because consensus not only dictates policy, but dictates how policy is interpreted. So if the consensus at the AfD holds true for participants at BLPN, then there's really nothing more to do.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that Trump isn't trustworthy. The allegations range from the mundane and utterly believable, such as the allegations that Manafort was getting a kickback from a Russian general; to the lurid, such as Trump hiring prostitutes to pee on a bed Obama once slept in; to the serious yet credible, such as the Trump campaign working with the Russians on the DNC hack. Trump's denials to the allegations about the golden shower are believable taken in a vacuum, but the fact that he denies having any flaws on a regular basis undermines even those. I mean, he denies having any flaws, even when the denial is so ridiculous that not even his most devout fan would believe it. Does anyone believe he's the healthiest president, ever? Healthier than JFK when he took office? No, that's preposterous. Right now, there are only two logically sound reasons to disbelieve the allegations; Trump's denials and the incredulity of some of them. Well, one of those reasons only applies to part of the list, and the other is just a shitty (if sound) reason to disbelieve. It's akin to believing that your spouse is still faithful because they refuse to admit cheating on you, despite you catching them in the act. Sure, it's a legitimate reason, but it's hardly a convincing one.

While Trump won the election, he lost the popular vote. Trump has the lowest average approval rating, and the lowest one-time approval rating of any president since Nixon. Trump is absolutely loathed by much of the public (for good reason, IMHO), and that means Trump is absolutely loathed by much of WPs editor base. Right now, with Trump being a current issue, there is literally no way to separate public opinion of him from the coverage he gets in this project. It's simply impossible for human beings to be totally objective about this sort of stuff, no matter how hard we try. So my prediction is that the article will remain, no matter what you do with it.

I don't advise going to the drama boards with it because doing so would be an accusation against the major editors of that page, and such a broad-ranging accusation, based entirely upon an interpretation of some of their edits that is not shared by the wider community and which relies upon the assumption of bad faith (that it was intended to be an attack page rather than simply ending up as a de-facto one) is going to come across as disruptive. In short, taking it to AN or ANI is, IMHO, far more likely to result in a boomerang than any help getting rid of it.

I don't really have any direct advice as to what to do with the page, beyond starting a thread at BLPN as I mentioned above. Even that is likely to degenerate along political lines, but it's worth a shot. Past that, there's really nothing to do but wait until Trump's out of office and a Democrat is in office, then revisit the issue with a well-written AfD nomination. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:15, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• @MelanieN: To be fair, I... Let's say I have a very dim view of Trump. But even I think that the article looks like an attack page. It's clear that there's no consensus to delete it, but I'd say that it's also clear that the page is problematic. Though, to be fair to the other side, it's distinctly possible that the page could be edited into a neutral state. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:18, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Personally I have always been open to (and at first I thought this was the proposal) a detailed list of the allegations, with or without the "confirmation" and "debunking" notations, in the main article under a show/hide cloak. The article has always been deficient and incomplete because it had almost no coverage of the actual content. Then there could be a very general summary of the allegations in the article itself. And I do hope that going forward we can discuss this calmly, not throw around acronyms and accuse each other of stuff, not indulge in over-the-top language like "violative and highly defamatory list of unsubstantiated allegations that makes National Enquirer look like the NYTimes," but simply focus on what ought to be in the article. --MelanieN (talk) 19:02, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

A dry summary of the allegations (devoid of commentary or denials) under a hat in the main article would, IMHO be the best way to treat it. Hell, if we put it near the bottom of the article, we wouldn't even need a hat. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:17, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Butting in here. I hadn't known about that page. Fascinating AfD. Without being deeply involved in the debate, but being generally familiar with the subject matter, I agree with Melanie's approach. It would allow this highly noteworthy and thoroughly covered material to be examined in detail while respecting BLP. Neutrality problems can almost always be addressed without resorting to mass deletion or WP:TNT. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:22, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Just one problem with that position, DrFleischman - WP:BALANCE states (my bold underline): The idea expressed in meta:Eventualism—that every Misplaced Pages article is a work in progress, and that it is therefore okay for an article to be temporarily unbalanced because it will eventually be brought into shape—does not apply to biographies. Given their potential impact on biography subjects' lives, biographies must be fair to their subjects at all times. 00:10, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

The logical corollary to that is that if you think a biography is non-neutral, you should immediately blank the entire thing. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:22, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

I tried, but... 00:34, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

That article's not a biography, Atsme. I agree with you that it's well past NPOV, but it's not a biography at all. It's not even about Trump, it's about a dossier that's about Trump. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:05, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Not technically but it is about a living person and the same policy applies, specifically: "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Misplaced Pages page." 04:07, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely BLP applies, just as it does to articles like Pizzagate conspiracy theory. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:01, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I didn't say BLP DS didn't apply, I only said that this wasn't a biography. Biographies are the focus of WP:BLP, and while the BLP DS restrictions apply everywhere, that doesn't mean (or even suggest) that every part of the page WP:BLP applies to every article in the exact same way, no matter the subject of the article or the text. Again, the subject of this article is the dossier; not a living person. That the dossier contains negative claims about Trump is not something we can do anything about. We can't write about the dossier at all if we take such an iron-clad view of BLP as to prohibit us from discussing the allegations in the dossier. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:09, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Ok I'm with you. I think we had a little three-way misunderstanding going on. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:21, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, it's not actually about the "dossier" - it's about unsubstantiated allegations, aka conspiracy theories compiled in a collection of unverified memos to harm a BLP for political reasons - doesn't matter if they are included in a biography or anywhere else on WP. Not quite sure how it relates to PizzaGate except for the fact the article Pizzagate conspiracy theory actually identifies the fake news and fallacious conspiracy theories for what they are, but the same is not happening with the Steele dossier's conspiracy theories. And the reason for that is.....?????? 23:46, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, it's not actually about the "dossier" That's true. It's about certain contents of the dossier. And I agree (for the most part) with your characterization of those contents as conspiracy theory-esque.

Pizzagate conspiracy theory actually identifies the fake news and fallacious conspiracy theories for what they are, but the same is not happening with the Steele dossier's conspiracy theories. And the reason for that is.....?????? Because the RSes don't do so. I know it's trite, but that's it right there. With Pizzagate, there's no question in the sources about whether it's a CS. With this dossier, the most vocally anti-Trump RSes are remaining quiet about the likelihood of many of the allegations being false, and are only discussing those allegations which are likely true (not many of them, but some). Meanwhile, the pro-Trump RSes are reluctant to discuss the dossier in-depth because some of those allegations do seem likely to be true, and the apathetic RSes are basically not having to do anything except enjoy the show. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:32, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Not trite at all, MP - and just want to say thank you for participating in this discussion and providing valuable input. It actually demonstrates one of the reasons I absolutely appreciate and respect your views. It is not my intent to beat a dead horse but we are so close to identifying a recurring problem that plagues our encyclopedia, it would be remiss of me to ignore it.

What the sources actually report as factual, verifiable information is what editors should be gleaning from the article, not cherrypicking an author's spin or the opinions of journalists (unless cited using in-text attribution in the WP article). What we're seeing more of rather than less of is weighted editorial judgment that reflects an editor's POV. What WP needs now more than ever before and expects is unbiased editorial judgment, an obligation of all editors, most importantly as it applies to BLP policy. I'm not saying that my career experiences give me any advantage as a retired volunteer over any other editor who volunteers. Read what others are saying, less the spin & biased editorializing they do via the use of trigger words: Wired, and this WaPo blog that I agree with 99.9%, and what we're doing now supports it. I don't think it's fair and reasonable to shutdown conversations when a "no consensus" decision has been reached. Of course, those who prevailed in the decision want it shutdown but that isn't how our encyclopedia is supposed to work. The goal is NPOV, and as long as consensus is not clear on such an important topic, it needs continuing discussion.

I've provided 3 updated RS that will help demonstrate my point by demonstrating how the actual facts in these articles provided have been given less weight than the author's opinions. Some of our articles give the facts far less weight than the author's conspiracy theories, and I am quite convinced that isn't the result WP intended when advising editors to use good editorial judgment. Try to give more weight to anecdotal reports and/or conspiracy theories in a medical or scientific article and you're likely to find yourself under heavy fire by the respective project team and possibly even blocked or banned from the project. There is absolutely no reason that I can see for that same dynamic to not apply to all of our articles. (I am a big fan and admirer of Project Med, although it was a rocky start because of misinterpretations and preconceived notions). Anyway, read the following articles and pretend the topic is your favorite politician: (note - while the style is informal, the refs are cited nonetheless)

• VOX
• - The Atlantic (note trigger terms like "feeds his sense of paranoia" which is typical spin & opinion). As we are now learning, any sense of paranoia he may have had was justified. The FBI appears to have been used as a political machine, most recently in 2013 when journalists came under fire and the AP and Rosen were investigated. Notice how the Rosen section was treated in 2013_Department_of_Justice_investigations_of_reporters and how the Bush & Nixon administrations were dissed - poor editorial judgment in my view.
• CNN with the headline "Trump is right about the FBI (opinion)" - but before it's dismissed, take a look at all the other opinion pieces that have been used and defended because they met a particular POV, rather than as a corroboration of facts.
• New Yorker - of particular note "After the election, according to the Washington Post, the Bureau agreed to pay Steele to do some more research, but that agreement was cancelled after BuzzFeed published the dossier."

I'm of the mind that if proper editorial judgment is applied in strict accordance with our PAGs, we would be seeing a much different and compliant NPOV VS what we're seeing overall now in WP. If editors truly believe they are in strict compliance, then we need to re-evaluate the ambiguities in our policies to determine what is causing this to happen. 16:18, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

With regards to this article, I agree that it's important for us to read through the spin and focus on the facts. Our usual practice of reading the context and overall message of a source, and using that to inform how we treat the contents of that source is hurting this page, because it's introducing a one-sided bias.

But (and this is a big but) that's not always the case, because most of our articles don't have the laser-specific focus of this one. This one is about the allegations which are found within the contents of a specific dossier. This article is a list article, and as such, doesn't require any analysis. But the vast majority of our other articles aren't lists, and as such, do require some analysis. That analysis certainly can't come from us editors, so where do we get it from? The only viable answer is the RSes themselves.

Part of the issue these days is the disproportionate effect the rise of fake news has had on the two traditionally dominant political views in America; Liberals and Conservatives. Conservatives got hit hard by fake news; it even infected otherwise reliable sources like Fox News, leaving only a few reputable Conservative outlets with a broad consumer base, such as the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, only the furthest fringes of the Liberal press were similarly affected, with outright falsehoods and refusals to fact check prior to publications tapering off and all but vanishing before reaching the mainstream. This has tended to slant the entire narrative to the liberal end to anyone who cares more about facts and truth than political ideologies. And of course, this is all to the smug satisfaction of many liberals.

As a result of that shift, we have far fewer reliable sources with a clear conservative view. Honestly, I don't think there's anything we can do about that, at least not without making things here on WP far worse. Every proposal I've ever seen boiled down to giving unreliable sources more (or at best, equal) weight than reliable sources. And honestly, I don't see any other way to address it.

Of course, I think that it's less of a problem than a conservative editor would, though I think you'd be surprised as to why. It's not because I have a liberal point of view myself, it's rather for the same reason I have a liberal point of view. The march of history, reflected in the lens of politics has been an unsteady but inexorable march to the left. Views that were extraordinarily common and perfectly acceptable a hundred years ago are now considered extreme right-wing views. Views that are extraordinarily common and perfectly acceptable now were considered extreme left-wing views a hundred years ago.

So I'm not even close to being convinced that a slight bias to the left is a bad thing. There's a reason the more moderate liberal contingent is generally called "progressive".

But getting back to the subject of discussion, I think the way forward with this article is to challenge the necessity of that analysis that exists within it. We don't really need to see Trump's denials, or to read what the pundits think about each allegation. I think just a dry list of the allegations, with no context, details, analysis or rebuttals would be the most neutral state of the article. Conveniently, it would also make it much easier to argue that it can be merged into the main article, once it's in that state. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:13, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

I disagree fundamentally with the premise of Atsme's argument. The premise here is that these types of sources are laced with biased statements that should be discounted as unreliable opinions rather than reliable facts. It's certainly true that reliability is determined on a fact-by-fact basis, and a news article can be reliable for some content and unreliable for other content. However by and large, the non-opinion sources have been extensively fact-checked by experienced, professional editors and are mostly or entirely reliable. You think editors aren't concerned about their stories being discredited or described as showing a liberal media bias? Think again. We as a community must use the argument that "such-and-such article is reliable but such-and-such statement in it is unreliable opinion" extremely sparingly, or we will basically blow up all of our current events content. Our current events articles necessarily reflect the underlying biases of the sources they rely on. It's baked right into our verifiability policy and it's neither practical nor possible to change this. We are not the Arbiters of Truth. We are merely messengers with copy editing skills. I'd suggest Atsme scale down their expectations of Misplaced Pages accordingly. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:05, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

That's right. For the vast majority of our articles, we should not be cherry picking parts of reliable source which we feel are unreliable. I was agreeing only that all analysis should be discarded for this laser-focused list article; not for being biased, as Atsme says, but for being useless. List articles should not contain much in the way of prose or anything in the way of analysis, except for the bare minimum necessary. In this case, I don't think any analysis is necessary, and the only prose necessary should be a prosaic description of each allegation. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:12, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Before you pour the concrete and solidify that thought in your head, you might want to read the following factual content: Daily Beast, The Hill, WaTimes, WaPo, WaPo again, and as a wrap-up, Time which states: "The New York Times reported the GOP memo also claims that the FISA warrant was improper because it relied on information from former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, author of a notorious but unsubstantiated dossier about Trump’s alleged ties to Russia." My point is that we are supposed to report what RS say, right? I'm not seeing any of this, are you? 19:15, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Well, okay. Let's say that we write what any RS says without taking the broader consensus of RSes or matters of due weight into account. That means that we're going to be contradicting ourselves whenever the sources contradict each other. It means we will be calling Trump a "piece of shit", as an RS did. We will also call him "racist" as numerous RSes have. We will refer to Breitbart as "trash" as numerous RSes have. Do you see what I'm getting at? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:24, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Atsme, I don't understand what you're getting at. Which article is missing this content? Because the Nunes memo isn't a reliable source, it seems most relevant to Nunes memo. Nunes memo does in fact include this content, though it doesn't use the words "notorious" or "unsubstantiated." I do think the word "unsubstantiated" would be appropriate. And btw I think that article has serious neutrality problems. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:38, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

RS will include the facts, so again, competent editorial discretion is required to sift out the facts from asshat opinions and unsubstantiated allegations that are pure bullhonkey. The fact in the quote I cited is that Christopher Steele is the "author of a notorious but unsubstantiated dossier about Trump’s alleged ties to Russia." That does not mean our article should weigh heavily on how great Steele is by digging into his past and painting a superfluous image of him. That is where UNDUE and BALANCE are important - it also works the same in reverse...and that is what we call NPOV. We can wikilink to the BLP of Steele, but the article about the dossier should not be weighted to influence our readers that Steele is a highly credible author because he used to be a former British spy. His dossier comprises memos from unidentified Russian contacts, so are we supposed to "assume" his Russian contacts are credible and that the Russians allegedly involved with Trump are not? The New Yorker quoted Simpson, “What people call the dossier is not really a dossier,” Simpson said. “It’s a collection of field memoranda, of field interviews, a collection that accumulates over a period of months... In other words, it's anecdotal, which is common in opposition research. Such research is only credible when it states verifiable facts that are supported by credible documentation and corroborated by other credible sources, not rumors or conspiracy theories. Ok, I'm done. I've got to get my thoughts focused on The Sign Post article that's about to hit. 20:00, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

...unsubstantiated allegations that are pure bullhonkey... See, here's the rub. You and I agree (and probably a lot more people) that some of the allegations in that dossier are as you describe. But I'll bet you an entire week's pay (and I have a pretty good paying job, these days) that we disagree about others. This -even rephrased in a neutral and academic way- cannot possibly be a standard, because it's subject to such wildly different interpretations between editors. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:38, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Atsme, it sounds like you have a real and reasonable argument to make about that specific issue; it doesn't seem like something that can be generalized as being about sifting through sources to separate the reliable facts from the asshat opinions and unsubstantiated allegations. It's about sifting through the content, determining which ones are verifiable, and and deciding which ones are relevant and which ones are cherry-picked or out of scope. This must be done on a case-by-case basis and it's exactly what the editorial and consensus-building process is made for. It's not a "problem" that can or should be fixed with policy changes. All we can do is go forth, get our hands dirty, and not be afraid to make our cases. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:44, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Recent interest in Biblical matters

I just was pinged elsewhere regarding a matter relating to the Bible in which you involved yourself, and that it explained to an extent your recent involvement. FWIW, I made my comment about the anachronistic title of the article after seeing a noticeboard discussion in which the anachronism was prominently visible. I actually didn't even look at the discussion particularly deeply, so I don't remember who all was involved, but I have noticed that anachronisms and attempts to apply modern standards to older thinking is something that happens here a !of, rather easily. Unfortunately, they can be a bitch to find and substantiate. Anyway, thanks for your efforts there. John Carter (talk) 23:36, 30 January 2018 (UTC) John Carter (talk) 23:36, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I have been editing bible-related and Jesus-related pages for several years now. Bear in mind that we can't adopt the mindset of authors who wrote hundreds of years ago; we have no perspective from which to do so. Also that Misplaced Pages is a modern resource. So while I've seen the same thing you speak of a number of times, I'm not convinced that it's a problem, per se. It certainly can be problematic. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:48, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

The two that come to mind most quickly to me are the reaction to the Catholic sex abuse scandal which seems to include the more extreme reaction to sex with teenagers which wasn't frowned on as severely during the 50s and 60s when many of the incidents occurred and.believe it or not a current discussion regarding plagarism by Ellen White. Like I said on the talk page of that article, I've in some cases come to think that ethics are determined by the always-changing current laws, which can make things a bit of a mess. John Carter (talk) 00:00, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Verses missing in modern Bibles

	Verses missing in modern Bibles
	You deleted a couple of long paragraphs while I was in the very midst of adding half a dozen source citations. I am not going to fight about this article. It's all yours. But please don't let it lie dormant. // Sussmanbern Sussmanbern (talk) 20:43, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

@Sussmanbern: If you felt the information was accurate and you have sources to add to back that up, then by all means revert me and have at it! I just assumed you reverted me because I didn't give an edit summary. I guess I'm proving again what happens when one assumes. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:52, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I had, if you notice the Talk section associated with the Verses Missing article, rather recently gotten myself into a self-destructive argument, having lost my temper with another person who erased my stuff while I was adding source citations to it. I probably should figure out how to do that in the sandbox but I got into this bad habit, and then I get upset when my work disappears while I am trying to improve on it. However, I have accumulated a nice big box full of articles and portions of books relating to the ending of Mark and if you want, I can mail that stuff to you and you can enlarge on this article. This article was a mere skeleton for about five years, and I am trying to put a little flesh on it. I probably will throw in the sponge when I am done with the ending of Mark, and then other people can have fun filling out the rest of it. Sussmanbern (talk) 21:55, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind it if you emailed me the stuff, and I wouldn't be adverse to summarizing some of it for the article, if you need help. I saw some of the drama around the spot of trouble you found, and so long as everyone's past it, it shouldn't be an issue. Like I said; if you can support the added content with reliable sources, then feel free to revert me and do so. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:05, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Can't email a box of articles and xeroxed pages, could send it Fed-Ex or snail mail. I collected quite a bit just on the last chapter of Mark and will be adding to just that subsection, probably one sentence with source cites per day for a while. I just live in dread of someone, anyone, undoing what it has taken me so much effort to do. Reminds me of a scene in the original movie of Planet of the Apes. Assuming I finish the subsection without losing my tiny mind, it should be very informative. I am a retired librarian and, frankly, contributing to Misplaced Pages is one of the few amusements left to me. Sussmanbern (talk) 22:56, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm not giving out my mailing address to anyone on WP, so no thanks. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:24, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Edit and edit summary don't match

Take a look here. A ref had been "added", not removed, but you said it was removed. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:14, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: Huh. You're right. Fixed. I must have been rather distracted to confuse the blue on the right for yellow on the left. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:20, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Sexism

Uh, nice welcome message. Not a "pithy, witty remark" - came to ask if you can access the source. --NeilN 17:20, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

@NeilN: It's supposed to be rude and uncouth. The number of people complaining here about stuff that ought to be said on talk pages has diminished since I put it up, the number of people coming here just to whine about something has been diminished and the number of people using my trout button over content disputes has been reduced to zero. Of course, typical WP business is exempt, and I think it's about time I mentioned that in the notice.

As for the source: it's a fail for me, as well. Checking the wayback machine turns up this link to the file. (i'm going to fix another reference to this, at Disparate impact) If you read that, you can see that the claim in the article is only barely supported by the source: Yes, the source states that disparity is not prima facia evidence of discrimination, but doesn't support the claim that the doctrine of disparate impact is controversial (tt is, in fact, though the controversy swirls around theoretical problems, and the actual use has been fairly uncontroversial thus far), that direct evidence of discrimination would make a case for it (though I think that might fall under WP:SKYBLUE) nor that it is "imperative" to point out the difference.

As I said, the whole thing reads like the beginnings of a POV push. I thin kyou hit the nail on the head with your reference to WP:COATRACK. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:38, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

This makes my head hurt. Give me secondary sources any day. --NeilN 17:47, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

@NeilN: I just fixed the link above, sorry I didn't notice it was broken before. And yes, I agree that this is too controversial an edit for a primary source. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:08, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

FWIW here is a copy of the same document. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:02, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I actually found the Scribd link first (by just googling the document name), but there's no guarantees that a document on scribd hasn't been altered before being uploaded, so I checked the wayback to see if they'd archived one. We can trust wayback more than we can trust a random scribd user. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:37, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

No you didn't, I found it first! I found it before anyone. ...Okay, I'll get my coat. nagualdesign 01:22, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Oh that's it! It's on, now!! Arm thyself, knave! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:08, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Modification seems highly unlikely, but if you want the greatest reassurance that it's accurate then I can access the court docket (behind paywall at pacer.gov) and confirm for you. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:36, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree, it's just not impossible. But the link I gave in my response above is the document, hosted on the government website, which is plenty enough assurance. I appreciate the offer, though! I'll bear your access in mind if I need to access court docs in the future. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:09, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

February 14th

	Happy Valentine's Day!
	It wasn't easy to come up with an innocuous Valentine's Day greeting to share with collaborators on Misplaced Pages, so I went with "evolutionary". Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy. ~Henry Kissinger 13:19, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

That is an amazing quote which I will be stealing and using prolifically. I'll respond with my wife's favorite tongue-in-cheek well-wishes: Happy VD!! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:24, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Systemic bias

Re: this, I understand. Mine was really a somewhat underhand remark about how we tie ourselves in knots to such an extent that, even in trying to educate and "do good", we sometimes do not educate and perhaps fail to "do good". It was just a fly-by, generalised comment regarding the inherent hypocrisy of this place. And, yes, I am a part of that hypocrisy.

I wouldn't have commented at all if it were not for the interesting - and new to me - explanation of why the situation might have developed as it did. A theory, no more. It's no big deal, although I am grateful for your reasoned response because it provided a contrast to the dogmatic response offered by someone else there (not Drmies). - Sitush (talk) 00:33, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

@Sitush: I found it all rather interesting as well, including your comment. It was certainly nothing that had occurred to me before reading where you said it, and as I said, I actually agree with it. I don't necessarily think that an indef block was the best route, coming as it is from our predominantly Western view of racism and stereotyping. That being said, I'm not entirely convinced it's not the best route, either. Anyways, it's something to bear in mind the next time a discussion concerning WP's systemic biases comes up. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:37, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Had a final warning not been placed beforehand, I would've probably indeffed the editor for telling an IP to "go kill yourself". --NeilN 01:44, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

I hadn't seen that. I was uninvolved except for reading the ANI thread, so there's probably quite a bit more to it than I'm aware. I do think Sitush raises an interesting point, though it's appearing less and less likely that it's a mitigating factor, this time. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:03, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Watchlist layout

I thought this might interest you. nagualdesign 20:48, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

I tried it out, and it doesn't make any difference on my watchlist. I think I might have my prefs for it set up differently than yours, though I might give it a shot after changing prefs. I appreciate the heads up! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:38, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Ah.. It's only intended for use when you have Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist ticked, making the layout more like it is when you have that option unticked but retaining the groupings. Good to know that it does nothing when you have it set up differently, rather than it having unintended effects. The reason I thought of you was because I feel like I owe you a bit of code, and after 4 hours of fiddling I finally got this little hack working exactly as I wanted. nagualdesign 18:05, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Well, you don't owe me anything, but as I said, it's appreciated nonetheless. I'm going to check that option and take a look at your changes now and see if I like them. I probably will. And I've already tried it out while typing here and I think I'll keep it. So thanks again! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:54, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

After leaving you the message above I went back to the village pump and saw the message TheDJ left for me, and I've spent the last hour or so reading about the differences between replaceChild and innerHTML. I've had no formal training in JavaScript, so I tend to make mistakes I'm unaware of now and then. From what I've been reading though, it seems like using innerHTML is fine. Although technically speaking it's a property rather than a method, it is used as a method in the way that I'm using it. I've created entire online shops in the past that rely heavily on using innerHTML without any issues. I have a feeling that TheDJ may have received formal training in the early 2000s or earlier, before it was fully endorsed by the W3C and supported by all the major browsers. What do you reckon? nagualdesign 19:46, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Actually, the only method you're using wrt the innerHTML itself is the .Replace() method you call once on line 5, which is a method belonging to the string objects in JS (and a number of other languages). The rest of the use of innerHTML looks pretty property-like to me, what with the assignment operator (=) being used on it and all.

Getting a bit less pedantic, I've seen plenty of JS that uses innerHTML to alter child elements. One could argue that it's a bit hacky, because there are dedicated methods and properties for that, but the truth is that both of the following will JIT compile the same way (AFAIK), assuming that newChild is a TextNode with the contents "MjolnirPants gets way too geeky about this stuff" and it's the only text inside the item element:

item.replaceChild(newChild, item.childNodes);

item.innerHTML = 'MjolnirPants gets way too geeky about this stuff';

At the end of the day, the only two things that matter are that your code works and that other coders can read it. You've nailed both of those quite well as far as I can see, so you're doing a bang up job. If I were to make one criticism, it would not even really be a criticism, but a personal preference tip: Whenever you write code that will be used by a large number of people without compiling, it can be very helpful to comment every single statement, or close enough to it. See this for an example of source code I'm working on now that's going to be shared with others. And again; that's a preference thing. I've given shit to some guys who've given me code without enough comments, but that was code where it wasn't clear what was going on, what with a jumble of custom classes and so on. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:17, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback. Everything you've written here makes perfect sense. I realize that I don't use enough comments – something I'm working on improving, not so much so that other people can read my code but so that I can make sense of it quickly months or years down the line. nagualdesign 20:49, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

...not so much so that other people can read my code but so that I can make sense of it quickly months or years down the line. I don't want to condescend at all, but that's exactly the reason every experienced programmer I know finally got into the habit of commenting their code "properly". Without fail, every single one of us got our degrees and started programming like "Dude! I'll just read the fucking code if I want to know what the code does." (said in a voice that's halfway between Thomas Chong and Michelangelo from the Ninja Turtles) and it's not until a few months or a few years later that we get sick of constantly flipping between pages trying to track down what the ever loving fuck oDBAcTempTyp is and what the shit that thing is doing with an .OpenServerConnection() method that takes a single Int argument for some godforsaken reason, and why in the name of all that's holy do -1, 0 and 1 all give bizarre "out of bounds" exceptions until we want to go back in time and sodomize our earlier selves to death with a sandpaper dildo. As a matter of fact, I am working with some rather poorly documented code at the moment, how did you know? And no, it's not me who wrote it... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:28, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

One more thing: I didn't say this, but the single comment outlining the purpose of the function as you did is usually plenty. For code for which I'm going to be the only one editing in the future, or for which I know any future coders will be intimately familiar with, I usually do it about like that. I don't want to give the impression that I'm saying you didn't have enough, only that I'm saying "if it were me, I'd have done more, but I understand I'm a bit of a stickler for that sort of thing." ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:05, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I totally get what you're saying. I was going to write it like this:

// Remove whitespace from watchlist margin
if (wgPageName=="Special:Watchlist") {
  var wlm=document.querySelectorAll("td.mw-enhanced-rc");
  for (var i=0; i<wlm.length; i++) {
    // Remove spaces
    var wlmHTML=wlm.innerHTML.replace(/&nbsp;/g, ""), wlmChar=wlmHTML.substr(wlmHTML.length-3,1);
    if ((wlmHTML.length>5) && (wlmChar==":")) { // Move timestamp to beginning 
      wlm.innerHTML=wlmHTML.substr(wlmHTML.length-5,5)+"&nbsp;"+wlmHTML.substr(0,wlmHTML.length-5)+"&#x202F;"; }
    else wlm.innerHTML=wlmHTML+"&nbsp;" }}

which is why the second if statement uses curly brackets instead of being a single line, but I decided it "looked cleaner" without the additional comments (a silly rationale, I know). nagualdesign 01:25, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

...In fact, I'm going to add the /* Move timestamp to beginning */ since the reason for that line isn't entirely obvious. nagualdesign 01:29, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

You know you can single-line comment JS, right? It's not like CSS. Check out what I did to the example, above. It probably doesn't matter when you're writing something as intricate as your script, where you spend more time tracing out the lines of logic in your head than typing, but when you're banging out 3000 lines of a-monkey-could-write-this code, those //comments are a life saver over the /* comments */. To this day; every time I double space an edit on WP I instinctively start the next line down with //, out of pure force of habit.

a silly rationale, I know Actually, I don't think it's silly at all. When I'm finished with code, I frequently go back and do a lot of work formatting, adding and removing comments to make it all look as neat as possible. It really does make a difference later on, at least to me. If it "looks cleaner", I'll have less trouble quickly getting a handle on what's going on with it, later on. Also, I think the extra effort I put into the comments helps make recognizing my thought process at the time easier. You may call me an anal-retentive geek about it, but I use all of the different commenting and formatting options; line comments, block comments, collapsible regions, extra line breaks (I use single-, double-, triple- and occasionally even quadruple-line spacing), XML for the debugger, etc. I've got one page at work where, at the end, I counted 11 commented or blank lines for every line of code. (And promptly felt like a complete idiot until I had to dig back into it 7 months later.) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:34, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

That's weird, I almost always do single-line comments (using //). I think what's happened is that I've copy/pasted a lot of the contents of my common.js, then when I've made amendments and additions I've just copied the style without thinking! I'll change that...

One more question (he said in the voice of Peter Falk); what does === mean? I understand when to use one and when to use two, but I never did understand when and why you'd use three equals signs. If you look in my common.js it's used in the Automate purge confirmation dialog (which I didn't write). nagualdesign 04:04, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

It's a type-dependent equality. So while (42 == '42') returns true, (42 === '42') returns false, because they're different types. JS is actually a very well-written language for working with strings, thanks to automatic and implicit type conversion and string representations of almost everything. A friend of mine has an idea for what he calls a JSL block, where JSL stands for JavaScript-Like. He wants to write a library that lets you dedicate a block of code in C++ or C# to be handled like JS, to make working with complex strings easier. I don't think it's such a hot idea myself (I actually like the constraints of most C-types), but he's got a few people telling him it's genius. Of course, those are all the sorts of people who use regular expressions so god only knows what the hell is wrong with them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:38, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I see. Cheers for that. While I was searching for comparisons of replaceChild and innerHTML I stumbled across this video, which you might find amusing: wat nagualdesign 19:59, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

LOL ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:05, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I swear to god my username on the next site that has permissive username standards will be Array(16).join("wat" - 1) + "Batman!" ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:09, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Closing discussions

Re this - Just because you want the last word doesn't mean you necessarily get the last word. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

• User pages with script errors
• Wikipedians with red-linked categories on their user talk page
• Wikipedians who get all POV on others, 'cause it's funny
• Atheistic/humanistic "scientific" preachers
• People paid by Big Pharma/Big Government/Big Science/Big Skepticism/Big Atheism to shill
• Wikipedians who are secretly one of "Them"
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