User talk:Paine Ellsworth/Archive 16

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I just created Template:Ambiguous template name for the purpose of pages in the Template namespace which have been determined to have ambiguous names. Feel free to tweak it. I've already replaced a few instances of {{Error}} with this template, so there should already be transclusions. I was also considering adding a new category which will be populated with transclusions of templates which use this one. Steel1943 (talk) 04:35, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

To editor Steel1943: I would like to learn more... this was placed on {{R from synonym}}, for example, and so all the redirects that have been tagged transclude this template. Is that what you wanted to do?  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  12:09, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
Hey Paine! See Template talk:R from synonym#Merging categories?, specifically the comment I made there about this template. (I'm directing you there instead of continuing the conversation here since I just realized how limited my time on Wikipedia just became for the day, and it seems attention to this template [or a similar template] may be needed.) Also, the edit you referenced on Template:R from synonym: I reverted it for the time being until the plans get worked out for the template: I realized that I may have been doing too much to early, so I reverted that edit, then sure enough, the comment on the template's talk page that I referenced supported my need to revert for now. Steel1943 (talk) 16:47, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

"see this argument"

I would frankly very much prefer that rather than putting a lot of "see this argument" links that would send readers to many different places to get the picture, that you summarize what the argument is, and use the link as a sort of "for more information" proposal. The entire reasoning should be discernible without leaving the page where the discussion is being held. bd2412 T 20:00, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree, bd2412, and after I visit a few hours with my snugglebunny, I'll spruce that up.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  20:05, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Great, thanks! I will likely drop in my own observations from editing statistics over the next few days. bd2412 T 20:08, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Pleasure! Paine  

Template:ISO 639 name art

It's a minor thing, but the link to Artificial languages language makes no sense, nor do the category names. Would you be amenable to moving all of the categories to "... constructed languages"? I think that would actually make some sense. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:46, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

To editor Jonesey95: it's always been a bit muddy; however, a "constructed language", such as Esperanto, does not apply in many cases. Some cases are examples of a "fictional language", such as Quenya and Klingon. So "artificial language", as applied to redirects, long ago began to be used as a general term to refer to both constructed and fictional languages. As you say, it's a minor thing, so minor that no one, including myself, has given it enough priority to change all the other things that would need to be changed to ensure that readers aren't led in different and incorrect directions. In line with your concerns, I have slightly modified the doc page so that the See also section at {{ISO 639 name art}} doesn't appear so badly.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  23:42, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for that fix. Category:Articles containing Artificial languages-language text still strikes me as unnecessarily broken, but I've got plenty of actually broken things to fix, so I'll try to move on. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:45, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
To editor Jonesey95: it's a pleasure! and I've extended the exception to the mainspace category name in the Usage section, also. Best to you!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  10:28, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

RfA

This is for those awesome talk page stalkers and also for those who have decided to come to my talk page from editor Dane's RfA. That and the previous RfA are shining examples of why I would not put myself through the RfA process a second time. I read through Dane's RfA and, like Kudpung and others, I soon became aware of the way some other editors just toss out all civility. They just don't seem to know how to communicate with other people. What the process needs in my humble opinion is not "community vetting", at least not that which actually has a say in whether or not an editor is promoted. The process needs "administrative vetting", which may still rely on what any members of the community think; however, the actual decision whether or not to give an editor the admin toolset should be made by admins! Such decisive admins should be senior admins who are not only trusted by the community, but also trusted through their experience as admins. The community should still be able to ask questions and even !vote with rationales; however, their only actual decisive power would be the words they use to influence the senior admins who will make the final decision about whether or not a candidate gets the admin toolset. I do think that editors who participate in RfAs would then become much more conscious of their need to communicate positively and far less prone to negativity in their responses and rationales. While I seriously doubt that improvement to the RfA process is forthcoming anytime soon, I'll probably be old and gray before RfA is fixed. Oh wait! I'm already old and gray! Oh well.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  08:19, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

And yes, I would like a little cheese with my whine.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  08:22, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

  • Paine, you may be onto something here. I'll email you. Steel1943 (talk) 16:37, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, Paine Ellsworth. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 16:56, 13 April 2017 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Steel1943 (talk) 16:56, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Template:R sn listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:R sn. Since you had some involvement with the Template:R sn redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Mr. Guye (talk) 19:07, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Seeking advice

Hello Paine. I believe we should change the statement made where Rcats speak of "printworthiness", and say:

At some point in the future, Jimmy Wales wants to make more printed versions of Wikipedia encyclopedia articles.

Although I'm not entirely certain of its necessity, or purpose, I do believe it should not be written in future tense, nor with its singular attribution. As a mere segue to the categorization of print worthiness, for example; it could instead say:

In 2003, efforts to support the Wikimedia Foundation's goal of increasing the access and availability of Wikipedia articles in printed versions began.

The above example is not purposed, but meant to illustrate my intent, I am fine with any modification to improve its prose. It is the change from the "dated" future tense to the perpetually true past tense, and changing the context from a singular to a collective attribution that I am interested in seeking.

I am, initially, curious to know your thoughts to these regards, and then, to know how you suggest I proceed? Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 16:28, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi John, and you certainly honor me with this post, so thank you for that! To be honest, I created the Jimbo reference long ago and grew very attached to it. However, after thinking about it for awhile, I tend to agree with you that a more general reference should be used. Take a gander at {{R from ISO 4}}'s /doc page, and see if that meets your approval. I slightly altered the wording to:

In 2003, efforts were begun to support Wikimedia Foundation's goal of increasing access and availability of Wikipedia articles in printed versions.

...so please see if that's the gist of what you suggested. Also note that I made the edit with AWB. When we think the text is ready, it won't take long to change the 230 or so /doc pages – I can do it almost in the blink of an eye.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  04:33, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, thank you; that is better. It seems like "... support Wikimedia Foundation's goal ..." needs a diffinitive article to be grammatically correct. It should be "... support the Wikimedia Foundation's goal ...", I believe. Then I think it would be in perfect accord with the change I had hoped to see. Thank you very much.--John Cline (talk) 04:54, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
Okay John, that should take care of all of them. Thanks again for your help with these!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  03:44, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Template:Redirect category/doc

To editor John Cline: just FYI, the support for this edit is found at H:DL.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  07:42, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Of universities and names

When I'm responding to an edit request, I always scroll up to see if it's already been asked. I can't think how I missed it, considering it was the next section up. Thanks for not making me look like a complete idiot. RivertorchFIREWATER 17:58, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, I would have, but I would've looked like an idiot just tryin' to make you look like one.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  18:18, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
To editor Rivertorch: just fyi, the decision was to rename the page to the university's official name.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  14:12, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Somehow this seems like 10 months ago, not 10 days. Shall I go back and make the change at Durrës, then? RivertorchFIREWATER 16:48, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
To editor Rivertorch: still don't see any reason to bypass the redirect, but it's up to you.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  16:56, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
I guess I'll leave it alone. Inertia is my default state, at least until another external force arrives on the scene. RivertorchFIREWATER 17:02, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
I heard that.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  17:07, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Redirects Template:R cm and Template:R cs have been nominated at RfD

Since you have some involvement in at least one of the templates, and are the R cat template expert, you are invited to the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2017 May 1#Template:R cm. Thryduulf (talk) 21:58, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Thryduulf for your kind words and for this notification!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  02:07, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Japan Medical Association article

Hello Paine, Thank you for your support with the Japan Medical Association Journal and Japan Medical Association articles. If you have a spare moment could I ask you to look briefly over the grammar and style of the Japan Medical Association article, and point out anything that needs improving? I've checked the a accessibility standard against the MOS:ACCESS and Nihonjoe has helped ongoing with other areas. I thought it would be helpful for third party proofreading.

Thanks Dr.khatmando (talk) 02:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC) Dr.khatmando (talk) 02:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

It would be a pleasure, Dr.khatmando!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  04:25, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
thank you for the help and a little happiness!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr.khatmando (talkcontribs) 04:47, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for the spit n polish. The article is a little shinier now! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr.khatmando (talkcontribs) 05:22, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

If you have time

I'd like to ask for your help on Template:Redirect category. I think it would be best if the default output was rendered with the full syntax when no parameters are invoked as it would if only the template were called. That is, I believe {{Redirect category|from=|to=|template=|parameters=|sortkey=}}

and

{{Redirect category}}

should render the same output.

Currently if |template= or |parameters= are present, but blank, the output is suboptimal when compared to their absence. The other parameters do not affect the default output whether they are in place but left blank or completely omitted. Is it possible for |template= and |parameters= to have the same action? Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 10:25, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

To editor John Cline: does the code I've placed in the sandbox do what you expect? Not sure what you mean by the two parameters having the same action. I've found that these can get a little complicated in the language categories where |parameters=rcat with parameters becomes involved so the {{!}} must be used instead of a pipe. Not sure why we would want the "same action" from those two separate parameters?  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  15:44, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry for the confusion. I did not mean to ask if |template= and |parameters= could themselves be the same but rather if they could be like |from=, |to=, and |sortkey= in as much as the blank parameter has the same effect on the template's output as omitting the parameter for the latter three whereas the first two do not. I hope that is clear enough. If not, let me know and I'll try again. Thanks for you help.--John Cline (talk) 01:57, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
To editor John Cline: thank you for making that clearer! The code at Redirect category/sandbox now makes them have the same action. If that is the action you want, you can transfer the sandbox code to the live template if you like.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  07:22, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. While it it true that the sandbox code now renders the same output with the parameters omitted as with them in place but blank, it is the sub-optimal form which prevailed. That is, I think {{Redirect category shell|(rcat link)}} is preferable to {{[[Template:| ]]}} for the default output. Also see Template:Redirect category/testcases. Thank you again.--John Cline (talk) 09:29, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
John I'm curious. You call the present form "sub-optimal". Have you considered that the only reason the name of a template is included after the pipe in a parameter is so that the name of an example template will appear on the template page itself? Whereever the Redirect category template is used, the specific shell template's name is included using the |template= parameter, i.e., |template=Rcat shell. I know of no application that just uses the bare Redirect category template, nor is there any application that would use the |parameters= or |template= parameters without arguments, such as |parameters={{R from miscapitalisation}}. Am I wrong, John? Do you know of any application for the Redirect category template that only uses the bare template with no parameters and arguments?  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  11:07, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
You make a valid point, and I agree. My only intention was to ensure that the examples and instructions at Template:Redirect category/doc were in full accord with how the template actually rendered its output. It was always an option to modify the instructions if modifying the template's coding was otherwise impractical. Considering the template's internal coding is useful and fine, I'll focus on ensuring the /doc page is corrected wherever it may be needed. I seriously appreciate the time and effort you have given to this matter, and apologize where my manner of asking the question made things more difficult because I was unclear at times.--John Cline (talk) 06:20, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
Always a pleasure, John!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  09:53, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Question regarding {{DEFAULTSORT:}}

Hello Paine. I noticed that you changed the instruction for {{DEFAULTSORT:}}'s placement from "the second new line after the rcats" to "the first new line after the rcats". Unless we also change Wikipedia:WikiProject Redirect/Style guide#Individually, and the other places in the style guide showing {{DEFAULTSORT:}}'s placement, there is a contradiction. What are your thoughts to this regard? Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 05:58, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

If the Defaultsort is added on the second new line after the Rcat shell, then there is unnecessary whitespace after the Mbox when the edit is saved. I like the idea of ensuring readability for editors by skipping a line after the REDIRECT line when adding the Rcat shell, but as long as the shell is added like other shells, putting the Defaultsort on the very next line after the shell not only gets rid of the unnecessary whitespace, it is also still easily readable, as in:
#REDIRECT [[(target)]]

{{Redirect category shell|
{{Rcat 1}}
{{Rcat 2}}
{{Rcat N}}
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:(sortkey)}}
And by the way, your edit was a very good improvement to add that sortkey to the template to help editors remember to add the sortkey when its needed!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  09:49, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
Thank you Paine, I appreciate your encouragement, and above all, your kind, collegial manner of collaboration. Wikipedia works because of people like you; indeed it is the foremost reason why I have remained an editing member unto this day. FWIW, I agree with your change, and feel it is supported by Template:DEFAULTSORT/doc as well. I had written it as "the second new line" only to conform with the redirect style guide. Best regards.--John Cline (talk) 10:13, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
Pleasure! Paine  
Also John, I want you to know that you opened a can of worms, an absolutely delicious can of worms, when you added the |sortkey= parameter. I decided to go through the Wikipedia redirects category to add the new parameter to those categories that need it, and thus far I've not only found several that needed the parameter, I've also had to remove rcats from several soft category redirects, notify those editors not to tag soft redirects with rcats, and I am presently building /doc pages for two new rcats I found that still need to be indexed. And I'm only up to letter "i" in the category! Haven't had this much fun for awhile, so thank you very much for that!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  15:00, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Re: "rcats should never be used on soft redirects"

I believe you, but can you point me to where this guidance is? I've never encountered it before, and I want to understand the reasoning. —swpbT 14:57, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi swpb and thank you for asking! You will find an information template near the top of the documentation page for every rcat. Rcats should not be substituted nor should they be placed on soft redirects. Only recently has an exception emerged: {{Wikidata redirect}} is specially designed to link redirects to their Wikidata pages and is the only redirect category template that can be used on soft redirects, usually in mainspace.
This little "rule" has been in effect since long before I registered as an editor. The makers decided that it was not desirable to fill redirect categories with a lot of empty subcategories. When a category itself is categorized, it doesn't become an "entry" in the category, it actually becomes a "subcategory" of that category. So if an rcat is used to tag a soft category redirect, that category becomes an empty subcategory of the category that is applied by the rcat. That is an undesirable effect, so the makers banned rcats from soft redirects. That is how I found your edit, by checking the redirect categories from time to time for several things including empty categories. Hope this helps!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  15:38, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Redirect issue

Hi Paine, re: this edit, the result is displaying an error of some sort. I'm not clear on how to properly resolve it, so an FYI in case you are. :) Regards, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 23:28, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

  • Yes, this error is being introduced to many talk pages and should not be. Please fix all. The original redirects look perfectly valid, arising from page moves. Thanks. Hmains (talk) 00:31, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
    • To editors Cyphoidbomb and Hmains: apparently the errors are just the server playing catchup. The errors are temporary and resolve themselves after a little while. If one is found before it resolves itself, a null edit should fix it. Might also try to purge your cache.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  03:37, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
  • 24 hours have gone by and perhaps hundreds of pages have not fixed themselves. It seems you, the creator here, need to go fix each of them manually and not hope others will do so. Hmains (talk) 00:54, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
    • To editor Hmains: I started that procedure on more than 1,600 unsynchronized redirects. Can you show some examples of pages that haven't fixed themselves yet? Then maybe I can get a handle on what to do with those, keeping in mind that depending on what other jobs are in the server's queue, it might take some time before they all fix themselves. The error that is being produced is the one where the template should be removed because the page is a redirect. But the page is no longer a redirect, obviously, since it now has the {{Talk page of redirect}} template on it. So the pages will eventually fix themselves even if no one makes null edits to them.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  01:11, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
    • I just did a random sample mostly from the last 200 or so pages and I didn't find one page that had not fixed itself.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  01:17, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
    • just going down through your contribution history, I see Talk:Zoo (film), Talk:Zongo, Talk:Zhonghe Line (Taipei Metro), everything down to and including Talk:Zhonghe Line (Taipei Metro), picking up again at Talk:Yellow Line (Taipei Metro) and continuing on to the Wxxx and Vxxx and so on. Hmains (talk) 01:20, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
      • I checked all those links and the pages were already fixed in my browser. If they still show as errors in your browser, you may need to purge your cache.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  01:31, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Your Vote

Respected Sir

Can I have your vote here. [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 39.50.67.36 (talk) 12:39, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I just signed in at 19:35, 20 May 2017 (UTC), and that discussion has been procedurally closed and under a sock-puppet investigation at 12:58, 20 May 2017 (UTC).  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  19:39, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I restored it. Now you can vote if you like or start new one. only if you feel easy . Other wise stay blessed. REGARDS — Preceding unsigned comment added by 39.51.186.194 (talk) 19:46, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Shoah ambiguous

Je ne comprends pas la question, car je ne sais pas tres bien utilise wikipedia. Merci de m'avoir lue. Cordialement. Henia Perlman (talk) 23:11, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Henia Perlman, for coming to my talk page. Normalement, nous classifions des redirections ambiguës. Je ferai les changements afin que vous voyiez ce que je veux dire. Et juste pour référence future, sur Wikipedia, il est préférable de répondre au même endroit de l'enquête, dans ce cas sur votre page de discussion. (not a big deal)  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  23:23, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Paine, merci. Henia Perlman (talk) 03:39, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Pleasure! Paine  

SHOAH DEFINITION IN ENGLISH Can you help me please to present the issue to the salon of mediation? I don't know how to do it? Thanks! Henia Perlman (talk) 04:42, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

To editor Henia Perlman: Please forgive my ignorance of the term. I'm not sure I understand – what is it about Shoah and about Holocaust that needs to be changed?  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  14:14, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Mediation Forum

Can you help me please give me the website for the mediation forum, because, I keep being annulled. Thank you. Cheers.Henia Perlman (talk) 15:09, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

To editor Henia Perlman: Quel forum de médiation dois-je suggérer? Pardonne mon ignorance du terme. Je ne suis pas sûr de comprendre - qu'est-ce que l'on parle de Shoah et de l'Holocauste qui doit être changé?  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  15:22, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Mediation Salon in the ENGLISH Wiki

Is there a forum of mediation in ENGLISH, like there is one in the FRENCH wiki? Thanks for your prompt attention.Henia Perlman (talk) 16:19, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

There might be something lost in the translation. I'm trying to tell you that I don't know, because I have no idea what type of mediation you seek. If you want to discuss the Shoah redirect, then you want the talk page of The Holocaust article, that is, Talk:The Holocaust.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  16:26, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

The Holocaust

To editor Henia Perlman: I just read the discussion at Talk:The Holocaust beginning with the section copy rights. Information from memory. First, I note that the other editors appear to be trying very hard to work with you. Secondly, you are running into problems in two areas:

  • 1) your growing but still limited grasp of the English language, and
  • 2) your growing but still limited grasp of this en Wikipedia's style of writing, grammar and citing sources.

I have grown to consider you an expert on the subjects of the Shoah and the Holocaust, so my advice to you would be

  • A) continue with what you are doing in terms of the WP:BRD cycle, which just means for you to sometimes Boldly edit, expect to be Reverted in some cases and then Discuss the situation on the talk page, and
  • B) when you are so inclined, discuss your edits on the talk page before you make them.

This encyclopedia is a collaboration of epic and sometimes staggering proportions, so the key to your success here will be your willingness and your ability to collaborate with other editors, to discuss with them the improvements you want to make and to listen to their responses with as much understanding as you have the strength, courage and energy to summon in yourself.

Consider every response, whether good or bad, to be a step on the ladder of your success here. Best to you!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  03:17, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! The Holocaust

You are just wonderful Paine!

I am passionated with Holocaust history, and I have dedicated almost 20 years of my life, teaching about it, doing research, training teachers ... I would like the public reading the Holocaust in Wiki ,to have a clear, readable, and reliable source of information.

I am now following your advices - to the letter! Have a wonderful day!Henia Perlman (talk) 13:28, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I shall, yes, I will have a very good day knowing that you and your expertise are here with us, Henia Perlman!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  15:46, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Regarding your talk page editor...

Isn't the header contrary to WP policy in that it exhorts people visiting your page to make Wikipedia theirs? Is that WP:OWN?68.234.100.60 (talk) 12:43, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi IP 68+ and welcome! No, it's not meant to mean nor even imply ownership of Wikipedia in any way shape nor form. It is meant to mean stewardship – in much the same way as saying, "This is my city", or "The world is YOURS!"  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  12:58, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 9 June 2017

Redirect from former names for a college/University?

Where would be the best place to discuss whether redirects should be created for former names of the University and whether or not a redirect category should exist for them? (and what's your opinion. :) )Naraht (talk) 13:12, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi Naraht! LTNS! Okay, I'm going to get a little side-stepped here, perhaps, so please forgive me. I think several questions should be asked, for example, "What is also needed?" If we are to use the very general Redirects from former names category as a parent category (it already has four subcategories), then in addition to Category:Redirects from former university names should there also be the categories Redirects from former college names, Redirects from former technical school names, Redirects from former high school names, Redirects from former company names, Redirects from former country names, Redirects from former military designations, Redirects from former state names, Redirects from former sports team names, Redirects from former terrorist organization names, Redirects from former celestial object names, and so on.
This might sound odd, but I'm all for making child categories when one thinks they are or can be useful to the project. So I support your suggestion to make redirects for former university names along with the category (the rcat, {{R from former name}}, can probably be modified with a parameter to accept |1=univ or similar). To answer your question since you're asking whether or not the redirects should be created, the best discussion page would probably be WT:Redirect with a notification to WT:WikiProject Redirect.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  14:37, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
Universities vs. Colleges gets tricky, since in many cases the change is part of becoming a university. Should Frostburg State University as a Redirect from Frostburg State College be in university or college? (and the celestial names certainly should be a category for themselves). I'll ask on WT:Redirect and notify WT:Wikiproject Redirect. If it should be organized, we'll need a cat. :)Naraht (talk) 15:30, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

FYI, when I was going through {{R from modification}} looking for weirdly named aliases, I was extremely pleased/relieved/impressed to see that all 136 aliases start with either R or Redirect. I'm not sure if you had any explicit part in this, but I suspect you did, and it is nice to see.   ~ Tom.Reding (talkdgaf)  18:18, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

To editor Tom.Reding: then I truly wish that I could take the credit. Other editors are credited with those initial titles. All I've done is to help categorize them.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  15:37, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 June 2017

This is to inform you that an attempt is being made to overturn an RfC that you voted on

This is to inform you that an attempt is being made to overturn an RfC that you voted on (2 RfCs, actually, one less than six months ago and another a year ago). The new RfC is at:

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Allow private schools to be characterized as non-affiliated as well as religious, in infobox?

Specifically, it asks that "religion = none" be allowed in the infobox.

The first RfC that this new RfC is trying to overturn is:

The result of that RfC was "unambiguously in favour of omitting the parameter altogether for 'none' " and despite the RfC title, additionally found that "There's no obvious reason why this would not apply to historical or fictional characters, institutions etc.", and that nonreligions listed in the religion entry should be removed when found "in any article".

The second RfC that this new RfC is trying to overturn is:

The result of that RfC was that the "in all Wikipedia articles, without exception, nonreligions should not be listed in the Religion= parameter of the infobox.".

Note: I am informing everyone who commented on the above RfCs, whether they supported or opposed the final consensus. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:30, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Guy Macon! Seems it was 18 months ago and two years ago for those RfCs; however, I do appreciate your notification of the latest RfC.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  13:25, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Request for openion

Article Legitimacy (criminal law) has been requested to be moved to Legitimacy (law) requesting your openion at Talk:Legitimacy_(criminal_law)

Thanks and regards

Mahitgar (talk) 07:40, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for asking, Mahitgar!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  18:38, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Your first DAB page?

(Prompted by your comment at Talk:New York (disambiguation)/Meta.)

{{ping}} me if you'd like someone else to cast a swift eye over that page. I've created several DAB pages, including a couple which turned out to be two screensfull long once I'd finished with them. Just as with articles, there are missing DAB pages which make me think, "Why wasn't this here already?" (And perhaps more often, DAB pages which leave me cursing, after assorted dotting around between Google and non-English Wikis, "Why wasn't this article already on it?") Yrs, Narky Blert (talk) 23:56, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Narky Blert! Yes, you are always welcome to review my work. It's always good to have more than two eyes on a page, which is exactly what Wikipedia is all about. Haven't had time yet to work on it, and will let you know when it's done.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  11:39, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
All done, Narky Blert. You'll find the page at Elegance (disambiguation).  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  21:45, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
Great work, that page was really needed! Elegance (mathematics) for one is a major alternative meaning. All those links will help readers find what they're looking for. Applause for adding the {{wikt}} link, and for getting its formatting right. I've taken out the extra links from the lead - anyone looking for the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC should find them there. I've looked for similar DAB pages in French, German, and Spanish Wikis in case there might be something to link to; but there doesn't seem to be anything. I've also added Robert Elegant, on a "why not?" basis.
I've just found this horror - Elegans - which violates so many bits of WP:MOS it isn't true, and is seriously unhelpful. There are at least five different species called C. elegans. I'm onto the case. Narky Blert (talk) 22:36, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
Thank you very much!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  20:10, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

@midnight (Twitter) listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect @midnight (Twitter). Since you had some involvement with the @midnight (Twitter) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:52, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much, UnitedStatesian!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  11:40, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 July 2017

The Signpost: 5 August 2017

The Signpost: 6 September 2017

Whack!

You've been whacked with a wet trout.

Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

When you moved "Government" to "Forms of government" last year, you didn't leave a redirect, so it was recreated from scratch and we ended up having two articles about the same topic. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:06, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Hey, Ritchie333! Haven't gotten one of those for awhile! In this particular case, though, the "Government" title was moved to the Government (disambiguation) page. And if you check it further, you'll find that the idea at that time was to turn the "Government" title into a broad-concept article. Maybe it got outta hand?  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  23:14, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 September 2017

Hello, Paine Ellsworth. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Jawaher bint Muhammad Al Qasimi".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply edit the submission and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

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Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. LinguistunEinsuno 03:17, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Move-redirect-text

I was thinking now that we have {{Redirect category shell}}, perhaps we could try to open another discussion to get MediaWiki:Move-redirect-text changed to this:


{{Redirect category shell|
{{R from move}}
}}

Do you think it would be worth opening a discussion about it now, or are there any further changes you want to make first? nyuszika7h (talk) 14:00, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

It's awesome that you would suggest this, nyuszika7h! It was that discussion about {{Redr}} that ultimately led to the creation of the {{Rcat shell}}. And it would be great if we could get the shell into that MW page. I'm not really certain if other editors are ready to embrace the shell template to that extent, though. The template is ready to be used, and there is nothing more that needs to be done. It satisfies all the objections that were made to the Redr template. The only thing holding it back is that there has been no consensus among editors to add it to the MW page. That was the first objection to the Redr usage that was made on Redrose64's talk page. An editor wanted it removed from the MW page because there had been no consensus to add it. Since the two of us think it's ready to go, I'll work on a proposal and start a new discussion soon.  Paine  u/c 14:59, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Did some major checking and additions there. I used regex foo on Article title grep to get all articles which had names entire consisting of spelled out greek letters like "Alpha Phi Omega" and then the articles including redirects that were actually formed from greek letters like "ΑΦΩ" , copied them elsewhere, unpacked the actual greek letters into the spelled out versions and compared. There are still a few odd balls like Mu Sigma and Xi Xi which aren't related to Greek Letter Organizations at all.Naraht (talk) 19:11, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the info and for your help, Naraht!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  00:54, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Text modification

Hello Paine. I was inclined to copy edit {{R from alternative name}}, but do not have enough permission to edit that page. If you feel it is worthwhile, perhaps you will effect the change on my behalf? I feel the text which says:

If this redirect is an incorrect name for the target, then use {{R from incorrect name}} instead.

should be changed to say:

If this redirect is an incorrect name for the target, {{R from incorrect name}} should have been used instead.

My rationale is that the current verbiage assumes the choice of which Rcat to use has not been decided whereas its appearance on the redirect means {{R from alternative name}} has already been chosen, and used.

In that context, giving the bullet in present/future tense is perfectly actionable, but grammatically incorrect whereas giving it in past tense is both actionable, and correct grammatically. I look forward to your reply. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 12:27, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good, John, the edit has been made. And thank you very much!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  08:15, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Beta Sigma Rho

The 1991 Baird's has about half a page on Beta Sigma Rho including a chapter list. I think there is probably enough for an article on its own. (And the 1967 Baird's (the last where it was active) has almost a full page. There are some other defunct (and merged) GLOs with pages.Naraht (talk) 14:28, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

The sources are worthy so, if you think the notability requirement is met, then I would say go for it.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  09:59, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
I'll let you know when User:Naraht/Beta_Sigma_Rho is ready for review.Naraht (talk) 14:28, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, Naraht!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  03:46, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

WP redirect

Hi, I noticed that you reverted one of my edits relating to WP:WP. This is the third time that I've been reverted in the past two weeks (fourth, if you count [this] rather hysterical reaction to a policy explanation of why my version of a minor point was better), and usually they're pretty rude. So I appreciated the politeness of your edit summary. Thank you. Nevertheless, I think my version was better in this case as well. If you don't mind, I'd like to explain my reasons here. It may take a while, as I have work and other things to take care of. It also depends on whether I care enough to go through the procedures in case of opposition. Usually I don't, but in this case maybe, as I think we are probably confusing at least 10 users every day, and fixing things like that is one of the ways that I try to contribute. – Margin1522 (talk) 05:00, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Margin1522, for coming to my talk page! You may be correct in that the target you suggest, (which has been suggested before), is a more logical place for this redirect. However, if we look at Special:WhatLinksHere/Wikipedia:WP, we find hundreds of incoming links, most from user pages, that would be broken if the target is changed. When that many users use a shortcut and expect it to go to a certain page, then that certain page should not be altered. There is only one acceptable way to change this, and that is by nominating the redirect at RFD. If the target is changed, then a nominator should be prepared to go through all those incoming links and change them to the target.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  08:25, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
PS. I have added a hatnote at the redirect to explain the above. PS added by  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  08:43, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
Yes, there are a lot of User Talk pages, 993 by my count, out of 1271 links. But as far as I can tell, they are all because about 12 years ago, around 2005, boilerplate Welcome messages contained links in the form The [[Wikipedia:WP|Wikipedia directory]] is also quite useful. That isn't even accurate. If we wanted to send them to a directory WP:DIR would be better. You could probably also argue that WP:About has a better claim to being a directory than a list of shortcuts, so my suggested change would actually improve those pages. Not that it matters, since it seems that most of them have been neither viewed nor edited in over 10 years except by bots. IMO a bigger problem is the other 278 links. There it seems that confusion reigns. Of the ones I looked at, a few used it in the proper sense of list of shortcuts, but more didn't. A common mistake was to assume that it meant the same as WP:RS. Or that it referred to Wikipedia itself. Or that it still referred to WikiProjects. Updating the links that use it properly could be done, assuming they aren't archived. But I don't know if it would be worthwhile or even possible to fix the mistakes, since sometimes it's not clear what they think it means. – Margin1522 (talk) 12:07, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
Your argument isn't without its logic; however, I look at the WLH page and see mostly user talk pages. We use shortcuts on our talk pages so that other editors may click on them to see what we're talking about. So you retarget the shortcut and the other editor comes back and says, "Hey, that page you linked to has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm talking about. You need to get your act together!" and we look like we don't know what we're doing. So I would still have to insist on usage of RFD to disposition the WP:WP shortcut if you still think it should be done.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  14:52, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
OK, never mind. – Margin1522 (talk) 02:28, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
To editor Margin1522: It is important to me that you understand why I don't think the change should be made. You said:
...it seems that most of them have been neither viewed nor edited in over 10 years except by bots.
I did some checking. You should browse some of the talk pages of the users who have the WP:WP shortcut on their user pages. Many of them are still active on their talk pages, and I readily found one who, though still quite active, had not had reason to change their user page since 2010. That user, and many others like them, have that shortcut on their user page and think it leads their readers to its present target. If you used a shortcut to a page on your user page, would you want another editor to just change the target of the shortcut you use?
Again, I have nothing against seeking the community's guidance at RFD, if that is your wish.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  17:00, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
I would be happy to request that a bot go through all user pages on the Links Here list and change WP:WP to something more intelligible, say WP:SHORTCUTS. Or one of the other redirects to Wikipedia:Shortcut directory (there are a dozen of them). For the rest of links, I would be willing to go through them manually and do the same, meanwhile fixing [[WP:WP|Reliable source]] so that it reads [[WP:RS|Reliable source]], or [[WP:WP|WikiProject]]so that it reads [[WP:WikiProject]]. Look, I realize that this thing is an artifact from the earliest days of shortcuts on Wikipedia, when people would look at "WP" and think not "Wikipedia" but "Hey, that's two letters, it's a shortcut!", and think that if they typed it they would be taken not to information about Wikipedia but to information about shortcuts. That is no longer the case. Unlike in 2005, Wikipedia:Shortcut now has rules about naming and readability, and my opinion is, why do we have these rules if we're not going to follow them? OTOH, reading your reply, I realize that this knowledge about one of the very first WP shortcuts is ingrained, so that there isn't much chance it can be changed. So be it. There are other things to do. – Margin1522 (talk) 22:50, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
Noted, and thank you Margin1522 for your consideration and conversation!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  14:51, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Monotypic taxon and Monospecificity

Articles that you have been involved in editing—Monotypic taxon and Monospecificity—have been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Nessie (talk) 18:43, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Nessie!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  09:30, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Investment

I'd like to invite you to join the Investment WikiProject. There are a lot of Investment related articles on Wikipedia that could use a little attention, and I hope this project can help organize an effort to improve them. So please, take a look and if you like what you see, help get this project off the ground and a few Investment pages into the front ranks of Wikipedia articles. Thanks!

  Thank you very much, WikiEditCrunch, for the invitation!  Paine  

Rcats

This[2] was a mistake, my apologies. I use AWB correcting the rcats simply for the convenience of the interface; I don't auto-skip or run any regexes or anything. I'm mainly working on getting the initialisms out of Category:Redirects from acronyms and finding portmanteaux. I run everything through one-by-one even if I use AWB. Pariah24 (talk) 05:32, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

That's good to hear, Pariah24! I was hoping your edit was just an "oops", and no apology necessary because believe me, I've made my share of oopses. It was surprising because your other edits I've seen have been really great for redirect categorization, so good in fact that I wanted to give you the Barnstar for your work, so that's on the way. Thank you for coming to my talk page and I hope you continue spreading the good on Wikipedia!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  10:04, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, also I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to make a separate rcat for other dialectical conventions like Sports in South Africa and Labor movement, or if {{R from modification}} is sufficient? Pariah24 (talk) 23:03, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
The first one should be categorized with {{R from plural}} and {{R unprintworthy}} (in addition to {{R from mod}}). The second one should be tagged with {{R from move}}, {{R from alternative spelling}} and {{R printworthy}} (instead of {{R mod}}).  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  01:22, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
The reason I ask is because Sports in South Africa is in reality an error, not a legitimate plural, in the context of British-style English. So it's sort of a special case, I was just pondering whether it deserves special categorization. Pariah24 (talk) 19:11, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
Good point, Pariah24 – might be better, then, to call it {{R from American English}} along with R unprintworthy and R from modification. I see there is also {{R from British English}}, both of which I was unaware and will tweak them a bit. Thank you for the enlightenment!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  17:56, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
I was also unaware. Probably because the creator didn't do any categorization. The navbox and template message page also need a overhaul to include the additional rcats people have created. Pariah24 (talk) 22:14, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

I have revived {{R from British English}} and {{R from American English}} from the dead (the code was screwed up, I don't think they were rendering at all) and created docs. Pariah24 (talk) 00:50, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

A beer for you!

I rather doubt your doctors would recommend this, but it occurs to me that it could make a useful post-operative leak-detector, in case you foam in unexpected places ;) … Best wishes for a prompt recovery. —Odysseus1479 19:01, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Well, I must admit, Odysseus1479, I was not expecting that, and I'll try not to leak beer all over the place. Thank you very much!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  14:27, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 October 2017

Barophobia listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Barophobia. Since you had some involvement with the Barophobia redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. ... discospinster talk 20:25, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, discospinster!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  22:09, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Clinton Family Foundation listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Clinton Family Foundation. Since you had some involvement with the Clinton Family Foundation redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:05, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Dr. Fleischman!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  01:30, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Precious two years!

Precious
Two years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:39, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

To editor Gerda Arendt: thank you so much for remembering!  Paine  12:42, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewing

Hello, Paine Ellsworth.

I've seen you editing recently and you seem knowledgeable about Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.
Would you please consider becoming a New Page Reviewer? Reviewing/patrolling a page doesn't take much time but it requires a good understanding of Wikipedia policies and guidelines; currently Wikipedia needs experienced users at this task. (After gaining the flag, patrolling is not mandatory. One can do it at their convenience). But kindly read the tutorial before making your decision. Thanks. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 09:30, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Insertcleverphrasehere! I haven't done this for awhile, and yet I have spent some time in the past with the NewPagesFeed and have patrolled and marked many new pages. I shall ask for this very soon. Thanks again for your consideration!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  11:58, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer granted

Hello Paine Ellsworth. Your account has been added to the "New page reviewers" user group, allowing you to review new pages and mark them as patrolled, tag them for maintenance issues, or in some cases, tag them for deletion. The list of articles awaiting review is located at the New Pages Feed. New page reviewing is a vital function for policing the quality of the encylopedia, if you have not already done so, you must read the new tutorial at New Pages Review, the linked guides and essays, and fully understand the various deletion criteria. If you need more help or wish to discuss the process, please join or start a thread at page reviewer talk.

  • URGENT: Please consider helping get the huge backlog down to a manageable number of pages as soon as possible.
  • Be nice to new users - they are often not aware of doing anything wrong.
  • You will frequently be asked by users to explain why their page is being deleted - be formal and polite in your approach to them too, even if they are not.
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The reviewer right does not change your status or how you can edit articles. If you no longer want this user right, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. In case of abuse or persistent inaccuracy of reviewing, the right can be revoked at any time by an administrator. Alex Shih (talk) 17:03, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Alex Shih!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  02:14, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for applying! Alex Shih (talk) 06:08, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 November 2017

Thank you

Thank you for the edit of the psychology sidebar in the industrial/organizational psychology entry. Iss246 (talk) 17:23, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Pleasure! Paine  

Non-Admin closure

Regarding closure of the requested move of the article Ice cream headache, per WP:RMNAC, Any non-admin closure (NAC) must be explicitly declared with template {{RMnac}}placed directly after the reasoning for the close within the {{RM top}} template. Cheers! Thinker78 (talk) 19:17, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Thinker78! Additional information that supports page movers' (and my) use of {{subst:RMpmc}} may be found in the documentation for {{RMnac}}. Happy Holidays!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  20:48, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

rcat

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This discussion has been used in this Request for comment.

Can you please avoid adding pointless rcats to shortcuts like "MOS:WHATEVER"? From just one example:

  • MoS pages are not subpages, they're stand-alone guidelines that happen to have "/" in their names (with a handful of exceptions, like actual supplementary subpages of WP:Manual of Style/Accessibility).
  • They don't need to be categorized as redirs to project space. "WP:FOO" shortcuts are already in project space, and "MOS:" one all go there; it's implicit in their purpose, so tagging all several hundred of them is a waste of time and just bloats the rcat block. If there's some really important maint. reason to tag the "MOS:" ones with this, I could stop objecting to it, but I've been removing this rcat on sight in "MOS:" shortcuts for years, and no one has ever objected or reverted.
  • They also don't need to be rcat'ed as unprintworthy, since they're not used in mainspace. (That should be used on things like hatnote templates that cross-reference different articles because our content is meant to be reusable as-is on a per-article basis.)

As someone who does a lot of shortcut maintenance, it's a hassle to have a thick pile of rcats on these things that interfere with quickly assessing exactly what they are and why they exist. The only ones we really need are shortcut (for building lists of shortcuts), and either section or anchor as applicable (for maint work on anchors that are not section links, e.g. replacing markup like <span id="something"></span> and <span id="something" /> with {{anchor|something}}).  — SMcCandlish ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ʌ<  00:44, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Not sure what gave you the idea that categorizing redirect shortcuts with appropriate rcats is "pointless". MOS shortcuts are in mainspace and therefore should definitely be sorted as "unprintworthy" so they don't appear in any "printable" versions of Wikipedia, such as any CD/DVD versions. What in the world makes you think that sorting those shortcuts to the Unprintworthy redirects category is not the right thing to do???  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  01:01, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Already said: they are not used in the text of articles, so they'll never appear and need to be suppressed in articles.  — SMcCandlish ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ʌ<  10:25, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
As to using the rcat to project space, do you expect that editors are mind readers? How do you expect the MOS shortcuts, which are vivid WP:CNRs, to be detected? Category:Redirects to project space is most assuredly an appropriate category for these as much as it is for other CNRs.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  01:01, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
No editor who does not already know that "MOS:" goes to MoS pages in project space is competent yet to be doing any kind of maintenance, with redirects or otherwise. There is no need to "detect" MOS shortcuts since they all are of the same form, "MOS:" followed by something; and nothing else is of that form. If some day there's something notable in the real world named something like "MOS:FOO" then will we ever need to distinguish "MOS:" CNRs from something that isn't one. Unless that day comes, the "MOS:" shortcuts are auto-"detected", simply be being as they are.  — SMcCandlish ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ʌ<  10:25, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
As for subpages, you haven't made a very strong case there, either, SMcCandlish. Just what exactly makes, say, WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters any different from WP:Manual of Style/Accessibility? They are both subpages of the MOS, and I see no difference. If as you say, "Capital letters" is stand-alone, then why is it on a subpage of the MOS instead of at WP:Capital letters? Both pages are about style, so both are subpages of the Manual of Style. It seems to me that you are wrong on all counts and should be soundly trouted for removing redirects from appropriate categories. Happy Holidays to you!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  07:28, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
The only "case" that needs to be "made" is that they have guideline tags on them. They are not subpages, they are guidelines that happen to have "/" in their names; please don't make me repeat myself. Do you think that the redirect WP:AC/DS is a subpage of the redirect WP:AC? It is not. It just happens to have "/" in its name. We chose to name the MoS pages this way rather than in the pattern of the NC pages (WP:Naming conventions (people), etc.) because parenthetic disambiguation was felt to be awkward or something. They could actually be moved to things like WP:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and so on, and these do exist as redirects. The actual subpages (e.g. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/CSS colors for text on white, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Glossaries/DD bug test cases, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Data tables tutorial, maybe a few others) are not guidelines and are not tagged as guidelines (I actually did find one mistakenly tagged that way and fixed it; it's a {{Wikipedia how-to}}). I think you're confusing "subpage" as meaning "anything faintly like a hierarchical relationship", or "anything that contains a slash character", and it doesn't mean either of those things. A subpage is a dependent page such that were the parent page deleted the subpage would also be deleted, because it serves no purpose on its own. We could in fact delete the entire WP:Manual of Style page and it would have no effect on the other MoS guidelines, since the main MoS page is simply a summary of their most important and commonly needed points. PS: MOSCAPS isn't at WP:Capital letters because we agreed to group the style stuff under "Manual of Style" as a heading, exactly as all the NC pages start with "Naming conventions", and are not at names like "WP:People" for WP:Naming conventions (people). The super-short names are too ambiguous to make it clear what their scope is. We do in fact have multiple pages about capital letters and about people and about most things for which we have MoS or NC pages (e.g. WP:Naming conventions (capitalization) and WP:Manual of Style/Biographies, respectively; these could be more consistently named, but no one is losing sleep over it).  — SMcCandlish ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ʌ<  10:25, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you! because I'm beginning to understand your reasoning as it applies to the, shall I call them "pseudo"subpages? which just means there is no rcat for "redirects to pseudosubpages". That is one of three issues to which I'm warming up. So how do you suggest we resolve the other two issues? (unprintworthiness and CNR tracking of MOS shortcut redirects)?  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  01:01, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Congratulations, SMcCandlish, for your decision to run! Just wanted you to know that these issues are not something that can't wait, so keep your "eyes on the prize" and may good fortune be your ally!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  14:52, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
I guess the question is what utility is provided, what purpose is served, by {{R to project namespace}} and {{R unprintworthy}} on those particular shortcuts? The first is for things like Create an article – stuff that we expect users might want to type into the URL bar as a guess, without realizing WP has namespaces. Some other examples are things even experienced users might try, like List of hoaxes on Wikipedia, which is a topic that could in theory be notable and have an encyclopedia article but which isn't and doesn't (insufficient in-depth coverage in independent reliable sources), but which we do have an internal page about. Shortcuts like "MOS:CAPS" aren't either kind of case. And by virtue of what they are, we already know they're project-space redirs anyway. If some day there's something called "Mouse-Optional Synergistics: An Operating System", and its conventional acronym is "MOS:OS", then and probably only then would we have a need for that rcat on "MOS:FOO" shortcuts, to distinguish from real-world things that start with "MOS:".

The latter rcat is for redirs that we want to replace in displayed article text with the actual name of the article because they're "deficient" names in some way, in an encyclopedic sense; this is a pure maintenance category, for gnomes to use in fixing wording to make good sense in a printed article. There is no case in which something like "MOS:CAPS" or "Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters" should appear in an actual article's text.* And Category:Redirects from shortcuts is already a subcat of Category:Unprintworthy redirects, so using {{R unprintworthy}} when {{R from shortcut}} is already used is redundant. [* In theory, there could be one someday: INDY RS could eventually write a whole bunch of stuff about WP's MoS and make it real-world notable. That's a bridge to cross if we come to it.]

So, it's not that these redir categorizations are "dead wrong" or whatever, it's just unnecessary, and both a waste of your editorial time to add these rcats on these shortcuts (and perhaps of other editors' time, in maintaining them later), as well as an annoyance to the actual maintainers of the MOS shortcuts (which may not even be plural – it may just be me!) by doubling the rcats per shortcut and slowing down the correction of things like an {{R to anchor}} needing to be changed to {{R to section}} or vice versa, and sometimes a concurrent update to the exact in-page target; aside from a missing {{R from shortcut}} on a few of them, that's all the maint they need.
 — SMcCandlish ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ʌ<  00:48, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

To editor SMcCandlish: I've thought a lot about my response to your question about utility, and I hope that you will approve and agree with me. In terms of the printability rcat, it's true that both {{R from shortcut}} and {{R to project page}} automatically sort mainspace redirects to the Unprintworthy redirects category. For many years I have practiced placing the {{R unprintworthy}} rcat on those redirects even though it is not needed functionally to sort them to the unprintworthy category. The reason I've always done this is for those editors, mostly inexperienced, who haven't set their "See hidden categories" preference. By applying the rcat to those redirects, editors are able to see that the redirects are sorted as unprintworty even if they can't see the categories at the bottom of the redirect page. It is also good in my opinion for editors who can see the categories at the bottom, because the rcat also functions as an information source for editors. I've always done this with printworthy redirects as well, for example, some rcats such as {{R with possibilities}} automatically populate the Printworthy redirects category, and yet I still tag those redirects with {{R printworthy}} to accomodate inexperienced editors, which I think helps them gain experience and knowledge about the "low-end" Wikipedia need to categorize redirects. I hope you agree that this is an important reason to use the printability rcats even when they are not needed to actually sort redirects to their categories, and I see no reason to start making exceptions for certain types of shortcut redirects.
The {{R to project page}} rcat is in a similar boat. There is no reason to make an exception for the MOS shortcut redirects. That rcat sorts to three categories, one for project-page redirects, one for cross-namespace redirects, and one for printability of mainspace redirects. Those are all tracking categories and are large enough to warrant bot tracking. Making an exception for the MOS shortcut redirects, which are clearly CNRs, would in effect defeat the purpose of the tracking that has been set up for many years.
I find that discussing this with you has been informative, and I certainly mean no disrespect when I say that either one of us could be wrong. If you find that you still cannot agree with me about the utility of using the project and printability rcats on the MOS shortcut redirects, then we should probably seek the opinions of other editors on the matter. Hope your holidays continue to be happy and healthy!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  01:39, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Sure, I always prefer a discussion over a squabble. :-) I'm not sure I follow the first of these points. If the editor is too new to know about "See hidden categories" why would they be experienced enough to know about unprintworthy redirect sorting? I'm not inclined to go editwar about these rcats, but would suggest opening a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorizing redirects, with a pointer to it from Wikipedia talk:Categorization, Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization, Wikipedia talk:Redirect, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect to get extra eyes and brains. We do actually permit some forms of redundant categorization, but they're limited; whether to treat this kind of maint categorization as diffusing or non-diffusing is probably significant enough it shouldn't be just between you and me. Heh. I can see that there is potential utility in doing it your way, but is the utility worth the hassle (i.e. the anti-utility for others)? From my personal perspective it's not, since I do most of the maint. relating the pseudo-namespace in question; I don't think any of the kinda-new editors you're seeking to help out here are involved in any way with editing "MOS:" shortcuts, or more than very rarely even the "WP:" and "WT:" ones for that matter. Given the different sorts of unprintworthy redirs and the large total number of them, there's a good chance that maintainers in general will object to having them in the main category for them as well diffused to one or more of its subcats, instead of treating the main one as a container cat.

I'll just concede on tagging the "MOS:" ones with {{R to project namespace}} (and have already started checking; have done all the ones at Special:PrefixIndex/MOS: that precede "A" in the alpha-order list already, doing the As next). While it seemed superfluous to me, you're correct that it creates a gap in "total redirs to project-space" and "total CNRs" tracking; I was arguing from an editorial not bot utility perspective (bots may not be coded to "know" what editors actually know about page names starting with "MOS:"). However, using that Rcat actually strengthens (at least marginally) the notion that {{R unprintworthy}} would be redundant. Anyway, {{R to project namespace}} should not be used on "WP:" or "WT:" redirs, since they're not CNRs; those have been made into actual aliases of "Wikipedia:" and "Wikipedia talk:", respectively. I'm sure you know that, but I do keep finding that Rcat on them, and it's just wrong, regardless who's putting them there.
 — SMcCandlish ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ʌ<  04:26, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

To editor SMcCandlish: to repeat... rcats do more than just sort redirects to categories. They provide information in their texts about the categorization, and again, this is a learning tool whether or not editors can see hidden categories. So it is just as important, for information and tracking purposes, to tag WP (not WT) shortcuts with the projectspace rcat so they will be tracked in that rcat's non-CNR Category:Redirects to Wikipedia project pages. That is specifically for redirects that are in projectspace that target projectspace pages, a long-standing tracking process. And you might be surprised that there are editors who want to help, but who thus far lack the information they need to help. That's why rcats are designed as learning tools in addition to their more functional sorting abilities. Thank you beyond words for your help in this!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  15:58, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't strenuously disagree with that, I just don't think it's sufficient in this case (with regard to the point I didn't concede on). I could be wrong, which is why I suggest an RfC or something. There are a lot of people way more particular than me and probably you about categorization (both against and for the position I've taken).  — SMcCandlish ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ʌ<  16:06, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Agreed, and I shall prepare an RfC in the manner you suggested above. I know several editors who have been involved with redirect categorization, and while I have no idea how they would !vote, I shall ping them to make sure they're aware of the discussion. L8RG8R –  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  16:17, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Paine Ellsworth. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

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Note to myself... voted 6 December 2017.  Paine  

New Page Reviewer Newsletter

Hello Paine Ellsworth, thank you for your efforts reviewing new pages!

Backlog update:

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Article categories used in redirects

Hi, Paine. It is my long-term understanding that article categories are generally inappropriate for redirect categorization. To that end, I found a batch of redirects that needed Rcats instead of ArticleCats, or that needed the ArticleCats removed. See this, for an example. With this undo, all of these article categories are going to go back to listing a bunch of redirects instead of listing articles:

So far, 14 of my tedious efforts have been undone. I was planning to do 28 more. Please advise. Ping me back. Having fun! Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 22:45, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi Checkingfax. The guide you're looking for is at WP:RCAT#Article categories. If your category removals are to standard, be sure to cite the guideline in your edit summaries. I have to say that I am a fan of tagging mainspace redirects with content categories when appropriate; however, when it's not appropriate, I do remove them. Happy Holidays!  Paine  09:39, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
PS. Please also see this recent discussion, which may or may not apply directly. (PS left by  Paine  )

The Signpost: 18 December 2017

New Years new page backlog drive

Hello Paine Ellsworth, thank you for your efforts reviewing new pages!

Announcing the NPP New Year Backlog Drive!

We have done amazing work so far in December to reduce the New Pages Feed backlog by over 3000 articles! Now is the time to capitalise on our momentum and help eliminate the backlog!

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Move review for Sarah Huckabee Sanders

An editor has asked for a Move review of Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Because you closed the move discussion for this page, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the move review. Jamesharrison2014 (talk) 04:02, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Jamesharrison2014, and Happy New Year to you and yours!  Paine  12:26, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Relist at 2017 washington train derailment

What's up with that relist? Already been relisted once and I don't think it really needs more discussion.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:07, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello Galobtter – yes, I thought about that for quite a while, whether to close it or relist it. Presently notifying the WikiProjects to see if some consensus can be reached. Some RMs need more discussion than others. Happy New Year to you and yours!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  12:14, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Happy new year to you to! Anyhow, it'd be better to leave an explanation if relisting a discussion with a lot of participation. Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:21, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
I agree and will do so just as soon as I've notified the WPs.  Paine  12:27, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Hallo, thanks for closing the move request but ...

  1. You moved the writer's page to Debbie Rodriguez (writer), while the whole idea was to move to her common name "Deborah": I've now managed to move it to Deborah Rodriguez (writer), as agreed.
  2. You haven't moved the disambiguation page Deborah Rodriguez (disambiguation), which needs to be at the base name Deborah Rodriguez - I can't do that one myself, so please do so. Thanks. PamD 16:30, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
Ah sorry, didn't realise it was a work in progress! PamD 16:30, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
To editor PamD: no problemo. Workin' on it boss  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  16:35, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 January 2018

Kachin/jingpo Move request

Hi thank you for closing the recent request for move at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jingpo_people

Unfortunately before the debate ended, the user who began it went ahead and did the move. Currently, clicking on Kachin People now redirects to Jingpo, a move that had no consensus, as seen in the admin closure of the topic. Unfortunately, This is impossible for a regular user like myself to revert as the move created redirects.

The original consensus was Kachin People and Jingpo people with Jingpo being a subset of Kachin. The recent move redirected Kachin people to Jingpo people and then moved the content of Kachin people to Kachin peoples. I cannot revert this change because Kachin people was turned into a disambiguation page. Could you revert this change, or give me suggestions on what to do? currently the move that was made without consensus is creating a encyclopedia that equates Kachin with Jingpo, something not proven by any sources at all and in contradiction to what the pages say. Thanks again for your time.Egaoblai (talk) 12:37, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

To editor Egaoblai: I'm pleasured to know that the outcome of the debate was in line with your opinion. I think this has all been resolved, because
  1. I reverted the undiscussed page move so that Kachin people is now the article title and is targeted by the Kachin peoples redirect, and
  2. I recently edited the Jingpo people article's lead section to better reflect the facts as you have presented them.
It is hoped that all this is in line with your opinion, as well. Thank you for coming to my talk page, and Happy Publishing!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  16:05, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Printworthiness

Hello Paine - as I applied a few unprintworthy tags the other day, I asked myself "why am I doing this" so I looked up WP:PRINTWORTHY expecting to find guidance, but found instead your essay. The essay has attracted a bit of discussion, but not much. I'm thinking of posing an RfC along the lines of:

Printworthiness/printability, by definition, is concerned with an aspiration to produce Wikipedia as a printed edition (or, by extension, another offline form) but as time goes by, the realisation of that aspiration might seem less and less likely. On the one hand, assigning “printworthy” or “unprintworthy” parameters to redirects gives us a potentially useful categorisation; on the other hand it takes time, and requirements for printworthy tags clutter instructions for use of the “R to…” templates. Should we delete the printworthy/unprintworthy templates, instructions for their use, and associated categories?

I'm expecting you to oppose the proposal as stated in this draft, of course, but my question for now is: what do you think about structure/form of the RfC? Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:38, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

To editor Shhhnotsoloud: –  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  12:54, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
...printability, by definition, is concerned with an aspiration to produce Wikipedia as a printed edition
Actually, this is more than just an "aspiration", since Wikipedia has already produced offline or "printed" versions, and I've been told that even though a relatively small number of redirects have been tagged with {{R printworthy}} or {{R unprintworthy}}, the sorting has helped the 1.0 team to assemble CD/DVD versions. As for an Rfc, I don't know. Maybe it's time to shed more light on printability; however, I'm just not sure that the issue will attract that many editors. I could be wrong. As for structure and form of the Rfc, I have to admit that I haven't put very many Rfc's together, and yet oddly enough, I recently opened one in which printability was a significant issue. You'll find that debate at Wikipedia talk:Categorizing redirects#Request for comments on MoS shortcut redirect categorization. Hope this helps and Happy New Year to you and yours!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  12:52, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, Paine. When I have some time I'll look up those links. Cheers! Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 13:29, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
Pleasure! Paine  
Good: I'm learning more about this. Another question please: why do the instructions at (for example) Template:R from other capitalisation direct the user to include {{R unprintworthy}} inside the rcat shell, when (it seems to me) pages tagged with {{R from other capitalisation}} are automatically included in Category:Unprintworthy redirects? By extension, could we harmlessly remove all instructions regarding printworthiness from all Rcats that automatically allocate a redirect as either printworthy or unprintworthy (I don't know how many that would be)? Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 08:38, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
Good question. For years I have added the printability rcats to redirects even when other rcats used to tag a redirect automatically populate either Category:Printworthy redirects or Category:Unprintworthy redirects. Why? It's because I consider the information text on rcats to be just as important, perhaps even a little more important, as the category sorts they make. With help from other editors, the rcat/category system has been built almost from scratch over the years, and we really didn't have information about why past editors had done this or done that. So we had to dig and dig to figure out why this was done and why that was done. That's why the information on rcats is important: because it lets other editors, who are just entering the area of redirect categorization, it lets them know what is being done and why. So yes, the printability rcats should be used with rcats that autosort to their printability categories. No, they are not needed in those cases to actually do any category sorting; however, they are still needed for the important job of letting editors know what's going on. There really is no reason to keep editors in the dark anymore, is there?  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  19:58, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Time of life

Time is a connection point of life of an organism . From birth till death to the human body or any other organism's life cycle.It doesn't endb with death .Next birth continues or it may be connecting next level of life. Yashty (talk) 16:40, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

To editor Yashty: that does seem to be one of the most common beliefs among people around the world. What is it that determines whether one continues to the "next birth" or connects with the "next level of life", and what do those two phrases mean to you?  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  16:49, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Happiness

Wishes to make the minds happy

Wish you Happy New Year 2018 to all fellow living beings . We are all very lucky and happy to live on the earth and enjoying it's resources. Mind is traveling to know the people The things which are visible and invisible making us happy. Examples- colours ,sea,kites, balloons,flying high ,dreams,pet animals etc Yashty (talk) 16:48, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Genetics

Genetics is a Greek term means "to generate".Genetics decode the secrets of our lives.So many living things in our mother land "Earth".The basic or primitive organism is the bacterium.For example Escherichia coli which has a simple genome but a flexible DNA material !.It undergoes changes in harsh environment to pleasant evironment.It conserves it's own structure and functions through genetic transfer.Simple man's genetic tool or a learner's friend. Yashty (talk) 16:57, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Belief in next birth

Next birth is the decision of soul to take a new form life.Continuing the life travel according to the unfulfilled wishes or duties. These words are just according to my perception. Yashty (talk) 17:48, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

To editor Yashty: Welcome to Wikipedia! I left a welcome box on your talk page, and to get you started, please read Wikipedia:User pages, which has useful information and links for you. Happy Publishing!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  19:14, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

MRT station moves

Thanks for all that! You missed this one, which has redirect in the way: Fort Canning MRT Station. Dicklyon (talk) 04:03, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

It's a pleasure, Dicklyon! An editor reverted the rename, so I'm workin' on it.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  04:09, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
Oh, yes, I see. Bad move, that. Dicklyon (talk) 04:13, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
So... I only got one notification (thankfully) but are 34 edits really necessary/efficient to deal with an issue like that? Wouldn't AWB be more effective, or even just a simple find/replace? Seems excessive. I'm not criticizing necessarily, just thinking that there are more efficient ways of dealing with stuff like this. Like, genuinely curious as to your motivations. As I said, I only got one notification so from that perspective "who cares" Primefac (talk) 12:11, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
To editor Primefac: as with most things, I get more efficient as I go along. I'm used to template followup after page moves, and there are usually fewer redirects that need to be bypassed. I did get more efficient on the next template by making by my count 283 183 similar changes in only 11 edits. A cleanup scope of this magnitude doesn't happen to me everyday, but given a little time I do tend to adapt. Thank you very much for your concern!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  12:52, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 5 February 2018

New Page Reviewer Newsletter

Hello Paine Ellsworth, thank you for your efforts in reviewing new pages!
The NPP backlog at the end of the drive with the number of unreviewed articles by creation date. Red is older than 90 days, orange is between 90 and 30 days old, and green is younger than 30 days.

Backlog update:

  • The new page backlog is currently at 3819 unreviewed articles, with a further 6660 unreviewed redirects.
  • We are very close to eliminating the backlog completely; please help by reviewing a few extra articles each day!

New Year Backlog Drive results:

  • We made massive progress during the recent four weeks of the NPP Backlog Drive, during which the backlog reduced by nearly six thousand articles and the length of the backlog by almost 3 months!

General project update:

  • ACTRIAL will end it's initial phase on the 14th of March. Our goal is to reduce the backlog significantly below the 90 day index point by the 14th of March. Please consider helping with this goal by reviewing a few additional pages a day.
  • Reviewing redirects is an important and necessary part of New Page Patrol. Please read the guideline on appropriate redirects for advice on reviewing redirects. Inappropriate redirects can be re-targeted or nominated for deletion at RfD.

If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here. 20:32, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Can you help?

Hello PE. I saw this thread User talk:BrownHairedGirl#Polaris (UK nuclear programme) and thought you might be able to explain things. Regards. MarnetteD|Talk 06:01, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

To editor MarnetteD: Hello, I see that BHG explained it well after you posted here. I also see that H7 has opened a Requested move at Talk:UK Polaris programme#Requested move 13 February 2018, and I expect that rename to be well-supported. Is there anything you think I need to add? It was a little surprising to see an editor (H7) who has been around so long who seemed to not grasp that category move templates go on categories and not on articles, but it looks like BHG has made things right. I'll be glad to help, so just let me know how I can.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  22:48, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
It looks like everything has been taken care of. I saw this shortly before heading off to saw some logs last night (zzzz) and thought things were a bit odd. I appreciate your taking a look at things AND for taking the time to leave this detailed reply. Many thanks and best regards. MarnetteD|Talk 23:30, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Pleasure! Paine  

Template:Stnlnk

Hello Paine. Thank you for taking the trouble to make {{Stnlnk}} more accurate and usable. I agree that the new ordering is better. I think you may have inadvertently replaced the old second preference from "p1 (p2) station" by a slightly different new third preference "p1 (p2 station)". This has the benefit of making {{Stnlnk|103rd|CTA}}103rd now link to 103rd (CTA station), but breaks usage such as {{Stnlnk|Ahlen|Westfalen}}Ahlen, which (I think) used to link to Ahlen (Westfalen) station. Is it better to include both? Thanks again, Certes (talk) 11:22, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

It's a tricky situation, and I'll definitely look into it further. I used a navbar (see Template:Stnlnk/testcases) that I'd hoped covered most of the different case types, and I intend to continue to look for ways to improve the station link template. Thank you so much for your help with this!  Paine  12:56, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
To editor Certes: I just placed the previous code back into the sandbox and {{Stnlnk/sandbox|Ahlen|Westfalen}}Ahlen appears to have been a red link before my edit to the live template. {{Stnlnk/sandbox|103rd|CTA}}103rd seems to link to the same redirect as {{Stnlnk|103rd|CTA}}103rd. Am I missing something?  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  13:10, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, Paine, you're absolutely right. The new version handles exactly the same cases as the old one but in a better order. (I reformatted a local copy of the template to make it legible, but made a typo in doing so.) Let's hope that one day all titles are in the One True Format and we don't need all this chicanery. Certes (talk) 16:01, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
To editor Certes: no problemo, 'twas an honest mistake. I still intend to keep working on the template using the navbar on the testcases page to see if I can bypass redirects and maybe even fix red links. It's a good and interesting template, but the order seems to be in need of some bringing up to date. Again, I appreciate any help and guidance you can provide!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  22:46, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
PS. Just so you know, I usually use my given name sig here on my talk page, but I have to use the full-name sig if I want the notification system to work. (PS left by Paine)

To editor Certes: {{Stnlnk}} appears to be working much better now, see {{Closed stations Cumbria}}. I saved the red links (fixed one or two) at the last minute so editors will be able to see what articles may still need to be created. All the redirects have been bypassed either with the improvements to Stnlnk or minor fixes to the Closed stations Cumbria navbar. I was even able to convert the few direct wikilinks in the navbar to Stnlnk templates. When you get a chance, please check my work and let me know if I left anything out or forgot anything. And thanks again!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  10:46, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

That looks much better. (I'm particularly impressed with the way you've made the template legible without adding a dozen line feeds into all the articles, as seems to happen whenever I try that!) One question: when there's only one parameter, do we need to check for "Foo railway station" being a redirect? I'd have expected {{Stnlink|Ranipur}}Ranipur to link to the station, but it links to the town dab because Ranipur railway station is a redirect to the station's full name rather than the article title. Also in {{Closed stations Cumbria}}, I think the author was deliberately linking to the names of the closed railway lines, even though they don't have their own articles and their names redirect to the later railway which took them over. But overall it's a great improvement and so much easier to read. Thank you! Certes (talk) 11:20, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, Certes! Let's see – it looks like a redirect check would be easy enough if necessary. Your example could go {{Stnlnk|Ranipur Riyasat||Ranipur}}Ranipur or {{Stnlnk|Ranipur Riyasat}}Ranipur Riyasat. If you think some links in the navbar should be restored to their original states, that's okay with me. I was no expert on the stations when I began, and while I've learned a few things, I'm still no expert. You do whatever you think is right. I hope editors will leave the readable code in the Stnlnk template as it is – I'm all for readability. Thanks again!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  11:35, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
What I'm suggesting is that we remove the existing redirect check. I think {{Stnlink|Ranipur}} should link to the station rather than the town dab, because the existence of the primary redirect shows that Ranipur Riyasat railway station is the primary topic for the term "Ranipur railway station". Another example: {{Stnlink|Tøyen}} sends me to the page for the town (Tøyen), because Tøyen railway station is not the article title but a redirect to Tøyen Station. Certes (talk) 12:32, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
I'm even wondering whether {{Stnlink|Foo}} should create a link to Foo town at all, or whether it's better to make a redlink to the station. {{Closed stations Cumbria}} linked to Mr. F. W. Micklethwaite, even before your changes. I appreciate that it is useful for occasional cases such as Britomart Transport Centre, where the station article isn't called "...station". But I think we at least need a townlink=no stnonly=yes option, for times when leaving a redlink to Micklethwaite railway station is preferable to creating a blue link to an unrelated article. Certes (talk) 15:24, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
I've had a look at {{Closed stations Cumbria}} and hope I've combined the best bits of the new and old revisions. Please feel free to revert if necessary. I think everything there is as good as I can make it, apart from Mr. Micklethwaite who should turn red if we can change {{Stnlink}}. Certes (talk) 17:33, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Your edits look good to me. I wondered about the two groups that were identically titled. Thank you for straightening that one out. I've put code in the sandbox that will just need a slight alteration in the navbar to make Micklethwaite a red link: {{Stnlnk/sandbox|Micklethwaite railway station||Micklethwaite}}Micklethwaite. See also the test cases at Template:Stnlnk/testcases#Template:Stnlnk/sandbox, which shows that the new code reduced "103rd" to a red link. I have to go, so I'll return to that issue later.  Paine  17:55, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
I also have to go but I've tried an alternative version in the module sandbox. Currently bashing my head over why both versions insist on adding a redlink to Newtown (Cumbria) when it should be a redlink to Newtown railway station (Cumbria). Certes (talk) 19:12, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
I've added some general cases to Template:Stnlnk/testcases. The sandbox now seems to be doing what I want and expect, which of course may not match what others want and expect. It uses the first pattern for which the page exists, or the first pattern (as a redlink) if none of the pages exists. An optional townlink=no stnonly=yes parameter prevents any page without "station" in the title from matching, which gives an alternative solution for Micklethwaite. Certes (talk) 02:52, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
Yes, we do need stnonly=. Someone just made an innocent edit to List of closed railway stations in Britain: D-F (ironically replacing a broken Stnlnk call by plain text), and 37 links to dabs popped up. I've boldly started a discussion to see if we can get this change implemented. Certes (talk) 01:36, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 February 2018

Wikidata-redirect template added

Hi Paine, just noticed this edit where {{Wikidata redirect}} was added to (8798) Tarantino, a secondary minor-planet redirect using a parenthetical notation. Is this edit just an anomaly or does it potentially apply to a much larger scope? Best, Rfassbind – talk 23:09, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

To editor Rfassbind: hi, I am working through Category:Redirects connected to a Wikidata item, and the MP redirects just happened to be some of the first in that category. Not sure about the size of the scope; but it's probably not very large. There is discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy#Template:Wikidata redirect on all MP#Rs with a Wikidata item? that may also be of interest.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  01:30, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
On closer inspection & further consideration, that WD discussion has been going on for months, {{Wikidata redirect}} isn't at TfD, that category appears more or less stable, the vast majority of applicable MP#Rs already have the template (only ~8 are missing it while the remaining 476 already have it), I don't see any problem with just finishing it off. One puzzling thing I see in Category:Redirects connected to a Wikidata item, is that it contains more List of minor planets/10001–10100-type pages than MP#Rs (955 vs. 484...).   ~ Tom.Reding (talkdgaf)  02:08, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
To clarify, it doesn't seem worthwhile to place {{Wikidata redirect}} on List of minor planets #Rs. And a troubling thing I noticed was that all of those 8 had {{NASTRO comment|do-not-cat=yes}}, meaning they're not the 'primary' #R for the MP, adding (or at least exposing) yet another layer of maintenance to be performed.   ~ Tom.Reding (talkdgaf)  02:15, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
It's all pretty new. The category I work from was created on 10 Feb by TheDJ, and I'm not even sure how it's populated. Maybe TheDJ can shed some light on it for us?  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  02:22, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
It's a Tracking category. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 19:53, 2 March 2018 (UTC)