User talk:ToaneeM

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Welcome![edit]

A cup of warm tea to welcome you!

Hello, ToaneeM, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you are enjoying editing and want to do lots more. Some useful pages to visit are:

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If you need any help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{Help me}} before the question. We're so glad you're here! All the best: Rich Farmbrough23:31, 27 April 2015 (UTC).

Need a audio reference for "six-five-oh-two"[edit]

Do you have an audio reference for “six-five-oh-two”? In the 70s I used a KIM1 board and an early Apple II. I was a member of the Homebrew Computer Club in the Bay Area and the Northwest Computer Club in Seattle. I always heard “sixty-five-oh-two”. Here is an audio reference William Mensch saying “sixty-five-oh-two". [1]. -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 03:49, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your note. I haven't got an audio reference for it but I don't think that's the yardstick or authority for it, nor is dear old Bill saying it. For example, the VW Beetle can be referred to as the 'bug' in the U.S. and as 'the beetle' in the U.K. and I wouldn't say that an audio sample of the owners saying either provided some sort of verdict on it. I worked with circuit design and assembly programming of the 6502/65C02 in the 80's/90's and the Z80, 8051, 68000 (and more on the list that we all had a go with) since. I'm not trying to open the article too wide but drop into a professional environment in the U.K. and talk about this device and you'll hear both terms interchangeably. Maybe people find saying 'sixty-five' too clunky; the U.K. loves time-saving slang, like many places. I never heard many other terms, though. One gut did call it 'the oh-two' but only because we knew what he was referring to already. That's why I put it in - I'm not trying to push the opinion of just me and my four mates in one tiny lab' or something :-) Incidentally, I'm sure you're not either. I hope you'll see my change in this light: revising a comment from long experience in industry with it (please ignore the grandad overtones of that!).

Your revert on Microcontroller page[edit]

Concerning your revert on Microcontroller page (Special:Diff/818438351). Please see MOS:CAPSACRS policy in the Wikipedia Manual of Style, it clearly states that initialisms should NOT be capitalized in Wikipedia. All initialisms that I have decapitalized were checked against their corresponding Wikipedia articles to make sure that they are indeed generic initialisms and not trademarked proprietary names. As such, terms like pulse-width modulation, real-time clock, central processing unit, programmable interval timer and universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter should NOT be capitalized. Please re-consider your revert as it goes against the current Wikipedia Manual of Style. Additionally, this revert has rolled back other decapitalizations of clearly common nouns.


Hi there (unsigned) @Nyq, in MOS:CAPSACRS it clearly states the following for initialisms:

  On Wikipedia, most acronyms are written in all capital letters (such as NATO, BBC, and JPEG).
  Wikipedia does not follow the practice of distinguishing between acronyms and initialisms.

Line 1 says: use capitals. Line 2 says: initialisms, like acronyms, will use capitals.

It also states:

  Certain material may be written with all capitals or small capitals:
  Acronyms and initialisms (see § Acronyms, above); these are given in all caps not small caps

This corresponds with how these terms are used in untold piles of component datasheets and other technical documents.

Where is the bit where "it clearly states that initialisms should NOT be capitalized in Wikipedia"? ToaneeM (talk) 16:00, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please see the second part of the MOS:CAPSACRS policy, titled "Expanded forms of abbreviations". You are quoting the first part of the policy which deals with unexpanded forms of initialisms (and they indeed should be all caps, e.g. "UART" - and none of my edits decapitalized unexpanded initialisms). However, expanded forms is a different business and the second part of the policy does clearly state: "Do not apply initial capitals in a full term that is a common noun phrase, just because capitals are used in its abbreviation." Q.E.D.? Nyq (talk) 16:09, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Hi @Nyq, right, now I've found the correct bit, please ignore my previous statement :-) But...

In MOS:CAPSACRS it states:

  Do not apply initial capitals in a full term that is a common noun phrase,
  just because capitals are used in its abbreviation.

So when 'central processing unit' is used as a common-noun phrase, it does not need capitalisation. During the first time that an initialism is used, it is regarded as good English to declare it if the reader may not recognise it e.g. 'executed by the Central Processing Unit (CPU)'. This makes a clear link between the initialism and its definition.

Thereafter, text should use 'central processing unit' or CPU, never 'Central Processing Unit'. That is what the MOS:CAPSACRS statement is saying, highlighted by the 'just because'. It doesn't mean that all initialisms first-use declarations should be lower-case. Otherwise, WP would be at odds with the component datasheets and other technical documentation that it references or is taken from, confusing the reader/learner.

Incidentally, it's 'a UART', not 'an UART'. ToaneeM (talk) 16:18, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your revert on "an UART".
On the issue of making it more clear to the reader on the first use, the same policy at the end of the second section states that if you really want to do this, you should use italics for emphasis, not capitalization and not the bold font. This is mostly useful for syllabic abbreviation expansions, where the link might not be obvious, but for initialisms that use one letter per word the link is rather self-evident.
Lastly, on the issue of WP being at odds with countless data sheets, a lot of commercial texts in various fields where marketing is involved (including integrated circuit design and manufacturing) have excessive capitalization of terms just to make them look more important and proprietary. It does not mean that WP must follow the suit. E.g., if you let Brother company write an article about their printers, I am sure their marketing folks will want the laser printer to be called Laser Printer, and on/off button to be called On/Off Button, but this is not the reason for us to do the same.
I am proposing a compromise where you revert your revert, and I will then make a partial revert based on that, bringing back the original "a UART" form. Does that seem reasonable? Nyq (talk) 16:40, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Nyq, please don't take this the wrong way but I'm far from daft enough to be duped by the marketing hype in some datasheets :-) I was referring to the majority of manufacturer's technical documentation which, as far as I've seen over a lot of reading, is very good and consistent. It's not really a compromise, since I'm strongly of the opinion that its a deliberate move in a bad direction, but I would have to reasonably substantiate that argument and I'm unable to do that. I think your script/editing is the Devil's work and it makes me grimace but it seems inevitable :-) How you sleep at nights, though... ToaneeM (talk) 17:05, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you![edit]

The Civility Barnstar
Thanks very much! I will be less forceful and more ToaneeM  :) ——SN54129 14:26, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Re: The Spy Who Loved Me[edit]

First off, I did not add the Palm Beach Post citation. An anonymous user did on October 24, and all I did was filled in the reference. Moore's book My Word is Bond may have more reliable in which he may have repeated the claim, and I live close to a library that has the book in circulation. So, I'll update the page with a better source if I can. Thank you for being civil about this. PrinceArchelaus (talk) 20:27, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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National varieties of English[edit]

Information icon Hello. In a recent edit to the page Genesis (band), you changed one or more words or styles from one national variety of English to another. Because Wikipedia has readers from all over the world, our policy is to respect national varieties of English in Wikipedia articles.

For a subject exclusively related to the United Kingdom (for example, a famous British person), use British English. For something related to the United States in the same way, use American English. For something related to another English-speaking country, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, India, or Pakistan, use the variety of English used there. For an international topic, use the form of English that the first author of the article used.

In view of that, please don't change articles from one version of English to another, even if you don't normally use the version in which the article is written. Respect other people's versions of English. They, in turn, should respect yours. Other general guidelines on how Wikipedia articles are written can be found in the Manual of Style. If you have any questions about this, you can ask me on my talk page or visit the help desk. Thank you. --Picard's Facepalm Made It So Engage! 22:18, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Picard's Facepalm I'm afraid you've auto-reverted. I'm very aware of the text you've posted above. The article uses British English and is about an English rock band who were born, lived, wrote all their music and retired all in Britain (England actually). It's not an international topic i.e. no more applicable to one country than any other. It incorrectly uses US English. Also, under the description you've posted above, the corrections I made were right. As I remember it, the article some time back used British English spelling but this has been changed by another to US English, so it was put back. Rather than myself justifying the change, there's no justification for it being anything other than British English. This is a reasoned change so, accordingly, I'll reinstate the change. Please don't edit war by reverting again. Please put any discussion on this on the article's talk page, not my user page. Thanks. ToaneeM (talk) 22:42, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]