User talk:Srich32977/Archive 24

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Thank you ...

July
... with thanks from QAI

... for improving article quality in July! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:29, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Your AutoEd edits

Hi S. Rich,

The edits you recently made to Hamlet are sheer nonsense. Your AutoEd script changed some page ranges from abbreviated to full, and some from full to abbreviated, and some from correctly abbreviated to incorrectly abbreviated. In addition, whether to use abbreviated or full page ranges is subject to WP:CITEVAR and should not be changed without prior discussion (and, yes, the article does use a consistent style, even if a few later additions may have deviated and not been cleaned up yet). I've seen you make similar mistakes on other articles on my watchlist, and this is stuff that you should have caught when checking the changes (you do check the edits before saving right?). I would in general strongly recommend you check such changes better before saving; and I do not recommend you try to do this kind of thing with any regex-based method (it's just not a suitable tool for the job). --Xover (talk) 09:07, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks @Xover: But please take a closer look at the edits you made. Roughly from the bottom, you now have I-IX (MOS:DASH); inconsistent ISBN hyphens (978123456789 + 978-123456789); inconsistent page ranges (144–148 + 125–7); "Self-Assured Prince - Rada, instead of "Prince – Rada" (spaced hyphen instead of spaced endash — see MOS:HYPHEN); hyphens (-) in dates instead of endashes (MOS:DATERANGE); "pp. 181, 188" listed as "p. 181, 188'; "ca." instead of the preferred "c." (MOS:CIRCA); "p." + "pg." instead of consistent "p."'s; spaced emdashes ("mother — Claudius) again, MOS:DASH; incorrect year range (1600–1 & 1964–5) instead of the correct 1600–01 & 1964–65 (again, MOS:DATERANGE). Each of the page ranges corrections I made were done to achieve a consistent style — in accordance with the WP-accepted CMS. The talk page has all sorts of discussions, but there is nothing about using a mixture of styles. E.g., once a particular style is established articles should stick to the particular style. Happy editing. – S. Rich (talk) 01:43, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
Indeed. But the presence of an inconsistency does not ipso facto mean the article as a whole is inconsistent. The article uses a wholly consistent and deliberately chosen style (and has been since its FAC a decade ago), but cruft accrues over time as drive-by editors make minor edits, which is why I clean it up every few years.
Your script's changes, however, were not even internally consistent (see above); made some changes in conflict with the established style; and some that were just plain incorrect. I very much appreciate any help in maintaining the articles in the scope of my WikiProject, but this caused more problems than it fixed. --Xover (talk) 08:25, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
@Xover: I ran the auto-ed script just now. Please note that it did not change any ISBNs, dates, page ranges, hyphens. And you will see that all of the other changes I made had specific rationales explained in my edit summaries. The only two differences from my first and last changes are the second set increased my edit count by 10 instead of one. The only fix needed is the page range inconsistency. Have at it! – S. Rich (talk) 21:19, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
Yes, much better; except the last one which was 99.9% cosmetic (see WP:AWBRULES#4). Not sure why you say it did not change any ISBNs, dates, page ranges, hyphens since you definitely changed dates and hyphens, and another editor changed the ISBNs, so really only the page ranges were untouched. Not that it matters so long as the changes made are actually correct.
And the same goes for the number of edits: use as few or as many edits as you like, so long as all the edits are correct. It is generally better to separate into logical groups of related changes: even if you can effectively check all the changes in one giant edit, other editors watching the article may not be able to do so comfortably (especially when you throw in a ton of pointless whitespace changes with the substantive changes). And if anyone wants an overview of all the changes it is easy to generate a multi-revision diff.
Don't get me wrong here: I absolutely do appreciate everyone that helps out with maintenance on the articles in my watchlist, and have no intrinsic objection to script-assisted edits. But in this specific case, some of the changes your AutoEd scripts (custom or factory default, btw?) produced were outright incorrect (and some were objectionable for other reasons), and you failed to catch those problems before saving. That's all I'm objecting to.
Incidentally, you may be interested to know I have proposed (per CITEVAR) to change the article's citation style to use full page ranges instead of abbreviated; partly because you're not the first to try to process the abbreviated ranges with a regex and discovering after the fact that regex just isn't up to the task. --Xover (talk) 06:52, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
@Xover: You are being silly. You cite WP:AWBRULES#4 as a justification for reverting my latest edit. But: (1) AWBRules applies to AutoWikiBrowser, and I was using Auto-ed, a different script; (2) if my edit was "insignificant or inconsequential", why did you feel the need to make an equally "insignificant or inconsequential" edit. The only 0.1% "un-insignificant or un-inconsequential" edit you found was "[[:Flashback (narrative)|flashbacks]] v. [[:Flashback (narrative)|flashback]]s – so why revert the entire edit. Moreover, you are mistaken in your reading of my comment. "It" refers to the auto-ed script in the particular edit I had just made. The other non-auto-ed changes were my own, done without any scriptd. Xover, please take a look at WP:OWNBEHAVIOR. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 07:07, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
Listen, you're starting to come across as if my objections to your edits, and my explanations of those objections, are personally antagonising to you. Under those circumstances I don't see it as particularly productive to continue this conversation. --Xover (talk) 08:29, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
My subsequent edits were done incrementally and each has an editing rationale. Your reaction to the my initial editing was to use the revert button, which did not correct any of the perceived errors. Same thing with the revert of my AutoEd edit. An example of "when the only tool you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail". (I have partially implemented your talk page recommendation, and my implementation duplicates my initial editing effort.) – S. Rich (talk) 21:53, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

HMS Campbeltown

Just want to head off this issue with WP:SETINDEX. Set indices are list pages and battle honours in Commonwealth nations are inherited by units of the same name and each ship is considered a unit, so the only good place to put it is on the list page of the ship names. It is relevant to the ship name, as the battle honours are associated to the name, as the more recent Campbeltown will carry the battle honours of previous ships of the name. Llammakey (talk) 11:34, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

@Llammakey: Thanks! It is always wonderful to learn, and Wikipedia is a great project where we learn from others such as yourself. – S. Rich (talk) 18:36, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

August
red admiral
... with thanks from QAI

... for improving articles in August! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:30, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.

Technical news

  • As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:55, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

MOS:NUMBERS violations

Your edits certainly did violate MOS:NUMBERS when you reduced page number ranges like 110–112 to 110–12. The problem with doing such comprehensive edits is that they all get tossed out if you get one part incorrect. Fix those and we'll call it even.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:24, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

@Sturmvogel 66: No, please look at WP:CITESTYLE. We stick with one MOS per article. My edits achieve a consistent style. E.g., if some cites are 123–25 and others are 123–125 I try to stick with whatever style is predominate. – S. Rich (talk) 22:32, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

But you're implementing the MOS for other items like dash spaces, regardless of the predominating style. So why are page ranges different? MOS:NUMBERS states: As with date ranges (see above), number ranges in general, such as page ranges, should state the full value of both the beginning and end of the range, with an en dash between, e.g. pp. 1902–1911 or entries 342–349. That's a fairly recent change and many, if not most, of my older FAs have not been fixed yet. It's not part of CITESTYLE at all so you need to fix those changes you've made to bring them back in compliance with the this aspect of the MOS.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:12, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
Come on, the rest says "or where a citation style formally requires it." This means we give the reader a consistent presentation in the citations. – S. Rich (talk) 23:41, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
I don't believe that citation styles cover the format of page ranges. Either bring them all into compliance with the MOS or leave them alone as I'll update them properly at some point. I just spent more than a few minutes fixing the page numbers on Furious so you can fix the error you introduced in the MacBride article in the references.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:51, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Bug/error

Hi Srich32977. I'm not sure what general fixes you were attempting here, but some of those were decidedly incorrect (Toronto public library and Buffalolib should definitely be cite web, and those isbns are wrong) so I've reverted you. Please check to see that this hasn't happened in other places; I only saw this because I wrote the substance of this article. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:44, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

  • I don't have that many articles on my talk page, but whenever you run the changes on one that is, I have to revert you. For web references that refer to books please do NOT change to "cite book" and as an ISBN. I have no idea how many articles you make see changes on, but please stop. SchroCat (talk) 07:00, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
    Srich32977, I brought this issue up 12 days ago; yet, yesterday, you made precisely the same mistake [1]. Thanking me for my message, as you did, means nothing if you aren't going to read it. Please change your script, or whatever it is you are using. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:44, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
    (talk page stalker) FWIW, that citation in Operation Mincemeat was no good. A library web site was cited as if the library had anything to do with the book aside from owning a copy of it. I have fixed it. Srich32977's edit improved the citation, but not as much as it could have. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:11, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
    Jonesey95, you cocked up. The page holds the information supported in the citation. It was a bloody awful edit in the first place, so I have no idea why you decided to double down on very bad editing. As to "A library web site was cited as if the library had anything to do with the book aside from owning a copy of it": that's just a fallacy, I'm afraid. - SchroCat (talk) 19:21, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
    Not at all. The sentence in the article is In his book The Double Agents, the writer W. E. B. Griffin depicts Operation Mincemeat as an American operation run by the Office of Strategic Services. Fictional characters are blended with Ian Fleming and the actors David Niven and Peter Ustinov. The web page listed at the URL in the original citation does not support the claims in that sentence; the web page gives only bibliographical information. The book itself supports the claims in the sentence, so it should be cited, or a summary or review of the book should be cited. There is no summary or review of the book at the web page that was originally cited, so it was not following WP:V, one of our core policies. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:40, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
    So wrong. The citation supports everything that is claimed. It completely follows V, which is why it's a featured article. Unfortunately Srich32977's (and your) edits both fail V. You cannot cite an entire book to support that information.
Back to the original point of this thread: I have had to revert Srich32977's edits several times because they change a web page citation into a book citation. These are woeful changes that need to stop as they are increasingly disruptive on an ongoing basis. - SchroCat (talk) 19:52, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict × 2) @Jonesey95:, I don't think you're seeing the point I am making. Citing Griffin, in this instance, was an improvement; changing buffalolib to a "cite book" template, with an automated script, was not. Whenever I have used buffalolib, such as in the instance mentioned at the beginning of this thread, it has been because it collated reviews that were not otherwise directly accessible. It's a website, and should not be cited with "cite book"; if Srich32977 wants to go around manually fixing verifiability problems, I haven't the slightest problem with it. (Added post-EC): SchroCat, I don't see how the webpage supports the entirety of the content in question. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:59, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
    This one? It's the archived version of the original page, not the redirected one. - SchroCat (talk) 20:04, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
    @SchroCat: That makes sense, yes, thanks. Jonesey95, I think that ought to make the point even clearer; you, at least, have replaced the secondary source with a primary one; Srich32977 messed up the formatting of the secondary source with a script, and that's a problem. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:07, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
    The archived web page appears to support the statement in the article, so that makes sense. The URL that was present in the page when I did my edit did not support the statement, so it was logical to refer directly to the book. Using a secondary source that actually supports the claims in the article is better than a primary source, so I support the modification of my edit to restore a Cite web template that points to the archived web page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:51, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Srich32977, it's been several days, and you've still not responded here, which is a problem. You are accountable for all your edits, including the ones made with a script; I prefer discussing these here on your talk page, but that requires you to be responsive. Vanamonde (Talk) 06:40, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
    • In the weeks that have passed I've seen my MacBook Pro add-in stray edits as I work. These generally occur when my fat-fingers are near the "delete" key. I haven't been able to figure out how to stop the stray word/edit-additions. I think it is because the MacBook is listening in on my background audio input. This is not paranoia on my part -- it's simply ignorance about the complexities of Apple. Rather than figure them out, I gnomishly carry on with my edits and try to preview the changes I make before publishing. – S. Rich (talk) 06:54, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
    • Looking back at the 19 November posting (3 weeks ago) which started this thread, I am at a loss as to the problem at hand. The original post said some changes were good and some were bad. Well, I believe the errors -- whatever they were -- came from the Citations and/or Auto-Ed scripts. If this is the case, then we've got to get the script-author to fix the problems. Is there something that my fat fingers are doing wrong now? Or lately?? Please be specific if you are asking for accountability. – S. Rich (talk) 07:20, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
      • My post above was very specific; please read what I wrote. You changed a "cite web" template to "cite book", when the citation was in fact to a website and not to a book. This was the mistake three weeks ago, and it was also the mistake SchroCat pointed out; and you didn't respond to either of us. This has nothing to do with fat fingers, or with the script author. You, as the user of the script, are responsible for every edit you make with it; and the way not to make this specific mistake is to preview the changes you have made, and ensure that they are correct, before hitting save. Please do so in the future. Vanamonde (Talk) 08:54, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
        • Srich32977 or others, if you think that the Citation gadget may have proposed this edit, it is probably happening elsewhere as well. It may be work worth filing a bug using the big link at the top of User talk:Citation bot. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:52, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I am at a loss to understand User:Vanamonde93's complaint. The citation bot added ISBNs to our WP citations. The first complaint involves a link to the Erie & Buffalo library, which provides a listing for one of their books. The listing itself contains a correct ISBN to the book. The citation bot added the correct ISBN to the WP cite and designated the citation as a book (which it is). What's wrong?? The second complaint involves another link to the Buffalo library, which also provides a listing for a different book. Again, the library card listing itself contains the correct ISBN and the citation bot added the correct ISBN to our WP citation. In both cases the bot was helpful to the reader because it provided a direct link to the ISBN rather than via the library card listing which showed the ISBN as a bit of additional info. IOW, no mistakes were made by me or the bot. – S. Rich (talk) 21:06, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

As I have had to say to you on numerous occasions: it is often not the ISBN that the citation is supporting, it is other information on the page. Please stop pissing about with citations on FAs if you don't understand what you're doing. I have had to revert you on a number of articles where you have replaced "cite web" with "cite book", when the material being supported is the web page itself, not the book. I don't know how many times other people need to do this before we end up at ANI. – SchroCat (talk) 21:31, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
This is crazy! But I see the problem now. 1. The WP article Operation Mincemeat is about an event WWII. 2. Author W.E.B. Griffin wrote the book The Double Agents. The WP article says the book is part of the legacy of Operation Mincemeat. 3. The WP article cites the book as a source. We say: "In his book The Double Agents, the writer W. E. B. Griffin depicts Operation Mincemeat as an American operation run by the Office of Strategic Services. Fictional characters are blended with Ian Fleming and the actors David Niven and Peter Ustinov.[131]" (Emphasis added.) 4. Footnote 131 says "The Double Agents" is a 'Journal, newspaper and magazine'. Footnote 131 gives us a link to a library where someone in Buffalo can read or checkout the book. 5. The book has ISBN 9780786294893, therefore non-Buffalo people can find the book at their own library, on Amazon, or elsewhere. 6. The Buffalo library did not write the book. Rather, the library quoted some other material about the book – specifically, copyrighted reviews from Booklist, Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal. 7. So, our citation to the Buffalo library is NOT correct. 8. Our summary (because it mentions Niven and Ustinov) should be to the copyrighted Publisher's Weekly Review and Library Review articles. (Those two articles are the relevant RS.) 8.a. Although, if the WP editor had actually read Griffin's book and learned about the "blending" on their own, a cite directly to the book would be appropriate. 9. The criticism of me, for providing the correct ISBN info on Griffin's book is misplaced. 10. Summary – the WP citation should be more specific and use the review articles as the RS instead of going around using the library card catalogue. Please use {{cite magazine}} for the two review articles and leave my over-crowded talk page alone. – S. Rich (talk) 23:42, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
What is "crazy" is your inability to acknowledge any problems in your actions. For a start your point three is utterly wrong: we do not cite a book as a source, we cite the Buffalo Library – I don't know how many times that has been pointed out in this thread, and you still haven't taken it on board. The Buffalo Library page carries correct information. Yes, it has information from third parties, but that does not make it any less relevant. You changed that correct citation (ie from a webpage containing correct information) to an incorrect one. Looking at previous postings in the archives this is not the first time people have had issues with your sub-standard use of tools. Rather than try and wheedle out of accepting any blame, it would be so much better if you took responsibility for your own action. – SchroCat (talk) 23:58, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
And agin, from earlier today: this edit. Why did you change the citation for the DoD information from the correct webpage to a book, which is obviously isn't? I am increasingly concerned about a WP:COMPETENCE issue here, and thinks it's more a question of when, rather than if, this ends up at ANI. - SchroCat (talk) 00:07, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Okay, I relied on citation bot to add info and make changes. And I just reverted part of the Audie Murphy edit. E.g., I restored "cite web" instead of "cite book". But I do not see any difference between what renders from the two templates. Both read "Dept. of Defense (24 September 1955). "Message to TAGO from H.D. Kight, Public Information Division, detailing an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show by Audie L. Murphy". File Unit: Official Military Personnel File of Audie Murphy, 1942–1945. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration ARC Identifier 299780. Retrieved 10 October 2013." Please assist. – S. Rich (talk) 00:33, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
That it ended up rendering the same is utterly besides the point; you were citing a website as a book, and that is wrong, period. As SchroCat says, if you are unable to grasp that point, you ought not to be running this script. Furthermore; as I already explained up above, the reason we sometimes cite buffalolib rather than publisher's weekly is that buffalolib sometimes collates sources that are not directly available on their own websites. As such its making important sources accessible. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:47, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Please look at WP:CITE which says in the first paragraph "The various citation templates below may be freely mixed, since they all produce a similar format [emphasis added]." In the Operation Mincemeat case the citation bot saw a webpage that referred to a book, and added info relevant to the book. The original "cite web" citation did not mention the fact that 2 other – 2 different – sources were being used to paraphrase the description of the book. And, as I said in point 8.a. the WP editor might have read the book itself in order to summarize the "blending" description. But the WP editor did not do that – instead the editor relied on the Buffalo library source and failed to mention that the Buffalo source was actually using two other non-Buffalo library sources. [Redundancy intended!] In the Audie Murphy case, the bot found additional info about the source and incorporated it into the cite. Along the way it also changed the format of the template. But what was the result? A distinction without a difference; e.g., no meaningful change to what the WP reader was seeing. Well, as you have problems with how the bot is improving the citations may I suggest that one of you go to WP:DBUG with your concerns. Perhaps the bot maintainers can "fix" it so that it simply inserts {{citation}} for such changes. Me – I used the bot, and as it produced reasonable, verifiable, accurate, acceptable improvements to the citations (by adding an ISBN to cited books), I stuck with it for the particular changes. ANY concerned editor can always fix problems with the particular changes. So, now, please take your ersatz complaints somewhere else. Thank you. – S. Rich (talk) 07:34, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
1) You are quoting the how-to guide WP:CITEIT, not the guideline page WP:CITE; the how-to guide isn't something that can be used to justify your actions here. 2) The responsibility for every edit is with the editor making it. If the script is producing errors, fixing them before saving is your responsibility; if that is too difficult, it is on you to raise a bug report, or to stop using the script. And since that's the fourth time I've said that, I'm going to disengage now; if the same errors continue, you may expect an escalation (which, I might add, is entirely because you have been unwilling to just say "Okay, I will examine the changes produced by the script before saving them", and have instead gotten terribly defensive). Vanamonde (Talk) 07:43, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
1. "That it ended up rendering the same is utterly besides the point; you were citing a website as a book, and that is wrong, period." Okay – please provide guidance which supports "wrong, period". 2. I do examine the edits before I publish them. If they look reasonable, I hit the proper button. (The citation bot provided an accurate ISBN to the book mentioned, so that looked good!) 3. I am more than willing to report bot problems, when I can authenticate them. For example, please look at [2]. Has anything been done? I don't know. (3.a. Others say they citation bot is screwing up – are they providing screw-up reports?) 4. Thank you so very, very much for disengaging. I think I will close the circle by dis-inviting other editors interested in this thread. And then I'm going to archive (or perhaps "delete") it. – S. Rich (talk) 08:08, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Weird error in one of your edits

In this edit that you made with Citation bot, it looks like you attempted to replace a dash with an en dash, but instead added the word "is" and an en dash after the existing dash. (Look at the very last change in the list of changes.)

Do you think you fat-fingered it, or do you think the tool messed up? I'm not looking to complain about your edit at all -- just trying to figure out if there's a bug in the tool that we should report. Thanks! Stephen Hui (talk) 06:47, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

@Stephen Hui: I agree it's a weird change. But unintentional. I don't think it was the bot. Thanks for the excellent catch AND your note to me. – S. Rich (talk) 19:40, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

MOS discussion

Such a courteous way you have about you, sir!--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:18, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I simply completed my project of copy editing the military related FAs, and decided to move on. (My next gnomish project is the featured lists.) You are sure continue your own good stewardship of those most interesting FAs – without a risk of WP:OWNERSHIP. – S. Rich (talk) 00:33, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

October
... with thanks from QAI

... for article improvement in October! - I have a peer review open, DYK? Clara Schumann, 60 years of recitals, and what a life! See my talk today for great music that we sang yesterday. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:12, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Today, I am proud of a great woman on the Main page, Márta Kurtág, finally, who has several things in common with Schumann! - Here's my ideal candidate for arbcom. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:22, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Giving thanks

Thanksgiving
Cassia javanica, Torremolinos
... with thanks from QAI

Happy Thanksgiving! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:28, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you ...

Vision in 2020
missing Brian

... for improving article quality in December! There's a peer review open for Clara Schumann and a FAC for Jauchzet, frohlocket!, DYK? We miss Brian who would have helped. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:10, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Seabee

Thank you for the time you put into the Seabee article. Very good of an ex-Army putting that effort into a USN article. I have a request to make if you have the time: reading the WWII award section and footnotes of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133 and sharing any thoughts. My email is easy just add @yahoo to my id. Thank youMcb133aco (talk) 23:11, 21 December 2019 (UTC)mcb133acoMcb133aco (talk) 23:11, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Ending of Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence's fatal motorcycle crash is at the beginning of the film. At the end of the film he is driven away in an automobile and their car passes someone else riding a motorcycle. This has been stable in the article for a long time. If you wish to change it, please discuss at Talk or provide a source that supports your interpretation of the ending. Thank you. DonIago (talk) 03:41, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Doniago: Thanks. I'm trying to provide a plot summary that comports with the "real-life/death" events and those depicted in the film. I'll take a look at the film and revise our plot summary as needed. (IOW, I'm "absolutely-sure" about the actual bio, and "pretty-sure" about the beginning and end of the film. If there is a difference we should explain it to the reader.) Happy editing – your contributions are appreciated! – S. Rich (talk) 03:54, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
I've seen the film at least three times, and am 100% sure it begins with his death and that the rest of the film is a flashback, up to and including his leaving Arabia in an automobile and passing a motorcyclist. It stood out to me because it felt like such an odd way to end the film (i.e. not even returning to the "present"). I may have even said aloud, "Wait, that's it??" Quite possibly an allusion to his time in Arabia ultimately ending with a bit of a whimper rather than a bang? Anyway, I'm open to changing the summary but I think there should definitely be a consensus for any significant changes at the Talk page before implmenting such changes. Cheers and Happy 2020! DonIago (talk) 04:10, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you ...

January
... with thanks from QAI

... for improving articles in January! Today - 20 in 2020 - is a birthday, she is pictured on the lower choir pic, enjoy listening. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:40, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

AutoEd-assisted edit broke an ISBN?

I don't know how an AutoEd script could break an ISBN, but this edit broke two ISBNs, removing a digit in each case. Maybe the ISBNs were edited manually. Please check your tools. (And stop removing hyphens from ISBNs, please.)– Jonesey95 (talk) 05:50, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

You are right -- my own editing busted the ISBNs. Thanks for fixing the errors. I will be more careful IOT keep my error rate at a minimum. – S. Rich (talk) 07:06, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
  • The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.

Technical news

  • Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
  • When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [3]

Arbitration

  • Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.

Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:06, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors 2019 Annual Report

Guild of Copy Editors 2019 Annual Report
Our 2019 Annual Report is now ready for review.

Highlights:

  • Overview of Backlog-reduction progress (a record low backlog!);
  • Summary of Drives, Blitzes, and the Requests page;
  • Automated archiving of requests;
  • Membership news and results of elections;
  • Annual leaderboard;
  • Plans for 2020.
– Your Guild coordinators: Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978, Reidgreg, Tdslk and Twofingered Typist.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:10, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Copy editing request

Hello, quite recently you performed a copy edit in Vilnius, however I recently rewritten the "Demographics" section of this article from a very poorly written, referenced one. Though, since English is not my native language - I might have made some grammar or structure mistakes, so it would be very appreciated if you could check this section as a native speaker of English. Vilnius is capital of one of the European Union countries, so I think this article is of high importance and must be of high quality. -- Pofka (talk) 21:32, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

@Pofka: I did some fixes. Take a look see what you think. I can do more if you ask. (My family's Lutheran Church in California had a Lithuanian ex-pat as a member. He escaped shortly after WWII.) – S. Rich (talk) 22:50, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

@Srich32977: Thanks, my biggest concern is grammar/style because sometimes I really mess up something due to the completely different languages. I rewritten the whole "Demographics" section recently (including "Historic ethnic makeup" subsection). Is everything alright in the "Historic ethnic makeup" subsection? California is one of the main Lithuanian ex-pat centers in the USA, along with New York and Chicago. Probably most of these Californian Lithuanians started their journeys in New York/Chicago as well, but later moved to California (likely due to a pleasant climate). Popular Lithuanian singer and active independence movement supporter Vytautas Kernagis even written a song about California, which was extremely popular in the 90s when we just regained independence, some of the lyrics are: "Tau burnoje ištirpsta žodis Kalifornia. Lyg būtum taip toli nuo Lietuvos. Juk Kalifornijoj merginos smagus ir linksmas vynas. O Kalifornijoj saulėtas dangus" (translation: The word California dissolves in your mouth. As if you were so far from Lithuania. After all, girls and wine in California are cheerful. And California has a sunny sky;recording from 1995: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDA-kY2isR8). :D -- Pofka (talk) 11:55, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer newsletter February 2020

Hello Srich32977,

Source Guide Discussion

The first NPP source guide discussion is now underway. It covers a wide range of sources in Ghana with the goal of providing more guidance to reviewers about sources they might see when reviewing pages. Hopefully, new page reviewers will join others interested in reliable sources and those with expertise in these sources to make the discussion a success.

Redirects

New to NPP? Looking to try something a little different? Consider patrolling some redirects. Redirects are relatively easy to review, can be found easily through the New Pages Feed. You can find more information about how to patrol redirects at WP:RPATROL.

Discussions and Resources
Refresher

Geographic regions, areas and places generally do not need general notability guideline type sourcing. When evaluating whether an article meets this notability guideline please also consider whether it might actually be a form of WP:SPAM for a development project (e.g. PR for a large luxury residential development) and not actually covered by the guideline.

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 7095 Low – 4991 High – 7095

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16:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Category:Art by animals has been nominated for discussion

Category:Art by animals, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Marcocapelle (talk) 18:58, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Nocturnes

14 February
Alte Liebe

Thank you for improving Nocturnes (Debussy) while the principal author is sadly blocked, and a late "Valentine" to good relations ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:52, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Edit of Nocturnes (Debussy)

See this edit. The state code for Connecticut is CT, not CN. Jmar67 (talk) 06:06, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Indeed! Thanks so very much. – S. Rich (talk) 06:14, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Changes to citation template parameters

Srich32977, you've once again changed a citation template from cite web to cite book, even though the citation in question is to a website and not a book [4]. Can you undertake to be more careful with semi-automated scripts? Vanamonde (Talk) 00:43, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Is there a problem with the bot? Both template versions – cite web and cite book – render exactly the same. The reader clicking the citation link gets the same result no matter which template is used. Distinction without a difference applies. In any event I try to preview the effort to catch actual errors – S. Rich (talk) 01:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

They do not render the same.

Note the italics for the title in Cite book. The HTML cite and span tags that accompany and wrap the citation data also indicate whether the source is a web source or a book source. External citation tools like Zotero use this metadata to determine what type of source is being cited. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:58, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Quite right. My error. However, MOS:ITALICTITLE says we should italicize book titles – because A Wizard of Earthsea is a book it should get italics. After all, the TPL is giving us a link to the audio ebook. And if we clink lower down, in their details section, we see the ISBN and this link. Their ISBN link gives us the title "A Wizard of Earthsea" instead of "A wizard of Earthsea". So what's the fuss about? (And where is the guidance that applies to this case?) Seems that ITALICTITLE should apply – and WP:DBUG can/might help resolve problems with cases like this. PS: stuff like Zotero and metadata are beyond my gnomish mind. – S. Rich (talk) 02:26, 19 February 2020 (UTC)02:28, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Zotero and metadata are beyond me as well, which is why I try not to break things that I do not understand. As for your proposed title tweaks, the reason that the |title= parameter is written that way is that is the title of the web page being cited. In general, we do not change the titles of sources that we are citing. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:13, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
As Jonesey says, the page being cited is a record of the book, not the book itself. The title refer to the title of the webpage, and should not therefore be italicized. I don't especially care why the bot decided this needed to be changed, but the responsibility for the edit is with the user, not the bot; I hope we don't need to go to ANI for you to be convinced of that. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:21, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: @Vanamonde93: I think I understand. We are telling the reader "In 2011, the work was produced as an unabridged recording performed by Robert Inglis.[104][105]" Footnote 105 gives us the WorldCat link (which properly contains italics) and Footnote 104 is giving us the TPL link. So, the reader learns two things: 1. that the book is in an audio format; and, 2. one of the sources of the audio format book is the TPL. (Hence we list TPL as the "publisher" in Footnote 104.) Am I correct so far? – S. Rich (talk) 21:35, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
I'd say you've almost got it. The TPL web page provides basic Wikipedia:Verifiability information. The TPL web page being cited lists the name of the book, the year of publication, the format it was published in, and the name of the narrator. As such, it verifies the claims made in the previous sentence. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:49, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
So why supply the particular TPL link? After all, the WorldCat OCLC listing gives us all 248 editions, in multiple languages, years, and formats. Also, each WorldCat listing will tell us where the nearest library is. (IOW, we don't need a TPL library card to access their copy (electronic or hardback). – S. Rich (talk) 23:17, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
The only reason we would go to ANI is if you continue to maintain, as you did above, that the fault is with the script, rather than the user using it. I used both references to strengthen verifiability; where primary sources have to be used, redundancy is not a bad thing at all. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:25, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

In this case, then, we want to tell the reader that an audio version narrated by Inglis is available. Well OCLC 799120142 does just that. (And it gives us a publication date of 2009, not 2011.) – S. Rich (talk) 23:54, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Article improvements

February
Alte Liebe
I Will Mention the Loving-kindnesses

Valentine month, thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:56, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Today's Alte Liebe became especially meaningful after yesterday's funeral. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:52, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

March Madness 2020

G'day all, March Madness 2020 is about to get underway, and there is bling aplenty for those who want to get stuck into the backlog by way of tagging, assessing, updating, adding or improving resources and creating articles. If you haven't already signed up to participate, why not? The more the merrier! Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:19, 29 February 2020 (UTC) for the coord team

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