User talk:Tony1/Archive 11

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The Signpost: 4 July 2011

In need of help

Hi, Tony. As far as I know, you're the best copy-editing editor around, so I came here to ask you a favor, if you don't mind. There is a FAC nomination of May Revolution which I believe that is a lot of potential, but it's has not acchieved FA standards yet. Could you spare some time to review this article and help improve its prose, please? Thank you very much, --Lecen (talk) 23:06, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

American dates

Re this edit, I wonder if some of WP:MOSNUM has escaped your attention, particularly the bit that says, "Where Wikipedia does not mandate a specific style, editors should not attempt to convert Wikipedia to their own preferred style"? It appears that you have changed dozens of dates in that article to the American style for no reason, and then mandated that use at the top! Some of the other parts of that massive edit were inconsequential but possibly slightly useful so I can't be bothered to go through the whole article sorting out the mess. Looking at your contribution history it seems that you did similar things to several dozen articles today alone. Are you planning on putting the dates at Ötzi the Iceman back to European format soon? --Nigelj (talk) 19:25, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

  • Tony's alignment of the dates to a single format within the article was to put the article into conformity with WP:MOSNUM#Format consistency. It seems that his choice of date format did not meet with your approval. I have therefore flipped them into dmy format that you prefer. BTW, you will notice from the diff that there were some dates in mdy format, including the first one – that may have caused Tony to choose that as the 'reference' format. No doubt he will explain further if he deems it necessary. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:16, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
I saw lots of mdy formats and assumed other editors had later added a few dmy dates. I harmonised. It's sometimes a difficult call when the article is unrelated to a native anglophone country. Tony (talk) 03:39, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
It's not just an anglophone thing. Perhaps a glance at the map on Date format by country will help you decide before setting the script loose in future. There are really just a very few countries that use MDY format internally. Thanks, Ohconfucius; it's fine now. --Nigelj (talk) 18:46, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
The map doesn't help when the topic is unrelated to an anglophone country. Then it the choice of the first major contributor. Tony (talk) 19:08, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

McCauley images

Hi mate, re. your last edit summary/question, you know you're preaching to the converted when it comes to using larger images, so no issue there...;-) My only concern is that placing that image on the right generates a great deal of white space after the section heading; even if we move the image down to the next second para, it'd encroach on the next section. I think image placement in the vicinity of infoboxes is never ideal, but having text squeezed a bit seemed preferable to a lot of white space. I have two laptops at home, one with 10" screen and one with 15", and the space occurs no matter which -- any suggestions? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:45, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok, let me look. I have a 27" monitor, and I'll try it from narrow to wide window widths. Tony (talk) 10:53, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
White space inevitable at most window widths, because of the ToC box. On my monitor, at a width of 24 cm, the white space is minimised; beyond that, the infobox breaches the first section title (ok by me), and beyond 20 cm, the first pic breaches the second title (also ok, but the left-side aircraft pic then sandwiches the text, although not badly in this case). Please revert the image to what you like, but you can never optimise it for anything but one set of specs on a computer monitor. Depends on width, screen res, font setting. I can send you screenshots if you want. Tony (talk) 11:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Editable version of TFP on the main page

Be aware that the editable version of the TFP feature is really used for modelling suggestions that are being flagged up on wp:Errors. Changing as you did at 04:25 today does not alter the Main Page, and those who might change it on the Main Page are unlikely to see it if not drawn to their attention at ERRORS. Kevin McE (talk) 12:45, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I think 24 hours before appearing on the MP, but I'm not sure of such technicalities Kevin McE (talk) 20:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Main-page image sizes

Just to comment on the image size thing, which is cropping up in lots of places. I think you have to recognise that images are there to be clicked on. Readers are not stupid and they learn or find out that to get a bigger image you need to do more than just look at the page and wonder why the image is not presented in a larger size. Have a look at website like the BBC news website, which while it is a news website and not an encyclopedia website, it does have 'boxes' on the page that have pictures of varying size. But it does still have small images. And unlike Wikipedia, when I sometimes want to see a larger version of the images they are using, I click and it takes me to the news story (or feature) and often the image in question is not there at all! Very disappointing. But I do think it is possible to go overboard with making images bigger. There will always be a need for the smaller thumbnails to allow room for the text. And there should be more text than images on Wikipedia's front page, though I do also think that a major overhaul of the design is needed (the last one was 2006), but that would entail changes to all the processes that currently feed into it. Though you seem to have been trying to make changes to all those processes! Maybe a more centralised discussion about the main page as a whole would be better than approaching each 'box' separately? Carcharoth (talk) 22:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

  • Much of the job of an editor is to ensure that the content is rendered attractive to the reader. There are images and there are images. A brilliant image that displays well at 1028 pixels' width may look like a garbled mess at 120 pixels. A featured picture is meant to be featured in the best possible light subject to the constraints of other content on the MP. That was clearly not done on the case of the panorama POTD of yesterday. Sure, people are not fools, and will click on the image to see it in full. but in the above example, I would click on it to wonder why such a mess ever made it to 'featured' status. I guess it could be argued that the underlying reason doesn't matter, so long as they end up where we want them to go. Perhaps that is the point you're trying to make? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:32, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
    • That panorama is an interesting example. To fully appreciate that, I think you need to print it out 6-feet across as a big poster. To my mind, you only get to appreciate the full impact and detail in bits, zooming in on it. Some images are just made to be printed oversized and hung on a wall. Computer screens don't do them justice. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that other websites (like the BBC) have small thumbnails, and while they clearly try and select images that aren't useless at thumbnail size, I suspect they don't stress about it as much as some do here. i.e. Some changes will help, but overstating a case can be as bad as understating it. Best of all would be a hover-and-expand feature for images, but I think at the moment the hover function mousetips the alt text (or something)? Carcharoth (talk) 02:39, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

A. You might srsly be surprised how man "normal people" (not young webhead techie wiki-crowd editors, but normal readers) do not know to click on the photo or do not do it routinely.

B. Some websites give a bigger pic when you click on an image. Some do not. It is by no means universal for that to happen.

C. Clicking sux. I want to incorporate info as fast and efficient as I can.

D. Doesn't help if the page is printed.

P.s. That said, your MP review was bitchin'. TCO (reviews needed) 02:16, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Ghostrider? (It's in the edit summary.) I have to ask, do you talk like that in real life? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 02:26, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
That's...an affirmative. [TCO's unsigned comment, I think. (Tony)]

Carcharoth, sorry to have taken so long to respond.

"I think you have to recognise that images are there to be clicked on. Readers are not stupid"—Several responses. Typically readers are faced seeing with the display size on a page or a humungously large original at full res if they wanted to divert to the pic page (we should hope not unless they have a special reason for doing so); sometimes the full tragedy takes a little while to download, too, aside from the need to navigate around the wallpaper. Many visitors to the main page won't know about this double-clicking function. But more important than this impracticality is the need to treat the pics as functional in the context of the main-page information and layout, without reference to the original pic at full res at Commons or wherever.

The great concern is to redesign the main page so it looks good and uses images well, while having good functionality and accessibility; this is the agenda for almost every other website, even if some don't meet these challenges as well as they could. There is too much text on WP's main page, all sandwiched into a dense forest of big grey paragraphs and messy bullets, vying for the limited real estate. Let's remember that the page stretches down a long way, and User:Dispenser has pointed out research results that show the alarmingly small proportion of visitors to any site who scroll down.

The double-column idea guarantees that images have to be tiny, especially on the cramped 45% right-side. While some portraits are discernible at 100px (and luckily OTD and ITN choose mostly portraits), their impact and interest factor rates about 2/10 on my scale.

"Best of all would be a hover-and-expand feature for images, but I think at the moment the hover function mousetips the alt text (or something)?" I'm not convinced the accessibility can't be good in a mouse-over-expanding-images main page. I'm not saying it's a doddle (what to do about the imageless TFAs needs to be worked through; but then, imageless TFAs right now are a major downer). Tony (talk) 06:13, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost Barnstar

The Signpost Barnstar
For your excellent and consistent work as the main writer of the Signpost's "Featured content"/"Features and admins" section that I was allowed to witness during my past year as the Signpost's editor, as well as for numerous improvements of the Signpost's readability and visual appeal, I award you the Signpost Barnstar. Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:53, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
I think that's well deserved. Malleus Fatuorum 02:09, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
I like how you write. How the 'posties in general do. Has a newspaperly vigor to it. Fresh breeze of air compared to some of our ponderous analysis (I am one of the ponderers!) TCO (reviews needed) 02:11, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 July 2011

Indonesian National Revolution

Hi Tony. I know you generally don't review articles unless they are already at the Feature article nominees board, but I was wondering if you could take a quick look at Indonesian National Revolution and tell me if you think it would have a good chance or not; no need to go in-depth, just the basics. If it looks good, I hope to nominate it so it can be FA status by Indonesia's Independence Day on 17 August. Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:30, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Are the prerequisites for article creation optimal on en.WP?

Average kept/deleted daily article numbers created 1 January – 31 May 2011, as of 30 June 2011


Created from data supplied at User:Snottywong/Article creation stats. Tony (talk) 14:38, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Boy that tells a stark story. I think the time has come. Raising the threshold will eliminate some bad work (not everything gets patrolled), while reducing few good creations (even some of those may get made anyway). Really the issue with our product is not lack of coverage, but poor coverage of topics we know are important. Obviously, we still want new articles, but it is not the priority. Quality is. Most darned chat forums require registration to participate. There is no reason why Wiki should not require it as well. Also, it is very discouraging to get an article deleted and the newest people have the least understanding of what is expected. Shifting to some natural apprenticeship model is the way to go.TCO (reviews needed) 15:00, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Yup. But interested in the range of opinions about this. I think there's a notice at Centralised discussion. Tony (talk) 15:05, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Quite a stark story indeed. I'm just worried that if we allow only autoconfirmed users to make new articles, we will drift further and further from being free. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:07, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Well, we have been trying it the "free-er" way and we have DATA to show the result. I say, let's try a little less freedom.TCO (reviews needed) 15:21, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
wow, interesting stat that one. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:54, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
... but one that's lost on so many here, blinded by the mantra that "anyone can edit". Sure, even monkeys can edit, but should they? Wikipedia in its early years had a bulking-up problem, but those days are long gone. The problem now is quality, not quantity. Malleus Fatuorum 04:23, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

TFL blurbs

Tony, following on from your comments on the 11 July TFL blurb and your (understandable) disappointment at the quality of the Somerset TFA blurb, I'd just like to invite you, if you dare, to spend a few moments reviewing our TFL blurbs which, generally, will be available no less than two weeks before hitting Main Page. As we're only a one-day-a-week brigade, it's easier for us to ensure quality, but as you pointed out a while back, we should be aiming higher, and we currently have a growing consensus in the list world that 2/3 times a week should be achievable. However, we don't want to fall into the TFA trap of weak blurbs, so right now I'm just putting this out here to ask if you'd be kind enough to support our ongoing (current) scheme of Monday=TFL day, and hopefully support our future Sat/Sun/Mon (perhaps) = TFL days. As ever, thanks for your interest in our process, and for the time you invest in dragging us from the grammatical gutter. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:23, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I really respect you both!TCO (reviews needed) 18:51, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
TRM, I certainly do support TFL on the main page and I think more than one a week would be suitable for the main page. But our first priority should be to convince people that nothing less than a wholesale redesign of the main page is called for. I strongly favour a mouse-over image-based layout, in which an in-browser (as opposed to second-window) popup of the image floats out with accompanying text. This would need to be professionally designed, with a brief determined by the community and the final product approved by consensus. The image could be substituted with a forum title where there's no image suitable, but this should be minimised. We need to lose this insistence on cramming large amounts of text directly onto the main page; the pop-up design could ironically open up much more access from the main page to our best forums. I have in mind shorter blurbs for both TFA and TF—large hooks, as it were. The unexpected RfC on the future of the main page is a welcome first step. Tony (talk) 14:09, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Walk away

Tony, "... if people really do want to walk away, that's fine ..." you said, I don't support that, not in general and particularly not in the situation, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:45, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Gerda, please quote my full sentence, not just a part of it. I said, "We actually have too many noms coming through, so if people really do want to walk away, that's fine, although they should be discouraged from doing so if DYK is going to fulfill its function of encouraging high-quality new articles." I had no idea BM had left, and I'm sorry I've had no time to review DYK over the past week. I think I'm persuaded by SandyGoergia, Sven Manguard, and others who are calling for a re-think of DYK. Tony (talk) 13:52, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, I supplied a link to the complete thread, and ellipses, thinking that made clear that it wasn't your full sentence. Did you notice that I took your advice to my heart to have a translation of the German title in "... that Martin Luther's chorale Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (From deep affliction I cry out to you) was sung at his own funeral?" Learning, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
In a short, punchy hook, I'd rather not have the German. Tony (talk) 01:47, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Oh Tony, you and foreign languages. I like it...but yeah, short and punchy has merit too.... :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:49, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 July 2011

I had a para break in my TFA blurb

I started with a 100 word para (bout right length I thought). Director told me to get it up to 1200 spaces (I guess that is 200 words+) for balance versys rest of page (they actually WANT more text, not just tolerate it). So...I put a para break in! It made sense idea wise. And looked just ducky. non-wikians saw it running and no one thought it bad (looked like magazine text). Wikians didn't like it though...for being different and it got changed back after a few hours. Really don't think it was bad though. Think it was good.  :) TCO (reviews needed) 00:21, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I like Raul's practice of single paragraph. I am alarmed that blurbs are being forced up in length. They need to be shorter, not longer, for a bunch of reasons. Tony (talk) 00:36, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

TFL blurbs

Hi Tony, just a quick request, I've now queued up our TFL blurbs to the end of August, (only six), so was wondering, if you had the time and energy and inclination, if you could give us some feedback/copyedits of them. Mind you, that does depend on whether FLs continue to feature on main page, which seems in doubt right now given the various wide-ranging main page update discussions... Hope you're well. For your convenience, July and August are the links. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:51, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, TRM. Will get onto this. Tony (talk) 00:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Implications of 'obvious'

Rather than overwhelm that talk page with more side-discussion, I've come here to bring up another reason why I objected to the wording "obvious faults in prose, structure, and formatting". You use the word obvious to ensure that it doesn't become an open-ended review, but turn it around and imagine that you wrote a new article that you thought was good, and then had someone tell you that there was an "obvious fault". Even if it was true, it would be a bit discouraging, wouldn't it? I would have no objections to someone suggesting improvements to 'prose, structure, and formatting', but I would be a bit more diplomatic about it. Having said that, the last time I pointed out an 'obvious' fault to someone (the title in an article about a person had a spelling mistake and the name was not spelled consistently in the article) they retired, though that may have been due to other matters. It is a very minor point, so can you not agree that rephrasing "obvious faults" might gain more acceptance for the idea that all articles should at some point get a basic review done? Carcharoth (talk) 16:55, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Carcharoth, why not remove the word "obvious", then, if you think it might offend an article creator to have obvious glitches pointed out? I'd be there fixing them pronto if I were the nominator (and I do make obvious mistakes sometimes). The prose of articles about to be exposed on the main page needs to be reviewed. I doubt there are reviewers who will do more than point out more than the most egregious points anyway, and if they do, the nominator gets a free mini-tutorial, a newly created incomplete article sets a good standard for improvement, and we show the world high standards for creating articles. If someone leaves the project because they think sloppy sentences and incoherent leads are fine to expose on the main page, that's a pity; but DYK should be using article improvement to groom them. Tony (talk) 00:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Yeah. It depends whether anyone is going to use the format you have suggested, though. Rather than hope that people will use it, I think you, me, and cmadler (who also liked it) should start using it. If others like it, they will adopt the same approach. If they don't, they won't. But at least it will become clear whether reviewers using a more systematic approach end up being better at picking up on stuff that shouldn't be reaching the main page. Would you be able to check whether the links at Template:DYKfullreview are pointing to the right place? At the moment, remember, you can only really copy-paste the contents, as it is not fully set-up to substitute with parameters and all that. Carcharoth (talk) 02:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
The live RfC has overwhelmingly endorsed its use. I believe it needs to be adopted, unless reviewers want to type out the items manually. Tony (talk) 02:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, but it's not a working template. It is only a draft. You (or someone) needs to find someone who can turn it into a proper template, with instructions for use and so on. And how well it is designed will affect how readily people will use it, no matter how much consensus there is for a checklist to be used. It's the difference between words and actions. I'd suggest asking the guy who did the recent subpaging stuff, or the guy who suggested putting it in the nomination template, what the best approach might be. And it is something that anyone should feel free to use, whether or not it is officially adopted. But as I said, the priority is finding some template wizard to help get it working. Carcharoth (talk) 03:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
OK. The RfC has produced strong consensus that the explicit reviewing of all of those aspects be required, actually. Tony (talk) 03:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Copyedit request

It's a handful, but I'm determined to get Richard Nixon to FA and you seem the guy to go to.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Barnstar of Diplomacy
For coming up with some great ideas for how to improve the DYK and seeming to be the only person actually actively coming up with trial and errors to do so. I was very impressed by your graphs and you current trial with the mini review for the July 19th entries. Great job, hopefully this will come to something. I think its a great idea. And if people can't be bothered to do the reviews it would be tough luck! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 July 2011

Talkback

Hello, Tony1. You have new messages at Template talk:Did you know/Kiever Synagogue.
Message added 01:50, 27 July 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jayjg (talk) 01:50, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Musical works

A fellow editor has raised a query on my talk page about some musical numbering which was affected by the dashes script. As an expert in music and style matters, can you advise please? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 06:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Tony, thanks for looking at Messiah Part II, one of those poorly written DYK articles. Your comment "nice work" counts tenfold, on that background, thank you! Now to the dashes: as expressed, I am concerned that it looks now like a number range (thanks for the word) which it is NOT. It should show, as clearly as possible, that the first number is the Novello number, the second one the Bärenreiter number. I thought a space before and after the dash would do, 27 – 24 instead of 27–24. The latter invites me to open another column for the B#, which I wanted to avoid because then the beginning of the text is so distant to the first number, which is still — to my surprise — the one most sources go by, although its not the "Urtext". — Do we really have to place a "sic" in a 250 years old quote? — You will remember I announced my essay on "rejected". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:18, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Oh dear: I got it completely wrong, thinking they were number ranges. Not sure the spaced dash will get it across either. This could be raised at MoS (music) for their advice, but I'll ask User:Noetica, if he's around. Is "excelling" the old spelling? If so, probably I should have left it. No, please no sic! I'll ask Noetica's advice on this too. All above and beyond the DYK brief, but since these should be headed towards FAC eventually, it's good to get another opinion. Tony (talk) 10:24, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, but don't think these will go to FAC, it's Messiah (Handel). It should be correct, anyway, though. I will link the table heading on the numbers to the explanation above the table. - Spelling: I don't know if "excells" was old spelling, closer to excellence. I would just leave it in the quote as he wrote it, right or wrong, without a teacher's mark, as long as it's understood, which I think it is, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:44, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Some sections of Slash (punctuation) suggest to me that those different numbering systems could be separated by a slash ("/"); WP:SLASH doesn't seem to rule it out. Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:00, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, Michael. I was thinking along those lines, too. Please see my latest comment about the table at issue. Tony (talk) 12:07, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Dash question

Hi Tony, just saw a newly created article, 2011 Kosovo-Serbia border clashes and thought, per the new consensus at WT:MOS, that it should be moved to 2011 Kosovo–Serbia border clashes because Kosovo and Serbia are two separate entities. Is that correct? Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 10:37, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, Jenks, a textbook case for the use of a dash. Tony (talk) 12:07, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Tony. Now moved. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 12:19, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

DYK question

Hi Tony. Question about this new DYK setup. Is the nominator supposed to add this to the nomination themselves, or do we wait for someone else to do it (as you did)? If it's the former, I'll make sure I do so on the rest of my nominations. But let me know either way. Thanks! — Hunter Kahn 13:56, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Hunter, well it's only just being rolled out after the RfC that requires the explicit reviewing and signing off of those aspects received overwhelming endorsement. As yet, there's no automatic mechanism (which would be very easy to arrange), so I and a few others have been pasting in the review template. Yes, it would be very helpful if you did paste it in, although you're not obliged to. Thanks. Tony (talk) 14:01, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing

With regard to the article Synaptula lamperti, I would not have nominated it for DYK myself as I knew it had its failings resulting particularly from the limited sources I had found. Someone else nominated it however so it is under the spotlight.

It is difficult to extract information from the few available sources about an obscure species, and which may use technical terms, without doing some close paraphrasing. If I find several sources, I can often see how they have all close paraphrased one another and it is not always apparent which is the original. Either I use the same material that they have done or I can't write the article. When it comes to describing an organism there is always a conventional order in which things are written and it is difficult to avoid the technical terms. I try to avoid close paraphrasing as much as possible but can't avoid it completely.

Is Wikipedia the better for the article? I think it is. Are any of the sources going to complain? I think not. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:50, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

  • I think you missed the point. Copyright is a legal principle. Whether any of the sources complain or not does not exempt it from relevant US legislation. In any event, I've copyedited it so that it now hopefully conforms. Hope I haven't misstated anything in the edits. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 06:24, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
    • Thanks, OC, and Cwm, let's try to get this DYK rolling. I'll look later. Suffering from flu at the moment, so I'm not at my best. Tony (talk) 08:03, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
      • Tony, when you have recovered from the flu, which I hope will be soon, I would be interested in your response to my second paragraph above. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:50, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
        • CP is not an easy issue. It can't be checked, usually, in offline sources. And the nature and extent of duplication between a WP article text and a source depends on a number of things. I'm not sure WP:Plagiarism and the CP page explain it in sufficient detail. Tony (talk) 13:20, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

DYKs

Hi there! I think I've missed something. DYK used to be quite simple, but now it seems to have got overly complicated, and I'm worried that new users won't understand it. Hell, I'm an arbitrator, and I struggled to understand the new system. Is this now set in policy, or can people review DYKs without it? The Cavalry (Message me) 11:18, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Response: Chase me, I'm glad to see you back. The nomination system has new instructions that enable a watchlistable sub-page for each nom, which is a significant advance for the forum. But beyond that, it's not the nomination so much as the reviewing system that has been modified, so one hopes there's nothing to put off new editors wanting their work exposed on the main page. But one thing I personally would like to see is the expectation that more nominators return to their nomination page to engage with reviews; this often hasn't occurred and is part of the cycle that disenchants potential reviewers from participating.

There's been a lot of discontent about DYK over the past few months (coming after several previous waves, I believe; but I wasn't around DYK then). You might be interested in this summary of recent RfC results:

This came after a lot of discussion:

Then a series of DYK-specific RfCs were launched over the past two weeks:

And several other discussion threads.

So now after all of this kerfuffle, at least we have overwhelming consensus for an explicit reviewing checklist, comprising almost entirely the existing rules of DYK, which clearly haven't been implemented properly until now. There's a degree of disquiet among a few DYK regulars as to what type of checklist should be used, but the RfC has made that pretty plain, I think.

To answer your opening question, yes, there's no policy-driven checklist, but the RfC has made it abundantly clear that a specific set of aspects must be explicitly checked and passed; I guess this could be done by typing out in long-hand that one thinks a nom should pass on each ground, but they would need to be spelled out (not just "Passes all DYK requirements"). Tony (talk) 12:14, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation - that's excellent. The Cavalry (Message me) 12:22, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

QPQ?

  • Excuse me, what does QPQ mean? Tks.  – Ling.Nut (talk) 04:01, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
    • Good question, Lingnut. Quid Pro Quo reviewing, was introduced at DYK last year as a quick remedy for the lack of reviewers at the process; this was especially useful in a system that favoured pumping out up to 32 DYKs on WP's main page rather than incubating new articles to ensure they were improved and properly checked for policy compliance. Under QPQ, editors must review another editor's nomination for every one of their own (although exempt for their first four noms). It has been disastrous because these reviews have been treated as de facto full reviews for policy and quality compliance (compliance that is required by the DYK rules, not to mention WP's rules): QPQ reviewers have typically been checking just article length, time since expansion, amount of expansion, and nothing much else, but dismissing all in the "Ready to go" phrase. I favour retaining QPQ reviewing, but with explicit requirements to review the clerical, character-counting stuff and one of the more high-level aspects, such as hook interest and plagiarism. Tony (talk) 04:07, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
      • Thanks for the reply. I am trying to come up to speed on this apparently related cluster of debates across several forums... but I remember Giggy's RfA nom failed for two reasons, and half of it was his offer of QPQ GA reviews. Now DYK has institutionalized the practice? Human beings are human beings; they will collude in camera to get the things they desire whenever given an opportunity to do so. But that's a debate for other people on other pages. I appreciate your help with the def of QPQ.  – Ling.Nut (talk) 04:15, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

CP tips page

Hi Tony, I think this page is a good start for reviewing, but beyond that I think we need a page somewhere about how to correctly paraphrase and summarize. In my mind the issue boils down to teaching some fundamental writing strategies. I'm popping in & out today until a bit later, but I wanted to float the idea while it's on my mind. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 17:01, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps some click-and-show examples that ask the editor to judge whether it's above or below the line of acceptability? Tony (talk) 09:23, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I think click and show examples are a good idea. I'm not entirely crazy about the rewrite of the WP:Close paraphrasing page and maybe that could use some tweaking. Best for me not to do it because the editor who rewrote was unhappy when I pointed to close paraphrasing in their pages. Also I think teaching how to paraphrase and summarize, something like this, would be useful. Quite honestly, a lot of editors really don't understand or know what to do. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:45, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

DYK review

Hi Tony. Although I think your formal review system is a great idea and the raise in standards that are needed I'm afraid to say it has put off many of the decent DYK regulars including myself and both of my regular fellow writers who are unwilling to go to such lengths jsut to get a DYK credit. I thought having to review other people's work even briefly before was pushing it before but having to conduct a formal review for each one I think is a little too far. The only way I can see it working in the long run is if we adopt say 5 or so DYK reviewers who are given the task of overlooking DYKs much like you did recently. I know you haven't time for it yourself on a permanent basis but I feel if we could free it up for DYK article writers so they write an article and simply propose and leave it up to ADYK reviewer to pick out anything issues I feel it would releive the pressure on the writer. I mean say you spend three hours writing an article the last thing you want to do is have to do detective work on somebody else's article just so you can get your credit.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

User:Khazar's quit, User:Nvvchar's quit, User:Rosiestep relatively inactive past week, these are amongst our most prolific contributors. We can't afford to lose these people. Its sad to see. Is the main page of wikipedia more important than our most productive editors? We need to find a balance Tony, can you respond? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Dr. Blofeld, it's disappointing to hear that some DYK editors don't want to put any effort into improving their newly created/expanded articles for main-page exposure; perhaps that is because "the reward" is to have one's article exposed on the main page for a pitiful six hours (eight hours at the moment, I see), or perhaps they've gone "on strike" in protest that someone should have the gall to actually implement the consensus that a review "checklist" be used—roundly established at the RfC just a week ago. This ample demonstration that the community wants a system of proper DYK reviewing resonated with a parallel RfC on main-page features, where people have indicated a strong preference for showcasing quality.

But the DYK system appears to have been constructed to encourage quantity instead, made possible by the quick-and-easy approach. What upsets many members of the community is that if newly created/expanded articles are to be showcased on the main page, there should an expectation of quality and policy compliance that takes a little time and concentration to achieve, even with short articles. (I'd have thought a major justification of DYK was to induct newish editors into these skills, to establish relationships between them and more experienced editors—but this hasn't been happening.)

DYK finds itself caught between:

(1) its toxic reputation in the community (I don't need to link you to that);

(2) the growing emphasis on professionalism in content venues over the past few years (especially WRT copyvio, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing);

(3) calls to significantly improve the content and design of WP's main page, and on the other side;

(4) an entrenched DYK culture of pumping through huge quantities in short shifts on the main page, over checking for compliance and quality and giving them the time-exposure they deserve.

I'm puzzled when you say, "I feel if we could free it up for DYK article writers so they write an article and simply propose and leave it up to a DYK reviewer to pick out anything issues I feel it would releive the pressure on the writer." I didn't have relieving pressure on writers right up there as a priority, actually: in the view of many editors, there's been far too little pressure on the DYK process, witness the widespread dump-and-run practice of nominating and failing to return, and the introduction of a quid-pro-quo reviewing requirement that masquerades as full, policy-compliance reviewing, but which has typically been a one-line wave-through. I think you'll find the community won't support a system that discourages the induction and mentoring of newish editors into the article improvement process—it matters nil that these are short, sometimes stubby articles: people expect them still to be good examples of WP's output if they're on the main page, and why not?

To return to your first concern, that editors are "leaving" DYK—well, let them. Too many DYKs are getting through unchecked, and the calls to slow it down are deafening. If traffic slows, thank heavens—we can all breath a bit and make DYKs a proud part of the main page and an incubator for skilled editors who have the keenness to stick around. As User:Demiurge said yesterday at DYK talk:

Let me finish by saying that I support DYK as a great idea for the main page and the project: by pushing for reform, I'm trying to protect it against forces that would see it dumped altogether. Tony (talk) 03:04, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I agree, in part its finding a balance I think. The thing is Tony whilst declining DYK input may be a good thing it is not a good thing that we are losing such productive editors who are a net plus for the project, regardless of DYK. IN regards to the pressure, yes it would seem it was too slack, but my point is why would I bother doing a ten minute review of somebody else's article just to simply get my article on the main page? The sad thing though is that many editors have clearly treated DYK like a game and are more interested it would seem in having their credit or daily buzz. I know DYK is a big motivator for many but it should not be central to wikipedia. I treat it as a harmless start to what could later become a GA. In regards to award as I've mentioned at the DYK, although this could be extended beyond DYK, I feel Tony that given our budget of $20 million this year? I think we could find that bit extra to invest a bit back into the project. If it would be too much to award editors for every good 25 articles they write, what about a monthly prize like that for the best article written in that month, say the best three articles like a Gold Prize, Silver Prize and Bronze Prize. Whilst this may be difficult if articles are collaborations you could work out what individual editors have contributed by their amount of referenced prose. Of course articles would need to be assessed to ensure that nobody has plagiarised or warbled on just to make their efforts look more respectable. People may think I'm crazy, whatever, but in a way an Amazon award scheme could also work for wikipedia. I know that money is seen as a taboo on wikipedia but I feel there should be a mechanism in place which gets editors to strive to produce the best article in a month. If the top prize was say a $500 voucher, second prize $250 third prize $100, fourth prize $50, fifth prize $25 that's what, $925 a month, less than $12,000 a year. Similarly you could have a prize for Best Article expansion and Best New Article. Perfectly reasonable I think given what our budget is. We could easily raise that in a day or two. If I won best article of the month or third best or whatever I would likely use an e-voucher to buy books to write articles. I think it could prove an effective scheme. I just feel we need to introduce things like this to just get editors more of a will to improve their articles and go that bit further. If that amount was offered the chance to be awarded with Best Article of the Month and a $500 voucher would really motivate to produce better work. Perhaps this scheme should be introduced for DYK to bring back the motivation. I agree with you that it is very important that initial step from stub to start class as a precedent for GA and higher and we desperately need to motivate people to expand our stubs and indeed start new content, especially from the non anglosphere.. If such a scheme were introduced, suddenly I would have a reason to bother doing a review and nominating my article for the chance of winning something. Its things like this which work. This way we would have a vigorous reviewing scheme in place raising standards and still give editors a reason to want to contribute.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:00, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

With great respect for Dr. Blofeld, my fellow evil-being, I think Tony's constructive efforts to improve reviewing are not the reason we are losing contributors. Khazar's exit statement makes this explicit: "Perhaps the last straw for me has been the admin and leading Wikipedia contributor who's spent the past week insisting at DYK that every editor who tries to contribute there is too shameless, indecent, and stupid to be allowed to edit an encyclopedia; so far as I've seen, these insults have not only not been censured, but actively defended by several other respected editors." Sharktopus talk 14:15, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Nixon redux

With Nixon set for FAC tonight US time, there is a remaining matter. People keep changing the last sentence of the first paragraph from "Nixon is the only President to resign the office." to "Nixon is the only President to have resigned the office." I think the first sentence is more effective, and is grammatically sound, but you are the expert. Also, I would appreciate it if you would look over what I have done with the images in the Presidential section (basically added a large image at the start of each major section, as you did with Domestic Policy, as the way of giving the reader a break from the unending text.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:07, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I like your shorter version better, but is it standard AmEng to exclude the "from" after "resigned". If so, fine. Tony (talk) 15:59, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Either sounds fine to me. I suspect it will be batted around at FAC quite a bit. Thanks.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:11, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
(e.c.) Love those big pics; at half-screen on my 27", the Zhou Enlai one is a bit cluttered with the shake hands and sworn in pics below and above. Same with a few other centred pics in their proximity to the small right-side adjacent pics. At full window width, not such a problem. Impossible to please all widths, though. It's a lot of fiddle. Looking for ways of separating them: reverse order of "Civil rights" and "US space program"? (BTW, is the transcripts pic centred?) The alternative might be to put two or more parallel between paragraphs. Don't worry. Gotta go to bed! Tony (talk) 16:12, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

DYK feedback

I noticed that no one was updating the DYK queues. Or the hooks. But I also noticed that if you put the hooks up there, other editors magically find problems with them (after x days of no comment after its approval) and then after a few hours of those being discussed you can move it to a queue.

No one has come to yell at me yet so I assume I haven't cocked anything up to a significant magnitude but could you just confirm this for me? Otherwise I'm afraid the deluge will start. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 20:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Panyd, I've not been around the prep rooms or the queues for at least a week, so I wasn't aware of a change in patterns. I'll take a look, but my inclination already is to say that the RfC on checklists has overwhelmingly determined that sets of hooks should only go on the main page if they've been explicitly passed WRT the specific aspects in the RfC text. In other words, a queuing admin will need to explicitly sign off on any "holes" before putting a set on the main page. If this means keeping a current set on the main page for longer, that wouldn't bother a lot of people. Could I say, also, that the seven-day rule for archiving will start to come into play soon. Tony (talk) 02:19, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
I might be doubling what Dr Blofield or others have already said and if that is the case then my bad but wow, there really aren't many administrators will to deal with this. Looking at the page it appears to just be me and one other person. Similarly, people don't seem to be looking at T:TDYK at all before things are moved to prep. People are complaining on the talk page about things that were approved by consensus for specific reasons (e.g. the sinkhole thing, which had its hook approved because it was a non-sequitor, seemed reasonable enough to me). Should I keep going at this? I love DYK and I really want to see it succeed but the lack of communication between pages and people is astounding and the flak from getting even one wrong (I know, it's seen by 4 million people, I know that's a big deal, but I'm learning here) is just astounding. Help me! Please! PanydThe muffin is not subtle 00:57, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps it's time for a directorate? Tony (talk) 02:36, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
I'd vote for you :P PanydThe muffin is not subtle 16:32, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
I think it would be a fine idea, although I do very little at DYK (I send an article over now and then). But I think any director should only be conditional, say for six months, though with broad powers. If he works out, then a confirmed term, though I don't know if appointment for life, a la Raul, is the best idea.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:39, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes yes yes. Structure is good. Another good idea would be to tap into the potential at Wikipedia:Ambassadors, since some folks are claiming there's been an exodus of editors from DYK. – Ling.Nut (talk) 16:54, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Panyd, that's flattering, but I don't aspire to office at WP. I was thinking of more than one director (as many as four?) who would:
  • be admins;
  • be responsible for the process as a whole, particularly the prep and queing sides, and the archiving system, and the support of good reviewing;
  • liaise with the other main-page forums as necessary;
  • foster schemes to bring more editors into the project, involving, in part, DYK exposure, and the induction and training and mentoring that can go with that. Tony (talk) 17:01, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
Shame, I really would vote for you. But yes, I completely agree both that that is an excellent idea and that it should be given a trial run first. As I said on here though, you've got to find the administrators first. And preferably encourage more good faith from all sides to acheive it. There's me and PFHLai doing it at the moment. Definitely need more. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 18:45, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

A new signpost article

Hi Tony! I always was stunned how professional you corrected my shameful translations for the signpost, thanks again for that! I now proposed another article here for a report of a conference which I've organized: User:DerHexer/Report about Wikipedia trifft Altertum. When my report will be accepted for the signpost, I'd be very glad if you could correct my mistakes and esp. improve my style as you excellently did before. :-) Many thanks in advance and kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 01:36, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Hex, nice to see you around. I'll do it tomorrow. Tony (talk) 03:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Hex, can't see it in the newsroom, so perhaps you're planning on next week's edition for this story? Tony (talk) 17:07, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Question about a move to prep

Were your enthusiastic comments at DYK on Babette Rosmond meant as a gtg? They sounded that way to me, so I moved it to Prep 2. After doing so, I noticed you hadn't filled in the 2 close paraphrase lines of the review. I did a spot check myself and did not find problems. If I did wrong, please let me know. And while I am here, warm and enthusiastic thanks for your helpful and PRACTICAL approach to making it easier for reviewers to do a better job. I have learned a lot from reviewing at DYK, much of it from you. Sharktopus talk 03:33, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your helpful response to that one on my talk page.
I posted a different question related to the new reviewing template here. Perhaps wanting to change the person listed as DYK-Maker is unusual enough that it should be addressed by hand in individual cases, rather than mucking up the script with one more complication. Sharktopus talk 17:19, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Featured writer

Excuse me Tony. I am wondering if you can write a Feature for WikiProject Video games' Newsletter? We would like to get someone with an outside perspective to write about their area of expertise and what VG project members should consider when navigating the process. GamerPro64 22:20, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

ping. GamerPro64 01:49, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, but I'm about to go away, and it's not really one of my areas. Tony (talk) 01:53, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Why am I never asked to write a feature. Is it because "I is black"? Malleus Fatuorum 01:59, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Would you really be interested in doing something for the video games genre? If you wanna write one, find a topic that you would be interested in, propose such a feature, and volunteer your services. More work for you, but perhaps it would be interesting/fun.  – Ling.Nut (talk) 03:57, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Tony- Just to clarify, we don't want you to write about video games, we would like you to share your expertise(s) with those that write video game articles. You are among the top copy editors on Wikipedia, and we'd like to pick your brain to so that our editors can become better writers. If you are unavailable right now, we'd gladly wait until you have more free time. (Guyinblack25 talk 14:28, 4 August 2011 (UTC))

The Signpost: 01 August 2011

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 02:13, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Wanna team up?

And write a specification for a directorate? Seems like people can't really have opinions on the idea when it's not fully formed. Which is fair enough. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 16:32, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, we could take what I set out in that list of four points, and work from there. Would you like to come up with a revision of that? Perhaps remove what you think is inappropriate and add detail where you think necessary? Tony (talk) 16:47, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Sure thing! *potters off* PanydThe muffin is not subtle 16:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Your turn. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 17:01, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK

Under your new system, is it compulsory to review another article?♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Dr Blofeld, I guess the template closely follows the community-endorsed RfC text I wrote and launched, but I wouldn't call it "my" system; in fact, it almost entirely mirrors text I got from the DYK rules and criteria. I suppose you could say the template is under trial, since people are still getting used to it—including me—and it seems to link DYK with other forums in meeting challenges of auditing/spot-checking for plagiarism. Perhaps a review of the way it's working is required at some stage at DYK. Here are a few issues, one of which you've raised here:
  1. Should there be an expectation that a single person review every aspect of a nom? And specifically, now that the expectations of DYK have risen—both in explicit scope and intensity—if the QPQ reviewing system is to continue should it be modified to recognise that an entire review to promotion or rejection by a single (QPQ) reviewer is impractical, given the goals of DYK? Is an explicit set of aspects the way to go for QPQ reviewing?
  2. What is the role of the pre-existing system of icons? Should another system be developed?
  3. Is the watchlisting system working well?
  4. Do the instructions need to be revised in the light of 1–3?
  5. Should the template—or an equivalent template that does justice to the community-endorsed RfC result—be integrated into the automatic nomination template at DYK?
  6. Has the role of the queuing admins changed? Who should shoulder the responsibility of ensuring policy compliance and quality on main-page hooks? Should this be shared among the admins, the reviewers, and the nominators? Should anyone still be permitted to load noms onto the prep pages?
  7. Should there be a normal limit on the number of DYKs in a single hook? It seems that each DYK article in these noms needs to be examined separately.
  8. Does DYK have a role to play in encouraging further work on articles, after main-page exposure? Should there be more official support for a trajectory from DYK to GA to FA/FL?
  9. Should there be a directorate? What would be the disadvantages and advantages of having one? If the community decided the latter outweigh the former, presumably it should be elected; how big? What roles? For example, should the directors number four (my guess) and be admins (almost certainly). Should their role be:
(a) to keep all aspects of DYK running well, including nominations, reviewing, archiving, promotion/rejection, transfer to prep rooms, queuing, exposure, and archiving?
(b) to liaise as necessary with other editors who run the main page and its forums to ensure that the needs of the main page remain the primary driving force?
(c) to encourage article improvement after DYK main-page exposure?
(d) to advise if ever necessary on programs in which DYK might participate that benefit the project, whether prompted by WP editors, the WMF, or Foundation chapters?
I wonder whether any of these questions should be raised on the DYK talk page? I spell them out without prejudice: the community needs to consider them. Tony (talk) 12:14, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

(Relocated here for wider discussion. Tony (talk) 13:57, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

The short answer to Dr. Blofeld's question is yes. Nothing about the review requirement has changed. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:54, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK checklist

If you have a moment, please review and comment on WT:DYK#Review checklist templates or WT:DYK#The review checklist, redux. The issue of whether or not signatures are necessary within the checklist has come up (along with suggestions from NuclearWarfare and myself about how to get by without them), and as far as I remember you were the editor who wanted signatures. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:56, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

You have new message/s Hello. You have a new message at Template talk:DYKrev's talk page.

News and Notes

I have attempt to rectify your queries. Maybe you could have another look? I was trying very hard to give a balanced presentation -- if there's still a problem, could you suggest in which direction the writeup is skewed so I can adjust? Thanks, - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 11:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, I can't say I agree: but we don't really have time for a debate over it, so I've accepted your changes. There was an odd quotation choice included though, which I have changed. How does it read to you now? Which sentence is the one needing clarification? - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 15:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 August 2011

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My DYK proposal

I nominated HMS Phoenix (N96) for DYK about a week ago. I have made changes based on the feedback I have received but editors have stopped commenting. Could you take a look at Template talk:Did you know/HMS Phoenix (N96) please? Thanks, Ryan Vesey Review me! 14:18, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Sir

Quick question, forgive me if the answer is buried in MOS somewhere,

Which is more correct;

  1. ...the naturalist Sir David Attenborough. ie ...the naturalist Sir [[David Attenborough]].
  2. ...the naturalist Sir David Attenborough. ie ...the naturalist [[David Attenborough|Sir David Attenborough]].

 Chzz  ►  09:51, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

  • The title isn't mandatory, and I would suggest leaving it out. No piping considerations required. It's a cheat answer, I know. ;-) --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:57, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

It's mentioned Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Honorifics. Lightmouse (talk) 10:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

My own socio-political instincts are to leave it out as an anachronism (falling to one's knees before the Queen?). If you do keep it, it should be part of the pipe. Tony (talk) 12:19, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone.  Chzz  ►  14:47, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Out of interest, Tony1, I may be old-fashioned, but I rather like the anachronism of that epithet on first mention of a name; I think the BBC and suchlike always use "Sir", even when shortening "Sir Bob", "Sir Terry", "Lord Sugar", "Sir Wogan", and so forth. But that might be me, being anachronistic - I suppose it depends how much we care about the honours system, whether it has any meaning - which is debatable, but certainly it doesn't mean much when it's really a list-of-celebs+token-traffic-warden. I agree it should be wikilinked if used. I'm grateful for the input (from all) - it's a future-FA. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  17:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
(coming a bit late, having just noticed this discussion but being too interested not to comment)

The BBC and other news outlets have no choice but to use it in the short form: they habitually use social titles such as Mr, but Mr Attenborough would be erroneous for a knight. I, too, believe that Sir, Dame, Lady and other such honorifics ought to be included in the link, being part of the respective person's name for all intents and purposes (in contrast to, say, military ranks). Waltham, The Duke of 18:51, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Watch your attributions please

I didn't make the statement you're objecting to on WT:DYK#Opposed to the new templates and instruction creep. Did you mean to refer to Piotrus instead? Prioryman (talk) 12:35, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I'll fix that. I'm only now back onto a proper connection. Tony (talk) 11:58, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Broken link

In your article Redundancy exercises: removing fluff from your writing the link http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=673919 (near "The Economist style guide on unnecessary words gives excellent advice.") seems to be broken:

"Sorry… We are unable to find the page you’re looking for. Try exploring the navigation links above to locate what you’re after, or use the search box at the top of the page."
Thanks for picking this up. Down for two weeks now, promise of reinstatement: here. Weird. I've removed the sentence. Tony (talk) 07:24, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

NSDTR

Hi Tony1, I noticed that when you ran what I assume to be a script on Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, a hyphen was added to the breed name (Duck-Tolling) throughout, including in reference titles and interwiki links. As far as I know, this isn't appropriate and doesn't match the article title either, so I removed the hyphens. I'm leaving you this message because I also edited the Signpost featured content page to remove the hyphen there. Since authorities including the Nova Scotia Legislature and the Canadian Kennel Club all refer to it without the hyphen, as well as the American Kennel Club/Australian National Kennel Council/Kennel Club (UK) and books, I don't think it should be included. I suppose there might be some ambiguity there but it seems minimal and the description removes all doubt. Anna (talk) 14:15, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

It might not have occurred to you that there's no script for adding a hyphen between "Duck" and "Trolling". I added it manually, of course, because it's illiterate not to have a hyphen there. And I found the hyphen had previously been in the article, and some hyphen-hater had removed it and moved the title to one without the necessary punctuation. And it's used in an authoritative website towards the start of the google search I did. No, do not edit The Signpost to remove necessary punctuation. Tony (talk) 14:20, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
Dog Breed Info is not an authoritative website (none of those sites are) -- there's an RFC right now with unanimous consensus that it is not reliable. Regardless, I'll leave it. I assumed it was some sort of script because several interwikis were broken and the actual titles of some references were altered. I apologize for editing The Signpost and won't do so again. Anna (talk) 14:43, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
Well, don't link to the RfC, please—it's impossible to locate—WProj. dog editors seem to operate in a secret corner. I pointed out the reasons a hyphen is required, and that it is in usage, even if not by your treasured sources. Just to point out how ignorant the move of that article was 10 months ago, the RM refers to a "dash" ... it's a hyphen. The title is going into The Signpost with the proper hyphen, and that is that. Please brush up on WP:MOSDASH and the section on hyphens above it. BTW, no hyphen after an -ly adverb. Thank you. Tony (talk) 00:48, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Rotated

File:HugoAward rotated.png

Jujutacular talk 11:07, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you thank you, Juju! Tony (talk) 11:09, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Thoughts after using the review template

I recently used that DYK review template, and I did find it rather easy to get sucked into a long review. It was partly due to a rubbish internet connection at the time, but I took well over an hour to do Template talk:Did you know/Wacław Gluth-Nowowiejski. I could help but compare that to where someone reviewed by nomination at Template talk:Did you know/Ramsay Heatley Traquair. I have no way of knowing how long that review took, or how thorough it was (I would need to ask MelanieN), but it certainly took less time to type. I was thinking it might be an idea to raise at WT:DYK how long people take to do such reviews, and whether any balance should be struck between reviewing each nomination for as long as needed (ideal) and reducing expectations of reviewing to a certain amount of time (less quality but less time-intensive and possibly more efficient).

Going back to Template talk:Did you know/Wacław Gluth-Nowowiejski, there are a couple of issues surrounding how hook changes are proposed. I had commented at length on the hook there, proposing an alternative wording for the hook and pointing out issues with overlinking and one incorrect word. The promotor (Crisco 1492) didn't incorporate all the changes (one link to World War II was removed and the book title was capitalised), but you later removed the overlinking here (comic book) and I made the other change here (adopted vs adapted). What I was wondering was whether my change was correct (seeing as you didn't make the change, I want to double-check that as some online guides I checked didn't seem 100% clear on this, though Googling "adopted into a book" versus "adapted into a book" seems pretty clear), and whether there should have been more discussion of the hook wording and formatting before promotion. I've raised this at Crisco 1492's talk page (see here]), and I'm also going to ask Volunteer Marek (the article nominator) to comment (as the nomination subpage is now closed), as they might have some thoughts on the matter. Carcharoth (talk) 04:16, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

This is exactly why a proper and more careful review is required. I note that MelanieN just put the usual DYK "good to go" stamp on yours after mentioning none of the explicit criteria required to be in a checklist by the RfC; this is a breach of the RfC consensus. I had a look at the article and it does check out fine (please note no em dash at the top), even though I couldn't check some sources for duplication, CP, etc (but you're a known quantity, so I'd be doing a quick spot-check only).

In your review of the Wacław Gluth-Nowowiejski nomination, I think you wrote too much and took too long; the thoroughness is great, but there are ways of checking through that don't take an hour (on a good connection). I'd hope for 5–10 mins per review, and these reviews can be shared, or should be, as part of the QPQ requirement. It's galling that Crisco treated your work with casual neglect, it seems. And did the nominator engage with the issues? That is one of the points of properly reviewing. I'll be raising this at the DYK discussion page. Tony (talk) 06:10, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

To be fair, Crisco did de-link World War II and capitalise the book title, so it wasn't casual neglect. I failed to ping Volunteer Marek (the nominator) initially, and (after I pinged him later) he said he had wanted to engage with the issues, but found the nomination closed. As I've said, the fact the nomination got closed was largely my fault for using the wrong symbol (a tick one instead of one of the other ones). As for reviews that might be too cursory, it is difficult to tell, though as you say some of the explicit RFC criteria are being ignored. Someone somewhere at WT:DYK pointed that out. Yes, it is here. I would concentrate on ensuring that reviewers explicitly mention all the criteria and the result of their review of those criteria, regardless of whether they use a checklist. You could also just reject reviews that fail to say whether all the criteria have been checked or not. About dashes, it would be good if when you hover over them in the wiki-markup window, you are told what they are... This '–' is an en-dash, right? And this '—' is an em dash, right? One more thing, was the adopt/adapt thing correct? I only spotted that on the second reading - it is surprisingly easy to miss. Carcharoth (talk) 06:30, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
The adopt/adapt thing (your correction) was correct. "Adopt" - to make one's own. "Adapt" - to change, in this case to a new medium (comic book). That was my mistake.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:40, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I was going to say it was obvious (per Tony's checklist), but then I realised it wasn't obvious as I missed it first time round and only just noticed it. Also, Tony missed it so it can't have been that obvious. :-) (That's a joke, Tony!). Carcharoth (talk) 06:45, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
(e.c.) Cartharoth, quoting a few fragments from your post, in turn: "I failed to ping Volunteer Marek (the nominator) initially, and (after I pinged him later) he said he had wanted to engage with the issues, but found the nomination closed."—It's gobsmacking. The reason Shubunator was coaxed into making the nom pages watchlistable, and kindly did so in collaboration with one or two others, was so reviewers and nominators can watchlist their nom page. Why, I wonder, is it not explicit in the instructions that they do so? And why, ever, were nominators somehow obliged to ping nominators if they had an issue? It's the quick and dirty mentality in which nominators assume they can fling whatever they've whipped up onto that page and leave: dump and run, and certainly don't learn.

"but found the nomination closed"—that sounds as though Crisco is entirely at fault, so I'm unsure why it's a matter of being "fair" to him. They're obsessed with filling up this waterfall of crap that goes out on our main page. That's what is behind this abject failure to check things properly.

"I would concentrate on ensuring that reviewers explicitly mention all the criteria and the result of their review of those criteria, regardless of whether they use a checklist." Indeed, but isn't it easier if there's a bulleted list? Just sign with four tildes to approve, it says (in effect). "You could also just reject reviews that fail to say whether all the criteria have been checked or not." Well, yes. That is what should be happening.

"Adapt" is correct, sorry not to have mentioned that last time.

"This '–' is an en-dash, right? And this '—' is an em dash, right?" Yep. And for full dates, the en dash needs to be spaced on both sides. That is established in millions of examples on en.WP. I fixed it in the article.

I see Rjanag has referred to me as "stupid", in effect. One rule for admins, another rule for everyone else, I see. Pity about WP:CIVIL. Tony (talk) 06:46, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I have to go soon, so forgive me if I don't get involved until later with any arguments today (I think Volunteer Marek did watchlist the page, but found it closed). About adapt, there may be a slight quibble in that it is not entirely clear if the comic artist adapted the storyline, or followed it exactly (with permission from the original author, and credit to the original author). I suspect the comic artist did a storyboard, which was approved by the author. Anyway, adapt can be used to refer to the change in medium which necessitates some change in the storyline (usually compression). Which reminds me of a comic book I read about Yuri Gagarin, but I digress. Dashes and stuff I leave until later if I'm not sure, though one day I will spend the time fixing them before a script comes along to do it for me... Carcharoth (talk) 06:56, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
Just for the record, I did have the page watchlisted, but between bringing the nom up at DYK talk and Carcharoth's review I had to sleep and work. So by the time I got back to it it was closed and I was not sure what to do about it. I'm not sure that this was a case of "rushing it" - the nom was there for quite awhile - rather than the fact that with so many recent changes to how DYK is done no one's sure of proper procedure (hence the "closing").Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:57, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
(ec) @ Tony: ::::::Just regarding your first two points in the message above. About watchlisting nom pages: it's not required (and I don't think there would be any way to enforce that if there were--as long as people pay attention to the page it's not our business whether it's on their watchlist, and if they don't pay attention then that's their problem), although step II of T:TDYK#How to list a new nomination does recommend nominators watchlist the page. About pinging: It has never been required that reviewers ping nominators. {{DYKproblem}} and other methods of pinging exist as a courtesy, but there has never been a rule or even an expectation that people must use them. rʨanaɢ (talk) 06:57, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I think I have to ask you to keep off my talk page until you apologise for your insult. Tony (talk) 07:09, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Editor's Barnstar
I simply admire your work here. What better reason to give a barnstar? Atomician (talk) 02:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 August 2011

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Humor

I find this humorous. Thanks Tony! --Efe (talk) 13:40, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

My slippery fingers? Inexplicable. Tony (talk) 13:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
I guess that was one of your random edits. I though you don't edit music-related articles. hehe. --Efe (talk) 14:13, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
It was more of a noise-related edit. #Badumdum chh#! Atomician (talk) 14:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:FS at WP:POST

There is a huge batch of new WP:FS created on July 30 and 31 that have not yet been included in WP:POST. What is going on?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:03, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

There will be a new batch of FSes coming down the pipe --Guerillero | My Talk 22:07, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Are we skipping the July promotions, or is this a catchup?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:02, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
What happens is that every week I go to the 2011 log box and see nothing changed. So I assume nothing has happened. Tony (talk) 01:23, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

And having looked at FSC, I see that it still largely consists of nominations by TTT of crappy arrangements/compositions of national anthems and other genres, beautifully performed by the US Navy Band. There are issues of

(1) the quality/notability of the music (and I don't mean an extremely boring hymn—or worse, a weird "western" tonal arrangement of an arabic piece—is notable just because the Sultan of Blah makes it his "national anthem" for when he steps of the plane in Washington to bargain with his oil reserves);

(2) the extent to which arrangements should be acceptable more generally;

(3) the status of the FS criteria, which were significantly altered without notice and without consensus in May.

I certainly don't think The Signpost should be highlighting some of the stuff being promoted; it would not be fair to the high quality and hard work that goes into newly promoted content in the other forums. Tony (talk) 02:00, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

We have rejected more then we have accepted over the past few months. If we can get the silly criteria worked out I think we can move towards legitimacy. --Guerillero | My Talk 02:08, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

(ec)It sounds to me like you missed the whole month of July since WP:FSL fell asleep and did not put the July summary up. None of them were national anthems like you are trying to pick a fight about. I would prefer not to get involved in FS debates. Let me know if you are going to skip the following. Here are the 7 July promotions that you missed:
  1. File:Myrrha Gavotte 3.ogg
  2. File:Bison.ogg
  3. File:Amazing Grace (USAFB strings).ogg
  4. File:Amazing Grace (USAFB brass).ogg
  5. File:The Corps.ogg
  6. File:Liszt - Vallee d'Obermann.ogg
  7. File:The Melody Shop March.ogg — Preceding unsigned comment added by TonyTheTiger (talk • contribs)
  • I'm not trying to pick a fight about anything. FSC has significant issues to work through, and The Signpost highlights featured content from stable forums that have established criteria through consensus. I thought you were topic-banned from FSC ... Tony (talk) 02:38, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I thought I could talk in other spaces about it, but you might be right. I have been leaving notes on people's talk pages and they have seemed to think it was O.K. I don't know how all this works, so I'll let it go.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:17, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Something amiss

There seems to be an inconsistency. I see all the above, and I see this. Am I missing something? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:08, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I may be in trouble

Hi

I have been using links to your exercises as places where GOCE members can go to learn and improve their copy-editing.

I did not think about how that might affect you, as I know that there have been a couple of comments on your subpages about the exercises, including from myself :¬)

Is it ok for me to still give them out? I know you are busy in RL.

I also have another question that I shall send in an email. You do not need to answer by mail, a simple yes or no here will suffice, as I wouldn't want to compromise your anonymity. Chaosdruid (talk) 04:42, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

No problem in any of this (including giving out the links). Tony (talk) 04:44, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
That was why I needed to assemble them all into a list - User:Chaosdruid/usefullinks/Projects - wihch includes some drafts and one from MilHist - any more lurking in any project pages? (I am just checking the list against those from GOCE copyedit page)
I did give the featured sounds pages a look over, but after the problems regarding the infighting it seemed best to leave it for a while - if it is all over I will pop in again. My old business was taking voice-overs done for educational CDs and cleaning them up. I did think about taking some of the FA and GA "spoken page" files a once-over to remove audio glitches, Thursday I think it was, but once I listened to a couple I realised there was a lot more work there than I had first thought. I chose a couple at random to listen to and found several issues; background noise, differing levels between sessions, clicks, pops, sibilance ... just like the old days lol :¬)
PS Sorry about the glitch with your box! I had two copies open, one in mine and yours, edited the wrong one and hit save - the quickest revert I have made! Chaosdruid (talk) 09:40, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
Another guide was modelled on the MilHist one, for WikiProject ?Films, I think. I saw it in an early state, and haven't looked since. Tony (talk) 10:13, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Television, human values, and Wikipedia

It has been reported that television is now teaching children to value fame foremost, whereas benevolence is being devalued. Please see Popular TV shows teach children fame is most important value, UCLA psychologists report / UCLA Newsroom. You can imagine the values that (some) young people bring with them when they edit Wikipedia. (People of all ages are impressionable, but children especially so.)
—Wavelength (talk) 17:07, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Pmanderson and Arbcom

Hi. As I'm sure you know, you were named by Pmanderson recently on my talk page as one of a party of editors with whom he has some protracted conflict. Subsequent to discussion of that conversation at AN/I, I have decided to file a case with ArbCom to address issues that I'm not sure AN/I is capable of dealing with. Because you were mentioned in the post that started this particular grass fire, I'm thinking of you as a primary candidate to list as a party to the arbitration.

Are you okay with that? -GTBacchus(talk) 06:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm not happy at all. I'll leave the project. Tony (talk) 07:45, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
Oh wow. I didn't expect that. I'm not filing anything today or tomorrow, and I'm against forcing anyone into anything... Yes I realize the context. Some things are necessary. Let's see how events on AN/I unfold, and maybe I won't have to file anything. -GTBacchus(talk) 07:50, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
Just remember that when you go blithely filing an arbcom case (with Carcharoth, I see, who looks more and more like a partisan who assumes very very bad faith), you sentence someone to four or five months of defamation and stress. Why do I deserve that? Exactly what have I done? Tony (talk) 07:53, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm listing myself as a party. What have I done wrong?

I'm not blithely filing anything; I just said that. My primary intention right now is to be sure I don't act blithely. Your trust that I'm not going to do that is appreciated.

I have no idea why he attacked you on my page. But if I'm trying to get a problem addressed, where am I supposed to start? Maybe with the post that provoked the thread? I'm no Sherlock, but it seemed like a starting point.

Who should be listed? I don't know; tell me. -GTBacchus(talk) 07:58, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I haven't looked at your talk page. Who is "he"? Mr Anderson? Well, why do I get roped into a huge unpleasant case because he mentions me on your talk page? He seems to have an obsession about me, but that's not my business: I try to stay away from Mr Anderson nowadays, frankly. Why is ANI not a suitable forum for sorting this out? Tony (talk) 08:37, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
Maybe AN/I is a suitable forum, but I get the impression it might turn out to be toothless in this case. If a dozen people say "something oughtta be done!", but then no one does anything, then there's no effect, and Pma has learned nothing. Apparently this has happened many times in the past.

Oh, and by "he", yes. I mean Pmanderson. -GTBacchus(talk) 17:05, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

  • I have no idea why you're persisting with this idea. The ANI thread seems reasonably clear, and requires only an uninvolved admin to make the judgement as to what and how much. Ramping this up to an ArbCom case will do no one any favours, not the least Mr Anderson: it would be a profound disservice, and of course would postpone any resolution for four or five months. ArbCom is for cases ANI can't deal with: haven't seen a shred of evidence of that. I must ask you to desist from this course of action. It is reckless. Tony (talk) 01:13, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I'm letting the AN/I solution go forward for now. I may pursue ArbCom at some later time, depending on how things go. I've got a longish email to you that's roughly 2/3 complete in which I explain my detailed reasoning. It's not for lack of seeing a broader context that I would pursue the case, it's because I've weighed the various benefits and costs to Wikipedia and made a decision with my eyes wide open. I'm not dumb, it turns out.

      I suggest you read the conversation between myself and Carcharoth on his talk page. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:38, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Disappointed

[1] As far as I can tell, that article's references had a mosdate-acceptable style, and used it consistently (or if not, nearly enough that the style was evident). I'm sure you're familiar with DATERET. When you make these sort of edits, you change so many paragraphs that almost any other subsequent edit makes a simple undo impossible, which brings up WP:FAITACCOMPLI (and its older target Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Episodes_and_characters_2#Fait_accompli). I'm disappointed, Tony. I'm also disappointed at a couple of your recent WT:MOSDATE comments which appear to apply (incorrect) motives to some of my actions. You seem to express dislike when others attribute motives to you. Gimmetoo (talk) 08:48, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I usually go through articles to make copy-edit changes. Please don't label manual micro-work as cynical, as you appear to be doing. I'm unsure why you make such a big deal of harmonising the format throughout an article. In some cases, it takes less room; in most cases, the same or little more. Typically, as you point out, the refs are inconsistent in this respect ("nearly enough" is not good enough, really), since editors come along continually and add using a different formats. I'm only trying to make it consistent and easy for the readers. But this is not the place to resume that discussion—it belongs at MOSNUM, where, yes, I've tried to understand why you are so insistent on gobbledygook numbers that our readers find difficult. Thank you for your interest; I'll take your comment into account. Tony (talk) 09:26, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
And BTW, I see you've been having a truly massive edit-war (19 actions, nine by you, over a few days) in which you accused your adversaries of being edit warriors. Ironically, you were insisting on lengthening entries in a space-poor environment, against the protestations of at least one adversary that you might consider updating or changing your browser so that the table columns do sort for you. On the talk page, you're asked by a third party not to be "so combative". This expansionary formatting seems to be at odds with your campaign for the supposedly more compact all-numeric date gobbledies in space-poor environments.

But, I appreciate you have IT expertise, so it's obviously beneficial for the project if such issues can be worked through in places like MOSNUM talk with your assistance. I hope to learn a few technical things from you. Tony (talk) 09:45, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

"Nearly enough" is not good enough? Are you sure you want that principle? If some editor has just added a couple refs to a developed article with a stable style (like a featured article), and nobody has got around to formatting them (WP:NORUSH), do you really think it's appropriate for someone to use that minor discrepancy to change the entire style of the article? (And I looked at the version before your edit carefully, and it appears to me to be completely consistent - one style for publication date and another for accessdate.) As for the Kane issue, there is a lot of background that the 3rd-party may not know about. If you go through more than a year of harassment through frequent reversions and abusive edit summaries by a manipulative editor with a years-long documented history of WP:HA and abusive socking, you might start to appear a little combative. But if you want an overview of this particular technical issue, let me know. Space is not really the issue there, nor is individual "updating". Gimmetoo (talk) 10:15, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
So what's the deal with column sorting? Works fine for me. Do you use the troublesome Internet Explorer, and if so, which version? Tony (talk) 10:40, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
I did put some overview on WT:MOSDATE. No, it's not IE. It's a Safari 4 issue. Safari 5 came out around June 2010, and doesn't have this issue, and I use a bunch of browsers. Some editors started installing a new filmography format around March 2010 that made the tables sortable. In Safari 4, the sorting function misbehaves when dashes are present, as they were in year ranges typical of TV series filmographies. If sorting just didn't work at all, it wouldn't be much of an issue, but having a function misbehave in a current or near-current browser doesn't really correspond to progressive enhancement or graceful degradation. Gimmetoo (talk) 11:35, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Correct me if I'm wrong: Safari 4 isn't current, and any user can update to Version 5 for free in a minute or two. If so, I don't think WP should be catering to yesterday's internet. Tony (talk) 04:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 August 2011

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Signpost suggestions

Discussion moved to WT:SIGNPOST per Jarry. Pinetalk 19:57, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Slight omission from Signpost featured content page

I took the liberty of adding mine and Happyme22's obscure politician from Whittier, which oddly was not on the list you put up. I guess after Whitlam, it's all downhill from there ... --Wehwalt (talk) 23:37, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

It wasn't an omission: I'd completed only about half of a huge load this week. It reminds me, that article topic is the next query ... email coming. Tony (talk) 02:30, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Ah so. Well, I'm glad you want Nixon to kick around. This might be a helpful link, better than my user page, btw.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I'd assembled all that manually! Oh well, it's a good resource now, and neater than mine. Tony (talk) 08:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 August 2011

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Liquid-Plumr

in this case the article is properly referenced using general referencing. it could probably benefit from a little formatting, but it is otherwise fine. --emerson7 15:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, actually the site policy says that claims in the text need to be specifically referenced. This is done with reference tags. How do we know that the facts claimed are verifiable? Tony (talk) 01:54, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

A thing or three

Thanks for the notes in the newsroom. I have been having difficulty maintaining consistency across issues when it comes to drafting subtitles, external link placement, whether or not to attribute authors alongside publications, and so forth. In the interests of maintaining standards and increased professionalism, would you have any interest in setting out the house style a little more comprehensively?

Do you know the status of Pine's story? It would be good to have it written up for Monday's issue.

Spring and summer have passed with nary a blip on the ACE front. I had almost forgotten the institution's existence with the quiet year we've had, but if there's to be a discussion before the last minute, the window of opportunity narrows. Reply where you wish. Mahalo, Skomorokh 15:48, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Sko, really nice draft thus far of ITN! Yes, we need a major story or two, and I thought a few of the "In brief" entries were interesting enough to expand on, too (whether they stay as In briefs or migrate up as major stories.

Pine's story? I'm out of the loop on that. Will look.

Like last year, I hold little hope of a software revamp, but we can subsist on the current version year after year, I suppose. That, above all, needs early action in any year the community is serious about improving SecurePoll, since a Foundation developer, like Tim Starling, needs to be brought onboard before formulating the viable options for an RfC, during an RfC, and of course after it. I'm keener to get the community discussing a preferential system, which would at least avoid the strong downward distortion of the support-ranking figures, which I notice are being dragged out without explanation and compared with non-competitive votes such as RfAs and RfBs at the current RfC on the voting threshold for promoting editors to crat (against much higher admin and crat thresholds, 56.7% is cited as the arbcom threshold, I suppose on the basis of last year's S / (S + O), where many voters click on oppose to make their support votes more powerful. Oranges compared with apples.) But I think the chance of getting movement on the existing voting system is zilch. And people seem more willing to discuss it when the buzz is in the air, in October/November. Perhaps a Signpost article on possible voting systems, in early October? Tony (talk) 16:26, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: August 2011



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Very unhappy

I'm very unhappy with Rjanag's "You're just too stupid for your own good" comment, not made any easier by his supporters pointing to my block log. But just look at my block log; it's daft admins making daft blocks. They walk away from their crimes, but we victims can't. Malleus Fatuorum 02:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

You might consider taking him to ANI. He called me "stupid" last month, and when I complained, there was silence. Is there some code of silence among admins? Tony (talk) 02:59, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
(apologies if I'm butting in at all), I wouldn't recommend that Malleus, you dish out so many "attacks" that a complaint from you would be scoffed at by the ANI drama addicts. Without judgement and neutral as fuck, 94.8.98.105 (talk) 03:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
No apology required for "butting in", but ... you logged out to make that post? Tony (talk) 03:11, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't have an account. 94.8.98.105 (talk) 03:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
You're not posting via your account now, obviously, but it's a bit strange that you seem to have formed an opinion of me based on long experience I'm unaware of. Malleus Fatuorum 03:57, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
I've edited here 2+ years, but I quit recently and now just survey and do a few edits as an IP. 94.8.98.105 (talk) 04:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, right. Malleus Fatuorum 04:23, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
That mean anything or are you just typing? 94.8.98.105 (talk) 04:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
I have no confidence in Wikipedia's governance, and therefore wouldn't waste my time at ANI. Malleus Fatuorum 03:48, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Where did they say that? --John (talk) 19:26, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Never mind, I found it myself. Tony, where did he call you "stupid" last month? If this is part of a pattern I will have no problem taking it to AN/I. Most likely I would block first on any repetition then post at AN/I for review. I am so sorry to see two such valued colleagues subjected to insults in this way. If it happens again, please let me know. --John (talk) 01:29, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
I've spoken to both editors and I hope there will be no repetition of this. We all have better things to do. --John (talk) 07:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

RE: Referendum report

It was from 0–10, not 1–10. I don't work for the WMF, I wasn't a part of Referendum Community, and I'm not a sysop on any Wikimedia project; any statement I make is entirely unofficial. If you wish to receive an official statement, I recommend asking a member of the Referendum Committee. The eleven numbers represented the degree to which the voter agreed or disagreed with the statement presented. Zero represented the strongest degree of disagreement, five represented neutrality, and ten represented the strongest degree of agreement. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:39, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Michael, thanks for replying. No time to check out other people before publication: your "5 + neutral" is useful, and I'll insert it. Tony (talk) 13:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
You're welcome. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 16:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 September 2011

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Where is the consensus?

You said, "You can see the consensus in a recent archive at MoS talk." Can you give me a (few) link(s), or at least some good search terms to use? (As you can imagine, searching for "links", say, is pretty much useless.) I'm sure you have a much better idea of where to look than I do.... - dcljr (talk) 12:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

It was recent, and quite lengthy. I've asked at MoS, since I hate trying to search the MoS archives. I've emailed you with a rather long description of the linking issue you've raised. Tony (talk) 13:21, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Water gas shift reaction

I replied to your question[2] but have now removed my reply because there is even more to this than I had realised. Here, for example, at Production Process, and Synthesis gas bother me. There seems to be a difference of terminology between USA and UK (I am old-fashioned UK) although this does not affect the hyphen/dash situation. However, it is possible that when a hyphen is used (and generally a space is used) it may be by mistake for a dash (chemists not caring much about this sort of thing). However from an "etymological" point of view it may be there are arguments for both hyphen and dash. I am investigating. I personally don't much care about the "punctuation" but I am interested in the origin and exact meaning of the phrase. In any case I remain sure that the phrase is best with just spaces (but with whatever redirects are reasonably plausible). Thincat (talk) 11:26, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Thx. It's extraordinary that sometimes punctuation can't be decided on without knowing more of the science behind a term. :-) Tony (talk) 11:49, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Re: ArbCom report

Yes. I think it was fundamentally a misunderstanding surrounding the meaning of the word "stress", but, since mutliple editors evidently do construe it as a definite/medical concept, I'm fine with you changing my wording. Regards, - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 11:45, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXVI, August 2011

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The Signpost: 12 September 2011

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Misunderstood WP:CAPS rules

Tony1, you have boldly moved a whole bunch of articles to new titles with lower-case letters. However, many of these moves are misguided, such as in 3GPP Long Term Evolution and IP Multimedia Subsystem: these are all proper names. 3GPP Long Term Evolution is not an article on the long-term evolution of the 3GPP standard but discusses a standard that is called Long-Term Evolution (LTE). Similarly, IP Multimedia Subsystem does not discuss a multimedia subsystem of the IP protocol but is a specific protocol named IP Multimedia Subsystem. Please revert these changes! Nageh (talk) 12:37, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, you may be right. I'd like you to help me understand where the line is drawn, since this field is well-known for inconsistently up-casing common nouns. I'll leave a note on your talk page. Tony (talk) 12:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)These are the other articles whose titles should be kept with upper-case initial letters: Frame Relay (a specific protocol, not discussing techniques for frame relay), High-Speed Packet Access (not discussing techniques for high-speed packet access but a specific technique), Multi-Protocol Label Switching (again, a specific protocol). The other moves look fine. I'll reply on your question on my talk page. Nageh (talk) 12:55, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Done, except for technical issue with HSPA, awaiting your advice. This is not a simple issue ... Tony (talk) 13:15, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Reminder to self: "A protocol is defined as an interactive algorithm, enabling two or more parties to communicate using common syntax and semantics. MPLS is a protocol by definition. It does not matter whether it's just implemented via an adaptation layer or not." Tony (talk) 13:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Ah, found this thread which I presume is relevant to your note on my talk page. I generally agree and try to use lower case for topics that are generic concepts or families of similar protocols. LTE and its brethren probably should remain upper case. But definitely some of them are borderline, so not worth time with move wars. Some are outright exceptions, like Ethernet which is a family, but I still think should be capital. Besides the plethora of abbreviations, there is another reason for capital letters. Standards documents often capitalize terms to make it clear they are using a specific definition of that term from some other standard document, rather than a generic English term that might be less well-defined. My opinion would be to use lower case then too, although other editors probably would disagree. We really should beef up the manual of style on technical articles. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Computing is quite pathetic but I do not have time to expand it yet. A related issue is if we title articles based on their common name (e.g. DySPAN) or standard number (e.g. G.992.5) or have an article for both (e.g. Wi-Fi and IEEE 802.11, which has enough for both, but others often have two stubs and I often propose merging). W Nowicki (talk) 18:37, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Neither High Speed Packet Access nor 3GPP Long Term Evolution contains a hyphen. (This annoys me too, but the trademarked names are beyond our control.) I've undone the moves accordingly. —David Levy 19:07, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

OK ... how do you tell in an article if something is trademarked? Nowicki, the plot becomes thicker: yes, the computer style guide definitely needs to be put on a proper basis, and I suggest it specify the circumstances in which technical terms should be upcased—a series of bullets, probably, accompanied by the conceptual distinctions used in making the decision. Tony (talk) 00:08, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
I've raised the matter of the sorry state of WP:Manual of Style/Computing, at the Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#WP:MOS.2FComputing. The copyright issues, BTW, are not germane to the point I'm raising, but I do think they need a mention in the MoS subpage. Tony (talk) 01:52, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
This isn't a computing-specific matter, so while that page might need work, we aren't reliant upon it for this particular issue.
One need only determine the organization responsible for the entity (typically identified in the article) and visit its website to find the official name. If such documentation doesn't exist, it probably isn't a trademark.
Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks, we override unusual styling preferred by a trademark holder for marketing purposes (e.g. "REALTOR®" instead of "Realtor" or "Macy*s" instead of "Macy's"), but we don't alter a proper noun's normal styling (i.e. that which is widely used in non-marketing contexts) for compliance with traditional English rules (e.g. by changing "iPod" to "Ipod"). —David Levy 05:59, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
David, thanks: "One need only determine the organization responsible for the entity (typically identified in the article) and visit its website to find the official name. If such documentation doesn't exist, it probably isn't a trademark." OK, although "organisation responsible for the entity" might be the sticking point in some cases. There does need to be ownership of the entity, not merely association with it, right? The Computing MoS I raised in relation to the telecom matters. I presume there's no separate guideline for them, and if there is, the indistinct boundary between the fields suggests that they might be more useful conflated into one. Tony (talk) 06:30, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
There does need to be ownership of the entity, not merely association with it, right?
I'm inclined to reply "yes," though I'd need to see an example of such "association" to be certain. (I assume that you aren't referring to something along the lines of the Blu-ray Disc Association, the consortium that develops and licenses the Blu-ray Disc format and owns the "Blu-ray Disc" trademark.)
Of course, an entity can have a generic name and one or more trademarked names. An example is IEEE 1394, also known by the trademarked names "FireWire," "i.LINK" and "Lynx." —David Levy 08:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Interesting; thanks, David. Tony (talk) 08:05, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with what's been discussed here. In particular: (1) Standard documents frequently deviate from standard capitalization. Textbooks, in contrast, have been edited by language experts and are a much better reference for spelling questions. They generally follow the philosophy laid out above. (2) Many computing terms have been established without required hyphens. WP should accept that only for proper nouns. --EnOreg (talk) 09:35, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Yup, I agree with David too on the hyphenation ... ain't much we can do about it, and if one had been there in the company at the time, one might have said "hyphenate to make it easier to parse, for everyone, not only experts". So we're in the position of enduring within-article inconsistency, in that a hyphen can have been dropped from a proprietary proper name/title, but when used generically, even in the same sentence, the hyphen goes in. So "3GPP Long Term Evolution involves long-term processes that ...". I guess. Tony (talk) 10:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
In the case of 3GPP Long Term Evolution or High Speed Packet Access, we can simply use the abbreviation "LTE" or "HSPA" throughout most of the article. Those are the subjects' most common designations (but they also refer to other things, which prevents us from using them as the articles' titles). —David Levy 10:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Good idea, David. Actually, this is the kind of advice that should appear in a MoS subpage for this field. I can think of quite a few points that need to be made. Tony (talk) 10:41, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, but it isn't my idea; it's how the two articles (among others) currently are written. —David Levy 10:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Proper nouns

Please stop changing proper nouns to common, when you don't understand the subject matters. Please review all and revert article names such as HSPA, which now again requires admin intervention. Kbrose (talk) 21:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Kbrose, this is part of a larger issue; please see the thread above. Tony (talk) 02:07, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
The issue is really only that you don't understand the subject matter, haven't bothered to study the usages, origins and documents of these terms, but presume you can just come and make changes. Kbrose (talk) 04:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
More rudeness, which is really WP:OWNERSHIP. I could equally say that you haven't bothered to learn English, but I wouldn't. I'm afraid I'm there to stay, so deal with it. Tony (talk) 04:17, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
I wish more like you were in it for the long haul, but many are chased away by this kind of entrenched nonsense. The computing articles are almost uniformly crap. Malleus Fatuorum 05:02, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, the sense of ownership needs to be removed in any set of WP articles where it assumes a dysfunctional role, and it looks like this is one, Malleus. It's a serious contravention of the site's policy. Tony (talk) 06:32, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Copyright?

Sorry, I seem to be missing some context. Could you elaborate on the copyright issue that you mentioned in your note to me? Thanks. I am all too aware of the capital letter confusion and lack of a good MOS for computing and Internet articles. Feel free to help with some proposals. If I have the time, I would like to summarize the previous discussion since I agree with the result (what I think it is, at least) . W Nowicki (talk) 18:15, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

WT:DYK#Getting rid of the checklists?

rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:24, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

False accusation

Tony, I am quite offended that you accused me of plagiarism. You need to be a little more objective and do a lot more research before you spout your mouth off. I have NEVER published anything that has not been fully attributed. You are making a VERY serious accusation about someone that is in the writing business.

The original article in question was 100% written by me and is now out of date since a new edition of the book has been published. The article content is no longer valid and a misleading representation of the book. The content of the article needs to be re-written (I do not have time to do that) or deleted. I am opting for the latter.

Sincerely, Todd — Preceding unsigned comment added by Toddwill (talk • contribs) 13:19, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Todd, did you not see my apology and explanation, like, 10 mins after I wrote the original???? What else could I have done? At least I learned from Moonriddengirl how to examine for wiki-evolution vis-a-vis other sites, and to watch for forks and mirrors. And if you'd like me to assist with the deletion (for other reasons, as you said), please let me know. Tony (talk) 13:23, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Kris FP

Hi Tony. The image is of the blade (the wavy one on the bottom) and the sheathe (the straighter one at the top). There are not two knives, but two parts of a single knife. I noted JJ Harrison as making the derivative work for his work turning this into this, which is more or less what is featured now. If you have any more questions, please let me know at my talk page. Thanks! Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:45, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Silly me: of course it's the sheath ... but I think I'll point that out to the readers. I'm emailing you a couple more questions (to avoid spoilers on-wiki). Tony (talk) 13:50, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Alright. I'll reply via email after I receive it. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:01, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Done. If there are any more questions please feel free to ask. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:37, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Re: IRC links

I believe the former "irc" link is now what you get if you click on the word #wikisignpost (though you may wish to try that). I assume it's IRC presentation standardisation across Wikipedia. HTH, - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 17:15, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Battle of Vukovar featured article nomination

Hi Tony, a couple of years ago you kindly did a very useful review – and an interview with me, as I recall! – of my Inner German border article. I'm back with another "anniversary" article, Battle of Vukovar, which I've likewise rewritten and expanded with the intention of getting it to featured status by the anniversary date of 18 November (oddly enough, only 9 days after the anniversary of the IGB's opening...) If you have the opportunity to do a review of this one as well I'd be very grateful. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Vukovar/archive1. Prioryman (talk) 00:14, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Let's see if it fits the journalist's storyline agenda (i.e., the expectations of Signpost readers). It would have been nice to know that you're a reincarnation before now. Why don't you email me when things have progressed further? Tony (talk) 04:44, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 19 September 2011

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 10:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Servers upgrade

Nobody responded, but Signpost made a story about it, but not as "breaking news". As Wikizine has space to make irregular editions, we published information about it as "techflash" edition. --millosh (talk (meta:)) 14:34, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

And I read about changing of the main editor... Everything is fine. We should think about cooperation; at least about creating a union of Wikimedia journalists ;) --millosh (talk (meta:)) 14:34, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Re: Ta

The tabular data is available at [3]. My instinct would be to say that Features views have indeed dropped slightly in the last 6 months, although I can run a proper regression if you would like. - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 15:33, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

You're busy, so I won't ask you to do that. And I don't think it would point to a strategy. 30–40% drop, at a guess. Perhaps the "Choice of the week" was bringing people in last year; but that was so much fiddly work to arrange, and it's too much work without it, anyway. Tony (talk) 15:37, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Jivesh Here

Hi. I am Jivesh. I read you user page and i was quite impressed. Do you do copy-edits? ★Jivesh 1205★ (talk / ♫♫Give 4 a try!!!♫♫) 15:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Jivesh, thanks, but rarely, and usually on topics that interest me. Tony (talk) 15:41, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
You are welcome. Do you copy-edit music articles or comment on peer reviews related to music? ★Jivesh 1205★ (talk / ♫♫Give 4 a try!!!♫♫) 16:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Was the music written before 1750? Tony (talk) 00:57, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
After the 2000s. ★Jivesh 1205★ (talk / ♫♫Give 4 a try!!!♫♫) 04:03, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Does it interest you? ★Jivesh 1205★ (talk / ♫♫Give 4 a try!!!♫♫) 07:23, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Tony is disdainful of any music that has a percussive beat. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:14, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Ah okay and you (if i may ask)? ★Jivesh 1205★ (talk / ♫♫Give 4 a try!!!♫♫) 08:26, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm posting advice at Jivesh's talk page. Tony (talk) 08:30, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your advice. You are very kind. This is a sincere remark. ★Jivesh 1205★ (talk / ♫♫Give 4 a try!!!♫♫) 08:42, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Renaming categories

Hi Tony. I have procedurally closed the requested move you started at Category talk:College Sports Fan Sites#Requested move because categories can't be renamed in the same fashion as articles/templates/Wikipedia space/portals, etc. (something to do with the MediaWiki software). They have to go through the categories for discussion process. For simple capitalisation fixes like this one, you can nominate at WP:CFDS, which is what I have done for this category. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, it will be renamed in two days. Best, Jenks24 (talk) 17:10, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Jenks, that was very kind of you. And I should have realised this was the process ... muddle-headed. Tony (talk) 01:24, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
No problem. I've replied to your question at my talk. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 01:53, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

MOS:CONSISTENCY

Hi Tony, Can you take a look at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#NO_Internal_consistancy. I really don't think it's suitable to be inconsistant within an article. Thanks Tony1, Antony, Admin Tony, SysOp Tony, SysOp Tony1 etc. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 22:01, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Tomorrow's featured article

I didn't realize I was reverting you, so here's a chance to put your version back in. But as you can see, [4] [5] I don't get it. Art LaPella (talk) 04:50, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

  • It's ironic your first sentence mentions date-linking. The date-linking fiasco was caused by edit warring by people who, in your own words, "don't really care what has been done in the past" and edit without consensus.
  • "If a reader is interested enough to link to ... let them go to the article ...", an argument you have used before, but you haven't convinced me you have the reader's interest in mind when you say that. Insiders know that the Featured Article is likely to have any words that the Main Page summary has, but that is a small percentage of readers. It's hard to imagine the average reader clicking some other wikilink, hoping to somehow find an article with the wikilink he wants, when he could just copy the word to the search field. And if the ability to use the search field means he doesn't need a wikilink, the logical conclusion is the opposite of a sea of blue: a sea of white.
  • "have you checked and fixed up the targets for all of the links you reinstated?" You've got me there. But now that it's your turn, is article quality why you delinked almost everything?
  • "an island off the east coast of Africa" Yup, I missed that. Perhaps because it wasn't inserted after the Sultan of Zanzibar.
  • "Everyone should be able to read the blurb knowing the basics without diverting to other articles: the whole purpose of TFA is to showcase the TFA, isn't it?" That assumes that links prevent them from reading the blurb, which is at least exaggerated. You didn't exclude even the most basic wikilinking from that sentence, which makes a sea of white answer relevant.
  • This is more politics than I usually do. It's bedtime here, so I wonder what it will look like by tomorrow. We have often debated overlinking, but I'm unaware of any consensus for suddenly eliminating most of the links in Main Page blurbs. Art LaPella (talk) 05:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Art, this is just so much garbage. Sorry to be sharp, but really, you've spattered it with so much blue that the linking system is fatally weakened, not to mention the whole purpose of TFA. And yes, if you want to scattergun link to just about everything, you should be auditing those targets. Tony (talk) 06:37, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Civility warning: I'm feeling like s...t with a fresh dose of the flu. Not a happy person, which might have flavoured my remarks to a few editors today. Tony (talk) 08:46, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Talk:Main Page#Delinking Art LaPella (talk) 13:59, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

One of my biggest pet peeves is the "Random Business Term That Is Capitalized To Sound Important"; thank you for all of your recent work in many articles to eliminate that particular theme in our coverage of business and economic topics. I'd throw some random barnstar on here, but I'm lazy and you're sick and unlikely to appreciate it. :) Kuru (talk) 22:28, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Well indeed, it's like a cancer and makes the text more difficult to read. Thanks. Tony (talk) 02:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Reply re: DSDM

Thanks Tony. Yes, new to editing but wanting to get more involved. Thanks for the advice. I take it that adding a new section on the talk page triggers the nice 'new message' banner. Very nice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ged Byrne (talk • contribs) 08:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Example for correct capitalization

Tony, I want to bring this chapter from a technical handbook to your attention. It uses capitalization in a grammatically correct way, i.e., upper-casing for specific solutions (such as protocols) and lower-casing for generic terms such as public data network (PDN) and subscriber network interface (SNI). HTH, and get well soon. :) Nageh (talk) 12:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Nageh. I'm alerting User:Noetica to this: he's interested in clarifying our guidelines on this matter. Tony (talk) 12:09, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference, Nageh. I wouldn't use capitals quite as much as that document does. For example it appears to use capitals in headings and captions:

  • Chapter Goals
  • SMDS Network Components
  • SIP Provides Connectionless Service Between the CPE and Carrier Equipment
  • SIP Provides Services Associated with the Physical and Data Link Layers of the OSI Model
  • A SIP Level 3 Protocol Data Unit Consists of 15 Fields

However it does illustrate nicely that capitals aren't required in full forms just because capitals are used in abbreviations:

  • Higher layer protocol identifier (HLPI)
  • Source address (SA)
  • Header extension length (HEL)
  • Payload cyclic redundancy check (CRC)

Just my thoughts. Lightmouse (talk) 14:05, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, the problem with such documents is that different people write different bits, and inconsistencies are typical, even though professionals are paid to write and edit the end product. I agree with LM's points. Tony (talk) 14:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with the document. Read here on the capitalization of heading and captions. It is Wikipedia that is following a different route here. But my point was that the document correctly distinguishes between generic and proper nouns. And so should we. Nageh (talk) 14:42, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
An interestingly styled document, Nageh, and one that is worth our while to study. I would not call it, as you do, an "example for correct capitalization". As if there were such a thing! No, there are choices to make among competing standards. Generally, Wikipedia has made rational choices in this area. Some refinements and detailing are still desirable. What we really need is greater awareness of the proper role of WP:MOS and its satellite pages in settling disputes about capitalisation, punctuation, and similar styling. WP:TITLE covers only certain important aspects of article titles; the rest belongs with MOS, since the title is an integral part of an article.
We also need to settle terminology. "Proper noun" is not universally accepted with a single definition, and "proper name" is often used, with different signification. And what about "proper adjectives", like the adjective in "Australian population"? Agreement on terms is necessary for useful dialogue on these matters; but it is usually not attended to.
NoeticaTea? 02:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
I like the French convention of not capitalising any adjectives. So it would be "la population australianne"... --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
The French have a big advantage over us with regard to proper usage, L'Académie française. Malleus Fatuorum 02:44, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, the complete and utter lack of willy-nilly capitalisations... --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:28, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
But sadly the other language Wikipedias lift our articles with their pumped-up capitalisation, lock, stock, and barrel. Tony (talk) 08:10, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
The same inconsistent mess applies to software interfaces. Microsoft started off copying 'title case' from newspaper titles and now software interfaces are an inconsistent mess. Inconsistency between newspaper articles doesn't matter much but it matters more in software. Microsoft has attempted to describe how to implement 'title case' but some engineers have difficulty identifying nouns and verbs, never mind ‘coordinate conjunctions’. See:
Microsoft guidance on "title-style capitalization"
  • Capitalize all nouns, verbs (including is and other forms of to be), adverbs (including than and when), adjectives (including this and that), and pronouns (including its).
  • Capitalize the first and last words, regardless of their parts of speech (for example, The Text to Look For).
  • Capitalize prepositions that are part of a verb phrase (for example, Backing Up Your Disk).
  • Don't capitalize articles (a, an, the), unless the article is the first word in the title.
  • Don't capitalize coordinate conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or), unless the conjunction is the first word in the title.
  • Don't capitalize prepositions of four or fewer letters, unless the preposition is the first word in the title.
  • Don't capitalize to in an infinitive phrase (for example, How to Format Your Hard Disk), unless the phrase is the first word in the title.
  • Capitalize the second word in compound words if it is a noun or proper adjective, an "e-word," or the words have equal weight (for example, E-Commerce, Cross-Reference, Pre-Microsoft Software, Read/Write Access, Run-Time). Do not capitalize the second word if it is another part of speech, such as a preposition or other minor word (for example, Add-in, How-to, Take-off).
  • Capitalize user interface and application programming interface terms that you would not ordinarily capitalize, unless they are case-sensitive (for example, The fdisk Command). Follow the traditional capitalization of keywords and other special terms in programming languages (for example, The printf Function, Using the EVEN and ALIGN Directives).
  • Capitalize only the first word of each column heading.
Sigh. Lightmouse (talk) 08:45, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to develop a rule-of-thumb list of items that might not be subject to the default downcasing. A list might include the following items that refer to specific things, as opposed to generic things:

  • Protocol
  • Suite
  • Command
  • Standard
  • Framework
  • Language
  • Code/Coding
  • Anything that is explicitly proprietary and not also commonly downcased.

Sometimes considerable thought is required to sort out whether items should reasonably be uppercased. Tony (talk) 02:11, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid it's not that easy.
aso.
In relation to these discussions, I would like to ask whether we use rules like these to determine what are proper names and what not, or whether we want to rely on a proof-by-Google and do some simple counting of capitalization used in the literature as User:Dicklyon insists? Nageh (talk) 09:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Nageh, very good points: I've inserted wording above that may cover your point about the specific versus the generic (does it?). What I think would be useful is a list of items that flag that care needs to be taken WRT capitalisation. I must say that occasionally articles make it hard to determine which is which—not just in telecom and other technological fields, but in management, business, economics, architecture et al. A problem is that practitioners become dulled to the difference by what appears to be the default capping of any vaguely technical term; yet other WP editors, and not least our readers, should be in no doubt. I guess that's one reason capitalisation has become an issue on WP.

Concerning your question to Dicklyon, google is useful in some cases, but rarely delivers a solution on a silver plate. Every publisher, including WP, faces the conundrum of what to do when external usage is not uniform and is in part at odds with its own house style. I think a case-by-case approach is required that considers WP's guide lines and policies, external style guides, and usage by writers in a field. I agree with Dicklyon that if only "most" external examples go against our own house style, it's not necessarily enough to overturn that style. It would need to be an overwhelming, almost exclusive usage to consider creating an internal inconsistency within WP. This is what other publishers do. Tony (talk) 10:33, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the specific vs. generic aspect is important to point out, indeed. Concerning the question on how to deal with conflicting situations, you actually seem to be taking my position. Dicklyon has clarified what he means, suggesting now that if there are only some sources using lower-case letters this should be taken as indication that the name is not proper, and we should use lower capitalization as well, despite a majority of sources using upper-case letters. In light of the ignorance of grammar in many technical documents I think we need to consider other factors (at least in addition), such as the check for whether something is specific or generic. Nageh (talk) 11:30, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Sure, I agree mostly; but the specific vs. generic won't solve all cases (no pun intended). Some terms start out life being coined by one writer or scientist and end up being so widely licenced/used for sufficient time as to lose that sense of uniqueness and ownership that partly define "proper noun". We don't Hoover the carpet any more, even though it began as the name of a product, a proper noun. Radar was an acronym, but has since been downcased through its ubiquity. There are many examples of such migration from upper to lower case, and the widespread abuse of capitalisation in some technical fields suggests that we should be wary of attempts by some writers/companies/professionals to puff up their product or theory or employment position with caps. At worst, it could amount to POV. Tony (talk) 12:06, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, radar was an acronym itself – and nobody did write Range Detection And Ranging AFAIK. So that's a different case. But there are no simple rules, obviously. Proper guidelines and examples in the MOS would indeed be helpful to aid editors in the future. Thanks to you and Noetica (and everyone else) attempting to address these issues in the MOS. Nageh (talk) 12:15, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks; seems to me it's very much work in progress. Even some loose guidelines would help, so debate on particular cases might move forward a little more quickly. Tony (talk) 12:22, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Open confessions of a closed mind

Sometimes we encounter people who seem to give evidence of being closed-minded about one thing or another. Rarely we meet someone who speaks openly about being closed intellectually to evidence that would contradict a position already chosen. You might be interested to read the words of Richard Lewontin, as found at the following page.

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

Other statements by him can be found at Richard Lewontin - Wikiquote.
—Wavelength (talk) 05:22, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I have a very closed mind to "intelligent design". And naturopathy. And Chinese suction therapy. Oh, and god (or "the gob of spit" as nobel laureate Patrick White imaged that nonsensical claim in his novel The Tree of Man). It is disappointing that we live in a scientific age but that at the same time this toxin of medieval faith-over-evidence continues to infect the minds of many people, and public policy, all over the world. People are trained to be gullible, sadly, which is why crude marketing strategies are still powerful. Tony (talk) 05:52, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Redundancy exercises, etc.

(a) I've been recommending your exercises to RL friends who keep saying they are the best resources they have read. (b) you've ruined my life. I walked past a sign today that said "24 hour a day [parking]". What was my first thought? "You can remove two words from this..." Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:51, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh, could you take a photo of that sign? Always on the look-out for instructive decorations for the article! Tony (talk) 08:07, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
If I remember to bring my camera to class in a few hours, I would be more than happy to! Time to sleep now, though. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:10, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

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Executive Schedule

Thanks for the note, I left an explanation on the talk page at the time of the move. Hekerui (talk) 12:54, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Now at AfD

Hi. Regarding your question on my talk page a few days ago, I have now sent the article to AfD. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Freedom through choice if you would like to comment. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 14:38, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Handel's birth date

Hi Tony. I've been tidying up some old stuff and I've come across Talk:George Frideric Handel/Archive 2 # Birth date, the last entry in which thread was by you.

Can you cast your mind back and remember just what it was you were saying was "very sensible"? I'd like to revive my original proposal but it may need more contemporary discussion now that 3 years have passed. Cheers. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 11:27, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Looks like it was a reference to your immediately preceding post. Tony (talk) 12:14, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
OK, thanks. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:08, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Severe Disablement Allowance

Hi Tony. I noticed you moved this article earlier today, but a quick Google search doesn't seem to show show anything significant to suggest there are benefits in other countries with this name. Surely we don't need to disambiguate this? TheRetroGuy (talk) 12:58, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Retro, I don't mind at this stage (do I have to do the revert, technically? If so, tell me and I'll do it.). But the issue of vague versus specific article titles is brewing—I'm wondering why we've developed a policy that favours very generic titles until there's "competition" for the title "space", when everything has to be moved to accommodate the new situation. It seems clumsy, prone to problems if no one is around at the right time to update everything, and a bit weird when visitors go to a vaguely titled article from an unpiped link or a category list. But I'm all ears to hear about problems on the other side of that coin. You might be interested in contributing to this discussion, which I believe covers some interesting matters related to this. Tony (talk) 13:07, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for getting back to me. I'm not sure there's a need to revert it back, as it is a UK topic after all. I'll take a look through the discussion and perhaps add some thoughts to it. Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 13:21, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

New FPs (Extermination of Evil series)

Hi Tony, just a request. When you do the write-up for the four new FPs (File:Extermination of Evil Sendan Kendatsuba.jpg, File:Extermination of Evil Shinchū.jpg, File:Extermination of Evil Shōki.jpg, File:Extermination of Evil Vaisravana.jpg), could you mention that it means all of the images from Extermination of Evil are now featured, as File:Extermination of Evil Tenkeisei.jpg has been featured since 2009. Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:56, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Sure; I should remember, but if not, please remind me. Tony (talk) 02:43, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Alright. To be safe I'll drop a reminder on Saturday (Indonesia and Australia time) Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:26, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Just take a peek at the draft Monday. Tony (talk) 04:30, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Ping. Seems to be unmentioned so far. The rest of the write-up (as it stands) is pretty good though. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:11, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Ah, I did forget. Thanks. Tony (talk) 13:13, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm not an expert on Japanese mythology / culture, but I'll give it a shot. The moth is the black thing with wings in the image, chomping down on a tubular demon; it is referred to as the "divine insect", probably to do with its larvas' role in silk production. The creatures in its claws appear to be other demons. The rest is guesswork, but it appears the people running away are Japanese people fleeing the demons and the moth, while the background may be plain to emphasize the moth. Regarding the blurb about the four images, I meant that now all five images in Extermination of Evil are featured. Yes, it is a fantastic topic, and a lot of work went into it. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:42, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
OK, going to bed soon, will fix tomorrow. Looks like it might be 24 hours before publication, given the state of ITN. I'll buzz Truthkeeper too. Tony (talk) 13:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

ORUs, ESPs and ELCs are acronyms created by NASA and are capitalised

I am reverting your changes. Leebrandoncremer (talk) 03:07, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, just as long as they were created by NASA and are unique to that organisation. And your Capitalisation of that very word in the title, which I've fixed, doesn't augur well for your judgement as to what should and shouldn't be capitalised. I have no idea what ORU, ESP and ELC mean. Tony (talk) 03:10, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Well why change something you know nothing about? I worked at NASA I know what i am talking about, just stick with what you know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leebrandoncremer (talk • contribs) 03:24, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not like that. I know what I'm talking about WRT language, and you don't. There are quite complex issues of consistency, and an unfortunate tendency by organisations to upcase just about everything they can to pump themselves up. WP has house rules, and there needs to be a good reason to make exceptions. I've already uncovered a NASA upcasing of an instrument that was developed and used by others decades earlier: that is POV. Tony (talk) 03:28, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

These acronyms are established industry wide for these articles, they have become Proper Names. The agency uses them as such so back off change the world some where else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leebrandoncremer (talk • contribs) 03:31, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that's starting to look more doubtful, if they're established industry-wide (note the hyphen). Please do not capitalise common nouns such as proper names as you've done in your most recent post. You could work on your punctuation, too, to make your text readable. Now, I will not "back off" where I see corporate arrogance creeping into WP. I don't mind discussing the items case by case. Please do not upcase article titles for generic, industry-wide, non-commercial items. Otherwise, try upcasing lawn mower or telephone line. Tony (talk) 03:37, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

You are a word snob, get a life. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leebrandoncremer (talk • contribs) 03:39, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Are you new to WP? You need to sign your posts, and please click "New section" at the top to start a thread rather than manually adding the (wrong) number of equal signs to create the title. You might be interested to read WP:CIVIL. Now, please discuss with other editors any items that are not unique to NASA. A good example is Pressurized mating adaptor, which might be used in an experiment on the ISS, but was developed by others in the 1970s and used by a number of other organisations before NASA ever got to it. I will monitor your contributions page. Tony (talk) 03:53, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I will monitor you moron.

Please note that a simple colon will indent your posts, which should normally be one colon more than the post to which you're replying. You're welcome to monitor my contributions. Tony (talk) 03:56, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

You are a sad and lonely man. I feel very sorry for you. Correcting other peoples work because you have no abilities of your own. How sad.

We need editors like you to take the accepted rules of editing seriously. I hope you stay and familiarise yourself with them. I'm done with this thread. Thank you. Tony (talk) 04:03, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Your not even close to being clever. Any changes you make to any work I see in the future will simply be reversed. Im guessing you're suffering from little man syndrome.

Lee, I understand that it can be annoying if editors not familiar with a subject start modifying your article text. Nonetheless, to let editing be more relaxing for both sides you should keep this simple rule in mind: assume good faith (AGF). As concerns the acronyms you mention, I agree with Tony that these do not seem to refer to proper nouns. There are technical definitions for these terms, sure, but that doesn't make them unique. From our proper noun article: "A proper noun or proper name is a noun representing a unique entity (such as London, Jupiter, John Hunter, or Toyota), as distinguished from a common noun, which represents a class of entities." An orbital replacement unit is obviously a generic concept, as can be seen from the article referring to different entities as OBUs, it also does not refer to a unique standard specification, and there is no single OBU that is referred to as the Orbital Replacement Unit. Similar arguments apply for the other acronyms. Nageh (talk) 08:05, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Yup, and I concede that it's been a learning curve for me: I've got some of these wrong. The issue is complicated by the fact that some articles (including the one on pressurized mating adaptors, have been written as though NASA owned them and uniquely used them, when the lead should really start with the generic concept, citing the earlier developments. I have some web-refs on that very device, so I could try writing this in. Lee, you might review it if I do this? Tony (talk) 08:10, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

It is true that writers take editors edits personally, so I will acknowledge that as my failing. The point still stands, in the case of NASA acronyms, it is an accepted theme. To delineate between outside similar objects, NASA acronyms become proper nouns. They are written as such. I understand the need for accuracy across the board in WP but from other space related articles, and there are 1,000s, this is the accepted format. Each word of the acronym is capitalised to show its name and to where the acronym derives its name. My apologies Tony, I was too defensive. Leebrandoncremer (talk) 11:04, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Lee, no problem (but do be careful—some editors might go ballistic). NASA can't force something to be a proper noun unless they invented it, and the term hasn't yet passed into common, non-proprietorial usage. It's sometimes a fine line, but do you agree that "pressurized mating adaptor" is an example of a generic device, invented and used in the 70s ... NASA comes along and names an experiment on the ISS after it, with caps ... OK, but the article should be specific, then, with "(ISS experiment)" in the title, and caps if you want. Otherwise, it's more logical and true to the topic to use lowercase, introduce the generic term with a few sentences announcing its origins, then position NASA's experiment, which might take up most of the article all the same? BTW, are you aware that the article International Space Station has just been sacked from the featured article list, partly for not positioning it in relation to other space stations? That is, the bigger picture? It's a pity you weren't around at the time; maybe you might contribute to that article and collaborate to bring it to WP:FAC again. Tony (talk) 11:31, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
This is not a phenomenon particular to the NASA. All technical bodies tend to capitalize nouns that have a specific technical meaning. In the case of orbital replacement unit, this concept is so generic that it is a design principle for any satellite, Hubble is composed of OBUs, ESA is designing bigger components using that modularity approach, etc. Even if all the technical bodies stick to their capitalization preferences it is still not correct from an English grammar perspective. Personally, I am not so picky about MOS issues but we have got guidelines that both aim at providing a more consistent and thus polished presentation of articles and at avoiding lengthy discussions. So, all that is needed is figuring out whether a noun or name is proper or generic. My 2 cents, Nageh (talk) 12:00, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
It's a problem, because the resulting alphabet soup in expanded forms makes the text lumpy. The caps were meant for the abbreviations, not for common-noun expansions where the readers need to have the status flagged. In some WP articles, caps are flung about like a nervous twitch, so we get "Example" and "Business" and just about any noun in the middle of a sentence. The slippery slope begins with a wrongly capitalised technical term. The authoritative New Hart's Rules says not to do it. I'm pretty sure the Chicago Manual of Style does too. And the Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Terms is careful, too. And more importantly, WP's MoS says: "Do not apply initial capitals in a full version simply because capitals are used in the abbreviation." Tony (talk) 12:54, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Thats all well and good but the American Govt, Armed Forces, USAF (Air Force), USA (Army), USN (Navy) and NASA use acronyms routinely, to create proper nouns... The name NASA for example... National Aeronautics and Space Administration becomes NASA and all the terms they create follow the same rule. Leebrandoncremer (talk) 13:40, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

USAF (Air Force), USA (Army), USN (Navy) and NASA are all proper nouns and need the caps when expanded too. Some style guides would have "government" and "armed forces" unless clearly part of a title. Tony (talk) 13:48, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
These are all unique entities, there is only one. It is the US Government, the Armed Forces, the US Air Force, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Whenever you use one of these acronyms you refer to this specific entity. In contrast, when you use OBU it may refer to any of a set of orbital replacement units, be it on the ISS, or the Hubble telescope, or some other satellite. For another example, you might write armed forces in lower-case letters when you don't specifically refer to the US military. Nageh (talk) 14:05, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
There are many "armed forces", unfortunately. And style guides have increasingly swung towards downcasing "government" and even "federal", although some house styles and writers still use the caps. Newspapers and websites are certainly not behind the cutting edge in this respect. I'm going to bed. Tony (talk) 14:13, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
It does not matter that the Armed Forces consist of separate individual military forces: there is only one collective of military forces referred to as the Armed Forces in the U.S. – btw, the proper name is U.S. Armed Forces. So, saying Armed Forces in the U.S. media implies the U.S. Armed Forces, and that would probably even go when you simply write armed forces in lower-case letters. But these cases are understood in the context, only; if it were in an article about some foreign country then armed forces (or even Armed Forces without the U.S. part) would likely be interpreted as that country's armed forces. Nageh (talk) 14:31, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Certainly not if the country-name is absent, as you presented above. Many style guides say that once the initial name is spelled out, downcase a subsequent partial reference to it. For example, the University of Capetown is then referred to as the university, not the University, unless it's a rare occasion where the referent would be unclear. This is different from the practice 20 or 30 years ago. I'm going to bed. Tony (talk) 14:37, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
You are absolutely correct regarding the lower-case spelling of partial references. I think the case of Armed Forces might be a bit different because of the implicit assumption on the U.S. forces there, though we should probably simply stick with what acknowledged style guides say. I conclude that this rule could be a useful addition to a MOS/capitalization guideline. G'night! Nageh (talk) 14:46, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

No my point was not those names themselves, but the acronyms for things they produce. Such as the 1,000s of acronyms NASA produces. You guys are way too focused here.

Richard D'Oyly Carte

Hi. I saw your comments on the talk page there. In order to clarify the "keeps" and "deletes" for the box, would you please also weigh in above under the "Comments" section to show your vote and referencing your 6 reasons below? All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:07, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Looks very clear now. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:43, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
I think it's your turn to rv Richard Arthur Norton at Talk:Bridget D'Oyly Carte. He might be in 3RR territory now. Marc Shepherd (talk) 17:17, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Rather not play "tag team" (it's looked down on). Best to level with this guy, or get an admin to talk to him. Tony (talk) 01:18, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

General Services Administration

We only disambiguate titles if there is a chance of confusion with other topics and no clear primary usage. That doesn't seem to be the case here, so I don't think the article should have been moved to General Services Administration (US government). postdlf (talk) 14:21, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

File:Candidate support vs ranking formula.pdf listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Candidate support vs ranking formula.pdf, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:47, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

File:Enwiki ArbCom 2010 supports vs ranking percent.png listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Enwiki ArbCom 2010 supports vs ranking percent.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:01, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Signpost praise

Thanks a lot for the praise for National Treasures of Japan and sorry for not replying to your email. I guess it is too late now for that. Should check email more regularly. In fact I only noticed that you had sent me an email through Truthkeeper88's talk page. bamse (talk) 00:39, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 3 October 2011

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Re: REDEX!

Ooh, so it is! Top hit in four search engines I tried... I hadn't realised you were world-famous! Though I'm sure the shortcut will still be useful within Wikipedia. Good job on the visitors' hook, too.

In other news, a crazy semester has left me way behind in my Signpost reading. Is there any way to view past issues in single page format? Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 12:13, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. No way I can see of flicking back through the editions in single-page format, damn. I'll ask at the newsroom talk. Tony (talk) 12:20, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Confused about copyvio tag

Hi Tony. I'm contacting you regarding this edit. I went to Wikipedia:Copyright_problems/2011_October_6 as suggested on the page to point out that the source was a public domain U.S. government text (as was indicated in the article), but noticed that no investigation had been posted there. Could you let me know what your intentions are here? Thanks much! HausTalk 20:02, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I removed it: you're right. But quoting huge slabs without quote marks and with a little note right a the bottom of the article is not the right way to do it, so I hope someone fixes that. Tony (talk) 02:19, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

"Carpe diem. Seize the day."

The obscuring of Italian Wikipedia emphasized to me the somewhat vulnerable nature of access to Wikipedia, and, by extension, to the Internet, because of legislative, technical, economic, or environmental factors. Remembering that continued access is not absolutely guaranteed, I ask myself how I can best spend my time if this is my last day or week or month. I need to prioritize the ways in which I contribute and also the ways in which I benefit. The expression Carpe diem ("Seize the day") is timely. Steve Jobs made some comments about the use of time. (Steve Jobs - Wikiquote)
—Wavelength (talk) 20:21, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Please discuss

Please engage in discussion in Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#comet_and_galaxy_examples instead of reverting again the examples without discussion or proof of consensus. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:31, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Done. Tony (talk) 09:03, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Gestalt Practice

Thank you for your interest in Gestalt Practice. This is a technical subject. Let me ask you to please reverse the changes that you made to the Gestalt Practice article. First, there is a good reason why it is called Gestalt Practice. Both words are capitalized to distinguish it from Gestalt therapy, otherwise the phrase "Gestalt practice" is misconstured to be the practice of Gestalt therapy. That is wrong. Gestalt Practice is something different. Also, in the footnotes, there is a text called the Manual of Gestalt Practice in the tradition of Dick Price. That's the name of the document. Removing the capital letters is a mistake. The footnote becomes meaningless. I understand your passion for correctness. I understand your campaign against capital letters. However, in this case the changes you made will cause the article to be misconstured by readers. I understand that you couldn't have been aware of these issues in advance. I appreciate your help. I would like to ask you to please reverse the changes that you made to the original Gestalt Practice article. I have posted this comment in order to inform you fully about these issues. I want to give you the opportunity to reconsider the work you have done on the article. I want you to know what is going on, rather than slam your hard work. I did not know any other way to ask you for help with this problem. I certainly don't want to create a contentious atmosphere. Thank you once again. You are welcome to remove this comment after you have addressed this matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Callaban (talk • contribs)

OK, I'll self-revert. Thanks for pointing this out. Actually, it was the "Gestalt therapy" with the small t that was the analogy for my downcasing of the P. A case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. However, I should say that generally just being a technical term is not enough for upcasing. Tony (talk) 15:18, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

21-Hydroxylase

Hi Tony. Could you please take a look at Talk:21-Hydroxylase/Archive 1#Requested move when you get a chance? Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 06:55, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Shale oil extraction processes

Hi, Tony. Thank you taking care of standardizing titles of different shale oil extraction processes. The only question is related to the Gas combustion retort process. I added my comments to the article's talk page and maybe you could add what you think about this issue. Thank you in advance. Beagel (talk) 09:55, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a complicated decision, which you might like to make in the end. Please see the talk page. Tony (talk) 11:01, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

DYK

Please simplify the DYK nomination process. I've completely cocked up the nomination here.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:50, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't dare to look at what DYK is doing at the moment. Tony (talk) 11:02, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Its just a little odd as if you don't remove the instruction text is messed it up. It really ought to be in nowiki or italics to prevent it from appearing. Why, has something happened Tony you disagree with?♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:10, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Dr Blofeld, I'm confused. I really have nothing to do with the DYK inner process, that is, the instruction text and the technicalities of the nom process. I haven't caught up with their latest changes, but I fear that the RfC is not being honoured WRT the explicit elements of reviewing. Tony (talk) 02:13, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

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Ground granulated blast-furnace slag

Tony - Please revise your move of the ground granulated blast furnace slag article to ground-granulated blast-furnace slag. The hyphen may belong in "blast-furnace" as the adjectival form of "blast furnace", but "ground" and "granulated" are separate adjectives modifying "slag" - "granulated blast-furnace slag" is a by-product which is then ground to make GGBS for commercial use. "Granulated" is a necessary adjective as slag can be produced in ways which don't result in granulation. The correct description, as indicated by the FHWA (in one of the references), is ground granulated blast-furnace slag.

Incidentally, what's with using characters which can't be directly typed in article titles? What's wrong with using the hyphen which appears on everyone's keyboard?

Argyriou (talk) 04:32, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Ooh, I'm not sure about this idea that ground-granulated should be unhyphenated. I'll ask Noetica, who has the external style guides at hand. WP's in-house style suggests the hyphen. Is it "ground" that is "granulated" for the furnace feedstock?
I'm unsure what you mean by characters that can't be directly typed into article titles. Tony (talk) 06:03, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
[www.cemmicro.org/icma/pdf/2011_abstracts/ayturan.pdf]
[trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=1100324]
[www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1090068691.html] non-ground-granulated blast-furnace slag (NGGBFS)
[www.allbusiness.com/trends-events/investigations/15322543-1.html] non-ground-granulated blast-furnace slag (NGGBFS)

Tony (talk) 06:13, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Left note on his page saying please change to unhyphenated if he wishes, and conceding that usage out there is by a large majority unhyphenated. Tony (talk) 12:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

TB

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This Month in GLAM: September 2011



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Hyphenation of compound adjectives

I understand the logic in rewriting "value added tax" as "value-added tax". Unfortunately, the phrase is always spelt without a hyphen in British and EU legislation, and is almost always written accordingly in British publications.

It seems to me that the problem is that one phrase refers to two concepts:

  1. "a value added tax" or "a value-added tax", describing or labelling a form of taxation (as in the phrase "an income tax")
  2. "value added tax" (implicitly "the [but never "a"] value added tax" and often capitalised if not abbreviated to VAT), referring to the specific tax which exists, for example, in the EU (including the UK).

Though the legislative and official spellings might not be conclusive, in practice the vast majority of British publishers have followed it, at least when referring to the specific tax.

Capital gains tax is not usually hyphenated, not even when referring to Capital gains tax in the United States, and the same is true of many state benefits (such as Severe Disablement Allowance, which I note that you recently re-titled but did not hyphenate!).

Articles about English-speaking countries follow the style applicable to the country concerned, where there is international inconsistency. It may be that, outside the EU, there is a policy debate about value-added taxation in general, where the case for hyphenation would be strong.

But I would suggest that, for consistency with other taxes and international usage, references to "value-added tax" be reverted to "value added tax".

This may also be applicable to other state schemes which you have boldly hyphenated recently.

— Richardguk (talk) 12:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Problem is, I checked via a google search and found plenty of hyphenation. I'm willing to self-revert, which I seem to have learned can be done by the original mover (i.e. me) but not by others. Could we wait until tomorrow so I can consult others on this? Tony (talk) 12:56, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the constructive reply. Any editor can revert (or at least "undo"), as these are not protected articles, but I wanted to re-establish a consensus rather than risk an edit war and disruptive page moves. I am surprised that no one else has protested already, but still believe that the case for reverting the hyphenation is very strong and welcome your offer to consult more widely. I stress that "capital gains tax" illustrates the wider aversion to hyphenation in such phrases. Possibly Google offers results customised to the user location, because I find that 97 of its first 100 result snippets are unhyphenated.[6]
There may be a modern preference for reducing hyphenation, at least in UK publications. The article "English compound#Hyphenated compound adjectives" concedes: "If, however, there is no risk of ambiguities, it may be written without a hyphen."
Your move of "Value added tax identification number" to "VAT identification number" shows that in certain cases a sensible neutral approach is possible. In the UK, "VAT" (often spoken of as "Vat") is more widely used and understood than "value[-]added tax" so there's a strong case for using the abbreviation in derived phrases.
— Richardguk (talk) 14:01, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, people don't seem to use the hyphen in capital gains tax, and somehow it doesn't seem as comfortable as value-added tax. I was particularly trouble by titles such as European Union value added tax area, which is getting hard to parse without the hyphen. I don't edit-war over article titles, so you have the ace card! BTW, it's not really an American thing, the VAT, so although North Americans do tend to hyphenate a little less than other English-speakers, I wonder whether that's relevant; but hyphenate they still do when it would otherwise ambiguous or clunky. User:Noetica, the style and punctuation guru, has agreed to look into this tomorrow, and I've also asked User:Dicklyon, a scientist who's a skilled stylist, and User:Kwamikagami, a linguist and grammarian; I can't predict what they'll say. Thanks for your comments. Tony (talk) 14:07, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I think what's going on here, as so much of the time, is that people drop hyphens from familiar phrases. For example, most people write "high school student" without any implication that the student is on dope. Similarly, if you write about value-added taxes a lot, you're likely to drop the hyphen there too. But our audience is more diverse than that, and we cannot assume that our readers are familiar with the topic of an article. Therefore we should hyphenate to avoid ambiguity. This isn't a ENGVAR thing, as it happens in all national standards; it's an accessibility issue.

A good example, I think, is the uproar over hyphenating small cell carcinoma. Most of the people editing that article are medical students or even oncologists, and they see no need to hyphenate. (One even threatened to stop editing WP if we "vandalized" the article by hyphenating it.) But for the naive reader, a "small cell carcinoma" suggests a small tumour. (As in, much better to have a small cell tumour than a giant cell tumour.) Similarly, for the editors of the VAT article the topic is so familiar that hyphenation may seem silly. For our readers, however, many of whom are not familiar with VAT, it's not silly at all. — kwami (talk) 14:35, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I did a search of UK government websites for ‘value-added tax’ using the key:
  • "value added tax" -vat site:.gov.uk
I’m fairly sure they all were without a hyphen. Perhaps the hyphen disappears when the phrase is considered as one entity rather than a composite of its elements.
I did notice that lower case is used:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/11/part/4/enacted
Tax provision consequential on Part 1 of Pensions Act 2008 etc
(1)The Treasury may by regulations make provision in relation to any of the relevant taxes in consequence of Part 1 of the Pensions Act 2008 or Part :1 of the Pensions (No.2) Act (Northern Ireland) 2008.
(2)The provision that may be made by regulations under this section includes provision imposing any of the relevant taxes (as well as provisions for exemptions or reliefs).
(3)The relevant taxes are—
(a)income tax,
(b)capital gains tax,
(c)corporation tax,
(d)inheritance tax,
(e)value added tax,
(f)stamp duty land tax,
(g)stamp duty, and
(h)stamp duty reserve tax.
Regards Lightmouse (talk) 10:16, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, the unhyphenated form is used by all UK and EU legislation, Parliament (including Hansard), UK government departments and the English-language documents of the European Commission (which coordinates VAT across the EU). It also seems to be the house style of nearly all British newspapers including The Financial Times (The Daily Telegraph is unusual in often hyphenating the phrase).
Regarding the counterexample of kwami's moving "small cell carcinoma" to "small-cell carcinoma": That is not a statutory phrase so not wholly comparable. But I would also have opposed that move, because it too defied the overwhelming majority of scholarly usage (72% unhyphenated in Google scholar). The authoritative WHO International Classification of Diseases uses only the unhyphenated form in its index.[7] Since that page move, another editor removed the hyphen from the boldtitle in the lede, and no one reinstated it, suggesting that the page itself should not have been retitled.
For articles on scholarly or professional topics, Wikipedia should not reflect usage among generalist sub-editors (who are experienced in applying arbitrary house styles where there is no consensus in general usage) if it conflicts with overwhelming usage in the field itself. Our job, as editors, is to inform readers about learned usage, not to rewrite terminology according to our own principles, even if the professionals' preference does not match our own! Where popular journalistic usage also reflects professional usage, as with "value added tax" and perhaps "small cell carcinoma", then the case for following it is surely conclusive.
— Richardguk (talk) 14:32, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Richard, I don't agree with the one-sided obedience to "scholarly" or "professional" usage alone. They are among the worst abusers of authoritative style guides in English—often through carelessness, and unthinking follow-the-leader mentality (it was done that way by someone ages ago), or worse, cheap competitive oneupmanship, particularly in capitalisation. WP, like all publishers, has a house style, and occasionally this means we don't go along with majority usage in specialist circles, since in their everyday usage specialists often drop aspects of style that help our readers, who come from a wide range of backgrounds. I don't regard myself as a "generalist subeditor"; my job is to help professionals, scientists, and scholars to write text when millions of dollars are at stake; unfortunately, standards are not high anywhere in the English-speaking world, or I'd be out of work. And often those with a little distance from a topic can see things more clearly.

However, I'm agnostic as yet on "value-added tax". Let's see what others say. Tony (talk) 14:46, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I hope I haven't undermined my own case by the strength of my views! I note kwami's comment (which I responded to above) but also the weight given by Lightmouse to legislative usage. In fairness, it is also notable that, even a week later, no other editors have reverted or commented on the original VAT edits and article moves.

As discussed, I accept that there is a strong case for retaining the hyphen when the phrase is used to mean value-added taxes in general, rather than the specific EU/UK tax, though even here consistency between the abstact and particular lends some weight to hyphenating both.

Given your original conditional offer to self-revert, and your pragmatic comment today about "Ground-granulated blast-furnace slag", would it now be OK for one of us to take the hyphen back out of "value-added tax"?

For reference, the relevant articles, and the titles I would tentatively propose, are:

Current title Proposed title
Value-added tax Value added tax
VAT identification number retain (but copy edit)
European Union value-added tax European Union value added tax
European Union value-added tax area European Union VAT area (abbreviation to avoid lengthy compound)
VAT-free imports from the Channel Islands retain (but copy edit)

— Richardguk (talk) 22:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure: can you do these changes yourself, or do I need to, technically (I think you can). Tony (talk) 01:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Cheers! I'll update the pages accordingly (none of the pages are protected so anyone can undo or amend past edits). — Richardguk (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, Richard. Please continue your good work in this and related fields. Tony (talk) 14:17, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 Done Thanks for the feedback. — Richardguk (talk) 20:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Canadian federal election, 1957

Hi, you were one of the FA reviewers. Could you take a look at this discussion and consder weighing in? All substantive FA reviewers are being asked.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment

On WP:POST/N, you said...

Nice work on the 10 Oct page, guys. I liked the choppy-paragraph style in the Italian shutdown story, which is typical of newspaper text. Compared with the big grey lump of a para in the second story, it was very readable.

Thanks for that! —Tom Morris (talk) 09:22, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Usage question for you

OK, I'm working on another coin article, and the artist gave some as gifts at the New Year. Is it New Year's gifts, New Years' gifts, or some other variation? The source is no help, it is a quotation, Adolph Weinman, the artist in question says "in time to be presented as New Year Gifts". Thoughts? US usage.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:27, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, this reminds me that I haven't visited that discussion about the FAC. I think upper-case G is a bit weird; somehow lower-case new year isn't going to do it ... we're so used to the caps in New Year anything; and the apostrophe before the s unless the gifts are regular, over more than one NY. My personal weighing up of this is that the nicest permutation is New Year's gifts. It's not something I can be definitive about, though. Tony (talk) 11:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Weinman designed coins, not sentences, and he did not consider that his grammar would later be published in books. Thanks for the comment at the election article, I don't know what is with that editor. I will use what you said. The article is Walking Liberty half dollar btw, which is very much under construction for the next few days. That concludes the Great Redesign individual coin articles. Once all of them clear and I've written an overview article and that clears FAC, I'll turn it in for a Featured Topic. Maybe I can make it a New Year Gift for the community ...--Wehwalt (talk) 13:16, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Oh, a topic would be lovely. Please do. I think topics are more for community motivation and collaborative cohesion than for readers, somehow. I do wish topics were more in evidence in category lists. I do a lot of gnoming of cat lists, and haven't seen one yet. I left a note on the editor's talk page an hour ago. Tony (talk) 13:19, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I've never done a FT. As all four types of US nickels are now FA, I could rewrite the nickels article and make that a FT but I just haven't had time or inclination. I think the Agent has enough to think about. I do not call in other editors except when I see it as the best possible solution, and I was playing fast and loose with 3RR. I doubt anyone would block me without giving me a chance to repent, but I don't like going there.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:34, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Fight overlinking

See here. 96.238.184.111 (talk) 18:48, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Simultaneous downcasing and RMing

Hi Tony - I've noticed that several times in your downcasing RMs, you simultaneously edit the article text to downcase instances of the titles in the article body. As you can see, I've supported several of your moves, but I think it's bad form to edit articles at the same time you propose a downcasing move. Why not wait until the RM runs its course, and edit then? Dohn joe (talk) 19:13, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Was likely to be an uncontentious one? I only launch RMs where a title won't move. But I'll take your point where there might be any doubt. And sometimes the downcasing is already there in the article, or is inconsistent. Tony (talk) 02:16, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't disagree with your reversion of the two I saw pending the RM result. Tony (talk) 06:31, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

This week's signpost

Hey. If you're looking for an angle on the new featured material, there are now 100 featured topics on the site, first time that happened since the original shift from 1/3 of articles needing featured status to 1/2. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 16:28, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Curing capitalitis--help!

Dear Tony1, the discussion on capitalizing protocol layers in the article on the OSI model has still not come to a conclusion and frankly the guys are driving me crazy. They seem unwilling to recognize any argument nor do they make theirs explicit. I don't see how reaching an agreement is possible under these circumstances. Would you have some advice how to deal with this situation? Thanks, --EnOreg (talk) 20:34, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Lame RMs

Tony, why do you waste our time with RMs when PROD would obviously be a better route? Dicklyon (talk) 03:32, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

  • Which article(s) are you referring to? Someone who will defend an article from renaming will certainly challenge any prod. AfD is probably the way to go. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:56, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Global Squeeze and Korean Domestic Market are the latest two. I'd be surprised if anyone removes the PROD, but if they do I'd rather go to AfD than to RM. Dicklyon (talk) 04:09, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Copyedits

Tony, I'm rushing to get an issue written and out a.s.a.p, but could use a second set of eyes to review/copyedit, as prose written pre-dawn has a tendency to turn to mush and fact checking is cursory. N&N, ITN, Arb and Tech need a look if you can spare the time. Skomorokh 06:29, 18 October 2011 (UTC) OK, within an hour. Tony (talk) 06:30, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Appreciate it, will email soon. Skomorokh 06:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 October 2011

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 11:23, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Slide show without purge

I wonder if you could weigh in at Talk:India#Rotation_vs._slide_show, where there is a discussion in progress about the possibility of having a slide show (a la the newspaper web sites) without a purge. You were mentioned as an expert. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

one note

I moved HIV Rev response element, but not HIV ribosomal frameshift signal. Looks like "Rev" is the proper noun of Rev (HIV).

I moved Henry Hub‎, since it's the proper name of an actual building. The pricing point is named after it.

You might be interested in Talk:Ground_granulated_blast-furnace_slag#the_hyphen_between_the_first_two_words.

--Enric Naval (talk) 20:38, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Capitalized Rev is the protein, rev is the gene, by bio conventions. That's why it's Rev in RRE, but not in Rev (HIV). Dicklyon (talk) 21:34, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't understand. You say here that RRE is capitalized, but then you downcase the article. Anyways, comment at Talk:HIV_Rev_response_element#capitalizating_.22Rev.22_in_the_name. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, sorry, I seem to have misstated that. It's lowercase (because it's RNA, not protein) in RRE. If the article was about a protein it would be upper. I haven't reviewed this carefully, but there's at least a principle there to work with. If we got it wrong, the biologists will fix it. Dicklyon (talk) 15:03, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Ground(-)granulated ... well, I think I see, in which case some of the literature has it wrong. Tony (talk) 05:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

"Ryll-Nardzewski" is a hyphenated name!

Hello.

Please note that I have undone this edit. "Ryll-Nardzewski" is a hyphenated name of just one person. The result is not named after two people named "Ryll" and "Nardzewski". Michael Hardy (talk) 03:33, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much, Michael. My method is to scan the refs to ensure they are separate people. On this occasion, clearly I didn't look far enough. I'll check that the article text is reverted, too. Tony (talk) 05:08, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Oh, it was obvious. I'm getting too old. Tony (talk) 05:09, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

ARMA models

Tony, you might be surprised that in autoregressive moving-average models, autoregressive is not a modifier of moving-average model. You got the hyphen right in your move, but if you really want it to be right, you need an en dash to signify that it is a model that is both autoregressive and moving average. This en dash is sometimes found in better sources (like this book), as is the hyphen, but I haven't found them both together, which is the only thing that is grammatically and stylistically correct. But people who use these buzz phrases forget that it might be wise to do their best to convey the meaning, rather than rely on readers being in the know. What do we do about that then? Dicklyon (talk) 21:56, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

And your hyphen in Light-speed silicon chip makes sense, but the article and its title don't. I've put a merge proposal on it. Good thing I'm stalking you. Dicklyon (talk) 23:03, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for that—I really do need stalking for a few of these moves. Perhaps I should flag these ones. 03:17, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Oh, you actually did Autoregressive–moving-average model! You're bolder than I am. I merged the Light-speed silicon chip out of existence. Dicklyon (talk) 22:17, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Multilinear principal-component analysis

I'm not sure whether renaming "Multilinear principal component analysis" to "Multilinear principal-component analysis" was a very good idea either. It should at least match principal component analysis (i.e. the correct parenthesization here would be "(multilinear ((principal component) analysis))"). In this case I think the literature is pretty clear that it should be written without a hyphen. —Ruud 21:53, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, you have to look back into the 1940s to find it in books before PCA became so familiar as to shed its hyphen. But in less familiar compound structures, putting the hyphen back to clarify the structure is still good style. Dicklyon (talk) 22:44, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much Tony

Hi Tony.

Thank you very much for editing and improving my first article. There's an ongoing Article for Deletion discussion on it right now. Your insights on the matter will be greatly appreciated. Kind regards, GuterTag (talk) 10:16, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Guter, you're welcome. But the article looks a bit like advertising. Could you possibly add more information to it, and I mean technical information. Then the feeling that it's just there for the google ranking would be countered by greater utility. I really can't work out what the software is about, and how it's distinctive. Tony (talk) 10:20, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Adding and removing, adding and removing...

Tony, we've never had any interaction, but I've long respected you as an editor and admired your work here. I have to say that I found your comments to be both disheartening and inaccurate. Here is what happened, as I see it: I made a bold edit. I thought it was an improvement, and I left a detailed summary. I was reverted without so much as a word. While I don't edit-war, I have no problem undoing a revert when the editor can't be bothered to leave a simple edit summary, explaining why he or she felt I was wrong. When I was reverted a second time, I didn't continue to revert, but rather went to the talk page. The consensus there seemed (to me) that while the long-standing version may or may not have been more ideal than mine, it was preferable to the newer version. It was on this basis that I reverted to the long-standing version. After thinking it over, I soon decided to err on the side of caution, and self-revert. The "adding and removing" took place literally over a matter of seconds. The next day, I again went to the talk page. The editor who originally reverted me said it was fine to revert to the long-standing version, and this is what I was attempting to do when I inadvertantly removed "and topical", which you kindly corrected. So in summary, I made:

  • 1.) A bold edit
  • 2.) A justified revert
  • 3.) A self-revert
  • 4.) An honest mistake

I feel that this is a far cry from your characterization of "adding and removing, adding and removing". My sole intention was to improve Wikipedia, as I'm sure your's is. Regards. Joefromrandb (talk) 00:34, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, sorry if it looked unfair or over the top. I'm time-stressed at the moment, and aargh, there's the b....y Signpost page to do. No problems. I should say that wp:moslink can be a hot-button page, so editors tend to tread cautiously in making any changes. Cheers, Joe. Tony (talk) 07:48, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
It's all good. Thanks for the response! Joefromrandb (talk) 13:04, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Blocking policy

Writing new policies isn't something I'm particularly good at - so I'm going to leave it to you. Given the number of comments so far I doubt waiting a bit will make a big difference. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

OTD RFC

I have opened an RfC related to an issue on which you recently commented: Wikipedia_talk:Selected_anniversaries#Year_wikilinking_in_OTD. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Middlesex (novel)#Intersex grammar

Hi Tony1. As someone who has a strong command of English grammar, would you provide advice at Talk:Middlesex (novel)#Intersex grammar? Thank you, Cunard (talk) 04:22, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Second-language acquisition

Hi Tony, just to let you know that I've opened up a thread about your recent page moves at Talk:Second-language acquisition#Hyphen or no hyphen?. I'd appreciate it if you could comment. Thanks — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 11:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It just doesn't make sense without the hyphen, especially to those who aren't used to the term (which is a lot of people). Tony (talk) 13:10, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Signpost Dispatches notice

Hello there. I'm writing to tell you that the editors of the Signpost are making an effort to revive the long dormant Dispatches section. Your name is listed in the "Members" section, indicating that you have or had a willingness to help write or critique Dispatches.

Since the project was inactive for over a year, I have moved all of the names previously in the Members section to the "Inactive" subsection. If you no longer wish to participate in the capacity described above, you do not need to do anything, this will be the last time you hear from me on the matter of dispatches.

If you are, however, still interested in Dispatches, please go put your name back into the main members section. I will take that as an indication that it is okay to continue to send your way both Dispatch related messages and individuals seeking assistance with Dispatches in the areas you specified as being your specialties.

I personally am hoping to get at least one Dispatch out before 15 November, so that the section can avoid being officially inactive for a full year (the last dispatch was 15 November 2010). Cheers! Sven Manguard Wha? 08:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Remember how I said that "this will be the last time you hear from me on the matter of dispatches" (it's right above this)? I lied. I'm deliviering another message, this time it really will be my final message related to Dispatches.
Yesterday, I was enthusiastic about getting Dispatches back up and running. However while I was asleep (note I'm in UTC +8), ResMar and SandyGeorgia decided to use my talk page to stage a massive, ugly brawl. I was unaware of the history behind Dispatches when I first signed up, but I certainly have an indication of it now. It's not a pretty history either. From what I gather, it was working fine and then just erupted into a fireball of ill feelings and unkind words, and my efforts to reactivate the section have caused another fireball. In short, I want out, and since nothing, save the brawl, has actually happened yet, rapidly pulling stakes and leaving the whole thing behind me poses no ethical dilemma in my mind.
You are, of course, free to do whatever you want in regards to Dispatches, however you should be aware of the fact that you are going to be wading headfirst into an explosive situation, and will be stuck between several well known editors who are more than willing to fight for their agendas. Whatever you do, however, I'd much prefer to be kept out of the loop on the matter.
Sorry for the abrupt turn of events. I would have tried my very hardest to make Dispatches work if I were not convinced that the atmosphere is too poisoned to function. However, since it is, I'm gone. Good luck, Sven Manguard Wha? 05:44, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I was going to suggest anyway: why don't you become a ITN and NAN journalist? We sorely need more regulars on those beats—like, right this minute. Notice The Signpost hasn't yet been published this week?
Dispatches is a hot-button nerve-point for a few people: I don't know why it's so emotive, and I've had my fingers burned already by those who think Featured content has trodden on its ground. Greater collegiality would be welcome on that count—a commitment to The Signpost as a whole, not to individual pages within it. Tony (talk) 08:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Archaea

I have reverted your edit to make the capitalization "consistent" in the Archaea article. The differences in capitalization are intentional, as the taxon name is capitalized but the informal name of the member organisms is not. The differences in capitalization are intentional and carry information. If you wish to "fix" the dashes, please do this as a separate edit, as reverting only the capitalization changes would be a huge hassle. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:36, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, but can you look into the other places where lowercase is used, presumably as taxon names? Tony (talk) 02:52, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Could you provide a specific example of where you think a taxon name was used but incorrectly capitalized? Keep in mind that "Bacteria" refers to the scientific name of the taxon, but "bacteria" refers to the organisms included in that taxon, and Archaea/archaea are used in much the same way. By contrast Eukaryota is always a taxon name and the member organisms are eukaryotes. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:35, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm ... ok. Is this set out at a wikiproject somewhere? I'd like to learn the conventions from a full statement. Tony (talk) 03:40, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
It's in the offical Codes used for the formation and use of taxonomic names; it is not a matter of local style. The Code used for prokaryotic organisms is the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (of which I have only an outdated hard copy), but capitalization of all ranks of taxa genus and up (and subgenera) is standard across all groups of organisms under all three major taxonomic Codes. See also the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants for a link to the Code governing the spelling, capitalization, font style, orthography, etc. of these groups. Warning: the Codes are dense, complex, and written for nomenclatural experts, rather than for the average writer. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:47, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm daunted already. I recall disagreements on WP about the caps. It would be good to have the basics set out on-wiki. Tony (talk) 03:53, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 October 2011

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 11:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

New Page Patrol survey

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Computational chemical methods in solid state physics

Why did you move Computational chemical methods in solid state physics to Computational chemical methods in solid-state physics and then change the redirect back to the original artcile content? Am I missing something? --Bduke (Discussion) 20:18, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand your question. If there's something wrong with the redirect, can it be fixed? Tony (talk) 00:58, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Computational chemical methods in solid state physics was the original title. You moved it, so it became a redirect, but you then edited it so the content was not a direct but a copy of Computational chemical methods in solid-state physics. It should be a redirect. I'll do it, but I must then rush off. --Bduke (Discussion) 01:07, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks so much, BDuke. I'll go there later to see what went wrong. Learning curve, I'm afraid. Tony (talk) 06:10, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXVII, September 2011

To receive this newsletter on your talk page, join the project or sign up here. If you are a member who does not want delivery, please go to this page. EdwardsBot (talk) 02:54, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Editing advice

I was going to ask Malleus as he did the GA review, but then I read his talk page. So ... on Walking Liberty half dollar#Reception, I like the first paragraph, but worry about the phrase " little attention was given to the half dollar." near the end. It is almost a repetition, but is also a nice segue into the public voting with their pocketbooks that they liked it. Do you have an opinion? My preference is to keep it, I'll tell you.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:26, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

There seemed to be a bit of repetition. Weird comma after "appears" in the final quote: I guess nothing can be done about it, unless: "are rather dusty. She also appears, to have on overalls under her thin dress" becomes "are rather dusty [with] overalls under her thin dress". Tony (talk) 02:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to see the original source. If I ever get to Huntsville (possible but not very likely), they have it in the library. Perhaps it will be digitized.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:30, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
There was a rumour, put about in an episode of The West Wing, that a fly-spot had been mistaken for a comma in the original copy of the US Constitution. Was it pure fiction? Tony (talk) 02:35, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
I've never heard that one. Why is that I bet it had something to do with gun control?--Wehwalt (talk) 12:57, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
That concerns one of the amendments, doesn't it? This story concerned the original constitution (blissfully short compared with some others that are 20 times the size). Tony (talk) 14:08, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Proofing the Discussion Report

Thanks for proofing the report. I temporarily undid your edit because you (probably inadvertently) altered a direct quote, and I absolutely won't run a piece unless the quote is, word for word, how I received it. I'll manually put just about everything else back in in about 12 hours, though, when I get back home. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:01, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm reverting it back again, thank you very much (I'll leave out the matter in question, and you go and ask him to correct it himself. Tony (talk) 03:14, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Of interest to you: Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost#Tony1 proofing the Discussion report. Sven Manguard Wha? 07:24, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
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