Rwy'n gobeithio y byddwch yn cael tymor gwyliau da, hefyd. [If that really says "My hovercraft is full of eels", blame the machine translator!].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  22:12, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Meghan Markle. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 25 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The examples in the documentation for Template:Anchor still have the anchors placed inside the section heading. I think this needs to be sorted out once and for all. A New Year task? Peter coxhead (talk) 09:47, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter coxhead:Seems worth doing. There was disagreement about this stuff only last week at WT:MOS. In my draft User:SMcCandlish/Manual of Style/Internal supplement essay, I've laid out the nature of the dispute, in the "Links and anchors" section.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:18, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've seen the "Links and anchors" section which is excellent. The right solution, it seems to me, is for this to be fixed in the MediaWiki software, so there's a standard way of doing linking to the heading that produces sensible HTML and generates 'plain' edit summaries. Whether this would be worth pursuing is another issue. Perhaps it would give some leverage if it could be shown that some of the methods you've laid out, which are actually used by editors, confuse screen readers. However, the key step for me at present is to get text like yours (slightly amended here) into the MoS: The overwhelmingly most common practice in mainspace is to include anchors below headings, not inside them, to avoid confusing new editors with mangled edit summaries. Prefer below the heading by default, as least likely to be problematic, but do not editwar over different placements. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:35, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter coxhead: Could compress it even more for real MoS usage: In mainspace, include anchors below headings, not inside them, to avoid confusing new editors with mangled edit summaries.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  22:56, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

New year greetings. Putting my stupidity hat on- giving clear examples of false code seems weird. Looking at the third example in placement in tables, there is no visual distinction between this and the correct code in the other examples. I am not an expert on the MOS conventions for displaying false code, but use of colour (displaying the illicit code in red) or putting the whole lot in the second column of a two column table- and 'Don't go here' icon in the first, would signal the difference. --ClemRutter (talk) 13:41, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@ClemRutter: Yes, we have templates for that, e.g. {{!mxt}} and {{dcr}}. Which one works better depends on the surrounding markup. If the page is already using {{xt}}-family templates to mark up examples, I use {{!mxt}}, but an isolated case might better with {{dcr}}, especially if the code in question is outright invalid or malfunctional (that template uses re-styled <del>...</del> markup).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:18, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that- it will be copied over to my user/sandwardrobe. In the Tenplate:anchor/doc under discussion- the offending code appears to be:

the following forms of cell are not valid:<source enclose=div lang=text>!{{anchor|Foo1}} |A header cell !style="background:white;" {{anchor|Foo2}} |A header cell with styling |{{anchor|Foo3}} |A data cell |rowspan=2 {{anchor|Foo4}} |A data cell spanning two rows</source>

So is there a magic way in Template:/doc space of turning the text color=red, in a way that is not overwritten? It has beaten me today. I can see multiple uses if we had a simple negative template for false code blocks. ClemRutter (talk) 14:30, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@ClemRutter: I don't use <source> or <syntaxhighlight> much, specifically because they interfere with tweaking the displayed output – they're a rather blunt instrument. I guess I need to be sure what your intent is. My usual approach to this sort of thing is to use <code style="padding-left:0;">...</code>. This gets rid of the annoying rightward indentation at the start of the code material, and then one can just use <br /> to create line breaks within the code block (turning off nowiki as needed to make that happen, and to make templates like {{!mxt}} or {{dcr}} work within the code example). Regardless what approach you use, the main thing to remember is CSS cascading order; if you do something like {{!mxt|<code>Bad example</code>}}, the result will look the same as <code>Bad example</code> because the stylesheet stuff for the code element comes after that for the {{!mxt}} template. Same goes for links; if you want to something like {{xt|Example text [[War of 1812]]}} you end up with link coloration marring the green example: Example text War of 1812. This actually has to be done as {{xt|Example text}} [[War of 1812|{{xt|War of 1812}}]]: Example text War of 1812. Various MoS pages have errors of this sort in them; I've been fixing them as I run across them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  22:56, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, regarding the "Ds/alerts" problems you highlighted. Would it lessen the "threat" aspect if the alerts were issued by a bot? What I was thinking is that if an article is tagged (say by edit notice) as under discretionary sanctions, that if an editor makes a substantive edit (let's say a non-minor one) to it the bot informs them of the presence of sanctions if they are otherwise eligible for such notification. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:47, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: That would help a lot, though someone from WP:Teahouse or whatever needs to also re-design the template to look less like a "go F yourself" message. >;-) I have actually been proposing a solution like this since ca. 2015, so if others take up the bot idea, maybe it will finally grow legs. It would also prevent system-gaming of the kind of outlined many times (disrupt in one area until "notified", go to another one and do it there, etc., then come back a year later, after notice expiry, and start over again at the original topic).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  22:56, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Now we would need to get it proposed somewhere where AE active admins and arbitrators see it... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 23:01, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Could try WT:ARBCOM, but this might actually require a formal WP:ARCA.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  23:39, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'll see if @Callanecc: knows where to ask. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:44, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'd suggest probably taking two steps, the first by proposing it at WT:AE for AE regulars to review and then at WP:ARCA for the committee to review. I suggest WT:AE first as I think it's reasonably likely that the committee will want to hear from them before making a decision. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:16, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds reasonable. I'll let Jo-Jo continue to take the lead on this. I've had F-all luck getting any traction of any kind on DS reform for something like 4 years now. I know when to take a back seat.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:31, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

SMcCandlish, the collapsible (and collapsed) instructions on the Template:Did you know/Queue page between the queues and the preps is suddenly no longer collapsing, nor even offering the option to collapse/show. When I took a look to see what might be causing it, the only thing that caught my eye was this edit by you. Can you please check to see whether your change has broken the "collapse top" template, and if so, please fix things? Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:58, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Repaired. I'd forgotten the closing }}} when adding a parameter alias. Derp.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  23:34, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Bosnian pyramid claims. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On the MOS talk page you recently wrote: "(our articles are palimpsests stirred together by a global assortment of geniuses, crackpots, and everyone in between, sometimes citing great stuff, sometimes poor stuff, and sometimes nothing)". This, my friend, is a gem. If there's a Hall of Fame for WP user quotes, this should be on it. Whatever you had for dinner the night you wrote that, have it more often.  White Whirlwind  咨  10:14, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Guess I'd better stock up on chicken covered in extra-spicy barbecue sauce then. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  13:24, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note to self: Vera Lynn is badass. Over 100 now, and still gets albums in the charts.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  07:34, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Newsletter Nr 5, 2017-12-30, for WikiProject Genealogy (and Wikimedia genealogy project on Meta) Participation: This is the fifth newsletter sent by mass mail to members in Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy, to everyone who voted a support for establishing a potential Wikimedia genealogy project on meta, and anyone who during the years showed an interest in genealogy on talk pages and likewise. (To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please see below) A demo wiki is up and running! Dear members of WikiProject Genealogy, this will be the last newsletter for 2017, but maybe the most important one! You can already now try out the demo for a genealogy wiki at https://tools.wmflabs.org/genealogy/wiki/Main_Page and try out the functions. You will find parts of the 18th Pharao dynasty and other records submitted by the 7 first users, and it would be great if you would add some records. And with those great news we want to wish you a creative New Year 2018! Don't want newsletters? If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page. Cheers from your WikiProject Genealogy coordinator Dan Koehl. To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Trace Adkins. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

– Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year}} to user talk pages.

Thanks, you too.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  14:35, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Hope you had a wonderful new year. :)

Hi, I'd like to pick your brains on an issue concerning category titles. I'm working on the flora distribution categories that follow the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. Some more categories need to be created. The titling practice that seems to have been followed, mostly but not entirely consistently, is that in "Category:Flora of X", other than an extra "the", "X" is chosen so that it is the title of the article that best matches the WGSRPD unit. This means that if "X" needs to be disambiguated, then a disambiguating term is used in "Category:Flora of X", even though it wouldn't be needed for the category alone. Thus Category:Flora of New York (state) even though there isn't a flora distribution category for the city; Category:Flora of Chihuahua (state) to match Chihuahua (state); etc. There will need to be a category for the Brazilian state of Amazonas, whose article is at Amazonas (Brazilian state). To me "Category:Flora of Amazonas (Brazilian state)" seems clumsy (the WGSRPD just calls it "Amazonas"). On the other hand, I can see the logic of this approach. You think about titles more than I do, so I'd value your opinion on how it fits with usual title and disambiguation practices. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:12, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter coxhead: I would make it match the article name even if it's clumsy, because failure to match the article name is grounds for speedy category renaming (WP:CFD#C2D). With the short name, the ambiguity would still be there for the reader (who might think Category:Flora of New York meant the city). Disambiguation generally "adheres" to the topic; it's not done differently in different namespaces. Clumsiness of cat. names is way less of an issue than with article titles, since readers are generally not typing category names or picking them from a disambiguation page, but just noticing them at bottoms of articles and then clicking around in them as a navigation system.

PS: An exception to article-title-matching is that if the category could not imaginably pertain to anything but one topic, then it need not be disambiguated. Amazonas is a bunch of places, so organisms being in them could obviously apply. If there were only one place called Amazonas, but the big company were Amazonas.com instead of Amazon.com, and we had Amazonas (Brazilian state) and Amazonas (company) (only), then Category:Flora of Amazonas would be likely fine, because the concept "Flora of" couldn't logically pertain to the company. I can't think of any actual place names, right off hand, where this would come up. Even the ones I'm straining to think of (e.g. Clovis, California versus King Clovis, are already disambiguated for other reasons, or the place is actually the primary topic anyway and not disambiguated. It's more likely to come up in a case like "Category:Songs by Foo", where the article is at "Foo (singer)" and none of the other Foos have anything to do with music. And this exception isn't even consistently applied; lots of categories have disambiguation even when one might not think it strictly necessary, probably because it's easier to just copy the article name than to analyze whether the disambiguation is really needed on a cat.-by-cat. basis.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:02, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's useful advice; the reference to WP:CFD#C2D is particularly helpful if anyone queries using a disambiguated name.

More problematic to me is when this approach is "over applied", as I see it. Thus we have Category:Flora of North America and Category:Flora of South America when the WGSRPD defines these (as Northern America and Southern America) differently to what would be expected given the category titles used (it puts Central America and the Caribbean in Southern America). Peter coxhead (talk) 07:40, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

One of the other things I've noticed, which I know you've been involved in discussions about before, is the inconsistent use of diacritics in article titles. Why Réunion for example, but not Québec? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:21, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ah! I would definitely run two parallel categories. We need categories for these "official" designations that stick to exactly how the source defines them, using their "northern America" and "southern America" terms of art no one else uses; and we also need categories that match actual reader expectations. I've done a lot of [but insufficient] work on the latter set of categories, and it was the Caribbean problem that inspired it. I've been cross-linking categories as needed and putting inclusion criteria at the top of them, and so on.

I started with Category:Mammals of North America, Category:Felids of South America, and Category:Felids of Central America, and worked up to Category:Mammals of South America, Category:Mammals of Central America, Category:Mammals of North America, but did not complete the inclusion hatnotes, and didn't finish the cross-categorized Category:Mammals of the Caribbean (it should include any Caribbean place sometimes classified as S. or C. Am., but I don't think it has them all yet). I got side-tracked by other stuff and never did finish all that, and I did not drill upward to non-mammals much less to plants, nor sideways into canids or simians or whatever – huge job, better done with AWB or something). The goal was to match our life-forms in the Americas categories to how we're categorizing actual countries (and adjust even that as necessary to be inclusive of conflicting definitions).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:20, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, animal distributions are categorized differently. As per Category:Fauna by continent, the traditional North and South America are used, and Oceania is employed, I suppose for Australasia and the Pacific, but since there's no single external source for the system used, it gets applied inconsistently. By contrast, for plants we have a single well-used source, and a set of clear maps at Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. So the problems for animals and plants are a bit different. For both we have a small set of the usual suspects (no names here) who love to create extra categories, mostly unnecessary and almost always never worked through to completion or consistency. However, at least for plants we have a standard that can be returned to, if and when anyone has the time and energy to do it.

I will try again to see if there could now be agreement on "Flora of northern America" and "Flora of southern America". WT:PLANTS seems the place to open a discussion. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:30, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What I'm suggesting is to have a separate set of categories, such that we have "normal people" categories for SAm, CAm, NAm, Caribbean (and there'll be some overlap, with various Caribbean ones as illustrated on the felids and mammals categories, plus Mexico being classified in both NAm and CAm, due to varying definitions). Then also have WGSRPD categories – northern and southern – for people that need to look at this stuff through that lens.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  17:37, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked for the past discussion(s) in the archives, but haven't found them yet. My recollection is that it was agreed that having two categories like "Flora of northern America" (WGSRPD) and "Flora of North America" (usual sense) wouldn't work. Suppose we treated the new "Category:Flora of North America" as a container category for the relevant Level 2 and Level 3 components of the WGSRPD, i.e.

• ALU Category:Flora of the Aleutian Islands (WGSRPD: Aleutian Is.)
• ASK Category:Flora of Alaska
• NUN Category:Flora of Nunavut
• NWT Category:Flora of the Northwest Territories
• YUK Category:Flora of Yukon
• 71 Category:Flora of Western Canada
• 72 Category:Flora of Eastern Canada
• 73 Category:Flora of the Northwestern United States (WGSRPD: Northwestern U.S.A.)
• 74 Category:Flora of the North-Central United States (WGSRPD: North-Central U.S.A.)
• 75 Category:Flora of the Northeastern United States (WGSRPD: Northeastern U.S.A.)
• 76 Category:Flora of the Southwestern United States (WGSRPD: Southwestern U.S.A.)
• 77 Category:Flora of the South-Central United States (WGSRPD: South-Central U.S.A.)
• 78 Category:Flora of the Southeastern United States (WGSRPD: Southeastern U.S.A.)
• 79 Category:Flora of Mexico
• 80 Category:Flora of Central America
• 81 Category:Flora of the Caribbean

Where would we then put the hundreds of articles about plants presently directly in the current Category:Flora of North America? They would have to have both [[Category:Flora of northern America]] and [[Category:Flora of North America]] added to each article, which would confuse the hell out of readers and most editors. The same would apply to southern/South America. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:00, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe disambiguate as "Category:Flora of northern America (WGSRPD)" or "Category:WGSRPD northern America flora"? The problem with any WGSRPD category is all these more specific categories like "Flora of the Caribbean" and "Flora of Western Canada" lend themselves to categorization in our usual geographical categories, so it'll eventually happen whether they're also in WGSRPD categories for "northern America" and "southern America" or not, if for no other reason than to prevent confusing gaps in the category tree. What we have here is a conflict between how WP geographically categorizes and how some other entity does so; if we want to include categories for their unusual designations they'll surely have to be add-ons. Not because anyone will make a rule about it but because they'll be edited around in the normal course of doing things. It's at least happy that many of their more specific categories coincide with ones we'd use anyway (aside from some abbreviations). Not so much the broad US and Canadian regional subdivisions; we don't organize any US or Canadian categories by "Western" or "Southeastern", so some of these will need to be non-diffusing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  23:48, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We have to use the WGSRPD categories as the primary ones in many if not most instances, because these are what reliable secondary sources use, including the IUCN, GRIN, and the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP), plus more specialized sources that rely on these. So it's the non-WGSRPD categories that generally have to be "add-ons" for plants. So, no, it won't "eventually happen". If the source has code "7" or "northern America" it's only possible to categorize accurately if there's a category for this.

The other problem with non-WGSRPD categories is the lack of clear definitions. Thus above I used a definition of "North America" that excludes Greenland, placing it in a separate "Arctic" category, as I found in some sources. If you include Greenland in "North America" then it's more-or-less equivalent to the WGSRPD's Northern America + Central America. "Central America" without a clear map like the WGSRPD's is a problem, because the northern boundary varies by source. "Oceania" is a real problem. Editors classifying animal distributions have fudged the issue badly. The map at Category:Fauna by continent treats it as a separate 'continent' to Asia. In the article Oceania, it includes the island of New Guinea. However although Category:Fauna of New Guinea is placed in the Fauna of Oceania, it is also ultimately placed (via Indonesia) in the Fauna of Asia, yet these are supposed to be different continents.

The treatment of New Guinea is probably an illustration of a wider problem. Whatever scheme is being used, editors come across an area A that comprises part of area B and part of area C. Since categorization is hierarchical, the only valid approach is to put A into the category for the area that completely includes B and C. But this isn't what usually happens. Either A is put into B and C (wrong because A is not a sub-area of either) or B and C are both placed in A (wrong because neither B nor C are sub-areas of A). Category:Flora of the Rocky Mountains is a good example, where I've just recently removed Category:Flora of Western Canada and Category:Flora of the Western United States.

(An alternative is to accept that categorization in the English Wikipedia is not hierarchical, and that placing category X in category Y means something vaguer. The problem then is that there's usually no good reason to put X into Y rather than vice versa, e.g. as the Rocky Mountains run across Western Canada and the Western United States, the latter categories could reasonably be put into the former.) Peter coxhead (talk) 11:01, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're talking past each other a little bit. I have no issue at all with the idea that categorization along WGSRPD lines is what botanists will do, and do it quite strictly by WGSRPD-related RS definitions (aside from us expanding some abbreviations for clarity). But it's pretty much inevitable that they'll also be categorized in a more loosey-goosey way (if not plant articles themselves, then the small-region fauna categories they're in) along the usual "commonly understood meaning of [insert geographical area here]" lines, just through everyday editorial activities by people who don't care at all about botany but who care a whole lot about the Caribbean or where ever – the way everything else on WP gets categorized. E.g., you'll find various countries categorized as being both Eastern and Central European, and so on. Our category tree isn't really a tree but more like neutral network, with a lot of cross-linking and what some would call redundancy. It's okay that way. The solution is to make sure that the WGSRPD categories are clearly IDed as such, if not in their names then in inclusion criteria at the top of the category.

Mostly I don't think there'll be a problem. As an example, a plant might get put into Category:Flora of Trinidad at Tobago when that exists at some point. I assume this would be WGSRPDed as a subcat of Category:Flora of southern America. But "southern America" isn't a thing to anyone but WGSRPD. Other Category:Foo of Trinidad and Tobago categories are in Category:Foo of the Caribbean and Category:Foo of South America (because how to geographically define T&T varies by context). So, it's pretty much inevitable that Category:Flora of Trinidad and Tobago will be a child cat. of all three of Category:Flora of southern America, Category:Flora of South America, and Category:Flora of the Caribbean, and these categories will serve different purposes for different reader communities; the latter two will just be based on how T&T is categories from (respectively) a geophysical landmass perspective versus a socio-politico-cultural one, and it won't have a thing to do with the plants. Meanwhile, the WGSRPD cat. will be entirely based on botanical sources, and we wouldn't even have "southern America" categories for any other reason (similarly, we have "Latin America" categories for certain internationally cross-cultural things, but we don't use them outside that sphere (there'll never be a Category:Flora of Latin America, nor a Category:Volcanoes of Latin America, because it just doesn't compute; flowers and lava aren't Latino).

So, it's not an either-or choice. People who want to know what plants live in Mexico as a geographical-range matter may be thinking either "Central America" or "North America" (we won't know), those from an environmental regulation perspective probably from a "Central American" perspective (.mx law has more in common with that of the rest of "northern Latin America", as it were, than of the US and Canada), while botanists will be thinking strictly in terms of WGSRPD's "northern America" (now – I note that .mx used to be cut in half in the WGSRPD scheme).Everyone will get to be happy, at least in theory. Or from a different angle: Look at how Turkey is categorized. Someone could consider it confusing, but the purpose of the categories isn't a hierarchical and exclusive labeling system, but a navigation tool to related articles, and Turkey is Balkan, SE European, E Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Near Eastern, etc., all at once depending on perspective.

Hope that helps. I'm sure you and the rest of the botanists will get the WGSRPD stuff done right (even if it takes some policing – you might find someone insisting that Flora of Delaware has to be in Flora of the Northeastern United States because so-and-so sources (economic, geological, etc.) catalogue DE as part of the US Northeast, not understanding that it's a WGSRPD label, not a general geographical one. A potential solution to that if it ever became a real problem would be using category names like "WGSRPD flora of the Northeastern United States" or something, if having category inclusion criteria doesn't cut it. But it should be enough.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  17:42, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we agree that some more "user friendly" categories are also needed. Some of these can be made compatible with the WGSRPD ones, by being super- or sub-sets, but others can't, and just exist in parallel. I have no problem with that. The problem arises when, as has happened in the past, discussions have resulted in category names that correspond to the "user friendly" categories but are supposed to be used for the WGSRPD ones. That's the case, as we seem to agree, for Category:Flora of North America for example, which, when I've finished my current tidying, I'll try again to get changed, with this name used for the usual sense, and Category:Flora of northern America used for the WGSRPD sense.

The general principle I'd like to see established is that the WGSRPD category is only called by the "common name" when the "common name" has the same meaning or a meaning so close that it doesn't matter.

We also agree that it's important to make clear what is a WGSRPD category and what isn't; I've working on this by adding {{WGSRPD code}} to every such category – the template also creates a tracking category by level, e.g. Category:Flora categories with a level 3 WGSRPD code, which will help in maintenance.

Jingoism applies here, too, since many editors want "their" country/state/district/stomping ground/whatever to have its own distribution category, regardless of whether this makes sense.

By the way, categories aren't supposed to form a general net, as per your comment above, but rather a set of cross-connected trees, as per Wikipedia:Categorization#Category tree organization. In the current context, the WGSRPD categories will form a strict tree, with cross-connections to what should be other trees based on more common usage. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:54, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be in support of that. Let me know if it comes up in CfD again. (to be explicit: I'm declaring an interest in working on that being consistent, not asking to be canvassed). Also don't disagree with your net/tree assessment; I was over-generalizing. We do have a lot of strict trees for particular purposes, and more loose arrangements; some are diffusing some are not. Together they form kind of an interlacing mangrove, which is less of a bramble than it looks at first glance when you examine it in detail. I think I first encountered this (and debates about it, which mostly seem to have settled out) when working on the Category:Cue sports stuff. There was strong, even strident, desire to categorize snooker as a sport unto itself, yet it also obviously needed to be classified as a cue sport like pool and carom billiards. Consequently, lots of sports categories have separate entries for cue sports and for snooker, but not for pool or carom (which don't have their own international sport fandom and marketing machines of any note, while snooker is on par with cricket in that regard in many parts of the world). We similarly have categories like Category:Ball games under Category:Sports by type (and Category:Games by type) that include cricket and cue sports and yadda yadda, but it's not a strict tree into which all the sports-that-have-a-ball-in-them get forced (e.g. Category:Sports in the United States has no Category:Sports in the United Staes by type and thus not Category:Ball games in the United States; it's been flattened to Category:Sports in the United States by sport.

I think this sort of thing is good precedent for what's under discussion here. As long as there's some category thicket for "Flora of [geographical name]" that suits the general-interest approach to that, there is no rationale to blockade or merge parallel specialized trees, like one for WGSRPD, that do something similar along different lines, even if there's conceptual overlap or a name similarity. It would even be possible to skip the "call the WGSRPD category by the 'common name' when the 'common name' has the same meaning or a meaning so close that it doesn't matter" part in theory, though it might be necessary to have WGSRPD in the names. Something like this is alrady used for conservation status; I see that Category:Biota by conservation status system exists, but it doesn't seem very fleshed out yet for anything but IUCN. But we do have Category:IUCN Red List critically endangered species (and, I note with relief it's not "Critically Endangered", LOL). If this sort of thing is defensible for IUCN, then it's defensible for WGSRPD.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  07:37, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Diacritics

Diacritics: Basically, it's because there are a lot of jingoistic asshats, and they sometimes form a big enough WP:FACTION to wear down everyone in a war of attrition until they get the censorship they want. They actually keep getting shut down, e.g. in an ArbCom case, and getting their "wikiproject" (read: canvassing farm) deleted, and so on, but they never really go away. They used to be hard-core centralized in a few other projects like WikiProject Tennis and WikiProject Ice Hockey, but RM has largely undone their attempts to WP:OWN those categories as no-diacritics zones. I expect that Québec will gets its proper spelling eventually, especially given MOS:ENGVAR (whether 'Mercans (or Brits or Strines for that matter) like to include the diacritic is irrelevant, it's frequently retained in Canadian English, so no defensible argument can be made that it's "not English"). PS: I fixed the missing King Clovis redirect. How was that a redlink? Sheesh.

Sadly jingoism isn't confined to diacritics, either here or in the real world! We appear to live in an increasingly nationalistic age, to my discomfort as an aging liberal internationalist. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:30, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bet yer a Zionist commie, too! >;-) ^[FBDB] — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  17:37, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That ^[FBDB] comes in handy, don't it? EEng 05:49, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, though it shouldn't be necessary. It's symptomatic of the administration problem we have. I used the template at WP:ARCA recently.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  14:24, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect William, Prince of Wales. Since you had some involvement with the William, Prince of Wales redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. --Nevé–selbert 18:36, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What's your opinion on the close at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#RfC: Telenovela disambiguation? A pretty poor close in my book. I'm already having problems with it - see Talk:Victoria (TV series)#Requested move 5 January 2018 (withdrawn), [14], and [15]. Have tried taking it up with the closing editor here: User talk:Winged Blades of Godric#Half finished RFC close. Would be interested in your take on all this. --woodensuperman 15:47, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Woodensuperman: Dropped off a note at Godric's page. While I don't dispute the underlying fact of the close (that the discussion failed to come to a clear consensus), it's clearly a mis-worded close that implies that a discussion that didn't even come to consensus can, through some form of black magic, literally override long-standing guidelines, and this is leading to RM disruption. In the interim, I would suggest re-opening a new RfC at WP:VPPOL, with the explicit reason that the discussion at RM, despite being fairly thorough discussed among a number of topically interested editors, failed to come to consensus, and the closer specifically directed that a broader discussion would be needed to resolve the matter. (That's how you avoid bogus complaints of tendentious rehash of a recently closed discussion). I personally don't care much whether we use "(telenovella)" as a disambiguator, though I lean against it per WP:USEENGLISH and WP:OVERDAB. However, I care a tremendous amount about undermining of WP:P&G by wrong-headed misapplication of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to try to do something that it cannot.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  15:59, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that! Let's see what Godric does now. Exactly, how can a failed RFC result in the outcome that the RFC failed to establish? --woodensuperman 16:03, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so Godric got a second opinion and is refusing to change the close. Is it worth pursuing further do you think? --woodensuperman 12:55, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Woodensuperman: Yes. What I suggested at "In the interim, ..." is probably the way to go. WBoG's poorly worded close is going to be taken as blanket license to use "telenovela" everywhere, despite actual failure of consensus to reach that conclusion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  22:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks. See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Is "telenovela" a suitable disambiguator?. I hope you don't mind but I recycled some of your wording above. --woodensuperman 09:17, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this RfC is pretty conclusive. Do you think it's premature to close it? I guess we should add something to WP:NCTV - something along the lines of "Do not disambiguate by genre or format, i.e. "sitcom", "telenovela", "soap opera", etc., unless multiple articles for TV series from the same year and region exist and further disambiguation is required." Any thoughts? --woodensuperman 12:33, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Woodensuperman: That sounds like reasonable wording, though maybe also see what the book and other guidelines say. I would link to WP:PRECISE in it (the policy from which we derive the "do not over-disambiguate" principle). As for RfCs, I like to let them run the full course. Most requests to close RfCs early at WP:AN/RFC are actually ignored, and patience is a virtue, and there is no deadline, and don't give anyone a wedge to drive ("the RfC was closed too soon, so it's not really valid", blah blah).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  14:28, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks. Maybe I'll wait a bit then, although the conversation seems to have fizzled out, and the consensus there seems unanimous. But in light of the recent reverts after the previous RfC, I can think of at least one editor who may resist if we don't wait for the 30 days... --woodensuperman 14:38, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at WP:NCFILM and WP:NCBOOKS neither sanction genre at all. I guess as it should really only be used when all other options are exhausted, a situation which would be very rare. Is it worth mentioning it at WP:NCTV, or would this just cause more confusion? --woodensuperman 14:43, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would mention it to prevent a recurrence. I'm surprised it's not mentioned at the the other pages, though we tolerate a wee bit of this stuff in books, e.g. "(novel)" and "(book)" when "(book)" would almost always suffice.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  15:16, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I meant whether it was worth including the clause that begins "unless...". I wouldn't really draw a parallel between this situation and the book situation. I'd view "book" as the format, just a vessel for the type of work. --woodensuperman 15:24, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think the "unless" clause is useful; there will be times when the condition happens and we shouldn't leave people not know how to further disambiguate when and only when it does.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 

Okay, I've made the change to the guideline, using elements of my wording and the other suggestion. It may still need a tweak - feel free to improve if you have any thoughts... --woodensuperman 11:19, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I poked at it a little, after others already had.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:00, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Miranda Lambert. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm converting a glossary to templates and was wondering if you knew a way to suppress the anchor links made by {{term}}? The glossary has 370 terms but about 50 of them are alternate names. I'd like those alternate names to have anchor links at the main term where the definition is, so the reader won't have to jump up and down in the glossary. Do you know if this is possible or if there's a workaround to achieve this? Would appreciate any advice. Thanks. – Reidgreg (talk) 18:08, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Reidgreg: If I understand this correctly, you want to have something like (if I may template the crap out of this, for cross-references and hatnotes):

{{term|foo|noid=yes}}
{{defn|1={{crossref|selfref=no|See {{gli|phu}}.}}}}
...
{{term|phu|content={{anchor|foo}}phu}}
{{defn|1={{ghat|Also ''foo''.}} Definition here.}}

Where noid is a presently non-existent parameter for anchor ID suppression? I.e., such that the anchor for foo goes to the phu entry?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  18:34, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Test block of existing code options:

Pure templates	Templates and HTML	Templates and wikimarkup
foo See phu. phu Also foo. Definition here.	foo2 See phu2. phu2 Also foo2. Definition here.	foo3 See phu3. phu3 Also foo3. Definition here.
FAIL: duplicate IDs.	WORKS: IDs both only in phu entry.	FAIL: indented term (the ; causes generation of <dl> even though one's already there).

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  18:35, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So, looks like the middle option works, using <dt>...</dt> instead of {{Term}}, for the foo entry. I could also hack the {{Term}} template to have an option for suppressing the ID. However, I don't really see the point of this. Why not just link directly to the phu entry? I don't know what {{Glossary link}} custom template you are or will be using (i.e., your equivalent of {{Cuegloss}}). Supposing it were {{Quuxgloss}}, you could just do: {{quuxgloss|phu|foo}}.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  18:52, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Not doing it the {{quuxgloss|phu|foo}} way will also produce incorrect hover text; when you mouse over it, the tooltip will say "See entry at Glossary of quux terms § foo" but will actually take you to the phu entry which may be confusing to readers even with {{ghat|Also ''foo''.}} as a hatnote in the phu entry.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:06, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, you went above and beyond the call with all the templated examples! (I'm saving a copy on my talk page for future reference.) I see what you mean, that it's really not a problem with piped incoming links. I think I just wanted to keep the page as functionally equivalent to the non-templated version as possible so as not to upset anyone with the changes. Much thanks! – Reidgreg (talk) 14:25, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No prob. I know this particular code better than anyone, so it's pretty "brain dump" on my part.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  14:42, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You and I (you more than I) have put a lot of effort in to several discussions at T:MOS which have stalled. I'd hate to see that all go to waste. I suggest we try to resolve them one at a time. May I suggest we start with refs inside vs. outside parens? That one seems easiest least hard. EEng 20:14, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A bunch of stuff has gotten archived, too, but had traction. I'll be happy to start with which ever you like.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:58, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

	The Barnstar of Diplomacy
	I appreciate your contributions regarding my topic ban as well as your thoughts on Arbitration Enforcement. --MONGO 13:23, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I do what I can to push for some WP:AE and WP:AC/DS reform, but it's very, very slow-going.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  13:40, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:2017–18 Iranian protests. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Stanton- Saw your contributions to Wikipedia:Wikimedia_sister_projects and thought you might be able to help me with what I thought would be a simple thing: At the top of Nave, I went to change the target of the Distinguish template from a wikilink on Rogue (vagrant) to a Wiktionary link on knave, with nothing but knave displayed. (The wiki article Knave is a disambig page). Nothing I do will work. {{Distinguish|[[wikt:knave]]}}}}, {{Distinguish|[[:wikt:knave]]}}, {{Distinguish|{{Wiktionary|knave}}}} all generate various messes. Can you tell me what I'm missing, besides perhaps a functioning intellect? Thanks in advance. Eric ^talk 14:12, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Eric: The proper hatnote is {{distinguish|knave}} →

Not to be confused with knave.

We should use that because we do have a disambiguation page; this is why the default output of so many hatnotes is to link to disambiguation pages with the same base pagename. In another context: I don't think what you want to do can be done with that template; its code is too "tied down". If we had no DAB page, and the term on WP redirected to an article with a radically different title, you could do something like {{distinguish2|knave; see [[Rogue (vagrant)]]}} →

Not to be confused with knave; see Rogue (vagrant).

If we had no appropriate WP article at all, the thing to do would probably be {{Distinguish2|knave}} →

Not to be confused with knave.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:27, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks very much for the prompt reply! So it's Distinguish2 that would achieve what I wanted, but policy would not have us do that. Thanks for your edit there as well. Eric ^talk 17:43, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Eric: {{distinguish|wikt:knave}} ->

Not to be confused with wikt:knave.

will provide you a link also (and might be preferable), though I generally support SMC's "link to our article/disambiguation first". --Izno (talk) 16:41, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't do {{distinguish|wikt:knave}}, because "wikt:knave" doesn't mean anything to our readers, only to editors.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:56, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't particularly disagree (hence the "might be preferable"). There's also {{See Wiktionary}} which I just remembered. --Izno (talk) 18:16, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, sorry to pester you again. I've just spotted that the user that closed the discussion at Talk:Vikings (TV series)#Requested move 19 December 2017 actually !voted in the discussion. That isn't right, is it? Not sure where to take this, although not sure there's a lot of point, as sadly I don't think the consensus is in favour of the move (even though the current title goes against WP:INCDAB). --woodensuperman 15:16, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Woodensuperman:. It's generally a bad idea, unless the consensus is very clear (i.e. a WP:SNOWBALL in one direction, or a hopeless "no consensus"). If someone does an obviously bad close of a discussion they're involved in, one can take it to WP:ANI, though I've also seen WP:AN used, and a request for re-closure at WP:AN/RFC, though the latter isn't likely to be acted upon. One can also just revert a bad closure, post a request for proper closure at AN/RFC, and re-revert it with a note that a non-involved closure has been requested at AN/RFC if someone un-reverts. The "nuclear" option to open a new RfC at WP:VPPOL, on the basis that the original discussion was improperly closed by an involved party and the question needs broader input. In this case, I wouldn't do any of these things, because the close actually seems reasonable. We do permit exception to guidelines when there's a consensus to do so. And it was a SNOWBALL. And a new RM is already open anyway.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  17:36, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I notice you do a lot of work in this area and you have always been kind enough to offer thoughtful analysis at the snooker project so I was wondering what your views were on the interpretation of WP:EGG in the context of aliases at Template_talk:Infobox_film#Query between myself and Erik. I was pretty sure I was right, but after reading the guideline again I am doubting my own interpretation. The guideline itself invokes the "principle of least astonishment" (which implies we should avoid linking through aliases), but if somebody has an obscure alias or a film has an obscure alternative title where should it link to, if anywhere? I am not particularly bothered about the "crediting" issue which triggered the discussion, but rather the deployment of aliases as redirects. Betty Logan (talk) 17:24, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I commented over there. When it comes to works with alternative titles, it might be an EGG issue, but probably only if the alt. title has no reason to be used in the context. There could be one. E.g. one might write "George Lucas first showed his draft The Star Wars treatment to United Artists in 1973."  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  18:17, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:James D. Zirin. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please could you have a look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Guideline change proposal. The discussion seems to me to be so muddled that I can't tell what is being proposed. Your understanding of these issues will be helpful. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:15, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think I got the gist of it and ended up having to oppose, as conflicting with at least two of the WP:CRITERIA. (If I'm somehow wrong, then it really is too muddled and should be re-proposed with a clearer rationale that pre-figures concision and precision objections – it's one of those WP:Policy writing is hard matters).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:27, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding these changes, please also note the existence of the nearly identical m:Help:User style. - dcljr (talk) 03:00, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Well, not everything that we might put in our version will apply to all wikis or to Meta in particular, and Meta isn't subject to our style guide (technically, non-articles here aren't either, but we tend to apply it to project pages for consistency and to be exemplary – we can't expect new editors to follow rules we won't follow ourselves). That said, I may look them over and see about making the pages more consistent with each other. I don't edit at Meta very much, and am not sure how touchy people are about old pages like that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  03:06, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't about MOS-type stuff, guidelines, or "rules" (i.e., editing style); it's about UI things (CSS) that individual user's can customize for themselves (alone). Code placed in a user's "global.css" (at Meta) will affect their experience at all Wikimedia wikis (to the extent possible). - dcljr (talk) 07:48, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

True enough.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  23:38, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that you posted messages at User talk:Pzoxicuvybtnrm and User talk:Nimbus227 asking these users to update their signatures to avoid obsolete HTML tags. Great! Please be aware, however, that User:Nihlus prepared 3 lists of users with signature issues (with <tt> tags, images, and <font> tags) and I am systematically working through User:Nihlus/linter_sigs, tracking compliance and reminding users who continue to edit and ignore my messages. I am more than 80% done and hope to finish soon. Thank you for your support for ending the propagation of lint in Wikipedia! —Anomalocaris (talk) 03:10, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Anomalocaris: Is this to say that I don't need to continue with this? I was working up a template for this in a sandbox, but will leave off if you and Nihlus already have this covered.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  03:39, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm doing them in order of most-to-fewest pages edited, and as I go down the list, I update a spreadsheet on my computer, go to the user's talk page, copy my template, go to an editing page of Nihlus's list, copy their old signature, paste it into my message, create an HTML5-compliant signature, make sure it matches, test it in Preferences if there's any suspicion it might be over 255 characters or be defective in some way, and save the page. I don't bother to check if the user spontaneously fixed their signature or if anyone else has already suggested that they do so. This is correct 99+% of the time. But if we collaborate, then it takes longer because I have to verify that nobody else has already notified the user. Even if we divide the list in some way, I still want to track compliance, and that's easiest if I'm the only one doing the notifying. So, thanks for your support, but if you want to support the effort, what would be the most helpful would be if I provide you the IDs of non-cooperative users. Perhaps if they hear from another Wikipedian such as you, sharing in your own words the message of de-linting signatures, they'll listen. Interested? —Anomalocaris (talk) 04:20, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Might be more effective, then, for me to later hit up those who did not make the change, after X number of months. Would just need a list or to be pointed at one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:40, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I completed Nihlus' first set, except for about 16 that increase the size of their signature, and I'm waiting for consensus at WT:Signatures#Signature size guidelines before I communicate with those; meanwhile Nihlus generated another set around 2018-01-18 and I'm about half done with those. Of the first set, over 60% have complied; most of the rest haven't edited anything that left a new user signature since I requested, and of the two sets combined, there are 6 refusals so far. In case you are interested in communicating with users who refused to cooperate, I've prepared a list. I've intentionally linked to Talk not User pages. I encourage you not to follow up with any you don't feel comfortable with, and if you're not comfortable with any of them — or if you just don't want to do this at all, or right now — I sympathize.

User	Edits	Request	Refuse	Narrative
Ched	22628	2017-12-07	2018-01-28	User didn't reply; 2017-12-30 user del/archived; 2018-01-28 I re-rq and user replaced my request with "I saw your note the first time - now go away and leave me alone. If my sig. is such a problem - then go get an admin. to block this account - because I'm not changing my signature just to satisfy you."
Cs-wolves	182211	2017-11-28	2017-11-28	User undid rq with summary "wipe"; 2018-01-24 re-rq and user undid with summary "Low priority error per linked page, so will await it becoming mandatory (although it appears to have grown from 8m to 15m from last time)..."; 2017-11-28 re-rq with more explanation and user undid rq with summary "Regardless, it's still low priority and until it becomes otherwise, it will be treated as low priority. Archiving, and not 'deleting' (so the code will be there for me to go back to, to not require any further contact)."
Lugnuts	703631	2017-11-26	2017-11-27	2017-11-27 user said "Seeing as there are more than 8 million of these on WP, I wont bother changing mine." 2018-01-01 archived; 2018-01-28 re-rq and user undid.
Maxim	33925	2017-12-6	2018-01-28	2018-01-13 archived; 2018-01-28 re-rq and user undid with summary "I'm not interested, please leave me alone on this matter"
MjolnirPants	6177	2017-11-26	2017-11-27	User's talk page has a "warning"; 2017-11-27 user undid with summary "I guess the giant red edit notice with a big, bold 'Fuck right off' wasn't clear enough"
Xiong	3484	2018-01-15	2018-01-24	2018-01-21 user replied "No problem exists ... Do not fool with my signature, ever...." 2018-01-22 I replied explaining that the problem is real and that WP:Linter says 'It is OK to edit other people's User and User talk pages ..."; 2018-01-24 user replied (unsigned/undated) "I disagree. And if you purport to have a care for form, stay in your lane."

Please ping and reply before taking any action. —Anomalocaris (talk) 08:36, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Anomalocaris: Hmph. Takes all kinds. After the rest of the sigs are cleaned up, a WP:VPTECH RfC can probably resolve the matter. So could, possibly, a Phabricator ticket to just ignore ("swallow" and not send to user agents) invalid markup that's already been cleaned up except for the hostile or careless, the way we do with <img>...</img> and various other markup that MW doesn't support in wikicode. The worst that would happen is their cutesy sigs will be less cutesy until they use valid markup.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:06, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Technical_requests&diff=821149614&oldid=821148429 - looks like the same titles. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:26, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SarekOfVulcan: Yeah, it was just a typo; someone intuited what was intended given the rest of the RMs in the series.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  18:50, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, I saw. I just couldn't figure it out quickly enough myself for some reason. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:59, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the earlier ones got acted on so quickly, the context was lost. I expected it to take longer myself and for all of them to still be there when the last one was saved; ended up edit-conflicting.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:06, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is a decree by the Supreme Cabal Regime of the English Wikipedia (SCREW). It expresses opinions and ideas that are absolutely and irrefutably true whether you like them or not. Changes to it must reflect the wishes of the Supreme Cabal. When in doubt, please ignore the talk page and just keep reverting.

I have given up on my years of resistance against emoji, and am hereby replacing my Unicode-art cat face in my sig; using the graphical one is a space saver.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:19, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Per your change, here's a fish for your cat to eat: . North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:41, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nom nom nom.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:36, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Stanton! I've read that you struggle to find barnstars. My suggestion is to check here in Commons, where there's lots of specific subcategories. Have fun! --NaBUru38 (talk) 20:49, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, though the point is that we should be able to find them on WP itself, without some self-appointed pack of gatekeepers making this difficult. They've refused to acknowledge the issues they're causing and said I should just RfC it, so that's what'll happen when I get around to it. One of those "be careful what you wish for" things. [sigh]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:52, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Israel. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It will never happen. @Timrollpickering: KMF (talk) 05:47, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be experiencing a time warp. Already did happen, and your MR has no merit. "I don't like it" isn't a rationale; the close itself has to be faulty.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:15, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Confused about a seeming advice notice you posted at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Languages#Bot for WP:WPENGLISH talking about a bot request you made somewhere. You seem to be pointing to a very long section name at WT:Bot requests that I suspected was actually two links (the with not being part of either one) and I was just going to add some brackets to fix it up for you, but then looking at WT:Bot requests, I couldn't find anything by you; in fact, the most recent change to that page is from November, so I just left everything as is. You might want to untangle it all. Best, Mathglot (talk) 11:10, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what you mean. I just clicked the link to WT:WPLANG, and clicked the link in it there to WP:BOTREQ and it goes directly to the quite short "#Tag talk pages of articles about English with Template:WikiProject English language" section as intended. It's at WP:BOTREQ, not WT:BOTREQ (the talk page about how to operate the BOTREQ page). There's no tangle.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:49, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent editing history at Wikipedia:Manual of Style shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. Cassianto^Talk 21:14, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not be silly. I didn't perform any reverts at all; I tried numerous ways to integrate the very point at the core of your objection: that the case in which the serial comma introduces ambiguity is simply poor writing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:57, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No, lets not, but then that's a bit of a hypocritical, isn't it, seeing as you did exactly the same on SchroCat's talk page. The fact you didn't use the revert feature is irrelevant; you indirectly reverted to another version that wasn't SchroCat's, which amounts to the same thing. And I'm not surprised he reverted you when you use questionable prose like this. Cassianto^Talk 23:08, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I meant SchroCat; you two tagteam so much you're indistinguishable. Regardless, the silly tit-for-tat template you've left for me is not applicable; I performed zero reverts, only edits attempting to merge SchroCat's concerns and mine.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:46, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it wouldn't be "applicable" , would it, because you received it. You're hardly going to think it's justified, and if you did, you certainly wouldn't tell me, would you? Let's not forget, it takes two to edit war, and from an outsider looking in, you were the most definitely the second, although you went round the houses to do it. This'll be my last post. Good evening. Cassianto^Talk 23:57, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you familiarize yourself with WP:REVERT, especially WP:3RR, and WP:ANEW. You're simply wrong on this. If party A makes an edit, party B reverts it, party A tries a different edit to merge A and B's concerns, B reverts, A tries another approach to getting what both A and B want, and B reverts, only B is editwarring, and only B has hit 3RR, A having 0 reverts. A is attempting to reach compromise, B simply to stonewall.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:00, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! An old dispute that you were involved in has been brought up again. Your opinion is greatly valued. Thank you! KevinNinja (talk) 00:22, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Re just-started Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#RfC_Should_the_usage_of_the_terms_"Arab"_and_"Arabic"_be_guided_by_the_Manual_of_Style? - the discussion might well benefit from any background info you may be aware of regarding the cultural sensitivity argument for Arab/Arabic MoS guidance. Batternut (talk) 10:21, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's more of a mainstream English matter. Even mentioning "cutural sensitivity" just resulted in drama, and WT:MOS is really not the place for it anyway; maybe List of English words with disputed usage is the place to source something like that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:34, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, SMcCandlish. I'm an arbitration clerk, which means I help manage and administer the arbitration process (on behalf of the committee). Thank you for making a statement in an arbitration request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case. However, we ask all participants and commentators to limit the size of their initial statements to 500 words. Your statement significantly exceeds this limit. Please reduce the length of your statement when you are next online. If the case is accepted, you will have the opportunity to present more evidence; and concise, factual statements are much more likely to be understood and to influence the decisions of the arbitrators.

Requests for extensions of the word limit may be made either in your statement or by email to the Committee through this link or arbcom-llists.wikimedia.org if email is not available through your account.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 14:30, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly Cassianto needs to be topic-banned from infoboxes, and ArbCom should consider whether further sanctions are needed. But a SchroCat is a metaphysical problem, because they might or might not be in the (info)box depending on the phase of the moon. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:43, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Robert McClenon: As I said at the request page, this isn't about infoboxes, but about behavior. I don't care if C and S share exactly the same viewpoint on infoboxes (they both actually claim to not be staunch opponents, just opposed to particular cases, yet always seem to be opposing, so I really don't know what to make of what they say, and I really don't care much about infoboxes anyway, being rather neutral on them but cognizant of the broad support they seem to have). What I care about is the CIVIL/AGF/NPA-violating pattern, which they both share. It's a difference of minor degree only. My position would be exactly the same if they were instead usually blowing up on people about astronomy or Pokémon Go; the infobox connection is irrelevant, and it's lame that so many people are focusing on that topic (looks like trying to WP:WIN a pro-infobox position to me).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:03, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I see cats, but maybe you missed my sarcasm about Schrodinger's Cat. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:18, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I did get the reference, but didn't realize it was sarcasm. This poor medium, no voice tone ....  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:30, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not continue your lies here. The diffs you have posted at ArbCom do not show what you claim, and nearly every line you have written about me is either a lie or a half truth. I suggest that should you not wish me to comment on your talk page, you do not discuss me on your talk page, particularly when veering so far from the truth. - SchroCat (talk) 10:39, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you mean me, not Robert McClendon. I'll leave it to ArbCom to interpret the diffs I've provided, and there are so very many more. I haven't said anything here that can be characterized as a "lie".

If you don't wish to comment on my talk page then don't comment on it. I understand the defensive urge to profess one's innocence (don't we all?), but you surely realize venting at me isn't going to change my mind or anyone else's. Apoplexy wins no hearts and minds, and just makes you look all the more intemperate. PS: those who nuke everything they don't like off their own talk pages aren't in a position to dictate what others talk about on theirs, certainly not just to escape critical scrutiny.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:43, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No, I mean your lies, details of which I have sent on to the committee. - SchroCat (talk) 12:43, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever, man. Repeat: "I'll leave it to ArbCom to interpret the diffs I've provided, and there are so very many more." The case looks likely to be accepted, so we'll air it out openly. No hurry. PS: Your continued accusations, on wiki, of lying but without any diffs to prove that accusation constitute sanctionable WP:ASPERSIONS, so I'll also repeat: "just makes you look all the more intemperate". See also the first law of holes.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:12, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not without diffs. ArbCom have full details of your claims, and the nonsense that lies behind them, along with a request for a formal two way IBAN. As to the rest of your comments, there is no "Apoplexy", and as for deleting things from my talk page, its a common activity, apparently. More examples of your ongoing gaslighting? Hopefully an IBAN will bring an end to these and others. - SchroCat (talk) 13:22, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Repeat: "The case looks likely to be accepted, so we'll air it out openly." ArbCom generally ignores attempts to provide diffs in e-mail that should be done openly and in-process, as evasive and an attempt to manipulate while avoiding scrutiny. And they won't impose any IBAN or anything else without airing that openly, either. If you want an IBAN, by what reasoning are you still posting to my talk page? It's another example of your "say one thing, do another" shtick.

Moving on: Pretty much everyone deletes a talk post that's unconstructive now and again; you do it so frequently with anything you see as critical, it causes communication problems.

Finally, "gaslighting" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means, in any of the three commonly accepted usages (the Trump sense of trying to convince the world that one didn't say what one definitely did say, the vague sense of playing individual perception mind-games with people to trip them up, or the original but disused sense of psychological torture by convincing someone they're losing their mind). The word doesn't pertain to anything here. In fairness, I'll warn you that I learned the hard way that ArbCom (the last one, which shares key members with the current one) reacts quite negatively to that exact word, because the original sense is not quite extinct; I'd used it in the first and second senses, and got a stern admonition about it. That said, if one were to employ either of those two senses to this discussion, it's not me they'd apply to, and the intimidation tactics you try (e.g. this "I tattled to ArbCom with BIG SEKRITS and you're in so much trouble" game you're bringing to me now, as if we're in elementary school) share many elements with the original meaning of the word, though these antics don't work on me.

Now, please go away; you can't make your displeasure with me any more clear by continuing, and you're distracting me from real work, fixing up a quartet of interrelated articles in bad need of repair.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:42, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:SchroCat - Remember that what you post here may and probably will be diffed to ArbCom, and it will be a case partly about civility even if the arbitrators would rather it weren't. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:18, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

More to the point, the majority are voting to accept the case on the basis that it will be primarily a civility examination, not "ARBINFOBOX2".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:17, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:The Harvard Crimson. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Geoff | ^{Who, me?} 15:39, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for explanation on dictionary definitions re: Who (pronoun).  Self-trout —AnAwesomeArticleEditor (talk
contribs) 14:34, 28 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@AnAwesomeArticleEditor: Just a minnow! >;-) No prob, and you'd hardly be the first to not get the distinction right off the bat. For a couple of years, we had people trying to delete and move to Wiktionary all the encyclopedic glossary articles, too, like Glossary of cue sports terms. While most or all of them do have some entries that are dicdef-ish, just for completeness, many entries are quite encyclopedic, providing all sorts of background info, and they serve an internal reader-helping purpose, in reducing the need to re-re-re-explain the same things endlessly every time a jargon term is used in another article. Imagine what, say, Nine-ball or Snooker would look like if that glossary did not exist (see the frequency with which {{Cuegloss}} is used).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:59, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Racial views of Donald Trump. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Call of the Wild

Precious six years

... for improving article quality in January 2018! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:06, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I do my best!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:54, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:36, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:March 14, 1891, lynchings. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 2 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Canada in particular is undergoing major usage shifts, as can be seen by comparing fairly current Canadian dictionaries and style guides with those from the 1990s and earlier (on the plus side, it's shifting away from chaos and slowly towards standardization) ... we know the shifts are moving from the coastal cities inland)"—can you throw some sources my way? These are surprising things to read—I'm not aware of such "major shifts" that have occurred since I was in high school in the 1990s, and the idea that "shifts are moving from the coastal cities inland" seems counterintuitive—traditionally (and from personal experience) the east coast tends to be linguistically conservative. I'd be surprised if there were trends converging from both coasts, and I'm not aware of any evidence of that. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:01, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Curly Turkey: Stuff I was reading like 5 years ago. The most linguistically conservative are the rural (pretty much anywhere). Major cities like Toronto and Vancouver are melting pots of international influence, and change happens faster there. Media production is also concentrated in them (TO ever more so as it turns into "Hollywood of the Northeast"), and effects thus radiate out from them to rural areas. Similarly, Iowa and Ayrshire have near-zero impact, while New York and California, like London and Manchester, have major impact on US and British English, respectively. Colloquialisms also arise faster in and spread farther out of urban centers than into them from the countryside.

The current Canadian dictionaries and style guides go into some of the corpus material, and at least one of them discusses changes that are underway; I think Editing Canadian English has the most of that material. The works that're more specific are journal papers; some might be cited at Canadian English; I don't presently have JSTOR, etc., but it's worth seeing what's come out from 2005 onward. After construction at my place, lots of my books are in boxes; the two to look at first would be latest editions of Editing Canadian English (2000) and The Canadian Style (1997), and compare what they say to old editions. I'm pulling the dates from Amazon listings. Oxford also puts out two Canadian English dictionaries (both 2005, with different editors; I think I have only one of them), and a Canadian A to Z of Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation (2003, which I do have, but it's a pocket book), and a Guide to Canadian English Usage (2005; I don't think I have that one yet). One of the university-oriented style manuals produced in the US by Diana Hacker, et al., also has an adapted Canadian edition, which I have around somewhere, though I'd consider that a tertiary source (someone Canadian just edited it to reflect a few Can. vs. US distinctions). That's A Canadian Writer's Referece; I have 2011, but there's a 2016 version now (too expensive for what it is, if you ask me, though it's on discount sale at Amazon right now). The first two I mentioned, and the Oxford GCEU, are the big ones, and they conflict on many points. Oh! Editing Canadian English is now out in the new 3rd ed. [16] (2015; it was still in production last I'd looked). Should provide an additional reference point on what's shifting, by comparing three successive editions. There's also the Canadian Press Stylebook (2013 seems to be latest edition, and I think mine's from 2008 or so), which will reflect news-style biases from AP Stylebook, etc. – lots of punctuation-dropping, space-dropping, and other compression techniques.

Anyway, the gist is that on any choices between "American" and "British" style, Canadian usage is mixed, the mixture varies regionally, and it's shifting over time in various ways (maybe more since the '80s than the '90s). I didn't live there long enough to entirely absorb the style, or determine sub-styles, and that was over a decade ago anyway. I have not tried to work much on the Canadian English article, or I would have a much better sense of exactly which sources say what.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:00, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Probably addl. sources in Canadian Shift, which seems to still be happening (as of stuff published 2015–2017). Something new-ish: Canadian English: A Sociolinguistic Perspective (James A. Walker, 2015; Routledge); that didn't exist last I looked into this stuff, but would probably cite the same papers I'd encountered back around 2012 or so and didn't retain. One I was aware of but don't have is The English Language in Canada (Charles Boberg, 2010; Cambridge). And of course The Atlas of North American English (Labov, Ash & Boberg, 2006; De Gruyter) will have material of interest, but it's dense linguistic stuff, not akin to a style guide. Costs about US$700–1000, so it's something to find at a research library or through inter-library loan.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:12, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have to look into what I can from that, but an awful lot of it has to do with phonetics and informal-register stuff, doesn't it? How much of a "major shift" does this stuff point to in formal writing? The Canadian newssites I frequent use all the same orthographical conventions I grew up with.
"Major cities like Toronto and Vancouver are melting pots of international influence, and change happens faster there" seems to contradict "shifts are moving from the coastal cities inland"—Toronto's not exactly a coastal city, and one wouldn't expect Halifax to be a hotbed of influential orthographical change. And it's overwhelmingly orthography we're talking about ("punctuation-dropping, space-dropping, and other compression techniques" doesn't really apply, since ENGVAR generally doesn't apply to that stuff anyways). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:54, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The English Language in Canada doesn't appear to go into orthography. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:07, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm counting TO as a coastal city, because it's a major Great Lakes port, is Canada's NYC, and is separated from the Atlantic by New York. Goods flow from the east coast of Canada and the US through TO in staggering quantities. More to the underlying point (about population and its dynamics, not really geography) it serves the societal function of a major coastal city, and is where the largest number of immigrants to Canada go, and is a production center, especially for major national media. Anyway, I was using "coastal cities" as a shorthand; obviously it doesn't mean "every place larger than a town that's near the sea". :-) Halifax isn't coastal anyway, but insular. I'm not sure what argument you're trying to have other than about "majorness", and it's not not a hair I care to split. The few Canadian style guides and similar works I've gone over in any detail indicate a lack of conformity, with wide regional variation, but also that the inconsistency is decreasing over time (especially in major media, the point you seem to be making yourself). I agree that we don't want to see people try to use ENGVAR (as often actually happens, especially from British editors who read a lot of news but few books) to do reader un-helpful things like compress out spaces and punctuation in imitation of news style (e.g. "9pm", "JK Rowling").  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:34, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Uh ... you might want to check your geography—Nova Scotia's no island, and Toronto's 900 km from the sea. Most Canadians would consider it Central Canada, and there are more Canadians east of it than west, which makes calling it "coastal" all the more eye-popping to a Canadian—when you talk about "from the coasts in", it sounds like Toronto is the last to be affected (!!!). I'll have to look at some more of those sources you've pointed out, but I suspect the "major shift" in formal orthography amounts to little more than decreasing prevalence of -ise and increasing tolerance of practice as a verb. The point being that "Canada ... is undergoing major usage shifts" is quite an exaggeration, and I think readers of your comments are going to take it at face value when, really, formal Canadian orthography is probably nearly as stable as BrEng or AmEng (certainly from a MoS perspective). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:19, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Geography: My bad; I'd mistaken Halifax for being on PEI, rather than on the peninsula. Just forget "coastal"; it was the wrong word to use. The point is the major urban centers with a strong and continual influx of new people from other parts of the world, also operating as hubs of media production. Halifax is insular in effect; it has a population smaller than that of Albuquerque, is not a media or immigration centre, and not terribly important in the national cultural scheme of things, unlike Toronto, which together with Vancouver is one of Anglo-Canada's modern cultural poles.

How much stability there is or isn't in Canadian orthography will be clear from a comparison of current and generation-old or older Canadian style guides and dictionaries. Whether to characterize the shift as "major" or not seems like not worth arguing about; the important thing is whether the orthography is actual stabilizing or becoming more diverse again. What I was seeing half a decade ago was a nascent trend toward standardization; since at least two of the key works have more recent editions, they're liable to indicate whether the trend continued or foundered. Another set of sources is academic material. I don't have a lot of it on hand, but references to it are easy to find via Google in minutes. From the 1960s to ca. 2000, it's been frequently questioned whether Canadian English (especially in written form) really exists as a consistent, identifiable thing unto itself, generally because of a refusal to standardize, i.e. because of an embracement of conflicting, diverse usage, which varies greatly on a regional basis, over time, and especially in areas of differing cultural history, and this uncertainty is tied closely to a comparative lack of a strong national identity among Canadians (Bednarek 2009, citing lots of previous work [17]). Lilles (2000) [18] and Sutherland (2000) [19] seem to be the most-cited in this regard; the first of these has been subjected to a some criticism [20], but it still referenced a lot.

The key question is whether standardization has reduced or increased in the last generation. And it's really more a question (and research) for the Canadian English article, which appears to ignore this controversy entirely; our article is engaging in begging the question, and what looks like some original research. It really doesn't have much to do with MoS, at which we do appear to have a consensus to treat Canadian English (to the extent it can be identified) as a major national variety for ENGVAR purposes, though perhaps at the cost of setting up potential arguments down the road about exactly what that means in orthographic terms. The lack of active disputes seems to suggest either that that orthography's become rather stable during or maybe even before WP's existence (WP started Jan. 2001), or that Canadians in the aggregate are loath to argue with much insistence about such matters (which is actually a reliably sourceable possibility), or both.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:10, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've had the Canadian English article watchlisted for years, and it seems to be an OR magnet, but it's hard for me to clean up when all the good sources are offline in a different hemisphere. The thing is, I totally understand the "urbans centres blah blah blah" thing—but that's not what you wrote at TALK:MOS, even if it's what you intended—as I said, to anyone who is familiar which Canadian geopolitics (say, any Canadian), you've written basically the opposite of what you intended to convey.

I'll be looking into those links and other sources, but more out of personal curiosity (at least where I can access the sources). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:41, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've struck "coastal" and put "major" in its place.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:00, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Australian White, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Australian White rabbit (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:55, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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 Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility in infobox discussions. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility in infobox discussions/Evidence. Please add your evidence by February 17, 2018, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility in infobox discussions/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:49, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to view the closure at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Proposal: Adopt WP:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines into MoS, an RFC launched by you. ~ Winged Blades^Godric 05:08, 4 February 2018 (UTC)Template:Z48[reply]

Hi SMcCandish. Just a note to let you know I've closed an RFC you initiated, at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#RfC:_Capitalisation_of_traditional_game/sports_terminology. Apologies for the delay, I'm working through the closure backlog as best I can. Kind regards, Fish+Karate 13:12, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Notre Dame Cristo Rey High School. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I saw your comment here. The dispute on this article goes back a few years, and if I can summarise from memory, there is a group of editors who believe that as Ayurveda is sometimes portrayed as being efficacious medicine in the modern age, it should be fully subject to MEDRS. Therefore the article's lead should begin by debunking it. Then there is another group which says that as this is a belief system which predates modern medicine, the lead should be a summary of its history. I can see that there may be merits on both sides, or at least that neither view is automatically disruptive or against our principles. Historically, there were savage back-and-forths in editing and much name-calling on the talk page. I was asked to take a look and (again from memory) initially applied 0RR and a strict civility rule. A couple of editors were blocked, I think there was a central discussion, my actions were upheld, the restriction was changed to a prohibition on edit-warring, and the article settled down for about three years. Fast forward to the present. As far as I can see, the restrictions have worked, and it's hard to argue given the history that a return to open warfare is in anybody's interest. Articles are not improved by name-calling or edit-warring. They are improved by civilised discussion, a strong consensus from a wide range of editors, and a willingness to compromise in the face of nuance. I don't see any tearing hurry to resolve this as the article is protected for a while; I will read up on the story again in the next few days and see if I remember it all correctly, and what, if anything, needs to be changed. I believe I am in quite a good position to judge this, as I am neither involved nor WP:INVOLVED in the situation, and I think the years of peace on the article bear out my admin judgement. On the other hand the article isn't terribly good. Perhaps one of the problems has been the historical focus on what the lead should say, a sign that there are camps of editors who want the article to take very different slants. Perhaps rather than arguing about the first paragraph, there needs to be a discussion about what exactly the article should be about, and how much weight it gives to the subject's history, and how much to its manifestation in the present day. It's a difficult situation and I'd be grateful for your thoughts on it, either here or at article talk. --John (talk) 22:20, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@John:Yes, I skimmed the archives. The recent stuff appears to be civilized discussion (unless something's been redacted – and especially compared to other MEDRS disputes like the ones about e-cigs, and many of the other FRINGE disputes). The back-and-forth is quite minor, mostly about the lead, as you say. The MEDRS-focused editors appear to feel administratively threatened, and that should probably be assuaged. We really do have a responsibility to get this right from a MEDRS perspective, and that arguably outweighs cultural/historical sensitivity matters. I would think the solution is probably WP:SUMMARY and WP:SPINOFF, with Ayurveda as an overview article, and separate articles on ayurveda as medicine and ayurveda as tradition (for starters). Depending on whether controversy there has died down, the Traditional Chinese medicine article could also be used as a model; it's spun off a large number of detailed articles. I personally think it leans in overall presentation too much toward credibility and too far from MEDRS, but it is pretty comprehensive otherwise, both at the main article level and the total coverage level.

The key encyclopedic challenge with things like this is that none of the central tenets have a scientific basis. No one can find chi or kunalini "energy" in laboratory-controlled conditions. Ergo, it appears to be in the same category as semi-recent Western belief in phlogiston, the four elements, cold as a force unto itself (rather than lack of heat), the idea that disease can be cured with mercury and leeches and is caused by bad air or the Devil, acceptance of Fruedian psychoanalysis and Jungian archetypes, and so on. Some of these beliefs (especially in Satan, Freud, and Jung) are still prevalent in certain circles, but we do not treat them as a form of scientifically backed medical diagnosis on Wikipedia.

I've seen people raise this before, so I'll pre-emptively address it here: I think that MEDRS being "only a guideline" is similar to CIVILPOV being "only an essay"; it's the wrong approach to thinking about it at all. Guidelines are best practices we really should be following unless there are very strong reasons to not do so in a particular case. The principal difference between policies and guidelines isn't even level of consensus, but the nature of the rules: policies are the bare minimum for the project to be functional at all, while guidelines are what enable to it run smoothly instead of in fits and starts, and essays (of the site-wide buy-in variety) are what fine-tune it to high performance. They're all consensus. The consensus conflict here is, overall, between V/RS and NOR plus FRINGE and MEDRS on one side, NPOV as the fulcrum, and SYSTEMICBIAS on the other. The consensus weight seems to lean heavily against playing up ayurveda as medicine.

The fact that ayurveda is old has nothing at all to do with how we present its efficaciousness; exorcism of disease demons and application of leeches and such are also ancient. The lead should include a brief summary of ayurveda's history, but also include the skeptical scientific consensus (which includes doctors from India – plenty of scientists come from there and not everyone's a devout Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain, any more than everyone in the West is all about Jesus and the Bible). The medical responsibility angle would suggest front-loading that material, even if the bulk of the lead is the historical background. That's the long version; I could distill the key points to a couple of sentences for the article talk page if it would be helpful, but I tend not to wander onto such pages if I can help it; they seem to be drama magnets.

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Bitcoin Cash. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In case you haven't read it, this might interest you: Oxford Comma Dispute Is Settled as Maine Drivers Get $5 Million. Thinker78 (talk) 05:26, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In all seriousness, this example should go in the appropriate MOS section (to illustrate not only serial comma issues, but semicolons). EEng 05:32, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ha ha. Not the first time something like this has happened, though perhaps the most expensive.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:35, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have been editing the article Pieve Vergonte and someone placed said template in the article. I'm a member of the guild, but I don't know what to make of the template. For me, it is saying that all guild members may be working on the article, but it may mean also that a single editor is editing the article and that I shouldn't edit. Also, the template may have been placed because I am working on the article. How should I interpret the template? In the guild, it says "Consider adding {{GOCEinuse}} to articles you are in the process of copy editing", but the template itself says, "This article or section is currently undergoing a major edit by the Guild of Copy Editors. As a courtesy, please do not edit this page while this message is displayed", which seems to be saying that editors who are not guild members should not edit, but guild members are working on it and are welcome to edit. It is kind of confusing the seemingly contradictory information. Maybe the template should say that a member is working on the article, that way other members and editors would understand they shouldn't edit while it is up? Thinker78 (talk) 04:23, 13 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Thinker78: I think it's the same as the other in-use templates; it indicates someone from GoCE is currently working on it, and they hope it will be left alone in the interim to avoid edit conflicts. I agree the wording is confusing. The template is also redundant and should just merge to {{In use}}. You could probably just boldly redirect it, and failing that, take it to WP:TFD.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:02, 13 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have edited the documentation for {{GOCEinuse}} to explain its use more fully. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:07, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We should still probably have some rewritten wording in the template, or a merger, but that's an improvement. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:07, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of oldest living people. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

[21] EEng 22:50, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just couldn't get enough of you ... Curly "blush blush" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:57, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's a conspiracy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:27, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Appeasement. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi SMcCandlish The Arbitration Committee has asked that evidence presentations be kept to around 500 words and 50 diffs. Your presentation is over 1400 words. Please edit your section to focus on the most relevant evidence. If you wish to submit over-length evidence, you must first obtain the agreement of the arbitrators by posting a request on the /Evidence talk page. For the Arbitration Committee, Amortias (T)(C) 00:45, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Amortias: Should be 1000; I'm clearly a party even if I've been accidentally left off the party list. I'll see about cutting it down to 1000; I didn't have time before 00:01 Feb. 18 UTC to shorten the material. I'm also almost out of time today for WP stuff, so this may have to wait until tomorrow.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:03, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Trimmed to approx. 1100, not counting "[1]", etc., or my sig as words. There are 55 diffs (several are reused to prove different quotes). I can squeeze this to 1000 tomorrow. Being an actual party, I'm not willing to go lower, or it'll simply remove the evidence for why SchroCat is properly a party and why his behavior has to be addressed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:49, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Now it's under 1000. If the party request is denied for some reason and a 500-word limit is imposed, I'll leave it clerks to axe it how they like.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:36, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I suggested - on the workshop talk, and not only for your evidence - that the arbs focus on recent events (2018, 2017) rather than former ones. I rather like to forget that I had to appear at AE, for example, correct as it is. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:42, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the evidence deadline is over. It's too late for me to re-do it to focus on 2017+; I would have to spend literally several days researching diffs from S&C's edit history, and it wouldn't be worth the time and effort even if the material would be accepted, which it would not be. I have doubt that any action will be taken about S's behavior in this case anyway, only C's. I have, however, established a that there's a behavior pattern going back at least as far as 2016, so S can take his likely escape-with-a-warning as a signal to change his approach, or he'll just end up back there (or AE, or ANI) again, and the evidence of not having changed the behavior since 2016 will not go unnoticed. Presenting that material was worth the effort in the long run, since I'd already done 95% of the work to collect and sort it. I'm now going back to what I'm actually here for (and probably not until tomorrow+; I don't have much time for WP right now, and drama has consumed too much of it already).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:08, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Understand, thank you for explaining. I looked - prompted by the request for diffs about edit-warring - at just the changes to the article Cary Grant from removal of the infobox in 2016 to now, where C appears rarely, and S not at all. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:17, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I long ago lost track of which FA or FAC was being fought over. I actually avoid going near any of them for any reason, because if the local OWNers don't want to fight about an infobox, they want to fight about something else, even whether you're "allowed" to remove or add a comma from "their" precious masterpiece. FA long ago turned into more trouble than it is worth. I've said for years that the encyclopedic endeavor is better served by spending a day vastly improving 5 or ten stubs than barely perceptibly improving one article that's already a GA or A-class. If your point was just that it's possible to find a case of either C or S getting involved in an infobox dispute with the other not actually showing up, I have no doubt that's true; people do have lives and none of us are on here 24/7. It doesn't mean the overall tagteam pattern isn't obvious and demonstrated. Anyway, I did the Workshop page input I'm willing to (this is already a bunch of tiresome noise to me, that never should have been necessary). I trust it's enough for ArbCom to work with, and if it's not, then either the behavior will stop of it's own accord, or it won't and it'll get dealt with in a later case.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:02, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, clicking on either Kubrick or Sellers in my post will take you to many other IB and article problems with many more diffs, in case they're of use. I realize that the IB discussion is apparently over, however. --Light show (talk) 08:18, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Worth a look anyway.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:22, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anything really usable there. The consensus in both cases was that you were being disruptive, and you got topic-banned both times. I've already mentioned their incivility toward you in evidence already, and that's probably sufficient (even if you were being being disruptive, it's not license for others to pretend our behavioral policies magically don't apply to them). And the evidence phase is over; all one could do at this point is mention stuff on the Workshop talk page, and it's fairly apt to be ignored as too late. I did add some today, but only in response to unproven accusations by SchroCat.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:36, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• You've been added as a party, and you are welcome to modify your evidence – the evidence phase will remain open for at least 24 hours from now. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 04:48, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Somehow didn't see this until just now.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:22, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As a part of this discussion from a few years ago, you managed to convince the W3C to update their copy of the specification and their cheatsheet for <cite>. However, the WHATWG still uses the old definition (both in the element definition and its suggested rendering, and apparently their FAQ [FAQ spot 2]). Do you know the best way to herd those cats to The Better Way? :) --Izno (talk) 02:42, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Izno: Not at present. I've raised the issue on one of their mailing lists, and with one of their people in direct e-mail, and the general feeling I get is that they're resistant because it's more important for them to position themselves as The One True HTML5. I don't think they're going to budge without further pressure to do so, and this is probably best done at their wiki page on this element. https://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Cite_element It's a matter of getting the attention of anyone autoconfirmed at #whatwg on irc.freenode.net to set up a wiki.whatwg.org account; you can't just go register for one. I'm on the IRC channel right now and no one is responding. Our own Andy Mabbtt/Pigsonthewing, has already chimed in at that wiki page. Any chance you can help people create an account there, Andy? You're not on their short list of permanent autoconfirmed, but I'm not sure those are the only account creators. I requested one via e-mail before, twice, but never heard back.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:58, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Izno: Update: One MikeSmith is on right now, and is dealing with it for me. He says they ignore the e-mail requests, and that some of them are trying to discourage use of that wiki entirely because they want to move the material to Github, but others disagree; He'll create accounts via IRC request. Just needs desired login ID, and e-mail address.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:07, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The One True HTML5 struck me as a correct analysis after reading this bit in their FAQ. --Izno (talk) 04:32, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on the site now, but want to pore over the material before I chime in there.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:01, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Gosh, that was almost a decade ago. I've no recollection of how I got an account. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:07, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's all good. Well, getting into the site is. Getting anything to change, tougher nut to crack.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:20, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Should proper names be enclosed in {{lang}}? I've just been to Anatole France and someone has templated every single french word and name. This strikes me as extreme, but I'd leave well enough alone if there were no harm. But {{lang}} automatically italicizes everything, so in many of these cases, either the template has to be removed, or it has to be supplemented with |italic=unset. The closest direction I find is MOS:LANG which gives Assemblée nationale as an appropriately-templated term, but I couldn't find explicit direction on personal names, and figured you'd have some insight. Thanks. Phil wink (talk) 20:32, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Phil wink: Consensus seems to be "don't bother", unless an alternative name is being presented to an English one, e.g. Munich ({{lang-de|italic=no|München}}). It's not wrong to do something like {{lang|fr|italic=no|Guillaume Apollinaire}}, but it probably serves no encyclopedic purpose except in the person's own lead (all it's going to do for a proper name by itself is offer a pronunciation clue to higher-end screen readers with multilingual support). It's arguably important that our articles indicate correct pronunciation at the subject's own article – though we also have templates that do this – but not such much in a running sentence that happens to mention that person, especially given that in running English the average speaker is very unlikely to drop into a French-correct pronunciation of a name like Guillaume Apollinaire, and doing so can be distracting.

E.g., I watched a lot of stuff about Montserrat after the volcano went off there, and about 90% of the time, English-speaking newscasters used the English pronunciation, /mɒntsəˈræt/ (mont-suh-RAT) or something close to this (often without the first t), about 9% of the time a bastardized "Franglais" pronunciation along the lines of /mɒnseˈra/ (mon-say-RAH), which came across as pretentious, and in one case the correct French (which our own article doesn't even use; it's something like /mõse'ʁa/ (with a nasalized first vowel, and a guttural r), which was so distracting I tended to lose track of the sentence. The same effect is sometimes heard in the Southwestern US when certain Hispanic newscasters insist on full-Spanish pronunciation of Spanish names even for subjects (like various actors and sports figures with English as their first or only language) who don't use them (think "Gonzales" approximately as "gohn-SAH-lace"). It's a form of hypercorrection, similar to insisting on sticking in a č in names that shouldn't have one like Stana Katic (the fact that her grandfather would have used Katič is irrelevant).

Anyway, some argue not to use lang templates for proper names at all, only for words, because Guillaume Apollinaire is the guy's name in English, and Spanish, and whathaveyou, not just in French. This view would make an exception for Munich ({{lang-de|italic=no|München}}), since the names differ. Another way of looking at it is that my first name "Stanton" tends to get converted into /^əstän'ton/ (uhStahn-TONE) or /^ə'stänton/ (uhSTAHN-tone) by Spanish speakers, instead of /'Stæntən/ (the "STAN-tuhn" you'd probably expect), or in some English dialects, /`Stæʔ^ən/ with a glottal stop and almost no final vowel before the n – "STA'-nn"). But Spanish Wikipedia should not use /^əstän'ton/ (much less the more Castillian /^əsθän'ton/ with a 'th' sound) to render my name if they had an article on me; that would be eye dialect, bending orthography to try to match colloquial speaking accent.

The short version: There's not a clear consensus on when to use language templates with proper names, but it's generally minimized, and only used when it seems particularly helpful at a first occurrence, usually to contrast English and something else. When we need to indicate pronunciation of a proper name (including English versus something else) we usually do it with pronunciation templates, as at Tycho Brahe (though the audio file once provided for that one in Danish was terrible; the speaker ran it together sloppily as something like /ˈtɪg^əˈbrɑ/ when it should have been enunciated clearly and as two names, as /ˈtyːə ˈbʁɑ/; I see that someone's finally removed it from the article). Given the recent re-tooling of the lang templates (and the auto-italicization that is non-trivial to turn off), we now have an additional reason to not use lang templates around person and place names; it will vastly clutter up the markup if we don't we reserve the use of the template around proper names for cases where it's especially pertinent. Sorry this is a long answer, but the point is to provide several points of argument articulation. We probably need to revisit this at MoS, especially since the template changes have serious consequences of code bloat, a problem that didn't exist only a couple of months ago.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:53, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your long-ass answer. I feel I should now at least be able to make edits that are not plainly wrong. Also, I will now fondly think of you as Esthantone — perhaps the designer of an especially esthetic line of Pantone colors. It was my sense (and you confirm it above) that the auto-italic feature/bug is a fairly recent addition to the {{lang}} template. There must be thousands of cases of it being used (as it frequently is in Anatole France) to designate text that should not be italicized, and indeed was not italicized when the template was placed, but is now magically being manhandled into italicization by this update. Even more insidious, I wonder what previously correct formatting advice may now be contrary to the intention of anyone who originally worked on it. A case in point: MOS:LANG which I referenced above does not state but pretty strongly implies that Assemblée nationale should be italicized. However, all that is actually being recommended is the template ({{lang|fr|Assemblée nationale}}), and the italics appear to be merely an artifact of the template update — it seems likely that this update has changed, even contradicted, the intended style advice in the Manual of Style itself. Finally (in case you have to give this advice again), you've suggested using |italic=no above, but on balance it seems to me more sound to use |italic=unset. The first forces no italic regardless of circumstance, whereas the second just goes with whatever the wikicode around it demands. This second option seems much more intuitive from a user perspective, and would continue yielding non-surprising results if, say, the code were copied for use in a different context. Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 00:41, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Phil wink: In the long run, the auto-italics are a boon (and it's only applied to Latin-based scripts), since about 95% of usage is in cases we actually want italics. Before, each template was utterly randomly either italicizing or not by default, and it was maddening; often even the {{lang|xx}} and {{lang-xx}} versions of the templates for a given language were inconsistent. Some peeps are working on tracking down all the italicized cases that shouldn't be in italics; see Template talk:Lang for more info; I think they'd appreciate more eyes and hands on the job. I would like to see a shorthand syntax like |i=n (or |i=u, |i=y) also be available. You're correct about MOS:LANG and {{lang|fr|Assemblée nationale}}; last I looked at MOS:LANG and was working on it, it was not yet certain whether the templates would auto-italicize, and since they now do, that needs an update to show |italics=unset; the rule is to not italicize proper names of any kind (unless they would be italicized for some other reason, e.g. being a book title). I agree on |italics=unset versus |italics=no; I hadn't thought about it until this second, because I'm generally working in plain article text where the non-italics is the desired result for such thing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:19, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Robin Hood. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that you recently added links to disambiguation pages.

Barbet dog (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Dog show

Bichon (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Water spaniel

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:20, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Will "water ski" still be separate words under your proposal? If so I can fully support it. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:46, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Randy Kryn: Depends on what the sourcing tells us. They might remain separate, for the base noun ("I have good water skis"). English fully-compounds regular noun phrases considerably less readily than multi-part verbs/verbals/gerunds and adjectives (doing it with nouns is primarily a tech geek habit, and even then is most often done with verb phrases that have been "nouned", e.g. "my backups", "an overload", a habit the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel has been excoriating for two generations to little avail). For the verb "to waterski" it would necessarily be a single word if we have "waterskiing", otherwise the latter could not linguistically arise ("to dog groom" does not become "she dooggrooms", "I doggroomed","he's doggrooming", though most people would probably hyphenate that particular one in all cases).

I hate to sound like a broken "Mr. Critical" record, but I think you're taking an unhelpful approach to this. It's not a tit-for-tat negotiation; we do not support or oppose based on whether we'll get what we want later on some side topic. Whether it should be "water ski[s]", "water-ski[s]" or "waterski[s]" as a noun is completely irrelevant to the question of what to do with the verb and the verbal/gerund forms for the activity (and directly derived regular nouns like "waterskier"). More to the point, what you (or I, or whoever) prefer is irrelevant; we do what needs to be done, with an eye to consistency when the sources support it, and tolerant of inconsistency between different grammatical forms when they don't. I've not done the "water[-]ski" noun research because it's not the RM before us, and the answer to the question would have no bearing on this RM. It's basically the same as the "comma-Jr." thing; what you or I love [in my off-WP writing, I habitually use that comma, though I realize it dates me] and what was firmly traditional (at all or in a particular dialect) in 1977 is out the window if usage in reputable sources has provably changed. (I have no idea whether "water ski" [n] has been changing).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:21, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You had me at "I've not done the "water[-]ski" noun research because it's not the RM before us, and the answer to the question would have no bearing on this RM", which is all that was needed but I appreciate and have read your comment. If I ever meet you on the street and ask for the time-of-day I would expect to hear an interesting history of time, what exactly "day" means in the sense of the present culture, and then somehow "street" and my approach to time would be woven into it. Will adjust my comment on the page accordingly, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:29, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would just answer you, because you wouldn't be fishing for a concession on some lost traditionalism cause. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:32, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just a question I needed answered for my Support or Oppose comment. Not clear on the time question though, as the 12-hour vs 24-hour descriptors of time, not to mention UTC, Greenwich, or the long-time no-time concepts of some cultures, could factor in (and let's not get into quantum mechanics or off-world time, unless you take my "Excuse me sir, can you give me the time of day?" enquiry as referring to local time, which it probably wouldn't). Randy Kryn (talk) 15:41, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And metric time could become involved, at which point I would jump off a bridge.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:46, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hey SMcCandlish, I have a question on university naming… specifically University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. It was recently moved to remove the endash because "that's what the university wants." However, I disagree, because most of the time we use the endash for universities like this not the dash. Not sure if the others at WT:MOS would agree with you or not, but since you've been helpful in the past, I figured I'd ask you first… what do we use? Thanks, Corky 02:58, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Corky: I think you mean "not the hyphen". In this construction it would definitely be an en dash, or a space, or a comma, or "at". A hyphen is just wrong. The fact that some people who designed that university's letterhead allegedy don't know the difference between an en dash and a hyphen is no concern of ours. (I say "allegedly" because without access to the exact specific font files they use, we have no proof what character they typed when designing their logo – the two glyphs are not visually distinct in all fonts, so there's a WP:NOR problem with claims that "they use a hyphen". They may use it in things like typed memos, but business English and encyclopedic English are not the same register, so again we don't care. WP follows the WP MoS, not some third-party business English MoS, and not the UW house style. @Dicklyon: Haven't we been over "university hyphens" before somewhere?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:17, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Corkythehornetfan: correct ping.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:18, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the response! That definitely helps. Yes, I meant hyphen... 😁 Corky 13:13, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I do have one more question... could you respond to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles#Ampersands discouraged? Thanks, Corky 17:15, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done, though I have no idea which "side" you were on. I didn't pore over the conversation, just did the "standard operating procedure" bit.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:03, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion about whether to add clarifying text (shown in boldface) to MOS:JOBTITLES at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Clarification of "Titles of people" that you may be interested in. Sincerely, HopsonRoad (talk) 14:26, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't need pings to MoS threads; I watchlist those pages and check them as my first login action (even ahead of my own talk page many times). If I haven't showed up yet it's because I'm busy off-WP.  :-)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Joseph Stalin. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Read this in another language • Subscription list for the English Wikipedia • Subscription list for the multilingual edition

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has spent most of their time supporting the 2017 wikitext editor mode, which is available inside the visual editor as a Beta Feature, and improving the visual diff tool. Their work board is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, supporting the 2017 wikitext editor, and improving the visual diff tool.

Recent changes

• The 2017 wikitext editor is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. It has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. The team have been comparing the performance of different editing environments. They have studied how long it takes to open the page and start typing. The study uses data for more than one million edits during December and January. Some changes have been made to improve the speed of the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual editor. Recently, the 2017 wikitext editor opened fastest for most edits, and the 2010 WikiEditor was fastest for some edits. More information will be posted at mw:Contributors/Projects/Editing performance.
• The visual diff tool was developed for the visual editor. It is now available to all users of the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. When you review your changes, you can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. You can also enable the new Beta Feature for "Visual diffs". The Beta Feature lets you use the visual diff tool to view other people's edits on page histories and Special:RecentChanges. [22]
• Wikitext syntax highlighting is available as a Beta Feature for both the 2017 wikitext editor and the 2010 wikitext editor. [23]
• The citoid service automatically translates URLs, DOIs, ISBNs, and PubMed id numbers into wikitext citation templates. This tool has been used at the English Wikipedia for a long time. It is very popular and useful to editors, although it can be tricky for admins to set up. Other wikis can have this service, too. Please read the instructions. You can ask the team to help you enable citoid at your wiki.

Let's work together

• The team is planning a presentation about editing tools for an upcoming Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting.
• Wikibooks, Wikiversity, and other communities may have the visual editor made available by default to contributors. If your community wants this, then please contact Dan Garry.
• The <references /> block can automatically display long lists of references in columns on wide screens. This makes footnotes easier to read. This has already been enabled at the English Wikipedia. If you want columns for a long list of footnotes on this wiki, you can use either <references /> or the plain (no parameters) {{reflist}} template. If you edit a different wiki, you can request multi-column support for your wiki. [24]
• If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation. Thank you!

—User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's been about two months since we did an overhaul of the production section of the film manual of style, and while it's helpful to the point that I have not into any disagreements about changing production sections to fit it, there's also an overwhelming amount of articles to be fixed. I've tried three times over at Talk:Wikproject film to ask for help brainstorming a way to lessen the load and get more people involved but to no success. I'm kinda lost on what to do. There really isn't a way to announce this as a task for cleanup as it is so extensive. When I talked to @NinjaRobotPirat: he suggested creating a cleanup template and then all the pages would be neatly sorted into categories but I just don't want to go around tagging articles for an inordinate amount of time. Again. I'm kinda lost. Any advice? --Deathawk (talk) 04:18, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Deathawk: Ah, what you want is WP:AWB; you can use it to burn through entire category trees quickly. I'm swearing off most editing of pop-culture-related articles, myself, because too many editors spend too much time on them, and WP is dominated by them. PS: It's been my experience that major MoS changes are something that a) take a long time to propagate, organically, and b) are sped along by someone saying "F it, I'll put in the work" and hitting it for a good long time with fairly singleminded purpose. Film doesn't overwhelm me with interest to the extent I'd do that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:36, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

... for improving article quality in Febuary 2018! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:23, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My pleasure.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:29, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

... and in March! Happy Easter! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:46, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

... and in April! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:23, 1 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

... and in May! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:54, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

... and in June! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:28, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

		The Userpage Barnstar
		I decided you deserved this for your very interesting and informative User Page (perhaps all the more so because I only came here because we had been on opposite sides in your ENGVAR Templates RFC). Then I discovered that you already have one of these, so I decided to give you the alternative format. Regards. Tlhslobus (talk) 14:53, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Tlhslobus: Thanks. :-) I consider it kind of a mess; some other editors have done a lot of fancy CSS work to make theirs better, but I don't like to spend a lot of time on userpage stuff unless it's directly geared at productivity. So, it's kind of a feature dump of tools I use, and to-dos, and proposals and their results, plus a bunch of infoboxes that I hope help explain my proclivities, skill sets, interests, and hot buttons to other editors.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:32, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if it really is a mess, then it would seem to be a very useful and informative mess Tlhslobus (talk) 02:22, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Glad it's been helpful. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:07, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi SMcCandlish, you may be interested in an evolved suggestion regarding MOS:JOBTITLES that is receiving support/non-support at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Alternative suggestion for comment. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 17:24, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Faith healing. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi SMcCandlish, in the open Civility in infobox discussions arbitration case, a remedy or finding of fact has been proposed which relates to you.  Please review this decision and draw the arbitrators' attention to any relevant material or statements. Comments may be brought to the attention of the committee on the proposed decision talk page. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 19:02, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank for redaction of this article (I am an author of piłkarzyki na sprężynkach from PL wiki). I also have found interesing article in PTwiki: pt:Futebol_de_pino. BTW what do you think about new article ca:Billiard hockey (Mybe strect is similar game to cymbergaj and gombfoci), pl:Cymbergaj and hu:Gombfoci (popular in Hungary and Brazil) artile gombfoci exist in ENwiki as Button football Dawid2009 (talk) 11:51, 8 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Dawid2009: Interesting. "Billiard hockey" and "table hockey" (the subject of the Galician article) appear to be synonymous, in the usage of the so-called World Table Hockey Association (which seems to include two countries, not the world). It uses disks similar to those for carrom. I would cover this in a section at Table hockey games, and not give it a separate disambiguation entry at Table hockey, since it is just one of many table hockey games. Pin football, the subject of the Portuguese article, should be covered as variant at Tabletop football. Neither are independently notable enough for their own articles on English Wikipedia. I don't know what to make of the Polish game; the machine translation I get is poor enough, I'm not sure how it's really played. The term used there, cymbergaj, seems to also be used for air hockey; at least, that's how Google Translate want to treat it; if we can find more info on it, it would also go in Table hockey games. The Hungarian gombfoci ("key football") might be worth adding to Tabletop football as a variant, since it's clear from the photos that commercially made equipment for it exists. As with the Polish game, it's not clear from the article over there what the actual rules are. PS: We should probably do something about the inconsistent naming of Table hockey games and Tabletop football ("Table foo games", "Tabletop foo", and "Tabletop foo games" are all possibilities; just "Table foo" is too ambiguous on its own in both cases. I prefer the names ending in "games" because they're more WP:PRECISE, though at the expense of being WP:CONCISE, in letting the reader know they're about multiple games.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:43, 8 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Structure of pl:Cymbergaj article seems to me be quite similar to de:pinning (rules and variants of the game) although in cymbergaj there are in usage combs/rulers or pencils (it there were also popular especially in schools) to movement buttons/coins (it can be coin game and it can be button game) so it is also similar to Tabletop football/Table hockey games. ca:Billiard hockey is czech game which reeally is comercial version of pl:Cymbergaj#Cymbergaj szóstkowy (but cymbergaj not imit hockey, it imit rather football, but it is generally not important for rules of game, similarly paper soccer = paper hockey). Genesis of Biliard Hockey is from czech game Strect (most propably similar game to Hungarian gombfoci and Polish cymbergaj), it would be as reaible source and example in Tabletop football#history (actually there isn't sources about: Inspired by home-made games involving children flicking marbles)

The term used there, cymbergaj, seems to also be used for air hockey - yes it is, but originnaly cymbergaj (cym-ber-gaj) mean something other - צו מיר גיי; see pl:Cymbergaj, pl:Jidyszyzm. And it isn't related to Air Hockey. Indentification is modernly and wrong.

We should probably do something about the inconsistent naming of Table hockey games and Tabletop football - English language isn't my native so I can talk nothing but it seems to value for disscussion. BTW, it seems to value for disscussion Paper football and Paper soccer? Dawid2009 (talk) 16:42, 8 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

According to this disscussion (machine translation show me) that asztali labdarúgás is formal sport (like to for example Biliard Hockey or ITHF table hockey) while gombfoci is just a game (like to for example strect or carrom), views in google can confirm it. Accorting to google translate also asztali labdarúgás = Table football (litearlly not as Foosball) and gombfoci = Button football (litearlly).

Pin football (the subject of the Portugese article) actually is popular outside Brazil and has different variants (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV9yCvbxsGo&index=275&t=0s&list=FLhuK0r1J-7ItoE33-yZBZwQ , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVdRRpKm9Q8 - video from yesterday). In Tabletop football#types also there is described most propably de: Tipp-Kick. There are also other similar games to Tabletop football and Tabletop hokey with usage of magnesium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqjiWkwIIGM , WeyKick ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAem6Zozb0Y&list=FLhuK0r1J-7ItoE33-yZBZwQ&t=0s&index=348 ), de:Klask . Dawid2009 (talk) 14:46, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Dawid2009: The main issues from my perspective are these:

1. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Just because one of the non-English wikis has an article on something doesn't mean en.Wikipedia should; we have a stricter WP:Notability standard than many. To the extent we cover any of these things, they should be merged into the existing articles here, which are broad enough to cover all these variants.
2. We shouldn't include any for which there are no reliable sources. They do not need to be in English, but they do need to not be forums, blogs, and other self-published or user-generated content. When it comes to something like asztali labdarúgás, the website of the organization that promotes it is good enough to establish that it is real and what its rules are according to that organization (per WP:ABOUTSELF policy), but it doesn't help to establish notability for a separate article, since that isn't a independent source.

Personally, I have little incentive toward adding this material myself; my goal was just cleaning up the existing material. I'm happy to edit added material, for English grammar, etc. But beware of the problems of using machine translation to try to figure out what the rules of these games are. It may be better to provide only very basic information about these variants to start with; people competent in both English and whatever other language (Hungarian, Polish, Galician, etc.) can expand the information later.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:42, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

# Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information - Actually I am not intrested in new articles and I really perfectly well understand vision of deletionism for example in this case but I am interested in corrects in some articles. In Tabletop football#history there is sentence which is not compatibile with reliable sources (Inspired by home-made games involving children flicking marbles - althought it is also in Button football). In Tabletop football#history also is next wrong information: The earliest was Newfooty in 1929 (according to de:Tipp-Kick#Geschichte tabletop there were before, in 1921). Due to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view I suggest to write it carefully and generally: 20's and with omnission of name of first authors/companies.

Just because one of the non-English wikis has an article on something doesn't mean en.Wikipedia should; we have a stricter WP:Notability standard than many. - Pin soccer (from Portugese article) should be included in Tabletop football#types. I just have explained and showed you that this game has variants and it is also popular outside Brazil. It game is more common than tabletop football with springs, due to fact tabletop football with springs in google has only two reaible sources/encyclopaedic premises: lego soccer and inspiration of Magnetic Soccer (video game), it has no sources in BoardGameGeek.

To the extent we cover any of these things, they should be merged into the existing articles here, which are broad enough to cover all these variants. - asztali labdarúgás would be as one information in Button Football. WeyKick or Klask - would be in Air hockey as one information (for example in see also, althought WeyKick can be similar to tabletop football or tabletop hockey). Biliard hockey - For including this to an other article it will be big problem here (where it would be included?). Billiard hockey's look/imitation is like hockey but mechanic of gameplay/rules of game is like to tabletop football or button football. However Table hockey games should have Template:Cleanup reorganize. For the one side this article describe different tabletop hockey games like to in Tabletop football) for the other side this article should be megred with ITHF table hockey - problematic is section Original table hockey - who sets some standards? It is not compatibile with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and some variants aren't very other than ITHF table hockey

A propos cymbergaj (game's name from yiddish, game is coin football and button football) interesing also is edition of Izrael IP (I just have corrected this mistake )

Personally, I have little incentive toward adding this material myself; my goal was just cleaning up the existing material. I'm happy to edit added material, for English grammar, etc. - What do you think about disscussion about Paper soccer and Paper football? Paper soccer is in google popular as paper soccer but it is most propably just due to de fact article in English Wikipedia has been created in 2004 in US English and the name Paper soccer has been popularised in Internet. Are these de facto original research? Dawid2009 (talk) 17:02, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That all sounds reasonable to me. On the final point: I don't know. It would be original research to decide that "paper soccer" is more popular in Google than "paper football" because of original research. >;-) I would keep it at Paper soccer because Paper football is a completely different article, and Paper soccer is sufficient disambiguation and precision and recognizability in English. It's a total myth that association football is only called "soccer" by Americans; the short name actually originated in England. It's just not used in any "official" capacity by association football governing bodies and such.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:37, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:24, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:United Kingdom general election, January 1910#Requested move 2 March 2018. --Neve~selbert 19:40, 9 March 2018 (UTC)Template:Z48[reply]

A move request regarding Deadline.com / Deadline Hollywood, an article whose talk page you have edited, is taking place at Talk:Deadline Hollywood#Requested move 11 March 2018. It is scheduled to end in seven days.--Tenebrae (talk) 19:25, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I commented there, since I was the nominator of the previous RM.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:02, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would appreciate if you could comment about which of these two articles has the correct title formatting: Kentucky colonel and Nebraska Admiral. Both of these are honorific titles bestowed by the governor of the state in question. (In case you would prefer to reply there, I just posed the same question at User talk:Shadow007.) —BarrelProof (talk) 17:56, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'll comment there, to centralize discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:29, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Doug Ford Jr.. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:National Rifle Association. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An editor working on the article Sinn Sisamouth is placing inline citations with a circular reference of a website that copied verbatim Wikipedia content. If I understand correctly he is doing it as a placeholder and to get a better reference, something I don't understand. [He added the citation] (which is used in several places), I indicated in his talk page that per WP:CIRCULAR they shouldn't use those, but he then placed "better source needed" instead of removing the circular references. He is doing a lot of work, which I praise, but I think using circular references is a no-no. What do you think? Thinker78 (talk) 06:04, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Thinker78: That's clearly not okay under WP:CIRCULAR. If the material in question isn't controversial, I would remove the bogus cite and {{cn}}-tag the material. If it is controversial, it should just be removed until properly sourced. Hopefully this is already old news and it's resolved. I was on wikibreak for a while and am just now catching up.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:52, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back! Thinker78 (talk) 04:04, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An arbitration case regarding civility in infobox discussions has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

1. Any uninvolved administrator may apply infobox probation as a discretionary sanction. See the full decision for details of infobox probation.
2. Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all discussions about infoboxes and to edits adding, deleting, collapsing, or removing verifiable information from infoboxes.
3. Cassianto is indefinitely placed on infobox probation.
4. The Arbitration Committee recommends that well-publicized community discussions be held to address whether to adopt a policy or guideline addressing what factors should weigh in favor of or against including an infobox in a given article and how those factors should be weighted.
5. All editors are reminded to maintain decorum and civility when engaged in discussions about infoboxes, and to not turn discussions about a single article's infobox into a discussion about infoboxes in general.
6. For canvassing editors to this case, Volvlogia (talk · contribs) is admonished. They are warned that any further instances of canvassing related to arbitration processes will likely result in sanctions.

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility in infobox discussions closed

For the arbitration committee, GoldenRing (talk) 09:00, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO, the actual claim the Globe and Mail made is overstated by one or more editors who read far more into an "investigation" and a second editorial piece clearly labeled "opinion" than is warranted for the use of Wikipedia to make a claim beyond what the newspaper actually makes as a claim. I would ask you to note the carefully parsed language used by the newspaper, as opposed to the claim being sought in the BLP. Thanks. Collect (talk) 14:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Collect: That seems like a reasonable concern. I may have overstated something, but I also went on a fairly long wikibreak and the issue seems stale now. Feel free to ping me again is there's more discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:50, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's an awful lot more tangled than all that. The G&M article itself became widely-reported news (and continues to be four years later) that has deeply affected peoples' perceptions of Ford, so it almost undoubtedly should be reported in the WP article (despite BLP concerns). A sticky problem is that many of the supporters want it not only included, but presented in the article so that it has the impression of being a fact (by placing it the "Early life" section, or in a section of its own). The most prominent POV-pusher has since been indeffed as an unrepententant sockmaster, but there are others still pushing it (including an admin), and inevitably will be more as we near the election in June. The RfC wasn't designed to deal with these issues, so a lot has been left up to ... creative interpretation of the "consensus". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:17, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like it's worth a second RfC. We SHOULD be covering it as a "live" controversy, but not choosing a side in it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:09, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! The {{cnote}} templates has been nominated for merging with the {{efn}}/{{notelist}} family of templates. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 06:29, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, SMcCandlish. I never know when editors have "pings" turned on or not, so I just wanted to make sure you saw my message here to you regarding my proposed draft to replace the existing Move (company) article, which currently displays information mostly in the form of bullet points. I want to be respectful of your time, but you were very helpful with the Realtor.com article, so I figured I'd ask. Thanks. Inkian Jason (talk) 14:45, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wanted to let you know that the draft has been reviewed, so no need to revisit unless you're curious to do so. Thanks so much again for your input on this page and at Realtor.com, it was very much appreciated! Inkian Jason (talk) 16:01, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Inkian Jason: I was just taking a much-needed wikibreak; wasn't ignoring you on purpose. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:48, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Bitcoin Cash. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:49, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

There will be some changes to the way wikitext is parsed during the next few weeks. It will affect all namespaces. You can see a list of pages that may display incorrectly at Special:LintErrors. Since most of the easy problems have already been solved at the English Wikipedia, I am specifically contacting tech-savvy editors such as yourself with this one-time message, in the hope that you will be able to investigate the remaining high-priority pages during the next month.

There are approximately 10,000 articles (and many more non-article pages) with high-priority errors. The most important ones are the articles with misnested tags and table problems. Some of these involve templates, such as infoboxes, or the way the template is used in the article. In some cases, the "error" is a minor, unimportant difference in the visual appearance. In other cases, the results are undesirable. You can see a before-and-after comparison of any article by adding ?action=parsermigration-edit to the end of a link, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Foss?action=parsermigration-edit (which shows a difference in how {{infobox ship}} is parsed).

If you are interested in helping with this project, please see Wikipedia:Linter. There are also some basic instructions (and links to even more information) at https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2018-April/001836.html You can also leave a note at WT:Linter if you have questions.

Thank you for all the good things you do for the English Wikipedia. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 19 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello SMcCandlish. I stumbled across merger tags here, here, and here which all lead to a discussion now archived. Since you initiated the discussion, will you either remove the tags, reinstate the discussion, or complete the merger? I was inclined to remove the tags seeing no clear consensus in the archived discussion yet there was no opposition either. Since I had initially followed the discussion link to oppose the merge, I felt I may have been influenced by my own bias and decided to toss it back to you instead. Thanks.--John Cline (talk) 11:13, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I hope all is well for you. It's always nice seeing you around, which I noticeably have not for a minute. Best regards.--John Cline (talk) 00:56, 24 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@John Cline: Busy doing other stuff, and sometimes need a break from this e-place anyway! I would leave the tags, because the cleanup won't likely happen otherwise, no one is likely to do it immediately but it is likely to be acted upon eventually, and they serve as pointers to overlapping material that people need to be aware of (a frequent source of policy/guideline disputation happens when people cite one line-item unaware of the effect of another on it). Frankly, I do most of the cleanup of this sort myself, like all the work I've done (and there's still more) to centralize our MoS material on titles of works, and on human names, and various other things. Sometimes it's very slow-going (like, can take a few years). There's no deadline.  :-) PS: When a merge discussion of P&G material meets no opposition, that's generally a strong signal that it needs to happen, because people are more apt to object to such mergers than they are in any other material.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:47, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that; I understand and agree with all you have said. I am glad that I deferred to your judgement, and gladdest to see it in your reply.--John Cline (talk) 05:48, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

:-) Part of the reason it's slow going is that when merging this sort of stuff, the combined wording has to take into account pretty much every imaginable scenario for misinterpretation and willful gaming. And the end result is still likely to trigger some kind of a disagreement and a revert until a bunch of stuff gets hashed out. Kind of pain, which is I why I do it a little at a time (for my own temper and to not rock the policy-watching boat too much).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:58, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, anything larger than a ripple is a de facto tsunami in many of these parts, and I do appreciate your insight. I was going to ask you a question but imagined others would tug at your ear as well, so I posted it here instead, hoping you would see it anyway; in time. I really would like to hear your views on the matter when you have a free moment. Thanks again; for everything.--John Cline (talk) 08:25, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Most welcome. I replied on that thread you mentioned. The intro wording does need clarification, but I don't think the proposal for extended disambiguation of cover songs would fly.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:05, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Missed you. But WP and life go on... Dicklyon (talk) 03:51, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Aw... Well, I need a break from this from time to time, or it starts feeling like a (very low-paying) job. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:51, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Collaboration in German-occupied Poland. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 12 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Nextdoor. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Daoism–Taoism romanization issue. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 18 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Santa Fe High School shooting. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying to follow the guidance on blank lines of MOS:INDENTGAP in an edit in the Pedro Perebal AfD talk but it didn't work. Could you tell me what went wrong and how can I add the blank lines to my wall of text following the guideline? Thinker78 (talk) 04:17, 22 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You are a remarkable editor in many ways. You would be a good administrator in my opinion, and appear to be well qualified! You personify an administrator without tools, and have gained my support; already!

I am certain that if you succeeded an RfA, you'd be an excellent administrator. It's possible that the quorum attending your RfA will fail to recognize your gifts, but I think it's worth the endeavor and hope you will give it a go. I understand if you decide against a run, but hope that you'll read the linked essay, and know that it does speak of you.--John Cline (talk) 13:29, 22 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you do run I'd enthusiastically support you. But I'd actually advise against it because it might take away too much of the time that you use to work and add to valuable topics, research, and discussions. Sometimes when good editors become admins they fade away, and the encyclopedia is the worse for it. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:13, 22 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• John, I appreciate the sentiment, but it would never happen. I don't kiss enough a[ss|rse], am curmudgeonly, and have a focus on WP:AT/WP:MOS. The combination of these generates a lot of "enemy"-styled posturing toward me, despite any peace offerings I make. Some of them have a lot of friends, and bear grudges deeply and for a very long time (over a decade now in many cases), which of course will turn into another e-mail canvassing farm against me. I've come to the conclusion that usually the only way to become an admin here is to go for it within the first two years or so, and to spend that period glad-handing people as much as possible, avoiding all controversy, and racking up AfD and other statistics. RfA doesn't care much about competence, experience, and institutional memory, but about how well you play political games to win the popularity contest. If you've been around long enough to irritate much of anyone (other than drive-by vandals and CoI pushers), you won't pass.

  I also don't want it, mostly for the reason Randy homed in on. I've seen what adminship does to too many productive editors, turning them into drama-mongering wannabe cops more interested in power- and class-based gamesmanship, or at best into well-intentioned admins mired in an endlessly cycling bureaucratic grind instead of actually improving the encyclopedic output. It's rare in my view for an admin to maintain a balance, and it looks like a tremendous amount of work and stress to do so successfully. I don't need stress and extra work, or drama. I was willing to run for ArbCom, because it's not day-in, day-out administrative drudgery, but limited spurts of conflict that really do need resolution, with a rule structure in place that prevents it turning into a psychodrama cellpool like AN/I is. I also ran for ArbCom because the body needs at least one non-admin on it, for balance. (I got more support than several who were elected – they simply got less opposition, motivated by the same reasons that I would be opposed at RfA.) But I don't need or want the mop, especially in the present environment in which it's used more like a weapon than a tool.

  I understand (and have been pretty forthright about) the fact that WP is undergoing a slow (even overdue) organizational lifecycle transition, in which rules and order and structure and procedures and enforcement of them are likely to be more necessary, as WP becomes a world-wide institution instead of a weird experiment. But I don't want to be in the HR, PR, or campus security departments. I have more on-point work to do here, when I have time for it. So, thank you again for the kind words, but it's just not a role for me. I was a professional activist for a long time, and I bring some of that to what I do here. I'm better as something vaguely analogous to a tenured professor who'll call the administration on their bullshit when it's necessary, but who's otherwise doing the research and editorial work I'm supposed to be here for.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:49, 22 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Leo Tolstoy. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 25 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments. I'm glad the "feedback request" bot decided to pop this on your page. I've wondered when seeing this bot at work, how are these notices not canvassing, and how does it choose? A brave and strange new world. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:50, 25 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FRS explains how it chooses (in short by picking randomly from pools of people interested in RfCs on particular topical ranges, and up to a limit per category or total). In actual operation, it's a little mysterious. I've set no limit for policy- or style-related RfCs, but it still does not notify me of all of them. [shrug].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:38, 25 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've never seen that before, thanks for pointing it out and explaining it. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:28, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No prollem. A word of warning: it's easy to get sucked into doing little here other than RfCs. I had to dial it back a lot. I originally signed up for RfCs on everything of vague interest to me, with few limits, and it turned into a bit of a firehose. I'd leave for a day, find 10 RfC notices, and spend all my WP time on the RfCs. PS, in answer to a question I missed: It's not canvassing because the notices are neutral. FRS bot doesn't tell you how to respond, or leave notices only for people on a particular side, or only those with a vested interest in the page from prior edits; it just doesn't spam people with geography-related RfCs if they say they don't want them, and so on. The fact that it won't notify you of all RfCs in a given topic area even if you set it to unlimited is probably on purpose, to prevent an obsessive from hitting every single comics and manga (or whatever) RfC for a decade and coming to dominate the discourse in that whole swath of article categories.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:48, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of flags by number of colors. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I guess there really is no limit to how stupid a list can be. EEng 05:32, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's my initial reaction, too, though I wonder if there's a heraldry/vexillology rationale for such a list. I know from studying heraldry a little, half a lifetime ago, that the colors available and how they can be used are limited (in ways that vary between, e.g., English, French, and German heraldry). I'm skeptical this applies to flags, since they haven't been under thumb of the heraldry crowd for a century or so, and are more often created by design teams then voted on by the population of the place they're meant to represent.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:54, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Basketball Federation of Serbia. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your input is appreciated. Thinker78 (talk) 07:49, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of the article Pedro Perebal

My article is gonna be deleted. *Sigh... Thinker78 (talk) 18:43, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Thinker78: "Been there, experienced that." It happens, and I feel your pain. I hope you understand I !voted as I did after thought and analysis, not for personal reasons, and not because I don't think the subject is interesting. I just decided a long time ago to stick to policy and put my personal interests or "how I would remake WP in my image" wishes aside. (Hell, if I could do as I wished, I would rewrite about 100 things in WP:MOS!)

If Perebal learns a bunch more languages and sets some kind of record in Guatemala, he'll get more coverage and will probably be notable. (Someone not notable today isn't necessarily forever non-notable.) I've learned not to create an article unless I have found a) an unmistakable claim of notability that is clearly encyclopedic, and b) a thick pile of sources, at least some of which are major publications outside the subject's home area. If I can't find any, odds are the page will get deleted. Unless the home area is a really big one: it is probably possible to write an article on a Chinese, Russian, Japanese, or Brazilian politician or popstar who has a lot of native-language coverage but none in English yet, because of the massive size of the countries, while it wouldn't be possible to do this with someone who's only covered in the "national" but small-circulation news of Papua New Guinea or Monaco. Guatemala is a borderline case, with a relevant population of about 9 mil (i.e., the population of New York City proper, though the NYC metro area is closure to 30 mil). As another comparison, that's about 9 times the size of the population of Delaware, and about the same as the populations of Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and New Jersey (each, not collectively). You might try looking for more sources. Any chance he was mentioned in the Portuguese-language press in Brazil? In Spanish-language press in countries that border Guatemala? Maybe in a linguistics journal (unlikely, but one never knows)?

In my case, I lost a bunch of pool player bios; they're people who are US national-class players (which means they're lifelong mega-badasses at billiards, one of the most difficult things to master at a professional competition level), but they don't end up being notable in WP terms unless they have actual national titles under their belts. Being consistently around third or seventh or 13th best in the US isn't good enough (despite it being way, way more of a feat that getting one song into the top-10 pop charts, or landing a few movie or TV roles). I know one personally who shot up quickly in the WPBSA ranks, won a professional Most Improved Player Award, and for a couple of years was consistently in the top 10, and won some state and regional events but never a national title, and she wouldn't pass WP:N (especially now that she's no longer a pro player, and has gone into the family pool hall business). That kind of "sorry, not quite" analysis could change for a particular person, if they were covered in RS for other reasons, like starting a sports equipment line, or being arrested for murdering their spouse, or whatever. E.g., I got William A. Spinks to WP:GA level, though he was always hovering at the edge of greatness and never actually was a number-one at anything. He got notable for something else, which made him rich after he gave up trying to be a world champion. Though actually there was maybe enough in-depth press coverage of him as player (which is what I focused on) that he could have squeaked by here even if he hadn't co-invented cue "chalk". (I still need to return to my draft on the other co-inventor, who's actually more notable for something else, the invention of the electric heating coil. It's still weird to me that we don't have an article on him, and I keep meaning to finish mine.)

Anyway, what I've learned, in a nutshell, is to ask "In 100 years, will anyone still care?" To my chagrin, the answer is probably "yes" for B-movie actors and one-hit wonders in pop music, as it is for sports figures who actually win something, while it tends not to be for academics who don't make huge discoveries or get things named after them, nor for people doing academic pursuits like stuffing their brain with additional languages. Idea: Try writing an article on him for Spanish Wikipedia (and perhaps Portuguese, though I forget if they've split that one into Portugal and Brazilian editions; if so, use the latter). They will should be be more apt to accept something like Guatemala-only sourcing as sufficient. Others, working in those languages, might find additional (e.g. print) sources, and in time it might be enough to re-leverage him having an article here.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:15, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the cheer! I can see that you really are deep in afd guidance. Mr. Perebal had coverage in a few non-national sources like Honduras, an international Italian publication, BBC in Spanish and an interview in a Mexican morning show ( I had written those in the references to support gng, except the morning show for being a primary source). I tried an article in the Spanish Wikipedia but it fared worse: it actually got speedy deleted. Thinker78 (talk) 22:46, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Thinker78:The fact that he was interviewed on a TV show in Mexico is potentially a GNG help, even if the content of the interview is primary. It could be included in the article by quoting from it; our readers would actually want to know what he says about his motivation and devotion, and it's a valid primary source for that, per WP:ABOUTSELF. The Honduran and Italian bits are worth keeping, but the coverage wasn't in-depth enough to help much in this case. Still, it's a start. If it's deleted, I would say to ask for a WP:REFUND to userspace to continue drafting, and check for new stuff about him periodically. Even one or two more non-trivial sources might be sufficient. Remember WP:There is no deadline. I have some drafts that are 10+ years old. Despite anti-draft ranting, we're not deleting drafts that actually have potential.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:56, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Received opinion notwithstanding, it actually is. ;) Happy editing, Paradoctor (talk) 08:35, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough (though more often with a hyphen); I probably shouldn't have used "not a word", for the same reason that "irregardless isn't a word" isn't literally true. You'll find it in dictionaries, too, since it's attested. Rather: neither are words one would normally use in a register like this. (The quoted Jaspers use of the word in the dictionary material probably illustrates why; it's being used wryly as a funny word people aren't liable to take very seriously.) And it was redundant anyway; the two previous terms already had the concept covered.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:22, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, the edit was fine. The edit comment triggered my inner grammar nazi, that's all. :D

What I don't understand, though, is where you get the idea that Karl Jaspers was joking when he called delusions ununderstandable ("unverständlich"). Paradoctor (talk) 12:52, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

More clearly: Eilan translated it as "ununderstandable" (a word missing from many dictionaries, in either spelling, but parseable with effort) to be amusing or point-making. What Jaspers meant would be better translated into regular English as "incomprehensible", a more straightforward, serious statement. "Un[-]understandable" isn't even found in the dictionary aggregator Dictionary.com. It's not one people aren't likely to recognize or think of as a proper word, but which they'll puzzle over for a moment, and roll around on their mental tongue. That's surely what Eilan wanted, to editorially imply not just a psychiatric challenge, but a deep disconnect between everyday reality and the reality tunnel inside the head of the schizophrenic. The word is kind of "crazy". And it's use is clever, in that "ununderstandable" takes some effort to be understandable. I'm reminded of Bilbo's "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve", near the start of The Lord of the Rings. The effect of such constructions is widely recognized as silly, ironic, playful, piss-taking, or otherwise light-hearted. English generally does not stack the same prefix or suffix, or use double negatives. If you say that your lawsuit, which was rejected at the trial court as illegitimate but accepted on appeal, was "held to be ilillegitimate" people understand that you're being wry and making light of the tedious and expensive legal struggle, or perhaps mocking the lower court (humor again, but pointed and at someone's expense), not just flatly stating that your case is legitimate. If tell you my mutt of a dog is rather non-nonpareil, you get that I'm playing with words (perhaps to mock the dog show crowd) and not just stating that my dog is unexceptional, which I could have done with a simpler construction that didn't imply snootiness on the part of the pedigree pushers. The WP material in question (even if it did need a third descriptor there) shouldn't use such a construction, since it projects a fun-taking opinion/stance by the writer, which may be appropriate in an editorial (and sometimes even a journal paper), but not in encyclopedic writing. That's probably a pointlessly long answer; I suspect you know and agree with all this already. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:57, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Eilan translated it" No, she didn't. The term comes from the 1963 English language version of Allgemeine Psychopathology published by UCP. I doubt Eilan was born then.

"isn't even found in the dictionary aggregator Dictionary.com" scroll down a bit

"And it's use is clever, in that "ununderstandable" takes some effort to be understandable." I had no trouble at all. Even without "snootiness on the part of the pedigree pushers". Where did that come from?

"I suspect you know and agree" Imagine your surprise. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 21:35, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, whatever. I wasn't planning on researching the quoted bit in depth. I think that the intent of using that awkward word by whoever translated it is what I describe. Dictionary.com: fair enough; must have been a transient database error. I tried both spellings there and got no results; now I do. Your third point I don't understand [I'm resisting calling it un-understandable] since you're pulling unrelated material from two sections and running it together as if they're part of the same statement. My point (as to the first part) was that "ununderstandable" is a double-take word, which stops the reader to consider whether it's a typo. As to the second part, if you don't get that taking a fancy Frenchism that virtually no one really uses in English as a normal adjective, like nonpareil, and using it as one in a funky negation wouldn't probably be a commentary on the kind of people who would use such a word about their over-bred dogs, then I don't know what to tell you. [shrug]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:23, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously, I don't get your reaction here. Maybe I am reading too much into your edit count, but I would expect that for someone with your experience, arguing with sources rather than your own idiodyncrasies would be second nature. If your argument were article content, I would have deleted it with a comment of "WP:PROVEIT, seems to be WP:OR". Since it is not, and this is just about an edit comment, I don't see much happiness arising from this for either of us. Have a nice weekend despite, see you around. Paradoctor (talk) 09:03, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's just gotten weird and I think we've been talking past each other. I wanted to talk about "ununderstandable" being basically too strange for casual use here, and that general class of doubled-negative-prefix words being usually reserved for humorous and ironic purposes, while you wanted to talk about Jaspers' original wording and when it was translated (and to defend the word in question as more legit or general that I had been). I did err in not bothering to find out what those quotation details were, but it's because they were never important to what I was trying to convey. Whether "ununderstandable" is an odd and unusual choice and not encyclopedically appropriate, or is perfectly clear and everyday English we should use with impunity, is a subjective assessment to which PROVEIT doesn't apply for either of us. I was never trying to make the kind of argument one might advance at, say, Talk:Karl Jaspers about the content of that article, only about it not being helpful to use such a term in the context from which I removed it. My attempt at an analogy with "non-nonpareil" appears to have just fallen completely flat. So, simply a poor round of communication! Have a good weekend, too, and may next week be a model of clarity. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:23, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we have indexes on Wikipedia?

By purpose, indexes are identical to categories, in that both alphabetically list articles related to some topic. I looked at past discussions at talk pages related to indexes, and only found a small discussion and a request for comment (both here) about their existence. I see few arguments and they don't convince me. I will discuss some of them in the next paragraph.

Generally, categories aren't ported to offline versions of Wikipedia. I would propose some kind of "printworthiness" for categories like we have for redirects. Some editors were giving arguments for having list articles, but indexes are not list articles (nor set index articles for that matter). Readers don't care much about categories, but if that is so, they don't care about indexes either. It is true that categories can't contain red links, while indexes can; well I thought that indexes wouldn't contain red links, so I'm asking you for help. Some said at the RfC that indexes are more editor-oriented, and I believe that makes them unsuitable for mainspace. Another argument was that indexes can have related changes tracked; however, categories can do that as well. wumbolo ^^^ 00:11, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@2Wm: Honestly, I've never been a big fan of them. WP:Categories, lists, and navigation templates provides that essentially redundant lists and categories (and navboxes) can exist simultaneously, since they're accessed differently, and appeal to different kinds of users, and have different features and capabilities (and limitations). The index pages are a form of WP:Stand-alone list, they're just not typical of list articles (they are articles, and they are lists, so they're list articles). If I recall correctly, indexes are intended to contain red-links, in that they're meant to be comprehensive of all major topics, even if we're missing some of them at present. I have no idea if there's a rubric for determining which ones to list. Maybe they go by WP:Wikipedia 1.0 categorizations? Beats me. I'm skeptical anyone's working on these pages any longer, other than very, very intermittently. Intent-wise, they're definitely not editor-oriented. I think the comment may have predicated by the fact that our readers don't seem to make much use of them, but a small number of editors were really, really into creating them for a while.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:57, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I figured I'd reply to the part of your comment at RfA that you addressed to me, as it's not relevant to the RfA and so doesn't make sense to reply on the talk page. The answer is that no, I am not planning on running for RfA (as much as it would make my life easier), because I am acutely aware that I have negligible chances passing one. I came back from a year-long period of low activity (on a merely three-year-old account, at that) less than two months ago, my CSD and AfD records are both abysmal, and I have an otherwise very long history of doing reckless, stupid and/or poorly planned things. Nevertheless, I do, as always, appreciate feedback on my editing and behavior, and will keep your thoughts in mind going forward. I confess I was more irritated than I should have been when replying to Pldx1's comment. Thanks for your constructive criticism! —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 02:00, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My habit of making some substantial edit and then a bunch of minor edits to clean it up, like I just did here, would probably also draw considerable scrutiny. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 02:06, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Compassionate727: It was the other editor who asked if you were considering an RfA and was cranky about your perceived tone. My post was the one bolstering your point about misleading XfD stats (and then I ran in another direction to make some other point, about NAC as a better model, I think). As for "negligible chances", see above on this page at #There is a mop reserved in your name, heh. PS, about "re-edits": In that case, I'd be doomed. My most common edit summary is "typo", for fixing my own material. I'm a bit "lysdexic", and often don't see the error even after four proofreadings.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:41, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You're right; he did say that, I apparently can't read. I think I'll write that one off to the dysfunctional dopamine-reward pathways, given the time of day, although I certainly do stupid things like that anyway. Thanks though, and happy editing. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 11:12, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's all good. I usually blame lack of coffee.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:58, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. Thanks for the support vote here. Would be grateful if you could take a moment to look at a similar requested move here. Thanks! — Film Fan 10:02, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Film Fan: I would strongly advise not posting messages like this, per WP:CANVASS. It's okay to neutrally notify editors of related/similar discussions if you think they'd be interested, though doing so selectively tends to also lead to canvassing accusations. When you do it on the basis of how someone previously !voted, it's definitely canvassing. So, I'll sit this one out for propriety reasons.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:19, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. Never come across this in all my years. I am indeed trying to get more votes for the correct outcome but think people can follow a discussion without being swayed by a personal message. — Film Fan 23:01, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's strange to me, but points out that the "WP has too many rules pages" complaint isn't easily dismissed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:33, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Film Fan: PS – the consensus-accepted approach is to seek broader input across the board rather than selectively, to make the eventual outcome have more support. It's the discussion that determines which answer is "correct" for WP. The typical method is to neutrally notify relevant talk pages. In this case, perhaps WT:FILM, WT:MOSFILM, WT:MOSTITLES, and WT:TRANSLATION. However, this isn't usually done (or we'd be drowning in such notices) for RMs, unless there's reason to think the case will have strong force as precedent, or it directly affects multiple articles already in being a big mass RM. In this case, I wouldn't notify more broadly.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:04, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Until then, see ya around the project.    — The Transhumanist   20:44, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@The Transhumanist: For recovering potentially salvageable portals because they were the work of the now-blocked sock, you could probably use undeletion requests to move them to your userspace and see if they're worth working on and restoring (if not, just {{db-user}}).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:10, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That reminds me, I need to make a list of the admins in the Wikiproject. Thank you for the idea.    — The Transhumanist   21:15, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A wonderful edit summary. It brings a smile to my Friday - as does the yawning cat in your talk page notes message. Many thanks and I hope you have a pleasant weekend. MarnetteD|Talk 23:25, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@MarnetteD: I mock my own typos pretty often. The cat's supposed be smirking! Heh. PS: there's some cat-face back story at #Cat face. I forget when I started using a cat; I'd been using various ASCII-art faces for years, and had a little stockpile of them somewhere ... User:SMcCandlish/sandbox4. Some turned out not to render unless you had a huge Unicode font.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:38, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ah I see now. A smirk is as good as a yawn :-) Thanks for the link to the faces. Lots of fun. Cheers. MarnetteD|Talk

Yeah, sometimes I had to take a break from article work, policy arguments, etc. E-doodles. PS: Did I detect a Monty Python reference?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:52, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:MOS:THE, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:MOS: and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:MOS:THE during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 18:07, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Lawrence Liang. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Stanton,

I just found interesting posts by you, mentioning me, at User_talk:Born2cycle. I don't see anything objectionable, but am yet to read it at leisure. You always have an interesting perspective. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:29, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SmokeyJoe: Hopefully not "interesting" as in the old Chinese curse. LOL. PS: Please don't take my observations there about a couple of your old posts as jabs at you; the point was to establish that the entire discussion was heated, and it wasn't "everyone was having a party and then B2c threw bombs into the room" (and I'm the first to admit some of my own heated talk-page posts at various RMs and other debates have been "imperfectly collegial").

The more I look into that case, the more disturbed I am by the outcome (even if the target can be a discomfort in the glutes sometimes). It's not right for an AE case, seeking DS that are explicitly inapplicable to the forums in question, to conclude with DS being applied, but not labeled DS, to institute a block and T-ban that were not authorized by any ArbCom case's DS, any ArbCom decision, or any community decision at ANI or elsewhere. They just literally came out of thin air. As soon as AE collectively realized it had no jurisdiction, this should have been dropped, or taken to either ANI or ArbCom (probably ARCA rather than RfArb).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:15, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The WikiProject now has 92 participants, including 16 admins.

Welcome

A warm welcome to the newest members of the team:

• Keith D
• RL0919

Be sure to say hi.

Congrats

Pbsouthwood has just gotten through the grueling RfA process to become a Wikipedia administrator. Be sure to congratulate him.

The reason he went for it was: "For some time I expect to be busy with subpage deletion for Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals as mentioned above. The amount of work is expected to keep me busy for some time. I am primarly a content creator and contributor to policy discussions, but would be willing to consider other admin work on request, providing that I feel that my involvement would be appropriate and not too far outside my comfort zone."

New feature: Picture slideshow

Evad37 has figured out a way to let the user flip through pictures without purging the page. Purging is awkward because there is an intermediary confirmation screen that you have to click on "yes". In the new picture slideshow section, all you have to do is click on the > to go to the next picture or < to instantly show the previous feature. The feature also shuffles the pictures when the page is initiated, so that they are shown in a different order each time the user visits the page (or purges it).

It is featured in Portal:Sacramento, California. Check it out to the right.

Keep in mind that the feature is a beta version. Please share your comments on how to refine this feature, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Refining the Picture slideshow.

The one-page portal has been achieved

We now have a one-page portal design. It isn't fully automated, nor is it even fully semi-automated, as there are still some manually filled-in areas. But it no longer requires any subpages in portal space, and that is a huge improvement. For example, Portal:Sacramento, California utilizes the one-page design concept. While is employs heavy use of templates, it does not have any subpages of its own.

I commend you for your teamwork

This is the most cooperative team I've ever seen. With a strong spirit of working together to get an important job done. Kudos to you.

In conclusion...

There's more. A lot more. But it will have to wait until next issue, but you don't have to wait. See what's going on at the WikiProject's talk page.    — The Transhumanist   02:10, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Contuing from where we left off at Help talk:IPA/English:

I also have had the same experience that, of the rhotacized form, I "definitely hear it sometimes, especially from people from the eastern half of the country, and it sounds weird to me". I should've made it clear that since these are all rare and learned words/names, I've only picked up their pronunciations later in life by imitating someone or (if lucky) a small group of speakers. In fact, I couldn't readily tell you my own pronunciations for them with perfect certainty, though this is my best guess: P[u]geot, G[œ]del and G[œ]bbels (maybe, in fact, [œ˞], though the strongly rhotacized form, [əɹ], I agree, sounds weird), Sch[oʊ>əɹ]nberg, M[oʊ]bius, ph[ʌ], and mil[ju>ʊ]. Incidentally, SMcCandlish, what do you think would be your more Western U.S. pronunciations of these same words? (We can take this to my talk page if you feel we're going to off the main track here.) Wolfdog (talk) 02:26, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I use the full German /ø/ for the German ones, due to German class, and this is surely rather pretentious. (I probably don't always do it when I'm not thinking about it; I've probably uttered something more like "I remember reading G[oʊ]del, Escher, Bach back in the day" more than once). Hearing "G[əɹ]tə" for Goete makes my skin crawl. For lack of knowing much about French and its slightly different sound for oe, I would be inclined to do French words as if German for that character string. A French-fluent friend said my attempts at French pronunciation were funny (in other ways). I wouldn't do this Germanization for a name like Schoenberg if the subject was North American, but use Sch[oʊ]nberg, as most of them do themselves. For milieu, I'm "broken": I picked up that word around age 10 from playing D&D (the Dungeon Master's Guide used it a lot) and still pronounce it mil[joʊ] which is what we all guessed was how to say it. Frankly, I have an unreasonable prejudice against spoken French and the French accent in English that I've never been able to explain (especially since it's supposed to be "sexy"; I'd much rather hear a Welsh or Scottish lass coo at me), so I generally don't try to put any Frenchification on French loanwords, other than, as with most Americans, my fillet ends in [ei] (I don't drop the r from foyer, though). Peugeot comes out of my mouth as just /pjuʒoʊ/, almost dismissively. >;-)

I took three years of Spanish, and lean toward proper pronunciation of snippets of it in English but without whacking the English ear too hard (e.g., I don't clip the consonants of all their aspiration, and do nothing to assimilated words and names like "San Francisco" and "burrito"). Anyway, I'm not a representative sample of much of anything, since I learned to read and write in England and had an Buckinhamshire accent until I was about 7, then the family moved back to 'Murica. I was habitually using -our/-re spellings well into high school, until a hostile "English" teacher started giving me bad grades for it. People have noticed before that my spelling here may wander depending on what ENGVAR is most apparent in the thread. And my parents has [US] Southern but different accents (California-influenced New Mexican, and deep, deep Mississippi; one said "lehsure time" the other "leesure", etc. I also worked hard on consciously losing much of my Southern inflection, and then I lived for a while in Ireland, then Canada. Have lived on both US coasts and in the middle for long stretches. And I watch at least as much British TV as American (and have watched lots of the former since I was teenager and we started getting Doctor Who and BBC nature shows on cable, finally – felt like coming come. And I tend to pick up aspects of the local pronunciation automatically and much faster than usual; e.g., I lost my British accent completely only about a month after moving back to the US, and in adulthood was often mistaken (only momentarily) for a local in Dublin after only about a month there). So, it's all a mixed bag in my case.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:30, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Wolfdog: Forgot the ping, not that this is Big Serious Stuff. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:17, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh wow... You're a total mess, huh? Haha. That's what makes language interesting! I love these kinds of insights (almost literally "sights into others' linguistic inner world"). Thanks for taking the time to share!

I'm certainly with you on fillet and foyer.

I agree that I've kind of reacted against the stereotype of French being sexy or romantic, and I now even enjoy pushing my Francophone friends' buttons by reminding them that it's the most divergent and "bizarre" of Latin's little children languages (especially pronunciationwise). Wolfdog (talk) 11:50, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the fact that it's the most corrupted from Latin, in most ways, of all the Romance languages has something to do with it for me, but part of it's also just the laziness of it – all the ending-dropping, and the mid-word dropping (especially of s, e.g. Étienne, étoile, étrange). And all that nasalization. I joke-not-joking that it's Vulgar Latin turned really, really vulgar by Norse invaders and their commingling Gaulish vassals. Should've stuck with Gothic and Norse! "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" is pretty much unforgivable: six words squeezed to three syllables at most, and crazily redundant ('What is this that this is?') to ask 'What's this?'. Why not just *Qu'est ce?

But in the end, I dunno. Maybe what really happened is I had a mean French nanny and have repressed the memory. Ha ha.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:57, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

After two-years of re-litigation of a topic ban, another editor was short-term blocked (against my urging to not block), and their topic ban was kept in place, and a new one-way interaction ban imposed against making further wild accusations against me [25] (I'm on this editor's dirt-list for having provided much of the evidence that resulted in the topic ban, though I did not open that case myself). This was unfortunate enough, though the TBAN and the IBAN are surely necessary, since the editor used every appeal venue to focus on me and my nefarious motives and wicked deeds rather than the reason the community, its admins, and its arbitrators were imposing sanctions the other direction.

Rather than reflect on what led to this and how to eventually get out from under this cloud, the editor simply resumed accusations, and repeatedly claimed to be in fear of their life or safety because I might "come after" them to make a physical assault and (I couldn't make this up – see diffs below) that I'd done so before, and also predicted that I would use the user's own talk page to "gravedance" and slander them while they were away, and that the topic ban could somehow result in this editor being sued or arrested (for what, I don't know): [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31] This string of odd aspersions – interrupted with multiple admins' warnings to no avail – promptly resulted in an indefinite block with talk-page access revoked [32].

I have no interaction with this person off-site, not even by the "Email this user" feature, and I don't roll that way on-site. Nor can anyone, even if they wanted to; let's quote directly from WP:Banning policy:

It is unacceptable to take advantage of banned editors, whether by mocking, baiting, or otherwise abusing them. Personal attacks, outing and other behaviours remain unacceptable even if directed towards a banned editor.

We have not interacted on-site for almost a year, other than that over the last couple of days I've responded to accusations (about which I was not notified as required) made by this party at WP:AE in the latest in a long-series of noticeboard actions relating to this this user. The entire situation is depressing, because the editor is productive outside of the topic-banned area, which I have been saying all along at the dozen or so noticeboard actions over the last 4 years about this editor and that topic.

The few things I've left at this user's talk page between the original topic ban stuff and when I stopped posting there at all, last year, have been conciliatory. They were rebuffed with hostility despite being direct responses to that editor's own demands. It's the furthest thing from stalking/hounding/harassment. Whether I resent the implication is immaterial (I'm not very easily offended); but I categorically deny it, and all the evidence presented in all these noticeboard actions makes it clear they are baseless accusations. If I were having any contact with this person off site, through some means, I would expect ArbCom to be made aware of it within the hour and to act on it harshly.

I just want the community to be clear that I have no interest in any form of interaction (on-site or off-site) with this user (though I actually support an un-block after some time for reflection, because the TBAN/IBAN combination should prevent any further disruption). I've made this statement because any random person looking into the editor's most recent block is going to see all these evidence-free but very serious accusations, and I'm arguably not in a position to refute them on the page where they appeared. Nor do they quite appear to qualify for WP:Oversight, though maybe for WP:Revision deletion, about which I'm enquiring.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:03, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments thereon

@Oshwah: Any administravitorialistic verdict on those diffs? I would as soon have them go away, and my post above just get immediately stuffed into an archive page as old news.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:02, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I showed them to an oversighter, and we both agreed that they're not eligible for suppression or rev del. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:40, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Oshwah: Very well. I would at least think that the one that implies I've physically assaulted this person before would be RevDel'able. But I guess the rants are absurd enough on their face.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:34, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If anything, it demonstrates this user's behavior and can be scrutinized by the community if needed in the future. I don't see this being used against you at all - it clearly isn't true. I've had users call me crazy weird things and accuse me of ridiculous things like this numerous times. I wouldn't worry about it :-). ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 13:44, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• If a character reference is of any use here, I just want to say that I have never felt that Sandy McCandlish might stalk and attack me. EEng 23:39, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  @EEng: That's just because you've haven't been trying to revert my obsessive original research about the Bolsheviks' connections to Pokémon.  ;-P  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:34, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm a bit frightened that anyone could even concieve of such a connection... humor, humor! Ealdgyth - Talk 14:11, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  On an actually serious note, I once did an essay on The Lion King as conservative propaganda. A generation later, I stand by it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:47, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  At the opposite end of the spectrum - my high school English teacher was amazed to discover that Animal Farm is an allegory of the Russian Revolution. She swore that she did not know that before I did a book report on the book... given her general level of clue... I can actually believe it. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:53, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Wow. Just wow. Secondary-school credentials don't take much. I had a 9th-grade English teacher who was convinced "spatial" was pronounced spatt-ee-ull. I kid you not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:11, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was bemused at how that user's behavior went off the rails after the block. I had some private correspondence with them in which I encouraged them to find a way forward that would be acceptable to the community. Unfortunately I believe they saw it as a request to "plead guilty" even though they didn't perceive any issues with their behavior over time. --Laser brain (talk) 14:27, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Predictable, given everything the user said in all these rounds of appeals. They're convinced (or pretend to be convinced – many of us are sure this is an act) that any concession to anything is a concession to everything, including to things already retracted, and that no one will tell her what she's actually done wrong or what she should do/say to get out from under the cloud, despite having been told all of these things about 100 times now.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:02, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Note to self: Much of the circular-argument venting by the editor in question has been predicated on the idea that I'd somehow violated AE or ArbCom rules about evidence presentation and length limits, by letting AE and ARBCOM know about an incompletely-prepared and -pruned evidence pile I'd amassed in a userspace page (with the intent of eventually using it in a WP:RFARB, which ended up not being necessary because someone else pre-emptively took the same user to WP:AE). Here is further proof that's not the case. ArbCom almost unanimously accepted a case against an admin/crat (who resigned under a cloud in response, and likely would have had the tools removed if they had not), after a pointer to precisely the same kind of long diff pile that was not yet ready for the Evidence phase of that case.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:15, 19 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about that, accidentally clicked undo when i meant to click thanks! XD

Have redone the edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polymorph self (talk • contribs) 17:08, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's all good. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:15, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Goliath. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

At Redirects for discussion a rather new editor is claiming shortcuts with the MoS acronym routinely link to help pages are other Wikipedia pages that are not part of our policies or guidelines. Do we normally mislead our editors like this..... in the middle of a debate we don't link a fake MOS shortcuts thus implying that it's a guideline when it's not do we?--Moxy (talk) 05:35, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Moxy: It's probably not cool. Every "MOS:" (or – if we end up keeping them – "MoS:" or "Mos:") shortcut should go to an "Wikipedia:Manual of Style[/...]" page, with few potential exceptions. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are:

1. Draft MoS pages that are in actual use but haven't been completed in some part of them and still lack a formal WP:PROPOSAL process. The two I know of are MOS:GLOSSARIES and MOS:ORGANISMS, both in active use as if guidelines for over 5 years.
2. A page that is no longer part of MoS but is an actual guideline; this can happen because of a rename, split, or merge (e.g. WP:SAL is a combined style and content guideline, and only one section of it part of MOS; and MOS:INFOBOX needs to be split into a content guideline on infoboxes, and small section in the main MoS page on the few bits in MOS:INFOBOX that are actually style matters, since most if it's content not style).
3. Perhaps to a part of WP:AT or a naming conventions page, or maybe even a "Help:" page – if something is often mistaken for MoS material, and MoS itself [or a subpage thereof] has no good link target for the shortcut. However, this is better handled by finding or making such a target, and using a hatnote to point to the non-MoS page that's also relevant.
4. Maybe a WP:PROJPAGE that is a wikiproject's style essay – as long as it doesn't actually claim to be part of MoS or a guideline, and isn't "advertising" the MoS shorcut, and MoS itself has no good target for the redirect.

That fourth one is really iffy, actually, as it can still be misleading. Ultimately, probably all the "MOS:" shortcuts would go to MoS pages, because that makes sense and it's what the "MOS:" pseudo-namespace was authorized for by community consensus.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedbag request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of pioneers in computer science. Randy Kryn (talk) 06:26, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nom nom, feedback, nom nom nom ...  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:04, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Nextdoor. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think that removing (Chopin) from Chopin waltzes is a bit over legalistic. We remove band names because pop editors get furious if another band has the same song, and see pop songs as a competition for Top 10 placing, but classical music readers aren't like that. They are pluralistic non-competetive human beings and can accept that waltzes were written by different composers. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:52, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@In ictu oculi: Not sure I care much, as long as a) we end up with a consistent system at least within the classical category, and b) we aren't using 3–4 disambiguations per title just because some early classical-focused writers at WP didn't understand our titling system and tried to make every article title serve the descriptive/defining purpose of an entire lead section. This may need to be cleaned up in stages. I actually expected the RM in question to fail as an RM per se, but to serve as a pot in which to stir some ideas about which way to take it all later, and it's serving that purpose. Wouldn't be the first time. See, e.g., my doomed mass-decapitalization of all dance-related article titles at once about two years ago, which teased out which ones (on what grounds) might require separate RMs; the "generic" ones are now uncontroversially moving to lower-case in batches, while the ones people are likely to squabble about, predicated on various specialized-style fallacy excuses, can be taken one at a time later.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:06, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well they like it, why not. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:10, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problems with titles, real names that is. Waltz, however, is no title but generic, and waltzes were written by several composers, and some of those used op. to distinguish, while others perhaps a key, and some readers will know the same piece by key, others by op. number. Is it really unbearable to have all three dabs (key, number, composer) in a title, to help readers finding a piece? Another thing worth considering is the number before Waltz (or whatever), which may be 16 or 3. Should that count as part of any title? Four Last Songs, yes, that's a well-known group, and published as such, but who will know how many normally? Have you looked at Mozart's masses, with all their numbers and nicknames (example: Mass in C major, K. 167 "in honorem Sanctissimae Trinitatis"), and many in C major ;) - There was a discussion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:34, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We already have procedures for this; classical isn't a uniquely different case. Settle on a disambiguation system, not three systems at once in the same title (unless the first and the second still produce ambiguity). We have WP:CONCISE for a reason.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:24, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Let's add an infobox! EEng 09:49, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  WP:ARBINFOBOX3: The Reckoning – coming to the big screen this summer!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:24, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Compositions typically have an infobox, unless an author notices a year later ;) - When an article is called just Sixteen Waltzes, will the infobox make a search function know it's by Brahms, and show that (but none by Chopin) when looking for "Brahms waltz"? - Anyway, going to add one. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:43, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like The Reckoning is already in the post-production phase. [sigh]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:46, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at the law essay only afterwards ;) - the day I have Nazi on the Main page. Seriously: I don't think infobox wars exist (possibly never existed, - perhaps before my time), but the concept seems attractive to some. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:08, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Alex Jones. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Don't mind that box to the right. We'll be talking about that later, below.

Almost done...

With the portals upgrades?

No. :)

What is almost done is the updating of the main list of portals!

There are 23 portals left to be listed.

Kudos to the WikiGnome Squadron, for spearheading this.

Once it is fully updated, we need to keep it up to date. When you complete a portal, remember to add it to Portal:Contents/Portals.

Concerning portal upgrades, we are working on those section-by-section...

Associated Wikimedia section conversion task complete

The Associated Wikimedia sections of the entire set of portals have been upgraded. These are now handled on each portal base page (bypassing the previously used corresponding subpages), using the {{Wikimedia for portals}} template rather than reiterated copied/pasted code.

So, to be more accurate on reporting upgrade progress, that's one section down (for the whole set of portals), with (about) nine sections to go. (Skipping curated portals, regarding custom content sections, of course).

Further section conversions (using AWB)

Work is underway on converting Portals' introduction sections, and the categories sections.

If you would like to help, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Upgrade introduction sections and Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#AWB task: Convert category sections

Further section conversions (by hand)

Work has also started with converting selected picture sections to picture slideshow sections. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Install picture slideshows.

Quality rating system for portals under development

Currently, there is no quality rating for portals: in the Portals WikiProject box on each portals' talk page, it just says "Portal". But times are a changin'. Quality assessment is on the way, and you can help. See the discussion.

What's coming: excerpt slideshows

Evad37 has figured out a way to apply the picture slideshow feature to displaying article excerpts (now you can check out the provided box above). :) This allows us to bypass page purging to see the next selection, and you can even click through them rather quickly. Currently, the wikicode for doing this for article excerpts is a bit eye-boggling, and so we are looking into simplifying it. A streamlined version may be just around the corner.

Note that this is a prototype, not ready for widespread use. Click on the box in between the lesser than and greater than signs, to see what I mean. It was meant for pictures, and so the thumbnail feature doesn't apply to article prose very well. I've presented it even though it isn't ready, to show the direction portal development is heading. See the discussion.

Wow

I'm amazed at how rapidly portals are evolving. And we're still within a single generation of portal technological evolution. Imagine what they might be in 2 or 3 more generations of developments. Pretty soon, portals will be able to shake your hand. :)    — The Transhumanist   11:05, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You mentioned you were interested in content guidelines for Portals.

I thought you might be interested in knowing that some issues pertaining to this are being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/General#Proposed new quality class assessments.

I'd be interested in reading your ideas about what constitutes a quality portal. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   09:35, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I added some general-overview comments and some specifically about MOS:PORTALS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:26, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Humane Society of the United States, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Constrictor (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:32, 18 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:WUPV. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 19 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Would you be able to lend your support to a page move, please? I have asked that this page be moved, per Wikipedia's rules (here). The band's name is moe., and it is listed in all lowercase letters with the period. It follows the same rules as bill bissett, danah boyd, and k.d. lang. Thank you. 208.44.170.115 (talk) 17:22, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You should not canvass editors you think will be receptive to your preference. (And I'm not; I would happily see this article move to normal-English names like K. D. Lang.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:24, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:33, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes/FAQ. The capitalisation is controversial and your move reflects neither the current editorial consensus on sources, nor past discussions. It was also undiscussed. You've reverted another editor without raising it first at the appropriate talk page. [2009, I apologise]. Yes the article is a mess, but no, not a good move; and not done in a good way. Fifelfoo (talk) 17:06, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:ISMCAPS, WP:NCCAPS, and WP:CONSISTENCY policy would disagree (thus so would WP:CONLEVEL policy). If you're sure all those policies and guidelines would be overruled somehow to continue over-capitalizing – against the very guideline intended prevent exactly this kind of over-capitalization – feel free to list it WP:RM/TR for reversion, and I'll just open a regular RM about it. PS: I agree "the capitalisation is controversial"; it would have to be, given that we have multiple guidelines saying to not do that with words like "communism", so removing the capitalisation is the correct course of action. Tiny WP:LOCALCONSENSUS cliques do not get to make up their own "rules" in FAQs to hold other editors at bay; see also WP:OWN and WP:EDITING policies (and WP:VESTED, a broader community interpretation of their applicability).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:11, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your actions are being discussed on the article talk page. Fifelfoo (talk) 17:22, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than argue about it, I've simply opened the RM discussion, since the article needs to stop using the biased word "regimes" in its title, too. There's no point, per WP:Common sense and WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, in temporarily reverting one title to another when both of them are WP:NPOV violations.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:19, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It gets worse, it should never have survived its AFDs. Given the amount of heat over light the page has produced, it isn't BUREAUCRACY, so much as "I know what is about to happen anyway, so ought to do it myself because I'm not going to push for an outcome or be emotionally engaged." Fifelfoo (talk) 18:22, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I quite agree your AfD assessment, but I think the core content has developed enough that much of it is salvageable if split into, e.g. Mass killings by the Soviet Union, etc. (or something like that; "under the Soviet government", whatever). As for whether the gladiatorial pit going on over there want to run around screaming and hacking because I changed a character, I really don't care. RM is a site-wide process for a reason (namely, to break "local consensus" stonewalls), and this needed an RM anyway because of the PoV title, capitalization aside.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:29, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Even though our exchange at Talk:Ellipsis degenerated into fruitless head-butting, please be aware that, as a reader, editor, and monetary contributor to Wikipedia, I am grateful for your many contributions, including your advice, in December 2017, concerning my edits to Dash. — Peter Brown (talk) 20:28, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter M. Brown: Thanks, and it's all good! If come across as a forceful arguer, please don't take it personally. It's just a habit developed from a decade-plus as a professional activist. I don't always successfully moderate it here, though I'm careful to not go ad hominem on people. I try to be critical of arguments and rationales not individuals; in a month or 6 or 12 no one will care or remember about most of this stuff, anyway. On that particular matter, the reason I'm being adamant about it is that if we make "use the same divergent style as these sources" exceptions in one case, people will demand it in every case they have a personal interest in. We've learned that the hard way. We would almost certainly have tens of thousands more articles (and more B-class or better articles) if all the time and energy people spend fighting about style were spent on developing content and just following the style guide. The entire problem with any style manual and article title scheme (at any publisher) is that it is basically impossible for any line item in it to have agreement from 100% of people, nor for any one person to agree 100% with every line item. Consequently – and especially at a site where all contributors feel empowered to "make their mark" – there will inevitably be attempts to change the spec to suit someone's preferences. If I had my own way, I would have changed at least 50 things in MoS and related pages (AT, naming conventions); but I don't get my way, and over time I've seen that the value in MoS isn't in being "correct" (a subjective notion in a language with no official standards) but in being stable and applied consistently. It gives readers a more seamless experience across the site, and it eliminates the majority of editor-on-editor style fighting. Style matters are mostly arbitrary.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:19, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Help talk:IPA/English. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

[33] EEng 18:05, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Surely not. It's like Jamaican English, etc. There's not formal, written register that is distinct from general British/Commonwealth English. I truly fucking hate all these WP:OWN-ish "ENGVAR stamp" templates people are making up and sticking on articles they want to "police" to contain their favored local colloquialisms. I've tried to resolve it twice, both cases with "no consensus", so will have to keep at it. I may just try TfDing several of the templates directly.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:08, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, then you're needed over at the talk page, and don't call me Shirley. EEng 18:11, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop taking amphetamines."  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:13, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here. I almost snorted Diet Coke all over the table. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:38, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Trust me, I was tempted. You know what an "RFTM, dude" I'm capable of posting. >;-) But I actually just went thru this sort of thing with two others yesterday and it gets a bit tedious. Plus I'm sure it's tedious for to see for everyone who already understands this stuff.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:42, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Look at SMC, growing some self-control. Or some laziness. ;) --Izno (talk) 02:41, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Or it could just be a crafty part of my sinister machinations.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:14, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously you just sneakily infested me with it... Ealdgyth - Talk 12:55, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to The Cabal.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:28, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Quantico (season 3). Legobot (talk) 04:28, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I probably don't have the time/attention span to start an RFC... GiantSnowman 07:53, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@GiantSnowman: I opened a thread (though not an RfC, at least not yet) at WT:MOSBIO.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:41, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just noticed, many thanks! GiantSnowman 13:42, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

NP. The "someone" wasn't meant to be cagey; I've just learned from WP:ARBATC to avoid any show of "personalizing style disputes". The proposal stands on its own merits regardless whose idea it was.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:20, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that you recently added links to disambiguation pages.

List of fictional cats in literature (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Mouser

Sharking (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Pool shark

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:17, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think I'm OK at not addressing the contributor (most of the time) - but what I am really need to learn is how to keep things short, to the point, and to cut off reply loops - reply once or at most twice.Icewhiz (talk) 14:26, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have a problem in that area, too. Maybe most of us do. I think WP:SYSTEMGAMING types exploit this human behavior quirk on purpose. It's why we have WP:IDHT, but there's not actually an enforcement mechanism, really, against someone employing proof by assertion and argumentum ad nauseam unless and until it just rises to a generalized WP:DE / WP:TE level. Consequently, people trying to just WP:WIN have a marked tendency to recycle the same argument over and over as if no one addressed it, and to ignore refutations or straw man them, and do whatever else it takes to never budge on their anti-consensus position. It's unfortunate, but if we haven't resolved it by 2018, we probably never will.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:35, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Hatnote inline has been nominated for merging with Template:Hatnote. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 17:40, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Palm slap to my own forehead. Great correction, I was rushed and missed it as the top line. Thanks. Squatch347 (talk) 13:07, 27 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I was the one who missed argument from fallacy right at the top of the page. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:06, 27 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Now with "effect" vs "affect" I think I might be going senile. (It also means you are in the lead with only 1 mistake, I've now got two ;-)) Again, thank you for the catch! Squatch347 (talk) 13:35, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I thought that one was my error.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:54, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Noah's Ark. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There's a discussion at WP:Main_Page/Errors you could probably shed some light on regarding the capitalization of Hetman. My reading (which I freely admit isnt something I have indepth knowledge) of the MOS is that as it is used in the OTD blurb for tomorrow it shouldnt be capitalized, and that the article itself has over-capitalized it in places. Your opinion would be welcome. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:18, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the help. Confirmed I was reading the MOS page correctly as well, which is always good to know. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:31, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And that's one of the most difficult aspects for some people, e.g. the difference between "Gerald Ford was President of the United States" and "Gerald Ford was a president of the United States". People just see "but I wanna capitalize!", and don't see "this is a title of office, that is a category, and they just happen to share most of the same characters".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:40, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi SMcCandlish. The Article titles and capitalisation arbitration amendment request filed 21 June 2018 has been declined. For the Arbitration Committee, --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 17:26, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We've grown to 94 participants.

A warm welcome to dcljr and Kpgjhpjm.

Rating system for portals

We are in the process of developing a rating system specifically for portals, as the quality assessment scheme for articles does not apply to portals. It is coming along nicely. Your input would be very helpful. See the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/General#Proposed new quality class assessments.

Better than a barnstar

One of our participants got involved with this WikiProject through interest in how the new generation of portals would be handled in WP's MOS (Manual of Style). It didn't take long before he got sucked in deeper. This has given him an opportunity to look around, and so, he has made an assessment of this WikiProject's operations:

I'm quite frankly really impressed and inspired by what's happening here. If you'd asked me a year ago if I thought portals should just be scrapped as a failed, dragged-out experiment, I would have said "yes". This planning and the progress toward making it all practical is exemplary of the wiki spirit, in particular of a happy service-to-readers puppy properly wagging its technological and editorial tail instead of the other way around, and without "drama". It's also one of the few examples I've seen in a long time of a new wikiproject actually doing something useful and fomenting constructive activity (instead of acting as a barrier to participation, and a canvassing/ownership farm for PoV pushers). Kudos all around. — SMcCandlish

Congratulations, everyone. Keep up the great work.

Slideshow development

We've run into a glitch with slideshows: they don't work on mobile devices.

Initially, we will need to explore options that allow portals to have slideshows without adversely affecting mobile viewers. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#Mobile view support.

Eventually, we may need another way to do slideshows. If we do go this route, and I don't see why we wouldn't, then (user configurable) automatic slideshows also become a possibility.

TemplateStyles RfC passed

Once implemented, this will allow editors to create and edit cascading style sheets for use with templates. This will expand what we can do with portals. For more detail, see mw:Extension:TemplateStyles and Wikipedia:TemplateStyles.

Automation effort

We've run into an obstacle using Lua-based selective transclusion: Lua is incapable (on Wikipedia) of reading in article names from categories. Because of this, we'll need to seek other approaches for fully automating the Selected article section. We are exploring sources other than categories, and other technologies besides Lua.

Speaking of using other sources, the template {{Transclude list item excerpt}} collects list items from a specified page, or from a section of that page, and transcludes the lead from a randomly selected link from that list. Courtesy of Certes. So, if you use this in a portal, and if the template specifies a page or section serviced by JL-Bot, you've now got yourself an automatically updated section in the portal. JL-Bot provides links to featured content and good articles, by subject.

What is "fully automated"? When you create a portal using a creation template, and the portal works thereafter without editor intervention, the portal is fully automated. That is, the portal is supported by features that fetch new content. If you have to add new article names every so often for it to display new content, then it is only semi-automated.

Currently, the Selected article section is semi-automated, because it requires that an editor supplies the names of the various articles for which excerpts are (automatically) displayed. For examples, look at the wikisource code of Portal:Reptiles, Portal:Ancient Tamil civilization, and Portal:Reference works.

So far, 3 sections are fully automatable: the introduction section, the categories section, and the Associated Wikimedia section.

Where is all this heading?

Henry.

Or some other name.

Eventually, the portal department will be a software program. And we won't have to do anything (unless we want to). Not even tell it what portals to create (unless we want to). It will just do it all (plus whatever else we want it to do). And we will of course give it good manners, and a name.

But, that is a few years off.

Until then, building portals is still (partially) up to us.    — The Transhumanist   13:46, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Milwaukee Bucks. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There's an oddity in the {{Alexandre Dumas}} template, which shows the visible title fine, and how it appears on the Alexandre Dumas page. You broke Wikipedia. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:41, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Damn, my vandalism got caught! It was the new-ish requirement to add |nocat=y to the {{lang}} template when it's used inside a container like a link, an image caption, etc. Pain in the butt. I guess it's an okay trade-off, given the other improvements (e.g. auto-italicization of foreignisms in Latin scripts). I want to see if there's some way to get around this problem. I note that collapsible navboxes have a way to detect the presence of more of them on the same page and auto-collapse when several are present. I would think that the same technique could be used to detect whether a category has already been applied or at least whether the same template is already in use on the page. Also thought of a more robust bot solution; have raised this issue at Template talk:Lang.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:09, 1 July 2018 (UTC); revised: 23:26, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comma-Jr. again

PS: I see you're back on the warpath for "comma-Jr." I'm trying not to be too harsh about this, but it's really getting tiresome, especially now that you're trying to inject the comma into names that don't use it, e.g. at James Gordon Jr.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:09, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your tech post lost me early on. Tech and myself quit speaking to each other long ago. Nope, not me on warpath. I'm not the editor insisting on keeping the comma off of fictional names, and on the Gordon page (editors are popping into a new comma skirmish's elsewhere too) the wait now is to see if any of our comic wikiproject editors can say if James Gordon, Jr. was presented in the comics with a comma or without. Yes, tiresome, because I thought it was settled long ago that MOS:JR is for biographical naming, not fictional names, which was the last and safe refuge of the comma. So will see what the experts say about the Gordon name. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:24, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia doesn't care if someone (even lots of someones) used to use a comma in that name; RS are not consistent on it, and the publisher of the Gordon comic doesn't do it, so that's the end of it. Your idea that "fiction = gets a comma" is nonsense that you made up. So it is "MOS:JR is for real biography only"; you're confusing "doesn't apply to spelling of titles of published works when they consistently include the comma" for "never applies to anything but bios". It's just not true. The only comma-Jr. disputations I've encountered in months are the ones you are generating. We also don't care what the comics project editors (I am one!) in particular want; we have site-wide guidelines for the specific purpose of stopping the bifurcation of (and fighting over) style on a topical basis. And, "the last and safe refuge of the comma" is clear demonstration that this is a warpath; you're right back on the same WP:TRUTH / WP:GREATWRONGS / WP:NOT#ADVOCACY campaign to "correct" Wikipedia and "save" the "comma-Jr." style.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:37, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, Dicklyon is pushing this one by objecting to the name change-back which shouldn't have been moved in the first place. But that needs further input of information. More serious is the discussion at the Steamboat Bill, Jr. talk page, where it seems you and others want to remove the comma from the film title itself (correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I'm mistaken on that). Characters with the ", Jr.", it seems like that issue will have to be discussed somewhere to settle the question, but film titles being allowed to contain the comma are certainly a finished topic, no? Enough for today in either case. You are a comic project editor, that's cool. My editing on comics has tended to be just italic runs. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:55, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You're already starting the WP:IDHT stuff, right off the bat. If the publisher doesn't use "James Gordon Jr." and the RS don't consistently impose the comma, then WP doesn't either. The attempt to move the article to a comma version is tendentious "give me comma-Jr. or give me death" nonsense, trying to impose it where even the copyright holder doesn't put it. It's ass-backwards. The Steamboat case shouldn't have the comma, because a) the majority of the copyright holder's own marketing materials didn't use it, and RS that discuss the film don't consistently use it. Same standard we'd apply to anything else. This has been explained to you, today alone, on four different pages.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:00, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I noticed your opinion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 July 2#Category:Anatolian peoples. There is a related discussion here which might be of interest to you. Krakkos (talk) 11:08, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Will check it out. Thanks.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:29, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. You once commented on the use of Geographic Nav boxes on the [Pico Union, Los Angeles] talk page.

There is a user who insists on adding them, writing on my talk page: "Hi. I would appreciate your cooperation in retaining the geographic boxes in the logical place where they belong; that is, under Geography. They are not WP:Navboxes as much as they are indicators of where the communities exist in relation to others."

I have once again removed the box from the Sylmar, Los Angeles page. If you could perhaps provide your opinion on the Sylmar Talk page, it would be appreciated. Yours, Phatblackmama (talk) 16:56, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This template is for adjacent communities only. Deets at the article talk page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:53, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello SMcCandlish. Your recent edits to Template:Tag are certainly nice improvements. It happens that I was in the midst of working up some coding for an edit request that is now completely broken. I'm not complaining, and will re-work it soon enough, if needed. I thought maybe I could tell you about it, and maybe it's something you could do very easily. It would actually be very appreciated. Right now, {{tag|!--|content=comment}} renders as <!--comment--> where it should, IMHO, render as <!-- comment -->. I had come as far as Template talk:Tag#Template-protected edit request on 29 June 2018 indicates, in case it matters. So if you can actually fix that, with ease, I am asking if you will. If you don't want to do it, that is also fine, I really don't mind re-working it. I enjoy editing templates, but it's not something that I would call easy to do, I'm hoping that it is for you? based on the changes you recently made, I am definitely impressed with the finished product. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 00:49, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@John Cline: Before I dig into it, I'm not sure if you're saying a) my change invalidated some of what you're trying to do in earlier work/requests (i.e., broke something); b) my blowing away of the template sandbox to test this clobbered your in-progress work; or c) it's just unrelated and you're asking because I'm active and know that template. In the interim, I'll go look at what you pointed me to.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Quick test 1: <!--comment-->

Quick test 2: <!--comment-->

Quick test 3: <!-- comment -->

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:56, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's the results I expected; 1 is correct because we didn't tell it to put any spaces there. 2 is lame and annoying, but predictable, due to how our templating language works. There might be some kind of "whitespace preservation wrapper" that can be used to force it to not trim off the whitespace from the submitted parameter; I'm not sure if that happens upon submission or upon receipt of the input. 3 works exactly as expected, but is of course a wee bit tedious.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:59, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Everything you did looks great, and seems to work great. I think it would just mean that I had to modify the coding I had worked up, which I wanted to look at more thoroughly anyway (that's why I placed it on hold), I am not calling a foul in any way. I am only throwing it out there that your skills and knowledge of the template appear to be far ahead of my own, and it may be something that you see as quite easy; which I say, please do. I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if you are already finished doing it. And if you don't want to fool with it, for any reason, it's no problem at all, I don't mind doing it. It just takes me a while to get it done, but that's half the fun. I appreciate you very much and don't mind saying so. Best regards.--John Cline (talk) 01:19, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to see if we have some kind of magicword for "preserve whitespace". So many templates have converted to Lua now that the ones I'm checking that do that are no longer in Mediawiki code. Maybe there's a module for doing this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:22, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@John Cline:. No dice so far. On the sandbox page, I put in the 2017 version, saved that; then reverted to your last one. So there's a clean diff between them. (And it's presuming that the code you were working on in the sandbox was only your changes against the 2017 version, i.e. against the version I just added the |link= parameter to). That said, I don't think this is the approach to take, since it would force whitespace where none was submitted in the input, and thus produce incorrect example output when the intent is to be literal. We need to instead figure out how to get it to accept:

{{tag|!--|content= comment }}

and output:

<!-- comment -->

I'll ask around for the best way to do this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:46, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@John Cline: I asked about it at Wikipedia talk:Lua#Preserving whitespace in submitted parameter value.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:57, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. I agree that the template should faithfully render its output consistent to the input being called through the template. My take on that rendering correlates with the rendering achieved when inserting code from the bottom of the page being edited which I believe uses <charinsert>. If you highlight the word comment, with no whitespace on either side and then click <!-- --> you end up with <!-- comment --> and when you highlight comment with no whitespace on either side and then click <code></code> you end up with <code>comment</code>. This leads me to believe input with no whitspace would render with whitespace. If we highlighted comment with one space on each side and clicked the comment tags we would have two spaces on each side when rendered. I appreciate everything you have done and did not mean to impose on you in any way. I hope that I have not imposed? thank you again.--John Cline (talk) 02:47, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No worries at all. I had actually been wondering about forced whitespace retention in another context anyway, and had forgotten about it, so this was a good memory-jog.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:06, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just a friendly note that <br>, <br/>, and <br /> are all valid in HTML5. See Help:HTML_in_wikitext#br. Cheers! Kaldari (talk) 23:42, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kaldari: Using the <br> form breaks syntax highlighting and causes other problems, so it should be avoided anyway. If either version is permissible one but one works better, the latter is preferable and a valid reason to change it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:14, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't aware of any problems caused by the other versions. All 3 work for me with the regular syntax highlighting. Are you using a gadget for that (like wikEd)? Might be worth fixing there rather than in thousands of articles. Kaldari (talk) 17:35, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Remember the dot's chokes on non-XHTML. WikEd's might also. --Izno (talk) 17:57, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In answer to the question, I use the syntax highlighter available under Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets, along with WikEdDiff, but not WikEd itself. There are multiple SH approaches, some of which are listed at WP:HILITE. The fact that HTML5 has been tweaked to support some lazy syntaxes doesn't mean that WP should use them when more complete ones produce better results. Same goes for our own xtag stuff; e.g., <ref name="Foo" /> is both more usable by more tools (anything that can parse XML) than <ref name=Foo/>, and more future-proof. If someone changes the ref name to <ref name="Foo 2009" />, the refs don't break, while <ref name=Foo 2009/> does. Extreme "compression" of our wikisource is not a goal in and of itself. Not when it affects human readability of the code, editor (or editor-tool) use of the code, or WP:REUSE of it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:32, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kaldari and Izno: PS: To clarify, the syntax highlighter problem isn't that <br> isn't detected at all, it's that it's detected as an open tag for which there is no closure, so everything that follows, even the entire rest of the page, is marked up as if it's content inside a container that starts at that <br>. Now that the recent parser/renderer change has happened, we're seeing new, similar problems, even in the rendered markup. E.g., if you look back in edits on this page you'll see me fixing a missing </small> up near the top of the page. Under the previous engine, MW auto-terminated that (and just about any other unterminated markup) after encountering any markup it didn't think should be inside it, such as ===Subhead. This has suddenly stopped. Any unterminated markup can booger the entire page from the error point on down, and we likely have thousands of actual articles to repair in this regard, nor any easy way to detect them that I know of. For reasons like this, I'm very harsh on "We don't have to code well 'cuz MW will just fix it on the fly for us" arguments. They're specious, lazy, and the the furthest thing from future-proof.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi SMcCandlish. Thanks for your edits on Jimmy White's 2: Cueball. I appreciate the work done (And, I apologies for my poor original editing of the article!) I've recently tried to do some work on the WPA World Nine-ball Championship; as I have been watching back some old Steve Davis matches, and found myself getting quite interested in 9-Ball. The articles are really suffering from a lack of sourcing, mostly due to az billiards being stuck behind a paywall for older materials.

Do you know of any good 9-Ball resources, that I might have missed? I've found a lot of the brackets from the German Wikipedia, but they are only barely sourced. Thanks for your time. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:49, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lee Vilenski: Nah, you do great content work; not everyone's a geeky code formatter or has MoS memorized. :-). I worked it over top-to-bottom (well, other way around, actually) and resolved every MoS and other nitpick I could find. Then did a complete B-class assessment on it (without that, the projects that use the assessments will still categorize a B-tagged article as C-class). Didn't realize AZB was paywalling these days. That's a shame. It was the one professionally-edited "stats site" that I knew of, and that I have tried in years. Category:Cue sports source templates provides some hints, though some of these are for paper sources. Some of those might be doing more online stuff now. One had back-issues available via some "e-magazine" service, but I dunno what they are doing these days. I have a lot of the paper magazines, but they're in boxes in storage. No idea when I might get to them. I had subscriptions to various of them throughout the late 1990s to around 2014, and I also bought a bunch of used lots of them off eBay, but the collection is very spotty, and I don't have immediate access to it (no room to put them, for one thing). The Billiard Congress of America might actually have some basic stuff, but probably not enough to source brackets, just winners and runners up. Maybe the WPA's own site has something. PS: How much does AZB want? If you want to get access, you might actually try writing to them and asking for a donated researcher account, and make a point of how heavily WP relies on them as a source (i.e., how much traffic we are driving to them). The peeps at WT:LIBRARY should have advice on how to get an information access holder to give out a key.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:26, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

They have membership levels, which I believe after a certain date, the information is hidden for "gold" members ever. I'll take a look. azb want's $2.90/month (So, to me, that's roughly £2); which isn't a lot, but more money than I'm willing to put forward for something outside of my big hobbies. I'll take a look into this though.

Is there much going on with the Cue Sports WikiProject? I know the Snooker one is very active, but there isn't much for Cue Sports, when I checked it out. Is the B Criteria for the project tag intentional? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:44, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Very little going on! Sadly. Intentional: yes. It should be for all projects, otherwise people just slap |class=B on every article they like that isn't a micro-stub without any regard as to whether the criteria are met. In this particular sector, we have lots of BLPs, and lots of WP:OR / WP:V / WP:NFT / WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE problems, as well as confusions between similarly named games, and old wives' tales, and so on, plus not-infrequent attempts by pros to edit their own articles. Some actual assessment is a good thing. No one's "enforcing"; one could assess one's own article, and probably no one would notice. Not a huge deal; the B-class stuff is just the pile of "is any of this ready for GA yet?" material, as well as "I can scratch these off the disasters-needing-attention-badly list". Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:05, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I was a bit suprised. I know over in England, Pool is mostly a parlour game, but Pool is huge elsewhere; so I thought it would be a super active WikiProject. I know there is a topic "to do" list for the WikiProject, but with the recent proposed changes with the WP:PW MOS, I doubt I'll get to many of this. There does seem to be a lot of the BLPs on the German Wikipedia for the Pool players, however.

I agree about the ratings. There is a huge jump between B and GA, but that can sometimes just depend on the reviewer. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:36, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

True; it's a real mixed bag. Germany: Yes, a lot of great players are coming from there these days (if not from China or the Philippines).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:28, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

- Indeed. I've just put in a request for more information at the Wikipedia Library, thank you for that. I was really surprised by the state of the WPA 9-Ball Championship article, as it basically just a stub. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:37, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So it appears. -- PBS (talk) 10:16, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@PBS: I have several things I want to deal with at that page, like the WP:POLICYFORK from MoS to keep favoring "first major contributor" (i.e., to give various WP:OWNy / WP:VESTED individual editors an illegal WP:SUPERVOTE, against WP:EDITING, WP:CONSENSUS, and other policies) instead of the replacement for it arrived at in an RfC: first post-stub revision (do what the content did, not what the editor says). And undo the idea that people can make up their own citation "style" out of nothing but their butts, and impose it and defend it against all comers no matter how stupid and awful it is (either use CS1, CS2, or a defined citation style from external reliable sources). And get general editor consensus to finally make it clear to the WP:FACTION with a stranglehold on WP:CITE that, yes, the community really does in fact favor templated citations, for objective reasons that trump the template-haters' subjective preferences. And get them to accept that tweaks that neither rearrange the overall code layout in the page (e.g. undoing WP:LDR, or making all cites vertical and so no one can understand the paragraphization in the page any longer) nor affect the visual display for readers, are not covered by CITEVAR. E.g., it's helpful to have a space between |url= and the actual URL, for line-wrapping purposes, but it is not helpful to do this to templates: {{ cite book | title = Foo Bar Baz | first1 = Jimmy Q. | last1 = Snorkelweasel | ... }}; that should be compressed to group parameters and their values: {{ cite book |title=Foo Bar Baz |first1=Jimmy Q. |last1=Snorkelweasel |...}}). And so on. I would take these one RfC at a time, and always at VPPOL. But I also have little patience for drama, so I've been putting it off for years.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:21, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

When you say "RFC" on the US use, are you talking about this discussion or something else? -- Netoholic @ 10:18, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Probably. There's been more than one discussion with a thick source-pile like that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:08, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Using an existing section since its the same topic. Several of your recent talk page comments include WP:ASPERSIONS, both against unnamed "American" editors and about me personally. I'm not going to throw the MOS DS alert up, but I advise you to rethink (and revise) how you address others in these discussions. -- Netoholic @ 08:38, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Way off base. I have a lot of diffs to present about your actions at these pages, and that's best done at your own talk page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:22, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

SMC doesn't need to be alerted anyway as he was party to the case. --Izno (talk) 12:25, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there izno need to alert him again. EEng 12:31, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Plus, if you deliver a Ds/alert, you are also automatically self-alerted. I.e., if someone left a {{Ds/alert|mos}} within the last year, then leaving them another one is a violation of the stern commandments in the template docs to not redundantly re-alert people within that span! WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY has died a pauper.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:37, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Essay idea

You might consider putting together User:SMcCandlish/Style guides based on this recent comment, seeing as I'm pretty certain you've said the exact same thing multiple times. --Izno (talk) 13:09, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Izno: Good idea.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:42, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That section is not about DS awareness criteria but specific page restrictions. We don't normally add edit notices to pages that are just under basic DS. Doug Weller talk 14:07, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Doug Weller: Oh, I get that. It just re-raises the same question though. If editnotices are "awareness" for that kind of DS [aside from the probably fixable mobile bug], how they can they not be for regular DS? Cognitive dissonance again. I've asked about this in more detail at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests#Further community input on suddenly closed "Motion: Discretionary Sanctions". That is, they were "awareness" before the mobile bug was discovered.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:25, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, your talk page is a popular place!

Quick question about the addition of "(not always fallacious)" to false authority. I think that is correct for a broader appeal to authority fallacy, but it is my impression that this situation is one in which an arguer has specifically invoked the fallacy by referencing someone without the requisite expertise. If I understand it correctly, that should always be fallacious.

Squatch347 (talk) 14:47, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's all the free cookies and beer. Sorry! I just ran out. >;-) On the change at List of fallacies, I'm trying to square it with what our articles say, and that one is strong, like slippery slope, about it not always being fallacious. E.g., on WP we agree that multiple independent high-quality reliable sources that agree with each other so frequently as to form an academic consensus are as close to truth as we're going to get, so citing such an off-site consensus is an argument to authority in the non-fallacious sense: we agree they really are authoritative, and we're not going to bother doing our own original research to prove that they're authoritative on this point. While the argument from authority article wasn't written with WP internals in mind, it's a good illustration of what the article it talking about, right in the lead and onward. It's vaguely possible we should split it into "(fallacy)" and "(principle)" or something, and not commingle the meanings in the same page (and we could also do it for some other cases, like slippery slope), but that would probably be a hard sell. As for the entry in the bottom section of the list, maybe it needs to be worded better. The article on the sometime-fallacy doesn't get into it, but much of science works this way. E.g. we accept that various "natural laws" are so close to true that we base everything else off them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem with hyphenated cite parameter keywords is fostering use of hyphen "-" error where "=" is intended, as in the revert to "Text "author-link-L. Frank Baum" ignored. I've studied thousands of cite typos, and noticed how editors tend to overuse "-" as if meaning "=" if there are hyphens nearby. This contagious use of hyphens is also seen with other text repeated nearby, such as writing about name "Arthur" and then misspelling parameter "author=" as "arthor=" or such when the focus is on related spellings or punctuation, such as using underbar "_" in nearby text and then putting "author_link=" or similar underscores in the next cite edited. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:46, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The templates auto-detect and report this error; you get a clear red warning when you preview. Whether you want to personally use the hyphens or not isn't an issue; just don't delete them when others do. It's a WP:MEATBOT issue, too.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:21, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:John Taylor, Baron Taylor of Warwick. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• In this edit you changed the indent to make my comment appear to be replying to MapReader when I was originally not.
• In this set of edits, you placed your reply in a way which makes it look, becuase of the outdent, that EEng is replying to you, rather than IJBall as he intended.

I've fixed #1, but left you #2 to fix EEng's proper threading and in whatever additional way meets your needs (and since you also have to sign a part of it). Honestly, this isn't the first time lately, so I'm going to ask you to never refactor my comments or threading, and instead ask me on my talk page to fix anything of that sort. I'd caution you to be more careful in general as well.. -- Netoholic @ 05:08, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I saw your revert summary, and trust your judgement on the matter. The post about UNESCO supposedly being a straw man appeared to be direct reply to the post above it: "I am pretty sure a lot of editors would blink if some started spelling out acronyms like UNESCO and UNICEF with lots of dots!" If it wasn't, put it where you like.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:24, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

RE - this - replying here since I do not want to derail the AE thread. ARCA has already been recently asked on Israel/Iran (for which there is a much stronger case than Israel/Turkey to include - Iran and Israel being involved in a major proxy conflict in the past 30 years, some direct conflict, and support for various armed groups) - in May 2018. The ruling was that Israel-Iran is not ARBPIA, unless it involves the conflict directly (e.g. Hamas or Hezbollah). In terms of the restriction - I think Israel/Iran would make sense to be in scope (same problems as ARBPIA). Israel/Turkey is different - there has not been direct conflict yet (and Turkey was allied with Israel for many years prior to Erdogan) - it's definitely a weaker case to make than Iran. I'll also note that the whole Israel/Iran topic area (e.g. Iran's nuclear program and related stuff) is filled with ARBPIA edit notices - that are not enforceable at AE.Icewhiz (talk) 05:49, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't suggesting a nationalism-based request, but a religion-based one, since it's more central to the conflict on- and off-site that nationality.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:51, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's complex. pre-90s/late-80s this was not religion based - it was very much based on Arab pan-nationalism and religion was hardly a factor on the Arab side (and Israel was allied for non-Arab Islamic states - Iran and Turkey). This, has, however been shifting. In any event - ARCA already ruled on this (in regards to Iran) in May 2018.Icewhiz (talk) 06:01, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For DS purposes, we have to deal with what present-day motivations are for edit-warring and other disruption, not what people's parent's motivations might have been for pro/con-Israel sentiment before WP even existed.  :-) ARCA ruled on a scope request to include Iran based on nationalism- and national-conflict-related arguments. I'm suggesting a different kind of scope-change request based on different arguments. If you all don't want to try it, that's up to you. I lack the diffs (or the time to spend finding them) to go there myself.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:06, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well I agree with you - but it probably would have to be an amendment to the ARBCOM case - which is what they indicated at ARCA.Icewhiz (talk) 07:23, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. That's what the second "A" in ARCA is.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:30, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We now have 97 participants.

Be sure to welcome our newest members, BrantleyIzMe, Coffeeandcrumbs, and Nolan Perry, with warm regards.

Work is proceeding apace. We have 2 major thrusts right now: converting the intro sections of portals, and building the components of the one-page automated model...

Converting the intro sections

We need everybody, except those building software components, to work on converting intros. If you have AWB, definitely use that. If not, then work on them manually. Even one a day, or as often as you can muster, will help a lot. There are only about 1,000 of them left to go, so if everyone chips in, it will go pretty quickly. Remember, there are 97 of us!

The intros for most of the portals starting with A through F have already been converted to use the {{Transclude lead excerpt}} template.

The standard wikicode for the automated intro that we want to put into place looks like this:

That works for most portals, but not all. For some portals it requires some tweaking, and for others, we may have to use a different or more customized approach. Remember to visually inspect each portal you work on and make sure that it works before moving on to the next one.

Be sure to skip user-maintained portals. They are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Portals#Specific_portal_maintainers.

AWB tips

I've started an AWB tips page, for those of you feeling a bit overwhelmed by that power user tool. Feel free to add to it and/or improve it.

Portal automation

We have some very talented Lua programmers, who are pushing the limits of what we can do in gathering data from Wikipedia's various namespaces and presenting it in portals. Due to their efforts, Lua is powering the selective transclusion core of our emerging automated portal design, in the form of selected article sections that rotate content, and slideshows.

To go beyond Lua's limits, to take full advantage of Mediawiki's API, we are in the midst of adding another programming language to the resources we shall be making use of: JavaScript. The ways that JavaScript can help us edit portals to boost the power of our Lua solutions, are being explored, which will likely make the two languages synergistic if not symbiotic. Research is under way on how we can use JavaScript to make some of the portal semi-automated features fully automatically self-updating, in ways that Lua cannot. Like gathering random members from a category and inserting them into a portal's templates as parameters. Once the parameters are in place, Lua does the rest.

If you would like to get involved with design efforts, or just keep up on them, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

When should we start building new portals?

Well, not at the present time, because building portals is quite time consuming. The good news is that we are working on a design that will be fully automated, or as close to that as we can get. And the new design is being implemented in the portal department's main portal creation template. This means, that not only will portals update themselves, their creation will be highly automated as well. That's the nature of templates. You put them in place, and they just... work.

What I'm getting at here, is that it would be better to wait to build lots of new portals until after the new design is completed. Because with it, instead of taking hours to create a new portal, it will likely take minutes.

That does not mean we should be idle in the meantime. The main reason most of us are here is because it became apparent that portals were largely unmaintained and had grown out-of-date. This had become so apparent that a proposal was made to delete all the portals and the portal namespace to boot. That makes our main objective in the short term to improve all the existing portals so that the community will want to keep them—forever.

Building lots of new portals comes later. Let's fix up the ones we have first. ;)

And on that note, I bid you adieu. Until next newsletter, see ya 'round the WikiProject.    — The Transhumanist   11:37, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Julius Evola. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"the only hint of any involvement in politics is his having been an Conservative MP (which for most MPs isn't a profession but a digression, from what I gather)." Don't know where you picked that up - he was never an MP, and what you "gather" is no more true of UK MPs than Americans in Congress. Johnbod (talk) 14:32, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take your word for it. The HoL in particular seemed to have a lot of people in it who have other, broader lives. The US Senate, by comparison, is almost entirely career politicians, moving up from the House of Reps, and later on to a post in the administration, or an ambassadorship, or state governor, or something else in the same vein. PS: I guess "Member of Parliament" only applies to the lower house. I haven't lived in the UK since I was a kid, and I hadn't absorbed all the nuances by that age. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:30, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Marketing of electronic cigarettes. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

	The Original Barnstar
	For your ongoing and unending effort to tidy up the bureaucracies around the English Wikipedia. Jc86035 (talk) 05:05, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Jc86035: Grazie! Which one in this case? Heh. So many, so many ...  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:49, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

	Hubi, hubow ubare yubou?
	hubellubo, ubextruba Ububbubi Dububbubi. Uball hubumuban bubeings ubare buborn frubee uband ubequubal ubin dubignubituby uband rubights. Thubey ubare ubendubowed wubith rubeasubon uband cubonscubience uband shubould ubact tubowubards ubone ubanubothuber ubin uba spubirubit ubof brubothuberhubood. ! — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 10:01, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I could not resist. Please check Barbled brotula because I may have taken you too literally. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 10:03, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Schweet.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:18, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it's not formal Ubbi Dubbi; I grew up with the version that threw in a lot of l as well as b, which is what triggered my "recognition".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:20, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of variations like arpy darpy and obby dobby (mentioned in that image) and others. I don't know them all though. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 10:45, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

file from the Wikimedia Commons File:Official portrait of Lord Taylor of Warwick crop 2.jpg This guy has a black skin. Your edits have changed his race. may be if you tone down the brightness a ilttle, it would have been more realistic. I agree the original image is too underexosed. p.s. you look like Robert Downey Jr. --DBigXray 21:38, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give it another pass, but there really isn't much to work with (with the tools I know how to use). The original is washed out; it was over-lit, then under-exposed and this produces the effect that an increase in contrast will require a corresponding increase in overall brightness to keep the result from looking like it was shot at midnight in a tomb when the contrast is raised. Pics of him on Google images are all over the map in appearance. He doesn't have black skin, literally, of course; he has the skin of someone often called "black", meaning "noticeably of some African descent". No idea what his family background is in detail. Even in Africa, people range widely in tone. Other pics of him show him not all that dark as Afro-Europeans go [34], [35], [36], [37], probably due to similar shot conditions. Others, in low light, make him look notably darker, even with the same woman (his wife) [38], [39]. I'll see if I can produce a more medium result. PS: I'd rather look like Downey than Buscemi, and am neutral on Rhys (his smile's a bit naturally sneery!).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:06, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@DBigXray: File:Official portrait of Lord Taylor of Warwick crop 2 adjusted.jpg as it newly stands is about the best I can do. Any further adjustments just seemed to distort it one way or another (whites of the eyes looking green, blue suit turning purpleish, hair getting red, etc.). You may need to flush browser cache to see the difference between the versions.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:19, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Ironman, May I know what software are you using ? I would say, the current version is still over the top. I just openend lightroom and did some minor tweaks, not far from the original. i updated the RFC and I have voted my own version now. To repeat, I agree that your edits have improved the original pic, but IMHO its making it look more unnatural. hence my own version and !vote. thanks --DBigXray 14:01, 15 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GraphicConverter, by LemkeSoft DV. If my latest attempt still looks "over the top", it's probably a big different in monitor gamma or something. On my system, my newer version is pretty much half-way between my first draft and the original washed-out image. I'll go have a look at yours now.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:09, 15 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I reduced the blue some more. Apparently the subject isn't happy with his new pic (LOL no one would be). see RFC --DBigXray 22:20, 15 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We have 97 participants.

Getting faster

Automation makes things go faster, even portal creation. One of the components Certes made was {{Transclude list item excerpt}}. I became curious about its possible applications.

So I worked out a portal design using it, the initial prototypes being Portal:Kyoto (without a "Selected pictures" section), and Portal:Dubai (with a "Selected pictures" section). Then I used Portal:Dubai as the basis for further portals of this type...

I was able to revamp Portal:Munich from start to finish in less than 22 minutes.

Portal:Dresden took about 19 minutes.

Portal:Athens took less than 17 minutes.

Did Portal:Florence in about 13 minutes.

Portal:Stockholm also in about 13.

Portal:Palermo approx. 12 minutes.

Why?

To see, and to show, what may become feasible via automation.

It now looks highly feasible that we could get portal construction time down to a few minutes, or maybe even down to a few seconds.

The singularity is just around the corner. :)

Slideshows

When using the {{Random slideshow}} template to display pictures, be sure to use the plural tense in the section title: "Selected pictures". That's because slideshows don't show up on many mobile devices. Instead the whole set of pictures is shown, hence the section title "Selected pictures", as it fits both situations.

In case you are curious, here is a list of the portals so far that have a slideshow:

Progress on intro conversions

The intros for most of the portals up through the letter "O" have been converted, using this wikicode:

Where the pagename didn't match the article title for the subject, the title was typed in.

Most of the portals that do not contain {{/intro}} or {{{{FULLPGENAME}}/Intro}} have not yet been processed.

About a thousand portals use the method of selective transclusion for the intro section. That's about two-thirds. That means we have one-third of the way to go on the intro section conversions.

Much more to come...

So much has been happening with portals that I can't keep up with it. (That's good). Which means, more in the upcoming issue. Until then, see ya 'round the project. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   08:21, 15 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Chinook Jargon, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Indo-European (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:19, 15 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It appears from the analysis of topics which do/do not have infoboxes over on the MOS/I talk page that articles that are generally suited to infoboxes are the topics are topics about discrete things. As Johnbod put it in the discussion over at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Infoboxes#Toward_drafting_criteria: The articles suited to infoboxes are about discrete things, whether people, places, taxa, events etc, where the important things to know about the subject are a) the same for other members of that class of thing, b) objective facts that are straightforward to verify, and c) clear and easy to state. The types of articles not suited to infoboxes are those where any of these three factors is not the case, which includes most articles on broader topics and concepts, but also some on things (like people of certain types)."

This is perhaps the comment that I find most important in all of the discussion over there and I think actually might have some potential to be drafted into a proposal with similar wording.

Perhaps something along the lines of:

The above proposal would not necessarily require an infobox for every article about a 'thing', but it would provide some guidance on when Infoboxes would generally be appropriate.

This would generally recommend inclusion of an infobox for most articles that are Biogrophies, but the above proposal would only really require a couple of minor criteria and leave any additional criteria up to the consensus of the page. I wonder if there is a short list of criteria that could be filled in for the vast majority of people. Off the top of my head:

• What the subject looks/looked like: A photo of the subject (if available)
• Birth date (Or approximate if not known definitively)
• Death date (if applicable)
• Profession if it is clear and possible to sum up in a few words, otherwise it may be omitted

Any thoughts on this idea? I'd like to discuss it as a possibility that might be workable, but I believe that there are a lot of refinements that might be made, so ideas toward that would be beneficial. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 01:20, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Insertcleverphrasehere: Good first draft, to me. It will never pass if it includes "people" followed by "should generally include an infobox". That is the crux of the entire decade+ debate. So, bios would have to be handled separately, and it would have to be clear that they're the main dispute point when it comes to i-boxes. "Are the same for other members of that class" is confusing; it implies that a) the values are the same, or b) every single member of the class qualifies for the parameter – i.e., if there's a single exception, then either b1) the infobox parameter is invalid for all of them, and/or b2) the infobox is invalid at the exception article. None of that is the intent of course, but people will wikilawyer until they keel over dead. Maybe something like "Are typical aspects of the entire class of subjects", or something like that. I'm not entirely sure "objective facts" would work per WP:TRUTH. Maybe "Are simple facts that are straightforward to verify. And "may also be included in the article body" should use "should also be included"; may is apt to be mistaken for the permission-related may. (I.e., people will wikilawyer that the language means they can remove information from the body and lead because it's in the infobox!) We could add a footnote about special-use infoboxes that present some tabular data not found in the article body, like the full phylogenetic tree provided by {{Taxobox}}, if we thought it necessary.

On your short bullet list of bio i-box features: People vent all the time that, aside from the image, the other details you mention are already in the lead, "thus" infoboxes are redundant. (This of course ignores that i-boxes are a different form of information architecture, and the actual goal is to make the same information available by other means, but it's an argument they press and press and press.) I don't think a list like this would work. One might be developable over time, but probably only long after we already had a basic list of rationales for an i-box in general, and a note that their use in biographies, particular for certain kinds of subjects, is often debated, and that bios are left out of our lists of "things" on purpose. Should also probably indicate that they're usually not suitable for abstract concepts like Cavitation and Culture and Authenticity (philosophy).

In closing, I would say some of the criteria-related points in the discussion don't seem to have been addressed here. They need not be list items, but some of them could probably be worked into the intro sentence, or included after the 1-2-3 list (not that all of them are great and must be included; rather, I would re-skim the discussion and see if any teaks can get an addition good idea or two or three into this concisely and without loopholes). I think with polish it would be the via proposal to try to move forward with. It would not even really be incompatible with the extended "do nothing" proposal someone drafted toward the end of that sub-thread; they're orthogonal to each other. Eventually (soon) it would need some broader discussion at the main thread. I'm trying to act as a moderator not an advocate throughout and to see both sides (and am fairly neutral on most i-box questions these days). While I'm happy to copyedit and point out potential wikilawyer loopholes (WP:Writing policy is hard), I don't think I should be too directly involved in shaping this in user talk, as it its intent.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:59, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How about:

Some info-boxes are used as a table of information not found elsewhere in the article, so I think it is best to avoid saying that infobox stuff 'should also be in the body'. My general point is that people often argue "its here so it doesn't need to be there", and this should not be used as an argument.

Let me know if you think this wording works.

I agree that we should avoid Bios for now and exclude them from the proposed guideline. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 02:58, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That looks workable, other than it should be "Non-biographical" not "Non-Biographical".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:04, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed that, and simplified a bit of the wording in the lower sentence. I feel like we should have something here about when infoboxes should not be used. Perhaps: "Infoboxes should not contain indiscriminate information, and should generally include only important facts about the subject. If there are no clear facts to include (based on the above criteria), the article should be left without an infobox." — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 07:25, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That seems reasonable and gets at one of the points from the discussion. However "should not" will be too strong without the note I already suggested, that in a few cases we have "standard" infoboxes for a few things, which provide features that typical infoboxes do not. E.g., all species articles should have {{Taxobox}} no matter how stubby the article is. That is, the template in such cases actually provides important facts on its own.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:28, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think that in the case of taxonomy articles the information generally contained in taxoboxes would be considered 'important' and 'not indiscriminate'. Still How about this:

Is something like this what you were referring to with a 'note'? — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 20:14, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Probably. Maybe more like "{{efn|There are infoboxes that are included as a standard feature in articles in certain categories, such as {{Taxobox}} for species articles, to provide special features.}}" That makes it about the rationale for doing it instead of injecting a "rule". It's probably the only example needed, though there are several others.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:59, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I like your wording better. I've changed it above. I also added some examples for the first bullet point. Anything else you think from the discussion page that needs to reflected here that isn't? Otherwise it might be time to take this wording over to MOS/I and see what others think. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 04:43, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• While I am delighted to see my text taken up in this way, I certainly don't think there should be any language like "should generally include an infobox", and this is likely to supper scupper any proposal. Much less prescriptive language like "infoboxes generally suit" should be used. And it is important to balance this with mention of the reverse types which are generally not likely to be suited. It may be politic to omit biographies, although this would be a pity, as it is there that disputes are concentrated, and applying these principles helps to understand why some are objected to and others not (understanding sorely needed by some), and might reduce disagreements where this is most needed. I also don't like changing "objective facts" to "simple facts". What is a simple fact, exactly? Some of the terms used for example in pharma drug infoboxes are very far from simple, but are not in doubt and can be given in one or two words (with a link for the many who won't understand those words). Here, I was mainly targeting the subjectivity or over-simplification that is the root cause of so many humanities infobox disputes: "notable works, influences, movement" - typically the stuff filled in here is at best debatable. Simplicity is really covered by 3). - Johnbod (talk) 03:37, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  @Johnbod and Insertcleverphrasehere: Those are all good points, too. Kind of why I've been hinting in the direction of this maybe being better drafted where the rest of the discussion is at WT:MOSINFOBOX. Toward the bottom of the meta-thread were a series of points, some of which are worth integrating carefully. Given how things have been going, some kind of clear-cut default or checklist looks unlikely to emerge (which is about what I expected), but some good ideas for general guidance, based on actual best-practice-after-debate are emerging, and that's what a guideline is for. :-) Whatever does come out of this should surely be brought to WP:VPPOL (even if that's next week, or next month, or three months from now or whatever), so it get a broader consensus discussion than just the regulars at i-box discussions.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:37, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's right, bearing in mind that the support for "do nothing" may currently be stronger than the support for anything else. I think some general hints are where infoboxes do and don't work might be acceptable. I also think a statement about the importance of accuracy is needed. Johnbod (talk) 15:35, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The "do nothing" people are against an inclusion/exclusion default and against a checklist of criteria, but this doesn't amount of a "pre-consensus" against any offering of any guidance clarifications at all, before they've even been examined. Consensus don't work that way.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:50, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi SMcMcandlish. As someone who as bumped into you in various spaces over the years with a generally positive impression resulting, I decided to take a closer look at the scope and caliber of your contributions over the last few days because it has occurred to me that your experience and facility with nuanced policy might make you a good candidate for adminship, especially now that we are seriously hurting for skilled mops. I see from looking into the matter that you had a failed run about eight years back, but it seems as if a majority of the opposes came from concerns about the way in which the discussion was promoted rather than fundamental issues with your qualifications. In any event, you have eight extra years of experience and a truly massive amount of edits to your name in the interim. I wonder if I might encourage you take another run? I can well imagine why you were not in a hurry to go through that again, but I suspect you would be good with the bit. Thoughts? Snow ^{let's rap} 07:40, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) While I agree with your sentiments, you could benefit by reading this posting, further up the page (until SMC himself answers himself).--John Cline (talk) 08:15, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I only answer myself when the question I ask myself is really intriguing. %-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:24, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Considering that my next Wikipedia contribution gave counsel regarding an atheistic manner when I meant an aesthetic manner, I may need to ask myself a few questions.--John Cline (talk) 10:43, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps your atheist aesthete has become anaesthetized. That would definitely be my excuse.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:12, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) @Snow Rise: I appreciate the vote of confidence, and this comes up multiple times per year, but I dodge the nominations. About a year and a half after my last RfA I saw what adminship did to the editorial productivity of several of my favorite editors (namely brought it to a near standstill as they got mired in drama and drudgery). That actually might be less of a concern to me now than it was; doing a lot of template, policy, and other behind-the-scenes work, I think I've found an okay balance and could probably manage it.

As a practical matter, I'm one of MoS's most active shepherds, which means I've gathered quite an "anti-entourage"; many people get unreasonably angry about typographic peccadilloes. This is why my ArbCom bid last year failed. I got more yes votes than at least two of those who did get elected, but the opposes I got from the "angry about some MoS thing" crowd swung it the other way. I don't see why that pattern wouldn't repeat at RfA. I'm plenty qualified and committed, and people in general would support, but it would almost certainly go to a crat-chat at best, because it requires a strong supermajority to pass. Everyone with any style-related nitpick would come out of the woodwork to take their bite out of me for MoS-, AT-, or RM-related "grievances" from last year or ten years ago.

I also had a reputation as a WP:DICK up until around 2014 or so. While I've seriously moderated my tone since then (and wrote WP:HOTHEADS from that learning experience), the general expectation RfA has today is that admins be all smiles and hand-holding, while I'm a bit on the curmudgeonly side. I also don't have much interest in deletion or blocking/banning, the "sexy" admin stuff; just geeky gnome work. I'm not sure that would be what people want out of an RfA candidate (though it is actually what WP needs more of – we have too many "dramadmins", and way too big of an administrative backlog).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:21, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I see--well, it's good to have you on gnome patrol and in policy spaces in any event. For what it's worth, I can't recall running into you in a situation when you seemed short, so if that is something you consciously changed in your editorial philosophy, I would say that you were fairly successful. And I say that as someone who I think gets regarded as a bit of a stuck in the mud when it comes to WP:C. Of course, it's all a matter of contrast and lately I've been thinking lately that Wikipedia has a real hothead problem in its culture right now (I've never read your essay but that's exactly the word that has been stuck in my mind recently. But I digress. I do hope I have the opportunity to give you my support in an RfA some day. Snow ^{let's rap} 09:49, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, I get an inch/cm closer to it every time someone prods me. If multiple well-respected admins offered to nominate, I might finally consider it again. However, I think people wouldn't like my AfD stats, either. I'm more deletionist than many editors like.
[In particular, I think we have way, way too many articles on bit-part actors. These people are not notable because they landed a few minor TV and movie roles and got some entertainment press coverage; they're just competent. The entertainment press are, collectively, basically not a WP:INDY source, but a cannibalistic CoI factory: They have a direct fiduciary interest in writing articles about TV show people because most of their income is from studio advertising, and more often than not they're ultimately owned by the same mega-corporations as the studios whose shows they're covering. They're a giant distributed house organ. It's like the drummer of the garage band declaring that the guitarist is newsworthy.]
Anyway, thanks for the kind words!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:16, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's the small-time business entrepreneur (usually from the U.S. or India) that always seems to be clogging up AfD to me. But to be fair, it is getting increasingly arbitrary what comes in and what doesn't these days. The SNGs are absolutely out of control. Created in isolated talk pages that function as echo chambers for superfans of the given topic matter, with little to no regard for WP:PROPOSAL--either in pro forma terms or with respect to the spirit of community vetting. They are just so subjective as a class of "guidelines" and the community has just turned a blind eye. Consequence of which is that there are certain areas where the standards are so low that every day they introduce thousands of articles every week which wouldn't have a prayer under GNG. Sport, more than anything. WP:NFOOTY is so permissive that if you once looked sidelong at a football when it rolled past you at a distance of 25 feet, you qualify for an article. By 2020, half this encyclopedia will be a football almanac. Snow ^{let's rap} 13:00, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't looked at it very deeply but it did seem to me that there we too many such articles on obscure soccer/footy players. I'd been reluctant to get into it, on WP:Systemic bias grounds. For all I know, this footballer is the equivalent of Pelé in his come country; I just wouldn't know. Anyway, part of what I was getting at ties into what you're saying: bit-part actors are not clogging up AfD, because the inclusion criteria have become so lax toward them that they'll almost always be kept, so no one bothers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:34, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

+1 for support to run. I see you around a lot and while there might have been occasional issues in the past, what I see now is that you are usually sensible and generally able to see both sides of an issue and highlight the fundamental underlying issue. I don't always agree and sometimes I feel quite strongly about it, but I have never seen an argument that I couldn't follow or respect the basis for the point. We need more diversity in the admin corps and your viewpoint would be valuable. Whether your opponents would gang up against a nomination I don't know but I'd co-nominate in a heartbeat if you ran. 12:01, 16 July 2018 (UTC) Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:02, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate that, and I guess that's one admin in the nom camp. PS: If we've bickered and argued about 'oo killed 'oo in the past, I don't recall any details of it, and it wasn't personal. I tend to mentally flush disputes after a few days, and the only ones that stick in my mind are ones that become recurrent.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:20, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, recurrent here. Do you really want to be an admin? For some reason I think you are here quite a bit anyway, and doing the work of 10 admins without-the-badge, yet have the talents to continue doing what you've been doing on a daily basis while not needing the title. We wrote of this above somewhere when it came up last time, and if you go for it I'll back you 100 percent (until the absolute power goes to your head, which it may in the first 20 minutes once you get a look at the tools in the toolbox). I only ask one thing: that as an admin you destroy that new thing that's popping up every time the "Watch" page is opened, which adds a few seconds to every time it's looked at (see, that's the kind of stuff people will come to you with, and then the moaning about someone-or-other calling someone a bad name, and you'll have to start thinking about the good old days, before-admin). Anyway, nobody can do it better, and you've proved yourself as someone who cares for the encyclopedia above and beyond, and if you ever decide to be an admin I pity the poor fools who try to block you from that new learning curve. And if you do take it on, good luck, and lots of us will have your back. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:37, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, and I do have User:Sue_Rangell/userboxes/Notadmin on my userpage for a reason. >;-) I'm honestly surprised you feel this way, given the frequency of our clashes on a few matters, but I suppose that my efforts to make MoS/AT matters be about policy/guidelines and sources and not the usual personality clashes that led to things like WP:ARBDATE, WP:ARBATC, WP:ARBINFOBOX, and WP:ARBINFOBOX2, have been working at least a little. I agree with the watchlist problem. I'm trying to figure out which Preferences option is causing it.

As for the bit: I've been resistant to the idea for a cluster of reasons: RFA being a hellhole, adminship seeming to suck the productivity out of editors (though there are some who manage to just do particular, narrow admin things and remain encyclopedists), not wanting the bit just to have it, not needing it for most of what I do (though it would useful for certain things), aversion to dramaboards, lack of faith in the idea that slapping bans and blocks on editors (aside from vandals and trolls) is a good idea except as a last resort, little interest in deletion process, the freedom to call it like I see it without being keelhauled, and the non-admin, everyday-editor perspective of what this site and community are about (being a non-admin was actually part of my "speak to the common Wikiperson" platform as an ArbCom candidate).

I would have to trade off some things to pick up the mop. I consider the idea at all only because there actually is something of a growing administrative crisis, and people prod me about it several times per year.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:52, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to hear it's not a done deal, although if you need any new or shiny tools then they should just give them to you without the title. That watchlist gif is getting annoying, and has made my "chemical self" work up the emotion of not wanting to click on the watchlist (which I then work on as an emotion until it dissipates). If we both have it maybe it's not a preference option but a new "improved" feature on all watchlists, in which case somebody has overestimated its usefulness compared to its irritation-factor. No need to be surprised at my support of your work, we've had our go-arounds and will again but an editor would have to be unconscious to be hanging around the back rooms of Wikipedia for awhile and not realize your dedication and contributions to the project. Can't imagine what it would be like without your work (every long-time editor has that "secret knowledge" of what the encyclopedia would be like if their edits never occurred), and someone who has traveled the Wikipedian road you have of course would be an excellent administrator, just that you'd have to judge the trade-offs. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:39, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Randy Kryn: Well, I have always been a supporter of unbundling more admin tools. Every time we talking about doing it, the opponents scream that all Hell is going to break loose, then we do it, then nothing bad happens. On the watchlist thing: is it just the event-advertising banner at the top of the page? (I think we see different ones; e.g., I see one about a meetup in San Francisco since I live near there). Adding (on a line by itself) #watchlist-message { display:none !important; } to Special:MyPage/common.css (and flushing browser cache, or doing a logout/login) will nuke it (and any future ones). The banner I'm getting has a "[hide]" link, and that also made the current one go away, presumably without affecting later ones. But they keep adding features to the watchlist code, and I'm not convinced all of them are efficient, so some of those may also slow down loading. RfA: I've solicited some badassadmin input below.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:36, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Aah, more hounding toward Saint McCandlish about seeking adminship. I remember bothering you about this a while back. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 10:19, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  >Ahem< that's Anti-Pope McCandlish. Heh. I get tapped about this a few times per year. My "Hell no" position on it has been eroding.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:32, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to look into the Church of the SubGenius for further inspiration, but I'm guessing that you may have already done so. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 10:51, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Damned heretics! May Eris bless them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:56, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you do decide to give RfA another shot, I strongly recommend first going to a place just like that pictured right and spending a long night of drinking and contemplation there. This will clear out the pipes, so to speak, before any potential RfA stressors. If you go to the bar, you can ponder whether or not adminiship is a "big deal"; "it's no big deal", "well, it is a big deal", "it's sort of a big deal", "nowadays it's a big deal", "it wasn't a big deal before, and isn't now", "it wasn't a big deal before, and is now" ad nauseam. Actually, some RFAs today remind me of the atmosphere at a biker bar.

On a more serious note, I consider adminship to be a relatively big deal nowadays, particularly compared to the early times when all candidates had to do is run, without really having to qualify themselves much. I always exercise deliberate contemplation, caution and forethought before using the tools. For me, it's about precision and performing as accurately and fairly as possible. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:36, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I quit drinking entirely about 5 years ago. Reminds me of this sequence. Anyway, yeah, I intend to do a bunch of page-mover and NAC work in the interim.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:17, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Swiss sovereign money referendum, 2018. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing yet another issue of The Signpost dwell on the administrative crisis – and perhaps I've just had too much coffee and cookies today – I find myself considering the option for the first time in years.

I might step up if a few of the mega-active admins I've interacted with (in and out of topical agreement) frequently and/or for a long time were in agreement that it'd be a good idea and likely to succeed. If any thought it was a silly and doomed idea, I'd take that into consideration, too. I'm thinking of (in alpha order) Anthony Appleyard, Bishonen, Dweller, EdJohnston, Fuhghettaboutit (mostly on the content side), Kudpung, Nihonjoe, Nyttend, Oshwah, Thryduulf, TonyBallioni, and probably half a dozen others. Do you want me to work with you on that level?

I think I'd focus on particular processes and backlogs like RM-related stuff, WP:RFPP, and especially WP:ANRFC which just drags and drags. While my policy-oriented interests are seen as a detriment by some ("He doesn't have any FAs and his Wikipedia_talk edits are too many"), it would be a solid strength in such areas. I have little interest in "the usual", like deletion and blocking as a regular-editor disciplinary matter (versus vandals and PoV trolls).

I keep trusting that the admin crisis is going to turn out like the alarmist Y2K fears did. It seemed like just some organizational lifecycle hiccup. But it's been going on for years and shows no sign of improving.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:09, 17 July 2018 (UTC); clarified: 21:45, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Ad Orientem: PS: I also saw your "we need admins!" post at WT:LEGAL.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:25, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd personally support. In terms of success, unsure: you're pretty well respected, but also have some old spats from before my time that I'm not as familiar with (and some recentish ones). I'd say it depends on who shows up. Sorry if that isn't more help in terms of odds. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:13, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
•  Comment: and I thought that you were. Not that I overly hang out in that moshpit anymore, just do my running repairs. I'd support you for your thorough knowledge and level head. People have got to get over spats, and focus on the appropriate, fair use of the tools to carry out the community's consensus. Hopefully we can get to the experience of "they are just tools" for people to do a little more. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:11, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I'd support you, despite disagreeing with you on occasion. You can come over a little strong from time to time, but I do not doubt your sincerity or care for Wikipedia and Wikipedians. Your policy knowledge is, from what I've seen, strong, you understand the need for consensus and you clearly have clue. I think an RfA will be uncomfortable for you - you'll get some opposition, maybe substantial opposition - so only go for this if you promise you won't be downhearted if it goes badly, and take the opposes as constructive criticism. If you can assure me on that point, I'd be happy to nominate you. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 08:26, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I'll take no offence if you prefer another nominator. My last attempt failed. But this still applies --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 08:51, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  @Dweller: Thank you, and I can handle it; I just went through an ArbCom election, after all. :-) I think it's an RfA that would require a little management. I'd expect people with some (probably MoS/AT/RM-related) grudge to vent about an argument from 2013 or so, who'd need to be asked if they have issues to raise from within the last year or so. Someone(s) or other who got a {{Ds/alert}} from me are likely to claim I "attacked" or "harassed" them, and it will need to be pointed out that it's just an awareness notice that isn't even a warning. Or I'll be accused of "not being a content editor" or even being "against content editors" because I was critical of anti-guideline, OWN-ish grandstanding behavior at WT:FAC in late 2016. That kind of thing. The people that don't like me are wiki-political about it, not just fringey spammers or PoV pushers, but largely editors with a very different philosophical position, toward local-versus-community control of content. Anyway, I'll still sit on the idea a while. Not rushing into anything. I just feel a little more each year like I'm not quite doing my part.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:08, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• It's been a while since I spent much time at RFA but my gut feeling is that your candidacy would be a close-run thing. I suspect you'd get opposition on the grounds of why do you need it if you don't want to do blocking or antivandalism work (not that I'd agree with that opposition) as well as the issues you note. I can't recall OTTOMH seeing many NACs from you, which given your desire to work on ANRFC backlogs would be something people will want to pay close attention to. If you have some, make a list of them to refer to and if you don't get some more under your belt before standing. Thryduulf (talk) 09:00, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I haven't done many lately, though I've been barnstarred for some of them. :-) It's been something I've been meaning to get back into.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:08, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Definitely get back into it before requesting the mop - a couple of really good recent ones will do a lot of good. Thryduulf (talk) 09:25, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Should do it anyway, even if I do come to my senses. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:39, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I'll have to hope against sensibility's reign. Your virtue already far exceeds the bounds of sane ability, and cogent rationale. I find it best, for me, to count blessings than try to explain. I don't know where you could find more to give, but you have my trust and support already, either way. Best regards to you.--John Cline (talk) 19:58, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I see no issues working with you if you were to pass an RFA. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 18:24, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• ENWP doesnt need more admins (although I would support your application). What's needed is 1)the unbundling of certain admin-only tools (not talking about blocking here), b)the editor base to stop running for an admin for stuff that already doesnt require admins. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:39, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I quite agree, being one of the main champions of unbundling for a decade or so. But we seem to have hit the limit of what the community is presently willing to unbundle, at least for this year. There was a proposal just a month or so ago, and it failed. Not by SNOW, but still pretty solidly.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:44, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I got overwhelmed IRL (in real life) during the production of issue #12. So, here is a catch-up issue, to help bring you (and me) up to speed on what is happening with portals...

By the way, we still have 97 participants. (Tell all your friends about this WikiProject, and have them join!)

Panoramas!

One cool feature of some of the geographical portals is a panoramic picture at the top of the intro section.

Check these out:

• Portal:Kyoto
• Portal:Miami
• Portal:Seattle
• Portal:Houston
• Portal:Tokyo
• Portal:New Orleans
• Portal:Brisbane
• Portal:Calgary
• Portal:Moscow

The Portals WikiGnome squadron is busy adding panoramas to geographical portals that don't yet have one. Feel free to join in on the fun. See task details at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Add a panorama or skyline to a geographic portal.

Caveat: avoid super-huge pics, as they can cause portal scripts to time-out. Please try to keep picture size down below 2 megabytes. Thank you.

Auto-populated slideshows

Speaking of pictures...

We now have two slideshow templates. You may be familiar with {{Random slideshow}}, in which the editor types in (or copies/pastes) a list of pictures he or she wants it to display.

Well, now we have another template, courtesy of Evad37, which accepts one or more page names instead, and displays a random image off of the listed pages. So instead of listing dozens of files by hand, you can include a title or three to be scanned automatically. It even lets you specify particular sections.

The new slideshow template is {{Transclude files as random slideshow}}.

Here's a sample, that grabs images from a single page:

New Template:Box-header colour

Speaking of new templates, here's another one!

Also from Evad37, we have a new component for starting section boxes, that is color configurable, and that bypasses the need for box-header subpages altogether. It is {{Box-header colour}}.

For color support, see Web colors.

For the discussion in which this was inspired, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Tasks#Colour combinations for accessibility.

(In case you didn't notice, the slideshow box above uses this new template).

BTW, don't forget to close your box with {{Box-footer}}.

Where are we on the redesign?

The answer to this question is quite involved, and would fill this page to overflowing. Therefore, this subject, including a complete update on where we are at and where we are going with portal design, is covered at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

Where are we on portal conversion?

An AWB pass to convert intros on the portals has been completed. The pass couldn't convert them all (due to various formatting configurations, etc.).

All but about 170 portals now have introductions selectively transcluded on the base page. Not counting manually maintained portals, that leaves about 70 portals that either need their intros converted, or they need an intro.

Next, we'll be converting the categories sections!

What's the plan, man?

The course of action we have been taking goes something like this, with all steps being pursued simultaeneously...

1) Design a one-page automated portal model

2) Convert existing portals to that design (except those being manually maintained)

3) Remove subpages no longer needed

4) Develop further tools to empower editors working on portals

Later, when the tools are up to the task, filling in the gaps in coverage (with new portals) will also become practical.

Are we caught up yet?

Probably not.

Who knows what our programmers and editors have dreamed up while I was writing this.

See ya again soon,    — The Transhumanist   10:51, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

SMcCandlish: I have withdrawn my previous nomination for a move to "Captain James A. Baker." It was going to fail anyway. I have posted a new discussion about alternative moves: Talk:James A. Baker, Sr.#Why the current article title is untenable. Would you mind weighing in over there? Thanks, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 20:56, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Per Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 June 30#Bplus-Class articles can you fix all the templates now that the articles have been moved? TIA! Timrollpickering 10:16, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think I got 'em all, other than I had do to two editprotected requests, for full-protected pages.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:08, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I just wanted to say that it's a pleasure to collaborate there (I remember seeing you around but we've had few interactions before if any). I wanted to sort my sources list and present it today but it may take a few more days: just patrolling my watchist took a while and I must leave, I may not be around for a few days (major surgery in the family tomorrow morning). If it can serve meanwhile, feel free to copy/rework this that I just copied in a sandbox. See you around the article, —PaleoNeonate – 17:35, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You, too. And no hurry. That article's been a two-train trainwreck for a long time. I kinda need a break from it for a while. I've reached out in user talk to the current main SPA, in considerable detail about sourcing policy. Probably will have no effect, but seemed worth trying, since the party is a bit more reasonable than the last one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:49, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and who knows, maybe future non-SPA editing is possible (first steps are often in relation to topics we care too much about). —PaleoNeonate – 17:58, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your move of Mist Twst had caused many links to that title to become broken. I have fixed that for you by moving Sierra Mist RR to the former title. Per WP:NOTBROKEN, this is simpler and requires fewer edits than having to fix all the redlinks to point to Sierra Mist instead. Please be careful not to make broken links again when moving pages, or else, you would need to have your page mover permission revoked. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 19:02, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Writer's Barnstar

Whenever I am perusing the Wikipedia namespace, I often find your username in the recent history and, more often than I expect, as the creator of a given essay. Just to name one among many, Wikipedia:Advice for hotheads is an excellent essay and great complement to WP:TINJ. The WP:CAPITULATE section's analysis of Wikipedia in particular is something I think is seldom done but sorely needed. There are so many other kinds of contributions I notice from you, such as your prolific participation in discussions, meticulous copy editing, and commitment to dispute resolution, but I want to highlight your essaying because it deserves recognition of its own. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 01:36, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]