Most recent poster here: SMcCandlish (talk).
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Contents
- 1 Unresolved old stuff
- 1.1 Cueless billiards
- 1.2 Look at the main page
- 1.3 Some more notes on Crystalate
- 1.4 WP:SAL
- 1.5 Your free 1-year HighBeam Research account is ready
- 1.6 Your Credo Reference account is approved
- 1.7 Circa
- 1.8 You post at Wikipedia talk:FAQ/Copyright
- 1.9 Hee Haw
- 1.10 One of the reasons gardens are walled
- 2 Kinda old stuff to sort through (mostly barnstars I didn't move to my /Barnstars page yet)
- 3 Current threads
- 3.1 ANI Sandstein thread
- 3.2 Great to see you back here
- 3.3 ARCA
- 3.4 ARCA edit
- 3.5 Hey Stanton
- 3.6 Request for clarification
- 3.7 Good news
- 3.8 Reference Errors on 23 March
- 3.9 You are now a template editor
- 3.10 A tip
- 3.11 Glossaries talk v404.23
- 3.12 BracketBot message 2 April 2014
- 3.13 Reference Errors on 2 April
- 3.14 Nomination for deletion of Template:Date series header
- 3.15 Sig
- 3.16 I feel your pain.
- 3.17 Sam Stern
- 3.18 Consensus at guidelines, and stuff
- 3.19 T:FAUNA listed at Redirects for discussion
- 3.20 Arbcom sanction
- 3.21 Disambiguation link notification for April 13
- 3.22 English species names, proper names and capitalization
- 3.23 I'll extend the olive branch
- 3.24 Nomination for deletion of Template:Tlb
- 3.25 Thank you! A gift from fellow Wikipedians.
- 3.26 April 2014
- 3.27 Bird names
- 3.28 Adminship?
Unresolved old stuff
Cueless billiards
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Categories are not my thing but do you think there are enough articles now or will be ever to make this necessary? Other than Finger billiards and possibly Carrom, what else is there?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Sad...How well forgotten some very well known people are. The more I read about Yank Adams, the more I realize he was world famous. Yet, he's almost completely unknown today and barely mentioned even in modern billiard texts.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
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Look at the main page
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Look at the main page --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
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Some more notes on Crystalate
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Some more notes: they bought Royal Worcester in 1983 and sold it the next year, keeping some of the electronics part.[1]; info about making records:[2]; the chair in 1989 was Lord Jenkin of Roding:[3]; "In 1880, crystalate balls made of nitrocellulose, camphor, and alcohol began to appear. In 1926, they were made obligatory by the Billiards Association and Control Council, the London-based governing body." Amazing Facts: The Indispensable Collection of True Life Facts and Feats. Richard B. Manchester - 1991[4]; a website about crystalate and other materials used for billiard balls:[5]. Fences&Windows 23:37, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
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WP:SAL
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No one has actually objected to the idea that it's really pointless for WP:SAL to contain any style information at all, other than in summary form and citing MOS:LIST, which is where all of WP:SAL's style advice should go, and SAL page should move back to WP:Stand-alone lists with a content guideline tag. Everyone who's commented for 7 months or so has been in favor of it. I'd say we have consensus to start doing it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 13:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC) |
Your free 1-year HighBeam Research account is ready
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Good news! You are approved for access to 80 million articles in 6500 publications through HighBeam Research.
Thanks for helping make Wikipedia better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 04:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC) |
Your Credo Reference account is approved
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Good news! You are approved for access to 350 high quality reference resources through Credo Reference.
Thanks for helping make Wikipedia better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi 17:22, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
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Circa
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This edit explains how to write "ca.", which is still discouraged at MOS:#Abbreviations, WP:YEAR, WP:SMOS#Abbreviations, and maybe MOS:DOB, and after you must have read my complaint and ordeal at WT:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Circa. Either allow "ca." or don't allow "ca.", I don't care which, but do it consistently. Art LaPella (talk) 15:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
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You post at Wikipedia talk:FAQ/Copyright
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That page looks like a hinterland (you go back two users in the history and you're in August). Are you familiar with WP:MCQ? By the way, did you see my response on the balkline averages?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:54, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
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Hee Haw
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Yeah, we did get along on Donkeys. And probably will get along on some other stuff again later. Best way to handle WP is to take it issue by issue and then let bygones be bygones. I'm finding some interesting debates over things like the line between a subspecies, a landrace and a breed. Just almost saw someone else's GA derailed over a "breed versus species" debate that was completely bogus, we just removed the word "adapt" and life would have been fine. I'd actually be interested in seeing actual scholarly articles that discuss these differences, particularly the landrace/breed issue in general, but in livestock in particular, and particularly as applied to truly feral/landrace populations (if, in livestock, there is such a thing, people inevitably will do a bit of culling, sorting and other interference these days). I'm willing to stick to my guns on the WPEQ naming issue, but AGF in all respects. Truce? Montanabw(talk) 22:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
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One of the reasons gardens are walled
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Looking at Montanabw's reaction, I think sometimes you fail to look through the eyes of the editors in a narrow field, and end up with enemies instead of friends. I actually left off editing horse articles years ago because of the controversies, and the hammering out of consensus in that project has been decidedly non-trivial. It's important to remember that a local optimum is always optimal, locally, and that getting to a global optimum can involve considerable work, work that many editors thought they had already done. To me, the best way to start out is always "Here are some more general issues I perceive; I see that you do things differently. How can I help you deal with your problems in a way that will meet my goals?" In the case of the bird folks, this probably wouldn't have worked, but I think It's always a good place to start.--Curtis Clark (talk) 18:13, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
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- You're right that my cleanup efforts have not been efficient when it comes to horses. (They have been in other areas, including donkeys, with direct cooperation from Montanabw, curiously enough, and in domestic cats, among others.) It is difficult to predict what projects will find article naming and categorization cleanup controversial, and on what points.
I understand the WP:RANDY problem, but I'm not part of it; WP:Manual of Style/organisms could not have been written by a Randy. One problem to me is that too many alleged experts treat everyone who disagrees with them about anything as a Randy, often very insultingly so. And by no means is every editor who claims expertise actually an expert; many, especially in biology projects, are simply fanciers, and others may have studied zoology or botany as an undergraduate, but that's it. I have a degree in cultural anthropology, but would never call myself an expert in that field. Large numbers of, e.g., WP:BIRDS editors don't even have that level of qualification, but will fight to the death to get their way on capitalization (and on a faulty basis – they continually claim that the fact that bird field guides capitalize common names means that the mainstream publishing world is honoring the IOU's convention, when in reality all field guides on everything have always capitalized this way, as ease-of-rapid-scanning emphasis, since at least the 1800s, long before IOU even existed; it's a coincidence, and they know this but pretend this fact was never raised.
Another related issue is that WP:Competence is required – not just competence in a particular field, but online community competence to work collaboratively toward consensus. Not all academics have this, and many are extremely competitive and debatory. Sometimes the only thing to do is not care if this sort leave the project (or even be happy that they've gone). The vast majority of expert editors are a boon to the project, but being such an expert is not a "Get Out of Jail Free" card in Wiki-opoly. As one example, several years ago, one alleged (and probable) expert on albinism was extremely disruptive at the page that is now Albinism in humans. He considered himself [writing live; I don't mean peer-reviewed joural articles he'd written] to be a reliable source, and basically refused to do the leg-work to provide source citations for the material he wanted to add, nor to show that material he wanted to remove was obsolete or otherwise wrong. I bent over backwards to try to get him to understand WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR, but he just would not listen. Myself and others kept having to prevent him from making the well-source if imperfect article a mostly unsourced mess, and he eventually left the project is "disgust" at other editors' "stupidity", much to a lot of people's relief. The article today is very well sourced and stable (aside from frequent "ALBINOESES LOOK STOOPID" vandalism). The disruptive expert's absence was a boon. I feel the same way about WP:DIVA expert editors who threaten wiki-retirement, WP boycotts, editing strikes, mass editorial walkouts and other WP:POINTy nonsense. We all know that in reality academics have zero problem adapting to in-house style guides of whatever venue they're writing for. Pretending that doing it on WP is onerous is a abuse of WP as massively-multiplayer online debate game.
We really need an "intro to Wikipedia for academic and professional experts" guide, to help prevent incoming specialists from falling into such pitfall patterns (not to mention the one identified at WP:SSF). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 20:45, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- You're right that my cleanup efforts have not been efficient when it comes to horses. (They have been in other areas, including donkeys, with direct cooperation from Montanabw, curiously enough, and in domestic cats, among others.) It is difficult to predict what projects will find article naming and categorization cleanup controversial, and on what points.
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- Just wanted to let you know that I did read this, started an unproductive reply, and then decided I needed to think about it a while.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:40, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
- @Curtis Clark: It's a been a while, but I thought I'd get back to you about this. If I resume editing, I may in fact try to draft an "intro to Wikipedia for academic and professional experts" guide. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 20:54, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
- Actually, Wikipedia:Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia might be good enough. Didn't know that existed. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 21:59, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
- Just wanted to let you know that I did read this, started an unproductive reply, and then decided I needed to think about it a while.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:40, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
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Kinda old stuff to sort through (mostly barnstars I didn't move to my /Barnstars page yet)
Chapeau
... for this one! Cheers - DVdm (talk) 20:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks! I actually like hats. :-) Your readability tweak was a good idea. I was a little concerned about it myself, but I'm not a cards editor, so I wasn't sure if there was a typical way of making hands more legible. (Also not sure if people conventionally use the card symbols that are available in Unicode, etc.). I do edit a lot of games articles, but almost exclusively in cue sports and related. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 12:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I specially like hats when there's a set of dice under them :-)
- Perhaps you don't know, but overhere we use the name chapeau for the cup and, by extension, for the game itself. As you can see here—als je Nederlands een beetje in orde is—, we play an entirely different game with it, a game where one can practice the fine art of subtle bluffing, downright lying, assessing oponents' behaviour, and accurately estimating probabilities. We also play the "Mexican" variant, which is even subtler. Check it out and cheers! - DVdm (talk) 18:26, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- I didn't know that, about the chapeau. I thought you were awarding me a virtual hat. :-) . I am familiar with the bluff game (possibly the Mexican version, since I learned it in California), but have always played that one with regular dice. Anyway, if you like what I did in the English version, certainly feel free to "port" it to the Netherlands Wikipedia. I may be able to work through the Dutch enough to add something about the other variants to the English article here, since it is rather paltry. Heh. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 04:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, it was meant as a virtual hat award as well - I had seen a hat on your user page :-)
Porting from there to here could be a bit problematic, as there's not many sources around, alas. - DVdm (talk) 17:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'll have to dig through my game encyclopedias and stuff. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 17:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, it was meant as a virtual hat award as well - I had seen a hat on your user page :-)
- I didn't know that, about the chapeau. I thought you were awarding me a virtual hat. :-) . I am familiar with the bluff game (possibly the Mexican version, since I learned it in California), but have always played that one with regular dice. Anyway, if you like what I did in the English version, certainly feel free to "port" it to the Netherlands Wikipedia. I may be able to work through the Dutch enough to add something about the other variants to the English article here, since it is rather paltry. Heh. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 04:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Barnstar comment
Hello. You have a new message at Djathinkimacowboy's talk page.
Don't delete this! -
The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar | ||
For behaving in a genteel fashion, as if nothing were the matter, and for gallantry. --Djathinkimacowboy 03:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC) |
- Sankyu beddy mush! Hardly necessary for me just behaving properly. Heh. But I appreciate it anyway. I left you a note at your page about that Guidance rename idea. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 04:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Cheers!
A beer on me! | ||
for all of the thoughtful posts through the extended discussion at MOSCAPS. I've appreciated it. JHunterJ (talk) 13:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC) |
- Thank ya verra much! I was thirsty. >;-) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Barnstar
The Barnstar Creator's Barnstar | ||
Thank you for your submission of the Instructor's Barnstar. It's now on the main barnstar list. Pinetalk 15:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC) |
Keen beans! Thanks.
A barnstar for you!
The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar | |
This comes as a recognition of your kindness in developing the Firefox Cite4wiki add-on. It has been helpful and a great resource. I was also happy to learn you contribute to Mozilla which I do as well :) ₫ӓ₩₳ Talk to Me. Email Me. 18:28, 31 August 2012 (UTC) |
- Thanks, though some others deserve more credit than I do, especially Jehochman (talk · contribs) for the original concept, and Unit 5 (talk · contribs) for the bulk of the code still used in this version. I mostly just added the ability to customize the output for specific sites, and fixed some consistency issues, as well as set up the WP:Cite4Wiki page for it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 21:01, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
Thank you
The Socratic Barnstar | ||
In recognition of your general fine work around the 'pedia, and the staunchness and standard of argumentation on style issues. And if for nothing else, I think you deserve it for this comment Ohconfucius ping / poke 02:07, 13 November 2012 (UTC) |
- <bow> — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 07:59, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
The Special Barnstar | |
It's a bit delayed, but for your rather accurate edit summary here. Keep up the good work on various breed articles! TKK bark ! 18:06, 25 February 2013 (UTC) |
- Why, thank ya verra much! :-) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 20:34, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Heroic Barnstar
The Original Barnstar | ||
For your recent work at WP:MOS: A model of unflagging effort, precise analysis, institutionally broad and historically deep vision, clear articulation, and civil expression under great pressure. Unforgettable. DocKino (talk) 06:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC) |
Thanks. I do my best. At this point I'm being attacked on multiple pages in a concerted effort of harassment, and suspect that their goal is to get me to simply quit the project. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:17, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Some Wiki-love for you
The Purple Barnstar | ||
You've been putting up with a lot of crap from other quarters; just want to let you know that people out there do, in fact, manage to appreciate your work. illegitimi non carborundum! VanIsaacWS Vexcontribs 04:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC) |
- Thanks. That means a lot right now, actually. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 11:42, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Current threads
ANI Sandstein thread
I have refactored the discussion so as not to discourage participation by more editors. [8] (They already know what we think, we want to know what they think.) This means I have left only a one- or two-sentence statement after the !vote. I hope I have chosen the most representative and neutral statements to represent your views, if not, let me know. —Neotarf (talk) 15:17, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
- That's fine. I'm interested in resolution much more than venting. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 06:00, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Great to see you back here
Even if under difficult circumstances, WP without you is like having a major piece of furniture missing from the living room. :-) Tony (talk) 15:50, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
- Appreciated, but I'm about 80% decided to leave again, and 20% decided to try one last time to resolve the Sandstein dispute, via RFARB. I give that low odds of success because of pro-admin bias, and already-declared prejudice against the case by one of the Arbs (I'll demand his recusal of course). If I don't receive satisfaction that way, I'll probably just walk permanently. I've given the community about an entire year to fix this, and nothing's come of it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 16:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
- Actually, I just noticed that NE Ent put back their version of WP:ARBATC#Log of notifications, not Sandstein's (except for Neotarf). If it stays that way, that actually effectively voids my main complaint (a false accusation against me, by Sandstein, appearing in that log, and nothing I or anyone else said ever getting it removed despite it being defamatory). The 1-month MOS topic ban by Sandstein is still an issue, but as it came during US tax season and I was too busy in meatspace to appeal it before it expired, it's kind of moot except as evidence if he pursues any grossly WP:INVOLVED action against me. I guess I'll sit on this a while and see if the ARBATC log changes stay as-is. if they do, I might return to editing. I have a couple of articles worth working up, would like to finish MOS:ORGANISMS, and have a few other things I could be interested in doing here. I'm still bitterly disappointed, however, in the admin community's abject failure to do anything to resolve this matter for an entire year, no matter how many times it was raised. My confidence in this project as a whole has not magically been restored. I still think there are massive problems with how Wikipedia is being administered. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 17:34, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
- @Tony1:Looks like I'll stick around for a while. :-) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:35, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
- Might want to remove yourself from Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians, then . Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 17:36, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
- Right! Thanks. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 19:55, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
- Might want to remove yourself from Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians, then . Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 17:36, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
- @Tony1:Looks like I'll stick around for a while. :-) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:35, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
ARCA
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment#Clarification_request:_Article_titles_and_capitalisation NE Ent 02:15, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
ARCA edit
I'm a brand-new clerk for ArbCom, and stilling learning how to do things. One of the clerks task is to make sure that statements don't get too long and that the tone remains civil. There is a 500 word limit for statements; your original statement was well within the limit (so thank-you). I've confirmed that succinct responses to questions from the arbs should fall outside that limit, as would make sense. However, I note that a single section added by you is over 700 words, and I sense an increase in the intensity of language. I appreciate that you collapsed the section, which helps with page management, but presumably you expect it to be read by all arbs, so the collapse doesn't achieve much in terms of brevity. I plan to coordinate with other more experienced clerks for counsel, so at this time I'm not planning to take any action other than to urge you to take a deep breath. You are trying to make some points, a wall of text with strident language will undercut your points.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:04, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
- Noted. It is just frustrating that after a year the same party keeps trying to make the same logically and factually invalid points as always. I'm amenable to whatever you recommend, and will right now go reduce the size of that section. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 21:34, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
- PS: My actual intent/expectation was that Arbs would NOT want to read it, because it's not germane to "what to do to resolve this dispute"; it's just a "for the record" response to Sandstein's questionable statements. This is one place, finally, where Sandstein can't actually close the discussion himself against me, despite being WP:INVOLVED in my view and that of many others. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:17, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
- I haven't had to live it, so I won't insult you by saying I totally understand, but I have seen many legitimate complaints derailed when the main point gets lost. I appreciate that it wasn't intended for the arbs, but we expect our arbs to read what is presented, and while they may realize they didn't need to read it when they get to the end, it is kinda too late. I appreciate your willingness to dial it back. If you read carefully, I think you will see that many arbs are sympathetic to the issues, I hope you make their life easier by letting them focus on the main issues. Thanks for your understanding.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:51, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
- Noted! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 04:23, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks for the advice. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:35, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
- I haven't had to live it, so I won't insult you by saying I totally understand, but I have seen many legitimate complaints derailed when the main point gets lost. I appreciate that it wasn't intended for the arbs, but we expect our arbs to read what is presented, and while they may realize they didn't need to read it when they get to the end, it is kinda too late. I appreciate your willingness to dial it back. If you read carefully, I think you will see that many arbs are sympathetic to the issues, I hope you make their life easier by letting them focus on the main issues. Thanks for your understanding.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:51, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Hey Stanton
Glad to see you're back (even if only for a short time). Just wanted to let you know while your eyes are here, that I for one certainly appreciate your edits over the years! Btw, in your absence blah.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:46, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks! I agree with you on the navbox issue, and glad it wasn't deleted. There's a conformist tendency here to assume that "different" means "bad" and must be suppressed. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 04:22, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
- @Fuhghettaboutit:Looks like I'll stick around for a while. :-) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:51, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Request for clarification
The clarification request involving you has been archived. The original comments made by the arbitrators may be helpful in proceeding further. For the Arbitration Committee, Rschen7754 22:06, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Good news
Glad to see this! Bishonen | talk 23:12, 21 March 2014 (UTC).
- Yeah, it only took over a year, to resolve only 2/3 of the issues that led up to my leaving. Better than nothing! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 23:18, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Reference Errors on 23 March
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Happy template editing! — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 03:47, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
- Nice to see you back making improvements to templates. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 03:47, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks. It's nice to be back. I wish this template-editor access stuff had come about around, say, 8 years ago when I and various others were suggesting it. Lots of "the sky is falling" nonsense along the fallacious lines of "we trust admins to do everything, and only trust admins to do anything" kept it from happening for years and years. Sorry I wasn't around for whatever proposal finally succeeded. My two abortive RfAs were actually pretty much entirely about a need to edit protected templates; I didn't really want to do much of anything else administrative. Heh. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 04:31, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
A tip
If you're tagging a redirect, make sure the tag goes above the REDIRECT code. If it goes below, the redir still works, and the admin will get go to the target (and think the problem, whatever it was, is sorted). Anything above the redirect code stops the redir working. Peridon (talk) 16:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
- Okay! — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 16:47, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Glossaries talk v404.23
Hi Stanton, I know a lot of this has been discussed on various pages and been re-hashed before, however, I would like some clarification as to the issues and how to address this going forward before I try to assist in any way and break or re-release any bugs into the system(s).
- Firstly, my overall impression is that your contributions are numerous, greatly admired and in the most part very effective and that glossaries have a life of their own and can be used in two main ways, that is; 1. Interwiki links and 2. Links or parsed through to any other site using wiki as a resource.
So now to the crux, preamble..
- Definitions should be to the greatest extent possible be simple and easy to understand preferably even by the general public, to that end, if the definition extends to more than one, clear and concise sentence this goal has not been met and should therefore be re-worded.
- The wiki mark up works perfectly for interwiki uses.
- The errors in parsing are somewhat self inflicted, by either inconsistent mark up or too long a definition, see Glossary of cue sports terms#training template.
Crux, questions, possible solution and the way forward, attempted in a top to bottom approach..
- Make use of the main article on wiki, i.e. each glossary has a main article link at the top of page to reduce any and all lead sections to the essence of what this glossary is trying to achieve and not explaining the subject matter.
- To the greatest extent possible avoid self referencing, so that each lead section and definition can stand alone.
- A consistent TOC, that promotes best practice, is concise for the purpose of each individual glossary is defined.
- The wiki mark up "Anchor|anchor name*(*=term and variants of term)|term" is used on all singular defined items. I believe this method has no known issue for single sentence definitions.
- XML stanardised mark up is avoided if at all possible and promoted in its simplest form if not.
- Multiple definitions are avoided if at all possible, making use instead of tags to split the terms, i.e. US, UK etc., include a see also where appropriate.
- Definitions that have their own main article are linked to such.
- All pictures are removed to reduce size to increase the speed of load time.
- The default sort and category mark up is detailed.
- MOS updated to reflect agreed best practice.
This should assist in the general editors, (non-programmers etc.) to have more buy-in and ability to expand any glossary. I know this is not a quick fix and I am more than happy to assist in any way, I have spent some time reading the current MOS, issues log, bug reports etc. etc. and a lot of the issues and fixes are inconsistent and confusing. Despite the length of this section, believe it or not, I think I have missed something, lol.
Going forward, 1. I believe I could write up a TOC best practice section relatively quickly. 2. If you could provide a parsing error that corrupts wiki mark up, where the above conditions are met, so that I can start working on a solution. and finally 3. Can we start some new categories to track and monitor performance and issues effectively.
Kind regards
The Original Filfi (talk) 23:54, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
- It's unclear to me what concerns you are trying to address; the above seems to be a mixture of technical and editorial concerns that are not particularly connected, many are solutions in search of problems that aren't clearly demonstrated to exist, and some of it doesn't make sense to me, as-given (e.g. "XML standardized markup is avoided if at all possible..." - why would we avoid doing standard things?) I also don't understand what "Glossaries talk v404.23" refers to; Wikipedia talk:GLOSSARIES has no thread that seems to involve these numbers. Perhaps most importantly, I feel you're sorely confusing an encyclopedic glossary with a dictionary; glossary entries here should be precisely as long as they need to be to properly inform readers. An arbitrary one-sentence length limit is what would ensure failure at meeting our encyclopedic goal with such entries; see previous debates on the survival of Glossary of cue sports terms, the "flagship" glossary article, for well-articulated debates about this. In fact, I would kind of insist on you reading all of that. :-). Anyway, I'm sure there are in fact entries that are too long-winded in some glossaries here, but that's an editorial problem precisely the same as any other content verbosity issue, e.g. in a paragraph on a non-glossary page, and hasn't anything to do with glossaries in particular. Please try to articulate separately what you see as issues that need to be addressed, and we should look at them to see which are problems to do with glossary markup and structure, and which are not, which can be addressed by technical changes, which by guidance changes, which are not valid, which are more general and not tied to glossaries at all, etc. This should probably be done at WT:GLOSSARIES. PS: The fact that it's complicated is not all that big a deal. Nothing requires anyone to use the richer form of glossary markup, just like nothing forces anyone to use our painful wikitable markup, or geeky template language. Editors who have such WP:COMPETENCE do well at that kind of work here, those that don't do not, and so something else, while those that do reformat after them. No one is mandatorily made to use our headache-inducing citation templates, for example. Just add facts and mention the sources, and someone later will handle the coding. It's the same here, with glossaries. We don't dumb-down the technical capability of features here on the basis that noobs can't understand them. We just accept that they don't *yet*, and work around it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 15:54, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi Stanton, I certainly was not trying to authoritatively tell any glossary editor or potential editor "This is the way, and the only way".
The approach I was using was listing all issues on glossaries specifically and creating a listing of all MOS requirements to enable educated debate and therefore a standardised and a "as simple as possible" guide to all editors, the listing was supposed to be holistic, covering the whole approach and communication of such to assist any future editors, which is why it mixed technical, editorial and guidance aspects.
To address your points above, one at a time
- XML standardized markup is avoided if at all possible - to try to promote the effective wiki mark up that works fine in 90% of the case, using XML only if absolutely necessary, in its simplest and most effective form fit for purpose.
- Glossaries talk v404.23 - A number I made up in reference to how much talk has already happened, without clear and concise guidance being agreed and published.
- encyclopedic glossary - Totally agreed, however first use should be the main article, extra verbosity on the glossary detracts from its impact and readability, the "one-sentence" approach is to try to ensure the 3 fundamentals (Clear, Concise and Precise) is addressed for each entry as best one can.
- Finally "noobs" and "Complicated" was not mentioned, however, "noobs" should be encouraged and over complicating coding, mark-up and templates for a most often self-inflicted issue is in the long term detracting from the whole and the basis of wiki.
All my clear points above stand true for glossaries, some also apply to other article types as well, so?
I assume (bad practice I know) from your response, that this is your baby, and any assistance is either not welcome or wanted, unless I have read this wrong.
Kind regards
The Original Filfi (talk) 02:17, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
-
- @The Original Filfi: Nothing's my "baby", but it's still unclear to me what particular problems you think are in evidence. Given how much there is to do around here to make a better encyclopedia, I take an "if it ain't broke, don't 'fix' it" view by default. Some of what you're saying doesn't really track for me, like the discussion of XML. We're not using XML, but XHTML, and using it properly - there are features of that markup language specifically designed for things like glossaries. To return to your original list, it seems a mixture of advice, complaints and technical requirements, and is hard to parse for anything with a clear meaning. I'll retair your orignal numbering, through your short list of 3 points, long list of 10 points, paragraph-embedded list of 3 more points, and followup list of yet another 4 numbered things.
- First three:
- This is a discussion that's not been had yet. I don't think you'll find a consensus to limit glossary entries to one sentence; it's an arbitrary "one size fits all" approach that does not fit all.
- What wikimarkup in particular? How broadly are you defining it. "Inter-" between what wikis? Is this an observation, a request, an expectation? Is it an implication that you're objecting to something, desiring to remove code of some kind? Also, you seem to be confused as to what "wikimarkup" means. It's any markup th MediWiki software will parse. This includes MW's own wiki markup language, MW's parser functions, XHTML, CSS, etc. The distinction you seem to be drawing between XHTML and "wikimarkup" does not exist.
- What errors in parsing? What "self"? Infliction of what? Definition length has nothing to do with how markup is parsed. Inconsistent markup is a problem that arises with all markup systems on all sorts sites, not glossaries on en.wiki in particular. "Crux, questions, possible solution and the way forward, attempted in a top to bottom approach.." isn't a sentence. Crux of what? Questions about what to whom? Possibly solution by whom to what problem? What is attempted by whom to do what? Top and bottom of what?
- The ten:
- Sure. Is there somewhere this a big problem?
- I don't know what you mean by "lead section" here. Every article, including glossary articles, has one "lead section" in WP terms, so "each lead section and definition can stand alone" doesn't make sense here (and is mixing singular and plural in an odd way). What do you mean by "self referencing"? If you mean WP:SELFREF, that's already covered. If you mean that WP is not a WP:RS for itself, we already know that; nothing to do here. If you mean do not link between entries in the same glossary, you'll never get consensus for such an idea, because linking from one bit of information to another is most of what WP does, and the only possible way to keep a glossary concise is to not re-re-re-explain terms every time they come up, but to cross-reference them.
- There is no principle on WP that ToCs have to be "consistent"; we have various ToC templates that produce very, very different-looking ToCs for a reason - some are better for some purposes than others. The draft glossary guidelines already give examples in this regard that should be good for most glossary cases. A ToC "that promotes best practice"? What does that even mean? Tables of content list the contents of an article. It's isn't their purpose to "promote" "practices" of any kind.
- That isn't wikimarkup. I don't know what sort of pseudocode it is. I recognize some bits of template syntax in there, but some of it seems to be jibberish. Anyway, we can't have one markup style for single-sentence definitions and a different one for others; that will never, ever be practical, since any given edit, by any editor at any time, may change a definition's length.
- Whether multiple definitions are needed in a particular case is a content decision at that specific glossary, and is outside the scope of the MOS, including WP:GLOSSARIES. Also, "making use instead of tags to split the terms" could mean any of about 5 different things. We are in fact using XHTML "tags" (elements) to split the terms, into separate definitions when necessary.
- I think you meant XHTML here, but the answer's the same: MW supports XHTML code for a reason, and we use it for what it is best for, especially within templates (i.e. such as the structured glossary templates).
- What problem are you trying to address here? This is actually another article-level content decision; in some cases it may be more helpful to the reader to link to a glossary entry, one narrowly tailored to the nuances of that term's applications in the topic field the glossary covers, and from that definition also have a
{{main}}
that links to the separate article. This is actually pretty frequently precisely how it's done, and MOS cannot make content decisions like that; it's up to editors at that article. - Um, no. There is no basis in any policy or guideline or conventional practice here to remove images from glossary entries, any more than from any other type of article or section of an article. One of the main things that makes an encyclopedic glossary encyclopedic instead of a list of dicdefs is illustration.
- Huh?
- Well, yes, that's what WP:GLOSSARIES is the working draft of.
- You continued with another, shorter list of what you saw as action items, inside a paragraph:
- "I believe I could write up a TOC best practice section relatively quickly." To articulate what? Maybe if you just do this somewhere and present it at WT:GLOSSARIES, it'll be clearer what you're getting at. This kind of comes back to the theme that a problem must be articulated and evidenced before people will agree it's a problem and how to fix it.
- "If you could provide a parsing error that corrupts wiki mark up, where the above conditions are met, so that I can start working on a solution." I have no idea what you're talking about. That's the first half an if-then sentence, with no "then" part. Why would I want to try to break things with errors? Again, what actual, demonstrable, extant problem are you trying to address? See WP:BEANS; it's not our job to try to create problems to solve.
- "Can we start some new categories to track and monitor performance and issues effectively." Categories of what? Performance of what? What issues? Categories are for sorting articles and other pages here by topic; not sure how that will help "track and monitor" anything relevant to glossaries. Glossaries are just articles, formatted a particular way. In theory we could get approval for another hidden category type for some sort of WP-internal purpose, but again you're not articulating any kind of actual issue or need here.
- Next you replied to me with four more numbered points (hint: lists of numbered things are only helpful when there's one of them; if there's three or four of them, it just confuses things more).
- That's just technically incorrect, and doesn't reflect anything about WP standard practice. You're also under the mistaken impression that formatting based on templates that use XHTML is somehow a bad thing because some wikis won't have the templates. The solution to this "problem" is course to create the corresponding templates on the other wiki that wants to borrow our content. The far more important re-use case is re-presentation of WP content in other completely different ways, e.g. on paper, on non-MediaWiki-based websites, etc., and the use of standard XHTML is a major boon to such reuse.
- Sarcastic snarking isn't helpful. Very little discussion has happened, actually, because the work on this has been very esoteric for the most part, I was largely gone for almost a year, and most importantly, the structured glossary stuff already works fantastically well, as demonstrated by Glossary of cue sports terms. Other glossaries have been adopting this structure, without any serious problems (other than recent sloppy changes to the code in Template:Glossary link, etc., that I'll try to fix this week. At any rate, it's simply being quietly implemented with no one seeming to have any issues with it other than you.
- You don't have, and I firmly predict you'll never find, consensus on any aspect of that point of yours. Again, content decisions, like whether a glossary link should go to a term in that glossary or to a main page elsewhere, is outside the scope of MOS, including WP:GLOSSARIES.
- I've already addressed that. See WP:COMPETENCE, and remember that no one is forcing anyone to use any markup here. For all we care someone with (sourced) content to add can just add it sloppily with no markup at all. We'll try to educate them on how to make better contributions, but their contribution won't be rejected.
- You wrote, "All my clear points above stand true for glossaries", but your points are not at all clear to me and I doubt they'll be clear to anyone else. I'm not trying to be mean, but I decline to be put on the defensive by your forcefully toe-stepping approach, overlaid with what sound like insinuations of WP:OWNership, when you show up on my talk page with a laundry list of problems that do not seem to be real problems, and talking about some kind of comprehensive overhaul of the glossary code and draft glossary guideline, for which you not only cannot articulate rationales but have not even clearly articulated the details of what changes you're proposing. All indications are that you have some beef with XHTML, which you do not understand, and have an intent to strip this code out of WP:GLOSSARIES and its associated template. You're on notice that you do not have consensus to do that, and that pursuing that course of actions would be very severely disruptive to the off-wiki portability of our glossaries, as well as their internal maintainability. As I said before, proposing any of this stuff on my talk page isn't normal procedure, anyway; this is not the correct venue. Not sure what else to tell you. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 05:16, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
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Sig
Hi, SMcC, I just got myself extracted from that new font bug, and what a headache that was. They seem to have got it so I can now read my screen, but now I can't read your sig. I could always read it before. Screenshot: [9] Did you do something new to it? —Neotarf (talk) 06:30, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, I turned it into a cat instead of a guy's head. You're using a font that is missing some Unicode characters. I guess I should look at my sig on some other devices and see if this is common (i.e., see if it affects everyone but Mac users, etc.). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 07:49, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
- Since all the font gurus are now assembled at village pump, I have asked there; perhaps there is an easy answer. —Neotarf (talk) 05:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- The left whiskers "⚞" ( THREE LINES CONVERGING RIGHT U+296E ) don't show up for me either, though "⚲" ( NEUTER U+26B2 ) does as part of the apple symbols font. Have you considered using >̶ and <̶ for the whiskers? Normal > and < with combining long stroke overlay ( U+0336 ). PaleAqua (talk) 06:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- The NEUTER problem was that I was using a combining character under it that looked like a ")" turned 90 deg. clockwise, i.e. a smile, but in some fonts it was show up next to the NEUTER symbol "nose", instead of under it. I suspect a similar problem might occur with using U+0336 to overlay the angle brackets, so I used some similar character that already have three strokes, but seem more common. I forget what they are, maybe Japanese characters of some kind. See other face experiments (not just cats) at User:SMcCandlish/sandbox4. PS: My Mac Firefox default font is Arial, and it's rare for me to encounter Unicode that won't display. I don't seem to be overriding that in personal CSS here, either, so I think it really is Arial being awesome. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 10:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- PS: Yeah, in the Trebuchet MS font I impose on my own talk page, the overlaid angle brackets look like >- and <- respectively. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 10:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Hmm, better with the parenthesis, I think, and maybe even the larger ears. But your old image always used to crack me up, I seem to remember spectacles. ——Neotarf (talk) 10:34, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- I've had lots of different ones. I was always fond the red-eyed Terminator. How about this kitteh? ≽(ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ)≼ or this one? ≽(Ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷɅ)≼ Or this one? ≽Ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷɅ≼ I bet a lot of them on that sandbox page of mine don't work in your font. I was pulling characters from deep in the guts of Unicode, and doing multiple overlay tricks with some of them. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 12:24, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Hmm, better with the parenthesis, I think, and maybe even the larger ears. But your old image always used to crack me up, I seem to remember spectacles. ——Neotarf (talk) 10:34, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
I feel your pain.
User_talk:Ring_Cinema/Archive_3#As_a_practical_matter_... and User_talk:Ring_Cinema/Archive_4#Good_faith_is_as_good_faith_does. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:57, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
- Meh. I don't have anything against Ring Cinema in particular. I find the editor's reliance on avoidance of logical argument to be troubling, in as much as it affects articles or policypages and debates about them. Everyone has their quirks, and if Ring Cinema wants to engage in arguments that cannot rationally go anywhere because of all the red herrings and handwaving and subject changes and refusals to respond to the actual issued raised on that editor's own talk page (and now mine; see below), that's not a big deal to me. When that behavior starts turning into revertwarring, it's an actual problem to me. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 02:17, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Your bad habit is picking fights when you're wrong
I guess you don't know that change requires consensus. If you don't know that, it seems like you shouldn't be editing the Consensus policy page. Bad form! When you're reverted, even on something small, take it to discussion. That's the process and procedure. Thanks for all your good edits! --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:12, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
- You need to review WP:BOLD which is policy you're blatantly ignoring, then skim WP:CONSENSUS again, which is policy you cite incorrectly (note in particular that a single strident reverter who doesn't provide actual reasons for resistance does not somehow indicate a lack of consensus or a genuine controversy), and actually read WP:BRD, which is not a policy and which you clearly misinterpret in ways that lead you to think it's a magic bullet against BOLD edits you don't like. In particular, you cannot use BRD to revert changes just because you vaguely disagree with them or don't like the editor; you have to provide reasons based in WP:POLICY or (in mainspace) on reliable sources. Instead of complaining here, address the edit rationales on that talk page. You demanded "discussion", so you have to engage in it when it's opened in response to your revert-warring, or you're simply being disruptive, not actually using the BRD process (which is not mandatory anyway). PS: Your heading here doesn't even make sense in the context; nothing you said here has anything to do with factual or philosophical correctness on the issues raised at the discussion (the discussion you demanded and then ignored). Given the obtuse avoidance of rational argument all through your talk page archives, and your block log for disruptive editwarring, this is not much of a surprise to me. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 02:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- This Ring Cinema self-revert resolves the issue for me, other than editorial behaivor stuff I've raised at that editor's talk page. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 02:43, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Alleged nonsense
I'm honest and accurate. I recommend it for everyone. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:50, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Sam Stern
Hello
I ask here to you this, because you contributed on Stern talk page. I'm contributor on french wiki. I found info on Sam Stern. Look at this. Sam Stern has been hired by Bally Manufacturing in 1969. but i don't know the date he stpped. more, reading seeburg and stern page, Sam Stern should be executive CEO untill 1979 at williams Manufacturing Company ? / create Stern Electronics in 1977 ? / and become seeburg president since 1980 ? !
I can't find anymore info, my native language is french, and it's pretty difficult to go further in research.
PS : i also Added a message on SNK page without answer of anyone! Best regards.--Archimëa (talk) 20:19, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
- Why not just cite these sources at the articles in question? Neither are articles that I edit much. I know very little about pinball and arcade games. I'm mostly a structural cleanup and grammar correction editor on such articles. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 02:12, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- OK. already cited this, i was looking for help and more informations about stern.
- OK i understand, i will try with another contributor --Archimëa (talk) 05:42, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- Maybe I am misunderstanding the nature of your request. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 05:44, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
- hmmm, i was looking for help to find what's happening to this man after that. I was looking fo someone who could update sam stern page/stern elctronics page/Williams electronics games page/ Bally manufacturing page. Certainly, i'm not native english speaking, and perhaps an native americain can have idea to find, or where and how to find more informations. But there is no problem. --Archimëa (talk) 22:40, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
- Maybe I am misunderstanding the nature of your request. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼ 05:44, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Consensus at guidelines, and stuff
All this arguing is wearing me a bit. See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Removing_current_consensus_from_guidelines. Let's see if we can agree on some general principles. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:54, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
- @Enric Naval: So why start another argument? Heading to WP:VPP when you get reverted but have not really engaged in the "D" part of WP:BRD to actually explain why you want the edit you're insisting on, much less addressed others' responses to your rationale, seems like WP:PARENT behavior, regardless what the intent was really.
- I hope the discussion that's actually happening at the NC page in question addresses your issues, at least for now. I sympathize with them more than you might expect, but now is not the time to raise them more stridently, I would suggest. There's way, way too much chaos between the organisms provisions in 5 different guidelines. AFTER that's normalized, then it might make sense to approach the breeds question, but attempting to do so now is going to result in a "@#$% no, no more weird capitalization demands" response from the community, I guarantee. The "issue fatigue" on this is very high. I'm taking the brunt of all the concentrated ill will in this entire topic area, by being the flame-retardant guy pushing for the normalization and keeping at it until it gets done. You don't want any of that heat, I assure you. PS: Don't worry about it if some breed articles get de-capitalized; almost all breed articles are capitalized, so it would take an LOT of work to undo all of that. Even if it happened, that not seriously affect the consensus decision (it might even get someone in trouble for WP:FAITACCOMPLI behavior). And some of those "breed" articles need to be decapitalized (and I've been doing it myself, e.g. at St. John's water dog, because they're not formal breeds but landraces (e.g. general types or sorts of animals, per WP:MOSLIFE). I'm being careful to leave capitalization of real breeds alone, because the jury hasn't even been convened yet on that capitalization issue. The arguments for caps there are different and stronger than for species common names. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 02:04, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
T:FAUNA listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect T:FAUNA. Since you had some involvement with the T:FAUNA redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. John Vandenberg (chat) 17:10, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
Arbcom sanction
Thanks for the reference to WP:ARBATC. I notice mention there at WP:ARBATC#Individual sanctions of one against you. Is it current? Andrewa (talk) 01:51, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
- You do the math: If a one-month restriction beginning on 12 March 2013 is imposed, does it extend to 10 April 2014? The very fact that you asked the question you did, as if avoiding considering how your own behavior is going to look if reviewed at WP:AE in light of ARBTC, doesn't bode well for keeping your own name off that page. I have to say that you are not "doing your homework". You had no idea about ARBATC, despite MOS, AT and various other relevant pages all bearing large warnings at the top of their talk pages about ARBATC sanctions. You had no idea about the two month consensus discussion (dominated by WP:BIRDS editors trying and completely failing to gain consensus to capitalize bird common names) in early 2012, leading to our current very stable MOS:LIFE language, and declared that you couldn't find any previous attempt at "non-local consensus". You are aware that MOS has talk page archives, right? And that they're searchable? I know I've already apprised you of the detailed log at User:SMcCandlish/Capitalization of organism names, which links to all of this stuff with notes. You are a very late-comer to the discussion. If I were a common-names-capitalizer, I would be quite angry with you because you've (seemingly unintentionally) done more to steer that line of reasoning toward a point-of-no-return consensus failure than anyone in the last 2 years. You might wonder why I'm not singing your praises, then. I don't agree with your "ignore everything I can't address" tactics, WP:CIVILPOV behaviors, sport argument for its own sake, pretense of understanding a debate you haven't researched at all, and other troubling editing patterns. I got in some ARBATC trouble a year ago for being a WP:DICK in style debates. Learn from my pillorying or you'll find yourself in the same stocks soon enough. Tolerance of ad hominem arguments at MOS/AT has gone down not up. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 03:27, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
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- OK... There are two sanctions against you there, and you are referring to the second of them, on 12 March 2013, which has of course expired as you say. I'm referring to the first, on 2 March 2013, [10] which doesn't mention any expiry date, or have I missed something? I think I made it clearer on my own talk page, when I responded to you there. [11] Andrewa (talk) 07:14, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
- Been doing more productive things than arguing with you. Oh, you mean the rather symbolic "restriction" that I have to obey the same WP:AGF policy as you and everyone else? Sure. I'm going to guess you posted something on your page suggesting that I cannot raise concerns with your editing behavior or you'll run to WP:AE about it. See WP:BOOMERANG and unclean hands before even contemplating something that WP:POINTY. You'll get sanctioned yourself rapidly. (If you file an AE request that is not absolutely ironclad demonstrating a presently ongoing pattern of seriously disruptive transgressions, you get boomerang blocked for being a jackass, basically. BT;DT! I filed a case and was boomerang sanctioned simply because the evidence wasn't fresh enough. AE is nothing like WP:ANI at all.) Sorry to disappoint you that you are not magically immune to criticism. The March 2 case means simply that I'm a bit more likely than average to be punished if, in a MOS/AT debate, I patently transgress WP:AGF, e.g by accusing someone without evidence of having motives antithetical to the project, or making personal attacks like calling them stupid. The thing is, everyone participating in MOS and AT debates is on a short leash, because of the discretionary sanctions. I believe they're actually antithetical to the well-being of the project when applied to non-content discussions like MOS, so I tend to remind people who exhibit hot-headed behavior at MOS. I've seen four editors sanctioned at once for a single thread. It has a chilling effect on our ability to hash issues out, the more so the more people get blocked for it. If I were the whine to AE type, probably 5 editors involved in the discussions the last few days could have been sanctioned, but I'm not interested in pursuing WP:LAWYER antics. The discretionary sanctions stuff was implemented to rein in the most intractable wars on Wikipedia, like the Israel vs. Palestine editwarring and other mostly ethnic and religious disputes, and has been broadening ever since, to include various pseudo-science topics and other hotbeds of dispute. The entire thing's being overhauled at WP:AC/DSR. Some of us don't think overhauled enough. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 10:42, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
- OK... There are two sanctions against you there, and you are referring to the second of them, on 12 March 2013, which has of course expired as you say. I'm referring to the first, on 2 March 2013, [10] which doesn't mention any expiry date, or have I missed something? I think I made it clearer on my own talk page, when I responded to you there. [11] Andrewa (talk) 07:14, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
Please respect the sanction
I think you are repeatedly violating the current sanction. Please refrain from questioning my motives, as in argument for its own sake, pretense of understanding a debate you haven't researched at all above.
I'd also strongly advise you to keep your replies succinct and to the point. As well as questioning my motives, the above attacks me in ways that are simply over the top. I've been doing a great deal of research... including reading the arbcom decision of course, but that was a while ago and I had not realised that you had been specifically sanctioned, or if I did I'd forgotten. Andrewa (talk) 13:36, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
- I was replying to this, observing that an argument is an action not a motive, etc., and then I had a system crash and lost the reply. Instead of rewriting that response, I will, since noticing your more recent comments at WT:MOS in response to Tony1, just take you at your word that you'd like to see a reduction in conflict, to "lighten up", and that you honestly acknowledged there that some of your own contributions were not seen as helpful. By the time our discussion got to where it was the last time you posted here, my issues with what I saw as your editing behavior at WT:MOS weren't actually ongoing any longer; it was already day-old news, and seem moot now. I, in turn, will acknowledge that you feel that I've been questioning your motives, and that you object to it. (I don't need to agree that I've being doing so, to agree that reasonable people could disagree on the matter, and that pissing you off isn't constructive if the discussion can happen without that side-effect.) I decline to get into a discussion of whether I'm "to the point" enough for you, as that is not a policy matter.
If we continue henceforth to stop stepping on each others' toes, that'll probably be the end of it. Maybe we'll even be good collaborators (Noetica and I were for a long time, and e-met each other through a personal conflict very similar to this one). If we do come into conflict again, I think we should try to resolve the matter with discussion. It's seemed to work okay so far. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:42, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
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- I agree with some of this, but none of it seems relevant. I want a constructive relationship too.
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- Do you really believe that the quote I gave above conforms to the sanction?
Progress
Even though I've strenuously disagreed with the format and nature of that poll-like discussion you initiated over there, I do have to admit that the reliable sourcing round it resulted in has been productive. Well, not so much for the pro-capitalization argument, but which side is WP:WINNING isn't the point; an end to the dispute and having 5 guidelines finally stop contradicting each other is the point. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:42, 12 April 2014 (UTC)- I made the suggestion for the poll not knowing or much caring which way it would go, and not much caring, relatively speaking.
- I do have an opinion, and I think it's soundly based. But being right isn't always enough as I'm sure you've found out too.
- And I also think that the angst is doing much more damage than the capitalisation or otherwise possibly could. But to simply give in for that reason doesn't seem terribly satisfying or a good precedent. Problem.
- If we can come up with a consensus on anything, I think that would be progress. It's that bad so far. Andrewa (talk) 02:49, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
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- I've said myself that this isn't really about style or capitalization, it's a political struggle over Wikipedia's self-governance, so yes, it's is going to be angsty. It comes down to whether you believe that specialists can dictate style, content, article formatting, categorization, titles, tagging, sourcing rules, and other aspects of creating the encyclopedia, with regard to articles and topic areas generally that they consider within their scope. It's ultimately a question of whether WP:OWN is really a policy or an abandoned principle from the early 2000s that we're only paying lip-service to. Some editors clearly lean toward the position that groups of specialist editors must have unique-yet-collective rights/privileges in certain topics. This udnercurrent has always been there, despite a policy that begins: "All Wikipedia content is edited collaboratively. No one, no matter how skilled, or of how high standing in the community, has the right to act as though he or she is the owner of a particular article." Some wikiprojects seem to act this way (well, rather, their most vocal "natural leader" members do, while most ignore this crap as wiki-political noise of no interest to them, and go back about editing articles, rolling their eyes). But the actual anti-WP:OWN views here are a vanishingly tiny minority. The problem is that these messages are loud and tenacious ones, and they rapidly attract new "recruits" because they seem to promise increased power, authority and "rights", like some form of topical adminship without the scrutiny of WP:RFA.
But it actually is also a legitimate style matter, and the reliable sources as well as common sense fall solidly on the side of lower case. Virtually no one uses upper case for common names of species but specialized guidebooks and journals. And we have a really clear policy about that, too, even titled to specifically address both classes of usage! WP:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal. There is no tenable position for capitalizing this stuff here, not without changing several different policies, radically. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 03:50, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
- I've said myself that this isn't really about style or capitalization, it's a political struggle over Wikipedia's self-governance, so yes, it's is going to be angsty. It comes down to whether you believe that specialists can dictate style, content, article formatting, categorization, titles, tagging, sourcing rules, and other aspects of creating the encyclopedia, with regard to articles and topic areas generally that they consider within their scope. It's ultimately a question of whether WP:OWN is really a policy or an abandoned principle from the early 2000s that we're only paying lip-service to. Some editors clearly lean toward the position that groups of specialist editors must have unique-yet-collective rights/privileges in certain topics. This udnercurrent has always been there, despite a policy that begins: "All Wikipedia content is edited collaboratively. No one, no matter how skilled, or of how high standing in the community, has the right to act as though he or she is the owner of a particular article." Some wikiprojects seem to act this way (well, rather, their most vocal "natural leader" members do, while most ignore this crap as wiki-political noise of no interest to them, and go back about editing articles, rolling their eyes). But the actual anti-WP:OWN views here are a vanishingly tiny minority. The problem is that these messages are loud and tenacious ones, and they rapidly attract new "recruits" because they seem to promise increased power, authority and "rights", like some form of topical adminship without the scrutiny of WP:RFA.
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- Yes, sort of... but we don't need to join them, we can beat them. Have you had a look at my WP:creed?
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- You're discussing two separate issues above... the capitalisation one and the governance one. You say it isn't really about capitalisation, and I'd agree in a way, so far as the antiC camp is concerned, that's exactly right.
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- But so far as the proC camp is concerned it is just about style. They don't seem to want any of this. Have I just missed it? One of the staunchest and most articulate of them said they'd respect the outcome of a poll, and that was after the poll had already shown an antiC trend. I'm afraid I see no hope of the antiC stalwarts making such concessions.
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- There are arguments both ways, and either way will do perfectly well. Wikipedia is about content, content and content (as is the WWW). See User:Andrewa/the Andrew tests and User:Andrewa/Andrew's Principle.
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- Frankly, the underlying motivation for non-capitalisation does seem to mostly be that's what I was taught in school. Then there are arguments from Wikipedia policy and guidelines, but these are quickly abandoned once it's pointed out that they can cut both ways, or we fall back into local consensus claims which are just the most common case of this and go much the same way but with more twists and turns. Then there are arguments from other style guides, but Wikipedia is unique. My opinion is that none of these arguments would be advanced at all if it weren't that the proponents have been taught a restrictive and obsolete grammatical rule in primary school and can't rise above that to ask what will best serve the reader?
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- And we have claims by the antiCs of misbehaviour by the proCs (including me) at many levels, but all the misbehaviour I have seen so far is by the antiCs. To (allegedly) conspire to disobey a guideline is not quite misbehavious, although it falls close to the line (and could certainly cross it if some tactics are used - but I haven't seen them). There are remedies which should be followed. They don't include counter-misbehaviour!
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- I don't think you're looking at the evidence piling up in User:SMcCandlish/Capitalization of organism names very carefully (and it's expanded rapidly just today alone). It is absolutely not just about style to the pro-caps camp; for them it is about One True Way, a "universal" "official" "standard" that is not any of the above in reality. See the material I quoted from them yesterday, about absolutely refusing to quit because they see it as a professional ethical mission to never, ever give up on this. Fortunately only a handful of people at the birds project actually feel that way, and several of them have already quit (perhaps because they weren't here for the right reasons). The rest of them just want to write bird articles and really don't care about the style question. There's a real reason that only about a dozen or fewer bird editors ever speak up about this; the rest don't care, and they certainly don't care to turn it into a wiki-political WP:BATTLEGROUND.
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- The arguments about policy and guidelines are not quickly abandoned at all! They're consistently advanced by those with a pro-MOS position, and simply ignored by those with a specialist style fallacy to maintain. There is no policy-based pro-caps argument to make at all. WP:IDHT is not an argument, it's a stalling strategy, and it's all that the pro-caps argument has. Even the reliable sources argument is overwhelmingly against them. I have no idea what which are just the most common case of this and go much the same way but with more twists and turns is referring to. The arguments from other style guides all say "do not capitalize these things". Even the world's most prestigious science journals do not capitalize species names even in ornithology articles. The WP:BIRDS claims that ornithological style is unique are nonsense; herpetology journals also mostly capitalize, but we do not pick up their habit here. The reason that this has kinda been done on WP with regard to birds is nothing but force of personality in one self-selecting group. There is no other difference at all. I recently posted a challenge to the idea that the IOC list was somehow qualitatively different, somehow "more special", more authoritative, whatever, than the name lists in other fields like herpetology, and cited them, and said show me what the difference is. Result? Dead silence.
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- All the pro-lower-case camp ever ask is "what will best serve the reader?", and it certainly is not a geeky, ungrammatical convention that (aside from the fact that it's not even completely accepted in the field from which it's being inappropriately misapplied to an encyclopedia) confuses readers and requires specialist knowledge to understand much less write correctly. Again, using lower case like MOS says requires no specialist knowledge of any kind at all. That's the end of it right there. I would bet real money on this being the outcome of any real consensus discussion, and probably more on that particular basis than any other. All other concerns aside, it isn't practical, as 9 solid years of "stop doing this, we all hate it" objections prove. That wikiproject cannot keep pretending indefinitely that it has Wikipedia consensus to do what it's doing. It doesn't even really have WP:BIRDS consensus, it just has "the 10 people at WP:BIRDS who will not let this die" false consensus.
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- I have no idea what "counter-misbehaviour" you might be referring to. Answering nonsensical, biased arguments with clear logic and clear policy citations is mostly what the pro-MOS editors have been doing, as well as proving that real-world sources overwhelmingly prefer lower case. I'm not sure what you mean by "hang in there". I'm not on the edge of anything, expressing any doubts, or feeling any pressure. For the first time in my entire long tenure here, a resolution to this capitalize-or-I-quit nonsense is finally right in front of us, and we're clearly headed toward it on the basis of common sense, sources and policy. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:43, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
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- I think you might be right about being close to a resolution, one way or another, and hope you are. But I'm afraid that I think that long posts such as the above, largely repeating things you know I've already read and answered, are counterproductive. They just make it more difficult for me to answer any new points you make. That is obviously unsatisfying for me, and for anyone else who meets similar posts, and this just drives us further from true consensus.
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- I repeat that the second-to-last refuge of someone whose argument can no longer be sustained is to suggest that they just can't be bothered to respond to the opposition. It's just a sour-grapes concession.
Anyway, "I'm fascinated to know how" you possibly could have missed the fact that the IOC conventions require specialist knowledge to write correctly, despite how many times it's been covered (by many, not just me) over the years this has been going on, especially when I recently cited the Handbook of the Birds of the World criticizing the IOC's particular capitalization scheme, unless you simply have not been reading anything from any side of this issue other than watch catches your eye for a few second. Did you even read the quite short WP:BIRDS#NAMING review of the complicated rules? They require exact knowledge of the scientific classification of the species or subspecies in question and its relation to others in order to get it right for any given bird if a hyphen is involved, and so on. That's why anotehr bird taxomonic authority rejected the IOC's system as too complicated to be useful. Oh, two of them did, actually; forgetful me. Are the facts of the debate simply not of interest to you? Has only the debate as a thing unto itself, like a reality show, caught your attention?
It's highly unlikely that that straw poll mess will result in any kind of consensus at all, though it clearly hints which direction it will eventually go (since, gosh, it's already gone that way again and again, every time the debate comes up in a bigger venue than WT:BIRDS). I'm happy to see a 3-to-1 majority in favor of lower case, which is about what I predicted (I think it will be closer to 4-to-1 soon enough), but I expect that WP:BIRDS will reject it as not-really-a-consensus, because it's an impenetrable thicket of sub-sub-sections, littered with link-farms to bogus ngram searches, people voting in the wrong section and editwarring about people moving their !votes to the right section, and blah blah blah. It would be an insult to the community to list that thing at RFC or CENT. It needs to be started over, from a draft RFC that both sides buy into the wording of, and with a rule at the top against inserting comments into the !vote sections between people's posts, only commenting in a comment section, and enforce this by refactoring regularly. We can put sourcing on separate pages.
Or the status quo can just continue. More people, who do not regularly edit MOS, are going to file RMs to move bird articles, more people are going to remove LOCALCONSENSUS gunk from guideline pages, and the weird-capitalization wall will just come apart, brick by brick, as it's been steadily doing since 2008. I'd be happier with a "clean" RFC, but whatever. Even Casliber says the lower-case side of this debate "has the numbers". We clearly and more importantly have the sources and the reasoning; the birders have nothing but a tradition of sorts that they like a lot and want us to like, to no avail.
In the interim, I'm working on some ideas to provide a compromise I think people can all live with after tempers cool (despite my anti-fanclub's beliefs, I actually want all sides to be okay with what we end up doing). I am not interested in squabbling with you further in public. If you feel we need to argue about something, you can e-mail me directly (or we can Skype or whatever); this medium is too slow and formal. If we each had a better idea where the other party was coming from and why, I think our interaction might go more smoothly. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 10:34, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
- I repeat that the second-to-last refuge of someone whose argument can no longer be sustained is to suggest that they just can't be bothered to respond to the opposition. It's just a sour-grapes concession.
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- I don't agree that this justifies the claim that the capitalisation confuses readers and requires specialist knowledge to understand much less write correctly (italics changed a little for clarity, the first two words are mine of course). I think that, once more, this approach misunderstands how language works. A reader, whether specialist or not, can interpret the phrase Black Crowned Crane just as easily and accurately as black crowned crane.
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- There are valid arguments both in favour of and against capitalisation. These long, overstated and personalised posts do not help to sort them out, in my opinion. They are counterproductive.
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- PS: I did look at your creed page. They seem like nice ideals. Difficult to live up to. Quite a few of your posts don't seem to make the cut from my perspective. That's more a criticism of the bar you've set than whether you've met it, perhaps. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 01:08, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
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- Agree. See the second clause at User:Andrewa/creed#civil, and also of course 1 John 1:8. Andrewa (talk) 06:19, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
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English species names, proper names and capitalization
I've generally tried to avoid commenting in any detail on the argument that the English names of species should be capitalized because they are proper names, because it's a complex area of linguistics (which I'm used to teaching to undergraduates, so find difficult to discuss at the right level on a talk page). If you're interested, I've updated my thoughts at User:Peter coxhead/English species names as proper names. I don't think that English grammar supports either view, and particularly not that bird names should be capitalized in English. If you find the essay at all useful, feel free to commend it to bird capitalization enthusiasts! Peter coxhead (talk) 11:40, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
- I think ultimately this conclusion is the key; even if species names are somehow proper names, it doesn't mean we should capitalize them for that reason. Considering how many high-quality sources don't capitalize, any suggestion to capitalize (or not) based on grammatical correctness would be wildly prescriptivist. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:46, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
- Good start, but I raised some issues with its oversimplifications. The core argument makes sense to me, though I think the birds difference you're seeing is incidental. I like that there's one more argument against the notion that common names of species are proper names. If we capitalized them, we might as well capitalize all nouns. Kind of like Group, eh? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 13:22, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
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- I've improved (I think) the essay in response to both your comments – for which thanks. It still needs a bit more work near the end. ErikHaugen: I agree that to capitalize based on the argument that English species names are proper names is dubious at best, wrong at worst. (Only "at worst", because of the lack of philosophical clarity over the semantics issue, which does allow a tiny loophole to argue that some uses of English species names are proper names.) However, as SMcCandlish well knows, the "slippery slope" argument is always a bad one: it doesn't remotely follow that if we capitalize species names we might as well capitalize all nouns. One of the reasons for capitalizing species names is the same as that for capitalizing "White House": it's a way of making a distinction that is made in speech through stress and intonation but is otherwise lost in writing. The alternative is to write in a careful way which ensures that the lost information doesn't mislead. If the name "blue jay" might be confused with the description "blue jay", we can either capitalize the first but not the second (which I prefer, and which I think is simpler for most people) or (as SMcCandlish has regularly pointed out and clearly prefers) we can re-write the sentence so the ambiguity doesn't arise.
- (The other argument for capitalization in some circumstances is quite different and let's not take it up again here; it's a reluctance to go along with the MOS's regularly expressed view that styling in sources can be freely over-ridden.) Peter coxhead (talk) 10:17, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
I'll extend the olive branch
I'll extend the olive branch | |
I don't seek to be adversarial and I meant no offense. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:06, 18 April 2014 (UTC) |
- @Chris troutman: Thanks! This should be a template. I'd probably use it pretty often!
{{Olive branch}}
was a redlink, though. For my part, I didn't mean to go on at that much length at the retention page. I didn't see what a screenful+ it was until after the fact. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:38, 18 April 2014 (UTC) On a second read I was also unnecessarily intemperate. Sorry about that. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:16, 21 April 2014 (UTC)- I templated it at {{Olive branch}} and credited you in edit summary. Have already used it at User talk:Peter coxhead. Heh. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:49, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Tlb
Template:Tlxb has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Redirect actually. DePiep (talk) 22:28, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Tlxb
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Nomination for deletion of Template:Tlxi
Notifying myself for the record, in case I need to search for it later. :-) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 03:21, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
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Bird names
I've made a suggestion at the afc that I now close it--could you look, and say if you agree? DGG ( talk ) 05:02, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
- @DGG: I was impressed by your positions on wikicultural issues and your rationales for them on your user page, and your admin actions I looked over seemed neutral and focused on what was right for WP based on its own rules, not extraneous impositions of how it "should" be. I hope you have a thick asbestos suit. >;-) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:40, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Adminship?
I see contradictory like/would never like to be an admin userboxes on your userpage. (I'm thinking of applying myself, but don't want to self-induce skitzophrenia.) – S. Rich (talk) 22:42, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
- Oh, ha ha. I'd meant to remove the "would like" one. Now that they've spun off the template editor bit, the only thing I'd ever want admin ability for is moving over redirects, and only for cleanup purposes. Going to RM for trivial moves, or tagging such redirects with SD templates and twidding one's thumbs until an admin notices and fixes it, is an annoying time waste. For my part, I have zero interest in blocking people, protecting pages from editing, handing out dire warnings, digging into dirt in deleted edits, or any other administrative power trips. I only ever wanted adminship for efficiency reasons. Personally, I think it should be automatic after 1 year + 10,000 edits + clean block log. WP's culture would change for the better overnight if everyone who could be trusted to edit constructively here was actually trusted to edit constructively here. The increasing "sekret brotherhood" aspect of adminship, and the extreme difficulty of passing RFA have done more to drive people away from WP than any other factor other than perhaps the complexity of the rules and procedures. WP is like a MMORPG that takes months to learn how to play without being kicked off the server. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:36, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
- Good idea about the automatic "pass go, collect $200" idea. We could apply, get the gun & holster, and have a mentor assigned who'd ride shotgun. As I've commented on the possibilities with others about applying, I hear more & more about the rigors. – S. Rich (talk) 01:42, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
- Everything you've done or said that can possibly be spun in a negative way will be, and if you've made any kind of "enemy" and they notice your RfA, they may canvass off-Wikipedia through e-mail to get people to show up and vote against you, and may even get sockpuppets to manufacture disputes and lie about them. I'd rather eat my own feet than put up with that crap again (I've been through it twice). I'm content in my role as a logic-minded curmudgeon who gets stuff done. It's probably a shame for some backlogged process like editprotected requests that I didn't make admin, since my patience for doing stuff like that is near limitless, but c'est la vie. Some other even more obsessive-compulsive geek will show up eventually willing to do that stuff, I guess. Heh. Anyway, good luck with your pursuit, and I hope you'll be one of the good ones. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 02:34, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
- Good idea about the automatic "pass go, collect $200" idea. We could apply, get the gun & holster, and have a mentor assigned who'd ride shotgun. As I've commented on the possibilities with others about applying, I hear more & more about the rigors. – S. Rich (talk) 01:42, 28 April 2014 (UTC)