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ping again

Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory

Wikipedia_talk:Featured_list_candidates#dts_and_dts2:_request_for_consensus

Hi please weigh in on the discussion. The issue is that, now that {{dts}} has the ability to show unlinked dates, we need to choose a default format for the dates to appear in, such as "January 1, 2008", "1 January 2008", etc. In most cases, dates can be typed in by hand in articles, but the {{dts}} template formats dates using code, so we need a default date format to show. I can add in an option of choose the date format by using something like {{dts|2008|1|30|link=off|format=mdy}} later, but for now, we need a default date format. Currently, all dates using {{dts}} are appearing as "January 1, 2008". Gary King (talk) 17:37, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for taking so long; I've added format=dmy now. Please check the linked thread for more information. Gary King (talk) 17:30, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

NY 373, NY 22, and all the NY Road FACs/FAs

Well, since this seems to be the brought up problem that now has a proposal, I wanna thank you for helping us with this, but I do have a problem. Roads like New York State Route 22, New York State Route 28, New York State Route 32, and other 100+ mile long highways should be exempt from this because your suggestion could go on and on and on for these. Is it possible we can make the exemption for those and put that on the shorter highways? I think this would be better than having to write thousands of details that make no sense.Mitch32 13:48, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It would be a huge task to gather info for the entire route of anything more than a shortish road, in this respect, and beyond the scope of summary style. Rather than some kind of mandatory requirement, I had in mind that you experts might keep in mind the goal of creating a general knowledge base of what's out there, which areas and routes and parts of states are likely to be worth mining for local information, economic impact, environmental impact, and where the resources are. One of the features of local histories is that they are often not widely published (for obvious reasons); this raises the possibility of quite exciting finds, from time to time, that might be relevant to road articles. I see nothing wrong with exemplifying the impact of a route on a particular community or region, if that information is available; comprehensiveness is unnecessary, I suspect. And just making readers aware of the existence of one or two locally published histories at the bottom of an article would be a real service. You might as a group feel your way around at the start. And does NPR do radio documentaries on local histories? I know that the CBC does. Just a thought. Adding this dimension could lift the status of road articles on WP to something that people out there really go for.
On a wider note, you might consider your role as flag-bearers of the whole concept of road and highway articles on WP (indeed on the Internet), setting standards for WPians in other countries to emulate. I see no such articles for Canadian roads (at least as systematic as US editors have been), nor Australian, British or Irish roads. I really think it's about time WP encouraged the formation of WikiProjects for writing about roads in these countries too; they will look to the cluster of US road WikiProjects for guidance and standards, at least initially. I wonder how one might go about encouraging this? Perhaps the idea needs to be sounded out at country WikiProjects ... what do you think? Tony (talk) 14:07, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
That seems completely fair. Sources are really hard to get ahold of depending on the road itself. For example, New York State Route 174 was a task and more. In that case it took months and months of work to get this to FA, and was the source of many debates. The other is New York State Route 32, which would have more sources because it was made up of more original turnpikes and plank roads, like NY 373, NY 174, NY 175, NY 343, and NY 28. It would be fair to not be mandatory, but to see what routes can even get to that. Also, is NY 373 up to your standards now?
Britian and Canada actually have road article projects. However, they have not been active as much. I started the Canada project and sort of regret not focusing my attention there.Mitch32 14:14, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Could you please lookover New York Routes 373 and 22 now? We have solved the main problems with both articles.Mitch32 18:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Dates

I am not against this but is it a requirement? Thanks. --Efe (talk) 05:20, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Generally, it is now a requirement. Could I direct you to this notice? Thanks. Tony (talk) 06:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. --Efe (talk) 09:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Lack of date autoformatting consensus

Resolved – I've done my best. Good luck with it! (sdsds - talk) 04:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Sd; however, in the spirit of collaboration and consensus, I'm still keen to know whether you feel differently after a few months or so. Do keep in touch. Tony (talk) 04:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


Please do not assert there is "overwhelming" consensus on this topic, when in fact there is no consensus whatsoever. Your attempt to implement this policy change without proper discussion is, albeit well-intentioned, causing un-needed disturbance to our project. (sdsds - talk) 10:09, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

FYI: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#WP:MOSNUM. (sdsds - talk) 10:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I used the term "hijack" in describing your actions with some trepidation. Please be assured I do not feel your intentions are malicious! I truly do assume good faith on your part. I also believe you have over-stepped the bounds of what one editor should attempt in changing Misplaced Pages guidelines. Can you please stop your efforts and wait to see how other editors assess the situation? (sdsds - talk) 11:22, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

You make it seem like a one-person campaign. Yet the most substantial changes came today and were not my doing. Aren't you flogging a dead horse? The consensus was overwhelming and you don't agree with it, that's all. It's not as though people didn't engage with your point of view; look at my effort on your talk page. And please do not post negative comments—any comments—within someone else's post, as you've done at GA talk. I've relocated it to where it belongs chronologically, with a note in square brackets. Tony (talk) 11:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Please see: WP:MOSNUM claims of "hijacking"

A small group of experienced editors are effectively hijacking WP:MOSNUM, claiming their point of view reflects consensus when in fact it does not. They are using their modifications to MOSNUM to justify many edits elsewhere, which are not in compliance with the consensus view of "date autoformatting." These editors are well-intentioned, but over-hasty in claiming consensus. (sdsds - talk) 10:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Crikey! Can you be more specific, give diffs and explain what you are asking admin intervention for? --Pete (talk) 11:03, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I understand reading all of Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers) can be a bit daunting! This edit shows the debate was closed as "resolved" when in fact it was not. Moreover, it is inconsistent with Misplaced Pages's best practices for an editor who was active in a debate to close it. If there was consensus, a non-involved editor should have "made the call." (sdsds - talk) 11:16, 25 August 2008 (UTC) FWiW Bzuk (talk) 12:28, 25 August 2008 (UTC).

MOSNUM

You're welcome. And as you noticed, I did some more editing after your message, mostly to the new policy subpage itself. I understand your point about the strength of the statement on discouraging autolinking dates, but as most of the changes I made were just stylistic or copyediting in nature, I reverted those changes back — leaving the introductory statement as you wished. But could we move further discussion of the page's content to its talk page? Teemu Leisti (talk) 14:07, 25 August 2008 (UTC) Yes, what you've done now is fine. People won't be happy with a sudden dilution of what gained hard-won consensus—that DA should not be used unless there is good reason to do so. To substitute this with "optional" or "not encouraged" is to subvert the consensus, i.e., the justifiable expectations of those who declared. Tony (talk) 14:11, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

You wrote: "Well, when I said that, I didn't think you'd be going back on your "Support" for the consensus wording on the talk page, repeatedly. Very disappointed, and I take back my thanks, I'm afraid. Did you support it, or didn't you? Tony (talk) 15:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)"
Yes, I did. I'm not quite sure what the problem is here. It was late when I was editing the article, so I might have missed the exact nuance of what was then the current consensus. When you reverted all my changes to the new subpage, I reverted only the copy-editing changes, and left the policy part in the state you reverted it to, then copied that part to the introduction in the main page. But if there's some text you still feel goes against whatever the consensus is, please go right ahead and change it. I've been quite busy at work the last couple of days, and don't have the time to find out what it is. If you feel I've been unhelpful or my work has been counterproductive, I apologise, though I think that emotions around this rather technical issue seem to have been aroused more than is strictly necessary. Teemu Leisti (talk) 06:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I will respond on the subpage's talk page. Could we please have this discussion there? Teemu Leisti (talk) 03:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

My response is now there. Teemu Leisti (talk) 06:48, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Help with date clean up

Hi Tony1, the Thriller (album) is at FAC . I've been asked to sort out the wiki linking on dates. Would it be possible for you to help with a script MoS clean up on that. I noticed you do it on another article I work on, cheers. Obviously your free to review my article too. Thanks. — Realist 16:26, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Merci. — Realist 02:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Is the delinking now fully accepted? I agree it was a little pointless. Any chance of a script assisted delink for Dwain Chambers too? Sillyfolkboy (talk) 10:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikimania video: external review of the quality of WP articles

See this video of a Wikimania address by researcher Dr Bill Wedemeyer, Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University, who conducted an extensive study of the quality of (mainly) scientific articles on WP.

Research conclusions

  • At its best, Misplaced Pages is excellent, but most of the product needs significant improvement.
  • The internal ranking system works, but roughly.
  • Science topics are covered better than non-science topics.
  • There is a subset of reliably helpful science articles for outreach, teacher training, and general science education.
  • WP is best used in combination with other resources.
  • The writing, even in FAs and GAs, is not good enough.
  • Insecurity by the readership over reliability needs to be addressed; evaluations of some articles by independent assessors would be wise.
  • Explore links with research funding bodies, using the pressure for taxpayer-funded research findings to be communicated to the community at large.

Specifically, ways in which the writing could be improved:

  • Inadequate lead sections. In many cases, there's a lack of flow and intelligibility. Mimic the lead-section style of Encyclopedia Britannica.
  • Fuzzy boundaries between References, Notes, See also, Bibliography, Further reading, and External links; some of them seem to be interchangeable. This is confusing for readers.
  • Manual of Style should be automated in relation to FAC .

Other observations

  • Praise for citations in FAs.
  • Developed articles are very current, in marked contrast with those of Encyclopedia Britannica; ironically, some WP articles on well-established science topics are not as current.
  • Singled out Tim Vickers's contributions for praise, but used some of his articles to exemplify his suspicion that limits on article size make some topics difficult to cover well.
  • Recoiled at prose and MoS-based critiques of FACs.

Tony (talk) 03:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

By "automation of MoS", I thought he meant that should happen outside of FAC, automatically, as if we had a paid staff or committed corp of volunteers who would auomatically do that work. We don't. I thought his criticism of MoS issues at FAC was uninformed and contradictory; if we aspire to professional quality featured articles, and if that work is not accomplished at FAC, where else is it going to get done? I also noted the praise for citations in FAs, that our developed articles are fairly current, and that the only restriction they noted in Tim Vickers articles is that he's constrained by length; I'll stop hating extra-long FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Yep, these are worth including above, which I've done. I completely agree with you about his comments on the operation of MoS and FAC. I think what underlay his comments was the perspective of a scientific practitioner that content matters a lot more than writing style, formatting, overall cohesion. He probably saw criticisms of prose (Cr 1a) and MoS breaches (2) and recoiled at the absence or paucity of what some people call "content review". If scientists didn't think that way, and didn't write so poorly, I'd be out of a RL job.
IMO there's no hard-and-fast boundary between content and style, and it's nonsense to expect reviewers to cover both explicitly. Specialisation is what makes FAC work. In any case, reviewing prose and MoS issues often reveals content issues, where the reviewer knows something is problematic but doesn't know the answer. That's why we typically shift the solving of the "content" issue onto the nominators. Surprise surprise. I think Dr Wedemeyer might change his tune if he nominated an article, or indeed reviewed a few FACs, as an experiment. His feedback on the FAC process, indeed, would probably be more valuable after that. (I value his feedback in general, and think we should take a lot of notice of it.) Tony (talk) 04:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I have faith in the system! Gary King (talk) 04:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Featured_article_candidates/India_House

Thanks very much. Interesting take on the length of the Background section btw.

At any rate, that's yet another one I owe you. Feel free to call on 'em when you wish. --Dweller (talk) 09:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Featured_article_candidates/Edward VIII abdication crisis

I been through the article and I think I've addressed the points you raised, as well as a few more I found. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 13:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Note

I dropped a note on most of the FAC reviewer's pages before, but not yours, to update them with the fact that I trimmed (at that time) 3k worth of information and added in 9.5k worth of information that summarized the texts and/or added some responses to the text. I also added to the legacy, and added more about Johnson's relationship with Charlotte Lennox. I need to know what else needs to be added. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Date links

Tony, I know you personally hate date links. But some people do like date links, such as me. Overall it is a very minor thing, considering roughly 80% of Misplaced Pages articles are, well, crap. But, please tell the person(s) who wrote the majority of the article before removing the date links, as there may be a concensus to include them. We do not want to get in edit wars. --I'm an Editorofthewiki 15:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Replied on his talk page. Tony (talk) 15:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Re:Script

No, I don't. I wouldn't have the foggiest of where to start with it, I've not used automated processes on Misplaced Pages before. -- Sabre (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Perennial infobox issues

Hi Tony. As you are the biggest stickler for form I know (that's a compliment), I'm here to invite you to a discussion of a proposal. If you're not to busy I'd really value your input.

The perennial infobox problem might be characterised thus:- those in favour enjoy the 'facts at a glance' reduction as well as the standardisation they provide for the reader. Boxes do work very well in some articles, particularly where conventions regarding organisation are already established - for example, scientific fields such as taxonomy, chemistry etc. Those against however, recognise the difficulty in establishing uniformity in a non-uniform world full of exceptions and contradictions, resulting in boxes that are used inappropriately, adding little to 'summarise the article' or worse, are so reductive they are positively misleading. They enjoy prominent positions nonetheless and competing claims of various wikiprojects to have their box at the top causes problems.

In part, the proposal (inspired by Citizendium) seeks to address this problem and also generate, perhaps a better way of organising articles, where the prose article proper is conceived as a sun around which supplemental satellites revolve. Statistical data, timelines, discographies, which might work awkwardly in the article proper can be given proper space and a strong link to the main article. I'm currently undecided if this means 'list of' articles should necessarily be tied in this way to prose articles. I have a number of other doubts and concerns which need some thought before seriously launcing the proposal, and I'd be very grateful for your consideration. Kind regards --Joopercoopers (talk) 19:16, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

FAC Comments

Hi Tony. Please strike the comments you left in the Texas Tech University FAC that you believe have been addressed. As you noted, the thread is getting unweildy and it'd help us to keep things moving. Thanks.--Elred (talk) 20:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Revisits needed at Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Edward VIII abdication crisis and Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/1964 Gabon coup d'état. I see Elred left you a nice link. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Link to Texas Tech University FAC. {:o) →Wordbuilder (talk) 17:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Three

That teaches me for not actually reading the article! Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 04:44, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

You mean that you agree it's unhelpful to the reader of Triangle? Tony (talk) 04:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
The idea of linking to three within triangle makes sense as they are highly-related. You can't have a triangle without three sides or three corners. It's just that three currently does not add anything else about triangles. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 05:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
But being closely related per se doesn't qualify for linkage, especially if the linked article doesn't help the reader to improve their understanding of the topic (triangle). So do we have to link "three" in the article on "triathlon"? Tony (talk) 08:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Date delinking

Hi

I've noticed that you're busy delinking all the dates in creation. I wonder why this is being done. Individual years should certainly not be linked - per WP:MoSNUM - but, full dates are always linked for presentation purposes - or, has America shocked the rest of the world by reading the same dates as the rest of us. cheers Kbthompson (talk) 14:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, so it's deprecated, we can now look forward to masses of edits changing the dates backwards and forwards, and ensuring consistency of date presentation within an article for FA purposes - oh, joy ... Kbthompson (talk) 14:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your note. I did find the link. Principally, I work on articles relating to London and theatre history. At the moment, we do have a continuing problem persuading people that: yes, that really is how it is spelt outside America, and now (potentially) there is a problem of presentation and input. Articles will have to be date consistent according to the country of origin. The theatre articles I work on tend to have an attraction for US editors, so now we have to agree on spelling and dates.
That all said, I do take on board that it leads to meaningless linking of dates - and that people who neither configure their browser, or their Wiki-account will continue to receive the same experience. Cheers, I will pass the good news onto wikiproject London and theatre. Kbthompson (talk) 14:20, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, it will simplify many things, but I will restrain my opinion until we see how it works out in practice. Kbthompson (talk) 14:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
If you need some "moral support", I'm happy to supply some - just ask. (I've never understood the value of linking every date ... ) Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 14:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
At the moment, I'm still thinking about the problems - and not the work it will save me. (it's actually become second nature to link them, so I will now have to try hard to stop myself ....). Even then, there are still a lot of editors who link the years for absolutely no apparent reason. Kbthompson (talk) 14:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
"" - ?
"Even then, there are still a lot of editors who link the years for absolutely no apparent reason." - Yes, lots of human behaviour is "for absolutely no apparent reason"! Ho hum ... Pdfpdf (talk) 14:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Pdfpdf, you're most welcome! Kb, yes, it's become something akin to a nervous twitch for many people; and it's part and parcel of a movement towards more disciplined linking, to avoid the dilution of our high-value links. I may as well paste in the capped information again here.

___________________

MOSNUM now deprecates date-autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional to the current position, after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages of using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting


  • (1) In-house only
  • (a) It works only for registered (Wikipedian) users who have set their date preferences and are logged in.
  • (b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.
  • (2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences
  • (a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.
  • (3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates
  • (a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
  • (b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
  • (c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.
  • (4) Typos and misunderstood coding
  • (a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
  • (b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
  • (c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.
  • (5) Edit-mode clutter
  • (a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.
  • (6) Limited application
  • (a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
  • (b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

A selection of positive responses is here.

Tony (talk) 14:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

De-linking of dates

Hello, Tony. In Gilbert and Sullivan and several other articles in the G&S project, you have de-linked dates, including birthdates. Shouldn't full dates with day month and year be linked? -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Replied on his/her talk page. Tony (talk) 15:51, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Do ALL dates need to be de-linked? If not, what are the exceptions? MOSNUM is very vague, only saying that autoformatting of dates is "deprecated". -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I echo this question, below, lol. By the way I have no problem with the changes, in fact it creates less work for article-writers which is a good thing - just want to know when it is actually okay/encouraged to wikilink dates. Cirt (talk) 16:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I appreciate that concern. However, MOSNUM makes it quite clear that you need a consistent format in the body text (the running prose), and a consistent format in the refs (citation templates). They don't have to be the same—they usually haven't been the same for some time because of all the ISO dates that templates encourage (strictly speaking, in breach of MoS, but no one has policed it, and now we just accept it in refs).
Please note that our readers out there have been viewing the raw format you key in from the start. Only logged-in, preferenced WPians see the month and day formatted the way they've selected, which is all rather silly. No longer! Tony (talk) 16:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Um, but that still does not answer the initial query by myself and Ssilvers (talk · contribs) (and I have no problem with the delinking of dates) but - When is it okay to link dates? Never? In certain specific instances? Would like clarity on this. Cirt (talk) 16:13, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If you mean month-day-year, and month-day dates, they should now not be autorformatted. The fact that the linking mechanism is the same is very confusing, of course, especially for newbies. But that doesn't change anything. Dates should be plain, black text, so that we see the format our readers out there see (but black). I can't imagine you'd want to link "July" or "July 27" (there are pages on them, and they're a soup of irrelevant fragments), and the linking of single years has generally been disparaged for some time now, both by the culture in general and explicitly at MOSLINK (Overlinking subsection, second bullet I think). But some editors maintain that historically early single year pages are useful links; I doubt this having surveyed them only last week, finding them most inadequate on several counts. I think editors of antiquity articles may have a slightly better case, since those year pages are short and at least don't drown you in pages of irrelevant info.
Is that the answer to you question? I'll respond further in eight hours' time. Ta. Tony (talk) 16:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, If I have you correct I think your take is that dates should never be wikilinked on this project? If so, that's fine with me, just want some clarity. Because if there are exceptions as to when it is expressly permitted or encouraged to link dates, then that should be added to WP:MOSNUM. Cirt (talk) 16:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Without wanting to sound dogmatic, I think that's the upshot of the word "deprecates". It wasn't my word, but I agree entirely with it! Tony (talk) 16:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Ah, okay, sounds good. It would be most interesting to see someone improve the actual Year/Month etc. articles to quality-status rating, but as I said earlier I have no issues with the change. Cirt (talk) 16:38, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Last query for the time being - How do you get your script-assisted date-removal script to say the edit summary ...per mosnum? Do you modify the edit summary yourself every time or are you using a special feature of the script? Cirt (talk) 17:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It's automatic (and links to the relevant subsection of MOSNUM); however, I often modify it manually according to the results of the date audit of each article. Tony (talk) 02:04, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Okay thank you - I have been using the script, it's quite fun actually. Cirt (talk) 02:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Query on WP:MOSNUM

I think these new changes to WP:MOSNUM are fine, but I have a quick question - under current standards at this point, when is wikilinking these sorts of dates acceptable/encouraged? Cirt (talk) 15:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Not acceptable at all in the main text; i.e., no more square brackets to be added, and if you don't use the script yourself to remove them, I guess someone will get around to your articles whenever (manual removal sucks, of course). It's currently permitted to have a different format in the citation template dates, only because they're an uncoordinated, inflexible mess and haven't caught up with the change. They will no doubt follow over the next 12 months, we're hoping. If it were I, there'd be no use of citation templates, and I'd put 'em all in manually to retain control and avoid the sea of blue. But it's still fine to use them. Tony (talk) 16:01, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

NOTE TO VISITORS: I'M GOING TO BED, SO WON'T RESPOND FURTHER FOR 8 HRS OR SO! Tony (talk) 16:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your comments on my list. I've adressed them all.

Once again, thank you, Jaespinoza (talk) 17:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Script use

Hey Tony, bot policy says that "trivial" edits should not be done on their own, but only in conjunction with "non-trivial" edits. Most format and spacing edits are considered "trivial". Such trivial edits, if not controversial, get wrapped into AWB's "general fixes" and the issues get fixed as people make other AWB edit to articles. I'm not entirely sure date delinking is "trivial", but I think there's a fair chance the bot approvals group would view it so. So, could you try to run and convince others to run the script in conjunction with some other useful edit? Or try to get the regexes incorporated into AWB general fixes? Gimmetrow 19:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Gimmetrow, I and others use the script to conduct audits of dates in an article. This involves not only the removal of DA, but the identification of inconsistencies in format (surprisingly common), of the wrong global choice of format (not common, but I've uncovered quite a few and left notes on talk pages for others where editors need to decide), and errors in formatting (12th) and syntax (], ''] 1990''). In addition, associated issues such as the use of hyphens where en dashes are required are either manually corrected or communicated to the editors. Aside from that, I have no doubt that a strong majority of WPs, judging from mostly very positive feedback, do not regard the removal of DA as trivial; nor does the incidence of DA in many articles suggest that it's a trivial task. Tony (talk) 02:02, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
I know what you're doing, but sequences like look odd. If you think there is strong consensus for delinking, you should get it into AWB general fixes, and within a few months most of WP text will be changed. Gimmetrow 03:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Mac users tend to resent facilities that are made for Windows alone. Tony (talk) 04:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Script error?

On this edit of yours, summarized "Date audit, script-assisted; see mosnum", you changed a "December 16th, 1977" to "December 16, 1977". But this text occurred within the "title" field of a "cite web" citation; indeed, it's the title of a Federal document, and we can't change it. Your script needs to be sensitive to not changing other documents' titles like this. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops, sorry; I'll bring this to the attention of the script writers; thanks for bringing this to our attention (it's partly why I'm running the script at the moment—to perfect it). Tony (talk) 02:57, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

VPP

I generally take accusations that my posts are spin to be personal attacks and cease to assume good faith. I don't think that's inappropriate.

On a side note, I find minor errors in films and TV shows mostly amusing peeks behind the curtain rather than things to object to. For the record, I work as a quality assurance auditor. Trivial human failures are the bread and butter of my daily life: I expect them and tolerate them so long as they cause no harm. SDY (talk) 02:45, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Whereas I strive to create the optimal environment for their avoidance or correction. You're quite right, I shouldn't have used the word "spin", forgetting that it implies a certain dishonest representation. Sorry about that; however, I do still think you're misrepresenting the nuts and bolts of English prose as "trivia". This is a central misunderstanding, IMO. Tony (talk) 02:49, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with that part of WP:MOS, it's stuff like WP:FLAG and other things that are arbitrary and prescriptive because someone wanted a guideline on where to put a period in relation to a reference when both forms are used in real life and the placement does not affect the clarity of the article. SDY (talk) 03:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes an arbitrary decision has to be made to avoid inconsistency. Without knowing where the problem is, it's hard to comment (but flags aren't my thing). I expect that you've raised the issue there, without success. Don't give up if you think you're in the right. Tony (talk) 03:11, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
I might look into it, but I admit my wikislothiness doesn't make me enthused about it. SDY (talk) 03:21, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

MOSNUM question

I don't want to start yet another thread on an already busy talk page so I hope you don't mid me asking you instead :) I am trying to get my head around the new position on not linking dates. Is the main problem that logged out users just end up seeing dates as they are written on the edit page? Could software feature fix that, for example by just choosing the American date style and displaying that? Is a bug filed?

Also, does this edit bring Channel Tunnel up to standard under the new guideline? It seems strange to have some dates linked and some not, perhaps this edit is just a misnomer. Regards, --Commander Keane (talk) 12:02, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The answer to your first question about the 'main problem(s)' is at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date autoformatting. If you want to know the awful truth about bug fixes (yes, many people have asked for software fixes/updates), ask at the talk page of that article.
If you want to know why Rjwilmsi made that edit to Channel Tunnel, it would be best to ask Rjwilmsi. You are correct to say that it is strange to have some linked and some not. I have removed them, see the edit that I made. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 12:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Very nice

Your two longer conributions in the WP:VPP#How many editors have actually read the Manual of Style? are really tight and to-the-point. Excellent work. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:20, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Script now working

From time to time, the script will stop working or will do bizarre things. This is because I make changes to the live version. Large corporations have development versions, test versions, beta versions, maintained versions, and latest versions. You can imagine the pros and cons of that. Sorry about that. If you check the edit history of the script you will see if I have changed it just prior to your edit. That should let you know if I am working on it or have made an untested change. Hope that helps. Keep smiling, things are going great. Gimmetrow is being a great help too. Lightmouse (talk) 13:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks heaps. Yes, I'm sure Gimme is helping. I do feel undermined by the comment above, but I suppose it's his/her way of saying "please check the diffs properly". Tony (talk) 13:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, did not intend to undermine. Removing. The regexes could exclude anything beginning with "title=" and ending with | or } to avoid changing some titles, but that's a large change. Gimmetrow 14:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Gimmetrow, the specific false positive was changing the title 'blah blah December 16th' to 'blah blah December 16'. I have made the code more conservative and it will only remove 'th' if the date is inside square brackets. So that specific problem is solved. Titles and quotes are the Achilles Heel of script writers. As you know, you can reduce the false positives but not eliminate the problem. I believe that the AWB script writers are also working on a partial fix. Lightmouse (talk) 18:09, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Citation templates

Have the citation templates got the point where we can delink ISO dates? Lightmouse (talk) 13:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

My brain turns to jelly when it comes to citation templates (never having using one). I just wish they'd never been invented. I'll keep a look-out. Tony (talk) 13:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

This was my prompting. Back when the cite template documentation recommended ISO for the date field, someone changed the dates in a bunch of articles. I would like an option to change things back, so

becomes:

  • "Google". 28 August 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-28.

The accessdate can't change, however:

  • "Google". 28 August 2008. Retrieved 28 August 2008.

Is MOSNUM at that point yet? Gimmetrow 14:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

In practice, I tend to use

in articles that have the cite templates. Gimmetrow 14:57, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

But the citation templates' usage instructions say to use ISO dates only. I think User:Gary King's the one who knows how far along this is. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 16:00, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

{{Cite web}} currently says for the "date" field: "Full date of publication in the same format as the main text of the article." Gimmetrow 19:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
So it does! :P Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 21:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Just checking

Looking at your edit here, you give an edit summary of "removing personal comments and signature". However the diff shows that you removed MoS text along with PMAnderson's personal comments and signature. I'm just checking that this was, in fact, accidental. --Pete (talk) 17:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought his comments were inappropriate too, but I figured someone else would remove them. I didn't think you'd remove the text as well! I've restored it, but because Anderson has seized on this as an excuse to have another bite of the cherry, I've also requested page protection. This is something that needs to be settled on the talk page, and it is essential that we get it right, because of the autoformatting deprecation making date formats more visible to editors. --Pete (talk) 01:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Page protection makes us look like a bunch of squabbling fools: I don't advise it. I'm afraid this one needs to be sorted out at talk, and the guideline left untouched until we do come to a consensus. Tony (talk) 04:16, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, I agree, but I can't help but direct some irritation at you for giving Anderson an opportunity for edit-warring while consensus discussions are ongoing. We've got a day or so to sort something out that none of the participants will feel estranged enough to revert. Or if they do, the rest of the team will gang up on them. --Pete (talk) 00:02, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Sri Lankan Tamil people

Since you made your comments, a al ot has changed. Can you take look agains please ? Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 21:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion re: Date linking

Can you clarify WP:MOSNUM to start off with something simple like: "In 2008, Misplaced Pages editors agreed that dates should no longer be linked...."? This acknowledges that there has been a major change in the guidance and states it clearly. That will help old contributors like me to understand that we need to change our procedure in article writing. Then you can go into why dates don't need to be linked. It seems to me that, now, the least important part of the guideline is how the automatic date formatting works, since we're not supposed to use it any more. So it should go last. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:20, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Good idea: I've added a footnote; is it OK? Tony (talk) 03:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I tried to clarify the section further. See what you think. The problem with it is that it's not just about autoformatting: you're saying, "just don't format dates at all any more." So the issue of "autoformatting", which is an alien word to most general readers, is now a secondary issue, subsumed by the wider issue of "No linking of dates". -- Ssilvers (talk) 13:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, waiting to see how the others react. I was at first concerned at the confusion possible between auto and linking, which are quite different functions, despite their mechanical entanglement. Perhaps we need to spell out "using square brackets" with a few examples. And perhaps we need to exempt year articles and the like, not from autoformatting but from links to other articles in the same "set". Tony (talk) 14:30, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'm glad to get the ball rolling. It's a major change to wiki style, since probably most articles have one or more linked dates; so I'm sure it will take a while to get complete clarity on the issue for all users, new and old. Thanks for being open-minded about it. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:37, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

For years, the terminology and the widespread belief has been to 'link dates'. I think Ssilvers is quite reasonable to use the same simple terminology and say 'do not link dates'. I am also watching with interest to see if that terminology is popular. Lightmouse (talk) 15:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Edward VIII abdication crisis

Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Edward VIII abdication crisis, not sure if you've revisited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Jesus College list

Hi Tony, could you revisit Misplaced Pages:Featured list candidates/List of founding Fellows, Scholars and Commissioners of Jesus College, Oxford and reply? Your comment appears to be the only thing blocking promotion, and it's not a problem raised by anyone else... Regards, Bencherlite 18:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages: Featured list candidates/List of celebrities at WrestleMania

I responded to your comments you left above.--SRX 21:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

"Units in infoboxes may be linked and such links shouldn't be removed by bot."

Please see this addition to wp:context. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 10:12, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I continue to be baffled as to why the script does not work for you but works for me. I have been running it over some of your recent contributions to check some of the things it does. One idea that occured to me is that you and I are almost certainly working on different servers. It is possible that mismatches between versions of the script on the servers are the cause of the problem. Changes to the script on my server will take a variable time to reach your server. There is a tab labelled 'note to users: script commands now in toolbox at bottom left beneath: what links here', I have just added another tab labelled 'q'. If you can see that 'q', you will be on the same version as me. Lightmouse (talk) 11:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Templates and infoboxes

There are quite a few templates and infoboxes that will need changing. Right now, I keep seeing the 'Birth date and age' template .I have been doing a few biographical articles and that seems a common template e.g. at Nick Ainger. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 14:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Identifying articles that have inconsistent dates

I have just discovered a way of identifying articles that have inconsistent date formats. Put the following into google:

site:en.wikipedia.org 1-april april-1 -user -talk -portal -site:en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:


You can adjust the dates of course. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 15:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Date links (2)

So do we just remove all links to dates in articles now? --Closedmouth (talk) 15:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed we do, so that (1) we see what our readers see (the density of errors and inconsistencies is appalling), and (2) the readability and appearance of the text is not marred by the addition of unnecessary bright-blue patches, and (3) our high-value links are not diluted by such unnecessary links.
DA was never a good idea, and apparently was introduced to "solve" a patch of edit-warring over US vs. international dates early on in the project. We've grown up now, and have guidelines for the selection of these formats. In any case, the difference between them is less than that of lexical and spelling differences across the Atlantic. Tony (talk) 02:24, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Excellent. Have you contacted the AWB devs to have this added to AWB's general fixes? Or maybe just a public optional plugin. That would help enormously. --Closedmouth (talk) 03:01, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

September 11 attacks

Hi Tony, I've noticed you going through removing the auto-formatting to some articles on my watchlist. Anyway, I wanted to get your attention on this removal of autoformatting of yours. If you notice at the top of that diff, two dates are delinked, namely September 11, and November 9, but those two links were part of the Template:Dablink at the top of the page i.e. to aid users who didn't want info on the attacks, but wanted info on either of those two dates. So those links needed to be kept (I've put those two back). Anyway, is there any way you can get your script to not remove dates in the dablink template? Deamon138 (talk) 15:58, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The issue of avoiding templates, quotes, infoboxes, URLs etc. is something that everybody wants. As far as I know, there is no generic method to do it. The first person to find a method of doing so, will be very popular on Misplaced Pages. Lightmouse (talk) 16:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Lol, I see. So it's not possible as of now. Oh well, manual work it will be for everyone. Never mind! Deamon138 (talk) 19:16, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid so; but the number of exceptions is miniscule, and we've just happened to hit one early in the piece. It may be necessary to add to the guideline the exception of where the title of a linked article is itself a month-day or month-day-year date. Tony (talk) 03:05, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Common terms

I have added a button called common terms. This is a start of a function in response to your request at User:Lightmouse/wishlist#Common_terms. If you want to look in the code (as you know, I am always keen for you to read code), just search for 'australia'. Please test it and respond on the wishlist page. Lightmouse (talk) 17:28, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Date formatting

I noticed that a bunch of you recent edits have converted dates into American format. I.e. I see August 31, 2008 instead of 2008 August 31. Is there a reason for this change? PaleAqua (talk) 04:54, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Pale, thanks for your inquiry. "year month day" is definitely not used on WP. Please see the link to MOSNUM on the standard date formats (in my edit summary). For US-related articles, US format is required; for other anglophone-country-related articles, international format is required (Canada is either). Can you tell me which article is in question? Tony (talk) 04:59, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. I had set my date format to show year month day a while back apparently and it looks like it used to be converted to that format automatically. I'm guessing based on the MOSNUM page that is no longer the case? For example Blu-ray Disc now shows stuff like "As of August 27, 2008 more than..." but if I look at http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Blu-ray_Disc&oldid=235124910 I see "As of 2008 August 27 more than..." But further down the page there are also a whole bunch of different orders. For example the references still show the dates in the correct order. I would have thought any such change would have at least similar to the WP:ENGVAR stuff for colour vs color that we see all the time. Granted the page earlier version of the page had some dates that were not formatted such as "June 2007" etc. I'm guessing it was because these dates used to not be linked, and from reading the discussions I'm guessing that's what did the formatting. PaleAqua (talk) 05:11, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Pale, that's an interesting example. Since Blu-ray Disc had no obvious connecction with a non-US anglophone country, and a clear majority of dates were formatted in US style, I made the call and converted all to US style as I delinked them. If there were local consensus, I'd easily be able to switch the format to international. MOSNUM says to go with the existing style unless there's a country-related reason to change it.
On your own prefs, may I suggest that you choose "no preference", since that will allow you to pick up inconsistencies and wrong global choices of format in article display mode. Yes, citation templates will take a while to sort out, but it does look as though ISO will be permissable there in the long term. MOSNUM permits the disparity between main text and citation-generated date formats that our readers have lived with for some time (since they don't have the autoformatting function). Tony (talk) 05:20, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Request for comment

Tony, if you have a minute or two to spare could you add a comment at User talk:Matthewedwards#FARC List of Indian districts regarding Misplaced Pages:Featured list removal candidates/List of districts of India, which you took part in. It's kind of convoluted, but it'll become clear if you read it. Thank you, Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 09:56, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

More on date formatting

Tony -- can you answer a question? You just dellinked the dates in the entry Death Note, for which many thanks. Your summary mentioned something about script-assistance. I've been working for some time on several other articles (manga and History of manga) that also contain overlinking of dates. In fact, I had a discussion with someone about this on the manga talk page. I'd like to be able to unlink the dates in those articles and reference lists, so can you explan more about how you delinked the dates? Thanks. Timothy Perper (talk) 12:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

By all means, Timothy. The script now allows the delinking of irritating links to the names of everyday countries and demonyms as well. It's updated (by User:Lightmouse) regularly, and since you'll trasclude, the updates occur automatically for you.

Please let me know if you have any problems in installing or using the script. Tony (talk) 12:35, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Installation and usage of date-autoformatting removal script


Instructions for installation

  • EITHER: If you have a monobook already, go to it, click "edit this page", and paste in this string underneath your existing script:
importScript('User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/script.js');
  • OR: If you don't have a monobook.js page, create one using this title:
/monobook.js]]
Then click on "edit this page" and paste in at the top the "importScript" string you see three lines above here.
  • Hit "Save page".
  • Refresh your cache (instructions at top of monobook).
  • You're ready to start.


Applying the script—it's very simple

  • Go to an article and determine whether US or international format is used. (For this purpose, it's best to have selected "no preferences" for dates in your user preferences, which will display the raw date formats that our readers see. Otherwise, you'll need to check in edit mode.) Occasionally, you'll see that the wrong format is used (check MOSNUM's guidance on this carefully).
  • Click on "edit this page". You'll see the list of script commands under "what links here". Click on either "delink all dates to mdy" (US format) or "delink all dates to mdy" (international format).
  • The diff will automatically appear. Check through the changes you're making before saving them. If there are problems, fix them manually before saving, or cancel.
  • Leave a note at the article talk page if editors need to negotiate which format to use, or need to be alerted to any other date-related issues.
  • Click on "Save page": it's done.


Afterwards

  • Respond politely and promptly to any critical comments on your talk page. If someone wants to resist or revert, it's better to back down and move on to improve other articles where WPians appreciate your efforts. NEVER edit-war over date autoformatting; raise the issue at WT:MOSNUM.

Notes

  • Treats only square-bracketed dates. The script removes square brackets only, which mostly involves the main text and footnotes; it's acceptable for citation-generated dates to be of a different format, particularly ISO (which must not be used in the main text).
  • Piped year-links (]). On purpose, the script will not touch these.
  • Date-sorting templates in tables. As of August 23, a minor tweak must be made to the script (which will update automatically), to deal with the column-sorting template in tables. Please be aware of this in relation to Featured Lists and the like (i.e., hold off there until it's fixed). The "dts" and "dts2" templates are at issue, and can be identified in display mode by a small clickable item at the top of a column. This should be fixed soon.
  • Antiquity-related articles. Articles on topics such as ancient Rome should be treated with caution, since the script removes year-links as well, and some editors may argue that there's a case for retaining the simple year and century links from ancient times (e.g., 212). It's better to ask first in these cases. In any case, such articles contain few if any full dates.
HI, Tony. I put some comments on Lightmouse's talk page about the glitches I encountered in unlinking dates in the manga article. In brief, the script does not delink dates when they appear in the references, although they are unlinked in the raw text. Thanks for your help, but I can't get the script to delink dates in the reference list. More details on Lightmouse's talk page.Timothy Perper (talk) 15:30, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
The problem at manga, and various other articles undergoing date delinking, is that the parameter accessdate= in the template {{cite web}} automatically links ISO dates. To achieve unlinked dates while using cite web, the solution is to break the access date out into the parameters accessyear= and either accessmonthday= or accessdaymonth= depending on the date style used. Maralia (talk) 15:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I had heard of this glitch from someone on the manga talk page, or at least I think that's what they were talking about. It makes for problems. I'm going to leave it alone. Timothy Perper (talk) 16:08, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
For the moment, it's perfectly acceptable to have ISO in citations and one of the two standard formats in the main text. In the medium-term, we expect that citation templates will be made more flexible. I'd never use them myself. Tony (talk) 16:34, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I dislike the citation templates quite heartily. I don't use them, but then the kobolds come around, late at night, I assume, and put them in. That means that there are many good faith editors on Misplaced Pages who are convinced they are doing Good Things by using the citation templates to replace more accurate citation formats with templated references. You're lucky if you've never run into them. The {{cite web}} template is particularly bad, I've given up trying to chase the kobolds away. You might want to look at my comment on User talk:Lightmouse#Dates for a longer explanation of my point. Timothy Perper (talk) 20:37, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I used to be irritated or annoyed by FA editors who insisted on sticking rigidly to the rules at the time to wikilink dates and use citation templates (even though all relevant citation parameters were already included) before they would sign off - here, for example. I always resisted these diktats, drawing attention to WP:DATE, which said "Misplaced Pages has articles on days of the year, years, decades, centuries and millennia. Link to one of these pages only if it is likely to deepen readers' understanding of a topic.". I also created a {{overwikification}} template to deter well-meaning editors from putting these links into articles I wanted to keep link-free. I wholeheartedly welcome the change to remove wikilinked dates. I guess I can now delete the template. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Excellent! We need to get serious about at least telling editors that they don't have to use citation templates. Perhaps a capped info package along the lines of the one I produced about the disadvantages of date autoformatting is appropriate ... but I've never used a citation template myself, so perhaps you have the knowledge and experience to produce it ...?
I wish I'd known about the template before. Yes, at the very least its wording needs to be changed. But a far better way of getting the word out is to run the script (see capped info above), which automatically provides the relevant links to MOSNUM and CONTEXT in its edit summaries. Perhaps you'd like to try it? Let me know if you do and need assistance. Tony (talk) 03:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the Politics of Hong Kong page and noticed the same problem I described above, in this thread, for the manga article. The dates in the references are still linked. If you look earlier in this thread to a comment by Maralia, that user explains that the problem arises from the {{cite web}} template. The only solution Maralia describes in to delink manually, which of course defeats the purpose of having a script. In my experience, this is only one of a number of serious problems with the citation templates. Take a look at the manga article and see if it's the same problem you're having. Timothy Perper (talk) 05:55, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Curiously, Tony managed to run the scrip correctly over this article, which has extensive {{cite web}} templates. The problem with the script may still be related to it, or maybe he did some of the stuff manually. I failed to get it to run properly on this text, which has no citation templates. I know nothing about scripts, but am prepared to learn. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that the script was undergoing changes at the time you tried to use it. From time to time, the script will not work, or will behave strangely. If you can't understand the outcome of a script edit then I recommend that you look at the edit history of the script or my contributions. You will then know if the script has recently changed. I hope that helps. Lightmouse (talk) 09:19, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but there was only one change today, so it doesn't seem to explain the problems I faced. Ohconfucius (talk) 09:35, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Did you clear your cache? The method is explained at User:Ohconfucius/monobook.js. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 09:48, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I've just done the HK article; no problem. Tony (talk)
I did clear the cache, quit FF, then I click on edit, delink to dmy. However, the changes screen still show no difference. What else can be the matter? Ohconfucius (talk) 02:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

India

Hello once more, and this is another question about the removal of autoformatting of dates you are doing. In this diff, while you removed the autoformatting, you removed the link to India in the lead. How come? Deamon138 (talk) 01:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Please see CONTEXT. Thanks for your enquiry. Tony (talk) 01:36, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Aha, thanks for the link. But in this particular example, I disagree. It says, "The names of well known geographical locations unlikely to be confused with other locations, where the link would not help readers' understanding". I think on an article about Gandhi, a link to India may help the readers' understanding. Deamon138 (talk) 01:45, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree, and have reinstated the first link to "India". If the link in the same sentence to "indian independence movement" had contained a link to "India" at its opening, it might have been a better "track" for the reader to go to "India" through it; but it doesn't. Tony (talk) 03:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Okay thanks. :) Deamon138 (talk) 01:56, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Interesting

Oh look. You actually went to the MOS instead of the bizarre backdoor crusade you'd been on. Huh. Interesting how it took you over a month after users told you that you knew better.

Typical Misplaced Pages.. he who yells loudest wins, whether supported by common sense or not. Prince of Canada 04:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It was with a degree of trepidation that I audited the dates in Canada, since I knew it would bring a reaction. I didn't go to the MOS, as you put it: the issue has been bubbling along there for a long, long time. It took considerable effort in the early stages (not only on my part); however, after the tipping point was reached, this was no longer necessary.
I do wish that you would approach me without sarcasm and would assume good faith; your last comment to me, at a WikiProject, was a little hard to take. Despite this, I'm still interested to engage with you concerning your substantive objections to the move. I'm not comfortable that anyone is angry about it, and it would help if I understood why you're so angry. It's a very different reaction from the widespread popularity of the removal of DA. Tony (talk) 04:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Overlinking

I'm curious about your recent edit to the Playboy article. You delinked country names like Italy, Japan, and Spain but left other countries such as Poland, Norway, and Greece. I've read the third point under what should not be linked at WP:OVERLINK but I would like a bit more insight on where you draw the line between Italy and Poland or Japan and Norway. Thanks, Dismas| 06:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

You're right; it's a hard distinction to make, and depends partly on the context. If I had a magic wand, I'd discourage the linking of the names of all countries but those that are likely to be little-known to English-speakers, but again, it's hard to draw a hard-and-fast boundary. The alternative might be to restrict delinking to the names of the major anglophone countries, particularly the big four: the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. They're clearly unnecessary in almost every context, given that this is the English WP. I'll take this up with the writers of the script. Thanks for your input. In terms of the article, would you like that new boundary to be applied (or country names untouched)? Tony (talk) 07:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I personally think that we should link them all or have none linked. Either way as long as there's consistency. You have a point in wanting links for the little known countries though. If someone had never heard of Moldova, for example, then the link would be good so they can find out where that is. Though I doubt that many people are going to be reading that article and think "Hey, I wonder what the GDP of Poland is!" and follow that link. But at the same time, I think that having just a few unlinked looks strange. Like the examples that I cited, why Italy but not Poland? So, yes, I'm rambling and my point is that I don't care either way but I do think it should be all or nothing because wherever we draw the line, it will be based on some arbitrary notion of the average intelligence and geography I.Q. of the readership. Dismas| 08:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
You also might check the results of what the script changes. At Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, it broke the link to this image as it changed the date in the link.--Ibagli rnbs mbs (Talk) 07:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm very sorry I didn't pick that up in my oversight of the diff. I've raised this with the writer of the script. Thankfully, you fixed it soon after. Tony (talk) 07:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
To my mind, with something like Playboy, the United States should be linked, since Playboy is from the US. Deamon138 (talk) 01:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
How is the article on the US going to increase the reader's understanding of the article on Playboy? If it were an Armenian magazine, possibly a link to "Armenia" might be more defensible, but show me one English-speaker who doesn't know what the US and American culture is? Tony (talk) 03:59, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Film years

Generally, should years in film be linked? Movie articles frequently link dates like this: Star Wars Episode II is a 2002 film. Is it really necessary to link 2002 to 2002 in film? Spellcast (talk) 13:16, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think they should mostly be removed for the same reasons links to years are removed, but I've been cautious with some, like 2001 (the film, not the year :P) because of its historical significance and popularity. But I don't really know, maybe it'd be better to just say "get rid of 'em all" to allay the potential ambiguity. They're useless in the middle of prose. --Closedmouth (talk) 15:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm cautious about removing piped year-links, whether to film or to basketball. I grudgingly accept them, but wouldn't use them myself. If I thought editors wouldn't complain, I'd delink them. What does irritate is where lists link every single year in a column (one per row) to "year in blah". You can get to any year in blah through one link to the first year-in-blah that occurs in the lead. Tony (talk) 15:12, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Ha! I know what you mean... --Closedmouth (talk) 15:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I think it's usually unnecessary to link film years. For music articles, WP:MUSTARD#Internal links recommends not using those piped links. But for film articles, MOS:FILM says nothing about it. Perhaps I should bring this up on the MOS:FILM talk page. Spellcast (talk) 15:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Please do: I'll certainly chime in to encourage that people use such pipes more cautiously or not at all. Tony (talk) 15:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
WT:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines#Film years. Spellcast (talk) 16:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think the policy at WP:MUSTARD#Internal links is worthy of the MoS for the whole of Misplaced Pages. Lightmouse (talk) 16:00, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Indenting

Thanks for your comments on MoS regarding Indenting. Just so that other editors and I are clear...are you talking about the example given (A,B,C, etc) as being confusing and/or complicated? Or, are you talking about the gradual decreasing form of indenting as being hard to follow? Thanks...--Buster7 (talk) 13:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think few people will readily perceive the subtleties of indenting to that extent, and so many people indent wrongly. It may be too much to expect the pattern, logical and potentially useful as it is, to be observed widely. Tony (talk) 15:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

more info on European art music of the 18th, 19th centuries

For some odd reason (you must know how it goes) I ended up on your userpage and noticed your comments about the previous career. It sounds fascinating to me. I cannot stop being astounded with the work of Bach, I have been listening to him almost exclusively for a while now, so I'm interested in what you say on your user page. I also appreciate Gregorian chant, Hungarian folk music, and other Baroque era things very much. For what you refer to, is this information on wikipedia or other websites? Basically I have to be able to access it from the internet if I'm to find out more. If you have links/bibliographic material (not to books, but to journals for example) which talk about this topic for beginners, I would love to see them. If you don't, it's fine, one day I'll probably come across such things again. Good wishes.--Asdfg12345 15:45, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I can tell you, when I see something like that I am simply overwhelmed with the mystery and magic. It's hard to explain, and seeing it visually like that is just stunning. Thanks for that link. I'll become a regular visitor to that guy's website. I have not actually done serious research into this kind of music, and I even lack basic understanding of music theory. I have often wondered what makes Bach's music what it is, but I think it would be difficult to get a comprehensive answer to that in a normal way. I love Bach's choral works as well, like Magnificat, the passions, the motets--I find them all sublime and astounding. And I also like Glenn Gould playing Bach (e.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB76jxBq_gQ&feature=related), and I have some partitas on CD (forget which). The link to the manuscripts you told me of does not seem to work: http://athome.harvard.edu/dh/wolff.html . I'll explore the other links in due course, too. Thank you.--Asdfg12345 01:24, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
It works on my puter this morning: . Tony (talk) 01:27, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I get a nasty looking "<% Set Connection = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")..." etc. type message. Just found this by the way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAHe1i27U6c&NR=1. But I'll check that site again later to see if it works. --Asdfg12345 01:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Your date audit and overlink clean-up

Your recent change to the Burj Dubai article, caused an accidental change in the names of a couple of images to images that don't exist (in particular, the final two date changes inside the <gallery> tags). Please be careful to exclude the names of images, articles and other vunerable links when doing your clean up. Astronaut (talk) 16:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Replied apologetically on user's talk page. Tony (talk) 03:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Bach

Hi Tony, I notice you contributed a lot of edits to the Bach article. I've reworked the images as they were chopping-up the article: disrupting the section headings and reference section. Anyway, let me know what you think, kind regards Tom (talk) 17:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Bordgious added that on Sunday, they took it a couple of weeks ago. the grubby modernity makes a change from all the portraits and statues but the picture is a bit dark. personally it's not something that bothers me that much as the main thing the article needs is the inlines but as the article gets close to GA it would be nice get a brighter picture or brighter version. i'm currently working on other bios at the mo, cheers Tom (talk) 10:48, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Podcast

Thanks heaps for recording the podcast last week on a wide range of copy editing / content issues. Awadewit dropped a note on my talk page letting me know that it was 'good to go' - and as I said at WP:AN, I feel smarter already, and I've only heard it once! It's now online at 'NotTheWikipediaWeekly', and hopefully it's only the first in a series!

Once again - thanks :-) Privatemusings (talk) 01:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Someone else must have done it! I was unable to participate in the hook-up. Tony (talk) 02:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I did notice that, but thought that your name was taken in sufficient quantity for your user details to be linked! - sorry for not noting this earlier, and just dropping the generic message off - and hopefully if you're available and interested, I'll be able to hear your thoughts at some point in the future :-) cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 03:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Editing palette

Would you happen to know whatever happened to the editing palette which was always below the editing window? You know, the one with all the commonly used html codes and the non-ASCII characters? It seems to have disappeared one day, and I didn't see a word or warning or information about it... I'm a bit annoyed because I relied on that quite a lot - for articles on non-English subjects which use diacritics, even the Yen and Euro symbols. For sure, some of the clicks were malfunctioning, and I thought someone had only taken it down for a rewrite, but over a week has gone by, and it hasn't been restored. Where can I find out and lobby to have it put back? Ohconfucius (talk) 01:59, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It's annoying, isn't it; and no warning or notice as to what advantage there might be. You have to change it through the adjacent tab. Let me know if you need further assistance. Tony (talk) 02:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. Someone must have thought it looks cleaner this way. Suppose that it reflects the ethnocentric bias here on EN.WP - it might make sense if you hardly work in other languages. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 02:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
See Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical)/Archive 45#New edit tools enabled for everyone. I was pretty pissed when they did this. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 03:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Price per sq ft conversion?

Your recent in-line comment in the Burj Dubai article suggested "Give metric equivalent in square brackets, within a quote, here and at sentence end" relating to a price per sq.ft I can see what you're getting at, but should we use AED per sq metre, US$ per 0.093 sq. metres, or something else. Any suggestions would be useful how best it should be phrased. Thanks. Astronaut (talk) 15:43, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure; I should have been explicit—US dollars per square metre would be good, so simply divide the dollar amount by 0.093. The first is ... $43,000 per square metre ... huh? Yes, it's correct, and will make the readers sit up and take notice! OMG. Tony (talk) 15:51, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
PS, I also suggest that each item in your timeline be like this:
  • (date): Emaar constructors begin ...
You could italicise the date (bolding would be obstructive), but it's fine unmarked as now.

If you're preparing it for FAC, they'll say it's too listy too early. One way out of that is to shift the bullets down further—even to the bottom of them main text. Tony (talk) 15:55, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Overlink scripting is dangerous

Hello! Your recent edit produced this:

In United Kingdom, Ireland,, Australia, New Zealand, India and Canada, Shrove Tuesday is known colloquially as Pancake Day or Pancake Tuesday.

Wouldn't you agree that list looks rather strange? Whatever arbitrary list of common terms you auto-delink will always be liable to produce such jarring output. Given that OVERLINK is a vague guideline, a careful human scan of the auto output will be even more important than usual here. Regards, jnestorius 15:55, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and have been having second thoughts about this aspect as I've seen the results. It's only in a minority of articles treated that such an awkward list occurs as a result, and it's probably worth cancelling and rerunning only the date fixer, not the "delink common terms" where that occurs.
Such chains do already occur, however, in articles where editors do not wish to repeat-link a country name—which is quite understandable. There's no easy solution, but I have no issue with your conclusion in this case. Thanks for your feedback. Tony (talk) 16:00, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

A reword on a warning template may be in order

Template:Uw-date is a talk page warning template for users who mess up the date format. With linking and auto-formatting no longer required, this template may be in need of rewording. What do you think? Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 18:24, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes; and I'd like to see it shorter, too. However, it would be a good idea to wait until MOSNUM sorts out its text for the choice of formats (strong country ties and existing format sections). This should happen soon. Tony (talk) 01:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  1. "Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) in the UK". British Embassy, Washington D.C. Retrieved 17 November. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  2. "Shrove Tuesday - Pancake Tuesday!". Irish Culture and Customs. Retrieved 17 November. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  3. "Easter in Australia". The Australian Government Culture and Recreation Portal. Retrieved 17 November. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  4. "Pancake Tuesday marked by Christians across the GTA". Retrieved 2008-02-05.