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June 2016

On RfC, the names of transgender/non-binary people in the lead section of biographies, and canvassing

This message is twofold. Firstly, I'd imagine you'd be interested in the discussion here which seems to continue a trend in questioning content guidelines related to people's personal identity. Definitely have a read and contribute, as I'm sure you will.

I'm new to RfC however, and I have no idea of what is an appropriate way to canvass for interest in the discussion. Having taken part in an RfC you recently attracted attention to successfully, if you're interested I'd appreciate it if you helped this RfC as well. Or perhaps just give me an idea of what I should be doing - anyone or anywhere in particular should I be pinging? This would be much appreciated. Let me know what you think NottNott|talk 10:06, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

@NottNott: The spirit, not just the letter of WP:CANVASS is important. We pretty much always want more eyes and brains on such questions, so my approach is to notify aggregate areas, not individual editors, on the basis of which wikiprojects claim scope over the topic, what guidelines or policies cover the issue (and often skip those, unless the dispute is something that might actually change interpretation of a policy/guideline or some other site-wide practice, in which case I would also notify WP:VPPOL, maybe even WP:CENT if it's a huge pot of drama. In a recent case, I also pinged previous respondents (all of them, without regard to position) in two very recent and directly related RfCs, and was careful to link to WP:CCC when commenting that the current RfC aims to undo the results of a previous one (it's a fact that this was the intent of the new RfC, but such an overturn is permissible and is not automatically a red flag).

For an RfC about TG and wording used in relation to them, relevant projects' talk pages would be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sociology, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies for starters. Relevant policypages for the exact case at hand would appear to be Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (the main MoS is where MOS:IDENTITY is), Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section (this is entirely about the lead section), Wikipedia talk:No original research (since it involves what we present to our readers based on the sources, and this policy is also the home of WP:UNDUE), Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies) (obviously, and this is where WP:BIRTHNAME lives), Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons (obviously, though it will not pertain to subjects who are deceased). If the dispute also involves WP:ABOUTSELF, then Wikipedia talk:Verifiability, too. When leaving notices at the talk pages, it is good to use a hatnote of something like {{FYI|Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere}} between the heading and message, to forestall the forking of separate discussions, and to include in the message the rationale for notifying the particular talk page in question (e.g. "Notifying this talk page because this policy is where WP:ABOUTSELF is, and it is central to the debate.", or whatever. Hope that helps. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 17:25, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply! I've messaged WP:VPPOL and recently WP:CENT about this discussion. Another editor thankfully linked to WP:LGBT and WP:BIOGRAPHY. As for the suggestion of WP:POLITICS and WP:LINGUISTICS I'll notify them right now. That should be enough attention for this particular RfC. Bit unsure if the current RfC reached the 'drama level' needed for a listing at WP:CENT, but I figured that enough editors would be interested in discussion for a listing. It's not an obscure topic and really has ramifications on even how the media could perceive WP - important enough.

Thanks for all the brilliant help, I'm much more aware of what to do in an RfC now. Expect to see me hanging around the village pump more often as a result

-NottNott|talk 10:21, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Given the amount of repeat drama (including a lot of off-WP people showing up as meatpuppets to push activism angles) about this issue, often in several high-profile RfCs per year, I think CENT is important in this case. As for RfCs, you might want to sign up for WP:FRS. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 16:40, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject English Language

Hello! I see from User:SMcCandlish/WikiProject English Language X that you drafted a WikiProject around February. Are you interested in (eventually) launching this WikiProject, or was it more of an experiment with the tools? Thanks, Harej (talk) 15:01, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

@Harej: Yes, it's meant to launch, and thanks for joggling me on that. I had put it on the back-burner and got busy due to a flood of real-life work, but I really do need to polish that up and get it live. There's not a lot more to do; mostly just need to set up the infrastructure for it (project banner, categories, etc.). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 16:46, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Would it be okay if I moved it over to the project space? It will help with some of the setup, including setting up the signup form. Harej (talk) 21:14, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

@Harej: I moved it over, so have at it! I'm not really up on how all the "WikiProject X" features work, so any help there would be cool. Most of the content for this project is actually at User:SMcCandlish/WikiProject English Language, and is not yet ported over into the draft WikiProject X setup for the project that was at User:SMcCandlish/WikiProject English Language X. If the page/tab structure, forms, etc., are set up, I can port the content over easily, including the already-extant participants list. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:46, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Much of it should be set up now. (Some of the bot-based sections may take a while to update.) I would recommend inviting the current participants you have signed on to join the WikiProject. Harej (talk) 16:57, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Will look into it over the weekend; I'm stupid-tired right now (it's 4am my time, and I've been working all day then doing the grocery shopping at a 24-hour store). Zzzzz...

Please comment on Talk:Abby Tomlinson

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Respectful astonishment

Good grief, sir! How do you find the time / spoons for all that?

BTW, I noticed that you have the "less"/"fewer" userbox in two places.

(I apologize if this comment winds up on the wrong part of the page. I'm doing this on my smartphone and could not find another "edit" pencilicon or an "add comment" button.)

Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 17:02, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

@Thnidu: Not sure which "all that" you mean. My activity level on here is comparatively at a very low point lately due to work (the paying kind) and other projects; I'm often much more active. I make the time by not having much in the way of other hobbies (which has also been changing; I need to shake things up a little). I'm also single lately, I don't have kids, and I quit drinking several years ago, so I don't spend time going to bars and nightclubs and parties much, unless I have a specific reason to be there (someone's birthday, whatever). And I don't watch TV much. I also type fast, and have two huge monitors, which makes research and citation concurrent with editing pretty easy. I'm not subject to a disability that kicks in that "dwindling spoons" problem (a metaphor that never made sense to me, though I see the effect, as my housemate has it due to chronic fatigue syndrome, as do several friends with fibromyalgia and the like, and I empathize with it, because I'm in the hamster ball; it's the exact same kind of drainage, just for a different reason, but one which for me does not happen with online interaction, a not-unknown effect). I guess I need fewer less/fewer userboxes. Will fix. No worries about the post placement. I gave up on the WP mobile app myself, and if I need to mobile-edit, I always use Chrome and force it to give me the non-mobile version of the page. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:17, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 23, 2016)

The Hilton Athens is part of the Hilton Hotels & Resorts hotel chain.

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Hilton Hotels & Resorts

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Please comment on Talk:Cary Grant

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Renaming Wikipedia:Naming character articles

Thank you for two years ago cleaning up the essay that I created beforehand. I'm thinking about renaming the essay. Shall it be "naming a character" or "naming characters" or "naming fictional characters"? --George Ho (talk) 06:59, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

@George Ho: I would keep it as is. Wikipedians name articles; authors name characters. So we should have pages about naming articles about characters, not naming characters. If it's meant to go beyond article titles and cover in-article treatment of character names, maybe something like WP:Fictional character names? Also, might be worth seeing if the salient points can be integrated into MOS:FIC, and other fiction-related guidelines, if some of them seem "guideline-worthy". Including "fictional" is helpful, to distinguish from the linguistics and typography senses of "characters". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:17, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Broadening the scope of the essay won't do. On the other hand, probably add rule about the in-article treatment of character names in MOS:FIC and MOS:TV... but not the naming of an article... yet. George Ho (talk) 11:34, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Reference books to buy to not only avoid bad RMs but also create very reasonable RMs in the future

I'm thinking about buying other reference books per WP:NCCAPS, but if the latest edition of New Hart's Rules is not reliable, what are reliable books to buy before I waste money on doing so? Therefore, I can make more efficient proposals and rationale, but I can also avoid bad ones in the future. --George Ho (talk) 07:20, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

@George Ho: I rely most heavily on the following, and they have been the principal sources for MoS itself:

Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed., 2010)
- The expansion of the grammar chapter, The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation (2016) just came out, but I have not reviewed it in any detail yet.
New Hart's Rules (ed. Ritter; 1st ed, 2005; reissued in 2012 as New Oxford Style Manual 2nd ed., with full text of New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors [2005] included, and it is the same text as the 2014 edition of NODfWE).
Fowler's Modern English Usage (ed. Burchfield; revd. 3rd ed., 2004)
Garner's Modern English Usage (4th ed, 2016, sometimes listed as "1st ed." because of the name change and expansion from the older Garner's Modern American Usage)
Scientific Style and Format (CSE; 8th ed., 2014)
The Elements of Style (Strunk & White; 4th ed., 1999; 50th ann. hardcover reprint 2006) – beware self-published crap based on the public-domain 1st ed., masquerading as "updates"; I see ones dating to 2011, 2012, and 2015, and they're all unreliable except perhaps as kindling for starting your campfire).
Oxford Style Manual (2003) – I keep this one because it includes the last published edition of the original Hart's, as The Oxford Guide to Style [also available separately under that OGtS title, 2002], before the New Hart's revisions, which were in places abridgements, not just updates).

I do also keep around copies of the following, despite their flaws:

New Hart's Rules (ed. Waddingham; 2nd ed., 2014). However, if you want to save money, get New Oxford Style Manual (3rd ed., 2016). This has the 2014 NHR and the 2014 NODfWE, which is not really an update from the 2005/2012 version despite the "revised edition" labeling).
Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage (ed. Butterfield; 4th ed., 2015).

My "technique" is to refer to these newest editions first, and go with them if they're sane. Where (quite often) they either don't give clear advice, or even directly contradict each other or even themselves in different sections, I go back to the 2004–2005 Ritter and Burchfield editions, which were much more sensibly written and edited, and have been much more influential. It's much like sticking with Windows 7 in a professional environment, because Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 are half-baked garbage despite some modern sheen intended to appeal to home users.

I have pretty much every style guide there is at this point, except for a couple of expensive textbook ones that are intended for the American college student market, and don't contain anything new, or authoritative, but I'll get those eventually, too. We don't much use the AMA, APA, MHRA, MLA, etc., guides, as most of what they cover that's of a language usage nature is already covered in the above (especially CSE, when it comes to scientific and technical matters like units); most of their content is about citation formatting, not style in the MoS sense.

All that said, "per NC:CAPS" doesn't really mean much. NC:CAPS is based on MOS:CAPS, and follows the same rules. It suggests some external guides as additional reading, but there's no need to resort to that unless MOS:CAPS (or MOS:whatever – MOS main, MOS:TM, MOS:FIC, etc.) rules are unclear on something, and MOS talk page discussion doesn't resolve to clarify it.

Oh! For an overview of style guides, dictionaries, and other such resources, see the section for this at User:SMcCandlish/WikiProject English Language (which is shortly going to be integrated into WP:WikiProject English Language which went live about a day ago and is still under construction (Harej was helping set up the layout). Sounds like your kind of project. :-) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:17, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Can you tell me about the Fowler's editions please? George Ho (talk) 02:58, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

The Burchfield one is straightforward, and is very similar to Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, and Garner's Modern; they're all in usage dictionary format, as are most if not all journalism style guides, with alphabetical entries for frequently problematic terms and constructions. These all differ from works like Hart's and Chicago (and the CSE book, specific to the sciences), which are more like MoS: topical sections on how to construct written material. These are, in turn, different from the bulk of the organization-specific guides (AMA, APA, MHRA, etc.), which are primarily about citation formatting and the expectations of journals in particular fields. Anyway, the Butterfield edition of Fowler's suffers from the same malaise as the Waddingham ed. of New Hart's: They've both become confused as to their role, and take an increasingly descriptive instead of prescriptive approach. That is desirable in a linguistics volume about a language, but antithetical to the purpose of a style guide (of any format). Both Waddingham and Butterfield go to great lengths to describe pretty much every known usage variation, and then frequently fail to distinguish between any of them by genre, register, intended audience (age, specialty, etc.), except sometimes lapsing into unsupported nationalism ("Americans do X, British do Y" without any actual basis for such assertions). Garner's also suffers from this problem, but is otherwise much better in its descriptive approach, using a scale of language change based on actual data, and basing recommendations on formality level and how that intersects with the language change scale. Butterfield and Waddingham are a real mess. For much of their length it's as if someone tried to write some guidelines, and some linguistics-based editor later came along and rubbed it all out, and said, "No, we have to just throw up our hands and advise nothing because there's more than one way to do this that has seen print." I say "as if" with tongue firmly in cheek, because that's exactly what's actually happened. As one example, a particular quotation punctuation style is not attested anywhere at all except in one British newspaper, yet these books give it equal weight with all other quotation styles, even though in reality only three or at most four styles (out of around a dozen total) are actually pervasive in publishing at all, and each in different sectors. I seriously think that the publishing world is mostly going to ignore both Butterfield and Waddingham until subsequent editions rectify such deficiencies, which even include blatant self-contradictions, like the one I outlined before about musical work titles: Waddingham in one section says to treat them exactly like book and article titles (and there's a section on that, albeit an overly descriptive one), then says there are no rules for musical titles at all and that writers should just format such titles however they like, then in yet another section spells out a whole bunch of very specific rules, for one particular genre. It's confused, confusing and basically schizophrenic, the result of too many editors making changes and no one reviewing the sum total from a problem-solving perspective. Then Butterfield comes a long and, on that matter, simply defers to Waddingham. It's like asking a doctor for a diagnosis and prescription, and instead being told something like "there's nothing wrong with you, except whatever you imagine is wrong with you may be wrong with you, and I can't prescribe anything for you, except I'll prescribe a very complicated drug cocktail regimen for you, but only if we agree on what you think is wrong with you"; then you go to the next doctor, and say "that last doctor is clearly crazy; can I please have a proper diagnosis and prescription?", then being told "Sure, go ask the doctor you were just talking to; she's the expert." Well, no thanks. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:46, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Oh, dear. If Fowler's and New Hart's have problems, perhaps I must stay away from those? I could go to MOS:CT as usual unless it becomes unclear for various situations, like like for example. Most disagree with my proposals on as (I did a few total). What is your recommend source for like, yet, and as? I could buy more if MOS:CT is still unclear and the sources are less reliable to resolve such situations. George Ho (talk) 02:17, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Neutral notice

As a participator in the discussion at Talk:Universal Monsters (2014 film series)#Requested move 25 May 2016, you maybe interested in a discussion regarding a similar topic at Talk:Godzilla-Kong cinematic universe#Requested move 3 June 2016.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 15:34, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Yuri Kochiyama

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Single-player listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Single-player. Since you had some involvement with the Single-player redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. -- Tavix ^(talk) 00:51, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 24, 2016)

A cubic zirconia crystal made by the Shelby Gem Factory

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Shelby Gem Factory

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Please comment on Talk:Caroline Overington

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June 2016

Fixed

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MOSKorea comments

Just a heads up that I copied some of your comments from Talk:Baekje to WT:MOSKOREA. — AjaxSmack 14:33, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

@AjaxSmack: Thanks, good idea. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:05, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Books & Bytes - Issue 17

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by The Interior, Ocaasi, UY Scuti, Sadads, and Nikkimaria

New donations this month - a German-language legal resource
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This week's article for improvement (week 25, 2016)

The aqueduct of Segovia, Spain

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List of aqueducts in the Roman Empire

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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)

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Wikipedia how to

Fixed

I think that you broke {{Wikipedia how to}}.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:29, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Also {{Information page}} [1]. Code is showing up in pages that transclude it. - Brianhe (talk) 00:31, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Yep. Self-reverting now until I re-sandbox it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:32, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk and Brianhe: Resolved; apparently my attempts to use <nowiki /> strategically to stop unusual constructions from boogering the syntax highlighting actually didn't work, and this wasn't apparent without forcibly reloading the testcases page. Anyway, well past that now. Consolidated some of the code, and have documented both of these templates (one had no docs) with the same /doc page. Over time, hope to massage more and more of these things to have the same feature set so they can just be meta-templated. Did some earlier work toward that goal with the guideline banner variants a few months ago. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:19, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Isaac Barrow

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FAC request

Hi Stanton - saying something like "I don't believe this article meets WP:WIAFA criterion 2 because (reasons)" is constructive criticism and that type of involvement is always welcome at FAC, whether the nominator agrees with you or not. My job as FAC coordinator is to determine consensus in cases where there is disagreement. However, I would prefer extended arguments about the MoS guidelines in general be held elsewhere, maybe a central location where other people can discuss the proper use of various templates. Would you be agreeable to hatting and/or moving that discussion elsewhere? I think SchroCat is well aware by now that some editors disagree with his usage of that template, and I'd prefer the litigation occur in an appropriate venue. --Laser brain (talk) 21:31, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

@Laser brain: No problem; despite being around forever, I'm not well-steeped in the FAC discussion expectations (I spend more time working on stubs and stuff), and didn't mean to be off-topic at it. I wasn't going to continue the conversation with SchroCat or Cassianto any further (except perhaps at a noticeboard) because they've turned it very WP:ASPERSIONS- and WP:NPA-problematic very fast, including after I left the prescribed {{Ds/alert}}: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9], etc. (Oh, and deleting my article talk page posts [10], [11]). All because I did the unspeakable thing of commenting at a grand total of two pages (following SchroCat's own references to the one in the other) against their anti-MoS lobbying of GAN and FAC. This constitutes WP:HARASSMENT and WP:DE on my part according to both of them. Obviously, continuing to interact with them will not be any use at an FAC page itself, or much of anywhere but a DR forum, but I have no patience for dramaboards, and my skin's thick, so the duo can rail on, I guess. SchroCat is aware of the MOS:BQ template problem, obviously, but is convinced MoS doesn't apply to him, judging by what he's posting on the matter (including still, at Cassianto's talk page). I have no objections to the thread at FAC being hatted; the point was made clearly and I agree it's not the forum for an extended discussion of such matters. I'm sure the FAC people know their own criterion #2 well enough. :-) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:24, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

It continues to escalate [12], [13] and not just against me [14]. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:46, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 26, 2016)

Home page of Wikipedia

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Home page

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GMO RfC

Resolved

Length

Thanks again. One other thing I noticed: I think that you are over the 800-word word limit. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:30, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: Gahhh. All this damned WP:BURO. Since the clerks are patrolling it, they can trim it or hat it or talk-page it; I'm tired and don't care any more. This has been one long day of "go fuck yourself" and I'm worn out. :-/ PS: If they want a limit that short, they can't expect an open-ended RfC, where people can keep tacking on additional proposals, to be practical. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:59, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you feel that way, and that you are being further lobbied below. Unfortunately, it's been like this a long time in the GMO area. My guess is that they will hat it, but not edit it. If you do decide to shorten it, please let me make this friendly suggestion, just a suggestion. I don't expect that there will be a template on the pages, but rather, that the consensus language will simply be one of the proposals, perhaps with minor revisions, and that it will be pasted on every affected page and kept there via AE and DS. So you don't necessarily have to recommend ways to combine proposals or ways to apply the language differently at different pages. Of course, the page-to-page differences you discuss will in fact exist, but they just will be in text outside of the short content arising from the RfC. Again, just a suggestion. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:38, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Noted. I'll try to get to it later. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:40, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: PS: I don't feel lobbied below; the issues raised are valid. I was referring to the two-editor attack tagteam I posted diffs about at #FAC request, above. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:47, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Complexities

Also, SMcCandlish, I noticed you were under the impression that there was edit warring at the articles (or something to that effect), and it seemed to weigh on your assessment. So I'd like to offer a correction, as Sarah SV noted, "Most importantly, there is no trouble at any of the articles".

You may not be surprised to hear, but this issue is incredibly complex, including the history of the dispute on WP, and the dispute over this RfC specifically. I'm not sure everyone is getting their facts straight. Cheers, petrarchan47 คุ ก 02:43, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

@Petrarchan47: I'm not at all surprised to hear it's complex; I'm aware of the complexity, I'm just not an every-day regular at GMO articles and don't care to get involved in the personality conflicts and the politics. A years-long "slow editwar" is still an edit-war, an editorial struggle of one WP:TRUTH versus another, even if no one breaches 3RR lately. No trouble at the articles right this moment is a good sign and an improvement, but there's been long-term trouble, rising to the ARBCOM level multiple times, and now one of the longest-winded RfCs in WP history (and if I call something long-winded, well day-um, as Will Smith would say.) I stand by my summary at the end of what I posted there, about what the goals should be and pitfalls to avoid, and by the flaws I identified in the proposals I objected to. The only thing that changed is my certainty about the solidity for the sourcing that there's a scientific consensus on GMO food safety has been shaken a little by some alternative sources ("a little" because it will take time and effort to sort out which are actually reliable presumptively, and which more reliable than others); my revision accounts for that uncertainty. I also stand by the fact that we should still use and link to that sourced term, even if it's to say "whether there is a scientific consensus is unclear", not use a made-up term with no definition. People can take what they find useful in my comments and ignore what they don't. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:59, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

As you know, I always appreciate your thoughtful responses on WP. I would never attempt to sway you, either, though we have never agreed 100%. I have in fact been on the GMO scene since the trouble began, and can assure you that people aren't getting the story straight (there has only been one ArbCom, but this is the 3rd RfC on the contested statement, and believe it or not, the "slow edit war" has actually been a mellow series of GF editors pointing out obvious misuse of sources resulting in attempts at obfuscation by escalating these confrontations to noticeboards, almost instantly). I also don't expect you or anyone to get involved in this mess enough to really get all the facts. The only downside to that is that word of mouth ends up filling in for research. You know how that goes.

I find your suggestion re "scientific consensus" interesting. I could support that idea. According to the literature I have seen, "it is unclear" is accurate and very well supported. petrarchan47 คุ ก 05:04, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

I went into this a bit more near bottom of talk page of RfC. I don't support substituting WoM for research, but the research evidence in the proposals is insufficient and contradictory, and needs to be re-examined with literature reviews that are less than a year old, and from high-quality journals. It is clear in the aggregate from what I've read so far that overall, science considers GMO food safe. GMO crops may raise other issues, but it's not about the safety of ingestion. There are also concerns that we can't be as certain some of us think we are about ingestion safety over the long term. I don't see any evidence yet of current GMO foods being found to cause disease, but I've also lost access to two journal sites in one month, so I'm not in a good position to be personally certain about that. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:40, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

@Petrarchan47: forgot to ping on that one. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:47, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

You won't find proof of GMO food safety as it concerns human health, because no tests are done on humans, and certainly no long-term feeding tests are performed, even on rats. Industry prefers 9 month rat studies. Claims of safety are based in general on "we've been eating this stuff for twenty years and have witnessed no deaths from it". In the U.S., no agency is tracking long term human health effects. We don't see evidence of disease, but is anyone is looking? I know that when Stephanie Seneff found links to autism and organ damage from glyphosate, her reputation and Wikipedia page were attacked. (Actually here is the last version I would trust without reviewing subsequent edits for npov, etc.) This is actually very common for any scientist who discovers problems in this area, strangely. Check this out. Nice chatting with you, petrarchan47 คุ ก 21:12, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

@Petrarchan47: I'll try to address this at sufficient length that it leaves no mysteries as to where I'm coming form on this. In science, especially complex science, there's rarely proof of anything, just evidence. Lack of evidence that it kills people is evidence it does not. Evidence against fetal mutation in rapid-breeding mammals is evidence against it in slow-breeding ones (and evidence of toxic effects of an herbicide in fast-metabolism mammals is evidence for it in slower-living ones). Maybe not the best imaginable evidence, but it can't be hand-waved away. The problem as I see it is there's hand-waving on both sides, two entrenched pro and anti camps (and lots of middle-ground people, both in the scientific and regulatory bodies, and here on Pickyweedia). That some of the pro camp are cranks is evidenced by things like attempts to harm the reputations of scientists who provide contradictory evidence, as you point out. Glyphosate, however, is a poison. As with DDT and Agent Orange, we should expect that it would have toxic effects on people. That doesn't seem to relate in any way to GMOs. An attempt to relate them looks rather like what the non-crank pro-GMO side think is a crank, luddite argument on the anti-GMO side ("it's science, and has all this chemistry stuff and lab coats involved, so it must be bad"). I don't think you hold that view, but I hope you can see that introducing "science erred over here in a different field, and it got political, ergo the same thing must be happening here even though we can't prove it" arguments aren't convincing about this other, separate field. But the anti-GMO crowd do this all the time: [15] [16]. Note that it's a confusion of GMOs with pesticides used on crops (and crops infused with the pesticide). Then a semi-news outlet reproduces the exact same brain-fart (can't link it, as it's in WP's URL blacklist: www.examiner.com/article/gmo-foods-cause-tumors-and-early-death-according-to-new-studies). It's transparently fallacious.

There are clearly cranks in the anti camp. Where I live (San Francisco Bay Area), I'm surrounded by millions of them. My neighbor has a "DRINK RAW MILK" bumper sticker, I live with a vegan, am within walking distance of 3 "organic" grocers, and I have mostly had to stop using Facebook for conversational purposes, because too many of my friends are activistically anti-GMO, anti-pesticide/herbicide, about half-and-half anti-vaccine, convinced that everything about climate change is humanity's fault, etc. (as you can probably guess, this crowd are mostly white, middle to upper-middle class, leftists with liberal arts educations, and smart enough to know that the science behind much of what they believe in simply isn't there; it's a post-modern form of religion).

With regard to GMOs I'm most concerned about source reliability, especially after watching and mostly staying out of the e-cig sourcing fights. What to look out for is behind-the-scenes data manipulation antics, like all the bogus studies paid for, for decades, by the tobacco industry to try to suppress evidence of the dangers of smoking; that is something that might actually port directly from one field to another, maybe even with the same PR firms managing it, the same corrupt labs doing the "research", etc. Monsanto and their ilk have a tremendous amount of money to throw at snowing both regulators and the general public if they want to.)

Anyway, my general position on this as a Wikipedian is root out the PoV pushing, even if its a PoV I lean toward in my private life. (I've made few fans over at WP:MEDRS by pointing out that they're trying to enshrine the position statements – primary sources – of various politicized medical and regulatory organizations as "ideal secondary sources", when they are neither. Many editors agree with me, but a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS totally WP:OWNs that page, so despite multiple extended discussions, it's still in there, and probably will not be removed without a Village Pump RfC, which I'll try early next year; I see it as impermissibly tendentious to keep re-testing consensus on a matter in rapid-fire succession.) As a private person, I think we treat, for example, far too many "religious" groups that are clearly scams and cults as legitimately religious, and write about them just like they were Shinto, Jainism, or the Methodists; but with my Wikipedian hat on, I'll continue to remove claims like "dangerous, criminal cult" from articles on Scientology, though I know from over a decade of research into and direct experience with them that they are in WP:TRUTH exactly what that phrase claims they are. On issues like that, and GMOs, and e-cigs, etc., I see myself, here, as a referee, not a player (or sometimes a retired player, in the case of CoS, but many refs in sports are retired players, so it's a good analogy anyway). There are issues in which I remain an active player, and I consequently stay away from editing articles on them, per WP:COI, other than routine, non-substantive gnoming.

You don't need my whole life story, I'm just trying to establish for you and any talk-page stalkers where I'm coming from on this. GMOs are necessary, or a very large number of people are going to starve to death over the coming century. It is not scientifically plausible that all GMOs are unhealthy. It's also not plausible that every potential GMO will be healthy. And we already know that there are environmental concerns with them. But if I were at risk of starving, I would rather live to 48 and die of a GMO-caused cancer, than to have died at 12 from malnutrition. As someone in the affluent West, I would also rather live comfortably to 48 and die of GMO-caused cancer, than live to 68 but in a world where a loaf of bread costs $20, I have to stand in line for 10 hours to get one, if I'm lucky, and I might get shot for my bread on the way home. Longevity takes a back seat to quality of life for most people. And where's the evidence GMOs cause cancer and other diseases anyway? Cigarettes and alcohol, high-fat-and-cholesterol diets and diabetes (in the developed world), and starvation/malnutrition (outside it) are killing and will continue to kill far more people than GMOs, especially given that GMOs don't seem to be killing any one, even when the news claims they are and gets caught with their pants down [17]. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:30, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I thought you said that very well indeed. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:35, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I see how confusing it was for me to have pointed to a glyphosate issue, when I could have showed you instead the early edit history of the Seralini Affair article, and this showing the other side of the story. [Seralini used glyphosate in his (now republished, peer reviewed) feeding study, by the way, as does Monsanto.] So I don't think it's fair to say the two are entirely separate issues, they aren't treated that way in all GMO safety studies anyway. Also remember, no one in this RfC or on WP is trying to say that GMOs are dangerous, let alone that they are shown to cause cancer or organ damage. Rather, we have been saying that sources used by this encyclopedia to claim there is absolutely no question in scientific literature that GMOs are safe have not actually said that, that the sources are being misrepresented, and that we should simply say what the sources say rather than to allow random editors to summarize the sources for us, after hand picking them.

To get unbiased, accurate information, neither Snopes (run by a mom and pop with no training in anything besides how to use Google) nor Wikipedia should be serious considerations, imo. As for the "GMOs will feed the world", check this out:

"in its report, the ERS researchers said over the first 15 years of commercial use, GMO seeds have not been shown to definitively increase yield potentials, and "in fact, the yields of herbicide-tolerant or insect-resistant seeds may be occasionally lower than the yields of conventional varieties" Reuters
"in a new paper funded by the US Department of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin researchers have essentially negated the "more food" argument" (more proofs here)
"genetically engineered crops...have not significantly improved the yields of crops such as corn and soy. Emily Cassidy, an EWG research analyst who authored the report, found that in the last 20 years, yields of both GE corn and soy have been no different from traditionally bred corn and soy grown in western Europe, where GE crops are banned. Additionally, a recent case study in Africa found that crops that were crossbred for drought tolerance using traditional techniques improved yields 30 percent more than GE varieties"
"The report also said that in the two decades that GE crops have been a mainstay in conventional agriculture, they “have not substantially improved global food security” and have instead increased the use of toxic herbicides and led to herbicide-resistant “superweeds.”"
while corn and soybeans take up the vast majority (about 80 percent) of global land devoted to growing GE crops, they are not even used to feed people but instead as animal feed or fuel." Ecowatch

Again, you won't find this information on WP; I assure you without even checking first that this is true. I know how we roll. petrarchan47 คุ ก 22:26, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

But no one at all that I've seen has made anything like a claim that "there is absolutely no question in scientific literature that GMOs are safe"; that's not what scientific consensus would indicate, and this has already been discussed in considerable detail on the RfC talk page – the very meaning of scientific consensus permits some level of disagreement or skepticism, and it is not synonymous with "scientific agreement" (the very wording of that pseudo-term precludes disagreement). And I'm not going to shed any tears over or wave any flags for old studies that did not clearly delineate between glyphosate contamination in GMOs, and the GMO, as such, themselves. They're simply not reliable sources on the question, by definition. They may be reliable sources on, say, certain Monsanto product lines, but the tell us nothing about GMO crops or food unto themselves. Anyway, I'm tiring of this debate being weirdly centered on me and my RfC comments instead of the issue raised by the RfC. Please divert energy back to the RfC, the material's sourcing, and its source reliability. I'm not defending any particular sources and only leaning toward a generalized interpretation of the preponderance of them that I have seen so far, while the bulk of my comments in the RfC are about wording logic, avoidance of OR, style matters, appropriate linking, not using meaningless neologisms, etc. – issues of communication and presentation, not of Wikipedian research methodology. I'm also behind schedule on several off-WP projects, so I just don't have time for a lot of back-and-forth about this. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:12, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

"Scientific Agreement" vs. "Scientific Consensus"

I wanted to briefly give you the history of how the language became "scientific agreement" in the GM articles:

We are presently at the 3rd RfC on the same sentence found in numerous articles since c. 2013.

Last year was a very lengthy RfC#2 (found here). The purpose of RfC#2 was to reaffirm the language saying "broad scientific consensus", but there was no-Wiki consensus for keeping it (or removing it). The author of RfC#2 said that if there was no consensus to keep the language, it would need to change. The closer appeared to agree:

Some of the opposes in this discussion appear to agree with the substance of this section but feel that the wording of the one sentence is overly broad; they might support more nuanced statements. I recommend that someone propose an alternative wording.

The closer of the previous RfC (#1) years before (found here) on the same language said something similar:

... it may be helpful to refer to to some of the literature reviews to represent alternative views on the matter with respect to due weight.

I put this notice to get people to discuss the change. They did, and it was a very long discussion here. The discussion ended with this compromise: this edit which changed "broad scientific consensus" to "scientific agreement". I thought it was a slight improvement as "broad scientific consensus" strongly overstated the level of agreement that is in the literature. There was little drama over that sentence for a number of months. In February new attempts to change it back to "scientific consensus" resulted in RfC #3.

As you know I have a very different approach to what that sentence should say, and I agree with the closer of the first RfC that differing opinions on GMO safety from the scientific reviews should be included. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:29, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Whether "broad" should be used is indeed debatable. But "scientific agreement" is the wrong phrase. What can it mean other than "agreement among scientists"? But this is clearly not the same as "scientific consensus"; a "consensus" allows for dissenters; "agreement" doesn't. You can say "There's a consensus on X, although not everyone agrees", but not "There's agreement on X, although not everyone agrees". Peter coxhead (talk) 10:06, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

@David Tornheim and Peter coxhead: My principal concern about this sub-topic of the overall RfC thread is this: We have a well-sourced article at scientific consensus, so anything we say about a scientific consensus (pro, con, or debated) is easily subjected to WP:V, WP:RS and (in this context) even WP:MEDRS tests. If we make up our own "scientific agreement" language, this has no concrete shared meaning that can be reliably sourced; it means whatever you want it to mean, and will thus both be confusing to readers and subject to PoV pushing. I really don't care much (though I appreciated the diffing work) why a bad decision was once arrived at to try this "agreement" language (wording which to me sounds like a pact or a contract). It was still a bad decision regardless of the arguments made at the time. WP operating on a loose consensus basis means that we arrive at bad decisions frequently, and we have the WP:CCC principle, obviously, because they have to be undone later. At any rate, what we've run into here is a conflict between the fact that we're generally free to write up the facts in our own wording (especially to avoid plagiarism), versus the fact that when writing about "technical" (including medical, legal, and other jargon-laden) topics, we have to be careful to use concretely, contextually meaningful wording that is not likely to misunderstood or to misrepresent. Per the WP:ENC and WP:COMMONSENSE principles, the latter of these two modes obviously takes precedence, even if it means linking to a sourced article about a term, citing sources for a term directly in situ, or even using verbatim, attributed quotations (or any combination of these). In this particular case, just linking to the article scientific consensus is sufficient. I agree with Peter's summary of why this term should be preferred anyway, since it provides room for dissent, while (for many readers, anyway) "agreement" may wrongly imply unanimity. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:37, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

I have not looked carefully at the Wiki-article on "scientific consensus". However, the word "consensus" suggests something stronger that a "general agreement" which is why people like me thought it preferable. Consensus often means near unanimous support. See: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Genetically_modified_organisms#Consensus_is_not_the_same_as_Majority_or_General_Agreement --David Tornheim (talk) 03:58, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

David, I found what you said there very interesting, in a very good way, so thank you for that. People familiar with the "scientific consensus" concept actually do not see it as something stronger than "general agreement" or "broad agreement". Those latter two phrases seem to imply that most scientists agree, and that's that. On the other hand, science is actually built on the principle that "scientific consensus" is something that is fluid over time. Example: today, pretty much everybody feels that Albert Einstein got it right when he replaced Isaac Newton's physics with relativity. But in the years after Einstein published special relativity, the "scientific consensus" was still very much that Newton was right and this new stuff was speculative. In a sense, then, the scientific consensus circa 1905–1910 was actually wrong about this point. Consequently, when I argue that we should use this phrase in the GMO content, I'm seeing it simply as a direct report of what most sources are saying (whereas the sources are not calling it an "agreement"), but I'm not seeing it as Wikipedia declaring some sort of Ultimate Truth. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:45, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree with your use of the word "scientific consensus" about Newtonian physics v. Modern Physics at the time mentioned, which is the kind of thing Thomas Kuhn talked about in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. And that is why using the word "scientific consensus" is too strong. Agreement is too strong as well. It was a compromise at the time and a slight improvement over "broad scientific consensus" which is not indicative of the RS as I have demonstrated over and over: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Genetically_modified_organisms#On_the_existence_of_.22scientific_consensus.22 here, here and here, as did Montanabw here. I am not going to defend the old justification for "agreement" over "consensus" as a slight improvement, since there is little support for use of the compromise word "agreement". I simply wanted those who saw it to understand why it is there. I see little chance that it stays. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:20, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

OK, I guess we continue to just disagree about some things. I don't see it as "too strong". I just see it as what the sources seem to me to say. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:30, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Right. "Scientific agreement" is what's too strong. There's scientific agreement that the reason your pencil falls to the floor when you drop it is gravity. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 21:28, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

FYI, I just put a link to here on the RfC talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I really hope that you will shorten your RfC comment, because I would like for your input to count. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:44, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: I will, though not without a strenuous objection on the talk page, per WP:IAR, WP:BURO, WP:COMMONSENSE, etc. No RfC should ever be operated this way again. Any closer who was competent and sensible would take my section into account when closing anyway (they would basically have no choice, since others' sections cite it as containing part of their own rationales). But we have too many admins who are neither, so I suppose I'll kneel and kiss the ring. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:23, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually, insofar as registering your disapproval with the guilty party, you just did – me! There were discussions about the rules prior to the opening of the RfC, and it was I who initially pushed for 800, although everyone else also agreed at the time. I've seen so much filibustering by editors whom I consider to be POV-pushers, that I was, and still am, convinced that a strict word limit is needed, to prevent the RfC from degenerating into a tl;dr that results in no consensus. By the way, no need to kiss my ring! As for my competence and sense, I'll leave that to others to decide.

--Tryptofish (talk) 19:11, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: D'oh. I already talk-page posted about it; hopefully it was less intemperate than the version above. Well, you are not one of those that I worry about, I assure you (either in the competence and sense way, or the expecting obeisance way). There are 3 admins I know for sure who want to hang me high, which probably means there are 20 who are less obvious about it; then again, all three have left me along lately, so that's progress. A potential 4th is being raked at ARCA right now and has bigger problems than me. Anyway, it's not so much that a length limit exists (and I certainly understand the PoV-pushers problem), it's that it can be gamed by just adding more and more proposals. It's also exasperating to spend hours poring over the material only to be hard-pressed to find room to spell them out clearly. My main concern is that some particular proposal will get approved as most-supported, despite clear flaws in it, when a massaged-together combo approach would produce something better. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:15, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, I double-checked, and you are safely down to 799. As for the talk page, I already replied to you there. I can imagine an admin hatting it or reverting us both, but, whatever. Thanks for the kind words, and the same back to you. Anyway, I am sick of the entire GMO topic, having had it eat up way too much of my editing time for the past year, and I really hope that I will soon be able to put it behind me. Thanks for your thoughtful (even if constrained) contributions to the RfC discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:21, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Looks like a POINTy number, but it was lower in the word-counter I used (depends on whether it counts hyphenation, whether is counts by average word length or by analyzing string-whitespace-string-whitespace, how it handled numerals, etc.). I don't even get into the GMO thing much, and already feel drained by it. Much like e-cigs. My input on the RfC was constrained by my own standards, I guess, but maybe it will parse OK even compressed like that. It pains me because I'm a step-by-step analyst about these things (comes from having been a professional policy analyst of US legislation, back when). Anyway, glad I didn't pull out your feathers. :-) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:42, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Invitation to the Bay Area WikiSalon series, Wednesday, June 29 at 6 p.m.

Hi, Stanton.

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!

The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We make sure to allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. We will have beverages and light snacks. We will also have:

A brief report on Pride edit-a-thon recently held at the San Francisco Publice Library, coordinated by Merrilee:
What topics might we cover in a follow up?

Find out more about resources your public library provides to help with editing (hint, it's more than just books!)

Special announcement (secret for now but come and find out more!)
Join in on an in person Wikidojo!
Are you curious how your peers approach writing a Wikipedia article? This exercise, pioneered by Wikipedians Nikola Kalchev and Vassia Atanassova in 2015 and conducted in many places around the world, will help us all - from first-time wiki users to veteran Wikipedians - share ideas, while building an article together. If you have ideas (relating to Bay Area history, ideally) about a new article we could build (stubs and short existing articles are fine), please submit them ahead of time to coordinator Pete Forsyth. (User talk page or email is fine.)

Announcements and impromptu topics are welcome, too!

Please note: You must register here, and bring a photo ID that matches your registration name. The building policy is strict.

For further details, see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, June 2016

See you soon! Pete F, Ben, Stephen and {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 03:52, 27 June 2016 (UTC) | (Subscribe or Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here)

Hopefully I can actually make it to this one! Depends on when I get out of work. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:33, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Indian massacre

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Indian massacre. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Submitting draft

Hello, Sam Sailor has recommended that I ask you about a (fairly minor) tech problem. In recent articles I've submitted, I've placed the code {{Userspace draft|source=ArticleWizard|date=Month Year}} at the top of the mark-up page and this would previously have produced the 'new article awaiting review' tag at the top of the page. (Latest example is Keith Holland (racing driver)). However, on the last three or four pages I've created, this has not appeared. It may be something blindingly obvious I'm doing wrong (or lack of knowledge) but it's a bit baffling. Can you assist in any way? Thanks. Regards, Eagleash (talk) 16:46, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

~~It's an error introduced somewhere in the series of edits SMcCandlish made; the sandbox version is currently the one before these edits and works correctly at Keith Holland (racing driver).~~

I've now undone the last edit and the message now appears. I leave it to SMcCandlish to fix whatever was the problem or else explain why the "new article awaiting review" message should not appear. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:46, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Peter coxhead I'm still a bit baffled SMcC hasn't edited the page as far as I can tell and it looks like you put 'sandbox' into the 'template' and then took it out again which made the tag appear. Eagleash (talk) 17:51, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry it wasn't clear. The issue was an edit made to the template {{Userspace draft}}, which altered its behaviour. There was nothing wrong with your edit to the page. I've gone back one step in the template, which restores the message everywhere. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:07, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Ah thanks...I thought it must be some sort of issue with the template, but I'm not at all clever with that sort of thing. :P It seems to be working fine now as a previously submitted page now has the tag too. Cheers. Eagleash (talk) 20:11, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Will look into it when I get a chance. What it's supposed to do is not trigger Article Wizard code if it's not a draft article, but a draft of something else (wikiproject, template, whatever). There may have been a syntax problem in the code. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:27, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

I think the problem is that the if statement added in the edit I undid encloses the penultimate case of the switch statement that forms the body of the template, but the nesting of the {{..}}s is hard to follow! Peter coxhead (talk) 05:34, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't know if it helps at all, but I first noticed this happen with drafts I submitted on 30 April 2016. Eagleash (talk) 06:49, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

@Eagleash:: Thanks; we know when it was introduced, it just wasn't clear what the exact coding bug was. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:58, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:: I figured so too; I've already started unraveling the mess in it (we need nested indentation of if and switch statements, not of the parameters of called templates), at Template:Userspace draft/sandbox, but then got distracted by a comma-related sourcing run I'm still in the middle of. The code should be fixed and reinstalled correctly, since we do actually want to exclude non-article drafts from Article Wizard and related processing. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:58, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:History of Gibraltar

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:History of Gibraltar. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 30 June 2016 (UTC)