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Old stuff to resolve eventually

Cueless billiards

Unresolved – Can't get at the stuff at Ancestry; try using addl. cards.
Extended content

Categories are not my thing but do you think there are enough articles now or will be ever to make this necessary? Other than Finger billiards and possibly Carrom, what else is there?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Crud fits for sure. And if the variant in it is sourceable, I'm sure some military editor will fork it into a separate article eventually. I think at least some variants of bar billiards are played with hands and some bagatelle split-offs probably were, too (Shamos goes into loads of them, but I get them all mixed up, mostly because they have foreign names). And there's bocce billiards, article I've not written yet. Very fun game. Kept my sister and I busy for 3 hours once. Her husband (Air Force doctor) actually plays crud on a regular basis; maybe there's a connection. She beat me several times, so it must be from crud-playing. Hand pool might be its own article eventually. Anyway, I guess it depends upon your "categorization politics". Mine are pretty liberal - I like to put stuff into a logical category as long as there are multiple items for it (there'll be two as soon as you're done with f.b., since we have crud), and especially if there are multiple parent categories (that will be the case here), and especially especially if the split parallels the category structure of another related category branch (I can't think of a parallel here, so this criterion of mine is not a check mark in this case), and so on. A bunch of factors really. I kind of wallow in that stuff. Not sure why I dig the category space so much. Less psychodrama, I guess. >;-) In my entire time here, I can only think of maybe one categorization decision I've made that got nuked at CfD. And I'm a pretty aggressive categorizer, too; I totally overhauled Category:Pinball just for the heck of it and will probably do the same to Category:Darts soon.
PS: I'm not wedded to the "cueless billiards" name idea; it just seemed more concise than "cueless developments from cue sports" or whatever.— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 11:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
I have no "categorization politics". It's not an area that I think about a lot or has ever interested me so it's good there are people like you. If there is to be a category on this, "cueless billiards" seems fine to me. By the way, just posted Yank Adams as an adjunct to the finger billiards article I started.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Cool; I'd never even heard of him. This one looks like a good DYK; just the fact that there was Finger Billiards World Championship contention is funky enough, probably. You still citing that old version of Shamos? You really oughta get the 1999 version; it can be had from Amazon for cheap and has a bunch of updates. I actually put my old version in the recycle bin as not worth saving. Heh. PS: You seen Stein & Rubino 3rd ed.? I got one for the xmas before the one that just passed, from what was then a really good girlfriend. >;-) It's a-verra, verra nahce. Over 100 new pages, I think (mostly illustrations). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 13:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
If I happen to come across it in a used book store I might pick it up. There's nothing wrong with citing the older edition (as I've said to you before). I had not heard of Adams before yesterday either. Yank is apparently not his real name, though I'm not sure what it is yet. Not sure there will be enough on him to make a DYK (though don't count it out). Of course, since I didn't userspace it, I have 4½ days to see. Unfortunately, I don't have access to ancestry.com and have never found any free database nearly as useful for finding newspaper articles (and census, birth certificates, and reams of primary source material). I tried to sign up for a free trial again which worked once before, but they got smart and are logging those who signed up previously. I just looked; the new Stein and Rubino is about $280. I'll work from the 2nd edition:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Hmm... I haven't tried Ancestry in a while. They're probably logging IP addresses. That would definitely affect me, since mine doesn't change except once every few years. I guess that's what libraries and stuff are for. S&R: Should be available cheaper. Mine came with the Blue Book of Pool Cues too for under $200 total. Here it is for $160, plus I think the shipping was $25. Stein gives his e-mail address as that page. If you ask him he might give you the 2-book deal too, or direct you to where ever that is. Shamos: Not saying its an unreliable source (although the newer version actually corrected some entries), it's just cool because it has more stuff in it. :-) DYK: Hey, you could speedily delete your own article, sandbox it and come back. Heh. Seriously, I'll see if I can get into Ancestry again and look for stuff on him. I want to look for William Hoskins stuff anyway so I can finish that half of the Spinks/Hoskins story, which has sat in draft form for over a year. I get sidetracked... — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 14:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
It's not IPs they're logging, it's your credit card. You have to give them one in order to get the trial so that they can automatically charge you if you miss the cancellation deadline. Regarding the Blue Book, of all these books, that's the one that get's stale, that is, if you use it for actual quotes, which I do all the time, both for answer to questions and for selling, buying, etc. Yeah I start procrastinating too. I did all that work on Mingaud and now I can't get myself to go back. I also did reams of research on Hurricane Tony Ellin (thugh I found so little; I really felt bad when he died; I met him a few times, seemed like a really great guy), Masako Katsura and others but still haven't moved on them.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Ah, the credit card. I'll have to see if the PayPal plugin has been updated to work with the new Firefox. If so, that's our solution - it generates a new valid card number every time you use it (they always feed from your single PayPal account). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 18:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
PayPal Plugin ist kaput. Some banks now issue credit card accounts that make use of virtual card numbers, but mine's not one of them. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 19:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for trying. It was worth a shot. I signed up for a newspaperarchive.com three month trial. As far as newspaper results go it seems quite good so far, and the search interface is many orders of magnitude better than ancestry's, but it has none of the genealogical records that ancestry provides. With ancestry I could probably find census info on Yank as well as death information (as well as for Masako Katsura, which I've been working on it for a few days; she could actually be alive, though she'd be 96).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Sad...

How well forgotten some very well known people are. The more I read about Yank Adams, the more I realize he was world famous. Yet, he's almost completely unknown today and barely mentioned even in modern billiard texts.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Reading stuff from that era, it's also amazing how important billiards (in the three-ball sense) was back then, with sometimes multiple-page stories in newspapers about each turn in a long match, and so on. It's like snooker is today in the UK. PS: I saw that you found evidence of a billiards stage comedy there. I'd never heard of it! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 15:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Jackpot. Portrait, diagrams, sample shot descriptions and more (that will also lend itself to the finger billiards article).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Nice find! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 06:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Look at the main page

Unresolved – Katsura News added (with new TFA section) to WP:CUE; need to see if I can add anything useful to Mingaud article.
Extended content

Look at the main page --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Since you don't appear to have seen this near to the time I left it, it might be a little cryptic without explanation. Masako Katsura was today's featured article on January 31, 2011.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:26, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Supah-dupah! That kicks. WP:CUE's (and your?) first TFA, yes?! And yeah I have been away a lot lately. Long story. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 01:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, my first, though I have another in the works (not billiards related). I think François Mingaud could be a candidate in the near future. I really wanted to work it up to near FA level before posting it but another user created it recently, not realizing my draft existed, and once they did realize, copied some of my content without proper copyright attribution and posted to DYK. I have done a history merge though the newer, far less developed content is what's seen in the article now. I'm going to merge the old with the new soon. Glad to see your back.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
My front and sides are visible too. ;-) Anyway, glad you beat me to Mingaud. I'd been thinking of doing that one myself, but it seemed a bit daunting. I may have some tidbits for it. Lemme know when your merged version goes up, and I'll see what I have that might not already be in there. Probably not earthshaking, just a few things I found in 1800s-1910s books. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 16:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Some more notes on Crystalate

Unresolved – New sources/material worked into article, but unanswered questions remain.
Extended content

Some more notes: they bought Royal Worcester in 1983 and sold it the next year, keeping some of the electronics part.; info about making records:; the chair in 1989 was Lord Jenkin of Roding:; "In 1880, crystalate balls made of nitrocellulose, camphor, and alcohol began to appear. In 1926, they were made obligatory by the Billiards Association and Control Council, the London-based governing body." Amazing Facts: The Indispensable Collection of True Life Facts and Feats. Richard B. Manchester - 1991; a website about crystalate and other materials used for billiard balls:. Fences&Windows 23:37, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll have to have a look at this stuff in more detail. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 15:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
I've worked most of it in. Fences&Windows 16:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
Cool! From what I can tell, entirely different parties held the trademark in different markets. I can't find a link between Crystalate Mfg. Co. Ltd. (mostly records, though billiard balls early on) and the main billiard ball mfr. in the UK, who later came up with "Super Crystalate". I'm not sure the term was even used in the U.S. at all, despite the formulation having been originally patented there. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 21:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:SAL

Unresolved – Not done yet, last I looked.
Extended content

No one has actually objected to the idea that it's really pointless for WP:SAL to contain any style information at all, other than in summary form and citing MOS:LIST, which is where all of WP:SAL's style advice should go, and SAL page should move back to WP:Stand-alone lists with a content guideline tag. Everyone who's commented for 7 months or so has been in favor of it. I'd say we have consensus to start doing it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll take a look at the page shortly. Thanks for the nudge. SilkTork 23:19, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

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Unresolved – Needs to be renewed
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Unresolved – Needs to be renewed.
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Yay! — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:50, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Circa

Unresolved – Need to file the RfC.
Extended content

This edit explains how to write "ca.", which is still discouraged at ], WP:YEAR, WP:SMOS#Abbreviations, and maybe MOS:DOB, and after you must have read my complaint and ordeal at WT:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Circa. Either allow "ca." or don't allow "ca.", I don't care which, but do it consistently. Art LaPella (talk) 15:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a good WP:RFC. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:52, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
It's been hard to get opinions on circa in the past. Anyway, can I undo that edit, until when and if someone wants to edit the other guidelines to match? If we leave it there indefinitely, nobody will notice except me. Art LaPella (talk) 20:17, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't care; this will have to be dealt with in an RfC anyway. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 20:44, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Done (now I don't need to wonder if the RfC will ever be acted on :) ) Art LaPella (talk) 21:08, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

You post at Misplaced Pages talk:FAQ/Copyright

Unresolved – Need to fix William A. Spinks, etc., with proper balkline stats, now that we know how to interpret them.
Extended content

That page looks like a hinterland (you go back two users in the history and you're in August). Are you familiar with WP:MCQ? By the way, did you see my response on the balkline averages?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:54, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I did a bunch of archiving yesterday. This page was HUGE. It'll get there again. I'd forgotten MCQ existed. Can you please add it to the DAB hatnote at top of and "See also" at bottom of WP:COPYRIGHT? Its conspicuous absence is precisely why I ened up at Misplaced Pages talk:FAQ/Copyright! Haven't seen your balkline response yet; will go look. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 21:34, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Hee Haw

Unresolved – Still need to propose some standards on animal breed article naming and disambiguation.
Extended content

Yeah, we did get along on Donkeys. And probably will get along on some other stuff again later. Best way to handle WP is to take it issue by issue and then let bygones be bygones. I'm finding some interesting debates over things like the line between a subspecies, a landrace and a breed. Just almost saw someone else's GA derailed over a "breed versus species" debate that was completely bogus, we just removed the word "adapt" and life would have been fine. I'd actually be interested in seeing actual scholarly articles that discuss these differences, particularly the landrace/breed issue in general, but in livestock in particular, and particularly as applied to truly feral/landrace populations (if, in livestock, there is such a thing, people inevitably will do a bit of culling, sorting and other interference these days). I'm willing to stick to my guns on the WPEQ naming issue, but AGF in all respects. Truce? Montanabw 22:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Truce, certainly. I'm not here to pick fights, just improve the consistency for readers and editors. I don't think there will be any scholarly articles on differences between landrace and breed, because there's nothing really to write about. Landrace has clear definitions in zoology and botany, and breed not only doesn't qualify, it is only established as true in any given case by reliable sources. Basically, no one anywhere is claiming "This is the Foobabaz horse, and it is a new landrace!" That wouldn't make sense. What is happening is people naming and declaring new alleged breeds on an entirely self-interested, profit-motive basis, with no evidence anyone other than the proponent and a few other experimental breeders consider it a breed. WP is full of should-be-AfD'd articles of this sort, like the cat one I successfully prod'ed last week. Asking for a reliable source that something is a landrace rather than a breed is backwards; landrace status is the default, not a special condition. It's a bit like asking for a scholarly piece on whether pig Latin is a real language or not; no one's going to write a journal paper about that because "language" (and related terms like "dialect", "language family", "creole" in the linguistic sense, etc.) have clear definitions in linguistics, while pig Latin, an entirely artificial, arbitrary, intentionally-managed form of communication (like an entirely artificial, arbitrary, intentionally managed form of domesticated animal) does not qualify. :-) The "what is a breed" question, which is also not about horses any more than cats or cavies or ferrets, is going to be a separate issue to resolve from the naming issue. Looking over what we collaboratively did with donkeys – and the naming form that took, i.e. Poitou donkey not Poitou (donkey), I think I'm going to end up on your side of that one. It needs to be discussed more broadly in an RFC, because most projects use the parenthetical form, because this is what WT:AT is most readily interpretable as requiring. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
I hate the drama of an RfC, particularly when we can just look at how much can be naturally disambiguated, but if you think it's an actual issue, I guess ping me when it goes up. As for landcraces, it may be true ("clear definitions") but you would be doing God's (or someone's) own good work if you were to improve landrace which has few references, fewer good ones, and is generally not a lot of help to those of us trying to sort out WTF a "landrace" is... (smiles). As for breed, that is were we disagree: At what point do we really have a "breed" as opposed to a "landrace?" Fixed traits, human-selected? At what degree, at which point? How many generations? I don't even know if there IS such a thing as a universal definition of what a "breed" is: seriously: or breed or . I think you and I agree that the Palomino horse can never be a "breed" because it is impossible for the color to breed true (per an earlier discussion) so we have one limit. But while I happen agree to a significant extent with your underlying premise that when Randy from Boise breeds two animals and says he has created a new breed and this is a problem, (I think it's a BIG problem in the worst cases) but if we want to get really fussy, I suppose that the aficionados of the Arabian horse who claim the breed is pure from the dawn of time are actually arguing it is a landrace, wouldn't you say? And what DO we do with the multi-generational stuff that's in limbo land? Montanabw 00:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm not really certain what the answers are to any of those questions, another reason (besides your "STOP!" demands :-) that I backed away rapidly from moving any more horse articles around. But it's something that is going to have to be looked into. I agree that the Landrace article here is poor. For one thing, it needs to split Natural breed out into its own article (a natural breed is a selectively-bred formal breed the purpose of which is to refine and "lock-in" the most definitive qualities of a local landrace). This in turn isn't actually the same thing as a traditional breed, though the concepts are related. Basically, three breeding concepts are squished into one article. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:52, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
Side comment: I tend to support one good overview article over three poor content forks, just thinking aloud... Montanabw 23:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
Sure; the point is that the concepts have to be separately, clearly treated, because they are not synonymous at all. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 02:07, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Given that the article isn't well-sourced yet, I think that you might want to add something about that to landrace now, just to give whomever does article improvement on it later (maybe you, I think this is up your alley!) has the "ping" to do so. Montanabw 21:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Aye, it's on my to-do list. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 22:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Although I have been an evolutionary biologist for decades, I only noticed the term "landrace" within the past year or two (in reference to corn), because I work with wildland plants. But I immediately knew what it was, from context. I'm much less certain about breeds, beyond that I am emphatic that they are human constructs. Montanabw and I have discussed my horse off-wiki, and from what I can tell, breeders are selecting for specific attributes (many people claim to have seen a horse "just like him"), but afaik there is no breed "Idaho stock horse". Artificially-selected lineages can exist without anyone calling them "breeds"; I'm not sure they would even be "natural breeds", and such things are common even within established breeds (Montanabw could probably explain to us the difference between Polish and Egyptian Arabians).
The good thing about breeds wrt Misplaced Pages is that we can use WP:RS and WP:NOTABLE to decide what to cover. Landraces are a different issue: if no one has ever called a specific, distinctive, isolated mustang herd a landrace, is it OR for Misplaced Pages to do so?--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:21, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
I have been reluctant to use landrace much out of a concern that the concept is a bit OR, as I hadn't heard of it before wikipedia either (but I'm more a historian than an evolutionary biologist, so what do I know?): Curtis, any idea where this did come from? It's a useful concept, but I am kind of wondering where the lines are between selective breeding and a "natural" breed -- of anything. And speaking of isolated Mustang herds, we have things like Kiger Mustang, which is kind of interesting. I think that at least some of SMc's passion comes from the nuttiness seen in a lot of the dog and cat breeders these days, am I right? I mean, Chiweenies? Montanabw 23:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
The first use of the word that I saw referred to different landraces of corn growing in different elevations and exposures in indigenous Maya areas of modern Mexico. I haven't tracked down the references for the use of the word, but the concept seems extremely useful. My sense is that landraces form as much through natural selective processes of cultivation or captivity as through human selection, so that if the "garbage wolf" hypothesis for dog domestication is true, garbage wolves would have been a landrace (or more likely several, in different areas). One could even push the definition and say that MRSA is a landrace. But I don't have enough knowledge of the reliable sources to know how all this would fit into Misplaced Pages.--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Landraces form, primarily and quickly, through mostly natural selection, long after domestication. E.g. the St Johns water dog and Maine Coon cat are both North American landraces that postdate European arrival on the continent. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I see some potential for some great research on this and a real improvement to the articles in question. Montanabw 21:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Yep. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Redundant sentence?

Unresolved – Work to integrate WP:NCFLORA and WP:NCFAUNA stuff into MOS:ORGANISMS not completed yet?
Extended content

The sentence at MOS:LIFE "General names for groups or types of organisms are not capitalized except where they contain a proper name (oak, Bryde's whales, rove beetle, Van cat)" is a bit odd, since the capitalization would (now) be exactly the same if they were the names of individual species. Can it simply be removed?

There is an issue, covered at Misplaced Pages:PLANTS#The use of botanical names as common names for plants, which may or may not be worth putting in the main MOS, namely cases where the same word is used as the scientific genus name and as the English name, when it should be de-capitalized. I think this is rare for animals, but more common for plants and fungi (although I have seen "tyrannosauruses" and similar uses of dinosaur names). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:17, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

  1. I would leave it a alone for now; let people get used to the changes. I think it's reasonable to include the "general names" thing, because it's a catch-all that includes several different kinds of examples, that various largely different groups of people are apt to capitalize. Various know-nothings want to capitalize things like "the Cats", the "Great Apes", etc., because they think "it's a Bigger Group and I like to Capitalize Big Important Stuff". There are millions more people who just like to capitalize nouns and stuff. "Orange's, $1 a Pound". Next we have people who insist on capitalizing general "types" and landraces of domestic animals ("Mountain Dogs", "Van Cat") because they're used to formal breed names being capitalized (whether to do that with breeds here is an open question, but it should not be done with types/classes of domestics, nor with landraces. Maybe the examples can be sculpted better: "the roses", "herpesviruses", "great apes", "Bryde's whale", "mountain dogs", "Van cat", "passerine birds". I'm not sure that "rove beetle" and "oak" are good examples of anything. Anyway, it's more that the species no-capitalization is a special case of the more general rule, not that the general rule is a redundant or vague version of the former. If they're merged, it should keep the general examples, and maybe specifically spell out and illustrate that it also means species and subspecies, landraces and domestic "types", as well as larger and more general groupings.
  2. I had noticed that point and was going to add it, along with some other points from both NCFLORA and NCFAUNA, soon to MOS:ORGANISMS, which I feel is nearing "go live" completion. Does that issue come up often enough to make it a MOS mainpage point? I wouldn't really object to it, and it could be had by adding an "(even if it coincides with a capitalized Genus name)" parenthetical to the "general names" bit. The pattern is just common enough in animals to have been problematic if it were liable to be problematic, as it were. I.e., I don't see a history of squabbling about it at Lynx or its talk page, and remember looking into this earlier with some other mammal, about two weeks ago, and not seeing evidence of confusion or editwarring. The WP:BIRDS people were actually studiously avoiding that problem; I remember seeing a talk page discussion at the project that agreed that such usage shouldn't be capitalized ever. PS: With Lynx, I had to go back to 2006, in the thick of the "Mad Capitalization Epidemic" to find capitalization there, and it wasn't even consistent, just in the lead.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  11:11, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
  1. Well, certainly "rove beetle" and "oak" are poor examples here, so I would support changing to some of the others you suggested above.
  2. I think the main problem we found with plants was it being unclear as to whether inexperienced editors meant the scientific name or the English name. So you would see a sentence with e.g. "Canna" in the middle and not know whether this should be corrected to "Canna" or to "canna". The plural is clear; "cannas" is always lower-case non-italicized. The singular is potentially ambiguous. Whether it's worth putting this point in the main MOS I just don't know since I don't much edit animal articles and never breed articles, which is why I asked you. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:55, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
  1. Will take a look at that later, if someone else doesn't beat me to it.
  2. Beats me. Doesn't seem too frequent an issue, but lot of MOS stuff isn't. Definitely should be in MOS:ORGANISMS, regardless.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:46, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
Worked on both of those a bit at MOS. We'll see if it sticks.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:18, 5 May 2014 (UTC)



Current threads

How do you know I'm a real person?

I could just be a really intelligent bot. --110.93.236.75 (talk) 12:27, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Note to self

Unresolved

Finish patching up WP:WikiProject English language with the stuff from User:SMcCandlish/WikiProject English Language, and otherwise get the ball rolling.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  20:22, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Re: Diacritics

Unresolved – An anti-diacritics pseudo-guideline is a problem and needs an RfC.

Greetings. I was referring to conventions like "All North American hockey pages should have player names without diacritics.". Cédric 23:26, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

@Cedric tsan cantonais: Wow, thanks for drawing that to my attention. Don't know how that one slipped past the radar. That is actually a bogus WP:LOCALCONSENSUS "guideline" and needs to be fixed! My point still stands, though, that "any" covers both this any any new proposal someone might come up with. :-) Anyway, I'm not sure how to deal with the "screw the MoS, we're going to ban diacritics in hockey" crap, other than probably an RfC hosted at WP:VPPOL.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  23:30, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
For your information, I'm using "any and all" on the template so both our grounds can be covered. Cédric 05:05, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Fortunately, the universe did not implode.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  18:30, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Excellent mini-tutorial

Unresolved – Still need to do that essay page.

Somehow, I forget quite how, I came across this - that is an excellent summary of the distinctions. I often get confused over those, and your examples were very clear. Is something like that in the general MoS/citation documentation? Oh, and while I am here, what is the best way to format a citation to a page of a document where the pages are not numbered? All the guidance I have found says not to invent your own numbering by counting the pages (which makes sense), but I am wondering if I can use the 'numbering' used by the digitised form of the book. I'll point you to an example of what I mean: the 'book' in question is catalogued here (note that is volume 2) and the digitised version is accessed through a viewer, with an example of a 'page' being here, which the viewer calls page 116, but there are no numbers on the actual book pages (to confuse things further, if you switch between single-page and double-page view, funny things happen to the URLs, and if you create and click on a single-page URL the viewer seems to relocate you one page back for some reason). Carcharoth (talk) 19:10, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

@Carcharoth: Thanks. I need to copy that into an essay page. As far as I know, the concepts are not clearly covered in any of those places, nor clearly enough even at Help:CS1 (which is dense and overlong as it is). The e-book matters bear some researching. I'm very curious whether particular formats (Nook, etc.) paginate consistently between viewers. For Web-accessible ones, I would think that the page numbering that appears in the Web app is good enough if it's consistent (e.g., between a PC and a smart phone) when the reader clicks the URL in the citation. I suppose one could also use |at= to provide details if the "page" has to be explained in some way. I try to rely on better-than-page-number locations when possible, e.g. specific entries in dictionaries and other works with multiple entries per page (numbered sections in manuals, etc.), but for some e-books this isn't possible – some are just continuous texts. One could probably use something like |at=in the paragraph beginning "The supersegemental chalcolithic metastasis is ..." about 40% into the document, in a pinch. I guess we do need to figure this stuff out since such sources are increasingly common.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  20:29, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes (about figuring out how to reference e-books), though I suspect existing (non-WP) citation styles have addressed this already (no need to re-invent the wheel). This is a slightly different case, though. It is a digitisation of an existing (physical) book that has no page numbers. If I had the book in front of me (actually, it was only published as a single copy, so it is not a 'publication' in that traditional sense of many copies being produced), the problem with page numbers would still exist. I wonder if the 'digital viewer' should be thought of as a 'via' thingy? In the same way that (technically) Google Books and archive.org digital copies of old books are just re-transmitting, and re-distributing the material (is wikisource also a 'via' sort of thing?). Carcharoth (talk) 23:13, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
@Carcharoth: Ah, I see. I guess I would treat it as a |via=, and same with WikiSource, which in this respect is essentially like Google Books or Project Gutenberg. I think your conundrum has come up various times with arXiv papers, that have not been paginated visibly except in later publication (behind a journal paywall and not examined). Back to the broader matter: Some want to treat WikiSource and even Gutenberg as republishers, but I think that's giving them undue editorial credit and splitting too fine a hair. Was thinking on the general unpaginated and mis-paginated e-sources matter while on the train, and came to the conclusion that for a short, unpaginated work with no subsections, one might give something like |at=in paragraph 23, and for a much longer one use the |at=in the paragraph beginning "..." trick. A straight up |pages=82–83 would work for an e-book with hard-coded meta-data pagination that is consistent between apps/platforms and no visual pagination. On the other hand, use the visual pagination in an e-book that has it, even if it doesn't match the e-book format's digital pagination, since the pagination in the visual content would match that of a paper copy; one might include a note that the pagination is that visible in the content if it conflicts with what the e-book reader says (this comes up a lot with PDFs, for one thing - I have many that include cover scans, and the PDF viewers treat that as p. 1, then other front matter as p. 2, etc., with the content's p. 1 being something like PDF p. 7).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  08:07, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Please delete the shortcuts you recently created

The original shortcuts can then be moved. Please do not undo my changes and add extra spaces such as adding extra spaces to the refs. Please do not remove the wikilinks. It is incorrect if one of the sentences has a missing wikilink. The Template:Misplaced Pages essays in the essay was intentionally expanded. Please do not collapse the other parts of the essays. I want them all to be shown. The shortcut SOME was restored in order for editors to know it exists and for editors to use the shortcut. The WL unsupported attributions is still in the section. I moved it up. QuackGuru (talk) 16:03, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

If the shortcut is not going to be used that is widely divergent from the title then you could nominate it for deletion. QuackGuru (talk) 20:12, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

When quoting an article the wording or quote marks can't be changed. QuackGuru (talk) 05:28, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

You can just undo what you disagree with; I won't editwar over it. It's not necessary to delete then move shortcuts; you were already "advertising" the ones in the odd spaced style, and "redirects are cheap", so its harmless for them to remain; if no one ever uses them after a while, then WP:RFD will delete them as part of routine maintenance. Purely typographic-conformity changes can be made to quoted material; see MOS:QUOTE. I don't know what "It is incorrect if one of the sentences has a missing wikilink" is referring to. If that's referring to quoted material, no it is not necessary to preserve links in quotes (not that MoS concerns actually apply to essay pages anyway). If the link is already present in the material above the quote with the same link, the second link is redundant. Having the essays template fully expanded to show every essay defeats the purpose of the template having collapsible sections. A template almost a third as long as your entire essay is not necessary, and is abusive of the reader. The collapsed portions are to categories of essays that don't relate to yours anyway. But if it's not in userspace, it's not really "yours" now, which is why I feel empowered to have edited it for conformance with standard operating procedure. I did not change the intent or message of the essay in any way, and even improved its clarity in a few places (despite disagreeing with its premise). If you really want to fight with me to make reference citations harder to read, be my guest, but also be aware that making edits to pages for no reason other than to futz with code spacing (especially in citations) is discouraged and considered a waste of editorial time and productivity. If you're going to react with this level of alarm and "do not!" any time someone touches an essay you've written, I strongly suggest keeping them in userspace, where they generally will not be touched except for necessary technical reasons. No essay needs that many shortcuts, especially a new one no one mentions but its author. A shortcut that has no obvious referent, isn't unambiguous, isn't memorable, and/or isn't likely to be used, is known as "polluting the namespace", routinely deleted at RfD. WP:SOME appears to go to WP:WEASEL, so I'm not sure why we're talking about it. The fact that a shortcut exists does not mean it needs to be advertised. The more that are added, the fewer of them actually get used, because it interferes with their memorability.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  17:59, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
It is annoying to have to uncollapsed the other essays. They are interrelated. The essay also proposes to unhide hidden citations. Adding extra spaces to citations makes it harder to edit articles. I didn't want just a link to weasel. I also wanted editors to know about the shortcut. I fixed that and other things. I made changes since my last comments. I think it is fine now. QuackGuru (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
You are right. "The more that are added, the fewer of them actually get used." I deleted a few of the shortcuts including the shortcuts you created. Less shortcuts equals more use of each shortcut. Too many equals shortcut overkill. QuackGuru (talk) 22:04, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Citation readability

Like I said, I'm not inclined to fight with you about it. I've given rationales, and either they work for you or they don't. If this were article text, I would care more. Will debate one point: Adding spaces between citation parameters definitely does not make articles harder to edit, but much easier, especially for citation checkers and completers, who are doing some of our most important work. It does not help to add excessive spacing like | parameter1 = value | parameter2 = value. But |parameter1=value |parameter2=value is much more readable than |parameter1=value|parameter2=value. It also helps to add a space between |url= (and especially |archive-url=) and the actual URL, since it shortens the long string and permits line-wrapping sooner. This is only needed for URL parameters, since other parameters' values do not have enormous unbroken strings dumped into them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  22:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

There are various ways to improve the editability of articles. Adding extra spaces to the citations decreases the editability of the content because it is easier to spot where the citations are when they don't have spaces. This means it is harder to differentiate between the words and citations when both have spaces. Therefore, removing extra spaces inside the citations improves the ease of editing for articles.

Main citation spacing correctly (without extra spaces)

​​<ref name=Grana2014>{{cite journal|last=Grana|first=R|author2=Benowitz, N|author3=Glantz, SA|title=E-cigarettes: a scientific review.|journal=Circulation|date=13 May 2014|volume=129|issue=19|pages=1972–86|doi=10.1161/circulationaha.114.007667|pmc=4018182|pmid=24821826}}</ref>

Main citation spacing incorrectly (with unnecessary spaces)

​​<ref name=Grana2014>{{cite journal |last=Grana |first=R |author2=Benowitz, N |author3=Glantz, SA |title=E-cigarettes: a scientific review. |journal=Circulation |date=13 May 2014 |volume=129 |issue=19 |pages=1972–86 |doi=10.1161/circulationaha.114.007667 |pmc=4018182 |pmid=24821826 }}</ref>

Short citation correctly (without extra space and without quote marks)

​​<ref name=Grana2014/>

Short citation incorrectly (with unnecessary space)

​​<ref name=Grana2014/ >

Short citation incorrectly (with unnecessary quote marks)

​​<ref name="Grana2014"/>

I'm not sure which page this advise goes.

Adding extra spaces does make it more difficult to edit articles. What a mess. QuackGuru (talk) 22:38, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

<ref name=Grana2014/>: is permissible (MediaWiki parses it correctly), but is malformed XML, so it harms WP:REUSE.
<ref name=Grana2014 />: Same but not quite as bad (has one XML error instead of two).
<ref name="Grana2014" />: Best. It's perfectly valid in MediaWiki, and is proper XML, so zero tools properly written will ever have trouble parsing it. It's also "futureproof": If a later editor doesn't like this scrunched up format (and there are many who do not), if they change it to <ref name="Grana 2014" /> (and in the original cite, of course) the result will still be valid, while <ref name=Grana 2014 /> will not be (nor will <ref name=Grana 2014/>). Your labeling of <ref name="Grana2014" /> as "incorrect" is, well, itself incorrect. It's simply not the shortest possible construction that MediaWiki won't barf on. That doesn't mean <ref name=Grana2014/>, the shortest possible one, is the preferable one, because other stuff will barf on it. Using that extra-compressed format also directly encourages incorrect markup elsewhere, e.g. in span, hr, and br elements. Failure to properly close singular elements (i.e. those without separate open and close tags) with space-slash-greaterthan also messes up the syntax highlighting.
<ref name="Grana2014"/ > or <ref name=Grana2014/ >: Malformed.
"t is easier to spot where the citations are when they don't have spaces" – I'm highly skeptical any usability study would demonstrate that to be true, and it's subjectively not true for me. The very presence of the space helps distinguish, while visually scanning, this markup from other markup like the original <ref name="Grana 2014">...</ref>. The presence of the quotation marks also helps, by making it easier to spot ref citations and distinguish them from other foo=bar constructions, such as template parameters. But again, I'm not going to editwar with you over this stuff. You can take into account what I'm saying and revise your assessment, or not.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  02:12, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
Tighter full citations and tighter short citations is easier for me to edit articles.
If it becomes "malformed" and/or "messes up the syntax highlighting" then that is a software problem that should be fixed. QuackGuru (talk) 14:38, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
I nearly flew right over all this, but all the bolded "Short citation incorrectly..." stuff snapped me right back. QuackGuru, please note: the "<ref name= .../>" construct – a named ref – is NOT a "short citation". It is a way of linking to a note (or "footnote") made with the <ref>...</ref> tags, which note may contain a citation of some sort, or something else. This is not merely a terminological error, it is a conceptual error, and the cause of many discussions going at cross-purposes. Fortunately for this discussion it doesn't matter, as you are using the named ref only for purposes of illustration. But I would have this point clarified in anticipation of future discussions.
As to the topic here (whether spaces add clarity): QG, it appears you have never done much programming, where clarity is crucial. As generations of English teachers (likely with other languages, but not within my personal knowledge) have taught: spaces – that is, breaks or gaps between words – are the primary means of distinguishing the parts of sentences. And there was a time, back in the days when writing was as esoteric as coding is nowadays, when all the text was run together without spaces. (Maybe vellum was expensive?) If you don't think spaces are useful, just try leaving them out. Same thing applies to coding. And there were several studies on such matters in the 1960s and 1970s, of which the most notable is Kernighan and Plauger's The Elements of Programming Style. Their bottom line: formatting style is important, and clarity is paramount.
Now please note that I do not argue that extra spaces are always good. But judicious use can be very useful. E.g., prefixed to vertical bars (" |") makes it easier to identify and distinguish parameters (as SMC has illustrated). But I would go a little bit further: add a space after an equal sign, but not before it. E.g.: "|parm1= value |parm2= value". This makes the value stand out better, without letting the equal sign be a big distraction. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:48, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
When citations have spaces they are harder to initially distinguish from sentences that have spaces. If there is a problem with it becoming malformed or the syntax is not highlighting then the WMF needs input to create new software programs to fix the problems no matter how the citations are formatted. QuackGuru (talk) 20:01, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
I don't buy it. Except in mathematics-heavy articles, which must be edited with utmost care to avoid messing stuff up (i.e., we don't just rapid-skim them and edit willy-nilly), "sentences that have spaces" are not also going to be riddled with = and > and other such symbols. It is not credible that a typical means of distinguishing regular prose from <ref>...</ref> spans is the presence or absence of spaces, especially given a) these spans most often contain reference citations and b) they almost always have spaces in them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  22:13, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
It does depend which article is being edited. Citation-heavy, longer articles can be an issue with the citation style. QuackGuru (talk) 22:49, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
I agree that excessive spaces (breaks) can confuse one's parsing of syntax (which is why I don't have spaces after vertical bars or before equal signs). But let us note the context of where you are having problems: the use of citation templates (i.e., {{cite xxx}} and {{citation}}) in the text, where you have all those "sentences that have spaces." But if you squeeze all the spaces out of your "coded text" (the template parameters, etc.) to distinguish it from the natural language text, it gets harder to read, and find errors in, the coded text. If this is a real serious problem for you one option is, as Floquenbeam suggests: use an edit tool (or editor) that color codes your text.
Here is (IMHO) a better option: don't mix your full citations (with all their parameterized bibiliographic detail) in with your article text. Put them in their own section (preferably "Sources"), using short cites in-line. And in "Sources" use (mostly) vertical format; it is a LOT easier.
Please note: what you see as the problem is distinguishing code-text (template parameters, etc.) from natural language text it is mixed in with. I say the problem is in the mixing of these two kinds of text. Separating them greatly alleviates this (and some other problems). ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:17, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
This was done with many sources at Misplaced Pages's Knowledge Engine (Wikimedia Foundation). There are still a few left that were not added to the Reference section. I can't change how it is done on other articles. This requires community consensus to redo the citations. If there was such a consensus a bot would have to do all the work to move the full citations to the Reference section. QuackGuru (talk) 23:27, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
This approach introduces a different and more serious usability problem though: it interferes with the ability to edit on a section-by-section basis. People at least have to be permitted to add cites inline, with someone or something moving them later. Putting all references in the refs section at the end is really only a good idea for articles that are already at the FA stage and unlikely to change much in the future. If they're still in development, this citation method both discourages new content work, and encourages addition of content without any sources at all. Also leads to disputations over whether to alphbetize the list or give it in order of use of the source. The former produces a more orderly bibliography but at the cost of ref citations being in a confusing order like "A fact here."  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:07, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
I have learned from this discussion that there is no best approach for the citation style that will fit all articles. QuackGuru (talk) 01:04, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes, this has been the general consensus or wiki-wisdom for a long time now.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  19:21, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
You prefer named-refs?? Now there's a useability problem: if the master named-ref is elsewhere all your slave named-refs (all the "<ref name="Grana2014"/ >" stuff) come up with big error messages. And if, after saving your section, there is an error, you have to hunt through the entire article to find the master ref. (Oh fun.) On the other hand, with short cites you don't get an error on your section preview. And if, after saving it, there is an error linking to the full citation you know exactly where to look: in "Sources".
Nor is this good idea "only for FA articles". It is good for ANY article that needs to "re-use" a citation — that is, to cite a source more than once — and even for articles that do not "re-use" citations. Simply getting all that bibliographic detail out of the text makes the text easier to read, and having all the full citations in one place (without the text!) makes it easier to read, verify, compare, maintain, and collate them. And in no way should it discourage new work.
Speaking of collation: what is the problem? Bibliographies are almost invariably collated by last name of the first author. Notes — as in footnotes — are ordered and numbered by {reflist} in the same order as found in the text. If any the numbered note-links (e.g.: ) show up out of order it is because you are using named-refs. For shame!! Did I not state, at the very start of my irruption here, that a named-ref is NOT a "short citation"? No wonder you have problems. And yet another instance of why we need to respect the terminology.
QG: on the contrary, you can "change how it is done on other articles." Just get consensus. Of course, a larger or more prominent article, with more editors involved, is more likely to run into resistance. And, frankly, you seem to generate a lot of resistance. But this kind of change is possible, and it doesn't require a bot. Let me know if you would like to try it somewhere. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:20, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
I already said what the collation problem is. Bunching up citations at the end of the article is not particularly "good" for any article that needs to re-use a citation, just one of several functional options that all have their benefits and weaknesses. Just using <ref name="whatever" /> works fine regardless where the <ref name="whatever">...</ref> is, and often works better because it is fairly likely to be in the same section and thus render in the preview. It is no longer the case that refs outside the preview generate an error; they generate a notice that the refs are outside the preview and are not displayed. The majority of editors prefer this system; it is much easier on editors most of the time, and readers don't care one way or the other; the technical geekery underlying all this is transparent to them. The only time you find more complicated reference citation systems on WP is when either a) it's a GA, FA, or PR article (or candidate to be one) with a lot of references, and consensus has determined that separate references-and bibliography sections are needed; or b) the article started out that way because the principal original author of it is wedded to that citation format and uses it habitually, even when it is not helpful. It is never helpful with stubs and other short articles, in which it can produce redundant citation material that is longer than the actual content of the article; nor in articles with only a few sources, since it is bureaucratic overkill for something very simple; nor in articles with numerous sources each only cited once (or multiple times but at the same pages), for the same reason. It's only helpful in long articles with numerous sources many of which are cited repeatedly and at different pages.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  19:21, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
What? The use of allegedly "more complicated" systems is because "the principal original author of it is wedded to that citation format and uses it habitually"? Surely you have noticed that most people stick with what they started with, and, on WP, having figured out some way of doing citations, are loathe to have their fragile grasp of the matter in any way challenged. Most editors are "wedded" to a particular "citation format" (method), but most of them are abusing <ref>s.
You say that short cites (right?) are "never helpful with stubs and other short articles, in which it can produce redundant citation material that is longer than the actual content of the article ...", which is baffling, unless you are duplicating something. Which would be just a flat-out error. The whole point of short-cites is to avoid duplicating the full citation (with all the bibliographic detail). And perhaps you have not considered that stubs often grow up, but if the first editor abuses <ref> then, per CITEVAR, it's pretty much an uphill battle to ever switch to something better.
Well, I would love to bandy this about with you (too bad we're not in the same town, as this would be good over a beer or two), but I have "real fights" (fires?), etc., to attend to. Later. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:07, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
The differences are a) editors who just use the <ref> system as their go-to default vastly outnumber those who do not (i.e., it's a norm not a variance); b) those who do the simply system generally won't pick fights with editors who want to use a more complex citation approach – i.e., they are usually able to recognize and willing to concede when the simple system is not the best for a particular article. Those on the opposing, "complicating" side often have a strong "it's done this particular way in my field, so it must be done this way in articles about my field" perspective and may be extremely resistant against any contrary viewpoint. There is no demonstrable problem of the <ref> system being "frozen" in long and complex articles; CITEVAR is almost always leveraged by opponents of that citation style to defend more complex citation styles even where they are not helpful, and when the've set their sights on changing an article away from the simple system, then generally show up in numbers (I wonder why that is?). They are the people who wrote CITEVAR, and if you attempt to change a single word of it, you'll hear from them very angrily, with all kinds of venting about people who use <ref>, which will then diverge into rants against MoS editors, against "non-experts", against people who weren't already long-term editors of the articles in question, against infobox fans, against other wikiprojects than their pet one, against particular editors they don't like, and whatever else happens to be short-circuiting their critical thinking at that moment. Been there, done that.

What "abuse" of the <ref> system do you mean? It would help to see an example, and to know what guidelines or policies it isn't following.

Redundant citation material in short articles: I didn't say duplicated. If you have a short piece, then two separate sections for handling citation material, with entries in one referring to entries in the other, is redundant and unnecessarily complicated and lengthy, any time these can be compressed into single entries in one section. Or a main entry and shorter subsequent ones with a page number added, e.g. <ref>Johnson 1999, p. 32</ref> when a full cite to the same book has already appeared. There's no particular reason to do this in separate sections with two templating systems, unless the list of sources has become very long and some of them are cited over and over. Even then, there are plenty who do not feel the two-sections approach is the most useful here, even for long articles.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  21:46, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

All these different issues should be thoroughly explained somewhere in a guideline. There is too many to remember. QuackGuru (talk) 23:02, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
That's what WP:CITE is for, but it has been controlled by a clique for about a decade, so good luck changing anything in it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  19:21, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes. I've thought of starting an alternative, but I don't have time (yet?) for such a major undertaking. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:12, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
WP:CITEBUNDLE says "Bundling has several advantages". The word "several" is misleading. It does not explain when there could be a problem with bundling citations. The new essay does explain when there could be a problem with bundling. There is even a section called "Bundling citations". I think a link to the specific section "Misplaced Pages:Citation_underkill#Bundling_citations" would benefit editors. QuackGuru (talk) 20:27, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
Guidelines and policies do not link to contrary essays.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  20:30, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
WP:CITEBUNDLE is misleading and contrary to common sense when it does not explain when there are times when bundling is a problem. To understand all sides of the issues editors must be given an opportunity to read when there are times bundling may be a disadvantage. QuackGuru (talk) 20:36, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
So raise a dispute about this at WT:CITE. No one is ever going to take seriously the idea of adding links to essays in there, only to changing the text to better reflect actual practice.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  20:51, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
The new essay is not even a month old. If others notice a problem with WP:CITEBUNDLE after reading Misplaced Pages:Citation_underkill#Bundling_citations, then it will be time to update WP:CITEBUNDLE. New content will not stick if I am alone trying to update WP:CITEBUNDLE. QuackGuru (talk) 21:36, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
Others would likely back a proposed change if it were well-founded and argued on its own merits without reference to an essay. The moment you mention the essay people will say "pshah, that's just an essay, and we're not going to change a major guideline just because some essay disagrees with it."  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  23:10, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
Based on the extreme one side view of WP:CITEBUNDLE I would have little chance of succeeding at the moment. Things will change at WP:CITEBUNDLE in the future after more editors read Misplaced Pages:Citation_underkill#Bundling_citations. Probably in about a year or two. QuackGuru (talk) 23:15, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
  • (talk page stalker) (not sure why this talk page is on my watchlist) Not taking a side here, but if anyone on either side of the disagreement doesn't know about the Syntax highlighter, it parses the edit window and helps identify reference text from comments from normal text from templates, etc., using colored shading. It's a gadget, look under the "editing" heading. Not perfect, but certainly useful. Apologies if everyone knows about this already. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:12, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
    Yes, I use it; one of the reasons I'm strict about syntax (stricter than MediaWiki absolutely requires) is that the syntax highligher will break on various forms of sloppy coding that MW itself can compensate for. The syntax highlighting also makes the "I can't tell the differences between regular sentences and citatoins if the citations have a space character in them" idea all the more implausible. Even if one is color-blind, the luminosity difference between regular text and markup is still discernible.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  22:13, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Italy

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Italy. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Request for openion

 Done

Article Legitimacy (criminal law) has been requested to be moved to Legitimacy (law) requesting your openion at Talk:Legitimacy_(criminal_law)

Thanks and regards

Mahitgar (talk) 07:45, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

D+T UK

Resolved

You have added a note to the top of the page. You say that phrases such as 'you must not' should not be used. This is not an opinion. This IS fact, added by an editor for reasons of their own. They were - as far as I can tell - well informed.

Regarding selective sources, I can add one which advises a colon for time. I did not know of any until recently. No other editors seem no have been able to find any either, though. I wil fix this.

I did recently change some of the article to read in a less prescriptive tone, ie not pushing one point of view when others are active.

If you have any other details about why it is regarded to be of an un-encyclopaedic tone, I would be very grateful, so they can be resolved. I am also interested in what attracted you to the page.

Regards,

-Sb2001 (talk) 21:26, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages does not use "must" and "you" language; it is not an encyclopedic style. See WP:TONE, MOS:YOU, WP:NOT#GUIDE, etc. And no, that bit is not a "fact", it's a subjective opinion about what is "proper" or "correct" based on prescriptive grammar notions. It's great that you've already been working on the page to remove some prescriptive language. The cleanup tag I added just indicates that more such work is needed; it's not a condemnation of the article or of previous work to improve it. Colons: Glad a source has been found. I ended up at the page while looking for and undoing your eg and 4.01pm edits, which don't comply with our style guide.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  17:34, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Talkback: Sb2001

 Done
Hello, SMcCandlish. You have new messages at Sb2001's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. -Sb2001 (talk) 15:53, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposed deprecation of /ᵻ, ᵿ/

 Done

Hi, I was wondering if you might be be interested in giving opinion at Help talk:IPA for English § RfC: Proposed deprecation of /ᵻ, ᵿ/ since I see you have previously participated in the conversation regarding dropping another diaphoneme /ɵ/. Your input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Nardog (talk) 13:01, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

MOS/Capital letters talk page

 Done

Hi, SMcCandlish

I pinged you on the MOS/Capital letters talk page, regarding the note you left on my talk page. If you'd like to weigh-in on the MOS/Capital letters talk page - and the current proposals being discussed there - please do. X4n6 (talk) 03:26, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Right-oh. I added some commentary, but closed with a suggestion to start drafting an outline. "I support change!" is pretty meaningless, especially when the work to actually implement a change that will make sense to people and gain consensus is quite difficult for something like this. This is a really thorny one to explain, about on par with the distinction between dashes (of two kinds) and hyphens, and how to use them exactly. That's something WP wrangled with for months and months, with sporadic dispute lasting for years, and there are still some unanswered questions (I ended up disagreeing with two other MoS regulars on some fine point of it only a few months ago).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  06:54, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for your contribution there. I think your exchange with the other editor will be useful, as you can provide some historical background regarding how these issues have been dealt with here in the past. I think you can also add some guidance regarding the question of the appropriate forum for addressing changes to the MOS. I believe we both agree this cannot be accomplished exclusively by a handful of folks on a guideline's talk page, an RfC notwithstanding. Please continue to follow up and contribute there. X4n6 (talk) 22:21, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
@X4n6: Well, it's normal for MoS changes to be done at WT:MOS and often with an RfC. What's not normal is changes that affect the main MOS page to be made by a couple of editors, without an RfC, on the talk page of an MoS subpage, then changing the MoS subpage to conflict with MOS:MAIN, then trying to make the main MoS "comply" with the new changes at the subpage (or just leaving the guideline conflict to sit there indefinitely). Also irregular is a discussion taking place at a wikiproject, an article talk page, or a template talk page and its handful of participants agreeing that they have a "consensus" to change the site-wide MoS (or to write their own topical "anti-guideline" that contradicts it). Changing MoS substantively usually only happens by RfC (or for trivial stuff a regular discussion) at WT:MOS, or if a big brouhaha is expected, at WP:VPPOL. I increasingly lean toward doing significant changes (those that might affect thousands of articles or more) at VPPOL, especially if there's any "emotional involvement" by any camp of editors about the matter; a VPPOL RfC has better value as a consensus record due to the broader editorial input. That's how the MOS:JR issue got settled, and it's also been used for MOS:IDENTITY, etc. But, VPPOL is not a magic wand. For example, getting MOS:JR actually implemented in mainspace required dozens of WP:RMs, with the same handful of opponents tendentiously resisting every single move of names like "Robert Downey, Jr." to "Robert Downey Jr.", despite the RfC and despite every previous RM going the way the RfC said it should. It was a ridiculous waste of editorial time and energy. C'est la vie.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:01, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
We are basically in accord here. Among the other relevant issues covered, I just wanted folks to be clear that an RfC on that page wasn't substantial enough to merit a guideline rewrite, as had been proposed. Thanks for lending your view. Will continue to welcome it there, should more discussion occur. X4n6 (talk) 23:55, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:2017

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:2017. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:How to mine a source

Can an editor use a source if it does not got into a full discussion on a specific subject? The source is about regulation, but it covers so much more. I think Misplaced Pages:How to mine a source should explain what an editor can or can't do with using a source in this type of circumstance. QuackGuru (talk) 19:35, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

@QuackGuru: Hmm. I would think that it's a matter of general WP:RS determination. Is the author reputable in the particular field? Then it's treated as a good source by default, unless/until a better source comes along (e.g. more recent and more in depth on the side topic at issue), and even then we might note a conflict between sources, or if multiple sources suggest a scientific consensus against the summarized view in the original source that was used, maybe just remove that contrary view. his is standard operating procedure especially in WP:MEDRS vs. WP:FRINGE matterse. (But I'm particularly thinking of side-comments on linguistic matters by zoologists, and other such cases; "is reliable on x" doesn't mean "is reliable, period".) Is the author drawing on sources, or speaking from personal (including professional) experience and observation? If the latter, then it's a primary source for that material, even if it also contains secondary material on its main topic. There are probably other such considerations I'm eliding. Not really sure how to work that stuff into the essay, or if it's necessary to do so. I'd be more apt to warn against over-generalizing from tertiary sources that aren't written by experts (e.g. Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds-style coffee-table books).

The piece you link to an abstract of (full text is pay-walled) looks like a literature review, though not a systematic review, in a generally reputable journal, by a set of authors who are mostly previously published under peer review (some a lot), and covering "the available data regarding safety and public health impacts of e-cigarettes" and "the status of US regulations and policies affecting their sale and use"; so, two inter-related topics on which it is presumptively reliable for being a lit. rev. published in a major journal. Is there something you or someone else wants to cite from it that isn't within those two topics? I guess I'm too unclear on what the issue(s) is/are to know why this example has been picked, and what it's an example of.

It's unlikely to be reliable for anything predictive (that'd be a primary-source opinion), or a novel conclusion the authors draw which can't be traced to any of the sources being reviewed (that'd be the authors' own primary research, which is discouraged in lit. revs. but not unknown). It also may not be reliable for anything that involves increasingly politicized "doctrinal" disputes raging between "e-cigs are just an evil" and "e-cigs are an improvement over real ones" viewpoints (among others, like "e-cigs are different and a simplistic comparison is meaningless"). There's considerable evidence these are increasingly US versus EU/UK viewpoints, as well as even more a split between different kinds of professionals, and that in either case various national bodies are staking out unwavering stances one way or another, including the American Cancer Society, in whose journal this appears. An authorial push in one direction or another on such matters would also be primary source material (socio-political opinion of the authors and their institutions, and possibly even the post hoc editorial opinion of the publisher inserted as a condition of publication). PS: Whether other editors are willing to concede that it's clearly going to be unreliable for these sorts of things (if it includes any of them) is another matter entirely.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  23:41, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

The abstract says "This review highlights the available data regarding safety and public health impacts of e-cigarettes and details the status of US regulations and policies affecting their sale and use." One of the points is the following: "Overall, e-cigarettes have the potential to significantly harm the public’s health, with particular concern for the health of adolescents and individuals from certain underserved populations." An editor could say it is unreliable because the review also says "A full discussion of the potential for “harm reduction” with e-cigarettes and the balance of their harms versus benefits is beyond the scope of this review;" I know it is a high-quality review, but I have seen editors say a source is mainly about one thing and it is unreliable for anything else or we can only draw from the conclusion and not use anything else from the source. The general point I was making was for clarifying things like this for Misplaced Pages:How to mine a source. A source is mainly about one thing or two, but it may have other points that can be used to expand the article or a subpage. Is there an essay or any policy or guideline that covers this? QuackGuru (talk) 00:14, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
@QuackGuru: I don't know of any WP:P&G page on that; it's just a factor of editorial consensus about applying the interplay between WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:RS, to a particular claim and the source for it. The "Overall ..." bit sounds like a primary-source conclusion reached by the authors of the review – their collective summary of the state of things; it could be cited with attribution (probably to the paper, since it would be tedious to name all the authors). But it might also be genuine lit. rev. material, a summary of the actual consensus in the field. No way to know without the full text and a close examination of who they're citing for what. I don't think the "A full discussion ..." disclaimer matters, because the "Overall ..." statement isn't a full discussion, but a summary of the current consensus in the peer-reviewed material. Regardless, I would be inclined to attribute this, and virtually everything else in this topic, because one camp's "fact" is another's "bogus politicized claim" and vice-versa. Basically, all sources on a topic like this verge on primary, at least for some of what they're saying. PS: I added a new section at WP:MINE.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:58, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
I would say it is not the conclusion under the heading "Conclusion", but it is a conclusion. If there is a serious disagreement then it will require attribution. The only problem with this topic is that there are too many reviews. Every month there is about three new reviews. "A caution on misapplication" touches on my concerns on all sides of the issues. Thanks. The correct wikilink to use in A caution on misapplication is WP:CCPOL. QuackGuru (talk) 01:44, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Agreed on attribution; I'm not sure even "serious disagreement" is required. Too many lit. revs.: yeah, I gave up trying to keep track of this issue over a year ago. I don't have the time or patience for the real work, much less for all the Wikipedian un-work (interpersonal bullshit, etc.) involved. Glad the caution-on-misapplication material hit the spots. I was kind of guessing, and then elaborating from other ideas I'd been percolating on where sourcing goes wrong, especially with trying to pull "small" facts from sources. CCPOL: fixed.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  02:48, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Hopefully the review after another new review will slow down. It is too much work. I am the only editor doing all the work. There are times one review can be used on multiple pages. Imagine spending two to three hours summarizing one review. I added one sentence to citation underkill with a wikilink to How to mine a source and now How to mine a source discusses it in more detail. Job well done. QuackGuru (talk) 03:13, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Zankyu beddy mush! I empathize – the kind of sourcing work I do id much like that, time- and tedium-wise, but more often it's checking 20+ style guides and other such works on a grammar or punctuation matter (mostly to undo bogus nationalistic claims in various articles on English. See, e.g., footnotes at Exempli gratia, material that mostly needs to move into an article on comma usage in English; at Talk:Comma I've proposed a WP:SPINOUT of the long section on this into a separate article for detailed and sourced development like this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  04:28, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
I think readers may want to keep the English language and other languages on the same page for comparison. QuackGuru (talk) 13:40, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Which is why WP:SUMMARY style exists.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  03:34, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
This is done by a case-by-case basis. The English language must be very long to split it into another page. QuackGuru (talk) 15:22, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
I was just told on the talk page that a paper that is about mainly about one thing cannot be used for other things from the same paper. QuackGuru (talk) 15:20, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
It already is long, and will get much longer. Most of the source research I do for MoS disputes is saved and is ultimately intended for use in articles. It's not in articles yet mostly because we have almost no articles on English usage, only sections, which are already large. What we need, this being the English Misplaced Pages, is articles on English, and summary-style sections of them in world-wide articles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  22:39, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
This is like having an article specifically on English Misplaced Pages. Got it. QuackGuru (talk) 01:59, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Well, more that people are mostly going to be looking for English-usage material when they look something like a capitalization or punctuation matter here. For each person looking to compare comma usage between Russian and German and French (or whatever), there are probably 1000 or more looking, at en.wp, for info on how commas are used in English, according to what sources. Addressing those English punctuation/style/grammar topics fully will result in articles that, on English in particular, are much larger than the multi-language overview articles we present have and which are more and more looking like "in English, plus some tidbits about other languages, when we bother", which isn't a good way to write about something like the comma as a mark in world languages. As an example, to adequately source "A. B. Ceesdale Jr./Jnr" versus "A. B. Ceesdale, Jr." (with a comma) style requires several paragraphs about North American and Commonwealth English and the changing of patterns over time, with dozens of sources. It's a level of detail that belongs in a section about this on an article on comma usage in English, not in the article on the comma as a punctuation mark in languages in general, nor in the article on abbreviations used with names (which also covers PhD, Dr., Rev., OBE, and many other subtopics, which don't have anything to do with punctuation mechanics in our language in particular).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  02:17, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
I was thinking google books can provide sources to expand the soon-to-be Comma (English language) article. QuackGuru (talk) 02:23, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
There's no shortage of sources. I own almost English every style guide and major (non-learners') English grammar work in print, and many that no longer are.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  10:36, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Help! No not what you think

Hi! Forgive bad effort at light hearted subject heading. This is *about* help pages. You are primary author of help essay WP:MINE. Currently its tagged with Template:Misplaced Pages how-to, which is great. FYI I have proposed moving that template to Template:Misplaced Pages help page (which I created as a redir to the former). I'm interested in moving as many help pages to help namespace as possible. Would you consider moving your essay over there, and leaving a redir in the Misplaced Pages mainspace? Thanks for thinking about it! All help pages, seems to me, are best grouped as help pages in the help namespace. Of course, that's a bit like saying we'll sort the beach sand,but ya gotta start somewhere! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:19, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Sure; it really is more a "Help:"-namespace item. Re: "moving as many help pages to help namespace as possible" – exercise caution; some stuff purporting to be a help/how-to page is really a "how to do something my weird way that isn't supported by consensus". Even my own page on this reflects just a particular editorial point of view, though no one has challenged a single aspect of it. QuackGuru, above, suggested some clarification/disclaimer material, and I added, just now, probably more than he had in mind, with close reference to the core content policies. It probably better reflects consensus now than it did before.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:02, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
@NewsAndEventsGuy: PS: Template rename and merge discussions are, these days, conventionally done at WP:TFD. People may object if it isn't done via that venue (or they may not).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:06, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for feedback. Somewhere I saw that templates are moved via the conventional move process, but that may need updating. I'll add the TFD tags on top of the one I already used. Its true there's a lot of excellent material, and a lot of totally whacko material, appearing as quasi help pages under various labels and templates scattered across Misplaced Pages and help namespaces. And people argue about their enforceability regularly. If any of it lacks enough consensus to be a help page, then it should probably just be an essay. At present I'm just focussed on things that already have the wikipedia how-to tag. I'm not touching high traffic high impact ones for the time being. Blah blah blah etc. Thanks for the help! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:27, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
@NewsAndEventsGuy: I stand corrected, actually. Was thinking of categories, where move/rename is folded into CfD. It's merge/split discussions that have been folded into TfD.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:33, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the followup. Transparency is key! Can you suggest improvements on what I have already done? From that bots also tagged the project page and listed it at the requested move page. I posted FYI links at talk for project namespace and policy page Policies and guidelines. Think at the vpump and project helpspace too. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:44, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
@NewsAndEventsGuy: The RM/proposal seems adequate to me, though I would have done it as an RfC (and someone might try to wikilawyer that RMs can't be used for more-than-move results; they'd be wrong, but I see people make this argument sometimes, e.g. when a discussion is leaning Merge and they oppose the merger). It can be converted into an RfC just by changing the template code from RM to RfC, and changing the heading (keep the old one functional as {{anchor|Requested move 11 July 2017}} right after the new one). I refactored my long post into a small !vote, and moved our lengthening discussion to the Discussion section. I would definitely agree on including the Pump; this is kind of a systemic change when the entire proposal is absorbed. Just a neutral notice along these lines would do it:
==The Help namespace and Misplaced Pages how-to pages==
{{FYI|Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.}}
Please see ], for a proposal to rename various "how-to"-titled pages, and to move more internal Misplaced Pages-namespace help/how-to material into the Help namespace. ~~~~
(or link to whatever the RfC heading is, if you decide to go the RfC route). WP:VPPOL is probably the right venue, since it's about how we categorize/label pages, would move stuff out of the policy/guidelines namespace, has WP:NOT#HOWTO resonance, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  03:03, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
thanks for those thoughts but I think I'm OK leaving it the way it is . The only real proposal in that thread is to change the template name and a tiny bit of text as listed in the proposal . . Weather any given page should be moved does not bear on the question about the template name and text. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 04:19, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Hokay-dokay.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  04:23, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing at TFD which i didn't know about. After sleeping, I realized I could just skip the templates and post a pointer link which I did here. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:06, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

BTW thanks for moving the ciscussion to discussion. I think you broke your sig and I think I fixed it. Just thought I should FYI you in case you want to double checkI didn't screw up. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:10, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Comma

Disregard – That's my own RfC.

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Comma. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Barnstar

For later memory-jogging: this was about this thread at WT:MOS.

Didn't want to mess with your user page, so:

The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
For going above and beyond to help with a query — Anakimitalk   20:58, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
@Anakimi: Oh, thanks. It was my pleasure (literally – I get a thrill out of resolving long-term, vexing problems with small bits of code). I hope it solves similar layout issues for other editors in other topics, too. I may add a div wrapper for content, as well.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  23:07, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
@Anakimi: Done: Template:Gallery layout content. I updated Real Madrid C.F. to use the "less HTML and CSS geekery" version.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  02:55, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer Newsletter

Hello SMcCandlish, thank you for your efforts reviewing new pages!

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Please comment on Talk:Monogram Pictures

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FYI

 Done

Please see revision and opine whether you still support, or have further thoughts etc. Thanks! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:34, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Portal talk:Current events

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Inanimate whose revisited

Care to take a look over Inanimate whose? I'm hoping to polish up up for GAN soon. I've actually found a pile more sources I could add, but it's gotten to the point where they're all just saying variations of the same thing, and I don't want to load up the article with tedious, redundant quotes. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:56, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

When I get a bit of time; very backlogged right now. My main concerns (without yet looking at the current revision) would be the following (some copy-pasted from a draft essay on "How to write about English at the English Misplaced Pages"; didn't have time to write up all this just now, though thinking on this i-whose topic pointed out two things I need to add to the essay):
Various bullet points:
  • Inappropriately using low-end or limited-scope sources, such as the house style sheets of particular newspapers (and other publishers) like The Guardian and The New York Times: these are not reliable sources for anything at all other than what one publisher's rules are for its own employees. They can be used in the aggregate to illustrate potential trends (e.g. a common preference across numerous British news publishers, or whatever), as long as it doesn't wander into OR (e.g. to assert trends that no reliable sources actually identify).
  • Asserting individual authors' opinions in "Wiki voice" as alleged facts: I've found by experience that it is best to cite things very specifically, e.g. "According to the Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed., 2010), frequently relied upon by non-fiction book and academic journal publishers in North America, ", rather than by suggesting in encyclopedic wording that something is fact and just providing a cite. There are virtually no usage matters of any kind in this language on which sources do not disagree, so asserting almost any of them as fact is bad encyclopedia writing. Applicability to i-whose: Uncritically reporting advocacy assertions as if facts: any claims such as that the centuries-long view against inanimate whose is "a myth", or any other such subjective wording, is dubious to include at all, and should be quoted and attributed if included, e.g. because a leading, general-audience style guide says it.
  • Downplaying one side of a controversy : Our job is to record that there's a very long-running controversy over the matter; that modern sources mostly lean toward permitting the usage; that descriptive linguistics works record that its use is well attested, for a long time; and that a few style guides are against it, while some that permit it still suggest writing around it. (This is a "favoritism" point I need to add to the draft essay.)
  • Having multiple citation options that say the same thing, but not using the most reliable among them: Chicago, New Hart's, Fowler's, Elements of Style, and Scientific Style and Format are probably the top-5 most influential (the last only in the sciences, of course). If one of these gets at it, there is probably no need to cite something derivative (Turabian follows Chicago on everything, for example), with low general applicability (e.g. a style guide from one particular discipline like chemistry or marketing), or with low real-world buy-in (like the UPI Stylebook) – at least not as a "stacked" cite. As the article gets developed, more and more such sources could be added as corroborating, but they're not good as "front-line" sources. (Also need to add this to the essay draft.)
  • Couching anything in terms of "American" or "US" vs. "British" or "UK": That stuff is almost always wrong (including in style guides that make assertions about it; many of them over-nationalize, without evidence or sources, and directly contradicting other sources, because it helps them sell books). Such a claim is frequently just an editor making an OR assessment assessment (usually based on "I saw it in a newspaper's stylesheet, and that magically makes it a universal in my country" – an anecdotal synthesis. Most of what is said about UK style, and which can actually be proven to be nearly universal there (or universal in a field, like journalism, in the UK), is applicable to Commonwealth English generally (or in that particular field, in other Commonwealth countries and Ireland). Much of what applies in US English publishing also does in Canadian, aside from "colour", "theatre", and a few other British vestiges. Not sure any of that will apply to this i-whose material, but it comes up a lot in researching English style and usage matters. I've been gathering Australian, Canadian, and other guides to use as sources in such articles, to give less of a "there are only two countries that count" bias.
  • Relatedly, making assertions about "American English" and "British English" (dialects mostly determined by spoken usage) rather than than norms of American and British (or whatever) publishing, and sometimes the norms of certain kind of publishing: Any linguist will tell you that few written style matters are in fact connected to national or regional dialect (a handful are, like -our/-or and -re/-er); rather, most of them are part of pedagogy and practice regimes of writing and editing that are tied to specific industries and academic fields, sometimes also geographical, and sometimes generational, aside from some being publisher-specific. Asserting them as dialectal differences is more OR, based on misreading and misunderstanding of the sources. And due sometimes to underlying misunderstandings by their authors; it does not matter if 10 style guide authors, almost none of whom are linguists, assert something "is American English" if the assertion is linguistically bullshit, for the same reason that 1,000 aromatherapists asserting what they do is a science isn't treated as reliable either; it's a WP:FRINGE matter.

    Authorship of style guides, usage manuals, and grammar tutorials is by definition an endeavor of prescriptive grammar, which is subjective (personally and with the biases of various cultural forces, often classist), and the diametric opposite of the scientific observation approaches of real linguistics. Some (including non-notable me, and author Bryan A. Garner) have some experience of both approaches and can generally separate them, but some writers exhibit great difficulty separating their preferences from the facts. E.g., the new editions of both Fowler's and New Hart's veer wildly from prescriptive grammar to descriptive linguistics, in a confused fashion that often makes them useless, with a "we give up, just do whatever you want" end result, which is the last thing anyone wants out of a style guide. (These faults in those works are obviously due to a change in editorship, made within a year or so of each other for both volumes, and a rush to put something out about half-way through revising to reflect a change in approach. Both of them are quite literally self-contradictory in places, which only happens as a result of incomplete revision and editing.)

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  11:36, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks SMcCandlish. You have provided yet another insightful comment that reflects sober critical thoughts on editing and the WP project as a whole. We need more editors like you. Cheers, Loopy30 (talk) 14:33, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
@Loopy30: Nice to know someone cares!  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  22:52, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
@Curly Turkey: Great work! I got some sleep, and just read Inanimate whose top to bottom, did some minor copyedits, and left some additional sourcing suggestions and such on the talk page (mostly notes-to-self, since I own all the books except one, a mid-century edition of Hart's Rules). I would support this for GA, and it doesn't trigger any of my draft essay concerns, though many other articles here do, especially Quotation marks in English, a disaster of nationalist PoV pushing and OR. PS: Did you see Talk:Comma#RfC: Split off section to new "Comma in English" article?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  22:46, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Geographic Location Template

Hello. I saw your name attached to a discussion regarding the Geographic Location Template. (I don't know where to start, so I started here with you.)

This template has been added to the middle of a bunch of Los Angeles neighborhoods like Pico-Union. I tend to find them disruptive in the middle of the page. As Misplaced Pages is about consensus though, I don't want to move or delete them without first finding out if there has been any discussions and/or decisions regarding plopping these in the middle of pages. Any insight you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Phatblackmama (talk) 19:45, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

@Phatblackmama:: Oh, geez, that is totally against our guidelines on the use of navigation templates. I would suggesting reverting the templates (citing the WP:NAVBOX guideline), and retaining textual information on geographical relationships, but working it into existing sections (we do not create entire sections for one or two sentences).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  22:48, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I removed it but retained the worded information in the "Geography" section. Please see the Talk page (https://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Pico-Union,_Los_Angeles#Navigation_box). Is there any reason I can add for NOT placing it at the bottom of the article? (I ask this because the user who placed it there is stubborn (and is just coming of a 3-day ban) and will want to know WHY it can't be at the bottom of the page. Thanks. Phatblackmama (talk) 02:26, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
@McCandlish:I was in the process of removing the navboxes from Los Angeles neighborhood pages, and then I saw that Larchmont, Los Angeles had a Geographic Location Template that in 2014 someone moved from the center to the bottom of the page. (https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Larchmont,_Los_Angeles&diff=next&oldid=621745693). I know you suggested working the geographic information into the text, which I did on Pico-Union, Los Angeles and other pages, but should I have moved the boxes to the bottom like on Larchmont, Los Angeles rather than removed them? Is that what you meant when you said to "revert the templates"? Please advise Phatblackmama (talk) 19:57, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
Removing them is fine. I'm unaware of any consensus that these templates should be used at all. They're usability disasters, and someone should probably nominate them for deletion at WP:TFD.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:53, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

@Phatblackmama: I started a long-overdue TfD here. Meant to do this several years ago.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  02:14, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

@McCandlish: Thanks for all your assistance. You have been a real help. Again, thank you. I have added a my thoughts to the TfD.

Discussion at User talk:JDDJS

Providing such a well researched and thought out WP:3O was generous, and for me, instructional. Thanks.Grenschlep (talk) 01:58, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

More than I or anyone would normally do, but we clearly need to make cross-conformance revisions to two guidelines, so the detail was necessary. That took about 2.5 hours. Blech. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  02:24, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

RfC is now open at Misplaced Pages talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Resolving conflicts between (and within) PERFNAV, FILMNAV, and PERFCAT.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:15, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Nival_(company)#Nival got hacked last year. Encyclopedic to include?

Disregard – Discussion was hatted as unproductive before I got to it.

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Nival_(company)#Nival got hacked last year. Encyclopedic to include?. Pavel Novikov (talk) 07:07, 21 July 2017 (UTC)Template:Z48

T.K. Maxx and hhgregg

I saw your RM submission at T.K. Maxx. I wonder what you think of the article title for hhgregg. —BarrelProof (talk) 09:48, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

I would move it to H. H. Gregg fpr the same reason. But would also wait for the outcome of the current RM which may need relisting.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  02:24, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
You may recall this conversation. Now, perhaps predictably, the wording that you inserted at MOS:TM (i.e., "Do not 'correct' the spelling, punctuation, or grammar of trademarks") is being used to assert that the article should say "HHGregg" instead of "H. H. Gregg". This seems clearly contrary to what you yourself thought that this guidance meant. I think that language needs to be improved to clarify what it is intended to mean. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:43, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
User:BarrelProof: re-read the RM discussion, and then present the facts fully, eg mention that another editor said MOS:TMRULES should take effect in an article's text, but not the title. The guideline makes complete sense, and should be followed. How about you actually take notice of what it is saying (do not change trademarks because you do not like them), which is—I might add—a very useful piece of advice which has clearly been carefully considered, instead of arguing about this so that you may have the article consistent with the title. You would not have accepted the title being brought in-line with the article, so why should your opposite proposal be effected? –Sb2001 18:33, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
And now the same language is being used to argue against your own RM proposal at T.K. Maxx as well. —BarrelProof (talk) 21:09, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
Because of this obvious problem of that language being interpreted very differently from what its author intended, I removed it. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:23, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
This is not reasonable. The idea that 'SMcCandlish wrote it, therefore it must be right' needs to end. This totally limits/removes the role of reasonable discussions. I was the one who initially mentioned moving TK Maxx, actually. Read the thread. Anyway, I will revert your MoS edit, and take it to the talk page. I see that you omitted this stage. Im my opinion, it is a major change, so there needs to be a discussion first. Take your reasoning and evidence to the talk page discussion. –Sb2001 22:57, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
@Sb2001 and BarrelProof: It's not a "do not change trademarks" matter; the company itself is inconsistent, and is not asserting any particular exact spelling/punctuation as their wordmark. It's a "do not try to mimic logos with styling shenanigans" matter. In the end, I don't really care much. It's just stupid that we have confusingly different article titles for two articles on divisions of the same company with near-identical names. Any result (use one style, use the other, or merge the articles) is preferable to this situation. The "MOS:TMRULES should take effect in an article's text, but not the title" argument is patent nonsense. We never, ever do that, and a long-standing principle is that the text and the title should be consistent; we have templates that "enforce" this, e.g. by italicizing the display of book titles in our article titles, etc. The "in text but not titles" b.s. is anti-consensus, anti-MoS activism and should be called out as such. I'm too busy to go re-argue this stuff at various RMs, and will just have to trust that the closing admins have common sense and experience (if that assumption proves faulty, or a non-admin who seems to lack these qualities produces a senseless close, take it to WP:MR as a faulty closure analysis.

I don't mind the removal of the "Do not 'correct' the spelling, punctuation, or grammar of trademarks" MoS wording, since, yes, it is being misinterpreted. If we run again into the problem of someone going around trying to impose MoS rules about plain English on trandemarks like DaimlerChrysler and iPhone, we can re-address it with clearer wording. This probably won't be necessary: between the time I inserted that language and today, MOS:TM was also updated to include a rule to permit unusual stylization when virtually all the sources are consistent about it, which is the case with things like DaimlerChrysler and iPhone; ergo, the issue should not re-arise. Removing the old wording is plus, because it prevents "we must mimic logos" misinterpretation that directly conflicts with other parts of MOS:TM.
I've rethought this and commented at WT:MOSTM.

PS: Neither I nor anyone else I'm aware of holds that whatever I add to MoS is "right". While I have a much higher than average rate of getting logical refinements to MoS to stick, they do not all do so, and I've changed my mind over time about some of those that people have raised issues with. I do listen, and I do learn. That said, MoS is in far better shape today than it was when I arrived at it over a decade ago and started working on it. I'll elect not to take Sb2001's comment as an implication that my work there isn't of value. It's among the work of which I'm proudest. My Misplaced Pages side mission to eradicate inconsistencies, conflicts, and inclarities in the guidelines' wording, remove WP:CREEP and nationalistic or other prescriptivist nonsense, and insert new rules that prove necessary because of repeated disputes over trivia, has saved us probably many thousands of community man-hours of pointless style fighting. No shit.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  02:46, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

I think it is important that you read the RM discussion before making assumptions. As I said here, it was another editor who said that the title is different to the article ... I disagree with this PoV. And no—I was not suggesting that your work is worthless. I am really quite disappointed that you would think that. However much you may dislike my contribution history, I am still awn editor on here who wants to make a positive difference. 'The "in text but not titles" b.s. is anti-consensus, anti-MoS activism and should be called out as such': if you meant that as a swipe a me, I clearly got you wrong. Despite all of your scrutiny of my work, I thought, 'Well, at least he is bothered. He wants to do the right thing, and will understand my lack-of-experience is the reason for these edits'. I am staring to doubt that now. Maybe you need to read WP:AGF yourself, instead of just tagging it. I always assume good faith; I thought you did too. Maybe not. Well, anyway, it is good to see you back from your break. –Sb2001 02:59, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
@Sb2001: I know you were reporting what another editor said about title/text disagreement; sorry if I seemed to imply otherwise. I also indicated I was not assuming you thought my work was pointless. I guess I'm having clarity issues today. I did elaborate on why it's not pointless because I have a lot of talk-page stalkers and sometimes I write here with them in mind. Heh. I'm sure you do mean to make a positive difference, and I'm not criticizing you in any way in the above. I really must be having communication issues today; I'll chalk it up to being distracted with other stuff and writing in haste.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  03:53, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
Add this to the fact that it was 4 am here ... bound to be issues in clarity/understanding. Well—at least that is sorted. I will deal with the other stuff at the relevant talk pages. –Sb2001 13:27, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
I was tired, too! :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  21:58, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Elijah Daniel

Moot – Already closed by the time I looked.

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Elijah Daniel. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

RfA

File:New Zealand TW-17.svg Thanks for supporting my run for administrator. I am honored and grateful. ) Cullen Let's discuss it 00:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:George Duke discography

 Done

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RFC

Since you have so little understanding of the core elements of the issues, I had hoped you would withdraw your RFC and work together to propose something that cuts to the core. It is premature to argue about language until we even have the core elements resolved.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 07:37, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

  • I don't mean to point to you like it sounded. No one quite knows what the core elements are. We need an RFC that will get people to say what kind of content we want protected by this guideline and what type we want to discourage. That is going to be better served by something other than "Hey do you like this language". We should start with an RFC that says. Do you want A, B, C, D, etc. type of content in X type of navbox and X, Y, Z, etc. in Z type of navbox. Then, when we know what everyone wants in or out, we can work on the language. Jumping to the language is not likely to result in consensus on this topic. I won't be online much over the weekend, but next week I will be putting together an RFC to isolate specific content types. You are free to help me put that together. I can tell you for certain we are not going to achieve any consensus with your RFC.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 07:51, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
@TonyTheTiger: No worries, let's just work past it. I think we simply have sharply differing philosophies of what RfCs are and what they're for. Too many people see them as a "voting" mechanism. What you want to do sounds like a good approach, but only to one set of issues (navboxes). I'm principally concerned with a) reconciling the conflicts between PERFNAV and PERFCAT, and b) reconciling the conflicts within each guideline that are leading to LAWYER/GAMING problems and general confusion and dispute. The main way to fix both of these problem is to use the exact same "yes, we really mean everyone in the industry, there is no magical exception for a specific job title" broad definition in both documents, and then – only when there is intended to be one – outline specific possible exceptions for specific guideline line-items. What you want to do only comes in at the end of that part. And then there's c) the sharp mismatch between the "primary creators" nonsense and what we've actually been doing for years, which is something like what I formulated as a inseparable identification of the bio subject with the work and vice versa – whatever language we really need if isn't that. We know for sure it has jack to do with job titles, only with reader navigation expectations. If we get any progress on these three things I'll be happy.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  11:06, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:John Oliver

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Please comment on Talk:White House Press Secretary

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Please comment on Talk:Lindy West

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Please comment on Talk:Battle of Ia Drang

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Please comment on Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Biographies

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Please comment on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Football

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Collapse compact

Disregard – Deletion is fine.

Template:Collapse compact has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes (talk) 13:54, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Monotypic taxon and Monospecificity

 Done
Articles that you have been involved in editing—Monotypic taxon and Monospecificity—have been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Nessie (talk) 18:48, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Ted Kaczynski

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Books and Bytes - Issue 23

The Misplaced Pages Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 23, June-July 2017

  • Library card
  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Spotlight: Combating misinformation, fake news, and censorship
  • Bytes in brief

Chinese, Arabic and Yoruba versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Misplaced Pages Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:03, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer Newsletter

Hello SMcCandlish, thank you for your efforts reviewing new pages!

Backlog update:

  • The new page backlog is currently at 16,991 pages. We have worked hard to decrease from over 22,000, but more hard work is needed! Please consider reviewing even just a few pages a a day.

Technology update:

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Consequent anthropomorphization?

With this edit to Journalese, you introduced the text "and consequent anthropomorphization", which was flagged as a misspelling. I don't think you mean "Anthropomorphism", the attribution of human traits, emotions, and intentions to non-human entities. Can you fix this? I'm not sure what you're trying to say there. Thanks, ] (talk) 12:23, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Let me Google that for you: .  :-) Anthropomorphization is the use or application of anthropmorphism, the act or process of anthropomorphizing. You need a better spell-checker.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  22:34, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
@Wbm1058: ping just in case you didn't notice I'd replied.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  08:35, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping; I hadn't seen your reply as I'm not watching this page. I might have gotten back here on my next pass of the linked misspellings list. Anthropomorphization is no. 8 on the latest version of that weekly report. My spell-checker is fallible as it's updated by Misplaced Pages editors. Odd that it had been tagged as a misspelling 11 years. I just reverted to the version of 9 July 2006. But, as I was still confused by the destination of the redirect, I found Anthropomorphism vs Anthropomorphization - What's the difference? Anthropomorphism attributes human characteristics and behavior, or as the lead says, "attribution of human traits, emotions, and intentions to non-human entities". I wasn't following the logic that gave the 1990s human emotions and intentions when the decade "saw" an increase in crime. But I do follow what you mean by endowing the 1990s with human qualities (attributing human characteristics to something that is nonhuman). The sentence endows the 1990s with human eyes, but nothing more than that. So I changed it to link to the Wiktionary definition. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:07, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
@Wbm1058: I made a bug report at Misplaced Pages talk:Database reports/Linked misspellings. The link change seems like hair-splitting to me. The WP article is clearly wrong (an error of omission) in only covering a single meaning. The solution is to fix the article, not sweep it under the rug by linking to a different one. I guess the link change is okay short-term, since it could help a reader understand the meaning.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:12, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

PS: This single-word change is probably sufficient, though I've not read the article in detail. Having eyes to see things with constitutes a "trait" in the meaning of this article, the Wiktionary article, other dictionaries, and the context in which I linked it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:15, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Since I made this edit, the bot will remove it from the linked mispellings list on the next run, since the word is no longer tagged with {{R from misspelling}}. The bot runs every Thursday. wbm1058 (talk) 01:46, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
Right-o.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  02:06, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Change to RfC at NOT

 Done

You participated at this RfC; the proposal has changed a bit. Just providing you notice of that. Jytdog (talk) 17:33, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Jared Taylor

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You've got mail

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Trusttri (talk) 06:26, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Page mover granted

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If you do not want the page mover right anymore, just let me know, and I'll remove it. Thank you, and happy editing! Alex Shih 01:56, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

@Alex Shih: Thank you.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:54, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Birth date and age

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Please comment on Talk:Bee Gees

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Arbcom

Thanks for your recent posts there, much appreciated. Just one thing, it's normally TRM, rather than TPM, but we all know who you meant. Oddly I think you've done that before. Anyhow, cheers for the independent assessment. Arbcom won't do anything about it, it would make some of them look incredibly stupid, but I very much appreciate your additions. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:39, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I dunno whereTF I'm getting "TPM" from. It's not even an acronym that means anything to me. Derpa! Anyway, I feel pretty much compelled to comment on the matter given the repeat of history I'm seeing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  20:50, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks again. The admin who went from pillar to post to accuse me of lies without any kind of evidence was Arthur Rubin. There's another Arbcom case for that currently in the "Evidence" phase but I think the community has become utterly dismayed by the comprehensive ineptitude of Arbcom. The situation went through ANI (as I think you said) and it was a landslide "Admin fail" result yet Arbcom, in their infinite "wisdom", decided to make it a full-blown case, and included an analysis of my behaviour as part of it (which, of course, completely derails the point). A week in and almost nothing has been added to the page. I hope Arbcom realise what this means and learns from it, but somehow I doubt it. Add to that the mysterious behaviour and disappearance of one of the Arbs who clearly should be site-banned and the personal attacks and uncivil commentary from at least one of the other Arbs (who hasn't recused), and you get a bunch of jokers who wouldn't be fit to run a jumble sale, let alone arbitrate on one of the busiest and most vistied websites in history. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:56, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
I never bring RFARB cases myself, despite frequently having cause to. Tar baby. Every time I've drafted one, I've slapped myself and come to my senses. I don't have beefs with the current sitting members (aside from one supervoter who caused a year-long problem as an RfC closer, but that's just a reason to not re-elect him, and he doesn't seem to be a bad guy). They did resolve a very long-term MoS disruption problem that badly needed to be dealt with. But who doesn't have a beef with how the "institution" operates?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  21:28, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
I didn't bring this case either. It was, as far as I was concerned, fully covered off at ANI and just needed some actual abritration at ANI to deal with it rather than "referendum it", somehow dragging me into it as befits Arbcom's latest proclivity to get me banned no matter what. This odd perception that they are somehow better, more responsible, better place to judge etc than the average editor is way off the mark. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:35, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
I seem to have missed something serious somewhere. Since when has the community – which has the power to CBAN people indefinitely and at least theoretically the ability to close ArbCom and replace it with something else – lost the ability to desysop without ArbCom approval (more likely interference)? A clear ANI mandate for a desysopping, well, is one.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:59, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
The community never had it. There have been a half-dozen proposals but every one has been shot down. As such, ARBCOM has been the only entity able to remove someone's bit. --Izno (talk) 01:05, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
I guess I fail at WikiBarrister.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:16, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

WP:RY is now an essay, by the way. An RFC concluded it wasn't and should never have been a Wikpiedia guideline. I'm sure you can find the "debate". The Rambling Man (talk) 20:52, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I already added a whole section about that to Evidence page (of the Rubin case). PS: I was the one who dug up the original "debate" and pointed out at the recent RfC that it was improper. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  21:01, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Statement at Arthur Rubin Case page

Hi SMCCandlish. I've moved your statement from the case page to the evidence page as no additions should be made to the case page after the case has been accepted. Feel free to remove it from evidence and add it to another relevant page if you feel it would be better placed though. Amortias (T)(C) 21:21, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

@Amortias: Ah! Yes, sorry. I'm tired and need a big sleep. That's two wrong-page edits in one hour, so time to put down the keyboard and back away slowly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  21:28, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
If a misplaced edit is the worst thing you've done today your probably doing better then most of us. Amortias (T)(C) 21:29, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
But two ... TWO!? That probably warrants at least a fingertip.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:53, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
Thanks you for the Project namespace and TL/SUPPLEMENTAL updates.....been trying to get that wording right for a long time. Would love your CE skills at WP:ESSAYPAGES guideline section and the infopage Misplaced Pages:Essays. I try to keep them upto date with community norms, but get very little feedback. Moxy (talk) 17:08, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
Oh, thanks. I'll go look at those. I'm not being very comprehensive about this. Was just looking at one page and it led me to another and another, so I've been copy-editing various essays and info pages and so on. About to propose a merge of WP:Common sense is not common and WP:NOCOMMON.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  17:12, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
@Moxy: I twiddled with WP:Essays a bit, but didn't do a lot there. The page seems pretty good. I suspect a few key points in it could be integrated into the WP:ESSAYPAGES section, but it's harder to get edits to that page to "stick" if they're not pre-discussed. Was there anything in mind at either page that you thought needed addressing in particular?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  20:30, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Misplaced Pages talk:Notability (academics)

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The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Misplaced Pages talk:Notability (academics). Legobot (talk) 04:23, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Have you tried...?

Ctrl+enter? I use it out of habit and having no issues with Chrome -- on the odd occasion I use it. Of course, you could always use Lynx, or just contribute to Misplaced Pages using the power of your mind! Keira1996 03:07, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

@Keira1996: Well, it's even weirder than that. It's happening when the edit window auto-linewraps at the end of the line, and does so between various code elements that aren't just plain text, e.g. between ...blah blah ]. and the <span ...>... that begins my rendered sig. I'm mostly encountering this "getting an unintended line break with Chrome, on Mac OS X" immediately before my sig, though it's also happened between two links in series or two templates or whatever, just not (so far) plain alpha-numeric ASCII. Been happening for several days now, and I haven't discerned a fixed pattern in any more detail than that yet. I'll see about installing a new Chrome tonight, in case it's some regression they've already fixed. PS: I love Lynx and Links for various purposes (mostly to do with system administration), but can't imagine them as practical for WP; I tried it once and gave up, several years ago. PPS: People already complain that, at least on policy talk pages, I insert too much stuff directly from my own mind. LOL.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  04:17, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Logging of old sanctions

Saw your comment. This is a topic I've also wondered about (the question of where Arbcom should put old sanctions). The January 2015 motion says that old notifications and warning 'are not sanctions' which may mean they wanted *not* to carry over the old notices (later known as 'alerts') but they did want to carry over actual bans and blocks into the DSLOG, regardless of how old they were. So logically, we would have *all* the pre May 2014 notifications left in the case logs, and all the actual sanctions removed from there. So when we look at the enforcement log of WP:ARBATC we should still see all the old notifications listed. And in fact, what you are objecting to seems to be a notification of yourself? So now that I review this for the N-th time, maybe the system is consistent after all, at least for ARBATC? EdJohnston (talk) 18:53, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

EdJohnston: It's not consistent, with anything, even most of the other case pages (even those that still have such entries do not have them consistently moved after a particular cut-off date; it's just random "did we get around it yet" scattering). Current notifications and warnings aren't done on the case pages, so it's inconsistent in that more direct regard. When I asked about this previously, I was told that the only reason they're still on the case page is because a clerk hadn't gotten around to moving them yet. Honestly, I really don't care about rationalizations for why to not do the cleanup; they're weak and don't mean anything substantive. What's substantive is that their current location intensely biases things against certain specific individuals for no reason, and it also makes the actual log pages incomplete and misleading. That's two serious reasons to move the entries versus one suppositional un-reason to not move them. And no, I'm not talking about the entry about me in particular (which is just a notice), but all of them that still remain on all these case pages. It obviously stands to reason that the problem would be more likely to be brought up by someone whose felt their consequence. Implying that I have some personal-only motive is a victim-blaming exercise.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:17, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
Can you point to some items that you think should have been moved into the DSLOG, according to the language of the 2015 motion? It looks to me that the entries in the WP:ARBATC case are now in compliance with the motion as written. There was no mandate to remove the old notifications/warnings from the cases, so far as I can tell. EdJohnston (talk) 00:31, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
Hmph. The codicil at the end of it would, it appears, put you in the technical right on this, and will keep things in the ethically wrong status quo, so I'll open an amendment request. I hate filing ArbCom motions, but this needs to be done.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:26, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
Whatever solution you recommend, I hope it won't lead to old decisions becoming any more hidden than they are now. The courtesy blanking of more than five-year-old DSLOGs already hides old bans from the search engine, even those that are still in effect. EdJohnston (talk) 02:15, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
It won't affect the decisions at all; it's not like someone's going to delete the case pages or their remedies sections. This is just cleanup; if people actually subject to current sanctions get "courtesy blanking" then why would we retain blame, forever, pointed very misleadingly at people who just received {{DS/alert}}, which expires after 1 year anyway? It's senseless.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  02:35, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
There is an ambiguity on the word 'warning'. The old notices were often viewed spoken of as warnings, but in addition, there were *actual* warnings issued at AE that might now be better described as 'logged warnings'. So even a motion to remove all the old 'alerts' would encounter the problem that you can't tell what was purely an alert, in the old days. But if you wanted all the old alerts/warnings/logged warnings moved en masse into the DSLOGs, that might handle it. Then we would still have the annoying courtesy blanking but it wouldn't delete the underlying data. EdJohnston (talk) 03:29, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
That was retroactively fixed a couple of years ago; the DS/Alert-related "warned" entries in the log sections were changed to "notified" wording (maybe some instances were missed, but I know it was done for WP:ARBATC). I don't see that it matters, since the Motion wording under question lumps "notices" and "warnings" together, and so do the current log pages (by excluding them both, and only logging more specific actions like sanction and page protections). Anyway, I've opened the amendment request here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  03:37, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
If you search the current WP:DSLOG for the word 'warned' you'll notice that logged warnings were still being issued at least as of 2016. For example, do a search in WP:Arbitration enforcement log/2016. EdJohnston (talk) 03:54, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
Fine by me. It's even fine if all the warning and notice log entries in the case pages are just moved to the new log pages, and all the old, blanked entries are restored to the log pages. The only result I can think of that's intolerable is the warning/notice entries remaining in the case pages. PS: If the warning-logging practice stopped in 2016, then it presumably did for a reason, and apparently wasn't being done for notices anyway. They get logged in the editfilter system somehow; that seems to be all.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  04:23, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Help with getting MOS:TENSE established in an article

Closing this per WP:DONTFEED; user has already been determined to be a WP:Sockpuppet of a banned user.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  23:54, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


Hi, Mr. McCandlish,

I see that you're a frequent good contributor to this MOS and discussion about it. I was wondering if maybe you'd be so kind as to offer your opinions and other help elsewhere as well. Have you been familiarized with MOS:TENSE? If so, what's your opinion about making sure it's applied? The MOS is a set of rules that applies to every article, correct? Would you please be so kind as to lend me your hand then?

Thanks if so, 174.23.148.58 (talk) 19:09, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

This isn't specific enough to act on. Where is the dispute, and what is its nature?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:18, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
Hi again, SM, and thanks for your reply! Well, I just wanted to find out what your core understandings and beliefs are about these kinds of things, and and then see from there if we might work well together. Cool?
174.23.180.206 (talk)
I can't offer anything specific without knowing what the context is. There isn't anything magically special about MOS:TENSE; it's applied to the extent any other MoS section is. They're all guidelines, and what that means is covered at WP:Policies and guidelines. They're not inviolable laws, but should generally be followed unless there's a clear contextual reason no to, that outweighs the reasons to do so. That varies on a case-by-case basis.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:19, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

As long as I'm asking you for MOS help...

Also, as long as I have you here reading my request for MOS-establishment help, let me ask you for your opinion on some other things, okay?

  1. Which to you is more accurate: calling abbreviations in which letters are pronounced individually, like a lot of initialisms such as "CD," "ATM," and "LCD" are, as "acronyms," even though they are not (since they aren't pronounced as if they were just single words like "LASER," "SCUBA," "PIN," and "VIN," etc. are, and so those abbreviation examples are acronyms (even as "laser" and "scuba," and probably several others, have long been commonly lowercased), or just calling them "initialisms" when they are indeed NOT acronyms?
  2. Which to you is clearer: saying that a given model of computer or game system looks like just a "stereo" (which could be anything from a non-portable, traditional home stereo system, to a vehicle stereo system, to a tiny little MP3 player), or saying that it looks like a traditional home stereo system component?
  3. And then, as a follow-up regarding systems that look like home-stereo equipment, if they are still computers, then which makes more sense: to compare them with other devices that look like just "computers" (even though these still are computers, so they look like their own unique type of computer), or to compare them against computers that look more like traditional computers?
  4. Which do you believe is clearer: that when a specific computer-derived entertainment system can be converted into that computer by adding back specific peripherals such as a floppy disk drive like the derived-from computer model the system came with has, to simply say "disk drive" (which is ambiguous because it can refer to the CD drive that the machine already has, or to a hard disk drive which is only secondary to the floppy drive on those computers), or to be more specific by saying "floppy disk drive"?

Thanks for your opinions,

174.23.148.58 (talk) 19:29, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of numbering the points above for detailed response here.
  1. First off, before this goes any further at all, please see WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND, WP:NOT#ADVOCACY, WP:GREATWRONGS, and WP:No original research. If you've come here to engage in debate about nomenclatural trivia, and to push your views about them, you're going to end up getting sanctioned. Misplaced Pages has a sharply reduced patience these days for "style warrior" behavior. I'm not tracking your edits or anything, and make no accusation; the question just seems pointed toward trying to "win" a tedious argument everyone is already tired of. (We've been over it many, many times before here.)

    Second, the distinction you're trying to impose is not recognized by many people at all, is artificial and recent, and framed the way you've framed it, is simply factually incorrect. The term "initialism" was invented, in a single journal article, in the late 1960s or early 1970s (I can dig up the cite if you want), and has been adopted by very few reliable sources. Even the few mainstream style guides that mention the term do so in a dubious tone (e.g. Chicago Manual of Style). Acronyms in the original, continuing, and dominant sense of the term include everything that some people want to call initialisms. Initialisms are a subset of acronyms. The idea that the term acronym can only be applied to those that are said as words, like AIDS, is a language-change, usage-prescription "activism" position about how things logically should be according to a particular camp. It does not reflect the reality of actual usage. To the extent that the term "initialism" has caught on at all, the actual usage around it has evolved since that paper, to use "word acronym" to refer to those that are said aloud as words, specifically because the attempt to redefine the base term acronym to only mean those cases has been an abject failure. If it doesn't work after approx. 45 years, it is time to give the hell up and stop beating the dead horse. >;-)

    That said, I and many others consider the clarified version of the distinction actually useful, and we write things like "acronyms (sometimes divided into word acronyms like AIDS and initialisms like FBI)". This is the treatment that should be used in WP articles about such matters. I don't think anyone cares who uses what terms on talk pages, but if you use "acronym" in an idiolectal manner to mean "only initial abbreviations pronounced as words" without explaining that this is what you mean, people are going to misunderstand you and it's going to lead to a lot of wasted time and lost patience in discussions.

    But I cannot stress enough that if you try to insist, either in articles or in WP:MOS discussions that '"CD," "ATM," and "LCD" are not acronyms', and other such WP:TRUTH pronouncements that actual reliable sources on English contradict, in large numbers, then nothing good is going to come of it.

  2. I would use something more like the second, but that exact phrase is unnecessarily tumid. "A home stereo-system component" is more concise. I agree just "stereo" is too vague; that's what I call the thing in my car, and most people today no longer even own a multi-component rack stereo system. The word "traditional" doesn't really apply; there is no quaint, folkloric stereo to be found by anthropologists, still preserved in the Ozarks or among the nomadic tribes of Siberia. LOL.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:52, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
  3. Again, "traditional" doesn't work here. Computers and their form-factor are market trends, not "traditions". As an anthropologist by training, I get miffed when people misuse words like that (and "culture", and "community", and "myth", among others). Without seeing the discussion and the component to which it refers, it's hard to say what good wording would be. I don't like false dichotomy questions like this; there is no either/or here. MoS rule no. 1, in its lead section, is to rewrite to avoid conflict or confusion. At a blind guess, I would say to use something like "looks similar to a desktop computer case", or something more specific, e.g. "looks similar to a mini-tower personal computer", or whatever the case may be. If that's really necessary. Often, such comparisons are subjective and not actually encyclopedic.
  4. "Disk drive" is ambiguous, so be specific. Technically a CD/DVD drive is a "disc drive", but many people are not aware of this micro-distinction. It's better to refer to hard drives as "hard drives", though. If the device really does use a floppy drive, say so and link to the topic (lots of kids today have no idea what a floppy disk is).
Hope this helps, in more ways than one. PS: If you find yourself in a lot of heated arguments (especially over trivia), the essay I wrote about my own learning experience in this regard may be helpful.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:52, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
(talk page stalker)If you weren't already aware, both Corinne and EEng have received essentially identical messages. IP seems to want to bring a group of editors together with the same opinions on small grammatical issues, which is never a good thing. Any luck with your Chrome? Keira1996 02:50, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, that's why I started the reply off the way I did. Chrome: I didn't get around to installing an update yet. The issue is intermittent anyway, like 0–3 times per day, in a long day of editing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  02:55, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
PS: I also agree with Iridescent's version of answers to this questions, which raised some additional issues.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  23:48, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

"Never a good thing," Keira? Like I told SM here, I was just trying to see which one of a few editors might work with me the best, rather than causing contention. Beside that, even if bringing together more than one editor were supposedly "never a good thing," then what happened to the thing that Misplaced Pages wants us to do, which is to seek consensus? If that IS a good thing, then what's so "wrong" with alerting a few editors that there are some issues that are seeking consensus? And what alerted you to this discussion, anyway?

S. McCandlish, it seems like you've misunderstood several of the things I was saying, so it's fine if you don't try to give your input at the article in question.

  1. I wasn't trying to make a battleground. I already explained what I was doing, which instead, was trying to see which editor would be most peaceful with me, which is the opposite of making a battleground.
  2. I wasn't trying to include my original research. You've blown the issues I was asking you for what your beliefs about are way out of proportion if you were thinking OR was any kind of issue here.
  3. I wasn't trying to "win" anything either; just trying to show why certain wordings are clearer than others, which you'll see more explanation of below, as part of my rebuttal to what you said above.

Even if the term "initialism" is relatively recent, that doesn't negate that the word "acronym" does 'not fit "CDTV," because you have the words "acronym" and "abbreviation" mixed up. You claimed that initialisms are subsets of acronyms, but it's really the other way around: acronyms are subsets of abbreviations in general. Abbreviations are all shortenings of words or word groupings, and then they fall into their subcategories from there. And if we were to include initialisms in this, then they go like this:

I. Abbreviations (all shortenings lumped together)

A. Truncations ("ind." as short for "independent," etc.)
B. Initialisms ("ATM," "LASER," "CD," "A.M.," "P.M.," "LCD," "VIN," "ABS," "PIN," and "SCUBA," etc.)
i. Acronyms (the initial abbreviations that sound like words, such as "LASER," "VIN," "PIN," "SCUBA," etc.)
ii. NON-acronym initialisms (the ones that cannot be pronounced as words, so are pronounced as separate letters, such as "ATM," "CD," "A.M.," "P.M.," "LCD," and "ABS," etc.)
C. Hybrids (combinations of initialism with truncation, such as "CoDec" , "RaDAR" "LiDAR" , etc.)

So even if the word "initialism" didn't catch on like I thought it had, there are still different kinds of abbreviations in general, which acronyms are only a subset of. That's why it's incorrect to call "CDTV" an acronym. A lot of people have misunderstood the true meaning of the word "acronym," but I've cleared that up by showing you the above. By the way, you can't use the word "acronym" to mean "only acronyms that are pronounced as words," because that's infinite recursion (read: trying to define a word using that word itself).

You don't know what most people own in their houses these days, but traditional home stereo system equipment is probably being supplanted by the smaller devices that dock smaller players and still connect to big speakers, etc. But thanks for agreeing with me that a qualification word is necessary there, which is why I used it there and am asking that we put it back.

Okay, you're mixing up the word "traditional" with "ancient." "Traditional," in the sense of products, basically means the original, plain style, or conventional. If you still disagree for some odd reason, then I guess we could use the word "conventional." That's about the same. But a lot of people already use the word "traditional" to mean the basic original style or technological version of a given type of product. Either way, "traditional" or "conventional" are fine with me. That's what I mean by a "traditional computer" (or "conventional computer"): the basic rectangular unit that sits on your desk or the floor with an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, etc. So that's why either "traditional" or "conventional" should be the word used to compare against this more entertainment-specific stripped-down computer system.

Yes, thanks for agreeing with me about including the word "floppy" before "disk drive." You basically echoed the point that I'm making with that.

75.162.196.158 (talk) 08:19, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

What you're trying to do is not find which editor might "work with you the best" -- it is to find editors that explicitly agree with your viewpoint to cement your nitpick-y changes. That is what is never a good thing, because you're specifically bringing on board only editors that you perceive to agree with you. That is canvasing, and very much not a good thing, no. I was alerted to this discussion because I watch the talkpages of SMC, EEng, and Corinne, and only posted here to bring to the attention of the former that you've brought this up in multiple venues. Additionally, please do not refactor others talk page comments, as you did above.
I'll leave responding to the bulk of your post to SMC, if he so chooses, but I would highly advise against comments such as "so it's fine if you don't try to give your input at the article in question." and the like in future. Keira1996 10:42, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) and even more blatant canvassing over at Peter coxhead's talk page. Loopy30 (talk) 10:56, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
  • IP address: there is something extremely disturbing about your tone. I shall say this very bluntly—people do not agree with you as a favour. You do not need to be thanking them. This looks, to outsiders, like you are pressuring them into following a certain way of thinking. To go around several experienced MoS editors' talk pages solely with the intention of finding out with whom you may work best (I'll let you know that you did not choose the right ones if you want someone to continuously fight for you over insignificant stylistic quibbles in one article). You would have done a lot better by posting this on the MoS talk page, and waiting for a range of answers; this would have prevented editors from seeing your behaviour as 'canvassing'.

    When you are choosing a select few editors with whom you think you may have a chance, other MoS editors will start to question why they were not selected. The few you have chosen have been active for a long time, and will command respect amongst others. I suspect that that is the reason you opted for them. Nothing will happen for you by going down this route. For help with the MoS, or to request clarification, you need to go to its own talk page. This may not work for you—my first trip there ended in disaster—but you will gain the opinions of numerous editors, some of whom will undoubtedly be on your side.

    Please stop with the threads on individual editors' talk pages. (I have no authority to command you to do so, but I strongly advise it. Your tone so far will attract unwanted attention, and your edits will be monitored far too closely for comfort. Anything which sounds like you telling an editor what to think, and offering to make 'deals', will sooner or later see you in some trouble, which none of us want.) I always advise account creation for IPs, partly so we can be sure that we are talking with the same person and partly for accountability (ie so we can advise you of where you are going wrong). You may choose not to take my advice. That is up to you. The best way forwards for you is to go to WT:MOS, and present your argument there. I wish you luck with this. –Sb2001

I decline to address this in any further detail, per WP:DONTFEED: You've already been determined to be a WP:Sockpuppet of a banned user, and most of your recent IP addresses are already blocked. It doesn't matter what your intent was; you're not supposed to be editing here at all unless and until your block is lifted, which seems unlikely given the nature of what you're doing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  23:52, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Wait, please; you didn't even give me a chance to reply to you two.

Wow, McC, etc., so I go away for the day and then I get home to find that I have a butt-load of crap to clean up and fires to put out! Please don't just move on with a dismissal before I've even had the chance to respond to your new replies, okay?

Please don't jump so quickly to drink the Cool Aid from the user who was trying to hype you into believing that just because I'm using more than one IP address I must be a "sock." Is it not obvious that I'm not trying to fake you guys out every time my number changes? I don't know exactly what the problem is, but it looks like he thinks that just because I have a dynamic IP address, which is why it changes a lot, that means I must be sock-puppeting. We're not socks just because our IP addresses change. In case you don't know, the way a dynamic IP address works is that you have one address for a little while, and then when you're not online, the ISP gives that address to someone else. There may be more than one way this happens, so you never know when it's going to happen or why. But these IP addresses are me; I'm not going around pretending to be other people here. So if you would please give me the benefit of the doubt instead of just buying all that hype, I'd appreciate it. Okay?

Keira1996: Why, what's so "wrong," to you, with telling an editor that I'm okay if he doesn't want to help in the discussion now? Man, with what you and others say, you guys act like EVERY little thing is "WRONG" and people have to walk around egg shells with everything they do! Is this how you tell people to be in person: "No, never tell anyone that it's okay, never mind, you don't have to help me, etc."? Can I not get ANYTHING right because you other wiki editors think almost literally everything is just "wrong," "wrong," "wrong"? Since when is it "wrong" to tell someone here, "Oh, never mind, then, don't worry about it," etc.? And how do you figure you can read my mind that asking someone what they believe is supposedly assembling a team who explicitly agrees with my NONnitpicky (uh, you don't need a hyphen just before the suffix ending with "y") changes? Case in point: there's an editor who felt that he may not be so great at working on the specific points that I brought up. So what am I supposed to do then? I can never try to get another editor instead of him? I'm just dead in the water with no hope of ever getting someone to go to the discussion because I lost my one shot at the editor I tried to get? Why should I not try more than one editor just in case the first one I happen to pick turns out to be a dud--even based on his own claim? And why should I not refactor someone's comments if other people are allowed to do it, just like McC did to mine by adding numbers? Why is it supposedly "not okay" for me to do it even though it's "okay" for him to do it, according to you?

Loopy30, no. Again, just seeing who would be most suitable to discuss the issues at hand, because as you can see from my case in point above, one editor told me he's not really the man for the task. Well if we're supposedly "not allowed" to discuss editors' beliefs or understandings of certain subjects, then what: just dead in the water? How should we ever seek consensus as we are instructed to do?

Sb2001:

  1. Uh, NO. Where did you get the strange idea that I was supposedly trying to "make deals"?

No, that's not what asking someone how they believe on a subject is. And I ask you the same thing as I've asked the others. How are you supposed to seek consensus? (See my above questions, so that I don't have to "reinvent the wheel.")

  1. "Disturbing tone," eh? How is that? How is trying to figure out who's suitable for discussion (instead of, like, oh, say, the guy who doesn't think he'd be good to join) supposedly a "disturbing tone"?
  2. "Insignificant stylistic quibbles"? Oh, how so? Since when is trying to apply the MOS (as now SMcC has successfully done there) such "insignificant stylistic quibble"? Since when is trying to make things more clear, like "floppy disk drive" instead of just "disk drive," like S has also successfully done then, such "insignificant stylistic quibble"? Or making things clearer by not just saying "stereo-like" (which KIND of stereo)? Why is it that when McCandlish makes the changes you don't accuse him of making "insignificant stylistic quibble," but when I do it, that's all you can call it?
  3. "You need to go to its own talk page"? Uh, I DID do that. But then how do you call people over there? You look for editors who might seem capable of discussing such things and then call their attention to it! If not, then what? It just sits there and sits there and sits there, hoping that one year someone might happen to go look at the talk page? Who does that without having their own issue to propose a fix for or without being asked to go there? So what's so "wrong" with calling attention to it?
  4. Why do we even HAVE talk pages if we're supposedly "not allowed" to TALK about the issues we're having, then?
  5. Why would wikipedia make a way to edit without using an account if that's supposed to be "disallowed" too, or if it's at least frowned upon? Well why don't they just make it required then?
  6. Why should I not tell people what to know about a word's definition if they are obviously wrong? (Just take this one over at Corrine's page, because I got into more detail with you there and don't want to have to "reinvent that wheel" here either.)

75.162.246.29 (talk) 10:13, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Quack.
Quack quack.
If it quacks like a duck...
 Your passive aggressive tones are not appreciated here, nor is your blatantly attempting to vet editors before showing them the issues in question. The correct venue for determining consensus is an RfC on the talkpage of the article in question, which will notify editors interested in the general topic, and possibly notifying a few editors who've previously worked on the article (regardless of their agreement or not with your beliefs). These discussions have been closed for a reason, and you've been blocked as a sock multiple times. Just... WP:DROPTHESTICK Keira1996 10:42, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
I'll only entertain this briefly and with remediation in mind.
  • I don't have access to all the tools the SPI admins do in investigating sockpuppetry, so I'm not in a position to contradict them. The fact that clearly the same editor from the same block of IP addresses has been previously blocked for disruptive editing is sufficient; you can't keep editing from a rotating pool of IP addresses to evade those blocks, whether you really are socks of User:stylizeD or not. I.e., even if you are not that user or any other banned user and thus are not socking, you're still block-evading, which is grounds for an indefinite block. What you need to do is create an actual account and convince the community you're a separate person from stylizeD, and more importantly that you realize why you've been repeatedly blocked and why people are objecting to every other thing you do, and that you won't continue to do it, or you won't be allowed to edit without getting blocked again and again until you give up and go find another pastime. If you really are not stylizeD, then, yes, this is unfair and a hassle, but life is unfair and a hassle in many ways on many days. You cannot seriously pretend you haven't made this bed for yourself; you do have to lie in it, regardless.
  • No one is giving you short shrift; several of us devoted more time and patience to these style nit-picks of yours than was probably warranted, and I even implemented (not necessarily without future reversions) some of your proposed changes at that article when they were actually supported by policy, sources, or common sense. I also declined to implement some of them, because they're clearly wrong. I may well actually get reverted on some or all of it, because it was WP:BOLD on my part and on the heels of a dispute, but I don't really care. WP:NODEADLINE applies; it doesn't matter much whether the article is tip-top right this second, as long as it incrementally improves.
  • No one is "reading your mind"; you explicitly stated, repeatedly, that you were looking for people who agree with you, and that you were looking for help to apply your view of MoS rules to a particular page, and then tried to hide the page from us until we arm-twisted it out of you.
  • Please don't ping people to come here and engage in further discussion. My user talk page isn't for you to make your case about various things pertaining to you. Create an account and have your own talk page.
  • Everyone commenting on the various versions of this tedious thread on various user talk pages agrees you're trying to "make deals" and drum up a WP:FACTION, and have explained why that perception is strong. Asking someone to re-re-re-explain why they have that perception is disingenuous and another symptom of the WP:ICANTHEARYOU problem you strongly exhibit at every turn. Just accept and listen and do things differently, or you'll keep getting blocked for multiple kinds of disruption.
  • You are the one obviously wrong about the definitional fights you are picking. An enormous pile of sources already cited at Acronym proves this beyond any doubt. Perhaps more importantly, it's tendentious, disruptive editing to continue fighting for some WP:GREATWRONGS / WP:TRUTH / WP:NOT#ADVOCACY cause at Misplaced Pages even if you are correct (which, again, you are not). I referred you to WP:HOTHEADS once already; please do read it, especially the closing section about trying to argue Misplaced Pages into submission. It does not work and it will get you banned.
  • Finally, no, you imposing your spelling and grammar preferences on other people's posts is not in any way comparable to someone organizing threads for clearer-to-follow responses. You're making a classic confusion of content and presentation. How your content is presented doesn't change its meaning. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech is still his speech whether you embroider it into a blanket or format it in HTML and put it on a website. If you change its wording to "Me had some visions", then it is not that speech. If you don't get this distinction automatically and innately, it is probably not possible for you to be a useful contributor at Misplaced Pages.
Now, please go away or I shall taunt you a second time-a.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  10:51, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
When you're blocked, you're blocked as a person, never just as an account, or individual IP address/range. So you can't be "block-evading" if you've never been blocked, regardless of who was using your IP before it was assigned to you. However, in this case, the rotating IP's clearly do belong to the same banned user. And oh God, we need to stop encouraging him to create accounts, because the last time someone did that, he actually listened. Sro23 (talk) 16:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
That was kinda confusingly phrased (as to the second sentence). I think you're trying to say "If an IP was blocked and it wasn't you, you're not subject to the block". Or something like that. But yes, your first and third sentences clearly apply here. As for the final one, the message I'm sending to the IP editor is "if you are not really a sock of a banned user, then create an account, make amends to the community, and ask for an unblock, since the blocks of you as an IP are blocks of you as an editor and do apply to you." If he really is a sock of stylizeD , then all bets are off; he shouldn't ever be editing here, and a range block may be needed to enforce that. WP:AGF insists that as a lowly user I lean toward the "maybe isn't a sock of a banned user" by default; if I were a CheckUser admin I might already be certain whether this group of IPs are socks of stylizeD (or someone else). But I'm not. It's a little time-consuming to try to "work on" this editor as potentially salvageable, but this is also a dull Sunday for me, so it's not been excessively onerous. My patience for it has worn to the breaking point now, though.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  21:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

AfC? Oh, cool. How do I do that, then?

Hi, friends McCandlish, Sb2001, and Keira1996,

Okay, Steve, is it? Well, whatever the first S in "SMcCandlish" stands for, I know I could go in and edit your closed discussions, but I want to respect that you've closed them. However, wouldn't it be okay if you could give someone a day or 3 to get back to a discussion instead of closing it at a time that seems sort of premature?

Oh, no no, what I meant by something like "assuming that someone thought I was a sock-puppet" was simply if he saw me with one IP address at one moment and then another at another moment. I only thought that the guy was trying to tell you that simply because my IP address changed a few times, or even once, it supposedly meant I was a "sock-puppet." If you think it involves more than that, then I'm sorry for confusing you about what it looked like I thought he was trying to tell you.

I hope that none of you thinks that just because I have more replies to replies I'm not somehow "bad" (or even supposedly "getting worse" than any supposed "already bad" that any of you might have unfortunately already thought I was). Ya've just gotta give a guy a chance to get something all discussed and have new things learned, right?

Keira, and (Sb2001 if you think the same thing), I'm not sure how you think I was supposedly being "passive-aggressive," but let me assure you that I'm not intending to be. Would either or both of you please try to explain what ways I was saying things that made you believe I was being that way?

However, someone did point me out to WP:CANVASSING, and I have now read it fairly thoroughly and think I understand now what your complaints were about my asking individuals what they believe about certain things and why you had them. And you did answer one of my questions about how to request help on an article's or project's talk page-discussion, part of the B/R/D cycle that we are expected to follow, which you said is this "RfD." Okay, great, I have no problem with that! I just never knew about it before. But if that's the right way for us to request help of several editors in a consensus discussion rather than going to people individually, then I have no problem with that and will do it that way! So what is an RfD (including what this non-acronym abbreviation stands for), and how do I use it?

Also, very nice job, Mc., on your edits at CDTV. You know, I'll have to say that that's a job well done, even if you didn't restore all of my present-tense edits. I've read your explanation for why you didn't restore some of them, and they make sense to me. I'm sorry for not being more careful with those, because had your point about that been made before, I wouldn't have changed those. Right, things that happenED in the past should stay in the past. I have no issues with that. Well, I figured "based on..." would be an ongoing thing though, simply because as a product continues to exist without changes, it is still based on whatever it was based on during the design process. But if the general understanding around the 'Pedia is that we're supposed to leave "based on" in the past, then I don't have a problem with that. And as for the problem with just saying "stereo-like" and "computer" instead of something more specific there, wow, I really didn't even consider the idea of simply removing those like you did, but given your explanation there, that makes sense to me too! And even with whatever differences we may have had regarding the word "acronym" until I showed you the real definition and the way the categories and subcategories of abbreviations break down, I like that you just took that wording right out of there! I guess I could only think of replacing one word with another, or with a multi-word term, but since removing that worked for you, then hey, it works for me too!

So you know what, Mc.? I think I've gotta say that you're quite a good editor here! With what you've done to help out here, I think I like you and I really trust you! I hope we can continue to work together here. And Sb2001 and Keira, thanks for your help too. All right, guys, since you told me that this RfD tool exists and I'm ready to learn more about it and how to use it, are we friends now? How do I use this RfD tool?

Thanks if so, 174.23.176.109 (talk) 10:30, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Stylized, what even are you talking about. Nobody is accusing you of sockpuppetry simply because your IP changes on its own. It's because you are banned. Sro23 (talk) 02:19, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
"Steve" -- I applaud your patience. ;) Keira1996 02:45, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Um, FYI, keira, "Steve" or "Scott," or whatever his first name is, didn't need any extra patience, and neither should you, because I asked you guys what to do instead of what I was doing that you didn't like, and you answered me (RfC being one of them), and now I have replied with willingness to do things those ways that you guys said, if he would only teach me how to do an RfC. What are you acting like I'm still "bad" for? 75.162.243.237 (talk) 07:08, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Please hear me out.

I'm not faking you out. Thinking I'm a sock is one thing, but assuming that it means I should've known what an RfC is and used it long ago is quite another. "Thanks" for your vote of faith even though I told you how much I trusted you. Now please, just show me how to do an RfC and I will do my best to do everything the Wiki way. I already showed you that I took your suggestion on the line-spacing and related things, didn't I? 75.162.243.237 (talk) 07:00, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Nope. Blocked repeatedly means stop editing here unless and until all those blocks expire. Even then, given that several admins have concluded you're a particular banned user engaging in sockpuppetry, you'll have to resolve that matter as well. Please stop posting here, or anywhere else on this site until then. If you want to make a case that a) you're not a sockpupeteer and b) that you understood why you were blocked, why you should not have been evading the blocks with IP-address-hopping, and that you will no longer engage in block-worthy behavior, then after the recent blocks expire, go to WP:ANI and open a topic about yourself. Try to avoid switching IP addresses during that discussion. My talk page is not a venue for this or any of your other issues. Seriously, please stop replying here and begging for "hearings". I can't give you one, and neither can anyone else at their user talk page. The hearing you need is WP:ANI. And if you do not stop editing while subject to one or more blocks and keep using different IPs to keep editing, you will never get that hearing and will just be blocked and shunned until you give up and go away. This has already been explained to you multiple times. At this point, I probably will revert (or not unrevert) any further posts by you here, because there's nothing further to say on this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  13:14, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Date formats...

Not wanting to derail the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style about date formats - but besides scientists in the US, many historians of subjects other than United States history also tend to use DMY. I had it drummed into my head during college to use DMY and it's stuck. And I find it difficult to use MDY for US topics. Just a data point for you to consider. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:47, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

@Ealdgyth: Please post that there; I don't have your same .edu background, so it'll mean more coming from you. People do dig up old MoS discussions after they're archived; good to have it be part of "the record". Would be especially helpful to cite something, even a textbook or a university history dept.'s style sheet, or something, though AGF would tell people not to call you a liar or crazy. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  21:32, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Donald Trump

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Donald Trump. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Interleaving talk page comments

Resolved – I put a version of this constructive vs. disruptive example stuff back into the original discussion at WT:TPG where is might do some good.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  04:28, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

G'day Stanton (or do you prefer Mac?)

it's been a while.

I'd very much like your opinion on interleaving comments on talk pages... which was the start of the conversation at Misplaced Pages talk:Talk page guidelines#Guidance against interleaving replies. An example (which has proved rather provocative) is here. It is claimed that this leaves the first paragraph of my post, and also the paragraph preceding it, both unsigned.

I have always regarded this form of detailed reply as normal, and there are many examples of it in my past years of contribution, but it's rare enough that I'm finding it hard to come up with examples where either I or someone I've replied to has used it.

It seems likely that such interleaving will now be prohibited. No great loss, but I'm unconvinced it's a good thing to ban it. Andrewa (talk) 01:42, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Address: Whatever is fine; "Mac" is a nick I've never had before WP, but I've gotten used to it, and it's shorter. Heh.

I already posted at length in the WT:TPG thread, including about this. Is there somewhere else I can insert the argument where I've not already done so, without being a WP:BLUDGEON? The short version is that I think the practice is harmless and sometimes quite useful, as long as the attribution is copy-pasted to avoid any confusion about who said what. A "rich" example that provides one of various indications why someone might want to split and interleave, and additional stuff they might do in the process:

Extended content
  • I agree. – SnorkelWeasel, 12:34, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
    Can you be more specific? BTW, what's the story behind that username? – TheQuestionizer, 12:39, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
Then:
  • I agree. – SnorkelWeasel, 12:34, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
    Can you be more specific? – TheQuestionizer, 12:39, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
    Per WP:NOT#WEBHOST and WP:ENC, the user in question shouldn't be using their userspace for posting hundreds of pictures of their cats with cutesy captions, even if a handful of them might be encyclopedically useful.Those can be uploaded to Commons and used in actual articles (without anecdotal captions). – SnorkelWeasel, 12:54, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
Off-topic
BTW, what's the story behind that username? – TheQuestionizer, 12:39, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
"Snorkel" and "weasel" seem like the funniest words ever to me, and their combination conjures a hilarious visual. Let's use user talk for any further discussion of this. :-) – SnorkelWeasel, 12:54, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
I do this sort of thing quite frequently, and of the four cases I can think of where someone blew up on me about refactoring, only two of them involved this sort of thing, so my success rate with it is around 99%.

I do think that on WP in particular, people have a case to make that doing it without copy-pasting the attribution (even in absence of something like a collapse-boxing or a re-sectioning) is apt to be confusing and should be avoided (e.g. by repeating the attribution). Not because it's impossible to figure out who said what, but because it takes work to do so, and because the only-one-sig-at-bottom-despite-interleaving style simply isn't the "tradition" here, it's not usual, it's not part of "the way we do stuff". Occasionally refactoring posts and their responses to them – or even entire threads – to make them more useful is actually well-accepted, though as with everything there are a few naysayers.

It's unfortunate that the discussion at WP:TPG has been dominated by ideas about disruptive comment-splitting and interleaving, which is rare, and a not a discrete issue of any kind (it's simply DE and can be addressed at ANI, etc., like any other form of DE). If someone habitually takes posts like this:

  • I oppose this proposal, on the basis of WP:NOT#FORUM and WP:ENC. – SnorkelWeasel, 11:14, 30 February 2112 (UTC)

     and does this to them (I mean to the original post, not a quoted copy of it):

  • I
Yeah, you, you, and more you. You've been harping on this for months.
oppose
See WP:NOTAVOTE.
this proposal,
It's not a "proposal", it's an RfC question.
on the basis of WP:NOT#FORUM
Look who's talking; all you do here is argue on talk pages.
and WP:ENC. – SnorkelWeasel, 11:14, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
Try actually reading that policy and applying it to yourself. Only 10% of your edits are to mainspace. – AckJass 09:22, 31 February 2112 (UTC)
then User:AckJass is headed for a block if they don't stop. Even aside from the fictional user's tone, this is disruptive because it makes it harder for other people to parse or follow at all, and its clear intent is to render the original commenter's post into fragmented gibberish, to deny that editor a voice. This is radically different from constructively splitting apart unrelated comments in the same post, which need to be separately addressed, into separate but self-complete pieces (sometimes they're even split into new sections if they're important). The abusive kind of split-and-interleave stuff is very rare. It doesn't make any sense for us to enact crazy "control freak" provisions in TPG to prevent such things (with the fallout of outlawing constructive refactoring) since doing disruptive monkeying around on talk pages is already addressable by extant policy and procedure, and there thus is no actual problem to solve. It's a canonical example of WP:CREEP. Cf. WP:If it ain't broke, don't fix it, one of our shortest but most sensible essays.

If you think it would be constructive, Andrewa, I can add this entire explication, with these examples (or different ones) to the TPG debate as a section.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  03:25, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Jack Posobiec

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Template:Infobox family

Hello! I saw your great job on Template: Infobox person. Would you care to help out finishing the merge that I have attempted to initiate on Template:Infobox family after Cfd decision as well? Chicbyaccident (talk) 12:57, 14 September 2017 (UTC) Chicbyaccident (talk) 12:57, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Is this about Misplaced Pages:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 August 27#Template:Infobox family name, merging Template:Infobox noble house to Template:Infobox family?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  13:24, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: Sorry, I updated the link. Yes, it is Misplaced Pages:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 August 27#Template:Infobox noble house, and that one above that you linked. Would you be willing to lend a helping hand? It seems none else has the knowledge to. Chicbyaccident (talk) 17:28, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
@Chicbyaccident: I've sandboxed one merge. The other requires more input. Discussions are at the relevant template talk pages. PS: You don't need to ping people when you post on their own talk page; they get automatically notified already. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  12:55, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:The Exodus

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New Page Reviewer Newsletter

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Interweaving

Hi, I've made a bold attempt to illustrate a point about interweaving by interweaving some good faith smart assery into your example. I did this here. If it bugs you or seems unhelpful by all means, please revert my comment. I was attempting to point out that when you posted the example, you probably were assuming that the "no interweaving" guideline that now exists would be followed by everyone, but of course if we open talk pages to interweawving we invite unexpected third parties to squirrel off into all sorts of different directions. Apologies if this attempt to make the point is taken the wrong way.... I'm trying to be fun and constructive, but understand not everyone will see it that way. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:06, 19 September 2017 (UTC) On second thought, I agree with the other editor in that the examples weren't really interweaving. Maybe it explained later. Tl,dr. Sorry to bother you. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:21, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, that's not interleaving in the sense under discussion at all, but using indentation to interrupt/interject without affecting anyone's actual posts. Also, if you follow the discussion with DIYeditor in that very section, you'll see that they already tried exactly that kind of WP:POINT exercise (with actual interleaving), without actually making the point at all; their first break was repaired by copy-pasting the attribution, and the second could have been (by reverting an edit that broke one of my sentences right in half) if I'd been inclined to object. I.e., the attempt to show disruptiveness failed, and the entire second examples there already shows how it can be disruptive and why we wouldn't tolerate it – we already have a means of dealing with it, as WP:DE like any other form of DE.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  12:34, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Cats of Downing St

I have just seen this. It seems a remarkably good idea to have such a page. In Mr Cameron's final days, there was plenty of news coverage of what may happen to Larry. It certainly meets notability. If the colour of the curtains in the Oval Office deserve mention, why shouldn't this? If it covers the whole street, comment can be made on George Osborne's cat, and the cat conflicts:
–Sb2001 18:36, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

LOL. Definitely more interesting than various pseudo-celebrity bios we have.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  19:16, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

ARCA

Your amendment request has been archived at Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration/Requests#Amendment request: Motion to establish a central log for discretionary sanctions and associated amendments (January 2015) (September 2017). For the Arbitration Committee, Miniapolis 20:57, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

@Miniapolis: meaning what? The matter does not appear to have been resolved/closed, with 3 arbs agreeing and none opposing, so far. Why would that request be archived when others on page have been there much longer?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  21:23, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
It's my guess that the clerks will just go ahead and do this, though I am unclear on exactly what was agreed to. EdJohnston (talk) 22:12, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
That makes two of us, Ed. In an email to the clerks-l email list, we were instructed to remove and replace logged notifications and warnings "with a link to the current central log. Just replace that section (which might be called 'Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions') with the 'Enforcement log' in the case template". I went there and didn't know what (if anything) to do—AFAICT, the template had last been edited in March—but have emailed the requesting ArbCom member for advice. Miniapolis 23:00, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
@Miniapolis and EdJohnston: Sounds like progress; it looked at first like this just got archived in mid-discussion and would result in nothing happening. Anyway, I think they mean to copy-paste this template section over case sections like this one (of notifications and warnings). However, sections like this (of actual bans, blocks, and other sanctions) were already supposed to be merged into the newer WP:Arbitration enforcement log – and might well already have been, just not removed, after merge, from some of the original case pages like they were supposed to be.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:55, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Your warning

Kindly do not put tags on my talkpage, as you did here, when you have absolutely no knowledge of the background issues involved. Ask before leaping to assumptions. X4n6 (talk) 10:08, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

no Declined. X4n6, the entire purpose of such notices is that they go on user talk pages where the user will be certain to see them (and in the particular case of {{ds/alert}}, they are absolutely required to go there). Your talk page is not magically immune to them. See the WP:USERTALK guideline. No one needs a long and detailed history of the personal issues between you and EEng to observe WP:ASPERSIONS in action. Please read that page. You made a serious accusation without evidence. If you think you have an actual case of WP:HOUNDING, and sufficient evidence to bring one, the venue for that is WP:ANI, not WT:MOS. The entire reason we're all subject to DS in MOS/AT discussions is precisely because of off-topic, personalized "pick a fight with this editor I don't like" behavior at WT:MOS and WT:AT. The editorial community, ArbCom, and the MoS/AT regulars are all really damned tired of it. So, yes, if you do that you'll get a notice on your talk page, a page which you do not WP:OWN.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  10:21, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
I am not required to provide "evidence" of HOUNDING on a talk page. As you know very well, that is not the forum for a formal complaint, so what purpose would "evidence" serve? My comment was to warn that individual - who's first comment was a personal attack. Meanwhile, you inserted yourself with an assumption that my comment was based exclusively on the question at that talk page. It was not. Nor did you make a civil inquiry. Instead, you leapt to a conclusion, took a side and made a threat. That doesn't fly. Stay in your lane. If you can't, per WP:AGF at least ask civilly first. 10:34, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
Yes, you sure the hell are required to provide evidence. Read WP:ASPERSIONS, WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, and WP:AGF. Where ever you are getting the idea that you can make any accusation you want without evidence as long as you avoid doing on it a notice board, you are wrong, both factually and ethically. You received a notice about applicability of DS to a particular page, with a very clear and non-hostile explanation why you were receiving it. There are no civility or AGF issues associated with leaving such a notice. You have been notified, nothing more. What you do with that knowledge is up to you. It's hypocritical that you think you can misuse guideline talk pages as a venue for delivering bogus personal "warnings" in furtherance of off-topic personal disputes, then you go apoplectic when someone leaves a legitimate and prescribed notice on your own talk page, which actually exists for (in part) the receipt of such templates in the first place. No further reply is needed; I have zero interest of any kind in your personal sense of being immune to behavioral standards here, and if you post more in that vein, I will just keep pointing you to the behavioral policies and guidelines until you get it or you run out of self-contradictory excuses and pointless hand-waving.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  10:48, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
You still don't get that you could have/should have just asked a damn question. Instead you assumed. You'd much rather have a pissing match, or finger point - since, God forbid, you're never wrong. But since there's nothing constructive going on here, we're done. I'm just reminded when you point with one finger - the other four point back at you. But since it matters to you - you take the WP:THELASTWORD - that I won't read. X4n6 (talk) 11:05, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) @X4n6, pre 2014 these warnings worked different and meant something different. But there is a new system. Under this new system the DS alert notices are no fault, no shame, no nothing..... just a simply FYI that DS applies to a topic area. I have given them to myself each time I enter into such an area. In addition, the explicit rules for DS notices require use of this template for the opening comment, and prohibit other methods. If you go bonkers when you get a simply FYI in compliance with the rules, you're announcing to everyone that in your case there's an above average possibility there will be problems for which DS should be applied. I have no idea where the locus of your dispute is... I haven't looked and don't plan to look.... I'm just offering neighborly advice from an uninvolved ed. Suggest you dial it back. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:52, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
@X4n6: pinging you since NewsAndEventsGuy didn't.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  09:13, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Kauffner

diff In ictu oculi (talk) 14:45, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Not sure I get the "Kauffner" reference. Haven't had coffee yet.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  15:06, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
Oh, that Kauffner. I thought that name rang a bell.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  23:24, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Copyrighted material in British Longhair

Resolved

Copyright problem icon Your addition to British Longhair has been removed, as it appears to have added copyrighted material to Misplaced Pages without evidence of permission from the copyright holder. If you are the copyright holder, please read Misplaced Pages:Donating copyrighted materials for more information on uploading your material to Misplaced Pages. For legal reasons, Misplaced Pages cannot accept copyrighted material, including text or images from print publications or from other websites, without an appropriate and verifiable license. All such contributions will be deleted. You may use external websites or publications as a source of information, but not as a source of content, such as sentences or images—you must write using your own words. Misplaced Pages takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

I didn't undo modifications entirely, just removed portions of text I found verbatim elsewhere. Nowhere man (talk) 19:09, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@Nowhere man: Aside from WP:Don't template the regulars, please be more careful whom you're pointing fingers at. That material had nothing to do with me other than I made a complete sentence out of it. The gist of it was from a merge of a WP:POVFORK at British Semi-longhair, the history of which indicates the underlying material was added by 176.180.154.24 . The original wording was "These cats ... are more likely to suffer from kidney complaints than various other cats", which is too short and plain a phrase to be subject to copyright anyway. The later phrasing "British Longhairs are more likely to suffer from kidney complaints than various other cats." was constructed during the merge process; if that exactly coincides with text on external sites, that's pure coincidence. Anything this simple and short should normally have been reworded rather than deleted, but it was {{cn}}-tagged anyway. Since it's a salient fact, I've restored it in different and much more specific wording, with a veterinary manual source (also added to Persian cat).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  19:41, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
I'm new to this part of the WP process, thanks for the pointers. I'll pay more attention to edit summaries now. Nowhere man (talk) 05:40, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
Coolio. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  05:56, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:David Ferrie

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The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:David Ferrie. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Just a note

For the TPS crowd, this is about WT:Talk page guidelines#Guidance against interleaving replies.

I know you and I butt heads at times, but we always seem to get right back on the same track and leave all the drama in the past afterward. And I don't think I'd have it any other way. Like I stated before, even when I vehemently disagree with you, I respect your point of view and try to see where you are coming from. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:41, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: Agreed, and it's mutual. The whole "just RfC it" thing wasn't meant as hostility, just a "this discussion will never F'ing die if we don't just get it over with" push, and you seemed to be the one who really wanted to RfC it. (You may have noted that just today I opened two more RfCs on similar "monster threads", and I plan to do that more and more, especially with perennial MoS crap that keep regurgitating endlessly. Anyway, I sometimes forget that this medium often poorly conveys emotion and can "invent" it where not actually present originally; sorry if I came off as angry or picking a fight or something.

I'm disappointed in the outcome of that RfC (though the result was predictable given the discussion). Virtually no one understood a damned point I was making, despite my efforts to make them very clearly. Being on the seen as on the same side as another editor (whose views were actually different – I was cutting a middle path) after several editors had been venting at him didn't help; I'm not sure that could be avoided – anything that even hinted at agreement with a single aspect of anything he said seemed to be taken as "You are not one of Us, ergo you are The Enemy". And the whole thing was overrun by "don't you dare touch my posts" thinking, but oh well. In time, when people of that mindset start interfering with legitimate refactoring more and more, it will piss off more and more editors, and the wording with adjust to curtail their nonsense. As I said before, I trust the community to get it right eventually. I'll continue to do the same refactoring I've been doing for almost 12 years, and adjust as necessary, which probably won't be much, since none of it is the disruptive (and mostly imaginary) kind of "interleaving" that fragments posts into jibberish, which what people are doing the Chicken Little act about.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  01:02, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

PS: I first parsed the opening line as "I know you and I are buttheads at times ..." LOL. Reminds me of my greatest PR score ever. Back around '94, I was handling a press call about some privacy-invasive, anti-encryption crap the FBI had been pushing in Congress, which we defeated. I got quoted as saying something like "This is what happens when law-enforcement butts heads against the civil liberties of Americans", and one of the major newspapers (NYT, or WashPost, I forget) ran it unedited, so most people probabaly had to do a double-take and first parsed it as "law enforcement buttheads". Very intentional on my part in that case. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  15:44, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Category:Darts non-player personalities has been nominated for discussion

 Done Category:Darts non-player personalities, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Marcocapelle (talk) 18:20, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Infobox writer

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The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Infobox writer. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Where to go from here?

Your proposal on the main MOS page would almost definitely solve the problem on MOS:FILM (and probably every other problem on every other MOS subpage for that matter), but it doesn't look like it's gonna get majority support on either venue as is. (If User:EEng et al were watching the MOS:FILM discussion go down, proving the premise for your proposal 100% correct, they would almost certainly change their minds, but it really doesn't look like they are, else I wouldn't be the only one agreeing with you that "film reviews aren't always secondary sources, regardless of context, merely by virtue of being film reviews".)

Honestly, I'm getting kind of tired of MOS:FILM for the time being (I experienced some pretty obvious hounding, which resulted in some disastrously bad content being readded to the Star Wars Holiday Special article, almost immediately after I started posting there, and things have only gone downhill from that), and I think I'm only three Arb votes away from getting my TBAN suspend so I can crawl back into my Japanese poetry content creation hole indefinitely, but if you decide to open an RFC at some point, feel free to notify me.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:10, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

That's fine; I don't expect proposals like this to "take" the instant they're proposed, and that one's just a discussion draft. What I would expect in the long term is for WP:NOR or WP:RS to address the matter of reviews in a section, which we'd cross-reference as needed. This "trial run" identifies the biases, misconceptions, and language (wording and syntax, I don't mean English vs. other) problems that have to be overcome to get traction on the problem. Also demonstrates that its a real problem.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  17:50, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but how did I get into this? EEng 20:45, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
Presumably something said in the now-closed discussion fork at the main MoS page (the one that started when I tried to direct people to the WT:MOSFILM thread). Rather than why you were pinged, I'm more interested in what you think of the underlying problem and how to resolve it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  20:50, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
@EEng: Sorry, I should have included the links. It wasn't really clear what I was referring to. I meant that if you (and the other editors arguing against SMcC's proposal on the main MOS talk page) had been monitoring the concurrent discussion here and to a lesser extent here, you would almost certainly have changed your mind about how effectively our MOS (including all of its subpages) works in applying common standards across the Encyclopedia, and about how beneficial or otherwise SMcC's proposal (which I had read, perhaps fallaciously, as meant to overrule LOCALCONSENSUS on the talk subpages by forcing all discussion onto the main talk page) would be.
@SMcC: On a loosely related note, I feel it really undermines the discussion process when everyone coming into a policy or guideline discussion has a different assumption about what the other parties "know" going in. I didn't realize until after you opened your separate section (the "here" in my above response to EEng) exactly what the root of the problem in my original thread (the "to a lesser extent here") had been. I was assuming that other people just didn't like the wording of my edit because it was a bit clunky, but now (close to three weeks later!) I really think that a significant number of people believe that film reviews are secondary sources, not primary ones, for a film's overall critical reception at any given point in time, and it somewhat concerns me that I wasted so much time trying to convince people based on a premise that those people did not accept, apparently because of their assumption that I held the same beliefs they did.
It bothers me even more, though, that the compromise wording that will likely be put in place will continue to be interpreted (although the explicit linking of WP:SYNTH means it was not interpreted thus by its creator -- courtesy ping) as meaning something completely different from what I intended.
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:19, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
I have followed it, and my mind is not changed. I did not argue against SM's proposal to merge small-traffic talk pages, but I did say we should do that first and see what happens before considering any kind of "MOS help desk". EEng 00:23, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Right. I hadn't detected EEng being opposed to the substance of what I was saying and trying to do (which is much, much broader that resolving quarrels about critical reception). As to the critical reception matter in the original discussion, I agree with Hijiri's summary of what has been going on and what the unfortunate outcome has been. I decline to stress about it much. Often the only way to break a WP:OWN/WP:LOCALCONSENSUS bloc of wrongheadedness is to let them dig their own hole deeper until the community can't stand it any longer and forces change. If the twits in that discussion actually start treating all reviews as secondary sources for every single thing they say about a film, then the OR problems are going to be so severe that the community, in particular those who policy WP:CCPOL violations, will eventually have no choice but to correct the interpretation. I know from broad editing experience that my interpretation is correct (i.e. agrees with how we handles sources in every topic) and that the film-focused editors ranting on over there are engaging in a combination of special pleading and just plain confusion, with a little territorial stubbornness mixed in, all with a communication-failure cherry on top. That whole sundae is just going to melt after it sits out long enough.

But this can take years. E.g. WP:MEDRS still states that press releases from entities like the American Medical Association and the British Department of Health are secondary sources, when we all know that's not true (they can sometimes be secondary for source review material when they include any, but they are by definition primary sources for the positions they're taking and the conclusions they're reaching on their own). People over at MEDRS have been having an extended brain-fart, such that they're refusing to understand the difference between a source that is secondary and a source that is high-quality but still primary. You'll also see this confusion throughout our medical (and sometimes other science) articles, where people keep insisting on citing primary research papers from journals when what WP wants is literature reviews and other secondary sources (though primary work can be secondarily cited as "backup" and for the interest of med students).

This is a subcultural conflict, stemming from academics treating literature reviews as boring, rote, "unoriginal" material no one wants to read much less be tasked with writing, while primary research is the exciting stuff. This psychology has a lot to do with the film reviews problem, too: Truly secondary review material, which is just neutral summary of the films content, or academic analysis of what lots of reviewers have been saying, without the writer of the secondary material injecting their own novel views, are boring; the "interesting" stuff is the opinionated material, which is of course primary.

A secondary factor in play here is abject fear that lots of one's work is going to be deleted if anyone catches on to the fact that we have lots of articles on questionably notable films (and sometimes science stuff, too) that is supported only or primarily by primary sources that some are falsely treating as secondary.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  00:40, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

You're telling me? EEng 05:26, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Tellin' the world. Testify! .  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  05:34, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

No kidding

I really mean this... One of your posts in the last few days (forget where) was in two pieces, one bit a summary/highlights, and a longer bit one of your usual comprehensive analyses, in a collapse box. (And again I really mean this...) I think this is a great innovation. I often like reading your analyses, but not always, and it's great to be able to just get the summary without having to plow thought the full treatment if I don't have time for that. Please keep doing that. EEng 20:51, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Good feedback. I've occasionally used this style for years, but haven't known if anyone cared, or even if people didn't like the box or splitting approaches. I've been trying especially to do this with RfCs and even "enforce" keeping long back-and-forth in the "Further discussion" section by refactoring, and it seems to be going okay, despite some people (the same ones being pains in the "interleaving" discussion) being anti-refactor. Anyway, I'll try this split-and-box technique more frequently.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  21:08, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker sneak attack!) ...also, it helps to keep the weaksauce TLDR dismissals off of your spicy analysis noodles. Primergrey (talk) 06:37, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Mmmm... spicy analysis noodles with weaksauce. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:58, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Damn, now I'm hungry for a spicy noodle bowl. But I still have leftover pizza. Curses!  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  15:18, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Algerian War

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Nomination for deletion of Template:For glossary

 Done – Responded at TfD.

Template:For glossary has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • 03:46, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Race and Crime

Hi. I noticed you wrote this "Last I looked, the scientific consensus was that crime rates are a socio-economic matter without any proof of a genetic component." Is there any proof it's entirely a socio-economic matter? Last time I looked science (other than perhaps mathematics) didn't proceed by "proof" where you then assume the contrary based on nothing. 94.119.64.2 (talk) 13:16, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Let's not be silly. I'm pretty sure any reasonable person understands that when, in the course of an everyday-English conversation, the term "proof" is used in reference to science, the intended meaning is "well-tested and -accepted evidence". A WP talk page is not a refereed journal article, and we are not here to be the Language Police pestering each other about how we phrase things in informal chit-chat.

With modern genetics, we know the idea is absurd. There's more genetic diversity between two neighboring African peoples than there is between the Japanese, the Irish, and the Australian Aboriginals. It's quite likely that more specific gene pools (sometimes thought of as narrower ethnicities, though that, too, is a misnomer) may have some slightly more marked neurological trait differences, but even this research is very spotty, e.g. showing multi-generationally strictly endogamous Ashkenazi Jews having around a 5 IQ-point lead above average, but only according to a few studies. Virtually no one has a taste for pursuing this kind of research. Given that in urban environments there virtually are no endogamous groups any longer, and haven't been for a long time, none of this is going to matter in a generation or two, and it barely matters at all now even as a statistical curiosity. If you hire someone just because they're of European Jewish ancestry and you think this means they'll be smarter than the other candidates (or reject a Japanese or or Hispanic candidate for not being Ashkenazi), you're an idiot.

All the dirt-farmers in the world can keep marrying their neighbors and cousins, and it won't stop the overall hybridization of the human species. The only major population nut that's not being cracked much yet is China, but it's already wildly multi-ethnic anyway and has been for thousands of years. Westerners don't understand this, usually, because they don't know anything about China and its peoples. Along lines of Victorian racialist thinking, they see epicanthic folds and assume that everyone east of around Kazakhstan are all the same. Anyway, that which isn't socio-cultural is really all about haplogroups, not "races" or "ethnicities".
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ≼  19:58, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Done/See also

 Done – Responded at TfD. This is an ironic one, given the template I'm filling out right now.

Template:Done/See also has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. {{repeat|p|3}}ery (talk) 02:39, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:United States dollar

Disregard – Invalid RfC. I WP:NAC'd this one.

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:United States dollar. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 30 September 2017 (UTC)


I just wanted to say "thank you" for coming in and definitively closing the Request for Comments regarding an anonymous user's fringe theory about the nature of the U.S. dollar. In case you had looked, the article had been hijacked by a rolling series of I.P. users since January of this year. User:Khajidha and I would attempt to bring some sanity to the situation, only to be flooded by lengthy diatribes of little worth. Nobody seemed willing to do anything about the situation, so I started a RfC in the hope that some sane Wikipedians would come to the rescue. I then stepped back so that I wouldn't appear biased. Some brave souls did come, but they were pummeled by the same ad nauseum arguments. Finally, at the first light of the fifth day, the cavalry arrived. Thanks to edits by User:NewEnglandYankee, User:Ronz, User:TenOfAllTrades, and finally, thanks to your definitive opinion in the RfC closure, the article seems to have been wrestled back to reality.

For these reasons I bestow upon thee the esteemed

Your Opinion is More Important than You Think Barnstar
Thanks for your definitive non-admin closure of a RfC, thereby asserting a sane consensus and bringing U.S. Dollar back to congruence with reality. BirdValiant (talk) 06:34, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
LOL, thanks, and in retrospect I should have looked a little bit closer at the history. What I saw was all the weird personal rambling about gold being "illegal" to own in the US (WTF? I guess I'm a big ol' criminal then), and how "theoretically" you could still maybe get gold for a dollar if yadda-yadda-yadda. The entire thing looked exactly like those rants about gun "statistics" that far-left fringies pull out of nowhere, or about being able to avoid federal income tax because "The United States" and "The United States of America" are different entities and doodle-doodle-dee that the far-right fringies pull out of nowhere, and it just had to stop per WP not being Facebook or 4Chan. People will troll all day (from both directions) on stuff like that, just because it's fun to argue. I did notice the "slow editwar" stuff going on to push the WP:FRINGE idea that the US dollar isn't a fiat currency, I just didn't pay attention to who in particular had opened the RfC, thus didn't deduce the intent of it. So, sorry if I "shot" you by accident. Of course, it being a WP:NAC, someone who wants to keep blathering about their pet economics hypotheses could reopen it, but we can hope not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  06:46, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Family Guy post RfC discussion

 Done

Please accept my apologies for disturbing you but I am trying hard to work towards a resolution at the discussion at Talk:Family Guy. However, there are "issues". Earlier, you indicated support for either "animated sitcom for adults" (with appropriate wikilinks) or "animated sitcom targeted at adult audiences" as the new text. Could you please visit the discussion again and confirm whether or not you are still willing to accept this wording? Thankyou. --AussieLegend (✉) 23:28, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

@AussieLegend: Please try to compromise with CT. If you get a version of the wording you like and he gets the wording not being in the first sentence, I think the whole thing just goes away.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  01:17, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure that's true given this post, which resists the outcome of the RfC while applying his own interpretation. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:22, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
If you are both pushing back against everything the other is saying, that will make heels dig in. I used to be a professional political activist. One thing I learned quickly is that if Side 1 really wants Result A and doesn't care much about B or C, which it knows that Side 2 really will not accept, but Side 2 pushes back against Result A, and offers X instead, then Side 1 will push hard for A, B, and C as if of equal importance, in turn causing Side 2 to demand X, Y, and Z in response; in reality both sides could compromise on an Result M that balanced A and X, without drawing B, C, Y, or Z concerns into the matter at all (and possibly make those all moot), if both sides would just calm down, offer to compromise, exhibit a "voice of reason" attitude, and talk with each other instead of at each other. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  08:29, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
I've had my fair share of politics and I don't disagree with anything that you've said, but I'm not pushing back, I just can't see the benefit of splitting one simple sentence and CT isn't helping by going off on tangents. It's hard to compromise when the other party keeps moving the goal posts. He even agreed to the proposed wording at one stage. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:44, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
I don't disagree with any of that. But it isn't actually important for these details to be in the lead sentence. Especially since it's likely that additional sources on demographics are going to cause the exact wording of the audience description to change, and most likely lengthen. Done properly, it could even be an entire short paragraph in the lead section. If it's in the lead sentence, it's going to be a "fight to the death" magnet every time someone touches a single character in that wording.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  09:51, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Regardless, he seems to be doing everything to avoid any outcome other than total exclusion, even now having resorted to an ANI report simply because I asked discussion participants if they still felt as they did, or whether they had changed their minds. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:00, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

To be quite blunt, I don't like the heading that you gave my assessment at the discussion when you converted it to an RfC. To someone who hasn't been following the discussion it makes it look I rushed in and declared consensus during the RfC, which is not the case. What I wrote was a comment on the posts by all those who had made previous comment on wording, well before it was converted ti an RfC. I did change it to something that I felt was more appropriate, butin true form, Curly Turkey reverted. His edit summary is somewhat ironic given that you aren't "a neutral third party". Could you please change it because I'm not comfortable with it at all. --AussieLegend (✉) 15:41, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Done. Nothing was "meant" by it. I saw your rewording of it, and agreed it was better.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  22:22, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I didn't think you meant anything by it. The problem was only interpretation by other editors. --AussieLegend (✉) 05:58, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Fauna titles seastar

The Fauna Barnstar
Thanks for the big progress recently on sorting out fauna titles – and other titles, too. Keep it up. Dicklyon (talk) 00:13, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Oh, thank you!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  01:14, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Note to self on MoS copyrwriting essay

I keep meaning to do some kind of "copywriting is hard" or "MoS is mainly for gnomes" essay. This will be a good example of how much work is entailed and how much knowledge of MoS is required, to totally overhaul even a fairly short article article for MoS compliance, though the edit also did a few other things like removed a bogus reference, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  06:59, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Actually, I'll just start a running log of these:

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  last updated 09:39, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Any idea where it comes from?

I was thinking (partly because I'm drafting some secondary-sourced articles on pre-modern Japanese works off-wiki in preparation for Asian Month) about how we came to allow (per guidelines like MOS:FILM and MOS:TV) plot summaries to be based on the works themselves. Virtually everyone I have discussed the issue with in fora other than MOS talk pages has expressed some degree of discomfort at Wikipedians being able to create original plot summaries, picking and choosing themselves which story elements to cover and in how much detail, just as long as they avoid explicit "analysis".

We don't seem to encourage this practice for pre-modern works like the narrative books in the Hebrew Bible. Many of our articles on Shakespeare's plays, such as the FAs Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, contain primary-sourced plot summaries, but the latter appears to address the issue by going into excessive detail in a 1,500-word summary -- so minimizing the amount of detail that Wikipedians have chosen to leave out?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:13, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

It's just one of the many flaws of WP largely being driven by entertainment-industry fandom. For every editor working on an article about something like a classic Japanese poet, or Roman-British history, or exoplanets, there are 100 working on trivial articles about pop-culture garbage. Until WP:Notability is overhauled to restrain this, we're stuck with the effect you observe and many other side effects. On the other hand, there's nothing more stupid or frustrating than writing something like "The protagonist of the story is Joe, a football player from Weed, Texas", cited the first first page of the novel which says so, and having some asshat put a {{citation needed}} on it because they incorrectly believe that basic facts can't be taken from a primary source when the facts are about the actual contents of the source itself. So, it can't swing too far in the other direction.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  08:21, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Meh. I always look to the existence of other templates when stuff like that happens. Template:Non-primary source needed clearly implies that some stuff can be primary-sourced and that it's only certain types of information (well, most types of information, really) that shouldn't be. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:44, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Well, sure, the way things are now. I'm thinking ahead of consequences/fallout, if there were to be a sea-change in our treatment of sourcing about works.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  10:31, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

ANI comment

RE: "CT hasn't been too accepting of reason why it should at least remain in the lead section."—I've never opposed such, and I believe I actually stated during the RfC that I'd accept such a solution. Could you strike that comment? I resisted commenting on it there because ANI's not the place to discuss content disputes. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:13, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

I can revise it. Skimming over your comments there, you'r sending mixed signals, e.g. "I'd prefer the demographics were made clear, explicit, and unambiguous elsewhere in the lead" but "I'm not alone amongst the commenters here in thinking it doesn't belong in the lead at all.".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  21:49, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Nothing I've written implies anything about the lead paragraph. "Elsewhere in the lead" includes the opening paragraph, and I've shown no opposition to that. Whatamidoing even suggested moving it to the second sentence, and I had no opposition to that. No mixed signals. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:56, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Well, "nothing" except "I'm not alone amongst the commenters here in thinking it doesn't belong in the lead at all." I'm glad you're not actually opposed or on the fence about it being includable in the lead somewhere. That should make resolution much easier. Just a matter of getting AL (and anyone else hot to have it in the lead sentence) accept that idea, and all should be well.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  23:10, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Good luck with that. Given nearly his entire participation has been stonewalling and dodging, I don't expect a straight response to a proposal modelled like Whatamidoing's. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:40, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
  • "I will point out that this entire situation has arisen because Curly Turky took exception to the word "adult", which he equates with 'porn'": this is the kind of thing that makes it impossible to have a discussion with AussieLegend—he's still disputing the outcome of the RfC and taking its result as a personal affront. This goes a long to towards explaining why he will entertain no sort of compromise. Don't expect him to accept even what Whatamidoing suggested. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:05, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
    Well, I can't read his mind or predict his reactions, but anyone taking a he-said-she-said kind of stance on this isn't going to help resolve it. I hope that will stop, but in the end I have no control over anyone's temper but mine (and not always that one, LOL).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  23:10, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
    he's still disputing the outcome of the RfC - Rubbish! I specifically said at ANI I was happy for the RfC closer to implement his outcome. Provide an actual draft of your proposed changes (something better than The show targets is viewed primarily by an audience of adults and teenagers" or whatever that you wrote before you said that "animated sitcom targeted towards adult audiences" was fair) and we can look at it. Because you've provided no actual draft it's not possible to work with anything. Vague suggestions don't help. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:36, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
    A discussion draft probably would be helpful. So many slight variants have been proposed it's hard to keep track of them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  08:04, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
    "Rubish" indeed—the last comment at the "discussion" I responded to has you arguing that "adult animation" stood for four years supposedly without issue, therefore the problem was me (of course, more than one disputed it, as I've linked to there). You continue to dispute the outcome of the RfC, and that's the root of the current impass. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:40, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
    Please get it into your head that I am NOT disputing the outcome of the RfC at all. The root of the current impasse is that you want to move the text out of the lead sentence but you persistently refuse to provide a draft of what you want the new text to be. If you don't explain exactly what you want, how can anyone agree to it? We have a draft of "my" proposal but not yours. Why not? --AussieLegend (✉) 15:47, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
    Look! You're doing it again! "he didn't have a problem with 'adult' being equated with 'porn'" ... if you have an actual argument for all this stuff, and are acting in good faith, why do you keep resorting to "Curly Turkey thinks 'adult' means 'porn'"? 20:43, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
    Once again, you've avoided answering the question about the draft. --AussieLegend (✉) 21:29, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
    I'm tempted to just go edit the text and see if it sticks. That approach sometimes works. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  22:24, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
    SMcCandlish, do you see how AussieLegend is claiming in the discussion now that I suggested including struck-out text in the article? Do you accept such an assessment as a statement of good faith? Obviously I don't—AussieLegend is doing whatever they can to disrupt the discussion with this horseshit, just as they do when claiming I believe "adult" = "porn" or by mocking me by parroting my comments ("you're avoiding answering the question", etc). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:17, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    It would probably work best for youse both to just clean-slate this. Drop all assumptions about what the other thinks, put aside the irritation, pretend neither of you have said anything about this at until right now and just state what you want the wording to be and where, don't try to predict the others' response, don't inject any kind of finger-pointing or testy language. I know that's hard, but it's unlikely that progress is going happen without it. WP:HOTHEADS might help (I wrote it about myself, FWIW).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  01:44, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    I thought we'd agreed to that, but an agreement doesn't work when it's one-sided. I need to see some demonstration of good faith from AussieLegend. Claiming I suggested inserting struck text into the article is the opposite of that. That's not "disagreement"—that's messing with heads. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:19, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    I'd just like to see an actual draft of CT's proposal. That's all I want at this point. I'm not going to support text I haven't seen. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:01, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    Look at this—he's sticking to his guns and insisting I suggested inserting struck-out text into the article. The striking was in resonse to a comment of yours, SMcCandlish, and I explicitly stated I was doing so—CTRL+F: "I've thus altered my proposed wording above".
    They're "not going to support a text they haven't seen", and they're not going to acknowledge having seen any text that's been presented to them. This has been going on since before the first RfC. Can we stop pretending AussieLegend is participating in good faith? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:32, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    Maybe both sides should go watch at least an hour of your favorite stand-up comic and have at least three beers in the process, then try again. Something needs to lighten the mood.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  07:47, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    I'm willing to reboot if AussieLegend is willing to revert the last two comments he made, claiming I suggested adding struck-out text to the article. There's no excusing that—no "misunderstanding" or "disagreement" resulted in those comments. A simple act of faith. What do you say, AussieLegend? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:45, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    Just do it – I double-dog dare ya! Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  08:50, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    Actually, I retract the offer. Looking over the current RfC, there doesn't appear to be any chance of AL's preference reaching consensus, so his trolling isn't doing the damage he hoped for (unless his only goal was to get under my skin, which it probably was). I can't comprehend such a mentality. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:00, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    You often complain about personal attacks but claiming that somebody is trolling is a personal attack in itself, as is unless his only goal was to get under my skin, which it probably was. As for what I wrote, I based that directly on what you wrote. It is true and accurate so there is no way on Earth that I am going to withdraw it. I've asked you several times now to provide a draft that we can work with and your standard response is "it's in my first comment". I looked at your first comment and what is there is flawed and incomplete. I specifically drew attention to the struck through content because that shouldn't be in a draft. What is left, Something like "The is viewed primarily by an audience of adults and teenagers" or whatever is incomplete. I explained that there is no way that "The is viewed primarily by an audience of adults and teenagers" is something that could be added to the article. It's quite obviously missing something after "The" and, as I also explained, you haven't bothered explaining where the text is supposed to fit into the article. The fact that you included "Something like" and "or whatever" clearly demonstrates that this is not a draft, it's just an idea.
    there doesn't appear to be any chance of AL's preference reaching consensus - Firstly, consensus isn't a count of votes. Secondly, let's leave the result of the RfC, which is still 29 days away, to a neutral third party. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:33, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    Troll someone else, AussieLegend—I'm done with you and your games. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:54, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    Please refrain from making personal attacks. I'm sure SMcCandlish doesn't want them on his talk page. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:30, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
    Only if they're against someone I don't like, e.g. that p.o.s. who vandalized my car.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  08:26, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
    Vandalising cars is a hanging offence IMO. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:12, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

RM NACs

FWIW, because I don't want to clog the move review, my reading of WP:RMNAC is that any close of a move requires it to be taken to move review if the closer doesn't self-revert. Having been on the end of people questioning my NACs in the past, this was certainly my understanding, though I am generally open to courtesy relists/reversions if asked. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:59, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Hoisted by my own petard then! I guess the RM-specific rules have diverged from NAC since last I looked at them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  05:01, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure the specifics of that page in terms of history, though RMs are now generally the most NAC friendly forum on en.wiki largely because of the extendedmover permission. Non-admins have the capacity to implement virtually any close, and can take them to WP:RM/TR if they aren't. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:04, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
Yar. I'm a PM myself, though I don't use it much (yet). Mostly will need it for tedious reams of template cleanup.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  06:00, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Note to self: Smartest conference slideshow of all time

Guttmann, Peter (18–23 May 2008). "Ding-ding, and Away!" (PDF). Things that Make us Stupid. AusCERT Asia Pacific Information Security Conference. Gold Coast, Australia. pp. 5–6. Retrieved 2 October 2017 – via University of Auckland.

I can think of lots of uses for this (especially from p. 5 onward, after the crypto geekery ).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  01:41, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Talk:List of Christian denominations

 Done

Hello! I have tried to invite more users to express their opinions on my proposal on Talk:List of Christian denominations, but am having a hard time. I suppose voices of more users are needed in order to accomplish a grounded decision there. Do you have any tips, please? Chicbyaccident (talk) 14:05, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

@Chicbyaccident: Use {{RfC}}; that will automatically attract more people over time. You can also list it at WP:Proposed mergers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  20:12, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for October 4

 Fixed

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Notability_(sports)

 Fixed

Hi. Seeing as you are a pretty regular commentator at these sorts of discussions, it is understandable that you might have forgotten that you already supported the proposed change at Misplaced Pages talk:Notability (sports)#NSPORTS introduction. Or maybe you meant the second support to be in a different section. Thought I would just let you know. Regards AIRcorn (talk) 21:33, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

@Aircorn: Oh! Yeah, I forgot I'd already said something; there've been several of these SNG/GNG normalization debates lately. I combined my two !votes.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  22:11, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Linda Sarsour

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Linda Sarsour. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your input at Talk:Linda Sarsour. However, it appears that you have misinterpreted quotes taken from sources as proposed text to be added to the article. I quoted several news sources to show that Yiannopoulos and Geller were instrumental in the protest of Sarsour's CUNY speech. This would seem to be crucial in order to accurately identify the source of the protest. The secondary sources that you ask for are already linked in my comments. I would appreciate your having another look at them and revising your own comments as necessary, as I fear that the confusion may sidetrack the building of consensus on the issue. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:41, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
You're right, and I will.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  21:43, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
@Sangdeboeuf: Done. Sometimes speed-reading bites me in the buttocks.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  21:59, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. Please see my further reply. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 13:52, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Move review

 Done

An editor has asked for a Move review of Grand Duchy of Kraków. Because you participated in the requested move, you might want to participate in the move review. Academicoffee71 (talk) 05:06, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Dismissal of James Comey

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Dismissal of James Comey. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Michael Portillo#Infobox proposal

 Done

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Michael Portillo#Infobox proposal. Smerus (talk) 11:13, 11 October 2017 (UTC)Template:Z48

You removed another user’s comment

Hi, this edit of yours removed another user’s comment. Did you intend to do that or was it a mistake? Cheers, LinguistEins 19:12, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Intentional. RfAs are not a place to make random commentary on numeric coincidences that last a couple of minutes. It's no different from posting "Ooh, I had chocolate cake for breakfast" or "I wish Trump wasn't so aggressive" on that page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  19:14, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Okay, thank you for explaining. LinguistEins 19:17, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
If the current practice is to refactor to the talk page, works for me. Or just revert me, but I expect one of the people who "officially" patrol RfAs to either remove or move it; happens all the time when people post off-topic noise in RfAs.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  19:18, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Not sure if we even have a current practice, but moving it to talk is fine. Helps for posterity. LinguistEins 19:51, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes. I'm sure my grandchildren will study this page in detail. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  20:16, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
That wasn’t what I meant by “posterity”, but I couldn’t think of a better word. I didn’t even really know what posterity meant (I know, I’m entirely undeserving of my username). LinguistEins 23:50, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm being silly. Since this isn't someone's RfA page. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  02:39, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for October 12

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Please comment on Talk:Tulle massacre

 Done

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Please comment on Misplaced Pages talk:Recent years

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Gram stain, gram-negative, etc. etc.

Hello! I saw your recent edit to Escherichia coli changing "gram-negative" to "Gram-negative". I know this seems like an obvious change, but of course as with most largely-unimportant technical details, the capitalization of Gram has been the source of some discussion. The U.S. CDC recommends lowercase. The American Society for Microbiology prefers uppercase. Various other groups and style-guides have taken sides as well. There was some discussion a while ago at Gram-negative bacteria and Gram-positive bacteria, the latter of which led to the somewhat inelegant compromise of a section titled "Orthographic note" at the relevant pages. Anyway, I think the capitalization is best considered a "stylistic choice" at this point, and so I've undone your edit to E. coli. No malice intended. If you'd like to talk more about this, I'm more than happy to do so. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 16:36, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Ajpolino: Already aware of that. WP has its own style guide, and it capitalizes eponyms, and uses capitalization consistently within the same article. Two solid reasons versus one weak one ("some journals don't capitalize it"). We can RfC it if necessary. WP goes with consistency (per MOS:ARTCON) over WP:SSF preferences, so I can predict what the outcome will be.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  20:54, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
Well I must say I didn't realize that. In the case of E. coli the older versions of the article definitely appear to have uppercase "Gram-negative" so I'm not sure when that was changed (and I lack the willpower to search through revisions to find out), so your reasoning per MOS:ARTCON is unimpeachable. For some other articles, the lowercase adjectival version of gram-neg/pos is the only version used in the article. For those I understand your argument for switching to the uppercase version, but could you point me to the part of WP:MOS suggesting eponyms are generally capitalized? I poked around in MOS:CAPS to no avail (unless you're looking at MOS:NAMECAPS?). Anyway, I'll use the capitalized adjectival form in the future, but I'm not sure it's worth our time to go through and correct the lowercase forms that currently exist. I certainly won't stop anyone who tries. Thanks for the note! Sorry for the original misunderstanding on my part. I hope that didn't take up too much time. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 15:27, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
I'll just RfC it. People are revert-warring, on confused bases, at both Gram-negative bacteria and Gram-positive bacteria.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  22:30, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Peter Hore

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Peter Hore. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 24

The Misplaced Pages Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 24, August-September 2017

  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
    • Star Coordinator Award - last quarter's star coordinator: User:Csisc
  • Wikimania Birds of a Feather session roundup
  • Spotlight: Wiki Loves Archives
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic, Kiswahili and Yoruba versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Misplaced Pages Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:53, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer Newsletter

Hello SMcCandlish, thank you for your efforts reviewing new pages!

Backlog update:

  • The new page backlog is currently at 12,878 pages. We have worked hard to decrease from over 22,000, but more hard work is needed! Please consider reviewing even just a few pages a day.
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General project update:

If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:47, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of OpenBSD security features for deletion

 Done – Commented at the AfD. A discussion is taking place as to whether the article OpenBSD security features is suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages according to Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/OpenBSD security features until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Tonystewart14 (talk) 03:01, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Spanish Empire

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Spanish Empire. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to redo the RFC.

 Done – Commented at the new version.

In light of the changes you made to my draft, I'm pulling the RFC and once Legobot removes it, I'll again put it up, this time including your draft, as the proposed version of the text. I'll let you know when that happens. In light of this, you may want to consider editing your response. Thanks. --Deathawk (talk) 05:31, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

The new version is up. --Deathawk (talk) 07:28, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Halloween cheer!

Happy Halloween!

Hello SMcCandlish:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Misplaced Pages, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
    – North America 14:53, 25 October 2017 (UTC)



Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.
Thanks; happy All Hallows and Samhain to you as well.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  20:18, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Democrat Party (epithet)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Democrat Party (epithet). Legobot (talk) 04:24, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Darn revdel

Thanks. Darn revdel. I'd better change the link in the block log too. Bishonen | talk 14:37, 26 October 2017 (UTC).

On the possibility of an RfC on parenthetical vs comma disambiguation

Hi SMcC, I'm not sure whether we've acquainted with each other properly yet but I'm Neve-selbert and I would just like to give you my thanks straight-off-the-bat for supporting my side of the argument here, here and here. Your line of reasoning was better than mine, I must admit, and I greatly appreciated your input on the issue. On the subject of RfC however, you have said that this is such an issue that should be settled by a request for comments, which I feel inclined to agree with. I understand that you "don't care much" but if you had the time to draft a rationale for me I would really appreciate it. You certainly know your way with Misplaced Pages policies better than I do .--Nevé–selbert 15:22, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Will think on it. The comment here probably has the jist or at least germ of the RfC angle.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  21:13, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
@Neve-selbert: Speak of the devil: Talk:Church of the Holy Mother of God (Aleppo)#Requested move 28 October 2017.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  01:21, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Interesting. Would it be a good idea in your view to launch an RfC before or after that RM concludes? Thanks.--Nevé–selbert 11:27, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
@Neve-selbert: Later probably. This one case won't matter either way. I'm not even certain I want to pursue this, especially as an across-the-board RfC. It's liable to raise a real ruckus, and when it comes to "how much patience does WP have for another style-related RfC?", I have bigger fish to fry. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that a "one size fits all" rule proposition will fail, because there are some habitual and loud anti-MoS editors who are opposed to site-wide consistency and to rules in general, and they have a habit of bloc voting against major consistency moves that hit their radar. It'll be much more practical to address this topic-by-topic (in a broad sense) and via WP:RM. I would suggest starting with cities and towns and mountains and other major geographical features; do a mass WP:RM of "City (Country)" articles to "City, Country", etc. Then do "campuses", for lack of a better word – places that are undeniably places not single structures. E.g., mass-RM universities at names like "College_or_University (City)" to "College_or_University, City", and "Park Name (City)" to "Park Name, City". Then large structures like train stations, city halls, and courthouses. Then smaller structures one cannot enter, like monuments and statues.

Dicklyon has had good luck with this step-wise approach at WP:RM (though on different style matters), and might have some input. One thing I've learned in doing RMs here and there over several years to get all the animal breed names consistently using natural disambiguation and the same upper/lower-case scheme (almost done – only a few dog articles left) is that a slow approach works best with such things, doing group moves on articles that all have exactly the same format and raise the same issues (so a mass-RM cannot be derailed by an objection to one "un-alike" item in the list). Incrementally gaining consensus to move toward a consistent approach builds its own momentum because the consistency rationale becomes stronger after every move in that direction. It also eventually eliminates the "they're all different, there is no standard, so it should be up to what the wikiproject people want to do on a case-by-case-basis" argument (a.k.a. "let chaos reign", a.k.a. "WP:CONLEVEL and WP:OWN don't apply to me and my pet topics").
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  15:32, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm not even sure what group of moves or strategy you're referring to. I've had mixed luck with caps, better luck with dashes since that was settled, and some commas via RFC, much of it not so pleasant and needing interminable RM discussions. I've had pushback on "mass moves" for a dozen, and other times no pushback at all on hundreds of moves. Hard to know what to do here, except start case-by-case and get a feeling for how the community reacts. Maybe it will be easy, maybe it will be impossible to get what you suggest. Dicklyon (talk) 03:02, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice @SMcCandlish and Dicklyon: . I concede that I should probably just WP:DROPTHESTICK on this one. Misplaced Pages is indeed full of inconsistencies, and the likelihood of this no longer being the case is probably the same as that for world peace. Besides, it's just a title. Best regards.--Nevé–selbert 19:38, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
@Neve-selbert: Well, what we're suggesting is taking it slow and seeing what the reaction is. It's not actually desirable that we have this much lack of consistency, and it's a frequent cause of conflict. It's just probably not practical to have a single RfC resolve it site-wide in on fell swoop.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  19:44, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Steve Davis

Moved to Talk:Steve Davis#World Team Classic match details

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Just to say thank you for your message. I have tried to reply to Betty's message on my talk page but have probably not done so correctly. It is worth spending time editing the wiki encyclopaedia but frankly it is not worth my time learning how to have arguments with other users. Ultimately the information I posted, while provably correct, is not sufficiently important for me to continue the debate. It is a shame wiki readers are denied correct information because of over-zealous wiki-police. I work in archive television and am an acknowledged expert in the field. I understand that Betty wasn't to know that, but since I do not have a history of arguments or edit wars on Wiki, I'm not entirely clear why she chose to take issue with a fact that is impossible to verify online without uploading the match on Youtube, which it isn't particularly my place to do. I regularly come across old domestic video recordings, and came across a recording of the match in question recently. I thought the information was notable as it came from Davis' golden period. I can send you an mp4 of the recording if your really want one! But since you clearly know your stuff on here, I will leave it to your judgment whether my edit it should remain or not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Diariser (talk • contribs) 21:49, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

@Diariser: See WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:TRUTH. "I damned well know it, and I'm a professional" isn't reliable sourcing. :-) Even Stephen Hawking, if he chose to edit here and correct our physics and astronomy articles, isn't a reliable source in and of himself, straight from his opinion or memory. Has to be published material. A TV show counts as published, but one has to be able to cite the broadcast date and the time in the program so that others, with some access to the material somehow, can verify it. A two-sided-coin consequence of this is that WP does have some incorrect information (and, more often, missing information), but the information we do have is generally much more reliable than can be found on random webpages. It's rather like the justice system and standards of legal proof. They are not perfect – some criminals walk and some innocent parties get wrongly convicted – but it works properly more than 99.9% of the time. I don't know enough about the dispute in question to know whether some version of your edit should be reinstated; I was just responding to your need to be able to cite something. A televised snooker match can be cited as a source, if it's done right.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  21:56, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: Thanks for the info, which is appreciated. Alas life's too short really to learn technicalities of how to it, it's just not worth the time! I'm just trying to add a bit to the sum of knowledge. Maybe next time I'll just put how I know in the edit summary, and leave others to decide whether to keep it in. I do of course understand that there are many peopple who will post incorrect info, but surely this kind of over-zealous policing just discourages good sources from contributing? But thanks again for your advice. Diariser (talk) 22:03, 27 October 2017 (UTC) Diariser
@Diariser: I have to repeat that "discourages good sources from contributing" isn't the right mindset; you are not a source – only published works are sources. It's important to main the distinction between editors (volunteer writers, i.e. providers of copyediting and sourcing labour) and sources (inanimate things we create citations to). No one wants to discourage productive volunteers. But adding unsourced or improperly sourced material isn't actually a net positive, even if one is certain that the info is ultimately correct, because it creates work (and often dispute) for other editors to deal with, i.e. it's a productivity drain. By way of analogy, think of a major software development project, like maybe you've been hired to work on Microsoft Word 2018. It might be an awesome idea to have Word be able to directly edit PDF files as a native format, and you might be certain this will work, and could even have developed a sandbox version that is functional. But Microsoft isn't going to integrate your major change into the finished product until it's been through rigorous processes like code documentation, internal testing and QA, alpha and beta testing with real user, and user documentation being written. There's a gulf of work between "this would be an improvement" and "this will be in x version of the finished product". It's the same here; doing WP right requires quite a lot of work, and it's very similar to a QA process.

All that said, please don't get discouraged. Figuring out how to do WP, including fiddly citation templates, and what kinds of facts need what kinds of sourcing (mostly covered at WP:NOR and WP:RS), is something that people absorb over time, usually after a lot of reverts and challenges from more experienced editors. It can be a bit of a trial by fire, or at least by tedium. Also, it's not actually required to use citation templates. You can just do a manual citation, something like <ref>Mark Selby vs John Higgins, final, session 1 (at 03:42); ''World Snooker Championship BBC 2017'' broadcast (30 April 2017); BBC Sport. Via YouTube channel. Accessed 27 October 2017</ref> The {{Cite AV media}} and {{Cite episode}} templates have parameters for such details, but the templates aren't really necessary. Lots of "important" snooker stuff can be found on YouTube, including Steve Davis material . It's not necessary to even have a URL, if you have something on tape or DVR, though it's probably a good idea to do a talk page post indicating that you have a recording of the show for verification, and that you verified the original broadcast date somehow. PS: You don't need to use {{Ping}} when posting on someone's own user talk page; they're auto-notified.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  22:39, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish:thanks. I guess what I would say is that for many people, wikipedia is not enough fun to learn the details, and if you insist on this before accepting any edits, particularly in areas which are rare and thus valuable but unverifiable sources (i.e. video recordings of old TV shows), then that will be massively discouraging. If it can just be put in the edit summary as you suggest, then that is a lot easier. Is it possible to post a screen grab on a talk page. It just occurred to me to take a screen grab of Davis at the table with the scoreboard showing he needed a snooker. Maybe that will be enough for Betty!
@Diariser: We're not supposed to use screen grabs, as a copyright matter. That's why you don't see them on our TV show, movie, and video game articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  03:51, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: Noted, thank you. Of course I did not use it for illustrative purposes, simply for verification purposes, so could now remove it. If only I knew how!

Diariser (talk) 15:18, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

@Betty Logan: Any input? It would be nice to retain the material, especially since it involves other era greats like Eddie Charlton. It is permissible to cite TV broadcasts and recordings thereof; just need sufficient details, like original air date, and broadcaster, and time into the broadcast that the event/detail in question appears.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  03:56, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

PS, to both: See Maximum break and all the video material cited in its table.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  04:13, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I have a provided a comprehensive explanation at Talk:Steve_Davis#World_Team_Classic_match_details. I think it is probably better to continue an article discussion there (it always annoys me when editors conduct article discussions on my talk page) and then other editors can join the discussion if they wish. Betty Logan (talk) 08:09, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Please comment on Talk:2017 Las Vegas Strip shooting

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:2017 Las Vegas Strip shooting. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Possible renaming of the article Liberal eugenics

 Done – Opened it as a proper WP:RM.

Hi.

I thought you may be interested to know that there is a discussion at Talk:Liberal eugenics#NPOV renaming of this article. The discussion was started a few years ago, but I have just added a comment.

The previous comments by J JMesserly didn't get any response and the article wasn't renamed at that point. I don't want it to be like that again, so if I get no response I will just move the article.

Yaris678 (talk) 11:48, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Manual of style proposal

 Done

Ok, I think we're ready for voting here. You indicated in the discussion that you may of changed your stance, so I just would like to see if you wanted to update it. --Deathawk (talk) 00:05, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

@Deathawk: Is this the TV one or the film one?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  07:55, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
The movie one a link can be found here.--Deathawk (talk) 08:44, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
@Deathawk: Done. I would suggest implementing the "impacted" → "affected" change someone else suggested. Then closing the RfC as something that wandered into re-drafting too many times, and open a new RfC with the new wording.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  08:59, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
PS: more copyediting .  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  09:02, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Time for a break?

Just a quick note: I have noticed you getting a bit annoyed with some other editors recently. From personal experience, I know how crap it can feel to be on the receiving end of you when you feel like people are not understanding your points. I would probably avoid replying to FC on the current MoS thread. I have not seen them before, and—judging by their contributions—they are not especially familiar with P+G talk pages. They are clearly passionate about the discussion taking place, as demonstrated by the additional effort of contacting Microsoft. I am sure there are plenty of MoS regulars who will be happy to take over dealing with them. –Sb2001 20:08, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

It's already at ANI. I'm actually in a good mood; any annoyance I'm experiencing is fleeting (and people often think I'm annoyed when I'm not simply because I'm debatory by nature). The very fact that the editor is on a WP:TRUTH / WP:GREATWRONGS mission about a matter of style trivia (against overwhelming reliable-source evidence) is itself problematic, but I trust that ANI will deal with it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  20:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
@Sb2001: I've given some further thought to the "non-native" issue. First off, no one in the thread in question said anything about anyone being a non-native English user (at that time). Various things were said about "native English usage", etc., but they had nothing all to do with particular editors, but with whether it's permissible to use "the" in front of a construction like "Mac App Store", which of course it is.

That detail aside, let's get to the alleged civility issue. WP has a tension between WP:CIVIL and WP:CIR. It's been there the entire time CIR has existed, and even longer, ("competence is required" was said at ANI, AN, AE, etc., long before it was codified). CIR really is true. Part of the competence to edit productively here is competence with English, well above middling ESL level. When it comes to editing MoS (or trying to ensure compliance with it), an even higher level of competency is required – beyond mere fluency, into detailed knowledge about the finer points of English usage and style. So, there's not automatically a civility issue with questioning someone's English competence, given sufficient evidence. (In your case, I did not have it, and apologize again. I did not do due diligence, since a dictionary did actually have the term in question after all, and one case is never enough to assess someone's language skills anyway.) Having the civility to collaborate here is also a CIR matter, so it makes the tension between CIVIL and CIR kind of recursive.

However, the appearance of "native" somewhere in a thread does not necessarily mean a civility problem is happening, even if it's about an editor not an inanimate bit of language. After your post here, someone in that WT:MOS thread has in fact questioned whether another editor (a different one) is a native speaker of English, based on how they write and what assertions they've made about grammar. This actually appears to be on-point to me, given the nature of the debate – whether an alleged rule defended by that person, added without broad consensus, actually reflects linguistic reality about English (which consensus so far says it does not). This is kind of a case of life imitating art, I guess, in that the accusation that someone questioned whether someone else is a native English speaker was false, then became true post hoc.

In the end, I'm not sure that "native" is the right word, since plenty of native speakers have terrible grammar and spelling, and plenty of advanced ESL learners do better than they do at it. It's more a matter of fluency. But "native" still has a linguistic meaning, and that's what was originally being used in the thread. E.g., the abilities to split infinitives and to end sentences with prepositions is a native feature of English, and has been for centuries; both will be found in the works of the best English-language writers. The "rules" to never do either are non-native impositions (from other languages or from theories about language "improvement") by prescriptive grammarians, back in the Victorian era.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  06:28, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I think it I often the case that when people 'show off' their linguistic skills, it starts to sound odd. This leads some to question whether one is applying grammar from another language. I am generally only against the 'invasion' of English when is involves moving away from the quirks we have, and like to see people breaking the rules in an intelligent manner (bravo on the 'to never do'). That said, many of the more thorough writers and speakers of English do pay careful attention to the rules, and choose only to break them when it is a necessity. I am fairly meticulous, and do not like splitting infinitives and preposition stranding, but recognise that not doing so sounds odd to many people (so take the piss out of my language whenever possible—I doubt anyone says, 'Up with that I shall not put' in complete seriousness).

The issues the MoS has encountered recently are, as you said, to do with a lack of competency. The editors in question are showing a lack of willingness to break the rules. I do not care whether one chooses to stick an article in front of a trademark like '.NET Framework'. Personally, I would rather the capital 'F' on 'Framework' goes at the same time as 'the' going on the front, but recognise your point about editors changing it. I also know that I am somewhat of an 'undercapper', so am probably not the best person to involve in this specific issue. I should not have assumed that it was you who used the term 'non-native' (although, I am sure you can understand why I did; thanks for your further apologies—consider that finished). EEng's decision to fire this in the direction of another editor was a little tactless. FC—however—should not have raised it on that page to strengthen his case, or weaken that of others. I have done the same in the past, though, as part of a 'last attempt' to persuade editors that they are being unreasonable. I hold nothing against him, and am sure that he will be back soon enough, hopefully in a more laid-back frame of mind. –Sb2001 00:34, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@Sb2001: "Starts to sound odd". Oh, I quite agree. On "to never do": I'm sure you already know that "you can't split an infinitive", like "can't end a sentence with a preposition", was made up by Victorian prescriptivists who believed that Latin was "a more perfect language" and thus that its rules must be imposed on English. But of course Shakespeare and all the rest used both "wrong" things, because they're natural features of English. I tend to favor avoiding them (when doing so isn't awkward) in our articles; there are people still convinced they're "wrong". But the results can be really awkward indeed, and it can come across as snooty or something in a talk page discussion; better to just rewrite completely.

".NET Framework" is a proper name, like "Hypertext Markup Language"; both of these are also of a descriptive structure, like "JPEG image format" (not a proper name), but that's true of a lot of proper names, like "Pacific Coast Highway", "Central Park", "the Misplaced Pages Manual of Style", etc. If it's published as the .NET Framework, it just is (as the Linux kernel is that and not the "Linux Kernel"; "Linux" is the proper name, "kernel" is a descriptive disambiguator distinguishing between that and the Linux project, Linux as a family of GNU/Linux complete OSes, etc., etc.). There's a usage distinction (though rarely arising in this particular case): one might write "A comparison of the features of the .NET and Oracle Application Development frameworks demonstrates that ..."; we'd do this for the same reason we'd say "Adkazian has taught at both Oxford and Cambridge universities". This lower-case-when-genericized-as-plural style is not universally recognized, but has become the dominant usage since ca. the 1980s. Because there are still some old people who object to it (and I'm pushing 50, so I'm not mocking), it's best written around when possible. I've discovered through trial and error that people are less likely to "correct" it to an upper-case plural if there are three or more, but still – just take away the temptation. Similarly one could in theory write something like "In the handling of data arrays, the PHP, Fortran, and .NET frameworks are confusingly different", using "framework" in completely different sense, about the syntax of parsing (PHP and Fortran are not software frameworks at all), but this would be confusing and anyone would be sensible to rewrite it to use a different word; it would be like using the word "case" in the generic sense of "instance" in a legal context, where it would be confused with the term of art "case" meaning "lawsuit or prosecution". "Framework" in the software context is a term of art with a specific contextual meaning (or rather a range of such meanings, related but not synonymous).

"Non-native" – Not just EEng; CT did, too, and they're not necessarily wrong, though it runs up against what I was getting into above. When are we digging at people to "WP:WIN" versus trying to assess whether someone is actually competent to be trying to affect our style guide and its interpretation? Is there a more tactful way to do the latter? I'm not really sure of the answer to the last question, and it applies to all WP:CIR concerns. E.g., "you don't yet know enough about deletion policy to meaningfully participate at AfD; your last ten posts there have just clouded matters and inflamed other parties" will be accepted by one person as "Oh, I guess I'd better read up on the policies in more detail" but by the next person as a vicious personal swipe that questions their mentality. I don't see a clear path around this human-nature obstacle. I've addressed it the best I could at the time at WP:HOTHEADS in the two sections on avoid commenting on contributor rather than contribution, but this is hardly failsafe; some are apt to treat criticism of something they said or did as criticism of their person. I've tried to AGF about FC and CL's misinterpretation or alleged misinterpretation that "This is normal in native English usage", etc. (clearly about strings of words) was somehow about an individual's English-language competence; but since the misinterpretation is actually unlikely, and it happened with those two and only those two back-to-back, and they have a tag-teaming history, and both were engaged in a three-day-long pattern of incivility against someone for daring to disagee with them about something in MOS:COMP, it really strains AGF to the breaking point.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  09:53, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Notice

Resolved – The ANI was retracted.

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Codename Lisa (talk) 09:04, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

I apologize

Hello, my esteemed colleague.

It has been pointed out to me that up to this point, I have interpreted your behavior erroneously. People whom I deeply respect are of the opinion that your behavior so far can only be interpreted as patient and well-meaning.

As such, I am here to do what every mature person should: to own up to his or her own mistake and apologize. Please accept my apology.

With respect to making amends, I offer you the following remedial courses of action:

  • I will strike my comment in the survey section of Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style, and will write a new one. The striking will happen pronto, but the re-write will happen when I have time.
  • I will encourage FleetCommand to do the same, or better yet, fully withdraw from the discussion.
  • I will encourage FleetCommand to apologize as well. (I don't know if I succeed though.)
  • What I will do is not being done in the spirit of quid pro quo. You are still at liberty to maintain your opinion on the subject matter and carry out with you ANI complaint as you please.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 19:44, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Hello again
I did as I promised. My verdict is withdrawn, pending a re-write that will address our concerns properly (and will not have the word "madness" which you deemed uncivil.
I also withdrew the ANI case I filed against you and have no ANI contributions since 19:44 3 November 2017 (UTC). You can consider anything before that point null and void.
Finally, I communicated with FleetCommand. He didn't say yes, and he didn't say no either. He won't be here for a while though. Let's hope for the best.
Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 04:47, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Argh. Just wrote a detailed reply to this and lost it in a browser crash. Short version: I appreciate and accept what you wrote above, which I did not see until after my recent ANI. And I said in my own e-mail to you that this disputation isn't what I want, either. But I am not fishing for contrition, I'm trying to address disruptive editing. I'm not angry at you and do not demand apologies and retractions.

The concern to me is that in one topic I'm aware of (English-language usage and style), your editing exhibits civility and AGF problems, a TAGTEAM, and WP:CIR issues, as well has serious PoV problems. Not a value judgement about you, but a problem statement about editing behavior, which is rectifiable. Even the accusations and aspersions against me are not a big deal to me at a personal level (they're easy to disprove, and my skin is thick). The concern is that this is a pattern you'll engage in at all, which may affect others if you continue to do so. Another concern is that it's being pursued in furtherance of a linguistic position that multiple editors have already clearly disproven.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  05:42, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

@Codename Lisa: I forgot to ping above. Anyway, if I said something you feel needs an apology or retraction, let me know.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  06:00, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, there is one thing you can do. (And I won't take it against you if you said no.) I need to clear my head and, so to speak, put a mental version of the {{disputed}} tag in front of everything I have though of you. And about my relationship with FleetCommand, and the influence it had over me. (Forming a Cabal with him wasn't what I was going for.) If you believe the ANI case needs to remain open, please postpone it until I came back from wiki-vacation.
Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 09:43, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
@Codename Lisa:  Done. I just closed it (with a reply). Some kind of "public trial" fiasco is hardly desirable (I really hate drama boards; the fact that I've been to ANI more than once in a year is pretty aberrant for me.) The main point of ANI is to get people to re-examine what they're doing (despite some people's untoward treatment of it as a wikibloodsports arena), and you already are.

PS: Tiny clarification about the above: I don't think "madness" was uncivil, exactly, since it doesn't seem to be about an editor(s); rather it is a description of English usage you don't like, thus an indicator of a PoV problem. It wouldn't be any different from someone describing Hinduism as insane, or a preference for dogs over cats as some form of lunacy. We really have to avoid thinking like that about style and grammar, or everyone would be fighting style holy wars all day.

PPS: I would suggest not encouraging FleetCommand to apologize or retract anything (not in my direction, anyway). It's not something I need, and I'm honestly uncomfortable with "extracted" shows of contrition. For some people (self included sometimes) it can take a lengthy period of post hoc reflection to realize on one's own that one has misstepped. My memory for this stuff is generally short, and I don't bear grudges I can divest myself of.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  12:27, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi again. Thanks for everything.
I just have an update for you before going back to "vacation". FleetCommand has gone dark. Knowing him, he won't show his face anytime soon; maybe after a day, maybe after a week. And again, knowing him, he won't do anything to make his presence noted by any means other than watchlists and contrib logs.
But now that I am here, I might as well clarify a couple of things. "Madness" is a word used in a certain group I am a member of. One of our linguist members (right now the only one; I only have a linguistics minor) kept using "method in his/her madeness" phrase and so, "madness" became the opposite of "method". As for writing or supporting simple and all-catching rules, yes, I have an agenda that I never tell anyone: I believe doing so paves the rocky road to Misplaced Pages's Hell: WP:FA! I have one FA under my belt! Did you know I actually have twice supported the use of "the App Store" in reference to Apple's mobile app store? The editors were persistent and I thought: It's a guideline; occasional exceptions are allowed. Civility is more important.
Right now, the most distressing issue at hand for me is the allegation of tagteaming with FleetCommand. Although not deliberate and malicious, I think it might be true. When I came to Misplaced Pages, I was constantly accused of being a sock or meat of other editors. Eventually, I think those accusations became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Reading WP:All socks didn't help either. I am starting to think FC might be having strong unhealthy pro-Codename Lisa PoV. Scary, scary, scary.
Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 15:20, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Changing approach: One thing I've tried assiduously to do is read and formulate my response to whatever proposition, idea, question, request, edit, or revert is at hand on its own merits, trying to skip over the username of who posted it. Look at the username(s) after the fact (needs to be done before saving, to make sure one isn't attributing one editor's idea to someone else due to mis-threading). This has had a marked effect. If you dig back into my 2005–2012 history here, you'll see me in frequent trouble. It's because I was thinking about WP as a pack of individuals I had to play politics with rather than a project I needed to build consensus in en masse (without treating them personally as cogs in a machine, of course). It took a wake-up call to make this shift; an admin proposed indeffing me for too much "comment on contributor", back when, and I also took the long break I mentioned. Another helpful technique (which I have still not entirely mastered) is to review what one has written before saving it (and even again afterward), to ask: Is anything readable as being about the editor's personality, mental capabilities, protected class, mental state (including motives), or other personal characteristics? Remove it or rewrite it to be properly about the content, pattern, or effect of the edit(s). Takes practice, and any criticism of an edit can still be taken personally, but this approach reduces the likelihood that it will be. If every editor used this approach, WP interaction would be much smoother. The method can even be brought to bear on things that often do have a personal component, like COI. "This edit seems promotional, and is maybe too close to the subject's interests." It's actually way more common for a PoV or outright promotional claim to be made by a fan rather than an employee. A corollary of this approach is to try hard to react to what seem like highly personal digs as fumbled attempts to just criticize an edit, and not take them too personally unless they're particularly attack-y or they just keep coming at you. Hopefully this all is a general enough approach it will work for you, too.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  07:16, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Style: @Codename Lisa: Agreed that simple and consistent style rules help produce better content (though WP:FAC has a rather strained relationship to MoS, due to pro-WP:VESTED-editors and anti-WP:MERCILESS-editing prejudices in that clique). However, the WT:MOS discussion has made it pretty clear that most of the RfC respondents don't consider MOS:COMP#Definite article a "simple and all-catching rule", but a made-up oversimplification that doesn't match reality. It might be nice if English were that programmatic and regular, but it's not. Trying to force it to be so on WP just tends to piss everyone off and breed new MoS haters. Eroding of respect for WP's policies and guidelines is an increasing problem that threatens the stability of the whole project, so we should avoid anything that increases that effect.

Us pesky hominids: FC isn't being "creepy" (unless I'm not privy to something), just cantankerous, and exhibiting human nature: seeking allies, defending territory, advancing personal preferences and perceptions as rules and truth. These are instincts we have to resist here, but it takes work and practice. Sometimes people have to be separated from topic areas in which they have difficulty reigning in these impulses. With regard to the urge to be part of an us in particular, we do need to collaborate, but it's really easy for it to turn into an insular clique or aggressive gang. The best defense against this is to try to expand any given us by making it more inclusive, and to be in as many "uses" as you can manage, and have them cross-communicate. You understand different perspectives and wants and rationales better that way, and it helps prevent "us versus them" thinking and behavior. E.g., it's hard to side with WikiProject A against WikiProject B if you're participating in both and understand their viewpoints; the person who can is in a great position to mediate the dispute and find compromise.
Hope this helps.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  12:43, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Third-party comments

  • I have been watching this issue. In my opinion we are seeing a rare thing nowadays on WP. A colleague with the moral courage to attempt to build bridges after an unpleasant incident, and the humility of maturity, that of apologising. SM, I do hope that you take this as the ultimate sign of good faith that a colleague can offer, and that you in turn, reach out. Regards to both of you. Irondome (talk) 05:09, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
    Entirely agreed. I've never questioned CL's faith (I just didn't agree with much of what CL was saying.) I already tried to be conciliatory in e-mail but that didn't work. I nevertheless hope that conciliation mutually continues. That may be unlikely in the very short term, because I was writing an ANI while CL was writing the above, and I didn't notice this thread until after I'd posted the ANI.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  05:47, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Can you provide your opinion and support or opposition in a page move request?

 Done

It is at Talk:Diccionario de la lengua española. I am confused about the English titles policy of Misplaced Pages and its application. I tried to move the page from Diccionario de la Lengua Española to its English translation as the author of the dictionary (the RAE) uses but I got opposition to it. Your input is welcomed. Thinker78 (talk) 19:02, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Should the lang template be used also for proper names, like names of people?

In the article Association of Academies of the Spanish Language I added lang templates, and some of them were for Spanish names of people because I thought that the screen reader then would pronounce the names properly, but another editor deleted the templates from the names of people. I disagree with him because as mentioned above I thought the screen reader would pronounce them properly with the template but I'm kind of new using those templates so I don't know if I was mistaken in the use I gave to the template or the other editor was mistaken in deleting them. Can you provide some guidance? Thinker78 (talk) 00:34, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@Thinker78: Generally no. We'd do that when something has multiple names in multiple languages, and we're giving multiple of them with English first. E.g. Berlin but Munich ({{lang-de|{{noitalic|München}}) or Munich ({{lang|de|München}}) – the {{lang}} and {{lang-de}} template families don't behave consistently with regard to italics, which are not used around proper names except for titles of works that would take italics anyway. For a book title like the Spanish dictionary at the RM, I'd be inclined to put that in a language template ({{lang|es}} not {{lang-es}}), since it's an entire non-English phrase. We don't do it with personal names; while I agree with your rationale for wanting to do it, the consensus seems to be that it's too much template cruft in the wikicode. An exception is when dealing with names that natively are not in the Latin alphabet. Sometimes there's a common westernization, followed by the original name, and a stricter Romanization (or multiple of them if there are multiple systems); examples to follow. In simpler cases, just the non-Latin is templated: Vladimir Putin {{lang-rus|Влади́мир Пу́тин}}. Some of the templates for Asian languages wrap the English name too, as in {{Nihongo|Utada Hikaru|宇多田 ヒカル}}, which produces Utada Hikaru (宇多田 ヒカル). However, this same template can be used differently, to give a rough Westernization, Japanese script, and a more technical Romanization: {{nihongo|Showa|昭和|Shōwa}}. That template is not required; for the simple case, one could also do Utada Hikaru ({{lang|ja|宇多田 ヒカル}}). The complex case is used when the Western name order is used in English: {{Nihongo|Hikaru Utada|宇多田 ヒカル|Utada Hikaru}}. A really complex case is found at Mao Zedong:
  • '''Mao Zedong''' ({{zh|s=毛泽东|w='''''Mao Tse-Tung'''''}} {{IPAc-en|audio=Zh-Mao_Zedong.ogg|ˈ|m|aʊ|_|d|z|ə|ˈ|d|ʊ|ŋ|,_|z|ə|-|,_|-|ˈ|d|ɒ|ŋ}}; December 26, 1893{{spaced ndash}}September 9, 1976), ] '''Runzhi''' (潤芝)，also known as '''Chairman Mao''', was ...
  • Mao Zedong (Chinese: 毛泽东; Wade–Giles: Mao Tse-Tung /ˈmaʊ dzəˈdʊŋ, zə-, -ˈdɒŋ/ ; December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), courtesy name Runzhi (潤芝)，also known as Chairman Mao, was ...
This could actually have been more complex still, giving additional Romanizations with additional parameters, but we've started moving that stuff into a sidebar template, {{Infobox Chinese}}, which you can see at work under Mao's personal infobox.

Hope this helps.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  07:09, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Trains

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Trains. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Elf cat Follow-up

Thank you for re-phrasing my comment on the AFD at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Elf cat, you are correct that I was proposing to merge and redirect. However, I also equally believe that simply deleting the content would be an acceptable alternative. Is there a specific way I should phrase that on AFD discussions in the future? Randomeditor1000 (talk) 13:37, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@Randomeditor1000: Just as "delete", I guess. Or you could so do something like "Merge and redirect, as first choice; just delete as second choice". Can help closer assess consensus when what to do isn't clear-cut.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  13:52, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

Resolved – This is now a WP:ANI thing.

Hi, When you closed the discussion over there were you aware that there were changes in the article being discussed? --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:18, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@Bob K31416: Is there a way to refactor them out into a new thread cleanly, while hatting the conspiracy theory OR stuff that people at both the page and at Jimbo talk (including Jimbo) want hatted? If so, go for it. Or just revert me, and put up with continued disruption I guess. I don't have a dog in the fight, was just trying to shut down a mess in the interests of peace and productivity. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  17:22, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Also, I pinged your doppelganger username there by mistake. SPECIFICO talk 20:54, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Links to Wikicommons and Wikispecies

The left-hand margin of the desktop site has started to show links to Wikidata and through it to Commons and Wikispecies, just as it previously started showing links to other language wikis via Wikidata. Look at Aloidendron as an example.

  1. I didn't see this advertised as a change; did you?
  2. I'm not sure why the "Wikidata item" appears under "Tools" whereas Commons and Wikispecies appear under "In other projects".
  3. Presumably the templates currently used to add links to article content, like {{Commons cat}} and {{Wikispecies}}, should be deprecated/removed, just as were language links in articles when "Languages" showed up in the margin.
  4. The poor design of Wikidata in relation to organisms continues to be a problem: their entities are confused between taxa and names; thus although Aloidendron dichotomum is the newer name for Aloe dichotomum, there are two entries in Wikidata: Q42729505 and Q161263, both claiming to be an instance of taxon. I asked for these a similar pair to be merged (see d:Wikidata:Project chat#Merge required), but it seems not to be possible for reasons I don't understand.

I'd value your comments and opinions. This should presumably be discussed somewhere – at a Village pump page perhaps? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:53, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: I can comment, but there's a bit of politics in this and a little research here I have to double check. --Izno (talk) 13:04, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Took the liberty of numbering these:
  1. I did not, though that may not mean much. And, WP editors may not have much control over what WMF wants to do with regard to cross-project connections anyway.
  2. That does seem weird. It's not a "tool" in this sense (i.e., for doing something on WP, with WP data).
  3. I sure hope so. I hate those things. At least the ones you mean; there are specialty-use ones we should retain, but not the "advert mini-banners".
  4. Argh. There must be a way to treat one as an alias of or pointer to the other. If not, then WD is not fit for purpose in many ways beyond this "little" (huge, but topically-specific) problem.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  13:51, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead and Izno: pinging so you know I replied.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  11:35, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
You mean you don't think I obsessively watch your talk page?? I'll be interested to see what Izno has to say if his research works out. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:57, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
  1. @Peter coxhead: This change was advertised in or about February 2016 when the interproject links were taken out of beta. Reference phab:T103102 which has the "User notice" project tag off to the right.
  2. The Wikidata item links displays in a different location because there may be a Wikidata link also, e.g. WP:AN has an interproject link to d:WD:AN, which is entirely separate to the Wikidata item linking the two (at d:Q4580256). There's an "ancient" basically-declined task at phab:T66315 on this specific question but which remains open for some reason I do not know.
  3. This is a socio-political question for Misplaced Pages. Yes, those could be removed, but people like their boxes.... (phab:T127230 is relevant, and perhaps declined too hastily, but ultimately the decision to have boxes isn't one that can be changed on the Mediawiki side, so it was rightfully declined....)
  4. This is the one that actually needs some explanation.
    1. Exactly two editors have an opinion that, because the names of the groups differ, that the groupings are inherently different. This is thus a partially political problem. (GerardM, of all people, made the point most succinctly for me in the above linked discussion--that the groupings have different associated literature, or at least the names of the two groupings--but I still do not think this fits into the 1 item = 1 concept methodology of Wikidata. Many other things have multiple names, and perhaps the more obnoxious objection, that taxa change over time and are thus impermanent, is also true of other notions e.g. countries.)
    2. Because these two data items are linked via the basionym property, there is also a technical problem: the Javascript which merges items will not, by design, merge two items which are linked to each other. Thus, this is also partially a technical issue (which could be fixed were 4.1 to be resolved).
    3. These particular two editors have almost exclusively been driving the bus regarding biological taxonomy on Wikidata. I have personally stopped contributing to Wikidata due to three things these editors have influenced (and there may be one or two other things, but these two editors take the cake): the modeling choice regarding these groupings; their stalwart defense of bio-specific properties where generic would do (taxon rank =~ instance of; parent taxon =~ subclass of); and the toxicity of one of the two editors (in the realm of "civil POV-pushing") that no-one does anything about even though the editor in question has been dragged to WD:AN on a regular basis. (The other editor isn't much better and has seen his own share at WD:AN.)
I am available to answer other questions, of course, and to clarify if desired. --Izno (talk) 04:55, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Hmm...
  1. That does sure sound like its going to make WD essentially incompatible with WP on these matters. I can't see WP (at least en.WP) abandoning its approach to handling taxonomy just because WD won't play ball. Are they also in conflict with WS? Or is WS pulling everything from WD? I haven't really used WikiSpecies for much of anything. More on the politics below.
  2. I'm not clear on the basionym links Javascript comment's relationship to "WikiData" appearing under "Tools".
  3. If this is a TAGTEAM problem, perhaps an "advisory RfC" sort of thing on en.WP can be used to influence WD:AN that there's a real problem to address, that two WD editors are OWNing in a way that is breaking cross-project compatibility and it's just based on their opinion/preferences, which the WD community must make them set aside. Assuming the RfC wasn't itself enough to get those two to see the light or at least come to the table to work stuff out instead of filibustering through local control and refusal to budge.
  4. And, yeah, resolving this alias/pointer/redirect/merge thing seems to be the key. I'm also curious what the "explanation" is, but it may really be implicit already in the TAGTEAM/OWN issue in #1 and #3.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  08:37, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
@Izno: thanks for your detailed reply. The 1 item = 1 concept methodology of Wikidata is a deep problem. As I have noted elsewhere it causes serious problems when one language wiki splits/forks an article and another doesn't (examples are that we have Berry and Berry (botany) and most other wikis have only one article; we have only one article for a monospecific genus, many other wikis have an article for both the genus and species). However, even within this approach, the current situation muddles the concept 'taxonomic name' and the concept 'taxon'. Yes, taxonomic names are indeed concepts in their own right, with their own literature, etc. but so are taxa. Correct data modelling shows a 1:N relationship between taxa and taxonomic names. Since articles are about taxa, not names, they should be linked via the taxon entity with different entities used to connect taxonomic name (synonyms) to their literature, if this is appropriate for Wikidata.
Entrusting issues like inter-wiki links to Wikidata, where there are few active editors (far fewer than here, even with current numbers) seems folly to me. (And there are editors who were blocked here for non-cooperative editing who promptly went off to Wikidata, although some seem to get blocked there too.) Peter coxhead (talk) 11:24, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: Brya is one of the two editors I had in mind with all of the above, so your comment, although entirely coincidental, is not unexpected. (The other is Snipre, a French editor in good graces with that community--he has other issues mostly related to a misunderstanding of basic taxonomy outside biology.)

I don't see any issue with interwiki links being on Wikidata. Where before it was one editor on a specific wiki having a change ripple through the others because of bots, now it's one place to go and see (and agree) with changes to the linkages--the changes for which are much more trivial to undo.

The Bonnie and Clyde problem is well-documented. I have actually moved from my previous position, that Wikidata should support redirects, or anchor links, to the idea that the problem really shouldn't be "solved". I can elide if you want, but I don't think that's the point of this discussion.

Yes, indeed, it muddles names and concepts. No argument from me. :) (CAVEAT: I may have a wrong understanding of all of this though and would thus be miscommunicating; reference d:WD:WikiProject Taxonomy for biological taxonomy stuffs.)

SMC: Most of the mess unrelated to stuff that looks like duplicates is resolved in the best way that Wikidata can, and I don't think it should be abandoned just because of Wikidata's current mess of duplicates (in biology). Baby, bathwater, etc.

I am not aware of the current Wikispecies integration; I vaguely recall some stuff about how both communities would/could benefit... but that was a presentation a year or more ago. It took pulling Lydia's (the product manager) teeth to even get Wikispecies included in the interproject linking system on Wikidata--apparently there were some office politics that she would not discuss in public (and I assume that was WMF office politics, but it may also have been her contract with the major donors to Wikidata... I haven't spent a lot of time speculating).

Your comment on item 2: It looks like you jumped from my comment 2 to my comment 4.2. Suggest re-reading each separately. :)

An RFC here probably wouldn't help too much and would look too much like the battleground that is being driven here by a certain editor who shall not be named. What is mostly needed is people who are familiar with the subject matter to influence discussions there (or perhaps to integrate with how Wikidata does it--I'm really not knowledgeable enough to say). The tag teaming control mostly stems from people without subject knowledge observing "these people must know what they're talking about because they talk a mean game"--and this is largely true across many of the domains on Wikidata. Biology is just the one that annoys me because I see the pushing there--unlike the other domains (maybe modeling of works, but the solution for that modeling is livable to me). If enough people here would invest a little time there, the matter might fix itself (though it might come with a million or two bot edits... Wikidata is more than equipped for such).

--Izno (talk) 16:28, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Regarding #3, I got the least used of three Wikispecies link templates deleted earlier this year (Misplaced Pages:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 February 25#Template:WikispeciesCompact), while suggesting that perhaps all three of them should be deleted. The discussion only attracted two other people, one who supported deleting all, one who didn't.

I pay attention to Wikispecies. Wikispecies put all the vernacular names they had onto Wikidata, with Wikispecies as a reference. Then they deleted the vernacular names from Wikispecies and are now pulling them from Wikidata. There was never any referencing of the vernacular names when they were on Wikispecies, and there is a lot of garbage. "Translations" of scientific names into random languages, and POV pushing by a long-blocked former en.Wiki editor who insisted that certain vernacular names are incorrect (e.g. Juniperus virginiana can't be called a "cedar"). Aside from vernacular names, Wikispecies hasn't provided anything to Wikidata and doesn't pull anything from Wikidata. Wikispecies missed the boat in terms of providing much taxonomic content to Wikidata. Wikidata's taxonomic content is ultimately driven by Lsjbot's articles created for the Cebuano Misplaced Pages. Lsjbot uses Catalog of Life as a source; CoL has some garbage entries, and the principal taxonomy editors on Wikidata aren't very pleased about using CoL. A year or so ago, some Wikispecies editors finally noticed that CoL existed and started harvesting data from there. This didn't go over well with the Wikidata editors, but it didn't matter much since this was duplicating content Wikidata had already dealt with due to Lsjbot. Plantdrew (talk) 17:34, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Neologistic pronouns

Just an FYI: You mentioned you were concerned about them, but not which page is riddled with them. So I wondered if you were referring to this page, and if not, now you have two of them. Mathglot (talk) 11:01, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

FML. @Mathglot: I was referring to Genesis P-Orridge (I'd mentioned it earlier in the page somewhere). I just fixed it (and improved in a couple of other ways in passing, though getting rid of the "s/he" and "h/erself" nonsense was the main point), within the hour. It many need further work to patch up poor examples of singular-they that result in confusing sentences; I haven't pored over it top to bottom, was just searching for stuff like s/he. Not sure I have the patience for doing Gopi Shankar Madurai right now. Just to make a point, I also wrote User:SMcCandlish/It yesterday, though have not had opportunity to use it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  13:57, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Out of the blue...

Ever consider running for adminship? North America 11:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I did, back when I wasn't ready for it. Since then, I've concluded that I don't want the shackles that come with the "job", though I could certainly do it. I'm fine with template-editor, page-mover, etc. I can get done most of what I need to, and edit-protected requests deal with the rest, meanwhile we keep unbundling admin tools, so the backlogs get dealt with, without my mop. Appreciate the vote of confidence, though. :-) Another consideration is that I've been around long enough and been strident enough that various admins and factions with anti-MoS leanings hate my guts; I stand no chance of passage, because various people from the WT:CITE and WT:FAC crowds would dogpile against me, as would various self-appointed "leaders" of wikiprojects that want to make up their own rules against site-wide norms. Pretty much all of WP:BIRDS would show up against me, for example, as would substantial numbers from various sports and transportation-related wikiprojects (mostly over their desire to overcapitalize everything "important" in their would-be content fiefdoms).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  11:34, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Just thought I'd ask; seen you around for awhile and you come across as having a complementary temperament for adminship, and you provide well-reasoned prose/responses/ideas etc. in various discussions. An RfA can be arduous (not implying that it would be for you), as evidenced in my two, the second of which closed as successful, but I was not affected personally or emotionally by them (not implying that you would be). Jokingly, an RfA could be a means to combat potential ennui (not implying that you are in this state), or to obtain constructive criticism (not implying that you need this). ☺ At any rate, even though we are not personally acquainted, particularly since I have decided to not reveal my real-life identity on-wiki, I think you should keep the notion of an RfA it in mind for the future, or for potential future consideration. North America 12:37, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
My temperament has admittedly gotten better over time and with a great deal of effort, though you're perhaps being over-charitable here. >;-) Adminship's just not a practical consideration at this time, or probably in the next 5 years for that matter. I don't want the additionalpressure and scrutiny anyway. I'm hard-pressed to think of anything I actually need the tools for in the work I do here; at best it would be a convenience and efficiency boost, and at worst a self-trap in which I'd inadvertently do something allegedly WP:INVOLVED (e.g. block someone for MOS:ENGVAR-related disruption in a bunch of articles, then get keel-hauled at ArbCom because I've substantively work on ENGVAR itself).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  13:01, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Aah, catch-22s and paradoxes. Well, I guess I'll leave it at that, other than adding the cliched, "where do you see yourself five years from now". Perhaps I'll bother you about it again five years from now. North America 13:11, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Five years from now, I'll be leading my robot cat army on a conquest of the Western Hemisphere. Just don't tell anyone.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  13:24, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Actually, I'd probably support you if you had an RfA. I might take a bit of ironic glee in using your own reasoning for pointing out concerns I might have with you, but I actually don't think you'd be a problem as an admin. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:19, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for saying so. But, RfA's a popularity contest not a competence meritocracy. No one can be popular whose main non-mainspace work is keeping a zillion wikiprojects from trying to unilaterally impose the weird stylistic quirks of each onto everyone else; such an editor will inevitably piss off large numbers of people in a whole lot of wikiprojects, while actually properly serving reader and Misplaced Pages-stability interests.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  14:31, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
PS, @Northamerica1000:: I figured I might as well throw my hat into the larger ring.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  01:39, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Well, that may be the fit for you. Good luck, and better you than me... North America 03:13, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Booches

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Booches. Inre: content restored. North America 14:11, 8 November 2017 (UTC)Template:Z48

Coolio. That one's on my watchlist.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  14:13, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Booches in 1884, Booches now, and Booches forever! North America 15:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Snoochie booches?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  16:11, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Haven't seen that one. There's Cheers, though... North America 16:21, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
The outdoor signage of a dive bar in Los Osos, California—nicknamed “The Marriage Breaker” by local residents
Dive bars are becoming rarer in the U.S. Now it's all about corporate establishments dressed up to look like old fashioned brew pubs. Erm. North America 16:30, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
I know. My favorite San Francisco pool bar turned into a yuppified joint almost over night. The SF Hollywood Billiards (a branch off the original in, well, Hollywood) got completely wrecked by new owner taking out half the tables and turning the empty half into a dance club. Not sure if it's even still open, but what a stupid idea. Twenty-somethings don't want to flirt and party down with a bunch of geezers with pool cues 20 feet away, and people working on their banking and kicking system can't concentrates with a bunch of 120 dB MPH-cha-MPH-cha-MPH-cha club music pounding their skulls.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  16:42, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Ha ha. I've always been a fan of the Massé shot and the Jump shot. I've been at some halls where they have signs stating "no jump shots". The best one I've ever found was years ago, somewhere in the vicinity of the Bronx area of NYC. I was rolling around and happened upon it, so went inside; wish now that I had noted its name, but probably findable on Google. It had something in the area of 50 or more tables. Old school awesome. I was at a biker bar one time years ago and a confrontation occurred among some patrons, with one guy menacingly yielding a pool cue toward some other people (I wasn't involved). It was like something out of a movie. Good times. Well, I've made my weekly contribution to historical preservation here. Nice music typing, I personally like, "ba-thoompth-thoompth-thoompth, ba-thoompth-thoompth-thoompth". North America 17:15, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Forgot to mention another gripe, San Francisco has become so gentrified, it is a complete f-ing joke now. It's no longer the SF that I used to love. Erm. North America 17:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Most places with no-jump rules will let skilled players do them; just got to get to know the powers-that-be there. They're mostly concerned about illegal scoop-under jump shots where the cue digs into the cloth and can tear it. Booches: Are you around there? I see some stuff worth photographing in there for Glossary of cue sports terms, like getting a good shot of a scoring string/wire. The halls around here don't use them, except for some place that's about an hour drive from me. A pic of a talc ("hand chalk") cone would be good, too. That glossary needs way more (small) images. SFX: I was going to call it "BOOTS-n-cats-n-BOOTS-n-cats-n-BOOTS-n-cats" music, but not everyone gets that one. SF: Yeah, it's a wreck. I left in 2005 and came back in 2012, and it was unrecognizable and awful, so I just moved to Oakland instead, which is like SF was in '95, kinda-sorta, but with its thick layer of Oaklandishness.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  17:32, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
PS: If you work on any pool articles, we have a convenient template, {{cuegloss}} for linking to glossary entries: rack, the wire. Pool, billiards, and snooker are insanely jargon-heavy, even for sports, so we've made extensive use of this at articles like Nine-ball.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  17:37, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, they even have a sign on the scoring wire stating "do not use" (image). Never been to Booches. I may work on the glossary article at a later time. Also, thanks for informing me about the cuegloss template. North America 21:53, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you.

Just wanted to say that I particularly appreciated the comment you left at the thread I started at WT:RFA regarding RfAs and canvassing (sorry for the delay, I hadn't reviewed the thread in awhile). It does vex me a little that I'll never know how my RfA might have turned out if that issue hadn't subsumed the entire process, and I do think it's a little ridiculous that one (IMO relatively minor, though stupid) lapse in judgment derailed the entire process, but I suppose it is what it is. Nobody's approached me to try again, and I'm sure as hell not going to self-nominate. Anyway, thanks again. DonIago (talk) 14:30, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

@Doniago: Yeah, just wait it out. You won't keel over and die not being admin for a while, and the project won't fall apart either. :-) I'm actually fairly controversial and people keep telling me (see just above) I should do RfA again. (I have no intention of doing so, for reasons I said up there.) The pseudo-canvassing crap will be forgotten, and if you avoid drama and do good work, you'll be tapped again soon enough.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  14:36, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Funny thing about that is that I'm not even sure these days what kinds of work I do where having the bit would be particularly useful...possibly because I don't have as much time here as I used to, so I'm not doing as much poking around? I'm not sure I actually care whether I'm ever an admin in any case, though certainly if people felt I'd be an asset to the team, I'd maybe be willing to paint the bulls-eye on my chest again. Anyway, if someone did tap me, I'd definitely want to discuss with them the specifics of where they felt I'd be useful...at least in part to ensure it was an informed nomination. Cheers! DonIago (talk) 14:45, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Similar boat here, and I've been here 12 years. Not everyone wants the bit.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  16:13, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Draft talk:Brian Clifton (composer)

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Draft talk:Brian Clifton (composer). Legobot (talk) 04:23, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

National Geographic Channel

Resolved – ... as best I could.

Would you mind splitting your move request at Talk:National_Geographic_(magazine)#Requested_move_10_November_2017 ? There's several issues to discuss regarding the channel move, and I wouldn't want them to conflate with the very obvious and probably uncontroversial move for the magazine's article.

Regarding the channel, use of "channel" as a disambiguation phrase is inaccurate as it is actually a television network. Also, since there are clearly several versions of the network in various countries, we should preserve the "U.S." part of it. Also, as you mentioned, "National Geographic Channel" is a potentially viable natural disambiguation method to explore.

Like I said, I just don't want to muddy an obvious move for the magazine itself. -- Netoholic @ 19:30, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

@Netoholic: D'oh! Too late; someone's already !voted. I modified the proposal and pinged the editor who already commented in support of the original proposal. I'm not worried about the outcome; I think the first two will happen regardless, even if people don't come to consensus on the third and it has to be re-done at the TV network/channel/station/thing's talk page later.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  19:39, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

PRIMARY vs PRIMARYTOPIC

Vive la difference! WP:PRIMARY vs. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. --В²C ☎ 23:28, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

@Born2cycle: Did I mistakenly use PRIMARY to refer to PRIMARYTOPIC somewhere? I've probably done that before.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  15:42, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I forget where. It's a common error. I fixed it. --В²C ☎ 04:03, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Very good. PS: This kind of thing is one of the reasons I so strongly opposed the "anti-interleaving" putsch at WT:TPG a month ago. Any "don't you dare touch my posts" bullshit from that weird little branch of WP:OWN obsession increasingly discourages even technical fixes to posts, like fixing broken links.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  04:21, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Alexis Reich listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Alexis Reich. Since you had some involvement with the Alexis Reich redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Mathglot (talk) 08:52, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Patriot Prayer

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Patriot Prayer. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to the Tip of the day WikiProject

Hello SMcCandlish,
You are invited to join the Tip of the day, a WikiProject and resource dedicated to providing useful daily advice on how to use or develop Misplaced Pages more effectively.
To join the project, just add your name to the participants list. We're so glad you're here!
                      –

Thinker78 (talk) 05:39, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Want to join discussion on a page move?

 Done

It is @Ice cream headache. Thinker78 (talk) 22:42, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Please sign

 Fixed

I think you've screwed up and broken something (why/how:) by not signing this. TIA

How's it going apart from that? Andrewa (talk) 13:02, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Not so urgent, since I decided to post that it's been sort of fixed. Andrewa (talk) 13:07, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, bots will generally fix unsigned posts. I manually "repaired" it after the fact. Things okay I suppose. Been busy for a few days.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  04:47, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
It was in fact another of the RM regulars who posted the unsigned template. I prefer to first give heads-ups. The bot does fix some, but unfortunately the (excellent IMO) conventions it follows in deciding what is unsigned do not have consensus support recently! Andrewa (talk) 20:14, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
Well, it's been fixed. I'm not sure why this was alarmingly flagged as "screwed up and broken", though.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  20:20, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Islamic terrorism in Europe (2014–present)

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The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Islamic terrorism in Europe (2014–present). Legobot (talk) 04:23, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Hi, Just wanted to apologise for accusing you on the RM - I'm still confused by it all but hey ho anyway just wanted to apologise for getting rattled with you, Happy editing :), –Davey2010 20:05, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
@Davey2010: No worries. Asking a question, for an explanation, is hardly an accusation anyway. :-) I'm not sure what was up with that; I think Appleyard just listed the wrong RM and at the wrong page, in a hurry. No big deal. He does go through a lot of RMs, so a glitch here and there is to be expected.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  20:09, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Your signature

Hi.I am not sure, but I think your signature has some code that creates a new line. I relisted a move discussion initiated by you, and the relist comment was in the new line. special:diff/811022083. :) —usernamekiran(talk) 01:19, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't (there's a manual <br /> in front of it in that case). But your relist comment was on a line by itself because you put it after a </p>, which ends a paragraph block. It's okay if it's on a line by itself; no one will care.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  01:29, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
lol. See you around. :) —usernamekiran(talk) 01:41, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I suggest creating primary sources notification template, or let me know if one already exists

I noticed an edit by the seemingly new editor Dr. Bob in Arizona in the article Ice cream headache, where he seems to synthesize a primary source, in contravention with Misplaced Pages:No original research#Primary,_secondary_and_tertiary_sources. I looked for a template to notify him about that, but I didn't find any. I don't know if any exist; if one does exist, please let me know, and if not, I suggest creating one. Thinker78 (talk) 02:52, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

{{Primary source inline}} exists. However, I'm not sure this needs to be flagged rather than cleaned up. It's permissible to use a primary source with attribution (rather than using assertions from it "in Misplaced Pages's voice"), and the data reported in our material and attributed properly appears consistent with the abstract of the paper being cited. Did I miss something? I didn't read it all that closely, nor find the entire full text of the paper.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  02:57, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Thinker78: or, alternatively, you could think of your own words and write it out like the rest of us. That avoids the issue of Twinkle templates being deemed offensive by some. Anyway, sort out the problems with your own editing before you start criticising others. –Sb2001 02:59, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure what that's about; I haven't been following Thinker78's edits in any detail. It did not appear to me that the material in question was plagiarism; it was thought out and in someone's own words, not a direct quote from the source material. But there was one issue with it (see below).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  03:09, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
I am reviewing every contribution at the moment to leave a comment at T78's talk page. I think they should back off from having a go at others when there are problems with their own edits. –Sb2001 03:14, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
I actually did find an error in it (236 seconds isn't "several hours", it's four minutes. I corrected that, and rewrote it to put the better-supported facts first anyway .  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  03:09, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
@Sb2001:Yes, I could think of my own words, but then, does that mean that you oppose the existence of templates? Because their purpose is to just insert a simplify code instead of thinking your own words. And, I sort out the problems with my own editing, and then I relay my recently acquire knowledge of my own mistakes or of information to other editors. Thinker78 (talk) 04:31, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
@Sb2001:I welcome your oversight, I believe in checks and balances as a matter of principle, let me know of mistakes I may have committed so I can become a better editor. But I don't agree with you that editors shouldn't correct or give their opinions to other editors just because there are problems with the first own edits. It is a learning curve, and really, we are editors in Misplaced Pages to contribute to it, so if one sees one mistake, one is here to try to correct it. Thinker78 (talk) 04:31, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish:I wouldn't use {{Primary source inline}} in this case, because primary source as a citation is ok in this case in my opinion. I was thinking more of a template {{subst:uw-primarysrc}} that says the following -or something like the following: "Thank you for your contribution. Please note that, on Misplaced Pages, per Misplaced Pages:No original research unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Misplaced Pages; however, please do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Thank you!" Thinker78 (talk) 04:49, 19 November 2017 (UTC) edited 06:42, 19 November 2017 (UTC) Edited again 07:19, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
@Thinker78: Try {{subst:uw-nor1}}, and just follow it with a sentence about primary sourcing and WP:AEIS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  17:01, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Wrong guy?

 Fixed

Hi. Maybe I'm misreading the indents, but over at Talk:Race (human categorization), I think you may have mistaken my reply for someone else's reply. I was saying (albeit not explicitly) that Misplaced Pages is quite properly biased in favor of science. I would comment over there, but I don't want to complicate things further. RivertorchWATER 20:23, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@Rivertorch:Ah! Yes, I was skimming too fast. I revised it to make better sense in the context.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  20:48, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Arbcom

Seriously, good luck, but if you do succeed, please please please please please try to work on the TL;dr aspects of your communications. Arbcom is rife with over-the-top bullshit and self-promulgating nonsense, as evidenced with the first third of every case finding, don't make it even worse than it already is. I have utmost respect for your capabilities but if new Arbcom members could do one thing, it would be to reduce the nausea. I won't question you extensively on this aspect because I think it's a little rude to quiz fellow contestants but really, that would be my only critique. When I see you've added 4.2KB to a discussion where in essence you've said "yep", I turn off. The community will do the same... The Rambling Man (talk) 22:27, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I have different writing styles for different contexts. Talk pages are a conversation (and sometimes a debate), so I'm conversational (and sometimes debatory). I don't take this approach to encyclopedic text, nor to policy and guideline wording (where concision is more important even than in encyclopedic prose), and I wouldn't bring it to ArbCom motions or (where necessary) sanctions. Those are much more likely policy crafting, and call for the same quasi-legal style.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  22:31, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
Yep, your answer was probably "yep, I agree", but it turned into nearly 1KB of text. I'm concerned, and will share that with others. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:32, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
My answer was exactly what I wrote. If you're going to have a negative reaction when someone tells you they understand the concern you've raised, that they share it to an extent, and then make it clear where they diverge from your viewpoint, I don't know what to tell you. If you'd rather do byte calculations than pay any attention to the meaning of what you've just read, well, ditto.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  22:40, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
You know it's not about byte calcs, it's about losing your audience. You do it all the time, drowning them in text. That's the absolute last thing an Arbcom member should do. That's all I'll say now, you have my feelings, and they're simply that. They're in good faith too because I think you'd do an ok job, just reduce the overhead by, say, 75% and we'd have a winner. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:47, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
Follow the diff Gerda posted at my "Questions" page, and you're led to this. If your concern is that I'll post things like that, please be assured I will not. It's a radically different proceeding than venting one's spleen in user talk, and I know the difference.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  22:58, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
Usually, I don't talk about candidates' replies until after the election, just keep them here. Why I make an exception? Because I was sure I had declared you Precious long ago, but failed, - please forgive me and my bad memory. Stanton, you are precious, like every other member of the cabal. - Thank you for your reply. I left the question wide open intentionally, to see what each candidate would pick to react to. So far nobody mentioned the word "irony". You have a nice cat image in your edit notice, - I chat about cats with Opabinia regalis all the time ;) (Joe was mentioned, btw.) - Did you ever see my dangerous thoughts about arbitration? - Precious will come, probably after the election, but I will make a note of that. - I picked a cat after Alakzi left us. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:12, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the kind words.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  22:12, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on WT:WikiProject Elections and Referendums

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Reign

Fixed – and then some.

Hello, SMcCandlish – I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. I was just looking at the Template:Reign documentation page, and I think there might be a mistake in the Augustus example in the Parameters section. I think there should be a close parentheses instead of double curly brackets. Can you take a look at it?  – Corinne (talk) 23:30, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Fixed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  00:07, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks!  – Corinne (talk) 00:33, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
I just looked at it, and I saw where you changed it in Template:Reign/doc, but on the actual template page it still looks the same. This is the page where the background is a light green.  – Corinne (talk) 00:38, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
This often happens with transcluded material; just need to flush the cache (purge the page). If you go to Special:Preferences, the second item under "Appearance" is a script that puts a UTC clock at top right of all pages here, and clicking on the clock will purge the current page. This is easier than trying to remember what key combo or menu command works in which browser on what OS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  00:44, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

By the way, would it be possible for you to add another option to the list? The first one in the list of examples says the line can break after the "r.", and the space between "r." and the years is a regular space, and I can see that the two years are separated by an en-dash with no space around it. In the second option, the line cannot break after the "r." and the space between the "r." and the years is a thin space. I can see in the example, though, that the years are separated by an en-dash with a bit of space either side of it. What I'd like is a template like the first one, with a regular space between "r." and the years, it cannot break between the "r." and the years, and the en-dash between the two years has no space around it.  – Corinne (talk) 23:37, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Will look into it as time permits.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  00:36, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
@Corinne: Done what I could with it. If we want it to auto-detect when {{{1}}} and {{{2}}} are not complex and thus need no dash spacing, the entire template will have be redone in WP:Lua. A request to do that can be made at WT:Lua.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  04:00, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
Request made, at Misplaced Pages talk:Lua#Probably-simple conversion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  06:09, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
@Corinne:. I had a lot of coffee, and {{Reign}} is now super-badass. May have to purge the page again to see the new documentation (unless you go directly to Template:Reign/doc). With some minimal meta-templating effort, the new features can also be made available to {{Circa}} and {{Floruit}}.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 TheDoctorWho (talk) has given you a Turkey! Turkeys promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a turkey, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy Thanksgiving!

Spread the goodness of turkey by adding {{Thanksgiving Turkey}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Thankee. I actually just ate a bunch of turkey, ha ha.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  05:51, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Happy turkey day

Northamerica1000 is wishing you a happy Thanksgiving. If you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, don't forget that "Any time is turkey time" (see image). North America 05:52, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. My belly says "ouch, I wish it wasn't turkey time." I always eat too much on this holiday.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  06:10, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

My apologies.

I feel like I owe you an apology for sort of publicly "making fun" of the term "Misplaced Pages's voice", which you used some time ago in a discussion. I've since then seen other editors use the term, and feel somewhat foolish that I attempted to make you look odd, while only embarrassing myself with my own ignorance. I still think the term is odd, but whatever, I'm sorry for both of us about my behavior. Huggums537 (talk) 23:14, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, no worries, and I do look odd anyway (see photo). People use other phrases for this, e.g. "as a statement of fact by Misplaced Pages", etc., but "in Misplaced Pages's voice" seems to be the compressed version (though the even shorter "in Wiki-voice" is pretty silly).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  23:31, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
Wow. Just when I thought it couldn't get any more weird, you go and pull out "in Wiki-voice" on me. Sheesh! What a weird Wiki-world... Huggums537 (talk) 23:47, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
That's "Wiki-weird".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  00:21, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Women in Red/The World Contest Suggestion

Women in Red World Contest

Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale! Create women biographies in any field with a requirement of readable prose containing 1kb. Abishe (talk) 14:43, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Cubism

Aside from our disagreements, I love things like you caught on one WP style page which mentioned cubist art existing in the 15th century. Makes me wonder if anyone has done a satire about famous artists from other eras painting in cubist, fauve, or impressionistic styles (they must have?). Would be nice to see a da Vinci or even a van Gogh cubist work. Van Gogh didn't miss the emergence of cubism by much, and right in his old neighborhood (I was able to visit Paris this year, and loved exploring Montmartre on a daily or nightly basis)! Randy Kryn (talk) 15:36, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

We have a few lingering pretty bad examples (I think I'm responsible for some silly ones, but not ones that crazy!). I've seen some digital stuff like you mention. Some of the Illustrator and Photoshop "painterly style" plugins are so badass these days, you can run good-quality pics of extant artworks through them and get "rebooted" results, e.g. the Mona Lisa as Von Gogh would have done it. I would love to go to the Louvre. My closest brush (pun intended) with "famous artist locales" was the little museum at the house where Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo lived for a while in Guanajuato (Museo y Casa de Diego Rivera). PS: Wish we disagreed less, and less frequently on the style stuff.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  16:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
And I would love to go back to Paris and the Louvre, only put a few hours in there on a very humid day. The d'Orsay and the de l'Orangerie are my favorite museums in Paris, both within a block or two of the Louvre (that entire relatively small area is undoubtedly ground zero of the world's collected artwork) and I did get to Monet's home, where I discovered they've converted his large studio into the gift shop without even any "here's where it happened" signage. Didn't go into Rodin's museum there, although I was right next to it, and am glad I didn't because then first learned the tale of Camille Claudel after my return home. Must go back. Funny you mentioned Kahlo and Rivera, reconnected a few weeks ago with a friend from 20 years back who's really into Kahlo and other Mexican women artists, and I've been nudging in style and information-distribution edits on her and on Mexican art and the Mexican muralists on-and-off since. The home you mention doesn't have a page, if I recall correctly (and should), although their Blue House in Mexico City has one. And I do agree with you, on almost everything except the changing of what I see as iconic names (and one main reason is that I truly believe doing that is not good for the overall project), and some of the Jr. comma-wars. You have done amazing work on Misplaced Pages policy and guidelines, and I recognize and respect that you are in many ways the glue that holds those together (and, with all the recent changes, are also the only one who really knows what's in there!). And anyone who's a friend of the bot named Checkingfax... Anyway, yes, Paris! No place like it. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:46, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
Haven't been to France since I was a child, which kinda doesn't count. Still on my "go there someday" list, on that technicality.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  03:34, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

So-called "technical request"

This seems pretty dubious to me. It certainly a unique and well-known object, and probably a proper name - there are plenty of sources that treat it as such, another, though the picture is mixed, and I admit the majority don't. I won't re-open the matter, but it should not have been put through as a technical. Johnbod (talk) 17:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

@Johnbod: Antikythera mechanism. Gundestrup cauldron. How many other examples would you like? Uniqueness isn't what determines capitalization. All of the many thousands of people named "John David Smith" in the world are unique, yet they have proper names (all the same). There is only one tree in my yard, and it is not exactly like any other tree on earth (thus is unique), but it has no proper name. There is only one species to which it belongs, and that species is unique, but "Douglas fir" is not a proper name (though it contains one, an eponym), neither is Pseudotsuga menziesii (though the genus is capitalized in a binomial by convention, just to mark that it's a genus).

I have no issue at all with that particular WP:RM/TR move going to a full WP:RM; the outcome will be the same either way. :-) I don't list things at RM/TR unless I'm absolutely certain.

Sources do not consistently capitalize this, or even consistently give it a particular appellation; "Duenos inscription" is just one of many descriptive titles that article could have. To the extent this is a work rather than an artifact, that name also happens to be a form of incipit (i.e. a designation that is simply repetition of material in the work, not a title assigned by the author, nor an evocative rather than descriptive name made up after the fact, e.g the "Grand Vase of Quirinal" or whatever); incipits are sentence case. And so on. I really do think these things through. Not sure how many thousands more RMs it's going to take before people realize that MOS:CAPS says something and that what it says means something, and that people's idiosyncratic ideas about what a proper name or proper noun are don't overturn it. <shrug> Presumably it will take thousands more because it's not been sinking in very much yet. Or maybe it's just a matter of churn: as one editor comes to grok this with fullness, another new one arrives who has not considered these matters yet.

PS: (post-EC): The very fact that sources are not consistent in capitalization and (!) the majority of them do not capitalize, does mean, in fact, that it can be speedily moved. The entire point of RM/TR is that if there is a clear-cut WP:P&G reason for a move, such that no amount of opinion-shouting is ever going to get around that fact and the sourcing, then the move should proceed without wasting the time arguing about it, because the conclusion is already predictable by anyone who properly understands policy and its application.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  17:40, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Gundestrup cauldron is certainly wrong - see the owning museum. Unfortunately I can't move it myself. I'm sure you "don't list things at RM/TR unless I'm absolutely certain", but unfortunately you being "absolutely certain" by no means precludes many other people disagreeing, and often being right. Such cases are NOT what RM/TR is for. Please stop doing this! What MOS CAPS actually says is "Proper names of specific places, persons, terms, etc. are capitalized in accordance with standard usage" - it by no means endorses your extreme and prescriptivist view of what should and should not be a proper name. Johnbod (talk) 17:55, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
How are you not getting this? See WP:OFFICIALNAME. WP does not care how some "official" source likes to write in its own house style. WP does not capitalize unless an overwhelming majority of independent reliable sources do so consistently. I'm not a prescriptivist at all. I don't think you know what the word actually means. "Do what the majority of the rest of the world does" is linguistic description, by definition. "Do it this way because some authority, like a particular museum, says so" is prescriptivism, by definition.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  17:59, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
That link to Prescriptive grammar says exactly what I would expect it to say, but I see it carries a "worldwide" tag. Perhaps on Planet McCandlish it has a different meaning. Johnbod (talk) 03:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
If you and I can read the same article and come to opposite conclusions about the intent and ideas of the other party, this discussion cannot progress any further.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  03:33, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Lurker here. I've got a similar conversation going at my page about a couple of particular railway lines. Same answer, basically, which is to respect WP style and WP's way of determining proper name status by consistent capitalization in independent English-language sources. But Johnbod, I find it amusing the you've edited Gundestrup cauldron extensively, and that it has always been uncontroversially at that lowercase title since its creation in 2004, and now you say it's "certainly wrong". Perhaps it is you who is out of step with WP style? Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Nothing amusing there - I'm sure I've tried to move myself it in the past and failed, as I did yesterday. WP:RM/TR used to have rather confusing/inaccurate instructions, as I remember it, & I generally avoided it. Now it seems quite easy, so equipped with McCandlish-style self-certainty, I may start using it more. God knows there's plenty to do. Johnbod (talk) 12:51, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Also note book stats. The capped version of the inscription is too rare to appear. The cauldron is about half and half, so again, no caps in WP. Dicklyon (talk) 03:43, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Strong and weak proper names; proper nouns; uniqueness; following the sources

Another lurker. The relevant grammatical material is covered at Proper noun#Strong and weak proper names, although sadly not entirely correctly. Misunderstanding the difference between strong and weak proper noun phrases (NPs) in English and their relationship to capitalization underlies much of the confusion in relevant discussions. Here's my take on it, for what it's worth.

  • Strong proper NPs are normally marked by the opposite rule to that used with common NPs. Common NPs normally require a determiner when singular, but not when plural. Thus The cat sits on the mat, Cat sits on mat, Cats sit on mats. Strong proper NPs normally do not take a determiner when singular, but must when plural in form. Thus Jane lives in London, The Jane lives in the London, The Smiths live in the Hebrides, Smiths live in Hebrides. (As always there are some exceptions and oddities!) Strong proper NPs are (?always) capitalized in contemporary English.
  • Weak proper NPs typically have a common noun as the head of the phrase which is descriptive of the entity named by the weak proper NP. They follow the same rules as common NPs as regards determiners. Capitalization varies in contemporary English. Some weak proper NPs are consistently capitalized (e.g. the White House, the University of Birmingham), others are not (e.g. I wouldn't capitalize "the Cuban Missile Crisis", whereas the article Cuban Missile Crisis does). We're always going to have debates over the capitalization of weak proper names, simply because contemporary English is inconsistent, and varies somewhat by country. (This leads to inconsistencies, since weak proper NPs with a strong tie to a particular country will show up with more or less capitalization than if they had a tie to a different country.) The consensus here has been to de-capitalize weak proper NPs unless the great majority of reliable sources capitalize. Whether we as individuals like the outcome in particular cases is irrelevant (for the record, partly because of my age, I often don't).

Peter coxhead (talk) 07:40, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Re: exceptions. Yep; Most pre-modern McCandlishes were from Ayrshire, Wigtownshire, and Glasgow is both correct English and a true statement. :-) I agree with this summary, and have been thinking of trying to address this in terms along these lines in MoS's own wording, but it's not clear how to do so with the "follow the sources" thing so strongly in play (especially for cases where, e.g., a US-centric topic has almost all-US coverage, and so forth; the sourcing itself will skew the results). Probably the best that can be done is something like "For cases of weak proper names, lowercase them by default, as the majority of RM discussions have gone this direction, and the increasing trend in most off-WP RS is to lowercase them." Or whatever. Probably a footnote. However, I've done some side reading, and the whole linguo-philosophical approach to proper names has been stirred up quite a bit, with a lot of interdisciplinary discussion (or cross-talk, as you like). There are entire books on this in the last decade that are trying to merge the "abstractly prescriptivist" philosophy definitions and with linguistically descriptive approaches, and it's a bit of a mess. Kind of headache-inducing.

At any rate, and regardless of these concerns, there is a strong prescriptivism current (two, actually: a nationalistic one and a traditionalistic/preservative one) at play, in direct defiance of where the language is going. Ironically, many of the same people who were all ranty-pants about MoS needing to be "sourced" and to bend toward WP:COMMONNAME's approach (i.e., the reason we now have the "permit a stylization if a strong majority of RS do it consistently" rules) are also often those pushing a pet peeve of some kind, usually a WP:SSF-based one. In my own personal writing, I'm also a bit preservative of various style stuff. I just have learned to sharply divide what WP needs from what I prefer (e.g. I loathe sentence case for headings, table headers, etc., and I personally capitalize more stuff than WP does, and I hate "c." for "ca.", and ...).

Clearly if you and I are in complete agreement, we must be right. ;-)
I would try to avoid using the term "proper name", precisely because this raises tricky semantic issues about which there are deep disagreements. For example, in the philosophy of biology, there are many who are happy to treat species as "philosophical entities" which have proper names. Semantically/philosophically there's a big difference between "the White House" meaning the building and "the White House" used metonymically to mean a branch of the US government. (A professor in my department has spent a lot of his career working on computer processing of metonymy; it's not a solved problem by any means.) Let's keep to "proper noun phrases"; linguistics isn't free of disagreements, but is less so than philosophy! Peter coxhead (talk) 10:25, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Works for me. Might actually be able to reduce disputation by searching for the phrase "proper name" in all the MoS pages and replacing it where practical.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  10:54, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
I don't entirely see the relevance of this here, as the type of PN concerned is one that, by definition, has no plural - Gundestrup Cauldrons is meaningless. That's entirely the reason why they should be treated as PNs - to alert the reader that Gundestrup Cauldron is a unique thing, not a type like Dutch oven. Since such individual objects are generally not very widely known, it is helpful to alert the reader that a specific thing is being talked about, which is exactly why proper names exist at all. Perversely, the better-known an object is, and so the less necessary this marker, the more widely capitalization is accepted. Even McCandlish would presumably not insist on Rosetta stone, Lindisfarne gospel etc. But metalwork seems fair game for some reason. Johnbod (talk) 12:51, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
By that reasoning every single thing of which there isn't an exact duplicate would be a proper noun no matter what we called it. E.g. the hairball – not quite the same as any other hairball – that my cat coughed up on my second step would be Stanton's Cat's 2017-11-27 Second-step Hairball. Again: what you want to do is a form of emphasis – of "signification" – by misusing capital letters to emphasize what you think is something's specialness. Maybe it is special, but a designation that's simply descriptive (i.e. object type and where it was found, which is exactly what "Gundestrup cauldron" is) isn't a proper name for it, just a classifying label. WP doesn't do that sort of ting unless the real world does it with remarkable consistently for that specific label for that specific thing.

If the Rosetta Stone were just an artifact, I would have no problem with "Rosetta stone" (more to the point, the real world wouldn't and thus WP wouldn't). But it's a document, albeit a stone one. The conventions for written works are different, so both of those things get title case (for as long as title case is around for documentary works, and it's definitely eroding!). That convention isn't entirely consistent – incipits get sentence case, and after-the-fact labels for documents and similar works (musical compositions, etc.) often do as well, but generally within particular confines that do a lot of their own typographic standards-setting, e.g. classical music, where names like "Foo's xth symphony" are common in sentence case, being modern classifiers not actual titles. And with that stuff, too, WP just follows the dominant source usage. We have "Lindisfarne Gospels" because the real world says so.

A key thing about proper names is they are not merely descriptive, when descriptive at all. When they're not just abstract or arbitrary (like "Stanton") they're metaphoric, evocative, a step removed from the literal. The Rocky Mountains is a proper name because it's suggestive of unusual rockiness (all mountains are, of course rocky, being made of rock). The Grand Tetons is a proper name because they are not really some big teats. The Pacific Ocean, likewise, isn't really a sea of peace. The Duenos inscription really is an inscription that says "Duenos"; the Gundustrup cauldron really is just the cauldron found there; these labels evoke nothing non-descriptive.

Anyway, it's a shame you're not German; you'd be really happy with the capitalization of all nouns (and compounded noun phrases) in that language. English ditched it for a reason: it's not helpful. German's retained it for a conflicting reason of traditionalism, of resistance to simplification shifts. It's the same kind of argument you're making, though yours is just narrower and more nuanced. You're basically arguing for a return to the capitalization standards of ca. 1850–1950.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  13:37, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Complete OR nonsense, except in the last para, where you repeat my arguments without apparently realizing it. The Rocky Mountains are, as you say, a NAME, not just a descriptive phrase. One couldn't just invent and use some new adjective in place of Rocky, and expect people to understand its meaning. I'll just note the strangeness of distinguishing between the Rosetta Stone as a "document", and the Duenos Inscription as not. Johnbod (talk) 14:09, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
I never suggested the Duenos inscription is not a document; of course it is, for the same reason the Rosetta Stone is. However, "Duenos" is an incipit (in the broad sense), so it gets sentence case (the Rosetta stone doesn't have wording in it that reads or translates to "Rosetta"). That's just how it's done. I didn't make up these rules, WP didn't make them up, and they're used in the real world – from ancient manuscripts to untitled sonnets to modern political material. And sometimes it's not consistent (e.g. the "I Have a Dream" speech is almost always given in title case by RS, so WP does so as well. For everyone who howls about inconsistency, at least as many (probably you among them) would howl about normalizing it to "I have a dream" in proper incipit style. Welcome to English. It is a mess, and everyone is unhappy about something in it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  07:31, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
It's actually not helpful to compare "Duenos nscription" with "Rocky Mountains". The latter passes the test for a strong proper noun phrase (it's plural in form and requires a determiner: I saw the Rocky Mountains, *I saw Rocky Mountains). By contrast "Duenos nscription" is a weak proper noun phrase (it's singular and requires a determiner like a common noun phrase: I saw the Duenos nscription, *I saw Duenos nscription). Nor is it helpful to use "Pacific Ocean" as an example, because rivers, seas and oceans are known exceptions (compare I saw Lake Ontario with *I saw Pacific Ocean).
Weak proper noun phrases used to be treated the same as strong proper noun phrases, and capitalized. However, there is a trend in English not to capitalize some weak proper noun phrases. See e.g. the discussions at Talk:List of mayors of Birmingham, which illustrates the point that the MoS says to capitalize when used as a direct title (e.g. "Mayor Smith", although we wouldn't say this in British English) but not when used as a job description (e.g. "Smith is the mayor of Birmingham"). The consensus so far in the English Misplaced Pages has been to de-capitalize weak proper noun phrases unless the preponderance of sources does otherwise. So the default is "Duenos inscription"; then it's for those wanting to capitalize to show that almost all sources do so.
Please note that I have no vested interest in de-capitalization; in writing where I control the style I would always capitalize "Duenos Inscription". I'm just setting out what the discussion should be about, given the previous consensus.
I do have to agree that SMcCandlish's argument that the Rosetta Stone is a document is implausible. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:34, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
The only reason it's notable is because of the words on it, and virtually all attention paid to it in RS has been about the textual content. Similarly, the Epic of Gilgamesh comes to us from clay tablets. As far as we know, most early writing was done on durable media. It's obvious that if the Rosetta Stone were simply a decorative object, that the sources that lower-case things like Gundestrup cauldron would also do so with it. They don't, though, and it's because people in the actual fields that deal with them conceptualize them differently, one primarily as a documentary source and secondarily as an artifact, and the other as just an artifact. Otherwise, the n-grams for them would have roughly the same shape, and they definitely do not . A complication is that style can shift on a seemingly national level; e.g. most named artifacts from Ireland are given in title case , ; however this could also be a "use caps for national treasures" thing; most of the Irish artifacts we know by name of that class.

And yes, Johnbod, this is of course original research. This is a discussion, not an article. Every time we internally deliberate about and try to interpret WTF is going on with style in the real world and what implications this should have for our own MoS and AT policy, we're engaging in a form of OR, it is not forbidden OR, and it's a necessary part of the process. Our internal rule systems and the consensus discussions that arrive at them and (in this case) question them are not part of the encyclopedia content, any more than a book about how to oil paint is itself an oil painting. We write them based on our own analyses (supplemented by sources of course), so this is always an OR process.

There is unlikely to exist any published, peer-reviewed (much less secondary, literature reviewed) research on why capitalization differs, in the aggregate, for one particular class of terms like artifacts studied mostly as sources of written material versus those that are merely functional or artistic, or events of one sort but not of another, or movements of one sort but not of another. The only practical ways around this real-world problem are a) just impose a no-exceptions rule (people didn't like that) or b) follow the majority of the sources and just let it be rather arbitrary (the system we have now). No one's come up with an alternative, other than sporadic attempts to follow the style, for any topic, found in specialized works about the topic, which proved to be nightmare and is why we have a centralized MoS and AT policy in the first place, and arrived at them very quickly, in the life span of the project. (WP started in January 2001; MoS existed (as a page directly offering style and titles advice) by August 2002 (it existed earlier as an index of pre-existing material in other pages; e.g. what is now MOS:JARGON dates to at least October 2001 ), and AT forked off of it the same month.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  22:55, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

How about Nebra sky disk. It is unique, but only the first word is capitalized. I really like WP's style where – if I understand it correctly – unless the words are capitalized in the preponderance of reliable secondary sources, only the first word is capitalized. I think excessive (and unnecessary) capitalization is distracting and makes article titles look like book titles.  – Corinne (talk) 19:31, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
It also impedes regular-prose readability.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  22:55, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
To repeat myself, the reason why they should be treated as PNs is to alert the reader that Gundestrup Cauldron is a unique thing, not a type like Dutch oven. Look for example at Category:Ancient Egyptian palettes, where you can tell at a glance which are types, and which individual objects. There are of course some exceptions, and perhaps certain national differences. WP:VAMOS (that's the one about "decorative" "artefacts", ie art) notes that, rather oddly, it is usually Berlin Gold Hat but Mold cape. You are entirely delusional if you think that major ancient artefacts are not normally capitalized; I doubt you spend much time reading about those, as I do. Johnbod (talk) 02:37, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Not compelling reasoning. To repeat my own self, there are bazillions of unque things in the world, and we do not write stuff like "The Elm Tree to the East-southeast of Mac's Diner in Chicago" to distinguish them from other things.

Also, our titles are not definitions or explanations as a matter of WP:AT policy; it is not their job to explain to readers what something is or how it differs from other things or classes of things, other than (when ambiguous) just barely enough to ensure readers arrive at the correct article (per WP:AT#DAB, WP:DAB). There is nothing with a name similar to "Gundestrup cauldron" or "Duenos inscription", so capitalizing in the title will serve no purpose. From the very first sentence of each article it's instantly clear that neither is a category of objects, so capitalizing it in running prose in that article serves no purpose. Because such objects (weak proper names, as Peter_coxhead has it) require a leading "the", they cannot be confused with a class of objects (depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron not *depicted on Gundestrup cauldron; usually cooked in a dutch oven not *usually cooked in dutch oven); so the capitalization serves no purpose in other articles either.

Even when either sort of label doesn't conform to this "Gundestrup cauldron" vs. "dutch oven" split (there are always exceptions in English), no one is actually confused frequently enough that anyone cares, or style guides throughout English would have additional rules in favor of capitalization, but you won't find "capitalize anything that's unique" in any style guide anywhere. Your "capitalize for disambiguation" is a solution in search of a problem, and if there were consensus to do it on WP, it would be listed at WP:AT#DAB as a disambiguation type, and much of MOS:CAPS, MOS:TM, NC:CAPS, etc., would not exist.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  06:23, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

It's not reasoning, it's trying to explain to you what the English language actually does, which you refuse to see, preferring your Platonic image of what it ought to do, according to you. This is clearly pointless. Johnbod (talk) 15:45, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
I said this was pointless already. The one in a fantasy bubble here is you. I'm applying our policies and guidelines as-written and as interpreted at RM and various RfC, following actual source usage. (We have no problem with article titles like Tara Brooch and Gundestrup Cauldron where title case is predominant in the RS; no one is advocating lower-casing these.) It's you that trying to impose "what ought to do, according to you" (specifically, following the house style of art history publishers with whom you're familiar, a.k.a. cherrypicking to push a typical specialized-style fallacy). As I predicted at 03:33, 27 November 2017 (UTC), this has in fact turned circular, because you refuse to see. To come full circle to the original discussion point, it's already been proven that Duenos inscription is almost invariable spelled without a capitalized Inscription in RS , and that Gundestrup Cauldron with a capital C is less than 50% usage in modern sources, ergo MOS:CAPS's rule to lower-case applies. You can spend another two weeks of "It's not reasoning, it's trying to explain" with more hand-waving of the same sort, and I'm going to continue repeating the actual facts of what the WP:P&G say and what the RS usage until it sinks in. This is exactly what played out in your tendentious opposition to actually implementing the MOS:JR RfC's result, and various other cases were you WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:SOAPBOX against WP's style and titles rules applying to your pet topics. Please just drop the stick and find something more productive to do. Surely you're familiar with the aphorism about doing the same thing and expecting a different result.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  03:06, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

SMcCandlish Are you saying that even if an object is referred to in the preponderance of scholarly works (say, for example, works of art history) with all the terms capitalized, you would de-capitalize all but the first term in WP titles and articles? How about the Winged Victory of Samothrace, often called just the Winged Victory? (In a glance at the article, I saw that the word "Victory" is in italics throughout the article for some reason; I don't think it has to be italicized, but it is capitalized.) I think it would look very strange as "the Winged victory". Perhaps Nebra sky disk should be written "Nebra Sky Disk". I think there is a difference between the many ordinary unique things in the world (like the elm tree in Chicago you gave as an example) and famous, extraordinary unique things like the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Rosetta Stone, and, perhaps also the Gundestrup Cauldron. Before you answer, I think you should pause and think about this a little. With Johnbod's background in art history, it behooves us to carefully consider his opinions.  – Corinne (talk) 16:09, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Covering the policy points in subsectoin below. Winged Victory of Samothrace is the conventional title of an artwork; it is capitalized (in the English-language version of the name and goes in italics). That's a separate guideline, MOS:TITLES. Nebra sky disc is just one of at least six descriptive designations of that artifact (in English), and sources mostly do not capitalize it outside of title-case headings . Of those that do, most of them are unreliable blogs. The capitalization is a bit more frequent in archaeology journals, because its fairly common in that context (WP:NOT#JOURNAL, remember) to use capitalization to signify major artifacts. Approx. 35 out of the first 100 search results at Google Scholar capitalize it in mid-sentence, so no WP would not capitalize it. This is consistent with our and RS treatment of another ancient astronomical object, the Antikithera device. Sources primarily treat the Nebra object as an artifact of uncertain purpose rather than as a work of fine art, so MOS:TITLES doesn't apply (RS virtual never present it in italics as an artwork).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  03:06, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Summary of years of repetitive policy debate about this stuff, which has not shifted at all

Let's just cover the larger issue (again) in fine policy detail: The entire point of this whole discussion (and every prior discussion similar to it over the last decade) is that (while some people don't like it) Misplaced Pages capitalizes when a substantial majority of reliable sources do so consistently for the specific topic in question. This does not mean "when specialized sources all following essentially same insular house style do so", or virtually everything on WP would be capitalized, because specialized works capitalize for emphasis (including insider-ese signification) in virtually every field (pop-culture works capitalize genre names, theatre and film works capitalize methods and techniques and other jargon, ornithology works capitalize common names of species, government works capitalize government job titles even when not used in front of individual names, military writing capitalizes equipment names any time they match official designations, pop music journalism tends to mimic marketing stylization of logos and album covers – insert 1000 more examples here). The failure of various people to absorb the fact that WP prefers general-audience secondary sourcing over specialist primary sourcing – and that names are not magically exempt – is the cause of virtually all capitalization debate on Misplaced Pages.

I does not behoove us to consider specialists' opinions when it comes to capitalization and other general writing-style matters (only for strictly-encoded designations like biological binomials and ISO unit symbols) because almost all fields overcapitalize within their topical materials. WP would have no manual of style at all, but a one-line rule to follow the style most used in specialist works on a topic-by-topic basis. This is how WP was first written, by default, and it was abandoned in less than a year, because is presented serious comprehensibility problems for anyone other than specialists who write but don't need to read "their" topic's articles (plus, of course, for any topic where two+ specializations intersect, which is most topics, a style conflict resulted). Capitalization as jargonistic signification is a style that works very well in expert-to-same-kind-of-expert communication, but it is disastrously awful on Misplaced Pages, causing many problems, including first and foremost reader confusion, plus a profusion of overcapitalization of other things (in the mistaken belief that it's actually Misplaced Pages style to capitalize "important stuff" in any given context), a constant source of pointless conflict, and inspiration of further attempts to impose specialized jargon and usage, as if each WP article category were a technical journal with its own independent style guide.

WP permits plenty of specialist-preferred style – when it is consistently used in the real world, is the subject of a field-wide standard, and does not confuse readers. Much of MOS:NUM (maths usage, ISO stuff, etc.) qualifies. Another example is that genus and species are presented in the format Felis chaus and that format only, even though some newspapers and such get either the italics or the capitalization wrong. But "capitalize everything that's unique in my field because the journals I like tend to do so" doesn't qualify. This is not a new debate; it was settled – against this idea – in one of the biggest RfCs in WP's history.

There's a clear WP:CIR problem when someone fails to understand or refuses to accept, after an initial short adjustment period, that WP has its own stylesheet, just like all professional-grade publishers, and that those who write here are expected to write in that style or (on WP in particular) write as they like, within reason, and just not impede the work of others to clean up the material to be compliant, and also to not forum-shop until the end of time one's unhappiness with a particular style quirk here. The idea that various academic specialists are having trouble with this is silly posturing by a handful of tendentious, topically prescriptive individuals. They are in reality entirely professionally familiar with the fact that the journals they write for have differing style guides; e.g. every ornithologist knows that the species capitalization habit they love in orn. journals is not permitted (even in orn. articles) in broader biology journals, and so on. This extends beyond academics; e.g., everyone who's actually in or formerly in the US Marine Corp knows full well that the US military habit of writing "John M. Doe is a Marine" and "When the Marine's tour of duty was over ..." is not reflected in everyday writing, where it's "marine".

Can we please just drop this now? Everything in this entire thread is rehash of the same stuff we've all already been over innumerable times before (other than Peter's idea of having us address a distinction between strong and weak proper-noun phrases more clearly). We have a simple rule to follow: Use simple, plain style unless for a particular case a strong majority of sources consistently do something different. This is entirely in agreement with the core content policies, and it isn't going to change to push the particular pseudo-linguistic PoV of any camp of topical specialists. Trying to get that result just has to stop. It's abuse of WP as a topical language-reform advocacy playground, and it wastes an insane amount of editorial productivity on re-re-re-arguing about the style trivia ad nauseam.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  03:06, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

By you and others wanting to take something as iconic and definable as the Civil Rights Movement and lower case it, literally demote its name on Misplaced Pages, shows that something is wrong with the guideline. The Civil Rights Movement means something to America and the world, its status as a proper noun has been accepted on Misplaced Pages for many years, and actually stood up against a determined and serious attempt to change it three years ago. And now you guys are attempting to lower-case it again. Why? Because the term is lower-cased in many books and articles, enough of them to make a good case for this guideline applying, even though it is very easily argued that the Civil Rights Movement is a proper noun in every sense of the word. And you also want to change the name of The Open Championship, the most honored name in golf and arguably the most honored name in sport.
So yes, there is something wrong with holding to a guideline so strictly that you act to use it without exception. Because that attitude does not honor the fact that exceptions are encouraged. Actually encouraged by Misplaced Pages as a common sense tool. This is outlined on the front-and-center template at the top of every guideline page. If the Civil Rights Movement and The Open Championship don't get a pass from the lower-case crowd, if they don't make the bar, if the bar is set so high that nothing can be an exception, may I suggest that there's the hole in your reasoning about this guideline. That you can't compromise even a little even as drooling-idiots like myself argue that the template at the head of every guideline page actually exists and that it should count for something, that the wording on it is in some ways as important to Misplaced Pages as the Bill of Rights is to American constitutional freedoms. And if exceptions are never supported by the group of policy-creating regulars and the by-the-book guideline experts who show up at major move discussions, and if your combined influence sways the closers who, as far as I know, have never applied a common sense exception (although the pardon for the Civil Rights Movement three years ago may be close), yes, in my opinion, that does hurt the encyclopedia. Because changing the Civil Rights Movement to civil rights movement, and The Open Championship to Open Championship (golf) would lessen, in perception, two events held dear by a large section of humanity. Two things which Misplaced Pages has accepted as proper nouns for well over a decade.
Maybe you don't think anything is exception worthy, even though, and here's the crux of this post, Misplaced Pages asks us to make exceptions! Asks us to do so right off the bat, even before we come to the guideline. That is the hole I see, as a more-often-than-not outside observer, in your perception of the guidelines. That because the formula usually decides the names, case, and style of things correctly that it should be followed each and every time. To follow the letter of the law, well, not law, guideline, even if others reasonably argue that it may not always get it right. That's why common sense exceptions are pretty much demanded by the wording at the top of each guideline page. I ask you, as a recognized and well-earned Misplaced Pages policy-guru, to please consider supporting a few. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:23, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
  • An equally important point, and central to the entire matter is the sentimental and melodramatic idea that using lowercase "literally demotes its name on Misplaced Pages ... would lessen, in perception, two events held dear by a large section of humanity". The only person who'd made such an argument is the one with an inaccurate perception of what capitalization and other style are used for in formal writing (namely clarity); professional writers clearly have very few such people among them , and WP style is based on the output of professionals who write formal English, not how random people write on Facebook, full of emphasis caps. I've raised this issue before with you (both Randy and John) before, and various others (e.g. the one who shall not be named who got topic banned then indeffed): this "demotion" thing is by its very nature a subjective advocacy viewpoint about language (i.e. it's non-neutral prescriptivism, a WP:TRUTH and WP:GREATWRONGS campaigning notion). It is a "capitalize out of respect" position, which is by definition non-neutral.

    Capital letters in encyclopedic writing never serve a "promoting" purpose; the is the central, unmistakeable message of MOS:CAPS. So lower-casing the inappropriate use of capitals isn't "demoting", it's just normalizing promotional over-stylization back to neutrality (capitalizing "the Rocky Mountains" isn't non-neutral because it's 100% conventional, while "Gundestrup Cauldron" is only found in about 40% of sources, "Nebra Sky Disc" about 35%, and "Duenos Inscription" 10% or less. Capitalizing them is taking a stand, using capitals to assert an implication of unusual importance against real-world consensus (so it's also a form of WP:OR; we've been over that before, too). Everyone with even rudimentary English skills already knows that capitalization is not used consistently, is frequently encountered simply for visual effect in signage and marketing, and in regular prose it varies by writer and context even for the same subject. We figure that out around third grade, and no one is confused by "the Players Championship" (vs. "The Players Championship" or "The PLAYERS Championship"), just like no one is confused by "the Duenos inscription" not having a capital I. Anyone who cannot understand (or refuses to accept) that capital letters are used here for pre-defined conventional things and in accordance the dominant usage in RS needs to stay out of style matters at Misplaced Pages. The very nature of the argument they're presenting is based on an emotive belief (not supported by real linguistics); this belief system (a form of ipse dixit) does not respond to logic or evidence; such persons consequently turn tendentious and circular-reasoned; and they waste many editors' time forum-shopping the same rejected thing over and over and over.

    In its belief-and-tradition roots, depth of feeling, resistance to reason, and central motivation, this urge to capitalize out of respect is precisely the same as the also-rejected demand (coincidentally re-re-re-raised at WT:MOS just now) to use a special post-nominal phrase or abbreviation after Muhammad's name at every occurrence ("Muhammad S.A.W."); that fact that one is about a religious figure and the other is about a broader class of topics is just a difference of degree.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  07:08, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

    PPS: Randy, all your "holding to a guideline so strictly that you act to use it without exception", "the bar is set so high that nothing can be an exception", "you can't compromise even a little", "exceptions are never supported", "have never applied a common sense exception", "Maybe you don't think anything is exception worthy", "followed each and every time", etc. hyperbole is a mile-high straw man. No MoS regulars ever suggest such a thing, and the very post you wrote that in response to has a paragraph beginning "WP permits plenty of specialist-preferred style", which outlines the general rationales that have been well-received for exceptions (and of course "do it because almost all the RS do so in this case" is the general one – the very notion you and John are fighting against with your right hands is the one you're trying to depend upon with your left). A strong sense of traditionalism or a personal feeling that topics you consider important must be signified as important with capital letters, despite the fact that our central rule about capitalization is to not do that, are not rationales for making an exception, especially one not supported by the sources.

    How many more ways can this possibly be said before the light bulb goes on, guys? If you already understand this and just refuse to accept it, please stop pestering my talk page about it, or recycling the same stuff tendentiously in RM discussions. Open an RfC to require WP to follow the majority style in specialist writing rather than the majority style across all reliable sources.

    The closest thing to a "no exceptions" rule being advocated by anyone in this discussion is that presented by Johnbod: that everything that is "unique" has a proper name and that this must be capitalized, no matter what the reliable-sources analysis shows to be real-world usage. Unless I'm missing something, you're presenting the same argument, except yours is dressed up in a "and do it to be respectful" tuxedo, while John's is wearing a "do it because my colleagues and I do it when we write stuff for each other" academic labcoat.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  07:11, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

One wall of text from me on this is enough to explain my position, which you've dismissed out of hand. Exceptions are both allowed and called-for by the template on the top of every guideline page. I'm asking for one here. Upper casing Civil Rights Movement is not promotion, it is pointing out a factual event which is a proper noun. And of course lower-casing something on Misplaced Pages is demeaning it in the public sphere. You know that, or if you don't you are further entrenched in the never-an-exception mindset than I thought. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:55, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Marlon Brando

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Marlon Brando. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Colon before multi-sentence quote

Regarding your edit of 21:01, 29 May 2016 of Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style, in which you inserted

It is clearer to use a colon to introduce a quotation if it forms a complete sentence, and this should always be done for multi-sentence quotations
  • I couldn't find anything on the talk page archive around that time on this topic. Apparently you made this bold change, and nobody complained. Is that right?
  • Is this in line with published sources, or where did you get it from? (I am kind of raising an eyebrow.)
  • I think that in most Misplaced Pages articles I've seen, editors are using commas, not colons, most of the time before multi-sentence quotes. If I'm right about that, we have a guideline that is mostly ignored. We should either change the guideline or promote it better.
  • As you may have noticed, I write detailed edit summaries. As soon as I get fully behind this proviso, I'll make a habit of looking for it and I'll put "colon before multi-sentence quotes" or something like that in my edit summaries. But I'm not 100% convinced yet.

—Anomalocaris (talk) 11:44, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I can dig into it later, but don't have time right now. I think off top of head that it was from New Hart's Rules and some others, but can look into it later. PS: WHen it comes to quotations, editors are doing completely random things, from putting three-word quotations in block quotes, to putting legit block quotation in pull quote templates, to putting citations inside the quotation to using round brackets for editorial insertions, to italicizing quotations just for being quotations (I fix that one almost on a daily basis), and a zillion other errors. We should not stop offering good advice just because the average editor doesn't read MoS, which is primarily for gnomes. No one has to read MoS at all to edit at en.WP; only cite reliable sources, have marginally functional English-language skills, and not add their own opinion to the material.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  18:50, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Link to ARBCOM

I'm very interested in the desysop case to which you referred here... can you provide any pointers to help me find it? Andrewa (talk) 20:56, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Current members of the United States Senate

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Current members of the United States Senate. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Mister wiki case has been accepted

You were recently listed as a party to or recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct of Mister Wiki editors. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct of Mister Wiki editors/Evidence. Please add your evidence by December 15, 2017, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct of Mister Wiki editors/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Kostas20142 (talk) 21:34, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Precious

four dimensions player

Thank you for quality articles such as Jasmin Ouschan and William A. Spinks, for service in 12 years, for thoughts about policy, style and consistency, for an initiative for clarification, - Stanton, cat lover in four dimensions, you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:41, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Grazie! PS: I really didn't do much on the Ouschan article, though the Spinks one is about 95% my work. Some non-trivial articles I created (not from splits/mergers) are Persian onager, Turkmenian Kulan (over a redirect ), "Pool Hall Blues", Valley-Dynamo, Valley National 8-Ball League Association, IBSF World Snooker Championship, Five-pin billiards (a progressive WP:TNT, over what was originally a useless machine translation of the it.wikipedia stub: ), Crystalate Manufacturing Company, and a TNT rewrite of Three-ball. Something in the system just partial-credited me with the Ouschan GA, probably based on number of edits or something, but it was mostly cleanup work.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  00:01, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Sony Ten

You know what, the "TEN" part of Sony Ten came from the network's original owner, Taj Entertainment Network, not because it is/was on channel 10. JSH-alive/ 14:36, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

The article indicates otherwise: "Taj Television India Private Limited" (which normal people would surely write "Taj Television India Pvt Ltd"). Our article doesn't mention a "10" channel, though I saw that somewhere while looking into this. Even if the "10" thing is wrong, "Ten" is the predominant spelling, when Sony ("SONY") capitalize-like-crazy marketing isn't involved ,, so it would be lowercase anyway. If there were concrete proof it originated as an acronym, the argument could be made, but I think it would fail, because no one presently seems to interpret it as an acronym, and it's not styled as one even in sources not independent of the subject but pre-dating Sony's takeover.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  14:51, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

PS: This is really obviously not an acronym; it's the sister station/network of Sony One and Sony Six.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  10:55, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

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Please comment on Talk:Sergio Verdú

Disregard – Not a valid RfC.

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Sergio Verdú. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Kalki Page and over control by User ShotgunMavericks

Can you please look into this?

He is just removing what he does not like, stating "Reverted to last better version" even facts are removed just because he does not like them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:ShotgunMavericks#Control_over_Kalki_Page — Preceding unsigned comment added by SourceOnly (talk • contribs) 10:22, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

@SourceOnly: I suppose I can look at it, as a random editor, but I have no experience with the topic, and am not an administrator.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅ᴥⱷ<  10:39, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for looking at it, few people seems to control what content they like and dislike, regardless of facts. If one in not good enough but other of same type is allowed to remain then there is a problem. Please see what you can do.

off topic (remove if you want) you do look like the "iron man" downey jnr :) 

(no offense meant.)

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