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News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2024).

Administrator changes

Graham Beards

Deskana
Mets501
Staxringold

Bureaucrat changes

Deskana
Warofdreams

Oversight changes

Dreamy Jazz

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

The Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. T43351

Arbitration

The arbitration case Venezuelan politics has been closed.
The Committee is seeking volunteers for various roles, including access to the conflict of interest VRT queue.

Miscellaneous

Most recent poster here: SMcCandlish (talk)

Mini-toolbox:

My Wikimedia Library (journal access, etc.; to get your own, see WP:LIBRARY)
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Hunt down abuse of {{em}} for non-emphasis italics [1] — and <em> [2]
Move and redirect articles with slashes in their titles when feasible (i.e. when not proper names that require them)
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Categories for discussion

30 May 2024 – Category:Pool writers and broadcasters (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Omnis Scientia (t · c); see discussion
30 May 2024 – Category:Cue sports writers and broadcasters (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Omnis Scientia (t · c); see discussion

Old stuff to resolve eventually

Cueless billiards

Unresolved

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

Extended content

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

Crud fits for sure. And if the variant in it is sourceable, I'm sure some military editor will fork it into a separate article eventually. I think at least some variants of bar billiards are played with hands and some bagatelle split-offs probably were, too (Shamos goes into loads of them, but I get them all mixed up, mostly because they have foreign names). And there's bocce billiards, article I've not written yet. Very fun game. Kept my sister and I busy for 3 hours once. Her husband (Air Force doctor) actually plays crud on a regular basis; maybe there's a connection. She beat me several times, so it must be from crud-playing. Hand pool might be its own article eventually. Anyway, I guess it depends upon your "categorization politics". Mine are pretty liberal - I like to put stuff into a logical category as long as there are multiple items for it (there'll be two as soon as you're done with f.b., since we have crud), and especially if there are multiple parent categories (that will be the case here), and especially especially if the split parallels the category structure of another related category branch (I can't think of a parallel here, so this criterion of mine is not a check mark in this case), and so on. A bunch of factors really. I kind of wallow in that stuff. Not sure why I dig the category space so much. Less psychodrama, I guess. >;-) In my entire time here, I can only think of maybe one categorization decision I've made that got nuked at CfD. And I'm a pretty aggressive categorizer, too; I totally overhauled Category:Pinball just for the heck of it and will probably do the same to Category:Darts soon.

PS: I'm not wedded to the "cueless billiards" name idea; it just seemed more concise than "cueless developments from cue sports" or whatever.— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 11:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have no "categorization politics". It's not an area that I think about a lot or has ever interested me so it's good there are people like you. If there is to be a category on this, "cueless billiards" seems fine to me. By the way, just posted Yank Adams as an adjunct to the finger billiards article I started.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cool; I'd never even heard of him. This one looks like a good DYK; just the fact that there was Finger Billiards World Championship contention is funky enough, probably. You still citing that old version of Shamos? You really oughta get the 1999 version; it can be had from Amazon for cheap and has a bunch of updates. I actually put my old version in the recycle bin as not worth saving. Heh. PS: You seen Stein & Rubino 3rd ed.? I got one for the xmas before the one that just passed, from what was then a really good girlfriend. >;-) It's a-verra, verra nahce. Over 100 new pages, I think (mostly illustrations). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If I happen to come across it in a used book store I might pick it up. There's nothing wrong with citing the older edition (as I've said to you before). I had not heard of Adams before yesterday either. Yank is apparently not his real name, though I'm not sure what it is yet. Not sure there will be enough on him to make a DYK (though don't count it out). Of course, since I didn't userspace it, I have 4½ days to see. Unfortunately, I don't have access to ancestry.com and have never found any free database nearly as useful for finding newspaper articles (and census, birth certificates, and reams of primary source material). I tried to sign up for a free trial again which worked once before, but they got smart and are logging those who signed up previously. I just looked; the new Stein and Rubino is about $280. I'll work from the 2nd edition:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... I haven't tried Ancestry in a while. They're probably logging IP addresses. That would definitely affect me, since mine doesn't change except once every few years. I guess that's what libraries and stuff are for. S&R: Should be available cheaper. Mine came with the Blue Book of Pool Cues too for under $200 total. Here it is for $160, plus I think the shipping was $25. Stein gives his e-mail address as that page. If you ask him he might give you the 2-book deal too, or direct you to where ever that is. Shamos: Not saying its an unreliable source (although the newer version actually corrected some entries), it's just cool because it has more stuff in it. :-) DYK: Hey, you could speedily delete your own article, sandbox it and come back. Heh. Seriously, I'll see if I can get into Ancestry again and look for stuff on him. I want to look for William Hoskins stuff anyway so I can finish that half of the Spinks/Hoskins story, which has sat in draft form for over a year. I get sidetracked... — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not IPs they're logging, it's your credit card. You have to give them one in order to get the trial so that they can automatically charge you if you miss the cancellation deadline. Regarding the Blue Book, of all these books, that's the one that get's stale, that is, if you use it for actual quotes, which I do all the time, both for answer to questions and for selling, buying, etc. Yeah I start procrastinating too. I did all that work on Mingaud and now I can't get myself to go back. I also did reams of research on Hurricane Tony Ellin (thugh I found so little; I really felt bad when he died; I met him a few times, seemed like a really great guy), Masako Katsura and others but still haven't moved on them.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, the credit card. I'll have to see if the PayPal plugin has been updated to work with the new Firefox. If so, that's our solution - it generates a new valid card number every time you use it (they always feed from your single PayPal account). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 18:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PayPal Plugin ist kaput. Some banks now issue credit card accounts that make use of virtual card numbers, but mine's not one of them. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 19:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for trying. It was worth a shot. I signed up for a newspaperarchive.com three month trial. As far as newspaper results go it seems quite good so far, and the search interface is many orders of magnitude better than ancestry's, but it has none of the genealogical records that ancestry provides. With ancestry I could probably find census info on Yank as well as death information (as well as for Masako Katsura, which I've been working on it for a few days; she could actually be alive, though she'd be 96).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

Reading stuff from that era, it's also amazing how important billiards (in the three-ball sense) was back then, with sometimes multiple-page stories in newspapers about each turn in a long match, and so on. It's like snooker is today in the UK. PS: I saw that you found evidence of a billiards stage comedy there. I'd never heard of it! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 15:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jackpot. Portrait, diagrams, sample shot descriptions and more (that will also lend itself to the finger billiards article).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nice find! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some more notes on Crystalate

Unresolved

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

Extended content

Some more notes: they bought Royal Worcester in 1983 and sold it the next year, keeping some of the electronics part.[3]; info about making records:[4]; the chair in 1989 was Lord Jenkin of Roding:[5]; "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 - 1991wGtDHsgbtltnpBg&ct=result&id=v0m-h4YgKVYC&dq=%2BCrystalate; a website about crystalate and other materials used for billiard balls:No5 Balls.html. Fences&Windows 23:37, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'll have to have a look at this stuff in more detail. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 15:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've worked most of it in. Fences&Windows 16:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cool! From what I can tell, entirely different parties held the trademark in different markets. I can't find a link between Crystalate Mfg. Co. Ltd. (mostly records, though billiard balls early on) and the main billiard ball mfr. in the UK, who later came up with "Super Crystalate". I'm not sure the term was even used in the U.S. at all, despite the formulation having been originally patented there. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SAL

Unresolved

– Not done yet, last I looked.

Extended content

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

I'll take a look at the page shortly. Thanks for the nudge. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:19, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You post at Wikipedia talk:FAQ/Copyright

Unresolved

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

Extended content

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

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

Hee Haw

Unresolved

– Still need to propose some standards on animal breed article naming and disambiguation. In the intervening years, we've settled on natural not parenthetic disambiguation, and that standardized breeds get capitalized, but that's about it.

Extended content

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

Truce, certainly. I'm not here to pick fights, just improve the consistency for readers and editors. I don't think there will be any scholarly articles on differences between landrace and breed, because there's nothing really to write about. Landrace has clear definitions in zoology and botany, and breed not only doesn't qualify, it is only established as true in any given case by reliable sources. Basically, no one anywhere is claiming "This is the Foobabaz horse, and it is a new landrace!" That wouldn't make sense. What is happening is people naming and declaring new alleged breeds on an entirely self-interested, profit-motive basis, with no evidence anyone other than the proponent and a few other experimental breeders consider it a breed. WP is full of should-be-AfD'd articles of this sort, like the cat one I successfully prod'ed last week. Asking for a reliable source that something is a landrace rather than a breed is backwards; landrace status is the default, not a special condition. It's a bit like asking for a scholarly piece on whether pig Latin is a real language or not; no one's going to write a journal paper about that because "language" (and related terms like "dialect", "language family", "creole" in the linguistic sense, etc.) have clear definitions in linguistics, while pig Latin, an entirely artificial, arbitrary, intentionally-managed form of communication (like an entirely artificial, arbitrary, intentionally managed form of domesticated animal) does not qualify. :-) The "what is a breed" question, which is also not about horses any more than cats or cavies or ferrets, is going to be a separate issue to resolve from the naming issue. Looking over what we collaboratively did with donkeys – and the naming form that took, i.e. Poitou donkey not Poitou (donkey), I think I'm going to end up on your side of that one. It needs to be discussed more broadly in an RFC, because most projects use the parenthetical form, because this is what WT:AT is most readily interpretable as requiring. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 00:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I hate the drama of an RfC, particularly when we can just look at how much can be naturally disambiguated, but if you think it's an actual issue, I guess ping me when it goes up. As for landcraces, it may be true ("clear definitions") but you would be doing God's (or someone's) own good work if you were to improve landrace which has few references, fewer good ones, and is generally not a lot of help to those of us trying to sort out WTF a "landrace" is... (smiles). As for breed, that is were we disagree: At what point do we really have a "breed" as opposed to a "landrace?" Fixed traits, human-selected? At what degree, at which point? How many generations? I don't even know if there IS such a thing as a universal definition of what a "breed" is: seriously: [6] or breed or [7]. I think you and I agree that the Palomino horse can never be a "breed" because it is impossible for the color to breed true (per an earlier discussion) so we have one limit. But while I happen agree to a significant extent with your underlying premise that when Randy from Boise breeds two animals and says he has created a new breed and this is a problem, (I think it's a BIG problem in the worst cases) but if we want to get really fussy, I suppose that the aficionados of the Arabian horse who claim the breed is pure from the dawn of time are actually arguing it is a landrace, wouldn't you say? And what DO we do with the multi-generational stuff that's in limbo land? Montanabw^(talk) 00:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really certain what the answers are to any of those questions, another reason (besides your "STOP!" demands :-) that I backed away rapidly from moving any more horse articles around. But it's something that is going to have to be looked into. I agree that the Landrace article here is poor. For one thing, it needs to split Natural breed out into its own article (a natural breed is a selectively-bred formal breed the purpose of which is to refine and "lock-in" the most definitive qualities of a local landrace). This in turn isn't actually the same thing as a traditional breed, though the concepts are related. Basically, three breeding concepts are squished into one article. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 00:52, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Side comment: I tend to support one good overview article over three poor content forks, just thinking aloud... Montanabw^(talk) 23:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sure; the point is that the concepts have to be separately, clearly treated, because they are not synonymous at all. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 02:07, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the article isn't well-sourced yet, I think that you might want to add something about that to landrace now, just to give whomever does article improvement on it later (maybe you, I think this is up your alley!) has the "ping" to do so. Montanabw^(talk) 21:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aye, it's on my to-do list. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 22:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Although I have been an evolutionary biologist for decades, I only noticed the term "landrace" within the past year or two (in reference to corn), because I work with wildland plants. But I immediately knew what it was, from context. I'm much less certain about breeds, beyond that I am emphatic that they are human constructs. Montanabw and I have discussed my horse off-wiki, and from what I can tell, breeders are selecting for specific attributes (many people claim to have seen a horse "just like him"), but afaik there is no breed "Idaho stock horse". Artificially-selected lineages can exist without anyone calling them "breeds"; I'm not sure they would even be "natural breeds", and such things are common even within established breeds (Montanabw could probably explain to us the difference between Polish and Egyptian Arabians).

The good thing about breeds wrt Wikipedia is that we can use WP:RS and WP:NOTABLE to decide what to cover. Landraces are a different issue: if no one has ever called a specific, distinctive, isolated mustang herd a landrace, is it OR for Wikipedia to do so?--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:21, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have been reluctant to use landrace much out of a concern that the concept is a bit OR, as I hadn't heard of it before wikipedia either (but I'm more a historian than an evolutionary biologist, so what do I know?): Curtis, any idea where this did come from? It's a useful concept, but I am kind of wondering where the lines are between selective breeding and a "natural" breed -- of anything. And speaking of isolated Mustang herds, we have things like Kiger Mustang, which is kind of interesting. I think that at least some of SMc's passion comes from the nuttiness seen in a lot of the dog and cat breeders these days, am I right? I mean, Chiweenies? Montanabw^(talk) 23:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The first use of the word that I saw referred to different landraces of corn growing in different elevations and exposures in indigenous Maya areas of modern Mexico. I haven't tracked down the references for the use of the word, but the concept seems extremely useful. My sense is that landraces form as much through natural selective processes of cultivation or captivity as through human selection, so that if the "garbage wolf" hypothesis for dog domestication is true, garbage wolves would have been a landrace (or more likely several, in different areas). One could even push the definition and say that MRSA is a landrace. But I don't have enough knowledge of the reliable sources to know how all this would fit into Wikipedia.--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Landraces form, primarily and quickly, through mostly natural selection, long after domestication. E.g. the St Johns water dog and Maine Coon cat are both North American landraces that postdate European arrival on the continent. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 20:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see some potential for some great research on this and a real improvement to the articles in question. Montanabw^(talk) 21:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 20:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Redundant sentence?

Unresolved

– Work to integrate WP:NCFLORA and WP:NCFAUNA stuff into MOS:ORGANISMS not completed yet? Seems to be mostly done, other than fixing up the breeds section, after that capitalization RfC a while back.

Extended content

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

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

I would leave it a alone for now; let people get used to the changes. I think it's reasonable to include the "general names" thing, because it's a catch-all that includes several different kinds of examples, that various largely different groups of people are apt to capitalize. Various know-nothings want to capitalize things like "the Cats", the "Great Apes", etc., because they think "it's a Bigger Group and I like to Capitalize Big Important Stuff". There are millions more people who just like to capitalize nouns and stuff. "Orange's, $1 a Pound". Next we have people who insist on capitalizing general "types" and landraces of domestic animals ("Mountain Dogs", "Van Cat") because they're used to formal breed names being capitalized (whether to do that with breeds here is an open question, but it should not be done with types/classes of domestics, nor with landraces. Maybe the examples can be sculpted better: "the roses", "herpesviruses", "great apes", "Bryde's whale", "mountain dogs", "Van cat", "passerine birds". I'm not sure that "rove beetle" and "oak" are good examples of anything. Anyway, it's more that the species no-capitalization is a special case of the more general rule, not that the general rule is a redundant or vague version of the former. If they're merged, it should keep the general examples, and maybe specifically spell out and illustrate that it also means species and subspecies, landraces and domestic "types", as well as larger and more general groupings.
I had noticed that point and was going to add it, along with some other points from both NCFLORA and NCFAUNA, soon to MOS:ORGANISMS, which I feel is nearing "go live" completion. Does that issue come up often enough to make it a MOS mainpage point? I wouldn't really object to it, and it could be had by adding an "(even if it coincides with a capitalized Genus name)" parenthetical to the "general names" bit. The pattern is just common enough in animals to have been problematic if it were liable to be problematic, as it were. I.e., I don't see a history of squabbling about it at Lynx or its talk page, and remember looking into this earlier with some other mammal, about two weeks ago, and not seeing evidence of confusion or editwarring. The WP:BIRDS people were actually studiously avoiding that problem; I remember seeing a talk page discussion at the project that agreed that such usage shouldn't be capitalized ever. PS: With Lynx, I had to go back to 2006, in the thick of the "Mad Capitalization Epidemic" to find capitalization there[8], and it wasn't even consistent, just in the lead. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:11, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, certainly "rove beetle" and "oak" are poor examples here, so I would support changing to some of the others you suggested above.
I think the main problem we found with plants was it being unclear as to whether inexperienced editors meant the scientific name or the English name. So you would see a sentence with e.g. "Canna" in the middle and not know whether this should be corrected to "Canna" or to "canna". The plural is clear; "cannas" is always lower-case non-italicized. The singular is potentially ambiguous. Whether it's worth putting this point in the main MOS I just don't know since I don't much edit animal articles and never breed articles, which is why I asked you. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:55, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Will take a look at that later, if someone else doesn't beat me to it.
Beats me. Doesn't seem too frequent an issue, but lot of MOS stuff isn't. Definitely should be in MOS:ORGANISMS, regardless. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:46, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Worked on both of those a bit at MOS. We'll see if it sticks. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:18, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note to self on WP:WikiProject English language

Unresolved

– I think I did MOST of this already ...

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

Excellent mini-tutorial

Unresolved

Extended content

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

@Carcharoth: Thanks. I need to copy that into an essay page. As far as I know, the concepts are not clearly covered in any of those places, nor clearly enough even at Help:CS1 (which is dense and overlong as it is). The e-book matters bear some researching. I'm very curious whether particular formats (Nook, etc.) paginate consistently between viewers. For Web-accessible ones, I would think that the page numbering that appears in the Web app is good enough if it's consistent (e.g., between a PC and a smart phone) when the reader clicks the URL in the citation. I suppose one could also use |at= to provide details if the "page" has to be explained in some way. I try to rely on better-than-page-number locations when possible, e.g. specific entries in dictionaries and other works with multiple entries per page (numbered sections in manuals, etc.), but for some e-books this isn't possible – some are just continuous texts. One could probably use something like |at=in the paragraph beginning "The supersegemental chalcolithic metastasis is ..." about 40% into the document, in a pinch. I guess we do need to figure this stuff out since such sources are increasingly common. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:29, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes (about figuring out how to reference e-books), though I suspect existing (non-WP) citation styles have addressed this already (no need to re-invent the wheel). This is a slightly different case, though. It is a digitisation of an existing (physical) book that has no page numbers. If I had the book in front of me (actually, it was only published as a single copy, so it is not a 'publication' in that traditional sense of many copies being produced), the problem with page numbers would still exist. I wonder if the 'digital viewer' should be thought of as a 'via' thingy? In the same way that (technically) Google Books and archive.org digital copies of old books are just re-transmitting, and re-distributing the material (is wikisource also a 'via' sort of thing?). Carcharoth (talk) 23:13, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Carcharoth: Ah, I see. I guess I would treat it as a |via=, and same with WikiSource, which in this respect is essentially like Google Books or Project Gutenberg. I think your conundrum has come up various times with arXiv papers, that have not been paginated visibly except in later publication (behind a journal paywall and not examined). Back to the broader matter: Some want to treat WikiSource and even Gutenberg as republishers, but I think that's giving them undue editorial credit and splitting too fine a hair. Was thinking on the general unpaginated and mis-paginated e-sources matter while on the train, and came to the conclusion that for a short, unpaginated work with no subsections, one might give something like |at=in paragraph 23, and for a much longer one use the |at=in the paragraph beginning "..." trick. A straight up |pages=82–83 would work for an e-book with hard-coded meta-data pagination that is consistent between apps/platforms and no visual pagination. On the other hand, use the visual pagination in an e-book that has it, even if it doesn't match the e-book format's digital pagination, since the pagination in the visual content would match that of a paper copy; one might include a note that the pagination is that visible in the content if it conflicts with what the e-book reader says (this comes up a lot with PDFs, for one thing - I have many that include cover scans, and the PDF viewers treat that as p. 1, then other front matter as p. 2, etc., with the content's p. 1 being something like PDF p. 7). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:07, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WP:MEDMOS

Unresolved

– Go fix the WP:FOO shortcuts to MOS:FOO ones, to match practice at other MoS pages. This only applies to the MoS section there; like WP:SAL, part of that page is also a content guideline that should not have MOS: shortcuts.

Extended content

You had previously asked that protection be lowered on WP:MEDMOS which was not done at that time. I have just unprotected the page and so if you have routine update edits to make you should now be able to do so. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 06:42, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I don't remember what it was, but maybe it'll come back to me. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:17, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Now I remember. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:53, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ooh...potential WikiGnoming activity...

Unresolved

– Do some of this when I'm bored?

Extended content

@SMcCandlish:

I stumbled upon Category:Editnotices whose targets are redirects and there are ~100 pages whose pages have been moved, but the editnotices are still targeted to the redirect page. Seems like a great, and sort of fun, WikiGnoming activity for a template editor such as yourself. I'd do it, but I'm not a template editor. Not sure if that's really your thing, though. ;-)

Cheers,
--Doug Mehus T·C 22:30, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Argh. I would've hoped some bot fixed that kind of stuff. I'll consider it, but it's a lot of work for low benefit (the page names may be wrong, but the redirs still get there), and it's been my experience that a lot of editnotices (especially in mainspace) are PoV-pushing crap that needs to be deleted anyway. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:20, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to pass for the nonce, Dmehus. Working on some other project (more fun than WP is sometimes). I'll let it sit here with {{Unresolved}} on it, in case I get inspired to work on it some, but it might be a long time. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:46, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note to self

Unresolved

– Cquote stuff ...

Extended content
Don't forget to deal with: Template talk:Cquote#Template-protected edit request on 19 April 2020. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 14:48, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Now this

Unresolved

– Breed disambiguation again ...

Extended content

Not sure the ping went through, so noting here. Just spotted where a now-blocked user moved a bunch of animal breed articles back to parenthetical disambiguation from natural disambiguation. As they did it in October and I'm only catching it now, I only moved back two just in case there was some kind of consensus change. The equine ones are definitely against project consensus, the rest are not my wheelhouse but I'm glad to comment. Talk:Campine_chicken#Here_we_go_again. Montanabw^(talk) 20:14, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: Argh. Well, this is easy to fix with a request to mass-revert undiscussed moves, at the subsection for that at WP:RMTR. Some admin will just fix it all in one swoop. While I have the PageMover bit, and could do it myself as a technical possibility, I would run afoul of WP:INVOLVED in doing so. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:30, 4 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: Did this get fixed yet? If not, I can look into it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:13, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PGP

Unresolved

– Gotta put my geek hat on and fix this.

FYI, it looks like your key has expired. 1234qwer 1234qwer4 21:57, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Aiee! Thanks, I'll have to generate a new one when I have time to mess around with it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:32, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Current threads

Nooooooo!

The ungodly mess that was your sprawling talk page is no more! What endless tome will I have now to scroll through while checking my watchlist on my phone now? Van Isaac, GHTV^cont_WpWS 05:54, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's what the archives are for. >;-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:10, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Request for input about map

Done

Hello SMcCandlish. If you have the time or desire it would be great if you provide your insights in the discussion, Talk:France#Removal of map. I am just seeking guidance, as the editor who removed the map was not clear and only one other editor has commented. Keeping or removing the map is fine. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 23:02, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up

Done

Hello SMcCandlish. The discussion has been practically replicated in Talk:Russia#Removal of maps. If you still are interested in the topic of maps in infoboxes, your input is appreciated. It may be headed to a project-wide RfC. Regards, --Thinker78 (talk) 03:00, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: History and geography request for comment

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Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

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– Just don't care.

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Dash question

Done

Could you please take a look at my comment at Talk:Gaya–Mughalsarai section#Requested move 16 July 2023? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:12, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. And the follow-up question? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:42, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Happy First Edit Day!

Indeed! Best regards, Thinker78 (talk) 04:08, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thankee. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Media, the arts, and architecture request for comment

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– Don't know enough about that source to comment meaningfully.

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Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

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Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

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August thanks

Thank you for improving articles in August! - Today, my focus is on Renata Scotto, after days of updating. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:44, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Today is Debussy's birthday. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:30, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This too shall pass. - Ten years ago on 28 August, I heard a symphony, with a heavy heart because of the pending decision in WP:ARBINFOBOX, and not worried about my future here but Andy's. - It passed, and I could write the DYK about calling to dance, not battle, and Andy could write the DYK mentioning about peace and reconciliation, - look. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:39, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Glad the infobox squabbling has died down, that's for sure. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:56, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It looked like died down in 2018, but check out Cosima Wagner for a renewal ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:11, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

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Feedback request: Economy, trade, and companies request for comment

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Puebloan?

Hello,

Very good info about Mirasol (and well documented on the article, in fact, I myself added most of the information there on Mirasol), but I think the purpose of the edit went completely over your head. The purpose was to disambiguate a member of the Pueblo Indigenous American community (a "Peubloan") from someone who simply resides in the city of Pueblo, Colorado (also called a "Puebloan"); sometimes people confuse us with them. I admit I could have made that clearer when I wrote that section, but I'll let someone else fix it.

Cheers, Kehkou (talk) 02:28, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The edits I was seeing kept trying to distinguish so. CO chiles from NM chiles (despite them being variants of the same cultivar), instead of distinguishing the CO chiles from Pueblo from the ancient chiles of the Puebloan people. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:00, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The question of the varieties is not under investigation here (that is explained quite well in the article in three separate sections); the latter is indeed the correct interpretation of the passage, but hope is given that it is not read as "these chiles should not be confused with ancient varieties grown by [residents of the city of Pueblo, CO]." It is an anchor; Pueblo chile redirects there, so lay readers will not see the previous information on the chile or even know what a "Pueblo" is. Therefore "Puebloan peoples" or "Pueblo communities (of New Mexico)" would be the preferred term so that my people and our chiles are not confused with residents and crops from CO. Kehkou (talk) 16:31, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look at it again, but "Pueblo communities of New Mexico" isn't right, since the Puebloan peoples were all over the southwest; the modern state borders don't mean anything in relation to them. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:36, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The current text says: In Colorado, 'Numex Mirasol' chile peppers are grown near the city of Pueblo, where they are known as "Pueblo chile". These should not be confused with the ancient chile varieties grown by the Puebloan peoples. Is there some kind of problem with it? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:52, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The current text is correct and acceptable. Before, it just said "by Puebloans." It seems we just confused each other there.

The Pueblos were (are) all over the SW, but only those communities in NM still grow chile.

You may consider this matter cleared and closed. Happy editing!Kehkou (talk) 23:46, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Right arm. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:40, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

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Thanks

Thank you for posting this. I don't get involved in MOS things that often, but as a reader that would have annoyed me greatly. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:52, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@TonyBallioni: YW. Any time an MoS (or other guideline) proposal would affect a large number of articles across a wide swath of topics, it seems like a good idea to post a VPPOL pointer to it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:57, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Cartoon portraits

Hi there. Yesterday I removed the image on the right from Lucette Taero, a BLP. I did some digging and found this discussion where you said that at this discussion there was "a clear consensus to not use such cartoons". I agree, and I'm going to delete some of these image. What do you think? Magnolia677 (talk) 11:25, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I jumped the gun. That was the only cartoon image I was able to find, and User:Drmies has reverted many of the edits already. Cheers. Magnolia677 (talk) 11:39, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would carry on, and point people to Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard/Archive 49#Cartoon portraits as the consensus against addition of such pseudo-portraits. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:18, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ECs

Sorry about lousing up the ECs. I was using the edit-conflict function in Visual Editor for the first time, and was really impressed with it! Until I saw your note, that is. I'm not going to bother figuring out what I did wrong. I'm just going to use the old manual, copy-and-paste method for dealing with ECs going forward. As for "en," that is true, and again I must humbly shift blame, this time to the template, but your point is well taken and I will manually take those out as well. Coretheapple (talk) 16:09, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Coretheapple: I also find the newish edit-conflict tool confusing, so don't feel bad. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:26, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The strange part is that I am positive I clicked off the right boxes so that your cleanup would remain intact. I may investigate this further with the Visual Editor people. It is the only real issue I've had with the Visual Editor, and I am quite a fan of it otherwise. Coretheapple (talk) 22:10, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Coretheapple: Maybe try some test edits and screenshot them or something. You could be logged in as you in one browser and be an anon in another cross-editing the same user sandbox page. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:12, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Wikipedia proposals request for comment

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PARABR thanks

Hi SMcCandlish,

You are absolutely correct that MOS:PARABR is the correct shortcut for the shortcut I attempted to make. Thank you for fixing that for me, sincerely. I am fine with deletion of Wikipedia:PARABR (to reduce the using-up of easily parseable "WP:" shortcuts), but given that you did edit it I wanted to be absolutely sure you are fine if I tag it for WP:G7. Best, HouseBlaster^talk 19:19, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@HouseBlaster: No biggie. "PARABR" is probably obscure enough that a "WP:" usage of it isn't likely to be something someone wants to usurp for some other purpose. But you could also delete it if you like. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:54, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you both agree, I can G7 delete it if you wish. - jc37 20:04, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

jc37, G7ing it would be very much appreciated. Sincerely, HouseBlaster^talk 21:04, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jc37: Works for me. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:45, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ok done. - jc37 01:41, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dashes for mergers

The RM at Talk:Famous Players–Lasky#Requested move 23 August 2023 has been closed. However, I asked a question in that discussion about the convention of using dashes to indicate mergers, and that was not yet answered. It was not a rhetorical question. If you have time, I would be interested in your response. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:06, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@BarrelProof: I think you're referring to "Can you point to specific evidence supporting this theory of using an en dash to indicate a merger of two formerly independent entities (e.g. in MOS:DASH or in externally produced style guides)?" This has become less clear than it should be, because people have been slowly futzing around with the text at MOS:DASH over the years. But it's still here:

Use an en dash for the names of two or more entities in an attributive compound.
the Seifert–van Kampen theorem; the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow theory

the Seeliger–Donker-Voet scheme (developed by Seeliger and Donker-Voet)

Comet Hale–Bopp or just Hale–Bopp (discovered by Hale and Bopp)

A compay name produced through merger like that is a short form of a longer official name (the exact form of which varies widely by jursidiction: "Foo–Bar Corporation", "Foo–Bar Inc.", "Foo–Bar Ltd", "Foo–Bar GmbH", etc., etc.), so it is in fact an attributive in structure, and the "or just Hale–Bopp" example in the guideline text makes it clear that the dash it not converted into a hyphen if the name is shortened and no longer looks attributive. However, we should just clarify the guideline that it means to use dashes not hyphens between names that indicate or are the product of a merger of the names of two+ entities (unless the style doesn't call for a horizontal line at all, e.g. DaimlerChrysler, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, etc.; this is only about when a horizontal line is used). Twenty-odd years of RM results (the weird outlier of the recent "SAF-AFTRA" move notwithstanding) demonstrate that this is the intended interpretation, and so does the fact that the editors who mostly crafted that guideline – like me, Dicklyon, Tony1, probably also EEng – are all still around and as far as I know all consistently say this is the intended meaning. That the guideline wording has become confused over time is a reason to fix it to stop being confusing, not to let confusion reign and spread. The guideline never should have included wording about attributives in it in the first place. In short, there is absolutely no style difference between Hale–Bopp and SAG–AFTRA. The latter still needs to go to WP:MR, though I'm not sure I have the patience for it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:31, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IIRC I wasn't involved. I'm leaving this one to wiser heads. E Eng 21:50, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply. At this point, SAG-AFTRA has become the precedent for AFL-CIO, and enough time has passed by that it looks like there may not be an MR. As you note, the asserted equivalence between "Hale–Bopp" (which seems uncontroversial) and a merger that forms "Foo–Bar Inc." does not seem clear in the current MoS. And if Frederick Foo and Bernard Bar simply co-founded a company together (without a merger taking place), would that be "Foo-Bar Inc." or "Foo–Bar Inc."? If not clear in Wikipedia, is the approach described in any external style guides? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:56, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If they used a horizontal line in the name, it would be Foo–Bar Inc.; it's precisely analogous to Dunning–Kruger effect, etc. (something named after two originators). [It's different from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, which had nothing to do with either the Wilkes or the Barre namesakes, and which was not a merger between two former separate municipalities, either. It was just named "Wilkes-Barre" kind of out of nowhere. A bit like naming your cat "Socrates Bonaparte".] I no longer have a thick bookshelf of off-site style guides, so it would be difficult for me to re-research what they all say now; but our MoS is based heavily on the leading academic style guides (Chicago, New Hart's/Oxford, Fowler's, Garner's, Scientific Style and Format), and we did not get the idea out of nowhere. It's very unlikely that the other style guides have changed on a matter like this, but someone with current editions can check again. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:22, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: History and geography request for comment

Disregard

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Ulster-Scots

We are in the middle of a discussion, it's not legitimate to go around making reversions of it. It's also not legitimate to accuse me of edit warring when I've made a reversion almost 24 hours regarding an issue I've been an active participant in the dispute resolution process. Alssa1 (talk) 20:46, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When four editors are are against what you are doing, and you have zero support from any other editors, you are in fact editwarring in a WP:1AM manner. Your hand-waving dismissals of the arguments against your flag misuse have done absolutely nothing to address the concerns raised. You're just playing WP:ICANTHEARYOU games. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:00, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

4 editors? You resurrect a dead discussion that started in 2020 and treat it as if all the editors are in active agreement with your position. You talk about the edit being in breach of MOS:FLAGS, while being seemingly unaware that it applies only to icons (as Danbloch pointed out to you in the discussion). Alssa1 (talk) 21:14, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is no prescribed time-limit for such matters. And Danbloch is simply wrong. Just read the material. When it applies to icons in particular it very clearly says so. Most of it is entirely general material about flags and their often politicized interpetations, their relevance to the subject, etc. And MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE is also against what you are doing. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:46, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Wikipedia proposals request for comment

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templates in headings

What you say (at Asterisk) makes sense but there are thousands of these. The doc for {{anchor}} says In general, if the intended target of an anchor is a section title, then it should be placed at the end of the section header by substitution: (which is what I've been doing). Is that a problem too? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:31, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@JMF: There are also thousands of unsourced statements, and thousands of non-neutral phrasings, but we still need to clean them up. :-) As for substitution, I'm not sure if the template substitutes cleanly; something to test in a sandbox, I guess. A heading with code like ==Heading name <span id="anchor name"></span>== doesn't break anything, and hopefully that's what would result from ==Heading name {{subst:Anchor|anchor name}}== But it's also okay to just put the anchor tag right above or right below the heading. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Just below" misses out the heading, thus confusing incoming links. "Just before" should be fine while it lasts but has a significant risk of disassociation. Appending a substed anchor to the heading text is the most reliable strategy and that is what the guideline says. But I just wondered if the authors of the guideline considered the access implications (if any? Screen readers must encounter span tags thousands of times a day so surely must be programmed to deal with them? Maybe this is a non-issue?) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:37, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it was considered (the recommendation to do that is based on the MOS:ACCESS testing for an alternative to putting templates in headings), and is a non-issue. Some editors don't prefer it, versus before/after template placement, because the span code "pollutes" the heading name when editing the section, but it's really a small price to pay and is probably something that can be fixed in Mediawiki's editor. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:54, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

New page patrol October 2023 Backlog drive

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Feedback request: Media, the arts, and architecture request for comment

Done

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Respectful request for advice

Greetings. You recently undid one of my edits. Because I just saw that you're much, much more experienced on Wikipedia than I am, I wanted to make sure I understand the policies of the encyclopedia and what I did wrong. To language that included the following explanatory sentence:

Compare "I thank my friend, Smith and Wesson", in which the ambiguity is obvious to those who recognise Smith and Wesson as a business name.

I added this explanation:

Because that is implausible, it is relatively clear that the construction refers to two separate people

You commented that this was an inappropriate personal opinion to add and that Wikipedia is "not my blog". But I cannot see the error. Is my comment any more an opinion than "the ambiguity is obvious", which was already in the article and which I was endeavouring to explain?

I was honestly just trying to help. I would like to avoid errors in the future. Genuine apologies if this request is a waste of your time. I do not intend to sound peevish. Teacher1850 (talk) 02:10, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Teacher1850: I reverted your change because it was a subjective opinion, and not cited to reliable sources (see WP:V, WP:RS); and because Wikipedia doesn't serve a didactic purpose (WP:NOT#TEXTBOOK). Your assertion that a particular inference is "implausible" basically amounts to mass mind-reading, and does not account for things like uncertainty in interpretation by children and by second-language learners. What you asserted is an opinion you hold about the material in question, not a fact about it. If it were a fact, you should be able to find a reliable source making the same point. If you still think I'm wrong, feel free to open a discussion on the article's talk page, per WP:BRD, proposing your changes and the rationale for them. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:29, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. But so I fully understand, is the rest of the paragraph to which I was adding not equally problematic in exactly the same way? It already claims that a similar ambiguity is "obvious".

I understand "everyone else is doing it" isn't a useful justification. Maybe what I should have done instead is to have removed the unsourced, subjective explanation that was already there? Much of the Comma page is already quite didactic in nature, without sources.

I think I may not yet have the feel for how to make incremental improvements to pages that have problems. Apologies again if I have wasted your time. Teacher1850 (talk) 02:38, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Teacher1850: There is probably other material there that needs to be removed. Many of our articles on English grammar, puncutation, and other usage are trainwrecks. Incremental improvements are mostly made to articles like this by finding reliable sources for what they say (when they say something without a source), correcting prescriptive or didactic wording to be descriptive, checking that what is said and attributed to particular sources actually matches the source material, and ultimately removing material that doesn't seem sourceable. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:29, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again for taking the time to reply! Teacher1850 (talk) 03:38, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. BTW, I put your language back in; since the entire passage is unsourced it doesn't seem to make a net difference in that regard, and to the extent it's explanatory, maybe someone will find it helpful. However, I think the entire passage could be removed, your tweaks included, because the entire block is unsourced. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:36, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, thanks, maybe I can find a source and fix it. There may be an old source in the public domain that the article could directly quote. Teacher1850 (talk) 06:50, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A source that old would probably not be useful, because the language changes over time. Much advice in pre-modern style guides is no longer valid. Something more like the current edition of Chicago Manual of Style, the current Penguin Guide, etc., would likely be of more value, but of course they're not free. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:12, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I see. That makes sense. Thank you again. Teacher1850 (talk) 20:22, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

British English, contractions and punctuation

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations § British English, contractions and punctuation

Regarding your revert, it remains my view that the current wording is incorrect, and doesn’t reflect British usage as reflected by both print and online reputable media, and standards for publishing. I checked with the Oxford guide to which you refer, and whilst you are correct that the general rule is tempered with some examples that may take punctuation, like Ph.D or PhD, Dr for doctor is specifically given as an example that doesn’t carry punctuation, along with other common ones like Mr and Mrs. Thus the example cited in the MoS currently is incorrect and therefore misleading for editors, since you won’t in British English find usage such as Mr. or Dr. Kind regards, MapReader (talk) 06:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is surely better addressed at the guideline's talk page. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:06, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 58

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
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Revealed

Loved your “holy mysteries” edit today! If I had a dollar for every “not everything is a revelation” edit summary I’ve written… drives me batty! --Dr.Margi ✉ 23:54, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

:-) I would do a lot more of that cleanup, but I don't edit pop-culture/media articles all that much. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:08, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I get that. I do a lot less than I used to. ----Dr.Margi ✉ 02:35, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:IPMag

Done

Template:IPMag has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. SWinxy (talk) 18:38, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

Disregard

– Already closed when I got there.

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September thanks

Thank you for improving articles in September! -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:18, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Religion and philosophy request for comment

Disregard

– I don't care about these year articles, as I don't see them as very encyclopedic.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:46, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Your notifications at WP:VPP and WP:NPOVN

Hi SMcCandlish, thanks for posting the notifications at VPP and NPOVN. I just saw those now; I was planning to notify there once an RfC was underway, but I guess this might be a bigger issue than I thought it would be, so it's just as well to draw in more editors now.

However, I believe your linking of guidelines there to be somewhat unfortunate: MOS:DOCTCAPS does not seem to fit, WP:NPOV is superfluous given the title of the discussion, and WP:CHERRYPICKING seems to be both an aspersion and poisoning the well to an extent that clearly fails WP:APPNOTE.

Would you please remove at least the link to WP:CHERRYPICKING? It might also be good to know that the most relevant redirects for the policy section under discussion are MOS:MUHAMMAD and MOS:ISLAMHON. I think these would be a better fit than MOS:DOCTCAPS and WP:NPOV. Thanks for taking this into consideration, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:28, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's just a discussion notice, not an article, so the text in it does not need to be nit-picked. DOCTCAPS is entirely relevant, since much of the discussion is about "prophet" vs. "Prophet". I didn't mentioned MUHMMAD and ISLAMHON because they are obscure and overly specific, and much of the problem under discussion at that thread is a desire of some parties to engage in "special exceptionalism" for Islam and Muhammad, against broader guidelines that apply across all topics evenly, and this is forming a WP:CONLEVEL problem. If it gets much more serious, there may be grounds for an RfC to remove the {{Guideline}} tag from that page, and move it to something like "WP:WikiProject Islam/Style recommendations" with a {{WikiProject style advice}} essay tag on it instead. But feel free to add your own notes below mine that mention the MUHAMMAD and ISLAMHON shortcuts.

As for CHERRYPICKING, the discussion is utterly overrun with the argument that because various sources can be found that are referring to Muhammad as "the Prophet" that Wikipedia must do so also, but this does not in any way represent the total source usage, but is selective favouring of particular sources to try to argue for changing our guidelines to conflict with our neutrality policy. If you think this is "aspersion casting", go ahead and open a WP:ANI thread about it. I am quite confident I am able to demonstrate that my concerns about that discussion and various arguments made in it are valid. Nor does "fails WP:APPNOTE" apply, because I did not in any way suggest in my pointers which side might be cherrypicking. Raising the concern that cherrypicking is happening, at all, in the abstract, is no different in any way from posting the thread at NPOVN in the first place, which is by definition a claim that NPOV issues are happening, at all, in the abstract. If someone individually chooses to identify with the term CHERRYPICKING and be offended by mention of that rule, that probably says much more about what they've been writing than about what I wrote.

So, maybe spend less time trying to word- and thought-police what other editors post, and more time constructing arguments that make better sense, or – better yet – seriously considering when the argument you are pursuing is meeting a lot of resistance and why, and that it might be time to WP:DROPTHESTICK. Wikipedia is not a platform for "language-usage warrior" behavior, and we are in absolutely no way beholden to write in ways that are apt to come across as biased to many readers, especially not on the basis that various other writers, who are less cautious about this sort of thing than we are, sometimes do it with impunity. We have a serious responsibiliy to write better, and we have our own MoS for a reason, which is not dictated to by external publishers. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:26, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well you've accused me of cherry-picking here, and by linking to WP:CHERRYPICKING in the notification you're clearly implying that something untoward is going on. In this very reply, you say that what I'm doing is "selective favouring of particular sources to try to argue for changing our guidelines to conflict with our neutrality policy". This is an accusation, and if unproven, an aspersion. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind it that much, and there are several places where we can discuss this in peace. But implying there's cherry-picking going on in a discussion in the very notification about that discussion? Yes, that fails WP:APPNOTE pretty badly, as I'm sure other editors would agree.

Now I've tried to address the cherry-picking concern in the evidence section,[9] but you've not answered there. What else can I say than that I've tried not to cherry-pick, and that this time around I have tried to avoid even the appearance of it by just looking at the books by major historians of Islam that I happen to own? If you'll look at these historians' wiki-pages (in the green bar), you'll find that they are from very different schools of thought, from ultra-revisionist to traditionalist, but what they all share is that they are top scholars in their field. Meanwhile, my challenge to cite a reliable source on Islamic topics that does not use "the prophet" or "the prophet Muhammad" to refer to Muhammad stands. If, as you say, it is not the "norm in offsite, non-Muslim writing" to use these expressions, surely it should be easy enough to cite a few examples of your own?

By the way, did you read my last reply to you in the discussion? My feeling is that you're expecting worse from me than I am intending. I really do feel that the discussion has been progressing, and there has been some limited support that I feel could grow with the issues becoming clearer and the evidence, well, more looked at. In my experience, if the RS are on your side, Wikipedians will tend to come to your side eventually, even if you start with something of a one-against-all situation. I've been there before, where I started with a small minority opinion but one firmly based in RS, against a large majority opinion that runs entirely contrary to RS, and where eventually consensus decided in my favor.

However, I am totally aware of the fact that this almost necessarily involves dominating a discussion to the point of bludgeoning, and that this is not a healthy thing, neither for me nor for the community. I'm trying to look out for warning signs about that, and your point about dropping the stick is well taken. In any case, I absolutely respect the point of view that Wikipedia can determine its own way of handling potentially biased terminology, regardless of what RS are doing. When I said "you're simply dead wrong about this", I meant your position about the RS themselves: the norm there is different from what you think it is. I meant that respectfully, as in 'hey, I appreciate your opinion, but on this particular matter you just don't have the facts straight, as I'm sure you'll see when you look into them'. Obviously, this being a text-only medium, that didn't come over quite as I meant. I'm sorry about that.

But wouldn't we look foolish on ANI? Please just remove the link to WP:CHERRYPICKING in the notification, it would really make me feel better. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 02:49, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"I've tried not to cherry-pick": well good on you, but you are not the only person making "do it because sources I like do it" arguments, and I never said anything about the cherry-picking concerns having anything to do with you in particular. I will not be brow-beaten (with either "make me feel better" pleading or "you're casting aspertions" menacing) for simply raising a completely genericized and non-personally-identifiable concern that cherry-picking could be a factor in the discussion (I didn't even suggest on which side of the discussion it was happening; a read through the entire mess might even show instances on both sides – and I decline your above invitation to engage in it myself, since there is utterly no point to creating a link-farm of examples of sources just writing "Muhammad" as untold thousands of them do millions of times in total, and vastly in the majority [10]). On "you're expecting worse from me than I am intending": I'm not, really, but above you are assuming worse from me than is in evidence; raising a vague concern about cherry-picking across a discussion isn't some kind of laser-focused "aspersion" about you in particular. I've not raised any concerns about things like "you're simply dead wrong about this"; I argue pretty forcefully myself, and I have a thick skin. "regardless of what RS are doing": Not accurate. WP cares about what RS are doing when they're near-uniform in consistently doing it; some minority, even a large one, of sources doing something is completley irrelevant, and even if a super-majority of them did something, we can still reasonably come to an internal consensus to not do it here anyway, e.g. if it would have core policy or encyclopedic-purpose implications. For the umpteenth time: WP's style is not dictated by any off-site publishers, ever. The idea that external writers "force" Wikipedia to write a particular way is simply fallacious (though your attempts to reinterpret that page to mean things not intended means it needs some clarity revision). You're consistently making an argument that amounts to "WP:CONSENSUS is an invalid policly and process" when taken to its logical conclusion, and that's not going to work. As for "I am totally aware of the fact that this almost necessarily involves dominating a discussion to the point of bludgeoning, and that this is not a healthy thing, neither for me nor for the community." Simple solution: just stop. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:18, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My claim is that RS on Islam are near-uniform in consistently using "the prophet" or "the prophet Muhammad" as a reference to Muhammad. Now how can that claim be proven? It's not possible to cite and quote all RS in existence, right? I tried to quote from a sample that I've made as representative as I could (have you looked at the green collapsed bar in the evidence section yet?), but obviously that sample too is far from perfect. However, the claim could perhaps rather more easily be disproven, by citing a sample of sources equally (not-really-)representative as mine that does not use the expressions "the prophet" or "the prophet Muhammad" to refer to Muhammad. Just one high-quality source would suffice for starters, you may even cherry-pick it if you want, I would still be interested to see such a source. You see, I've read dozens of scholarly papers and monographs about Islam, and do not remember ever having encountered such a source, so I would find it interesting to see one, just for that sake of it.

But then again, perhaps if after all this time you still think I cherry-picked Michael Cook, Patricia Crone and Bernard Lewis together because they are so favorable to Islamic religious agendas, if you still believe I'm proposing to allow the use of the word "Holy" (please read the current text: it starts with Honorifics for Muhammad should generally not be used in articles [...] the most common ones being: and then immediately lists The Prophet or (The) Holy Prophet, which in my proposal becomes Holy Prophet – the guideline text starts out with what it disallows), maybe the more reasonable conclusion would be that assuming good faith is just not an option for you at this point, and that it would be better for all of us if you left the discussion. I promise, things won't turn ugly in your absence, I will do my best to behave, and other editors will check me if needed. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 06:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's clear that some of the guideline text does not reflect actual consensus and may even be contradictory of wider guidelines; the consensus discussion will fix that. I don't think your claim can be proven, because it's demonstrably not true. The ngrams prove that just "Muhammad" massively dominates over "the [p|P]rophet Muhammad" in search results for phrases that would pertain to "the" Muhammad. I don't think you've cherry-picked writers "favorable to Islamic religious agendas", but it looks like you're selecting sources that agree with your position on writing "the Prophet Muhammad" instead of just "Muhammad", rather than looking at any aggregate data. In short, I don't think you understand what "cherry-picking" even means. One thing that it doesn't mean is selectively preferring particular sources that support your position. and not your opposition, and doing so with an sinister ulterior motive. It just means selectively preferring particular sources that support your position, at all, period. "I can find hundreds even thousands of examples of sources using 'the Prophet Muhammad'" is completely meaningless when there are somewhere between tens of thousands and millions of sources. Another strong indication you are not looking at the aggregate data and are just favoring the sources that support you is that if we search for "Muhammad" at Google Scholar (exclusing authors by that name) [11] and wade through page after page of results, ignoring the ones that are obviously false hits, you see over and over again the historical figure being referred to as simply "Muhammad", while "the [p|P]rophet Muhammad" is quite rare, sometimes clearly non-neutral writing by actual Muslims, e.g. "... the career of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) ...". If you spent all day it, you could again amass maybe hundreds of examples that "go your way", but they would be dwarfed by an order or two of magnitude more examples of source usage that isn't the way you like it. I'm sure you'd like me to leave the discussion to you, so you can continue to try to dominate it despite already conceding that pursuing your angle "almost necessarily involves dominating a discussion to the point of bludgeoning, and that this is not a healthy thing, neither for me nor for the community". There is no bad-faith assumption of any kind in quoting you back to yourself and opposing what you are doing and the faulty rationalization you are using to justify it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:25, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 518: / Line 518: @@
 ::::My claim is that RS on Islam are near-uniform in consistently using "the prophet" or "the prophet Muhammad" as a reference to Muhammad. Now how can that claim be proven? It's not possible to cite and quote all RS in existence, right? I tried to quote from a sample that I've made as representative as I could (have you looked at the green collapsed bar in the [[Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Islam-related_articles#Evidence_of_usage_in_RS|evidence section]] yet?), but obviously that sample too is far from perfect. However, the claim could perhaps rather more easily be ''disproven'', by citing a sample of sources equally (not-really-)representative as mine that ''does not'' use the expressions "the prophet" or "the prophet Muhammad" to refer to Muhammad. Just one high-quality source would suffice for starters, you may even cherry-pick it if you want, I would still be interested to see such a source. You see, I've read dozens of scholarly papers and monographs about Islam, and do not remember ever having encountered such a source, so I would find it interesting to see one, just for that sake of it.
 ::::But then again, perhaps if after all this time you still think I cherry-picked [[Michael Cook (historian)|Michael Cook]], [[Patricia Crone]] and [[Bernard Lewis]] together because they are so favorable to Islamic religious agendas, if you [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Islam-related_articles&diff=prev&oldid=1176808862 still believe] I'm proposing to allow the use of the word "Holy" (please ''read'' the [[MOS:MUHAMMAD|current text]]: it starts with {{tq|Honorifics for Muhammad should generally not be used in articles [...] the most common ones being:}} and then immediately lists {{tq|'''The Prophet''' or '''(The) Holy Prophet'''}}, which in my proposal becomes {{tq|'''Holy Prophet'''}} – the guideline text starts out with what it ''disallows''), maybe the more reasonable conclusion would be that assuming good faith is just not an option for you at this point, and that it would be better for all of us if you left the discussion. I promise, things won't turn ugly in your absence, I will do my best to behave, and other editors will check me if needed. <span style="text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 1em">☿&nbsp;[[User:Apaugasma|<span style="color:#6a0dad">Apaugasma</span>]] ([[User talk:Apaugasma|<span style="color:#000">talk</span>]]&nbsp;[[Special:Contributions/Apaugasma|☉]])</span> 06:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
+:::::It's clear that some of the guideline text does not reflect actual consensus and may even be contradictory of wider guidelines; the consensus discussion will fix that. I don't think your claim {{em|can}} be proven, because it's demonstrably not true. The ngrams prove that just "Muhammad" massively dominates over "the [p|P]rophet Muhammad" in search results for phrases that would pertain to "the" Muhammad. I don't think you've cherry-picked writers "favorable to Islamic religious agendas", but it looks like you're selecting sources that agree with your position on writing "the Prophet Muhammad" instead of just "Muhammad", rather than looking at any aggregate data. In short, I don't think you understand what "cherry-picking" even means. One thing that it doesn't mean is selectively preferring particular sources that support your position. and not your opposition, {{em|and doing so with an sinister ulterior motive}}. It just means selectively preferring particular sources that support your position, at all, period. "I can find hundreds even thousands of examples of sources using 'the Prophet Muhammad{{'"}} is completely meaningless when there are somewhere between tens of thousands and millions of sources. Another strong indication you are not looking at the aggregate data and are just favoring the sources that support you is that if we search for "Muhammad" at Google Scholar (exclusing authors by that name) [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_vis=1&q=Muhammad+-author%3AMuhammad] and wade through page after page of results, ignoring the ones that are obviously false hits, you see over and over again the historical figure being referred to as simply "Muhammad", while "the [p|P]rophet Muhammad" is quite rare, sometimes clearly non-neutral writing by actual Muslims, e.g. "... the career of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) ...".  If you spent all day it, you could again amass maybe hundreds of examples that "go your way", but they would be dwarfed by an order or two of magnitude more examples of source usage that isn't the way you like it. I'm sure you'd like me to leave the discussion to you, so you can continue to try to dominate it despite already conceding that pursuing your angle "almost necessarily involves dominating a discussion to the point of bludgeoning, and that this is not a healthy thing, neither for me nor for the community". There is no bad-faith assumption of any kind in quoting you back to yourself and opposing what you are doing and the faulty rationalization you are using to justify it. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — [[User:SMcCandlish|'''SMcCandlish''']] [[User talk:SMcCandlish|☏]] [[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|¢]] 😼 </span> 07:25, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Revision as of 07:26, 24 September 2023

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