This is to let you know that the Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed article has been scheduled as today's featured article for January 23, 2018. Please check the article needs no amendments. If you're interested in editing the main page text, you're welcome to do so at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 23, 2018, but note that a coordinator will trim the lead to around 1100 characters anyway, so you aren't obliged to do so. Thanks! Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:19, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Jimfbleak, I've trimmed the blurb to below the recommended length, to allow for a larger image. Normally with a painting like this I'd crop it down to a detail to give readers a fighting chance of figuring out what it actually shows at 100px width, but in this case we need to show the whole thing as the description makes no sense if you can't see all three characters. Because the title is so long—and because I really want to keep it was condemned as an immoral piece of the type one would expect from a foreign, not a British, artist as it sums both Etty and 19th-century English attitudes up so well—there's a severe limit to how much it can be trimmed. To pre-empt a likely complaint on the day, that we're deliberately choosing an unwieldy title for comic effect, here's the thing's entry in the Tate catalogue to demonstrate that the 102-character title, using the archaic shew rather than "show", genuinely is the WP:COMMONNAME. ‑ Iridescent 14:33, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll ping Dank on this, since he normally polishes the blurb and needs to see your comments regarding the image Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:07, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all. Iri, I think this is perfect for TFA. - Dank (push to talk) 16:30, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Although you do realise this presumably knocks The Dawn of Love out of contention for Valentine's Day and you must be running low on love-themed potential TFA… I believe you know my opinions on the "if this is Halloween, it must be a horror film" liturgical calendar approach to TFA, but it looks like it's here to stay. Although all credit to whoever scheduled Jinnah for 25 December this year despite knowing the whininess from assorted alt-right types "you're not running something Christian!" will generate. ‑ Iridescent 16:40, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Alt righters are such a significant demographic that they can not be ignored on Wikipedia? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:47, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The extremists (on both the left and the right) catalyze more mainstream people, so when alt-righters, Justice Democrats, UKIPpers, Momentum, and insert race here supremacists canvass their followers to wade into any given debate, it emboldens non-crazies who happen to sympathize with whatever point's being made to pile in as well when ordinarily they'd have remained silent. Search Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion and its archives for "China's Four Most Handsome Men" to see a current example of the phenomenon in action. ‑ Iridescent 16:57, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And there was I hoping to see Etty's visualisation of the Ring of Gyges. I suppose it is the wrong account of the events, but it is probably the one thing for which Gyges is most remembered (if at all). Not even a "see also"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.194.198 (talk) 20:48, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not even a see also; there are lots of different and contradictory legends regarding how Gyges usurped Candaules, but Etty was working from Herodotus (Clio 8–13) which doesn't include any mention of magic (other than the Oracle). There's no need for a see also section, as there are already prominent links to Gyges of Lydia which acts as a de facto dab page to Herodotus's, Plato's, Nicolaus's and Plutarch's versions of the story; besides, owing to The English Patient Herodotus's version is now overwhelmingly going to be the commonly accepted version of the Gyges/Candaules story inasmuch as something so obscure can be 'common'. (Candaules itself could do with some serious attention, but that's not a topic on which I have the knowledge or the sources to clean up so it's someone else's problem.)

In my opinion, if an article includes a "See also" section at all, it's generally an indication that the article is incomplete. Either something's directly relevant and thus should be mentioned in the text, or it's not directly relevant and it's giving undue weight to feature a stand-alone link to it. IMO in the two examples MOS:SEEALSO gives of FAs that nonetheless still have a "See also" section (1740 Batavia massacre#See also and Mary, Queen of Scots#See also), none of the entries are actually appropriate. I suppose Candaulism could theoretically go into a "See also" section, but that article is absolutely fucking awful and I don't want to be drawing attention to it—anyone who's really interested in exploring further will end up there anyway through following the link at Candaules. Cynically, when you see a "see also" section in my experience it's generally because someone's written an article on an obscure topic and is frantically trying to shoehorn links to it to avoid the {{orphan}} tag, not because a link to it is a genuinely useful service to the reader. ‑ Iridescent 15:22, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Congrats on the Main page appearance. What a beautiful article! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 01:46, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the monster of a title and subject, well summarized "It was intended to inspire in viewers a belief in women's rights, a rejection of the then-prevalent notion that it was the duty of women to obey their husbands in all things, and an understanding of the then-radical concept that women had a right to use violence to defend themselves against an abusive husband. Unfortunately none of the audience actually realised this, and it was almost universally considered an attempt to slip a piece of creepy and violent pornography into the mainstream." - I am happy to have something English with a short title on the same page, In Exile. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:04, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks both, although main page appearances are an honour I could happily live without; this just reminds me why I no longer have anything to do with FAC. At 90,000 pageviews this has a decent shot at yet again being the most-viewed TFA of the year, and yet again has attracted the usual mix of vandals and busybodies both to the main article and to assorted pages linked from it, all of which will at some point need to be cleaned up. (The pageviews of related pages spiked—I suppose at least that indicates that people are reading the things.) ‑ Iridescent 15:47, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And it indicates that the topic is interesting. For comparison, my own DYKs Arago hotspot and 1257 Samalas eruption also drove traffic to related articles but only about a 10th of the viewers clicked through. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:58, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well… in this case I suspect less "interesting" and more "very long title so the link dominates the box, and illustrated with a picture of a naked woman". The only one of Wikipedia's "writing guides" that's actually worth the pixels on which it's printed advises to always assume you're writing for a fourteen-year-old, which is the single best piece of advice I've ever received regarding Wikipedia. ‑ Iridescent 20:08, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Today, I have a title that literally translates to friendly vision, is a bit longer in German, Freundliche Vision, but nothing compared to the monster. Why are all trasnlations different (welcome, pleasing, but not friendly)? - Written as sort of a program on 2 January, the day my grandparents married ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:55, 25 January 2018 (UTC) [reply]

If I were you, I'd drop File:Wild Flowers, Kirkstead - geograph.org.uk - 556738.jpg from that article. Rightly or wrongly, the juxtaposition of "field poppies" and "German" will instantly generate the wrong connotations in British and Commonwealth readers; aside from the swastika and possibly the hammer-and-sickle, the poppy is probably the single most loaded symbol in British culture. With a new and inexperienced arbcom who think they can impose "consensus" by force and don't understand that they're about to destroy the delicate armistice agreement that took years to negotiate, the last thing you of all people want is to be labeled "the one with the problematic infobox". ‑ Iridescent 23:09, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I had no idea. The label would be one of the milder kind, though. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:36, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I found this, with even a more dreamlike quality. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:43, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me (although without actually knowing anything about the work, I can't say whether it's relevant or not; I'm aware that Strauss is highly regarded but he does nothing for me). ‑ Iridescent 23:47, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I didn't write for the love of Strauss, but the title ;) - Next good one: Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten, or "dissipate, sorrowful shadows", for which I also found an image with a dreamlike quality (in 2016). Some OR: the music goes from complex to simple, just as the wording of a certain Faust, beginning "Vom Eise befreit" (s. image) to "Hier bin ich Mensch ..." (Here I am a human, and permitted to be one.) - I keep dreaming. You characterized the new arbs well. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:57, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

At least this thankfully looks certain to fail, which will hopefully put a stop to any of the new arbs who see the looming case-from-hell as an opportunity to impose their own personal style preferences by force. Why is it that so many people—on both sides of that particular debate—are incapable of grasping the concepts of "what works on one article isn't necessarily going to work on another" and "civility is based on mutual respect and can't be enforced at the point of a gun"? ‑ Iridescent 15:44, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"I have experience only on one type of article" and "'But the other guy started it!' is only an invitation for an escalation sequence", maybe? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:22, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but these people are on the arbitration committee, not a couple of good-faith users who've only ever edited List of non-marine molluscs of El Hatillo Municipality, Miranda, Venezuela and consequently don't understand that not every article on Wikipedia should necessarily follow the "explain where the place in question is, then list all the local slugs" format. If you look at the "arb comments" section, it's patently clear that they're voting to accept a case without even knowing what they're accepting, as it's very clear that some of them think they've voting to give themselves the right to rewrite the MOS by fiat and to make it enforceable (which it never has been up to now), some of them think they're voting to examine the interpersonal interactions of a limited and defined group of people, and some of them think they're voting to establish a death-squad empowered to break up arguments by arbitrarily blocking the participants on one side or the other. ‑ Iridescent 16:53, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the comments in that section have really solidified three of my past Arbcom votes (two in favour and one against). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:06, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

New day, music and moon. Did you know what Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin, BWV 125 and the title of this thread have in common? Both articles were ttranslated to Spanish by the same editor, who is blocked. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:02, 2 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Argh. Don't remind me of the Spanish Translations. I've written or expanded over 200 articles^[1] but most of them would be far more useful when translated to the Spanish (and Romanian/Bahasa Indonesia in two instances) Wikipedias, since they concern topics in Spanish-language countries. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:32, 2 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish always lags behind the other big Wikipedias, because even though the unilateral declaration of independence by the es-wiki userbase failed, the period the fork was active was the 2002–06 period of exponential growth of the other Wikipedias, so they spent years playing catch-up. Regarding Eltomas2003, I can completely see why he was blocked; don't just take into account vandalism and blatant copyright violation here, but the repeated copyright violations elsewhere. There comes a point when Assume Good Faith runs out and you have to accept that someone is never going to be willing to stop being disruptive. ‑ Iridescent 16:34, 2 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations on this btw! 89K views on the day, & some 135K extra over the whole period. Johnbod (talk) 15:11, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ta—this one survived relatively unscathed. These Etty ones always seem to do well in terms of views—I suspect the appeal is three parts nudity to one part intriguing article names. The better measure of whether something on the main page is actually interesting the readers—as opposed to them clicking the link out of curiosity and then wandering off after skimming the first paragraph and deciding it sounds boring—is how much of a spike it creates in "that was interesting, I'd like to know more" related articles, rather than in the raw pageviews on their own. ‑ Iridescent 16:24, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Prompted by seeing Ptolemy Dean in a BBC documentary (a repeat from 2012), I created the list article Surveyor of the Fabric of Westminster Abbey. Am now wondering if the three red-linked people in that list are notable. I think Foster is. A stub could be created on Horne. Not sure about Burton. It would be a stub, and might scrape past. What do you think? Carcharoth (talk) 14:56, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

<tps>I'll have a look through some of my dead-tree references to see what might be done. Acroterion (talk) 14:59, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Am asking at WikiProject Architecture as well (the proper place to ask!). Carcharoth (talk) 15:29, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My inclination would be that anyone who's ever held the post is inherently notable in Wikipedia terms since pretty much by definition not only will the appointment will have been written about in detail, but they must have been considered significant to have got the job in the first place. That doesn't necessarily mean they need an article; if there are genuinely no usable sources then there's no point creating more William Garrat permastubs. ‑ Iridescent 16:26, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Foster has an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Architecture with enough for a reasonable start. Horne is not mentioned in the ODA or the 1901 Sturgis Dictionary of Architecture and Building, but I find references to him here and there on the Internet and we might piece together a paragraph or so. Burton might sustain a stub - he was recognized with an MBE for what that's worth, but he doesn't seem to have gotten much independent coverage and is not in the ODA. I think the post lends notability, but as Iridescent notes, it would be best if we can find enough sources to get past a two-sentence stub. Acroterion (talk) 16:53, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Both Horne and Keene are discussed in Architectural Outsiders, which seems a fair enough description. When you have posts like this that are sustained over centuries without being famous and really top-level posts, then you do seem to get periods where, um, less notable people come along and do the job. Burton's main claim to fame seems to have been to hold both this post and the post of Surveyor of the Fabric at Canterbury Cathedral at the same time. I am not going to attempt a list of the holders of that post, though I see the successor appears a bit shy (a case of photo cropping failure). There has been a continuous line of architects tending to St Paul's Cathedral, with the latest being Stancliffe and Caroe (Martin Stancliffe and Oliver Caroe). It is tempting to try and do that list as well. It includes Henry Flitcroft, Somers Clarke, C. R. Cockerell and Bernard Feilden apparently. Carcharoth (talk) 18:18, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My gut instinct is that St Pauls will be fairly easy to do, as the CoL are obsessive hoarders of documents so all it would take would be a trip to the Guildhall Reference Library and a willingness to wade through microfiches and to annoy the librarian by asking for books in the dusty recesses of the archives. Whether it's worthwhile would be another matter; there's no point writing something unless either there's an obvious chance that people will want to read it, or you can feel reasonably confident that you can make the topic interesting enough that people who don't know they want to read it will stick around to take a look when they stumble across it accidentally (such as the half-hour I've just spent reading Etchmiadzin Cathedral); I suspect there's a decent chance that this may be one of those topics where it's more of a service to the reader to direct them to the subject's own website. ‑ Iridescent 18:38, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, it's all out there already. But you would be surprised at how neither Westminster Abbey nor St Paul's feel they need to maintain such a list (I looked). Dropping the library/archive/collections team at such places a note can result in a list being pulled together by someone tasked to do that. I have 15 so far. But will probably be stopping soon and turning to other things. Carcharoth (talk) 18:52, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I did end up doing Surveyor of the Fabric of St Paul's Cathedral, and it is nice to see the articles we have and the one's we don't. Some may quibble over the inclusion of Wren there, and the post of Surveyor goes back further (to John Denham and Inigo Jones). Some sources variously use the constructions 'Surveyor of the Fabric of', 'Surveyor to the Fabric of', and 'Surveyor of the Fabric at'. If I create enough redirects, I may head off a move request... I am not going to do a list for Canterbury Cathedral. I suppose I should link to Cathedral Architect and architectural conservation. Carcharoth (talk) 23:50, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No reasonable person will quibble about Wren. Any list of architects responsible for St Paul's that didn't include Wren would be being wilfully perverse. Westminster Abbey must have a list somewhere, even if it's not online—they surely must get "who ws responsible for the building of foo?" questions fairly frequently. ‑ Iridescent 15:45, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Since it was mentioned (a long time ago) on this talk and said that you were a major contributor I did find this German Wikipedia page about the same. Amazing how similar the wiki speak is between languages. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:28, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Block review: We'll fabricate a block rationale; if it doesn't fit we'll make it fit, Madness: A requirement for partaking on a project such as this., Admin: Depending on the case either a hyperintelligent saint (if he agrees with you) or a braindamaged Hitler (if he for unidentifiable reason disagrees with you), but either way superhuman: He knows everything, can do everything, is allowed to do everything, always online, always available and can do any amount of work with faster than light speed so that everything's done yesterday., Semiprotection: The rabble stays outside, Personal attack: Every criticism of you and Penis: The most important article topic, to the point that at least one needs to be in each article. JoJo Eumerus mobile (talk) 23:14, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote quite a bit of it (and all of the RFA Decoder), but WP:WikiSpeak was very much Eric Corbett's baby. It doesn't surprise me if the issues on de-wiki match those here, since there are such close ties between en-wiki and de-wiki that the cultures are solidly intermeshed. What would be interesting is whether there are equivalent pages on those Wikipedias like Russian or Welsh which have a very different internal culture, and if so whether they treat things differently. If you want some free money, you could probably persuade the WMF to fund a research proposal into the matter; "community building" is one of their pet topics. ‑ Iridescent 15:45, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've written a few bits of WikiSpeak (IIRC I did AfC - "a place where articles don't get created", using {{sfn}} to pretend you know what you're talking about, "This article is shit, piss off" for CSD is definitely what I'd say) but the main inspiration does indeed come from Eric. Like all good pieces of humour, everything about it is close enough to what really goes on around here. I wouldn't hold out much hope in it fostering "community building" though, for everyone who likes it there's probably another who thinks it's totally unacceptable. Indeed, I think Eric has said it was a good way of getting his real views on WP out in the open without fear of being blocked for it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:17, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A place to write a lengthy article about a notable 19th-century mechanical engineer, only to have it rejected by a 17-year-old Pokémon fan six weeks later because the formatting was a bit wonky. might be the best summation of my issues with AfC I've even seen (I'd also add who just accepted a ref bombed brochure because the company's marketing director gave him a barnstar.) TonyBallioni (talk) 17:35, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My personal favourite out of that list is ANI: Plural of ANUS. See also IANAL. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:23, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Or a collection of anuses. EEng 20:28, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I still have a soft spot for The name is derived from the Hawaiian wiki, "edited at high speed", and the Greek παῖdh, "by children", which is actually kind of plausible. And I'm not sure I've ever made a truer comment than [Wikipedia is] evidence that an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of keyboards may not produce the complete works of Shakespeare, but will certainly produce an ever-growing pile of monkey shit. ‑ Iridescent 11:34, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

From a recent trawl of pages using links to the CWGC to reference war dead (some really push the boundaries and take an idiosyncratic approach):

• Manitoba memorial lakes ("There are more than 4,200 lakes, islands, bays and other geographical features named after Manitoba's war dead.")
• Hamilton Road Cemetery, Deal (bit of a blow-by-blow account)
• List of cricketers who were killed during military service (has 355 links!)
• Winterbourne Junior Boys' School (the memorial section)
• This was quite sweet: "Photographs of the Centenary Celebrations (taken on a mobile 'phone)" (actual quote)
• Talk:BOAC Flight 777#Burr's wife - bizarre (see also Raymond Burr)
• A mini-edit war: 'Restored the names of the war dead, as these details are important to the local community of Cloone' (edit summary)

There is more, but that is just a selection. The 'lists of' annoy me a bit, as can be seen here (my half-started attempt to make sense of a long list). There really are lists of people from everywhere? And endless permutations of lists? Feels like just scratching the surface. Carcharoth (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Sprawling and unmaintainable lists" have been a problem for years—I not only remember when List of people by name was still a thing, but remember some guy who made 25 separate edits to the deletion debate in a frantic effort to derail the deletion discussion and get the page kept. It escapes me for the moment as to what became of him. If you feel like gazing into List Hell, we still have the ridiculous List of lists of lists.

As regards lists of names on memorials, "determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article" is the only rational answer. While it would make no sense to list every name on the Vietnam Memorial, the Norwich Breweries War Memorial or anything in between, there are some memorials where it makes perfect sense to list all the names included on it along with a brief explanation of what the person in question did to warrant a listing. (The Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice and the Kremlin Wall are obvious ones that spring to mind, but I could also make a case for doing the same if anyone ever writes an article on the Brookwood Memorial, at least for the section listing executed SOE agents.) If anyone is actually bored enough to do it—I do not volunteer—I wouldn't object if the full listing of names on war memorials were added to Wikisource and linked from the parent article (or from the article on the village/cemetery if the memorial doesn't have its own article); "is this useful to readers?" should always be the primary question when debating any addition or removal, and "who is named on the war memorial on the Edmonton Green roundabout?" is a fairly obvious question a reader might want to know. I do like the idea of Memorial Lakes, although it would only work somewhere like Manitoba with a lot of lakes and relatively few war dead; trying it in France, Britain or Germany would exhaust the lake supply fairly quickly. (Still, given that this is the country that can name every road in a town after minor Lord of the Rings characters, I'm sure they could find something to rename if they wanted to take this approach.) ‑ Iridescent 17:09, 2 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I do remember that discussion, and I do wonder sometimes what happened to him (me)! :-) ('derail' is a bit unfair, but re-reading old discussions that I took part in does worryingly often find me scratching my head as to what on Earth I was talking about...). Need to ponder on memorials and tighten the focus a bit. Carcharoth (talk) 20:30, 2 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, we were all obnoxiously sure of ourselves back in 2007. Those were different times. ‑ Iridescent 08:48, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Slight side-topic. If you are willing to dabble back in the murky waters of Brookwood (given the ownership changes), you might be interested in Categories for discussion/2018/02/Category:Brookwood Military Cemetery. Carcharoth (talk) 16:48, 13 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to impose sense on Commons's ever-proliferating categories and the obsession of some of its regulars with micro-categorising is a waste of time; Neelix was a symptom, not the disease. See the category list at c:Category:The Sirens and Ulysses by William Etty, 1837—a category which itself shouldn't even exist in the first place—to put "should Brookwood be treated as one, two or three separate entities?" in perspective. The categories on Commons long since ceased to be useful—I nowadays just search for a couple of keywords if I'm looking for a particular image. ‑ Iridescent 20:34, 13 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That does work well, though obviously only if the image is keyworded correctly. I have in the past looked at a category and found images of gravestones that the uploader hadn't included the name of the deceased. Some articles that jumped out of the latest trawl, or were of more than moderate interest: (1) Eugène Goossens, fils had a son who died in the war. The other three children went on to continue their careers as celebrated musicians. The sister's article mentions the brother who died (she lived to 105). The articles on the other two brothers don't yet mention him. (2) Leone Sextus Tollemache - normally not notable enough, but, well, see for yourself why he has an article (another brother also died). (3) Prince Antônio Gastão of Orléans-Braganza - I had not come across this story before: Brazilian princes, heirs to the French throne, serving in the British Army. This one is commemorated by the CWGC. A brother (Prince Luís) looks like he should also be commemorated as he died from disease contracted while on service, and is within the cut-off dates. Might have to look into that a bit more. Carcharoth (talk) 18:42, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What works quite often is a Google Image search with tools/Usage rights/Reuse with modification checked. Google's algorithm is clever enough to pick up mislabeled images by similarity to other, non-free images which are labelled correctly, and doing it this way also picks up usable images from places like Flickr. I increasingly find Flickr is more use as an image source than Commons, and one doesn't have to negotiate Commons's moral cesspit; even if a Flickr image isn't tagged as CC BY-SA most of their users (even the professional studios) are more than happy to change the license on an image when you point out that appearance on Wikipedia will generally increase the view count for that image by multiple orders of magnitude and at least some of those readers will click through to the Flickr photostream. About half the free-use images on Droxford railway station came from Flickr rather than Commons, for instance. (Importing Flickr images looks daunting but is very easy; just open this tool, and you can automatically hoover up either an individual image, all members of a particular set of images, or every upload by a particular user provided it has a Wikipedia-compatible licence.) ‑ Iridescent 17:17, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Such a shame the article on Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache was moved from its gloriously long title to its truncated form. And poor old Prince Antônio Gastão seems to have become "Captain Antoine Gaston Philippe, Prince of Orleans and Braganza" at the hands of the CWGC. As the Brazilian Royal Family had been living in exile at the Château d'Eu for some time, he was probably more French than Brazilian anyway. Perhaps a Frenchified article name would be more fitting than the Portuguese one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.74.12.209 (talk • contribs) 16:03, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Probably true about the article name. Am impressed by the Chapelle royale de Dreux, and also the photographic coverage of the tombs at the Commons category for the burials there. Compare that with the photographs we have of the interior of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. I suppose that is one of the advantages of deposing your royal family... Going back to Prince Antônio, I hope someone transcribes the inscription here (I might at some point). It ends with a biblical quote from the Vulgate: "Bonum certamen certavi, cursum consummavi, fidem servavi. In reliquo reposita est mihi corona justitiae, quam reddet mihi Dominus in illa die, justus judex" ('I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day'). Carcharoth (talk) 13:45, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I had no idea that Peter Hitchens edited Wikipedia, though a quick look at the numerous warnings for edit-warring on his talk page suggests that it's him alright. At least he's open about it. I have not been a fan of Hitchens for some years, ever since I saw him rip The Prodigy a new one over "Smack My Bitch Up" in the Daily Express about 20 years ago and got the title of the song wrong. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:15, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure that the number of famous people who are open about editing Wikipedia is only the tip of the iceberg since the overwhelming majority won't bother to create an account; likewise, I'm equally in no doubt that most of the time when you see someone claiming to be a celebrity, it's not actually them. There's a (neglected and out-of-date) list of notable people with Wikipedia accounts where there's a reasonable degree of certainty that they're who they claim to be at Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles.

FWIW, I find the "keep" arguments on WP:Articles for deletion/List of Wikipedia people completely spurious. Even if one doesn't just go with the vague "has a Wikipedia account" and go with a stricter "reliable sources have mentioned them in connection with Wikipedia", that still doesn't make them a "Wikipedia person". There have probably been thousands of "Foo caught editing her own biography on Wikipedia!", "Bar criticizes Wikipedia errors in his biography!" and "Baz complains about the poor quality of the photo on his article!" stories over the years, but it doesn't make them "Wikipedia people" or Grant Shapps,* Toby Young and James Blunt would all be on the list. ‑ Iridescent 11:52, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
*Before either the Defenders of the Wiki or the Wikipedia Review crowd scent BLP-violation blood, Shapps explicitly admitted to "editing his Wikipedia entry to make it accurate"; the issue was that he denied a connection to Contribsx, not that he denied editing Wikipedia altogether.

Talking of James Blunt, this is one of the most convincing arguments I've seen that if you take an article to GA / FA, you need to stick it on your watchlist and make sure the quality doesn't go backwards, even if you have to be blunt (pun not intended) about it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:01, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• (ec) I didn't find Iridescent's arguments convincing either but please could they say how and whether they would apply them to:

1. other similar lists such as List of Harvard University people
2. category:Wikipedia people

Andrew D. (talk) 12:05, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding List of Harvard University people, the very first sentence of it answers your question: The list of Harvard University people includes notable graduates, professors, and administrators affiliated with Harvard University. It has strict inclusion criteria; the people listed not only have to be notable in Wikipedia terms, but need to have graduated from or have worked for Harvard. As I said at the AfD, I'd have no issue with List of Wikipedia people if it were repurposed to something similar and had similar criteria (notable enough to have their own Wikipedia article and a demonstrable strong connection to Wikipedia), but as it stands this is just an indiscriminate list of "people who have been mentioned somewhere, at some point, in connection to Wikipedia".

Regarding Category:Wikipedia people, if you look at the CFD discussion that led to its creation, it was intended for people where significant fame comes from being associated with wikipedia—i.e. Jimmy and Larry, the early devs who wrote MediaWiki, the managers and staff who created the WMF, steered it onto the rocks and back off again, people like Awadewit who for one reason or another became the public faces of Wikipedia—not as a general catch-all for people who are notable for something unrelated but happen to be associated with Wikipedia in some way. The category still sticks to that fairly rigidly; other than a couple of exceptions that have crept in every person listed is someone who's noteworthy enough in Wikipedia's terms to have their own article, and whose notability derives primarily from their association with Wikipedia. ‑ Iridescent 12:39, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comment beginning like this, where I have commanded myself to not even apply any thank-you click, and your promise. ----Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:44, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

:(This comment, for the curious.) I'll stick to it, in both directions; if Arbcom takes any decision this rash, as far as I'm concerned it's lost the right to authority, any decisions it makes can be disregarded, I'm more than willing to be a martyr if necessary, and the wikilawyers can get busy digging around in the archives for exactly where to find the arbitrator impeachment procedures. I very much doubt they will, although given that this is the committee that was stupid enough to take on a case with no scope and in which every editor on Wikipedia is a party, nothing would surprise me. If nothing else, this proposal reaffirms to me that my comments here weren't unduly harsh. ‑ Iridescent 15:58, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, again. (No click, again.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:28, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As per [1].

I humbly suggest this is patronising, and incorrect. Even a cursory review of my contributions in the last few months would show this to not be the case. I would appreciate a retraction. Fish+Karate 04:34, 11 February 2018 (UTC) Fish+Karate 04:34, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) Heartily agree. Suggest immediate re-wording to "legacy admin who made ~150 edits to the entire project between January 2012 and Oct last year." Vivre accuracy! :) >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 06:41, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What SN54129 said. If "legacy admin who made ~150 edits to the entire project between January 2012 and Oct last year" doesn't suit, I can change it to "legacy admin whose last thousand mainspace edits stretch back to the Virgin Killer controversy" or "legacy admin who, aside from a flurry of page moves in October 2011, never reached a monthly edit count of three digits and rarely reached a monthly edit count of two digits between 2008 and October last year" if you'd prefer either of those. ‑ Iridescent 09:03, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It’s not Oct last year. But you’re right. For my opinion to matter clearly I need to make a few thousand mindless AWB-assisted typo corrections to get my edit count up. Fish+Karate 17:20, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, I think Iridescent's comment was directed more toward the argument from authority aspect of Billhpike's comment, rather than Fish and karate. Anyway, I think my contribution history ([2]) fits this section header far better. Alex Shih (talk) 17:48, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to point out that Iri makes at least 70 non AWB edits to the mainspace each month and has been doing that for some time. L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 22:54, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I draft in sandboxes; a single mainspace edit like [3] or [4] can represent hundreds of edits to the draft to reach that point, none of which show on the edit counter. While raw edit counts are clear for determining "active or inactive?" or "is there in inappropriately high number of edits to drama boards?", raw edit counts are a slippery beast to try to quantify. ‑ Iridescent 09:21, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Let me just say this one thing and then I’ll withdraw from this wholly unproductive little bout of snippery. Yes, there is a big gap in my editing history. But I came back in November, and since then have been doing my best to improve the encyclopaedia. I’ve created a number of new articles, including a DYK, I’ve been active on WP:ERRORS and WP:RFPP, as well as clearing a bunch of the backlogged RFCs requiring closure. I appreciate that this is only 4 months and to some that means nothing, but to me it has been fun participating again, and having the time and health and personal circumstances in real life to allow me to do so has been a joy. And I hope I’ve been adding value to Wikipedia. What I don’t need - nobody would - is Iridescent dismissing me as semi-inactive, and not worthy of being called respected. Purely to make a point in an argument with someone else. That was rude, it was cruel, it was belittling, and it was wholly unnecessary. And I didn’t even ask for an apology, just a retraction. And instead of that, I get both Iridescent and a friend further cherry-picking and denigrating my contributions. An opinion of both of you has been formed. Fish+Karate 05:33, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Form whatever opinions you like; the fact will remain that "Disregard every argument to oppose because F&K supports" will continue to be a spurious attempt to override community consensus based on the notion that a support from someone who's been absent from Wikipedia for a decade-minus-four-months somehow outweighs as overwhelming a community consensus as I've ever seen on a Wikipedia discussion (by my count, the proposal currently has 1 support & 15 opposes), purely because that user happens to have a legacy admin flag. You can form your opinion of anyone else; likewise, anyone else can form an opinion of someone who only avoided being flagged as inactive because they made these two edits in response to the suspension notification. ‑ Iridescent 09:21, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I proposed and added tags to three articles that I feel could be merged into the page Panel van. I haven't proposed a merge in a long time and I wanted you to take a look and see if I missed any steps. Thanks! Shinerunner (talk) 15:27, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

​It looks like you've tagged them all correctly. I personally would say that Panel van, Panel van (Australia), Panel truck and Sedan delivery are all so obviously the same topic that it's a no-brainer that there should only be one article, but This Is Not My Area. I'd recommend posting at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trucks, since if there's a good reason the articles should be kept separate, those are where you'll find the people who'll know it. ‑ Iridescent 19:42, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your help and I've notified the two WikiProjects that you suggested. Shinerunner (talk) 20:29, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, Iridescent. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Chris Troutman (talk) 12:58, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Good lord, that's depressing. It's probably closer to six years when you subtract all the gaps, mind. ‑ Iridescent 13:44, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. I certainly had a slow start. - Sitush (talk) 14:09, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like we are in good company. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:25, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

[5] - So help me god will have have an article soon. Great vid in the mean time; like a female, cranky version of Q-Tip; warm voice, earthy beats. Ceoil (talk) 03:49, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That one does nothing for me, I'm afraid; to me it just sounds like generic pre-Roxanne Wars east coast hip-hop at a lower tempo. If you want a good recent example of "female vocal over a beat" try [6]. (I hate to climb aboard a hype bubble, but I'm getting steadily more impressed by Superorganism, too.) ‑ Iridescent 14:42, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it appeared near the top of may of the end of year things, and I like it, but wouldn't be super excited. There are elements of [7] to it that I like, especially the opening beat. In other news I only discovered the Residents a week or so ago. My god. Ceoil (talk) 11:51, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That Sink Ya Teeth vid is amazing. Myself and Martinevans finally agreed on something yesterday [8] (we have been bickering over the finer points of Nick Drake's catalogue for years). Ceoil (talk) 11:53, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was not offended by the words used by you because I know tha you did not mean any bad. It just triggered to me that there is another issue on Wikipedia that may needs attention, Please do not consider my comments as a way to change the disccusion from my initial request and the subsequent discussion. Magioladitis (talk) 16:57, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I know you don't want to hear it from me, but be careful. The "remove everything that might possibly cause offence to anyone" crusade you appear to have currently embarked on is never going to end well—Wikipedia is a global project and what's offensive to you might not be offensive to many or most others. When you pop up at ANI demanding that the term "pussy cat" not just be removed but revdeleted, it's the kind of thing that's going to annoy a lot of people very quickly. ‑ Iridescent 17:50, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I am aware that you've written some of our best articles on English railway stations; a while back I set about trying to improve articles related to Sleaford, a town in Lincolnshire, and I recently remembered that I never got the railway station's article out of the awful state it's in. I did write the early history sub-sections using a good book on the town's Victorian history. However, I will admit that I know very little about railways, this station's later history or what's needed to get this article up to GA standards for coverage (as they're meant to be anyway). Do you know or any talk page followers know of any good sources I could use to beef up the article? I'd love to get it to GA-quality (though my faith in the GA system is rather lacking, it'd be nice to improve the article nonetheless). Cheers, —Noswall59 (talk) 16:48, 19 February 2018 (UTC).[reply]

I don't really know much about LNER other than some very niche stuff about their early map designs. If you can get across to Stamford, Robert Humm is very good for this kind of thing. I'm unaware of anything specifically about the railway station, but as a junction station there's almost certainly something; Redrose64 or Ritchie333 might know where to look. This book, assuming it's like every other Middleton Press book, will be great for pictures and just about adequate as a source, but will be a bit short on detail. ‑ Iridescent 17:47, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that – I'll take a look next time I'm in Stamford, and I'll see if I can find a library copy of the Middleton Press book. I now remember coming across some book titles which might be of interest a few years ago; I dug out some old notes and seemed to think these might help at the time: John Allan Patmore (1984), A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain vol. on East Midlands (David & Charles, 1984); Arthur John Francis Wrottesley, The Midlands & Great Northern Joint Railway (David & Charles, 1981); R. V. J. Butt, The Directory of Railway Stations (Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd., 1995); and G. Body, PSL Field Guides – Railways of the Eastern Region, vol. 1. (Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1986). Thanks again, —Noswall59 (talk) 20:57, 20 February 2018 (UTC).[reply]

Perhaps I'm missing something, since you reverted this edit. The use of "disillusioned" here doesn't make much sense to me, since Hindley was attracted to Brady, making fascinated entries about him in her diary and wanting to go out with him. How is that the correct word here? It seems the exact opposite of her feelings. Grandpallama (talk) 17:15, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you're going to completely reverse the meaning of something in one of Wikipedia's most-visited Featured Articles—an article that's been reviewed and assessed pretty much continuously for the past decade—the onus is on you to provide a source for the change, not to unilaterally rewrite it because you do not think that word means what you think it means. Hindley initially found Brady interesting when she met him in July 1961; she became disillusioned and began to find him unpleasant, although she still considered herself in love with him, as time went on (I've given up with Ian, he goes out of his way to annoy me if you want Hindley's own words); he asked her out on 22 December and she decided to give him a chance. This is one of the most documented relationships of all time, and if you want to make a change that goes against what every source says—including the subject herself—then it needs a spectacularly good source, not just your personal speculation. (Even with a spectacularly good source, since it would disagree with every other source we'd need to just give it as an alternative view and not change the main narrative unless you could demonstrate that mainstream thinking on the relationship had shifted.) ‑ Iridescent 17:37, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So, first, you're responding with an unneeded degree of belligerence here to a good-faith editor who obviously isn't being unilateral since he brought this to you for discussion. I would've thought my initial question revealed that I'm not trying to change any overall meanings, but that there's a clearly confusing moment in the paragraph the way it is written. Right now, the way those two sentences are phrased, we go directly from "entries detail her fascination" with Brady to "she continued to make [the presumably fascinated] entries and grew increasingly disillusioned". There's no explanation for where that second part comes from. If there was a dip in her feelings (which your extra verbiage here explains really well), then I'd like to strongly suggest adding that as a qualifying phrase. Your language "she became disillusioned and began to find him unpleasant, although she still considered herself in love with him" would make a lot more sense in this spot, which has a weird, unexplained break as it mentions this disillusionment that's never alluded to beforehand and isn't addressed again. I was fixing what looked to me like a typical longstanding, long-overlooked minor typo, hence my light-hearted edit summary. I wasn't out to change any overall meaning, so my apologies if that's how it was perceived, but perhaps a bit more clarity in that spot to smooth the current disconnect between infatuation and disillusionment would help. I really, really like the additional verbiage you provide here, and something like "Over the next few months she continued to make entries, but she became increasingly disillusioned with him and began to find him unpleasant; however, on 22 December when Brady asked her on a date to the cinema,[126] she decided to give him a chance and they watched the biblical epic King of Kings" would absolutely make more sense to readers who aren't already exceedingly familiar with the evolution of their relationship. Any objections to my changing the sentence to reflect that clarification? Grandpallama (talk) 18:01, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Iridescent, as the editor who originally suggested I spam around ;) for would be reviewers, perhaps I could you too to look in at JdeM and critique it? You've already been extremely helpful, though, so no worries if you think not...Cheers, >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 11:18, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

✓ Done ‑ Iridescent 18:27, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much, nit-picking always appreciated . >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 18:42, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Iridecsent, on an unrelated matter, could you G6#Housekeeping this page, as it's no longer going to do anything (I pulled it from the GA queue a few days ago) and (I think) the transclusion won't archive until it's gone. That make sense? >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 20:47, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks. Opportunity to test the archiving too  :) >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 21:02, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Iridescent, still on this; any chance you cast an eye over it and see if you thikn it's ready for nominating? Ceoil thinks so, but noobs always need a second opinion I think  :) of course, there's no rush, but I've got a few days off coming up so it would suit. Any thoughts? Thanks for all your help with this, I appreciate it. ...SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 18:29, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, checking now. ‑ Iridescent 18:50, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It looks ready to me. Personally, I'd lose the Google Books links—I think the confusion they cause overwhelmingly outweighs whatever benefit they bring. (They behave differently in different territories depending on what contracts Google has in place with the copyright holders, so to someone in a territory where they point to a blank page or "this book is not available" message it makes it look like you're faking your sources. Plus, I have an issue with the free-source Wikipedia intentionally directing traffic to one of the most morally questionable corporations on the planet.) If you do take it to FAC, don't panic if you get a bunch of criticisms to start with; some of the people there can be quite unpleasant to deal with, but they're all trying to help, and they will strike those criticisms if they're addressed. If someone is opposing on the grounds of something that seems to you really stupid, don't be afraid to disregard the opposition provided you can explain why you're disregarding it; it's a common myth that FAC is where articles go to be nitpicked to death, but the delegates have enough sense to disregard groundless opposes. ‑ Iridescent 19:21, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I saw your contribution to the informal peer review of John de Mowbray, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, and was interested, not to say worried, by your comment on the ODNB. I've always believed it pretty reliable, and have often cited it, sometimes quite extensively. But if it has a reputation for inaccuracy I'd better rethink for future input. Grateful for any pointers on this. Tim riley talk 18:41, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm possibly unfairly jaundiced by the fact that William Huskisson falls at the intersection of three of my interests (early 19th century England, civil engineering, and the planning processes by which railway routes were selected), and their article on Huskisson is AFAIK the source of the canard that He was the first fatality of the railway age which one now finds repeated ad nauseam by people who should know better but can't be bothered to check the sources for themselves. (It's true to say that he was the first high-profile railway casualty, and that the reporting of his death perversely pushed the experimental steam technology into the public eye and caused the industrial revolution to happen more quickly than it otherwise would have—if I do say so myself Wikipedia's article on the matter is as good a summary of the topic as you'll find anywhere—but he wasn't even the first person to be killed by a train at Eccles, let alone "the first fatality of the railway age".) I know other people have had similar issues with the ODNB in the past. Because the ODNB just summarises other sources, they're basically a posher version of Citizendium; my general feeling towards them is that they're a good source for basic biographical details like birth dates, and good for a general sweep of someone's life, but for anything specific you're almost always going to be better off looking at the "sources" section at the end of the entry and using whatever the authors of the ODNB entry have cribbed it from. ‑ Iridescent 18:56, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's most interesting. I'll make sure to be on the alert in future. Thank you. Tim riley talk 19:42, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Like all massive reference works (hem, hem), it has great difficulty keeping a consistent quality, sometimes using just the right specialist (if they feel like writing a comprehensive treatment for little money or renown) and sometimes using people only specializing in one aspect of the subject's life, or in something else entirely. I think the date an entry was written can have a large bearing also. Have you pointed this out to them? I've pointed out various mistakes to the OED & usually got a nice email from a junior lexicographer, more or less putting hands up straight away, and suggesting that the matter would be corrected at some point in the next 2-4 decades (depending on the first letter). But they have (or had) an easily page encouraging such suggestions (unlike the ODNB, they really do have a history of crowdsourcing). The ODNB doesn't do this that I can see: "No results matching your search request were found. Try one of the following tips to search again: Did you mean correction? ...". Johnbod (talk) 15:04, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think "coyly" is a bit unfair—I could hardly abandon an entire citation system—or change a template used on >50K pages! But did chuckle though :) >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 18:55, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Course you can, without needing to change the citation system or redesign the template. See the aforementioned Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway for an example of ODNB entries used within the {{sfn}} setup; you need to think of ODNB pages as websites rather than books, and to use the {{cite ODNB}} template rather than put it in the bibliography. ‑ Iridescent 19:00, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you mean; apologies. A shame though, because I do like a lean citation column! >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 19:06, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, no need to apologise. While I'm coming squarely around to the view that Wikipedia should enforce a uniform citation style, at the moment Wikipedia attitude is still "let a hundred flowers bloom" when it comes to citation styles provided the article is internally consistent. ‑ Iridescent 19:25, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I was wondering if I should write articles about people who were murdered in BC, and if would they be kept. For example this article that I wrote The Murder of Melanie Carpenter is on two category pages Category:People murdered in British Columbia and Category:Violence against women in Canada, but most would say it does not belong on the List of people who disappeared mysteriously, since it doesn't have enough coverage, so I have removed it from that list, but I think it should be kept as murder cases are notable aren't they? So again I ask if should I write some more cases about people who were murdered in BC, and if would they be kept? Davidgoodheart (talk) 03:09, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You answered your own question with "it doesn't have enough coverage". No, murder cases are not automatically notable; the exact figure varies according to which definition one uses, but by the UNODC's figures there are between 400,000 and 500,000 homicides every year. Will you please actually read Wikipedia:Notability (events)#Inclusion criteria, to which you keep being pointed; I'll reproduce the most pertinent part here for you:

1. Events are probably notable if they have enduring historical significance and meet the general notability guideline, or if they have a significant lasting effect.
2. Events are also very likely to be notable if they have widespread (national or international) impact and were very widely covered in diverse sources, especially if also re-analyzed afterwards (as described below).
3. Events having lesser coverage or more limited scope may or may not be notable; the descriptions below provide guidance to assess the event.
4. Routine kinds of news events (including most crimes, accidents, deaths, celebrity or political news, "shock" news, stories lacking lasting value such as "water cooler stories," and viral phenomena) – whether or not tragic or widely reported at the time – are usually not notable unless something further gives them additional enduring significance.

Number 4 is the one to pay particular attention to. Some crimes are notable because they had a lasting impact or had significant ongoing coverage, but the presumption is that a criminal act is not notable in Wikipedia terms. (A very rough rule of thumb is "has a non-vanity publisher published a book about the crime?".)

As with the missing persons cases, I strongly recommend you stay well away from articles on criminal cases; not only do you not understand Wikipedia's rules on notability, but more importantly you don't understand the law on libel. As SMcCandlish and I have already explained to you, the WMF is not going to protect you if you unintentionally libel someone, which is very easy to do in an article on a criminal case. (On Murder of Melanie Carpenter it's not quite as problematic, as the person you're accusing of murder despite their never having been convicted is themselves dead and can't sue, but sooner or later someone will take exception to your throwing accusations around. Please read and absorb what SMcCandlish told you here; Wikipedia is really not a good place to be writing about current criminal cases.) ‑ Iridescent 08:25, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Hope you've been well. Definitely filed away as something I knew when I was more active, but besides wading through WP:MOS, is there an easy reference style guide so I know things like this when writing? Thanks either way! StarM 02:59, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, nice to see you back. There's no brief one-page summary of the MOS that I'm aware of other than WP:MOS itself, but it's not something to which I pay much attention—my attitude is to just do what looks right and if something is genuinely problematically non-compliant, a bot or script will wander along at some point to fix it. When you see me doing a big stack of minor standardization edits like that, it generally means that I'm watching a game in which I'm interested enough to watch, but not so engrossed in that I need to give it my full attention. ‑ Iridescent 20:11, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is WP:SMOS, but it is something more like super-short MOS. --Izno (talk) 00:35, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Huh, you learn something every day. My general feeling is that it really doesn't matter much how you format things, provided you're internally consistent and whatever you do isn't going to confuse readers. It's easy to forget (and some of the MOS's more enthusiastic enforcers can be a little reticent about reminding people of the fact) that the MOS is a set of non-binding suggestions, not holy writ brought down from Mount Nupedia by the Apostle Tony. ‑ Iridescent 18:12, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You in general have some of the best edit summaries, but this takes the cake. Also, yes, it does look like a monkey taking a shit. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:55, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• It's incredible  :) but what the **** were they thinking of‼️⁉️ I mean, How does the ability to write a small essay (colourfully, even!) actually help the reader...or the writer for that matter. ...SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 19:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Protection logs are the only positive I see. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:04, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agree; but ~"unlimited"? —ever played a no-limit poker game?! They clearly haven't!!! ...SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 19:08, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • 1000 char limit
    • I see edit summary conversations being quite annoying to keep track off Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:12, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • Someone, somewhere, presumably thought this was a good idea. ‑ Iridescent 19:26, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • Request from de.wiki in 2006 and I think part of the 2016 community wishlist. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:29, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
          • Well that was for mainly for non-latin characters which have half or a third of the limit of 255 as two bytes per character; not for expanding it so much so IIRC Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:35, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
            • Yes—That was the Russians requesting 255 characters, not a request to allow browser-crashing edit summaries. ‑ Iridescent 19:40, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @TonyBallioni, you do realize that if the WMF now change their mind and hide these extended edit summaries, you're just posting at random about monkeys taking a shit? ‑ Iridescent 19:33, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you listen to some of my detractors, that'd be one of the more productive things I've done on this project. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:43, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I thought my iPad had gone beserk then! Think I might support removal... Aiken D 19:36, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Commenting here purely to try out this new feature Gurch (talk) 19:40, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• • • • • • The request is meta:Community Tech/Edit summary length for non-Latin languages, which became a task to lengthen edit summaries because apparently Unicode cannot be squeezed. I notice that We don't want to encourage Latin languages to post 3x longer edit summaries, because edit summaries aren't intended to be a primary communication method. So we'll put a limit on the size -- probably 250 characters, rather than 250 bytes, which in Latin languages would mean no change at all. This will put non-Latin and Latin languages on par for edit summary length. is apparently an outcome of the internal discussions, so maybe there was a slip-up somewhere? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:40, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
            • Interesting; hope they acquisece Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:46, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
            • Also, I didn't know that hurricanes have their own 🌀 Unicode symbol. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:41, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I hate you all... Primefac (talk) 19:41, 2 March 2018 (UTC) Except Jo-Jo, who taught me something new. Hurricane! Primefac (talk) 19:43, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Now that is a blast from the past, especially with *miss a thread above. Anyone want to find Poetlister and hold a 2007 reunion? ‑ Iridescent 19:43, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

the last 11 years were a bit of a blur Gurch (talk) 19:45, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Here we go  :) ...SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 19:44, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]