User talk:JMF/Archive 5

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ASCII short description

Hi JMF, I see you've reverted my edit to ASCII's short description in which I changed it from "American character encoding standard" to just "Character encoding standard". While the "A" in ASCII does stand for "American", I don't believe that's enough to justify including "American" in the shortdesc. Since the standard is used all over the world, describing it specifically as "American" might confuse people more than help them. Also, the lead sentence of the article reads "ASCII [...] is a character encoding standard for electronic communication", do you believe that should also be changed to say "American character encoding standard"? AVDLCZ (talk) 10:31, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

@AVDLCZ: but fundamentally, it is an American standard, not an international standard. The fact that it was adopted by other countries doesn't make it any less an American standard. The major source cited in the article, Mackenzie, Charles E. (1980). Coded Character Sets, History and Development (PDF). The Systems Programming Series (1 ed.). Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. pp. 6, 66, 211, 215, 217, 220, 223, 228, 236–238, 243–245, 247–253, 423, 425–428, 435–439. ISBN 978-0-201-14460-4. LCCN 77-90165. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 26, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2019., specifically mentions [p 238] concurrent European (ECMA) and British (BS) standards being developed concurrently and the work that was done between standards bodies to align their code choices as far as possible, while reserving certain code positions for national use. In the ASCII standard, these are assigned to the American choices (which is why, to take the simplest case, it has a number sign # rather than a pound sign £). ASCII is the American national variant of ISO/IEC 646, it is an American standard. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:20, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
I see no reason to change the lead sentence: ASCII is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. Just not the only one of its time. Of course the question is moot (in the en-US sense) since ASCII is technically obsolete, having been replaced by Unicode. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:23, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

DYK for John Ogilby

On 15 September 2023, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article John Ogilby, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that John Ogilby saved the manuscript of his translation of the complete works of Virgil from destruction in a shipwreck by wrapping it in a waterproof cloth? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/John Ogilby. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, John Ogilby), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Vaticidalprophet 00:16, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 September 2023

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Physical attraction

Hi JMF i made some changes to a wiki page physical attraction would u like to discuss it? Wikiedit4444444 (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

@Wikiedit4444444: Not here. Any discussion needs to be at talk:Physical attractiveness so that others can contribute. But as I said at your talk page, it is always more productive to propose such changes at the talk page first. I don't have time to engage right now, hopefully tomorrow. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:25, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

John Ogilby


@Baffle gab1978:: all looking good (but depressingly extensive). Just one item caught my attention: you changed a well-to-do gentleman's tailor in Edinburgh to a rich gentleman's tailor in Edinburgh, which is of course valid since "well-to-do" is an en-uk colloquialism. But it highlighted an ambigiuity: neither version distinguishes between "a [rich gentleman's] tailor" v. "a rich [gentleman's tailor]". I meant the latter of course (though both would have had to be true). Is there a better way to write it? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:15, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
No worries; thanks for asking; yes, "well-to-do" is colloquial and I noticed the ambiguity in that phrase. We could say "a rich tailor to gentlemen"; or if the former were meant, "a tailor to rich gentlemen". I thought it might be self-explanatory though; since a gentleman in historical contexts (unless used ironically) is a man of high social status (but not necessarily rich). Let me know what you think. Cheers, Baffle☿gab 01:02, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
I've now finished the c/e, though I haven't fixed the issue above. In "Literary reputation", I've tagged "recently" (1st para) with {{when}} (when did this start?) and I noticed "arguably" in the third para; I think this is explained by the footnote but it seem to me like an expression of uncertainty. Anyway, good luck with the article. Cheers, Baffle☿gab 04:06, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for this thorough going over. The article looks quite a bit better now.
I'm still struggling with the word "rich" because the citations don't support that and he certainly wasn't rich compared to his customers. The concept of "middle class" didn't exist then but if it did, he would have been classes as "comfortably-off middle class" by modern standards. So I will have to find a better word. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:28, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
No worries; it's a difficult one... I'd suggest "relatively wealthy", or maybe "of middle income" or something similar? He's an interesting subject anyway. Cheers, Baffle☿gab 19:38, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Brexit and the Irish border

Hello,

I've seen you reverted my edit on the page "Brexit and the Irish border", stating that "the UK/France border is a sea border." I do completely agree with you that this precision adds little relevance to the page, which isn't centered around all the borders of the UK and the EU. But, the UK/France border isn't just a sea border. The Treaty of Canterbury drew the land border in the Chunnel.


I'm not going to revert your own revert because, first, that would be disrespectful and uncollaborative, and secondly, because I'm not a major contributor to the English Wikipedia (I'm more active on the French Wikipedia). However, the page right now is incorrect in stating the Irish/UK border is the only land border between the UK and the EU Cosmiaou (talk) 16:14, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

@Cosmiaou: thank you for that consideration. I must continue to disagree because I believe that you have confused two closely-related ideas: a 'dry' border crossing v a 'land' crossing.
Yes, technically you are correct but only because the line between England and France is logically three-dimensional, not just two: it also extends vertically from the mantle to the stratosphere. The jurisdiction (and law enforcement) of each country extends to that line but the frontier infrastructure is on land on either side: French frontier controls are physically at Dover, Folkestone, Newhaven and Portsmouth; their British counterparts are at Calais, Sangatte, Dieppe and Caen.
A similar arrangement arises at the Denmark/Sweden border, which is also a sea border. The construction of the Øresund Bridge didn't change it to a land border simply because it provides a dry crossing. Whether the sea is crossed by a bridge, a tunnel or a ferry is not significant.
The border in Ireland is qualitatively different: it is like the border between adjacent Départements in France. It has little or no significant topological differentiation. It is 500km long, crossed by over 270 public roads and who knows how many footpaths and farm tracks. The road between two county towns in the Republic, Cavan and Monaghan, changes its designation repeatedly from N54 road (Ireland) to A3 road (Northern Ireland) and back again because the border meanders back and over. In one famous case, a house has its front door in one jurisdiction and its back door in the other. Now that is a land border.
Does that explanation satisfy you? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:21, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Other UK borders

The exclusive economic zones of the United Kingdom in blue, including the British Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies

Ever since Brexit, I keep hearing that the border in the English Channel is the only line separating Great Britain from the European Union. This may be quite beside the point of the 𝕁𝕄𝔽/Cosmiaou debate, but it provides me with the opportunity, at last, to ask "what about the border between Gibraltar and Spain?" Hasn't Gibraltar been part of Great Britain since the Treaty of Utrecht over two hundred years ago? And isn't Spain part of the European Union?
There, I asked the question! I will sleep more soundly tonight. Peter Brown (talk) 22:15, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi Peter. The Anglo-French border gets all the attention but of course there is also a sea border with Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Ireland (wrt GB). See the EEZ map for details (Gibraltar does not have an EEZ). Yes, like the five I already mentioned, Spain is an EU member but doesn't have border with the UK as such. Norway and Iceland – which also feature on the map – are not, they are members of EFTA.
Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory, not part of the UK. Like the American Colonies (which weren't part of the Kingdom of Great Britain either), just another trophy on the wall. ;-^
Terminology: in 1707, England and Scotland merged to become the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, Great Britain and Ireland merged to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1921, about 80% of Ireland seceded, and the UK became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:30, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
In modern usage, the term "Great Britain" just refers to the island. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:00, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
The lead section of the Gibraltar article needs clarification, then. It says "The territory was ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713." Though cession is not the same as incorporation, the typical reader may not be aware or the distinction. I certainly haven't been.
Peter Brown (talk) 00:54, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
It is explained in the British Overseas Territory article. The lead of the Puerto Rico article doesn't say that it is not part of the US: that information is in unincorporated territory. "Lead overload" is always a problem. (But compare overseas departments of France). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:35, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 3 October 2023

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Specialist words

Of course "specialist words exist for a reason", but the point is very simply that what you yourself describe as "specialist words" are unlikely to be helpful to people who are not specialists. I would be willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of native speakers of English wouldn't have a clue what "voiced palatal approximant" means, but would realise that "y sound" refers to the one sound in English which is specific to the letter y, not one which is usually represented by another letter, and in a small minority of cases by y. The point is to use language in the way which is most effective in communicating the intended meaning to the target audience, not to use a form which is "correct" in some pedantic sense unrelated to effectiveness of communication. However, if you really do object to "y sound" because it could conceivably mean the wrong phoneme, then wouldn't it be more constructive to disambiguate it, rather than remove the potentially useful information altogether? JBW (talk) 18:57, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

@JBW: I agree completely with the principle of what you say.
But it also important to be accurate: if we say that it is symbol used by IPA for a particular usage, then we should use the IPA terminology, not a WP:EGG.
For both these reasons together, I consider the revised version to be what we need. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:26, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
Yes. I think the way I first did it wasn't the best; I merely reverted a change I had seen from some time ago, without considering whether a third way would be better than either. Your comments prompted think about what was best, as I should have done at first. JBW (talk) 08:29, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2023

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Season's Greetings

Season's Greetings
Wishing everybody a Happy Holiday Season, and all best wishes for the New Year! The Nativity scene on the Pulpit in the Pisa Baptistery by Nicola Pisano is my Wiki-Christmas card to all for this year. Johnbod (talk) 02:59, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Club news

  • Feel free to add {{User Wikipedian TLA club}} to your user page if you like, or [[Category: Wikipedian TLA club|{{subst:PAGENAME}}]] if you are averse to userboxen. JBW (talk) 19:04, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
  • OK, intrigued, now that you have put the question into my head, I decided to investigate. I set up a spreadsheet which creates TLAs (again, not TlAs etc) at random, and got it to give me 50 of them. Of those 50, 8 of them are usernames for accounts which exist but have never edited, and 8 are usernames of accounts which have edited. If that random sample of 50 is representative, there will be about 2800 users who have edited and who qualify for club membership. However, it may be difficult to actually recruit many members, because only one of those that I found has edited in the last 5 years. If that rate of 1 in 50 is typical, there will be about 350 of us altogether, though obviously that estimate will be highly unreliable from such a small sample. Hmm. Perhaps you are wondering if I have nothing better to do with my time. Well... Hmm. Maybe... JBW (talk) 19:50, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
  • By the way, the one TLA editor with recent edits that I found is HLT. JBW (talk) 19:58, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
    Thank for the TLA box, I shall make an exception to my general rule.
    I will invite HLT. -- 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:01, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
By the way, I sort of assumed you would realise, and maybe you did, but in case you didn't, the userbox automatically adds the user page to Category:Wikipedian TLA club. JBW (talk) 20:38, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I had noticed. BTW, I invited HLT and TSP. Neither responded but I expressed the invitation such that only acceptance would require a reply. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:13, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Unless you have notifications disabled, you will see that I have invited FNQ, but I thought I would let you know just to be sure. JBW (talk) 17:22, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

+ JPD. JBW (talk) 12:44, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

IP editor on HS2 Talk

Hi - thanks for your reasoned comments on Talk:High Speed 2. The argumentative anonymous IP editor is quite tiresome and seems to be as much concerned with attention-seeking as actual content. I am now going to try not to reply to their endless contradictions in an effort not to feed the trolls. Interestingly, some of their various IP addresses can be geolocated to Hammersmith, West London. A couple of years ago we had some disruptive and abusive behaviour on the HS2 article, centred on a fixation with declaring Liverpool as an HS2 station; these were from a series of anonymous edits from a IP addresses also located in Hammersmith (logged here and here). I cannot be certain, but I suspect strongly this is the same problematic editor returning to cause trouble. They seem to have toned down the incivility, so it can't be seen as anything more than a content dispute, but I just thought I'd mention it, as it's one to beware of! Cnbrb (talk) 13:06, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

@Cnbrb: I guessed as much. In fact this morning I re-read WP:BLUDGEON and WP:ICANTHEARYOU. So I think you are right: no further engagement at the talk page and edits to the article that do not have consensus get reverted. I doubt that an WP:RFPP would be effective unless it was for a year or more but we may have to go through the escalation phases by the book. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:28, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
WP:BLUDGEON and WP:ICANTHEARYOU - spot on, thank you. I knew these pages existed, I just couldn't remember what they were called. Cnbrb (talk) 13:34, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
@Cnbrb: well, as predicted, he's back. On the talk page, we can just ignore his remarks but his contra-consensus edits to the live article are more of a problem. If it puts us into 3RR territory, we will have to do another RfPP. Which is really annoying because it blocks all IP editor contributions, good or bad. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:27, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
So I see. Our West London Correspondent can safely be ignored - he has nothing to contribute except insults. I'm uncertain about the other IP - seems to be North London, but I wonder it's the same person? The tone of comments is similar. Personally I'm really quite happy for IP editors to be blocked from editing. Cnbrb (talk) 12:06, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Pythagoras

Hi, it strikes me I may have been a bit snippy with you about the sources and further reading there, so my apologies for that. I also should have explained that one of the reasons for separating out Sources and Further reading as I did is that it makes it easier for editors with a better knowledge of the literature, like you, to trim away any excess, which is of course what you were trying to do. Best wishes, DuncanHill (talk) 12:59, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

No worries. I was editing on mobile and got false positives from harv.js. I suspect that, had the situation been reversed, I'd have done exactly what you did. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:09, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

The Blackpool article

Greetings - I noted you likely are much more of a stakeholder in the Blackpool article - I did make many bold and strident changes - and I documented them as such in the audit trail of the edits - I do apologize - all edits made in good faith.

Sadly, the reversion by @DragonofBatley deleted other more conservative edits - the sizing of the images is the most notably visual loss of quality by these wholesale resets.

As with most matters there is always a civil middle ground and sure - I have no interest in edit wars and I was crystal clear that I did think my edits - pushed the 'consensus boundaries' - but no one reacted negatively - until this day. There are section in the articles talk section and there was arguably some degree of consensus.

I usually only focus on medical and science articles and there is less room for bombast and group think in such articles -

I did actually think the changes others made - size of images - should be reverted - but I am not getting directly involved.

Kind Regards, Dr. BeingObjective (talk) 18:12, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

@BeingObjective: No, I am not a stakeholder, I know nothing about Blackpool. As no doubt you have seen, I have reversed the brute force reversion, simply because it was contrary to Wikipedia principles as I explained at the talk page. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:34, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Junk currency

Thank you for participating in the editing. We would like to inform you that due to various circumstances, our username has been changed from Wikidate47 to LendingWiki. Now, regarding the statement that the Japanese yen has become a junk currency, we have revived it since it was reported in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Thank you for your correction.LendingWiki (talk) 18:31, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

More work will be needed on it, to comply with WP:LEAD, which says that the lead should be a summary of body content. It certainly should be mentioned in the lead now but only in one sentence. The new detail you added will need to be moved down to a new section in the body. I will do that. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:39, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
@LendingWiki:, I have done that transfer: there is now a short sentence in the lead and the section on exchange rates has been expanded. (Another policy we have is that wp:Wikipedia is not a newspaper, so we tend to avoid covering current affairs in detail. It is better to let time pass and then look back to see whether something that seemed very important at the time actually ever turned out to be of historical significance.) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:19, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for doing what you have done, that this compilation has been important amidst the many changes that have taken place since the June 2023 compilation. LendingWiki (talk) 20:37, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

New Page Reviewing

Hello, JMF.

I've seen you editing recently and you seem like an experienced Wikipedia editor.
Would you please consider applying to become a New Page Reviewer? Reviewing/patrolling a page doesn't take much time but it requires a good understanding of Wikipedia policies and guidelines; currently Wikipedia needs experienced users at this task. But kindly read the tutorial before making your decision. Thanks. ❯❯❯ Raydann(Talk) 17:09, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Nomination of Information sign for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Information sign, to which you have significantly contributed, is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or if it should be deleted.

The discussion will take place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Information sign until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

To customise your preferences for automated AfD notifications for articles to which you've significantly contributed (or to opt-out entirely), please visit the configuration page. Delivered by SDZeroBot (talk) 01:01, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Just a reminder

One needn't any special powers to see the future from an already recorded and well-documented point in history. In this case, that point seems to be the night of March 2, 1984. On some level, most of us know we saw the scene some time later (or not at all), though the implication is there. It's almost constantly relative, man, all this before and after jazz. But yeah, sometimes "subsequent', though the longer word, is the better word. A fine choice, kudos. I hope you won't mind me changing the "past" to best fit what you've done here and trust you'll still have a nice day! InedibleHulk (talk) 20:20, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

@InedibleHulk: a role for the Future perfect? Yes, I like "Prior examples". Kudos returned. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:57, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm certainly not about to suggest the Newfoundland English#"After" past. Those poor people. Anyway, glad you're cool with the way things went. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:19, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
Interesting article! I learned an entirely new (to me) verb tense, Habitual aspect. Tyvm. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:24, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

"Harry the house"

Hi,

I noticed you'd reverted a couple of edits by DuncanHill at "Claydon House" where he had reverted the changes made by an IP editor. The IP editor is a blocked user known as "Harry the house" (see the SPI archive here) and is very prolific. I'd like to try to coordinate a response to his activity. Would you mind joining the discussion here?

Thanks, Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 11:23, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

@Jean-de-Nivelle:, I consciously did not actually revert DuncanHill's edit since I inferred that it was a WP:BMB "revert all edits good or bad". So I agree completely that Duncan's reversion was valid. However, the National Trust article is called just that, so it was reasonable to correct a redundant link to a redirect article, and BMB says as much. Which is pretty much the conclusion you reached at SPI. But I will keep a weather eye out for HtH's "fist" in other articles I watch. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:43, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, and apologies for misdescribing your actions. Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 13:19, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
No need whatever to apologise. It wasn't obvious. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:17, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Unsourced edits

I posted about the issue you raised on WP:RFPPI over here. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 22:46, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 January 2024

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