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[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Author/Tony1|During my years at the ''Signpost'' I authored or co-authored 266 articles]], including [https://diff.wikimedia.org/2017/03/06/graham-pearce/ one that the WMF republished on their site]. '''But I recommend no one bother subscribing to it now—the standards are very low.''' |
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Thank you for your interest in Gestalt Practice. This is a technical subject. Let me ask you to please reverse the changes that you made to the Gestalt Practice article. First, there is a good reason why it is called Gestalt Practice. Both words are capitalized to distinguish it from Gestalt therapy, otherwise the phrase "Gestalt practice" is misconstured to be the practice of Gestalt therapy. That is wrong. Gestalt Practice is something different. Also, in the footnotes, there is a text called the Manual of Gestalt Practice in the tradition of Dick Price. That's the name of the document. Removing the capital letters is a mistake. The footnote becomes meaningless. I understand your passion for correctness. However, in this case the changes you made will cause the article to be misconstured by readers. I understand that you couldn't have been aware of these issues in advance. I appreciate your help. I would like to ask you to please reverse the changes that you made to the original Gestalt Practice article. I have posted this comment in order to inform you fully about these issues. I want to give you the opportunity to reconsider the work you have done on the article. I want you to know what is going on, rather than slam your hard work. You are welcome to remove this comment after you have addressed this matter. |
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*Some editors might find these pages in my user space useful (but after a decade or two they're in much need of renovation): |
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{{Styletips}} |
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__NOTOC__[[Image:tony11.jpg|thumb|150px|This was taken six years ago ... yes, I look a little older now.]] |
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:"What else should our lives be but a series of beginnings, of painful settings out into the unknown, pushing off from the edges of consciousness into the mystery of what we have not yet become."<p>[[David Malouf]] (born 1934) |
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:"You reach a point where you have had everything, and everything amounts to nothing." <p>[[Patrick White]] (1912–90) |
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:"There are few things humans are more dedicated to than unhappiness." <p>[[Alain de Botton]] (born 1969) |
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===My self-help writing tutorials=== |
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{{User:Tony1/Writing exercise box}} |
{{User:Tony1/Writing exercise box}} |
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{{User:Pdebee/UBX/RemembersAbsentFriend|SlimVirgin}} |
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===About me=== |
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I'm a professional editor and research consultant. My doctoral dissertation was in the psychology of music reading, including the roles of [[working memory]] and [[eye movement]]. I work with researchers and academics in their preparation of grant applications for competitive research funding. Many of my clients are staff at the [[University of Sydney]] who are applying for funding from the [[Australian Research Council]] and the [[National Health and Medical Research Council]]. This typically involves the negotiation of text in the areas of engineering, chemistry, physics, biology and information technology, although some of my work brings me into contact with a much broader spectrum of research. |
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My first career was in the European art music of the 18th and 19th centuries, specialising in the compositional techniques that underlie style—how acoustics, culture and psychology intersect in harmony and voice leading—and the psychological and musculoskeletal patterns that support excellent performance, particularly on the keyboard. That career crashed and burned eight years ago, a matter of sadness to me. |
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[[Image:Staffordshire_terrier_cross_bullmastiff 1.JPG|thumb|160px|right|My daughter, Ruby]]I’m a keen advocate of [[systemic functional grammar]], as embodied in [[Michael Halliday]]’s and Christian Matthiessen’s ''Introduction to functional grammar'', 3rd edition, Hodder Arnold, London, 2004 (except that the second edition, 1995, is easier to understand). Traditional grammar sucks; while it might be helpful in the early stages of learning a foreign language, the parsing of written words into inflexible categories doesn’t help people to write better. What ''does'' help is a knowledge of the functional relationships between speakers/writers and their listeners/readers as embodied in the grammar. But it’s damned complicated: theme and rheme; the given and the new; hypotactic and paratactic clauses; mood; texture; cohesion; tone groups; and much more—it’s a whole science of how the language fits together on many levels. Although I’ve started writing short articles on aspects of functional grammar, such as [[thematic equative]] and [[nominal group (language)|nominal group]], I can claim no more than amateur status. |
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I enjoy the teamwork aspect of working on Wikipedian text, and I’m interested that the NPOV thing works so well. I like the way in which the project brings anglophones into a relatively homogeneous international community to share their wonderful language. |
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{{userbox|white|lightgrey|[[File:Wikimedia australia.svg|40px]]|This user is proud to be a member of [http://www.wikimedia.org.au Wikimedia Australia].}} |
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{{-}} |
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===Reform=== |
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I’m a reformer; it’s what I do. Thus far, I’ve achieved a degree of success in eight areas: |
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*'''Featured article candidates.''' I promoted the technique of reviewing the prose of [[Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates|nominations]] by analysing the weaknesses in a sample of the text as representative of the whole, and providing globally applicable advice. This may have been one of several factors contributing to higher standards of prose in some featured articles over the past two years. It has certainly made nominators take [[Wikipedia:What_is_a_featured_article%3F|Criterion 1a]] more seriously (“[A featured article is] well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard”). |
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*'''Featured list candidates.''' I prompted a major overhaul of the process in late 2007, in which a directorate was appointed along the lines of the featured article process, and the [[Wikipedia:Featured_list_criteria|FL criteria]] were recast. Further improvements have since been made by the FL team. |
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*'''Date autoformatting.''' I prompted the move towards dispensing with the misconceived date-autoformatting function, and played a major role in the team of skilled editors that has worked to make this a reality. I have contributed to the program to clean up the mess that date autoformatting has caused in our articles. |
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*'''Overlinking.''' I introduced the term “smart linking” as part of moves over the past few years to persuade editors to use skill and moderation in linking. The main goals have been to strengthen the wikilinking system by avoiding the dilution of high-value links, and improving the readability of our article text. The [[User:Tony1/Silliest wikilink of the month award|Silliest wikilink of the month award]] is an only partially humorous take on this issue. |
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*'''Non-free content policy.''' In 2007, against considerable resistance, I forced through the issue of rewriting the policy text so that it is clearly and logically expressed rather than something that resembled the dog’s half-eaten breakfast. The structure, format and tone I designed survive in the current policy text, although the details have evolved since the revamp. |
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*'''Manual of Style (MOS).''' I have made a considerable contribution to improving the standard of expression and, in my view, the quality of advice in [[WP:MOS|the Manual of Style, main page]], along with users [[User:Noetica|Noetica]], [[User:Kotniski|Kotniski]], and others. In late 2006, I rewrote most of the critical [[WP:MOSNUM|Manual of Style (dates and numbers)]] (MOSNUM), setting it up to approach the characteristics of a professional style guide. |
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*'''Gender-neutral language.''' In 2007, I succeeded in introducing WP's [[Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Gender-neutral_language|guideline for gender-neutral language]] against vicious opposition. The guideline is now supported by [[Wikipedia:GNL]], written by other editors. |
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*'''Default width of thumbnail images.''' It was a tiny 180 pixels for as long as anyone can remember; I led a push in late 2009 to generate consensus on en.WP and then to persuade the Wikimedia developers to raise this to 220 pixels, almost a 50% increase. This was done for en.WP in February 2010 and for the Commons in April 2010; a gradual roll-out through Wikimedia's sites was completed by November 2010. |
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{| style="border: 1px solid gray; background-color: #fdffe7;" |
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|rowspan="2" valign="middle" | [[Image:SpecialBarnstar.png|100px]] |
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|style="font-size: x-large; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; height: 1.1em;" | '''The Special Barnstar''' |
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|- |
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|style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | To thank you for sticking with the date-linking issue and for your Herculean efforts to resolve it. <font color="green">[[User:SlimVirgin|SlimVirgin]]</font> <small><sup><font color="red">[[User_talk:SlimVirgin|talk|]]</font><font color="pink">[[Special:Contributions/SlimVirgin|contribs]]</font></sup></small> 03:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC) |
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|} |
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{| style="border: 1px solid gray; background-color: #fdffe7;" |
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|rowspan="2" valign="middle" | [[Image:Barnstar_of_Diligence.png|100px]] |
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|rowspan="2" | |
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|style="font-size: x-large; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; height: 1.1em;" | '''The Barnstar of Diligence''' |
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|style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | I could identify at least a half-dozen barnstars appropriate for recognizing your hard work here. I settled on Diligence because I believe it to be one of your defining characteristics as a Wikipedia editor. I thank you for your efforts to reform various parts of Wikipedia (want to stop retroactively decommissioning FAs for lacking inline citations next?). You're a gentleman and a scholar. [[User:Laser_brain|<font color="purple">'''Laser brain'''</font >]] [[User_talk:Laser_brain|<font color="purple">(talk)</font >]] 22:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC) |
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|}<span id="63369110113" ></span> |
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{{-}} |
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===Overlinking=== |
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{{User:Ohconfucius/Userboxes/Piggy}}Wikis suffer from the chronic overlinking of common terms; these dilute the appearance and significance of high-value links in the vicinity. The benefits of reducing overlinking will be obvious if you consult most articles on the French Wikipedia, in which dates are still linked (without even being autoformatted), common terms are typically linked (“France” on every appearance, if you please) and repeat links are typical. It's a blue-spattered mess. I continue to promote smart linking practices in which linking is allocated to relatively high-value targets, and the clarity of piping is improved. |
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{{User wikipedia/Anti-Administrator}} |
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{{-}} |
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===Influences=== |
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These are the people whose work continues to have the deepest impact on me. |
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*[[JS Bach]], the 18th-century German composer, particularly for the choral movements of his cantatas. Why would you listen to anything else? |
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*[[Michael Tippett]], the 20th-century English composer, particularly for his ''Symphony No. 2'' (1957), ''Symphony No. 3'' (1972), the ''Triple Concerto'' (1979), and the ''Concerto for double string orchestra'' (1939). He was not the greatest 20th-century composer—that honour goes to [[Stravinsky]]—but Tippett is the recent composer with whose music I feel the greatest personal affinity. |
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*[[Patrick White]], the novelist who showed that Australian culture doesn't have to be entirely superficial. |
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*[[Geoffrey Miller (evolutionary psychologist)|Geoffrey Miller]], the American evolutionary psychologist who has explained back to first principles so much about gender and what it is to be human. |
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*[[M.A.K. Halliday|Michael Halliday]], the great linguist who finally produced a map for understanding English grammar, and more broadly for understanding the grammar of all natural languages. |
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{{User:Mkdw/OSX}} |
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{{-}} |
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===My pet hates=== |
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*Religion, the greatest con-job ever perpetrated on humanity, which deserves to be called what it is: "the supernatural industry", complete with brand names such as Catholicism and Anglicanism. |
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*Nationalism, which leads to tears ... always, sooner or later. |
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*Celebrity, which makes me vomit. |
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*Display consumption, which I personally don't need or want, and which I disapprove of in others. |
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*Unregulated television and radio advertising, a primary agent for cheapening society, for promoting the superficial, unhappy life. It has become the destroyer of representative democracy, along with the acceptance of campaign-fund bribery to purchase influence. |
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*The stubborn impracticality of anglophone societies. |
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*Any music with a drum kit; call me a snob, then. |
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The first six are all hopelessly entangled, of course. They will be the death of us. |
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===Tone down the bright blue of wikilinking=== |
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Linking, which is often overused on Wikipedia, looks seriously messy in densely linked text and makes reading more difficult. You can very easily change the display colour of links on your monitor from the current gaudy blue to a more subtle shade. Try it and see. It will take two minutes; here's how. |
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*(1) First, choose how subtle you want your links to look: [[User:Tony1/Colours for linking|'''here's a comparison''']] over whole paragraphs of the current default colour with [[four]] <font color=#120A8F>other,</font color> <font color=#000080>decreasingly</font color> <font color=#003366>bright</font color> <font color=#003153>colours</font color>. |
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*(2) Create your own user stylesheet, if you haven’t done so already, at your [[Special:MyPage/skin.css|monobook.css / vector.css page]]. Mine is at [[User:Tony1/monobook.css]]. |
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*(3) At the top of that page, paste in the following, starting with "a" and ending with the curly bracket: <code>a { color: #003366 }</code> (this one is for midnight blue, the second darkest—simply replace that code with the one that suits you on the comparison page). |
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*(4) Then go to your user preferences. Make sure that you've selected "Never underline links" under ''Miscellaneous''. |
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[[WP:CLEAR|Clear your cache]], and you're done. To use another colour, simply replace "midnightblue" with the name of your choice; remove the pasted text to return to the default. Feedback on this is welcome on my talk page. I'd like to see WikiMedia adopt this as the default colour, and decouple the date-autoformatting and linking functions: it's ridiculous that dates have to be blue links to activate the formatting mechanism. |
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<!--[[Image:Encephalon Cross.svg|frame|'''The Encephalon Cross''' <br/>''For commendable contributions to the featured medical article [[Asthma]].'']][[Image:Reviewer's Award.png|thumb|'''The Original Reviewer's Award''' for [[User:Tony1|Tony]], in appreciation of his outstanding efforts in striving to maintain the quality of articles going though [[WP:FAC|FAC]]. — [[User:Ambuj.Saxena|Ambuj Saxena]] ([[User talk:Ambuj.Saxena|talk]]) 12:53, 16 September 2006 (UTC)]][[image:Barnstar_of_Diligence.png|frame|I [[user:Nichalp|<font color="#0082B8">=Nichalp</font>]] [[User Talk:Nichalp|<font color="#0082B8">«Talk»=</font>]], award Tony this Barnstar for his great work copyediting the Bhutan article. [[user:Nichalp|<font color="#0082B8">=Nichalp</font>]] [[User Talk:Nichalp|<font color="#0082B8">«Talk»=</font>]] 12:51, September 9, 2005 (UTC)]]{{award|image= Barnstar_of_Diligence.png|text= I hereby award [[User:Tony1|Tony1]] the ''Barnstar of Diligence'' for his excellent copyediting of the [[Encyclopædia Britannica]] article. Keep up the good work! --'''''[[User:Nauticashades|Nautica]]''<font color="black">[[User Talk:Nauticashades|Shad]]</font><font color="black">[[Wikipedia:Esperanza|e]]</font><font color="black">[[Special:Contributions/User:Nauticashades|s]]</font>''' 10:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)}}[[Category:Wikipedians in Sydney|subst:tony1]]{{Babel|en}} <div style="float: left; border:solid {{{1|#6ef7a7}}} 1px; margin: 1px;"> |
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{| cellspacing="0" style="width: 238px; background: #777; color: white;" |
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| style="width: 45px; height: 45px; background:#333; text-align: center; font-size: 14pt;" | <font color=lightgrey>'''osx'''</font> |
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| style="font-size: 10pt; padding: 4pt; line-height: 1.5em;" | This user contributes using '''[[Mac OS X]]'''. |
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|}</div> |
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{| style="border: 1px solid {{{border|gray}}}; background-color: {{{color|#fdffe7}}};" |
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|style="font-size: large; padding: 0; vertical-align: bottom; height: 1.1em;" | '''The Content Review Medal of Merit''' |
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|style="vertical-align: top; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | I, [[User:Woody|Woody]], do hereby award '''Tony1''' the Content Review Medal due to the sheer number of reviews that he undertakes. Tony1 strives to uphold quality prose throughout wikipedia. Your activity at [[WP:FAC]] and [[WP:FAR]] is truly appreciated. Thankyou. [[User:Woody|Woody]] ([[User talk:Woody|talk]]) 20:27, 11 December 2007 (UTC) |
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Latest revision as of 03:53, 16 March 2024
During my years at the Signpost I authored or co-authored 266 articles, including one that the WMF republished on their site. But I recommend no one bother subscribing to it now—the standards are very low.
- Some editors might find these pages in my user space useful (but after a decade or two they're in much need of renovation):
Self-help writing tutorials:
This Wikipedian remembers SlimVirgin. |